All the next day as Henley performed his duties at the store the hot
sense of Long's stupid conduct brooded over him. One moment he was fired
with fury over the man's sheer vanity, the next he was bitterly accusing
himself for having been the primary cause of putting Dixie in a
disagreeable position. What would she think of him, he asked himself
over and over, for introducing such a despicable creature to her
hospitality and good graces?
It was near sunset when he saw her pass the store, going toward the
square. He went to the porch in front, unnoticed by the busy Cahews and
the drowsy Pomp, and saw her, much to his surprise, enter the
court-house yard, a place seldom visited by ladies. She was going up the
walk to the arching stone entrance when she met the ordinary of the
county, and Henley saw her pause and speak to him. The elderly,
gray-haired gentleman stood for several minutes in a listening attitude,
his hand cupped behind his ear, for he was slightly deaf. Presently
Henley saw the two turn toward the building and enter it side by side.
"I wonder what on earth the little trick's going there for at this time
of year," Henley mused. "It ain't tax-paying time."
The sun was down when she came out. He saw her coming and got his hat,
timing himself so that he would meet her, as if by accident, and walk
home with her. His calculations could not have been more accurate, for
she was in front of the store when he came out.
"Oh," he said, "it's you! I thought I saw you pass just now. I'm going
your way. I wanted to inquire how your little patient is."
"Oh, he's tiptop!" she cried, a delicate flush of tender enthusiasm on
her face, a sparkle in her eyes. "Dr. Stone says he's mending twice as
fast at our house because the little fellow is so happy there. When I'm
off at work he's petted half to death by them two old women who haven't
had anything better than a cat to pamper up since I got out of their
clutch."
"And old Pitman let you move him?" Henley half questioned, as he suited
his step to hers. "How did you manage it?"
"Me and the doctor put up a job on him," she laughed. "Dr. Stone wanted
to help me gain my point, and he had the sharpest talk with old Sam you
ever heard. The law was going to take him in hand for violating his
contract in regard to the boy, and Dr. Stone would have to appear
against him. But he told Sam that if he'd turn the boy over to me till
he got well, he thought the whole thing might drop."
"Good job!" Henley chuckled. "Sam's a hard nut to crack."
Dixie raised her long lashes in a steady stare at him. "Guess what I've
been doing at the court-house," she said. "I've been engaged in an odd
thing for this modern day of enlightenment. Maybe you think slavery is
over--maybe you think the Yankees wiped it clean out forty years ago,
but they didn't. I've turned the wheels of Time back. I laid down the
cash and bought a real live slave to-day. I didn't have to dig up as
much as two thousand, which, I understand, was the old price for stout,
able-bodied, hard workers, for the one I bought was a little sick one.
Alfred, I actually bought little Joe to-day. I paid Sam Pitman
twenty-five dollars to get him to release all his claims without any
rumpus. I've adopted him. Judge Barton has fixed up the papers good and
stout, and says nothing can take him from me as long as I do my part by
him. Alfred, I'm so happy that I want to shout at the top of my lungs."
"You have adopted him!" Henley exclaimed, in wondering surprise. "Well,
well, what won't you do next? Of all the things on earth this knocks me
off my feet, and you already loaded down with responsibilities!"
"I don't care," Dixie laughed. "I'd welcome more like that, and never
complain. You ought to have seen Joe when I told him Sam had agreed to
let him go, and that I was to be his mother. If you could have seen the
angelic look on that thin, white face you would have known that life is
eternal, and that the spirit is all there is to anything. He stared
straight at me with his pale brow wrinkled as if it was too good to be
so, and then when I convinced him, he put his arms around my neck and
hugged me tight, and sobbed and sobbed in pure joy."
Dixie was shedding tears herself now, and, with a heaving breast and
lowered head, she walked along beside her awed and silent companion.
They had entered a wood through which the road passed, and there seemed
to be a hallowed stillness in the cool, grayish touch of the coming
night that pervaded the boughs and foliage of the trees. Beyond the wood
a mountain-peak rose in a blaze of molten gold from the oblique rays of
the setting sun, but here the night-dews were beginning to fall and the
chirping insects of the dark were waking. In the marshy spots frogs were
croaking and snarling, and fireflies were cutting, to their kind perhaps
readable, hieroglyphics on the leafy background. Presently she wiped her
eyes, and smiled up at him.
"What a goose I am!" she said. "As old as I am, I'll cry if you crook
your finger at me. You went to Carlton yesterday, didn't you?"
"Yes," he replied, glad to see her emotion over, uplifting and rare as
its nature was.
"Did you happen to see my young man?" A smile he failed to see in the
shadows was playing sly tricks with her lineaments.
"_Your_ young man? You mean--"
"You know who I mean. I mean my beau--Mr. Jasper Long, Esquire,
merchant, cotton-handler, and rich capitalist."
"Yes, I saw him," Henley said, reluctantly. "I didn't make a point of
looking him up. He ran about searching for me. I've washed my hands of
that--that matter, Dixie. I ain't no hand at match-making, nohow. It
ain't my turn. I get all mixed up, and blunder at it. I'll never set
myself up to pick out a--a suitable mate for any woman again. There
ain't none in existence--there ain't none half good enough for you,
nohow. It makes me sick to--to think about a fellow like--well, no
better in many ways than this here Long is--having the gall to think
he--that you'd be willing to live with him the rest of your days as if
there was a single thing in common betwixt you. He told me about what he
done--what he _tried_ to do out at the fence when he started off the
other night, and, _well_--"
"Well what?" she cried, eagerly, the corners of her mouth curving upward
as she eyed him covertly.
"Why, you know well enough what the fool done, Dixie!" Henley said,
unaware of the meshes into which her curiosity was leading him. "When he
told me about it, in his offhand way, as if he had just done an
ordinary, every-day act, I come as nigh as peas mashing his big,
flathering mouth. I've been boiling mad ever since. I rolled and tumbled
in bed last night, and it's stuck to me all day. Somehow I just can't
shake it off."
"You mean, Alfred"--and she paused at the roadside, and put out her
hands to his arms, and studied his face with the eagerness of a child
searching for the confirmation of something hoped for and yet not
absolutely attainable--"do you mean that it actually made you mad when
he told you. Tell me how; tell me why. You wouldn't have--felt that way
if--if it had been some other girl, would you?"
"How do I know?" Henley cried, hot from the memory of the thing spoken
of. "I don't know whether I'd feel mad or not. I never tried it. It is
the first time I was ever up against a thing as aggravating as that was.
The idea of him actually trying to kiss you, and--and put his arms
around you, and holding to you, and--and--"
"He's a bad, mean thing, ain't he, Alfred?" And her merry laugh rang
through the quiet wood, plunging him into deeper mystification than
ever. "But of course he couldn't know that I'd not be willing to be
hugged and kissed right there at the fence, with a crippled woman
peeping out at the window, and a half-blind one standing by, begging for
a report of what's taking place. Before you married, Alfred, I'll bet
you selected a better place than that when you wanted to kiss a girl.
That fellow lives in a big town and I live here in the backwoods, but I
can learn him a thing or two."
"You can't fool me." Henley was sure of his ground now. "You wouldn't
let that chump kiss you at any time or at any place. I was a fool to
ever mention him to you; he ain't worthy to tie the shoes of a woman as
noble and sweet and pretty as you are."
"Go it, go it, Alfred!" A delicate flush of delight had overspread her
face, which was wreathed in smiles. There was a twinkling light in her
eyes, and her laugh rang out sweeter and more merrily than ever. "If
Jasper Long only knowed how to say nice things in your roundabout way
I'd marry him if he was as poor as Job's turkey. You never have told me
in so many words that--that you like my looks or--or like _me_, as for
that matter; but when you get worked up, the sweetest things in heaven
or earth slip out when you don't know it."
But grimly unpleasant thoughts had fastened themselves on Henley's
bewildered brain, and he could only stare at her in sheer agony of
suspense.
"Then you may--you _may_ marry him, after all!" he said, under his
breath. "You haven't fully decided yet. You may conclude that you and
him--" His voice broke, and, like a dumb animal brought to bay, he stood
staring at her, his mouth open, his lower lip quivering.
A great change came over her. She seemed to hesitate an instant, and
then she took his inert hand in both of hers, drew it up and held it
fondly against her throbbing breast. "Love--the right sort, Alfred--is
the sweetest, holiest thing in all the world. It is the first breath of
real heaven that men and women feel here on earth. When two people love
each other--like we--like they ought to love one another, they both know
it as plain as we know that sky full of stars is over us right now. They
feel it in the way their pulse beats when their hands meet; they hear it
in their voices when they speak; they see it in each other's eyes; they
love to be together, and feel like something has gone wrong when they
ain't. That's real love, Alfred, and if the man is tied up in a way God
never meant him to be, and if the woman is loaded down with burdens till
her fresh young shoulders are bent and ache night and day, still the
thought of their love may be always in their hearts and make life seem
one continual day of sunshine and music."
"Oh, Dixie, you mean--" His voice broke, and he could only stare at her
as if waking from a deep dream of perplexity into complete
understanding.
She nodded, kissed his hand reverently and released it. They walked on
without a word between them till they reached the point where their
ways parted. He would have detained her, but she said:
"No, not now, Alfred. I see somebody on your porch. I think it is your
wife. We must be careful to do no wrong in the sight of the world. You
owe that poor woman all the happiness you can give her. To think of what
we might want would be downright selfishness. We know what we know, and
that is sweet enough. Don't think of me marrying anybody. I've got Joe
and my duties, and--and you know what else. I shall never complain
again--never! Good-bye."