Rob looked over the edge of the bank, whistled, turned away. "Oh, I see!
Excuse me! Don't blame yeh a bit, though. Good weather f'r corn," he
went on, looking up at the trees. "Corn seems to be pretty well
forward," he continued, in a louder voice, as he walked away, still
gazing into the air. "Crops is looking first-class in Boomtown. Hello!
This Otto? H'yare, y' little scamp! Get on to that horse agin. Quick, 'r
I'll take y'r skin off an' hang it on the fence. What y' been doing?"
"Ben in swimmin'. Jimminy, ain't it fun! When 'd y' get back?" said the
boy, grinning.
"Never you mind!" replied Rob, leaping the fence by laying his left hand
on the top rail. "Get on to that horse." He tossed the boy up on the
horse, and hung his coat on the fence. "I s'pose the ol' man makes her
plough, same as usual?"
"Yup," said Otto.
"Dod ding a man that'll do that! I don't mind if it's necessary, but it
ain't necessary in his case." He continued to mutter in this way as he
went across to the other side of the field. As they turned to come back,
Rob went up and looked at the horse's mouth. "Gettin' purty near of age.
Say, who's sparkin' Julia now--anybody?"
"Nobody 'cept some ol' Norwegians. She won't have them. Por wants her
to, but she won't."
"Good f'r her. Nobody comes t' see her Sunday nights, eh?"
"Nope, only 'Tias Anderson an' Ole Hoover; but she goes off an' leaves
'em."
"Chk!" said Rob, starting old Jack across the field.
It was almost noon, and Jack moved reluctantly. He knew the time of day
as well as the boy. He made this round after distinct protest.
In the meantime Julia, putting on her shoes and stockings, went to the
fence and watched the man's shining white shirt as he moved across the
corn-field. There had never been any special tenderness between them,
but she had always liked him. They had been at school together. She
wondered why he had come back at this time of the year, and wondered how
long he would stay. How long had he stood looking at her? She flushed
again at the thought of it. But he wasn't to blame; it was a public
road. She might have known better.
She stood under a little popple tree, whose leaves shook musically at
every zephyr, and her eyes, through half-shut lids, roved over the sea
of deep-green, glossy leaves, dappled here and there by cloud shadows,
stirred here and there like water by the wind; and out of it all a
longing to be free from such toil rose like a breath, filling her throat
and quickening the motion of her heart. Must this go on forever, this
life of heat and dust and labor? What did it all mean?
The girl laid her chin on her strong red wrists, and looked up into the
blue spaces between the vast clouds--aerial mountains dissolving in a
shoreless azure sea. How cool and sweet and restful they looked! If she
might only lie out on the billowy, snow-white, sunlit edge! The voices
of the driver and the ploughman recalled her, and she fixed her eyes
again upon the slowly nodding head of the patient horse, on the boy
turned half about on his saddle, talking to the white-sleeved man, whose
derby hat bobbed up and down quite curiously, like the horse's head.
Would she ask him to dinner? What would her people say?
"Phew! it's hot!" was the greeting the young fellow gave as he came up.
He smiled in a frank, boyish way, as he hung his hat on the top of a
stake and looked up at her. "D' y' know, I kind o' enjoy gettin' at it
again? Fact. It ain't no work for a girl, though," he added.
"When 'd you get back?" she asked, the flush not yet out of her face.
Rob was looking at her thick, fine hair and full Scandinavian face, rich
as a rose in color, and did not reply for a few seconds. She stood with
her hideous sun-bonnet pushed back on her shoulders. A kingbird was
chattering overhead.
"Oh, a few days ago."
"How long y' goin' t' stay?"
"Oh, I d' know. A week, mebbe."
A far-off halloo came pulsing across the shimmering air. The boy
screamed "Dinner!" and waved his hat with an answering whoop, then
flopped off the horse like a turtle off a stone into water. He had the
horse unhooked in an instant, and had flung his toes up over the horse's
back, in act to climb on, when Rob said:
"H'yare, young feller! wait a minute. Tired?" he asked the girl, with a
tone that was more than kindly. It was almost tender.
"Yes," she replied, in a low voice. "My shoes hurt me."
"Well, here y' go," he replied, taking his stand by the horse, and
holding out his hand like a step. She colored and smiled a little as she
lifted her foot into his huge, hard, sunburned hand.
"Oop-a-daisy!" he called. She gave a spring, and sat on the horse like
one at home there.
Rob had a deliciously unconscious, abstracted, business-like air. He
really left her nothing to do but enjoy his company, while he went ahead
and did precisely as he pleased.
"We don't raise much corn out there, an' so I kind o' like to see it
once more."
"I wish I didn't have to see another hill of corn as long as I live!"
replied the girl, bitterly.
"Don't know as I blame yeh a bit. But, all the same, I'm glad you was
working in it to-day," he thought to himself, as he walked beside her
horse toward the house.
"Will you stop to dinner?" she inquired bluntly, almost surlily. It was
evident there were reasons why she didn't mean to press him to do so.
"You bet I will," he replied; "that is, if you want I should."
"You know how we live," she replied evasively. "If you can stand it,
why--" She broke off abruptly.
Yes, he remembered how they lived in that big, square, dirty, white
frame house. It had been three or four years since he had been in it,
but the smell of the cabbage and onions, the penetrating, peculiar
mixture of odors, assailed his memory as something unforgettable.
"I guess I'll stop," he said, as she hesitated. She said no more, but
tried to act as if she were not in any way responsible for what came
afterward.
"I guess I c'n stand f'r one meal what you stand all the while," he
added.
As she left them at the well and went to the house he saw her limp
painfully, and the memory of her face so close to his lips as he helped
her down from the horse gave him pleasure at the same time that he was
touched by its tired and gloomy look. Mrs. Peterson came to the door of
the kitchen, looking just the same as ever. Broad-faced, unwieldly,
flabby, apparently wearing the same dress he remembered to have seen her
in years before,--a dirty drab-colored thing,--she looked as shapeless
as a sack of wool. Her English was limited to, "How de do, Rob?"
He washed at the pump, while the girl, in the attempt to be hospitable,
held the clean towel for him.
"You're purty well used up, eh?" he said to her.
"Yes; it's awful hot out there."
"Can't you lay off this afternoon? It ain't right"
"No. He won't listen to that."
"Well, let me take your place."
"No; there ain't any use o' that."
Peterson, a brawny, wide-bearded Norwegian, came up at this moment, and
spoke to Rob in a sullen, gruff way.
"Hallo, when yo' gaet back?"
"To-day. He ain't very glad to see me," said Rob, winking at Julia. "He
ain't b'ilin' over with enthusiasm; but I c'n stand it, for your sake,"
he added, with amazing assurance; but the girl had turned away, and it
was wasted.
At the table he ate heartily of the "bean swaagen," which filled a large
wooden bowl in the centre of the table, and which was ladled into
smaller wooden bowls at each plate. Julia had tried hard to convert her
mother to Yankee ways, and had at last given it up in despair. Rob kept
on safe subjects, mainly asking questions about the crops of Peterson,
and when addressing the girl, inquired of the schoolmates. By skilful
questioning, he kept the subject of marriage uppermost, and seemingly
was getting an inventory of the girls not yet married or engaged.
It was embarrassing for the girl. She was all too well aware of the
difference between her home and the home of her schoolmates and friends.
She knew that it was not pleasant for her "Yankee" friends to come to
visit her when they could not feel sure of a welcome from the tireless,
silent, and grim-visaged old Norse, if, indeed, they could escape
insult. Julia ate her food mechanically, and it could hardly be said
that she enjoyed the brisk talk of the young man, his eyes were upon her
so constantly and his smile so obviously addressed to her, She rose as
soon as possible and, going outside, took a seat on a chair under the
trees in the yard. She was not a coarse or dull girl. In fact, she had
developed so rapidly by contact with the young people of the
neighborhood that she no longer found pleasure in her own home. She
didn't believe in keeping up the old-fashioned Norwegian customs, and
her life with her mother was not one to breed love or confidence. She
was more like a hired hand. The love of the mother for her "Yulyie" was
sincere though rough and inarticulate, and it was her jealousy of the
young "Yankees" that widened the chasm between the girl and herself--an
inevitable result.
Rob followed the girl out into the yard, and threw himself on the grass
at her feet, perfectly unconscious of the fact that this attitude was
exceedingly graceful and becoming to them both. He did it because he
wanted to talk to her, and the grass was cool and easy; there wasn't any
other chair, anyway.
"Do they keep up the ly-ceum and the sociables same as ever?"
"Yes. The others go a good 'eal, but I don't. We're gettin' such a stock
round us, and father thinks he needs me s' much, I don't get out often.
I'm gettin' sick of it."
"I sh'd think y' would," he replied, his eyes on her face,
"I c'd stand the churnin' and housework, but when it comes t' workin'
outdoors in the dirt an' hot sun, gettin' all sunburned and chapped up,
it's another thing. An' then it seems as if he gets stingier 'n'
stingier every year. I ain't had a new dress in--I d'-know-how-long. He
says it's all nonsense, an' mother's just about as bad. She don't want a
new dress, an' so she thinks I don't." The girl was feeling the
influence of a sympathetic listener and was making up for the long
silence. "I've tried t' go out t' work, but they won't let me. They'd
have t' pay a hand twenty dollars a month f'r the work I do, an' they
like cheap help; but I'm not goin' t' stand it much longer, I can tell
you that."
Rob thought she was very handsome as she sat there with her eyes fixed
on the horizon, while these rebellious thoughts found utterance in her
quivering, passionate voice.
"Yulie! Kom haar!" roared the old man from the well.
A frown of anger and pain came into her face. She looked at Rob. "That
means more work."
"Say! let me go out in your place. Come, now; what's the use--"
"No; it wouldn't do no good. It ain't t'day s' much; it's every day,
and--"
"Yulie!" called Peterson again, with a string of impatient Norwegian.
"Batter yo' kom pooty hal quick."
"Well, all right, only I'd like to--" Rob submitted.
"Well, good-by," she said, with a little touch of feeling. "When d' ye
go back?"
"I don't know. I'll see y' again before I go. Good-by."
He stood watching her slow, painful pace till she reached the well,
where Otto was standing with the horse. He stood watching them as they
moved out into the road and turned down toward the field. He felt that
she had sent him away; but still there was a look in her eyes which was
not altogether--
He gave it up in despair at last. He was not good at analyses of this
nature; he was used to plain, blunt expressions. There was a woman's
subtlety here quite beyond his reach.
He sauntered slowly off up the road after his talk with Julia. His head
was low on his breast; he was thinking as one who is about to take a
decided and important step.
He stopped at length, and, turning, watched the girl moving along in the
deeps of the corn. Hardly a leaf was stirring; the untempered sunlight
fell in a burning flood upon the field; the grasshoppers rose, snapped,
buzzed, and fell; the locust uttered its dry, heat-intensifying cry. The
man lifted his head.
"It's a d--n shame!" he said, beginning rapidly to retrace his steps. He
stood leaning on the fence, awaiting the girl's coming very much as she
had waited his on the round he had made before dinner. He grew impatient
at the slow gait of the horse, and drummed on the rail while he
whistled. Then he took off his hat and dusted it nervously. As the horse
got a little nearer he wiped his face carefully, pushed his hat back on
his head, and climbed over the fence, where he stood with elbows on the
middle rail as the girl and boy and horse came to the end of the furrow.
"Hot, ain't it?" he said, as she looked up.
"Jimminy Peters, it's awful!" puffed the boy. The girl did not reply
till she swung the plough about after the horse, and set it upright into
the next row. Her powerful body had a superb swaying motion at the waist
as she did this--a motion which affected Rob vaguely but massively.
"I thought you'd gone," she said gravely, pushing back her bonnet till
he could see her face dewed with sweat, and pink as a rose. She had the
high cheek-bones of her race, but she had also their exquisite fairess
of color.
"Say, Otto," asked Rob, alluringly, "wan' to go swimmin'?"
"You bet!" replied Otto.
"Well, I'll go a round if--"
The boy dropped off the horse, not waiting to hear any more. Rob
grinned, but the girl dropped her eyes, then looked away.
"Got rid o' him mighty quick. Say, Julyie, I hate like thunder t' see
you out here; it ain't right. I wish you'd--I wish--"
She could not look at him now, and her bosom rose and fell with a motion
that was not due to fatigue. Her moist hair matted around her forehead
gave her a boyish look.
Rob nervously tried again, tearing splinters from the fence. "Say, now,
I'll tell yeh what I came back here for--t' git married; and if you're
willin' I'll do it to-night. Come, now, whaddy y' say?"
"What've I got t' do 'bout it?" she finally asked, the color flooding
her face, and a faint smile coming to her lips. "Go ahead. I ain't got
anything--"
Rob put a splinter in his mouth and faced her. "Oh, looky here, now,
Julyie! you know what I mean. I've got a good claim out near Boomtown--a
rattlin' good claim; a shanty on it fourteen by sixteen--no tarred paper
about it, and a suller to keep butter in, and a hundred acres o' wheat
just about ready to turn now. I need a wife."
Here he straightened up, threw away the splinter, and took off his hat.
He was a very pleasant figure as the girl stole a look at him. His black
laughing eyes were especially earnest just now. His voice had a touch of
pleading. The popple tree over their heads murmured applause at his
eloquence, then hushed to listen. A cloud dropped a silent shadow down
upon them, and it sent a little thrill of fear through Rob, as if it
were an omen of failure. As the girl remained silent, looking away, he
began, man-fashion, to desire her more and more, as he feared to lose
her. He put his hat on the post again and took out his jack-knife. Her
calico dress draped her supple and powerful figure simply but naturally.
The stoop in her shoulders, given by labor, disappeared as she partly
leaned upon the fence. The curves of her muscular arms showed through
her sleeve.
"It's all-fired lonesome f'r me out there on that claim, and it ain't no
picnic f'r you here. Now, if you'll come out there with me, you needn't
do anything but cook f'r me, and after harvest we can git a good layout
o' furniture, an' I'll lath and plaster the house and put a little hell
[ell] in the rear." He smiled, and so did she. He felt encouraged to
say: "An' there we be, as snug as y' please. We're close t' Boomtown,
an' we can go down there to church sociables an' things, and they're a
jolly lot there."
The girl was still silent, but the man's simple enthusiasm came to her
charged with passion and a sort of romance such as her hard life had
known little of. There was something enticing about this trip to the
West.
"What'll my folks say?" she said at last.
A virtual surrender, but Rob was not acute enough to see it. He pressed
on eagerly:
"I don't care. Do you? They'll jest keep y' ploughin' corn and milkin'
cows till the day of judgment. Come, Julyie, I ain't got no time to fool
away. I've got t' get back t' that grain. It's a whoopin' old crop,
sure's y'r born, an' that means sompin purty scrumptious in furniture
this fall. Come, now." He approached her and laid his hand on her
shoulder very much as he would have touched Albert Seagraves or any
other comrade. "Whaddy y' say?"
She neither started nor shrunk nor looked at him. She simply moved a
step away. "They'd never let me go," she replied bitterly. "I'm too
cheap a hand. I do a man's work an' get no pay at all."
"You'll have half o' all I c'n make," he put in.
"How long c'n you wait?" she asked, looking down at her dress.
"Just two minutes," he said, pulling out his watch. "It ain't no use t'
wait. The old man'll be jest as mad a week from now as he is to-day. Why
not go now?"
"I'm of age in a few days," she mused, wavering, calculating.
"You c'n be of age to-night if you'll jest call on old Square Hatfield
with me."
"All right, Rob," the girl said, turning and holding out her hand.
"That's the talk!" he exclaimed, seizing it. "And now a kiss, to bind
the bargain, as the fellah says."
"I guess we c'n get along without that."
"No, we can't. It won't seem like an engagement without it."
"It ain't goin' to seem much like one, anyway," she answered, with a
sudden realization of how far from her dreams of courtship this reality
was.
"Say, now, Julyie, that ain't fair; it ain't treatin' me right. You
don't seem to understand that I like you, but I do."
Rob was carried quite out of himself by the time, the place, and the
girl. He had said a very moving thing.
The tears sprang involuntarily to the girl's eyes. "Do you mean it? If
y' do, you may."
She was trembling with emotion for the first time. The sincerity of the
man's voice had gone deep.
He put his arm around her almost timidly, and kissed her on the cheek,
a great love for her springing up in his heart. "That settles it," he
said. "Don't cry, Julyie. You'll never be sorry for it. Don't cry. It
kind o' hurts me to see it."
He didn't understand her feelings. He was only aware that she was
crying, and tried in a bungling way to soothe her. But now that she had
given way, she sat down in the grass and wept bitterly.
"Yulyie!" yelled the vigilant old Norwegian, like a distant foghorn.
The girl sprang up; the habit of obedience was strong.
"No; you set right there, and I'll go round," he said. "Otto!"
The boy came scrambling out of the wood, half dressed. Rob tossed him
upon the horse, snatched Julia's sun-bonnet, put his own hat on her
head, and moved off down the corn-rows, leaving the girl smiling through
her tears as he whistled and chirped to the horse. Farmer Peterson,
seeing the familiar sun-bonnet above the corn-rows, went back to his
work, with a sentence of Norwegian trailing after him like the tail of a
kite--something about lazy girls who didn't earn the crust of their
bread, etc.
Rob was wild with delight. "Git up there, Jack! Hay, you old corncrib!
Say, Otto, can you keep your mouth shet if it puts money in your
pocket?"
"Jest try me 'n' see," said the keen-eyed little scamp.
"Well, you keep quiet about my bein' here this afternoon, and I'll put a
dollar on y'r tongue--hay?--what?--understand?"
"Show me y'r dollar," said the boy, turning about and showing his
tongue.
"All right. Begin to practise now by not talkin' to me."
Rob went over the whole situation on his way back, and when he got in
sight of the girl his plan was made. She stood waiting for him with a
new look on her face. Her sullenness had given way to a peculiar
eagerness and anxiety to believe in him. She was already living that
free life in a far-off, wonderful country. No more would her stern
father and sullen mother force her to tasks which she hated. She'd be a
member of a new firm. She'd work, of course, but it would be because she
wanted to, and not because she was forced to. The independence and the
love promised grew more and more attractive. She laughed back with a
softer light in her eyes, when she saw the smiling face of Rob looking
at her from her sun-bonnet.
"Now you mustn't do any more o' this," he said. "You go back to the
house an' tell y'r mother you're too lame to plough any more to-day, and
it's gettin' late, anyhow. To-night!" he whispered quickly. "Eleven!
Here!"