The next day, as Henley was walking home in the dusk and was passing
Mrs. Cartwright's cottage, she saw him and hastened out to the fence.
She was in a flutter of excitement, rubbing her thin hands together in
vast satisfaction.
"Alfred," she began, "I want to tell you what's happened. I'm so excited
I'm as limber as a dish-rag. Jim Cahews sent a note over by your nigger
yesterday to Carrie Wade invitin' her to drive to the campground with
him Sunday."
"Oh, Jim's going to take _her_?" said Henley, his eyes twinkling. "He's
a sly dog about his doings, and don't tell me all he does."
"That hain't the main thing, Alfred." The old woman raised her hands to
her face and laughed immoderately. "Pomp had no sooner gone off with the
answer and a big bunch of roses Carrie gathered and sent with it, when
she run over to tell me about it and to borrow my cape. She 'lowed it
mought be cool drivin' back behind sech a fast hoss as Jim's new one,
an' she didn't have a thing heavy enough to throw over her shoulders.
Johnny was a-settin' in the corner of the kitchen unbeknownst to her,
and heard all she said. An', la me, what you reckon he done? He up an'
laid down law an' gospel right on the spot, bless you! Jim Cahews wasn't
goin' a step with 'er. Johnny could afford to hire a livery-stable team
if he had to borrow the money, an' _he_ was goin' to take 'er."
"That was a corker, wasn't it?" Henley exclaimed, with a pleased laugh.
"What did Carrie say to that?"
"Looked like she hardly knowed what _to_ say," was the old woman's
reply. "Him an' her stood starin' smack dab at each other fer a minute,
and then--just think of it!--she begun to beg the boy not to interfere
with her doin's, and pleaded an' wheedled an' went on at a powerful
rate. But Johnny stood as firm as the rock o' Gibralty, an' told 'er, he
did, that his plighted wife jest shouldn't run about an' disgrace 'em
right on the eve of marriage, and said a lot about folks walkin' over
dead bodies an' swimmin' rivers o' blood, an' the like. Well, all that
finally made Carrie mad, an' she told 'im he was jest a boy, an' that
she had never meant to marry 'im, nohow. An' while he stood gaspin' fer
breath she lit in to beggin' him not to tell nobody about the'r little
flirtation. She said folks would think it was silly of her, an' if Jim
Cahews meant business, which it looked like he did, a tale like that
might sp'ile her chances."
"Huh," grunted Henley, "she was getting down to bedrock, wasn't she?"
"Well, I don't blame 'er," said the widow, charitably. "Many a good,
married woman wouldn't want all her girlish pranks to reach the ear of
the man she finally settled down with, an' I reckon Jim Cahews wants
'er. They say he's tired chasin' after Julia Hardcastle, an' Carrie may
suit. Johnny tuck it awful hard. After she went home he come an' laid
his head in my lap an' sobbed out good an' strong. I was never tickled
by grief of a child o' mine before; but even while my eyes an' throat
was full, a laugh would rise in me that I couldn't hold in. But he
didn't catch on--he 'lowed I was cryin', too. After a while he set up
an' wiped his eyes. 'I reckon,' said he, 'that I've been the fool
everybody said I was, but I'm goin' to let women alone till I'm old
enough to understand 'em.'"
"He'll let 'em alone a long time, then," said Henley, with a dry smile,
as he turned away.
The following Monday morning Henley found Cahews busy in the front part
of the store cleaning up and putting things straight on the shelves. As
soon as he saw his employer, Jim walked from behind the counter and
extended his hand: "Put it right there, Alf, an' give it a good, tight
shake," he grinned. "Richard is hisself at last. It's been an awful
up-hill fight, but I'm there--gee whiz! I'm there, an' don't you forget
it."
"So you really like Carrie? Well, I thought maybe you and her--"
"Carrie, hell! It's the other--damn it! Huh! you may think you know
some'n about women, but don't I? I was a long time learning how to turn
the trick, but I'm an expert now. I had the time of my life. It was a
clean walk-over from start to finish. I had the bit in my teeth, an' I
went ahead like the woods afire. I driv' around to Carrie's house,
dressed to kill. I had on my plug-hat, silk vest, light-gray pants,
dark-blue coat, and my new patent-leather shoes. I put the old gal in by
me an' away we shot. I saw that drummer and Julia ahead on a straight
piece of road plodding along like they was hauling a load of wood to
town, and I chirped to my Kentucky blue-blood, and, with Carrie's
ribbons flying in the wind like the flags of a war-ship, we passed like
a cannon-ball, leaving 'em in a cloud of dust as thick as a Texas
sand-storm. And the funniest part was that I didn't, somehow, care a
dern. I was on a new basis, an' believed in it."
"Well, you know I advised--" Henley began, but the eager clerk broke in:
"Yes, that was it; you started me on my new line, and it was the act of
a friend. It was that advice that saved me. But I reckon it was the
sight of that sap-headed idiot with my girl that did most of it. Well,
to come to the end, as soon as Julia and her dude got to the campground
she lit out of his buggy and made a bee-line to whar me and Carrie was
setting under the trees waiting for the first hymn. She stopped right
square in front of me as mad as a wet hen.
"'What did you mean by throwing dust on us?' she asked, as red as a
beet, her eyes flashing sparks. Right then I felt just a little
inclination to take back water, but I remembered, our talk t'other day,
and told myself it was now or never, and that the worm had turned over a
new leaf. Carrie had dropped her handkerchief, an' I sprung up and put
it back in her lap with a bow, taking a grip on myself while in the act.
Then I looked Julia in the eyes and said:
"'I couldn't hold my hoss in, Miss Julia; he's a high-stepper, and it
makes 'im hopping mad to see common stock ahead of 'im. The only thing
to do was to let 'im pass everything in sight.'
"She stared at me like she thought I'd lost my senses, and then she
said, 'Well, you ought to apologize; any gentleman would after covering
a lady with dust from a dirty road.'
"'But it wasn't my fault,' I told her, with a grin. 'It is my hoss's
fault. If anybody apologizes it ought to be him, and he can't talk half
as good as he can trot.' Gee whiz, but wasn't she mad? She was splotched
with red and white all over, and the purtiest thing, Alf, that you ever
laid eyes on. She whirled away and went back to her drummer. He had put
the buggy-seat under a tree in sight of where me an' Carrie sat, and,
knowing she was looking, I laid myself out to be pleasant to my partner.
I had to pass by Julia and her dude to get to the spring, and I fetched
water for Carrie every hour in the day, and always went whistling a jig.
At twelve o'clock some of the folks along with Julia come over and
invited me and Carrie to dump our basket in with theirs and all eat
together, but me and Carrie refused, and had ourn on a grassy slant in
plain sight of the rest. It was the first frolic I'd ever had with
Julia, and I shore did like it. I dunno, but I reckon it was the way she
acted that made me keep it up. Then, after dinner, when Carrie went to
Mrs. Wilson's tent to rest up a little, Julia saw me smoking at the
spring, and come straight to me. She had a sort o' give-in look, and yet
was proud and cold.
"'I want to know,' said she, 'what you mean by fetching that old maid
out here.'
"'I don't know as she's so almighty old,' said I, as independent as a
wood-sawyer, and yet scared half out o' my mind. 'I don't know but what
it is a sort of comfort to go with women old enough to be sensible once
in a while.'
"That made her madder'n ever, but, you see, I was making her come to me
with complaints, and that had never happened before. She stood punching
at the ground with her blue parasol and looking every now and then
toward Mrs. Wilson's tent like she was afraid Carrie would come. Then
all at once I saw that her pretty lips was quivering. I was dying to
grab her, Alf, and confess the whole dang trick, but I remembered your
talk and helt out.
"'I see,' said she, with a sigh, 'you don't mean what you've been saying
to me all this time.'
"I looked her straight in the eyes, Alf, and let 'er have it right from
the shoulder good and fast. 'I tell you, Julia,' said I, 'I'm a marrying
man. I'm tired of living alone in the back end of a store with just a
house-cat for company, while men no better are toasting their shins at a
cheerful family fire. I'm tired of fooling. Carrie may not have as many
dudes at her beck and call as some I know, but she knows what she wants
in the man-line and won't take all eternity to decide.'
"'Oh, you are cruel! You are heartless!' Julia said, and then she
busted out crying. Then, before we knowed it, me and her was walking in
the woods, 'long a narrow, shady road. She said, Alf, that she'd loved
me good and true all along and wanted to quit everything that was
foolish and settle down. We are going to be married Christmas, and, Alf,
I'm so happy I could holler at the top of my voice. If I don't sell
goods to-day there won't be a customer in forty miles of the store."
Henley nodded slowly. "The thing worked," he said, "and I'm glad. The
only thing I hate about it is that we had to fool that poor woman to do
it. But Carrie was acting wrong with that boy. I had to do it to save
him and his old mammy. We must make it up to Carrie some way. We'll find
her a husband if we have to advertise in the papers and put up cash
inducements. She's got a mischievous tongue and lots of malice, but hard
luck fetched 'em on her."
"Alf, you are a good chap," Cahews said, with emotion. "I know well
enough you ain't any too happy at home--a blind man could see that--and
yet you are always trying to help others."
Henley's kindly eyes wavered as they rested on those of his friend. "My
wife is doing the best she can, too, Jim. I don't blame her. In fact, I
blame myself. When that fellow went off and died I ought to have left
her alone with her grief, but I was blinded by the desire to have what
I'd tried so long to win. I reckon I took an unfair advantage of her at
a time when she wasn't in a mood to fight off anything. Now, let's get
to work. I've got lots to do."