LIGHT
Gray Stoddard's eyes had followed Lydia Sessions when she went into the
hall to speak to Shade Buckheath. He had a glimpse of Johnnie, too, in
the passage; he noted that she later left the house with Buckheath
(Mandy Meacham was beyond his range of vision); and the pang that went
through him at the sight was a strangely mingled one.
The talk between him and his hostess had been enlightening to both of
them. It showed Lydia Sessions not only where she stood with Gray, but
it brought home to her startlingly, and as nothing had yet done, the
strength of Johnnie's hold upon him; while it forced Gray himself to
realize that ever since that morning when he met the girl on the bridge
going to put her little brothers and sisters in the Victory mill, he had
behaved more like a sulky, disappointed lover than a staunch friend. He
confessed frankly to himself, that, had Johnnie been a boy, a young man,
instead of a beautiful and appealing woman, he would have been prompt to
go to her and remonstrate--he would have made no bones of having the
matter out clearly and fully. He blamed himself much for the
estrangement which he had allowed to grow between them. He knew
instinctively about what Shade Buckheath was--certainly no fit mate for
Johnnie Consadine. And for the better to desert her--poor, helpless,
unschooled girl--could only operate to push her toward the worse. These
thoughts kept Stoddard wakeful company till almost morning.
Dawn came with a soft wind out of the west, all the odours of spring on
its breath, and a penitent warmth to apologize for last night's storm.
Stoddard faced his day, and decided that he would begin it with an
early-morning horseback ride. He called up his stable boy over the
telephone, and when Jim brought round Roan Sultan saddled there was a
pause, as of custom, for conversation.
"Heared about the accident over to the Victory, Mr. Stoddard?" Jim
inquired.
"No," said Gray, wheeling sharply. "Anybody hurt?"
"One o' Pap Himes's stepchildren mighty near killed, they say," the boy
told him. "I seen Miss Johnnie Consadine when they was bringing the
little gal down. It seems they sent for her over to Mr. Hardwickses
where she was at."
Gray mounted quickly, settled himself in the saddle, and glanced down
the street which would lead him past Himes's place. For months now, he
had been instinctively avoiding that part of town. Poor Johnnie! She
might be a disappointing character, but he knew well that she was full
of love; he remembered her eyes when, nearly a year ago, up in the mist
and sweetness of April on the Unakas, she had told him of the baby
sister and the other little ones. She must be suffering now. Almost
without reflection he turned his horse's head and rode toward the
forlorn Himes boarding-house.
As he drew near, he noticed a huddled figure at the head of the steps,
and coming up made it out to be Himes himself, sitting, elbows on knees,
staring straight ahead of him. Pap had not undressed at all, but he had
taken out his false teeth "to rest his jaws a spell," as he was in the
habit of doing, and the result was startling. His cheeks were fallen in
to such an extent that the blinking red eyes above looked larger; it was
as though the old rascal's crimes of callous selfishness and greed had
suddenly aged him.
Stoddard pulled in his horse at the foot of the steps.
"I hear one of the little girls was hurt in the mill last night. Was she
badly injured? Which one was it?" he asked abruptly.
"Hit's Deanie. She's all right," mumbled Pap. "Got the whole house
uptore, and Laurelly miscallin' me till I don't know which way to look;
and now the little dickens is a-goin' to git well all right. Chaps is
tough, I tell ye. Ye cain't kill 'em."
"You people must have thought so," said Stoddard, "or you wouldn't have
brought these little ones down and hired them to the cotton mill.
Johnnie knew what that meant."
The words had come almost involuntarily. The old man stared at the
speaker breathing hard.
"What's Johnnie Consadine got to do with it?" he inquired finally. "I'm
the stepdaddy of the children--and Johnnie's stepdaddy too, for the
matter of that--and what I say goes."
"Did you hire the children at the Victory?" inquired Stoddard, swiftly.
Back across his memory came the picture of Johnnie with her poor little
sheep for the shambles clustered about her on the bridge before the
Victory mill. "Did you hire the children to the factory?" he repeated.
"Now Mr. Stoddard," began the old man, between bluster and whine, "I
talked about them chaps to the superintendent of yo' mill, an' you-all
said you didn't want none of that size. And one o' yo' men--he was a
room boss, I reckon--spoke up right sassy to me--as sassy as Johnnie
Consadine herself, and God knows she ain't got no respect for them
that's set over her. I had obliged to let 'em go to the Victory; but I
don't think you have any call to hold it ag'in me--Johnnie was plumb
impident about it--plumb impident."
Stoddard glanced up at the windows and made as though to dismount. All
night at his pillow had stood the accusation that he had been cruel to
Johnnie. Now, as Himes's revelations went on, and he saw what her futile
efforts had been, as he guessed a part of her sufferings, it seemed he
must hurry to her and brush away the tangle of misunderstanding which he
had allowed to grow up between them.
"They've worked over that thar chap, off an' on, all night," the old man
said. "Looks like, if they keep hit up, she'll begin to think somethin's
the matter of her."
Gray realized that his visit at this moment would be ill-timed. He would
ride on through the Gap now, and call as he came back.
"I had obliged to find me a place whar I could hire out them chaps," the
miserable old man before him went on, garrulously. "They's nothin' like
mill work to take the davilment out o' young 'uns. Some of them chaps'll
call you names and make faces at you, even whilst you' goin' through the
mill yard--and think what they'd be ef they _wasn't_ worked! I'm a old
man, and when I married Laurelly and took the keepin' o' her passel o'
chaps on my back, I aimed to make it pay. Laurelly, she won't work."
He looked helplessly at Stoddard, like a child about to cry.
"She told me up and down that she never had worked in no mill, and she
was too old to l'arn. She said the noise of the thing from the outside
was enough to show her that she didn't want to go inside--and go she
would not."
"But she let her children go--she and Johnnie," muttered Stoddard,
settling himself in his saddle.
"Well, I'd like to see either of 'em he'p theirselves!" returned Pap
Himes with a reminiscence of his former manner. "Johnnie ain't had the
decency to give me her wages, not once since I've been her pappy; the
onliest money I ever had from her--'ceptin' to pay her board--was when
she tried to buy them chaps out o' workin' in the mill. But when I put
my foot down an' told her that the chillen could work in the mill
without a beatin' or with one, jest as she might see and choose, she had
a little sense, and took 'em over and hired 'em herself. Baylor told me
afterward that she tried to make him say he didn't want 'em, but Baylor
and me stands together, an' Miss Johnnie failed up on that trick."
Pap felt an altogether misplaced confidence in the view that Stoddard,
as a male, was likely to take of the matter.
"A man is obliged to be boss of his own family--ain't that so, Mr.
Stoddard?" he demanded. "I said the chillen had to go into the mill, and
into the mill they went. They all wanted to go, at the start, and
Laurelly agreed with me that hit was the right thing. Then, just because
Deanie happened to a accident and Johnnie took up for her, Laurelly has
to go off into hy-strikes and say she'll quit me soon as she can put
foot to the ground."
Stoddard made no response to this, but touched Sultan with his heel and
moved on. He had stopped at the post-office as he came past, taking from
his personal box one letter. This he opened and read as he rode slowly
away. Halfway up the first rise, Pap saw him rein in and turn; the old
man was still staring when Gray stopped once more at the gate.
"See here, Himes," he spoke abruptly, "this concerns you--this letter
that has just reached me."
Pap looked at the younger man with mere curiosity.
"When Johnnie was first given a spinning room to look after," said Gray,
"she came to Mr. Sessions and myself and asked permission to have a
small device of her own contrivance used on the frames as an Indicator."
Pap shuffled his feet uneasily.
"I thought no more about the matter; in fact I've not been in the
spinning department for--for some time." Stoddard looked down at the
hand which held his bridle, and remembered that he had absented himself
from every place that threatened him with the sight of Johnnie.
Pap was breathing audibly through his open mouth.
"She--she never had nothin' made," he whispered out the ready lie
hurriedly, scrambling to his feet and down the steps, pressing close to
Roan Sultan's shoulder, laying a wheedling hand on the bridle, looking
up anxiously into the stern young face above him.
"Oh, yes, she did," Stoddard returned. "I remember, now, hearing some of
the children from the room say that she had a device which worked well.
From the description they gave of it, I judge that it is the same which
this letter tells me you and Buckheath are offering to the Alabama
mills. Mr. Trumbull, the superintendent, says that you and Buckheath
hold the patent for this Indicator jointly. As soon as I can consult
with Johnnie, we will see about the matter."
Himes let go the roan's bridle and staggered back a pace or two,
open-mouthed, staring. The skies had fallen. His heavy mind turned
slowly toward resentment against Buckheath. He wished the younger
conspirator were here to take his share. Then the door opened and Shade
himself came out wiping his mouth. He was fresh from the breakfast
table, but not on his way to the mill, since it was still too early. He
gave Stoddard a surly nod as he passed through the gate and on down the
street, in the direction of the Inn. Himes, in a turmoil of stupid
uncertainty, once or twice made as though to detain him. His slow wits
refused him any available counsel. Dazedly he fumbled for something
convincing to say. Then on a sudden inspiration, he once more laid hold
of the bridle and began to speak volubly in a hoarse undertone:
"W'y, name o' God, Mr. Stoddard! Who should have a better right to that
thar patent than Buck and me? I'm the gal's stepdaddy, an' he's the man
she's goin' to wed."
Some peculiar quality in the silence of Gray Stoddard seemed finally to
penetrate the old fellow's understanding. He looked up to find the man
on horseback regarding him, square-jawed, pale, and with eyes angrily
bright. He glanced over his shoulder at the windows of the house behind
him, moistened his lips once again, gulped, and finally resumed in a
manner both whining and aggressive.
"Now, Mr. Stoddard, I want to talk to you mighty plain. The whole o'
Cottonville is full o' tales about you and Johnnie. Yes--that's
the truth."
He stood staring down at his big, shuffling feet, laboriously sorting in
his own mind such phrases as it might do to use. The difficulty of what
he had to say blocked speech for so long that Stoddard, in a curiously
quiet voice, finally prompted him.
"Tales?" he repeated. "What tales, Mr. Himes?"
"Why, they ain't a old woman in town, nor a young one neither--I believe
in my soul that the young ones is the worst--that ain't been
talkin'--talkin' bad--ever since you took Johnnie to ride in your
otty-mobile."
Again there came a long pause. Stoddard stared down on Gideon Himes, and
Himes stared at his own feet.
"Well?" Stoddard's quiet voice once more urged his accuser forward.
Pap rolled his head between his shoulders with a negative motion which
intimated that it was not well.
"And lending her books, and all sich," he pursued doggedly. "That kind
o' carryin' on ain't decent, and you know it ain't. Buck knows it
ain't--but he's willin' to have her. He told her he was willin' to have
her, and the fool gal let on like she didn't want him. He came here to
board at my house because she wouldn't scarcely so much as speak to him
elsewhere."
By the light of these statements Stoddard read what poor Johnnie's
persecution had been. The details of it he could not, of course, know;
yet he saw in that moment largely how she had been harried. At the
instant of seeing, came that swift and mighty revulsion that follows
surely when we have misprized and misunderstood those dear to us.
"What is it you want of me?" he inquired of Himes.
"Why, just this here," Pap told him. "You let Johnnie Consadine alone."
He leaned even closer and spoke in a yet lower tone, because a number of
girls were emerging from the house and starting down the steps. "A big,
rich feller like you don't mean any good by a girl fixed the way Johnnie
is. You wouldn't marry her--then let her alone. Things ain't got so bad
but what Buck is still willin' to have her. You wouldn't marry her."
Stoddard looked down at the shameful old man with eyes that were
indecipherable. If the impulse was strong in him to twist the unclean
old throat against any further ill-speaking, it gave no heat to the tone
in which he answered:
"It's you and your kind that say I mean harm to Johnnie, and that I
would not marry her. Why should I intend ill toward her? Why shouldn't I
marry her? I would--I would marry her."
As he made this, to him the only possible defence of the poor girl, Pap
faltered slowly back, uttering a gurgling expression of astonishment.
With a sense of surprise Stoddard saw in his face only dismay
and chagrin.
"Hit--hit's a lie," Himes mumbled half-heartedly. "Ye'd never do it in
the world."
Stoddard gathered up his bridle rein, preparatory to moving on.
"You're an old man, Mr. Himes," he said coldly, "and you are excited;
but you don't want to say any more--that's quite enough of that sort
of thing."
Then he loosened the rein on Roan Sultan, and moved away down the
street.
Gideon Himes stood and gazed after him with bulging eyes. Gray Stoddard
married to Johnnie! He tried to adjust his dull wits to the new position
of affairs; tried to cipher the problem with this amazing new element
introduced. Last night's scene of violence when the injured child was
brought home went dismally before his eyes. Laurella had said she would
leave him so soon as she could put foot to the floor. He had expected to
coax her with gifts and money, with concessions in regard to the
children if it must be; but with a rich man for a son-in-law, of course
she would go. He would never see her face again. And suddenly he flung
up an arm like a beaten schoolboy and began to blubbler noisily in the
crook of his elbow.
An ungentle hand on his shoulder recalled him to time and place.
"For God's sake, what's the matter with you?" inquired Shade Buckheath's
voice harshly.
The old man gulped down his grief and made his communication in a few
hurried sentences.
"An' he'll do it," Pap concluded. "He's jest big enough fool for
anything. Ain't you heard of his scheme for having the hands make the
money in the mill?" (Thus he described a profit-sharing plan.) "Don't
you know he's given ten thousand dollars to start up some sort o' school
for the boys and gals to learn their trade in? A man like that'll do
anything. And if he marries Johnnie, Laurelly'll leave me sure."
"Leave you!" echoed Buckheath darkly. "She won't have to. If Gray
Stoddard marries Johnnie Consadine, you and me will just about roost in
the penitentiary for the rest of our days."
"The patent!" echoed Pap blankly. He turned fiercely on his fellow
conspirator. "Now see what ye done with yer foolishness," he exclaimed.
"Nothin' would do ye but to be offerin' the contraption for sale, and
tellin' each and every that hit'd been used in the Hardwick mill. Look
what a mess ye've made. I'm sorry I ever hitched up with ye. Boy o' yo'
age has got no sense."
"How was I to know they'd write to Stoddard?" growled Shade sulkily. "No
harm did if hit wasn't for him. We've got the patent all right, and
Johnnie cain't help herself. But him--with all his money--he can help
her--damn him!"
"Yes, and he'll take a holt and hunt up about Pros's silver mine, too,"
said Himes. "I've always mistrusted the way he's been hangin' round Pros
Passmore. Like enough he's hearn of that silver mine, and that's the
reason he's after Johnnie."
The old man paused to ruminate on this feature of the case. He was
pleased with his own shrewdness in fathoming Gray Stoddard's
mysterious motives.
"Buck," he said finally, with a swift drop to friendliness, "hit's got
to be stopped. Can you stop it?
"Didn't you tell me that Johnnie promised last night to wed you? Didn't
you say she promised it, when you was goin' up to the Victory with her?"
Shade nodded.
"She promised she would if I'd get you to let the children stay out of
the mill. Deanie's hurt now, and you're afraid to make the others go
back in the mill anyhow, 'count of Laurelly's tongue. I can't hold
Johnnie to that promise. But--but there's one person I want to talk to
about this business, and then I'll be ready to do something."