I borrowed some blank paper and went up to my room and figured for many
hours, stopping only to eat a good dinner--a boiled dinner in Vose’s
best style. My plate was piled high twice with corned beef fringed with
golden fat, succulent disks of yellow carrots, wine-red beets, snowy
white spuds, and odorous turnips. No man could possibly be a pessimist
with that dinner under his belt! I had every reason to be the most
apprehensive man in Avon County, but I had set my face to the front and
I had just naturally made up my mind that I was going to pay for that
dinner and for the other things which I had been recklessly ordering. I
proposed to put myself into a position where I would be compelled to use
every bit of my capital of cheek. The sweat stood, out on my forehead,
but it wasn’t the kind of moisture which could soften my grit.
In the afternoon, every time a steaming horse came homing back to Vose’s
stable, I felt a funny quiver inside me.
“I reckon you have got a good line on human nature, young Sidney,”
stated the landlord, when I went down to the foreroom before supper.
“From what the men say this rushing around back district’s with teams
has got the boys all heifered up. Even if they don’t come in to go to
work, they’ll be here to see what in tunket the hoorah’s about.”
“I have heard my father say that this town was always ready to turn
out to a bee,” I told him. When I said it another thought came to cheer
me--I had noticed that when a lot of men were set at work together on
one job the natural spirit of rivalry put pep into the bunch.
When Dodovah Vose went to his kitchen to give an eye to supper, I
plucked a telegraph blank from his office desk. I nerved myself to try
on my most audacious trick of all. I wrote this:
_To Ross Sidney, Levant.--Offer accepted. Go ahead with work. Will
settle with you on my return._
_Z. Kingsley._
I set my jaws and told myself that the message wasn’t all falsehood; the
last sentence was strictly true, even if Zebulon Kingsley did not pen
it.
I folded the paper, stuck it in my pocket, and went again to the
Kingsley house. It was brazen business--a dangerous hazard. But I was
depending on woman’s inadequacy. I felt that I had the two of them sized
pretty well. They had never presumed to meddle in the affairs of their
master. They would not dare to question his will. I figured that sending
him a wire asking corroboration of the message to me would seem to them
like bold interference which would bring reproof from him.
I waited, respectfully standing, while they read the message, Celene
looking over her mother’s shoulder.
“It’s more about the wood-lot matter,” I explained. “I think you heard
your father make me a price on it. Miss Kingsley.”
“I remember distinctly, mother. Father said he would sell for two
thousand dollars.”
“I know it must seem rather irregular,” I said, “but in my wire I
explained that my people are in a great hurry--and I’m glad that he has
been willing to meet me half-way. It means that I am to put on a crew at
once and cut the wood--and, of course, it’s a safe proposition for the
judge,” I went on, forcing the best smile I could. “Neither the land nor
the wood can be carried away in a shawl-strap before he returns--I think
he said in a week or ten days!”
They returned my smile, and for the first time Mrs. Kingsley seemed
rather cordial.
“I’m glad you are taking it off his hands,” she declared. “It will be
one less thing for him to worry about. He has been so troubled by his
business. I’m sure that he’ll be glad to get rid of a lot more property
in the same way.”
My soul whispered its doubts!
“I hope that the matter is all clear now and that you have a good
understanding, Mrs. Kingsley. You will explain, will you, if anybody
comes to you in regard to the matter or questions my authority?”
“I will, Mr. Sidney.”
She exchanged glances with her daughter and they seemed to understand
each other quickly. While we had been talking I heard the subdued
clatter of supper preparations in another room.
“I feel sure that if my husband were here,” said Mrs. Kingsley, “he
would extend the hospitality of our house to a gentleman who was
obliging him in a business matter. Won’t you stay and take supper with
us, Mr. Sidney?”
Without replying, I gave my hat into the ready hands of Celene and sat
down weakly.
I was tickled nigh foolish--I’ll admit that. But I was not wholly taken
in by that hospitality play. Mrs. Zebulon Kingsley had known too much
about me and my breed-to feel any great hankering to have me as a guest.
But I was willing to bet a big plum that she was thinking a lot about my
uncle’s hostility and about the judge’s fear of that rambunctious town
official. And I was also sure that certain matters had been talked
over between her and Celene since my arrival in town with such outward
emblems of importance and prosperity. Furthermore, had I not
fairly promised the daughter that I would do my best in the line of
uncle-busting?
So I held on to my emotions as best I could and waited for the subject
to come up. It did, of course. I had not been in the house ten minutes
before Mrs. Kingsley burst out. She was full of that topic. She saw in
my uncle’s attitude nothing but a wanton desire to make trouble for a
good and great man.
I had been thinking over the matter of that hostility since my morning’s
talk with Uncle Deck. I had been developing a sharp-ended suspicion that
my uncle had something up his sleeve with which to arm that hostility.
Judge Kingsley would never have pulled his wife into a row he was having
with Decker Sidney unless desperation had moved him. I was bitterly
ashamed and grieved when I listened to her description of that
unutterable interview.
As for her, she had no suspicions as to her husband’s integrity--I could
see that! The picture she made of the affair was of a mad dog chasing a
saint!
“But what does the man think he can do to my husband? He can do nothing.
He must realize it. What has he said to you, Mr. Sidney? I ask you, for
I am sure you do not approve, his actions.”
I looked at Celene, and answered that I certainly did not approve, nor
had I ever approved many things my uncle did.
“I will say further that I did what I could to-day to turn him from his
grudge.”
“But what does he think he can do to my husband?” she insisted. “I
suppose he told you.”
“No, he did not, madam. He said he did not trust me. He twitted me with
having betrayed him once before to the judge--about the doctored horse,”
I added, with a sickly grin.
“But, of course, you--his own nephew--you produced some effect on him?”
“Yes, I made him so mad he would have struck me if he had dared. That’s
all the effect I seemed to produce.”
Tears came into her eyes. “How will it end?” she quavered.
I did not feel like bragging just then about any powers of mine in
the matter; I had plenty on my mind and conscience as it was. I was
distinctly aware of being glad I had had that boiled dinner, and plenty
of it, and I say that much with all due respect for the blessed presence
of Celene at the supper-board. For between my ever-swelling love for
her, my self-consciousness at table, my shame on account of my uncle,
and my general emotions, anyway, I could scarcely choke down a mouthful.
And at the end I was wholly and fairly rattled--that expression seems to
fit my state of mind better than anything I can think of right now.
She accompanied me to the door that evening when I departed--Mrs.
Kingsley allowed her to go alone, evidently having elevated me to the
plane of, at least, a buttonhole friend of the family after hearing of
my quarrel with my uncle.
And being rattled, and seeing the grieved anxiety in her eyes, and
knowing how much distress must be tearing at her poor heart, I gulped
out that I would put my uncle where he belonged. I was saying to myself
that I would see him in tophet before I’d allow his persecution to
harm those innocent women, and I came nigh saying that to her in my
excitement.
She put out to me both of her hands, and I took them. I tossed all
prudence over the rail then.
“If there’s got to be a fight in the Sidney family, then there’ll be
one! You tell your mother to sleep easy. I’ll take this thing in hand
from now on and I won’t have your father abused by anybody.”
I was talking as big as old Lord Argyle, and I knew I was babbling
like a fool--bu t what can’t a girl’s wet eyes do to a fellow’s common,
sense?
“We trust you,” she said. “You have made me so happy!”
I bent down and kissed her dear hands, first one and then the other.
When I straightened up and saw the flush on her cheeks and the shy
pleasure in her eyes I went the limit without stopping to take thought.
I put my arms around her and kissed her on the lips--and no honest man
can look me squarely in the eye and tell me there’s any memory like the
remembrance of the first kiss from one’s own true love! For the first
true love is not merely maiden--she has elements of the goddess in her!
Therefore, having presumed so much with a goddess, I was immediately
frightened and found myself ready to struggle with apology--and apology
did not fit that occasion. So I ran away before I made more of a fool of
myself.
“Good night!” I whispered from the gate. “I love you!”
She closed the big door very softly and I gathered good omen from that.
How bright the stars were when I looked at them through my tears! A
half-century ago a Yankee poet wrote these verses when he was in love:
When twilight’s sable curtain falls,
Then stars stand thick at even To act as outside sentinels
Around the gates of heaven.
That night along the shimmering slant,
(I tell you true, my brother)
The password was “Almira Grant”
They whispered to each other.
I knew mighty well what was their password that March night when I
walked away from Celene.
I was not fit for any tavern society just then. Impulse seized upon me
and I went down into the orchard. True love does not forget his trails
and his caches! I found the tree with the hollow trunk and slipped my
hand into the hole; I pulled forth the little packet of three rings. I
reckoned that when I got my courage and my voice I would have a story to
tell her--some evidence of love longstanding to offer--and that I’d find
those rings pretty valuable as exhibits A, B, and C.
There were quite a number of gossiping loafers in the tavern foreroom
when I marched in at last and took my room key from its hook.
If there had been any doubt among them as to my importance in the world,
that doubt must have vanished when they looked on me that night; for if
I did not feel at that moment that the world was mine, nobody ever did!