Dick Wrinkle, travel-stained and covered with dust, a small valise in
his hand, trudged down the declivitous footpath of the mountain amid the
splendor of late summer leafage and occasional dashes of rhododendron
and other wild flowers, the color and scent of which greeted his senses,
dulled as they were to the finer things of life, as a subtle something
belonging to the past which had been lost and was regained. Now and then
he would stop, rest his bag on the ground, and breathe in the crisp air
as if it were a palpable substance that was pleasing to his palate. At
such moments, when the open spaces between hanging boughs, tangled
vines, and trunks of trees would permit, his glance, half doubtful, half
confident, would rest on the palatial residence in the valley below,
which, at every step, had been growing nearer and nearer.
"Yes, that's the place," he said once, in a certain tone of exultation.
"It must be; I've followed the directions to the letter, and there
couldn't be two such dandy houses as that round here. And it is hers, in
her own right, to boss over and to keep or to sell or to do as we please
with."
When he had reached the level ground he found himself in a broad,
well-graded road that led straight to the gates of the mansion, and when
he was quite near to it he observed on the right-hand side an extensive
peach-orchard. It was the gathering season, and in a shed open at the
sides, and containing long, canvas-covered tables, several negro men and
women were busy packing the ripe peaches into new crates which were
being nailed up by a white man in overalls and a conical straw-hat. The
pedestrian leaned against the whitewashed board-fence and scanned the
group, seeking a familiar face. But those before him had a strange look.
He was wondering if he could be mistaken in the place, after all, when,
his glance roving to the nearest row of trees, he saw an aged man emerge
with his arms full of peaches, which he took to the nearest negro
packer. Dick Wrinkle didn't recognize him under his broad hat and in his
fine clothes, but a thrill went through him when he heard him address
the servant.
"Put these jim-dandies on top with the yaller side up," he commanded.
"They are a lettle mite soft, but they've only got to go over the
mountain. They are for the head boss, an' you'd better pack 'em right.
He's powerful fond o' good ripe peaches. I've seed 'im eat 'em with the
skin on, an', as much as I like 'em, I can't do that. I'd as soon chaw
sandpaper."
"It's Pa," the man at the fence said, in a tone of relief. "I'd know his
voice amongst a million. He looks younger by ten years than he did. I
reckon high living did it. Well, it's my turn at it, an' it won't be
long 'fore I set in. I may have trouble at the start, but I'll weather
the storm. I know who I'm dealing with. I didn't live with 'er as long
as I did without learning a few things."
Dropping his bag over the fence, he climbed over after it. He stood for
a moment, hesitatingly, and then, taking out his pocket-handkerchief, he
flicked the dust off his coat and trousers and new shoes. He was well
and rather tastily attired. He was shaved, and his scant hair showed
that it had been brushed. He wore a heavy gold chain, which had a
prosperous look stretching across his black waistcoat. The old man had
turned back toward the trees, and, without being noticed by the active
packers, his son followed him, bag in hand. Old Jason, his eyes raised
in searching for the choicest fruit among the low branches of the trees,
did not see his son till he was close behind him.
"Now, Pa," Dick Wrinkle began, calmly enough, "don't jump out o' your
hide. Reports to the contrary, I'm alive and kicking."
Turning at the sound of the familiar voice, the old man started, an
exclamation, half of fear, half of gratified wonder, escaping his lips.
He stared fixedly, and his mouth fell open, exposing his quid of
tobacco. The peaches in his hands rolled to the ground, and, utterly
bewildered, he stooped as if to pick them up, but paused and stared
again. "Lord, have mercy!" he cried. "Lord, have mercy, who'd have
dreamt it--you back--you--you here! Why, we all heard--we all 'lowed--we
all was plumb sure you was--"
"I know. Never mind about that," the younger said, with a shrug meant to
shake off the topic. "Where's Ma, and--and Hettie?"
"Your Ma?--your Ma? Why, she's down at the spring-house watchin' 'em try
a new-fangled churn, or--or was a few minutes ago. Why, Dick, we all
thought you was--was--"
"Oh, I know, but where is Hettie?"
"Hettie? Oh, my Lord! Why, Dick, boy, hain't you heard a thing?"
"I've heard a sight more 'n I want to hear or will again," Dick Wrinkle
said, with lowering brows and a voice which seemed to bury itself in a
mass of inner threats as to dire approaching events. "I've come to
propose a--a settlement, without blood if it can be arranged; if not, we
kin spill plenty of it in the up-to-date Western style. I've been away,
and was detained longer 'n I expected by circumstances over which I had
no control, and in my absence, I'm told, my household--an', by gosh, my
honor!--has been stained. I'm not out looking for trouble, but trouble
may throw itself in my way. I'm prepared to do an outraged man's part.
I've got a medium-sized gun in my hip-pocket and a young cannon in this
valise."
"Oh, Dick, Dick, we mustn't have blood spilt, for all we do!" Old
Jason's display of actual concern was the first ever wrung from him.
"Besides, the law--the law must be considered."
"Oh, I'm willing to consider the law," Dick said. "I'll do a lot o'
things if I'm not made any madder 'n I am right now. I'm glad to git
back, an' I don't want to be mad. I'll do as much toward keepin' peace
as any other man. There ain't anything so awfully unheard of in what
happened to me. Fellers has been off from home before, an' the whole
world wasn't plumb upset by it."
"But they didn't rise from the dead," old Jason submitted,
argumentatively. "How on earth did you manage to do it? I mean--"
The son's glance for the first time wavered. He looked toward the
towering mountain as if for moral sustenance. His lips mutely moved as
if he were conning a lesson he was learning by rote, and then, seeing
the question still in his father's blearing eyes, he began:
"I met with trouble, Pa--I reckon some would style it an accident. When
that big tornado struck the country out there and so many was blowed to
smithereens and never had even the pieces of 'em put together again--I
say, Pa, when all that happened I was struck in the back of the head by
a rock or a beam or a plank--I never knew exactly which--and never got
my right senses back for a long, long time afterward. In fact, I didn't
even know my own name or even recall you and Ma, or my old home back
here. I say, it was all a plumb blank till--till--"
"I know, till you heard about Hettie and--and--but go on. I'm a
listenin'."
"Well, there ain't much to tell." Dick Wrinkle was perspiring freely. He
took off his hat and wiped his red neck and bald pate with an impatient
hand. "Being hit that way, you see, was the last thing I remembered.
Folks say I must have wandered about over the plains like a wild animal
that didn't know how to do a thing but eat and drink what I could run
across. Some cowboys tuck me up and l'arned me to cook, and I followed
that for a long time. Then, t'other day, they put me on the back of a
bucking bronco, just for the fun o' the thing. I stayed on as long as I
could, but he finally flung me over on my head. That fetched me to. The
whole thing come back like a flash. Several years had slipped by, but
when I come to my right mind I thought that same storm was raging. I
refused to believe so much time had passed till a cowboy showed me the
date on a newspaper, and that plumb floored me."
"You don't say!" Old Wrinkle stroked his beard thoughtfully and, in
paternal sympathy, avoided his son's anxious eyes. "Well, well, that was
all-powerful curious, but--but I've read of sech things, and maybe
Hettie has, too; if she hain't, I'll try to show her that--I mean--but I
reckon I'd better trot over to the spring-house and kinder lead your Ma
up to it, and not have it sprung too suddenlike. She ain't one o' your
weak sort that flops down at the slightest report of good or bad luck,
but we'd better be on the safe side. I'll tell yore Ma, I say, an' then
I'll go up to the big house an see if I can do anything with Hettie."
"Well, maybe you'd better," Dick Wrinkle agreed, slowly, "and I reckon
you'd better give her a full account o' how it all happened. I don't
want to be eternally going over it. I've had enough of it myself."
"You mean about--yore crazy spell?" The old man stared inquiringly.
"Yes, about all that. I've told you--I've done give you full
particulars. You know as much about it as I do. A man out of his right
senses don't remember anything worth while, nohow."
"Well, I hope I'll git it straight, an' not backside foremost. It would
be funny if I begun it whar the bronco throwed you and ended up in the
tornado. Het will have to be worked fine, Dick. She sorter feels 'er
oats now. She always did hold 'er head in the air, but it's higher now
since she got rich. She mought take a fool notion that the bronco
throwed you powerful soon after her change o' luck."
"I don't want 'er dern money!" Dick Wrinkle snarled, his glance shifting
unsteadily. "I don't need _anybody's_ cash. I've got a thousand dollars
in my pocket now."
"You say you have?" The eyes under the bushy gray brows fluttered
thoughtfully. "Well, if I was you, I believe, Dick, that I'd not haul it
out an' make a show of it. You see--well, you see, it's like this: Het's
a thinkin' woman, an' sorter keen-eyed at times, when she wants to be,
an' lookin' at a wad like that mought--I don't say, it _would_--but it
mought, bein' a sort o' money-maker herself, it mought set her to
wonderin' how a feller clean out o' his senses could accumulate so much
cash in times as hard as these. If crazy fellers kin load up like that
out thar, men of brains could walk clean off with the State."
Dick Wrinkle started slightly and let his glance trail along the ground,
in several directions before lifting it again to the would-be helpful
countenance before him.
"I made it _after I got my senses back_," he said, finally, and rather
doggedly.
"Well, I don't believe I'd let that out, _nuther_," said old Wrinkle, in
a tone that was meant to be kindness itself. "You see, Dick, the bronco
throwed you just t'other day, an' a thing like that is liable to git you
all balled up. A woman like Het mought ax a heap o' fool questions, an'
you hain't had yore right mind back long enough to go into a game like
that yet awhile."
"Oh, I don't give a damn, one way or another!" the younger snorted. "It
ain't any o' her business, nohow where I was nor how long I was gone.
She's my wife, I ain't the fust man that ever went away for a spell and
then come home."
"I was jest wonderin'," the old man said, soothingly, "if yore old
high-an'-mighty way wouldn't be best, Dick. All the tornado an'
buckin'-bronco business may be a waste of talk. Het tuck to you in the
fust place beca'se you sorter held a tight rein over 'er, an', if I'm
any judge, Alf Henley, with all his easy ways an' indulgence, hain't
driv' her over any smooth road. I've heard it said that a woman will
kitten to a man that beats 'er quicker 'n she'll kitten to one that
kittens to her; an', if you set in on this fine place with a bowed head,
you'll be duckin' at every turn."
"Well, you go on an' tell her I've got home," was the request of the
son. "Tell 'er I want to see 'er, too, an' that right off. You may tell
'er I'm loaded for bear--that I've heard about the way she's been going
on with Alf Henley behind my back, an' that a day of reckoning has
arrived. It's been delayed, but it's here."
"All right," old Wrinkle said, gravely, "that's the best way. You are
comin' to yore senses, Dick. It wouldn't be natural for you to let a
fine place an' a little money scare the life out of you. It's lucky Alf
ain't here. I don't think he'll give you any trouble, though. Some
thought Het's good luck would spoil 'im, but, if I'm any judge, he seems
sorter 'shamed about it. He hain't been here but once, an' then acted
like a fish out o' water. He's a money-maker, an' too live a chap to
want to put on a dead man's shoes. You've come in good time, an' if Het
will let you stay you'll be in clover the rest o' yore days. Between you
an' Alf I naturally favor _you_, of course. Me 'n yore Ma felt all right
here, but we _did_ have a shaky sort o' claim, you'll admit, bein' akin
to the fountain-head in sech a roundabout way, an' with Alf Henley's
name in the pot, too. Well, I'll be goin'. Watch the back porch, an' if
you see me wave my hat up and down, this way, you come right on. If I
was to wave it to one side, like this--but never mind; we'll do the best
we kin."
"All right," agreed Dick. "I'll go pick me some ripe peaches. The very
sight of 'em makes my mouth water."