"Well, the old gal's gone," Wrinkle remarked that day at sundown when
Henley came in at the gate and found him seated on a dismantled beehive
in the yard. "I reckon you seed 'er spin through town. For a woman goin'
out as a sick-nuss or spiritual comforter to a chap kicked by a
high-steppin' filly she certainly had a supply of frills and ruffles.
Them valises was packed as tight as a compressed cotton-bale. She left
behind her one solid wail of woe. Jane is afraid she'll never gratify
yore taste for grub as well as Het did, an' she's in thar now humpin'
herself to contrive new concoctions. Het kept boarders long enough to
git stingy, an' I told my wife to turn over a new leaf for a change. I
driv' a fat chicken in a fence-corner just now, and held its legs while
she chopped its spout off. She knows how to fry 'em, an' if she kin see
well enough to pick the pin-feathers off it will be all right. I'd put
her biscuits agin any ever baked."
After a really enjoyable supper Henley went out under the trees to get
the fresh air which, in invigorating gusts, swept up the valley along
the mountain-range. He told himself that his reason for wandering down
toward his barn was to avoid meeting Wrinkle, who he knew would soon
appear from the kitchen, where he was helping his wife wash the dishes.
He was aware, of course, that Dixie Hart's cow-lot adjoined his
stable-yard, and he knew that it was the hour at which she went to
milk, and yet he would not have admitted that he strolled thither in
the hope of meeting her, but, nevertheless, he went.
He saw her entering the lot-gate, a bright tin pail in her hand, and he
shielded himself with a jutting corner of his wagon-shed and watched her
graceful approach through the dusk. He saw her get the tub of cow's food
from the crib and give it to the animal, and then he heard her scream
out, and, following her startled eyes, he saw that, having failed to
close the gate behind her, the cow's calf had entered and was rushing to
its mother. With an ejaculation of impatience Dixie threw her arms about
the calf's neck and tried to pull it from the cow's bag, but it was of
no avail. The strong young beast would wriggle from her clutch and dart
back to its supper.
"Oh, you brat, you are stealing all the milk!" Dixie cried. She picked
up a dried corn-stalk, and with it belabored the sleek, brown back of
the calf, but she might as well have used an ostrich-plume for all the
effect it had on the hungry animal.
It was then that Henley, laughing heartily, sprang over the fence and
came to her assistance.
"Let me have the little scamp," he said. And he bent down and took the
squirming beast into his strong arms and lifted it bodily from the
ground. "Now, where do you want him put?" he asked, as he stood swaying
back and forth in his effort to control the wriggling prisoner.
"Over the fence!" she cried, and stood panting in admiration of his cool
skill and strength as he walked to the fence and dropped the calf on the
other side. He then fastened the gate and came back to her.
"You are doing a man's work, anyway," he said, looking into her flushed
face, "and you ought to call a halt. Life is too short to spend it as
you are doing."
"It's all very well for you men to talk that way," Dixie retorted, as
she pushed her milking-stool to the side of the cow and sat down with
the pail between her knees, "but women, as well as men, want to live,
and if there's any way to live without work, and plenty of it, I'd like
to find out about it."
"It seems to me that a feller by the name of Long was offering to point
out a way to you," he said, with a forced smile.
The back part of her uncovered head was turned toward him. Her shapely
hands and bare, tapering arms gleamed like yellow marble through the
dusk. He smelled the delightful odor of the warm milk as her deft
fingers sent it ringing into the pail.
"Yes, he was offering me a job," he heard her say with a sarcastic
little chuckle. "He wanted me to quit working at my old place and set in
for him, and nothing particular was said about raising my wages."
"And what are you going to answer him, I wonder?" Henley inquired, as he
bent down over her that the noise of the squirting milk might not drown
her reply.
She flashed a glance at him; there was an ineffable shimmer in her
long-lashed eyes; she made a comical little grimace. "I've said the last
word between me and him," she answered. "I got a humble letter from him
yesterday begging my pardon for what he'd tried to do, and saying he'd
behave like a gentleman from now on, if I'd only let him come out
again."
"Well, it was time he was apologizing," Henley cried. "For a little I'd
have--well!"
Dixie smiled and looked at him eagerly. "Did that make you mad,
Alfred--really mad?"
"I don't think I ever was madder in all my life." He walked
unsuspectingly into her trap. "I driv' away soon after or I don't know
what would have happened. The more I thought about it the madder I got.
Once I started to turn round and go back. I would, if I hadn't thought
he was such a weak fool. It ain't done with; I can't think about it
without wanting to mash something. I reckon me 'n him had better stay
apart."
"We ain't going to have any row about that, Alfred," Dixie said, quite
seriously. "You know you would bear a lot rather than have folks say
a--a married man was taking up for me in that way. If you ever meet him,
and the thing comes up, you must remember that one thing. My character's
all I've got, Alfred; if you are what I think you are, you'd think twice
before compromising me like that. Carrie Wade _would_ talk then, sure
enough. Married men don't go about having fisticuffs over girls that
live next door to 'em without folks wondering, and I tell you I'm like
that fellow Cæsar's wife--I'm too good to be wondered about in any shape
or form."
"I know it--God knows I know it," Henley responded, under his trembling
breath. "You needn't be afraid, Dixie. I'll take care. But you didn't
tell me what answer you made to--to Long's apology, or whether you was
going to let him come again or not."
"I wrote him a pretty nice sort of a letter." She was laughing as she
bent over her pail, but he didn't know it. "You see, Alfred, I was
afraid you had hurt the poor fellow's feelings that day, and I thought
_somebody_ ought to be mild-tempered. I told 'im that wasn't no place or
time, anyway, to kiss a girl--right in front of the door of her
house--that a girl naturally liked to be wheedled awhile before she set
in on such familiar terms, and that if it had been a _third_ visit,
instead of jest the _second_, that I'd have taken him for a stroll down
by the creek. There's a foot-log there plumb hid by willows, Alfred, and
I always thought it would be fine to set on it with your feet dangling
over the stream and see two sweethearts reflected in the clear water,
his arm round her waist and her head on his shoulder. Now, that's the
sort of thing this chicken has always had a yearning for, and--" Dixie
tittered inaudibly in the pail and said nothing more.
He had drawn himself erect and stood as full of despair as the night was
full of darkness. She heard him utter a low groan, but that was all. She
peered up at him stealthily, and then, with a face warm with content,
she resumed her work. He stood silent till she rose.
"Now that dratted calf can come to the second table," she said, in the
most uneventful tone imaginable. "Alfred, will you please let him in?
He's about to butt the gate down."
He walked stiffly across the lot and opened the gate. The calf shot past
him like an animated cannon-ball. He met her as, with the pail on her
arm, she had turned toward the cottage.
"I'm too big a fool to ever understand you, Dixie," he gulped, as they
paused face to face. "Since me and you parted the--the other day I--I've
been plumb crazy. I got to thinking things that are too far off--too
nigh the gates of heaven to be possible--things that made all my
troubles fly away, but now I see it was just in my imagination. I'm
going to be sensible from now on if it kills me. You can't keep on in
the miserable way you are living. You've always thought you'd escape the
worst by marrying, and I have no right because this here hell is raging
in me to tell you who, or who not, to take. I'd rather see you--you dead
in your coffin than the--the wife of that silly fool. But that's your
business--that's--that's--" His voice broke and he stood quivering, his
strong face torn into shreds by despair.
"You dear, dear boy!" Dixie said, laying her disengaged hand gently on
his arm, her own face suffused with a faint glow of uncontrollable
tenderness. "I'm only a girl--a natural one, Alfred--and I'm so hungry
for love that I try to make you say those things, wrong as they may be.
Don't you know when I'm joking? Listen and I'll tell you the truth. I
wrote Jasper Long that it was all right about what he'd tried to do. I'd
not hold any grudge against him, but that I knew I never could care for
him, and I hoped he'd never come to see me again."
"You--you wrote 'im that?" Henley gasped.
"Oh, Alfred," she cried, as she released his arm, "don't you know that I
could not marry a man I don't love? Don't you know what has been growing
up in me all this time in which you with your unhappiness and me with my
misfortune have been drawed so close together? Every night, as I say my
prayers and call on God to help you, I wonder what He meant by the bonds
with which He's tied me to you hand and foot, heart and soul. When you
was trying to find me a husband, and fighting for my legal rights, you
thought it was just friendship, and so did I. The world we live in
counts it one of the blackest of sins for a married man and an unmarried
girl to love each other, but you know we didn't do wrong intentionally.
We was as innocent and unsuspecting as lambs in the fold. Right when we
thought we was doing our duty the ground was slipping from under us, and
we was clutching each other to keep from falling. Now, that's all I'm
going to say. I shall never marry any man while this feeling is in my
breast. That would be wrong for a dead certainty, let folks say what
they please about the other. Your wife went off to-day, didn't she? I
saw Warren's carriage drive up and knew something was going to happen;
then the old man come over and told us about it."
She had passed through the gate on her way home, and he remained at her
side. "I want to stop in after supper, and--and see how little Joe is,"
he said, hesitatingly.
"No, not to-night, Alfred," she returned, firmly. "He'd like to see you,
but don't come the first night after--after she went away. We really
must be sensible. Folks don't understand--they never could
understand--and we've got to think of them. I may have done wrong in
letting you know how I feel, but it will end there."
"I see, I understand," he said, reverently. "They shall never talk about
you while I'm alive. Good-night."
He walked slowly toward the lights in the farm-house. He heard the two
Wrinkles, with cracked voices, singing a hymn as they sat in their
rocking-chairs on the porch. The very stars seemed to hang lower from
the darkling mystery overhead; he felt light enough, in his boundless
content, to rise to them and drink at their twinkling founts. His soul
seemed to swell to the point of bursting. "Oh, God, I thank Thee!" he
said, deep within himself. "I thank Thee!"