IV

Old man Kinney and his wife were getting their Sunday-school lessons

with much bickering, when Will drove up the next day to the dilapidated

gate and hitched his team to a leaning-post under the oaks. Will saw the

old man's head at the open window, but no one else, though he looked

eagerly for Agnes as he walked up the familiar path. There stood the

great oak under whose shade he had grown to be a man. How close the

great tree seemed to stand to his heart, someway! As the wind stirred

in the leaves, it was like a rustle of greeting.

In that old house they had all lived, and his mother had toiled for

thirty years. A sort of prison after all. There they were all born, and

there his father and his little sister had died. And then it passed into

old Kinney's hands.

Walking along up the path he felt a serious weakness in his limbs, and

he made a pretence of stopping to look at a flower-bed containing

nothing but weeds. After seven years of separation he was about to face

once more the woman whose life came so near being a part of his--Agnes,

now a wife and a mother.

How would she look? Would her face have that old-time peachy bloom, her

mouth that peculiar beautiful curve? She was large and fair, he

recalled, hair yellow and shining, eyes blue--

He roused himself. This was nonsense! He was trembling. He composed

himself by looking around again.

"The old scoundrel has let the weeds choke out the flowers and surround

the bee-hives. Old man Kinney never believed in anything but a petty

utility."

Will set his teeth, and marched up to the door and struck it like a man

delivering a challenge. Kinney opened the door, and started back in fear

when he saw who it was.

"How de do? How de do?" said Will, walking in, his eyes fixed on a woman

seated beyond, a child in her lap.

Agnes rose, without a word; a fawn-like, startled widening of the eyes,

her breath coming quick, and her face flushing. They couldn't speak;

they only looked at each other an instant, then Will shivered, passed

his hand over his eyes and sat down.

There was no one there but the old people, who were looking at him in

bewilderment. They did not notice any confusion in Agnes's face. She

recovered first.

"I'm glad to see you back, Will," she said, rising and putting the

sleeping child down in a neighboring room. As she gave him her hand, he

said:

"I'm glad to get back, Agnes. I hadn't ought to have gone." Then he

turned to the old people:

"I'm Will Hannan. You needn't be scared, Daddy; I was jokin' last

night."

"Dew tell! I want o' know!" exclaimed Granny. "Wal, I never! An, you're

my little Willy boy who ust 'o he in my class? Well! Well! W'y, pa,

ain't he growed tall! Grew handsome tew. I ust 'o think he was a dretful

humly boy; but my sakes, that mustache--"

"Wal, he give me a turrible scare last night. My land! scared me out of

a year's growth," cackled the old man.

This gave them all a chance to laugh, and the air was cleared. It gave

Agnes time to recover herself, and to be able to meet Will's eyes. Will

himself was powerfully moved; his throat swelled and tears came to his

eyes every time he looked at her.

She was worn and wasted incredibly. The blue of her eyes seemed dimmed

and faded by weeping, and the old-time scarlet of her lips had been

washed away. The sinews of her neck showed painfully when she turned her

head, and her trembling hands were worn, discolored, and lumpy at the

joints.

Poor girl! She knew she was under scrutiny, and her eyes felt hot and

restless. She wished to run away and cry, but she dared not. She stayed,

while Will began to tell her of his life and to ask questions about old

friends.

The old people took it up and relieved her of any share in it; and Will,

seeing that she was suffering, told some funny stories which made the

old people cackle in spite of themselves.

But it was forced merriment on Will's part. Once or twice Agnes smiled,

with just a little flash of the old-time sunny temper. But there was no

dimple in the cheek now, and the smile had more suggestion of an

invalid--or even a skeleton. He was almost ready to take her in his arms

and weep, her face appealed so pitifully to him.

"It's most time f'r Ed to be gittin' back, ain't it, pa?"

"Sh'd say 't was! He jest went over to Hobkirk's to trade horses. It's

dretful tryin' to me to have him go off tradin' horses on Sunday. Seems

if he might wait till a rainy day, 'r do it evenin's. I never did

believe in horse-tradin' anyhow."

"Have y' come back to stay, Willie?" asked the old lady.

"Well--it's hard tellin'," answered Will, looking at Agnes.

"Well, Agnes, ain't you goin' to git no dinner? I'm 'bout ready f'r

dinner. We must git to church early to-day. Elder Wheat is goin' to

preach, an' they'll be a crowd. He's goin' to hold communion."

"You'll stay to dinner, Will?" asked Agnes.

"Yes--if you wish it."

"I do wish it."

"Thank you; I want to have a good visit with you. I don't know when I'll

see you again."

As she moved about, getting dinner on the table, Will sat with gloomy

face, listening to the "clack" of the old man. The room was a poor

little sitting room, with furniture worn and shapeless; hardly a touch

of pleasant color, save here and there a little bit of Agnes's

handiwork. The lounge, covered with calico, was rickety; the

rocking-chair matched it, and the carpet of rags was patched and darned

with twine in twenty places. Everywhere was the influence of the

Kinneys. The furniture looked like them, in fact.

Agnes was outwardly calm, but her real distraction did not escape Mrs.

Kinney's hawk-like eyes.

"Well, I declare if you hain't put the butter on in one o' my blue

chainy saucers? Now you know I don't allow that saucer to be took down

by nobody. I don't see what's got into yeh! Anybody'd s'pose you never

see any comp'ny b'fore--wouldn't they, pa?"

"Sh'd say th' would," said pa, stopping short in a long story about Ed.

"Seems if we couldn't keep anything in this house sep'rit from the rest.

Ed he uses my curry-comb--"

He launched out a long list of grievances, to which Will shut his ears

as completely as possible, and was thinking how to stop him, when there

came a sudden crash. Agnes had dropped a plate.

"Good land o' Goshen!" screamed Granny. "If you ain't the worst I ever

see. I'll bet that's my grapevine plate. If it is--Well, of all the

mercies, it ain't! But it might 'a' ben. I never see your beat--never!

That's the third plate since I came to live here."

"Oh, look-a-here, Granny," said Will, desperately, "don't make so much

fuss about the plate. What's it worth, anyway? Here's a dollar."

Agnes cried quickly:

"Oh, don't do that, Will! It ain't her plate. It's my plate, and I can

break every plate in the house if I want to," she cried defiantly.

"'Course you can," Will agreed.

"Wal, she can't! Not while I'm around," put in Daddy. "I've helped to

pay f'r them plates, if she does call 'em her'n--"

"What the devul is all this row about? Agg, can't you get along without

stirring up the old folks every time I'm out o' the house?"

The speaker was Ed, now a tall and slouchily dressed man of thirty-two

or three; his face still handsome in a certain dark, cleanly-cut style,

but he wore a surly look as he lounged in with insolent swagger, clothed

in greasy overalls and a hickory shirt.

"Hello, Will! I heard you'd got home. John told me as I came along."

They shook hands, and Ed slouched down on the lounge. Will could have

kicked him for laying the blame of the dispute upon Agnes; it showed him

in a flash just how he treated her. He disdained to quarrel; he simply

silenced and dominated her.

Will asked a few questions about crops, with such grace as he could

show, and Ed, with keen eyes fixed on Will's face, talked easily and

stridently.

"Dinner ready?" he asked of Agnes. "Where's Pete?"

"He's asleep."

"All right. Let 'im sleep. Well, let's go out an' set up. Come, Dad,

sling away that Bible and come to grub. Mother, what the devul are you

snifflin' at? Say, now, look here! If I hear any more about this row,

I'll simply let you walk down to meetin'. Come, Will, set up."

He led the way out into the little kitchen where the dinner was set.

"What was the row about? Hain't been breakin' some dish, Agg?"

"Yes, she has," broke in the old lady.

"One o' the blue ones?" winked Ed.

"No, thank goodness, it was a white one."

"Well, now, I'll git into that dod-gasted cubberd some day an' break the

whole eternal outfit. I ain't goin' to have this damned jawin' goin'

on," he ended, brutally unconscious of his own "jawin'."

After this the dinner proceeded in comparative silence, Agnes sobbing

under breath. The room was small and very hot; the table was warped so

badly that the dishes had a tendency to slide to the centre; the walls

were bare plaster, grayed with time; the food was poor and scant, and

the flies absolutely swarmed upon everything, like bees. Otherwise the

room was clean and orderly.

"They say you've made a pile o' money out West, Bill. I'm glad of it.

We fellers back here don't make anything. It's a dam tight squeeze.

Agg, it seems to me the flies are devilish thick to-day. Can't you drive

'em out?"

Agnes felt that she must vindicate herself a little.

"I do drive 'em out, but they come right in again. The screen-door is

broken and they come right in."

"I told Dad to fix that door."

"But he won't do it for me."

Ed rested his elbows on the table and fixed his bright black eyes on his

father.

"Say, what d' you mean by actin' like a mule? I swear I'll trade you off

f'r a yaller dog. What do I keep you round here for anyway--to look

purty?"

"I guess I've as good a right here as you have, Ed Kinney."

"Oh, go soak y'r head, old man. If you don't 'tend out here a little

better, down goes your meat-house! I won't drive you down to meetin'

till you promise to fix that door. Hear me!"

Daddy began to snivel. Agnes could not look up for shame. Will felt

sick. Ed laughed.

"I c'n bring the old man to terms that way; he can't walk very well late

years, an' he can't drive my colt. You know what a cuss I used to be

about fast nags? Well, I'm just the same. Hobkirk's got a colt I want.

Say, that reminds me: your team's out there by the fence. I forgot. I'll

go out and put 'em up."

"No, never mind; I can't stay but a few minutes."

"Goin' to be round the country long?"

"A week--maybe."

Agnes looked up a moment, and then let her eyes fall.

"Goin' back West, I s'pose?"

"No. May go East, to Europe, mebbe."

"The devul y' say! You must 'a' made a ten-strike out West."

"They say it didn't come lawful," piped Daddy, over his blackberries and

milk.

"Oh, you shet up, who wants your put-in? Don't work in any o' your Bible

on us."

Daddy rose to go into the other room.

"Hold on, old man. You goin' to fix that door?"

"Course I be," quavered he.

"Well see 't y' do, that's all. Now get on y'r duds, an' I'll go an'

hitch up." He rose from the table. "Don't keep me waiting."

He went out unceremoniously, and Agnes was alone with Will.

"Do you go to church?" he asked. She shook her head. "No, I don't go

anywhere now. I have too much to do; I haven't strength left. And I'm

not fit anyway."

"Agnes, I want to say something to you; not now--after they're gone."

He went into the other room, leaving her to wash the dinner-things. She

worked on in a curious, almost dazed way, a dream of something sweet and

irrevocable in her eyes. Will represented so much to her. His voice

brought up times and places that thrilled her like song. He was

associated with all that was sweetest and most care-free and most

girlish in her life.

Ever since the boy had handed her that note she had been re-living those

days. In the midst of her drudgery she stopped to dream--to let some

picture come back into her mind. She was a student again at the

Seminary, and stood in the recitation-room with suffocating beat of the

heart; Will was waiting outside--waiting in a tremor like her own, to

walk home with her under the maples.

Then she remembered the painfully sweet mixture of pride and fear with

which she walked up the aisle of the little church behind him. Her

pretty new gown rustled, the dim light of the church had something like

romance in it, and he was so strong and handsome. Her heart went out in

a great silent cry to God--

"Oh, let me be a girl again!"

She did not look forward to happiness. She hadn't power to look forward

at all.

As she worked, she heard the high, shrill voices of the old people as

they bustled about and nagged at each other.

"Ma, where's my specticles?"

"I ain't seen y'r specticles."

"You have, too."

"I ain't neither."

"You had 'em this forenoon."

"Didn't no such thing. Them was my own brass-bowed ones. You had your'n

jest 'fore goin' to dinner. If you'd put 'em into a proper place you'd

find 'em again."

"I want 'o know if I would," the old man snorted.

"Wal, you'd orter know."

"Oh, you're awful smart, ain't yeh? You never have no trouble, and use

mine--do yeh?--an' lose 'em so 't I can't--"

"And if this is the thing that goes on when I'm here it must be hell

when visitors are gone," thought Will.

"Willy, ain't you goin' to meetin'?"

"No, not to-day. I want to visit a little with Agnes, then I've got to

drive back to John's."

"Wal, we must be goin'. Don't you leave them dishes f'r me to wash,"

she screamed at Agnes as she went out the door. "An' if we don't git

home by five, them caaves orter be fed."

As Agnes stood at the door to watch them drive away, Will studied her,

a smothering ache in his heart as he saw how thin and bent and weary she

was. In his soul he felt that she was a dying woman unless she had rest

and tender care.

As she turned, she saw something in his face--a pity and an agony of

self-accusation--that made her weak and white. She sank into a chair,

putting her hand on her chest, as if she felt a failing of breath. Then

the blood came back to her face and her eyes filled with tears.

"Don't--don't look at me like that," she said in a whisper. His pity

hurt her.

At sight of her sitting there pathetic, abashed, bewildered, like some

gentle animal, Will's throat contracted so that he could not speak. His

voice came at last in one terrible cry--

"Oh, Agnes! for God's sake forgive me!" He knelt by her side and put his

arm about her shoulders and kissed her bowed head. A curious numbness

involved his whole body; his voice was husky, the tears burned in his

eyes. His whole soul and body ached with his pity and remorseful,

self-accusing wrath.

"It was all my fault. Lay it all to me.... I am the one to bear it....

Oh, I've dreamed a thousand times of sayin' this to you, Aggie! I

thought if I could only see you again and ask your forgiveness, I'd--"

He ground his teeth together in his assault upon himself. "I threw my

life away an' killed you--that's what I did!"

He rose, and raged up and down the room till he had mastered himself.

"What did you think I meant that day of the thrashing?" he said, turning

suddenly. He spoke of it as if it were but a month or two past.

She lifted her head and looked at him in a slow way. She seemed to be

remembering. The tears lay on her hollow cheeks.

"I thought you was ashamed of me. I didn't know--why--"

He uttered a snarl of self-disgust.

"You couldn't know. Nobody could tell what I meant. But why didn't you

write? I was ready to come back. I only wanted an excuse--only a line."

"How could I, Will--after your letter?"

He groaned, and turned away.

"And Will, I--I got mad too. I couldn't write."

"Oh, that letter--I can see every line of it! F'r God's sake, don't

think of it again! But I didn't think, even when I wrote that letter,

that I'd find you where you are. I didn't think. I hoped, anyhow, Ed

Kinney wouldn't--"

She stopped him with a startled look in her great eyes.

"Don't talk about him--it ain't right. I mean it don't do any good. What

could I do, after father died? Mother and I. Besides, I waited three

years to hear from you, Will."

He gave a strange, choking cry. It burst from his throat--that terrible

thing, a man's sob of agony. She went on, curiously calm now.

"Ed was good to me; and he offered a home, anyway, for mother--"

"And all the time I was waiting for some line to break down my cussed

pride, so I could write to you and explain. But you did go with Ed to

the fair," he ended suddenly, seeking a morsel of justification for

himself.

"Yes. But I waited an' waited; and I thought you was mad at me, so when

they came I--no, I didn't really go with Ed. There was a wagon-load of

them."

"But I started," he explained, "but the wheel came off. I didn't send

word because I thought you'd feel sure I'd come. If you'd only trusted

me a little more--No! It was all my fault. I acted like a crazy fool. I

didn't stop to reason about anything."

They sat in silence after these explanations. The sound of the snapping

wings of the grasshoppers came through the windows, and a locust high in

a poplar sent down his ringing whir.

"It can't be helped now, Will," Agnes said at last, her voice full of

the woman's resignation. "We've got to bear it."

Will straightened up. "Bear it?" He paused. "Yes, I s'pose so. If you

hadn't married Ed Kinney! Anybody but him. How did you do it?"

"Oh, I don't know," she answered, wearily brushing her hair back from

her eyes. "It seemed best when I did it--and it can't be helped now."

There was infinite, dull despair and resignation in her voice.

Will went over to the window. He thought how bright and handsome Ed used

to be. "After all, it's no wonder you married him. Life pushes us into

such things." Suddenly he turned, something resolute and imperious in

his eyes and voice.

"It can be helped, Aggie," he said. "Now just listen to me. We've made

an awful mistake. We've lost seven years o' life, but that's no reason

why we should waste the rest of it. Now hold on; don't interrupt me

just yet. I come back thinking just as much of you as ever. I ain't

going to say a word more about Ed; let the past stay past. I'm going to

talk about the future."

She looked at him in a daze of wonder as he went on.

"Now I've got some money, I've got a third interest in a ranch, and I've

got a standing offer to go back on the Sante Fee road as conductor.

There is a team standing out there. I'd like to make another trip to

Cedarville--with you--"

"Oh, Will, don't!" she cried; "for pity's sake don't talk--"

"Wait!" he exclaimed, imperiously. "Now look at it. Here you are in

hell! Caged up with two old crows picking the life out of you. They'll

kill you--I can see it; you're being killed by inches. You can't go

anywhere, you can't have anything. Life is just torture for you--"

She gave a little moan of anguish and despair, and turned her face to

her chair-back. Her shoulders shook with weeping, but she listened. He

went to her and stood with his hand on the chair-back.

His voice trembled and broke. "There's just one way to get out of this,

Agnes. Come with me. He don't care for you; his whole idea of women is

that they are created for his pleasure and to keep house. Your whole

life is agony. Come! Don't cry. There's a chance for life yet."

She didn't speak, but her sobs were less violent; his voice growing

stronger reassured her.

"I'm going East, maybe to Europe; and the woman who goes with me will

have nothing to do but get strong and well again. I've made you suffer

so, I ought to spend the rest of my life making you happy. Come! My wife

will sit with me on the deck of the steamer and see the moon rise, and

walk with me by the sea, till she gets strong and happy again--till the

dimples get back into her cheeks. I never will rest till I see her eyes

laugh again."

She rose flushed, wide-eyed, breathing hard with the emotion his vibrant

voice called up, but she could not speak. He put his hand gently upon

her shoulder, and she sank down again. And he went on with his appeal.

There was something hypnotic, dominating, in his voice and eyes.

On his part there was no passion of an ignoble sort, only a passion of

pity and remorse, and a sweet, tender, reminiscent love. He did not love

the woman before him so much as the girl whose ghost she was--the woman

whose promise she was. He held himself responsible for it all, and he

throbbed with desire to repair the ravage he had indirectly caused.

There was nothing equivocal in his position--nothing to disown. How

others might look at it, he did not consider, and did not care. His

impetuous soul was carried to a point where nothing came in to mar or

divert.

"And then after you're well, after our trip, we'll come back--to

Houston, or somewhere in Texas, and I'll build my wife a house that will

make her eyes shine. My cattle will give us a good living, and she can

have a piano and books, and go to the theatre and concerts. Come, what

do you think of that?"

Then she heard his words beneath his voice somehow, and they produced

pictures that dazzled her. Luminous shadows moved before her eyes,

drifting across the gray background of her poor, starved, work-weary

life.

As his voice ceased the rosy clouds faded, and she realized again the

faded, musty little room, the calico-covered furniture, and looking down

at her own cheap and ill-fitting dress, she saw her ugly hands lying

there. Then she cried out with a gush of tears:

"Oh, Will, I'm so old and homely now, I ain't fit to go with you now!

Oh, why couldn't we have married then?"

She was seeing herself as she was then, and so was he; but it deepened

his resolution. How beautiful she used to be! He seemed to see her there

as if she stood in perpetual sunlight, with a warm sheen in her hair and

dimples in her cheeks.

She saw her thin red wrists, her gaunt and knotted hands. There was a

pitiful droop in the thin, pale lips, and the tears fell slowly from her

drooping lashes. He went on:

"Well, it's no use to cry over what was. We must think of what we're

going to do. Don't worry about your looks; you'll be the prettiest

woman in the country when we get back. Don't wait, Aggie; make up your

mind."

She hesitated, and was lost.

"What will people say?"

"I don't care what they say," he flamed out. "They'd say, stay here and

be killed by inches. I say you've had your share of suffering. They'd

say--the liberal ones--stay and get a divorce; but how do you know we

can get one after you've been dragged through the mud of a trial? We can

get one as well in some other state. Why should you be worn out at

thirty? What right or justice is there in making you bear all your life

the consequences of our--my schoolboy folly?"

As he went on his argument rose to the level of Browning's philosophy.

"We can make this experience count for us yet. But we mustn't let a

mistake ruin us--it should teach us. What right has any one to keep you

in a hole? God don't expect a toad to stay in a stump and starve if it

can get out. He don't ask the snakes to suffer as you do."

She had lost the threads of right and wrong out of her hands. She was

lost in a maze, but she was not moved by passion. Flesh had ceased to

stir her; but there was vast power in the new and thrilling words her

deliverer spoke. He seemed to open a door for her, and through it

turrets shone and great ships crossed on dim blue seas.

"You can't live here, Aggie. You'll die in less than five years. It

would kill me to see you die here. Come! It's suicide."

She did not move, save the convulsive motion of her breath and the

nervous action of her fingers. She stared down at a spot in the carpet.

She could not face him.

He grew insistent, a sterner note creeping into his voice.

"If I leave this time of course you know I'll never come back."

Her hoarse breathing, growing quicker each moment, was her only reply.

"I'm done," he said with a note of angry disappointment. He did not give

her up, however. "I've told you what I'd do for you. Now if you think--"

"Oh, give me time to think, Will!" she cried out, lifting her face.

He shook his head. "No. You might as well decide now. It won't be any

easier to-morrow. Come, one minute more and I go out o' that

door--unless--" He crossed the room slowly, doubtful himself of his

desperate last measure. "My hand is on the knob. Shall I open it?"

She stopped breathing; her fingers closed convulsively on the chair. As

he opened the door she sprang up.

"Don't go, Will! Don't go, please don't! I need you here--I--"

"That ain't the question. Are you going with me, Agnes?"

"Yes, yes! I tried to speak before. I trust you, Will; you're--"

He flung the door open wide. "See the sunlight out there shining on that

field o' wheat? That's where I'll take you--out into the sunshine. You

shall see it shining on the Bay of Naples. Come, get on your hat; don't

take anything more'n you actually need. Leave the past behind you--"

The woman turned wildly and darted into the little bedroom. The man

listened. He whistled in surprise almost comical. He had forgotten the

baby. He could hear the mother talking, cooing.

"Mommie's 'ittle pet! She wasn't goin' to leave her 'ittle man--no, she

wasn't! There, there, don't 'e cry. Mommie ain't goin' away and leave

him--wicked mommie ain't--'ittle treasure!"

She was confused again; and when she reappeared at the door, with the

child in her arms, there was a wandering look on her face pitiful to

see. She tried to speak, tried to say, "Please go, Will."

He designedly failed to understand her whisper. He stepped forward. "The

baby! Sure enough. Why, certainly! to the mother belongs the child. Blue

eyes, thank heaven!"

He put his arm about them both. She obeyed silently. There was something

irresistible in his frank, clear eyes, his sunny smile, his strong

brown hand. He slammed the door behind them.

"That closes the door on your sufferings," he said, smiling down at her.

"Good-by to it all."

The baby laughed and stretched out its hands toward the light.

"Boo, boo!" he cried.

"What's he talking about?"

She smiled in perfect trust and fearlessness, seeing her child's face

beside his own. "He says it's beautiful."

"Oh, he does? I can't follow his French accent."

She smiled again, in spite of herself. Will shuddered with a thrill of

fear, she was so weak and worn. But the sun shone on the dazzling,

rustling wheat, the fathomless sky, blue as a sea, bent above them--and

the world lay before them.