this year; claims the road's too rough and bridges are too weak for
the engine."
"Oh, Wes--what'll you do?"
"Do! I'm not going to do anything! I'm not going to haul my wheat down
to him--I'll see him in hell and back again before I will."
"But our wheat!"
"The wheat can rot in the fields! I won't be bossed and blackguarded
by any dirty little runt that thinks because he owns the only
threshing outfit in the neighbourhood that he can run my affairs."
He raged up and down, adding invective, vituperation.
"But you can't, Wes--you can't let the wheat go to waste." For Annie
had absorbed the sound creed of the country, that to waste foodstuff
is a crime as heinous as murder.
"Can't I? Well, we'll see about that!"
She recognized from his tone that she had been wrong to protest; she
had confirmed him in his purpose. She picked up her sewing and tried
with unsteady fingers to go on with it, but she could not see the
stitches for her tears. He couldn't mean it--and yet, what if he
should? She looked up and out toward those still fields of precious
ore, dimming under the purple shadows of twilight, and saw them a
black tangle of wanton desolation. The story Aunt Dolcey had told her
about the potatoes of last year was ominous in her mind.
He was sitting opposite her now, his head in his hands, brooding,
sullen, the implacable vein in his forehead swollen with triumph,
something brutish and hard dimming his clean and gallant youth.
"That's the way he's going to look as he gets older," thought Annie
with a touch of prescience. "He's going to change into somebody
else--little by little. This is the worst spell he's ever had. And all
this mean blood's going to live again in my child. It goes on and on
and on."
She leaned against the porch seat and struggled against the sickness
of it.
"I might stand it for myself," she thought. "I might stand it for
myself; but I'm not going to stand it for my baby. I'll do
something--I'll take him away."
Her thoughts ran on hysterically, round and round in a coil that had
no end and no beginning.
The silent fit was on Wes now. Presently, she knew, he would get up
and stalk away to bed without a word. And in the morning----
It was as she expected. Without a word to her he got up and went
inside, and she heard him going up the stairs. She sat then a little
longer, for the night was still and warm and beautiful, the stars very
near, and the soft hush-h of the country solitude comforting to her
distress.
Then she heard Unc' Zenas and Dolcey talking at the kitchen door,
their voices a faint cadenced murmur; and this reminded her that she
was not quite alone. She slipped round to them.
"Unc' Zenas, Wes says he's not going to cut the wheat; he'll let it
rot in the fields. Seems Harrison won't send his thresher up this far;
wants us to haul to him instead."
"Marse Wes say he ain' gwine cut dat good wheat? Oh, no Miss Annie, he
cain' mean dat, sholy, sholy!"
"He said it. He's got an awful spell this time. Unc'
Zenas--look--couldn't you ride the reaper if he wouldn't? Couldn't
you? Once the wheat gets cut there's some chance."
"Befo' my God, Miss Annie, wid deseyer wuffless ole han's I cain'
ha'dly hol' one hawss, let alone three. Oh, if I had back my stren'th
lak I useter!"
The three fell into hopeless silence.
"Are the bridges so bad? Is it too hard to get the thresher up here?"
asked Annie at last. "Or was that just Harrison's excuse?"
"No, ma'am; he's got de rights. Dem ole bridges might go down mos' any
time. An' dishyer road up yere, it mighty hard to navigate foh er
grea' big hebby contraption lak er threshin' machine en er engine.
Mos' eve'y year he gits stuck. Las' year tuk er day en er ha'f to git
him out. No'm; he's got de rights."
"Yes, but, Unc' Zenas, that wheat mustn't be left go to waste."
Aunt Dolcey spoke up. "Miss Annie, honey, go git your res'--mawnin'
brings light. Maybe Marse Wes'll come to his solid senses een de
mawnin'. You cain' do nuffin' ternight noway."
"No, that's so." She sighed hopelessly. "Unc' Zenas, maybe we could
hire somebody else to cut the wheat if he won't."
"Miss Annie, honey, eve'ybody busy wid his own wheat--an', moreover,
Marse Wes ain' gwi' let any stranger come on dis place an' cut his
wheat--you know he ain'."
There seemed nothing more to say. In the darkness tears were slowly
trickling down Annie's cheeks, and she could not stop them.
"Well--good-night."
"Good-night, my lamb, good-night. I gwi' name you en your tribulations
in my prayers dis night."
She had never felt so abandoned, so alone. She could not even make the
effort to force herself to believe that Wes would not commit this
crime against all Nature; instead, she had a vivid and complete
certainty that he would. She went over it and over it, lying in
stubborn troubled wakefulness. She put it in clear if simple terms. If
Wes persisted in his petty childish anger and wasted this wheat, it
meant that they could not save the money that they had intended for
the child that was coming. They would have, in fact, hardly more than
their bare living left them. The ridiculous futility of it swept her
from one mood to another, from courage to utter hopelessness. She
remembered the first time that she had seen Wes angry, and how she had
lain awake then and wondered, and dreaded. She remembered how, later,
she had planned to manage him, to control him. And she had done
nothing. Now it had come to this, that her child would be born in
needless impoverishment; and, worse, born with the Dean curse full
upon him. She clenched and unclenched her hands. The poverty she might
bear, but the other was beyond her power to endure. Sleep came to her
at last as a blessed anodyne.
In the first moment of the sunlit morning she forgot her trouble, but
instantly she remembered, and she dressed in an agony of apprehension
and wonder. Wes was gone, as was usual, for he got up before she did,
to feed his cattle. She hurried into her clothes and came down, to
find him stamping in to breakfast, and with the first glance at him
her hope fell like a plummet.
He did mean it--he did! He did not mean to cut that wheat. She watched
him as he ate, and that fine-spun desperation that comes when courage
alone is not enough, that purpose that does the impossible, took hold
of her.
When he had finished his silent meal he went leisurely out to the
little front porch and sat down. She followed him. "Wes Dean, you
going to cut that wheat?" she demanded; and she did not know the sound
of her own voice, so high and shrill it was.
The vein in his forehead leered at her. What was she to pit her
strength against a mood like this? He did not answer, did not even
look at her.
"Do you mean to say you'd be so wicked--such a fool?" she went on.
Now he looked up at her with furious, threatening eyes.
"Shut your mouth and go in!" he said.
She did not move. "If you ain't going to cut it--then I am!"
She turned and started through the house, and he leaped up and
followed her. In the kitchen he overtook her.
"You stay where you are! You don't go out of this house this day!" He
laid a rough, restraining hand on her shoulder.
At that touch--the first harshness she had ever felt from
him--something hot and flaming leaped through her. She whirled away
from him and caught up Aunt Dolcey's big sharp butcher knife lying on
the table; lifted it.
"You put your hands on me like that again and I'll kill you!" Her
voice was not high and shrill now; she did not even raise it. "You and
your getting mad! You and your rotten, filthy temper! You'd waste that
wheat because you haven't got enough sense to see what a big fool you
are."
She dropped the knife and walked past him, out of the kitchen, to the
barn.
"Unc' Zenas," she called, "you hitch up the horses to the reaper. I'm
going to cut that near field to-day myself."
"But, Miss Annie----" began the old man.
"You hitch up that team," she said. "If there ain't any men round this
place, I don't know's it makes so much difference."
She waited while the three big horses were brought out and hitched to
the reaper, and then she mounted grimly to the seat. She did not even
look around to see if Wes might be watching. She did not answer when
Unc' Zenas offered a word of direction.
"Let dat nigh horse swing round de cornahs by hisse'f, Miss Annie. He
knows. An' look--here's how you drop de knife. I'll let down de bars
an' foller you."
Behind her back he made frantic gestures to Dolcey to come to him,
and she ran, shuffling, shaken. Together they followed the little
figure in the blue calico dress, perched high on the rattling,
clacking reaper. Her hair shone in the sun like the wheat.
The near horse knew the game, knew how to lead the others. That was
Annie's salvation. As she swung into the field she had a struggle with
the knife, but it dropped into place, and the first of the golden
harvest fell before it squarely, cleanly; the stubble was even behind
it. She watched the broad backs of her team, a woman in a dream. She
did not know how she drove them; the lines were heavy in her hands,
dragged at her arms. It was hot, and sweat rolled down her forehead.
She wished vaguely that she had remembered to put on her sunbonnet.
Behind her came Unc' Zenas and Aunt Dolcey, setting the sheaves into
compact, well-capped stocks, little rough golden castles to dot this
field of amazing conflict.
And now the reaper had come to the corner. Unc' Zenas straightened
himself and watched anxiously. But his faith in the near horse was
justified--the team turned smoothly, Annie lifted the blade and
dropped it, and they started again, only half visible now across the
tall grain.
Annie's wrists and back ached unbearably, the sweat got in her eyes,
but she drove on. She thought a little of Wes, and how he had looked
when she picked up that butcher knife. She thought of his heavy hand
on her shoulder, and her flesh burned where he had grasped it.
"I'm going to cut this wheat if it kills me." she said over and over
to herself in a queer refrain. "I'm going to cut this wheat if it
kills me!" She thought probably it would. But she drove on.
She made her second corner successfully, and now the sun was at her
back, and that gave her a little ease. This wheat was going to be cut,
and hauled to the thresher, and sold in the market, if she did every
bit of the work herself. She would show Wes Dean! Let him try to stop
her--if he dared!
And there would be money enough for everything the baby might want or
might need. Her child should not be born to poverty and skimping. If
only the sun didn't beat so hard on the back of her neck! If only her
arms didn't ache so!
After countless hours of time she overtook Dolcey and Zenas, and the
old woman divined her chief discomfort. She snatched the sunbonnet off
her own head and handed it up to her.
"Marster in hebben, ef I only had my stren'th!" muttered Zenas as she
went on.
"Angels b'arin' dat chile up wid deir wings," chanted Aunt Dolcey.
Then, descending to more mundane matters, she added a delighted
chuckle: "I knowed she'd rise en shine one dese days. Holler at Marse
Wes she did, name him names, plenty. Yessuh--laid him out!"
"What you s'pose he up to now?" asked Zenas, looking over his
shoulder.
"I dunno--but I bet you he plumb da'nted. Zenas, lak I tol' you--man
may hab plenty debbilment, rip en t'ar, but he'll stan' back whenas a
ooman meks up her min' she stood enough." And Aunt Dolcey had never
heard of Rudyard Kipling's famous line.
"Dat chile might kill he'se'f."
"When yo' mad yo' kin 'complish de onpossible, en it doan' hurt yo',"
replied Dolcey, thus going Kipling one better.
But she watched Annie anxiously.
The girl held out, though the jolting and shaking racked her
excruciatingly and the pull of the reins seemed to drag the very flesh
from her bones. Now and then the golden field swam dark before her
eyes, the backs of the horses swelled to giant size and blotted out
the sun. But she kept on long after her physical strength was gone;
her endurance held her. Slowly, carefully, the machine went round and
round the field, and the two bent old figures followed.
And so they came to mid-morning. They had long since ceased to look or
care for any sign of the young master of the land. None of them
noticed him, coming slowly, slowly from the stables, coming slowly,
slowly to the field's edge and standing there, watching with
unbelieving, sullen eyes the progress of the reaper, the wavering arms
that guided the horses, the little shaken blue figure that sat high in
the driver's seat. But he was there.
It is said of criminals that a confession can often be extracted by
the endless repetition of one question alone; they cannot bear the
pressure of its monotony. Perhaps it was the monotony of the measured
rattle and clack of the machine going on so steadily that finally
impelled Wes Dean, after his long frowning survey of the scene, to
vault the low stone wall and approach it.
Annie did not check the horses when she saw him; she did not even look
at him. But he looked at her, and in her white face, with the dreary
circles of utter fatigue shadowing her eyes, his defeat was completed.
He put his hand on the bit of the nearest horse and stopped the team.
Then she looked at him, as one looks at a loathsome stranger.
"What you want?" she asked coldly.
He swallowed hard. "Annie--I'll--I'll cut the wheat, le'me lift you
down off there." He held out his arms.
She did not budge. "You going to cut it all--and haul it down to the
thresher?"
"Yes--yes, I will. Gee, you look near dead--get down, honey. You go in
the house and lay down--I'm afraid you'll kill yourself. I'm afraid
you'll hurt--him some way."
Still she did not move. "I'd ruther be dead than live with a man that
acts like you do," she said. "Grown up, and can't handle his temper."
Something in her quiet, cold scorn struck through to him and cut away
forever his childish satisfaction with himself. A new manhood came
into his face; his twitching, sinister vein was still. Surrender
choked him, but he managed to get it out:
"I know I acted like a fool. But I can't let you do this. I'll--I'll
try to----"
The words died on his lips and he leaped forward in time to catch her
as she swayed and fell, fainting.
An hour later Annie lay on the lounge in the sitting room, still
aching with terrible weariness, but divinely content. Far away she
could hear the steady susurrus of the reaper, driven against the
golden wheat, and the sound was a promise and a song to her ears. She
looked up now and then at the pictured face of Wes's father, frowning
and passionate, and the faint smile of a conqueror curved her tired
mouth. For she had found and proved the strongest thing in the world,
and she would never again know fear.
THE TRIBUTE
By HARRY ANABLE KNIFFIN
From _Brief Stories_
The Little Chap reached up a chubby hand to the doorknob. A few
persistent tugs and twists and it turned in his grasp. Slowly pushing
the door open, he stood hesitating on the threshold of the studio.
The Big Chap looked up from his easel by the window. His gray eyes
kindled into a kindly smile, its welcoming effect offset by an
admonitory headshake. "Not now, Son," he said. "I'm busy."
"Can't I stay a little while, Daddy?" The sturdy little legs carried
their owner across the floor as he spoke. "I'll be quiet, like--like I
was asleep."
The Big Chap hesitated, looking first at his canvas and then at the
small replica of himself standing before him.
"I got on my new pants," the youngster was saying, conversationally
easing the embarrassment of a possible capitulation. "Mummy says I
ought to be proud of them, and because I'm five years old."
The artist looked gravely down at him. "Proud, Son?" he asked, in the
peculiar way he had of reasoning with the Little Chap. "Have you
reached the age of five because of anything you have done? Or did you
acquire the trousers with money you earned?"
The Little Chap looked up at him questioningly. He had inherited his
father's wide gray eyes, and at present their expression was troubled.
Then, evidently seeking a more easily comprehended topic, his eyes
left his father's and sought the canvas on which was depicted a court
scene of mediaeval times. "Who is that, Daddy?" His small index finger
pointed to the most prominent figure in the painting.
His father continued to regard him thoughtfully. "One of England's
proud kings, Son."
"And what did _he_ do to be proud of?" came quickly from the youthful
inquisitioner.
A hearty laugh escaped the artist. "Bully for you, Son! That's a
poser! Aside from taxing the poor and having enemies beheaded, I'm
puzzled to know what he really did do to earn his high position."
The Little Chap squirmed himself between his father's knees and
started to scale the heights to his lap, where he finally settled down
with a sigh of comfort. "Tell me a story about him," he said eagerly.
"A story with castles, 'n' wars, 'n' everything."
The artist's gaze rested on the kingly figure in the picture, then
wandered away to the window through which he seemed to lose himself in
scenes of a far-distant time.
"I'll tell you a story, Son," he began, slowly and ruminatingly, "of
how Loyalty and Service stormed the Stronghold of Honour and
Splendour. This proud king you see in the picture lived part of the
time in the great castle of Windsor, and the balance of the year in
Saint James's Palace in London."
"It must have cost him a lot for rent," wisely interpolated the Little
Chap.
"No, the people paid the rent, Son. Some of them were glad to do it,
for they looked upon their king as a superior being. Among this class
of loyal subjects was an old hatter, very poor and humble."
"What was his name?" asked the Little Chap, apparently greatly
interested.
"He had no name. People in those olden days were known by their trade
or calling. So he was simply called 'the hatter'."
"And did he make nice hats?"
"I've no doubt he did, Son. But you mustn't interrupt. Well, the
hatter paid his tithes, or taxes, after which, I dare say, he had
little enough left to live on. But he appeared not to mind. And
whenever the King and Queen rode through the streets in their gilded
coach of state, his cracked old voice would cheer lustily, and his
hoary head would be bared in deepest reverence."
"Didn't he ever catch cold?"
"Hush, Son, I'm telling a story! As the hatter grew older he lost his
wits and became quite crazy on the subject of his king. He yearned to
do something to prove his loyalty. And whenever England engaged in a
war, and a proclamation was issued calling for men to fight for King
and country, he would be one of the first to volunteer. But they never
accepted him, of course, because he was so old.
"With the passing of the years the Queen died, and the King decided to
marry again. Great preparations for the ceremony were begun at
Westminster Abbey, where the wedding was to take place. The old hatter
became greatly excited when he heard the news. His addled wits
presently hit upon a wonderful scheme by which he could both honour
and serve his sovereign: _He would make the King a hat to wear at his
wedding_!"
"I guess he must 've been a good hatter, after all," the Little Chap
murmured, in a tone of conviction.
"Perhaps, in his time," his father conceded. "But you must remember he
now was old and foolish. His materials were merely such odds and ends
as he could gather together, and the result was very
disreputable-looking. But in his rheumy old eyes it was the most
wonderful hat ever designed for a monarch. He carefully wrapped it in
a soiled old cloth and started out to present it to the King. At the
palace gates the guards refused him admittance, and cruelly laughed in
his face. He tried every means he could think of to have the hat reach
its destination. Once he stopped the Court Chamberlain on the street,
only to be rebuked for his pains. Another time he waylaid a peer, as
he left the House of Lords, and was threatened with arrest. Foiled in
all his attempts, the cracked-brained old fellow impatiently awaited
the wedding ceremony. At last the great day arrived. All the bells of
old London were ringing blithely as the gilded coach, drawn by ten
white horses, deposited the King at Westminster Abbey. In the
forefront of the vast throng surrounding the entrance stood the
hatter."
"And did he have the hat with him?" asked the Little Chap.
"Yes, Son, he had it with him. And when the King entered the portals
of the ancient Abbey, the hatter somehow broke through the line of
guards and ran after him crying 'Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Deign to
accept this token of a loyal subject's regard!'
"The King turned in surprise And when he saw the ragged old fellow
tending him the ridiculous-looking hat, he flew into a great rage and
cried angrily: 'How comes this varlet here, interrupting his
Sovereign's nuptials and desecrating our Tomb of Kings? Away with him
to prison, and let him repent his insolence as he rots in a dungeon!'"
"Why did he do that, Daddy?"
"The Sovereign, Son, was a very proud king, while the hatter was both
poor and humble. And at his words the guards hurried forward and
hustled the old man out of the Abbey, where his presence was an insult
to the Great. In the struggle the hat rolled into the gutter, and one
of the King's white horses put his hoof through it. The hatter cried
like a child when he saw the work of his loving hands thus ruined. But
they carried him off to prison and kept him shut up there until he
died and paid the penalty for his crime of desecrating the Abbey."
"Oh, the poor old hatter! But is that the end of the story, Daddy?"
The Little Chap's disappointment was markedly pronounced.
"No, Son, there is a little more to come. I meant to tell you that the
hatter had reared a large family of boys. His sons all married and, in
turn, raised large families. These numerous relatives or kin took the
name of Hatterskin. In course of time that became shortened to
Hatkins, and so remained until the British habit of dropping their H's
reduced it to Atkins.
"At last the proud King died and was buried with great ceremony in the
Abbey. Year followed year, and century succeeded century. England,
although blessed with a Royal pair both humane and good, was ruled by
an even wiser monarch--the Sovereign People.
"Then came an August day when the black thunder-cloud of war darkened
her smiling horizon. Four bloody, terrible years the conflict lasted.
And when at last an armistice was signed, the stricken people went
wild with joy."
The Big Chap's gaze returned to the canvas with its scene of mediaeval
splendour. A mystic light smouldered in his eyes as, unconscious of
his surroundings and his youthful auditor, he continued: "On the
second anniversary of that happy day an unprecedented thing happened.
Before the ancient Abbey a gun carriage, bearing the flag-draped
casket of an unidentified warrior, came to rest on the very spot where
the gilded coach of the proud King once had stopped. Again the square
was crowded, as on that day in the long ago when the poor hatter
foolishly tried to honour his sovereign. The traditions of centuries
toppled when the body of the unknown soldier passed through those
storied portals followed by the King of England as chief mourner. In
the dim, historic chapel the king stood, in advance of princes, prime
ministers, and the famous leaders of both army and navy. Like the
humble hatter of old his royal head was reverently bared as the
nameless hero was laid among the silent company of England's
illustrious dead. 'The Boast of Heraldry and the Pomp of Power' bowed
in silent homage before the remains of a once common soldier. Thus
Loyalty and Service eventually stormed the Stronghold of Honour and
Splendour!"
For a moment there was an impressive, brooding silence, broken
presently by the Little Chap. "And what was the soldier's name,
Daddy?"
Recalled from his revery, the father answered:
"_He was known, Son, as Tommy Atkins_."
The Little Chap's brow was puckered in thought. At last he laughed
delightedly and clapped his hands. "Was the soldier, Daddy, one of the
hatter's family--the poor old hatter who was thrown out of the Abbey?"
The Big Chap lifted the child from his lap and placed him on his feet.
Then he picked up a brush and turned to his painting.
"I like to think so, Son. But only God knows."
THE GETAWAY
By O.F. LEWIS
From _Red Book_