JOE DISAPPEARS
The plowing was done--had been done for some days, indeed--and the
time set for our offering final proof was close at hand. But Jessie
and I, going about our household tasks with sober faces, had hardly a
word to say to each other.
We had looked forward to this coming day with such eager expectation,
but now that it was so near, we shrank with dread from facing it. A
trouble so great as, under the circumstances, to deserve to be ranked
as a calamity, had befallen us. Joe was gone. He had left us without a
sign, at the time, of all others in our whole lives, when we most
needed him. On the evening of the day that the plowing was done he had
retired, as usual, to his little room off the kitchen, and when we
awoke in the morning he was gone. That was all. But it was enough. It
was a fact that seemed to darken our whole world. It was not alone
that we missed his help; we had believed in his fidelity as one
believes in the fidelity of a mother, and he had left us without a
word of explanation or regret.
The subject was so painful that, by tacit consent, we both avoided it.
It would have been better, I think, to have expressed our views
freely, for, as we could dwell on nothing else, we seldom spoke at
all, and that added to the gloom of the situation.
Joe had been gone several days, and we had been silently struggling in
the Slough of Despond, when I awoke one morning filled with a new and
ardent resolution, which I proceeded to carry into instant execution.
Jessie was always the first one up. I heard her moving about in the
kitchen, and, making a hasty toilet, joined her there. She was
grinding coffee in the mill that was fastened securely to the
door-jamb. It was, I believe, the noisiest mill in existence; its
resonant whi-r-rr was like that of some giant grist-mill. Jessie
suspended operations as I drew near to remark:
"You're up early, Leslie."
"Yes; I've thought of something, and--"
"It's the early thought that is caught, same's the early worm," my
sister remarked, unfeelingly. Then she added: "Excuse me a minute,
Leslie, I must get this coffee ground, and can't talk against the
mill."
When the coffee was in the pot on the stove, she turned to me again:
"Now what have you thought of that is so wonderful?"
"It isn't wonderful, Jessie. It's sensible."
"It amounts to the same thing."
"Not in this case. First, I think we ought to stop grieving over Joe's
desertion."
Jessie's bright face clouded instantly:
"It is cruel!" she protested.
"I don't feel as if we ought to say that, Jessie. Joe has been a good,
true, faithful friend to us, and he loved father; we, ourselves, loved
father no more than Joe did--"
"Why, Leslie!"
"It is true, Jessie. I feel it, someway, and I am not going to blame
Joe any more; not even in my own thoughts. It does no good, and it
makes us very unhappy. Let's try to be cheerful again, Jessie, and
make the best of it."
"We must make the best of it whether we are cheerful or not."
"Very well, then; one of the first things that we must do, if we are
to depend on our own efforts, is to market that cantaloupe crop."
"What, you and I, Leslie?" Jessie sat down with the bread knife in one
hand and a loaf of bread in the other, the better to consider this
proposition.
"Just you and I, Jessie. We cannot afford to hire an agent, supposing
that one was to be had for the hiring, which is by no means likely.
We've been eating the melons for days; they are just in their prime,
and I know that Joe counted on making quite a little sum on his
cantaloupe crop, but if we wait now, hoping for his return, the melons
will be ruined; they will be a total loss."
"You needn't offer any more arguments, Leslie. I'm glad you thought
of it; it's a pity that I never think of any such thing myself
until the procession has gone by. Now let me see, have I got your
morning thoughts in order? First, Charity. Toward Joe. Second,
Resignation--all capitals--Toward Joe. Third, Labor. For ourselves.
Is that right?"
"Yes; if you like to put it that way."
"You shall have it any way you please, Leslie dear, and I will help
you."
"After breakfast, then, we will harness up the team and drive the
wagon into the melon patch, then--we will fill it."
"Yes, and what then?"
It was like taking a plunge into cold water. I am sure that I was not
intended for a huckster, but I managed to respond with some show of
courage:
"Why, then I will drive over to the store and sell what I can, and
then I will go about among the neighbors with the rest."
"Will you?" Jessie breathed a sigh of relief. "That will be
enterprising, anyway. I should dreadfully hate to drive about peddling
melons myself, but there's such a difference in people about things of
that sort."
Jessie is so exasperatingly prosaic, at times, that she makes me feel
either like crying, or like shaking her. On this occasion I was
fortunately hindered from doing either by Ralph, who suddenly
appeared, demanding to be "dwessed." After breakfast we harnessed
the horses--we could either of us do that as well, and quicker than
Joe--then we drove into the enclosure where the olive-tinted little
spheres lay thick on the ground and proceeded to fill the wagon-box.
The patch was small, but the melons grew in great profusion, and it
did not take long. Within a couple of hours I was traveling along the
highway, perched upon the high spring seat of the wagon-box, with
Guard beside me. Guard was, according to my idea, very good company,
and it was, moreover, desirable that he should learn to ride in a
wagon and to conduct himself properly while doing so. It was a very
warm morning and as the sweet, cloying odor of my wagon load of
produce assailed my nostrils, I could not but think of the famous
couplet, "You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, but
the scent of the roses will hang round it still!" My route through
the settlement might be traced, I fancied, by the fragrance that
the melons exhaled.
My first stop was at the store where I disposed of a satisfactory
quantity of melons, but after leaving the store the business dragged
wearily, and I found myself obliged to take promises to pay in lieu of
money from the women of the household when the masculine head chanced
to be absent. They always explained, quite as a matter of course, that
"he" had left no money with them. It appeared to me, as I patiently
booked one promise after another, that "he" could not have kept
hired help very long if their wages consisted of nothing more
tangible--after the matter of food and lodging was eliminated--than
those that fell to the lot of "his" womenfolk. I had observed, with
some annoyance, when I first started out, that one of the wagon
wheels had a tendency to make plaintive little protests, as if it
objected to being put to any use. I could by no means fathom the
reason for it, but by mid-afternoon the protest had grown into a
piercing shriek. A shriek that even Guard shrank from with an
indignant growl.
Less than one-fourth of my load yet remained unsold. I was most
anxious to clear it all out, but that ear-piercing sound was becoming
maddening. "The wagon must be conjured," I thought, recalling some of
Joe's fancies. Coming to a place at last, where two roads met, I
halted the team and sat considering the question of a return home or a
trip to Crusoe, which place I had not yet visited, when the sight of a
horseman far down the left-hand road decided me to go in that
direction. The horseman was well mounted and going at a good pace. "I
don't care!" I told myself, recklessly, "I'm going to overtake him and
make him take some of these melons if I have to pay him for doing it."
But there was no occasion for my hurrying the horses. When the man on
ahead caught the sound of my rapidly-advancing shriek he promptly drew
up beside the roadway and awaited my approach, and then I saw that the
rider was Mr. Rutledge. He recognized me at the same moment and
exclaimed:
"Why, Miss Leslie, is that you?"
"Yes," I said, meekly, but I felt my face grow red, and was conscious,
in spite of my good resolutions, of a sudden resentment against Joe.
Why had he left me to do such work as this?
Mr. Rutledge, drawing close to the wagon, ran an inquiring eye over my
merchandise.
"Been buying melons?" he asked, adding: "I didn't know that there was
anything of the kind for sale in the valley."
The observation did not seem to require an answer, and I was silent
while he reached into the box and selected one of the smaller melons
and held it up laughingly, as if defying me to retake it.
"Findings is keepings!" he said, gayly.
[Illustration: HE DREW UP BESIDE THE ROADWAY (Page 166)]
"Also, pilferings," I returned, triumphantly. After all, I should not
be compelled either to urge a sale or to offer a bribe.
"Call it pilfering if you have the face to, but in return for this bit
of refreshment I am going to give you some advice."
"Well?"
"The next time that you take your colored attache's place as teamster,
make sure that he has greased your wagon wheels. You may not have
observed it, but their protests against moving are simply diabolical."
"Oh, is that what causes that noise?" I asked, leaning down from the
seat the better to peer at the wheels in question.
"Certainly; Joe should not have allowed you to go out with them in
such shape."
The laughter had died out of my heart and my voice, but a stubborn,
foolish pride held my tongue. I could not tell the mining
superintendent, who would have been one of the best of customers,
that the melons were for sale, or that Joe had left us. "If I tell
him that Joe is gone," ran my foolish thought, "he will understand
that I am peddling melons." Gathering up the lines, I started the
horses quickly, lest he should ask where I got my load. Mr. Rutledge
drew his horse aside, waiting for me to pass.
"Be sure to tell Joe about the wheels, when you see him!" he called
after me, as the complaining shriek again rent the air.
"Yes," I returned, "I will;" and added to myself: "When I see him."
In my anxiety to escape questioning I had forgotten that a person who
is riding in a wagon whose wheels need oiling cannot shake off a
well-mounted horseman so easily. Underneath the weird outcry of the
wheels the steady pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat of the black horse's hoofs came
to my ears, and I glanced back to see Mr. Rutledge close to the hind
wheel. Unless he stopped entirely he must of necessity be close at
hand. The road that Mr. Rutledge must take in order to reach the
mining camp branched off from the one that we were following, at a
little distance, and I understood very well that, considering the
distance, he did not think it civil to gallop on ahead of me. But
suppose he should yet ask me where the melons came from--just suppose
it. Should I tell a lie, or should I tell him that I was not even
acting as teamster to oblige another? I took up the whip--then I
dropped it back into its socket. I had always known myself for, in my
quiet way, rather a proud girl, but--it--but--it was not this kind of
pride, and I had never before felt myself a coward. Because Mr.
Rutledge was a gentleman, was it any worse that he should know--
I drew in the reins sharply, and the team came to a standstill. The
sudden cessation of that fearful noise called to mind a line or two
that Jessie is fond of quoting: "And silence like a poultice comes, to
heal the blows of sound."
Mr. Rutledge again halted his horse, and turned on me an inquiring
look. My throat was dry and husky, and my voice sounded strange in my
own ears as I said, in answer to the look:
"I wanted to tell you, Mr. Rutledge, that we raised these melons
ourselves, and we are trying to sell them."
"Are you?"
His tone was very gentle. He regarded me and my dusty, wayworn outfit
silently for a space, then he said, this time with no laughter in his
voice:
"I take off my hat to you, Miss Leslie"--he suited the action to the
word--"and I thank you for teaching me anew the truth of the old
saying: 'True hearts are more than coronets, and simple worth than
Norman blood.'"
He replaced his hat with a sweeping bow, touched the black horse
lightly with a spurred heel, and was gone. The tears were in my eyes
as I watched the little swirl of dust raised by his horse's hoofs
settle back to place. I had not deserved praise, but it was something
to feel that others understood how hard and distasteful was this
bitter task, and I was glad to remember that he had not added to my
humiliation by offering to buy my melons. I meant to sell them all
before returning home now, and I did, but it was a long day's work,
and when I reached home I had only five dollars to show for it. "He"
had been chiefly absent from home, and I had booked many promises.
Jessie and Ralph met me at the gate as I drove up. Jessie was
interested and anxious.
"Why, you have sold all the melons!" Jessie exclaimed, glancing into
the wagon-box, and narrowly escaping being knocked over by Guard, as
he sprang down from the seat. "You have had good luck, Leslie."
"Good luck doesn't mean ready money in this case, Jessie, and that is
what we need. There's just about one more load of melons, and
to-morrow we'll take them out to the storage camp."
"That may be a good plan," Jessie admitted reflectively, "but it's a
long drive."
"Yes, we must get an early start, and we must not forget to oil the
wagon wheels," I said, but I did not mention my meeting with Mr.
Rutledge.