At about the time the sun was rising, Farmer Bacon, roused from his
sleep by the crowing of the chickens on the dry knolls in the fields as
well as by those in the barn-yard, rolled out of bed wearily, wondering
why he should feel so drowsy. Then he remembered the row with Lime and
his subsequent inability to sleep with thinking over it. There was a
dull pain in his breast, which made him uncomfortable.
As was his usual custom, he went out into the kitchen and built the fire
for Marietta, filled the tea-kettle with water, and filled the
water-bucket in the sink. Then he went to her bedroom door and knocked
with his knuckles as he had done for years in precisely the same
fashion.
Rap--rap--rap. "Hello, Merry! Time t' git up. Broad daylight, an' birds
asingun.'"
Without waiting for an answer he went out to the barn and worked away at
his chores. He took such delight in the glorious morning and the
turbulent life of the farmyard that his heart grew light and he hummed a
tune which sounded like the merry growl of a lion. "Poo-ee, poo-ee," he
called to the pigs as they swarmed across the yard.
"Ahrr! you big, fat rascals, them hams o' yourn is clear money. One of
ye shall go t' buy Merry a new dress," he said as he glanced at the
house and saw the smoke pouring out the stovepipe. "Merry's a good girl;
she's stood by her old pap when other girls 'u'd 'a' gone back on 'im."
While currying horses he went all over the ground of the quarrel
yesterday, and he began to see it in a different light. He began to see
that Lyman was a good man and an able man, and that his own course was a
foolish one.
"When I git mad," he confessed to himself, "I don't know any thin'. But
I won't give her up. She ain't old 'nough t' marry yet--and, besides, I
need her."
After finishing his chores, as usual, he went to the well and washed his
face and hands, then entered the kitchen--to find the tea-kettle boiling
over, and no signs of breakfast anywhere, and no sign of the girl.
"Well, I guess she felt sleepy this mornin'. Poor gal! Mebbe she cried
half the night."
"Merry!" he called gently, at the door.
"Merry, m' gal! Pap needs his breakfast."
There was no reply, and the old man's face stiffened into a wild
surprise. He knocked heavily again and got no reply, and, with a white
face and shaking hand, he flung the door open and gazed at the empty
bed. His hand dropped to his side; his head turned slowly from the bed
to the open window; he rushed forward and looked out on the ground,
where he saw the tracks of a man.
He fell heavily into the chair by the bed, while a deep groan broke from
his stiff and twitching lips.
"She's left me! She's left me!"
For a long half-hour the iron-muscled old man sat there motionless,
hearing not the songs of the hens or the birds far out in the brilliant
sunshine. He had lost sight of his farm, his day's work, and felt no
hunger for food. He did not doubt that her going was final. He felt that
she was gone from him forever. If she ever came back it would not be as
his daughter, but as the wife of Gilman. She had deserted him, fled in
the night like a thief; his heart began to harden again, and he rose
stiffly. His native stubbornness began to assert itself, the first great
shock over, and he went out to the kitchen, and prepared, as best he
could, a breakfast, and sat down to it. In some way his appetite failed
him, and he fell to thinking over his past life, of the death of his
wife, and the early death of his only boy. He was still trying to think
what his life would be in the future without his girl, when two
carriages drove into the yard. It was about the middle of the forenoon,
and the prairie-chickens had ceased to boom and squawk; in fact, that
was why he knew, for he had been sitting two hours at the table. Before
he could rise he heard swift feet and a merry voice and Marietta burst
through the door.
"Hello, Pap! How you makin' out with break--" She saw a look on his face
that went to her heart like a knife. She saw a lonely and deserted old
man sitting at his cold and cheerless breakfast, and with a remorseful
cry she ran across the floor and took him in her arms, kissing him again
and again, while Mr. John Jennings and his wife stood in the door.
"Poor ol' Pap! Merry couldn't leave you. She's come back to stay as long
as he lives."
The old man remained cold and stern. His deep voice had a relentless
note in it as he pushed her away from him, noticing no one else.
"But how do you come back t' me?"
The girl grew rosy, but she stood proudly up.
"I come back the wife of a _man_, Pap; a wife like my mother, an' this
t' hang beside hers;" and she laid down a rolled piece of parchment.
"Take it an' go," growled he; "take yer lazy lubber an' git out o' my
sight. I raised ye, took keer o' ye when ye was little, sent ye t'
school, bought ye dresses,--done everythin' fer ye I could, 'lowin' t'
have ye stand by me when I got old,--but no, ye must go back on yer ol'
pap, an' go off in the night with a good-f'r-nothin' houn' that nobuddy
knows anything about--a feller that never done a thing fer ye in the
world--"
"What did you do for mother that she left _her_ father and mother and
went with you? How much did you have when you took her away from her
good home an' brought her away out here among the wolves an' Indians?
I've heard you an' her say a hundred times that you didn't have a chair
in the house. Now, why do you talk so t' me when I want t' git--when
Lime comes and asks for me?"
The old man was staggered. He looked at the smiling face of John
Jennings and the tearful eyes of Mrs. Jennings, who had returned with
Lyman. But his heart hardened again as he caught sight of Lime looking
in at him. His absurd pride would not let him relent. Lime saw it, and
stepped forward.
"Ol' man, I want t' take a little inning now. I'm a fair, square man. I
asked ye fer Merry as a man should. I told you I'd had hard luck, when I
first came here. I had five thousand dollars in clean cash stole from
me. I hain't got a thing now except credit, but that's good fer enough
t' stock a little farm with. Now, I wan' to be fair and square in this
thing. You wan' to rent a farm; I need one. Let me have the river
eighty, or I'll take the whole business on a share of a third, an' Merry
Etty and I to stay here with you jest as if nothin' 'd happened. Come,
now, what d' y' say?"
There was something winning in the sturdy bearing of the man as he stood
before the father, who remained silent and grim.
"Or if you don't do that, why, there's nothin' left fer Merry an' me but
to go back to La Crosse, where I can have my choice of a dozen farms.
Now this is the way things is standin'. I don't want to be underhanded
about this thing--"
"That's a fair offer," said Mr. Jennings in the pause which followed.
"You'd better do it, neighbor Bacon. Nobuddy need know how things stood;
they were married in my house--I thought that would be best. You can't
live without your girl," he went on, "any more 'n I could without my
boy. You'd better--"
The figure at the table straightened up. Under his tufted eyebrows his
keen gray eyes flashed from one to the other. His hands knotted.
"Go slow!" went on the smooth voice of Jennings, known all the country
through as a peacemaker. "Take time t' think it over. Stand out, an'
you'll live here alone without chick 'r child; give in, and this house
'll bubble over with noise and young ones. Now is short, and forever's a
long time to feel sorry in."
The old man at the table knitted his eyebrows, and a distorted,
quivering, ghastly smile broke out on his face. His chest heaved; then
he burst forth:--
"Gal, yank them gloves off, an' git me something to eat--breakfus 'r
dinner, I don't care which. Lime, you infernal idiot, git out there and
gear up them horses. What in thunder you foolun' round about hyere in
seed'n'? Come, hustle, all o' ye!"
And they all shouted in laughter, while the old man strode unsteadily
but resolutely out toward the barn, followed by the bridegroom, who was
still laughing--but silently.