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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/33715-8.txt b/33715-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f554a4f --- /dev/null +++ b/33715-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13498 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cottage of Delight, by Will N. Harben + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Cottage of Delight + A Novel + +Author: Will N. Harben + +Release Date: September 12, 2010 [EBook #33715] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT *** + + + + +Produced by Annie McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + + + + + + + + +THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT + + + + +BOOKS BY +WILL N. HARBEN + + THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT + THE HILLS OF REFUGE + THE TRIUMPH + ABNER DANIEL + ANN BOYD + THE DESIRED WOMAN + DIXIE HART + THE GEORGIANS + GILBERT NEAL + THE INNER LAW + JANE DAWSON + KENNETH GALT + MAM' LINDA + THE NEW CLARION + PAUL RUNDEL + POLE BAKER + SECOND CHOICE + THE SUBSTITUTE + WESTERFELT + + * * * * * + +HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK +[ESTABLISHED 1817] + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT + +A NOVEL + + +BY + +WILL N. HARBEN + +_Author of "Ann Boyd," "Abner Daniel," +"The Triumph," "The Hills of Judgment," etc._ + + +[Illustration] + + +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS +NEW YORK AND LONDON + + +Copyright 1919, by Harper & Brothers + + + + +PART I + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +John Trott waked that morning at five o'clock. Whether it was due to the +mere habit of a working-man or the blowing of the hoarse and mellow +whistle at the great cotton-mills beyond the low, undulating hills +half a mile away he did not know, but for several years the whistle +had been his summons from a state of dead slumber to a day of toil. +The morning was cloudy and dark, so he lighted a dingy oil-lamp with a +cracked and smoked chimney, and in its dim glow drew on his coarse +lime-and-mortar-splotched shirt and overalls. The cheap cotton socks he +put on had holes at the heels and toes; his leather belt had broken and +was tied with a piece of twine; his shoes were quite new and furnished +an odd contrast to the rest of his attire. + +He was young, under twenty, and rather tall. He was slender, but his +frame was sinewy. He had no beard as yet, and his tanned face was +covered with down. His hair was coarse and had a tendency to stand erect +and awry. He had blue eyes, a mouth inclined to harshness, a manner +somewhat brusk and impatient. To many he appeared absent-minded. + +Suddenly, as he sat tying his shoes, he heard a clatter of pans in the +kitchen down-stairs, and he paused to listen. "I wonder," he thought, +"if that brat is cooking breakfast again. She must be, for neither one +of those women would be out of bed as early as this. It was three +o'clock when they came in." + +Blowing out his light, he groped from the room into the dark passage +outside, and descended the old creaking stairs to the hall below. The +front door was open, and he sniffed angrily. "They didn't even lock it. +They must have been drunk again. Well, that's their business, not mine." + +The kitchen was at the far end of the hall and he turned into it. It was +almost filled with smoke. A little girl stood at the old-fashioned +range, putting sticks of wood in at the door. She was about nine years +of age, wore a cast-off dress, woman's size, and was barefooted. She had +good features, her eyes were blue, her hair abundant and golden, her +hands, now splotched with smut, were small and slender. She was not a +relative of John's, being the orphaned niece of Miss Jane Holder, who +shared the house with John's mother, who was a widow. + +The child's name was Dora Boyles, and she smiled in chagrin as he stared +down on her in the lamplight and demanded: + +"Say, say, what's this--trying to smoke us to death?" + +"I made a mistake," the child faltered. "The damper in the pipe was +turned wrong, and while I was on the back porch, mixing the +biscuit-dough, it smoked before I knew it. It will stop now. You see it +is drawing all right." + +With an impatient snort, he threw open the two windows in the room and +opened the outer door, standing aside and watching the blue smoke trail +out, cross the porch floor, and dissolve in the grayish light of dawn. + +"The biscuits are about done," Dora said. "The coffee water has boiled +and I'm going to fry the eggs and meat. The pan is hot and it won't take +long." + +"I was going to get a bite at the restaurant," he answered, in a +mollified tone. + +"But you said the coffee was bad down there and the bread stale," Dora +argued, as she dropped some slices of bacon into the pan. "And once you +said the place was not open and you went to work without anything. I +might as well do this. I can't sleep after the whistle blows. Your ma +and Aunt Jane waked me when they came in. They were awfully lively. The +fellows were singing and cursing and throwing bottles across the street. +Aunt Jane could hardly get up the stairs and had one of her laughing +spells. I think your ma was sober, for I could hear her talking steady +and scolding Aunt Jane about taking a dance from her with some man or +other. Did you see the men? They were the same two that had 'em out last +Friday night, the big one your ma likes and the one Aunt Jane says is +hers. I heard your ma say they were horse-traders from Kentucky, and +have lots and lots of money to spend. That jewelry drummer--do you +remember, that gave me the red pin?--he sent them with a note of +introduction. The pin was no good. The shine is already off of +it--wasn't even washed with gold." + +John was scarcely heeding what she said. He had taken a piece of paper +from his pocket, and with a brick-layer's flat pencil was making some +calculations in regard to a wall he was building. The light was +insufficient at the door and he was now bending over the table near the +lamp. + +"Do you want me to make you some flour-and-cream gravy?" she asked, +ignorant of his desire to be undisturbed. "The milk looks good and rich +this morning." + +"No, no!" And he swore under his breath. "Don't you see I'm figuring? +Now I'll have to add up again." + +She made the gravy, anyway. She took out the fried bacon, sprinkled +flour in the brown grease, stirred the mixture vigorously, and then +there was a great sizzling as she added a cup of milk, and, in a cloud +of fragrant steam, still stood stirring. "There," she said, more to +herself than to him. "I'm going to pour it over the bacon. It is better +that way." + +He had finished his figuring and now turned to her. "Are your biscuits +done?" he asked. "I think I smell them." + +"Just about," she answered, and she threw open the door of the oven, +and, holding the hot pan with the long skirt of her dress, she drew it +out. "Good! Just right!" she chuckled. "Now, where do you want to +eat--here or in the dining-room? The table is set in there. Come on. You +bring the coffee-pot." + +Still absently, for his thoughts were on his figures, he followed her +into the adjoining room. It was a bare-looking place, in the dim light +of the lamp which she placed in the center of the small, square table +with its red cloth, for there was no furniture but three or four chairs, +a tattered strip of carpeting, and an old-fashioned safe with perforated +tin panels. Two windows with torn Holland shades and dirty cotton +curtains looked out on the side yard. Beneath the shades the yellowing +glow of approaching sunlight appeared; a sort of fog hovered over +everything outside and its dampness had crept within, moistening the +table-cloth and chairs. John poured his own coffee while standing, and +Dora went to bring the other things. His mind was busy over the work he +was to do. Certain stone sills must be placed exactly right in the +brickwork, a new scaffold had to be erected, and he wondered if the +necessary timbers had arrived from the sawmill which his employer, +Cavanaugh, had promised to have delivered the night before in order that +the work might not be delayed. John sat down. He burnt his lips with the +hot coffee, and then pouring some of it into his saucer, he drank it in +that awkward fashion. + +"How is it?" Dora inquired. "Is it strong enough?" She was putting down +a dish containing the fried things and eyed his face anxiously. + +"Yes, it is all right," he said. "Hurry, will you? Give me something to +eat. I can't stay here all day." He took a hot biscuit and buttered it +and began to eat it like a sandwich. She pushed the dish toward him and +sat down, her hands in her lap, watching his movements with the stare of +a faithful dog. + +"Your ma and Aunt Jane almost had a fist-fight yesterday while they was +dressing to go out," she said, as he helped himself to the eggs and +bacon and began to eat voraciously. "Aunt Jane said she used too much +paint and that she was getting fat. Your ma rushed at her with a big +hair-brush in her hand. She called her a spindle-shanked old hag and +said she was going to tell the men about her false teeth. It would +really have been another case in court if the two horse-men hadn't come +just then. They quieted 'em down and made 'em both take a drink +together. Then they all laughed and cut up." + +"Dry up, will you?" John commanded. "I don't want to hear about them. +Can't you talk about something else?" + +"I don't mean no harm, brother John." She sometimes used that term in +addressing him. "I wasn't thinking." + +"Well, I don't want to hear anything about them or their doings," he +retorted, sullenly. "By some hook or crook they manage to get about all +I make--I know that well enough--and half the time they keep me awake at +night when I'm tired out." + +She remained silent while he was finishing eating, and when he had +clattered out through the hall and slammed the gate after him she began +to partake daintily of the food he had left. "He's awfully touchy," she +mused; "don't think of nothing but his work. Bother him while he is at +it, and you have a fight on your hands." + +Her breakfast eaten, Dora went to the kitchen to heat some water for +dish-washing. She had filled a great pan at the well in the back yard +and was standing by the range when she heard some one descending the +stairs. It was Mrs. Trott, wearing a bedraggled red wrapper, her +stockingless feet in ragged slippers, her carelessly coiled hair falling +down her fat neck. She was about forty years of age, showed traces of +former beauty, notwithstanding the fact that the sockets of her gray +eyes were now puffy, her cheeks swollen and sallow. + +"Is there any hot coffee?" she asked, with a weary sigh. "My head is +fairly splitting. I was just dozing off when I heard you and John making +a clatter down here. I smelled smoke, too. I was half asleep and dreamed +that the house was burning down and I couldn't stir--a sort of +nightmare. Say, after we all left yesterday didn't Jim Darnell come to +see me?" + +"No, not him," Dora replied, wrinkling her brow, "but another fellow +did. A little man with a checked gray suit on. He said he had a date +with you and looked sorter mad. He asked me if I was your child and I +told him it was none of his business." + +"That was Pete Seltzwick," Mrs. Trott said, as she filled a cup with +coffee from the pot on the stove and began to cool it with breath from +her rather pretty, puckered and painted lips. "You didn't tell him who +we went off with, did you?" + +"No, I didn't," the child replied, then added, "Do you reckon Aunt Jane +would like some coffee before she gets up?" + +"No. She's sound asleep, and will get mad if you wake her. Oh, my head! +My head! And the trouble is I can't sleep! If I could sleep the pain +would go away. Did John leave any money for me? He didn't give me any +last week." + +"No," Dora answered, "he said the hands hadn't been paid off yet. You +know he doesn't talk much." + +Mrs. Trott seemed not to hear. Groaning again, she turned toward the +stairway and went up to her room. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +John had passed out at the scarred and battered front door, crossed the +floor of the veranda, and reached the almost houseless street, for he +lived on the outskirts of the town, which was called Ridgeville. On the +hillside to the right was the town cemetery. The fog, shot through with +golden gleams of sunlight, was rising above the white granite and marble +slabs and shafts. Ahead of him and on the right, a mile away, could be +seen the mist-draped steeples of churches, the high roof and cupola of +the county court-house. He heard the distant rumble of a coming +street-car and quickened his step to reach it at the terminus of the +line near by before it started back to the Square. The car was a toylike +affair, drawn by a single horse and in charge of a negro who was both +conductor and driver. + +"Got a ride out er you dis time, boss," the negro said, with a smile, as +John came up. "Met some o' yo' hands goin' in. Want any mo' help ter +tote mortar en' bricks? 'Kase if you do, I'll th'o' up dis job. De +headman said maybe I was stealin' nickels 'kase de traffic is so low dis +spring, en' I didn't turn in much. If you got any room fer--" + +"You'll have to see Sam Cavanaugh," John answered, gruffly. "If you +climb a scaffold as slow as you drive a car you wouldn't suit our job." + +"Huh! dat ain't me; it's dis ol' poky hoss. I'm des hired to bresh de +flies offen his back." + +The negro gave a loud guffaw over his own wit and proceeded to unhitch +the trace-chains and drive the horse around to the opposite end of the +car. John entered and took a seat. He drew from the pocket of his short +coat a blue, white-inked drawing and several pages of figures which +Cavanaugh had asked him to look over. A rather pretentious court-house +was to be built in a Tennessee village. Bids on the work had been +invited from contractors in all directions and John's employer had made +an estimate of his own of the cost of the work and had asked John's +opinion of it. John was deeply submerged in the details of the estimate +when the car suddenly started with a jerk. He swore impatiently, and +looked up and scowled, but the slouching back of the driver was turned +to him and the negro was quite unconscious of the wrath he had stirred. +For the first half-mile John was the only passenger; then a woman and a +child got aboard. The car jerked again and trundled onward. The woman +knew who John was and he had seen her before, for he had worked on a +chimney Cavanaugh had built for her, but she did not speak to him nor he +to her. That he had no acquaintances among the women of the town and few +among the men outside of laborers had never struck John as odd. There +were gaudily dressed women who came from neighboring cities and visited +his mother and Jane Holder now and then, but he did not like their +looks, and so he never spoke to them nor encouraged their addressing +him. A psychologist would have classified John as a sort of genius in +his way, for his whole thought and powers of observation pertained to +the kind of work in which he was engaged. Cavanaugh half jestingly +called him a "lightning calculator," and turned to him for advice on all +occasions. + +Reaching the Square, John sprang from the car and, with the papers in +his hand and the pencil racked above his ear, he hurried into a +hardware-store and approached a clerk who was sweeping the floor. + +"We need those nails and bolts this morning," he said, gruffly. "You +were to send them around yesterday." + +"They are in the depot, but the agent hasn't sent 'em up yet," the clerk +answered. "We'll get them around to you by ten o'clock sharp." + +"That won't do." John frowned. "We could have got them direct from the +wholesale house, and have had them long ago, but Sam would deal with +you. He is too good-natured and you fellers all impose on him." + +"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do," the clerk proposed. "I'll send a +dray for them this minute and you'll have them on the ground in a +half-hour." + +"All right," John said, coldly, and turned away. + +The building on which he was at work was a brick residence in a +side-street near by which was being erected for a wealthy banker of +Ridgeville, and as John approached it he saw a group of negro laborers +seated on a pile of lumber at the side of the half-finished house. + +"Here comes John now," one of them said, and it was significant that his +given name was used, for it was a fact that a white man in John's +position would, as a rule, be spoken of in a more formal manner, but to +whites and blacks alike he was simply "John" or "John Trott." This was +partly due, perhaps, to his youth, but there was no doubt that John's +lack of social standing had something to do with it. He had been nothing +but a dirty, neglected street urchin, a playmate of blacks and the +lowest whites, till Cavanaugh had put him to work and had discovered in +him a veritable dynamo of physical and mental energy. + +"Good morning," several of the negroes said, cordially, but John barely +nodded. It was his way, and they thought nothing of it. + +"Has Sam got here yet?" he inquired of a stalwart mortar-mixer called +Tobe. + +"No, suh, boss, he 'ain't," said the negro. "I was gwine ter see 'im. +I'm out o' sand--not mo' 'n enough ter las' twell--" + +"Four loads will be dumped here in half an hour," John broke in. "Did +you patch that hose? Don't let the damn thing leak like it did +yesterday." + +"It's all right, boss. She won't bust erg'in." The negro smiled. +Evidently he had not washed his face that day, for splotches of +whitewash with globules of dry mortar were on his black cheeks and the +backs of his hands. + +The whistle at a shingle-factory blew. It was eight o'clock, the hour +for work to begin. + +"Mort'!" John's command was directed to two mortar-carriers, who +promptly grasped their padded wooden hods and made for the mortar-bed +where Tobe was already shoving and pulling the grayish mass to and fro +with a hoe. + +John hung up his coat on the trunk of an apple-tree into which some +nails had been driven, and took his trowel and other tools from a long +wooden box with a sloping water-proof lid. He was about to ascend the +scaffold when he saw Cavanaugh approaching and signaling to him to wait. + +The contractor was a man of sixty years, whose beard and hair were quite +gray. He was short and stocky, slow of movement, and gentle and genial +in his manner. He had been a contractor for fifteen years, and had +accumulated nothing, which his friends said was owing to his good nature +in not insisting on his rights when it came to charges and settlements. +Widows and frugal maiden ladies would have no one else to build for +them, for Sam Cavanaugh was noted for his honesty and liberality, and he +was never known to use faulty material. + +"Mort' there! Get a move on you, boys!" John was eying his employer with +impatience as he approached. "Fill all four boards and scrape the dry +off clean!" + +"Wait a minute, John!" Cavanaugh said, almost pleadingly. "I want to see +you about the court-house bid. I want to mail it this morning." + +"What! And hold up this whole gang?" John snorted, impatiently. + +"Oh, let 'em wait--let 'em wait this time," Cavanaugh said. "Where are +the papers?" + +With a suppressed oath, John went to his coat and got them. "I haven't +time to go over all that, Sam," he answered. "Wait till dinner-time." + +"But I thought you was going to look it over at home," the contractor +said, crestfallen, as he took the papers into his fat hands. + +"Oh, I've looked them over, all right," John replied, "and that's the +trouble--that's why it will take time to talk it over." + +"You mean-- I see." Cavanaugh pulled at his short, stiff beard +nervously. "I'm too high, and you are afraid I'll lose the job." + +"Too high nothing!" John sniffed, with a harsh smile. "You are so damned +low that they will make you give double security to keep you from +falling down on it. Say, Sam, you told me you was in need of money and +want to make something out of this job. Well, if you do, and want me to +go up there in charge of the brickwork, you will have to make out +another bid. I'm done with seeing you come out by the skin of your teeth +in nearly every job you bid on. When a county builds a court-house like +that they expect to pay for it." + +"Why, I thought-- I thought--" Cavanaugh began. + +But John broke in: "You thought a thousand dollars would cover the +ironwork. It will take two. The market reports show that steel beams +have gone out of sight. Nails are up, too, and bolts, screws, locks, and +all lines of plumbing material." + +"Why, John, I thought--" + +"You don't keep posted." John glanced up at the scaffold as if anxious +to get to work. "Then look at your estimate of sash, doors, blinds, and +glass. You are under the cost by seven hundred at least. And where in +God's world could you get slate at your figure? And the clock and bell +according to the requisition? Sam, you made those figures when you were +asleep." + +"Then you think I could afford-- I want the job bad, my boy--do you +reckon I could land it if I raised my offer, say by fifteen hundred?" + +"You will have to raise it four thousand," John said, thoughtfully. +"Think of the risk you would be running. If the slightest thing goes +crooked the official inspectors will make you tear it down and do it +over. Look at your estimate on painting," pointing with the tip of his +trowel at a line on the quivering manuscript which the contractor held +before his spectacled eyes. "You are away under on it. White lead is +booming, and oil and varnish, and you have left out stacks of small +items--sash cords, sash weights, and putty." + +"Then you think this won't do?" Cavanaugh's face was turning red. + +"Do? It will do if you want to present several thousand dollars to one +of the richest counties in Tennessee. Why, one of those big farmers up +there could build that house and give it to the state without hurting +himself, while you hardly own a roof over your head." + +"You may be right about my figures," Cavanaugh muttered. "Say, John, I +want to get this bid off. Leave the bricklaying to Pete Long and come +over to the hotel and write it out for me." + +"And let him ruin my wall?" John snorted. "Not on your life! His mortar +joints are as thick as the mud in the cracks of a log cabin. I'll do it +to-night after I go home, but not before. I don't believe any man ought +to let one job stand idle in order to try to hook another. To-morrow is +Saturday. They couldn't get the bid anyway till Monday. There will be +plenty of time." + +As John finished he was turning to the scaffold. "Well, all right," +Cavanaugh called after him. "That will have to do." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +When the steam-whistles of the shops and mills of Ridgeville blew that +afternoon at dusk John descended from the scaffold and put his tools +away. He was the last of the workers on the spot, and when he had put on +his coat he went around to the side of the building and with a critical +eye scanned the wall he had worked on that day. + +"It will look all right when it is washed down with acid," he mused. +"That will straighten the lines and tone it up." + +He was too late for the car and walked home. He found Jane Holder in the +kitchen, preparing supper. She was a slight woman of thirty-five, dark, +erect, with brown, twinkling eyes and short chestnut hair which had not +regained its normal length since it was cut during a spell of fever the +preceding winter. Touches of paint showed on her yellowish cheeks, and +her false teeth gave to her thin-lipped mouth a rather too full, harsh +expression. + +"Oh, here you are!" She smiled. "I know you are hungry as a bear, but I +had my hands full with all sorts of things. I was sewing on my new +organdie and got the waist plumb out of joint. Your ma promised to help +fit it on me, but Harrington, one of those horse-dealers, come by in a +hurry to drive her to Rome behind two brag blacks, and she dropped me +and my work to get ready. She is always doing me that way. She makes a +cat's-paw of me. May Tomlin is going to have a dance at her house +to-night and wrote Harrington to bring her. She left me clean out, +though when May stayed here that time I was nice to her and introduced +her to all my friends. Your ma didn't care a rap about me. She was +going, and that was enough for her." + +John simply grunted and turned away. He had not heard half she said. On +the back porch was a tin wash-basin and a cedar pail. He wanted to bathe +his face and hands, for his skin was clammy and coated with sand and +brick-dust, but the pail was empty, so he took it to the well close by +and filled it. He was about to return to the porch when he saw Dora, the +woman's skirt pinned up about her slight waist, coming from the cow-lot +with a tin pail half filled with milk. + +"I had trouble with the cow," she said, wistfully, in her quaint, +half-querulous voice. "While I was milking, she turned around to see her +calf and mashed me against the fence. I pushed and pushed, but I +couldn't move her. Once I thought my breath was gone entirely. The calf +run along the fence, and she went after it, and that let me loose. I +lost nearly half the milk, and Aunt Jane will give me the very devil +about it. Well, Liz-- I mean your mother's gone for the night, and we +won't need quite so much. She's been drinking it for her complexion. +Some woman told her--" + +"Oh, cut it out!" John cried, with a suppressed oath. "You chatter like +a feed-cutting machine." + +He took the water to the porch, filled the basin, and washed his face, +hands, and neck. He was just finishing when Dora came to him with a +tattered cotton towel. "It is damp," she explained, apologetically. "I +ironed them in a hurry when they were too wet. They ought to have been +hung out in the sun longer, but the sun was low when I got through +washing, and so I brought some of them in too soon. Your ma and Aunt +Jane use the best ones in their rooms, and leave the ragged ones for +us." + +"You forgot something you promised to do, brother John," she added, +timidly, as he stood vigorously wiping his face and neck. + +"What was that?" he mumbled in the towel. + +"Why, you promised to send a nigger to cut me some stove-wood and +kindling. I tried to cut some myself to-day, but the ax is dull and I +had trouble getting enough wood for to-night and in the morning. Will +you send him to-morrow?" + +"Yes," he nodded. "I'll make one of the boys come over and cut it and +store it under the shed. There is a lot of pine scraps at the building. +I'll send a load of them over, too." + +After supper, which he had with Jane Holder and her niece in the dimly +lighted dining-room, he went up to his room and prepared to work on the +estimates for Cavanaugh. He was very tired, and yet the calculations +interested him and drove away the tendency to sleep. Down-stairs he +heard Jane laughing and talking to some masculine visitor. He had a +vague impression that he knew the man, a young lawyer who was a +candidate for the Legislature. John had been approached by the man, who +had asked for his vote, but John was not of age and, moreover, he had no +interest in politics. In fact, he scarcely knew the meaning of the word. +Politics and religion were mysteries for which he had little but +contempt. He used to say that politicians were grafters and preachers +fakers, though he did believe that Cavanaugh, who was a devout +Methodist, was, while deluded, decidedly sincere. He heard Dora's voice +down-stairs as she timidly asked her aunt if she might go to bed. + +"Have you washed the dishes and put them up?" Jane asked. + +"Yes, 'm," the child said, and John heard her ascending the stairs to +her room back of his. She used no light, and he heard her bare feet +softly treading the floor as she undressed in the dark. Soon all was +quiet in her room, and he plunged again into his work. + +Finally it was concluded, and he folded the sheets on which he had +written so clearly and so accurately and went to bed. It was an hour +before he went to sleep. He could still hear the low mumbling, broken by +laughter, below, but that did not disturb him. It was his figures and +estimates squirming like living things in his brain that kept him awake +till near midnight. + +The next morning he decided to walk to the Square, that he might stop at +Cavanaugh's cottage and hand him the papers. + +The little house of only six rooms stood in another part of the town's +edge. Close behind it was a swamp filled with willow-trees and bracken, +and farther beyond lay a strip of woodland that sloped down from a +rugged mountain range. There was a white paling fence in front, a few +fruit-trees at the sides, and a grape-arbor and vegetable-garden behind. +Mrs. Cavanaugh, a portly woman near her husband's age, was on the tiny +porch, sweeping, and she looked up and smiled as John entered the gate. + +"Sam's just gone down to the swamp to see what's become of our two +hens," she said. "He'll be back in a few minutes. He'd like to see you. +He thinks a lot of you, John." + +"I haven't time to wait," John explained, taking the papers from his +pocket and handing them to her. "Give these to him. He will know all +about them." + +"I know-- I understand. They are the bid on that court-house." She +smiled broadly. "Sam was awfully set back. He told me all about it last +night. He admits he was hasty, but, la me! he is so anxious to land that +contract that he can hardly sleep. You see, he thinks maybe it is our +one chance to lay by a little. You see, Sam hasn't the heart to charge +stiff prices here among Ridgeville folks, but he feels like he's got a +right to make something out of a public building like that one. He says +you insisted on a bigger bid and he is between two fires. He wants to +abide by your judgment and still he is afraid you may have your sights +too high. You see, he says some of the biggest contractors will send in +bids and that they will cut under him because they are bigger buyers of +material." + +"Sam's off there," John said, thoughtfully. "He can borrow all the money +he needs for a job like that and he can get material as cheap as any of +them. The main item is brick, and that is made right here in town, and +the stone is got out and cut here, too." + +"You may be right," the woman said. "But to tell you the truth, John, +Sam is afraid you are too young to decide on a matter as big as this +deal. Several men he knows have advised him to make as low a bid as +possible." + +"Well, if he cuts under the estimates I've made in those papers," John +returned, "he'll lose money or barely get out whole. I want to see him +make something in his old age. I'm tired of seeing folks ride a free +horse to death. He may be underbid on this, and if he loses the job +he'll curse me out, but I'm willing to risk it." John turned away. +"Just hand 'em to him," he said, from the little sagging gate, "and tell +him that is my final estimate. If he wants to change it he may do so. +I'm acting on my best judgment." + +Half an hour later, as John was on the scaffold at work, Cavanaugh +crossed the street and slowly ascended the ladders and runways till he +stood on the narrow platform at the young mason's side. He held a long +envelop which had been stamped and addressed in his fat hand. John saw +him, but, being busy cutting a brick with his trowel and fitting into a +mortar-filled niche a bat of exactly the right size, he did not pause or +speak. It was his way, and had so long been his way that Cavanaugh had +become used to it. + +"Hey, hey! Get a move on you down there!" John shouted. "This mort' is +getting dry!" + +"Hold up a minute, John!" the contractor said. "My wife handed me the +papers. I wrote the letter and stamped it and put in the bid exactly as +you had it and was on the way to the post-office with it when I met +Renfro going in the bank by the side door. You know he expects to lend +me the money if it goes through--my bid, I mean--and he asked me what I +was going to do. I told him, and he wanted to look over the bid. I let +him, and he looked serious. He said he thought you was too steep, and if +I wanted to get the job, why, I'd better--" + +"I know," John sneered. "He thinks he knows something about building, +but he is as green as a gourd. I've given you my judgment--take it or +not, Sam, as you think fit. As big as I've made that bid, I'm afraid you +will be sorry you didn't make it bigger." + +"Renfro says young folks always aim too high," Cavanaugh ventured, +tentatively. "He's got the money ready, he says, and wants me to win." + +John was cutting another brick in halves. His steel trowel rang like a +bell as he tossed the red brick like a ball in his strong, splaying +hand. Cavanaugh took a small piece of a tobacco-plug from the pocket of +his baggy trousers and automatically broke off a tiny bit and put it +into his hesitating mouth: + +"I want that job, John," he faltered, as he began to chew. "I've set my +heart on it. It is the biggest deal I ever tackled, and I'd like to put +it through. I want me and you to go up there and work on it. It would be +a fine change for us both." + +"Well, I don't want to go if it is a losing proposition," John said, as +he filled his trowel with mortar and skilfully dashed it on the highest +layer of bricks. "And if you cut under my estimate you will come out at +the little end of the horn." + +Cavanaugh stood silent. A negro was dumping the contents of a hod on +John's board and scraping out the clinging mortar with a stick. When the +man had gone down the cleated runway and John was raising his line for +another layer of bricks, Cavanaugh sighed deeply. + +"Well," he said, "I'll tell you what I'm going to do, John. I'm going to +mail the bid just as you made it out and trust to luck. I'm going to do +it. I admit I've been awfully upset over it, but I can't remember that +you ever gave me wrong advice, young as you are. My wife says I ought to +do it, and I feel so now, anyway." + +It was as if John had not heard his employer's concluding words. He was +standing on his tiptoes, leaning over and carefully plumbing the wall on +the outside. + +"Yes, I'm going to drop it in the post-office right now," Cavanaugh +said, as he started down the planks. "After all, there may be a hundred +bids sent in, and some of the bidders may have all sorts of political +pulls." + +Again John seemed not to hear. He was tapping a protruding brick with +the handle of his trowel and gently driving it into line. "All +right--all right," he said, absently, and he frowned thoughtfully as he +applied his plumb to the wall and eyed it critically. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The residence on which John was at work was almost finished. He was on +the highest scaffold one morning, superintending the slating of the +roof, when, hearing Cavanaugh shouting on the sidewalk below, he glanced +down. The contractor, with his thin alpaca coat on his arm, was +signaling to him to come down. + +"All right," John said. "In a minute. I'm busy now. Don't throw the +broken ones away," he added to the workers. "Stack 'em up. We get +rebates on them, and have to count the bad ones." + +"Right you are, boss," a negro answered, with a chuckle. "Besides, we +might split somebody's skull open." + +"Oh, come on down!" Cavanaugh shouted again, with his cupped hands at +his lips. "I want to see you." + +"I can't do two things at once," John said, with a frown and a +suppressed oath. "Say, boys, get that next line straight! Look for +cracked slate, take 'em out, and lap the smooth ones right." + +He found Cavanaugh near the front fence. The contractor was fond of +jesting when he was in a good humor, and from his smiling face he seemed +to-day to be in the best of spirits. + +"No use finishing the roof," he said, squinting along the north wall of +the building. "That wall is out of plumb and has to come down. Great +pity. Foundation must have settled. That's bad, my boy." + +"Well, it was _your_ foundation, not mine," John retorted, seeing his +trend. "What do you want?" + +Slowly Cavanaugh took a letter from the pocket of his baggy trousers and +held it in his fat hands. "What you think this letter is about?" He +smiled with tobacco-stained lips. + +"How the devil would I know?" John asked, impatiently. + +"Well, I'll tell you," Cavanaugh continued. "It is from the Ordinary of +Chipley County, Tennessee. He says he is writing to all the many bidders +on that court-house to let 'em know the final decision on the bids. He +was powerful sorry, he said, to have to tell me that I was nowhere nigh +the lowest mark. Read what he says." + +Wondering over his friend's mood, John opened the letter. It was a +formal and official acceptance of the bid made by Cavanaugh. Without a +change of countenance John folded the sheet, put it into the envelop, +and handed it back. Some negroes were passing with stacks of slates on +their shoulders. + +"Be careful there, Bob!" he ordered, sharply. "You drop another load of +those things and I'll dock you for a day's pay." + +"All right now, boss," the negro laughed. "I got erhold of 'em." + +"Well, what do you think?" Cavanaugh's gray eyes were twinkling with +delight. "Lord! Lord! My boy, I feel like flying! I've laid awake many a +night over this, and now it is ours. Gee! I could dance! I told Jim Luce +about it at the post-office just now. He is going to write it up in his +paper. Gosh! I'm glad this house is finished! We are foot-loose now and +can set in up there whenever we like." + +It was like John Trott to make no comments. He was watching the workers +on the roof with a restless eye. The air resounded with the clatter of +the hammers and the grating of the slates one against the other as they +were selected and put down. + +"You are an odd boy," Cavanaugh said, with a pleased chuckle. "What are +you looking at up there?" + +"They are not on to that job." John frowned. "Those coons work like they +were at a corn-shucking. They don't drive the nails right. They are +breaking a lot of slate and losing enough nails to shingle a barn." + +"Oh, they are all right." Cavanaugh spat and chewed unctuously. "Gee! +What if they do break a few slates? We are in the swim, my boy, and +we'll give that county the prettiest court-house in the state, and the +people will appreciate it." Therewith, Cavanaugh put his hand on John's +arm and the look of merriment passed. "I've got to say it, my boy, and +be done with it. You kept me from making a dern fool of myself and +losing the little I have saved up. If it hadn't been for you--" + +"Oh, cut it out, Sam!" There was an expression of embarrassed irritation +on the young man's face. He was turning to leave, but Cavanaugh, still +holding his arm, drew him back. + +"I won't cut it out!" He all but gulped, cleared his throat, and went +on: "I owe you my thanks and an apology. Only yesterday I got weak-kneed +because I hadn't heard from up there, and told Renfro and some others +who wanted to know about the bid that I had done wrong to listen to as +young a man as you are. I said that, and even talked to my wife about it +the same way, and now we all see you was right. John, I don't intend to +let you keep on at your old wages. You are not getting enough by a long +shot, and from now on I'll give you a third more. I'm going to make some +money out of this deal and you deserve something for what you have +done." + +John looked pleased. "Oh, I'll take the raise, all right," he said, with +one of his rare smiles. "I can find a use for the money." + +"Say, John"--Cavanaugh pressed his arm affectionately--"this will be our +first jaunt away any distance together. We can have a lot o' fun. I'm +going to order me a new suit of clothes, and I am going to make you a +present of one, too. You needn't kick," as John drew back suddenly, "it +will be powerful small pay for all the figuring you did at night when +you was plumb fagged out." + +"Well, I'll take the suit, too," John said, and smiled again. "You are +liberal, Sam, but you always was that way." + +"Well, we'll go to the tailor shop together at noon," Cavanaugh said, +delightedly. "You can help me pick out mine and I'll see that Parker +fits you. You have got some shape to you, my boy, and you will cut a +shine up there." + +Leaving his employer, John ascended to the roof again, this time through +the interior of the almost finished house, and out by a dormer window. +The old town stretched out beneath him. To the east the hills and +mountains rose majestically in their blue and green robe under the +mellow rays of the sun. A fresh breeze fanned John's face. A man near +him broke a slate by an unskilful stroke of the hammer and raised an +abashed glance to John. + +"It is all right, Tim," he said. "I'm no good at slating myself. You +are doing pretty well for a new hand. Say, Sam's landed that court-house +contract." + +The nailers and their assistants had heard. The hammers ceased their +clatter. Cavanaugh was seen standing in the middle of the road, looking +up at them. A man raised a cheer. Hats and hammers were waved and three +resounding cheers rang out. Cavanaugh took off his straw hat and stood +bowing, smiling, and waving. + +"Lucky old duck!" Tim, who was a white man, said, "and he was afraid it +would fall through." + +John's glance roved over the town, the only spot he had ever known. +Beyond the outskirts ran the creeks in which he had fished and bathed as +a ragged boy. Toward the south rose the graveyard a mile away. He could +see the dim roof of the ramshackle house in which he had lived since he +was five years of age. John looked at his watch. + +"Get a move on you, boys," he said, in his old tone. "Say, that last +line is an eighth too low at this end. Lift it up. Take off the three +slates this way and nail 'em back. Damn it! Take 'em off, even if you +break 'em. I won't have a line like that in this job. It shows plain +from this window." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Two weeks later Cavanaugh and John left for Cranston, the Tennessee +village where the new building was to be erected. They had on their new +clothes and were smoking cigars which Cavanaugh had bought. Some of the +negroes and whites who had worked under them came to the depot to see +them off, and they all stood on the platform, waiting for the train. +There was much mild gaiety and frequent jests. Cavanaugh was quite +talkative, but John, as usual, was silent. The men had jested with the +contractor about his new clothes, but no one dared to allude to John's. +Indeed, John seemed unconscious of his change of appearance. But for his +coarse red hands, his rough, tanned face, and stiff, unkempt hair, he +would have appeared rather distinguished-looking. A bevy of young ladies +of the best social set of the town, accompanied by several of their +young men associates, had gathered to see one of their number off. They +passed close to John, but paid not the slightest attention to him, and +they made no impression on him. That there was such a thing as social +lines and castes had never occurred to him. He saw the young lawyer who +stealthily visited Jane Holder join the group and stand chatting, but +even this gave him no food for reflection. In regard to extraneous +matters John Trott seemed asleep, but in all things pertaining to his +work he was wide awake. His mental ability, strength of will, and dearth +of opportunity would have set a psychologist to speculating on his +future, but there were no psychologists in Ridgeville. Ministers, +editors, teachers, fairly well-read citizens, met John Trott almost +daily and passed him without even a thought of the complex conditions of +his life and of the inevitable awakening ahead of him. + +When the train came, John and Cavanaugh said good-by to their friends +and got aboard. They threw their cigars away and found seats in the best +car on the train. It was the first trip of any length that John had ever +taken, and yet he did not deport himself like a novice. Cavanaugh bought +peanuts, candy, and a newspaper from the train "butcher," but John +declined them. His employer had spoken to him about some inside walls +and partitions which had to be so arranged in the new building as to +admit of some alcoves and recesses not down in the specifications, and +John was turning the matter over in his mind. + +A few miles from Ridgeville a young couple got on the train and came +into the car. The young man was little older than John and looked like a +farmer in his best clothes. He was flushed and nervous. His companion +was a dainty girl in a new traveling-dress. They sat near an open window +and through it came showers of rice, a pair of old slippers, and merry +jests from male and female voices outside. + +"Bride and groom," Cavanaugh whispered, nudging his companion. "She is a +cute little trick, ain't she? My, my! how that takes me back!" + +The entire car was staring at the self-conscious pair, who were trying +to appear unconcerned. The train moved on. John was no longer thinking +of his work. His whole being was aflame with a new thought. Strange, but +the idea of marriage as pertaining to himself had never come to him +before. The sight of the pair side by side, the strong masculine neck +and shoulders, and the slender neck and pretty head of the girl with the +tender blue eyes, fair skin, and red lips appealed to him as nothing had +ever done before. + +"That is the joy due every healthy pair in the world," Cavanaugh went +on, reminiscently. "Life isn't worth a hill of beans without it. These +young folks will settle down in some neat little cottage filled with +pure delight--that's what it will be, a cottage of delight for them. +He'll work in the field and she will be at home ready for him when he +gets back. Look how they lean against each other! I can't see from here, +but I will bet you he is holding her little soft hand." + +For the next half an hour the couple was under John's observation. He +found himself unable to think of anything aside from his own +mind-pictures of their happiness. + +Cavanaugh was full of the idea also. "It is ahead of you, too, my boy," +he said. "You are old enough and are now making enough money to start +out on. Pick you some good, sweet, industrious girl. There are plenty of +the right sort, and they will love a man to death if he treats 'em +right. Look, she's got her head on his shoulder, but she's not going to +sleep. She's just playing 'possum. There, by gum! he kissed her! If he +didn't I am powerfully mistaken. Well, who has a better right?" + +The pair left the train at a station in the woods where there were no +houses and two wagon-roads crossed and where a buggy and a horse stood +waiting. Through the window John saw the bridegroom leading the bride +toward it. Beyond lay mountain ranges against the clear sky, fields +filled with waving corn and yellowing wheat. The near-by forests looked +dank, dense, and cool. + +"It is ahead of you, too, my boy!" The old man's words rang again in +his ears as the train moved on and the pair and their warm faces were +lost to view. John took out some notes he had made in regard to the +masonry of a vault in the new building and tried to fix his mind on +them, but it was difficult to do. The mental picture of that young +couple filled his whole being with a strange titillating warmth. Within +an hour his view of life had broadened wonderfully. He was not devoid of +imagination and it was now being directed for the first time away from +the details of his occupation. He could not have analyzed his state of +mind, but he had taken his first step into what was a veritable new +birth. + +"It is ahead of you, too, my boy!" Nothing Cavanaugh had ever said to +him could have meant so much as those words. A home, a wife all his own. +Why had he never thought of it before? He was conscious of a sort of +filial love for the old contractor that was as new as the other feeling. +He was conscious, too, of a new sense of manhood, and a pride in his +professional ability that was bound to help him forward. + +It was three o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived at Cranston. The +Ordinary of the county, at Cavanaugh's request, had arranged board for +the two men at the house of a farmer, there being no hotel in the +village where board could be had by the week at a rate low enough for a +laborer's pocket. So at the station they were met by the farmer himself, +Richard Whaley, who stepped forward from a group of staring mountaineers +and stiffly introduced himself. + +He was a man of sixty-five, bald, gray as to hair and beard, and +slightly bent from rheumatism. His skin was yellowish and had the brown +splotches which indicate general physical decay. + +"My old woman is looking for you," he said, coldly. "She made the +arrangement. I have nothing to do with it. She and my daughter do all +the cooking and housework. If they want to make a little extra money I +can't object. The whole county is excited over the new court-house. They +act and talk like it was Solomon's temple, and will look on you two as +divine agents of some sort. Folks are fools, as you no doubt know." + +"A little bit--from experience," Cavanaugh joked. "The Ordinary tells me +you are a Methodist. That's what I am, brother, and I'll love to live +under a Methodist roof once more." + +"Yes, thank God! that's what I am," Whaley said. "My wife is, too. I'll +show you our meeting-house when we pass it. I've got a Bible-class. It +is the biggest in the county--twenty-two members." + +"That is a whopper," Cavanaugh said. "I'd like to set and listen +sometimes. I've had fresh light given me many a day by other men's +interpretations of passages I'd overlooked." + +"We are very thorough," Whaley responded, warming up to the subject. +Then he turned to John. "What church do you belong to?" he asked, rather +sharply. + +"I haven't joined any yet," John answered. He was slightly embarrassed +and yet could not have told why. + +"Oh, he will come around all right before long," Cavanaugh thrust in, +quickly. "I've got him in charge." + +"Well, he is old enough to affiliate somewhere," the farmer said, +crisply. "It is getting entirely too common these days to meet young +folks that think they can get along without divine guidance. That is our +meeting-house there. We are laying off to put a fresh coat of paint on +it in the fall." + +They passed the little steepled structure and walked on down the thinly +inhabited street which was as much a country road as a street, till they +came to a two-story house with a small farm behind it. A tall, thin +woman in a gingham dress sat on the long veranda and rose at their +approach. + +"This is the house and that's my wife," Whaley explained. "The property +isn't mine. I'm just a renter, but I can keep it as long as I want to. +We've been here ten years." He opened the gate and let the new-comers +enter ahead of him. They were introduced. Mrs. Whaley shook hands as +stiffly as had her husband. + +"Come right in," she said, smiling. "I know you've had a hot, dusty +train-ride, and I reckon you will want to rest." + +They put down their bags in the little bare-looking hallway from which a +narrow flight of stairs ascended, and followed her into a big parlor on +the right. Here they took chairs. The afternoon sun shone in through six +wide windows and fell on the clean, carpetless floor. A wide fireplace +was filled with the boughs of mountain cedar, and the hearth had been +freshly whitewashed. There was a table in the center of the room, a tiny +cottage organ between two windows, and some crude and gaudy print +pictures in mahogany frames on the walls. The four individuals formed an +awkward, purposeless group, and no one seemed able to think of anything +to say. John was wondering what could possibly happen next, when Mrs. +Whaley said: + +"I know you both must be thirsty. I'll get Tilly to fetch in some fresh +water from the well." + +She rose stiffly and left the room. "Oh, Tilly! Tilly! where are you?" +they heard her calling in the back part of the house. "Leave the +churning a minute and draw up a bucket of fresh water. They are here." + +Through the open windows from the shaded back yard John heard a girlish +voice answering, "I'm coming, mother." Then there was a whir of a loose +wooden windlass and the dull thump of a bucket as it struck the surface +of the water. This was followed by the slow creaking of the windlass and +a sound of pouring water. + +"We didn't come here to be waited on like a couple of nabobs," Cavanaugh +jested. "Let's go out to the well. We ought to begin right and be done +with it. The last time I boarded in the country I chopped my own +fire-wood and toted it in. I'd have washed the dishes I messed up, but +the women of the house wouldn't let me." + +Without protest Whaley got up and led the way through the sitting-room, +dining-room, and kitchen to the well in the yard where Mrs. Whaley and +her daughter, a girl of about eighteen years of age, stood filling some +glasses on a tray. + +"My daughter Tilly," Whaley said, indifferently. "The only one I have +left. Her two sisters married and moved off West. Her brother Tom died +awhile back." + +The girl seemed shy, and scarcely lifted her eyes as she advanced and +held out her hand first to Cavanaugh and then to John. She was slight of +build, not above medium height, and had blue eyes and abundant chestnut +hair. + +"Pass the water 'round," her mother instructed her, but both John and +Cavanaugh stepped forward and helped themselves. For a moment Tilly +stood hesitating, and then she turned to her churn at the kitchen door +and began to raise and lower the dasher. She had rolled up her sleeves, +and John, who was covertly watching her, saw her round white wrists and +shapely fingers. The way her unbound hair fell about her neck and lay +quivering on her moving shoulders caught and held his fancy. How +gloriously different she seemed from the only girls he had ever met, the +bedizened creatures whom he sometimes saw at his home with his mother +and Jane Holder! And, strange to say, he almost pitied Tilly for being +bound as she was to the two unemotional old people who seemed to rule +her as with a rod of iron. What a patient little sentient machine she +seemed! + +"You'll want to see your rooms, I reckon," Whaley said. "Amelia'll show +you up-stairs. The Ordinary said he didn't think you'd be +over-particular. They have plenty of air and light." + +John was delighted with his room. It was palatial compared to the sordid +den he inhabited at home in its constant disorder and dirt. As he +glanced about him, noted the snowy whiteness of the towels at the +wash-stand, the freshly laundered white window-curtains, and the clean +pillows and coverlet of the great wide bed, he had a sense of meeting a +new experience in life that was vastly gratifying. He heard Cavanaugh +clattering about in his room across the narrow passage, and smiled. The +old man's words, "A cottage filled with pure delight," rang in his ears +like a haunting strain of music. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +They had supper at six o'clock in the big dining-room. The sun was not +yet down, and through the open windows and door John looked out on a +small but orderly arranged flower-garden upon which the slanting rays of +the sun rested. Whaley sat at the head of the table, his wife at the +foot. Tilly was not in sight. She was in the adjoining kitchen, and as +he sat with his wrinkled hands crossed over his down-turned plate, her +father suddenly called out to her. + +"Tilly," he cried, "come set down till the blessing is asked, and then +you can bring the things in." + +Her face flushed as from the heat of the stove, the girl came in and +slipped demurely into a chair opposite John and next to Cavanaugh. John +had never gone through such an ordeal before, and he felt awkward. He +noticed that all the others had lowered their heads, and he did +likewise, though he had a certain rebellious feeling against it. + +"I don't know what you have been accustomed to," Whaley suddenly said, +looking at Cavanaugh, "but I have always held, as a principle, that the +head of a house ought to ask the blessing on it; so you will understand, +sir, that in failing to call on you I mean no disrespect." + +"Oh, not at all," the contractor mumbled. "I think you are right about +that. I always do it at home. Of course, if there is an ordained +minister on hand, I ask him, but otherwise I don't." + +"Well, I don't even in that case," Whaley answered, crustily. "I've +always made it a rule, and I stick to it." Then he cleared his throat, +lowered his head again, and prayed aloud at some length. John could not +have recalled afterward what it was that he had said, for the most of +the words used were unusual and high-sounding. + +The prayer was no sooner ended than Tilly rose and hastened from the +room. She came back almost instantly with a great platter of fried ham +and eggs and a plate of steaming biscuits, and began to pass them +around. + +"What is the matter with your hand, Tilly?" her mother asked, and John, +who was helping himself from the dish the girl was offering him, noted +that a red welt lay across the back of one of her small hands. + +"I burnt it getting the biscuits out," Tilly answered, almost beneath +her breath. + +"How foolish!" her mother retorted. "You are getting more and more +careless. Bring in the coffee next. I want to be pouring it out. Most +folks like to start a meal that way." + +Tilly disappeared and returned with the coffee-pot. Somehow John, as he +ate his supper, found himself thinking of the painful burn on Tilly's +hand, and was oblivious of the conversation regarding religious matters +between Cavanaugh and Whaley and his wife. + +"Now, come set down and eat your supper," Mrs. Whaley said to her +daughter, and Tilly took the chair she had occupied while grace was +being said. She kept her eyes downcast, and John noticed her long, +slightly curled lashes as they rested on her flushed cheeks and her +pretty, tapering hands. She said nothing during the entire meal. + +When supper was over, Whaley led the two men into the parlor and lighted +an oil-lamp which stood on the mantel-piece, for it was growing dark. +They had seated themselves when Whaley rose and took a song-book from +the cottage organ and extended it to Cavanaugh. + +"Have you got this new book of revival hymns down your way?" he +inquired. + +"I don't think so," the contractor answered, inspecting it. + +"Well, it is by all odds the best all-round collection I've ever run +across," Whaley said. "Tilly plays all of 'em pretty well, and we have a +regular song-service here whenever we feel like it. Do you sing, +Mr.--Mr. Trott?" + +"No, sir," John replied. "I have no turn that way." + +"Well, maybe you'll get the hang of it while you are here," Whaley +smiled coldly. "I don't believe there is any way in the world that a man +can get to God quicker, straighter, or closer than in sacred song. I've +seen a congregation stand out against the finest appeal ever made from +the stand, and the minute some good singer started a rousing hymn they +were all ablaze, like soldiers following fife and drum." Herewith Whaley +went to the door and called out: + +"Amelia, let the dishes rest and you and Tilly come in. We want some +music." + +"Good! Good!" Cavanaugh chimed in, rubbing his hands. "We are in luck, +John. If there is anything on earth I like after a hearty meal it is +hymn-singing. It takes me back to the good old camp-meeting days when +everybody, young and old, sang, and even shouted when the spirit was on +them." + +Tilly and her mother came in. The girl went to the organ on which her +father was placing the lamp, and sat on the stool. The light fell on her +face and John, sitting against the wall on her right, had a full view of +it and her graceful figure. Her father had opened the song-book and +placed it on the music-rack. Her slender fingers rested on the yellow +keys; the red welt on her hand showed plainly, and John wondered if it +pained her much. There was no way of deciding, for she showed no sign of +suffering. She began to pump the organ with her little feet. She drew +out the stops and began to play. She did it badly, but there were no +expert musical critics in the room. Whaley and his wife stood behind her +and both of them sang loudly. Cavanaugh had never heard the song, and so +he did not take active part, though John saw him beating time with his +finger and now and then contributing a suitable bass note. Cavanaugh was +delighted with the hymn. + +"Why don't you join in, little girl?" he asked, gently, as he beamed on +Tilly. + +"I can't sing and play at the same time," she explained, modestly, +catching John's attentive stare and avoiding it, her brown lashes +flickering. + +They sang some old familiar hymns now, and all three of the singers +joined in together. + +"I tell you we make a good trio," Whaley exulted. "You've got a roaring +bass, Brother Cavanaugh. We'll surprise the natives some night at +prayer-meeting. We'll set to one side like and spring it on 'em all at +once." + +John felt like an alien in the religious and musical atmosphere and was +somewhat irritated by the announcement later from Whaley that he always +had a chapter read from the Bible and a prayer before going to bed, and, +as he believed in retiring early, he suggested that they have the +service over with. Accordingly, he removed the lamp from the organ to +the table, and from the sitting-room brought a big family Bible. A +further surprise was in store for John, for Whaley placed a chair under +the lamplight and called on his daughter to sit in it. He smiled coldly +as she obeyed and opened the Bible. "You may think it odd, +Brother--er--Cavanaugh--you've got a hard name to remember, sir. I say, +you may think it odd for me to call on my daughter to read out loud this +way. I admit it isn't the general custom, but, the truth is, I +discovered that she'd got the habit of not listening to me while I was +reading, or commenting, either. So I made up my mind that I'd have her +do the reading herself. It has worked pretty well. She is in my +Bible-class, and now answers as many questions right as any of the rest, +no matter the age or the education." + +Tilly was blushing as she lowered her head over the big tome with its +brass corners and clasps, and John was sorry for her. A storm of rage +against her father ran through him. This was dispelled quickly, however, +for when the girl began to read in her clear and sweetly modulated voice +he sat transfixed by the sheer charm and music of the delivery. Her neck +was bare, and he saw her white throat throbbing like that of a warbling +bird. He did not grasp the full sense of what she read, for some of the +words were unusual to him. Had she been reading in a foreign tongue, it +would have been no more marvelous to him. Her flush had died down; her +eyes rested unperturbed on the page; one little hand curved around a +corner of the big book; the fingers of its mate held a leaf ready to be +turned. The lamplight fell into the brown mass of hair that crowned her +well-poised head like a halo. Her long lashes seemed mystic films +through which he glimpsed her eyes. Looking across the room, he saw +Cavanaugh, his rough fingers interlocked over his knee, staring steadily +at the reader. Was it imagination or were the old man's eyes actually +moist? They seemed to glitter in the light. + +Tilly finished the chapter and slowly closed the book, fastening the +clasps carefully. She raised her eyes to John's face and quickly, almost +guiltily, looked away. Her father had risen and stood holding the back +part of his chair with his two hands. + +"Now we'll kneel down and pray," he said. "Brother--er--er--Cavanaugh, I +don't know what your habit or turn is, but I'm going to ask you to lead +if you feel so inclined." + +Cavanaugh was rising. "I make a poor out," he said, "but I'll do my +best. I--I don't often refuse when called on." He was looking at John +almost appealingly. "I--I regard it as a duty to--to my religion and +membership." + +The strange, alien feeling swept over John again. He had never heard his +jovial associate pray, though he had been told that Cavanaugh did so now +and then; besides, John felt as if he were being personally imposed +upon. He was not religious; he had never even been to church, and here +he was expected to kneel down with the others. Whaley and his wife knelt +side by side, the worn bottoms of their coarse shoes standing steadily, +their heels upward. As John knelt he felt the uneven planks of the floor +press into his knees unpleasantly, and he moved them for a more +comfortable spot. He had an impulse to laugh over his own predicament, +but checked it, for, glancing to his right, he saw Tilly bent over her +crude split-bottom chair like a wilted human flower. She looked so weary +and so utterly helpless, and yet so brave and patient. As he feasted on +her sweet profile he wondered if she, like himself, were thinking of +other things than the ceremony at hand. He could not decide. Surely, he +thought, she could not be so silly, with that broad brow and those +discerning eyes, as to believe that there was an invisible being away +off somewhere who was now listening to what Cavanaugh was saying in his +faltering, singsong tone. Somehow he expected absolute truthfulness to +be found in the girl. As for the others, they knew what they claimed was +untrue. They--even Cavanaugh--were hypocrites, and in their secret souls +they knew it. + +Cavanaugh's prayer was labored--it did not flow as from the tongue of a +man who loves the sound of his own mouthing--and it was soon ended. +Whaley's smug omission of any comment on it showed the farmer's estimate +of its value or lack of value in any religious campaign. + +Now that they were all standing, John found himself near Tilly. He felt +that he was expected to say something, for she had raised a dubious +glance to his face, but his tongue was tied. How could he speak there +under such circumstances when he had never met a girl of her sort on any +terms of social equality? He grew hot from head to foot. In kneeling his +trousers had caught a white thread from the floor. He saw it and bent to +remove it. It was too delicate for his thick, brick-worn fingers to +grasp, and he stood awkwardly trying, now to lift it, again to brush it +off. He failed, and then he forgot and swore softly. Tilly may not have +heard the oath, but something excited her mirth and she smiled--smiled +straight into his eyes. He smiled in return, for he had never seen such +a smile as hers before. In rippling streams of delight it seemed to go +through his whole being. He saw her pretty hand start down toward the +thread and then check itself as she noticed her mother looking at her. +It was as if she had started to remove the thread herself and decided +that the act would invoke criticism from her elders as a thing too +forward for a girl to do. + +With a laugh that was bold now in its sheer merriment John took out his +pocket-knife, opened the blade, and managed to pick up the thread. + +"Well, I reckon you are both tired and we are early to bed and early to +rise here," Whaley was saying. "You both know the way up-stairs." + +There were no formal good-nights exchanged. The Whaleys withdrew to +their rooms on the ground floor and John and Cavanaugh went up the +stairs. John thought Cavanaugh would go straight into his room, but he +followed him into his and helped him find and light his lamp. + +"I want to tell you something, my boy," he began, his eyes shifting back +and forth from John's face to the jagged flame of the small lamp. "I +want to get something out of me and be done with it. I made a regular +fool of myself there to-night." + +"I don't understand," John said, in surprise. + +"Well, I did," Cavanaugh went on, flushed, and in a voice that shook a +little. "That prayer of mine was the worst mixed-up mess I ever got off. +You see, I never have talked much religion to you boys down home, and as +far as I know none of you ever heard me pray out loud in public. Well, +I--somehow when I got down to-night I just got to thinking about what +_you_ thought--you see, I've heard you sneer at the belief I hold in +common with many others, and somehow to-night--well, I found that I was +thinking more about what you thought of me than what I was prepared to +say, and so I balled it all up. I can do first-rate in meeting at home, +but I slid from it to-night. Why, I almost heard Brother Whaley grunt +when I suddenly forgot what I started to say and switched off to +something else. Oh, I made a fool of myself! Now, really didn't you +think so?" + +"I didn't hear what you were saying," John answered. "I wouldn't care if +I was you." + +"Well, I _do_ care," Cavanaugh muttered. "If ever a man insulted his +God, I did mine to-night. I was reeling off a lot o' stuff, but not one +word of it was from the heart, and a prayer that don't come from the +heart ain't worth shucks. Mine wasn't much more than a song and dance +before the Throne, and I'm ashamed of it." + +"I wouldn't care," John repeated, still absently. + +"Well, I don't know as I do care much about what that old hard-shell +codger, or his wife that is just like him, thinks, but I do for that +little girl. My Lord! ain't she sweet?" + +John stared straight and warmly, but said nothing. He was conscious of +the intensest interest and that he was trying not to show it. + +Cavanaugh stood slowly shaking his head in the negative way that implies +affirmation. "Yes, yes, she is a wonderful, wonderful little trick. +While she was reading there to-night I seemed to be listening to the +voice of an angel that had just come from behind the clouds. I was +shedding tears of joy from every pore of my old body. I could have taken +her in my arms and cried my heart out. That is why I wish I could have +done better in my prayer. What she read was from her soul. '_The Lord is +my shepherd; I shall not want!_' I'll never to my dying day forget them +words, and the sweet twist she gave to them. I never had a child, John, +and if I could have had one like her, I--I-- And just think of it! They +make her work like a slave, even with her little hand blistered like it +was to-night! Old Whaley thinks he walks side by side with God in all +his rules and regulations, but his child is one of God's own glories, +and don't you forget it." + +Turning suddenly, as if overcome with emotion, Cavanaugh stalked out +through the door and crossed the passage into his own room. As John +undressed he heard the old man's heavy tread on the floor. A window was +raised. There was sudden silence. Cavanaugh was looking out into the +starlight. + +John was tired, but he remained awake till near midnight. Fancies filled +his mind which he had never had before. Why did he think so often of the +bride and bridegroom he had seen on the train that morning? + +"It is ahead of you, too, my boy," Cavanaugh's words rang in his ears. +Could such a thing be for him, really for him? How could it be? He had +given no thought to women. He had never dreamed of marriage, but +to-night the sheer idea of it was fairly tearing his being to shreds, +and the flame of the impulse had risen in the face of a girl--a poor, +abused, misunderstood girl. The world lay before him. He would rise in +his trade, and earn money which he would lavish on the little filial +slave he already adored. + +He slept and dreamed that he heard Cavanaugh saying: "It is the cottage +of delight, my boy, and it is for you and her--for you and her. Don't +forget, for you and her!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +The foundation for the court-house was soon laid. The county officials +had announced to Cavanaugh that a day had been appointed for a +ceremonious laying of a corner-stone, to which all the countryside had +been invited. A block of marble properly marked and dated was ordered +and came. The occasion was to be a great one. A brass band was expected +from a near-by town. There was to be a barbecue, with speeches and +singing from a hastily improvised platform. + +John himself supervised the construction of the platform and the long +tables upon which the food was to be served. + +The day arrived. The weather was most favorable, there being cool +breezes from the mountains and sufficient clouds to shut off the heat of +the sun. The speakers' stand was hung with flags and decorated with +flowers and evergreens. Long trenches had been dug in the earth. Fires +had been going in them all day. The dry hickory wood was reduced to live +coals and the pork, beef, and lamb were suspended over them. Negro men, +expert in the work, were busy turning and basting the meat, the aroma of +which floated on the air. A little organ from a near-by church had been +placed amid some chairs for choir-singers, and then John discovered that +Tilly was expected to play the instrument. + +"The regular organist is away," Cavanaugh explained to John, "but I'll +bet our little girl will do it all right." + +John said nothing, for he had caught sight of Tilly seated with her +mother in the front row of benches. She was dressed in white muslin from +head to foot. She wore a cheap sailor straw hat he had never seen her +wear before, and some flowers were pinned on her breast. The whiteness +of her attire seemed to accentuate the rare pinkness of her face, which +deepened as she caught his stealthy glance. She was the last of the +choir to take her place, the others being seated when she finally went +forward, seated herself on the organ-stool, and began to look over the +music. How calm and unruffled she seemed to John! On the platform sat a +candidate for the Governorship of the state, several ministers, the +Ordinary of the county, the Sheriff, an ex-judge, and several other men +of prominence, and yet in the eyes of the younger spectators John Trott, +who was to place and seal the stone, and stood with a new trowel in his +hand, was the most envied person there. He was well dressed, +good-looking, possessed with a forceful demeanor, and it was rumored +that he was a mason who could demand any wages he liked. It was little +wonder that poor young farmers who lived from hand to mouth to eke out +an existence should deem him most fortunate, and that the girls should +regard him with favor. + +John was young; he was human, and he was experiencing a sort of new +birth. Aside from Cavanaugh, no one present knew of his mother's +reputation or of the social wall between him and the citizens of +Ridgeville, and here to-day he was being treated as he had never been +treated before. He felt strangely, buoyantly, at his ease. He was too +happy to analyze his wonderful transition. He wanted to do his part +well, not chiefly on account of Cavanaugh and the contract, or the +dignitaries about him, but it must be admitted that above all he was +considering Tilly. It pleased the poor boy to think of her as +conducting the music, and of himself as having charge of the other +details. There was a vague, new, and even confident dignity about his +erect figure, face, and tone of voice as he directed the laborers to +bring the corner-stone forward. There was a square cavity in the stone +into which souvenirs were to be placed, and it devolved upon John to +collect them from the audience. He did it well. He was a man drawn out +of an old environment by the dazzling experience of being in love. A +copy of a fresh issue of the county weekly was handed to him by the +paper's editor; the Ordinary contributed a photograph of the old +court-house, some one else put in a sheet containing the autographs of +leading citizens, and there were coins and various trinkets of more or +less historic significance. John placed them in the cavity, and under +the eyes of all began to close the opening. His new trowel tinkled +softly as he worked in the dead silence on all sides. When it was +finished the band played. There was much applause, and then the choir +sang. During this part of the program John had a chance to look at Tilly +without being seen by her. She sat very erectly at the organ, unabashed, +unperturbed. John, even from where he stood at one side, saw the red +welt on her hand. He told himself, sentimentally, that those were the +same little hands which churned daily, washed dishes, made fires in the +range, washed, hung out, and ironed clothes, and he marveled. Once as +she turned a page of the music-book she looked at him, seemed in a flash +to sense his admiration, and dropped her eyes. Something came into her +face which he could not have described, but it played there for an +instant like a beam of rose-colored light, and he throbbed and thrilled +in his whole being. + +The speeches passed off. The band played again and John was asked by +the Ordinary to announce that the barbecue was ready to be served at the +tables. + +John had never spoken in public, and yet to-day a new daring possessed +him. Quite unperturbed, he rang his trowel on the corner-stone till +quiet was restored, and then, with a half-jest, appropriately worded, he +made the announcement. Immediately the audience was on its feet and +surging toward the aromatic trenches and tables. The platform was soon +vacated, and John saw Tilly alone at the organ, putting up the +music-books. He longed to go to her, but a vast and sudden embarrassment +checked him. He started, but stopped and pretended to be inspecting the +corner-stone. She was behind him now, but she was the light and breath +of his new existence and he half saw, half felt her presence. He told +himself that she must think him an awkward fool, and yet he could not +approach her. + +Suddenly he saw something for which he was not prepared. A tall, thin +young man with a scant brown mustache and rather long hair, who was +tanned like a farmer, and who had large, coarse hands and wore a +frock-coat which was thick enough for winter, was stepping upon the +platform and approaching Tilly. + +"You must come get some of the barbecue," he said. "You are doing most +of the work and must be fed. I saw your ma and pa over at the first +table." + +"I'm not very hungry, Joel," John heard Tilly say, and from the corner +of his eyes he saw that she was shaking hands with the young man. A +moment later they were passing close behind John. He knew that to +pretend still to be inspecting the corner-stone would be absurd and so +he turned and faced the couple. Tilly smiled, nodded, and glanced at the +stone. + +"It is very pretty," she said, pausing and looking at the work he had +done. "This is my friend, Mr. Joel Eperson--Mr. Trott," she added. + +The hands of two laboring-men met and swung up and down before the +little maid. "Pleased to meet you," both men said, and they stared at +each other, dumb, concealed thoughts in the depths of their eyes. + +"You ran that singing all right." John dug the words from his perturbed +self-consciousness. "It went off fine." + +"Yes, you certainly did that," the young farmer agreed. "You all must +have met and practised." + +"Only once, last night," Tilly said. "We met at the church." + +"We are going to get some of that barbecue," Eperson said, rather +stiffly, to John. "Won't you come along with us? I've got two places +reserved and can easily make room for another." + +"Two places reserved!" The words had an unpleasant sound to John. +Evidently the fellow had been counting on eating with Tilly even before +he invited her. John hesitated. He noticed that Tilly had nothing to +say, and that irritated him. + +"Oh, I'm not a bit hungry," he answered, now in his old, rough, +Ridgeville way, and he frowned. + +"Well, you might come and see the rest of the animals fed," Eperson +jested. "I'd like to talk to you. Tilly wrote me about you coming. I +certainly would like to have a job like yours. Farming has gone to +pieces in this section." + +Tilly had written him. Again John was conscious of irritation and a +strange, deep-seated uneasiness. Were the two on such terms of +familiarity that they exchanged letters while living so near together? +John was still hesitating when Cavanaugh suddenly elbowed his way +through the surging throng to his side. + +"They expect you and me to set at the Ordinary's table along with the +speakers," he announced, momentously. "I've been looking for you all +about." + +"We just asked him to go with us, Mr. Cavanaugh," Tilly said, "but of +course, if the Ordinary wants him we'll have to excuse him." She +introduced Eperson, and Cavanaugh smiled. + +"I've heard about Mr. Eperson already," he said. "And I'll tell 'im to +his face that he has fine taste and knows a good thing in the female +line when he sees it." + +The young farmer flushed red and smiled, but Tilly's face was unchanged. +"I see you are a tease," she said, indifferently. "Well, we'd better be +going." + +John felt Cavanaugh grasp his arm and begin to lead him through the +crowd toward a distant table which was smaller than the others and at +which several local dignitaries were seated. + +"We might as well give them young turtle-doves a chance to coo on a +perch by themselves," the contractor said, with a low chuckle. "I +understand the fellow don't get many chances to see his girl. They say +he has been in love with her ever since he was a little boy, but old +Whaley don't seem to like him. They say the old chap has shut down on +Eperson's visits--don't let 'im come around as often as he used to. I +reckon to-day is one of the fellow's chances to see her. My! what a nice +little trick she is! And take it from me--she deserves a better fate +than to marry a slow-going farmer like that one. She'd just change one +life of drudgery for another." + +As if in a tantalizing dream, John heard these things as he walked +along, still tightly clutched by his old friend. He told himself that +it was incredible that he should care so much about the affairs of a +simple country girl whom he had known such a short time, but the +startling fact remained and haunted him. + +They found their places at the table and sat down. The Ordinary, a +genial man of middle age, with a full brown beard, had a big jug of +fresh cider in front of him and was filling some tin cups with the amber +fluid. + +"We are going to drink to the health and success of these two +gentlemen," he announced, when every one at the table had received his +cup of the beverage. "They are both agreeable men and are an honor to +our community. Moreover, I am satisfied that they are going to give us +the finest public building for the money in the state." + +They all drank standing, and, as they resumed their seats, they glanced +at Cavanaugh as if expecting a response from him. + +"I am much obliged," Cavanaugh stammered. "I can't make a speech or I'd +tell you how tickled I am by your compliment, and my young friend on my +right is, too. We are combining business and pleasure on this jaunt and +are having a fine time." + +John was gloomily unconscious of the fact that he, too, was expected to +say something. Seeing Cavanaugh sit down, he did likewise. He was +watching Eperson and Tilly, who at one of the long tables near by sat +facing him. Eperson was bending eagerly toward her, smiling and saying +something in her ear. Tilly seemed to be listening, for she was smiling +also. Farther down the same table sat her father and mother. Whaley had +a plate heaped high with the meat and its accompanying peppery relish, +and was eating voraciously. Mrs. Whaley was chatting with a woman at +her side and scarcely eating at all. The brass band was playing, there +was a great clatter of knives and forks and tin cider-cups. John was in +one of his surliest moods. He was really hungry enough to have enjoyed +the feast, but his thoughts kept him from doing so. Presently he managed +to slip away from the table, and found himself alone. He wandered +aimlessly about the foundation of the new building, trying to make +himself believe that he was inspecting the work already done. The band +had ceased playing. The crowd of white citizens was thinning out, and +the negroes were falling into the vacant places at the tables. John saw +Cavanaugh and the elder Whaleys trudging homeward. Where was Tilly? he +wondered. Then he saw Eperson driving a poor horse drawing a ramshackle +buggy around from the public hitching-rack. Tilly stood waiting for him +alone on the edge of the sidewalk. Eperson got out, helped her into the +seat, and then got in beside her and drove her homeward. + +John lingered about the foundations for half an hour. Then he saw +Eperson returning in the buggy alone. He had to pass close to where John +stood, but John refused to look up as he went by and turned into the +country road. There was a vague look of placid content on the earnest +face of the man which portended things John dared not think about. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The work on the new building went on apace. John was always tired when +night came, but a new expectation at the end of each day had come into +his hitherto uneventful life. It was not often that he saw Tilly alone, +but he had come to look forward eagerly even for the mere sight of her +in the evening, at the supper-table, on the veranda, or in the yard with +the others. Both he and Cavanaugh immediately changed their clothing +when the day's work was over, and this formality was a new and pleasant +thing for the young mason. The change always made him feel more +respectable. It gave him the sense of throwing off the grime and toil of +the day. It was the first ordering of his life on any social plane, and +it charmed him. + +"You are certainly a wonder," the old man remarked to him one afternoon +as they were dressing in John's room. + +"In what way?" John asked, curiously. + +"Why, you are different, that's all"--the contractor laughed--"as +different from what you used to be down at home as night from day. You +used to have a grouch on you nearly all the time, but now you are as +pleasing as a basket of chips. Your mind seems brighter. You often say +funny things, and you ain't as rough with the boys that work under you +as you used to be. If they are a little slow with brick or mortar you +don't fuss so much, and--say--you have mighty nigh quit cursing. I'm +glad of that, too, I must say I am, for taking the Lord's name in vain +never helped a man get ahead. You see it is a slap in the face to so +many well-meaning folks. Gee! ain't we having a fine time? It is about +as hard to understand myself as to understand you--I mean this +combination picnic and hard labor we are at. There is one point about it +that I wouldn't dare tell my wife. By gum! I don't know that I'm ready +to admit it even to myself yet, but it is a queer notion." + +"What is that?" John asked, only half attentively, for he was listening +to the sounds in the kitchen below and picturing Tilly at work. + +"Why"--the old man stared gravely as he answered--"it is a fact that I +don't miss Mandy at all--hardly at all, and it has set me +wondering--wondering. I know I love her, you see; that fact is as solid +and plain to me as that brush you've got in your hand, and why I don't +miss her more I don't know. I lay in bed awake between four and five +this morning, turning it over in my mind, but to no effect. However, it +may be this way: a man and a woman may actually be--well, almost too +well suited to each other, if such a thing is possible." + +"You are getting tangled up." John laughed as he tied afresh a new +cravat he had just bought and thrust a cheap, gaudy pin into its folds. + +"You may think so, but I hain't," Cavanaugh denied. "I mean this, John. +A couple may live together so long and become so near alike that nothing +exciting happens to either one of 'em, and along with that may come a +sort of strain of marriage responsibility. Down at Ridgeville somehow I +was always wondering what Mandy would want done and what not, but up +here when my day's work is over I can slap on a clean shirt and my best +suit, brush my shoes, light my pipe, and sit around till bedtime and +have a good free evening of it. And I sleep--I'll admit it--I even sleep +sounder and seem to get more out of it. At home I lie with one eye open, +you might say. If Mandy has a bad cold, I can hear her sniffling, and if +she has an attack of rheumatism I can smell the liniment she rubs on. I +don't mind it, you understand, oh no, not one bit! but the--the very +worry about her upsets me. She's the same about me. I know it is a fair +deal between us, for she takes it powerful hard even if I come home with +a cut or any little injury. I said that it was a fair deal on both +sides, but I'll take that back. It is not. The woman gets the worst of +married life, and I reckon that's what is bothering my conscience. I +sent mine off once for a week at a big camp-meeting over in Canton. She +sewed and fixed and packed and cooked for three weeks to get ready, and +was gone just two days and a night. She hired a special team to fetch +her back, and come acting like she'd been off for a year and had escaped +from ten thousand ills and misfortunes. You see, she just couldn't live +without her pans and pots and chickens and the cow and calf which she +was afraid I wouldn't feed--and, I don't know, maybe--me. And that's +what hurts. She keeps writing now about what I'm fed on, how my duds are +washed and mended, and how long it will be before I get back home. All +that when I'm cracking jokes and arguing with old Whaley over some of +his hidebound Bible views about the end of the world. Why, he couldn't +predict the outcome of a county election, and yet he knows to the day +and hour when him and some more are going to be lifted up on a cloud of +glory and all the rest of us stand looking on, wringing our hands like +the bunch Noah left without a thing to cling to. But don't you let +anything I say about marriage influence you against it, my boy. It is +the greatest institution in the world to-day, and while I don't somehow +miss my wife, I'd die if I lost her. I know that as well as I know I'm +alive. There must be such a thing as loving folks you don't want to be +with all the time." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +That evening a wonderful thing happened to John. It was a moonlit night +and Cavanaugh took the two older Whaleys down to see the progress on the +new building. That left John and Tilly on the veranda together. At first +the poor boy's tongue was tied, but under the influence of Tilly's calm +self-possession he soon found himself conversing with her quite easily. +There was a sort of commotion in the chicken-house near the barn and +they started down there to see what had caused it. He had seen young men +of the better class at Ridgeville walking with young ladies, holding to +their arms at night, and in no little perturbation he wondered if he +ought to offer Tilly his arm. He did not know, and he wondered what Joel +Eperson would do in the circumstances. Finally he plunged into the +matter. "Won't you take my arm?" he asked, so naturally that he was +surprised at himself. + +She did so, although the path was clear and the distance short, and the +gentle pressure of her hand on his arm sent an inexplicable thrill +through him. She even leaned slightly and confidently against his +shoulder, and that, too, was a wonderful experience. He was filled with +ecstatic emotion. He slowed down his step and clumsily adapted his long +stride to her shorter one. There was a vast, swelling joy in his throat. +At the barn-yard gate she released his arm and opened it, and at once he +had a fear that he had made a mistake in not forestalling her. He was +flooded with shame at the thought that Joel Eperson would have known +what was proper and have acted quicker. + +"Excuse me," the poor fellow stammered, his eyes on hers. He had never +used such words before and they sounded as strange to him as if they had +belonged to a foreign tongue. + +"Excuse you, why?" she inquired, perplexed. + +"Because--because I didn't open the gate for you," he replied. "I wasn't +thinking." + +"Oh, that doesn't matter," she answered, evidently pleased, and there +was something in her eyes that he had never seen there before. Her face +seemed to fill with a warm light, and her pretty lips were slightly +parted. They walked on. The chicken-house, a shack with a lean-to roof +against the barn, was near and he stood by her as she looked in at the +open door. + +"One of the planks they roost on fell down," she explained. "Too many of +them got on it. They will huddle together, warm as it is." + +"I can fix it," he proposed, "but I'd have to have a light." + +Tilly hesitated, looking again into the shack. There was a low chirping +from the perches overhead. + +"Never mind to-night," she said. "They have found new places and will +soon settle down." + +She turned back, facing him, and slowly they started toward the house. +This time she took his arm without being asked, and the act gave him +additional delight. He allowed the natural weight of his arm to gently +press her hand against his side and she did not resent it. In fact, he +felt as if her touch was responsive. The moonlight fell on her bare head +and played in her wonderful hair, upon which the moisture of the night +was settling. Half-way between the barn and the house there was an +empty road-wagon. Its massive tongue stood out straight a foot or so +above the ground. To his wonderment, Tilly sat down on it, thrusting her +little feet out in front of her. + +"Let's sit here," she said. "They won't be back for some time yet." + +He complied, his wonder and delight growing. They were silent. Finally +she spoke again. + +"You are the strangest man I ever saw," she said, looking into his face +with her calm, probing eyes. + +"Am I?" he asked. "Why, how so?" + +"I don't know," she made answer, thoughtfully, and she locked her little +hands in her lap and looked down. "I can't make you out. You are so--so +gentle and tender with me. You are a mystery, a deep mystery. You don't +seem to take to women in general, and yet, and yet with me--" She sighed +and broke off abruptly. + +In his all but dazed delight he could not supply the words she had +failed to summon, though he knew what he would have said could he but +have untangled his enthralled tongue. + +"Oh, I'm no mystery!" He tried to laugh away his awkwardness. "I'm as +plain as an old shoe; no frills about me. You ask the boys that work +with me." + +She was unconvinced. He saw her shake her wise little head and twist her +fingers together as she answered: + +"A girl I know who saw you on the platform that day said she'd bet you'd +had an unfortunate love-affair. She said nothing else would make as--as +fine a young man as you are shun all the girls like you do. She even +hinted that maybe you were--were married down in Georgia and for some +reason or other was not telling it." + +"Oh no, I'm not married," he laughed. "Gee! Sam would think that is +funny. Me married!" + +"Then you _have_ had a--a love-affair with some girl, and--" + +"Wrong again!" he laughed, deep in the throat of his ebullient joy. +"I've just been a sort of stay-at-home, pretty busy, you know. I've had +my hands full of night work, figuring, writing, and planning, and +through the day I've been hard at it, as a general thing. No, I'm just, +I reckon, not a natural ladies' man." How could he explain to her what +he had never understood or even tried to fathom, the reason why he was +different from other young men of his age whose manner of life he had +only superficially observed? + +Tilly seemed still unconvinced. "That girl was Sally Teasdale," she went +on. "She was here yesterday. You may remember her--the tall, dark-haired +girl that sang in the choir that day and turned my music for me once. +She is going to have a party at her house down the road Wednesday night. +She is--is dead set on having you there. She says all the girls want to +get acquainted with you, and she--she wanted me to--to take you to it." + +"To take me to it?" he repeated, hardly understanding what was really +meant, for how could a young lady be asking him to a party at her house +when no home of that sort had ever been open to him? How could that be +true, and that another girl of Tilly's social rank should really be +inviting him to escort her? + +"I see, you don't want to go," Tilly said, with a touch of mild +resentment. "Well, that is for you to decide, and I would not have asked +you but there was no way out of it. Even mother advised me to mention +it." + +Never had his confusion been greater. "Why, I want to go!" he blurted +out. "I don't see how you could doubt it. And you say that you will let +me go along with you?" + +"Yes, but it was Sally's idea; not mine," Tilly urged. "Don't think I go +about inviting boys to take me places. You see, you are stopping at our +house, and that is why Sally mentioned it to me, but the fact that you +pay us board doesn't give me the right to pull you into things you don't +care for. You must be your own judge. No doubt you are frightfully tired +at night, and if you have writing and figuring to do after work hours, +why, it would be wrong of you to bother with a crowd of silly country +girls that you never saw before." + +"Me tired? Oh no! Leave that out of the question," he warmly thrust in. +"I've set up with the boys when they were sick all night long, and +worked the next day without feeling it. What ails you? Why don't you +think I'd like to go with you? Well, I would-- I do want to go." + +"Well then, we'll go," Tilly said. "I know you will like the +girls--Sally, especially, for she is crazy, simply crazy about you. Huh! +and you don't know it? Why, she goes to town nearly every day just to +pass the new court-house. Shucks! she knows every layer of brick that +goes in it, and every man by name that works under you." + +"I think I remember the girl you mean." John was not absorbing the +compliment. "She is a tall, dark girl, as straight as an Indian squaw. +She stopped one day and asked me some questions about the rooms on the +lower floor. Sam come and showed her around-- I was too busy. Sam's on +the ladies' entertainment committee-- I am not." + +"She told me she had never met you." Tilly leaned toward him as she +spoke. She clasped her hands over her knee. She was staring steadily, +her eyes flashing. "Oh, my! what won't some girls do to get in with a +new man? Huh! She has failed to get at you in every other way and is now +making a cat's-paw of me." + +"I declare I don't know what you mean," John asserted, "but if you are +in earnest--about the party, I mean--why, you can count me in. I've +never been a party man--I wouldn't know what to do or say--but if you +will go with me, I'll be ready long before you are, I'll bet you. I'll +hire a horse and buggy at the livery-stable, and--" + +"Oh no, I seldom ride," Tilly protested. "It is only about a mile and we +can walk that far in pretty weather like this. They all live close about +except Joel Eperson. He always drives in and brings his sister, Martha +Jane." + +"Oh, so _he's_ going--_that feller_ is going!" John exclaimed in a +crestfallen tone. "I see--I see--_he's_ going." + +"Yes. He is Sally's first cousin." + +The uncouth mason sat silent. He folded his ponderous hands and scowled +as he did when displeased with the work of a bungling assistant. Tilly +was covertly and studiously regarding his profile. + +"Why do you say it like that?" she inquired. "Is there anything strange +about Joel going to a party?" + +"Strange? Not if he knows you are to be there. Does he?" + +"I suppose he _does_ think I may be there, but what of it--what of it?" + +John turned and stared toward the house. It was as if he were trying to +keep her from seeing the fierce expression he knew had clutched his +face. Tilly leaned closer to him. Her shoulder touched his. She sat +waiting for him to turn his head toward her again. Presently he looked +at her, his honest eyes holding a famished expression. + +"What is there strange about Joel going?" she asked, softly and all but +propitiatingly. + +"Nothing strange about it--just the reverse," he sighed. "I've heard +that he has been loving you ever since he was a little boy, and that he +comes to see you every chance he gets. I've heard that your father +doesn't like him. I see--his cousin has got this party up so you and he +can--" + +Tilly sprang to her feet. John kept his seat, unaware that even rural +courtesy demanded that he rise when she did. But Tilly was no stickler +for conventions. She was a working-girl; he was a laborer, and there was +something to be fathomed in the man before her which lurked deep within +him. She was angry, or perhaps only impatient, but the mood passed as if +melting into the moonlight which laved her dainty form like some +supernal fluid. + +"What you said is not kind or just," she objected, sweetly. "You +intimate that I'd meet Joel somewhere against my father's wishes. I +would not do so. I would not disobey my father or do anything on the sly +that he would oppose." + +In dumb, almost stupid alarm John sat staring up at her. He quaked under +the sudden realization that he had offended her, and yet he had never +apologized to any one in his life. The fine sense of that sort of +restitution belonged to social paths John Trott had never traversed. +"Excuse me," he might have said, as he had said at the gate, but somehow +under her bent gaze he found himself unable to utter a word. It may have +been the sheer blank look in his eyes, or the helpless twitching of his +lips, that decided her, for she suddenly sat down by him again and +leaned forward till their eyes met. + +"You did not mean to say that I'd do anything underhand, I'm sure," she +faltered. "I'm sure of it _now_." + +"Oh no," he slowly shook his head and seemed to swallow an emotional +contraction in his throat. "I didn't mean any harm, but--but he _will_ +be there, you say? He'll be there?" + +"Yes, yes, of course," Tilly responded. "I suppose he will bring Martha +Jane. He usually does. But what of that?" + +"He'll want to talk to you, I suppose?" John went on, his nether lip +hanging limp, his gaze steady. + +"Why, yes--that is, maybe he will. Sometimes couples walk about between +the games and dances. I don't dance. My father and mother oppose it, and +our church does not sanction it; but you dance, don't you?" + +"No, I've never even been to a dance. I hardly know what they are like. +The young folks at Ridgeville have them often at their club and at the +hotels and in their homes, but the boys are a lot of dudes that have +nothing else to do, and I hate them. I've always had to work for a +living and most of them are well off and look down on poor folks. People +here treat a fellow like me different somehow." + +"It seems very strange that you don't dance," Tilly mused aloud, +"especially when you don't belong to the church. How does it happen that +you never joined?" + +He shrugged and sniffed with uncurbed contempt, unaware of the fact that +what he was saying was an unheard-of thing in Tilly's circle. "I don't +believe in them," he jerked out. "They are a bunch of close-fisted, +grafting hypocrites. Most of them haven't the brains of a gnat. I've +helped build meeting-houses, run against the leaders, and know their +private lives. They say they believe there is a God-- I don't!" + +Tilly sighed unresentfully. "You will see it differently some day," she +said. "Will you do me a favor?" + +"Will I? Try me," he laughed, and he sat eagerly waiting for her to +continue. + +In her earnestness she put her hand on his knee as she leaned closer to +him. "Then don't tell father how you feel about it--please don't. You +don't know him. You can't imagine how furious that would make him. A man +stopped at our house once to stay overnight. He was selling +harvesting-machines, and after supper he and my father had an argument +on the veranda. He said--the man said something like what you've just +said to me, and father made him leave the house--made him pack up and +leave at once, for father said it would be a sin for us to sleep under +the same roof. Mother did not object, either. She was glad to see him +go. Our preacher preached a sermon on it and said my father did right. +I'm sorry you believe as you do, but won't you promise me not to say +anything about it while you are here?" + +"I'll promise you anything on earth you ask." John sat up straight. Her +little hand was still on his knee. He yearned to take it into his +calloused grasp and fondle into it his assurances of compliance with her +desires. "I don't object to any man's religion unless it rubs against my +rights as a man," he went on. "These church folks here may be better +than any I've run across, but down home the breed doesn't suit me. Why, +when I was a little fellow in the public school I've had them--women and +men--invite other boys to go to Christmas-tree parties, Sunday-school +festivals, or picnics, and leave me out. They would do it right before +my face, as if I was the very dirt under their feet. A thing like that +would be noticed by a little boy who wonders why he can't go along with +the rest." + +"I didn't know there were such church members as that anywhere," Tilly +said, thoughtfully. "Oh, I see. I wonder if your folks are Catholics?" + +"No. My father is dead. My mother doesn't go to any church." + +"Oh, that's odd. Not any at all?" + +"No. I guess she is like me. She doesn't know any of the members or care +a hill of beans about them. Why did you ask if we were Catholics?" + +"Because Catholics are looked down on so much around here. If you had +said you were one, I was going to ask you not to mention that to my +father, either. The greatest trouble my family ever had came through the +Catholics. You see, I had a brother. He died five years ago. He was a +professing member of our church, and father was awfully proud of him +because he was a fine exhorter at revivals. When he wasn't more than +sixteen my brother actually preached in public, though he wasn't +ordained. They called him 'the boy wonder' and many people were +converted under him." + +"I've seen his sort," John said, reflectively. "They had one down our +way, a sissy of a chap, that women fairly went crazy over, but you say +your brother died." + +"Yes, but not before he caused us that great trouble," Tilly went on. +"It was this way. Father's chief ambition was to have him preach, and +when he was about twenty, and after father had saved and stinted to put +him through the Methodist seminary, an Irish family moved here. They +were Catholics. There was a girl in the family, and in some way or +other George got acquainted with her and got to visiting at her house. +You know the Catholics have no church here--there are so few of +them--but at her house my brother met Catholics who talked to him and +gave him books to read. The truth is, he fell in love with the girl and +our trouble began. She and her folks somehow convinced him that her +religion was the oldest one--that it was really established by our Lord, +and that all the other denominations had shot off from it. George had +the manhood to come to father and tell him what he believed and that he +was going to join the Catholics, so that he and the girl could marry +according to Catholic rites. I was too young to know what it was all +about, but I was terrified by father's fury. He acted like a crazy man. +He couldn't eat or sleep. He disowned my brother and drove him from +home. George married the girl and they all moved away. By accident we +heard that he had died of consumption away out West, and then a man--a +Catholic, some kin of George's wife--came to deliver some message George +had sent from his death-bed. We were all sitting in the parlor. Before +father would let him say what the message was father asked the man if +George died a Catholic, and when the man said he did and that a priest +had been called in, my father refused to hear the message and showed him +the door. My mother seemed willing to listen to it, but she always obeys +my father. They are almost exactly alike, and so she said nothing." + +The gate latch clicked. Voices were heard from the house. "They are +back. I'll have to go in," Tilly said, and she sighed as from weighty +memories awakened by her recital. + +John got up and Tilly took his arm again. It seemed to him that her hold +upon it was somehow insecure, and he took her hand and drew it higher +up. He had never touched her hand till now, and, while it was rough from +her accustomed toil, by contrast with his own brick-and-stone rasped +palm, it felt as soft as velvet. There was a warm lack of resistance in +it and he released it reluctantly. How glorious and bliss-drenching +seemed the moonlight as it lay on the landscape! And it was not to end, +he told himself. There was the party to look forward to. That would give +him another chance to see her alone. He was a strong man, and yet he was +all but swooning under emotions which he had never dreamed could exist. + +"Oh, there they are!" he heard Mrs. Whaley exclaiming. + +Tilly now released John's arm, stepped forward, and casually explained +the mishap in the chicken-house. + +"The same thing happened some time ago," Mrs. Whaley said, pleasantly, +to John. "We've got too many chickens, anyway. I'm going to ship some of +them off." + +He told her awkwardly that he would send one of the carpenters up to +repair the damage, and further showed his crudeness by adding that it +should not cost her anything, all of which struck her as being quite +gentlemanly of him, and proving his ability to command men who ranked +lower than himself in the scale of his trade. + +They all separated for the night and John went to his bed stirred by +hopes and passions that kept sleep from his brain for hours. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +The evening of the party came around. John was in his room, dressing for +it, and Cavanaugh was with him. + +"It certainly is a new wrinkle for you," the old man said, with a broad +smile. "And I wouldn't bother about not knowing how to dance, either, if +I was you. There will be aplenty that won't take part in that, so you +won't feel odd. La me! I wish I could go look on! I love to see young +folks together. I spied you two the other night long before the others +did, and I noticed how Tilly was leaning against you, and it was by all +odds the prettiest sight I ever looked at, and took me back, back, back! +I believe there is a future life, and in it we'll be allowed to unreel +all the sweet and pretty things we ever wound up in our earthly passage. +I want to see the girls and boys I used to know at your age that have +gone on. Many of them had awful trouble and disgrace before they went, +and some died in pain and poverty, but I don't believe they are +suffering now, and they will come to meet me, too, and lend me some of +their joy. Old Whaley's eternal-damnation idea for some of God's +children don't go down with me. There is punishment--oh, I know that +well enough, but it is here in the consciences of folks that go crooked. +Wait, wait! You can't tie a cravat. It is the first time you ever wore a +white one, isn't it? Let me see if I can do it. I used to know how." + +With a happy laugh, John bent downward and the contractor pulled the +narrow strip of lawn into place around the stiff collar and managed to +tie it fairly well. "You will cut a dash, my boy, for that is a dandy +suit, and it fits you like a kid glove. These mountain fellers don't get +as stylish a cut as that from these cross-roads stores, and no such +material by a long shot. I'm going to say something and I'm afraid you +will be hurt, but I hope you will remember that I feel like a father to +you." + +"Shoot it out!" John laughed. "Fire away." + +"Well, you can't accuse me of being foolish about what is style and what +ain't, John, but there are a few things that I wish you'd remember not +to do any more. You see, I never lived with you down home--never set +with you at the table and the like, and so I didn't notice anything out +of the way, but--" The contractor was avoiding John's questioning stare +and suddenly broke off. + +"Why, what do you mean?" John asked. "Have I been doing anything wrong?" + +"Oh no, and maybe not a single one has ever noticed what I have, but I +must say there are a few things that sometimes I wish you wouldn't do. +Oh, I'm going to tell you and be done with it, because if I don't some +young lady may and that would hurt worse. John, I don't like the way you +act at the table sometimes. I hope you won't get mad, but I don't." + +"Well, what's wrong?" John asked, a look of shame crossing his face as +he stood mechanically brushing his coat-sleeve with his big, splaying +hand. + +"There are several little things," Cavanaugh went on, lamely. "For +instance, there is always a big spoon on the bean-dish or the +cabbage-plate, and we are expected to use it when we are asked to help +ourselves, but I've seen you take your knife, fork, or teaspoon and +rake it out exactly as if you was scraping mortar from a board." + +"Oh, I see, I see." John smiled in a sheepish sort of way. "So that is +wrong, eh?" + +"Yes, and then you stick your knife in your mouth loaded to the brink +with stuff, and I've seen you use your fingers, John. I've seen you pick +up a chunk of meat with your fingers and ram it in like you was plugging +a hole in a sinking boat. You begin eating before the rest do, too, and +that don't look nice, I must say. You are all right--all right, but it +is just a few little things like those that you ought to watch out for +and try to avoid. These are plain-living folks, but still they seem to +have pretty good manners--that is, except the old man. He does a lot o' +things that he ought not to do. He drinks coffee out of a saucer, and, +although I saw him rubbing the back of a cat just before we sat down +yesterday, he broke off a piece of bread with his hands and handed it to +me that way, and not on a fork or a plate, as would be proper. If the +women hadn't been there and akin to him, I'd have throwed it down." + +John had turned to the bureau for a handkerchief. He was angry, but more +at himself than his gentle companion. + +"It is all poppycock," he said, suddenly. "I'm astonished, Sam, to hear +you say such fool things--you, a man of your age and trade. I thought +you was a plain, sensible man. Why, you are trying to be a dude." + +Nevertheless, as the old man sat silent, John made up his mind that the +advice was worth heeding and he forced a smile. + +"All right, Sam," he said; "I'll remember next time. I'm new at this +game." + +"I thought you'd take it sensible," Cavanaugh said, in relief. "Now +there is another little thing. It seems to me that, as you are going to +escort Tilly there, you oughtn't to be behind time. You know you always +had a bad memory, and it wouldn't look exactly right for you to keep her +sitting somewhere waiting on you. A man ought to be first on deck in a +jaunt like this." + +"I was wondering about that." John stared eagerly. "She didn't say what +time we'd leave the house. Do you suppose she'd want to start now?" + +"I don't know, but I'll tell you what we'll do to be on the safe side. +Let's go down in the yard and set about. I've got two cigars. You take +one and I'll take one and we'll smoke till something turns up." + +They went down the stairs and out into the yard. They saw no one about +the house and they took chairs under the trees near the fence. They had +hardly seated themselves when a horse and buggy stopped at the gate. A +man and a woman sat in the buggy. Giving the reins to his companion, the +man sprang down and came in at the gate. In the light of the rising moon +John saw that it was Joel Eperson. + +"Good evening," the young farmer said to John. "Is Miss Tilly about?" + +John sat immovable. He turned his cigar over in his mouth and looked up +fiercely. "What are you asking _me_ for?" he snarled. "I'm not keeping +the door." + +"I beg your pardon;" Joel said, in a startled tone. "I meant no harm. My +sister and I came by to see if she'd like to go to a party over at my +cousin's house." + +John made no reply. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and +pulled at his cigar. Cavanaugh saw that he was in a rage and rose to his +feet. + +"I believe Miss Tilly is getting ready now," he explained, mildly. "She +is going with my young friend here, I understand; but, of course, if you +and your sister want to see her, why, maybe you'd better knock at the +door. Somebody will hear and come out." + +"Oh no, no!" Joel was now flooded with embarrassment. "I didn't know she +was provided for so nicely, and-- No, we'll drive on. I wouldn't want to +hurry Miss Tilly. I can explain it to her at the party. She will +understand, anyway, for sister and I often come by after her." + +Bowing politely and still confused, Eperson backed away a few feet, and +then, restoring his hat to his head, he rejoined his sister. + +"I'm sorry to see you act that way, John," Cavanaugh deplored, as the +buggy disappeared down the road. "I know the reason of it, I reckon, but +still you went a bit too far. It is give and take in a game like the one +you and this chap are playing, and if you don't want to lose, you'd +better be careful." + +John stared, still angry. "I've got no use for him," he sniffed. "He +looks like a jack-leg preacher or a mountain singing-teacher, bowing and +scraping and holding his hat in his hand before two men. He has no +backbone. He is as yellow as a pumpkin, and ought to have that long hair +of his parted in the middle and tied in a knot behind his head." + +"I know, but he looks honest and straight, and he is dead in love. +That's one reason he's so timid, even with us. It works that way with +some men. You are different. It makes a wild man of you, especially when +the fair one is looked at by somebody else. But you've got to hold in. +This fellow has got prior rights to you in this deal, and if you are too +rough it may go against you. I don't say it will, but it may." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +John was about to make some retort when Tilly suddenly came out to them. +She was dressed in white, wore no head-covering, and appeared very +pretty and somehow changed. + +"Oh, you are all ready to go!" she said, smiling on John. "Here is +something for you to wear." She held out a few leaves of geranium and a +white rosebud and proceeded to pin them on the lapel of his coat. "It +is the custom," she explained. "All the girls give them to the young men +they go with. Now, now, isn't that nice, Mr. Cavanaugh?" + +"Fine! Beautiful! It sets him off just right!" the old man cried. + +John looked pleased, but said nothing. + +"Why don't he thank the little trick?" Cavanaugh wondered, resentfully. +"And why don't the goose stand up?" + +"I don't believe you like flowers," Tilly said, pretending to pout. + +Still John said nothing, but what astonished Cavanaugh was the fact that +Tilly evidently understood his mood, for she gave a little pat to a +wrinkle the pin had made in his lapel and smiled. + +"I thought I heard wheels just now," she remarked. "They seemed to stop +here." + +"It was that fellow Eperson with his sister," John blurted out. "They +came by to take you to the party. He acted like he owned you." + +"Oh, it was Joel and Martha Jane!" Tilly smiled. "Oh no, he doesn't +think he owns me, by any means. Martha Jane put him up to it. She and I +are great friends and she was afraid I wouldn't get an escort." + +John shrugged dubiously and answered: "You may look at it that way if +you want to, but I see through him. I know his brand." + +To Cavanaugh's wonderment, Tilly seemed pleased rather than offended, +for she indulged in a little satisfied laugh. + +"I suppose you told him we would be there?" she said, lightly, and it +was the old man who answered, seeing that John had nothing to say. + +"Yes, he knows that now, Miss Tilly, though he looked sorter set back. +In my day and time about the last thing I'd want to do would be to take +a sister of mine to a shindig. Going and coming was always the biggest +part of the game, and you may bet there was times when I was in for +busting a party up as soon as supper was over so as to be on the road +again." + +Tilly laughed merrily. "I'll make you a buttonhole bouquet if you will +wear it," she proposed. + +"Well, not to-night--I thank you all the same," Cavanaugh returned, "but +you may some other time when I've got my best clothes on. I don't want +to part with you two, but don't you think you ought to be on the way?" + +"Yes, it is time," Tilly said, and John rose to his feet and stiffly +held his arm out to her. + +"Please tell mother that we are gone," she said, as she took John's arm +and the two turned away. + +"What a purty sight!" the old man mused, standing and gazing after them +as they walked away in the moonlight. He followed as far as the gate and +leaned on it and watched them till they were out of sight. + +Presently Mrs. Whaley came out and joined him. He delivered Tilly's +message and they sat down and chatted for half an hour; then she went +back into the kitchen. + +She was making dough for bread to be baked the next day when her husband +came and stood beside her. He wore no coat and his coarse suspenders +hung loose over his hips; the collar of his shirt was open, showing his +hairy chest. + +"I saw you out there talking to Cavanaugh," he began. "Did you say +anything about that matter?" + +"I did--in a roundabout way," she said, taking the great lump of wheat +dough in her hands and rolling it into a heap of dry flour at one end of +the long wooden bowl. "I didn't want him to take up a notion that we +want to marry her off, but I tried to find out what I could. Mr. Trott +never has had any love-affairs. He is mighty young--younger than you'd +naturally think to have the job he has, and somehow he never has taken +to a girl before. Mr. Cavanaugh says this is the first time, and I know +he is telling the truth. Oh, he had a lot to say in Mr. Trott's favor. +He says he has a wonderful mind for building and the like, and that the +time will come when he will make piles of money. He already gets high +wages, and it is always cash, too. He doesn't have to wait till the end +of the year like Joel Eperson and other farmers do, and then be up to +their eyes in debt, with nothing left over to begin another crop on." + +"Does he drink or gamble? That is what I want to know," Whaley put in +suddenly. + +"No, he doesn't. Mr. Cavanaugh says he hardly thinks of anything but +figuring, planning, and calculating. He goes to bed early and gets up +early, and can handle a gang of men better even than he can, he's so +popular with them." + +"Didn't you find out about the feller's religion?" + +"No, I didn't. I sorter touched on that--said you wanted to know--but +Mr. Cavanaugh made light of it--said all that would come out right in +due time. He said he was no hand for hurrying up the young on those +lines. He said John Trott at bottom was the right sort, and that he +would count on him serving the Lord in the long run as well as the next +one." + +"I don't know as I'd let that old skunk pick a religion for a son-in-law +of mine." Whaley's lip was drawn tight as he spoke. "He don't take +enough interest in doctrine, and when you force him to talk about it he +says entirely too much about salvation through works alone. I like a man +that knows what he believes and can point straight to Biblical authority +in page, line, and word. It behooves a Christian to watch out what sort +of a mate his daughter picks. Infidelity will breed at a fireside faster +than tadpoles under skum in a mud-puddle." + +"Well, I'm for keeping that part out of it just now," Mrs. Whaley +suggested, timidly. "This is a good chance for the girl, and you know +you have made a lot of folks mad by the way you talk to them." + +"Well, I haven't said anything to Trott yet," Whaley answered, "and I +may not, though he hasn't been out to meeting yet and that seems odd, +when the Sabbath is a day of rest and there is nothing else to do." + +"I happened to hear him tell Tilly that he was going next Sunday," Mrs. +Whaley answered, "so you see that will work out all right." + +"Well, we'll wait and see," Whaley returned. "They dance over there at +Teasdale's house, don't they?" + +"Some do and some don't," was the answer, slowly made. "Tilly don't and +Mr. Trott never did in his life." + +"There isn't much difference in actually dancing and giving sanction to +it by looking on," Whaley said, his heavy brows meeting in a frown, "an' +I'm in for calling a halt on Tilly going to such places. Looks like +there would be plenty of decent amusements without hot-blooded young +folks hugging up tight together and spinning around on the floor till +they are wet with sweat from head to foot. Sally Teasdale ought to be +churched, and she would be if she was a Methodist. The Presbyterians +ain't strict enough. Well, if I believed in foreordained baby damnation +as they do I'd let a child of mine dance her way into hell and be done +with it. They make me sick. I had an argument with old Bill Tye +yesterday and I fairly flayed up the ground with him--didn't leave him a +leg to stand on, but he was mad--oh, wasn't he mad? The crowd laughed at +him good." + +Whaley turned away. He intended to chat with Cavanaugh outside, but he +met the contractor coming in at the front door on his way to bed. + +"I found that passage from Paul and read the whole chapter," Whaley +began, but Cavanaugh stopped him. + +"I'll see it to-morrow," he said. "My eyes are not strong enough to read +at night, even with my specs, and I'm a little bit tired, too. I walked +out to the sawmill--five miles and back--this morning, to see about +some timber, and it was quite a stretch for me. Good night." + +"No wonder he didn't want to see it," Whaley smiled to himself as he +leaned in the doorway. "I had him beat and he knows it. I'll bet the old +skunk has already looked it up, or asked somebody about it." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +A wide country road stretched out in the moonlight before John and +Tilly. They walked slowly. Tilly still held his arm and he was +transported with sheer ecstasy by that close contact with her. Once or +twice he started to speak, but found himself unable to think of anything +appropriate, and this both angered and alarmed him, for, he asked +himself, how was it that Eperson was always so ready with his tongue +when in Tilly's presence? But Tilly seemed to understand John's way and +not to care much whether he talked or was silent. As he dared to glance +down on her pretty head just below his left shoulder he remembered the +bride and the bridegroom on the train, and the contractor's words came +back to him like breeze music from the waving tops of celestial trees: +"It is ahead of you, my boy." + +Ahead of him? Marriage? A home for Tilly and himself alone? She, his +wife?--actually his wife? Absurd! Impossible! The bare thought, checked +though it was, set fire to his brain and he was thrilled in all his +nerves and members. He caught her upward glance and she smiled almost as +if she had glimpsed his vision and was thus responding to it. + +"You don't like Joel," she said, knowing full well that that remark +would prod his tardy speech. + +"Well, what if I don't?" he answered, with querulous sharpness. + +"Well, you shouldn't dislike him," the little minx continued, +designedly. "He hasn't done you any harm. How could he? You have known +each other such a short time." + +Had John been other than the crude working-boy that he was, he might +have made a more adroit answer, but, even as it was, it was not +unpleasing to his sly tormentor. + +"What is he hanging around you so much for?" John demanded. "I've heard +that your father doesn't like him. What does he mean by coming, at the +slightest excuse, like to-night, for instance?" + +"Joel and I have been friends ever since we were tiny tots," Tilly +answered, as casually as a school-girl chewing gum. "And even if--if he +really does love me and--and wants me to be his wife, should he be +blamed for that?" + +The very suggestion of her marriage to any one, and that man in +particular, drove John wild. He bit his lip; he swore under his breath, +and his oaths had never been guarded before meeting Tilly; his eyes +flashed from the fires behind them. He clenched his fists. + +"You are mine, mine, mine!" he said to himself with the grinding teeth +of a cave-man, and he was all but unaware that his words were not +audible. She was smiling up at him, so sweetly, so placidly. What a +nimbus of transcendental charm hovered over the wonderful face in the +moonlight. Suddenly he checked his onward stride, caught her, and drew +her around facing him. What he might have said or done he never knew, +but Tilly gravely started on again, gently extracting her hand from his +fierce clasp and restoring it to his arm. + +"We must not stop," she said. "I hear a horse behind us. It is somebody +going to the party, perhaps." + +He said nothing as her fingers left his, and they walked on again. It +was a horse and a buggy containing a couple from the village. Tilly +spoke merrily to them and they answered back as they dashed on. + +"It is Marietta Slocum and Fred Murray," Tilly explained. "They are +engaged." + +"Engaged?" The word seemed to fill the entire consciousness of the crude +social anomaly. He told himself that an engagement must naturally +precede marriage, and how was that to come about with that helpless +tongue in his mouth? Besides, how did he know but that Tilly might +refuse him? How did he know but that there might even now be some +understanding between her and Eperson? The sheer thought chilled him +like a blast from a cavern of ice. She seemed to feel the limpness of +the arm she held or in some way to sense the despair that was on him so +quickly following the mood she had interrupted only a moment before. + +"You are so strange!" she sighed, taking a better grasp on his arm, and +even bearing down on it slightly as she lowered her head thoughtfully. +"You are a mystery to me. I can't make you out." + +He could not explain. He was not sure that he cared to explain the +terrible internal quakings which to him seemed so unmanly, so unlike any +feelings that had ever come to him. He wondered if Eperson had actually +spoken open words of love to her, and, if so, how had the fellow, with +all his suave ability, managed it? + +Another buggy passed. Tilly explained who the occupants of it were after +she had greeted them. They were George Whitton and Ella Bell Roberts. +Then she added, with a touch of seriousness: + +"You ought to have lifted your hat just now." + +"Lifted my hat? Why, I don't know her-- I've never seen her before!" he +retorted, with the irritation of a great mind descending to a +triviality. + +"Because he lifted his to me and you are with me," Tilly persisted in +her mild rebuke. "It is the custom here, but it may not be at +Ridgeville." + +John was chagrined, but determined to hide it. "I have never heard of a +man bowing to a man or a woman he never saw before," he fumed. "I don't +care what you all do; it is foolishness out and out." + +"Well, when you are in Rome," Tilly quoted in quite a grave tone, "you +ought to do as the Romans do." + +The thing rankled within him. The blood had mounted to his brow and +stayed there. Even Tilly was telling him how to deport himself. He +adored her, but he was angry enough to have sworn in her gentle, +uplifted eyes. She observed his moody mien and playfully shook his arm. + +"Don't be mad," she urged, sweetly. "I meant no harm, but I _do_ want +them all to like you, and I'm afraid they won't if you fail in little +things like that just now. They won't understand--they will think you +are stuck up, and I know you are not a bit vain. I am sure of that--as +sure as I'm alive. If you were I'd not like you." + +She had intimated that she liked him, and that ought to have been +sufficient to quell the storm within him, but it did not quite. Her +rebuke hurt far more than any which had ever come to him. She adroitly +changed the subject. She spoke of the work on the court-house and +praised his part of it, but what did that matter? He knew what his work +was and he was just learning profound and relentless things about the +difference between himself and her--between her puzzling environment and +his, which was all too distinctly plain for his present comfort. As they +neared Teasdale's and saw the lights streaming from the open doors and +windows across the lush greensward and noted the considerable collection +of horses and vehicles under the shade-trees and along the fences, he +became conscious of an overwhelming timidity with which he felt unable +to cope. Had Tilly been like himself and feared the entry into the light +and easy gaiety of the chattering throng, he would not have felt so +isolated. But her very unconsciousness of the thing as any sort of +ordeal to be dreaded depressed him as emphasizing the fateful +demarcation between her walk of life and his. + +They reached the steps of the large, rather rambling one-story +farm-house. There was a long veranda in front, both ends of which were +filled with merrymakers. There was a wide hallway, and it, too, was +filled with jolly, loud-talking couples, as well as the big parlor on +the right. + +"Oh, here they are!" Sally Teasdale cried, coming forward and taking +Tilly into her slim, pretentious arms. "I heard of you two poking along +like snails on the big road. As if you couldn't see enough of Mr. Trott +at home! I am going to introduce myself to him, to pay you back. I'm +Sally Teasdale"--holding out her hand to John--"and I am glad you came +to my party." + +John did not know what he said, if he said anything audible. It was the +damnable glibness of speech of others which he had to contend with and +which seemed to be as silly as unattainable. + +"Now, dear, run back to my room and take off your wrap," Miss Teasdale +said to Tilly. "I'll show Mr. Trott the men's room." + +"He has nothing but his hat," Tilly lingered to say, "and he can leave +that anywhere." + +"Yes, if you like," his hostess said, leading him to a spot on the +veranda where many men's hats were hanging on nails driven into the +weather-boarding. He hung up his and immediately felt Sally clutch his +arm. + +"Tilly says you don't dance," she ran on. "What a pity! It is great fun, +and a good way to get acquainted. I suppose you are a member of the +church. Which one?" + +"None at all," he heard himself saying, as if in a dense fog and from a +great distance. + +"How funny that you don't dance, then?" she went on, leaving an opening +for him which he did not enter. He did not like her. She was too tall +and angular, too harsh of voice and fluent of talk and irritating +suggestion. He had the sense of being managed when he wanted above all +to be unmolested. Besides, she had sent Tilly away, and without Tilly he +felt lost. + +"I must introduce you to my father," Sally said. "He is old-fashioned +and wants his way about everything. He would scold me if I didn't +introduce you at once. He is inside. Come on. My stepmother is busy in +the kitchen fixing refreshments." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +He wormed his way after her through the surging throng to the parlor, +where a fat man in dark trousers and a white-linen coat stood vigorously +cooling himself with a palm-leaf fan and talking to some middle-aged men +and women. + +"Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Trotter--I mean Trott," he said, +extending a clammy hand. "I've seen you about the court-house several +times but you were always busy and I didn't want to climb up those +rickety planks to you. How is it moving along?" + +"All right," John said, bluntly. He was not awed by the man, for he was +used to men of all types. Besides, John could not descend to empty +platitudes for the sake of making conversation, and he half resented the +unnecessary question about a matter that was obvious to every passer-by. + +"Come in here with me." The old man took a large grasp on his arm and +began to fan lazy waves of warm air into his face as he drew him into an +adjoining room, which was evidently a sleeping-apartment from which the +bed had been removed. There was a table against the wall, and on its +snow-white cloth stood a great bowl of mint, some goblets, a pitcher of +water, a dish of sugar, and a brown jug containing whisky. + +"I want you to try one of my juleps," Teasdale chuckled. "That is some +of the best old rye that ever slid down a thirsty throat." + +"I don't drink," John said. "I won't take anything." + +"What, what? You don't? Well, I won't insist--I never do--but stay with +me a minute till I take one straight. My old lady says I take too much +at every party Sally has, and unless some feller is in here with me she +thinks I am tanking up all by myself." + +"Go ahead," John answered, and the farmer proceeded to help himself to +an ample supply of the amber fluid. While he drank, the sound of tuning +fiddles and the twanging of guitars came from the parlor. + +"The niggers have come," Teasdale gurgled, as he smacked his lips and +screwed the corn-cob stopper back into the neck of the jug. "Sally will +start out with dancing, I reckon. I used to be a great hand at it, but +I'm too heavy now." + +He led the way back to the parlor. Four black men sat in a corner +vigorously sawing and picking their instruments. One of them, the +leader, called out in stentorian tones, "All hands fer de fust set!" and +there was a laughing rush from the hall and the veranda of several +couples to secure places. Seeing a chance to get away from his host, +John drew back into the hall, where he found himself jostled and ignored +by the tempestuous human mass. He edged his way along a wall to the +veranda, and there saw something startlingly disagreeable. It was Joel +Eperson and Tilly standing side by side, their faces averted toward the +gate. Joel was regarding her with the eyes of dumb adoration and +listening closely to something she was saying. John saw that the +opposite end of the veranda was deserted and he went to it. He tried to +keep his eyes from the pair, but it was impossible. His misery +increased, seeming to ooze into him from some external reservoir of +pain. All around him surged a life bewilderingly new and fatuous. He +saw Joel bend down to pick up a flower Tilly dropped and saw him smile +as he gave it back to her. What could she be saying, with that sweet, +drawn look about her lips? What was Joel asking? He saw her nod, and +Joel took her arm and the two went down the steps to the gravel walk +that led from the house to the gate. Here back and forth they walked, +arm in arm, now in the full light from the door and windows, again in +the half-darkness near the fence. Once for fully five minutes they +lingered at the gate while the silent spectator of their movements +leaned tense and rigid against the balustrade. The promenade was quite +in accordance with rural propriety and custom, but John could not +understand why that pair in particular should be the only ones in the +entire company to engage in it. It did not seem right. How could it be +right? + +The music, the sonorous calls to the dancers, the tripping of feet, +pounded his tortured brain. The whole world in its new aspect seemed to +meet him with fangs and claws exposed. He wanted to fight something +physically, to express by oaths and blows the resentment packed within +his primitive breast. He felt his gnarled and hardened fingers at Joel +Eperson's thin neck. He saw the long hair sway back and forth as he +shook the love-smitten man. His clutch tightened till Joel's eyes bulged +from their sockets, and then, in gloating fancy, John dashed him to the +ground, where he lay exposed to Tilly's view. But reality has little to +do with the tricks of the imagination, and there stood Eperson at the +fence with Tilly by his side. + +Two girls were approaching. One was Sally Teasdale, the other Martha +Jane Eperson. + +"They've told the truth about you," the former greeted John, with a +teasing laugh, as she introduced the slight, plain, dark girl whose +hand she held. "You are really a woman-hater, or you would not be off +here by yourself when all the girls want to know you." + +Again he was scarcely conscious of what he was saying or leaving unsaid, +and suddenly waked to the fact that his hostess had hurried away, and +that the plain girl was in his care. After all, she was Eperson's +sister, and he eyed her curiously, wondering if she, too, were his +enemy. + +"You've met my brother," she began. "He spoke about it the day the +corner-stone was laid. There he is out there with Tilly now. I didn't +want to come to-night, but he was crazy to be here so that he could see +her." + +"I thought that was it," John permitted his slow lips to say. "They have +been going together a long time. That is, I've heard so." + +"Yes, and I thought--we all thought that Tilly would end up by taking +him, but it is all off now," Miss Eperson sighed, her eyes on the pair +at the fence. + +"All off?" John in his sober senses would have wondered at his ability +to talk so freely with a girl he had just met. "Why, what do you mean?" + +"As if you didn't know--as if _everybody_ doesn't know!" Martha Jane +laughed half sardonically. + +"But I don't know what you mean." Something new and bountiful in its +promise of joy filled John and drove the words from his palpitating +tongue. + +"The idea!" scoffed Martha Jane. "Well, if you don't know it you are +blind as a bat in daytime. Brother knows it, I know it--everybody knows +it." + +"Knows what?" John demanded, his breath checked, his eyes gleaming, his +whole being athrob under the dawn of an ecstasy the plain girl seemed to +offer. + +"Well, I'm not going to tell you, if you don't know," the girl +answered, with a little shrug. "But if you want to understand, watch my +poor brother. He never had a look like that before. She has been his +very life. People that doubt real love ought to know Joel. He would go +through fire and water for Tilly. He'd steal, he'd kill, he'd do +anything. He is desperate to-night. When we got to her house and found +that you and she were going to walk out here, it was the last straw. But +he is a gentleman, my brother is, and he will never make a row over it." + +Under the sheer blaze of this information, John stood speechless. He, +boldly now, gave his arm to his little companion and they started to +walk back and forth on the lawn as others were doing. His face was now +turned from Tilly, but subconsciously he could fairly feel her +proximity. John almost loved the little woman on his arm. How could he +help it? She was so kind to him. + +They were turning toward the steps when Tilly and Eperson approached. +There was a wilted look of resignation on Eperson's face, a sentient +animation in Tilly's eyes and about her lips, when she said to John: + +"I hope you are having a good time and meeting all the girls. Sally said +she would look after you." + +He smiled and nodded. Something seemed to bear down on his brain and +befog his sight. The lights, the lawn, the people, swirled around him. + +"Yes, I'm all right," he said. + +They were all on the veranda now and Joel stood facing his rival, a look +of wondering respect in his shrinking gaze. + +"Oh, Joel!" a voice was heard, and Sally Teasdale approached. "We need +you. Mother is going to serve the refreshments and all the men who know +the ins and outs of our kitchen are helping wait on the crowd. Will you +come? Father is already unable to walk steady." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Joel blandly and gallantly complied. His sister, now thrown with John +and Tilly after the others left, looked slightly embarrassed, and, +saying that she, too, would help serve the supper, she moved away. This +threw John and Tilly together again. Some couples had seated themselves +in chairs against the wall, and, as there were vacancies, they sat down +also. The negroes, to the accompaniment of guitars, began singing old +plantation melodies. The moon, higher in the heavens now, shed a +glorious sheen over the still landscape. John was too full of adoration +and joy to utter a word. Tilly seemed to sense his mood to its depths +and to blend a mood of like nature with it. + +"I love you--I love you!" John's soul seemed to whisper, but his tongue +remained an inactive lump in his mouth. + +"I know--I understand," Tilly's soul seemed to be saying in the same +inaudible way. He smelled the perfume of the geranium leaves on his +coat, and his big red fingers raised them to his nostrils. He told +himself that it was a silly, womanish act, but what did he care? Tilly's +fingers had pinned them there, the little fingers he longed to caress. + +Joel served her first. He came past other girls and brought Tilly a +plate containing cake and a glass of sillibub and hastened away after +she had sweetly thanked him. + +Tilly held the plate in her lap, idly toying with the spoon. + +"Why don't you eat it?" John asked. + +"Because the others haven't theirs yet," she answered. + +"Oh, I see," he muttered, chagrined in spite of his happiness. "I'll +never get on to your ways. I've been brought up different. I've worked +hard since I was a boy--I-- I--" But he could not go farther. Why should +he allude to his sordid home life when it was a thing which he now so +utterly despised? How could he speak of his mother, who was so widely +and strangely different from the women Tilly knew? No, he would let +those things rest. + +Various young men had served all the ladies on the veranda when Joel +came out with a plate and looked about as if trying to find some lady +who had been overlooked. Finding no one, he brought it to John. + +"You take it, Mr. Trott," he said, suavely, and yet with a touch of +irrepressible dejection in his tone. + +John stared in stupid bewilderment and then jerked out, "Keep it +yourself." It was just such a well-meant reply as he might have made to +one of his workmen who was offering him a cigar, and yet it quite +frustrated Joel, who stood awkwardly waiting, the plate still timidly +extended. + +"Oh no! I'm going right back," Joel said. "I can't eat now, thank you. +We are just beginning to help the men." + +"Well, you can't wait on me," John blurted out. The situation was +becoming tense and awkward, when Tilly half playfully reached out, took +the plate, and gave it to John. + +"Take it," she said, firmly. "Joel is in a hurry. The others are +waiting." + +John obeyed, but failed to thank Eperson. He was vaguely conscious that +Tilly was smoothly performing the duty for him and that Joel was bowing +himself away. Then they sat in silence. Others near by were boisterously +laughing, beating time with their feet and singing with the band, but +neither Tilly nor John had aught to say. It was as if the subject which +was at once burning and soothing their souls was too vast and sacred to +be touched upon in the neighborhood of others less profoundly stirred. + +"Give me your plate. I'll take it in," John heard a young farmer saying +to the girl he sat with. "You don't want to hold it all night. We'll be +dancing again in a minute." + +The girl obeyed, and the young man left with two plates in his hands. +John noticed that Tilly had finished, and he offered to take her plate. +She gave it to him. "Be careful," she warned him. "Sally borrowed most +of them from the neighbors and wants to return them in good order." + +John chafed under the admonition as he rose with his plate and Tilly's +in either hand. He had, however, scarcely reached the door when, in +trying quickly to step out of the way of two girls who were approaching, +one of the plates and the goblet on it fell to the floor. John stood as +if paralyzed. Then he softly swore. Every one on the veranda stopped +talking and stared. What he would have done next John never knew, for +Tilly suddenly approached. + +"Never mind," she said, calmly. "Take the other one to the kitchen." + +Furious at himself and all the swirling, clattering, and chattering +company, John managed to make his way into the kitchen, where he +delivered the plate to a buxom negro woman at a big dish-pan full of hot +water. He saw Joel putting down some plates and glasses on a table near +at hand. Joel smiled in a friendly way. + +"I saw your little accident," he said. "I barely escaped the same thing +just now. A fellow has to be a regular bareback rider or a tight-rope +walker to get through this crowd with his arms full of glassware and +crockery." + +"No, I couldn't help it." John was conscious of a hot flow of blood to +his face, and a vague sense of gratitude. "I'm no good at this sort of +thing. I haven't been brought up to it." + +Joel seemed to have no reply ready, and the two willingly parted. John +found his chair by Tilly still unoccupied and sat down in it. Why didn't +she say something about the accident, he wondered. He decided to bring +it up himself, so ignorant was he of the ways of the new world to which +she had introduced him. + +"I'm sorry about those things I broke," he began, hurriedly. "It wasn't +my fault. Those girls came out all of a sudden and faced me. I had to +get out of their way, you see, or smash right into them. So I--" + +"I know. I saw it," Tilly interposed. "Never mind. Let it pass." + +"But I've got to fix it somehow," John blundered on. "Nobody shall lose +through me. I am able to pay for any damage I do. Tell me who they +belonged to and I'll send the owner a whole set of plates and goblets. I +might not match the ones I broke, but--" + +"Don't, don't think of that," Tilly urged, her pretty lips twitching +with almost maternal sympathy. "If you were to offer to pay it would +offend Sally." + +"Offend her? Why, in the name of common sense?" + +"I don't know, but it would hurt _me_--it would hurt _anybody_. It is of +no consequence." + +"But you talked differently before it happened," John insisted, his lip +hanging and quivering. "You said distinctly that the things were +borrowed and that Miss Sally wanted--" + +"Yes, but it is done now and the only thing is to forget it. Don't even +mention it to Sally." + +"Not mention it to her? Why not?" John's tongue was thick with the +mystery in which he was warmly floundering. + +"Because that would not be right--not according to--to custom." + +"Custom be--" John bit off the oath with exasperated teeth. "I don't +care a hill of beans what the custom is here in these backwoods. I want +to pay my way in this life. I laid a cigar down one day against a +fellow's hat, and burned a big hole in it. I bought him another and it +tickled him to death. It was the best hat in town, while his was an old +one, and--" + +"But this is different," Tilly pleaded. "Let it drop, please do. For my +sake don't say anything more about it. I'll explain what I mean some +other time." + +That had to suffice. There was more music and dancing and the game of +"Stealing partners" on the lawn. Tilly asked John if he wanted to play +the game, but he confessed that he did not know what it was like. Saying +that it would not look well for them to sit together so long, she led +him down to the grass, and they stood watching the big circle of +couples. It was very simple--far too simple to interest John. A +partnerless young man would dart across the ring, select the partner of +another, and they would merrily trip back to his "home" on the other +side. + +Seeing Tilly, a young man unknown to John came and "stole" her and drew +her into the circle. + +"Now let the girls steal!" a voice cried out, and several girls sped +across the ring after partners. A lively minx with blue eyes and flowing +golden hair danced up to John. "Come get in with me," she laughed. +"Tilly Whaley hasn't introduced you to any of us. It is a shame. You may +have heard Tilly mention me. I'm Jennie Webster." + +"No, I never heard of you before," John said, bluntly, as they settled +into their places in the ring. + +Jennie laughed in her small handkerchief. She even bent her golden head +to give vent to her amusement. + +"What is the matter?" John demanded, in slow irritation, his eyes on +Tilly, directly opposite with a young farmer whom he had once seen at +the Whaleys'. + +"Why, you are as funny as they all say you are," Jennie tittered. "I +heard you were rough and outspoken, but I didn't think you'd admit that +you never heard of _me_ before. Why, sir, I'll have you know that I'm +somebody, _I am_. You may bet your boots. I got the first prize for +butter at the fair last fall and my father got two blue ribbons on a +white pig--one on its neck and the other on its stumpy tail." + +John wondered if she was making sport of him, but soon decided that +there was no malice in the twinkling blue eyes. + +"There goes Joel Eperson," she said, laying her small hand on John's +arm. "He is not in the game. Watch Tilly-- What did I tell you? I knew +she would steal him. My, my! that couple are a wonder!" + +John saw Tilly leaving her partner and crossing the grass to Eperson. +"Come play," he heard her saying. "You've worked long enough for one +evening." + +John saw Tilly and Joel find a place opposite him. How his new hopes +drooped at the sheer sight of them! + +"You are living in her house; I guess you know about them," ran on +John's companion. + +"Know about them--know _what_ about them?" he demanded, all but +fiercely. + +"Huh!" ejaculated the girl. "Have you been so busy with your bricks and +mortar that you haven't heard that they have been sweethearts since they +were tiny tots? Why, even my mother and father always inquire, when I +get home from a party, whether Joel and Tilly got together? You see, few +folks sympathize with her hard-shell old daddy, and everybody loves +Joel--everybody, man, woman, and child. And I know why. It is because he +is so fine, noble, and constant. Some think--some few--that Tilly will +give in to her father and drop Joel, but take it from me--and I'm a +girl--she won't. She loves him--down deep she loves him, for no girl +could help it. She wouldn't be a true woman if she went back on +adoration like that. He is not handsome, but there is something in him +too sweet and good to talk about. Once we all were arguing at +Sunday-school whether anybody could actually forgive an enemy, and +nearly all of us agreed that we couldn't but that Joel Eperson could. +Wasn't that funny? When I talk to him I feel restful. If I was about to +do a bad thing and he spoke to me, I'd throw it up. He did once, but +never mind about that. It is too long to tell you now. But I'll +always--always love him for what he did and said right while I was +wavering." + +John now saw that Joel had given Tilly his arm and was leading her +across the grass to a rustic seat under an oak-tree. The circle of forms +and faces became blurred to John's sight. There was much laughter, much +darting to and fro across the ring, but John heard only the voice of +the little analyst at his elbow. + +"There they go for the second dose of soothing-syrup," she twittered. +"Old man Whaley doesn't know which side his bread is buttered on. By +trying to keep them apart he is only driving them together. 'Absence +makes the heart grow fonder,' and so does opposition. That pair is +lapping up stolen sweets to-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The game was breaking up. The couples were moving toward the house. John +was desperate enough to have shaken the unconscious tantalizer now on +his arm. He could think of nothing to say and didn't care what his +companion thought about his inattention. He was wondering why Martha +Jane Eperson had said what she had said, and why he had been so foolish +as to believe it. Perhaps she had a motive. Perhaps it was sarcasm born +in the knowledge of his presumption. For aught he knew, she might now be +laughing over his credulity. + +John was only a boy, and a crude one. Without excusing himself from his +companion, he left her at the steps and abruptly stalked away. He had +his choice of entering the crowded farm-house or sauntering about the +grounds. Taking a cigar from his pocket, he struck a match on the +door-step, lighted the cigar, and then turned toward the stables at one +side of the house. Here among the horses and vehicles he stood +reflecting gloomily, rebelliously. Across the lighted lawn he saw Joel +and Tilly still on the bench. How close they seemed to sit, one against +the other! The hot weight of rage again bore down on John's brain. He +forgot to smoke. His cigar died in his inert fingers. Again he wanted to +throttle his meek and placid rival. The man's sheer gentleness enraged +him, for it was a quality he himself did not possess, and till now had +denied. In the half-darkness he saw two young men come to a buggy not +far from him, take from under the seat a flask, and heard them joking as +they drank. + +"I knew you had your arm around her, you sly dog!" one said, "and I held +my horse in to give you a chance." + +"She is a little beauty, eh?" another voice said with a laugh. "She +nestled up against me like a sick kitten to a hot brick." + +The flask was emptied. It whistled as it was hurled against the barn, +and the two men went back to the house. What could Tilly and Joel be +saying? She had said to John that he and she should not be seen too long +together, and yet for the second time that evening she and Eperson had +sequestered themselves like that. John told himself that he had been a +fool to hope as he had done, and his rage and despair joined forces +within him. + +Presently he noticed that some of the young men were coming for their +buggies and driving them up to the veranda. Then he saw some couples +getting in and driving away. Still Joel and Tilly sat on the rustic +bench. Still John lurked and watched in the darkness. + +"Oh, brother, we must go now!" It was Martha Jane calling from the +steps. "I don't want to hurry you, but we really must be going." + +"Yes, yes, dear-- I'm coming!" and Joel and Tilly rose and arm in arm +slowly went to the house. A moment later Joel was coming for his buggy, +and John, fearing to be seen alone in the dark, quickly advanced by +another way to the veranda without meeting his rival. + +He found Tilly ready to go and looking for him. "I wondered where you +were," she said, softly. "We must be on the way." + +He went on the veranda for his hat, leaving her at the foot of the +steps. He joined her, the dead cigar in his mouth. He held out his arm. +She took it, started on, then paused suddenly. + +"Have you said good night to the Teasdales?" she asked. + +"No," he retorted, impatiently, even angrily, for Eperson stood near by, +hat in hand, extending a handkerchief to Tilly. + +"You dropped it on the grass," he said. "I found it just now." + +"Thank you," Tilly said, taking it and smiling sweetly. "Good night. +Remember what I told you." Then she turned back to John. "You must say +good night to them. They are rather particular, and will think it +strange if you don't. There they are in the hall, all three of them." + +He obeyed. How he got through it he never knew. He bore away with him a +blurred impression of the farmer's red face, too affectionate handclasp; +Mrs. Teasdale's fat and squatting movement as she silently and timidly +bowed; and Sally's gushing appreciation of his coming, and her regrets +at not having seen more of him through the evening. + +Joel and Martha Jane were getting into the buggy. The latter leaned over +a wheel to kiss Tilly. Joel raised his hat, and John found himself +imitating the salutation, and despising it. He gave his arm to Tilly and +they started home. The road ahead of them was dusty, and Joel's horse +stirred the powdered clay into a cloud as he trotted ahead of them. This +fact in itself angered John. He coughed and sniffed, but said nothing. + +"I hope you liked the party," Tilly began. Her hand rested on John's arm +in the same confiding way as formerly, but it stirred him no longer. + +"I thought it was awful, silly, stupid!" he declared. "I never knew that +grown-up people could act that way." + +"I'm sorry," Tilly sighed. "I was afraid you would not enjoy so many +strangers. It would not be natural for you to feel as much at home as +the rest. You see, they have been going together for years, and, +moreover, you said you had not been accustomed to such things." + +"No, and I have not missed anything," he threw back. + +She made no denial. Her hold on his arm had a caressing quality that +would be hard to define. She seemed to understand him better than he +understood himself. "Yes, I was afraid you wouldn't like it," she +rejoined, "for you are different from most persons. You are the +strangest man I ever knew--the very, very strangest. Your face is as +smooth as a boy's, and yet somehow you seem old in--in experience--sad +experience, too, I should think. You are rough on the outside, but I +know you are pure gold on the inside." + +"Pure gold, rubbish!" he sneered, inwardly. Had he not just heard a girl +say that Joel Eperson was the best man alive? What did a woman's opinion +amount to, anyway? And how could Tilly expect him to be such a fool as +to believe her when she had acted as she had that evening with another +man? The memory of this fired him afresh and he suddenly shook her hand +from his arm and with bowed head strode along. He was breathing now like +a beast of burden hard driven by pain. + +"What is the matter?" Tilly asked, blandly, although she knew full well +that she was responsible for his present mood, and, reaching out, she +took his arm again. He did not lift it into place, and her hand slid +down his wrist till his fingers were clasped by her pleading ones. + +"Don't be mad at me," she said, soothingly. "If you understood +everything you would not be." + +Understood everything? Did she mean now that her engagement to Eperson +would explain, justify all that had taken place? + +"I do understand," he said, aloud, his cheeks twitching, his lips tight, +his eyes gleaming. He had stopped short and now stood fairly panting, +facing her. + +"Oh, you don't--you don't!" she insisted. "Nobody knows, but myself and +Joel, how he feels. I have tried to do right by him, and once I thought +that in time I might feel otherwise, but it is impossible. I love him +dearly in a certain way, but it is not as a woman ought to feel toward +the one man in all the world for her--the one given by God Himself. Joel +loves me in that way, and I am very, very unhappy about it. I see--I +see--you thought to-night that he and I-- But never mind. I was only +trying to get him to take a brighter view, for he is very, very +dejected." + +"You mean to tell me, looking straight in my eyes," John cried--"you a +truthful girl--you mean to tell me that you don't love him?" + +Tilly, with eyes full to their brink with sincerity, and in a voice that +rang true to its maidenly depths, answered: "No, I do not love him +as--as a wife ought to love her husband. I've tried, but I can't." + +The moonlight seemed filled with darting arrows of bliss made as visible +as rockets against a black sky. John felt as if the vast earth were +rocking his fears to sleep. He took her hand and drew it into its place +on his arm. The ground seemed to fall away from each step he took as +they moved forward. + +"I see, I see," he heard himself saying; "then it doesn't make any +difference. Poor devil! _That's_ what ailed him, eh? No wonder! No +wonder!" + +Tilly's gentle pressure was on his arm and he was afraid she would feel +the wild throbs of his being, for, strong man that he was, he was as +much ashamed of them as of a secret sin. How could he open those +joy-tied lips of his and tell her how he felt--how he had felt since his +first sight of her? He tried to summon words that would be adequate, and +failed utterly. But Tilly knew. She seemed to gather a knowledge of his +emotions from the very moonlit silence that pervaded the fields and the +woods around them. + +Suddenly she began to quicken her step. "We must walk faster," she said, +sighing, as one in joyous slumber about to wake. "Mother and father may +hear the buggies passing and think we ought to be home earlier. You see, +it is Saturday night, and if I'm out after midnight father says it is +breaking the Sabbath and is angry." + +The house was still, save for a lamp burning in the hall, when they +arrived home. He helped her lock the front door, insisted on giving her +the lamp, and with a lighted match made his way up to his room. He had +not said good night to her. He remembered that with twinges of +self-contempt as he stood undressing in his room and heard Cavanaugh +snoring across the hall. Why had he overlooked it, he wondered. Why did +he have to be instructed on such matters like a little child learning to +walk, when they came so naturally to Tilly, to Joel Eperson and others? + +He frowned as he jerked his necktie and gave up the problem. He would +tell her when he saw her that he was sorry for the oversight. How could +he tell her that it was partly due to his dazed happiness over what she +had said about not loving Eperson? + +He tumbled into bed, but could not sleep for a long time. Cavanaugh +snored like the roar of a distant sawmill, but that didn't matter. The +events of the evening were unreeling in a series of mind-pictures filled +with lights and shadows and culminating in the blinding revelation of a +single fact--the fact that Joel Eperson had cause for his present gloom. +John knew that he himself was unlike the people he was meeting for the +first time in his life, and he was sure that he could never be as they +were, but he had come upon the marvelous belief that he and Tilly were +meant for each other. Somehow, by some intent of Fate, they were +destined to breast the world side by side, arm in arm, as they had +walked the dusty road that night. He was conscious of many stupid +shortcomings on his part, but she would overlook them. Indeed, she was +overlooking them already. Finally he slept, and, of all absurdities, he +dreamed of carrying bricks and mortar as a small, ragged boy for +Cavanaugh, who had just hired him for a few cents a day to see what +there was in him. Later he seemed to be telling his powdered and painted +mother of his success and displaying to her indifferent gaze the first +few cents Cavanaugh had ever paid him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +The next day being Sunday, the family rose an hour later than usual. +Cavanaugh came into John's room after the sun was well up in the sky and +found his young friend awake. + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," he jested. "Here you are flat on +your lazy back while that little last night's partner of yours is out +milking the cow and feeding the chickens. I saw her from my window just +now looking as fresh as a pink morning-glory wet with dew. Old Whaley +and his wife are hard masters even of their own child. I reckon Tilly +would love to lie and snooze after that late tilt of yours and hers, but +her folks don't allow it when there is work to be done. I don't want to +meddle, my boy, but take it from me for what it is worth, Tilly is the +kind of a girl to make a working-man a fine wife. Why? Well, because she +hasn't been raised with a gold spoon in her mouth, and a lot of fool +ideas about style, rank, and what not. She'd be industrious, saving, and +grateful for what her husband could give her. And you--well, I'm not +giving you taffy to tickle your vanity, but you'd lavish your last cent +on a wife of your choice. How do I know? Well, how do I know that mighty +nigh all you ever made--now, I'm going to speak plain--mighty nigh every +cent you ever made was lapped up by your ma and Jane Holder and that +poor little girl at your house? Huh! Don't I know that a big, strapping +fellow that will do all that for folks of--of that stripe will do even +more for the sweet little maid that leaves all her own kin to cleave +unto him?" + +"You don't know what you are talking about," John said from the pillow +which half hid his flushed face. + +"Well, maybe I don't," the contractor smiled benignly, "but you get up +and put on your best suit. We are all going to meeting to-day. You've +dodged that too often to help you along with old Whaley. He is wondering +where you stand, anyway, on these vital questions of man's duty to God +and His written law as Whaley reads it. Don't you forget about the way +he treated that son of his that tied up with a follower of the Pope. In +spite of his harsh ways Tilly loves her old daddy, and--and well, there +is no use of your rubbing the old hog's bristles the wrong way. They +might stick in your hand in the long run. You've talked too much to our +men on your line of free thought, I am thinking. I heard one say +yesterday that you claimed to be an out and out atheist. They all like +you, but they are members of some church or other and they were +scandalized to hear it. We are in a narrow, hidebound community up here +and we've got to watch where we step. Fellers like those will talk, and +what they say will be added to by others." + +"I won't keep my mouth shut for anybody," John said, firmly, as he got +up and began to dress. "I don't want to go to-day, but I will if you say +so." + +"Well, I _do_ say so," Cavanaugh answered. "And we will set out as soon +as the family does. I'm going to set, as usual, in the old man's Bible +class that comes before the regular discourse, though I can't say that I +get much profit out of it. I disagree with his interpretation of many +passages, but he'd crawl over the benches and have a fist fight with me +if I disputed his points. They say he is a regular devil when he is +mad. Church member though he is, he actually shot a man once, and it was +a wonder the chap didn't die. He carries a revolver. What do you think +of that for an active disciple of the great Prince of Peace?" + +"They are all that way," John said, warmly. "They are crooks and haven't +brains enough to see how crooked their reasoning is." + +Shortly after breakfast the three Whaleys started to church. Tilly +walked between her father and mother, and John and Cavanaugh followed +close behind. They found, on their arrival, a group of villagers, +mountaineers, and farmers loitering on the grass-plot in front of the +little building, but the Whaleys went straight in, and John and the +contractor did likewise. Cavanaugh went forward to the benches at the +front which were reserved for Whaley's Bible class. Eight or ten men and +women were already seated there, and they nodded appreciatively to him +and the Whaley family. John found himself quite alone on a bench near +the door. He saw Tilly and her mother chatting with some other women, +and Cavanaugh making himself quite at home as he shook hands with +various smiling members of the class. Only half an hour was to be given +to the class work and nearly all the students had arrived. John saw +Whaley open his worn and interlined Bible and then step back to a +bell-rope which hung down by the little white pulpit. He gave the rope a +single forceful jerk and the cast-iron bell on the roof creaked and +tapped lazily. That was a signal that the Bible class had begun its +session. + +Just now, to John's great discomfiture, Whaley, with his Bible in his +stubby hands, came down the aisle to him. + +"You can't hear back this far," Whaley said. "Move on up and join us." + +"I'd rather not," John stammered, trying to steady his eyes and voice in +his bewilderment. + +"Well, I can't see why. It certainly can't hurt you to hear us go +through the lesson, and you might learn a lot. Bible reading and study +is fairly sweeping broadcast over the country. Over in Dadeville they +have hired that woman blackboard teacher to come several hundred miles +and are paying five dollars a head for the course. I've read some of her +points in our Leaflet, and I'm here to tell you if she ever comes this +way I'll refute her, if they oust me for disorder. It would be my duty, +considering the light I have. Come on up." + +There was nothing else to do, for the entire class, with the exception +perhaps of Tilly, was looking toward him. John rose and followed the old +man up the aisle, and found Cavanaugh gravely and sympathetically making +space for him at his side. Tilly and her mother were just in front of +him. John could have bent forward and whispered in the girl's ear, had +he dared. The exercises began by a chapter being read, first a verse by +Whaley and then a verse in turn by each of the class. John was fairly +chilled by the horror of his predicament. It was plain that Whaley would +expect him to read aloud, and he determined that he would refuse. He +told himself that he would refuse if the whole silly bunch of fanatics +were infuriated by it. He had been forced into the class and he would be +forced no farther. As luck would have it, the book was handed to +Cavanaugh before it reached John, and the old man read in a clear, +confident tone the verse which had fallen to him. Then he started to +hand the Bible to John, but John shook his head firmly. + +"Pass it on to some one else," he said, almost aloud and with guttural +sullenness. "I won't do it." + +Then Cavanaugh displayed friendly diplomacy. "I'll read for my young +friend, if it is all right," he said. "Me and him have a lot of talks on +these same lines, but usually I do the reading." + +Whaley frowned and glared, but, being impatient with any delay, he said, +gruffly: "Well, well, go ahead. I don't know where Mr. Trott stands, +anyway. He is bound to see the light sooner or later, and then he won't +have to be begged to read the grandest Book the world ever saw, or be +slow about joining a class like this, either. As many of you know, with +pride, it is the best and biggest in the county, if not in the state." + +Cavanaugh proceeded to read the verse, and the book went over to Mrs. +Whaley and then to her daughter. And as Tilly read in her clear, +unruffled voice John was conscious of a certain twinge of shame for his +avoidance of a thing so simple as she made the act seem. + +The reading was concluded, and Whaley set in to analyze the text, line +by line. He would read a verse, and then ask the class what particular +significance it held to their understanding. Answers came rapidly from +all the class, and sometimes John noticed that, when all the others had +failed to grasp Whaley's particular version, he would call on Tilly to +reply and what she said always met with her father's approval, the +reason being that the girl had already gone over the chapter with her +parents at home. The lesson was concluded by a long-winded lecture from +Whaley, and then the bell was rung for the regular service. + +John failed to hear what the aged minister was saying, but he did note +that Whaley now and then called out, "Amen!" in deep, self-satisfying +tones. John could not keep his eyes from the back part of Tilly's head. +He worshiped her hair, the very ribbons of her simple straw hat, the +curve of her brave little shoulders. What a marvel she was in human +form! It was almost impossible to realize that only a few hours before +she had been alone with him, telling that dazzling story of her +inability to love another man. He wondered if he might walk home with +her. He was afraid not, and yet could not tell whence his fears came, +unless they were due to his vague sense of having opposed her father's +religion. + +When the service was over, however, the opportunity came. It might have +been brought about by deliberate design on the part of the contractor, +for Cavanaugh drew the husband and wife into conversation about the +sermon, and that threw Tilly and John together. The Whaleys seemed to +forget Tilly's existence, and John and she fell in behind the three. + +"I wondered what you were going to do when father went back after you," +Tilly said, with a smile. "I was afraid to look around." + +"What did you think when I refused to read in the class?" John inquired, +forcing a lifeless smile. + +"I hardly know," Tilly said, as she studied his face with bland +sincerity. "It almost frightened me. I was afraid father would forget +himself and storm out at you. But--but as for your reading out loud, of +course, if you really do not believe in the Bible and love it, you ought +not to read it in public. That would be sacrilege." + +"And do you believe in it?" he demanded, almost rebukingly. "Do you +believe that that Book is the actual word of some far-off God that no +living man ever saw with his eyes or heard speak with his ears?" + +"Yes," Tilly answered. "If I didn't believe it I'd be miserable. I can't +see how you can doubt the existence of God--how you can keep from +actually feeling His presence, especially when you are in trouble and +seriously need His help." + +John sneered. He loved Tilly with his whole being, but he despised her +belief. "I can tell you why I don't believe," he said, a billow of +feeling behind his words. "I believe if there were a God, that God would +have to be a God of love, power, and pity, and with my own eyes I've +seen-- I have told you about that little orphan girl at home, Dora +Boyles. She is a little, helpless, overworked rat without father or +mother, in the care of an aunt who is no earthly good--and is crazy +about men--crazy about clothes, cards, liquor, and dancing. That little +dirty scrap of a girl is a child of God, the same as those polite, +well-fed, well-dressed girls and boys we met last night, eh? Well, tell +me what is God doing for her? As for me, myself, as I look back on what +I went through among those haughty, hidebound people at Ridgeville, +before Sam Cavanaugh held out a helping hand-- Well, never mind about +that, but I know I've been my own God, and I never run across any other +except in the dreams of persons who get the best things of life and +don't care whether anybody else gets them or not." + +"You will think otherwise some day--you will _have_ to," was Tilly's +regretful ultimatum. "Someday you will need God so badly that you will +turn to Him. I did once, and was answered, too." + +"You don't mean it," John disputed, warmly. "No prayer was ever answered +by any God, on the earth or off of it." + +"Mine was," Tilly asseverated. "It was one night, and I was at home all +alone. Father had lost his temper at an election and--and wounded a man +in a dispute. Father was put in jail and mother hurried to him. The man +was bleeding to death--the doctors couldn't stop the flow of blood. You +can't imagine how I felt. I fell on my knees and prayed with all my soul +to God to save my father and the man he had shot. At two o'clock--oh, I +don't know how to express it!--at two o'clock I seemed to be lifted up +into something like light, but it wasn't that. It was something finer +and holier, but I knew, I knew that all was well. My mother came at +sunup. She said they had stopped the flowing blood at two +o'clock--exactly at two o'clock. My father was released the next day and +the man finally recovered." + +"Things like that happen once in a thousand times," John said, with an +indulgent smile, "and people say it is in answer to prayer." + +"But I know, for I _felt_ it," Tilly responded, simply, and she said no +more, for the three older persons had turned and were waiting for them +on the street corner. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +One morning a week later Cavanaugh mounted the scaffold on which John +was working. He held some letters in his hand. + +"That car of brick has been delayed," he announced. "It will be three +days before it can be delivered. The men won't like it, but we'll have +to shut down for that long, anyway." + +John frowned and swore, as he stood scraping his trowel on the edge of a +brick which he had just tapped into line. + +"Never mind; we needn't be idle--you and me, anyway," Cavanaugh said, +gently. "You heard about Mason & Trubel's storehouse being burned down +last week, didn't you? Well, the agents for the insurance company have +written me to come home and help adjust the loss. Some of the walls may +be usable in rebuilding, and they want me to be one of the arbitrators. +Now, there will be a lot of close figuring to do, and I want you to be +there. How about both of us going? There will be a fee for us that will +more than cover expenses, and the trip will do us good." + +"I'll go with you," John said. "When will you start?" + +"First train in the morning," was the reply, and the contractor went +about among the men, explaining the situation. + +The two friends arrived at Ridgeville the following morning at ten +o'clock and at once started for their homes. To John's surprise, at the +end of the first street Cavanaugh did not turn toward his home, as would +have been natural, but kept on in the direction John was to go. + +"You are out of your beat, aren't you?" John asked. + +"I am and I ain't," Cavanaugh smiled. "I want to show you something--a +little house and lot that I hold a mortgage on. You know the cottage I +built for Pete Carrol, this side of your mother's house? Well, he +couldn't pay for it and it is on my hands. He went West, you know, and +left all his furniture in it. I've had a rent-sign on it for two months, +but haven't had a single applicant for it. I'd like to take a peep at +it." + +The cottage was in quite an isolated spot, near the end of the street +railway, in full view of the lots containing shanties in which negroes +and the very poorest whites lived. Above the tree-tops, not far away, +could be seen the patched roof of John's ramshackle home. + +"I hid the key under the door-step," Cavanaugh said, as they entered the +small front gate, and, bending down, he secured it. Then he crossed the +tiny, newly painted front porch and unlocked and opened the door. + +There was a little hallway with rooms on each side of it, a tiny parlor +on the right which, on entering, they found neatly equipped with plain +oak furniture, and a rug or two on the floor, which was covered with +straw matting. They next entered the dining-room, which was furnished in +similar style. There was a small sideboard holding a modest supply of +table-linen, dishes, and glassware. + +"Pete's wife was awfully particular, and she left things in apple-pie +order," Cavanaugh said, as they went into the kitchen adjoining. This +room, too, was supplied with all necessary utensils, a neat stove and a +sink with running water. Next they saw the bedroom. It held a table +with a lamp on it, and an oak bedstead in neat order with unsoiled +pillows and white coverlet. There was a bureau with a wide plate-glass +mirror, also a wash-stand with a white ewer and basin. The floor was +covered with new matting. + +"A snug little nest, eh?" Cavanaugh asked, with a slow and rather +automatic smile. "Looks like somebody ought to rent it, cheap as I hold +it and ready furnished--only fifteen a month." + +"It is all right," John answered, indifferently. "You ought to rent it +in the fall, anyway, when business picks up." + +"I want to rent it by the time we finish the court-house, +anyway"--Cavanaugh continued to smile--"and I'd like to rent it to +somebody that would take care of it-- I mean somebody that I know about. +Gee! wouldn't this be a snug little nest for a pair of new-married +turtle-doves? Think of a fellow coming back from his day's work at night +to a cottage like this, with a little wife to meet him in a white bib +and tucker and a kiss and a glad smile?" + +John had a sudden flash of comprehension, and he flushed from head to +foot. His great mouth made a failure of a smile, and that he was pleased +Cavanaugh did not doubt. "You think you have a joke on me," John said. +"Well, well, go it, Sam! I'm game for a little thing like that." + +"You may call it a joke, but I don't," the contractor said, quite +seriously. "You see, I've got an ax to grind--two, in fact, for in the +first place I want to rent this house for enough to pay the taxes and +insurance, and in the next I want to tie you down to Ridgeville. I am +too old to move now, and I need you mighty bad. Say, you and I can +become partners before long." + +"Well, what has that got to do with your--your other damn foolishness?" +John's face was averted as he spoke. They were back in the bedroom now, +and he made a pretense of examining the new sash-cords of the window. He +drew one of the weights up in its hidden groove and lowered it again. He +had never before examined a detail of a building so minutely. He looked +closely at the paint on the mullions and searched for flaws in the +glass. + +"It has got this to do with it," Cavanaugh went on, now steadily and +without a vestige of his former smile. "I'm no fool, my boy. I know as +well as I stand here that you are not going to leave that sweet little +girl up there to do the drudgery for that irritable old hog and his +obedient wife. If you did I'd lose respect for you. You are making good +pay and you will make even better. In a little nook like this you could +make her as happy as the day is long. She could do all the housework and +not work a fourth as hard as she does now. Why, I saw her in the +corn-field the other day, toiling like an old-time slave with a heavy +hoe, while her rotten old daddy was in the house picking out passages in +the Bible to pin down some particular argument of his." + +"I guess--I guess--" John stammered, "that the--the _girl_ would have +something to say on the subject." + +"How _can_ she, in the name of all possessed"--Cavanaugh snorted and +laughed--"unless she is _asked_? I'm no fool. I know what two smudges of +red about the cheek-bones of a pretty girl mean when they never come in +sight till a big, hulking feller in overalls appears on the scene. I +know, too, that things have taken place that you haven't heard about. I +know that I've turned myself into a contractor of flesh and blood +instead of brick and mortar. Them old folks simply agreed one night, in +a talk with me, that I might run it. I told them I'd stand for you in +every way, and they-- Well, haven't you noticed for the last week that +they have slid off to bed early and left you and Tilly out under the +trees or on the porch, together? Well, that was my doings. The old man +was for having you come to him and state your intentions in plain words, +but I advised him against it. I told him that you could make a speech on +internal revenue, political economy, or any other big subject to an +audience a thousand strong, but that you'd fall down in an attempt to +tell a girl's daddy that you wanted to provide her grub and clothes. I +did have a big tussle, though, to keep one certain thing out of the +discussion, and that was your religion, or rather your lack of it. He +kept saying that he wanted to know what particular brand of theology +you'd impress on his daughter at your fireside. He said he never had +failed to see women go with their husbands sooner or later, and he was +afraid you hadn't been converted yet. However, I got him quiet on that +line. I told him, you see, that while you hadn't yet made an open +profession, I knew you well enough to be sure you'd end up all right and +make as good a citizen as any man I know." + +"You have heard about a certain fellow by the name of Eperson, haven't +you?" John asked, as he strove manfully to quench the glad lights in his +eyes. "Well, he and Tilly have been sweethearts ever since they were +children." + +"He has, but she hasn't." Cavanaugh emphasized the "he." "I know all +about it. He is as near dead as a man can be from disappointment. She +might have thought she cared for him, at one time, but when you came all +that was off. Now I'm going home to my old woman. Talking to you on +these lines makes me want to see her mighty bad. I feel younger, and +I'll bet she will look that way to me, too. But remember this, when we +get back to Cranston, sail right in and tell Tilly how you feel. She +knows, anyway, but you tell her straight out, like a man with a load of +hay to sell, and be done with it. I want to rent this house and I'm +going to do it." + +They were outside the cottage now. Cavanaugh had closed the door and was +on his knees, hiding the key under the step. John stood over him. + +"I wish you knew what you are talking about, Sam," he said, and it was +the first even indirect confession of the sacred tumult within him. +"I'll say that much. I wish--I wish it could be like you say it is. My +God! Sam, when I dare to think of it I go all to pieces. It is too good +to be true. Nothing has ever come my way that amounted to much in this +life. How could as big a thing as that be for me?" + +"Well, it just is." Cavanaugh stood up, his fine face working in +sympathy. "The Lord has fixed it that way, my boy. You have had a hard +time, but your day is dawning. And listen to me. Under your full joy you +are going to wake up into a gratitude to the Creator for His great +gifts. You've been bitter--so bitter, for one reason or another, that +you've denied even God's existence, but with a believing wife like Tilly +at your side, and with children to bring up right, you will be +different. You are just a boy, anyway--a great, big, awkward, stumbling +boy, but you are going to make a man, and a good one." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +They parted outside the little gate, agreeing to meet at the Square in +the afternoon, and John pursued his way homeward. The very ground seemed +to fall away from his feet as he put them down. His whole body felt like +an imponderable thing over which he had little control. The swelling joy +within him fairly choked him. + +"My God! My God!" he said several times, aloud. "Sam's a fool. Sam's a +fool. It can't be so. My Lord! how could it? And that little house. It +is a beauty and most women would like to run it and keep it in order. I +wonder if she would with me. I wonder." + +He found Dora under an apple-tree in the front yard, playing with some +rag dolls she had made from scraps of finery cast off by her aunt and +Mrs. Trott. A brick represented a table, and on it were arranged bits of +china for plates. Other pieces of make-believe furniture were +constructed of cardboard cut and bent into shape. She glanced up as he +swung open the gate, smiled a welcome from a soiled face, and wiped her +itching nose on the back of her slender hand. She did not rise or make +any sort of physical demonstration by way of greeting. + +"Where are the folks?" he asked, glancing into the house through the +open doorway. + +"Asleep, I reckon," she said, busy with the pink sash of one of her +legless ladies, the tinseled hat of which was pinned askew over a pair +of eyes formed of green beads. "They've only been home about an hour. +Aunt Jane is sick. Your ma said she fainted at the party and they all +thought she was dead for a while." + +"Those are not good dolls," John said, from the depths of his turbulent +joy. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll buy you a real wax one with +yellow hair and blue eyes. I saw one in a show-window as I came along +just now. It had on shoes and stockings and held a parasol in its little +hand." + +"All talk--all wind, hot air!" the child said, indifferently, and she +had evidently picked up the expressions from her elders. "A drummer--the +fellow with the striped shirts that is always whistling and sells +cloaks--he told me he was going to get me a doll and a baby-carriage, +but he never came back--changed his rowt, so Aunt Jane said. But this +doll's all right. Don't you think so, brother John?" + +"It will do till I get the other," he answered, and then he felt an +impulse that he had never felt before. He bent down and put his hand +caressingly on the almost matted hair, and she, not understanding, +impatiently shook it off and went on with her work, her mouth now full +of pins. + +There was a chair near by and he sat down in it, bending toward the +child. Seldom had his boyishness been so apparent. He wanted to open his +cramped heart to some one--why not to her? He wanted to hear his own +voice applauding the things that were leaping, singing, shouting in the +penetralia of his being. + +"Say, Dora," he began, clasping his warm hands between his knees, "can +you keep a secret?" + +"A secret?" she repeated, letting her doll lie for an instant in her +ragged lap and staring straight at him with growing interest. "Have you +got one--a real one?" + +He had. His smile and generous nod admitted it. "Can you keep your mouth +shut, that is what I want to know?" + +"Yes, yes!" she exclaimed, eagerly. "You ask Aunt Jane if I ever let +your ma know--let her know--but never mind. I can keep one. Try me--that +is if you are not kidding. I don't want any foolishness from you or +anybody else. Life is too short." + +"Well, listen!" he began, and something in the blaze of his eyes, the +tremolo of his erstwhile brusk voice, the warm look of his face, caught +and held her attention. "Did you ever think the day would come when I'd +go with a girl?" + +"Who, you?" Dora sniffed. "Now I _know_ you are kidding." + +"No, I'm not," he went on, riding the tide of his joyous self-emptying. +"I have done it often since I went to Cranston. I got acquainted with +one up there. Sam and I board with her pa and ma. You ought to see her, +Dora. She is all right--as nice and pretty as any stuck-up girl in this +town. Folks up there are different--very, very different from these down +here who don't know that you and I are alive. They are polite and decent +and civilized. Lord! somehow it makes me sick to think of living on +here, but I reckon I will. Say, did you ever notice the stunning little +cottage that Sam put up for Pete Carrol on the right-hand side of the +street as you go down? But never mind that. What would you think if I +was to tell you that before very long I might--" John was stalled. How +could he express by mere lip and tongue the transcendental thing which +so completely filled him? + +"What are you trying to get through yourself?" It was another of the +child's picked-up expressions, and she leaned toward him with a slow +leer of wonder. "What is your great secret?" + +"I was coming to it," he said, his words falling steadily now. "But you +mustn't tell it to a living soul. Kid, I'm thinking about getting +married." + +"Married--you? Huh!" Dora laughed incredulously as she plucked a pin +from her lips. "Why, you are too young! I heard your ma say it would be +ten years before you ever thought of it, even if you did then, you old +goody-goody poke of a boy." + +"I'm not too young." John flared up resentfully. "Sam says I'm not, and +he ought to know. It isn't settled yet, but it will be when I get back +up there. Sam says it is as good as settled now, and Sam is in a +position to know. Oh, she is all right, kid--believe me, she is a +wonder! I wish you could see her. She wouldn't turn up her nose at you +like some folks do around here. She is sweet and kind and gentle. They +are working her to death up there--her folks are, but all that will be +off when I bring her down here?" + +"Are you in earnest--really dead in earnest?" Dora asked, her face still +blank. + +"I am, and I don't want a word said about it. It is none of my mother's +business, you understand. She might try to pry into it and I want her to +keep out of it. This is my affair--mine and nobody's else. Sam knows it, +and you, but that's all." + +"I won't tell it," Dora, now convinced, declared earnestly. "I'll never +tell it till you let me. Have you got a picture of her?" + +"No, she's got some, but she never gave me one-- I never asked for it. +They are not good enough, nohow. They make her look too glum and pinched +about the eyes. To know what she is like, you have to see her and hear +her talk, or read the Bible out loud at prayer-time. She isn't big; her +hands and feet are nearly as little as yours are; but above all else in +the world, kid, she is good. The neighbors all love her. She waits on +them when they are sick. Away late at night not long ago a farmer come +to get her to go stay with his sick wife, and Tilly--that's her +name--was away till sunup, and then came home and milked the cows and +worked around the kitchen. She needs a long rest and she shall have it. +I'll see that she gets it, and plenty of clothes and pretty things, +besides. She is having an awfully hard time and that is one reason I +don't feel so bad about asking her to--to come with just me. I am going +into partnership with Sam later, and he and I will both make more money +and I'll buy things for her. She plays an organ. I'll get her one. She +shall tote the pocket-book, too. She has been skimped all her life. I +know. I've had my eyes open up there. She never buys a thing, even a bit +of ribbon, without her old daddy fingering it and calling her down for +spending money for show, and it was her money, too, bless your life! She +sells butter and eggs, takes them to the store herself. She has a little +garden-patch all her own, and I've seen her out in it even in the rain, +picking beans and peas to sell." + +"If she is like that"--Dora was precociously and pessimistically wise +for one so young, the fact being due, no doubt, to the tutelage of the +two worldly women who were her sole companions--"if she is like that, it +looks like some lazy feller would have got her before this. Aunt Jane +says it takes money and clothes and lots of things to keep any man +coming regular." + +"There is--there _was_ another fellow," John put in, unctuously, "but +she turned him down. Lord! Lord! it broke him all to pieces! She just +somehow couldn't tie to him. She told me so out of her own mouth." + +"What is she like?" Dora then demanded. "What does she look like?" + +"Don't ask me," John smiled. "I can't tell you. When we walk together +she strikes me about here," his hand on his left shoulder. "She has blue +eyes, brown wavy hair, a pretty mouth, and a nose with a cute little +tilt to it. There are bits of brown freckles on her wrists and cheeks, +but they don't matter. If anything, I like them. I wouldn't rub them +off. Folks don't say she is pretty--even Sam don't; but why I can't see, +for she is simply stunning, and you'll say so, kid, when you see her." + +"Well, I won't tell-- I won't tell," Dora promised, returning with +lowered interest to her rag things after the flight with him into his +empyrean. + +Here a voice sounded from the window of Mrs. Trott's room up-stairs. + +"Dora, is that John down there?" + +"Yes'm. He's just got back." + +"Well, tell him to come up here right away." + +The order did not need repeating. John stood up, the old practical frown +settling on his face. "I wonder what the ---- she wants?" he growled, +with fierce emphasis on the omitted word. "I thought she was asleep." + +"Come on up, John; I want to see you," Mrs. Trott's querulous voice rang +out again, and without replying he turned away. He wore his best suit of +clothes, had recently shaved the fuzz from his face, and looked rather +more manly than formerly as he strode through the doorway and up the +rickety old stairs. Reaching the upper floor, he turned into his +mother's room, unceremoniously pushing the door open and standing on the +threshold, just as Mrs. Trott, in a soiled wrapper, was getting back +into bed after having been to the window. Her hair was in curl-papers, +and the little bristling tufts gave to her face an uncouth, bleak look +and left her penciled brows to a barren waste of forehead. Her cheeks +were still rouged from the night before. A brazen necklace, recently +doffed, had left dark streaks on her powdered bust. + +"Why didn't you come on in?" Mrs. Trott demanded, irritably. "What did +you sit down there and talk with that brat for?" + +"Oh, I don't know. What do you want?" He frowned in his turn, and all +but growled. + +Mrs. Trott kicked the light covering down over her feet and wadded the +pillow so that her head was raised higher. "I've been short of money +ever since you went off," she explained, pettishly. "When you were here +you always had some on Saturday nights, but after you went off you +didn't send as much and Jane and I both got in a hole." + +"Well, what do you want now?" he asked. "How much?" + +"I'll have to think," Mrs. Trott said. "I borrowed five from Jane +yesterday. We were playing a little game and I lost. I was about to drop +out when Jane backed me. I lost again. My luck was against me, and her, +too. Jane needs the five. She is sick and will have to have a doctor. +You know they insist on cash--they won't come here, the silly fools, +unless you shake the money in their faces, though they run the accounts +of other people for years on a stretch." + +"I haven't got that much with me," he gave in, wearily, "but I'm going +to the bank after dinner and will get it." + +"How much have you got there?" Mrs. Trott inquired. + +"That's _my_ business, not yours," he said, with an oath, for under +that roof it had always seemed natural for him to swear. "And don't you +be nosing into my business, either. You went there once and tried to get +money on my name, but don't you do it again. I've turned over a new +leaf. I have to. You throw money away like water, on cards, whisky, +beer, and what not. I can't keep that up, and I won't. I have to draw +the line somewhere." + +She raised her head a little higher and fixed her eyes, in their puffy +sockets, on him in a sort of groping wonder. + +"Why, what has got into you?" she asked, stupidly, and all at once he +seemed older to her, older and more dignified, more business-like, more +like his dead father, to whom she had been flagrantly untrue. + +"Common sense, I reckon," he jerked out. "If I've been a fool I don't +always have to stay one. I'm going to need money--for myself, for my +_own_ self, do you understand? I--I don't intend to live on here always, +either. I'll be of age before long. I've thought it all over. I'm +willing to set aside a reasonable amount to help you along, but I'm done +with these big drafts on me." + +"John, what ails you?" There was a touch of shrinking fear in the almost +childish appeal. "You have never talked like this before." + +"Well, I might as well begin," he sniffed. "You have to be told. I've +seen how other folks live away from here, and I want a change. I'm sick +of it all--you and Jane and the gang you hang out with." + +"John Trott," his mother gasped, "you sha'n't talk to me this way. I +won't stand it." + +"Well, then, think it all over," he answered. "I know my business. You +can look out for yours. I know when I've had enough, and I _have_ had +enough." + +He turned and left her. She heard him in his room, the sordid cubbyhole +he had occupied since he was a child, and somehow now she pictured its +narrow confines and condition as being unsuited to the new and +unaccountable dignity into which he had grown in his short absence. What +could it mean? What? + +She got up, slid her silk-dressed feet into a dainty pair of black-satin +slippers, drew her wrapper about her, and went into Jane Holder's +darkened room. + +"Are you asleep, Jane?" she inquired, half timidly. + +"How could I be, with you yelling out of your window to John at the top +of your lungs?" Jane turned on her side as she answered. "Then it was +wow-wow-wow! in your room after he came up. Oh, I'm sick, sick, sick! +You let that sneaking Kelly mix those last drinks on me. I heard you +snickering when he did it." + +"Never mind; it will go off," Mrs. Trott said, and she sat down on the +edge of the bed. "It always does. Listen to me, Jane. Something has +happened to John." + +"Happened? What do you mean?" Jane softly moaned and gagged, her hand at +her thin throat. + +"Why, I don't know! That's what I want to see you about. Somebody must +have been meddling--talking to him. He has a queer look in the eyes. He +fairly glared at me and spoke to me-- Well, he never did the like +before. I was--was actually afraid of him. It looked to me once as if he +was going to pounce on me. Do you remember how Judge Manis talked to us +the day he remitted our fine, dismissed the court, and talked to us in +private?" + +"My God! woman," Jane groaned, desperately, "what are you--" + +"John looked and talked like the judge did," Mrs. Trott ran on, with a +little impatient wave of her hand. "I was glad he went to his room. +There is no telling what he would have said about us both. Somebody has +been meddling, I tell you, putting notions in the boy's head. Oh, he has +changed--changed!" + +"Spoiled, by that new job, I reckon," Jane Holder whined. "The new +outfit Sam Cavanaugh gave him has stuck him up. Boys turn like that all +of a sudden when they reach the gosling stage. He has been dreamy all +his life, and he is getting his eyes open and thinks he is the whole +show. You will have to put up with it, that's all." + +"I don't know what to make of it-- I don't, I don't!" Mrs. Trott stood +up, sighed heavily, yawned, and left the room. Outside she met Dora +coming from John's room. + +"I asked him what he wanted for dinner," the child remarked, "but he +said he wasn't going to eat here. He's going down to the +restaurant--said he didn't want me to cook and drudge for him. He is +funny, Mrs. Trott. He is not one bit like he used to be." + +"I don't care where he eats," Mrs. Trott answered, wearily. "We haven't +much in the safe, anyway. Is the flour all gone?" + +"Yes'm, and the coffee and bacon. I used the last sprinkling of flour +for the batter-cakes yesterday." + +"Well, stop the grocery-wagon the next time it goes by," Mrs. Trott +concluded. "Tell the boy I'll have that money for him to-day. You left a +great litter out in the yard. Go clean it up. If you have to play, play +in the back yard. People passing will talk about the way you look." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +That night at the supper-table Cavanaugh took his wife into his +confidence and told her of the love-affair which was culminating in such +a satisfactory way to him as well as to John. "You see," he said, "when +it first flared up between them, I was dead afraid that the boy might +settle up there, or move away, and I'd lose him as a future partner, and +a good one at that, but I clinched all that to-day." Cavanaugh laughed +slyly as he told of the Carrol cottage and how pleased John had been +with it. The old man talked at considerable length, but suddenly noticed +that his wife, seated in the lamplight across the table, had not uttered +a word, which struck him as being truly remarkable. Of all things in the +dull routine of her life, engagements and weddings of young persons +hitherto had interested her most. + +"Well, well," the contractor said, suddenly. "What do you think of it? +You don't, somehow, look glad. I always thought you liked John, and all +this time I've been thinking how tickled you'd be to hear about him and +his girl." + +Mrs. Cavanaugh blinked. Her face was very grave, her fat chin set firm +in accordance with her resolute jaws. + +"Why didn't you write me about it, along with all the rest of the stuff +you had to say?" she asked, in a tone of actual accusation. "This is the +first intimation to me of it." + +"Well, for one thing I didn't feel at liberty to do it." Cavanaugh +floundered in his slow surprise. "The two were just sorter getting under +headway, as you might say, and nothing had been decided on positively. I +don't think the final word has been said yet, either, and--" + +"Oh, then there is still time-- I mean--" But Mrs. Cavanaugh, avoiding +her husband's blank stare, suddenly broke off what she was saying and +sat gazing fixedly into her coffee-cup. + +"Oh, there will be no slip between the lip and the dipper in this case, +if that's what is bothering you," the contractor said. "They will get +married now, for they are both simply crazy about each other." + +"Listen to me, Sam Cavanaugh," Mrs. Cavanaugh threw out quickly. "I want +to get down to the rock bottom of this thing without any ifs and ands. I +want to know one thing. It may make you mad, because you said once that +I was meddling in John's business, but I want to know if--if them folks +up there--the girl's daddy and mammy, and the girl herself--I want to +know if they know about--about John's mother and Jane Holder, +and--and--" + +"Make me mad?" Cavanaugh actually got up, drew his chair out, and +grasped the back of it angrily. "You knew it would make me mad. You have +always made me mad by fetching that poor, unsuspecting boy into the +dirty ways of them two women. He's never had his eyes open about that, +nohow. He is too pure-minded, too busy with his work, too dreamy to stop +and compare his folks, bad as they are, with others. But if you think +that I am going to take up a bucketful of slime--and other folks' slime +at that--and dash it into the blooming faces of that happy, innocent +pair of sweethearts, you don't know me. A catty old maid would go a +thousand miles to get a chance to do it, but no man with sound blood in +his veins and a heart in his chest would do it for high pay. You ought +to be ashamed of yourself for thinking of it--even for letting it dirty +your mind for a minute." + +Mrs. Cavanaugh, unconvinced and with a ponderous shrug, began to pile +the dishes together. "You are a man and can't understand," she said. +"Any woman would know what I mean." + +"And she'd know _more_ than you mean, too, if she was a woman," Samuel +sneered, testily. + +His wife received this in dead silence. She pushed her gold-rimmed +spectacles up into her flowsy gray hair and let them rest there, and, as +if regretful of his heat, Cavanaugh added, more gently, "It is a pity +for you and me to fly up like this when I've just got home." + +"You and _me_?" she answered, mildly and with a tantalizing smile. "Huh! +how high do you think _I_ flew, Sam Cavanaugh? I've certainly been on a +dead level, but you went over the church steeples like a hot-air balloon +in a wind-storm. I'm on the ground, flat-footed, and I'm going to stay +on it. I look beyond the end of my nose, and you don't, that's all. You +can build houses, but you can't start families out right in a town like +this one. Now listen to me. What do you think that poor girl will do in +Pete Carrol's house all by herself? Who will go to see her? What church +will she attend? What will she do--in the name of all possessed, what +will she do with her mother-in-law?" + +Cavanaugh, as he sat down again, slid lower into defeat than he had been +for many a day. "Listen to me," he began, resting his folded hands on +the table and clearing his throat, for his voice was husky. "Now you +have hit on something, and I'm going to be plain about it. I don't +often speak about my terrible struggles over spiritual matters and the +things I sometimes have to settle between me and my Maker, but I'm going +to admit that I did let all that business bother me at first. I got so +keyed up over it up there at Cranston that I couldn't hardly think of +anything else for quite a while. I had private talks with this Bible +student and that in a roundabout way to see if I couldn't arrive at a +decision, but couldn't seem to get anywhere. They all said the clean +must be kept away from the unclean--that you couldn't handle manure +without smelling of it, and that goats stink and cows don't. But one +night, while I was lying in my hot bed, unable to doze off, and +thinking--thinking whether I ought to tell that hard-faced old +hypocrite, Whaley, the thing that I was sure would kill poor John's +chances to get his first happiness in his own little cottage--I was +lying there, I say, when the thought come to me, as sudden as a streak +of lightning, that an all-wise God created Liz Trott and Jane Holder and +permitted temptation to meet them. The same God made John's daddy and +let him go to his grave with a lowered head. The same Power fetched John +into the world in that joint of hell over there and put one of the +soundest heads on his shoulders that I ever run across. The same Power +caused me to see the boy loafing about town and shooting craps with the +negroes, and induced me to hire him. I never regretted it. I love to see +him climb as much as if he was my own flesh and blood, and--and I simply +love the little hard-working girl he has picked out. All that flashed on +me, and I got up and prayed. Right there I laid the whole thing before +God, and something seemed to tell me that Jesus was right when he said +we must first get the beam out of our eyes before using a spy-glass on +the eyes of others. That was enough for me. The subject hasn't bothered +me since. Them folks up there at Cranston will never hear about Liz +Trott and her doings from me." + +Mrs. Cavanaugh shrugged again. She went for her dish-pan and began to +put the dishes into the hot water it contained. + +"Well, what have you got to say?" her husband demanded. + +"You and me," she replied, gingerly testing the heat of the water with +her finger-tips, "never could agree on one thing. You contend that God +uses wrong for a purpose, but I say He has nothing to do with it. Say, +Sam, look away back to our own wedding. When you fetched me here, your +ma and pa gave us a big infare, and all the kin from everywhere was +invited, and come, too, with presents and good things to eat, and no end +of nice folks called to see me. I was proud. I wrote back home all about +it and mentioned the names of all of them. I told them about the big, +rich river-bottom farm your uncle Ted owned and begged us to visit. I +told them about the deputy sheriff that was your cousin and was such a +brave man in the White-cap raids. I told them to hurry on my church +letter, that the Methodists was begging me to join them. I told them a +lot more, but I want you to stop and think what that poor child up there +in Tennessee will have to write back home, and stop and think how she +herself is going to feel when she learns the full truth. Sam Cavanaugh, +outside of me--and I'm too old to count--I don't believe a single woman +will go to see her--not one. They are all like sheep and have to have a +leader. Even the fellows that work with John won't send their wives; +even if they did ask them, the women wouldn't go." + +Cavanaugh's shaggy head sank lower over his inert hands. His lower lip +hung as if torn by pain from its fellow. A deep shadow lay in the kindly +eyes beneath the heavy brows now lowering in grim perplexity. + +"I never thought of all that." He all but winced as he spoke. "That sort +o' puts the shoe on the other foot, doesn't it? Poor little Tilly! It +will be rough on her, won't it?" + +The conversation rested there. Cavanaugh bore the new phase of his +dilemma out to the front porch, where he sat down by himself and +pondered deeply. Now he would utter an ejaculation as if some thought +had stabbed him to the quick; again he would fervently mutter snatches +of prayers for light, for mercy. Were his prayers answered? He wondered, +and reasonably, too, for, else, why the sudden and soothing appearance +of his wife with that calm, far-reaching ultimatum, as she seated +herself by his side and put her hand gently on his knee? + +"I've thought it over, Sam," she said, as smoothly as the flowing of +deep water. "There is nothing else to be done and you are not to blame. +We will let the young folks come and we'll leave them in the hands of +God. As I see it, that is our duty." + +Cavanaugh choked down his glad emotion, reached out, took her crinkled +hand in his, and pressed it. "Yes, yes, we'll do that," he agreed, "and +we'll hope for the best--we'll pray for the best. God bless them--they +shall have their little home, and I'll do all I can to help them." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Shortly after the return of Cavanaugh and John to their work on the +court-house, John's fate was permanently decided. His chats with Tilly +took place every evening, either on the veranda, in the yard, or in +strolls along the mountain roads. One warm evening they had seated +themselves on a log on a lonely road on a hillside. Below them in the +twilight loomed up the hamlet with its lights and slow, blue smoke from +the chimney-tops. In the distance a dog was barking and a farmer calling +to his hogs. A church-bell was clanging for prayer-meeting. They sat +close together. She had a fan, and, as the mosquitoes were troublesome, +he had taken the fan and, novice that he was, he was awkwardly beating +them away. + +"Don't bother," she said. "You are tired after your day's work," and +with a pretty air of male management she took the fan and fanned his +flushed face. He was perspiring from the walk up the hill, and with her +own dainty handkerchief she wiped his broad, tanned brow. He had never +kissed her. He had hardly dared even to think of it, but he kissed her +now. He was afraid she would rise resentfully and start for home, but +she took it as a matter of course and allowed him to draw her head to +his shoulder. For half an hour, in sheer bliss, he was unable to speak, +and Tilly seemed to understand. When he recovered his voice it occurred +to him that he must now ask her to be his wife, but he found himself +unable to formulate the prodigious thing in words. However, he +accomplished it indirectly, for he began telling her about the cottage +Pete Carrol had left so neatly furnished, and which Cavanaugh wanted him +to rent. Tilly listened as eagerly as a petted child who knows its +privileges. She frankly asked about the furniture, the curtains, the +rugs, the dishes, and, as he held his cheek against hers, he told her +everything he could think of in regard to the place. Suddenly she +laughed out happily, teasingly. + +"You haven't even asked me to marry you," she said, voluntarily kissing +him and then playfully stroking his lips with her soft, pliant fingers. +"You are very strange, John. I always know what you feel--what you +think--but you don't say them right out." + +"I was afraid," he suddenly confessed. "I've been afraid all +along--afraid of something, I don't know what, but afraid you'd refuse +me--as--as you did Joel Eperson." + +"Refuse you!" kissing him again, and nestling back into his arms. "How +could you have thought that?" + +"I don't know--but _will_ you--_will_ you?" he asked. "Will you say it +to-night in plain words, Tilly? Will you be my wife, and go to +Ridgeville with me and live in that little house?" + +"How could you doubt it?" she asked, raising her head and looking at him +trustfully and admiringly. + +"I don't know, but I was afraid," he returned. "Somehow I can't feel +that such a big thing could come my way. I want you--God knows I want +you, but somehow you seem miles and miles above me. You know so much +that I don't know. Every day it seems to me you teach me something I +never knew before but--but if you will come with me I'll do everything +in my power to make you happy. Will you?" + +"Of course I will!" And Tilly kissed him again, and held him at +arm's-length for an instant and looked at him proudly. "I am the one +that ought to have been afraid," she smiled. "Men pass along and make +love to country girls and never see them again. In fact, Sally Teasdale +said the other day to me--she is mad on account of me and Joel--she said +that you were just a flirt, amusing yourself while you are here. Those +are the things a girl has to put up with, John. Sally had her eyes on +you at first. She is dying to get married. She thought you were handsome +and wonderful in every way till you got to going with me, and now she +sniffs and turns up her nose and tries to make me doubt you." + +"I never liked her, and she knew it," John said. "But let's not talk +about her or any one else. There is no one I care a pin about except you +and Sam and his wife." + +"Nobody else--nobody?" Tilly asked, slowly. "Why, you told me once that +your mother is living, that she is a widow and that you help take care +of her!" + +Here John's stiff fingers relaxed in their clasp on Tilly's small hand, +and with averted face he sat still, silent, and gloomily reminiscent. + +Tilly edged herself around till her eyes met his again. "Yes, I knew +your mother was living, John," she went on, "and I'm going to confess +something. I'm going to confess that I've been worrying more since you +got back from your home than I did before. John, I thought if you really +intended to ask me to marry you, that you would tell your mother about +it, and that you would naturally tell me what she said--that is, if she +was willing for you to marry me. But as you have never mentioned her +since you got back, I thought--well, I thought she might have other +plans for you and that you didn't want to hurt my feelings by telling me +what she said." + +John stared helplessly for an instant; then he shrugged his great +shoulders. "She has got nothing to do with me or what I do," he blurted +out. "She goes her way and I go mine." + +"But surely," Tilly said, groping for his meaning, "she knows about +me--you have told her--" + +"No," John broke in, in a mood like that of his old impatience over work +that was badly done by his assistants, "I haven't told her, and what is +more, I shall not tell her. It is no business of hers. I did tell her +that from now on I'd not supply her with as much money as I have been +doing, but I didn't tell her why. She throws money away--she burns it in +solid wads. She is--is foolish. She is not like your mother or any of +these plain, sensible folks up here. She is on the go all the time, to +parties, dances, and what not." + +"I see," Tilly said, in a mystified tone. "Then she must be young. How +old is she, John?" + +"I don't know; I haven't the least idea," was John's prompt reply. "Let +me think. Seems to me I heard Jane Holder say she was very young when I +was born. That would put her at, well, near forty. But what does that +matter? I don't care anything about her or her age." + +"John, you speak so strangely," Tilly intoned, reproachfully. "You +pretend that you don't love her. Why, I'll love her always and with all +my heart if for nothing else than that she is your mother." + +"Rubbish!" John sniffed. "You won't love her; you won't even like her. I +tell you she is--is different from what you think. She is--is giddy, +silly, complaining, quarrelsome--up all hours of the night and asleep +all day or moping about with bloated eyes." + +"I see. She is fond of society," Tilly returned, with a little +self-deprecating sigh. "Ridgeville is a rather big town and there must +be plenty of women like her there. I won't blame her for that. I shall +love her, and I shall make her love me, too, if I possibly can. She will +be old some day and she will need us both." + +For some reason inexplicable to him, John was impatient with the trend +of the talk. He was vaguely angry, and yet was trying to curb the +impulse. For the first time he was finding Tilly unreasonable. Since the +very inception of the plan to marry Tilly and reside in the little +cottage he had pictured himself and her as being completely cut off from +his old life. Since his visit to his home the sheer thought of the +sordid old house and its inmates had jarred on him to the point of +repulsiveness. He had learned to like the orderly simplicity of the +circle in which Tilly had her being, and to wish that his might have +been like unto it. + +It was now time to return home, and they started back. Tilly hung +lovingly on his arm. "We sha'n't quarrel about your mother," she said, +soothingly. "I shall win her love if I can, and if I can't it won't be +my fault. I am a plain, home-loving person, though, and she may not take +to me at all. I'd like to help that little girl Dora, too. You say she +can't read or write. I could teach her." + +Here John's interest was roused. He bent toward Tilly's upturned face. +"That would be nice," he said. "The poor little rat needs something of +the sort. Yes, we must, between us, do something for that kid. She has +the making of a fine woman in her." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +The court-house was finished, even to the last touches of putting on the +brass locks and window-fastenings. The commissioners formerly accepted +the building as meeting with all the contracted requirements, and a +large check was handed to Cavanaugh by the Ordinary of the county. + +Cavanaugh was in high feather for several reasons, the main one being +that the whole affair was to be capped by a wedding at the farm-house. +Cavanaugh had been expecting his wife to come up, but had a letter +saying that she was actually in bed with rheumatism and unable to make +the journey. + +Only the most intimate friends and relatives of the family were invited, +and on the evening of the wedding they began to arrive shortly after +sunset in buggies, wagons, and on horseback. Cavanaugh, who had dubbed +himself as "the best man," was the busiest person about the house. He +met all the guests, showed them where to put their horses and where to +sit in the parlor, which was filled with a motley collection of borrowed +chairs from cherry-colored rockers of the latest tawdry design to +straight-backed, unpainted relics of Cherokee days with concave, +split-oak or rawhide bottoms. + +With his usual stinginess and contempt of show, Whaley had allowed his +daughter little for her trousseau, and her apparel was most simple, and +so scant that her small trunk was scarcely filled. As they were to take +a train immediately after the wedding supper, she wore a plain +traveling-dress of dark gray which made her look as demure as a young +Quakeress. As for John, he had considered his new suit as good enough +and under Cavanaugh's advice had not bought another. + +"I'll tell you one thing you've got to do," Cavanaugh said to him as he +was tying John's cravat in John's room before the ceremony, "you've just +got to stand up straighter. Here lately, when you are with Tilly, you +hump yourself over, or sag down with one leg crooked like you was +ashamed of being tall. If there is a time in a fellow's life when he +ought to stand straight and look folks square in the eyes it is when +he's having the cheek to take to himself a sweet young bride. Stand up, +throw your shoulders back, and let them all know that you've got a job +before you and that you are going to do your level best to put it +through." + +"Give me a danger-sign if you see me making any breaks," John smiled. "I +do feel shaky and weak-kneed and I might have folded up like a +pocket-rule if you hadn't cautioned me." + +John went down and mingled with the guests before Tilly joined them. He +was near the door when Martha Jane Eperson came in, accompanied by her +mother, who went at once to a seat proffered by Cavanaugh, leaving her +daughter with John, to whom she had barely nodded. + +"You must excuse my mother," Martha Jane said, plaintively, as she shook +hands with John. "She is very unhappy over the way Joel is taking it. He +simply could not come to-night." + +"I understand, and I am awfully sorry," John contrived to say. + +"Oh, but you can't understand, Mr. Trott," the girl protested. "You +don't know my poor, dear brother as we do. This thing is actually +killing him. He is a mere shadow of his old self. You see, he and Tilly +were very dear to each other until you came. I don't blame Tilly; my +mother doesn't, either. She has the right to decide for herself; but +poor Joel! He simply allowed himself to love Tilly all along till this +thing came like death itself, or worse. He is very manly about it, +though. Don't understand me otherwise. I think he intended to come +to-night till almost the last minute, and then decided not to do it. I +watched him through the window as he hitched the horse to the buggy for +us, and I broke down and cried." + +Some others were entering, and Martha Jane, with a little parting nod, +moved on to a place by her mother's side. As for John, he could not give +much thought to his defeated rival, for a commotion in the room +indicated that the bride was descending the steps. She did not, however, +come into the parlor just then, but turned into the sitting-room +opposite. + +"Come"--Cavanaugh came and touched John on the arm--"the preacher is in +there with Tilly. He may want to give you both a few lessons on what to +do and say." + +It was the old minister whom John had heard preach, and he stood +stroking Tilly's hand in a paternal way. He paused and greeted John with +rather cold formality. "I hope you realize the great prize you have won, +my young brother," he said. "I've known this sweet child a long time and +love her as if she were my own." + +John was chagrined beyond measure, for he found his tongue an unusable +appendage. He felt the blood rush in a flood to his face. He stammered +out something, he knew not what, and stood fumbling his hands. He +disliked the man and his profession, and could have told him so easier +than to have uttered some trivial insincerity even on that occasion. +John's attitude of sheer helplessness touched Tilly. She put her hand on +his arm and smiled up in his face. It was as if she were saying, "I +understand, and it is all right." + +"Where is your father?" the minister asked of Tilly. "He must give the +bride away." + +"He refuses to do it," Tilly informed him. "He says it is a silly, new +style, and he doesn't believe in it." + +"Well, Mr. Trott," the old man said, still distantly, "you will have to +bring her in on your arm after I get to my place at the end of the room. +I never marry with a ring. That belongs to the Episcopalian service. +Now"--looking at his watch--"it is about time." + +He walked from the room, leaving John and Tilly alone now, standing +ready, arm in arm. John had not seen her in her new hat and dress +before, and somehow now she seemed the same and yet not exactly the same +Tilly who had worn such plain frocks in her work about the house. A +chill of suspended delight was on him. It seemed a dream of some +transcendental event, worked through the alchemy of love. He could not +have uttered a word had he tried. How could she look so placid, so +fearless, while the very earth seemed unstable under his feet, the skies +ready to drop further glories about him and her? + +Cavanaugh suddenly thrust his head in at the door. "The parson is +ready," he called out, with a laugh swelling with expectancy. "He says +send you in. That bunch in there is crazy to see the bride. I tried to +get somebody to play a march on the organ, but nobody is able. Now move +along. Stand up straight, John. My Lord! you are not a jack-knife! Lift +your feet! Quit sliding them along! Look how Tilly walks--as light and +dainty as a pigeon on a clean barn floor." + +Tilly laughed almost merrily, but John felt the far-reaching gravity of +the moment too deeply even to smile. He wondered how he could meet the +curious faces packed together in the adjoining room. His whole frame was +in a tremor, but he was sure that Tilly's hand and wrist on his arm were +as steady as they had ever been. He was seeing her from a new angle, and +admired her more than ever. + +"Come on," she said, simply, and she it was who led into the parlor. + +It was soon over. The minister kept them standing before him only a few +minutes. The women pressed forward to kiss the bride, and John found +himself quite ignored. His place was by her side at that moment, surely, +but, blind to custom, as usual, he extricated himself from the throng +and joined Cavanaugh in the hall. + +"What are you doing here?" the contractor demanded, as he shook hands +warmly and congratulated him. "They will expect you in there with the +bride. I know that is where I stayed when I went through it." + +"I am all right here," John replied, doggedly. "I don't want to talk to +all that mob." + +At this juncture Whaley appeared--Whaley, of all others. He was chewing +tobacco and nonchalantly wiped his lips on a clean, folded handkerchief. +John felt more than he had ever felt before the man's intuitive dislike +for him, and it was significant now that Whaley should address Cavanaugh +rather than him. + +"I'm sorry you are going off," he said. "I've had some pretty fair talks +with you off and on, though we are still wide apart on doctrine. Do you +know a man like me can learn to handle his own theories by arguing even +with a fellow that lies down at every point, as you'll have to admit +you've done time after time." + +"That's so, but this is a wedding," Cavanaugh smiled, "and I'm here to +tell you, old horse, that this young man is going to make you proud some +day." + +"We'll hope so--we'll hope so." Whaley frowned till his heavy brows +clashed. "I'm relying on your opinion. You've known him longer than I +have." + +Hearing this and being infuriated by it, John shrugged his shoulders, +sniffed audibly, and went out on the veranda, fully aware that by his +act he had shown contempt for his father-in-law. Outside the yard, a +heap of pine-knots was being burned to furnish light for the unhitching +and hitching of horses, and the red, smoke-broken rays fell over the +street and house. Through the window John saw the throng within the +parlor. Tilly and her mother stood side by side, surrounded by friends. +Never had he felt more alien from his surroundings than on this most +successful night. What was wrong with him? he asked himself. Why was he +unlike all other men? Why was he forced to feel like an unwilling +interloper among people he could not understand and who did not +understand him? But what did it matter? Tilly was his, all his, and in a +short while he would be bearing her away. In a short while he and she +would be left unmolested in their cozy home. He and she alone, away from +all that gaping, meddling throng. What happiness! But how could it be? + +Cavanaugh came to him out of breath. "Good gracious! Where have you +been?" the old man cried. "I'll be hanged if I wasn't afraid you'd got +scared, turned tail, and run off and hid. You oughtn't to have treated +the old man like that right on the start. You and him will have to sort +of pull together in future. He is thick-skinned, but he looked sort of +flabbergasted when you whisked off just now with that snort of yours. +Come on. They are going out to supper, and there will be no end of talk +if you don't take part. They've got a lot of lemonade in there, and +somebody may want to drink your health. If they do, for the Lord's sake +stand up like a man and say, 'Thank you,' if nothing more. Remember how +well you done when the corner-stone was laid." + +John smiled faintly, and the two went back into the parlor as the guests +were filing out into the dining-room. Tilly was waiting for him at the +door. + +"I'm hungry. Aren't you?" she asked. "I want some of that chicken salad. +I know it is good, for I made it." + +The dining-room was furnished with two long impromptu tables made of +rough boards covered with white cloths and flanked by rows of chairs, +stools, benches, and inverted boxes. Whaley stood at the head of one of +the tables, his wife at the head of the other. Near the center of one +two bows of white ribbons marked the seats reserved for the bride and +bridegroom. Tilly called John's attention to them and somehow he managed +to lead her to them, but he failed to do what he ought to have done. He +did not draw Tilly's chair back and place it for her use, but stood +staring helplessly while she did it herself. Then he sat down beside +her. All were seated now and Whaley rapped on the edge of his plate, +producing a tinkling sound that invoked silence. + +"Now," he said, solemnly, "it is our duty to ask the blessing of our +Creator on what we are about to receive, and as the parson had to leave, +I'll call on Brother Cavanaugh to perform this rite for us." + +Cavanaugh, who sat opposite John and Tilly, actually paled, and then he +flushed. He was silent for a moment, glancing appealingly first at +Whaley, then his wife, and finally at Tilly, as if for succor from +overwhelming disaster. + +"Why, I--I'm not a good hand at it," he stammered. "I don't believe in +doing things half-way, especially on what you might call a gala occasion +like this. Brother Whaley, in my opinion--and I'm sure all the rest feel +the same--you are the man who is best qualified for the job. I know I'd +enjoy hearing you do it to-night more than I would to sit and listen to +my own voice." + +"Why not let Tilly do it?" a young wag farther down the table asked, +merrily. "Any bride these days ought to be thankful to get a square meal +on the first day of her married life, if never afterward." + +"You will all excuse me, I know," Tilly said, simply, and with a sweet, +half-forced smile. + +Thereupon her father, who was getting the opportunity he wanted, cleared +his throat, tapped on his plate for silence, and with lowered head +prayed long and unctuously. He touched on the duties of the newly +married to God and the Church, that they might be examples for the +generations who were to follow them. He hinted--and John knew what was +meant--that there were young men of the present age who were indifferent +to the full meaning of a Christian life and its forms, and upon all such +delinquents he implored the mercy of a long-suffering and patient God. + +John's eyes were on his plate. He imagined that every one present was +taking note of the veiled rebuke to him. How odd that he should hate +Tilly's father so profoundly and feel like striking the cold face +between the spiritless eyes. How strange that he should feel almost the +same toward that silent, didactic copy of her husband, his +mother-in-law, who now seemed to be weighing so judiciously the subtle +charges against him, the new member of the family! + +The prayer was over; a great clatter swept from end to end of the +tables. Everybody was eating, proffering food, laughing, and jesting in +munching, mouthful tones. Suddenly, and before she had turned up her +plate, John felt Tilly's little hand steal into his. + +"Never mind what he said." She smiled as she pressed his fingers. "That +was in him. It has rankled a long time and he had to get it out." + +"It doesn't matter," John responded, defiantly. "He has the upper hand +and he uses it like all men of his brand." + +The supper went off merrily, and when it was ended the guests began to +depart. All said good-by to Tilly. Some shook hands with John and +congratulated him, but that there was a certain restraint between him +and all those present he as well as they did not doubt. A few thought +that he was "stuck up," but the more penetrating attributed his attitude +to his youth and the belief that men of his trade were really not so +refined as farmers, who were more or less like the slaveholding planters +of the past, from whom the countryside had inherited its manners. + +Cavanaugh had provided a livery-stable trap to convey the bride, the +bridegroom, and himself to the station, and as the time was up he +hurried John and Tilly away. Mrs. Whaley kissed her daughter coldly on +the cheek, as if unaccustomed to open affection, and Whaley simply shook +hands with her and his son-in-law. The trap contained only two seats, +and Cavanaugh sat with the negro driver on the front one, giving the +rear seat to John and Tilly. + +"Now don't mind me and this chap here," he said, his eyes fixed on the +back of the horse as they started on. "We are not going to look, and you +can hold hands and hug and kiss all you want to." + +Tilly laughed cheerily. "You backed out to-night; you know you did," she +bantered him. "You said you were going to kiss the bride, but failed to +do it." + +"I wanted to, mighty bad, but I was afraid they would all think I was +powerful cheeky." Then the contractor fell into talk with the negro, and +John heard Tilly sigh. + +"What is the matter?" he inquired. + +"Oh, I'm sorry for mother," she explained. "I was just thinking that the +poor old thing will get up as usual in the morning before daylight and +start in to do my work as well as hers. Father won't hire any one to +help her and she will have a hard time from now on." + +John found himself unable to properly respond, for he didn't care how +hard his mother-in-law worked. He would see to it, however, that Tilly +should have a rest from the slave-toil which had been her lot since +childhood. + +It was nine o'clock when the station was reached, and they got down to +await the train. Only the station-master and a switchman with a lantern +swinging in his hand were in sight. Cavanaugh paid the negro, and with a +low bow and scraping of the feet he got into his trap and drove away. + +They had not long to wait. From the distance of a mile they heard the +whistle of the approaching locomotive, and in a few minutes it was +slowing up at the long, unroofed platform. + +"You two go sit in the chair-car," Cavanaugh directed. "I've got a +cigar, and I'll try the smoker. I'll come back and see you before we get +to Chattanooga." + +John led Tilly to the luxurious car in question and helped her in. How +strange it was! But now for the first time, as he saw her seated in the +big revolving-chair in the almost empty car, she seemed all at once to +be in reality his wife. He put his bag and hers into the brass rack +overhead and adjusted the footstool so that she might rest her feet on +it. No living psychologist could have fathomed his emotions. That had +become his which seemed to belong to some outside, ethereal existence. + +The train started. John took a chair facing Tilly. When he was not at +work his hands seemed extraneous members, and they now hung down between +his knees as limply as if they had lost all animation. + +"You are already homesick," he said, banteringly, though the placid +expression of Tilly's face belied his words. + +"No, I am not," she said, a thoughtful smile capturing her mouth and +eyes. "How could I be? John, I'm simply crazy to see that little house. +I've always wanted a home of my own, all my own." + +He locked his twisting fingers in sheer delight, and the blood of his +joy warmed his eager face to tenderness. "There is a surprise ahead of +us," he said, chuckling. "I say surprise, for Sam thinks I don't know +it. He has stocked the pantry full of supplies as our wedding-present. I +got on to it by accident. I happened to see one of the bills. Old Sam +doesn't do things by halves. Do you know, he is the best man I ever +knew?" + +A newsboy passed through the car, selling magazines and candies. John +bought two flashy periodicals and a box of fresh caramels and put them +into Tilly's lap. With a smile she began to look at the pictures. Some +of the leaves were uncut and he took out his big workman's knife and +clumsily slit them apart. She opened the box of candy, daintily pressed +back the lacelike paper covering, and proffered some to him. He shook +his head. "I never eat it," he said, and then in brooding confusion he +remembered that he had not thanked her. + +"I'll never do that kind of thing--never!" he said to himself, in +reckless disgust. "All that tomfoolery is for Joel Eperson and his sort. +I am of a different breed of dogs." + +However, his discomfiture was soon dispelled. The rapid rush of the +train through the mountain woodland seemed to brush it away as a thing +unworthy of his vast surging happiness. He adored the lashes of Tilly's +eyes, which seemed to thwart his efforts to probe the eyes themselves; +the sweet curve of her lips; the hair which fell so gracefully over her +smooth white brow; the tiny brown freckles on her cheeks; the little +feet in the somewhat plain new shoes that shyly peeped out from beneath +the new gray skirt. A colored porter brought in some soft pillows, and +John secured one and placed it behind Tilly's head. + +"There," he said, gently enough, "lean back on it. I'll bet you are +fagged out, after all you've done since you got up this morning." + +"You mustn't make a baby of me," she mildly protested. "Remember I'm a +farmer's daughter who never has been petted." + +"It is time you were coddled up a little, then," he answered, fervently. +"Somehow you look like a child to me, and a lonely one, too, going off +like this with a big no-account hulk of a man whom you have known only a +little while." + +Tilly beamed at this. It was the quality she loved most in her husband. +She had a new purse and card-case combined in her lap, and he opened it, +finding only a few dimes and quarters in its immaculate interior. + +"That will never do." He laughed, took from his own purse two +five-dollar bills and put them into hers as he added: "I never want you +to have to run to me for change. I despise that in any man, no matter +how long he's been married. A fellow's wife should be as free with the +money that comes in as he is. I've felt like knocking a man down many a +time for that very thing. I don't believe a delicate woman feels like +asking for every cent she spends. I'll watch this pocket-book, and if I +don't keep that much or more in it all the time it will be because I'm +dead broke, too sick to work, or unable to borrow it." + +Tilly's face shed a smile that was tender and full of thought. "You are +the best man in the world," she said. "I don't believe many men, even +the ones that pretend to be polished and educated, would have thought of +that." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +The train, which was slightly delayed, reached Ridgeville at two o'clock +the following morning. With his usual thoughtfulness Cavanaugh had +ordered a street-cab to be on hand to take the couple to their home, and +it was found waiting in the care of a half-asleep negro. + +"Here is the key to the house," Cavanaugh said, as he handed it in to +them after they were seated in the ramshackle little vehicle. "I'd go on +with you and help you light up, but I'm anxious to see how my old lady +is. She's sick abed, you know, and will be worrying about the train +being late." + +The negro driver on the seat outside started his horse, and the cab +trundled through the darkness of the unlighted streets. They were now +wholly alone for the first time since their marriage, and it seemed +quite natural to him to put his arm around her and draw her head to his +shoulder. Another moment and he had kissed her. + +"I wonder," he asked, almost beneath his breath, that the driver might +not hear--"I wonder if you are happy?" + +She started to speak, but decided not to do so. Her reply consisted of a +voluntary lifting of her hand to his neck, the raising of her lips to +his, after which she nestled back on his shoulder and was silent. + +He also started to speak, but there was nothing to say, and with her +hand in one of his they sat still and silent till the cab stopped at the +gate of the cottage. The driver opened the door and John helped Tilly +out. He tipped the man, and he drove away as they entered the gate. +John opened the door and lighted the gas in the diminutive hall. Tilly +had never seen a gas-jet before, and he explained its use, and the +danger of leaving it open when unlighted. From the little hall they went +into the parlor, then into the dining-room and kitchen, and thence to +the bedroom. + +"Sam's wife has swept and cleaned the whole house," John said, +appreciatively. "It is as clean as a new pin." + +"I knew some good housekeeper had been over it," Tilly said, giving free +vent to her delight over everything. "I didn't dream, from what you +said, that it would be as nice as this," she declared. "Why, it is +simply wonderful! But you say you think Mrs. Cavanaugh looked after it. +Then--then you don't think that your mother--" She hesitated, and with a +faint shadow in her face she broke off and stood looking at the floor. + +"No." There was a companion shadow on his face as he answered, rather +lamely, she thought. "She'd never think of it--even if--if she was +expecting us." + +"Not expecting us?" Tilly said, gropingly. "Then she doesn't know. You +didn't write to her that we were to be married?" + +"No"--John's glance wavered as he slowly released the word--"I didn't +write her. I didn't care whether she knew it or not." + +"I think I understand now," Tilly said to herself. "They have had some +sort of family disagreement and are not on speaking terms." + +"Never mind," she said, aloud, seeing a cloud on his face. "All that +will come out right. In time I'll win her love--you see if I don't." + +His frown deepened, but he said nothing. Their bags had been left in +the little hall, and he went to get them. When he returned she was +standing before the wide mirror of the new-fashioned bureau. She had +taken off her hat and the elevated gas-jet on the wall threw a blaze of +light into her beautiful hair. He put down the bags and stood gazing at +her with eyes full of timid reverence and worship. + +"Poor, dear little Tilly!" he said, almost huskily. "You look so lonely, +here just with me like this, away from your home and friends. I am not +worthy of you, little girl--no man is. I feel that. I know it down deep +inside of me. Until I met you I never knew what a good, pure girl was +like. Oh, you are so different from all the women I've ever known. +Somehow you seem to have dropped down from the skies." + +She didn't fully understand him. How could she? And yet his look and +tone went straight to her heart. She stood staring at him for a moment +and then she advanced to him. She put her hands on his shoulders and +looked up into his eyes. + +"You say I'm different from other girls, John. Well, you are different +from all other men. Oh, it is so very sweet of you--your silly fear that +you can't make me happy--your continual reference to that absurdity. +Why, John, I am so happy that I can't express it. No one else could have +made me so. I am the luckiest girl in the world." + +Her throbbing lips invited it, and he bent down and kissed them. He drew +her into his arms. She felt his great breast quiver and heard him sigh. +Not yet was she comprehending him--not yet was he quite able to +comprehend himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Among the men of John's trade it was deemed an effeminate thing for a +laboring-man to allow his marriage to cut into his duties to his daily +work. And as Cavanaugh already had a job waiting, which was the erection +of a fine brick residence on a near-by plantation, John joined him, +ready for work, on the day following the one of his arrival home. This +left Tilly all alone in the cottage. At first she was so absorbed by the +changes she was making about the house--the moving of this article or +that and the rehanging of the cheap pictures and curtains, that she had +little time for self-analysis or a study of her environment. + +However, after the first three days had passed and there was now nothing +in the cottage to be done except to prepare her husband's supper, +breakfast, and lunch for his dinner-pail, the time began to drag on her +hands. She sat on the little porch nearly all the time, for the outside +view was more soothing than the cramped interior of the rather dark +little house. Across the vacant lots, and above the dim roofs of the +neighboring negro shanties, she saw the smoke from the town's +cotton-factories, woolen-mills and iron-foundries, the steam-whistles of +which were John's signals for early rising and her own best guide to the +approach of nightfall and her husband's longed-for return. Above the +trees, an eighth of a mile away, could be seen the roof of Mrs. Trott's +house. John had reluctantly pointed it out one evening as they stood at +the gate, and every day now she looked at it as the physical symbol of a +mystery which was growing more and more inexplicable. She had come to +feel that there was something about John's mother which he himself did +not fully understand and from which he shrank in morbid and manly +sensitiveness. + +Cavanaugh had called one evening, and as the three friends sat on the +porch, the weather being warm, he had explained that his wife was still +confined to her bed and was deeply regretting her inability to come over +and see Tilly. But neither did the contractor help Tilly to solve the +brooding enigma. On the contrary, his very reticence seemed to deepen +it, for he had the disturbed air of a man avoiding some disagreeable +fact. How could it be, Tilly began to ask herself, that a man so genial +as John should have absolutely no women friends in the town of his +birth, and why was it that even his men friends should so persistently +shun his residence and show so little interest in his bride? There was +Joe Tilsbury, she recalled. What a contrast, what an inexplicable +contrast! Joe's friends had given the wife he had brought home a +far-reaching welcome, afternoon receptions, quilting-bees, dances, +straw-rides, surprise-parties, and even the jovial jokers of the +village, in grotesque costumes, had serenaded the couple with tin pans +and cow-horns. Tilly herself had taken part in the courtesies to the +wife of a man far beneath John in point of position and attainments. +What could it mean? What? + +Four days after the departure of her daughter, Mrs. Whaley received the +third letter from Tilly, and Whaley found her one morning at her churn +with that letter on her knee, the dasher inactive in a steadily extended +hand. + +"Who's that from?" he inquired. "Oh, I see! She writes powerful often, +don't she? Well, how does she like it?" + +Mrs. Whaley was silent, her eyes on the milk-coated hole in the +churn-lid through which the worn dasher was wont to glide up and down. +Noting her mood, Whaley gruffly took up the letter and, adjusting his +black-rimmed nose-glasses, he read it. + +"What do you think of it?" she asked, when he put it down. + +"I don't know as I think anything much about it," was his response. +"House, house, house! That is all there is in it--tables here and chairs +there, a new organ, cook-stove that runs by gas, and water on tap within +arm's-length--to say nothing of milk left on the front-door step, as +well as a block of ice in summer-time every morning. All that, I say, +but not one word about the big union-tabernacle-tent revival that +Cavanaugh said was to open there this week? I'd walk ten miles through +the broiling sun to meet that preacher and hear him rip the hide off of +the ungodly down there. That town is just big enough to be full of hell, +'blind-tiger' joints, and houses full of shamefaced strumpets that are +fined in city court and allowed to keep on even by the law in their +devilish occupation." + +Mrs. Whaley was never known to sigh. Sighs are born of elements which +she had suppressed till they had died a natural death, but there was +something in her very uncommunicating manner that provoked her husband's +lingering at her side. + +"You don't say what you think," he said, restoring his glasses to their +tin case and snapping its lid down. + +She raised her eyes and fixed them on his. "It is not what she says, +but what it seems to me she ought to say and don't that seems strange to +me," was her reply. "Why, there is no mention at all about any of John's +kin--not one single word about his mother--not one single word about any +woman stepping in even for a minute. I don't care anything about your +tabernacles or your whisky-joints--what seems strange to me is that +Tilly don't seem to have made a single acquaintance since she got there. +She writes, you see, about Cavanaugh coming over and why his wife +didn't, as if that was something to tell. She writes about John being +away in the country all day, and, as far as I can gather, she is at home +all by herself from dawn till nightfall. There is something powerfully +odd about all that. I don't know what it is, but it is there." + +"I know one thing about John Trott that I didn't know when he was here," +Whaley pursued, tapping his thumb with the case of his glasses, "and I +tell you if I had known it he would have had to change before he took a +daughter of mine to live under a roof with him. I got it straight that +he's been heard to say that he didn't believe in a God or the Bible, and +that folks were silly fools that did. I heard it this morning and I made +it my business to trace it down. He said it, and I'm here to say that I +don't want to be the granddaddy of the children of an atheist. The wrath +of an offended God would fall on them and on me. Tilly was put in my +care. The Catholics damned the soul of my son when he went over to those +idol-worshipers through the wiles of a present-day Eve, and here I stood +stock-still and let an avowed atheist take away my daughter. Do you +think I'm going to stand it? Man-killing is said to be wrong, but +killing human snakes is not, and a man that will lead an innocent +Christian girl away from the smiles of God deserves death, let the law +of the land be what it may. I've got a good pistol. I've got a steady +finger and a firm arm. I tell you to look out. I don't know what may +happen. Our Lord said Himself that He came not to bring peace, but a +sword, and I'll be at war with atheism against my own flesh and blood +till I die." + +"You wouldn't be as foolish as that," Mrs. Whaley faltered, for once +daring to oppose her spouse. "Even if he is an infidel he may get over +it under--under Tilly's influence." + +"Get over it, a dog's hind foot!" Whaley sniffed, his great nostrils +fluttering, his harsh face rigid. "No wife ever does. They go with their +husbands and so do the children, and children's children, all the way +down, if the flow of hell's poison is not stopped, and I'll stop it." + +On the day that dialogue was taking place Sam Cavanaugh was seated by +the bedside of his wife. "Yes, I went by there," he was saying. "John +had bought some fine peaches from a mountain wagon and wanted Tilly to +have them to put up in jars. She was out in the little yard. I saw her +clean across the old circus-grounds. She was walking back and forth, and +I'll admit she looked lonely. You were right about what you said that +time. I begin to see my mistake. As awkward as it would have been, maybe +I ought to have had a straight talk with John, if nobody else. It looks +to me like he is slowly opening his eyes now, but doesn't know how to +fetch up the subject when we are together. He comes a little later in +the morning and starts for home on the dot. I've seen him on the +scaffold, looking off over the fields in the very saddest sort of way. +He is becoming different. He never curses the men now when they make a +bobble or are slow with mortar or brick, and he has lost interest in +plans and figures. They have all noticed it. Some seem to understand, +while others don't. They all respect him too much to tattle among +themselves about his private matters. They love him. They all love John +Trott--rough as he is, they all love him; and as for me--as for me--my +God! my heart aches! I feel like I've made a mistake, but I can't feel +that I am much to blame, for I was going by my best lights. They love +each other, those two do, with all their souls. How could I burst it up +with a nasty revelation like I'd 'a' had to make?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Two days after the arrival of the bride and bridegroom the report of the +marriage reached the residence of Mrs. Trott. Jane Holder had been to +town to make some purchases, and in a dry-goods store heard a +delivery-man mention it. She made further inquiries and established the +fact of the truth of the report. And when she left the street-car at the +end of the line she walked past John's cottage and looked in at the open +door. Tilly was sweeping out the little hall and Jane got a fair view of +her as she hurried by. + +"What a sweet little thing she seems!" Jane mused. "I wonder what Liz +will do. It may make her mad. I'm sure she will be mad to find out that +he has been here two days and not been over home. She is expecting some +money from John, too, but how can he give it to her now that he has set +up for himself? Why, he is just a boy! It seems funny to think of him +having a wife and a snug little home like that." + +She found Mrs. Trott in the dining-room, where Dora was arranging the +table for the midday meal, and as she sat removing her hat and veil, her +gaudy green sunshade in her lap, she made her revelation. + +"What are you saying?" Lizzie Trott cried, incredulously, and with her +carmined lips parted she stood staring at her friend. + +Jane repeated what she had said, and then both of them were astonished +by a comment from Dora as she leaned against the table and smiled. + +"I'm glad it is out," the child said. "I was dying to tell it. I knew it +was coming off long ago, but he made me promise not to give it away." + +"You knew?" Mrs. Trott cried, her eyes flashing behind their waxed +lashes. + +"Yes, and all about the house being rented. Huh! I guess I did! I saw +Sam Cavanaugh hide the key under the door-step one day, and after he +left I unlocked the door and went in and looked it over. Oh, it is +mighty pretty! I saw Mrs. Cavanaugh come in and clean it up one day, +too, and I knew that things was getting ripe. Huh! I've already seen +Tilly, too, for I've passed her several times while she was out in the +yard. I'd have spoke to her, but my best dress was out on the line and I +know John would want me to look neat and clean." + +With steady eyes and a motionless breast Lizzie Trott turned toward the +stairs. "I want to talk to you in private, Jane," she said, under her +breath. "Come up to your room." + +"I was going up, anyway, to get these hot things off," Jane said, +complainingly. "Something is wrong with me, Liz. I can't lace as tight +as I did without suffocating. I've got to take off my corset and lie +down. I almost fainted in Lowe & Beaman's this morning while I was +waiting for Doctor Renfrow to mix my tonic. He laughed and said that I +drink too much adulterated whisky for a woman of my build. He felt my +pulse and looked at my tongue and eyes and talked sorter serious about +my condition. He asked how old my mother was when she died, and when I +told him 'thirty-six' he shook his head and said I must come into his +office some day and let him examine me thoroughly." + +Jane was out of breath by this time, for she had been talking while +ascending the stairs, and she turned into her room and sank down on the +bed. Mrs. Trott followed and stood over her, her hands on her hips. + +"You say they have been here two days?" she said. + +"Yes; came in the night," Jane panted forth as she began to unhook her +silk dress. "Oh, my! I have that gone feeling again--sort of +swimming-like, and when I try to see all of your face at once I get only +part of it--like a black spot was coming between--and if I look at the +wall there in the shade or at the floor I can see wriggling lights. The +doctor said my liver was awful." + +Lizzie Trott took a chair and sat in it. She bent downward, her bare, +shapely elbows on her knees, her ringed fingers holding her chin. + +"For the love of Heaven," she said, impatiently, "let up on your whining +for a minute and let's talk about John. What do you think about it?" + +"Oh, I don't know what to think!" and with a low groan Jane threw +herself back on the bed. "What do I care? They are full of health and +can take care of themselves, while here I lie with hardly strength +enough to unlace myself." + +"Why didn't he tell us, do you suppose?" Lizzie continued. "Why hasn't +he been over? Two days and nights, and nothing said or done! Why, it is +outrageous--simply outrageous!" + +"Oh, I see what you are driving at!" Jane sat up and began to unlace her +corsets, her yellowish wrists and bony finger working behind her back. +"Now the spots are gone and my head is steady. It is peculiar how they +come and go that way. Yes, I think I see what bothers you. Well, old +pal, I'll tell you. I'll bet my life she is a good girl, and a worker, +too. Country stock, maybe. She looks it. No style to her dress or the +way she does her hair. Yes, yes, I think I understand what is bothering +you. You are wondering--well, you know what I mean. You are wondering if +anybody has told her--well, told her about us--_all_ about us, I mean." + +Mrs. Trott showed a tendency to flare up, which her blank bewilderment +seemed to quench. "You can say the most catty things when you try," she +began, but finished with a low groan and sat with her eyes fixed on a +pattern in the worn rug by the bed. + +"Well, I am including myself," Jane said. "You may call that catty, but +I don't. What is the use to plaster facts over? Between you and me, I +simply don't believe John would take to a fast girl. If there ever was a +boy that gave fast girls the cold shoulder, John Trott did. I always +thought he was blind, anyway--going about with his figuring and blue +papers with white lines on them. The way he hauled his money out and +threw it at us proved he never stopped to think what he was doing. Yes, +that little wife is the right sort, and I myself don't see how--well, +how he could have brought her right here, you understand. You think so, +too, and that is what is bothering you. You won't admit it, but that is +the nigger in your woodpile, Liz! My! how easy I feel when I'm +unstrapped! The doctor laid the law down on that when I was sick the +last time, you know, but how can I walk through Main Street looking--?" + +"For God's sake, dry up!" Lizzie suddenly shot out. "What am I going to +do? How can I get along without his help, and he can't help me and keep +up a separate house. Must--must I go over there? Do you think I--I +ought to call? Doesn't it look like--like he means something by--by +keeping it a secret? It wasn't sudden, for Dora says he told her some +time back." + +"Go over there? Huh! You make me smile, Liz. You didn't even get an +invitation to the wedding, or a chance to make a present, and yet you +are bothered about whether you ought to call or not. As for me, I'll not +put foot across his door-sill--not even if he asked me. No, not even if +he come begging me on bended knee. Huh! I guess not!" + +"And why not?" Lizzie Trott asked, after a momentous pause. + +"Because"--and as she answered Jane's eyes held a steely gleam as from +some inner light of self-accusation that refused to be quenched even by +fear of giving offense--"because if he did ask me I'd know the poor boy +was still blind to what everybody else knows and what he would have +known long ago if he had been as coarse as other men, or if folks had +not liked him too much to talk plain to him. No, I'll not go there. I +wouldn't know what to say, nohow. Huh! You wouldn't, either, I'll bet." + +"You are not helping me much." Lizzie Trott readjusted the imitation +tortoise-shell comb in her rather lifeless hair and gave a sigh, which +was followed by a moan, half of anger, half of despair. + +"I think I can take a nap now," Jane said. "I feel drowsy-like. If--if +you have finished, I wish you would pull the shades down. Tell Dora I +don't want anything to eat and not to bring it up. She will wake me if +she does." + +Mrs. Trott rose sullenly and drew the shades down. She cast a parting +look at Jane, and was on the threshold when from the bed came these +words: + +"Liz, do me a favor, please do, like a good girl. If Jim Stacy comes +again, don't let him know I'm up here. Tell him some lie--tell him I am +in Atlanta. He is dead broke and always drinking and jealous. I'm too +sick to talk to him, and, sick or not, he'd come right up. I've got to +get rid of him, that is certain." + +Making some sort of promise, Lizzie went into her own room and sat down +in a rocking-chair. Nervously she swung back and forth for a few +minutes, and then sat still, her eyes fixed on vacancy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +One morning shortly after this, while Tilly was busy cleaning up the +house, she noticed a little girl at the front fence near the gate. The +child was oddly dressed, wearing a skirt that was too long for her, +stockings so large that they hung in folds about her thin ankles, a +shirt-waist which had been cut down from a woman's size and clumsily +remade, and a cheap sailor hat with flowing blue ribbons. The little +girl was acting, Tilly thought, in a very queer way, for when Tilly +approached the door the child lowered her head and with shy, furtive +glances moved on, but as soon as Tilly disappeared she would return to +the gate and stand peering over it in timid curiosity. + +"Strange," the young wife mused, and when the little girl made no show +of leaving, Tilly decided to speak to her. So, going suddenly to the +porch, she called out: "Wait, little girl. Do you want anything?" + +The head of the child hung down till the brim of her hat hid her eyes, +and if she made any reply it was spoken so low that Tilly did not hear +it. Tilly now went to her and leaned on the gate. + +"Did you want anything with me?" she asked, most kindly, as she scanned +the incongruous attire in half-amused wonder. The answer was delayed, +but it finally came from lips rendered stubborn by embarrassment: + +"I--I wanted to see you, but--but I thought maybe I'd better ask John +first. He hasn't been over home yet, and I don't know whether he'd want +me to come or not. He told me about you, Tilly. He told me, and nobody +else, and I didn't let a soul know, either--my aunt, or Liz, or any +one." + +"Oh, I see! I know now. You are Dora, aren't you?" + +"Yes'm," in great relief and with a lifted face. "I see. Then you know +about me?" + +"Oh yes, and you must come in and see me." Tilly opened the gate. The +little pinched face appealed to her, as well as the child's crude +timidity. Dora stepped gingerly inside, her coarse, ill-fitting shoes +grating on the graveled walk. One of her little hands was loosely buried +in a woman's black kid glove, the mate of which was damply clutched in +bare fingers, the nails of which were jagged and black. By Tilly's side +she clumsily moved along till they had reached the porch steps, where +she paused hesitatingly. + +"I almost feel like I know you," Tilly went on to reassure her. "Somehow +I almost feel that you are John's sister. I don't know why, but I do. +Would you care if I kissed you?" + +"Kissed me?" Dora started and stared blankly. "You mean-- Huh! you don't +want--" + +"This is what I mean, you poor dear little thing!" and Tilly bent down +and kissed the wan cheek. "There, now, you must come in and see our new +house. John will not be home till nearly dark." + +"I don't know whether John will fuss or not," Dora said. "Maybe he +wanted me to wait till--till he told me. I don't know. From the way my +aunt and Liz talks, a body would think he intended to cut us clean off +his list." + +"Liz?" Tilly asked. "I've heard John mention your aunt, but who is +Liz?" + +"Liz? Why, Liz-- You know she is-- Why, Liz is his mother!" + +"But--but why do you call her Liz?" Tilly asked, in wonder. + +"Because that's her name. Everybody calls her Liz. I don't know-- I +can't remember that I ever heard John call her anything. He was always +cursing her--that is, when he spoke to her. I don't blame him. She is no +good and is always after him for money." + +They had reached the little parlor now, and Dora sank into one of the +new chairs and swung her thin legs to and fro. She was now more at ease, +and was inspecting the room with the wide eyes of a curious child. + +"Curse her?" Tilly gasped. "You don't mean that my husband would +actually curse his own mother?" + +"Huh!" Dora sniffed, half absently, for she was looking admiringly at +the cheap dress Tilly had on. "Huh! you would, too, if you had to live +with her and drudge for her like me and him do. She is peevish and +fretful. If things go wrong with her when she is out at night she is a +very hell-cat in the morning. I've heard her say she was going to kill +herself, and when her and my aunt have a scrap, things fly about, I tell +you. She is mad now. Oh, my! ain't she mad at John for not telling her +about you? She drove out to his work yesterday, and, from what she told +my aunt, her and John must have had a big row, right before the men, +too. Aunt Jane told her John could have her arrested--that the judge +would be on his side. But I reckon John tried to quiet her. He always +does when she flies plumb to pieces." + +Tilly's face was grave and pale. "I think I understand now," she said, +in a sinking voice. "Mrs. Trott is out of her mind; John is sensitive +about it, and--" + +"Who's out of her mind--Liz?" The child laughed derisively. "Don't you +believe it! Aunt Jane says she has a clear head on her when it comes to +getting the best of any deal. They swapped dresses once and Liz hid some +big grease spots that didn't show till Aunt Jane was dancing on a +platform in the sun at a picnic. That was a whopping, big row, for the +laugh was on Aunt Jane and she had no chance to change till she got +home." + +Tilly was bewildered. She told herself, as she sat peering into the +guileless eyes before her, that she must know more than she did know and +this was an opportunity. + +"I made some fresh cake yesterday," she said. "Wait; I'll get you some. +It has icing on it, and jelly between the layers." + +But Dora refused to be treated as a formal visitor. She followed Tilly +into the kitchen, now clutching her ribbons and swinging her broad hat +in her hand. "John said you was a good cook," she remarked. "He said you +was too hard-worked up there, and that he was going to give you a long, +sweet rest. Lord! that boy thinks the sun rises and sets in you! He said +you was pretty, but I don't think you are extra. Do you?" + +"No, I'm anything else." Tilly was now cutting the big, white cake. The +situation was too grave for personal trivialities. She put a slice on a +plate and handed it to the child. Dora took the cake, declined the +plate, and began eating eagerly, smearing her lips with the jelly and +licking them with an encircling tongue. She had put her hat and gloves +on a table and was becoming even more communicative. + +"I love cake like this with wine," she said. "Have you any about?" + +"No. My parents are opposed to wine," Tilly said. "Surely you, as young +as you are, don't drink it?" + +"Don't I, though!" The child all but leered, and laughed aloud. "What do +you take me for--a silly ninny? When they have it at home I get my +share, you bet, and I don't always wait for them to get too drunk to +see, either. I hide a bottle when there is a big lot. You see, Bill +Raines--the biggest, fattest old roly-poly you ever laid eyes on--sends +it over by the case. He is full of fun, drunk or sober, with up-to-date +songs and jokes--he is a whisky drummer from Louisville, and the rest of +the boys say it don't cost him anything--'samples,' I think Liz said, to +treat with and make folks buy. Well, as I set in to say, when he gets to +town he generally has a big lot delivered to us. He used to like Aunt +Jane, but they had a fuss, and he goes with Liz now. He is always flush, +plays for high stakes, and cleans the board nearly every time. His luck +is always with him. He won't cheat, and they say he shot a fellow in the +hip that tried it on him one night at the races. I don't know. I'm just +telling you what they all say. I like him-- I like the old devil, for he +always has a good word for me. He told Aunt Jane, and between us two I +think that's what the fuss was about. Give me another piece, will you? +It is a million times better than baker's cake. Bakers use spoiled eggs +in their dough. I can smell 'em in spite of the flavoring. My! this _is_ +good! Wine or no wine, it goes right to the spot!" + +In munching the cake the child forgot that she had not finished what she +had started to say, and with bated breath and lips grimly tense Tilly +reminded her of her omission. + +"Oh yes, about that fuss!" Dora swallowed as she resumed. "Bill ripped +her up for scolding about me. He said that it was a shame the way I was +treated, and that if something wasn't done right off--me sent to school +and fed and clothed better--he was going to court about it. Lord! Lord! +how mad Aunt Jane was, and Liz, too! They said he was trying to make +trouble. That was a month ago. Huh! I think they are right! What +business is it to that old pot-bellied duck what I do or don't do? He is +no kin of mine and I don't want to go to school, either. I tried it +once, and that was enough for me. Sat on a bench all day, with a prissy +old maid making me hold a book before my face." + +Dora declined a third piece of cake without thanks other than a gesture +of repletion as she placed her hand on her stomach, smiled, and shook +her unkempt head. + +"No. I'd make myself sick," she said. "I'll take a drink of water, +though. I seem to feel lumps of it lodged in my chest. I reckon I put in +too much at once. If I had wine, now-- But of course that is out of the +game." + +Tilly supplied the water. Her heart was as heavy as lead. She was afraid +to admit that she believed the terrible thing which, like the bile of +some all-inclosing disease, was oozing into her consciousness. She led +the child into the sitting-room and listlessly invited inspection of +this or that article--the few photographs on the table, a china vase +holding flowers, a new Bible which was the inscribed wedding-present of +the minister's wife, and some other things which to Tilly now seemed to +weep in sheer sympathy for her under the horror which brooded over her. +But she fought off the suspicion. It couldn't be--it mustn't be. + +"My mother-in-law--Mrs. Trott--John's mother," she stammered in the +effort to speak unconcernedly. "Being a widow, she will need money, +help from me and John, won't she? Don't you think so, Dora?" + +"No, Aunt Jane says no," answered the child, making a wry face as she +looked at a picture of Tilly's father. "Gee! what an old pie-faced +hayseed this is! For the Lord's sake, who is it?" + +"But why won't she need it?" Tilly had heard the question, but did not +want to spare the time for a reply which might or might not embarrass +her iconoclastic guest. "John has been giving her part of his wages, +hasn't he?" + +"Yes, but he has to call a halt somewhere, my aunt says. She says Liz +can get all the money she needs if she won't throw it away as fast as +she gets it and play her cards so she won't be fined so often." + +"Fined?" The word fell from Tilly's irresolute lips in sheer dread of +further revelations. "Fined! What do you mean?" + +"'Soaked' by the judge, that is all I know," Dora quoted, indifferently. +"About once a month they both have to go in and pay up or be jugged. Old +Roly-poly said once that he paid the running expenses of this town +himself. What are 'running expenses'? Hanged if I know." + +"I don't know." Tilly made an all but somnambulistic reply. Had some +one--even John--died suddenly, she could not have been more shocked. +Even John's support in her terrible strait seemed somehow likely to be +withheld, for how could she go to him with such a matter, seeing that he +had not fully confided in her? + +"I must be going now," the weird child remarked. "You see, I sneaked +over and must get home before they wake up. I'll go in by the back way +and change my dress, and they will never know about this lark. At least +that's what I'm counting on. You may tell brother John I was over if +you want to. He won't give me away. I want you to see the doll he sent +me, and her bed and carriage. Gosh! they are scrumptious!" + +When Dora had left, Tilly stood at the gate and watched her crossing the +vacant lots till she was out of sight. Then the young wife went back to +her work, but it had lost its charm. She could think of nothing but the +discoveries she had made. She was enabled now to account for hundreds of +discrepancies and omissions in her husband's words and acts in the past. +Now all things were clear--too clear by far for her peace of mind. The +terrible scandal would reach Cranston. It was sure to, eventually, and +all her friends and acquaintances would pity her. And as for Joel +Eperson--why, knowing him as she knew him, it would crush him. Her +marriage already had dealt him a blow, and this would add to his +suffering. As for her parents, she fancied her mother's taking it +stolidly and inexpressively; but her father, ah, that would be a +different matter! She dared not contemplate the effect on his monumental +pride and uncontrollable temper. He would interpret it in terms of +heaven, hell, and eternity. He would be as relentless as a patriarch +ordered by the voice of God to slay his young in the cause of +righteousness. Something must be done, and quickly, but what? + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +In terrible loneliness the day dragged by. The blood of her being seemed +sluggish in her veins. She could not eat her luncheon. She thought of +going to see Mrs. Cavanaugh, but she did not know where the contractor +lived, and, as Mrs. Cavanaugh was still in bed with illness, a call +would be out of place. Besides, she was sure, even if she went, that she +would not be able to broach a matter of such undoubted delicacy, and, +unless she mentioned it, how could Mrs. Cavanaugh allude to it? Tilly +felt, too, that when John came she would not be able to mention it to +him, for had he not kept from her even the fact of his mother's visit to +him at his work the day before? + +It was growing dark when he came. She had not lighted the gas, because +she feared that he might too plainly see her face and read its new +lines, shadows, and shrinkings, and he came into the hall, his +dinner-pail in hand, as she stood waiting for him in the parlor. She +essayed a cheerful greeting, but the words stuck in her tight throat and +she went into his arms without uttering them. + +"So, so, little mouse," he said, in a forced tone of cheerfulness, "here +you are in your dark little hole. Let me light up. I'm dead tired. We +all had to put our shoulders to it to-day and lift some big stones and +place them right. Our derrick broke twice." + +He went to the kitchen. She heard him fumbling about for some matches. +Then he came back, striking the matches and lighting the jets in +dining-room, sitting-room, and hall. + +"You are hungry," she said. "Supper is ready, all but taking it up." + +"Well, yes, I guess I am," he said. "Gee! little girl, it is fine to +have a place to come to like this." He caught her in his arms and kissed +her tenderly. "In a snug place like this a man can throw off his +troubles easier than anywhere else. Sam calls it 'a cottage of delight,' +and that's what it is." + +"Troubles?" she repeated, stealing a look into his face. "Have you +troubles, my darling?" + +She thought that he avoided her direct gaze, and she was sure that she +felt him start slightly, and that his immediate kiss was somewhat more +mechanical than usual. + +"Oh, every fellow in my business has more or less worries," he parried, +awkwardly. "You see, a good deal depends on my judgment, and now and +then Sam and I disagree on little details of construction, and we have +to argue it out to a finish." + +"Have you had any disagreement to-day?" Tilly was probing him +desperately, knowing well that the subject had naught to do with the +weight on her breast and his. + +"Oh no, not to-day," he said, lightly. "Don't be alarmed. Sam and I work +all right together. He's always talking about me and him going into +partnership. He wants to tie me here, you see; but I don't know. The +world is wide, and I could make a living anywhere." + +They finished their supper and went to sit on the porch, where the air +circulated better than in the house. "I had a caller to-day," she +suddenly announced. + +"What, a--a-- You say you had a--" He broke off, and then finished in a +breath of seeming relief. "Oh, Mrs. Cavanaugh! Sam said she would soon +be up; but from what he said I thought she'd be in bed for another week +at least." + +"It wasn't Mrs. Cavanaugh." Tilly's hand was in his and she felt his +calloused fingers twitch and remain tense while he waited for her to +finish. "It was the little girl from your house." + +His fingers shook. He stared at her through the twilight. She saw his +lips move as if for utterance, but no sound came forth. It was an +awkward moment for them both. + +"Oh, so she came!" John finally got out. "I thought she was too backward +to--to go anywhere." + +"She was timid at first," Tilly said, choking down the despair that +seemed to rise in her throat like a fluid; "but I gave her some cake and +made her feel at home the best I could." + +There was another turgid pause. John managed to break it, inexpert +though he was in the verbal finesse he was evidently trying to use. + +"She is a queer little imp," he said. "Don't you think so?" + +"Yes, very, very strange, for a child of her age. I think she liked me +pretty well, and--and I did her. She ought to be taught. Can she read or +write? I didn't think to ask her." + +"She doesn't know B from a bull's track." John tried to smile, as he +forced a laugh. "Yes, she ought to be taught, I guess." He was silent +for a moment, and then he resumed: "What did she have to say? She can +talk a regular blue streak at times, and I am wondering--wondering--" + +"She told me all about the doll and doll-things you sent her," Tilly +answered, resorting to subterfuge with no little skill. "Let a child +like that start to talk about her playthings and she will run on all +day. She didn't stay very long. She said she had work to do at home." + +From the sudden change of his face, Tilly comprehended the relief that +must have swept through him at that moment. He glanced toward the center +of the town where a cluster of lights threw a glow on the sky. "There is +a show under a tent on Main Street to-night," he said. "It may not be +much good, but it is something to go to. Suppose we walk over? It isn't +very far. When it is out we can stop at Tilman's ice-cream and +soda-water parlor and take something cool." + +"No"--Tilly shook her head--"let's stay at home." + +"But why? Listen! That's them now!" There was a sound of a brass band +playing in the direction of the lights, the blare of horns, and the +beating of drums. "They always play outside the tent to draw a crowd. +Why don't you want to go, little girl?" + +"You said you were tired." + +"Who, me? Good gracious! Now that I've had my supper I feel like a +fighting-cock. We'd better go. You are staying in too close, anyway." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +There seemed no way to avoid accepting the invitation, and she went into +the cottage for a light shawl. Then they locked up their little house +and started away. Tilly held his arm. She tried to fancy that they were +taking one of the unforgettable strolls along the mountain roads at +Cranston which had led to their union, but the illusion refused to abide +with her, for at Cranston he had been care-free, full of hope and joy, +and now his every word seemed to exude from a heart surcharged with +pain. How she loved him, now that she better understood the Sinister +fate that was scourging him so relentlessly! + +Ahead of them they saw a tent. It was lighted. "That is not the one," +John explained. "That is a tabernacle revival meeting. Sam goes every +night. He doesn't believe in it any more than I do, down inside of +himself, I mean; but he goes and tries to get the boys to go. That would +suit your father. That preacher throws off his coat and dares the +barkeepers to meet him in a fist-to-fist, knock-down, drag-out match on +his platform. We must go, too. How about to-morrow night?" + +"But--but you don't believe in such meetings," Tilly answered. + +"It doesn't make any odds what I believe," John returned, in a +thoughtful tone. "You got a lot, one way or another, out of your meeting +and Sunday-school up at home, and--and this is a dull town. It is full +of sets and a lot of silly pride, drawing the line at this and that. +Take my trade, for instance. Do you know a brick mason is sort o' looked +down on by the fool gangs that go in for style and show? Up your way +everything is more on a level. One man is as good as another. That is +one thing I like about religion. In the backwoods, at least, it does +away with a lot of stuck-up ideas. You mustn't think I want you to quit +going to church. No, I want you to go. I can't take part, but you can go +on the same as you used to." + +They were now in front of the tent's opening. And as Tilly was peering +in at the brilliantly lighted platform on which sat some singers behind +an organ, and a young, square-jawed, long-haired minister in a +frock-coat, John thought she might be interested in the service. + +"Maybe you'd rather go in to-night," he advanced. "It is with you to +decide. Is it preaching or show?" + +"But you don't like preaching," she said. + +"I don't count in this shuffle," he jested. "They are both shows to me. +The only difference is that the burnt-cork and dancing people admit they +want your money, and these people lie about it." + +Tilly frowned. "You get worse and worse," she said. "Let's go to the +show. It will be good for you after working so hard to-day." + +"Well, we'll come here to-morrow night," he said. "We've got to have +some amusements. You are by yourself too much. I've been thinking a lot +about the way you are fixed down here in this measly, hypocritical town. +You see, up there where you were raised you know every man, woman, and +child, but here you are a stranger. I mean-- I mean--" He was beyond his +depth and realized it, quite to his chagrin. Tilly came to his rescue. + +"Never mind about me," she broke in, quickly and with tact, as she drew +him on in the direction of the lights and music farther up the street. +"I am thoroughly happy here. I don't want anything but you and our +little home. I love you more and more. Some day you will know why, but I +do. I'm going to make you happy, John, happier than you've ever been." + +He sighed, and it was as if he were conscious that the sigh which had +surged up within him, in a way, was a denial of the hope her words +extended. + +He paid their fare at the opening in the tent and went in and sat on one +of the crude, unbacked benches. The place was filling fast. Laughing +parties of young men and young ladies entered. John told Tilly who some +of them were. The "chipper, fluffy-headed blonde" was a banker's +daughter, with the son of the president of the largest iron-works in +Ridgeville. Another girl was the only child of a rich money-lender and +the young dude with her was an ex-Governor's son, a silly fool that +everybody said would have been in jail long ago for some of his scrapes +but for his father's influence. John didn't really know who all of them +were, though they lived in the town. They had grown up so fast and he +had been so busy that he hadn't kept track of them. He did know, +however, that they all belonged to a select dancing-club up the street, +and they would go there after the show, no doubt. They felt that they +were better than the working-class, and John said he despised them for +it. Their people belonged to the leading churches and that accounted for +their lack of sympathy for the poor. + +There were some improvised boxes or tiers of seats inclosed in scarlet +ribbons on the right, which were marked, "Reserved Seats, 25 cents +extra." The young society people had not taken them, for some reason or +other, but, on the contrary, had found places in the body of the little +amphitheater where they sat merrily eating roasted peanuts which were +bought from a loud-shouting vender with a basket on his arm. + +It was all new to the young country wife, and she would have enjoyed it +but for the grim tragedy unfolding in her experience. The music stopped, +and the curtains were drawn. Two amusing Irishmen held the stage for +fifteen minutes in a heated colloquy interspersed with songs and "horse +play." Then when they had withdrawn, and Tilly and John were looking +over the audience, a man and a woman entered, came down the wide +saw-dust aisle, and turned into the reserved section. The man was very +fat, short, and flashily dressed; the woman was also showily attired, +powdered, painted, penciled, and perfumed. + +"Oh, my! Old Liz is on a splurge to-night, ain't she?" a man behind John +and Tilly said, with a giggle. "Who's the fellow with her?" + +"'Sh!" his companion hissed, warningly, and from the corner of her eye +Tilly saw him pointing at John. She looked at her husband and saw a +wincing look of chagrin settling on his face. He had given but a single +glance at the new-comers and now gazed fixedly at the crude +drop-curtain. Tilly saw his neck and the side of his face growing red. + +Could it be her mother-in-law? she asked. Undoubtedly, and her escort +was "Roly-poly," for Dora's description had fitted him perfectly. + +Another act was on the stage. Acrobatic performers in silken tights +began vaulting, climbing, balancing one upon the other. Tilly saw that +John was valiantly pretending to be absorbed in their maneuvers. He was +still flushed, and his eyes all but stood out from their sockets in +their grim fixity. How she pitied him! How she longed to take the strong +red hand which half clutched his knee and assure him that it didn't +matter to her at all. + +In the middle of the act something seemed to actually draw her eyes to +his mother's face. Lizzie Trott, with an expression half bewildered, +half abashed, was gazing past her son straight at her. The eyes of the +two met in a steady stare of infinite curiosity. The eyes of the woman +of the world seemed to cling to the eyes of youth and purity. The former +sank first. Lizzie Trott's wavered and fell to the dainty handkerchief +in her lap. + +"She is like John about the mouth and eyes," Tilly thought. "Poor woman! +I could love her. For John's sake I could love her. Yes, I could love +her. In spite of what she is, I could love her. Poor woman! Poor woman! +And she is John's mother--actually his mother! She is not wholly bad. I +see that in her face. Something is wrong. She looks tired, sad, +disgusted." + +Tilly now saw John with a flurried look in his eyes glance toward the +entrance. She read his thoughts. He was wondering if they might not get +away. He was dreading something, but what she knew not. Perhaps he was +afraid that his mother might at the end of the performance come across +boldly and introduce herself to her daughter-in-law, and perhaps make a +scene as she had done the day before. Again Tilly looked at her +mother-in-law. Their eyes met once more and clung together with almost +mystic comprehension. + +"Don't be afraid," Lizzie Trott's whole aspect seemed to say. "We'll go +away. I understand, and I'll not make it hard for you." + +And a moment later she was whispering something into the ear of her +companion, and the two rose and went out. John saw their backs as they +left, and Tilly noticed the expression of vast relief in his face. + +"Poor woman!" Tilly said to herself. "We could be friends. She is a real +woman, after all. She'd have to be to be John's mother." + +An hour later they were leaving the tent. Tilly declined John's +invitation to go to the soda-water and ice-cream parlor across the +street where a gay crowd under revolving fans were taking seats at +numerous small white tables. + +"I don't care for anything," she assured him. "Let's walk on. The night +is lovely and it looks like it is close in there." + +On his strong arm she hung tenderly as they strolled slowly back to the +cottage. John was changed. A sort of blight seemed to have swept over +him. She understood the cause of it and loved him all the more. That he +would never open his lips on the subject she was sure, but she could +read many of his thoughts which burrowed through some of his roundabout +utterances, as, for instance, what he said as they stood at their little +gate. + +"We must have some good long talks about my business," he said. "About +what's far ahead, you know, as well as right now. Sam wants me here. In +fact, he pretends to think he can't do without me to help out in several +big contracts, but between me and you-- I was wondering yesterday what +you'd think if I was to tell you that I'm just fool enough to think that +I could go to some big Western city and light on my feet right at the +start. A fellow that sells cement and lime to us told me not long ago +that I could hit it big out in Seattle. He was looking over some of my +figures that Sam showed him. I was wondering-- You see, I am a little +afraid that you might not like to go away so far from your kin, with a +big hulk of a scamp like me, and--and--" John swung the gate open and +seemed unable further to direct his anxious outpourings. + +Tilly understood--too well she understood what he meant, what he +feared--and she made up her mind that a dubious move for her sake only +should not be taken. John had not thought of such a thing before +marriage. Why should it happen now? + +"I don't think you really ought to make a change just yet," she said, +firmly. "Mr. Cavanaugh is determined to push you ahead as fast as +possible. He told me so the other day. He said he needed your brain for +expert estimates and calculations, and that there were big things ahead +of you both as a firm." + +John was now unlocking the door, and the dark interior of the house +seemed to add more gloom to his troubled bearing. "Oh, Sam's all right," +he said. "Sam means well and would do right by me, but--but I can't say +exactly that I like this town. There is nothing to it. They tell me that +the West is a different proposition. Folks don't--don't meddle in one +another's business out there. It is more free and easy, not so hidebound +and overrun with hypocrisy. A man is judged by what he is--by the amount +of gray matter he has in his skull, by his character, and not by--not +by--well any little thing that he can't help, you know. I mean, well, +like what you saw there to-night--that gang of stuck-up boys and girls, +living on their family backing. The world's wide, and, God or no God, +there must be better things dealt out than this. I mean than this is to +_some_. I never thought much about it when I first began to think you +might come here with me, but I do now, and there is no use denying it. +Of course, I don't want Sam to know yet. He would do all he could to +help me, but Sam is--is just Sam, as helpless against some difficulties +as I am." + +"Don't light the gas yet." Tilly caught his hand entreatingly. A deep +sob of sympathy filled her throat, and she drew him to the little wicker +seat on the porch. "Let's sit awhile here where it is cool. It is warm +in the house." + +They sat side beside each other. + +"I see. You don't want any Western experiments," he said, plaintively, +his great fingers toying with her hair and now and then touching her +brow. "That is the way of a woman." + +"I think," Tilly said, leaning her head against his breast and holding +his hand in hers, "that we ought to let well enough alone." Her thoughts +sank into inexpression and ran on. Should she tell him that she knew +all--knew what he was trying to run from on her account--and assure him +that she wanted to face the whole situation? But how could she tell him, +knowing how sensitive his sudden awakening had made him to the awful +matter? If he had wanted her to know it he would have brought it up +himself. No, that must wait, for to let him know that she knew all would +only add to his pain. He was finding a sort of respite in her supposed +ignorance of the situation; she would let it be so for a while, anyway. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +On that day a thing of no little importance was happening at Cranston. +Various members of Whaley's church were holding a meeting at the +farm-house of a certain Simon Suggs. They numbered seven in all, +including Mrs. Suggs, who was supposed to take no part beyond supplying +the group with fresh cider, which had been kept cool in a spring-house +and was now served with warm gingerbread. But she was alert, open-eyed, +and open-eared to all that was done and said. + +The meeting was called to order by Suggs himself. "As I understand it," +he began, rising and clearing his throat, "the object of this meeting is +to take a vote on what we ought to do in the matter under discussion. Do +I hear any motion in that respect?" + +"I move," said a wizen-faced little man in a high, piping voice, "that +we all go in a body to Brother Whaley and lay the matter before him. +Grave charges have been preferred against him as a consistent church +member, and a proposition has been made to turn him out. I hold that he +deserves at least a chance to make a statement--show his side, if he has +got one, even before it goes to the official board. Most of you contend +that he was aware of what he was doing from the start." + +"Of course he knowed!" cried out another man, who was a shoemaker and +bore the marks of his trade on his hands. "Wasn't that contractor +hand-in-glove with him, and didn't Cavanaugh know the whole thing as +plain as the nose on his face? I know a man that went straight to +Brother Whaley and told him this Trott was an atheist, and my informant +offered to bring sworn evidence of all that Trott had said on that line, +the most damnable talk, by the way, that hell ever had spouted in our +midst." + +"Oh, I'm admitting that part," the wizen-faced little man piped in. "I +admit all that, Brother Tumlin. Brother Whaley had heard of that, but it +seems that Cavanaugh persuaded him to gloss it over and leave the fellow +in Tilly's hands for gradual conversion to the truth; but as to the +other matter--the thing that is too dirty to talk about even here to you +men while Sister Suggs is out of the room--" + +"He knew that, too," broke in the shoemaker, angrily. "How could he keep +from it? We got it, didn't we? Isn't Trott's mother notorious?" + +"I'm not disputing that," the little man went on. "All I want to set +forth is that, even though Brother Whaley thinks he is the only man in +seven states that can interpret Scripture right and does know +considerable on that line, he is entitled to a fair show from us." + +"I wonder, brethren"--it was Mrs. Suggs who now appeared, wiping her fat +hands on her blue-and-white checked apron--"I wonder if I might be +allowed to put in a bare word right here?" + +Silence prevailed. A look of vague dissent passed over the solemn faces. +Suggs pulled at his stubby chin whiskers and knitted his bushy brows. +"If I'm chairman," he said, dryly, "I may or may not, according to my +discretion, permit Sister Suggs to speak; but as her husband, brethren, +I think if I don't give her a chance she will make it hot for me, so if +she will promise to fetch in some more cold cider right off I'll let her +speak." + +"Oh yes, let her," a voice said in a drowsy tone from the horsehair sofa +in a corner. "In my time I've known women to hit a nail on the head when +twenty men had either missed it or bent it double and spoiled the +woodwork. What is it, sister? Shoot it out! Saint Paul was against women +talking in public, but I like to listen to 'em--I do." + +"I was just thinking of one thing, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen"--Mrs. +Suggs bowed her frowsy head formally. She had presided at a church +meeting of her sex once or twice, and there was something more than +imitation of her husband's manner in her tone and bearing--"I was +thinking of one particular thing that men are apt to overlook in a +scramble like this seems to be, and that is this. I may as well tell you +that I've had talks with the wife of the man under investigation, and, +as I know how to handle a woman as well as the next one, I dropped on to +a few things that I'll bet you all will overlook." + +There was a sudden commotion in the yard, and, springing up, Suggs went +to a window, parted the curtains, and looked out. Turning, he rapped on +the back of his chair with his big pocket-knife and stared at his wife. + +"That cow has pushed the rails down and got to the calf again," he said. +"Either you or me will have to go out and part 'em. Of course I'm +willing to do it, but if I am to conduct this meeting properly, why--" + +"I move we take a recess," spoke up the wizen-faced man, "just long +enough to dispose of the cow-and-calf matter, and then come back and +finish up in here." + +"No, I'll go attend to it," Mrs. Suggs sighed. "I know how to handle +her, but you fellows have got to hold my place open. I'll be right back. +It is just a baby calf, and I can tote it about in my arms. I'll drop +it over in the old hog-pen till later." + +She had scarcely left the room when a lank man past middle age, with +long beard that was quite gray in spots and black as to the remainder, +stood up. "Would it be in order, Mr. Chairman," he began, "while the +lady whom you have recognized as having the floor is absent, for me to +say a word or two, being as this matter is _pro bono publico_ and vital +to us all--in fact, is the _primum mobile_ of our faith in the Almighty +and His plans?" + +"You have the floor, Professor Cardell. Hold on to it," Suggs said, +formally. "If you don't get through before my wife parts the cow and +calf she will just have to wait, that's all. That's one reason I never +thought women had a right to dabble in matters like this. They would get +interested in it and burn a pan of bread to cinders, or let a helpless +baby crawl out of its swaddlings into the fire. Go ahead, but I'd hurry +up a little. When there is a debate of any sort on my wife can do her +housework ten times as quick as ordinarily, if the work is holding her +back from the talk." + +Professor Cardell pulled at his beard till his lips smacked and his +white teeth showed. "I'm of the opinion, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen," he +began, "that Whaley was tempted by the big wages young Trott was +drawing, and all that Cavanaugh had to say about what Trott was apt to +amount to in the future. As we all know, _facilis descensus Averno est_, +and any man with natural greed in his veins is subject to temptation. +Therefore I wish to state quite plainly--" + +"Well, plain or not plain," Mrs. Suggs was heard saying, as she bustled +into the room, brushing short brown hairs from her dress and frowning on +the speaker, "I don't intend to have my place gobbled up behind my +back. Huh! I reckon not! You stout, able-bodied men let me do the dirty +work, and make that a reason for depriving me of my liberty of opinion +and the use of free speech." + +"As I see it," rapped Suggs with his knife, "Professor Cardell has just +got to a point that if he wasn't allowed to go on he'd have to go back +to the beginning and start over. I've noticed that he is that kind of a +speaker, and as time is--" + +"Professor Cardell nor no other creature in pants can take my place," +Mrs. Suggs fumed. "What is he saying, anyway? You men ought to be +ashamed of yourselves, setting here like stranded catfish, swallowing +all them foreign words and pretending you understand 'em. He whirls off +a lot of jumbled talk and the last one of you look as wise as a sleepy +ape in the corner of a cage in a circus." + +"I see I ought to apologize." Professor Cardell wore a flush which +looked as if it had its rise in scholastic pride rather than in rebuked +humility. "I am well aware that my phraseology is interspersed with +Latin, but that is due to my constant reading of the ancient classics +and a habit I have when I am alone of holding converse in that beautiful +tongue." + +"Beautiful, a dog's hind foot!" cried Mrs. Suggs. "Listen to me, +Professor Cardell. I can give you valuable advice, and I'm going to do +it here and now. You'd make much more headway, and clothe and feed your +wife and children a sight better, if you would throw all that gibberish +overboard and talk stuff that folks understand. Now nobody else hasn't +had the face to tell you the truth about this, but I will. You know when +you put in application as principal of the new school, and was turned +down so flat? Now I got it straight from the wife of one of the +committee who was to select the teacher, that when you got up before +that body of plain farm folks to show what you could do, and begun all +that Latin chatter, you cooked your goose for good and all. And, while I +hold nothing against you otherwise, I agree with them. I've always heard +that Latin is a dead language, and if that is so, it ought to be used on +dead folks and not on live ones. No living person can understand half +you say, and therefore I claim that your talk on this matter ought not +to go before what I've got to say in words so plain that a fool can +understand." + +"I yield the floor to the lady," the Professor said in confusion. +"_Prior tempore, prior jure._ She has it by rights, and I beg the pardon +of the chair: and the assembly." + +"Thank you, Professor," Mrs. Suggs said, as she picked at a few stray +calf hairs on her sleeve. "I wouldn't insist if I wasn't sure that I've +got something to say in plain English that you all will overlook. It is +this, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen. I've had friendly talks with Sister +Whaley and she has sort of let me in on her troubles and fears. Now +there is just one thing that will happen if you botch this matter. Dick +Whaley is the biggest fool and the wildest man when he is mad that ever +lived, and, while you haven't thought of it, this thing may bring about +bloodshed. He has already brought one man to death's door, and this will +be the worst thing for Brother Whaley to stand of anything that ever +crossed his path. He might have stood the talk about his son-in-law +being an atheist, but he'll never put up with what is being said about +selling his own child to a life of infamy, and the likelihood of his +being the grandfather of stock of that sort. If you fellers go on with +this, the innocent blood of more than one person may be on your heads. +Now I'm giving you fair warning, and I'm doing it in time to set you +all to thinking. Serving God is our duty, but if you fellows go over to +Dick Whaley's with this cock-and-bull yarn that you just heard from a +man peddling through the country, you will be led there by the devil +himself. That is all I've got to say." + +She sat down. There was a lengthy silence. The men glanced from one to +another in helpless inquiry of rapidly shifting eyes. Then a composite +stare became fixed upon Suggs's troubled lineaments. He arose, shrugged, +knitted his brows, and coughed. + +"There is something in what my wife has said," he began, "and, on the +whole, it may be that we ought to wait a little while before we take +this thing up. The whole country is rife with it, and Brother Whaley is +bound to hear it. He may act rash--in fact, now that I think of it, he +will be sure to do it, and I'm going to be frank and say here and now +that I'd rather not handle matches around as big a powder-can as this +one is. So if you will bring in the cider and cakes, Sister Suggs, I'll +adjourn this meeting _sine die_. By the way, that's Latin, isn't it, +Professor?" + +"Yes," the Professor answered, warmly grateful for being applied to, +"but I'd prefer the less common and more erudite term of _re infecta_." + +"Which means," replied Suggs, without intending to joke, "that we may be +infected again?" + +"Oh no, not that, by any means!" the Professor responded. "You quite +miss the point. You see, my worthy brother, in the Latin language--" + +But the cider and cake was being brought in; the men were rising to +receive the glasses which were tinkling on a tray, and good humor and +smug rectitude prevailed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +One morning Tilly was occupied in the little front yard of her home. +Some rose-bushes needed attention, and with a pair of large scissors she +was pruning the branches and cutting the weeds away with a garden +trowel. Suddenly, happening to glance toward the town, she noticed one +of the street-hacks approaching. There was no doubt that it was headed +for the cottage, and a sudden qualm of alarm passed over her. Indeed, +she feared that some accident might have happened to John, for he had +told her that he was at work on a scaffold to which large stones were +being hoisted. The negro cabman seemed to be in a hurry, for he was +lashing his horse vigorously. + +The cab stopped at the gate. The door was opened and Richard Whaley +stepped out. He wore his best suit of clothes, but it was badly wrinkled +and covered with dust. His black-felt hat was crushed, and its broad +brim had been pulled down over his eyes. Tilly heard him order the man +to wait, and the tone of his voice sent a shock of terror through her. +She had never heard him speak like that before, nor had she beheld such +a look in his haggard face. His whole form drooped and quivered as with +palsy as he came toward the gate. + +"Father!" Tilly gasped, but she said no more, for the wild stare of the +bloodshot eyes cowed her into silence. He swung open the gate and lunged +into the yard. + +"Where is that--where is John Trott?" he asked, panting, saliva like +that of an idiot dripping from his shaking lip. "Where is he, I say?" + +Tilly saw the negro staring curiously. She knew he was listening. Almost +deprived of her wits, yet she was thoughtful, and she said: + +"Come in, father; come in?" + +"Oh, he is inside, is he?" + +"Come in," Tilly answered, evasively. "Let's not talk out here." + +She led the way into the sitting-room and tremblingly placed a chair for +him, noting as she did so that his coarse shoes were untied, his hat +without a band, his cravat awry, his shirt unclean. He refused the +chair, and stood holding to the back of it with a besmudged hand. Then +her alert eyes took in the bulge of the right-hand pocket of his short +coat. A weighty article drew it sharply downward. She knew that it was a +revolver, and her blood ran cold in her veins. + +"Where is John Trott?" Whaley demanded, raspingly, and he looked toward +the door leading into the dining-room. That room was darkened and he +bent and peered toward it like a beast about to spring on its prey. + +"He is not here, father," Tilly said, in almost a gentle whisper. + +"Not here? Where has he gone?" + +She hesitated and then answered, "Out in the country, father." + +"I don't believe it." He turned, automatically laid his hand on his +revolver, and left the room. She stood still. She heard him stalking +from room to room, now striking against a chair or a table or tripping +on a rug. Through the window she saw the cabman, his gaze on the cottage +door. Whaley passed the window; he was walking around the house; his +hand was in his right pocket; he stumbled over a tuft of grass, almost +fell, and uttered a snort of fury. She raised a window at the side of +the house, and saw him looking into the little woodshed in the rear of +the lot. He turned and strode back to the cottage, entering at the +kitchen door and clamping over the resounding floor back to her. + +"Where is he? I say," he snarled. + +"I told you, father," she said. "Why--what is the matter? What do you +want? Why are you so excited?" + +"You know well enough!" he cried. "Don't stand there and tell me that +you don't know all or more than I do. Show him to me. I want to meet the +white-livered atheistic agent of hell. And when I do meet him he'll +never sneak into another respectable home like he did in mine. Do you +know what is being said? Do you know what is spreading from county to +county up home?" + +"I can imagine," Tilly sighed. She felt faint. The objects in the room, +the glaring fanatic, the sunny windows were swinging around her. She +pulled herself together. She told herself she must be strong. Unless she +conquered her weakness and held taut her wits her husband would be +killed. What was to be done? Suddenly an idea came. She told herself +that it might work. There was nothing else to do, and at any cost she +must prevent the meeting of the two men. Another moment and the madman +might be driving away in search for his victim. + +"Father," she began, and she advanced to him and started to lay her hand +on his arm, but he drew back and snarled like an infuriated beast. + +"Did you know about that strumpet, Liz Trott, before you married her +son?" he asked. + +"No, father, I did not; but you don't understand John's position--" + +"Understand the devil and all his imps! He'll understand me when I meet +him; that will be enough." + +"Father, sit down, please. John is away out in the country and won't be +home for a long time. Please, please don't raise a row here and stir up +this whole town. John is suffering enough without that. Now listen to +me. You know I have some rights. I am a married woman now, and I've got +a heart and soul in me. I've got the right as an innocent woman not to +be dragged into a scandal like this. If you shot John in your present +fury I'd have to be held as a witness, and you'd be put in jail. You are +a religious man. Surely you ought to know that God would not forgive you +for treating your own child as you are about to treat me. I am willing +to go home with you right away--this minute! The cab is waiting, and we +could catch the twelve-o'clock train. Surely you regretted that other +shooting affair you had, and are grateful to God for sparing you from +the worst. I'll pack up and go. It won't take me long." + +Slowly and limply he sank into a chair. His soot-streaked hands clutched +his knees and he groaned. She saw him shake his frowsy head and a tremor +went through him. He was being twisted between the hands of two forces. +He was silent for several minutes, save for his loud breathing. Glancing +through the window, Tilly saw that the negro had approached the gate. +She went to the window and leaned out. + +"Can you tell me," she asked him, as he saw her and lifted his hat, +"what time the Tennessee north-bound train leaves?" + +"Twelve ten, miss," he answered, trying to read the suppressed mystery +of her features. "Do you need me in dar? Dat man look' dangerous ter me, +miss." + +"Oh no." She shook her head and forced a smile. "But I want to ask--can +you take us to the station, and a small trunk also?" + +"Yes'm." + +"Hold on!" It was Whaley's voice, and he had risen. "Tell that nigger +to-- Let me speak to him. Do you think I came down here to--" + +Tilly thrust her small person between him and the window. She laid two +opposing hands on his breast and checked him. + +"I'm going to save you from murder-- I will, I will!" she said, +desperation filling her voice with power and causing his fierce stare to +flicker. "If you meet my husband you will shoot him and the blood of a +helpless, suffering, noble man will be on your head. You know what the +brand on Cain was. You will bear it till you meet God with it on your +brow. Do you think He'd forgive you? No, you'd have to burn for it in +eternal torment, and you know it. You know you thanked God for sparing +you before. Are you going to do even a worse thing now?" + +He sank, half pushed down by her, into his chair. She saw the revolver, +now exposed by his gaping pocket, and had an impulse to take it, but +realized that the act would infuriate him anew. So she left it alone and +stood squarely in front of him. + +"You are not going to damn your soul," she went on, firmly. "Jesus, your +Saviour and mine, forgave the guilty and you are refusing to pardon +_even the innocent_. You are going to take me home. You are going to sit +quietly there till I pack my trunk, and then we'll take the cab to the +train." + +He groaned under a vast inrolling wave of indecision, and stared at her +like a helpless, thwarted child, and yet she knew that the flames +smoldering within him were apt to burst at any moment. + +"I want to go home," she said. "I'm giving you this chance to take me in +a decent way. If you refuse, I don't know what I'll do, but you'd better +take me. For your sake and mine, you'd better do it. Now, I am being +driven to the wall, father, and down inside of me is your stubborn +nature when it is roused. You harm my husband, and see what I'll do. +I'll swear against you at the court of man. I'll appear against you on +the Day of Judgment." + +He stared at her helplessly. His great mouth fell open and he groaned. +"I understand, and--and you may be right," he faltered. "But you'd +better hurry. I know myself, and I know that if I met him I'd put him +out of the way if all hell stood between me and him. He has dragged my +name down into the mire and made me a laughing-stock before all men. I'm +pointed at, sneered at--called a senile fool." + +"I'll hurry," she promised. "It won't take long." + +In the little bedroom she threw open her trunk and began hastily to +pack. New fears were now assailing her. What if John should suddenly +come home for something he had left, as he had done once or twice? +Indeed, there on the bureau lay the blue-and-white drawing which only +the night before he had been studying. He might come for that, using +Cavanaugh's horse and buggy, as he frequently did. The thought chilled +her to the marrow of her bones. In her haste she all but tore her simple +dresses from their hooks in the closet and stuffed them, unfolded, into +the trunk. Now and then a little stifled sob escaped her. Her father +sat still and soundless in the other room. She wanted to brush his +clothes, tie his shoes, and fix his hatband before starting away, but +time was too valuable. + +There was a pad of writing-paper and a pencil on the bureau, and she +told herself that she must write John a note and leave it. She closed +and locked her trunk. Then she turned to the pad. She took up the pencil +and started to write, but was interrupted. Her father crossed the hall +and stood in the doorway. + +"What are you doing?" he asked, a suspicious gleam in the eyes which +took in the pad and pencil. + +"Nothing. I am ready," she replied, dropping the pencil and turning to a +window. "Come in and get the trunk," she ordered the cabman. + +Nothing was said by Whaley or herself now, for the negro, hat in hand, +was entering. And when he had left with the trunk, Tilly said: + +"Come on, father, let's go." + +Sullenly and still with a haunting air of indecision on him, he trudged +ahead of her out into the yard. She closed the door but did not lock it. + +"How can I get a message to John?" she asked herself. "There is no way +that I can see, and yet I must--oh, I must!" + +Her father had gone to the cab, opened the door himself, and stood +waiting for her. In the open sunshine, his unshaven face had a grisly, +ashen look; his bloodshot eyes held flitting gleams of insanity. His +lips moved. He was talking to himself. She saw him clench his fist and +hammer the glass door of the cab. + +The negro was immediately behind Tilly. She turned while her father's +eyes were momentarily averted. "Listen," she said, in a low tone. "See +my husband when he returns home to-night; tell him that my father came +for me and that I had to leave. Tell him not to come up home." + +The negro's bare pate nodded beside the trunk on his shoulder. He seemed +to understand, but made no other response, for Whaley's suspicious eyes +were now on him and his daughter. + +"Get in! Get in!" Whaley gulped, and stood holding the cab door. + +She obeyed, and he followed and crowded into the narrow seat beside her. +Through the glass of the opposite door she saw the white tombstones of +the town's burial-place, the roof of Lizzie Trott's house above the +trees, and the jagged, boulder-strewn hills beyond. The next moment the +cab had turned toward the station and was trundling along the rutted, +seldom-used street. Whaley's gaping pocket was within an inch of her +hand, and Tilly could have taken out the revolver, but she did not dare +do so, for that might fire him anew, and she had determined to run no +risks whatever. The smoke of factory chimneys streaked the horizon above +the town. She heard the bell of a switch-engine in the distant +railway-yard. They met a grocer's delivery-wagon. It was taking some +ordered things to the cottage, but Tilly dared not stop to explain, and, +as the grocer's boy did not recognize her, the two conveyances passed +each other. In an open lot some boys were playing ball. How could they +play so unconcernedly when to the young wife the whole universe seemed +to be whirling to its doom? + +A little street-car was rumbling down an incline not far away. It seemed +to have a few passengers. What if one of them should be John? And what +if, on finding her gone, he should hasten to town and meet her father +before the train left? + +"What time is it?" she asked her father, with forced nonchalance. He +made no answer, and she reached over and drew his open-faced silver +watch from the pocket of his waistcoat; but he had forgotten to wind it, +and it had stopped at three o'clock. She put the timepiece back with +difficulty, for he was leaning forward and made no effort to aid her. + +They were soon within sight of the station. Groups of men and boys stood +about. She shuddered at the thought of meeting their gaze. Cavanaugh +might be among them, and she feared the consequences of her father's ire +on seeing him. And when the cab had stopped and they had alighted Tilly +noticed that the men were exchanging remarks and staring at her and her +father. Surely they suspected something, and why? she wondered. Some of +them came closer and eyed her attentively while pretending not to do so. + +Tilly had her purse, and she sent the cabman for the tickets and ordered +him to check her trunk. There was a little waiting-room, and, desiring +more seclusion, she led her father into it. But they were not thus to +escape the stare of the bystanders, for many of them walked past the +door and looked in curiously. One of them wore the uniform of a +policeman, and it seemed as if he were about to address some inquiry to +her, but decided not to do so when he saw the cabman delivering the +tickets and trunk-check to her. The clock on the wall indicated twelve. +Ten minutes to wait. She was beginning to hope that all would be well +when the ticket-seller came from his office and with a piece of chalk +wrote on a blackboard bulletin: + +"36 North-bound 15 minutes late." + +The time dragged. More curious persons came to the door, stared, and +even paused. The cabman came for his fare. She paid him for the use of +his cab all the morning. "Don't forget," she whispered. + +"I won't, miss," he said, comprehendingly, and thereupon she put some +more money into his hand. + +"Please, please, don't forget!" she repeated. + +She watched him as he walked away, and then she saw the policeman join +him, and the two turned to one side and began to talk earnestly +together. + +At last the train came. Through a gaping throng, ever increasing, she +led her father to a seat in one of the coaches. There was only a short +stop, and the train was soon moving again. The relief was great, and a +vast sense of weakness came over her. She felt like crying, but she knew +that would never do. She yearned for the opportunity to confide in some +one. It could not be her mother, for she had never been understood by +her mother. There was one friend who would understand, who had always +understood, and that was Joel Eperson. Joel would be grieved. She was +the wife of another, but that would make no difference to Joel Eperson, +for that he was still faithful to her she did not doubt. She told +herself that she must see Joel at once and get his advice. She could +think of no one else upon whom she could so confidently rely, and she +must go to some one, for all the initiative she had ever possessed +seemed to have been ruthlessly destroyed along with every girlish dream, +hope, and ideal. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +It was dark that evening when John arrived home. As he opened the gate +he was surprised to see that the cottage was not lighted. That was +indeed strange, for Tilly was usually in the kitchen or the dining-room +at that hour. The next remarkable thing was the fact that the key was in +the lock. He felt it and heard it rattle as he caught the door-knob. The +hall was dark and silent. He went in hurriedly. What could have +happened? Where could she be? He called out: "Tilly! Tilly!" but there +was no response. A gray cat that belonged to the Carrols came and rubbed +against his ankles as he stood in the kitchen. He lighted the gas. How +odd! for there lay the unwashed breakfast-dishes, the uncleaned +coffee-pot, and in the dining-room the breakfast table-cloth had not +been removed. He put down his dinner-pail, and, with a great fear +clutching his breast, a fear he could not have defined, he went into the +sitting-room. Nothing here was out of place, and he turned into the +bedroom. It was dark, and with unsteady hands he struck a match. It +broke. A blazing globule fell to the mat. He swore impatiently and +extinguished it with his foot. He struck another and lighted the gas. +The open door of the closet, now empty, met his eyes. A crushed hat-box +lay on the floor, the bureau drawers were wide open and contained but a +few things. He looked for Tilly's trunk. It was gone. Then he began to +look everywhere for some written communication, lighting all the +gas-jets to facilitate his search. Then he gave it up. He went about +extinguishing the gas as aimlessly and mechanically as a sleepwalker, +unaware of the things he was touching. + +He went out on the porch. He stepped down into the yard. Verbal +expression of no sort was formed in his consciousness, for the pall of +comprehension had not yet quite enveloped him. Something yet of hope +might blaze forth out of his gloom. Ah, perhaps she had received a +telegram from home that some one was ill and had not had time to inform +him. Yes, it might be that--that and not the other--not the damnable, +sinister conceit that somehow seemed to emerge from the home of his +mother and come crawling like a designing monster across the intervening +spaces toward him. He went to the gate and clutched it with the strong +hand which all that day had lifted mortar and bricks till his muscles +were sore. Then he heard the sound of wheels. A horse and cab were +approaching from the direction of the town. + +"Ah, a message is coming!" he cried, a vast rising relief driving the +words from him. + +"Is dat you, Mr. Trott?" The cabman was reining his horse in at the +gate. + +"Yes. What is it?" John went out to the cab and stood breathlessly +waiting for the negro to speak. + +"Why, yo' wife tol' me ter tell you, sir, dat--but, bless me if I wasn't +so rattled dat I hardly remember what it was she said." + +"My wife, my wife, what about her?" + +"Why, I done fetch 'er father here, sir, dis morning," the man went on +in stammering tones. "He was rampagin' up 'n' down de Square, askin' +whar you was. He had a gun an' was out er his head. Dar wasn't no +policeman about, en' nobody else knowed how ter handle him. He sure was +dangerous! Seems like he done hear about--well, you know--about yo' ma, +an' Miss Jane Holder, an'--an' de high jinks over dar night after night, +an' fines, drinks, poker an' all dat. He didn't talk to me, sir, but +some of de white folks dat he saw in de stores said he claimed dat you +abdicated his young daughter 'fo' she was old enough ter decide fer +herself. I didn't want ter fetch 'im here, for blood was in his eyes, +but I was afraid not to, wid him settin' behind me wid dat gun in his +pocket, so I driv' him over, knowin' you was out in der country at work +an' safe fer a while, anyway." + +"But my wife--my wife?" John all but pleaded. "What about her?" + +"I don't know 'cept she tuck 'im inside an' sorter quieted 'im down and +tol' 'im she wanted to go home ter her ma. Some a de white folks up-town +say she didn't know what she was gettin' her foot into down here nohow, +an', now she found out, she was glad ernough to get away. One an' all +say she is plumb decent herself, just er plain country girl wid good +up-bringin'. Some of 'em is b'ilin' mad at you an' yo' boss." + +John stifled a rising groan. "Damn you," he said, "cut all that out and +tell me if my wife left any message for me." + +"Yes, sir, she did--now I remember, but she had ter give it ter me on de +sly, an' I didn't git all of it. She said tell you she had ter go--dat +she had stood it as long as she could, an'--oh yes, she said fer you not +ter dare ter show yo'se'f up dar at 'er ol' home." + +"And have they left town?" John asked, with strange calmness. + +"Oh yes, sir! Dey tuck de twelve-ten train." + +"That will do." John motioned for him to go. "I understand." + +The negro turned his horse around and started back to town. John stood +stock-still, his eyes on the cab disappearing in the gloom. He had stood +that way for several minutes when a small hand was slipped into his from +behind, and, looking around, he saw the soiled face and matted hair of +Dora Boyles. + +"Brother John," she faltered, "has Tilly left you--really--really left +you?" + +He dropped her hand and shoved her from him. "Go home!" he cried. "Go +home, and don't bother me!" + +She fell back a yard or so and stood staring at him. "I won't go till +you tell me," she said, stubbornly. "I started over here this morning to +show Tilly my doll and get her to help me dress it. I saw that +crazy-looking old man come in a cab and take her and her trunk away. She +was white--oh, she was as white as a sheet, and so pitiful-looking!" + +"Go home, I tell you! Go home!" John gulped and snarled like a man +goaded at once by grief and physical pain. "Go home, I tell you! Leave +me alone!" + +"I suppose that means she _has_ left," the child reasoned aloud. "Well, +brother John, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, because I liked her awfully well. +But I'm not surprised. Aunt Jane told your ma yesterday--and it made her +mad. My! didn't the old girl rip and snort? Aunt Jane told her this +thing would happen sooner or later. She said no woman alive could stay +cooped up in a little box like this very long and not have a single soul +go near her, and you off all day." + +John laid his hand roughly on the child's shoulder and smothered an +oath of fury. "You go home!" he panted. "If you don't, I'll--" + +"You'll do nothing!" The child smiled fearlessly. "Your bark is worse +than your bite, brother John. But I'm going. I'll come back, though. +I'll be over to clean up and cook something for you. You won't come back +to our old shack, I know." + +When she had left he went into the cottage, but he did not light the gas +again. The darkness seemed more suitable to his mood. He sat down on the +edge of his and Tilly's bed. His massive hand sank into her pillow. It +was past his supper hour, but he had no desire to eat. The sheer thought +of the kitchen where his young wife had worked, somehow suggested her +death. A little round metal clock on the mantel was ticking sharply. He +got up and wound it, as usual, at that hour. He went into the +sitting-room. Here he sat down, lurched forward in unconscious weakness, +and then, swearing impatiently, he steadied himself. He remained there +only a minute. Rising, he went into the dining-room, felt about, as a +blind man might, for a chair, and sank into it. Crossing his arms on the +table, he rested his head on them. Had he been a weaker man he might +have pitied himself. He had always contended that a man who could not +bear pain and adversity had a "yellow streak" in him. He had once had a +painful operation performed without an anesthetic, and he now told +himself that he simply must master the things within and without him +which had combined to overthrow him. He ground his teeth together. He +clenched his fingers till the nails of some of them broke. + +He closed his eyes. He tried to imagine that he was becoming drowsy and +that he would soon sleep, but a thousand pictures floated through his +brain and dug themselves in like burrowing animals. Chief among them was +a view of Whaley striding about the Square, uttering slobbering +anathemas against him. Another scene was that of Tilly's receiving the +revelation he himself had shrunk from making. He saw the blight fall on +her bonny face and her calm and inevitable consent to abandon him +forever. And yet how could he bear _that_--exactly _that_? He groaned +against the smooth surface of the table. He was ashamed of his frailty, +for the mastery of himself seemed farther off, almost an impossibility. + +The iron latch of the gate clicked. A heavy step grated on the gravel +walk. He sat up straight and listened. The cast-iron door-bell rang. +There was a pause, then a step sounded in the hall. Some one was +entering unbidden and stalking into the house. + +"Oh, John--Johnny, my boy! Where are you?" It was Cavanaugh's voice +filled with fluttering grief, tenderness, dismay. + +"Here I am!" John did not rise. "Here, in the dining-room." + +"But the light--the light. Why don't you--" + +Cavanaugh broke off as he stood in the doorway. He paused there for a +moment, as if wondering what state a light would reveal the crouched +form of his friend to be in. + +"I don't want a light, Sam," John muttered. "You can have one if you +want it. Here are some matches--but, no, I'll light up. When I came in I +was so tired that I sat down here a minute, and--well, I must have--have +dropped asleep. But what the hell's the use to lie to _you_?" He struck +a match and held it to the gas-jet over the table beneath the gaudy +porcelain shade. His writhing face, in the sudden flare of light, was +white, holding a tint even of green. He sank back into his chair. "No, +I won't lie, Sam. Besides, if you haven't already heard you will soon +enough." + +"I _have_ heard," Cavanaugh admitted. "I heard it at home from a +neighbor. Then I went to the Square to make sure, and--" + +"I know. It's town talk, a delicious tidbit for women and loafers," John +sneered. "Well, well, it is done, Sam. It has happened, and that is all +there is to it." + +"I hurried over to see you and talk with you," Cavanaugh went on. "I +don't know what step you want to take." + +"I'll take none," John answered, grimly. "You don't think I want to kill +anybody, do you? She is his daughter, and he had her before I got her. I +tell you there is no fight in me, Sam. I can fight, as you know, when it +has to be done, but there is no call for it in this case. Knowing Tilly +as I know her, and now knowing my own plight as it has been made plain +to me since I brought her here, I would think any man a damned idiot +that would allow his daughter to marry me. God! God! No, never! Sam, +Sam, I never found fault with you before, but you ought to have told me. +By God! you ought to have opened my damned sightless eyes!" + +"Don't! don't! my boy!" Cavanaugh cried, huskily. "You are breaking my +heart. I wanted you with me. I saw how you two loved one another, and I +thought I was acting right. I--I couldn't pull the bad conduct of others +between you and that sweet little girl. I am not satisfied to let it +rest as it is, either. You may not want to take any steps, but it is my +duty to try to do something." + +"Something? What the hell could you or any one do?" + +"Well, I'll tell you what struck me, my dear boy. I'm going up to +Cranston to-night and see how the land lies. I don't intend to rest idle +and know no more than I've picked up in the wild talk of men on the +streets up-town and a stupid negro cab-driver. This is a serious matter, +and I have a big duty to perform." + +"It won't do any good," John groaned, softly, and he shook his head. +"I've been thinking it all over. I began to get my eyes open as soon as +we got here. I've been a fool--a boy, a blind boy, at that, and what has +happened to-day is not such a great surprise. You needn't go up there +and beg for me, Sam. Say what you will, I am not worthy of her--that's +the whole damned truth in a nutshell." + +"Not worthy of her?" Cavanaugh protested. "How ridiculous, my boy!" + +"No, I'm not. I don't know a man that is, but I'm sure that _I_ never +can be. Do you know that in meeting me and marrying me as she did that +sweet child never had a fair deal? Other girls not as good as she is +have married men with plenty of means, not a--a stain on them, with +respectable friends and honorable blood-kin. But what have I done--my +God! what have I done? Sam, I've committed a crime. No matter how I +felt--how much I wanted her--I had no sort of right to her. No man has a +right to lay a filthy load like mine on unsuspecting, frail shoulders. +It is done, but if I could undo it and make her as free as she was +when--when I first saw her up there, I'd do it if it plunged me into the +eternal hell of flames her daddy believes in." + +Cavanaugh's sympathies were wrung dry. He sat blinking as if every word +from his protégé were a blow well aimed at him. Once he started to +speak, but his voice broke and he desisted, sitting with his arms +grimly folded, his legs awkwardly crossed, a broad, dust-coated shoe +poised in mid-air. + +"Maybe I ought to have had a talk with you--_maybe_," he finally said. +"I--I prayed over it, John, but no light seemed to come to justify me in +judging anybody in the matter--not your poor, misguided mother even, for +our Lord and Saviour told us not to judge her sort. As I interpret Him, +He said them that judged was the ones that needed judgment most of all. +So on that I acted. My wife saw it a little bit different at first, but +she finally said I was right, and sanctioned it. It seems to me that +your ma is--is what she is just on the outside, anyway. The other day +out at the work, after she had said all that in hot passion, it seemed +to me that I noticed a look of shame and regret in her face, like she +realized she had gone too far. You may remember that me and her stepped +to one side just before she left, and--well, she started to cry. She did +that, John, and it meant a lot. I was seeing her with her veil off--as +you might say--I was looking beneath the paint, powder, and coming +wrinkles. You know I knew her when she was a girl. I must speak plain. +She was a beauty then, and that was her ruin, for all the hellish +designs of the sharpest of men was centered on her. Your pa was clean, +straight as a die, and loved her, but he was helpless. She loved +attention and would have it. She fell. It had to come. It meant your +pa's ruin, and it meant this blight that is on you and Tilly now; but, +my boy, I stand here as a confident witness before God Almighty and +state that nothing but good can come out of it in the long run. Peace +out of the turmoil; joy out of the shame and grief; the fragrance of +Elysian fields out of the moral stench under your mother's roof." + +"Good?" John sniffed. "Sam, don't talk to me of a God--yours or any +other man's. When you have been where I am now, you'll know more about +God than you do. God? God? God? You say he is everywhere. He's here +to-night, isn't he? Here in this room? There in the kitchen where she +left the dishes unwashed? Here where she left the door unlocked and ran +away, disgusted with me for leading her into such a mess." + +"Hush, hush, my boy!" entreated Cavanaugh, a dry sob rasping his throat. +"Don't say any more! It is almost time for my train. I'm going up there +to-night and see what can be done. Tilly will talk to me. What could she +say here to these strangers? Now, don't go to work to-morrow. Things +will move along all right for one day without us, and you won't feel +like working, anyhow. I'll get back to-morrow night at ten o'clock. Wait +for me here." + +The grim silence which now brooded over John gave consent, and Cavanaugh +rose and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Don't give up," he said. "I'm +sure I'll bring back good news. God will see to that." + +"I'll wait for you, Sam," John consented, "but it won't be as you hope. +There is no God to see to anything. God didn't help my father, did he? +Neither will he help me. The whole thing is blind chance. 'Lead us not +into temptation'! What a pitiful prayer! My mother, you say, was led in +when she was not more than a girl. Were the designing men on her track +God's agents, and is my fate, and my young wife's, a part of some plan +laid in heaven?" + +"Wait, wait!" Cavanaugh reached down and took John's inert hand and +pressed it. "I'll see you to-morrow night." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +John slept but little that night. There must have been a deep +undercurrent of sentiment in his make-up, despite his practical type of +mind, for the sight of everything Tilly had touched gave him infinite +pain. He waked frequently through the night, and even while sleeping was +tossed and torn by innumerable tantalizing dreams. He was awake at +sunup, and again the lonely mental spectator of the clouded panorama of +the day before. + +There was a sound of pans and pots being handled in the kitchen, and he +got up and went to the kitchen door. It was Dora making a fire in the +range. She glanced up, saw him, smiled sheepishly, and lowered her head. + +"There is nobody over home," she explained, apologetically. "They went +off last night to be gone two days--another trip to Atlanta with old +Roly-poly and some more. Aunt Jane was sick, but she dressed and went, +all the same. I came over to cook your breakfast, wash the dishes, and +do up the house. Why shouldn't I? There is nothing to do at home." + +He said nothing, but as he turned away a faint sense of gratitude seemed +to enter the aching void within him. A little later she called him to +the dining-room. He had eaten no supper the night before, and his +physical being demanded nourishment. He sat down and the child waited on +him. The coffee was good and bracing, the eggs and steak were prepared +to his taste, the toast brown and crisp. + +Somehow he now regarded Dora with pity. How frail, wan, and anemic she +looked! How thin and bloodless her hands and cheeks! She had the making +of a good woman in her, but she, too, was losing her chance. How sad! +How pitiful! + +"You work too hard," he suddenly said, and he wondered if that touch of +refined consideration for another had come from his contact with his +wife. "You are too little and young. Sit down yourself and eat." + +She shrugged her peaked shoulders and laughed. "I'm not hungry. I'm not +a bit hungry here lately. The only thing I care for is syrup and bread, +and they say too much of that as a regular diet will get you down in the +long run." + +He stared, his impulse toward her betterment oozing out of him. The +whistles of the factories reminded him that he was not to work that +day--that he was not to return at dark to Tilly, as had been his wont, +and he rose and went back to the bedroom. What was to take place? Why, +the day would drag by and Cavanaugh would return with some verdict or +other--some report that would settle his fate forever. + +Leaving Dora at work in the kitchen, he went outside. Desiring not to +meet any one, he made his way to the nearest wooded hillside beyond his +mother's house and the bleak, white-capped cemetery. From that coign of +vantage he saw the town stretched out beneath him. He found a great +moss-grown boulder and half lay, half sat on it. The sun climbed higher +and higher; the din of the town and its industries beat in his ears, the +buzz of a planing-mill, the clang of hammered iron. He ought not to +have attempted to pass that particular day in absolute solitude and +inactivity, but he knew naught of his own psychology. He watched for the +coming and going of trains, telling himself again and again that +Cavanaugh's return would decide his fate forever. What would he be +informed? How could he face the thing that he had told Cavanaugh +actually was to happen--that Tilly and he were to be parted forever? + +At noon he crept down the hill, keeping himself hidden till the way was +clear, then he hastened across the open to the cottage. The child, still +there, had given it a semblance of order, and his lunch was on the +table. She refused to sit with him, though he asked her in a tone that +was full of consideration and that odd, abashed tenderness for her which +seemed to be rooting in the loam of pained humility which filled him. + +"I want to know, brother John," she said, her deep-sunken eyes staring +earnestly--"I want to know if you think she is coming back?" + +He gulped down his hot coffee, and as he replaced his cup in his saucer +he said, with a touch of his old fatalistic recklessness: "I don't know. +I think not. Sam is up there to-day to--to see about it. He will be back +to-night. I don't know. I'm leaving it all to him, and--and to--her." + +Later, as he sat and smoked in the parlor he tried to read the daily +newspaper that had been left at his door, but even the boldest +head-lines foiled to catch and rivet his attention. Taking a hammer and +nails, he went into the back yard to repair a fence; but he had scarcely +started to lift the first plank into place when the incongruity of the +thing clutched him as in a vise. What was he doing? Why was he thinking +of a thing so inconsequential as that? And for whom was he putting the +fence to rights? With an oath born of sheer bleak agony, he threw the +hammer from him and dropped the nails and plank to the ground. He had +loved the place; he and Tilly had called it their "Cottage of Delight"; +he had thought he would keep it in order, and even improve it, but all +that was gone. He went back to the hillside. He watched the afternoon +melt away, saw the sun go down into a bed of crimson and pink and the +filmy cloud-curtains being drawn about the molten sleeper. + +It was growing dark when he went back to the cottage. Dora was in the +kitchen, preparing his supper. He was vaguely angered by her attention +to him. He appreciated her doglike fidelity, but it made him impatient, +for she was too small, young, and weak to do all that she was doing. + +"You must go home," he blurted out, standing in the doorway and +surveying her. "I'm able to look out for myself. I'm not hungry, anyway, +now, for you have filled me up to the neck." + +She smiled wistfully. There was a smudge of soot on her nose which gave +her face a grotesque look. Her bare legs and feet were dust-coated and +scrawny. + +"I want to be here when Mr. Cavanaugh comes back," she contended, almost +defiantly, a shadow of rigid doggedness in her eyes. + +"But you can't," he retorted with irritation. "It will be late at night +and you should be in bed." + +"I want to know what he has to say," Dora persisted, putting more wood +into the range. "Tilly was nice and good to me, and I want to know if +she is coming back. Besides--besides, _you_ want her." + +"You can't sit up around here," he said, firmly. "You've got to go +home." + +She said nothing. He thought he had offended her and was sorry for it, +but when supper was over he prevailed upon her to go. "Poor little rat!" +he mused, as he stood at the gate and watched her vanish in the night. +"She's never had a chance, and she'll never have one. Huh! Sam's God and +old Whaley's is busy counting the hairs of her head and no harm will +ever come to her--oh no, none at all!" + +John paced back and forth in the little front yard. Eight o'clock came; +nine; ten, and a little later he heard the whistle of the south-bound +train as it drew near the town. The last street-car for the night would +be leaving the Square in a few minutes. Cavanaugh would take it. He +seldom rode in a cab, and time was too valuable for him to walk +to-night. + +The minutes passed. Presently he heard the rumble of the little car as +it crossed an elevated trestle a half-mile away, then he saw its lighted +windows flitting through the pines and oaks which bordered its tracks. +It paused at the terminus. John heard the driver ordering his horse +around to the other end, and he retreated into the house. Sam should not +catch him there watching as if life or death hung on his report. It was +one thing to feel a thing, and another to show it like weak women who +weep openly for the dead, or men who cry out in pain like spoiled +children. He went into the parlor and sat down. The outer night was very +still, so still that he heard Cavanaugh's heavy tread when he was yet +some distance away. Thump, thump, thump! John found himself counting the +steps. + +"Why am I like this?" he questioned himself. "If it is to be, it _is_ to +be, and that is the end of it. I can bear it. Why not? Why shouldn't a +man bear anything that comes his way--anything, anything, even--even +_this_?" + +Cavanaugh was at the gate now. He was noiselessly opening and closing it +as if fearful of waking some one asleep in the house. + +"Is that you, Sam?" John called out from the parlor. + +"Yes, yes, my boy, it is me. I--I thought you might be in bed," and the +contractor now tiptoed into the hall and stood in the parlor doorway. + +"Oh no, I thought I'd wait up," John replied. "Like a fool, I didn't +work to-day, and you see I'm not so tired as I usually am. Come in. Got +a match? I'll light the gas. I didn't light it because it is warm +to-night and I was smoking. Did you bring any cigars with you? I've hung +on to my pipe all day and wouldn't mind a change." + +"No, I plumb forgot," Cavanaugh answered. "I had to hurry to get my +train. I didn't go about any of the stores, either--too many idle +gossipmongers hanging about. Don't light up for me. I--I-- We can talk +just as well without that. I really ought to be at home. I just thought +I'd stop by and--and--" + +He went no farther. John heard him feeling about for a chair and saw his +dim bulk sink into it. There was no doubting the man's agitation, and +why was he agitated? John thought he knew, and bared his mental breast +to the hot iron of revelation. + +"You say you didn't go out to the work to-day?" Cavanaugh said, +irrelevantly enough to explain his mien and mood. + +"No, I ought to have gone, but I didn't. I was a fool to hang around +here like this, eating my head off and making a smoke-house of my lungs. +It is the first day off I've had for a long time." + +This remark was followed by silence. Cavanaugh broke it with a slowly +released sigh. "I may as well tell you what I did," he faltered. + +"You can't tell me anything I don't know already," John quickly +interposed. "Remember, Sam, that I told you last night--" + +"I know, but I wasn't satisfied to let it rest there. I'm not satisfied +yet to--to let it rest even where it is now. I'm not done with it by a +long shot. I--I'm going back up there in--in a few days. I've got to +look deeper into the law dealing with such extraordinary cases as--" + +"The law?" John leaned back in his chair in a swift gesture of contempt. +"What the hell has the law got to do with it, Sam? Law, I say, law! Did +you ever hear of any justice dealt out by the law? Don't talk law to me. +Tell me, man to man, what you did up there." + +"What I did? Why, my boy"--Cavanaugh was floundering about in search for +a word, a phrase with which to meet the blunt attack on his +resources--"I did all I could think to do." + +"Well, out with it, Sam. I know it went against me. There is no use +beating about the bush. You saw Tilly, and she said--" + +"Oh no, I didn't see her, my boy!" The contractor leaned eagerly upon +the denial, small as it was. "I tried to, but it was impossible. She is +housed up at home like a prisoner. John, Whaley is in a dangerous mood. +I was advised not to go near the house. I started there anyway, but the +sheriff stopped me--gave me orders to stay away. I don't know how to--to +make it all plain to you, John. You see, I love Tilly and you so much +that--that this thing cuts deep. It has almost knocked out my faith in a +just Providence." + +John leaned forward; his hands hung between his knees and he clasped +them near the floor. He uttered a ghastly laugh meant to show +indifference, but which missed its mark. "You are beating about the +bush," he said, huskily, and another rasping laugh issued. "Out with it. +I'm able to have a tooth pulled. Go ahead. Get it off your chest, old +man." + +"As I said just now," Cavanaugh began again, "I'm going back to Cranston +after--after I get some legal advice down here where there is no public +excitement." + +"Excitement?" John said. "What do you mean by public excitement?" + +Cavanaugh hesitated again, and John rose and stood towering above him in +the gloom. He repeated his question, and this time there was no pretense +in his tone or mien. + +"Well, you know how a narrow-minded, backwoods community like that can +get when it is wrought up high," the contractor said, gingerly. "You +know how they are inclined to make a mountain out of a molehill. I can't +say that I met one cool-headed person up there. Men and women were so +crazy that they were frothing at the mouth. I hate to say it, John, but +they actually threatened me with bodily harm. They asked me if what had +been reported against your poor ma was true, and when I said that most +of it was they wanted to tear me limb from limb. I'll tell you the truth +and be done with it. There is no other way as I see it between friends +such as we are. My boy, a mob was forming to tar-and-feather me. The +sheriff came and warned me. He took me to the junction five miles this +side of town in his buggy and put me on the train. I saw I would harm +your interests if I stayed longer and so I took his advice. He is a +smart man, well versed in the law, and as we drove along he told me +what old Whaley is up to." + +"I can guess," John said, grimly, "and, Sam, if I was in his place I'd +do the selfsame thing. He is going to undo this marriage. I know-- I +see. Tilly is just a girl and I didn't tell her or him what to expect +down here. Am I right, Sam?" + +Cavanaugh hung fire, then he nodded his head. John could see the tangled +shock of hair moving up and down. + +"I knew that would be it," John said, returning to his chair. He sat +down, crossed his legs, and tugged at the strap of one of his shoes. It +broke off and he sat twisting it between his fingers. + +"Yes, the sheriff called it 'annulment,'" Cavanaugh resumed, more +calmly. "He said that Whaley would have no trouble putting it through +the court which is in session, now, as it happens. Even the judge is +prejudiced--seems that he had heard of your ma. They ought not to fetch +in religion, but Whaley is going to prove that you are an atheist, so +they say. So you see, my boy, that what is to be done by us must be done +in a big hurry. I am going to see Fisher and Black the first thing in +the morning. They are the best lawyers in the South. I'll be there when +they open the office. I've got money enough to plank down a good +retaining fee. You helped me make it on that court-house. Just think of +it, we are going to win our case in that very building." + +"You will not go to those lawyers, Sam." + +"You say I won't?" + +"No. I'm the one to decide that, and I've already done it." + +"What do you mean, my boy? Surely you don't intend to sit quiet and let +a lot of mountain roughnecks--" + +"You are hot-headed like the mob up at Cranston," John broke in, and +then made an apparent effort to proceed calmly. He took out his pipe and +began to knock its bowl against the heel of his shoe to prepare it for a +refilling. His nonchalant shrug was that of a thwarted school-boy. His +smile was little more than a grimace which the darkness further +distorted. "You are 'kicking against the pricks.' What is to be has to +be, and if you oppose it you get the worst of it. Besides, you are an +old fogy, Sam--you are out of date, moth-eaten. You have got some sort +of a Romeo love idea in your head. You are trying to make yourself +believe that--that Tilly will be unhappy the rest of her life if--if the +old man wins. Shucks! I know women. How long does a young widow wear +black these days? Old Whaley is right. That Cranston judge is right, the +sheriff, and all the damned mob, too. If death will free a woman from a +long life with a drunkard, the Cranston court can free one from--well, +from what I pulled Tilly into. No, sir, Sam. I am not the man for her. I +can't give her enough of what she ought to have. She deserves +respectability, recognition as a lady in this or any other town. It is a +good thing that it happened so soon. It will blow over all the quicker. +She will--she will feel bad for a while, maybe, but time heals all +wounds. Now go home to your wife, Sam. She is not well, and--" + +Cavanaugh stood up. "Yes, I'll go," he faltered, "but I'm going to talk +to Fisher and Black in the morning." + +"Don't do it, Sam." John was smoking now. "I refuse to fight this case +before the public. It is bad enough as it is without forcing my poor +little--without forcing Tilly to hear more of it. She is too young and +sensitive to go through it, and I won't let her. If I don't appear it +will go through quietly. I know-- I heard of a case like that. The judge +picked a time when just a few people were present, and it was over right +away." + +"John, are you in earnest?" Cavanaugh asked, at the end of his +resources, and he shambled out to the porch. + +John followed and stood at his side. "I am, Sam; in fact, I insist on +it. I know Tilly's rights and she shall have them. I owe her a million +apologies. I'm doing all I can do. I wish I could do more. The time will +come, Sam, when she will--will not want to think of me. She will do her +best to forget me and all the rest of the awful mess." + +"Hush, hush! I'll see you in the morning, after I've slept on it," +Cavanaugh said, from the gate. "I don't see how I can give in to you, my +boy. You and Tilly were too happy for it to end like this." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +When the contractor was out of sight John sank limply into a chair on +the porch. The part he had played against his emotions had told on him. +Not the hardest day of physical toil could have so wrought upon his +nerves. Cavanaugh's steady tread was dying out in the distance. Afar off +a dog was baying. Suddenly, across the street against a scraggy growth +of sassafras-bushes, he saw something white moving. He thought that it +might be a dog, a sheep, or a calf. It moved again. It was coming toward +him. It approached the gate. It was Dora, and she timidly raised the +latch and crept into the yard. + +"Don't get mad, brother John," she pleaded. "I saw him come. I was +hidden over there in the bushes. I couldn't go to sleep to save my life. +I tried." + +He was too much undone to protest. Moreover, there was a dumb, +shrinking, animal-like worship in her tone and mien that watered the +feverish waste within him. For the first time in his life he wanted to +take the barefooted child into his lap and fondle her. He longed for a +closer contact with her pitying warmth. To see her weep in his behalf +would help; her childish tears would balm his wounds. + +"Come in, kid," he said, gently. "I didn't mean to be rough to-night. +You must overlook it. I was out of sorts--a fool to be so, but I was." + +She sat down on the door-step, her eyes glued on him. + +"What did he say?" she inquired. "I want to know. Is she coming back to +you?" + +"No, she's gone for good, kid," he answered. "But don't you bother; it +is all right." + +"What are you going to do?" she asked. "Stay on here in this house? I'll +cook and clean for you, if you do. You can get another wife. If she +wouldn't stay I'd let her go. There are plenty of others. Was she after +some other fellow, brother John?" + +"Oh no, no!" he jerked out. "It is not that. Don't you understand? But I +see you don't. How could you?" + +"You didn't say whether you are going to stay on here in this house or +not," the child pursued. "That is the main thing." + +Suddenly he leaned forward and stared straight at her. "Listen, kid," he +began. "I tried you once and you kept my secret, so I know I can trust +you. If I now tell you something I don't want a soul to know, will you +promise to keep it?" + +"Yes, yes," she agreed. "I won't tell, brother John. I'd cut out my +tongue first." + +"You see, I don't want Sam to know," John went on. "I don't want my +mother or Jane to know--or Tilly, or any one alive. It is important. Sam +will be as much surprised as any of them. Kid, I've made up my mind to +pack my grip and catch the four-o'clock north-bound train. I'm going to +cut this thing out forever. I'll cover my tracks. Not a living soul +shall know where I am. I've thought it all out, and it is the only thing +to do." + +Dora was silent. He saw her fixed gaze shift itself from his eyes to the +gate. Then he noted that her little hands were raised to her face. She +was softly crying. He heard a low sob, and it cut through him like a +gapped and rusty blade. He was surprised. He had never seen her like +that before. "What is the matter?" he inquired. But she did not answer, +and he saw that she was making a strong effort to control her emotion, +as if she realized that it was distinctly out of place there and then. +But he had determined to understand her better, and he went and sat +beside her on the step. He took her hand and tried to fondle it, but, as +if ashamed of her weakness, she drew it away and continued to sob, +swallow, and quiver. + +"I see, you don't want your brother John to go away. Is that it, kid?" + +"Yes," she muttered, nodded, and then remained silent, her face tightly +covered by her hands. + +He stood up. He went to the fence and took some steps along it +irresolutely. Suddenly he stood facing her, his arms folded as Cavanaugh +had seen him stand studying the masonry he was building, an arch, a +pillar, or cornice. + +"Why haven't I thought of it before?" he reflected. "It would be a crime +to leave the poor little mouse over there. She doesn't know what is in +store for her, but her eyes will be opened some day, as mine are, +and--and what has come to me may come to her. And who knows? It might +hurt the poor little mite every bit as bad. I wonder if she-- I +wonder--" He went back and sat by her side. + +"Listen, Dora," he began. "I've got to go--there is no way out of +it--but I don't want to leave you like this. I didn't know till to-day +how much I care for you. You seem, somehow, like a real sister. Say, +I'll tell you--how about this? Come, go with me. I don't know where yet, +but away off somewhere where we can start out right. I want to send you +to school and give you a chance." + +"Oh, you don't mean it--you _can't_ mean _that_!" and she uncovered her +face and sat staring, her quivering lips parted. Impulsively she put +one of her hands against his breast, and with the other slowly wiped her +wet eyes. + +"Yes, I mean it, and there is no time to lose," he went on, gravely. "I +want it settled, and when we are once on that train all this will be cut +out forever. It will be better for me, and for you, and for Tilly." + +"But Aunt Jane--" Dora faltered, letting her hand slide slowly down his +shirt-front till it lay in her lap. "She needs me and--" + +"You will have to leave her for good and all," he said. "You must decide +between her and me. At any rate, she is doing nothing for you, and I am +willing to work for you. It is odd, kid, but, now I come to think of it, +I want you with me. It seems like leaving would be easier along with +you." + +"I don't know what to do," the world-old child said, undecidedly, but +her eyes were dry, the sobs had left her voice. + +"Then do as I say," he threw out firmly. "Go home and get your best +dress on and your shoes and stockings, and some hat or other. Don't +bother about a valise. I have two, and we'll stop on the road somewhere +and I'll buy you some clothes. We are to be brother and sister, you +know. From this on you are Dora Trott." + +The child was still undecided, though her face was lighted with growing +expectation. "Oh, it would be nice--scrumptious!" she half laughed, "but +your ma and Aunt Jane--" + +"Forget them!" he ordered, sharply. "They are not thinking of you +to-night, are they? Huh! I guess not! Hurry! Get your things and come +back. I'll be ready. We'll have to walk to the station, and I don't want +to meet anybody on the way, either. We may have to take the back and +side streets, and cut through an alley or two." + +"May I bring my doll?" she asked. "I don't want to leave her." + +"I'll get you a new one--never mind it," he answered, impatiently, +stifling one of his old oaths. + +"But I want her. I love her and she'd miss me. They would kick her about +over there." + +"Then bring her. I'll pack her away somewhere. Get a move on you. See +how quick you can be." + +"I'll hurry," Dora said, now completely resigned to his will. "I'll be +ready in time." + +When she had passed out at the gate he went into the bedroom, lighted +the gas, and began to pack his clothes into two valises, leaving room +for Dora's use. + +"It is the thing to do," he argued. "I can't leave the poor little rat +over there with those women. She needs attention. She is not strong and +they are working her to death. Great God! she might grow up and be like +them! Who knows? How could she keep from it? Who would be there to warn +her? I was ignorant till it was too late. So would she be. No, this is +the right thing to do. I'll adopt a sister. Huh! what a joke when they +say I'm just a boy! But I'll do it. As for Tilly, she will now be doubly +free. The old man can claim desertion. He can add that charge to his +complaints in court. If I had some way to make everybody think I was +dead, that would be even better. The main thing is for her to +forget--wipe out and start in fresh, and she would do it quicker if she +thought I was under the sod. Any woman would. Then she would marry +again. I know who she will marry--" He winced, shuddered, and pressed +down on the things he was packing. "She will end up by marrying Joel +Eperson. I'd lay heavy stakes on that. My God! I can't find fault with +him--not now, anyway! He is white to the bottom, that fellow. I have to +admit it. He bore up like a man, though I was robbing him. I slid in +between him and her after she had become the poor devil's very life. +Then, then--I have to admit that, too--he never would have got her into +this awful mess. He has too much sense for that--sense or honor, which? +Well, well, they say turn about is fair play, and old, patient Joel will +get his innings. He'll--he'll come home to her after his day's work. +He'll take her in his-- O my God!" John stood motionless. The old +primitive fires were kindling in his blood. Had the room been dark his +eyes might have gleamed like those of a tiger. He sat down on the bed. +He was quivering and his heart was pounding like a trip-hammer. +Presently he mastered himself and resumed his packing. "Don't be a fool, +John Trott," he said, sharply. "You are up against it. Be a man, if it +is in you." + +Here the open closet caught his attention. One of Tilly's dresses hung +in view, and he took it into his hands reverently. A pair of worn shoes +lay on the floor. He picked up one of them. It was so small that he +could have hidden it in his pocket. He turned it over in his great hand. +His throbbing fingers caressed the soft leather. She would never need +it. Why not put it in with his things? He started to do so. He made +space for it in one corner of a valise, and then, all at once +exclaiming, "What t'ell!" he threw it back into the closet and continued +to swear at himself in low, vexed tones. + +Dora was entering at the front. She seldom wore her shoes, and, as she +now had them on, she used her feet clumsily and made a great clatter in +the hall. + +"'Sh! for God's sake!" he cried, angrily, and then he turned his +impatience off with an apologetic laugh. "Never mind, kid. Make all the +noise you want. It won't do any harm. Are you ready? Give me that doll." + +She handed it to him roughly wrapped in a newspaper. "Don't mash her!" +she pleaded. "Her face is soft as putty in warm weather." + +"There, there!" he laughed, "she will be all right. As snug as a bug in +a rug. Now, let's go." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +He locked the front door after them, put the key into its old place +under the door-step, where Cavanaugh could find it, and then they passed +out at the gate and trudged toward the station. They had ample time, and +so he took the best way to avoid meeting any one who might comment on +their odd departure. + +The station was finally reached. No one was there but a watchman with a +lantern in his hand, and he did not know either of them. + +"Ticket-office isn't open at this hour," John explained to Dora. "We'll +have to pay on the train. We change cars at Bristol. I'll pay that far +and we may stop there and rest. This night traveling may go hard with a +little thing like you. I've got to attend to you, Sis--eh? Did you catch +that? It slipped out as natural as you please, and Sis it is, from now +on. Yes, I've got to see that you are fed properly and have a tonic to +get your blood right." + +When the train came they got aboard. The car was about half full of +passengers, nearly all of whom were asleep. John led his wide-eyed +charge to a seat, put a valise down for a pillow, and made her take off +her hat and lie down. "Close your peepers and take a nap," he jested. +"I'm going into the smoker and light my pipe." + +A half-hour later he came back. She was asleep. Her hat had fallen to +the floor, and he carefully placed it in the rack overhead. Her features +in repose appeared almost angelic, despite the fact that the cinders had +drifted in at the window and lay on the young cheeks beneath the fallen +lashes. + +"Poor little rat!" he said to himself. "You are in bad hands, Sis, but +maybe no worse off than you were." He recalled Eperson's studied +courtesy and attention to Martha Jane and wondered if, after all, +Eperson were becoming his absent instructor. + +He sat down in the seat across the aisle from Dora and looked out at the +window. The coming dawn was lighting the fields through which the train +was scurrying like a monster of fire and smoke. The eastern sky was +slowly filling with liquid gold. Dora slept till the sun was well up. +Then she stirred and waked. He saw her glance around the car in +amazement and then she saw him, smiled sheepishly, and flushed a little. + +"I was dreaming," she said. "I thought I was flying away up in the air +and that I never would light." + +"We are going to have some breakfast in a little while," he informed +her. "There is a dining-car on this train, and I'll order something +brought to us here. A little table fits in here under the window. Come +on, I'll show you where to wash your hands and face." + +He led her to the ladies' lavatory, taught her how to supply the basin +with water. He got a towel from an overhead rack, showed her a brush and +comb that were for the use of passengers, and left her to make her +toilet. + +She came back to him presently, looking brighter and better, and they +sat side by side till a negro porter in a white uniform came with the +table and their breakfast. It had an inviting look--the fruit, the fried +eggs, the thin-sliced bacon, the hot, brown cakes, dainty toast, and +aromatic coffee, and the child partook of them with unusual relish. + +John watched her with strange, new interest. It was a sudden reversal of +a habitual situation. She had waited on him. He was now doing the same +for her, and the performance seemed to hold in abeyance a full +realization of the tragedy in his life. It may have been autosuggestion, +induced by the child's great need of him, but whatever it was was +vaguely soothing. He found himself with his young back to a wall of +miserable fact, valiantly fighting off constantly increeping and +maddening memories which threatened to unman him. + +Later that afternoon they reached Bristol, and, as Dora looked weary, +John decided to go to a hotel for the night. There was one near the +station, and to it they went and secured adjoining rooms. While he was +making the arrangements in the office Dora waited for him in the great, +barren-looking parlor, the scant furniture of which was upholstered in +dark-green plush, and when he came for her she was standing at a window, +looking out. The sight of her worried him, for she seemed homesick and +drooped like a storm-tossed bird. + +"Now for our supper," he said, cheerfully. But she shook her head. She +was not a bit hungry, she declared. The motion of the car had sickened +her at the stomach. + +"Then I'll put you to bed," he said, "and leave you there till I get my +supper." + +She acquiesced, and he led her to her room up-stairs. "Tumble in," he +said, still cheerily, and she began slowly to undress, sitting in a big +arm-chair which all but swallowed her diminutive form. She was having +trouble with the knots of her shoe-strings, which, in her haste, she had +tied too carelessly, and he knelt down and unfastened them. "What a baby +you are, after all!" he said, tenderly, a thrill that was almost +parental going through him as he drew off the shoes, observed the thick +coating of dust that was on them and the holes in the heels and toes of +her stockings. "I'll leave your shoes outside the door, and a porter +will clean them before morning and put them back," he said, smiling. He +opened a valise, took out a clean though tattered nightgown she had +brought, and spread it on the bed. Again he thought of Joel Eperson and +wondered if Joel had done all such things for Martha Jane when she was a +tiny tot. It was likely, for there were several years between their +ages, and Joel seemed to be that sort of man. + +When Dora was ready to retire he left her. "Are you afraid?" he asked +from the door. + +She shook her head. "What is there to be afraid of?" she asked, with a +wan smile. + +He returned in about an hour. He entered his room and peered cautiously +in at the connecting door. The light from his gas-jet fell on her bed. +She was awake. + +"What is this?" he chided her. "Not asleep yet, and you all fagged out! +Ah, I see! No wonder. Your window is shut. It is as close in here as a +corked flask." He went in and opened her window. He thought the covering +over her was too heavy for such a warm night and drew the white coverlet +down below her feet. "There, there, that's better," he said. Her tangled +hair lay unbecomingly across her brow, and he wanted to brush it back, +but, conscious of a queer timidity, he refrained from doing so. + +"I can't sleep for thinking," she suddenly said, with a touch of her old +bluntness. "You haven't said where we are going." + +"Oh, that is it!" He laughed and sat down on the edge of the bed. +"Well, the truth is, little sister, I hadn't made up my mind fully. I +thought it might be Philadelphia, but I was looking over a newspaper +down-stairs and saw some notes about new developments in New York, and I +decided to go there." + +"Oh, New York!" the child cried. "That is the biggest city in the +country. Old Roly-poly says the lid is always off up there, and--" + +"Stop!" Not since leaving Ridgeville had John's tone been so sharp and +commanding. "Don't mention that man's name ever again, Sis. And another +thing! Let's agree between us never to speak of any of it again--not to +each other or to anybody else. Do you understand? I want all of it +buried forever in a grave as deep as from here to the middle of the +earth." + +"Not your ma, nor Aunt Jane--?" + +"No, no!" he said, fiercely. + +"Nor Tilly?" + +"No, never--under any circumstances. If people want to know about us, +send them to me--or simply say we are orphans, father and mother both +dead. John and Dora Trott. You understand now, don't you?" + +The little tousled head moved wearily on the big pillow. She did not +understand his far-seeing policy, but it didn't matter. He knew best. + +There was a rap on the door. Opening it, he admitted a waiter with a +tray containing some steaming milk-toast. "I forgot ordering it," John +said to Dora, as the man moved a small table up to her bedside and +rested the tray on it. "You must not go to bed on an empty stomach, and +this is just light enough to make you sleep soundly." + +The sight of the food, which was attractively served, appealed to the +child, and when the man had left the room, John propped her up with the +pillow and put the tray into her lap. She ate heartily, and when she had +finished he set the tray aside. + +"Now go to sleep," he enjoined her. "We leave at eight thirty in the +morning and scoot straight through Virginia to New York." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +One morning, two days after this, Tilly, half ill from worry, was in her +room. She heard the sound of wheels below, and, looking from her window, +she descried Joel Eperson in his buggy under the spreading branches of a +big beech in front of the gate. Her mother and father were at a lawyer's +office in the village, where they had gone to conclude the arrangements +for the immediate annulment of her marriage. She hastened down the +stairs, and went out to the grim, sentinel-like visitor, noting, as she +approached him, the tense, wasted expression of his sallow face and the +dark splotches about his honest eyes. + +"Oh, Joel," she all but sobbed, "I'm so glad you came! Did Martha Jane +tell you I wanted to see you?" + +"Yes, and I hurried over at once." He had bared his brow, held his +broad-brimmed hat in his hand, and had descended to the ground. He took +her hand and pressed it reverently and with a sort of shrinking +timidity. "I want you to know, Tilly, that if there is anything on earth +that I can do I'll willingly do it, if it costs my life. God only knows +how I long to help you." + +"Oh, Joel, it is awful--awful!" she began, and stopped abruptly. + +"Oh, I know-- I've heard everything!" he responded, "and it is a beastly +outrage. I feel like killing some one. Your father must be insane, and +the whole hot-headed mass of hoodlums who are making such a row over +nothing at all. I knew about your husband's unfortunate mother and +about his religious views, but those were things he could not help, and +I could not hold them against him." + +"You knew about his mother?" Tilly cried, surprised. "You knew before +our marriage?" + +Eperson shrugged his gaunt shoulders and transferred his resigned gaze +from her face to the still fields. "Yes," he said. "A man who thinks he +is a friend of mine, and--and knew of my attentions to you, he had heard +it down at Ridgeville and came to me with it shortly after your husband +came to Cranston to work. I asked him to drop it, and he did so. I was +convinced that your husband was an honorable man and in himself worthy +of the love I saw that you were giving him. I am ready to be his friend +as well as yours." + +"Oh, Joel, you are so--so sweet and kind and noble! You are my only +friend--you and Martha Jane. Your support and friendship make me +stronger and braver." + +They were both silent for a moment. Then Eperson said: "But you sent for +me, Tilly. There must be something that--" + +"Yes," she interrupted, "there is something I want you to do for me. In +fact, there is no one else to go to. Oh, Joel, I want to get word to +John in some way. I was compelled to run away without seeing him, and I +have been unable to get a letter to him. My father has stopped my +letters both here and at the post-office. John will not know what to +think, and it struck me that if _you_ would write him that I haven't +turned against him, and that I will be true to him always in spite of +anything my people may do, it would help him to understand the +situation, and encourage him to wait till I can go back to Ridgeville." + +"Of course, of course I would gladly do that, but would not this be +better?" Joel looked at his watch. "You see, it is too late to get a +letter off on this morning's train, but I could go in person. I could, +by driving fast, leave my horse and buggy at the livery-stable and catch +the train myself. In that case I could see him to-night, you know, while +if I wrote a letter it would not reach him till late to-morrow, if even +then." + +"Oh, but could you--_would you_--really go?" Tilly asked, eagerly. "It +would be so much better, for then you could explain everything +thoroughly." + +"Yes, but I must hurry," Eperson said, glancing at his horse. "I have +only a few minutes." + +"Then hurry," Tilly urged him. "You will know exactly what to say. Tell +him that, no matter what is done in court, I shall still be true to him, +and that I love him now more than ever." + +Eperson bowed gravely. "I'll do my best," he promised. "And I'll hurry +back and bring you his message. Shall I come straight here?" + +"Yes, straight here," Tilly cried. "I'll find some way to talk with you +in private. Oh, you are so good, so good; but hurry, Joel! Don't miss +the train. Find Mr. Cavanaugh and he will show you how to reach John." + +"I'll do my best, you may be sure," Eperson said, springing into his +buggy and taking up his reins and whip. "Good-by." + +She watched him from the gate as he dashed away in the cloud of dust +raised by the hoofs of his trotting horse. She estimated the time it +would take him to reach the station, and dreaded hearing too soon the +whistle of the coming train's locomotive. Fully ten minutes passed +before she heard the whistle. Then she was sure that Joel would get +aboard in time. She was sure, because she knew the man who was serving +her. + +That afternoon, rather late, her parents came home. They delivered the +news to her that the court had acted most promptly and she was now no +longer the legal wife of John Trott. She received the information as +stolidly as if it were a foregone verdict and quietly turned from her +harsh-faced parents and went up to her room. + +"Not his wife?" She laughed to herself as she sat on her bed and locked +her limp hands in her lap. "As if a lawyer, a judge, and a few jurymen +could take my husband from me as easily as that! Huh! I'd live with him +without marriage if that is all there is to marriage. Joel will see him +to-night. Joel will tell him how I feel, and John will wait till I can +go to him. I know he loves me. I know that, and nothing else +counts--nothing!" + +Later she descended the stairs and went into the kitchen where her +mother was at work. "Let me help you, mother," she said, taking the +broom from Mrs. Whaley's hands and beginning to sweep the floor. "You +must have had a lot to do while I was away." + +Mrs. Whaley stood surprised for a moment, started to speak, hesitated, +and then went out to where her husband sat in the slanting rays of the +sun under an apple-tree. + +"Where is she now?" he asked, glancing up from the open Bible and +manuscript on his knee. + +"She's sweeping in the kitchen." + +"You don't say!" he said, laconically. "Well, when she is through in +there send her here to me. I've got a straight talk for her. Things +can't rest exactly on the same basis as they used to, as far as she is +concerned. She has got to be on probation-like if she stays on under my +roof. A great deal will depend on her conduct from now on. Folks will be +inclined to slough away from us for a while. Already they blame you and +me, and say we were too eager to marry her off. Nothing like this ever +happened to any member of my church. It is bad in every way, and may be +worse. I'm going to pray that no--no living stigma may follow it. You +know what I mean. You know that I don't want to be the grandfather of +Liz Trott's grandchild, and I won't--I won't if there is a just God in +heaven. When Tilly is through that work send her to me." + +"I'll do nothing of the sort," the woman said. "She is my child, as well +as yours, and you'd better let well enough alone." + +"What do you mean?" he growled, his grisly brows meeting, the old +fanatical gleams in his eyes. + +"I mean what I say," was the retort, deliberately delivered. "She was a +child when she left us--she is a full-grown woman now. A woman don't +live with a man even three or four days and remain the same as she was +before. If you take my advice you won't nag her over this. I don't like +her looks. She took the news of the divorce too quiet-like to suit me." + +"Oh, that's it!" Whaley said, seriously, the flare in his eyes dying +out. "That's what you are afraid of. You think she might give us the +slip and get back to that scoundrel, divorce or no divorce. Well"--and +he continued to frown--"that would be bad--that would be making a bad +matter worse. I see your point, and you may be right. At any rate, I'll +hold up for a while. Yes, yes, I'll hold up." + +"I think you'd better," was the answer, as the speaker turned back into +the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +The next day, in the afternoon, when Eperson had alighted from the +train, he met his sister waiting for him in the buggy. "I got your +message," she said, as he hurriedly approached her, brushing the dust of +travel from his hat, "and here I am. What can I do to help poor Tilly?" + +"Come with me to her," he said, sadly. "It may give me an opportunity to +see her alone. I have already heard what was done at court, but I have +even worse news for her." + +He hurriedly explained as they drove along. He had met Cavanaugh and the +astounded contractor had told him of John and Dora's secret departure. +The old man had wept as he said that John had taken himself away as an +obstacle to his wife's happiness, and that he evidently intended to +disappear completely and forever. As Cavanaugh saw it, John had taken +Dora with him to rescue the child from a fate similar to his own, which +was a grand and noble thing to do, "especially," the contractor had +added with a gulp, "when the poor boy was already loaded down with +troubles of his own." + +"It will break Tilly's heart--it may kill her!" Martha Jane declared, +with strong emotion. "Poor thing!" + +Just before reaching Whaley's Joel said: "I may not get a good chance to +see Tilly alone, and in that case we'd better not keep her in suspense. +Perhaps, after all, you could tell her even better than I." + +Martha Jane nodded. "Poor Joel!" she murmured. "I see. You haven't the +heart to tell her. Well, I will do it for you." + +The elder Whaleys sat on the veranda. Tilly was not in sight. "I'll stay +here in the buggy. You go in," Joel said. "They will let you talk to her +alone. They always do." + +Martha Jane got down to the ground between the parted wheels of the +buggy and went into the yard. + +"Where is Tilly, Mrs. Whaley?" she asked. + +"Up in her room," Mrs. Whaley said. "Will you go up, or wait down here?" + +"I'll run up, I guess," the visitor answered, with assumed lightness. +"Joel, wait for me. I'll be down soon." + +"Won't you come in, Joel?" Mrs. Whaley asked. + +"No, I thank you, Mrs. Whaley," he said. "I'll watch my horse out here." + +He remained seated in the buggy, slightly bending forward. A horse-fly +was teasing the shuddering back of his horse, and he deftly flicked at +it with his whip till he had knocked it away. A man in a field across +the road was gathering yellow pumpkins and loading them into a cart. +Joel himself had several acres of pumpkins ready for harvesting, and +ordinarily he would have been interested in the quantity and quality of +this farmer's product, but there were graver things on his mind now. +Surely Martha Jane was staying a long time up-stairs. Had she put it +delicately enough? Had she omitted to mention the fact of Trott's taking +the child away with him? Joel had intended emphasizing that, for it was +a thing any wife would be proud to hear of the man she had married. The +time dragged even more slowly now. Old Whaley left his seat, walked +around to the well, drew up a bucket of water, and drank from the +bucket itself, tilting it forward with both his hands. Then Mrs. Whaley +went into the house. Presently Martha Jane came down the stairs and out +into the yard. + +"Good-by, Mrs. Whaley," she called out. "I must be going now." + +"Good-by, Martha Jane!" from within the house. "Come again when you find +the time." + +"I will, thank you, Mrs. Whaley. You must come out to see mother. She +never gets into town, and you mustn't count visits with her." + +There was a response to this which Joel did not hear, for he was +studying his sister's face as he stood ready to help her into the buggy. + +"Well?" he said, as they started to drive on. "What did you do?" + +"Oh, don't ask me--don't ask me!" Martha Jane's eyes were filling, her +lips twitching. "Oh, Joel, it was awful--simply awful! I'm glad you did +not try to tell her. She stood tottering pitifully and looking as white +as a dead person. I thought she was going to faint, and would have +called her mother if she hadn't stopped me. It seemed to take away all +the hope she had left. She sees it exactly as Mr. Cavanaugh does--that +her husband intends to disappear for good and all. She thinks it was for +her sake, too. She said so. She declared she did not blame him at all, +and when I told her about that child she said she understood that, too, +and knew he did it for the little girl's good--that the child was facing +a terrible future." + +"Well, well, is that all?" Joel inquired, huskily. + +"I left her seated at a window," Martha Jane continued. "I tried to get +her to promise to be calm and hopeful, but all the old strength and +energy seemed to have left her. I'm afraid, very much afraid, that she +will never get over it. She has borne a lot already and this shock is +the last straw." + +A strap which held the breeching around the buttocks of the horse and +fastened it to the shafts had broken, and Joel got down to fix it. The +buckle-hole had torn out of the rotten leather, and he had to punch +another with his pocket-knife. + +"Poor Joel!" Martha Jane thought, as she sat and watched him. "People +needn't tell me that men can't be constant. He'd love Tilly if she were +to wipe her feet on him. He'd love her if she refused him a dozen times +for other men. He'd go any length right now to give her back her +husband. I wonder what there is about her that men care so much for. I'm +sure I don't know, unless it is because she is so patient and gentle and +plucky." + +The harness was fixed. Joel got back into the buggy and drove on to the +Square. "I was going to stop and get some things," Martha Jane said, +"but I won't. I'm coming in to see Tilly to-morrow. I'm about the only +one that goes to see her now. You knew, didn't you, that some of these +narrow-minded women and girls are pretending to believe simply awful +things about her?" + +"What sort of things?" Eperson asked, waxing indignant. + +"Why, you know--they say that Mr. Trott took her to his mother's house +and introduced her to the worst sort of folks. There isn't a word of +truth in it. Tilly has not yet even met the woman. Tilly and he had a +cottage all to themselves. She told me that herself." + +Joel groaned angrily. "I'm not surprised at anything the people around +here would say and believe," he said, his lips drawn tight, his eyes +holding fierce fires that were bursting into flames. + +"Joel," Martha Jane said, as they were nearing their home, "you must +take yourself in hand. This is showing on you. Tilly's marriage was bad +enough, but this is hurting you even more." + +"Oh, don't bother about me!" he cried, testily. "I'm a man and can stand +anything. But you must look after her. Do you understand? You must come +in to-morrow early and stay all day. She will need somebody besides that +sour-faced, crabbed old pair that is with her. They will kill her or +drive her insane." + +"I'll do it--you may depend on me, brother," Martha Jane promised, as he +helped her from the buggy at the gate. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +On the morning following their arrival at Bristol, John and Dora took +the train for New York. "We'll sit in the chair-car," he proposed. "It +has revolving fans and is more roomy. They say this train is usually +crowded." + +Dora smiled expectantly as she followed him into the luxurious coach. +She had slept well, had eaten a good breakfast, and seemed brighter than +she had the day before. She was still a grotesque-looking creature in +the dress which was too long for a child of her age, and the hat that +was too large, being one Jane Holder, in one of her rare moments of mild +self-reproach, had discarded and hastily retrimmed for her niece. But +John Trott was not critical of outward appearances. There was something +beneath the surface in Dora--an unspoken reliance on him, a gentle +betrayal of pride and confidence in him, not to mention her abject +helplessness, which atoned for all external shortcomings. The whole +world looked dark to him, but he had determined that Dora should not +dwell in the shadow, if he could prevent it. + +They were soon well into the state of Virginia. The train was quite +crowded and John congratulated himself on securing seats in the +parlor-car. From the window Dora listlessly viewed the back-drifting +fields and forests, the tobacco which she had never seen growing before, +and the old-fashioned houses on the farms as well as in the towns and +villages. + +It was near night. Washington was only a few hours away. + +"We are going to cross a high trestle over a ravine," John explained to +his charge. "I heard a man talking about it. There! that is the whistle. +I guess they will slow down until we get over it." + +But the train was late and the locomotive's speed was not greatly +diminished. From the window John saw the line of trees marking the +ravine's sinuous course through the fields and told Dora that they would +soon be on the trestle. A moment later there was a shriek from the +locomotive, a violent jerking of the cars, a distant crashing and +grinding of timbers, and a thunderous sound of heavy bodies falling. The +coupling was broken and the chair-car lurched forward, left the track, +shot its front end against an embankment about twenty feet high and +remained poised there. Dora was thrown against a window, the thick glass +of which fortunately did not break, and John fell between the chairs to +the floor. Everywhere in the car the passengers lay over one another, +squirming and screaming in pain and terror. + +"Are you hurt?" John asked Dora, as he struggled to his feet and bent +over her. + +"No." She shook her head, her face blanched, her whole frame quivering. + +"Come, let's get out!" he said. He offered to lift her in his arms, for +the floor of the car was sharply slanting to one side, but she refused +to permit it. + +"Oh no. I can get out better by myself," she said, stepping from one +seat to another to accelerate their egress. + +Some of the passengers around them were injured slightly, some had +fainted, and lay prone in the aisle, and these people blocked their +progress for a few moments. But when they had finally reached the open a +frightful sight met their view. At the bottom of the ravine which the +trestle had spanned lay an indiscriminate heap of splintered and +telescoped coaches which quite hid from view the locomotive lying +beneath. A violent hissing of steam came from the mass which all but +drowned out the cries of pain and terror from the imprisoned victims. +Now and then men or boys could be seen breaking through the car windows +and climbing down to the ground. But hundreds were out of sight. They +were doubtless stunned or killed outright. + +Fifty or sixty people from the chair-car and the two connected +sleeping-coaches, which were the only parts of the train saved from the +ruin, gathered on the brink of the ravine and stood spellbound by the +sights they beheld in the smoking inferno beneath. + +Suddenly a trainman near John raised a cry: "The cars are catching on +fire! They are dry as powder and will burn like oil! My God! there are +women and children down there!" + +"Stay here!" John said to Dora. "I must get down there and try to help." + +She nodded mutely, and he darted away. Other men followed him through +the weeds and bushes down the rugged declivity. Dora watched him till he +had vanished among the trees and boulders. The sound of escaping steam +had ceased. Human cries were now audible, groans, prayers, and the +pounding of feet and hands against parched car-walls. Faint blows they +were and futile--hoarse prayers and unanswered. The highest car in the +heap was toppling over and settled down more snugly into the mass. +Between the upper coaches blue smoke was issuing, and from the under +ones fierce flames were bursting. Dora suddenly descried John. He was on +the slanting side of one of the cars, kicking in a wired window. The +heart of the child was in her mouth, for he was in the gravest peril. +Within twenty feet of him the flames were lapping the paint from the +thin woodwork on which he stood. + +"That man that was with you is a fool!" a stylishly dressed woman said +to Dora. "He will be burned to death." + +"He is a workman--a brick-mason," Dora said, "and able to--" + +"I don't care what he is--he is crazy, simply crazy!" + +What had become of John, Dora did not know, for in a cloud of swirling +smoke and flames she suddenly lost sight of him. Also the men who had +descended with him could not be seen, and the whole mass of cars were +now aflame. The blaze and heat drove the awed spectators back farther +from the edge of the fiery gorge. Some were moving away to look after +their belongings in the undestroyed cars. Dora wondered what she ought +to do. She began to fear the worst in regard to John. She wanted to cry, +but the tear-founts seemed to have dried up. The sun was down. The +thickening darkness made the flames in the ravine all the brighter. + +Presently she felt some one grasp her arm. It was John. He was covered +with black as to his hands, face, and neck. His clothing was torn and +scorched; there was a bleeding scratch across his right cheek and chin +which had been made by a piece of flying glass. He was now mopping it +with a soiled handkerchief. + +"It is hell!" she heard him say, more to himself than her. "It is +hell!" + +Dora clung to him joyously. + +"Think of it," he panted. "I got one woman out at a window and was +reaching down for a little boy. I could see him holding up his hands +from the burning seats, but he could not reach me. God! I'll never +forget that kid's eyes and his last scream as he fell back into the +fire!" + +A locomotive drawing flat-cars loaded with people from a near-by town +had stopped just beyond the sleeping-cars, and the crowd sprang down and +gathered on the brink of the ravine up the side of which remains of the +trestle hung, slowly burning. + +"Come," John said to Dora. "I'll get our things out of the car, and then +we'll get a place to spend the night. I'm sure we'll not get away till +morning. I saw a hotel down the track as we came along." + +He left her and returned in a moment with the valises. Then they went +back along the railway to a crossing where stood a hotel of the very +crudest rural type. Going into the office, he secured a room for Dora; +but could get none for himself. Returning to her, he said: + +"We'll have supper pretty soon. Go to your room and wash the dust off +your face and hands. You are a sight to behold." + +She followed an attendant up the single flight of stairs, though it +looked as if she were averse to being separated from John even for so +short a while. Indeed, she was wondering if he did not intend to +undertake something else in which danger was involved. However, he did +not keep her waiting long. He came up to her room. He had washed his +face and hands in the barber shop, and had had his clothing and shoes +brushed. He led her down to the dining-room. It was packed with +passengers from the remaining coaches of the train who were bent on +getting something to eat, and as for the adjoining office, it was +literally jammed by an ever-growing throng of curious and horrified +spectators, who were arriving by train, by private conveyance, and on +foot from all directions. + +They had secured seats at a table and given their order when an excited +man of middle age, without hat or coat on, rushed up to John, holding +out his hand. + +"They tell me you are the man who saved my wife!" he cried. "My God! +sir, I want--" + +"Not me." John smiled blandly. "Must have been some other chap." + +"Oh, I beg your pardon," the man said, slightly taken aback. "I see I am +mistaken." + +He disappeared in the office and Dora looked up at John inquiringly. +"Didn't you say back there that you got a woman out of--" + +"'Sh!" John said, glancing furtively at the adjoining table and lowering +his voice to a whisper. "Yes, I said so, but we have to be careful. That +man would have wanted my name and address and I don't know what else. +You see, kid, you and I are trying to cover our tracks. If we got our +names in a paper the people in Ridgeville would know as much about our +business as we do ourselves. There are several reporters here jotting +down names and telegraphing them. I made a point of not registering just +now--paid in advance to get around it." + +Young as she was, Dora understood what he meant. The supper came, was +eaten, and they gave their places to other applicants for seats at the +table. Dora looked tired and he sent her to her room. He had decided to +sit up all night, but he did not tell her so. He saw a stream of +sight-seers going toward the flaring gorge, and he joined them. More +than a thousand persons were now massed along the brink of the ravine, +in the depths of which lay a vast heap of coals, red-hot iron, twisted +steel rails, and the burly outlines of the unconsumed locomotive, over +which the ashes and coals had settled like a pall of scarlet. + +In the light of a lantern held by a trainman a reporter on the steps of +the chair-car sat rapidly making notes on a pad with a pencil. Suddenly +he saw a man passing and called out to him: + +"Hey, Timmons!" he cried. "Any more names?" + +"Oh yes! I was looking for you," the man addressed answered, and he drew +a slip of paper from his pocket. "Here you are. Take 'em down quick. I +have to wire my own list in right away. T. B. Wrenshall, wife and child, +St. Louis. Got that? Begins with a W, not an R. They say he was a +traveling-man, but that doesn't matter. It is the list my people want. +Here is another: Mrs. Marie Dugan, Nashville, also Miss Satterlee, +Atlanta--a school-teacher, they say, but I'm not sure, so leave that +out." + +"All right. Thank you, Timmons," and the two reporters parted. + +John paused, leaned against the car near the man with the pad, and idly +watched his rapidly moving pencil. Something, he knew not what, seemed +to hold him there as for some occult purpose. A conductor of one of the +sleeping-cars approached. "Press?" he asked, hurriedly. + +"Yes, here I am," muttered the reporter. + +"Here is a complete list of all my passengers," the conductor said, "all +alive and checked up." + +"All right, but it is the dead ones I'm after," the reporter said, +taking the paper and pinning it to his notes. + +John moved a few feet away. Again he viewed the red ruins, peering over +the brink as into the heart of an active volcano. A thought had come to +him, but he was irresolute. He looked back at the reporter. The man was +still on the steps at work. + +"It would be easy," John mused. "The simplest thing in the world, and I +ought to do it. That would settle it for good and all. It would free +Tilly completely, and give Dora her chance, too. Yes, I ought to do it-- +I really ought." + +He walked about on the edge of the throng for several moments +undecidedly. "What the hell is the matter with me?" he muttered. "Why +can't I decide on a thing as simple as that and be done with it? It is +for Tilly's lasting good. It would wipe the whole rotten thing out at +once, and stop the damned wagging tongues sooner than anything else. It +would sting sharply, like a doctor's knife, but it would cure the +trouble. If I don't do something it will hang over her as long as she +lives. I spoiled her chances by dropping into her life--here is a chance +to drop out of it. I'm leaving her for good and all, anyway, so why not +make a clean job of it?" + +He felt that he had decided at last, and he went back to the reporter. + +"Are you taking names?" he asked, in a voice the matter-of-fact tone of +which surprised himself. + +"Yes. Got any?" The writer did not look up from his rapidly moving +pencil. + +"Two friends of mine." + +"All right, wait a minute." + +The pencil was now rapidly producing shorthand dots, curves, and dashes. +The red sky above the gorge held John's eyes. As in a picture of +radiating flame he saw his little wife as he had seen her the morning he +had unknowingly kissed her farewell forever on the door-step of the +cottage as he stood, dinner-pail in hand, the sun just rising above the +hills. In spite of his self-control and a belief in his stolidness, a +lump swelled in his throat. + +"She deserves a better deal out of the deck than to be tied to the +memory of a man like me," he thought. "When she reads my name in the +papers I'll be dead to her, dead and cremated. After all, it can't be +worse than the other." + +"Well, well," the reporter said, looking up, "you say you have lost some +friends?" + +"Yes, two--a man and a little girl, in the coach just ahead of this +one." + +"Their names and addresses, please. I'm in a devil of a rush--using +railroad telegraph, and it is packed with official business. Got an +opening now, but may lose it any moment. Mention ages and business, if +you know them." + +"John Trott, twenty years old, Ridgeville, Georgia, brick-mason." + +"All right--two t's in Trott, eh? Well, and the other one?" + +"Dora Boyles--B-o-y-l-e-s," slowly spelled John; "age about nine, +orphan, same town--Ridgeville, Georgia." + +"Thanks. Is that all?" asked the reporter. + +"That is all," and, afraid of being further questioned, John turned and +stalked away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +He and Dora took a train for New York early the next morning. The air +seemed to be growing more crisp. Dora's color was better, her skin +clearer, her eyes brighter. She seemed more and more interested in the +scenery along the way. They had to stop over in Washington for about +three hours, and, leaving their valises in a check-room, they strolled +about the city. John did not realize it, but the care and entertainment +of the child had much to do with keeping his mind from dwelling on his +troubles. Once he caught himself actually laughing over a droll mistake +Dora made. She was so much interested in the sights that she walked +nearly half a block at the side of a stranger, thinking that the man was +John, who had paused to buy a cigar, and when she discovered her mistake +she fairly screamed and hastened to John, whose hand she wanted to hold +thereafter. + +"He wouldn't bite you," John said. "In fact, he thought it was a good +joke." + +At four o'clock that afternoon they reached Jersey City, and at once +took the ferry for New York, sitting on the upper deck and viewing the +harbor and sky-line. + +"It is a big town," John said, "a powerful big town. We'll be lost here +like needles in a haystack. Well, that is what we are after, Sis," he +added, a serious cast to his features. + +They went ashore at Twenty-third Street. They were so ignorant of the +life they were entering that they were fairly dazed by the crush and +din of human beings and traffic which met them at the long pier and in +the congested thoroughfare upon which it fronted. They were all but as +helpless as incoming foreigners who could not speak the language of the +country. However, with a bag in each hand, and Dora closely following, +John managed to reach a street that was less crowded, and they walked on +now more calmly. He was looking for a boarding-house, John informed his +companion. "I understand there are plenty of them all about," he added. + +They had reached West Fourteenth Street, and there in the windows of +many of the old-fashioned brownstone former residences of the well-to-do +John saw cards advertising rooms and board. + +"There are three in a row," he smiled at Dora. "Which one shall we +pick?" + +"The one this way," she decided. "It looks cleaner, and there are some +flowers on the window-sills." + +"Good! Let's try it--ask the rates, anyway." + +They crossed the street and went to the house in question. Here, +however, they were puzzled, for there were two entrances, one on the +brownstone stoop and the other beneath it. They decided on the lower, it +being more accessible. There was a bell-pull and John, who had once put +one into a wall, understood what it was for and used it promptly. + +A white woman, who looked like she was Irish, opened the door. + +"I see you have rooms and board," John ventured. "We want to see about +them." + +The woman smiled agreeably. "The madam is up-stairs. You can go up the +steps and I'll let you in at the upper door, or you can come through +here." + +"This way is all right," John said. And the woman led them into a little +hallway adjoining a long dining-room, the white-clothed tables of which +could be seen through the open door. On the same floor, just beyond, was +the kitchen. They knew this, for they caught a glimpse of a big range +above which hung a row of polished pots and pans. + +The stairway to the upper floor was quite narrow, and John had some +difficulty in ascending it with his valises and the mute Dora, who was +nervously attempting to hold his arm. However, the ascent was made, and +they were shown into a big parlor with windows looking out on the +street. The floor was covered by a well-worn but clean carpet, the walls +held pictures of various sorts--crayon portraits, steel engravings, +machine-made oil landscapes and a few water-colors in every style of +frame imaginable. + +"Oh, Mrs. McGwire!" the servant called up the flight of stairs which +reached the next floor above. "Are you there?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Clark. What is it?" + +"Rooms and board," was the answer. + +"Very well. I'm coming right down." + +The landlady proved to be a cheery, bustling little body about +thirty-five years of age. Her eyes were blue, her hair chestnut. She +bestowed a smile on the applicants that at once put them at ease. + +"Yes, I happen to have two rooms at the top," she said, eying Dora's +attire with a woman's natural curiosity. "They are three flights up; I +have no others right now. My house is usually full at all seasons. You +see, I have many stand-by's; people who have been here for years call it +home. If you want to see the rooms you can leave your things here for a +while." + +Leaving Dora below, John accompanied the landlady to the rooms above. On +seeing them he was satisfied that they would do. They were in the rear. +One was quite large, and, in the crude estimation of the brick-mason, +rather well furnished, for it held a massive walnut bureau with a marble +top and wide mirror lighted on both sides by globed gas-jets, one of +which was pink, the other frosted white. There was a big rosewood sofa +against a wall, also a rocking-chair, a center-table, a wide walnut +bedstead, and an ample alcove containing running water, and a basin and +towels. The other was the typical hall room with a narrow iron bed, a +chair, a wash-stand, a rug, a row of hooks on the wall for clothing over +which hung a calico dust-curtain, and a single window. + +"I suppose this might do for the little girl," suggested Mrs. McGwire, +affably. "Children don't need much room. She is a relative, I presume?" + +"My sister. We are orphans," John said, casually enough, considering the +unlooked-for demand on his resources. "My sister Dora. But I would want +her to have the other room. I can bunk anywhere. I want to put her into +the public school here, and she ought to have a cheerful place to study +in at night and sit in through the day. I shall be away at work." + +"Fine, fine! I like that in you." Mrs. McGwire smiled affably. "I'm a +widow with three children to bring up (that is why I am running this +house) and I certainly appreciate such consideration for a child as you +show. I have a boy of thirteen, a girl of eleven, and another of eight. +If you stay here the older ones, Harold and Betty, might be able to help +start your sister out on her studies." + +"That would be nice," John responded. "She is a country girl and never +has been to school at all." + +Just here a rather tall, slender boy with the face of a student opened +the door of a room at the far end of the passage and came forward. + +"This is my big son," Mrs. McGwire said, smiling. "This is Harold. The +doctor says he studies too hard, but I simply can't make him stop it." + +The lad smiled politely, put his arm about his mother's waist, and said: +"Somebody has taken my concordance. I left it with my other books, and +it is gone." + +"Oh, I forgot," Mrs. McGwire said, indulgently. "Mr. King (he is our +minister)"--this last to John. "He was looking over your books this +morning and he took it down to the parlor with him. It is there." + +"Thank you, mother," the boy said, and went down the stairs. + +"I'm very proud of my son," Mrs. McGwire said, looking after the boy +with beaming eyes. "He really has a remarkable mind. Young as he is, he +has already decided to be a preacher. He has read the Bible through +twice, and can quote any passage you mention. He is the leader of Mr. +King's big Bible class. His father was a minister, and it has been my +daily prayer that Harold would go into the same work." + +Ten dollars a week for the rooms and board for two was the price agreed +on, and John went down with Mrs McGwire to inform Dora of the +arrangement. + +"I needn't ask your name," Mrs. McGwire said, smiling, as he picked up +the valises, "for I see it on your bag. John Trott is short and plain +enough." + +John blinked. He had really thought seriously of changing his name, but +it was too late now; besides, what did it matter? He nodded. "Yes," he +said, looking at the letters on the valise. "A friend of mine, a +sign-painter, made me a present of this last Christmas, and he lettered +it himself." + +Dora liked the spacious room very much, and it did not occur to her just +then to compare it to John's, as she hastily removed her few belongings +from his bags, and hung or laid them about the room. + +After supper John went out to buy some tobacco, and when he returned he +found Dora in her room, most timidly entertaining Betty and Minnie +McGwire. Dora did not introduce her guests, and Betty rather gracefully +did it herself. She was an affable talker, a rather slim, gawky blonde, +while Minnie was a stocky brunette with heavy, dark brows and black hair +that was too coarse and wiry to be easily controlled. + +"Betty's going to dress my doll," Dora informed him. "She has got lots +and lots of doll-things packed away, and Minnie has the cutest +doll-house you ever saw. It is full of tables and chairs and dishes and +even closets to hang things in. Could you show it to him, Minnie?" + +"Sure," answered the child addressed. "I'll go get it." + +"No, not to-night," John interposed. "Some other time." + +Leaving the children, he turned into his cheerless room and lighted the +gas. He unpacked the valises and hung up some of his apparel under the +dust-curtain. There were his working-shirts, his overalls, his coarse +cap and stoggy shoes. He had bought an evening paper and he opened it +out to read it, but could not fix his attention even on the boldest of +the head-lines. Ridgeville, the cottage, Tilly, floated through his +mind, and a pain that was both physical and mental clutched his whole +being. He winced, ground his teeth together, and stifled a groan. + +"It is my damned yellow streak!" he muttered. "I must get over it--kill +it, pull it out by the roots. Why shouldn't I have my share of bad +luck? Others have plenty of it--even women and children. Poof! Be a man, +John Trott. Don't be a dirty shirker!" + +A merry ripple of laughter came from the adjoining room, and he heard +Dora telling of the mistake she had made on the street in Washington, +and somehow he felt relieved. Surely good would come out of the plunge +he had made into those unknown waters, dark and deep as they seemed. +Wasn't Dora already better off? And what more could he desire than to +benefit a child like that materially and lastingly? + +But the pain still clung and permeated. He heard the two visitors +bidding good night to Dora, and when they had gone down-stairs he went +into the other room, finding the child with her doll in her arms, +rocking it as a mother might a living babe. + +"Now get to bed, Sis," he said, more tenderly than he had ever spoken to +her before. "Do you like it here?" + +"Oh, very, very much!" she cried, enthusiastically. "Betty and Minnie +are the sweetest and best children I ever saw, and Harold is nice, +too--nice and polite, and awfully smart. He uses big words that I never +heard before. The girls want me to go with them to their school and +church. May I?" + +"Yes," he returned. "Now get to bed. Sleep as late as you want to in the +morning. You don't have to get up before day to cook breakfast for me +now, eh?" + +She smiled happily, but said nothing. + +He yearned to kiss her, for through her companionship in his loneliness +she had become very dear to him, but that strode him as being a weak +thing for a man to do, and he left her without yielding to the impulse. + +The air in his cell-like room was rather close, and he did not go to +sleep readily. There were so many things to think about--the work he had +to find as soon as possible, the clothes that must be bought for Dora, +for he wanted her to dress as well as her new friends. He decided to ask +Mrs. McGwire to help him make those purchases. As for the work, he was +sure he could find a job at good wages, for he had already looked over +the "Help wanted" advertisements in a morning paper and written down the +addresses of several firms of contractors and builders who were in need +of skilled labor. + +After a long while he fell asleep, and when he waked in the morning he +heard Dora moving about in her room. + +"Kid!" he called out, "come here!" + +"All right, brother John," she answered, and he was sure that he heard +her tittering in a suppressed way. Wondering what could be the cause of +her merriment so early in the day, he called out again. This time she +answered with a rippling laugh: "Wait a minute, can't you?" + +Ten minutes passed, and then she appeared in the doorway. She had on a +really attractive blue-serge suit that fitted her quite well. Indeed, +with her hair arranged as Betty McGwire wore hers, she looked like some +strange, new little girl who bore but a slight resemblance to the +unkempt Dora he had known from her babyhood. + +"I was going to surprise you," she said, laughing freely over his stare +of astonishment. "It is a dress that was too small for Betty and too big +for Minnie. Mrs. McGwire gave it to me last night while you were out. +She has two or three others which she says will be out of style before +Minnie comes on, and will go to the ragman if I don't take them." + +"It looks all right," John said, admiringly. "It will do till we can get +some new ones." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +His mind greatly relieved by having such good custodians for Dora, John +fared forth immediately after breakfast in search of work. No one could +possibly have been more ignorant of the intricate ways of the great city +than he, and yet he managed to find the office of the first advertiser +on his list without overmuch delay or difficulty. + +"Pilcher & Reed, Contractors and Builders," as their sign read, had +their offices over a carpenter's shop in East Thirty-third Street near +the river. The house was a red-brick structure which in former days had +been a residence. The contractors occupied all of the second floor, the +two floors above being used by certain Jewish makers of shirt-waists and +skirts, and an Italian establishment for the dry-cleaning of clothing. + +Mr. Reed, the junior member of the firm, was in the main office, a large +square room with two windows, the walls of which were hung with framed +photographs of buildings the firm had constructed and maps of the city's +streets. He was standing at a flat-top desk which was covered with +blue-prints, drawings, and sheets of paper filled with figures and +diagrams, and as John entered he turned and shook hands with him. He had +a broad face, was of middle age, and decidedly bald. He had a cordial +manner, and when he detected, from John's pronunciation, that he was +Southern, he smiled agreeably. + +"I went down into North Carolina with a lumber concern ten years ago," +he said. "We roughed it in the mountains getting out timber, and had a +splendid time. I often wish I had kept at it. This indoor grind is +taking the life out of me. I seldom see the sun. Brick-mason, eh? Well, +the manager of our brick-and-stone work is in the rear office now, +talking to some applicants. Member of the union?" + +"No, not yet," John answered. "But I'm going to join." + +"Well, that is unfortunate, for I think Mr. Kline will fill his openings +right away, and we have to take union men in our work, to keep out of +all sorts of labor complications." + +Mr. Reed seemed interested. He laid aside his work, and he and John +talked for nearly an hour, and when it finally came out that John had +assisted in some contracting work in the South and had an ambition to go +farther in the same line, Mr. Reed lowered his brows thoughtfully. In an +adjoining office Mr. Pilcher was at work dictating letters to a +stenographer and Reed suddenly excused himself and went in to him. John +noticed that he shut the door of the tiny office. He was gone ten +minutes or more and then he came back. + +"The truth is, Mr. Trott," he said, a touch of business-like reserve +showing itself in his manner for the first time, "we are really in need +of office help. I mean the kind of a man that could do both inside and +outside work. Mr. Richer is getting old and is not able to do much. He +says he would like to talk to you. Would you mind going in?" + +Pilcher was a brusk, dyspeptic individual who seemed to be overworked, +but John liked him and was convinced of his fairness and honesty. They +had only chatted a few minutes when the old man called out to his +partner and asked him to come in. + +Reed made his appearance at once. "We might give Mr. Trott a trial in +the office," he said. "What do you think?" + +"I haven't yet spoken to Mr. Trott of the salary," Reed said. "Have you +mentioned it, Mr. Pilcher?" + +"No, but I thought you had." + +"At the start it could not be more than twenty a week," the junior +member said, "but there would be a chance, if you caught on readily to +the work, for an increase later on. + +"I had hoped to do better than that," John answered, frankly. "I want +to make a start at contracting, but I am a good brick-mason, and I can, +by working overtime, occasionally earn more at that, I think." + +"Yes, perhaps," Pilcher admitted, and he threw a glance at his partner +which seemed to sanction John's level-headed view. "We might raise it to +twenty-two, and give Mr. Trott time to think it over till--say, +to-morrow morning. How would that suit you, Mr. Trott?" + +"Very well, thank you," said John, and he rose to go. + +Reed followed him into the other office. The fact that John had not at +once accepted the position had impressed him favorably. "I really think +we could get along well together," he said. "From what you have told me +about your past work I think you would fall into our line easily enough. +Well, think it over, and let us know in the morning." + +John spent the remainder of the day answering in person various +advertisements. At some places he was kept waiting in a long line of +applicants for hours, only to find that the work to be done was out of +town, and that membership in the union was absolutely obligatory. + +When the houses of business were beginning to close for the day he took +the Elevated train for home. Mrs. McGwire met him at the front door. She +was smiling agreeably. + +"Your sister is not at home just now," she announced. "Minnie and Betty +were going to an ice-cream festival at our church, around in the next +block, and they took her with them. I hope you don't mind." + +"Not at all," he returned. "I'm glad she got to go, and it was kind of +them to take her." + +He was at dinner when the children returned and they all came to the +table where he sat alone. Dora's face was slightly flushed and she +looked very attractive in the blue-serge suit. His heart throbbed with a +vague, new pride in her. It was strange, but she had already acquired a +sort of self-possession that rested well on such young shoulders. He +noticed that she conducted herself almost as well as her two companions. +She unfolded her napkin and put it into her lap, and handled her knife +and fork as they did. + +"Oh, it was glorious, brother John!" she exclaimed. "I wish you had been +there. Girls and boys acted and sang on a little stage. Harold helped +Mr. King run it all. The ice-cream and cake was the best I ever tasted. +Harold made a speech, and it was very funny. Everybody laughed and +clapped their hands." + +"Harold only introduced some of the performers in a funny sort of way," +Betty said, with quiet dignity. "He wrote it down beforehand." + +When dinner was over they all went to the parlor above. Betty sat at the +piano, opened a book of "Gospel Songs," and she and Minnie and some of +the boarders began to sing. Harold came in with his mother and they +stood side by side, listening. John sat at a window and he noticed that +Dora, who was near the piano, had a look half of envy, half of chagrin +in her eyes. + +"Poor kid!" John mused, reading her aright, "she is sorry she can't +sing. Young as she is, she has backbone and doesn't want others to be +ahead of her." + +That night before going to bed he looked in on her in her room. She sat +in a big rocking-chair with a book in her lap. He went in and looked at +it. It was an English primer. She glanced up at him. There was something +like the moisture of diffused tears in her eyes and he heard her sigh. + +"What is the matter?" he asked, gently. + +She sighed again. "I can't make head nor tail of this darned thing," she +said, her lips twitching. "Oh, I'm mad, brother John! Betty and Minnie +can both read and write, and Betty keeps telling me (not in a mean way, +though) not to say this and not to say that. Why, I'm a fool-- I'm +really a blockhead!" + +John was deeply touched. He drew up a chair close beside hers and rested +his hand on her head. "Listen, kid," he began. "It will come out all +right. You are going to start to school Monday and you will learn fast. +You are anxious to do it, you see, and that is the main thing. Some +children have to be forced to learn, but it will come easy to you, for +you have a good mind." + +"Do you believe it? Do you _really_?" she faltered, searching his face +eagerly. + +"I know it," he answered, "and, take it from me, when you once get +started you will go ahead of stacks and stacks of them. Don't be ashamed +to start at the bottom. Great men and women began that way, and you are +not to blame for the poor chance you've had." + +He saw that he had comforted her, and recounted his various adventures +in seeking work. When he spoke of the offer Pilcher & Reed had made him +she suddenly said, "Take them up, brother John." + +"Why do you say that?" he inquired. + +"Because"--she began, and hesitated--"because I don't want you always to +be a brick-mason. It is dirty work. You can do better. Look at Harold. +He is just a boy, and yet he is determined to be a minister like Mr. +King. Ministers talk nice and look nice." + +And as John lay in his bed afterward, trying to decide what to do, he +suddenly said: "It is a go! I'll take the kid's advice. It is a toss-up, +anyway. They may not keep me the week out, but the thing is worth trying +for. Sam always said it was my line and others have said the same thing. +Yes, I'll close with Pilcher & Reed in the morning. I'll hang up my hat +in that office and try my hand at a new game for one week, anyway." + + * * * * * + +When he waked the next morning, however, he felt oppressed by a weighty +sense of the things he had renounced forever. The new work he was about +to undertake no longer charmed him. His entire outlook now seemed +chaotic, futile. How could he go ahead--with any sort of heart--in this +drab life among strangers, and leave forever behind him the memory of +his ecstatic honeymoon with the sweet, pulsing mate of his choice? It +simply could not be done. It was beyond mortal strength. He told himself +that he had kept himself keyed up to the present point by continual +change and rapid movement since leaving Tilly, but the ultimate test was +on him. With a groan from a tight throat, and smothering another in his +pillow, he told himself over and over that his career was ended. Tilly +was free--there was comfort in that. With the news of his death in the +wreck, she would bury him as widows have always buried their mates, and +life for her would roll on, but she would remain alive to him as long as +the breath came and went from his cheerless frame. + +"Brother John!" It was Dora calling to him. "Are you awake?" + +He started to answer, but his voice was clogged and he was afraid to +trust it to utterance. She called again and then appeared fully dressed +in the doorway, the primer in her hands. She approached his bedside. +"Will you please tell me what this darned letter is? I can say them all, +I think, down to it. What comes after O?" + +"P," he answered. "Who taught you the others?" + +"Betty. And Q comes next," she went on, holding the book closed. "Then +R, S, T-- What comes after T, brother John?" He told her, and she sat +down on the edge of his bed, and for ten minutes he helped her learn the +part of the alphabet she did not know. + +The first bell for breakfast rang, and she left him. He stood up and +stretched himself. "Be ashamed of yourself, John Trott," he muttered. +"There is that poor kid trying to rise, and yet you are complaining. It +is your damned yellow streak, or your liver is out of order. Throw it +off, you whelp! Be a man! Women suffer in childbirth--children suffer +under operations, crushed bones, and blindness. Your own father had his +hell on earth. Stop whining over spilled milk. Think what you may be +able to do for the dirty-faced brat you brought with you. Plunge in. +Look those men in the eye to-day, and tell them you don't want their +money unless you can give value received. What is New York more than +Ridgeville, anyway?" + +When he had dressed, he stood in the doorway of the other room. Dora was +now copying the letters from her book on a piece of paper with a pencil. + +"That's the idea," he said, smiling. "Come on, let's go to breakfast." +He had never done it before, but he slid his arm about the waist of his +foster-sister and playfully drew her toward the stairs. She appreciated +it. It was as if she started to kiss him, but was too timid, daring only +to incline her head against his arm. + +"Harold says I am a heathen," she said. "What is that, brother John?" + +He frowned thoughtfully and then smiled indulgently. "The church folks +say it is a person that doesn't believe in a God. They pretend to +believe in one because they make a living out of it. Let them think what +they like. It doesn't concern us." + +"Yes, it does," Dora answered, firmly. "Harold, Betty, and her mother +all say that I must believe in God, that I must study about Him, listen +to sermons, and--and even pray to Him every night and morning. They say +I must go to Sunday-school and learn all about the Bible and Adam, +and--and somebody else." + +"Well, it is all right; go with them," John said in slow perplexity. +"Most people do such things, and maybe you'd better. I don't want to +stand in your way. Yes, you'd better go along with them and be like the +rest. When you are grown you can think it all out for yourself, as I +have." + +Betty was coming from her mother's room, one flight below, and she +turned and greeted them with a smile. + +"She is a nice girl," John thought, as she and Dora linked arms and +went ahead of him down the stairs. "She will make a fine woman, but she +will never be equal to--" + +He checked his thought. A storm of pain swept through him, almost +depriving him of strength. He followed the children into the +dining-room, which was well filled with boarders, some eating, some +waiting to be served, and all chatting volubly. There was a great +clatter of knives, forks, and dishes. Mrs. McGwire was helping in the +kitchen, and Betty joined her and became a waitress herself. + +"I must fight it off--kill it, or it will down me!" John said to +himself, as he and Dora sat waiting to be served. "I will never do the +work before me if I keep this up, and it must be done--it must!" + +When he had breakfasted and was outside in the cool, crisp air he felt +better. He walked briskly, swinging his arms to and fro to start the +circulation of his blood. He knew the car he was to take and he boarded +it, first buying a morning paper, which he could not read for thinking +of the delicious and agonizing things he had forsworn forever. + +"It will never come through trying to forget," he finally said, with a +stoic shrug. "It will simply have to wear itself out. Maybe, after a few +months, a year, or two, I will be something like I was before Sam and I +went up to--" He checked himself again. "Oh, what's the use?" His very +mind seemed to sob and choke. A man seated near him asked him what time +it was, and John took out his watch and informed him in the casual tone +that any passenger might use to another. + +"Thanks. Fine day," the man said, and John nodded and smiled. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +One of Jane Holder's masculine admirers brought her home in a buggy from +the Square one afternoon, and when he had parted with her at the gate he +drove away. She went up to Mrs. Trott's room, finding that lady dressing +at her bureau. + +"I felt dizzy on the street, and Tobe Overby brought me home," Jane +said, sinking into a chair and leaning on her sunshade. "I don't know +what is wrong with me, Liz. Tobe says the doctors won't be plain with me +and tell me the truth about my condition, and Tobe's all right. He gave +me a straight V just now, for the sake of old times. Huh! the doctors +needn't be mealy-mouthed with me. I've had enough of this game, Liz. +I've had my share of fun all through, and what more could I ask? You +don't think I want to get old, bent over, and snaggle-toothed, do you? +Not on your life! I'm a sport, old girl, and I'll be one to the dizzy +end. Huh! I guess!" + +"Hush! Don't be silly!" her companion said, giving her an uneasy look, +as she turned, holding in her ringed fingers a wisp of her long hair +which she was pinning into a coil on the back part of her head. "I don't +like to hear you talk that way." + +"I don't care whether you do or not, Liz, old girl." Jane forced a laugh +that was harsh to the point of rasping. "Sometimes it looks to me like +you are afraid to croak. Let the least thing get the matter with you and +you are scared out of your wits; but _me_? La me! I've had my day, Liz. +I don't want to be a she-hog--a sow. Enough is enough for Jane Holder. +Huh! It used to be 'Jennie' when I was young and thinking about getting +married. Later on it was 'Jen,' and now it is 'Jane'--just 'Jane.' 'Old +Jane' next! Huh! if I had long to live you don't think I'd keep on here +in this rotten, tattling town, do you? I've had my fill of it. You know +what they all say about you and me, don't you? They say you ruined +John's life, and that I was heading Dora for the dives when John stepped +in out of pity and kidnapped her--took her 'way off somewhere to get her +away from me and you, and--" + +"Hush!" Lizzie Trott, white with fury, cried, brandishing a heavy +silver-plated hair-brush in her hand and towering over Jane. + +But, leaning on her sunshade, Jane only laughed recklessly and +satirically. "Pull in your horns, Liz, old girl," she said. "I'm not +giving you any worse medicine than I'm taking myself. Huh! I guess not! +Huh! I'm only telling you what's being said in this darned town. They +all say, judging from her looks, that John's wife was as decent a +country girl as ever lived, and that if her father had met you the day +he came loaded for bear he would have put daylight through you. As for +me, they say John did my duty for me. Huh! it is a hell of a mix-up, +isn't it? But I don't care. I believe I'm all in. I feel it in my bones, +and I don't give a damn when I keel over. I hope I won't suffer, though. +Whew! I don't like to think of that! Look how Mag Sebastian faced the +music in Atlanta. When that fool shoe-drummer got married last week it +was piff! bang! and Mag gave a coroner's jury a job. Huh! They all say +who saw Mag in her fine casket that she looked like she was asleep. You +see, they combed her red bangs down so as to hide the bullet-hole, and +dressed her up nice. And flowers! Gosh! every girl on the town piled 'em +in and heaped 'em over her. But Mag couldn't smell 'em. Huh! I guess +not!" + +"What ails you?" Lizzie asked, her lips trembling, her eyes wide with +grim inquiry, her tone one of anxious appeal, rather than that of her +earlier resentment. + +"Huh! Nothing, Liz, old girl!" Jane replied, doggedly. "I guess I am +having different thoughts from you, that's all. I think certain things +all day long, no matter who I'm with--laughing, dancing, drinking, +shuffling a deck, or giving taffy to a man. Huh! Maybe it is because I +know something--huh! something that you don't know." + +"What do you mean now?" Lizzie demanded, suspiciously. + +"Never mind what I mean," was the stubborn retort, as Jane stabbed at +the straw matting with the ferrule of her sunshade. "Let well enough +alone, Liz Trott. If what I know makes me see sights and hear sounds in +the dead of night, what good would it do to bring it onto you?" + +Lizzie laid down the powder-puff she was using and bent lower over the +rambling speaker. + +"You _do_ know something," she said, under her breath. "You knew it +yesterday. What do you mean by deviling me this way? You had it on your +mind last night while the crowd was here and after they left. They knew +it, too. I remember now how they looked at one another." + +"I don't know anything," Jane said, doggedly, with a cloud across her +wan face, and she got up, sighing. "I know I'll go stark, staring crazy +if this keeps up. Stop your tongue! Let me alone! Huh! I know what's +good for you." + +Therewith Jane left the room and all but staggered to her own. + +"She does know something," Lizzie Trott mused, as she stared at her +reflection in the mirror. She completed her toilet and went down to the +kitchen. A negro woman was at work there preparing supper. + +"Don't burn the bread again, Mandy," she said, carelessly, her mind +still occupied by the conversation just ended. + +"Lawsy me! you needn't bother," the portly woman sniffed. "You may res' +shore dat I won't burn it atter supper to-night, fer I'm gwine ter quit +yer." + +"Quit us? Why?" + +The woman shrugged her fat shoulders. "Beca'se Jake done say fer me to, +dat's why," she muttered. "I done promised ter love en' obey at de +weddin', same es him, en' he say he done laid de law down. Dis is my +las' day wid you en' t'other woman. We-all's preacher been talkin' ter +Jake, en' he say you is unloadin' yo' dirt on de black race, 'case no +white woman will work in dis house en' clean up atter you." + +"So that is it," Lizzie Trott said, unrebelliously. "Well, well, I +sha'n't plead with you." And with a haughty step she turned from the +room. + +There was nowhere to go that evening, and it happened that no visitors +came, so Lizzie felt quite lonely. Even Jane's companionship was denied +her, for Jane remained in her room with the door shut. She hadn't come +down to supper, having answered to the call with the remark that she was +not hungry and was feeling no better. + +Ten o'clock came, eleven, twelve. Lizzie stepped out into the front +yard and looked up at Jane's window to see if there was a light. The +room was dark, and even the blinds were drawn down. + +"Something really must be wrong," Lizzie speculated, dejectedly. "She is +not at herself. She is imagining things. All that chatter about knowing +something that I don't know may be just a crazy notion." + +At one o'clock Lizzie reluctantly undressed for bed, for she felt that +she was not in the mood for sleep, and she was sure she would have one +of her headaches in the morning. She was about to turn out her light +when she decided that she would ask Jane how she felt. So she tiptoed to +the door of Jane's room and rapped. + +"Who--who--who-- What is it?" came in a low, halting voice from within. + +"Me, Jane," and Lizzie tried the latch, only to find, to her surprise, +that the door was locked. She waited a moment and then, full of dire +fancies, she shook the knob and rapped more vigorously. "Let me in, +Jane," she cried. "I want to see you. I must see you!" + +But the appalling thing now was that Jane still made no effort to speak +or move, and Lizzie was thoroughly frightened. She beat the door with +both hands and kicked it. + +"Open up or I'll break in!" she cried. + +There was a pause, followed by a crash on the floor within the room. +Jane had stumbled over a chair and upset it. There was another +unaccountable pause, then Lizzie heard Jane's hands sliding on the door, +feeling their way to the lock. The key was fumbled, then slowly turned, +and Lizzie pushed the door open. There in the dark, robed in her new +pink-silk gown, as Lizzie afterward discovered, stood Jane. She muttered +something inarticulately and stepped or reeled back toward her bed. +Lizzie groped forward, wondering, fearing she knew not what. She laid +hold of Jane's arm and for a moment the two stood face to face in +silence. Then Jane began to mutter in slow, vacuous tones: + +"You bet I had a good time. I've lived on the best. I rolled 'em high +and had friends that could pay their way. I'm a sport. I was born a +sport, and been a sport from the day I ran away from school till now." + +"What is the matter? Why are you dressed up like this?" Lizzie had felt +the silk sleeve of the gown Jane was wearing. + +"Huh! You can't guess, can you?" Jane said, with a low, insinuating +laugh. Lizzie said nothing. She knew where Jane's matches were and she +got one and started to strike it. + +"Stop! None of that!" Jane cried. "I don't want no light. Huh! I prefer +darkness to light! You know where that comes from, don't you? It is from +the Bible. 'Those whose deeds are evil,' you remember? Well, size me up +as you like, old girl. I've had my good time. I don't want the earth. +I'm no she-hog--a sow. I know what's ahead, and I take off my hat to it, +that's all!" + +"Sit down," Lizzie said, in the deepest dread of something, she knew not +what, and she drew Jane down to the edge of the bed. Unable to formulate +any further questions, she stood staring at her companion till presently +she saw Jane's body drowsily inclining to one side. + +"That's right, lie down," Lizzie said, and she lifted Jane's feet to the +bed and put a pillow under her head. Then, unmolested, she lit the lamp +on the bureau. A strange sight met her eyes and chilled her blood. In +her best pink-silk gown, beaded satin slippers, and embroidered silken +hose, her hair crimped and fluffy, her cheeks deeply roughed, her +eyebrows blackened as for a ball, Jane lay as if asleep. + +"What am I to do?" Lizzie asked herself. "She is sick and must be +undressed. She is delirious. She must have fever. She ought to have a +doctor, but who could I send at this time of night?" + +She took Jane's wrist to test the pulse, but Jane snatched it away. + +"Oh, it's you, Liz!" she said, opening her eyes in a sort of inane, +widening stare. "You caught me, didn't you? Well, I want it this way. +When they look at me, if any of them comes, I want them to say old Jane +was a sport from start to finish. The last dance is on. Mix the drinks, +boys. Eat, drink, and shake the dice, for to-morrow you may not know +where you are at, and nobody to pay the bill. But keep the other thing +to yourselves. I don't want to hear about it. You say it was in the +papers. I didn't see it. Liz didn't see it, either, and you say she and +I are in the same box. Murder? Who says it was the same as murder? I +didn't intend it. I'd never have let it happen if I could have prevented +it. Yes, the baby was left with me, and--and I might have raised her +different, but I was a sport, full of hell and out for a good time! But, +O God! I wonder what the little thing thought when the crash came. Gosh! +She must have screamed! She must have choked in that awful fire! Burned +to a cinder! No flowers, no sod, no nothing! Well, what's the odds? Yes, +I'll let Liz find out for herself. Somebody will tell her soon enough. +Lord! how a thing like that flies and spins through the air! It is +everybody's business." + +"I want to undress you, Jane," Lizzie said, bewildered by the ambiguous +torrent of words. "Let me unhook your frock." + +"No, fool, idiot, spitfire, cat!" Jane cried, angrily. "I want to be +like this--_just like this_. Get away! Leave me alone! How long will it +take?--the Lord only knows. I couldn't ask the drug-clerk." + +"Well, I'll leave you, then," Lizzie said, slightly offended. + +Jane made no response, and Lizzie started to leave the room. She noticed +the lamp and paused. "She might get up and knock it over," she thought, +and, blowing her breath down the chimney, she extinguished the flame. + +She was in her room, still undressed, when she heard the gate being +opened. She went to the head of the stairs and listened. There was a +vigorous rap. Lizzie went down the stairs and opened the door. + +A man she knew to be Doctor Brackett stood on the porch, a satchel in +his hand. His horse was at the gate. + +"I'm just in from Atlanta," he explained, hurriedly. "I have a new clerk +at my store, and in looking over his prescriptions I saw that he had +sold Miss Holder quite a quantity of morphine tablets. You see, from the +talk that is going on in town I was afraid she might have taken an--an +overdose--you know what I mean?" + +"I think something _is_ wrong with her," Lizzie cried, aghast. "Hurry! +Come! I'll light her lamp!" + +Lizzie fairly ran up the steps and into Jane's room. She struck a match +and lighted the lamp. The doctor followed her and bent over the sleeping +woman. He opened her dress, quickly cut her corset-laces, and made an +examination. Then, standing up, he turned to the bureau and began to +search the littered top of it. + +"Oh, here we are!" he exclaimed, in relief, as he picked up a vial +containing morphine tablets and shook them between him and the light. +"She's had a close shave. She thought she was taking enough." + +"You mean that she--" + +"Oh yes." The doctor put the vial into his pocket. "It is a plain case. +Her mind is out of order. She actually--so my clerk heard to-night--went +to the undertaker's and asked him the prices of various costly caskets. +The undertaker thought she was referring to her recent bad news. She +will come out of this sleep all right. But the truth is she can't +recover. It is only a question of a week or two now. In fact, she won't +get up from this. She hasn't the vitality. She has literally burned +herself out and been living on her energies and nerves. She couldn't +stand the shock of that sad calamity. I am sorry for you, too, Mrs. +Trott. John was a fine boy. Now leave her just as she is. She will be +easier handled in the morning. She is in no immediate danger." + +The doctor took up his satchel and started away. In the darkened +corridor Lizzie overtook him just as he had reached the head of the +stairs. + +"You said Jane had bad news, doctor," she began, falteringly, dreading +revelations to come. "Do you mean about--about John taking her niece +away?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Trott, and the other--the deaths of the two in that awful +wreck." + +"Death? Wreck?" Lizzie leaned breathlessly against the wall. "What +wreck--whose death?" + +"Oh, oh, is it possible that you haven't heard?" And, standing in the +slender shaft of light from Jane's partly closed door, the doctor +awkwardly explained. Lizzie listened, as he thought, calmly enough. He +couldn't read her face, for she kept it averted in the shadow. + +"I understand it all now," she said, after a little pause. "Oh, oh, so +that's it! That's what Jane meant." + +She went with the doctor to the door, said good night, and locked the +door after him. She stood in the dismal silence of the dark hall and +heard his horse trotting down the street. She started to her room, +sliding her hand on the smooth balustrade. Her room gained, she stood in +the center of it as purposeless and dazed as a sleeper waking in strange +surroundings. She felt for a chair and sank into it. + +"John dead!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Why, why, it can't be--and yet why +not, if they all say so? John dead, Dora dead, Jane dying, and I--and I +left here all alone by myself!" + +She undressed in the dark, vaguely dreading the light as if it might +somehow stab her anew. She reclined on the bed. For hours she lay awake. +She tried to cry, but could not summon tears to her eyes. She would have +been afraid of Jane's staggering insanely about the house had the doctor +not assured her that she would not stir till morning. Jane was not a +ghost, but she was a would-be suicide, and that was quite as gruesome to +think about. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + +Finally she fell asleep, and the sun was well up when she was waked by +Mandy, the negro servant. + +"Yo' breakfast done raidy on de table, Mis' Trott," she said, a touch of +condescension in her voice. + +"Why, I thought," Lizzie humbly faltered, "that you were not coming +back." + +"I did say dat," Mandy answered, "en' I did intend ter keep my word, but +Jake say 'twas my bounden duty ter he'p you out en' not quit yer in de +lurch, now dat you los' yo' son en' de li'l girl dat way. Jake say he +knowed Mr. John Trott en' dat he was er nice-appearin' young man, en' +good ter work under. Yo' coffee gittin' col', en' if I heat it ag'in it +never tast' de same--de secon' b'ilin' make it bitter." + +"I'll come down--I'll come down," Lizzie said. "Let it be cold. It +doesn't matter. I'm not hungry. Don't wake Jane. She is asleep. She was +sick last night and had the doctor." + +After breakfast there was nothing to do, and Lizzie sat first in the +parlor, then in the dining-room, and again on the porch. She went in to +see Jane and found her still asleep. In the yellow light of day there +was something weirdly uncouth in the pink-robed form, the patchwork of +paint, powder, and death-tints of the face which had once been +attractive and care-free. The doctor was coming again and Lizzie told +herself that Jane must be undressed and put to bed properly, and yet she +shrank from going about it, for she dreaded Jane's temper. But it had +to be done, so, getting out a nightgown from a bureau drawer, she +proceeded to wake the sleeper. It was difficult, but Jane finally opened +her eyes, and, only half conscious, she submitted, falling asleep again +as soon as Lizzie stopped handling her. Mandy came up the stairs and +looked in at the door. She approached the bed and stared down +disapprovingly at the frail, limp form. + +"Dat's er dyin' 'ooman," she said, superstitiously. "She got de mark of +it all over 'er." + +Lizzie, in a chair at the foot of the bed, nodded, but said nothing. + +The doctor came, made an examination, and motioned Lizzie and the +servant to follow him from the chamber. "She is sinking pretty fast," he +said. "She may come to her senses before the end, and she may not. I'm +doing no good and shall not call again." + +The white woman and the black, standing side by side in the corridor, +watched him descend the stairs. + +"Well, well, what could she expect?" Mandy muttered, as she started for +the kitchen. "She made 'er bed, Jake say, en' now she's on it. Well, +well, I don't judge nobody--dat's de Lawd's job, not mine--but I'm sorry +for 'er--so I am. I'm sorry fer 'er, en'--en' fer you, _too_, Mis' +Trott." + +There were no male visitors that day. The news of John's and Dora's +deaths somehow kept men away. However, the report that Jane had +attempted to kill herself and was about to die reached some of her +female associates, and in their perfumed finery and with mincing, +high-heeled steps they rustled in. With faces as vapid as faces of wax +they perched around Jane's bed like birds in tinsel plumage, ready for +instant flight. They knew that the end of one of their coterie was +near, and yet they chatted in low tones of things pertaining to their +walk of life and this and that off-color gossip. Now and then a smile +slipped its frail fetters and died of its own rebuke. + +Under various and startled excuses they declined Lizzie's hint that they +come back after dark and sit the night through at the dying woman's +bedside. So that night, when Mandy left for her home, saying that she +could not possibly stay away from Jake and the children, Lizzie found +herself quite marooned with Jane and certain memories which she could +not combat. + +Why she did it she could not have explained, but she took her lamp and +went to John's old room at the end of the house, and stood looking +about. Tacked to the wall were some diagrams he had drawn; and on the +dusty table lay a coverless arithmetic, a dog-eared algebra, an English +grammar, and pen, ink, paper, stubs of pencils, a worn tape-line, and on +the wall hung a soiled shirt, a discarded gray vest, a pair of old +trousers, and a dented derby hat. Lizzie lowered the lamp to the table +and sat down in the only chair in the room. A pair of John's old shoes +peeped out at her from beneath the narrow bed. Lizzie sat there for an +hour or more. She was tearless, but a vast reservoir of tears seemed +backed up within her, and certain inward dams threatened to burst. John +no longer seemed the gawky workman of his later days, but the neglected +though attractive child who used to romp noisily through the house and +stare at her and her friends with such innocent and prattling blandness. +And he was dead, actually dead! Lizzie mused thus for a while, and then +began to grow angry. People were saying that she had caused his death by +separating his wife from him and driving him away. They were saying, +too, those meddlesome fools! that he had tried to rescue a child from +sheer contamination by her, and had lost his life in the attempt. John's +father, if he were alive--but she mustn't think of him. No, she had +given that over long ago. But to-night John's father, as a discarnate +entity of some sort, seemed to haunt the dead silence of the house to +which he had brought her so hopefully. The all-pervading gloom seemed to +palpitate with his demand for the restoration to life and happiness of +his son. Was she losing her mind? Lizzie wondered. She never could have +imagined that such an hour as this could arrive for her, an hour so +fraught with twinges, pangs, and thrusts the like of which had been +alien to her experience. She could bear it no longer, and she took her +lamp and went back to her own room. She listened attentively to detect +any sound that might come from Jane's chamber. Was it a voice, a low, +querulous voice? Yes, it must be; and laggingly she went to respond to +it. + +Jane lay with her eyes wide open in almost infantile inquiry. + +"I see it didn't work," she smiled, wanly. "I didn't take enough, eh? +Well, well, it doesn't matter, Liz. I'd rather go the regular, +old-fashioned way, after all. I seem to have slept off that other +feeling. I'm not afraid now--no, no, not a bit! I've had my day, old +pal, and the richest women of the land haven't had a better time. I +dreamt that all the girls were here--Ide, and Lou, High-fling Em, and--" + +"They were here this afternoon," Lizzie fished from her turgid +consciousness, "but they left. They were sorry." + +"Oh, I know, but not one of the bunch thought for one minute that it +would come to them, too, and that's the joke of it! Selfish +fools--nasty, sly, and catty even over a corpse. They sent Mag +Sebastian flowers, but it was after Mag was out of the game. Huh! I +guess I know 'em, Liz, and so do you. Shucks! you won't cry when I'm +carted off--not on your life! But there is _one_ thing, yes, one thing, +Liz, and it lies just between you and me. I don't know why it hangs on +to me so tight. Huh!" Jane forced a rasping, throaty laugh that fairly +snarled with insincerity. "I mean--I mean--oh, hell! you know what I +mean!" + +"I--I don't think I do," Lizzie faltered, trying to meet Jane's +unwavering stare. + +"Oh, come off, come off!" Jane sniffed. "'Jurors, look on the +prisoner--prisoner, look on the jurors'! You know what I'm talking +about. I heard the doctor telling you last night about John and Dora. +Listen. I've had my fun and the good things of life, but did _my +fun_--you know what I mean--did _my fun_ come between me and--well--my +duty to the kid's mother? And more than that--more than that--did my fun +and yours, Liz, drive a young wife from a happy home with a hanging +head, cause a fine boy and a helpless little girl to run from us as from +smallpox into roasting flames--" + +"Hush, hush!" Lizzie gasped, and she rose to her feet, quivering and +pallid. + +"Oh, well, never mind, Liz!" Jane sighed wearily. "You can't face that +point any better than I can, but you hold a better hand than I do--for +you see, Liz, you are still alive. Oh, but I don't know that I'd swap +with you, for I'll soon know nothing about it, and I guess you'll tote +it about with you awhile, anyway. I know I would if I lived, and that is +why I tried the dope-route last night. Those thoughts have been in my +mind some time. By the way, I want my pink on and the other things, and +my hair fixed the same way. Don't forget. There won't be any preacher +needed. I don't want any long-faced chap to whitewash my giddy record or +to make an example of me. We are close to the graveyard, thank the +powers that be, and I won't have to ride through town feet foremost. I +wish the girls would stay away. I don't know why, but I do." + +Jane's eyelids were drooping, and, thinking that she might sleep, Lizzie +crept from the room. It was a long, sleepless night for Mrs. Trott. +About every hour she would go to Jane, bend over her, and listen to her +soft breathing. She was too inexperienced to know whether a decided +change was taking place. She joyfully greeted the first gray streaks of +daylight in the sky and began to watch for the coming of Mandy. +Presently the servant came, accompanied by her husband, a lusty, +middle-aged laborer, who simply tipped his hat and sat down on the +sawhorse in the wood-yard. + +"Jake say he 'low you may need er man about," Mandy explained. "How she +comin' on?" + +"Just the same, when I last saw her," Lizzie said. "Will you go in and +see her?" + +Mandy was in Jane's room several minutes. Then she came back, a serious +and resigned look on her swarthy face. + +"I was jes' in time," she said, stoically. "She opened 'er eyes, Mis' +Trott, en' look' straight at me, en' smiled en' laughed, low-like. 'I +done hat my share er fun,' she say. En' wid dat she fetched er big +breath en' died. I didn't tetch 'er--no, ma'am, I didn't lay han's on +'er. Jake tol' me not ter. Jake say his maw tol' 'im dat 'twon't do ter +tetch de corpse of any but dem dat's 'ceptable ter old St. Peter. Jake +say dat de evil sperit is still housed up in de corruption, en' dat it +will go inter any livin' flesh dat give it er chance. But somebody got +ter dress 'er, Mis' Trott. It is a 'ooman's place. Dar is a black +mid-wife 'cross town dat does all sorts er odd jobs. Jake say he think +she would come. She got witch en' hoodoo charms, en' say ol' Nick en' +all his imps cayn't faze 'er. Jake will go fer 'er ef you say so." + +"Very well, very well," Lizzie consented. "And have him see the +undertaker, too, please." + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + +Martha Jane Eperson alighted from her brother's buggy before the gate at +the Whaley farm-house. Mrs. Whaley came out and met her. + +"I got your message," the visitor said, "and came in as quickly as I +could. I had heard of John's death, and, as it is all over the country, +I knew that Tilly had already heard it or had to be told." + +"Yes, she knows," Mrs. Whaley sighed, resignedly. "Her father came in +and let it out awfully rough-like. I hold that against him, so I do. He +showed her the paper that it was in and told her that, although the +court had dissolved the marriage tie, God had made the separation doubly +sure. Tilly sat sorter dead-like for a long time. That was yesterday +evening about sundown. I tried to comfort her, but she shudders and +screams when me or her pa comes near her. This morning the doctor came +to see her. I sent for him. He said she had to have a change. He was mad +at her pa, and they had sharp words at the gate. The doctor said she +simply must not stay here with us for a while--that it would drive her +out of her senses or kill her." + +"So you sent for me?" Martha Jane faltered. + +"Yes, because you are the only one she talks about wanting to see. She +loves you, and intimated that she would like to go out to your house for +a few days. I am sure it will do her good, and I thought maybe you +wouldn't mind--" + +"Oh, I should love it above all things!" The girl grasped Mrs. Whaley's +hands and wrung them eagerly. "I have the buggy. I could take her right +back with me." + +"Then you ought to do it while her pa is away," Mrs. Whaley said, her +beetling brows lowered. "He is in the country to-day. If he was here he +might raise a row, but he won't be apt to object when it is already +done. I think she ought to go. I hate to say it, but this is no place +for her right now. I'm afraid sometimes that her pa's got some trouble +of the brain. 'Softening,' some call it. He is not like he was. He wakes +up in the dead of night and comes stumbling over things to my bed to +talk all this over, and he would go to Tilly's bed, too, if I'd let him. +He is even suspicious of me--says I dispute his Bible views behind his +back, or when he is expounding them to somebody before me. But I don't. +I'm sick and tired of it all. I am coming to see that he is wrong, +because religion is intended to help, not ruin folks, and between you +and me, Martha Jane, every bit of trouble me and him ever had came out +of his peculiar way of looking at Scripture. La me! wouldn't it have +been better to have left Tilly down there with the man she picked out +than to--to-- Well, you know what I mean? You see how it ended." + +With moist eyes, Martha Jane nodded. "May I see her now?" she asked, her +lips twitching. + +"Yes, go right up. She will be glad to see you." + + * * * * * + +Two days later Joel Eperson and Tilly sat on the veranda of Joel's +farm-house. "Martha Jane said you had something to say to me," he said, +gravely. "I hope it is something that I can do to help you, Tilly. God +knows I want to do so." + +"Yes, I want you to help me," Tilly said, lifting her sad eyes to his +face, "but first I must make a confession. Joel, I deliberately planned +this visit to Martha Jane for a purpose. There was something to be done +that would have been impossible at home, owing to my father's close +watching over me." + +"I see-- I see, and I am ready for anything," Joel declared, fervently. + +Tilly was silent for several minutes, her glance on the lap of her black +dress, and the black-bordered handkerchief which she held balled in her +little hand. + +"Of course," Joel began, considerately, "if you don't feel like saying +any more at present, why, I--" + +"It is not that," Tilly broke in; "but, oh, Joel, I am afraid that you +may not agree with me, and this is a thing that lies very heavily on my +sense of duty. There is something that I must do right away. Joel, I +must go to Ridgeville for a day or so." + +"To Ridgeville!" He stared blankly, after his astounded ejaculation. + +"Yes, Joel. I want to visit our little house again and get some things I +left-- No, that isn't it. Why am I not telling the truth? I want to get +anything--anything that John may have left. You see"--filling up and +sobbing now--"I haven't a single thing with me that was actually his." + +"I understand." Joel raised his tortured eyes from her sweet, +grief-swept face and let them rove unguided over his fields of cotton +and ripening corn which lay along the red-clay road sloping +mountainward. "I see, and you think that I--" + +"It is like this, Joel." Tilly was controlling her sobs now and bending +anxiously toward him. "So many people know me at Cranston that if I took +the train there it would cause talk of an unpleasant sort. Father would +know I was going and he would not allow it. But Bellewood, two miles +from here, you know, is a station, and if you would put me on there at +eight o'clock in the morning no one at home would know anything about +it." + +Joel's honest and worshipful eyes crept back to her face. "I see," he +said, slowly, "and your people would think that you were here under the +protection of my sister, my mother, and myself." + +"Yes, Joel, but I have mentioned it to your mother and sister and they +see it as I do. They are women and understand. They were afraid, +however, that you would not want to do it, and so I came to you. You +must help me, Joel. As I see it, a deception of this sort is not wrong, +for it springs from a right motive." + +Joel was deeply perturbed. His whole mental and spiritual being rose and +fell on the billows of indecision. Finally he asked: "Is it just to +visit the house and get some things? Is that all, Tilly?" + +He saw her glance waver and sink to her lap. She took a deep, resolute +breath. "What is the use?" she said, tremulously. "I cannot lie to you, +Joel. You will either help me, knowing fully what I'm going for, or not +at all. Joel, I want to see John's mother." + +"His mother?" The plain man started and recoiled. "But why, oh, why, +Tilly?" + +She put her handkerchief to her writhing lips; she gulped and, with +lowered eyes, half sobbed: "Because she is John's mother--that's all, +Joel. I want to see, close at hand, the woman who gave my husband birth +and nursed him when he was a baby. I saw her once when she sat behind me +at a show. She looked at me and I looked at her. Somehow I think I'd +know her better than any one else. Joel, she has lost her child and I +have lost my husband. They have gone from us forever and ever. No power +on earth ought to keep us two apart. No one else can tell how I feel or +how she feels. I don't think she is as bad as people say, not deep down +in her heart, anyway. She's done wrong, but so have all of us. Joel, you +can help me or not, as you think best, but if you don't take me to that +train I shall walk to it alone. I know my duty before God, and I shall +do it. Joel, Joel, Joel"--she was speaking slowly, as if to formulate +into words thoughts which lay deep beneath the surface of her torn +being--"Joel, God is holding me accountable, in a way. Joel, if I had +not deserted John he would have been alive to-day. Something would have +arisen to have prevented my father from shooting him. I thought I was +acting for the best, but I was excited and terrified. Do you think, +feeling as I do, that I care what a few people here or at Ridgeville +think about me?" + +Joel rose to his feet. He was wearing his working-clothes. His coarse +shoes and the hat in his gaunt hand were covered with dust from the barn +which he had been cleaning in preparation for the winter's storage of +grain. His rough shirt was open at the neck, the muscles of which were +drawn taut. His brow and hands were beaded with sweat. He stood staring +mountainward for a moment, rocked between two impulses. Presently he +turned to her. + +"It would be a question between old-fashioned men of honor," he said, +"whether a gentleman could act as you ask me to act while you are +intrusted to his protection, but you are now speaking of things, Tilly, +which men have no right to decide upon. No bishop, no cardinal should +refuse to go to a woman in distress, and neither should I!--neither +should you. And so, if you feel that it is your duty to the memory of +your husband to do this thing, I shall help you." + +"Thank you, Joel." Tilly sobbed aloud. "I knew you would not desert me." + +"And when do you want to go?" he inquired. + +"In the morning, Joel." + +"Then I shall be ready to take you," he said, turning away. + +He had to clean and oil the wheels of his road-wagon, and he went to the +barn-yard and set to work. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + +There was but scant attendance at the burial of Jane Holder. The men she +had known, and with whom she had laughed, danced, jested, and sung, +under the veil of night, for obvious reasons could not attend in open +daylight such rites, simple and unobtrusive though they were. In like +manner, Jane's female associates were chary about being in evidence. +Moreover, such irresponsible human butterflies are said to have morbid +fears of death, and this particular case was surely nature's grimmest +reminder. + +Lizzie Trott went, of course, and Mandy and Jake walked behind her, +solemnly and sedately self-righteous. The spot set aside for Jane's +remains to repose in was in an unused, weed-overgrown corner of the +public cemetery--the spot decided on by the town clerk, who granted the +permit at the price required alike for respected or unrespected +interment. The undertaker's men, in a perfunctory way, did the work of +lowering the flower-covered casket into the damp red clay which was +intermixed with round, prehistoric pebbles. The white sexton of the +cemetery, an old man, bowed and gray, took charge of the filling of the +grave with earth and shaping a mound on the surface. + +The hearse, the black-plumed horses, and the undertaker's men went away. +Jake and Mandy again fell in behind Lizzie and they walked down the hill +to the deserted house. + +"I cooked enough fer yo' supper, Mis' Trott," Mandy said at the gate. +"Jake say dat I mustn't come back ter you any mo'." + +"Very well, Mandy," Lizzie said, wearily. "Good-by." + +"Good-by, Mis' Trott. Me 'n' Jake bofe sorry fer you." + +"Yas'm, we is," Jake intoned, doffing his hat and sliding his flat feet +backward. + +The interior of the house was still and shadowy. Lizzie sat down in that +best dark dress of hers in the parlor. She was beginning to pity +herself, for it was all so very, very terrible. How could she go on +living there? And yet, whither was she to go? She rose. She started up +the stairs with the strange intention of again visiting John's old room, +but in the hall she stopped. "How silly!" she thought. "What am I going +up there for?" The slanting rays of the lowering sun fell through the +narrow side-lights of the door and lay on the floor at her feet. She +shuddered. It would soon be night again and how could she pass the dark +hours?--for something told her that she would not sleep soundly. She had +never felt less like sleeping, though she had not lost consciousness for +two days and two nights. Then a self-protective idea entered her +confused reflections, and she acted on it. She found among her +belongings a piece of broad black ribbon, and, forming a bow and +streamers of it, she hung it on the front door-knob, together with a +card on which she had written, "Not at home." That would keep people +away--her friends and Jane's--and she was in no mood to entertain any +one. The ribbon and card would speak of John, of Dora, of Jane, and the +boldest would respect their significance. + +In her own room Lizzie changed her dress. She felt like it, and she put +on her oldest and plainest gown. She drew off her rings and bracelets +and dropped them into a drawer. Something psychological was happening to +her which she could not have analyzed had she had far more occult +knowledge than she possessed. She remembered that her mother had dressed +plainly in those far-off days which now seemed so sweet and restful, and +somehow she wanted to be like her mother. + +It was sundown. It would soon be dark, she told herself, with a cool +shudder and a little groan of despair. Suddenly she heard a sound as of +the gate being closed. Then there was a light step on the porch, +followed by a low rap on the door. Lizzie crept down the stairs, not +knowing whether she should open the door or not. There was another rap, +a timid one, it seemed to Lizzie, who now stood hesitating in the hall +close to the door. There was a brief silence, then a low, awed voice was +heard calling: + +"Mrs. Trott! Oh, Mrs. Trott! May I see you for a moment?" + +Lizzie fired up with a touch of her old irascibility, and, putting her +lips to the keyhole, she cried out, sharply: + +"There is no one at home! Can't you read the card on the door?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Trott," came back after a pause, "but I've come a long way to +see you. Don't you know me? I'm Tilly, John's wife." + +"John's wife!" Lizzie gasped under her breath. "John's wife!" Then with +fumbling fingers she unlocked and opened the door and stood staring at +the quaint little visitor whose black costume was covered with the dust +of travel and who seemed quite frightened under the ordeal upon her. + +"Oh, Mrs. Trott," Tilly went on, in a pleading tone, "do forgive me! I +know I have no right to intrude on you like this, but I simply couldn't +stay away any longer. Oh, Mrs. Trott, you are alone and in trouble and I +want to help you!" + +"Want to help me--you want to help me?" Lizzie stammered, taking Tilly's +outstretched hand and leading her into the parlor. "Of course, of course +you are welcome, but you mustn't stand there. Some one passing might see +you. You say--you say that you want to see me?" + +"Yes, you are his mother-- I'm his wife, and we have lost him. Oh, Mrs. +Trott, what are we to do--how can we bear it?" + +Tilly's voice quivered and hung in her throat and broke into sobs. The +woman within the woman of the world took the weeping child to her breast +and held her there. She, too, was weeping now and afraid to trust her +abashed voice to utterance. Locked in a mutual embrace, they stood for +several minutes. Then Lizzie, the weaker vessel of the two, found her +voice. + +"Why did you come _here_?" she cried. "Oh, why did you come _here_?" + +"I had to see you," Tilly made husky reply. "I know how you feel because +I know how I feel. Oh, Mrs. Trott, you are his mother--actually his +mother. I see the look of him in your face, in your eyes, in your hair +and hands, and hear his voice in yours. Do you know that I killed him? +If I had not left him as I did he would have been alive to-day. I was a +coward--but, oh, it was for John, for John's sake that I did it!" + +"I understand," Lizzie half groaned, "but you were not to blame, my +child. I am the one. It's just me, child--just me and no one else. I +spoiled his life and yours. I know it--I know it. You ought to hate me, +as all the rest do, and not come here like this. Don't you know that if +people knew you were here they would--would--" + +"Hush!" Tilly said, pressing Lizzie's hands to her breast and holding +them there. "I love you--I love you even more--yes, more than I do my +own mother. You are my mother. Death has parted John and me, but nothing +should part me from you. Some day you must let me stay with you--live +with you, care for you, work for you. Oh, Mrs. Trott, I want to be to +you what John would have been had he lived to see you so lonely and +unhappy as you are now." + +As she stared Lizzie Trott seemed fairly to wilt in the rays of the new +sun that was blazing over her. "Why, child, darling child," she +sobbingly cried out, "you could never live with me. It is out of all +reason. Even this visit is imprudent. You must go home--you must go back +to your mother. Surely you know that this very roof--" + +"I don't care for that," Tilly broke in. "I can't live with my people-- +I don't want to live anywhere but with you. You need me--yes, that is +the truth; you need me, and I need you. I feel rested and soothed here, +as if God Himself were with me. I don't feel so anywhere else." + +They sat down on the old sofa, side by side. They wept and clung +together. After a while Tilly raised her head. "I've always wanted to +see John's room. May I?" she asked. "Would you mind? It is silly, +perhaps, but I want to see it. He told me how he used to study and work +there at night." + +Lizzie nodded and rose. It was dark now and she lighted a lamp. At the +foot of the stairs, however, she stopped abruptly. + +"Oh, I forgot," she cried. "You ought not to look at it. It is upset, +unclean; it was never well attended to even while he was here. It will +make you hate me." + +"No, no; let me see it, please," Tilly pleaded, taking the lamp into her +own hand. "I can go alone--in fact, in fact, I'd like to be alone there +for a little while, Mrs. Trott, if you wouldn't mind." + +Lizzie hesitated a moment and then gave in. "It is the last door on the +left," she said. "I'm sorry it is in such a bad condition." + +"Very well, I'll find it," Tilly answered, and, leaving Lizzie below, +she went up the stairs. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + + +She was absent more than an hour. Lizzie was becoming afraid of +something she knew not what--something due, perhaps, to the suggestion +laid upon her by Jane Holder's abortive attempt, when Tilly appeared at +the head of the stairs, her nunlike face in the disk of the lamp's rays. + +"I've swept and dusted, and made the bed," she said. "There are a few of +his things that I'd like to have, provided you don't want to keep +them--the books, the drawings, and his hat and shoes." + +"You may have them," Lizzie answered, as they went back into the parlor +and sat down. + +"I am going to ask another favor," Tilly went on. "I intended to spend +the night at the cottage, but if you wouldn't mind I'd like to stay here +with you and sleep in John's old bed. You may think it odd, but I want +to do it, Mrs. Trott. I want to do it more than anything in the world." + +"Oh!" Lizzie started and protested, "you couldn't stay here, my child. +It would never do. You are too young and inexperienced to understand +why. I've harmed you and John enough already; surely you see--you see--" + +"I know what you mean, but it doesn't matter," Tilly insisted. "I want +to stay to-night, for I must go back to-morrow. Don't refuse me--please, +please don't! I want to sleep there and I want to get up in the morning +and cook your breakfast and make your coffee for you. Please, please let +me." + +Lizzie lowered her head. Her features were in the shadow. She was very +silent. Then Tilly felt some tears falling on her hands, and with her +black-bordered handkerchief she wiped Lizzie's wet cheeks and drew her +head down to her shoulder. Suddenly, as if ashamed of her emotion, +Lizzie rose, went to the front door and stood there in silence, looking +out. + +"How could I let her do it?" she reflected. "If it got out she would be +stamped as I am by the public. No, it won't do--it won't do; and yet, +and yet, the dear, sweet child--" + +She turned back to Tilly and sat down. "I don't know what to do," she +faltered. "You are upset now with grief, and are willing to do things +that later on you may be sorry for. Go back to the cottage and stay +there. It will be best." + +"No, Mrs. Trott--mother, I'm going to call you mother. I shall not +desert you to-night. From the cottage I saw the hearse come here this +afternoon and a man told me what it meant. This is your first night +alone and I must be with you." + +In silence Lizzie acquiesced. Remembering that Mandy had left supper +prepared, she went to the kitchen, lighted a lamp, and began putting the +food on the table. Tilly joined her, helping at this and that with +swift, deft hands. Presently they sat down opposite each other. Neither +ate much, though both were pretending to relish the food. The meal was +almost concluded when there was a step on the porch and a vigorous rap +on the door. Lizzie started and almost paled. + +"Stay where you are," she said to Tilly. "I'll be back in a moment." + +Tilly heard her light step to the door, then the door opened and a man's +voice sounded: "Hello, Liz! What's all this? My God! old girl, I just +got to town and heard at the hotel about all three, and--" + +"Hush!" Tilly heard Lizzie's voice ring out. "Go away, and don't come +back ever again. Do you hear me--_never again_?" + +"But Liz, Liz! Why, old friend--" + +"Go away, I tell you! I don't want you here and I won't have it! Tell +all the others to stay away--every one, man and woman. I'm done, I tell +you. I'm through. Go, go, I tell you! Go!" + +There was a mumbled, bewildered protest which grew fainter and fainter +till it ended with the clicking of the gate latch, and Lizzie, white and +trembling, returned. She resumed her seat, and with unsteady hands took +up her knife and fork, but made no comment on the interruption. + +Supper over, they rose and put the things away. After this was done they +sat talking in the parlor till nine o'clock. Then Tilly said, "Now you +must go to bed, and so must I." + +Lizzie got another lamp, and when she had lighted it she suddenly +bethought herself of something. "You have no nightgown," she said. "Is +it at the cottage?" + +Tilly nodded. "Yes; I will run over for it, if you will give me a match +to light the gas." + +Lizzie averted her eyes, stood silent for a moment, and then said: + +"No, no, you mustn't go at this time of night. Some one might see you +leaving here or returning. No, no, that would never do, my child. I have +a lot of clean nightgowns, but I have--" Lizzie broke off, her face +flushing, her eyes falling. + +"Then why don't you lend me--" Tilly had read the thought of her +embarrassed hostess, delicate as it was, and yet did not know how to +relieve the situation of its tension. + +"Oh, I remember now!" Lizzie suddenly ejaculated in relief. "I have some +that have just been bought and given to me which I've never worn. They +are rather too small for me. In fact, they are about your size. Come to +my room and I'll get one." + +To the simple, country-bred girl Lizzie's room seemed a luxurious one in +the glow of the pink-shaded lamp on the center-table. The imitation +damask curtains at the windows had a costly look, and the wide bed with +its silk-lined lace covering and great puffy pillows seemed a thing of +royal comfort. On the air a mixture of several perfumes floated. While +Tilly stood in the doorway, holding her lamp, Lizzie went to a wardrobe, +pulled down a long cardboard box, and began to take out some folded +garments. Suddenly she turned her back to Tilly, and with a gown of fine +linen in her hands she hastily proceeded to remove the pink ribbons and +bows from the neck and sleeves. + +"It is too gaudy for you, with all these gewgaws on it," she awkwardly +explained, when she noticed that Tilly was watching her. "It is not what +you'd prefer, I'm sure; but maybe you can make it do for once. It has +never been worn. It is just from the store. Here, you can see the +price-tag on it." + +Tilly took it, was deeply touched, and bent and kissed Lizzie on the +brow. "Good night, mother," she said, simply. "Try to sleep. I can see +that you need rest. We are both in a sad plight, aren't we?" + +"'Mother'! she called me 'mother'!" Lizzie said to herself, as Tilly +turned away. She heard the door of John's room being closed, and, +peering out into the corridor, she saw that it was dark save for a +thread of light beneath the shutter. Then Lizzie, with a strange sense +of something new and hitherto unexperienced in her drab life, started to +prepare for bed. She had removed the pins from her hair and was about to +let it fall, when all at once she paused, reflected for a moment, and +then wound her hair up again. + +"No, no, I mustn't go to bed," she said. "That would never do. The sweet +child is in my care, and nothing shall happen to shock her or prevent +her from sleeping. Somebody might come--who knows? Some one too drunk to +be decent or orderly." + +Therewith, Lizzie got a light shawl, threw it over her shoulders, blew +out her lamp, and crept down the stairs. Seating herself at an open +window of the parlor, whence she could see the gate and a part of the +street leading townward, she determined to remain on guard through the +night. + +Ten o'clock came and passed, eleven, twelve, one, and still she had no +desire for sleep. She had decided how she would act if she saw any one +approaching the isolated house. She would hurry out, meet the person +before he reached the gate, and, if possible, quietly send him away. + +At two o'clock she heard footsteps on the opposite side of the street. A +man was slowly and cautiously passing, his eyes on the house. Lizzie +wondered, and when she saw him pause and retrace his steps, still +looking in her direction, she became even alarmed. Her anxiety +increased, for when the man was opposite the gate he began slowly to +cross the street. From his light, furtive steps Lizzie knew that he was +trying to avoid being seen or heard. + +Rising, she tiptoed from the parlor into the hall and to the door. +Softly she turned the key, that Tilly might not hear, and stepped upon +the porch. The sound she made was evidently heard by the man, for he +paused in the middle of the street and stood still. Though the moonlight +was clear enough, Lizzie failed to recognize in him any acquaintance of +hers. She opened the gate and went directly to him. + +"What do you want here?" she demanded, facing him sternly. + +"Oh!" the man ejaculated. "Are you Mrs. Trott?" + +"Yes, but what do you want?" + +She thought he sighed as he courteously lifted his hat. "Mrs. Trott, I +don't want to intrude," he began. "I am a friend of your son's wife from +Cranston. She was in such deep distress that I and my family aided her. +I helped her take a train this morning, but later decided to--" + +"Oh, you are Joel Eperson, are you not?" + +"Yes," was the answer. + +Lizzie lowered her voice; her glance fell to the ground. "Tilly told me +about you to-night--how kind you have always been to her and what a fine +man you are." + +Joel waved his hand disparagingly. "I am not a wise friend of hers, at +any rate, Mrs. Trott," he sighed. "I ought not to have given in to her +coming. But I didn't know that she--she-- You see, she told me that she +was going to stay at the cottage. If I had thought--" + +"She insisted on staying here," Lizzie replied, plaintively apologetic. +"She came before it was dark and insisted on staying. That is why I am +up. Do you understand?" + +Joel gravely inclined his head. "I understand," he said, "and it is +fine and good of you, Mrs. Trott." + +"And you were standing guard over her, too?" Lizzie went on. + +Again he bowed his head. "It is a cruel world, Mrs. Trott," he said. "I +hope you will pardon me for saying so, but if it should be known that +Tilly stayed--" + +"I know. You needn't tell me," Lizzie interrupted, sensitively. "Now +listen, Mr. Eperson, you must take her home in the morning. You must +take her home and prevent her from coming again. She will want to. She +is not herself now. She is out of her head with grief. I love her--I +love her, and I don't wonder that John did and made her his wife. I've +brought all this on her and I can never undo it. You love her, too, I +know it-- I see it in your face and hear it in your voice. I gathered +it, too, from something she let fall about you and her before she met my +son. Now go to a hotel and get some rest. I am going to sit up and I'll +see that no harm comes to her. I'll make her go to the cottage before it +is light, and you will find her there. I promise it." + +"Thank you, Mrs. Trott." Joel bowed his uncovered head and held out his +hand. "If I had known that you were--were like this I should not have +worried." + +Lizzie pressed his hand and clung to it as if for support to her in what +she next faltered out. "I am a different woman from what I was only +three days ago," she declared. "Certain things have torn me to shreds. +I'm bleeding inside and out. I don't know what I shall do, but I shall +leave this house and bury myself from everybody I've associated with in +the past. You may not think it possible, but I'll die if I don't." + +Joel pressed her hand warmly; he bent his head till his eyes met hers +squarely, frankly. "Then I shall help you," he said, fervently. "Not +only that, but I shall not oppose Tilly in anything she wants to do in +your behalf, and she says she believes in you, Mrs. Trott. I am sure +that she will want to see you again, and she must be allowed to do so. +I'll help her." + +He left her standing in the center of the street and she slowly walked +to the gate, passed through it, and crept back to her post of vigil at +the window. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + + +It was two months after John's acceptance of the position with Pilcher & +Reed. The two partners were in the office together. John happened to be +up-town on business for the firm. + +"Well, what do you think of Trott now?" Reed asked, with a significant +smile, referring to some estimates and calculations of John's which he +had just submitted to his partner. + +"I think he is a wonder," Pilcher returned. "I was thinking about his +work last night. Do you know that I can see where he has already saved +us several thousands of dollars? He prevents much oversupply of +materials and doesn't let us make our old blunders, which often caused +tearing out and rebuilding. He seems to have an eye for the finished +thing before the work is even started. The architects hate him. They +don't have a soft snap with him. He made me send back Hinkinson's plans +for the Chester Flats--stairways too wide by ten inches, and ten feet +too near the front for the stores on the sides." + +"I know," Reed chuckled. "Well, what do you think about his pay? You +know we've hinted at a raise." + +Pilcher smiled. "I think he is worth as much to us as he is to any one +else, and, as I like the fellow personally, I want to hold on to him. +You can't hire a brain like his very long for nothing, and if we don't +come across he may be snapped up by some one else. Carter & Langley's +man asked me the other day if we had a contract with him. I lied. I +told him yes, and what I want to do now is to sign up with the fellow +and know where we stand. He is ambitious, and I never saw such a worker +in my life. He often does as much as an ordinary man after the office +closes. He works at home. He told me that he did not care for +amusements, reading, or politics. He has put his little sister in +school, and he warms up when he speaks of the child. Outside of his +work, she seems to be the only thing he is interested in. He is always +quoting something she says or telling amusing things she does. Then he +laughs--he seldom smiles over anything else. He is very deep and +serious. If he were not so young I'd think he had had a sad love-affair. +I think he must have taken the deaths of his parents and the +responsibility of the child very seriously. Well, what do you think?" + +"About a contract with him? Yes, I think we ought to come to terms with +him. You say he is the man we need. Why not be liberal with him?" + +"I've always thought that gradual progress," Pilcher said, "was good for +young men. You can spoil them easily by letting them know that you can't +do without them. Still, I see your point and agree with you. How about a +two years' contract at fifteen hundred a year?" + +"Not enough." Reed shook his younger and more progressive head firmly. +"Make it eighteen for a year, with a bonus of three per cent. on our +entire net profits." + +Pilcher winced and pulled his beard, but finally agreed. "You attend to +the details and draw up the contract. I catch your idea of pinning down +his personal interest in the work with the bonus. If we make as much +money next year as this he will do well." + +So it was finally arranged, and when John went home on the following +Saturday night, after signing the contract, he was in good spirits. Dora +was at the table with Betty and Minnie when he arrived, and he sat down +with them. They were overflowing with amusement about something that had +happened at school, and John sat watching Dora's animated face with deep +pride and gratification. He was sure she was genuinely happy in her new +environment, and he was beginning to feel that he had made no mistake in +taking her from her old one. She showed by her fine color and increased +weight that she was in splendid health. The new dress which she now wore +and which Mrs. McGwire had selected was most becoming. Her abundant hair +under constant care had grown more tractable and was always well +arranged. Her little hands, once rough and soiled, had grown white, +soft, and pliant. Under Betty McGwire's persistent admonitions she had +left off using many incorrect and uncouth forms of speech, and, on the +whole, deported herself very properly. + +Why should John not be proud of her? Indeed, she was all he had in the +world to care for, and he lavished the wealth of his saddened and lonely +soul upon her. He loved to work in his little room at night when she and +Minnie or Betty studied or read in hers, the door between being always +open. Frequently they asked him questions which he could not +answer--questions pertaining to history, geography, and science, and he +found that he himself was learning from the answers which they finally +secured from their books, teachers, and elsewhere. Sometimes he went +with them to free lectures given at night by the public schools. The +only place he refused to go with them was to the church and +Sunday-school, but, as the grave-faced Harold always escorted them to +these places, they did not need him. Sometimes the boy would speak +earnestly to him of the intricate theology he was mastering, but, as +John no longer combated such ideas with young or old, he always smiled +indulgently and let the subject pass. + +"What does it matter?" he used to ask himself. "Everybody needs a belief +of some sort, and Harold's faith in snake- and whale-stories is as good +as any other, if it will keep him from stealing and murdering and make +him more considerate of his fellow-man. Let the boy preach. If people +are willing to pay to listen to him, that is their business and his. As +for me, it hit me once and sha'n't get a swipe at me again." + +After dinner was over on the night following his promotion, he told the +three little girls that he wanted to "celebrate" that evening and would +take them to a certain theater where a children's play was being +produced. + +"To celebrate what?" they noisily asked him, but he kept his joyous +secret to himself, and they hurried away to get ready to go out. + +While he was waiting for them in the parlor, Harold came down from his +room, a book under his arm, and John invited him to go along. But the +boy only smiled and held out the book, which was the _Life of Wesley_. +"I have to study this to-night," he said. "I am to be examined on the +pioneers of our Church. You know we do not believe in theaters, as a +rule, but I understand that this child's play has a good moral. I'm sure +it won't do any great harm, and the silly things are up-stairs dancing +with joy." + +The children liked the play, the people, the lights, the music, and John +sat feasting on their animated faces. Once, however, a pang of keen pain +shot through him at the thought that he was having a pleasure that +could not be shared with the little toiling woman who had once been his +wife. If all had gone well, he might have brought Tilly to the great +city and lavished the results of his work and ability on her. As it was, +she would perhaps remain in the backwoods for the rest of her life. She +would no doubt marry-- Here he shuddered and tried to banish the thought +from his mind. + +After the play he took his little guests to an attractive café and they +had some ice-cream and cakes. While they ate they chattered vivaciously +about the plot and characters of the drama. Betty displayed good +critical ability, and John saw from Dora's face that she was seeing her +new friend in a fresh light and no doubt determining to emulate her in +this, as in other things. He told himself that that quality in his +foster-sister would help her enormously in acquiring the social culture +which he himself had missed in his youth. + +Little Minnie was becoming sleepy. Her eyelids were drooping, and John +started home with them. For a while he led Minnie by the hand, and then, +noting her lagging steps, he took her into his arms and carried her the +rest of the way. He felt her soft cheek settle down against his, and +from her warm, moist breathing he knew that she was asleep. He liked the +sensation caused by the limp form in his embrace. Betty and Dora walked +by his side. Young as he was, he felt a sort of paternal interest in all +three of them. + +Reaching home, he bore the sleeping child up to her little white bed in +her mother's room. Mrs. McGwire was there, hemming sheets for the house, +and was deeply touched by his act. + +"It was awfully kind of you," she said, and then she began to cry. "I'm +a fool," she whimpered, wiping her eyes, "but you were carrying her just +as her father did only a week before he died." + +However, she dried her eyes quickly and hastened to disrobe Minnie, who +was still asleep. + +"You have been a godsend to us all, Mr. Trott," Mrs. McGwire declared. +"The children worship you. Did you know it? Every night they listen for +your coming, and they often go into the kitchen to inquire if you are +getting exactly what you like to eat. I am telling you this because I +like to have children love me, and these love you very deeply." + + * * * * * + +One day John had to go to the office of a great newspaper directory +where files were kept of almost all the papers in the United States, his +object being to look over the advertised offers for bids on public +buildings in a certain New Jersey town. He was sent into the basement of +the establishment, where he found the files arranged in compartments in +shelves on both sides of a long room. An attendant handed him a +catalogue of the papers with the numbered key to their locations, and he +soon secured the information he desired. He was about to leave when a +terrible thought took hold of him, and he ran his eye over the +catalogue. Yes, there it was. _The Cranston News_. He went to the +indicated compartment himself, took down the file it contained, and bore +it to the table and seat set aside for patrons. It was a tiny, +half-stereotyped weekly, and on that account its compartment held a +longer file than otherwise would have been the case. He put the stack of +papers on the table before him. Should he look for the thing the mere +thought of which seemed to deaden his brain? He knew the time that the +item would naturally appear, and with cold, fumbling fingers he drew +out the issue under that date. He held it a moment unopened. + +"What good would it do?" something seemed to admonish him. "Don't rasp a +healing wound." + +The attendant noticed his apparent indecision and approached politely. +"Is there something else you want to see?" he asked. + +"No, thanks; these are all," John answered, and he opened the paper. The +clerk left him and he allowed his glance to sweep the columns of local +happenings. + +It was there. The mere head-line in bold type was sufficient: "Annulment +of Young Bride's Marriage and Tragic End of Husband." + +John read the crudely considerate item through, folded the sheet, and +restored the file to its place. Then he started back to his office. How +pitiless seemed the street scene in the garish light of the midday sun! +The push-cart men, the newsboys, the hurrying throng, the rattling of +the overhead trains, seemed to belong to an earthly hades. And why, he +wondered, should he suffer so over a thing that he had already accepted +as a fact, and partly conquered? He couldn't have answered, though a +psychologist might have classed it under the head of autosuggestion, or +called it a mere backward twist of a morbid imagination fed by +unsubdued, subconscious longings for things the subject once possessed. + +That night strange, dazzling dreams fell to John's portion. If by his +hard work he was enabled through the day to keep his old life out of his +conscious thought to any extent, it was often otherwise when he slept, +and to-night, following the shock he had had that morning, he was living +only too vividly over the period in which he had known Tilly. Again he +was entranced by her illumined face and thrilled by her mellow treble +voice as she read from the Bible that first night of his acquaintance +with her. Again he and she were on the lonely, moonlit mountain road +together. He felt her loving pressure on his arm, and as by the light of +heaven caught her tender, upward glance. Then she became his +wife--actually his wife. They were on the train together--in the cab at +Ridgeville, and then in that cottage of dreams and delight, shut in from +the uncomprehending world without. + +Then he awoke and, like the hail of javelins from an omnipotent enemy, +the tragic facts of his existence hurtled down upon him. Smothering a +cry like that of a wounded beast in a jungle, he found his pillow wet +with tears which he had shed against his will or knowledge--tears of +joy, or tears of grief, which were they? He sprang from his bed and +stood before the window of his boxlike room. + +"It is my yellow streak again," he muttered, wiping his eyes and +grinding his teeth. "It can't down me awake, and so it coils about me in +dreams. Be a man, John Trott! Life was never made for happiness. It was +for pain, struggle, and conquest." + +He heard a sound in Dora's room. He wondered if anything was wrong, and +as an anxious mother might have done, he listened attentively. He heard +a low, rippling laugh, followed by prattling tones. The child was +talking in her sleep. Her dreams must have been pleasant, for her +lilting voice rang out again. + +"It is beautiful on you, Betty! Maybe brother John will get me one, too. +Then we can wear them to the church sociable, eh, Betty?" + +"Brother John!" he echoed, softly. It was sweet and vaguely comforting +to know that the little waif relied upon him even in her dreams. He +crept into her room on his tiptoes, bent over Dora, and looked at her. +What an angelic, spritelike creature she seemed in her white gown and +golden hair! How delicate and refined her features and tapering hands! +In the half-light he saw that she was smiling. Smiling! She had never +smiled like that in the old house at Ridgeville. She had begun to smile +and laugh and jest under his love and care, and he told himself that it +should always be so. + +He went back to his bed, turned his damp pillow over, and laid his head +on a dry spot. As he lay trying to sleep, the visions of his dream began +to hover over him, and, wincing and writhing with pain, he cried: + +"Be a man, John Trott! It is your yellow streak again. Kill it now, or +it will down you in the end!" + + + + +PART II + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Ten eventful years of toil and struggle for John Trott went by. True to +the prophecy of Cavanaugh and other practical men, he succeeded. Step by +step he rose till, on the death of Mr. Pilcher, he became an equal +partner with Reed in the business. He and Dora still lived with the +McGwires in the old house, which was now kept for roomers only. John +could have well afforded to give Dora a more expensive home, but both he +and she had become inseparably attached to these first friends of theirs +in New York. + +Dora, a tall, slender girl of nineteen, while not exactly pretty, was +quite attractive. John had sent her to a select school for young ladies, +and the polish and education she had received had not spoiled her. She +was not ashamed of the fact that she and John had once been what they +were. In fact, the McGwires knew all the circumstances connected with +their clandestine flight from the South, and guarded well their secret. + +Not once, even indirectly, had either John or Dora heard from their +former home. Dora had almost entirely forgotten it, and, while John +could not possibly do so, it had become like a dream of blended joy and +pain which he persistently put aside. But at times a grim certitude +fixed itself on him, that, having once loved, he could never love again. +He never met a marriageable woman, no matter how attractive or willing +she might be to receive his attentions, without feeling the presence of +a certain barrier of contrast to an ideal embedded in his tragic past. +There was a vast store of love and tenderness in him, and this he poured +out on his foster-sister. He was a natural man and yielded to sensual +temptations, but always with the after-result of feeling vaguely soiled +and lowered, and was in continual strife with his passions. To-day they +were conquered, to-morrow they held temporary sway. And there was a +rebuke, always a rebuke which no reasoning could set aside--a rebuke +rising out of the mystic sanctity of the short union between him and his +bride. "Tilly!" The very name crept upon him unawares as from the +exquisite mental pictures he was always trying to suppress. "Tilly!" He +caught himself applying it to Dora, a slip of the tongue, which, better +than anything else, revealed to him the psychic bonds between him and a +personality lost to him forever. Once Dora asked him if he thought, by +any chance, that Tilly might have died. He started, reflected for a +moment, and then answered in a way that was a surprise even to himself. +"No, she's living," he said. "If she were dead I'd feel it." + +"That is no criterion to go by," answered Dora, who had become quite +religious and was now a member of the Methodist Church. "Do you know +what Harold would say about that?" + +"Harold might say a lot of absurd things about it"--John smiled +indulgently--"but he is no criterion, either." + +"Well, I'll tell you what he'd say, and it is my opinion, too," the girl +went on. "He'd say that the very intuitive feeling you say you +have--your firm confidence of her existence, is due to the fact that she +has passed from this plane of life, is now on another, and that she is +always with you in spirit because she loved you once, still loves you, +and wants to protect you. Don't you see how pretty that is, brother +John? She has become, as Harold would say, your guardian angel, your +very conscience. When you are tempted to do wrong she restrains you; and +when you actually do something wrong she has a way of rebuking you +through your intuition." + +This argument displeased John, as all such theories did. He claimed, +with many of his rather materialistic friends, that to believe in a +blissful life to come only rendered one less useful in the present, and +was a strong proof of innate selfishness in the individual who was +seeking it for himself alone. + +But he let Dora have her way, and why shouldn't he? Indeed, he was +almost sure that she and Harold were falling in love with each other. +Harold was preaching now in a small church on the west side of the city, +and his mother and sisters and Dora were diligent helpers in many ways. + +"I'm becoming sure," Mrs. McGwire said, with a smile, one day to John as +they lingered at the breakfast-table after Betty and Dora had left, +"that Dora and Harold are very much in love, and I'm glad of it. A +minister ought to marry early, and your sister, of all girls, is the one +I'd want for him." + +"So it is like that, is it?" John said, resignedly. "Well, I have no +objections, I'm sure. I want her to be happy." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +One evening, shortly after that, Harold came into John's room, saying +that he wanted to speak to him in private. He was slightly above medium +height, quite thin, and attenuated-looking. He wore the black +frock-coat, high, stiff collar, and black necktie of his calling. For a +man of less than twenty-four years of age he certainly was grave and +serious-looking. He was endeavoring to produce a show of whiskers on his +cheeks and chin, but the effort was almost in vain, for the hairs grew +sparsely and were of a color between yellow and light brown that did not +make for density of appearance. However, he was earnest and sincere, and +John liked and trusted him. + +"I've been wanting to see you for some time, Mr. Trott," he began, +taking a chair that was vacant near John's and linking his white hands +between his knees. "I don't know what you will think of me, but I've had +the audacity to fall in love with your sister, and, as I look upon you +as her guardian and protector, I felt honor-bound to come to you." + +"I see, I see." John had flushed with embarrassment. "Well, the truth +is, Harold, I have been suspecting something of this sort lately, and I +can imagine what you want to say." + +Harold had never been one to give in to embarrassment. Life was too +serious and needed too many corrections to justify him in losing time or +emotion in that way, so without change of color, or quickened pulse, he +went on. "I have reason to believe, Mr. Trott, that Dora reciprocates my +feeling, and you may be sure that it has given me great happiness. She +is wrapped up in my work, and I know of no woman who would so readily +adapt herself to the routine of a minister's career. The only thing +bothering us both has been--" + +For the first time Harold hesitated. + +"Go ahead," said John, awkwardly, and quite unaware of what was +forthcoming. + +"You see, I know what she has been to you all these years," Harold +resumed, "and we both know, too, what your religious, or lack of +religious, views are, and it has pained me to think that perhaps you +would prefer as Dora's husband a man of--well, a man whose views were +more in accord with your own than mine can ever possibly be." + +Not knowing what to say, John hung fire. He had always been outspoken +where his views were directly challenged, and, despite the delicacy of +the present crisis, he had nothing to take back. All things being equal, +he really would have preferred to have his protégée marry, if she +married at all, a man whose calling he could be proud of. He had +ridiculed parsons as the most parasitical of all men, and yet here he +was about to hand over to one of them the only human treasure he +possessed. + +"I see you understand me," Harold half sighed, "and I am not so full of +religious zeal as not to sympathize with you. I don't see how a man can +live without more faith than you have, but I admire your firmness of +conviction in what you think is right. You may call yourself an atheist, +Mr. Trott, but you really are not one. A great man has said that there +are no atheists--that every man who does good, defends goodness, and +contends against evil of any sort has as good a god as any one. I don't +agree with him fully, but I know that what you did for Dora, full of +despair as you were at the time, proves that you had divinity in you. +That act was godlike and had to have a source outside of mere animal +instinct." + +John was touched. He held out his hand. "Let all that pass, Harold," he +smiled. "I am sure that Dora loves you, and I want to make her happy. +You are her choice. You have a right to her." + +"I thank you," Harold responded, with his first touch of emotion. There +was silence for a moment, then Harold said: "There is yet another +matter, Mr. Trott, and both Dora and I are worried over it. It belongs +to a little secret of ours. We have not even told my mother yet, and we +dread doing so. Mr. Trott, I have just received an appointment to a +desirable post among the missionaries in China." + +"China!" John repeated, his honest mouth drooping, his eyes taking on a +dull fixity of gaze. + +Harold shrugged and nodded. "I thought that would pain you, and so did +Dora, but there is nothing else to do but to tell you about it frankly. +The heads of the work prefer men with wives, and Dora has her heart set +on aiding me in the Orient." + +The smoldering embers of John's antagonism under its threatened blight +flared up. His blood flowed hotly to his brain. He knew that the +separation would be for years if not for all time, and how could he be +expected to submit calmly to such a heartless course? Could Dora find it +in her gentle nature to desert him like that after all they had been to +each other? + +"I see that you are hurt," Harold sighed, softly, "and I am more than +sorry, Mr. Trott." + +John's anger was dying down; a cool breath of sheer despair and +resignation seemed to blow over him. How could he live on alone? he +wondered, and yet the thing proposed was the logical outcome of many +natural circumstances and had to be borne. + +"I believe," John answered, "that the missionaries, once they leave, do +not return to America frequently?" + +"No, they are all poor people, Mr. Trott, and the money saved from such +costly traveling expenses can be well used in other ways." + +"We'll let that pass," John said, "and come to something else. I have +put by a little money to be given or left to Dora, and--" + +But raising his hand, and flushing freely now, Harold checked him. + +"Don't speak of that, Mr. Trott, please!" he urged. "Dora mentioned +something of the sort to me. She said you had thrown out some hint of it +recently, and she and I talked it over. We both decided that we'd rather +not let you do anything of the sort. You are a young man yourself, and +have already done a thousand times more than your duty to Dora. Indeed, +we'd both feel very unhappy if you carried out such a plan. You laugh at +men of my calling and say they are grafters, but it is really not as you +think. Most of the missionaries I've met are poor men, and they are +willing to remain so. It would be an absurdity for Dora and me to accept +help from you, when our organization is pledged to see that +superannuated ministers and their wives are cared for as long as they +live." + +John was about to speak, vaguely pleased by the manliness of Harold's +words, when Dora suddenly came in. Her face was flushed, but her eyes +were steady. She stood by Harold's side, who had risen, and smiled half +fearfully at John. + +"Well, have you told him?" she asked Harold. + +He nodded, and put his arm around her waist. + +"I mean, have you told him about China?" she went on, anxiously. + +"Yes"--with a smile--"and that we simply will not let him give us any of +his hard-earned money." + +"No, indeed, brother John," Dora cried. "Not a penny of your money will +I take after all you have done for me. You must get married--you must be +sensible and find you a good wife. You will need all the money you have, +too. It is bad enough--my leaving you like this--without taking your +savings. We simply won't hear to it, will we, Harold?" + +"No," the other answered, firmly. "We'd be acting a lie if we teach +others that poverty and humility are a blessing while having a nest-egg +of our own." + +"Now hear from me." Dora tried to speak with amusing lightness. "While +you were here, Harold, exploding your bomb, I've been telling your +mother. She is down in her room, crying her heart out. She takes it very +hard. It has been the pride of her life that you are a minister, but she +never dreamed that she'd miss hearing you preach every Sunday of her +life, and help you with your work besides. That's the mother of it, and +this is really the hardest blow she's ever had." + +There was a sound of a dog barking down-stairs. It was John's pet +fox-terrier, Binks. + +"He is after a rat," Dora said, forcing a smile to her set face and +somehow not wanting to meet the eyes of the stricken man. + +"Yes"--John rose--"it is time for me to take him out. He stays in too +much." John knew that he was expected to say more on the other subject, +but all at once his tongue had become tied. An indescribable despair +incased him like walls of sinister darkness. The young couple seemed to +feel his mood and to be baffled by it, standing in the presence of his +disappointment as if conscious of actual guilt in causing it. Neither +said anything, and John got his hat and descended to his dog. + +They heard him whistling to Binks as if nothing unusual had happened. +They heard the yelping animal scampering up the basement steps to meet +him. Creeping wordless, and hand in hand, to the stairs, they saw John +bend down and take the dog in his arms. Binks was licking the side of +his face, and John seemed unconscious of it. The mute watchers heard the +front door close after him. Dora turned back into John's room. She was +wiping her eyes. Harold took her into his arms. + +"Don't, don't, dear!" he said, tenderly. "It can't be helped, you know. +He will suffer--another will suffer, but it has to be. We all bear a +cross of some sort or other." + +"I know it," she continued to sob, "but it is terrible. Harold, I have +never seen such a look on his face as was on it when I came in the room +just now. He looked as if he had lost every hope in life. I didn't think +I'd ever wound him like this. I used to tell him that he and I would be +near together always--if he married or if I married. You see, I know he +counted on it, for he mentioned it frequently. Wasn't that +pitiful--taking Binks up that way? I could almost hear him sob." + +"You are too sentimental, dear," Harold answered, trying to disguise his +own emotion, which perhaps Dora's melting mood had elicited. "You +soft-hearted women are always attributing your own feelings to men. +He'll soon get over it. Besides, a man as young as he is ought not to +become a confirmed old bachelor, and this very separation may drive him +into a happiness as normal as yours and mine is going to be." + +"I hope so--oh, I hope so!" Dora whimpered, still wiping her eyes. "If +he should remain unhappy here I am afraid I'd not be wholly content away +from him." + +"He'll marry, don't worry," Harold said, kissing her again. "He's bound +to do so. He is too fine a man to pass his life in loneliness." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The wedding, one bright morning in June, was a most simple one and took +place in the little church that Harold was leaving. The rites were +performed by the Rev. Arthur Kirkwood, the young minister who was +succeeding him. Harold was popular with his congregation, and the church +was fairly well filled with sympathetic friends, none of whom were known +to John. Indeed, he was a dreary alien in a weirdly convivial +assemblage, the smug elation of which irritated him. Mrs. McGwire, +Betty, and Minnie were all so busy shaking hands with people they knew +that John was really ignored. He wanted it so, and yet he keenly felt +the line of demarcation between the element in which he lived and that +which had engulfed Dora and was sweeping her out of his ken forever. He +sat alone in the second row of seats, only a few feet from the pulpit +and a table laden with flowers. A few young people in the choir overhead +were laughing gaily. The faces all over the room were beaming +expectantly, and some of the most impatient persons asked when the bride +and groom would arrive. + +"At ten o'clock, sharp," Mrs. McGwire said, aloud, so that all could +hear. "They are coming in a carriage, and expect to be driven straight +to the train from here." + +The time dragged slowly for John. He saw a few persons eying him with +mild interest as the brother of the bride, but most of the others were +occupied in exchanging jests or greetings with this or that acquaintance +as their heads met over the backs of the seats. To while away the time, +and for the sheer love of it, a man who was a sort of leader in church +singing suddenly began to sing a well-known revival hymn, and the others +joined in lustily. John detested it. He had heard it during his isolated +childhood at Ridgeville, later at Cranston, and here it was a strident +requiem over the bier of his last hope. He was inclined to +self-analysis, and he wondered if any of the audience could imagine the +dark and rebellious state of mind that he was in. He was not jealous of +Harold, he did not begrudge Dora's happiness or desire to curb the +festive mood of the people around him. He was simply in despair and +could see no way of escape. He tried to think of going back to the +office the next day and plunging into work, but how could he do so +without some aim in life? Dora had refused financial aid from him. Of +what account were his past earnings or those of the future? + +The singing was brought to an abrupt end. Mrs. McGwire, who had +stationed herself at the street door, suddenly cried out, "They are +coming!" and a fluttering silence brooded on the room. + +Dora and Harold, accompanied by Mr. Kirkwood, entered the adjoining +Sunday-school room from the street with the playful intent to deceive +the audience, who were watching the front, and the McGwires all hastened +through a doorway near the pulpit to greet them. Betty, a tall, +dignified young lady in a becoming street dress, ran across to John. + +"Will you come speak to them now, or afterward?" she asked, smiling. + +"Afterward," he answered, flushing under the composite stare of the +whole room and irritated by being made so conspicuous. + +"But you won't have a very good chance then," she advanced. "You know +there will be an awful rush at the carriage. You'd better come now." + +He complied. He found Dora and Harold in the arms of Minnie and her +mother. Both of the latter were weeping. + +"I'd cry, too," Dora said, smiling sadly up at John, "but it would leave +streaks of wet powder on my face. I am to be a pale and interesting +bride. I'm sorry to leave you, brother John." + +"Never mind, Sis," he said, bravely. "Everything goes in this life." She +leaned toward him, and he kissed her. He was still a crude man and +shrank from caressing even Dora in the presence of others. + +"We'll meet again," she said, confidently; "don't let yourself believe +otherwise." + +"All right, I won't." He forced himself to smile. + +"Ten o'clock!" cried out Mr. Kirkwood, who was ready at the door. "You +mustn't miss that train. I'm going in to take my place. Come right in, +Brother McGwire." + +"Then this must be good-by, darling John," Dora whispered. "I know you +won't want to push through the crowd to us afterward." + +"Good-by--good-by," he said, and then he shook hands with Harold. +"Good-by, Harold," he said. "I'm leaving her with you." + +"I'll do my best, Mr. Trott," Harold said, feelingly. "She is a treasure +and I am robbing you. God knows I wish it could be without pain to you." + +"Nevermind; that is all right," John answered. + +Mrs. McGwire and Minnie, a plain, rather gawky girl, went to the first +row of seats in the church, sat down, smiled knowingly at some friends +in the rear, and John and Betty followed. Some one at the organ played +a wedding march, and Harold and Dora came in and stood before the +waiting preacher. + +It was soon over. The organ groaned mellowly, and Harold led Dora down +the aisle to the vestibule. The congregation followed like stampeding +cattle. John was left alone, the McGwires having hurried out through the +Sunday-school room to get a last sight of the pair as they entered the +carriage. + +John met Mrs. McGwire outside as the carriage was disappearing down the +street. She said she and her daughters were going to stay awhile to +attend to the flowers and some other gifts, and he went home alone. The +massive door was locked, and, opening it with a pass-key, he entered the +hall. He heard Binks barking in the back yard and he went down to him. + +"They didn't want you there, did they, Binks?" he said, taking the dog +in his arms. "You'd have made a row, wouldn't you? Well, she is gone, +old boy--you don't realize it now, but you will later, when you miss the +feeds and nice baths she gave you. She used to buy choice morsels for +you. I know, for I've seen the bones lying around." + +The remainder of that day he spent in sheer torment, strolling about in +the parks with Binks, and when he returned home he found Betty and +Minnie alone in the parlor. Their eyes were red from weeping. + +"It is on account of the way mother is taking it," Betty explained. +"She's gone to bed with a headache. The excitement of the wedding kept +her up, but she has gone to pieces since they left. Really, Harold was +all she had in the world. Min and I didn't count." + +John could think of nothing to say, and he went on to his room. There +were some blue-prints and calculations awaiting his attention on the +big desklike table in his room, and he took them up to look them over, +but laid them down again. + +"What is the use?" he muttered. "My God! what is the use of _anything_? +Money? What do I care for money? What could I do with it if I had +millions?" + +That night when he was about to go to bed he looked into Dora's room. +She had left it in perfect order, but somehow it seemed as barren as a +room for transient guests in a hotel. + +"Dear, dear Sis," he said, with a lump in his throat. "When you and I +used to get up before day in that old ramshackle home--you in your rags, +and I in my overalls--we didn't dream that all those things would happen +and draw to an end like this. There is nothing for me to look forward +to--nothing, absolutely nothing, but you will find peace, contentment, +and happiness. Well, that is enough. It was worth it, Sis. I'm out of +it, and it is only my yellow streak that is whining." + +The room, in its tomblike silence and inanimate reminders, oppressed him +sorely, and, closing the door that he might not, even by accident, +glance into it again that night, he started to undress for bed, when +Binks began loudly barking down-stairs. Then he heard Betty trying to +quiet him. + +"What is the matter with him?" John called down from the head of the +stairs. + +"I think he wants you," Betty laughed. "I can't pacify him. He keeps +jumping up and down, pawing the floor, and crying like a baby." + +"Unfasten him, please, and let him come up," John answered. + +Immediately there was a swishing, thumping sound on the stairs and +Binks rushed into John's room and began to lick his hands and whine. +Although he was ready for bed, John sat down in a big chair, took the +dog into his arms, and fondled him like an infant. Binks seemed to +understand, for he became restful at once. John was not conscious of it, +but he sat with the animal in his lap for nearly an hour. Suddenly he +became aware that it was late, and he put on his bath-robe and slippers, +with the intention of taking the dog down to his kennel, but Binks, as +if reading his mind, ran under the bed and remained out of sight. +Stooping down, John saw a pair of small eyes gleaming in the shadow. + +"Poor little devil, he's lonely, too!" John muttered. "Say, Binks, come +out--let's talk it over. You want to sleep with me to-night, eh? All +right, we'll keep each other company." + +It was as if the little animal understood, for he came out readily, +wagging his stubby tail, and began to stand on his hind feet and lick +his master's hands. "All right, all right." John took him up in his +arms, bore him to his bed, and placed him on the side next to the wall. +And, as if fearful that John might change his mind, Binks snuggled down +between the sheets, his snout on his paws, his eyes blinking almost with +pretended drowsiness. + +"Sly old boy!" John laughed, softly, and, throwing off his robe and +slippers, he closed his door and lay down by the dog. His strong arm +touched the sleek coat of his pet and somehow the contact soothed him. +With a tightness of the throat, his eyes suffused with restrained tears, +he told himself that absolutely all had not been taken from him, for +Binks was left. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Another year passed. As he had feared it would be, John's life was all +but aimless and becoming even monotonous. What mattered it whether he +and Reed had one or two contracts more or less in the year? Neither of +them really was in need of the profits earned, and the business +continued to come as fast as they cared to attend to it. John liked best +the outside work, for then he took Binks along with him, and sometimes +in bad weather he even brought the dog to the office, where Binks would +lie quietly under his desk till called out by his master for lunch or a +short stroll in the quieter streets. + +"You are too much attached to him," Reed said to him. "I have a friend +who used to have a pet like that. Some devilish person poisoned it one +night, and my friend never could get over it. He told me that if it had +been his only child it wouldn't have hurt him any more." + +John shuddered and frowned darkly. "I know how he felt," he answered, +simply, and turned away. + + * * * * * + +One morning, when John had the office entirely to himself and was going +over some intricate plans and estimates, his stenographer came to him. + +"There is an old man at the door who wants to see you," she announced. +"He refused to give his name or state his business." + +"Well, tell him, then, that I won't see him," John ordered, +impatiently. + +The girl left and came back. "He wouldn't give his name," she said, "but +he said to tell you that he was an old friend and was very anxious to +see you--that he hasn't seen you for about eleven years." + +"Eleven years--an old friend!" John said to himself, aghast. "Who could +it be, unless--" The girl was waiting, and he said, "Tell him to come +in, please." + +The girl went out and ushered in a gray-haired, gray-bearded old man who +walked with a cane and was so bent downward that, under a broad-brimmed +straw hat, John did not at once see his features. The stenographer +retired to her workroom in the rear, and the visitor came to John. + +It was Cavanaugh, who now removed his hat and exposed his face to view, +a face gashed with deep lines, and fairly shrinking under a sort of awed +timidity. + +"I'm afraid I'm not welcome, John," he faltered, his wrinkled brow +mantled with red, his old, fat hand checked in its impulsive movement +forward and falling at his side. "I ought not to have come like this, +but I couldn't help it. I was in the city, and wanted to see you for a +lot of reasons." + +"That's all right, Sam," John answered, extending his hand and trying to +divest himself of the visible effects of the shock he had received. "How +did you find me? Sit down." + +Cavanaugh took the proffered chair. John pitied him, for his hands +crossed on the top of his cane quivered with intense excitement, and his +eyes swept the room with the slow awe of a beggar in the house of a +prince. + +"Mostly by accident," he answered, "and putting two and two together, +and reasoning it out like a one-horse detective on his first job. John, +I know I've done wrong, but--" + +"Forget all that, Sam," John said, more at ease. "Don't think I've +forgotten you. You are the one friend in the world that I really cared +for down there, and it was my intention to get at you sooner or later. I +thought, however, that I was considered dead to you and everybody at +Ridgeville." + +"You are--you _still_ are," Cavanaugh said. "It is like this, John, and +in a way your secret is still safe, for I won't give it away. You +remember Todd Williams. He is in the firm of Williams & Chelton. They +set up in dry-goods after you left. Well, last fall he was on here +buying goods, and when he came back home one day after meeting--we +belong to the same church--he called me off to one side like, and said, +said he: + +"'Sam, an odd thing happened to me on the Elevated train while I was in +New York,' and with that he went on to say that while he sat reading his +paper a feller got in and sat in front of him that was the exact image +of you. He said the likeness was so great that he came in an inch of +speaking to the feller, but, remembering the news of your death, he let +it pass. Then he asked me if I thought there could have been any mistake +made about you and Dora being in that wreck. I told him I thought not, +and left him, but I'm here to confess, John, that from that minute my +mind wasn't fully at rest. Hundreds of times I rolled it over and over +in my thoughts--at night in bed, at work, in meeting, at meals with my +wife--everywhere. Always, always I was wondering if you might be still +alive, fighting your fight and making good away off som'ers. I told my +wife how I was worried and she made light of it--said she herself often +saw resemblances to folks in new faces. Then I guess I would have +dropped it, but for one little, tiny thing that popped into my head one +night while I was listening to a long-winded prayer during a revival. +Well, sir, like a flash of blasting-powder this thought came to me. You +left our town in the dead of night, and it was reasonable to suppose +that you did everything you could to keep folks from knowing who you was +and where you was bound for. Didn't you?" + +"Yes," John nodded, and sat waiting. + +"I thought so," Cavanaugh continued. "So you see, when the list of the +lost was printed, and your name and Dora's, and your age and hers, and +the town you was from, was given, the question come to me, who was it +that reported them things so accurate after that awful disaster? You +wouldn't have been handing your name and the child's about amongst +strangers on the train before the accident, and if your bodies was +burned up, all your belongings, papers, and the like would have been +destroyed, and-- Well, you see what I mean?" + +John started and stared steadily. "I see it now, Sam, but I never +thought of it before. I suppose everybody else overlooked that point but +you." + +"Yes, I'm the only one," Cavanaugh answered. "Well, John, after that, +instead of being dead to me, somehow you got alive again. I don't want +to talk like a sniffling old woman, John, for you are older now, but I +loved you like a son, and the hope that you was alive and doing well up +here made me powerful happy. You see, until your trouble come like a +clap of thunder, I was almost living for you and your interests. I +wanted us to establish a business between us that you could carry on +after me and my old lady was gone, so, when I began to tote about the +idea of you not being dead, I could think of nothing else, till--well, +till I come here and found your name in the directory. You were the only +John Trott in it, and was a contractor, and I knew I'd run you to your +hole." + +"I'm glad you did, Sam," John answered. "I've always wanted to see you +again, but didn't know how to bring it about with absolute safety to my +plans. I'd cut out the whole thing down there, and it seemed best to +forget it--best for me and for Dora. She was so young when she was down +there that she has almost forgotten the worst features of +it--about--about her aunt and other things, I mean." + +"I was going to inquire about her," Cavanaugh said. "Is she well and all +right?" + +John explained briefly, and heard his old friend sighing. "And so you +are all alone now, not married--no one with you at all." + +John nodded. "Oh, I'm all right. I'm 'neither sugar nor salt,'" he +quoted an old saying. "Don't worry about me, Sam. I'll get along some +way or other." + +There was silence between the two for a few minutes. It was as if the +old man were wondering what further information he might be at liberty +to give pertaining to the past. Presently he cleared his throat and +said: + +"Your ma is still alive, John. Jane Holder is dead. Lots and lots of +things that you don't know about have happened down home since you left. +As soon as Jane Holder died your ma quit living in that old house. She +pulled up stakes and drifted about some. She stayed awhile in Atlanta, +then in Nashville, and finally came back to our town and moved out in +the country. She was--was befriended--a nice woman and her husband sort +of--well, I suppose they sort of took pity on her, and--" + +"Stop, Sam!" John's face was dark and twisted from inner agony. "Please +don't mention her. For Dora's sake I've been trying to think of her as +never having actually existed. I don't blame her, you understand. She is +living her life and I'm living mine. I don't blame people for their +natures or characteristics. Such things come at birth. My father was one +thing--she was another. But I've fought down my past, torn it out like +an unwholesome dream. I may be mistaken, Sam, but it seems to me that I +ought not to talk about all that now. I've fought to acquire a new life, +and to some extent I have won it. What lies before me I don't know, and +I don't greatly care. I'm still young in years and strong of body and +mind, but I feel actually old. I suppose you have some sort of faith +still. I have none at all. Dora has it, and it has made her contented, +happy, and useful. I am glad she has it. I wouldn't take it from her. +Tilly--Tilly used to--" + +The name was spoken impulsively, as if some subconscious force or habit +had assumed control over a tongue well bridled till now, and with tight +lips John suddenly checked himself and sat flushing under the old man's +kindly stare. + +"I was going to mention her," Cavanaugh put in, his honest eyes falling +to the floor, "but didn't know exactly how you'd feel about it. Oh yes, +I still believe in a great Supreme Power that works for eternal good. +Shall I tell you about Tilly?" + +John was silent. His face had grown rigid and even pale. His lips +quivered. "I think I know two things about her," he finally said. +"Somehow I feel sure that she is alive and married to Joel Eperson." + +Cavanaugh nodded slowly. "Yes, my boy; she finally took him, but it was +not till four years after the report of your death. I see her and Joel +off and on from time to time. It will do no good to open old wounds +now, but I'll say this, John, and that is that your wife's constancy to +your memory, and Joel's faithfulness to her through all her trouble--the +death of her ma and pa, and--and some other things--has given the lie to +every statement ever made that men and women don't actually love each +other. If Tilly had had the slightest hope that you were living she'd +have remained single till the end of time. She never considered that +court edict as right. Oh, I wish I could--could tell you all I know on +that line, but it would do no good now." + +"No, we'd better drop it," John said, heavily. "It will do no good to go +over it. I've regarded it as a dead issue for eleven years." + +"That may be," Cavanaugh said to himself, "but he is stunned, actually +stunned. I see it in his face and hear it in his voice. Poor boy! Poor +boy!" + +"Before dropping the subject I will tell you one thing more," the old +man said, aloud, "and that is that they have two children, a boy of +about six and a little girl of four or five. They are sweet little tots +and are a great comfort. They are images of their mother, and I love +'em." + +"Tell me this--tell me this, Sam," John said, and it was as if a great +anxiety rested on him. "I want to know this. Of course, you'll see that +it is no affair of mine, but I'd like to know if Eperson is providing +well for Til--for his wife and children. Sam, she has suffered a lot +through no fault of her own, and most of that suffering came through +happening to meet me up there at Cranston and that silly boy-and-girl +fancy of--of hers and mine. She deserves an easier time from now on, and +that is why I'd like to know how she and Eperson are financially +situated." + +Cavanaugh drew his scraggy brows together. His color deepened to red in +his cheeks. "I wish I could make a good report on that line," he +answered, awkwardly, "but I can't give you the best of news. Joel is not +to blame, though. I'll say that. He simply belongs to the class of men +that come, as he did, from landholders and slave-holders. Such men are +highly honorable, but they simply don't know how to make ends meet." + +"Then they are poor, very poor?" John said, grimly. + +"Yes, very poor," was the reluctant answer. "I'm not blaming Joel. He +has done the best he could. I've never seen a man work harder. If he had +been stingy and grasping he'd have made better headway, but he is always +doing for others. Old Whaley died insolvent, and Joel took care of the +widow and paid out big doctor's bills trying to save her life, through a +long sick spell, and when she passed away he paid all the funeral +expenses and put up a nice stone over the two graves. He doesn't own any +land of his own, but rents a few acres here and there from year to year. +He has to buy his supplies on credit at a high rate of profit, and is +always up to his eyes in debt. Huh! John, you fellers that can work in a +fine office like this, wear clothes like you've got on, and ride home in +a comfortable car, reading your paper or smoking--I say, such as you +have little notion what an easy berth you have compared to fellers like +Joel Eperson. That is the sort of a thing that shakes my faith in the +Almighty a little mite sometimes, but I don't let it get hold of me. In +any case, Joel is blessed by having the wife he got. She is the most +patient little mother that ever lived. I've never heard her complain. I +did hear her say once, though, when I happened to pass along where she +was at work in the cotton-field and stopped to chat a minute--she told +me that she didn't ever worry about what would happen to her and Joel, +because they could die and be done with it, but she did trouble about +the children. She is so anxious for them to grow up and get an education +and be useful in life, and she doesn't see much hope of it." + +"You say she actually works in the field?" John exclaimed, with a +shudder and a darkening face. + +"Not always, but sometimes when Joel is away or sick, or when the crops +are suffering for immediate attention. You know labor is high and cash +is generally paid, and Joel hasn't the means to hire help at the time he +needs it the most. Take cotton-picking, for instance. If the staple +isn't taken from the boll in time the weather stains and ruins it. It is +at a time like that that Tilly helps. But don't let it fret you. She +told me, with that sweet smile of hers that I used to love so much when +me and you was boarding with her folks, that outdoor work was good for +her. But Joel objects to it. I saw him come out in the corn one day and +take the hoe away from her and send her in the house. I never saw a +sadder look on a proud man's face. + +"'She _will_ do it,' he said to me, almost groaning, as he spoke. Joel +got confidential that day. He talked free-like, as men do when they +reach the very bottom of ill luck. 'I thought,' said he, 'that I was +doing right in marrying Tilly, for she was all alone in the world and +unprotected, but you see what I've brought her to. I had hopes then-- I +have none now. Things never take an upward turn for some men, Cavanaugh. +They head downward, and they pull everything they touch with them. They +marry wives and make them suffer. They bring children into the world to +suffer, and they go on that way till the earth receives their useless +remains, and that is the end of their dreams.' + +"I tried to cheer him up, but I couldn't. I wish, John, that I could +tell you about his unselfishness as to one thing in particular, but I +reckon I'd better not. It would do no good. I see from your looks that +all this is going hard with you." + +"No, nothing is to be gained by it, Sam," John said, shrugging his +shoulders. He looked at his watch. "You must go to lunch with me," he +said. "I want to see as much of you as possible while you are here." + +"I am agreeable," Cavanaugh said, with a touch of his former ease of +manner. "It seems like old times once more, my boy." + + * * * * * + +They lunched together and afterward went to the small hotel where +Cavanaugh was staying, got the old man's valise, and went to John's +home. Cavanaugh was put into Dora's old room and given to understand +that it was his as long as he remained in the city. For a week the two +friends were constantly together. John took the time off from business, +and, with Binks trotting between them, the physically ill-mated and yet +mentally congenial pair took long walks together. And not since Dora's +departure had John felt so soothed and comforted. A spiritual force of +some sort seemed to radiate from the bent old man that for the time +almost regenerated his companion. John had discovered that Cavanaugh +loved him as a son and regarded him with an ardent mixture of pride and +ecstasy, as a son restored from death to life. Sometimes, in their +ascent of an incline in their strolls, the old man would quite +unconsciously catch hold of the arm of the younger, and in speaking he +often held John's hand in one of his and gently stroked it, as if +unconscious of what he was doing. At times, for no particular reason, he +would lower his voice into an almost confidential whisper. However, it +was on the last night of his stay, before his departure the following +morning, that John was permitted to see even more deeply into +Cavanaugh's heart. They were in Dora's room. The old man was undressing +for bed when suddenly he sat down, locked his toil-hardened fingers +between his knees, and lowered his shaggy head, as if buffeting an +unexpected wave of despair. + +"I want to tell you something, John," he said, in a shaky voice. "And I +don't want you to forget it as long as life stays in you. I want you to +know that no days in all my existence have been as happy as these with +you. Not even my honeymoon, John, and that is saying a lot. I can't tell +you about it. When I try my tongue fails, my throat fills, and my eyes +stream with tears. You'll never regret being so good to me. God won't +give you cause to ever regret it. What is ahead of me seems mighty +short. I'll be dead, I guess, too soon for me to ever think about coming +to New York again, and I know how you feel about going down there, but +I'll take a sweet memory to my grave with me, John, and that is that +you, with all your up-to-date success and education, treated me as sweet +and gentle as a dutiful son would an old, unpolished, plain father that +he loved and respected. You are lonely and unhappy, and I see no way to +help you. That hurts. That hurts deep down in me! I hate to go away and +leave you like this, never to see you again. What I told you +about--about the little woman that was once your wife struck you a +deadly blow between the eyes. You thought you had counted on her +marrying again, but I reckon, after all, you hadn't really done that. I +see--I understand. You have been all these years holding her in your +heart, somehow, as yours in spirit if not in body, and now for the +first time you are trying to look the facts in the face. I've noticed +that you don't sleep sound. I hear you stirring about in the night." + +John made no denial, and the fact that he did not do so proved to +Cavanaugh that what he had said was true. + +John rose and started to his own room. "I'll have you up in time for +your train," he said. "Get a good sleep. You will need it before +starting on a long journey like yours. Good night." + +"Good night, my boy, good night," Cavanaugh said. + +From his own room, where John sat smoking in the dark, he saw the light +go out in Cavanaugh's room. He listened, expecting to hear the bed creak +as it always did when the old man got upon it, but now there was no +sound. There was silence for nearly half an hour, and then the telltale +creaking came. John understood. Had he had a watch and a light, he +could, to a second, have timed one of the saddest and most unselfish of +prayers. + +"Poor, dear old Sam!" he muttered, and began to undress for bed. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +After Cavanaugh's departure the time hung heavy over John. He seldom +heard from Dora, and, as business happened to be rather quiet, he really +was too inactive for one of his introspective temperament. When not at +work he spent the time altogether in the company of Binks, who seemed to +have become actually human in his fidelity and affection. + +One day, having to inspect a finished building on Washington Heights, +not far from Dyckman Street, he took the dog along. And when the work +was over he and Binks strolled down to the Hudson and walked along the +shore. It was a warm day, and men, women, and children were fishing and +bathing in the clear water. + +Presently a spot was reached that looked inviting, and John decided to +eat the lunch there that he had brought along. So, seating himself on a +water-worn boulder, he opened his parcel and fed Binks as he himself +ate. + +Across the river in a bluish haze towered the Palisades, and on either +side of him in the distance jutted out from the shore he was on long, +slender, gray and yellow boat-houses with their pile-anchored floats. On +his right at the water's edge was a group of Italians, picnicking +together. There were the four heads of two families, stocky +laboring-men, fat housewives, and young girls and boys. They had made a +fire of driftwood on the rocks, and John could see a great pot of +something stewing, and smelled the aroma of coffee and broiled +sausages. The boys and girls had put on foreign-looking bathing-suits +and, with tiny water-wings under their arms, were splashing about, +trying to learn to swim. + +"Binks, old chap," John said, aloud, as had become a habit of his, +"there are some deep holes where those silly people are. Those kids may +get beyond their depth. I hope the men can swim." + +The Italians had a guitar. Some one played it, and native songs were +sung. They were very happy. John told himself that it might be some sort +of reunion of close friends or relatives. There were so many shouts of +merriment in Italian, loud commands to the children from their mothers, +and joyous retorts from the bathers, that John failed to hear a shrill +cry of alarm from their midst. It was Binks, indeed, who suddenly +pricked up his ears, barked, and began to run toward the picnickers. At +first, absorbed in reflection, John paid no attention to the dog's +antics, but, as Binks continued to bark excitedly, he stood up and +looked toward the bathers. The children now ashore were screaming, women +were shouting, waving their hands, and with their clothing on the two +men were wading out into the water which from the passage of a great +steamer was rolling like the surf of an ocean. That the men could not +swim John saw at once, and he ran down the shore toward them. + +"For God's sake, meester, save her! save my daughter!" a man screamed. +"Me no swim! Dere, dere!" and he pointed to a pair of water-wings +floating in a circle of bubbles thirty feet from the rocks. + +John was a good swimmer, and, throwing off his coat, he plunged in at +once, but Binks, who had been taught to spring into water and fetch back +such things as sticks or a ball thrown in, and had sighted the +water-wings, was several yards ahead of him. + +"Dere, dere! My God! she's up de third time!" shrieked the girl's +father. "Catch her, meester, catch her! It's de last time--de last +time!" + +On a curling swell John saw the girl's head and shoulders above the +water. She was going down again, and a great rolling wave was close upon +her. John saw that he could not reach her in time, and he saw something +else that filled him with horror. Binks, with the captured water-wings +in his mouth, was within the girl's reach, and she grasped him and +dragged him under. There was a gurgling struggle, widening rings filled +with bubbles floated on the swaying water, and nothing was seen of the +girl or the dog. + +A wail of despair rang out from the shore; men, women, and children ran +to and fro, screaming. John was soon over the spot where the girl and +dog had disappeared, and, exhausting the air from his lungs, he dived +down as far as he could. He kept his eyes open, and moving from him in +the murky depths he could not quite reach for lack of breath he saw the +blue dress of the girl. That Binks was in her dying clutch he well knew. +The buoyancy of John's body raised him to the top sooner than he wished, +and when he appeared with nothing in his grasp the screams from the +shore were louder than ever. + +"Again! again! meester!" the father yelled, "farther up. O God! O God!" + +Again John dived. This time he went quite to the bottom and crawled +along from rock to rock, keeping himself down by the clutch of his +hands. But to no avail. He saw nothing and was fairly bursting for lack +of breath. The progress upward seemed endless, and when the surface was +reached he was almost dead from exhaustion. But he dived again and +again. Binks was drowning, he kept thinking, and there was little else +in his mind. When he had dived unsuccessfully a dozen times a man +arrived in a rowboat from one of the boat-houses with a rope and +grappling-irons. Taking John into the boat, the two began to drag the +river over the fatal spot. The man held the oars and John the rope. + +"She's been under fifteen minutes," the boatman said. "There is little +chance now, even if we get her up. My God! what fools those greasers +are! Eating, drinking, and singing while their kid was going down!" + +John had time to observe the group on the shore now. The mother of the +girl had fainted, and the other woman was fanning her as she lay on the +rocks, unsheltered from the sun. The children, in their wet suits, stood +crying lustily. + +"We can't do anything now," the boatman said when another five minutes +had passed. "She is done for, but we'd as well keep on the job to +satisfy 'em. The tow has taken her out, most likely." + +Ten minutes more. Even the group on the shore seemed to have given up +hope. However, the irons caught. It might be a rock, John thought, but +the object yielded gently. "Hold! Not so hard!" John ordered. "You might +pull it loose. I've caught something!" + +Carefully he drew in the rope. He saw the blue dress through several +feet of water, and, reaching down, he caught it with his hand. A moment +later and the drowned girl, with Binks clutched in her death-grip, was +drawn into the boat. + +A scream of joy from the reviving mother of the girl rent the air. +Having been unconscious of the passage of time, she evidently thought +her child might yet be alive. As the boatman gently pulled toward the +rocks, John disengaged Binks from the stiff fingers, and held him in his +lap. + +"Poor mut!" the boatman said. "She choked the life out of him. They are +always like that--they will grab at a floating chip. Turn the girl's +head down, will you, and let the water run out? There may be a speck of +life left, but I think she is as dead as a mackerel." + +Putting Binks aside, John obeyed. The girl's face was purple, her lips +foaming. The rocks reached, the two Italian men, their yellow faces +stamped with agony, were ready up to their waists in water to take the +girl ashore. + +John knew nothing about what is called "first aid to the drowning," and +so, with his dead pet in his arms, he climbed up the rocks. Men were +gathering from the two boat-houses. He heard somebody say, "There is a +cop and a doctor!" The screaming women, the sobbing children, the awed +questions of spectators just arrived, fell on closed ears, as far as +John was concerned. Picking up his coat, he wrapped it about Binks and +bore him homeward. Looking back, he saw the doctor examining the body on +the rocks. John sat down alone in the sun. He told himself that he would +let his clothing dry on him as he walked homeward. But what was to be +done about the body of his pet? He couldn't take it home with him, and +he knew of no burial-ground for dogs. He sat down on the shore to think +it out. His mind was in a queer jumble of resentment and resigned +despair. How could Binks actually be dead? How could he go home without +him? And yet the wet, limp object with the bulging, glazed eyes and +distorted muzzle was all that was left of the loving, vivacious animal +to which he had been so warmly linked. + +The doctor was coming back. He passed John, and then paused. "Is that +the dog she drowned?" he asked, bending down sympathetically and +stroking the animal's coat. + +"Yes. How is the girl?" John asked. + +"Dead," was the answer, and the doctor stood erect and walked away. + +For several hours John remained on the shore. He saw the Italians +bearing the girl's body away, followed by the women and children. Then a +thought came to him. There was a dense strip of sloping wooded land +between the river and the nearest street, and in the midst of it stood a +tall oak. At the foot of this tree he would bury Binks's remains. The +oak would be a landmark that he could easily single out again. He found +some newspapers, and, wrapping up the body in them, he dug a grave and +put his pet into it. + +The sun was going down above the New Jersey cliffs when the rite was +ended. The great disk was as red as living coals of fire. A tree with +shooting branches and stark trunk three miles away was clearly outlined +across its face. A big excursion-steamer bound for Albany was passing. +The surface of the river was sprinkled with sail-boats and varicolored +canoes. From somewhere on the water came the clear, joyous tones of a +cornet. Some player was putting his soul into his music. John walked +down to one of the boat-houses. Men were fishing from the float. At a +crude bar he bought a cigar and lighted it. He asked about the fishing +of one of the fishermen and apathetically listened while the man talked +of rods, reels, lines, sinkers, and bait. John did not want to go home. +The thought of the hot, close, and lonely house, in his present frame of +mind, was repellent. He wondered if he was giving way to sickly +sentimentality, for he had a desire to pass that night in the wood in +solitary vigil over the grave of his loved companion. + +Presently he shrugged his shoulders and started homeward. "Be a man, +John Trott!" he said, with closed lips. "Why shouldn't Binks +die?--everybody has to die sooner or later. What does it matter? The +only thing that matters is to bear your burden like a soldier and a +man." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + Dear John [so ran the first letter from Cavanaugh after the + latter returned to Ridgeville]--I hardly know how to begin + this letter. Since I got home I declare everything here + seems awfully tame. That was a wonderful visit I had as I + look back on it. I wish it could have gone on forever. I am + glad I saw you, for a lot of reasons. You were lonely and + blue, my boy. Even your partner spoke to me about you. He + said since Dora left that you was really in danger of a + nervous breakdown. Mrs. McGwire and her oldest girl said the + same thing. They were all worried about you, and so am I. + + I've got a confession to make, and the sooner it is made the + better I'll feel. John, you know how a town like this one + is. The folks here love to gossip about anything they can + pick up, and I'm going to tell you that when it got + circulated among some of your old work friends that I'd gone + to New York a few of them began to nose about and make + inquiries. They thought it was such a peculiar thing, you + see, for a man of my age and habits to do that they kept + talking and talking and joking and what not. Then, as might + have been expected, Todd Williams, who you remember thought + he saw you on the train in New York, put his finger into the + pie. He told it about that he was now more sure than ever + that it was you he saw on the train and that I had gone up + there to see you. That did the job, and I don't know what to + do about it. Folks meet me on the street and ask about you + as if it was a settled fact that you never died in that + wreck, and, with their eyes staring straight into mine, I + don't know what to do or say. John, I don't know how to lie + with a sober face. The more I shifted about and tried to get + out of it the more they believed it, till now, no matter + what I say, they only laugh and make fun and say that I'm + keeping something back. So please tell me what to do. The + truth is that the facts, if they get out, will never harm + you in any way. It is now so long since you left that only a + very few that used to know you are alive or here. The fever + for going West struck most of your old friends and they + moved away. I really think that I'd advise you not to keep + the truth back any longer. Questions are asked about what + came of Dora, and if I say that she is married and gone away + it will end all sorts of idle speculations. + + If I've got you into a fix in this matter please forgive me, + for it all came about through no intention of mine. If I + could lie as straight as some contractors can beat down the + price of material or wages, I'd have got you out of this, + but I'm getting old and I'm like a baby in the hands of + these mouthing, tattling folks. Oh, how I wish you could + come down here! You'd not feel as bad about all that has + happened if you'd come down and visit me and my wife, and + throw it off like an old worn-out coat. What a joy it would + be to give you a room and see you seated at our humble + board! Think it over, my boy. Life is short at best, and we + ought to spend part of it with the folks that really love + us, and we love you, John--both of us do. + +John sat down in his room one night to answer this letter, but, though +he tried very hard, he could think of little to say. Cavanaugh's simple +phrases had sounded his deepest emotional depths, and yet he could not +bring himself to write an appropriate response. He started to mention +the death of Binks, but gave that up. That, he argued, would only cause +his old friend to be the more deeply concerned over his welfare. So he +wrote the most cheerful letter of which he was capable, about his +activity in business matters, and his ability to look on the bright side +of such things as the absence of Dora and his unmarried state. He ended +the letter with this: + + Yes, I fully agree with you in regard to a frank and + truthful statement about my being alive, etc. I understand + the situation and don't blame you at all. Tell every one who + cares to inquire that the newspaper report was a mistake and + that you saw me while you were here. I want to see you and + your wife as badly as you want to see me, but I'm afraid I + cannot come down, now, at any rate. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Joel Eperson sat on his small one-horse wagon, which was loaded with +fire-wood. He was taking the wood to Cavanaugh's from the small farm he +was renting two miles from Ridgeville. Joel had aged remarkably. Young +as he was, his thin hair and beard were becoming gray, and his sallow +face was seamed with lines of worry and care. His clothing was of the +cheapest material and threadbare, and yet faultlessly clean. As he got +down at the front gate Cavanaugh and his wife, who were seated under an +apple-tree at the side of the house, came around to meet him. + +"Here is the wood you wanted," Joel said, removing his hat in quite his +old chivalrous way. "You said dry oak, and I found plenty on the hill +back of my corn-field." + +"And mighty nigh killed yourself cutting it in lengths and splitting +it," Cavanaugh said. "Dry oak is a hard proposition for anything but a +sawmill. What do you want for this load?" + +"A dollar is what I usually get," Joel answered, sensitive as he always +was when dealing with friends. + +"Humph!" Cavanaugh sniffed, and looked at his wife. "This load is twice +as big as any dollar load I ever bought, and will throw out twice as +much heat to the square inch. I'll tell you, Joel, I've got a two-dollar +bill that is burning a hole in my pocket, and it goes for this load of +wood or you have me to whip. We are out of stove-wood, too, and I don't +want any dickering from you about it." + +Joel flushed under his tattered straw hat. "It isn't worth that much," +he declared, tapping the ground with his whip. + +"It is worth it to me, Joel," Cavanaugh smiled, "so what can you do +about it? I won't take double value from any man, much less you. How is +Tilly?" + +"She is fairly well, thank you," the farmer replied. + +"And the little ones?" Mrs. Cavanaugh asked, with a motherly smile. + +"They are both all right, thank you," Joel said, his undecided glance on +his wood. Then, to his surprise, the contractor came through the gate, +took the reins from his hands, and drove the horse with its load around +to the gate at the side of the house. Halting there, Cavanaugh began to +throw the wood over the fence. + +"Let him have his way, Joel," Mrs. Cavanaugh said, smiling. "He'd be +miserable if he got anything too cheap from an old friend like you. +Before you start home, come in; I've made two little waists for the +children from a pattern Tilly lent me the last time she was in. I hope +they will fit." + +"You are always doing things like that, and yet want me to take double +price for my produce," Joel said, frowning. "Something is wrong +somewhere, Mrs. Cavanaugh." + +The old woman laughed lightly. "Go help Sam throw off the wood, Joel," +she said. "Don't tell me I haven't the right to sew for little children +when I have none of my own. I love your two, and what I do for them has +nothing to do with you." + +With a look of blended pleasure and pain, Joel joined Cavanaugh, and +together they unloaded the wagon. When it was empty Joel shook the bits +of bark and chips from the plank flooring, and stared at the contractor +timidly. "There is a matter I want to ask you about, Mr. Cavanaugh," he +began, clearing his throat. "It is a serious thing for me, and my wife, +too. I've wanted to mention it for several days--in fact, since I first +heard of it. I really don't know whether I have the right to ask you, +and if I haven't you must stop me. Mr. Cavanaugh, all sorts of stories +have been floating about to the effect that--that my wife's--that John +Trott's reported death was a mistake, and that--and that you went up to +New York to--" + +Joel broke off. He was quite agitated. + +"I know what you mean," Cavanaugh put into the break. "How did you hear +it?" + +"My neighbors are all talking about it," said Eperson, laboriously, his +face now grim and fixed. "I went to Todd Williams and asked him about +it. All he could tell me was that he saw a man in New York that looked +like John Trott, but he said it might have been only a fancy. Of course, +I've kept the talk from Tilly as much as possible. I asked our neighbors +not to mention it to her and they promised, but--but--" + +"You think she has heard it?" Cavanaugh submitted, gravely. + +Eperson nodded. A grim expression twisted his lips awry and left them +quivering as he spoke. "Yes, I think some part of it, at least, has +reached her. I saw a change in her last night when she came back from a +visit to the Creswells. She didn't mention it to me, but I was watching +her and I saw a change. She was excited. I think I might call it +excitement, Mr. Cavanaugh, and she didn't sleep well last night. She got +up several times, and it seemed to me once that she was about to speak +to me about it, but still she didn't." + +"I see, I see," said Cavanaugh, slowly. "Well, Joel, I hardly know what +is right to do in a matter as delicate as this is, but still right is +right, and if there is anybody in the world that ought to know the truth +about this, why, it is you and Tilly. Joel, the truth is, John Trott and +Dora are both still alive." + +"Then, then, _it is true_?" + +"Yes, Joel; I've just had a letter from John and he wants the facts +known. But I don't see that there is any reason for you to be disturbed. +You see, the law parted John and Tilly years ago, and even if it hadn't, +his long desertion (we'll call it that) would have amounted to the same +in any court." + +Like an automaton which all but creaked in its joints, Joel took up his +reins. Tapping his thin horse with his whip and making a clucking sound +between his teeth, he turned his wagon around. + +"Wait! You haven't been paid yet," Cavanaugh cried, holding out a bill. + +Pausing, a flurried, far-away look in his eyes, Joel took the money. + +"Thank you--thank you," he ejaculated. "So there's no doubt about it? +Did you actually see him, Mr. Cavanaugh--with your own eyes, I mean? I +don't want any hearsay or second-hand report. I want the truth--the +facts." + +"I spent a week with him, Joel." + +Eperson wound the lines around his left hand and brought his desperate +eyes back to Cavanaugh's face. "There is one thing more," he gulped, his +hand at his throat. "Is he--is John Trott a--a married man?" + +"No, Joel; he's single. Marrying didn't seem to be--well, exactly in his +line. His time has been taken up with a growing business, his books, a +pet dog, and Dora. She was like a loving sister, I understand, till she +married a man she loved and moved out of the country. John is a sort +of--well, you might say a sort of stay-at-home, soured old bachelor that +never took much to women. At least that's the way I size him up. He +makes plenty of money, and has laid up some, but I don't think he cares +much for it. He's odd--a sort of deep-feeling fellow--different from the +general run of men." + +In a nervous sort of movement Joel wiped his lips with his hand. + +"There is a thing I'd like to know," he said, slowly, impressively, +frankly. "You say he is single, and that makes me wonder. Mr. Cavanaugh, +truth is truth, and, as you say, right is right; would you mind telling +me whether you think he has--has changed--well, in regard to his--his +feeling toward Tilly?" + +"You are asking me a ticklish question," Cavanaugh said, with a start +and a dropping of his honest eyes. "You see, John never came right out +and talked plain on that line, and--" + +"I was only asking for your _personal_ opinion," emphasized Joel; "in +talking with him did you gather that--that his sentiments had undergone +no change since he left here?" + +"I don't see what good it will do," the old man said, "but since you +insist on knowing I may as well admit that I didn't see any change. In +my opinion, Joel, he loves her even more than he did. He didn't say so, +you understand, but that's what I gathered. I was watching him when I +told him about you and her getting married, and I must say I pitied him. +I don't know why, but I did. He looked so downcast, and, you might say, +almost astonished." + +With the groping movement of a man in the dark, Eperson started to get +into his wagon, but was stopped by Mrs. Cavanaugh. + +"Wait, Joel!" she called out. "You are forgetting these things," and she +brought them to him wrapped up in paper. "Give Tilly my love and tell +her if the waists don't fit I can take them in or let them out." + +"Thank you; you are very, very, kind." Joel had lifted his hat, and, +with a hand that seemed bloodless, he took the parcel and put it into +his wagon, carefully covering it with his coat. He made no effort toward +starting on again, and, as there was an opening for it, Cavanaugh said +to his wife: + +"I've just been telling him about John, and it seems to me that Joel is +sorter worried about--about its effect on Tilly." + +Eperson nodded as if acquiescing to a statement too delicate to be +discussed, and remained silent, a wilted look of despair on him. + +"I see, I see," Mrs. Cavanaugh said. "I was wondering how she would take +it. She's never been exactly like other women. Few women would +have--have, you know what I mean, Joel--would have acted like she has +all along in regard to John's mother. I must say, and I know that you +will agree with me, that she showed herself to be a wonderfully good +Christian woman. Why, sometimes it looked to me like she loved Mrs. +Trott more than she did even her own mother. But she's been +rewarded--oh, you know she's been gloriously rewarded! Your sweet little +wife, Joel, has saved the very soul and body of a lone, lost woman. But +you helped--oh yes! if it hadn't been for you she never could have done +it. And you deserve your reward, too. In my opinion you have been a man +amongst a million in all you have done in that matter." + +"I don't deserve your praise, Mrs. Cavanaugh," Eperson sighed. "I did it +all for Tilly. She was unhappy till we began to help Mrs. Trott. I saw +where the trouble lay, and did a little, that's all." + +"And are you worried about how Tilly will take the news about John?" +Mrs. Cavanaugh asked, while her husband hung open-mouthed on Eperson's +answer. + +"I don't know how exactly to make you understand the--the situation," +Joel stammered. "But I reckon I may as well say, and be done with it, +that--that--" He went no farther, his words piling one upon another on +his helpless tongue, his great, tender eyes bulging from their +dark-ringed sockets. + +"You can't mean that she would be worried about the divorce." Mrs. +Cavanaugh feebly came to his assistance. "Sam and I were talking that +over. There is no doubt that it was legal in every way. Old Whaley saw +to that. Narrow-minded and hard as he was, he acted for the best in that +case." + +"I see you don't understand." Joel dug the toe of his coarse shoe into a +tuft of grass and mechanically pounded it with his heel. "You don't +understand, because you don't know Tilly as well as I do. Mrs. +Cavanaugh, how can I put it any better than to--to say that--no matter +what was done in court, no matter what John Trott did that might be +called 'desertion,' Tilly would never have married again if she had +thought he was alive. I'd never have dared to ask her to marry me if I +hadn't thought he was dead. I believed it--from the bottom of my soul I +believed it, and--and, my friends, listen! I got her to believe it. I +saw that she doubted it a little, and I worked and worked, and argued +and argued, till finally I got her to believe it. But even then I'd have +failed if Mrs. Trott hadn't--hadn't helped me. Mrs. Trott believed he +was dead, and it was her belief and my talk that finally convinced +Tilly. But now what is to be done?" + +"Why, nothing that I can see," Mrs. Cavanaugh answered. "All you have to +do is to show Tilly that in no sense of the word is she bound by her +first marriage. You seem to think she is worried over that." + +Joel shrugged his shoulders and took a deep breath. "You don't +understand yet," he said, with a low groan. "She is excited--so excited +that she can't sleep, but it is not the kind of excitement you think it +is. She's heard the report that John Trott is still alive and she is +afraid that it may not--by some chance--be true. I don't mean that she'd +ever live with him again--now that she is--is a mother, or that she'd +hold it against me for marrying her as I did; but to know that no harm +came to him will make her happier than she's been for many a day. That +is a thing I've got to face. She is the mother of my children, but she +has never given me her whole heart and soul. She gave them to John +Trott. She has never blamed him for any step he took. She thought that +he left here for her sake, _and died for her sake_. Do you think I don't +know that when she hears that he himself has never married in all these +years--do you think that she will then love him less than she did? She +always looked on him as the most wronged man alive. Do you suppose that +she herself will turn against him now? In the name of God, what excuse +would she have, and him still loving her as Mr. Cavanaugh thinks he +does?" + +"I never looked at it that way," Mrs. Cavanaugh said. "You are getting +me all mixed up. Does Mrs. Trott-- Have any of the reports got to her?" + +"No, not yet; but Tilly will want to tell her, now that there is no +doubt as to the truth. I must tell my wife what I have just learned. It +is my duty to tell her. Yes, yes, I must tell her. I'm honor-bound at +once to give her all the joy in my power." + +It was as if both Cavanaugh and his wife could think of nothing in the +way of comfort for Eperson, and, taking his reins into a better grasp +and touching his hat politely, he mounted his wagon and drove away. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The loose planks on Joel's wagon rattled over the rain-washed and +little-used road running from the main highway to the farm he was +renting. The house was a log cabin of only three rooms, situated on a +bleak, treeless hillside. Adjoining it was a diminutive corn-crib made +of pine poles with the bark still on them, and a lean-to shed which was +roofed with long shingles sawn and split from red oak. + +As he drove his clattering wagon up the slope his two children, little +Joel and Tilly, ran out to meet him. The boy held his sister's hand to +keep her from falling, and was gleefully shouting to his father to stop +and take them into the wagon. Eperson checked his horse and got down and +made places for them on his coat. + +"Where's your mother?" he inquired, his dull eyes on the cabin. + +"In the house," answered little Joel. "Supper is nearly ready." + +"Hold your sister," Eperson ordered, as he started the horse and walked +along by the wagon; "she might fall." + +Tilly came to the front door and stood watching them as they drew +nearer. The sun was going down, and its last slanting rays made a living +picture of her in the crude frame of logs. She looked older than the +average woman of her age, and yet there was a rounded mellowness to her +features, a suave, spiritual radiance from her skin, eyes, and hair, +which always caught and held the attention of an observer. The same +quality seemed to pervade her voice. It had always been musical; it was +even more so now. Her husband saw that she was all aglow and smiling as +she stepped down to the wagon and held out her arms for the little girl. + +"Not a long ride, was it, pet?" she said, as the child put its arms +around her neck and kissed her cheek. + +Taking up the parcel, Joel handed it to his wife. "Mrs. Cavanaugh sent +it," he explained. "It is the waists." + +"Mrs. Cavanaugh?" Tilly said, in groping surprise. "Where did you see +her?" + +"I sold Cavanaugh the wood." Joel felt the heat flow into his cheeks. +"He ordered it a week ago." + +"Was he--was he at home?" Tilly held the child's face to hers, and Joel +noted a tense ripple of expectation in her voice. + +"Yes, he was there." Joel lowered his head to take up the reins he had +dropped, preparatory to driving around to the wagon-shed. From the +corner of his eyes he saw that Tilly stood rigid at his side, and he +thought he knew why she lingered thus. He was starting his horse, when +she said, suddenly: + +"Well, come right in. Your supper is ready." + +As he put his horse into its stall and fed it with fodder and corn, he +almost wished that he could prolong the task, for how was he to pass +through the coming ordeal, which was like death to him? + +He went into the house, bathed his face in a pan of water, brushed his +long thin hair, carefully adjusted his collar, and put on his coat. As a +rule, farmers did not wear their coats in the house in warm weather, but +Joel had never sat at the table with his wife without having his on. It +was an observance of respect to women which had been handed down to +Joel from conventional forebears, and from which he could not have +departed. + +Tilly and the children were at the table. It had grown dark within the +almost windowless cabin, and an oil-lamp furnished the light, the yellow +rays of which fell over the food, which consisted of boiled vegetables, +cornbread, butter, and mush and milk for the children. + +Out of respect to Tilly, who always did it in his absence, Joel, when at +home, said grace at the table, and the upturned plates to-night mutely +reminded him of that duty. + +It had always been the same simple formula which, also, had descended to +Joel, and over his folded hands to-night he uttered it. Moistening his +dry lips as if to render them pliant, Eperson sent his prayer out into +the sentient mystery which was so relentlessly wrapping him about. + +"Loving Father," he prayed, "we thank Thee, this night, for all the +evidence of Thy loving tenderness and care. Bless this food to our +needs. Render us kind and merciful to our neighbors, and, when our +earthly service to Thee is ended, receive us into the grace and peace of +Thy eternal kingdom. Amen." + +Eperson forced himself to eat. Under the stress of his emotions his +appetite had departed, and yet he pretended to be enjoying his food. +Tilly was eating with more relish, it seemed to him, than usual, and he +thought he knew the psychological reason for it. He had never seen her +look so buoyantly ethereal as she did to-night. To have described the +change upon her would have been beyond the power of man. She was like an +older sister to her children. Her love for them seemed to issue from her +like some supernal blending of light and music as she bent to adjust +the bib of the younger one, or sweetly to admonish the older in regard +to his too rapid eating of his mush and milk. + +"Don't--don't hurry, Joie darling!" her lilting voice produced. "You +don't want to be like a little piggy at his trough, do you, my sweet +boy?" + +When supper was over, Tilly washed the dishes and Eperson put the +children to bed, removing their moist clothing, bathing their bare, +dusty feet and legs, and putting on their nightgowns. What a holy +service of resignation it was to-night! Why was he so depressed with a +sense of his vast paternal unworthiness? Why, unless he was thinking of +John Trott's success? He told himself that his whole life had been a +failure. Many of his personal debts were unpaid and unpayable. There +were men he dreaded meeting because they always asked for the money due +them, or showed by their faces that they were thinking of his +delinquency. And there were others harder to meet who showed by their +faces and the matters they spoke about that they had no thought of ever +being paid. Ah! then there were still other men--men from whom he could +not bring himself to borrow. They were the few, like Cavanaugh, who +wanted to help him, but did not know how to broach so delicate a subject +with so sensitive a man. + +The children tucked away in the general sleeping-room, Eperson went +outside to the chairs that stood by the door-step and sat waiting for +Tilly. Would she come to him as promptly as usual? he wondered, his +stare on the blinking stars beyond the hilltops. Perhaps not so readily, +for an ineffable veil seemed to have been lowered between him and her +since her talk with the neighbors in regard to her first husband's +survival. He listened for the clatter of dishes and pans in the +kitchen. It had ceased. That work was over. Now, nothing would detain +her, he told himself, and he tried to brace his courage for the +performance before him. + +But she did not come at once. He heard her voice, with its indescribable +gurgle of maternal sweetness, teaching the children to say their +prayers. + +"God bless mother," was repeated after her, "God bless father--God bless +Grandmother Trott, and all the good people in the world. Amen." + +"_Grandmother Trott!_" Joel's whole weary being throbbed with the mental +utterance of the words. Then he heard Tilly singing a quaint lullaby +sung by the negroes. He wondered if she were purposely delaying her +usual after-supper chat with him. After all, what was there to tell her? +She had evidently heard the main facts of the matter--that was plain +from that irrepressible elation of hers. + +She extinguished the light and came out to him, taking the chair he +stood holding for her. The starlight gleamed on his bare brow. It was +like a well-wrought piece of granite. He brushed his hair back with an +unsteady hand as he sat down. + +"I was talking with Cavanaugh," he began, and paused to clear the +huskiness from his throat. + +"I know," Tilly said. "I've heard everything." + +"You have?" Joel said, tremulously. + +"Yes, the Creswells told me yesterday. You see, Tom Creswell works in +the post-office, and the postmaster showed him and the other clerks a +letter that Mr. Cavanaugh was sending to John since he got back from New +York. Then the postmaster showed him one answering it. The postmaster +met Mr. Cavanaugh and asked him about it, and Mr. Cavanaugh told him +that it was all a mistake about John and Dora being killed. He says John +is doing well and looks well. Oh, I'm so glad--so glad! Ever since the +report of that wreck it has been on my mind like a horrible dream. Night +and day it would come up to haunt me. Don't you see, I thought-- I felt +that if--if I had not gone away that day with my father John would have +been alive. So now, you see, I haven't _that_ to think about. God spared +him and Dora, and Mattie Creswell says they are both happily married." + +"Both?" Joel exclaimed. "You haven't got it right, Tilly. Dora married +and left him all alone. Cavanaugh says John never married." + +"Never married?" Tilly's sweet lips hung quivering. "But Mattie Creswell +says her brother told her that Cavanaugh said that John was married to a +wealthy girl in high society." + +"It is my duty to tell you the truth," Eperson said, the look of death +deepening on him. "He never married. He has been leading a strange, +lonely life. I think I know why. You can guess." + +"_I_ can guess?" Tilly was pale and trembling as she leaned toward him. + +"Well, no, perhaps you can't," Joel corrected, "but I know why." + +"You know why?" Tilly's voice broke on the last word, and she stared at +him eagerly, her sweet mouth drooping. + +"Yes, because no man who was once your husband even for the few days +that you were his could ever marry any other woman." + +"You--you rate me too highly," Tilly faltered, putting her hands over +her face. "Why, why, I've always thought that till his death he hated +me for deserting him as I did when all the rest of the world was down on +him." + +"He is no fool, and he was not even then, boy though he was. He knew why +you went away so suddenly. Do you hear me? He simply acted as I would +have done in his place. He endeavored to set you free from certain +unbearable conditions, and that is what I would have done. In setting +you free he rescued another girl from a life of degradation and despair, +but that is neither here nor there. John Trott deserves credit, and I +shall give it to him. Dead though you thought he was, he has always had +your heart. I've seen that in a thousand things you have done and said. +Your love for his mother was due to that, and God knows you've had your +reward there, for you awakened an immortal soul and have earned its +eternal gratitude and love. Don't think I am complaining, Tilly. I knew +when you came to me that your heart was not mine. I've never been able +to win it and I never shall." + +"Why, you don't think--you don't think--" stammered Tilly. "Surely you +don't think that I still--still--" She suddenly stopped and stared at +her husband in a bewildered way. "You don't suppose, Joel, that I could +believe that he--that all these years John--" + +Joel slowly swung his head up and down. "I believe that you both love +each other still. I was wrong to over-persuade you when you held out so +long against me. John Trott acted for your good in leaving, and I should +not have saddled on you myself, the greatest failure among men that ever +lived. I feel to-night as if the blight of an avenging God is on me for +my presumption. I have put two little children on your hands and feel as +incapable of protecting you and them as a crawling infant." + +"I won't listen to you!" Tilly stood up. "You shall not abuse yourself +in this way. You acted exactly as you should. No one could blame you. +You are one of the noblest men living. Without you I'd have been lost +after my mother and father died. For you to say that--that John and I +still--I won't say the word. You have no right to utter it when all is +considered--you and me and the children. What right have you to--to +think that you could know John's heart, when you have not seen him for +eleven years? You may think you know mine. You may do so if you insist +on making yourself unhappy, but you have no right to--to pass an opinion +on--on the present feelings of my first husband. What are you going by, +I'd like to know? You don't suppose that John would tell Mr. Cavanaugh +such things, even if they were true? And how could Mr. Cavanaugh come to +you, my husband, and--and even _mention_ such a thing?" + +Joel was on his feet also. The childlike and unconscious eagerness of +his wife to make sure of the thing she was secretly craving stabbed him +to the core of his being, and yet he told himself that it was his duty +to withhold nothing concerning his rival from her. + +"Reading him as I'd read myself," Joel answered. "I thought he'd remain +constant, but to-day I wormed it out of Mr. Cavanaugh." + +"Wormed what out--_what out_?" Tilly sank back into her chair, +open-mouthed, her eyes gleaming portals to breathless expectancy. "You +can't mean that Mr. Cavanaugh thinks--actually thinks that John +still--?" + +Joel bowed his head in the relentless starlight, sat down as from sheer +frailty, and was silent. The undulating landscape, the fields, the +meadows, the woodland, the hills and streams seemed to hold their vast +breath with his. Suddenly Tilly rose. It was as if she were about to +stand behind his chair, as was her wont at times, put her hands upon his +shoulders, and kiss his thorn-crowned brow, but she did not. She went +slowly into the cabin. He heard her feet--feet he knew to be winged with +sudden, far-reaching joy--treading the boards as she went to the bed of +the children. What was she doing? he wondered. Her step ceased. He +pictured her as seated by the side of the children's bed. Was she +pitying him or rejoicing? Why ask? He knew. And his love was so divine a +thing that, but for his throes of death-agony, he could have rejoiced +with her. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Cavanaugh had a duty to perform. He had decided to take on himself the +act of informing Mrs. Trott of her son's survival. So, the next morning +after his colloquy with Eperson he walked out to the cabin the widow +occupied near the home of Eperson. As he passed Joel's place he saw from +the distance that Joel was at work in his corn-field, and, watching a +few minutes, he saw Tilly come out and feed her chickens, so he judged +that Mrs. Trott had not yet been told the important news. + +Walking on, he soon reached the isolated cabin in the woods that he was +seeking. It had but a single room, one window in front, and a crude +chimney made from unhewn stones and clay. The door facing the little +road was open, and as he drew near, Mrs. Trott, hearing his step, came +to the door and looked out. + +She was now quite gray, and wore a plain dress of homespun unadorned in +any way save for a neat white collar and an old cameo pin which had been +a gift of her husband's. A touch of her old beauty still lingered in the +contour of her face and good basic features. Her eyes had a placid +expression, and her voice had become that of a child who loves to be led +and petted. She smiled on recognizing the unexpected visitor, and gave +him a seat in the cabin. + +"I didn't expect to see you out this way," she said. "Joel told me a +couple of weeks ago that you'd gone off somewhere." + +He nodded. It was difficult to introduce the topic on his mind, and he +chatted with her about the land in the neighborhood, Joel's prospective +crop, and the fear some of the farmers had of a harmful drought if rain +did not fall within a week or so. He had not been able to come to the +matter in hand when a sound outside was heard. + +"Grandmother Trott," a small voice piped up, "sister won't come on. She +keeps stopping and picking flowers and leaves." + +Mrs. Trott laughed, and her face beamed. "It is Joel's children," she +explained. "The little darlings come with milk for me every bright day. +Tilly sends it." + +Rising, she stood in the doorway. "Come on; but, no, Joie, don't pull +her hand so hard! You might jerk her little arm out of joint. Come on by +yourself. She will come when she feels like it." + +The boy soon appeared with the pail of milk and set it in the door. +"Mother said tell you she'd have some fresh butter for you in the +morning and some eggs. The hens have started again. Tilly and I found +six eggs in the hay last night. Grandmother, where are the kittens?" + +"Right around behind the cabin, dearie," Mrs. Trott answered, taking the +pail. "The mother-cat is nursing them in the sun. Show them to your +little sister. You may have them when they are larger." + +Cavanaugh heard the children as they went behind the house and bent over +the cat and kittens. He heard them uttering endearing words to the +animals. "Don't, don't, you little stupid!" Joel cried. "She may scratch +you! Don't you see her claws?" + +Mrs. Trott laughed softly as she emptied the pail and washed it out. + +"They are the sweetest children in the world," she said to Cavanaugh, as +she put the pail on the door-step and sat down again. "They stayed with +me a week last month when Joel and Tilly went to camp-meeting over the +mountain. They were not one bit of trouble, and, oh, I did love to have +them about! I never let on to Tilly and Joel, but when they took the +darlings away I was awfully blue. Short as the time was, you see, I got +accustomed to them." + +The children had gone home and still Cavanaugh had not reached the +object of his visit. It was the shadow of vague wonderment in the +widow's eyes, and her lagging talk, that compelled him to introduce it. +He first spoke, and rather adroitly, of Todd Williams's encounter in New +York with the man who resembled her son, and, pausing, he heard her +sigh. + +"Poor boy! poor boy!" she muttered, sadly. "And they said he and Dora +were on the way to New York when that awful thing happened. Mr. +Cavanaugh, you are a good man. You've always been considered a good man +by everybody that knows you. I understand that you never had any +children, but you may know the human heart well enough to know that no +regret ever heard of can be deeper than that which is brought on by the +sort of thing that happened to me. I don't talk this way to Tilly and +Joel, because I owe them too much to let them dream that I am not +thoroughly happy. But if I could live a thousand years I'd never be able +to rid my mind of the positive knowledge that by--by--I _will_ say +it--I'll say it to you as I'd say it to a priest, if I was a Catholic. +I've often wished I was one, so that I could let what I feel out of me. +Maybe saying it like this to you will do a little good. I don't know, +but I will say that nothing on earth can rid my mind of the fact that +by my thoughtless way of acting when I was young I-- I--" + +"Stop! I know what you mean, my poor friend," Cavanaugh broke in, "and +you are getting all wrought up. Listen to me. Why not look on the +hopeful side, the bright side? How do you know but that John and Dora +are still alive, and none the worse; in fact--" + +He suddenly checked himself, for a sickly, greenish pallor had +overspread the listener's face, and she leaned forward as if about to +swoon. In a moment, however, she had recovered herself, and, sitting +erect, her white, shapely hands pressed to her breast, she smiled +feebly. + +"Oh, I know what you mean, Mr. Cavanaugh. I did try that. I summed up +every hope, everything that held out the slightest promise. I used to +lie awake at night and declare over and over that it couldn't be--that +the laws of life wouldn't let such an unjust thing happen to them, +innocent as they were, and with their right to live, but it didn't do +any good. I didn't let anybody know about it, but one after another I +got three different papers with John's name in them. I went to Atlanta +and visited the editors of all the papers and asked their advice. They +were sorry, but they said the list had never been disputed and ought to +have been even bigger than it was. Then I gave up." + +A shrewd, half-fearful gleam was in the contractor's shifting eyes. + +"I know, I know, Mrs. Trott," he gently persisted, "but many and many an +account like that has turned out afterward to be incorrect. You don't +know it, but maybe all three of those papers got their information from +one report. You see, a reporter representing a lot of papers in a sort +of combine goes to a spot like that was and his account is telegraphed +all about over the country. So you see, even if you had seen it in a +hundred papers you wouldn't have to take it as law and gospel." + +Mrs. Trott slowly shook her head and moaned softly. + +"I wonder if I dare tell her," Cavanaugh debated with himself. "She +almost fainted just now. She may have a weak heart. I must be careful. +I've heard of sudden joy killing." He was silent for a moment; then he +began again: "Mrs. Trott, you are welcome to your opinion, and I reckon +you'll let me have mine. But, to tell you the truth, I never have been +_fully convinced_ that John and Dora was lost in that wreck. I have my +reasons, and they are pretty good ones." + +He saw her arched brows meet in a little frown of polite wonderment, and +she was about to speak when little Joel suddenly reappeared at the door. + +"Oh, grandmother," he half lisped, in breathless haste, for he had been +running, "I forgot to tell you what mother told me to say. She said for +me to be sure not to forget. She said tell you that she is coming over +after dinner to tell you the best news you ever heard." + +"Ah, tell her I'm glad, darling!" Mrs. Trott said, with a smile. And she +went and stooped down before the child and added: "Won't you give old +grandmother a sweet little hug? There! there! that's a darling little +man!" And Cavanaugh saw her pressing the boy to her breast and kissing +his cheeks. + +When the child had left she came back to her chair, her face filled with +a rare maternal glow. "If you were a younger man, Mr. Cavanaugh, and +childless, as you now are, I'd advise you to adopt children. I don't +know why or how it is, but I know that persons can love other children +than their own and love them deeply, too. I love Tilly's two-- I really +do. That child there, that little boy with all his cute ways and moods, +takes me back to the childhood of my own son. But I neglected him. How I +could have done it only God knows, but I did, and you know it better +than any one else besides myself. You gave him a fine start, and if he +had lived he would have made a great success. But I must stop-- I must +stop! I think I know what Tilly's good news is. Joel has been trying to +rent the Marsden farm. He put in a bid for it. It is a big place, and +Mr. Marsden furnishes supplies. Maybe Joel has got it. I hope so, for he +is at the end of his rope." + +"The good news is not for poor Joel, Mrs. Trott. The truth is that Tilly +wants to tell you the same thing I've come to tell you. You know I said +that I never was fully convinced about John. Now what if I was to tell +you that I went to New York to make sure?" + +"Make sure? Make sure that--that John--" she began and stopped. + +He nodded, holding her bewildered stare by his fixed eyes. "I found out +enough up there to be sure, Mrs. Trott." + +"You mean that John-- Why, you _can't_ mean that--?" + +Again he nodded. "I've been afraid to shock you with the good news, but +he is alive and prospering. I was with him a week." + +She was convinced. She sat white and limp. She put her thin hands to her +face as if to hide her joy from him. He saw her breast heaving. He heard +her sob in an effort to control her emotion, and then she became quiet. + + * * * * * + +That night at home Cavanaugh wrote a long letter to John. "Something +must be done," he wrote, in one place. "If you had seen that +transformed human soul as I saw her there in her lonely log hut and +heard her talk of you and your babyhood and the thousands of regrets she +has for what she has done and left undone, your kind heart would have +melted with pity as mine did. My old mother's passed on, John, but if I +could call her back I'd give my last breath to furnish her with a +minute's joy. You could give yours years of comfort and happiness. Do +you know what I'd do if I was you? I'd come here and get her and take +her back to New York with me, and let her have some of the things she +used to hunger for and which may have caused her to do as she did. She +is poor; she needs you; the two good friends who have been helping her +so long really haven't the means to keep it up. You must come--you +really must. If you don't it will darken the end of your life. I love +you too much to let you neglect this sublime duty. Men of the greatest +brains have married repentant women and never regretted it; surely a man +as noble as you are, and as able as you are, can afford to pardon the +woman who gave him his very life." + +Mrs. Cavanaugh read the letter when it was finished. She made no comment +on it, but her opinion of her husband had never been so high. Deep pools +of his inner being for the first time in his life were exposed to the +light of her understanding. + +"May I?" she asked, taking the pen into her hand, and laying his letter +open on the table. + +"Yes," he nodded. "Add anything you like." + +"Dear John," she wrote on the margin, in the cramped style of one who +writes but seldom, "come to your mother. Do as Sam says. He knows what +is best." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Among the farmers of that locality it was considered somewhat beneath +the dignity of the men to milk the cows, but Joel Eperson had never +permitted his little wife to lay her hands to that particularly arduous +part of the day's duties. And to-night at dusk he was at this work in +the stable-yard, Tilly and the children still being at Mrs. Trott's +cabin. He knew why his wife had gone there, and painfully he was +comprehending why she was so late in getting back. There would naturally +be much to say on a subject like that by the two women in all the world +whom such a startling revelation touched so closely. Joel took his pail +of milk into the cabin. He put some more wood into the stove that it +might be hot and ready for use when Tilly arrived, and then he walked to +and fro in the yard, his dull eyes on the dewy fields. On his right, a +half-mile distant, the fires of the lime-kilns and brickyards were +beginning to glow against the cliffs in the coming darkness, and the +songs of the negro stokers and the thwacks of their axes fell on his +ears. He emptied the water in the pail and brought up some more from the +spring at the foot of the slope. Still his family did not come, and he +started out to meet them. He crossed the meadow, skirted his corn, which +till only the other day he had looked on with pride, walked between the +rows of his cotton-plants to curtail the distance, and finally reached +the wood through which ran the path to Mrs. Trott's cabin. As he stood +there for a moment he heard voices. Both Tilly and Mrs. Trott were +speaking, but he could not see them for the thickened darkness beneath +the trees. + +"I must hurry now." It was Tilly's voice, and it rang with the lilting +tones of triumphant joy. "It is late. Joel will be looking for me." + +"Yes, I'll turn back," Mrs. Trott was heard saying. "Let me kiss them +once more. Oh, I am so wonderfully happy! Really, dear girl, I'd like to +die feeling as I do to-night. You see, I never expected it-- I never +dreamt that such a thing could be possible. I thought all chance of ever +begging his forgiveness was gone, and now maybe, some day or other, I +can. I wouldn't ask him to take me back, you understand, but only to say +that he wouldn't hold it against me the rest of his life. But I'd want +him to know one thing, Tilly, my sweet child, and that is the things you +have done for me on account of--on account of--you know what I mean?" + +"Hush, grandmother," Tilly answered, in the tremulous tone which +indicated emotions firmly checked. "You must not forget who I now am. +You must not forget that I'm the mother of those darling children." + +"No, my child, nor can I forget their noble father. I wouldn't wound him +for the whole world. I love him as--as--yes, I love him as much as I do +John, but in a different way, that is all. John was my baby, Joel is my +grown-up son. You must never forsake Joel in thought, word, or act. +Remember that." + +What Tilly answered Joel refused to hear. He was too honorable a man to +listen further, and he turned back and with slow, weighty steps reached +his home again. He stood in the kitchen doorway, waiting. He heard +Tilly and the children coming. They were singing merrily and romping +like sprites across the meadow. + +"I'm coming! I'm coming! I'll catch you! Boo!" Tilly cried. "Hide from +him, darling--hide behind the bushes! Where is she, brother? She must be +lost. Oh, there she is!" This was followed by childish screams of +delight and the mother's cooing words. + +Joel went to meet them, advancing across the yard and taking little +Tilly into his arms. + +"I know we are late," his wife said, regretfully, "but grandmother came +part of the way back, and you know she walks slowly." + +"It is all right," Joel said, pressing little Tilly's cheek to his. "It +is not very late." + +"Well, I'll hurry with the supper," Tilly answered. It was significant, +he reflected, that she did not mention then the reception of the +startling news by Mrs. Trott. Even while they all sat at the table Tilly +failed to bring it up, and a general air of repression brooded over +them. + +Indeed, the children had been put to bed, the dishes washed, and husband +and wife were alone together in the moonlight at the door, and still the +subject in the minds of both had been avoided. He wondered if she +expected him to mention the matter. Surely she ought to know that it was +not exactly the thing that he, a mere outsider, had the right to pry +into. An awkward silence fell between them, the sort of silence that +surely boded ill for their future harmony of intercourse. Tilly seemed +to sense this, and suddenly put her shoulder to the wheel of duty. + +"I didn't get to tell grand-- I didn't get to tell Mrs. Trott, after +all." It was significant that she abruptly discarded a formerly accepted +term of endearment. "Mr. Cavanaugh was there this morning for that +purpose, so--so the greater part of her excitement was over when I got +there." + +"But she was happy, of course," Joel got out, well knowing that his +remark was an empty one. + +"Oh yes, of course." Tilly was silent for several minutes. Then she +added: "The poor woman is afraid that John will not forgive her. She +doesn't want help from him, she declares, and she thinks it would be +unwise for them ever again to meet face to face, but she says she would +like for him to know how sorry she is for many things. I think, myself, +Joel, that it would be inadvisable for--for them to meet, just at +present, anyway. Don't you?" + +"I don't know. I can't say. I'm not in a position to decide," Joel +floundered. "It would depend on him. It is unfortunate that so many +miles separate them. He evidently has some established way of living +into which she might not fit so well. The mere fact of his being still +alive reached her by accident and through no effort on his part." + +"I'm sure she has no idea of making any advancement." Tilly seemed to +Joel, as she spoke, quite another woman from the one who had been his +wife all those years, and Joel simply sat, bent forward, his every nerve +and muscle drawn taut by vast swirling forces within him. + +"Then you don't think that he would--would forgive her?" asked Tilly, +with obvious anxiety which she was striving to minimize. + +Joel's prompt reply surprised her. "I know he would," said Joel, "if he +knew all the circumstances. I have never known a nobler man. I don't +believe a nobler man ever lived. In trying to help his mother I was only +doing what I was sure he would have done for me under the same +conditions. If I only knew how to show him what his mother now is I'd do +it." + +They were silent for a while; then, suddenly, Tilly stood behind him and +put her hands on his shoulders. "Joel," she said, "you are blue +to-night." She toyed with the hair on his brow; she bent almost as low +as when in that posture she sometimes kissed him, but she did not kiss +him to-night, and he noted the fact as a man dying unattended in a +dungeon might test his own pulse. He longed to take the little hand so +close to his cheek and press it to his famished lips, but something told +him that she would (not openly, but inwardly) now actually shrink from +such a caress. + +"No, don't think I am blue," he protested, fighting forward on his black +billows, and grimly smiling. "You are happy and I shall be for your +sake. You mustn't observe my cranky ways too closely. I'm all right." + +"Somehow I can't exactly believe it." Tilly twisted a lock of his hair +between her slow, reluctant fingers. "You seem changed, a little, +anyway, and I think we ought to come to a thorough understanding right +now. You have an imagination, Joel. You used to write poetry to me, you +remember, and for all I know you may now be fancying all sorts of really +absurd things. Now be sensible. John and I _did_ love each other away +back there, but we were parted and for years I have thought of him as +dead. But now he is away off up there, and I am here with you and our +darling children. You love them, they love you--and--and you love me, +and I--love you. Now be sensible. Can you, even with a crazy flight of +your imagination, fancy that John and I ever again will or could be--be +like we once were? Throw the idea away if you have it. Of course, I must +be happy in discovering that my hasty desertion back there did not cost +him his life and Dora's. Oh, that thought worried me! I never let you +know how much it worried me! I guess I would have married you much +sooner than I did if I had not had that on my mind. But all that is past +and gone now. I'm here and John is away off up there. Your idea that he +still loves me is ridiculous on the face of it. What was I, even when he +was here? Only an ignorant country girl, while he has no doubt grown and +learned and altered in a thousand ways. I've seen successful men from +big cities. They don't seem to think as we do, or act or speak like us. +I'd be a silly dowdy to such a man. I think, of course, if it comes +about naturally, that his mother ought to go to him, but I don't think +he ever ought to--to come back here, and I am sure that he won't. I am +sure of that--I'm sure of it. He has been burnt once, as the saying is, +and that will be enough. But I predict that she will go to him. No, I'll +take that back. I said that, but I am not sure. Do you know, it is God's +truth, Joel, that the sweet old soul loves you and me and the children +so much now that she would not leave us even--even for John. She let +that out this afternoon while Tilly was sleeping in her lap. The very +thought of going started her to crying, and it was some time before I +got her quiet." + +Tilly's hand actually touched his neck, but Joel still felt that he had +no right to clasp it. The wild thought of grasping it and drawing his +wife's lips down to his possessed him, but he promptly killed the +impulse. Grimly he told himself that he would be fondling a shadow, +feasting on a husk. + +Suddenly she drew her hand away. "I'm awfully tired to-night," she +sighed. "I'll go to bed, but you needn't hurry. Shall I fill your +pipe?" + +"No, thank you," he said, rising as courteously as of old. "I sha'n't +smoke any more to-night." + +"Well, good night," she said. + +"Good night," he echoed. + +The flare from the lime-kilns and the brickyards lit the cliffs, hills, +and sky. He beard the town clock striking ten. Little Joel had waked, +and his mother was gently telling him to go to sleep. The child wanted +water. Tilly went to the kitchen for it, and the father heard her +sweetly cooing as she held the cup for his son to drink. What a marvel +that--_his son and hers_. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +"John is not coming. I see that plain enough from this letter," +Cavanaugh announced to his wife at noon one day, as he entered the +sitting-room where she sat sewing on a machine. + +"Why, what's wrong?" the old woman asked, in a tone of disappointment. + +"I can't tell exactly," Cavanaugh answered. "It is all round about, with +this reason and that. He seems to have a mistaken idea that it will stir +up an awful rumpus in the papers. He wants to help his mother, and says +for me to see her and tell her so. He is willing to make a substantial +settlement on her, but she wouldn't take it. Do you hear me? She +wouldn't have scraps thrown at her like that. If he came here and made +it up she might let him help, but she'll never accept it that way. I am +disappointed in him. After the way I wrote, he ought to have come and +been done with it." + +Mrs. Cavanaugh adjusted her glasses, took the letter and read it, moving +her wrinkled lips as she slowly intoned the words. Then she handed it +back. + +"Man that you are," she sniffed, "you don't see what ails him. He +doesn't once mention Tilly, but in every line there he is thinking of +her and her happiness. He'd love to come back here and see the old place +and all of us, but he is afraid it will upset Tilly. You said you +thought he still loves her-- I _know_ he does. I can see it all through +that letter, and I'm sorry for him, poor fellow!" + +"Oh, I see what you mean," Cavanaugh said, in a mollified tone, "and I +believe you are right, too. He was thinking of her happiness when he ran +away, and he is doing it now. Yes, yes, he still loves her. I saw it in +a hundred ways when me and him was together up there. He never had room +for but one woman in his heart, and she fills it still. She is the +drawback in the case, I'll bet. He thinks she is happy with Joel and the +children and he doesn't want to break in at this late day. But he will +come. Mark my words, he will come to help his mother when I write him +more fully. I'll explain, too, that I'll keep it from the papers, and +when he gets here he can stay out here with us and keep away from old +acquaintances as much as he likes. Yes, he will come." + +It ended in accordance with this prediction. One evening at dusk John +arrived in town and was delivered by a street-hack at Cavanaugh's door. +He was received with open arms by the old couple and treated as a +much-loved son. And he was glad that he came. For the first time since +the departure of Dora and the loss of Binks he felt restful and at home. +The delightful old-fashioned room, filled with the very perfume of +cleanliness, to which he was assigned, at once charmed and soothed him. +Till late that night the three friends sat talking on the porch. Several +times Mrs. Trott was mentioned, but Tilly not once. That she and Joel +lived near by and had been the widow's stanch friends John was not yet +aware, and the Cavanaughs wondered, half fearfully, what effect that +knowledge would have on their guest. + +John was waked the next morning by the long, resonant blowing of the +whistles at the mills. It was scarcely light, and, only partly conscious +at first, he fancied that it was his old signal for rising. He thought +he was in his dismal room at his mother's house, and that little ragged +Dora was clattering about in the kitchen below. Slowly he came to full +comprehension and lay back on his bed and closed his eyes. But it was +not to sleep. What a tangle of sordid memories wrapped him about! How +profoundly wise, by comparison, had he become! He wondered if the tiny +cottage in which he and Tilly had passed those few days of blinded bliss +were still extant. If so, would he dare visit it? He thought not. +Neither would he care to see again his mother's old home. + +Later, when the sun was up, he heard Cavanaugh on the porch, and he +rose, dressed, and joined him. Presently breakfast was announced. How +the cozy table in its snowy expanse appealed to him--the food he used to +like, the open door looking out on a flower-garden, a plot of dewy +grass, and a row of beehives! He had a sense of wanting to live that way +always. He was weary of the life that he had just left, and the +ephemeral things he had won. His desire for rest was that of an old man +whose years are spent. Somehow he felt that he and the Cavanaughs were +on a par as to age and experience. They had suffered mildly through long +lives--he had suffered keenly in a shorter one. + +It was understood between him and Cavanaugh that the first thing to be +done was for him to visit his mother. So, when breakfast was over, they +fared forth in the cool, brisk air for that walk in the country. As they +neared the cabin Cavanaugh saw Joel's house in the distance. He might +have descried either Joel or Tilly about the place by careful looking, +but was afraid that even a glance in that direction might attract John's +attention. Presently Mrs. Trott's cabin was before them, and, leaving +his companion in the edge of the wood, Cavanaugh went ahead to prepare +the widow for the surprise before her. Presently he came back. + +"I must say she was awfully excited," he began. "I was sorry for her. +She turned as white as a sheet and shook powerful; but she wants to see +you, and said tell you to come right on. Now you know the way home, +John, and so I'll turn back." + +"A cabin--a mere log cabin, such as the poorest negroes live in!" John +reflected, and yet it was the abode of the woman who used to demand so +many luxuries, and that woman, looked at from any angle, was his mother. +He was conscious of no tenderness or pity. Those things were reserved +for the instant of his first view of her. Great soul that he was, it +required but the downcast eyes of the repentant woman to melt him into +streams of sympathy when she appeared in the low doorway, a pitiful +flush of embarrassment struggling out of the pallor of her cheeks and +surrounding her still beautiful eyes. + +"Mother!" he cried, huskily, and he advanced to her, his arms +outstretched. "I had to come to you. I heard you were in need, but I +didn't know it was like this." + +She seemed unable to say a word. She hid her shamed face, her childlike +face, so full of timid remorse, on his shoulder, and he felt her sobs +shaking her breast. He led her to a chair inside the cabin and gently +eased her down to it, his fingers, filially hungry for the first time in +his life, gently and consolingly playing about her hair and brow. + +Presently she found her voice. "I was afraid you'd never come," she +faltered, still with that shrinking humility which had so completely won +him to her. "But here you are. Oh, I don't know what to say, John-- I +don't know what to say, except that I am not the same silly woman I +used to be. I used to think that the way I lived when you was here was +the only way I could live, but now I'd rather die than take back a +single day of it. Strange as it may seem, I like this. I like the still +woods out there, the rocks, grass, and wild flowers, and being alone. +Yes, I like to be all alone. When I'm all alone, even in the dead of +night, something seems to come to me and pity me and give me the +sweetest rest and peace. There wasn't but one thing that haunted me, and +that was thinking you were dead. When I heard that was a mistake I felt +very happy, though I didn't think I'd ever see you again." + +It seemed to him, as he sat in that crude hut, that nothing stranger had +ever happened to him than seeing her in such surroundings. + +"Is it possible," he asked, "that you spend the nights here in this +place?" + +"For six years now, winter and summer." She smiled wistfully. "I've got +my little garden behind the cabin, and my chickens and my cats, and they +keep me busy. Then I read a lot of books and stories. The Cavanaughs +send them to me off and on, and--and"--she started visibly--"some other +people do, too." + +"Other people?" he repeated to himself. "Then she _has_ friends, after +all." + +Presently a patter of feet sounded outside and a child's voice came in +at the open door. "Grandmother Trott! Where are you?" + +"Here, here!" Mrs. Trott called out in a flurried tone. She made a start +as if to rise, and yet it seemed to John that she had lost the power to +move. Then a little boy appeared at the door, two tin pails in his +hands. "Here's the milk, grandmother, and some fresh butter. Mother said +keep the pie and biscuits warm. She just took them from the stove +before I started. Grandmother, sister wants to see the kittens. May +she?" + +"Yes, yes, of course." Mrs. Trott, still agitated, got up. Little Tilly +was now in the doorway, and she took her into her arms. As for Joel, he +had espied one of the kittens, and was crossing the room after it, when +for the first time he saw John and paused, somewhat abashed. + +"Come here." John smiled, holding out his hands, and the boy went to him +trustingly. "My, my! what a solid boy you are!" John went on, taking him +on his knee. "How old are you?" + +"Six, and sister's four," was the answer. + +Mrs. Trott, still with the look of concern on her face, was putting +Tilly down, that she might empty the pails, and while her back was +turned the little girl crept confidingly to John's disengaged knee. With +a laugh, he took her up also. He was strongly drawn to them both, and +why he couldn't have said, unless it was because they were friends of +his mother and had given her such an endearing appellation. + +Mrs. Trott brought the pails back. She still wore an embarrassed look, +which, in his preoccupation over the children, he failed to note. + +"They are very nice and friendly," he smiled up at her, an arm about the +body of each child. "Whose are they?" + +"Now you must go back," Mrs. Trott said, with obvious evasion, holding +out the pails to Joel. "Tell your mother that I am very much obliged." + +"But mother said we must rest awhile here and not come right back," the +boy answered, leaning on John's shoulder. + +"No. I's tired, grandmother." Tilly drew back also into her snug +retreat. "Where's the tittens, brother?" + +But Joel could see kittens any day, and John was now showing him his +new gold watch and chain and Tilly was admiring his scarf and pin, +daintily touching the rich silk with her tiny sun-browned fingers. + +With something like a sigh of resignation Mrs. Trott sank into her chair +and listened to the chat of the trio. That her son was charmed with the +children of his former wife she saw plainly. What would he do or say +when told the truth?--and that it was due him to be told she did not +doubt. + +"They are beautiful and lovely," John said, when they both left his lap +and went behind the cabin to see the kittens. "Whose children are they?" + +"I see that I must tell you and be done with it," Mrs. Trott said, with +a warm flush. "Can't you guess?" + +"Why, how could I guess?" he asked, wonderingly. "They call you +grandmother, too--how is that?" + +"John," she gulped, "they are Tilly's and Joel's!" + +His moving lips seemed to frame the words she had spoken, but without +the issue of sound. They were both silent for an awkward pause; then he +said, haltingly, "I did not know that they were in this neighborhood." + +"Mr. Cavanaugh told me that you didn't know about them and me," she +answered, all but apologetically. "Oh, John, I hope you won't blame me, +but I simply could not have lived without them! They are responsible for +what I now am. They came to my aid immediately after you were reported +dead, and have stuck to me ever since." + +"Then they are the friends Sam mentioned!" John said. + +"Yes, they are the ones. They wanted me to come live with them after +they married, but I couldn't-- I simply couldn't; but I did consent to +live near them like this, and I am glad, for they have been like loving +children to me. John, you don't know how noble and unselfish poor Joel +is. Nothing has ever prospered with him. He has always had bad luck, and +yet he never thinks of himself. I was with Tilly when both her children +were born. She seems now like a daughter, and Joel a son. As for the +little ones, I love them with all my heart. I owe it to you to tell you +the truth. Had I thought you alive, of course, I could not have been so +intimate with them, but we all three thought you were dead, and, +somehow, drifted together." + +"I know, and that is all right," John said, a shadow of his old brooding +despair in his eyes. The prattle of the children behind the house came +to his ears. Through the doorway the midday sun beat yellow and warm on +a crude bed of flowers close by. Mrs. Trott continued her recital of +past happenings. She told even of Tilly's visit to the old house; of her +occupying his room, of her own and Joel's vigil on the outside. She +spoke of the saddened years in which Tilly had refused to think of +marriage, and how she herself had worked with Joel to bring it about. + +"If I knew one thing," she presently said, gravely studying his face, "I +might feel that I had a right to tell you something particular about +Tilly. I mean if I knew _one certain thing_ about you yourself." + +"Me myself?" he cried, groping for her meaning. + +"Yes, you, John. Mr. Cavanaugh hinted at what he thought your present +feeling for Tilly is, but I'd have to know for myself before--before I'd +feel at liberty to tell you what I have in mind. Mr. Cavanaugh said you +hadn't said so in so many words, but that he was sure that you still +feel the same toward Tilly that you did before you and her parted." + +He had lowered his head. He now interlaced his fingers between his +knees, and she saw them shaking. + +"She is the same and more to me," he said. "As long as I live I shall +love her." + +"Do you really mean that, John?" + +"Yes, and much more," he answered, firmly. "I don't blame her for +anything that she has done. She had every right to marry. I counted on +it happening even earlier." + +"I see you are in earnest, and I'll tell you," Mrs. Trott said. "John, +she finally married Joel, but she did it only out of gratitude and pity. +She was grateful to him for helping _me_, do you understand? After you +left, she actually looked on me as her mother, because--because I was +_yours_. Then she pitied Joel because he was so unhappy without her. +But, la me! the other day, when she found out that you were alive, no +angel in heaven could have been happier. She tries to hide it--she +hardly knows what it means--but she can't hide it. It shows in her face, +in her laugh, in her dancing movements. She has no idea she will ever +see you again, and she doesn't dream of leaving Joel or the children, +but knowing that you are alive and doing well has made her blissfully +happy. Hers is a great, unselfish love, if there ever was one. + +"You can't mean what you say," John faltered, his eyes beaming, his face +aflame, his breast heaving. + +"Yes, I do," his mother assured him. "I don't know that I'm doing +exactly right to tell you, but I have told you. I can't fully make her +out on one thing, and that is whether she believes you still care for +her or not. Sometimes I think she believes that you still love her. I +don't know why she is so happy unless that is at the bottom of it." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +John rose to go. Promising to return the next day, he started back to +town. By choice he went through a strip of forest-land. In some places +the growth of trees, bushes, and vines was dense. Small streams trickled +through the moss and grass over pebbled beds, clear and cool in the +shade and warm in the open sunshine. Above the blue sky arched, with +here and there a white cloud against which some buzzards were circling +in majestic calmness. For the first time in many years he felt that he +had not loved in vain. Tilly loved him. He loved her. She had suffered; +so had he. The world had mistreated them, that was all. He remembered +something she had once said about love being eternal. How sweet the +thought now was! + + * * * * * + +The next morning he was at his mother's cabin again. He had a plan to +unfold to her. He described his life in New York, and spoke of the many +advantages of living there. He wanted her to come with him. He would +give her every comfort that could be thought of. His income was ample. +They would be company for each other. The things she wanted to forget +would never follow her there. She would make good, new friends and end +her days in contentment and comfort. + +She listened to him attentively, a warm stare of maternal pride in her +meek eyes, but when he paused she slowly shook her head. She seemed +embarrassed; then she said: "I couldn't do that, John. You may think it +odd of anybody, but I really wouldn't like a bustling life like that +now. I've got a taste of this, and I think I'd rather keep it. Then I +must be honest with you. I mustn't keep back anything. The truth is I +don't want to leave Tilly and Joel and the children. I've got used to +them, I reckon. I think they want me, too, I really do; at least I hope +so. I've found this out, John; people either like one sort of life or +the other. When I was living like--like I used to live, I wanted that +and nothing else, but now I want this and nothing else. I wish you could +live here, but you know best about that. It would be wrong in some ways, +for, considering the way you and Tilly feel about each other, and her +duty to Joel and the children, it wouldn't be best for you to be close +together. I was thinking about that last night and wondering whether you +and her ought to meet even once again. It seems to me that it would be +awkward for you both, and hard on poor Joel." + +"I had no idea of--of meeting her," John said, in a tone which sank +beneath his breath. "I must spare her that." + +"It is a pity--a pity, but it will be best!" Mrs. Trott sighed. "I wish +I could see some other way, but I can't. How long are you going to +stay?" + +"Not longer than a week," he answered. "Are you sure that you won't go +with me?" + +She slowly shook her head. "No, I must stay here, John. I couldn't leave +them-- I really couldn't. They have wound themselves about my tired old +heart and I want to stay near them. I wish I could help them out of +their terrible poverty. The children ought to be educated. They are +wonderfully bright." + +They sat without speaking for several minutes; then John said, +suddenly: "Do you think we could, between us, devise any way by which I +might help them substantially? I assure you I have plenty of money for +which I have no need." + +"Oh, that would never do, John!" Mrs. Trott exclaimed. "Neither Joel nor +Tilly would accept it. That is out of the question." + +John's face fell. "I was afraid you'd say that," he sighed. Then, with a +start and an eager searching of her face, he said: "Will you answer me a +direct question? If you, yourself, were to come into some money, at your +death would you want them to have it?" + +"Why, of course!" she answered. "That is all I'd want money for now." + +"Then the way is clear," John beamed, and his voice throbbed with +excitement. "You are my mother. You can't keep me from making you +comfortable out of my useless means. I have some absolutely safe +securities that bring in good dividends. Before I return to New York +they will be in your name at one of the banks in town, with a cash +deposit to your credit. The income on the stocks amounts to about three +thousand a year. Remember, I am in no way suggesting to you what you +should do with the principal or the interest, but legally to be on the +safe side, you ought at once to make a will." + +"Why, John-- John, you astound me!" his mother cried. "Mr. Cavanaugh +intimated that you were not particularly well off, and here you say--you +say that I am to have three thousand dollars a year from you. +Why--why--" + +"It is nothing," he said, smiling. "I want to do it, and you must help +me. If you should decide to do so, you can convert some of the stocks +into money and buy Joel a farm on which he could make a good living. +After I am gone they won't refuse it from you, for you owe it to them, +considering all they have done for you." + +Without knowing it, Mrs. Trott was weeping. Great crystal tears were on +her cheeks. Her still beautiful lips were quivering; her slender hands +were clasped in her lap. + +"Oh, John, John, can it be possible to do this for them?" she half +whimpered. "I want to do it. I want to help them, but poor Joel is so +sensitive and proud that--that--" + +"You owe it to him, and I, as your son, who left you unprotected, owe it +to him also. When I am gone he will see that it had to be. Let him know +about the will in his children's favor, but give him to understand that +the money is from _you_, not from _me_, and tell him, too, if you can do +so adroitly, that I shall never come this way again. This is his home, +not mine. As for Til--as for his wife, I shall not meet her while I am +here. You are going to help them substantially--that is the main thing. +_You_, no one else." + +"Oh, it would be glorious--glorious!" Mrs. Trott dried her eyes on her +apron. "As for Tilly, Tilly--it may seem to you a strange idea of mine, +John, but somehow I believe, actually believe that she would accept the +money from you as readily as she'd give her last cent to you under the +same circumstances. She is a strange, strange little woman, more of the +next life, it seems to me, than this. She has been an angel of light to +me and I couldn't leave her; even if you were an emperor offering me a +throne I'd stay here. In taking your money, John, I am taking it on her +account. She will see through your plan, but it will only make her the +happier, for she thinks your soul and hers are united for all time, and +it may be so, John--it may be so. Love like yours and hers ought not to +die. How could it?" + +He sat silent. All the morbid hauntings of his past seemed to be +withdrawing like shadows before some vast supernal light. His body felt +imponderable. A delicious pain clutched his throat and pierced his +breast. He was ashamed of his weakness and tried to shake it off, but it +continued to thrill and sob in every nook and cranny of his hitherto +unexplored being. The woman before him seemed more than mere flesh, +blood, and bone. A veritable nimbus hovered over her transfigured head +and shone against the unbarked logs behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +By choice, he started home through the wood. He wanted the feel of the +grass, heather, and moss beneath his feet; the scent of wild flowers in +his nostrils; the bending boughs of great trees over him; the minute +sounds of insects in his ears; the flight of winged things in his sight. +Deeper and deeper into the wood he plunged. There seemed something to be +drunken like an impalpable spiritual elixir. He held out the arms of his +being to it; he opened the pores of his body and soul to it. The far-off +hum of the town's commerce and traffic seemed an insistent denial of the +intangible thing for which he hungered, and he closed his ears to it. +Presently he heard the sound of breaking twigs and the stirring of dry +leaves behind the vines and boulders close by on his right, and he +paused to listen. Then there fell upon his ears the soft voices of +children, and, carefully parting the pliant branches of some willows, he +saw in a little grassy glade Tilly's daughter and son. They were +gathering flowers and ferns. Little Tilly had her chubby arms full, and +Joel was plucking more. + +It was a beautiful sight, and yet it drenched him with infinite pain. He +was tempted to attract their attention, to take them into his arms +again, but he checked the impulse. + +"What is the use?" he muttered. "They are hers, not mine--_his_ and +hers, not _mine_ and hers." + +Softly he moved away. Presently he came to a fallen tree and sat down +on it. He could no longer hear the children's voices. However, another +sound broke the stillness about him. It was the rapid tread of some one +hurrying through the wood in his direction. The branches of the bushes +in front of him parted and Tilly stood facing him, her cheeks and brow +flushed and damp from rapid walking. That she could be so beautiful as +now he had never dreamed possible. The years had added indescribable +charm and grace to her every movement, feature, and expression. + +"Oh, John!" she cried, holding out her hands as appealingly and naïvely +as of old, "the children are lost! They started for your mother's cabin, +but haven't been there. There are dangerous places in this wood, and--" + +He smiled reassuringly as he took her hands. "They are all right," he +said. "They are just over there. I saw them only a moment ago." + +Their hands clung together, but neither of them was cognizant of the +fact. It was as if not a day had elapsed since they had parted. +Forgetting every law of propriety, he drew her into his arms. Her +uncovered head went as of old to his shoulder, and he was about to kiss +her throbbing lips when, with her hand to his mouth, she suddenly +checked him. + +"No, no, John!" she said, and she disengaged herself from his embrace +with a firm, resolute movement. "I understand how you feel, but you +mustn't-- I mustn't. I want to--yes, yes, I want to kiss you, but it +would be wrong." + +"Yes, it would be wrong," he groaned, and turned white. He sat down on +the trunk of the tree. She stood before him. Neither spoke for a while, +and the prattling voices of the children sounded on the warm, still +air. + +"I'm afraid I have pained you," Tilly said, after a moment, and she put +her hand on his shoulder as if to make him look at her. "I wish I knew +some other way, but I know of none." + +"There is no other way," he declared, his hungry eyes now on her face, +the marvel of which still held him enthralled. In all his dreams of her +she had never appeared so transcendently wonderful. + +"How could she ever have been mine--actually mine?" he asked himself +from the abyss into which he was sinking. + +"You see," she went on, now taking his hand into hers, "I'd have to tell +Joel. I'm his wife, the mother of his children, and there can be nothing +in my life that is not open to him. He is the soul of honor, John." + +"I know it," John answered, simply. + +"This thing is killing him, John," she went on, rapidly, as if taking no +heed of what she was saying. "The world was against him, anyway, and the +news of your being here so prosperous and successful by contrast to +himself has bowed his head to the earth. I don't know what to do or what +to say. He knows how I feel. You see, I couldn't hide from him the joy I +felt when I heard you were living. I can bear anything now--anything! +You see, Joel thinks that you--he has no reason for thinking so, of +course, for you have lived up there and he here--but he thinks--it is +stupid of him--but he thinks that you feel--exactly the same toward me +as you did when we were married. Exactly! Exactly!" + +"It wouldn't take a wise man to know that," John said, bitterly, his +lips awry, his stare dull with agony. + +"You mean to say that you _do_?" Tilly urged, her little hand pressing +his spasmodically, her eyes glistening with moisture. + +He nodded slowly. "How could I help it? You have done nothing to alter +my feeling toward you except to deepen it. How can I overlook the fact +that you befriended my mother (after I deserted her) and made her what +she now is?" + +"That was nothing but my duty, and my love for her," Tilly answered. She +paused for a moment, and went on: + +"Then you don't blame me for _marrying again_?" This was tremulously +uttered, and the speaker's eyes were now downcast. + +"No, I expected it. In a way, you owed it to Joel. In fact, I owe him +more now than I can ever repay." + +Tilly released his hand and sat down on the log beside him. Her little +feet were thrust out from her, and he saw her poor tattered shoes and +noted the coarse dress she wore. + +"I've always wanted to know one thing," she faltered. "A thousand times +after the report of your death I wondered if you died understanding how +it was that I left you. Did you know why I left our little home so +suddenly, John?" + +"Why, to escape the awful scandal that was in the air; but what is the +good of bringing that up now?" + +"Ah, I see, you didn't quite know the truth," Tilly cried. "John, my +father was practically out of his mind that day. He died not long +afterward of softening of the brain. He had a revolver, and would have +shot you if he had met you. I was expecting you home every minute, and +when I saw that I could pacify him by going right back with him I did +it." + +"Oh, I see!" A great light broke on John. "Then it was really to save my +life." + +"As I saw it, yes," Tilly replied. "I wrote to you once, after I got to +Cranston, but I learned afterward that father stopped the letter. I was +kept like a prisoner at home, John, until the court, under my father's +influence, and a narrow-minded jury had annulled our marriage. In spite +of that, I was ready to go to you and only waiting for a chance, when +the news of your death came. I didn't blame you for leaving. I knew that +you did it in despair of any other solution, and also to help poor +little Dora. That was a glorious thing to do, and God blessed your +effort. How is she, John?" + +"Well, and happy--both of them. I had a letter yesterday. They like +their work and believe they are doing good." + +"And you did that, John--you did it. When your own troubles were +greatest, you thought of that poor child. It was the noblest thing a man +ever did." + +John shrugged his shoulders. "It was selfish enough. I needed a +companion, and she became one. For years we were like real brother and +sister." + +"And then she left you all alone," Tilly sighed. "Oh, John, John, the +world has been unkind to you! You see, I have my children. Only a mother +can know what that means. I don't hear their voices now. Will you show +me where they were?" + +He led her through the wood to the glade. A great deadening chagrin was +on him. He told himself that she had suddenly bethought herself of the +need of the protection of her children's presence. Parting the bushes on +the edge of the glade, he looked around and presently espied them asleep +in the shade of a tree. Little Tilly's head lay on a heap of flowers and +ferns, and Joel lay coiled on the grass at her feet. + +"They often do that," Tilly beamed up at John. "We needn't wake them +yet--not just yet. I have a thousand things to say and ask, but my +thoughts are all in a jumble. How strange it seems to be here like this +with you again! I wonder, can there be any harm (in God's sight) in +telling the simple, honest truth? I've never done a conscious wrong in +my life, John. I did what I thought was right when I married you--when I +left you to go home with my father--when I secretly visited your +mother--when I finally married Joel--and now while I am here with you +like this telling you that--that--" + +She broke off, her all but etherealized face paling and growing more +rigid. + +He clutched her hands. He held them passionately, desperately to his +breast. "Go on!" he panted. "For God's sake, go on! I am starving for a +word from your lips. I've heard you speak a million times in my dreams. +Night after night I've lived with you in our little cottage, only to +wake and find it a damnable mockery, with nothing but the dull grind of +life before me." + +"What I say I would say to Joel's face if I could do so without killing +him." Tilly smiled wistfully. "John, I don't believe a true woman can +love but once in the way I loved you. She can many; she can have +children when she thinks it can bring no harm to her dead lover, but, if +she is a genuine woman, she will exult when that lover rises from the +grave and stands before her again. Dear John, I could take your +suffering face between my hands and kiss your lips as no woman ever +kissed a man's lips before. Yes, I could do it, and I'd die to be able +to do it again, but it is not to be. My body may not love, but my soul +may, and it is an eternal thing, John, and so is your soul. Those +children have a right to the care of a mother who is untainted in the +sight of the world. Their poor, patient, unfortunate father deserves as +clean a wife as the earth can produce. I know you love me-- I know it. +I feel it. I see it. But we've got to part. I believe in God. When I +doubt God I suffer and am forced back to faith by the pain I feel. +Believing in God, I also believe that the greater the cross put upon us +the more patiently it must be borne. My cross is to live without +you--yours is to live without me. But, oh, my heart aches--aches--aches +for you! It seems to me that your burden will be heavier even than mine, +for I have my children and you are all alone. John, John, you are young +yet. Don't you think that if you were to marry some good girl and have +children of your own--" + +"No," he broke in, shuddering. "Leave that out! I couldn't do +it--knowing your heart as I now know it." + +"I see, I understand, and--yes, I'm glad. Oh, I can't help it, John. I'm +glad. When do you leave here?" + +"Very soon now--in a few days." + +"How strange, oh, how strange!" she mused, aloud. "And after this--after +this brief moment I am not to see you again, or hear from you--yes, I'll +hear through your mother, for she tells me she is not to leave with you. +How odd that is, too! Joel and I and the children have robbed you even +of the mother who bore you. You never knew her as she now is, John, and +that is a pity, too. In her rebirth she is as saintly as a consecrated +nun. She does not know that she believes in God, but she does. There is +a streak of doubt in her as there was in you. Are you still an +unbeliever, John?" + +He lowered his head, shrugged, and contracted his brows. "I don't like +to say--to _you_, at least," he faltered. "Not to you, Tilly." + +"But you may, John--it won't pain me at all. I used to think that the +worst sinners were those who denied the existence of God, but I now +think there may be persons so godlike that they can't realize the +existence of any God outside of themselves. John, you are godlike. If I +could think of you as sinning, I'd sin in that thought alone. Go on +calling yourself an atheist, and the angels will treat it as a holy +jest." + +"I don't follow you," he said, wearily, as if he would dismiss the +subject. "You are mistaken about me. I am just an average man. But I +don't believe as you do. It may be beautiful--it no doubt is, but I +can't grasp it. It never came my way, somehow." + +The wood was very still. Under the beating sun, the wild flowers and +tender leaves of plants were the shelter of myriads of moving things +visible and invisible. Suddenly a locust sang in the top of a +persimmon-tree. A crow flew cawing over a distant field. The rumble of a +farmer's wagon was heard on the road. Tilly's face was steadily raised +to John's. She put her hand on his arm, the arm she used to lean on so +lovingly in their walks on the mountain road. + +"You can live without conscious faith, John," she said, in the sweet +treble tone he had loved so long, "but I cannot. If I doubted, as I did +once when we thought Tilly was dying, I'd wither up in despair. You may +as well know the truth. I live only for my children, John. Joel has to +suffer in not having all my heart-- I can't help that. He must suffer, +too, because he makes no headway in life and is unable to provide well +for me and his children. I can't help that, either. That is his cross +and he is bearing it like a saint. But as for me, I have two things to +live for--my children and your mother. God has put them in my hands and +I must care for them. Do you think I could live without faith now? Why, +I know God must help me care for them. I am praying for that. Night +after night--day after day I plead with God to provide for those three. +I want to see the children educated. I want to keep your mother as happy +and peaceful as she now is. She is my mother now--she is also Joel's; +she is the grandmother of my children. Don't you think my prayer will be +answered, John?" + +"I know it," he said, suddenly, recalling the compact just made with his +mother. "I know it." + +"Then you believe, too," she cried, eagerly, wonderingly. + +"Yes, I believe that," he admitted, reluctantly. "Something will +happen--something will turn up. You must never lose faith and hope." + +Tilly looked up at the sun. "It is eleven o'clock at least," she said. +"I must be going. I have to get Joel's dinner ready. I shall tell him +about this, of course, and now"--she choked up--"this must be good-by. +How can it be? It doesn't seem possible--that is, _forever_. For, if it +were possible, the God I adore would be a fiend. We are going to meet in +another life. As sure as you and I stand here loving each other as we +do, we are going to be reunited. A stream of spirit will connect us even +while alive. If it were otherwise, there'd be no law and order in the +universe, and law and order are everywhere. Yes, we'll meet again, +someway, somehow, somewhere." + +She held out her hands. He took them into his. He was drawing her to +him, the old fire of divine passion filling him, when he felt the +muscles of her fingers stiffen defensively, and she turned her eyes to +the sleeping children. + +"No, no! No, my darling," she said, a fluttering sob in her throat, her +eyes filling. "We must be honorable. Good-by. Leave me here with them, +please. I'll let them sleep a moment longer and then take them home." + +"Good-by," he said, turning away. The bending branches of the bushes +came between her and him. Like a plodder who has become suddenly blind +he staggered forward. The earth seemed to sink as he trod upon it. +Wild-grape vines whipped his brow and cheeks. Stones slipped and rolled +beneath his feet as he groped along. He was panting like a wild animal +long and closely pursued. + +He had turned away from the town's direction. He told himself that he +could not just now meet Cavanaugh and his wife with the meaningless +platitudes of daily life. A rugged, wooded hill rose before him. He +paused, rested awhile, and then began to climb its steep side. Half-way +to the summit, he stopped and looked about him. + +There lay the growing town where his boyhood was spent. There loomed up +the graveyard, with its ghostly slabs and shafts. There was the old +house which had haunted his dreariest dreams, and there--yes, there was +the cottage which had been the shrine of his sole joy in life. Drawn +close together in perspective and full of meaning they stood--his House +of Despair, and his Cottage of Delight. From both he tore his clinging +gaze. Beyond his mother's cabin lay an undulating meadow and another log +cabin. Along a narrow path walked a woman holding the hands of two +children. Across the furrows of a corn-field to meet the three trudged a +man without a coat, an ax on his shoulder. They met. The man took the +younger child up in his arms, and the three others walked onward through +the yellow veil of light. + +The observer groaned, filled, and sobbed. Through a mist of +unrestrainable tears he watched fixedly till the group had vanished in +the cabin. Then he started toward the town. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +A few days later Joel Eperson stopped his wagon, which was loaded with +wood to be taken to town, at Mrs. Trott's cabin. He left his horse +unhitched and stood before the door. Mrs. Trott, who was within, heard +him and came out smiling. + +"The children told me," Eperson began, "that you wanted to see me." + +"Yes, Joel," she answered, taking one of the chairs in front of the +cabin and indicating the other with a wave of her hand. "We've got to +have a talk, and what do you think? It is business this time." + +"Business?" he echoed, puzzled by her mood and mien. + +"Yes, and I am going to say in advance, Joel, that you have got to lay +aside some of your old-fashioned notions for once in your life and be +sensible. Joel, John is going back to New York very soon, and he is not +coming here anymore." + +"You say--you say--?" Eperson's moist lips hung loosely from his +yellowing teeth, and he broke off, only to begin again. "But why do you +tell _me_ of it, Mrs. Trott?" + +"_Mrs. Trott!_" the woman cried. "Why do you call me that for the first +time? Hasn't it been 'Grandmother Trott' all these years? Listen, Joel. +You are too touchy for your own good. I am telling you about John +because you ought to know it. You may be silly enough to think that he +wants to come between you and Tilly, but he doesn't, and she wouldn't +encourage it, even if he did. So that is the end of that. The next +thing is my own business with you. Joel, John is better off than we had +any idea of, and what do you think he has done? He has turned over to me +in my name a big lot of stocks that bring in a fine income, and, besides +that, he has placed to my credit in the bank several thousand dollars to +invest as I like. I am a rich woman, now, Joel." + +"Fine! Fine! Splendid! Splendid!" Joel cried, impulsively, and then his +face began to settle back into perplexed rigidity as he sat and waited. + +"Yes, it is fine," Mrs. Trott went on, "and what I want to see you +about, Joel, is this: As you know, there are several splendid farms +around here with good houses on them that are offered for sale. Now I +want to buy one of them, and I want you to help me do it." + +"I'll do anything I can," he answered, lamely, for he well knew that she +had not finished what she had to say. "I am afraid that I am not a good +business man, however, and that the judgment of others--" + +"I really want the Louden farm," Mrs. Trott said. "Mr. Cavanaugh says it +is a bargain. He built the big house that is on it and says that it was +decidedly well made out of the best materials. It is a beautiful place, +as you may know, with the fine spring and fruit and shade trees and +stables and barn!" + +"Yes, it is splendid in every way," Eperson said; "and you think that +you can get it?" + +She smiled broadly. "Through the lawyers I have already a binding option +on it. The final papers will be signed to-day." + +"But how can I help you?" Joel asked, still shrinkingly. + +Mrs. Trott hesitated, as if to decide exactly how she should make her +next move. Then, with a half-fearful smile, she said: "You remember, +Joel, how you pleaded with me, just after you and Tilly were married, to +come live with you and her?" + +"Yes, for we wanted you--we've always wanted you to be closer to us." + +"Well, I want to go to you now, Joel," was the slow reply. "I'm lonely. +Another change seems to have come over me. I have learned to love the +children so much that I am restless without them. Their little visits +seem too short, and on rainy days and in the winter they can't come. +Yes, I want to be with you all, and I am asking you to take me at last, +Joel." + +"Asking me--asking me?" he stammered, comprehending her trend in part. +"Why, you know--you ought to know that I--that we--" + +"Well, it is for you to take me or refuse me," Mrs. Trott put in, with a +wistful smile. "I want to live on the farm. I can't manage it by myself +and I want you to take charge of it for me--and let us all live in that +big, fine house together." + +"But I-- Why, I--" Joel broke down again, his patrician face awry from +sheer torture, and then sat twisting his gaunt hands over his ragged, +quivering knee. "I see, it is good and kind of you, but--but-- I don't +see how I, myself, could possibly accept your offer." + +"You have to, Joel," she retorted, still with her motherly smile. "You +can't refuse a thing that will give me and your wife and children so +much happiness." + +"But I'd be on--on your son's bounty," Joel flashed from the very embers +of his humiliation. + +"Absurd!" exclaimed Mrs. Trott. "He says he owes you more than he ever +could repay. He says you cared for me when he deserted me, and that you +played the part of a man while he was a coward. But that is neither +here nor there. Joel, I have willed all my new possessions to you and +your wife and children. When I'm dead and gone you will have to have +them, anyway, so why not make me happy the remainder of my life?" + +He was unable to formulate a logical reply, but beneath the revelation +she had made he sat limp and bruised as a flower drenched and beaten by +abnormal rain and wind. + +"Does Tilly know all this?" he asked, timidly, a cowed expression in his +dull eyes. + +"Yes, Joel, and she wants you to accept my plan. She will be happy when +you do, for your sake and for the sake of the children." + +He got up. His tanned face above his clean but frayed collar looked like +the mask of some Indian chieftain thwarted in his last patriotic hope. +His poor, underfed horse, in reaching for the grass near his bitted +mouth, had drawn the reins beneath his hoofs and was about to break +them. + +"Excuse me," Joel said, and he went to the animal and tied up the reins. +He came back. His face was still rigid, his lips were quivering. + +"You wish it, you say," he faltered. "Tilly wants it, but how about your +son? Would he care for me to share in the benefits of his gifts to you?" + +Mrs. Trott deliberated for an instant, then she said: "He is doing it +more for you, perhaps, than us, Joel. He declares he owes it to you. +I've told him how you have often stinted yourself to pay my bills. I +have told him, too, that but for you I'd have remained in the life he so +detested. Not one man in a thousand would have treated me as you have +done. You can't avoid it, Joel--we are all going to live in that fine +house and be comfortable and happy at last." + +He bowed silently. That was his answer. He accepted her proposal as a +proud man might a shameful verdict of death. He went back to his wagon, +raised his tattered hat, and mounted upon his load of wood. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The details of the business were all settled. John was ready to leave +for New York. He was to take the midnight train and was finishing his +packing in his room at about nine o'clock when Cavanaugh came in. + +"I have something to tell you that you may or may not like," the old man +faltered. "I don't know how you'll feel about it, but Joel Eperson is at +the gate and says he wants to speak to you." + +"Eperson!" John exclaimed, with a start. + +"Yes, and the poor fellow looks awful, John. He could barely speak. He +leaned on the gate like he could hardly stand up. I hope you will be +kind and gentle with him. I have never seen such a pitiful sight. It's +his pride, I reckon, and it has been cut to the quick." + +John said nothing. It was an encounter he had hoped to avoid. He put +some things into his bag and pressed them down. How could he confer on +any terms with that man of all men? And yet he plainly saw that the +meeting was inevitable. + +"It wouldn't do to turn him away," Cavanaugh advised, gingerly. "You +see, it would upset all the other plans, for I know him well enough to +know that if you treat him roughly to-night he will not live on that +farm. He would kill himself first." + +"He and I will make out all right," John said, turning resolutely to the +door. "Will he not come in?" + +"I don't think he wants to," Cavanaugh said. "He kept in the shadow +while I was talking to him and had his hat pulled down over his eyes." + +As John went outside he saw Eperson at the fence. A thing that touched +him sharply was the fact that Eperson unlatched the gate and swung it +open, as a servant might have done for his master, while he still kept +his eyes hidden under the broad brim of his slouch-hat. + +"I came to see you-- I _had_ to see you, Mr. Trott," Eperson muttered, +jerkingly. "I heard you were going away to-night and I couldn't--well, I +had to see you." + +"I understand, Eperson," John said, wondering over his own stilted tone +to a man whom he so profoundly pitied. "Will you come in--or shall +we--?" + +"Yes, we can walk, if you don't mind," Eperson answered, quickly. "I +really think it would be better. Curious people pass along and look in +windows sometimes, but back here in the wood there is no light and it is +quiet." + +"Yes, that is better," John agreed. And side by side the two men walked +along Cavanaugh's lot fence till they were in the thicket of stunted +trees behind the property. Presently Eperson paused, raised his head, +and spoke again: + +"This will do, Mr. Trott. I really don't know what to say in beginning, +for it seems to me that a million things come up, but your mother told +me about the property you gave her--the farm and all the rest." + +"Yes, yes, I know-- I hoped that she would mention it to you," John +said, out of a sympathy he didn't dream he possessed. "That was really +part of the--the understanding. She needs a comfortable home and she +could not look after it herself. She knows, and I know, that you can +manage it well, and so--" + +"But--but don't you see--can't you understand?" Eperson pushed his hat +back and his great, all but bloodshot eyes gleamed piteously in the +starlight. "Don't you see that I can't be put on a rack like that and +live under it? Do you think I have no pride or manhood left? I am a +failure--worse than a beggar. I aspired for that of which I was +unworthy--your wife--and I've come to tell you something to-night which +no proud man ever in the history of the world told another. I've come to +tell you that--" + +"Stop, Joel, you mustn't," John broke in, and he gently laid his hand on +the shoulder of the other. "That is a thing neither of us must ever hold +in mind for a moment. Listen to me. You and I are in the swirl of great +laws we can't understand. Of one thing we can be certain, and that is +that we love the same woman. Don't come to me to-night with the idea +that you are about to get in my debt. I'm in yours. I was a coward. I +deserted my post of duty under the first great blight that fell upon me. +I was only a poor, bewildered, stung boy, but I fled while you remained, +advised, protected, and cared for both my wife and my mother. By so +doing, and through your children, you tied the hearts of those two +beings to you forever. My mother is a transformed woman through you--my +former wife through you is a glorified mother. Don't think I am fooling +myself with romantic ideals. I know where I stand. If I were to dare +to-day to lay claim to your place, Tilly would turn upon me in disgust +and hatred. And why? Because the price to be paid would be the happiness +of the father of her children. That is a holy thing in her eyes, and I, +myself, profoundly respect it." + +"My God! My God!" moaned Eperson, "you can say this--you can be all +this to a man like me?" Eperson's great eyes were filling; his rough +breast was heaving; the shoulder under John's gentle hand was quivering. + +"Yes, because I admire you from the depths of my soul," was the reply. +"Your wife is not for me. My mother is not for me. Your children are +theirs and yours. My mother is making a gift to you-- I am not doing it. +I shouldn't say _gift_. She is trying to pay a debt that she owes you." + +A sob broke from Joel. He caught John's hand and stared into his eyes. +"I now know why Tilly still loves you," he gulped. "She loves you +because you are more of God than man. I don't know what to say to you +further, but I will say this--and as the Almighty is my witness I mean +it. I'll do my duty as the father of my children, as the husband _before +the law_ of my wife, and as the manager of your mother's property, but +I'll never try to win my wife's heart from you." + +John's arm slid around the neck of the bowed and broken man. He started +to speak, but his voice clogged with a pain that was delicious. It was +as if both he and his companion somehow had stood aside from their +bodies and were floating among the trees in the dim starlight. + +Presently, and without a word, Joel turned and walked away. He plunged +again into the wood as if to avoid contact with any one from the streets +of the town. On he went, his face turned homeward. There was a hill to +ascend, a vale to cross. He reached the top of the hill. His step had +become sluggish. He groaned aloud. He folded his arms and stood staring +into the moonlight. + +"It is incomplete--unfinished, not rounded out," he muttered. "It cannot +remain as it is. I haven't the strength to put it through. I know where +I'd fail. I'd continue to suffer, and so would he. He is noble to the +core of his being. He is doing his best to help me and her, but he is +giving more than he is getting, and that isn't fair. After all, after +all, _there is one thing that I can do for him that he could not do for +me_!" + + +THE END + + + + +BOOKS BY +ZANE GREY + + * * * * * + + _THE U. P. TRAIL_ + _THE DESERT OF WHEAT_ + _WILDFIRE_ + _THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT_ + _RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE_ + _DESERT GOLD_ + _THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS_ + _THE LONE STAR RANGER_ + _THE RAINBOW TRAIL_ + _THE BORDER LEGION_ + _KEN WARD IN THE JUNGLE_ + _THE YOUNG LION HUNTER_ + _THE YOUNG FORESTER_ + _THE YOUNG PITCHER_ + + + + +BOOKS BY +BASIL KING + + * * * * * + + _THE CITY OF COMRADES_ + _ABRAHAM'S BOSOM_ + _THE HIGH HEART_ + _THE LIFTED VEIL_ + _THE INNER SHRINE_ + _THE WILD OLIVE_ + _THE STREET CALLED STRAIGHT_ + _THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS_ + _THE WAY HOME_ + _THE LETTER OF THE CONTRACT_ + _IN THE GARDEN OF CHARITY_ + _THE STEPS OF HONOR_ + _LET NOT MAN PUT ASUNDER_ + + + + +NOVELS OF +WILL N. HARBEN + + "His people talk as if they had not been in books before, + and they talk all the more interestingly because they have + for the most part not been in society, or ever will be. They + express themselves in the neighborly parlance with a fury of + fun, of pathos, and profanity which is native to their + region. Of all our localists, as I may call the type of + American writers whom I think the most national, no one has + done things more expressive of the life he was born to than + Mr. Harben." + + WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS. + + * * * * * + + _THE HILLS OF REFUGE_. + _THE INNER LAW_. + _ABNER DANIEL._ + _ANN BOYD. Illustrated_ + _DIXIE HART. Frontispiece_ + _GILBERT NEAL. Frontispiece_ + _MAM' LINDA._ + _JANE DAWSON. Frontispiece_ + _PAUL RUNDEL. Frontispiece_ + _POLE BAKER._ + _SECOND CHOICE. Frontispiece_ + _THE DESIRED WOMAN. Frontispiece_ + _THE GEORGIANS._ + _THE NEW CLARION. Frontispiece_ + _THE REDEMPTION OF KENNETH GALT. Frontispiece_ + _THE SUBSTITUTE._ + _WESTERFELT._ + +_Post 8vo, Cloth_ + + + + +BOOKS BY +MARGARET DELAND + + * * * * * + + _THE RISING TIDE. Illustrated_ + _AROUND OLD CHESTER. Illustrated_ + _THE COMMON WAY. 16mo_ + _DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE. Illustrated_ + _AN ENCORE. Illustrated_ + _GOOD FOR THE SOUL. Illustrated_ + _THE HANDS OF ESAU. Illustrated_ + _THE AWAKENING OF HELENA RICHIE. Illustrated_ + _THE IRON WOMAN. Illustrated_ + _OLD CHESTER TALES. Illustrated_ + _PARTNERS. Illustrated_ + _R. J.'S MOTHER. Illustrated_ + _THE VOICE. Illustrated_ + _THE WAY TO PEACE. Illustrated_ + _WHERE THE LABORERS ARE FEW. Illustrated_ + + * * * * * + +HARPER & BROTHERS +NEW YORK [Established 1817] LONDON + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Cottage of Delight, by Will N. 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Harben. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cottage of Delight, by Will N. Harben + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Cottage of Delight + A Novel + +Author: Will N. Harben + +Release Date: September 12, 2010 [EBook #33715] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT *** + + + + +Produced by Annie McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT</h1> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Books by</span></h3> + +<h3>WILL N. HARBEN</h3> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE HILLS OF REFUGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE TRIUMPH</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>ABNER DANIEL</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>ANN BOYD</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE DESIRED WOMAN</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>DIXIE HART</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE GEORGIANS</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>GILBERT NEAL</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE INNER LAW</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>JANE DAWSON</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>KENNETH GALT</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>MAM' LINDA</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE NEW CLARION</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>PAUL RUNDEL</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>POLE BAKER</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>SECOND CHOICE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE SUBSTITUTE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>WESTERFELT</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<h4>HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK</h4> + +<h4>[<span class="smcap">Established</span> 1817]</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 402px;"> +<img src="images/ill_001.jpg" width="402" height="600" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>THE</h1> + +<h1>COTTAGE OF DELIGHT</h1> + +<h3>A NOVEL</h3> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>WILL N. HARBEN</h2> + +<p class="center"><i>Author of "Ann Boyd," "Abner Daniel,"</i></p> + +<p class="center"><i>"The Triumph," "The Hills of Judgment," etc.</i></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 79px;"> +<img src="images/ill_002.jpg" width="79" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h4>HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS</h4> + +<h4>NEW YORK AND LONDON</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center">Copyright 1919, by Harper & Brothers</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<h3>PART I</h3> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXII"><b>CHAPTER XXII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXIII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXIV</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXV"><b>CHAPTER XXV</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXVI</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXVII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXVIII"><b>CHAPTER XXVIII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXIX"><b>CHAPTER XXIX</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXX"><b>CHAPTER XXX</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXXI"><b>CHAPTER XXXI</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXXII"><b>CHAPTER XXXII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXXIII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXXIV</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXXV"><b>CHAPTER XXXV</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXXVI</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXXVII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXXVIII"><b>CHAPTER XXXVIII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XXXIX"><b>CHAPTER XXXIX</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XL"><b>CHAPTER XL</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XLI"><b>CHAPTER XLI</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XLII"><b>CHAPTER XLII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XLIII"><b>CHAPTER XLIII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#I_CHAPTER_XLIV"><b>CHAPTER XLIV</b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<h3>PART II</h3> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II_CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II_CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II_CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II_CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II_CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II_CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II_CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II_CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II_CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II_CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II_CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II_CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II_CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II_CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#II_CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PART I</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_I" id="I_CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<p>John Trott waked that morning at five o'clock. Whether it was due to the +mere habit of a working-man or the blowing of the hoarse and mellow +whistle at the great cotton-mills beyond the low, undulating hills +half a mile away he did not know, but for several years the whistle +had been his summons from a state of dead slumber to a day of toil. +The morning was cloudy and dark, so he lighted a dingy oil-lamp with a +cracked and smoked chimney, and in its dim glow drew on his coarse +lime-and-mortar-splotched shirt and overalls. The cheap cotton socks he +put on had holes at the heels and toes; his leather belt had broken and +was tied with a piece of twine; his shoes were quite new and furnished +an odd contrast to the rest of his attire.</p> + +<p>He was young, under twenty, and rather tall. He was slender, but his +frame was sinewy. He had no beard as yet, and his tanned face was +covered with down. His hair was coarse and had a tendency to stand erect +and awry. He had blue eyes, a mouth inclined to harshness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> a manner +somewhat brusk and impatient. To many he appeared absent-minded.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, as he sat tying his shoes, he heard a clatter of pans in the +kitchen down-stairs, and he paused to listen. "I wonder," he thought, +"if that brat is cooking breakfast again. She must be, for neither one +of those women would be out of bed as early as this. It was three +o'clock when they came in."</p> + +<p>Blowing out his light, he groped from the room into the dark passage +outside, and descended the old creaking stairs to the hall below. The +front door was open, and he sniffed angrily. "They didn't even lock it. +They must have been drunk again. Well, that's their business, not mine."</p> + +<p>The kitchen was at the far end of the hall and he turned into it. It was +almost filled with smoke. A little girl stood at the old-fashioned +range, putting sticks of wood in at the door. She was about nine years +of age, wore a cast-off dress, woman's size, and was barefooted. She had +good features, her eyes were blue, her hair abundant and golden, her +hands, now splotched with smut, were small and slender. She was not a +relative of John's, being the orphaned niece of Miss Jane Holder, who +shared the house with John's mother, who was a widow.</p> + +<p>The child's name was Dora Boyles, and she smiled in chagrin as he stared +down on her in the lamplight and demanded:</p> + +<p>"Say, say, what's this—trying to smoke us to death?"</p> + +<p>"I made a mistake," the child faltered. "The damper in the pipe was +turned wrong, and while I was on the back porch, mixing the +biscuit-dough, it smoked before I knew it. It will stop now. You see it +is drawing all right."</p> + +<p>With an impatient snort, he threw open the two windows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> in the room and +opened the outer door, standing aside and watching the blue smoke trail +out, cross the porch floor, and dissolve in the grayish light of dawn.</p> + +<p>"The biscuits are about done," Dora said. "The coffee water has boiled +and I'm going to fry the eggs and meat. The pan is hot and it won't take +long."</p> + +<p>"I was going to get a bite at the restaurant," he answered, in a +mollified tone.</p> + +<p>"But you said the coffee was bad down there and the bread stale," Dora +argued, as she dropped some slices of bacon into the pan. "And once you +said the place was not open and you went to work without anything. I +might as well do this. I can't sleep after the whistle blows. Your ma +and Aunt Jane waked me when they came in. They were awfully lively. The +fellows were singing and cursing and throwing bottles across the street. +Aunt Jane could hardly get up the stairs and had one of her laughing +spells. I think your ma was sober, for I could hear her talking steady +and scolding Aunt Jane about taking a dance from her with some man or +other. Did you see the men? They were the same two that had 'em out last +Friday night, the big one your ma likes and the one Aunt Jane says is +hers. I heard your ma say they were horse-traders from Kentucky, and +have lots and lots of money to spend. That jewelry drummer—do you +remember, that gave me the red pin?—he sent them with a note of +introduction. The pin was no good. The shine is already off of +it—wasn't even washed with gold."</p> + +<p>John was scarcely heeding what she said. He had taken a piece of paper +from his pocket, and with a brick-layer's flat pencil was making some +calculations in regard to a wall he was building. The light was +insufficient at the door and he was now bending over the table near the +lamp.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you want me to make you some flour-and-cream gravy?" she asked, +ignorant of his desire to be undisturbed. "The milk looks good and rich +this morning."</p> + +<p>"No, no!" And he swore under his breath. "Don't you see I'm figuring? +Now I'll have to add up again."</p> + +<p>She made the gravy, anyway. She took out the fried bacon, sprinkled +flour in the brown grease, stirred the mixture vigorously, and then +there was a great sizzling as she added a cup of milk, and, in a cloud +of fragrant steam, still stood stirring. "There," she said, more to +herself than to him. "I'm going to pour it over the bacon. It is better +that way."</p> + +<p>He had finished his figuring and now turned to her. "Are your biscuits +done?" he asked. "I think I smell them."</p> + +<p>"Just about," she answered, and she threw open the door of the oven, +and, holding the hot pan with the long skirt of her dress, she drew it +out. "Good! Just right!" she chuckled. "Now, where do you want to +eat—here or in the dining-room? The table is set in there. Come on. You +bring the coffee-pot."</p> + +<p>Still absently, for his thoughts were on his figures, he followed her +into the adjoining room. It was a bare-looking place, in the dim light +of the lamp which she placed in the center of the small, square table +with its red cloth, for there was no furniture but three or four chairs, +a tattered strip of carpeting, and an old-fashioned safe with perforated +tin panels. Two windows with torn Holland shades and dirty cotton +curtains looked out on the side yard. Beneath the shades the yellowing +glow of approaching sunlight appeared; a sort of fog hovered over +everything outside and its dampness had crept within, moistening the +table-cloth and chairs. John poured his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> own coffee while standing, and +Dora went to bring the other things. His mind was busy over the work he +was to do. Certain stone sills must be placed exactly right in the +brickwork, a new scaffold had to be erected, and he wondered if the +necessary timbers had arrived from the sawmill which his employer, +Cavanaugh, had promised to have delivered the night before in order that +the work might not be delayed. John sat down. He burnt his lips with the +hot coffee, and then pouring some of it into his saucer, he drank it in +that awkward fashion.</p> + +<p>"How is it?" Dora inquired. "Is it strong enough?" She was putting down +a dish containing the fried things and eyed his face anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is all right," he said. "Hurry, will you? Give me something to +eat. I can't stay here all day." He took a hot biscuit and buttered it +and began to eat it like a sandwich. She pushed the dish toward him and +sat down, her hands in her lap, watching his movements with the stare of +a faithful dog.</p> + +<p>"Your ma and Aunt Jane almost had a fist-fight yesterday while they was +dressing to go out," she said, as he helped himself to the eggs and +bacon and began to eat voraciously. "Aunt Jane said she used too much +paint and that she was getting fat. Your ma rushed at her with a big +hair-brush in her hand. She called her a spindle-shanked old hag and +said she was going to tell the men about her false teeth. It would +really have been another case in court if the two horse-men hadn't come +just then. They quieted 'em down and made 'em both take a drink +together. Then they all laughed and cut up."</p> + +<p>"Dry up, will you?" John commanded. "I don't want to hear about them. +Can't you talk about something else?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't mean no harm, brother John." She sometimes used that term in +addressing him. "I wasn't thinking."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't want to hear anything about them or their doings," he +retorted, sullenly. "By some hook or crook they manage to get about all +I make—I know that well enough—and half the time they keep me awake at +night when I'm tired out."</p> + +<p>She remained silent while he was finishing eating, and when he had +clattered out through the hall and slammed the gate after him she began +to partake daintily of the food he had left. "He's awfully touchy," she +mused; "don't think of nothing but his work. Bother him while he is at +it, and you have a fight on your hands."</p> + +<p>Her breakfast eaten, Dora went to the kitchen to heat some water for +dish-washing. She had filled a great pan at the well in the back yard +and was standing by the range when she heard some one descending the +stairs. It was Mrs. Trott, wearing a bedraggled red wrapper, her +stockingless feet in ragged slippers, her carelessly coiled hair falling +down her fat neck. She was about forty years of age, showed traces of +former beauty, notwithstanding the fact that the sockets of her gray +eyes were now puffy, her cheeks swollen and sallow.</p> + +<p>"Is there any hot coffee?" she asked, with a weary sigh. "My head is +fairly splitting. I was just dozing off when I heard you and John making +a clatter down here. I smelled smoke, too. I was half asleep and dreamed +that the house was burning down and I couldn't stir—a sort of +nightmare. Say, after we all left yesterday didn't Jim Darnell come to +see me?"</p> + +<p>"No, not him," Dora replied, wrinkling her brow, "but another fellow +did. A little man with a checked gray suit on. He said he had a date +with you and looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> sorter mad. He asked me if I was your child and I +told him it was none of his business."</p> + +<p>"That was Pete Seltzwick," Mrs. Trott said, as she filled a cup with +coffee from the pot on the stove and began to cool it with breath from +her rather pretty, puckered and painted lips. "You didn't tell him who +we went off with, did you?"</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't," the child replied, then added, "Do you reckon Aunt Jane +would like some coffee before she gets up?"</p> + +<p>"No. She's sound asleep, and will get mad if you wake her. Oh, my head! +My head! And the trouble is I can't sleep! If I could sleep the pain +would go away. Did John leave any money for me? He didn't give me any +last week."</p> + +<p>"No," Dora answered, "he said the hands hadn't been paid off yet. You +know he doesn't talk much."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trott seemed not to hear. Groaning again, she turned toward the +stairway and went up to her room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_II" id="I_CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p>John had passed out at the scarred and battered front door, crossed the +floor of the veranda, and reached the almost houseless street, for he +lived on the outskirts of the town, which was called Ridgeville. On the +hillside to the right was the town cemetery. The fog, shot through with +golden gleams of sunlight, was rising above the white granite and marble +slabs and shafts. Ahead of him and on the right, a mile away, could be +seen the mist-draped steeples of churches, the high roof and cupola of +the county court-house. He heard the distant rumble of a coming +street-car and quickened his step to reach it at the terminus of the +line near by before it started back to the Square. The car was a toylike +affair, drawn by a single horse and in charge of a negro who was both +conductor and driver.</p> + +<p>"Got a ride out er you dis time, boss," the negro said, with a smile, as +John came up. "Met some o' yo' hands goin' in. Want any mo' help ter +tote mortar en' bricks? 'Kase if you do, I'll th'o' up dis job. De +headman said maybe I was stealin' nickels 'kase de traffic is so low dis +spring, en' I didn't turn in much. If you got any room fer—"</p> + +<p>"You'll have to see Sam Cavanaugh," John answered, gruffly. "If you +climb a scaffold as slow as you drive a car you wouldn't suit our job."</p> + +<p>"Huh! dat ain't me; it's dis ol' poky hoss. I'm des hired to bresh de +flies offen his back."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<p>The negro gave a loud guffaw over his own wit and proceeded to unhitch +the trace-chains and drive the horse around to the opposite end of the +car. John entered and took a seat. He drew from the pocket of his short +coat a blue, white-inked drawing and several pages of figures which +Cavanaugh had asked him to look over. A rather pretentious court-house +was to be built in a Tennessee village. Bids on the work had been +invited from contractors in all directions and John's employer had made +an estimate of his own of the cost of the work and had asked John's +opinion of it. John was deeply submerged in the details of the estimate +when the car suddenly started with a jerk. He swore impatiently, and +looked up and scowled, but the slouching back of the driver was turned +to him and the negro was quite unconscious of the wrath he had stirred. +For the first half-mile John was the only passenger; then a woman and a +child got aboard. The car jerked again and trundled onward. The woman +knew who John was and he had seen her before, for he had worked on a +chimney Cavanaugh had built for her, but she did not speak to him nor he +to her. That he had no acquaintances among the women of the town and few +among the men outside of laborers had never struck John as odd. There +were gaudily dressed women who came from neighboring cities and visited +his mother and Jane Holder now and then, but he did not like their +looks, and so he never spoke to them nor encouraged their addressing +him. A psychologist would have classified John as a sort of genius in +his way, for his whole thought and powers of observation pertained to +the kind of work in which he was engaged. Cavanaugh half jestingly +called him a "lightning calculator," and turned to him for advice on all +occasions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> + +<p>Reaching the Square, John sprang from the car and, with the papers in +his hand and the pencil racked above his ear, he hurried into a +hardware-store and approached a clerk who was sweeping the floor.</p> + +<p>"We need those nails and bolts this morning," he said, gruffly. "You +were to send them around yesterday."</p> + +<p>"They are in the depot, but the agent hasn't sent 'em up yet," the clerk +answered. "We'll get them around to you by ten o'clock sharp."</p> + +<p>"That won't do." John frowned. "We could have got them direct from the +wholesale house, and have had them long ago, but Sam would deal with +you. He is too good-natured and you fellers all impose on him."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do," the clerk proposed. "I'll send a +dray for them this minute and you'll have them on the ground in a +half-hour."</p> + +<p>"All right," John said, coldly, and turned away.</p> + +<p>The building on which he was at work was a brick residence in a +side-street near by which was being erected for a wealthy banker of +Ridgeville, and as John approached it he saw a group of negro laborers +seated on a pile of lumber at the side of the half-finished house.</p> + +<p>"Here comes John now," one of them said, and it was significant that his +given name was used, for it was a fact that a white man in John's +position would, as a rule, be spoken of in a more formal manner, but to +whites and blacks alike he was simply "John" or "John Trott." This was +partly due, perhaps, to his youth, but there was no doubt that John's +lack of social standing had something to do with it. He had been nothing +but a dirty, neglected street urchin, a playmate of blacks and the +lowest whites, till Cavanaugh had put him to work and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> had discovered in +him a veritable dynamo of physical and mental energy.</p> + +<p>"Good morning," several of the negroes said, cordially, but John barely +nodded. It was his way, and they thought nothing of it.</p> + +<p>"Has Sam got here yet?" he inquired of a stalwart mortar-mixer called +Tobe.</p> + +<p>"No, suh, boss, he 'ain't," said the negro. "I was gwine ter see 'im. +I'm out o' sand—not mo' 'n enough ter las' twell—"</p> + +<p>"Four loads will be dumped here in half an hour," John broke in. "Did +you patch that hose? Don't let the damn thing leak like it did +yesterday."</p> + +<p>"It's all right, boss. She won't bust erg'in." The negro smiled. +Evidently he had not washed his face that day, for splotches of +whitewash with globules of dry mortar were on his black cheeks and the +backs of his hands.</p> + +<p>The whistle at a shingle-factory blew. It was eight o'clock, the hour +for work to begin.</p> + +<p>"Mort'!" John's command was directed to two mortar-carriers, who +promptly grasped their padded wooden hods and made for the mortar-bed +where Tobe was already shoving and pulling the grayish mass to and fro +with a hoe.</p> + +<p>John hung up his coat on the trunk of an apple-tree into which some +nails had been driven, and took his trowel and other tools from a long +wooden box with a sloping water-proof lid. He was about to ascend the +scaffold when he saw Cavanaugh approaching and signaling to him to wait.</p> + +<p>The contractor was a man of sixty years, whose beard and hair were quite +gray. He was short and stocky, slow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> of movement, and gentle and genial +in his manner. He had been a contractor for fifteen years, and had +accumulated nothing, which his friends said was owing to his good nature +in not insisting on his rights when it came to charges and settlements. +Widows and frugal maiden ladies would have no one else to build for +them, for Sam Cavanaugh was noted for his honesty and liberality, and he +was never known to use faulty material.</p> + +<p>"Mort' there! Get a move on you, boys!" John was eying his employer with +impatience as he approached. "Fill all four boards and scrape the dry +off clean!"</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute, John!" Cavanaugh said, almost pleadingly. "I want to see +you about the court-house bid. I want to mail it this morning."</p> + +<p>"What! And hold up this whole gang?" John snorted, impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Oh, let 'em wait—let 'em wait this time," Cavanaugh said. "Where are +the papers?"</p> + +<p>With a suppressed oath, John went to his coat and got them. "I haven't +time to go over all that, Sam," he answered. "Wait till dinner-time."</p> + +<p>"But I thought you was going to look it over at home," the contractor +said, crestfallen, as he took the papers into his fat hands.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I've looked them over, all right," John replied, "and that's the +trouble—that's why it will take time to talk it over."</p> + +<p>"You mean— I see." Cavanaugh pulled at his short, stiff beard +nervously. "I'm too high, and you are afraid I'll lose the job."</p> + +<p>"Too high nothing!" John sniffed, with a harsh smile. "You are so damned +low that they will make you give double security to keep you from +falling down on it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> Say, Sam, you told me you was in need of money and +want to make something out of this job. Well, if you do, and want me to +go up there in charge of the brickwork, you will have to make out +another bid. I'm done with seeing you come out by the skin of your teeth +in nearly every job you bid on. When a county builds a court-house like +that they expect to pay for it."</p> + +<p>"Why, I thought— I thought—" Cavanaugh began.</p> + +<p>But John broke in: "You thought a thousand dollars would cover the +ironwork. It will take two. The market reports show that steel beams +have gone out of sight. Nails are up, too, and bolts, screws, locks, and +all lines of plumbing material."</p> + +<p>"Why, John, I thought—"</p> + +<p>"You don't keep posted." John glanced up at the scaffold as if anxious +to get to work. "Then look at your estimate of sash, doors, blinds, and +glass. You are under the cost by seven hundred at least. And where in +God's world could you get slate at your figure? And the clock and bell +according to the requisition? Sam, you made those figures when you were +asleep."</p> + +<p>"Then you think I could afford— I want the job bad, my boy—do you +reckon I could land it if I raised my offer, say by fifteen hundred?"</p> + +<p>"You will have to raise it four thousand," John said, thoughtfully. +"Think of the risk you would be running. If the slightest thing goes +crooked the official inspectors will make you tear it down and do it +over. Look at your estimate on painting," pointing with the tip of his +trowel at a line on the quivering manuscript which the contractor held +before his spectacled eyes. "You are away under on it. White lead is +booming, and oil and varnish, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> you have left out stacks of small +items—sash cords, sash weights, and putty."</p> + +<p>"Then you think this won't do?" Cavanaugh's face was turning red.</p> + +<p>"Do? It will do if you want to present several thousand dollars to one +of the richest counties in Tennessee. Why, one of those big farmers up +there could build that house and give it to the state without hurting +himself, while you hardly own a roof over your head."</p> + +<p>"You may be right about my figures," Cavanaugh muttered. "Say, John, I +want to get this bid off. Leave the bricklaying to Pete Long and come +over to the hotel and write it out for me."</p> + +<p>"And let him ruin my wall?" John snorted. "Not on your life! His mortar +joints are as thick as the mud in the cracks of a log cabin. I'll do it +to-night after I go home, but not before. I don't believe any man ought +to let one job stand idle in order to try to hook another. To-morrow is +Saturday. They couldn't get the bid anyway till Monday. There will be +plenty of time."</p> + +<p>As John finished he was turning to the scaffold. "Well, all right," +Cavanaugh called after him. "That will have to do."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_III" id="I_CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p>When the steam-whistles of the shops and mills of Ridgeville blew that +afternoon at dusk John descended from the scaffold and put his tools +away. He was the last of the workers on the spot, and when he had put on +his coat he went around to the side of the building and with a critical +eye scanned the wall he had worked on that day.</p> + +<p>"It will look all right when it is washed down with acid," he mused. +"That will straighten the lines and tone it up."</p> + +<p>He was too late for the car and walked home. He found Jane Holder in the +kitchen, preparing supper. She was a slight woman of thirty-five, dark, +erect, with brown, twinkling eyes and short chestnut hair which had not +regained its normal length since it was cut during a spell of fever the +preceding winter. Touches of paint showed on her yellowish cheeks, and +her false teeth gave to her thin-lipped mouth a rather too full, harsh +expression.</p> + +<p>"Oh, here you are!" She smiled. "I know you are hungry as a bear, but I +had my hands full with all sorts of things. I was sewing on my new +organdie and got the waist plumb out of joint. Your ma promised to help +fit it on me, but Harrington, one of those horse-dealers, come by in a +hurry to drive her to Rome behind two brag blacks, and she dropped me +and my work to get ready. She is always doing me that way. She makes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> a +cat's-paw of me. May Tomlin is going to have a dance at her house +to-night and wrote Harrington to bring her. She left me clean out, +though when May stayed here that time I was nice to her and introduced +her to all my friends. Your ma didn't care a rap about me. She was +going, and that was enough for her."</p> + +<p>John simply grunted and turned away. He had not heard half she said. On +the back porch was a tin wash-basin and a cedar pail. He wanted to bathe +his face and hands, for his skin was clammy and coated with sand and +brick-dust, but the pail was empty, so he took it to the well close by +and filled it. He was about to return to the porch when he saw Dora, the +woman's skirt pinned up about her slight waist, coming from the cow-lot +with a tin pail half filled with milk.</p> + +<p>"I had trouble with the cow," she said, wistfully, in her quaint, +half-querulous voice. "While I was milking, she turned around to see her +calf and mashed me against the fence. I pushed and pushed, but I +couldn't move her. Once I thought my breath was gone entirely. The calf +run along the fence, and she went after it, and that let me loose. I +lost nearly half the milk, and Aunt Jane will give me the very devil +about it. Well, Liz— I mean your mother's gone for the night, and we +won't need quite so much. She's been drinking it for her complexion. +Some woman told her—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, cut it out!" John cried, with a suppressed oath. "You chatter like +a feed-cutting machine."</p> + +<p>He took the water to the porch, filled the basin, and washed his face, +hands, and neck. He was just finishing when Dora came to him with a +tattered cotton towel. "It is damp," she explained, apologetically. "I +ironed them in a hurry when they were too wet. They ought to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> have been +hung out in the sun longer, but the sun was low when I got through +washing, and so I brought some of them in too soon. Your ma and Aunt +Jane use the best ones in their rooms, and leave the ragged ones for +us."</p> + +<p>"You forgot something you promised to do, brother John," she added, +timidly, as he stood vigorously wiping his face and neck.</p> + +<p>"What was that?" he mumbled in the towel.</p> + +<p>"Why, you promised to send a nigger to cut me some stove-wood and +kindling. I tried to cut some myself to-day, but the ax is dull and I +had trouble getting enough wood for to-night and in the morning. Will +you send him to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he nodded. "I'll make one of the boys come over and cut it and +store it under the shed. There is a lot of pine scraps at the building. +I'll send a load of them over, too."</p> + +<p>After supper, which he had with Jane Holder and her niece in the dimly +lighted dining-room, he went up to his room and prepared to work on the +estimates for Cavanaugh. He was very tired, and yet the calculations +interested him and drove away the tendency to sleep. Down-stairs he +heard Jane laughing and talking to some masculine visitor. He had a +vague impression that he knew the man, a young lawyer who was a +candidate for the Legislature. John had been approached by the man, who +had asked for his vote, but John was not of age and, moreover, he had no +interest in politics. In fact, he scarcely knew the meaning of the word. +Politics and religion were mysteries for which he had little but +contempt. He used to say that politicians were grafters and preachers +fakers, though he did believe that Cavanaugh, who was a devout +Methodist, was, while deluded, decidedly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> sincere. He heard Dora's voice +down-stairs as she timidly asked her aunt if she might go to bed.</p> + +<p>"Have you washed the dishes and put them up?" Jane asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, 'm," the child said, and John heard her ascending the stairs to +her room back of his. She used no light, and he heard her bare feet +softly treading the floor as she undressed in the dark. Soon all was +quiet in her room, and he plunged again into his work.</p> + +<p>Finally it was concluded, and he folded the sheets on which he had +written so clearly and so accurately and went to bed. It was an hour +before he went to sleep. He could still hear the low mumbling, broken by +laughter, below, but that did not disturb him. It was his figures and +estimates squirming like living things in his brain that kept him awake +till near midnight.</p> + +<p>The next morning he decided to walk to the Square, that he might stop at +Cavanaugh's cottage and hand him the papers.</p> + +<p>The little house of only six rooms stood in another part of the town's +edge. Close behind it was a swamp filled with willow-trees and bracken, +and farther beyond lay a strip of woodland that sloped down from a +rugged mountain range. There was a white paling fence in front, a few +fruit-trees at the sides, and a grape-arbor and vegetable-garden behind. +Mrs. Cavanaugh, a portly woman near her husband's age, was on the tiny +porch, sweeping, and she looked up and smiled as John entered the gate.</p> + +<p>"Sam's just gone down to the swamp to see what's become of our two +hens," she said. "He'll be back in a few minutes. He'd like to see you. +He thinks a lot of you, John."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I haven't time to wait," John explained, taking the papers from his +pocket and handing them to her. "Give these to him. He will know all +about them."</p> + +<p>"I know— I understand. They are the bid on that court-house." She +smiled broadly. "Sam was awfully set back. He told me all about it last +night. He admits he was hasty, but, la me! he is so anxious to land that +contract that he can hardly sleep. You see, he thinks maybe it is our +one chance to lay by a little. You see, Sam hasn't the heart to charge +stiff prices here among Ridgeville folks, but he feels like he's got a +right to make something out of a public building like that one. He says +you insisted on a bigger bid and he is between two fires. He wants to +abide by your judgment and still he is afraid you may have your sights +too high. You see, he says some of the biggest contractors will send in +bids and that they will cut under him because they are bigger buyers of +material."</p> + +<p>"Sam's off there," John said, thoughtfully. "He can borrow all the money +he needs for a job like that and he can get material as cheap as any of +them. The main item is brick, and that is made right here in town, and +the stone is got out and cut here, too."</p> + +<p>"You may be right," the woman said. "But to tell you the truth, John, +Sam is afraid you are too young to decide on a matter as big as this +deal. Several men he knows have advised him to make as low a bid as +possible."</p> + +<p>"Well, if he cuts under the estimates I've made in those papers," John +returned, "he'll lose money or barely get out whole. I want to see him +make something in his old age. I'm tired of seeing folks ride a free +horse to death. He may be underbid on this, and if he loses the job +he'll curse me out, but I'm willing to risk it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> John turned away. +"Just hand 'em to him," he said, from the little sagging gate, "and tell +him that is my final estimate. If he wants to change it he may do so. +I'm acting on my best judgment."</p> + +<p>Half an hour later, as John was on the scaffold at work, Cavanaugh +crossed the street and slowly ascended the ladders and runways till he +stood on the narrow platform at the young mason's side. He held a long +envelop which had been stamped and addressed in his fat hand. John saw +him, but, being busy cutting a brick with his trowel and fitting into a +mortar-filled niche a bat of exactly the right size, he did not pause or +speak. It was his way, and had so long been his way that Cavanaugh had +become used to it.</p> + +<p>"Hey, hey! Get a move on you down there!" John shouted. "This mort' is +getting dry!"</p> + +<p>"Hold up a minute, John!" the contractor said. "My wife handed me the +papers. I wrote the letter and stamped it and put in the bid exactly as +you had it and was on the way to the post-office with it when I met +Renfro going in the bank by the side door. You know he expects to lend +me the money if it goes through—my bid, I mean—and he asked me what I +was going to do. I told him, and he wanted to look over the bid. I let +him, and he looked serious. He said he thought you was too steep, and if +I wanted to get the job, why, I'd better—"</p> + +<p>"I know," John sneered. "He thinks he knows something about building, +but he is as green as a gourd. I've given you my judgment—take it or +not, Sam, as you think fit. As big as I've made that bid, I'm afraid you +will be sorry you didn't make it bigger."</p> + +<p>"Renfro says young folks always aim too high,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> Cavanaugh ventured, +tentatively. "He's got the money ready, he says, and wants me to win."</p> + +<p>John was cutting another brick in halves. His steel trowel rang like a +bell as he tossed the red brick like a ball in his strong, splaying +hand. Cavanaugh took a small piece of a tobacco-plug from the pocket of +his baggy trousers and automatically broke off a tiny bit and put it +into his hesitating mouth:</p> + +<p>"I want that job, John," he faltered, as he began to chew. "I've set my +heart on it. It is the biggest deal I ever tackled, and I'd like to put +it through. I want me and you to go up there and work on it. It would be +a fine change for us both."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't want to go if it is a losing proposition," John said, as +he filled his trowel with mortar and skilfully dashed it on the highest +layer of bricks. "And if you cut under my estimate you will come out at +the little end of the horn."</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh stood silent. A negro was dumping the contents of a hod on +John's board and scraping out the clinging mortar with a stick. When the +man had gone down the cleated runway and John was raising his line for +another layer of bricks, Cavanaugh sighed deeply.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "I'll tell you what I'm going to do, John. I'm going to +mail the bid just as you made it out and trust to luck. I'm going to do +it. I admit I've been awfully upset over it, but I can't remember that +you ever gave me wrong advice, young as you are. My wife says I ought to +do it, and I feel so now, anyway."</p> + +<p>It was as if John had not heard his employer's concluding words. He was +standing on his tiptoes, leaning over and carefully plumbing the wall on +the outside.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm going to drop it in the post-office right now,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> Cavanaugh +said, as he started down the planks. "After all, there may be a hundred +bids sent in, and some of the bidders may have all sorts of political +pulls."</p> + +<p>Again John seemed not to hear. He was tapping a protruding brick with +the handle of his trowel and gently driving it into line. "All +right—all right," he said, absently, and he frowned thoughtfully as he +applied his plumb to the wall and eyed it critically.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_IV" id="I_CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p>The residence on which John was at work was almost finished. He was on +the highest scaffold one morning, superintending the slating of the +roof, when, hearing Cavanaugh shouting on the sidewalk below, he glanced +down. The contractor, with his thin alpaca coat on his arm, was +signaling to him to come down.</p> + +<p>"All right," John said. "In a minute. I'm busy now. Don't throw the +broken ones away," he added to the workers. "Stack 'em up. We get +rebates on them, and have to count the bad ones."</p> + +<p>"Right you are, boss," a negro answered, with a chuckle. "Besides, we +might split somebody's skull open."</p> + +<p>"Oh, come on down!" Cavanaugh shouted again, with his cupped hands at +his lips. "I want to see you."</p> + +<p>"I can't do two things at once," John said, with a frown and a +suppressed oath. "Say, boys, get that next line straight! Look for +cracked slate, take 'em out, and lap the smooth ones right."</p> + +<p>He found Cavanaugh near the front fence. The contractor was fond of +jesting when he was in a good humor, and from his smiling face he seemed +to-day to be in the best of spirits.</p> + +<p>"No use finishing the roof," he said, squinting along the north wall of +the building. "That wall is out of plumb and has to come down. Great +pity. Foundation must have settled. That's bad, my boy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, it was <i>your</i> foundation, not mine," John retorted, seeing his +trend. "What do you want?"</p> + +<p>Slowly Cavanaugh took a letter from the pocket of his baggy trousers and +held it in his fat hands. "What you think this letter is about?" He +smiled with tobacco-stained lips.</p> + +<p>"How the devil would I know?" John asked, impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll tell you," Cavanaugh continued. "It is from the Ordinary of +Chipley County, Tennessee. He says he is writing to all the many bidders +on that court-house to let 'em know the final decision on the bids. He +was powerful sorry, he said, to have to tell me that I was nowhere nigh +the lowest mark. Read what he says."</p> + +<p>Wondering over his friend's mood, John opened the letter. It was a +formal and official acceptance of the bid made by Cavanaugh. Without a +change of countenance John folded the sheet, put it into the envelop, +and handed it back. Some negroes were passing with stacks of slates on +their shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Be careful there, Bob!" he ordered, sharply. "You drop another load of +those things and I'll dock you for a day's pay."</p> + +<p>"All right now, boss," the negro laughed. "I got erhold of 'em."</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you think?" Cavanaugh's gray eyes were twinkling with +delight. "Lord! Lord! My boy, I feel like flying! I've laid awake many a +night over this, and now it is ours. Gee! I could dance! I told Jim Luce +about it at the post-office just now. He is going to write it up in his +paper. Gosh! I'm glad this house is finished! We are foot-loose now and +can set in up there whenever we like."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was like John Trott to make no comments. He was watching the workers +on the roof with a restless eye. The air resounded with the clatter of +the hammers and the grating of the slates one against the other as they +were selected and put down.</p> + +<p>"You are an odd boy," Cavanaugh said, with a pleased chuckle. "What are +you looking at up there?"</p> + +<p>"They are not on to that job." John frowned. "Those coons work like they +were at a corn-shucking. They don't drive the nails right. They are +breaking a lot of slate and losing enough nails to shingle a barn."</p> + +<p>"Oh, they are all right." Cavanaugh spat and chewed unctuously. "Gee! +What if they do break a few slates? We are in the swim, my boy, and +we'll give that county the prettiest court-house in the state, and the +people will appreciate it." Therewith, Cavanaugh put his hand on John's +arm and the look of merriment passed. "I've got to say it, my boy, and +be done with it. You kept me from making a dern fool of myself and +losing the little I have saved up. If it hadn't been for you—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, cut it out, Sam!" There was an expression of embarrassed irritation +on the young man's face. He was turning to leave, but Cavanaugh, still +holding his arm, drew him back.</p> + +<p>"I won't cut it out!" He all but gulped, cleared his throat, and went +on: "I owe you my thanks and an apology. Only yesterday I got weak-kneed +because I hadn't heard from up there, and told Renfro and some others +who wanted to know about the bid that I had done wrong to listen to as +young a man as you are. I said that, and even talked to my wife about it +the same way, and now we all see you was right. John, I don't intend to +let you keep on at your old wages. You are not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> getting enough by a long +shot, and from now on I'll give you a third more. I'm going to make some +money out of this deal and you deserve something for what you have +done."</p> + +<p>John looked pleased. "Oh, I'll take the raise, all right," he said, with +one of his rare smiles. "I can find a use for the money."</p> + +<p>"Say, John"—Cavanaugh pressed his arm affectionately—"this will be our +first jaunt away any distance together. We can have a lot o' fun. I'm +going to order me a new suit of clothes, and I am going to make you a +present of one, too. You needn't kick," as John drew back suddenly, "it +will be powerful small pay for all the figuring you did at night when +you was plumb fagged out."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll take the suit, too," John said, and smiled again. "You are +liberal, Sam, but you always was that way."</p> + +<p>"Well, we'll go to the tailor shop together at noon," Cavanaugh said, +delightedly. "You can help me pick out mine and I'll see that Parker +fits you. You have got some shape to you, my boy, and you will cut a +shine up there."</p> + +<p>Leaving his employer, John ascended to the roof again, this time through +the interior of the almost finished house, and out by a dormer window. +The old town stretched out beneath him. To the east the hills and +mountains rose majestically in their blue and green robe under the +mellow rays of the sun. A fresh breeze fanned John's face. A man near +him broke a slate by an unskilful stroke of the hammer and raised an +abashed glance to John.</p> + +<p>"It is all right, Tim," he said. "I'm no good at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> slating myself. You +are doing pretty well for a new hand. Say, Sam's landed that court-house +contract."</p> + +<p>The nailers and their assistants had heard. The hammers ceased their +clatter. Cavanaugh was seen standing in the middle of the road, looking +up at them. A man raised a cheer. Hats and hammers were waved and three +resounding cheers rang out. Cavanaugh took off his straw hat and stood +bowing, smiling, and waving.</p> + +<p>"Lucky old duck!" Tim, who was a white man, said, "and he was afraid it +would fall through."</p> + +<p>John's glance roved over the town, the only spot he had ever known. +Beyond the outskirts ran the creeks in which he had fished and bathed as +a ragged boy. Toward the south rose the graveyard a mile away. He could +see the dim roof of the ramshackle house in which he had lived since he +was five years of age. John looked at his watch.</p> + +<p>"Get a move on you, boys," he said, in his old tone. "Say, that last +line is an eighth too low at this end. Lift it up. Take off the three +slates this way and nail 'em back. Damn it! Take 'em off, even if you +break 'em. I won't have a line like that in this job. It shows plain +from this window."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_V" id="I_CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<p>Two weeks later Cavanaugh and John left for Cranston, the Tennessee +village where the new building was to be erected. They had on their new +clothes and were smoking cigars which Cavanaugh had bought. Some of the +negroes and whites who had worked under them came to the depot to see +them off, and they all stood on the platform, waiting for the train. +There was much mild gaiety and frequent jests. Cavanaugh was quite +talkative, but John, as usual, was silent. The men had jested with the +contractor about his new clothes, but no one dared to allude to John's. +Indeed, John seemed unconscious of his change of appearance. But for his +coarse red hands, his rough, tanned face, and stiff, unkempt hair, he +would have appeared rather distinguished-looking. A bevy of young ladies +of the best social set of the town, accompanied by several of their +young men associates, had gathered to see one of their number off. They +passed close to John, but paid not the slightest attention to him, and +they made no impression on him. That there was such a thing as social +lines and castes had never occurred to him. He saw the young lawyer who +stealthily visited Jane Holder join the group and stand chatting, but +even this gave him no food for reflection. In regard to extraneous +matters John Trott seemed asleep, but in all things pertaining to his +work he was wide awake. His mental ability, strength of will, and dearth +of opportunity would have set a psychologist to speculating on his +future, but there were no psychologists<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> in Ridgeville. Ministers, +editors, teachers, fairly well-read citizens, met John Trott almost +daily and passed him without even a thought of the complex conditions of +his life and of the inevitable awakening ahead of him.</p> + +<p>When the train came, John and Cavanaugh said good-by to their friends +and got aboard. They threw their cigars away and found seats in the best +car on the train. It was the first trip of any length that John had ever +taken, and yet he did not deport himself like a novice. Cavanaugh bought +peanuts, candy, and a newspaper from the train "butcher," but John +declined them. His employer had spoken to him about some inside walls +and partitions which had to be so arranged in the new building as to +admit of some alcoves and recesses not down in the specifications, and +John was turning the matter over in his mind.</p> + +<p>A few miles from Ridgeville a young couple got on the train and came +into the car. The young man was little older than John and looked like a +farmer in his best clothes. He was flushed and nervous. His companion +was a dainty girl in a new traveling-dress. They sat near an open window +and through it came showers of rice, a pair of old slippers, and merry +jests from male and female voices outside.</p> + +<p>"Bride and groom," Cavanaugh whispered, nudging his companion. "She is a +cute little trick, ain't she? My, my! how that takes me back!"</p> + +<p>The entire car was staring at the self-conscious pair, who were trying +to appear unconcerned. The train moved on. John was no longer thinking +of his work. His whole being was aflame with a new thought. Strange, but +the idea of marriage as pertaining to himself had never come to him +before. The sight of the pair side by side, the strong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> masculine neck +and shoulders, and the slender neck and pretty head of the girl with the +tender blue eyes, fair skin, and red lips appealed to him as nothing had +ever done before.</p> + +<p>"That is the joy due every healthy pair in the world," Cavanaugh went +on, reminiscently. "Life isn't worth a hill of beans without it. These +young folks will settle down in some neat little cottage filled with +pure delight—that's what it will be, a cottage of delight for them. +He'll work in the field and she will be at home ready for him when he +gets back. Look how they lean against each other! I can't see from here, +but I will bet you he is holding her little soft hand."</p> + +<p>For the next half an hour the couple was under John's observation. He +found himself unable to think of anything aside from his own +mind-pictures of their happiness.</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh was full of the idea also. "It is ahead of you, too, my boy," +he said. "You are old enough and are now making enough money to start +out on. Pick you some good, sweet, industrious girl. There are plenty of +the right sort, and they will love a man to death if he treats 'em +right. Look, she's got her head on his shoulder, but she's not going to +sleep. She's just playing 'possum. There, by gum! he kissed her! If he +didn't I am powerfully mistaken. Well, who has a better right?"</p> + +<p>The pair left the train at a station in the woods where there were no +houses and two wagon-roads crossed and where a buggy and a horse stood +waiting. Through the window John saw the bridegroom leading the bride +toward it. Beyond lay mountain ranges against the clear sky, fields +filled with waving corn and yellowing wheat. The near-by forests looked +dank, dense, and cool.</p> + +<p>"It is ahead of you, too, my boy!" The old man's words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> rang again in +his ears as the train moved on and the pair and their warm faces were +lost to view. John took out some notes he had made in regard to the +masonry of a vault in the new building and tried to fix his mind on +them, but it was difficult to do. The mental picture of that young +couple filled his whole being with a strange titillating warmth. Within +an hour his view of life had broadened wonderfully. He was not devoid of +imagination and it was now being directed for the first time away from +the details of his occupation. He could not have analyzed his state of +mind, but he had taken his first step into what was a veritable new +birth.</p> + +<p>"It is ahead of you, too, my boy!" Nothing Cavanaugh had ever said to +him could have meant so much as those words. A home, a wife all his own. +Why had he never thought of it before? He was conscious of a sort of +filial love for the old contractor that was as new as the other feeling. +He was conscious, too, of a new sense of manhood, and a pride in his +professional ability that was bound to help him forward.</p> + +<p>It was three o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived at Cranston. The +Ordinary of the county, at Cavanaugh's request, had arranged board for +the two men at the house of a farmer, there being no hotel in the +village where board could be had by the week at a rate low enough for a +laborer's pocket. So at the station they were met by the farmer himself, +Richard Whaley, who stepped forward from a group of staring mountaineers +and stiffly introduced himself.</p> + +<p>He was a man of sixty-five, bald, gray as to hair and beard, and +slightly bent from rheumatism. His skin was yellowish and had the brown +splotches which indicate general physical decay.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + +<p>"My old woman is looking for you," he said, coldly. "She made the +arrangement. I have nothing to do with it. She and my daughter do all +the cooking and housework. If they want to make a little extra money I +can't object. The whole county is excited over the new court-house. They +act and talk like it was Solomon's temple, and will look on you two as +divine agents of some sort. Folks are fools, as you no doubt know."</p> + +<p>"A little bit—from experience," Cavanaugh joked. "The Ordinary tells me +you are a Methodist. That's what I am, brother, and I'll love to live +under a Methodist roof once more."</p> + +<p>"Yes, thank God! that's what I am," Whaley said. "My wife is, too. I'll +show you our meeting-house when we pass it. I've got a Bible-class. It +is the biggest in the county—twenty-two members."</p> + +<p>"That is a whopper," Cavanaugh said. "I'd like to set and listen +sometimes. I've had fresh light given me many a day by other men's +interpretations of passages I'd overlooked."</p> + +<p>"We are very thorough," Whaley responded, warming up to the subject. +Then he turned to John. "What church do you belong to?" he asked, rather +sharply.</p> + +<p>"I haven't joined any yet," John answered. He was slightly embarrassed +and yet could not have told why.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he will come around all right before long," Cavanaugh thrust in, +quickly. "I've got him in charge."</p> + +<p>"Well, he is old enough to affiliate somewhere," the farmer said, +crisply. "It is getting entirely too common these days to meet young +folks that think they can get along without divine guidance. That is our +meeting-house there. We are laying off to put a fresh coat of paint on +it in the fall."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>They passed the little steepled structure and walked on down the thinly +inhabited street which was as much a country road as a street, till they +came to a two-story house with a small farm behind it. A tall, thin +woman in a gingham dress sat on the long veranda and rose at their +approach.</p> + +<p>"This is the house and that's my wife," Whaley explained. "The property +isn't mine. I'm just a renter, but I can keep it as long as I want to. +We've been here ten years." He opened the gate and let the new-comers +enter ahead of him. They were introduced. Mrs. Whaley shook hands as +stiffly as had her husband.</p> + +<p>"Come right in," she said, smiling. "I know you've had a hot, dusty +train-ride, and I reckon you will want to rest."</p> + +<p>They put down their bags in the little bare-looking hallway from which a +narrow flight of stairs ascended, and followed her into a big parlor on +the right. Here they took chairs. The afternoon sun shone in through six +wide windows and fell on the clean, carpetless floor. A wide fireplace +was filled with the boughs of mountain cedar, and the hearth had been +freshly whitewashed. There was a table in the center of the room, a tiny +cottage organ between two windows, and some crude and gaudy print +pictures in mahogany frames on the walls. The four individuals formed an +awkward, purposeless group, and no one seemed able to think of anything +to say. John was wondering what could possibly happen next, when Mrs. +Whaley said:</p> + +<p>"I know you both must be thirsty. I'll get Tilly to fetch in some fresh +water from the well."</p> + +<p>She rose stiffly and left the room. "Oh, Tilly! Tilly! where are you?" +they heard her calling in the back part<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> of the house. "Leave the +churning a minute and draw up a bucket of fresh water. They are here."</p> + +<p>Through the open windows from the shaded back yard John heard a girlish +voice answering, "I'm coming, mother." Then there was a whir of a loose +wooden windlass and the dull thump of a bucket as it struck the surface +of the water. This was followed by the slow creaking of the windlass and +a sound of pouring water.</p> + +<p>"We didn't come here to be waited on like a couple of nabobs," Cavanaugh +jested. "Let's go out to the well. We ought to begin right and be done +with it. The last time I boarded in the country I chopped my own +fire-wood and toted it in. I'd have washed the dishes I messed up, but +the women of the house wouldn't let me."</p> + +<p>Without protest Whaley got up and led the way through the sitting-room, +dining-room, and kitchen to the well in the yard where Mrs. Whaley and +her daughter, a girl of about eighteen years of age, stood filling some +glasses on a tray.</p> + +<p>"My daughter Tilly," Whaley said, indifferently. "The only one I have +left. Her two sisters married and moved off West. Her brother Tom died +awhile back."</p> + +<p>The girl seemed shy, and scarcely lifted her eyes as she advanced and +held out her hand first to Cavanaugh and then to John. She was slight of +build, not above medium height, and had blue eyes and abundant chestnut +hair.</p> + +<p>"Pass the water 'round," her mother instructed her, but both John and +Cavanaugh stepped forward and helped themselves. For a moment Tilly +stood hesitating, and then she turned to her churn at the kitchen door +and began to raise and lower the dasher. She had rolled up her sleeves, +and John, who was covertly watching her, saw her round white wrists and +shapely fingers. The way her unbound hair fell about her neck and lay +quivering on her moving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> shoulders caught and held his fancy. How +gloriously different she seemed from the only girls he had ever met, the +bedizened creatures whom he sometimes saw at his home with his mother +and Jane Holder! And, strange to say, he almost pitied Tilly for being +bound as she was to the two unemotional old people who seemed to rule +her as with a rod of iron. What a patient little sentient machine she +seemed!</p> + +<p>"You'll want to see your rooms, I reckon," Whaley said. "Amelia'll show +you up-stairs. The Ordinary said he didn't think you'd be +over-particular. They have plenty of air and light."</p> + +<p>John was delighted with his room. It was palatial compared to the sordid +den he inhabited at home in its constant disorder and dirt. As he +glanced about him, noted the snowy whiteness of the towels at the +wash-stand, the freshly laundered white window-curtains, and the clean +pillows and coverlet of the great wide bed, he had a sense of meeting a +new experience in life that was vastly gratifying. He heard Cavanaugh +clattering about in his room across the narrow passage, and smiled. The +old man's words, "A cottage filled with pure delight," rang in his ears +like a haunting strain of music.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_VI" id="I_CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<p>They had supper at six o'clock in the big dining-room. The sun was not +yet down, and through the open windows and door John looked out on a +small but orderly arranged flower-garden upon which the slanting rays of +the sun rested. Whaley sat at the head of the table, his wife at the +foot. Tilly was not in sight. She was in the adjoining kitchen, and as +he sat with his wrinkled hands crossed over his down-turned plate, her +father suddenly called out to her.</p> + +<p>"Tilly," he cried, "come set down till the blessing is asked, and then +you can bring the things in."</p> + +<p>Her face flushed as from the heat of the stove, the girl came in and +slipped demurely into a chair opposite John and next to Cavanaugh. John +had never gone through such an ordeal before, and he felt awkward. He +noticed that all the others had lowered their heads, and he did +likewise, though he had a certain rebellious feeling against it.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you have been accustomed to," Whaley suddenly said, +looking at Cavanaugh, "but I have always held, as a principle, that the +head of a house ought to ask the blessing on it; so you will understand, +sir, that in failing to call on you I mean no disrespect."</p> + +<p>"Oh, not at all," the contractor mumbled. "I think you are right about +that. I always do it at home. Of course, if there is an ordained +minister on hand, I ask him, but otherwise I don't."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, I don't even in that case," Whaley answered, crustily. "I've +always made it a rule, and I stick to it." Then he cleared his throat, +lowered his head again, and prayed aloud at some length. John could not +have recalled afterward what it was that he had said, for the most of +the words used were unusual and high-sounding.</p> + +<p>The prayer was no sooner ended than Tilly rose and hastened from the +room. She came back almost instantly with a great platter of fried ham +and eggs and a plate of steaming biscuits, and began to pass them +around.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter with your hand, Tilly?" her mother asked, and John, +who was helping himself from the dish the girl was offering him, noted +that a red welt lay across the back of one of her small hands.</p> + +<p>"I burnt it getting the biscuits out," Tilly answered, almost beneath +her breath.</p> + +<p>"How foolish!" her mother retorted. "You are getting more and more +careless. Bring in the coffee next. I want to be pouring it out. Most +folks like to start a meal that way."</p> + +<p>Tilly disappeared and returned with the coffee-pot. Somehow John, as he +ate his supper, found himself thinking of the painful burn on Tilly's +hand, and was oblivious of the conversation regarding religious matters +between Cavanaugh and Whaley and his wife.</p> + +<p>"Now, come set down and eat your supper," Mrs. Whaley said to her +daughter, and Tilly took the chair she had occupied while grace was +being said. She kept her eyes downcast, and John noticed her long, +slightly curled lashes as they rested on her flushed cheeks and her +pretty, tapering hands. She said nothing during the entire meal.</p> + +<p>When supper was over, Whaley led the two men into the parlor and lighted +an oil-lamp which stood on the mantel-piece,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> for it was growing dark. +They had seated themselves when Whaley rose and took a song-book from +the cottage organ and extended it to Cavanaugh.</p> + +<p>"Have you got this new book of revival hymns down your way?" he +inquired.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so," the contractor answered, inspecting it.</p> + +<p>"Well, it is by all odds the best all-round collection I've ever run +across," Whaley said. "Tilly plays all of 'em pretty well, and we have a +regular song-service here whenever we feel like it. Do you sing, +Mr.—Mr. Trott?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir," John replied. "I have no turn that way."</p> + +<p>"Well, maybe you'll get the hang of it while you are here," Whaley +smiled coldly. "I don't believe there is any way in the world that a man +can get to God quicker, straighter, or closer than in sacred song. I've +seen a congregation stand out against the finest appeal ever made from +the stand, and the minute some good singer started a rousing hymn they +were all ablaze, like soldiers following fife and drum." Herewith Whaley +went to the door and called out:</p> + +<p>"Amelia, let the dishes rest and you and Tilly come in. We want some +music."</p> + +<p>"Good! Good!" Cavanaugh chimed in, rubbing his hands. "We are in luck, +John. If there is anything on earth I like after a hearty meal it is +hymn-singing. It takes me back to the good old camp-meeting days when +everybody, young and old, sang, and even shouted when the spirit was on +them."</p> + +<p>Tilly and her mother came in. The girl went to the organ on which her +father was placing the lamp, and sat on the stool. The light fell on her +face and John, sitting against the wall on her right, had a full view of +it and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> her graceful figure. Her father had opened the song-book and +placed it on the music-rack. Her slender fingers rested on the yellow +keys; the red welt on her hand showed plainly, and John wondered if it +pained her much. There was no way of deciding, for she showed no sign of +suffering. She began to pump the organ with her little feet. She drew +out the stops and began to play. She did it badly, but there were no +expert musical critics in the room. Whaley and his wife stood behind her +and both of them sang loudly. Cavanaugh had never heard the song, and so +he did not take active part, though John saw him beating time with his +finger and now and then contributing a suitable bass note. Cavanaugh was +delighted with the hymn.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you join in, little girl?" he asked, gently, as he beamed on +Tilly.</p> + +<p>"I can't sing and play at the same time," she explained, modestly, +catching John's attentive stare and avoiding it, her brown lashes +flickering.</p> + +<p>They sang some old familiar hymns now, and all three of the singers +joined in together.</p> + +<p>"I tell you we make a good trio," Whaley exulted. "You've got a roaring +bass, Brother Cavanaugh. We'll surprise the natives some night at +prayer-meeting. We'll set to one side like and spring it on 'em all at +once."</p> + +<p>John felt like an alien in the religious and musical atmosphere and was +somewhat irritated by the announcement later from Whaley that he always +had a chapter read from the Bible and a prayer before going to bed, and, +as he believed in retiring early, he suggested that they have the +service over with. Accordingly, he removed the lamp from the organ to +the table, and from the sitting-room brought a big family Bible. A +further surprise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> was in store for John, for Whaley placed a chair under +the lamplight and called on his daughter to sit in it. He smiled coldly +as she obeyed and opened the Bible. "You may think it odd, +Brother—er—Cavanaugh—you've got a hard name to remember, sir. I say, +you may think it odd for me to call on my daughter to read out loud this +way. I admit it isn't the general custom, but, the truth is, I +discovered that she'd got the habit of not listening to me while I was +reading, or commenting, either. So I made up my mind that I'd have her +do the reading herself. It has worked pretty well. She is in my +Bible-class, and now answers as many questions right as any of the rest, +no matter the age or the education."</p> + +<p>Tilly was blushing as she lowered her head over the big tome with its +brass corners and clasps, and John was sorry for her. A storm of rage +against her father ran through him. This was dispelled quickly, however, +for when the girl began to read in her clear and sweetly modulated voice +he sat transfixed by the sheer charm and music of the delivery. Her neck +was bare, and he saw her white throat throbbing like that of a warbling +bird. He did not grasp the full sense of what she read, for some of the +words were unusual to him. Had she been reading in a foreign tongue, it +would have been no more marvelous to him. Her flush had died down; her +eyes rested unperturbed on the page; one little hand curved around a +corner of the big book; the fingers of its mate held a leaf ready to be +turned. The lamplight fell into the brown mass of hair that crowned her +well-poised head like a halo. Her long lashes seemed mystic films +through which he glimpsed her eyes. Looking across the room, he saw +Cavanaugh, his rough fingers interlocked over his knee, staring steadily +at the reader. Was it imagination<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> or were the old man's eyes actually +moist? They seemed to glitter in the light.</p> + +<p>Tilly finished the chapter and slowly closed the book, fastening the +clasps carefully. She raised her eyes to John's face and quickly, almost +guiltily, looked away. Her father had risen and stood holding the back +part of his chair with his two hands.</p> + +<p>"Now we'll kneel down and pray," he said. "Brother—er—er—Cavanaugh, I +don't know what your habit or turn is, but I'm going to ask you to lead +if you feel so inclined."</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh was rising. "I make a poor out," he said, "but I'll do my +best. I—I don't often refuse when called on." He was looking at John +almost appealingly. "I—I regard it as a duty to—to my religion and +membership."</p> + +<p>The strange, alien feeling swept over John again. He had never heard his +jovial associate pray, though he had been told that Cavanaugh did so now +and then; besides, John felt as if he were being personally imposed +upon. He was not religious; he had never even been to church, and here +he was expected to kneel down with the others. Whaley and his wife knelt +side by side, the worn bottoms of their coarse shoes standing steadily, +their heels upward. As John knelt he felt the uneven planks of the floor +press into his knees unpleasantly, and he moved them for a more +comfortable spot. He had an impulse to laugh over his own predicament, +but checked it, for, glancing to his right, he saw Tilly bent over her +crude split-bottom chair like a wilted human flower. She looked so weary +and so utterly helpless, and yet so brave and patient. As he feasted on +her sweet profile he wondered if she, like himself, were thinking of +other things than the ceremony at hand. He could not decide. Surely, he +thought, she could not be so silly, with that broad brow and those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +discerning eyes, as to believe that there was an invisible being away +off somewhere who was now listening to what Cavanaugh was saying in his +faltering, singsong tone. Somehow he expected absolute truthfulness to +be found in the girl. As for the others, they knew what they claimed was +untrue. They—even Cavanaugh—were hypocrites, and in their secret souls +they knew it.</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh's prayer was labored—it did not flow as from the tongue of a +man who loves the sound of his own mouthing—and it was soon ended. +Whaley's smug omission of any comment on it showed the farmer's estimate +of its value or lack of value in any religious campaign.</p> + +<p>Now that they were all standing, John found himself near Tilly. He felt +that he was expected to say something, for she had raised a dubious +glance to his face, but his tongue was tied. How could he speak there +under such circumstances when he had never met a girl of her sort on any +terms of social equality? He grew hot from head to foot. In kneeling his +trousers had caught a white thread from the floor. He saw it and bent to +remove it. It was too delicate for his thick, brick-worn fingers to +grasp, and he stood awkwardly trying, now to lift it, again to brush it +off. He failed, and then he forgot and swore softly. Tilly may not have +heard the oath, but something excited her mirth and she smiled—smiled +straight into his eyes. He smiled in return, for he had never seen such +a smile as hers before. In rippling streams of delight it seemed to go +through his whole being. He saw her pretty hand start down toward the +thread and then check itself as she noticed her mother looking at her. +It was as if she had started to remove the thread herself and decided +that the act would invoke criticism from her elders as a thing too +forward for a girl to do.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> + +<p>With a laugh that was bold now in its sheer merriment John took out his +pocket-knife, opened the blade, and managed to pick up the thread.</p> + +<p>"Well, I reckon you are both tired and we are early to bed and early to +rise here," Whaley was saying. "You both know the way up-stairs."</p> + +<p>There were no formal good-nights exchanged. The Whaleys withdrew to +their rooms on the ground floor and John and Cavanaugh went up the +stairs. John thought Cavanaugh would go straight into his room, but he +followed him into his and helped him find and light his lamp.</p> + +<p>"I want to tell you something, my boy," he began, his eyes shifting back +and forth from John's face to the jagged flame of the small lamp. "I +want to get something out of me and be done with it. I made a regular +fool of myself there to-night."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand," John said, in surprise.</p> + +<p>"Well, I did," Cavanaugh went on, flushed, and in a voice that shook a +little. "That prayer of mine was the worst mixed-up mess I ever got off. +You see, I never have talked much religion to you boys down home, and as +far as I know none of you ever heard me pray out loud in public. Well, +I—somehow when I got down to-night I just got to thinking about what +<i>you</i> thought—you see, I've heard you sneer at the belief I hold in +common with many others, and somehow to-night—well, I found that I was +thinking more about what you thought of me than what I was prepared to +say, and so I balled it all up. I can do first-rate in meeting at home, +but I slid from it to-night. Why, I almost heard Brother Whaley grunt +when I suddenly forgot what I started to say and switched off to +something else. Oh, I made a fool of myself! Now, really didn't you +think so?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I didn't hear what you were saying," John answered. "I wouldn't care if +I was you."</p> + +<p>"Well, I <i>do</i> care," Cavanaugh muttered. "If ever a man insulted his +God, I did mine to-night. I was reeling off a lot o' stuff, but not one +word of it was from the heart, and a prayer that don't come from the +heart ain't worth shucks. Mine wasn't much more than a song and dance +before the Throne, and I'm ashamed of it."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't care," John repeated, still absently.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know as I do care much about what that old hard-shell +codger, or his wife that is just like him, thinks, but I do for that +little girl. My Lord! ain't she sweet?"</p> + +<p>John stared straight and warmly, but said nothing. He was conscious of +the intensest interest and that he was trying not to show it.</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh stood slowly shaking his head in the negative way that implies +affirmation. "Yes, yes, she is a wonderful, wonderful little trick. +While she was reading there to-night I seemed to be listening to the +voice of an angel that had just come from behind the clouds. I was +shedding tears of joy from every pore of my old body. I could have taken +her in my arms and cried my heart out. That is why I wish I could have +done better in my prayer. What she read was from her soul. '<i>The Lord is +my shepherd; I shall not want!</i>' I'll never to my dying day forget them +words, and the sweet twist she gave to them. I never had a child, John, +and if I could have had one like her, I—I— And just think of it! They +make her work like a slave, even with her little hand blistered like it +was to-night! Old Whaley thinks he walks side by side with God in all +his rules and regulations, but his child is one of God's own glories, +and don't you forget it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + +<p>Turning suddenly, as if overcome with emotion, Cavanaugh stalked out +through the door and crossed the passage into his own room. As John +undressed he heard the old man's heavy tread on the floor. A window was +raised. There was sudden silence. Cavanaugh was looking out into the +starlight.</p> + +<p>John was tired, but he remained awake till near midnight. Fancies filled +his mind which he had never had before. Why did he think so often of the +bride and bridegroom he had seen on the train that morning?</p> + +<p>"It is ahead of you, too, my boy," Cavanaugh's words rang in his ears. +Could such a thing be for him, really for him? How could it be? He had +given no thought to women. He had never dreamed of marriage, but +to-night the sheer idea of it was fairly tearing his being to shreds, +and the flame of the impulse had risen in the face of a girl—a poor, +abused, misunderstood girl. The world lay before him. He would rise in +his trade, and earn money which he would lavish on the little filial +slave he already adored.</p> + +<p>He slept and dreamed that he heard Cavanaugh saying: "It is the cottage +of delight, my boy, and it is for you and her—for you and her. Don't +forget, for you and her!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_VII" id="I_CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<p>The foundation for the court-house was soon laid. The county officials +had announced to Cavanaugh that a day had been appointed for a +ceremonious laying of a corner-stone, to which all the countryside had +been invited. A block of marble properly marked and dated was ordered +and came. The occasion was to be a great one. A brass band was expected +from a near-by town. There was to be a barbecue, with speeches and +singing from a hastily improvised platform.</p> + +<p>John himself supervised the construction of the platform and the long +tables upon which the food was to be served.</p> + +<p>The day arrived. The weather was most favorable, there being cool +breezes from the mountains and sufficient clouds to shut off the heat of +the sun. The speakers' stand was hung with flags and decorated with +flowers and evergreens. Long trenches had been dug in the earth. Fires +had been going in them all day. The dry hickory wood was reduced to live +coals and the pork, beef, and lamb were suspended over them. Negro men, +expert in the work, were busy turning and basting the meat, the aroma of +which floated on the air. A little organ from a near-by church had been +placed amid some chairs for choir-singers, and then John discovered that +Tilly was expected to play the instrument.</p> + +<p>"The regular organist is away," Cavanaugh explained to John, "but I'll +bet our little girl will do it all right."</p> + +<p>John said nothing, for he had caught sight of Tilly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> seated with her +mother in the front row of benches. She was dressed in white muslin from +head to foot. She wore a cheap sailor straw hat he had never seen her +wear before, and some flowers were pinned on her breast. The whiteness +of her attire seemed to accentuate the rare pinkness of her face, which +deepened as she caught his stealthy glance. She was the last of the +choir to take her place, the others being seated when she finally went +forward, seated herself on the organ-stool, and began to look over the +music. How calm and unruffled she seemed to John! On the platform sat a +candidate for the Governorship of the state, several ministers, the +Ordinary of the county, the Sheriff, an ex-judge, and several other men +of prominence, and yet in the eyes of the younger spectators John Trott, +who was to place and seal the stone, and stood with a new trowel in his +hand, was the most envied person there. He was well dressed, +good-looking, possessed with a forceful demeanor, and it was rumored +that he was a mason who could demand any wages he liked. It was little +wonder that poor young farmers who lived from hand to mouth to eke out +an existence should deem him most fortunate, and that the girls should +regard him with favor.</p> + +<p>John was young; he was human, and he was experiencing a sort of new +birth. Aside from Cavanaugh, no one present knew of his mother's +reputation or of the social wall between him and the citizens of +Ridgeville, and here to-day he was being treated as he had never been +treated before. He felt strangely, buoyantly, at his ease. He was too +happy to analyze his wonderful transition. He wanted to do his part +well, not chiefly on account of Cavanaugh and the contract, or the +dignitaries about him, but it must be admitted that above all he was +considering Tilly. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> pleased the poor boy to think of her as +conducting the music, and of himself as having charge of the other +details. There was a vague, new, and even confident dignity about his +erect figure, face, and tone of voice as he directed the laborers to +bring the corner-stone forward. There was a square cavity in the stone +into which souvenirs were to be placed, and it devolved upon John to +collect them from the audience. He did it well. He was a man drawn out +of an old environment by the dazzling experience of being in love. A +copy of a fresh issue of the county weekly was handed to him by the +paper's editor; the Ordinary contributed a photograph of the old +court-house, some one else put in a sheet containing the autographs of +leading citizens, and there were coins and various trinkets of more or +less historic significance. John placed them in the cavity, and under +the eyes of all began to close the opening. His new trowel tinkled +softly as he worked in the dead silence on all sides. When it was +finished the band played. There was much applause, and then the choir +sang. During this part of the program John had a chance to look at Tilly +without being seen by her. She sat very erectly at the organ, unabashed, +unperturbed. John, even from where he stood at one side, saw the red +welt on her hand. He told himself, sentimentally, that those were the +same little hands which churned daily, washed dishes, made fires in the +range, washed, hung out, and ironed clothes, and he marveled. Once as +she turned a page of the music-book she looked at him, seemed in a flash +to sense his admiration, and dropped her eyes. Something came into her +face which he could not have described, but it played there for an +instant like a beam of rose-colored light, and he throbbed and thrilled +in his whole being.</p> + +<p>The speeches passed off. The band played again and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> John was asked by +the Ordinary to announce that the barbecue was ready to be served at the +tables.</p> + +<p>John had never spoken in public, and yet to-day a new daring possessed +him. Quite unperturbed, he rang his trowel on the corner-stone till +quiet was restored, and then, with a half-jest, appropriately worded, he +made the announcement. Immediately the audience was on its feet and +surging toward the aromatic trenches and tables. The platform was soon +vacated, and John saw Tilly alone at the organ, putting up the +music-books. He longed to go to her, but a vast and sudden embarrassment +checked him. He started, but stopped and pretended to be inspecting the +corner-stone. She was behind him now, but she was the light and breath +of his new existence and he half saw, half felt her presence. He told +himself that she must think him an awkward fool, and yet he could not +approach her.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he saw something for which he was not prepared. A tall, thin +young man with a scant brown mustache and rather long hair, who was +tanned like a farmer, and who had large, coarse hands and wore a +frock-coat which was thick enough for winter, was stepping upon the +platform and approaching Tilly.</p> + +<p>"You must come get some of the barbecue," he said. "You are doing most +of the work and must be fed. I saw your ma and pa over at the first +table."</p> + +<p>"I'm not very hungry, Joel," John heard Tilly say, and from the corner +of his eyes he saw that she was shaking hands with the young man. A +moment later they were passing close behind John. He knew that to +pretend still to be inspecting the corner-stone would be absurd and so +he turned and faced the couple. Tilly smiled, nodded, and glanced at the +stone.</p> + +<p>"It is very pretty," she said, pausing and looking at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> the work he had +done. "This is my friend, Mr. Joel Eperson—Mr. Trott," she added.</p> + +<p>The hands of two laboring-men met and swung up and down before the +little maid. "Pleased to meet you," both men said, and they stared at +each other, dumb, concealed thoughts in the depths of their eyes.</p> + +<p>"You ran that singing all right." John dug the words from his perturbed +self-consciousness. "It went off fine."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you certainly did that," the young farmer agreed. "You all must +have met and practised."</p> + +<p>"Only once, last night," Tilly said. "We met at the church."</p> + +<p>"We are going to get some of that barbecue," Eperson said, rather +stiffly, to John. "Won't you come along with us? I've got two places +reserved and can easily make room for another."</p> + +<p>"Two places reserved!" The words had an unpleasant sound to John. +Evidently the fellow had been counting on eating with Tilly even before +he invited her. John hesitated. He noticed that Tilly had nothing to +say, and that irritated him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm not a bit hungry," he answered, now in his old, rough, +Ridgeville way, and he frowned.</p> + +<p>"Well, you might come and see the rest of the animals fed," Eperson +jested. "I'd like to talk to you. Tilly wrote me about you coming. I +certainly would like to have a job like yours. Farming has gone to +pieces in this section."</p> + +<p>Tilly had written him. Again John was conscious of irritation and a +strange, deep-seated uneasiness. Were the two on such terms of +familiarity that they exchanged letters while living so near together? +John was still hesitating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> when Cavanaugh suddenly elbowed his way +through the surging throng to his side.</p> + +<p>"They expect you and me to set at the Ordinary's table along with the +speakers," he announced, momentously. "I've been looking for you all +about."</p> + +<p>"We just asked him to go with us, Mr. Cavanaugh," Tilly said, "but of +course, if the Ordinary wants him we'll have to excuse him." She +introduced Eperson, and Cavanaugh smiled.</p> + +<p>"I've heard about Mr. Eperson already," he said. "And I'll tell 'im to +his face that he has fine taste and knows a good thing in the female +line when he sees it."</p> + +<p>The young farmer flushed red and smiled, but Tilly's face was unchanged. +"I see you are a tease," she said, indifferently. "Well, we'd better be +going."</p> + +<p>John felt Cavanaugh grasp his arm and begin to lead him through the +crowd toward a distant table which was smaller than the others and at +which several local dignitaries were seated.</p> + +<p>"We might as well give them young turtle-doves a chance to coo on a +perch by themselves," the contractor said, with a low chuckle. "I +understand the fellow don't get many chances to see his girl. They say +he has been in love with her ever since he was a little boy, but old +Whaley don't seem to like him. They say the old chap has shut down on +Eperson's visits—don't let 'im come around as often as he used to. I +reckon to-day is one of the fellow's chances to see her. My! what a nice +little trick she is! And take it from me—she deserves a better fate +than to marry a slow-going farmer like that one. She'd just change one +life of drudgery for another."</p> + +<p>As if in a tantalizing dream, John heard these things as he walked +along, still tightly clutched by his old friend.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> He told himself that +it was incredible that he should care so much about the affairs of a +simple country girl whom he had known such a short time, but the +startling fact remained and haunted him.</p> + +<p>They found their places at the table and sat down. The Ordinary, a +genial man of middle age, with a full brown beard, had a big jug of +fresh cider in front of him and was filling some tin cups with the amber +fluid.</p> + +<p>"We are going to drink to the health and success of these two +gentlemen," he announced, when every one at the table had received his +cup of the beverage. "They are both agreeable men and are an honor to +our community. Moreover, I am satisfied that they are going to give us +the finest public building for the money in the state."</p> + +<p>They all drank standing, and, as they resumed their seats, they glanced +at Cavanaugh as if expecting a response from him.</p> + +<p>"I am much obliged," Cavanaugh stammered. "I can't make a speech or I'd +tell you how tickled I am by your compliment, and my young friend on my +right is, too. We are combining business and pleasure on this jaunt and +are having a fine time."</p> + +<p>John was gloomily unconscious of the fact that he, too, was expected to +say something. Seeing Cavanaugh sit down, he did likewise. He was +watching Eperson and Tilly, who at one of the long tables near by sat +facing him. Eperson was bending eagerly toward her, smiling and saying +something in her ear. Tilly seemed to be listening, for she was smiling +also. Farther down the same table sat her father and mother. Whaley had +a plate heaped high with the meat and its accompanying peppery relish, +and was eating voraciously. Mrs. Whaley was chatting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> with a woman at +her side and scarcely eating at all. The brass band was playing, there +was a great clatter of knives and forks and tin cider-cups. John was in +one of his surliest moods. He was really hungry enough to have enjoyed +the feast, but his thoughts kept him from doing so. Presently he managed +to slip away from the table, and found himself alone. He wandered +aimlessly about the foundation of the new building, trying to make +himself believe that he was inspecting the work already done. The band +had ceased playing. The crowd of white citizens was thinning out, and +the negroes were falling into the vacant places at the tables. John saw +Cavanaugh and the elder Whaleys trudging homeward. Where was Tilly? he +wondered. Then he saw Eperson driving a poor horse drawing a ramshackle +buggy around from the public hitching-rack. Tilly stood waiting for him +alone on the edge of the sidewalk. Eperson got out, helped her into the +seat, and then got in beside her and drove her homeward.</p> + +<p>John lingered about the foundations for half an hour. Then he saw +Eperson returning in the buggy alone. He had to pass close to where John +stood, but John refused to look up as he went by and turned into the +country road. There was a vague look of placid content on the earnest +face of the man which portended things John dared not think about.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_VIII" id="I_CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<p>The work on the new building went on apace. John was always tired when +night came, but a new expectation at the end of each day had come into +his hitherto uneventful life. It was not often that he saw Tilly alone, +but he had come to look forward eagerly even for the mere sight of her +in the evening, at the supper-table, on the veranda, or in the yard with +the others. Both he and Cavanaugh immediately changed their clothing +when the day's work was over, and this formality was a new and pleasant +thing for the young mason. The change always made him feel more +respectable. It gave him the sense of throwing off the grime and toil of +the day. It was the first ordering of his life on any social plane, and +it charmed him.</p> + +<p>"You are certainly a wonder," the old man remarked to him one afternoon +as they were dressing in John's room.</p> + +<p>"In what way?" John asked, curiously.</p> + +<p>"Why, you are different, that's all"—the contractor laughed—"as +different from what you used to be down at home as night from day. You +used to have a grouch on you nearly all the time, but now you are as +pleasing as a basket of chips. Your mind seems brighter. You often say +funny things, and you ain't as rough with the boys that work under you +as you used to be. If they are a little slow with brick or mortar you +don't fuss so much, and—say—you have mighty nigh quit cursing. I'm +glad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> of that, too, I must say I am, for taking the Lord's name in vain +never helped a man get ahead. You see it is a slap in the face to so +many well-meaning folks. Gee! ain't we having a fine time? It is about +as hard to understand myself as to understand you—I mean this +combination picnic and hard labor we are at. There is one point about it +that I wouldn't dare tell my wife. By gum! I don't know that I'm ready +to admit it even to myself yet, but it is a queer notion."</p> + +<p>"What is that?" John asked, only half attentively, for he was listening +to the sounds in the kitchen below and picturing Tilly at work.</p> + +<p>"Why"—the old man stared gravely as he answered—"it is a fact that I +don't miss Mandy at all—hardly at all, and it has set me +wondering—wondering. I know I love her, you see; that fact is as solid +and plain to me as that brush you've got in your hand, and why I don't +miss her more I don't know. I lay in bed awake between four and five +this morning, turning it over in my mind, but to no effect. However, it +may be this way: a man and a woman may actually be—well, almost too +well suited to each other, if such a thing is possible."</p> + +<p>"You are getting tangled up." John laughed as he tied afresh a new +cravat he had just bought and thrust a cheap, gaudy pin into its folds.</p> + +<p>"You may think so, but I hain't," Cavanaugh denied. "I mean this, John. +A couple may live together so long and become so near alike that nothing +exciting happens to either one of 'em, and along with that may come a +sort of strain of marriage responsibility. Down at Ridgeville somehow I +was always wondering what Mandy would want done and what not, but up +here when my day's work is over I can slap on a clean shirt and my best +suit,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> brush my shoes, light my pipe, and sit around till bedtime and +have a good free evening of it. And I sleep—I'll admit it—I even sleep +sounder and seem to get more out of it. At home I lie with one eye open, +you might say. If Mandy has a bad cold, I can hear her sniffling, and if +she has an attack of rheumatism I can smell the liniment she rubs on. I +don't mind it, you understand, oh no, not one bit! but the—the very +worry about her upsets me. She's the same about me. I know it is a fair +deal between us, for she takes it powerful hard even if I come home with +a cut or any little injury. I said that it was a fair deal on both +sides, but I'll take that back. It is not. The woman gets the worst of +married life, and I reckon that's what is bothering my conscience. I +sent mine off once for a week at a big camp-meeting over in Canton. She +sewed and fixed and packed and cooked for three weeks to get ready, and +was gone just two days and a night. She hired a special team to fetch +her back, and come acting like she'd been off for a year and had escaped +from ten thousand ills and misfortunes. You see, she just couldn't live +without her pans and pots and chickens and the cow and calf which she +was afraid I wouldn't feed—and, I don't know, maybe—me. And that's +what hurts. She keeps writing now about what I'm fed on, how my duds are +washed and mended, and how long it will be before I get back home. All +that when I'm cracking jokes and arguing with old Whaley over some of +his hidebound Bible views about the end of the world. Why, he couldn't +predict the outcome of a county election, and yet he knows to the day +and hour when him and some more are going to be lifted up on a cloud of +glory and all the rest of us stand looking on, wringing our hands like +the bunch Noah left without a thing to cling to. But don't you let +anything I say about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> marriage influence you against it, my boy. It is +the greatest institution in the world to-day, and while I don't somehow +miss my wife, I'd die if I lost her. I know that as well as I know I'm +alive. There must be such a thing as loving folks you don't want to be +with all the time."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_IX" id="I_CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<p>That evening a wonderful thing happened to John. It was a moonlit night +and Cavanaugh took the two older Whaleys down to see the progress on the +new building. That left John and Tilly on the veranda together. At first +the poor boy's tongue was tied, but under the influence of Tilly's calm +self-possession he soon found himself conversing with her quite easily. +There was a sort of commotion in the chicken-house near the barn and +they started down there to see what had caused it. He had seen young men +of the better class at Ridgeville walking with young ladies, holding to +their arms at night, and in no little perturbation he wondered if he +ought to offer Tilly his arm. He did not know, and he wondered what Joel +Eperson would do in the circumstances. Finally he plunged into the +matter. "Won't you take my arm?" he asked, so naturally that he was +surprised at himself.</p> + +<p>She did so, although the path was clear and the distance short, and the +gentle pressure of her hand on his arm sent an inexplicable thrill +through him. She even leaned slightly and confidently against his +shoulder, and that, too, was a wonderful experience. He was filled with +ecstatic emotion. He slowed down his step and clumsily adapted his long +stride to her shorter one. There was a vast, swelling joy in his throat. +At the barn-yard gate she released his arm and opened it, and at once he +had a fear that he had made a mistake in not forestalling her. He was +flooded with shame at the thought that Joel Eperson<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> would have known +what was proper and have acted quicker.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," the poor fellow stammered, his eyes on hers. He had never +used such words before and they sounded as strange to him as if they had +belonged to a foreign tongue.</p> + +<p>"Excuse you, why?" she inquired, perplexed.</p> + +<p>"Because—because I didn't open the gate for you," he replied. "I wasn't +thinking."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that doesn't matter," she answered, evidently pleased, and there +was something in her eyes that he had never seen there before. Her face +seemed to fill with a warm light, and her pretty lips were slightly +parted. They walked on. The chicken-house, a shack with a lean-to roof +against the barn, was near and he stood by her as she looked in at the +open door.</p> + +<p>"One of the planks they roost on fell down," she explained. "Too many of +them got on it. They will huddle together, warm as it is."</p> + +<p>"I can fix it," he proposed, "but I'd have to have a light."</p> + +<p>Tilly hesitated, looking again into the shack. There was a low chirping +from the perches overhead.</p> + +<p>"Never mind to-night," she said. "They have found new places and will +soon settle down."</p> + +<p>She turned back, facing him, and slowly they started toward the house. +This time she took his arm without being asked, and the act gave him +additional delight. He allowed the natural weight of his arm to gently +press her hand against his side and she did not resent it. In fact, he +felt as if her touch was responsive. The moonlight fell on her bare head +and played in her wonderful hair, upon which the moisture of the night +was settling. Half-way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> between the barn and the house there was an +empty road-wagon. Its massive tongue stood out straight a foot or so +above the ground. To his wonderment, Tilly sat down on it, thrusting her +little feet out in front of her.</p> + +<p>"Let's sit here," she said. "They won't be back for some time yet."</p> + +<p>He complied, his wonder and delight growing. They were silent. Finally +she spoke again.</p> + +<p>"You are the strangest man I ever saw," she said, looking into his face +with her calm, probing eyes.</p> + +<p>"Am I?" he asked. "Why, how so?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she made answer, thoughtfully, and she locked her little +hands in her lap and looked down. "I can't make you out. You are so—so +gentle and tender with me. You are a mystery, a deep mystery. You don't +seem to take to women in general, and yet, and yet with me—" She sighed +and broke off abruptly.</p> + +<p>In his all but dazed delight he could not supply the words she had +failed to summon, though he knew what he would have said could he but +have untangled his enthralled tongue.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm no mystery!" He tried to laugh away his awkwardness. "I'm as +plain as an old shoe; no frills about me. You ask the boys that work +with me."</p> + +<p>She was unconvinced. He saw her shake her wise little head and twist her +fingers together as she answered:</p> + +<p>"A girl I know who saw you on the platform that day said she'd bet you'd +had an unfortunate love-affair. She said nothing else would make as—as +fine a young man as you are shun all the girls like you do. She even +hinted that maybe you were—were married down in Georgia and for some +reason or other was not telling it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh no, I'm not married," he laughed. "Gee! Sam would think that is +funny. Me married!"</p> + +<p>"Then you <i>have</i> had a—a love-affair with some girl, and—"</p> + +<p>"Wrong again!" he laughed, deep in the throat of his ebullient joy. +"I've just been a sort of stay-at-home, pretty busy, you know. I've had +my hands full of night work, figuring, writing, and planning, and +through the day I've been hard at it, as a general thing. No, I'm just, +I reckon, not a natural ladies' man." How could he explain to her what +he had never understood or even tried to fathom, the reason why he was +different from other young men of his age whose manner of life he had +only superficially observed?</p> + +<p>Tilly seemed still unconvinced. "That girl was Sally Teasdale," she went +on. "She was here yesterday. You may remember her—the tall, dark-haired +girl that sang in the choir that day and turned my music for me once. +She is going to have a party at her house down the road Wednesday night. +She is—is dead set on having you there. She says all the girls want to +get acquainted with you, and she—she wanted me to—to take you to it."</p> + +<p>"To take me to it?" he repeated, hardly understanding what was really +meant, for how could a young lady be asking him to a party at her house +when no home of that sort had ever been open to him? How could that be +true, and that another girl of Tilly's social rank should really be +inviting him to escort her?</p> + +<p>"I see, you don't want to go," Tilly said, with a touch of mild +resentment. "Well, that is for you to decide, and I would not have asked +you but there was no way out of it. Even mother advised me to mention +it."</p> + +<p>Never had his confusion been greater. "Why, I want<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> to go!" he blurted +out. "I don't see how you could doubt it. And you say that you will let +me go along with you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but it was Sally's idea; not mine," Tilly urged. "Don't think I go +about inviting boys to take me places. You see, you are stopping at our +house, and that is why Sally mentioned it to me, but the fact that you +pay us board doesn't give me the right to pull you into things you don't +care for. You must be your own judge. No doubt you are frightfully tired +at night, and if you have writing and figuring to do after work hours, +why, it would be wrong of you to bother with a crowd of silly country +girls that you never saw before."</p> + +<p>"Me tired? Oh no! Leave that out of the question," he warmly thrust in. +"I've set up with the boys when they were sick all night long, and +worked the next day without feeling it. What ails you? Why don't you +think I'd like to go with you? Well, I would— I do want to go."</p> + +<p>"Well then, we'll go," Tilly said. "I know you will like the +girls—Sally, especially, for she is crazy, simply crazy about you. Huh! +and you don't know it? Why, she goes to town nearly every day just to +pass the new court-house. Shucks! she knows every layer of brick that +goes in it, and every man by name that works under you."</p> + +<p>"I think I remember the girl you mean." John was not absorbing the +compliment. "She is a tall, dark girl, as straight as an Indian squaw. +She stopped one day and asked me some questions about the rooms on the +lower floor. Sam come and showed her around— I was too busy. Sam's on +the ladies' entertainment committee— I am not."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<p>"She told me she had never met you." Tilly leaned toward him as she +spoke. She clasped her hands over her knee. She was staring steadily, +her eyes flashing. "Oh, my! what won't some girls do to get in with a +new man? Huh! She has failed to get at you in every other way and is now +making a cat's-paw of me."</p> + +<p>"I declare I don't know what you mean," John asserted, "but if you are +in earnest—about the party, I mean—why, you can count me in. I've +never been a party man—I wouldn't know what to do or say—but if you +will go with me, I'll be ready long before you are, I'll bet you. I'll +hire a horse and buggy at the livery-stable, and—"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, I seldom ride," Tilly protested. "It is only about a mile and we +can walk that far in pretty weather like this. They all live close about +except Joel Eperson. He always drives in and brings his sister, Martha +Jane."</p> + +<p>"Oh, so <i>he's</i> going—<i>that feller</i> is going!" John exclaimed in a +crestfallen tone. "I see—I see—<i>he's</i> going."</p> + +<p>"Yes. He is Sally's first cousin."</p> + +<p>The uncouth mason sat silent. He folded his ponderous hands and scowled +as he did when displeased with the work of a bungling assistant. Tilly +was covertly and studiously regarding his profile.</p> + +<p>"Why do you say it like that?" she inquired. "Is there anything strange +about Joel going to a party?"</p> + +<p>"Strange? Not if he knows you are to be there. Does he?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose he <i>does</i> think I may be there, but what of it—what of it?"</p> + +<p>John turned and stared toward the house. It was as if he were trying to +keep her from seeing the fierce expression he knew had clutched his +face. Tilly leaned closer to him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> Her shoulder touched his. She sat +waiting for him to turn his head toward her again. Presently he looked +at her, his honest eyes holding a famished expression.</p> + +<p>"What is there strange about Joel going?" she asked, softly and all but +propitiatingly.</p> + +<p>"Nothing strange about it—just the reverse," he sighed. "I've heard +that he has been loving you ever since he was a little boy, and that he +comes to see you every chance he gets. I've heard that your father +doesn't like him. I see—his cousin has got this party up so you and he +can—"</p> + +<p>Tilly sprang to her feet. John kept his seat, unaware that even rural +courtesy demanded that he rise when she did. But Tilly was no stickler +for conventions. She was a working-girl; he was a laborer, and there was +something to be fathomed in the man before her which lurked deep within +him. She was angry, or perhaps only impatient, but the mood passed as if +melting into the moonlight which laved her dainty form like some +supernal fluid.</p> + +<p>"What you said is not kind or just," she objected, sweetly. "You +intimate that I'd meet Joel somewhere against my father's wishes. I +would not do so. I would not disobey my father or do anything on the sly +that he would oppose."</p> + +<p>In dumb, almost stupid alarm John sat staring up at her. He quaked under +the sudden realization that he had offended her, and yet he had never +apologized to any one in his life. The fine sense of that sort of +restitution belonged to social paths John Trott had never traversed. +"Excuse me," he might have said, as he had said at the gate, but somehow +under her bent gaze he found himself unable to utter a word. It may have +been the sheer blank look in his eyes, or the helpless twitching of his +lips, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> decided her, for she suddenly sat down by him again and +leaned forward till their eyes met.</p> + +<p>"You did not mean to say that I'd do anything underhand, I'm sure," she +faltered. "I'm sure of it <i>now</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh no," he slowly shook his head and seemed to swallow an emotional +contraction in his throat. "I didn't mean any harm, but—but he <i>will</i> +be there, you say? He'll be there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, of course," Tilly responded. "I suppose he will bring Martha +Jane. He usually does. But what of that?"</p> + +<p>"He'll want to talk to you, I suppose?" John went on, his nether lip +hanging limp, his gaze steady.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes—that is, maybe he will. Sometimes couples walk about between +the games and dances. I don't dance. My father and mother oppose it, and +our church does not sanction it; but you dance, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"No, I've never even been to a dance. I hardly know what they are like. +The young folks at Ridgeville have them often at their club and at the +hotels and in their homes, but the boys are a lot of dudes that have +nothing else to do, and I hate them. I've always had to work for a +living and most of them are well off and look down on poor folks. People +here treat a fellow like me different somehow."</p> + +<p>"It seems very strange that you don't dance," Tilly mused aloud, +"especially when you don't belong to the church. How does it happen that +you never joined?"</p> + +<p>He shrugged and sniffed with uncurbed contempt, unaware of the fact that +what he was saying was an unheard-of thing in Tilly's circle. "I don't +believe in them," he jerked out. "They are a bunch of close-fisted, +grafting hypocrites. Most of them haven't the brains of a gnat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> I've +helped build meeting-houses, run against the leaders, and know their +private lives. They say they believe there is a God— I don't!"</p> + +<p>Tilly sighed unresentfully. "You will see it differently some day," she +said. "Will you do me a favor?"</p> + +<p>"Will I? Try me," he laughed, and he sat eagerly waiting for her to +continue.</p> + +<p>In her earnestness she put her hand on his knee as she leaned closer to +him. "Then don't tell father how you feel about it—please don't. You +don't know him. You can't imagine how furious that would make him. A man +stopped at our house once to stay overnight. He was selling +harvesting-machines, and after supper he and my father had an argument +on the veranda. He said—the man said something like what you've just +said to me, and father made him leave the house—made him pack up and +leave at once, for father said it would be a sin for us to sleep under +the same roof. Mother did not object, either. She was glad to see him +go. Our preacher preached a sermon on it and said my father did right. +I'm sorry you believe as you do, but won't you promise me not to say +anything about it while you are here?"</p> + +<p>"I'll promise you anything on earth you ask." John sat up straight. Her +little hand was still on his knee. He yearned to take it into his +calloused grasp and fondle into it his assurances of compliance with her +desires. "I don't object to any man's religion unless it rubs against my +rights as a man," he went on. "These church folks here may be better +than any I've run across, but down home the breed doesn't suit me. Why, +when I was a little fellow in the public school I've had them—women and +men—invite other boys to go to Christmas-tree parties, Sunday-school +festivals, or picnics, and leave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> me out. They would do it right before +my face, as if I was the very dirt under their feet. A thing like that +would be noticed by a little boy who wonders why he can't go along with +the rest."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know there were such church members as that anywhere," Tilly +said, thoughtfully. "Oh, I see. I wonder if your folks are Catholics?"</p> + +<p>"No. My father is dead. My mother doesn't go to any church."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's odd. Not any at all?"</p> + +<p>"No. I guess she is like me. She doesn't know any of the members or care +a hill of beans about them. Why did you ask if we were Catholics?"</p> + +<p>"Because Catholics are looked down on so much around here. If you had +said you were one, I was going to ask you not to mention that to my +father, either. The greatest trouble my family ever had came through the +Catholics. You see, I had a brother. He died five years ago. He was a +professing member of our church, and father was awfully proud of him +because he was a fine exhorter at revivals. When he wasn't more than +sixteen my brother actually preached in public, though he wasn't +ordained. They called him 'the boy wonder' and many people were +converted under him."</p> + +<p>"I've seen his sort," John said, reflectively. "They had one down our +way, a sissy of a chap, that women fairly went crazy over, but you say +your brother died."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but not before he caused us that great trouble," Tilly went on. +"It was this way. Father's chief ambition was to have him preach, and +when he was about twenty, and after father had saved and stinted to put +him through the Methodist seminary, an Irish family moved here. They +were Catholics. There was a girl in the family, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> in some way or +other George got acquainted with her and got to visiting at her house. +You know the Catholics have no church here—there are so few of +them—but at her house my brother met Catholics who talked to him and +gave him books to read. The truth is, he fell in love with the girl and +our trouble began. She and her folks somehow convinced him that her +religion was the oldest one—that it was really established by our Lord, +and that all the other denominations had shot off from it. George had +the manhood to come to father and tell him what he believed and that he +was going to join the Catholics, so that he and the girl could marry +according to Catholic rites. I was too young to know what it was all +about, but I was terrified by father's fury. He acted like a crazy man. +He couldn't eat or sleep. He disowned my brother and drove him from +home. George married the girl and they all moved away. By accident we +heard that he had died of consumption away out West, and then a man—a +Catholic, some kin of George's wife—came to deliver some message George +had sent from his death-bed. We were all sitting in the parlor. Before +father would let him say what the message was father asked the man if +George died a Catholic, and when the man said he did and that a priest +had been called in, my father refused to hear the message and showed him +the door. My mother seemed willing to listen to it, but she always obeys +my father. They are almost exactly alike, and so she said nothing."</p> + +<p>The gate latch clicked. Voices were heard from the house. "They are +back. I'll have to go in," Tilly said, and she sighed as from weighty +memories awakened by her recital.</p> + +<p>John got up and Tilly took his arm again. It seemed to him that her hold +upon it was somehow insecure, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> he took her hand and drew it higher +up. He had never touched her hand till now, and, while it was rough from +her accustomed toil, by contrast with his own brick-and-stone rasped +palm, it felt as soft as velvet. There was a warm lack of resistance in +it and he released it reluctantly. How glorious and bliss-drenching +seemed the moonlight as it lay on the landscape! And it was not to end, +he told himself. There was the party to look forward to. That would give +him another chance to see her alone. He was a strong man, and yet he was +all but swooning under emotions which he had never dreamed could exist.</p> + +<p>"Oh, there they are!" he heard Mrs. Whaley exclaiming.</p> + +<p>Tilly now released John's arm, stepped forward, and casually explained +the mishap in the chicken-house.</p> + +<p>"The same thing happened some time ago," Mrs. Whaley said, pleasantly, +to John. "We've got too many chickens, anyway. I'm going to ship some of +them off."</p> + +<p>He told her awkwardly that he would send one of the carpenters up to +repair the damage, and further showed his crudeness by adding that it +should not cost her anything, all of which struck her as being quite +gentlemanly of him, and proving his ability to command men who ranked +lower than himself in the scale of his trade.</p> + +<p>They all separated for the night and John went to his bed stirred by +hopes and passions that kept sleep from his brain for hours.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_X" id="I_CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<p>The evening of the party came around. John was in his room, dressing for +it, and Cavanaugh was with him.</p> + +<p>"It certainly is a new wrinkle for you," the old man said, with a broad +smile. "And I wouldn't bother about not knowing how to dance, either, if +I was you. There will be aplenty that won't take part in that, so you +won't feel odd. La me! I wish I could go look on! I love to see young +folks together. I spied you two the other night long before the others +did, and I noticed how Tilly was leaning against you, and it was by all +odds the prettiest sight I ever looked at, and took me back, back, back! +I believe there is a future life, and in it we'll be allowed to unreel +all the sweet and pretty things we ever wound up in our earthly passage. +I want to see the girls and boys I used to know at your age that have +gone on. Many of them had awful trouble and disgrace before they went, +and some died in pain and poverty, but I don't believe they are +suffering now, and they will come to meet me, too, and lend me some of +their joy. Old Whaley's eternal-damnation idea for some of God's +children don't go down with me. There is punishment—oh, I know that +well enough, but it is here in the consciences of folks that go crooked. +Wait, wait! You can't tie a cravat. It is the first time you ever wore a +white one, isn't it? Let me see if I can do it. I used to know how."</p> + +<p>With a happy laugh, John bent downward and the contractor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> pulled the +narrow strip of lawn into place around the stiff collar and managed to +tie it fairly well. "You will cut a dash, my boy, for that is a dandy +suit, and it fits you like a kid glove. These mountain fellers don't get +as stylish a cut as that from these cross-roads stores, and no such +material by a long shot. I'm going to say something and I'm afraid you +will be hurt, but I hope you will remember that I feel like a father to +you."</p> + +<p>"Shoot it out!" John laughed. "Fire away."</p> + +<p>"Well, you can't accuse me of being foolish about what is style and what +ain't, John, but there are a few things that I wish you'd remember not +to do any more. You see, I never lived with you down home—never set +with you at the table and the like, and so I didn't notice anything out +of the way, but—" The contractor was avoiding John's questioning stare +and suddenly broke off.</p> + +<p>"Why, what do you mean?" John asked. "Have I been doing anything wrong?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, and maybe not a single one has ever noticed what I have, but I +must say there are a few things that sometimes I wish you wouldn't do. +Oh, I'm going to tell you and be done with it, because if I don't some +young lady may and that would hurt worse. John, I don't like the way you +act at the table sometimes. I hope you won't get mad, but I don't."</p> + +<p>"Well, what's wrong?" John asked, a look of shame crossing his face as +he stood mechanically brushing his coat-sleeve with his big, splaying +hand.</p> + +<p>"There are several little things," Cavanaugh went on, lamely. "For +instance, there is always a big spoon on the bean-dish or the +cabbage-plate, and we are expected to use it when we are asked to help +ourselves, but I've seen you take your knife, fork, or teaspoon and +rake<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> it out exactly as if you was scraping mortar from a board."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see, I see." John smiled in a sheepish sort of way. "So that is +wrong, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and then you stick your knife in your mouth loaded to the brink +with stuff, and I've seen you use your fingers, John. I've seen you pick +up a chunk of meat with your fingers and ram it in like you was plugging +a hole in a sinking boat. You begin eating before the rest do, too, and +that don't look nice, I must say. You are all right—all right, but it +is just a few little things like those that you ought to watch out for +and try to avoid. These are plain-living folks, but still they seem to +have pretty good manners—that is, except the old man. He does a lot o' +things that he ought not to do. He drinks coffee out of a saucer, and, +although I saw him rubbing the back of a cat just before we sat down +yesterday, he broke off a piece of bread with his hands and handed it to +me that way, and not on a fork or a plate, as would be proper. If the +women hadn't been there and akin to him, I'd have throwed it down."</p> + +<p>John had turned to the bureau for a handkerchief. He was angry, but more +at himself than his gentle companion.</p> + +<p>"It is all poppycock," he said, suddenly. "I'm astonished, Sam, to hear +you say such fool things—you, a man of your age and trade. I thought +you was a plain, sensible man. Why, you are trying to be a dude."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, as the old man sat silent, John made up his mind that the +advice was worth heeding and he forced a smile.</p> + +<p>"All right, Sam," he said; "I'll remember next time. I'm new at this +game."</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd take it sensible," Cavanaugh said, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> relief. "Now +there is another little thing. It seems to me that, as you are going to +escort Tilly there, you oughtn't to be behind time. You know you always +had a bad memory, and it wouldn't look exactly right for you to keep her +sitting somewhere waiting on you. A man ought to be first on deck in a +jaunt like this."</p> + +<p>"I was wondering about that." John stared eagerly. "She didn't say what +time we'd leave the house. Do you suppose she'd want to start now?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, but I'll tell you what we'll do to be on the safe side. +Let's go down in the yard and set about. I've got two cigars. You take +one and I'll take one and we'll smoke till something turns up."</p> + +<p>They went down the stairs and out into the yard. They saw no one about +the house and they took chairs under the trees near the fence. They had +hardly seated themselves when a horse and buggy stopped at the gate. A +man and a woman sat in the buggy. Giving the reins to his companion, the +man sprang down and came in at the gate. In the light of the rising moon +John saw that it was Joel Eperson.</p> + +<p>"Good evening," the young farmer said to John. "Is Miss Tilly about?"</p> + +<p>John sat immovable. He turned his cigar over in his mouth and looked up +fiercely. "What are you asking <i>me</i> for?" he snarled. "I'm not keeping +the door."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon;" Joel said, in a startled tone. "I meant no harm. My +sister and I came by to see if she'd like to go to a party over at my +cousin's house."</p> + +<p>John made no reply. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and +pulled at his cigar. Cavanaugh saw that he was in a rage and rose to his +feet.</p> + +<p>"I believe Miss Tilly is getting ready now," he explained,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> mildly. "She +is going with my young friend here, I understand; but, of course, if you +and your sister want to see her, why, maybe you'd better knock at the +door. Somebody will hear and come out."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, no!" Joel was now flooded with embarrassment. "I didn't know she +was provided for so nicely, and— No, we'll drive on. I wouldn't want to +hurry Miss Tilly. I can explain it to her at the party. She will +understand, anyway, for sister and I often come by after her."</p> + +<p>Bowing politely and still confused, Eperson backed away a few feet, and +then, restoring his hat to his head, he rejoined his sister.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to see you act that way, John," Cavanaugh deplored, as the +buggy disappeared down the road. "I know the reason of it, I reckon, but +still you went a bit too far. It is give and take in a game like the one +you and this chap are playing, and if you don't want to lose, you'd +better be careful."</p> + +<p>John stared, still angry. "I've got no use for him," he sniffed. "He +looks like a jack-leg preacher or a mountain singing-teacher, bowing and +scraping and holding his hat in his hand before two men. He has no +backbone. He is as yellow as a pumpkin, and ought to have that long hair +of his parted in the middle and tied in a knot behind his head."</p> + +<p>"I know, but he looks honest and straight, and he is dead in love. +That's one reason he's so timid, even with us. It works that way with +some men. You are different. It makes a wild man of you, especially when +the fair one is looked at by somebody else. But you've got to hold in. +This fellow has got prior rights to you in this deal, and if you are too +rough it may go against you. I don't say it will, but it may."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XI" id="I_CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<p>John was about to make some retort when Tilly suddenly came out to them. +She was dressed in white, wore no head-covering, and appeared very +pretty and somehow changed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you are all ready to go!" she said, smiling on John. "Here is +something for you to wear." She held out a few leaves of geranium and a +white rosebud and proceeded to pin them on the lapel of his coat. "It +is the custom," she explained. "All the girls give them to the young men +they go with. Now, now, isn't that nice, Mr. Cavanaugh?"</p> + +<p>"Fine! Beautiful! It sets him off just right!" the old man cried.</p> + +<p>John looked pleased, but said nothing.</p> + +<p>"Why don't he thank the little trick?" Cavanaugh wondered, resentfully. +"And why don't the goose stand up?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you like flowers," Tilly said, pretending to pout.</p> + +<p>Still John said nothing, but what astonished Cavanaugh was the fact that +Tilly evidently understood his mood, for she gave a little pat to a +wrinkle the pin had made in his lapel and smiled.</p> + +<p>"I thought I heard wheels just now," she remarked. "They seemed to stop +here."</p> + +<p>"It was that fellow Eperson with his sister," John<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> blurted out. "They +came by to take you to the party. He acted like he owned you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it was Joel and Martha Jane!" Tilly smiled. "Oh no, he doesn't +think he owns me, by any means. Martha Jane put him up to it. She and I +are great friends and she was afraid I wouldn't get an escort."</p> + +<p>John shrugged dubiously and answered: "You may look at it that way if +you want to, but I see through him. I know his brand."</p> + +<p>To Cavanaugh's wonderment, Tilly seemed pleased rather than offended, +for she indulged in a little satisfied laugh.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you told him we would be there?" she said, lightly, and it +was the old man who answered, seeing that John had nothing to say.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he knows that now, Miss Tilly, though he looked sorter set back. +In my day and time about the last thing I'd want to do would be to take +a sister of mine to a shindig. Going and coming was always the biggest +part of the game, and you may bet there was times when I was in for +busting a party up as soon as supper was over so as to be on the road +again."</p> + +<p>Tilly laughed merrily. "I'll make you a buttonhole bouquet if you will +wear it," she proposed.</p> + +<p>"Well, not to-night—I thank you all the same," Cavanaugh returned, "but +you may some other time when I've got my best clothes on. I don't want +to part with you two, but don't you think you ought to be on the way?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is time," Tilly said, and John rose to his feet and stiffly +held his arm out to her.</p> + +<p>"Please tell mother that we are gone," she said, as she took John's arm +and the two turned away.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What a purty sight!" the old man mused, standing and gazing after them +as they walked away in the moonlight. He followed as far as the gate and +leaned on it and watched them till they were out of sight.</p> + +<p>Presently Mrs. Whaley came out and joined him. He delivered Tilly's +message and they sat down and chatted for half an hour; then she went +back into the kitchen.</p> + +<p>She was making dough for bread to be baked the next day when her husband +came and stood beside her. He wore no coat and his coarse suspenders +hung loose over his hips; the collar of his shirt was open, showing his +hairy chest.</p> + +<p>"I saw you out there talking to Cavanaugh," he began. "Did you say +anything about that matter?"</p> + +<p>"I did—in a roundabout way," she said, taking the great lump of wheat +dough in her hands and rolling it into a heap of dry flour at one end of +the long wooden bowl. "I didn't want him to take up a notion that we +want to marry her off, but I tried to find out what I could. Mr. Trott +never has had any love-affairs. He is mighty young—younger than you'd +naturally think to have the job he has, and somehow he never has taken +to a girl before. Mr. Cavanaugh says this is the first time, and I know +he is telling the truth. Oh, he had a lot to say in Mr. Trott's favor. +He says he has a wonderful mind for building and the like, and that the +time will come when he will make piles of money. He already gets high +wages, and it is always cash, too. He doesn't have to wait till the end +of the year like Joel Eperson and other farmers do, and then be up to +their eyes in debt, with nothing left over to begin another crop on."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Does he drink or gamble? That is what I want to know," Whaley put in +suddenly.</p> + +<p>"No, he doesn't. Mr. Cavanaugh says he hardly thinks of anything but +figuring, planning, and calculating. He goes to bed early and gets up +early, and can handle a gang of men better even than he can, he's so +popular with them."</p> + +<p>"Didn't you find out about the feller's religion?"</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't. I sorter touched on that—said you wanted to know—but +Mr. Cavanaugh made light of it—said all that would come out right in +due time. He said he was no hand for hurrying up the young on those +lines. He said John Trott at bottom was the right sort, and that he +would count on him serving the Lord in the long run as well as the next +one."</p> + +<p>"I don't know as I'd let that old skunk pick a religion for a son-in-law +of mine." Whaley's lip was drawn tight as he spoke. "He don't take +enough interest in doctrine, and when you force him to talk about it he +says entirely too much about salvation through works alone. I like a man +that knows what he believes and can point straight to Biblical authority +in page, line, and word. It behooves a Christian to watch out what sort +of a mate his daughter picks. Infidelity will breed at a fireside faster +than tadpoles under skum in a mud-puddle."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm for keeping that part out of it just now," Mrs. Whaley +suggested, timidly. "This is a good chance for the girl, and you know +you have made a lot of folks mad by the way you talk to them."</p> + +<p>"Well, I haven't said anything to Trott yet," Whaley answered, "and I +may not, though he hasn't been out to meeting yet and that seems odd, +when the Sabbath is a day of rest and there is nothing else to do."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I happened to hear him tell Tilly that he was going next Sunday," Mrs. +Whaley answered, "so you see that will work out all right."</p> + +<p>"Well, we'll wait and see," Whaley returned. "They dance over there at +Teasdale's house, don't they?"</p> + +<p>"Some do and some don't," was the answer, slowly made. "Tilly don't and +Mr. Trott never did in his life."</p> + +<p>"There isn't much difference in actually dancing and giving sanction to +it by looking on," Whaley said, his heavy brows meeting in a frown, "an' +I'm in for calling a halt on Tilly going to such places. Looks like +there would be plenty of decent amusements without hot-blooded young +folks hugging up tight together and spinning around on the floor till +they are wet with sweat from head to foot. Sally Teasdale ought to be +churched, and she would be if she was a Methodist. The Presbyterians +ain't strict enough. Well, if I believed in foreordained baby damnation +as they do I'd let a child of mine dance her way into hell and be done +with it. They make me sick. I had an argument with old Bill Tye +yesterday and I fairly flayed up the ground with him—didn't leave him a +leg to stand on, but he was mad—oh, wasn't he mad? The crowd laughed at +him good."</p> + +<p>Whaley turned away. He intended to chat with Cavanaugh outside, but he +met the contractor coming in at the front door on his way to bed.</p> + +<p>"I found that passage from Paul and read the whole chapter," Whaley +began, but Cavanaugh stopped him.</p> + +<p>"I'll see it to-morrow," he said. "My eyes are not strong enough to read +at night, even with my specs, and I'm a little bit tired, too. I walked +out to the sawmill—five miles and back—this morning, to see about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +some timber, and it was quite a stretch for me. Good night."</p> + +<p>"No wonder he didn't want to see it," Whaley smiled to himself as he +leaned in the doorway. "I had him beat and he knows it. I'll bet the old +skunk has already looked it up, or asked somebody about it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XII" id="I_CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<p>A wide country road stretched out in the moonlight before John and +Tilly. They walked slowly. Tilly still held his arm and he was +transported with sheer ecstasy by that close contact with her. Once or +twice he started to speak, but found himself unable to think of anything +appropriate, and this both angered and alarmed him, for, he asked +himself, how was it that Eperson was always so ready with his tongue +when in Tilly's presence? But Tilly seemed to understand John's way and +not to care much whether he talked or was silent. As he dared to glance +down on her pretty head just below his left shoulder he remembered the +bride and the bridegroom on the train, and the contractor's words came +back to him like breeze music from the waving tops of celestial trees: +"It is ahead of you, my boy."</p> + +<p>Ahead of him? Marriage? A home for Tilly and himself alone? She, his +wife?—actually his wife? Absurd! Impossible! The bare thought, checked +though it was, set fire to his brain and he was thrilled in all his +nerves and members. He caught her upward glance and she smiled almost as +if she had glimpsed his vision and was thus responding to it.</p> + +<p>"You don't like Joel," she said, knowing full well that that remark +would prod his tardy speech.</p> + +<p>"Well, what if I don't?" he answered, with querulous sharpness.</p> + +<p>"Well, you shouldn't dislike him," the little minx<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> continued, +designedly. "He hasn't done you any harm. How could he? You have known +each other such a short time."</p> + +<p>Had John been other than the crude working-boy that he was, he might +have made a more adroit answer, but, even as it was, it was not +unpleasing to his sly tormentor.</p> + +<p>"What is he hanging around you so much for?" John demanded. "I've heard +that your father doesn't like him. What does he mean by coming, at the +slightest excuse, like to-night, for instance?"</p> + +<p>"Joel and I have been friends ever since we were tiny tots," Tilly +answered, as casually as a school-girl chewing gum. "And even if—if he +really does love me and—and wants me to be his wife, should he be +blamed for that?"</p> + +<p>The very suggestion of her marriage to any one, and that man in +particular, drove John wild. He bit his lip; he swore under his breath, +and his oaths had never been guarded before meeting Tilly; his eyes +flashed from the fires behind them. He clenched his fists.</p> + +<p>"You are mine, mine, mine!" he said to himself with the grinding teeth +of a cave-man, and he was all but unaware that his words were not +audible. She was smiling up at him, so sweetly, so placidly. What a +nimbus of transcendental charm hovered over the wonderful face in the +moonlight. Suddenly he checked his onward stride, caught her, and drew +her around facing him. What he might have said or done he never knew, +but Tilly gravely started on again, gently extracting her hand from his +fierce clasp and restoring it to his arm.</p> + +<p>"We must not stop," she said. "I hear a horse behind us. It is somebody +going to the party, perhaps."</p> + +<p>He said nothing as her fingers left his, and they walked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> on again. It +was a horse and a buggy containing a couple from the village. Tilly +spoke merrily to them and they answered back as they dashed on.</p> + +<p>"It is Marietta Slocum and Fred Murray," Tilly explained. "They are +engaged."</p> + +<p>"Engaged?" The word seemed to fill the entire consciousness of the crude +social anomaly. He told himself that an engagement must naturally +precede marriage, and how was that to come about with that helpless +tongue in his mouth? Besides, how did he know but that Tilly might +refuse him? How did he know but that there might even now be some +understanding between her and Eperson? The sheer thought chilled him +like a blast from a cavern of ice. She seemed to feel the limpness of +the arm she held or in some way to sense the despair that was on him so +quickly following the mood she had interrupted only a moment before.</p> + +<p>"You are so strange!" she sighed, taking a better grasp on his arm, and +even bearing down on it slightly as she lowered her head thoughtfully. +"You are a mystery to me. I can't make you out."</p> + +<p>He could not explain. He was not sure that he cared to explain the +terrible internal quakings which to him seemed so unmanly, so unlike any +feelings that had ever come to him. He wondered if Eperson had actually +spoken open words of love to her, and, if so, how had the fellow, with +all his suave ability, managed it?</p> + +<p>Another buggy passed. Tilly explained who the occupants of it were after +she had greeted them. They were George Whitton and Ella Bell Roberts. +Then she added, with a touch of seriousness:</p> + +<p>"You ought to have lifted your hat just now."</p> + +<p>"Lifted my hat? Why, I don't know her— I've never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> seen her before!" he +retorted, with the irritation of a great mind descending to a +triviality.</p> + +<p>"Because he lifted his to me and you are with me," Tilly persisted in +her mild rebuke. "It is the custom here, but it may not be at +Ridgeville."</p> + +<p>John was chagrined, but determined to hide it. "I have never heard of a +man bowing to a man or a woman he never saw before," he fumed. "I don't +care what you all do; it is foolishness out and out."</p> + +<p>"Well, when you are in Rome," Tilly quoted in quite a grave tone, "you +ought to do as the Romans do."</p> + +<p>The thing rankled within him. The blood had mounted to his brow and +stayed there. Even Tilly was telling him how to deport himself. He +adored her, but he was angry enough to have sworn in her gentle, +uplifted eyes. She observed his moody mien and playfully shook his arm.</p> + +<p>"Don't be mad," she urged, sweetly. "I meant no harm, but I <i>do</i> want +them all to like you, and I'm afraid they won't if you fail in little +things like that just now. They won't understand—they will think you +are stuck up, and I know you are not a bit vain. I am sure of that—as +sure as I'm alive. If you were I'd not like you."</p> + +<p>She had intimated that she liked him, and that ought to have been +sufficient to quell the storm within him, but it did not quite. Her +rebuke hurt far more than any which had ever come to him. She adroitly +changed the subject. She spoke of the work on the court-house and +praised his part of it, but what did that matter? He knew what his work +was and he was just learning profound and relentless things about the +difference between himself and her—between her puzzling environment and +his, which was all too distinctly plain for his present comfort. As they +neared Teasdale's and saw the lights streaming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> from the open doors and +windows across the lush greensward and noted the considerable collection +of horses and vehicles under the shade-trees and along the fences, he +became conscious of an overwhelming timidity with which he felt unable +to cope. Had Tilly been like himself and feared the entry into the light +and easy gaiety of the chattering throng, he would not have felt so +isolated. But her very unconsciousness of the thing as any sort of +ordeal to be dreaded depressed him as emphasizing the fateful +demarcation between her walk of life and his.</p> + +<p>They reached the steps of the large, rather rambling one-story +farm-house. There was a long veranda in front, both ends of which were +filled with merrymakers. There was a wide hallway, and it, too, was +filled with jolly, loud-talking couples, as well as the big parlor on +the right.</p> + +<p>"Oh, here they are!" Sally Teasdale cried, coming forward and taking +Tilly into her slim, pretentious arms. "I heard of you two poking along +like snails on the big road. As if you couldn't see enough of Mr. Trott +at home! I am going to introduce myself to him, to pay you back. I'm +Sally Teasdale"—holding out her hand to John—"and I am glad you came +to my party."</p> + +<p>John did not know what he said, if he said anything audible. It was the +damnable glibness of speech of others which he had to contend with and +which seemed to be as silly as unattainable.</p> + +<p>"Now, dear, run back to my room and take off your wrap," Miss Teasdale +said to Tilly. "I'll show Mr. Trott the men's room."</p> + +<p>"He has nothing but his hat," Tilly lingered to say, "and he can leave +that anywhere."</p> + +<p>"Yes, if you like," his hostess said, leading him to a spot on the +veranda where many men's hats were hanging<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> on nails driven into the +weather-boarding. He hung up his and immediately felt Sally clutch his +arm.</p> + +<p>"Tilly says you don't dance," she ran on. "What a pity! It is great fun, +and a good way to get acquainted. I suppose you are a member of the +church. Which one?"</p> + +<p>"None at all," he heard himself saying, as if in a dense fog and from a +great distance.</p> + +<p>"How funny that you don't dance, then?" she went on, leaving an opening +for him which he did not enter. He did not like her. She was too tall +and angular, too harsh of voice and fluent of talk and irritating +suggestion. He had the sense of being managed when he wanted above all +to be unmolested. Besides, she had sent Tilly away, and without Tilly he +felt lost.</p> + +<p>"I must introduce you to my father," Sally said. "He is old-fashioned +and wants his way about everything. He would scold me if I didn't +introduce you at once. He is inside. Come on. My stepmother is busy in +the kitchen fixing refreshments."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XIII" id="I_CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<p>He wormed his way after her through the surging throng to the parlor, +where a fat man in dark trousers and a white-linen coat stood vigorously +cooling himself with a palm-leaf fan and talking to some middle-aged men +and women.</p> + +<p>"Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Trotter—I mean Trott," he said, +extending a clammy hand. "I've seen you about the court-house several +times but you were always busy and I didn't want to climb up those +rickety planks to you. How is it moving along?"</p> + +<p>"All right," John said, bluntly. He was not awed by the man, for he was +used to men of all types. Besides, John could not descend to empty +platitudes for the sake of making conversation, and he half resented the +unnecessary question about a matter that was obvious to every passer-by.</p> + +<p>"Come in here with me." The old man took a large grasp on his arm and +began to fan lazy waves of warm air into his face as he drew him into an +adjoining room, which was evidently a sleeping-apartment from which the +bed had been removed. There was a table against the wall, and on its +snow-white cloth stood a great bowl of mint, some goblets, a pitcher of +water, a dish of sugar, and a brown jug containing whisky.</p> + +<p>"I want you to try one of my juleps," Teasdale chuckled. "That is some +of the best old rye that ever slid down a thirsty throat."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't drink," John said. "I won't take anything."</p> + +<p>"What, what? You don't? Well, I won't insist—I never do—but stay with +me a minute till I take one straight. My old lady says I take too much +at every party Sally has, and unless some feller is in here with me she +thinks I am tanking up all by myself."</p> + +<p>"Go ahead," John answered, and the farmer proceeded to help himself to +an ample supply of the amber fluid. While he drank, the sound of tuning +fiddles and the twanging of guitars came from the parlor.</p> + +<p>"The niggers have come," Teasdale gurgled, as he smacked his lips and +screwed the corn-cob stopper back into the neck of the jug. "Sally will +start out with dancing, I reckon. I used to be a great hand at it, but +I'm too heavy now."</p> + +<p>He led the way back to the parlor. Four black men sat in a corner +vigorously sawing and picking their instruments. One of them, the +leader, called out in stentorian tones, "All hands fer de fust set!" and +there was a laughing rush from the hall and the veranda of several +couples to secure places. Seeing a chance to get away from his host, +John drew back into the hall, where he found himself jostled and ignored +by the tempestuous human mass. He edged his way along a wall to the +veranda, and there saw something startlingly disagreeable. It was Joel +Eperson and Tilly standing side by side, their faces averted toward the +gate. Joel was regarding her with the eyes of dumb adoration and +listening closely to something she was saying. John saw that the +opposite end of the veranda was deserted and he went to it. He tried to +keep his eyes from the pair, but it was impossible. His misery +increased, seeming to ooze into him from some external reservoir of +pain. All around him surged a life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> bewilderingly new and fatuous. He +saw Joel bend down to pick up a flower Tilly dropped and saw him smile +as he gave it back to her. What could she be saying, with that sweet, +drawn look about her lips? What was Joel asking? He saw her nod, and +Joel took her arm and the two went down the steps to the gravel walk +that led from the house to the gate. Here back and forth they walked, +arm in arm, now in the full light from the door and windows, again in +the half-darkness near the fence. Once for fully five minutes they +lingered at the gate while the silent spectator of their movements +leaned tense and rigid against the balustrade. The promenade was quite +in accordance with rural propriety and custom, but John could not +understand why that pair in particular should be the only ones in the +entire company to engage in it. It did not seem right. How could it be +right?</p> + +<p>The music, the sonorous calls to the dancers, the tripping of feet, +pounded his tortured brain. The whole world in its new aspect seemed to +meet him with fangs and claws exposed. He wanted to fight something +physically, to express by oaths and blows the resentment packed within +his primitive breast. He felt his gnarled and hardened fingers at Joel +Eperson's thin neck. He saw the long hair sway back and forth as he +shook the love-smitten man. His clutch tightened till Joel's eyes bulged +from their sockets, and then, in gloating fancy, John dashed him to the +ground, where he lay exposed to Tilly's view. But reality has little to +do with the tricks of the imagination, and there stood Eperson at the +fence with Tilly by his side.</p> + +<p>Two girls were approaching. One was Sally Teasdale, the other Martha +Jane Eperson.</p> + +<p>"They've told the truth about you," the former greeted John, with a +teasing laugh, as she introduced the slight,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> plain, dark girl whose +hand she held. "You are really a woman-hater, or you would not be off +here by yourself when all the girls want to know you."</p> + +<p>Again he was scarcely conscious of what he was saying or leaving unsaid, +and suddenly waked to the fact that his hostess had hurried away, and +that the plain girl was in his care. After all, she was Eperson's +sister, and he eyed her curiously, wondering if she, too, were his +enemy.</p> + +<p>"You've met my brother," she began. "He spoke about it the day the +corner-stone was laid. There he is out there with Tilly now. I didn't +want to come to-night, but he was crazy to be here so that he could see +her."</p> + +<p>"I thought that was it," John permitted his slow lips to say. "They have +been going together a long time. That is, I've heard so."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and I thought—we all thought that Tilly would end up by taking +him, but it is all off now," Miss Eperson sighed, her eyes on the pair +at the fence.</p> + +<p>"All off?" John in his sober senses would have wondered at his ability +to talk so freely with a girl he had just met. "Why, what do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"As if you didn't know—as if <i>everybody</i> doesn't know!" Martha Jane +laughed half sardonically.</p> + +<p>"But I don't know what you mean." Something new and bountiful in its +promise of joy filled John and drove the words from his palpitating +tongue.</p> + +<p>"The idea!" scoffed Martha Jane. "Well, if you don't know it you are +blind as a bat in daytime. Brother knows it, I know it—everybody knows +it."</p> + +<p>"Knows what?" John demanded, his breath checked, his eyes gleaming, his +whole being athrob under the dawn of an ecstasy the plain girl seemed to +offer.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not going to tell you, if you don't know,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> the girl +answered, with a little shrug. "But if you want to understand, watch my +poor brother. He never had a look like that before. She has been his +very life. People that doubt real love ought to know Joel. He would go +through fire and water for Tilly. He'd steal, he'd kill, he'd do +anything. He is desperate to-night. When we got to her house and found +that you and she were going to walk out here, it was the last straw. But +he is a gentleman, my brother is, and he will never make a row over it."</p> + +<p>Under the sheer blaze of this information, John stood speechless. He, +boldly now, gave his arm to his little companion and they started to +walk back and forth on the lawn as others were doing. His face was now +turned from Tilly, but subconsciously he could fairly feel her +proximity. John almost loved the little woman on his arm. How could he +help it? She was so kind to him.</p> + +<p>They were turning toward the steps when Tilly and Eperson approached. +There was a wilted look of resignation on Eperson's face, a sentient +animation in Tilly's eyes and about her lips, when she said to John:</p> + +<p>"I hope you are having a good time and meeting all the girls. Sally said +she would look after you."</p> + +<p>He smiled and nodded. Something seemed to bear down on his brain and +befog his sight. The lights, the lawn, the people, swirled around him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm all right," he said.</p> + +<p>They were all on the veranda now and Joel stood facing his rival, a look +of wondering respect in his shrinking gaze.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Joel!" a voice was heard, and Sally Teasdale approached. "We need +you. Mother is going to serve the refreshments and all the men who know +the ins and outs of our kitchen are helping wait on the crowd. Will you +come? Father is already unable to walk steady."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XIV" id="I_CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<p>Joel blandly and gallantly complied. His sister, now thrown with John +and Tilly after the others left, looked slightly embarrassed, and, +saying that she, too, would help serve the supper, she moved away. This +threw John and Tilly together again. Some couples had seated themselves +in chairs against the wall, and, as there were vacancies, they sat down +also. The negroes, to the accompaniment of guitars, began singing old +plantation melodies. The moon, higher in the heavens now, shed a +glorious sheen over the still landscape. John was too full of adoration +and joy to utter a word. Tilly seemed to sense his mood to its depths +and to blend a mood of like nature with it.</p> + +<p>"I love you—I love you!" John's soul seemed to whisper, but his tongue +remained an inactive lump in his mouth.</p> + +<p>"I know—I understand," Tilly's soul seemed to be saying in the same +inaudible way. He smelled the perfume of the geranium leaves on his +coat, and his big red fingers raised them to his nostrils. He told +himself that it was a silly, womanish act, but what did he care? Tilly's +fingers had pinned them there, the little fingers he longed to caress.</p> + +<p>Joel served her first. He came past other girls and brought Tilly a +plate containing cake and a glass of sillibub and hastened away after +she had sweetly thanked him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<p>Tilly held the plate in her lap, idly toying with the spoon.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you eat it?" John asked.</p> + +<p>"Because the others haven't theirs yet," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see," he muttered, chagrined in spite of his happiness. "I'll +never get on to your ways. I've been brought up different. I've worked +hard since I was a boy—I— I—" But he could not go farther. Why should +he allude to his sordid home life when it was a thing which he now so +utterly despised? How could he speak of his mother, who was so widely +and strangely different from the women Tilly knew? No, he would let +those things rest.</p> + +<p>Various young men had served all the ladies on the veranda when Joel +came out with a plate and looked about as if trying to find some lady +who had been overlooked. Finding no one, he brought it to John.</p> + +<p>"You take it, Mr. Trott," he said, suavely, and yet with a touch of +irrepressible dejection in his tone.</p> + +<p>John stared in stupid bewilderment and then jerked out, "Keep it +yourself." It was just such a well-meant reply as he might have made to +one of his workmen who was offering him a cigar, and yet it quite +frustrated Joel, who stood awkwardly waiting, the plate still timidly +extended.</p> + +<p>"Oh no! I'm going right back," Joel said. "I can't eat now, thank you. +We are just beginning to help the men."</p> + +<p>"Well, you can't wait on me," John blurted out. The situation was +becoming tense and awkward, when Tilly half playfully reached out, took +the plate, and gave it to John.</p> + +<p>"Take it," she said, firmly. "Joel is in a hurry. The others are +waiting."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>John obeyed, but failed to thank Eperson. He was vaguely conscious that +Tilly was smoothly performing the duty for him and that Joel was bowing +himself away. Then they sat in silence. Others near by were boisterously +laughing, beating time with their feet and singing with the band, but +neither Tilly nor John had aught to say. It was as if the subject which +was at once burning and soothing their souls was too vast and sacred to +be touched upon in the neighborhood of others less profoundly stirred.</p> + +<p>"Give me your plate. I'll take it in," John heard a young farmer saying +to the girl he sat with. "You don't want to hold it all night. We'll be +dancing again in a minute."</p> + +<p>The girl obeyed, and the young man left with two plates in his hands. +John noticed that Tilly had finished, and he offered to take her plate. +She gave it to him. "Be careful," she warned him. "Sally borrowed most +of them from the neighbors and wants to return them in good order."</p> + +<p>John chafed under the admonition as he rose with his plate and Tilly's +in either hand. He had, however, scarcely reached the door when, in +trying quickly to step out of the way of two girls who were approaching, +one of the plates and the goblet on it fell to the floor. John stood as +if paralyzed. Then he softly swore. Every one on the veranda stopped +talking and stared. What he would have done next John never knew, for +Tilly suddenly approached.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," she said, calmly. "Take the other one to the kitchen."</p> + +<p>Furious at himself and all the swirling, clattering, and chattering +company, John managed to make his way into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> the kitchen, where he +delivered the plate to a buxom negro woman at a big dish-pan full of hot +water. He saw Joel putting down some plates and glasses on a table near +at hand. Joel smiled in a friendly way.</p> + +<p>"I saw your little accident," he said. "I barely escaped the same thing +just now. A fellow has to be a regular bareback rider or a tight-rope +walker to get through this crowd with his arms full of glassware and +crockery."</p> + +<p>"No, I couldn't help it." John was conscious of a hot flow of blood to +his face, and a vague sense of gratitude. "I'm no good at this sort of +thing. I haven't been brought up to it."</p> + +<p>Joel seemed to have no reply ready, and the two willingly parted. John +found his chair by Tilly still unoccupied and sat down in it. Why didn't +she say something about the accident, he wondered. He decided to bring +it up himself, so ignorant was he of the ways of the new world to which +she had introduced him.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry about those things I broke," he began, hurriedly. "It wasn't +my fault. Those girls came out all of a sudden and faced me. I had to +get out of their way, you see, or smash right into them. So I—"</p> + +<p>"I know. I saw it," Tilly interposed. "Never mind. Let it pass."</p> + +<p>"But I've got to fix it somehow," John blundered on. "Nobody shall lose +through me. I am able to pay for any damage I do. Tell me who they +belonged to and I'll send the owner a whole set of plates and goblets. I +might not match the ones I broke, but—"</p> + +<p>"Don't, don't think of that," Tilly urged, her pretty lips twitching +with almost maternal sympathy. "If you were to offer to pay it would +offend Sally."</p> + +<p>"Offend her? Why, in the name of common sense?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't know, but it would hurt <i>me</i>—it would hurt <i>anybody</i>. It is of +no consequence."</p> + +<p>"But you talked differently before it happened," John insisted, his lip +hanging and quivering. "You said distinctly that the things were +borrowed and that Miss Sally wanted—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but it is done now and the only thing is to forget it. Don't even +mention it to Sally."</p> + +<p>"Not mention it to her? Why not?" John's tongue was thick with the +mystery in which he was warmly floundering.</p> + +<p>"Because that would not be right—not according to—to custom."</p> + +<p>"Custom be—" John bit off the oath with exasperated teeth. "I don't +care a hill of beans what the custom is here in these backwoods. I want +to pay my way in this life. I laid a cigar down one day against a +fellow's hat, and burned a big hole in it. I bought him another and it +tickled him to death. It was the best hat in town, while his was an old +one, and—"</p> + +<p>"But this is different," Tilly pleaded. "Let it drop, please do. For my +sake don't say anything more about it. I'll explain what I mean some +other time."</p> + +<p>That had to suffice. There was more music and dancing and the game of +"Stealing partners" on the lawn. Tilly asked John if he wanted to play +the game, but he confessed that he did not know what it was like. Saying +that it would not look well for them to sit together so long, she led +him down to the grass, and they stood watching the big circle of +couples. It was very simple—far too simple to interest John. A +partnerless young man would dart across the ring, select the partner of +another, and they would merrily trip back to his "home" on the other +side.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + +<p>Seeing Tilly, a young man unknown to John came and "stole" her and drew +her into the circle.</p> + +<p>"Now let the girls steal!" a voice cried out, and several girls sped +across the ring after partners. A lively minx with blue eyes and flowing +golden hair danced up to John. "Come get in with me," she laughed. +"Tilly Whaley hasn't introduced you to any of us. It is a shame. You may +have heard Tilly mention me. I'm Jennie Webster."</p> + +<p>"No, I never heard of you before," John said, bluntly, as they settled +into their places in the ring.</p> + +<p>Jennie laughed in her small handkerchief. She even bent her golden head +to give vent to her amusement.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" John demanded, in slow irritation, his eyes on +Tilly, directly opposite with a young farmer whom he had once seen at +the Whaleys'.</p> + +<p>"Why, you are as funny as they all say you are," Jennie tittered. "I +heard you were rough and outspoken, but I didn't think you'd admit that +you never heard of <i>me</i> before. Why, sir, I'll have you know that I'm +somebody, <i>I am</i>. You may bet your boots. I got the first prize for +butter at the fair last fall and my father got two blue ribbons on a +white pig—one on its neck and the other on its stumpy tail."</p> + +<p>John wondered if she was making sport of him, but soon decided that +there was no malice in the twinkling blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"There goes Joel Eperson," she said, laying her small hand on John's +arm. "He is not in the game. Watch Tilly— What did I tell you? I knew +she would steal him. My, my! that couple are a wonder!"</p> + +<p>John saw Tilly leaving her partner and crossing the grass to Eperson. +"Come play," he heard her saying. "You've worked long enough for one +evening."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p> + +<p>John saw Tilly and Joel find a place opposite him. How his new hopes +drooped at the sheer sight of them!</p> + +<p>"You are living in her house; I guess you know about them," ran on +John's companion.</p> + +<p>"Know about them—know <i>what</i> about them?" he demanded, all but +fiercely.</p> + +<p>"Huh!" ejaculated the girl. "Have you been so busy with your bricks and +mortar that you haven't heard that they have been sweethearts since they +were tiny tots? Why, even my mother and father always inquire, when I +get home from a party, whether Joel and Tilly got together? You see, few +folks sympathize with her hard-shell old daddy, and everybody loves +Joel—everybody, man, woman, and child. And I know why. It is because he +is so fine, noble, and constant. Some think—some few—that Tilly will +give in to her father and drop Joel, but take it from me—and I'm a +girl—she won't. She loves him—down deep she loves him, for no girl +could help it. She wouldn't be a true woman if she went back on +adoration like that. He is not handsome, but there is something in him +too sweet and good to talk about. Once we all were arguing at +Sunday-school whether anybody could actually forgive an enemy, and +nearly all of us agreed that we couldn't but that Joel Eperson could. +Wasn't that funny? When I talk to him I feel restful. If I was about to +do a bad thing and he spoke to me, I'd throw it up. He did once, but +never mind about that. It is too long to tell you now. But I'll +always—always love him for what he did and said right while I was +wavering."</p> + +<p>John now saw that Joel had given Tilly his arm and was leading her +across the grass to a rustic seat under an oak-tree. The circle of forms +and faces became blurred to John's sight. There was much laughter, much +darting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> to and fro across the ring, but John heard only the voice of +the little analyst at his elbow.</p> + +<p>"There they go for the second dose of soothing-syrup," she twittered. +"Old man Whaley doesn't know which side his bread is buttered on. By +trying to keep them apart he is only driving them together. 'Absence +makes the heart grow fonder,' and so does opposition. That pair is +lapping up stolen sweets to-night."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XV" id="I_CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<p>The game was breaking up. The couples were moving toward the house. John +was desperate enough to have shaken the unconscious tantalizer now on +his arm. He could think of nothing to say and didn't care what his +companion thought about his inattention. He was wondering why Martha +Jane Eperson had said what she had said, and why he had been so foolish +as to believe it. Perhaps she had a motive. Perhaps it was sarcasm born +in the knowledge of his presumption. For aught he knew, she might now be +laughing over his credulity.</p> + +<p>John was only a boy, and a crude one. Without excusing himself from his +companion, he left her at the steps and abruptly stalked away. He had +his choice of entering the crowded farm-house or sauntering about the +grounds. Taking a cigar from his pocket, he struck a match on the +door-step, lighted the cigar, and then turned toward the stables at one +side of the house. Here among the horses and vehicles he stood +reflecting gloomily, rebelliously. Across the lighted lawn he saw Joel +and Tilly still on the bench. How close they seemed to sit, one against +the other! The hot weight of rage again bore down on John's brain. He +forgot to smoke. His cigar died in his inert fingers. Again he wanted to +throttle his meek and placid rival. The man's sheer gentleness enraged +him, for it was a quality he himself did not possess, and till now had +denied. In the half-darkness he saw two young men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> come to a buggy not +far from him, take from under the seat a flask, and heard them joking as +they drank.</p> + +<p>"I knew you had your arm around her, you sly dog!" one said, "and I held +my horse in to give you a chance."</p> + +<p>"She is a little beauty, eh?" another voice said with a laugh. "She +nestled up against me like a sick kitten to a hot brick."</p> + +<p>The flask was emptied. It whistled as it was hurled against the barn, +and the two men went back to the house. What could Tilly and Joel be +saying? She had said to John that he and she should not be seen too long +together, and yet for the second time that evening she and Eperson had +sequestered themselves like that. John told himself that he had been a +fool to hope as he had done, and his rage and despair joined forces +within him.</p> + +<p>Presently he noticed that some of the young men were coming for their +buggies and driving them up to the veranda. Then he saw some couples +getting in and driving away. Still Joel and Tilly sat on the rustic +bench. Still John lurked and watched in the darkness.</p> + +<p>"Oh, brother, we must go now!" It was Martha Jane calling from the +steps. "I don't want to hurry you, but we really must be going."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, dear— I'm coming!" and Joel and Tilly rose and arm in arm +slowly went to the house. A moment later Joel was coming for his buggy, +and John, fearing to be seen alone in the dark, quickly advanced by +another way to the veranda without meeting his rival.</p> + +<p>He found Tilly ready to go and looking for him. "I wondered where you +were," she said, softly. "We must be on the way."</p> + +<p>He went on the veranda for his hat, leaving her at the foot of the +steps. He joined her, the dead cigar in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> mouth. He held out his arm. +She took it, started on, then paused suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Have you said good night to the Teasdales?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"No," he retorted, impatiently, even angrily, for Eperson stood near by, +hat in hand, extending a handkerchief to Tilly.</p> + +<p>"You dropped it on the grass," he said. "I found it just now."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," Tilly said, taking it and smiling sweetly. "Good night. +Remember what I told you." Then she turned back to John. "You must say +good night to them. They are rather particular, and will think it +strange if you don't. There they are in the hall, all three of them."</p> + +<p>He obeyed. How he got through it he never knew. He bore away with him a +blurred impression of the farmer's red face, too affectionate handclasp; +Mrs. Teasdale's fat and squatting movement as she silently and timidly +bowed; and Sally's gushing appreciation of his coming, and her regrets +at not having seen more of him through the evening.</p> + +<p>Joel and Martha Jane were getting into the buggy. The latter leaned over +a wheel to kiss Tilly. Joel raised his hat, and John found himself +imitating the salutation, and despising it. He gave his arm to Tilly and +they started home. The road ahead of them was dusty, and Joel's horse +stirred the powdered clay into a cloud as he trotted ahead of them. This +fact in itself angered John. He coughed and sniffed, but said nothing.</p> + +<p>"I hope you liked the party," Tilly began. Her hand rested on John's arm +in the same confiding way as formerly, but it stirred him no longer.</p> + +<p>"I thought it was awful, silly, stupid!" he declared. "I never knew that +grown-up people could act that way."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," Tilly sighed. "I was afraid you would not enjoy so many +strangers. It would not be natural for you to feel as much at home as +the rest. You see, they have been going together for years, and, +moreover, you said you had not been accustomed to such things."</p> + +<p>"No, and I have not missed anything," he threw back.</p> + +<p>She made no denial. Her hold on his arm had a caressing quality that +would be hard to define. She seemed to understand him better than he +understood himself. "Yes, I was afraid you wouldn't like it," she +rejoined, "for you are different from most persons. You are the +strangest man I ever knew—the very, very strangest. Your face is as +smooth as a boy's, and yet somehow you seem old in—in experience—sad +experience, too, I should think. You are rough on the outside, but I +know you are pure gold on the inside."</p> + +<p>"Pure gold, rubbish!" he sneered, inwardly. Had he not just heard a girl +say that Joel Eperson was the best man alive? What did a woman's opinion +amount to, anyway? And how could Tilly expect him to be such a fool as +to believe her when she had acted as she had that evening with another +man? The memory of this fired him afresh and he suddenly shook her hand +from his arm and with bowed head strode along. He was breathing now like +a beast of burden hard driven by pain.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" Tilly asked, blandly, although she knew full well +that she was responsible for his present mood, and, reaching out, she +took his arm again. He did not lift it into place, and her hand slid +down his wrist till his fingers were clasped by her pleading ones.</p> + +<p>"Don't be mad at me," she said, soothingly. "If you understood +everything you would not be."</p> + +<p>Understood everything? Did she mean now that her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> engagement to Eperson +would explain, justify all that had taken place?</p> + +<p>"I do understand," he said, aloud, his cheeks twitching, his lips tight, +his eyes gleaming. He had stopped short and now stood fairly panting, +facing her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you don't—you don't!" she insisted. "Nobody knows, but myself and +Joel, how he feels. I have tried to do right by him, and once I thought +that in time I might feel otherwise, but it is impossible. I love him +dearly in a certain way, but it is not as a woman ought to feel toward +the one man in all the world for her—the one given by God Himself. Joel +loves me in that way, and I am very, very unhappy about it. I see—I +see—you thought to-night that he and I— But never mind. I was only +trying to get him to take a brighter view, for he is very, very +dejected."</p> + +<p>"You mean to tell me, looking straight in my eyes," John cried—"you a +truthful girl—you mean to tell me that you don't love him?"</p> + +<p>Tilly, with eyes full to their brink with sincerity, and in a voice that +rang true to its maidenly depths, answered: "No, I do not love him +as—as a wife ought to love her husband. I've tried, but I can't."</p> + +<p>The moonlight seemed filled with darting arrows of bliss made as visible +as rockets against a black sky. John felt as if the vast earth were +rocking his fears to sleep. He took her hand and drew it into its place +on his arm. The ground seemed to fall away from each step he took as +they moved forward.</p> + +<p>"I see, I see," he heard himself saying; "then it doesn't make any +difference. Poor devil! <i>That's</i> what ailed him, eh? No wonder! No +wonder!"</p> + +<p>Tilly's gentle pressure was on his arm and he was afraid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> she would feel +the wild throbs of his being, for, strong man that he was, he was as +much ashamed of them as of a secret sin. How could he open those +joy-tied lips of his and tell her how he felt—how he had felt since his +first sight of her? He tried to summon words that would be adequate, and +failed utterly. But Tilly knew. She seemed to gather a knowledge of his +emotions from the very moonlit silence that pervaded the fields and the +woods around them.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she began to quicken her step. "We must walk faster," she said, +sighing, as one in joyous slumber about to wake. "Mother and father may +hear the buggies passing and think we ought to be home earlier. You see, +it is Saturday night, and if I'm out after midnight father says it is +breaking the Sabbath and is angry."</p> + +<p>The house was still, save for a lamp burning in the hall, when they +arrived home. He helped her lock the front door, insisted on giving her +the lamp, and with a lighted match made his way up to his room. He had +not said good night to her. He remembered that with twinges of +self-contempt as he stood undressing in his room and heard Cavanaugh +snoring across the hall. Why had he overlooked it, he wondered. Why did +he have to be instructed on such matters like a little child learning to +walk, when they came so naturally to Tilly, to Joel Eperson and others?</p> + +<p>He frowned as he jerked his necktie and gave up the problem. He would +tell her when he saw her that he was sorry for the oversight. How could +he tell her that it was partly due to his dazed happiness over what she +had said about not loving Eperson?</p> + +<p>He tumbled into bed, but could not sleep for a long time. Cavanaugh +snored like the roar of a distant sawmill, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> that didn't matter. The +events of the evening were unreeling in a series of mind-pictures filled +with lights and shadows and culminating in the blinding revelation of a +single fact—the fact that Joel Eperson had cause for his present gloom. +John knew that he himself was unlike the people he was meeting for the +first time in his life, and he was sure that he could never be as they +were, but he had come upon the marvelous belief that he and Tilly were +meant for each other. Somehow, by some intent of Fate, they were +destined to breast the world side by side, arm in arm, as they had +walked the dusty road that night. He was conscious of many stupid +shortcomings on his part, but she would overlook them. Indeed, she was +overlooking them already. Finally he slept, and, of all absurdities, he +dreamed of carrying bricks and mortar as a small, ragged boy for +Cavanaugh, who had just hired him for a few cents a day to see what +there was in him. Later he seemed to be telling his powdered and painted +mother of his success and displaying to her indifferent gaze the first +few cents Cavanaugh had ever paid him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XVI" id="I_CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<p>The next day being Sunday, the family rose an hour later than usual. +Cavanaugh came into John's room after the sun was well up in the sky and +found his young friend awake.</p> + +<p>"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," he jested. "Here you are flat on +your lazy back while that little last night's partner of yours is out +milking the cow and feeding the chickens. I saw her from my window just +now looking as fresh as a pink morning-glory wet with dew. Old Whaley +and his wife are hard masters even of their own child. I reckon Tilly +would love to lie and snooze after that late tilt of yours and hers, but +her folks don't allow it when there is work to be done. I don't want to +meddle, my boy, but take it from me for what it is worth, Tilly is the +kind of a girl to make a working-man a fine wife. Why? Well, because she +hasn't been raised with a gold spoon in her mouth, and a lot of fool +ideas about style, rank, and what not. She'd be industrious, saving, and +grateful for what her husband could give her. And you—well, I'm not +giving you taffy to tickle your vanity, but you'd lavish your last cent +on a wife of your choice. How do I know? Well, how do I know that mighty +nigh all you ever made—now, I'm going to speak plain—mighty nigh every +cent you ever made was lapped up by your ma and Jane Holder and that +poor little girl at your house? Huh! Don't I know that a big, strapping +fellow that will do all that for folks of—of that stripe will do even +more for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> sweet little maid that leaves all her own kin to cleave +unto him?"</p> + +<p>"You don't know what you are talking about," John said from the pillow +which half hid his flushed face.</p> + +<p>"Well, maybe I don't," the contractor smiled benignly, "but you get up +and put on your best suit. We are all going to meeting to-day. You've +dodged that too often to help you along with old Whaley. He is wondering +where you stand, anyway, on these vital questions of man's duty to God +and His written law as Whaley reads it. Don't you forget about the way +he treated that son of his that tied up with a follower of the Pope. In +spite of his harsh ways Tilly loves her old daddy, and—and well, there +is no use of your rubbing the old hog's bristles the wrong way. They +might stick in your hand in the long run. You've talked too much to our +men on your line of free thought, I am thinking. I heard one say +yesterday that you claimed to be an out and out atheist. They all like +you, but they are members of some church or other and they were +scandalized to hear it. We are in a narrow, hidebound community up here +and we've got to watch where we step. Fellers like those will talk, and +what they say will be added to by others."</p> + +<p>"I won't keep my mouth shut for anybody," John said, firmly, as he got +up and began to dress. "I don't want to go to-day, but I will if you say +so."</p> + +<p>"Well, I <i>do</i> say so," Cavanaugh answered. "And we will set out as soon +as the family does. I'm going to set, as usual, in the old man's Bible +class that comes before the regular discourse, though I can't say that I +get much profit out of it. I disagree with his interpretation of many +passages, but he'd crawl over the benches and have a fist fight with me +if I disputed his points. They say he is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> a regular devil when he is +mad. Church member though he is, he actually shot a man once, and it was +a wonder the chap didn't die. He carries a revolver. What do you think +of that for an active disciple of the great Prince of Peace?"</p> + +<p>"They are all that way," John said, warmly. "They are crooks and haven't +brains enough to see how crooked their reasoning is."</p> + +<p>Shortly after breakfast the three Whaleys started to church. Tilly +walked between her father and mother, and John and Cavanaugh followed +close behind. They found, on their arrival, a group of villagers, +mountaineers, and farmers loitering on the grass-plot in front of the +little building, but the Whaleys went straight in, and John and the +contractor did likewise. Cavanaugh went forward to the benches at the +front which were reserved for Whaley's Bible class. Eight or ten men and +women were already seated there, and they nodded appreciatively to him +and the Whaley family. John found himself quite alone on a bench near +the door. He saw Tilly and her mother chatting with some other women, +and Cavanaugh making himself quite at home as he shook hands with +various smiling members of the class. Only half an hour was to be given +to the class work and nearly all the students had arrived. John saw +Whaley open his worn and interlined Bible and then step back to a +bell-rope which hung down by the little white pulpit. He gave the rope a +single forceful jerk and the cast-iron bell on the roof creaked and +tapped lazily. That was a signal that the Bible class had begun its +session.</p> + +<p>Just now, to John's great discomfiture, Whaley, with his Bible in his +stubby hands, came down the aisle to him.</p> + +<p>"You can't hear back this far," Whaley said. "Move on up and join us."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'd rather not," John stammered, trying to steady his eyes and voice in +his bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"Well, I can't see why. It certainly can't hurt you to hear us go +through the lesson, and you might learn a lot. Bible reading and study +is fairly sweeping broadcast over the country. Over in Dadeville they +have hired that woman blackboard teacher to come several hundred miles +and are paying five dollars a head for the course. I've read some of her +points in our Leaflet, and I'm here to tell you if she ever comes this +way I'll refute her, if they oust me for disorder. It would be my duty, +considering the light I have. Come on up."</p> + +<p>There was nothing else to do, for the entire class, with the exception +perhaps of Tilly, was looking toward him. John rose and followed the old +man up the aisle, and found Cavanaugh gravely and sympathetically making +space for him at his side. Tilly and her mother were just in front of +him. John could have bent forward and whispered in the girl's ear, had +he dared. The exercises began by a chapter being read, first a verse by +Whaley and then a verse in turn by each of the class. John was fairly +chilled by the horror of his predicament. It was plain that Whaley would +expect him to read aloud, and he determined that he would refuse. He +told himself that he would refuse if the whole silly bunch of fanatics +were infuriated by it. He had been forced into the class and he would be +forced no farther. As luck would have it, the book was handed to +Cavanaugh before it reached John, and the old man read in a clear, +confident tone the verse which had fallen to him. Then he started to +hand the Bible to John, but John shook his head firmly.</p> + +<p>"Pass it on to some one else," he said, almost aloud and with guttural +sullenness. "I won't do it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then Cavanaugh displayed friendly diplomacy. "I'll read for my young +friend, if it is all right," he said. "Me and him have a lot of talks on +these same lines, but usually I do the reading."</p> + +<p>Whaley frowned and glared, but, being impatient with any delay, he said, +gruffly: "Well, well, go ahead. I don't know where Mr. Trott stands, +anyway. He is bound to see the light sooner or later, and then he won't +have to be begged to read the grandest Book the world ever saw, or be +slow about joining a class like this, either. As many of you know, with +pride, it is the best and biggest in the county, if not in the state."</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh proceeded to read the verse, and the book went over to Mrs. +Whaley and then to her daughter. And as Tilly read in her clear, +unruffled voice John was conscious of a certain twinge of shame for his +avoidance of a thing so simple as she made the act seem.</p> + +<p>The reading was concluded, and Whaley set in to analyze the text, line +by line. He would read a verse, and then ask the class what particular +significance it held to their understanding. Answers came rapidly from +all the class, and sometimes John noticed that, when all the others had +failed to grasp Whaley's particular version, he would call on Tilly to +reply and what she said always met with her father's approval, the +reason being that the girl had already gone over the chapter with her +parents at home. The lesson was concluded by a long-winded lecture from +Whaley, and then the bell was rung for the regular service.</p> + +<p>John failed to hear what the aged minister was saying, but he did note +that Whaley now and then called out, "Amen!" in deep, self-satisfying +tones. John could not keep his eyes from the back part of Tilly's head. +He worshiped her hair, the very ribbons of her simple straw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> hat, the +curve of her brave little shoulders. What a marvel she was in human +form! It was almost impossible to realize that only a few hours before +she had been alone with him, telling that dazzling story of her +inability to love another man. He wondered if he might walk home with +her. He was afraid not, and yet could not tell whence his fears came, +unless they were due to his vague sense of having opposed her father's +religion.</p> + +<p>When the service was over, however, the opportunity came. It might have +been brought about by deliberate design on the part of the contractor, +for Cavanaugh drew the husband and wife into conversation about the +sermon, and that threw Tilly and John together. The Whaleys seemed to +forget Tilly's existence, and John and she fell in behind the three.</p> + +<p>"I wondered what you were going to do when father went back after you," +Tilly said, with a smile. "I was afraid to look around."</p> + +<p>"What did you think when I refused to read in the class?" John inquired, +forcing a lifeless smile.</p> + +<p>"I hardly know," Tilly said, as she studied his face with bland +sincerity. "It almost frightened me. I was afraid father would forget +himself and storm out at you. But—but as for your reading out loud, of +course, if you really do not believe in the Bible and love it, you ought +not to read it in public. That would be sacrilege."</p> + +<p>"And do you believe in it?" he demanded, almost rebukingly. "Do you +believe that that Book is the actual word of some far-off God that no +living man ever saw with his eyes or heard speak with his ears?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Tilly answered. "If I didn't believe it I'd be miserable. I can't +see how you can doubt the existence of God—how you can keep from +actually feeling His presence,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> especially when you are in trouble and +seriously need His help."</p> + +<p>John sneered. He loved Tilly with his whole being, but he despised her +belief. "I can tell you why I don't believe," he said, a billow of +feeling behind his words. "I believe if there were a God, that God would +have to be a God of love, power, and pity, and with my own eyes I've +seen— I have told you about that little orphan girl at home, Dora +Boyles. She is a little, helpless, overworked rat without father or +mother, in the care of an aunt who is no earthly good—and is crazy +about men—crazy about clothes, cards, liquor, and dancing. That little +dirty scrap of a girl is a child of God, the same as those polite, +well-fed, well-dressed girls and boys we met last night, eh? Well, tell +me what is God doing for her? As for me, myself, as I look back on what +I went through among those haughty, hidebound people at Ridgeville, +before Sam Cavanaugh held out a helping hand— Well, never mind about +that, but I know I've been my own God, and I never run across any other +except in the dreams of persons who get the best things of life and +don't care whether anybody else gets them or not."</p> + +<p>"You will think otherwise some day—you will <i>have</i> to," was Tilly's +regretful ultimatum. "Someday you will need God so badly that you will +turn to Him. I did once, and was answered, too."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean it," John disputed, warmly. "No prayer was ever answered +by any God, on the earth or off of it."</p> + +<p>"Mine was," Tilly asseverated. "It was one night, and I was at home all +alone. Father had lost his temper at an election and—and wounded a man +in a dispute. Father was put in jail and mother hurried to him. The man +was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> bleeding to death—the doctors couldn't stop the flow of blood. You +can't imagine how I felt. I fell on my knees and prayed with all my soul +to God to save my father and the man he had shot. At two o'clock—oh, I +don't know how to express it!—at two o'clock I seemed to be lifted up +into something like light, but it wasn't that. It was something finer +and holier, but I knew, I knew that all was well. My mother came at +sunup. She said they had stopped the flowing blood at two +o'clock—exactly at two o'clock. My father was released the next day and +the man finally recovered."</p> + +<p>"Things like that happen once in a thousand times," John said, with an +indulgent smile, "and people say it is in answer to prayer."</p> + +<p>"But I know, for I <i>felt</i> it," Tilly responded, simply, and she said no +more, for the three older persons had turned and were waiting for them +on the street corner.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XVII" id="I_CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<p>One morning a week later Cavanaugh mounted the scaffold on which John +was working. He held some letters in his hand.</p> + +<p>"That car of brick has been delayed," he announced. "It will be three +days before it can be delivered. The men won't like it, but we'll have +to shut down for that long, anyway."</p> + +<p>John frowned and swore, as he stood scraping his trowel on the edge of a +brick which he had just tapped into line.</p> + +<p>"Never mind; we needn't be idle—you and me, anyway," Cavanaugh said, +gently. "You heard about Mason & Trubel's storehouse being burned down +last week, didn't you? Well, the agents for the insurance company have +written me to come home and help adjust the loss. Some of the walls may +be usable in rebuilding, and they want me to be one of the arbitrators. +Now, there will be a lot of close figuring to do, and I want you to be +there. How about both of us going? There will be a fee for us that will +more than cover expenses, and the trip will do us good."</p> + +<p>"I'll go with you," John said. "When will you start?"</p> + +<p>"First train in the morning," was the reply, and the contractor went +about among the men, explaining the situation.</p> + +<p>The two friends arrived at Ridgeville the following morning at ten +o'clock and at once started for their homes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> To John's surprise, at the +end of the first street Cavanaugh did not turn toward his home, as would +have been natural, but kept on in the direction John was to go.</p> + +<p>"You are out of your beat, aren't you?" John asked.</p> + +<p>"I am and I ain't," Cavanaugh smiled. "I want to show you something—a +little house and lot that I hold a mortgage on. You know the cottage I +built for Pete Carrol, this side of your mother's house? Well, he +couldn't pay for it and it is on my hands. He went West, you know, and +left all his furniture in it. I've had a rent-sign on it for two months, +but haven't had a single applicant for it. I'd like to take a peep at +it."</p> + +<p>The cottage was in quite an isolated spot, near the end of the street +railway, in full view of the lots containing shanties in which negroes +and the very poorest whites lived. Above the tree-tops, not far away, +could be seen the patched roof of John's ramshackle home.</p> + +<p>"I hid the key under the door-step," Cavanaugh said, as they entered the +small front gate, and, bending down, he secured it. Then he crossed the +tiny, newly painted front porch and unlocked and opened the door.</p> + +<p>There was a little hallway with rooms on each side of it, a tiny parlor +on the right which, on entering, they found neatly equipped with plain +oak furniture, and a rug or two on the floor, which was covered with +straw matting. They next entered the dining-room, which was furnished in +similar style. There was a small sideboard holding a modest supply of +table-linen, dishes, and glassware.</p> + +<p>"Pete's wife was awfully particular, and she left things in apple-pie +order," Cavanaugh said, as they went into the kitchen adjoining. This +room, too, was supplied with all necessary utensils, a neat stove and a +sink with running water. Next they saw the bedroom. It held a table +with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> a lamp on it, and an oak bedstead in neat order with unsoiled +pillows and white coverlet. There was a bureau with a wide plate-glass +mirror, also a wash-stand with a white ewer and basin. The floor was +covered with new matting.</p> + +<p>"A snug little nest, eh?" Cavanaugh asked, with a slow and rather +automatic smile. "Looks like somebody ought to rent it, cheap as I hold +it and ready furnished—only fifteen a month."</p> + +<p>"It is all right," John answered, indifferently. "You ought to rent it +in the fall, anyway, when business picks up."</p> + +<p>"I want to rent it by the time we finish the court-house, +anyway"—Cavanaugh continued to smile—"and I'd like to rent it to +somebody that would take care of it— I mean somebody that I know about. +Gee! wouldn't this be a snug little nest for a pair of new-married +turtle-doves? Think of a fellow coming back from his day's work at night +to a cottage like this, with a little wife to meet him in a white bib +and tucker and a kiss and a glad smile?"</p> + +<p>John had a sudden flash of comprehension, and he flushed from head to +foot. His great mouth made a failure of a smile, and that he was pleased +Cavanaugh did not doubt. "You think you have a joke on me," John said. +"Well, well, go it, Sam! I'm game for a little thing like that."</p> + +<p>"You may call it a joke, but I don't," the contractor said, quite +seriously. "You see, I've got an ax to grind—two, in fact, for in the +first place I want to rent this house for enough to pay the taxes and +insurance, and in the next I want to tie you down to Ridgeville. I am +too old to move now, and I need you mighty bad. Say, you and I can +become partners before long."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, what has that got to do with your—your other damn foolishness?" +John's face was averted as he spoke. They were back in the bedroom now, +and he made a pretense of examining the new sash-cords of the window. He +drew one of the weights up in its hidden groove and lowered it again. He +had never before examined a detail of a building so minutely. He looked +closely at the paint on the mullions and searched for flaws in the +glass.</p> + +<p>"It has got this to do with it," Cavanaugh went on, now steadily and +without a vestige of his former smile. "I'm no fool, my boy. I know as +well as I stand here that you are not going to leave that sweet little +girl up there to do the drudgery for that irritable old hog and his +obedient wife. If you did I'd lose respect for you. You are making good +pay and you will make even better. In a little nook like this you could +make her as happy as the day is long. She could do all the housework and +not work a fourth as hard as she does now. Why, I saw her in the +corn-field the other day, toiling like an old-time slave with a heavy +hoe, while her rotten old daddy was in the house picking out passages in +the Bible to pin down some particular argument of his."</p> + +<p>"I guess—I guess—" John stammered, "that the—the <i>girl</i> would have +something to say on the subject."</p> + +<p>"How <i>can</i> she, in the name of all possessed"—Cavanaugh snorted and +laughed—"unless she is <i>asked</i>? I'm no fool. I know what two smudges of +red about the cheek-bones of a pretty girl mean when they never come in +sight till a big, hulking feller in overalls appears on the scene. I +know, too, that things have taken place that you haven't heard about. I +know that I've turned myself into a contractor of flesh and blood +instead of brick and mortar. Them old folks simply agreed one night, in +a talk with me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> that I might run it. I told them I'd stand for you in +every way, and they— Well, haven't you noticed for the last week that +they have slid off to bed early and left you and Tilly out under the +trees or on the porch, together? Well, that was my doings. The old man +was for having you come to him and state your intentions in plain words, +but I advised him against it. I told him that you could make a speech on +internal revenue, political economy, or any other big subject to an +audience a thousand strong, but that you'd fall down in an attempt to +tell a girl's daddy that you wanted to provide her grub and clothes. I +did have a big tussle, though, to keep one certain thing out of the +discussion, and that was your religion, or rather your lack of it. He +kept saying that he wanted to know what particular brand of theology +you'd impress on his daughter at your fireside. He said he never had +failed to see women go with their husbands sooner or later, and he was +afraid you hadn't been converted yet. However, I got him quiet on that +line. I told him, you see, that while you hadn't yet made an open +profession, I knew you well enough to be sure you'd end up all right and +make as good a citizen as any man I know."</p> + +<p>"You have heard about a certain fellow by the name of Eperson, haven't +you?" John asked, as he strove manfully to quench the glad lights in his +eyes. "Well, he and Tilly have been sweethearts ever since they were +children."</p> + +<p>"He has, but she hasn't." Cavanaugh emphasized the "he." "I know all +about it. He is as near dead as a man can be from disappointment. She +might have thought she cared for him, at one time, but when you came all +that was off. Now I'm going home to my old woman. Talking to you on +these lines makes me want to see her mighty bad. I feel younger, and +I'll bet she will look that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> way to me, too. But remember this, when we +get back to Cranston, sail right in and tell Tilly how you feel. She +knows, anyway, but you tell her straight out, like a man with a load of +hay to sell, and be done with it. I want to rent this house and I'm +going to do it."</p> + +<p>They were outside the cottage now. Cavanaugh had closed the door and was +on his knees, hiding the key under the step. John stood over him.</p> + +<p>"I wish you knew what you are talking about, Sam," he said, and it was +the first even indirect confession of the sacred tumult within him. +"I'll say that much. I wish—I wish it could be like you say it is. My +God! Sam, when I dare to think of it I go all to pieces. It is too good +to be true. Nothing has ever come my way that amounted to much in this +life. How could as big a thing as that be for me?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it just is." Cavanaugh stood up, his fine face working in +sympathy. "The Lord has fixed it that way, my boy. You have had a hard +time, but your day is dawning. And listen to me. Under your full joy you +are going to wake up into a gratitude to the Creator for His great +gifts. You've been bitter—so bitter, for one reason or another, that +you've denied even God's existence, but with a believing wife like Tilly +at your side, and with children to bring up right, you will be +different. You are just a boy, anyway—a great, big, awkward, stumbling +boy, but you are going to make a man, and a good one."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XVIII" id="I_CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<p>They parted outside the little gate, agreeing to meet at the Square in +the afternoon, and John pursued his way homeward. The very ground seemed +to fall away from his feet as he put them down. His whole body felt like +an imponderable thing over which he had little control. The swelling joy +within him fairly choked him.</p> + +<p>"My God! My God!" he said several times, aloud. "Sam's a fool. Sam's a +fool. It can't be so. My Lord! how could it? And that little house. It +is a beauty and most women would like to run it and keep it in order. I +wonder if she would with me. I wonder."</p> + +<p>He found Dora under an apple-tree in the front yard, playing with some +rag dolls she had made from scraps of finery cast off by her aunt and +Mrs. Trott. A brick represented a table, and on it were arranged bits of +china for plates. Other pieces of make-believe furniture were +constructed of cardboard cut and bent into shape. She glanced up as he +swung open the gate, smiled a welcome from a soiled face, and wiped her +itching nose on the back of her slender hand. She did not rise or make +any sort of physical demonstration by way of greeting.</p> + +<p>"Where are the folks?" he asked, glancing into the house through the +open doorway.</p> + +<p>"Asleep, I reckon," she said, busy with the pink sash of one of her +legless ladies, the tinseled hat of which was pinned askew over a pair +of eyes formed of green beads. "They've only been home about an hour. +Aunt Jane is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> sick. Your ma said she fainted at the party and they all +thought she was dead for a while."</p> + +<p>"Those are not good dolls," John said, from the depths of his turbulent +joy. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll buy you a real wax one with +yellow hair and blue eyes. I saw one in a show-window as I came along +just now. It had on shoes and stockings and held a parasol in its little +hand."</p> + +<p>"All talk—all wind, hot air!" the child said, indifferently, and she +had evidently picked up the expressions from her elders. "A drummer—the +fellow with the striped shirts that is always whistling and sells +cloaks—he told me he was going to get me a doll and a baby-carriage, +but he never came back—changed his rowt, so Aunt Jane said. But this +doll's all right. Don't you think so, brother John?"</p> + +<p>"It will do till I get the other," he answered, and then he felt an +impulse that he had never felt before. He bent down and put his hand +caressingly on the almost matted hair, and she, not understanding, +impatiently shook it off and went on with her work, her mouth now full +of pins.</p> + +<p>There was a chair near by and he sat down in it, bending toward the +child. Seldom had his boyishness been so apparent. He wanted to open his +cramped heart to some one—why not to her? He wanted to hear his own +voice applauding the things that were leaping, singing, shouting in the +penetralia of his being.</p> + +<p>"Say, Dora," he began, clasping his warm hands between his knees, "can +you keep a secret?"</p> + +<p>"A secret?" she repeated, letting her doll lie for an instant in her +ragged lap and staring straight at him with growing interest. "Have you +got one—a real one?"</p> + +<p>He had. His smile and generous nod admitted it. "Can you keep your mouth +shut, that is what I want to know?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, yes!" she exclaimed, eagerly. "You ask Aunt Jane if I ever let +your ma know—let her know—but never mind. I can keep one. Try me—that +is if you are not kidding. I don't want any foolishness from you or +anybody else. Life is too short."</p> + +<p>"Well, listen!" he began, and something in the blaze of his eyes, the +tremolo of his erstwhile brusk voice, the warm look of his face, caught +and held her attention. "Did you ever think the day would come when I'd +go with a girl?"</p> + +<p>"Who, you?" Dora sniffed. "Now I <i>know</i> you are kidding."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not," he went on, riding the tide of his joyous self-emptying. +"I have done it often since I went to Cranston. I got acquainted with +one up there. Sam and I board with her pa and ma. You ought to see her, +Dora. She is all right—as nice and pretty as any stuck-up girl in this +town. Folks up there are different—very, very different from these down +here who don't know that you and I are alive. They are polite and decent +and civilized. Lord! somehow it makes me sick to think of living on +here, but I reckon I will. Say, did you ever notice the stunning little +cottage that Sam put up for Pete Carrol on the right-hand side of the +street as you go down? But never mind that. What would you think if I +was to tell you that before very long I might—" John was stalled. How +could he express by mere lip and tongue the transcendental thing which +so completely filled him?</p> + +<p>"What are you trying to get through yourself?" It was another of the +child's picked-up expressions, and she leaned toward him with a slow +leer of wonder. "What is your great secret?"</p> + +<p>"I was coming to it," he said, his words falling steadily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> now. "But you +mustn't tell it to a living soul. Kid, I'm thinking about getting +married."</p> + +<p>"Married—you? Huh!" Dora laughed incredulously as she plucked a pin +from her lips. "Why, you are too young! I heard your ma say it would be +ten years before you ever thought of it, even if you did then, you old +goody-goody poke of a boy."</p> + +<p>"I'm not too young." John flared up resentfully. "Sam says I'm not, and +he ought to know. It isn't settled yet, but it will be when I get back +up there. Sam says it is as good as settled now, and Sam is in a +position to know. Oh, she is all right, kid—believe me, she is a +wonder! I wish you could see her. She wouldn't turn up her nose at you +like some folks do around here. She is sweet and kind and gentle. They +are working her to death up there—her folks are, but all that will be +off when I bring her down here?"</p> + +<p>"Are you in earnest—really dead in earnest?" Dora asked, her face still +blank.</p> + +<p>"I am, and I don't want a word said about it. It is none of my mother's +business, you understand. She might try to pry into it and I want her to +keep out of it. This is my affair—mine and nobody's else. Sam knows it, +and you, but that's all."</p> + +<p>"I won't tell it," Dora, now convinced, declared earnestly. "I'll never +tell it till you let me. Have you got a picture of her?"</p> + +<p>"No, she's got some, but she never gave me one— I never asked for it. +They are not good enough, nohow. They make her look too glum and pinched +about the eyes. To know what she is like, you have to see her and hear +her talk, or read the Bible out loud at prayer-time. She isn't big; her +hands and feet are nearly as little as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> yours are; but above all else in +the world, kid, she is good. The neighbors all love her. She waits on +them when they are sick. Away late at night not long ago a farmer come +to get her to go stay with his sick wife, and Tilly—that's her +name—was away till sunup, and then came home and milked the cows and +worked around the kitchen. She needs a long rest and she shall have it. +I'll see that she gets it, and plenty of clothes and pretty things, +besides. She is having an awfully hard time and that is one reason I +don't feel so bad about asking her to—to come with just me. I am going +into partnership with Sam later, and he and I will both make more money +and I'll buy things for her. She plays an organ. I'll get her one. She +shall tote the pocket-book, too. She has been skimped all her life. I +know. I've had my eyes open up there. She never buys a thing, even a bit +of ribbon, without her old daddy fingering it and calling her down for +spending money for show, and it was her money, too, bless your life! She +sells butter and eggs, takes them to the store herself. She has a little +garden-patch all her own, and I've seen her out in it even in the rain, +picking beans and peas to sell."</p> + +<p>"If she is like that"—Dora was precociously and pessimistically wise +for one so young, the fact being due, no doubt, to the tutelage of the +two worldly women who were her sole companions—"if she is like that, it +looks like some lazy feller would have got her before this. Aunt Jane +says it takes money and clothes and lots of things to keep any man +coming regular."</p> + +<p>"There is—there <i>was</i> another fellow," John put in, unctuously, "but +she turned him down. Lord! Lord! it broke him all to pieces! She just +somehow couldn't tie to him. She told me so out of her own mouth."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What is she like?" Dora then demanded. "What does she look like?"</p> + +<p>"Don't ask me," John smiled. "I can't tell you. When we walk together +she strikes me about here," his hand on his left shoulder. "She has blue +eyes, brown wavy hair, a pretty mouth, and a nose with a cute little +tilt to it. There are bits of brown freckles on her wrists and cheeks, +but they don't matter. If anything, I like them. I wouldn't rub them +off. Folks don't say she is pretty—even Sam don't; but why I can't see, +for she is simply stunning, and you'll say so, kid, when you see her."</p> + +<p>"Well, I won't tell— I won't tell," Dora promised, returning with +lowered interest to her rag things after the flight with him into his +empyrean.</p> + +<p>Here a voice sounded from the window of Mrs. Trott's room up-stairs.</p> + +<p>"Dora, is that John down there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm. He's just got back."</p> + +<p>"Well, tell him to come up here right away."</p> + +<p>The order did not need repeating. John stood up, the old practical frown +settling on his face. "I wonder what the —— she wants?" he growled, +with fierce emphasis on the omitted word. "I thought she was asleep."</p> + +<p>"Come on up, John; I want to see you," Mrs. Trott's querulous voice rang +out again, and without replying he turned away. He wore his best suit of +clothes, had recently shaved the fuzz from his face, and looked rather +more manly than formerly as he strode through the doorway and up the +rickety old stairs. Reaching the upper floor, he turned into his +mother's room, unceremoniously pushing the door open and standing on the +threshold, just as Mrs. Trott, in a soiled wrapper, was getting back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +into bed after having been to the window. Her hair was in curl-papers, +and the little bristling tufts gave to her face an uncouth, bleak look +and left her penciled brows to a barren waste of forehead. Her cheeks +were still rouged from the night before. A brazen necklace, recently +doffed, had left dark streaks on her powdered bust.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you come on in?" Mrs. Trott demanded, irritably. "What did +you sit down there and talk with that brat for?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know. What do you want?" He frowned in his turn, and all +but growled.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trott kicked the light covering down over her feet and wadded the +pillow so that her head was raised higher. "I've been short of money +ever since you went off," she explained, pettishly. "When you were here +you always had some on Saturday nights, but after you went off you +didn't send as much and Jane and I both got in a hole."</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you want now?" he asked. "How much?"</p> + +<p>"I'll have to think," Mrs. Trott said. "I borrowed five from Jane +yesterday. We were playing a little game and I lost. I was about to drop +out when Jane backed me. I lost again. My luck was against me, and her, +too. Jane needs the five. She is sick and will have to have a doctor. +You know they insist on cash—they won't come here, the silly fools, +unless you shake the money in their faces, though they run the accounts +of other people for years on a stretch."</p> + +<p>"I haven't got that much with me," he gave in, wearily, "but I'm going +to the bank after dinner and will get it."</p> + +<p>"How much have you got there?" Mrs. Trott inquired.</p> + +<p>"That's <i>my</i> business, not yours," he said, with an oath,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> for under +that roof it had always seemed natural for him to swear. "And don't you +be nosing into my business, either. You went there once and tried to get +money on my name, but don't you do it again. I've turned over a new +leaf. I have to. You throw money away like water, on cards, whisky, +beer, and what not. I can't keep that up, and I won't. I have to draw +the line somewhere."</p> + +<p>She raised her head a little higher and fixed her eyes, in their puffy +sockets, on him in a sort of groping wonder.</p> + +<p>"Why, what has got into you?" she asked, stupidly, and all at once he +seemed older to her, older and more dignified, more business-like, more +like his dead father, to whom she had been flagrantly untrue.</p> + +<p>"Common sense, I reckon," he jerked out. "If I've been a fool I don't +always have to stay one. I'm going to need money—for myself, for my +<i>own</i> self, do you understand? I—I don't intend to live on here always, +either. I'll be of age before long. I've thought it all over. I'm +willing to set aside a reasonable amount to help you along, but I'm done +with these big drafts on me."</p> + +<p>"John, what ails you?" There was a touch of shrinking fear in the almost +childish appeal. "You have never talked like this before."</p> + +<p>"Well, I might as well begin," he sniffed. "You have to be told. I've +seen how other folks live away from here, and I want a change. I'm sick +of it all—you and Jane and the gang you hang out with."</p> + +<p>"John Trott," his mother gasped, "you sha'n't talk to me this way. I +won't stand it."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, think it all over," he answered. "I know my business. You +can look out for yours. I know when I've had enough, and I <i>have</i> had +enough."</p> + +<p>He turned and left her. She heard him in his room, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> sordid cubbyhole +he had occupied since he was a child, and somehow now she pictured its +narrow confines and condition as being unsuited to the new and +unaccountable dignity into which he had grown in his short absence. What +could it mean? What?</p> + +<p>She got up, slid her silk-dressed feet into a dainty pair of black-satin +slippers, drew her wrapper about her, and went into Jane Holder's +darkened room.</p> + +<p>"Are you asleep, Jane?" she inquired, half timidly.</p> + +<p>"How could I be, with you yelling out of your window to John at the top +of your lungs?" Jane turned on her side as she answered. "Then it was +wow-wow-wow! in your room after he came up. Oh, I'm sick, sick, sick! +You let that sneaking Kelly mix those last drinks on me. I heard you +snickering when he did it."</p> + +<p>"Never mind; it will go off," Mrs. Trott said, and she sat down on the +edge of the bed. "It always does. Listen to me, Jane. Something has +happened to John."</p> + +<p>"Happened? What do you mean?" Jane softly moaned and gagged, her hand at +her thin throat.</p> + +<p>"Why, I don't know! That's what I want to see you about. Somebody must +have been meddling—talking to him. He has a queer look in the eyes. He +fairly glared at me and spoke to me— Well, he never did the like +before. I was—was actually afraid of him. It looked to me once as if he +was going to pounce on me. Do you remember how Judge Manis talked to us +the day he remitted our fine, dismissed the court, and talked to us in +private?"</p> + +<p>"My God! woman," Jane groaned, desperately, "what are you—"</p> + +<p>"John looked and talked like the judge did," Mrs. Trott ran on, with a +little impatient wave of her hand. "I was glad he went to his room. +There is no telling what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> he would have said about us both. Somebody has +been meddling, I tell you, putting notions in the boy's head. Oh, he has +changed—changed!"</p> + +<p>"Spoiled, by that new job, I reckon," Jane Holder whined. "The new +outfit Sam Cavanaugh gave him has stuck him up. Boys turn like that all +of a sudden when they reach the gosling stage. He has been dreamy all +his life, and he is getting his eyes open and thinks he is the whole +show. You will have to put up with it, that's all."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to make of it— I don't, I don't!" Mrs. Trott stood +up, sighed heavily, yawned, and left the room. Outside she met Dora +coming from John's room.</p> + +<p>"I asked him what he wanted for dinner," the child remarked, "but he +said he wasn't going to eat here. He's going down to the +restaurant—said he didn't want me to cook and drudge for him. He is +funny, Mrs. Trott. He is not one bit like he used to be."</p> + +<p>"I don't care where he eats," Mrs. Trott answered, wearily. "We haven't +much in the safe, anyway. Is the flour all gone?"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm, and the coffee and bacon. I used the last sprinkling of flour +for the batter-cakes yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Well, stop the grocery-wagon the next time it goes by," Mrs. Trott +concluded. "Tell the boy I'll have that money for him to-day. You left a +great litter out in the yard. Go clean it up. If you have to play, play +in the back yard. People passing will talk about the way you look."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XIX" id="I_CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<p>That night at the supper-table Cavanaugh took his wife into his +confidence and told her of the love-affair which was culminating in such +a satisfactory way to him as well as to John. "You see," he said, "when +it first flared up between them, I was dead afraid that the boy might +settle up there, or move away, and I'd lose him as a future partner, and +a good one at that, but I clinched all that to-day." Cavanaugh laughed +slyly as he told of the Carrol cottage and how pleased John had been +with it. The old man talked at considerable length, but suddenly noticed +that his wife, seated in the lamplight across the table, had not uttered +a word, which struck him as being truly remarkable. Of all things in the +dull routine of her life, engagements and weddings of young persons +hitherto had interested her most.</p> + +<p>"Well, well," the contractor said, suddenly. "What do you think of it? +You don't, somehow, look glad. I always thought you liked John, and all +this time I've been thinking how tickled you'd be to hear about him and +his girl."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cavanaugh blinked. Her face was very grave, her fat chin set firm +in accordance with her resolute jaws.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you write me about it, along with all the rest of the stuff +you had to say?" she asked, in a tone of actual accusation. "This is the +first intimation to me of it."</p> + +<p>"Well, for one thing I didn't feel at liberty to do it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> Cavanaugh +floundered in his slow surprise. "The two were just sorter getting under +headway, as you might say, and nothing had been decided on positively. I +don't think the final word has been said yet, either, and—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, then there is still time— I mean—" But Mrs. Cavanaugh, avoiding +her husband's blank stare, suddenly broke off what she was saying and +sat gazing fixedly into her coffee-cup.</p> + +<p>"Oh, there will be no slip between the lip and the dipper in this case, +if that's what is bothering you," the contractor said. "They will get +married now, for they are both simply crazy about each other."</p> + +<p>"Listen to me, Sam Cavanaugh," Mrs. Cavanaugh threw out quickly. "I want +to get down to the rock bottom of this thing without any ifs and ands. I +want to know one thing. It may make you mad, because you said once that +I was meddling in John's business, but I want to know if—if them folks +up there—the girl's daddy and mammy, and the girl herself—I want to +know if they know about—about John's mother and Jane Holder, +and—and—"</p> + +<p>"Make me mad?" Cavanaugh actually got up, drew his chair out, and +grasped the back of it angrily. "You knew it would make me mad. You have +always made me mad by fetching that poor, unsuspecting boy into the +dirty ways of them two women. He's never had his eyes open about that, +nohow. He is too pure-minded, too busy with his work, too dreamy to stop +and compare his folks, bad as they are, with others. But if you think +that I am going to take up a bucketful of slime—and other folks' slime +at that—and dash it into the blooming faces of that happy, innocent +pair of sweethearts, you don't know me. A catty old maid would go a +thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> miles to get a chance to do it, but no man with sound blood in +his veins and a heart in his chest would do it for high pay. You ought +to be ashamed of yourself for thinking of it—even for letting it dirty +your mind for a minute."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cavanaugh, unconvinced and with a ponderous shrug, began to pile +the dishes together. "You are a man and can't understand," she said. +"Any woman would know what I mean."</p> + +<p>"And she'd know <i>more</i> than you mean, too, if she was a woman," Samuel +sneered, testily.</p> + +<p>His wife received this in dead silence. She pushed her gold-rimmed +spectacles up into her flowsy gray hair and let them rest there, and, as +if regretful of his heat, Cavanaugh added, more gently, "It is a pity +for you and me to fly up like this when I've just got home."</p> + +<p>"You and <i>me</i>?" she answered, mildly and with a tantalizing smile. "Huh! +how high do you think <i>I</i> flew, Sam Cavanaugh? I've certainly been on a +dead level, but you went over the church steeples like a hot-air balloon +in a wind-storm. I'm on the ground, flat-footed, and I'm going to stay +on it. I look beyond the end of my nose, and you don't, that's all. You +can build houses, but you can't start families out right in a town like +this one. Now listen to me. What do you think that poor girl will do in +Pete Carrol's house all by herself? Who will go to see her? What church +will she attend? What will she do—in the name of all possessed, what +will she do with her mother-in-law?"</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh, as he sat down again, slid lower into defeat than he had been +for many a day. "Listen to me," he began, resting his folded hands on +the table and clearing his throat, for his voice was husky. "Now you +have hit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> on something, and I'm going to be plain about it. I don't +often speak about my terrible struggles over spiritual matters and the +things I sometimes have to settle between me and my Maker, but I'm going +to admit that I did let all that business bother me at first. I got so +keyed up over it up there at Cranston that I couldn't hardly think of +anything else for quite a while. I had private talks with this Bible +student and that in a roundabout way to see if I couldn't arrive at a +decision, but couldn't seem to get anywhere. They all said the clean +must be kept away from the unclean—that you couldn't handle manure +without smelling of it, and that goats stink and cows don't. But one +night, while I was lying in my hot bed, unable to doze off, and +thinking—thinking whether I ought to tell that hard-faced old +hypocrite, Whaley, the thing that I was sure would kill poor John's +chances to get his first happiness in his own little cottage—I was +lying there, I say, when the thought come to me, as sudden as a streak +of lightning, that an all-wise God created Liz Trott and Jane Holder and +permitted temptation to meet them. The same God made John's daddy and +let him go to his grave with a lowered head. The same Power fetched John +into the world in that joint of hell over there and put one of the +soundest heads on his shoulders that I ever run across. The same Power +caused me to see the boy loafing about town and shooting craps with the +negroes, and induced me to hire him. I never regretted it. I love to see +him climb as much as if he was my own flesh and blood, and—and I simply +love the little hard-working girl he has picked out. All that flashed on +me, and I got up and prayed. Right there I laid the whole thing before +God, and something seemed to tell me that Jesus was right when he said +we must first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> get the beam out of our eyes before using a spy-glass on +the eyes of others. That was enough for me. The subject hasn't bothered +me since. Them folks up there at Cranston will never hear about Liz +Trott and her doings from me."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cavanaugh shrugged again. She went for her dish-pan and began to +put the dishes into the hot water it contained.</p> + +<p>"Well, what have you got to say?" her husband demanded.</p> + +<p>"You and me," she replied, gingerly testing the heat of the water with +her finger-tips, "never could agree on one thing. You contend that God +uses wrong for a purpose, but I say He has nothing to do with it. Say, +Sam, look away back to our own wedding. When you fetched me here, your +ma and pa gave us a big infare, and all the kin from everywhere was +invited, and come, too, with presents and good things to eat, and no end +of nice folks called to see me. I was proud. I wrote back home all about +it and mentioned the names of all of them. I told them about the big, +rich river-bottom farm your uncle Ted owned and begged us to visit. I +told them about the deputy sheriff that was your cousin and was such a +brave man in the White-cap raids. I told them to hurry on my church +letter, that the Methodists was begging me to join them. I told them a +lot more, but I want you to stop and think what that poor child up there +in Tennessee will have to write back home, and stop and think how she +herself is going to feel when she learns the full truth. Sam Cavanaugh, +outside of me—and I'm too old to count—I don't believe a single woman +will go to see her—not one. They are all like sheep and have to have a +leader. Even the fellows that work with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> John won't send their wives; +even if they did ask them, the women wouldn't go."</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh's shaggy head sank lower over his inert hands. His lower lip +hung as if torn by pain from its fellow. A deep shadow lay in the kindly +eyes beneath the heavy brows now lowering in grim perplexity.</p> + +<p>"I never thought of all that." He all but winced as he spoke. "That sort +o' puts the shoe on the other foot, doesn't it? Poor little Tilly! It +will be rough on her, won't it?"</p> + +<p>The conversation rested there. Cavanaugh bore the new phase of his +dilemma out to the front porch, where he sat down by himself and +pondered deeply. Now he would utter an ejaculation as if some thought +had stabbed him to the quick; again he would fervently mutter snatches +of prayers for light, for mercy. Were his prayers answered? He wondered, +and reasonably, too, for, else, why the sudden and soothing appearance +of his wife with that calm, far-reaching ultimatum, as she seated +herself by his side and put her hand gently on his knee?</p> + +<p>"I've thought it over, Sam," she said, as smoothly as the flowing of +deep water. "There is nothing else to be done and you are not to blame. +We will let the young folks come and we'll leave them in the hands of +God. As I see it, that is our duty."</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh choked down his glad emotion, reached out, took her crinkled +hand in his, and pressed it. "Yes, yes, we'll do that," he agreed, "and +we'll hope for the best—we'll pray for the best. God bless them—they +shall have their little home, and I'll do all I can to help them."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XX" id="I_CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<p>Shortly after the return of Cavanaugh and John to their work on the +court-house, John's fate was permanently decided. His chats with Tilly +took place every evening, either on the veranda, in the yard, or in +strolls along the mountain roads. One warm evening they had seated +themselves on a log on a lonely road on a hillside. Below them in the +twilight loomed up the hamlet with its lights and slow, blue smoke from +the chimney-tops. In the distance a dog was barking and a farmer calling +to his hogs. A church-bell was clanging for prayer-meeting. They sat +close together. She had a fan, and, as the mosquitoes were troublesome, +he had taken the fan and, novice that he was, he was awkwardly beating +them away.</p> + +<p>"Don't bother," she said. "You are tired after your day's work," and +with a pretty air of male management she took the fan and fanned his +flushed face. He was perspiring from the walk up the hill, and with her +own dainty handkerchief she wiped his broad, tanned brow. He had never +kissed her. He had hardly dared even to think of it, but he kissed her +now. He was afraid she would rise resentfully and start for home, but +she took it as a matter of course and allowed him to draw her head to +his shoulder. For half an hour, in sheer bliss, he was unable to speak, +and Tilly seemed to understand. When he recovered his voice it occurred +to him that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> must now ask her to be his wife, but he found himself +unable to formulate the prodigious thing in words. However, he +accomplished it indirectly, for he began telling her about the cottage +Pete Carrol had left so neatly furnished, and which Cavanaugh wanted him +to rent. Tilly listened as eagerly as a petted child who knows its +privileges. She frankly asked about the furniture, the curtains, the +rugs, the dishes, and, as he held his cheek against hers, he told her +everything he could think of in regard to the place. Suddenly she +laughed out happily, teasingly.</p> + +<p>"You haven't even asked me to marry you," she said, voluntarily kissing +him and then playfully stroking his lips with her soft, pliant fingers. +"You are very strange, John. I always know what you feel—what you +think—but you don't say them right out."</p> + +<p>"I was afraid," he suddenly confessed. "I've been afraid all +along—afraid of something, I don't know what, but afraid you'd refuse +me—as—as you did Joel Eperson."</p> + +<p>"Refuse you!" kissing him again, and nestling back into his arms. "How +could you have thought that?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know—but <i>will</i> you—<i>will</i> you?" he asked. "Will you say it +to-night in plain words, Tilly? Will you be my wife, and go to +Ridgeville with me and live in that little house?"</p> + +<p>"How could you doubt it?" she asked, raising her head and looking at him +trustfully and admiringly.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, but I was afraid," he returned. "Somehow I can't feel +that such a big thing could come my way. I want you—God knows I want +you, but somehow you seem miles and miles above me. You know so much +that I don't know. Every day it seems to me you teach me something I +never knew before but—but if you will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> come with me I'll do everything +in my power to make you happy. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I will!" And Tilly kissed him again, and held him at +arm's-length for an instant and looked at him proudly. "I am the one +that ought to have been afraid," she smiled. "Men pass along and make +love to country girls and never see them again. In fact, Sally Teasdale +said the other day to me—she is mad on account of me and Joel—she said +that you were just a flirt, amusing yourself while you are here. Those +are the things a girl has to put up with, John. Sally had her eyes on +you at first. She is dying to get married. She thought you were handsome +and wonderful in every way till you got to going with me, and now she +sniffs and turns up her nose and tries to make me doubt you."</p> + +<p>"I never liked her, and she knew it," John said. "But let's not talk +about her or any one else. There is no one I care a pin about except you +and Sam and his wife."</p> + +<p>"Nobody else—nobody?" Tilly asked, slowly. "Why, you told me once that +your mother is living, that she is a widow and that you help take care +of her!"</p> + +<p>Here John's stiff fingers relaxed in their clasp on Tilly's small hand, +and with averted face he sat still, silent, and gloomily reminiscent.</p> + +<p>Tilly edged herself around till her eyes met his again. "Yes, I knew +your mother was living, John," she went on, "and I'm going to confess +something. I'm going to confess that I've been worrying more since you +got back from your home than I did before. John, I thought if you really +intended to ask me to marry you, that you would tell your mother about +it, and that you would naturally tell me what she said—that is, if she +was willing for you to marry me. But as you have never mentioned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> her +since you got back, I thought—well, I thought she might have other +plans for you and that you didn't want to hurt my feelings by telling me +what she said."</p> + +<p>John stared helplessly for an instant; then he shrugged his great +shoulders. "She has got nothing to do with me or what I do," he blurted +out. "She goes her way and I go mine."</p> + +<p>"But surely," Tilly said, groping for his meaning, "she knows about +me—you have told her—"</p> + +<p>"No," John broke in, in a mood like that of his old impatience over work +that was badly done by his assistants, "I haven't told her, and what is +more, I shall not tell her. It is no business of hers. I did tell her +that from now on I'd not supply her with as much money as I have been +doing, but I didn't tell her why. She throws money away—she burns it in +solid wads. She is—is foolish. She is not like your mother or any of +these plain, sensible folks up here. She is on the go all the time, to +parties, dances, and what not."</p> + +<p>"I see," Tilly said, in a mystified tone. "Then she must be young. How +old is she, John?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know; I haven't the least idea," was John's prompt reply. "Let +me think. Seems to me I heard Jane Holder say she was very young when I +was born. That would put her at, well, near forty. But what does that +matter? I don't care anything about her or her age."</p> + +<p>"John, you speak so strangely," Tilly intoned, reproachfully. "You +pretend that you don't love her. Why, I'll love her always and with all +my heart if for nothing else than that she is your mother."</p> + +<p>"Rubbish!" John sniffed. "You won't love her; you won't even like her. I +tell you she is—is different from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> what you think. She is—is giddy, +silly, complaining, quarrelsome—up all hours of the night and asleep +all day or moping about with bloated eyes."</p> + +<p>"I see. She is fond of society," Tilly returned, with a little +self-deprecating sigh. "Ridgeville is a rather big town and there must +be plenty of women like her there. I won't blame her for that. I shall +love her, and I shall make her love me, too, if I possibly can. She will +be old some day and she will need us both."</p> + +<p>For some reason inexplicable to him, John was impatient with the trend +of the talk. He was vaguely angry, and yet was trying to curb the +impulse. For the first time he was finding Tilly unreasonable. Since the +very inception of the plan to marry Tilly and reside in the little +cottage he had pictured himself and her as being completely cut off from +his old life. Since his visit to his home the sheer thought of the +sordid old house and its inmates had jarred on him to the point of +repulsiveness. He had learned to like the orderly simplicity of the +circle in which Tilly had her being, and to wish that his might have +been like unto it.</p> + +<p>It was now time to return home, and they started back. Tilly hung +lovingly on his arm. "We sha'n't quarrel about your mother," she said, +soothingly. "I shall win her love if I can, and if I can't it won't be +my fault. I am a plain, home-loving person, though, and she may not take +to me at all. I'd like to help that little girl Dora, too. You say she +can't read or write. I could teach her."</p> + +<p>Here John's interest was roused. He bent toward Tilly's upturned face. +"That would be nice," he said. "The poor little rat needs something of +the sort. Yes, we must, between us, do something for that kid. She has +the making of a fine woman in her."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXI" id="I_CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<p>The court-house was finished, even to the last touches of putting on the +brass locks and window-fastenings. The commissioners formerly accepted +the building as meeting with all the contracted requirements, and a +large check was handed to Cavanaugh by the Ordinary of the county.</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh was in high feather for several reasons, the main one being +that the whole affair was to be capped by a wedding at the farm-house. +Cavanaugh had been expecting his wife to come up, but had a letter +saying that she was actually in bed with rheumatism and unable to make +the journey.</p> + +<p>Only the most intimate friends and relatives of the family were invited, +and on the evening of the wedding they began to arrive shortly after +sunset in buggies, wagons, and on horseback. Cavanaugh, who had dubbed +himself as "the best man," was the busiest person about the house. He +met all the guests, showed them where to put their horses and where to +sit in the parlor, which was filled with a motley collection of borrowed +chairs from cherry-colored rockers of the latest tawdry design to +straight-backed, unpainted relics of Cherokee days with concave, +split-oak or rawhide bottoms.</p> + +<p>With his usual stinginess and contempt of show, Whaley had allowed his +daughter little for her trousseau, and her apparel was most simple, and +so scant that her small trunk was scarcely filled. As they were to take +a train immediately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> after the wedding supper, she wore a plain +traveling-dress of dark gray which made her look as demure as a young +Quakeress. As for John, he had considered his new suit as good enough +and under Cavanaugh's advice had not bought another.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you one thing you've got to do," Cavanaugh said to him as he +was tying John's cravat in John's room before the ceremony, "you've just +got to stand up straighter. Here lately, when you are with Tilly, you +hump yourself over, or sag down with one leg crooked like you was +ashamed of being tall. If there is a time in a fellow's life when he +ought to stand straight and look folks square in the eyes it is when +he's having the cheek to take to himself a sweet young bride. Stand up, +throw your shoulders back, and let them all know that you've got a job +before you and that you are going to do your level best to put it +through."</p> + +<p>"Give me a danger-sign if you see me making any breaks," John smiled. "I +do feel shaky and weak-kneed and I might have folded up like a +pocket-rule if you hadn't cautioned me."</p> + +<p>John went down and mingled with the guests before Tilly joined them. He +was near the door when Martha Jane Eperson came in, accompanied by her +mother, who went at once to a seat proffered by Cavanaugh, leaving her +daughter with John, to whom she had barely nodded.</p> + +<p>"You must excuse my mother," Martha Jane said, plaintively, as she shook +hands with John. "She is very unhappy over the way Joel is taking it. He +simply could not come to-night."</p> + +<p>"I understand, and I am awfully sorry," John contrived to say.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you can't understand, Mr. Trott," the girl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> protested. "You +don't know my poor, dear brother as we do. This thing is actually +killing him. He is a mere shadow of his old self. You see, he and Tilly +were very dear to each other until you came. I don't blame Tilly; my +mother doesn't, either. She has the right to decide for herself; but +poor Joel! He simply allowed himself to love Tilly all along till this +thing came like death itself, or worse. He is very manly about it, +though. Don't understand me otherwise. I think he intended to come +to-night till almost the last minute, and then decided not to do it. I +watched him through the window as he hitched the horse to the buggy for +us, and I broke down and cried."</p> + +<p>Some others were entering, and Martha Jane, with a little parting nod, +moved on to a place by her mother's side. As for John, he could not give +much thought to his defeated rival, for a commotion in the room +indicated that the bride was descending the steps. She did not, however, +come into the parlor just then, but turned into the sitting-room +opposite.</p> + +<p>"Come"—Cavanaugh came and touched John on the arm—"the preacher is in +there with Tilly. He may want to give you both a few lessons on what to +do and say."</p> + +<p>It was the old minister whom John had heard preach, and he stood +stroking Tilly's hand in a paternal way. He paused and greeted John with +rather cold formality. "I hope you realize the great prize you have won, +my young brother," he said. "I've known this sweet child a long time and +love her as if she were my own."</p> + +<p>John was chagrined beyond measure, for he found his tongue an unusable +appendage. He felt the blood rush in a flood to his face. He stammered +out something, he knew not what, and stood fumbling his hands. He +disliked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> the man and his profession, and could have told him so easier +than to have uttered some trivial insincerity even on that occasion. +John's attitude of sheer helplessness touched Tilly. She put her hand on +his arm and smiled up in his face. It was as if she were saying, "I +understand, and it is all right."</p> + +<p>"Where is your father?" the minister asked of Tilly. "He must give the +bride away."</p> + +<p>"He refuses to do it," Tilly informed him. "He says it is a silly, new +style, and he doesn't believe in it."</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Trott," the old man said, still distantly, "you will have to +bring her in on your arm after I get to my place at the end of the room. +I never marry with a ring. That belongs to the Episcopalian service. +Now"—looking at his watch—"it is about time."</p> + +<p>He walked from the room, leaving John and Tilly alone now, standing +ready, arm in arm. John had not seen her in her new hat and dress +before, and somehow now she seemed the same and yet not exactly the same +Tilly who had worn such plain frocks in her work about the house. A +chill of suspended delight was on him. It seemed a dream of some +transcendental event, worked through the alchemy of love. He could not +have uttered a word had he tried. How could she look so placid, so +fearless, while the very earth seemed unstable under his feet, the skies +ready to drop further glories about him and her?</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh suddenly thrust his head in at the door. "The parson is +ready," he called out, with a laugh swelling with expectancy. "He says +send you in. That bunch in there is crazy to see the bride. I tried to +get somebody to play a march on the organ, but nobody is able. Now move +along. Stand up straight, John. My<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> Lord! you are not a jack-knife! Lift +your feet! Quit sliding them along! Look how Tilly walks—as light and +dainty as a pigeon on a clean barn floor."</p> + +<p>Tilly laughed almost merrily, but John felt the far-reaching gravity of +the moment too deeply even to smile. He wondered how he could meet the +curious faces packed together in the adjoining room. His whole frame was +in a tremor, but he was sure that Tilly's hand and wrist on his arm were +as steady as they had ever been. He was seeing her from a new angle, and +admired her more than ever.</p> + +<p>"Come on," she said, simply, and she it was who led into the parlor.</p> + +<p>It was soon over. The minister kept them standing before him only a few +minutes. The women pressed forward to kiss the bride, and John found +himself quite ignored. His place was by her side at that moment, surely, +but, blind to custom, as usual, he extricated himself from the throng +and joined Cavanaugh in the hall.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing here?" the contractor demanded, as he shook hands +warmly and congratulated him. "They will expect you in there with the +bride. I know that is where I stayed when I went through it."</p> + +<p>"I am all right here," John replied, doggedly. "I don't want to talk to +all that mob."</p> + +<p>At this juncture Whaley appeared—Whaley, of all others. He was chewing +tobacco and nonchalantly wiped his lips on a clean, folded handkerchief. +John felt more than he had ever felt before the man's intuitive dislike +for him, and it was significant now that Whaley should address Cavanaugh +rather than him.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry you are going off," he said. "I've had some pretty fair talks +with you off and on, though we are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> still wide apart on doctrine. Do you +know a man like me can learn to handle his own theories by arguing even +with a fellow that lies down at every point, as you'll have to admit +you've done time after time."</p> + +<p>"That's so, but this is a wedding," Cavanaugh smiled, "and I'm here to +tell you, old horse, that this young man is going to make you proud some +day."</p> + +<p>"We'll hope so—we'll hope so." Whaley frowned till his heavy brows +clashed. "I'm relying on your opinion. You've known him longer than I +have."</p> + +<p>Hearing this and being infuriated by it, John shrugged his shoulders, +sniffed audibly, and went out on the veranda, fully aware that by his +act he had shown contempt for his father-in-law. Outside the yard, a +heap of pine-knots was being burned to furnish light for the unhitching +and hitching of horses, and the red, smoke-broken rays fell over the +street and house. Through the window John saw the throng within the +parlor. Tilly and her mother stood side by side, surrounded by friends. +Never had he felt more alien from his surroundings than on this most +successful night. What was wrong with him? he asked himself. Why was he +unlike all other men? Why was he forced to feel like an unwilling +interloper among people he could not understand and who did not +understand him? But what did it matter? Tilly was his, all his, and in a +short while he would be bearing her away. In a short while he and she +would be left unmolested in their cozy home. He and she alone, away from +all that gaping, meddling throng. What happiness! But how could it be?</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh came to him out of breath. "Good gracious! Where have you +been?" the old man cried. "I'll be hanged if I wasn't afraid you'd got +scared, turned tail, and run off and hid. You oughtn't to have treated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +the old man like that right on the start. You and him will have to sort +of pull together in future. He is thick-skinned, but he looked sort of +flabbergasted when you whisked off just now with that snort of yours. +Come on. They are going out to supper, and there will be no end of talk +if you don't take part. They've got a lot of lemonade in there, and +somebody may want to drink your health. If they do, for the Lord's sake +stand up like a man and say, 'Thank you,' if nothing more. Remember how +well you done when the corner-stone was laid."</p> + +<p>John smiled faintly, and the two went back into the parlor as the guests +were filing out into the dining-room. Tilly was waiting for him at the +door.</p> + +<p>"I'm hungry. Aren't you?" she asked. "I want some of that chicken salad. +I know it is good, for I made it."</p> + +<p>The dining-room was furnished with two long impromptu tables made of +rough boards covered with white cloths and flanked by rows of chairs, +stools, benches, and inverted boxes. Whaley stood at the head of one of +the tables, his wife at the head of the other. Near the center of one +two bows of white ribbons marked the seats reserved for the bride and +bridegroom. Tilly called John's attention to them and somehow he managed +to lead her to them, but he failed to do what he ought to have done. He +did not draw Tilly's chair back and place it for her use, but stood +staring helplessly while she did it herself. Then he sat down beside +her. All were seated now and Whaley rapped on the edge of his plate, +producing a tinkling sound that invoked silence.</p> + +<p>"Now," he said, solemnly, "it is our duty to ask the blessing of our +Creator on what we are about to receive, and as the parson had to leave, +I'll call on Brother Cavanaugh to perform this rite for us."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + +<p>Cavanaugh, who sat opposite John and Tilly, actually paled, and then he +flushed. He was silent for a moment, glancing appealingly first at +Whaley, then his wife, and finally at Tilly, as if for succor from +overwhelming disaster.</p> + +<p>"Why, I—I'm not a good hand at it," he stammered. "I don't believe in +doing things half-way, especially on what you might call a gala occasion +like this. Brother Whaley, in my opinion—and I'm sure all the rest feel +the same—you are the man who is best qualified for the job. I know I'd +enjoy hearing you do it to-night more than I would to sit and listen to +my own voice."</p> + +<p>"Why not let Tilly do it?" a young wag farther down the table asked, +merrily. "Any bride these days ought to be thankful to get a square meal +on the first day of her married life, if never afterward."</p> + +<p>"You will all excuse me, I know," Tilly said, simply, and with a sweet, +half-forced smile.</p> + +<p>Thereupon her father, who was getting the opportunity he wanted, cleared +his throat, tapped on his plate for silence, and with lowered head +prayed long and unctuously. He touched on the duties of the newly +married to God and the Church, that they might be examples for the +generations who were to follow them. He hinted—and John knew what was +meant—that there were young men of the present age who were indifferent +to the full meaning of a Christian life and its forms, and upon all such +delinquents he implored the mercy of a long-suffering and patient God.</p> + +<p>John's eyes were on his plate. He imagined that every one present was +taking note of the veiled rebuke to him. How odd that he should hate +Tilly's father so profoundly and feel like striking the cold face +between the spiritless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> eyes. How strange that he should feel almost the +same toward that silent, didactic copy of her husband, his +mother-in-law, who now seemed to be weighing so judiciously the subtle +charges against him, the new member of the family!</p> + +<p>The prayer was over; a great clatter swept from end to end of the +tables. Everybody was eating, proffering food, laughing, and jesting in +munching, mouthful tones. Suddenly, and before she had turned up her +plate, John felt Tilly's little hand steal into his.</p> + +<p>"Never mind what he said." She smiled as she pressed his fingers. "That +was in him. It has rankled a long time and he had to get it out."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter," John responded, defiantly. "He has the upper hand +and he uses it like all men of his brand."</p> + +<p>The supper went off merrily, and when it was ended the guests began to +depart. All said good-by to Tilly. Some shook hands with John and +congratulated him, but that there was a certain restraint between him +and all those present he as well as they did not doubt. A few thought +that he was "stuck up," but the more penetrating attributed his attitude +to his youth and the belief that men of his trade were really not so +refined as farmers, who were more or less like the slaveholding planters +of the past, from whom the countryside had inherited its manners.</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh had provided a livery-stable trap to convey the bride, the +bridegroom, and himself to the station, and as the time was up he +hurried John and Tilly away. Mrs. Whaley kissed her daughter coldly on +the cheek, as if unaccustomed to open affection, and Whaley simply shook +hands with her and his son-in-law. The trap contained only two seats, +and Cavanaugh sat with the negro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> driver on the front one, giving the +rear seat to John and Tilly.</p> + +<p>"Now don't mind me and this chap here," he said, his eyes fixed on the +back of the horse as they started on. "We are not going to look, and you +can hold hands and hug and kiss all you want to."</p> + +<p>Tilly laughed cheerily. "You backed out to-night; you know you did," she +bantered him. "You said you were going to kiss the bride, but failed to +do it."</p> + +<p>"I wanted to, mighty bad, but I was afraid they would all think I was +powerful cheeky." Then the contractor fell into talk with the negro, and +John heard Tilly sigh.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm sorry for mother," she explained. "I was just thinking that the +poor old thing will get up as usual in the morning before daylight and +start in to do my work as well as hers. Father won't hire any one to +help her and she will have a hard time from now on."</p> + +<p>John found himself unable to properly respond, for he didn't care how +hard his mother-in-law worked. He would see to it, however, that Tilly +should have a rest from the slave-toil which had been her lot since +childhood.</p> + +<p>It was nine o'clock when the station was reached, and they got down to +await the train. Only the station-master and a switchman with a lantern +swinging in his hand were in sight. Cavanaugh paid the negro, and with a +low bow and scraping of the feet he got into his trap and drove away.</p> + +<p>They had not long to wait. From the distance of a mile they heard the +whistle of the approaching locomotive, and in a few minutes it was +slowing up at the long, unroofed platform.</p> + +<p>"You two go sit in the chair-car," Cavanaugh directed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> "I've got a +cigar, and I'll try the smoker. I'll come back and see you before we get +to Chattanooga."</p> + +<p>John led Tilly to the luxurious car in question and helped her in. How +strange it was! But now for the first time, as he saw her seated in the +big revolving-chair in the almost empty car, she seemed all at once to +be in reality his wife. He put his bag and hers into the brass rack +overhead and adjusted the footstool so that she might rest her feet on +it. No living psychologist could have fathomed his emotions. That had +become his which seemed to belong to some outside, ethereal existence.</p> + +<p>The train started. John took a chair facing Tilly. When he was not at +work his hands seemed extraneous members, and they now hung down between +his knees as limply as if they had lost all animation.</p> + +<p>"You are already homesick," he said, banteringly, though the placid +expression of Tilly's face belied his words.</p> + +<p>"No, I am not," she said, a thoughtful smile capturing her mouth and +eyes. "How could I be? John, I'm simply crazy to see that little house. +I've always wanted a home of my own, all my own."</p> + +<p>He locked his twisting fingers in sheer delight, and the blood of his +joy warmed his eager face to tenderness. "There is a surprise ahead of +us," he said, chuckling. "I say surprise, for Sam thinks I don't know +it. He has stocked the pantry full of supplies as our wedding-present. I +got on to it by accident. I happened to see one of the bills. Old Sam +doesn't do things by halves. Do you know, he is the best man I ever +knew?"</p> + +<p>A newsboy passed through the car, selling magazines and candies. John +bought two flashy periodicals and a box of fresh caramels and put them +into Tilly's lap. With a smile she began to look at the pictures. Some +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> the leaves were uncut and he took out his big workman's knife and +clumsily slit them apart. She opened the box of candy, daintily pressed +back the lacelike paper covering, and proffered some to him. He shook +his head. "I never eat it," he said, and then in brooding confusion he +remembered that he had not thanked her.</p> + +<p>"I'll never do that kind of thing—never!" he said to himself, in +reckless disgust. "All that tomfoolery is for Joel Eperson and his sort. +I am of a different breed of dogs."</p> + +<p>However, his discomfiture was soon dispelled. The rapid rush of the +train through the mountain woodland seemed to brush it away as a thing +unworthy of his vast surging happiness. He adored the lashes of Tilly's +eyes, which seemed to thwart his efforts to probe the eyes themselves; +the sweet curve of her lips; the hair which fell so gracefully over her +smooth white brow; the tiny brown freckles on her cheeks; the little +feet in the somewhat plain new shoes that shyly peeped out from beneath +the new gray skirt. A colored porter brought in some soft pillows, and +John secured one and placed it behind Tilly's head.</p> + +<p>"There," he said, gently enough, "lean back on it. I'll bet you are +fagged out, after all you've done since you got up this morning."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't make a baby of me," she mildly protested. "Remember I'm a +farmer's daughter who never has been petted."</p> + +<p>"It is time you were coddled up a little, then," he answered, fervently. +"Somehow you look like a child to me, and a lonely one, too, going off +like this with a big no-account hulk of a man whom you have known only a +little while."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<p>Tilly beamed at this. It was the quality she loved most in her husband. +She had a new purse and card-case combined in her lap, and he opened it, +finding only a few dimes and quarters in its immaculate interior.</p> + +<p>"That will never do." He laughed, took from his own purse two +five-dollar bills and put them into hers as he added: "I never want you +to have to run to me for change. I despise that in any man, no matter +how long he's been married. A fellow's wife should be as free with the +money that comes in as he is. I've felt like knocking a man down many a +time for that very thing. I don't believe a delicate woman feels like +asking for every cent she spends. I'll watch this pocket-book, and if I +don't keep that much or more in it all the time it will be because I'm +dead broke, too sick to work, or unable to borrow it."</p> + +<p>Tilly's face shed a smile that was tender and full of thought. "You are +the best man in the world," she said. "I don't believe many men, even +the ones that pretend to be polished and educated, would have thought of +that."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXII" id="I_CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<p>The train, which was slightly delayed, reached Ridgeville at two o'clock +the following morning. With his usual thoughtfulness Cavanaugh had +ordered a street-cab to be on hand to take the couple to their home, and +it was found waiting in the care of a half-asleep negro.</p> + +<p>"Here is the key to the house," Cavanaugh said, as he handed it in to +them after they were seated in the ramshackle little vehicle. "I'd go on +with you and help you light up, but I'm anxious to see how my old lady +is. She's sick abed, you know, and will be worrying about the train +being late."</p> + +<p>The negro driver on the seat outside started his horse, and the cab +trundled through the darkness of the unlighted streets. They were now +wholly alone for the first time since their marriage, and it seemed +quite natural to him to put his arm around her and draw her head to his +shoulder. Another moment and he had kissed her.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," he asked, almost beneath his breath, that the driver might +not hear—"I wonder if you are happy?"</p> + +<p>She started to speak, but decided not to do so. Her reply consisted of a +voluntary lifting of her hand to his neck, the raising of her lips to +his, after which she nestled back on his shoulder and was silent.</p> + +<p>He also started to speak, but there was nothing to say, and with her +hand in one of his they sat still and silent till the cab stopped at the +gate of the cottage. The driver opened the door and John helped Tilly +out. He tipped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> the man, and he drove away as they entered the gate. +John opened the door and lighted the gas in the diminutive hall. Tilly +had never seen a gas-jet before, and he explained its use, and the +danger of leaving it open when unlighted. From the little hall they went +into the parlor, then into the dining-room and kitchen, and thence to +the bedroom.</p> + +<p>"Sam's wife has swept and cleaned the whole house," John said, +appreciatively. "It is as clean as a new pin."</p> + +<p>"I knew some good housekeeper had been over it," Tilly said, giving free +vent to her delight over everything. "I didn't dream, from what you +said, that it would be as nice as this," she declared. "Why, it is +simply wonderful! But you say you think Mrs. Cavanaugh looked after it. +Then—then you don't think that your mother—" She hesitated, and with a +faint shadow in her face she broke off and stood looking at the floor.</p> + +<p>"No." There was a companion shadow on his face as he answered, rather +lamely, she thought. "She'd never think of it—even if—if she was +expecting us."</p> + +<p>"Not expecting us?" Tilly said, gropingly. "Then she doesn't know. You +didn't write to her that we were to be married?"</p> + +<p>"No"—John's glance wavered as he slowly released the word—"I didn't +write her. I didn't care whether she knew it or not."</p> + +<p>"I think I understand now," Tilly said to herself. "They have had some +sort of family disagreement and are not on speaking terms."</p> + +<p>"Never mind," she said, aloud, seeing a cloud on his face. "All that +will come out right. In time I'll win her love—you see if I don't."</p> + +<p>His frown deepened, but he said nothing. Their bags<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> had been left in +the little hall, and he went to get them. When he returned she was +standing before the wide mirror of the new-fashioned bureau. She had +taken off her hat and the elevated gas-jet on the wall threw a blaze of +light into her beautiful hair. He put down the bags and stood gazing at +her with eyes full of timid reverence and worship.</p> + +<p>"Poor, dear little Tilly!" he said, almost huskily. "You look so lonely, +here just with me like this, away from your home and friends. I am not +worthy of you, little girl—no man is. I feel that. I know it down deep +inside of me. Until I met you I never knew what a good, pure girl was +like. Oh, you are so different from all the women I've ever known. +Somehow you seem to have dropped down from the skies."</p> + +<p>She didn't fully understand him. How could she? And yet his look and +tone went straight to her heart. She stood staring at him for a moment +and then she advanced to him. She put her hands on his shoulders and +looked up into his eyes.</p> + +<p>"You say I'm different from other girls, John. Well, you are different +from all other men. Oh, it is so very sweet of you—your silly fear that +you can't make me happy—your continual reference to that absurdity. +Why, John, I am so happy that I can't express it. No one else could have +made me so. I am the luckiest girl in the world."</p> + +<p>Her throbbing lips invited it, and he bent down and kissed them. He drew +her into his arms. She felt his great breast quiver and heard him sigh. +Not yet was she comprehending him—not yet was he quite able to +comprehend himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXIII" id="I_CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<p>Among the men of John's trade it was deemed an effeminate thing for a +laboring-man to allow his marriage to cut into his duties to his daily +work. And as Cavanaugh already had a job waiting, which was the erection +of a fine brick residence on a near-by plantation, John joined him, +ready for work, on the day following the one of his arrival home. This +left Tilly all alone in the cottage. At first she was so absorbed by the +changes she was making about the house—the moving of this article or +that and the rehanging of the cheap pictures and curtains, that she had +little time for self-analysis or a study of her environment.</p> + +<p>However, after the first three days had passed and there was now nothing +in the cottage to be done except to prepare her husband's supper, +breakfast, and lunch for his dinner-pail, the time began to drag on her +hands. She sat on the little porch nearly all the time, for the outside +view was more soothing than the cramped interior of the rather dark +little house. Across the vacant lots, and above the dim roofs of the +neighboring negro shanties, she saw the smoke from the town's +cotton-factories, woolen-mills and iron-foundries, the steam-whistles of +which were John's signals for early rising and her own best guide to the +approach of nightfall and her husband's longed-for return. Above the +trees, an eighth of a mile away, could be seen the roof of Mrs. Trott's +house. John had reluctantly pointed it out one evening as they stood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> at +the gate, and every day now she looked at it as the physical symbol of a +mystery which was growing more and more inexplicable. She had come to +feel that there was something about John's mother which he himself did +not fully understand and from which he shrank in morbid and manly +sensitiveness.</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh had called one evening, and as the three friends sat on the +porch, the weather being warm, he had explained that his wife was still +confined to her bed and was deeply regretting her inability to come over +and see Tilly. But neither did the contractor help Tilly to solve the +brooding enigma. On the contrary, his very reticence seemed to deepen +it, for he had the disturbed air of a man avoiding some disagreeable +fact. How could it be, Tilly began to ask herself, that a man so genial +as John should have absolutely no women friends in the town of his +birth, and why was it that even his men friends should so persistently +shun his residence and show so little interest in his bride? There was +Joe Tilsbury, she recalled. What a contrast, what an inexplicable +contrast! Joe's friends had given the wife he had brought home a +far-reaching welcome, afternoon receptions, quilting-bees, dances, +straw-rides, surprise-parties, and even the jovial jokers of the +village, in grotesque costumes, had serenaded the couple with tin pans +and cow-horns. Tilly herself had taken part in the courtesies to the +wife of a man far beneath John in point of position and attainments. +What could it mean? What?</p> + +<p>Four days after the departure of her daughter, Mrs. Whaley received the +third letter from Tilly, and Whaley found her one morning at her churn +with that letter on her knee, the dasher inactive in a steadily extended +hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who's that from?" he inquired. "Oh, I see! She writes powerful often, +don't she? Well, how does she like it?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Whaley was silent, her eyes on the milk-coated hole in the +churn-lid through which the worn dasher was wont to glide up and down. +Noting her mood, Whaley gruffly took up the letter and, adjusting his +black-rimmed nose-glasses, he read it.</p> + +<p>"What do you think of it?" she asked, when he put it down.</p> + +<p>"I don't know as I think anything much about it," was his response. +"House, house, house! That is all there is in it—tables here and chairs +there, a new organ, cook-stove that runs by gas, and water on tap within +arm's-length—to say nothing of milk left on the front-door step, as +well as a block of ice in summer-time every morning. All that, I say, +but not one word about the big union-tabernacle-tent revival that +Cavanaugh said was to open there this week? I'd walk ten miles through +the broiling sun to meet that preacher and hear him rip the hide off of +the ungodly down there. That town is just big enough to be full of hell, +'blind-tiger' joints, and houses full of shamefaced strumpets that are +fined in city court and allowed to keep on even by the law in their +devilish occupation."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Whaley was never known to sigh. Sighs are born of elements which +she had suppressed till they had died a natural death, but there was +something in her very uncommunicating manner that provoked her husband's +lingering at her side.</p> + +<p>"You don't say what you think," he said, restoring his glasses to their +tin case and snapping its lid down.</p> + +<p>She raised her eyes and fixed them on his. "It is not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> what she says, +but what it seems to me she ought to say and don't that seems strange to +me," was her reply. "Why, there is no mention at all about any of John's +kin—not one single word about his mother—not one single word about any +woman stepping in even for a minute. I don't care anything about your +tabernacles or your whisky-joints—what seems strange to me is that +Tilly don't seem to have made a single acquaintance since she got there. +She writes, you see, about Cavanaugh coming over and why his wife +didn't, as if that was something to tell. She writes about John being +away in the country all day, and, as far as I can gather, she is at home +all by herself from dawn till nightfall. There is something powerfully +odd about all that. I don't know what it is, but it is there."</p> + +<p>"I know one thing about John Trott that I didn't know when he was here," +Whaley pursued, tapping his thumb with the case of his glasses, "and I +tell you if I had known it he would have had to change before he took a +daughter of mine to live under a roof with him. I got it straight that +he's been heard to say that he didn't believe in a God or the Bible, and +that folks were silly fools that did. I heard it this morning and I made +it my business to trace it down. He said it, and I'm here to say that I +don't want to be the granddaddy of the children of an atheist. The wrath +of an offended God would fall on them and on me. Tilly was put in my +care. The Catholics damned the soul of my son when he went over to those +idol-worshipers through the wiles of a present-day Eve, and here I stood +stock-still and let an avowed atheist take away my daughter. Do you +think I'm going to stand it? Man-killing is said to be wrong, but +killing human snakes is not, and a man that will lead an innocent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> +Christian girl away from the smiles of God deserves death, let the law +of the land be what it may. I've got a good pistol. I've got a steady +finger and a firm arm. I tell you to look out. I don't know what may +happen. Our Lord said Himself that He came not to bring peace, but a +sword, and I'll be at war with atheism against my own flesh and blood +till I die."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't be as foolish as that," Mrs. Whaley faltered, for once +daring to oppose her spouse. "Even if he is an infidel he may get over +it under—under Tilly's influence."</p> + +<p>"Get over it, a dog's hind foot!" Whaley sniffed, his great nostrils +fluttering, his harsh face rigid. "No wife ever does. They go with their +husbands and so do the children, and children's children, all the way +down, if the flow of hell's poison is not stopped, and I'll stop it."</p> + +<p>On the day that dialogue was taking place Sam Cavanaugh was seated by +the bedside of his wife. "Yes, I went by there," he was saying. "John +had bought some fine peaches from a mountain wagon and wanted Tilly to +have them to put up in jars. She was out in the little yard. I saw her +clean across the old circus-grounds. She was walking back and forth, and +I'll admit she looked lonely. You were right about what you said that +time. I begin to see my mistake. As awkward as it would have been, maybe +I ought to have had a straight talk with John, if nobody else. It looks +to me like he is slowly opening his eyes now, but doesn't know how to +fetch up the subject when we are together. He comes a little later in +the morning and starts for home on the dot. I've seen him on the +scaffold, looking off over the fields in the very saddest sort of way. +He is becoming different. He never curses the men now when they make a +bobble or are slow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> with mortar or brick, and he has lost interest in +plans and figures. They have all noticed it. Some seem to understand, +while others don't. They all respect him too much to tattle among +themselves about his private matters. They love him. They all love John +Trott—rough as he is, they all love him; and as for me—as for me—my +God! my heart aches! I feel like I've made a mistake, but I can't feel +that I am much to blame, for I was going by my best lights. They love +each other, those two do, with all their souls. How could I burst it up +with a nasty revelation like I'd 'a' had to make?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXIV" id="I_CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<p>Two days after the arrival of the bride and bridegroom the report of the +marriage reached the residence of Mrs. Trott. Jane Holder had been to +town to make some purchases, and in a dry-goods store heard a +delivery-man mention it. She made further inquiries and established the +fact of the truth of the report. And when she left the street-car at the +end of the line she walked past John's cottage and looked in at the open +door. Tilly was sweeping out the little hall and Jane got a fair view of +her as she hurried by.</p> + +<p>"What a sweet little thing she seems!" Jane mused. "I wonder what Liz +will do. It may make her mad. I'm sure she will be mad to find out that +he has been here two days and not been over home. She is expecting some +money from John, too, but how can he give it to her now that he has set +up for himself? Why, he is just a boy! It seems funny to think of him +having a wife and a snug little home like that."</p> + +<p>She found Mrs. Trott in the dining-room, where Dora was arranging the +table for the midday meal, and as she sat removing her hat and veil, her +gaudy green sunshade in her lap, she made her revelation.</p> + +<p>"What are you saying?" Lizzie Trott cried, incredulously, and with her +carmined lips parted she stood staring at her friend.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<p>Jane repeated what she had said, and then both of them were astonished +by a comment from Dora as she leaned against the table and smiled.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad it is out," the child said. "I was dying to tell it. I knew it +was coming off long ago, but he made me promise not to give it away."</p> + +<p>"You knew?" Mrs. Trott cried, her eyes flashing behind their waxed +lashes.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and all about the house being rented. Huh! I guess I did! I saw +Sam Cavanaugh hide the key under the door-step one day, and after he +left I unlocked the door and went in and looked it over. Oh, it is +mighty pretty! I saw Mrs. Cavanaugh come in and clean it up one day, +too, and I knew that things was getting ripe. Huh! I've already seen +Tilly, too, for I've passed her several times while she was out in the +yard. I'd have spoke to her, but my best dress was out on the line and I +know John would want me to look neat and clean."</p> + +<p>With steady eyes and a motionless breast Lizzie Trott turned toward the +stairs. "I want to talk to you in private, Jane," she said, under her +breath. "Come up to your room."</p> + +<p>"I was going up, anyway, to get these hot things off," Jane said, +complainingly. "Something is wrong with me, Liz. I can't lace as tight +as I did without suffocating. I've got to take off my corset and lie +down. I almost fainted in Lowe & Beaman's this morning while I was +waiting for Doctor Renfrow to mix my tonic. He laughed and said that I +drink too much adulterated whisky for a woman of my build. He felt my +pulse and looked at my tongue and eyes and talked sorter serious about +my condition. He asked how old my mother was when she died, and when I +told him 'thirty-six' he shook his head and said I must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> come into his +office some day and let him examine me thoroughly."</p> + +<p>Jane was out of breath by this time, for she had been talking while +ascending the stairs, and she turned into her room and sank down on the +bed. Mrs. Trott followed and stood over her, her hands on her hips.</p> + +<p>"You say they have been here two days?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes; came in the night," Jane panted forth as she began to unhook her +silk dress. "Oh, my! I have that gone feeling again—sort of +swimming-like, and when I try to see all of your face at once I get only +part of it—like a black spot was coming between—and if I look at the +wall there in the shade or at the floor I can see wriggling lights. The +doctor said my liver was awful."</p> + +<p>Lizzie Trott took a chair and sat in it. She bent downward, her bare, +shapely elbows on her knees, her ringed fingers holding her chin.</p> + +<p>"For the love of Heaven," she said, impatiently, "let up on your whining +for a minute and let's talk about John. What do you think about it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know what to think!" and with a low groan Jane threw +herself back on the bed. "What do I care? They are full of health and +can take care of themselves, while here I lie with hardly strength +enough to unlace myself."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't he tell us, do you suppose?" Lizzie continued. "Why hasn't +he been over? Two days and nights, and nothing said or done! Why, it is +outrageous—simply outrageous!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see what you are driving at!" Jane sat up and began to unlace her +corsets, her yellowish wrists and bony finger working behind her back. +"Now the spots are gone and my head is steady. It is peculiar how they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> +come and go that way. Yes, I think I see what bothers you. Well, old +pal, I'll tell you. I'll bet my life she is a good girl, and a worker, +too. Country stock, maybe. She looks it. No style to her dress or the +way she does her hair. Yes, yes, I think I understand what is bothering +you. You are wondering—well, you know what I mean. You are wondering if +anybody has told her—well, told her about us—<i>all</i> about us, I mean."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trott showed a tendency to flare up, which her blank bewilderment +seemed to quench. "You can say the most catty things when you try," she +began, but finished with a low groan and sat with her eyes fixed on a +pattern in the worn rug by the bed.</p> + +<p>"Well, I am including myself," Jane said. "You may call that catty, but +I don't. What is the use to plaster facts over? Between you and me, I +simply don't believe John would take to a fast girl. If there ever was a +boy that gave fast girls the cold shoulder, John Trott did. I always +thought he was blind, anyway—going about with his figuring and blue +papers with white lines on them. The way he hauled his money out and +threw it at us proved he never stopped to think what he was doing. Yes, +that little wife is the right sort, and I myself don't see how—well, +how he could have brought her right here, you understand. You think so, +too, and that is what is bothering you. You won't admit it, but that is +the nigger in your woodpile, Liz! My! how easy I feel when I'm +unstrapped! The doctor laid the law down on that when I was sick the +last time, you know, but how can I walk through Main Street looking—?"</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, dry up!" Lizzie suddenly shot out. "What am I going to +do? How can I get along without his help, and he can't help me and keep +up a separate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> house. Must—must I go over there? Do you think I—I +ought to call? Doesn't it look like—like he means something by—by +keeping it a secret? It wasn't sudden, for Dora says he told her some +time back."</p> + +<p>"Go over there? Huh! You make me smile, Liz. You didn't even get an +invitation to the wedding, or a chance to make a present, and yet you +are bothered about whether you ought to call or not. As for me, I'll not +put foot across his door-sill—not even if he asked me. No, not even if +he come begging me on bended knee. Huh! I guess not!"</p> + +<p>"And why not?" Lizzie Trott asked, after a momentous pause.</p> + +<p>"Because"—and as she answered Jane's eyes held a steely gleam as from +some inner light of self-accusation that refused to be quenched even by +fear of giving offense—"because if he did ask me I'd know the poor boy +was still blind to what everybody else knows and what he would have +known long ago if he had been as coarse as other men, or if folks had +not liked him too much to talk plain to him. No, I'll not go there. I +wouldn't know what to say, nohow. Huh! You wouldn't, either, I'll bet."</p> + +<p>"You are not helping me much." Lizzie Trott readjusted the imitation +tortoise-shell comb in her rather lifeless hair and gave a sigh, which +was followed by a moan, half of anger, half of despair.</p> + +<p>"I think I can take a nap now," Jane said. "I feel drowsy-like. If—if +you have finished, I wish you would pull the shades down. Tell Dora I +don't want anything to eat and not to bring it up. She will wake me if +she does."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trott rose sullenly and drew the shades down. She cast a parting +look at Jane, and was on the threshold when from the bed came these +words:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Liz, do me a favor, please do, like a good girl. If Jim Stacy comes +again, don't let him know I'm up here. Tell him some lie—tell him I am +in Atlanta. He is dead broke and always drinking and jealous. I'm too +sick to talk to him, and, sick or not, he'd come right up. I've got to +get rid of him, that is certain."</p> + +<p>Making some sort of promise, Lizzie went into her own room and sat down +in a rocking-chair. Nervously she swung back and forth for a few +minutes, and then sat still, her eyes fixed on vacancy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXV" id="I_CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<p>One morning shortly after this, while Tilly was busy cleaning up the +house, she noticed a little girl at the front fence near the gate. The +child was oddly dressed, wearing a skirt that was too long for her, +stockings so large that they hung in folds about her thin ankles, a +shirt-waist which had been cut down from a woman's size and clumsily +remade, and a cheap sailor hat with flowing blue ribbons. The little +girl was acting, Tilly thought, in a very queer way, for when Tilly +approached the door the child lowered her head and with shy, furtive +glances moved on, but as soon as Tilly disappeared she would return to +the gate and stand peering over it in timid curiosity.</p> + +<p>"Strange," the young wife mused, and when the little girl made no show +of leaving, Tilly decided to speak to her. So, going suddenly to the +porch, she called out: "Wait, little girl. Do you want anything?"</p> + +<p>The head of the child hung down till the brim of her hat hid her eyes, +and if she made any reply it was spoken so low that Tilly did not hear +it. Tilly now went to her and leaned on the gate.</p> + +<p>"Did you want anything with me?" she asked, most kindly, as she scanned +the incongruous attire in half-amused wonder. The answer was delayed, +but it finally came from lips rendered stubborn by embarrassment:</p> + +<p>"I—I wanted to see you, but—but I thought maybe I'd better ask John +first. He hasn't been over home yet, and I don't know whether he'd want +me to come or not. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> told me about you, Tilly. He told me, and nobody +else, and I didn't let a soul know, either—my aunt, or Liz, or any +one."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see! I know now. You are Dora, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm," in great relief and with a lifted face. "I see. Then you know +about me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, and you must come in and see me." Tilly opened the gate. The +little pinched face appealed to her, as well as the child's crude +timidity. Dora stepped gingerly inside, her coarse, ill-fitting shoes +grating on the graveled walk. One of her little hands was loosely buried +in a woman's black kid glove, the mate of which was damply clutched in +bare fingers, the nails of which were jagged and black. By Tilly's side +she clumsily moved along till they had reached the porch steps, where +she paused hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"I almost feel like I know you," Tilly went on to reassure her. "Somehow +I almost feel that you are John's sister. I don't know why, but I do. +Would you care if I kissed you?"</p> + +<p>"Kissed me?" Dora started and stared blankly. "You mean— Huh! you don't +want—"</p> + +<p>"This is what I mean, you poor dear little thing!" and Tilly bent down +and kissed the wan cheek. "There, now, you must come in and see our new +house. John will not be home till nearly dark."</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether John will fuss or not," Dora said. "Maybe he +wanted me to wait till—till he told me. I don't know. From the way my +aunt and Liz talks, a body would think he intended to cut us clean off +his list."</p> + +<p>"Liz?" Tilly asked. "I've heard John mention your aunt, but who is +Liz?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Liz? Why, Liz— You know she is— Why, Liz is his mother!"</p> + +<p>"But—but why do you call her Liz?" Tilly asked, in wonder.</p> + +<p>"Because that's her name. Everybody calls her Liz. I don't know— I +can't remember that I ever heard John call her anything. He was always +cursing her—that is, when he spoke to her. I don't blame him. She is no +good and is always after him for money."</p> + +<p>They had reached the little parlor now, and Dora sank into one of the +new chairs and swung her thin legs to and fro. She was now more at ease, +and was inspecting the room with the wide eyes of a curious child.</p> + +<p>"Curse her?" Tilly gasped. "You don't mean that my husband would +actually curse his own mother?"</p> + +<p>"Huh!" Dora sniffed, half absently, for she was looking admiringly at +the cheap dress Tilly had on. "Huh! you would, too, if you had to live +with her and drudge for her like me and him do. She is peevish and +fretful. If things go wrong with her when she is out at night she is a +very hell-cat in the morning. I've heard her say she was going to kill +herself, and when her and my aunt have a scrap, things fly about, I tell +you. She is mad now. Oh, my! ain't she mad at John for not telling her +about you? She drove out to his work yesterday, and, from what she told +my aunt, her and John must have had a big row, right before the men, +too. Aunt Jane told her John could have her arrested—that the judge +would be on his side. But I reckon John tried to quiet her. He always +does when she flies plumb to pieces."</p> + +<p>Tilly's face was grave and pale. "I think I understand now," she said, +in a sinking voice. "Mrs. Trott is out of her mind; John is sensitive +about it, and—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who's out of her mind—Liz?" The child laughed derisively. "Don't you +believe it! Aunt Jane says she has a clear head on her when it comes to +getting the best of any deal. They swapped dresses once and Liz hid some +big grease spots that didn't show till Aunt Jane was dancing on a +platform in the sun at a picnic. That was a whopping, big row, for the +laugh was on Aunt Jane and she had no chance to change till she got +home."</p> + +<p>Tilly was bewildered. She told herself, as she sat peering into the +guileless eyes before her, that she must know more than she did know and +this was an opportunity.</p> + +<p>"I made some fresh cake yesterday," she said. "Wait; I'll get you some. +It has icing on it, and jelly between the layers."</p> + +<p>But Dora refused to be treated as a formal visitor. She followed Tilly +into the kitchen, now clutching her ribbons and swinging her broad hat +in her hand. "John said you was a good cook," she remarked. "He said you +was too hard-worked up there, and that he was going to give you a long, +sweet rest. Lord! that boy thinks the sun rises and sets in you! He said +you was pretty, but I don't think you are extra. Do you?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm anything else." Tilly was now cutting the big, white cake. The +situation was too grave for personal trivialities. She put a slice on a +plate and handed it to the child. Dora took the cake, declined the +plate, and began eating eagerly, smearing her lips with the jelly and +licking them with an encircling tongue. She had put her hat and gloves +on a table and was becoming even more communicative.</p> + +<p>"I love cake like this with wine," she said. "Have you any about?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No. My parents are opposed to wine," Tilly said. "Surely you, as young +as you are, don't drink it?"</p> + +<p>"Don't I, though!" The child all but leered, and laughed aloud. "What do +you take me for—a silly ninny? When they have it at home I get my +share, you bet, and I don't always wait for them to get too drunk to +see, either. I hide a bottle when there is a big lot. You see, Bill +Raines—the biggest, fattest old roly-poly you ever laid eyes on—sends +it over by the case. He is full of fun, drunk or sober, with up-to-date +songs and jokes—he is a whisky drummer from Louisville, and the rest of +the boys say it don't cost him anything—'samples,' I think Liz said, to +treat with and make folks buy. Well, as I set in to say, when he gets to +town he generally has a big lot delivered to us. He used to like Aunt +Jane, but they had a fuss, and he goes with Liz now. He is always flush, +plays for high stakes, and cleans the board nearly every time. His luck +is always with him. He won't cheat, and they say he shot a fellow in the +hip that tried it on him one night at the races. I don't know. I'm just +telling you what they all say. I like him— I like the old devil, for he +always has a good word for me. He told Aunt Jane, and between us two I +think that's what the fuss was about. Give me another piece, will you? +It is a million times better than baker's cake. Bakers use spoiled eggs +in their dough. I can smell 'em in spite of the flavoring. My! this <i>is</i> +good! Wine or no wine, it goes right to the spot!"</p> + +<p>In munching the cake the child forgot that she had not finished what she +had started to say, and with bated breath and lips grimly tense Tilly +reminded her of her omission.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, about that fuss!" Dora swallowed as she resumed. "Bill ripped +her up for scolding about me. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> said that it was a shame the way I was +treated, and that if something wasn't done right off—me sent to school +and fed and clothed better—he was going to court about it. Lord! Lord! +how mad Aunt Jane was, and Liz, too! They said he was trying to make +trouble. That was a month ago. Huh! I think they are right! What +business is it to that old pot-bellied duck what I do or don't do? He is +no kin of mine and I don't want to go to school, either. I tried it +once, and that was enough for me. Sat on a bench all day, with a prissy +old maid making me hold a book before my face."</p> + +<p>Dora declined a third piece of cake without thanks other than a gesture +of repletion as she placed her hand on her stomach, smiled, and shook +her unkempt head.</p> + +<p>"No. I'd make myself sick," she said. "I'll take a drink of water, +though. I seem to feel lumps of it lodged in my chest. I reckon I put in +too much at once. If I had wine, now— But of course that is out of the +game."</p> + +<p>Tilly supplied the water. Her heart was as heavy as lead. She was afraid +to admit that she believed the terrible thing which, like the bile of +some all-inclosing disease, was oozing into her consciousness. She led +the child into the sitting-room and listlessly invited inspection of +this or that article—the few photographs on the table, a china vase +holding flowers, a new Bible which was the inscribed wedding-present of +the minister's wife, and some other things which to Tilly now seemed to +weep in sheer sympathy for her under the horror which brooded over her. +But she fought off the suspicion. It couldn't be—it mustn't be.</p> + +<p>"My mother-in-law—Mrs. Trott—John's mother," she stammered in the +effort to speak unconcernedly. "Being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> a widow, she will need money, +help from me and John, won't she? Don't you think so, Dora?"</p> + +<p>"No, Aunt Jane says no," answered the child, making a wry face as she +looked at a picture of Tilly's father. "Gee! what an old pie-faced +hayseed this is! For the Lord's sake, who is it?"</p> + +<p>"But why won't she need it?" Tilly had heard the question, but did not +want to spare the time for a reply which might or might not embarrass +her iconoclastic guest. "John has been giving her part of his wages, +hasn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but he has to call a halt somewhere, my aunt says. She says Liz +can get all the money she needs if she won't throw it away as fast as +she gets it and play her cards so she won't be fined so often."</p> + +<p>"Fined?" The word fell from Tilly's irresolute lips in sheer dread of +further revelations. "Fined! What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"'Soaked' by the judge, that is all I know," Dora quoted, indifferently. +"About once a month they both have to go in and pay up or be jugged. Old +Roly-poly said once that he paid the running expenses of this town +himself. What are 'running expenses'? Hanged if I know."</p> + +<p>"I don't know." Tilly made an all but somnambulistic reply. Had some +one—even John—died suddenly, she could not have been more shocked. +Even John's support in her terrible strait seemed somehow likely to be +withheld, for how could she go to him with such a matter, seeing that he +had not fully confided in her?</p> + +<p>"I must be going now," the weird child remarked. "You see, I sneaked +over and must get home before they wake up. I'll go in by the back way +and change my dress, and they will never know about this lark. At least +that's what I'm counting on. You may tell brother John I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> over if +you want to. He won't give me away. I want you to see the doll he sent +me, and her bed and carriage. Gosh! they are scrumptious!"</p> + +<p>When Dora had left, Tilly stood at the gate and watched her crossing the +vacant lots till she was out of sight. Then the young wife went back to +her work, but it had lost its charm. She could think of nothing but the +discoveries she had made. She was enabled now to account for hundreds of +discrepancies and omissions in her husband's words and acts in the past. +Now all things were clear—too clear by far for her peace of mind. The +terrible scandal would reach Cranston. It was sure to, eventually, and +all her friends and acquaintances would pity her. And as for Joel +Eperson—why, knowing him as she knew him, it would crush him. Her +marriage already had dealt him a blow, and this would add to his +suffering. As for her parents, she fancied her mother's taking it +stolidly and inexpressively; but her father, ah, that would be a +different matter! She dared not contemplate the effect on his monumental +pride and uncontrollable temper. He would interpret it in terms of +heaven, hell, and eternity. He would be as relentless as a patriarch +ordered by the voice of God to slay his young in the cause of +righteousness. Something must be done, and quickly, but what?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXVI" id="I_CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<p>In terrible loneliness the day dragged by. The blood of her being seemed +sluggish in her veins. She could not eat her luncheon. She thought of +going to see Mrs. Cavanaugh, but she did not know where the contractor +lived, and, as Mrs. Cavanaugh was still in bed with illness, a call +would be out of place. Besides, she was sure, even if she went, that she +would not be able to broach a matter of such undoubted delicacy, and, +unless she mentioned it, how could Mrs. Cavanaugh allude to it? Tilly +felt, too, that when John came she would not be able to mention it to +him, for had he not kept from her even the fact of his mother's visit to +him at his work the day before?</p> + +<p>It was growing dark when he came. She had not lighted the gas, because +she feared that he might too plainly see her face and read its new +lines, shadows, and shrinkings, and he came into the hall, his +dinner-pail in hand, as she stood waiting for him in the parlor. She +essayed a cheerful greeting, but the words stuck in her tight throat and +she went into his arms without uttering them.</p> + +<p>"So, so, little mouse," he said, in a forced tone of cheerfulness, "here +you are in your dark little hole. Let me light up. I'm dead tired. We +all had to put our shoulders to it to-day and lift some big stones and +place them right. Our derrick broke twice."</p> + +<p>He went to the kitchen. She heard him fumbling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> about for some matches. +Then he came back, striking the matches and lighting the jets in +dining-room, sitting-room, and hall.</p> + +<p>"You are hungry," she said. "Supper is ready, all but taking it up."</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, I guess I am," he said. "Gee! little girl, it is fine to +have a place to come to like this." He caught her in his arms and kissed +her tenderly. "In a snug place like this a man can throw off his +troubles easier than anywhere else. Sam calls it 'a cottage of delight,' +and that's what it is."</p> + +<p>"Troubles?" she repeated, stealing a look into his face. "Have you +troubles, my darling?"</p> + +<p>She thought that he avoided her direct gaze, and she was sure that she +felt him start slightly, and that his immediate kiss was somewhat more +mechanical than usual.</p> + +<p>"Oh, every fellow in my business has more or less worries," he parried, +awkwardly. "You see, a good deal depends on my judgment, and now and +then Sam and I disagree on little details of construction, and we have +to argue it out to a finish."</p> + +<p>"Have you had any disagreement to-day?" Tilly was probing him +desperately, knowing well that the subject had naught to do with the +weight on her breast and his.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, not to-day," he said, lightly. "Don't be alarmed. Sam and I work +all right together. He's always talking about me and him going into +partnership. He wants to tie me here, you see; but I don't know. The +world is wide, and I could make a living anywhere."</p> + +<p>They finished their supper and went to sit on the porch, where the air +circulated better than in the house. "I had a caller to-day," she +suddenly announced.</p> + +<p>"What, a—a— You say you had a—" He broke off,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> and then finished in a +breath of seeming relief. "Oh, Mrs. Cavanaugh! Sam said she would soon +be up; but from what he said I thought she'd be in bed for another week +at least."</p> + +<p>"It wasn't Mrs. Cavanaugh." Tilly's hand was in his and she felt his +calloused fingers twitch and remain tense while he waited for her to +finish. "It was the little girl from your house."</p> + +<p>His fingers shook. He stared at her through the twilight. She saw his +lips move as if for utterance, but no sound came forth. It was an +awkward moment for them both.</p> + +<p>"Oh, so she came!" John finally got out. "I thought she was too backward +to—to go anywhere."</p> + +<p>"She was timid at first," Tilly said, choking down the despair that +seemed to rise in her throat like a fluid; "but I gave her some cake and +made her feel at home the best I could."</p> + +<p>There was another turgid pause. John managed to break it, inexpert +though he was in the verbal finesse he was evidently trying to use.</p> + +<p>"She is a queer little imp," he said. "Don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, very, very strange, for a child of her age. I think she liked me +pretty well, and—and I did her. She ought to be taught. Can she read or +write? I didn't think to ask her."</p> + +<p>"She doesn't know B from a bull's track." John tried to smile, as he +forced a laugh. "Yes, she ought to be taught, I guess." He was silent +for a moment, and then he resumed: "What did she have to say? She can +talk a regular blue streak at times, and I am wondering—wondering—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<p>"She told me all about the doll and doll-things you sent her," Tilly +answered, resorting to subterfuge with no little skill. "Let a child +like that start to talk about her playthings and she will run on all +day. She didn't stay very long. She said she had work to do at home."</p> + +<p>From the sudden change of his face, Tilly comprehended the relief that +must have swept through him at that moment. He glanced toward the center +of the town where a cluster of lights threw a glow on the sky. "There is +a show under a tent on Main Street to-night," he said. "It may not be +much good, but it is something to go to. Suppose we walk over? It isn't +very far. When it is out we can stop at Tilman's ice-cream and +soda-water parlor and take something cool."</p> + +<p>"No"—Tilly shook her head—"let's stay at home."</p> + +<p>"But why? Listen! That's them now!" There was a sound of a brass band +playing in the direction of the lights, the blare of horns, and the +beating of drums. "They always play outside the tent to draw a crowd. +Why don't you want to go, little girl?"</p> + +<p>"You said you were tired."</p> + +<p>"Who, me? Good gracious! Now that I've had my supper I feel like a +fighting-cock. We'd better go. You are staying in too close, anyway."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXVII" id="I_CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<p>There seemed no way to avoid accepting the invitation, and she went into +the cottage for a light shawl. Then they locked up their little house +and started away. Tilly held his arm. She tried to fancy that they were +taking one of the unforgettable strolls along the mountain roads at +Cranston which had led to their union, but the illusion refused to abide +with her, for at Cranston he had been care-free, full of hope and joy, +and now his every word seemed to exude from a heart surcharged with +pain. How she loved him, now that she better understood the Sinister +fate that was scourging him so relentlessly!</p> + +<p>Ahead of them they saw a tent. It was lighted. "That is not the one," +John explained. "That is a tabernacle revival meeting. Sam goes every +night. He doesn't believe in it any more than I do, down inside of +himself, I mean; but he goes and tries to get the boys to go. That would +suit your father. That preacher throws off his coat and dares the +barkeepers to meet him in a fist-to-fist, knock-down, drag-out match on +his platform. We must go, too. How about to-morrow night?"</p> + +<p>"But—but you don't believe in such meetings," Tilly answered.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't make any odds what I believe," John returned, in a +thoughtful tone. "You got a lot, one way or another, out of your meeting +and Sunday-school up at home, and—and this is a dull town. It is full +of sets and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> a lot of silly pride, drawing the line at this and that. +Take my trade, for instance. Do you know a brick mason is sort o' looked +down on by the fool gangs that go in for style and show? Up your way +everything is more on a level. One man is as good as another. That is +one thing I like about religion. In the backwoods, at least, it does +away with a lot of stuck-up ideas. You mustn't think I want you to quit +going to church. No, I want you to go. I can't take part, but you can go +on the same as you used to."</p> + +<p>They were now in front of the tent's opening. And as Tilly was peering +in at the brilliantly lighted platform on which sat some singers behind +an organ, and a young, square-jawed, long-haired minister in a +frock-coat, John thought she might be interested in the service.</p> + +<p>"Maybe you'd rather go in to-night," he advanced. "It is with you to +decide. Is it preaching or show?"</p> + +<p>"But you don't like preaching," she said.</p> + +<p>"I don't count in this shuffle," he jested. "They are both shows to me. +The only difference is that the burnt-cork and dancing people admit they +want your money, and these people lie about it."</p> + +<p>Tilly frowned. "You get worse and worse," she said. "Let's go to the +show. It will be good for you after working so hard to-day."</p> + +<p>"Well, we'll come here to-morrow night," he said. "We've got to have +some amusements. You are by yourself too much. I've been thinking a lot +about the way you are fixed down here in this measly, hypocritical town. +You see, up there where you were raised you know every man, woman, and +child, but here you are a stranger. I mean— I mean—" He was beyond his +depth and realized it, quite to his chagrin. Tilly came to his rescue.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Never mind about me," she broke in, quickly and with tact, as she drew +him on in the direction of the lights and music farther up the street. +"I am thoroughly happy here. I don't want anything but you and our +little home. I love you more and more. Some day you will know why, but I +do. I'm going to make you happy, John, happier than you've ever been."</p> + +<p>He sighed, and it was as if he were conscious that the sigh which had +surged up within him, in a way, was a denial of the hope her words +extended.</p> + +<p>He paid their fare at the opening in the tent and went in and sat on one +of the crude, unbacked benches. The place was filling fast. Laughing +parties of young men and young ladies entered. John told Tilly who some +of them were. The "chipper, fluffy-headed blonde" was a banker's +daughter, with the son of the president of the largest iron-works in +Ridgeville. Another girl was the only child of a rich money-lender and +the young dude with her was an ex-Governor's son, a silly fool that +everybody said would have been in jail long ago for some of his scrapes +but for his father's influence. John didn't really know who all of them +were, though they lived in the town. They had grown up so fast and he +had been so busy that he hadn't kept track of them. He did know, +however, that they all belonged to a select dancing-club up the street, +and they would go there after the show, no doubt. They felt that they +were better than the working-class, and John said he despised them for +it. Their people belonged to the leading churches and that accounted for +their lack of sympathy for the poor.</p> + +<p>There were some improvised boxes or tiers of seats inclosed in scarlet +ribbons on the right, which were marked, "Reserved Seats, 25 cents +extra." The young society<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> people had not taken them, for some reason or +other, but, on the contrary, had found places in the body of the little +amphitheater where they sat merrily eating roasted peanuts which were +bought from a loud-shouting vender with a basket on his arm.</p> + +<p>It was all new to the young country wife, and she would have enjoyed it +but for the grim tragedy unfolding in her experience. The music stopped, +and the curtains were drawn. Two amusing Irishmen held the stage for +fifteen minutes in a heated colloquy interspersed with songs and "horse +play." Then when they had withdrawn, and Tilly and John were looking +over the audience, a man and a woman entered, came down the wide +saw-dust aisle, and turned into the reserved section. The man was very +fat, short, and flashily dressed; the woman was also showily attired, +powdered, painted, penciled, and perfumed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my! Old Liz is on a splurge to-night, ain't she?" a man behind John +and Tilly said, with a giggle. "Who's the fellow with her?"</p> + +<p>"'Sh!" his companion hissed, warningly, and from the corner of her eye +Tilly saw him pointing at John. She looked at her husband and saw a +wincing look of chagrin settling on his face. He had given but a single +glance at the new-comers and now gazed fixedly at the crude +drop-curtain. Tilly saw his neck and the side of his face growing red.</p> + +<p>Could it be her mother-in-law? she asked. Undoubtedly, and her escort +was "Roly-poly," for Dora's description had fitted him perfectly.</p> + +<p>Another act was on the stage. Acrobatic performers in silken tights +began vaulting, climbing, balancing one upon the other. Tilly saw that +John was valiantly pretending<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> to be absorbed in their maneuvers. He was +still flushed, and his eyes all but stood out from their sockets in +their grim fixity. How she pitied him! How she longed to take the strong +red hand which half clutched his knee and assure him that it didn't +matter to her at all.</p> + +<p>In the middle of the act something seemed to actually draw her eyes to +his mother's face. Lizzie Trott, with an expression half bewildered, +half abashed, was gazing past her son straight at her. The eyes of the +two met in a steady stare of infinite curiosity. The eyes of the woman +of the world seemed to cling to the eyes of youth and purity. The former +sank first. Lizzie Trott's wavered and fell to the dainty handkerchief +in her lap.</p> + +<p>"She is like John about the mouth and eyes," Tilly thought. "Poor woman! +I could love her. For John's sake I could love her. Yes, I could love +her. In spite of what she is, I could love her. Poor woman! Poor woman! +And she is John's mother—actually his mother! She is not wholly bad. I +see that in her face. Something is wrong. She looks tired, sad, +disgusted."</p> + +<p>Tilly now saw John with a flurried look in his eyes glance toward the +entrance. She read his thoughts. He was wondering if they might not get +away. He was dreading something, but what she knew not. Perhaps he was +afraid that his mother might at the end of the performance come across +boldly and introduce herself to her daughter-in-law, and perhaps make a +scene as she had done the day before. Again Tilly looked at her +mother-in-law. Their eyes met once more and clung together with almost +mystic comprehension.</p> + +<p>"Don't be afraid," Lizzie Trott's whole aspect seemed to say. "We'll go +away. I understand, and I'll not make it hard for you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> + +<p>And a moment later she was whispering something into the ear of her +companion, and the two rose and went out. John saw their backs as they +left, and Tilly noticed the expression of vast relief in his face.</p> + +<p>"Poor woman!" Tilly said to herself. "We could be friends. She is a real +woman, after all. She'd have to be to be John's mother."</p> + +<p>An hour later they were leaving the tent. Tilly declined John's +invitation to go to the soda-water and ice-cream parlor across the +street where a gay crowd under revolving fans were taking seats at +numerous small white tables.</p> + +<p>"I don't care for anything," she assured him. "Let's walk on. The night +is lovely and it looks like it is close in there."</p> + +<p>On his strong arm she hung tenderly as they strolled slowly back to the +cottage. John was changed. A sort of blight seemed to have swept over +him. She understood the cause of it and loved him all the more. That he +would never open his lips on the subject she was sure, but she could +read many of his thoughts which burrowed through some of his roundabout +utterances, as, for instance, what he said as they stood at their little +gate.</p> + +<p>"We must have some good long talks about my business," he said. "About +what's far ahead, you know, as well as right now. Sam wants me here. In +fact, he pretends to think he can't do without me to help out in several +big contracts, but between me and you— I was wondering yesterday what +you'd think if I was to tell you that I'm just fool enough to think that +I could go to some big Western city and light on my feet right at the +start. A fellow that sells cement and lime to us told me not long ago +that I could hit it big out in Seattle. He was looking over some of my +figures that Sam showed him. I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> wondering— You see, I am a little +afraid that you might not like to go away so far from your kin, with a +big hulk of a scamp like me, and—and—" John swung the gate open and +seemed unable further to direct his anxious outpourings.</p> + +<p>Tilly understood—too well she understood what he meant, what he +feared—and she made up her mind that a dubious move for her sake only +should not be taken. John had not thought of such a thing before +marriage. Why should it happen now?</p> + +<p>"I don't think you really ought to make a change just yet," she said, +firmly. "Mr. Cavanaugh is determined to push you ahead as fast as +possible. He told me so the other day. He said he needed your brain for +expert estimates and calculations, and that there were big things ahead +of you both as a firm."</p> + +<p>John was now unlocking the door, and the dark interior of the house +seemed to add more gloom to his troubled bearing. "Oh, Sam's all right," +he said. "Sam means well and would do right by me, but—but I can't say +exactly that I like this town. There is nothing to it. They tell me that +the West is a different proposition. Folks don't—don't meddle in one +another's business out there. It is more free and easy, not so hidebound +and overrun with hypocrisy. A man is judged by what he is—by the amount +of gray matter he has in his skull, by his character, and not by—not +by—well any little thing that he can't help, you know. I mean, well, +like what you saw there to-night—that gang of stuck-up boys and girls, +living on their family backing. The world's wide, and, God or no God, +there must be better things dealt out than this. I mean than this is to +<i>some</i>. I never thought much about it when I first began to think you +might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> come here with me, but I do now, and there is no use denying it. +Of course, I don't want Sam to know yet. He would do all he could to +help me, but Sam is—is just Sam, as helpless against some difficulties +as I am."</p> + +<p>"Don't light the gas yet." Tilly caught his hand entreatingly. A deep +sob of sympathy filled her throat, and she drew him to the little wicker +seat on the porch. "Let's sit awhile here where it is cool. It is warm +in the house."</p> + +<p>They sat side beside each other.</p> + +<p>"I see. You don't want any Western experiments," he said, plaintively, +his great fingers toying with her hair and now and then touching her +brow. "That is the way of a woman."</p> + +<p>"I think," Tilly said, leaning her head against his breast and holding +his hand in hers, "that we ought to let well enough alone." Her thoughts +sank into inexpression and ran on. Should she tell him that she knew +all—knew what he was trying to run from on her account—and assure him +that she wanted to face the whole situation? But how could she tell him, +knowing how sensitive his sudden awakening had made him to the awful +matter? If he had wanted her to know it he would have brought it up +himself. No, that must wait, for to let him know that she knew all would +only add to his pain. He was finding a sort of respite in her supposed +ignorance of the situation; she would let it be so for a while, anyway.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="I_CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<p>On that day a thing of no little importance was happening at Cranston. +Various members of Whaley's church were holding a meeting at the +farm-house of a certain Simon Suggs. They numbered seven in all, +including Mrs. Suggs, who was supposed to take no part beyond supplying +the group with fresh cider, which had been kept cool in a spring-house +and was now served with warm gingerbread. But she was alert, open-eyed, +and open-eared to all that was done and said.</p> + +<p>The meeting was called to order by Suggs himself. "As I understand it," +he began, rising and clearing his throat, "the object of this meeting is +to take a vote on what we ought to do in the matter under discussion. Do +I hear any motion in that respect?"</p> + +<p>"I move," said a wizen-faced little man in a high, piping voice, "that +we all go in a body to Brother Whaley and lay the matter before him. +Grave charges have been preferred against him as a consistent church +member, and a proposition has been made to turn him out. I hold that he +deserves at least a chance to make a statement—show his side, if he has +got one, even before it goes to the official board. Most of you contend +that he was aware of what he was doing from the start."</p> + +<p>"Of course he knowed!" cried out another man, who was a shoemaker and +bore the marks of his trade on his hands. "Wasn't that contractor +hand-in-glove with him, and didn't Cavanaugh know the whole thing as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +plain as the nose on his face? I know a man that went straight to +Brother Whaley and told him this Trott was an atheist, and my informant +offered to bring sworn evidence of all that Trott had said on that line, +the most damnable talk, by the way, that hell ever had spouted in our +midst."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm admitting that part," the wizen-faced little man piped in. "I +admit all that, Brother Tumlin. Brother Whaley had heard of that, but it +seems that Cavanaugh persuaded him to gloss it over and leave the fellow +in Tilly's hands for gradual conversion to the truth; but as to the +other matter—the thing that is too dirty to talk about even here to you +men while Sister Suggs is out of the room—"</p> + +<p>"He knew that, too," broke in the shoemaker, angrily. "How could he keep +from it? We got it, didn't we? Isn't Trott's mother notorious?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not disputing that," the little man went on. "All I want to set +forth is that, even though Brother Whaley thinks he is the only man in +seven states that can interpret Scripture right and does know +considerable on that line, he is entitled to a fair show from us."</p> + +<p>"I wonder, brethren"—it was Mrs. Suggs who now appeared, wiping her fat +hands on her blue-and-white checked apron—"I wonder if I might be +allowed to put in a bare word right here?"</p> + +<p>Silence prevailed. A look of vague dissent passed over the solemn faces. +Suggs pulled at his stubby chin whiskers and knitted his bushy brows. +"If I'm chairman," he said, dryly, "I may or may not, according to my +discretion, permit Sister Suggs to speak; but as her husband, brethren, +I think if I don't give her a chance she will make it hot for me, so if +she will promise to fetch in some more cold cider right off I'll let her +speak."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh yes, let her," a voice said in a drowsy tone from the horsehair sofa +in a corner. "In my time I've known women to hit a nail on the head when +twenty men had either missed it or bent it double and spoiled the +woodwork. What is it, sister? Shoot it out! Saint Paul was against women +talking in public, but I like to listen to 'em—I do."</p> + +<p>"I was just thinking of one thing, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen"—Mrs. +Suggs bowed her frowsy head formally. She had presided at a church +meeting of her sex once or twice, and there was something more than +imitation of her husband's manner in her tone and bearing—"I was +thinking of one particular thing that men are apt to overlook in a +scramble like this seems to be, and that is this. I may as well tell you +that I've had talks with the wife of the man under investigation, and, +as I know how to handle a woman as well as the next one, I dropped on to +a few things that I'll bet you all will overlook."</p> + +<p>There was a sudden commotion in the yard, and, springing up, Suggs went +to a window, parted the curtains, and looked out. Turning, he rapped on +the back of his chair with his big pocket-knife and stared at his wife.</p> + +<p>"That cow has pushed the rails down and got to the calf again," he said. +"Either you or me will have to go out and part 'em. Of course I'm +willing to do it, but if I am to conduct this meeting properly, why—"</p> + +<p>"I move we take a recess," spoke up the wizen-faced man, "just long +enough to dispose of the cow-and-calf matter, and then come back and +finish up in here."</p> + +<p>"No, I'll go attend to it," Mrs. Suggs sighed. "I know how to handle +her, but you fellows have got to hold my place open. I'll be right back. +It is just a baby calf,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> and I can tote it about in my arms. I'll drop +it over in the old hog-pen till later."</p> + +<p>She had scarcely left the room when a lank man past middle age, with +long beard that was quite gray in spots and black as to the remainder, +stood up. "Would it be in order, Mr. Chairman," he began, "while the +lady whom you have recognized as having the floor is absent, for me to +say a word or two, being as this matter is <i>pro bono publico</i> and vital +to us all—in fact, is the <i>primum mobile</i> of our faith in the Almighty +and His plans?"</p> + +<p>"You have the floor, Professor Cardell. Hold on to it," Suggs said, +formally. "If you don't get through before my wife parts the cow and +calf she will just have to wait, that's all. That's one reason I never +thought women had a right to dabble in matters like this. They would get +interested in it and burn a pan of bread to cinders, or let a helpless +baby crawl out of its swaddlings into the fire. Go ahead, but I'd hurry +up a little. When there is a debate of any sort on my wife can do her +housework ten times as quick as ordinarily, if the work is holding her +back from the talk."</p> + +<p>Professor Cardell pulled at his beard till his lips smacked and his +white teeth showed. "I'm of the opinion, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen," he +began, "that Whaley was tempted by the big wages young Trott was +drawing, and all that Cavanaugh had to say about what Trott was apt to +amount to in the future. As we all know, <i>facilis descensus Averno est</i>, +and any man with natural greed in his veins is subject to temptation. +Therefore I wish to state quite plainly—"</p> + +<p>"Well, plain or not plain," Mrs. Suggs was heard saying, as she bustled +into the room, brushing short brown hairs from her dress and frowning on +the speaker, "I don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> intend to have my place gobbled up behind my +back. Huh! I reckon not! You stout, able-bodied men let me do the dirty +work, and make that a reason for depriving me of my liberty of opinion +and the use of free speech."</p> + +<p>"As I see it," rapped Suggs with his knife, "Professor Cardell has just +got to a point that if he wasn't allowed to go on he'd have to go back +to the beginning and start over. I've noticed that he is that kind of a +speaker, and as time is—"</p> + +<p>"Professor Cardell nor no other creature in pants can take my place," +Mrs. Suggs fumed. "What is he saying, anyway? You men ought to be +ashamed of yourselves, setting here like stranded catfish, swallowing +all them foreign words and pretending you understand 'em. He whirls off +a lot of jumbled talk and the last one of you look as wise as a sleepy +ape in the corner of a cage in a circus."</p> + +<p>"I see I ought to apologize." Professor Cardell wore a flush which +looked as if it had its rise in scholastic pride rather than in rebuked +humility. "I am well aware that my phraseology is interspersed with +Latin, but that is due to my constant reading of the ancient classics +and a habit I have when I am alone of holding converse in that beautiful +tongue."</p> + +<p>"Beautiful, a dog's hind foot!" cried Mrs. Suggs. "Listen to me, +Professor Cardell. I can give you valuable advice, and I'm going to do +it here and now. You'd make much more headway, and clothe and feed your +wife and children a sight better, if you would throw all that gibberish +overboard and talk stuff that folks understand. Now nobody else hasn't +had the face to tell you the truth about this, but I will. You know when +you put in application as principal of the new school, and was turned +down so flat? Now I got it straight from the wife of one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> the +committee who was to select the teacher, that when you got up before +that body of plain farm folks to show what you could do, and begun all +that Latin chatter, you cooked your goose for good and all. And, while I +hold nothing against you otherwise, I agree with them. I've always heard +that Latin is a dead language, and if that is so, it ought to be used on +dead folks and not on live ones. No living person can understand half +you say, and therefore I claim that your talk on this matter ought not +to go before what I've got to say in words so plain that a fool can +understand."</p> + +<p>"I yield the floor to the lady," the Professor said in confusion. +"<i>Prior tempore, prior jure.</i> She has it by rights, and I beg the pardon +of the chair: and the assembly."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Professor," Mrs. Suggs said, as she picked at a few stray +calf hairs on her sleeve. "I wouldn't insist if I wasn't sure that I've +got something to say in plain English that you all will overlook. It is +this, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen. I've had friendly talks with Sister +Whaley and she has sort of let me in on her troubles and fears. Now +there is just one thing that will happen if you botch this matter. Dick +Whaley is the biggest fool and the wildest man when he is mad that ever +lived, and, while you haven't thought of it, this thing may bring about +bloodshed. He has already brought one man to death's door, and this will +be the worst thing for Brother Whaley to stand of anything that ever +crossed his path. He might have stood the talk about his son-in-law +being an atheist, but he'll never put up with what is being said about +selling his own child to a life of infamy, and the likelihood of his +being the grandfather of stock of that sort. If you fellers go on with +this, the innocent blood of more than one person may be on your heads. +Now I'm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> giving you fair warning, and I'm doing it in time to set you +all to thinking. Serving God is our duty, but if you fellows go over to +Dick Whaley's with this cock-and-bull yarn that you just heard from a +man peddling through the country, you will be led there by the devil +himself. That is all I've got to say."</p> + +<p>She sat down. There was a lengthy silence. The men glanced from one to +another in helpless inquiry of rapidly shifting eyes. Then a composite +stare became fixed upon Suggs's troubled lineaments. He arose, shrugged, +knitted his brows, and coughed.</p> + +<p>"There is something in what my wife has said," he began, "and, on the +whole, it may be that we ought to wait a little while before we take +this thing up. The whole country is rife with it, and Brother Whaley is +bound to hear it. He may act rash—in fact, now that I think of it, he +will be sure to do it, and I'm going to be frank and say here and now +that I'd rather not handle matches around as big a powder-can as this +one is. So if you will bring in the cider and cakes, Sister Suggs, I'll +adjourn this meeting <i>sine die</i>. By the way, that's Latin, isn't it, +Professor?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," the Professor answered, warmly grateful for being applied to, +"but I'd prefer the less common and more erudite term of <i>re infecta</i>."</p> + +<p>"Which means," replied Suggs, without intending to joke, "that we may be +infected again?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, not that, by any means!" the Professor responded. "You quite +miss the point. You see, my worthy brother, in the Latin language—"</p> + +<p>But the cider and cake was being brought in; the men were rising to +receive the glasses which were tinkling on a tray, and good humor and +smug rectitude prevailed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXIX" id="I_CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<p>One morning Tilly was occupied in the little front yard of her home. +Some rose-bushes needed attention, and with a pair of large scissors she +was pruning the branches and cutting the weeds away with a garden +trowel. Suddenly, happening to glance toward the town, she noticed one +of the street-hacks approaching. There was no doubt that it was headed +for the cottage, and a sudden qualm of alarm passed over her. Indeed, +she feared that some accident might have happened to John, for he had +told her that he was at work on a scaffold to which large stones were +being hoisted. The negro cabman seemed to be in a hurry, for he was +lashing his horse vigorously.</p> + +<p>The cab stopped at the gate. The door was opened and Richard Whaley +stepped out. He wore his best suit of clothes, but it was badly wrinkled +and covered with dust. His black-felt hat was crushed, and its broad +brim had been pulled down over his eyes. Tilly heard him order the man +to wait, and the tone of his voice sent a shock of terror through her. +She had never heard him speak like that before, nor had she beheld such +a look in his haggard face. His whole form drooped and quivered as with +palsy as he came toward the gate.</p> + +<p>"Father!" Tilly gasped, but she said no more, for the wild stare of the +bloodshot eyes cowed her into silence. He swung open the gate and lunged +into the yard.</p> + +<p>"Where is that—where is John Trott?" he asked,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> panting, saliva like +that of an idiot dripping from his shaking lip. "Where is he, I say?"</p> + +<p>Tilly saw the negro staring curiously. She knew he was listening. Almost +deprived of her wits, yet she was thoughtful, and she said:</p> + +<p>"Come in, father; come in?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, he is inside, is he?"</p> + +<p>"Come in," Tilly answered, evasively. "Let's not talk out here."</p> + +<p>She led the way into the sitting-room and tremblingly placed a chair for +him, noting as she did so that his coarse shoes were untied, his hat +without a band, his cravat awry, his shirt unclean. He refused the +chair, and stood holding to the back of it with a besmudged hand. Then +her alert eyes took in the bulge of the right-hand pocket of his short +coat. A weighty article drew it sharply downward. She knew that it was a +revolver, and her blood ran cold in her veins.</p> + +<p>"Where is John Trott?" Whaley demanded, raspingly, and he looked toward +the door leading into the dining-room. That room was darkened and he +bent and peered toward it like a beast about to spring on its prey.</p> + +<p>"He is not here, father," Tilly said, in almost a gentle whisper.</p> + +<p>"Not here? Where has he gone?"</p> + +<p>She hesitated and then answered, "Out in the country, father."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it." He turned, automatically laid his hand on his +revolver, and left the room. She stood still. She heard him stalking +from room to room, now striking against a chair or a table or tripping +on a rug. Through the window she saw the cabman, his gaze on the cottage +door. Whaley passed the window; he was walking around the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> house; his +hand was in his right pocket; he stumbled over a tuft of grass, almost +fell, and uttered a snort of fury. She raised a window at the side of +the house, and saw him looking into the little woodshed in the rear of +the lot. He turned and strode back to the cottage, entering at the +kitchen door and clamping over the resounding floor back to her.</p> + +<p>"Where is he? I say," he snarled.</p> + +<p>"I told you, father," she said. "Why—what is the matter? What do you +want? Why are you so excited?"</p> + +<p>"You know well enough!" he cried. "Don't stand there and tell me that +you don't know all or more than I do. Show him to me. I want to meet the +white-livered atheistic agent of hell. And when I do meet him he'll +never sneak into another respectable home like he did in mine. Do you +know what is being said? Do you know what is spreading from county to +county up home?"</p> + +<p>"I can imagine," Tilly sighed. She felt faint. The objects in the room, +the glaring fanatic, the sunny windows were swinging around her. She +pulled herself together. She told herself she must be strong. Unless she +conquered her weakness and held taut her wits her husband would be +killed. What was to be done? Suddenly an idea came. She told herself +that it might work. There was nothing else to do, and at any cost she +must prevent the meeting of the two men. Another moment and the madman +might be driving away in search for his victim.</p> + +<p>"Father," she began, and she advanced to him and started to lay her hand +on his arm, but he drew back and snarled like an infuriated beast.</p> + +<p>"Did you know about that strumpet, Liz Trott, before you married her +son?" he asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, father, I did not; but you don't understand John's position—"</p> + +<p>"Understand the devil and all his imps! He'll understand me when I meet +him; that will be enough."</p> + +<p>"Father, sit down, please. John is away out in the country and won't be +home for a long time. Please, please don't raise a row here and stir up +this whole town. John is suffering enough without that. Now listen to +me. You know I have some rights. I am a married woman now, and I've got +a heart and soul in me. I've got the right as an innocent woman not to +be dragged into a scandal like this. If you shot John in your present +fury I'd have to be held as a witness, and you'd be put in jail. You are +a religious man. Surely you ought to know that God would not forgive you +for treating your own child as you are about to treat me. I am willing +to go home with you right away—this minute! The cab is waiting, and we +could catch the twelve-o'clock train. Surely you regretted that other +shooting affair you had, and are grateful to God for sparing you from +the worst. I'll pack up and go. It won't take me long."</p> + +<p>Slowly and limply he sank into a chair. His soot-streaked hands clutched +his knees and he groaned. She saw him shake his frowsy head and a tremor +went through him. He was being twisted between the hands of two forces. +He was silent for several minutes, save for his loud breathing. Glancing +through the window, Tilly saw that the negro had approached the gate. +She went to the window and leaned out.</p> + +<p>"Can you tell me," she asked him, as he saw her and lifted his hat, +"what time the Tennessee north-bound train leaves?"</p> + +<p>"Twelve ten, miss," he answered, trying to read the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> suppressed mystery +of her features. "Do you need me in dar? Dat man look' dangerous ter me, +miss."</p> + +<p>"Oh no." She shook her head and forced a smile. "But I want to ask—can +you take us to the station, and a small trunk also?"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm."</p> + +<p>"Hold on!" It was Whaley's voice, and he had risen. "Tell that nigger +to— Let me speak to him. Do you think I came down here to—"</p> + +<p>Tilly thrust her small person between him and the window. She laid two +opposing hands on his breast and checked him.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to save you from murder— I will, I will!" she said, +desperation filling her voice with power and causing his fierce stare to +flicker. "If you meet my husband you will shoot him and the blood of a +helpless, suffering, noble man will be on your head. You know what the +brand on Cain was. You will bear it till you meet God with it on your +brow. Do you think He'd forgive you? No, you'd have to burn for it in +eternal torment, and you know it. You know you thanked God for sparing +you before. Are you going to do even a worse thing now?"</p> + +<p>He sank, half pushed down by her, into his chair. She saw the revolver, +now exposed by his gaping pocket, and had an impulse to take it, but +realized that the act would infuriate him anew. So she left it alone and +stood squarely in front of him.</p> + +<p>"You are not going to damn your soul," she went on, firmly. "Jesus, your +Saviour and mine, forgave the guilty and you are refusing to pardon +<i>even the innocent</i>. You are going to take me home. You are going to sit +quietly there till I pack my trunk, and then we'll take the cab to the +train."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<p>He groaned under a vast inrolling wave of indecision, and stared at her +like a helpless, thwarted child, and yet she knew that the flames +smoldering within him were apt to burst at any moment.</p> + +<p>"I want to go home," she said. "I'm giving you this chance to take me in +a decent way. If you refuse, I don't know what I'll do, but you'd better +take me. For your sake and mine, you'd better do it. Now, I am being +driven to the wall, father, and down inside of me is your stubborn +nature when it is roused. You harm my husband, and see what I'll do. +I'll swear against you at the court of man. I'll appear against you on +the Day of Judgment."</p> + +<p>He stared at her helplessly. His great mouth fell open and he groaned. +"I understand, and—and you may be right," he faltered. "But you'd +better hurry. I know myself, and I know that if I met him I'd put him +out of the way if all hell stood between me and him. He has dragged my +name down into the mire and made me a laughing-stock before all men. I'm +pointed at, sneered at—called a senile fool."</p> + +<p>"I'll hurry," she promised. "It won't take long."</p> + +<p>In the little bedroom she threw open her trunk and began hastily to +pack. New fears were now assailing her. What if John should suddenly +come home for something he had left, as he had done once or twice? +Indeed, there on the bureau lay the blue-and-white drawing which only +the night before he had been studying. He might come for that, using +Cavanaugh's horse and buggy, as he frequently did. The thought chilled +her to the marrow of her bones. In her haste she all but tore her simple +dresses from their hooks in the closet and stuffed them, unfolded, into +the trunk. Now and then a little stifled sob escaped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> her. Her father +sat still and soundless in the other room. She wanted to brush his +clothes, tie his shoes, and fix his hatband before starting away, but +time was too valuable.</p> + +<p>There was a pad of writing-paper and a pencil on the bureau, and she +told herself that she must write John a note and leave it. She closed +and locked her trunk. Then she turned to the pad. She took up the pencil +and started to write, but was interrupted. Her father crossed the hall +and stood in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing?" he asked, a suspicious gleam in the eyes which +took in the pad and pencil.</p> + +<p>"Nothing. I am ready," she replied, dropping the pencil and turning to a +window. "Come in and get the trunk," she ordered the cabman.</p> + +<p>Nothing was said by Whaley or herself now, for the negro, hat in hand, +was entering. And when he had left with the trunk, Tilly said:</p> + +<p>"Come on, father, let's go."</p> + +<p>Sullenly and still with a haunting air of indecision on him, he trudged +ahead of her out into the yard. She closed the door but did not lock it.</p> + +<p>"How can I get a message to John?" she asked herself. "There is no way +that I can see, and yet I must—oh, I must!"</p> + +<p>Her father had gone to the cab, opened the door himself, and stood +waiting for her. In the open sunshine, his unshaven face had a grisly, +ashen look; his bloodshot eyes held flitting gleams of insanity. His +lips moved. He was talking to himself. She saw him clench his fist and +hammer the glass door of the cab.</p> + +<p>The negro was immediately behind Tilly. She turned while her father's +eyes were momentarily averted. "Listen,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> she said, in a low tone. "See +my husband when he returns home to-night; tell him that my father came +for me and that I had to leave. Tell him not to come up home."</p> + +<p>The negro's bare pate nodded beside the trunk on his shoulder. He seemed +to understand, but made no other response, for Whaley's suspicious eyes +were now on him and his daughter.</p> + +<p>"Get in! Get in!" Whaley gulped, and stood holding the cab door.</p> + +<p>She obeyed, and he followed and crowded into the narrow seat beside her. +Through the glass of the opposite door she saw the white tombstones of +the town's burial-place, the roof of Lizzie Trott's house above the +trees, and the jagged, boulder-strewn hills beyond. The next moment the +cab had turned toward the station and was trundling along the rutted, +seldom-used street. Whaley's gaping pocket was within an inch of her +hand, and Tilly could have taken out the revolver, but she did not dare +do so, for that might fire him anew, and she had determined to run no +risks whatever. The smoke of factory chimneys streaked the horizon above +the town. She heard the bell of a switch-engine in the distant +railway-yard. They met a grocer's delivery-wagon. It was taking some +ordered things to the cottage, but Tilly dared not stop to explain, and, +as the grocer's boy did not recognize her, the two conveyances passed +each other. In an open lot some boys were playing ball. How could they +play so unconcernedly when to the young wife the whole universe seemed +to be whirling to its doom?</p> + +<p>A little street-car was rumbling down an incline not far away. It seemed +to have a few passengers. What if one of them should be John? And what +if, on finding her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> gone, he should hasten to town and meet her father +before the train left?</p> + +<p>"What time is it?" she asked her father, with forced nonchalance. He +made no answer, and she reached over and drew his open-faced silver +watch from the pocket of his waistcoat; but he had forgotten to wind it, +and it had stopped at three o'clock. She put the timepiece back with +difficulty, for he was leaning forward and made no effort to aid her.</p> + +<p>They were soon within sight of the station. Groups of men and boys stood +about. She shuddered at the thought of meeting their gaze. Cavanaugh +might be among them, and she feared the consequences of her father's ire +on seeing him. And when the cab had stopped and they had alighted Tilly +noticed that the men were exchanging remarks and staring at her and her +father. Surely they suspected something, and why? she wondered. Some of +them came closer and eyed her attentively while pretending not to do so.</p> + +<p>Tilly had her purse, and she sent the cabman for the tickets and ordered +him to check her trunk. There was a little waiting-room, and, desiring +more seclusion, she led her father into it. But they were not thus to +escape the stare of the bystanders, for many of them walked past the +door and looked in curiously. One of them wore the uniform of a +policeman, and it seemed as if he were about to address some inquiry to +her, but decided not to do so when he saw the cabman delivering the +tickets and trunk-check to her. The clock on the wall indicated twelve. +Ten minutes to wait. She was beginning to hope that all would be well +when the ticket-seller came from his office and with a piece of chalk +wrote on a blackboard bulletin:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p> + +<p>"36 North-bound 15 minutes late."</p> + +<p>The time dragged. More curious persons came to the door, stared, and +even paused. The cabman came for his fare. She paid him for the use of +his cab all the morning. "Don't forget," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"I won't, miss," he said, comprehendingly, and thereupon she put some +more money into his hand.</p> + +<p>"Please, please, don't forget!" she repeated.</p> + +<p>She watched him as he walked away, and then she saw the policeman join +him, and the two turned to one side and began to talk earnestly +together.</p> + +<p>At last the train came. Through a gaping throng, ever increasing, she +led her father to a seat in one of the coaches. There was only a short +stop, and the train was soon moving again. The relief was great, and a +vast sense of weakness came over her. She felt like crying, but she knew +that would never do. She yearned for the opportunity to confide in some +one. It could not be her mother, for she had never been understood by +her mother. There was one friend who would understand, who had always +understood, and that was Joel Eperson. Joel would be grieved. She was +the wife of another, but that would make no difference to Joel Eperson, +for that he was still faithful to her she did not doubt. She told +herself that she must see Joel at once and get his advice. She could +think of no one else upon whom she could so confidently rely, and she +must go to some one, for all the initiative she had ever possessed +seemed to have been ruthlessly destroyed along with every girlish dream, +hope, and ideal.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXX" id="I_CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + +<p>It was dark that evening when John arrived home. As he opened the gate +he was surprised to see that the cottage was not lighted. That was +indeed strange, for Tilly was usually in the kitchen or the dining-room +at that hour. The next remarkable thing was the fact that the key was in +the lock. He felt it and heard it rattle as he caught the door-knob. The +hall was dark and silent. He went in hurriedly. What could have +happened? Where could she be? He called out: "Tilly! Tilly!" but there +was no response. A gray cat that belonged to the Carrols came and rubbed +against his ankles as he stood in the kitchen. He lighted the gas. How +odd! for there lay the unwashed breakfast-dishes, the uncleaned +coffee-pot, and in the dining-room the breakfast table-cloth had not +been removed. He put down his dinner-pail, and, with a great fear +clutching his breast, a fear he could not have defined, he went into the +sitting-room. Nothing here was out of place, and he turned into the +bedroom. It was dark, and with unsteady hands he struck a match. It +broke. A blazing globule fell to the mat. He swore impatiently and +extinguished it with his foot. He struck another and lighted the gas. +The open door of the closet, now empty, met his eyes. A crushed hat-box +lay on the floor, the bureau drawers were wide open and contained but a +few things. He looked for Tilly's trunk. It was gone. Then he began to +look everywhere for some written communication, lighting all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> the +gas-jets to facilitate his search. Then he gave it up. He went about +extinguishing the gas as aimlessly and mechanically as a sleepwalker, +unaware of the things he was touching.</p> + +<p>He went out on the porch. He stepped down into the yard. Verbal +expression of no sort was formed in his consciousness, for the pall of +comprehension had not yet quite enveloped him. Something yet of hope +might blaze forth out of his gloom. Ah, perhaps she had received a +telegram from home that some one was ill and had not had time to inform +him. Yes, it might be that—that and not the other—not the damnable, +sinister conceit that somehow seemed to emerge from the home of his +mother and come crawling like a designing monster across the intervening +spaces toward him. He went to the gate and clutched it with the strong +hand which all that day had lifted mortar and bricks till his muscles +were sore. Then he heard the sound of wheels. A horse and cab were +approaching from the direction of the town.</p> + +<p>"Ah, a message is coming!" he cried, a vast rising relief driving the +words from him.</p> + +<p>"Is dat you, Mr. Trott?" The cabman was reining his horse in at the +gate.</p> + +<p>"Yes. What is it?" John went out to the cab and stood breathlessly +waiting for the negro to speak.</p> + +<p>"Why, yo' wife tol' me ter tell you, sir, dat—but, bless me if I wasn't +so rattled dat I hardly remember what it was she said."</p> + +<p>"My wife, my wife, what about her?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I done fetch 'er father here, sir, dis morning," the man went on +in stammering tones. "He was rampagin' up 'n' down de Square, askin' +whar you was. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> had a gun an' was out er his head. Dar wasn't no +policeman about, en' nobody else knowed how ter handle him. He sure was +dangerous! Seems like he done hear about—well, you know—about yo' ma, +an' Miss Jane Holder, an'—an' de high jinks over dar night after night, +an' fines, drinks, poker an' all dat. He didn't talk to me, sir, but +some of de white folks dat he saw in de stores said he claimed dat you +abdicated his young daughter 'fo' she was old enough ter decide fer +herself. I didn't want ter fetch 'im here, for blood was in his eyes, +but I was afraid not to, wid him settin' behind me wid dat gun in his +pocket, so I driv' him over, knowin' you was out in der country at work +an' safe fer a while, anyway."</p> + +<p>"But my wife—my wife?" John all but pleaded. "What about her?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know 'cept she tuck 'im inside an' sorter quieted 'im down and +tol' 'im she wanted to go home ter her ma. Some a de white folks up-town +say she didn't know what she was gettin' her foot into down here nohow, +an', now she found out, she was glad ernough to get away. One an' all +say she is plumb decent herself, just er plain country girl wid good +up-bringin'. Some of 'em is b'ilin' mad at you an' yo' boss."</p> + +<p>John stifled a rising groan. "Damn you," he said, "cut all that out and +tell me if my wife left any message for me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, she did—now I remember, but she had ter give it ter me on de +sly, an' I didn't git all of it. She said tell you she had ter go—dat +she had stood it as long as she could, an'—oh yes, she said fer you not +ter dare ter show yo'se'f up dar at 'er ol' home."</p> + +<p>"And have they left town?" John asked, with strange calmness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh yes, sir! Dey tuck de twelve-ten train."</p> + +<p>"That will do." John motioned for him to go. "I understand."</p> + +<p>The negro turned his horse around and started back to town. John stood +stock-still, his eyes on the cab disappearing in the gloom. He had stood +that way for several minutes when a small hand was slipped into his from +behind, and, looking around, he saw the soiled face and matted hair of +Dora Boyles.</p> + +<p>"Brother John," she faltered, "has Tilly left you—really—really left +you?"</p> + +<p>He dropped her hand and shoved her from him. "Go home!" he cried. "Go +home, and don't bother me!"</p> + +<p>She fell back a yard or so and stood staring at him. "I won't go till +you tell me," she said, stubbornly. "I started over here this morning to +show Tilly my doll and get her to help me dress it. I saw that +crazy-looking old man come in a cab and take her and her trunk away. She +was white—oh, she was as white as a sheet, and so pitiful-looking!"</p> + +<p>"Go home, I tell you! Go home!" John gulped and snarled like a man +goaded at once by grief and physical pain. "Go home, I tell you! Leave +me alone!"</p> + +<p>"I suppose that means she <i>has</i> left," the child reasoned aloud. "Well, +brother John, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, because I liked her awfully well. +But I'm not surprised. Aunt Jane told your ma yesterday—and it made her +mad. My! didn't the old girl rip and snort? Aunt Jane told her this +thing would happen sooner or later. She said no woman alive could stay +cooped up in a little box like this very long and not have a single soul +go near her, and you off all day."</p> + +<p>John laid his hand roughly on the child's shoulder and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> smothered an +oath of fury. "You go home!" he panted. "If you don't, I'll—"</p> + +<p>"You'll do nothing!" The child smiled fearlessly. "Your bark is worse +than your bite, brother John. But I'm going. I'll come back, though. +I'll be over to clean up and cook something for you. You won't come back +to our old shack, I know."</p> + +<p>When she had left he went into the cottage, but he did not light the gas +again. The darkness seemed more suitable to his mood. He sat down on the +edge of his and Tilly's bed. His massive hand sank into her pillow. It +was past his supper hour, but he had no desire to eat. The sheer thought +of the kitchen where his young wife had worked, somehow suggested her +death. A little round metal clock on the mantel was ticking sharply. He +got up and wound it, as usual, at that hour. He went into the +sitting-room. Here he sat down, lurched forward in unconscious weakness, +and then, swearing impatiently, he steadied himself. He remained there +only a minute. Rising, he went into the dining-room, felt about, as a +blind man might, for a chair, and sank into it. Crossing his arms on the +table, he rested his head on them. Had he been a weaker man he might +have pitied himself. He had always contended that a man who could not +bear pain and adversity had a "yellow streak" in him. He had once had a +painful operation performed without an anesthetic, and he now told +himself that he simply must master the things within and without him +which had combined to overthrow him. He ground his teeth together. He +clenched his fingers till the nails of some of them broke.</p> + +<p>He closed his eyes. He tried to imagine that he was becoming drowsy and +that he would soon sleep, but a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> thousand pictures floated through his +brain and dug themselves in like burrowing animals. Chief among them was +a view of Whaley striding about the Square, uttering slobbering +anathemas against him. Another scene was that of Tilly's receiving the +revelation he himself had shrunk from making. He saw the blight fall on +her bonny face and her calm and inevitable consent to abandon him +forever. And yet how could he bear <i>that</i>—exactly <i>that</i>? He groaned +against the smooth surface of the table. He was ashamed of his frailty, +for the mastery of himself seemed farther off, almost an impossibility.</p> + +<p>The iron latch of the gate clicked. A heavy step grated on the gravel +walk. He sat up straight and listened. The cast-iron door-bell rang. +There was a pause, then a step sounded in the hall. Some one was +entering unbidden and stalking into the house.</p> + +<p>"Oh, John—Johnny, my boy! Where are you?" It was Cavanaugh's voice +filled with fluttering grief, tenderness, dismay.</p> + +<p>"Here I am!" John did not rise. "Here, in the dining-room."</p> + +<p>"But the light—the light. Why don't you—"</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh broke off as he stood in the doorway. He paused there for a +moment, as if wondering what state a light would reveal the crouched +form of his friend to be in.</p> + +<p>"I don't want a light, Sam," John muttered. "You can have one if you +want it. Here are some matches—but, no, I'll light up. When I came in I +was so tired that I sat down here a minute, and—well, I must have—have +dropped asleep. But what the hell's the use to lie to <i>you</i>?" He struck +a match and held it to the gas-jet over the table beneath the gaudy +porcelain shade. His writhing face, in the sudden flare of light, was +white,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> holding a tint even of green. He sank back into his chair. "No, +I won't lie, Sam. Besides, if you haven't already heard you will soon +enough."</p> + +<p>"I <i>have</i> heard," Cavanaugh admitted. "I heard it at home from a +neighbor. Then I went to the Square to make sure, and—"</p> + +<p>"I know. It's town talk, a delicious tidbit for women and loafers," John +sneered. "Well, well, it is done, Sam. It has happened, and that is all +there is to it."</p> + +<p>"I hurried over to see you and talk with you," Cavanaugh went on. "I +don't know what step you want to take."</p> + +<p>"I'll take none," John answered, grimly. "You don't think I want to kill +anybody, do you? She is his daughter, and he had her before I got her. I +tell you there is no fight in me, Sam. I can fight, as you know, when it +has to be done, but there is no call for it in this case. Knowing Tilly +as I know her, and now knowing my own plight as it has been made plain +to me since I brought her here, I would think any man a damned idiot +that would allow his daughter to marry me. God! God! No, never! Sam, +Sam, I never found fault with you before, but you ought to have told me. +By God! you ought to have opened my damned sightless eyes!"</p> + +<p>"Don't! don't! my boy!" Cavanaugh cried, huskily. "You are breaking my +heart. I wanted you with me. I saw how you two loved one another, and I +thought I was acting right. I—I couldn't pull the bad conduct of others +between you and that sweet little girl. I am not satisfied to let it +rest as it is, either. You may not want to take any steps, but it is my +duty to try to do something."</p> + +<p>"Something? What the hell could you or any one do?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll tell you what struck me, my dear boy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> I'm going up to +Cranston to-night and see how the land lies. I don't intend to rest idle +and know no more than I've picked up in the wild talk of men on the +streets up-town and a stupid negro cab-driver. This is a serious matter, +and I have a big duty to perform."</p> + +<p>"It won't do any good," John groaned, softly, and he shook his head. +"I've been thinking it all over. I began to get my eyes open as soon as +we got here. I've been a fool—a boy, a blind boy, at that, and what has +happened to-day is not such a great surprise. You needn't go up there +and beg for me, Sam. Say what you will, I am not worthy of her—that's +the whole damned truth in a nutshell."</p> + +<p>"Not worthy of her?" Cavanaugh protested. "How ridiculous, my boy!"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not. I don't know a man that is, but I'm sure that <i>I</i> never +can be. Do you know that in meeting me and marrying me as she did that +sweet child never had a fair deal? Other girls not as good as she is +have married men with plenty of means, not a—a stain on them, with +respectable friends and honorable blood-kin. But what have I done—my +God! what have I done? Sam, I've committed a crime. No matter how I +felt—how much I wanted her—I had no sort of right to her. No man has a +right to lay a filthy load like mine on unsuspecting, frail shoulders. +It is done, but if I could undo it and make her as free as she was +when—when I first saw her up there, I'd do it if it plunged me into the +eternal hell of flames her daddy believes in."</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh's sympathies were wrung dry. He sat blinking as if every word +from his protégé were a blow well aimed at him. Once he started to +speak, but his voice broke and he desisted, sitting with his arms +grimly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> folded, his legs awkwardly crossed, a broad, dust-coated shoe +poised in mid-air.</p> + +<p>"Maybe I ought to have had a talk with you—<i>maybe</i>," he finally said. +"I—I prayed over it, John, but no light seemed to come to justify me in +judging anybody in the matter—not your poor, misguided mother even, for +our Lord and Saviour told us not to judge her sort. As I interpret Him, +He said them that judged was the ones that needed judgment most of all. +So on that I acted. My wife saw it a little bit different at first, but +she finally said I was right, and sanctioned it. It seems to me that +your ma is—is what she is just on the outside, anyway. The other day +out at the work, after she had said all that in hot passion, it seemed +to me that I noticed a look of shame and regret in her face, like she +realized she had gone too far. You may remember that me and her stepped +to one side just before she left, and—well, she started to cry. She did +that, John, and it meant a lot. I was seeing her with her veil off—as +you might say—I was looking beneath the paint, powder, and coming +wrinkles. You know I knew her when she was a girl. I must speak plain. +She was a beauty then, and that was her ruin, for all the hellish +designs of the sharpest of men was centered on her. Your pa was clean, +straight as a die, and loved her, but he was helpless. She loved +attention and would have it. She fell. It had to come. It meant your +pa's ruin, and it meant this blight that is on you and Tilly now; but, +my boy, I stand here as a confident witness before God Almighty and +state that nothing but good can come out of it in the long run. Peace +out of the turmoil; joy out of the shame and grief; the fragrance of +Elysian fields out of the moral stench under your mother's roof."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Good?" John sniffed. "Sam, don't talk to me of a God—yours or any +other man's. When you have been where I am now, you'll know more about +God than you do. God? God? God? You say he is everywhere. He's here +to-night, isn't he? Here in this room? There in the kitchen where she +left the dishes unwashed? Here where she left the door unlocked and ran +away, disgusted with me for leading her into such a mess."</p> + +<p>"Hush, hush, my boy!" entreated Cavanaugh, a dry sob rasping his throat. +"Don't say any more! It is almost time for my train. I'm going up there +to-night and see what can be done. Tilly will talk to me. What could she +say here to these strangers? Now, don't go to work to-morrow. Things +will move along all right for one day without us, and you won't feel +like working, anyhow. I'll get back to-morrow night at ten o'clock. Wait +for me here."</p> + +<p>The grim silence which now brooded over John gave consent, and Cavanaugh +rose and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Don't give up," he said. "I'm +sure I'll bring back good news. God will see to that."</p> + +<p>"I'll wait for you, Sam," John consented, "but it won't be as you hope. +There is no God to see to anything. God didn't help my father, did he? +Neither will he help me. The whole thing is blind chance. 'Lead us not +into temptation'! What a pitiful prayer! My mother, you say, was led in +when she was not more than a girl. Were the designing men on her track +God's agents, and is my fate, and my young wife's, a part of some plan +laid in heaven?"</p> + +<p>"Wait, wait!" Cavanaugh reached down and took John's inert hand and +pressed it. "I'll see you to-morrow night."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXXI" id="I_CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + +<p>John slept but little that night. There must have been a deep +undercurrent of sentiment in his make-up, despite his practical type of +mind, for the sight of everything Tilly had touched gave him infinite +pain. He waked frequently through the night, and even while sleeping was +tossed and torn by innumerable tantalizing dreams. He was awake at +sunup, and again the lonely mental spectator of the clouded panorama of +the day before.</p> + +<p>There was a sound of pans and pots being handled in the kitchen, and he +got up and went to the kitchen door. It was Dora making a fire in the +range. She glanced up, saw him, smiled sheepishly, and lowered her head.</p> + +<p>"There is nobody over home," she explained, apologetically. "They went +off last night to be gone two days—another trip to Atlanta with old +Roly-poly and some more. Aunt Jane was sick, but she dressed and went, +all the same. I came over to cook your breakfast, wash the dishes, and +do up the house. Why shouldn't I? There is nothing to do at home."</p> + +<p>He said nothing, but as he turned away a faint sense of gratitude seemed +to enter the aching void within him. A little later she called him to +the dining-room. He had eaten no supper the night before, and his +physical being demanded nourishment. He sat down and the child waited on +him. The coffee was good and bracing, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> eggs and steak were prepared +to his taste, the toast brown and crisp.</p> + +<p>Somehow he now regarded Dora with pity. How frail, wan, and anemic she +looked! How thin and bloodless her hands and cheeks! She had the making +of a good woman in her, but she, too, was losing her chance. How sad! +How pitiful!</p> + +<p>"You work too hard," he suddenly said, and he wondered if that touch of +refined consideration for another had come from his contact with his +wife. "You are too little and young. Sit down yourself and eat."</p> + +<p>She shrugged her peaked shoulders and laughed. "I'm not hungry. I'm not +a bit hungry here lately. The only thing I care for is syrup and bread, +and they say too much of that as a regular diet will get you down in the +long run."</p> + +<p>He stared, his impulse toward her betterment oozing out of him. The +whistles of the factories reminded him that he was not to work that +day—that he was not to return at dark to Tilly, as had been his wont, +and he rose and went back to the bedroom. What was to take place? Why, +the day would drag by and Cavanaugh would return with some verdict or +other—some report that would settle his fate forever.</p> + +<p>Leaving Dora at work in the kitchen, he went outside. Desiring not to +meet any one, he made his way to the nearest wooded hillside beyond his +mother's house and the bleak, white-capped cemetery. From that coign of +vantage he saw the town stretched out beneath him. He found a great +moss-grown boulder and half lay, half sat on it. The sun climbed higher +and higher; the din of the town and its industries beat in his ears, the +buzz of a planing-mill, the clang of hammered iron. He ought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> not to +have attempted to pass that particular day in absolute solitude and +inactivity, but he knew naught of his own psychology. He watched for the +coming and going of trains, telling himself again and again that +Cavanaugh's return would decide his fate forever. What would he be +informed? How could he face the thing that he had told Cavanaugh +actually was to happen—that Tilly and he were to be parted forever?</p> + +<p>At noon he crept down the hill, keeping himself hidden till the way was +clear, then he hastened across the open to the cottage. The child, still +there, had given it a semblance of order, and his lunch was on the +table. She refused to sit with him, though he asked her in a tone that +was full of consideration and that odd, abashed tenderness for her which +seemed to be rooting in the loam of pained humility which filled him.</p> + +<p>"I want to know, brother John," she said, her deep-sunken eyes staring +earnestly—"I want to know if you think she is coming back?"</p> + +<p>He gulped down his hot coffee, and as he replaced his cup in his saucer +he said, with a touch of his old fatalistic recklessness: "I don't know. +I think not. Sam is up there to-day to—to see about it. He will be back +to-night. I don't know. I'm leaving it all to him, and—and to—her."</p> + +<p>Later, as he sat and smoked in the parlor he tried to read the daily +newspaper that had been left at his door, but even the boldest +head-lines foiled to catch and rivet his attention. Taking a hammer and +nails, he went into the back yard to repair a fence; but he had scarcely +started to lift the first plank into place when the incongruity of the +thing clutched him as in a vise. What was he doing? Why was he thinking +of a thing so inconsequential<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> as that? And for whom was he putting the +fence to rights? With an oath born of sheer bleak agony, he threw the +hammer from him and dropped the nails and plank to the ground. He had +loved the place; he and Tilly had called it their "Cottage of Delight"; +he had thought he would keep it in order, and even improve it, but all +that was gone. He went back to the hillside. He watched the afternoon +melt away, saw the sun go down into a bed of crimson and pink and the +filmy cloud-curtains being drawn about the molten sleeper.</p> + +<p>It was growing dark when he went back to the cottage. Dora was in the +kitchen, preparing his supper. He was vaguely angered by her attention +to him. He appreciated her doglike fidelity, but it made him impatient, +for she was too small, young, and weak to do all that she was doing.</p> + +<p>"You must go home," he blurted out, standing in the doorway and +surveying her. "I'm able to look out for myself. I'm not hungry, anyway, +now, for you have filled me up to the neck."</p> + +<p>She smiled wistfully. There was a smudge of soot on her nose which gave +her face a grotesque look. Her bare legs and feet were dust-coated and +scrawny.</p> + +<p>"I want to be here when Mr. Cavanaugh comes back," she contended, almost +defiantly, a shadow of rigid doggedness in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"But you can't," he retorted with irritation. "It will be late at night +and you should be in bed."</p> + +<p>"I want to know what he has to say," Dora persisted, putting more wood +into the range. "Tilly was nice and good to me, and I want to know if +she is coming back. Besides—besides, <i>you</i> want her."</p> + +<p>"You can't sit up around here," he said, firmly. "You've got to go +home."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> + +<p>She said nothing. He thought he had offended her and was sorry for it, +but when supper was over he prevailed upon her to go. "Poor little rat!" +he mused, as he stood at the gate and watched her vanish in the night. +"She's never had a chance, and she'll never have one. Huh! Sam's God and +old Whaley's is busy counting the hairs of her head and no harm will +ever come to her—oh no, none at all!"</p> + +<p>John paced back and forth in the little front yard. Eight o'clock came; +nine; ten, and a little later he heard the whistle of the south-bound +train as it drew near the town. The last street-car for the night would +be leaving the Square in a few minutes. Cavanaugh would take it. He +seldom rode in a cab, and time was too valuable for him to walk +to-night.</p> + +<p>The minutes passed. Presently he heard the rumble of the little car as +it crossed an elevated trestle a half-mile away, then he saw its lighted +windows flitting through the pines and oaks which bordered its tracks. +It paused at the terminus. John heard the driver ordering his horse +around to the other end, and he retreated into the house. Sam should not +catch him there watching as if life or death hung on his report. It was +one thing to feel a thing, and another to show it like weak women who +weep openly for the dead, or men who cry out in pain like spoiled +children. He went into the parlor and sat down. The outer night was very +still, so still that he heard Cavanaugh's heavy tread when he was yet +some distance away. Thump, thump, thump! John found himself counting the +steps.</p> + +<p>"Why am I like this?" he questioned himself. "If it is to be, it <i>is</i> to +be, and that is the end of it. I can bear it. Why not? Why shouldn't a +man bear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> anything that comes his way—anything, anything, even—even +<i>this</i>?"</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh was at the gate now. He was noiselessly opening and closing it +as if fearful of waking some one asleep in the house.</p> + +<p>"Is that you, Sam?" John called out from the parlor.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, my boy, it is me. I—I thought you might be in bed," and the +contractor now tiptoed into the hall and stood in the parlor doorway.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, I thought I'd wait up," John replied. "Like a fool, I didn't +work to-day, and you see I'm not so tired as I usually am. Come in. Got +a match? I'll light the gas. I didn't light it because it is warm +to-night and I was smoking. Did you bring any cigars with you? I've hung +on to my pipe all day and wouldn't mind a change."</p> + +<p>"No, I plumb forgot," Cavanaugh answered. "I had to hurry to get my +train. I didn't go about any of the stores, either—too many idle +gossipmongers hanging about. Don't light up for me. I—I— We can talk +just as well without that. I really ought to be at home. I just thought +I'd stop by and—and—"</p> + +<p>He went no farther. John heard him feeling about for a chair and saw his +dim bulk sink into it. There was no doubting the man's agitation, and +why was he agitated? John thought he knew, and bared his mental breast +to the hot iron of revelation.</p> + +<p>"You say you didn't go out to the work to-day?" Cavanaugh said, +irrelevantly enough to explain his mien and mood.</p> + +<p>"No, I ought to have gone, but I didn't. I was a fool to hang around +here like this, eating my head off and making a smoke-house of my lungs. +It is the first day off I've had for a long time."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> + +<p>This remark was followed by silence. Cavanaugh broke it with a slowly +released sigh. "I may as well tell you what I did," he faltered.</p> + +<p>"You can't tell me anything I don't know already," John quickly +interposed. "Remember, Sam, that I told you last night—"</p> + +<p>"I know, but I wasn't satisfied to let it rest there. I'm not satisfied +yet to—to let it rest even where it is now. I'm not done with it by a +long shot. I—I'm going back up there in—in a few days. I've got to +look deeper into the law dealing with such extraordinary cases as—"</p> + +<p>"The law?" John leaned back in his chair in a swift gesture of contempt. +"What the hell has the law got to do with it, Sam? Law, I say, law! Did +you ever hear of any justice dealt out by the law? Don't talk law to me. +Tell me, man to man, what you did up there."</p> + +<p>"What I did? Why, my boy"—Cavanaugh was floundering about in search for +a word, a phrase with which to meet the blunt attack on his +resources—"I did all I could think to do."</p> + +<p>"Well, out with it, Sam. I know it went against me. There is no use +beating about the bush. You saw Tilly, and she said—"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, I didn't see her, my boy!" The contractor leaned eagerly upon +the denial, small as it was. "I tried to, but it was impossible. She is +housed up at home like a prisoner. John, Whaley is in a dangerous mood. +I was advised not to go near the house. I started there anyway, but the +sheriff stopped me—gave me orders to stay away. I don't know how to—to +make it all plain to you, John. You see, I love Tilly and you so much +that—that this thing cuts deep. It has almost knocked out my faith in a +just Providence."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> + +<p>John leaned forward; his hands hung between his knees and he clasped +them near the floor. He uttered a ghastly laugh meant to show +indifference, but which missed its mark. "You are beating about the +bush," he said, huskily, and another rasping laugh issued. "Out with it. +I'm able to have a tooth pulled. Go ahead. Get it off your chest, old +man."</p> + +<p>"As I said just now," Cavanaugh began again, "I'm going back to Cranston +after—after I get some legal advice down here where there is no public +excitement."</p> + +<p>"Excitement?" John said. "What do you mean by public excitement?"</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh hesitated again, and John rose and stood towering above him in +the gloom. He repeated his question, and this time there was no pretense +in his tone or mien.</p> + +<p>"Well, you know how a narrow-minded, backwoods community like that can +get when it is wrought up high," the contractor said, gingerly. "You +know how they are inclined to make a mountain out of a molehill. I can't +say that I met one cool-headed person up there. Men and women were so +crazy that they were frothing at the mouth. I hate to say it, John, but +they actually threatened me with bodily harm. They asked me if what had +been reported against your poor ma was true, and when I said that most +of it was they wanted to tear me limb from limb. I'll tell you the truth +and be done with it. There is no other way as I see it between friends +such as we are. My boy, a mob was forming to tar-and-feather me. The +sheriff came and warned me. He took me to the junction five miles this +side of town in his buggy and put me on the train. I saw I would harm +your interests if I stayed longer and so I took his advice. He is a +smart<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> man, well versed in the law, and as we drove along he told me +what old Whaley is up to."</p> + +<p>"I can guess," John said, grimly, "and, Sam, if I was in his place I'd +do the selfsame thing. He is going to undo this marriage. I know— I +see. Tilly is just a girl and I didn't tell her or him what to expect +down here. Am I right, Sam?"</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh hung fire, then he nodded his head. John could see the tangled +shock of hair moving up and down.</p> + +<p>"I knew that would be it," John said, returning to his chair. He sat +down, crossed his legs, and tugged at the strap of one of his shoes. It +broke off and he sat twisting it between his fingers.</p> + +<p>"Yes, the sheriff called it 'annulment,'" Cavanaugh resumed, more +calmly. "He said that Whaley would have no trouble putting it through +the court which is in session, now, as it happens. Even the judge is +prejudiced—seems that he had heard of your ma. They ought not to fetch +in religion, but Whaley is going to prove that you are an atheist, so +they say. So you see, my boy, that what is to be done by us must be done +in a big hurry. I am going to see Fisher and Black the first thing in +the morning. They are the best lawyers in the South. I'll be there when +they open the office. I've got money enough to plank down a good +retaining fee. You helped me make it on that court-house. Just think of +it, we are going to win our case in that very building."</p> + +<p>"You will not go to those lawyers, Sam."</p> + +<p>"You say I won't?"</p> + +<p>"No. I'm the one to decide that, and I've already done it."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, my boy? Surely you don't intend to sit quiet and let +a lot of mountain roughnecks—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You are hot-headed like the mob up at Cranston," John broke in, and +then made an apparent effort to proceed calmly. He took out his pipe and +began to knock its bowl against the heel of his shoe to prepare it for a +refilling. His nonchalant shrug was that of a thwarted school-boy. His +smile was little more than a grimace which the darkness further +distorted. "You are 'kicking against the pricks.' What is to be has to +be, and if you oppose it you get the worst of it. Besides, you are an +old fogy, Sam—you are out of date, moth-eaten. You have got some sort +of a Romeo love idea in your head. You are trying to make yourself +believe that—that Tilly will be unhappy the rest of her life if—if the +old man wins. Shucks! I know women. How long does a young widow wear +black these days? Old Whaley is right. That Cranston judge is right, the +sheriff, and all the damned mob, too. If death will free a woman from a +long life with a drunkard, the Cranston court can free one from—well, +from what I pulled Tilly into. No, sir, Sam. I am not the man for her. I +can't give her enough of what she ought to have. She deserves +respectability, recognition as a lady in this or any other town. It is a +good thing that it happened so soon. It will blow over all the quicker. +She will—she will feel bad for a while, maybe, but time heals all +wounds. Now go home to your wife, Sam. She is not well, and—"</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh stood up. "Yes, I'll go," he faltered, "but I'm going to talk +to Fisher and Black in the morning."</p> + +<p>"Don't do it, Sam." John was smoking now. "I refuse to fight this case +before the public. It is bad enough as it is without forcing my poor +little—without forcing Tilly to hear more of it. She is too young and +sensitive to go through it, and I won't let her. If I don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> appear it +will go through quietly. I know— I heard of a case like that. The judge +picked a time when just a few people were present, and it was over right +away."</p> + +<p>"John, are you in earnest?" Cavanaugh asked, at the end of his +resources, and he shambled out to the porch.</p> + +<p>John followed and stood at his side. "I am, Sam; in fact, I insist on +it. I know Tilly's rights and she shall have them. I owe her a million +apologies. I'm doing all I can do. I wish I could do more. The time will +come, Sam, when she will—will not want to think of me. She will do her +best to forget me and all the rest of the awful mess."</p> + +<p>"Hush, hush! I'll see you in the morning, after I've slept on it," +Cavanaugh said, from the gate. "I don't see how I can give in to you, my +boy. You and Tilly were too happy for it to end like this."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXXII" id="I_CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + +<p>When the contractor was out of sight John sank limply into a chair on +the porch. The part he had played against his emotions had told on him. +Not the hardest day of physical toil could have so wrought upon his +nerves. Cavanaugh's steady tread was dying out in the distance. Afar off +a dog was baying. Suddenly, across the street against a scraggy growth +of sassafras-bushes, he saw something white moving. He thought that it +might be a dog, a sheep, or a calf. It moved again. It was coming toward +him. It approached the gate. It was Dora, and she timidly raised the +latch and crept into the yard.</p> + +<p>"Don't get mad, brother John," she pleaded. "I saw him come. I was +hidden over there in the bushes. I couldn't go to sleep to save my life. +I tried."</p> + +<p>He was too much undone to protest. Moreover, there was a dumb, +shrinking, animal-like worship in her tone and mien that watered the +feverish waste within him. For the first time in his life he wanted to +take the barefooted child into his lap and fondle her. He longed for a +closer contact with her pitying warmth. To see her weep in his behalf +would help; her childish tears would balm his wounds.</p> + +<p>"Come in, kid," he said, gently. "I didn't mean to be rough to-night. +You must overlook it. I was out of sorts—a fool to be so, but I was."</p> + +<p>She sat down on the door-step, her eyes glued on him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What did he say?" she inquired. "I want to know. Is she coming back to +you?"</p> + +<p>"No, she's gone for good, kid," he answered. "But don't you bother; it +is all right."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do?" she asked. "Stay on here in this house? I'll +cook and clean for you, if you do. You can get another wife. If she +wouldn't stay I'd let her go. There are plenty of others. Was she after +some other fellow, brother John?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, no!" he jerked out. "It is not that. Don't you understand? But I +see you don't. How could you?"</p> + +<p>"You didn't say whether you are going to stay on here in this house or +not," the child pursued. "That is the main thing."</p> + +<p>Suddenly he leaned forward and stared straight at her. "Listen, kid," he +began. "I tried you once and you kept my secret, so I know I can trust +you. If I now tell you something I don't want a soul to know, will you +promise to keep it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," she agreed. "I won't tell, brother John. I'd cut out my +tongue first."</p> + +<p>"You see, I don't want Sam to know," John went on. "I don't want my +mother or Jane to know—or Tilly, or any one alive. It is important. Sam +will be as much surprised as any of them. Kid, I've made up my mind to +pack my grip and catch the four-o'clock north-bound train. I'm going to +cut this thing out forever. I'll cover my tracks. Not a living soul +shall know where I am. I've thought it all out, and it is the only thing +to do."</p> + +<p>Dora was silent. He saw her fixed gaze shift itself from his eyes to the +gate. Then he noted that her little hands were raised to her face. She +was softly crying. He heard a low sob, and it cut through him like a +gapped and rusty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> blade. He was surprised. He had never seen her like +that before. "What is the matter?" he inquired. But she did not answer, +and he saw that she was making a strong effort to control her emotion, +as if she realized that it was distinctly out of place there and then. +But he had determined to understand her better, and he went and sat +beside her on the step. He took her hand and tried to fondle it, but, as +if ashamed of her weakness, she drew it away and continued to sob, +swallow, and quiver.</p> + +<p>"I see, you don't want your brother John to go away. Is that it, kid?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she muttered, nodded, and then remained silent, her face tightly +covered by her hands.</p> + +<p>He stood up. He went to the fence and took some steps along it +irresolutely. Suddenly he stood facing her, his arms folded as Cavanaugh +had seen him stand studying the masonry he was building, an arch, a +pillar, or cornice.</p> + +<p>"Why haven't I thought of it before?" he reflected. "It would be a crime +to leave the poor little mouse over there. She doesn't know what is in +store for her, but her eyes will be opened some day, as mine are, +and—and what has come to me may come to her. And who knows? It might +hurt the poor little mite every bit as bad. I wonder if she— I +wonder—" He went back and sat by her side.</p> + +<p>"Listen, Dora," he began. "I've got to go—there is no way out of +it—but I don't want to leave you like this. I didn't know till to-day +how much I care for you. You seem, somehow, like a real sister. Say, +I'll tell you—how about this? Come, go with me. I don't know where yet, +but away off somewhere where we can start out right. I want to send you +to school and give you a chance."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you don't mean it—you <i>can't</i> mean <i>that</i>!" and she uncovered her +face and sat staring, her quivering lips<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> parted. Impulsively she put +one of her hands against his breast, and with the other slowly wiped her +wet eyes.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I mean it, and there is no time to lose," he went on, gravely. "I +want it settled, and when we are once on that train all this will be cut +out forever. It will be better for me, and for you, and for Tilly."</p> + +<p>"But Aunt Jane—" Dora faltered, letting her hand slide slowly down his +shirt-front till it lay in her lap. "She needs me and—"</p> + +<p>"You will have to leave her for good and all," he said. "You must decide +between her and me. At any rate, she is doing nothing for you, and I am +willing to work for you. It is odd, kid, but, now I come to think of it, +I want you with me. It seems like leaving would be easier along with +you."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to do," the world-old child said, undecidedly, but +her eyes were dry, the sobs had left her voice.</p> + +<p>"Then do as I say," he threw out firmly. "Go home and get your best +dress on and your shoes and stockings, and some hat or other. Don't +bother about a valise. I have two, and we'll stop on the road somewhere +and I'll buy you some clothes. We are to be brother and sister, you +know. From this on you are Dora Trott."</p> + +<p>The child was still undecided, though her face was lighted with growing +expectation. "Oh, it would be nice—scrumptious!" she half laughed, "but +your ma and Aunt Jane—"</p> + +<p>"Forget them!" he ordered, sharply. "They are not thinking of you +to-night, are they? Huh! I guess not! Hurry! Get your things and come +back. I'll be ready. We'll have to walk to the station, and I don't want +to meet anybody on the way, either. We may have to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> take the back and +side streets, and cut through an alley or two."</p> + +<p>"May I bring my doll?" she asked. "I don't want to leave her."</p> + +<p>"I'll get you a new one—never mind it," he answered, impatiently, +stifling one of his old oaths.</p> + +<p>"But I want her. I love her and she'd miss me. They would kick her about +over there."</p> + +<p>"Then bring her. I'll pack her away somewhere. Get a move on you. See +how quick you can be."</p> + +<p>"I'll hurry," Dora said, now completely resigned to his will. "I'll be +ready in time."</p> + +<p>When she had passed out at the gate he went into the bedroom, lighted +the gas, and began to pack his clothes into two valises, leaving room +for Dora's use.</p> + +<p>"It is the thing to do," he argued. "I can't leave the poor little rat +over there with those women. She needs attention. She is not strong and +they are working her to death. Great God! she might grow up and be like +them! Who knows? How could she keep from it? Who would be there to warn +her? I was ignorant till it was too late. So would she be. No, this is +the right thing to do. I'll adopt a sister. Huh! what a joke when they +say I'm just a boy! But I'll do it. As for Tilly, she will now be doubly +free. The old man can claim desertion. He can add that charge to his +complaints in court. If I had some way to make everybody think I was +dead, that would be even better. The main thing is for her to +forget—wipe out and start in fresh, and she would do it quicker if she +thought I was under the sod. Any woman would. Then she would marry +again. I know who she will marry—" He winced, shuddered, and pressed +down on the things he was packing. "She will end up by marrying Joel +Eperson. I'd lay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> heavy stakes on that. My God! I can't find fault with +him—not now, anyway! He is white to the bottom, that fellow. I have to +admit it. He bore up like a man, though I was robbing him. I slid in +between him and her after she had become the poor devil's very life. +Then, then—I have to admit that, too—he never would have got her into +this awful mess. He has too much sense for that—sense or honor, which? +Well, well, they say turn about is fair play, and old, patient Joel will +get his innings. He'll—he'll come home to her after his day's work. +He'll take her in his— O my God!" John stood motionless. The old +primitive fires were kindling in his blood. Had the room been dark his +eyes might have gleamed like those of a tiger. He sat down on the bed. +He was quivering and his heart was pounding like a trip-hammer. +Presently he mastered himself and resumed his packing. "Don't be a fool, +John Trott," he said, sharply. "You are up against it. Be a man, if it +is in you."</p> + +<p>Here the open closet caught his attention. One of Tilly's dresses hung +in view, and he took it into his hands reverently. A pair of worn shoes +lay on the floor. He picked up one of them. It was so small that he +could have hidden it in his pocket. He turned it over in his great hand. +His throbbing fingers caressed the soft leather. She would never need +it. Why not put it in with his things? He started to do so. He made +space for it in one corner of a valise, and then, all at once +exclaiming, "What t'ell!" he threw it back into the closet and continued +to swear at himself in low, vexed tones.</p> + +<p>Dora was entering at the front. She seldom wore her shoes, and, as she +now had them on, she used her feet clumsily and made a great clatter in +the hall.</p> + +<p>"'Sh! for God's sake!" he cried, angrily, and then he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> turned his +impatience off with an apologetic laugh. "Never mind, kid. Make all the +noise you want. It won't do any harm. Are you ready? Give me that doll."</p> + +<p>She handed it to him roughly wrapped in a newspaper. "Don't mash her!" +she pleaded. "Her face is soft as putty in warm weather."</p> + +<p>"There, there!" he laughed, "she will be all right. As snug as a bug in +a rug. Now, let's go."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="I_CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2> + +<p>He locked the front door after them, put the key into its old place +under the door-step, where Cavanaugh could find it, and then they passed +out at the gate and trudged toward the station. They had ample time, and +so he took the best way to avoid meeting any one who might comment on +their odd departure.</p> + +<p>The station was finally reached. No one was there but a watchman with a +lantern in his hand, and he did not know either of them.</p> + +<p>"Ticket-office isn't open at this hour," John explained to Dora. "We'll +have to pay on the train. We change cars at Bristol. I'll pay that far +and we may stop there and rest. This night traveling may go hard with a +little thing like you. I've got to attend to you, Sis—eh? Did you catch +that? It slipped out as natural as you please, and Sis it is, from now +on. Yes, I've got to see that you are fed properly and have a tonic to +get your blood right."</p> + +<p>When the train came they got aboard. The car was about half full of +passengers, nearly all of whom were asleep. John led his wide-eyed +charge to a seat, put a valise down for a pillow, and made her take off +her hat and lie down. "Close your peepers and take a nap," he jested. +"I'm going into the smoker and light my pipe."</p> + +<p>A half-hour later he came back. She was asleep. Her hat had fallen to +the floor, and he carefully placed it in the rack overhead. Her features +in repose appeared almost angelic, despite the fact that the cinders had +drifted in at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> the window and lay on the young cheeks beneath the fallen +lashes.</p> + +<p>"Poor little rat!" he said to himself. "You are in bad hands, Sis, but +maybe no worse off than you were." He recalled Eperson's studied +courtesy and attention to Martha Jane and wondered if, after all, +Eperson were becoming his absent instructor.</p> + +<p>He sat down in the seat across the aisle from Dora and looked out at the +window. The coming dawn was lighting the fields through which the train +was scurrying like a monster of fire and smoke. The eastern sky was +slowly filling with liquid gold. Dora slept till the sun was well up. +Then she stirred and waked. He saw her glance around the car in +amazement and then she saw him, smiled sheepishly, and flushed a little.</p> + +<p>"I was dreaming," she said. "I thought I was flying away up in the air +and that I never would light."</p> + +<p>"We are going to have some breakfast in a little while," he informed +her. "There is a dining-car on this train, and I'll order something +brought to us here. A little table fits in here under the window. Come +on, I'll show you where to wash your hands and face."</p> + +<p>He led her to the ladies' lavatory, taught her how to supply the basin +with water. He got a towel from an overhead rack, showed her a brush and +comb that were for the use of passengers, and left her to make her +toilet.</p> + +<p>She came back to him presently, looking brighter and better, and they +sat side by side till a negro porter in a white uniform came with the +table and their breakfast. It had an inviting look—the fruit, the fried +eggs, the thin-sliced bacon, the hot, brown cakes, dainty toast, and +aromatic coffee, and the child partook of them with unusual relish.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + +<p>John watched her with strange, new interest. It was a sudden reversal of +a habitual situation. She had waited on him. He was now doing the same +for her, and the performance seemed to hold in abeyance a full +realization of the tragedy in his life. It may have been autosuggestion, +induced by the child's great need of him, but whatever it was was +vaguely soothing. He found himself with his young back to a wall of +miserable fact, valiantly fighting off constantly increeping and +maddening memories which threatened to unman him.</p> + +<p>Later that afternoon they reached Bristol, and, as Dora looked weary, +John decided to go to a hotel for the night. There was one near the +station, and to it they went and secured adjoining rooms. While he was +making the arrangements in the office Dora waited for him in the great, +barren-looking parlor, the scant furniture of which was upholstered in +dark-green plush, and when he came for her she was standing at a window, +looking out. The sight of her worried him, for she seemed homesick and +drooped like a storm-tossed bird.</p> + +<p>"Now for our supper," he said, cheerfully. But she shook her head. She +was not a bit hungry, she declared. The motion of the car had sickened +her at the stomach.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll put you to bed," he said, "and leave you there till I get my +supper."</p> + +<p>She acquiesced, and he led her to her room up-stairs. "Tumble in," he +said, still cheerily, and she began slowly to undress, sitting in a big +arm-chair which all but swallowed her diminutive form. She was having +trouble with the knots of her shoe-strings, which, in her haste, she had +tied too carelessly, and he knelt down and unfastened them. "What a baby +you are, after all!" he said, tenderly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> a thrill that was almost +parental going through him as he drew off the shoes, observed the thick +coating of dust that was on them and the holes in the heels and toes of +her stockings. "I'll leave your shoes outside the door, and a porter +will clean them before morning and put them back," he said, smiling. He +opened a valise, took out a clean though tattered nightgown she had +brought, and spread it on the bed. Again he thought of Joel Eperson and +wondered if Joel had done all such things for Martha Jane when she was a +tiny tot. It was likely, for there were several years between their +ages, and Joel seemed to be that sort of man.</p> + +<p>When Dora was ready to retire he left her. "Are you afraid?" he asked +from the door.</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "What is there to be afraid of?" she asked, with a +wan smile.</p> + +<p>He returned in about an hour. He entered his room and peered cautiously +in at the connecting door. The light from his gas-jet fell on her bed. +She was awake.</p> + +<p>"What is this?" he chided her. "Not asleep yet, and you all fagged out! +Ah, I see! No wonder. Your window is shut. It is as close in here as a +corked flask." He went in and opened her window. He thought the covering +over her was too heavy for such a warm night and drew the white coverlet +down below her feet. "There, there, that's better," he said. Her tangled +hair lay unbecomingly across her brow, and he wanted to brush it back, +but, conscious of a queer timidity, he refrained from doing so.</p> + +<p>"I can't sleep for thinking," she suddenly said, with a touch of her old +bluntness. "You haven't said where we are going."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that is it!" He laughed and sat down on the edge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> of the bed. +"Well, the truth is, little sister, I hadn't made up my mind fully. I +thought it might be Philadelphia, but I was looking over a newspaper +down-stairs and saw some notes about new developments in New York, and I +decided to go there."</p> + +<p>"Oh, New York!" the child cried. "That is the biggest city in the +country. Old Roly-poly says the lid is always off up there, and—"</p> + +<p>"Stop!" Not since leaving Ridgeville had John's tone been so sharp and +commanding. "Don't mention that man's name ever again, Sis. And another +thing! Let's agree between us never to speak of any of it again—not to +each other or to anybody else. Do you understand? I want all of it +buried forever in a grave as deep as from here to the middle of the +earth."</p> + +<p>"Not your ma, nor Aunt Jane—?"</p> + +<p>"No, no!" he said, fiercely.</p> + +<p>"Nor Tilly?"</p> + +<p>"No, never—under any circumstances. If people want to know about us, +send them to me—or simply say we are orphans, father and mother both +dead. John and Dora Trott. You understand now, don't you?"</p> + +<p>The little tousled head moved wearily on the big pillow. She did not +understand his far-seeing policy, but it didn't matter. He knew best.</p> + +<p>There was a rap on the door. Opening it, he admitted a waiter with a +tray containing some steaming milk-toast. "I forgot ordering it," John +said to Dora, as the man moved a small table up to her bedside and +rested the tray on it. "You must not go to bed on an empty stomach, and +this is just light enough to make you sleep soundly."</p> + +<p>The sight of the food, which was attractively served,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> appealed to the +child, and when the man had left the room, John propped her up with the +pillow and put the tray into her lap. She ate heartily, and when she had +finished he set the tray aside.</p> + +<p>"Now go to sleep," he enjoined her. "We leave at eight thirty in the +morning and scoot straight through Virginia to New York."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="I_CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> + +<p>One morning, two days after this, Tilly, half ill from worry, was in her +room. She heard the sound of wheels below, and, looking from her window, +she descried Joel Eperson in his buggy under the spreading branches of a +big beech in front of the gate. Her mother and father were at a lawyer's +office in the village, where they had gone to conclude the arrangements +for the immediate annulment of her marriage. She hastened down the +stairs, and went out to the grim, sentinel-like visitor, noting, as she +approached him, the tense, wasted expression of his sallow face and the +dark splotches about his honest eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Joel," she all but sobbed, "I'm so glad you came! Did Martha Jane +tell you I wanted to see you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and I hurried over at once." He had bared his brow, held his +broad-brimmed hat in his hand, and had descended to the ground. He took +her hand and pressed it reverently and with a sort of shrinking +timidity. "I want you to know, Tilly, that if there is anything on earth +that I can do I'll willingly do it, if it costs my life. God only knows +how I long to help you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Joel, it is awful—awful!" she began, and stopped abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know— I've heard everything!" he responded, "and it is a beastly +outrage. I feel like killing some one. Your father must be insane, and +the whole hot-headed mass of hoodlums who are making such a row over +nothing at all. I knew about your husband's unfortunate mother<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> and +about his religious views, but those were things he could not help, and +I could not hold them against him."</p> + +<p>"You knew about his mother?" Tilly cried, surprised. "You knew before +our marriage?"</p> + +<p>Eperson shrugged his gaunt shoulders and transferred his resigned gaze +from her face to the still fields. "Yes," he said. "A man who thinks he +is a friend of mine, and—and knew of my attentions to you, he had heard +it down at Ridgeville and came to me with it shortly after your husband +came to Cranston to work. I asked him to drop it, and he did so. I was +convinced that your husband was an honorable man and in himself worthy +of the love I saw that you were giving him. I am ready to be his friend +as well as yours."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Joel, you are so—so sweet and kind and noble! You are my only +friend—you and Martha Jane. Your support and friendship make me +stronger and braver."</p> + +<p>They were both silent for a moment. Then Eperson said: "But you sent for +me, Tilly. There must be something that—"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she interrupted, "there is something I want you to do for me. In +fact, there is no one else to go to. Oh, Joel, I want to get word to +John in some way. I was compelled to run away without seeing him, and I +have been unable to get a letter to him. My father has stopped my +letters both here and at the post-office. John will not know what to +think, and it struck me that if <i>you</i> would write him that I haven't +turned against him, and that I will be true to him always in spite of +anything my people may do, it would help him to understand the +situation, and encourage him to wait till I can go back to Ridgeville."</p> + +<p>"Of course, of course I would gladly do that, but would not this be +better?" Joel looked at his watch. "You see,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> it is too late to get a +letter off on this morning's train, but I could go in person. I could, +by driving fast, leave my horse and buggy at the livery-stable and catch +the train myself. In that case I could see him to-night, you know, while +if I wrote a letter it would not reach him till late to-morrow, if even +then."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but could you—<i>would you</i>—really go?" Tilly asked, eagerly. "It +would be so much better, for then you could explain everything +thoroughly."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I must hurry," Eperson said, glancing at his horse. "I have +only a few minutes."</p> + +<p>"Then hurry," Tilly urged him. "You will know exactly what to say. Tell +him that, no matter what is done in court, I shall still be true to him, +and that I love him now more than ever."</p> + +<p>Eperson bowed gravely. "I'll do my best," he promised. "And I'll hurry +back and bring you his message. Shall I come straight here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, straight here," Tilly cried. "I'll find some way to talk with you +in private. Oh, you are so good, so good; but hurry, Joel! Don't miss +the train. Find Mr. Cavanaugh and he will show you how to reach John."</p> + +<p>"I'll do my best, you may be sure," Eperson said, springing into his +buggy and taking up his reins and whip. "Good-by."</p> + +<p>She watched him from the gate as he dashed away in the cloud of dust +raised by the hoofs of his trotting horse. She estimated the time it +would take him to reach the station, and dreaded hearing too soon the +whistle of the coming train's locomotive. Fully ten minutes passed +before she heard the whistle. Then she was sure that Joel would get +aboard in time. She was sure, because she knew the man who was serving +her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> + +<p>That afternoon, rather late, her parents came home. They delivered the +news to her that the court had acted most promptly and she was now no +longer the legal wife of John Trott. She received the information as +stolidly as if it were a foregone verdict and quietly turned from her +harsh-faced parents and went up to her room.</p> + +<p>"Not his wife?" She laughed to herself as she sat on her bed and locked +her limp hands in her lap. "As if a lawyer, a judge, and a few jurymen +could take my husband from me as easily as that! Huh! I'd live with him +without marriage if that is all there is to marriage. Joel will see him +to-night. Joel will tell him how I feel, and John will wait till I can +go to him. I know he loves me. I know that, and nothing else +counts—nothing!"</p> + +<p>Later she descended the stairs and went into the kitchen where her +mother was at work. "Let me help you, mother," she said, taking the +broom from Mrs. Whaley's hands and beginning to sweep the floor. "You +must have had a lot to do while I was away."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Whaley stood surprised for a moment, started to speak, hesitated, +and then went out to where her husband sat in the slanting rays of the +sun under an apple-tree.</p> + +<p>"Where is she now?" he asked, glancing up from the open Bible and +manuscript on his knee.</p> + +<p>"She's sweeping in the kitchen."</p> + +<p>"You don't say!" he said, laconically. "Well, when she is through in +there send her here to me. I've got a straight talk for her. Things +can't rest exactly on the same basis as they used to, as far as she is +concerned. She has got to be on probation-like if she stays on under my +roof. A great deal will depend on her conduct from now on. Folks will be +inclined to slough away from us for a while. Already they blame you and +me, and say we were too eager to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> marry her off. Nothing like this ever +happened to any member of my church. It is bad in every way, and may be +worse. I'm going to pray that no—no living stigma may follow it. You +know what I mean. You know that I don't want to be the grandfather of +Liz Trott's grandchild, and I won't—I won't if there is a just God in +heaven. When Tilly is through that work send her to me."</p> + +<p>"I'll do nothing of the sort," the woman said. "She is my child, as well +as yours, and you'd better let well enough alone."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" he growled, his grisly brows meeting, the old +fanatical gleams in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I mean what I say," was the retort, deliberately delivered. "She was a +child when she left us—she is a full-grown woman now. A woman don't +live with a man even three or four days and remain the same as she was +before. If you take my advice you won't nag her over this. I don't like +her looks. She took the news of the divorce too quiet-like to suit me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's it!" Whaley said, seriously, the flare in his eyes dying +out. "That's what you are afraid of. You think she might give us the +slip and get back to that scoundrel, divorce or no divorce. Well"—and +he continued to frown—"that would be bad—that would be making a bad +matter worse. I see your point, and you may be right. At any rate, I'll +hold up for a while. Yes, yes, I'll hold up."</p> + +<p>"I think you'd better," was the answer, as the speaker turned back into +the house.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXXV" id="I_CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h2> + +<p>The next day, in the afternoon, when Eperson had alighted from the +train, he met his sister waiting for him in the buggy. "I got your +message," she said, as he hurriedly approached her, brushing the dust of +travel from his hat, "and here I am. What can I do to help poor Tilly?"</p> + +<p>"Come with me to her," he said, sadly. "It may give me an opportunity to +see her alone. I have already heard what was done at court, but I have +even worse news for her."</p> + +<p>He hurriedly explained as they drove along. He had met Cavanaugh and the +astounded contractor had told him of John and Dora's secret departure. +The old man had wept as he said that John had taken himself away as an +obstacle to his wife's happiness, and that he evidently intended to +disappear completely and forever. As Cavanaugh saw it, John had taken +Dora with him to rescue the child from a fate similar to his own, which +was a grand and noble thing to do, "especially," the contractor had +added with a gulp, "when the poor boy was already loaded down with +troubles of his own."</p> + +<p>"It will break Tilly's heart—it may kill her!" Martha Jane declared, +with strong emotion. "Poor thing!"</p> + +<p>Just before reaching Whaley's Joel said: "I may not get a good chance to +see Tilly alone, and in that case we'd better not keep her in suspense. +Perhaps, after all, you could tell her even better than I."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p> + +<p>Martha Jane nodded. "Poor Joel!" she murmured. "I see. You haven't the +heart to tell her. Well, I will do it for you."</p> + +<p>The elder Whaleys sat on the veranda. Tilly was not in sight. "I'll stay +here in the buggy. You go in," Joel said. "They will let you talk to her +alone. They always do."</p> + +<p>Martha Jane got down to the ground between the parted wheels of the +buggy and went into the yard.</p> + +<p>"Where is Tilly, Mrs. Whaley?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Up in her room," Mrs. Whaley said. "Will you go up, or wait down here?"</p> + +<p>"I'll run up, I guess," the visitor answered, with assumed lightness. +"Joel, wait for me. I'll be down soon."</p> + +<p>"Won't you come in, Joel?" Mrs. Whaley asked.</p> + +<p>"No, I thank you, Mrs. Whaley," he said. "I'll watch my horse out here."</p> + +<p>He remained seated in the buggy, slightly bending forward. A horse-fly +was teasing the shuddering back of his horse, and he deftly flicked at +it with his whip till he had knocked it away. A man in a field across +the road was gathering yellow pumpkins and loading them into a cart. +Joel himself had several acres of pumpkins ready for harvesting, and +ordinarily he would have been interested in the quantity and quality of +this farmer's product, but there were graver things on his mind now. +Surely Martha Jane was staying a long time up-stairs. Had she put it +delicately enough? Had she omitted to mention the fact of Trott's taking +the child away with him? Joel had intended emphasizing that, for it was +a thing any wife would be proud to hear of the man she had married. The +time dragged even more slowly now. Old Whaley left his seat, walked +around to the well, drew up a bucket of water,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> and drank from the +bucket itself, tilting it forward with both his hands. Then Mrs. Whaley +went into the house. Presently Martha Jane came down the stairs and out +into the yard.</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Mrs. Whaley," she called out. "I must be going now."</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Martha Jane!" from within the house. "Come again when you find +the time."</p> + +<p>"I will, thank you, Mrs. Whaley. You must come out to see mother. She +never gets into town, and you mustn't count visits with her."</p> + +<p>There was a response to this which Joel did not hear, for he was +studying his sister's face as he stood ready to help her into the buggy.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he said, as they started to drive on. "What did you do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't ask me—don't ask me!" Martha Jane's eyes were filling, her +lips twitching. "Oh, Joel, it was awful—simply awful! I'm glad you did +not try to tell her. She stood tottering pitifully and looking as white +as a dead person. I thought she was going to faint, and would have +called her mother if she hadn't stopped me. It seemed to take away all +the hope she had left. She sees it exactly as Mr. Cavanaugh does—that +her husband intends to disappear for good and all. She thinks it was for +her sake, too. She said so. She declared she did not blame him at all, +and when I told her about that child she said she understood that, too, +and knew he did it for the little girl's good—that the child was facing +a terrible future."</p> + +<p>"Well, well, is that all?" Joel inquired, huskily.</p> + +<p>"I left her seated at a window," Martha Jane continued. "I tried to get +her to promise to be calm and hopeful, but all the old strength and +energy seemed to have left her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> I'm afraid, very much afraid, that she +will never get over it. She has borne a lot already and this shock is +the last straw."</p> + +<p>A strap which held the breeching around the buttocks of the horse and +fastened it to the shafts had broken, and Joel got down to fix it. The +buckle-hole had torn out of the rotten leather, and he had to punch +another with his pocket-knife.</p> + +<p>"Poor Joel!" Martha Jane thought, as she sat and watched him. "People +needn't tell me that men can't be constant. He'd love Tilly if she were +to wipe her feet on him. He'd love her if she refused him a dozen times +for other men. He'd go any length right now to give her back her +husband. I wonder what there is about her that men care so much for. I'm +sure I don't know, unless it is because she is so patient and gentle and +plucky."</p> + +<p>The harness was fixed. Joel got back into the buggy and drove on to the +Square. "I was going to stop and get some things," Martha Jane said, +"but I won't. I'm coming in to see Tilly to-morrow. I'm about the only +one that goes to see her now. You knew, didn't you, that some of these +narrow-minded women and girls are pretending to believe simply awful +things about her?"</p> + +<p>"What sort of things?" Eperson asked, waxing indignant.</p> + +<p>"Why, you know—they say that Mr. Trott took her to his mother's house +and introduced her to the worst sort of folks. There isn't a word of +truth in it. Tilly has not yet even met the woman. Tilly and he had a +cottage all to themselves. She told me that herself."</p> + +<p>Joel groaned angrily. "I'm not surprised at anything the people around +here would say and believe," he said,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> his lips drawn tight, his eyes +holding fierce fires that were bursting into flames.</p> + +<p>"Joel," Martha Jane said, as they were nearing their home, "you must +take yourself in hand. This is showing on you. Tilly's marriage was bad +enough, but this is hurting you even more."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't bother about me!" he cried, testily. "I'm a man and can stand +anything. But you must look after her. Do you understand? You must come +in to-morrow early and stay all day. She will need somebody besides that +sour-faced, crabbed old pair that is with her. They will kill her or +drive her insane."</p> + +<p>"I'll do it—you may depend on me, brother," Martha Jane promised, as he +helped her from the buggy at the gate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="I_CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2> + +<p>On the morning following their arrival at Bristol, John and Dora took +the train for New York. "We'll sit in the chair-car," he proposed. "It +has revolving fans and is more roomy. They say this train is usually +crowded."</p> + +<p>Dora smiled expectantly as she followed him into the luxurious coach. +She had slept well, had eaten a good breakfast, and seemed brighter than +she had the day before. She was still a grotesque-looking creature in +the dress which was too long for a child of her age, and the hat that +was too large, being one Jane Holder, in one of her rare moments of mild +self-reproach, had discarded and hastily retrimmed for her niece. But +John Trott was not critical of outward appearances. There was something +beneath the surface in Dora—an unspoken reliance on him, a gentle +betrayal of pride and confidence in him, not to mention her abject +helplessness, which atoned for all external shortcomings. The whole +world looked dark to him, but he had determined that Dora should not +dwell in the shadow, if he could prevent it.</p> + +<p>They were soon well into the state of Virginia. The train was quite +crowded and John congratulated himself on securing seats in the +parlor-car. From the window Dora listlessly viewed the back-drifting +fields and forests, the tobacco which she had never seen growing before, +and the old-fashioned houses on the farms as well as in the towns and +villages.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was near night. Washington was only a few hours away.</p> + +<p>"We are going to cross a high trestle over a ravine," John explained to +his charge. "I heard a man talking about it. There! that is the whistle. +I guess they will slow down until we get over it."</p> + +<p>But the train was late and the locomotive's speed was not greatly +diminished. From the window John saw the line of trees marking the +ravine's sinuous course through the fields and told Dora that they would +soon be on the trestle. A moment later there was a shriek from the +locomotive, a violent jerking of the cars, a distant crashing and +grinding of timbers, and a thunderous sound of heavy bodies falling. The +coupling was broken and the chair-car lurched forward, left the track, +shot its front end against an embankment about twenty feet high and +remained poised there. Dora was thrown against a window, the thick glass +of which fortunately did not break, and John fell between the chairs to +the floor. Everywhere in the car the passengers lay over one another, +squirming and screaming in pain and terror.</p> + +<p>"Are you hurt?" John asked Dora, as he struggled to his feet and bent +over her.</p> + +<p>"No." She shook her head, her face blanched, her whole frame quivering.</p> + +<p>"Come, let's get out!" he said. He offered to lift her in his arms, for +the floor of the car was sharply slanting to one side, but she refused +to permit it.</p> + +<p>"Oh no. I can get out better by myself," she said, stepping from one +seat to another to accelerate their egress.</p> + +<p>Some of the passengers around them were injured slightly, some had +fainted, and lay prone in the aisle, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> these people blocked their +progress for a few moments. But when they had finally reached the open a +frightful sight met their view. At the bottom of the ravine which the +trestle had spanned lay an indiscriminate heap of splintered and +telescoped coaches which quite hid from view the locomotive lying +beneath. A violent hissing of steam came from the mass which all but +drowned out the cries of pain and terror from the imprisoned victims. +Now and then men or boys could be seen breaking through the car windows +and climbing down to the ground. But hundreds were out of sight. They +were doubtless stunned or killed outright.</p> + +<p>Fifty or sixty people from the chair-car and the two connected +sleeping-coaches, which were the only parts of the train saved from the +ruin, gathered on the brink of the ravine and stood spellbound by the +sights they beheld in the smoking inferno beneath.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a trainman near John raised a cry: "The cars are catching on +fire! They are dry as powder and will burn like oil! My God! there are +women and children down there!"</p> + +<p>"Stay here!" John said to Dora. "I must get down there and try to help."</p> + +<p>She nodded mutely, and he darted away. Other men followed him through +the weeds and bushes down the rugged declivity. Dora watched him till he +had vanished among the trees and boulders. The sound of escaping steam +had ceased. Human cries were now audible, groans, prayers, and the +pounding of feet and hands against parched car-walls. Faint blows they +were and futile—hoarse prayers and unanswered. The highest car in the +heap was toppling over and settled down more snugly into the mass. +Between the upper coaches blue smoke was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> issuing, and from the under +ones fierce flames were bursting. Dora suddenly descried John. He was on +the slanting side of one of the cars, kicking in a wired window. The +heart of the child was in her mouth, for he was in the gravest peril. +Within twenty feet of him the flames were lapping the paint from the +thin woodwork on which he stood.</p> + +<p>"That man that was with you is a fool!" a stylishly dressed woman said +to Dora. "He will be burned to death."</p> + +<p>"He is a workman—a brick-mason," Dora said, "and able to—"</p> + +<p>"I don't care what he is—he is crazy, simply crazy!"</p> + +<p>What had become of John, Dora did not know, for in a cloud of swirling +smoke and flames she suddenly lost sight of him. Also the men who had +descended with him could not be seen, and the whole mass of cars were +now aflame. The blaze and heat drove the awed spectators back farther +from the edge of the fiery gorge. Some were moving away to look after +their belongings in the undestroyed cars. Dora wondered what she ought +to do. She began to fear the worst in regard to John. She wanted to cry, +but the tear-founts seemed to have dried up. The sun was down. The +thickening darkness made the flames in the ravine all the brighter.</p> + +<p>Presently she felt some one grasp her arm. It was John. He was covered +with black as to his hands, face, and neck. His clothing was torn and +scorched; there was a bleeding scratch across his right cheek and chin +which had been made by a piece of flying glass. He was now mopping it +with a soiled handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"It is hell!" she heard him say, more to himself than her. "It is +hell!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dora clung to him joyously.</p> + +<p>"Think of it," he panted. "I got one woman out at a window and was +reaching down for a little boy. I could see him holding up his hands +from the burning seats, but he could not reach me. God! I'll never +forget that kid's eyes and his last scream as he fell back into the +fire!"</p> + +<p>A locomotive drawing flat-cars loaded with people from a near-by town +had stopped just beyond the sleeping-cars, and the crowd sprang down and +gathered on the brink of the ravine up the side of which remains of the +trestle hung, slowly burning.</p> + +<p>"Come," John said to Dora. "I'll get our things out of the car, and then +we'll get a place to spend the night. I'm sure we'll not get away till +morning. I saw a hotel down the track as we came along."</p> + +<p>He left her and returned in a moment with the valises. Then they went +back along the railway to a crossing where stood a hotel of the very +crudest rural type. Going into the office, he secured a room for Dora; +but could get none for himself. Returning to her, he said:</p> + +<p>"We'll have supper pretty soon. Go to your room and wash the dust off +your face and hands. You are a sight to behold."</p> + +<p>She followed an attendant up the single flight of stairs, though it +looked as if she were averse to being separated from John even for so +short a while. Indeed, she was wondering if he did not intend to +undertake something else in which danger was involved. However, he did +not keep her waiting long. He came up to her room. He had washed his +face and hands in the barber shop, and had had his clothing and shoes +brushed. He led her down to the dining-room. It was packed with +passengers from the remaining coaches of the train who were bent on +getting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> something to eat, and as for the adjoining office, it was +literally jammed by an ever-growing throng of curious and horrified +spectators, who were arriving by train, by private conveyance, and on +foot from all directions.</p> + +<p>They had secured seats at a table and given their order when an excited +man of middle age, without hat or coat on, rushed up to John, holding +out his hand.</p> + +<p>"They tell me you are the man who saved my wife!" he cried. "My God! +sir, I want—"</p> + +<p>"Not me." John smiled blandly. "Must have been some other chap."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I beg your pardon," the man said, slightly taken aback. "I see I am +mistaken."</p> + +<p>He disappeared in the office and Dora looked up at John inquiringly. +"Didn't you say back there that you got a woman out of—"</p> + +<p>"'Sh!" John said, glancing furtively at the adjoining table and lowering +his voice to a whisper. "Yes, I said so, but we have to be careful. That +man would have wanted my name and address and I don't know what else. +You see, kid, you and I are trying to cover our tracks. If we got our +names in a paper the people in Ridgeville would know as much about our +business as we do ourselves. There are several reporters here jotting +down names and telegraphing them. I made a point of not registering just +now—paid in advance to get around it."</p> + +<p>Young as she was, Dora understood what he meant. The supper came, was +eaten, and they gave their places to other applicants for seats at the +table. Dora looked tired and he sent her to her room. He had decided to +sit up all night, but he did not tell her so. He saw a stream of +sight-seers going toward the flaring gorge, and he joined them. More +than a thousand persons were now massed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> along the brink of the ravine, +in the depths of which lay a vast heap of coals, red-hot iron, twisted +steel rails, and the burly outlines of the unconsumed locomotive, over +which the ashes and coals had settled like a pall of scarlet.</p> + +<p>In the light of a lantern held by a trainman a reporter on the steps of +the chair-car sat rapidly making notes on a pad with a pencil. Suddenly +he saw a man passing and called out to him:</p> + +<p>"Hey, Timmons!" he cried. "Any more names?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes! I was looking for you," the man addressed answered, and he drew +a slip of paper from his pocket. "Here you are. Take 'em down quick. I +have to wire my own list in right away. T. B. Wrenshall, wife and child, +St. Louis. Got that? Begins with a W, not an R. They say he was a +traveling-man, but that doesn't matter. It is the list my people want. +Here is another: Mrs. Marie Dugan, Nashville, also Miss Satterlee, +Atlanta—a school-teacher, they say, but I'm not sure, so leave that +out."</p> + +<p>"All right. Thank you, Timmons," and the two reporters parted.</p> + +<p>John paused, leaned against the car near the man with the pad, and idly +watched his rapidly moving pencil. Something, he knew not what, seemed +to hold him there as for some occult purpose. A conductor of one of the +sleeping-cars approached. "Press?" he asked, hurriedly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, here I am," muttered the reporter.</p> + +<p>"Here is a complete list of all my passengers," the conductor said, "all +alive and checked up."</p> + +<p>"All right, but it is the dead ones I'm after," the reporter said, +taking the paper and pinning it to his notes.</p> + +<p>John moved a few feet away. Again he viewed the red ruins, peering over +the brink as into the heart of an active volcano. A thought had come to +him, but he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> irresolute. He looked back at the reporter. The man was +still on the steps at work.</p> + +<p>"It would be easy," John mused. "The simplest thing in the world, and I +ought to do it. That would settle it for good and all. It would free +Tilly completely, and give Dora her chance, too. Yes, I ought to do it— +I really ought."</p> + +<p>He walked about on the edge of the throng for several moments +undecidedly. "What the hell is the matter with me?" he muttered. "Why +can't I decide on a thing as simple as that and be done with it? It is +for Tilly's lasting good. It would wipe the whole rotten thing out at +once, and stop the damned wagging tongues sooner than anything else. It +would sting sharply, like a doctor's knife, but it would cure the +trouble. If I don't do something it will hang over her as long as she +lives. I spoiled her chances by dropping into her life—here is a chance +to drop out of it. I'm leaving her for good and all, anyway, so why not +make a clean job of it?"</p> + +<p>He felt that he had decided at last, and he went back to the reporter.</p> + +<p>"Are you taking names?" he asked, in a voice the matter-of-fact tone of +which surprised himself.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Got any?" The writer did not look up from his rapidly moving +pencil.</p> + +<p>"Two friends of mine."</p> + +<p>"All right, wait a minute."</p> + +<p>The pencil was now rapidly producing shorthand dots, curves, and dashes. +The red sky above the gorge held John's eyes. As in a picture of +radiating flame he saw his little wife as he had seen her the morning he +had unknowingly kissed her farewell forever on the door-step of the +cottage as he stood, dinner-pail in hand, the sun just rising<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> above the +hills. In spite of his self-control and a belief in his stolidness, a +lump swelled in his throat.</p> + +<p>"She deserves a better deal out of the deck than to be tied to the +memory of a man like me," he thought. "When she reads my name in the +papers I'll be dead to her, dead and cremated. After all, it can't be +worse than the other."</p> + +<p>"Well, well," the reporter said, looking up, "you say you have lost some +friends?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, two—a man and a little girl, in the coach just ahead of this +one."</p> + +<p>"Their names and addresses, please. I'm in a devil of a rush—using +railroad telegraph, and it is packed with official business. Got an +opening now, but may lose it any moment. Mention ages and business, if +you know them."</p> + +<p>"John Trott, twenty years old, Ridgeville, Georgia, brick-mason."</p> + +<p>"All right—two t's in Trott, eh? Well, and the other one?"</p> + +<p>"Dora Boyles—B-o-y-l-e-s," slowly spelled John; "age about nine, +orphan, same town—Ridgeville, Georgia."</p> + +<p>"Thanks. Is that all?" asked the reporter.</p> + +<p>"That is all," and, afraid of being further questioned, John turned and +stalked away.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="I_CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2> + +<p>He and Dora took a train for New York early the next morning. The air +seemed to be growing more crisp. Dora's color was better, her skin +clearer, her eyes brighter. She seemed more and more interested in the +scenery along the way. They had to stop over in Washington for about +three hours, and, leaving their valises in a check-room, they strolled +about the city. John did not realize it, but the care and entertainment +of the child had much to do with keeping his mind from dwelling on his +troubles. Once he caught himself actually laughing over a droll mistake +Dora made. She was so much interested in the sights that she walked +nearly half a block at the side of a stranger, thinking that the man was +John, who had paused to buy a cigar, and when she discovered her mistake +she fairly screamed and hastened to John, whose hand she wanted to hold +thereafter.</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't bite you," John said. "In fact, he thought it was a good +joke."</p> + +<p>At four o'clock that afternoon they reached Jersey City, and at once +took the ferry for New York, sitting on the upper deck and viewing the +harbor and sky-line.</p> + +<p>"It is a big town," John said, "a powerful big town. We'll be lost here +like needles in a haystack. Well, that is what we are after, Sis," he +added, a serious cast to his features.</p> + +<p>They went ashore at Twenty-third Street. They were so ignorant of the +life they were entering that they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> fairly dazed by the crush and +din of human beings and traffic which met them at the long pier and in +the congested thoroughfare upon which it fronted. They were all but as +helpless as incoming foreigners who could not speak the language of the +country. However, with a bag in each hand, and Dora closely following, +John managed to reach a street that was less crowded, and they walked on +now more calmly. He was looking for a boarding-house, John informed his +companion. "I understand there are plenty of them all about," he added.</p> + +<p>They had reached West Fourteenth Street, and there in the windows of +many of the old-fashioned brownstone former residences of the well-to-do +John saw cards advertising rooms and board.</p> + +<p>"There are three in a row," he smiled at Dora. "Which one shall we +pick?"</p> + +<p>"The one this way," she decided. "It looks cleaner, and there are some +flowers on the window-sills."</p> + +<p>"Good! Let's try it—ask the rates, anyway."</p> + +<p>They crossed the street and went to the house in question. Here, +however, they were puzzled, for there were two entrances, one on the +brownstone stoop and the other beneath it. They decided on the lower, it +being more accessible. There was a bell-pull and John, who had once put +one into a wall, understood what it was for and used it promptly.</p> + +<p>A white woman, who looked like she was Irish, opened the door.</p> + +<p>"I see you have rooms and board," John ventured. "We want to see about +them."</p> + +<p>The woman smiled agreeably. "The madam is up-stairs. You can go up the +steps and I'll let you in at the upper door, or you can come through +here."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p> + +<p>"This way is all right," John said. And the woman led them into a little +hallway adjoining a long dining-room, the white-clothed tables of which +could be seen through the open door. On the same floor, just beyond, was +the kitchen. They knew this, for they caught a glimpse of a big range +above which hung a row of polished pots and pans.</p> + +<p>The stairway to the upper floor was quite narrow, and John had some +difficulty in ascending it with his valises and the mute Dora, who was +nervously attempting to hold his arm. However, the ascent was made, and +they were shown into a big parlor with windows looking out on the +street. The floor was covered by a well-worn but clean carpet, the walls +held pictures of various sorts—crayon portraits, steel engravings, +machine-made oil landscapes and a few water-colors in every style of +frame imaginable.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. McGwire!" the servant called up the flight of stairs which +reached the next floor above. "Are you there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mrs. Clark. What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Rooms and board," was the answer.</p> + +<p>"Very well. I'm coming right down."</p> + +<p>The landlady proved to be a cheery, bustling little body about +thirty-five years of age. Her eyes were blue, her hair chestnut. She +bestowed a smile on the applicants that at once put them at ease.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I happen to have two rooms at the top," she said, eying Dora's +attire with a woman's natural curiosity. "They are three flights up; I +have no others right now. My house is usually full at all seasons. You +see, I have many stand-by's; people who have been here for years call it +home. If you want to see the rooms you can leave your things here for a +while."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> + +<p>Leaving Dora below, John accompanied the landlady to the rooms above. On +seeing them he was satisfied that they would do. They were in the rear. +One was quite large, and, in the crude estimation of the brick-mason, +rather well furnished, for it held a massive walnut bureau with a marble +top and wide mirror lighted on both sides by globed gas-jets, one of +which was pink, the other frosted white. There was a big rosewood sofa +against a wall, also a rocking-chair, a center-table, a wide walnut +bedstead, and an ample alcove containing running water, and a basin and +towels. The other was the typical hall room with a narrow iron bed, a +chair, a wash-stand, a rug, a row of hooks on the wall for clothing over +which hung a calico dust-curtain, and a single window.</p> + +<p>"I suppose this might do for the little girl," suggested Mrs. McGwire, +affably. "Children don't need much room. She is a relative, I presume?"</p> + +<p>"My sister. We are orphans," John said, casually enough, considering the +unlooked-for demand on his resources. "My sister Dora. But I would want +her to have the other room. I can bunk anywhere. I want to put her into +the public school here, and she ought to have a cheerful place to study +in at night and sit in through the day. I shall be away at work."</p> + +<p>"Fine, fine! I like that in you." Mrs. McGwire smiled affably. "I'm a +widow with three children to bring up (that is why I am running this +house) and I certainly appreciate such consideration for a child as you +show. I have a boy of thirteen, a girl of eleven, and another of eight. +If you stay here the older ones, Harold and Betty, might be able to help +start your sister out on her studies."</p> + +<p>"That would be nice," John responded. "She is a country girl and never +has been to school at all."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> + +<p>Just here a rather tall, slender boy with the face of a student opened +the door of a room at the far end of the passage and came forward.</p> + +<p>"This is my big son," Mrs. McGwire said, smiling. "This is Harold. The +doctor says he studies too hard, but I simply can't make him stop it."</p> + +<p>The lad smiled politely, put his arm about his mother's waist, and said: +"Somebody has taken my concordance. I left it with my other books, and +it is gone."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I forgot," Mrs. McGwire said, indulgently. "Mr. King (he is our +minister)"—this last to John. "He was looking over your books this +morning and he took it down to the parlor with him. It is there."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, mother," the boy said, and went down the stairs.</p> + +<p>"I'm very proud of my son," Mrs. McGwire said, looking after the boy +with beaming eyes. "He really has a remarkable mind. Young as he is, he +has already decided to be a preacher. He has read the Bible through +twice, and can quote any passage you mention. He is the leader of Mr. +King's big Bible class. His father was a minister, and it has been my +daily prayer that Harold would go into the same work."</p> + +<p>Ten dollars a week for the rooms and board for two was the price agreed +on, and John went down with Mrs McGwire to inform Dora of the +arrangement.</p> + +<p>"I needn't ask your name," Mrs. McGwire said, smiling, as he picked up +the valises, "for I see it on your bag. John Trott is short and plain +enough."</p> + +<p>John blinked. He had really thought seriously of changing his name, but +it was too late now; besides, what did it matter? He nodded. "Yes," he +said, looking at the letters on the valise. "A friend of mine, a +sign-painter,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> made me a present of this last Christmas, and he lettered +it himself."</p> + +<p>Dora liked the spacious room very much, and it did not occur to her just +then to compare it to John's, as she hastily removed her few belongings +from his bags, and hung or laid them about the room.</p> + +<p>After supper John went out to buy some tobacco, and when he returned he +found Dora in her room, most timidly entertaining Betty and Minnie +McGwire. Dora did not introduce her guests, and Betty rather gracefully +did it herself. She was an affable talker, a rather slim, gawky blonde, +while Minnie was a stocky brunette with heavy, dark brows and black hair +that was too coarse and wiry to be easily controlled.</p> + +<p>"Betty's going to dress my doll," Dora informed him. "She has got lots +and lots of doll-things packed away, and Minnie has the cutest +doll-house you ever saw. It is full of tables and chairs and dishes and +even closets to hang things in. Could you show it to him, Minnie?"</p> + +<p>"Sure," answered the child addressed. "I'll go get it."</p> + +<p>"No, not to-night," John interposed. "Some other time."</p> + +<p>Leaving the children, he turned into his cheerless room and lighted the +gas. He unpacked the valises and hung up some of his apparel under the +dust-curtain. There were his working-shirts, his overalls, his coarse +cap and stoggy shoes. He had bought an evening paper and he opened it +out to read it, but could not fix his attention even on the boldest of +the head-lines. Ridgeville, the cottage, Tilly, floated through his +mind, and a pain that was both physical and mental clutched his whole +being. He winced, ground his teeth together, and stifled a groan.</p> + +<p>"It is my damned yellow streak!" he muttered. "I must get over it—kill +it, pull it out by the roots. Why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> shouldn't I have my share of bad +luck? Others have plenty of it—even women and children. Poof! Be a man, +John Trott. Don't be a dirty shirker!"</p> + +<p>A merry ripple of laughter came from the adjoining room, and he heard +Dora telling of the mistake she had made on the street in Washington, +and somehow he felt relieved. Surely good would come out of the plunge +he had made into those unknown waters, dark and deep as they seemed. +Wasn't Dora already better off? And what more could he desire than to +benefit a child like that materially and lastingly?</p> + +<p>But the pain still clung and permeated. He heard the two visitors +bidding good night to Dora, and when they had gone down-stairs he went +into the other room, finding the child with her doll in her arms, +rocking it as a mother might a living babe.</p> + +<p>"Now get to bed, Sis," he said, more tenderly than he had ever spoken to +her before. "Do you like it here?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, very, very much!" she cried, enthusiastically. "Betty and Minnie +are the sweetest and best children I ever saw, and Harold is nice, +too—nice and polite, and awfully smart. He uses big words that I never +heard before. The girls want me to go with them to their school and +church. May I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he returned. "Now get to bed. Sleep as late as you want to in the +morning. You don't have to get up before day to cook breakfast for me +now, eh?"</p> + +<p>She smiled happily, but said nothing.</p> + +<p>He yearned to kiss her, for through her companionship in his loneliness +she had become very dear to him, but that strode him as being a weak +thing for a man to do, and he left her without yielding to the impulse.</p> + +<p>The air in his cell-like room was rather close, and he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> did not go to +sleep readily. There were so many things to think about—the work he had +to find as soon as possible, the clothes that must be bought for Dora, +for he wanted her to dress as well as her new friends. He decided to ask +Mrs. McGwire to help him make those purchases. As for the work, he was +sure he could find a job at good wages, for he had already looked over +the "Help wanted" advertisements in a morning paper and written down the +addresses of several firms of contractors and builders who were in need +of skilled labor.</p> + +<p>After a long while he fell asleep, and when he waked in the morning he +heard Dora moving about in her room.</p> + +<p>"Kid!" he called out, "come here!"</p> + +<p>"All right, brother John," she answered, and he was sure that he heard +her tittering in a suppressed way. Wondering what could be the cause of +her merriment so early in the day, he called out again. This time she +answered with a rippling laugh: "Wait a minute, can't you?"</p> + +<p>Ten minutes passed, and then she appeared in the doorway. She had on a +really attractive blue-serge suit that fitted her quite well. Indeed, +with her hair arranged as Betty McGwire wore hers, she looked like some +strange, new little girl who bore but a slight resemblance to the +unkempt Dora he had known from her babyhood.</p> + +<p>"I was going to surprise you," she said, laughing freely over his stare +of astonishment. "It is a dress that was too small for Betty and too big +for Minnie. Mrs. McGwire gave it to me last night while you were out. +She has two or three others which she says will be out of style before +Minnie comes on, and will go to the ragman if I don't take them."</p> + +<p>"It looks all right," John said, admiringly. "It will do till we can get +some new ones."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="I_CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2> + +<p>His mind greatly relieved by having such good custodians for Dora, John +fared forth immediately after breakfast in search of work. No one could +possibly have been more ignorant of the intricate ways of the great city +than he, and yet he managed to find the office of the first advertiser +on his list without overmuch delay or difficulty.</p> + +<p>"Pilcher & Reed, Contractors and Builders," as their sign read, had +their offices over a carpenter's shop in East Thirty-third Street near +the river. The house was a red-brick structure which in former days had +been a residence. The contractors occupied all of the second floor, the +two floors above being used by certain Jewish makers of shirt-waists and +skirts, and an Italian establishment for the dry-cleaning of clothing.</p> + +<p>Mr. Reed, the junior member of the firm, was in the main office, a large +square room with two windows, the walls of which were hung with framed +photographs of buildings the firm had constructed and maps of the city's +streets. He was standing at a flat-top desk which was covered with +blue-prints, drawings, and sheets of paper filled with figures and +diagrams, and as John entered he turned and shook hands with him. He had +a broad face, was of middle age, and decidedly bald. He had a cordial +manner, and when he detected, from John's pronunciation, that he was +Southern, he smiled agreeably.</p> + +<p>"I went down into North Carolina with a lumber<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> concern ten years ago," +he said. "We roughed it in the mountains getting out timber, and had a +splendid time. I often wish I had kept at it. This indoor grind is +taking the life out of me. I seldom see the sun. Brick-mason, eh? Well, +the manager of our brick-and-stone work is in the rear office now, +talking to some applicants. Member of the union?"</p> + +<p>"No, not yet," John answered. "But I'm going to join."</p> + +<p>"Well, that is unfortunate, for I think Mr. Kline will fill his openings +right away, and we have to take union men in our work, to keep out of +all sorts of labor complications."</p> + +<p>Mr. Reed seemed interested. He laid aside his work, and he and John +talked for nearly an hour, and when it finally came out that John had +assisted in some contracting work in the South and had an ambition to go +farther in the same line, Mr. Reed lowered his brows thoughtfully. In an +adjoining office Mr. Pilcher was at work dictating letters to a +stenographer and Reed suddenly excused himself and went in to him. John +noticed that he shut the door of the tiny office. He was gone ten +minutes or more and then he came back.</p> + +<p>"The truth is, Mr. Trott," he said, a touch of business-like reserve +showing itself in his manner for the first time, "we are really in need +of office help. I mean the kind of a man that could do both inside and +outside work. Mr. Richer is getting old and is not able to do much. He +says he would like to talk to you. Would you mind going in?"</p> + +<p>Pilcher was a brusk, dyspeptic individual who seemed to be overworked, +but John liked him and was convinced of his fairness and honesty. They +had only chatted a few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> minutes when the old man called out to his +partner and asked him to come in.</p> + +<p>Reed made his appearance at once. "We might give Mr. Trott a trial in +the office," he said. "What do you think?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't yet spoken to Mr. Trott of the salary," Reed said. "Have you +mentioned it, Mr. Pilcher?"</p> + +<p>"No, but I thought you had."</p> + +<p>"At the start it could not be more than twenty a week," the junior +member said, "but there would be a chance, if you caught on readily to +the work, for an increase later on.</p> + +<p>"I had hoped to do better than that," John answered, frankly. "I want +to make a start at contracting, but I am a good brick-mason, and I can, +by working overtime, occasionally earn more at that, I think."</p> + +<p>"Yes, perhaps," Pilcher admitted, and he threw a glance at his partner +which seemed to sanction John's level-headed view. "We might raise it to +twenty-two, and give Mr. Trott time to think it over till—say, +to-morrow morning. How would that suit you, Mr. Trott?"</p> + +<p>"Very well, thank you," said John, and he rose to go.</p> + +<p>Reed followed him into the other office. The fact that John had not at +once accepted the position had impressed him favorably. "I really think +we could get along well together," he said. "From what you have told me +about your past work I think you would fall into our line easily enough. +Well, think it over, and let us know in the morning."</p> + +<p>John spent the remainder of the day answering in person various +advertisements. At some places he was kept waiting in a long line of +applicants for hours, only to find<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> that the work to be done was out of +town, and that membership in the union was absolutely obligatory.</p> + +<p>When the houses of business were beginning to close for the day he took +the Elevated train for home. Mrs. McGwire met him at the front door. She +was smiling agreeably.</p> + +<p>"Your sister is not at home just now," she announced. "Minnie and Betty +were going to an ice-cream festival at our church, around in the next +block, and they took her with them. I hope you don't mind."</p> + +<p>"Not at all," he returned. "I'm glad she got to go, and it was kind of +them to take her."</p> + +<p>He was at dinner when the children returned and they all came to the +table where he sat alone. Dora's face was slightly flushed and she +looked very attractive in the blue-serge suit. His heart throbbed with a +vague, new pride in her. It was strange, but she had already acquired a +sort of self-possession that rested well on such young shoulders. He +noticed that she conducted herself almost as well as her two companions. +She unfolded her napkin and put it into her lap, and handled her knife +and fork as they did.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it was glorious, brother John!" she exclaimed. "I wish you had been +there. Girls and boys acted and sang on a little stage. Harold helped +Mr. King run it all. The ice-cream and cake was the best I ever tasted. +Harold made a speech, and it was very funny. Everybody laughed and +clapped their hands."</p> + +<p>"Harold only introduced some of the performers in a funny sort of way," +Betty said, with quiet dignity. "He wrote it down beforehand."</p> + +<p>When dinner was over they all went to the parlor above. Betty sat at the +piano, opened a book of "Gospel Songs,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> and she and Minnie and some of +the boarders began to sing. Harold came in with his mother and they +stood side by side, listening. John sat at a window and he noticed that +Dora, who was near the piano, had a look half of envy, half of chagrin +in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Poor kid!" John mused, reading her aright, "she is sorry she can't +sing. Young as she is, she has backbone and doesn't want others to be +ahead of her."</p> + +<p>That night before going to bed he looked in on her in her room. She sat +in a big rocking-chair with a book in her lap. He went in and looked at +it. It was an English primer. She glanced up at him. There was something +like the moisture of diffused tears in her eyes and he heard her sigh.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" he asked, gently.</p> + +<p>She sighed again. "I can't make head nor tail of this darned thing," she +said, her lips twitching. "Oh, I'm mad, brother John! Betty and Minnie +can both read and write, and Betty keeps telling me (not in a mean way, +though) not to say this and not to say that. Why, I'm a fool— I'm +really a blockhead!"</p> + +<p>John was deeply touched. He drew up a chair close beside hers and rested +his hand on her head. "Listen, kid," he began. "It will come out all +right. You are going to start to school Monday and you will learn fast. +You are anxious to do it, you see, and that is the main thing. Some +children have to be forced to learn, but it will come easy to you, for +you have a good mind."</p> + +<p>"Do you believe it? Do you <i>really</i>?" she faltered, searching his face +eagerly.</p> + +<p>"I know it," he answered, "and, take it from me, when you once get +started you will go ahead of stacks and stacks of them. Don't be ashamed +to start at the bottom.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> Great men and women began that way, and you are +not to blame for the poor chance you've had."</p> + +<p>He saw that he had comforted her, and recounted his various adventures +in seeking work. When he spoke of the offer Pilcher & Reed had made him +she suddenly said, "Take them up, brother John."</p> + +<p>"Why do you say that?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Because"—she began, and hesitated—"because I don't want you always to +be a brick-mason. It is dirty work. You can do better. Look at Harold. +He is just a boy, and yet he is determined to be a minister like Mr. +King. Ministers talk nice and look nice."</p> + +<p>And as John lay in his bed afterward, trying to decide what to do, he +suddenly said: "It is a go! I'll take the kid's advice. It is a toss-up, +anyway. They may not keep me the week out, but the thing is worth trying +for. Sam always said it was my line and others have said the same thing. +Yes, I'll close with Pilcher & Reed in the morning. I'll hang up my hat +in that office and try my hand at a new game for one week, anyway."</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>When he waked the next morning, however, he felt oppressed by a weighty +sense of the things he had renounced forever. The new work he was about +to undertake no longer charmed him. His entire outlook now seemed +chaotic, futile. How could he go ahead—with any sort of heart—in this +drab life among strangers, and leave forever behind him the memory of +his ecstatic honeymoon with the sweet, pulsing mate of his choice? It +simply could not be done. It was beyond mortal strength. He told himself +that he had kept himself keyed up to the present point by continual +change and rapid movement since leaving Tilly, but the ultimate test was +on him. With a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> groan from a tight throat, and smothering another in his +pillow, he told himself over and over that his career was ended. Tilly +was free—there was comfort in that. With the news of his death in the +wreck, she would bury him as widows have always buried their mates, and +life for her would roll on, but she would remain alive to him as long as +the breath came and went from his cheerless frame.</p> + +<p>"Brother John!" It was Dora calling to him. "Are you awake?"</p> + +<p>He started to answer, but his voice was clogged and he was afraid to +trust it to utterance. She called again and then appeared fully dressed +in the doorway, the primer in her hands. She approached his bedside. +"Will you please tell me what this darned letter is? I can say them all, +I think, down to it. What comes after O?"</p> + +<p>"P," he answered. "Who taught you the others?"</p> + +<p>"Betty. And Q comes next," she went on, holding the book closed. "Then +R, S, T— What comes after T, brother John?" He told her, and she sat +down on the edge of his bed, and for ten minutes he helped her learn the +part of the alphabet she did not know.</p> + +<p>The first bell for breakfast rang, and she left him. He stood up and +stretched himself. "Be ashamed of yourself, John Trott," he muttered. +"There is that poor kid trying to rise, and yet you are complaining. It +is your damned yellow streak, or your liver is out of order. Throw it +off, you whelp! Be a man! Women suffer in childbirth—children suffer +under operations, crushed bones, and blindness. Your own father had his +hell on earth. Stop whining over spilled milk. Think what you may be +able to do for the dirty-faced brat you brought with you. Plunge in. +Look those men in the eye to-day, and tell them you don't want their +money unless you can give value<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> received. What is New York more than +Ridgeville, anyway?"</p> + +<p>When he had dressed, he stood in the doorway of the other room. Dora was +now copying the letters from her book on a piece of paper with a pencil.</p> + +<p>"That's the idea," he said, smiling. "Come on, let's go to breakfast." +He had never done it before, but he slid his arm about the waist of his +foster-sister and playfully drew her toward the stairs. She appreciated +it. It was as if she started to kiss him, but was too timid, daring only +to incline her head against his arm.</p> + +<p>"Harold says I am a heathen," she said. "What is that, brother John?"</p> + +<p>He frowned thoughtfully and then smiled indulgently. "The church folks +say it is a person that doesn't believe in a God. They pretend to +believe in one because they make a living out of it. Let them think what +they like. It doesn't concern us."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it does," Dora answered, firmly. "Harold, Betty, and her mother +all say that I must believe in God, that I must study about Him, listen +to sermons, and—and even pray to Him every night and morning. They say +I must go to Sunday-school and learn all about the Bible and Adam, +and—and somebody else."</p> + +<p>"Well, it is all right; go with them," John said in slow perplexity. +"Most people do such things, and maybe you'd better. I don't want to +stand in your way. Yes, you'd better go along with them and be like the +rest. When you are grown you can think it all out for yourself, as I +have."</p> + +<p>Betty was coming from her mother's room, one flight below, and she +turned and greeted them with a smile.</p> + +<p>"She is a nice girl," John thought, as she and Dora<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> linked arms and +went ahead of him down the stairs. "She will make a fine woman, but she +will never be equal to—"</p> + +<p>He checked his thought. A storm of pain swept through him, almost +depriving him of strength. He followed the children into the +dining-room, which was well filled with boarders, some eating, some +waiting to be served, and all chatting volubly. There was a great +clatter of knives, forks, and dishes. Mrs. McGwire was helping in the +kitchen, and Betty joined her and became a waitress herself.</p> + +<p>"I must fight it off—kill it, or it will down me!" John said to +himself, as he and Dora sat waiting to be served. "I will never do the +work before me if I keep this up, and it must be done—it must!"</p> + +<p>When he had breakfasted and was outside in the cool, crisp air he felt +better. He walked briskly, swinging his arms to and fro to start the +circulation of his blood. He knew the car he was to take and he boarded +it, first buying a morning paper, which he could not read for thinking +of the delicious and agonizing things he had forsworn forever.</p> + +<p>"It will never come through trying to forget," he finally said, with a +stoic shrug. "It will simply have to wear itself out. Maybe, after a few +months, a year, or two, I will be something like I was before Sam and I +went up to—" He checked himself again. "Oh, what's the use?" His very +mind seemed to sob and choke. A man seated near him asked him what time +it was, and John took out his watch and informed him in the casual tone +that any passenger might use to another.</p> + +<p>"Thanks. Fine day," the man said, and John nodded and smiled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="I_CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2> + +<p>One of Jane Holder's masculine admirers brought her home in a buggy from +the Square one afternoon, and when he had parted with her at the gate he +drove away. She went up to Mrs. Trott's room, finding that lady dressing +at her bureau.</p> + +<p>"I felt dizzy on the street, and Tobe Overby brought me home," Jane +said, sinking into a chair and leaning on her sunshade. "I don't know +what is wrong with me, Liz. Tobe says the doctors won't be plain with me +and tell me the truth about my condition, and Tobe's all right. He gave +me a straight V just now, for the sake of old times. Huh! the doctors +needn't be mealy-mouthed with me. I've had enough of this game, Liz. +I've had my share of fun all through, and what more could I ask? You +don't think I want to get old, bent over, and snaggle-toothed, do you? +Not on your life! I'm a sport, old girl, and I'll be one to the dizzy +end. Huh! I guess!"</p> + +<p>"Hush! Don't be silly!" her companion said, giving her an uneasy look, +as she turned, holding in her ringed fingers a wisp of her long hair +which she was pinning into a coil on the back part of her head. "I don't +like to hear you talk that way."</p> + +<p>"I don't care whether you do or not, Liz, old girl." Jane forced a laugh +that was harsh to the point of rasping. "Sometimes it looks to me like +you are afraid to croak. Let the least thing get the matter with you and +you are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> scared out of your wits; but <i>me</i>? La me! I've had my day, Liz. +I don't want to be a she-hog—a sow. Enough is enough for Jane Holder. +Huh! It used to be 'Jennie' when I was young and thinking about getting +married. Later on it was 'Jen,' and now it is 'Jane'—just 'Jane.' 'Old +Jane' next! Huh! if I had long to live you don't think I'd keep on here +in this rotten, tattling town, do you? I've had my fill of it. You know +what they all say about you and me, don't you? They say you ruined +John's life, and that I was heading Dora for the dives when John stepped +in out of pity and kidnapped her—took her 'way off somewhere to get her +away from me and you, and—"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" Lizzie Trott, white with fury, cried, brandishing a heavy +silver-plated hair-brush in her hand and towering over Jane.</p> + +<p>But, leaning on her sunshade, Jane only laughed recklessly and +satirically. "Pull in your horns, Liz, old girl," she said. "I'm not +giving you any worse medicine than I'm taking myself. Huh! I guess not! +Huh! I'm only telling you what's being said in this darned town. They +all say, judging from her looks, that John's wife was as decent a +country girl as ever lived, and that if her father had met you the day +he came loaded for bear he would have put daylight through you. As for +me, they say John did my duty for me. Huh! it is a hell of a mix-up, +isn't it? But I don't care. I believe I'm all in. I feel it in my bones, +and I don't give a damn when I keel over. I hope I won't suffer, though. +Whew! I don't like to think of that! Look how Mag Sebastian faced the +music in Atlanta. When that fool shoe-drummer got married last week it +was piff! bang! and Mag gave a coroner's jury a job. Huh! They all say +who saw Mag in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> her fine casket that she looked like she was asleep. You +see, they combed her red bangs down so as to hide the bullet-hole, and +dressed her up nice. And flowers! Gosh! every girl on the town piled 'em +in and heaped 'em over her. But Mag couldn't smell 'em. Huh! I guess +not!"</p> + +<p>"What ails you?" Lizzie asked, her lips trembling, her eyes wide with +grim inquiry, her tone one of anxious appeal, rather than that of her +earlier resentment.</p> + +<p>"Huh! Nothing, Liz, old girl!" Jane replied, doggedly. "I guess I am +having different thoughts from you, that's all. I think certain things +all day long, no matter who I'm with—laughing, dancing, drinking, +shuffling a deck, or giving taffy to a man. Huh! Maybe it is because I +know something—huh! something that you don't know."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean now?" Lizzie demanded, suspiciously.</p> + +<p>"Never mind what I mean," was the stubborn retort, as Jane stabbed at +the straw matting with the ferrule of her sunshade. "Let well enough +alone, Liz Trott. If what I know makes me see sights and hear sounds in +the dead of night, what good would it do to bring it onto you?"</p> + +<p>Lizzie laid down the powder-puff she was using and bent lower over the +rambling speaker.</p> + +<p>"You <i>do</i> know something," she said, under her breath. "You knew it +yesterday. What do you mean by deviling me this way? You had it on your +mind last night while the crowd was here and after they left. They knew +it, too. I remember now how they looked at one another."</p> + +<p>"I don't know anything," Jane said, doggedly, with a cloud across her +wan face, and she got up, sighing. "I know I'll go stark, staring crazy +if this keeps up. Stop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> your tongue! Let me alone! Huh! I know what's +good for you."</p> + +<p>Therewith Jane left the room and all but staggered to her own.</p> + +<p>"She does know something," Lizzie Trott mused, as she stared at her +reflection in the mirror. She completed her toilet and went down to the +kitchen. A negro woman was at work there preparing supper.</p> + +<p>"Don't burn the bread again, Mandy," she said, carelessly, her mind +still occupied by the conversation just ended.</p> + +<p>"Lawsy me! you needn't bother," the portly woman sniffed. "You may res' +shore dat I won't burn it atter supper to-night, fer I'm gwine ter quit +yer."</p> + +<p>"Quit us? Why?"</p> + +<p>The woman shrugged her fat shoulders. "Beca'se Jake done say fer me to, +dat's why," she muttered. "I done promised ter love en' obey at de +weddin', same es him, en' he say he done laid de law down. Dis is my +las' day wid you en' t'other woman. We-all's preacher been talkin' ter +Jake, en' he say you is unloadin' yo' dirt on de black race, 'case no +white woman will work in dis house en' clean up atter you."</p> + +<p>"So that is it," Lizzie Trott said, unrebelliously. "Well, well, I +sha'n't plead with you." And with a haughty step she turned from the +room.</p> + +<p>There was nowhere to go that evening, and it happened that no visitors +came, so Lizzie felt quite lonely. Even Jane's companionship was denied +her, for Jane remained in her room with the door shut. She hadn't come +down to supper, having answered to the call with the remark that she was +not hungry and was feeling no better.</p> + +<p>Ten o'clock came, eleven, twelve. Lizzie stepped out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> into the front +yard and looked up at Jane's window to see if there was a light. The +room was dark, and even the blinds were drawn down.</p> + +<p>"Something really must be wrong," Lizzie speculated, dejectedly. "She is +not at herself. She is imagining things. All that chatter about knowing +something that I don't know may be just a crazy notion."</p> + +<p>At one o'clock Lizzie reluctantly undressed for bed, for she felt that +she was not in the mood for sleep, and she was sure she would have one +of her headaches in the morning. She was about to turn out her light +when she decided that she would ask Jane how she felt. So she tiptoed to +the door of Jane's room and rapped.</p> + +<p>"Who—who—who— What is it?" came in a low, halting voice from within.</p> + +<p>"Me, Jane," and Lizzie tried the latch, only to find, to her surprise, +that the door was locked. She waited a moment and then, full of dire +fancies, she shook the knob and rapped more vigorously. "Let me in, +Jane," she cried. "I want to see you. I must see you!"</p> + +<p>But the appalling thing now was that Jane still made no effort to speak +or move, and Lizzie was thoroughly frightened. She beat the door with +both hands and kicked it.</p> + +<p>"Open up or I'll break in!" she cried.</p> + +<p>There was a pause, followed by a crash on the floor within the room. +Jane had stumbled over a chair and upset it. There was another +unaccountable pause, then Lizzie heard Jane's hands sliding on the door, +feeling their way to the lock. The key was fumbled, then slowly turned, +and Lizzie pushed the door open. There in the dark, robed in her new +pink-silk gown, as Lizzie afterward discovered, stood Jane. She muttered +something inarticulately and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> stepped or reeled back toward her bed. +Lizzie groped forward, wondering, fearing she knew not what. She laid +hold of Jane's arm and for a moment the two stood face to face in +silence. Then Jane began to mutter in slow, vacuous tones:</p> + +<p>"You bet I had a good time. I've lived on the best. I rolled 'em high +and had friends that could pay their way. I'm a sport. I was born a +sport, and been a sport from the day I ran away from school till now."</p> + +<p>"What is the matter? Why are you dressed up like this?" Lizzie had felt +the silk sleeve of the gown Jane was wearing.</p> + +<p>"Huh! You can't guess, can you?" Jane said, with a low, insinuating +laugh. Lizzie said nothing. She knew where Jane's matches were and she +got one and started to strike it.</p> + +<p>"Stop! None of that!" Jane cried. "I don't want no light. Huh! I prefer +darkness to light! You know where that comes from, don't you? It is from +the Bible. 'Those whose deeds are evil,' you remember? Well, size me up +as you like, old girl. I've had my good time. I don't want the earth. +I'm no she-hog—a sow. I know what's ahead, and I take off my hat to it, +that's all!"</p> + +<p>"Sit down," Lizzie said, in the deepest dread of something, she knew not +what, and she drew Jane down to the edge of the bed. Unable to formulate +any further questions, she stood staring at her companion till presently +she saw Jane's body drowsily inclining to one side.</p> + +<p>"That's right, lie down," Lizzie said, and she lifted Jane's feet to the +bed and put a pillow under her head. Then, unmolested, she lit the lamp +on the bureau. A strange sight met her eyes and chilled her blood. In +her best pink-silk gown, beaded satin slippers, and embroidered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> silken +hose, her hair crimped and fluffy, her cheeks deeply roughed, her +eyebrows blackened as for a ball, Jane lay as if asleep.</p> + +<p>"What am I to do?" Lizzie asked herself. "She is sick and must be +undressed. She is delirious. She must have fever. She ought to have a +doctor, but who could I send at this time of night?"</p> + +<p>She took Jane's wrist to test the pulse, but Jane snatched it away.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's you, Liz!" she said, opening her eyes in a sort of inane, +widening stare. "You caught me, didn't you? Well, I want it this way. +When they look at me, if any of them comes, I want them to say old Jane +was a sport from start to finish. The last dance is on. Mix the drinks, +boys. Eat, drink, and shake the dice, for to-morrow you may not know +where you are at, and nobody to pay the bill. But keep the other thing +to yourselves. I don't want to hear about it. You say it was in the +papers. I didn't see it. Liz didn't see it, either, and you say she and +I are in the same box. Murder? Who says it was the same as murder? I +didn't intend it. I'd never have let it happen if I could have prevented +it. Yes, the baby was left with me, and—and I might have raised her +different, but I was a sport, full of hell and out for a good time! But, +O God! I wonder what the little thing thought when the crash came. Gosh! +She must have screamed! She must have choked in that awful fire! Burned +to a cinder! No flowers, no sod, no nothing! Well, what's the odds? Yes, +I'll let Liz find out for herself. Somebody will tell her soon enough. +Lord! how a thing like that flies and spins through the air! It is +everybody's business."</p> + +<p>"I want to undress you, Jane," Lizzie said, bewildered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> by the ambiguous +torrent of words. "Let me unhook your frock."</p> + +<p>"No, fool, idiot, spitfire, cat!" Jane cried, angrily. "I want to be +like this—<i>just like this</i>. Get away! Leave me alone! How long will it +take?—the Lord only knows. I couldn't ask the drug-clerk."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll leave you, then," Lizzie said, slightly offended.</p> + +<p>Jane made no response, and Lizzie started to leave the room. She noticed +the lamp and paused. "She might get up and knock it over," she thought, +and, blowing her breath down the chimney, she extinguished the flame.</p> + +<p>She was in her room, still undressed, when she heard the gate being +opened. She went to the head of the stairs and listened. There was a +vigorous rap. Lizzie went down the stairs and opened the door.</p> + +<p>A man she knew to be Doctor Brackett stood on the porch, a satchel in +his hand. His horse was at the gate.</p> + +<p>"I'm just in from Atlanta," he explained, hurriedly. "I have a new clerk +at my store, and in looking over his prescriptions I saw that he had +sold Miss Holder quite a quantity of morphine tablets. You see, from the +talk that is going on in town I was afraid she might have taken an—an +overdose—you know what I mean?"</p> + +<p>"I think something <i>is</i> wrong with her," Lizzie cried, aghast. "Hurry! +Come! I'll light her lamp!"</p> + +<p>Lizzie fairly ran up the steps and into Jane's room. She struck a match +and lighted the lamp. The doctor followed her and bent over the sleeping +woman. He opened her dress, quickly cut her corset-laces, and made an +examination. Then, standing up, he turned to the bureau and began to +search the littered top of it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, here we are!" he exclaimed, in relief, as he picked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> up a vial +containing morphine tablets and shook them between him and the light. +"She's had a close shave. She thought she was taking enough."</p> + +<p>"You mean that she—"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes." The doctor put the vial into his pocket. "It is a plain case. +Her mind is out of order. She actually—so my clerk heard to-night—went +to the undertaker's and asked him the prices of various costly caskets. +The undertaker thought she was referring to her recent bad news. She +will come out of this sleep all right. But the truth is she can't +recover. It is only a question of a week or two now. In fact, she won't +get up from this. She hasn't the vitality. She has literally burned +herself out and been living on her energies and nerves. She couldn't +stand the shock of that sad calamity. I am sorry for you, too, Mrs. +Trott. John was a fine boy. Now leave her just as she is. She will be +easier handled in the morning. She is in no immediate danger."</p> + +<p>The doctor took up his satchel and started away. In the darkened +corridor Lizzie overtook him just as he had reached the head of the +stairs.</p> + +<p>"You said Jane had bad news, doctor," she began, falteringly, dreading +revelations to come. "Do you mean about—about John taking her niece +away?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mrs. Trott, and the other—the deaths of the two in that awful +wreck."</p> + +<p>"Death? Wreck?" Lizzie leaned breathlessly against the wall. "What +wreck—whose death?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, oh, is it possible that you haven't heard?" And, standing in the +slender shaft of light from Jane's partly closed door, the doctor +awkwardly explained. Lizzie listened, as he thought, calmly enough. He +couldn't read her face, for she kept it averted in the shadow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I understand it all now," she said, after a little pause. "Oh, oh, so +that's it! That's what Jane meant."</p> + +<p>She went with the doctor to the door, said good night, and locked the +door after him. She stood in the dismal silence of the dark hall and +heard his horse trotting down the street. She started to her room, +sliding her hand on the smooth balustrade. Her room gained, she stood in +the center of it as purposeless and dazed as a sleeper waking in strange +surroundings. She felt for a chair and sank into it.</p> + +<p>"John dead!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Why, why, it can't be—and yet why +not, if they all say so? John dead, Dora dead, Jane dying, and I—and I +left here all alone by myself!"</p> + +<p>She undressed in the dark, vaguely dreading the light as if it might +somehow stab her anew. She reclined on the bed. For hours she lay awake. +She tried to cry, but could not summon tears to her eyes. She would have +been afraid of Jane's staggering insanely about the house had the doctor +not assured her that she would not stir till morning. Jane was not a +ghost, but she was a would-be suicide, and that was quite as gruesome to +think about.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XL" id="I_CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL</h2> + +<p>Finally she fell asleep, and the sun was well up when she was waked by +Mandy, the negro servant.</p> + +<p>"Yo' breakfast done raidy on de table, Mis' Trott," she said, a touch of +condescension in her voice.</p> + +<p>"Why, I thought," Lizzie humbly faltered, "that you were not coming +back."</p> + +<p>"I did say dat," Mandy answered, "en' I did intend ter keep my word, but +Jake say 'twas my bounden duty ter he'p you out en' not quit yer in de +lurch, now dat you los' yo' son en' de li'l girl dat way. Jake say he +knowed Mr. John Trott en' dat he was er nice-appearin' young man, en' +good ter work under. Yo' coffee gittin' col', en' if I heat it ag'in it +never tast' de same—de secon' b'ilin' make it bitter."</p> + +<p>"I'll come down—I'll come down," Lizzie said. "Let it be cold. It +doesn't matter. I'm not hungry. Don't wake Jane. She is asleep. She was +sick last night and had the doctor."</p> + +<p>After breakfast there was nothing to do, and Lizzie sat first in the +parlor, then in the dining-room, and again on the porch. She went in to +see Jane and found her still asleep. In the yellow light of day there +was something weirdly uncouth in the pink-robed form, the patchwork of +paint, powder, and death-tints of the face which had once been +attractive and care-free. The doctor was coming again and Lizzie told +herself that Jane must be undressed and put to bed properly, and yet she +shrank from going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> about it, for she dreaded Jane's temper. But it had +to be done, so, getting out a nightgown from a bureau drawer, she +proceeded to wake the sleeper. It was difficult, but Jane finally opened +her eyes, and, only half conscious, she submitted, falling asleep again +as soon as Lizzie stopped handling her. Mandy came up the stairs and +looked in at the door. She approached the bed and stared down +disapprovingly at the frail, limp form.</p> + +<p>"Dat's er dyin' 'ooman," she said, superstitiously. "She got de mark of +it all over 'er."</p> + +<p>Lizzie, in a chair at the foot of the bed, nodded, but said nothing.</p> + +<p>The doctor came, made an examination, and motioned Lizzie and the +servant to follow him from the chamber. "She is sinking pretty fast," he +said. "She may come to her senses before the end, and she may not. I'm +doing no good and shall not call again."</p> + +<p>The white woman and the black, standing side by side in the corridor, +watched him descend the stairs.</p> + +<p>"Well, well, what could she expect?" Mandy muttered, as she started for +the kitchen. "She made 'er bed, Jake say, en' now she's on it. Well, +well, I don't judge nobody—dat's de Lawd's job, not mine—but I'm sorry +for 'er—so I am. I'm sorry fer 'er, en'—en' fer you, <i>too</i>, Mis' +Trott."</p> + +<p>There were no male visitors that day. The news of John's and Dora's +deaths somehow kept men away. However, the report that Jane had +attempted to kill herself and was about to die reached some of her +female associates, and in their perfumed finery and with mincing, +high-heeled steps they rustled in. With faces as vapid as faces of wax +they perched around Jane's bed like birds in tinsel plumage, ready for +instant flight. They knew that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> the end of one of their coterie was +near, and yet they chatted in low tones of things pertaining to their +walk of life and this and that off-color gossip. Now and then a smile +slipped its frail fetters and died of its own rebuke.</p> + +<p>Under various and startled excuses they declined Lizzie's hint that they +come back after dark and sit the night through at the dying woman's +bedside. So that night, when Mandy left for her home, saying that she +could not possibly stay away from Jake and the children, Lizzie found +herself quite marooned with Jane and certain memories which she could +not combat.</p> + +<p>Why she did it she could not have explained, but she took her lamp and +went to John's old room at the end of the house, and stood looking +about. Tacked to the wall were some diagrams he had drawn; and on the +dusty table lay a coverless arithmetic, a dog-eared algebra, an English +grammar, and pen, ink, paper, stubs of pencils, a worn tape-line, and on +the wall hung a soiled shirt, a discarded gray vest, a pair of old +trousers, and a dented derby hat. Lizzie lowered the lamp to the table +and sat down in the only chair in the room. A pair of John's old shoes +peeped out at her from beneath the narrow bed. Lizzie sat there for an +hour or more. She was tearless, but a vast reservoir of tears seemed +backed up within her, and certain inward dams threatened to burst. John +no longer seemed the gawky workman of his later days, but the neglected +though attractive child who used to romp noisily through the house and +stare at her and her friends with such innocent and prattling blandness. +And he was dead, actually dead! Lizzie mused thus for a while, and then +began to grow angry. People were saying that she had caused his death by +separating his wife from him and driving him away. They were saying, +too, those meddlesome<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> fools! that he had tried to rescue a child from +sheer contamination by her, and had lost his life in the attempt. John's +father, if he were alive—but she mustn't think of him. No, she had +given that over long ago. But to-night John's father, as a discarnate +entity of some sort, seemed to haunt the dead silence of the house to +which he had brought her so hopefully. The all-pervading gloom seemed to +palpitate with his demand for the restoration to life and happiness of +his son. Was she losing her mind? Lizzie wondered. She never could have +imagined that such an hour as this could arrive for her, an hour so +fraught with twinges, pangs, and thrusts the like of which had been +alien to her experience. She could bear it no longer, and she took her +lamp and went back to her own room. She listened attentively to detect +any sound that might come from Jane's chamber. Was it a voice, a low, +querulous voice? Yes, it must be; and laggingly she went to respond to +it.</p> + +<p>Jane lay with her eyes wide open in almost infantile inquiry.</p> + +<p>"I see it didn't work," she smiled, wanly. "I didn't take enough, eh? +Well, well, it doesn't matter, Liz. I'd rather go the regular, +old-fashioned way, after all. I seem to have slept off that other +feeling. I'm not afraid now—no, no, not a bit! I've had my day, old +pal, and the richest women of the land haven't had a better time. I +dreamt that all the girls were here—Ide, and Lou, High-fling Em, and—"</p> + +<p>"They were here this afternoon," Lizzie fished from her turgid +consciousness, "but they left. They were sorry."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know, but not one of the bunch thought for one minute that it +would come to them, too, and that's the joke of it! Selfish +fools—nasty, sly, and catty even over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> a corpse. They sent Mag +Sebastian flowers, but it was after Mag was out of the game. Huh! I +guess I know 'em, Liz, and so do you. Shucks! you won't cry when I'm +carted off—not on your life! But there is <i>one</i> thing, yes, one thing, +Liz, and it lies just between you and me. I don't know why it hangs on +to me so tight. Huh!" Jane forced a rasping, throaty laugh that fairly +snarled with insincerity. "I mean—I mean—oh, hell! you know what I +mean!"</p> + +<p>"I—I don't think I do," Lizzie faltered, trying to meet Jane's +unwavering stare.</p> + +<p>"Oh, come off, come off!" Jane sniffed. "'Jurors, look on the +prisoner—prisoner, look on the jurors'! You know what I'm talking +about. I heard the doctor telling you last night about John and Dora. +Listen. I've had my fun and the good things of life, but did <i>my +fun</i>—you know what I mean—did <i>my fun</i> come between me and—well—my +duty to the kid's mother? And more than that—more than that—did my fun +and yours, Liz, drive a young wife from a happy home with a hanging +head, cause a fine boy and a helpless little girl to run from us as from +smallpox into roasting flames—"</p> + +<p>"Hush, hush!" Lizzie gasped, and she rose to her feet, quivering and +pallid.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, never mind, Liz!" Jane sighed wearily. "You can't face that +point any better than I can, but you hold a better hand than I do—for +you see, Liz, you are still alive. Oh, but I don't know that I'd swap +with you, for I'll soon know nothing about it, and I guess you'll tote +it about with you awhile, anyway. I know I would if I lived, and that is +why I tried the dope-route last night. Those thoughts have been in my +mind some time. By the way, I want my pink on and the other things, and +my hair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> fixed the same way. Don't forget. There won't be any preacher +needed. I don't want any long-faced chap to whitewash my giddy record or +to make an example of me. We are close to the graveyard, thank the +powers that be, and I won't have to ride through town feet foremost. I +wish the girls would stay away. I don't know why, but I do."</p> + +<p>Jane's eyelids were drooping, and, thinking that she might sleep, Lizzie +crept from the room. It was a long, sleepless night for Mrs. Trott. +About every hour she would go to Jane, bend over her, and listen to her +soft breathing. She was too inexperienced to know whether a decided +change was taking place. She joyfully greeted the first gray streaks of +daylight in the sky and began to watch for the coming of Mandy. +Presently the servant came, accompanied by her husband, a lusty, +middle-aged laborer, who simply tipped his hat and sat down on the +sawhorse in the wood-yard.</p> + +<p>"Jake say he 'low you may need er man about," Mandy explained. "How she +comin' on?"</p> + +<p>"Just the same, when I last saw her," Lizzie said. "Will you go in and +see her?"</p> + +<p>Mandy was in Jane's room several minutes. Then she came back, a serious +and resigned look on her swarthy face.</p> + +<p>"I was jes' in time," she said, stoically. "She opened 'er eyes, Mis' +Trott, en' look' straight at me, en' smiled en' laughed, low-like. 'I +done hat my share er fun,' she say. En' wid dat she fetched er big +breath en' died. I didn't tetch 'er—no, ma'am, I didn't lay han's on +'er. Jake tol' me not ter. Jake say his maw tol' 'im dat 'twon't do ter +tetch de corpse of any but dem dat's 'ceptable ter old St. Peter. Jake +say dat de evil sperit is still housed up in de corruption, en' dat it +will go inter any livin' flesh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> dat give it er chance. But somebody got +ter dress 'er, Mis' Trott. It is a 'ooman's place. Dar is a black +mid-wife 'cross town dat does all sorts er odd jobs. Jake say he think +she would come. She got witch en' hoodoo charms, en' say ol' Nick en' +all his imps cayn't faze 'er. Jake will go fer 'er ef you say so."</p> + +<p>"Very well, very well," Lizzie consented. "And have him see the +undertaker, too, please."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XLI" id="I_CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI</h2> + +<p>Martha Jane Eperson alighted from her brother's buggy before the gate at +the Whaley farm-house. Mrs. Whaley came out and met her.</p> + +<p>"I got your message," the visitor said, "and came in as quickly as I +could. I had heard of John's death, and, as it is all over the country, +I knew that Tilly had already heard it or had to be told."</p> + +<p>"Yes, she knows," Mrs. Whaley sighed, resignedly. "Her father came in +and let it out awfully rough-like. I hold that against him, so I do. He +showed her the paper that it was in and told her that, although the +court had dissolved the marriage tie, God had made the separation doubly +sure. Tilly sat sorter dead-like for a long time. That was yesterday +evening about sundown. I tried to comfort her, but she shudders and +screams when me or her pa comes near her. This morning the doctor came +to see her. I sent for him. He said she had to have a change. He was mad +at her pa, and they had sharp words at the gate. The doctor said she +simply must not stay here with us for a while—that it would drive her +out of her senses or kill her."</p> + +<p>"So you sent for me?" Martha Jane faltered.</p> + +<p>"Yes, because you are the only one she talks about wanting to see. She +loves you, and intimated that she would like to go out to your house for +a few days. I am sure it will do her good, and I thought maybe you +wouldn't mind—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, I should love it above all things!" The girl grasped Mrs. Whaley's +hands and wrung them eagerly. "I have the buggy. I could take her right +back with me."</p> + +<p>"Then you ought to do it while her pa is away," Mrs. Whaley said, her +beetling brows lowered. "He is in the country to-day. If he was here he +might raise a row, but he won't be apt to object when it is already +done. I think she ought to go. I hate to say it, but this is no place +for her right now. I'm afraid sometimes that her pa's got some trouble +of the brain. 'Softening,' some call it. He is not like he was. He wakes +up in the dead of night and comes stumbling over things to my bed to +talk all this over, and he would go to Tilly's bed, too, if I'd let him. +He is even suspicious of me—says I dispute his Bible views behind his +back, or when he is expounding them to somebody before me. But I don't. +I'm sick and tired of it all. I am coming to see that he is wrong, +because religion is intended to help, not ruin folks, and between you +and me, Martha Jane, every bit of trouble me and him ever had came out +of his peculiar way of looking at Scripture. La me! wouldn't it have +been better to have left Tilly down there with the man she picked out +than to—to— Well, you know what I mean? You see how it ended."</p> + +<p>With moist eyes, Martha Jane nodded. "May I see her now?" she asked, her +lips twitching.</p> + +<p>"Yes, go right up. She will be glad to see you."</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Two days later Joel Eperson and Tilly sat on the veranda of Joel's +farm-house. "Martha Jane said you had something to say to me," he said, +gravely. "I hope it is something that I can do to help you, Tilly. God +knows I want to do so."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I want you to help me," Tilly said, lifting her sad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> eyes to his +face, "but first I must make a confession. Joel, I deliberately planned +this visit to Martha Jane for a purpose. There was something to be done +that would have been impossible at home, owing to my father's close +watching over me."</p> + +<p>"I see— I see, and I am ready for anything," Joel declared, fervently.</p> + +<p>Tilly was silent for several minutes, her glance on the lap of her black +dress, and the black-bordered handkerchief which she held balled in her +little hand.</p> + +<p>"Of course," Joel began, considerately, "if you don't feel like saying +any more at present, why, I—"</p> + +<p>"It is not that," Tilly broke in; "but, oh, Joel, I am afraid that you +may not agree with me, and this is a thing that lies very heavily on my +sense of duty. There is something that I must do right away. Joel, I +must go to Ridgeville for a day or so."</p> + +<p>"To Ridgeville!" He stared blankly, after his astounded ejaculation.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Joel. I want to visit our little house again and get some things I +left— No, that isn't it. Why am I not telling the truth? I want to get +anything—anything that John may have left. You see"—filling up and +sobbing now—"I haven't a single thing with me that was actually his."</p> + +<p>"I understand." Joel raised his tortured eyes from her sweet, +grief-swept face and let them rove unguided over his fields of cotton +and ripening corn which lay along the red-clay road sloping +mountainward. "I see, and you think that I—"</p> + +<p>"It is like this, Joel." Tilly was controlling her sobs now and bending +anxiously toward him. "So many people know me at Cranston that if I took +the train there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> it would cause talk of an unpleasant sort. Father would +know I was going and he would not allow it. But Bellewood, two miles +from here, you know, is a station, and if you would put me on there at +eight o'clock in the morning no one at home would know anything about +it."</p> + +<p>Joel's honest and worshipful eyes crept back to her face. "I see," he +said, slowly, "and your people would think that you were here under the +protection of my sister, my mother, and myself."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Joel, but I have mentioned it to your mother and sister and they +see it as I do. They are women and understand. They were afraid, +however, that you would not want to do it, and so I came to you. You +must help me, Joel. As I see it, a deception of this sort is not wrong, +for it springs from a right motive."</p> + +<p>Joel was deeply perturbed. His whole mental and spiritual being rose and +fell on the billows of indecision. Finally he asked: "Is it just to +visit the house and get some things? Is that all, Tilly?"</p> + +<p>He saw her glance waver and sink to her lap. She took a deep, resolute +breath. "What is the use?" she said, tremulously. "I cannot lie to you, +Joel. You will either help me, knowing fully what I'm going for, or not +at all. Joel, I want to see John's mother."</p> + +<p>"His mother?" The plain man started and recoiled. "But why, oh, why, +Tilly?"</p> + +<p>She put her handkerchief to her writhing lips; she gulped and, with +lowered eyes, half sobbed: "Because she is John's mother—that's all, +Joel. I want to see, close at hand, the woman who gave my husband birth +and nursed him when he was a baby. I saw her once when she sat behind me +at a show. She looked at me and I looked at her. Somehow I think I'd +know her better than any one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> else. Joel, she has lost her child and I +have lost my husband. They have gone from us forever and ever. No power +on earth ought to keep us two apart. No one else can tell how I feel or +how she feels. I don't think she is as bad as people say, not deep down +in her heart, anyway. She's done wrong, but so have all of us. Joel, you +can help me or not, as you think best, but if you don't take me to that +train I shall walk to it alone. I know my duty before God, and I shall +do it. Joel, Joel, Joel"—she was speaking slowly, as if to formulate +into words thoughts which lay deep beneath the surface of her torn +being—"Joel, God is holding me accountable, in a way. Joel, if I had +not deserted John he would have been alive to-day. Something would have +arisen to have prevented my father from shooting him. I thought I was +acting for the best, but I was excited and terrified. Do you think, +feeling as I do, that I care what a few people here or at Ridgeville +think about me?"</p> + +<p>Joel rose to his feet. He was wearing his working-clothes. His coarse +shoes and the hat in his gaunt hand were covered with dust from the barn +which he had been cleaning in preparation for the winter's storage of +grain. His rough shirt was open at the neck, the muscles of which were +drawn taut. His brow and hands were beaded with sweat. He stood staring +mountainward for a moment, rocked between two impulses. Presently he +turned to her.</p> + +<p>"It would be a question between old-fashioned men of honor," he said, +"whether a gentleman could act as you ask me to act while you are +intrusted to his protection, but you are now speaking of things, Tilly, +which men have no right to decide upon. No bishop, no cardinal should +refuse to go to a woman in distress, and neither should I!—neither +should you. And so, if you feel that it is your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> duty to the memory of +your husband to do this thing, I shall help you."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Joel." Tilly sobbed aloud. "I knew you would not desert me."</p> + +<p>"And when do you want to go?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"In the morning, Joel."</p> + +<p>"Then I shall be ready to take you," he said, turning away.</p> + +<p>He had to clean and oil the wheels of his road-wagon, and he went to the +barn-yard and set to work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XLII" id="I_CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII</h2> + +<p>There was but scant attendance at the burial of Jane Holder. The men she +had known, and with whom she had laughed, danced, jested, and sung, +under the veil of night, for obvious reasons could not attend in open +daylight such rites, simple and unobtrusive though they were. In like +manner, Jane's female associates were chary about being in evidence. +Moreover, such irresponsible human butterflies are said to have morbid +fears of death, and this particular case was surely nature's grimmest +reminder.</p> + +<p>Lizzie Trott went, of course, and Mandy and Jake walked behind her, +solemnly and sedately self-righteous. The spot set aside for Jane's +remains to repose in was in an unused, weed-overgrown corner of the +public cemetery—the spot decided on by the town clerk, who granted the +permit at the price required alike for respected or unrespected +interment. The undertaker's men, in a perfunctory way, did the work of +lowering the flower-covered casket into the damp red clay which was +intermixed with round, prehistoric pebbles. The white sexton of the +cemetery, an old man, bowed and gray, took charge of the filling of the +grave with earth and shaping a mound on the surface.</p> + +<p>The hearse, the black-plumed horses, and the undertaker's men went away. +Jake and Mandy again fell in behind Lizzie and they walked down the hill +to the deserted house.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I cooked enough fer yo' supper, Mis' Trott," Mandy said at the gate. +"Jake say dat I mustn't come back ter you any mo'."</p> + +<p>"Very well, Mandy," Lizzie said, wearily. "Good-by."</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Mis' Trott. Me 'n' Jake bofe sorry fer you."</p> + +<p>"Yas'm, we is," Jake intoned, doffing his hat and sliding his flat feet +backward.</p> + +<p>The interior of the house was still and shadowy. Lizzie sat down in that +best dark dress of hers in the parlor. She was beginning to pity +herself, for it was all so very, very terrible. How could she go on +living there? And yet, whither was she to go? She rose. She started up +the stairs with the strange intention of again visiting John's old room, +but in the hall she stopped. "How silly!" she thought. "What am I going +up there for?" The slanting rays of the lowering sun fell through the +narrow side-lights of the door and lay on the floor at her feet. She +shuddered. It would soon be night again and how could she pass the dark +hours?—for something told her that she would not sleep soundly. She had +never felt less like sleeping, though she had not lost consciousness for +two days and two nights. Then a self-protective idea entered her +confused reflections, and she acted on it. She found among her +belongings a piece of broad black ribbon, and, forming a bow and +streamers of it, she hung it on the front door-knob, together with a +card on which she had written, "Not at home." That would keep people +away—her friends and Jane's—and she was in no mood to entertain any +one. The ribbon and card would speak of John, of Dora, of Jane, and the +boldest would respect their significance.</p> + +<p>In her own room Lizzie changed her dress. She felt like it, and she put +on her oldest and plainest gown. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> drew off her rings and bracelets +and dropped them into a drawer. Something psychological was happening to +her which she could not have analyzed had she had far more occult +knowledge than she possessed. She remembered that her mother had dressed +plainly in those far-off days which now seemed so sweet and restful, and +somehow she wanted to be like her mother.</p> + +<p>It was sundown. It would soon be dark, she told herself, with a cool +shudder and a little groan of despair. Suddenly she heard a sound as of +the gate being closed. Then there was a light step on the porch, +followed by a low rap on the door. Lizzie crept down the stairs, not +knowing whether she should open the door or not. There was another rap, +a timid one, it seemed to Lizzie, who now stood hesitating in the hall +close to the door. There was a brief silence, then a low, awed voice was +heard calling:</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Trott! Oh, Mrs. Trott! May I see you for a moment?"</p> + +<p>Lizzie fired up with a touch of her old irascibility, and, putting her +lips to the keyhole, she cried out, sharply:</p> + +<p>"There is no one at home! Can't you read the card on the door?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mrs. Trott," came back after a pause, "but I've come a long way to +see you. Don't you know me? I'm Tilly, John's wife."</p> + +<p>"John's wife!" Lizzie gasped under her breath. "John's wife!" Then with +fumbling fingers she unlocked and opened the door and stood staring at +the quaint little visitor whose black costume was covered with the dust +of travel and who seemed quite frightened under the ordeal upon her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Trott," Tilly went on, in a pleading tone, "do forgive me! I +know I have no right to intrude on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> you like this, but I simply couldn't +stay away any longer. Oh, Mrs. Trott, you are alone and in trouble and I +want to help you!"</p> + +<p>"Want to help me—you want to help me?" Lizzie stammered, taking Tilly's +outstretched hand and leading her into the parlor. "Of course, of course +you are welcome, but you mustn't stand there. Some one passing might see +you. You say—you say that you want to see me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you are his mother— I'm his wife, and we have lost him. Oh, Mrs. +Trott, what are we to do—how can we bear it?"</p> + +<p>Tilly's voice quivered and hung in her throat and broke into sobs. The +woman within the woman of the world took the weeping child to her breast +and held her there. She, too, was weeping now and afraid to trust her +abashed voice to utterance. Locked in a mutual embrace, they stood for +several minutes. Then Lizzie, the weaker vessel of the two, found her +voice.</p> + +<p>"Why did you come <i>here</i>?" she cried. "Oh, why did you come <i>here</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I had to see you," Tilly made husky reply. "I know how you feel because +I know how I feel. Oh, Mrs. Trott, you are his mother—actually his +mother. I see the look of him in your face, in your eyes, in your hair +and hands, and hear his voice in yours. Do you know that I killed him? +If I had not left him as I did he would have been alive to-day. I was a +coward—but, oh, it was for John, for John's sake that I did it!"</p> + +<p>"I understand," Lizzie half groaned, "but you were not to blame, my +child. I am the one. It's just me, child—just me and no one else. I +spoiled his life and yours. I know it—I know it. You ought to hate me, +as all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> rest do, and not come here like this. Don't you know that if +people knew you were here they would—would—"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" Tilly said, pressing Lizzie's hands to her breast and holding +them there. "I love you—I love you even more—yes, more than I do my +own mother. You are my mother. Death has parted John and me, but nothing +should part me from you. Some day you must let me stay with you—live +with you, care for you, work for you. Oh, Mrs. Trott, I want to be to +you what John would have been had he lived to see you so lonely and +unhappy as you are now."</p> + +<p>As she stared Lizzie Trott seemed fairly to wilt in the rays of the new +sun that was blazing over her. "Why, child, darling child," she +sobbingly cried out, "you could never live with me. It is out of all +reason. Even this visit is imprudent. You must go home—you must go back +to your mother. Surely you know that this very roof—"</p> + +<p>"I don't care for that," Tilly broke in. "I can't live with my people— +I don't want to live anywhere but with you. You need me—yes, that is +the truth; you need me, and I need you. I feel rested and soothed here, +as if God Himself were with me. I don't feel so anywhere else."</p> + +<p>They sat down on the old sofa, side by side. They wept and clung +together. After a while Tilly raised her head. "I've always wanted to +see John's room. May I?" she asked. "Would you mind? It is silly, +perhaps, but I want to see it. He told me how he used to study and work +there at night."</p> + +<p>Lizzie nodded and rose. It was dark now and she lighted a lamp. At the +foot of the stairs, however, she stopped abruptly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, I forgot," she cried. "You ought not to look at it. It is upset, +unclean; it was never well attended to even while he was here. It will +make you hate me."</p> + +<p>"No, no; let me see it, please," Tilly pleaded, taking the lamp into her +own hand. "I can go alone—in fact, in fact, I'd like to be alone there +for a little while, Mrs. Trott, if you wouldn't mind."</p> + +<p>Lizzie hesitated a moment and then gave in. "It is the last door on the +left," she said. "I'm sorry it is in such a bad condition."</p> + +<p>"Very well, I'll find it," Tilly answered, and, leaving Lizzie below, +she went up the stairs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XLIII" id="I_CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII</h2> + +<p>She was absent more than an hour. Lizzie was becoming afraid of +something she knew not what—something due, perhaps, to the suggestion +laid upon her by Jane Holder's abortive attempt, when Tilly appeared at +the head of the stairs, her nunlike face in the disk of the lamp's rays.</p> + +<p>"I've swept and dusted, and made the bed," she said. "There are a few of +his things that I'd like to have, provided you don't want to keep +them—the books, the drawings, and his hat and shoes."</p> + +<p>"You may have them," Lizzie answered, as they went back into the parlor +and sat down.</p> + +<p>"I am going to ask another favor," Tilly went on. "I intended to spend +the night at the cottage, but if you wouldn't mind I'd like to stay here +with you and sleep in John's old bed. You may think it odd, but I want +to do it, Mrs. Trott. I want to do it more than anything in the world."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Lizzie started and protested, "you couldn't stay here, my child. +It would never do. You are too young and inexperienced to understand +why. I've harmed you and John enough already; surely you see—you see—"</p> + +<p>"I know what you mean, but it doesn't matter," Tilly insisted. "I want +to stay to-night, for I must go back to-morrow. Don't refuse me—please, +please don't! I want to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> sleep there and I want to get up in the morning +and cook your breakfast and make your coffee for you. Please, please let +me."</p> + +<p>Lizzie lowered her head. Her features were in the shadow. She was very +silent. Then Tilly felt some tears falling on her hands, and with her +black-bordered handkerchief she wiped Lizzie's wet cheeks and drew her +head down to her shoulder. Suddenly, as if ashamed of her emotion, +Lizzie rose, went to the front door and stood there in silence, looking +out.</p> + +<p>"How could I let her do it?" she reflected. "If it got out she would be +stamped as I am by the public. No, it won't do—it won't do; and yet, +and yet, the dear, sweet child—"</p> + +<p>She turned back to Tilly and sat down. "I don't know what to do," she +faltered. "You are upset now with grief, and are willing to do things +that later on you may be sorry for. Go back to the cottage and stay +there. It will be best."</p> + +<p>"No, Mrs. Trott—mother, I'm going to call you mother. I shall not +desert you to-night. From the cottage I saw the hearse come here this +afternoon and a man told me what it meant. This is your first night +alone and I must be with you."</p> + +<p>In silence Lizzie acquiesced. Remembering that Mandy had left supper +prepared, she went to the kitchen, lighted a lamp, and began putting the +food on the table. Tilly joined her, helping at this and that with +swift, deft hands. Presently they sat down opposite each other. Neither +ate much, though both were pretending to relish the food. The meal was +almost concluded when there was a step on the porch and a vigorous rap +on the door. Lizzie started and almost paled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Stay where you are," she said to Tilly. "I'll be back in a moment."</p> + +<p>Tilly heard her light step to the door, then the door opened and a man's +voice sounded: "Hello, Liz! What's all this? My God! old girl, I just +got to town and heard at the hotel about all three, and—"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" Tilly heard Lizzie's voice ring out. "Go away, and don't come +back ever again. Do you hear me—<i>never again</i>?"</p> + +<p>"But Liz, Liz! Why, old friend—"</p> + +<p>"Go away, I tell you! I don't want you here and I won't have it! Tell +all the others to stay away—every one, man and woman. I'm done, I tell +you. I'm through. Go, go, I tell you! Go!"</p> + +<p>There was a mumbled, bewildered protest which grew fainter and fainter +till it ended with the clicking of the gate latch, and Lizzie, white and +trembling, returned. She resumed her seat, and with unsteady hands took +up her knife and fork, but made no comment on the interruption.</p> + +<p>Supper over, they rose and put the things away. After this was done they +sat talking in the parlor till nine o'clock. Then Tilly said, "Now you +must go to bed, and so must I."</p> + +<p>Lizzie got another lamp, and when she had lighted it she suddenly +bethought herself of something. "You have no nightgown," she said. "Is +it at the cottage?"</p> + +<p>Tilly nodded. "Yes; I will run over for it, if you will give me a match +to light the gas."</p> + +<p>Lizzie averted her eyes, stood silent for a moment, and then said:</p> + +<p>"No, no, you mustn't go at this time of night. Some one might see you +leaving here or returning. No, no, that would never do, my child. I have +a lot of clean nightgowns,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> but I have—" Lizzie broke off, her face +flushing, her eyes falling.</p> + +<p>"Then why don't you lend me—" Tilly had read the thought of her +embarrassed hostess, delicate as it was, and yet did not know how to +relieve the situation of its tension.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I remember now!" Lizzie suddenly ejaculated in relief. "I have some +that have just been bought and given to me which I've never worn. They +are rather too small for me. In fact, they are about your size. Come to +my room and I'll get one."</p> + +<p>To the simple, country-bred girl Lizzie's room seemed a luxurious one in +the glow of the pink-shaded lamp on the center-table. The imitation +damask curtains at the windows had a costly look, and the wide bed with +its silk-lined lace covering and great puffy pillows seemed a thing of +royal comfort. On the air a mixture of several perfumes floated. While +Tilly stood in the doorway, holding her lamp, Lizzie went to a wardrobe, +pulled down a long cardboard box, and began to take out some folded +garments. Suddenly she turned her back to Tilly, and with a gown of fine +linen in her hands she hastily proceeded to remove the pink ribbons and +bows from the neck and sleeves.</p> + +<p>"It is too gaudy for you, with all these gewgaws on it," she awkwardly +explained, when she noticed that Tilly was watching her. "It is not what +you'd prefer, I'm sure; but maybe you can make it do for once. It has +never been worn. It is just from the store. Here, you can see the +price-tag on it."</p> + +<p>Tilly took it, was deeply touched, and bent and kissed Lizzie on the +brow. "Good night, mother," she said, simply. "Try to sleep. I can see +that you need rest. We are both in a sad plight, aren't we?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'Mother'! she called me 'mother'!" Lizzie said to herself, as Tilly +turned away. She heard the door of John's room being closed, and, +peering out into the corridor, she saw that it was dark save for a +thread of light beneath the shutter. Then Lizzie, with a strange sense +of something new and hitherto unexperienced in her drab life, started to +prepare for bed. She had removed the pins from her hair and was about to +let it fall, when all at once she paused, reflected for a moment, and +then wound her hair up again.</p> + +<p>"No, no, I mustn't go to bed," she said. "That would never do. The sweet +child is in my care, and nothing shall happen to shock her or prevent +her from sleeping. Somebody might come—who knows? Some one too drunk to +be decent or orderly."</p> + +<p>Therewith, Lizzie got a light shawl, threw it over her shoulders, blew +out her lamp, and crept down the stairs. Seating herself at an open +window of the parlor, whence she could see the gate and a part of the +street leading townward, she determined to remain on guard through the +night.</p> + +<p>Ten o'clock came and passed, eleven, twelve, one, and still she had no +desire for sleep. She had decided how she would act if she saw any one +approaching the isolated house. She would hurry out, meet the person +before he reached the gate, and, if possible, quietly send him away.</p> + +<p>At two o'clock she heard footsteps on the opposite side of the street. A +man was slowly and cautiously passing, his eyes on the house. Lizzie +wondered, and when she saw him pause and retrace his steps, still +looking in her direction, she became even alarmed. Her anxiety +increased, for when the man was opposite the gate he began slowly to +cross the street. From his light, furtive steps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> Lizzie knew that he was +trying to avoid being seen or heard.</p> + +<p>Rising, she tiptoed from the parlor into the hall and to the door. +Softly she turned the key, that Tilly might not hear, and stepped upon +the porch. The sound she made was evidently heard by the man, for he +paused in the middle of the street and stood still. Though the moonlight +was clear enough, Lizzie failed to recognize in him any acquaintance of +hers. She opened the gate and went directly to him.</p> + +<p>"What do you want here?" she demanded, facing him sternly.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" the man ejaculated. "Are you Mrs. Trott?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but what do you want?"</p> + +<p>She thought he sighed as he courteously lifted his hat. "Mrs. Trott, I +don't want to intrude," he began. "I am a friend of your son's wife from +Cranston. She was in such deep distress that I and my family aided her. +I helped her take a train this morning, but later decided to—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you are Joel Eperson, are you not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," was the answer.</p> + +<p>Lizzie lowered her voice; her glance fell to the ground. "Tilly told me +about you to-night—how kind you have always been to her and what a fine +man you are."</p> + +<p>Joel waved his hand disparagingly. "I am not a wise friend of hers, at +any rate, Mrs. Trott," he sighed. "I ought not to have given in to her +coming. But I didn't know that she—she— You see, she told me that she +was going to stay at the cottage. If I had thought—"</p> + +<p>"She insisted on staying here," Lizzie replied, plaintively apologetic. +"She came before it was dark and insisted on staying. That is why I am +up. Do you understand?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p> + +<p>Joel gravely inclined his head. "I understand," he said, "and it is +fine and good of you, Mrs. Trott."</p> + +<p>"And you were standing guard over her, too?" Lizzie went on.</p> + +<p>Again he bowed his head. "It is a cruel world, Mrs. Trott," he said. "I +hope you will pardon me for saying so, but if it should be known that +Tilly stayed—"</p> + +<p>"I know. You needn't tell me," Lizzie interrupted, sensitively. "Now +listen, Mr. Eperson, you must take her home in the morning. You must +take her home and prevent her from coming again. She will want to. She +is not herself now. She is out of her head with grief. I love her—I +love her, and I don't wonder that John did and made her his wife. I've +brought all this on her and I can never undo it. You love her, too, I +know it— I see it in your face and hear it in your voice. I gathered +it, too, from something she let fall about you and her before she met my +son. Now go to a hotel and get some rest. I am going to sit up and I'll +see that no harm comes to her. I'll make her go to the cottage before it +is light, and you will find her there. I promise it."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mrs. Trott." Joel bowed his uncovered head and held out his +hand. "If I had known that you were—were like this I should not have +worried."</p> + +<p>Lizzie pressed his hand and clung to it as if for support to her in what +she next faltered out. "I am a different woman from what I was only +three days ago," she declared. "Certain things have torn me to shreds. +I'm bleeding inside and out. I don't know what I shall do, but I shall +leave this house and bury myself from everybody I've associated with in +the past. You may not think it possible, but I'll die if I don't."</p> + +<p>Joel pressed her hand warmly; he bent his head till<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> his eyes met hers +squarely, frankly. "Then I shall help you," he said, fervently. "Not +only that, but I shall not oppose Tilly in anything she wants to do in +your behalf, and she says she believes in you, Mrs. Trott. I am sure +that she will want to see you again, and she must be allowed to do so. +I'll help her."</p> + +<p>He left her standing in the center of the street and she slowly walked +to the gate, passed through it, and crept back to her post of vigil at +the window.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I_CHAPTER_XLIV" id="I_CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV</h2> + +<p>It was two months after John's acceptance of the position with Pilcher & +Reed. The two partners were in the office together. John happened to be +up-town on business for the firm.</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you think of Trott now?" Reed asked, with a significant +smile, referring to some estimates and calculations of John's which he +had just submitted to his partner.</p> + +<p>"I think he is a wonder," Pilcher returned. "I was thinking about his +work last night. Do you know that I can see where he has already saved +us several thousands of dollars? He prevents much oversupply of +materials and doesn't let us make our old blunders, which often caused +tearing out and rebuilding. He seems to have an eye for the finished +thing before the work is even started. The architects hate him. They +don't have a soft snap with him. He made me send back Hinkinson's plans +for the Chester Flats—stairways too wide by ten inches, and ten feet +too near the front for the stores on the sides."</p> + +<p>"I know," Reed chuckled. "Well, what do you think about his pay? You +know we've hinted at a raise."</p> + +<p>Pilcher smiled. "I think he is worth as much to us as he is to any one +else, and, as I like the fellow personally, I want to hold on to him. +You can't hire a brain like his very long for nothing, and if we don't +come across he may be snapped up by some one else. Carter & Langley's +man asked me the other day if we had a contract with him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> I lied. I +told him yes, and what I want to do now is to sign up with the fellow +and know where we stand. He is ambitious, and I never saw such a worker +in my life. He often does as much as an ordinary man after the office +closes. He works at home. He told me that he did not care for +amusements, reading, or politics. He has put his little sister in +school, and he warms up when he speaks of the child. Outside of his +work, she seems to be the only thing he is interested in. He is always +quoting something she says or telling amusing things she does. Then he +laughs—he seldom smiles over anything else. He is very deep and +serious. If he were not so young I'd think he had had a sad love-affair. +I think he must have taken the deaths of his parents and the +responsibility of the child very seriously. Well, what do you think?"</p> + +<p>"About a contract with him? Yes, I think we ought to come to terms with +him. You say he is the man we need. Why not be liberal with him?"</p> + +<p>"I've always thought that gradual progress," Pilcher said, "was good for +young men. You can spoil them easily by letting them know that you can't +do without them. Still, I see your point and agree with you. How about a +two years' contract at fifteen hundred a year?"</p> + +<p>"Not enough." Reed shook his younger and more progressive head firmly. +"Make it eighteen for a year, with a bonus of three per cent. on our +entire net profits."</p> + +<p>Pilcher winced and pulled his beard, but finally agreed. "You attend to +the details and draw up the contract. I catch your idea of pinning down +his personal interest in the work with the bonus. If we make as much +money next year as this he will do well."</p> + +<p>So it was finally arranged, and when John went home<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> on the following +Saturday night, after signing the contract, he was in good spirits. Dora +was at the table with Betty and Minnie when he arrived, and he sat down +with them. They were overflowing with amusement about something that had +happened at school, and John sat watching Dora's animated face with deep +pride and gratification. He was sure she was genuinely happy in her new +environment, and he was beginning to feel that he had made no mistake in +taking her from her old one. She showed by her fine color and increased +weight that she was in splendid health. The new dress which she now wore +and which Mrs. McGwire had selected was most becoming. Her abundant hair +under constant care had grown more tractable and was always well +arranged. Her little hands, once rough and soiled, had grown white, +soft, and pliant. Under Betty McGwire's persistent admonitions she had +left off using many incorrect and uncouth forms of speech, and, on the +whole, deported herself very properly.</p> + +<p>Why should John not be proud of her? Indeed, she was all he had in the +world to care for, and he lavished the wealth of his saddened and lonely +soul upon her. He loved to work in his little room at night when she and +Minnie or Betty studied or read in hers, the door between being always +open. Frequently they asked him questions which he could not +answer—questions pertaining to history, geography, and science, and he +found that he himself was learning from the answers which they finally +secured from their books, teachers, and elsewhere. Sometimes he went +with them to free lectures given at night by the public schools. The +only place he refused to go with them was to the church and +Sunday-school, but, as the grave-faced Harold always escorted them to +these places,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> they did not need him. Sometimes the boy would speak +earnestly to him of the intricate theology he was mastering, but, as +John no longer combated such ideas with young or old, he always smiled +indulgently and let the subject pass.</p> + +<p>"What does it matter?" he used to ask himself. "Everybody needs a belief +of some sort, and Harold's faith in snake- and whale-stories is as good +as any other, if it will keep him from stealing and murdering and make +him more considerate of his fellow-man. Let the boy preach. If people +are willing to pay to listen to him, that is their business and his. As +for me, it hit me once and sha'n't get a swipe at me again."</p> + +<p>After dinner was over on the night following his promotion, he told the +three little girls that he wanted to "celebrate" that evening and would +take them to a certain theater where a children's play was being +produced.</p> + +<p>"To celebrate what?" they noisily asked him, but he kept his joyous +secret to himself, and they hurried away to get ready to go out.</p> + +<p>While he was waiting for them in the parlor, Harold came down from his +room, a book under his arm, and John invited him to go along. But the +boy only smiled and held out the book, which was the <i>Life of Wesley</i>. +"I have to study this to-night," he said. "I am to be examined on the +pioneers of our Church. You know we do not believe in theaters, as a +rule, but I understand that this child's play has a good moral. I'm sure +it won't do any great harm, and the silly things are up-stairs dancing +with joy."</p> + +<p>The children liked the play, the people, the lights, the music, and John +sat feasting on their animated faces. Once, however, a pang of keen pain +shot through him at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> the thought that he was having a pleasure that +could not be shared with the little toiling woman who had once been his +wife. If all had gone well, he might have brought Tilly to the great +city and lavished the results of his work and ability on her. As it was, +she would perhaps remain in the backwoods for the rest of her life. She +would no doubt marry— Here he shuddered and tried to banish the thought +from his mind.</p> + +<p>After the play he took his little guests to an attractive café and they +had some ice-cream and cakes. While they ate they chattered vivaciously +about the plot and characters of the drama. Betty displayed good +critical ability, and John saw from Dora's face that she was seeing her +new friend in a fresh light and no doubt determining to emulate her in +this, as in other things. He told himself that that quality in his +foster-sister would help her enormously in acquiring the social culture +which he himself had missed in his youth.</p> + +<p>Little Minnie was becoming sleepy. Her eyelids were drooping, and John +started home with them. For a while he led Minnie by the hand, and then, +noting her lagging steps, he took her into his arms and carried her the +rest of the way. He felt her soft cheek settle down against his, and +from her warm, moist breathing he knew that she was asleep. He liked the +sensation caused by the limp form in his embrace. Betty and Dora walked +by his side. Young as he was, he felt a sort of paternal interest in all +three of them.</p> + +<p>Reaching home, he bore the sleeping child up to her little white bed in +her mother's room. Mrs. McGwire was there, hemming sheets for the house, +and was deeply touched by his act.</p> + +<p>"It was awfully kind of you," she said, and then she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> began to cry. "I'm +a fool," she whimpered, wiping her eyes, "but you were carrying her just +as her father did only a week before he died."</p> + +<p>However, she dried her eyes quickly and hastened to disrobe Minnie, who +was still asleep.</p> + +<p>"You have been a godsend to us all, Mr. Trott," Mrs. McGwire declared. +"The children worship you. Did you know it? Every night they listen for +your coming, and they often go into the kitchen to inquire if you are +getting exactly what you like to eat. I am telling you this because I +like to have children love me, and these love you very deeply."</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>One day John had to go to the office of a great newspaper directory +where files were kept of almost all the papers in the United States, his +object being to look over the advertised offers for bids on public +buildings in a certain New Jersey town. He was sent into the basement of +the establishment, where he found the files arranged in compartments in +shelves on both sides of a long room. An attendant handed him a +catalogue of the papers with the numbered key to their locations, and he +soon secured the information he desired. He was about to leave when a +terrible thought took hold of him, and he ran his eye over the +catalogue. Yes, there it was. <i>The Cranston News</i>. He went to the +indicated compartment himself, took down the file it contained, and bore +it to the table and seat set aside for patrons. It was a tiny, +half-stereotyped weekly, and on that account its compartment held a +longer file than otherwise would have been the case. He put the stack of +papers on the table before him. Should he look for the thing the mere +thought of which seemed to deaden his brain? He knew the time that the +item<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> would naturally appear, and with cold, fumbling fingers he drew +out the issue under that date. He held it a moment unopened.</p> + +<p>"What good would it do?" something seemed to admonish him. "Don't rasp a +healing wound."</p> + +<p>The attendant noticed his apparent indecision and approached politely. +"Is there something else you want to see?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No, thanks; these are all," John answered, and he opened the paper. The +clerk left him and he allowed his glance to sweep the columns of local +happenings.</p> + +<p>It was there. The mere head-line in bold type was sufficient: "Annulment +of Young Bride's Marriage and Tragic End of Husband."</p> + +<p>John read the crudely considerate item through, folded the sheet, and +restored the file to its place. Then he started back to his office. How +pitiless seemed the street scene in the garish light of the midday sun! +The push-cart men, the newsboys, the hurrying throng, the rattling of +the overhead trains, seemed to belong to an earthly hades. And why, he +wondered, should he suffer so over a thing that he had already accepted +as a fact, and partly conquered? He couldn't have answered, though a +psychologist might have classed it under the head of autosuggestion, or +called it a mere backward twist of a morbid imagination fed by +unsubdued, subconscious longings for things the subject once possessed.</p> + +<p>That night strange, dazzling dreams fell to John's portion. If by his +hard work he was enabled through the day to keep his old life out of his +conscious thought to any extent, it was often otherwise when he slept, +and to-night, following the shock he had had that morning, he was living +only too vividly over the period in which he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> known Tilly. Again he +was entranced by her illumined face and thrilled by her mellow treble +voice as she read from the Bible that first night of his acquaintance +with her. Again he and she were on the lonely, moonlit mountain road +together. He felt her loving pressure on his arm, and as by the light of +heaven caught her tender, upward glance. Then she became his +wife—actually his wife. They were on the train together—in the cab at +Ridgeville, and then in that cottage of dreams and delight, shut in from +the uncomprehending world without.</p> + +<p>Then he awoke and, like the hail of javelins from an omnipotent enemy, +the tragic facts of his existence hurtled down upon him. Smothering a +cry like that of a wounded beast in a jungle, he found his pillow wet +with tears which he had shed against his will or knowledge—tears of +joy, or tears of grief, which were they? He sprang from his bed and +stood before the window of his boxlike room.</p> + +<p>"It is my yellow streak again," he muttered, wiping his eyes and +grinding his teeth. "It can't down me awake, and so it coils about me in +dreams. Be a man, John Trott! Life was never made for happiness. It was +for pain, struggle, and conquest."</p> + +<p>He heard a sound in Dora's room. He wondered if anything was wrong, and +as an anxious mother might have done, he listened attentively. He heard +a low, rippling laugh, followed by prattling tones. The child was +talking in her sleep. Her dreams must have been pleasant, for her +lilting voice rang out again.</p> + +<p>"It is beautiful on you, Betty! Maybe brother John will get me one, too. +Then we can wear them to the church sociable, eh, Betty?"</p> + +<p>"Brother John!" he echoed, softly. It was sweet and vaguely comforting +to know that the little waif relied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> upon him even in her dreams. He +crept into her room on his tiptoes, bent over Dora, and looked at her. +What an angelic, spritelike creature she seemed in her white gown and +golden hair! How delicate and refined her features and tapering hands! +In the half-light he saw that she was smiling. Smiling! She had never +smiled like that in the old house at Ridgeville. She had begun to smile +and laugh and jest under his love and care, and he told himself that it +should always be so.</p> + +<p>He went back to his bed, turned his damp pillow over, and laid his head +on a dry spot. As he lay trying to sleep, the visions of his dream began +to hover over him, and, wincing and writhing with pain, he cried:</p> + +<p>"Be a man, John Trott! It is your yellow streak again. Kill it now, or +it will down you in the end!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PART II</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II_CHAPTER_I" id="II_CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p> + +<p>Ten eventful years of toil and struggle for John Trott went by. True to +the prophecy of Cavanaugh and other practical men, he succeeded. Step by +step he rose till, on the death of Mr. Pilcher, he became an equal +partner with Reed in the business. He and Dora still lived with the +McGwires in the old house, which was now kept for roomers only. John +could have well afforded to give Dora a more expensive home, but both he +and she had become inseparably attached to these first friends of theirs +in New York.</p> + +<p>Dora, a tall, slender girl of nineteen, while not exactly pretty, was +quite attractive. John had sent her to a select school for young ladies, +and the polish and education she had received had not spoiled her. She +was not ashamed of the fact that she and John had once been what they +were. In fact, the McGwires knew all the circumstances connected with +their clandestine flight from the South, and guarded well their secret.</p> + +<p>Not once, even indirectly, had either John or Dora heard from their +former home. Dora had almost entirely forgotten it, and, while John +could not possibly do so, it had become like a dream of blended joy and +pain which he persistently put aside. But at times a grim certitude +fixed itself on him, that, having once loved, he could never love again. +He never met a marriageable woman, no matter how attractive or willing +she might be to receive his attentions, without feeling the presence of +a certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> barrier of contrast to an ideal embedded in his tragic past. +There was a vast store of love and tenderness in him, and this he poured +out on his foster-sister. He was a natural man and yielded to sensual +temptations, but always with the after-result of feeling vaguely soiled +and lowered, and was in continual strife with his passions. To-day they +were conquered, to-morrow they held temporary sway. And there was a +rebuke, always a rebuke which no reasoning could set aside—a rebuke +rising out of the mystic sanctity of the short union between him and his +bride. "Tilly!" The very name crept upon him unawares as from the +exquisite mental pictures he was always trying to suppress. "Tilly!" He +caught himself applying it to Dora, a slip of the tongue, which, better +than anything else, revealed to him the psychic bonds between him and a +personality lost to him forever. Once Dora asked him if he thought, by +any chance, that Tilly might have died. He started, reflected for a +moment, and then answered in a way that was a surprise even to himself. +"No, she's living," he said. "If she were dead I'd feel it."</p> + +<p>"That is no criterion to go by," answered Dora, who had become quite +religious and was now a member of the Methodist Church. "Do you know +what Harold would say about that?"</p> + +<p>"Harold might say a lot of absurd things about it"—John smiled +indulgently—"but he is no criterion, either."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll tell you what he'd say, and it is my opinion, too," the girl +went on. "He'd say that the very intuitive feeling you say you +have—your firm confidence of her existence, is due to the fact that she +has passed from this plane of life, is now on another, and that she is +always with you in spirit because she loved you once, still loves you, +and wants to protect you. Don't you see how pretty that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> is, brother +John? She has become, as Harold would say, your guardian angel, your +very conscience. When you are tempted to do wrong she restrains you; and +when you actually do something wrong she has a way of rebuking you +through your intuition."</p> + +<p>This argument displeased John, as all such theories did. He claimed, +with many of his rather materialistic friends, that to believe in a +blissful life to come only rendered one less useful in the present, and +was a strong proof of innate selfishness in the individual who was +seeking it for himself alone.</p> + +<p>But he let Dora have her way, and why shouldn't he? Indeed, he was +almost sure that she and Harold were falling in love with each other. +Harold was preaching now in a small church on the west side of the city, +and his mother and sisters and Dora were diligent helpers in many ways.</p> + +<p>"I'm becoming sure," Mrs. McGwire said, with a smile, one day to John as +they lingered at the breakfast-table after Betty and Dora had left, +"that Dora and Harold are very much in love, and I'm glad of it. A +minister ought to marry early, and your sister, of all girls, is the one +I'd want for him."</p> + +<p>"So it is like that, is it?" John said, resignedly. "Well, I have no +objections, I'm sure. I want her to be happy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II_CHAPTER_II" id="II_CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p>One evening, shortly after that, Harold came into John's room, saying +that he wanted to speak to him in private. He was slightly above medium +height, quite thin, and attenuated-looking. He wore the black +frock-coat, high, stiff collar, and black necktie of his calling. For a +man of less than twenty-four years of age he certainly was grave and +serious-looking. He was endeavoring to produce a show of whiskers on his +cheeks and chin, but the effort was almost in vain, for the hairs grew +sparsely and were of a color between yellow and light brown that did not +make for density of appearance. However, he was earnest and sincere, and +John liked and trusted him.</p> + +<p>"I've been wanting to see you for some time, Mr. Trott," he began, +taking a chair that was vacant near John's and linking his white hands +between his knees. "I don't know what you will think of me, but I've had +the audacity to fall in love with your sister, and, as I look upon you +as her guardian and protector, I felt honor-bound to come to you."</p> + +<p>"I see, I see." John had flushed with embarrassment. "Well, the truth +is, Harold, I have been suspecting something of this sort lately, and I +can imagine what you want to say."</p> + +<p>Harold had never been one to give in to embarrassment. Life was too +serious and needed too many corrections to justify him in losing time or +emotion in that way, so without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> change of color, or quickened pulse, he +went on. "I have reason to believe, Mr. Trott, that Dora reciprocates my +feeling, and you may be sure that it has given me great happiness. She +is wrapped up in my work, and I know of no woman who would so readily +adapt herself to the routine of a minister's career. The only thing +bothering us both has been—"</p> + +<p>For the first time Harold hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Go ahead," said John, awkwardly, and quite unaware of what was +forthcoming.</p> + +<p>"You see, I know what she has been to you all these years," Harold +resumed, "and we both know, too, what your religious, or lack of +religious, views are, and it has pained me to think that perhaps you +would prefer as Dora's husband a man of—well, a man whose views were +more in accord with your own than mine can ever possibly be."</p> + +<p>Not knowing what to say, John hung fire. He had always been outspoken +where his views were directly challenged, and, despite the delicacy of +the present crisis, he had nothing to take back. All things being equal, +he really would have preferred to have his protégée marry, if she +married at all, a man whose calling he could be proud of. He had +ridiculed parsons as the most parasitical of all men, and yet here he +was about to hand over to one of them the only human treasure he +possessed.</p> + +<p>"I see you understand me," Harold half sighed, "and I am not so full of +religious zeal as not to sympathize with you. I don't see how a man can +live without more faith than you have, but I admire your firmness of +conviction in what you think is right. You may call yourself an atheist, +Mr. Trott, but you really are not one. A great man has said that there +are no atheists—that every man who does good, defends goodness, and +contends<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> against evil of any sort has as good a god as any one. I don't +agree with him fully, but I know that what you did for Dora, full of +despair as you were at the time, proves that you had divinity in you. +That act was godlike and had to have a source outside of mere animal +instinct."</p> + +<p>John was touched. He held out his hand. "Let all that pass, Harold," he +smiled. "I am sure that Dora loves you, and I want to make her happy. +You are her choice. You have a right to her."</p> + +<p>"I thank you," Harold responded, with his first touch of emotion. There +was silence for a moment, then Harold said: "There is yet another +matter, Mr. Trott, and both Dora and I are worried over it. It belongs +to a little secret of ours. We have not even told my mother yet, and we +dread doing so. Mr. Trott, I have just received an appointment to a +desirable post among the missionaries in China."</p> + +<p>"China!" John repeated, his honest mouth drooping, his eyes taking on a +dull fixity of gaze.</p> + +<p>Harold shrugged and nodded. "I thought that would pain you, and so did +Dora, but there is nothing else to do but to tell you about it frankly. +The heads of the work prefer men with wives, and Dora has her heart set +on aiding me in the Orient."</p> + +<p>The smoldering embers of John's antagonism under its threatened blight +flared up. His blood flowed hotly to his brain. He knew that the +separation would be for years if not for all time, and how could he be +expected to submit calmly to such a heartless course? Could Dora find it +in her gentle nature to desert him like that after all they had been to +each other?</p> + +<p>"I see that you are hurt," Harold sighed, softly, "and I am more than +sorry, Mr. Trott."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p> + +<p>John's anger was dying down; a cool breath of sheer despair and +resignation seemed to blow over him. How could he live on alone? he +wondered, and yet the thing proposed was the logical outcome of many +natural circumstances and had to be borne.</p> + +<p>"I believe," John answered, "that the missionaries, once they leave, do +not return to America frequently?"</p> + +<p>"No, they are all poor people, Mr. Trott, and the money saved from such +costly traveling expenses can be well used in other ways."</p> + +<p>"We'll let that pass," John said, "and come to something else. I have +put by a little money to be given or left to Dora, and—"</p> + +<p>But raising his hand, and flushing freely now, Harold checked him.</p> + +<p>"Don't speak of that, Mr. Trott, please!" he urged. "Dora mentioned +something of the sort to me. She said you had thrown out some hint of it +recently, and she and I talked it over. We both decided that we'd rather +not let you do anything of the sort. You are a young man yourself, and +have already done a thousand times more than your duty to Dora. Indeed, +we'd both feel very unhappy if you carried out such a plan. You laugh at +men of my calling and say they are grafters, but it is really not as you +think. Most of the missionaries I've met are poor men, and they are +willing to remain so. It would be an absurdity for Dora and me to accept +help from you, when our organization is pledged to see that +superannuated ministers and their wives are cared for as long as they +live."</p> + +<p>John was about to speak, vaguely pleased by the manliness of Harold's +words, when Dora suddenly came in. Her face was flushed, but her eyes +were steady. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> stood by Harold's side, who had risen, and smiled half +fearfully at John.</p> + +<p>"Well, have you told him?" she asked Harold.</p> + +<p>He nodded, and put his arm around her waist.</p> + +<p>"I mean, have you told him about China?" she went on, anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Yes"—with a smile—"and that we simply will not let him give us any of +his hard-earned money."</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, brother John," Dora cried. "Not a penny of your money will +I take after all you have done for me. You must get married—you must be +sensible and find you a good wife. You will need all the money you have, +too. It is bad enough—my leaving you like this—without taking your +savings. We simply won't hear to it, will we, Harold?"</p> + +<p>"No," the other answered, firmly. "We'd be acting a lie if we teach +others that poverty and humility are a blessing while having a nest-egg +of our own."</p> + +<p>"Now hear from me." Dora tried to speak with amusing lightness. "While +you were here, Harold, exploding your bomb, I've been telling your +mother. She is down in her room, crying her heart out. She takes it very +hard. It has been the pride of her life that you are a minister, but she +never dreamed that she'd miss hearing you preach every Sunday of her +life, and help you with your work besides. That's the mother of it, and +this is really the hardest blow she's ever had."</p> + +<p>There was a sound of a dog barking down-stairs. It was John's pet +fox-terrier, Binks.</p> + +<p>"He is after a rat," Dora said, forcing a smile to her set face and +somehow not wanting to meet the eyes of the stricken man.</p> + +<p>"Yes"—John rose—"it is time for me to take him out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> He stays in too +much." John knew that he was expected to say more on the other subject, +but all at once his tongue had become tied. An indescribable despair +incased him like walls of sinister darkness. The young couple seemed to +feel his mood and to be baffled by it, standing in the presence of his +disappointment as if conscious of actual guilt in causing it. Neither +said anything, and John got his hat and descended to his dog.</p> + +<p>They heard him whistling to Binks as if nothing unusual had happened. +They heard the yelping animal scampering up the basement steps to meet +him. Creeping wordless, and hand in hand, to the stairs, they saw John +bend down and take the dog in his arms. Binks was licking the side of +his face, and John seemed unconscious of it. The mute watchers heard the +front door close after him. Dora turned back into John's room. She was +wiping her eyes. Harold took her into his arms.</p> + +<p>"Don't, don't, dear!" he said, tenderly. "It can't be helped, you know. +He will suffer—another will suffer, but it has to be. We all bear a +cross of some sort or other."</p> + +<p>"I know it," she continued to sob, "but it is terrible. Harold, I have +never seen such a look on his face as was on it when I came in the room +just now. He looked as if he had lost every hope in life. I didn't think +I'd ever wound him like this. I used to tell him that he and I would be +near together always—if he married or if I married. You see, I know he +counted on it, for he mentioned it frequently. Wasn't that +pitiful—taking Binks up that way? I could almost hear him sob."</p> + +<p>"You are too sentimental, dear," Harold answered, trying to disguise his +own emotion, which perhaps Dora's melting mood had elicited. "You +soft-hearted women are always attributing your own feelings to men. +He'll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> soon get over it. Besides, a man as young as he is ought not to +become a confirmed old bachelor, and this very separation may drive him +into a happiness as normal as yours and mine is going to be."</p> + +<p>"I hope so—oh, I hope so!" Dora whimpered, still wiping her eyes. "If +he should remain unhappy here I am afraid I'd not be wholly content away +from him."</p> + +<p>"He'll marry, don't worry," Harold said, kissing her again. "He's bound +to do so. He is too fine a man to pass his life in loneliness."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II_CHAPTER_III" id="II_CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p>The wedding, one bright morning in June, was a most simple one and took +place in the little church that Harold was leaving. The rites were +performed by the Rev. Arthur Kirkwood, the young minister who was +succeeding him. Harold was popular with his congregation, and the church +was fairly well filled with sympathetic friends, none of whom were known +to John. Indeed, he was a dreary alien in a weirdly convivial +assemblage, the smug elation of which irritated him. Mrs. McGwire, +Betty, and Minnie were all so busy shaking hands with people they knew +that John was really ignored. He wanted it so, and yet he keenly felt +the line of demarcation between the element in which he lived and that +which had engulfed Dora and was sweeping her out of his ken forever. He +sat alone in the second row of seats, only a few feet from the pulpit +and a table laden with flowers. A few young people in the choir overhead +were laughing gaily. The faces all over the room were beaming +expectantly, and some of the most impatient persons asked when the bride +and groom would arrive.</p> + +<p>"At ten o'clock, sharp," Mrs. McGwire said, aloud, so that all could +hear. "They are coming in a carriage, and expect to be driven straight +to the train from here."</p> + +<p>The time dragged slowly for John. He saw a few persons eying him with +mild interest as the brother of the bride, but most of the others were +occupied in exchanging jests or greetings with this or that acquaintance +as their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> heads met over the backs of the seats. To while away the time, +and for the sheer love of it, a man who was a sort of leader in church +singing suddenly began to sing a well-known revival hymn, and the others +joined in lustily. John detested it. He had heard it during his isolated +childhood at Ridgeville, later at Cranston, and here it was a strident +requiem over the bier of his last hope. He was inclined to +self-analysis, and he wondered if any of the audience could imagine the +dark and rebellious state of mind that he was in. He was not jealous of +Harold, he did not begrudge Dora's happiness or desire to curb the +festive mood of the people around him. He was simply in despair and +could see no way of escape. He tried to think of going back to the +office the next day and plunging into work, but how could he do so +without some aim in life? Dora had refused financial aid from him. Of +what account were his past earnings or those of the future?</p> + +<p>The singing was brought to an abrupt end. Mrs. McGwire, who had +stationed herself at the street door, suddenly cried out, "They are +coming!" and a fluttering silence brooded on the room.</p> + +<p>Dora and Harold, accompanied by Mr. Kirkwood, entered the adjoining +Sunday-school room from the street with the playful intent to deceive +the audience, who were watching the front, and the McGwires all hastened +through a doorway near the pulpit to greet them. Betty, a tall, +dignified young lady in a becoming street dress, ran across to John.</p> + +<p>"Will you come speak to them now, or afterward?" she asked, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Afterward," he answered, flushing under the composite stare of the +whole room and irritated by being made so conspicuous.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But you won't have a very good chance then," she advanced. "You know +there will be an awful rush at the carriage. You'd better come now."</p> + +<p>He complied. He found Dora and Harold in the arms of Minnie and her +mother. Both of the latter were weeping.</p> + +<p>"I'd cry, too," Dora said, smiling sadly up at John, "but it would leave +streaks of wet powder on my face. I am to be a pale and interesting +bride. I'm sorry to leave you, brother John."</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Sis," he said, bravely. "Everything goes in this life." She +leaned toward him, and he kissed her. He was still a crude man and +shrank from caressing even Dora in the presence of others.</p> + +<p>"We'll meet again," she said, confidently; "don't let yourself believe +otherwise."</p> + +<p>"All right, I won't." He forced himself to smile.</p> + +<p>"Ten o'clock!" cried out Mr. Kirkwood, who was ready at the door. "You +mustn't miss that train. I'm going in to take my place. Come right in, +Brother McGwire."</p> + +<p>"Then this must be good-by, darling John," Dora whispered. "I know you +won't want to push through the crowd to us afterward."</p> + +<p>"Good-by—good-by," he said, and then he shook hands with Harold. +"Good-by, Harold," he said. "I'm leaving her with you."</p> + +<p>"I'll do my best, Mr. Trott," Harold said, feelingly. "She is a treasure +and I am robbing you. God knows I wish it could be without pain to you."</p> + +<p>"Nevermind; that is all right," John answered.</p> + +<p>Mrs. McGwire and Minnie, a plain, rather gawky girl, went to the first +row of seats in the church, sat down, smiled knowingly at some friends +in the rear, and John and Betty followed. Some one at the organ played +a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> wedding march, and Harold and Dora came in and stood before the +waiting preacher.</p> + +<p>It was soon over. The organ groaned mellowly, and Harold led Dora down +the aisle to the vestibule. The congregation followed like stampeding +cattle. John was left alone, the McGwires having hurried out through the +Sunday-school room to get a last sight of the pair as they entered the +carriage.</p> + +<p>John met Mrs. McGwire outside as the carriage was disappearing down the +street. She said she and her daughters were going to stay awhile to +attend to the flowers and some other gifts, and he went home alone. The +massive door was locked, and, opening it with a pass-key, he entered the +hall. He heard Binks barking in the back yard and he went down to him.</p> + +<p>"They didn't want you there, did they, Binks?" he said, taking the dog +in his arms. "You'd have made a row, wouldn't you? Well, she is gone, +old boy—you don't realize it now, but you will later, when you miss the +feeds and nice baths she gave you. She used to buy choice morsels for +you. I know, for I've seen the bones lying around."</p> + +<p>The remainder of that day he spent in sheer torment, strolling about in +the parks with Binks, and when he returned home he found Betty and +Minnie alone in the parlor. Their eyes were red from weeping.</p> + +<p>"It is on account of the way mother is taking it," Betty explained. +"She's gone to bed with a headache. The excitement of the wedding kept +her up, but she has gone to pieces since they left. Really, Harold was +all she had in the world. Min and I didn't count."</p> + +<p>John could think of nothing to say, and he went on to his room. There +were some blue-prints and calculations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> awaiting his attention on the +big desklike table in his room, and he took them up to look them over, +but laid them down again.</p> + +<p>"What is the use?" he muttered. "My God! what is the use of <i>anything</i>? +Money? What do I care for money? What could I do with it if I had +millions?"</p> + +<p>That night when he was about to go to bed he looked into Dora's room. +She had left it in perfect order, but somehow it seemed as barren as a +room for transient guests in a hotel.</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear Sis," he said, with a lump in his throat. "When you and I +used to get up before day in that old ramshackle home—you in your rags, +and I in my overalls—we didn't dream that all those things would happen +and draw to an end like this. There is nothing for me to look forward +to—nothing, absolutely nothing, but you will find peace, contentment, +and happiness. Well, that is enough. It was worth it, Sis. I'm out of +it, and it is only my yellow streak that is whining."</p> + +<p>The room, in its tomblike silence and inanimate reminders, oppressed him +sorely, and, closing the door that he might not, even by accident, +glance into it again that night, he started to undress for bed, when +Binks began loudly barking down-stairs. Then he heard Betty trying to +quiet him.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter with him?" John called down from the head of the +stairs.</p> + +<p>"I think he wants you," Betty laughed. "I can't pacify him. He keeps +jumping up and down, pawing the floor, and crying like a baby."</p> + +<p>"Unfasten him, please, and let him come up," John answered.</p> + +<p>Immediately there was a swishing, thumping sound on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> the stairs and +Binks rushed into John's room and began to lick his hands and whine. +Although he was ready for bed, John sat down in a big chair, took the +dog into his arms, and fondled him like an infant. Binks seemed to +understand, for he became restful at once. John was not conscious of it, +but he sat with the animal in his lap for nearly an hour. Suddenly he +became aware that it was late, and he put on his bath-robe and slippers, +with the intention of taking the dog down to his kennel, but Binks, as +if reading his mind, ran under the bed and remained out of sight. +Stooping down, John saw a pair of small eyes gleaming in the shadow.</p> + +<p>"Poor little devil, he's lonely, too!" John muttered. "Say, Binks, come +out—let's talk it over. You want to sleep with me to-night, eh? All +right, we'll keep each other company."</p> + +<p>It was as if the little animal understood, for he came out readily, +wagging his stubby tail, and began to stand on his hind feet and lick +his master's hands. "All right, all right." John took him up in his +arms, bore him to his bed, and placed him on the side next to the wall. +And, as if fearful that John might change his mind, Binks snuggled down +between the sheets, his snout on his paws, his eyes blinking almost with +pretended drowsiness.</p> + +<p>"Sly old boy!" John laughed, softly, and, throwing off his robe and +slippers, he closed his door and lay down by the dog. His strong arm +touched the sleek coat of his pet and somehow the contact soothed him. +With a tightness of the throat, his eyes suffused with restrained tears, +he told himself that absolutely all had not been taken from him, for +Binks was left.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II_CHAPTER_IV" id="II_CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p>Another year passed. As he had feared it would be, John's life was all +but aimless and becoming even monotonous. What mattered it whether he +and Reed had one or two contracts more or less in the year? Neither of +them really was in need of the profits earned, and the business +continued to come as fast as they cared to attend to it. John liked best +the outside work, for then he took Binks along with him, and sometimes +in bad weather he even brought the dog to the office, where Binks would +lie quietly under his desk till called out by his master for lunch or a +short stroll in the quieter streets.</p> + +<p>"You are too much attached to him," Reed said to him. "I have a friend +who used to have a pet like that. Some devilish person poisoned it one +night, and my friend never could get over it. He told me that if it had +been his only child it wouldn't have hurt him any more."</p> + +<p>John shuddered and frowned darkly. "I know how he felt," he answered, +simply, and turned away.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>One morning, when John had the office entirely to himself and was going +over some intricate plans and estimates, his stenographer came to him.</p> + +<p>"There is an old man at the door who wants to see you," she announced. +"He refused to give his name or state his business."</p> + +<p>"Well, tell him, then, that I won't see him," John ordered, +impatiently.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p> + +<p>The girl left and came back. "He wouldn't give his name," she said, "but +he said to tell you that he was an old friend and was very anxious to +see you—that he hasn't seen you for about eleven years."</p> + +<p>"Eleven years—an old friend!" John said to himself, aghast. "Who could +it be, unless—" The girl was waiting, and he said, "Tell him to come +in, please."</p> + +<p>The girl went out and ushered in a gray-haired, gray-bearded old man who +walked with a cane and was so bent downward that, under a broad-brimmed +straw hat, John did not at once see his features. The stenographer +retired to her workroom in the rear, and the visitor came to John.</p> + +<p>It was Cavanaugh, who now removed his hat and exposed his face to view, +a face gashed with deep lines, and fairly shrinking under a sort of awed +timidity.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I'm not welcome, John," he faltered, his wrinkled brow +mantled with red, his old, fat hand checked in its impulsive movement +forward and falling at his side. "I ought not to have come like this, +but I couldn't help it. I was in the city, and wanted to see you for a +lot of reasons."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Sam," John answered, extending his hand and trying to +divest himself of the visible effects of the shock he had received. "How +did you find me? Sit down."</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh took the proffered chair. John pitied him, for his hands +crossed on the top of his cane quivered with intense excitement, and his +eyes swept the room with the slow awe of a beggar in the house of a +prince.</p> + +<p>"Mostly by accident," he answered, "and putting two and two together, +and reasoning it out like a one-horse detective on his first job. John, +I know I've done wrong, but—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Forget all that, Sam," John said, more at ease. "Don't think I've +forgotten you. You are the one friend in the world that I really cared +for down there, and it was my intention to get at you sooner or later. I +thought, however, that I was considered dead to you and everybody at +Ridgeville."</p> + +<p>"You are—you <i>still</i> are," Cavanaugh said. "It is like this, John, and +in a way your secret is still safe, for I won't give it away. You +remember Todd Williams. He is in the firm of Williams & Chelton. They +set up in dry-goods after you left. Well, last fall he was on here +buying goods, and when he came back home one day after meeting—we +belong to the same church—he called me off to one side like, and said, +said he:</p> + +<p>"'Sam, an odd thing happened to me on the Elevated train while I was in +New York,' and with that he went on to say that while he sat reading his +paper a feller got in and sat in front of him that was the exact image +of you. He said the likeness was so great that he came in an inch of +speaking to the feller, but, remembering the news of your death, he let +it pass. Then he asked me if I thought there could have been any mistake +made about you and Dora being in that wreck. I told him I thought not, +and left him, but I'm here to confess, John, that from that minute my +mind wasn't fully at rest. Hundreds of times I rolled it over and over +in my thoughts—at night in bed, at work, in meeting, at meals with my +wife—everywhere. Always, always I was wondering if you might be still +alive, fighting your fight and making good away off som'ers. I told my +wife how I was worried and she made light of it—said she herself often +saw resemblances to folks in new faces. Then I guess I would have +dropped it, but for one little, tiny thing that popped into my head one +night<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> while I was listening to a long-winded prayer during a revival. +Well, sir, like a flash of blasting-powder this thought came to me. You +left our town in the dead of night, and it was reasonable to suppose +that you did everything you could to keep folks from knowing who you was +and where you was bound for. Didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," John nodded, and sat waiting.</p> + +<p>"I thought so," Cavanaugh continued. "So you see, when the list of the +lost was printed, and your name and Dora's, and your age and hers, and +the town you was from, was given, the question come to me, who was it +that reported them things so accurate after that awful disaster? You +wouldn't have been handing your name and the child's about amongst +strangers on the train before the accident, and if your bodies was +burned up, all your belongings, papers, and the like would have been +destroyed, and— Well, you see what I mean?"</p> + +<p>John started and stared steadily. "I see it now, Sam, but I never +thought of it before. I suppose everybody else overlooked that point but +you."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm the only one," Cavanaugh answered. "Well, John, after that, +instead of being dead to me, somehow you got alive again. I don't want +to talk like a sniffling old woman, John, for you are older now, but I +loved you like a son, and the hope that you was alive and doing well up +here made me powerful happy. You see, until your trouble come like a +clap of thunder, I was almost living for you and your interests. I +wanted us to establish a business between us that you could carry on +after me and my old lady was gone, so, when I began to tote about the +idea of you not being dead, I could think of nothing else, till—well, +till I come here and found your name in the directory. You were the only +John<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> Trott in it, and was a contractor, and I knew I'd run you to your +hole."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you did, Sam," John answered. "I've always wanted to see you +again, but didn't know how to bring it about with absolute safety to my +plans. I'd cut out the whole thing down there, and it seemed best to +forget it—best for me and for Dora. She was so young when she was down +there that she has almost forgotten the worst features of +it—about—about her aunt and other things, I mean."</p> + +<p>"I was going to inquire about her," Cavanaugh said. "Is she well and all +right?"</p> + +<p>John explained briefly, and heard his old friend sighing. "And so you +are all alone now, not married—no one with you at all."</p> + +<p>John nodded. "Oh, I'm all right. I'm 'neither sugar nor salt,'" he +quoted an old saying. "Don't worry about me, Sam. I'll get along some +way or other."</p> + +<p>There was silence between the two for a few minutes. It was as if the +old man were wondering what further information he might be at liberty +to give pertaining to the past. Presently he cleared his throat and +said:</p> + +<p>"Your ma is still alive, John. Jane Holder is dead. Lots and lots of +things that you don't know about have happened down home since you left. +As soon as Jane Holder died your ma quit living in that old house. She +pulled up stakes and drifted about some. She stayed awhile in Atlanta, +then in Nashville, and finally came back to our town and moved out in +the country. She was—was befriended—a nice woman and her husband sort +of—well, I suppose they sort of took pity on her, and—"</p> + +<p>"Stop, Sam!" John's face was dark and twisted from inner agony. "Please +don't mention her. For Dora's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> sake I've been trying to think of her as +never having actually existed. I don't blame her, you understand. She is +living her life and I'm living mine. I don't blame people for their +natures or characteristics. Such things come at birth. My father was one +thing—she was another. But I've fought down my past, torn it out like +an unwholesome dream. I may be mistaken, Sam, but it seems to me that I +ought not to talk about all that now. I've fought to acquire a new life, +and to some extent I have won it. What lies before me I don't know, and +I don't greatly care. I'm still young in years and strong of body and +mind, but I feel actually old. I suppose you have some sort of faith +still. I have none at all. Dora has it, and it has made her contented, +happy, and useful. I am glad she has it. I wouldn't take it from her. +Tilly—Tilly used to—"</p> + +<p>The name was spoken impulsively, as if some subconscious force or habit +had assumed control over a tongue well bridled till now, and with tight +lips John suddenly checked himself and sat flushing under the old man's +kindly stare.</p> + +<p>"I was going to mention her," Cavanaugh put in, his honest eyes falling +to the floor, "but didn't know exactly how you'd feel about it. Oh yes, +I still believe in a great Supreme Power that works for eternal good. +Shall I tell you about Tilly?"</p> + +<p>John was silent. His face had grown rigid and even pale. His lips +quivered. "I think I know two things about her," he finally said. +"Somehow I feel sure that she is alive and married to Joel Eperson."</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh nodded slowly. "Yes, my boy; she finally took him, but it was +not till four years after the report of your death. I see her and Joel +off and on from time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> to time. It will do no good to open old wounds +now, but I'll say this, John, and that is that your wife's constancy to +your memory, and Joel's faithfulness to her through all her trouble—the +death of her ma and pa, and—and some other things—has given the lie to +every statement ever made that men and women don't actually love each +other. If Tilly had had the slightest hope that you were living she'd +have remained single till the end of time. She never considered that +court edict as right. Oh, I wish I could—could tell you all I know on +that line, but it would do no good now."</p> + +<p>"No, we'd better drop it," John said, heavily. "It will do no good to go +over it. I've regarded it as a dead issue for eleven years."</p> + +<p>"That may be," Cavanaugh said to himself, "but he is stunned, actually +stunned. I see it in his face and hear it in his voice. Poor boy! Poor +boy!"</p> + +<p>"Before dropping the subject I will tell you one thing more," the old +man said, aloud, "and that is that they have two children, a boy of +about six and a little girl of four or five. They are sweet little tots +and are a great comfort. They are images of their mother, and I love +'em."</p> + +<p>"Tell me this—tell me this, Sam," John said, and it was as if a great +anxiety rested on him. "I want to know this. Of course, you'll see that +it is no affair of mine, but I'd like to know if Eperson is providing +well for Til—for his wife and children. Sam, she has suffered a lot +through no fault of her own, and most of that suffering came through +happening to meet me up there at Cranston and that silly boy-and-girl +fancy of—of hers and mine. She deserves an easier time from now on, and +that is why I'd like to know how she and Eperson are financially +situated."</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh drew his scraggy brows together. His color<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> deepened to red in +his cheeks. "I wish I could make a good report on that line," he +answered, awkwardly, "but I can't give you the best of news. Joel is not +to blame, though. I'll say that. He simply belongs to the class of men +that come, as he did, from landholders and slave-holders. Such men are +highly honorable, but they simply don't know how to make ends meet."</p> + +<p>"Then they are poor, very poor?" John said, grimly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, very poor," was the reluctant answer. "I'm not blaming Joel. He +has done the best he could. I've never seen a man work harder. If he had +been stingy and grasping he'd have made better headway, but he is always +doing for others. Old Whaley died insolvent, and Joel took care of the +widow and paid out big doctor's bills trying to save her life, through a +long sick spell, and when she passed away he paid all the funeral +expenses and put up a nice stone over the two graves. He doesn't own any +land of his own, but rents a few acres here and there from year to year. +He has to buy his supplies on credit at a high rate of profit, and is +always up to his eyes in debt. Huh! John, you fellers that can work in a +fine office like this, wear clothes like you've got on, and ride home in +a comfortable car, reading your paper or smoking—I say, such as you +have little notion what an easy berth you have compared to fellers like +Joel Eperson. That is the sort of a thing that shakes my faith in the +Almighty a little mite sometimes, but I don't let it get hold of me. In +any case, Joel is blessed by having the wife he got. She is the most +patient little mother that ever lived. I've never heard her complain. I +did hear her say once, though, when I happened to pass along where she +was at work in the cotton-field and stopped to chat a minute—she told +me that she didn't ever worry about what would happen to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> her and Joel, +because they could die and be done with it, but she did trouble about +the children. She is so anxious for them to grow up and get an education +and be useful in life, and she doesn't see much hope of it."</p> + +<p>"You say she actually works in the field?" John exclaimed, with a +shudder and a darkening face.</p> + +<p>"Not always, but sometimes when Joel is away or sick, or when the crops +are suffering for immediate attention. You know labor is high and cash +is generally paid, and Joel hasn't the means to hire help at the time he +needs it the most. Take cotton-picking, for instance. If the staple +isn't taken from the boll in time the weather stains and ruins it. It is +at a time like that that Tilly helps. But don't let it fret you. She +told me, with that sweet smile of hers that I used to love so much when +me and you was boarding with her folks, that outdoor work was good for +her. But Joel objects to it. I saw him come out in the corn one day and +take the hoe away from her and send her in the house. I never saw a +sadder look on a proud man's face.</p> + +<p>"'She <i>will</i> do it,' he said to me, almost groaning, as he spoke. Joel +got confidential that day. He talked free-like, as men do when they +reach the very bottom of ill luck. 'I thought,' said he, 'that I was +doing right in marrying Tilly, for she was all alone in the world and +unprotected, but you see what I've brought her to. I had hopes then— I +have none now. Things never take an upward turn for some men, Cavanaugh. +They head downward, and they pull everything they touch with them. They +marry wives and make them suffer. They bring children into the world to +suffer, and they go on that way till the earth receives their useless +remains, and that is the end of their dreams.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I tried to cheer him up, but I couldn't. I wish, John, that I could +tell you about his unselfishness as to one thing in particular, but I +reckon I'd better not. It would do no good. I see from your looks that +all this is going hard with you."</p> + +<p>"No, nothing is to be gained by it, Sam," John said, shrugging his +shoulders. He looked at his watch. "You must go to lunch with me," he +said. "I want to see as much of you as possible while you are here."</p> + +<p>"I am agreeable," Cavanaugh said, with a touch of his former ease of +manner. "It seems like old times once more, my boy."</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>They lunched together and afterward went to the small hotel where +Cavanaugh was staying, got the old man's valise, and went to John's +home. Cavanaugh was put into Dora's old room and given to understand +that it was his as long as he remained in the city. For a week the two +friends were constantly together. John took the time off from business, +and, with Binks trotting between them, the physically ill-mated and yet +mentally congenial pair took long walks together. And not since Dora's +departure had John felt so soothed and comforted. A spiritual force of +some sort seemed to radiate from the bent old man that for the time +almost regenerated his companion. John had discovered that Cavanaugh +loved him as a son and regarded him with an ardent mixture of pride and +ecstasy, as a son restored from death to life. Sometimes, in their +ascent of an incline in their strolls, the old man would quite +unconsciously catch hold of the arm of the younger, and in speaking he +often held John's hand in one of his and gently stroked it, as if +unconscious of what he was doing. At times, for no particular reason, he +would lower<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> his voice into an almost confidential whisper. However, it +was on the last night of his stay, before his departure the following +morning, that John was permitted to see even more deeply into +Cavanaugh's heart. They were in Dora's room. The old man was undressing +for bed when suddenly he sat down, locked his toil-hardened fingers +between his knees, and lowered his shaggy head, as if buffeting an +unexpected wave of despair.</p> + +<p>"I want to tell you something, John," he said, in a shaky voice. "And I +don't want you to forget it as long as life stays in you. I want you to +know that no days in all my existence have been as happy as these with +you. Not even my honeymoon, John, and that is saying a lot. I can't tell +you about it. When I try my tongue fails, my throat fills, and my eyes +stream with tears. You'll never regret being so good to me. God won't +give you cause to ever regret it. What is ahead of me seems mighty +short. I'll be dead, I guess, too soon for me to ever think about coming +to New York again, and I know how you feel about going down there, but +I'll take a sweet memory to my grave with me, John, and that is that +you, with all your up-to-date success and education, treated me as sweet +and gentle as a dutiful son would an old, unpolished, plain father that +he loved and respected. You are lonely and unhappy, and I see no way to +help you. That hurts. That hurts deep down in me! I hate to go away and +leave you like this, never to see you again. What I told you +about—about the little woman that was once your wife struck you a +deadly blow between the eyes. You thought you had counted on her +marrying again, but I reckon, after all, you hadn't really done that. I +see—I understand. You have been all these years holding her in your +heart, somehow, as yours in spirit if not in body, and now for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> the +first time you are trying to look the facts in the face. I've noticed +that you don't sleep sound. I hear you stirring about in the night."</p> + +<p>John made no denial, and the fact that he did not do so proved to +Cavanaugh that what he had said was true.</p> + +<p>John rose and started to his own room. "I'll have you up in time for +your train," he said. "Get a good sleep. You will need it before +starting on a long journey like yours. Good night."</p> + +<p>"Good night, my boy, good night," Cavanaugh said.</p> + +<p>From his own room, where John sat smoking in the dark, he saw the light +go out in Cavanaugh's room. He listened, expecting to hear the bed creak +as it always did when the old man got upon it, but now there was no +sound. There was silence for nearly half an hour, and then the telltale +creaking came. John understood. Had he had a watch and a light, he +could, to a second, have timed one of the saddest and most unselfish of +prayers.</p> + +<p>"Poor, dear old Sam!" he muttered, and began to undress for bed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II_CHAPTER_V" id="II_CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<p>After Cavanaugh's departure the time hung heavy over John. He seldom +heard from Dora, and, as business happened to be rather quiet, he really +was too inactive for one of his introspective temperament. When not at +work he spent the time altogether in the company of Binks, who seemed to +have become actually human in his fidelity and affection.</p> + +<p>One day, having to inspect a finished building on Washington Heights, +not far from Dyckman Street, he took the dog along. And when the work +was over he and Binks strolled down to the Hudson and walked along the +shore. It was a warm day, and men, women, and children were fishing and +bathing in the clear water.</p> + +<p>Presently a spot was reached that looked inviting, and John decided to +eat the lunch there that he had brought along. So, seating himself on a +water-worn boulder, he opened his parcel and fed Binks as he himself +ate.</p> + +<p>Across the river in a bluish haze towered the Palisades, and on either +side of him in the distance jutted out from the shore he was on long, +slender, gray and yellow boat-houses with their pile-anchored floats. On +his right at the water's edge was a group of Italians, picnicking +together. There were the four heads of two families, stocky +laboring-men, fat housewives, and young girls and boys. They had made a +fire of driftwood on the rocks, and John could see a great pot of +something stewing, and smelled the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> aroma of coffee and broiled +sausages. The boys and girls had put on foreign-looking bathing-suits +and, with tiny water-wings under their arms, were splashing about, +trying to learn to swim.</p> + +<p>"Binks, old chap," John said, aloud, as had become a habit of his, +"there are some deep holes where those silly people are. Those kids may +get beyond their depth. I hope the men can swim."</p> + +<p>The Italians had a guitar. Some one played it, and native songs were +sung. They were very happy. John told himself that it might be some sort +of reunion of close friends or relatives. There were so many shouts of +merriment in Italian, loud commands to the children from their mothers, +and joyous retorts from the bathers, that John failed to hear a shrill +cry of alarm from their midst. It was Binks, indeed, who suddenly +pricked up his ears, barked, and began to run toward the picnickers. At +first, absorbed in reflection, John paid no attention to the dog's +antics, but, as Binks continued to bark excitedly, he stood up and +looked toward the bathers. The children now ashore were screaming, women +were shouting, waving their hands, and with their clothing on the two +men were wading out into the water which from the passage of a great +steamer was rolling like the surf of an ocean. That the men could not +swim John saw at once, and he ran down the shore toward them.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, meester, save her! save my daughter!" a man screamed. +"Me no swim! Dere, dere!" and he pointed to a pair of water-wings +floating in a circle of bubbles thirty feet from the rocks.</p> + +<p>John was a good swimmer, and, throwing off his coat, he plunged in at +once, but Binks, who had been taught to spring into water and fetch back +such things as sticks or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> a ball thrown in, and had sighted the +water-wings, was several yards ahead of him.</p> + +<p>"Dere, dere! My God! she's up de third time!" shrieked the girl's +father. "Catch her, meester, catch her! It's de last time—de last +time!"</p> + +<p>On a curling swell John saw the girl's head and shoulders above the +water. She was going down again, and a great rolling wave was close upon +her. John saw that he could not reach her in time, and he saw something +else that filled him with horror. Binks, with the captured water-wings +in his mouth, was within the girl's reach, and she grasped him and +dragged him under. There was a gurgling struggle, widening rings filled +with bubbles floated on the swaying water, and nothing was seen of the +girl or the dog.</p> + +<p>A wail of despair rang out from the shore; men, women, and children ran +to and fro, screaming. John was soon over the spot where the girl and +dog had disappeared, and, exhausting the air from his lungs, he dived +down as far as he could. He kept his eyes open, and moving from him in +the murky depths he could not quite reach for lack of breath he saw the +blue dress of the girl. That Binks was in her dying clutch he well knew. +The buoyancy of John's body raised him to the top sooner than he wished, +and when he appeared with nothing in his grasp the screams from the +shore were louder than ever.</p> + +<p>"Again! again! meester!" the father yelled, "farther up. O God! O God!"</p> + +<p>Again John dived. This time he went quite to the bottom and crawled +along from rock to rock, keeping himself down by the clutch of his +hands. But to no avail. He saw nothing and was fairly bursting for lack +of breath. The progress upward seemed endless, and when the surface<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> was +reached he was almost dead from exhaustion. But he dived again and +again. Binks was drowning, he kept thinking, and there was little else +in his mind. When he had dived unsuccessfully a dozen times a man +arrived in a rowboat from one of the boat-houses with a rope and +grappling-irons. Taking John into the boat, the two began to drag the +river over the fatal spot. The man held the oars and John the rope.</p> + +<p>"She's been under fifteen minutes," the boatman said. "There is little +chance now, even if we get her up. My God! what fools those greasers +are! Eating, drinking, and singing while their kid was going down!"</p> + +<p>John had time to observe the group on the shore now. The mother of the +girl had fainted, and the other woman was fanning her as she lay on the +rocks, unsheltered from the sun. The children, in their wet suits, stood +crying lustily.</p> + +<p>"We can't do anything now," the boatman said when another five minutes +had passed. "She is done for, but we'd as well keep on the job to +satisfy 'em. The tow has taken her out, most likely."</p> + +<p>Ten minutes more. Even the group on the shore seemed to have given up +hope. However, the irons caught. It might be a rock, John thought, but +the object yielded gently. "Hold! Not so hard!" John ordered. "You might +pull it loose. I've caught something!"</p> + +<p>Carefully he drew in the rope. He saw the blue dress through several +feet of water, and, reaching down, he caught it with his hand. A moment +later and the drowned girl, with Binks clutched in her death-grip, was +drawn into the boat.</p> + +<p>A scream of joy from the reviving mother of the girl rent the air. +Having been unconscious of the passage of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> time, she evidently thought +her child might yet be alive. As the boatman gently pulled toward the +rocks, John disengaged Binks from the stiff fingers, and held him in his +lap.</p> + +<p>"Poor mut!" the boatman said. "She choked the life out of him. They are +always like that—they will grab at a floating chip. Turn the girl's +head down, will you, and let the water run out? There may be a speck of +life left, but I think she is as dead as a mackerel."</p> + +<p>Putting Binks aside, John obeyed. The girl's face was purple, her lips +foaming. The rocks reached, the two Italian men, their yellow faces +stamped with agony, were ready up to their waists in water to take the +girl ashore.</p> + +<p>John knew nothing about what is called "first aid to the drowning," and +so, with his dead pet in his arms, he climbed up the rocks. Men were +gathering from the two boat-houses. He heard somebody say, "There is a +cop and a doctor!" The screaming women, the sobbing children, the awed +questions of spectators just arrived, fell on closed ears, as far as +John was concerned. Picking up his coat, he wrapped it about Binks and +bore him homeward. Looking back, he saw the doctor examining the body on +the rocks. John sat down alone in the sun. He told himself that he would +let his clothing dry on him as he walked homeward. But what was to be +done about the body of his pet? He couldn't take it home with him, and +he knew of no burial-ground for dogs. He sat down on the shore to think +it out. His mind was in a queer jumble of resentment and resigned +despair. How could Binks actually be dead? How could he go home without +him? And yet the wet, limp object with the bulging, glazed eyes and +distorted muzzle was all that was left of the loving, vivacious animal +to which he had been so warmly linked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span></p> + +<p>The doctor was coming back. He passed John, and then paused. "Is that +the dog she drowned?" he asked, bending down sympathetically and +stroking the animal's coat.</p> + +<p>"Yes. How is the girl?" John asked.</p> + +<p>"Dead," was the answer, and the doctor stood erect and walked away.</p> + +<p>For several hours John remained on the shore. He saw the Italians +bearing the girl's body away, followed by the women and children. Then a +thought came to him. There was a dense strip of sloping wooded land +between the river and the nearest street, and in the midst of it stood a +tall oak. At the foot of this tree he would bury Binks's remains. The +oak would be a landmark that he could easily single out again. He found +some newspapers, and, wrapping up the body in them, he dug a grave and +put his pet into it.</p> + +<p>The sun was going down above the New Jersey cliffs when the rite was +ended. The great disk was as red as living coals of fire. A tree with +shooting branches and stark trunk three miles away was clearly outlined +across its face. A big excursion-steamer bound for Albany was passing. +The surface of the river was sprinkled with sail-boats and varicolored +canoes. From somewhere on the water came the clear, joyous tones of a +cornet. Some player was putting his soul into his music. John walked +down to one of the boat-houses. Men were fishing from the float. At a +crude bar he bought a cigar and lighted it. He asked about the fishing +of one of the fishermen and apathetically listened while the man talked +of rods, reels, lines, sinkers, and bait. John did not want to go home. +The thought of the hot, close, and lonely house, in his present frame of +mind, was repellent. He wondered if he was giving way to sickly +sentimentality, for he had a desire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> to pass that night in the wood in +solitary vigil over the grave of his loved companion.</p> + +<p>Presently he shrugged his shoulders and started homeward. "Be a man, +John Trott!" he said, with closed lips. "Why shouldn't Binks +die?—everybody has to die sooner or later. What does it matter? The +only thing that matters is to bear your burden like a soldier and a +man."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II_CHAPTER_VI" id="II_CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dear John [so ran the first letter from Cavanaugh after the +latter returned to Ridgeville]—I hardly know how to begin +this letter. Since I got home I declare everything here +seems awfully tame. That was a wonderful visit I had as I +look back on it. I wish it could have gone on forever. I am +glad I saw you, for a lot of reasons. You were lonely and +blue, my boy. Even your partner spoke to me about you. He +said since Dora left that you was really in danger of a +nervous breakdown. Mrs. McGwire and her oldest girl said the +same thing. They were all worried about you, and so am I.</p> + +<p>I've got a confession to make, and the sooner it is made the +better I'll feel. John, you know how a town like this one +is. The folks here love to gossip about anything they can +pick up, and I'm going to tell you that when it got +circulated among some of your old work friends that I'd gone +to New York a few of them began to nose about and make +inquiries. They thought it was such a peculiar thing, you +see, for a man of my age and habits to do that they kept +talking and talking and joking and what not. Then, as might +have been expected, Todd Williams, who you remember thought +he saw you on the train in New York, put his finger into the +pie. He told it about that he was now more sure than ever +that it was you he saw on the train and that I had gone up +there to see you. That did the job, and I don't know what to +do about it. Folks meet me on the street and ask about you +as if it was a settled fact that you never died in that +wreck, and, with their eyes staring straight into mine, I +don't know what to do or say. John, I don't know how to lie +with a sober face. The more I shifted about and tried to get +out of it the more they believed it, till now, no matter +what I say, they only laugh and make fun and say that I'm +keeping something back. So please tell me what to do. The +truth is that the facts, if they get out, will never harm +you in any way. It is now so long since you left that only a +very few that used to know you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> are alive or here. The fever +for going West struck most of your old friends and they +moved away. I really think that I'd advise you not to keep +the truth back any longer. Questions are asked about what +came of Dora, and if I say that she is married and gone away +it will end all sorts of idle speculations.</p> + +<p>If I've got you into a fix in this matter please forgive me, +for it all came about through no intention of mine. If I +could lie as straight as some contractors can beat down the +price of material or wages, I'd have got you out of this, +but I'm getting old and I'm like a baby in the hands of +these mouthing, tattling folks. Oh, how I wish you could +come down here! You'd not feel as bad about all that has +happened if you'd come down and visit me and my wife, and +throw it off like an old worn-out coat. What a joy it would +be to give you a room and see you seated at our humble +board! Think it over, my boy. Life is short at best, and we +ought to spend part of it with the folks that really love +us, and we love you, John—both of us do.</p></div> + +<p>John sat down in his room one night to answer this letter, but, though +he tried very hard, he could think of little to say. Cavanaugh's simple +phrases had sounded his deepest emotional depths, and yet he could not +bring himself to write an appropriate response. He started to mention +the death of Binks, but gave that up. That, he argued, would only cause +his old friend to be the more deeply concerned over his welfare. So he +wrote the most cheerful letter of which he was capable, about his +activity in business matters, and his ability to look on the bright side +of such things as the absence of Dora and his unmarried state. He ended +the letter with this:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Yes, I fully agree with you in regard to a frank and +truthful statement about my being alive, etc. I understand +the situation and don't blame you at all. Tell every one who +cares to inquire that the newspaper report was a mistake and +that you saw me while you were here. I want to see you and +your wife as badly as you want to see me, but I'm afraid I +cannot come down, now, at any rate.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II_CHAPTER_VII" id="II_CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<p>Joel Eperson sat on his small one-horse wagon, which was loaded with +fire-wood. He was taking the wood to Cavanaugh's from the small farm he +was renting two miles from Ridgeville. Joel had aged remarkably. Young +as he was, his thin hair and beard were becoming gray, and his sallow +face was seamed with lines of worry and care. His clothing was of the +cheapest material and threadbare, and yet faultlessly clean. As he got +down at the front gate Cavanaugh and his wife, who were seated under an +apple-tree at the side of the house, came around to meet him.</p> + +<p>"Here is the wood you wanted," Joel said, removing his hat in quite his +old chivalrous way. "You said dry oak, and I found plenty on the hill +back of my corn-field."</p> + +<p>"And mighty nigh killed yourself cutting it in lengths and splitting +it," Cavanaugh said. "Dry oak is a hard proposition for anything but a +sawmill. What do you want for this load?"</p> + +<p>"A dollar is what I usually get," Joel answered, sensitive as he always +was when dealing with friends.</p> + +<p>"Humph!" Cavanaugh sniffed, and looked at his wife. "This load is twice +as big as any dollar load I ever bought, and will throw out twice as +much heat to the square inch. I'll tell you, Joel, I've got a two-dollar +bill that is burning a hole in my pocket, and it goes for this load of +wood or you have me to whip. We are out of stove-wood, too, and I don't +want any dickering from you about it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p> + +<p>Joel flushed under his tattered straw hat. "It isn't worth that much," +he declared, tapping the ground with his whip.</p> + +<p>"It is worth it to me, Joel," Cavanaugh smiled, "so what can you do +about it? I won't take double value from any man, much less you. How is +Tilly?"</p> + +<p>"She is fairly well, thank you," the farmer replied.</p> + +<p>"And the little ones?" Mrs. Cavanaugh asked, with a motherly smile.</p> + +<p>"They are both all right, thank you," Joel said, his undecided glance on +his wood. Then, to his surprise, the contractor came through the gate, +took the reins from his hands, and drove the horse with its load around +to the gate at the side of the house. Halting there, Cavanaugh began to +throw the wood over the fence.</p> + +<p>"Let him have his way, Joel," Mrs. Cavanaugh said, smiling. "He'd be +miserable if he got anything too cheap from an old friend like you. +Before you start home, come in; I've made two little waists for the +children from a pattern Tilly lent me the last time she was in. I hope +they will fit."</p> + +<p>"You are always doing things like that, and yet want me to take double +price for my produce," Joel said, frowning. "Something is wrong +somewhere, Mrs. Cavanaugh."</p> + +<p>The old woman laughed lightly. "Go help Sam throw off the wood, Joel," +she said. "Don't tell me I haven't the right to sew for little children +when I have none of my own. I love your two, and what I do for them has +nothing to do with you."</p> + +<p>With a look of blended pleasure and pain, Joel joined Cavanaugh, and +together they unloaded the wagon. When it was empty Joel shook the bits +of bark and chips from the plank flooring, and stared at the contractor +timidly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> "There is a matter I want to ask you about, Mr. Cavanaugh," he +began, clearing his throat. "It is a serious thing for me, and my wife, +too. I've wanted to mention it for several days—in fact, since I first +heard of it. I really don't know whether I have the right to ask you, +and if I haven't you must stop me. Mr. Cavanaugh, all sorts of stories +have been floating about to the effect that—that my wife's—that John +Trott's reported death was a mistake, and that—and that you went up to +New York to—"</p> + +<p>Joel broke off. He was quite agitated.</p> + +<p>"I know what you mean," Cavanaugh put into the break. "How did you hear +it?"</p> + +<p>"My neighbors are all talking about it," said Eperson, laboriously, his +face now grim and fixed. "I went to Todd Williams and asked him about +it. All he could tell me was that he saw a man in New York that looked +like John Trott, but he said it might have been only a fancy. Of course, +I've kept the talk from Tilly as much as possible. I asked our neighbors +not to mention it to her and they promised, but—but—"</p> + +<p>"You think she has heard it?" Cavanaugh submitted, gravely.</p> + +<p>Eperson nodded. A grim expression twisted his lips awry and left them +quivering as he spoke. "Yes, I think some part of it, at least, has +reached her. I saw a change in her last night when she came back from a +visit to the Creswells. She didn't mention it to me, but I was watching +her and I saw a change. She was excited. I think I might call it +excitement, Mr. Cavanaugh, and she didn't sleep well last night. She got +up several times, and it seemed to me once that she was about to speak +to me about it, but still she didn't."</p> + +<p>"I see, I see," said Cavanaugh, slowly. "Well, Joel, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> hardly know what +is right to do in a matter as delicate as this is, but still right is +right, and if there is anybody in the world that ought to know the truth +about this, why, it is you and Tilly. Joel, the truth is, John Trott and +Dora are both still alive."</p> + +<p>"Then, then, <i>it is true</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Joel; I've just had a letter from John and he wants the facts +known. But I don't see that there is any reason for you to be disturbed. +You see, the law parted John and Tilly years ago, and even if it hadn't, +his long desertion (we'll call it that) would have amounted to the same +in any court."</p> + +<p>Like an automaton which all but creaked in its joints, Joel took up his +reins. Tapping his thin horse with his whip and making a clucking sound +between his teeth, he turned his wagon around.</p> + +<p>"Wait! You haven't been paid yet," Cavanaugh cried, holding out a bill.</p> + +<p>Pausing, a flurried, far-away look in his eyes, Joel took the money.</p> + +<p>"Thank you—thank you," he ejaculated. "So there's no doubt about it? +Did you actually see him, Mr. Cavanaugh—with your own eyes, I mean? I +don't want any hearsay or second-hand report. I want the truth—the +facts."</p> + +<p>"I spent a week with him, Joel."</p> + +<p>Eperson wound the lines around his left hand and brought his desperate +eyes back to Cavanaugh's face. "There is one thing more," he gulped, his +hand at his throat. "Is he—is John Trott a—a married man?"</p> + +<p>"No, Joel; he's single. Marrying didn't seem to be—well, exactly in his +line. His time has been taken up with a growing business, his books, a +pet dog, and Dora. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> was like a loving sister, I understand, till she +married a man she loved and moved out of the country. John is a sort +of—well, you might say a sort of stay-at-home, soured old bachelor that +never took much to women. At least that's the way I size him up. He +makes plenty of money, and has laid up some, but I don't think he cares +much for it. He's odd—a sort of deep-feeling fellow—different from the +general run of men."</p> + +<p>In a nervous sort of movement Joel wiped his lips with his hand.</p> + +<p>"There is a thing I'd like to know," he said, slowly, impressively, +frankly. "You say he is single, and that makes me wonder. Mr. Cavanaugh, +truth is truth, and, as you say, right is right; would you mind telling +me whether you think he has—has changed—well, in regard to his—his +feeling toward Tilly?"</p> + +<p>"You are asking me a ticklish question," Cavanaugh said, with a start +and a dropping of his honest eyes. "You see, John never came right out +and talked plain on that line, and—"</p> + +<p>"I was only asking for your <i>personal</i> opinion," emphasized Joel; "in +talking with him did you gather that—that his sentiments had undergone +no change since he left here?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see what good it will do," the old man said, "but since you +insist on knowing I may as well admit that I didn't see any change. In +my opinion, Joel, he loves her even more than he did. He didn't say so, +you understand, but that's what I gathered. I was watching him when I +told him about you and her getting married, and I must say I pitied him. +I don't know why, but I did. He looked so downcast, and, you might say, +almost astonished."</p> + +<p>With the groping movement of a man in the dark, Eperson<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> started to get +into his wagon, but was stopped by Mrs. Cavanaugh.</p> + +<p>"Wait, Joel!" she called out. "You are forgetting these things," and she +brought them to him wrapped up in paper. "Give Tilly my love and tell +her if the waists don't fit I can take them in or let them out."</p> + +<p>"Thank you; you are very, very, kind." Joel had lifted his hat, and, +with a hand that seemed bloodless, he took the parcel and put it into +his wagon, carefully covering it with his coat. He made no effort toward +starting on again, and, as there was an opening for it, Cavanaugh said +to his wife:</p> + +<p>"I've just been telling him about John, and it seems to me that Joel is +sorter worried about—about its effect on Tilly."</p> + +<p>Eperson nodded as if acquiescing to a statement too delicate to be +discussed, and remained silent, a wilted look of despair on him.</p> + +<p>"I see, I see," Mrs. Cavanaugh said. "I was wondering how she would take +it. She's never been exactly like other women. Few women would +have—have, you know what I mean, Joel—would have acted like she has +all along in regard to John's mother. I must say, and I know that you +will agree with me, that she showed herself to be a wonderfully good +Christian woman. Why, sometimes it looked to me like she loved Mrs. +Trott more than she did even her own mother. But she's been +rewarded—oh, you know she's been gloriously rewarded! Your sweet little +wife, Joel, has saved the very soul and body of a lone, lost woman. But +you helped—oh yes! if it hadn't been for you she never could have done +it. And you deserve your reward, too. In my opinion you have been a man +amongst a million in all you have done in that matter."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't deserve your praise, Mrs. Cavanaugh," Eperson sighed. "I did it +all for Tilly. She was unhappy till we began to help Mrs. Trott. I saw +where the trouble lay, and did a little, that's all."</p> + +<p>"And are you worried about how Tilly will take the news about John?" +Mrs. Cavanaugh asked, while her husband hung open-mouthed on Eperson's +answer.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how exactly to make you understand the—the situation," +Joel stammered. "But I reckon I may as well say, and be done with it, +that—that—" He went no farther, his words piling one upon another on +his helpless tongue, his great, tender eyes bulging from their +dark-ringed sockets.</p> + +<p>"You can't mean that she would be worried about the divorce." Mrs. +Cavanaugh feebly came to his assistance. "Sam and I were talking that +over. There is no doubt that it was legal in every way. Old Whaley saw +to that. Narrow-minded and hard as he was, he acted for the best in that +case."</p> + +<p>"I see you don't understand." Joel dug the toe of his coarse shoe into a +tuft of grass and mechanically pounded it with his heel. "You don't +understand, because you don't know Tilly as well as I do. Mrs. +Cavanaugh, how can I put it any better than to—to say that—no matter +what was done in court, no matter what John Trott did that might be +called 'desertion,' Tilly would never have married again if she had +thought he was alive. I'd never have dared to ask her to marry me if I +hadn't thought he was dead. I believed it—from the bottom of my soul I +believed it, and—and, my friends, listen! I got her to believe it. I +saw that she doubted it a little, and I worked and worked, and argued +and argued, till finally I got her to believe it. But even then I'd have +failed if Mrs. Trott<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> hadn't—hadn't helped me. Mrs. Trott believed he +was dead, and it was her belief and my talk that finally convinced +Tilly. But now what is to be done?"</p> + +<p>"Why, nothing that I can see," Mrs. Cavanaugh answered. "All you have to +do is to show Tilly that in no sense of the word is she bound by her +first marriage. You seem to think she is worried over that."</p> + +<p>Joel shrugged his shoulders and took a deep breath. "You don't +understand yet," he said, with a low groan. "She is excited—so excited +that she can't sleep, but it is not the kind of excitement you think it +is. She's heard the report that John Trott is still alive and she is +afraid that it may not—by some chance—be true. I don't mean that she'd +ever live with him again—now that she is—is a mother, or that she'd +hold it against me for marrying her as I did; but to know that no harm +came to him will make her happier than she's been for many a day. That +is a thing I've got to face. She is the mother of my children, but she +has never given me her whole heart and soul. She gave them to John +Trott. She has never blamed him for any step he took. She thought that +he left here for her sake, <i>and died for her sake</i>. Do you think I don't +know that when she hears that he himself has never married in all these +years—do you think that she will then love him less than she did? She +always looked on him as the most wronged man alive. Do you suppose that +she herself will turn against him now? In the name of God, what excuse +would she have, and him still loving her as Mr. Cavanaugh thinks he +does?"</p> + +<p>"I never looked at it that way," Mrs. Cavanaugh said. "You are getting +me all mixed up. Does Mrs. Trott— Have any of the reports got to her?"</p> + +<p>"No, not yet; but Tilly will want to tell her, now that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> there is no +doubt as to the truth. I must tell my wife what I have just learned. It +is my duty to tell her. Yes, yes, I must tell her. I'm honor-bound at +once to give her all the joy in my power."</p> + +<p>It was as if both Cavanaugh and his wife could think of nothing in the +way of comfort for Eperson, and, taking his reins into a better grasp +and touching his hat politely, he mounted his wagon and drove away.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II_CHAPTER_VIII" id="II_CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<p>The loose planks on Joel's wagon rattled over the rain-washed and +little-used road running from the main highway to the farm he was +renting. The house was a log cabin of only three rooms, situated on a +bleak, treeless hillside. Adjoining it was a diminutive corn-crib made +of pine poles with the bark still on them, and a lean-to shed which was +roofed with long shingles sawn and split from red oak.</p> + +<p>As he drove his clattering wagon up the slope his two children, little +Joel and Tilly, ran out to meet him. The boy held his sister's hand to +keep her from falling, and was gleefully shouting to his father to stop +and take them into the wagon. Eperson checked his horse and got down and +made places for them on his coat.</p> + +<p>"Where's your mother?" he inquired, his dull eyes on the cabin.</p> + +<p>"In the house," answered little Joel. "Supper is nearly ready."</p> + +<p>"Hold your sister," Eperson ordered, as he started the horse and walked +along by the wagon; "she might fall."</p> + +<p>Tilly came to the front door and stood watching them as they drew +nearer. The sun was going down, and its last slanting rays made a living +picture of her in the crude frame of logs. She looked older than the +average woman of her age, and yet there was a rounded mellowness to her +features, a suave, spiritual radiance from her skin, eyes, and hair, +which always caught and held the attention of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> an observer. The same +quality seemed to pervade her voice. It had always been musical; it was +even more so now. Her husband saw that she was all aglow and smiling as +she stepped down to the wagon and held out her arms for the little girl.</p> + +<p>"Not a long ride, was it, pet?" she said, as the child put its arms +around her neck and kissed her cheek.</p> + +<p>Taking up the parcel, Joel handed it to his wife. "Mrs. Cavanaugh sent +it," he explained. "It is the waists."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Cavanaugh?" Tilly said, in groping surprise. "Where did you see +her?"</p> + +<p>"I sold Cavanaugh the wood." Joel felt the heat flow into his cheeks. +"He ordered it a week ago."</p> + +<p>"Was he—was he at home?" Tilly held the child's face to hers, and Joel +noted a tense ripple of expectation in her voice.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he was there." Joel lowered his head to take up the reins he had +dropped, preparatory to driving around to the wagon-shed. From the +corner of his eyes he saw that Tilly stood rigid at his side, and he +thought he knew why she lingered thus. He was starting his horse, when +she said, suddenly:</p> + +<p>"Well, come right in. Your supper is ready."</p> + +<p>As he put his horse into its stall and fed it with fodder and corn, he +almost wished that he could prolong the task, for how was he to pass +through the coming ordeal, which was like death to him?</p> + +<p>He went into the house, bathed his face in a pan of water, brushed his +long thin hair, carefully adjusted his collar, and put on his coat. As a +rule, farmers did not wear their coats in the house in warm weather, but +Joel had never sat at the table with his wife without having his on. It +was an observance of respect to women which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> had been handed down to +Joel from conventional forebears, and from which he could not have +departed.</p> + +<p>Tilly and the children were at the table. It had grown dark within the +almost windowless cabin, and an oil-lamp furnished the light, the yellow +rays of which fell over the food, which consisted of boiled vegetables, +cornbread, butter, and mush and milk for the children.</p> + +<p>Out of respect to Tilly, who always did it in his absence, Joel, when at +home, said grace at the table, and the upturned plates to-night mutely +reminded him of that duty.</p> + +<p>It had always been the same simple formula which, also, had descended to +Joel, and over his folded hands to-night he uttered it. Moistening his +dry lips as if to render them pliant, Eperson sent his prayer out into +the sentient mystery which was so relentlessly wrapping him about.</p> + +<p>"Loving Father," he prayed, "we thank Thee, this night, for all the +evidence of Thy loving tenderness and care. Bless this food to our +needs. Render us kind and merciful to our neighbors, and, when our +earthly service to Thee is ended, receive us into the grace and peace of +Thy eternal kingdom. Amen."</p> + +<p>Eperson forced himself to eat. Under the stress of his emotions his +appetite had departed, and yet he pretended to be enjoying his food. +Tilly was eating with more relish, it seemed to him, than usual, and he +thought he knew the psychological reason for it. He had never seen her +look so buoyantly ethereal as she did to-night. To have described the +change upon her would have been beyond the power of man. She was like an +older sister to her children. Her love for them seemed to issue from her +like some supernal blending of light and music as she bent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> to adjust +the bib of the younger one, or sweetly to admonish the older in regard +to his too rapid eating of his mush and milk.</p> + +<p>"Don't—don't hurry, Joie darling!" her lilting voice produced. "You +don't want to be like a little piggy at his trough, do you, my sweet +boy?"</p> + +<p>When supper was over, Tilly washed the dishes and Eperson put the +children to bed, removing their moist clothing, bathing their bare, +dusty feet and legs, and putting on their nightgowns. What a holy +service of resignation it was to-night! Why was he so depressed with a +sense of his vast paternal unworthiness? Why, unless he was thinking of +John Trott's success? He told himself that his whole life had been a +failure. Many of his personal debts were unpaid and unpayable. There +were men he dreaded meeting because they always asked for the money due +them, or showed by their faces that they were thinking of his +delinquency. And there were others harder to meet who showed by their +faces and the matters they spoke about that they had no thought of ever +being paid. Ah! then there were still other men—men from whom he could +not bring himself to borrow. They were the few, like Cavanaugh, who +wanted to help him, but did not know how to broach so delicate a subject +with so sensitive a man.</p> + +<p>The children tucked away in the general sleeping-room, Eperson went +outside to the chairs that stood by the door-step and sat waiting for +Tilly. Would she come to him as promptly as usual? he wondered, his +stare on the blinking stars beyond the hilltops. Perhaps not so readily, +for an ineffable veil seemed to have been lowered between him and her +since her talk with the neighbors in regard to her first husband's +survival. He listened for the clatter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> of dishes and pans in the +kitchen. It had ceased. That work was over. Now, nothing would detain +her, he told himself, and he tried to brace his courage for the +performance before him.</p> + +<p>But she did not come at once. He heard her voice, with its indescribable +gurgle of maternal sweetness, teaching the children to say their +prayers.</p> + +<p>"God bless mother," was repeated after her, "God bless father—God bless +Grandmother Trott, and all the good people in the world. Amen."</p> + +<p>"<i>Grandmother Trott!</i>" Joel's whole weary being throbbed with the mental +utterance of the words. Then he heard Tilly singing a quaint lullaby +sung by the negroes. He wondered if she were purposely delaying her +usual after-supper chat with him. After all, what was there to tell her? +She had evidently heard the main facts of the matter—that was plain +from that irrepressible elation of hers.</p> + +<p>She extinguished the light and came out to him, taking the chair he +stood holding for her. The starlight gleamed on his bare brow. It was +like a well-wrought piece of granite. He brushed his hair back with an +unsteady hand as he sat down.</p> + +<p>"I was talking with Cavanaugh," he began, and paused to clear the +huskiness from his throat.</p> + +<p>"I know," Tilly said. "I've heard everything."</p> + +<p>"You have?" Joel said, tremulously.</p> + +<p>"Yes, the Creswells told me yesterday. You see, Tom Creswell works in +the post-office, and the postmaster showed him and the other clerks a +letter that Mr. Cavanaugh was sending to John since he got back from New +York. Then the postmaster showed him one answering it. The postmaster +met Mr. Cavanaugh and asked him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> about it, and Mr. Cavanaugh told him +that it was all a mistake about John and Dora being killed. He says John +is doing well and looks well. Oh, I'm so glad—so glad! Ever since the +report of that wreck it has been on my mind like a horrible dream. Night +and day it would come up to haunt me. Don't you see, I thought— I felt +that if—if I had not gone away that day with my father John would have +been alive. So now, you see, I haven't <i>that</i> to think about. God spared +him and Dora, and Mattie Creswell says they are both happily married."</p> + +<p>"Both?" Joel exclaimed. "You haven't got it right, Tilly. Dora married +and left him all alone. Cavanaugh says John never married."</p> + +<p>"Never married?" Tilly's sweet lips hung quivering. "But Mattie Creswell +says her brother told her that Cavanaugh said that John was married to a +wealthy girl in high society."</p> + +<p>"It is my duty to tell you the truth," Eperson said, the look of death +deepening on him. "He never married. He has been leading a strange, +lonely life. I think I know why. You can guess."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> can guess?" Tilly was pale and trembling as she leaned toward him.</p> + +<p>"Well, no, perhaps you can't," Joel corrected, "but I know why."</p> + +<p>"You know why?" Tilly's voice broke on the last word, and she stared at +him eagerly, her sweet mouth drooping.</p> + +<p>"Yes, because no man who was once your husband even for the few days +that you were his could ever marry any other woman."</p> + +<p>"You—you rate me too highly," Tilly faltered, putting her hands over +her face. "Why, why, I've always thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> that till his death he hated +me for deserting him as I did when all the rest of the world was down on +him."</p> + +<p>"He is no fool, and he was not even then, boy though he was. He knew why +you went away so suddenly. Do you hear me? He simply acted as I would +have done in his place. He endeavored to set you free from certain +unbearable conditions, and that is what I would have done. In setting +you free he rescued another girl from a life of degradation and despair, +but that is neither here nor there. John Trott deserves credit, and I +shall give it to him. Dead though you thought he was, he has always had +your heart. I've seen that in a thousand things you have done and said. +Your love for his mother was due to that, and God knows you've had your +reward there, for you awakened an immortal soul and have earned its +eternal gratitude and love. Don't think I am complaining, Tilly. I knew +when you came to me that your heart was not mine. I've never been able +to win it and I never shall."</p> + +<p>"Why, you don't think—you don't think—" stammered Tilly. "Surely you +don't think that I still—still—" She suddenly stopped and stared at +her husband in a bewildered way. "You don't suppose, Joel, that I could +believe that he—that all these years John—"</p> + +<p>Joel slowly swung his head up and down. "I believe that you both love +each other still. I was wrong to over-persuade you when you held out so +long against me. John Trott acted for your good in leaving, and I should +not have saddled on you myself, the greatest failure among men that ever +lived. I feel to-night as if the blight of an avenging God is on me for +my presumption. I have put two little children on your hands and feel as +incapable of protecting you and them as a crawling infant."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I won't listen to you!" Tilly stood up. "You shall not abuse yourself +in this way. You acted exactly as you should. No one could blame you. +You are one of the noblest men living. Without you I'd have been lost +after my mother and father died. For you to say that—that John and I +still—I won't say the word. You have no right to utter it when all is +considered—you and me and the children. What right have you to—to +think that you could know John's heart, when you have not seen him for +eleven years? You may think you know mine. You may do so if you insist +on making yourself unhappy, but you have no right to—to pass an opinion +on—on the present feelings of my first husband. What are you going by, +I'd like to know? You don't suppose that John would tell Mr. Cavanaugh +such things, even if they were true? And how could Mr. Cavanaugh come to +you, my husband, and—and even <i>mention</i> such a thing?"</p> + +<p>Joel was on his feet also. The childlike and unconscious eagerness of +his wife to make sure of the thing she was secretly craving stabbed him +to the core of his being, and yet he told himself that it was his duty +to withhold nothing concerning his rival from her.</p> + +<p>"Reading him as I'd read myself," Joel answered. "I thought he'd remain +constant, but to-day I wormed it out of Mr. Cavanaugh."</p> + +<p>"Wormed what out—<i>what out</i>?" Tilly sank back into her chair, +open-mouthed, her eyes gleaming portals to breathless expectancy. "You +can't mean that Mr. Cavanaugh thinks—actually thinks that John +still—?"</p> + +<p>Joel bowed his head in the relentless starlight, sat down as from sheer +frailty, and was silent. The undulating landscape, the fields, the +meadows, the woodland, the hills and streams seemed to hold their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> vast +breath with his. Suddenly Tilly rose. It was as if she were about to +stand behind his chair, as was her wont at times, put her hands upon his +shoulders, and kiss his thorn-crowned brow, but she did not. She went +slowly into the cabin. He heard her feet—feet he knew to be winged with +sudden, far-reaching joy—treading the boards as she went to the bed of +the children. What was she doing? he wondered. Her step ceased. He +pictured her as seated by the side of the children's bed. Was she +pitying him or rejoicing? Why ask? He knew. And his love was so divine a +thing that, but for his throes of death-agony, he could have rejoiced +with her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II_CHAPTER_IX" id="II_CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<p>Cavanaugh had a duty to perform. He had decided to take on himself the +act of informing Mrs. Trott of her son's survival. So, the next morning +after his colloquy with Eperson he walked out to the cabin the widow +occupied near the home of Eperson. As he passed Joel's place he saw from +the distance that Joel was at work in his corn-field, and, watching a +few minutes, he saw Tilly come out and feed her chickens, so he judged +that Mrs. Trott had not yet been told the important news.</p> + +<p>Walking on, he soon reached the isolated cabin in the woods that he was +seeking. It had but a single room, one window in front, and a crude +chimney made from unhewn stones and clay. The door facing the little +road was open, and as he drew near, Mrs. Trott, hearing his step, came +to the door and looked out.</p> + +<p>She was now quite gray, and wore a plain dress of homespun unadorned in +any way save for a neat white collar and an old cameo pin which had been +a gift of her husband's. A touch of her old beauty still lingered in the +contour of her face and good basic features. Her eyes had a placid +expression, and her voice had become that of a child who loves to be led +and petted. She smiled on recognizing the unexpected visitor, and gave +him a seat in the cabin.</p> + +<p>"I didn't expect to see you out this way," she said. "Joel told me a +couple of weeks ago that you'd gone off somewhere."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span></p> + +<p>He nodded. It was difficult to introduce the topic on his mind, and he +chatted with her about the land in the neighborhood, Joel's prospective +crop, and the fear some of the farmers had of a harmful drought if rain +did not fall within a week or so. He had not been able to come to the +matter in hand when a sound outside was heard.</p> + +<p>"Grandmother Trott," a small voice piped up, "sister won't come on. She +keeps stopping and picking flowers and leaves."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trott laughed, and her face beamed. "It is Joel's children," she +explained. "The little darlings come with milk for me every bright day. +Tilly sends it."</p> + +<p>Rising, she stood in the doorway. "Come on; but, no, Joie, don't pull +her hand so hard! You might jerk her little arm out of joint. Come on by +yourself. She will come when she feels like it."</p> + +<p>The boy soon appeared with the pail of milk and set it in the door. +"Mother said tell you she'd have some fresh butter for you in the +morning and some eggs. The hens have started again. Tilly and I found +six eggs in the hay last night. Grandmother, where are the kittens?"</p> + +<p>"Right around behind the cabin, dearie," Mrs. Trott answered, taking the +pail. "The mother-cat is nursing them in the sun. Show them to your +little sister. You may have them when they are larger."</p> + +<p>Cavanaugh heard the children as they went behind the house and bent over +the cat and kittens. He heard them uttering endearing words to the +animals. "Don't, don't, you little stupid!" Joel cried. "She may scratch +you! Don't you see her claws?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trott laughed softly as she emptied the pail and washed it out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They are the sweetest children in the world," she said to Cavanaugh, as +she put the pail on the door-step and sat down again. "They stayed with +me a week last month when Joel and Tilly went to camp-meeting over the +mountain. They were not one bit of trouble, and, oh, I did love to have +them about! I never let on to Tilly and Joel, but when they took the +darlings away I was awfully blue. Short as the time was, you see, I got +accustomed to them."</p> + +<p>The children had gone home and still Cavanaugh had not reached the +object of his visit. It was the shadow of vague wonderment in the +widow's eyes, and her lagging talk, that compelled him to introduce it. +He first spoke, and rather adroitly, of Todd Williams's encounter in New +York with the man who resembled her son, and, pausing, he heard her +sigh.</p> + +<p>"Poor boy! poor boy!" she muttered, sadly. "And they said he and Dora +were on the way to New York when that awful thing happened. Mr. +Cavanaugh, you are a good man. You've always been considered a good man +by everybody that knows you. I understand that you never had any +children, but you may know the human heart well enough to know that no +regret ever heard of can be deeper than that which is brought on by the +sort of thing that happened to me. I don't talk this way to Tilly and +Joel, because I owe them too much to let them dream that I am not +thoroughly happy. But if I could live a thousand years I'd never be able +to rid my mind of the positive knowledge that by—by—I <i>will</i> say +it—I'll say it to you as I'd say it to a priest, if I was a Catholic. +I've often wished I was one, so that I could let what I feel out of me. +Maybe saying it like this to you will do a little good. I don't know, +but I will say that nothing on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> earth can rid my mind of the fact that +by my thoughtless way of acting when I was young I— I—"</p> + +<p>"Stop! I know what you mean, my poor friend," Cavanaugh broke in, "and +you are getting all wrought up. Listen to me. Why not look on the +hopeful side, the bright side? How do you know but that John and Dora +are still alive, and none the worse; in fact—"</p> + +<p>He suddenly checked himself, for a sickly, greenish pallor had +overspread the listener's face, and she leaned forward as if about to +swoon. In a moment, however, she had recovered herself, and, sitting +erect, her white, shapely hands pressed to her breast, she smiled +feebly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know what you mean, Mr. Cavanaugh. I did try that. I summed up +every hope, everything that held out the slightest promise. I used to +lie awake at night and declare over and over that it couldn't be—that +the laws of life wouldn't let such an unjust thing happen to them, +innocent as they were, and with their right to live, but it didn't do +any good. I didn't let anybody know about it, but one after another I +got three different papers with John's name in them. I went to Atlanta +and visited the editors of all the papers and asked their advice. They +were sorry, but they said the list had never been disputed and ought to +have been even bigger than it was. Then I gave up."</p> + +<p>A shrewd, half-fearful gleam was in the contractor's shifting eyes.</p> + +<p>"I know, I know, Mrs. Trott," he gently persisted, "but many and many an +account like that has turned out afterward to be incorrect. You don't +know it, but maybe all three of those papers got their information from +one report. You see, a reporter representing a lot of papers in a sort +of combine goes to a spot like that was and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> account is telegraphed +all about over the country. So you see, even if you had seen it in a +hundred papers you wouldn't have to take it as law and gospel."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trott slowly shook her head and moaned softly.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if I dare tell her," Cavanaugh debated with himself. "She +almost fainted just now. She may have a weak heart. I must be careful. +I've heard of sudden joy killing." He was silent for a moment; then he +began again: "Mrs. Trott, you are welcome to your opinion, and I reckon +you'll let me have mine. But, to tell you the truth, I never have been +<i>fully convinced</i> that John and Dora was lost in that wreck. I have my +reasons, and they are pretty good ones."</p> + +<p>He saw her arched brows meet in a little frown of polite wonderment, and +she was about to speak when little Joel suddenly reappeared at the door.</p> + +<p>"Oh, grandmother," he half lisped, in breathless haste, for he had been +running, "I forgot to tell you what mother told me to say. She said for +me to be sure not to forget. She said tell you that she is coming over +after dinner to tell you the best news you ever heard."</p> + +<p>"Ah, tell her I'm glad, darling!" Mrs. Trott said, with a smile. And she +went and stooped down before the child and added: "Won't you give old +grandmother a sweet little hug? There! there! that's a darling little +man!" And Cavanaugh saw her pressing the boy to her breast and kissing +his cheeks.</p> + +<p>When the child had left she came back to her chair, her face filled with +a rare maternal glow. "If you were a younger man, Mr. Cavanaugh, and +childless, as you now are, I'd advise you to adopt children. I don't +know why or how it is, but I know that persons can love other children +than their own and love them deeply, too. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> love Tilly's two— I really +do. That child there, that little boy with all his cute ways and moods, +takes me back to the childhood of my own son. But I neglected him. How I +could have done it only God knows, but I did, and you know it better +than any one else besides myself. You gave him a fine start, and if he +had lived he would have made a great success. But I must stop— I must +stop! I think I know what Tilly's good news is. Joel has been trying to +rent the Marsden farm. He put in a bid for it. It is a big place, and +Mr. Marsden furnishes supplies. Maybe Joel has got it. I hope so, for he +is at the end of his rope."</p> + +<p>"The good news is not for poor Joel, Mrs. Trott. The truth is that Tilly +wants to tell you the same thing I've come to tell you. You know I said +that I never was fully convinced about John. Now what if I was to tell +you that I went to New York to make sure?"</p> + +<p>"Make sure? Make sure that—that John—" she began and stopped.</p> + +<p>He nodded, holding her bewildered stare by his fixed eyes. "I found out +enough up there to be sure, Mrs. Trott."</p> + +<p>"You mean that John— Why, you <i>can't</i> mean that—?"</p> + +<p>Again he nodded. "I've been afraid to shock you with the good news, but +he is alive and prospering. I was with him a week."</p> + +<p>She was convinced. She sat white and limp. She put her thin hands to her +face as if to hide her joy from him. He saw her breast heaving. He heard +her sob in an effort to control her emotion, and then she became quiet.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>That night at home Cavanaugh wrote a long letter to John. "Something +must be done," he wrote, in one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> place. "If you had seen that +transformed human soul as I saw her there in her lonely log hut and +heard her talk of you and your babyhood and the thousands of regrets she +has for what she has done and left undone, your kind heart would have +melted with pity as mine did. My old mother's passed on, John, but if I +could call her back I'd give my last breath to furnish her with a +minute's joy. You could give yours years of comfort and happiness. Do +you know what I'd do if I was you? I'd come here and get her and take +her back to New York with me, and let her have some of the things she +used to hunger for and which may have caused her to do as she did. She +is poor; she needs you; the two good friends who have been helping her +so long really haven't the means to keep it up. You must come—you +really must. If you don't it will darken the end of your life. I love +you too much to let you neglect this sublime duty. Men of the greatest +brains have married repentant women and never regretted it; surely a man +as noble as you are, and as able as you are, can afford to pardon the +woman who gave him his very life."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cavanaugh read the letter when it was finished. She made no comment +on it, but her opinion of her husband had never been so high. Deep pools +of his inner being for the first time in his life were exposed to the +light of her understanding.</p> + +<p>"May I?" she asked, taking the pen into her hand, and laying his letter +open on the table.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he nodded. "Add anything you like."</p> + +<p>"Dear John," she wrote on the margin, in the cramped style of one who +writes but seldom, "come to your mother. Do as Sam says. He knows what +is best."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II_CHAPTER_X" id="II_CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<p>Among the farmers of that locality it was considered somewhat beneath +the dignity of the men to milk the cows, but Joel Eperson had never +permitted his little wife to lay her hands to that particularly arduous +part of the day's duties. And to-night at dusk he was at this work in +the stable-yard, Tilly and the children still being at Mrs. Trott's +cabin. He knew why his wife had gone there, and painfully he was +comprehending why she was so late in getting back. There would naturally +be much to say on a subject like that by the two women in all the world +whom such a startling revelation touched so closely. Joel took his pail +of milk into the cabin. He put some more wood into the stove that it +might be hot and ready for use when Tilly arrived, and then he walked to +and fro in the yard, his dull eyes on the dewy fields. On his right, a +half-mile distant, the fires of the lime-kilns and brickyards were +beginning to glow against the cliffs in the coming darkness, and the +songs of the negro stokers and the thwacks of their axes fell on his +ears. He emptied the water in the pail and brought up some more from the +spring at the foot of the slope. Still his family did not come, and he +started out to meet them. He crossed the meadow, skirted his corn, which +till only the other day he had looked on with pride, walked between the +rows of his cotton-plants to curtail the distance, and finally reached +the wood through which ran the path to Mrs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> Trott's cabin. As he stood +there for a moment he heard voices. Both Tilly and Mrs. Trott were +speaking, but he could not see them for the thickened darkness beneath +the trees.</p> + +<p>"I must hurry now." It was Tilly's voice, and it rang with the lilting +tones of triumphant joy. "It is late. Joel will be looking for me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'll turn back," Mrs. Trott was heard saying. "Let me kiss them +once more. Oh, I am so wonderfully happy! Really, dear girl, I'd like to +die feeling as I do to-night. You see, I never expected it— I never +dreamt that such a thing could be possible. I thought all chance of ever +begging his forgiveness was gone, and now maybe, some day or other, I +can. I wouldn't ask him to take me back, you understand, but only to say +that he wouldn't hold it against me the rest of his life. But I'd want +him to know one thing, Tilly, my sweet child, and that is the things you +have done for me on account of—on account of—you know what I mean?"</p> + +<p>"Hush, grandmother," Tilly answered, in the tremulous tone which +indicated emotions firmly checked. "You must not forget who I now am. +You must not forget that I'm the mother of those darling children."</p> + +<p>"No, my child, nor can I forget their noble father. I wouldn't wound him +for the whole world. I love him as—as—yes, I love him as much as I do +John, but in a different way, that is all. John was my baby, Joel is my +grown-up son. You must never forsake Joel in thought, word, or act. +Remember that."</p> + +<p>What Tilly answered Joel refused to hear. He was too honorable a man to +listen further, and he turned back and with slow, weighty steps reached +his home again. He stood in the kitchen doorway, waiting. He heard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> +Tilly and the children coming. They were singing merrily and romping +like sprites across the meadow.</p> + +<p>"I'm coming! I'm coming! I'll catch you! Boo!" Tilly cried. "Hide from +him, darling—hide behind the bushes! Where is she, brother? She must be +lost. Oh, there she is!" This was followed by childish screams of +delight and the mother's cooing words.</p> + +<p>Joel went to meet them, advancing across the yard and taking little +Tilly into his arms.</p> + +<p>"I know we are late," his wife said, regretfully, "but grandmother came +part of the way back, and you know she walks slowly."</p> + +<p>"It is all right," Joel said, pressing little Tilly's cheek to his. "It +is not very late."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll hurry with the supper," Tilly answered. It was significant, +he reflected, that she did not mention then the reception of the +startling news by Mrs. Trott. Even while they all sat at the table Tilly +failed to bring it up, and a general air of repression brooded over +them.</p> + +<p>Indeed, the children had been put to bed, the dishes washed, and husband +and wife were alone together in the moonlight at the door, and still the +subject in the minds of both had been avoided. He wondered if she +expected him to mention the matter. Surely she ought to know that it was +not exactly the thing that he, a mere outsider, had the right to pry +into. An awkward silence fell between them, the sort of silence that +surely boded ill for their future harmony of intercourse. Tilly seemed +to sense this, and suddenly put her shoulder to the wheel of duty.</p> + +<p>"I didn't get to tell grand— I didn't get to tell Mrs. Trott, after +all." It was significant that she abruptly discarded a formerly accepted +term of endearment. "Mr. Cavanaugh was there this morning for that +purpose, so—so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> the greater part of her excitement was over when I got +there."</p> + +<p>"But she was happy, of course," Joel got out, well knowing that his +remark was an empty one.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, of course." Tilly was silent for several minutes. Then she +added: "The poor woman is afraid that John will not forgive her. She +doesn't want help from him, she declares, and she thinks it would be +unwise for them ever again to meet face to face, but she says she would +like for him to know how sorry she is for many things. I think, myself, +Joel, that it would be inadvisable for—for them to meet, just at +present, anyway. Don't you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I can't say. I'm not in a position to decide," Joel +floundered. "It would depend on him. It is unfortunate that so many +miles separate them. He evidently has some established way of living +into which she might not fit so well. The mere fact of his being still +alive reached her by accident and through no effort on his part."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure she has no idea of making any advancement." Tilly seemed to +Joel, as she spoke, quite another woman from the one who had been his +wife all those years, and Joel simply sat, bent forward, his every nerve +and muscle drawn taut by vast swirling forces within him.</p> + +<p>"Then you don't think that he would—would forgive her?" asked Tilly, +with obvious anxiety which she was striving to minimize.</p> + +<p>Joel's prompt reply surprised her. "I know he would," said Joel, "if he +knew all the circumstances. I have never known a nobler man. I don't +believe a nobler man ever lived. In trying to help his mother I was only +doing what I was sure he would have done for me under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> same +conditions. If I only knew how to show him what his mother now is I'd do +it."</p> + +<p>They were silent for a while; then, suddenly, Tilly stood behind him and +put her hands on his shoulders. "Joel," she said, "you are blue +to-night." She toyed with the hair on his brow; she bent almost as low +as when in that posture she sometimes kissed him, but she did not kiss +him to-night, and he noted the fact as a man dying unattended in a +dungeon might test his own pulse. He longed to take the little hand so +close to his cheek and press it to his famished lips, but something told +him that she would (not openly, but inwardly) now actually shrink from +such a caress.</p> + +<p>"No, don't think I am blue," he protested, fighting forward on his black +billows, and grimly smiling. "You are happy and I shall be for your +sake. You mustn't observe my cranky ways too closely. I'm all right."</p> + +<p>"Somehow I can't exactly believe it." Tilly twisted a lock of his hair +between her slow, reluctant fingers. "You seem changed, a little, +anyway, and I think we ought to come to a thorough understanding right +now. You have an imagination, Joel. You used to write poetry to me, you +remember, and for all I know you may now be fancying all sorts of really +absurd things. Now be sensible. John and I <i>did</i> love each other away +back there, but we were parted and for years I have thought of him as +dead. But now he is away off up there, and I am here with you and our +darling children. You love them, they love you—and—and you love me, +and I—love you. Now be sensible. Can you, even with a crazy flight of +your imagination, fancy that John and I ever again will or could be—be +like we once were? Throw the idea away if you have it. Of course, I must +be happy in discovering that my hasty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> desertion back there did not cost +him his life and Dora's. Oh, that thought worried me! I never let you +know how much it worried me! I guess I would have married you much +sooner than I did if I had not had that on my mind. But all that is past +and gone now. I'm here and John is away off up there. Your idea that he +still loves me is ridiculous on the face of it. What was I, even when he +was here? Only an ignorant country girl, while he has no doubt grown and +learned and altered in a thousand ways. I've seen successful men from +big cities. They don't seem to think as we do, or act or speak like us. +I'd be a silly dowdy to such a man. I think, of course, if it comes +about naturally, that his mother ought to go to him, but I don't think +he ever ought to—to come back here, and I am sure that he won't. I am +sure of that—I'm sure of it. He has been burnt once, as the saying is, +and that will be enough. But I predict that she will go to him. No, I'll +take that back. I said that, but I am not sure. Do you know, it is God's +truth, Joel, that the sweet old soul loves you and me and the children +so much now that she would not leave us even—even for John. She let +that out this afternoon while Tilly was sleeping in her lap. The very +thought of going started her to crying, and it was some time before I +got her quiet."</p> + +<p>Tilly's hand actually touched his neck, but Joel still felt that he had +no right to clasp it. The wild thought of grasping it and drawing his +wife's lips down to his possessed him, but he promptly killed the +impulse. Grimly he told himself that he would be fondling a shadow, +feasting on a husk.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she drew her hand away. "I'm awfully tired to-night," she +sighed. "I'll go to bed, but you needn't hurry. Shall I fill your +pipe?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, thank you," he said, rising as courteously as of old. "I sha'n't +smoke any more to-night."</p> + +<p>"Well, good night," she said.</p> + +<p>"Good night," he echoed.</p> + +<p>The flare from the lime-kilns and the brickyards lit the cliffs, hills, +and sky. He beard the town clock striking ten. Little Joel had waked, +and his mother was gently telling him to go to sleep. The child wanted +water. Tilly went to the kitchen for it, and the father heard her +sweetly cooing as she held the cup for his son to drink. What a marvel +that—<i>his son and hers</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II_CHAPTER_XI" id="II_CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<p>"John is not coming. I see that plain enough from this letter," +Cavanaugh announced to his wife at noon one day, as he entered the +sitting-room where she sat sewing on a machine.</p> + +<p>"Why, what's wrong?" the old woman asked, in a tone of disappointment.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell exactly," Cavanaugh answered. "It is all round about, with +this reason and that. He seems to have a mistaken idea that it will stir +up an awful rumpus in the papers. He wants to help his mother, and says +for me to see her and tell her so. He is willing to make a substantial +settlement on her, but she wouldn't take it. Do you hear me? She +wouldn't have scraps thrown at her like that. If he came here and made +it up she might let him help, but she'll never accept it that way. I am +disappointed in him. After the way I wrote, he ought to have come and +been done with it."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cavanaugh adjusted her glasses, took the letter and read it, moving +her wrinkled lips as she slowly intoned the words. Then she handed it +back.</p> + +<p>"Man that you are," she sniffed, "you don't see what ails him. He +doesn't once mention Tilly, but in every line there he is thinking of +her and her happiness. He'd love to come back here and see the old place +and all of us, but he is afraid it will upset Tilly. You said you +thought he still loves her— I <i>know</i> he does. I can see it all through +that letter, and I'm sorry for him, poor fellow!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, I see what you mean," Cavanaugh said, in a mollified tone, "and I +believe you are right, too. He was thinking of her happiness when he ran +away, and he is doing it now. Yes, yes, he still loves her. I saw it in +a hundred ways when me and him was together up there. He never had room +for but one woman in his heart, and she fills it still. She is the +drawback in the case, I'll bet. He thinks she is happy with Joel and the +children and he doesn't want to break in at this late day. But he will +come. Mark my words, he will come to help his mother when I write him +more fully. I'll explain, too, that I'll keep it from the papers, and +when he gets here he can stay out here with us and keep away from old +acquaintances as much as he likes. Yes, he will come."</p> + +<p>It ended in accordance with this prediction. One evening at dusk John +arrived in town and was delivered by a street-hack at Cavanaugh's door. +He was received with open arms by the old couple and treated as a +much-loved son. And he was glad that he came. For the first time since +the departure of Dora and the loss of Binks he felt restful and at home. +The delightful old-fashioned room, filled with the very perfume of +cleanliness, to which he was assigned, at once charmed and soothed him. +Till late that night the three friends sat talking on the porch. Several +times Mrs. Trott was mentioned, but Tilly not once. That she and Joel +lived near by and had been the widow's stanch friends John was not yet +aware, and the Cavanaughs wondered, half fearfully, what effect that +knowledge would have on their guest.</p> + +<p>John was waked the next morning by the long, resonant blowing of the +whistles at the mills. It was scarcely light, and, only partly conscious +at first, he fancied that it was his old signal for rising. He thought +he was in his dismal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> room at his mother's house, and that little ragged +Dora was clattering about in the kitchen below. Slowly he came to full +comprehension and lay back on his bed and closed his eyes. But it was +not to sleep. What a tangle of sordid memories wrapped him about! How +profoundly wise, by comparison, had he become! He wondered if the tiny +cottage in which he and Tilly had passed those few days of blinded bliss +were still extant. If so, would he dare visit it? He thought not. +Neither would he care to see again his mother's old home.</p> + +<p>Later, when the sun was up, he heard Cavanaugh on the porch, and he +rose, dressed, and joined him. Presently breakfast was announced. How +the cozy table in its snowy expanse appealed to him—the food he used to +like, the open door looking out on a flower-garden, a plot of dewy +grass, and a row of beehives! He had a sense of wanting to live that way +always. He was weary of the life that he had just left, and the +ephemeral things he had won. His desire for rest was that of an old man +whose years are spent. Somehow he felt that he and the Cavanaughs were +on a par as to age and experience. They had suffered mildly through long +lives—he had suffered keenly in a shorter one.</p> + +<p>It was understood between him and Cavanaugh that the first thing to be +done was for him to visit his mother. So, when breakfast was over, they +fared forth in the cool, brisk air for that walk in the country. As they +neared the cabin Cavanaugh saw Joel's house in the distance. He might +have descried either Joel or Tilly about the place by careful looking, +but was afraid that even a glance in that direction might attract John's +attention. Presently Mrs. Trott's cabin was before them, and, leaving +his companion in the edge of the wood, Cavanaugh went ahead to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> prepare +the widow for the surprise before her. Presently he came back.</p> + +<p>"I must say she was awfully excited," he began. "I was sorry for her. +She turned as white as a sheet and shook powerful; but she wants to see +you, and said tell you to come right on. Now you know the way home, +John, and so I'll turn back."</p> + +<p>"A cabin—a mere log cabin, such as the poorest negroes live in!" John +reflected, and yet it was the abode of the woman who used to demand so +many luxuries, and that woman, looked at from any angle, was his mother. +He was conscious of no tenderness or pity. Those things were reserved +for the instant of his first view of her. Great soul that he was, it +required but the downcast eyes of the repentant woman to melt him into +streams of sympathy when she appeared in the low doorway, a pitiful +flush of embarrassment struggling out of the pallor of her cheeks and +surrounding her still beautiful eyes.</p> + +<p>"Mother!" he cried, huskily, and he advanced to her, his arms +outstretched. "I had to come to you. I heard you were in need, but I +didn't know it was like this."</p> + +<p>She seemed unable to say a word. She hid her shamed face, her childlike +face, so full of timid remorse, on his shoulder, and he felt her sobs +shaking her breast. He led her to a chair inside the cabin and gently +eased her down to it, his fingers, filially hungry for the first time in +his life, gently and consolingly playing about her hair and brow.</p> + +<p>Presently she found her voice. "I was afraid you'd never come," she +faltered, still with that shrinking humility which had so completely won +him to her. "But here you are. Oh, I don't know what to say, John— I +don't know what to say, except that I am not the same silly woman I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> +used to be. I used to think that the way I lived when you was here was +the only way I could live, but now I'd rather die than take back a +single day of it. Strange as it may seem, I like this. I like the still +woods out there, the rocks, grass, and wild flowers, and being alone. +Yes, I like to be all alone. When I'm all alone, even in the dead of +night, something seems to come to me and pity me and give me the +sweetest rest and peace. There wasn't but one thing that haunted me, and +that was thinking you were dead. When I heard that was a mistake I felt +very happy, though I didn't think I'd ever see you again."</p> + +<p>It seemed to him, as he sat in that crude hut, that nothing stranger had +ever happened to him than seeing her in such surroundings.</p> + +<p>"Is it possible," he asked, "that you spend the nights here in this +place?"</p> + +<p>"For six years now, winter and summer." She smiled wistfully. "I've got +my little garden behind the cabin, and my chickens and my cats, and they +keep me busy. Then I read a lot of books and stories. The Cavanaughs +send them to me off and on, and—and"—she started visibly—"some other +people do, too."</p> + +<p>"Other people?" he repeated to himself. "Then she <i>has</i> friends, after +all."</p> + +<p>Presently a patter of feet sounded outside and a child's voice came in +at the open door. "Grandmother Trott! Where are you?"</p> + +<p>"Here, here!" Mrs. Trott called out in a flurried tone. She made a start +as if to rise, and yet it seemed to John that she had lost the power to +move. Then a little boy appeared at the door, two tin pails in his +hands. "Here's the milk, grandmother, and some fresh butter. Mother said +keep the pie and biscuits warm. She just took them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> from the stove +before I started. Grandmother, sister wants to see the kittens. May +she?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, of course." Mrs. Trott, still agitated, got up. Little Tilly +was now in the doorway, and she took her into her arms. As for Joel, he +had espied one of the kittens, and was crossing the room after it, when +for the first time he saw John and paused, somewhat abashed.</p> + +<p>"Come here." John smiled, holding out his hands, and the boy went to him +trustingly. "My, my! what a solid boy you are!" John went on, taking him +on his knee. "How old are you?"</p> + +<p>"Six, and sister's four," was the answer.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trott, still with the look of concern on her face, was putting +Tilly down, that she might empty the pails, and while her back was +turned the little girl crept confidingly to John's disengaged knee. With +a laugh, he took her up also. He was strongly drawn to them both, and +why he couldn't have said, unless it was because they were friends of +his mother and had given her such an endearing appellation.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trott brought the pails back. She still wore an embarrassed look, +which, in his preoccupation over the children, he failed to note.</p> + +<p>"They are very nice and friendly," he smiled up at her, an arm about the +body of each child. "Whose are they?"</p> + +<p>"Now you must go back," Mrs. Trott said, with obvious evasion, holding +out the pails to Joel. "Tell your mother that I am very much obliged."</p> + +<p>"But mother said we must rest awhile here and not come right back," the +boy answered, leaning on John's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"No. I's tired, grandmother." Tilly drew back also into her snug +retreat. "Where's the tittens, brother?"</p> + +<p>But Joel could see kittens any day, and John was now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> showing him his +new gold watch and chain and Tilly was admiring his scarf and pin, +daintily touching the rich silk with her tiny sun-browned fingers.</p> + +<p>With something like a sigh of resignation Mrs. Trott sank into her chair +and listened to the chat of the trio. That her son was charmed with the +children of his former wife she saw plainly. What would he do or say +when told the truth?—and that it was due him to be told she did not +doubt.</p> + +<p>"They are beautiful and lovely," John said, when they both left his lap +and went behind the cabin to see the kittens. "Whose children are they?"</p> + +<p>"I see that I must tell you and be done with it," Mrs. Trott said, with +a warm flush. "Can't you guess?"</p> + +<p>"Why, how could I guess?" he asked, wonderingly. "They call you +grandmother, too—how is that?"</p> + +<p>"John," she gulped, "they are Tilly's and Joel's!"</p> + +<p>His moving lips seemed to frame the words she had spoken, but without +the issue of sound. They were both silent for an awkward pause; then he +said, haltingly, "I did not know that they were in this neighborhood."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Cavanaugh told me that you didn't know about them and me," she +answered, all but apologetically. "Oh, John, I hope you won't blame me, +but I simply could not have lived without them! They are responsible for +what I now am. They came to my aid immediately after you were reported +dead, and have stuck to me ever since."</p> + +<p>"Then they are the friends Sam mentioned!" John said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, they are the ones. They wanted me to come live with them after +they married, but I couldn't— I simply couldn't; but I did consent to +live near them like this, and I am glad, for they have been like loving +children to me. John, you don't know how noble and unselfish poor Joel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> +is. Nothing has ever prospered with him. He has always had bad luck, and +yet he never thinks of himself. I was with Tilly when both her children +were born. She seems now like a daughter, and Joel a son. As for the +little ones, I love them with all my heart. I owe it to you to tell you +the truth. Had I thought you alive, of course, I could not have been so +intimate with them, but we all three thought you were dead, and, +somehow, drifted together."</p> + +<p>"I know, and that is all right," John said, a shadow of his old brooding +despair in his eyes. The prattle of the children behind the house came +to his ears. Through the doorway the midday sun beat yellow and warm on +a crude bed of flowers close by. Mrs. Trott continued her recital of +past happenings. She told even of Tilly's visit to the old house; of her +occupying his room, of her own and Joel's vigil on the outside. She +spoke of the saddened years in which Tilly had refused to think of +marriage, and how she herself had worked with Joel to bring it about.</p> + +<p>"If I knew one thing," she presently said, gravely studying his face, "I +might feel that I had a right to tell you something particular about +Tilly. I mean if I knew <i>one certain thing</i> about you yourself."</p> + +<p>"Me myself?" he cried, groping for her meaning.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you, John. Mr. Cavanaugh hinted at what he thought your present +feeling for Tilly is, but I'd have to know for myself before—before I'd +feel at liberty to tell you what I have in mind. Mr. Cavanaugh said you +hadn't said so in so many words, but that he was sure that you still +feel the same toward Tilly that you did before you and her parted."</p> + +<p>He had lowered his head. He now interlaced his fingers between his +knees, and she saw them shaking.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span></p> + +<p>"She is the same and more to me," he said. "As long as I live I shall +love her."</p> + +<p>"Do you really mean that, John?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and much more," he answered, firmly. "I don't blame her for +anything that she has done. She had every right to marry. I counted on +it happening even earlier."</p> + +<p>"I see you are in earnest, and I'll tell you," Mrs. Trott said. "John, +she finally married Joel, but she did it only out of gratitude and pity. +She was grateful to him for helping <i>me</i>, do you understand? After you +left, she actually looked on me as her mother, because—because I was +<i>yours</i>. Then she pitied Joel because he was so unhappy without her. +But, la me! the other day, when she found out that you were alive, no +angel in heaven could have been happier. She tries to hide it—she +hardly knows what it means—but she can't hide it. It shows in her face, +in her laugh, in her dancing movements. She has no idea she will ever +see you again, and she doesn't dream of leaving Joel or the children, +but knowing that you are alive and doing well has made her blissfully +happy. Hers is a great, unselfish love, if there ever was one.</p> + +<p>"You can't mean what you say," John faltered, his eyes beaming, his face +aflame, his breast heaving.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do," his mother assured him. "I don't know that I'm doing +exactly right to tell you, but I have told you. I can't fully make her +out on one thing, and that is whether she believes you still care for +her or not. Sometimes I think she believes that you still love her. I +don't know why she is so happy unless that is at the bottom of it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II_CHAPTER_XII" id="II_CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<p>John rose to go. Promising to return the next day, he started back to +town. By choice he went through a strip of forest-land. In some places +the growth of trees, bushes, and vines was dense. Small streams trickled +through the moss and grass over pebbled beds, clear and cool in the +shade and warm in the open sunshine. Above the blue sky arched, with +here and there a white cloud against which some buzzards were circling +in majestic calmness. For the first time in many years he felt that he +had not loved in vain. Tilly loved him. He loved her. She had suffered; +so had he. The world had mistreated them, that was all. He remembered +something she had once said about love being eternal. How sweet the +thought now was!</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>The next morning he was at his mother's cabin again. He had a plan to +unfold to her. He described his life in New York, and spoke of the many +advantages of living there. He wanted her to come with him. He would +give her every comfort that could be thought of. His income was ample. +They would be company for each other. The things she wanted to forget +would never follow her there. She would make good, new friends and end +her days in contentment and comfort.</p> + +<p>She listened to him attentively, a warm stare of maternal pride in her +meek eyes, but when he paused she slowly shook her head. She seemed +embarrassed; then she said:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> "I couldn't do that, John. You may think it +odd of anybody, but I really wouldn't like a bustling life like that +now. I've got a taste of this, and I think I'd rather keep it. Then I +must be honest with you. I mustn't keep back anything. The truth is I +don't want to leave Tilly and Joel and the children. I've got used to +them, I reckon. I think they want me, too, I really do; at least I hope +so. I've found this out, John; people either like one sort of life or +the other. When I was living like—like I used to live, I wanted that +and nothing else, but now I want this and nothing else. I wish you could +live here, but you know best about that. It would be wrong in some ways, +for, considering the way you and Tilly feel about each other, and her +duty to Joel and the children, it wouldn't be best for you to be close +together. I was thinking about that last night and wondering whether you +and her ought to meet even once again. It seems to me that it would be +awkward for you both, and hard on poor Joel."</p> + +<p>"I had no idea of—of meeting her," John said, in a tone which sank +beneath his breath. "I must spare her that."</p> + +<p>"It is a pity—a pity, but it will be best!" Mrs. Trott sighed. "I wish +I could see some other way, but I can't. How long are you going to +stay?"</p> + +<p>"Not longer than a week," he answered. "Are you sure that you won't go +with me?"</p> + +<p>She slowly shook her head. "No, I must stay here, John. I couldn't leave +them— I really couldn't. They have wound themselves about my tired old +heart and I want to stay near them. I wish I could help them out of +their terrible poverty. The children ought to be educated. They are +wonderfully bright."</p> + +<p>They sat without speaking for several minutes; then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> John said, +suddenly: "Do you think we could, between us, devise any way by which I +might help them substantially? I assure you I have plenty of money for +which I have no need."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that would never do, John!" Mrs. Trott exclaimed. "Neither Joel nor +Tilly would accept it. That is out of the question."</p> + +<p>John's face fell. "I was afraid you'd say that," he sighed. Then, with a +start and an eager searching of her face, he said: "Will you answer me a +direct question? If you, yourself, were to come into some money, at your +death would you want them to have it?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course!" she answered. "That is all I'd want money for now."</p> + +<p>"Then the way is clear," John beamed, and his voice throbbed with +excitement. "You are my mother. You can't keep me from making you +comfortable out of my useless means. I have some absolutely safe +securities that bring in good dividends. Before I return to New York +they will be in your name at one of the banks in town, with a cash +deposit to your credit. The income on the stocks amounts to about three +thousand a year. Remember, I am in no way suggesting to you what you +should do with the principal or the interest, but legally to be on the +safe side, you ought at once to make a will."</p> + +<p>"Why, John— John, you astound me!" his mother cried. "Mr. Cavanaugh +intimated that you were not particularly well off, and here you say—you +say that I am to have three thousand dollars a year from you. +Why—why—"</p> + +<p>"It is nothing," he said, smiling. "I want to do it, and you must help +me. If you should decide to do so, you can convert some of the stocks +into money and buy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> Joel a farm on which he could make a good living. +After I am gone they won't refuse it from you, for you owe it to them, +considering all they have done for you."</p> + +<p>Without knowing it, Mrs. Trott was weeping. Great crystal tears were on +her cheeks. Her still beautiful lips were quivering; her slender hands +were clasped in her lap.</p> + +<p>"Oh, John, John, can it be possible to do this for them?" she half +whimpered. "I want to do it. I want to help them, but poor Joel is so +sensitive and proud that—that—"</p> + +<p>"You owe it to him, and I, as your son, who left you unprotected, owe it +to him also. When I am gone he will see that it had to be. Let him know +about the will in his children's favor, but give him to understand that +the money is from <i>you</i>, not from <i>me</i>, and tell him, too, if you can do +so adroitly, that I shall never come this way again. This is his home, +not mine. As for Til—as for his wife, I shall not meet her while I am +here. You are going to help them substantially—that is the main thing. +<i>You</i>, no one else."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it would be glorious—glorious!" Mrs. Trott dried her eyes on her +apron. "As for Tilly, Tilly—it may seem to you a strange idea of mine, +John, but somehow I believe, actually believe that she would accept the +money from you as readily as she'd give her last cent to you under the +same circumstances. She is a strange, strange little woman, more of the +next life, it seems to me, than this. She has been an angel of light to +me and I couldn't leave her; even if you were an emperor offering me a +throne I'd stay here. In taking your money, John, I am taking it on her +account. She will see through your plan, but it will only make her the +happier, for she thinks your soul and hers are united for all time, and +it may be so, John—it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> may be so. Love like yours and hers ought not to +die. How could it?"</p> + +<p>He sat silent. All the morbid hauntings of his past seemed to be +withdrawing like shadows before some vast supernal light. His body felt +imponderable. A delicious pain clutched his throat and pierced his +breast. He was ashamed of his weakness and tried to shake it off, but it +continued to thrill and sob in every nook and cranny of his hitherto +unexplored being. The woman before him seemed more than mere flesh, +blood, and bone. A veritable nimbus hovered over her transfigured head +and shone against the unbarked logs behind her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II_CHAPTER_XIII" id="II_CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<p>By choice, he started home through the wood. He wanted the feel of the +grass, heather, and moss beneath his feet; the scent of wild flowers in +his nostrils; the bending boughs of great trees over him; the minute +sounds of insects in his ears; the flight of winged things in his sight. +Deeper and deeper into the wood he plunged. There seemed something to be +drunken like an impalpable spiritual elixir. He held out the arms of his +being to it; he opened the pores of his body and soul to it. The far-off +hum of the town's commerce and traffic seemed an insistent denial of the +intangible thing for which he hungered, and he closed his ears to it. +Presently he heard the sound of breaking twigs and the stirring of dry +leaves behind the vines and boulders close by on his right, and he +paused to listen. Then there fell upon his ears the soft voices of +children, and, carefully parting the pliant branches of some willows, he +saw in a little grassy glade Tilly's daughter and son. They were +gathering flowers and ferns. Little Tilly had her chubby arms full, and +Joel was plucking more.</p> + +<p>It was a beautiful sight, and yet it drenched him with infinite pain. He +was tempted to attract their attention, to take them into his arms +again, but he checked the impulse.</p> + +<p>"What is the use?" he muttered. "They are hers, not mine—<i>his</i> and +hers, not <i>mine</i> and hers."</p> + +<p>Softly he moved away. Presently he came to a fallen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> tree and sat down +on it. He could no longer hear the children's voices. However, another +sound broke the stillness about him. It was the rapid tread of some one +hurrying through the wood in his direction. The branches of the bushes +in front of him parted and Tilly stood facing him, her cheeks and brow +flushed and damp from rapid walking. That she could be so beautiful as +now he had never dreamed possible. The years had added indescribable +charm and grace to her every movement, feature, and expression.</p> + +<p>"Oh, John!" she cried, holding out her hands as appealingly and naïvely +as of old, "the children are lost! They started for your mother's cabin, +but haven't been there. There are dangerous places in this wood, and—"</p> + +<p>He smiled reassuringly as he took her hands. "They are all right," he +said. "They are just over there. I saw them only a moment ago."</p> + +<p>Their hands clung together, but neither of them was cognizant of the +fact. It was as if not a day had elapsed since they had parted. +Forgetting every law of propriety, he drew her into his arms. Her +uncovered head went as of old to his shoulder, and he was about to kiss +her throbbing lips when, with her hand to his mouth, she suddenly +checked him.</p> + +<p>"No, no, John!" she said, and she disengaged herself from his embrace +with a firm, resolute movement. "I understand how you feel, but you +mustn't— I mustn't. I want to—yes, yes, I want to kiss you, but it +would be wrong."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it would be wrong," he groaned, and turned white. He sat down on +the trunk of the tree. She stood before him. Neither spoke for a while, +and the prattling voices of the children sounded on the warm, still +air.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I have pained you," Tilly said, after a moment, and she put +her hand on his shoulder as if to make him look at her. "I wish I knew +some other way, but I know of none."</p> + +<p>"There is no other way," he declared, his hungry eyes now on her face, +the marvel of which still held him enthralled. In all his dreams of her +she had never appeared so transcendently wonderful.</p> + +<p>"How could she ever have been mine—actually mine?" he asked himself +from the abyss into which he was sinking.</p> + +<p>"You see," she went on, now taking his hand into hers, "I'd have to tell +Joel. I'm his wife, the mother of his children, and there can be nothing +in my life that is not open to him. He is the soul of honor, John."</p> + +<p>"I know it," John answered, simply.</p> + +<p>"This thing is killing him, John," she went on, rapidly, as if taking no +heed of what she was saying. "The world was against him, anyway, and the +news of your being here so prosperous and successful by contrast to +himself has bowed his head to the earth. I don't know what to do or what +to say. He knows how I feel. You see, I couldn't hide from him the joy I +felt when I heard you were living. I can bear anything now—anything! +You see, Joel thinks that you—he has no reason for thinking so, of +course, for you have lived up there and he here—but he thinks—it is +stupid of him—but he thinks that you feel—exactly the same toward me +as you did when we were married. Exactly! Exactly!"</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't take a wise man to know that," John said, bitterly, his +lips awry, his stare dull with agony.</p> + +<p>"You mean to say that you <i>do</i>?" Tilly urged, her little hand pressing +his spasmodically, her eyes glistening with moisture.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span></p> + +<p>He nodded slowly. "How could I help it? You have done nothing to alter +my feeling toward you except to deepen it. How can I overlook the fact +that you befriended my mother (after I deserted her) and made her what +she now is?"</p> + +<p>"That was nothing but my duty, and my love for her," Tilly answered. She +paused for a moment, and went on:</p> + +<p>"Then you don't blame me for <i>marrying again</i>?" This was tremulously +uttered, and the speaker's eyes were now downcast.</p> + +<p>"No, I expected it. In a way, you owed it to Joel. In fact, I owe him +more now than I can ever repay."</p> + +<p>Tilly released his hand and sat down on the log beside him. Her little +feet were thrust out from her, and he saw her poor tattered shoes and +noted the coarse dress she wore.</p> + +<p>"I've always wanted to know one thing," she faltered. "A thousand times +after the report of your death I wondered if you died understanding how +it was that I left you. Did you know why I left our little home so +suddenly, John?"</p> + +<p>"Why, to escape the awful scandal that was in the air; but what is the +good of bringing that up now?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, I see, you didn't quite know the truth," Tilly cried. "John, my +father was practically out of his mind that day. He died not long +afterward of softening of the brain. He had a revolver, and would have +shot you if he had met you. I was expecting you home every minute, and +when I saw that I could pacify him by going right back with him I did +it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see!" A great light broke on John. "Then it was really to save my +life."</p> + +<p>"As I saw it, yes," Tilly replied. "I wrote to you once, after I got to +Cranston, but I learned afterward that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> father stopped the letter. I was +kept like a prisoner at home, John, until the court, under my father's +influence, and a narrow-minded jury had annulled our marriage. In spite +of that, I was ready to go to you and only waiting for a chance, when +the news of your death came. I didn't blame you for leaving. I knew that +you did it in despair of any other solution, and also to help poor +little Dora. That was a glorious thing to do, and God blessed your +effort. How is she, John?"</p> + +<p>"Well, and happy—both of them. I had a letter yesterday. They like +their work and believe they are doing good."</p> + +<p>"And you did that, John—you did it. When your own troubles were +greatest, you thought of that poor child. It was the noblest thing a man +ever did."</p> + +<p>John shrugged his shoulders. "It was selfish enough. I needed a +companion, and she became one. For years we were like real brother and +sister."</p> + +<p>"And then she left you all alone," Tilly sighed. "Oh, John, John, the +world has been unkind to you! You see, I have my children. Only a mother +can know what that means. I don't hear their voices now. Will you show +me where they were?"</p> + +<p>He led her through the wood to the glade. A great deadening chagrin was +on him. He told himself that she had suddenly bethought herself of the +need of the protection of her children's presence. Parting the bushes on +the edge of the glade, he looked around and presently espied them asleep +in the shade of a tree. Little Tilly's head lay on a heap of flowers and +ferns, and Joel lay coiled on the grass at her feet.</p> + +<p>"They often do that," Tilly beamed up at John. "We needn't wake them +yet—not just yet. I have a thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> things to say and ask, but my +thoughts are all in a jumble. How strange it seems to be here like this +with you again! I wonder, can there be any harm (in God's sight) in +telling the simple, honest truth? I've never done a conscious wrong in +my life, John. I did what I thought was right when I married you—when I +left you to go home with my father—when I secretly visited your +mother—when I finally married Joel—and now while I am here with you +like this telling you that—that—"</p> + +<p>She broke off, her all but etherealized face paling and growing more +rigid.</p> + +<p>He clutched her hands. He held them passionately, desperately to his +breast. "Go on!" he panted. "For God's sake, go on! I am starving for a +word from your lips. I've heard you speak a million times in my dreams. +Night after night I've lived with you in our little cottage, only to +wake and find it a damnable mockery, with nothing but the dull grind of +life before me."</p> + +<p>"What I say I would say to Joel's face if I could do so without killing +him." Tilly smiled wistfully. "John, I don't believe a true woman can +love but once in the way I loved you. She can many; she can have +children when she thinks it can bring no harm to her dead lover, but, if +she is a genuine woman, she will exult when that lover rises from the +grave and stands before her again. Dear John, I could take your +suffering face between my hands and kiss your lips as no woman ever +kissed a man's lips before. Yes, I could do it, and I'd die to be able +to do it again, but it is not to be. My body may not love, but my soul +may, and it is an eternal thing, John, and so is your soul. Those +children have a right to the care of a mother who is untainted in the +sight of the world. Their poor, patient, unfortunate father deserves as +clean a wife as the earth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> can produce. I know you love me— I know it. +I feel it. I see it. But we've got to part. I believe in God. When I +doubt God I suffer and am forced back to faith by the pain I feel. +Believing in God, I also believe that the greater the cross put upon us +the more patiently it must be borne. My cross is to live without +you—yours is to live without me. But, oh, my heart aches—aches—aches +for you! It seems to me that your burden will be heavier even than mine, +for I have my children and you are all alone. John, John, you are young +yet. Don't you think that if you were to marry some good girl and have +children of your own—"</p> + +<p>"No," he broke in, shuddering. "Leave that out! I couldn't do +it—knowing your heart as I now know it."</p> + +<p>"I see, I understand, and—yes, I'm glad. Oh, I can't help it, John. I'm +glad. When do you leave here?"</p> + +<p>"Very soon now—in a few days."</p> + +<p>"How strange, oh, how strange!" she mused, aloud. "And after this—after +this brief moment I am not to see you again, or hear from you—yes, I'll +hear through your mother, for she tells me she is not to leave with you. +How odd that is, too! Joel and I and the children have robbed you even +of the mother who bore you. You never knew her as she now is, John, and +that is a pity, too. In her rebirth she is as saintly as a consecrated +nun. She does not know that she believes in God, but she does. There is +a streak of doubt in her as there was in you. Are you still an +unbeliever, John?"</p> + +<p>He lowered his head, shrugged, and contracted his brows. "I don't like +to say—to <i>you</i>, at least," he faltered. "Not to you, Tilly."</p> + +<p>"But you may, John—it won't pain me at all. I used to think that the +worst sinners were those who denied the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> existence of God, but I now +think there may be persons so godlike that they can't realize the +existence of any God outside of themselves. John, you are godlike. If I +could think of you as sinning, I'd sin in that thought alone. Go on +calling yourself an atheist, and the angels will treat it as a holy +jest."</p> + +<p>"I don't follow you," he said, wearily, as if he would dismiss the +subject. "You are mistaken about me. I am just an average man. But I +don't believe as you do. It may be beautiful—it no doubt is, but I +can't grasp it. It never came my way, somehow."</p> + +<p>The wood was very still. Under the beating sun, the wild flowers and +tender leaves of plants were the shelter of myriads of moving things +visible and invisible. Suddenly a locust sang in the top of a +persimmon-tree. A crow flew cawing over a distant field. The rumble of a +farmer's wagon was heard on the road. Tilly's face was steadily raised +to John's. She put her hand on his arm, the arm she used to lean on so +lovingly in their walks on the mountain road.</p> + +<p>"You can live without conscious faith, John," she said, in the sweet +treble tone he had loved so long, "but I cannot. If I doubted, as I did +once when we thought Tilly was dying, I'd wither up in despair. You may +as well know the truth. I live only for my children, John. Joel has to +suffer in not having all my heart— I can't help that. He must suffer, +too, because he makes no headway in life and is unable to provide well +for me and his children. I can't help that, either. That is his cross +and he is bearing it like a saint. But as for me, I have two things to +live for—my children and your mother. God has put them in my hands and +I must care for them. Do you think I could live without faith now? Why, +I know God must help<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> me care for them. I am praying for that. Night +after night—day after day I plead with God to provide for those three. +I want to see the children educated. I want to keep your mother as happy +and peaceful as she now is. She is my mother now—she is also Joel's; +she is the grandmother of my children. Don't you think my prayer will be +answered, John?"</p> + +<p>"I know it," he said, suddenly, recalling the compact just made with his +mother. "I know it."</p> + +<p>"Then you believe, too," she cried, eagerly, wonderingly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I believe that," he admitted, reluctantly. "Something will +happen—something will turn up. You must never lose faith and hope."</p> + +<p>Tilly looked up at the sun. "It is eleven o'clock at least," she said. +"I must be going. I have to get Joel's dinner ready. I shall tell him +about this, of course, and now"—she choked up—"this must be good-by. +How can it be? It doesn't seem possible—that is, <i>forever</i>. For, if it +were possible, the God I adore would be a fiend. We are going to meet in +another life. As sure as you and I stand here loving each other as we +do, we are going to be reunited. A stream of spirit will connect us even +while alive. If it were otherwise, there'd be no law and order in the +universe, and law and order are everywhere. Yes, we'll meet again, +someway, somehow, somewhere."</p> + +<p>She held out her hands. He took them into his. He was drawing her to +him, the old fire of divine passion filling him, when he felt the +muscles of her fingers stiffen defensively, and she turned her eyes to +the sleeping children.</p> + +<p>"No, no! No, my darling," she said, a fluttering sob in her throat, her +eyes filling. "We must be honorable. Good-by. Leave me here with them, +please. I'll let them sleep a moment longer and then take them home."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Good-by," he said, turning away. The bending branches of the bushes +came between her and him. Like a plodder who has become suddenly blind +he staggered forward. The earth seemed to sink as he trod upon it. +Wild-grape vines whipped his brow and cheeks. Stones slipped and rolled +beneath his feet as he groped along. He was panting like a wild animal +long and closely pursued.</p> + +<p>He had turned away from the town's direction. He told himself that he +could not just now meet Cavanaugh and his wife with the meaningless +platitudes of daily life. A rugged, wooded hill rose before him. He +paused, rested awhile, and then began to climb its steep side. Half-way +to the summit, he stopped and looked about him.</p> + +<p>There lay the growing town where his boyhood was spent. There loomed up +the graveyard, with its ghostly slabs and shafts. There was the old +house which had haunted his dreariest dreams, and there—yes, there was +the cottage which had been the shrine of his sole joy in life. Drawn +close together in perspective and full of meaning they stood—his House +of Despair, and his Cottage of Delight. From both he tore his clinging +gaze. Beyond his mother's cabin lay an undulating meadow and another log +cabin. Along a narrow path walked a woman holding the hands of two +children. Across the furrows of a corn-field to meet the three trudged a +man without a coat, an ax on his shoulder. They met. The man took the +younger child up in his arms, and the three others walked onward through +the yellow veil of light.</p> + +<p>The observer groaned, filled, and sobbed. Through a mist of +unrestrainable tears he watched fixedly till the group had vanished in +the cabin. Then he started toward the town.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II_CHAPTER_XIV" id="II_CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<p>A few days later Joel Eperson stopped his wagon, which was loaded with +wood to be taken to town, at Mrs. Trott's cabin. He left his horse +unhitched and stood before the door. Mrs. Trott, who was within, heard +him and came out smiling.</p> + +<p>"The children told me," Eperson began, "that you wanted to see me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Joel," she answered, taking one of the chairs in front of the +cabin and indicating the other with a wave of her hand. "We've got to +have a talk, and what do you think? It is business this time."</p> + +<p>"Business?" he echoed, puzzled by her mood and mien.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and I am going to say in advance, Joel, that you have got to lay +aside some of your old-fashioned notions for once in your life and be +sensible. Joel, John is going back to New York very soon, and he is not +coming here anymore."</p> + +<p>"You say—you say—?" Eperson's moist lips hung loosely from his +yellowing teeth, and he broke off, only to begin again. "But why do you +tell <i>me</i> of it, Mrs. Trott?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Mrs. Trott!</i>" the woman cried. "Why do you call me that for the first +time? Hasn't it been 'Grandmother Trott' all these years? Listen, Joel. +You are too touchy for your own good. I am telling you about John +because you ought to know it. You may be silly enough to think that he +wants to come between you and Tilly, but he doesn't, and she wouldn't +encourage it, even if he did. So<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> that is the end of that. The next +thing is my own business with you. Joel, John is better off than we had +any idea of, and what do you think he has done? He has turned over to me +in my name a big lot of stocks that bring in a fine income, and, besides +that, he has placed to my credit in the bank several thousand dollars to +invest as I like. I am a rich woman, now, Joel."</p> + +<p>"Fine! Fine! Splendid! Splendid!" Joel cried, impulsively, and then his +face began to settle back into perplexed rigidity as he sat and waited.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is fine," Mrs. Trott went on, "and what I want to see you +about, Joel, is this: As you know, there are several splendid farms +around here with good houses on them that are offered for sale. Now I +want to buy one of them, and I want you to help me do it."</p> + +<p>"I'll do anything I can," he answered, lamely, for he well knew that she +had not finished what she had to say. "I am afraid that I am not a good +business man, however, and that the judgment of others—"</p> + +<p>"I really want the Louden farm," Mrs. Trott said. "Mr. Cavanaugh says it +is a bargain. He built the big house that is on it and says that it was +decidedly well made out of the best materials. It is a beautiful place, +as you may know, with the fine spring and fruit and shade trees and +stables and barn!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is splendid in every way," Eperson said; "and you think that +you can get it?"</p> + +<p>She smiled broadly. "Through the lawyers I have already a binding option +on it. The final papers will be signed to-day."</p> + +<p>"But how can I help you?" Joel asked, still shrinkingly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trott hesitated, as if to decide exactly how she should make her +next move. Then, with a half-fearful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> smile, she said: "You remember, +Joel, how you pleaded with me, just after you and Tilly were married, to +come live with you and her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, for we wanted you—we've always wanted you to be closer to us."</p> + +<p>"Well, I want to go to you now, Joel," was the slow reply. "I'm lonely. +Another change seems to have come over me. I have learned to love the +children so much that I am restless without them. Their little visits +seem too short, and on rainy days and in the winter they can't come. +Yes, I want to be with you all, and I am asking you to take me at last, +Joel."</p> + +<p>"Asking me—asking me?" he stammered, comprehending her trend in part. +"Why, you know—you ought to know that I—that we—"</p> + +<p>"Well, it is for you to take me or refuse me," Mrs. Trott put in, with a +wistful smile. "I want to live on the farm. I can't manage it by myself +and I want you to take charge of it for me—and let us all live in that +big, fine house together."</p> + +<p>"But I— Why, I—" Joel broke down again, his patrician face awry from +sheer torture, and then sat twisting his gaunt hands over his ragged, +quivering knee. "I see, it is good and kind of you, but—but— I don't +see how I, myself, could possibly accept your offer."</p> + +<p>"You have to, Joel," she retorted, still with her motherly smile. "You +can't refuse a thing that will give me and your wife and children so +much happiness."</p> + +<p>"But I'd be on—on your son's bounty," Joel flashed from the very embers +of his humiliation.</p> + +<p>"Absurd!" exclaimed Mrs. Trott. "He says he owes you more than he ever +could repay. He says you cared for me when he deserted me, and that you +played the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> part of a man while he was a coward. But that is neither +here nor there. Joel, I have willed all my new possessions to you and +your wife and children. When I'm dead and gone you will have to have +them, anyway, so why not make me happy the remainder of my life?"</p> + +<p>He was unable to formulate a logical reply, but beneath the revelation +she had made he sat limp and bruised as a flower drenched and beaten by +abnormal rain and wind.</p> + +<p>"Does Tilly know all this?" he asked, timidly, a cowed expression in his +dull eyes.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Joel, and she wants you to accept my plan. She will be happy when +you do, for your sake and for the sake of the children."</p> + +<p>He got up. His tanned face above his clean but frayed collar looked like +the mask of some Indian chieftain thwarted in his last patriotic hope. +His poor, underfed horse, in reaching for the grass near his bitted +mouth, had drawn the reins beneath his hoofs and was about to break +them.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," Joel said, and he went to the animal and tied up the reins. +He came back. His face was still rigid, his lips were quivering.</p> + +<p>"You wish it, you say," he faltered. "Tilly wants it, but how about your +son? Would he care for me to share in the benefits of his gifts to you?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trott deliberated for an instant, then she said: "He is doing it +more for you, perhaps, than us, Joel. He declares he owes it to you. +I've told him how you have often stinted yourself to pay my bills. I +have told him, too, that but for you I'd have remained in the life he so +detested. Not one man in a thousand would have treated me as you have +done. You can't avoid it, Joel—we are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> all going to live in that fine +house and be comfortable and happy at last."</p> + +<p>He bowed silently. That was his answer. He accepted her proposal as a +proud man might a shameful verdict of death. He went back to his wagon, +raised his tattered hat, and mounted upon his load of wood.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II_CHAPTER_XV" id="II_CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<p>The details of the business were all settled. John was ready to leave +for New York. He was to take the midnight train and was finishing his +packing in his room at about nine o'clock when Cavanaugh came in.</p> + +<p>"I have something to tell you that you may or may not like," the old man +faltered. "I don't know how you'll feel about it, but Joel Eperson is at +the gate and says he wants to speak to you."</p> + +<p>"Eperson!" John exclaimed, with a start.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and the poor fellow looks awful, John. He could barely speak. He +leaned on the gate like he could hardly stand up. I hope you will be +kind and gentle with him. I have never seen such a pitiful sight. It's +his pride, I reckon, and it has been cut to the quick."</p> + +<p>John said nothing. It was an encounter he had hoped to avoid. He put +some things into his bag and pressed them down. How could he confer on +any terms with that man of all men? And yet he plainly saw that the +meeting was inevitable.</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't do to turn him away," Cavanaugh advised, gingerly. "You +see, it would upset all the other plans, for I know him well enough to +know that if you treat him roughly to-night he will not live on that +farm. He would kill himself first."</p> + +<p>"He and I will make out all right," John said, turning resolutely to the +door. "Will he not come in?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think he wants to," Cavanaugh said. "He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> kept in the shadow +while I was talking to him and had his hat pulled down over his eyes."</p> + +<p>As John went outside he saw Eperson at the fence. A thing that touched +him sharply was the fact that Eperson unlatched the gate and swung it +open, as a servant might have done for his master, while he still kept +his eyes hidden under the broad brim of his slouch-hat.</p> + +<p>"I came to see you— I <i>had</i> to see you, Mr. Trott," Eperson muttered, +jerkingly. "I heard you were going away to-night and I couldn't—well, I +had to see you."</p> + +<p>"I understand, Eperson," John said, wondering over his own stilted tone +to a man whom he so profoundly pitied. "Will you come in—or shall +we—?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, we can walk, if you don't mind," Eperson answered, quickly. "I +really think it would be better. Curious people pass along and look in +windows sometimes, but back here in the wood there is no light and it is +quiet."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is better," John agreed. And side by side the two men walked +along Cavanaugh's lot fence till they were in the thicket of stunted +trees behind the property. Presently Eperson paused, raised his head, +and spoke again:</p> + +<p>"This will do, Mr. Trott. I really don't know what to say in beginning, +for it seems to me that a million things come up, but your mother told +me about the property you gave her—the farm and all the rest."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I know— I hoped that she would mention it to you," John +said, out of a sympathy he didn't dream he possessed. "That was really +part of the—the understanding. She needs a comfortable home and she +could not look after it herself. She knows, and I know, that you can +manage it well, and so—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But—but don't you see—can't you understand?" Eperson pushed his hat +back and his great, all but bloodshot eyes gleamed piteously in the +starlight. "Don't you see that I can't be put on a rack like that and +live under it? Do you think I have no pride or manhood left? I am a +failure—worse than a beggar. I aspired for that of which I was +unworthy—your wife—and I've come to tell you something to-night which +no proud man ever in the history of the world told another. I've come to +tell you that—"</p> + +<p>"Stop, Joel, you mustn't," John broke in, and he gently laid his hand on +the shoulder of the other. "That is a thing neither of us must ever hold +in mind for a moment. Listen to me. You and I are in the swirl of great +laws we can't understand. Of one thing we can be certain, and that is +that we love the same woman. Don't come to me to-night with the idea +that you are about to get in my debt. I'm in yours. I was a coward. I +deserted my post of duty under the first great blight that fell upon me. +I was only a poor, bewildered, stung boy, but I fled while you remained, +advised, protected, and cared for both my wife and my mother. By so +doing, and through your children, you tied the hearts of those two +beings to you forever. My mother is a transformed woman through you—my +former wife through you is a glorified mother. Don't think I am fooling +myself with romantic ideals. I know where I stand. If I were to dare +to-day to lay claim to your place, Tilly would turn upon me in disgust +and hatred. And why? Because the price to be paid would be the happiness +of the father of her children. That is a holy thing in her eyes, and I, +myself, profoundly respect it."</p> + +<p>"My God! My God!" moaned Eperson, "you can say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> this—you can be all +this to a man like me?" Eperson's great eyes were filling; his rough +breast was heaving; the shoulder under John's gentle hand was quivering.</p> + +<p>"Yes, because I admire you from the depths of my soul," was the reply. +"Your wife is not for me. My mother is not for me. Your children are +theirs and yours. My mother is making a gift to you— I am not doing it. +I shouldn't say <i>gift</i>. She is trying to pay a debt that she owes you."</p> + +<p>A sob broke from Joel. He caught John's hand and stared into his eyes. +"I now know why Tilly still loves you," he gulped. "She loves you +because you are more of God than man. I don't know what to say to you +further, but I will say this—and as the Almighty is my witness I mean +it. I'll do my duty as the father of my children, as the husband <i>before +the law</i> of my wife, and as the manager of your mother's property, but +I'll never try to win my wife's heart from you."</p> + +<p>John's arm slid around the neck of the bowed and broken man. He started +to speak, but his voice clogged with a pain that was delicious. It was +as if both he and his companion somehow had stood aside from their +bodies and were floating among the trees in the dim starlight.</p> + +<p>Presently, and without a word, Joel turned and walked away. He plunged +again into the wood as if to avoid contact with any one from the streets +of the town. On he went, his face turned homeward. There was a hill to +ascend, a vale to cross. He reached the top of the hill. His step had +become sluggish. He groaned aloud. He folded his arms and stood staring +into the moonlight.</p> + +<p>"It is incomplete—unfinished, not rounded out," he muttered. "It cannot +remain as it is. I haven't the strength to put it through. I know where +I'd fail. I'd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> continue to suffer, and so would he. He is noble to the +core of his being. He is doing his best to help me and her, but he is +giving more than he is getting, and that isn't fair. After all, after +all, <i>there is one thing that I can do for him that he could not do for +me</i>!"</p> + +<h4>THE END</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>BOOKS BY</h2> + +<h2>ZANE GREY</h2> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE U. P. TRAIL</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE DESERT OF WHEAT</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>WILDFIRE</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>DESERT GOLD</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE LONE STAR RANGER</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE RAINBOW TRAIL</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE BORDER LEGION</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>KEN WARD IN THE JUNGLE</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE YOUNG LION HUNTER</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE YOUNG FORESTER</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE YOUNG PITCHER</i></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h2>BOOKS BY</h2> + +<h2>BASIL KING</h2> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE CITY OF COMRADES</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>ABRAHAM'S BOSOM</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE HIGH HEART</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE LIFTED VEIL</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE INNER SHRINE</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE WILD OLIVE</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE STREET CALLED STRAIGHT</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE WAY HOME</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE LETTER OF THE CONTRACT</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>IN THE GARDEN OF CHARITY</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE STEPS OF HONOR</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>LET NOT MAN PUT ASUNDER</i></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h2>NOVELS OF</h2> + +<h2>WILL N. HARBEN</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"His people talk as if they had not been in books before, +and they talk all the more interestingly because they have +for the most part not been in society, or ever will be. They +express themselves in the neighborly parlance with a fury of +fun, of pathos, and profanity which is native to their +region. Of all our localists, as I may call the type of +American writers whom I think the most national, no one has +done things more expressive of the life he was born to than +Mr. Harben."</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 34em;"><span class="smcap">William Dean Howells</span>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE HILLS OF REFUGE</i>.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE INNER LAW</i>.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>ABNER DANIEL.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>ANN BOYD. Illustrated</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>DIXIE HART. Frontispiece</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>GILBERT NEAL. Frontispiece</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>MAM' LINDA.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>JANE DAWSON. Frontispiece</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>PAUL RUNDEL. Frontispiece</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>POLE BAKER.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>SECOND CHOICE. Frontispiece</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE DESIRED WOMAN. Frontispiece</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE GEORGIANS.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE NEW CLARION. Frontispiece</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE REDEMPTION OF KENNETH GALT. Frontispiece</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE SUBSTITUTE.</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>WESTERFELT.</i></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p class="center"><i>Post 8vo, Cloth</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h2>BOOKS BY</h2> + +<h2>MARGARET DELAND</h2> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE RISING TIDE. Illustrated</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>AROUND OLD CHESTER. Illustrated</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE COMMON WAY. 16mo</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE. Illustrated</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>AN ENCORE. Illustrated</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>GOOD FOR THE SOUL. Illustrated</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE HANDS OF ESAU. Illustrated</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE AWAKENING OF HELENA RICHIE. Illustrated</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE IRON WOMAN. Illustrated</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>OLD CHESTER TALES. Illustrated</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>PARTNERS. Illustrated</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>R. J.'S MOTHER. Illustrated</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE VOICE. Illustrated</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>THE WAY TO PEACE. Illustrated</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>WHERE THE LABORERS ARE FEW. Illustrated</i></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<h4>HARPER & BROTHERS</h4> + +<h4>NEW YORK [Established 1817] LONDON</h4> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Cottage of Delight, by Will N. Harben + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT *** + +***** This file should be named 33715-h.htm or 33715-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/7/1/33715/ + +Produced by Annie McGuire. 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Harben + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Cottage of Delight + A Novel + +Author: Will N. Harben + +Release Date: September 12, 2010 [EBook #33715] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT *** + + + + +Produced by Annie McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + + + + + + + + +THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT + + + + +BOOKS BY +WILL N. HARBEN + + THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT + THE HILLS OF REFUGE + THE TRIUMPH + ABNER DANIEL + ANN BOYD + THE DESIRED WOMAN + DIXIE HART + THE GEORGIANS + GILBERT NEAL + THE INNER LAW + JANE DAWSON + KENNETH GALT + MAM' LINDA + THE NEW CLARION + PAUL RUNDEL + POLE BAKER + SECOND CHOICE + THE SUBSTITUTE + WESTERFELT + + * * * * * + +HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK +[ESTABLISHED 1817] + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT + +A NOVEL + + +BY + +WILL N. HARBEN + +_Author of "Ann Boyd," "Abner Daniel," +"The Triumph," "The Hills of Judgment," etc._ + + +[Illustration] + + +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS +NEW YORK AND LONDON + + +Copyright 1919, by Harper & Brothers + + + + +PART I + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +John Trott waked that morning at five o'clock. Whether it was due to the +mere habit of a working-man or the blowing of the hoarse and mellow +whistle at the great cotton-mills beyond the low, undulating hills +half a mile away he did not know, but for several years the whistle +had been his summons from a state of dead slumber to a day of toil. +The morning was cloudy and dark, so he lighted a dingy oil-lamp with a +cracked and smoked chimney, and in its dim glow drew on his coarse +lime-and-mortar-splotched shirt and overalls. The cheap cotton socks he +put on had holes at the heels and toes; his leather belt had broken and +was tied with a piece of twine; his shoes were quite new and furnished +an odd contrast to the rest of his attire. + +He was young, under twenty, and rather tall. He was slender, but his +frame was sinewy. He had no beard as yet, and his tanned face was +covered with down. His hair was coarse and had a tendency to stand erect +and awry. He had blue eyes, a mouth inclined to harshness, a manner +somewhat brusk and impatient. To many he appeared absent-minded. + +Suddenly, as he sat tying his shoes, he heard a clatter of pans in the +kitchen down-stairs, and he paused to listen. "I wonder," he thought, +"if that brat is cooking breakfast again. She must be, for neither one +of those women would be out of bed as early as this. It was three +o'clock when they came in." + +Blowing out his light, he groped from the room into the dark passage +outside, and descended the old creaking stairs to the hall below. The +front door was open, and he sniffed angrily. "They didn't even lock it. +They must have been drunk again. Well, that's their business, not mine." + +The kitchen was at the far end of the hall and he turned into it. It was +almost filled with smoke. A little girl stood at the old-fashioned +range, putting sticks of wood in at the door. She was about nine years +of age, wore a cast-off dress, woman's size, and was barefooted. She had +good features, her eyes were blue, her hair abundant and golden, her +hands, now splotched with smut, were small and slender. She was not a +relative of John's, being the orphaned niece of Miss Jane Holder, who +shared the house with John's mother, who was a widow. + +The child's name was Dora Boyles, and she smiled in chagrin as he stared +down on her in the lamplight and demanded: + +"Say, say, what's this--trying to smoke us to death?" + +"I made a mistake," the child faltered. "The damper in the pipe was +turned wrong, and while I was on the back porch, mixing the +biscuit-dough, it smoked before I knew it. It will stop now. You see it +is drawing all right." + +With an impatient snort, he threw open the two windows in the room and +opened the outer door, standing aside and watching the blue smoke trail +out, cross the porch floor, and dissolve in the grayish light of dawn. + +"The biscuits are about done," Dora said. "The coffee water has boiled +and I'm going to fry the eggs and meat. The pan is hot and it won't take +long." + +"I was going to get a bite at the restaurant," he answered, in a +mollified tone. + +"But you said the coffee was bad down there and the bread stale," Dora +argued, as she dropped some slices of bacon into the pan. "And once you +said the place was not open and you went to work without anything. I +might as well do this. I can't sleep after the whistle blows. Your ma +and Aunt Jane waked me when they came in. They were awfully lively. The +fellows were singing and cursing and throwing bottles across the street. +Aunt Jane could hardly get up the stairs and had one of her laughing +spells. I think your ma was sober, for I could hear her talking steady +and scolding Aunt Jane about taking a dance from her with some man or +other. Did you see the men? They were the same two that had 'em out last +Friday night, the big one your ma likes and the one Aunt Jane says is +hers. I heard your ma say they were horse-traders from Kentucky, and +have lots and lots of money to spend. That jewelry drummer--do you +remember, that gave me the red pin?--he sent them with a note of +introduction. The pin was no good. The shine is already off of +it--wasn't even washed with gold." + +John was scarcely heeding what she said. He had taken a piece of paper +from his pocket, and with a brick-layer's flat pencil was making some +calculations in regard to a wall he was building. The light was +insufficient at the door and he was now bending over the table near the +lamp. + +"Do you want me to make you some flour-and-cream gravy?" she asked, +ignorant of his desire to be undisturbed. "The milk looks good and rich +this morning." + +"No, no!" And he swore under his breath. "Don't you see I'm figuring? +Now I'll have to add up again." + +She made the gravy, anyway. She took out the fried bacon, sprinkled +flour in the brown grease, stirred the mixture vigorously, and then +there was a great sizzling as she added a cup of milk, and, in a cloud +of fragrant steam, still stood stirring. "There," she said, more to +herself than to him. "I'm going to pour it over the bacon. It is better +that way." + +He had finished his figuring and now turned to her. "Are your biscuits +done?" he asked. "I think I smell them." + +"Just about," she answered, and she threw open the door of the oven, +and, holding the hot pan with the long skirt of her dress, she drew it +out. "Good! Just right!" she chuckled. "Now, where do you want to +eat--here or in the dining-room? The table is set in there. Come on. You +bring the coffee-pot." + +Still absently, for his thoughts were on his figures, he followed her +into the adjoining room. It was a bare-looking place, in the dim light +of the lamp which she placed in the center of the small, square table +with its red cloth, for there was no furniture but three or four chairs, +a tattered strip of carpeting, and an old-fashioned safe with perforated +tin panels. Two windows with torn Holland shades and dirty cotton +curtains looked out on the side yard. Beneath the shades the yellowing +glow of approaching sunlight appeared; a sort of fog hovered over +everything outside and its dampness had crept within, moistening the +table-cloth and chairs. John poured his own coffee while standing, and +Dora went to bring the other things. His mind was busy over the work he +was to do. Certain stone sills must be placed exactly right in the +brickwork, a new scaffold had to be erected, and he wondered if the +necessary timbers had arrived from the sawmill which his employer, +Cavanaugh, had promised to have delivered the night before in order that +the work might not be delayed. John sat down. He burnt his lips with the +hot coffee, and then pouring some of it into his saucer, he drank it in +that awkward fashion. + +"How is it?" Dora inquired. "Is it strong enough?" She was putting down +a dish containing the fried things and eyed his face anxiously. + +"Yes, it is all right," he said. "Hurry, will you? Give me something to +eat. I can't stay here all day." He took a hot biscuit and buttered it +and began to eat it like a sandwich. She pushed the dish toward him and +sat down, her hands in her lap, watching his movements with the stare of +a faithful dog. + +"Your ma and Aunt Jane almost had a fist-fight yesterday while they was +dressing to go out," she said, as he helped himself to the eggs and +bacon and began to eat voraciously. "Aunt Jane said she used too much +paint and that she was getting fat. Your ma rushed at her with a big +hair-brush in her hand. She called her a spindle-shanked old hag and +said she was going to tell the men about her false teeth. It would +really have been another case in court if the two horse-men hadn't come +just then. They quieted 'em down and made 'em both take a drink +together. Then they all laughed and cut up." + +"Dry up, will you?" John commanded. "I don't want to hear about them. +Can't you talk about something else?" + +"I don't mean no harm, brother John." She sometimes used that term in +addressing him. "I wasn't thinking." + +"Well, I don't want to hear anything about them or their doings," he +retorted, sullenly. "By some hook or crook they manage to get about all +I make--I know that well enough--and half the time they keep me awake at +night when I'm tired out." + +She remained silent while he was finishing eating, and when he had +clattered out through the hall and slammed the gate after him she began +to partake daintily of the food he had left. "He's awfully touchy," she +mused; "don't think of nothing but his work. Bother him while he is at +it, and you have a fight on your hands." + +Her breakfast eaten, Dora went to the kitchen to heat some water for +dish-washing. She had filled a great pan at the well in the back yard +and was standing by the range when she heard some one descending the +stairs. It was Mrs. Trott, wearing a bedraggled red wrapper, her +stockingless feet in ragged slippers, her carelessly coiled hair falling +down her fat neck. She was about forty years of age, showed traces of +former beauty, notwithstanding the fact that the sockets of her gray +eyes were now puffy, her cheeks swollen and sallow. + +"Is there any hot coffee?" she asked, with a weary sigh. "My head is +fairly splitting. I was just dozing off when I heard you and John making +a clatter down here. I smelled smoke, too. I was half asleep and dreamed +that the house was burning down and I couldn't stir--a sort of +nightmare. Say, after we all left yesterday didn't Jim Darnell come to +see me?" + +"No, not him," Dora replied, wrinkling her brow, "but another fellow +did. A little man with a checked gray suit on. He said he had a date +with you and looked sorter mad. He asked me if I was your child and I +told him it was none of his business." + +"That was Pete Seltzwick," Mrs. Trott said, as she filled a cup with +coffee from the pot on the stove and began to cool it with breath from +her rather pretty, puckered and painted lips. "You didn't tell him who +we went off with, did you?" + +"No, I didn't," the child replied, then added, "Do you reckon Aunt Jane +would like some coffee before she gets up?" + +"No. She's sound asleep, and will get mad if you wake her. Oh, my head! +My head! And the trouble is I can't sleep! If I could sleep the pain +would go away. Did John leave any money for me? He didn't give me any +last week." + +"No," Dora answered, "he said the hands hadn't been paid off yet. You +know he doesn't talk much." + +Mrs. Trott seemed not to hear. Groaning again, she turned toward the +stairway and went up to her room. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +John had passed out at the scarred and battered front door, crossed the +floor of the veranda, and reached the almost houseless street, for he +lived on the outskirts of the town, which was called Ridgeville. On the +hillside to the right was the town cemetery. The fog, shot through with +golden gleams of sunlight, was rising above the white granite and marble +slabs and shafts. Ahead of him and on the right, a mile away, could be +seen the mist-draped steeples of churches, the high roof and cupola of +the county court-house. He heard the distant rumble of a coming +street-car and quickened his step to reach it at the terminus of the +line near by before it started back to the Square. The car was a toylike +affair, drawn by a single horse and in charge of a negro who was both +conductor and driver. + +"Got a ride out er you dis time, boss," the negro said, with a smile, as +John came up. "Met some o' yo' hands goin' in. Want any mo' help ter +tote mortar en' bricks? 'Kase if you do, I'll th'o' up dis job. De +headman said maybe I was stealin' nickels 'kase de traffic is so low dis +spring, en' I didn't turn in much. If you got any room fer--" + +"You'll have to see Sam Cavanaugh," John answered, gruffly. "If you +climb a scaffold as slow as you drive a car you wouldn't suit our job." + +"Huh! dat ain't me; it's dis ol' poky hoss. I'm des hired to bresh de +flies offen his back." + +The negro gave a loud guffaw over his own wit and proceeded to unhitch +the trace-chains and drive the horse around to the opposite end of the +car. John entered and took a seat. He drew from the pocket of his short +coat a blue, white-inked drawing and several pages of figures which +Cavanaugh had asked him to look over. A rather pretentious court-house +was to be built in a Tennessee village. Bids on the work had been +invited from contractors in all directions and John's employer had made +an estimate of his own of the cost of the work and had asked John's +opinion of it. John was deeply submerged in the details of the estimate +when the car suddenly started with a jerk. He swore impatiently, and +looked up and scowled, but the slouching back of the driver was turned +to him and the negro was quite unconscious of the wrath he had stirred. +For the first half-mile John was the only passenger; then a woman and a +child got aboard. The car jerked again and trundled onward. The woman +knew who John was and he had seen her before, for he had worked on a +chimney Cavanaugh had built for her, but she did not speak to him nor he +to her. That he had no acquaintances among the women of the town and few +among the men outside of laborers had never struck John as odd. There +were gaudily dressed women who came from neighboring cities and visited +his mother and Jane Holder now and then, but he did not like their +looks, and so he never spoke to them nor encouraged their addressing +him. A psychologist would have classified John as a sort of genius in +his way, for his whole thought and powers of observation pertained to +the kind of work in which he was engaged. Cavanaugh half jestingly +called him a "lightning calculator," and turned to him for advice on all +occasions. + +Reaching the Square, John sprang from the car and, with the papers in +his hand and the pencil racked above his ear, he hurried into a +hardware-store and approached a clerk who was sweeping the floor. + +"We need those nails and bolts this morning," he said, gruffly. "You +were to send them around yesterday." + +"They are in the depot, but the agent hasn't sent 'em up yet," the clerk +answered. "We'll get them around to you by ten o'clock sharp." + +"That won't do." John frowned. "We could have got them direct from the +wholesale house, and have had them long ago, but Sam would deal with +you. He is too good-natured and you fellers all impose on him." + +"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do," the clerk proposed. "I'll send a +dray for them this minute and you'll have them on the ground in a +half-hour." + +"All right," John said, coldly, and turned away. + +The building on which he was at work was a brick residence in a +side-street near by which was being erected for a wealthy banker of +Ridgeville, and as John approached it he saw a group of negro laborers +seated on a pile of lumber at the side of the half-finished house. + +"Here comes John now," one of them said, and it was significant that his +given name was used, for it was a fact that a white man in John's +position would, as a rule, be spoken of in a more formal manner, but to +whites and blacks alike he was simply "John" or "John Trott." This was +partly due, perhaps, to his youth, but there was no doubt that John's +lack of social standing had something to do with it. He had been nothing +but a dirty, neglected street urchin, a playmate of blacks and the +lowest whites, till Cavanaugh had put him to work and had discovered in +him a veritable dynamo of physical and mental energy. + +"Good morning," several of the negroes said, cordially, but John barely +nodded. It was his way, and they thought nothing of it. + +"Has Sam got here yet?" he inquired of a stalwart mortar-mixer called +Tobe. + +"No, suh, boss, he 'ain't," said the negro. "I was gwine ter see 'im. +I'm out o' sand--not mo' 'n enough ter las' twell--" + +"Four loads will be dumped here in half an hour," John broke in. "Did +you patch that hose? Don't let the damn thing leak like it did +yesterday." + +"It's all right, boss. She won't bust erg'in." The negro smiled. +Evidently he had not washed his face that day, for splotches of +whitewash with globules of dry mortar were on his black cheeks and the +backs of his hands. + +The whistle at a shingle-factory blew. It was eight o'clock, the hour +for work to begin. + +"Mort'!" John's command was directed to two mortar-carriers, who +promptly grasped their padded wooden hods and made for the mortar-bed +where Tobe was already shoving and pulling the grayish mass to and fro +with a hoe. + +John hung up his coat on the trunk of an apple-tree into which some +nails had been driven, and took his trowel and other tools from a long +wooden box with a sloping water-proof lid. He was about to ascend the +scaffold when he saw Cavanaugh approaching and signaling to him to wait. + +The contractor was a man of sixty years, whose beard and hair were quite +gray. He was short and stocky, slow of movement, and gentle and genial +in his manner. He had been a contractor for fifteen years, and had +accumulated nothing, which his friends said was owing to his good nature +in not insisting on his rights when it came to charges and settlements. +Widows and frugal maiden ladies would have no one else to build for +them, for Sam Cavanaugh was noted for his honesty and liberality, and he +was never known to use faulty material. + +"Mort' there! Get a move on you, boys!" John was eying his employer with +impatience as he approached. "Fill all four boards and scrape the dry +off clean!" + +"Wait a minute, John!" Cavanaugh said, almost pleadingly. "I want to see +you about the court-house bid. I want to mail it this morning." + +"What! And hold up this whole gang?" John snorted, impatiently. + +"Oh, let 'em wait--let 'em wait this time," Cavanaugh said. "Where are +the papers?" + +With a suppressed oath, John went to his coat and got them. "I haven't +time to go over all that, Sam," he answered. "Wait till dinner-time." + +"But I thought you was going to look it over at home," the contractor +said, crestfallen, as he took the papers into his fat hands. + +"Oh, I've looked them over, all right," John replied, "and that's the +trouble--that's why it will take time to talk it over." + +"You mean-- I see." Cavanaugh pulled at his short, stiff beard +nervously. "I'm too high, and you are afraid I'll lose the job." + +"Too high nothing!" John sniffed, with a harsh smile. "You are so damned +low that they will make you give double security to keep you from +falling down on it. Say, Sam, you told me you was in need of money and +want to make something out of this job. Well, if you do, and want me to +go up there in charge of the brickwork, you will have to make out +another bid. I'm done with seeing you come out by the skin of your teeth +in nearly every job you bid on. When a county builds a court-house like +that they expect to pay for it." + +"Why, I thought-- I thought--" Cavanaugh began. + +But John broke in: "You thought a thousand dollars would cover the +ironwork. It will take two. The market reports show that steel beams +have gone out of sight. Nails are up, too, and bolts, screws, locks, and +all lines of plumbing material." + +"Why, John, I thought--" + +"You don't keep posted." John glanced up at the scaffold as if anxious +to get to work. "Then look at your estimate of sash, doors, blinds, and +glass. You are under the cost by seven hundred at least. And where in +God's world could you get slate at your figure? And the clock and bell +according to the requisition? Sam, you made those figures when you were +asleep." + +"Then you think I could afford-- I want the job bad, my boy--do you +reckon I could land it if I raised my offer, say by fifteen hundred?" + +"You will have to raise it four thousand," John said, thoughtfully. +"Think of the risk you would be running. If the slightest thing goes +crooked the official inspectors will make you tear it down and do it +over. Look at your estimate on painting," pointing with the tip of his +trowel at a line on the quivering manuscript which the contractor held +before his spectacled eyes. "You are away under on it. White lead is +booming, and oil and varnish, and you have left out stacks of small +items--sash cords, sash weights, and putty." + +"Then you think this won't do?" Cavanaugh's face was turning red. + +"Do? It will do if you want to present several thousand dollars to one +of the richest counties in Tennessee. Why, one of those big farmers up +there could build that house and give it to the state without hurting +himself, while you hardly own a roof over your head." + +"You may be right about my figures," Cavanaugh muttered. "Say, John, I +want to get this bid off. Leave the bricklaying to Pete Long and come +over to the hotel and write it out for me." + +"And let him ruin my wall?" John snorted. "Not on your life! His mortar +joints are as thick as the mud in the cracks of a log cabin. I'll do it +to-night after I go home, but not before. I don't believe any man ought +to let one job stand idle in order to try to hook another. To-morrow is +Saturday. They couldn't get the bid anyway till Monday. There will be +plenty of time." + +As John finished he was turning to the scaffold. "Well, all right," +Cavanaugh called after him. "That will have to do." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +When the steam-whistles of the shops and mills of Ridgeville blew that +afternoon at dusk John descended from the scaffold and put his tools +away. He was the last of the workers on the spot, and when he had put on +his coat he went around to the side of the building and with a critical +eye scanned the wall he had worked on that day. + +"It will look all right when it is washed down with acid," he mused. +"That will straighten the lines and tone it up." + +He was too late for the car and walked home. He found Jane Holder in the +kitchen, preparing supper. She was a slight woman of thirty-five, dark, +erect, with brown, twinkling eyes and short chestnut hair which had not +regained its normal length since it was cut during a spell of fever the +preceding winter. Touches of paint showed on her yellowish cheeks, and +her false teeth gave to her thin-lipped mouth a rather too full, harsh +expression. + +"Oh, here you are!" She smiled. "I know you are hungry as a bear, but I +had my hands full with all sorts of things. I was sewing on my new +organdie and got the waist plumb out of joint. Your ma promised to help +fit it on me, but Harrington, one of those horse-dealers, come by in a +hurry to drive her to Rome behind two brag blacks, and she dropped me +and my work to get ready. She is always doing me that way. She makes a +cat's-paw of me. May Tomlin is going to have a dance at her house +to-night and wrote Harrington to bring her. She left me clean out, +though when May stayed here that time I was nice to her and introduced +her to all my friends. Your ma didn't care a rap about me. She was +going, and that was enough for her." + +John simply grunted and turned away. He had not heard half she said. On +the back porch was a tin wash-basin and a cedar pail. He wanted to bathe +his face and hands, for his skin was clammy and coated with sand and +brick-dust, but the pail was empty, so he took it to the well close by +and filled it. He was about to return to the porch when he saw Dora, the +woman's skirt pinned up about her slight waist, coming from the cow-lot +with a tin pail half filled with milk. + +"I had trouble with the cow," she said, wistfully, in her quaint, +half-querulous voice. "While I was milking, she turned around to see her +calf and mashed me against the fence. I pushed and pushed, but I +couldn't move her. Once I thought my breath was gone entirely. The calf +run along the fence, and she went after it, and that let me loose. I +lost nearly half the milk, and Aunt Jane will give me the very devil +about it. Well, Liz-- I mean your mother's gone for the night, and we +won't need quite so much. She's been drinking it for her complexion. +Some woman told her--" + +"Oh, cut it out!" John cried, with a suppressed oath. "You chatter like +a feed-cutting machine." + +He took the water to the porch, filled the basin, and washed his face, +hands, and neck. He was just finishing when Dora came to him with a +tattered cotton towel. "It is damp," she explained, apologetically. "I +ironed them in a hurry when they were too wet. They ought to have been +hung out in the sun longer, but the sun was low when I got through +washing, and so I brought some of them in too soon. Your ma and Aunt +Jane use the best ones in their rooms, and leave the ragged ones for +us." + +"You forgot something you promised to do, brother John," she added, +timidly, as he stood vigorously wiping his face and neck. + +"What was that?" he mumbled in the towel. + +"Why, you promised to send a nigger to cut me some stove-wood and +kindling. I tried to cut some myself to-day, but the ax is dull and I +had trouble getting enough wood for to-night and in the morning. Will +you send him to-morrow?" + +"Yes," he nodded. "I'll make one of the boys come over and cut it and +store it under the shed. There is a lot of pine scraps at the building. +I'll send a load of them over, too." + +After supper, which he had with Jane Holder and her niece in the dimly +lighted dining-room, he went up to his room and prepared to work on the +estimates for Cavanaugh. He was very tired, and yet the calculations +interested him and drove away the tendency to sleep. Down-stairs he +heard Jane laughing and talking to some masculine visitor. He had a +vague impression that he knew the man, a young lawyer who was a +candidate for the Legislature. John had been approached by the man, who +had asked for his vote, but John was not of age and, moreover, he had no +interest in politics. In fact, he scarcely knew the meaning of the word. +Politics and religion were mysteries for which he had little but +contempt. He used to say that politicians were grafters and preachers +fakers, though he did believe that Cavanaugh, who was a devout +Methodist, was, while deluded, decidedly sincere. He heard Dora's voice +down-stairs as she timidly asked her aunt if she might go to bed. + +"Have you washed the dishes and put them up?" Jane asked. + +"Yes, 'm," the child said, and John heard her ascending the stairs to +her room back of his. She used no light, and he heard her bare feet +softly treading the floor as she undressed in the dark. Soon all was +quiet in her room, and he plunged again into his work. + +Finally it was concluded, and he folded the sheets on which he had +written so clearly and so accurately and went to bed. It was an hour +before he went to sleep. He could still hear the low mumbling, broken by +laughter, below, but that did not disturb him. It was his figures and +estimates squirming like living things in his brain that kept him awake +till near midnight. + +The next morning he decided to walk to the Square, that he might stop at +Cavanaugh's cottage and hand him the papers. + +The little house of only six rooms stood in another part of the town's +edge. Close behind it was a swamp filled with willow-trees and bracken, +and farther beyond lay a strip of woodland that sloped down from a +rugged mountain range. There was a white paling fence in front, a few +fruit-trees at the sides, and a grape-arbor and vegetable-garden behind. +Mrs. Cavanaugh, a portly woman near her husband's age, was on the tiny +porch, sweeping, and she looked up and smiled as John entered the gate. + +"Sam's just gone down to the swamp to see what's become of our two +hens," she said. "He'll be back in a few minutes. He'd like to see you. +He thinks a lot of you, John." + +"I haven't time to wait," John explained, taking the papers from his +pocket and handing them to her. "Give these to him. He will know all +about them." + +"I know-- I understand. They are the bid on that court-house." She +smiled broadly. "Sam was awfully set back. He told me all about it last +night. He admits he was hasty, but, la me! he is so anxious to land that +contract that he can hardly sleep. You see, he thinks maybe it is our +one chance to lay by a little. You see, Sam hasn't the heart to charge +stiff prices here among Ridgeville folks, but he feels like he's got a +right to make something out of a public building like that one. He says +you insisted on a bigger bid and he is between two fires. He wants to +abide by your judgment and still he is afraid you may have your sights +too high. You see, he says some of the biggest contractors will send in +bids and that they will cut under him because they are bigger buyers of +material." + +"Sam's off there," John said, thoughtfully. "He can borrow all the money +he needs for a job like that and he can get material as cheap as any of +them. The main item is brick, and that is made right here in town, and +the stone is got out and cut here, too." + +"You may be right," the woman said. "But to tell you the truth, John, +Sam is afraid you are too young to decide on a matter as big as this +deal. Several men he knows have advised him to make as low a bid as +possible." + +"Well, if he cuts under the estimates I've made in those papers," John +returned, "he'll lose money or barely get out whole. I want to see him +make something in his old age. I'm tired of seeing folks ride a free +horse to death. He may be underbid on this, and if he loses the job +he'll curse me out, but I'm willing to risk it." John turned away. +"Just hand 'em to him," he said, from the little sagging gate, "and tell +him that is my final estimate. If he wants to change it he may do so. +I'm acting on my best judgment." + +Half an hour later, as John was on the scaffold at work, Cavanaugh +crossed the street and slowly ascended the ladders and runways till he +stood on the narrow platform at the young mason's side. He held a long +envelop which had been stamped and addressed in his fat hand. John saw +him, but, being busy cutting a brick with his trowel and fitting into a +mortar-filled niche a bat of exactly the right size, he did not pause or +speak. It was his way, and had so long been his way that Cavanaugh had +become used to it. + +"Hey, hey! Get a move on you down there!" John shouted. "This mort' is +getting dry!" + +"Hold up a minute, John!" the contractor said. "My wife handed me the +papers. I wrote the letter and stamped it and put in the bid exactly as +you had it and was on the way to the post-office with it when I met +Renfro going in the bank by the side door. You know he expects to lend +me the money if it goes through--my bid, I mean--and he asked me what I +was going to do. I told him, and he wanted to look over the bid. I let +him, and he looked serious. He said he thought you was too steep, and if +I wanted to get the job, why, I'd better--" + +"I know," John sneered. "He thinks he knows something about building, +but he is as green as a gourd. I've given you my judgment--take it or +not, Sam, as you think fit. As big as I've made that bid, I'm afraid you +will be sorry you didn't make it bigger." + +"Renfro says young folks always aim too high," Cavanaugh ventured, +tentatively. "He's got the money ready, he says, and wants me to win." + +John was cutting another brick in halves. His steel trowel rang like a +bell as he tossed the red brick like a ball in his strong, splaying +hand. Cavanaugh took a small piece of a tobacco-plug from the pocket of +his baggy trousers and automatically broke off a tiny bit and put it +into his hesitating mouth: + +"I want that job, John," he faltered, as he began to chew. "I've set my +heart on it. It is the biggest deal I ever tackled, and I'd like to put +it through. I want me and you to go up there and work on it. It would be +a fine change for us both." + +"Well, I don't want to go if it is a losing proposition," John said, as +he filled his trowel with mortar and skilfully dashed it on the highest +layer of bricks. "And if you cut under my estimate you will come out at +the little end of the horn." + +Cavanaugh stood silent. A negro was dumping the contents of a hod on +John's board and scraping out the clinging mortar with a stick. When the +man had gone down the cleated runway and John was raising his line for +another layer of bricks, Cavanaugh sighed deeply. + +"Well," he said, "I'll tell you what I'm going to do, John. I'm going to +mail the bid just as you made it out and trust to luck. I'm going to do +it. I admit I've been awfully upset over it, but I can't remember that +you ever gave me wrong advice, young as you are. My wife says I ought to +do it, and I feel so now, anyway." + +It was as if John had not heard his employer's concluding words. He was +standing on his tiptoes, leaning over and carefully plumbing the wall on +the outside. + +"Yes, I'm going to drop it in the post-office right now," Cavanaugh +said, as he started down the planks. "After all, there may be a hundred +bids sent in, and some of the bidders may have all sorts of political +pulls." + +Again John seemed not to hear. He was tapping a protruding brick with +the handle of his trowel and gently driving it into line. "All +right--all right," he said, absently, and he frowned thoughtfully as he +applied his plumb to the wall and eyed it critically. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The residence on which John was at work was almost finished. He was on +the highest scaffold one morning, superintending the slating of the +roof, when, hearing Cavanaugh shouting on the sidewalk below, he glanced +down. The contractor, with his thin alpaca coat on his arm, was +signaling to him to come down. + +"All right," John said. "In a minute. I'm busy now. Don't throw the +broken ones away," he added to the workers. "Stack 'em up. We get +rebates on them, and have to count the bad ones." + +"Right you are, boss," a negro answered, with a chuckle. "Besides, we +might split somebody's skull open." + +"Oh, come on down!" Cavanaugh shouted again, with his cupped hands at +his lips. "I want to see you." + +"I can't do two things at once," John said, with a frown and a +suppressed oath. "Say, boys, get that next line straight! Look for +cracked slate, take 'em out, and lap the smooth ones right." + +He found Cavanaugh near the front fence. The contractor was fond of +jesting when he was in a good humor, and from his smiling face he seemed +to-day to be in the best of spirits. + +"No use finishing the roof," he said, squinting along the north wall of +the building. "That wall is out of plumb and has to come down. Great +pity. Foundation must have settled. That's bad, my boy." + +"Well, it was _your_ foundation, not mine," John retorted, seeing his +trend. "What do you want?" + +Slowly Cavanaugh took a letter from the pocket of his baggy trousers and +held it in his fat hands. "What you think this letter is about?" He +smiled with tobacco-stained lips. + +"How the devil would I know?" John asked, impatiently. + +"Well, I'll tell you," Cavanaugh continued. "It is from the Ordinary of +Chipley County, Tennessee. He says he is writing to all the many bidders +on that court-house to let 'em know the final decision on the bids. He +was powerful sorry, he said, to have to tell me that I was nowhere nigh +the lowest mark. Read what he says." + +Wondering over his friend's mood, John opened the letter. It was a +formal and official acceptance of the bid made by Cavanaugh. Without a +change of countenance John folded the sheet, put it into the envelop, +and handed it back. Some negroes were passing with stacks of slates on +their shoulders. + +"Be careful there, Bob!" he ordered, sharply. "You drop another load of +those things and I'll dock you for a day's pay." + +"All right now, boss," the negro laughed. "I got erhold of 'em." + +"Well, what do you think?" Cavanaugh's gray eyes were twinkling with +delight. "Lord! Lord! My boy, I feel like flying! I've laid awake many a +night over this, and now it is ours. Gee! I could dance! I told Jim Luce +about it at the post-office just now. He is going to write it up in his +paper. Gosh! I'm glad this house is finished! We are foot-loose now and +can set in up there whenever we like." + +It was like John Trott to make no comments. He was watching the workers +on the roof with a restless eye. The air resounded with the clatter of +the hammers and the grating of the slates one against the other as they +were selected and put down. + +"You are an odd boy," Cavanaugh said, with a pleased chuckle. "What are +you looking at up there?" + +"They are not on to that job." John frowned. "Those coons work like they +were at a corn-shucking. They don't drive the nails right. They are +breaking a lot of slate and losing enough nails to shingle a barn." + +"Oh, they are all right." Cavanaugh spat and chewed unctuously. "Gee! +What if they do break a few slates? We are in the swim, my boy, and +we'll give that county the prettiest court-house in the state, and the +people will appreciate it." Therewith, Cavanaugh put his hand on John's +arm and the look of merriment passed. "I've got to say it, my boy, and +be done with it. You kept me from making a dern fool of myself and +losing the little I have saved up. If it hadn't been for you--" + +"Oh, cut it out, Sam!" There was an expression of embarrassed irritation +on the young man's face. He was turning to leave, but Cavanaugh, still +holding his arm, drew him back. + +"I won't cut it out!" He all but gulped, cleared his throat, and went +on: "I owe you my thanks and an apology. Only yesterday I got weak-kneed +because I hadn't heard from up there, and told Renfro and some others +who wanted to know about the bid that I had done wrong to listen to as +young a man as you are. I said that, and even talked to my wife about it +the same way, and now we all see you was right. John, I don't intend to +let you keep on at your old wages. You are not getting enough by a long +shot, and from now on I'll give you a third more. I'm going to make some +money out of this deal and you deserve something for what you have +done." + +John looked pleased. "Oh, I'll take the raise, all right," he said, with +one of his rare smiles. "I can find a use for the money." + +"Say, John"--Cavanaugh pressed his arm affectionately--"this will be our +first jaunt away any distance together. We can have a lot o' fun. I'm +going to order me a new suit of clothes, and I am going to make you a +present of one, too. You needn't kick," as John drew back suddenly, "it +will be powerful small pay for all the figuring you did at night when +you was plumb fagged out." + +"Well, I'll take the suit, too," John said, and smiled again. "You are +liberal, Sam, but you always was that way." + +"Well, we'll go to the tailor shop together at noon," Cavanaugh said, +delightedly. "You can help me pick out mine and I'll see that Parker +fits you. You have got some shape to you, my boy, and you will cut a +shine up there." + +Leaving his employer, John ascended to the roof again, this time through +the interior of the almost finished house, and out by a dormer window. +The old town stretched out beneath him. To the east the hills and +mountains rose majestically in their blue and green robe under the +mellow rays of the sun. A fresh breeze fanned John's face. A man near +him broke a slate by an unskilful stroke of the hammer and raised an +abashed glance to John. + +"It is all right, Tim," he said. "I'm no good at slating myself. You +are doing pretty well for a new hand. Say, Sam's landed that court-house +contract." + +The nailers and their assistants had heard. The hammers ceased their +clatter. Cavanaugh was seen standing in the middle of the road, looking +up at them. A man raised a cheer. Hats and hammers were waved and three +resounding cheers rang out. Cavanaugh took off his straw hat and stood +bowing, smiling, and waving. + +"Lucky old duck!" Tim, who was a white man, said, "and he was afraid it +would fall through." + +John's glance roved over the town, the only spot he had ever known. +Beyond the outskirts ran the creeks in which he had fished and bathed as +a ragged boy. Toward the south rose the graveyard a mile away. He could +see the dim roof of the ramshackle house in which he had lived since he +was five years of age. John looked at his watch. + +"Get a move on you, boys," he said, in his old tone. "Say, that last +line is an eighth too low at this end. Lift it up. Take off the three +slates this way and nail 'em back. Damn it! Take 'em off, even if you +break 'em. I won't have a line like that in this job. It shows plain +from this window." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Two weeks later Cavanaugh and John left for Cranston, the Tennessee +village where the new building was to be erected. They had on their new +clothes and were smoking cigars which Cavanaugh had bought. Some of the +negroes and whites who had worked under them came to the depot to see +them off, and they all stood on the platform, waiting for the train. +There was much mild gaiety and frequent jests. Cavanaugh was quite +talkative, but John, as usual, was silent. The men had jested with the +contractor about his new clothes, but no one dared to allude to John's. +Indeed, John seemed unconscious of his change of appearance. But for his +coarse red hands, his rough, tanned face, and stiff, unkempt hair, he +would have appeared rather distinguished-looking. A bevy of young ladies +of the best social set of the town, accompanied by several of their +young men associates, had gathered to see one of their number off. They +passed close to John, but paid not the slightest attention to him, and +they made no impression on him. That there was such a thing as social +lines and castes had never occurred to him. He saw the young lawyer who +stealthily visited Jane Holder join the group and stand chatting, but +even this gave him no food for reflection. In regard to extraneous +matters John Trott seemed asleep, but in all things pertaining to his +work he was wide awake. His mental ability, strength of will, and dearth +of opportunity would have set a psychologist to speculating on his +future, but there were no psychologists in Ridgeville. Ministers, +editors, teachers, fairly well-read citizens, met John Trott almost +daily and passed him without even a thought of the complex conditions of +his life and of the inevitable awakening ahead of him. + +When the train came, John and Cavanaugh said good-by to their friends +and got aboard. They threw their cigars away and found seats in the best +car on the train. It was the first trip of any length that John had ever +taken, and yet he did not deport himself like a novice. Cavanaugh bought +peanuts, candy, and a newspaper from the train "butcher," but John +declined them. His employer had spoken to him about some inside walls +and partitions which had to be so arranged in the new building as to +admit of some alcoves and recesses not down in the specifications, and +John was turning the matter over in his mind. + +A few miles from Ridgeville a young couple got on the train and came +into the car. The young man was little older than John and looked like a +farmer in his best clothes. He was flushed and nervous. His companion +was a dainty girl in a new traveling-dress. They sat near an open window +and through it came showers of rice, a pair of old slippers, and merry +jests from male and female voices outside. + +"Bride and groom," Cavanaugh whispered, nudging his companion. "She is a +cute little trick, ain't she? My, my! how that takes me back!" + +The entire car was staring at the self-conscious pair, who were trying +to appear unconcerned. The train moved on. John was no longer thinking +of his work. His whole being was aflame with a new thought. Strange, but +the idea of marriage as pertaining to himself had never come to him +before. The sight of the pair side by side, the strong masculine neck +and shoulders, and the slender neck and pretty head of the girl with the +tender blue eyes, fair skin, and red lips appealed to him as nothing had +ever done before. + +"That is the joy due every healthy pair in the world," Cavanaugh went +on, reminiscently. "Life isn't worth a hill of beans without it. These +young folks will settle down in some neat little cottage filled with +pure delight--that's what it will be, a cottage of delight for them. +He'll work in the field and she will be at home ready for him when he +gets back. Look how they lean against each other! I can't see from here, +but I will bet you he is holding her little soft hand." + +For the next half an hour the couple was under John's observation. He +found himself unable to think of anything aside from his own +mind-pictures of their happiness. + +Cavanaugh was full of the idea also. "It is ahead of you, too, my boy," +he said. "You are old enough and are now making enough money to start +out on. Pick you some good, sweet, industrious girl. There are plenty of +the right sort, and they will love a man to death if he treats 'em +right. Look, she's got her head on his shoulder, but she's not going to +sleep. She's just playing 'possum. There, by gum! he kissed her! If he +didn't I am powerfully mistaken. Well, who has a better right?" + +The pair left the train at a station in the woods where there were no +houses and two wagon-roads crossed and where a buggy and a horse stood +waiting. Through the window John saw the bridegroom leading the bride +toward it. Beyond lay mountain ranges against the clear sky, fields +filled with waving corn and yellowing wheat. The near-by forests looked +dank, dense, and cool. + +"It is ahead of you, too, my boy!" The old man's words rang again in +his ears as the train moved on and the pair and their warm faces were +lost to view. John took out some notes he had made in regard to the +masonry of a vault in the new building and tried to fix his mind on +them, but it was difficult to do. The mental picture of that young +couple filled his whole being with a strange titillating warmth. Within +an hour his view of life had broadened wonderfully. He was not devoid of +imagination and it was now being directed for the first time away from +the details of his occupation. He could not have analyzed his state of +mind, but he had taken his first step into what was a veritable new +birth. + +"It is ahead of you, too, my boy!" Nothing Cavanaugh had ever said to +him could have meant so much as those words. A home, a wife all his own. +Why had he never thought of it before? He was conscious of a sort of +filial love for the old contractor that was as new as the other feeling. +He was conscious, too, of a new sense of manhood, and a pride in his +professional ability that was bound to help him forward. + +It was three o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived at Cranston. The +Ordinary of the county, at Cavanaugh's request, had arranged board for +the two men at the house of a farmer, there being no hotel in the +village where board could be had by the week at a rate low enough for a +laborer's pocket. So at the station they were met by the farmer himself, +Richard Whaley, who stepped forward from a group of staring mountaineers +and stiffly introduced himself. + +He was a man of sixty-five, bald, gray as to hair and beard, and +slightly bent from rheumatism. His skin was yellowish and had the brown +splotches which indicate general physical decay. + +"My old woman is looking for you," he said, coldly. "She made the +arrangement. I have nothing to do with it. She and my daughter do all +the cooking and housework. If they want to make a little extra money I +can't object. The whole county is excited over the new court-house. They +act and talk like it was Solomon's temple, and will look on you two as +divine agents of some sort. Folks are fools, as you no doubt know." + +"A little bit--from experience," Cavanaugh joked. "The Ordinary tells me +you are a Methodist. That's what I am, brother, and I'll love to live +under a Methodist roof once more." + +"Yes, thank God! that's what I am," Whaley said. "My wife is, too. I'll +show you our meeting-house when we pass it. I've got a Bible-class. It +is the biggest in the county--twenty-two members." + +"That is a whopper," Cavanaugh said. "I'd like to set and listen +sometimes. I've had fresh light given me many a day by other men's +interpretations of passages I'd overlooked." + +"We are very thorough," Whaley responded, warming up to the subject. +Then he turned to John. "What church do you belong to?" he asked, rather +sharply. + +"I haven't joined any yet," John answered. He was slightly embarrassed +and yet could not have told why. + +"Oh, he will come around all right before long," Cavanaugh thrust in, +quickly. "I've got him in charge." + +"Well, he is old enough to affiliate somewhere," the farmer said, +crisply. "It is getting entirely too common these days to meet young +folks that think they can get along without divine guidance. That is our +meeting-house there. We are laying off to put a fresh coat of paint on +it in the fall." + +They passed the little steepled structure and walked on down the thinly +inhabited street which was as much a country road as a street, till they +came to a two-story house with a small farm behind it. A tall, thin +woman in a gingham dress sat on the long veranda and rose at their +approach. + +"This is the house and that's my wife," Whaley explained. "The property +isn't mine. I'm just a renter, but I can keep it as long as I want to. +We've been here ten years." He opened the gate and let the new-comers +enter ahead of him. They were introduced. Mrs. Whaley shook hands as +stiffly as had her husband. + +"Come right in," she said, smiling. "I know you've had a hot, dusty +train-ride, and I reckon you will want to rest." + +They put down their bags in the little bare-looking hallway from which a +narrow flight of stairs ascended, and followed her into a big parlor on +the right. Here they took chairs. The afternoon sun shone in through six +wide windows and fell on the clean, carpetless floor. A wide fireplace +was filled with the boughs of mountain cedar, and the hearth had been +freshly whitewashed. There was a table in the center of the room, a tiny +cottage organ between two windows, and some crude and gaudy print +pictures in mahogany frames on the walls. The four individuals formed an +awkward, purposeless group, and no one seemed able to think of anything +to say. John was wondering what could possibly happen next, when Mrs. +Whaley said: + +"I know you both must be thirsty. I'll get Tilly to fetch in some fresh +water from the well." + +She rose stiffly and left the room. "Oh, Tilly! Tilly! where are you?" +they heard her calling in the back part of the house. "Leave the +churning a minute and draw up a bucket of fresh water. They are here." + +Through the open windows from the shaded back yard John heard a girlish +voice answering, "I'm coming, mother." Then there was a whir of a loose +wooden windlass and the dull thump of a bucket as it struck the surface +of the water. This was followed by the slow creaking of the windlass and +a sound of pouring water. + +"We didn't come here to be waited on like a couple of nabobs," Cavanaugh +jested. "Let's go out to the well. We ought to begin right and be done +with it. The last time I boarded in the country I chopped my own +fire-wood and toted it in. I'd have washed the dishes I messed up, but +the women of the house wouldn't let me." + +Without protest Whaley got up and led the way through the sitting-room, +dining-room, and kitchen to the well in the yard where Mrs. Whaley and +her daughter, a girl of about eighteen years of age, stood filling some +glasses on a tray. + +"My daughter Tilly," Whaley said, indifferently. "The only one I have +left. Her two sisters married and moved off West. Her brother Tom died +awhile back." + +The girl seemed shy, and scarcely lifted her eyes as she advanced and +held out her hand first to Cavanaugh and then to John. She was slight of +build, not above medium height, and had blue eyes and abundant chestnut +hair. + +"Pass the water 'round," her mother instructed her, but both John and +Cavanaugh stepped forward and helped themselves. For a moment Tilly +stood hesitating, and then she turned to her churn at the kitchen door +and began to raise and lower the dasher. She had rolled up her sleeves, +and John, who was covertly watching her, saw her round white wrists and +shapely fingers. The way her unbound hair fell about her neck and lay +quivering on her moving shoulders caught and held his fancy. How +gloriously different she seemed from the only girls he had ever met, the +bedizened creatures whom he sometimes saw at his home with his mother +and Jane Holder! And, strange to say, he almost pitied Tilly for being +bound as she was to the two unemotional old people who seemed to rule +her as with a rod of iron. What a patient little sentient machine she +seemed! + +"You'll want to see your rooms, I reckon," Whaley said. "Amelia'll show +you up-stairs. The Ordinary said he didn't think you'd be +over-particular. They have plenty of air and light." + +John was delighted with his room. It was palatial compared to the sordid +den he inhabited at home in its constant disorder and dirt. As he +glanced about him, noted the snowy whiteness of the towels at the +wash-stand, the freshly laundered white window-curtains, and the clean +pillows and coverlet of the great wide bed, he had a sense of meeting a +new experience in life that was vastly gratifying. He heard Cavanaugh +clattering about in his room across the narrow passage, and smiled. The +old man's words, "A cottage filled with pure delight," rang in his ears +like a haunting strain of music. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +They had supper at six o'clock in the big dining-room. The sun was not +yet down, and through the open windows and door John looked out on a +small but orderly arranged flower-garden upon which the slanting rays of +the sun rested. Whaley sat at the head of the table, his wife at the +foot. Tilly was not in sight. She was in the adjoining kitchen, and as +he sat with his wrinkled hands crossed over his down-turned plate, her +father suddenly called out to her. + +"Tilly," he cried, "come set down till the blessing is asked, and then +you can bring the things in." + +Her face flushed as from the heat of the stove, the girl came in and +slipped demurely into a chair opposite John and next to Cavanaugh. John +had never gone through such an ordeal before, and he felt awkward. He +noticed that all the others had lowered their heads, and he did +likewise, though he had a certain rebellious feeling against it. + +"I don't know what you have been accustomed to," Whaley suddenly said, +looking at Cavanaugh, "but I have always held, as a principle, that the +head of a house ought to ask the blessing on it; so you will understand, +sir, that in failing to call on you I mean no disrespect." + +"Oh, not at all," the contractor mumbled. "I think you are right about +that. I always do it at home. Of course, if there is an ordained +minister on hand, I ask him, but otherwise I don't." + +"Well, I don't even in that case," Whaley answered, crustily. "I've +always made it a rule, and I stick to it." Then he cleared his throat, +lowered his head again, and prayed aloud at some length. John could not +have recalled afterward what it was that he had said, for the most of +the words used were unusual and high-sounding. + +The prayer was no sooner ended than Tilly rose and hastened from the +room. She came back almost instantly with a great platter of fried ham +and eggs and a plate of steaming biscuits, and began to pass them +around. + +"What is the matter with your hand, Tilly?" her mother asked, and John, +who was helping himself from the dish the girl was offering him, noted +that a red welt lay across the back of one of her small hands. + +"I burnt it getting the biscuits out," Tilly answered, almost beneath +her breath. + +"How foolish!" her mother retorted. "You are getting more and more +careless. Bring in the coffee next. I want to be pouring it out. Most +folks like to start a meal that way." + +Tilly disappeared and returned with the coffee-pot. Somehow John, as he +ate his supper, found himself thinking of the painful burn on Tilly's +hand, and was oblivious of the conversation regarding religious matters +between Cavanaugh and Whaley and his wife. + +"Now, come set down and eat your supper," Mrs. Whaley said to her +daughter, and Tilly took the chair she had occupied while grace was +being said. She kept her eyes downcast, and John noticed her long, +slightly curled lashes as they rested on her flushed cheeks and her +pretty, tapering hands. She said nothing during the entire meal. + +When supper was over, Whaley led the two men into the parlor and lighted +an oil-lamp which stood on the mantel-piece, for it was growing dark. +They had seated themselves when Whaley rose and took a song-book from +the cottage organ and extended it to Cavanaugh. + +"Have you got this new book of revival hymns down your way?" he +inquired. + +"I don't think so," the contractor answered, inspecting it. + +"Well, it is by all odds the best all-round collection I've ever run +across," Whaley said. "Tilly plays all of 'em pretty well, and we have a +regular song-service here whenever we feel like it. Do you sing, +Mr.--Mr. Trott?" + +"No, sir," John replied. "I have no turn that way." + +"Well, maybe you'll get the hang of it while you are here," Whaley +smiled coldly. "I don't believe there is any way in the world that a man +can get to God quicker, straighter, or closer than in sacred song. I've +seen a congregation stand out against the finest appeal ever made from +the stand, and the minute some good singer started a rousing hymn they +were all ablaze, like soldiers following fife and drum." Herewith Whaley +went to the door and called out: + +"Amelia, let the dishes rest and you and Tilly come in. We want some +music." + +"Good! Good!" Cavanaugh chimed in, rubbing his hands. "We are in luck, +John. If there is anything on earth I like after a hearty meal it is +hymn-singing. It takes me back to the good old camp-meeting days when +everybody, young and old, sang, and even shouted when the spirit was on +them." + +Tilly and her mother came in. The girl went to the organ on which her +father was placing the lamp, and sat on the stool. The light fell on her +face and John, sitting against the wall on her right, had a full view of +it and her graceful figure. Her father had opened the song-book and +placed it on the music-rack. Her slender fingers rested on the yellow +keys; the red welt on her hand showed plainly, and John wondered if it +pained her much. There was no way of deciding, for she showed no sign of +suffering. She began to pump the organ with her little feet. She drew +out the stops and began to play. She did it badly, but there were no +expert musical critics in the room. Whaley and his wife stood behind her +and both of them sang loudly. Cavanaugh had never heard the song, and so +he did not take active part, though John saw him beating time with his +finger and now and then contributing a suitable bass note. Cavanaugh was +delighted with the hymn. + +"Why don't you join in, little girl?" he asked, gently, as he beamed on +Tilly. + +"I can't sing and play at the same time," she explained, modestly, +catching John's attentive stare and avoiding it, her brown lashes +flickering. + +They sang some old familiar hymns now, and all three of the singers +joined in together. + +"I tell you we make a good trio," Whaley exulted. "You've got a roaring +bass, Brother Cavanaugh. We'll surprise the natives some night at +prayer-meeting. We'll set to one side like and spring it on 'em all at +once." + +John felt like an alien in the religious and musical atmosphere and was +somewhat irritated by the announcement later from Whaley that he always +had a chapter read from the Bible and a prayer before going to bed, and, +as he believed in retiring early, he suggested that they have the +service over with. Accordingly, he removed the lamp from the organ to +the table, and from the sitting-room brought a big family Bible. A +further surprise was in store for John, for Whaley placed a chair under +the lamplight and called on his daughter to sit in it. He smiled coldly +as she obeyed and opened the Bible. "You may think it odd, +Brother--er--Cavanaugh--you've got a hard name to remember, sir. I say, +you may think it odd for me to call on my daughter to read out loud this +way. I admit it isn't the general custom, but, the truth is, I +discovered that she'd got the habit of not listening to me while I was +reading, or commenting, either. So I made up my mind that I'd have her +do the reading herself. It has worked pretty well. She is in my +Bible-class, and now answers as many questions right as any of the rest, +no matter the age or the education." + +Tilly was blushing as she lowered her head over the big tome with its +brass corners and clasps, and John was sorry for her. A storm of rage +against her father ran through him. This was dispelled quickly, however, +for when the girl began to read in her clear and sweetly modulated voice +he sat transfixed by the sheer charm and music of the delivery. Her neck +was bare, and he saw her white throat throbbing like that of a warbling +bird. He did not grasp the full sense of what she read, for some of the +words were unusual to him. Had she been reading in a foreign tongue, it +would have been no more marvelous to him. Her flush had died down; her +eyes rested unperturbed on the page; one little hand curved around a +corner of the big book; the fingers of its mate held a leaf ready to be +turned. The lamplight fell into the brown mass of hair that crowned her +well-poised head like a halo. Her long lashes seemed mystic films +through which he glimpsed her eyes. Looking across the room, he saw +Cavanaugh, his rough fingers interlocked over his knee, staring steadily +at the reader. Was it imagination or were the old man's eyes actually +moist? They seemed to glitter in the light. + +Tilly finished the chapter and slowly closed the book, fastening the +clasps carefully. She raised her eyes to John's face and quickly, almost +guiltily, looked away. Her father had risen and stood holding the back +part of his chair with his two hands. + +"Now we'll kneel down and pray," he said. "Brother--er--er--Cavanaugh, I +don't know what your habit or turn is, but I'm going to ask you to lead +if you feel so inclined." + +Cavanaugh was rising. "I make a poor out," he said, "but I'll do my +best. I--I don't often refuse when called on." He was looking at John +almost appealingly. "I--I regard it as a duty to--to my religion and +membership." + +The strange, alien feeling swept over John again. He had never heard his +jovial associate pray, though he had been told that Cavanaugh did so now +and then; besides, John felt as if he were being personally imposed +upon. He was not religious; he had never even been to church, and here +he was expected to kneel down with the others. Whaley and his wife knelt +side by side, the worn bottoms of their coarse shoes standing steadily, +their heels upward. As John knelt he felt the uneven planks of the floor +press into his knees unpleasantly, and he moved them for a more +comfortable spot. He had an impulse to laugh over his own predicament, +but checked it, for, glancing to his right, he saw Tilly bent over her +crude split-bottom chair like a wilted human flower. She looked so weary +and so utterly helpless, and yet so brave and patient. As he feasted on +her sweet profile he wondered if she, like himself, were thinking of +other things than the ceremony at hand. He could not decide. Surely, he +thought, she could not be so silly, with that broad brow and those +discerning eyes, as to believe that there was an invisible being away +off somewhere who was now listening to what Cavanaugh was saying in his +faltering, singsong tone. Somehow he expected absolute truthfulness to +be found in the girl. As for the others, they knew what they claimed was +untrue. They--even Cavanaugh--were hypocrites, and in their secret souls +they knew it. + +Cavanaugh's prayer was labored--it did not flow as from the tongue of a +man who loves the sound of his own mouthing--and it was soon ended. +Whaley's smug omission of any comment on it showed the farmer's estimate +of its value or lack of value in any religious campaign. + +Now that they were all standing, John found himself near Tilly. He felt +that he was expected to say something, for she had raised a dubious +glance to his face, but his tongue was tied. How could he speak there +under such circumstances when he had never met a girl of her sort on any +terms of social equality? He grew hot from head to foot. In kneeling his +trousers had caught a white thread from the floor. He saw it and bent to +remove it. It was too delicate for his thick, brick-worn fingers to +grasp, and he stood awkwardly trying, now to lift it, again to brush it +off. He failed, and then he forgot and swore softly. Tilly may not have +heard the oath, but something excited her mirth and she smiled--smiled +straight into his eyes. He smiled in return, for he had never seen such +a smile as hers before. In rippling streams of delight it seemed to go +through his whole being. He saw her pretty hand start down toward the +thread and then check itself as she noticed her mother looking at her. +It was as if she had started to remove the thread herself and decided +that the act would invoke criticism from her elders as a thing too +forward for a girl to do. + +With a laugh that was bold now in its sheer merriment John took out his +pocket-knife, opened the blade, and managed to pick up the thread. + +"Well, I reckon you are both tired and we are early to bed and early to +rise here," Whaley was saying. "You both know the way up-stairs." + +There were no formal good-nights exchanged. The Whaleys withdrew to +their rooms on the ground floor and John and Cavanaugh went up the +stairs. John thought Cavanaugh would go straight into his room, but he +followed him into his and helped him find and light his lamp. + +"I want to tell you something, my boy," he began, his eyes shifting back +and forth from John's face to the jagged flame of the small lamp. "I +want to get something out of me and be done with it. I made a regular +fool of myself there to-night." + +"I don't understand," John said, in surprise. + +"Well, I did," Cavanaugh went on, flushed, and in a voice that shook a +little. "That prayer of mine was the worst mixed-up mess I ever got off. +You see, I never have talked much religion to you boys down home, and as +far as I know none of you ever heard me pray out loud in public. Well, +I--somehow when I got down to-night I just got to thinking about what +_you_ thought--you see, I've heard you sneer at the belief I hold in +common with many others, and somehow to-night--well, I found that I was +thinking more about what you thought of me than what I was prepared to +say, and so I balled it all up. I can do first-rate in meeting at home, +but I slid from it to-night. Why, I almost heard Brother Whaley grunt +when I suddenly forgot what I started to say and switched off to +something else. Oh, I made a fool of myself! Now, really didn't you +think so?" + +"I didn't hear what you were saying," John answered. "I wouldn't care if +I was you." + +"Well, I _do_ care," Cavanaugh muttered. "If ever a man insulted his +God, I did mine to-night. I was reeling off a lot o' stuff, but not one +word of it was from the heart, and a prayer that don't come from the +heart ain't worth shucks. Mine wasn't much more than a song and dance +before the Throne, and I'm ashamed of it." + +"I wouldn't care," John repeated, still absently. + +"Well, I don't know as I do care much about what that old hard-shell +codger, or his wife that is just like him, thinks, but I do for that +little girl. My Lord! ain't she sweet?" + +John stared straight and warmly, but said nothing. He was conscious of +the intensest interest and that he was trying not to show it. + +Cavanaugh stood slowly shaking his head in the negative way that implies +affirmation. "Yes, yes, she is a wonderful, wonderful little trick. +While she was reading there to-night I seemed to be listening to the +voice of an angel that had just come from behind the clouds. I was +shedding tears of joy from every pore of my old body. I could have taken +her in my arms and cried my heart out. That is why I wish I could have +done better in my prayer. What she read was from her soul. '_The Lord is +my shepherd; I shall not want!_' I'll never to my dying day forget them +words, and the sweet twist she gave to them. I never had a child, John, +and if I could have had one like her, I--I-- And just think of it! They +make her work like a slave, even with her little hand blistered like it +was to-night! Old Whaley thinks he walks side by side with God in all +his rules and regulations, but his child is one of God's own glories, +and don't you forget it." + +Turning suddenly, as if overcome with emotion, Cavanaugh stalked out +through the door and crossed the passage into his own room. As John +undressed he heard the old man's heavy tread on the floor. A window was +raised. There was sudden silence. Cavanaugh was looking out into the +starlight. + +John was tired, but he remained awake till near midnight. Fancies filled +his mind which he had never had before. Why did he think so often of the +bride and bridegroom he had seen on the train that morning? + +"It is ahead of you, too, my boy," Cavanaugh's words rang in his ears. +Could such a thing be for him, really for him? How could it be? He had +given no thought to women. He had never dreamed of marriage, but +to-night the sheer idea of it was fairly tearing his being to shreds, +and the flame of the impulse had risen in the face of a girl--a poor, +abused, misunderstood girl. The world lay before him. He would rise in +his trade, and earn money which he would lavish on the little filial +slave he already adored. + +He slept and dreamed that he heard Cavanaugh saying: "It is the cottage +of delight, my boy, and it is for you and her--for you and her. Don't +forget, for you and her!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +The foundation for the court-house was soon laid. The county officials +had announced to Cavanaugh that a day had been appointed for a +ceremonious laying of a corner-stone, to which all the countryside had +been invited. A block of marble properly marked and dated was ordered +and came. The occasion was to be a great one. A brass band was expected +from a near-by town. There was to be a barbecue, with speeches and +singing from a hastily improvised platform. + +John himself supervised the construction of the platform and the long +tables upon which the food was to be served. + +The day arrived. The weather was most favorable, there being cool +breezes from the mountains and sufficient clouds to shut off the heat of +the sun. The speakers' stand was hung with flags and decorated with +flowers and evergreens. Long trenches had been dug in the earth. Fires +had been going in them all day. The dry hickory wood was reduced to live +coals and the pork, beef, and lamb were suspended over them. Negro men, +expert in the work, were busy turning and basting the meat, the aroma of +which floated on the air. A little organ from a near-by church had been +placed amid some chairs for choir-singers, and then John discovered that +Tilly was expected to play the instrument. + +"The regular organist is away," Cavanaugh explained to John, "but I'll +bet our little girl will do it all right." + +John said nothing, for he had caught sight of Tilly seated with her +mother in the front row of benches. She was dressed in white muslin from +head to foot. She wore a cheap sailor straw hat he had never seen her +wear before, and some flowers were pinned on her breast. The whiteness +of her attire seemed to accentuate the rare pinkness of her face, which +deepened as she caught his stealthy glance. She was the last of the +choir to take her place, the others being seated when she finally went +forward, seated herself on the organ-stool, and began to look over the +music. How calm and unruffled she seemed to John! On the platform sat a +candidate for the Governorship of the state, several ministers, the +Ordinary of the county, the Sheriff, an ex-judge, and several other men +of prominence, and yet in the eyes of the younger spectators John Trott, +who was to place and seal the stone, and stood with a new trowel in his +hand, was the most envied person there. He was well dressed, +good-looking, possessed with a forceful demeanor, and it was rumored +that he was a mason who could demand any wages he liked. It was little +wonder that poor young farmers who lived from hand to mouth to eke out +an existence should deem him most fortunate, and that the girls should +regard him with favor. + +John was young; he was human, and he was experiencing a sort of new +birth. Aside from Cavanaugh, no one present knew of his mother's +reputation or of the social wall between him and the citizens of +Ridgeville, and here to-day he was being treated as he had never been +treated before. He felt strangely, buoyantly, at his ease. He was too +happy to analyze his wonderful transition. He wanted to do his part +well, not chiefly on account of Cavanaugh and the contract, or the +dignitaries about him, but it must be admitted that above all he was +considering Tilly. It pleased the poor boy to think of her as +conducting the music, and of himself as having charge of the other +details. There was a vague, new, and even confident dignity about his +erect figure, face, and tone of voice as he directed the laborers to +bring the corner-stone forward. There was a square cavity in the stone +into which souvenirs were to be placed, and it devolved upon John to +collect them from the audience. He did it well. He was a man drawn out +of an old environment by the dazzling experience of being in love. A +copy of a fresh issue of the county weekly was handed to him by the +paper's editor; the Ordinary contributed a photograph of the old +court-house, some one else put in a sheet containing the autographs of +leading citizens, and there were coins and various trinkets of more or +less historic significance. John placed them in the cavity, and under +the eyes of all began to close the opening. His new trowel tinkled +softly as he worked in the dead silence on all sides. When it was +finished the band played. There was much applause, and then the choir +sang. During this part of the program John had a chance to look at Tilly +without being seen by her. She sat very erectly at the organ, unabashed, +unperturbed. John, even from where he stood at one side, saw the red +welt on her hand. He told himself, sentimentally, that those were the +same little hands which churned daily, washed dishes, made fires in the +range, washed, hung out, and ironed clothes, and he marveled. Once as +she turned a page of the music-book she looked at him, seemed in a flash +to sense his admiration, and dropped her eyes. Something came into her +face which he could not have described, but it played there for an +instant like a beam of rose-colored light, and he throbbed and thrilled +in his whole being. + +The speeches passed off. The band played again and John was asked by +the Ordinary to announce that the barbecue was ready to be served at the +tables. + +John had never spoken in public, and yet to-day a new daring possessed +him. Quite unperturbed, he rang his trowel on the corner-stone till +quiet was restored, and then, with a half-jest, appropriately worded, he +made the announcement. Immediately the audience was on its feet and +surging toward the aromatic trenches and tables. The platform was soon +vacated, and John saw Tilly alone at the organ, putting up the +music-books. He longed to go to her, but a vast and sudden embarrassment +checked him. He started, but stopped and pretended to be inspecting the +corner-stone. She was behind him now, but she was the light and breath +of his new existence and he half saw, half felt her presence. He told +himself that she must think him an awkward fool, and yet he could not +approach her. + +Suddenly he saw something for which he was not prepared. A tall, thin +young man with a scant brown mustache and rather long hair, who was +tanned like a farmer, and who had large, coarse hands and wore a +frock-coat which was thick enough for winter, was stepping upon the +platform and approaching Tilly. + +"You must come get some of the barbecue," he said. "You are doing most +of the work and must be fed. I saw your ma and pa over at the first +table." + +"I'm not very hungry, Joel," John heard Tilly say, and from the corner +of his eyes he saw that she was shaking hands with the young man. A +moment later they were passing close behind John. He knew that to +pretend still to be inspecting the corner-stone would be absurd and so +he turned and faced the couple. Tilly smiled, nodded, and glanced at the +stone. + +"It is very pretty," she said, pausing and looking at the work he had +done. "This is my friend, Mr. Joel Eperson--Mr. Trott," she added. + +The hands of two laboring-men met and swung up and down before the +little maid. "Pleased to meet you," both men said, and they stared at +each other, dumb, concealed thoughts in the depths of their eyes. + +"You ran that singing all right." John dug the words from his perturbed +self-consciousness. "It went off fine." + +"Yes, you certainly did that," the young farmer agreed. "You all must +have met and practised." + +"Only once, last night," Tilly said. "We met at the church." + +"We are going to get some of that barbecue," Eperson said, rather +stiffly, to John. "Won't you come along with us? I've got two places +reserved and can easily make room for another." + +"Two places reserved!" The words had an unpleasant sound to John. +Evidently the fellow had been counting on eating with Tilly even before +he invited her. John hesitated. He noticed that Tilly had nothing to +say, and that irritated him. + +"Oh, I'm not a bit hungry," he answered, now in his old, rough, +Ridgeville way, and he frowned. + +"Well, you might come and see the rest of the animals fed," Eperson +jested. "I'd like to talk to you. Tilly wrote me about you coming. I +certainly would like to have a job like yours. Farming has gone to +pieces in this section." + +Tilly had written him. Again John was conscious of irritation and a +strange, deep-seated uneasiness. Were the two on such terms of +familiarity that they exchanged letters while living so near together? +John was still hesitating when Cavanaugh suddenly elbowed his way +through the surging throng to his side. + +"They expect you and me to set at the Ordinary's table along with the +speakers," he announced, momentously. "I've been looking for you all +about." + +"We just asked him to go with us, Mr. Cavanaugh," Tilly said, "but of +course, if the Ordinary wants him we'll have to excuse him." She +introduced Eperson, and Cavanaugh smiled. + +"I've heard about Mr. Eperson already," he said. "And I'll tell 'im to +his face that he has fine taste and knows a good thing in the female +line when he sees it." + +The young farmer flushed red and smiled, but Tilly's face was unchanged. +"I see you are a tease," she said, indifferently. "Well, we'd better be +going." + +John felt Cavanaugh grasp his arm and begin to lead him through the +crowd toward a distant table which was smaller than the others and at +which several local dignitaries were seated. + +"We might as well give them young turtle-doves a chance to coo on a +perch by themselves," the contractor said, with a low chuckle. "I +understand the fellow don't get many chances to see his girl. They say +he has been in love with her ever since he was a little boy, but old +Whaley don't seem to like him. They say the old chap has shut down on +Eperson's visits--don't let 'im come around as often as he used to. I +reckon to-day is one of the fellow's chances to see her. My! what a nice +little trick she is! And take it from me--she deserves a better fate +than to marry a slow-going farmer like that one. She'd just change one +life of drudgery for another." + +As if in a tantalizing dream, John heard these things as he walked +along, still tightly clutched by his old friend. He told himself that +it was incredible that he should care so much about the affairs of a +simple country girl whom he had known such a short time, but the +startling fact remained and haunted him. + +They found their places at the table and sat down. The Ordinary, a +genial man of middle age, with a full brown beard, had a big jug of +fresh cider in front of him and was filling some tin cups with the amber +fluid. + +"We are going to drink to the health and success of these two +gentlemen," he announced, when every one at the table had received his +cup of the beverage. "They are both agreeable men and are an honor to +our community. Moreover, I am satisfied that they are going to give us +the finest public building for the money in the state." + +They all drank standing, and, as they resumed their seats, they glanced +at Cavanaugh as if expecting a response from him. + +"I am much obliged," Cavanaugh stammered. "I can't make a speech or I'd +tell you how tickled I am by your compliment, and my young friend on my +right is, too. We are combining business and pleasure on this jaunt and +are having a fine time." + +John was gloomily unconscious of the fact that he, too, was expected to +say something. Seeing Cavanaugh sit down, he did likewise. He was +watching Eperson and Tilly, who at one of the long tables near by sat +facing him. Eperson was bending eagerly toward her, smiling and saying +something in her ear. Tilly seemed to be listening, for she was smiling +also. Farther down the same table sat her father and mother. Whaley had +a plate heaped high with the meat and its accompanying peppery relish, +and was eating voraciously. Mrs. Whaley was chatting with a woman at +her side and scarcely eating at all. The brass band was playing, there +was a great clatter of knives and forks and tin cider-cups. John was in +one of his surliest moods. He was really hungry enough to have enjoyed +the feast, but his thoughts kept him from doing so. Presently he managed +to slip away from the table, and found himself alone. He wandered +aimlessly about the foundation of the new building, trying to make +himself believe that he was inspecting the work already done. The band +had ceased playing. The crowd of white citizens was thinning out, and +the negroes were falling into the vacant places at the tables. John saw +Cavanaugh and the elder Whaleys trudging homeward. Where was Tilly? he +wondered. Then he saw Eperson driving a poor horse drawing a ramshackle +buggy around from the public hitching-rack. Tilly stood waiting for him +alone on the edge of the sidewalk. Eperson got out, helped her into the +seat, and then got in beside her and drove her homeward. + +John lingered about the foundations for half an hour. Then he saw +Eperson returning in the buggy alone. He had to pass close to where John +stood, but John refused to look up as he went by and turned into the +country road. There was a vague look of placid content on the earnest +face of the man which portended things John dared not think about. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The work on the new building went on apace. John was always tired when +night came, but a new expectation at the end of each day had come into +his hitherto uneventful life. It was not often that he saw Tilly alone, +but he had come to look forward eagerly even for the mere sight of her +in the evening, at the supper-table, on the veranda, or in the yard with +the others. Both he and Cavanaugh immediately changed their clothing +when the day's work was over, and this formality was a new and pleasant +thing for the young mason. The change always made him feel more +respectable. It gave him the sense of throwing off the grime and toil of +the day. It was the first ordering of his life on any social plane, and +it charmed him. + +"You are certainly a wonder," the old man remarked to him one afternoon +as they were dressing in John's room. + +"In what way?" John asked, curiously. + +"Why, you are different, that's all"--the contractor laughed--"as +different from what you used to be down at home as night from day. You +used to have a grouch on you nearly all the time, but now you are as +pleasing as a basket of chips. Your mind seems brighter. You often say +funny things, and you ain't as rough with the boys that work under you +as you used to be. If they are a little slow with brick or mortar you +don't fuss so much, and--say--you have mighty nigh quit cursing. I'm +glad of that, too, I must say I am, for taking the Lord's name in vain +never helped a man get ahead. You see it is a slap in the face to so +many well-meaning folks. Gee! ain't we having a fine time? It is about +as hard to understand myself as to understand you--I mean this +combination picnic and hard labor we are at. There is one point about it +that I wouldn't dare tell my wife. By gum! I don't know that I'm ready +to admit it even to myself yet, but it is a queer notion." + +"What is that?" John asked, only half attentively, for he was listening +to the sounds in the kitchen below and picturing Tilly at work. + +"Why"--the old man stared gravely as he answered--"it is a fact that I +don't miss Mandy at all--hardly at all, and it has set me +wondering--wondering. I know I love her, you see; that fact is as solid +and plain to me as that brush you've got in your hand, and why I don't +miss her more I don't know. I lay in bed awake between four and five +this morning, turning it over in my mind, but to no effect. However, it +may be this way: a man and a woman may actually be--well, almost too +well suited to each other, if such a thing is possible." + +"You are getting tangled up." John laughed as he tied afresh a new +cravat he had just bought and thrust a cheap, gaudy pin into its folds. + +"You may think so, but I hain't," Cavanaugh denied. "I mean this, John. +A couple may live together so long and become so near alike that nothing +exciting happens to either one of 'em, and along with that may come a +sort of strain of marriage responsibility. Down at Ridgeville somehow I +was always wondering what Mandy would want done and what not, but up +here when my day's work is over I can slap on a clean shirt and my best +suit, brush my shoes, light my pipe, and sit around till bedtime and +have a good free evening of it. And I sleep--I'll admit it--I even sleep +sounder and seem to get more out of it. At home I lie with one eye open, +you might say. If Mandy has a bad cold, I can hear her sniffling, and if +she has an attack of rheumatism I can smell the liniment she rubs on. I +don't mind it, you understand, oh no, not one bit! but the--the very +worry about her upsets me. She's the same about me. I know it is a fair +deal between us, for she takes it powerful hard even if I come home with +a cut or any little injury. I said that it was a fair deal on both +sides, but I'll take that back. It is not. The woman gets the worst of +married life, and I reckon that's what is bothering my conscience. I +sent mine off once for a week at a big camp-meeting over in Canton. She +sewed and fixed and packed and cooked for three weeks to get ready, and +was gone just two days and a night. She hired a special team to fetch +her back, and come acting like she'd been off for a year and had escaped +from ten thousand ills and misfortunes. You see, she just couldn't live +without her pans and pots and chickens and the cow and calf which she +was afraid I wouldn't feed--and, I don't know, maybe--me. And that's +what hurts. She keeps writing now about what I'm fed on, how my duds are +washed and mended, and how long it will be before I get back home. All +that when I'm cracking jokes and arguing with old Whaley over some of +his hidebound Bible views about the end of the world. Why, he couldn't +predict the outcome of a county election, and yet he knows to the day +and hour when him and some more are going to be lifted up on a cloud of +glory and all the rest of us stand looking on, wringing our hands like +the bunch Noah left without a thing to cling to. But don't you let +anything I say about marriage influence you against it, my boy. It is +the greatest institution in the world to-day, and while I don't somehow +miss my wife, I'd die if I lost her. I know that as well as I know I'm +alive. There must be such a thing as loving folks you don't want to be +with all the time." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +That evening a wonderful thing happened to John. It was a moonlit night +and Cavanaugh took the two older Whaleys down to see the progress on the +new building. That left John and Tilly on the veranda together. At first +the poor boy's tongue was tied, but under the influence of Tilly's calm +self-possession he soon found himself conversing with her quite easily. +There was a sort of commotion in the chicken-house near the barn and +they started down there to see what had caused it. He had seen young men +of the better class at Ridgeville walking with young ladies, holding to +their arms at night, and in no little perturbation he wondered if he +ought to offer Tilly his arm. He did not know, and he wondered what Joel +Eperson would do in the circumstances. Finally he plunged into the +matter. "Won't you take my arm?" he asked, so naturally that he was +surprised at himself. + +She did so, although the path was clear and the distance short, and the +gentle pressure of her hand on his arm sent an inexplicable thrill +through him. She even leaned slightly and confidently against his +shoulder, and that, too, was a wonderful experience. He was filled with +ecstatic emotion. He slowed down his step and clumsily adapted his long +stride to her shorter one. There was a vast, swelling joy in his throat. +At the barn-yard gate she released his arm and opened it, and at once he +had a fear that he had made a mistake in not forestalling her. He was +flooded with shame at the thought that Joel Eperson would have known +what was proper and have acted quicker. + +"Excuse me," the poor fellow stammered, his eyes on hers. He had never +used such words before and they sounded as strange to him as if they had +belonged to a foreign tongue. + +"Excuse you, why?" she inquired, perplexed. + +"Because--because I didn't open the gate for you," he replied. "I wasn't +thinking." + +"Oh, that doesn't matter," she answered, evidently pleased, and there +was something in her eyes that he had never seen there before. Her face +seemed to fill with a warm light, and her pretty lips were slightly +parted. They walked on. The chicken-house, a shack with a lean-to roof +against the barn, was near and he stood by her as she looked in at the +open door. + +"One of the planks they roost on fell down," she explained. "Too many of +them got on it. They will huddle together, warm as it is." + +"I can fix it," he proposed, "but I'd have to have a light." + +Tilly hesitated, looking again into the shack. There was a low chirping +from the perches overhead. + +"Never mind to-night," she said. "They have found new places and will +soon settle down." + +She turned back, facing him, and slowly they started toward the house. +This time she took his arm without being asked, and the act gave him +additional delight. He allowed the natural weight of his arm to gently +press her hand against his side and she did not resent it. In fact, he +felt as if her touch was responsive. The moonlight fell on her bare head +and played in her wonderful hair, upon which the moisture of the night +was settling. Half-way between the barn and the house there was an +empty road-wagon. Its massive tongue stood out straight a foot or so +above the ground. To his wonderment, Tilly sat down on it, thrusting her +little feet out in front of her. + +"Let's sit here," she said. "They won't be back for some time yet." + +He complied, his wonder and delight growing. They were silent. Finally +she spoke again. + +"You are the strangest man I ever saw," she said, looking into his face +with her calm, probing eyes. + +"Am I?" he asked. "Why, how so?" + +"I don't know," she made answer, thoughtfully, and she locked her little +hands in her lap and looked down. "I can't make you out. You are so--so +gentle and tender with me. You are a mystery, a deep mystery. You don't +seem to take to women in general, and yet, and yet with me--" She sighed +and broke off abruptly. + +In his all but dazed delight he could not supply the words she had +failed to summon, though he knew what he would have said could he but +have untangled his enthralled tongue. + +"Oh, I'm no mystery!" He tried to laugh away his awkwardness. "I'm as +plain as an old shoe; no frills about me. You ask the boys that work +with me." + +She was unconvinced. He saw her shake her wise little head and twist her +fingers together as she answered: + +"A girl I know who saw you on the platform that day said she'd bet you'd +had an unfortunate love-affair. She said nothing else would make as--as +fine a young man as you are shun all the girls like you do. She even +hinted that maybe you were--were married down in Georgia and for some +reason or other was not telling it." + +"Oh no, I'm not married," he laughed. "Gee! Sam would think that is +funny. Me married!" + +"Then you _have_ had a--a love-affair with some girl, and--" + +"Wrong again!" he laughed, deep in the throat of his ebullient joy. +"I've just been a sort of stay-at-home, pretty busy, you know. I've had +my hands full of night work, figuring, writing, and planning, and +through the day I've been hard at it, as a general thing. No, I'm just, +I reckon, not a natural ladies' man." How could he explain to her what +he had never understood or even tried to fathom, the reason why he was +different from other young men of his age whose manner of life he had +only superficially observed? + +Tilly seemed still unconvinced. "That girl was Sally Teasdale," she went +on. "She was here yesterday. You may remember her--the tall, dark-haired +girl that sang in the choir that day and turned my music for me once. +She is going to have a party at her house down the road Wednesday night. +She is--is dead set on having you there. She says all the girls want to +get acquainted with you, and she--she wanted me to--to take you to it." + +"To take me to it?" he repeated, hardly understanding what was really +meant, for how could a young lady be asking him to a party at her house +when no home of that sort had ever been open to him? How could that be +true, and that another girl of Tilly's social rank should really be +inviting him to escort her? + +"I see, you don't want to go," Tilly said, with a touch of mild +resentment. "Well, that is for you to decide, and I would not have asked +you but there was no way out of it. Even mother advised me to mention +it." + +Never had his confusion been greater. "Why, I want to go!" he blurted +out. "I don't see how you could doubt it. And you say that you will let +me go along with you?" + +"Yes, but it was Sally's idea; not mine," Tilly urged. "Don't think I go +about inviting boys to take me places. You see, you are stopping at our +house, and that is why Sally mentioned it to me, but the fact that you +pay us board doesn't give me the right to pull you into things you don't +care for. You must be your own judge. No doubt you are frightfully tired +at night, and if you have writing and figuring to do after work hours, +why, it would be wrong of you to bother with a crowd of silly country +girls that you never saw before." + +"Me tired? Oh no! Leave that out of the question," he warmly thrust in. +"I've set up with the boys when they were sick all night long, and +worked the next day without feeling it. What ails you? Why don't you +think I'd like to go with you? Well, I would-- I do want to go." + +"Well then, we'll go," Tilly said. "I know you will like the +girls--Sally, especially, for she is crazy, simply crazy about you. Huh! +and you don't know it? Why, she goes to town nearly every day just to +pass the new court-house. Shucks! she knows every layer of brick that +goes in it, and every man by name that works under you." + +"I think I remember the girl you mean." John was not absorbing the +compliment. "She is a tall, dark girl, as straight as an Indian squaw. +She stopped one day and asked me some questions about the rooms on the +lower floor. Sam come and showed her around-- I was too busy. Sam's on +the ladies' entertainment committee-- I am not." + +"She told me she had never met you." Tilly leaned toward him as she +spoke. She clasped her hands over her knee. She was staring steadily, +her eyes flashing. "Oh, my! what won't some girls do to get in with a +new man? Huh! She has failed to get at you in every other way and is now +making a cat's-paw of me." + +"I declare I don't know what you mean," John asserted, "but if you are +in earnest--about the party, I mean--why, you can count me in. I've +never been a party man--I wouldn't know what to do or say--but if you +will go with me, I'll be ready long before you are, I'll bet you. I'll +hire a horse and buggy at the livery-stable, and--" + +"Oh no, I seldom ride," Tilly protested. "It is only about a mile and we +can walk that far in pretty weather like this. They all live close about +except Joel Eperson. He always drives in and brings his sister, Martha +Jane." + +"Oh, so _he's_ going--_that feller_ is going!" John exclaimed in a +crestfallen tone. "I see--I see--_he's_ going." + +"Yes. He is Sally's first cousin." + +The uncouth mason sat silent. He folded his ponderous hands and scowled +as he did when displeased with the work of a bungling assistant. Tilly +was covertly and studiously regarding his profile. + +"Why do you say it like that?" she inquired. "Is there anything strange +about Joel going to a party?" + +"Strange? Not if he knows you are to be there. Does he?" + +"I suppose he _does_ think I may be there, but what of it--what of it?" + +John turned and stared toward the house. It was as if he were trying to +keep her from seeing the fierce expression he knew had clutched his +face. Tilly leaned closer to him. Her shoulder touched his. She sat +waiting for him to turn his head toward her again. Presently he looked +at her, his honest eyes holding a famished expression. + +"What is there strange about Joel going?" she asked, softly and all but +propitiatingly. + +"Nothing strange about it--just the reverse," he sighed. "I've heard +that he has been loving you ever since he was a little boy, and that he +comes to see you every chance he gets. I've heard that your father +doesn't like him. I see--his cousin has got this party up so you and he +can--" + +Tilly sprang to her feet. John kept his seat, unaware that even rural +courtesy demanded that he rise when she did. But Tilly was no stickler +for conventions. She was a working-girl; he was a laborer, and there was +something to be fathomed in the man before her which lurked deep within +him. She was angry, or perhaps only impatient, but the mood passed as if +melting into the moonlight which laved her dainty form like some +supernal fluid. + +"What you said is not kind or just," she objected, sweetly. "You +intimate that I'd meet Joel somewhere against my father's wishes. I +would not do so. I would not disobey my father or do anything on the sly +that he would oppose." + +In dumb, almost stupid alarm John sat staring up at her. He quaked under +the sudden realization that he had offended her, and yet he had never +apologized to any one in his life. The fine sense of that sort of +restitution belonged to social paths John Trott had never traversed. +"Excuse me," he might have said, as he had said at the gate, but somehow +under her bent gaze he found himself unable to utter a word. It may have +been the sheer blank look in his eyes, or the helpless twitching of his +lips, that decided her, for she suddenly sat down by him again and +leaned forward till their eyes met. + +"You did not mean to say that I'd do anything underhand, I'm sure," she +faltered. "I'm sure of it _now_." + +"Oh no," he slowly shook his head and seemed to swallow an emotional +contraction in his throat. "I didn't mean any harm, but--but he _will_ +be there, you say? He'll be there?" + +"Yes, yes, of course," Tilly responded. "I suppose he will bring Martha +Jane. He usually does. But what of that?" + +"He'll want to talk to you, I suppose?" John went on, his nether lip +hanging limp, his gaze steady. + +"Why, yes--that is, maybe he will. Sometimes couples walk about between +the games and dances. I don't dance. My father and mother oppose it, and +our church does not sanction it; but you dance, don't you?" + +"No, I've never even been to a dance. I hardly know what they are like. +The young folks at Ridgeville have them often at their club and at the +hotels and in their homes, but the boys are a lot of dudes that have +nothing else to do, and I hate them. I've always had to work for a +living and most of them are well off and look down on poor folks. People +here treat a fellow like me different somehow." + +"It seems very strange that you don't dance," Tilly mused aloud, +"especially when you don't belong to the church. How does it happen that +you never joined?" + +He shrugged and sniffed with uncurbed contempt, unaware of the fact that +what he was saying was an unheard-of thing in Tilly's circle. "I don't +believe in them," he jerked out. "They are a bunch of close-fisted, +grafting hypocrites. Most of them haven't the brains of a gnat. I've +helped build meeting-houses, run against the leaders, and know their +private lives. They say they believe there is a God-- I don't!" + +Tilly sighed unresentfully. "You will see it differently some day," she +said. "Will you do me a favor?" + +"Will I? Try me," he laughed, and he sat eagerly waiting for her to +continue. + +In her earnestness she put her hand on his knee as she leaned closer to +him. "Then don't tell father how you feel about it--please don't. You +don't know him. You can't imagine how furious that would make him. A man +stopped at our house once to stay overnight. He was selling +harvesting-machines, and after supper he and my father had an argument +on the veranda. He said--the man said something like what you've just +said to me, and father made him leave the house--made him pack up and +leave at once, for father said it would be a sin for us to sleep under +the same roof. Mother did not object, either. She was glad to see him +go. Our preacher preached a sermon on it and said my father did right. +I'm sorry you believe as you do, but won't you promise me not to say +anything about it while you are here?" + +"I'll promise you anything on earth you ask." John sat up straight. Her +little hand was still on his knee. He yearned to take it into his +calloused grasp and fondle into it his assurances of compliance with her +desires. "I don't object to any man's religion unless it rubs against my +rights as a man," he went on. "These church folks here may be better +than any I've run across, but down home the breed doesn't suit me. Why, +when I was a little fellow in the public school I've had them--women and +men--invite other boys to go to Christmas-tree parties, Sunday-school +festivals, or picnics, and leave me out. They would do it right before +my face, as if I was the very dirt under their feet. A thing like that +would be noticed by a little boy who wonders why he can't go along with +the rest." + +"I didn't know there were such church members as that anywhere," Tilly +said, thoughtfully. "Oh, I see. I wonder if your folks are Catholics?" + +"No. My father is dead. My mother doesn't go to any church." + +"Oh, that's odd. Not any at all?" + +"No. I guess she is like me. She doesn't know any of the members or care +a hill of beans about them. Why did you ask if we were Catholics?" + +"Because Catholics are looked down on so much around here. If you had +said you were one, I was going to ask you not to mention that to my +father, either. The greatest trouble my family ever had came through the +Catholics. You see, I had a brother. He died five years ago. He was a +professing member of our church, and father was awfully proud of him +because he was a fine exhorter at revivals. When he wasn't more than +sixteen my brother actually preached in public, though he wasn't +ordained. They called him 'the boy wonder' and many people were +converted under him." + +"I've seen his sort," John said, reflectively. "They had one down our +way, a sissy of a chap, that women fairly went crazy over, but you say +your brother died." + +"Yes, but not before he caused us that great trouble," Tilly went on. +"It was this way. Father's chief ambition was to have him preach, and +when he was about twenty, and after father had saved and stinted to put +him through the Methodist seminary, an Irish family moved here. They +were Catholics. There was a girl in the family, and in some way or +other George got acquainted with her and got to visiting at her house. +You know the Catholics have no church here--there are so few of +them--but at her house my brother met Catholics who talked to him and +gave him books to read. The truth is, he fell in love with the girl and +our trouble began. She and her folks somehow convinced him that her +religion was the oldest one--that it was really established by our Lord, +and that all the other denominations had shot off from it. George had +the manhood to come to father and tell him what he believed and that he +was going to join the Catholics, so that he and the girl could marry +according to Catholic rites. I was too young to know what it was all +about, but I was terrified by father's fury. He acted like a crazy man. +He couldn't eat or sleep. He disowned my brother and drove him from +home. George married the girl and they all moved away. By accident we +heard that he had died of consumption away out West, and then a man--a +Catholic, some kin of George's wife--came to deliver some message George +had sent from his death-bed. We were all sitting in the parlor. Before +father would let him say what the message was father asked the man if +George died a Catholic, and when the man said he did and that a priest +had been called in, my father refused to hear the message and showed him +the door. My mother seemed willing to listen to it, but she always obeys +my father. They are almost exactly alike, and so she said nothing." + +The gate latch clicked. Voices were heard from the house. "They are +back. I'll have to go in," Tilly said, and she sighed as from weighty +memories awakened by her recital. + +John got up and Tilly took his arm again. It seemed to him that her hold +upon it was somehow insecure, and he took her hand and drew it higher +up. He had never touched her hand till now, and, while it was rough from +her accustomed toil, by contrast with his own brick-and-stone rasped +palm, it felt as soft as velvet. There was a warm lack of resistance in +it and he released it reluctantly. How glorious and bliss-drenching +seemed the moonlight as it lay on the landscape! And it was not to end, +he told himself. There was the party to look forward to. That would give +him another chance to see her alone. He was a strong man, and yet he was +all but swooning under emotions which he had never dreamed could exist. + +"Oh, there they are!" he heard Mrs. Whaley exclaiming. + +Tilly now released John's arm, stepped forward, and casually explained +the mishap in the chicken-house. + +"The same thing happened some time ago," Mrs. Whaley said, pleasantly, +to John. "We've got too many chickens, anyway. I'm going to ship some of +them off." + +He told her awkwardly that he would send one of the carpenters up to +repair the damage, and further showed his crudeness by adding that it +should not cost her anything, all of which struck her as being quite +gentlemanly of him, and proving his ability to command men who ranked +lower than himself in the scale of his trade. + +They all separated for the night and John went to his bed stirred by +hopes and passions that kept sleep from his brain for hours. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +The evening of the party came around. John was in his room, dressing for +it, and Cavanaugh was with him. + +"It certainly is a new wrinkle for you," the old man said, with a broad +smile. "And I wouldn't bother about not knowing how to dance, either, if +I was you. There will be aplenty that won't take part in that, so you +won't feel odd. La me! I wish I could go look on! I love to see young +folks together. I spied you two the other night long before the others +did, and I noticed how Tilly was leaning against you, and it was by all +odds the prettiest sight I ever looked at, and took me back, back, back! +I believe there is a future life, and in it we'll be allowed to unreel +all the sweet and pretty things we ever wound up in our earthly passage. +I want to see the girls and boys I used to know at your age that have +gone on. Many of them had awful trouble and disgrace before they went, +and some died in pain and poverty, but I don't believe they are +suffering now, and they will come to meet me, too, and lend me some of +their joy. Old Whaley's eternal-damnation idea for some of God's +children don't go down with me. There is punishment--oh, I know that +well enough, but it is here in the consciences of folks that go crooked. +Wait, wait! You can't tie a cravat. It is the first time you ever wore a +white one, isn't it? Let me see if I can do it. I used to know how." + +With a happy laugh, John bent downward and the contractor pulled the +narrow strip of lawn into place around the stiff collar and managed to +tie it fairly well. "You will cut a dash, my boy, for that is a dandy +suit, and it fits you like a kid glove. These mountain fellers don't get +as stylish a cut as that from these cross-roads stores, and no such +material by a long shot. I'm going to say something and I'm afraid you +will be hurt, but I hope you will remember that I feel like a father to +you." + +"Shoot it out!" John laughed. "Fire away." + +"Well, you can't accuse me of being foolish about what is style and what +ain't, John, but there are a few things that I wish you'd remember not +to do any more. You see, I never lived with you down home--never set +with you at the table and the like, and so I didn't notice anything out +of the way, but--" The contractor was avoiding John's questioning stare +and suddenly broke off. + +"Why, what do you mean?" John asked. "Have I been doing anything wrong?" + +"Oh no, and maybe not a single one has ever noticed what I have, but I +must say there are a few things that sometimes I wish you wouldn't do. +Oh, I'm going to tell you and be done with it, because if I don't some +young lady may and that would hurt worse. John, I don't like the way you +act at the table sometimes. I hope you won't get mad, but I don't." + +"Well, what's wrong?" John asked, a look of shame crossing his face as +he stood mechanically brushing his coat-sleeve with his big, splaying +hand. + +"There are several little things," Cavanaugh went on, lamely. "For +instance, there is always a big spoon on the bean-dish or the +cabbage-plate, and we are expected to use it when we are asked to help +ourselves, but I've seen you take your knife, fork, or teaspoon and +rake it out exactly as if you was scraping mortar from a board." + +"Oh, I see, I see." John smiled in a sheepish sort of way. "So that is +wrong, eh?" + +"Yes, and then you stick your knife in your mouth loaded to the brink +with stuff, and I've seen you use your fingers, John. I've seen you pick +up a chunk of meat with your fingers and ram it in like you was plugging +a hole in a sinking boat. You begin eating before the rest do, too, and +that don't look nice, I must say. You are all right--all right, but it +is just a few little things like those that you ought to watch out for +and try to avoid. These are plain-living folks, but still they seem to +have pretty good manners--that is, except the old man. He does a lot o' +things that he ought not to do. He drinks coffee out of a saucer, and, +although I saw him rubbing the back of a cat just before we sat down +yesterday, he broke off a piece of bread with his hands and handed it to +me that way, and not on a fork or a plate, as would be proper. If the +women hadn't been there and akin to him, I'd have throwed it down." + +John had turned to the bureau for a handkerchief. He was angry, but more +at himself than his gentle companion. + +"It is all poppycock," he said, suddenly. "I'm astonished, Sam, to hear +you say such fool things--you, a man of your age and trade. I thought +you was a plain, sensible man. Why, you are trying to be a dude." + +Nevertheless, as the old man sat silent, John made up his mind that the +advice was worth heeding and he forced a smile. + +"All right, Sam," he said; "I'll remember next time. I'm new at this +game." + +"I thought you'd take it sensible," Cavanaugh said, in relief. "Now +there is another little thing. It seems to me that, as you are going to +escort Tilly there, you oughtn't to be behind time. You know you always +had a bad memory, and it wouldn't look exactly right for you to keep her +sitting somewhere waiting on you. A man ought to be first on deck in a +jaunt like this." + +"I was wondering about that." John stared eagerly. "She didn't say what +time we'd leave the house. Do you suppose she'd want to start now?" + +"I don't know, but I'll tell you what we'll do to be on the safe side. +Let's go down in the yard and set about. I've got two cigars. You take +one and I'll take one and we'll smoke till something turns up." + +They went down the stairs and out into the yard. They saw no one about +the house and they took chairs under the trees near the fence. They had +hardly seated themselves when a horse and buggy stopped at the gate. A +man and a woman sat in the buggy. Giving the reins to his companion, the +man sprang down and came in at the gate. In the light of the rising moon +John saw that it was Joel Eperson. + +"Good evening," the young farmer said to John. "Is Miss Tilly about?" + +John sat immovable. He turned his cigar over in his mouth and looked up +fiercely. "What are you asking _me_ for?" he snarled. "I'm not keeping +the door." + +"I beg your pardon;" Joel said, in a startled tone. "I meant no harm. My +sister and I came by to see if she'd like to go to a party over at my +cousin's house." + +John made no reply. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and +pulled at his cigar. Cavanaugh saw that he was in a rage and rose to his +feet. + +"I believe Miss Tilly is getting ready now," he explained, mildly. "She +is going with my young friend here, I understand; but, of course, if you +and your sister want to see her, why, maybe you'd better knock at the +door. Somebody will hear and come out." + +"Oh no, no!" Joel was now flooded with embarrassment. "I didn't know she +was provided for so nicely, and-- No, we'll drive on. I wouldn't want to +hurry Miss Tilly. I can explain it to her at the party. She will +understand, anyway, for sister and I often come by after her." + +Bowing politely and still confused, Eperson backed away a few feet, and +then, restoring his hat to his head, he rejoined his sister. + +"I'm sorry to see you act that way, John," Cavanaugh deplored, as the +buggy disappeared down the road. "I know the reason of it, I reckon, but +still you went a bit too far. It is give and take in a game like the one +you and this chap are playing, and if you don't want to lose, you'd +better be careful." + +John stared, still angry. "I've got no use for him," he sniffed. "He +looks like a jack-leg preacher or a mountain singing-teacher, bowing and +scraping and holding his hat in his hand before two men. He has no +backbone. He is as yellow as a pumpkin, and ought to have that long hair +of his parted in the middle and tied in a knot behind his head." + +"I know, but he looks honest and straight, and he is dead in love. +That's one reason he's so timid, even with us. It works that way with +some men. You are different. It makes a wild man of you, especially when +the fair one is looked at by somebody else. But you've got to hold in. +This fellow has got prior rights to you in this deal, and if you are too +rough it may go against you. I don't say it will, but it may." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +John was about to make some retort when Tilly suddenly came out to them. +She was dressed in white, wore no head-covering, and appeared very +pretty and somehow changed. + +"Oh, you are all ready to go!" she said, smiling on John. "Here is +something for you to wear." She held out a few leaves of geranium and a +white rosebud and proceeded to pin them on the lapel of his coat. "It +is the custom," she explained. "All the girls give them to the young men +they go with. Now, now, isn't that nice, Mr. Cavanaugh?" + +"Fine! Beautiful! It sets him off just right!" the old man cried. + +John looked pleased, but said nothing. + +"Why don't he thank the little trick?" Cavanaugh wondered, resentfully. +"And why don't the goose stand up?" + +"I don't believe you like flowers," Tilly said, pretending to pout. + +Still John said nothing, but what astonished Cavanaugh was the fact that +Tilly evidently understood his mood, for she gave a little pat to a +wrinkle the pin had made in his lapel and smiled. + +"I thought I heard wheels just now," she remarked. "They seemed to stop +here." + +"It was that fellow Eperson with his sister," John blurted out. "They +came by to take you to the party. He acted like he owned you." + +"Oh, it was Joel and Martha Jane!" Tilly smiled. "Oh no, he doesn't +think he owns me, by any means. Martha Jane put him up to it. She and I +are great friends and she was afraid I wouldn't get an escort." + +John shrugged dubiously and answered: "You may look at it that way if +you want to, but I see through him. I know his brand." + +To Cavanaugh's wonderment, Tilly seemed pleased rather than offended, +for she indulged in a little satisfied laugh. + +"I suppose you told him we would be there?" she said, lightly, and it +was the old man who answered, seeing that John had nothing to say. + +"Yes, he knows that now, Miss Tilly, though he looked sorter set back. +In my day and time about the last thing I'd want to do would be to take +a sister of mine to a shindig. Going and coming was always the biggest +part of the game, and you may bet there was times when I was in for +busting a party up as soon as supper was over so as to be on the road +again." + +Tilly laughed merrily. "I'll make you a buttonhole bouquet if you will +wear it," she proposed. + +"Well, not to-night--I thank you all the same," Cavanaugh returned, "but +you may some other time when I've got my best clothes on. I don't want +to part with you two, but don't you think you ought to be on the way?" + +"Yes, it is time," Tilly said, and John rose to his feet and stiffly +held his arm out to her. + +"Please tell mother that we are gone," she said, as she took John's arm +and the two turned away. + +"What a purty sight!" the old man mused, standing and gazing after them +as they walked away in the moonlight. He followed as far as the gate and +leaned on it and watched them till they were out of sight. + +Presently Mrs. Whaley came out and joined him. He delivered Tilly's +message and they sat down and chatted for half an hour; then she went +back into the kitchen. + +She was making dough for bread to be baked the next day when her husband +came and stood beside her. He wore no coat and his coarse suspenders +hung loose over his hips; the collar of his shirt was open, showing his +hairy chest. + +"I saw you out there talking to Cavanaugh," he began. "Did you say +anything about that matter?" + +"I did--in a roundabout way," she said, taking the great lump of wheat +dough in her hands and rolling it into a heap of dry flour at one end of +the long wooden bowl. "I didn't want him to take up a notion that we +want to marry her off, but I tried to find out what I could. Mr. Trott +never has had any love-affairs. He is mighty young--younger than you'd +naturally think to have the job he has, and somehow he never has taken +to a girl before. Mr. Cavanaugh says this is the first time, and I know +he is telling the truth. Oh, he had a lot to say in Mr. Trott's favor. +He says he has a wonderful mind for building and the like, and that the +time will come when he will make piles of money. He already gets high +wages, and it is always cash, too. He doesn't have to wait till the end +of the year like Joel Eperson and other farmers do, and then be up to +their eyes in debt, with nothing left over to begin another crop on." + +"Does he drink or gamble? That is what I want to know," Whaley put in +suddenly. + +"No, he doesn't. Mr. Cavanaugh says he hardly thinks of anything but +figuring, planning, and calculating. He goes to bed early and gets up +early, and can handle a gang of men better even than he can, he's so +popular with them." + +"Didn't you find out about the feller's religion?" + +"No, I didn't. I sorter touched on that--said you wanted to know--but +Mr. Cavanaugh made light of it--said all that would come out right in +due time. He said he was no hand for hurrying up the young on those +lines. He said John Trott at bottom was the right sort, and that he +would count on him serving the Lord in the long run as well as the next +one." + +"I don't know as I'd let that old skunk pick a religion for a son-in-law +of mine." Whaley's lip was drawn tight as he spoke. "He don't take +enough interest in doctrine, and when you force him to talk about it he +says entirely too much about salvation through works alone. I like a man +that knows what he believes and can point straight to Biblical authority +in page, line, and word. It behooves a Christian to watch out what sort +of a mate his daughter picks. Infidelity will breed at a fireside faster +than tadpoles under skum in a mud-puddle." + +"Well, I'm for keeping that part out of it just now," Mrs. Whaley +suggested, timidly. "This is a good chance for the girl, and you know +you have made a lot of folks mad by the way you talk to them." + +"Well, I haven't said anything to Trott yet," Whaley answered, "and I +may not, though he hasn't been out to meeting yet and that seems odd, +when the Sabbath is a day of rest and there is nothing else to do." + +"I happened to hear him tell Tilly that he was going next Sunday," Mrs. +Whaley answered, "so you see that will work out all right." + +"Well, we'll wait and see," Whaley returned. "They dance over there at +Teasdale's house, don't they?" + +"Some do and some don't," was the answer, slowly made. "Tilly don't and +Mr. Trott never did in his life." + +"There isn't much difference in actually dancing and giving sanction to +it by looking on," Whaley said, his heavy brows meeting in a frown, "an' +I'm in for calling a halt on Tilly going to such places. Looks like +there would be plenty of decent amusements without hot-blooded young +folks hugging up tight together and spinning around on the floor till +they are wet with sweat from head to foot. Sally Teasdale ought to be +churched, and she would be if she was a Methodist. The Presbyterians +ain't strict enough. Well, if I believed in foreordained baby damnation +as they do I'd let a child of mine dance her way into hell and be done +with it. They make me sick. I had an argument with old Bill Tye +yesterday and I fairly flayed up the ground with him--didn't leave him a +leg to stand on, but he was mad--oh, wasn't he mad? The crowd laughed at +him good." + +Whaley turned away. He intended to chat with Cavanaugh outside, but he +met the contractor coming in at the front door on his way to bed. + +"I found that passage from Paul and read the whole chapter," Whaley +began, but Cavanaugh stopped him. + +"I'll see it to-morrow," he said. "My eyes are not strong enough to read +at night, even with my specs, and I'm a little bit tired, too. I walked +out to the sawmill--five miles and back--this morning, to see about +some timber, and it was quite a stretch for me. Good night." + +"No wonder he didn't want to see it," Whaley smiled to himself as he +leaned in the doorway. "I had him beat and he knows it. I'll bet the old +skunk has already looked it up, or asked somebody about it." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +A wide country road stretched out in the moonlight before John and +Tilly. They walked slowly. Tilly still held his arm and he was +transported with sheer ecstasy by that close contact with her. Once or +twice he started to speak, but found himself unable to think of anything +appropriate, and this both angered and alarmed him, for, he asked +himself, how was it that Eperson was always so ready with his tongue +when in Tilly's presence? But Tilly seemed to understand John's way and +not to care much whether he talked or was silent. As he dared to glance +down on her pretty head just below his left shoulder he remembered the +bride and the bridegroom on the train, and the contractor's words came +back to him like breeze music from the waving tops of celestial trees: +"It is ahead of you, my boy." + +Ahead of him? Marriage? A home for Tilly and himself alone? She, his +wife?--actually his wife? Absurd! Impossible! The bare thought, checked +though it was, set fire to his brain and he was thrilled in all his +nerves and members. He caught her upward glance and she smiled almost as +if she had glimpsed his vision and was thus responding to it. + +"You don't like Joel," she said, knowing full well that that remark +would prod his tardy speech. + +"Well, what if I don't?" he answered, with querulous sharpness. + +"Well, you shouldn't dislike him," the little minx continued, +designedly. "He hasn't done you any harm. How could he? You have known +each other such a short time." + +Had John been other than the crude working-boy that he was, he might +have made a more adroit answer, but, even as it was, it was not +unpleasing to his sly tormentor. + +"What is he hanging around you so much for?" John demanded. "I've heard +that your father doesn't like him. What does he mean by coming, at the +slightest excuse, like to-night, for instance?" + +"Joel and I have been friends ever since we were tiny tots," Tilly +answered, as casually as a school-girl chewing gum. "And even if--if he +really does love me and--and wants me to be his wife, should he be +blamed for that?" + +The very suggestion of her marriage to any one, and that man in +particular, drove John wild. He bit his lip; he swore under his breath, +and his oaths had never been guarded before meeting Tilly; his eyes +flashed from the fires behind them. He clenched his fists. + +"You are mine, mine, mine!" he said to himself with the grinding teeth +of a cave-man, and he was all but unaware that his words were not +audible. She was smiling up at him, so sweetly, so placidly. What a +nimbus of transcendental charm hovered over the wonderful face in the +moonlight. Suddenly he checked his onward stride, caught her, and drew +her around facing him. What he might have said or done he never knew, +but Tilly gravely started on again, gently extracting her hand from his +fierce clasp and restoring it to his arm. + +"We must not stop," she said. "I hear a horse behind us. It is somebody +going to the party, perhaps." + +He said nothing as her fingers left his, and they walked on again. It +was a horse and a buggy containing a couple from the village. Tilly +spoke merrily to them and they answered back as they dashed on. + +"It is Marietta Slocum and Fred Murray," Tilly explained. "They are +engaged." + +"Engaged?" The word seemed to fill the entire consciousness of the crude +social anomaly. He told himself that an engagement must naturally +precede marriage, and how was that to come about with that helpless +tongue in his mouth? Besides, how did he know but that Tilly might +refuse him? How did he know but that there might even now be some +understanding between her and Eperson? The sheer thought chilled him +like a blast from a cavern of ice. She seemed to feel the limpness of +the arm she held or in some way to sense the despair that was on him so +quickly following the mood she had interrupted only a moment before. + +"You are so strange!" she sighed, taking a better grasp on his arm, and +even bearing down on it slightly as she lowered her head thoughtfully. +"You are a mystery to me. I can't make you out." + +He could not explain. He was not sure that he cared to explain the +terrible internal quakings which to him seemed so unmanly, so unlike any +feelings that had ever come to him. He wondered if Eperson had actually +spoken open words of love to her, and, if so, how had the fellow, with +all his suave ability, managed it? + +Another buggy passed. Tilly explained who the occupants of it were after +she had greeted them. They were George Whitton and Ella Bell Roberts. +Then she added, with a touch of seriousness: + +"You ought to have lifted your hat just now." + +"Lifted my hat? Why, I don't know her-- I've never seen her before!" he +retorted, with the irritation of a great mind descending to a +triviality. + +"Because he lifted his to me and you are with me," Tilly persisted in +her mild rebuke. "It is the custom here, but it may not be at +Ridgeville." + +John was chagrined, but determined to hide it. "I have never heard of a +man bowing to a man or a woman he never saw before," he fumed. "I don't +care what you all do; it is foolishness out and out." + +"Well, when you are in Rome," Tilly quoted in quite a grave tone, "you +ought to do as the Romans do." + +The thing rankled within him. The blood had mounted to his brow and +stayed there. Even Tilly was telling him how to deport himself. He +adored her, but he was angry enough to have sworn in her gentle, +uplifted eyes. She observed his moody mien and playfully shook his arm. + +"Don't be mad," she urged, sweetly. "I meant no harm, but I _do_ want +them all to like you, and I'm afraid they won't if you fail in little +things like that just now. They won't understand--they will think you +are stuck up, and I know you are not a bit vain. I am sure of that--as +sure as I'm alive. If you were I'd not like you." + +She had intimated that she liked him, and that ought to have been +sufficient to quell the storm within him, but it did not quite. Her +rebuke hurt far more than any which had ever come to him. She adroitly +changed the subject. She spoke of the work on the court-house and +praised his part of it, but what did that matter? He knew what his work +was and he was just learning profound and relentless things about the +difference between himself and her--between her puzzling environment and +his, which was all too distinctly plain for his present comfort. As they +neared Teasdale's and saw the lights streaming from the open doors and +windows across the lush greensward and noted the considerable collection +of horses and vehicles under the shade-trees and along the fences, he +became conscious of an overwhelming timidity with which he felt unable +to cope. Had Tilly been like himself and feared the entry into the light +and easy gaiety of the chattering throng, he would not have felt so +isolated. But her very unconsciousness of the thing as any sort of +ordeal to be dreaded depressed him as emphasizing the fateful +demarcation between her walk of life and his. + +They reached the steps of the large, rather rambling one-story +farm-house. There was a long veranda in front, both ends of which were +filled with merrymakers. There was a wide hallway, and it, too, was +filled with jolly, loud-talking couples, as well as the big parlor on +the right. + +"Oh, here they are!" Sally Teasdale cried, coming forward and taking +Tilly into her slim, pretentious arms. "I heard of you two poking along +like snails on the big road. As if you couldn't see enough of Mr. Trott +at home! I am going to introduce myself to him, to pay you back. I'm +Sally Teasdale"--holding out her hand to John--"and I am glad you came +to my party." + +John did not know what he said, if he said anything audible. It was the +damnable glibness of speech of others which he had to contend with and +which seemed to be as silly as unattainable. + +"Now, dear, run back to my room and take off your wrap," Miss Teasdale +said to Tilly. "I'll show Mr. Trott the men's room." + +"He has nothing but his hat," Tilly lingered to say, "and he can leave +that anywhere." + +"Yes, if you like," his hostess said, leading him to a spot on the +veranda where many men's hats were hanging on nails driven into the +weather-boarding. He hung up his and immediately felt Sally clutch his +arm. + +"Tilly says you don't dance," she ran on. "What a pity! It is great fun, +and a good way to get acquainted. I suppose you are a member of the +church. Which one?" + +"None at all," he heard himself saying, as if in a dense fog and from a +great distance. + +"How funny that you don't dance, then?" she went on, leaving an opening +for him which he did not enter. He did not like her. She was too tall +and angular, too harsh of voice and fluent of talk and irritating +suggestion. He had the sense of being managed when he wanted above all +to be unmolested. Besides, she had sent Tilly away, and without Tilly he +felt lost. + +"I must introduce you to my father," Sally said. "He is old-fashioned +and wants his way about everything. He would scold me if I didn't +introduce you at once. He is inside. Come on. My stepmother is busy in +the kitchen fixing refreshments." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +He wormed his way after her through the surging throng to the parlor, +where a fat man in dark trousers and a white-linen coat stood vigorously +cooling himself with a palm-leaf fan and talking to some middle-aged men +and women. + +"Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Trotter--I mean Trott," he said, +extending a clammy hand. "I've seen you about the court-house several +times but you were always busy and I didn't want to climb up those +rickety planks to you. How is it moving along?" + +"All right," John said, bluntly. He was not awed by the man, for he was +used to men of all types. Besides, John could not descend to empty +platitudes for the sake of making conversation, and he half resented the +unnecessary question about a matter that was obvious to every passer-by. + +"Come in here with me." The old man took a large grasp on his arm and +began to fan lazy waves of warm air into his face as he drew him into an +adjoining room, which was evidently a sleeping-apartment from which the +bed had been removed. There was a table against the wall, and on its +snow-white cloth stood a great bowl of mint, some goblets, a pitcher of +water, a dish of sugar, and a brown jug containing whisky. + +"I want you to try one of my juleps," Teasdale chuckled. "That is some +of the best old rye that ever slid down a thirsty throat." + +"I don't drink," John said. "I won't take anything." + +"What, what? You don't? Well, I won't insist--I never do--but stay with +me a minute till I take one straight. My old lady says I take too much +at every party Sally has, and unless some feller is in here with me she +thinks I am tanking up all by myself." + +"Go ahead," John answered, and the farmer proceeded to help himself to +an ample supply of the amber fluid. While he drank, the sound of tuning +fiddles and the twanging of guitars came from the parlor. + +"The niggers have come," Teasdale gurgled, as he smacked his lips and +screwed the corn-cob stopper back into the neck of the jug. "Sally will +start out with dancing, I reckon. I used to be a great hand at it, but +I'm too heavy now." + +He led the way back to the parlor. Four black men sat in a corner +vigorously sawing and picking their instruments. One of them, the +leader, called out in stentorian tones, "All hands fer de fust set!" and +there was a laughing rush from the hall and the veranda of several +couples to secure places. Seeing a chance to get away from his host, +John drew back into the hall, where he found himself jostled and ignored +by the tempestuous human mass. He edged his way along a wall to the +veranda, and there saw something startlingly disagreeable. It was Joel +Eperson and Tilly standing side by side, their faces averted toward the +gate. Joel was regarding her with the eyes of dumb adoration and +listening closely to something she was saying. John saw that the +opposite end of the veranda was deserted and he went to it. He tried to +keep his eyes from the pair, but it was impossible. His misery +increased, seeming to ooze into him from some external reservoir of +pain. All around him surged a life bewilderingly new and fatuous. He +saw Joel bend down to pick up a flower Tilly dropped and saw him smile +as he gave it back to her. What could she be saying, with that sweet, +drawn look about her lips? What was Joel asking? He saw her nod, and +Joel took her arm and the two went down the steps to the gravel walk +that led from the house to the gate. Here back and forth they walked, +arm in arm, now in the full light from the door and windows, again in +the half-darkness near the fence. Once for fully five minutes they +lingered at the gate while the silent spectator of their movements +leaned tense and rigid against the balustrade. The promenade was quite +in accordance with rural propriety and custom, but John could not +understand why that pair in particular should be the only ones in the +entire company to engage in it. It did not seem right. How could it be +right? + +The music, the sonorous calls to the dancers, the tripping of feet, +pounded his tortured brain. The whole world in its new aspect seemed to +meet him with fangs and claws exposed. He wanted to fight something +physically, to express by oaths and blows the resentment packed within +his primitive breast. He felt his gnarled and hardened fingers at Joel +Eperson's thin neck. He saw the long hair sway back and forth as he +shook the love-smitten man. His clutch tightened till Joel's eyes bulged +from their sockets, and then, in gloating fancy, John dashed him to the +ground, where he lay exposed to Tilly's view. But reality has little to +do with the tricks of the imagination, and there stood Eperson at the +fence with Tilly by his side. + +Two girls were approaching. One was Sally Teasdale, the other Martha +Jane Eperson. + +"They've told the truth about you," the former greeted John, with a +teasing laugh, as she introduced the slight, plain, dark girl whose +hand she held. "You are really a woman-hater, or you would not be off +here by yourself when all the girls want to know you." + +Again he was scarcely conscious of what he was saying or leaving unsaid, +and suddenly waked to the fact that his hostess had hurried away, and +that the plain girl was in his care. After all, she was Eperson's +sister, and he eyed her curiously, wondering if she, too, were his +enemy. + +"You've met my brother," she began. "He spoke about it the day the +corner-stone was laid. There he is out there with Tilly now. I didn't +want to come to-night, but he was crazy to be here so that he could see +her." + +"I thought that was it," John permitted his slow lips to say. "They have +been going together a long time. That is, I've heard so." + +"Yes, and I thought--we all thought that Tilly would end up by taking +him, but it is all off now," Miss Eperson sighed, her eyes on the pair +at the fence. + +"All off?" John in his sober senses would have wondered at his ability +to talk so freely with a girl he had just met. "Why, what do you mean?" + +"As if you didn't know--as if _everybody_ doesn't know!" Martha Jane +laughed half sardonically. + +"But I don't know what you mean." Something new and bountiful in its +promise of joy filled John and drove the words from his palpitating +tongue. + +"The idea!" scoffed Martha Jane. "Well, if you don't know it you are +blind as a bat in daytime. Brother knows it, I know it--everybody knows +it." + +"Knows what?" John demanded, his breath checked, his eyes gleaming, his +whole being athrob under the dawn of an ecstasy the plain girl seemed to +offer. + +"Well, I'm not going to tell you, if you don't know," the girl +answered, with a little shrug. "But if you want to understand, watch my +poor brother. He never had a look like that before. She has been his +very life. People that doubt real love ought to know Joel. He would go +through fire and water for Tilly. He'd steal, he'd kill, he'd do +anything. He is desperate to-night. When we got to her house and found +that you and she were going to walk out here, it was the last straw. But +he is a gentleman, my brother is, and he will never make a row over it." + +Under the sheer blaze of this information, John stood speechless. He, +boldly now, gave his arm to his little companion and they started to +walk back and forth on the lawn as others were doing. His face was now +turned from Tilly, but subconsciously he could fairly feel her +proximity. John almost loved the little woman on his arm. How could he +help it? She was so kind to him. + +They were turning toward the steps when Tilly and Eperson approached. +There was a wilted look of resignation on Eperson's face, a sentient +animation in Tilly's eyes and about her lips, when she said to John: + +"I hope you are having a good time and meeting all the girls. Sally said +she would look after you." + +He smiled and nodded. Something seemed to bear down on his brain and +befog his sight. The lights, the lawn, the people, swirled around him. + +"Yes, I'm all right," he said. + +They were all on the veranda now and Joel stood facing his rival, a look +of wondering respect in his shrinking gaze. + +"Oh, Joel!" a voice was heard, and Sally Teasdale approached. "We need +you. Mother is going to serve the refreshments and all the men who know +the ins and outs of our kitchen are helping wait on the crowd. Will you +come? Father is already unable to walk steady." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Joel blandly and gallantly complied. His sister, now thrown with John +and Tilly after the others left, looked slightly embarrassed, and, +saying that she, too, would help serve the supper, she moved away. This +threw John and Tilly together again. Some couples had seated themselves +in chairs against the wall, and, as there were vacancies, they sat down +also. The negroes, to the accompaniment of guitars, began singing old +plantation melodies. The moon, higher in the heavens now, shed a +glorious sheen over the still landscape. John was too full of adoration +and joy to utter a word. Tilly seemed to sense his mood to its depths +and to blend a mood of like nature with it. + +"I love you--I love you!" John's soul seemed to whisper, but his tongue +remained an inactive lump in his mouth. + +"I know--I understand," Tilly's soul seemed to be saying in the same +inaudible way. He smelled the perfume of the geranium leaves on his +coat, and his big red fingers raised them to his nostrils. He told +himself that it was a silly, womanish act, but what did he care? Tilly's +fingers had pinned them there, the little fingers he longed to caress. + +Joel served her first. He came past other girls and brought Tilly a +plate containing cake and a glass of sillibub and hastened away after +she had sweetly thanked him. + +Tilly held the plate in her lap, idly toying with the spoon. + +"Why don't you eat it?" John asked. + +"Because the others haven't theirs yet," she answered. + +"Oh, I see," he muttered, chagrined in spite of his happiness. "I'll +never get on to your ways. I've been brought up different. I've worked +hard since I was a boy--I-- I--" But he could not go farther. Why should +he allude to his sordid home life when it was a thing which he now so +utterly despised? How could he speak of his mother, who was so widely +and strangely different from the women Tilly knew? No, he would let +those things rest. + +Various young men had served all the ladies on the veranda when Joel +came out with a plate and looked about as if trying to find some lady +who had been overlooked. Finding no one, he brought it to John. + +"You take it, Mr. Trott," he said, suavely, and yet with a touch of +irrepressible dejection in his tone. + +John stared in stupid bewilderment and then jerked out, "Keep it +yourself." It was just such a well-meant reply as he might have made to +one of his workmen who was offering him a cigar, and yet it quite +frustrated Joel, who stood awkwardly waiting, the plate still timidly +extended. + +"Oh no! I'm going right back," Joel said. "I can't eat now, thank you. +We are just beginning to help the men." + +"Well, you can't wait on me," John blurted out. The situation was +becoming tense and awkward, when Tilly half playfully reached out, took +the plate, and gave it to John. + +"Take it," she said, firmly. "Joel is in a hurry. The others are +waiting." + +John obeyed, but failed to thank Eperson. He was vaguely conscious that +Tilly was smoothly performing the duty for him and that Joel was bowing +himself away. Then they sat in silence. Others near by were boisterously +laughing, beating time with their feet and singing with the band, but +neither Tilly nor John had aught to say. It was as if the subject which +was at once burning and soothing their souls was too vast and sacred to +be touched upon in the neighborhood of others less profoundly stirred. + +"Give me your plate. I'll take it in," John heard a young farmer saying +to the girl he sat with. "You don't want to hold it all night. We'll be +dancing again in a minute." + +The girl obeyed, and the young man left with two plates in his hands. +John noticed that Tilly had finished, and he offered to take her plate. +She gave it to him. "Be careful," she warned him. "Sally borrowed most +of them from the neighbors and wants to return them in good order." + +John chafed under the admonition as he rose with his plate and Tilly's +in either hand. He had, however, scarcely reached the door when, in +trying quickly to step out of the way of two girls who were approaching, +one of the plates and the goblet on it fell to the floor. John stood as +if paralyzed. Then he softly swore. Every one on the veranda stopped +talking and stared. What he would have done next John never knew, for +Tilly suddenly approached. + +"Never mind," she said, calmly. "Take the other one to the kitchen." + +Furious at himself and all the swirling, clattering, and chattering +company, John managed to make his way into the kitchen, where he +delivered the plate to a buxom negro woman at a big dish-pan full of hot +water. He saw Joel putting down some plates and glasses on a table near +at hand. Joel smiled in a friendly way. + +"I saw your little accident," he said. "I barely escaped the same thing +just now. A fellow has to be a regular bareback rider or a tight-rope +walker to get through this crowd with his arms full of glassware and +crockery." + +"No, I couldn't help it." John was conscious of a hot flow of blood to +his face, and a vague sense of gratitude. "I'm no good at this sort of +thing. I haven't been brought up to it." + +Joel seemed to have no reply ready, and the two willingly parted. John +found his chair by Tilly still unoccupied and sat down in it. Why didn't +she say something about the accident, he wondered. He decided to bring +it up himself, so ignorant was he of the ways of the new world to which +she had introduced him. + +"I'm sorry about those things I broke," he began, hurriedly. "It wasn't +my fault. Those girls came out all of a sudden and faced me. I had to +get out of their way, you see, or smash right into them. So I--" + +"I know. I saw it," Tilly interposed. "Never mind. Let it pass." + +"But I've got to fix it somehow," John blundered on. "Nobody shall lose +through me. I am able to pay for any damage I do. Tell me who they +belonged to and I'll send the owner a whole set of plates and goblets. I +might not match the ones I broke, but--" + +"Don't, don't think of that," Tilly urged, her pretty lips twitching +with almost maternal sympathy. "If you were to offer to pay it would +offend Sally." + +"Offend her? Why, in the name of common sense?" + +"I don't know, but it would hurt _me_--it would hurt _anybody_. It is of +no consequence." + +"But you talked differently before it happened," John insisted, his lip +hanging and quivering. "You said distinctly that the things were +borrowed and that Miss Sally wanted--" + +"Yes, but it is done now and the only thing is to forget it. Don't even +mention it to Sally." + +"Not mention it to her? Why not?" John's tongue was thick with the +mystery in which he was warmly floundering. + +"Because that would not be right--not according to--to custom." + +"Custom be--" John bit off the oath with exasperated teeth. "I don't +care a hill of beans what the custom is here in these backwoods. I want +to pay my way in this life. I laid a cigar down one day against a +fellow's hat, and burned a big hole in it. I bought him another and it +tickled him to death. It was the best hat in town, while his was an old +one, and--" + +"But this is different," Tilly pleaded. "Let it drop, please do. For my +sake don't say anything more about it. I'll explain what I mean some +other time." + +That had to suffice. There was more music and dancing and the game of +"Stealing partners" on the lawn. Tilly asked John if he wanted to play +the game, but he confessed that he did not know what it was like. Saying +that it would not look well for them to sit together so long, she led +him down to the grass, and they stood watching the big circle of +couples. It was very simple--far too simple to interest John. A +partnerless young man would dart across the ring, select the partner of +another, and they would merrily trip back to his "home" on the other +side. + +Seeing Tilly, a young man unknown to John came and "stole" her and drew +her into the circle. + +"Now let the girls steal!" a voice cried out, and several girls sped +across the ring after partners. A lively minx with blue eyes and flowing +golden hair danced up to John. "Come get in with me," she laughed. +"Tilly Whaley hasn't introduced you to any of us. It is a shame. You may +have heard Tilly mention me. I'm Jennie Webster." + +"No, I never heard of you before," John said, bluntly, as they settled +into their places in the ring. + +Jennie laughed in her small handkerchief. She even bent her golden head +to give vent to her amusement. + +"What is the matter?" John demanded, in slow irritation, his eyes on +Tilly, directly opposite with a young farmer whom he had once seen at +the Whaleys'. + +"Why, you are as funny as they all say you are," Jennie tittered. "I +heard you were rough and outspoken, but I didn't think you'd admit that +you never heard of _me_ before. Why, sir, I'll have you know that I'm +somebody, _I am_. You may bet your boots. I got the first prize for +butter at the fair last fall and my father got two blue ribbons on a +white pig--one on its neck and the other on its stumpy tail." + +John wondered if she was making sport of him, but soon decided that +there was no malice in the twinkling blue eyes. + +"There goes Joel Eperson," she said, laying her small hand on John's +arm. "He is not in the game. Watch Tilly-- What did I tell you? I knew +she would steal him. My, my! that couple are a wonder!" + +John saw Tilly leaving her partner and crossing the grass to Eperson. +"Come play," he heard her saying. "You've worked long enough for one +evening." + +John saw Tilly and Joel find a place opposite him. How his new hopes +drooped at the sheer sight of them! + +"You are living in her house; I guess you know about them," ran on +John's companion. + +"Know about them--know _what_ about them?" he demanded, all but +fiercely. + +"Huh!" ejaculated the girl. "Have you been so busy with your bricks and +mortar that you haven't heard that they have been sweethearts since they +were tiny tots? Why, even my mother and father always inquire, when I +get home from a party, whether Joel and Tilly got together? You see, few +folks sympathize with her hard-shell old daddy, and everybody loves +Joel--everybody, man, woman, and child. And I know why. It is because he +is so fine, noble, and constant. Some think--some few--that Tilly will +give in to her father and drop Joel, but take it from me--and I'm a +girl--she won't. She loves him--down deep she loves him, for no girl +could help it. She wouldn't be a true woman if she went back on +adoration like that. He is not handsome, but there is something in him +too sweet and good to talk about. Once we all were arguing at +Sunday-school whether anybody could actually forgive an enemy, and +nearly all of us agreed that we couldn't but that Joel Eperson could. +Wasn't that funny? When I talk to him I feel restful. If I was about to +do a bad thing and he spoke to me, I'd throw it up. He did once, but +never mind about that. It is too long to tell you now. But I'll +always--always love him for what he did and said right while I was +wavering." + +John now saw that Joel had given Tilly his arm and was leading her +across the grass to a rustic seat under an oak-tree. The circle of forms +and faces became blurred to John's sight. There was much laughter, much +darting to and fro across the ring, but John heard only the voice of +the little analyst at his elbow. + +"There they go for the second dose of soothing-syrup," she twittered. +"Old man Whaley doesn't know which side his bread is buttered on. By +trying to keep them apart he is only driving them together. 'Absence +makes the heart grow fonder,' and so does opposition. That pair is +lapping up stolen sweets to-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The game was breaking up. The couples were moving toward the house. John +was desperate enough to have shaken the unconscious tantalizer now on +his arm. He could think of nothing to say and didn't care what his +companion thought about his inattention. He was wondering why Martha +Jane Eperson had said what she had said, and why he had been so foolish +as to believe it. Perhaps she had a motive. Perhaps it was sarcasm born +in the knowledge of his presumption. For aught he knew, she might now be +laughing over his credulity. + +John was only a boy, and a crude one. Without excusing himself from his +companion, he left her at the steps and abruptly stalked away. He had +his choice of entering the crowded farm-house or sauntering about the +grounds. Taking a cigar from his pocket, he struck a match on the +door-step, lighted the cigar, and then turned toward the stables at one +side of the house. Here among the horses and vehicles he stood +reflecting gloomily, rebelliously. Across the lighted lawn he saw Joel +and Tilly still on the bench. How close they seemed to sit, one against +the other! The hot weight of rage again bore down on John's brain. He +forgot to smoke. His cigar died in his inert fingers. Again he wanted to +throttle his meek and placid rival. The man's sheer gentleness enraged +him, for it was a quality he himself did not possess, and till now had +denied. In the half-darkness he saw two young men come to a buggy not +far from him, take from under the seat a flask, and heard them joking as +they drank. + +"I knew you had your arm around her, you sly dog!" one said, "and I held +my horse in to give you a chance." + +"She is a little beauty, eh?" another voice said with a laugh. "She +nestled up against me like a sick kitten to a hot brick." + +The flask was emptied. It whistled as it was hurled against the barn, +and the two men went back to the house. What could Tilly and Joel be +saying? She had said to John that he and she should not be seen too long +together, and yet for the second time that evening she and Eperson had +sequestered themselves like that. John told himself that he had been a +fool to hope as he had done, and his rage and despair joined forces +within him. + +Presently he noticed that some of the young men were coming for their +buggies and driving them up to the veranda. Then he saw some couples +getting in and driving away. Still Joel and Tilly sat on the rustic +bench. Still John lurked and watched in the darkness. + +"Oh, brother, we must go now!" It was Martha Jane calling from the +steps. "I don't want to hurry you, but we really must be going." + +"Yes, yes, dear-- I'm coming!" and Joel and Tilly rose and arm in arm +slowly went to the house. A moment later Joel was coming for his buggy, +and John, fearing to be seen alone in the dark, quickly advanced by +another way to the veranda without meeting his rival. + +He found Tilly ready to go and looking for him. "I wondered where you +were," she said, softly. "We must be on the way." + +He went on the veranda for his hat, leaving her at the foot of the +steps. He joined her, the dead cigar in his mouth. He held out his arm. +She took it, started on, then paused suddenly. + +"Have you said good night to the Teasdales?" she asked. + +"No," he retorted, impatiently, even angrily, for Eperson stood near by, +hat in hand, extending a handkerchief to Tilly. + +"You dropped it on the grass," he said. "I found it just now." + +"Thank you," Tilly said, taking it and smiling sweetly. "Good night. +Remember what I told you." Then she turned back to John. "You must say +good night to them. They are rather particular, and will think it +strange if you don't. There they are in the hall, all three of them." + +He obeyed. How he got through it he never knew. He bore away with him a +blurred impression of the farmer's red face, too affectionate handclasp; +Mrs. Teasdale's fat and squatting movement as she silently and timidly +bowed; and Sally's gushing appreciation of his coming, and her regrets +at not having seen more of him through the evening. + +Joel and Martha Jane were getting into the buggy. The latter leaned over +a wheel to kiss Tilly. Joel raised his hat, and John found himself +imitating the salutation, and despising it. He gave his arm to Tilly and +they started home. The road ahead of them was dusty, and Joel's horse +stirred the powdered clay into a cloud as he trotted ahead of them. This +fact in itself angered John. He coughed and sniffed, but said nothing. + +"I hope you liked the party," Tilly began. Her hand rested on John's arm +in the same confiding way as formerly, but it stirred him no longer. + +"I thought it was awful, silly, stupid!" he declared. "I never knew that +grown-up people could act that way." + +"I'm sorry," Tilly sighed. "I was afraid you would not enjoy so many +strangers. It would not be natural for you to feel as much at home as +the rest. You see, they have been going together for years, and, +moreover, you said you had not been accustomed to such things." + +"No, and I have not missed anything," he threw back. + +She made no denial. Her hold on his arm had a caressing quality that +would be hard to define. She seemed to understand him better than he +understood himself. "Yes, I was afraid you wouldn't like it," she +rejoined, "for you are different from most persons. You are the +strangest man I ever knew--the very, very strangest. Your face is as +smooth as a boy's, and yet somehow you seem old in--in experience--sad +experience, too, I should think. You are rough on the outside, but I +know you are pure gold on the inside." + +"Pure gold, rubbish!" he sneered, inwardly. Had he not just heard a girl +say that Joel Eperson was the best man alive? What did a woman's opinion +amount to, anyway? And how could Tilly expect him to be such a fool as +to believe her when she had acted as she had that evening with another +man? The memory of this fired him afresh and he suddenly shook her hand +from his arm and with bowed head strode along. He was breathing now like +a beast of burden hard driven by pain. + +"What is the matter?" Tilly asked, blandly, although she knew full well +that she was responsible for his present mood, and, reaching out, she +took his arm again. He did not lift it into place, and her hand slid +down his wrist till his fingers were clasped by her pleading ones. + +"Don't be mad at me," she said, soothingly. "If you understood +everything you would not be." + +Understood everything? Did she mean now that her engagement to Eperson +would explain, justify all that had taken place? + +"I do understand," he said, aloud, his cheeks twitching, his lips tight, +his eyes gleaming. He had stopped short and now stood fairly panting, +facing her. + +"Oh, you don't--you don't!" she insisted. "Nobody knows, but myself and +Joel, how he feels. I have tried to do right by him, and once I thought +that in time I might feel otherwise, but it is impossible. I love him +dearly in a certain way, but it is not as a woman ought to feel toward +the one man in all the world for her--the one given by God Himself. Joel +loves me in that way, and I am very, very unhappy about it. I see--I +see--you thought to-night that he and I-- But never mind. I was only +trying to get him to take a brighter view, for he is very, very +dejected." + +"You mean to tell me, looking straight in my eyes," John cried--"you a +truthful girl--you mean to tell me that you don't love him?" + +Tilly, with eyes full to their brink with sincerity, and in a voice that +rang true to its maidenly depths, answered: "No, I do not love him +as--as a wife ought to love her husband. I've tried, but I can't." + +The moonlight seemed filled with darting arrows of bliss made as visible +as rockets against a black sky. John felt as if the vast earth were +rocking his fears to sleep. He took her hand and drew it into its place +on his arm. The ground seemed to fall away from each step he took as +they moved forward. + +"I see, I see," he heard himself saying; "then it doesn't make any +difference. Poor devil! _That's_ what ailed him, eh? No wonder! No +wonder!" + +Tilly's gentle pressure was on his arm and he was afraid she would feel +the wild throbs of his being, for, strong man that he was, he was as +much ashamed of them as of a secret sin. How could he open those +joy-tied lips of his and tell her how he felt--how he had felt since his +first sight of her? He tried to summon words that would be adequate, and +failed utterly. But Tilly knew. She seemed to gather a knowledge of his +emotions from the very moonlit silence that pervaded the fields and the +woods around them. + +Suddenly she began to quicken her step. "We must walk faster," she said, +sighing, as one in joyous slumber about to wake. "Mother and father may +hear the buggies passing and think we ought to be home earlier. You see, +it is Saturday night, and if I'm out after midnight father says it is +breaking the Sabbath and is angry." + +The house was still, save for a lamp burning in the hall, when they +arrived home. He helped her lock the front door, insisted on giving her +the lamp, and with a lighted match made his way up to his room. He had +not said good night to her. He remembered that with twinges of +self-contempt as he stood undressing in his room and heard Cavanaugh +snoring across the hall. Why had he overlooked it, he wondered. Why did +he have to be instructed on such matters like a little child learning to +walk, when they came so naturally to Tilly, to Joel Eperson and others? + +He frowned as he jerked his necktie and gave up the problem. He would +tell her when he saw her that he was sorry for the oversight. How could +he tell her that it was partly due to his dazed happiness over what she +had said about not loving Eperson? + +He tumbled into bed, but could not sleep for a long time. Cavanaugh +snored like the roar of a distant sawmill, but that didn't matter. The +events of the evening were unreeling in a series of mind-pictures filled +with lights and shadows and culminating in the blinding revelation of a +single fact--the fact that Joel Eperson had cause for his present gloom. +John knew that he himself was unlike the people he was meeting for the +first time in his life, and he was sure that he could never be as they +were, but he had come upon the marvelous belief that he and Tilly were +meant for each other. Somehow, by some intent of Fate, they were +destined to breast the world side by side, arm in arm, as they had +walked the dusty road that night. He was conscious of many stupid +shortcomings on his part, but she would overlook them. Indeed, she was +overlooking them already. Finally he slept, and, of all absurdities, he +dreamed of carrying bricks and mortar as a small, ragged boy for +Cavanaugh, who had just hired him for a few cents a day to see what +there was in him. Later he seemed to be telling his powdered and painted +mother of his success and displaying to her indifferent gaze the first +few cents Cavanaugh had ever paid him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +The next day being Sunday, the family rose an hour later than usual. +Cavanaugh came into John's room after the sun was well up in the sky and +found his young friend awake. + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," he jested. "Here you are flat on +your lazy back while that little last night's partner of yours is out +milking the cow and feeding the chickens. I saw her from my window just +now looking as fresh as a pink morning-glory wet with dew. Old Whaley +and his wife are hard masters even of their own child. I reckon Tilly +would love to lie and snooze after that late tilt of yours and hers, but +her folks don't allow it when there is work to be done. I don't want to +meddle, my boy, but take it from me for what it is worth, Tilly is the +kind of a girl to make a working-man a fine wife. Why? Well, because she +hasn't been raised with a gold spoon in her mouth, and a lot of fool +ideas about style, rank, and what not. She'd be industrious, saving, and +grateful for what her husband could give her. And you--well, I'm not +giving you taffy to tickle your vanity, but you'd lavish your last cent +on a wife of your choice. How do I know? Well, how do I know that mighty +nigh all you ever made--now, I'm going to speak plain--mighty nigh every +cent you ever made was lapped up by your ma and Jane Holder and that +poor little girl at your house? Huh! Don't I know that a big, strapping +fellow that will do all that for folks of--of that stripe will do even +more for the sweet little maid that leaves all her own kin to cleave +unto him?" + +"You don't know what you are talking about," John said from the pillow +which half hid his flushed face. + +"Well, maybe I don't," the contractor smiled benignly, "but you get up +and put on your best suit. We are all going to meeting to-day. You've +dodged that too often to help you along with old Whaley. He is wondering +where you stand, anyway, on these vital questions of man's duty to God +and His written law as Whaley reads it. Don't you forget about the way +he treated that son of his that tied up with a follower of the Pope. In +spite of his harsh ways Tilly loves her old daddy, and--and well, there +is no use of your rubbing the old hog's bristles the wrong way. They +might stick in your hand in the long run. You've talked too much to our +men on your line of free thought, I am thinking. I heard one say +yesterday that you claimed to be an out and out atheist. They all like +you, but they are members of some church or other and they were +scandalized to hear it. We are in a narrow, hidebound community up here +and we've got to watch where we step. Fellers like those will talk, and +what they say will be added to by others." + +"I won't keep my mouth shut for anybody," John said, firmly, as he got +up and began to dress. "I don't want to go to-day, but I will if you say +so." + +"Well, I _do_ say so," Cavanaugh answered. "And we will set out as soon +as the family does. I'm going to set, as usual, in the old man's Bible +class that comes before the regular discourse, though I can't say that I +get much profit out of it. I disagree with his interpretation of many +passages, but he'd crawl over the benches and have a fist fight with me +if I disputed his points. They say he is a regular devil when he is +mad. Church member though he is, he actually shot a man once, and it was +a wonder the chap didn't die. He carries a revolver. What do you think +of that for an active disciple of the great Prince of Peace?" + +"They are all that way," John said, warmly. "They are crooks and haven't +brains enough to see how crooked their reasoning is." + +Shortly after breakfast the three Whaleys started to church. Tilly +walked between her father and mother, and John and Cavanaugh followed +close behind. They found, on their arrival, a group of villagers, +mountaineers, and farmers loitering on the grass-plot in front of the +little building, but the Whaleys went straight in, and John and the +contractor did likewise. Cavanaugh went forward to the benches at the +front which were reserved for Whaley's Bible class. Eight or ten men and +women were already seated there, and they nodded appreciatively to him +and the Whaley family. John found himself quite alone on a bench near +the door. He saw Tilly and her mother chatting with some other women, +and Cavanaugh making himself quite at home as he shook hands with +various smiling members of the class. Only half an hour was to be given +to the class work and nearly all the students had arrived. John saw +Whaley open his worn and interlined Bible and then step back to a +bell-rope which hung down by the little white pulpit. He gave the rope a +single forceful jerk and the cast-iron bell on the roof creaked and +tapped lazily. That was a signal that the Bible class had begun its +session. + +Just now, to John's great discomfiture, Whaley, with his Bible in his +stubby hands, came down the aisle to him. + +"You can't hear back this far," Whaley said. "Move on up and join us." + +"I'd rather not," John stammered, trying to steady his eyes and voice in +his bewilderment. + +"Well, I can't see why. It certainly can't hurt you to hear us go +through the lesson, and you might learn a lot. Bible reading and study +is fairly sweeping broadcast over the country. Over in Dadeville they +have hired that woman blackboard teacher to come several hundred miles +and are paying five dollars a head for the course. I've read some of her +points in our Leaflet, and I'm here to tell you if she ever comes this +way I'll refute her, if they oust me for disorder. It would be my duty, +considering the light I have. Come on up." + +There was nothing else to do, for the entire class, with the exception +perhaps of Tilly, was looking toward him. John rose and followed the old +man up the aisle, and found Cavanaugh gravely and sympathetically making +space for him at his side. Tilly and her mother were just in front of +him. John could have bent forward and whispered in the girl's ear, had +he dared. The exercises began by a chapter being read, first a verse by +Whaley and then a verse in turn by each of the class. John was fairly +chilled by the horror of his predicament. It was plain that Whaley would +expect him to read aloud, and he determined that he would refuse. He +told himself that he would refuse if the whole silly bunch of fanatics +were infuriated by it. He had been forced into the class and he would be +forced no farther. As luck would have it, the book was handed to +Cavanaugh before it reached John, and the old man read in a clear, +confident tone the verse which had fallen to him. Then he started to +hand the Bible to John, but John shook his head firmly. + +"Pass it on to some one else," he said, almost aloud and with guttural +sullenness. "I won't do it." + +Then Cavanaugh displayed friendly diplomacy. "I'll read for my young +friend, if it is all right," he said. "Me and him have a lot of talks on +these same lines, but usually I do the reading." + +Whaley frowned and glared, but, being impatient with any delay, he said, +gruffly: "Well, well, go ahead. I don't know where Mr. Trott stands, +anyway. He is bound to see the light sooner or later, and then he won't +have to be begged to read the grandest Book the world ever saw, or be +slow about joining a class like this, either. As many of you know, with +pride, it is the best and biggest in the county, if not in the state." + +Cavanaugh proceeded to read the verse, and the book went over to Mrs. +Whaley and then to her daughter. And as Tilly read in her clear, +unruffled voice John was conscious of a certain twinge of shame for his +avoidance of a thing so simple as she made the act seem. + +The reading was concluded, and Whaley set in to analyze the text, line +by line. He would read a verse, and then ask the class what particular +significance it held to their understanding. Answers came rapidly from +all the class, and sometimes John noticed that, when all the others had +failed to grasp Whaley's particular version, he would call on Tilly to +reply and what she said always met with her father's approval, the +reason being that the girl had already gone over the chapter with her +parents at home. The lesson was concluded by a long-winded lecture from +Whaley, and then the bell was rung for the regular service. + +John failed to hear what the aged minister was saying, but he did note +that Whaley now and then called out, "Amen!" in deep, self-satisfying +tones. John could not keep his eyes from the back part of Tilly's head. +He worshiped her hair, the very ribbons of her simple straw hat, the +curve of her brave little shoulders. What a marvel she was in human +form! It was almost impossible to realize that only a few hours before +she had been alone with him, telling that dazzling story of her +inability to love another man. He wondered if he might walk home with +her. He was afraid not, and yet could not tell whence his fears came, +unless they were due to his vague sense of having opposed her father's +religion. + +When the service was over, however, the opportunity came. It might have +been brought about by deliberate design on the part of the contractor, +for Cavanaugh drew the husband and wife into conversation about the +sermon, and that threw Tilly and John together. The Whaleys seemed to +forget Tilly's existence, and John and she fell in behind the three. + +"I wondered what you were going to do when father went back after you," +Tilly said, with a smile. "I was afraid to look around." + +"What did you think when I refused to read in the class?" John inquired, +forcing a lifeless smile. + +"I hardly know," Tilly said, as she studied his face with bland +sincerity. "It almost frightened me. I was afraid father would forget +himself and storm out at you. But--but as for your reading out loud, of +course, if you really do not believe in the Bible and love it, you ought +not to read it in public. That would be sacrilege." + +"And do you believe in it?" he demanded, almost rebukingly. "Do you +believe that that Book is the actual word of some far-off God that no +living man ever saw with his eyes or heard speak with his ears?" + +"Yes," Tilly answered. "If I didn't believe it I'd be miserable. I can't +see how you can doubt the existence of God--how you can keep from +actually feeling His presence, especially when you are in trouble and +seriously need His help." + +John sneered. He loved Tilly with his whole being, but he despised her +belief. "I can tell you why I don't believe," he said, a billow of +feeling behind his words. "I believe if there were a God, that God would +have to be a God of love, power, and pity, and with my own eyes I've +seen-- I have told you about that little orphan girl at home, Dora +Boyles. She is a little, helpless, overworked rat without father or +mother, in the care of an aunt who is no earthly good--and is crazy +about men--crazy about clothes, cards, liquor, and dancing. That little +dirty scrap of a girl is a child of God, the same as those polite, +well-fed, well-dressed girls and boys we met last night, eh? Well, tell +me what is God doing for her? As for me, myself, as I look back on what +I went through among those haughty, hidebound people at Ridgeville, +before Sam Cavanaugh held out a helping hand-- Well, never mind about +that, but I know I've been my own God, and I never run across any other +except in the dreams of persons who get the best things of life and +don't care whether anybody else gets them or not." + +"You will think otherwise some day--you will _have_ to," was Tilly's +regretful ultimatum. "Someday you will need God so badly that you will +turn to Him. I did once, and was answered, too." + +"You don't mean it," John disputed, warmly. "No prayer was ever answered +by any God, on the earth or off of it." + +"Mine was," Tilly asseverated. "It was one night, and I was at home all +alone. Father had lost his temper at an election and--and wounded a man +in a dispute. Father was put in jail and mother hurried to him. The man +was bleeding to death--the doctors couldn't stop the flow of blood. You +can't imagine how I felt. I fell on my knees and prayed with all my soul +to God to save my father and the man he had shot. At two o'clock--oh, I +don't know how to express it!--at two o'clock I seemed to be lifted up +into something like light, but it wasn't that. It was something finer +and holier, but I knew, I knew that all was well. My mother came at +sunup. She said they had stopped the flowing blood at two +o'clock--exactly at two o'clock. My father was released the next day and +the man finally recovered." + +"Things like that happen once in a thousand times," John said, with an +indulgent smile, "and people say it is in answer to prayer." + +"But I know, for I _felt_ it," Tilly responded, simply, and she said no +more, for the three older persons had turned and were waiting for them +on the street corner. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +One morning a week later Cavanaugh mounted the scaffold on which John +was working. He held some letters in his hand. + +"That car of brick has been delayed," he announced. "It will be three +days before it can be delivered. The men won't like it, but we'll have +to shut down for that long, anyway." + +John frowned and swore, as he stood scraping his trowel on the edge of a +brick which he had just tapped into line. + +"Never mind; we needn't be idle--you and me, anyway," Cavanaugh said, +gently. "You heard about Mason & Trubel's storehouse being burned down +last week, didn't you? Well, the agents for the insurance company have +written me to come home and help adjust the loss. Some of the walls may +be usable in rebuilding, and they want me to be one of the arbitrators. +Now, there will be a lot of close figuring to do, and I want you to be +there. How about both of us going? There will be a fee for us that will +more than cover expenses, and the trip will do us good." + +"I'll go with you," John said. "When will you start?" + +"First train in the morning," was the reply, and the contractor went +about among the men, explaining the situation. + +The two friends arrived at Ridgeville the following morning at ten +o'clock and at once started for their homes. To John's surprise, at the +end of the first street Cavanaugh did not turn toward his home, as would +have been natural, but kept on in the direction John was to go. + +"You are out of your beat, aren't you?" John asked. + +"I am and I ain't," Cavanaugh smiled. "I want to show you something--a +little house and lot that I hold a mortgage on. You know the cottage I +built for Pete Carrol, this side of your mother's house? Well, he +couldn't pay for it and it is on my hands. He went West, you know, and +left all his furniture in it. I've had a rent-sign on it for two months, +but haven't had a single applicant for it. I'd like to take a peep at +it." + +The cottage was in quite an isolated spot, near the end of the street +railway, in full view of the lots containing shanties in which negroes +and the very poorest whites lived. Above the tree-tops, not far away, +could be seen the patched roof of John's ramshackle home. + +"I hid the key under the door-step," Cavanaugh said, as they entered the +small front gate, and, bending down, he secured it. Then he crossed the +tiny, newly painted front porch and unlocked and opened the door. + +There was a little hallway with rooms on each side of it, a tiny parlor +on the right which, on entering, they found neatly equipped with plain +oak furniture, and a rug or two on the floor, which was covered with +straw matting. They next entered the dining-room, which was furnished in +similar style. There was a small sideboard holding a modest supply of +table-linen, dishes, and glassware. + +"Pete's wife was awfully particular, and she left things in apple-pie +order," Cavanaugh said, as they went into the kitchen adjoining. This +room, too, was supplied with all necessary utensils, a neat stove and a +sink with running water. Next they saw the bedroom. It held a table +with a lamp on it, and an oak bedstead in neat order with unsoiled +pillows and white coverlet. There was a bureau with a wide plate-glass +mirror, also a wash-stand with a white ewer and basin. The floor was +covered with new matting. + +"A snug little nest, eh?" Cavanaugh asked, with a slow and rather +automatic smile. "Looks like somebody ought to rent it, cheap as I hold +it and ready furnished--only fifteen a month." + +"It is all right," John answered, indifferently. "You ought to rent it +in the fall, anyway, when business picks up." + +"I want to rent it by the time we finish the court-house, +anyway"--Cavanaugh continued to smile--"and I'd like to rent it to +somebody that would take care of it-- I mean somebody that I know about. +Gee! wouldn't this be a snug little nest for a pair of new-married +turtle-doves? Think of a fellow coming back from his day's work at night +to a cottage like this, with a little wife to meet him in a white bib +and tucker and a kiss and a glad smile?" + +John had a sudden flash of comprehension, and he flushed from head to +foot. His great mouth made a failure of a smile, and that he was pleased +Cavanaugh did not doubt. "You think you have a joke on me," John said. +"Well, well, go it, Sam! I'm game for a little thing like that." + +"You may call it a joke, but I don't," the contractor said, quite +seriously. "You see, I've got an ax to grind--two, in fact, for in the +first place I want to rent this house for enough to pay the taxes and +insurance, and in the next I want to tie you down to Ridgeville. I am +too old to move now, and I need you mighty bad. Say, you and I can +become partners before long." + +"Well, what has that got to do with your--your other damn foolishness?" +John's face was averted as he spoke. They were back in the bedroom now, +and he made a pretense of examining the new sash-cords of the window. He +drew one of the weights up in its hidden groove and lowered it again. He +had never before examined a detail of a building so minutely. He looked +closely at the paint on the mullions and searched for flaws in the +glass. + +"It has got this to do with it," Cavanaugh went on, now steadily and +without a vestige of his former smile. "I'm no fool, my boy. I know as +well as I stand here that you are not going to leave that sweet little +girl up there to do the drudgery for that irritable old hog and his +obedient wife. If you did I'd lose respect for you. You are making good +pay and you will make even better. In a little nook like this you could +make her as happy as the day is long. She could do all the housework and +not work a fourth as hard as she does now. Why, I saw her in the +corn-field the other day, toiling like an old-time slave with a heavy +hoe, while her rotten old daddy was in the house picking out passages in +the Bible to pin down some particular argument of his." + +"I guess--I guess--" John stammered, "that the--the _girl_ would have +something to say on the subject." + +"How _can_ she, in the name of all possessed"--Cavanaugh snorted and +laughed--"unless she is _asked_? I'm no fool. I know what two smudges of +red about the cheek-bones of a pretty girl mean when they never come in +sight till a big, hulking feller in overalls appears on the scene. I +know, too, that things have taken place that you haven't heard about. I +know that I've turned myself into a contractor of flesh and blood +instead of brick and mortar. Them old folks simply agreed one night, in +a talk with me, that I might run it. I told them I'd stand for you in +every way, and they-- Well, haven't you noticed for the last week that +they have slid off to bed early and left you and Tilly out under the +trees or on the porch, together? Well, that was my doings. The old man +was for having you come to him and state your intentions in plain words, +but I advised him against it. I told him that you could make a speech on +internal revenue, political economy, or any other big subject to an +audience a thousand strong, but that you'd fall down in an attempt to +tell a girl's daddy that you wanted to provide her grub and clothes. I +did have a big tussle, though, to keep one certain thing out of the +discussion, and that was your religion, or rather your lack of it. He +kept saying that he wanted to know what particular brand of theology +you'd impress on his daughter at your fireside. He said he never had +failed to see women go with their husbands sooner or later, and he was +afraid you hadn't been converted yet. However, I got him quiet on that +line. I told him, you see, that while you hadn't yet made an open +profession, I knew you well enough to be sure you'd end up all right and +make as good a citizen as any man I know." + +"You have heard about a certain fellow by the name of Eperson, haven't +you?" John asked, as he strove manfully to quench the glad lights in his +eyes. "Well, he and Tilly have been sweethearts ever since they were +children." + +"He has, but she hasn't." Cavanaugh emphasized the "he." "I know all +about it. He is as near dead as a man can be from disappointment. She +might have thought she cared for him, at one time, but when you came all +that was off. Now I'm going home to my old woman. Talking to you on +these lines makes me want to see her mighty bad. I feel younger, and +I'll bet she will look that way to me, too. But remember this, when we +get back to Cranston, sail right in and tell Tilly how you feel. She +knows, anyway, but you tell her straight out, like a man with a load of +hay to sell, and be done with it. I want to rent this house and I'm +going to do it." + +They were outside the cottage now. Cavanaugh had closed the door and was +on his knees, hiding the key under the step. John stood over him. + +"I wish you knew what you are talking about, Sam," he said, and it was +the first even indirect confession of the sacred tumult within him. +"I'll say that much. I wish--I wish it could be like you say it is. My +God! Sam, when I dare to think of it I go all to pieces. It is too good +to be true. Nothing has ever come my way that amounted to much in this +life. How could as big a thing as that be for me?" + +"Well, it just is." Cavanaugh stood up, his fine face working in +sympathy. "The Lord has fixed it that way, my boy. You have had a hard +time, but your day is dawning. And listen to me. Under your full joy you +are going to wake up into a gratitude to the Creator for His great +gifts. You've been bitter--so bitter, for one reason or another, that +you've denied even God's existence, but with a believing wife like Tilly +at your side, and with children to bring up right, you will be +different. You are just a boy, anyway--a great, big, awkward, stumbling +boy, but you are going to make a man, and a good one." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +They parted outside the little gate, agreeing to meet at the Square in +the afternoon, and John pursued his way homeward. The very ground seemed +to fall away from his feet as he put them down. His whole body felt like +an imponderable thing over which he had little control. The swelling joy +within him fairly choked him. + +"My God! My God!" he said several times, aloud. "Sam's a fool. Sam's a +fool. It can't be so. My Lord! how could it? And that little house. It +is a beauty and most women would like to run it and keep it in order. I +wonder if she would with me. I wonder." + +He found Dora under an apple-tree in the front yard, playing with some +rag dolls she had made from scraps of finery cast off by her aunt and +Mrs. Trott. A brick represented a table, and on it were arranged bits of +china for plates. Other pieces of make-believe furniture were +constructed of cardboard cut and bent into shape. She glanced up as he +swung open the gate, smiled a welcome from a soiled face, and wiped her +itching nose on the back of her slender hand. She did not rise or make +any sort of physical demonstration by way of greeting. + +"Where are the folks?" he asked, glancing into the house through the +open doorway. + +"Asleep, I reckon," she said, busy with the pink sash of one of her +legless ladies, the tinseled hat of which was pinned askew over a pair +of eyes formed of green beads. "They've only been home about an hour. +Aunt Jane is sick. Your ma said she fainted at the party and they all +thought she was dead for a while." + +"Those are not good dolls," John said, from the depths of his turbulent +joy. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll buy you a real wax one with +yellow hair and blue eyes. I saw one in a show-window as I came along +just now. It had on shoes and stockings and held a parasol in its little +hand." + +"All talk--all wind, hot air!" the child said, indifferently, and she +had evidently picked up the expressions from her elders. "A drummer--the +fellow with the striped shirts that is always whistling and sells +cloaks--he told me he was going to get me a doll and a baby-carriage, +but he never came back--changed his rowt, so Aunt Jane said. But this +doll's all right. Don't you think so, brother John?" + +"It will do till I get the other," he answered, and then he felt an +impulse that he had never felt before. He bent down and put his hand +caressingly on the almost matted hair, and she, not understanding, +impatiently shook it off and went on with her work, her mouth now full +of pins. + +There was a chair near by and he sat down in it, bending toward the +child. Seldom had his boyishness been so apparent. He wanted to open his +cramped heart to some one--why not to her? He wanted to hear his own +voice applauding the things that were leaping, singing, shouting in the +penetralia of his being. + +"Say, Dora," he began, clasping his warm hands between his knees, "can +you keep a secret?" + +"A secret?" she repeated, letting her doll lie for an instant in her +ragged lap and staring straight at him with growing interest. "Have you +got one--a real one?" + +He had. His smile and generous nod admitted it. "Can you keep your mouth +shut, that is what I want to know?" + +"Yes, yes!" she exclaimed, eagerly. "You ask Aunt Jane if I ever let +your ma know--let her know--but never mind. I can keep one. Try me--that +is if you are not kidding. I don't want any foolishness from you or +anybody else. Life is too short." + +"Well, listen!" he began, and something in the blaze of his eyes, the +tremolo of his erstwhile brusk voice, the warm look of his face, caught +and held her attention. "Did you ever think the day would come when I'd +go with a girl?" + +"Who, you?" Dora sniffed. "Now I _know_ you are kidding." + +"No, I'm not," he went on, riding the tide of his joyous self-emptying. +"I have done it often since I went to Cranston. I got acquainted with +one up there. Sam and I board with her pa and ma. You ought to see her, +Dora. She is all right--as nice and pretty as any stuck-up girl in this +town. Folks up there are different--very, very different from these down +here who don't know that you and I are alive. They are polite and decent +and civilized. Lord! somehow it makes me sick to think of living on +here, but I reckon I will. Say, did you ever notice the stunning little +cottage that Sam put up for Pete Carrol on the right-hand side of the +street as you go down? But never mind that. What would you think if I +was to tell you that before very long I might--" John was stalled. How +could he express by mere lip and tongue the transcendental thing which +so completely filled him? + +"What are you trying to get through yourself?" It was another of the +child's picked-up expressions, and she leaned toward him with a slow +leer of wonder. "What is your great secret?" + +"I was coming to it," he said, his words falling steadily now. "But you +mustn't tell it to a living soul. Kid, I'm thinking about getting +married." + +"Married--you? Huh!" Dora laughed incredulously as she plucked a pin +from her lips. "Why, you are too young! I heard your ma say it would be +ten years before you ever thought of it, even if you did then, you old +goody-goody poke of a boy." + +"I'm not too young." John flared up resentfully. "Sam says I'm not, and +he ought to know. It isn't settled yet, but it will be when I get back +up there. Sam says it is as good as settled now, and Sam is in a +position to know. Oh, she is all right, kid--believe me, she is a +wonder! I wish you could see her. She wouldn't turn up her nose at you +like some folks do around here. She is sweet and kind and gentle. They +are working her to death up there--her folks are, but all that will be +off when I bring her down here?" + +"Are you in earnest--really dead in earnest?" Dora asked, her face still +blank. + +"I am, and I don't want a word said about it. It is none of my mother's +business, you understand. She might try to pry into it and I want her to +keep out of it. This is my affair--mine and nobody's else. Sam knows it, +and you, but that's all." + +"I won't tell it," Dora, now convinced, declared earnestly. "I'll never +tell it till you let me. Have you got a picture of her?" + +"No, she's got some, but she never gave me one-- I never asked for it. +They are not good enough, nohow. They make her look too glum and pinched +about the eyes. To know what she is like, you have to see her and hear +her talk, or read the Bible out loud at prayer-time. She isn't big; her +hands and feet are nearly as little as yours are; but above all else in +the world, kid, she is good. The neighbors all love her. She waits on +them when they are sick. Away late at night not long ago a farmer come +to get her to go stay with his sick wife, and Tilly--that's her +name--was away till sunup, and then came home and milked the cows and +worked around the kitchen. She needs a long rest and she shall have it. +I'll see that she gets it, and plenty of clothes and pretty things, +besides. She is having an awfully hard time and that is one reason I +don't feel so bad about asking her to--to come with just me. I am going +into partnership with Sam later, and he and I will both make more money +and I'll buy things for her. She plays an organ. I'll get her one. She +shall tote the pocket-book, too. She has been skimped all her life. I +know. I've had my eyes open up there. She never buys a thing, even a bit +of ribbon, without her old daddy fingering it and calling her down for +spending money for show, and it was her money, too, bless your life! She +sells butter and eggs, takes them to the store herself. She has a little +garden-patch all her own, and I've seen her out in it even in the rain, +picking beans and peas to sell." + +"If she is like that"--Dora was precociously and pessimistically wise +for one so young, the fact being due, no doubt, to the tutelage of the +two worldly women who were her sole companions--"if she is like that, it +looks like some lazy feller would have got her before this. Aunt Jane +says it takes money and clothes and lots of things to keep any man +coming regular." + +"There is--there _was_ another fellow," John put in, unctuously, "but +she turned him down. Lord! Lord! it broke him all to pieces! She just +somehow couldn't tie to him. She told me so out of her own mouth." + +"What is she like?" Dora then demanded. "What does she look like?" + +"Don't ask me," John smiled. "I can't tell you. When we walk together +she strikes me about here," his hand on his left shoulder. "She has blue +eyes, brown wavy hair, a pretty mouth, and a nose with a cute little +tilt to it. There are bits of brown freckles on her wrists and cheeks, +but they don't matter. If anything, I like them. I wouldn't rub them +off. Folks don't say she is pretty--even Sam don't; but why I can't see, +for she is simply stunning, and you'll say so, kid, when you see her." + +"Well, I won't tell-- I won't tell," Dora promised, returning with +lowered interest to her rag things after the flight with him into his +empyrean. + +Here a voice sounded from the window of Mrs. Trott's room up-stairs. + +"Dora, is that John down there?" + +"Yes'm. He's just got back." + +"Well, tell him to come up here right away." + +The order did not need repeating. John stood up, the old practical frown +settling on his face. "I wonder what the ---- she wants?" he growled, +with fierce emphasis on the omitted word. "I thought she was asleep." + +"Come on up, John; I want to see you," Mrs. Trott's querulous voice rang +out again, and without replying he turned away. He wore his best suit of +clothes, had recently shaved the fuzz from his face, and looked rather +more manly than formerly as he strode through the doorway and up the +rickety old stairs. Reaching the upper floor, he turned into his +mother's room, unceremoniously pushing the door open and standing on the +threshold, just as Mrs. Trott, in a soiled wrapper, was getting back +into bed after having been to the window. Her hair was in curl-papers, +and the little bristling tufts gave to her face an uncouth, bleak look +and left her penciled brows to a barren waste of forehead. Her cheeks +were still rouged from the night before. A brazen necklace, recently +doffed, had left dark streaks on her powdered bust. + +"Why didn't you come on in?" Mrs. Trott demanded, irritably. "What did +you sit down there and talk with that brat for?" + +"Oh, I don't know. What do you want?" He frowned in his turn, and all +but growled. + +Mrs. Trott kicked the light covering down over her feet and wadded the +pillow so that her head was raised higher. "I've been short of money +ever since you went off," she explained, pettishly. "When you were here +you always had some on Saturday nights, but after you went off you +didn't send as much and Jane and I both got in a hole." + +"Well, what do you want now?" he asked. "How much?" + +"I'll have to think," Mrs. Trott said. "I borrowed five from Jane +yesterday. We were playing a little game and I lost. I was about to drop +out when Jane backed me. I lost again. My luck was against me, and her, +too. Jane needs the five. She is sick and will have to have a doctor. +You know they insist on cash--they won't come here, the silly fools, +unless you shake the money in their faces, though they run the accounts +of other people for years on a stretch." + +"I haven't got that much with me," he gave in, wearily, "but I'm going +to the bank after dinner and will get it." + +"How much have you got there?" Mrs. Trott inquired. + +"That's _my_ business, not yours," he said, with an oath, for under +that roof it had always seemed natural for him to swear. "And don't you +be nosing into my business, either. You went there once and tried to get +money on my name, but don't you do it again. I've turned over a new +leaf. I have to. You throw money away like water, on cards, whisky, +beer, and what not. I can't keep that up, and I won't. I have to draw +the line somewhere." + +She raised her head a little higher and fixed her eyes, in their puffy +sockets, on him in a sort of groping wonder. + +"Why, what has got into you?" she asked, stupidly, and all at once he +seemed older to her, older and more dignified, more business-like, more +like his dead father, to whom she had been flagrantly untrue. + +"Common sense, I reckon," he jerked out. "If I've been a fool I don't +always have to stay one. I'm going to need money--for myself, for my +_own_ self, do you understand? I--I don't intend to live on here always, +either. I'll be of age before long. I've thought it all over. I'm +willing to set aside a reasonable amount to help you along, but I'm done +with these big drafts on me." + +"John, what ails you?" There was a touch of shrinking fear in the almost +childish appeal. "You have never talked like this before." + +"Well, I might as well begin," he sniffed. "You have to be told. I've +seen how other folks live away from here, and I want a change. I'm sick +of it all--you and Jane and the gang you hang out with." + +"John Trott," his mother gasped, "you sha'n't talk to me this way. I +won't stand it." + +"Well, then, think it all over," he answered. "I know my business. You +can look out for yours. I know when I've had enough, and I _have_ had +enough." + +He turned and left her. She heard him in his room, the sordid cubbyhole +he had occupied since he was a child, and somehow now she pictured its +narrow confines and condition as being unsuited to the new and +unaccountable dignity into which he had grown in his short absence. What +could it mean? What? + +She got up, slid her silk-dressed feet into a dainty pair of black-satin +slippers, drew her wrapper about her, and went into Jane Holder's +darkened room. + +"Are you asleep, Jane?" she inquired, half timidly. + +"How could I be, with you yelling out of your window to John at the top +of your lungs?" Jane turned on her side as she answered. "Then it was +wow-wow-wow! in your room after he came up. Oh, I'm sick, sick, sick! +You let that sneaking Kelly mix those last drinks on me. I heard you +snickering when he did it." + +"Never mind; it will go off," Mrs. Trott said, and she sat down on the +edge of the bed. "It always does. Listen to me, Jane. Something has +happened to John." + +"Happened? What do you mean?" Jane softly moaned and gagged, her hand at +her thin throat. + +"Why, I don't know! That's what I want to see you about. Somebody must +have been meddling--talking to him. He has a queer look in the eyes. He +fairly glared at me and spoke to me-- Well, he never did the like +before. I was--was actually afraid of him. It looked to me once as if he +was going to pounce on me. Do you remember how Judge Manis talked to us +the day he remitted our fine, dismissed the court, and talked to us in +private?" + +"My God! woman," Jane groaned, desperately, "what are you--" + +"John looked and talked like the judge did," Mrs. Trott ran on, with a +little impatient wave of her hand. "I was glad he went to his room. +There is no telling what he would have said about us both. Somebody has +been meddling, I tell you, putting notions in the boy's head. Oh, he has +changed--changed!" + +"Spoiled, by that new job, I reckon," Jane Holder whined. "The new +outfit Sam Cavanaugh gave him has stuck him up. Boys turn like that all +of a sudden when they reach the gosling stage. He has been dreamy all +his life, and he is getting his eyes open and thinks he is the whole +show. You will have to put up with it, that's all." + +"I don't know what to make of it-- I don't, I don't!" Mrs. Trott stood +up, sighed heavily, yawned, and left the room. Outside she met Dora +coming from John's room. + +"I asked him what he wanted for dinner," the child remarked, "but he +said he wasn't going to eat here. He's going down to the +restaurant--said he didn't want me to cook and drudge for him. He is +funny, Mrs. Trott. He is not one bit like he used to be." + +"I don't care where he eats," Mrs. Trott answered, wearily. "We haven't +much in the safe, anyway. Is the flour all gone?" + +"Yes'm, and the coffee and bacon. I used the last sprinkling of flour +for the batter-cakes yesterday." + +"Well, stop the grocery-wagon the next time it goes by," Mrs. Trott +concluded. "Tell the boy I'll have that money for him to-day. You left a +great litter out in the yard. Go clean it up. If you have to play, play +in the back yard. People passing will talk about the way you look." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +That night at the supper-table Cavanaugh took his wife into his +confidence and told her of the love-affair which was culminating in such +a satisfactory way to him as well as to John. "You see," he said, "when +it first flared up between them, I was dead afraid that the boy might +settle up there, or move away, and I'd lose him as a future partner, and +a good one at that, but I clinched all that to-day." Cavanaugh laughed +slyly as he told of the Carrol cottage and how pleased John had been +with it. The old man talked at considerable length, but suddenly noticed +that his wife, seated in the lamplight across the table, had not uttered +a word, which struck him as being truly remarkable. Of all things in the +dull routine of her life, engagements and weddings of young persons +hitherto had interested her most. + +"Well, well," the contractor said, suddenly. "What do you think of it? +You don't, somehow, look glad. I always thought you liked John, and all +this time I've been thinking how tickled you'd be to hear about him and +his girl." + +Mrs. Cavanaugh blinked. Her face was very grave, her fat chin set firm +in accordance with her resolute jaws. + +"Why didn't you write me about it, along with all the rest of the stuff +you had to say?" she asked, in a tone of actual accusation. "This is the +first intimation to me of it." + +"Well, for one thing I didn't feel at liberty to do it." Cavanaugh +floundered in his slow surprise. "The two were just sorter getting under +headway, as you might say, and nothing had been decided on positively. I +don't think the final word has been said yet, either, and--" + +"Oh, then there is still time-- I mean--" But Mrs. Cavanaugh, avoiding +her husband's blank stare, suddenly broke off what she was saying and +sat gazing fixedly into her coffee-cup. + +"Oh, there will be no slip between the lip and the dipper in this case, +if that's what is bothering you," the contractor said. "They will get +married now, for they are both simply crazy about each other." + +"Listen to me, Sam Cavanaugh," Mrs. Cavanaugh threw out quickly. "I want +to get down to the rock bottom of this thing without any ifs and ands. I +want to know one thing. It may make you mad, because you said once that +I was meddling in John's business, but I want to know if--if them folks +up there--the girl's daddy and mammy, and the girl herself--I want to +know if they know about--about John's mother and Jane Holder, +and--and--" + +"Make me mad?" Cavanaugh actually got up, drew his chair out, and +grasped the back of it angrily. "You knew it would make me mad. You have +always made me mad by fetching that poor, unsuspecting boy into the +dirty ways of them two women. He's never had his eyes open about that, +nohow. He is too pure-minded, too busy with his work, too dreamy to stop +and compare his folks, bad as they are, with others. But if you think +that I am going to take up a bucketful of slime--and other folks' slime +at that--and dash it into the blooming faces of that happy, innocent +pair of sweethearts, you don't know me. A catty old maid would go a +thousand miles to get a chance to do it, but no man with sound blood in +his veins and a heart in his chest would do it for high pay. You ought +to be ashamed of yourself for thinking of it--even for letting it dirty +your mind for a minute." + +Mrs. Cavanaugh, unconvinced and with a ponderous shrug, began to pile +the dishes together. "You are a man and can't understand," she said. +"Any woman would know what I mean." + +"And she'd know _more_ than you mean, too, if she was a woman," Samuel +sneered, testily. + +His wife received this in dead silence. She pushed her gold-rimmed +spectacles up into her flowsy gray hair and let them rest there, and, as +if regretful of his heat, Cavanaugh added, more gently, "It is a pity +for you and me to fly up like this when I've just got home." + +"You and _me_?" she answered, mildly and with a tantalizing smile. "Huh! +how high do you think _I_ flew, Sam Cavanaugh? I've certainly been on a +dead level, but you went over the church steeples like a hot-air balloon +in a wind-storm. I'm on the ground, flat-footed, and I'm going to stay +on it. I look beyond the end of my nose, and you don't, that's all. You +can build houses, but you can't start families out right in a town like +this one. Now listen to me. What do you think that poor girl will do in +Pete Carrol's house all by herself? Who will go to see her? What church +will she attend? What will she do--in the name of all possessed, what +will she do with her mother-in-law?" + +Cavanaugh, as he sat down again, slid lower into defeat than he had been +for many a day. "Listen to me," he began, resting his folded hands on +the table and clearing his throat, for his voice was husky. "Now you +have hit on something, and I'm going to be plain about it. I don't +often speak about my terrible struggles over spiritual matters and the +things I sometimes have to settle between me and my Maker, but I'm going +to admit that I did let all that business bother me at first. I got so +keyed up over it up there at Cranston that I couldn't hardly think of +anything else for quite a while. I had private talks with this Bible +student and that in a roundabout way to see if I couldn't arrive at a +decision, but couldn't seem to get anywhere. They all said the clean +must be kept away from the unclean--that you couldn't handle manure +without smelling of it, and that goats stink and cows don't. But one +night, while I was lying in my hot bed, unable to doze off, and +thinking--thinking whether I ought to tell that hard-faced old +hypocrite, Whaley, the thing that I was sure would kill poor John's +chances to get his first happiness in his own little cottage--I was +lying there, I say, when the thought come to me, as sudden as a streak +of lightning, that an all-wise God created Liz Trott and Jane Holder and +permitted temptation to meet them. The same God made John's daddy and +let him go to his grave with a lowered head. The same Power fetched John +into the world in that joint of hell over there and put one of the +soundest heads on his shoulders that I ever run across. The same Power +caused me to see the boy loafing about town and shooting craps with the +negroes, and induced me to hire him. I never regretted it. I love to see +him climb as much as if he was my own flesh and blood, and--and I simply +love the little hard-working girl he has picked out. All that flashed on +me, and I got up and prayed. Right there I laid the whole thing before +God, and something seemed to tell me that Jesus was right when he said +we must first get the beam out of our eyes before using a spy-glass on +the eyes of others. That was enough for me. The subject hasn't bothered +me since. Them folks up there at Cranston will never hear about Liz +Trott and her doings from me." + +Mrs. Cavanaugh shrugged again. She went for her dish-pan and began to +put the dishes into the hot water it contained. + +"Well, what have you got to say?" her husband demanded. + +"You and me," she replied, gingerly testing the heat of the water with +her finger-tips, "never could agree on one thing. You contend that God +uses wrong for a purpose, but I say He has nothing to do with it. Say, +Sam, look away back to our own wedding. When you fetched me here, your +ma and pa gave us a big infare, and all the kin from everywhere was +invited, and come, too, with presents and good things to eat, and no end +of nice folks called to see me. I was proud. I wrote back home all about +it and mentioned the names of all of them. I told them about the big, +rich river-bottom farm your uncle Ted owned and begged us to visit. I +told them about the deputy sheriff that was your cousin and was such a +brave man in the White-cap raids. I told them to hurry on my church +letter, that the Methodists was begging me to join them. I told them a +lot more, but I want you to stop and think what that poor child up there +in Tennessee will have to write back home, and stop and think how she +herself is going to feel when she learns the full truth. Sam Cavanaugh, +outside of me--and I'm too old to count--I don't believe a single woman +will go to see her--not one. They are all like sheep and have to have a +leader. Even the fellows that work with John won't send their wives; +even if they did ask them, the women wouldn't go." + +Cavanaugh's shaggy head sank lower over his inert hands. His lower lip +hung as if torn by pain from its fellow. A deep shadow lay in the kindly +eyes beneath the heavy brows now lowering in grim perplexity. + +"I never thought of all that." He all but winced as he spoke. "That sort +o' puts the shoe on the other foot, doesn't it? Poor little Tilly! It +will be rough on her, won't it?" + +The conversation rested there. Cavanaugh bore the new phase of his +dilemma out to the front porch, where he sat down by himself and +pondered deeply. Now he would utter an ejaculation as if some thought +had stabbed him to the quick; again he would fervently mutter snatches +of prayers for light, for mercy. Were his prayers answered? He wondered, +and reasonably, too, for, else, why the sudden and soothing appearance +of his wife with that calm, far-reaching ultimatum, as she seated +herself by his side and put her hand gently on his knee? + +"I've thought it over, Sam," she said, as smoothly as the flowing of +deep water. "There is nothing else to be done and you are not to blame. +We will let the young folks come and we'll leave them in the hands of +God. As I see it, that is our duty." + +Cavanaugh choked down his glad emotion, reached out, took her crinkled +hand in his, and pressed it. "Yes, yes, we'll do that," he agreed, "and +we'll hope for the best--we'll pray for the best. God bless them--they +shall have their little home, and I'll do all I can to help them." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Shortly after the return of Cavanaugh and John to their work on the +court-house, John's fate was permanently decided. His chats with Tilly +took place every evening, either on the veranda, in the yard, or in +strolls along the mountain roads. One warm evening they had seated +themselves on a log on a lonely road on a hillside. Below them in the +twilight loomed up the hamlet with its lights and slow, blue smoke from +the chimney-tops. In the distance a dog was barking and a farmer calling +to his hogs. A church-bell was clanging for prayer-meeting. They sat +close together. She had a fan, and, as the mosquitoes were troublesome, +he had taken the fan and, novice that he was, he was awkwardly beating +them away. + +"Don't bother," she said. "You are tired after your day's work," and +with a pretty air of male management she took the fan and fanned his +flushed face. He was perspiring from the walk up the hill, and with her +own dainty handkerchief she wiped his broad, tanned brow. He had never +kissed her. He had hardly dared even to think of it, but he kissed her +now. He was afraid she would rise resentfully and start for home, but +she took it as a matter of course and allowed him to draw her head to +his shoulder. For half an hour, in sheer bliss, he was unable to speak, +and Tilly seemed to understand. When he recovered his voice it occurred +to him that he must now ask her to be his wife, but he found himself +unable to formulate the prodigious thing in words. However, he +accomplished it indirectly, for he began telling her about the cottage +Pete Carrol had left so neatly furnished, and which Cavanaugh wanted him +to rent. Tilly listened as eagerly as a petted child who knows its +privileges. She frankly asked about the furniture, the curtains, the +rugs, the dishes, and, as he held his cheek against hers, he told her +everything he could think of in regard to the place. Suddenly she +laughed out happily, teasingly. + +"You haven't even asked me to marry you," she said, voluntarily kissing +him and then playfully stroking his lips with her soft, pliant fingers. +"You are very strange, John. I always know what you feel--what you +think--but you don't say them right out." + +"I was afraid," he suddenly confessed. "I've been afraid all +along--afraid of something, I don't know what, but afraid you'd refuse +me--as--as you did Joel Eperson." + +"Refuse you!" kissing him again, and nestling back into his arms. "How +could you have thought that?" + +"I don't know--but _will_ you--_will_ you?" he asked. "Will you say it +to-night in plain words, Tilly? Will you be my wife, and go to +Ridgeville with me and live in that little house?" + +"How could you doubt it?" she asked, raising her head and looking at him +trustfully and admiringly. + +"I don't know, but I was afraid," he returned. "Somehow I can't feel +that such a big thing could come my way. I want you--God knows I want +you, but somehow you seem miles and miles above me. You know so much +that I don't know. Every day it seems to me you teach me something I +never knew before but--but if you will come with me I'll do everything +in my power to make you happy. Will you?" + +"Of course I will!" And Tilly kissed him again, and held him at +arm's-length for an instant and looked at him proudly. "I am the one +that ought to have been afraid," she smiled. "Men pass along and make +love to country girls and never see them again. In fact, Sally Teasdale +said the other day to me--she is mad on account of me and Joel--she said +that you were just a flirt, amusing yourself while you are here. Those +are the things a girl has to put up with, John. Sally had her eyes on +you at first. She is dying to get married. She thought you were handsome +and wonderful in every way till you got to going with me, and now she +sniffs and turns up her nose and tries to make me doubt you." + +"I never liked her, and she knew it," John said. "But let's not talk +about her or any one else. There is no one I care a pin about except you +and Sam and his wife." + +"Nobody else--nobody?" Tilly asked, slowly. "Why, you told me once that +your mother is living, that she is a widow and that you help take care +of her!" + +Here John's stiff fingers relaxed in their clasp on Tilly's small hand, +and with averted face he sat still, silent, and gloomily reminiscent. + +Tilly edged herself around till her eyes met his again. "Yes, I knew +your mother was living, John," she went on, "and I'm going to confess +something. I'm going to confess that I've been worrying more since you +got back from your home than I did before. John, I thought if you really +intended to ask me to marry you, that you would tell your mother about +it, and that you would naturally tell me what she said--that is, if she +was willing for you to marry me. But as you have never mentioned her +since you got back, I thought--well, I thought she might have other +plans for you and that you didn't want to hurt my feelings by telling me +what she said." + +John stared helplessly for an instant; then he shrugged his great +shoulders. "She has got nothing to do with me or what I do," he blurted +out. "She goes her way and I go mine." + +"But surely," Tilly said, groping for his meaning, "she knows about +me--you have told her--" + +"No," John broke in, in a mood like that of his old impatience over work +that was badly done by his assistants, "I haven't told her, and what is +more, I shall not tell her. It is no business of hers. I did tell her +that from now on I'd not supply her with as much money as I have been +doing, but I didn't tell her why. She throws money away--she burns it in +solid wads. She is--is foolish. She is not like your mother or any of +these plain, sensible folks up here. She is on the go all the time, to +parties, dances, and what not." + +"I see," Tilly said, in a mystified tone. "Then she must be young. How +old is she, John?" + +"I don't know; I haven't the least idea," was John's prompt reply. "Let +me think. Seems to me I heard Jane Holder say she was very young when I +was born. That would put her at, well, near forty. But what does that +matter? I don't care anything about her or her age." + +"John, you speak so strangely," Tilly intoned, reproachfully. "You +pretend that you don't love her. Why, I'll love her always and with all +my heart if for nothing else than that she is your mother." + +"Rubbish!" John sniffed. "You won't love her; you won't even like her. I +tell you she is--is different from what you think. She is--is giddy, +silly, complaining, quarrelsome--up all hours of the night and asleep +all day or moping about with bloated eyes." + +"I see. She is fond of society," Tilly returned, with a little +self-deprecating sigh. "Ridgeville is a rather big town and there must +be plenty of women like her there. I won't blame her for that. I shall +love her, and I shall make her love me, too, if I possibly can. She will +be old some day and she will need us both." + +For some reason inexplicable to him, John was impatient with the trend +of the talk. He was vaguely angry, and yet was trying to curb the +impulse. For the first time he was finding Tilly unreasonable. Since the +very inception of the plan to marry Tilly and reside in the little +cottage he had pictured himself and her as being completely cut off from +his old life. Since his visit to his home the sheer thought of the +sordid old house and its inmates had jarred on him to the point of +repulsiveness. He had learned to like the orderly simplicity of the +circle in which Tilly had her being, and to wish that his might have +been like unto it. + +It was now time to return home, and they started back. Tilly hung +lovingly on his arm. "We sha'n't quarrel about your mother," she said, +soothingly. "I shall win her love if I can, and if I can't it won't be +my fault. I am a plain, home-loving person, though, and she may not take +to me at all. I'd like to help that little girl Dora, too. You say she +can't read or write. I could teach her." + +Here John's interest was roused. He bent toward Tilly's upturned face. +"That would be nice," he said. "The poor little rat needs something of +the sort. Yes, we must, between us, do something for that kid. She has +the making of a fine woman in her." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +The court-house was finished, even to the last touches of putting on the +brass locks and window-fastenings. The commissioners formerly accepted +the building as meeting with all the contracted requirements, and a +large check was handed to Cavanaugh by the Ordinary of the county. + +Cavanaugh was in high feather for several reasons, the main one being +that the whole affair was to be capped by a wedding at the farm-house. +Cavanaugh had been expecting his wife to come up, but had a letter +saying that she was actually in bed with rheumatism and unable to make +the journey. + +Only the most intimate friends and relatives of the family were invited, +and on the evening of the wedding they began to arrive shortly after +sunset in buggies, wagons, and on horseback. Cavanaugh, who had dubbed +himself as "the best man," was the busiest person about the house. He +met all the guests, showed them where to put their horses and where to +sit in the parlor, which was filled with a motley collection of borrowed +chairs from cherry-colored rockers of the latest tawdry design to +straight-backed, unpainted relics of Cherokee days with concave, +split-oak or rawhide bottoms. + +With his usual stinginess and contempt of show, Whaley had allowed his +daughter little for her trousseau, and her apparel was most simple, and +so scant that her small trunk was scarcely filled. As they were to take +a train immediately after the wedding supper, she wore a plain +traveling-dress of dark gray which made her look as demure as a young +Quakeress. As for John, he had considered his new suit as good enough +and under Cavanaugh's advice had not bought another. + +"I'll tell you one thing you've got to do," Cavanaugh said to him as he +was tying John's cravat in John's room before the ceremony, "you've just +got to stand up straighter. Here lately, when you are with Tilly, you +hump yourself over, or sag down with one leg crooked like you was +ashamed of being tall. If there is a time in a fellow's life when he +ought to stand straight and look folks square in the eyes it is when +he's having the cheek to take to himself a sweet young bride. Stand up, +throw your shoulders back, and let them all know that you've got a job +before you and that you are going to do your level best to put it +through." + +"Give me a danger-sign if you see me making any breaks," John smiled. "I +do feel shaky and weak-kneed and I might have folded up like a +pocket-rule if you hadn't cautioned me." + +John went down and mingled with the guests before Tilly joined them. He +was near the door when Martha Jane Eperson came in, accompanied by her +mother, who went at once to a seat proffered by Cavanaugh, leaving her +daughter with John, to whom she had barely nodded. + +"You must excuse my mother," Martha Jane said, plaintively, as she shook +hands with John. "She is very unhappy over the way Joel is taking it. He +simply could not come to-night." + +"I understand, and I am awfully sorry," John contrived to say. + +"Oh, but you can't understand, Mr. Trott," the girl protested. "You +don't know my poor, dear brother as we do. This thing is actually +killing him. He is a mere shadow of his old self. You see, he and Tilly +were very dear to each other until you came. I don't blame Tilly; my +mother doesn't, either. She has the right to decide for herself; but +poor Joel! He simply allowed himself to love Tilly all along till this +thing came like death itself, or worse. He is very manly about it, +though. Don't understand me otherwise. I think he intended to come +to-night till almost the last minute, and then decided not to do it. I +watched him through the window as he hitched the horse to the buggy for +us, and I broke down and cried." + +Some others were entering, and Martha Jane, with a little parting nod, +moved on to a place by her mother's side. As for John, he could not give +much thought to his defeated rival, for a commotion in the room +indicated that the bride was descending the steps. She did not, however, +come into the parlor just then, but turned into the sitting-room +opposite. + +"Come"--Cavanaugh came and touched John on the arm--"the preacher is in +there with Tilly. He may want to give you both a few lessons on what to +do and say." + +It was the old minister whom John had heard preach, and he stood +stroking Tilly's hand in a paternal way. He paused and greeted John with +rather cold formality. "I hope you realize the great prize you have won, +my young brother," he said. "I've known this sweet child a long time and +love her as if she were my own." + +John was chagrined beyond measure, for he found his tongue an unusable +appendage. He felt the blood rush in a flood to his face. He stammered +out something, he knew not what, and stood fumbling his hands. He +disliked the man and his profession, and could have told him so easier +than to have uttered some trivial insincerity even on that occasion. +John's attitude of sheer helplessness touched Tilly. She put her hand on +his arm and smiled up in his face. It was as if she were saying, "I +understand, and it is all right." + +"Where is your father?" the minister asked of Tilly. "He must give the +bride away." + +"He refuses to do it," Tilly informed him. "He says it is a silly, new +style, and he doesn't believe in it." + +"Well, Mr. Trott," the old man said, still distantly, "you will have to +bring her in on your arm after I get to my place at the end of the room. +I never marry with a ring. That belongs to the Episcopalian service. +Now"--looking at his watch--"it is about time." + +He walked from the room, leaving John and Tilly alone now, standing +ready, arm in arm. John had not seen her in her new hat and dress +before, and somehow now she seemed the same and yet not exactly the same +Tilly who had worn such plain frocks in her work about the house. A +chill of suspended delight was on him. It seemed a dream of some +transcendental event, worked through the alchemy of love. He could not +have uttered a word had he tried. How could she look so placid, so +fearless, while the very earth seemed unstable under his feet, the skies +ready to drop further glories about him and her? + +Cavanaugh suddenly thrust his head in at the door. "The parson is +ready," he called out, with a laugh swelling with expectancy. "He says +send you in. That bunch in there is crazy to see the bride. I tried to +get somebody to play a march on the organ, but nobody is able. Now move +along. Stand up straight, John. My Lord! you are not a jack-knife! Lift +your feet! Quit sliding them along! Look how Tilly walks--as light and +dainty as a pigeon on a clean barn floor." + +Tilly laughed almost merrily, but John felt the far-reaching gravity of +the moment too deeply even to smile. He wondered how he could meet the +curious faces packed together in the adjoining room. His whole frame was +in a tremor, but he was sure that Tilly's hand and wrist on his arm were +as steady as they had ever been. He was seeing her from a new angle, and +admired her more than ever. + +"Come on," she said, simply, and she it was who led into the parlor. + +It was soon over. The minister kept them standing before him only a few +minutes. The women pressed forward to kiss the bride, and John found +himself quite ignored. His place was by her side at that moment, surely, +but, blind to custom, as usual, he extricated himself from the throng +and joined Cavanaugh in the hall. + +"What are you doing here?" the contractor demanded, as he shook hands +warmly and congratulated him. "They will expect you in there with the +bride. I know that is where I stayed when I went through it." + +"I am all right here," John replied, doggedly. "I don't want to talk to +all that mob." + +At this juncture Whaley appeared--Whaley, of all others. He was chewing +tobacco and nonchalantly wiped his lips on a clean, folded handkerchief. +John felt more than he had ever felt before the man's intuitive dislike +for him, and it was significant now that Whaley should address Cavanaugh +rather than him. + +"I'm sorry you are going off," he said. "I've had some pretty fair talks +with you off and on, though we are still wide apart on doctrine. Do you +know a man like me can learn to handle his own theories by arguing even +with a fellow that lies down at every point, as you'll have to admit +you've done time after time." + +"That's so, but this is a wedding," Cavanaugh smiled, "and I'm here to +tell you, old horse, that this young man is going to make you proud some +day." + +"We'll hope so--we'll hope so." Whaley frowned till his heavy brows +clashed. "I'm relying on your opinion. You've known him longer than I +have." + +Hearing this and being infuriated by it, John shrugged his shoulders, +sniffed audibly, and went out on the veranda, fully aware that by his +act he had shown contempt for his father-in-law. Outside the yard, a +heap of pine-knots was being burned to furnish light for the unhitching +and hitching of horses, and the red, smoke-broken rays fell over the +street and house. Through the window John saw the throng within the +parlor. Tilly and her mother stood side by side, surrounded by friends. +Never had he felt more alien from his surroundings than on this most +successful night. What was wrong with him? he asked himself. Why was he +unlike all other men? Why was he forced to feel like an unwilling +interloper among people he could not understand and who did not +understand him? But what did it matter? Tilly was his, all his, and in a +short while he would be bearing her away. In a short while he and she +would be left unmolested in their cozy home. He and she alone, away from +all that gaping, meddling throng. What happiness! But how could it be? + +Cavanaugh came to him out of breath. "Good gracious! Where have you +been?" the old man cried. "I'll be hanged if I wasn't afraid you'd got +scared, turned tail, and run off and hid. You oughtn't to have treated +the old man like that right on the start. You and him will have to sort +of pull together in future. He is thick-skinned, but he looked sort of +flabbergasted when you whisked off just now with that snort of yours. +Come on. They are going out to supper, and there will be no end of talk +if you don't take part. They've got a lot of lemonade in there, and +somebody may want to drink your health. If they do, for the Lord's sake +stand up like a man and say, 'Thank you,' if nothing more. Remember how +well you done when the corner-stone was laid." + +John smiled faintly, and the two went back into the parlor as the guests +were filing out into the dining-room. Tilly was waiting for him at the +door. + +"I'm hungry. Aren't you?" she asked. "I want some of that chicken salad. +I know it is good, for I made it." + +The dining-room was furnished with two long impromptu tables made of +rough boards covered with white cloths and flanked by rows of chairs, +stools, benches, and inverted boxes. Whaley stood at the head of one of +the tables, his wife at the head of the other. Near the center of one +two bows of white ribbons marked the seats reserved for the bride and +bridegroom. Tilly called John's attention to them and somehow he managed +to lead her to them, but he failed to do what he ought to have done. He +did not draw Tilly's chair back and place it for her use, but stood +staring helplessly while she did it herself. Then he sat down beside +her. All were seated now and Whaley rapped on the edge of his plate, +producing a tinkling sound that invoked silence. + +"Now," he said, solemnly, "it is our duty to ask the blessing of our +Creator on what we are about to receive, and as the parson had to leave, +I'll call on Brother Cavanaugh to perform this rite for us." + +Cavanaugh, who sat opposite John and Tilly, actually paled, and then he +flushed. He was silent for a moment, glancing appealingly first at +Whaley, then his wife, and finally at Tilly, as if for succor from +overwhelming disaster. + +"Why, I--I'm not a good hand at it," he stammered. "I don't believe in +doing things half-way, especially on what you might call a gala occasion +like this. Brother Whaley, in my opinion--and I'm sure all the rest feel +the same--you are the man who is best qualified for the job. I know I'd +enjoy hearing you do it to-night more than I would to sit and listen to +my own voice." + +"Why not let Tilly do it?" a young wag farther down the table asked, +merrily. "Any bride these days ought to be thankful to get a square meal +on the first day of her married life, if never afterward." + +"You will all excuse me, I know," Tilly said, simply, and with a sweet, +half-forced smile. + +Thereupon her father, who was getting the opportunity he wanted, cleared +his throat, tapped on his plate for silence, and with lowered head +prayed long and unctuously. He touched on the duties of the newly +married to God and the Church, that they might be examples for the +generations who were to follow them. He hinted--and John knew what was +meant--that there were young men of the present age who were indifferent +to the full meaning of a Christian life and its forms, and upon all such +delinquents he implored the mercy of a long-suffering and patient God. + +John's eyes were on his plate. He imagined that every one present was +taking note of the veiled rebuke to him. How odd that he should hate +Tilly's father so profoundly and feel like striking the cold face +between the spiritless eyes. How strange that he should feel almost the +same toward that silent, didactic copy of her husband, his +mother-in-law, who now seemed to be weighing so judiciously the subtle +charges against him, the new member of the family! + +The prayer was over; a great clatter swept from end to end of the +tables. Everybody was eating, proffering food, laughing, and jesting in +munching, mouthful tones. Suddenly, and before she had turned up her +plate, John felt Tilly's little hand steal into his. + +"Never mind what he said." She smiled as she pressed his fingers. "That +was in him. It has rankled a long time and he had to get it out." + +"It doesn't matter," John responded, defiantly. "He has the upper hand +and he uses it like all men of his brand." + +The supper went off merrily, and when it was ended the guests began to +depart. All said good-by to Tilly. Some shook hands with John and +congratulated him, but that there was a certain restraint between him +and all those present he as well as they did not doubt. A few thought +that he was "stuck up," but the more penetrating attributed his attitude +to his youth and the belief that men of his trade were really not so +refined as farmers, who were more or less like the slaveholding planters +of the past, from whom the countryside had inherited its manners. + +Cavanaugh had provided a livery-stable trap to convey the bride, the +bridegroom, and himself to the station, and as the time was up he +hurried John and Tilly away. Mrs. Whaley kissed her daughter coldly on +the cheek, as if unaccustomed to open affection, and Whaley simply shook +hands with her and his son-in-law. The trap contained only two seats, +and Cavanaugh sat with the negro driver on the front one, giving the +rear seat to John and Tilly. + +"Now don't mind me and this chap here," he said, his eyes fixed on the +back of the horse as they started on. "We are not going to look, and you +can hold hands and hug and kiss all you want to." + +Tilly laughed cheerily. "You backed out to-night; you know you did," she +bantered him. "You said you were going to kiss the bride, but failed to +do it." + +"I wanted to, mighty bad, but I was afraid they would all think I was +powerful cheeky." Then the contractor fell into talk with the negro, and +John heard Tilly sigh. + +"What is the matter?" he inquired. + +"Oh, I'm sorry for mother," she explained. "I was just thinking that the +poor old thing will get up as usual in the morning before daylight and +start in to do my work as well as hers. Father won't hire any one to +help her and she will have a hard time from now on." + +John found himself unable to properly respond, for he didn't care how +hard his mother-in-law worked. He would see to it, however, that Tilly +should have a rest from the slave-toil which had been her lot since +childhood. + +It was nine o'clock when the station was reached, and they got down to +await the train. Only the station-master and a switchman with a lantern +swinging in his hand were in sight. Cavanaugh paid the negro, and with a +low bow and scraping of the feet he got into his trap and drove away. + +They had not long to wait. From the distance of a mile they heard the +whistle of the approaching locomotive, and in a few minutes it was +slowing up at the long, unroofed platform. + +"You two go sit in the chair-car," Cavanaugh directed. "I've got a +cigar, and I'll try the smoker. I'll come back and see you before we get +to Chattanooga." + +John led Tilly to the luxurious car in question and helped her in. How +strange it was! But now for the first time, as he saw her seated in the +big revolving-chair in the almost empty car, she seemed all at once to +be in reality his wife. He put his bag and hers into the brass rack +overhead and adjusted the footstool so that she might rest her feet on +it. No living psychologist could have fathomed his emotions. That had +become his which seemed to belong to some outside, ethereal existence. + +The train started. John took a chair facing Tilly. When he was not at +work his hands seemed extraneous members, and they now hung down between +his knees as limply as if they had lost all animation. + +"You are already homesick," he said, banteringly, though the placid +expression of Tilly's face belied his words. + +"No, I am not," she said, a thoughtful smile capturing her mouth and +eyes. "How could I be? John, I'm simply crazy to see that little house. +I've always wanted a home of my own, all my own." + +He locked his twisting fingers in sheer delight, and the blood of his +joy warmed his eager face to tenderness. "There is a surprise ahead of +us," he said, chuckling. "I say surprise, for Sam thinks I don't know +it. He has stocked the pantry full of supplies as our wedding-present. I +got on to it by accident. I happened to see one of the bills. Old Sam +doesn't do things by halves. Do you know, he is the best man I ever +knew?" + +A newsboy passed through the car, selling magazines and candies. John +bought two flashy periodicals and a box of fresh caramels and put them +into Tilly's lap. With a smile she began to look at the pictures. Some +of the leaves were uncut and he took out his big workman's knife and +clumsily slit them apart. She opened the box of candy, daintily pressed +back the lacelike paper covering, and proffered some to him. He shook +his head. "I never eat it," he said, and then in brooding confusion he +remembered that he had not thanked her. + +"I'll never do that kind of thing--never!" he said to himself, in +reckless disgust. "All that tomfoolery is for Joel Eperson and his sort. +I am of a different breed of dogs." + +However, his discomfiture was soon dispelled. The rapid rush of the +train through the mountain woodland seemed to brush it away as a thing +unworthy of his vast surging happiness. He adored the lashes of Tilly's +eyes, which seemed to thwart his efforts to probe the eyes themselves; +the sweet curve of her lips; the hair which fell so gracefully over her +smooth white brow; the tiny brown freckles on her cheeks; the little +feet in the somewhat plain new shoes that shyly peeped out from beneath +the new gray skirt. A colored porter brought in some soft pillows, and +John secured one and placed it behind Tilly's head. + +"There," he said, gently enough, "lean back on it. I'll bet you are +fagged out, after all you've done since you got up this morning." + +"You mustn't make a baby of me," she mildly protested. "Remember I'm a +farmer's daughter who never has been petted." + +"It is time you were coddled up a little, then," he answered, fervently. +"Somehow you look like a child to me, and a lonely one, too, going off +like this with a big no-account hulk of a man whom you have known only a +little while." + +Tilly beamed at this. It was the quality she loved most in her husband. +She had a new purse and card-case combined in her lap, and he opened it, +finding only a few dimes and quarters in its immaculate interior. + +"That will never do." He laughed, took from his own purse two +five-dollar bills and put them into hers as he added: "I never want you +to have to run to me for change. I despise that in any man, no matter +how long he's been married. A fellow's wife should be as free with the +money that comes in as he is. I've felt like knocking a man down many a +time for that very thing. I don't believe a delicate woman feels like +asking for every cent she spends. I'll watch this pocket-book, and if I +don't keep that much or more in it all the time it will be because I'm +dead broke, too sick to work, or unable to borrow it." + +Tilly's face shed a smile that was tender and full of thought. "You are +the best man in the world," she said. "I don't believe many men, even +the ones that pretend to be polished and educated, would have thought of +that." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +The train, which was slightly delayed, reached Ridgeville at two o'clock +the following morning. With his usual thoughtfulness Cavanaugh had +ordered a street-cab to be on hand to take the couple to their home, and +it was found waiting in the care of a half-asleep negro. + +"Here is the key to the house," Cavanaugh said, as he handed it in to +them after they were seated in the ramshackle little vehicle. "I'd go on +with you and help you light up, but I'm anxious to see how my old lady +is. She's sick abed, you know, and will be worrying about the train +being late." + +The negro driver on the seat outside started his horse, and the cab +trundled through the darkness of the unlighted streets. They were now +wholly alone for the first time since their marriage, and it seemed +quite natural to him to put his arm around her and draw her head to his +shoulder. Another moment and he had kissed her. + +"I wonder," he asked, almost beneath his breath, that the driver might +not hear--"I wonder if you are happy?" + +She started to speak, but decided not to do so. Her reply consisted of a +voluntary lifting of her hand to his neck, the raising of her lips to +his, after which she nestled back on his shoulder and was silent. + +He also started to speak, but there was nothing to say, and with her +hand in one of his they sat still and silent till the cab stopped at the +gate of the cottage. The driver opened the door and John helped Tilly +out. He tipped the man, and he drove away as they entered the gate. +John opened the door and lighted the gas in the diminutive hall. Tilly +had never seen a gas-jet before, and he explained its use, and the +danger of leaving it open when unlighted. From the little hall they went +into the parlor, then into the dining-room and kitchen, and thence to +the bedroom. + +"Sam's wife has swept and cleaned the whole house," John said, +appreciatively. "It is as clean as a new pin." + +"I knew some good housekeeper had been over it," Tilly said, giving free +vent to her delight over everything. "I didn't dream, from what you +said, that it would be as nice as this," she declared. "Why, it is +simply wonderful! But you say you think Mrs. Cavanaugh looked after it. +Then--then you don't think that your mother--" She hesitated, and with a +faint shadow in her face she broke off and stood looking at the floor. + +"No." There was a companion shadow on his face as he answered, rather +lamely, she thought. "She'd never think of it--even if--if she was +expecting us." + +"Not expecting us?" Tilly said, gropingly. "Then she doesn't know. You +didn't write to her that we were to be married?" + +"No"--John's glance wavered as he slowly released the word--"I didn't +write her. I didn't care whether she knew it or not." + +"I think I understand now," Tilly said to herself. "They have had some +sort of family disagreement and are not on speaking terms." + +"Never mind," she said, aloud, seeing a cloud on his face. "All that +will come out right. In time I'll win her love--you see if I don't." + +His frown deepened, but he said nothing. Their bags had been left in +the little hall, and he went to get them. When he returned she was +standing before the wide mirror of the new-fashioned bureau. She had +taken off her hat and the elevated gas-jet on the wall threw a blaze of +light into her beautiful hair. He put down the bags and stood gazing at +her with eyes full of timid reverence and worship. + +"Poor, dear little Tilly!" he said, almost huskily. "You look so lonely, +here just with me like this, away from your home and friends. I am not +worthy of you, little girl--no man is. I feel that. I know it down deep +inside of me. Until I met you I never knew what a good, pure girl was +like. Oh, you are so different from all the women I've ever known. +Somehow you seem to have dropped down from the skies." + +She didn't fully understand him. How could she? And yet his look and +tone went straight to her heart. She stood staring at him for a moment +and then she advanced to him. She put her hands on his shoulders and +looked up into his eyes. + +"You say I'm different from other girls, John. Well, you are different +from all other men. Oh, it is so very sweet of you--your silly fear that +you can't make me happy--your continual reference to that absurdity. +Why, John, I am so happy that I can't express it. No one else could have +made me so. I am the luckiest girl in the world." + +Her throbbing lips invited it, and he bent down and kissed them. He drew +her into his arms. She felt his great breast quiver and heard him sigh. +Not yet was she comprehending him--not yet was he quite able to +comprehend himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Among the men of John's trade it was deemed an effeminate thing for a +laboring-man to allow his marriage to cut into his duties to his daily +work. And as Cavanaugh already had a job waiting, which was the erection +of a fine brick residence on a near-by plantation, John joined him, +ready for work, on the day following the one of his arrival home. This +left Tilly all alone in the cottage. At first she was so absorbed by the +changes she was making about the house--the moving of this article or +that and the rehanging of the cheap pictures and curtains, that she had +little time for self-analysis or a study of her environment. + +However, after the first three days had passed and there was now nothing +in the cottage to be done except to prepare her husband's supper, +breakfast, and lunch for his dinner-pail, the time began to drag on her +hands. She sat on the little porch nearly all the time, for the outside +view was more soothing than the cramped interior of the rather dark +little house. Across the vacant lots, and above the dim roofs of the +neighboring negro shanties, she saw the smoke from the town's +cotton-factories, woolen-mills and iron-foundries, the steam-whistles of +which were John's signals for early rising and her own best guide to the +approach of nightfall and her husband's longed-for return. Above the +trees, an eighth of a mile away, could be seen the roof of Mrs. Trott's +house. John had reluctantly pointed it out one evening as they stood at +the gate, and every day now she looked at it as the physical symbol of a +mystery which was growing more and more inexplicable. She had come to +feel that there was something about John's mother which he himself did +not fully understand and from which he shrank in morbid and manly +sensitiveness. + +Cavanaugh had called one evening, and as the three friends sat on the +porch, the weather being warm, he had explained that his wife was still +confined to her bed and was deeply regretting her inability to come over +and see Tilly. But neither did the contractor help Tilly to solve the +brooding enigma. On the contrary, his very reticence seemed to deepen +it, for he had the disturbed air of a man avoiding some disagreeable +fact. How could it be, Tilly began to ask herself, that a man so genial +as John should have absolutely no women friends in the town of his +birth, and why was it that even his men friends should so persistently +shun his residence and show so little interest in his bride? There was +Joe Tilsbury, she recalled. What a contrast, what an inexplicable +contrast! Joe's friends had given the wife he had brought home a +far-reaching welcome, afternoon receptions, quilting-bees, dances, +straw-rides, surprise-parties, and even the jovial jokers of the +village, in grotesque costumes, had serenaded the couple with tin pans +and cow-horns. Tilly herself had taken part in the courtesies to the +wife of a man far beneath John in point of position and attainments. +What could it mean? What? + +Four days after the departure of her daughter, Mrs. Whaley received the +third letter from Tilly, and Whaley found her one morning at her churn +with that letter on her knee, the dasher inactive in a steadily extended +hand. + +"Who's that from?" he inquired. "Oh, I see! She writes powerful often, +don't she? Well, how does she like it?" + +Mrs. Whaley was silent, her eyes on the milk-coated hole in the +churn-lid through which the worn dasher was wont to glide up and down. +Noting her mood, Whaley gruffly took up the letter and, adjusting his +black-rimmed nose-glasses, he read it. + +"What do you think of it?" she asked, when he put it down. + +"I don't know as I think anything much about it," was his response. +"House, house, house! That is all there is in it--tables here and chairs +there, a new organ, cook-stove that runs by gas, and water on tap within +arm's-length--to say nothing of milk left on the front-door step, as +well as a block of ice in summer-time every morning. All that, I say, +but not one word about the big union-tabernacle-tent revival that +Cavanaugh said was to open there this week? I'd walk ten miles through +the broiling sun to meet that preacher and hear him rip the hide off of +the ungodly down there. That town is just big enough to be full of hell, +'blind-tiger' joints, and houses full of shamefaced strumpets that are +fined in city court and allowed to keep on even by the law in their +devilish occupation." + +Mrs. Whaley was never known to sigh. Sighs are born of elements which +she had suppressed till they had died a natural death, but there was +something in her very uncommunicating manner that provoked her husband's +lingering at her side. + +"You don't say what you think," he said, restoring his glasses to their +tin case and snapping its lid down. + +She raised her eyes and fixed them on his. "It is not what she says, +but what it seems to me she ought to say and don't that seems strange to +me," was her reply. "Why, there is no mention at all about any of John's +kin--not one single word about his mother--not one single word about any +woman stepping in even for a minute. I don't care anything about your +tabernacles or your whisky-joints--what seems strange to me is that +Tilly don't seem to have made a single acquaintance since she got there. +She writes, you see, about Cavanaugh coming over and why his wife +didn't, as if that was something to tell. She writes about John being +away in the country all day, and, as far as I can gather, she is at home +all by herself from dawn till nightfall. There is something powerfully +odd about all that. I don't know what it is, but it is there." + +"I know one thing about John Trott that I didn't know when he was here," +Whaley pursued, tapping his thumb with the case of his glasses, "and I +tell you if I had known it he would have had to change before he took a +daughter of mine to live under a roof with him. I got it straight that +he's been heard to say that he didn't believe in a God or the Bible, and +that folks were silly fools that did. I heard it this morning and I made +it my business to trace it down. He said it, and I'm here to say that I +don't want to be the granddaddy of the children of an atheist. The wrath +of an offended God would fall on them and on me. Tilly was put in my +care. The Catholics damned the soul of my son when he went over to those +idol-worshipers through the wiles of a present-day Eve, and here I stood +stock-still and let an avowed atheist take away my daughter. Do you +think I'm going to stand it? Man-killing is said to be wrong, but +killing human snakes is not, and a man that will lead an innocent +Christian girl away from the smiles of God deserves death, let the law +of the land be what it may. I've got a good pistol. I've got a steady +finger and a firm arm. I tell you to look out. I don't know what may +happen. Our Lord said Himself that He came not to bring peace, but a +sword, and I'll be at war with atheism against my own flesh and blood +till I die." + +"You wouldn't be as foolish as that," Mrs. Whaley faltered, for once +daring to oppose her spouse. "Even if he is an infidel he may get over +it under--under Tilly's influence." + +"Get over it, a dog's hind foot!" Whaley sniffed, his great nostrils +fluttering, his harsh face rigid. "No wife ever does. They go with their +husbands and so do the children, and children's children, all the way +down, if the flow of hell's poison is not stopped, and I'll stop it." + +On the day that dialogue was taking place Sam Cavanaugh was seated by +the bedside of his wife. "Yes, I went by there," he was saying. "John +had bought some fine peaches from a mountain wagon and wanted Tilly to +have them to put up in jars. She was out in the little yard. I saw her +clean across the old circus-grounds. She was walking back and forth, and +I'll admit she looked lonely. You were right about what you said that +time. I begin to see my mistake. As awkward as it would have been, maybe +I ought to have had a straight talk with John, if nobody else. It looks +to me like he is slowly opening his eyes now, but doesn't know how to +fetch up the subject when we are together. He comes a little later in +the morning and starts for home on the dot. I've seen him on the +scaffold, looking off over the fields in the very saddest sort of way. +He is becoming different. He never curses the men now when they make a +bobble or are slow with mortar or brick, and he has lost interest in +plans and figures. They have all noticed it. Some seem to understand, +while others don't. They all respect him too much to tattle among +themselves about his private matters. They love him. They all love John +Trott--rough as he is, they all love him; and as for me--as for me--my +God! my heart aches! I feel like I've made a mistake, but I can't feel +that I am much to blame, for I was going by my best lights. They love +each other, those two do, with all their souls. How could I burst it up +with a nasty revelation like I'd 'a' had to make?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Two days after the arrival of the bride and bridegroom the report of the +marriage reached the residence of Mrs. Trott. Jane Holder had been to +town to make some purchases, and in a dry-goods store heard a +delivery-man mention it. She made further inquiries and established the +fact of the truth of the report. And when she left the street-car at the +end of the line she walked past John's cottage and looked in at the open +door. Tilly was sweeping out the little hall and Jane got a fair view of +her as she hurried by. + +"What a sweet little thing she seems!" Jane mused. "I wonder what Liz +will do. It may make her mad. I'm sure she will be mad to find out that +he has been here two days and not been over home. She is expecting some +money from John, too, but how can he give it to her now that he has set +up for himself? Why, he is just a boy! It seems funny to think of him +having a wife and a snug little home like that." + +She found Mrs. Trott in the dining-room, where Dora was arranging the +table for the midday meal, and as she sat removing her hat and veil, her +gaudy green sunshade in her lap, she made her revelation. + +"What are you saying?" Lizzie Trott cried, incredulously, and with her +carmined lips parted she stood staring at her friend. + +Jane repeated what she had said, and then both of them were astonished +by a comment from Dora as she leaned against the table and smiled. + +"I'm glad it is out," the child said. "I was dying to tell it. I knew it +was coming off long ago, but he made me promise not to give it away." + +"You knew?" Mrs. Trott cried, her eyes flashing behind their waxed +lashes. + +"Yes, and all about the house being rented. Huh! I guess I did! I saw +Sam Cavanaugh hide the key under the door-step one day, and after he +left I unlocked the door and went in and looked it over. Oh, it is +mighty pretty! I saw Mrs. Cavanaugh come in and clean it up one day, +too, and I knew that things was getting ripe. Huh! I've already seen +Tilly, too, for I've passed her several times while she was out in the +yard. I'd have spoke to her, but my best dress was out on the line and I +know John would want me to look neat and clean." + +With steady eyes and a motionless breast Lizzie Trott turned toward the +stairs. "I want to talk to you in private, Jane," she said, under her +breath. "Come up to your room." + +"I was going up, anyway, to get these hot things off," Jane said, +complainingly. "Something is wrong with me, Liz. I can't lace as tight +as I did without suffocating. I've got to take off my corset and lie +down. I almost fainted in Lowe & Beaman's this morning while I was +waiting for Doctor Renfrow to mix my tonic. He laughed and said that I +drink too much adulterated whisky for a woman of my build. He felt my +pulse and looked at my tongue and eyes and talked sorter serious about +my condition. He asked how old my mother was when she died, and when I +told him 'thirty-six' he shook his head and said I must come into his +office some day and let him examine me thoroughly." + +Jane was out of breath by this time, for she had been talking while +ascending the stairs, and she turned into her room and sank down on the +bed. Mrs. Trott followed and stood over her, her hands on her hips. + +"You say they have been here two days?" she said. + +"Yes; came in the night," Jane panted forth as she began to unhook her +silk dress. "Oh, my! I have that gone feeling again--sort of +swimming-like, and when I try to see all of your face at once I get only +part of it--like a black spot was coming between--and if I look at the +wall there in the shade or at the floor I can see wriggling lights. The +doctor said my liver was awful." + +Lizzie Trott took a chair and sat in it. She bent downward, her bare, +shapely elbows on her knees, her ringed fingers holding her chin. + +"For the love of Heaven," she said, impatiently, "let up on your whining +for a minute and let's talk about John. What do you think about it?" + +"Oh, I don't know what to think!" and with a low groan Jane threw +herself back on the bed. "What do I care? They are full of health and +can take care of themselves, while here I lie with hardly strength +enough to unlace myself." + +"Why didn't he tell us, do you suppose?" Lizzie continued. "Why hasn't +he been over? Two days and nights, and nothing said or done! Why, it is +outrageous--simply outrageous!" + +"Oh, I see what you are driving at!" Jane sat up and began to unlace her +corsets, her yellowish wrists and bony finger working behind her back. +"Now the spots are gone and my head is steady. It is peculiar how they +come and go that way. Yes, I think I see what bothers you. Well, old +pal, I'll tell you. I'll bet my life she is a good girl, and a worker, +too. Country stock, maybe. She looks it. No style to her dress or the +way she does her hair. Yes, yes, I think I understand what is bothering +you. You are wondering--well, you know what I mean. You are wondering if +anybody has told her--well, told her about us--_all_ about us, I mean." + +Mrs. Trott showed a tendency to flare up, which her blank bewilderment +seemed to quench. "You can say the most catty things when you try," she +began, but finished with a low groan and sat with her eyes fixed on a +pattern in the worn rug by the bed. + +"Well, I am including myself," Jane said. "You may call that catty, but +I don't. What is the use to plaster facts over? Between you and me, I +simply don't believe John would take to a fast girl. If there ever was a +boy that gave fast girls the cold shoulder, John Trott did. I always +thought he was blind, anyway--going about with his figuring and blue +papers with white lines on them. The way he hauled his money out and +threw it at us proved he never stopped to think what he was doing. Yes, +that little wife is the right sort, and I myself don't see how--well, +how he could have brought her right here, you understand. You think so, +too, and that is what is bothering you. You won't admit it, but that is +the nigger in your woodpile, Liz! My! how easy I feel when I'm +unstrapped! The doctor laid the law down on that when I was sick the +last time, you know, but how can I walk through Main Street looking--?" + +"For God's sake, dry up!" Lizzie suddenly shot out. "What am I going to +do? How can I get along without his help, and he can't help me and keep +up a separate house. Must--must I go over there? Do you think I--I +ought to call? Doesn't it look like--like he means something by--by +keeping it a secret? It wasn't sudden, for Dora says he told her some +time back." + +"Go over there? Huh! You make me smile, Liz. You didn't even get an +invitation to the wedding, or a chance to make a present, and yet you +are bothered about whether you ought to call or not. As for me, I'll not +put foot across his door-sill--not even if he asked me. No, not even if +he come begging me on bended knee. Huh! I guess not!" + +"And why not?" Lizzie Trott asked, after a momentous pause. + +"Because"--and as she answered Jane's eyes held a steely gleam as from +some inner light of self-accusation that refused to be quenched even by +fear of giving offense--"because if he did ask me I'd know the poor boy +was still blind to what everybody else knows and what he would have +known long ago if he had been as coarse as other men, or if folks had +not liked him too much to talk plain to him. No, I'll not go there. I +wouldn't know what to say, nohow. Huh! You wouldn't, either, I'll bet." + +"You are not helping me much." Lizzie Trott readjusted the imitation +tortoise-shell comb in her rather lifeless hair and gave a sigh, which +was followed by a moan, half of anger, half of despair. + +"I think I can take a nap now," Jane said. "I feel drowsy-like. If--if +you have finished, I wish you would pull the shades down. Tell Dora I +don't want anything to eat and not to bring it up. She will wake me if +she does." + +Mrs. Trott rose sullenly and drew the shades down. She cast a parting +look at Jane, and was on the threshold when from the bed came these +words: + +"Liz, do me a favor, please do, like a good girl. If Jim Stacy comes +again, don't let him know I'm up here. Tell him some lie--tell him I am +in Atlanta. He is dead broke and always drinking and jealous. I'm too +sick to talk to him, and, sick or not, he'd come right up. I've got to +get rid of him, that is certain." + +Making some sort of promise, Lizzie went into her own room and sat down +in a rocking-chair. Nervously she swung back and forth for a few +minutes, and then sat still, her eyes fixed on vacancy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +One morning shortly after this, while Tilly was busy cleaning up the +house, she noticed a little girl at the front fence near the gate. The +child was oddly dressed, wearing a skirt that was too long for her, +stockings so large that they hung in folds about her thin ankles, a +shirt-waist which had been cut down from a woman's size and clumsily +remade, and a cheap sailor hat with flowing blue ribbons. The little +girl was acting, Tilly thought, in a very queer way, for when Tilly +approached the door the child lowered her head and with shy, furtive +glances moved on, but as soon as Tilly disappeared she would return to +the gate and stand peering over it in timid curiosity. + +"Strange," the young wife mused, and when the little girl made no show +of leaving, Tilly decided to speak to her. So, going suddenly to the +porch, she called out: "Wait, little girl. Do you want anything?" + +The head of the child hung down till the brim of her hat hid her eyes, +and if she made any reply it was spoken so low that Tilly did not hear +it. Tilly now went to her and leaned on the gate. + +"Did you want anything with me?" she asked, most kindly, as she scanned +the incongruous attire in half-amused wonder. The answer was delayed, +but it finally came from lips rendered stubborn by embarrassment: + +"I--I wanted to see you, but--but I thought maybe I'd better ask John +first. He hasn't been over home yet, and I don't know whether he'd want +me to come or not. He told me about you, Tilly. He told me, and nobody +else, and I didn't let a soul know, either--my aunt, or Liz, or any +one." + +"Oh, I see! I know now. You are Dora, aren't you?" + +"Yes'm," in great relief and with a lifted face. "I see. Then you know +about me?" + +"Oh yes, and you must come in and see me." Tilly opened the gate. The +little pinched face appealed to her, as well as the child's crude +timidity. Dora stepped gingerly inside, her coarse, ill-fitting shoes +grating on the graveled walk. One of her little hands was loosely buried +in a woman's black kid glove, the mate of which was damply clutched in +bare fingers, the nails of which were jagged and black. By Tilly's side +she clumsily moved along till they had reached the porch steps, where +she paused hesitatingly. + +"I almost feel like I know you," Tilly went on to reassure her. "Somehow +I almost feel that you are John's sister. I don't know why, but I do. +Would you care if I kissed you?" + +"Kissed me?" Dora started and stared blankly. "You mean-- Huh! you don't +want--" + +"This is what I mean, you poor dear little thing!" and Tilly bent down +and kissed the wan cheek. "There, now, you must come in and see our new +house. John will not be home till nearly dark." + +"I don't know whether John will fuss or not," Dora said. "Maybe he +wanted me to wait till--till he told me. I don't know. From the way my +aunt and Liz talks, a body would think he intended to cut us clean off +his list." + +"Liz?" Tilly asked. "I've heard John mention your aunt, but who is +Liz?" + +"Liz? Why, Liz-- You know she is-- Why, Liz is his mother!" + +"But--but why do you call her Liz?" Tilly asked, in wonder. + +"Because that's her name. Everybody calls her Liz. I don't know-- I +can't remember that I ever heard John call her anything. He was always +cursing her--that is, when he spoke to her. I don't blame him. She is no +good and is always after him for money." + +They had reached the little parlor now, and Dora sank into one of the +new chairs and swung her thin legs to and fro. She was now more at ease, +and was inspecting the room with the wide eyes of a curious child. + +"Curse her?" Tilly gasped. "You don't mean that my husband would +actually curse his own mother?" + +"Huh!" Dora sniffed, half absently, for she was looking admiringly at +the cheap dress Tilly had on. "Huh! you would, too, if you had to live +with her and drudge for her like me and him do. She is peevish and +fretful. If things go wrong with her when she is out at night she is a +very hell-cat in the morning. I've heard her say she was going to kill +herself, and when her and my aunt have a scrap, things fly about, I tell +you. She is mad now. Oh, my! ain't she mad at John for not telling her +about you? She drove out to his work yesterday, and, from what she told +my aunt, her and John must have had a big row, right before the men, +too. Aunt Jane told her John could have her arrested--that the judge +would be on his side. But I reckon John tried to quiet her. He always +does when she flies plumb to pieces." + +Tilly's face was grave and pale. "I think I understand now," she said, +in a sinking voice. "Mrs. Trott is out of her mind; John is sensitive +about it, and--" + +"Who's out of her mind--Liz?" The child laughed derisively. "Don't you +believe it! Aunt Jane says she has a clear head on her when it comes to +getting the best of any deal. They swapped dresses once and Liz hid some +big grease spots that didn't show till Aunt Jane was dancing on a +platform in the sun at a picnic. That was a whopping, big row, for the +laugh was on Aunt Jane and she had no chance to change till she got +home." + +Tilly was bewildered. She told herself, as she sat peering into the +guileless eyes before her, that she must know more than she did know and +this was an opportunity. + +"I made some fresh cake yesterday," she said. "Wait; I'll get you some. +It has icing on it, and jelly between the layers." + +But Dora refused to be treated as a formal visitor. She followed Tilly +into the kitchen, now clutching her ribbons and swinging her broad hat +in her hand. "John said you was a good cook," she remarked. "He said you +was too hard-worked up there, and that he was going to give you a long, +sweet rest. Lord! that boy thinks the sun rises and sets in you! He said +you was pretty, but I don't think you are extra. Do you?" + +"No, I'm anything else." Tilly was now cutting the big, white cake. The +situation was too grave for personal trivialities. She put a slice on a +plate and handed it to the child. Dora took the cake, declined the +plate, and began eating eagerly, smearing her lips with the jelly and +licking them with an encircling tongue. She had put her hat and gloves +on a table and was becoming even more communicative. + +"I love cake like this with wine," she said. "Have you any about?" + +"No. My parents are opposed to wine," Tilly said. "Surely you, as young +as you are, don't drink it?" + +"Don't I, though!" The child all but leered, and laughed aloud. "What do +you take me for--a silly ninny? When they have it at home I get my +share, you bet, and I don't always wait for them to get too drunk to +see, either. I hide a bottle when there is a big lot. You see, Bill +Raines--the biggest, fattest old roly-poly you ever laid eyes on--sends +it over by the case. He is full of fun, drunk or sober, with up-to-date +songs and jokes--he is a whisky drummer from Louisville, and the rest of +the boys say it don't cost him anything--'samples,' I think Liz said, to +treat with and make folks buy. Well, as I set in to say, when he gets to +town he generally has a big lot delivered to us. He used to like Aunt +Jane, but they had a fuss, and he goes with Liz now. He is always flush, +plays for high stakes, and cleans the board nearly every time. His luck +is always with him. He won't cheat, and they say he shot a fellow in the +hip that tried it on him one night at the races. I don't know. I'm just +telling you what they all say. I like him-- I like the old devil, for he +always has a good word for me. He told Aunt Jane, and between us two I +think that's what the fuss was about. Give me another piece, will you? +It is a million times better than baker's cake. Bakers use spoiled eggs +in their dough. I can smell 'em in spite of the flavoring. My! this _is_ +good! Wine or no wine, it goes right to the spot!" + +In munching the cake the child forgot that she had not finished what she +had started to say, and with bated breath and lips grimly tense Tilly +reminded her of her omission. + +"Oh yes, about that fuss!" Dora swallowed as she resumed. "Bill ripped +her up for scolding about me. He said that it was a shame the way I was +treated, and that if something wasn't done right off--me sent to school +and fed and clothed better--he was going to court about it. Lord! Lord! +how mad Aunt Jane was, and Liz, too! They said he was trying to make +trouble. That was a month ago. Huh! I think they are right! What +business is it to that old pot-bellied duck what I do or don't do? He is +no kin of mine and I don't want to go to school, either. I tried it +once, and that was enough for me. Sat on a bench all day, with a prissy +old maid making me hold a book before my face." + +Dora declined a third piece of cake without thanks other than a gesture +of repletion as she placed her hand on her stomach, smiled, and shook +her unkempt head. + +"No. I'd make myself sick," she said. "I'll take a drink of water, +though. I seem to feel lumps of it lodged in my chest. I reckon I put in +too much at once. If I had wine, now-- But of course that is out of the +game." + +Tilly supplied the water. Her heart was as heavy as lead. She was afraid +to admit that she believed the terrible thing which, like the bile of +some all-inclosing disease, was oozing into her consciousness. She led +the child into the sitting-room and listlessly invited inspection of +this or that article--the few photographs on the table, a china vase +holding flowers, a new Bible which was the inscribed wedding-present of +the minister's wife, and some other things which to Tilly now seemed to +weep in sheer sympathy for her under the horror which brooded over her. +But she fought off the suspicion. It couldn't be--it mustn't be. + +"My mother-in-law--Mrs. Trott--John's mother," she stammered in the +effort to speak unconcernedly. "Being a widow, she will need money, +help from me and John, won't she? Don't you think so, Dora?" + +"No, Aunt Jane says no," answered the child, making a wry face as she +looked at a picture of Tilly's father. "Gee! what an old pie-faced +hayseed this is! For the Lord's sake, who is it?" + +"But why won't she need it?" Tilly had heard the question, but did not +want to spare the time for a reply which might or might not embarrass +her iconoclastic guest. "John has been giving her part of his wages, +hasn't he?" + +"Yes, but he has to call a halt somewhere, my aunt says. She says Liz +can get all the money she needs if she won't throw it away as fast as +she gets it and play her cards so she won't be fined so often." + +"Fined?" The word fell from Tilly's irresolute lips in sheer dread of +further revelations. "Fined! What do you mean?" + +"'Soaked' by the judge, that is all I know," Dora quoted, indifferently. +"About once a month they both have to go in and pay up or be jugged. Old +Roly-poly said once that he paid the running expenses of this town +himself. What are 'running expenses'? Hanged if I know." + +"I don't know." Tilly made an all but somnambulistic reply. Had some +one--even John--died suddenly, she could not have been more shocked. +Even John's support in her terrible strait seemed somehow likely to be +withheld, for how could she go to him with such a matter, seeing that he +had not fully confided in her? + +"I must be going now," the weird child remarked. "You see, I sneaked +over and must get home before they wake up. I'll go in by the back way +and change my dress, and they will never know about this lark. At least +that's what I'm counting on. You may tell brother John I was over if +you want to. He won't give me away. I want you to see the doll he sent +me, and her bed and carriage. Gosh! they are scrumptious!" + +When Dora had left, Tilly stood at the gate and watched her crossing the +vacant lots till she was out of sight. Then the young wife went back to +her work, but it had lost its charm. She could think of nothing but the +discoveries she had made. She was enabled now to account for hundreds of +discrepancies and omissions in her husband's words and acts in the past. +Now all things were clear--too clear by far for her peace of mind. The +terrible scandal would reach Cranston. It was sure to, eventually, and +all her friends and acquaintances would pity her. And as for Joel +Eperson--why, knowing him as she knew him, it would crush him. Her +marriage already had dealt him a blow, and this would add to his +suffering. As for her parents, she fancied her mother's taking it +stolidly and inexpressively; but her father, ah, that would be a +different matter! She dared not contemplate the effect on his monumental +pride and uncontrollable temper. He would interpret it in terms of +heaven, hell, and eternity. He would be as relentless as a patriarch +ordered by the voice of God to slay his young in the cause of +righteousness. Something must be done, and quickly, but what? + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +In terrible loneliness the day dragged by. The blood of her being seemed +sluggish in her veins. She could not eat her luncheon. She thought of +going to see Mrs. Cavanaugh, but she did not know where the contractor +lived, and, as Mrs. Cavanaugh was still in bed with illness, a call +would be out of place. Besides, she was sure, even if she went, that she +would not be able to broach a matter of such undoubted delicacy, and, +unless she mentioned it, how could Mrs. Cavanaugh allude to it? Tilly +felt, too, that when John came she would not be able to mention it to +him, for had he not kept from her even the fact of his mother's visit to +him at his work the day before? + +It was growing dark when he came. She had not lighted the gas, because +she feared that he might too plainly see her face and read its new +lines, shadows, and shrinkings, and he came into the hall, his +dinner-pail in hand, as she stood waiting for him in the parlor. She +essayed a cheerful greeting, but the words stuck in her tight throat and +she went into his arms without uttering them. + +"So, so, little mouse," he said, in a forced tone of cheerfulness, "here +you are in your dark little hole. Let me light up. I'm dead tired. We +all had to put our shoulders to it to-day and lift some big stones and +place them right. Our derrick broke twice." + +He went to the kitchen. She heard him fumbling about for some matches. +Then he came back, striking the matches and lighting the jets in +dining-room, sitting-room, and hall. + +"You are hungry," she said. "Supper is ready, all but taking it up." + +"Well, yes, I guess I am," he said. "Gee! little girl, it is fine to +have a place to come to like this." He caught her in his arms and kissed +her tenderly. "In a snug place like this a man can throw off his +troubles easier than anywhere else. Sam calls it 'a cottage of delight,' +and that's what it is." + +"Troubles?" she repeated, stealing a look into his face. "Have you +troubles, my darling?" + +She thought that he avoided her direct gaze, and she was sure that she +felt him start slightly, and that his immediate kiss was somewhat more +mechanical than usual. + +"Oh, every fellow in my business has more or less worries," he parried, +awkwardly. "You see, a good deal depends on my judgment, and now and +then Sam and I disagree on little details of construction, and we have +to argue it out to a finish." + +"Have you had any disagreement to-day?" Tilly was probing him +desperately, knowing well that the subject had naught to do with the +weight on her breast and his. + +"Oh no, not to-day," he said, lightly. "Don't be alarmed. Sam and I work +all right together. He's always talking about me and him going into +partnership. He wants to tie me here, you see; but I don't know. The +world is wide, and I could make a living anywhere." + +They finished their supper and went to sit on the porch, where the air +circulated better than in the house. "I had a caller to-day," she +suddenly announced. + +"What, a--a-- You say you had a--" He broke off, and then finished in a +breath of seeming relief. "Oh, Mrs. Cavanaugh! Sam said she would soon +be up; but from what he said I thought she'd be in bed for another week +at least." + +"It wasn't Mrs. Cavanaugh." Tilly's hand was in his and she felt his +calloused fingers twitch and remain tense while he waited for her to +finish. "It was the little girl from your house." + +His fingers shook. He stared at her through the twilight. She saw his +lips move as if for utterance, but no sound came forth. It was an +awkward moment for them both. + +"Oh, so she came!" John finally got out. "I thought she was too backward +to--to go anywhere." + +"She was timid at first," Tilly said, choking down the despair that +seemed to rise in her throat like a fluid; "but I gave her some cake and +made her feel at home the best I could." + +There was another turgid pause. John managed to break it, inexpert +though he was in the verbal finesse he was evidently trying to use. + +"She is a queer little imp," he said. "Don't you think so?" + +"Yes, very, very strange, for a child of her age. I think she liked me +pretty well, and--and I did her. She ought to be taught. Can she read or +write? I didn't think to ask her." + +"She doesn't know B from a bull's track." John tried to smile, as he +forced a laugh. "Yes, she ought to be taught, I guess." He was silent +for a moment, and then he resumed: "What did she have to say? She can +talk a regular blue streak at times, and I am wondering--wondering--" + +"She told me all about the doll and doll-things you sent her," Tilly +answered, resorting to subterfuge with no little skill. "Let a child +like that start to talk about her playthings and she will run on all +day. She didn't stay very long. She said she had work to do at home." + +From the sudden change of his face, Tilly comprehended the relief that +must have swept through him at that moment. He glanced toward the center +of the town where a cluster of lights threw a glow on the sky. "There is +a show under a tent on Main Street to-night," he said. "It may not be +much good, but it is something to go to. Suppose we walk over? It isn't +very far. When it is out we can stop at Tilman's ice-cream and +soda-water parlor and take something cool." + +"No"--Tilly shook her head--"let's stay at home." + +"But why? Listen! That's them now!" There was a sound of a brass band +playing in the direction of the lights, the blare of horns, and the +beating of drums. "They always play outside the tent to draw a crowd. +Why don't you want to go, little girl?" + +"You said you were tired." + +"Who, me? Good gracious! Now that I've had my supper I feel like a +fighting-cock. We'd better go. You are staying in too close, anyway." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +There seemed no way to avoid accepting the invitation, and she went into +the cottage for a light shawl. Then they locked up their little house +and started away. Tilly held his arm. She tried to fancy that they were +taking one of the unforgettable strolls along the mountain roads at +Cranston which had led to their union, but the illusion refused to abide +with her, for at Cranston he had been care-free, full of hope and joy, +and now his every word seemed to exude from a heart surcharged with +pain. How she loved him, now that she better understood the Sinister +fate that was scourging him so relentlessly! + +Ahead of them they saw a tent. It was lighted. "That is not the one," +John explained. "That is a tabernacle revival meeting. Sam goes every +night. He doesn't believe in it any more than I do, down inside of +himself, I mean; but he goes and tries to get the boys to go. That would +suit your father. That preacher throws off his coat and dares the +barkeepers to meet him in a fist-to-fist, knock-down, drag-out match on +his platform. We must go, too. How about to-morrow night?" + +"But--but you don't believe in such meetings," Tilly answered. + +"It doesn't make any odds what I believe," John returned, in a +thoughtful tone. "You got a lot, one way or another, out of your meeting +and Sunday-school up at home, and--and this is a dull town. It is full +of sets and a lot of silly pride, drawing the line at this and that. +Take my trade, for instance. Do you know a brick mason is sort o' looked +down on by the fool gangs that go in for style and show? Up your way +everything is more on a level. One man is as good as another. That is +one thing I like about religion. In the backwoods, at least, it does +away with a lot of stuck-up ideas. You mustn't think I want you to quit +going to church. No, I want you to go. I can't take part, but you can go +on the same as you used to." + +They were now in front of the tent's opening. And as Tilly was peering +in at the brilliantly lighted platform on which sat some singers behind +an organ, and a young, square-jawed, long-haired minister in a +frock-coat, John thought she might be interested in the service. + +"Maybe you'd rather go in to-night," he advanced. "It is with you to +decide. Is it preaching or show?" + +"But you don't like preaching," she said. + +"I don't count in this shuffle," he jested. "They are both shows to me. +The only difference is that the burnt-cork and dancing people admit they +want your money, and these people lie about it." + +Tilly frowned. "You get worse and worse," she said. "Let's go to the +show. It will be good for you after working so hard to-day." + +"Well, we'll come here to-morrow night," he said. "We've got to have +some amusements. You are by yourself too much. I've been thinking a lot +about the way you are fixed down here in this measly, hypocritical town. +You see, up there where you were raised you know every man, woman, and +child, but here you are a stranger. I mean-- I mean--" He was beyond his +depth and realized it, quite to his chagrin. Tilly came to his rescue. + +"Never mind about me," she broke in, quickly and with tact, as she drew +him on in the direction of the lights and music farther up the street. +"I am thoroughly happy here. I don't want anything but you and our +little home. I love you more and more. Some day you will know why, but I +do. I'm going to make you happy, John, happier than you've ever been." + +He sighed, and it was as if he were conscious that the sigh which had +surged up within him, in a way, was a denial of the hope her words +extended. + +He paid their fare at the opening in the tent and went in and sat on one +of the crude, unbacked benches. The place was filling fast. Laughing +parties of young men and young ladies entered. John told Tilly who some +of them were. The "chipper, fluffy-headed blonde" was a banker's +daughter, with the son of the president of the largest iron-works in +Ridgeville. Another girl was the only child of a rich money-lender and +the young dude with her was an ex-Governor's son, a silly fool that +everybody said would have been in jail long ago for some of his scrapes +but for his father's influence. John didn't really know who all of them +were, though they lived in the town. They had grown up so fast and he +had been so busy that he hadn't kept track of them. He did know, +however, that they all belonged to a select dancing-club up the street, +and they would go there after the show, no doubt. They felt that they +were better than the working-class, and John said he despised them for +it. Their people belonged to the leading churches and that accounted for +their lack of sympathy for the poor. + +There were some improvised boxes or tiers of seats inclosed in scarlet +ribbons on the right, which were marked, "Reserved Seats, 25 cents +extra." The young society people had not taken them, for some reason or +other, but, on the contrary, had found places in the body of the little +amphitheater where they sat merrily eating roasted peanuts which were +bought from a loud-shouting vender with a basket on his arm. + +It was all new to the young country wife, and she would have enjoyed it +but for the grim tragedy unfolding in her experience. The music stopped, +and the curtains were drawn. Two amusing Irishmen held the stage for +fifteen minutes in a heated colloquy interspersed with songs and "horse +play." Then when they had withdrawn, and Tilly and John were looking +over the audience, a man and a woman entered, came down the wide +saw-dust aisle, and turned into the reserved section. The man was very +fat, short, and flashily dressed; the woman was also showily attired, +powdered, painted, penciled, and perfumed. + +"Oh, my! Old Liz is on a splurge to-night, ain't she?" a man behind John +and Tilly said, with a giggle. "Who's the fellow with her?" + +"'Sh!" his companion hissed, warningly, and from the corner of her eye +Tilly saw him pointing at John. She looked at her husband and saw a +wincing look of chagrin settling on his face. He had given but a single +glance at the new-comers and now gazed fixedly at the crude +drop-curtain. Tilly saw his neck and the side of his face growing red. + +Could it be her mother-in-law? she asked. Undoubtedly, and her escort +was "Roly-poly," for Dora's description had fitted him perfectly. + +Another act was on the stage. Acrobatic performers in silken tights +began vaulting, climbing, balancing one upon the other. Tilly saw that +John was valiantly pretending to be absorbed in their maneuvers. He was +still flushed, and his eyes all but stood out from their sockets in +their grim fixity. How she pitied him! How she longed to take the strong +red hand which half clutched his knee and assure him that it didn't +matter to her at all. + +In the middle of the act something seemed to actually draw her eyes to +his mother's face. Lizzie Trott, with an expression half bewildered, +half abashed, was gazing past her son straight at her. The eyes of the +two met in a steady stare of infinite curiosity. The eyes of the woman +of the world seemed to cling to the eyes of youth and purity. The former +sank first. Lizzie Trott's wavered and fell to the dainty handkerchief +in her lap. + +"She is like John about the mouth and eyes," Tilly thought. "Poor woman! +I could love her. For John's sake I could love her. Yes, I could love +her. In spite of what she is, I could love her. Poor woman! Poor woman! +And she is John's mother--actually his mother! She is not wholly bad. I +see that in her face. Something is wrong. She looks tired, sad, +disgusted." + +Tilly now saw John with a flurried look in his eyes glance toward the +entrance. She read his thoughts. He was wondering if they might not get +away. He was dreading something, but what she knew not. Perhaps he was +afraid that his mother might at the end of the performance come across +boldly and introduce herself to her daughter-in-law, and perhaps make a +scene as she had done the day before. Again Tilly looked at her +mother-in-law. Their eyes met once more and clung together with almost +mystic comprehension. + +"Don't be afraid," Lizzie Trott's whole aspect seemed to say. "We'll go +away. I understand, and I'll not make it hard for you." + +And a moment later she was whispering something into the ear of her +companion, and the two rose and went out. John saw their backs as they +left, and Tilly noticed the expression of vast relief in his face. + +"Poor woman!" Tilly said to herself. "We could be friends. She is a real +woman, after all. She'd have to be to be John's mother." + +An hour later they were leaving the tent. Tilly declined John's +invitation to go to the soda-water and ice-cream parlor across the +street where a gay crowd under revolving fans were taking seats at +numerous small white tables. + +"I don't care for anything," she assured him. "Let's walk on. The night +is lovely and it looks like it is close in there." + +On his strong arm she hung tenderly as they strolled slowly back to the +cottage. John was changed. A sort of blight seemed to have swept over +him. She understood the cause of it and loved him all the more. That he +would never open his lips on the subject she was sure, but she could +read many of his thoughts which burrowed through some of his roundabout +utterances, as, for instance, what he said as they stood at their little +gate. + +"We must have some good long talks about my business," he said. "About +what's far ahead, you know, as well as right now. Sam wants me here. In +fact, he pretends to think he can't do without me to help out in several +big contracts, but between me and you-- I was wondering yesterday what +you'd think if I was to tell you that I'm just fool enough to think that +I could go to some big Western city and light on my feet right at the +start. A fellow that sells cement and lime to us told me not long ago +that I could hit it big out in Seattle. He was looking over some of my +figures that Sam showed him. I was wondering-- You see, I am a little +afraid that you might not like to go away so far from your kin, with a +big hulk of a scamp like me, and--and--" John swung the gate open and +seemed unable further to direct his anxious outpourings. + +Tilly understood--too well she understood what he meant, what he +feared--and she made up her mind that a dubious move for her sake only +should not be taken. John had not thought of such a thing before +marriage. Why should it happen now? + +"I don't think you really ought to make a change just yet," she said, +firmly. "Mr. Cavanaugh is determined to push you ahead as fast as +possible. He told me so the other day. He said he needed your brain for +expert estimates and calculations, and that there were big things ahead +of you both as a firm." + +John was now unlocking the door, and the dark interior of the house +seemed to add more gloom to his troubled bearing. "Oh, Sam's all right," +he said. "Sam means well and would do right by me, but--but I can't say +exactly that I like this town. There is nothing to it. They tell me that +the West is a different proposition. Folks don't--don't meddle in one +another's business out there. It is more free and easy, not so hidebound +and overrun with hypocrisy. A man is judged by what he is--by the amount +of gray matter he has in his skull, by his character, and not by--not +by--well any little thing that he can't help, you know. I mean, well, +like what you saw there to-night--that gang of stuck-up boys and girls, +living on their family backing. The world's wide, and, God or no God, +there must be better things dealt out than this. I mean than this is to +_some_. I never thought much about it when I first began to think you +might come here with me, but I do now, and there is no use denying it. +Of course, I don't want Sam to know yet. He would do all he could to +help me, but Sam is--is just Sam, as helpless against some difficulties +as I am." + +"Don't light the gas yet." Tilly caught his hand entreatingly. A deep +sob of sympathy filled her throat, and she drew him to the little wicker +seat on the porch. "Let's sit awhile here where it is cool. It is warm +in the house." + +They sat side beside each other. + +"I see. You don't want any Western experiments," he said, plaintively, +his great fingers toying with her hair and now and then touching her +brow. "That is the way of a woman." + +"I think," Tilly said, leaning her head against his breast and holding +his hand in hers, "that we ought to let well enough alone." Her thoughts +sank into inexpression and ran on. Should she tell him that she knew +all--knew what he was trying to run from on her account--and assure him +that she wanted to face the whole situation? But how could she tell him, +knowing how sensitive his sudden awakening had made him to the awful +matter? If he had wanted her to know it he would have brought it up +himself. No, that must wait, for to let him know that she knew all would +only add to his pain. He was finding a sort of respite in her supposed +ignorance of the situation; she would let it be so for a while, anyway. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +On that day a thing of no little importance was happening at Cranston. +Various members of Whaley's church were holding a meeting at the +farm-house of a certain Simon Suggs. They numbered seven in all, +including Mrs. Suggs, who was supposed to take no part beyond supplying +the group with fresh cider, which had been kept cool in a spring-house +and was now served with warm gingerbread. But she was alert, open-eyed, +and open-eared to all that was done and said. + +The meeting was called to order by Suggs himself. "As I understand it," +he began, rising and clearing his throat, "the object of this meeting is +to take a vote on what we ought to do in the matter under discussion. Do +I hear any motion in that respect?" + +"I move," said a wizen-faced little man in a high, piping voice, "that +we all go in a body to Brother Whaley and lay the matter before him. +Grave charges have been preferred against him as a consistent church +member, and a proposition has been made to turn him out. I hold that he +deserves at least a chance to make a statement--show his side, if he has +got one, even before it goes to the official board. Most of you contend +that he was aware of what he was doing from the start." + +"Of course he knowed!" cried out another man, who was a shoemaker and +bore the marks of his trade on his hands. "Wasn't that contractor +hand-in-glove with him, and didn't Cavanaugh know the whole thing as +plain as the nose on his face? I know a man that went straight to +Brother Whaley and told him this Trott was an atheist, and my informant +offered to bring sworn evidence of all that Trott had said on that line, +the most damnable talk, by the way, that hell ever had spouted in our +midst." + +"Oh, I'm admitting that part," the wizen-faced little man piped in. "I +admit all that, Brother Tumlin. Brother Whaley had heard of that, but it +seems that Cavanaugh persuaded him to gloss it over and leave the fellow +in Tilly's hands for gradual conversion to the truth; but as to the +other matter--the thing that is too dirty to talk about even here to you +men while Sister Suggs is out of the room--" + +"He knew that, too," broke in the shoemaker, angrily. "How could he keep +from it? We got it, didn't we? Isn't Trott's mother notorious?" + +"I'm not disputing that," the little man went on. "All I want to set +forth is that, even though Brother Whaley thinks he is the only man in +seven states that can interpret Scripture right and does know +considerable on that line, he is entitled to a fair show from us." + +"I wonder, brethren"--it was Mrs. Suggs who now appeared, wiping her fat +hands on her blue-and-white checked apron--"I wonder if I might be +allowed to put in a bare word right here?" + +Silence prevailed. A look of vague dissent passed over the solemn faces. +Suggs pulled at his stubby chin whiskers and knitted his bushy brows. +"If I'm chairman," he said, dryly, "I may or may not, according to my +discretion, permit Sister Suggs to speak; but as her husband, brethren, +I think if I don't give her a chance she will make it hot for me, so if +she will promise to fetch in some more cold cider right off I'll let her +speak." + +"Oh yes, let her," a voice said in a drowsy tone from the horsehair sofa +in a corner. "In my time I've known women to hit a nail on the head when +twenty men had either missed it or bent it double and spoiled the +woodwork. What is it, sister? Shoot it out! Saint Paul was against women +talking in public, but I like to listen to 'em--I do." + +"I was just thinking of one thing, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen"--Mrs. +Suggs bowed her frowsy head formally. She had presided at a church +meeting of her sex once or twice, and there was something more than +imitation of her husband's manner in her tone and bearing--"I was +thinking of one particular thing that men are apt to overlook in a +scramble like this seems to be, and that is this. I may as well tell you +that I've had talks with the wife of the man under investigation, and, +as I know how to handle a woman as well as the next one, I dropped on to +a few things that I'll bet you all will overlook." + +There was a sudden commotion in the yard, and, springing up, Suggs went +to a window, parted the curtains, and looked out. Turning, he rapped on +the back of his chair with his big pocket-knife and stared at his wife. + +"That cow has pushed the rails down and got to the calf again," he said. +"Either you or me will have to go out and part 'em. Of course I'm +willing to do it, but if I am to conduct this meeting properly, why--" + +"I move we take a recess," spoke up the wizen-faced man, "just long +enough to dispose of the cow-and-calf matter, and then come back and +finish up in here." + +"No, I'll go attend to it," Mrs. Suggs sighed. "I know how to handle +her, but you fellows have got to hold my place open. I'll be right back. +It is just a baby calf, and I can tote it about in my arms. I'll drop +it over in the old hog-pen till later." + +She had scarcely left the room when a lank man past middle age, with +long beard that was quite gray in spots and black as to the remainder, +stood up. "Would it be in order, Mr. Chairman," he began, "while the +lady whom you have recognized as having the floor is absent, for me to +say a word or two, being as this matter is _pro bono publico_ and vital +to us all--in fact, is the _primum mobile_ of our faith in the Almighty +and His plans?" + +"You have the floor, Professor Cardell. Hold on to it," Suggs said, +formally. "If you don't get through before my wife parts the cow and +calf she will just have to wait, that's all. That's one reason I never +thought women had a right to dabble in matters like this. They would get +interested in it and burn a pan of bread to cinders, or let a helpless +baby crawl out of its swaddlings into the fire. Go ahead, but I'd hurry +up a little. When there is a debate of any sort on my wife can do her +housework ten times as quick as ordinarily, if the work is holding her +back from the talk." + +Professor Cardell pulled at his beard till his lips smacked and his +white teeth showed. "I'm of the opinion, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen," he +began, "that Whaley was tempted by the big wages young Trott was +drawing, and all that Cavanaugh had to say about what Trott was apt to +amount to in the future. As we all know, _facilis descensus Averno est_, +and any man with natural greed in his veins is subject to temptation. +Therefore I wish to state quite plainly--" + +"Well, plain or not plain," Mrs. Suggs was heard saying, as she bustled +into the room, brushing short brown hairs from her dress and frowning on +the speaker, "I don't intend to have my place gobbled up behind my +back. Huh! I reckon not! You stout, able-bodied men let me do the dirty +work, and make that a reason for depriving me of my liberty of opinion +and the use of free speech." + +"As I see it," rapped Suggs with his knife, "Professor Cardell has just +got to a point that if he wasn't allowed to go on he'd have to go back +to the beginning and start over. I've noticed that he is that kind of a +speaker, and as time is--" + +"Professor Cardell nor no other creature in pants can take my place," +Mrs. Suggs fumed. "What is he saying, anyway? You men ought to be +ashamed of yourselves, setting here like stranded catfish, swallowing +all them foreign words and pretending you understand 'em. He whirls off +a lot of jumbled talk and the last one of you look as wise as a sleepy +ape in the corner of a cage in a circus." + +"I see I ought to apologize." Professor Cardell wore a flush which +looked as if it had its rise in scholastic pride rather than in rebuked +humility. "I am well aware that my phraseology is interspersed with +Latin, but that is due to my constant reading of the ancient classics +and a habit I have when I am alone of holding converse in that beautiful +tongue." + +"Beautiful, a dog's hind foot!" cried Mrs. Suggs. "Listen to me, +Professor Cardell. I can give you valuable advice, and I'm going to do +it here and now. You'd make much more headway, and clothe and feed your +wife and children a sight better, if you would throw all that gibberish +overboard and talk stuff that folks understand. Now nobody else hasn't +had the face to tell you the truth about this, but I will. You know when +you put in application as principal of the new school, and was turned +down so flat? Now I got it straight from the wife of one of the +committee who was to select the teacher, that when you got up before +that body of plain farm folks to show what you could do, and begun all +that Latin chatter, you cooked your goose for good and all. And, while I +hold nothing against you otherwise, I agree with them. I've always heard +that Latin is a dead language, and if that is so, it ought to be used on +dead folks and not on live ones. No living person can understand half +you say, and therefore I claim that your talk on this matter ought not +to go before what I've got to say in words so plain that a fool can +understand." + +"I yield the floor to the lady," the Professor said in confusion. +"_Prior tempore, prior jure._ She has it by rights, and I beg the pardon +of the chair: and the assembly." + +"Thank you, Professor," Mrs. Suggs said, as she picked at a few stray +calf hairs on her sleeve. "I wouldn't insist if I wasn't sure that I've +got something to say in plain English that you all will overlook. It is +this, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen. I've had friendly talks with Sister +Whaley and she has sort of let me in on her troubles and fears. Now +there is just one thing that will happen if you botch this matter. Dick +Whaley is the biggest fool and the wildest man when he is mad that ever +lived, and, while you haven't thought of it, this thing may bring about +bloodshed. He has already brought one man to death's door, and this will +be the worst thing for Brother Whaley to stand of anything that ever +crossed his path. He might have stood the talk about his son-in-law +being an atheist, but he'll never put up with what is being said about +selling his own child to a life of infamy, and the likelihood of his +being the grandfather of stock of that sort. If you fellers go on with +this, the innocent blood of more than one person may be on your heads. +Now I'm giving you fair warning, and I'm doing it in time to set you +all to thinking. Serving God is our duty, but if you fellows go over to +Dick Whaley's with this cock-and-bull yarn that you just heard from a +man peddling through the country, you will be led there by the devil +himself. That is all I've got to say." + +She sat down. There was a lengthy silence. The men glanced from one to +another in helpless inquiry of rapidly shifting eyes. Then a composite +stare became fixed upon Suggs's troubled lineaments. He arose, shrugged, +knitted his brows, and coughed. + +"There is something in what my wife has said," he began, "and, on the +whole, it may be that we ought to wait a little while before we take +this thing up. The whole country is rife with it, and Brother Whaley is +bound to hear it. He may act rash--in fact, now that I think of it, he +will be sure to do it, and I'm going to be frank and say here and now +that I'd rather not handle matches around as big a powder-can as this +one is. So if you will bring in the cider and cakes, Sister Suggs, I'll +adjourn this meeting _sine die_. By the way, that's Latin, isn't it, +Professor?" + +"Yes," the Professor answered, warmly grateful for being applied to, +"but I'd prefer the less common and more erudite term of _re infecta_." + +"Which means," replied Suggs, without intending to joke, "that we may be +infected again?" + +"Oh no, not that, by any means!" the Professor responded. "You quite +miss the point. You see, my worthy brother, in the Latin language--" + +But the cider and cake was being brought in; the men were rising to +receive the glasses which were tinkling on a tray, and good humor and +smug rectitude prevailed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +One morning Tilly was occupied in the little front yard of her home. +Some rose-bushes needed attention, and with a pair of large scissors she +was pruning the branches and cutting the weeds away with a garden +trowel. Suddenly, happening to glance toward the town, she noticed one +of the street-hacks approaching. There was no doubt that it was headed +for the cottage, and a sudden qualm of alarm passed over her. Indeed, +she feared that some accident might have happened to John, for he had +told her that he was at work on a scaffold to which large stones were +being hoisted. The negro cabman seemed to be in a hurry, for he was +lashing his horse vigorously. + +The cab stopped at the gate. The door was opened and Richard Whaley +stepped out. He wore his best suit of clothes, but it was badly wrinkled +and covered with dust. His black-felt hat was crushed, and its broad +brim had been pulled down over his eyes. Tilly heard him order the man +to wait, and the tone of his voice sent a shock of terror through her. +She had never heard him speak like that before, nor had she beheld such +a look in his haggard face. His whole form drooped and quivered as with +palsy as he came toward the gate. + +"Father!" Tilly gasped, but she said no more, for the wild stare of the +bloodshot eyes cowed her into silence. He swung open the gate and lunged +into the yard. + +"Where is that--where is John Trott?" he asked, panting, saliva like +that of an idiot dripping from his shaking lip. "Where is he, I say?" + +Tilly saw the negro staring curiously. She knew he was listening. Almost +deprived of her wits, yet she was thoughtful, and she said: + +"Come in, father; come in?" + +"Oh, he is inside, is he?" + +"Come in," Tilly answered, evasively. "Let's not talk out here." + +She led the way into the sitting-room and tremblingly placed a chair for +him, noting as she did so that his coarse shoes were untied, his hat +without a band, his cravat awry, his shirt unclean. He refused the +chair, and stood holding to the back of it with a besmudged hand. Then +her alert eyes took in the bulge of the right-hand pocket of his short +coat. A weighty article drew it sharply downward. She knew that it was a +revolver, and her blood ran cold in her veins. + +"Where is John Trott?" Whaley demanded, raspingly, and he looked toward +the door leading into the dining-room. That room was darkened and he +bent and peered toward it like a beast about to spring on its prey. + +"He is not here, father," Tilly said, in almost a gentle whisper. + +"Not here? Where has he gone?" + +She hesitated and then answered, "Out in the country, father." + +"I don't believe it." He turned, automatically laid his hand on his +revolver, and left the room. She stood still. She heard him stalking +from room to room, now striking against a chair or a table or tripping +on a rug. Through the window she saw the cabman, his gaze on the cottage +door. Whaley passed the window; he was walking around the house; his +hand was in his right pocket; he stumbled over a tuft of grass, almost +fell, and uttered a snort of fury. She raised a window at the side of +the house, and saw him looking into the little woodshed in the rear of +the lot. He turned and strode back to the cottage, entering at the +kitchen door and clamping over the resounding floor back to her. + +"Where is he? I say," he snarled. + +"I told you, father," she said. "Why--what is the matter? What do you +want? Why are you so excited?" + +"You know well enough!" he cried. "Don't stand there and tell me that +you don't know all or more than I do. Show him to me. I want to meet the +white-livered atheistic agent of hell. And when I do meet him he'll +never sneak into another respectable home like he did in mine. Do you +know what is being said? Do you know what is spreading from county to +county up home?" + +"I can imagine," Tilly sighed. She felt faint. The objects in the room, +the glaring fanatic, the sunny windows were swinging around her. She +pulled herself together. She told herself she must be strong. Unless she +conquered her weakness and held taut her wits her husband would be +killed. What was to be done? Suddenly an idea came. She told herself +that it might work. There was nothing else to do, and at any cost she +must prevent the meeting of the two men. Another moment and the madman +might be driving away in search for his victim. + +"Father," she began, and she advanced to him and started to lay her hand +on his arm, but he drew back and snarled like an infuriated beast. + +"Did you know about that strumpet, Liz Trott, before you married her +son?" he asked. + +"No, father, I did not; but you don't understand John's position--" + +"Understand the devil and all his imps! He'll understand me when I meet +him; that will be enough." + +"Father, sit down, please. John is away out in the country and won't be +home for a long time. Please, please don't raise a row here and stir up +this whole town. John is suffering enough without that. Now listen to +me. You know I have some rights. I am a married woman now, and I've got +a heart and soul in me. I've got the right as an innocent woman not to +be dragged into a scandal like this. If you shot John in your present +fury I'd have to be held as a witness, and you'd be put in jail. You are +a religious man. Surely you ought to know that God would not forgive you +for treating your own child as you are about to treat me. I am willing +to go home with you right away--this minute! The cab is waiting, and we +could catch the twelve-o'clock train. Surely you regretted that other +shooting affair you had, and are grateful to God for sparing you from +the worst. I'll pack up and go. It won't take me long." + +Slowly and limply he sank into a chair. His soot-streaked hands clutched +his knees and he groaned. She saw him shake his frowsy head and a tremor +went through him. He was being twisted between the hands of two forces. +He was silent for several minutes, save for his loud breathing. Glancing +through the window, Tilly saw that the negro had approached the gate. +She went to the window and leaned out. + +"Can you tell me," she asked him, as he saw her and lifted his hat, +"what time the Tennessee north-bound train leaves?" + +"Twelve ten, miss," he answered, trying to read the suppressed mystery +of her features. "Do you need me in dar? Dat man look' dangerous ter me, +miss." + +"Oh no." She shook her head and forced a smile. "But I want to ask--can +you take us to the station, and a small trunk also?" + +"Yes'm." + +"Hold on!" It was Whaley's voice, and he had risen. "Tell that nigger +to-- Let me speak to him. Do you think I came down here to--" + +Tilly thrust her small person between him and the window. She laid two +opposing hands on his breast and checked him. + +"I'm going to save you from murder-- I will, I will!" she said, +desperation filling her voice with power and causing his fierce stare to +flicker. "If you meet my husband you will shoot him and the blood of a +helpless, suffering, noble man will be on your head. You know what the +brand on Cain was. You will bear it till you meet God with it on your +brow. Do you think He'd forgive you? No, you'd have to burn for it in +eternal torment, and you know it. You know you thanked God for sparing +you before. Are you going to do even a worse thing now?" + +He sank, half pushed down by her, into his chair. She saw the revolver, +now exposed by his gaping pocket, and had an impulse to take it, but +realized that the act would infuriate him anew. So she left it alone and +stood squarely in front of him. + +"You are not going to damn your soul," she went on, firmly. "Jesus, your +Saviour and mine, forgave the guilty and you are refusing to pardon +_even the innocent_. You are going to take me home. You are going to sit +quietly there till I pack my trunk, and then we'll take the cab to the +train." + +He groaned under a vast inrolling wave of indecision, and stared at her +like a helpless, thwarted child, and yet she knew that the flames +smoldering within him were apt to burst at any moment. + +"I want to go home," she said. "I'm giving you this chance to take me in +a decent way. If you refuse, I don't know what I'll do, but you'd better +take me. For your sake and mine, you'd better do it. Now, I am being +driven to the wall, father, and down inside of me is your stubborn +nature when it is roused. You harm my husband, and see what I'll do. +I'll swear against you at the court of man. I'll appear against you on +the Day of Judgment." + +He stared at her helplessly. His great mouth fell open and he groaned. +"I understand, and--and you may be right," he faltered. "But you'd +better hurry. I know myself, and I know that if I met him I'd put him +out of the way if all hell stood between me and him. He has dragged my +name down into the mire and made me a laughing-stock before all men. I'm +pointed at, sneered at--called a senile fool." + +"I'll hurry," she promised. "It won't take long." + +In the little bedroom she threw open her trunk and began hastily to +pack. New fears were now assailing her. What if John should suddenly +come home for something he had left, as he had done once or twice? +Indeed, there on the bureau lay the blue-and-white drawing which only +the night before he had been studying. He might come for that, using +Cavanaugh's horse and buggy, as he frequently did. The thought chilled +her to the marrow of her bones. In her haste she all but tore her simple +dresses from their hooks in the closet and stuffed them, unfolded, into +the trunk. Now and then a little stifled sob escaped her. Her father +sat still and soundless in the other room. She wanted to brush his +clothes, tie his shoes, and fix his hatband before starting away, but +time was too valuable. + +There was a pad of writing-paper and a pencil on the bureau, and she +told herself that she must write John a note and leave it. She closed +and locked her trunk. Then she turned to the pad. She took up the pencil +and started to write, but was interrupted. Her father crossed the hall +and stood in the doorway. + +"What are you doing?" he asked, a suspicious gleam in the eyes which +took in the pad and pencil. + +"Nothing. I am ready," she replied, dropping the pencil and turning to a +window. "Come in and get the trunk," she ordered the cabman. + +Nothing was said by Whaley or herself now, for the negro, hat in hand, +was entering. And when he had left with the trunk, Tilly said: + +"Come on, father, let's go." + +Sullenly and still with a haunting air of indecision on him, he trudged +ahead of her out into the yard. She closed the door but did not lock it. + +"How can I get a message to John?" she asked herself. "There is no way +that I can see, and yet I must--oh, I must!" + +Her father had gone to the cab, opened the door himself, and stood +waiting for her. In the open sunshine, his unshaven face had a grisly, +ashen look; his bloodshot eyes held flitting gleams of insanity. His +lips moved. He was talking to himself. She saw him clench his fist and +hammer the glass door of the cab. + +The negro was immediately behind Tilly. She turned while her father's +eyes were momentarily averted. "Listen," she said, in a low tone. "See +my husband when he returns home to-night; tell him that my father came +for me and that I had to leave. Tell him not to come up home." + +The negro's bare pate nodded beside the trunk on his shoulder. He seemed +to understand, but made no other response, for Whaley's suspicious eyes +were now on him and his daughter. + +"Get in! Get in!" Whaley gulped, and stood holding the cab door. + +She obeyed, and he followed and crowded into the narrow seat beside her. +Through the glass of the opposite door she saw the white tombstones of +the town's burial-place, the roof of Lizzie Trott's house above the +trees, and the jagged, boulder-strewn hills beyond. The next moment the +cab had turned toward the station and was trundling along the rutted, +seldom-used street. Whaley's gaping pocket was within an inch of her +hand, and Tilly could have taken out the revolver, but she did not dare +do so, for that might fire him anew, and she had determined to run no +risks whatever. The smoke of factory chimneys streaked the horizon above +the town. She heard the bell of a switch-engine in the distant +railway-yard. They met a grocer's delivery-wagon. It was taking some +ordered things to the cottage, but Tilly dared not stop to explain, and, +as the grocer's boy did not recognize her, the two conveyances passed +each other. In an open lot some boys were playing ball. How could they +play so unconcernedly when to the young wife the whole universe seemed +to be whirling to its doom? + +A little street-car was rumbling down an incline not far away. It seemed +to have a few passengers. What if one of them should be John? And what +if, on finding her gone, he should hasten to town and meet her father +before the train left? + +"What time is it?" she asked her father, with forced nonchalance. He +made no answer, and she reached over and drew his open-faced silver +watch from the pocket of his waistcoat; but he had forgotten to wind it, +and it had stopped at three o'clock. She put the timepiece back with +difficulty, for he was leaning forward and made no effort to aid her. + +They were soon within sight of the station. Groups of men and boys stood +about. She shuddered at the thought of meeting their gaze. Cavanaugh +might be among them, and she feared the consequences of her father's ire +on seeing him. And when the cab had stopped and they had alighted Tilly +noticed that the men were exchanging remarks and staring at her and her +father. Surely they suspected something, and why? she wondered. Some of +them came closer and eyed her attentively while pretending not to do so. + +Tilly had her purse, and she sent the cabman for the tickets and ordered +him to check her trunk. There was a little waiting-room, and, desiring +more seclusion, she led her father into it. But they were not thus to +escape the stare of the bystanders, for many of them walked past the +door and looked in curiously. One of them wore the uniform of a +policeman, and it seemed as if he were about to address some inquiry to +her, but decided not to do so when he saw the cabman delivering the +tickets and trunk-check to her. The clock on the wall indicated twelve. +Ten minutes to wait. She was beginning to hope that all would be well +when the ticket-seller came from his office and with a piece of chalk +wrote on a blackboard bulletin: + +"36 North-bound 15 minutes late." + +The time dragged. More curious persons came to the door, stared, and +even paused. The cabman came for his fare. She paid him for the use of +his cab all the morning. "Don't forget," she whispered. + +"I won't, miss," he said, comprehendingly, and thereupon she put some +more money into his hand. + +"Please, please, don't forget!" she repeated. + +She watched him as he walked away, and then she saw the policeman join +him, and the two turned to one side and began to talk earnestly +together. + +At last the train came. Through a gaping throng, ever increasing, she +led her father to a seat in one of the coaches. There was only a short +stop, and the train was soon moving again. The relief was great, and a +vast sense of weakness came over her. She felt like crying, but she knew +that would never do. She yearned for the opportunity to confide in some +one. It could not be her mother, for she had never been understood by +her mother. There was one friend who would understand, who had always +understood, and that was Joel Eperson. Joel would be grieved. She was +the wife of another, but that would make no difference to Joel Eperson, +for that he was still faithful to her she did not doubt. She told +herself that she must see Joel at once and get his advice. She could +think of no one else upon whom she could so confidently rely, and she +must go to some one, for all the initiative she had ever possessed +seemed to have been ruthlessly destroyed along with every girlish dream, +hope, and ideal. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +It was dark that evening when John arrived home. As he opened the gate +he was surprised to see that the cottage was not lighted. That was +indeed strange, for Tilly was usually in the kitchen or the dining-room +at that hour. The next remarkable thing was the fact that the key was in +the lock. He felt it and heard it rattle as he caught the door-knob. The +hall was dark and silent. He went in hurriedly. What could have +happened? Where could she be? He called out: "Tilly! Tilly!" but there +was no response. A gray cat that belonged to the Carrols came and rubbed +against his ankles as he stood in the kitchen. He lighted the gas. How +odd! for there lay the unwashed breakfast-dishes, the uncleaned +coffee-pot, and in the dining-room the breakfast table-cloth had not +been removed. He put down his dinner-pail, and, with a great fear +clutching his breast, a fear he could not have defined, he went into the +sitting-room. Nothing here was out of place, and he turned into the +bedroom. It was dark, and with unsteady hands he struck a match. It +broke. A blazing globule fell to the mat. He swore impatiently and +extinguished it with his foot. He struck another and lighted the gas. +The open door of the closet, now empty, met his eyes. A crushed hat-box +lay on the floor, the bureau drawers were wide open and contained but a +few things. He looked for Tilly's trunk. It was gone. Then he began to +look everywhere for some written communication, lighting all the +gas-jets to facilitate his search. Then he gave it up. He went about +extinguishing the gas as aimlessly and mechanically as a sleepwalker, +unaware of the things he was touching. + +He went out on the porch. He stepped down into the yard. Verbal +expression of no sort was formed in his consciousness, for the pall of +comprehension had not yet quite enveloped him. Something yet of hope +might blaze forth out of his gloom. Ah, perhaps she had received a +telegram from home that some one was ill and had not had time to inform +him. Yes, it might be that--that and not the other--not the damnable, +sinister conceit that somehow seemed to emerge from the home of his +mother and come crawling like a designing monster across the intervening +spaces toward him. He went to the gate and clutched it with the strong +hand which all that day had lifted mortar and bricks till his muscles +were sore. Then he heard the sound of wheels. A horse and cab were +approaching from the direction of the town. + +"Ah, a message is coming!" he cried, a vast rising relief driving the +words from him. + +"Is dat you, Mr. Trott?" The cabman was reining his horse in at the +gate. + +"Yes. What is it?" John went out to the cab and stood breathlessly +waiting for the negro to speak. + +"Why, yo' wife tol' me ter tell you, sir, dat--but, bless me if I wasn't +so rattled dat I hardly remember what it was she said." + +"My wife, my wife, what about her?" + +"Why, I done fetch 'er father here, sir, dis morning," the man went on +in stammering tones. "He was rampagin' up 'n' down de Square, askin' +whar you was. He had a gun an' was out er his head. Dar wasn't no +policeman about, en' nobody else knowed how ter handle him. He sure was +dangerous! Seems like he done hear about--well, you know--about yo' ma, +an' Miss Jane Holder, an'--an' de high jinks over dar night after night, +an' fines, drinks, poker an' all dat. He didn't talk to me, sir, but +some of de white folks dat he saw in de stores said he claimed dat you +abdicated his young daughter 'fo' she was old enough ter decide fer +herself. I didn't want ter fetch 'im here, for blood was in his eyes, +but I was afraid not to, wid him settin' behind me wid dat gun in his +pocket, so I driv' him over, knowin' you was out in der country at work +an' safe fer a while, anyway." + +"But my wife--my wife?" John all but pleaded. "What about her?" + +"I don't know 'cept she tuck 'im inside an' sorter quieted 'im down and +tol' 'im she wanted to go home ter her ma. Some a de white folks up-town +say she didn't know what she was gettin' her foot into down here nohow, +an', now she found out, she was glad ernough to get away. One an' all +say she is plumb decent herself, just er plain country girl wid good +up-bringin'. Some of 'em is b'ilin' mad at you an' yo' boss." + +John stifled a rising groan. "Damn you," he said, "cut all that out and +tell me if my wife left any message for me." + +"Yes, sir, she did--now I remember, but she had ter give it ter me on de +sly, an' I didn't git all of it. She said tell you she had ter go--dat +she had stood it as long as she could, an'--oh yes, she said fer you not +ter dare ter show yo'se'f up dar at 'er ol' home." + +"And have they left town?" John asked, with strange calmness. + +"Oh yes, sir! Dey tuck de twelve-ten train." + +"That will do." John motioned for him to go. "I understand." + +The negro turned his horse around and started back to town. John stood +stock-still, his eyes on the cab disappearing in the gloom. He had stood +that way for several minutes when a small hand was slipped into his from +behind, and, looking around, he saw the soiled face and matted hair of +Dora Boyles. + +"Brother John," she faltered, "has Tilly left you--really--really left +you?" + +He dropped her hand and shoved her from him. "Go home!" he cried. "Go +home, and don't bother me!" + +She fell back a yard or so and stood staring at him. "I won't go till +you tell me," she said, stubbornly. "I started over here this morning to +show Tilly my doll and get her to help me dress it. I saw that +crazy-looking old man come in a cab and take her and her trunk away. She +was white--oh, she was as white as a sheet, and so pitiful-looking!" + +"Go home, I tell you! Go home!" John gulped and snarled like a man +goaded at once by grief and physical pain. "Go home, I tell you! Leave +me alone!" + +"I suppose that means she _has_ left," the child reasoned aloud. "Well, +brother John, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, because I liked her awfully well. +But I'm not surprised. Aunt Jane told your ma yesterday--and it made her +mad. My! didn't the old girl rip and snort? Aunt Jane told her this +thing would happen sooner or later. She said no woman alive could stay +cooped up in a little box like this very long and not have a single soul +go near her, and you off all day." + +John laid his hand roughly on the child's shoulder and smothered an +oath of fury. "You go home!" he panted. "If you don't, I'll--" + +"You'll do nothing!" The child smiled fearlessly. "Your bark is worse +than your bite, brother John. But I'm going. I'll come back, though. +I'll be over to clean up and cook something for you. You won't come back +to our old shack, I know." + +When she had left he went into the cottage, but he did not light the gas +again. The darkness seemed more suitable to his mood. He sat down on the +edge of his and Tilly's bed. His massive hand sank into her pillow. It +was past his supper hour, but he had no desire to eat. The sheer thought +of the kitchen where his young wife had worked, somehow suggested her +death. A little round metal clock on the mantel was ticking sharply. He +got up and wound it, as usual, at that hour. He went into the +sitting-room. Here he sat down, lurched forward in unconscious weakness, +and then, swearing impatiently, he steadied himself. He remained there +only a minute. Rising, he went into the dining-room, felt about, as a +blind man might, for a chair, and sank into it. Crossing his arms on the +table, he rested his head on them. Had he been a weaker man he might +have pitied himself. He had always contended that a man who could not +bear pain and adversity had a "yellow streak" in him. He had once had a +painful operation performed without an anesthetic, and he now told +himself that he simply must master the things within and without him +which had combined to overthrow him. He ground his teeth together. He +clenched his fingers till the nails of some of them broke. + +He closed his eyes. He tried to imagine that he was becoming drowsy and +that he would soon sleep, but a thousand pictures floated through his +brain and dug themselves in like burrowing animals. Chief among them was +a view of Whaley striding about the Square, uttering slobbering +anathemas against him. Another scene was that of Tilly's receiving the +revelation he himself had shrunk from making. He saw the blight fall on +her bonny face and her calm and inevitable consent to abandon him +forever. And yet how could he bear _that_--exactly _that_? He groaned +against the smooth surface of the table. He was ashamed of his frailty, +for the mastery of himself seemed farther off, almost an impossibility. + +The iron latch of the gate clicked. A heavy step grated on the gravel +walk. He sat up straight and listened. The cast-iron door-bell rang. +There was a pause, then a step sounded in the hall. Some one was +entering unbidden and stalking into the house. + +"Oh, John--Johnny, my boy! Where are you?" It was Cavanaugh's voice +filled with fluttering grief, tenderness, dismay. + +"Here I am!" John did not rise. "Here, in the dining-room." + +"But the light--the light. Why don't you--" + +Cavanaugh broke off as he stood in the doorway. He paused there for a +moment, as if wondering what state a light would reveal the crouched +form of his friend to be in. + +"I don't want a light, Sam," John muttered. "You can have one if you +want it. Here are some matches--but, no, I'll light up. When I came in I +was so tired that I sat down here a minute, and--well, I must have--have +dropped asleep. But what the hell's the use to lie to _you_?" He struck +a match and held it to the gas-jet over the table beneath the gaudy +porcelain shade. His writhing face, in the sudden flare of light, was +white, holding a tint even of green. He sank back into his chair. "No, +I won't lie, Sam. Besides, if you haven't already heard you will soon +enough." + +"I _have_ heard," Cavanaugh admitted. "I heard it at home from a +neighbor. Then I went to the Square to make sure, and--" + +"I know. It's town talk, a delicious tidbit for women and loafers," John +sneered. "Well, well, it is done, Sam. It has happened, and that is all +there is to it." + +"I hurried over to see you and talk with you," Cavanaugh went on. "I +don't know what step you want to take." + +"I'll take none," John answered, grimly. "You don't think I want to kill +anybody, do you? She is his daughter, and he had her before I got her. I +tell you there is no fight in me, Sam. I can fight, as you know, when it +has to be done, but there is no call for it in this case. Knowing Tilly +as I know her, and now knowing my own plight as it has been made plain +to me since I brought her here, I would think any man a damned idiot +that would allow his daughter to marry me. God! God! No, never! Sam, +Sam, I never found fault with you before, but you ought to have told me. +By God! you ought to have opened my damned sightless eyes!" + +"Don't! don't! my boy!" Cavanaugh cried, huskily. "You are breaking my +heart. I wanted you with me. I saw how you two loved one another, and I +thought I was acting right. I--I couldn't pull the bad conduct of others +between you and that sweet little girl. I am not satisfied to let it +rest as it is, either. You may not want to take any steps, but it is my +duty to try to do something." + +"Something? What the hell could you or any one do?" + +"Well, I'll tell you what struck me, my dear boy. I'm going up to +Cranston to-night and see how the land lies. I don't intend to rest idle +and know no more than I've picked up in the wild talk of men on the +streets up-town and a stupid negro cab-driver. This is a serious matter, +and I have a big duty to perform." + +"It won't do any good," John groaned, softly, and he shook his head. +"I've been thinking it all over. I began to get my eyes open as soon as +we got here. I've been a fool--a boy, a blind boy, at that, and what has +happened to-day is not such a great surprise. You needn't go up there +and beg for me, Sam. Say what you will, I am not worthy of her--that's +the whole damned truth in a nutshell." + +"Not worthy of her?" Cavanaugh protested. "How ridiculous, my boy!" + +"No, I'm not. I don't know a man that is, but I'm sure that _I_ never +can be. Do you know that in meeting me and marrying me as she did that +sweet child never had a fair deal? Other girls not as good as she is +have married men with plenty of means, not a--a stain on them, with +respectable friends and honorable blood-kin. But what have I done--my +God! what have I done? Sam, I've committed a crime. No matter how I +felt--how much I wanted her--I had no sort of right to her. No man has a +right to lay a filthy load like mine on unsuspecting, frail shoulders. +It is done, but if I could undo it and make her as free as she was +when--when I first saw her up there, I'd do it if it plunged me into the +eternal hell of flames her daddy believes in." + +Cavanaugh's sympathies were wrung dry. He sat blinking as if every word +from his protege were a blow well aimed at him. Once he started to +speak, but his voice broke and he desisted, sitting with his arms +grimly folded, his legs awkwardly crossed, a broad, dust-coated shoe +poised in mid-air. + +"Maybe I ought to have had a talk with you--_maybe_," he finally said. +"I--I prayed over it, John, but no light seemed to come to justify me in +judging anybody in the matter--not your poor, misguided mother even, for +our Lord and Saviour told us not to judge her sort. As I interpret Him, +He said them that judged was the ones that needed judgment most of all. +So on that I acted. My wife saw it a little bit different at first, but +she finally said I was right, and sanctioned it. It seems to me that +your ma is--is what she is just on the outside, anyway. The other day +out at the work, after she had said all that in hot passion, it seemed +to me that I noticed a look of shame and regret in her face, like she +realized she had gone too far. You may remember that me and her stepped +to one side just before she left, and--well, she started to cry. She did +that, John, and it meant a lot. I was seeing her with her veil off--as +you might say--I was looking beneath the paint, powder, and coming +wrinkles. You know I knew her when she was a girl. I must speak plain. +She was a beauty then, and that was her ruin, for all the hellish +designs of the sharpest of men was centered on her. Your pa was clean, +straight as a die, and loved her, but he was helpless. She loved +attention and would have it. She fell. It had to come. It meant your +pa's ruin, and it meant this blight that is on you and Tilly now; but, +my boy, I stand here as a confident witness before God Almighty and +state that nothing but good can come out of it in the long run. Peace +out of the turmoil; joy out of the shame and grief; the fragrance of +Elysian fields out of the moral stench under your mother's roof." + +"Good?" John sniffed. "Sam, don't talk to me of a God--yours or any +other man's. When you have been where I am now, you'll know more about +God than you do. God? God? God? You say he is everywhere. He's here +to-night, isn't he? Here in this room? There in the kitchen where she +left the dishes unwashed? Here where she left the door unlocked and ran +away, disgusted with me for leading her into such a mess." + +"Hush, hush, my boy!" entreated Cavanaugh, a dry sob rasping his throat. +"Don't say any more! It is almost time for my train. I'm going up there +to-night and see what can be done. Tilly will talk to me. What could she +say here to these strangers? Now, don't go to work to-morrow. Things +will move along all right for one day without us, and you won't feel +like working, anyhow. I'll get back to-morrow night at ten o'clock. Wait +for me here." + +The grim silence which now brooded over John gave consent, and Cavanaugh +rose and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Don't give up," he said. "I'm +sure I'll bring back good news. God will see to that." + +"I'll wait for you, Sam," John consented, "but it won't be as you hope. +There is no God to see to anything. God didn't help my father, did he? +Neither will he help me. The whole thing is blind chance. 'Lead us not +into temptation'! What a pitiful prayer! My mother, you say, was led in +when she was not more than a girl. Were the designing men on her track +God's agents, and is my fate, and my young wife's, a part of some plan +laid in heaven?" + +"Wait, wait!" Cavanaugh reached down and took John's inert hand and +pressed it. "I'll see you to-morrow night." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +John slept but little that night. There must have been a deep +undercurrent of sentiment in his make-up, despite his practical type of +mind, for the sight of everything Tilly had touched gave him infinite +pain. He waked frequently through the night, and even while sleeping was +tossed and torn by innumerable tantalizing dreams. He was awake at +sunup, and again the lonely mental spectator of the clouded panorama of +the day before. + +There was a sound of pans and pots being handled in the kitchen, and he +got up and went to the kitchen door. It was Dora making a fire in the +range. She glanced up, saw him, smiled sheepishly, and lowered her head. + +"There is nobody over home," she explained, apologetically. "They went +off last night to be gone two days--another trip to Atlanta with old +Roly-poly and some more. Aunt Jane was sick, but she dressed and went, +all the same. I came over to cook your breakfast, wash the dishes, and +do up the house. Why shouldn't I? There is nothing to do at home." + +He said nothing, but as he turned away a faint sense of gratitude seemed +to enter the aching void within him. A little later she called him to +the dining-room. He had eaten no supper the night before, and his +physical being demanded nourishment. He sat down and the child waited on +him. The coffee was good and bracing, the eggs and steak were prepared +to his taste, the toast brown and crisp. + +Somehow he now regarded Dora with pity. How frail, wan, and anemic she +looked! How thin and bloodless her hands and cheeks! She had the making +of a good woman in her, but she, too, was losing her chance. How sad! +How pitiful! + +"You work too hard," he suddenly said, and he wondered if that touch of +refined consideration for another had come from his contact with his +wife. "You are too little and young. Sit down yourself and eat." + +She shrugged her peaked shoulders and laughed. "I'm not hungry. I'm not +a bit hungry here lately. The only thing I care for is syrup and bread, +and they say too much of that as a regular diet will get you down in the +long run." + +He stared, his impulse toward her betterment oozing out of him. The +whistles of the factories reminded him that he was not to work that +day--that he was not to return at dark to Tilly, as had been his wont, +and he rose and went back to the bedroom. What was to take place? Why, +the day would drag by and Cavanaugh would return with some verdict or +other--some report that would settle his fate forever. + +Leaving Dora at work in the kitchen, he went outside. Desiring not to +meet any one, he made his way to the nearest wooded hillside beyond his +mother's house and the bleak, white-capped cemetery. From that coign of +vantage he saw the town stretched out beneath him. He found a great +moss-grown boulder and half lay, half sat on it. The sun climbed higher +and higher; the din of the town and its industries beat in his ears, the +buzz of a planing-mill, the clang of hammered iron. He ought not to +have attempted to pass that particular day in absolute solitude and +inactivity, but he knew naught of his own psychology. He watched for the +coming and going of trains, telling himself again and again that +Cavanaugh's return would decide his fate forever. What would he be +informed? How could he face the thing that he had told Cavanaugh +actually was to happen--that Tilly and he were to be parted forever? + +At noon he crept down the hill, keeping himself hidden till the way was +clear, then he hastened across the open to the cottage. The child, still +there, had given it a semblance of order, and his lunch was on the +table. She refused to sit with him, though he asked her in a tone that +was full of consideration and that odd, abashed tenderness for her which +seemed to be rooting in the loam of pained humility which filled him. + +"I want to know, brother John," she said, her deep-sunken eyes staring +earnestly--"I want to know if you think she is coming back?" + +He gulped down his hot coffee, and as he replaced his cup in his saucer +he said, with a touch of his old fatalistic recklessness: "I don't know. +I think not. Sam is up there to-day to--to see about it. He will be back +to-night. I don't know. I'm leaving it all to him, and--and to--her." + +Later, as he sat and smoked in the parlor he tried to read the daily +newspaper that had been left at his door, but even the boldest +head-lines foiled to catch and rivet his attention. Taking a hammer and +nails, he went into the back yard to repair a fence; but he had scarcely +started to lift the first plank into place when the incongruity of the +thing clutched him as in a vise. What was he doing? Why was he thinking +of a thing so inconsequential as that? And for whom was he putting the +fence to rights? With an oath born of sheer bleak agony, he threw the +hammer from him and dropped the nails and plank to the ground. He had +loved the place; he and Tilly had called it their "Cottage of Delight"; +he had thought he would keep it in order, and even improve it, but all +that was gone. He went back to the hillside. He watched the afternoon +melt away, saw the sun go down into a bed of crimson and pink and the +filmy cloud-curtains being drawn about the molten sleeper. + +It was growing dark when he went back to the cottage. Dora was in the +kitchen, preparing his supper. He was vaguely angered by her attention +to him. He appreciated her doglike fidelity, but it made him impatient, +for she was too small, young, and weak to do all that she was doing. + +"You must go home," he blurted out, standing in the doorway and +surveying her. "I'm able to look out for myself. I'm not hungry, anyway, +now, for you have filled me up to the neck." + +She smiled wistfully. There was a smudge of soot on her nose which gave +her face a grotesque look. Her bare legs and feet were dust-coated and +scrawny. + +"I want to be here when Mr. Cavanaugh comes back," she contended, almost +defiantly, a shadow of rigid doggedness in her eyes. + +"But you can't," he retorted with irritation. "It will be late at night +and you should be in bed." + +"I want to know what he has to say," Dora persisted, putting more wood +into the range. "Tilly was nice and good to me, and I want to know if +she is coming back. Besides--besides, _you_ want her." + +"You can't sit up around here," he said, firmly. "You've got to go +home." + +She said nothing. He thought he had offended her and was sorry for it, +but when supper was over he prevailed upon her to go. "Poor little rat!" +he mused, as he stood at the gate and watched her vanish in the night. +"She's never had a chance, and she'll never have one. Huh! Sam's God and +old Whaley's is busy counting the hairs of her head and no harm will +ever come to her--oh no, none at all!" + +John paced back and forth in the little front yard. Eight o'clock came; +nine; ten, and a little later he heard the whistle of the south-bound +train as it drew near the town. The last street-car for the night would +be leaving the Square in a few minutes. Cavanaugh would take it. He +seldom rode in a cab, and time was too valuable for him to walk +to-night. + +The minutes passed. Presently he heard the rumble of the little car as +it crossed an elevated trestle a half-mile away, then he saw its lighted +windows flitting through the pines and oaks which bordered its tracks. +It paused at the terminus. John heard the driver ordering his horse +around to the other end, and he retreated into the house. Sam should not +catch him there watching as if life or death hung on his report. It was +one thing to feel a thing, and another to show it like weak women who +weep openly for the dead, or men who cry out in pain like spoiled +children. He went into the parlor and sat down. The outer night was very +still, so still that he heard Cavanaugh's heavy tread when he was yet +some distance away. Thump, thump, thump! John found himself counting the +steps. + +"Why am I like this?" he questioned himself. "If it is to be, it _is_ to +be, and that is the end of it. I can bear it. Why not? Why shouldn't a +man bear anything that comes his way--anything, anything, even--even +_this_?" + +Cavanaugh was at the gate now. He was noiselessly opening and closing it +as if fearful of waking some one asleep in the house. + +"Is that you, Sam?" John called out from the parlor. + +"Yes, yes, my boy, it is me. I--I thought you might be in bed," and the +contractor now tiptoed into the hall and stood in the parlor doorway. + +"Oh no, I thought I'd wait up," John replied. "Like a fool, I didn't +work to-day, and you see I'm not so tired as I usually am. Come in. Got +a match? I'll light the gas. I didn't light it because it is warm +to-night and I was smoking. Did you bring any cigars with you? I've hung +on to my pipe all day and wouldn't mind a change." + +"No, I plumb forgot," Cavanaugh answered. "I had to hurry to get my +train. I didn't go about any of the stores, either--too many idle +gossipmongers hanging about. Don't light up for me. I--I-- We can talk +just as well without that. I really ought to be at home. I just thought +I'd stop by and--and--" + +He went no farther. John heard him feeling about for a chair and saw his +dim bulk sink into it. There was no doubting the man's agitation, and +why was he agitated? John thought he knew, and bared his mental breast +to the hot iron of revelation. + +"You say you didn't go out to the work to-day?" Cavanaugh said, +irrelevantly enough to explain his mien and mood. + +"No, I ought to have gone, but I didn't. I was a fool to hang around +here like this, eating my head off and making a smoke-house of my lungs. +It is the first day off I've had for a long time." + +This remark was followed by silence. Cavanaugh broke it with a slowly +released sigh. "I may as well tell you what I did," he faltered. + +"You can't tell me anything I don't know already," John quickly +interposed. "Remember, Sam, that I told you last night--" + +"I know, but I wasn't satisfied to let it rest there. I'm not satisfied +yet to--to let it rest even where it is now. I'm not done with it by a +long shot. I--I'm going back up there in--in a few days. I've got to +look deeper into the law dealing with such extraordinary cases as--" + +"The law?" John leaned back in his chair in a swift gesture of contempt. +"What the hell has the law got to do with it, Sam? Law, I say, law! Did +you ever hear of any justice dealt out by the law? Don't talk law to me. +Tell me, man to man, what you did up there." + +"What I did? Why, my boy"--Cavanaugh was floundering about in search for +a word, a phrase with which to meet the blunt attack on his +resources--"I did all I could think to do." + +"Well, out with it, Sam. I know it went against me. There is no use +beating about the bush. You saw Tilly, and she said--" + +"Oh no, I didn't see her, my boy!" The contractor leaned eagerly upon +the denial, small as it was. "I tried to, but it was impossible. She is +housed up at home like a prisoner. John, Whaley is in a dangerous mood. +I was advised not to go near the house. I started there anyway, but the +sheriff stopped me--gave me orders to stay away. I don't know how to--to +make it all plain to you, John. You see, I love Tilly and you so much +that--that this thing cuts deep. It has almost knocked out my faith in a +just Providence." + +John leaned forward; his hands hung between his knees and he clasped +them near the floor. He uttered a ghastly laugh meant to show +indifference, but which missed its mark. "You are beating about the +bush," he said, huskily, and another rasping laugh issued. "Out with it. +I'm able to have a tooth pulled. Go ahead. Get it off your chest, old +man." + +"As I said just now," Cavanaugh began again, "I'm going back to Cranston +after--after I get some legal advice down here where there is no public +excitement." + +"Excitement?" John said. "What do you mean by public excitement?" + +Cavanaugh hesitated again, and John rose and stood towering above him in +the gloom. He repeated his question, and this time there was no pretense +in his tone or mien. + +"Well, you know how a narrow-minded, backwoods community like that can +get when it is wrought up high," the contractor said, gingerly. "You +know how they are inclined to make a mountain out of a molehill. I can't +say that I met one cool-headed person up there. Men and women were so +crazy that they were frothing at the mouth. I hate to say it, John, but +they actually threatened me with bodily harm. They asked me if what had +been reported against your poor ma was true, and when I said that most +of it was they wanted to tear me limb from limb. I'll tell you the truth +and be done with it. There is no other way as I see it between friends +such as we are. My boy, a mob was forming to tar-and-feather me. The +sheriff came and warned me. He took me to the junction five miles this +side of town in his buggy and put me on the train. I saw I would harm +your interests if I stayed longer and so I took his advice. He is a +smart man, well versed in the law, and as we drove along he told me +what old Whaley is up to." + +"I can guess," John said, grimly, "and, Sam, if I was in his place I'd +do the selfsame thing. He is going to undo this marriage. I know-- I +see. Tilly is just a girl and I didn't tell her or him what to expect +down here. Am I right, Sam?" + +Cavanaugh hung fire, then he nodded his head. John could see the tangled +shock of hair moving up and down. + +"I knew that would be it," John said, returning to his chair. He sat +down, crossed his legs, and tugged at the strap of one of his shoes. It +broke off and he sat twisting it between his fingers. + +"Yes, the sheriff called it 'annulment,'" Cavanaugh resumed, more +calmly. "He said that Whaley would have no trouble putting it through +the court which is in session, now, as it happens. Even the judge is +prejudiced--seems that he had heard of your ma. They ought not to fetch +in religion, but Whaley is going to prove that you are an atheist, so +they say. So you see, my boy, that what is to be done by us must be done +in a big hurry. I am going to see Fisher and Black the first thing in +the morning. They are the best lawyers in the South. I'll be there when +they open the office. I've got money enough to plank down a good +retaining fee. You helped me make it on that court-house. Just think of +it, we are going to win our case in that very building." + +"You will not go to those lawyers, Sam." + +"You say I won't?" + +"No. I'm the one to decide that, and I've already done it." + +"What do you mean, my boy? Surely you don't intend to sit quiet and let +a lot of mountain roughnecks--" + +"You are hot-headed like the mob up at Cranston," John broke in, and +then made an apparent effort to proceed calmly. He took out his pipe and +began to knock its bowl against the heel of his shoe to prepare it for a +refilling. His nonchalant shrug was that of a thwarted school-boy. His +smile was little more than a grimace which the darkness further +distorted. "You are 'kicking against the pricks.' What is to be has to +be, and if you oppose it you get the worst of it. Besides, you are an +old fogy, Sam--you are out of date, moth-eaten. You have got some sort +of a Romeo love idea in your head. You are trying to make yourself +believe that--that Tilly will be unhappy the rest of her life if--if the +old man wins. Shucks! I know women. How long does a young widow wear +black these days? Old Whaley is right. That Cranston judge is right, the +sheriff, and all the damned mob, too. If death will free a woman from a +long life with a drunkard, the Cranston court can free one from--well, +from what I pulled Tilly into. No, sir, Sam. I am not the man for her. I +can't give her enough of what she ought to have. She deserves +respectability, recognition as a lady in this or any other town. It is a +good thing that it happened so soon. It will blow over all the quicker. +She will--she will feel bad for a while, maybe, but time heals all +wounds. Now go home to your wife, Sam. She is not well, and--" + +Cavanaugh stood up. "Yes, I'll go," he faltered, "but I'm going to talk +to Fisher and Black in the morning." + +"Don't do it, Sam." John was smoking now. "I refuse to fight this case +before the public. It is bad enough as it is without forcing my poor +little--without forcing Tilly to hear more of it. She is too young and +sensitive to go through it, and I won't let her. If I don't appear it +will go through quietly. I know-- I heard of a case like that. The judge +picked a time when just a few people were present, and it was over right +away." + +"John, are you in earnest?" Cavanaugh asked, at the end of his +resources, and he shambled out to the porch. + +John followed and stood at his side. "I am, Sam; in fact, I insist on +it. I know Tilly's rights and she shall have them. I owe her a million +apologies. I'm doing all I can do. I wish I could do more. The time will +come, Sam, when she will--will not want to think of me. She will do her +best to forget me and all the rest of the awful mess." + +"Hush, hush! I'll see you in the morning, after I've slept on it," +Cavanaugh said, from the gate. "I don't see how I can give in to you, my +boy. You and Tilly were too happy for it to end like this." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +When the contractor was out of sight John sank limply into a chair on +the porch. The part he had played against his emotions had told on him. +Not the hardest day of physical toil could have so wrought upon his +nerves. Cavanaugh's steady tread was dying out in the distance. Afar off +a dog was baying. Suddenly, across the street against a scraggy growth +of sassafras-bushes, he saw something white moving. He thought that it +might be a dog, a sheep, or a calf. It moved again. It was coming toward +him. It approached the gate. It was Dora, and she timidly raised the +latch and crept into the yard. + +"Don't get mad, brother John," she pleaded. "I saw him come. I was +hidden over there in the bushes. I couldn't go to sleep to save my life. +I tried." + +He was too much undone to protest. Moreover, there was a dumb, +shrinking, animal-like worship in her tone and mien that watered the +feverish waste within him. For the first time in his life he wanted to +take the barefooted child into his lap and fondle her. He longed for a +closer contact with her pitying warmth. To see her weep in his behalf +would help; her childish tears would balm his wounds. + +"Come in, kid," he said, gently. "I didn't mean to be rough to-night. +You must overlook it. I was out of sorts--a fool to be so, but I was." + +She sat down on the door-step, her eyes glued on him. + +"What did he say?" she inquired. "I want to know. Is she coming back to +you?" + +"No, she's gone for good, kid," he answered. "But don't you bother; it +is all right." + +"What are you going to do?" she asked. "Stay on here in this house? I'll +cook and clean for you, if you do. You can get another wife. If she +wouldn't stay I'd let her go. There are plenty of others. Was she after +some other fellow, brother John?" + +"Oh no, no!" he jerked out. "It is not that. Don't you understand? But I +see you don't. How could you?" + +"You didn't say whether you are going to stay on here in this house or +not," the child pursued. "That is the main thing." + +Suddenly he leaned forward and stared straight at her. "Listen, kid," he +began. "I tried you once and you kept my secret, so I know I can trust +you. If I now tell you something I don't want a soul to know, will you +promise to keep it?" + +"Yes, yes," she agreed. "I won't tell, brother John. I'd cut out my +tongue first." + +"You see, I don't want Sam to know," John went on. "I don't want my +mother or Jane to know--or Tilly, or any one alive. It is important. Sam +will be as much surprised as any of them. Kid, I've made up my mind to +pack my grip and catch the four-o'clock north-bound train. I'm going to +cut this thing out forever. I'll cover my tracks. Not a living soul +shall know where I am. I've thought it all out, and it is the only thing +to do." + +Dora was silent. He saw her fixed gaze shift itself from his eyes to the +gate. Then he noted that her little hands were raised to her face. She +was softly crying. He heard a low sob, and it cut through him like a +gapped and rusty blade. He was surprised. He had never seen her like +that before. "What is the matter?" he inquired. But she did not answer, +and he saw that she was making a strong effort to control her emotion, +as if she realized that it was distinctly out of place there and then. +But he had determined to understand her better, and he went and sat +beside her on the step. He took her hand and tried to fondle it, but, as +if ashamed of her weakness, she drew it away and continued to sob, +swallow, and quiver. + +"I see, you don't want your brother John to go away. Is that it, kid?" + +"Yes," she muttered, nodded, and then remained silent, her face tightly +covered by her hands. + +He stood up. He went to the fence and took some steps along it +irresolutely. Suddenly he stood facing her, his arms folded as Cavanaugh +had seen him stand studying the masonry he was building, an arch, a +pillar, or cornice. + +"Why haven't I thought of it before?" he reflected. "It would be a crime +to leave the poor little mouse over there. She doesn't know what is in +store for her, but her eyes will be opened some day, as mine are, +and--and what has come to me may come to her. And who knows? It might +hurt the poor little mite every bit as bad. I wonder if she-- I +wonder--" He went back and sat by her side. + +"Listen, Dora," he began. "I've got to go--there is no way out of +it--but I don't want to leave you like this. I didn't know till to-day +how much I care for you. You seem, somehow, like a real sister. Say, +I'll tell you--how about this? Come, go with me. I don't know where yet, +but away off somewhere where we can start out right. I want to send you +to school and give you a chance." + +"Oh, you don't mean it--you _can't_ mean _that_!" and she uncovered her +face and sat staring, her quivering lips parted. Impulsively she put +one of her hands against his breast, and with the other slowly wiped her +wet eyes. + +"Yes, I mean it, and there is no time to lose," he went on, gravely. "I +want it settled, and when we are once on that train all this will be cut +out forever. It will be better for me, and for you, and for Tilly." + +"But Aunt Jane--" Dora faltered, letting her hand slide slowly down his +shirt-front till it lay in her lap. "She needs me and--" + +"You will have to leave her for good and all," he said. "You must decide +between her and me. At any rate, she is doing nothing for you, and I am +willing to work for you. It is odd, kid, but, now I come to think of it, +I want you with me. It seems like leaving would be easier along with +you." + +"I don't know what to do," the world-old child said, undecidedly, but +her eyes were dry, the sobs had left her voice. + +"Then do as I say," he threw out firmly. "Go home and get your best +dress on and your shoes and stockings, and some hat or other. Don't +bother about a valise. I have two, and we'll stop on the road somewhere +and I'll buy you some clothes. We are to be brother and sister, you +know. From this on you are Dora Trott." + +The child was still undecided, though her face was lighted with growing +expectation. "Oh, it would be nice--scrumptious!" she half laughed, "but +your ma and Aunt Jane--" + +"Forget them!" he ordered, sharply. "They are not thinking of you +to-night, are they? Huh! I guess not! Hurry! Get your things and come +back. I'll be ready. We'll have to walk to the station, and I don't want +to meet anybody on the way, either. We may have to take the back and +side streets, and cut through an alley or two." + +"May I bring my doll?" she asked. "I don't want to leave her." + +"I'll get you a new one--never mind it," he answered, impatiently, +stifling one of his old oaths. + +"But I want her. I love her and she'd miss me. They would kick her about +over there." + +"Then bring her. I'll pack her away somewhere. Get a move on you. See +how quick you can be." + +"I'll hurry," Dora said, now completely resigned to his will. "I'll be +ready in time." + +When she had passed out at the gate he went into the bedroom, lighted +the gas, and began to pack his clothes into two valises, leaving room +for Dora's use. + +"It is the thing to do," he argued. "I can't leave the poor little rat +over there with those women. She needs attention. She is not strong and +they are working her to death. Great God! she might grow up and be like +them! Who knows? How could she keep from it? Who would be there to warn +her? I was ignorant till it was too late. So would she be. No, this is +the right thing to do. I'll adopt a sister. Huh! what a joke when they +say I'm just a boy! But I'll do it. As for Tilly, she will now be doubly +free. The old man can claim desertion. He can add that charge to his +complaints in court. If I had some way to make everybody think I was +dead, that would be even better. The main thing is for her to +forget--wipe out and start in fresh, and she would do it quicker if she +thought I was under the sod. Any woman would. Then she would marry +again. I know who she will marry--" He winced, shuddered, and pressed +down on the things he was packing. "She will end up by marrying Joel +Eperson. I'd lay heavy stakes on that. My God! I can't find fault with +him--not now, anyway! He is white to the bottom, that fellow. I have to +admit it. He bore up like a man, though I was robbing him. I slid in +between him and her after she had become the poor devil's very life. +Then, then--I have to admit that, too--he never would have got her into +this awful mess. He has too much sense for that--sense or honor, which? +Well, well, they say turn about is fair play, and old, patient Joel will +get his innings. He'll--he'll come home to her after his day's work. +He'll take her in his-- O my God!" John stood motionless. The old +primitive fires were kindling in his blood. Had the room been dark his +eyes might have gleamed like those of a tiger. He sat down on the bed. +He was quivering and his heart was pounding like a trip-hammer. +Presently he mastered himself and resumed his packing. "Don't be a fool, +John Trott," he said, sharply. "You are up against it. Be a man, if it +is in you." + +Here the open closet caught his attention. One of Tilly's dresses hung +in view, and he took it into his hands reverently. A pair of worn shoes +lay on the floor. He picked up one of them. It was so small that he +could have hidden it in his pocket. He turned it over in his great hand. +His throbbing fingers caressed the soft leather. She would never need +it. Why not put it in with his things? He started to do so. He made +space for it in one corner of a valise, and then, all at once +exclaiming, "What t'ell!" he threw it back into the closet and continued +to swear at himself in low, vexed tones. + +Dora was entering at the front. She seldom wore her shoes, and, as she +now had them on, she used her feet clumsily and made a great clatter in +the hall. + +"'Sh! for God's sake!" he cried, angrily, and then he turned his +impatience off with an apologetic laugh. "Never mind, kid. Make all the +noise you want. It won't do any harm. Are you ready? Give me that doll." + +She handed it to him roughly wrapped in a newspaper. "Don't mash her!" +she pleaded. "Her face is soft as putty in warm weather." + +"There, there!" he laughed, "she will be all right. As snug as a bug in +a rug. Now, let's go." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +He locked the front door after them, put the key into its old place +under the door-step, where Cavanaugh could find it, and then they passed +out at the gate and trudged toward the station. They had ample time, and +so he took the best way to avoid meeting any one who might comment on +their odd departure. + +The station was finally reached. No one was there but a watchman with a +lantern in his hand, and he did not know either of them. + +"Ticket-office isn't open at this hour," John explained to Dora. "We'll +have to pay on the train. We change cars at Bristol. I'll pay that far +and we may stop there and rest. This night traveling may go hard with a +little thing like you. I've got to attend to you, Sis--eh? Did you catch +that? It slipped out as natural as you please, and Sis it is, from now +on. Yes, I've got to see that you are fed properly and have a tonic to +get your blood right." + +When the train came they got aboard. The car was about half full of +passengers, nearly all of whom were asleep. John led his wide-eyed +charge to a seat, put a valise down for a pillow, and made her take off +her hat and lie down. "Close your peepers and take a nap," he jested. +"I'm going into the smoker and light my pipe." + +A half-hour later he came back. She was asleep. Her hat had fallen to +the floor, and he carefully placed it in the rack overhead. Her features +in repose appeared almost angelic, despite the fact that the cinders had +drifted in at the window and lay on the young cheeks beneath the fallen +lashes. + +"Poor little rat!" he said to himself. "You are in bad hands, Sis, but +maybe no worse off than you were." He recalled Eperson's studied +courtesy and attention to Martha Jane and wondered if, after all, +Eperson were becoming his absent instructor. + +He sat down in the seat across the aisle from Dora and looked out at the +window. The coming dawn was lighting the fields through which the train +was scurrying like a monster of fire and smoke. The eastern sky was +slowly filling with liquid gold. Dora slept till the sun was well up. +Then she stirred and waked. He saw her glance around the car in +amazement and then she saw him, smiled sheepishly, and flushed a little. + +"I was dreaming," she said. "I thought I was flying away up in the air +and that I never would light." + +"We are going to have some breakfast in a little while," he informed +her. "There is a dining-car on this train, and I'll order something +brought to us here. A little table fits in here under the window. Come +on, I'll show you where to wash your hands and face." + +He led her to the ladies' lavatory, taught her how to supply the basin +with water. He got a towel from an overhead rack, showed her a brush and +comb that were for the use of passengers, and left her to make her +toilet. + +She came back to him presently, looking brighter and better, and they +sat side by side till a negro porter in a white uniform came with the +table and their breakfast. It had an inviting look--the fruit, the fried +eggs, the thin-sliced bacon, the hot, brown cakes, dainty toast, and +aromatic coffee, and the child partook of them with unusual relish. + +John watched her with strange, new interest. It was a sudden reversal of +a habitual situation. She had waited on him. He was now doing the same +for her, and the performance seemed to hold in abeyance a full +realization of the tragedy in his life. It may have been autosuggestion, +induced by the child's great need of him, but whatever it was was +vaguely soothing. He found himself with his young back to a wall of +miserable fact, valiantly fighting off constantly increeping and +maddening memories which threatened to unman him. + +Later that afternoon they reached Bristol, and, as Dora looked weary, +John decided to go to a hotel for the night. There was one near the +station, and to it they went and secured adjoining rooms. While he was +making the arrangements in the office Dora waited for him in the great, +barren-looking parlor, the scant furniture of which was upholstered in +dark-green plush, and when he came for her she was standing at a window, +looking out. The sight of her worried him, for she seemed homesick and +drooped like a storm-tossed bird. + +"Now for our supper," he said, cheerfully. But she shook her head. She +was not a bit hungry, she declared. The motion of the car had sickened +her at the stomach. + +"Then I'll put you to bed," he said, "and leave you there till I get my +supper." + +She acquiesced, and he led her to her room up-stairs. "Tumble in," he +said, still cheerily, and she began slowly to undress, sitting in a big +arm-chair which all but swallowed her diminutive form. She was having +trouble with the knots of her shoe-strings, which, in her haste, she had +tied too carelessly, and he knelt down and unfastened them. "What a baby +you are, after all!" he said, tenderly, a thrill that was almost +parental going through him as he drew off the shoes, observed the thick +coating of dust that was on them and the holes in the heels and toes of +her stockings. "I'll leave your shoes outside the door, and a porter +will clean them before morning and put them back," he said, smiling. He +opened a valise, took out a clean though tattered nightgown she had +brought, and spread it on the bed. Again he thought of Joel Eperson and +wondered if Joel had done all such things for Martha Jane when she was a +tiny tot. It was likely, for there were several years between their +ages, and Joel seemed to be that sort of man. + +When Dora was ready to retire he left her. "Are you afraid?" he asked +from the door. + +She shook her head. "What is there to be afraid of?" she asked, with a +wan smile. + +He returned in about an hour. He entered his room and peered cautiously +in at the connecting door. The light from his gas-jet fell on her bed. +She was awake. + +"What is this?" he chided her. "Not asleep yet, and you all fagged out! +Ah, I see! No wonder. Your window is shut. It is as close in here as a +corked flask." He went in and opened her window. He thought the covering +over her was too heavy for such a warm night and drew the white coverlet +down below her feet. "There, there, that's better," he said. Her tangled +hair lay unbecomingly across her brow, and he wanted to brush it back, +but, conscious of a queer timidity, he refrained from doing so. + +"I can't sleep for thinking," she suddenly said, with a touch of her old +bluntness. "You haven't said where we are going." + +"Oh, that is it!" He laughed and sat down on the edge of the bed. +"Well, the truth is, little sister, I hadn't made up my mind fully. I +thought it might be Philadelphia, but I was looking over a newspaper +down-stairs and saw some notes about new developments in New York, and I +decided to go there." + +"Oh, New York!" the child cried. "That is the biggest city in the +country. Old Roly-poly says the lid is always off up there, and--" + +"Stop!" Not since leaving Ridgeville had John's tone been so sharp and +commanding. "Don't mention that man's name ever again, Sis. And another +thing! Let's agree between us never to speak of any of it again--not to +each other or to anybody else. Do you understand? I want all of it +buried forever in a grave as deep as from here to the middle of the +earth." + +"Not your ma, nor Aunt Jane--?" + +"No, no!" he said, fiercely. + +"Nor Tilly?" + +"No, never--under any circumstances. If people want to know about us, +send them to me--or simply say we are orphans, father and mother both +dead. John and Dora Trott. You understand now, don't you?" + +The little tousled head moved wearily on the big pillow. She did not +understand his far-seeing policy, but it didn't matter. He knew best. + +There was a rap on the door. Opening it, he admitted a waiter with a +tray containing some steaming milk-toast. "I forgot ordering it," John +said to Dora, as the man moved a small table up to her bedside and +rested the tray on it. "You must not go to bed on an empty stomach, and +this is just light enough to make you sleep soundly." + +The sight of the food, which was attractively served, appealed to the +child, and when the man had left the room, John propped her up with the +pillow and put the tray into her lap. She ate heartily, and when she had +finished he set the tray aside. + +"Now go to sleep," he enjoined her. "We leave at eight thirty in the +morning and scoot straight through Virginia to New York." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +One morning, two days after this, Tilly, half ill from worry, was in her +room. She heard the sound of wheels below, and, looking from her window, +she descried Joel Eperson in his buggy under the spreading branches of a +big beech in front of the gate. Her mother and father were at a lawyer's +office in the village, where they had gone to conclude the arrangements +for the immediate annulment of her marriage. She hastened down the +stairs, and went out to the grim, sentinel-like visitor, noting, as she +approached him, the tense, wasted expression of his sallow face and the +dark splotches about his honest eyes. + +"Oh, Joel," she all but sobbed, "I'm so glad you came! Did Martha Jane +tell you I wanted to see you?" + +"Yes, and I hurried over at once." He had bared his brow, held his +broad-brimmed hat in his hand, and had descended to the ground. He took +her hand and pressed it reverently and with a sort of shrinking +timidity. "I want you to know, Tilly, that if there is anything on earth +that I can do I'll willingly do it, if it costs my life. God only knows +how I long to help you." + +"Oh, Joel, it is awful--awful!" she began, and stopped abruptly. + +"Oh, I know-- I've heard everything!" he responded, "and it is a beastly +outrage. I feel like killing some one. Your father must be insane, and +the whole hot-headed mass of hoodlums who are making such a row over +nothing at all. I knew about your husband's unfortunate mother and +about his religious views, but those were things he could not help, and +I could not hold them against him." + +"You knew about his mother?" Tilly cried, surprised. "You knew before +our marriage?" + +Eperson shrugged his gaunt shoulders and transferred his resigned gaze +from her face to the still fields. "Yes," he said. "A man who thinks he +is a friend of mine, and--and knew of my attentions to you, he had heard +it down at Ridgeville and came to me with it shortly after your husband +came to Cranston to work. I asked him to drop it, and he did so. I was +convinced that your husband was an honorable man and in himself worthy +of the love I saw that you were giving him. I am ready to be his friend +as well as yours." + +"Oh, Joel, you are so--so sweet and kind and noble! You are my only +friend--you and Martha Jane. Your support and friendship make me +stronger and braver." + +They were both silent for a moment. Then Eperson said: "But you sent for +me, Tilly. There must be something that--" + +"Yes," she interrupted, "there is something I want you to do for me. In +fact, there is no one else to go to. Oh, Joel, I want to get word to +John in some way. I was compelled to run away without seeing him, and I +have been unable to get a letter to him. My father has stopped my +letters both here and at the post-office. John will not know what to +think, and it struck me that if _you_ would write him that I haven't +turned against him, and that I will be true to him always in spite of +anything my people may do, it would help him to understand the +situation, and encourage him to wait till I can go back to Ridgeville." + +"Of course, of course I would gladly do that, but would not this be +better?" Joel looked at his watch. "You see, it is too late to get a +letter off on this morning's train, but I could go in person. I could, +by driving fast, leave my horse and buggy at the livery-stable and catch +the train myself. In that case I could see him to-night, you know, while +if I wrote a letter it would not reach him till late to-morrow, if even +then." + +"Oh, but could you--_would you_--really go?" Tilly asked, eagerly. "It +would be so much better, for then you could explain everything +thoroughly." + +"Yes, but I must hurry," Eperson said, glancing at his horse. "I have +only a few minutes." + +"Then hurry," Tilly urged him. "You will know exactly what to say. Tell +him that, no matter what is done in court, I shall still be true to him, +and that I love him now more than ever." + +Eperson bowed gravely. "I'll do my best," he promised. "And I'll hurry +back and bring you his message. Shall I come straight here?" + +"Yes, straight here," Tilly cried. "I'll find some way to talk with you +in private. Oh, you are so good, so good; but hurry, Joel! Don't miss +the train. Find Mr. Cavanaugh and he will show you how to reach John." + +"I'll do my best, you may be sure," Eperson said, springing into his +buggy and taking up his reins and whip. "Good-by." + +She watched him from the gate as he dashed away in the cloud of dust +raised by the hoofs of his trotting horse. She estimated the time it +would take him to reach the station, and dreaded hearing too soon the +whistle of the coming train's locomotive. Fully ten minutes passed +before she heard the whistle. Then she was sure that Joel would get +aboard in time. She was sure, because she knew the man who was serving +her. + +That afternoon, rather late, her parents came home. They delivered the +news to her that the court had acted most promptly and she was now no +longer the legal wife of John Trott. She received the information as +stolidly as if it were a foregone verdict and quietly turned from her +harsh-faced parents and went up to her room. + +"Not his wife?" She laughed to herself as she sat on her bed and locked +her limp hands in her lap. "As if a lawyer, a judge, and a few jurymen +could take my husband from me as easily as that! Huh! I'd live with him +without marriage if that is all there is to marriage. Joel will see him +to-night. Joel will tell him how I feel, and John will wait till I can +go to him. I know he loves me. I know that, and nothing else +counts--nothing!" + +Later she descended the stairs and went into the kitchen where her +mother was at work. "Let me help you, mother," she said, taking the +broom from Mrs. Whaley's hands and beginning to sweep the floor. "You +must have had a lot to do while I was away." + +Mrs. Whaley stood surprised for a moment, started to speak, hesitated, +and then went out to where her husband sat in the slanting rays of the +sun under an apple-tree. + +"Where is she now?" he asked, glancing up from the open Bible and +manuscript on his knee. + +"She's sweeping in the kitchen." + +"You don't say!" he said, laconically. "Well, when she is through in +there send her here to me. I've got a straight talk for her. Things +can't rest exactly on the same basis as they used to, as far as she is +concerned. She has got to be on probation-like if she stays on under my +roof. A great deal will depend on her conduct from now on. Folks will be +inclined to slough away from us for a while. Already they blame you and +me, and say we were too eager to marry her off. Nothing like this ever +happened to any member of my church. It is bad in every way, and may be +worse. I'm going to pray that no--no living stigma may follow it. You +know what I mean. You know that I don't want to be the grandfather of +Liz Trott's grandchild, and I won't--I won't if there is a just God in +heaven. When Tilly is through that work send her to me." + +"I'll do nothing of the sort," the woman said. "She is my child, as well +as yours, and you'd better let well enough alone." + +"What do you mean?" he growled, his grisly brows meeting, the old +fanatical gleams in his eyes. + +"I mean what I say," was the retort, deliberately delivered. "She was a +child when she left us--she is a full-grown woman now. A woman don't +live with a man even three or four days and remain the same as she was +before. If you take my advice you won't nag her over this. I don't like +her looks. She took the news of the divorce too quiet-like to suit me." + +"Oh, that's it!" Whaley said, seriously, the flare in his eyes dying +out. "That's what you are afraid of. You think she might give us the +slip and get back to that scoundrel, divorce or no divorce. Well"--and +he continued to frown--"that would be bad--that would be making a bad +matter worse. I see your point, and you may be right. At any rate, I'll +hold up for a while. Yes, yes, I'll hold up." + +"I think you'd better," was the answer, as the speaker turned back into +the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +The next day, in the afternoon, when Eperson had alighted from the +train, he met his sister waiting for him in the buggy. "I got your +message," she said, as he hurriedly approached her, brushing the dust of +travel from his hat, "and here I am. What can I do to help poor Tilly?" + +"Come with me to her," he said, sadly. "It may give me an opportunity to +see her alone. I have already heard what was done at court, but I have +even worse news for her." + +He hurriedly explained as they drove along. He had met Cavanaugh and the +astounded contractor had told him of John and Dora's secret departure. +The old man had wept as he said that John had taken himself away as an +obstacle to his wife's happiness, and that he evidently intended to +disappear completely and forever. As Cavanaugh saw it, John had taken +Dora with him to rescue the child from a fate similar to his own, which +was a grand and noble thing to do, "especially," the contractor had +added with a gulp, "when the poor boy was already loaded down with +troubles of his own." + +"It will break Tilly's heart--it may kill her!" Martha Jane declared, +with strong emotion. "Poor thing!" + +Just before reaching Whaley's Joel said: "I may not get a good chance to +see Tilly alone, and in that case we'd better not keep her in suspense. +Perhaps, after all, you could tell her even better than I." + +Martha Jane nodded. "Poor Joel!" she murmured. "I see. You haven't the +heart to tell her. Well, I will do it for you." + +The elder Whaleys sat on the veranda. Tilly was not in sight. "I'll stay +here in the buggy. You go in," Joel said. "They will let you talk to her +alone. They always do." + +Martha Jane got down to the ground between the parted wheels of the +buggy and went into the yard. + +"Where is Tilly, Mrs. Whaley?" she asked. + +"Up in her room," Mrs. Whaley said. "Will you go up, or wait down here?" + +"I'll run up, I guess," the visitor answered, with assumed lightness. +"Joel, wait for me. I'll be down soon." + +"Won't you come in, Joel?" Mrs. Whaley asked. + +"No, I thank you, Mrs. Whaley," he said. "I'll watch my horse out here." + +He remained seated in the buggy, slightly bending forward. A horse-fly +was teasing the shuddering back of his horse, and he deftly flicked at +it with his whip till he had knocked it away. A man in a field across +the road was gathering yellow pumpkins and loading them into a cart. +Joel himself had several acres of pumpkins ready for harvesting, and +ordinarily he would have been interested in the quantity and quality of +this farmer's product, but there were graver things on his mind now. +Surely Martha Jane was staying a long time up-stairs. Had she put it +delicately enough? Had she omitted to mention the fact of Trott's taking +the child away with him? Joel had intended emphasizing that, for it was +a thing any wife would be proud to hear of the man she had married. The +time dragged even more slowly now. Old Whaley left his seat, walked +around to the well, drew up a bucket of water, and drank from the +bucket itself, tilting it forward with both his hands. Then Mrs. Whaley +went into the house. Presently Martha Jane came down the stairs and out +into the yard. + +"Good-by, Mrs. Whaley," she called out. "I must be going now." + +"Good-by, Martha Jane!" from within the house. "Come again when you find +the time." + +"I will, thank you, Mrs. Whaley. You must come out to see mother. She +never gets into town, and you mustn't count visits with her." + +There was a response to this which Joel did not hear, for he was +studying his sister's face as he stood ready to help her into the buggy. + +"Well?" he said, as they started to drive on. "What did you do?" + +"Oh, don't ask me--don't ask me!" Martha Jane's eyes were filling, her +lips twitching. "Oh, Joel, it was awful--simply awful! I'm glad you did +not try to tell her. She stood tottering pitifully and looking as white +as a dead person. I thought she was going to faint, and would have +called her mother if she hadn't stopped me. It seemed to take away all +the hope she had left. She sees it exactly as Mr. Cavanaugh does--that +her husband intends to disappear for good and all. She thinks it was for +her sake, too. She said so. She declared she did not blame him at all, +and when I told her about that child she said she understood that, too, +and knew he did it for the little girl's good--that the child was facing +a terrible future." + +"Well, well, is that all?" Joel inquired, huskily. + +"I left her seated at a window," Martha Jane continued. "I tried to get +her to promise to be calm and hopeful, but all the old strength and +energy seemed to have left her. I'm afraid, very much afraid, that she +will never get over it. She has borne a lot already and this shock is +the last straw." + +A strap which held the breeching around the buttocks of the horse and +fastened it to the shafts had broken, and Joel got down to fix it. The +buckle-hole had torn out of the rotten leather, and he had to punch +another with his pocket-knife. + +"Poor Joel!" Martha Jane thought, as she sat and watched him. "People +needn't tell me that men can't be constant. He'd love Tilly if she were +to wipe her feet on him. He'd love her if she refused him a dozen times +for other men. He'd go any length right now to give her back her +husband. I wonder what there is about her that men care so much for. I'm +sure I don't know, unless it is because she is so patient and gentle and +plucky." + +The harness was fixed. Joel got back into the buggy and drove on to the +Square. "I was going to stop and get some things," Martha Jane said, +"but I won't. I'm coming in to see Tilly to-morrow. I'm about the only +one that goes to see her now. You knew, didn't you, that some of these +narrow-minded women and girls are pretending to believe simply awful +things about her?" + +"What sort of things?" Eperson asked, waxing indignant. + +"Why, you know--they say that Mr. Trott took her to his mother's house +and introduced her to the worst sort of folks. There isn't a word of +truth in it. Tilly has not yet even met the woman. Tilly and he had a +cottage all to themselves. She told me that herself." + +Joel groaned angrily. "I'm not surprised at anything the people around +here would say and believe," he said, his lips drawn tight, his eyes +holding fierce fires that were bursting into flames. + +"Joel," Martha Jane said, as they were nearing their home, "you must +take yourself in hand. This is showing on you. Tilly's marriage was bad +enough, but this is hurting you even more." + +"Oh, don't bother about me!" he cried, testily. "I'm a man and can stand +anything. But you must look after her. Do you understand? You must come +in to-morrow early and stay all day. She will need somebody besides that +sour-faced, crabbed old pair that is with her. They will kill her or +drive her insane." + +"I'll do it--you may depend on me, brother," Martha Jane promised, as he +helped her from the buggy at the gate. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +On the morning following their arrival at Bristol, John and Dora took +the train for New York. "We'll sit in the chair-car," he proposed. "It +has revolving fans and is more roomy. They say this train is usually +crowded." + +Dora smiled expectantly as she followed him into the luxurious coach. +She had slept well, had eaten a good breakfast, and seemed brighter than +she had the day before. She was still a grotesque-looking creature in +the dress which was too long for a child of her age, and the hat that +was too large, being one Jane Holder, in one of her rare moments of mild +self-reproach, had discarded and hastily retrimmed for her niece. But +John Trott was not critical of outward appearances. There was something +beneath the surface in Dora--an unspoken reliance on him, a gentle +betrayal of pride and confidence in him, not to mention her abject +helplessness, which atoned for all external shortcomings. The whole +world looked dark to him, but he had determined that Dora should not +dwell in the shadow, if he could prevent it. + +They were soon well into the state of Virginia. The train was quite +crowded and John congratulated himself on securing seats in the +parlor-car. From the window Dora listlessly viewed the back-drifting +fields and forests, the tobacco which she had never seen growing before, +and the old-fashioned houses on the farms as well as in the towns and +villages. + +It was near night. Washington was only a few hours away. + +"We are going to cross a high trestle over a ravine," John explained to +his charge. "I heard a man talking about it. There! that is the whistle. +I guess they will slow down until we get over it." + +But the train was late and the locomotive's speed was not greatly +diminished. From the window John saw the line of trees marking the +ravine's sinuous course through the fields and told Dora that they would +soon be on the trestle. A moment later there was a shriek from the +locomotive, a violent jerking of the cars, a distant crashing and +grinding of timbers, and a thunderous sound of heavy bodies falling. The +coupling was broken and the chair-car lurched forward, left the track, +shot its front end against an embankment about twenty feet high and +remained poised there. Dora was thrown against a window, the thick glass +of which fortunately did not break, and John fell between the chairs to +the floor. Everywhere in the car the passengers lay over one another, +squirming and screaming in pain and terror. + +"Are you hurt?" John asked Dora, as he struggled to his feet and bent +over her. + +"No." She shook her head, her face blanched, her whole frame quivering. + +"Come, let's get out!" he said. He offered to lift her in his arms, for +the floor of the car was sharply slanting to one side, but she refused +to permit it. + +"Oh no. I can get out better by myself," she said, stepping from one +seat to another to accelerate their egress. + +Some of the passengers around them were injured slightly, some had +fainted, and lay prone in the aisle, and these people blocked their +progress for a few moments. But when they had finally reached the open a +frightful sight met their view. At the bottom of the ravine which the +trestle had spanned lay an indiscriminate heap of splintered and +telescoped coaches which quite hid from view the locomotive lying +beneath. A violent hissing of steam came from the mass which all but +drowned out the cries of pain and terror from the imprisoned victims. +Now and then men or boys could be seen breaking through the car windows +and climbing down to the ground. But hundreds were out of sight. They +were doubtless stunned or killed outright. + +Fifty or sixty people from the chair-car and the two connected +sleeping-coaches, which were the only parts of the train saved from the +ruin, gathered on the brink of the ravine and stood spellbound by the +sights they beheld in the smoking inferno beneath. + +Suddenly a trainman near John raised a cry: "The cars are catching on +fire! They are dry as powder and will burn like oil! My God! there are +women and children down there!" + +"Stay here!" John said to Dora. "I must get down there and try to help." + +She nodded mutely, and he darted away. Other men followed him through +the weeds and bushes down the rugged declivity. Dora watched him till he +had vanished among the trees and boulders. The sound of escaping steam +had ceased. Human cries were now audible, groans, prayers, and the +pounding of feet and hands against parched car-walls. Faint blows they +were and futile--hoarse prayers and unanswered. The highest car in the +heap was toppling over and settled down more snugly into the mass. +Between the upper coaches blue smoke was issuing, and from the under +ones fierce flames were bursting. Dora suddenly descried John. He was on +the slanting side of one of the cars, kicking in a wired window. The +heart of the child was in her mouth, for he was in the gravest peril. +Within twenty feet of him the flames were lapping the paint from the +thin woodwork on which he stood. + +"That man that was with you is a fool!" a stylishly dressed woman said +to Dora. "He will be burned to death." + +"He is a workman--a brick-mason," Dora said, "and able to--" + +"I don't care what he is--he is crazy, simply crazy!" + +What had become of John, Dora did not know, for in a cloud of swirling +smoke and flames she suddenly lost sight of him. Also the men who had +descended with him could not be seen, and the whole mass of cars were +now aflame. The blaze and heat drove the awed spectators back farther +from the edge of the fiery gorge. Some were moving away to look after +their belongings in the undestroyed cars. Dora wondered what she ought +to do. She began to fear the worst in regard to John. She wanted to cry, +but the tear-founts seemed to have dried up. The sun was down. The +thickening darkness made the flames in the ravine all the brighter. + +Presently she felt some one grasp her arm. It was John. He was covered +with black as to his hands, face, and neck. His clothing was torn and +scorched; there was a bleeding scratch across his right cheek and chin +which had been made by a piece of flying glass. He was now mopping it +with a soiled handkerchief. + +"It is hell!" she heard him say, more to himself than her. "It is +hell!" + +Dora clung to him joyously. + +"Think of it," he panted. "I got one woman out at a window and was +reaching down for a little boy. I could see him holding up his hands +from the burning seats, but he could not reach me. God! I'll never +forget that kid's eyes and his last scream as he fell back into the +fire!" + +A locomotive drawing flat-cars loaded with people from a near-by town +had stopped just beyond the sleeping-cars, and the crowd sprang down and +gathered on the brink of the ravine up the side of which remains of the +trestle hung, slowly burning. + +"Come," John said to Dora. "I'll get our things out of the car, and then +we'll get a place to spend the night. I'm sure we'll not get away till +morning. I saw a hotel down the track as we came along." + +He left her and returned in a moment with the valises. Then they went +back along the railway to a crossing where stood a hotel of the very +crudest rural type. Going into the office, he secured a room for Dora; +but could get none for himself. Returning to her, he said: + +"We'll have supper pretty soon. Go to your room and wash the dust off +your face and hands. You are a sight to behold." + +She followed an attendant up the single flight of stairs, though it +looked as if she were averse to being separated from John even for so +short a while. Indeed, she was wondering if he did not intend to +undertake something else in which danger was involved. However, he did +not keep her waiting long. He came up to her room. He had washed his +face and hands in the barber shop, and had had his clothing and shoes +brushed. He led her down to the dining-room. It was packed with +passengers from the remaining coaches of the train who were bent on +getting something to eat, and as for the adjoining office, it was +literally jammed by an ever-growing throng of curious and horrified +spectators, who were arriving by train, by private conveyance, and on +foot from all directions. + +They had secured seats at a table and given their order when an excited +man of middle age, without hat or coat on, rushed up to John, holding +out his hand. + +"They tell me you are the man who saved my wife!" he cried. "My God! +sir, I want--" + +"Not me." John smiled blandly. "Must have been some other chap." + +"Oh, I beg your pardon," the man said, slightly taken aback. "I see I am +mistaken." + +He disappeared in the office and Dora looked up at John inquiringly. +"Didn't you say back there that you got a woman out of--" + +"'Sh!" John said, glancing furtively at the adjoining table and lowering +his voice to a whisper. "Yes, I said so, but we have to be careful. That +man would have wanted my name and address and I don't know what else. +You see, kid, you and I are trying to cover our tracks. If we got our +names in a paper the people in Ridgeville would know as much about our +business as we do ourselves. There are several reporters here jotting +down names and telegraphing them. I made a point of not registering just +now--paid in advance to get around it." + +Young as she was, Dora understood what he meant. The supper came, was +eaten, and they gave their places to other applicants for seats at the +table. Dora looked tired and he sent her to her room. He had decided to +sit up all night, but he did not tell her so. He saw a stream of +sight-seers going toward the flaring gorge, and he joined them. More +than a thousand persons were now massed along the brink of the ravine, +in the depths of which lay a vast heap of coals, red-hot iron, twisted +steel rails, and the burly outlines of the unconsumed locomotive, over +which the ashes and coals had settled like a pall of scarlet. + +In the light of a lantern held by a trainman a reporter on the steps of +the chair-car sat rapidly making notes on a pad with a pencil. Suddenly +he saw a man passing and called out to him: + +"Hey, Timmons!" he cried. "Any more names?" + +"Oh yes! I was looking for you," the man addressed answered, and he drew +a slip of paper from his pocket. "Here you are. Take 'em down quick. I +have to wire my own list in right away. T. B. Wrenshall, wife and child, +St. Louis. Got that? Begins with a W, not an R. They say he was a +traveling-man, but that doesn't matter. It is the list my people want. +Here is another: Mrs. Marie Dugan, Nashville, also Miss Satterlee, +Atlanta--a school-teacher, they say, but I'm not sure, so leave that +out." + +"All right. Thank you, Timmons," and the two reporters parted. + +John paused, leaned against the car near the man with the pad, and idly +watched his rapidly moving pencil. Something, he knew not what, seemed +to hold him there as for some occult purpose. A conductor of one of the +sleeping-cars approached. "Press?" he asked, hurriedly. + +"Yes, here I am," muttered the reporter. + +"Here is a complete list of all my passengers," the conductor said, "all +alive and checked up." + +"All right, but it is the dead ones I'm after," the reporter said, +taking the paper and pinning it to his notes. + +John moved a few feet away. Again he viewed the red ruins, peering over +the brink as into the heart of an active volcano. A thought had come to +him, but he was irresolute. He looked back at the reporter. The man was +still on the steps at work. + +"It would be easy," John mused. "The simplest thing in the world, and I +ought to do it. That would settle it for good and all. It would free +Tilly completely, and give Dora her chance, too. Yes, I ought to do it-- +I really ought." + +He walked about on the edge of the throng for several moments +undecidedly. "What the hell is the matter with me?" he muttered. "Why +can't I decide on a thing as simple as that and be done with it? It is +for Tilly's lasting good. It would wipe the whole rotten thing out at +once, and stop the damned wagging tongues sooner than anything else. It +would sting sharply, like a doctor's knife, but it would cure the +trouble. If I don't do something it will hang over her as long as she +lives. I spoiled her chances by dropping into her life--here is a chance +to drop out of it. I'm leaving her for good and all, anyway, so why not +make a clean job of it?" + +He felt that he had decided at last, and he went back to the reporter. + +"Are you taking names?" he asked, in a voice the matter-of-fact tone of +which surprised himself. + +"Yes. Got any?" The writer did not look up from his rapidly moving +pencil. + +"Two friends of mine." + +"All right, wait a minute." + +The pencil was now rapidly producing shorthand dots, curves, and dashes. +The red sky above the gorge held John's eyes. As in a picture of +radiating flame he saw his little wife as he had seen her the morning he +had unknowingly kissed her farewell forever on the door-step of the +cottage as he stood, dinner-pail in hand, the sun just rising above the +hills. In spite of his self-control and a belief in his stolidness, a +lump swelled in his throat. + +"She deserves a better deal out of the deck than to be tied to the +memory of a man like me," he thought. "When she reads my name in the +papers I'll be dead to her, dead and cremated. After all, it can't be +worse than the other." + +"Well, well," the reporter said, looking up, "you say you have lost some +friends?" + +"Yes, two--a man and a little girl, in the coach just ahead of this +one." + +"Their names and addresses, please. I'm in a devil of a rush--using +railroad telegraph, and it is packed with official business. Got an +opening now, but may lose it any moment. Mention ages and business, if +you know them." + +"John Trott, twenty years old, Ridgeville, Georgia, brick-mason." + +"All right--two t's in Trott, eh? Well, and the other one?" + +"Dora Boyles--B-o-y-l-e-s," slowly spelled John; "age about nine, +orphan, same town--Ridgeville, Georgia." + +"Thanks. Is that all?" asked the reporter. + +"That is all," and, afraid of being further questioned, John turned and +stalked away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +He and Dora took a train for New York early the next morning. The air +seemed to be growing more crisp. Dora's color was better, her skin +clearer, her eyes brighter. She seemed more and more interested in the +scenery along the way. They had to stop over in Washington for about +three hours, and, leaving their valises in a check-room, they strolled +about the city. John did not realize it, but the care and entertainment +of the child had much to do with keeping his mind from dwelling on his +troubles. Once he caught himself actually laughing over a droll mistake +Dora made. She was so much interested in the sights that she walked +nearly half a block at the side of a stranger, thinking that the man was +John, who had paused to buy a cigar, and when she discovered her mistake +she fairly screamed and hastened to John, whose hand she wanted to hold +thereafter. + +"He wouldn't bite you," John said. "In fact, he thought it was a good +joke." + +At four o'clock that afternoon they reached Jersey City, and at once +took the ferry for New York, sitting on the upper deck and viewing the +harbor and sky-line. + +"It is a big town," John said, "a powerful big town. We'll be lost here +like needles in a haystack. Well, that is what we are after, Sis," he +added, a serious cast to his features. + +They went ashore at Twenty-third Street. They were so ignorant of the +life they were entering that they were fairly dazed by the crush and +din of human beings and traffic which met them at the long pier and in +the congested thoroughfare upon which it fronted. They were all but as +helpless as incoming foreigners who could not speak the language of the +country. However, with a bag in each hand, and Dora closely following, +John managed to reach a street that was less crowded, and they walked on +now more calmly. He was looking for a boarding-house, John informed his +companion. "I understand there are plenty of them all about," he added. + +They had reached West Fourteenth Street, and there in the windows of +many of the old-fashioned brownstone former residences of the well-to-do +John saw cards advertising rooms and board. + +"There are three in a row," he smiled at Dora. "Which one shall we +pick?" + +"The one this way," she decided. "It looks cleaner, and there are some +flowers on the window-sills." + +"Good! Let's try it--ask the rates, anyway." + +They crossed the street and went to the house in question. Here, +however, they were puzzled, for there were two entrances, one on the +brownstone stoop and the other beneath it. They decided on the lower, it +being more accessible. There was a bell-pull and John, who had once put +one into a wall, understood what it was for and used it promptly. + +A white woman, who looked like she was Irish, opened the door. + +"I see you have rooms and board," John ventured. "We want to see about +them." + +The woman smiled agreeably. "The madam is up-stairs. You can go up the +steps and I'll let you in at the upper door, or you can come through +here." + +"This way is all right," John said. And the woman led them into a little +hallway adjoining a long dining-room, the white-clothed tables of which +could be seen through the open door. On the same floor, just beyond, was +the kitchen. They knew this, for they caught a glimpse of a big range +above which hung a row of polished pots and pans. + +The stairway to the upper floor was quite narrow, and John had some +difficulty in ascending it with his valises and the mute Dora, who was +nervously attempting to hold his arm. However, the ascent was made, and +they were shown into a big parlor with windows looking out on the +street. The floor was covered by a well-worn but clean carpet, the walls +held pictures of various sorts--crayon portraits, steel engravings, +machine-made oil landscapes and a few water-colors in every style of +frame imaginable. + +"Oh, Mrs. McGwire!" the servant called up the flight of stairs which +reached the next floor above. "Are you there?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Clark. What is it?" + +"Rooms and board," was the answer. + +"Very well. I'm coming right down." + +The landlady proved to be a cheery, bustling little body about +thirty-five years of age. Her eyes were blue, her hair chestnut. She +bestowed a smile on the applicants that at once put them at ease. + +"Yes, I happen to have two rooms at the top," she said, eying Dora's +attire with a woman's natural curiosity. "They are three flights up; I +have no others right now. My house is usually full at all seasons. You +see, I have many stand-by's; people who have been here for years call it +home. If you want to see the rooms you can leave your things here for a +while." + +Leaving Dora below, John accompanied the landlady to the rooms above. On +seeing them he was satisfied that they would do. They were in the rear. +One was quite large, and, in the crude estimation of the brick-mason, +rather well furnished, for it held a massive walnut bureau with a marble +top and wide mirror lighted on both sides by globed gas-jets, one of +which was pink, the other frosted white. There was a big rosewood sofa +against a wall, also a rocking-chair, a center-table, a wide walnut +bedstead, and an ample alcove containing running water, and a basin and +towels. The other was the typical hall room with a narrow iron bed, a +chair, a wash-stand, a rug, a row of hooks on the wall for clothing over +which hung a calico dust-curtain, and a single window. + +"I suppose this might do for the little girl," suggested Mrs. McGwire, +affably. "Children don't need much room. She is a relative, I presume?" + +"My sister. We are orphans," John said, casually enough, considering the +unlooked-for demand on his resources. "My sister Dora. But I would want +her to have the other room. I can bunk anywhere. I want to put her into +the public school here, and she ought to have a cheerful place to study +in at night and sit in through the day. I shall be away at work." + +"Fine, fine! I like that in you." Mrs. McGwire smiled affably. "I'm a +widow with three children to bring up (that is why I am running this +house) and I certainly appreciate such consideration for a child as you +show. I have a boy of thirteen, a girl of eleven, and another of eight. +If you stay here the older ones, Harold and Betty, might be able to help +start your sister out on her studies." + +"That would be nice," John responded. "She is a country girl and never +has been to school at all." + +Just here a rather tall, slender boy with the face of a student opened +the door of a room at the far end of the passage and came forward. + +"This is my big son," Mrs. McGwire said, smiling. "This is Harold. The +doctor says he studies too hard, but I simply can't make him stop it." + +The lad smiled politely, put his arm about his mother's waist, and said: +"Somebody has taken my concordance. I left it with my other books, and +it is gone." + +"Oh, I forgot," Mrs. McGwire said, indulgently. "Mr. King (he is our +minister)"--this last to John. "He was looking over your books this +morning and he took it down to the parlor with him. It is there." + +"Thank you, mother," the boy said, and went down the stairs. + +"I'm very proud of my son," Mrs. McGwire said, looking after the boy +with beaming eyes. "He really has a remarkable mind. Young as he is, he +has already decided to be a preacher. He has read the Bible through +twice, and can quote any passage you mention. He is the leader of Mr. +King's big Bible class. His father was a minister, and it has been my +daily prayer that Harold would go into the same work." + +Ten dollars a week for the rooms and board for two was the price agreed +on, and John went down with Mrs McGwire to inform Dora of the +arrangement. + +"I needn't ask your name," Mrs. McGwire said, smiling, as he picked up +the valises, "for I see it on your bag. John Trott is short and plain +enough." + +John blinked. He had really thought seriously of changing his name, but +it was too late now; besides, what did it matter? He nodded. "Yes," he +said, looking at the letters on the valise. "A friend of mine, a +sign-painter, made me a present of this last Christmas, and he lettered +it himself." + +Dora liked the spacious room very much, and it did not occur to her just +then to compare it to John's, as she hastily removed her few belongings +from his bags, and hung or laid them about the room. + +After supper John went out to buy some tobacco, and when he returned he +found Dora in her room, most timidly entertaining Betty and Minnie +McGwire. Dora did not introduce her guests, and Betty rather gracefully +did it herself. She was an affable talker, a rather slim, gawky blonde, +while Minnie was a stocky brunette with heavy, dark brows and black hair +that was too coarse and wiry to be easily controlled. + +"Betty's going to dress my doll," Dora informed him. "She has got lots +and lots of doll-things packed away, and Minnie has the cutest +doll-house you ever saw. It is full of tables and chairs and dishes and +even closets to hang things in. Could you show it to him, Minnie?" + +"Sure," answered the child addressed. "I'll go get it." + +"No, not to-night," John interposed. "Some other time." + +Leaving the children, he turned into his cheerless room and lighted the +gas. He unpacked the valises and hung up some of his apparel under the +dust-curtain. There were his working-shirts, his overalls, his coarse +cap and stoggy shoes. He had bought an evening paper and he opened it +out to read it, but could not fix his attention even on the boldest of +the head-lines. Ridgeville, the cottage, Tilly, floated through his +mind, and a pain that was both physical and mental clutched his whole +being. He winced, ground his teeth together, and stifled a groan. + +"It is my damned yellow streak!" he muttered. "I must get over it--kill +it, pull it out by the roots. Why shouldn't I have my share of bad +luck? Others have plenty of it--even women and children. Poof! Be a man, +John Trott. Don't be a dirty shirker!" + +A merry ripple of laughter came from the adjoining room, and he heard +Dora telling of the mistake she had made on the street in Washington, +and somehow he felt relieved. Surely good would come out of the plunge +he had made into those unknown waters, dark and deep as they seemed. +Wasn't Dora already better off? And what more could he desire than to +benefit a child like that materially and lastingly? + +But the pain still clung and permeated. He heard the two visitors +bidding good night to Dora, and when they had gone down-stairs he went +into the other room, finding the child with her doll in her arms, +rocking it as a mother might a living babe. + +"Now get to bed, Sis," he said, more tenderly than he had ever spoken to +her before. "Do you like it here?" + +"Oh, very, very much!" she cried, enthusiastically. "Betty and Minnie +are the sweetest and best children I ever saw, and Harold is nice, +too--nice and polite, and awfully smart. He uses big words that I never +heard before. The girls want me to go with them to their school and +church. May I?" + +"Yes," he returned. "Now get to bed. Sleep as late as you want to in the +morning. You don't have to get up before day to cook breakfast for me +now, eh?" + +She smiled happily, but said nothing. + +He yearned to kiss her, for through her companionship in his loneliness +she had become very dear to him, but that strode him as being a weak +thing for a man to do, and he left her without yielding to the impulse. + +The air in his cell-like room was rather close, and he did not go to +sleep readily. There were so many things to think about--the work he had +to find as soon as possible, the clothes that must be bought for Dora, +for he wanted her to dress as well as her new friends. He decided to ask +Mrs. McGwire to help him make those purchases. As for the work, he was +sure he could find a job at good wages, for he had already looked over +the "Help wanted" advertisements in a morning paper and written down the +addresses of several firms of contractors and builders who were in need +of skilled labor. + +After a long while he fell asleep, and when he waked in the morning he +heard Dora moving about in her room. + +"Kid!" he called out, "come here!" + +"All right, brother John," she answered, and he was sure that he heard +her tittering in a suppressed way. Wondering what could be the cause of +her merriment so early in the day, he called out again. This time she +answered with a rippling laugh: "Wait a minute, can't you?" + +Ten minutes passed, and then she appeared in the doorway. She had on a +really attractive blue-serge suit that fitted her quite well. Indeed, +with her hair arranged as Betty McGwire wore hers, she looked like some +strange, new little girl who bore but a slight resemblance to the +unkempt Dora he had known from her babyhood. + +"I was going to surprise you," she said, laughing freely over his stare +of astonishment. "It is a dress that was too small for Betty and too big +for Minnie. Mrs. McGwire gave it to me last night while you were out. +She has two or three others which she says will be out of style before +Minnie comes on, and will go to the ragman if I don't take them." + +"It looks all right," John said, admiringly. "It will do till we can get +some new ones." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +His mind greatly relieved by having such good custodians for Dora, John +fared forth immediately after breakfast in search of work. No one could +possibly have been more ignorant of the intricate ways of the great city +than he, and yet he managed to find the office of the first advertiser +on his list without overmuch delay or difficulty. + +"Pilcher & Reed, Contractors and Builders," as their sign read, had +their offices over a carpenter's shop in East Thirty-third Street near +the river. The house was a red-brick structure which in former days had +been a residence. The contractors occupied all of the second floor, the +two floors above being used by certain Jewish makers of shirt-waists and +skirts, and an Italian establishment for the dry-cleaning of clothing. + +Mr. Reed, the junior member of the firm, was in the main office, a large +square room with two windows, the walls of which were hung with framed +photographs of buildings the firm had constructed and maps of the city's +streets. He was standing at a flat-top desk which was covered with +blue-prints, drawings, and sheets of paper filled with figures and +diagrams, and as John entered he turned and shook hands with him. He had +a broad face, was of middle age, and decidedly bald. He had a cordial +manner, and when he detected, from John's pronunciation, that he was +Southern, he smiled agreeably. + +"I went down into North Carolina with a lumber concern ten years ago," +he said. "We roughed it in the mountains getting out timber, and had a +splendid time. I often wish I had kept at it. This indoor grind is +taking the life out of me. I seldom see the sun. Brick-mason, eh? Well, +the manager of our brick-and-stone work is in the rear office now, +talking to some applicants. Member of the union?" + +"No, not yet," John answered. "But I'm going to join." + +"Well, that is unfortunate, for I think Mr. Kline will fill his openings +right away, and we have to take union men in our work, to keep out of +all sorts of labor complications." + +Mr. Reed seemed interested. He laid aside his work, and he and John +talked for nearly an hour, and when it finally came out that John had +assisted in some contracting work in the South and had an ambition to go +farther in the same line, Mr. Reed lowered his brows thoughtfully. In an +adjoining office Mr. Pilcher was at work dictating letters to a +stenographer and Reed suddenly excused himself and went in to him. John +noticed that he shut the door of the tiny office. He was gone ten +minutes or more and then he came back. + +"The truth is, Mr. Trott," he said, a touch of business-like reserve +showing itself in his manner for the first time, "we are really in need +of office help. I mean the kind of a man that could do both inside and +outside work. Mr. Richer is getting old and is not able to do much. He +says he would like to talk to you. Would you mind going in?" + +Pilcher was a brusk, dyspeptic individual who seemed to be overworked, +but John liked him and was convinced of his fairness and honesty. They +had only chatted a few minutes when the old man called out to his +partner and asked him to come in. + +Reed made his appearance at once. "We might give Mr. Trott a trial in +the office," he said. "What do you think?" + +"I haven't yet spoken to Mr. Trott of the salary," Reed said. "Have you +mentioned it, Mr. Pilcher?" + +"No, but I thought you had." + +"At the start it could not be more than twenty a week," the junior +member said, "but there would be a chance, if you caught on readily to +the work, for an increase later on. + +"I had hoped to do better than that," John answered, frankly. "I want +to make a start at contracting, but I am a good brick-mason, and I can, +by working overtime, occasionally earn more at that, I think." + +"Yes, perhaps," Pilcher admitted, and he threw a glance at his partner +which seemed to sanction John's level-headed view. "We might raise it to +twenty-two, and give Mr. Trott time to think it over till--say, +to-morrow morning. How would that suit you, Mr. Trott?" + +"Very well, thank you," said John, and he rose to go. + +Reed followed him into the other office. The fact that John had not at +once accepted the position had impressed him favorably. "I really think +we could get along well together," he said. "From what you have told me +about your past work I think you would fall into our line easily enough. +Well, think it over, and let us know in the morning." + +John spent the remainder of the day answering in person various +advertisements. At some places he was kept waiting in a long line of +applicants for hours, only to find that the work to be done was out of +town, and that membership in the union was absolutely obligatory. + +When the houses of business were beginning to close for the day he took +the Elevated train for home. Mrs. McGwire met him at the front door. She +was smiling agreeably. + +"Your sister is not at home just now," she announced. "Minnie and Betty +were going to an ice-cream festival at our church, around in the next +block, and they took her with them. I hope you don't mind." + +"Not at all," he returned. "I'm glad she got to go, and it was kind of +them to take her." + +He was at dinner when the children returned and they all came to the +table where he sat alone. Dora's face was slightly flushed and she +looked very attractive in the blue-serge suit. His heart throbbed with a +vague, new pride in her. It was strange, but she had already acquired a +sort of self-possession that rested well on such young shoulders. He +noticed that she conducted herself almost as well as her two companions. +She unfolded her napkin and put it into her lap, and handled her knife +and fork as they did. + +"Oh, it was glorious, brother John!" she exclaimed. "I wish you had been +there. Girls and boys acted and sang on a little stage. Harold helped +Mr. King run it all. The ice-cream and cake was the best I ever tasted. +Harold made a speech, and it was very funny. Everybody laughed and +clapped their hands." + +"Harold only introduced some of the performers in a funny sort of way," +Betty said, with quiet dignity. "He wrote it down beforehand." + +When dinner was over they all went to the parlor above. Betty sat at the +piano, opened a book of "Gospel Songs," and she and Minnie and some of +the boarders began to sing. Harold came in with his mother and they +stood side by side, listening. John sat at a window and he noticed that +Dora, who was near the piano, had a look half of envy, half of chagrin +in her eyes. + +"Poor kid!" John mused, reading her aright, "she is sorry she can't +sing. Young as she is, she has backbone and doesn't want others to be +ahead of her." + +That night before going to bed he looked in on her in her room. She sat +in a big rocking-chair with a book in her lap. He went in and looked at +it. It was an English primer. She glanced up at him. There was something +like the moisture of diffused tears in her eyes and he heard her sigh. + +"What is the matter?" he asked, gently. + +She sighed again. "I can't make head nor tail of this darned thing," she +said, her lips twitching. "Oh, I'm mad, brother John! Betty and Minnie +can both read and write, and Betty keeps telling me (not in a mean way, +though) not to say this and not to say that. Why, I'm a fool-- I'm +really a blockhead!" + +John was deeply touched. He drew up a chair close beside hers and rested +his hand on her head. "Listen, kid," he began. "It will come out all +right. You are going to start to school Monday and you will learn fast. +You are anxious to do it, you see, and that is the main thing. Some +children have to be forced to learn, but it will come easy to you, for +you have a good mind." + +"Do you believe it? Do you _really_?" she faltered, searching his face +eagerly. + +"I know it," he answered, "and, take it from me, when you once get +started you will go ahead of stacks and stacks of them. Don't be ashamed +to start at the bottom. Great men and women began that way, and you are +not to blame for the poor chance you've had." + +He saw that he had comforted her, and recounted his various adventures +in seeking work. When he spoke of the offer Pilcher & Reed had made him +she suddenly said, "Take them up, brother John." + +"Why do you say that?" he inquired. + +"Because"--she began, and hesitated--"because I don't want you always to +be a brick-mason. It is dirty work. You can do better. Look at Harold. +He is just a boy, and yet he is determined to be a minister like Mr. +King. Ministers talk nice and look nice." + +And as John lay in his bed afterward, trying to decide what to do, he +suddenly said: "It is a go! I'll take the kid's advice. It is a toss-up, +anyway. They may not keep me the week out, but the thing is worth trying +for. Sam always said it was my line and others have said the same thing. +Yes, I'll close with Pilcher & Reed in the morning. I'll hang up my hat +in that office and try my hand at a new game for one week, anyway." + + * * * * * + +When he waked the next morning, however, he felt oppressed by a weighty +sense of the things he had renounced forever. The new work he was about +to undertake no longer charmed him. His entire outlook now seemed +chaotic, futile. How could he go ahead--with any sort of heart--in this +drab life among strangers, and leave forever behind him the memory of +his ecstatic honeymoon with the sweet, pulsing mate of his choice? It +simply could not be done. It was beyond mortal strength. He told himself +that he had kept himself keyed up to the present point by continual +change and rapid movement since leaving Tilly, but the ultimate test was +on him. With a groan from a tight throat, and smothering another in his +pillow, he told himself over and over that his career was ended. Tilly +was free--there was comfort in that. With the news of his death in the +wreck, she would bury him as widows have always buried their mates, and +life for her would roll on, but she would remain alive to him as long as +the breath came and went from his cheerless frame. + +"Brother John!" It was Dora calling to him. "Are you awake?" + +He started to answer, but his voice was clogged and he was afraid to +trust it to utterance. She called again and then appeared fully dressed +in the doorway, the primer in her hands. She approached his bedside. +"Will you please tell me what this darned letter is? I can say them all, +I think, down to it. What comes after O?" + +"P," he answered. "Who taught you the others?" + +"Betty. And Q comes next," she went on, holding the book closed. "Then +R, S, T-- What comes after T, brother John?" He told her, and she sat +down on the edge of his bed, and for ten minutes he helped her learn the +part of the alphabet she did not know. + +The first bell for breakfast rang, and she left him. He stood up and +stretched himself. "Be ashamed of yourself, John Trott," he muttered. +"There is that poor kid trying to rise, and yet you are complaining. It +is your damned yellow streak, or your liver is out of order. Throw it +off, you whelp! Be a man! Women suffer in childbirth--children suffer +under operations, crushed bones, and blindness. Your own father had his +hell on earth. Stop whining over spilled milk. Think what you may be +able to do for the dirty-faced brat you brought with you. Plunge in. +Look those men in the eye to-day, and tell them you don't want their +money unless you can give value received. What is New York more than +Ridgeville, anyway?" + +When he had dressed, he stood in the doorway of the other room. Dora was +now copying the letters from her book on a piece of paper with a pencil. + +"That's the idea," he said, smiling. "Come on, let's go to breakfast." +He had never done it before, but he slid his arm about the waist of his +foster-sister and playfully drew her toward the stairs. She appreciated +it. It was as if she started to kiss him, but was too timid, daring only +to incline her head against his arm. + +"Harold says I am a heathen," she said. "What is that, brother John?" + +He frowned thoughtfully and then smiled indulgently. "The church folks +say it is a person that doesn't believe in a God. They pretend to +believe in one because they make a living out of it. Let them think what +they like. It doesn't concern us." + +"Yes, it does," Dora answered, firmly. "Harold, Betty, and her mother +all say that I must believe in God, that I must study about Him, listen +to sermons, and--and even pray to Him every night and morning. They say +I must go to Sunday-school and learn all about the Bible and Adam, +and--and somebody else." + +"Well, it is all right; go with them," John said in slow perplexity. +"Most people do such things, and maybe you'd better. I don't want to +stand in your way. Yes, you'd better go along with them and be like the +rest. When you are grown you can think it all out for yourself, as I +have." + +Betty was coming from her mother's room, one flight below, and she +turned and greeted them with a smile. + +"She is a nice girl," John thought, as she and Dora linked arms and +went ahead of him down the stairs. "She will make a fine woman, but she +will never be equal to--" + +He checked his thought. A storm of pain swept through him, almost +depriving him of strength. He followed the children into the +dining-room, which was well filled with boarders, some eating, some +waiting to be served, and all chatting volubly. There was a great +clatter of knives, forks, and dishes. Mrs. McGwire was helping in the +kitchen, and Betty joined her and became a waitress herself. + +"I must fight it off--kill it, or it will down me!" John said to +himself, as he and Dora sat waiting to be served. "I will never do the +work before me if I keep this up, and it must be done--it must!" + +When he had breakfasted and was outside in the cool, crisp air he felt +better. He walked briskly, swinging his arms to and fro to start the +circulation of his blood. He knew the car he was to take and he boarded +it, first buying a morning paper, which he could not read for thinking +of the delicious and agonizing things he had forsworn forever. + +"It will never come through trying to forget," he finally said, with a +stoic shrug. "It will simply have to wear itself out. Maybe, after a few +months, a year, or two, I will be something like I was before Sam and I +went up to--" He checked himself again. "Oh, what's the use?" His very +mind seemed to sob and choke. A man seated near him asked him what time +it was, and John took out his watch and informed him in the casual tone +that any passenger might use to another. + +"Thanks. Fine day," the man said, and John nodded and smiled. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +One of Jane Holder's masculine admirers brought her home in a buggy from +the Square one afternoon, and when he had parted with her at the gate he +drove away. She went up to Mrs. Trott's room, finding that lady dressing +at her bureau. + +"I felt dizzy on the street, and Tobe Overby brought me home," Jane +said, sinking into a chair and leaning on her sunshade. "I don't know +what is wrong with me, Liz. Tobe says the doctors won't be plain with me +and tell me the truth about my condition, and Tobe's all right. He gave +me a straight V just now, for the sake of old times. Huh! the doctors +needn't be mealy-mouthed with me. I've had enough of this game, Liz. +I've had my share of fun all through, and what more could I ask? You +don't think I want to get old, bent over, and snaggle-toothed, do you? +Not on your life! I'm a sport, old girl, and I'll be one to the dizzy +end. Huh! I guess!" + +"Hush! Don't be silly!" her companion said, giving her an uneasy look, +as she turned, holding in her ringed fingers a wisp of her long hair +which she was pinning into a coil on the back part of her head. "I don't +like to hear you talk that way." + +"I don't care whether you do or not, Liz, old girl." Jane forced a laugh +that was harsh to the point of rasping. "Sometimes it looks to me like +you are afraid to croak. Let the least thing get the matter with you and +you are scared out of your wits; but _me_? La me! I've had my day, Liz. +I don't want to be a she-hog--a sow. Enough is enough for Jane Holder. +Huh! It used to be 'Jennie' when I was young and thinking about getting +married. Later on it was 'Jen,' and now it is 'Jane'--just 'Jane.' 'Old +Jane' next! Huh! if I had long to live you don't think I'd keep on here +in this rotten, tattling town, do you? I've had my fill of it. You know +what they all say about you and me, don't you? They say you ruined +John's life, and that I was heading Dora for the dives when John stepped +in out of pity and kidnapped her--took her 'way off somewhere to get her +away from me and you, and--" + +"Hush!" Lizzie Trott, white with fury, cried, brandishing a heavy +silver-plated hair-brush in her hand and towering over Jane. + +But, leaning on her sunshade, Jane only laughed recklessly and +satirically. "Pull in your horns, Liz, old girl," she said. "I'm not +giving you any worse medicine than I'm taking myself. Huh! I guess not! +Huh! I'm only telling you what's being said in this darned town. They +all say, judging from her looks, that John's wife was as decent a +country girl as ever lived, and that if her father had met you the day +he came loaded for bear he would have put daylight through you. As for +me, they say John did my duty for me. Huh! it is a hell of a mix-up, +isn't it? But I don't care. I believe I'm all in. I feel it in my bones, +and I don't give a damn when I keel over. I hope I won't suffer, though. +Whew! I don't like to think of that! Look how Mag Sebastian faced the +music in Atlanta. When that fool shoe-drummer got married last week it +was piff! bang! and Mag gave a coroner's jury a job. Huh! They all say +who saw Mag in her fine casket that she looked like she was asleep. You +see, they combed her red bangs down so as to hide the bullet-hole, and +dressed her up nice. And flowers! Gosh! every girl on the town piled 'em +in and heaped 'em over her. But Mag couldn't smell 'em. Huh! I guess +not!" + +"What ails you?" Lizzie asked, her lips trembling, her eyes wide with +grim inquiry, her tone one of anxious appeal, rather than that of her +earlier resentment. + +"Huh! Nothing, Liz, old girl!" Jane replied, doggedly. "I guess I am +having different thoughts from you, that's all. I think certain things +all day long, no matter who I'm with--laughing, dancing, drinking, +shuffling a deck, or giving taffy to a man. Huh! Maybe it is because I +know something--huh! something that you don't know." + +"What do you mean now?" Lizzie demanded, suspiciously. + +"Never mind what I mean," was the stubborn retort, as Jane stabbed at +the straw matting with the ferrule of her sunshade. "Let well enough +alone, Liz Trott. If what I know makes me see sights and hear sounds in +the dead of night, what good would it do to bring it onto you?" + +Lizzie laid down the powder-puff she was using and bent lower over the +rambling speaker. + +"You _do_ know something," she said, under her breath. "You knew it +yesterday. What do you mean by deviling me this way? You had it on your +mind last night while the crowd was here and after they left. They knew +it, too. I remember now how they looked at one another." + +"I don't know anything," Jane said, doggedly, with a cloud across her +wan face, and she got up, sighing. "I know I'll go stark, staring crazy +if this keeps up. Stop your tongue! Let me alone! Huh! I know what's +good for you." + +Therewith Jane left the room and all but staggered to her own. + +"She does know something," Lizzie Trott mused, as she stared at her +reflection in the mirror. She completed her toilet and went down to the +kitchen. A negro woman was at work there preparing supper. + +"Don't burn the bread again, Mandy," she said, carelessly, her mind +still occupied by the conversation just ended. + +"Lawsy me! you needn't bother," the portly woman sniffed. "You may res' +shore dat I won't burn it atter supper to-night, fer I'm gwine ter quit +yer." + +"Quit us? Why?" + +The woman shrugged her fat shoulders. "Beca'se Jake done say fer me to, +dat's why," she muttered. "I done promised ter love en' obey at de +weddin', same es him, en' he say he done laid de law down. Dis is my +las' day wid you en' t'other woman. We-all's preacher been talkin' ter +Jake, en' he say you is unloadin' yo' dirt on de black race, 'case no +white woman will work in dis house en' clean up atter you." + +"So that is it," Lizzie Trott said, unrebelliously. "Well, well, I +sha'n't plead with you." And with a haughty step she turned from the +room. + +There was nowhere to go that evening, and it happened that no visitors +came, so Lizzie felt quite lonely. Even Jane's companionship was denied +her, for Jane remained in her room with the door shut. She hadn't come +down to supper, having answered to the call with the remark that she was +not hungry and was feeling no better. + +Ten o'clock came, eleven, twelve. Lizzie stepped out into the front +yard and looked up at Jane's window to see if there was a light. The +room was dark, and even the blinds were drawn down. + +"Something really must be wrong," Lizzie speculated, dejectedly. "She is +not at herself. She is imagining things. All that chatter about knowing +something that I don't know may be just a crazy notion." + +At one o'clock Lizzie reluctantly undressed for bed, for she felt that +she was not in the mood for sleep, and she was sure she would have one +of her headaches in the morning. She was about to turn out her light +when she decided that she would ask Jane how she felt. So she tiptoed to +the door of Jane's room and rapped. + +"Who--who--who-- What is it?" came in a low, halting voice from within. + +"Me, Jane," and Lizzie tried the latch, only to find, to her surprise, +that the door was locked. She waited a moment and then, full of dire +fancies, she shook the knob and rapped more vigorously. "Let me in, +Jane," she cried. "I want to see you. I must see you!" + +But the appalling thing now was that Jane still made no effort to speak +or move, and Lizzie was thoroughly frightened. She beat the door with +both hands and kicked it. + +"Open up or I'll break in!" she cried. + +There was a pause, followed by a crash on the floor within the room. +Jane had stumbled over a chair and upset it. There was another +unaccountable pause, then Lizzie heard Jane's hands sliding on the door, +feeling their way to the lock. The key was fumbled, then slowly turned, +and Lizzie pushed the door open. There in the dark, robed in her new +pink-silk gown, as Lizzie afterward discovered, stood Jane. She muttered +something inarticulately and stepped or reeled back toward her bed. +Lizzie groped forward, wondering, fearing she knew not what. She laid +hold of Jane's arm and for a moment the two stood face to face in +silence. Then Jane began to mutter in slow, vacuous tones: + +"You bet I had a good time. I've lived on the best. I rolled 'em high +and had friends that could pay their way. I'm a sport. I was born a +sport, and been a sport from the day I ran away from school till now." + +"What is the matter? Why are you dressed up like this?" Lizzie had felt +the silk sleeve of the gown Jane was wearing. + +"Huh! You can't guess, can you?" Jane said, with a low, insinuating +laugh. Lizzie said nothing. She knew where Jane's matches were and she +got one and started to strike it. + +"Stop! None of that!" Jane cried. "I don't want no light. Huh! I prefer +darkness to light! You know where that comes from, don't you? It is from +the Bible. 'Those whose deeds are evil,' you remember? Well, size me up +as you like, old girl. I've had my good time. I don't want the earth. +I'm no she-hog--a sow. I know what's ahead, and I take off my hat to it, +that's all!" + +"Sit down," Lizzie said, in the deepest dread of something, she knew not +what, and she drew Jane down to the edge of the bed. Unable to formulate +any further questions, she stood staring at her companion till presently +she saw Jane's body drowsily inclining to one side. + +"That's right, lie down," Lizzie said, and she lifted Jane's feet to the +bed and put a pillow under her head. Then, unmolested, she lit the lamp +on the bureau. A strange sight met her eyes and chilled her blood. In +her best pink-silk gown, beaded satin slippers, and embroidered silken +hose, her hair crimped and fluffy, her cheeks deeply roughed, her +eyebrows blackened as for a ball, Jane lay as if asleep. + +"What am I to do?" Lizzie asked herself. "She is sick and must be +undressed. She is delirious. She must have fever. She ought to have a +doctor, but who could I send at this time of night?" + +She took Jane's wrist to test the pulse, but Jane snatched it away. + +"Oh, it's you, Liz!" she said, opening her eyes in a sort of inane, +widening stare. "You caught me, didn't you? Well, I want it this way. +When they look at me, if any of them comes, I want them to say old Jane +was a sport from start to finish. The last dance is on. Mix the drinks, +boys. Eat, drink, and shake the dice, for to-morrow you may not know +where you are at, and nobody to pay the bill. But keep the other thing +to yourselves. I don't want to hear about it. You say it was in the +papers. I didn't see it. Liz didn't see it, either, and you say she and +I are in the same box. Murder? Who says it was the same as murder? I +didn't intend it. I'd never have let it happen if I could have prevented +it. Yes, the baby was left with me, and--and I might have raised her +different, but I was a sport, full of hell and out for a good time! But, +O God! I wonder what the little thing thought when the crash came. Gosh! +She must have screamed! She must have choked in that awful fire! Burned +to a cinder! No flowers, no sod, no nothing! Well, what's the odds? Yes, +I'll let Liz find out for herself. Somebody will tell her soon enough. +Lord! how a thing like that flies and spins through the air! It is +everybody's business." + +"I want to undress you, Jane," Lizzie said, bewildered by the ambiguous +torrent of words. "Let me unhook your frock." + +"No, fool, idiot, spitfire, cat!" Jane cried, angrily. "I want to be +like this--_just like this_. Get away! Leave me alone! How long will it +take?--the Lord only knows. I couldn't ask the drug-clerk." + +"Well, I'll leave you, then," Lizzie said, slightly offended. + +Jane made no response, and Lizzie started to leave the room. She noticed +the lamp and paused. "She might get up and knock it over," she thought, +and, blowing her breath down the chimney, she extinguished the flame. + +She was in her room, still undressed, when she heard the gate being +opened. She went to the head of the stairs and listened. There was a +vigorous rap. Lizzie went down the stairs and opened the door. + +A man she knew to be Doctor Brackett stood on the porch, a satchel in +his hand. His horse was at the gate. + +"I'm just in from Atlanta," he explained, hurriedly. "I have a new clerk +at my store, and in looking over his prescriptions I saw that he had +sold Miss Holder quite a quantity of morphine tablets. You see, from the +talk that is going on in town I was afraid she might have taken an--an +overdose--you know what I mean?" + +"I think something _is_ wrong with her," Lizzie cried, aghast. "Hurry! +Come! I'll light her lamp!" + +Lizzie fairly ran up the steps and into Jane's room. She struck a match +and lighted the lamp. The doctor followed her and bent over the sleeping +woman. He opened her dress, quickly cut her corset-laces, and made an +examination. Then, standing up, he turned to the bureau and began to +search the littered top of it. + +"Oh, here we are!" he exclaimed, in relief, as he picked up a vial +containing morphine tablets and shook them between him and the light. +"She's had a close shave. She thought she was taking enough." + +"You mean that she--" + +"Oh yes." The doctor put the vial into his pocket. "It is a plain case. +Her mind is out of order. She actually--so my clerk heard to-night--went +to the undertaker's and asked him the prices of various costly caskets. +The undertaker thought she was referring to her recent bad news. She +will come out of this sleep all right. But the truth is she can't +recover. It is only a question of a week or two now. In fact, she won't +get up from this. She hasn't the vitality. She has literally burned +herself out and been living on her energies and nerves. She couldn't +stand the shock of that sad calamity. I am sorry for you, too, Mrs. +Trott. John was a fine boy. Now leave her just as she is. She will be +easier handled in the morning. She is in no immediate danger." + +The doctor took up his satchel and started away. In the darkened +corridor Lizzie overtook him just as he had reached the head of the +stairs. + +"You said Jane had bad news, doctor," she began, falteringly, dreading +revelations to come. "Do you mean about--about John taking her niece +away?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Trott, and the other--the deaths of the two in that awful +wreck." + +"Death? Wreck?" Lizzie leaned breathlessly against the wall. "What +wreck--whose death?" + +"Oh, oh, is it possible that you haven't heard?" And, standing in the +slender shaft of light from Jane's partly closed door, the doctor +awkwardly explained. Lizzie listened, as he thought, calmly enough. He +couldn't read her face, for she kept it averted in the shadow. + +"I understand it all now," she said, after a little pause. "Oh, oh, so +that's it! That's what Jane meant." + +She went with the doctor to the door, said good night, and locked the +door after him. She stood in the dismal silence of the dark hall and +heard his horse trotting down the street. She started to her room, +sliding her hand on the smooth balustrade. Her room gained, she stood in +the center of it as purposeless and dazed as a sleeper waking in strange +surroundings. She felt for a chair and sank into it. + +"John dead!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Why, why, it can't be--and yet why +not, if they all say so? John dead, Dora dead, Jane dying, and I--and I +left here all alone by myself!" + +She undressed in the dark, vaguely dreading the light as if it might +somehow stab her anew. She reclined on the bed. For hours she lay awake. +She tried to cry, but could not summon tears to her eyes. She would have +been afraid of Jane's staggering insanely about the house had the doctor +not assured her that she would not stir till morning. Jane was not a +ghost, but she was a would-be suicide, and that was quite as gruesome to +think about. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + +Finally she fell asleep, and the sun was well up when she was waked by +Mandy, the negro servant. + +"Yo' breakfast done raidy on de table, Mis' Trott," she said, a touch of +condescension in her voice. + +"Why, I thought," Lizzie humbly faltered, "that you were not coming +back." + +"I did say dat," Mandy answered, "en' I did intend ter keep my word, but +Jake say 'twas my bounden duty ter he'p you out en' not quit yer in de +lurch, now dat you los' yo' son en' de li'l girl dat way. Jake say he +knowed Mr. John Trott en' dat he was er nice-appearin' young man, en' +good ter work under. Yo' coffee gittin' col', en' if I heat it ag'in it +never tast' de same--de secon' b'ilin' make it bitter." + +"I'll come down--I'll come down," Lizzie said. "Let it be cold. It +doesn't matter. I'm not hungry. Don't wake Jane. She is asleep. She was +sick last night and had the doctor." + +After breakfast there was nothing to do, and Lizzie sat first in the +parlor, then in the dining-room, and again on the porch. She went in to +see Jane and found her still asleep. In the yellow light of day there +was something weirdly uncouth in the pink-robed form, the patchwork of +paint, powder, and death-tints of the face which had once been +attractive and care-free. The doctor was coming again and Lizzie told +herself that Jane must be undressed and put to bed properly, and yet she +shrank from going about it, for she dreaded Jane's temper. But it had +to be done, so, getting out a nightgown from a bureau drawer, she +proceeded to wake the sleeper. It was difficult, but Jane finally opened +her eyes, and, only half conscious, she submitted, falling asleep again +as soon as Lizzie stopped handling her. Mandy came up the stairs and +looked in at the door. She approached the bed and stared down +disapprovingly at the frail, limp form. + +"Dat's er dyin' 'ooman," she said, superstitiously. "She got de mark of +it all over 'er." + +Lizzie, in a chair at the foot of the bed, nodded, but said nothing. + +The doctor came, made an examination, and motioned Lizzie and the +servant to follow him from the chamber. "She is sinking pretty fast," he +said. "She may come to her senses before the end, and she may not. I'm +doing no good and shall not call again." + +The white woman and the black, standing side by side in the corridor, +watched him descend the stairs. + +"Well, well, what could she expect?" Mandy muttered, as she started for +the kitchen. "She made 'er bed, Jake say, en' now she's on it. Well, +well, I don't judge nobody--dat's de Lawd's job, not mine--but I'm sorry +for 'er--so I am. I'm sorry fer 'er, en'--en' fer you, _too_, Mis' +Trott." + +There were no male visitors that day. The news of John's and Dora's +deaths somehow kept men away. However, the report that Jane had +attempted to kill herself and was about to die reached some of her +female associates, and in their perfumed finery and with mincing, +high-heeled steps they rustled in. With faces as vapid as faces of wax +they perched around Jane's bed like birds in tinsel plumage, ready for +instant flight. They knew that the end of one of their coterie was +near, and yet they chatted in low tones of things pertaining to their +walk of life and this and that off-color gossip. Now and then a smile +slipped its frail fetters and died of its own rebuke. + +Under various and startled excuses they declined Lizzie's hint that they +come back after dark and sit the night through at the dying woman's +bedside. So that night, when Mandy left for her home, saying that she +could not possibly stay away from Jake and the children, Lizzie found +herself quite marooned with Jane and certain memories which she could +not combat. + +Why she did it she could not have explained, but she took her lamp and +went to John's old room at the end of the house, and stood looking +about. Tacked to the wall were some diagrams he had drawn; and on the +dusty table lay a coverless arithmetic, a dog-eared algebra, an English +grammar, and pen, ink, paper, stubs of pencils, a worn tape-line, and on +the wall hung a soiled shirt, a discarded gray vest, a pair of old +trousers, and a dented derby hat. Lizzie lowered the lamp to the table +and sat down in the only chair in the room. A pair of John's old shoes +peeped out at her from beneath the narrow bed. Lizzie sat there for an +hour or more. She was tearless, but a vast reservoir of tears seemed +backed up within her, and certain inward dams threatened to burst. John +no longer seemed the gawky workman of his later days, but the neglected +though attractive child who used to romp noisily through the house and +stare at her and her friends with such innocent and prattling blandness. +And he was dead, actually dead! Lizzie mused thus for a while, and then +began to grow angry. People were saying that she had caused his death by +separating his wife from him and driving him away. They were saying, +too, those meddlesome fools! that he had tried to rescue a child from +sheer contamination by her, and had lost his life in the attempt. John's +father, if he were alive--but she mustn't think of him. No, she had +given that over long ago. But to-night John's father, as a discarnate +entity of some sort, seemed to haunt the dead silence of the house to +which he had brought her so hopefully. The all-pervading gloom seemed to +palpitate with his demand for the restoration to life and happiness of +his son. Was she losing her mind? Lizzie wondered. She never could have +imagined that such an hour as this could arrive for her, an hour so +fraught with twinges, pangs, and thrusts the like of which had been +alien to her experience. She could bear it no longer, and she took her +lamp and went back to her own room. She listened attentively to detect +any sound that might come from Jane's chamber. Was it a voice, a low, +querulous voice? Yes, it must be; and laggingly she went to respond to +it. + +Jane lay with her eyes wide open in almost infantile inquiry. + +"I see it didn't work," she smiled, wanly. "I didn't take enough, eh? +Well, well, it doesn't matter, Liz. I'd rather go the regular, +old-fashioned way, after all. I seem to have slept off that other +feeling. I'm not afraid now--no, no, not a bit! I've had my day, old +pal, and the richest women of the land haven't had a better time. I +dreamt that all the girls were here--Ide, and Lou, High-fling Em, and--" + +"They were here this afternoon," Lizzie fished from her turgid +consciousness, "but they left. They were sorry." + +"Oh, I know, but not one of the bunch thought for one minute that it +would come to them, too, and that's the joke of it! Selfish +fools--nasty, sly, and catty even over a corpse. They sent Mag +Sebastian flowers, but it was after Mag was out of the game. Huh! I +guess I know 'em, Liz, and so do you. Shucks! you won't cry when I'm +carted off--not on your life! But there is _one_ thing, yes, one thing, +Liz, and it lies just between you and me. I don't know why it hangs on +to me so tight. Huh!" Jane forced a rasping, throaty laugh that fairly +snarled with insincerity. "I mean--I mean--oh, hell! you know what I +mean!" + +"I--I don't think I do," Lizzie faltered, trying to meet Jane's +unwavering stare. + +"Oh, come off, come off!" Jane sniffed. "'Jurors, look on the +prisoner--prisoner, look on the jurors'! You know what I'm talking +about. I heard the doctor telling you last night about John and Dora. +Listen. I've had my fun and the good things of life, but did _my +fun_--you know what I mean--did _my fun_ come between me and--well--my +duty to the kid's mother? And more than that--more than that--did my fun +and yours, Liz, drive a young wife from a happy home with a hanging +head, cause a fine boy and a helpless little girl to run from us as from +smallpox into roasting flames--" + +"Hush, hush!" Lizzie gasped, and she rose to her feet, quivering and +pallid. + +"Oh, well, never mind, Liz!" Jane sighed wearily. "You can't face that +point any better than I can, but you hold a better hand than I do--for +you see, Liz, you are still alive. Oh, but I don't know that I'd swap +with you, for I'll soon know nothing about it, and I guess you'll tote +it about with you awhile, anyway. I know I would if I lived, and that is +why I tried the dope-route last night. Those thoughts have been in my +mind some time. By the way, I want my pink on and the other things, and +my hair fixed the same way. Don't forget. There won't be any preacher +needed. I don't want any long-faced chap to whitewash my giddy record or +to make an example of me. We are close to the graveyard, thank the +powers that be, and I won't have to ride through town feet foremost. I +wish the girls would stay away. I don't know why, but I do." + +Jane's eyelids were drooping, and, thinking that she might sleep, Lizzie +crept from the room. It was a long, sleepless night for Mrs. Trott. +About every hour she would go to Jane, bend over her, and listen to her +soft breathing. She was too inexperienced to know whether a decided +change was taking place. She joyfully greeted the first gray streaks of +daylight in the sky and began to watch for the coming of Mandy. +Presently the servant came, accompanied by her husband, a lusty, +middle-aged laborer, who simply tipped his hat and sat down on the +sawhorse in the wood-yard. + +"Jake say he 'low you may need er man about," Mandy explained. "How she +comin' on?" + +"Just the same, when I last saw her," Lizzie said. "Will you go in and +see her?" + +Mandy was in Jane's room several minutes. Then she came back, a serious +and resigned look on her swarthy face. + +"I was jes' in time," she said, stoically. "She opened 'er eyes, Mis' +Trott, en' look' straight at me, en' smiled en' laughed, low-like. 'I +done hat my share er fun,' she say. En' wid dat she fetched er big +breath en' died. I didn't tetch 'er--no, ma'am, I didn't lay han's on +'er. Jake tol' me not ter. Jake say his maw tol' 'im dat 'twon't do ter +tetch de corpse of any but dem dat's 'ceptable ter old St. Peter. Jake +say dat de evil sperit is still housed up in de corruption, en' dat it +will go inter any livin' flesh dat give it er chance. But somebody got +ter dress 'er, Mis' Trott. It is a 'ooman's place. Dar is a black +mid-wife 'cross town dat does all sorts er odd jobs. Jake say he think +she would come. She got witch en' hoodoo charms, en' say ol' Nick en' +all his imps cayn't faze 'er. Jake will go fer 'er ef you say so." + +"Very well, very well," Lizzie consented. "And have him see the +undertaker, too, please." + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + +Martha Jane Eperson alighted from her brother's buggy before the gate at +the Whaley farm-house. Mrs. Whaley came out and met her. + +"I got your message," the visitor said, "and came in as quickly as I +could. I had heard of John's death, and, as it is all over the country, +I knew that Tilly had already heard it or had to be told." + +"Yes, she knows," Mrs. Whaley sighed, resignedly. "Her father came in +and let it out awfully rough-like. I hold that against him, so I do. He +showed her the paper that it was in and told her that, although the +court had dissolved the marriage tie, God had made the separation doubly +sure. Tilly sat sorter dead-like for a long time. That was yesterday +evening about sundown. I tried to comfort her, but she shudders and +screams when me or her pa comes near her. This morning the doctor came +to see her. I sent for him. He said she had to have a change. He was mad +at her pa, and they had sharp words at the gate. The doctor said she +simply must not stay here with us for a while--that it would drive her +out of her senses or kill her." + +"So you sent for me?" Martha Jane faltered. + +"Yes, because you are the only one she talks about wanting to see. She +loves you, and intimated that she would like to go out to your house for +a few days. I am sure it will do her good, and I thought maybe you +wouldn't mind--" + +"Oh, I should love it above all things!" The girl grasped Mrs. Whaley's +hands and wrung them eagerly. "I have the buggy. I could take her right +back with me." + +"Then you ought to do it while her pa is away," Mrs. Whaley said, her +beetling brows lowered. "He is in the country to-day. If he was here he +might raise a row, but he won't be apt to object when it is already +done. I think she ought to go. I hate to say it, but this is no place +for her right now. I'm afraid sometimes that her pa's got some trouble +of the brain. 'Softening,' some call it. He is not like he was. He wakes +up in the dead of night and comes stumbling over things to my bed to +talk all this over, and he would go to Tilly's bed, too, if I'd let him. +He is even suspicious of me--says I dispute his Bible views behind his +back, or when he is expounding them to somebody before me. But I don't. +I'm sick and tired of it all. I am coming to see that he is wrong, +because religion is intended to help, not ruin folks, and between you +and me, Martha Jane, every bit of trouble me and him ever had came out +of his peculiar way of looking at Scripture. La me! wouldn't it have +been better to have left Tilly down there with the man she picked out +than to--to-- Well, you know what I mean? You see how it ended." + +With moist eyes, Martha Jane nodded. "May I see her now?" she asked, her +lips twitching. + +"Yes, go right up. She will be glad to see you." + + * * * * * + +Two days later Joel Eperson and Tilly sat on the veranda of Joel's +farm-house. "Martha Jane said you had something to say to me," he said, +gravely. "I hope it is something that I can do to help you, Tilly. God +knows I want to do so." + +"Yes, I want you to help me," Tilly said, lifting her sad eyes to his +face, "but first I must make a confession. Joel, I deliberately planned +this visit to Martha Jane for a purpose. There was something to be done +that would have been impossible at home, owing to my father's close +watching over me." + +"I see-- I see, and I am ready for anything," Joel declared, fervently. + +Tilly was silent for several minutes, her glance on the lap of her black +dress, and the black-bordered handkerchief which she held balled in her +little hand. + +"Of course," Joel began, considerately, "if you don't feel like saying +any more at present, why, I--" + +"It is not that," Tilly broke in; "but, oh, Joel, I am afraid that you +may not agree with me, and this is a thing that lies very heavily on my +sense of duty. There is something that I must do right away. Joel, I +must go to Ridgeville for a day or so." + +"To Ridgeville!" He stared blankly, after his astounded ejaculation. + +"Yes, Joel. I want to visit our little house again and get some things I +left-- No, that isn't it. Why am I not telling the truth? I want to get +anything--anything that John may have left. You see"--filling up and +sobbing now--"I haven't a single thing with me that was actually his." + +"I understand." Joel raised his tortured eyes from her sweet, +grief-swept face and let them rove unguided over his fields of cotton +and ripening corn which lay along the red-clay road sloping +mountainward. "I see, and you think that I--" + +"It is like this, Joel." Tilly was controlling her sobs now and bending +anxiously toward him. "So many people know me at Cranston that if I took +the train there it would cause talk of an unpleasant sort. Father would +know I was going and he would not allow it. But Bellewood, two miles +from here, you know, is a station, and if you would put me on there at +eight o'clock in the morning no one at home would know anything about +it." + +Joel's honest and worshipful eyes crept back to her face. "I see," he +said, slowly, "and your people would think that you were here under the +protection of my sister, my mother, and myself." + +"Yes, Joel, but I have mentioned it to your mother and sister and they +see it as I do. They are women and understand. They were afraid, +however, that you would not want to do it, and so I came to you. You +must help me, Joel. As I see it, a deception of this sort is not wrong, +for it springs from a right motive." + +Joel was deeply perturbed. His whole mental and spiritual being rose and +fell on the billows of indecision. Finally he asked: "Is it just to +visit the house and get some things? Is that all, Tilly?" + +He saw her glance waver and sink to her lap. She took a deep, resolute +breath. "What is the use?" she said, tremulously. "I cannot lie to you, +Joel. You will either help me, knowing fully what I'm going for, or not +at all. Joel, I want to see John's mother." + +"His mother?" The plain man started and recoiled. "But why, oh, why, +Tilly?" + +She put her handkerchief to her writhing lips; she gulped and, with +lowered eyes, half sobbed: "Because she is John's mother--that's all, +Joel. I want to see, close at hand, the woman who gave my husband birth +and nursed him when he was a baby. I saw her once when she sat behind me +at a show. She looked at me and I looked at her. Somehow I think I'd +know her better than any one else. Joel, she has lost her child and I +have lost my husband. They have gone from us forever and ever. No power +on earth ought to keep us two apart. No one else can tell how I feel or +how she feels. I don't think she is as bad as people say, not deep down +in her heart, anyway. She's done wrong, but so have all of us. Joel, you +can help me or not, as you think best, but if you don't take me to that +train I shall walk to it alone. I know my duty before God, and I shall +do it. Joel, Joel, Joel"--she was speaking slowly, as if to formulate +into words thoughts which lay deep beneath the surface of her torn +being--"Joel, God is holding me accountable, in a way. Joel, if I had +not deserted John he would have been alive to-day. Something would have +arisen to have prevented my father from shooting him. I thought I was +acting for the best, but I was excited and terrified. Do you think, +feeling as I do, that I care what a few people here or at Ridgeville +think about me?" + +Joel rose to his feet. He was wearing his working-clothes. His coarse +shoes and the hat in his gaunt hand were covered with dust from the barn +which he had been cleaning in preparation for the winter's storage of +grain. His rough shirt was open at the neck, the muscles of which were +drawn taut. His brow and hands were beaded with sweat. He stood staring +mountainward for a moment, rocked between two impulses. Presently he +turned to her. + +"It would be a question between old-fashioned men of honor," he said, +"whether a gentleman could act as you ask me to act while you are +intrusted to his protection, but you are now speaking of things, Tilly, +which men have no right to decide upon. No bishop, no cardinal should +refuse to go to a woman in distress, and neither should I!--neither +should you. And so, if you feel that it is your duty to the memory of +your husband to do this thing, I shall help you." + +"Thank you, Joel." Tilly sobbed aloud. "I knew you would not desert me." + +"And when do you want to go?" he inquired. + +"In the morning, Joel." + +"Then I shall be ready to take you," he said, turning away. + +He had to clean and oil the wheels of his road-wagon, and he went to the +barn-yard and set to work. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + +There was but scant attendance at the burial of Jane Holder. The men she +had known, and with whom she had laughed, danced, jested, and sung, +under the veil of night, for obvious reasons could not attend in open +daylight such rites, simple and unobtrusive though they were. In like +manner, Jane's female associates were chary about being in evidence. +Moreover, such irresponsible human butterflies are said to have morbid +fears of death, and this particular case was surely nature's grimmest +reminder. + +Lizzie Trott went, of course, and Mandy and Jake walked behind her, +solemnly and sedately self-righteous. The spot set aside for Jane's +remains to repose in was in an unused, weed-overgrown corner of the +public cemetery--the spot decided on by the town clerk, who granted the +permit at the price required alike for respected or unrespected +interment. The undertaker's men, in a perfunctory way, did the work of +lowering the flower-covered casket into the damp red clay which was +intermixed with round, prehistoric pebbles. The white sexton of the +cemetery, an old man, bowed and gray, took charge of the filling of the +grave with earth and shaping a mound on the surface. + +The hearse, the black-plumed horses, and the undertaker's men went away. +Jake and Mandy again fell in behind Lizzie and they walked down the hill +to the deserted house. + +"I cooked enough fer yo' supper, Mis' Trott," Mandy said at the gate. +"Jake say dat I mustn't come back ter you any mo'." + +"Very well, Mandy," Lizzie said, wearily. "Good-by." + +"Good-by, Mis' Trott. Me 'n' Jake bofe sorry fer you." + +"Yas'm, we is," Jake intoned, doffing his hat and sliding his flat feet +backward. + +The interior of the house was still and shadowy. Lizzie sat down in that +best dark dress of hers in the parlor. She was beginning to pity +herself, for it was all so very, very terrible. How could she go on +living there? And yet, whither was she to go? She rose. She started up +the stairs with the strange intention of again visiting John's old room, +but in the hall she stopped. "How silly!" she thought. "What am I going +up there for?" The slanting rays of the lowering sun fell through the +narrow side-lights of the door and lay on the floor at her feet. She +shuddered. It would soon be night again and how could she pass the dark +hours?--for something told her that she would not sleep soundly. She had +never felt less like sleeping, though she had not lost consciousness for +two days and two nights. Then a self-protective idea entered her +confused reflections, and she acted on it. She found among her +belongings a piece of broad black ribbon, and, forming a bow and +streamers of it, she hung it on the front door-knob, together with a +card on which she had written, "Not at home." That would keep people +away--her friends and Jane's--and she was in no mood to entertain any +one. The ribbon and card would speak of John, of Dora, of Jane, and the +boldest would respect their significance. + +In her own room Lizzie changed her dress. She felt like it, and she put +on her oldest and plainest gown. She drew off her rings and bracelets +and dropped them into a drawer. Something psychological was happening to +her which she could not have analyzed had she had far more occult +knowledge than she possessed. She remembered that her mother had dressed +plainly in those far-off days which now seemed so sweet and restful, and +somehow she wanted to be like her mother. + +It was sundown. It would soon be dark, she told herself, with a cool +shudder and a little groan of despair. Suddenly she heard a sound as of +the gate being closed. Then there was a light step on the porch, +followed by a low rap on the door. Lizzie crept down the stairs, not +knowing whether she should open the door or not. There was another rap, +a timid one, it seemed to Lizzie, who now stood hesitating in the hall +close to the door. There was a brief silence, then a low, awed voice was +heard calling: + +"Mrs. Trott! Oh, Mrs. Trott! May I see you for a moment?" + +Lizzie fired up with a touch of her old irascibility, and, putting her +lips to the keyhole, she cried out, sharply: + +"There is no one at home! Can't you read the card on the door?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Trott," came back after a pause, "but I've come a long way to +see you. Don't you know me? I'm Tilly, John's wife." + +"John's wife!" Lizzie gasped under her breath. "John's wife!" Then with +fumbling fingers she unlocked and opened the door and stood staring at +the quaint little visitor whose black costume was covered with the dust +of travel and who seemed quite frightened under the ordeal upon her. + +"Oh, Mrs. Trott," Tilly went on, in a pleading tone, "do forgive me! I +know I have no right to intrude on you like this, but I simply couldn't +stay away any longer. Oh, Mrs. Trott, you are alone and in trouble and I +want to help you!" + +"Want to help me--you want to help me?" Lizzie stammered, taking Tilly's +outstretched hand and leading her into the parlor. "Of course, of course +you are welcome, but you mustn't stand there. Some one passing might see +you. You say--you say that you want to see me?" + +"Yes, you are his mother-- I'm his wife, and we have lost him. Oh, Mrs. +Trott, what are we to do--how can we bear it?" + +Tilly's voice quivered and hung in her throat and broke into sobs. The +woman within the woman of the world took the weeping child to her breast +and held her there. She, too, was weeping now and afraid to trust her +abashed voice to utterance. Locked in a mutual embrace, they stood for +several minutes. Then Lizzie, the weaker vessel of the two, found her +voice. + +"Why did you come _here_?" she cried. "Oh, why did you come _here_?" + +"I had to see you," Tilly made husky reply. "I know how you feel because +I know how I feel. Oh, Mrs. Trott, you are his mother--actually his +mother. I see the look of him in your face, in your eyes, in your hair +and hands, and hear his voice in yours. Do you know that I killed him? +If I had not left him as I did he would have been alive to-day. I was a +coward--but, oh, it was for John, for John's sake that I did it!" + +"I understand," Lizzie half groaned, "but you were not to blame, my +child. I am the one. It's just me, child--just me and no one else. I +spoiled his life and yours. I know it--I know it. You ought to hate me, +as all the rest do, and not come here like this. Don't you know that if +people knew you were here they would--would--" + +"Hush!" Tilly said, pressing Lizzie's hands to her breast and holding +them there. "I love you--I love you even more--yes, more than I do my +own mother. You are my mother. Death has parted John and me, but nothing +should part me from you. Some day you must let me stay with you--live +with you, care for you, work for you. Oh, Mrs. Trott, I want to be to +you what John would have been had he lived to see you so lonely and +unhappy as you are now." + +As she stared Lizzie Trott seemed fairly to wilt in the rays of the new +sun that was blazing over her. "Why, child, darling child," she +sobbingly cried out, "you could never live with me. It is out of all +reason. Even this visit is imprudent. You must go home--you must go back +to your mother. Surely you know that this very roof--" + +"I don't care for that," Tilly broke in. "I can't live with my people-- +I don't want to live anywhere but with you. You need me--yes, that is +the truth; you need me, and I need you. I feel rested and soothed here, +as if God Himself were with me. I don't feel so anywhere else." + +They sat down on the old sofa, side by side. They wept and clung +together. After a while Tilly raised her head. "I've always wanted to +see John's room. May I?" she asked. "Would you mind? It is silly, +perhaps, but I want to see it. He told me how he used to study and work +there at night." + +Lizzie nodded and rose. It was dark now and she lighted a lamp. At the +foot of the stairs, however, she stopped abruptly. + +"Oh, I forgot," she cried. "You ought not to look at it. It is upset, +unclean; it was never well attended to even while he was here. It will +make you hate me." + +"No, no; let me see it, please," Tilly pleaded, taking the lamp into her +own hand. "I can go alone--in fact, in fact, I'd like to be alone there +for a little while, Mrs. Trott, if you wouldn't mind." + +Lizzie hesitated a moment and then gave in. "It is the last door on the +left," she said. "I'm sorry it is in such a bad condition." + +"Very well, I'll find it," Tilly answered, and, leaving Lizzie below, +she went up the stairs. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + + +She was absent more than an hour. Lizzie was becoming afraid of +something she knew not what--something due, perhaps, to the suggestion +laid upon her by Jane Holder's abortive attempt, when Tilly appeared at +the head of the stairs, her nunlike face in the disk of the lamp's rays. + +"I've swept and dusted, and made the bed," she said. "There are a few of +his things that I'd like to have, provided you don't want to keep +them--the books, the drawings, and his hat and shoes." + +"You may have them," Lizzie answered, as they went back into the parlor +and sat down. + +"I am going to ask another favor," Tilly went on. "I intended to spend +the night at the cottage, but if you wouldn't mind I'd like to stay here +with you and sleep in John's old bed. You may think it odd, but I want +to do it, Mrs. Trott. I want to do it more than anything in the world." + +"Oh!" Lizzie started and protested, "you couldn't stay here, my child. +It would never do. You are too young and inexperienced to understand +why. I've harmed you and John enough already; surely you see--you see--" + +"I know what you mean, but it doesn't matter," Tilly insisted. "I want +to stay to-night, for I must go back to-morrow. Don't refuse me--please, +please don't! I want to sleep there and I want to get up in the morning +and cook your breakfast and make your coffee for you. Please, please let +me." + +Lizzie lowered her head. Her features were in the shadow. She was very +silent. Then Tilly felt some tears falling on her hands, and with her +black-bordered handkerchief she wiped Lizzie's wet cheeks and drew her +head down to her shoulder. Suddenly, as if ashamed of her emotion, +Lizzie rose, went to the front door and stood there in silence, looking +out. + +"How could I let her do it?" she reflected. "If it got out she would be +stamped as I am by the public. No, it won't do--it won't do; and yet, +and yet, the dear, sweet child--" + +She turned back to Tilly and sat down. "I don't know what to do," she +faltered. "You are upset now with grief, and are willing to do things +that later on you may be sorry for. Go back to the cottage and stay +there. It will be best." + +"No, Mrs. Trott--mother, I'm going to call you mother. I shall not +desert you to-night. From the cottage I saw the hearse come here this +afternoon and a man told me what it meant. This is your first night +alone and I must be with you." + +In silence Lizzie acquiesced. Remembering that Mandy had left supper +prepared, she went to the kitchen, lighted a lamp, and began putting the +food on the table. Tilly joined her, helping at this and that with +swift, deft hands. Presently they sat down opposite each other. Neither +ate much, though both were pretending to relish the food. The meal was +almost concluded when there was a step on the porch and a vigorous rap +on the door. Lizzie started and almost paled. + +"Stay where you are," she said to Tilly. "I'll be back in a moment." + +Tilly heard her light step to the door, then the door opened and a man's +voice sounded: "Hello, Liz! What's all this? My God! old girl, I just +got to town and heard at the hotel about all three, and--" + +"Hush!" Tilly heard Lizzie's voice ring out. "Go away, and don't come +back ever again. Do you hear me--_never again_?" + +"But Liz, Liz! Why, old friend--" + +"Go away, I tell you! I don't want you here and I won't have it! Tell +all the others to stay away--every one, man and woman. I'm done, I tell +you. I'm through. Go, go, I tell you! Go!" + +There was a mumbled, bewildered protest which grew fainter and fainter +till it ended with the clicking of the gate latch, and Lizzie, white and +trembling, returned. She resumed her seat, and with unsteady hands took +up her knife and fork, but made no comment on the interruption. + +Supper over, they rose and put the things away. After this was done they +sat talking in the parlor till nine o'clock. Then Tilly said, "Now you +must go to bed, and so must I." + +Lizzie got another lamp, and when she had lighted it she suddenly +bethought herself of something. "You have no nightgown," she said. "Is +it at the cottage?" + +Tilly nodded. "Yes; I will run over for it, if you will give me a match +to light the gas." + +Lizzie averted her eyes, stood silent for a moment, and then said: + +"No, no, you mustn't go at this time of night. Some one might see you +leaving here or returning. No, no, that would never do, my child. I have +a lot of clean nightgowns, but I have--" Lizzie broke off, her face +flushing, her eyes falling. + +"Then why don't you lend me--" Tilly had read the thought of her +embarrassed hostess, delicate as it was, and yet did not know how to +relieve the situation of its tension. + +"Oh, I remember now!" Lizzie suddenly ejaculated in relief. "I have some +that have just been bought and given to me which I've never worn. They +are rather too small for me. In fact, they are about your size. Come to +my room and I'll get one." + +To the simple, country-bred girl Lizzie's room seemed a luxurious one in +the glow of the pink-shaded lamp on the center-table. The imitation +damask curtains at the windows had a costly look, and the wide bed with +its silk-lined lace covering and great puffy pillows seemed a thing of +royal comfort. On the air a mixture of several perfumes floated. While +Tilly stood in the doorway, holding her lamp, Lizzie went to a wardrobe, +pulled down a long cardboard box, and began to take out some folded +garments. Suddenly she turned her back to Tilly, and with a gown of fine +linen in her hands she hastily proceeded to remove the pink ribbons and +bows from the neck and sleeves. + +"It is too gaudy for you, with all these gewgaws on it," she awkwardly +explained, when she noticed that Tilly was watching her. "It is not what +you'd prefer, I'm sure; but maybe you can make it do for once. It has +never been worn. It is just from the store. Here, you can see the +price-tag on it." + +Tilly took it, was deeply touched, and bent and kissed Lizzie on the +brow. "Good night, mother," she said, simply. "Try to sleep. I can see +that you need rest. We are both in a sad plight, aren't we?" + +"'Mother'! she called me 'mother'!" Lizzie said to herself, as Tilly +turned away. She heard the door of John's room being closed, and, +peering out into the corridor, she saw that it was dark save for a +thread of light beneath the shutter. Then Lizzie, with a strange sense +of something new and hitherto unexperienced in her drab life, started to +prepare for bed. She had removed the pins from her hair and was about to +let it fall, when all at once she paused, reflected for a moment, and +then wound her hair up again. + +"No, no, I mustn't go to bed," she said. "That would never do. The sweet +child is in my care, and nothing shall happen to shock her or prevent +her from sleeping. Somebody might come--who knows? Some one too drunk to +be decent or orderly." + +Therewith, Lizzie got a light shawl, threw it over her shoulders, blew +out her lamp, and crept down the stairs. Seating herself at an open +window of the parlor, whence she could see the gate and a part of the +street leading townward, she determined to remain on guard through the +night. + +Ten o'clock came and passed, eleven, twelve, one, and still she had no +desire for sleep. She had decided how she would act if she saw any one +approaching the isolated house. She would hurry out, meet the person +before he reached the gate, and, if possible, quietly send him away. + +At two o'clock she heard footsteps on the opposite side of the street. A +man was slowly and cautiously passing, his eyes on the house. Lizzie +wondered, and when she saw him pause and retrace his steps, still +looking in her direction, she became even alarmed. Her anxiety +increased, for when the man was opposite the gate he began slowly to +cross the street. From his light, furtive steps Lizzie knew that he was +trying to avoid being seen or heard. + +Rising, she tiptoed from the parlor into the hall and to the door. +Softly she turned the key, that Tilly might not hear, and stepped upon +the porch. The sound she made was evidently heard by the man, for he +paused in the middle of the street and stood still. Though the moonlight +was clear enough, Lizzie failed to recognize in him any acquaintance of +hers. She opened the gate and went directly to him. + +"What do you want here?" she demanded, facing him sternly. + +"Oh!" the man ejaculated. "Are you Mrs. Trott?" + +"Yes, but what do you want?" + +She thought he sighed as he courteously lifted his hat. "Mrs. Trott, I +don't want to intrude," he began. "I am a friend of your son's wife from +Cranston. She was in such deep distress that I and my family aided her. +I helped her take a train this morning, but later decided to--" + +"Oh, you are Joel Eperson, are you not?" + +"Yes," was the answer. + +Lizzie lowered her voice; her glance fell to the ground. "Tilly told me +about you to-night--how kind you have always been to her and what a fine +man you are." + +Joel waved his hand disparagingly. "I am not a wise friend of hers, at +any rate, Mrs. Trott," he sighed. "I ought not to have given in to her +coming. But I didn't know that she--she-- You see, she told me that she +was going to stay at the cottage. If I had thought--" + +"She insisted on staying here," Lizzie replied, plaintively apologetic. +"She came before it was dark and insisted on staying. That is why I am +up. Do you understand?" + +Joel gravely inclined his head. "I understand," he said, "and it is +fine and good of you, Mrs. Trott." + +"And you were standing guard over her, too?" Lizzie went on. + +Again he bowed his head. "It is a cruel world, Mrs. Trott," he said. "I +hope you will pardon me for saying so, but if it should be known that +Tilly stayed--" + +"I know. You needn't tell me," Lizzie interrupted, sensitively. "Now +listen, Mr. Eperson, you must take her home in the morning. You must +take her home and prevent her from coming again. She will want to. She +is not herself now. She is out of her head with grief. I love her--I +love her, and I don't wonder that John did and made her his wife. I've +brought all this on her and I can never undo it. You love her, too, I +know it-- I see it in your face and hear it in your voice. I gathered +it, too, from something she let fall about you and her before she met my +son. Now go to a hotel and get some rest. I am going to sit up and I'll +see that no harm comes to her. I'll make her go to the cottage before it +is light, and you will find her there. I promise it." + +"Thank you, Mrs. Trott." Joel bowed his uncovered head and held out his +hand. "If I had known that you were--were like this I should not have +worried." + +Lizzie pressed his hand and clung to it as if for support to her in what +she next faltered out. "I am a different woman from what I was only +three days ago," she declared. "Certain things have torn me to shreds. +I'm bleeding inside and out. I don't know what I shall do, but I shall +leave this house and bury myself from everybody I've associated with in +the past. You may not think it possible, but I'll die if I don't." + +Joel pressed her hand warmly; he bent his head till his eyes met hers +squarely, frankly. "Then I shall help you," he said, fervently. "Not +only that, but I shall not oppose Tilly in anything she wants to do in +your behalf, and she says she believes in you, Mrs. Trott. I am sure +that she will want to see you again, and she must be allowed to do so. +I'll help her." + +He left her standing in the center of the street and she slowly walked +to the gate, passed through it, and crept back to her post of vigil at +the window. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + + +It was two months after John's acceptance of the position with Pilcher & +Reed. The two partners were in the office together. John happened to be +up-town on business for the firm. + +"Well, what do you think of Trott now?" Reed asked, with a significant +smile, referring to some estimates and calculations of John's which he +had just submitted to his partner. + +"I think he is a wonder," Pilcher returned. "I was thinking about his +work last night. Do you know that I can see where he has already saved +us several thousands of dollars? He prevents much oversupply of +materials and doesn't let us make our old blunders, which often caused +tearing out and rebuilding. He seems to have an eye for the finished +thing before the work is even started. The architects hate him. They +don't have a soft snap with him. He made me send back Hinkinson's plans +for the Chester Flats--stairways too wide by ten inches, and ten feet +too near the front for the stores on the sides." + +"I know," Reed chuckled. "Well, what do you think about his pay? You +know we've hinted at a raise." + +Pilcher smiled. "I think he is worth as much to us as he is to any one +else, and, as I like the fellow personally, I want to hold on to him. +You can't hire a brain like his very long for nothing, and if we don't +come across he may be snapped up by some one else. Carter & Langley's +man asked me the other day if we had a contract with him. I lied. I +told him yes, and what I want to do now is to sign up with the fellow +and know where we stand. He is ambitious, and I never saw such a worker +in my life. He often does as much as an ordinary man after the office +closes. He works at home. He told me that he did not care for +amusements, reading, or politics. He has put his little sister in +school, and he warms up when he speaks of the child. Outside of his +work, she seems to be the only thing he is interested in. He is always +quoting something she says or telling amusing things she does. Then he +laughs--he seldom smiles over anything else. He is very deep and +serious. If he were not so young I'd think he had had a sad love-affair. +I think he must have taken the deaths of his parents and the +responsibility of the child very seriously. Well, what do you think?" + +"About a contract with him? Yes, I think we ought to come to terms with +him. You say he is the man we need. Why not be liberal with him?" + +"I've always thought that gradual progress," Pilcher said, "was good for +young men. You can spoil them easily by letting them know that you can't +do without them. Still, I see your point and agree with you. How about a +two years' contract at fifteen hundred a year?" + +"Not enough." Reed shook his younger and more progressive head firmly. +"Make it eighteen for a year, with a bonus of three per cent. on our +entire net profits." + +Pilcher winced and pulled his beard, but finally agreed. "You attend to +the details and draw up the contract. I catch your idea of pinning down +his personal interest in the work with the bonus. If we make as much +money next year as this he will do well." + +So it was finally arranged, and when John went home on the following +Saturday night, after signing the contract, he was in good spirits. Dora +was at the table with Betty and Minnie when he arrived, and he sat down +with them. They were overflowing with amusement about something that had +happened at school, and John sat watching Dora's animated face with deep +pride and gratification. He was sure she was genuinely happy in her new +environment, and he was beginning to feel that he had made no mistake in +taking her from her old one. She showed by her fine color and increased +weight that she was in splendid health. The new dress which she now wore +and which Mrs. McGwire had selected was most becoming. Her abundant hair +under constant care had grown more tractable and was always well +arranged. Her little hands, once rough and soiled, had grown white, +soft, and pliant. Under Betty McGwire's persistent admonitions she had +left off using many incorrect and uncouth forms of speech, and, on the +whole, deported herself very properly. + +Why should John not be proud of her? Indeed, she was all he had in the +world to care for, and he lavished the wealth of his saddened and lonely +soul upon her. He loved to work in his little room at night when she and +Minnie or Betty studied or read in hers, the door between being always +open. Frequently they asked him questions which he could not +answer--questions pertaining to history, geography, and science, and he +found that he himself was learning from the answers which they finally +secured from their books, teachers, and elsewhere. Sometimes he went +with them to free lectures given at night by the public schools. The +only place he refused to go with them was to the church and +Sunday-school, but, as the grave-faced Harold always escorted them to +these places, they did not need him. Sometimes the boy would speak +earnestly to him of the intricate theology he was mastering, but, as +John no longer combated such ideas with young or old, he always smiled +indulgently and let the subject pass. + +"What does it matter?" he used to ask himself. "Everybody needs a belief +of some sort, and Harold's faith in snake- and whale-stories is as good +as any other, if it will keep him from stealing and murdering and make +him more considerate of his fellow-man. Let the boy preach. If people +are willing to pay to listen to him, that is their business and his. As +for me, it hit me once and sha'n't get a swipe at me again." + +After dinner was over on the night following his promotion, he told the +three little girls that he wanted to "celebrate" that evening and would +take them to a certain theater where a children's play was being +produced. + +"To celebrate what?" they noisily asked him, but he kept his joyous +secret to himself, and they hurried away to get ready to go out. + +While he was waiting for them in the parlor, Harold came down from his +room, a book under his arm, and John invited him to go along. But the +boy only smiled and held out the book, which was the _Life of Wesley_. +"I have to study this to-night," he said. "I am to be examined on the +pioneers of our Church. You know we do not believe in theaters, as a +rule, but I understand that this child's play has a good moral. I'm sure +it won't do any great harm, and the silly things are up-stairs dancing +with joy." + +The children liked the play, the people, the lights, the music, and John +sat feasting on their animated faces. Once, however, a pang of keen pain +shot through him at the thought that he was having a pleasure that +could not be shared with the little toiling woman who had once been his +wife. If all had gone well, he might have brought Tilly to the great +city and lavished the results of his work and ability on her. As it was, +she would perhaps remain in the backwoods for the rest of her life. She +would no doubt marry-- Here he shuddered and tried to banish the thought +from his mind. + +After the play he took his little guests to an attractive cafe and they +had some ice-cream and cakes. While they ate they chattered vivaciously +about the plot and characters of the drama. Betty displayed good +critical ability, and John saw from Dora's face that she was seeing her +new friend in a fresh light and no doubt determining to emulate her in +this, as in other things. He told himself that that quality in his +foster-sister would help her enormously in acquiring the social culture +which he himself had missed in his youth. + +Little Minnie was becoming sleepy. Her eyelids were drooping, and John +started home with them. For a while he led Minnie by the hand, and then, +noting her lagging steps, he took her into his arms and carried her the +rest of the way. He felt her soft cheek settle down against his, and +from her warm, moist breathing he knew that she was asleep. He liked the +sensation caused by the limp form in his embrace. Betty and Dora walked +by his side. Young as he was, he felt a sort of paternal interest in all +three of them. + +Reaching home, he bore the sleeping child up to her little white bed in +her mother's room. Mrs. McGwire was there, hemming sheets for the house, +and was deeply touched by his act. + +"It was awfully kind of you," she said, and then she began to cry. "I'm +a fool," she whimpered, wiping her eyes, "but you were carrying her just +as her father did only a week before he died." + +However, she dried her eyes quickly and hastened to disrobe Minnie, who +was still asleep. + +"You have been a godsend to us all, Mr. Trott," Mrs. McGwire declared. +"The children worship you. Did you know it? Every night they listen for +your coming, and they often go into the kitchen to inquire if you are +getting exactly what you like to eat. I am telling you this because I +like to have children love me, and these love you very deeply." + + * * * * * + +One day John had to go to the office of a great newspaper directory +where files were kept of almost all the papers in the United States, his +object being to look over the advertised offers for bids on public +buildings in a certain New Jersey town. He was sent into the basement of +the establishment, where he found the files arranged in compartments in +shelves on both sides of a long room. An attendant handed him a +catalogue of the papers with the numbered key to their locations, and he +soon secured the information he desired. He was about to leave when a +terrible thought took hold of him, and he ran his eye over the +catalogue. Yes, there it was. _The Cranston News_. He went to the +indicated compartment himself, took down the file it contained, and bore +it to the table and seat set aside for patrons. It was a tiny, +half-stereotyped weekly, and on that account its compartment held a +longer file than otherwise would have been the case. He put the stack of +papers on the table before him. Should he look for the thing the mere +thought of which seemed to deaden his brain? He knew the time that the +item would naturally appear, and with cold, fumbling fingers he drew +out the issue under that date. He held it a moment unopened. + +"What good would it do?" something seemed to admonish him. "Don't rasp a +healing wound." + +The attendant noticed his apparent indecision and approached politely. +"Is there something else you want to see?" he asked. + +"No, thanks; these are all," John answered, and he opened the paper. The +clerk left him and he allowed his glance to sweep the columns of local +happenings. + +It was there. The mere head-line in bold type was sufficient: "Annulment +of Young Bride's Marriage and Tragic End of Husband." + +John read the crudely considerate item through, folded the sheet, and +restored the file to its place. Then he started back to his office. How +pitiless seemed the street scene in the garish light of the midday sun! +The push-cart men, the newsboys, the hurrying throng, the rattling of +the overhead trains, seemed to belong to an earthly hades. And why, he +wondered, should he suffer so over a thing that he had already accepted +as a fact, and partly conquered? He couldn't have answered, though a +psychologist might have classed it under the head of autosuggestion, or +called it a mere backward twist of a morbid imagination fed by +unsubdued, subconscious longings for things the subject once possessed. + +That night strange, dazzling dreams fell to John's portion. If by his +hard work he was enabled through the day to keep his old life out of his +conscious thought to any extent, it was often otherwise when he slept, +and to-night, following the shock he had had that morning, he was living +only too vividly over the period in which he had known Tilly. Again he +was entranced by her illumined face and thrilled by her mellow treble +voice as she read from the Bible that first night of his acquaintance +with her. Again he and she were on the lonely, moonlit mountain road +together. He felt her loving pressure on his arm, and as by the light of +heaven caught her tender, upward glance. Then she became his +wife--actually his wife. They were on the train together--in the cab at +Ridgeville, and then in that cottage of dreams and delight, shut in from +the uncomprehending world without. + +Then he awoke and, like the hail of javelins from an omnipotent enemy, +the tragic facts of his existence hurtled down upon him. Smothering a +cry like that of a wounded beast in a jungle, he found his pillow wet +with tears which he had shed against his will or knowledge--tears of +joy, or tears of grief, which were they? He sprang from his bed and +stood before the window of his boxlike room. + +"It is my yellow streak again," he muttered, wiping his eyes and +grinding his teeth. "It can't down me awake, and so it coils about me in +dreams. Be a man, John Trott! Life was never made for happiness. It was +for pain, struggle, and conquest." + +He heard a sound in Dora's room. He wondered if anything was wrong, and +as an anxious mother might have done, he listened attentively. He heard +a low, rippling laugh, followed by prattling tones. The child was +talking in her sleep. Her dreams must have been pleasant, for her +lilting voice rang out again. + +"It is beautiful on you, Betty! Maybe brother John will get me one, too. +Then we can wear them to the church sociable, eh, Betty?" + +"Brother John!" he echoed, softly. It was sweet and vaguely comforting +to know that the little waif relied upon him even in her dreams. He +crept into her room on his tiptoes, bent over Dora, and looked at her. +What an angelic, spritelike creature she seemed in her white gown and +golden hair! How delicate and refined her features and tapering hands! +In the half-light he saw that she was smiling. Smiling! She had never +smiled like that in the old house at Ridgeville. She had begun to smile +and laugh and jest under his love and care, and he told himself that it +should always be so. + +He went back to his bed, turned his damp pillow over, and laid his head +on a dry spot. As he lay trying to sleep, the visions of his dream began +to hover over him, and, wincing and writhing with pain, he cried: + +"Be a man, John Trott! It is your yellow streak again. Kill it now, or +it will down you in the end!" + + + + +PART II + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Ten eventful years of toil and struggle for John Trott went by. True to +the prophecy of Cavanaugh and other practical men, he succeeded. Step by +step he rose till, on the death of Mr. Pilcher, he became an equal +partner with Reed in the business. He and Dora still lived with the +McGwires in the old house, which was now kept for roomers only. John +could have well afforded to give Dora a more expensive home, but both he +and she had become inseparably attached to these first friends of theirs +in New York. + +Dora, a tall, slender girl of nineteen, while not exactly pretty, was +quite attractive. John had sent her to a select school for young ladies, +and the polish and education she had received had not spoiled her. She +was not ashamed of the fact that she and John had once been what they +were. In fact, the McGwires knew all the circumstances connected with +their clandestine flight from the South, and guarded well their secret. + +Not once, even indirectly, had either John or Dora heard from their +former home. Dora had almost entirely forgotten it, and, while John +could not possibly do so, it had become like a dream of blended joy and +pain which he persistently put aside. But at times a grim certitude +fixed itself on him, that, having once loved, he could never love again. +He never met a marriageable woman, no matter how attractive or willing +she might be to receive his attentions, without feeling the presence of +a certain barrier of contrast to an ideal embedded in his tragic past. +There was a vast store of love and tenderness in him, and this he poured +out on his foster-sister. He was a natural man and yielded to sensual +temptations, but always with the after-result of feeling vaguely soiled +and lowered, and was in continual strife with his passions. To-day they +were conquered, to-morrow they held temporary sway. And there was a +rebuke, always a rebuke which no reasoning could set aside--a rebuke +rising out of the mystic sanctity of the short union between him and his +bride. "Tilly!" The very name crept upon him unawares as from the +exquisite mental pictures he was always trying to suppress. "Tilly!" He +caught himself applying it to Dora, a slip of the tongue, which, better +than anything else, revealed to him the psychic bonds between him and a +personality lost to him forever. Once Dora asked him if he thought, by +any chance, that Tilly might have died. He started, reflected for a +moment, and then answered in a way that was a surprise even to himself. +"No, she's living," he said. "If she were dead I'd feel it." + +"That is no criterion to go by," answered Dora, who had become quite +religious and was now a member of the Methodist Church. "Do you know +what Harold would say about that?" + +"Harold might say a lot of absurd things about it"--John smiled +indulgently--"but he is no criterion, either." + +"Well, I'll tell you what he'd say, and it is my opinion, too," the girl +went on. "He'd say that the very intuitive feeling you say you +have--your firm confidence of her existence, is due to the fact that she +has passed from this plane of life, is now on another, and that she is +always with you in spirit because she loved you once, still loves you, +and wants to protect you. Don't you see how pretty that is, brother +John? She has become, as Harold would say, your guardian angel, your +very conscience. When you are tempted to do wrong she restrains you; and +when you actually do something wrong she has a way of rebuking you +through your intuition." + +This argument displeased John, as all such theories did. He claimed, +with many of his rather materialistic friends, that to believe in a +blissful life to come only rendered one less useful in the present, and +was a strong proof of innate selfishness in the individual who was +seeking it for himself alone. + +But he let Dora have her way, and why shouldn't he? Indeed, he was +almost sure that she and Harold were falling in love with each other. +Harold was preaching now in a small church on the west side of the city, +and his mother and sisters and Dora were diligent helpers in many ways. + +"I'm becoming sure," Mrs. McGwire said, with a smile, one day to John as +they lingered at the breakfast-table after Betty and Dora had left, +"that Dora and Harold are very much in love, and I'm glad of it. A +minister ought to marry early, and your sister, of all girls, is the one +I'd want for him." + +"So it is like that, is it?" John said, resignedly. "Well, I have no +objections, I'm sure. I want her to be happy." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +One evening, shortly after that, Harold came into John's room, saying +that he wanted to speak to him in private. He was slightly above medium +height, quite thin, and attenuated-looking. He wore the black +frock-coat, high, stiff collar, and black necktie of his calling. For a +man of less than twenty-four years of age he certainly was grave and +serious-looking. He was endeavoring to produce a show of whiskers on his +cheeks and chin, but the effort was almost in vain, for the hairs grew +sparsely and were of a color between yellow and light brown that did not +make for density of appearance. However, he was earnest and sincere, and +John liked and trusted him. + +"I've been wanting to see you for some time, Mr. Trott," he began, +taking a chair that was vacant near John's and linking his white hands +between his knees. "I don't know what you will think of me, but I've had +the audacity to fall in love with your sister, and, as I look upon you +as her guardian and protector, I felt honor-bound to come to you." + +"I see, I see." John had flushed with embarrassment. "Well, the truth +is, Harold, I have been suspecting something of this sort lately, and I +can imagine what you want to say." + +Harold had never been one to give in to embarrassment. Life was too +serious and needed too many corrections to justify him in losing time or +emotion in that way, so without change of color, or quickened pulse, he +went on. "I have reason to believe, Mr. Trott, that Dora reciprocates my +feeling, and you may be sure that it has given me great happiness. She +is wrapped up in my work, and I know of no woman who would so readily +adapt herself to the routine of a minister's career. The only thing +bothering us both has been--" + +For the first time Harold hesitated. + +"Go ahead," said John, awkwardly, and quite unaware of what was +forthcoming. + +"You see, I know what she has been to you all these years," Harold +resumed, "and we both know, too, what your religious, or lack of +religious, views are, and it has pained me to think that perhaps you +would prefer as Dora's husband a man of--well, a man whose views were +more in accord with your own than mine can ever possibly be." + +Not knowing what to say, John hung fire. He had always been outspoken +where his views were directly challenged, and, despite the delicacy of +the present crisis, he had nothing to take back. All things being equal, +he really would have preferred to have his protegee marry, if she +married at all, a man whose calling he could be proud of. He had +ridiculed parsons as the most parasitical of all men, and yet here he +was about to hand over to one of them the only human treasure he +possessed. + +"I see you understand me," Harold half sighed, "and I am not so full of +religious zeal as not to sympathize with you. I don't see how a man can +live without more faith than you have, but I admire your firmness of +conviction in what you think is right. You may call yourself an atheist, +Mr. Trott, but you really are not one. A great man has said that there +are no atheists--that every man who does good, defends goodness, and +contends against evil of any sort has as good a god as any one. I don't +agree with him fully, but I know that what you did for Dora, full of +despair as you were at the time, proves that you had divinity in you. +That act was godlike and had to have a source outside of mere animal +instinct." + +John was touched. He held out his hand. "Let all that pass, Harold," he +smiled. "I am sure that Dora loves you, and I want to make her happy. +You are her choice. You have a right to her." + +"I thank you," Harold responded, with his first touch of emotion. There +was silence for a moment, then Harold said: "There is yet another +matter, Mr. Trott, and both Dora and I are worried over it. It belongs +to a little secret of ours. We have not even told my mother yet, and we +dread doing so. Mr. Trott, I have just received an appointment to a +desirable post among the missionaries in China." + +"China!" John repeated, his honest mouth drooping, his eyes taking on a +dull fixity of gaze. + +Harold shrugged and nodded. "I thought that would pain you, and so did +Dora, but there is nothing else to do but to tell you about it frankly. +The heads of the work prefer men with wives, and Dora has her heart set +on aiding me in the Orient." + +The smoldering embers of John's antagonism under its threatened blight +flared up. His blood flowed hotly to his brain. He knew that the +separation would be for years if not for all time, and how could he be +expected to submit calmly to such a heartless course? Could Dora find it +in her gentle nature to desert him like that after all they had been to +each other? + +"I see that you are hurt," Harold sighed, softly, "and I am more than +sorry, Mr. Trott." + +John's anger was dying down; a cool breath of sheer despair and +resignation seemed to blow over him. How could he live on alone? he +wondered, and yet the thing proposed was the logical outcome of many +natural circumstances and had to be borne. + +"I believe," John answered, "that the missionaries, once they leave, do +not return to America frequently?" + +"No, they are all poor people, Mr. Trott, and the money saved from such +costly traveling expenses can be well used in other ways." + +"We'll let that pass," John said, "and come to something else. I have +put by a little money to be given or left to Dora, and--" + +But raising his hand, and flushing freely now, Harold checked him. + +"Don't speak of that, Mr. Trott, please!" he urged. "Dora mentioned +something of the sort to me. She said you had thrown out some hint of it +recently, and she and I talked it over. We both decided that we'd rather +not let you do anything of the sort. You are a young man yourself, and +have already done a thousand times more than your duty to Dora. Indeed, +we'd both feel very unhappy if you carried out such a plan. You laugh at +men of my calling and say they are grafters, but it is really not as you +think. Most of the missionaries I've met are poor men, and they are +willing to remain so. It would be an absurdity for Dora and me to accept +help from you, when our organization is pledged to see that +superannuated ministers and their wives are cared for as long as they +live." + +John was about to speak, vaguely pleased by the manliness of Harold's +words, when Dora suddenly came in. Her face was flushed, but her eyes +were steady. She stood by Harold's side, who had risen, and smiled half +fearfully at John. + +"Well, have you told him?" she asked Harold. + +He nodded, and put his arm around her waist. + +"I mean, have you told him about China?" she went on, anxiously. + +"Yes"--with a smile--"and that we simply will not let him give us any of +his hard-earned money." + +"No, indeed, brother John," Dora cried. "Not a penny of your money will +I take after all you have done for me. You must get married--you must be +sensible and find you a good wife. You will need all the money you have, +too. It is bad enough--my leaving you like this--without taking your +savings. We simply won't hear to it, will we, Harold?" + +"No," the other answered, firmly. "We'd be acting a lie if we teach +others that poverty and humility are a blessing while having a nest-egg +of our own." + +"Now hear from me." Dora tried to speak with amusing lightness. "While +you were here, Harold, exploding your bomb, I've been telling your +mother. She is down in her room, crying her heart out. She takes it very +hard. It has been the pride of her life that you are a minister, but she +never dreamed that she'd miss hearing you preach every Sunday of her +life, and help you with your work besides. That's the mother of it, and +this is really the hardest blow she's ever had." + +There was a sound of a dog barking down-stairs. It was John's pet +fox-terrier, Binks. + +"He is after a rat," Dora said, forcing a smile to her set face and +somehow not wanting to meet the eyes of the stricken man. + +"Yes"--John rose--"it is time for me to take him out. He stays in too +much." John knew that he was expected to say more on the other subject, +but all at once his tongue had become tied. An indescribable despair +incased him like walls of sinister darkness. The young couple seemed to +feel his mood and to be baffled by it, standing in the presence of his +disappointment as if conscious of actual guilt in causing it. Neither +said anything, and John got his hat and descended to his dog. + +They heard him whistling to Binks as if nothing unusual had happened. +They heard the yelping animal scampering up the basement steps to meet +him. Creeping wordless, and hand in hand, to the stairs, they saw John +bend down and take the dog in his arms. Binks was licking the side of +his face, and John seemed unconscious of it. The mute watchers heard the +front door close after him. Dora turned back into John's room. She was +wiping her eyes. Harold took her into his arms. + +"Don't, don't, dear!" he said, tenderly. "It can't be helped, you know. +He will suffer--another will suffer, but it has to be. We all bear a +cross of some sort or other." + +"I know it," she continued to sob, "but it is terrible. Harold, I have +never seen such a look on his face as was on it when I came in the room +just now. He looked as if he had lost every hope in life. I didn't think +I'd ever wound him like this. I used to tell him that he and I would be +near together always--if he married or if I married. You see, I know he +counted on it, for he mentioned it frequently. Wasn't that +pitiful--taking Binks up that way? I could almost hear him sob." + +"You are too sentimental, dear," Harold answered, trying to disguise his +own emotion, which perhaps Dora's melting mood had elicited. "You +soft-hearted women are always attributing your own feelings to men. +He'll soon get over it. Besides, a man as young as he is ought not to +become a confirmed old bachelor, and this very separation may drive him +into a happiness as normal as yours and mine is going to be." + +"I hope so--oh, I hope so!" Dora whimpered, still wiping her eyes. "If +he should remain unhappy here I am afraid I'd not be wholly content away +from him." + +"He'll marry, don't worry," Harold said, kissing her again. "He's bound +to do so. He is too fine a man to pass his life in loneliness." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The wedding, one bright morning in June, was a most simple one and took +place in the little church that Harold was leaving. The rites were +performed by the Rev. Arthur Kirkwood, the young minister who was +succeeding him. Harold was popular with his congregation, and the church +was fairly well filled with sympathetic friends, none of whom were known +to John. Indeed, he was a dreary alien in a weirdly convivial +assemblage, the smug elation of which irritated him. Mrs. McGwire, +Betty, and Minnie were all so busy shaking hands with people they knew +that John was really ignored. He wanted it so, and yet he keenly felt +the line of demarcation between the element in which he lived and that +which had engulfed Dora and was sweeping her out of his ken forever. He +sat alone in the second row of seats, only a few feet from the pulpit +and a table laden with flowers. A few young people in the choir overhead +were laughing gaily. The faces all over the room were beaming +expectantly, and some of the most impatient persons asked when the bride +and groom would arrive. + +"At ten o'clock, sharp," Mrs. McGwire said, aloud, so that all could +hear. "They are coming in a carriage, and expect to be driven straight +to the train from here." + +The time dragged slowly for John. He saw a few persons eying him with +mild interest as the brother of the bride, but most of the others were +occupied in exchanging jests or greetings with this or that acquaintance +as their heads met over the backs of the seats. To while away the time, +and for the sheer love of it, a man who was a sort of leader in church +singing suddenly began to sing a well-known revival hymn, and the others +joined in lustily. John detested it. He had heard it during his isolated +childhood at Ridgeville, later at Cranston, and here it was a strident +requiem over the bier of his last hope. He was inclined to +self-analysis, and he wondered if any of the audience could imagine the +dark and rebellious state of mind that he was in. He was not jealous of +Harold, he did not begrudge Dora's happiness or desire to curb the +festive mood of the people around him. He was simply in despair and +could see no way of escape. He tried to think of going back to the +office the next day and plunging into work, but how could he do so +without some aim in life? Dora had refused financial aid from him. Of +what account were his past earnings or those of the future? + +The singing was brought to an abrupt end. Mrs. McGwire, who had +stationed herself at the street door, suddenly cried out, "They are +coming!" and a fluttering silence brooded on the room. + +Dora and Harold, accompanied by Mr. Kirkwood, entered the adjoining +Sunday-school room from the street with the playful intent to deceive +the audience, who were watching the front, and the McGwires all hastened +through a doorway near the pulpit to greet them. Betty, a tall, +dignified young lady in a becoming street dress, ran across to John. + +"Will you come speak to them now, or afterward?" she asked, smiling. + +"Afterward," he answered, flushing under the composite stare of the +whole room and irritated by being made so conspicuous. + +"But you won't have a very good chance then," she advanced. "You know +there will be an awful rush at the carriage. You'd better come now." + +He complied. He found Dora and Harold in the arms of Minnie and her +mother. Both of the latter were weeping. + +"I'd cry, too," Dora said, smiling sadly up at John, "but it would leave +streaks of wet powder on my face. I am to be a pale and interesting +bride. I'm sorry to leave you, brother John." + +"Never mind, Sis," he said, bravely. "Everything goes in this life." She +leaned toward him, and he kissed her. He was still a crude man and +shrank from caressing even Dora in the presence of others. + +"We'll meet again," she said, confidently; "don't let yourself believe +otherwise." + +"All right, I won't." He forced himself to smile. + +"Ten o'clock!" cried out Mr. Kirkwood, who was ready at the door. "You +mustn't miss that train. I'm going in to take my place. Come right in, +Brother McGwire." + +"Then this must be good-by, darling John," Dora whispered. "I know you +won't want to push through the crowd to us afterward." + +"Good-by--good-by," he said, and then he shook hands with Harold. +"Good-by, Harold," he said. "I'm leaving her with you." + +"I'll do my best, Mr. Trott," Harold said, feelingly. "She is a treasure +and I am robbing you. God knows I wish it could be without pain to you." + +"Nevermind; that is all right," John answered. + +Mrs. McGwire and Minnie, a plain, rather gawky girl, went to the first +row of seats in the church, sat down, smiled knowingly at some friends +in the rear, and John and Betty followed. Some one at the organ played +a wedding march, and Harold and Dora came in and stood before the +waiting preacher. + +It was soon over. The organ groaned mellowly, and Harold led Dora down +the aisle to the vestibule. The congregation followed like stampeding +cattle. John was left alone, the McGwires having hurried out through the +Sunday-school room to get a last sight of the pair as they entered the +carriage. + +John met Mrs. McGwire outside as the carriage was disappearing down the +street. She said she and her daughters were going to stay awhile to +attend to the flowers and some other gifts, and he went home alone. The +massive door was locked, and, opening it with a pass-key, he entered the +hall. He heard Binks barking in the back yard and he went down to him. + +"They didn't want you there, did they, Binks?" he said, taking the dog +in his arms. "You'd have made a row, wouldn't you? Well, she is gone, +old boy--you don't realize it now, but you will later, when you miss the +feeds and nice baths she gave you. She used to buy choice morsels for +you. I know, for I've seen the bones lying around." + +The remainder of that day he spent in sheer torment, strolling about in +the parks with Binks, and when he returned home he found Betty and +Minnie alone in the parlor. Their eyes were red from weeping. + +"It is on account of the way mother is taking it," Betty explained. +"She's gone to bed with a headache. The excitement of the wedding kept +her up, but she has gone to pieces since they left. Really, Harold was +all she had in the world. Min and I didn't count." + +John could think of nothing to say, and he went on to his room. There +were some blue-prints and calculations awaiting his attention on the +big desklike table in his room, and he took them up to look them over, +but laid them down again. + +"What is the use?" he muttered. "My God! what is the use of _anything_? +Money? What do I care for money? What could I do with it if I had +millions?" + +That night when he was about to go to bed he looked into Dora's room. +She had left it in perfect order, but somehow it seemed as barren as a +room for transient guests in a hotel. + +"Dear, dear Sis," he said, with a lump in his throat. "When you and I +used to get up before day in that old ramshackle home--you in your rags, +and I in my overalls--we didn't dream that all those things would happen +and draw to an end like this. There is nothing for me to look forward +to--nothing, absolutely nothing, but you will find peace, contentment, +and happiness. Well, that is enough. It was worth it, Sis. I'm out of +it, and it is only my yellow streak that is whining." + +The room, in its tomblike silence and inanimate reminders, oppressed him +sorely, and, closing the door that he might not, even by accident, +glance into it again that night, he started to undress for bed, when +Binks began loudly barking down-stairs. Then he heard Betty trying to +quiet him. + +"What is the matter with him?" John called down from the head of the +stairs. + +"I think he wants you," Betty laughed. "I can't pacify him. He keeps +jumping up and down, pawing the floor, and crying like a baby." + +"Unfasten him, please, and let him come up," John answered. + +Immediately there was a swishing, thumping sound on the stairs and +Binks rushed into John's room and began to lick his hands and whine. +Although he was ready for bed, John sat down in a big chair, took the +dog into his arms, and fondled him like an infant. Binks seemed to +understand, for he became restful at once. John was not conscious of it, +but he sat with the animal in his lap for nearly an hour. Suddenly he +became aware that it was late, and he put on his bath-robe and slippers, +with the intention of taking the dog down to his kennel, but Binks, as +if reading his mind, ran under the bed and remained out of sight. +Stooping down, John saw a pair of small eyes gleaming in the shadow. + +"Poor little devil, he's lonely, too!" John muttered. "Say, Binks, come +out--let's talk it over. You want to sleep with me to-night, eh? All +right, we'll keep each other company." + +It was as if the little animal understood, for he came out readily, +wagging his stubby tail, and began to stand on his hind feet and lick +his master's hands. "All right, all right." John took him up in his +arms, bore him to his bed, and placed him on the side next to the wall. +And, as if fearful that John might change his mind, Binks snuggled down +between the sheets, his snout on his paws, his eyes blinking almost with +pretended drowsiness. + +"Sly old boy!" John laughed, softly, and, throwing off his robe and +slippers, he closed his door and lay down by the dog. His strong arm +touched the sleek coat of his pet and somehow the contact soothed him. +With a tightness of the throat, his eyes suffused with restrained tears, +he told himself that absolutely all had not been taken from him, for +Binks was left. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Another year passed. As he had feared it would be, John's life was all +but aimless and becoming even monotonous. What mattered it whether he +and Reed had one or two contracts more or less in the year? Neither of +them really was in need of the profits earned, and the business +continued to come as fast as they cared to attend to it. John liked best +the outside work, for then he took Binks along with him, and sometimes +in bad weather he even brought the dog to the office, where Binks would +lie quietly under his desk till called out by his master for lunch or a +short stroll in the quieter streets. + +"You are too much attached to him," Reed said to him. "I have a friend +who used to have a pet like that. Some devilish person poisoned it one +night, and my friend never could get over it. He told me that if it had +been his only child it wouldn't have hurt him any more." + +John shuddered and frowned darkly. "I know how he felt," he answered, +simply, and turned away. + + * * * * * + +One morning, when John had the office entirely to himself and was going +over some intricate plans and estimates, his stenographer came to him. + +"There is an old man at the door who wants to see you," she announced. +"He refused to give his name or state his business." + +"Well, tell him, then, that I won't see him," John ordered, +impatiently. + +The girl left and came back. "He wouldn't give his name," she said, "but +he said to tell you that he was an old friend and was very anxious to +see you--that he hasn't seen you for about eleven years." + +"Eleven years--an old friend!" John said to himself, aghast. "Who could +it be, unless--" The girl was waiting, and he said, "Tell him to come +in, please." + +The girl went out and ushered in a gray-haired, gray-bearded old man who +walked with a cane and was so bent downward that, under a broad-brimmed +straw hat, John did not at once see his features. The stenographer +retired to her workroom in the rear, and the visitor came to John. + +It was Cavanaugh, who now removed his hat and exposed his face to view, +a face gashed with deep lines, and fairly shrinking under a sort of awed +timidity. + +"I'm afraid I'm not welcome, John," he faltered, his wrinkled brow +mantled with red, his old, fat hand checked in its impulsive movement +forward and falling at his side. "I ought not to have come like this, +but I couldn't help it. I was in the city, and wanted to see you for a +lot of reasons." + +"That's all right, Sam," John answered, extending his hand and trying to +divest himself of the visible effects of the shock he had received. "How +did you find me? Sit down." + +Cavanaugh took the proffered chair. John pitied him, for his hands +crossed on the top of his cane quivered with intense excitement, and his +eyes swept the room with the slow awe of a beggar in the house of a +prince. + +"Mostly by accident," he answered, "and putting two and two together, +and reasoning it out like a one-horse detective on his first job. John, +I know I've done wrong, but--" + +"Forget all that, Sam," John said, more at ease. "Don't think I've +forgotten you. You are the one friend in the world that I really cared +for down there, and it was my intention to get at you sooner or later. I +thought, however, that I was considered dead to you and everybody at +Ridgeville." + +"You are--you _still_ are," Cavanaugh said. "It is like this, John, and +in a way your secret is still safe, for I won't give it away. You +remember Todd Williams. He is in the firm of Williams & Chelton. They +set up in dry-goods after you left. Well, last fall he was on here +buying goods, and when he came back home one day after meeting--we +belong to the same church--he called me off to one side like, and said, +said he: + +"'Sam, an odd thing happened to me on the Elevated train while I was in +New York,' and with that he went on to say that while he sat reading his +paper a feller got in and sat in front of him that was the exact image +of you. He said the likeness was so great that he came in an inch of +speaking to the feller, but, remembering the news of your death, he let +it pass. Then he asked me if I thought there could have been any mistake +made about you and Dora being in that wreck. I told him I thought not, +and left him, but I'm here to confess, John, that from that minute my +mind wasn't fully at rest. Hundreds of times I rolled it over and over +in my thoughts--at night in bed, at work, in meeting, at meals with my +wife--everywhere. Always, always I was wondering if you might be still +alive, fighting your fight and making good away off som'ers. I told my +wife how I was worried and she made light of it--said she herself often +saw resemblances to folks in new faces. Then I guess I would have +dropped it, but for one little, tiny thing that popped into my head one +night while I was listening to a long-winded prayer during a revival. +Well, sir, like a flash of blasting-powder this thought came to me. You +left our town in the dead of night, and it was reasonable to suppose +that you did everything you could to keep folks from knowing who you was +and where you was bound for. Didn't you?" + +"Yes," John nodded, and sat waiting. + +"I thought so," Cavanaugh continued. "So you see, when the list of the +lost was printed, and your name and Dora's, and your age and hers, and +the town you was from, was given, the question come to me, who was it +that reported them things so accurate after that awful disaster? You +wouldn't have been handing your name and the child's about amongst +strangers on the train before the accident, and if your bodies was +burned up, all your belongings, papers, and the like would have been +destroyed, and-- Well, you see what I mean?" + +John started and stared steadily. "I see it now, Sam, but I never +thought of it before. I suppose everybody else overlooked that point but +you." + +"Yes, I'm the only one," Cavanaugh answered. "Well, John, after that, +instead of being dead to me, somehow you got alive again. I don't want +to talk like a sniffling old woman, John, for you are older now, but I +loved you like a son, and the hope that you was alive and doing well up +here made me powerful happy. You see, until your trouble come like a +clap of thunder, I was almost living for you and your interests. I +wanted us to establish a business between us that you could carry on +after me and my old lady was gone, so, when I began to tote about the +idea of you not being dead, I could think of nothing else, till--well, +till I come here and found your name in the directory. You were the only +John Trott in it, and was a contractor, and I knew I'd run you to your +hole." + +"I'm glad you did, Sam," John answered. "I've always wanted to see you +again, but didn't know how to bring it about with absolute safety to my +plans. I'd cut out the whole thing down there, and it seemed best to +forget it--best for me and for Dora. She was so young when she was down +there that she has almost forgotten the worst features of +it--about--about her aunt and other things, I mean." + +"I was going to inquire about her," Cavanaugh said. "Is she well and all +right?" + +John explained briefly, and heard his old friend sighing. "And so you +are all alone now, not married--no one with you at all." + +John nodded. "Oh, I'm all right. I'm 'neither sugar nor salt,'" he +quoted an old saying. "Don't worry about me, Sam. I'll get along some +way or other." + +There was silence between the two for a few minutes. It was as if the +old man were wondering what further information he might be at liberty +to give pertaining to the past. Presently he cleared his throat and +said: + +"Your ma is still alive, John. Jane Holder is dead. Lots and lots of +things that you don't know about have happened down home since you left. +As soon as Jane Holder died your ma quit living in that old house. She +pulled up stakes and drifted about some. She stayed awhile in Atlanta, +then in Nashville, and finally came back to our town and moved out in +the country. She was--was befriended--a nice woman and her husband sort +of--well, I suppose they sort of took pity on her, and--" + +"Stop, Sam!" John's face was dark and twisted from inner agony. "Please +don't mention her. For Dora's sake I've been trying to think of her as +never having actually existed. I don't blame her, you understand. She is +living her life and I'm living mine. I don't blame people for their +natures or characteristics. Such things come at birth. My father was one +thing--she was another. But I've fought down my past, torn it out like +an unwholesome dream. I may be mistaken, Sam, but it seems to me that I +ought not to talk about all that now. I've fought to acquire a new life, +and to some extent I have won it. What lies before me I don't know, and +I don't greatly care. I'm still young in years and strong of body and +mind, but I feel actually old. I suppose you have some sort of faith +still. I have none at all. Dora has it, and it has made her contented, +happy, and useful. I am glad she has it. I wouldn't take it from her. +Tilly--Tilly used to--" + +The name was spoken impulsively, as if some subconscious force or habit +had assumed control over a tongue well bridled till now, and with tight +lips John suddenly checked himself and sat flushing under the old man's +kindly stare. + +"I was going to mention her," Cavanaugh put in, his honest eyes falling +to the floor, "but didn't know exactly how you'd feel about it. Oh yes, +I still believe in a great Supreme Power that works for eternal good. +Shall I tell you about Tilly?" + +John was silent. His face had grown rigid and even pale. His lips +quivered. "I think I know two things about her," he finally said. +"Somehow I feel sure that she is alive and married to Joel Eperson." + +Cavanaugh nodded slowly. "Yes, my boy; she finally took him, but it was +not till four years after the report of your death. I see her and Joel +off and on from time to time. It will do no good to open old wounds +now, but I'll say this, John, and that is that your wife's constancy to +your memory, and Joel's faithfulness to her through all her trouble--the +death of her ma and pa, and--and some other things--has given the lie to +every statement ever made that men and women don't actually love each +other. If Tilly had had the slightest hope that you were living she'd +have remained single till the end of time. She never considered that +court edict as right. Oh, I wish I could--could tell you all I know on +that line, but it would do no good now." + +"No, we'd better drop it," John said, heavily. "It will do no good to go +over it. I've regarded it as a dead issue for eleven years." + +"That may be," Cavanaugh said to himself, "but he is stunned, actually +stunned. I see it in his face and hear it in his voice. Poor boy! Poor +boy!" + +"Before dropping the subject I will tell you one thing more," the old +man said, aloud, "and that is that they have two children, a boy of +about six and a little girl of four or five. They are sweet little tots +and are a great comfort. They are images of their mother, and I love +'em." + +"Tell me this--tell me this, Sam," John said, and it was as if a great +anxiety rested on him. "I want to know this. Of course, you'll see that +it is no affair of mine, but I'd like to know if Eperson is providing +well for Til--for his wife and children. Sam, she has suffered a lot +through no fault of her own, and most of that suffering came through +happening to meet me up there at Cranston and that silly boy-and-girl +fancy of--of hers and mine. She deserves an easier time from now on, and +that is why I'd like to know how she and Eperson are financially +situated." + +Cavanaugh drew his scraggy brows together. His color deepened to red in +his cheeks. "I wish I could make a good report on that line," he +answered, awkwardly, "but I can't give you the best of news. Joel is not +to blame, though. I'll say that. He simply belongs to the class of men +that come, as he did, from landholders and slave-holders. Such men are +highly honorable, but they simply don't know how to make ends meet." + +"Then they are poor, very poor?" John said, grimly. + +"Yes, very poor," was the reluctant answer. "I'm not blaming Joel. He +has done the best he could. I've never seen a man work harder. If he had +been stingy and grasping he'd have made better headway, but he is always +doing for others. Old Whaley died insolvent, and Joel took care of the +widow and paid out big doctor's bills trying to save her life, through a +long sick spell, and when she passed away he paid all the funeral +expenses and put up a nice stone over the two graves. He doesn't own any +land of his own, but rents a few acres here and there from year to year. +He has to buy his supplies on credit at a high rate of profit, and is +always up to his eyes in debt. Huh! John, you fellers that can work in a +fine office like this, wear clothes like you've got on, and ride home in +a comfortable car, reading your paper or smoking--I say, such as you +have little notion what an easy berth you have compared to fellers like +Joel Eperson. That is the sort of a thing that shakes my faith in the +Almighty a little mite sometimes, but I don't let it get hold of me. In +any case, Joel is blessed by having the wife he got. She is the most +patient little mother that ever lived. I've never heard her complain. I +did hear her say once, though, when I happened to pass along where she +was at work in the cotton-field and stopped to chat a minute--she told +me that she didn't ever worry about what would happen to her and Joel, +because they could die and be done with it, but she did trouble about +the children. She is so anxious for them to grow up and get an education +and be useful in life, and she doesn't see much hope of it." + +"You say she actually works in the field?" John exclaimed, with a +shudder and a darkening face. + +"Not always, but sometimes when Joel is away or sick, or when the crops +are suffering for immediate attention. You know labor is high and cash +is generally paid, and Joel hasn't the means to hire help at the time he +needs it the most. Take cotton-picking, for instance. If the staple +isn't taken from the boll in time the weather stains and ruins it. It is +at a time like that that Tilly helps. But don't let it fret you. She +told me, with that sweet smile of hers that I used to love so much when +me and you was boarding with her folks, that outdoor work was good for +her. But Joel objects to it. I saw him come out in the corn one day and +take the hoe away from her and send her in the house. I never saw a +sadder look on a proud man's face. + +"'She _will_ do it,' he said to me, almost groaning, as he spoke. Joel +got confidential that day. He talked free-like, as men do when they +reach the very bottom of ill luck. 'I thought,' said he, 'that I was +doing right in marrying Tilly, for she was all alone in the world and +unprotected, but you see what I've brought her to. I had hopes then-- I +have none now. Things never take an upward turn for some men, Cavanaugh. +They head downward, and they pull everything they touch with them. They +marry wives and make them suffer. They bring children into the world to +suffer, and they go on that way till the earth receives their useless +remains, and that is the end of their dreams.' + +"I tried to cheer him up, but I couldn't. I wish, John, that I could +tell you about his unselfishness as to one thing in particular, but I +reckon I'd better not. It would do no good. I see from your looks that +all this is going hard with you." + +"No, nothing is to be gained by it, Sam," John said, shrugging his +shoulders. He looked at his watch. "You must go to lunch with me," he +said. "I want to see as much of you as possible while you are here." + +"I am agreeable," Cavanaugh said, with a touch of his former ease of +manner. "It seems like old times once more, my boy." + + * * * * * + +They lunched together and afterward went to the small hotel where +Cavanaugh was staying, got the old man's valise, and went to John's +home. Cavanaugh was put into Dora's old room and given to understand +that it was his as long as he remained in the city. For a week the two +friends were constantly together. John took the time off from business, +and, with Binks trotting between them, the physically ill-mated and yet +mentally congenial pair took long walks together. And not since Dora's +departure had John felt so soothed and comforted. A spiritual force of +some sort seemed to radiate from the bent old man that for the time +almost regenerated his companion. John had discovered that Cavanaugh +loved him as a son and regarded him with an ardent mixture of pride and +ecstasy, as a son restored from death to life. Sometimes, in their +ascent of an incline in their strolls, the old man would quite +unconsciously catch hold of the arm of the younger, and in speaking he +often held John's hand in one of his and gently stroked it, as if +unconscious of what he was doing. At times, for no particular reason, he +would lower his voice into an almost confidential whisper. However, it +was on the last night of his stay, before his departure the following +morning, that John was permitted to see even more deeply into +Cavanaugh's heart. They were in Dora's room. The old man was undressing +for bed when suddenly he sat down, locked his toil-hardened fingers +between his knees, and lowered his shaggy head, as if buffeting an +unexpected wave of despair. + +"I want to tell you something, John," he said, in a shaky voice. "And I +don't want you to forget it as long as life stays in you. I want you to +know that no days in all my existence have been as happy as these with +you. Not even my honeymoon, John, and that is saying a lot. I can't tell +you about it. When I try my tongue fails, my throat fills, and my eyes +stream with tears. You'll never regret being so good to me. God won't +give you cause to ever regret it. What is ahead of me seems mighty +short. I'll be dead, I guess, too soon for me to ever think about coming +to New York again, and I know how you feel about going down there, but +I'll take a sweet memory to my grave with me, John, and that is that +you, with all your up-to-date success and education, treated me as sweet +and gentle as a dutiful son would an old, unpolished, plain father that +he loved and respected. You are lonely and unhappy, and I see no way to +help you. That hurts. That hurts deep down in me! I hate to go away and +leave you like this, never to see you again. What I told you +about--about the little woman that was once your wife struck you a +deadly blow between the eyes. You thought you had counted on her +marrying again, but I reckon, after all, you hadn't really done that. I +see--I understand. You have been all these years holding her in your +heart, somehow, as yours in spirit if not in body, and now for the +first time you are trying to look the facts in the face. I've noticed +that you don't sleep sound. I hear you stirring about in the night." + +John made no denial, and the fact that he did not do so proved to +Cavanaugh that what he had said was true. + +John rose and started to his own room. "I'll have you up in time for +your train," he said. "Get a good sleep. You will need it before +starting on a long journey like yours. Good night." + +"Good night, my boy, good night," Cavanaugh said. + +From his own room, where John sat smoking in the dark, he saw the light +go out in Cavanaugh's room. He listened, expecting to hear the bed creak +as it always did when the old man got upon it, but now there was no +sound. There was silence for nearly half an hour, and then the telltale +creaking came. John understood. Had he had a watch and a light, he +could, to a second, have timed one of the saddest and most unselfish of +prayers. + +"Poor, dear old Sam!" he muttered, and began to undress for bed. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +After Cavanaugh's departure the time hung heavy over John. He seldom +heard from Dora, and, as business happened to be rather quiet, he really +was too inactive for one of his introspective temperament. When not at +work he spent the time altogether in the company of Binks, who seemed to +have become actually human in his fidelity and affection. + +One day, having to inspect a finished building on Washington Heights, +not far from Dyckman Street, he took the dog along. And when the work +was over he and Binks strolled down to the Hudson and walked along the +shore. It was a warm day, and men, women, and children were fishing and +bathing in the clear water. + +Presently a spot was reached that looked inviting, and John decided to +eat the lunch there that he had brought along. So, seating himself on a +water-worn boulder, he opened his parcel and fed Binks as he himself +ate. + +Across the river in a bluish haze towered the Palisades, and on either +side of him in the distance jutted out from the shore he was on long, +slender, gray and yellow boat-houses with their pile-anchored floats. On +his right at the water's edge was a group of Italians, picnicking +together. There were the four heads of two families, stocky +laboring-men, fat housewives, and young girls and boys. They had made a +fire of driftwood on the rocks, and John could see a great pot of +something stewing, and smelled the aroma of coffee and broiled +sausages. The boys and girls had put on foreign-looking bathing-suits +and, with tiny water-wings under their arms, were splashing about, +trying to learn to swim. + +"Binks, old chap," John said, aloud, as had become a habit of his, +"there are some deep holes where those silly people are. Those kids may +get beyond their depth. I hope the men can swim." + +The Italians had a guitar. Some one played it, and native songs were +sung. They were very happy. John told himself that it might be some sort +of reunion of close friends or relatives. There were so many shouts of +merriment in Italian, loud commands to the children from their mothers, +and joyous retorts from the bathers, that John failed to hear a shrill +cry of alarm from their midst. It was Binks, indeed, who suddenly +pricked up his ears, barked, and began to run toward the picnickers. At +first, absorbed in reflection, John paid no attention to the dog's +antics, but, as Binks continued to bark excitedly, he stood up and +looked toward the bathers. The children now ashore were screaming, women +were shouting, waving their hands, and with their clothing on the two +men were wading out into the water which from the passage of a great +steamer was rolling like the surf of an ocean. That the men could not +swim John saw at once, and he ran down the shore toward them. + +"For God's sake, meester, save her! save my daughter!" a man screamed. +"Me no swim! Dere, dere!" and he pointed to a pair of water-wings +floating in a circle of bubbles thirty feet from the rocks. + +John was a good swimmer, and, throwing off his coat, he plunged in at +once, but Binks, who had been taught to spring into water and fetch back +such things as sticks or a ball thrown in, and had sighted the +water-wings, was several yards ahead of him. + +"Dere, dere! My God! she's up de third time!" shrieked the girl's +father. "Catch her, meester, catch her! It's de last time--de last +time!" + +On a curling swell John saw the girl's head and shoulders above the +water. She was going down again, and a great rolling wave was close upon +her. John saw that he could not reach her in time, and he saw something +else that filled him with horror. Binks, with the captured water-wings +in his mouth, was within the girl's reach, and she grasped him and +dragged him under. There was a gurgling struggle, widening rings filled +with bubbles floated on the swaying water, and nothing was seen of the +girl or the dog. + +A wail of despair rang out from the shore; men, women, and children ran +to and fro, screaming. John was soon over the spot where the girl and +dog had disappeared, and, exhausting the air from his lungs, he dived +down as far as he could. He kept his eyes open, and moving from him in +the murky depths he could not quite reach for lack of breath he saw the +blue dress of the girl. That Binks was in her dying clutch he well knew. +The buoyancy of John's body raised him to the top sooner than he wished, +and when he appeared with nothing in his grasp the screams from the +shore were louder than ever. + +"Again! again! meester!" the father yelled, "farther up. O God! O God!" + +Again John dived. This time he went quite to the bottom and crawled +along from rock to rock, keeping himself down by the clutch of his +hands. But to no avail. He saw nothing and was fairly bursting for lack +of breath. The progress upward seemed endless, and when the surface was +reached he was almost dead from exhaustion. But he dived again and +again. Binks was drowning, he kept thinking, and there was little else +in his mind. When he had dived unsuccessfully a dozen times a man +arrived in a rowboat from one of the boat-houses with a rope and +grappling-irons. Taking John into the boat, the two began to drag the +river over the fatal spot. The man held the oars and John the rope. + +"She's been under fifteen minutes," the boatman said. "There is little +chance now, even if we get her up. My God! what fools those greasers +are! Eating, drinking, and singing while their kid was going down!" + +John had time to observe the group on the shore now. The mother of the +girl had fainted, and the other woman was fanning her as she lay on the +rocks, unsheltered from the sun. The children, in their wet suits, stood +crying lustily. + +"We can't do anything now," the boatman said when another five minutes +had passed. "She is done for, but we'd as well keep on the job to +satisfy 'em. The tow has taken her out, most likely." + +Ten minutes more. Even the group on the shore seemed to have given up +hope. However, the irons caught. It might be a rock, John thought, but +the object yielded gently. "Hold! Not so hard!" John ordered. "You might +pull it loose. I've caught something!" + +Carefully he drew in the rope. He saw the blue dress through several +feet of water, and, reaching down, he caught it with his hand. A moment +later and the drowned girl, with Binks clutched in her death-grip, was +drawn into the boat. + +A scream of joy from the reviving mother of the girl rent the air. +Having been unconscious of the passage of time, she evidently thought +her child might yet be alive. As the boatman gently pulled toward the +rocks, John disengaged Binks from the stiff fingers, and held him in his +lap. + +"Poor mut!" the boatman said. "She choked the life out of him. They are +always like that--they will grab at a floating chip. Turn the girl's +head down, will you, and let the water run out? There may be a speck of +life left, but I think she is as dead as a mackerel." + +Putting Binks aside, John obeyed. The girl's face was purple, her lips +foaming. The rocks reached, the two Italian men, their yellow faces +stamped with agony, were ready up to their waists in water to take the +girl ashore. + +John knew nothing about what is called "first aid to the drowning," and +so, with his dead pet in his arms, he climbed up the rocks. Men were +gathering from the two boat-houses. He heard somebody say, "There is a +cop and a doctor!" The screaming women, the sobbing children, the awed +questions of spectators just arrived, fell on closed ears, as far as +John was concerned. Picking up his coat, he wrapped it about Binks and +bore him homeward. Looking back, he saw the doctor examining the body on +the rocks. John sat down alone in the sun. He told himself that he would +let his clothing dry on him as he walked homeward. But what was to be +done about the body of his pet? He couldn't take it home with him, and +he knew of no burial-ground for dogs. He sat down on the shore to think +it out. His mind was in a queer jumble of resentment and resigned +despair. How could Binks actually be dead? How could he go home without +him? And yet the wet, limp object with the bulging, glazed eyes and +distorted muzzle was all that was left of the loving, vivacious animal +to which he had been so warmly linked. + +The doctor was coming back. He passed John, and then paused. "Is that +the dog she drowned?" he asked, bending down sympathetically and +stroking the animal's coat. + +"Yes. How is the girl?" John asked. + +"Dead," was the answer, and the doctor stood erect and walked away. + +For several hours John remained on the shore. He saw the Italians +bearing the girl's body away, followed by the women and children. Then a +thought came to him. There was a dense strip of sloping wooded land +between the river and the nearest street, and in the midst of it stood a +tall oak. At the foot of this tree he would bury Binks's remains. The +oak would be a landmark that he could easily single out again. He found +some newspapers, and, wrapping up the body in them, he dug a grave and +put his pet into it. + +The sun was going down above the New Jersey cliffs when the rite was +ended. The great disk was as red as living coals of fire. A tree with +shooting branches and stark trunk three miles away was clearly outlined +across its face. A big excursion-steamer bound for Albany was passing. +The surface of the river was sprinkled with sail-boats and varicolored +canoes. From somewhere on the water came the clear, joyous tones of a +cornet. Some player was putting his soul into his music. John walked +down to one of the boat-houses. Men were fishing from the float. At a +crude bar he bought a cigar and lighted it. He asked about the fishing +of one of the fishermen and apathetically listened while the man talked +of rods, reels, lines, sinkers, and bait. John did not want to go home. +The thought of the hot, close, and lonely house, in his present frame of +mind, was repellent. He wondered if he was giving way to sickly +sentimentality, for he had a desire to pass that night in the wood in +solitary vigil over the grave of his loved companion. + +Presently he shrugged his shoulders and started homeward. "Be a man, +John Trott!" he said, with closed lips. "Why shouldn't Binks +die?--everybody has to die sooner or later. What does it matter? The +only thing that matters is to bear your burden like a soldier and a +man." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + Dear John [so ran the first letter from Cavanaugh after the + latter returned to Ridgeville]--I hardly know how to begin + this letter. Since I got home I declare everything here + seems awfully tame. That was a wonderful visit I had as I + look back on it. I wish it could have gone on forever. I am + glad I saw you, for a lot of reasons. You were lonely and + blue, my boy. Even your partner spoke to me about you. He + said since Dora left that you was really in danger of a + nervous breakdown. Mrs. McGwire and her oldest girl said the + same thing. They were all worried about you, and so am I. + + I've got a confession to make, and the sooner it is made the + better I'll feel. John, you know how a town like this one + is. The folks here love to gossip about anything they can + pick up, and I'm going to tell you that when it got + circulated among some of your old work friends that I'd gone + to New York a few of them began to nose about and make + inquiries. They thought it was such a peculiar thing, you + see, for a man of my age and habits to do that they kept + talking and talking and joking and what not. Then, as might + have been expected, Todd Williams, who you remember thought + he saw you on the train in New York, put his finger into the + pie. He told it about that he was now more sure than ever + that it was you he saw on the train and that I had gone up + there to see you. That did the job, and I don't know what to + do about it. Folks meet me on the street and ask about you + as if it was a settled fact that you never died in that + wreck, and, with their eyes staring straight into mine, I + don't know what to do or say. John, I don't know how to lie + with a sober face. The more I shifted about and tried to get + out of it the more they believed it, till now, no matter + what I say, they only laugh and make fun and say that I'm + keeping something back. So please tell me what to do. The + truth is that the facts, if they get out, will never harm + you in any way. It is now so long since you left that only a + very few that used to know you are alive or here. The fever + for going West struck most of your old friends and they + moved away. I really think that I'd advise you not to keep + the truth back any longer. Questions are asked about what + came of Dora, and if I say that she is married and gone away + it will end all sorts of idle speculations. + + If I've got you into a fix in this matter please forgive me, + for it all came about through no intention of mine. If I + could lie as straight as some contractors can beat down the + price of material or wages, I'd have got you out of this, + but I'm getting old and I'm like a baby in the hands of + these mouthing, tattling folks. Oh, how I wish you could + come down here! You'd not feel as bad about all that has + happened if you'd come down and visit me and my wife, and + throw it off like an old worn-out coat. What a joy it would + be to give you a room and see you seated at our humble + board! Think it over, my boy. Life is short at best, and we + ought to spend part of it with the folks that really love + us, and we love you, John--both of us do. + +John sat down in his room one night to answer this letter, but, though +he tried very hard, he could think of little to say. Cavanaugh's simple +phrases had sounded his deepest emotional depths, and yet he could not +bring himself to write an appropriate response. He started to mention +the death of Binks, but gave that up. That, he argued, would only cause +his old friend to be the more deeply concerned over his welfare. So he +wrote the most cheerful letter of which he was capable, about his +activity in business matters, and his ability to look on the bright side +of such things as the absence of Dora and his unmarried state. He ended +the letter with this: + + Yes, I fully agree with you in regard to a frank and + truthful statement about my being alive, etc. I understand + the situation and don't blame you at all. Tell every one who + cares to inquire that the newspaper report was a mistake and + that you saw me while you were here. I want to see you and + your wife as badly as you want to see me, but I'm afraid I + cannot come down, now, at any rate. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Joel Eperson sat on his small one-horse wagon, which was loaded with +fire-wood. He was taking the wood to Cavanaugh's from the small farm he +was renting two miles from Ridgeville. Joel had aged remarkably. Young +as he was, his thin hair and beard were becoming gray, and his sallow +face was seamed with lines of worry and care. His clothing was of the +cheapest material and threadbare, and yet faultlessly clean. As he got +down at the front gate Cavanaugh and his wife, who were seated under an +apple-tree at the side of the house, came around to meet him. + +"Here is the wood you wanted," Joel said, removing his hat in quite his +old chivalrous way. "You said dry oak, and I found plenty on the hill +back of my corn-field." + +"And mighty nigh killed yourself cutting it in lengths and splitting +it," Cavanaugh said. "Dry oak is a hard proposition for anything but a +sawmill. What do you want for this load?" + +"A dollar is what I usually get," Joel answered, sensitive as he always +was when dealing with friends. + +"Humph!" Cavanaugh sniffed, and looked at his wife. "This load is twice +as big as any dollar load I ever bought, and will throw out twice as +much heat to the square inch. I'll tell you, Joel, I've got a two-dollar +bill that is burning a hole in my pocket, and it goes for this load of +wood or you have me to whip. We are out of stove-wood, too, and I don't +want any dickering from you about it." + +Joel flushed under his tattered straw hat. "It isn't worth that much," +he declared, tapping the ground with his whip. + +"It is worth it to me, Joel," Cavanaugh smiled, "so what can you do +about it? I won't take double value from any man, much less you. How is +Tilly?" + +"She is fairly well, thank you," the farmer replied. + +"And the little ones?" Mrs. Cavanaugh asked, with a motherly smile. + +"They are both all right, thank you," Joel said, his undecided glance on +his wood. Then, to his surprise, the contractor came through the gate, +took the reins from his hands, and drove the horse with its load around +to the gate at the side of the house. Halting there, Cavanaugh began to +throw the wood over the fence. + +"Let him have his way, Joel," Mrs. Cavanaugh said, smiling. "He'd be +miserable if he got anything too cheap from an old friend like you. +Before you start home, come in; I've made two little waists for the +children from a pattern Tilly lent me the last time she was in. I hope +they will fit." + +"You are always doing things like that, and yet want me to take double +price for my produce," Joel said, frowning. "Something is wrong +somewhere, Mrs. Cavanaugh." + +The old woman laughed lightly. "Go help Sam throw off the wood, Joel," +she said. "Don't tell me I haven't the right to sew for little children +when I have none of my own. I love your two, and what I do for them has +nothing to do with you." + +With a look of blended pleasure and pain, Joel joined Cavanaugh, and +together they unloaded the wagon. When it was empty Joel shook the bits +of bark and chips from the plank flooring, and stared at the contractor +timidly. "There is a matter I want to ask you about, Mr. Cavanaugh," he +began, clearing his throat. "It is a serious thing for me, and my wife, +too. I've wanted to mention it for several days--in fact, since I first +heard of it. I really don't know whether I have the right to ask you, +and if I haven't you must stop me. Mr. Cavanaugh, all sorts of stories +have been floating about to the effect that--that my wife's--that John +Trott's reported death was a mistake, and that--and that you went up to +New York to--" + +Joel broke off. He was quite agitated. + +"I know what you mean," Cavanaugh put into the break. "How did you hear +it?" + +"My neighbors are all talking about it," said Eperson, laboriously, his +face now grim and fixed. "I went to Todd Williams and asked him about +it. All he could tell me was that he saw a man in New York that looked +like John Trott, but he said it might have been only a fancy. Of course, +I've kept the talk from Tilly as much as possible. I asked our neighbors +not to mention it to her and they promised, but--but--" + +"You think she has heard it?" Cavanaugh submitted, gravely. + +Eperson nodded. A grim expression twisted his lips awry and left them +quivering as he spoke. "Yes, I think some part of it, at least, has +reached her. I saw a change in her last night when she came back from a +visit to the Creswells. She didn't mention it to me, but I was watching +her and I saw a change. She was excited. I think I might call it +excitement, Mr. Cavanaugh, and she didn't sleep well last night. She got +up several times, and it seemed to me once that she was about to speak +to me about it, but still she didn't." + +"I see, I see," said Cavanaugh, slowly. "Well, Joel, I hardly know what +is right to do in a matter as delicate as this is, but still right is +right, and if there is anybody in the world that ought to know the truth +about this, why, it is you and Tilly. Joel, the truth is, John Trott and +Dora are both still alive." + +"Then, then, _it is true_?" + +"Yes, Joel; I've just had a letter from John and he wants the facts +known. But I don't see that there is any reason for you to be disturbed. +You see, the law parted John and Tilly years ago, and even if it hadn't, +his long desertion (we'll call it that) would have amounted to the same +in any court." + +Like an automaton which all but creaked in its joints, Joel took up his +reins. Tapping his thin horse with his whip and making a clucking sound +between his teeth, he turned his wagon around. + +"Wait! You haven't been paid yet," Cavanaugh cried, holding out a bill. + +Pausing, a flurried, far-away look in his eyes, Joel took the money. + +"Thank you--thank you," he ejaculated. "So there's no doubt about it? +Did you actually see him, Mr. Cavanaugh--with your own eyes, I mean? I +don't want any hearsay or second-hand report. I want the truth--the +facts." + +"I spent a week with him, Joel." + +Eperson wound the lines around his left hand and brought his desperate +eyes back to Cavanaugh's face. "There is one thing more," he gulped, his +hand at his throat. "Is he--is John Trott a--a married man?" + +"No, Joel; he's single. Marrying didn't seem to be--well, exactly in his +line. His time has been taken up with a growing business, his books, a +pet dog, and Dora. She was like a loving sister, I understand, till she +married a man she loved and moved out of the country. John is a sort +of--well, you might say a sort of stay-at-home, soured old bachelor that +never took much to women. At least that's the way I size him up. He +makes plenty of money, and has laid up some, but I don't think he cares +much for it. He's odd--a sort of deep-feeling fellow--different from the +general run of men." + +In a nervous sort of movement Joel wiped his lips with his hand. + +"There is a thing I'd like to know," he said, slowly, impressively, +frankly. "You say he is single, and that makes me wonder. Mr. Cavanaugh, +truth is truth, and, as you say, right is right; would you mind telling +me whether you think he has--has changed--well, in regard to his--his +feeling toward Tilly?" + +"You are asking me a ticklish question," Cavanaugh said, with a start +and a dropping of his honest eyes. "You see, John never came right out +and talked plain on that line, and--" + +"I was only asking for your _personal_ opinion," emphasized Joel; "in +talking with him did you gather that--that his sentiments had undergone +no change since he left here?" + +"I don't see what good it will do," the old man said, "but since you +insist on knowing I may as well admit that I didn't see any change. In +my opinion, Joel, he loves her even more than he did. He didn't say so, +you understand, but that's what I gathered. I was watching him when I +told him about you and her getting married, and I must say I pitied him. +I don't know why, but I did. He looked so downcast, and, you might say, +almost astonished." + +With the groping movement of a man in the dark, Eperson started to get +into his wagon, but was stopped by Mrs. Cavanaugh. + +"Wait, Joel!" she called out. "You are forgetting these things," and she +brought them to him wrapped up in paper. "Give Tilly my love and tell +her if the waists don't fit I can take them in or let them out." + +"Thank you; you are very, very, kind." Joel had lifted his hat, and, +with a hand that seemed bloodless, he took the parcel and put it into +his wagon, carefully covering it with his coat. He made no effort toward +starting on again, and, as there was an opening for it, Cavanaugh said +to his wife: + +"I've just been telling him about John, and it seems to me that Joel is +sorter worried about--about its effect on Tilly." + +Eperson nodded as if acquiescing to a statement too delicate to be +discussed, and remained silent, a wilted look of despair on him. + +"I see, I see," Mrs. Cavanaugh said. "I was wondering how she would take +it. She's never been exactly like other women. Few women would +have--have, you know what I mean, Joel--would have acted like she has +all along in regard to John's mother. I must say, and I know that you +will agree with me, that she showed herself to be a wonderfully good +Christian woman. Why, sometimes it looked to me like she loved Mrs. +Trott more than she did even her own mother. But she's been +rewarded--oh, you know she's been gloriously rewarded! Your sweet little +wife, Joel, has saved the very soul and body of a lone, lost woman. But +you helped--oh yes! if it hadn't been for you she never could have done +it. And you deserve your reward, too. In my opinion you have been a man +amongst a million in all you have done in that matter." + +"I don't deserve your praise, Mrs. Cavanaugh," Eperson sighed. "I did it +all for Tilly. She was unhappy till we began to help Mrs. Trott. I saw +where the trouble lay, and did a little, that's all." + +"And are you worried about how Tilly will take the news about John?" +Mrs. Cavanaugh asked, while her husband hung open-mouthed on Eperson's +answer. + +"I don't know how exactly to make you understand the--the situation," +Joel stammered. "But I reckon I may as well say, and be done with it, +that--that--" He went no farther, his words piling one upon another on +his helpless tongue, his great, tender eyes bulging from their +dark-ringed sockets. + +"You can't mean that she would be worried about the divorce." Mrs. +Cavanaugh feebly came to his assistance. "Sam and I were talking that +over. There is no doubt that it was legal in every way. Old Whaley saw +to that. Narrow-minded and hard as he was, he acted for the best in that +case." + +"I see you don't understand." Joel dug the toe of his coarse shoe into a +tuft of grass and mechanically pounded it with his heel. "You don't +understand, because you don't know Tilly as well as I do. Mrs. +Cavanaugh, how can I put it any better than to--to say that--no matter +what was done in court, no matter what John Trott did that might be +called 'desertion,' Tilly would never have married again if she had +thought he was alive. I'd never have dared to ask her to marry me if I +hadn't thought he was dead. I believed it--from the bottom of my soul I +believed it, and--and, my friends, listen! I got her to believe it. I +saw that she doubted it a little, and I worked and worked, and argued +and argued, till finally I got her to believe it. But even then I'd have +failed if Mrs. Trott hadn't--hadn't helped me. Mrs. Trott believed he +was dead, and it was her belief and my talk that finally convinced +Tilly. But now what is to be done?" + +"Why, nothing that I can see," Mrs. Cavanaugh answered. "All you have to +do is to show Tilly that in no sense of the word is she bound by her +first marriage. You seem to think she is worried over that." + +Joel shrugged his shoulders and took a deep breath. "You don't +understand yet," he said, with a low groan. "She is excited--so excited +that she can't sleep, but it is not the kind of excitement you think it +is. She's heard the report that John Trott is still alive and she is +afraid that it may not--by some chance--be true. I don't mean that she'd +ever live with him again--now that she is--is a mother, or that she'd +hold it against me for marrying her as I did; but to know that no harm +came to him will make her happier than she's been for many a day. That +is a thing I've got to face. She is the mother of my children, but she +has never given me her whole heart and soul. She gave them to John +Trott. She has never blamed him for any step he took. She thought that +he left here for her sake, _and died for her sake_. Do you think I don't +know that when she hears that he himself has never married in all these +years--do you think that she will then love him less than she did? She +always looked on him as the most wronged man alive. Do you suppose that +she herself will turn against him now? In the name of God, what excuse +would she have, and him still loving her as Mr. Cavanaugh thinks he +does?" + +"I never looked at it that way," Mrs. Cavanaugh said. "You are getting +me all mixed up. Does Mrs. Trott-- Have any of the reports got to her?" + +"No, not yet; but Tilly will want to tell her, now that there is no +doubt as to the truth. I must tell my wife what I have just learned. It +is my duty to tell her. Yes, yes, I must tell her. I'm honor-bound at +once to give her all the joy in my power." + +It was as if both Cavanaugh and his wife could think of nothing in the +way of comfort for Eperson, and, taking his reins into a better grasp +and touching his hat politely, he mounted his wagon and drove away. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The loose planks on Joel's wagon rattled over the rain-washed and +little-used road running from the main highway to the farm he was +renting. The house was a log cabin of only three rooms, situated on a +bleak, treeless hillside. Adjoining it was a diminutive corn-crib made +of pine poles with the bark still on them, and a lean-to shed which was +roofed with long shingles sawn and split from red oak. + +As he drove his clattering wagon up the slope his two children, little +Joel and Tilly, ran out to meet him. The boy held his sister's hand to +keep her from falling, and was gleefully shouting to his father to stop +and take them into the wagon. Eperson checked his horse and got down and +made places for them on his coat. + +"Where's your mother?" he inquired, his dull eyes on the cabin. + +"In the house," answered little Joel. "Supper is nearly ready." + +"Hold your sister," Eperson ordered, as he started the horse and walked +along by the wagon; "she might fall." + +Tilly came to the front door and stood watching them as they drew +nearer. The sun was going down, and its last slanting rays made a living +picture of her in the crude frame of logs. She looked older than the +average woman of her age, and yet there was a rounded mellowness to her +features, a suave, spiritual radiance from her skin, eyes, and hair, +which always caught and held the attention of an observer. The same +quality seemed to pervade her voice. It had always been musical; it was +even more so now. Her husband saw that she was all aglow and smiling as +she stepped down to the wagon and held out her arms for the little girl. + +"Not a long ride, was it, pet?" she said, as the child put its arms +around her neck and kissed her cheek. + +Taking up the parcel, Joel handed it to his wife. "Mrs. Cavanaugh sent +it," he explained. "It is the waists." + +"Mrs. Cavanaugh?" Tilly said, in groping surprise. "Where did you see +her?" + +"I sold Cavanaugh the wood." Joel felt the heat flow into his cheeks. +"He ordered it a week ago." + +"Was he--was he at home?" Tilly held the child's face to hers, and Joel +noted a tense ripple of expectation in her voice. + +"Yes, he was there." Joel lowered his head to take up the reins he had +dropped, preparatory to driving around to the wagon-shed. From the +corner of his eyes he saw that Tilly stood rigid at his side, and he +thought he knew why she lingered thus. He was starting his horse, when +she said, suddenly: + +"Well, come right in. Your supper is ready." + +As he put his horse into its stall and fed it with fodder and corn, he +almost wished that he could prolong the task, for how was he to pass +through the coming ordeal, which was like death to him? + +He went into the house, bathed his face in a pan of water, brushed his +long thin hair, carefully adjusted his collar, and put on his coat. As a +rule, farmers did not wear their coats in the house in warm weather, but +Joel had never sat at the table with his wife without having his on. It +was an observance of respect to women which had been handed down to +Joel from conventional forebears, and from which he could not have +departed. + +Tilly and the children were at the table. It had grown dark within the +almost windowless cabin, and an oil-lamp furnished the light, the yellow +rays of which fell over the food, which consisted of boiled vegetables, +cornbread, butter, and mush and milk for the children. + +Out of respect to Tilly, who always did it in his absence, Joel, when at +home, said grace at the table, and the upturned plates to-night mutely +reminded him of that duty. + +It had always been the same simple formula which, also, had descended to +Joel, and over his folded hands to-night he uttered it. Moistening his +dry lips as if to render them pliant, Eperson sent his prayer out into +the sentient mystery which was so relentlessly wrapping him about. + +"Loving Father," he prayed, "we thank Thee, this night, for all the +evidence of Thy loving tenderness and care. Bless this food to our +needs. Render us kind and merciful to our neighbors, and, when our +earthly service to Thee is ended, receive us into the grace and peace of +Thy eternal kingdom. Amen." + +Eperson forced himself to eat. Under the stress of his emotions his +appetite had departed, and yet he pretended to be enjoying his food. +Tilly was eating with more relish, it seemed to him, than usual, and he +thought he knew the psychological reason for it. He had never seen her +look so buoyantly ethereal as she did to-night. To have described the +change upon her would have been beyond the power of man. She was like an +older sister to her children. Her love for them seemed to issue from her +like some supernal blending of light and music as she bent to adjust +the bib of the younger one, or sweetly to admonish the older in regard +to his too rapid eating of his mush and milk. + +"Don't--don't hurry, Joie darling!" her lilting voice produced. "You +don't want to be like a little piggy at his trough, do you, my sweet +boy?" + +When supper was over, Tilly washed the dishes and Eperson put the +children to bed, removing their moist clothing, bathing their bare, +dusty feet and legs, and putting on their nightgowns. What a holy +service of resignation it was to-night! Why was he so depressed with a +sense of his vast paternal unworthiness? Why, unless he was thinking of +John Trott's success? He told himself that his whole life had been a +failure. Many of his personal debts were unpaid and unpayable. There +were men he dreaded meeting because they always asked for the money due +them, or showed by their faces that they were thinking of his +delinquency. And there were others harder to meet who showed by their +faces and the matters they spoke about that they had no thought of ever +being paid. Ah! then there were still other men--men from whom he could +not bring himself to borrow. They were the few, like Cavanaugh, who +wanted to help him, but did not know how to broach so delicate a subject +with so sensitive a man. + +The children tucked away in the general sleeping-room, Eperson went +outside to the chairs that stood by the door-step and sat waiting for +Tilly. Would she come to him as promptly as usual? he wondered, his +stare on the blinking stars beyond the hilltops. Perhaps not so readily, +for an ineffable veil seemed to have been lowered between him and her +since her talk with the neighbors in regard to her first husband's +survival. He listened for the clatter of dishes and pans in the +kitchen. It had ceased. That work was over. Now, nothing would detain +her, he told himself, and he tried to brace his courage for the +performance before him. + +But she did not come at once. He heard her voice, with its indescribable +gurgle of maternal sweetness, teaching the children to say their +prayers. + +"God bless mother," was repeated after her, "God bless father--God bless +Grandmother Trott, and all the good people in the world. Amen." + +"_Grandmother Trott!_" Joel's whole weary being throbbed with the mental +utterance of the words. Then he heard Tilly singing a quaint lullaby +sung by the negroes. He wondered if she were purposely delaying her +usual after-supper chat with him. After all, what was there to tell her? +She had evidently heard the main facts of the matter--that was plain +from that irrepressible elation of hers. + +She extinguished the light and came out to him, taking the chair he +stood holding for her. The starlight gleamed on his bare brow. It was +like a well-wrought piece of granite. He brushed his hair back with an +unsteady hand as he sat down. + +"I was talking with Cavanaugh," he began, and paused to clear the +huskiness from his throat. + +"I know," Tilly said. "I've heard everything." + +"You have?" Joel said, tremulously. + +"Yes, the Creswells told me yesterday. You see, Tom Creswell works in +the post-office, and the postmaster showed him and the other clerks a +letter that Mr. Cavanaugh was sending to John since he got back from New +York. Then the postmaster showed him one answering it. The postmaster +met Mr. Cavanaugh and asked him about it, and Mr. Cavanaugh told him +that it was all a mistake about John and Dora being killed. He says John +is doing well and looks well. Oh, I'm so glad--so glad! Ever since the +report of that wreck it has been on my mind like a horrible dream. Night +and day it would come up to haunt me. Don't you see, I thought-- I felt +that if--if I had not gone away that day with my father John would have +been alive. So now, you see, I haven't _that_ to think about. God spared +him and Dora, and Mattie Creswell says they are both happily married." + +"Both?" Joel exclaimed. "You haven't got it right, Tilly. Dora married +and left him all alone. Cavanaugh says John never married." + +"Never married?" Tilly's sweet lips hung quivering. "But Mattie Creswell +says her brother told her that Cavanaugh said that John was married to a +wealthy girl in high society." + +"It is my duty to tell you the truth," Eperson said, the look of death +deepening on him. "He never married. He has been leading a strange, +lonely life. I think I know why. You can guess." + +"_I_ can guess?" Tilly was pale and trembling as she leaned toward him. + +"Well, no, perhaps you can't," Joel corrected, "but I know why." + +"You know why?" Tilly's voice broke on the last word, and she stared at +him eagerly, her sweet mouth drooping. + +"Yes, because no man who was once your husband even for the few days +that you were his could ever marry any other woman." + +"You--you rate me too highly," Tilly faltered, putting her hands over +her face. "Why, why, I've always thought that till his death he hated +me for deserting him as I did when all the rest of the world was down on +him." + +"He is no fool, and he was not even then, boy though he was. He knew why +you went away so suddenly. Do you hear me? He simply acted as I would +have done in his place. He endeavored to set you free from certain +unbearable conditions, and that is what I would have done. In setting +you free he rescued another girl from a life of degradation and despair, +but that is neither here nor there. John Trott deserves credit, and I +shall give it to him. Dead though you thought he was, he has always had +your heart. I've seen that in a thousand things you have done and said. +Your love for his mother was due to that, and God knows you've had your +reward there, for you awakened an immortal soul and have earned its +eternal gratitude and love. Don't think I am complaining, Tilly. I knew +when you came to me that your heart was not mine. I've never been able +to win it and I never shall." + +"Why, you don't think--you don't think--" stammered Tilly. "Surely you +don't think that I still--still--" She suddenly stopped and stared at +her husband in a bewildered way. "You don't suppose, Joel, that I could +believe that he--that all these years John--" + +Joel slowly swung his head up and down. "I believe that you both love +each other still. I was wrong to over-persuade you when you held out so +long against me. John Trott acted for your good in leaving, and I should +not have saddled on you myself, the greatest failure among men that ever +lived. I feel to-night as if the blight of an avenging God is on me for +my presumption. I have put two little children on your hands and feel as +incapable of protecting you and them as a crawling infant." + +"I won't listen to you!" Tilly stood up. "You shall not abuse yourself +in this way. You acted exactly as you should. No one could blame you. +You are one of the noblest men living. Without you I'd have been lost +after my mother and father died. For you to say that--that John and I +still--I won't say the word. You have no right to utter it when all is +considered--you and me and the children. What right have you to--to +think that you could know John's heart, when you have not seen him for +eleven years? You may think you know mine. You may do so if you insist +on making yourself unhappy, but you have no right to--to pass an opinion +on--on the present feelings of my first husband. What are you going by, +I'd like to know? You don't suppose that John would tell Mr. Cavanaugh +such things, even if they were true? And how could Mr. Cavanaugh come to +you, my husband, and--and even _mention_ such a thing?" + +Joel was on his feet also. The childlike and unconscious eagerness of +his wife to make sure of the thing she was secretly craving stabbed him +to the core of his being, and yet he told himself that it was his duty +to withhold nothing concerning his rival from her. + +"Reading him as I'd read myself," Joel answered. "I thought he'd remain +constant, but to-day I wormed it out of Mr. Cavanaugh." + +"Wormed what out--_what out_?" Tilly sank back into her chair, +open-mouthed, her eyes gleaming portals to breathless expectancy. "You +can't mean that Mr. Cavanaugh thinks--actually thinks that John +still--?" + +Joel bowed his head in the relentless starlight, sat down as from sheer +frailty, and was silent. The undulating landscape, the fields, the +meadows, the woodland, the hills and streams seemed to hold their vast +breath with his. Suddenly Tilly rose. It was as if she were about to +stand behind his chair, as was her wont at times, put her hands upon his +shoulders, and kiss his thorn-crowned brow, but she did not. She went +slowly into the cabin. He heard her feet--feet he knew to be winged with +sudden, far-reaching joy--treading the boards as she went to the bed of +the children. What was she doing? he wondered. Her step ceased. He +pictured her as seated by the side of the children's bed. Was she +pitying him or rejoicing? Why ask? He knew. And his love was so divine a +thing that, but for his throes of death-agony, he could have rejoiced +with her. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Cavanaugh had a duty to perform. He had decided to take on himself the +act of informing Mrs. Trott of her son's survival. So, the next morning +after his colloquy with Eperson he walked out to the cabin the widow +occupied near the home of Eperson. As he passed Joel's place he saw from +the distance that Joel was at work in his corn-field, and, watching a +few minutes, he saw Tilly come out and feed her chickens, so he judged +that Mrs. Trott had not yet been told the important news. + +Walking on, he soon reached the isolated cabin in the woods that he was +seeking. It had but a single room, one window in front, and a crude +chimney made from unhewn stones and clay. The door facing the little +road was open, and as he drew near, Mrs. Trott, hearing his step, came +to the door and looked out. + +She was now quite gray, and wore a plain dress of homespun unadorned in +any way save for a neat white collar and an old cameo pin which had been +a gift of her husband's. A touch of her old beauty still lingered in the +contour of her face and good basic features. Her eyes had a placid +expression, and her voice had become that of a child who loves to be led +and petted. She smiled on recognizing the unexpected visitor, and gave +him a seat in the cabin. + +"I didn't expect to see you out this way," she said. "Joel told me a +couple of weeks ago that you'd gone off somewhere." + +He nodded. It was difficult to introduce the topic on his mind, and he +chatted with her about the land in the neighborhood, Joel's prospective +crop, and the fear some of the farmers had of a harmful drought if rain +did not fall within a week or so. He had not been able to come to the +matter in hand when a sound outside was heard. + +"Grandmother Trott," a small voice piped up, "sister won't come on. She +keeps stopping and picking flowers and leaves." + +Mrs. Trott laughed, and her face beamed. "It is Joel's children," she +explained. "The little darlings come with milk for me every bright day. +Tilly sends it." + +Rising, she stood in the doorway. "Come on; but, no, Joie, don't pull +her hand so hard! You might jerk her little arm out of joint. Come on by +yourself. She will come when she feels like it." + +The boy soon appeared with the pail of milk and set it in the door. +"Mother said tell you she'd have some fresh butter for you in the +morning and some eggs. The hens have started again. Tilly and I found +six eggs in the hay last night. Grandmother, where are the kittens?" + +"Right around behind the cabin, dearie," Mrs. Trott answered, taking the +pail. "The mother-cat is nursing them in the sun. Show them to your +little sister. You may have them when they are larger." + +Cavanaugh heard the children as they went behind the house and bent over +the cat and kittens. He heard them uttering endearing words to the +animals. "Don't, don't, you little stupid!" Joel cried. "She may scratch +you! Don't you see her claws?" + +Mrs. Trott laughed softly as she emptied the pail and washed it out. + +"They are the sweetest children in the world," she said to Cavanaugh, as +she put the pail on the door-step and sat down again. "They stayed with +me a week last month when Joel and Tilly went to camp-meeting over the +mountain. They were not one bit of trouble, and, oh, I did love to have +them about! I never let on to Tilly and Joel, but when they took the +darlings away I was awfully blue. Short as the time was, you see, I got +accustomed to them." + +The children had gone home and still Cavanaugh had not reached the +object of his visit. It was the shadow of vague wonderment in the +widow's eyes, and her lagging talk, that compelled him to introduce it. +He first spoke, and rather adroitly, of Todd Williams's encounter in New +York with the man who resembled her son, and, pausing, he heard her +sigh. + +"Poor boy! poor boy!" she muttered, sadly. "And they said he and Dora +were on the way to New York when that awful thing happened. Mr. +Cavanaugh, you are a good man. You've always been considered a good man +by everybody that knows you. I understand that you never had any +children, but you may know the human heart well enough to know that no +regret ever heard of can be deeper than that which is brought on by the +sort of thing that happened to me. I don't talk this way to Tilly and +Joel, because I owe them too much to let them dream that I am not +thoroughly happy. But if I could live a thousand years I'd never be able +to rid my mind of the positive knowledge that by--by--I _will_ say +it--I'll say it to you as I'd say it to a priest, if I was a Catholic. +I've often wished I was one, so that I could let what I feel out of me. +Maybe saying it like this to you will do a little good. I don't know, +but I will say that nothing on earth can rid my mind of the fact that +by my thoughtless way of acting when I was young I-- I--" + +"Stop! I know what you mean, my poor friend," Cavanaugh broke in, "and +you are getting all wrought up. Listen to me. Why not look on the +hopeful side, the bright side? How do you know but that John and Dora +are still alive, and none the worse; in fact--" + +He suddenly checked himself, for a sickly, greenish pallor had +overspread the listener's face, and she leaned forward as if about to +swoon. In a moment, however, she had recovered herself, and, sitting +erect, her white, shapely hands pressed to her breast, she smiled +feebly. + +"Oh, I know what you mean, Mr. Cavanaugh. I did try that. I summed up +every hope, everything that held out the slightest promise. I used to +lie awake at night and declare over and over that it couldn't be--that +the laws of life wouldn't let such an unjust thing happen to them, +innocent as they were, and with their right to live, but it didn't do +any good. I didn't let anybody know about it, but one after another I +got three different papers with John's name in them. I went to Atlanta +and visited the editors of all the papers and asked their advice. They +were sorry, but they said the list had never been disputed and ought to +have been even bigger than it was. Then I gave up." + +A shrewd, half-fearful gleam was in the contractor's shifting eyes. + +"I know, I know, Mrs. Trott," he gently persisted, "but many and many an +account like that has turned out afterward to be incorrect. You don't +know it, but maybe all three of those papers got their information from +one report. You see, a reporter representing a lot of papers in a sort +of combine goes to a spot like that was and his account is telegraphed +all about over the country. So you see, even if you had seen it in a +hundred papers you wouldn't have to take it as law and gospel." + +Mrs. Trott slowly shook her head and moaned softly. + +"I wonder if I dare tell her," Cavanaugh debated with himself. "She +almost fainted just now. She may have a weak heart. I must be careful. +I've heard of sudden joy killing." He was silent for a moment; then he +began again: "Mrs. Trott, you are welcome to your opinion, and I reckon +you'll let me have mine. But, to tell you the truth, I never have been +_fully convinced_ that John and Dora was lost in that wreck. I have my +reasons, and they are pretty good ones." + +He saw her arched brows meet in a little frown of polite wonderment, and +she was about to speak when little Joel suddenly reappeared at the door. + +"Oh, grandmother," he half lisped, in breathless haste, for he had been +running, "I forgot to tell you what mother told me to say. She said for +me to be sure not to forget. She said tell you that she is coming over +after dinner to tell you the best news you ever heard." + +"Ah, tell her I'm glad, darling!" Mrs. Trott said, with a smile. And she +went and stooped down before the child and added: "Won't you give old +grandmother a sweet little hug? There! there! that's a darling little +man!" And Cavanaugh saw her pressing the boy to her breast and kissing +his cheeks. + +When the child had left she came back to her chair, her face filled with +a rare maternal glow. "If you were a younger man, Mr. Cavanaugh, and +childless, as you now are, I'd advise you to adopt children. I don't +know why or how it is, but I know that persons can love other children +than their own and love them deeply, too. I love Tilly's two-- I really +do. That child there, that little boy with all his cute ways and moods, +takes me back to the childhood of my own son. But I neglected him. How I +could have done it only God knows, but I did, and you know it better +than any one else besides myself. You gave him a fine start, and if he +had lived he would have made a great success. But I must stop-- I must +stop! I think I know what Tilly's good news is. Joel has been trying to +rent the Marsden farm. He put in a bid for it. It is a big place, and +Mr. Marsden furnishes supplies. Maybe Joel has got it. I hope so, for he +is at the end of his rope." + +"The good news is not for poor Joel, Mrs. Trott. The truth is that Tilly +wants to tell you the same thing I've come to tell you. You know I said +that I never was fully convinced about John. Now what if I was to tell +you that I went to New York to make sure?" + +"Make sure? Make sure that--that John--" she began and stopped. + +He nodded, holding her bewildered stare by his fixed eyes. "I found out +enough up there to be sure, Mrs. Trott." + +"You mean that John-- Why, you _can't_ mean that--?" + +Again he nodded. "I've been afraid to shock you with the good news, but +he is alive and prospering. I was with him a week." + +She was convinced. She sat white and limp. She put her thin hands to her +face as if to hide her joy from him. He saw her breast heaving. He heard +her sob in an effort to control her emotion, and then she became quiet. + + * * * * * + +That night at home Cavanaugh wrote a long letter to John. "Something +must be done," he wrote, in one place. "If you had seen that +transformed human soul as I saw her there in her lonely log hut and +heard her talk of you and your babyhood and the thousands of regrets she +has for what she has done and left undone, your kind heart would have +melted with pity as mine did. My old mother's passed on, John, but if I +could call her back I'd give my last breath to furnish her with a +minute's joy. You could give yours years of comfort and happiness. Do +you know what I'd do if I was you? I'd come here and get her and take +her back to New York with me, and let her have some of the things she +used to hunger for and which may have caused her to do as she did. She +is poor; she needs you; the two good friends who have been helping her +so long really haven't the means to keep it up. You must come--you +really must. If you don't it will darken the end of your life. I love +you too much to let you neglect this sublime duty. Men of the greatest +brains have married repentant women and never regretted it; surely a man +as noble as you are, and as able as you are, can afford to pardon the +woman who gave him his very life." + +Mrs. Cavanaugh read the letter when it was finished. She made no comment +on it, but her opinion of her husband had never been so high. Deep pools +of his inner being for the first time in his life were exposed to the +light of her understanding. + +"May I?" she asked, taking the pen into her hand, and laying his letter +open on the table. + +"Yes," he nodded. "Add anything you like." + +"Dear John," she wrote on the margin, in the cramped style of one who +writes but seldom, "come to your mother. Do as Sam says. He knows what +is best." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Among the farmers of that locality it was considered somewhat beneath +the dignity of the men to milk the cows, but Joel Eperson had never +permitted his little wife to lay her hands to that particularly arduous +part of the day's duties. And to-night at dusk he was at this work in +the stable-yard, Tilly and the children still being at Mrs. Trott's +cabin. He knew why his wife had gone there, and painfully he was +comprehending why she was so late in getting back. There would naturally +be much to say on a subject like that by the two women in all the world +whom such a startling revelation touched so closely. Joel took his pail +of milk into the cabin. He put some more wood into the stove that it +might be hot and ready for use when Tilly arrived, and then he walked to +and fro in the yard, his dull eyes on the dewy fields. On his right, a +half-mile distant, the fires of the lime-kilns and brickyards were +beginning to glow against the cliffs in the coming darkness, and the +songs of the negro stokers and the thwacks of their axes fell on his +ears. He emptied the water in the pail and brought up some more from the +spring at the foot of the slope. Still his family did not come, and he +started out to meet them. He crossed the meadow, skirted his corn, which +till only the other day he had looked on with pride, walked between the +rows of his cotton-plants to curtail the distance, and finally reached +the wood through which ran the path to Mrs. Trott's cabin. As he stood +there for a moment he heard voices. Both Tilly and Mrs. Trott were +speaking, but he could not see them for the thickened darkness beneath +the trees. + +"I must hurry now." It was Tilly's voice, and it rang with the lilting +tones of triumphant joy. "It is late. Joel will be looking for me." + +"Yes, I'll turn back," Mrs. Trott was heard saying. "Let me kiss them +once more. Oh, I am so wonderfully happy! Really, dear girl, I'd like to +die feeling as I do to-night. You see, I never expected it-- I never +dreamt that such a thing could be possible. I thought all chance of ever +begging his forgiveness was gone, and now maybe, some day or other, I +can. I wouldn't ask him to take me back, you understand, but only to say +that he wouldn't hold it against me the rest of his life. But I'd want +him to know one thing, Tilly, my sweet child, and that is the things you +have done for me on account of--on account of--you know what I mean?" + +"Hush, grandmother," Tilly answered, in the tremulous tone which +indicated emotions firmly checked. "You must not forget who I now am. +You must not forget that I'm the mother of those darling children." + +"No, my child, nor can I forget their noble father. I wouldn't wound him +for the whole world. I love him as--as--yes, I love him as much as I do +John, but in a different way, that is all. John was my baby, Joel is my +grown-up son. You must never forsake Joel in thought, word, or act. +Remember that." + +What Tilly answered Joel refused to hear. He was too honorable a man to +listen further, and he turned back and with slow, weighty steps reached +his home again. He stood in the kitchen doorway, waiting. He heard +Tilly and the children coming. They were singing merrily and romping +like sprites across the meadow. + +"I'm coming! I'm coming! I'll catch you! Boo!" Tilly cried. "Hide from +him, darling--hide behind the bushes! Where is she, brother? She must be +lost. Oh, there she is!" This was followed by childish screams of +delight and the mother's cooing words. + +Joel went to meet them, advancing across the yard and taking little +Tilly into his arms. + +"I know we are late," his wife said, regretfully, "but grandmother came +part of the way back, and you know she walks slowly." + +"It is all right," Joel said, pressing little Tilly's cheek to his. "It +is not very late." + +"Well, I'll hurry with the supper," Tilly answered. It was significant, +he reflected, that she did not mention then the reception of the +startling news by Mrs. Trott. Even while they all sat at the table Tilly +failed to bring it up, and a general air of repression brooded over +them. + +Indeed, the children had been put to bed, the dishes washed, and husband +and wife were alone together in the moonlight at the door, and still the +subject in the minds of both had been avoided. He wondered if she +expected him to mention the matter. Surely she ought to know that it was +not exactly the thing that he, a mere outsider, had the right to pry +into. An awkward silence fell between them, the sort of silence that +surely boded ill for their future harmony of intercourse. Tilly seemed +to sense this, and suddenly put her shoulder to the wheel of duty. + +"I didn't get to tell grand-- I didn't get to tell Mrs. Trott, after +all." It was significant that she abruptly discarded a formerly accepted +term of endearment. "Mr. Cavanaugh was there this morning for that +purpose, so--so the greater part of her excitement was over when I got +there." + +"But she was happy, of course," Joel got out, well knowing that his +remark was an empty one. + +"Oh yes, of course." Tilly was silent for several minutes. Then she +added: "The poor woman is afraid that John will not forgive her. She +doesn't want help from him, she declares, and she thinks it would be +unwise for them ever again to meet face to face, but she says she would +like for him to know how sorry she is for many things. I think, myself, +Joel, that it would be inadvisable for--for them to meet, just at +present, anyway. Don't you?" + +"I don't know. I can't say. I'm not in a position to decide," Joel +floundered. "It would depend on him. It is unfortunate that so many +miles separate them. He evidently has some established way of living +into which she might not fit so well. The mere fact of his being still +alive reached her by accident and through no effort on his part." + +"I'm sure she has no idea of making any advancement." Tilly seemed to +Joel, as she spoke, quite another woman from the one who had been his +wife all those years, and Joel simply sat, bent forward, his every nerve +and muscle drawn taut by vast swirling forces within him. + +"Then you don't think that he would--would forgive her?" asked Tilly, +with obvious anxiety which she was striving to minimize. + +Joel's prompt reply surprised her. "I know he would," said Joel, "if he +knew all the circumstances. I have never known a nobler man. I don't +believe a nobler man ever lived. In trying to help his mother I was only +doing what I was sure he would have done for me under the same +conditions. If I only knew how to show him what his mother now is I'd do +it." + +They were silent for a while; then, suddenly, Tilly stood behind him and +put her hands on his shoulders. "Joel," she said, "you are blue +to-night." She toyed with the hair on his brow; she bent almost as low +as when in that posture she sometimes kissed him, but she did not kiss +him to-night, and he noted the fact as a man dying unattended in a +dungeon might test his own pulse. He longed to take the little hand so +close to his cheek and press it to his famished lips, but something told +him that she would (not openly, but inwardly) now actually shrink from +such a caress. + +"No, don't think I am blue," he protested, fighting forward on his black +billows, and grimly smiling. "You are happy and I shall be for your +sake. You mustn't observe my cranky ways too closely. I'm all right." + +"Somehow I can't exactly believe it." Tilly twisted a lock of his hair +between her slow, reluctant fingers. "You seem changed, a little, +anyway, and I think we ought to come to a thorough understanding right +now. You have an imagination, Joel. You used to write poetry to me, you +remember, and for all I know you may now be fancying all sorts of really +absurd things. Now be sensible. John and I _did_ love each other away +back there, but we were parted and for years I have thought of him as +dead. But now he is away off up there, and I am here with you and our +darling children. You love them, they love you--and--and you love me, +and I--love you. Now be sensible. Can you, even with a crazy flight of +your imagination, fancy that John and I ever again will or could be--be +like we once were? Throw the idea away if you have it. Of course, I must +be happy in discovering that my hasty desertion back there did not cost +him his life and Dora's. Oh, that thought worried me! I never let you +know how much it worried me! I guess I would have married you much +sooner than I did if I had not had that on my mind. But all that is past +and gone now. I'm here and John is away off up there. Your idea that he +still loves me is ridiculous on the face of it. What was I, even when he +was here? Only an ignorant country girl, while he has no doubt grown and +learned and altered in a thousand ways. I've seen successful men from +big cities. They don't seem to think as we do, or act or speak like us. +I'd be a silly dowdy to such a man. I think, of course, if it comes +about naturally, that his mother ought to go to him, but I don't think +he ever ought to--to come back here, and I am sure that he won't. I am +sure of that--I'm sure of it. He has been burnt once, as the saying is, +and that will be enough. But I predict that she will go to him. No, I'll +take that back. I said that, but I am not sure. Do you know, it is God's +truth, Joel, that the sweet old soul loves you and me and the children +so much now that she would not leave us even--even for John. She let +that out this afternoon while Tilly was sleeping in her lap. The very +thought of going started her to crying, and it was some time before I +got her quiet." + +Tilly's hand actually touched his neck, but Joel still felt that he had +no right to clasp it. The wild thought of grasping it and drawing his +wife's lips down to his possessed him, but he promptly killed the +impulse. Grimly he told himself that he would be fondling a shadow, +feasting on a husk. + +Suddenly she drew her hand away. "I'm awfully tired to-night," she +sighed. "I'll go to bed, but you needn't hurry. Shall I fill your +pipe?" + +"No, thank you," he said, rising as courteously as of old. "I sha'n't +smoke any more to-night." + +"Well, good night," she said. + +"Good night," he echoed. + +The flare from the lime-kilns and the brickyards lit the cliffs, hills, +and sky. He beard the town clock striking ten. Little Joel had waked, +and his mother was gently telling him to go to sleep. The child wanted +water. Tilly went to the kitchen for it, and the father heard her +sweetly cooing as she held the cup for his son to drink. What a marvel +that--_his son and hers_. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +"John is not coming. I see that plain enough from this letter," +Cavanaugh announced to his wife at noon one day, as he entered the +sitting-room where she sat sewing on a machine. + +"Why, what's wrong?" the old woman asked, in a tone of disappointment. + +"I can't tell exactly," Cavanaugh answered. "It is all round about, with +this reason and that. He seems to have a mistaken idea that it will stir +up an awful rumpus in the papers. He wants to help his mother, and says +for me to see her and tell her so. He is willing to make a substantial +settlement on her, but she wouldn't take it. Do you hear me? She +wouldn't have scraps thrown at her like that. If he came here and made +it up she might let him help, but she'll never accept it that way. I am +disappointed in him. After the way I wrote, he ought to have come and +been done with it." + +Mrs. Cavanaugh adjusted her glasses, took the letter and read it, moving +her wrinkled lips as she slowly intoned the words. Then she handed it +back. + +"Man that you are," she sniffed, "you don't see what ails him. He +doesn't once mention Tilly, but in every line there he is thinking of +her and her happiness. He'd love to come back here and see the old place +and all of us, but he is afraid it will upset Tilly. You said you +thought he still loves her-- I _know_ he does. I can see it all through +that letter, and I'm sorry for him, poor fellow!" + +"Oh, I see what you mean," Cavanaugh said, in a mollified tone, "and I +believe you are right, too. He was thinking of her happiness when he ran +away, and he is doing it now. Yes, yes, he still loves her. I saw it in +a hundred ways when me and him was together up there. He never had room +for but one woman in his heart, and she fills it still. She is the +drawback in the case, I'll bet. He thinks she is happy with Joel and the +children and he doesn't want to break in at this late day. But he will +come. Mark my words, he will come to help his mother when I write him +more fully. I'll explain, too, that I'll keep it from the papers, and +when he gets here he can stay out here with us and keep away from old +acquaintances as much as he likes. Yes, he will come." + +It ended in accordance with this prediction. One evening at dusk John +arrived in town and was delivered by a street-hack at Cavanaugh's door. +He was received with open arms by the old couple and treated as a +much-loved son. And he was glad that he came. For the first time since +the departure of Dora and the loss of Binks he felt restful and at home. +The delightful old-fashioned room, filled with the very perfume of +cleanliness, to which he was assigned, at once charmed and soothed him. +Till late that night the three friends sat talking on the porch. Several +times Mrs. Trott was mentioned, but Tilly not once. That she and Joel +lived near by and had been the widow's stanch friends John was not yet +aware, and the Cavanaughs wondered, half fearfully, what effect that +knowledge would have on their guest. + +John was waked the next morning by the long, resonant blowing of the +whistles at the mills. It was scarcely light, and, only partly conscious +at first, he fancied that it was his old signal for rising. He thought +he was in his dismal room at his mother's house, and that little ragged +Dora was clattering about in the kitchen below. Slowly he came to full +comprehension and lay back on his bed and closed his eyes. But it was +not to sleep. What a tangle of sordid memories wrapped him about! How +profoundly wise, by comparison, had he become! He wondered if the tiny +cottage in which he and Tilly had passed those few days of blinded bliss +were still extant. If so, would he dare visit it? He thought not. +Neither would he care to see again his mother's old home. + +Later, when the sun was up, he heard Cavanaugh on the porch, and he +rose, dressed, and joined him. Presently breakfast was announced. How +the cozy table in its snowy expanse appealed to him--the food he used to +like, the open door looking out on a flower-garden, a plot of dewy +grass, and a row of beehives! He had a sense of wanting to live that way +always. He was weary of the life that he had just left, and the +ephemeral things he had won. His desire for rest was that of an old man +whose years are spent. Somehow he felt that he and the Cavanaughs were +on a par as to age and experience. They had suffered mildly through long +lives--he had suffered keenly in a shorter one. + +It was understood between him and Cavanaugh that the first thing to be +done was for him to visit his mother. So, when breakfast was over, they +fared forth in the cool, brisk air for that walk in the country. As they +neared the cabin Cavanaugh saw Joel's house in the distance. He might +have descried either Joel or Tilly about the place by careful looking, +but was afraid that even a glance in that direction might attract John's +attention. Presently Mrs. Trott's cabin was before them, and, leaving +his companion in the edge of the wood, Cavanaugh went ahead to prepare +the widow for the surprise before her. Presently he came back. + +"I must say she was awfully excited," he began. "I was sorry for her. +She turned as white as a sheet and shook powerful; but she wants to see +you, and said tell you to come right on. Now you know the way home, +John, and so I'll turn back." + +"A cabin--a mere log cabin, such as the poorest negroes live in!" John +reflected, and yet it was the abode of the woman who used to demand so +many luxuries, and that woman, looked at from any angle, was his mother. +He was conscious of no tenderness or pity. Those things were reserved +for the instant of his first view of her. Great soul that he was, it +required but the downcast eyes of the repentant woman to melt him into +streams of sympathy when she appeared in the low doorway, a pitiful +flush of embarrassment struggling out of the pallor of her cheeks and +surrounding her still beautiful eyes. + +"Mother!" he cried, huskily, and he advanced to her, his arms +outstretched. "I had to come to you. I heard you were in need, but I +didn't know it was like this." + +She seemed unable to say a word. She hid her shamed face, her childlike +face, so full of timid remorse, on his shoulder, and he felt her sobs +shaking her breast. He led her to a chair inside the cabin and gently +eased her down to it, his fingers, filially hungry for the first time in +his life, gently and consolingly playing about her hair and brow. + +Presently she found her voice. "I was afraid you'd never come," she +faltered, still with that shrinking humility which had so completely won +him to her. "But here you are. Oh, I don't know what to say, John-- I +don't know what to say, except that I am not the same silly woman I +used to be. I used to think that the way I lived when you was here was +the only way I could live, but now I'd rather die than take back a +single day of it. Strange as it may seem, I like this. I like the still +woods out there, the rocks, grass, and wild flowers, and being alone. +Yes, I like to be all alone. When I'm all alone, even in the dead of +night, something seems to come to me and pity me and give me the +sweetest rest and peace. There wasn't but one thing that haunted me, and +that was thinking you were dead. When I heard that was a mistake I felt +very happy, though I didn't think I'd ever see you again." + +It seemed to him, as he sat in that crude hut, that nothing stranger had +ever happened to him than seeing her in such surroundings. + +"Is it possible," he asked, "that you spend the nights here in this +place?" + +"For six years now, winter and summer." She smiled wistfully. "I've got +my little garden behind the cabin, and my chickens and my cats, and they +keep me busy. Then I read a lot of books and stories. The Cavanaughs +send them to me off and on, and--and"--she started visibly--"some other +people do, too." + +"Other people?" he repeated to himself. "Then she _has_ friends, after +all." + +Presently a patter of feet sounded outside and a child's voice came in +at the open door. "Grandmother Trott! Where are you?" + +"Here, here!" Mrs. Trott called out in a flurried tone. She made a start +as if to rise, and yet it seemed to John that she had lost the power to +move. Then a little boy appeared at the door, two tin pails in his +hands. "Here's the milk, grandmother, and some fresh butter. Mother said +keep the pie and biscuits warm. She just took them from the stove +before I started. Grandmother, sister wants to see the kittens. May +she?" + +"Yes, yes, of course." Mrs. Trott, still agitated, got up. Little Tilly +was now in the doorway, and she took her into her arms. As for Joel, he +had espied one of the kittens, and was crossing the room after it, when +for the first time he saw John and paused, somewhat abashed. + +"Come here." John smiled, holding out his hands, and the boy went to him +trustingly. "My, my! what a solid boy you are!" John went on, taking him +on his knee. "How old are you?" + +"Six, and sister's four," was the answer. + +Mrs. Trott, still with the look of concern on her face, was putting +Tilly down, that she might empty the pails, and while her back was +turned the little girl crept confidingly to John's disengaged knee. With +a laugh, he took her up also. He was strongly drawn to them both, and +why he couldn't have said, unless it was because they were friends of +his mother and had given her such an endearing appellation. + +Mrs. Trott brought the pails back. She still wore an embarrassed look, +which, in his preoccupation over the children, he failed to note. + +"They are very nice and friendly," he smiled up at her, an arm about the +body of each child. "Whose are they?" + +"Now you must go back," Mrs. Trott said, with obvious evasion, holding +out the pails to Joel. "Tell your mother that I am very much obliged." + +"But mother said we must rest awhile here and not come right back," the +boy answered, leaning on John's shoulder. + +"No. I's tired, grandmother." Tilly drew back also into her snug +retreat. "Where's the tittens, brother?" + +But Joel could see kittens any day, and John was now showing him his +new gold watch and chain and Tilly was admiring his scarf and pin, +daintily touching the rich silk with her tiny sun-browned fingers. + +With something like a sigh of resignation Mrs. Trott sank into her chair +and listened to the chat of the trio. That her son was charmed with the +children of his former wife she saw plainly. What would he do or say +when told the truth?--and that it was due him to be told she did not +doubt. + +"They are beautiful and lovely," John said, when they both left his lap +and went behind the cabin to see the kittens. "Whose children are they?" + +"I see that I must tell you and be done with it," Mrs. Trott said, with +a warm flush. "Can't you guess?" + +"Why, how could I guess?" he asked, wonderingly. "They call you +grandmother, too--how is that?" + +"John," she gulped, "they are Tilly's and Joel's!" + +His moving lips seemed to frame the words she had spoken, but without +the issue of sound. They were both silent for an awkward pause; then he +said, haltingly, "I did not know that they were in this neighborhood." + +"Mr. Cavanaugh told me that you didn't know about them and me," she +answered, all but apologetically. "Oh, John, I hope you won't blame me, +but I simply could not have lived without them! They are responsible for +what I now am. They came to my aid immediately after you were reported +dead, and have stuck to me ever since." + +"Then they are the friends Sam mentioned!" John said. + +"Yes, they are the ones. They wanted me to come live with them after +they married, but I couldn't-- I simply couldn't; but I did consent to +live near them like this, and I am glad, for they have been like loving +children to me. John, you don't know how noble and unselfish poor Joel +is. Nothing has ever prospered with him. He has always had bad luck, and +yet he never thinks of himself. I was with Tilly when both her children +were born. She seems now like a daughter, and Joel a son. As for the +little ones, I love them with all my heart. I owe it to you to tell you +the truth. Had I thought you alive, of course, I could not have been so +intimate with them, but we all three thought you were dead, and, +somehow, drifted together." + +"I know, and that is all right," John said, a shadow of his old brooding +despair in his eyes. The prattle of the children behind the house came +to his ears. Through the doorway the midday sun beat yellow and warm on +a crude bed of flowers close by. Mrs. Trott continued her recital of +past happenings. She told even of Tilly's visit to the old house; of her +occupying his room, of her own and Joel's vigil on the outside. She +spoke of the saddened years in which Tilly had refused to think of +marriage, and how she herself had worked with Joel to bring it about. + +"If I knew one thing," she presently said, gravely studying his face, "I +might feel that I had a right to tell you something particular about +Tilly. I mean if I knew _one certain thing_ about you yourself." + +"Me myself?" he cried, groping for her meaning. + +"Yes, you, John. Mr. Cavanaugh hinted at what he thought your present +feeling for Tilly is, but I'd have to know for myself before--before I'd +feel at liberty to tell you what I have in mind. Mr. Cavanaugh said you +hadn't said so in so many words, but that he was sure that you still +feel the same toward Tilly that you did before you and her parted." + +He had lowered his head. He now interlaced his fingers between his +knees, and she saw them shaking. + +"She is the same and more to me," he said. "As long as I live I shall +love her." + +"Do you really mean that, John?" + +"Yes, and much more," he answered, firmly. "I don't blame her for +anything that she has done. She had every right to marry. I counted on +it happening even earlier." + +"I see you are in earnest, and I'll tell you," Mrs. Trott said. "John, +she finally married Joel, but she did it only out of gratitude and pity. +She was grateful to him for helping _me_, do you understand? After you +left, she actually looked on me as her mother, because--because I was +_yours_. Then she pitied Joel because he was so unhappy without her. +But, la me! the other day, when she found out that you were alive, no +angel in heaven could have been happier. She tries to hide it--she +hardly knows what it means--but she can't hide it. It shows in her face, +in her laugh, in her dancing movements. She has no idea she will ever +see you again, and she doesn't dream of leaving Joel or the children, +but knowing that you are alive and doing well has made her blissfully +happy. Hers is a great, unselfish love, if there ever was one. + +"You can't mean what you say," John faltered, his eyes beaming, his face +aflame, his breast heaving. + +"Yes, I do," his mother assured him. "I don't know that I'm doing +exactly right to tell you, but I have told you. I can't fully make her +out on one thing, and that is whether she believes you still care for +her or not. Sometimes I think she believes that you still love her. I +don't know why she is so happy unless that is at the bottom of it." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +John rose to go. Promising to return the next day, he started back to +town. By choice he went through a strip of forest-land. In some places +the growth of trees, bushes, and vines was dense. Small streams trickled +through the moss and grass over pebbled beds, clear and cool in the +shade and warm in the open sunshine. Above the blue sky arched, with +here and there a white cloud against which some buzzards were circling +in majestic calmness. For the first time in many years he felt that he +had not loved in vain. Tilly loved him. He loved her. She had suffered; +so had he. The world had mistreated them, that was all. He remembered +something she had once said about love being eternal. How sweet the +thought now was! + + * * * * * + +The next morning he was at his mother's cabin again. He had a plan to +unfold to her. He described his life in New York, and spoke of the many +advantages of living there. He wanted her to come with him. He would +give her every comfort that could be thought of. His income was ample. +They would be company for each other. The things she wanted to forget +would never follow her there. She would make good, new friends and end +her days in contentment and comfort. + +She listened to him attentively, a warm stare of maternal pride in her +meek eyes, but when he paused she slowly shook her head. She seemed +embarrassed; then she said: "I couldn't do that, John. You may think it +odd of anybody, but I really wouldn't like a bustling life like that +now. I've got a taste of this, and I think I'd rather keep it. Then I +must be honest with you. I mustn't keep back anything. The truth is I +don't want to leave Tilly and Joel and the children. I've got used to +them, I reckon. I think they want me, too, I really do; at least I hope +so. I've found this out, John; people either like one sort of life or +the other. When I was living like--like I used to live, I wanted that +and nothing else, but now I want this and nothing else. I wish you could +live here, but you know best about that. It would be wrong in some ways, +for, considering the way you and Tilly feel about each other, and her +duty to Joel and the children, it wouldn't be best for you to be close +together. I was thinking about that last night and wondering whether you +and her ought to meet even once again. It seems to me that it would be +awkward for you both, and hard on poor Joel." + +"I had no idea of--of meeting her," John said, in a tone which sank +beneath his breath. "I must spare her that." + +"It is a pity--a pity, but it will be best!" Mrs. Trott sighed. "I wish +I could see some other way, but I can't. How long are you going to +stay?" + +"Not longer than a week," he answered. "Are you sure that you won't go +with me?" + +She slowly shook her head. "No, I must stay here, John. I couldn't leave +them-- I really couldn't. They have wound themselves about my tired old +heart and I want to stay near them. I wish I could help them out of +their terrible poverty. The children ought to be educated. They are +wonderfully bright." + +They sat without speaking for several minutes; then John said, +suddenly: "Do you think we could, between us, devise any way by which I +might help them substantially? I assure you I have plenty of money for +which I have no need." + +"Oh, that would never do, John!" Mrs. Trott exclaimed. "Neither Joel nor +Tilly would accept it. That is out of the question." + +John's face fell. "I was afraid you'd say that," he sighed. Then, with a +start and an eager searching of her face, he said: "Will you answer me a +direct question? If you, yourself, were to come into some money, at your +death would you want them to have it?" + +"Why, of course!" she answered. "That is all I'd want money for now." + +"Then the way is clear," John beamed, and his voice throbbed with +excitement. "You are my mother. You can't keep me from making you +comfortable out of my useless means. I have some absolutely safe +securities that bring in good dividends. Before I return to New York +they will be in your name at one of the banks in town, with a cash +deposit to your credit. The income on the stocks amounts to about three +thousand a year. Remember, I am in no way suggesting to you what you +should do with the principal or the interest, but legally to be on the +safe side, you ought at once to make a will." + +"Why, John-- John, you astound me!" his mother cried. "Mr. Cavanaugh +intimated that you were not particularly well off, and here you say--you +say that I am to have three thousand dollars a year from you. +Why--why--" + +"It is nothing," he said, smiling. "I want to do it, and you must help +me. If you should decide to do so, you can convert some of the stocks +into money and buy Joel a farm on which he could make a good living. +After I am gone they won't refuse it from you, for you owe it to them, +considering all they have done for you." + +Without knowing it, Mrs. Trott was weeping. Great crystal tears were on +her cheeks. Her still beautiful lips were quivering; her slender hands +were clasped in her lap. + +"Oh, John, John, can it be possible to do this for them?" she half +whimpered. "I want to do it. I want to help them, but poor Joel is so +sensitive and proud that--that--" + +"You owe it to him, and I, as your son, who left you unprotected, owe it +to him also. When I am gone he will see that it had to be. Let him know +about the will in his children's favor, but give him to understand that +the money is from _you_, not from _me_, and tell him, too, if you can do +so adroitly, that I shall never come this way again. This is his home, +not mine. As for Til--as for his wife, I shall not meet her while I am +here. You are going to help them substantially--that is the main thing. +_You_, no one else." + +"Oh, it would be glorious--glorious!" Mrs. Trott dried her eyes on her +apron. "As for Tilly, Tilly--it may seem to you a strange idea of mine, +John, but somehow I believe, actually believe that she would accept the +money from you as readily as she'd give her last cent to you under the +same circumstances. She is a strange, strange little woman, more of the +next life, it seems to me, than this. She has been an angel of light to +me and I couldn't leave her; even if you were an emperor offering me a +throne I'd stay here. In taking your money, John, I am taking it on her +account. She will see through your plan, but it will only make her the +happier, for she thinks your soul and hers are united for all time, and +it may be so, John--it may be so. Love like yours and hers ought not to +die. How could it?" + +He sat silent. All the morbid hauntings of his past seemed to be +withdrawing like shadows before some vast supernal light. His body felt +imponderable. A delicious pain clutched his throat and pierced his +breast. He was ashamed of his weakness and tried to shake it off, but it +continued to thrill and sob in every nook and cranny of his hitherto +unexplored being. The woman before him seemed more than mere flesh, +blood, and bone. A veritable nimbus hovered over her transfigured head +and shone against the unbarked logs behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +By choice, he started home through the wood. He wanted the feel of the +grass, heather, and moss beneath his feet; the scent of wild flowers in +his nostrils; the bending boughs of great trees over him; the minute +sounds of insects in his ears; the flight of winged things in his sight. +Deeper and deeper into the wood he plunged. There seemed something to be +drunken like an impalpable spiritual elixir. He held out the arms of his +being to it; he opened the pores of his body and soul to it. The far-off +hum of the town's commerce and traffic seemed an insistent denial of the +intangible thing for which he hungered, and he closed his ears to it. +Presently he heard the sound of breaking twigs and the stirring of dry +leaves behind the vines and boulders close by on his right, and he +paused to listen. Then there fell upon his ears the soft voices of +children, and, carefully parting the pliant branches of some willows, he +saw in a little grassy glade Tilly's daughter and son. They were +gathering flowers and ferns. Little Tilly had her chubby arms full, and +Joel was plucking more. + +It was a beautiful sight, and yet it drenched him with infinite pain. He +was tempted to attract their attention, to take them into his arms +again, but he checked the impulse. + +"What is the use?" he muttered. "They are hers, not mine--_his_ and +hers, not _mine_ and hers." + +Softly he moved away. Presently he came to a fallen tree and sat down +on it. He could no longer hear the children's voices. However, another +sound broke the stillness about him. It was the rapid tread of some one +hurrying through the wood in his direction. The branches of the bushes +in front of him parted and Tilly stood facing him, her cheeks and brow +flushed and damp from rapid walking. That she could be so beautiful as +now he had never dreamed possible. The years had added indescribable +charm and grace to her every movement, feature, and expression. + +"Oh, John!" she cried, holding out her hands as appealingly and naively +as of old, "the children are lost! They started for your mother's cabin, +but haven't been there. There are dangerous places in this wood, and--" + +He smiled reassuringly as he took her hands. "They are all right," he +said. "They are just over there. I saw them only a moment ago." + +Their hands clung together, but neither of them was cognizant of the +fact. It was as if not a day had elapsed since they had parted. +Forgetting every law of propriety, he drew her into his arms. Her +uncovered head went as of old to his shoulder, and he was about to kiss +her throbbing lips when, with her hand to his mouth, she suddenly +checked him. + +"No, no, John!" she said, and she disengaged herself from his embrace +with a firm, resolute movement. "I understand how you feel, but you +mustn't-- I mustn't. I want to--yes, yes, I want to kiss you, but it +would be wrong." + +"Yes, it would be wrong," he groaned, and turned white. He sat down on +the trunk of the tree. She stood before him. Neither spoke for a while, +and the prattling voices of the children sounded on the warm, still +air. + +"I'm afraid I have pained you," Tilly said, after a moment, and she put +her hand on his shoulder as if to make him look at her. "I wish I knew +some other way, but I know of none." + +"There is no other way," he declared, his hungry eyes now on her face, +the marvel of which still held him enthralled. In all his dreams of her +she had never appeared so transcendently wonderful. + +"How could she ever have been mine--actually mine?" he asked himself +from the abyss into which he was sinking. + +"You see," she went on, now taking his hand into hers, "I'd have to tell +Joel. I'm his wife, the mother of his children, and there can be nothing +in my life that is not open to him. He is the soul of honor, John." + +"I know it," John answered, simply. + +"This thing is killing him, John," she went on, rapidly, as if taking no +heed of what she was saying. "The world was against him, anyway, and the +news of your being here so prosperous and successful by contrast to +himself has bowed his head to the earth. I don't know what to do or what +to say. He knows how I feel. You see, I couldn't hide from him the joy I +felt when I heard you were living. I can bear anything now--anything! +You see, Joel thinks that you--he has no reason for thinking so, of +course, for you have lived up there and he here--but he thinks--it is +stupid of him--but he thinks that you feel--exactly the same toward me +as you did when we were married. Exactly! Exactly!" + +"It wouldn't take a wise man to know that," John said, bitterly, his +lips awry, his stare dull with agony. + +"You mean to say that you _do_?" Tilly urged, her little hand pressing +his spasmodically, her eyes glistening with moisture. + +He nodded slowly. "How could I help it? You have done nothing to alter +my feeling toward you except to deepen it. How can I overlook the fact +that you befriended my mother (after I deserted her) and made her what +she now is?" + +"That was nothing but my duty, and my love for her," Tilly answered. She +paused for a moment, and went on: + +"Then you don't blame me for _marrying again_?" This was tremulously +uttered, and the speaker's eyes were now downcast. + +"No, I expected it. In a way, you owed it to Joel. In fact, I owe him +more now than I can ever repay." + +Tilly released his hand and sat down on the log beside him. Her little +feet were thrust out from her, and he saw her poor tattered shoes and +noted the coarse dress she wore. + +"I've always wanted to know one thing," she faltered. "A thousand times +after the report of your death I wondered if you died understanding how +it was that I left you. Did you know why I left our little home so +suddenly, John?" + +"Why, to escape the awful scandal that was in the air; but what is the +good of bringing that up now?" + +"Ah, I see, you didn't quite know the truth," Tilly cried. "John, my +father was practically out of his mind that day. He died not long +afterward of softening of the brain. He had a revolver, and would have +shot you if he had met you. I was expecting you home every minute, and +when I saw that I could pacify him by going right back with him I did +it." + +"Oh, I see!" A great light broke on John. "Then it was really to save my +life." + +"As I saw it, yes," Tilly replied. "I wrote to you once, after I got to +Cranston, but I learned afterward that father stopped the letter. I was +kept like a prisoner at home, John, until the court, under my father's +influence, and a narrow-minded jury had annulled our marriage. In spite +of that, I was ready to go to you and only waiting for a chance, when +the news of your death came. I didn't blame you for leaving. I knew that +you did it in despair of any other solution, and also to help poor +little Dora. That was a glorious thing to do, and God blessed your +effort. How is she, John?" + +"Well, and happy--both of them. I had a letter yesterday. They like +their work and believe they are doing good." + +"And you did that, John--you did it. When your own troubles were +greatest, you thought of that poor child. It was the noblest thing a man +ever did." + +John shrugged his shoulders. "It was selfish enough. I needed a +companion, and she became one. For years we were like real brother and +sister." + +"And then she left you all alone," Tilly sighed. "Oh, John, John, the +world has been unkind to you! You see, I have my children. Only a mother +can know what that means. I don't hear their voices now. Will you show +me where they were?" + +He led her through the wood to the glade. A great deadening chagrin was +on him. He told himself that she had suddenly bethought herself of the +need of the protection of her children's presence. Parting the bushes on +the edge of the glade, he looked around and presently espied them asleep +in the shade of a tree. Little Tilly's head lay on a heap of flowers and +ferns, and Joel lay coiled on the grass at her feet. + +"They often do that," Tilly beamed up at John. "We needn't wake them +yet--not just yet. I have a thousand things to say and ask, but my +thoughts are all in a jumble. How strange it seems to be here like this +with you again! I wonder, can there be any harm (in God's sight) in +telling the simple, honest truth? I've never done a conscious wrong in +my life, John. I did what I thought was right when I married you--when I +left you to go home with my father--when I secretly visited your +mother--when I finally married Joel--and now while I am here with you +like this telling you that--that--" + +She broke off, her all but etherealized face paling and growing more +rigid. + +He clutched her hands. He held them passionately, desperately to his +breast. "Go on!" he panted. "For God's sake, go on! I am starving for a +word from your lips. I've heard you speak a million times in my dreams. +Night after night I've lived with you in our little cottage, only to +wake and find it a damnable mockery, with nothing but the dull grind of +life before me." + +"What I say I would say to Joel's face if I could do so without killing +him." Tilly smiled wistfully. "John, I don't believe a true woman can +love but once in the way I loved you. She can many; she can have +children when she thinks it can bring no harm to her dead lover, but, if +she is a genuine woman, she will exult when that lover rises from the +grave and stands before her again. Dear John, I could take your +suffering face between my hands and kiss your lips as no woman ever +kissed a man's lips before. Yes, I could do it, and I'd die to be able +to do it again, but it is not to be. My body may not love, but my soul +may, and it is an eternal thing, John, and so is your soul. Those +children have a right to the care of a mother who is untainted in the +sight of the world. Their poor, patient, unfortunate father deserves as +clean a wife as the earth can produce. I know you love me-- I know it. +I feel it. I see it. But we've got to part. I believe in God. When I +doubt God I suffer and am forced back to faith by the pain I feel. +Believing in God, I also believe that the greater the cross put upon us +the more patiently it must be borne. My cross is to live without +you--yours is to live without me. But, oh, my heart aches--aches--aches +for you! It seems to me that your burden will be heavier even than mine, +for I have my children and you are all alone. John, John, you are young +yet. Don't you think that if you were to marry some good girl and have +children of your own--" + +"No," he broke in, shuddering. "Leave that out! I couldn't do +it--knowing your heart as I now know it." + +"I see, I understand, and--yes, I'm glad. Oh, I can't help it, John. I'm +glad. When do you leave here?" + +"Very soon now--in a few days." + +"How strange, oh, how strange!" she mused, aloud. "And after this--after +this brief moment I am not to see you again, or hear from you--yes, I'll +hear through your mother, for she tells me she is not to leave with you. +How odd that is, too! Joel and I and the children have robbed you even +of the mother who bore you. You never knew her as she now is, John, and +that is a pity, too. In her rebirth she is as saintly as a consecrated +nun. She does not know that she believes in God, but she does. There is +a streak of doubt in her as there was in you. Are you still an +unbeliever, John?" + +He lowered his head, shrugged, and contracted his brows. "I don't like +to say--to _you_, at least," he faltered. "Not to you, Tilly." + +"But you may, John--it won't pain me at all. I used to think that the +worst sinners were those who denied the existence of God, but I now +think there may be persons so godlike that they can't realize the +existence of any God outside of themselves. John, you are godlike. If I +could think of you as sinning, I'd sin in that thought alone. Go on +calling yourself an atheist, and the angels will treat it as a holy +jest." + +"I don't follow you," he said, wearily, as if he would dismiss the +subject. "You are mistaken about me. I am just an average man. But I +don't believe as you do. It may be beautiful--it no doubt is, but I +can't grasp it. It never came my way, somehow." + +The wood was very still. Under the beating sun, the wild flowers and +tender leaves of plants were the shelter of myriads of moving things +visible and invisible. Suddenly a locust sang in the top of a +persimmon-tree. A crow flew cawing over a distant field. The rumble of a +farmer's wagon was heard on the road. Tilly's face was steadily raised +to John's. She put her hand on his arm, the arm she used to lean on so +lovingly in their walks on the mountain road. + +"You can live without conscious faith, John," she said, in the sweet +treble tone he had loved so long, "but I cannot. If I doubted, as I did +once when we thought Tilly was dying, I'd wither up in despair. You may +as well know the truth. I live only for my children, John. Joel has to +suffer in not having all my heart-- I can't help that. He must suffer, +too, because he makes no headway in life and is unable to provide well +for me and his children. I can't help that, either. That is his cross +and he is bearing it like a saint. But as for me, I have two things to +live for--my children and your mother. God has put them in my hands and +I must care for them. Do you think I could live without faith now? Why, +I know God must help me care for them. I am praying for that. Night +after night--day after day I plead with God to provide for those three. +I want to see the children educated. I want to keep your mother as happy +and peaceful as she now is. She is my mother now--she is also Joel's; +she is the grandmother of my children. Don't you think my prayer will be +answered, John?" + +"I know it," he said, suddenly, recalling the compact just made with his +mother. "I know it." + +"Then you believe, too," she cried, eagerly, wonderingly. + +"Yes, I believe that," he admitted, reluctantly. "Something will +happen--something will turn up. You must never lose faith and hope." + +Tilly looked up at the sun. "It is eleven o'clock at least," she said. +"I must be going. I have to get Joel's dinner ready. I shall tell him +about this, of course, and now"--she choked up--"this must be good-by. +How can it be? It doesn't seem possible--that is, _forever_. For, if it +were possible, the God I adore would be a fiend. We are going to meet in +another life. As sure as you and I stand here loving each other as we +do, we are going to be reunited. A stream of spirit will connect us even +while alive. If it were otherwise, there'd be no law and order in the +universe, and law and order are everywhere. Yes, we'll meet again, +someway, somehow, somewhere." + +She held out her hands. He took them into his. He was drawing her to +him, the old fire of divine passion filling him, when he felt the +muscles of her fingers stiffen defensively, and she turned her eyes to +the sleeping children. + +"No, no! No, my darling," she said, a fluttering sob in her throat, her +eyes filling. "We must be honorable. Good-by. Leave me here with them, +please. I'll let them sleep a moment longer and then take them home." + +"Good-by," he said, turning away. The bending branches of the bushes +came between her and him. Like a plodder who has become suddenly blind +he staggered forward. The earth seemed to sink as he trod upon it. +Wild-grape vines whipped his brow and cheeks. Stones slipped and rolled +beneath his feet as he groped along. He was panting like a wild animal +long and closely pursued. + +He had turned away from the town's direction. He told himself that he +could not just now meet Cavanaugh and his wife with the meaningless +platitudes of daily life. A rugged, wooded hill rose before him. He +paused, rested awhile, and then began to climb its steep side. Half-way +to the summit, he stopped and looked about him. + +There lay the growing town where his boyhood was spent. There loomed up +the graveyard, with its ghostly slabs and shafts. There was the old +house which had haunted his dreariest dreams, and there--yes, there was +the cottage which had been the shrine of his sole joy in life. Drawn +close together in perspective and full of meaning they stood--his House +of Despair, and his Cottage of Delight. From both he tore his clinging +gaze. Beyond his mother's cabin lay an undulating meadow and another log +cabin. Along a narrow path walked a woman holding the hands of two +children. Across the furrows of a corn-field to meet the three trudged a +man without a coat, an ax on his shoulder. They met. The man took the +younger child up in his arms, and the three others walked onward through +the yellow veil of light. + +The observer groaned, filled, and sobbed. Through a mist of +unrestrainable tears he watched fixedly till the group had vanished in +the cabin. Then he started toward the town. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +A few days later Joel Eperson stopped his wagon, which was loaded with +wood to be taken to town, at Mrs. Trott's cabin. He left his horse +unhitched and stood before the door. Mrs. Trott, who was within, heard +him and came out smiling. + +"The children told me," Eperson began, "that you wanted to see me." + +"Yes, Joel," she answered, taking one of the chairs in front of the +cabin and indicating the other with a wave of her hand. "We've got to +have a talk, and what do you think? It is business this time." + +"Business?" he echoed, puzzled by her mood and mien. + +"Yes, and I am going to say in advance, Joel, that you have got to lay +aside some of your old-fashioned notions for once in your life and be +sensible. Joel, John is going back to New York very soon, and he is not +coming here anymore." + +"You say--you say--?" Eperson's moist lips hung loosely from his +yellowing teeth, and he broke off, only to begin again. "But why do you +tell _me_ of it, Mrs. Trott?" + +"_Mrs. Trott!_" the woman cried. "Why do you call me that for the first +time? Hasn't it been 'Grandmother Trott' all these years? Listen, Joel. +You are too touchy for your own good. I am telling you about John +because you ought to know it. You may be silly enough to think that he +wants to come between you and Tilly, but he doesn't, and she wouldn't +encourage it, even if he did. So that is the end of that. The next +thing is my own business with you. Joel, John is better off than we had +any idea of, and what do you think he has done? He has turned over to me +in my name a big lot of stocks that bring in a fine income, and, besides +that, he has placed to my credit in the bank several thousand dollars to +invest as I like. I am a rich woman, now, Joel." + +"Fine! Fine! Splendid! Splendid!" Joel cried, impulsively, and then his +face began to settle back into perplexed rigidity as he sat and waited. + +"Yes, it is fine," Mrs. Trott went on, "and what I want to see you +about, Joel, is this: As you know, there are several splendid farms +around here with good houses on them that are offered for sale. Now I +want to buy one of them, and I want you to help me do it." + +"I'll do anything I can," he answered, lamely, for he well knew that she +had not finished what she had to say. "I am afraid that I am not a good +business man, however, and that the judgment of others--" + +"I really want the Louden farm," Mrs. Trott said. "Mr. Cavanaugh says it +is a bargain. He built the big house that is on it and says that it was +decidedly well made out of the best materials. It is a beautiful place, +as you may know, with the fine spring and fruit and shade trees and +stables and barn!" + +"Yes, it is splendid in every way," Eperson said; "and you think that +you can get it?" + +She smiled broadly. "Through the lawyers I have already a binding option +on it. The final papers will be signed to-day." + +"But how can I help you?" Joel asked, still shrinkingly. + +Mrs. Trott hesitated, as if to decide exactly how she should make her +next move. Then, with a half-fearful smile, she said: "You remember, +Joel, how you pleaded with me, just after you and Tilly were married, to +come live with you and her?" + +"Yes, for we wanted you--we've always wanted you to be closer to us." + +"Well, I want to go to you now, Joel," was the slow reply. "I'm lonely. +Another change seems to have come over me. I have learned to love the +children so much that I am restless without them. Their little visits +seem too short, and on rainy days and in the winter they can't come. +Yes, I want to be with you all, and I am asking you to take me at last, +Joel." + +"Asking me--asking me?" he stammered, comprehending her trend in part. +"Why, you know--you ought to know that I--that we--" + +"Well, it is for you to take me or refuse me," Mrs. Trott put in, with a +wistful smile. "I want to live on the farm. I can't manage it by myself +and I want you to take charge of it for me--and let us all live in that +big, fine house together." + +"But I-- Why, I--" Joel broke down again, his patrician face awry from +sheer torture, and then sat twisting his gaunt hands over his ragged, +quivering knee. "I see, it is good and kind of you, but--but-- I don't +see how I, myself, could possibly accept your offer." + +"You have to, Joel," she retorted, still with her motherly smile. "You +can't refuse a thing that will give me and your wife and children so +much happiness." + +"But I'd be on--on your son's bounty," Joel flashed from the very embers +of his humiliation. + +"Absurd!" exclaimed Mrs. Trott. "He says he owes you more than he ever +could repay. He says you cared for me when he deserted me, and that you +played the part of a man while he was a coward. But that is neither +here nor there. Joel, I have willed all my new possessions to you and +your wife and children. When I'm dead and gone you will have to have +them, anyway, so why not make me happy the remainder of my life?" + +He was unable to formulate a logical reply, but beneath the revelation +she had made he sat limp and bruised as a flower drenched and beaten by +abnormal rain and wind. + +"Does Tilly know all this?" he asked, timidly, a cowed expression in his +dull eyes. + +"Yes, Joel, and she wants you to accept my plan. She will be happy when +you do, for your sake and for the sake of the children." + +He got up. His tanned face above his clean but frayed collar looked like +the mask of some Indian chieftain thwarted in his last patriotic hope. +His poor, underfed horse, in reaching for the grass near his bitted +mouth, had drawn the reins beneath his hoofs and was about to break +them. + +"Excuse me," Joel said, and he went to the animal and tied up the reins. +He came back. His face was still rigid, his lips were quivering. + +"You wish it, you say," he faltered. "Tilly wants it, but how about your +son? Would he care for me to share in the benefits of his gifts to you?" + +Mrs. Trott deliberated for an instant, then she said: "He is doing it +more for you, perhaps, than us, Joel. He declares he owes it to you. +I've told him how you have often stinted yourself to pay my bills. I +have told him, too, that but for you I'd have remained in the life he so +detested. Not one man in a thousand would have treated me as you have +done. You can't avoid it, Joel--we are all going to live in that fine +house and be comfortable and happy at last." + +He bowed silently. That was his answer. He accepted her proposal as a +proud man might a shameful verdict of death. He went back to his wagon, +raised his tattered hat, and mounted upon his load of wood. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The details of the business were all settled. John was ready to leave +for New York. He was to take the midnight train and was finishing his +packing in his room at about nine o'clock when Cavanaugh came in. + +"I have something to tell you that you may or may not like," the old man +faltered. "I don't know how you'll feel about it, but Joel Eperson is at +the gate and says he wants to speak to you." + +"Eperson!" John exclaimed, with a start. + +"Yes, and the poor fellow looks awful, John. He could barely speak. He +leaned on the gate like he could hardly stand up. I hope you will be +kind and gentle with him. I have never seen such a pitiful sight. It's +his pride, I reckon, and it has been cut to the quick." + +John said nothing. It was an encounter he had hoped to avoid. He put +some things into his bag and pressed them down. How could he confer on +any terms with that man of all men? And yet he plainly saw that the +meeting was inevitable. + +"It wouldn't do to turn him away," Cavanaugh advised, gingerly. "You +see, it would upset all the other plans, for I know him well enough to +know that if you treat him roughly to-night he will not live on that +farm. He would kill himself first." + +"He and I will make out all right," John said, turning resolutely to the +door. "Will he not come in?" + +"I don't think he wants to," Cavanaugh said. "He kept in the shadow +while I was talking to him and had his hat pulled down over his eyes." + +As John went outside he saw Eperson at the fence. A thing that touched +him sharply was the fact that Eperson unlatched the gate and swung it +open, as a servant might have done for his master, while he still kept +his eyes hidden under the broad brim of his slouch-hat. + +"I came to see you-- I _had_ to see you, Mr. Trott," Eperson muttered, +jerkingly. "I heard you were going away to-night and I couldn't--well, I +had to see you." + +"I understand, Eperson," John said, wondering over his own stilted tone +to a man whom he so profoundly pitied. "Will you come in--or shall +we--?" + +"Yes, we can walk, if you don't mind," Eperson answered, quickly. "I +really think it would be better. Curious people pass along and look in +windows sometimes, but back here in the wood there is no light and it is +quiet." + +"Yes, that is better," John agreed. And side by side the two men walked +along Cavanaugh's lot fence till they were in the thicket of stunted +trees behind the property. Presently Eperson paused, raised his head, +and spoke again: + +"This will do, Mr. Trott. I really don't know what to say in beginning, +for it seems to me that a million things come up, but your mother told +me about the property you gave her--the farm and all the rest." + +"Yes, yes, I know-- I hoped that she would mention it to you," John +said, out of a sympathy he didn't dream he possessed. "That was really +part of the--the understanding. She needs a comfortable home and she +could not look after it herself. She knows, and I know, that you can +manage it well, and so--" + +"But--but don't you see--can't you understand?" Eperson pushed his hat +back and his great, all but bloodshot eyes gleamed piteously in the +starlight. "Don't you see that I can't be put on a rack like that and +live under it? Do you think I have no pride or manhood left? I am a +failure--worse than a beggar. I aspired for that of which I was +unworthy--your wife--and I've come to tell you something to-night which +no proud man ever in the history of the world told another. I've come to +tell you that--" + +"Stop, Joel, you mustn't," John broke in, and he gently laid his hand on +the shoulder of the other. "That is a thing neither of us must ever hold +in mind for a moment. Listen to me. You and I are in the swirl of great +laws we can't understand. Of one thing we can be certain, and that is +that we love the same woman. Don't come to me to-night with the idea +that you are about to get in my debt. I'm in yours. I was a coward. I +deserted my post of duty under the first great blight that fell upon me. +I was only a poor, bewildered, stung boy, but I fled while you remained, +advised, protected, and cared for both my wife and my mother. By so +doing, and through your children, you tied the hearts of those two +beings to you forever. My mother is a transformed woman through you--my +former wife through you is a glorified mother. Don't think I am fooling +myself with romantic ideals. I know where I stand. If I were to dare +to-day to lay claim to your place, Tilly would turn upon me in disgust +and hatred. And why? Because the price to be paid would be the happiness +of the father of her children. That is a holy thing in her eyes, and I, +myself, profoundly respect it." + +"My God! My God!" moaned Eperson, "you can say this--you can be all +this to a man like me?" Eperson's great eyes were filling; his rough +breast was heaving; the shoulder under John's gentle hand was quivering. + +"Yes, because I admire you from the depths of my soul," was the reply. +"Your wife is not for me. My mother is not for me. Your children are +theirs and yours. My mother is making a gift to you-- I am not doing it. +I shouldn't say _gift_. She is trying to pay a debt that she owes you." + +A sob broke from Joel. He caught John's hand and stared into his eyes. +"I now know why Tilly still loves you," he gulped. "She loves you +because you are more of God than man. I don't know what to say to you +further, but I will say this--and as the Almighty is my witness I mean +it. I'll do my duty as the father of my children, as the husband _before +the law_ of my wife, and as the manager of your mother's property, but +I'll never try to win my wife's heart from you." + +John's arm slid around the neck of the bowed and broken man. He started +to speak, but his voice clogged with a pain that was delicious. It was +as if both he and his companion somehow had stood aside from their +bodies and were floating among the trees in the dim starlight. + +Presently, and without a word, Joel turned and walked away. He plunged +again into the wood as if to avoid contact with any one from the streets +of the town. On he went, his face turned homeward. There was a hill to +ascend, a vale to cross. He reached the top of the hill. His step had +become sluggish. He groaned aloud. He folded his arms and stood staring +into the moonlight. + +"It is incomplete--unfinished, not rounded out," he muttered. "It cannot +remain as it is. I haven't the strength to put it through. I know where +I'd fail. I'd continue to suffer, and so would he. He is noble to the +core of his being. He is doing his best to help me and her, but he is +giving more than he is getting, and that isn't fair. After all, after +all, _there is one thing that I can do for him that he could not do for +me_!" + + +THE END + + + + +BOOKS BY +ZANE GREY + + * * * * * + + _THE U. P. TRAIL_ + _THE DESERT OF WHEAT_ + _WILDFIRE_ + _THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT_ + _RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE_ + _DESERT GOLD_ + _THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS_ + _THE LONE STAR RANGER_ + _THE RAINBOW TRAIL_ + _THE BORDER LEGION_ + _KEN WARD IN THE JUNGLE_ + _THE YOUNG LION HUNTER_ + _THE YOUNG FORESTER_ + _THE YOUNG PITCHER_ + + + + +BOOKS BY +BASIL KING + + * * * * * + + _THE CITY OF COMRADES_ + _ABRAHAM'S BOSOM_ + _THE HIGH HEART_ + _THE LIFTED VEIL_ + _THE INNER SHRINE_ + _THE WILD OLIVE_ + _THE STREET CALLED STRAIGHT_ + _THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS_ + _THE WAY HOME_ + _THE LETTER OF THE CONTRACT_ + _IN THE GARDEN OF CHARITY_ + _THE STEPS OF HONOR_ + _LET NOT MAN PUT ASUNDER_ + + + + +NOVELS OF +WILL N. HARBEN + + "His people talk as if they had not been in books before, + and they talk all the more interestingly because they have + for the most part not been in society, or ever will be. They + express themselves in the neighborly parlance with a fury of + fun, of pathos, and profanity which is native to their + region. Of all our localists, as I may call the type of + American writers whom I think the most national, no one has + done things more expressive of the life he was born to than + Mr. Harben." + + WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS. + + * * * * * + + _THE HILLS OF REFUGE_. + _THE INNER LAW_. + _ABNER DANIEL._ + _ANN BOYD. Illustrated_ + _DIXIE HART. Frontispiece_ + _GILBERT NEAL. Frontispiece_ + _MAM' LINDA._ + _JANE DAWSON. Frontispiece_ + _PAUL RUNDEL. Frontispiece_ + _POLE BAKER._ + _SECOND CHOICE. Frontispiece_ + _THE DESIRED WOMAN. Frontispiece_ + _THE GEORGIANS._ + _THE NEW CLARION. Frontispiece_ + _THE REDEMPTION OF KENNETH GALT. Frontispiece_ + _THE SUBSTITUTE._ + _WESTERFELT._ + +_Post 8vo, Cloth_ + + + + +BOOKS BY +MARGARET DELAND + + * * * * * + + _THE RISING TIDE. Illustrated_ + _AROUND OLD CHESTER. Illustrated_ + _THE COMMON WAY. 16mo_ + _DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE. Illustrated_ + _AN ENCORE. Illustrated_ + _GOOD FOR THE SOUL. Illustrated_ + _THE HANDS OF ESAU. Illustrated_ + _THE AWAKENING OF HELENA RICHIE. Illustrated_ + _THE IRON WOMAN. Illustrated_ + _OLD CHESTER TALES. Illustrated_ + _PARTNERS. Illustrated_ + _R. J.'S MOTHER. Illustrated_ + _THE VOICE. Illustrated_ + _THE WAY TO PEACE. Illustrated_ + _WHERE THE LABORERS ARE FEW. Illustrated_ + + * * * * * + +HARPER & BROTHERS +NEW YORK [Established 1817] LONDON + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Cottage of Delight, by Will N. 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