I
The yellow March sun lay powerfully on the bare Iowa prairie, where the
ploughed fields were already turning warm and brown, and only here and
there in a corner or on the north side of the fence did the sullen
drifts remain, and they were so dark and low that they hardly appeared
to break the mellow brown of the fields.
There passed also an occasional flock of geese, cheerful harbingers of
spring, and the prairie-chickens had set up their morning symphony,
wide-swelling, wonderful with its prophecy of the new birth of grass and
grain and the springing life of all breathing things. The crow passed
now and then, uttering his resonant croak, but the crane had not yet
sent forth his bugle note.
Lyman Gilman rested on his axe-helve at the woodpile of Farmer Bacon to
listen to the music around him. In a vague way he was powerfully moved
by it. He heard the hens singing their weird, raucous, monotonous song,
and saw them burrowing in the dry chip-dust near him. He saw the young
colts and cattle frisking in the sunny space around the straw-stacks,
absorbed through his bare arms and uncovered head the heat of the sun,
and felt the soft wooing of the air so deeply that he broke into an
unwonted exclamation:--
"Glory! we'll be seeding by Friday, sure."
This short and disappointing soliloquy was, after all, an expression of
deep emotion. To the Western farmer the very word "seeding" is a poem.
And these few words, coming from Lyman Gilman, meant more and expressed
more than many a large and ambitious springtime song.
But the glory of all the slumbrous landscape, the stately beauty of the
sky with its masses of fleecy vapor, were swept away by the sound of a
girl's voice humming, "Come to the Saviour," while she bustled about the
kitchen near by. The windows were open. Ah! what suggestion to these
dwellers in a rigorous climate was in the first unsealing of the
windows! How sweet it was to the pale and weary women after their long
imprisonment!
As Lyman sat down on his maple log to hear better, a plump face appeared
at the window, and a clear, girl-voice said:--
"Smell anything, Lime?"
He snuffed the air. "Cookies, by the great horn spoons!" he yelled,
leaping up. "Bring me some, an' see me eat; it'll do ye good."
"Come an' get 'm," laughed the face at the window.
"Oh, it's nicer out here, Merry Etty. What's the rush? Bring me out
some, an' set down on this log."
With a nod Marietta disappeared, and soon came out with a plate of
cookies in one hand and a cup of milk in the other.
"Poor little man, he's all tired out, ain't he?"
Lime, taking the cue, collapsed in a heap, and said feebly, "Bread,
bread!"
"Won't milk an' cookies do as well?"
He brushed off the log and motioned her to sit down beside him, but she
hesitated a little and colored a little.
"Oh, Lime, s'pose somebody should see us?"
"Let 'em. What in thunder do we care? Sit down an' gimme a holt o' them
cakes. I'm just about done up. I couldn't 'a' stood it another minute."
She sat down beside him with a laugh and a pretty blush. She was in her
apron, and the sleeves of her dress were rolled to her elbows,
displaying the strong, round arms. Wholesome and sweet she looked and
smelled, the scent of the cooking round her. Lyman munched a couple of
the cookies and gulped a pint of milk before he spoke.
"Whadda we care who sees us sittin' side b' side? Ain't we goin' t' be
married soon?"
"Oh, them cookies in the oven!" she shrieked, leaping up and running to
the house. She looked back as she reached the kitchen door, however, and
smiled with a flushed face. Lime slapped his knee and roared with
laughter at his bold stroke.
"Ho! ho!" he laughed. "Didn't I do it slick? Ain't nothin' green in _my_
eye, I guess." In an intense and pleasurable abstraction he finished the
cookies and the milk. Then he yelled:--
"Hey! Merry--Merry Etty!"
"Whadda ye want?" sang the girl from the window, her face still rosy
with confusion.
"Come out here and git these things."
The girl shook her head, with a laugh.
"Come out an' git 'm, 'r, by jingo, I'll throw 'em at ye! Come on, now!"
The girl looked at the huge, handsome fellow, the sun falling on his
golden hair and beard, and came slowly out to him--came creeping along
with her hand outstretched for the plate which Lime, with a laugh in his
sunny blue eyes, extended at the full length of his bare arm. The girl
made a snatch at it, but his left hand caught her by the wrist, and away
went cup and plate as he drew her to him and kissed her in spite of her
struggles.
"My! ain't you strong!" she said, half ruefully and half admiringly, as
she shrugged her shoulders. "If you'd use a little more o' _that_
choppin' wood, Dad wouldn't 'a' lost s' much money by yeh."
Lime grew grave.
"There's the hog in the fence, Merry; what's yer dad goin' t' say--"
"About what?"
"About our gitt'n married this spring."
"I guess you'd better find out what _I'm_ a-goin' t' say, Lime Gilman,
'fore you pitch into Dad."
"I _know_ what you're a-goin' t' say."
"No, y' don't."
"Yes, but I _do_, though."
"Well, ask me, and see, if you think you're so smart. Jest as like 's
not, you'll slip up."
"All right; here goes. Marietty Bacon, ain't you an' Lime Gilman goin'
t' be married?"
"No, sir, we ain't," laughed the girl, snatching up the plate and
darting away to the house, where she struck up "Weevily Wheat," and went
busily on about her cooking. Lime threw a kiss at her, and fell to work
on his log with startling energy.
Lyman looked forward to his interview with the old man with as much
trepidation as he had ever known, though commonly he had little fear of
anything--but a girl.
Marietta was not only the old man's only child, but his housekeeper, his
wife having at last succumbed to the ferocious toil of the farm. It was
reasonable to suppose, therefore, that he would surrender his claim on
the girl reluctantly. Rough as he was, he loved Marietta strongly, and
would find it exceedingly hard to get along without her.
Lyman mused on these things as he drove the gleaming axe into the huge
maple logs. He was something more than the usual hired man, being a
lumberman from the Wisconsin pineries, where he had sold out his
interest in a camp not three weeks before the day he began work for
Bacon. He had a nice "little wad o' money" when he left the camp and
started for La Crosse, but he had been robbed in his hotel the first
night in the city, and was left nearly penniless. It was a great blow to
him, for, as he said, every cent of that money "stood fer hard knocks
an' poor feed. When I smelt of it I could jest see the cold, frosty
mornin's and the late nights. I could feel the hot sun on my back like
it was when I worked in the harvest-field. By jingo! It kind o' made my
toes curl up."
But he went resolutely out to work again, and here he was chopping wood
in old man Bacon's yard, thinking busily on the talk which had just
passed between Marietta and himself.
"By jingo!" he said all at once, stopping short, with the axe on his
shoulder. "If I hadn't 'a' been robbed I wouldn't 'a' come here--I
never'd met Merry. Thunder and jimson root! Wasn't that a narrow
escape?"
And then he laughed so heartily that the girl looked out of the window
again to see what in the world he was doing. He had his hat in his hand
and was whacking his thigh with it.
"Lyman Gilman, what in the world ails you to-day? It's perfectly
ridiculous the way you yell and talk t' y'rself out there on the chips.
You beat the hens, I declare if you don't."
Lime put on his hat and walked up to the window, and, resting his great
bare arms on the sill, and his chin on his arms, said:--
"Merry, I'm goin' to tackle 'Dad' this afternoon. He'll be sittin' up
the new seeder, and I'm goin' t' climb right on the back of his neck.
He's jest _got_ t' give me a chance."
Marietta looked sober in sympathy.
"Well! P'raps it's best to have it over with, Lime, but someway I feel
kind o' scary about it."
Lime stood for a long time looking in at the window, watching the
light-footed girl as she set the table in the middle of the sun-lighted
kitchen floor. The kettle hissed, the meat sizzled, sending up a
delicious odor; a hen stood in the open door and sang a sort of cheery
half-human song, while to and fro moved the sweet-faced, lithe, and
powerful girl, followed by the smiling eyes at the window.
"Merry, you look purty as a picture. You look just like the wife I be'n
a-huntin' for all these years, sure's shootin'."
Marietta colored with pleasure.
"Does Dad pay you to stand an' look at me an' say pretty things t' the
cook?"
"No, he don't. But I'm willin' t' do it without pay. I could just stand
here till kingdom come an' look at you. Hello! I hear a wagon. I guess I
better hump into that woodpile."
"I think so too. Dinner's most ready, and Dad 'll be here soon."
Lime was driving away furiously at a tough elm log when Farmer Bacon
drove into the yard with a new seeder in his wagon. Lime whacked away
busily while Bacon stabled the team, and in a short time Marietta
called, in a long-drawn, musical fashion:--
"Dinner-r-r!"
After sozzling their faces at the well the two men went in and sat down
at the table. Bacon was not much of a talker at any time, and at
meal-time, in seeding, eating was the main business in hand; therefore
the meal was a silent one, Marietta and Lime not caring to talk on
general topics. The hour was an anxious one for her, and an important
one for him.
"Wal, now, Lime, seedun' 's the nex' thing," said Bacon, as he shoved
back his chair and glared around from under his bushy eyebrows. "We
can't do too much this afternoon. That seeder's got t' be set up an' a
lot o' seed-wheat cleaned up. You unload the machine while I feed the
pigs."
Lime sat still till the old man was heard outside calling "Oo-ee,
poo-ee" to the pigs in the yard; then he smiled at Marietta, but she
said:--
"He's got on one of his fits, Lime; I don't b'lieve you'd better tackle
him t'-day."
"Don't you worry; I'll fix him. Come, now, give me a kiss."
"Why, you great thing! You--took--"
"I know, but I want you to _give_ 'em to me. Just walk right up to me
an' give me a smack t' bind the bargain."
"I ain't made any bargain," laughed the girl. Then, feeling the force of
his tender tone, she added: "Will you behave, and go right off to your
work?"
"Jest like a little man--hope t' die!"
"_Lime!_" roared the old man from the barn.
"Hello!" replied Lime, grinning joyously and winking at the girl, as
much as to say, "This would paralyze the old man if he saw it."
He went out to the shed where Bacon was at work, as serene as if he had
not a fearful task on hand. He was apprehensive that the father might
"gig back" unless rightly approached, and so he awaited a good
opportunity.
The right moment seemed to present itself along about the middle of the
afternoon. Bacon was down on the ground under the machine, tightening
some burrs. This was a good chance for two reasons. In the first place,
the keen, almost savage eyes were no longer where they could glare on
him, and in spite of his cool exterior Lime had just as soon not have
the old man looking at him.
Besides, the old farmer had been telling about his "river eighty," which
was without a tenant; the man who had taken it, having lost his wife,
had grown disheartened and had given it up.
"It's an almighty good chance for a man with a small family. Good house
an' barn, good land. A likely young feller with a team an' a woman could
do tiptop on that eighty. If he wanted more, I'd let him have an eighty
j'inun'--"
"I'd like t' try that m'self," said Lime, as a feeler. The old fellow
said nothing in reply for a moment.
"Ef you had a team an' tools an' a woman, I'd jest as lief you'd have it
as anybody."
"Sell me your blacks, and I'll pay half down--the balance in the fall. I
can pick up some tools, and as for a woman, Merry Etty an' me have
talked that over to-day. She's ready to--ready to marry me whenever you
say go."
There was an ominous silence under the seeder, as if the father could
not believe his ears.
"What's--what's that!" he stuttered. "Who'd you say? What about Merry
Etty?"
"She's agreed to marry me."
"The hell you say!" roared Bacon, as the truth burst upon him. "So
that's what you do when I go off to town and leave you to chop wood. So
you're goun' to git married, hey?"
He was now where Lime could see him, glaring up into his smiling blue
eyes. Lime stood his ground.
"Yes, sir. That's the calculation."
"Well, I guess I'll have somethin' t' say about that," said Bacon,
nodding his head violently.
"I rather expected y' would. Blaze away. Your privilege--my bad luck.
Sail in ol' man. What's y'r objection to me fer a son-in-law?"
"Don't you worry, young feller. I'll come at it soon enough," went on
Bacon, as he turned up another burr in a very awkward corner. In his
nervous excitement the wrench slipped, banging his knuckle.
"Ouch! Thunder--m-m-m!" howled and snarled the wounded man.
"What's the matter? Bark y'r knuckle?" queried Lime, feeling a mighty
impulse to laugh. But when he saw the old savage straighten up and glare
at him he sobered. Bacon was now in a frightful temper. The veins in his
great, bare, weather-beaten neck swelled dangerously.
"Jest let me say right here that I've had enough o' you. You can't live
on the same acre with my girl another day."
"What makes ye think I can't?" It was now the young man's turn to draw
himself up, and as he faced the old man, his arms folded and each vast
hand grasping an elbow, he looked like a statue of red granite, and the
hands resembled the paws of a crouching lion; but his eyes smiled.
"I don't _think_, I know ye won't."
"What's the objection to me?"
"Objection? Hell! What's the inducement? My hired man, an' not three
shirts to yer back!"
"That's another; I've got four. Say, old man, did you ever work out for
a living?"
"That's none o' your business," growled Bacon a little taken down. "I've
worked an' scraped, an' got t'gether a little prop'ty here, an' they
ain't no sucker like you goun' to come 'long here, an' live off me, an'
spend my prop'ty after I'm dead. You can jest bet high on that."
"Who's goin' t' live on ye?"
"You're aimun' to."
"I ain't, neither."
"Yes, y'are. You've loafed on me ever since I hired ye."
"That's a--" Lime checked himself for Marietta's sake, and the enraged
father went on:--
"I hired ye t' cut wood, an' you've gone an' fooled my daughter away
from me. Now you just figger up what I owe ye, and git out o' here. Ye
can't go too soon t' suit _me_."
Bacon was renowned as the hardest man to handle in Cedar County, and
though he was getting old, he was still a terror to his neighbors when
roused. He was honest, temperate, and a good neighbor until something
carried him off his balance; then he became as cruel as a panther and as
savage as a grisly. All this Lime knew, but it did not keep his anger
down so much as did the thought of Marietta. His silence infuriated
Bacon, who yelled hoarsely:--
"Git out o' this!"
"Don't be in a rush, ol' man--"
Bacon hurled himself upon Lime, who threw out one hand and stopped him,
while he said in a low voice:--
"Stay right where you are, ol' man. I'm dangerous. It's for Merry's
sake--"
The infuriated old man struck at him. Lime warded off the blow, and with
a sudden wrench and twist threw him to the ground with frightful force.
Before Bacon could rise, Marietta, who had witnessed the scene, came
flying from the house.
"Lime! Father! What are you doing?"
"I--couldn't help it, Merry. It was him 'r me," said Lime, almost sadly.
"Dad, ain't you got no sense? What 're you thinking of? You jest stop
right now. I won't have it."
He rose while she clung to him; he seemed a little dazed. It was the
first time he had ever been thrown, and he could not but feel a certain
respect for his opponent, but he could not give way.
"Pack up yer duds," he snarled, "an' git off'n my land. I'll have the
money fer ye when ye come back. I'll give ye jest five minutes to git
clear o' here. Merry, you stay here."
The young man saw it was useless to remain, as it would only excite the
old man; and so, with a look of apology, not without humor, at Marietta,
he went to the house to get his valise. The girl wept silently while the
father raged up and down. His mood frightened her.
"I thought ye had more sense than t' take up with such a dirty houn'."
"He ain't a houn'," she blazed forth, "and he's just as good and clean
as you are."
"Shut up! Don't let me hear another word out o' your head. I'm boss here
yet, I reckon."
Lime came out with his valise in his hand.
"Good-by, Merry," he said cheerily. She started to go to him, but her
father's rough grasp held her.
"Set _down_, an' stay there."
Lime was going out of the gate.
"Here! Come and get y'r money," yelled the old man, extending some
bills. "Here's twenty--"
"Go to thunder with your money," retorted Lime. "I've had my pay for my
month's work." As he said that, he thought of the sunny kitchen and the
merry girl, and his throat choked. Good-by to the sweet girl whose smile
was so much to him, and to the happy noons and nights her eyes had made
for him. He waved his hat at her as he stood in the open gate, and the
sun lighted his handsome head into a sort of glory in her eyes. Then he
turned and walked rapidly off down the road, not looking back.
The girl, when she could no longer see him, dashed away, and, sobbing
violently, entered the house.