On the morning set for the excursion to Carlton, Henley went down to the
stable and harnessed and hitched his horse to his buggy. Old Jason, who
was with him, made no offer to assist with the various buckles and
straps, but stood leaning in the barn-door chewing tobacco. He was
sufficiently courteous, however--as Henley started away with the remark
that he was going to give Dixie Hart a lift over to Carlton and back--to
slouch in front, his hands in his pockets, his tousled head bared to the
slanting rays of the sun, and open the big gate.
Reaching the front-door of Dixie Hart's cottage, Henley had only a
minute to wait. Mrs. Hart, followed by her sister with an arm in a
sling, came down the steps with a mincing step, her weak eyes shaded by
her thin hand, and approached him.
"It's powerful good of you to take my daughter," she said, in grateful
tones. "She has so little pleasure in her life, and she's been wanting
to go to Carlton for a long time. A place even as much like a city as
that is, kind o' interests a young girl. She's always reading about the
doings over there among the rich folks."
"I'll see that nothing happens to her, and fetch her back safe," he
promised. Then Dixie emerged from the house wearing her best dress, a
white muslin, immaculately clean and well ironed, and adorned by broad,
pink ribbons which heightened her complexion. Her hat was new and most
becoming, and as she rustled out to the gate he felt a thrill of pride
in having such a presentable companion. She touched her mother playfully
under the chin and kissed her on the cheek.
"Now, Muttie," she said, "you've got to be on your good behavior while
I'm off or I'll switch you good when I get back. I have put the exact
feed for the horse in his trough, and pumped the tub full of water, and
you only have to let down the stable-door bars at twelve and he'll do
the rest. The chicken-feed is already mixed in the dish-pan, and you
only have to tilt it out of the kitchen-window and they'll divide it
amongst 'em."
"Oh, I can attend to everything!" Mrs. Hart remarked to Henley. "I
reckon you've found out that she's a regular case."
"Case or not," Dixie broke in, as Henley was smiling and nodding his
response, "I'm not through yet. If I don't tell you, you'll be begging
for something to eat amongst the neighbors. Your dinner is already
cooked and the coffee made. All you'll have to do is to set it on the
coals and warm it up. The sugar is right at the coffee-pot, and the
cream is in the spring-house to keep it from souring.
"I didn't dare hint to 'em about--about that Carlton fellow," Dixie
said, in a confidential tone, as they drove away. She was holding her
big hat on to keep it from blowing off in the crisp current of their own
making.
"You didn't?" he said, interrogatively, charmed as he had never been
before by her propinquity and vivaciousness.
"Not after being sold as bad as I was by letting them know about that
other scrape," she laughed, as she glanced at him archly. "Why, they
would meet us a mile out on the road to-night--the halt leading the
blind--to know every particular. No, I've been burnt once, and I don't
want a second coat of blisters."
"You certainly look stunning." Henley allowed his admiring eyes to take
her in from head to foot. "You needn't be one bit afraid of what that
galoot will say. I tell you I've been about over the country and I know
a thing or two."
"Well, I've got my all on my back," she said--"that is, except my
wedding outfit. I don't know how I'll ever get my money out of it. I've
thought about selling it, but nobody of my size seems to be marrying
round here. Even if _this_ thing is a go--I mean even if me and Mr. Long
_do_ come to terms--I don't believe I'd feel just right in using it. It
would be sort o' like marrying in widow's weeds, wouldn't it?"
They were now passing Farmer Wade's house, on the edge of the village,
and they saw Carrie on the veranda-steps with Johnny Cartwright at her
side. The couple stood close together, and Henley saw that the boy was
holding Carrie's hands and gazing at her ardently. Seeing the passing
buggy, Carrie suddenly drew herself back and stared at them curiously.
There was no salutation from either side, and Henley drove on, noting
that Dixie kept her eyes on the pair till they were out of sight.
"I thought I'd give her a good, straight look," she said, "so she'd see
that I wasn't doing anything I am ashamed of. I know that girl through
and through, and you mark my words, Alfred, she'll be low enough to
throw out hints about me driving with a young, married man like you. The
way she's acting with that poor silly boy is disgusting. His poor old
mother is so upset she's talking to everybody about it. She is afraid
Carrie will actually run off with him, and Carrie will, too, if she gets
a good chance--she's just that desperate. It's funny how mean, spiteful
folks can make other people the same way. Right now, I'd rather have
this Long man come out here and take me to meeting where Carrie could
see it than to do a kind deed of any sort."
After this, to Henley's mystification, she did not talk as freely as at
the outset, and she seemed to be very thoughtful. As they were driving
into the bustling town, she looked at him fixedly and said:
"The papers say the programme don't begin till eleven o'clock. That's
the hour set for the first race with the reel-wagons. I was just
wondering what we'd better do to kill time till then. I hain't got a
thing to buy that you hain't got in your stock at home, and I hain't a
person to go in and nose about and have clerks pull down a whole raft of
bolts and boxes without paying for the trouble. You see, I reckon it
ain't later 'n nine o'clock now, and--"
"Oh, I see," said Henley. "Why, Dixie, I sort o' mapped it out this way.
You see, knowing how anxious Long will be to meet you right off, I
thought we'd drive straight to his shebang and 'light and hitch. He's
got a chair or two in the back-end of his shack, and we could kind o'
set about, and when he ain't waiting on customers, why, we--"
"I thought you had more sense than that," Dixie burst out with
unexpected warmth. "_You_ can go there if you like, but I won't go a
step! Huh, I say--I _would_ cut a purty dash, wouldn't I?--setting
around amongst chicken-coops, lard-cans, and salt pork for a fool, vain
man to look me over and sniff and feel set back because I didn't happen
to--to come quite up--shucks! I don't believe any of you men understand
women. Huh! but we understand _you_ all right."
"I'm awfully sorry I made you mad," Henley stammered. "You know, Dixie,
I wouldn't say a thing for worlds that would--"
Dixie laughed. "You couldn't make me mad at you to save your life,
Alfred. I'm mad at myself, that's all, for starting out on such a silly
jaunt. I might have knowed that it would be hard to put this thing
through in any decent shape. I don't care what Long'll say or think. I
come over here to this tournament with you, at your invite, and if he
shows by a single bat of the eye that he thinks I meant anything else
he'll hear something that will ring in his ears till he's put under
ground. I reckon the idea never got within a mile of his brain that he
may not suit _me_ at all. Why, I may hate the very sight of him."
"You no doubt will if you keep on looking at the thing that way," said
Henley, admiring the very mystery that cloaked her words and manner, and
quite convinced that she was wiser, in some vague way, at least, than
all the rest of mankind put together. "I only thought that would be the
best way to start the ball rolling."
"Well, it won't start at all if I have to tote it to the top of a hill
and give it the first kick," Dixie said, firmly. "I'm a big fool. I'll
bet you haven't a bit of respect for me. That other racket of mine was
enough to brand me as the champion woman idiot of the earth, and this
goes that one better. What's the use o' being a fool if you don't learn
sense by it?"
"Oh, don't talk that way, Dixie," Henley protested, at the end of his
resources. "I thought we was going to have such a fine time, and now you
hardly know what you want. If you won't go to his store, then I'll tell
you what we could do. The public wagon-yard is the best place to see the
tournament from. I could unhitch at the edge of the sidewalk in the
shade of the trees, and you'd have a reserved seat through it all."
"That's _some_ better, anyway," she said, as if relieved. "I come near
showing my temper, didn't I? Well, I've got one hid away inside of me,
and it kicks up sand sometimes when I'm least expecting it."
Leaving his sprightly charge in the buggy watching the gathering of the
festive crowd and listening to the blatant music of the town band from
the balcony of the Carlton House, Henley, making some excuse about
having to mail a letter, hastened round a corner and down to Long's
store.
The young man, in his best suit of clothes and with the odor of bay-rum
in his smooth, compact hair, and the barber's powder on his
razor-scraped face, was busy giving instructions to his chief clerk.
"Don't come to me to ax a single question," Henley overheard him saying.
"This is _one_ day I simply will have off. If there is anything you
don't know about, let it lie over--tell 'em I'm on the committee of
entertainment, tell 'em any darned thing you want to, but don't bother
me. Oh!" He had caught sight of Henley, who stood half hidden by a stack
of soap-boxes, and came forward, his face falling. "My Lord, Alf, don't
tell me you didn't fetch her in!" he panted. "Good Lord, don't say
that!"
Henley grinned and explained the situation, much to the storekeeper's
relief.
"It don't railly make any great difference." Long twisted his small
mustache under its coat of pomade till the ends looked like facial
spikes, and pulled at his white waistcoat. "I had a nigger make a bucket
of lemonade with ice in it, and left an order at the hotel for three of
the best meals they know how to put up. I supply the shebang with
produce, and I stand in with 'em. They would spread themselves for me. I
was counting on having us all three eat in my back-room. I wanted to do
exactly the right thing, you see, so she'd know at the outset that I
understand how to make a woman comfortable, and that I ain't a man to
split hairs when it comes to a little outlay."
"The back-room wouldn't suit at all." Henley was already a wiser man
than when he left home that morning. "I wouldn't think of asking her or
any decent woman to eat in a room where you bunk, or where anybody
bunks, for that matter--male or female."
"I'll just countermand that order, then," Long said, "and we'll all go
to the hotel. We'll see the fust part of the show from the buggy, and
then repair to the big dining-room and have our banquet."
"I think she'd really like that," Henley declared, "but I'm going to
give you both the slip and take dinner with Judge Temple's folks. They
made me promise to come the next time I was in; besides, I want to give
you both full swing on this day of days."
"Right you are," Long rubbed his heavy hands together in delight, "and
you may have the worth of your meal in the finest cigars in my shebang.
Alf, you are my friend. Let's go down where she's at. To tell you the
God's holy truth, man to man, I don't feel half as good as I make out.
It wouldn't take the weight of a hair to make me show the white feather.
I have a sort of forewarning that I ain't agoing to walk straight into
this thing. If she'd 'a' driv' right up to the front, and got out and
gone back to the rear and set down and looked about like she was taking
stock of my belongings, I'd have knowed how to proceed, but this way of
having to walk a plank that she's propped up has made me sorter weak at
the knees. How do I look, anyway--honest, I don't want any flattery? If
you think I'd look better in my silk plug-hat and long Prince Albert I
can whisk 'em on in a jiffy."
"You are just right." Henley charitably viewed the individual from his
own point rather than that of the over-critical Dixie. "In hot sun like
this to-day your straw hat will look better, and that sack coat fits
like a kid glove."
"I sorter thought this would be the thing." Long bent down and for the
twentieth time dusted his shoes with his handkerchief. "Now get them
cigars." He led the way to a show-case near the front. "Help
yourself--them's the genuine Havana fillers in the corner. Take good
ones--by George, take the best."
"I won't take but one," Henley said, as he opened the case and reached
for a cigar. "I don't like to collect pay in advance; and while I don't
want to throw cold water on you, Long, I'm free to confess I don't know
exactly how she'll act. I always knowed women was curious, but they are
more curious about selecting a mate than everything else combined. When
I was talking this meeting up at such a rate, I thought I could count on
'er; but, la me! she's got me so mixed that I don't know whether I'm a
Methodist preacher or an escaped convict. But let's go down. I want to
see what _you'll_ make of her."