On the day following Long's second visit to Dixie, Henley's affairs took
him to Carlton. He was at the cotton-compress making arrangements to
have a quantity of cotton prepared for shipment, when he met one of
Long's clerks.
"Have you seen Mr. Long?" the young man asked.
"No, I've just got in," Henley answered. He could not have explained the
fact, not being given to self-analysis, but he had vaguely determined
that he would make every possible effort to avoid the storekeeper. In
spite of his good intentions to aid Dixie in the contemplated alliance,
he had come to regard it as altogether too incongruous an affair to be
viewed favorably. What right had any man to her? What manner of man
could possibly be worthy of her, much less the stupid blockhead who was
thrusting himself upon her as Long was?
"Well, he's looking for you, Mr. Henley," the clerk said. "It must be
important, for he's been to the bank and post-office three times since
he heard you'd got in. It really looks like he's in trouble of some
sort."
"Business gone crooked?" Henley inquired, as he watched the clerk's face
with almost anxious eyes. "Maybe he's been buying futures?"
"Oh no, it ain't that!" the young man hastened to say. "He don't
speculate in anything. He's dead sure of everything he touches. No, it
ain't that, and business never was brisker, but we boys are doing it
all. He ain't much help; don't do anything but write letters and tear
'em up, and talk about marryin' to every man, woman, an' child that
happens in. He was all right and sound, and regular as a clock, till you
fetched that girl in from over your way and introduced him. Come down
right away, Mr. Henley. I'll tell 'im I saw you."
As Henley turned away to attend to his consignment of cotton in the
office of the compress he bit his lip and frowned darkly.
"If the dang fool thinks I'm going down there to be buttonholed for
hours to hear his tale of woe, he's certainly off his nut," he muttered,
angrily. "I've got other matters to attend to. I don't believe she is at
all struck with him, nohow. It don't look like she'd put 'im off like
she does and keep him floundering in so much hot water if she thought
much of him. He was there yesterday. I wonder what ails him now? She
didn't take 'im out to church. Little Joe is at her house, but he is
doing well enough for her to spare the time; I wonder if she was ashamed
to be seen out with him after that first splurge. I don't know; she
certainly is a plumb mystery to me."
His business over, he skirted around Long's establishment and made his
way through an isolated alley to the wagon-yard where he had left his
horse and buggy. He was just congratulating himself on his escape from
the storekeeper, when Long suddenly broke upon his vision as he plunged
incontinently through the big gateway. With an uneasy look in his eyes,
and with a face drawn and serious, the storekeeper came striding toward
him.
"Hello!" he panted. "I've been everywhere looking for you. You are as
slippery as an eel, and as hard to catch as a flea. I want to see you
bad, Alf. It's a particular matter. I can't let it rest."
"I was busy, and I hain't any too much time left on my hands now."
Henley looked at the sun and then at his watch. "You'll have to talk
fast, Long. Seems to toe there's a lot o' hitches in my affairs here
lately. This 'un to see, and that 'un to talk to, and--"
"I'm in trouble, Alf, old man." Long laid a red, perspiring hand on his
friend's shoulder and bore down heavily. "I was out yore way yesterday.
I tried to see you as I started home, but didn't know where to find you.
Alf, I can't jest somehow make out that little trick. Looks like she's
sorter shifty. In the first place, havin' to postpone the trip on
account of that sick young brat that ain't no blood kin to anybody
concerned sort o' knocked me off my props, and then, when the day _did_
come round, very little was done--that is, in the _right_ direction."
"You--you'll have to have patience," Henley remarked, insincerely. "If
you can't hold in and take things as they come you'd better call the
deal off. I started you; I can't lay down everything and keep--keep
telling you what to do and say. Life's too short and makes too many
claims on a fellow."
"I want you to say a good word for me, Alf." Long wiped his anxious
mouth with his bare hand and tugged at his mustache. "She believes the
sun rises and sets in you. Looks to me like it's Alfred did this, an'
Alfred said that, an' Alfred thinks so and so and does so and so, with
every breath she draws. For a while I 'lowed it was because she was
grateful to you for helpin' her out in the marryin' line, but she don't
seem to want to marry much, nohow. She'd listen to you, though, if she
would to any man alive, and something has to be done."
"Well, I reckon the little woman _is_ friendly to me." Henley avoided
the fiercely anxious stare of his flurried companion. "She's done me
good turns, and I've tried to respond."
"She'd fight for you tooth and toe-nail," Long declared. "I know from
experience. Why, I just happened to say one little, tiny thing about
you, and la! she flew at me like a hen fightin' for her brood. I meant
no harm. I'd have said the same thing to your face, as I am saying it
now. Me 'n her was talking about the way men dress these days, and I
said, without meanin' any harm, that it was naturally expected that
chaps here in a town like Carlton would be more up to date than at the
foot of the mountains where you live, and remarked that you made no
great pretence in the clothes you wore, in fact, that I thought you went
just a little bit too careless for a man as young and well-off as you
are."
"Huh, you told her that, did you?" Henley's cheeks reddened against his
will. "Well, I don't go much on style, in hot weather, anyway. I never
did want to be called a dude."
"Of course not, but what you reckon she done? She leaned back in her
chair while I was a-talking an' laughed like she'd bust herself wide
open. She pointed down at my new tan shoes and green socks and wanted to
know if things like them was style, and asked me why I kept my gloves on
in the house. She wanted to know if I let my yaller-bordered
handkerchief stick out of my upper pocket because I was afraid folks
wouldn't see it, an' if I kept a cheaper one to blow my nose on. You may
know, Alf, that all the good-dressers here at Carlton--and I pride
myself I'm amongst 'em--have their suits pressed once a week to make 'em
set right, but she said my pant-legs looked like they was lined with
pasteboard, and that my high collar looked like a cuff upside down. Of
course, I couldn't get mad, for she was joking all through, and laughin'
pleasant-like. But, Alf, I must say she's fallin' off in her meal
record. You know she made such a fine spread the first time that I
naturally expected some'n out of the common again. I saved myself up for
it. I didn't take on a big breakfast before I left home because I told
myself, I did, that I'd appreciate her fine fixings all the more. So you
can imagine how I felt when she marched me out, with them old women, and
set me down to--well, a body oughtn't to criticise what's set before 'em
in a friend's house, but, Alf, that really was the limit. I can tell you
just exactly what we had. I'll never forget it. It was plain pork and
beans, and boiled cabbage, and sliced tomatoes, and hard cornbread. She
hadn't put a sign of an egg in it, and cornbread without eggs ain't fit
to eat. It looks like Mrs. Hart had had some dispute with Dixie about
it, too, for the old lady kept whining and telling me it wasn't her
fault, that she thought Dixie was going to set in and fix up proper, but
that Dixie wouldn't listen to reason, and why, the old lady said, she
was unable to understand, for the like had never happened before. Dixie
didn't make any excuses, but set at the head of the table and dished out
that stuff as if it was the best afloat. 'Won't you pass yore plate for
more beans?' she wanted to know, and 'Won't you try some of the butter
with the cornbread?' I reckon I made a mistake by speaking of what a
fine spread she got up the last time, for she kind o' tilted her nose in
the air, an' said she 'lowed the weather was too hot to stand over a hot
cook-stove unless it was some _extra occasion_."
"She's got lots to do," Henley said, his eyes twinkling with amusement.
"She's undertaken to nurse that little boy back to health, and he takes
up a lot of her time."
"I reckon he does," Long said. "Looks like me an' her'd hardly get
settled in our chairs on the porch before her mammy would call out that
Joe wanted water, or Joe wanted to set up, or what not. It was more like
hard work than any day of courtin' I ever put in. But now, Alf, I'm
coming to my chief trouble. I want her, and I want her bad. I hardly
sleep at night for thinking about her sweet, pretty face, and
industrious habits, and what a bang-up wife she'd make, but I don't get
nowhere. The minute I come down to hard-pan she wiggles away like a
scared tadpole in shallow water. I done a thing, and I don't know
whether it was a big mistake or not, and that is the main thing I want
to see you about. It was just before I left, an' we was standin' at the
gate, nigh my hoss and buggy. It had got sorter dark, and--well, I'll
tell you all about it. Alf, I've heard fellows say (and they was men
that had had experience with women, too)--I've heard 'em say that the
chap that dilly-dallies with a woman, and always acts as sweet as pie,
never makes no headway. Them fellows say you've just got to be sorter
firm with a girl that won't make up her mind--that women like to have a
man show that he ain't scared out of his senses when he's with 'em. And
so I had all that in mind, you understand, when I made my last set at
her there in the dark. I saw nobody wasn't looking, and I catched hold
of her hand, I did, and held on to it though she pulled and twisted with
all her might. I told her I was bound to have a kiss, and I pulled her
up agin me and tried to take it. I couldn't manage it, though, and, by
gad! she got loose and slid through the gate, and went in the house and
slammed the door in my face."
"She ought to have knocked your head off, you low-lived fool!" cried
Henley. He was white in the face, and his eyes had a dangerous glare in
them. His breath came rapidly and with an audible sound. "For a minute
I'd pull you down here and stomp the life out of you!"
"Why, Alf! Alf! have you plumb lost your senses?" Long gasped. "Why,
why, good Lord, man! Why, Alf--"
"Don't Alf me!" Henley cried. "Get out of my sight or me 'n you'll mix
right here! I didn't introduce you to that gentle girl to have you pull
her around like a housemaid and force your foul lips to hers. I
introduced you as a _man_, not a bar-room roustabout. No wonder she
hain't took to you--no wonder she don't want to tie herself down for
life to you!"
Henley had sprung into his buggy and taken up the whip and reins. "Stand
out of the way!" he cried. "You've imposed on my friendship, and I don't
want you ever to mention this matter to me again. I'm heartily ashamed
of my part in it, and I don't want to be reminded of it."
Long tried to stop him, but, still white and furious, Henley lashed his
horse, and the animal bore him out of the yard and into the street. "I
ought to have given him one in the jaw!" Henley fumed. "I'll be sorry I
didn't the longer I think about it--the low-lived, dirty brute!"