"WEEP NO MORE, MY LADY"
"God's in His Heaven,
All's right with the world."
The opportunity for speaking to her father alone, for which Miss Lucy
watched all Sunday afternoon after Mr. Doggett's departure, did not
present itself until after supper. Then, while Miss Nancy remained in
the kitchen for her half-hour's cleaning--an occupation in which she
would brook no assistance--Miss Lucy, tremulously resolute, hastened to
broach a subject that meant much to her dress-loving soul.
"Pa," she murmured humbly, "you remember you helped Sister Isabindy, and
the others to git some nice clothes when they married: now, s'pose I was
to take a notion to marry, would you do the same by me?"
The old man frowned impatiently. "I thought I'd made hit plain to you,
Lucy Ann," he reminded her, "that ef you wuz to marry, I'd cut you out
o' my will!"
"I understood that, Pa," Miss Lucy explained with a look of pleading:
"but in case I was to git ready to marry, and would ask you to jest give
me a dollar or two to help pay for my dress, you'd say you would,
wouldn't you?"
Mr. James looked at her as though he had not heard her aright.
"What'd I say?" he jerked out, after a moment. "I'd say 'I shan't give
you nothin'.' Hain't I been a feedin' you longer'n I done any o' the
others?"
Miss Lucy thought of the thirty-five years of uncomplaining toil for the
household,--her portion since her young womanhood: her heart quivered
with the injustice of her father's words, but she bit her trembling lip
and went on: "Anyway, Pa, ef I was to marry, I could take old Blackie,
couldn't I?"
"Naw, you shouldn't take that cow! I need that cow."
"But she's mine, Pa," persisted Miss Lucy, "and you sold her yearlin'
calf last spring and I--I--never got none of the money."
"That don't make no difference," insisted her father, obstinately, "you
shouldn't have her!"
On Monday morning Miss Lucy went to town with the marketing, and came
back with a silver gray costume--a dress of soft veiling, a gray silk
turban, a pair of dainty laced shoes, and a depleted purse.
Miss Nancy sternly disapproved of her purchases.
"What on earth made you git 'em, Lucy Ann?" she asked. "Hit's awful
early to be gittin' a new dress and hat, even ef they was suitable fer
winter."
"Mr. Claine was a sellin' out his left over thengs at cost," replied
Miss Lucy, "and I thought I could wear 'em a good deal this fall, and
then have 'em ready for next spreng."
"What did you git _gray_ fer?" demanded Miss Nancy: "the idy of an old
theng like you a wearin' gray!"
An hour afterward, Miss Lucy sat in the sitting-room, hemming towels and
talking to her cousin, Simeon Willis, who had brought their mail from
the post-office: Mr. James was walking in the pasture field. Presently
Miss Nancy came hurriedly into the room.
"What you got your new dress and shoes, and hat, and parasol, and
ever'theng laid out on the company-room bed fer, Lucy, like you was
ready to start somewheres?" she queried, irritably. "Look's like you'd
know enough to put 'em away where they wouldn't ketch dust!"
"I'm a goin' to put 'em away after a while, Nancy," Miss Lucy flushed a
little as she met her sister's suspicious eyes: "I jest laid 'em out to
see how they looked. Any news, Simeon?" she asked to turn the subject.
"Nothin' much," replied Mr. Willis: "I saw Lindsay in town. He's a goin'
to raise a crop of tobacco next year for Archie Evans. Told me this
mornin' he wuz a goin' to move his thengs there tomorrow in Archie's
house the carpenter's have jest got done--a mighty fancy little house it
is for a tenant house, too--and keep bachelor's hall, ef he couldn't do
no better. He was buyin' a cook-stove and a bed-stid and some cheers and
thengs today."
Mr. Willis was not prepared for the result of this innocently imparted
information.
Without comment, Miss Lucy quitted the room, and picking up her egg
basket, scurried off to the hens' nest at the barn. Miss Nancy sat
recklessly back on the bed whose smoothness had hitherto never been
disturbed in the daytime, and throwing her apron over her head, burst
into passionate weeping. Mr. Willis gaped.
"What on earth is the matter with you, Nancy?"
Miss Nancy dropped the apron from her face and groaned dismally.
"I don't want to live--ef he--ef he--"
"Ef he, what?" demanded her cousin, impatiently.
"Marries!" screamed Miss Nancy. "Ef Lucy and him marries--I'm--I'm--a--a
goin' to take poison!"
Mr. Willis looked at her in astonishment. "Aw shucks, Nancy," he
remarked, putting on his hat, "jest save your pizen for the rats. Lucy
hain't a goin' to marry, and ef she wuz married, what worse off'd you
be, I'd like to know? Unless," he added, under his breath, "unless you
wanted her man yourse'f."
When Miss Lucy, ignorant of her sister's outburst, came back to count
her eggs into the brown-painted sugar-trough gourd in the sitting-room
closet, she expected Miss Nancy to say something about Mr. Lindsay, but
to her relief, a grumpy silence prevailed the rest of the afternoon.
"I reckon I won't have nothin' else to worry me between now and
bedtime," thought Miss Lucy. But her congratulations were premature.
After supper, at the sound of a troubled outcry, Miss Nancy looked up to
see Miss Lucy standing in the doorway, shaking nervously, her face
whiter than the kitchen wall.
"Nancy, have you been usin' some lye or somethin'?" She choked out the
question with difficulty.
"I doctered a chicken this mornin' while you was gone, with some
carbolic acid," answered Miss Nancy, "and I might 'a' left a few dregs
in the cup."
"Did you use the broke-handled teacup I wash my teeth in?" Miss Lucy's
voice rose to a wail. Miss Nancy reddened uncomfortably.
"I ain't certain but what I did," she acknowledged.
"O Nancy, whatever made you put hit back in the safe fer me to use?"
Miss Nancy hastened to get a cup of warm water and the glycerine bottle,
but she did not express much sorrow for the accident.
"There ain't no use in takin' on so, Lucy," she admonished her sister;
"looks like them few drops of carbolic mixed with water wouldn't hardly
burn your mouth, let alone poisonin' you."
"My mouth ain't burnt to hurt," quavered the tearful victim, "but I'm
afraid my lower teeth's ruined: I run the brush over them before I
tasted hit!"
Miss Lucy's first thought when the rain roused her from a troubled sleep
in the morning, was of her maltreated teeth. She felt of them with one
tentative forefinger. Four of them moved before her reluctant pressure.
"Ef hit hadn't 'a' happened jest _now_," she lamented: "but ever'theng
goes against me!"
"Nancy," she announced with unwonted determination, after their
breakfast, "I'm a goin' to town today, and see ef the dentist can do
anytheng for my teeth."
"'Twouldn't be no bad idy," admitted Miss Nancy, whose conscience, for
reasons known only to herself, had not been an easy one, for some hours:
"but whyn't you wait 'tel the soreness goes out of your mouth? Looks
like to me, most any day when 'tain't rainin' would do," she added, not
unkindly. Miss Lucy was not gifted at prevarication.
"I'm--I'm afraid some more of 'em might git loose ef I wait," she
explained lamely. "Don't you thenk, Nancy, hit's a lightenin' up some in
the east?"
Miss Nancy smiled grimly. "Ef you call a black cloud 'lightenin' up,'
hit's a lightenin' up!"
To Miss Lucy's great disappointment, dusk only brought a cessation of
the steady down-pour. To go to town in the rain was to invite both
illness and Miss Nancy's suspicions, and her care was to avoid these
calamities. She remained at home. After another sleepless night, Miss
Lucy rejoiced to see Wednesday morning dawn clear, and as soon as her
nervous hands could harness the big bay, she started to town.
But early as was Miss Lucy, there was on the road an earlier traveller
from the neighborhood of the Silver Run. Before she reached the turnpike
she overtook Dunaway, tramping along in the mud. She stopped old Ailsie
quickly.
"Mr. Bronston, won't you get in and ride?" she invited him. "There's
plenty of room, and I'd be glad of your company."
"Mr. Bronston" accepted her invitation with a smile, but as he climbed
gracefully in the buggy, he gave a deprecative wave of his hand: "These
everyday clothes of mine, which the mud compelled me to wear,"--he
indicated the short jeans pantaloons, and the long needle-pointers--"I
am afraid are not suitable to a lady's carriage, Miss James."
Mrs. Doggett, in the rush of cooking for Mr. Doggett's force of tobacco
cutters, had not been able to compass laundry work for the space of two
weeks: both the bondman's pairs of overalls were in an oppressively
dirty condition, and on this, the first day Mr. Doggett had allowed him
to go to town, he was compelled to resort to his "Sunday" clothes.
"Has Mr. Doggett got his tobacco all housed?" Miss Lucy inquired of him.
"Every stalk is hanging in the barn, else I could not have gotten off
today," he told her in pleasant mendacity. In reality, Mr. Doggett had
many days more of cutting, but there was no cutting to be done until the
rain had dried off the tobacco, and Dunaway had promised to be back in
time for the morrow's work.
Despite Miss Lucy's protestations, when they were about a quarter of a
mile from town, Dunaway insisted on alighting from the buggy, that she
might not be mortified in the town by having so clumsily garbed a
companion. He threw his bulky and evidently hastily-tied bundle over his
shoulder, thanked Miss Lucy effusively, and as she drove off tipped his
derby with grace. After driving a few hundred yards, Miss Lucy looked
back to remark the progress of "Mr. Bronston," but there was no longer
any such gentleman on the level stretch of "pike."
It was nine o'clock when she presented herself at the office of Doctor
Everett Bell.
"The four lower front teeth will certainly have to come out, Miss
James," he told her regretfully. Miss Lucy paled at this confirmation of
her fears.
"I thought maybe you could tighten 'em some way for me, so they'd stay
in a while," she faltered.
The dentist was young, sympathetic, accommodating and full of resource.
"I'll tell you what I'll do, Miss James," he said comfortingly, after a
half-moment's thought: "I'll tie them in with thread, so they'll stay in
a while, as they are."
"Will they stay in a week?" asked Miss Lucy, hopefully.
"Why, yes, three weeks," the young man assured her: "then come back to
me."
A dance would better have suited Miss Lucy's feelings when she left Dr.
Bell's office, than the decorous walk to which she held her feet. In her
relief and happiness, she lingered an hour in town talking to her
acquaintances in the dry goods stores, and when, on getting into her
buggy, she was accosted by a black-veiled Sister of Charity, soliciting
aid for the Italian families suffering from an epidemic of typhoid
fever, in a mountain railroad town, her last twenty-five cents went into
the woman's black glove.
She reached home, jaded but joyous, near one o'clock. Miss Nancy met her
with a lowering brow.
"Now you're back from town at last, Lucy, you can light to and help me a
little," she informed Miss Lucy coming in from taking the horse to the
barn.
"I'm so tired, Nancy, I 'lowed to rest some this evenin'."
Miss Nancy's face stiffened. "Sunday jest gone, and you a talkin' about
restin' a weekday evenin'!" she derided. "Old body, you jest git to
work, and rake and clean up them leaves the wind's scattered over the
front yard, and when you git done that you jest heat some water and make
suds and wash them fall fly specks off the settin'-room winders, and the
glass in the door o' the press."
Miss Lucy looked after her sister in dismay. "I'm afraid she's found out
somethin'," she said to herself: "anyway she's mad, and ef I don't help
her, she'll thenk I'm a restin' up fer somethin'. Ef she had jest only
took a cleanin' up spell some other day!"
But there was no help for it. Miss Lucy put her aching feet in a pair of
old carpet slippers, and wearily struggled through her allotted tasks.
With an aching back, she milked the cows in the dusk, and after a
pretense at eating supper, at six o'clock crept into bed in her room off
the sitting-room.
At eight o'clock, she woke with a start of remembrance. Rising hastily,
she threw on a wrapper, and peeped cautiously into the sitting-room,
where her father slept. The old man breathed deeply. With a velvet
touch, she opened the door at the foot of the stairs that led up to Miss
Nancy's bedroom, and with a mighty sigh of thankfulness, listened to the
slow even breathing which proclaimed that Miss Nancy had been asleep at
least an hour.
Miss Nancy never permitted but two lamps to be filled with oil: one of
these was in her room, the other on the sitting-room table by Mr. James'
bed. Miss Lucy, however, had a private illuminator of her own, a
purchase of the morning.
She lighted her candle, and packed her trunk and a large valise with the
contents of her bureau drawers. The trunk, she locked; the valise, and a
little covered basket she carried noiselessly out to the drive and set
by one of the great poplars, carefully covering the basket with an old
rug. This done, she mounted the hall stairway to the company bedroom,
and began hurriedly to dress herself in the new clothes. She threw off
the carpet slippers, and reached under the breadths of the silver gray
skirt for her new shoes. They were not there, neither in the bureau
drawers, nor the closet,--nowhere in the room. In distressed wonder, she
went down stairs, and made a thorough search of her bedroom: but, to her
consternation, they were not there, and the second-best shoes she had
worn to town, and even her rough "everyday" shoes were gone!
"Nancy must have hid 'em!" thought Miss Lucy, sitting weakly on the side
of her bed, "and what _will_ I do?"
Tears sprang to her eyes, but she wiped them away and resuming the
carpet slippers, clothed herself in the new dress and hat, extinguished
her candle, and sat silent in the darkness by the window, listening
eagerly. The room was chilly, but her cheeks burnt with the flush of
excitement, and her hands were feverishly warm.
At half-past ten, the end of a long fishing-pole tapped on the window.
In answer to this summons, Miss Lucy groped her way downstairs and out
into the yard. It was very dark, for there was no moon. A long hand shot
out from the darkness and caught her shaking arm, and a hoarsely
whispered drawl assured her cheerfully:
"He's a waitin'--a waitin' in a buggy right down at the road, Miss Lucy,
and he sent me to fetch you. He wanted to come to the house to git you
hisse'f, but he's got a raisin' on his heel a tack made, and I told him
hit wuzn't no use to irrigate hit walkin' in them new shoes any more'n
was necessary. He's a wearin' patent leathers, and they're powerful
drawin' on a sore foot. I told him he ortn't to 'a' got that kind o'
shoes, but he 'lowed he wanted to honor you by wearin' what other
bridegrooms wears!"
"I've got to git my valise, and basket, Mr. Doggett," whispered Miss
Lucy at the gate.
"You jest hang on to my arm, Miss Lucy!" Mr. Doggett gathered up the
articles with a sweep of his right arm. "I'll 'tend to them satchels!"
A few hurried steps brought them to the road. A hasty head was poked
from the waiting buggy, and a questioning face shone in the light of a
lantern.
"Here she is, Mr. Lindsay! Here's your lady!" cried Mr. Doggett, in soft
reassurance, setting down his burdens to adjust the buggy's top.
As Mr. Lindsay stepped out, his foot struck the covered basket. The lid
flew open: there was a scared spitting, and with a loud "miaouw," the
occupant of the basket extricated itself, ran a dozen yards up the road,
and climbed wildly upon the stone fence which bordered one side of the
highway.
"Well I do say!" Mr. Doggett's eyes widened to their utmost. "I didn't
know you had a cat in thar, Miss Lucy! I 'lowed maybe hit wuz a Cubiun
parrit!"
"O Nathan," faltered Miss Lucy, apologetically, "hit's the kitty you
give me, and I was afraid Nancy might--might kill her, ef I didn't take
her with me!"
"All right," Mr. Lindsay smiled cheerfully: "I hain't never heerd o' no
cats goin' to a weddin' before to be saved from execution, but ef Uncle
Eph and me together can ketch her, she can go!"
He crept cautiously up to the fence, and put out a propitiating hand.
Kitty was not to be propitiated, but bounced down, and fled farther up
the road, where she paused, a white spot in the darkness.
"Jest git in, Mr. Lindsay," advised Mr. Doggett, "and drive erlong ontel
you git most to her, and Miss Lucy can sorter talk to her a leetle, and
maybe git her to come to the buggy."
Mr. Doggett's advice proved good. This time, kitty, lured by the call of
her mistress, allowed herself to be caught and replaced in her
travelling-cage.
"Bein's hit's so muddy, I'll jest walk to the pike," announced Mr.
Doggett, when the basket was safely stowed under the seat, "I'm afeerd
ef I wuz to git in now, hit might delay us some. Big Money, he hain't
lazy, but I have sometimes knowed him to take a notion to _bear easy on
a cold collar_."
"Better let me do the walkin', Uncle Eph," protested Mr. Lindsay: "we
don't aim to let you make a plumb dog of yourse'f fer us."
"Now, Mr. Lindsay," expostulated Mr. Doggett, "you hain't a talkin' o'
pullin' through the mud on that foot!"
"I fergot my plagued foot."
"Listen to him, Miss Lucy," chuckled Mr. Doggett. "Fergot a ready when
he got with you, and all the way up here, he wuz a frettin' over that
foot! I told him thar wuzn't nothin' so bad but what hit might be wuss!
I knowed a man that had a raisin' come in his _jaw_ the day of his
weddin': he couldn't open his mouth, and the weddin' had to be put off!"
"Ain't he good to us, Nathan?" murmured Miss Lucy, from behind the thick
barege veil she had tied over the bridal hat to protect it from the
night dampness, as Mr. Doggett strode ahead with the lantern.
"Whose buggy did you git?" she asked after a moment.
Mr. Lindsay smiled wickedly in the darkness. "_I_ never got no
buggy--Uncle Eph--he got hit. This is Mrs. Doggett's new buggy she got
last week with her hogs (Johnny Leeds ordered hit fer her cheap), and
hit hain't been rid in before. She tuck some of her butter'n-aig money
and bought tarred paper to make a roof over hit, she's so choice of
hit."
Miss Lucy gasped. "Hit's a wonder she'd a loaned hit!"
The darkness again hid a grin, a still more wicked one.
"She _never_ loaned hit. Uncle Eph slipped hit out after her office
hours--I mean after she was asleep."
Miss Lucy looked uneasy. "Do you thenk hit's right fer us to be a ridin'
in hit?"
"Don't give yourse'f no worry about that, my dear," said Mr. Lindsay
calmly: "she owes you that much on her account of stealin' your letter
out of my Bible Sunday week."
At the juncture of the dirt road with the turnpike, Mr. Doggett cleaned
his boots carefully, climbed into the buggy, and shutting himself up
like a jackknife, with his knees touching his breast, seated himself on
the floor of the vehicle on a small box he drew from under the seat.
"I'm afraid you ain't comfortable, Mr. Doggett," Miss Lucy protested.
"S'pose'n you let me set on the box, Uncle Eph," proposed Mr. Lindsay:
"I take up some less room than you."
"Keep your seat, Mr. Lindsay," insisted Mr. Doggett, gathering up the
reins: "this buggy top wuzn't built fer a man o' my height, and I do
better on the floor whar I can fold myse'f three times."
"Hain't hit a gittin' _dark_!" murmured Miss Lucy fearfully, as the few
stars disappeared in a black cloud: "somebody might run into us on the
pike."
"Hit's a comin' up a rain after a leetle," remarked Mr. Doggett: "but
don't you git oneasy, Miss Lucy: this here huntin' lantern Mr. Lindsay
borryed from Archie Evans, helt in front o' a buggy'll make t'other
feller on wheels thenk he's a meetin' a ottermobill', and he'll hug
t'other side the road. Now, Big Money, git 'long towards town!"
"Big Money done mighty well over that mud we jest passed," complimented
Mr. Lindsay.
Mr. Doggett's face beamed. "Now hain't he turned out well to be a
swapped-for plug? I'm a purty good jedge o' hosses, yes, sir! Anybody
can fool Lem with any old plug, ef hit's jest fat enough, but I can't be
fooled much. Marshall, he said when he seed the false tail they had tied
on this un come off jest after I left town the Court day I got
him--'Pap,' he said, 'you've got cheated! You'll have to sell that hoss
fer a song and seng hit yourse'f!' But old Big Money, he's turned out to
be a right peert old nag, yes, sir, a right peert old nag!"
"We wouldn't be puttin' you to all this trouble, Mr. Doggett," regretted
Miss Lucy, presently, "ef Brother Avery hadn't moved to Lexington."
"Hit hain't no trouble," protested Mr. Doggett, covertly feeling of one
knee to assure himself that it was not paralyzed--"I'm injoyin' hit!"
"Whar are you goin' from Lexington?" he asked when he had, by a gentle
wriggle, slightly eased his position.
"We're a talkin' of goin' to visit Mr. Lindsay's nephew: hit's in
Owensboro, ain't hit, where he lives?" Miss Lucy turned to Mr. Lindsay.
"Goin' to Owensboro, I reckon," answered the bridegroom, a perceptible
touch of sarcasm in his tone, "to see that wife and family some the good
people o' this neighborhood has saddled on to me!"
Had there been sufficient light to distinguish facial tints, it would
have been observed that a shamed color sat upon Mr. Doggett's
countenance.
"Now, Mr. Lindsay," he petitioned the unforgiving gentleman, "don't hold
that ag'in the old lady. She don't mean fer truth much over a quarter o'
what comes out'n her mouth. Me and her gits along mighty well, though,
considerin'. They say a man and his wife orter be _one_, and fer all
people passin' our house sometimes might thenk instid o' me and her
bein' one, we wuz half a dozen, we are _one_, and she's the one."
"Why, Mr. Doggett," exclaimed Miss Lucy, "Mrs. Doggett thenks the world
of you!"
"Yes, sir, Miss Lucy, although she hain't as foolish over me as a old
lady I used to know over in Bourbon. This old lady wouldn't let _her_
husband out'n her sight, and when their spreng went dry one summer, and
they had to go a mile to git water, he used to carry a bucket o' water
on hossback on his head, and she'd be a settin' behind him on the hoss.
The fust time my old lady saw 'em a doin' that, she says to me, 'Eph
Doggett, a body never lives to be too old to learn--look, I've learned
_that_!'"
As the lights of town met the travellers, Miss Lucy, who had for many
minutes been trying to muster up courage to tell of her shoeless
condition, burst out desperately: "O Nathan, I ain't got on no shoes!
Mine got--got _misplaced_ tonight, ever' pair, while I was takin' a nap,
and I--I--ain't got on nothin' but a pair of carpet slippers!"
She did not add that they were a home-made pair, fashioned by Miss Nancy
out of an ancient and moth-eaten carpet satchel.
"The dry goods stores, I'm afeerd, are all closed now," remarked Mr.
Lindsay: "maybe you can sorter hide your feet under your skirts, until
we git to Lexington," he added encouragingly.
"I'll tell you what," suggested Mr. Doggett, "I seed some women's shoes
in Johnny Leeds' grocery store a leetle while back. Johnny he tole me
his boss keeps 'em to give fer prizes when a body's bought thirty
dollars wuth. Johnny, he sets up night' aver' night, 'tel twelve, and
I'll jest git him to onlock the store and fetch Miss Lucy out a pair o'
them!"
"You jest hold the hoss, Mr. Lindsay." Mr. Doggett drew Big Money to a
standstill beside the depot platform. "I'll jest clip around to Johnny's
and be back inside o' ten minutes!"
It was not until the ten minutes had lengthened themselves to
twenty-five, however, and the train was whistling at the first crossing,
that Mr. Doggett, his whiskers cutting the air like whips, and his
blowing rivalling the incoming engine's, reappeared, to find Mr. Lindsay
and Miss James, standing beside the buggy in a high state of nervous
tension.
"Johnny," panted Mr. Doggett, "Johnny, he wuz in bed, but I h'isted him,
and we tore to the store, and," he thrust a slackly-tied
newspaper-wrapped bundle in Miss Lucy's trembling hands,--"here them
shoes is, Miss Lucy! You'll have to put 'em on after you git on the
cars!"
Miss Lucy clutched the knobby bundle thankfully. "O Mr. Doggett," she
cried with shining eyes, "I can't never pay you for what you've done for
me!"
"We'll never fergit you in the world, Uncle Eph, fer this night's work
fer us," declared Mr. Lindsay fervently, as he wrung Mr. Doggett's hand,
"and week after next, ef you'll say the word, I'm a goin' to cut the
stovewood, and she's a goin' to cook a big dinner fer you in our house!"
"I'll be thar," promised Mr. Doggett, as Mr. Lindsay, bearing the
valise, quickly drew Miss Lucy, holding fast to the handle of the cat's
basket, and to the strings of the bundle to the steps of the rear coach.
"Ef ever you git in a tight place in your terbaccer, Mr. Lindsay, you
know who to send fer. Teck keer yourselves, and good luck go with you
ferever and ever!"
Mr. Doggett turned to a tall lady in a black dress and flowing veil, the
only other passenger to take the midnight train.
"Can I holp you to git on, Ma'am?" he asked her deferentially. The
Sister of Charity for it was she, laid her black-gloved hand in his, as
he started down the steps.
"May God be with you, brother," she wished him devoutly, "and prosper
you in your life of toil!"
When the train had thundered over ten miles of ties, Miss Lucy,
hesitating and blushing, unwrapped the Johnny Leeds shoes.
Mr. Lindsay considerately walked to the water cooler in the opposite end
of the coach, and after getting a drink, sat down on the seat behind it,
that his intended bride might change her shoes without embarrassment. He
found himself facing the Sister of Charity.
"It's beginning to rain. Had you observed it, sir?" the Sister said to
him, presently.
"I hain't surprized," he answered her: "the clouds have been comin' up
fer a rain fer about two hours. Seems like I've seen you before, ma'am,
somewhere: your voice is familiar," he added, looking at her quickly and
sharply.
The Sister deliberately winked at him. An amused light of recognition
came into his eyes: she saw it and bent toward him, whispering: "When
the mouse slips out of the trap, you're never the man to set the cat on
his trail, are you, Mr. Lindsay?"
"Not I," Mr. Lindsay whispered back, a precaution which seemed wholly
unnecessary, since Miss Lucy, at the far end of the car, was busy over
her shoes, and the other two passengers, weary long-distance travellers,
their soft hats shading their faces, slept heavily. "I hain't blamin'
you fer wantin' to git away from the terbaccer patch jest now!"
"You'd be less than human, if you did! God, man, what do they raise it
for? The world, and myself with it, would quit chewin' tomorrow, if I
had to raise its tobacco and mine. Mr. Long-beard assured me this
morning, we'd have less than eight more days of it, but _one_ more day
in that hell's vestibule would have been my finish, and I preferred
ignominious flight to pauper burial!"
"So I see," grinned Mr. Lindsay, with his eyes on the kid buttoned
woman's shoe that protruded from the Sister's black skirts: "but where'd
you git them church clothes, Dunaway?"
Mr. Dunaway indulged in another wink. "In the closet of an upstairs
bedroom not a thousand miles from Chicago," he cited oracularly, "there
were wont to hung the black garments of a mother, in mourning for a
daughter whose last name was not _Block_. They no longer hang there!"
Mr. Lindsay's restrained laugh expressed both understanding and
enjoyment.
"But the funds--the travelling funds?" he persisted.
Dunaway grinned cheerfully. "I once knew a Sister of Charity, in one day
of soliciting aid for a town of fever-stricken dagoes (Italian workmen,
I should say), to collect enough, had it been applied to such a purpose,
to buy a ticket to Los Angeles."
"When'll the mournin' rig quit hit's travels?" chuckled Mr. Lindsay.
"'I could exscribe him over the tillephorm, and he wouldn't hev no
chance a runnin'!'" quoted Dunaway, irrelevantly. "Say, Mr. Lindsay, how
far is it from here to Kansas City? The telephone service doesn't claim
to be good over eight hundred miles, I believe."
"No, hit don't," Mr. Lindsay answered him, "although hit won't be
necessary to go as a lady more'n a tenth that fur. But you hain't a
goin' to throw them cothes away, are you? _I've_ got a right to hold a
grudge agi'n her, ef anybody has, but I hain't a holdin' hit fur enough
to want to see her lose her wearin' thengs. The poor theng has to work
so hard for what few she has, and never sees a cent o' the terbaccer
money fer clothes. What's ag'in expressin' 'em back to her, onct you git
on male togs, Sister?"
"Nothing!" Dunaway assured him. "How much are you willing to contribute
toward the good cause (of express charges), my brother?"
Mr. Lindsay laid fifty cents in the palm of Mrs. Doggett's black glove.
"Be shore you send 'em, Dunaway," he whispered: "I've got to go back to
her; she'll be a wonderin'."
A flicker of uneasiness passed over Dunaway's face, and the ghost of an
expression of shame came into his eyes. "You'll not tell her," he
petitioned: "I'm a true Catholic Sister to _her_! She gave me a quarter
this morning, besides--"
"Do you thenk I haven't got any gratitude in me, Dunaway, after all
you've done fer us, that I couldn't do a turn fer you?" rebuked Mr.
Lindsay. "I give you my word, she'll never know from _me_!"
"Who was that lady in mournin' you was a talkin' to, Nathan?" inquired
Miss Lucy, when Mr. Lindsay had resumed his seat beside her: "she makes
me thenk of a Sister of Charity I saw on the street today."
"Hit's the same person," answered Mr. Lindsay: "he--she was a tellin' me
about them sick Italians, she'd been a collectin' fer."
"I wisht you'd 'a' give her a little money, Nathan, ef you'd thought of
hit, to help those poor folks."
"I give her fifty cents: hit certainly was fer a good cause," responded
Mr. Lindsay.
"Ain't hit pleasin' to our Maker to be livin' sech a saintly life?"
whispered Miss Lucy, a little wistfully: "a body don't never have to
deceive ner nothin'. I believe, ef I hadn't seen you, Nathan, I'd love
to have been a nun or somethin'. They're always so good."
"I am glad you ain't one, Lucy," murmured Mr. Lindsay, letting the arm
he had extended along the back of the seat, drop gently down in a more
comfortable position: "you're good enough for me!"
When Mr. Doggett ceased staring after the outgoing train, the rain was
falling on him and dampening the splendors of the sow-and-pig purchased
buggy: there lay before him the long homeward drive, and the dreary
prospect of working until dawn, that the buggy might be washed clean,
and mounted on its pedestal once more, before the awakening of the "old
lady." But nothing could mar his serenity of mind, nor take the sunshine
of rejoicing for his friends' happiness out of his heart.
"Mr Lindsay's sore heel'll pester him some when he goes to step out fer
the saremony," he mused, as he drove through the silent streets. "Miss
Lucy's teeth won't stay tied in but a week er so: Johnny Leeds' prize
shoes is sorter slazy and ill-fittin': the old man'll ondoubtedly cut
her out of his will, and, although I'm mighty hoped up about terbaccer
prices a goin' up reasonable, a body can't tell. But a body can't have
ever'theng like they want hit in this world, and they've got a heap to
be thankful fer, _anyhow_!"