RIVALS
"Every man in the time of courtship, puts on a behavior like my
correspondent's holiday suit!"
The month of February was bitterly cold, and a deep snow lay unmelted
for three weeks,--a condition of weather that seriously hindered
interchange of social calls on the Silver Run creek. The last Sunday
morning, however, brought a thaw that made it possible for the socially
inclined, comfortably to stir out.
After the James' breakfast, Mr. Lindsay, according to his every Sunday's
custom between milking times, dressed himself in his best black suit and
his shining Sunday shoes, and with the more than a few white threads
that were beginning to come in his hair and mustache, decently colored,
and a suggestion of perfume about him, came into the sitting-room.
Miss Nancy, whose Sabbath attire was a change from a soiled brown calico
to a similar unattractive clean one, professed to disapprove of this
Sunday's dressy toilet, and when her sister came into the kitchen,
dressed in a pretty maroon woolen house waist (one of the "remnant"
waists), her second-best black woolen skirt, and wearing her watch, with
its slender chain, and with the white threads in _her_ hair concealed in
a manner similar to Mr. Lindsay's, she raised her voice in sarcastic
reproof.
"I see you've got on your red sack you thenk you look so purty in. The
idy of an old theng like you a wearin' _red_! And I see you've wore a
right smart of the gold off your Sunday specs too, a wearin' 'em ever'
day. You and him a dressin' up ever' Sunday, like you was a goin' to
church, when you know you ain't goin' to do nothin' but set around all
day, makes me plumb sick! And I'm jest a gittin' tired of all the piller
slips a bein' blacked up with hair dye, on account of two old fools a
bein' afraid of bein' thought as old as they are!"
Miss Lucy turned a pained, guilty red. The little bottles she kept
hidden in her trunk were of recent acquisition, and she had thought
their work was as yet her own secret. Knowing it was useless to attempt
to defend herself, she put forth a plea for her friend.
"Maybe Mr. Lindsay don't color his hair, Nancy,--hit's a mighty pretty
brown, and shines jest like Sister Isabinda's used to."
"Maybe he don't," derided Miss Nancy: "but you jest tell him for me,
when he puts hit on in the dark or before daylight, to take a little
more pains, and don't come downstairs with hit smeared on slantways of
his mustache, not techin' the roots, and leavin' 'em white on one side,
and see what he says!"
Miss Lucy did not wait to hear any more, but went quietly back to the
sitting-room where Mr. Lindsay sat alone.
"I jest know hit's the nicest day for meetin'," she smiled: "ef the road
wasn't so rough a body could go! It'll be lonesome for you today, I'm
afraid, Mr. Lindsay, with jest us," she went on: "I wish somebody'd come
in to keep you company."
Mr. Lindsay looked behind him, then moved his chair nearer Miss Lucy's
rocker. "I have all the company I want, Miss Lucy," he said in daring
tone, "all the company I want in this world is here by me!"
Miss Lucy's eyes fell beneath the compelling power of the bright brown
ones opposite her, and a warm flush dyed her face. Mr. Lindsay waited
smiling for her to speak, but at this moment there came a knock, and Mr.
Galvin Brock, newly shaved, so highly collared that the linen cut
cruelly into the fat beneath his ears, and wearing a top coat, a gray
suit, gaiters, and glossy shoes that all bore the hall-mark of recent
purchase, came in.
"Why, Mr. Brock!" stammered Miss Lucy, in her surprise and
embarrassment, giving the visitor a rather warmer welcome than she
intended,--"I am so glad you come, and Pa'll be awful glad to see you. I
was jest a tellin' Mr. Lindsay as you come in I wished somebody'd come
to keep _him_ company, too. Sunday is sech a long day when a body can't
git out to church. Lemme take your coat and hat, Mr. Brock, and you set
down in this rocker and warm your feet."
Mr. Brock sat, the unexpectedly cordial reception filling his heart with
so much of satisfaction that the glow above the punishing neck linen
rivaled the crimson in his nose, which particular spot Mr. Lindsay
mentally stigmatized a "grog-blossom." On this occasion, the color of
the "grog-blossom" was deeper than usual, owing to the fact that the
owner of the nose was suffering from a cold which necessitated the
frequent display and desecration of a beautiful hemstitched China silk
handkerchief.
After a few perfunctory words to the new-comer, Mr. Lindsay relapsed
into a moody silence, replying in monosyllables only, when any portion
of the morning's conversation, largely carried on by Mr. James in the
absence of Miss Lucy in the kitchen, chanced to be directed at him. In
the afternoon, when the family were all at liberty to entertain, Mr.
Brock, usually grumly taciturn, under the influence of Miss Lucy's
kindly interest which he mistook for admiration, became surprisingly
loquacious: it was Mr. Lindsay who sat afflicted of mien, maintaining
his morning's attitude of silent gloom.
"Mr. Brock looks like a preacher, he's fixed up so fine today!" Miss
Lucy remarked, as she scrutinized the heavy chinchilla coat hanging on
the rack. "You must expect to come out mighty well on your tobacco, Mr.
Brock, ef you can take to wearin' such a fine overcoat as this, jest to
a neighbor's house. Ain't hit nice, Mr. Lindsay?" Mr. Lindsay's reply
was not audible.
"I always come out tolerable well, Miss Lucy, and manage to have a
check-book ahead I can draw on," Mr. Brock avouched.
"Castle offered to loan me some money along last spreng (as he does all
his tobacco men) ef I needed it, but I was proud to be able to say: 'Mr.
Castle, I can loan you some, ef you want it,' and I've had more offers
fer my tobacco this time, than I care to consider."
"Castle says thar hain't but one terbaccer man in the County, Mr. Brock,
and he fetched _him_ over from Clarke," hinted Mr. James.
Four years before, Mr. Brock had come at the Castle behest from Clarke
County. Mr. Brock smiled broadly.
"I don't claim to be the only terbaccer man in the County," he
protested.
"You wuz one the _big_ terbaccer men over thar, Castle says," went on
the old man: "he says him and his brother, Reed, come mighty nigh havin'
a fight over you when he fetched you over here. I told Castle when he
said that to me that you must have been a sort of a Hawkins Speed among
the terbaccer fellers over in Clarke.
"You knowed that triflin' Hawkins, he moved out in Oklahomy, and got to
be a big feller. His Ma come back here and told hit that hit wuz a
common theng to see from fifteen to twenty men ride up in Hawkins' barn
lot ever' mornin' and h'ist theirselves up on the fence and set thar,
ever' man waitin' his turn to be advised by Hawkins in business
matters!"
"Now Pa," protested Miss Lucy, "don't poke fun at company!"
"I hain't, Lucy Ann, I'm entertainin',--that's more'n some o' the
crowd's a doin'," retorted Mr. James with a covert wink at Mr. Brock.
Late in the afternoon, Mr. Brock suggested that his host show him his
new pigs. When the two men came back to the house, the old man wore a
look of ill humor that the subject under discussion (the pigs) did not
warrant, and an angry suspicion entered Mr. Lindsay's mind.
"I do wish I could do somethin' for your cold, Mr. Brock," Miss Lucy
said solicitously, as that gentleman, preparing to leave them, indulged
in a rattling cough. "Ef you'll jest wait a minute, I'll hunt you up
some boneset, and Aunt Jane can make you some strong tea, jest before
you go to bed. Drink hit right hot and maybe hit'll break up your cold."
With the pockets of the chinchilla bulging with the boneset, and his
mind at peace with the world, Mr. Brock stepped jauntily out to the road
at the foot of the lawn, but when he reached it, instead of going in the
direction of his home, unnoticed by any of the James household, he
turned and walked briskly down the path that led to the Doggetts.
"Eph," Mrs. Doggett informed her husband when he came in about nine that
evening, having tarried until after supper at the home of his sister,
Mrs. Gumm: "Eph, Mr. Lindsay hain't got no chance with Miss Lucy James!"
"How did you git that in your head, Ann?"
"They wuz a person here this evenin' that saw another man there today,
and he says that the treatment Miss Lucy give that man wuz the kind o'
treatment a woman don't give nobody but a man she thenks is the greatest
feller on earth. Mr. Lindsay, he jest tucked his head after the man
come, like a whooped dog, the person said, and Miss Lucy never give
Lindsay nary look ner word o' notice the whole day! And when the other
man started, she told _him_ she wisht he'd come ever' Sunday,--said her
and Miss Nancy and their Pa jest set thar all day like three old owls a
wishin' somebody'd come to keep 'em comp'ny!"
"Who told you all that, Ann,--did you git hit from Mr. Brock?" Mr.
Doggett inquired, as he wrestled with a tight sock.
"From nobody else!" exulted Mrs. Doggett. "He's the man o' Miss Lucy's
choice!"
"Now, old lady," cautioned Mr. Doggett, as he covered the fire, "don't
you let Mr. Brock pull the wool over your eyes! You never can tell what
a woman will do, ner a man neither fer that matter, but hit hain't best
to believe more'n a quarter o' what a courtin' feller'll tell about how
fur he's a beatin' another feller's time!"
"I'm a goin' up to Jim Doggett's, Miss Lucy," Mr. Lindsay announced
coolly after the supper that evening,--"to set ontel bedtime, and I want
to ask you, ef you haven't got no objections, to jest leave the hall
door onlocked ontel I come back: I can git in then without disturbin'
anybody."
"Why, Mr. Lindsay, of course I will," fluttered Miss Lucy, "but ef you
ain't a goin' to stay late, I'll set up and have a fire for you to warm
your feet by."
"I thank you, Miss Lucy," Mr. Lindsay answered in the same frigidly
polite tones: "I won't be gone long, but I don't want to put nobody to
any trouble fer me, what time I'll be here. I wish you good evenin'."
Miss Lucy stood in dumb wonderment on the porch until the splash of Mr.
Lindsay's feet in the melting snow no longer reached her ear. What was
the matter with him that he spoke to her as one stranger to another?
Unheeding the mud puddles in which he set his feet, Mr. Lindsay neared
the tiny cottage Vaughn Castle furnished Jim Doggett. An owl quavered in
the top of one of the ragged elms, when he paused on the step to remove
his overshoes, and the bird's weird cry was not more despondent than the
silent wail of the man's heart.
"She's a settin' there, now," he chafed, "a smilin' in the coals, a
thenkin' about old Brock!" But he was mistaken; Miss Lucy was crying in
her pillow.
Jim and Henrietty made Mr. Lindsay kindly welcome, but the plump child
with the exquisitely molded features drew back the dainty chin that
reminded one of nothing so much as a rosy peach, and looked shyly at him
through the long curling black lashes of her dreamy brown eyes.
"Have you gone back on me too, Katie?" Mr. Lindsay's look of reproach
brought the baby flying to his chair to crawl up in his lap.
"Me love Missa Linney," she lisped: "is 'oo dot a pitty f'ower for
Tatie?"
"You'll never lose out with Katie, Mr. Lindsay," laughed her father, as
the child began ecstatically to kiss the rose pictured on the bit of
pasteboard her friend fished from an inside pocket, "ef you keep on a
brengin' her flowers and picturs of flowers."
"I didn't believe she'd go back on me too," Mr. Lindsay murmured, with
his cheek on the little one's red-brown hair.
"Been anybody at your house today?" asked astute Henrietty.
"Jest old man Brock."
"Did he stay all day?"
"Yes, staid until milkin' time."
"Wuz he primped up?" persisted Henrietty, with a glance at Jim.
"Yes, in an inch of his life," scoffed Mr. Lindsay, with the high collar
in mind: "ever'theng he had on, as fur as I could see, wuz new. Miss
Lucy," he concluded with burning sarcasm, "she told him he looked like a
preacher!"
"Must 'a' been a courtin' rig," reflected Jim.
"Well Jim," expostulated Henrietty, "and poor Callie not been in her
grave more'n six months! Ef I wuz Mr. Brock, I'd let my wife's tracks
rain out before I took to courtin'!"
Mr. Lindsay laughed--a mirthless jeering laugh.
"Miss Lucy didn't seem to make much o' his payin' sech disrespect to
Callie, a sparkin' around, the way she treated him today! Old Brock'll
never be tuck up fer bein' too sociable, but I wisht you could 'a' saw
him today, a makin' up to the old man and Miss Lucy,--a settin' about
with his lips primped up as innocent and delicate, like they'd never
shet over nothin' stronger'n buttermilk in his life. He's tuck a
cold--been over to Lexington this last week a layin' out drunk as is his
common habit when he goes off on them trips, in fact, hit's what he goes
fer,--and Miss Lucy wuz a honeyin' him up, a wishin' she could do
somethin' fer his cold, and a huntin' up hoarhound and dried stuffs fer
him to docter with. Made me sick!"
"O Mr. Lindsay," placated Henrietty, "Miss Lucy thenks ever'body's all
right and good. I heerd Mrs. Preacher Avery a sayin' to her one day--and
she wuz jest a goin' by what Miss Lucy'd told her about 'em--'How
fortunate,' she says, 'Miss Lucy, that your brothers and sisters all
married good people, and in such good famblies!'
"And that Grace that married the middle Jeemes boy, she's about as mean
a person as anybody is allowed to be, to keep a livin'! She treated me
and Jim's Ma, when we went to see Miss Lucy one day when she wuz a
visitin' there, like we wuzn't no better'n the dirt under her feet.
'Lucy,' she says, and Ma and me heerd her when we wuz leavin' the yard,
'do you allow those tobacco people--those tenant people, to call on
you?'
"And another day she come down on the creek fishin'--her and them three
holy-terrer chillern o' hers, and they happened to throw in their lines
not fur from where me and Joey and little Katie wuz a fishin'. As soon
as she saw us she drawed in her line, and says: 'Come, children, less go
to a better place. I smell poor folks here!' Like poor people, ef they
have any pride about keepin' clean, smell any different from rich
folks!"
"I reckon now," remarked Jim, dryly, "sence she's broke up her husband,
so he had to quit his store and go to clerkin' in a meat-shop, she don't
have to go outside her own door to 'smell poor folks'!" Henrietty
laughed.
"You see how hit is, Mr. Lindsay; you can't put no dependence on Miss
Lucy's estimate o' people."
"And we oughtn't to blame her fer that," said Mr. Lindsay: "the charity
that 'thenks no evil' hain't so common in folks as to be a bad theng!
Miss Lucy, she's a Christian, ef there ever wuz one in Kentucky, I
reckon, and ef she wuz ever out o' humor I never knowed hit. But"--his
face darkened, and though his voice did not rise above its ordinary soft
murmur, there was a tremulous vibration in it that told that he was
fiercely moved--"she's mighty fooled in old Brock, ef she thenks he's
good!"
"Hit's her cousin, Sim Willis, that's a makin' 'em thenk that," broke in
Jim. "He considers Brock all right, because they both vote the same
ticket, I reckon, and he hain't caught on yit to Brock's night habits."
"Hit's a pity," continued Mr. Lindsay, "but what Miss Lucy knowed about
him a gittin' blind drunk in town a Christmas Eve, and a havin' to be
carried down to the cellar and laid there like a sack o' bran ontel
mornin'.
"I wuz in town a gittin' ready to start out, and Reub Brock, he come to
me, a beggin' me to please come and holp him carry his pappy sommers. I
didn't want to, but I felt sorry fer Reub--him a puffin' and a
wheezin'--tryin' to git the old dead drunk fool off the sidewalk to
where he wouldn't be run over er freeze, so I tuck holt, and we got him
down in the cellar! Made me plumb sick a handlin' him!"
"I'd jest tell Miss Lucy," suggested Jim. "What's the use in keepin'
back thengs a body ought to know?"
"I hain't never told hit to nobody, on account o' Reub and Evy,"
declared Mr. Lindsay. "Reub said, Christmas, 'Fer poor Mammy's sake, Mr.
Lindsay, don't tell on Pappy!' and I hain't up to this time.
"I been a keepin' back more'n that too. The Jameses always set sech
store by old Brock, and he wuzn't a pesterin' me, but--" he rose and
threw on his coat, a hot and angry red flushing his face--"but now I
despise the old snivellin' hypocrite! My mother always taught me the sin
o' fightin', and I have tried to live at peace with ever'body like she
taught me to, but ef I'd 'a' been brung up to wipe out them that needs a
wipin' out, there wouldn't be no trace of old Brock in this vicinity
long! And I'm a goin' to let Miss Lucy James know how her new beau's
been in the habit o' conductin' himse'f, ef hit's the last act o' my
life!"