That evening, just after dark, when Henley drove his horse into his
barn-yard, he saw Dixie over in her own lot milking her cow. She was a
brave, erect little figure as she stood in the soft, black loam. "So,
so!" she was saying in her sweet, persuasive voice to the restless
animal. "Can't you stand still and keep that pesky fly-brush out of my
eyes? Them hairs cut like so many knives when they are flirted about
like a wagon-whip. You may as well let me get that milk out of your bag.
It will give you trouble through the night if you don't."
Henley turned his horse into one of the stalls, and fed him with fodder
and corn in the ear, and came and leaned on the fence behind her. She
was now crouched down beside the cow; he could see her brown, tapering
arms and wrists against the cow's flank, and hear the milk as it ran
into her tin pail with a sharp, intermittent sound. Above the back of
the cow, of which she seemed a part in the thickening darkness, loomed
up her cottage. There was a yellow light in the kitchen from a bank of
blazing logs in the wide-open fireplace. Henley waited till she had
finished and stood up.
"Hard at it," he jested. "Day or night, it's all the same to you. I
wonder if you work when you are asleep."
"Huh," she laughed, as she advanced toward him, her pail swinging by her
side. "This is my reception-day, and this is my parlor. Won't you come
in and set awhile? Take that rocking-chair over near the piano--or
maybe you'd rather smoke in the bay-window, where you can get fresh
air."
"What's the joke now?" he inquired. "I'm not exactly on."
"Why, you see, you are the second beau I've had right here in the mud,
and with these dirty clothes on, in the last ten minutes."
"The second?" he said, wondering what she was driving at.
"Yes," she made answer, as she rested her pail at her feet and stood
smiling blandly at him. "Hank Bradley has just left. He come over to
invite me to go with a party of girls and boys to the Springs day after
to-morrow. I wish I knew exactly what to do in a case like that. I want
to go--my! I want to go so bad I hardly know what to do. Mother and Aunt
Mandy both think I ought to accept such invitations. I know folks talk
about Hank, and say all sorts of things about girls he goes with. But he
says he has quit drinking and gambling and wants to settle down. His
sister, Mrs. Bailey, is going along to give respectability to it, and it
is to be a great blow-out. I've never been on such a trip; they say
there is a lot of fashionable Atlanta folks at the hotel, and a fine
band, a ten-pin alley, and a lawn-tennis court, and I hardly know what
all."
"Hank Bradley? Good gracious!" Henley said, but he could think of
nothing further that would voice the protestations running wildly
through his brain.
"Oh, I see you'll oppose it, too," she sighed. "I reckon I've just been
trying to make myself believe I ought to go. Hank begged so hard,
and--and said such nice things about liking me. I reckon almost any girl
would want to believe even a fellow like him, if she'd been a
wall-flower all her life, and somehow didn't think she ought to be."
"But did you accept--did you? That's the main thing," Henley asked, and
his eyes were fixed on her mobile face where the pink shadows chased one
another beneath her long, drooping lashes.
"No, not positive," she said. "I simply couldn't get rid of him to do my
work without saying something; so I agreed to talk it over with my folks
and let him know after supper. He is to send a man over for the answer.
I already see my finish--I see it in the way you are staring at me right
now."
"He ain't for you, Dixie," Henley answered, decidedly. "You said once
that you looked on me like a big brother. Well, if your brother was to
see you driving off that way beside that man--that _sort_ of a man--he'd
be miserable. I can't do much to show my interest and friendship--though
I've tried hard to think of some way. I know you deserve more than has
come to you. You are young and full of life, and bright and pretty--so
pretty that you'd be the main one in any cluster, and it is hard to
think you have to pass your days as you do. But Hank Bradley ain't the
one to extend a hand. He ain't--God knows he ain't."
"I know it; you needn't say another word." The girl came nearer. The
moon was out now in a clear sky, and its rays fell athwart her face and
gleamed in the gold of her abundant tresses. His hand was resting on the
top rail of the fence, and she laid her own on it reassuringly. "Don't
bother, big brother," she said, in a deep, trembling tone. "I'll write
him that I can't go. I'd not enjoy a minute of it knowing that your
judgment was against it. Let's not talk about it. Let's talk about
something else. I've been thinking all day about that Carlton
storekeeper."
"Your ears must have burned." Henley betrayed his relief by the free
breath he drew. "I saw him over there, and we talked about you for an
hour on a stretch. I wasn't going to see him, but he heard I was in
town and sent his porter after me. He wanted to see me about you."
"_Me?_ That's funny, if you ain't joking."
"I ain't joking," Henley declared. "He said he'd been unable to get his
mind on business like he used to. He says, from what I've told him, that
he knows just how you look. He pinned me down again about fetching you
over there; and when I told him that you felt sort of backward about
taking such a step, he seemed more tickled than set back. He said he'd
seen so many women that throwed theirselves at him and interfered with
his movements that the hold-off sort was just what he was looking for.
He went on and told me about the old maids that knitted socks for him,
and the giddy young ones that tittered and looked at him out of the
corners of their eyes whenever he passed, and how many widows and
mothers of gals was trading at his store now that hadn't before, and how
much bother they all was in refusing to let his clerks wait on 'em, and
was always coming back to his desk to make him get what they needed."
"Shucks, I'll bet he's had his head turned," was Dixie's comment. "Well,
he needn't think he's the whole show; they wouldn't do him that away if
he didn't have money. Well, I needn't criticise them, for, as good as I
think I am, I don't reckon I'd give him a second thought if he was just
a farm-hand at seventy-five a day. Money adds a lot to a person, and I
reckon if a girl went about it right and as a matter of duty she could
love a rich man as quick as a poor one."
"Well, I simply couldn't head 'im off," Henley resumed. "I couldn't get
around his arguments. He said there was a way you and him could meet
without compromising your pride, and that was this: he said me and you
was good friends, and that if I wanted to make you pass a pleasant day
I could invite you to drive over there next Saturday week and see the
fire tournament that is to be held."
"Well, he's got cheek enough, I must say," Dixie said. "I reckon he
might let you run your own business and extend your own invites. It
ain't for him to up and dictate to you--huh! I say!"
"But, you see, I'd already told him that I'd enjoy fetching you over at
any time. You see, he knowed it would be a pleasure to me. I'm going
over, anyway, and your company the ten miles and back would be a sight
better than being alone."
"Well, that's different," said Dixie, "and I really would enjoy the
trip. But it would have to be fully understood that I went just with
you, and was not going along to exhibit myself, to see if I'd suit him
or not."
"Good!--now you've hit it!" Henley laughed. "It will be fun all round.
I'm going again to-morrow, and I'll tell him to be--I'll tell him me and
you have decided to take in the tournament."
"Yes, put it that way," said Dixie, and she took up her pail. "It may be
a flash in the pan, and I'd hate everybody in creation--you included--if
I was accused of--of missing fire the _second time_!"
They both happened to glance toward the cottage, and standing framed in
the kitchen doorway with a background of light they saw a mute and
motionless figure.
"It's little Joe!" Henley exclaimed. "Wait, I forgot what you sent me
for." He went to his buggy and returned with a parcel. "I got the Second
Reader, and I had the man put in a Geography-book full of pretty maps
and pictures. I thought maybe Joe would--"
"He'll be tickled to death," Dixie cried, as she reached for the parcel.
"The poor little fellow is watching us now. I told him you'd bring it
to-night, and he's been down several times to see if you was back. It's
awfully sweet of you, Alfred, to think of the Geography. I need it
myself, and me and Joe'll study it together. If that thing we was
talking about should happen to go through, the first move I'd make would
be to try to get that boy out of Pitman's clutch. I love 'im--he's so
gentle and patient that I can't help it."
They heard a step behind them, and, turning, they saw old Wrinkle
peering at them through the dark as he stood near the barn.
"If that's you, Alf," he called out, "you'd better come on to supper.
After a square meal at the Carlton Hotel you may look on our fare as
purty pore stuff. But you may choke it down. It's gettin' cold; the
grease in the beef hash is turnin' to tallow, an' the bread was baked
yesterday an' is as hard as a brick."
"All right; I'm with you," Henley said, good-naturedly, as he saw Dixie
hurrying away.