One clear, warm evening three days later, on his return to his lonely
house, Henley went into the kitchen and prepared his simple meal, and,
after eating it, he went to his room to get his pipe and tobacco for a
smoke. He had no sooner entered the room than he noticed that it had
undergone a change. Some one had taken the white lace curtains from his
wife's room and put them up over his windows. Pictures in frames which
had been ill-placed in the parlor now hung by his bed and over the
mantelpiece. A neat-colored rug from Mrs. Henley's room ornamented the
floor, and on it stood a table from the hall, holding the family Bible,
an album of photographs, some other books from the parlor, and a vase
containing fresh roses. The open fireplace was filled with evergreens,
and the rough, brick hearth had been whitewashed, the lime giving out a
cool, pungent odor.
"She done it!" he exclaimed. "Nobody else would have thought of it." And
he sat down in a rocking-chair, in which some cushions had been placed,
and, not wishing to contaminate his surroundings by smoke, he leaned
back and enjoyed it as he had enjoyed few things in his life. "Yes, she
done it," he kept saying. "She slipped over here, busy as she is at
home, and done it just to please me. She is a sweet, good, noble girl."
As the dusk came on he went outdoors, lighted his pipe, and strolled
down to the gate. Leaning on it, he looked toward the mountains, which
were rapidly receding into the night. How majestic and glorious it all
seemed! How soothing to his sore spirit was the gift which had been so
delicately bestowed and which nothing should ever take from him! He
wouldn't have admitted to himself that he was there at the gate because
it was the hour at which Dixie drove her cow up from the pasture across
the way, but he was there with his glance on the pasture-gate. He saw
her coming presently, and went to meet her. Her color rose as she
recognized him above the back of the waddling cow, and she assayed a
mien of casual indifference as she returned his smile.
"I have to tell you," he began, as he turned and suited his step to
hers, "how tickled I am over the way you fixed up my room. I'm certainly
much obliged to you. It's a different place altogether."
"I'm glad you didn't scold me for the liberty I took," she said. "I saw
your front-door wide open, and--and, well, I just couldn't help it. I
never saw such a mess in all my life. It made me sick to look at it. I
simply had to clean it up. Oh, Alfred, you are just a big baby, and it's
a pity to see you left this way."
"And to think that you done it!" Henley said. "With them little hands,
and--and for a big, hulking chap like me."
"Oh, it was fun," she answered. "Joe was with me; he whitewashed the
hearth and cut the pine-tops for the chimney. He'd have moved every
stick of furniture out of the parlor if I'd 'a' let him."
"I kept bachelor's hall for years," Henley said, "but I never once
thought of fixing up the room I occupied. I can see now how much
difference it makes. La me, Dixie, I could set there by the hour and
just--just enjoy it, knowing that you--"
"Don't talk about it any more," she interrupted, with a wistful, upward
glance. "It makes me feel sad to think that after all you've done for
other folks you should make so much over what you ought to have by
rights. I actually cried the other night. I was driving the cow 'long
here and saw you through the window in the kitchen cooking your supper.
A woman's heart is tender toward children and to a man that she--to a
man that is plumb helpless and bungling about over things he has no
business to fool with. Alfred, your frying-pan had a sediment of eggs,
meat, grease, and pure dirt on the bottom as hard as the iron itself. I
had to chop it out with a hatchet. Your coffee-kettle was full to the
spout with old grounds, and you left a ham of meat lying flat on the
floor, and the flour-barrel was open for the hens to nest in."
"So you was there, too," said Henley. "I thought Pomp done it."
"Pomp? He's a man, if he is black," the girl sniffed. "He wouldn't have
thought anything was wrong if he'd found the house-cat sleeping in the
bread-tray. No, you've got to be attended to some way or other. I don't
know how, but it's got to be done."
"I'll make it all right," Henley declared. "I'm used to knocking about."
Dixie shook her head. They had reached his gate, and she paused,
allowing the cow to trudge on homeward. "You may not know it, Alfred,"
she said, "but you are changed. You look restless and unsettled. You
made one of your best trades the other day in buying them mules, but you
haven't been to see 'em once since you turned 'em in the pasture. It
ain't like you. You used to be so full of fun. This money your wife has
come into has upset you. You don't feel exactly right about it."
"I'll admit it," he said, softly. "I want her to get all she can out of
the good things of this world; but, somehow, that knocked me out--clean
out. I've made my own way in this life, and I want to keep doing it.
Men come to me every day and wish me joy in another man's death. I get
mad enough to slap 'em in the mouth. One fool said it was silly of me to
keep working when I had such a soft bed to lie on."
"I knew you'd feel that way," Dixie said, her eyes full of sympathetic
tenderness. "I was just thinking to-day of how many trials we've been
through together. I've helped you a little, maybe, and you've been my
mainstay. There is only one thing I'm plumb ashamed of, Alfred, and when
I think of it I get hot enough to singe my hair."
"What was that?" he asked in surprise.
"You remember--the time I engaged myself to a man I had never laid my
eyes on." And Henley saw that she was blushing. "I'd give my right arm,
and do my work with my left, to wipe that off my slate forever."
"Don't bother about that." He tried to comfort her. "You only come nigh
making the mistake I actually tumbled into. You ought to be thankful you
escaped the consequences that I had to shoulder. I didn't know Hettie,
and the only true love is the sort that comes from a deep knowledge of a
person's character. You see, I know you, little girl, through and
through. I've seen you in trouble and in joy, and found you all
there--true blue, the sweetest woman God ever made. If I'm out o' sorts
here lately it is because I can't keep from seeing what an awful,
life-long mistake I made. It is seeing the thing you'd die to have, but
which is out of your reach, that makes you see how empty the whole world
is."
"Don't say any more." Dixie impulsively touched his arm and then drew
her hand away. "I could listen to you talk that way all night, but I
must do my duty to you and me both. Talking of what we've lost won't
bring us any nearer to it. As for me, well--I'm a sight happier than I
was before she went off. I don't exactly know why, but I am. Every night
before I go to bed I tuck away my two old folks, and then hear little
Joe say his lessons and his prayers, and then I go out in the yard and
look at your light gleaming and twinkling through the vines about your
window. Then my heart gets full of a feeling so sweet and soothing that
when I look above the whole starry sky seems to shower down comfort and
blessings. Then I thank God, Alfred--not for giving you to me like other
women get their partners for life, but for giving me a love that can't
die as long as the universe stands."
He saw her breast heave with emotion. He tried to find his voice, but it
seemed to have sunken too deep within his throat for utterance. The
vague form of a horse and rider appeared outlined against the horizon
down the road. She was moving away, but he touched her arm and detained
her.
"Wait till he passes," he said. "Don't go yet--not just yet!"
"I ought not to be here talking to you after dark," she mildly
protested. There was a pause, during which the eyes of both were on the
horseman. "Why," she cried, "it is Mr. Wrinkle!"
And so it was. The old man reined in his sweating mount, and, throwing a
stiff leg over the animal's rump, he stood down beside them.
"Howdy do?" he greeted them. "I've just started to yore house, Alf. I'm
totin' a big piece o' news. I'm late. I had to stop an' tell it to a
hundred, at least, on the way. You mought guess all day and all night
an' never once hit it. Alf, we've had an increase in the family--but
hold on, hold on! it hain't that--it hain't another one o' my baby
jokes. I know better 'n to try a second dose on you out o' the same
bottle. Alf, Dick Wrinkle hain't dead."
"Not dead?" Henley and Dixie repeated the words in the same breath as
they tensely leaned forward.
"No, an' that ain't the only thing to be reckoned with. He's over at
home now, stouter and in better trim than he ever was in his life. He
appeared to me in the orchard whar we was packin' peaches, an' I was
plumb flabbergasted. It seems that he would have reported sooner if he
had been fully at hisself. He wasn't actually killed in that tornado,
but blowed off somers an' got a hit in the skull and was fixed so that
his remembrance played tricks on him. At one time he imagined he was a
cook for some cowboys, and a lot more fool antics. He would have been
that way yet--I mean in his crazy fix--but he says a pony throwed 'im
an' it all come back. You'll have to get him to tell you about it. I've
got it all mixed up."
Henley's wide-staring eyes sought Dixie's face. She was pale, still, and
mute.
"Well, I've got to be going," she said, in a quavering voice to old
Jason. "I haven't had a chance, Mr. Wrinkle, to ask you how Mrs. Henley
likes it over there. I hope your wife is well. They say the water is
freestone on that side of the mountain, and that is better for the
health than our hard limestone. You must tell them both that we all miss
them every day."
"Hold on! hold on!" Wrinkle said. "You'd better hear the straight o'
this thing. You'll wish you did, for folks will have it all lopsided by
to-morrow, an' I'll give you dead cold facts."
"But I've got my cow to milk," Dixie faltered, her color coming back,
"and it's growing late."
"I was going to tell you how Het tuck it," Wrinkle ran on, and there was
nothing for the girl to do but remain. "Dick told me to go on up to the
big house an' hand in his report in as fair shape as I could, an' I sent
his mammy, who was havin' ten fits a minute, to him, and went up to
Het's room, whar she lies down at that time o' the day. She's as tough
as rawhide, you know, an' I wasn't afraid she'd keel over, so while she
was frownin' at me like she thought I ought not to have butted in on her
privacy that way, I up an' told her the news. Well, sir, it plumb
floored her. You kin well imagine it would take a big thing to down Het,
but that did. She set up on the edge o' the bed, makin' wild stabs with
'er feet at 'er slippers, and lookin' wall-eyed an' scared.
"'Pa,' says she, 'this is one o' yore jokes.'
"'Joke a dog's hind-foot!' says I. 'If you think it's a joke you jest
step to that thar window an' look down at the peach-packin' shed.'
"Well, sir, you don't have to tell a woman twice how to verify an
important report. She riz like she was on springs, an' thumped across
the room in her stockin'-feet, an' looked out o' the window, with me
right in her wake. An' thar, as plain as a sheep in the middle of a
stream, stood Dick a-pealin' an' eatin' the peaches his mammy was
fetchin' him. An' now comes the part that may not suit you, Alf, one
bit; but I've come to fetch the whole truth an' nothin' but the truth.
In consideration of what Het has fell heir to, an' one thing an'
another, it may not be good news to you to hear that, instead o' lookin'
sorry, Het actually chuckled an' reddened up like a gal in her teens.
"'It's him!' she said. 'Thank God, it's Dick--it's Dick!'
"I couldn't pull 'er away from the window. She jest leaned agin the sash
an' stared, an' rubbed 'er hands together, an' went on like she was
gettin' religion. Then I set in, as well as I knowed how, to tell 'er
about Dick's mishap, but she waved her hand backward-like, an' stopped
me. 'Leave all that out,' she said, sorter impatient, as if she couldn't
think of but one thing at a time. 'You needn't tell about that--he's
alive, that's enough--Dick's alive!' And, would you believe it, folks?
She flopped herself down in a chair an' cried and tuck on at a great
rate. It upset me so that I give up the whole dang business. I went down
an' told Dick he'd better go attend to 'er. He axed me how the crazy
spell went down, an' I told 'im I didn't think she'd even heard it, or
ever would, for that matter. Women seem to scent a thing from far off
that they don't want to believe, an' close every pore of their bodies
an' eyes an' ears so it can't get in."
"Well, what was the final upshot of it all?" Henley was quite calm,
though a great new light was flaring in his eyes as they rested on
Dixie, who was looking off in the direction of the mountain, her little
hands grasping the palings of the fence, her tense body thrown slightly
backward.
"Dick's my own son," Wrinkle made answer, "but I got out o' all patience
with him. He ought to 'a' let well enough alone, bein' as Het was
willin' to let bygones be bygones. But not him. As me 'n him walked up
to the house, an' he looked over them broad acres on all sides, an' as
we went in at that fine door, he seemed to get back to his old self--an'
that is one thing that sorter makes me believe a little in the crazy
spell, for he looked like a man that had just waked up from a long nap,
shore enough. He was the maddest chap I ever laid eyes on as he went up
them steps to her private quarters. I followed. I wasn't wanted, I
reckon, but I had to see the thing through. She come up to him, Het did,
all wet from head to foot with tears, and tried to throw 'er arms around
his neck, but he shoved 'er off, he did, an' begun the awfulest
rip-rantin' jowerin' you ever heard, about the scan'lous way she'd
carried on with you while he was off. He didn't say nothin' about his
spell--he had no apologies to make. Accordin' to his way o' lookin' at
it, she'd blackened the white purity of his home while his back was
turned, an' nothing but blood, an' whole gurglin' streams of it, would
suit him. Well, they had it nip and tuck for fully an hour, an' then
they come to an agreement. They was to drive over to Carlton the next
day and ax Judge Fisk if Het had disgraced 'erself past recall; and so
we hit the road bright an' early. The judge was mighty nice. He said a
big mistake had evidently been made, but it was one that the law could
rectify if Het 'u'd just grease its wheels properly. He said he'd quit
settin' on the bench hisse'f--bein' beat by the Prohibitionists in the
last election--an' had gone back to practise at the bar, an' would
gladly take the case in hand. He saw plainly, he said, that it was Het's
duty, havin' come into sech a big estate as that, to clear her record
all she could, even if it _did_ cost her considerable outlay, first an'
last. He summed the whole thing up as calm, an' bent over with his
pencil in his hand, an' peepin' above his specs, just like he was
deliverin' a charge to a jury in a murder case. It was for Het to weigh
the evidence pro and con, an' consider, an' deliberate, an' make her
final choice betwixt the two claimants she had got tangled up with. He
didn't know, he went on to say--an', of course, he must have suspicioned
that she'd already made up her mind, bein' as she had fetched Dick along
an' left you out in the wet--he didn't know, he said, but what jestice
sorter leaned to the prior claimant, possession bein' nine parts of the
law, an' Dick bein' incapacitated an' rendered null an' void fer the
time involved. As to the crazy spell Dick had, he gave it as his opinion
that such things had been heard of often. He'd 'a' made a good doctor,
that judge would; he said the brain was the finest constructed part of
the human an--an--anatomy--that's it,--anatomy. He said it was made up
of a bunch of fibres an' strings as thin as spider-webs, an' that an
expert with the saw an' knife could open a man's skull an' tickle the
ends of 'em an' make the patient cut a different caper for every nerve
he touched. He said that's why human nature was so varied. He said, with
all fees paid, that Het could suit her own tastes an' inclination. He
said that she could claim that Dick's quar condition an' his
disinclination to furnish a support equal to her reasonable demands
justified her in callin' the fust deal off; or, on t'other hand, that
she could regyard it as the only obligation to which she was bound by
law or religion, an' that he would set about--after the fee was paid in
cash, or by check on any good, reliable bank, or even by a solid,
negotiable note--he would set about to have the second weddin' set
aside, and an-an--"
"Annulled," Henley threw into the gap.
"Yes, that's it--annulled," Wrinkle echoed. "An' he advised her to have
it docketed for next week's special term o' court, and that he'd promise
to rush it through without hitch or bobble. Dick seemed better satisfied
after they left the judge, an' they driv' back home without any more
wranglin'. Dick has bought him some new fishin'-tackle, an' is off to
the river to-day. He has a natural pride in the big plantation, and rid
all over it this mornin'. He says he has some new ideas that he picked
up in the West--before he had his spell, I reckon--which he intends to
apply there."
"Well, I really must hurry on," Dixie said, turning away. "Give my love
to your wife and to Mrs.--to your daughter-in-law. Good-night."
The two men saw her hastening away in the thickening shadows. There was
a vast throbbing within Henley's breast. The whole firmament above
seemed to be shimmering with a subtle, spiritual light. He laid his hand
almost affectionately on the old man's shoulder and beamed down into his
eyes.
"It is all for the best," he said. "I had no right to Dick's place. I
found that out long ago."
"Thar's one thing I don't like about it." Wrinkle was thoughtful, and a
rare mood it was for him. "I was thinkin' about it ridin' over here.
Alf, I don't like to give you up. As God is my holy judge, I like you--I
like you plumb down to the ground. You are a man an' a gentleman."
"Thank you." Henley's voice rang with a triumph he strove hard to
suppress. "Come in and put up your hoss and stay all night. I'll cook
you some supper and you can sleep in your bed, like old times."
"Much obliged all the same, Alf, but I reckon I can't. Het an' Dick both
laid down the law on that particular point. He's throwed that at 'er
several times already--I mean about lettin' you support me an' his Ma.
Seems like that sorter hurts his pride. He's threatened several times to
come over here an' instigate a civil war, but he won't do it right away.
He knows what a temper you got, an' I reckon he don't like the idea o'
that big tombstone already marked in Welborne's new graveyard. No, I
can't put up with you to-night. Het give me a five-dollar William to
defray expenses at the hotel, an' I sorter like the idea o' makin' a
splurge for a change. I'll make 'em give me the best drummer's quarters,
an' I'll order just what I want to eat."
Henley watched him remount and ride away, his legs swinging back and
forth against the flanks of the animal. He heard little Joe calling to
Dixie from the kitchen-door, and from the cow-lot her clear answering
"Whooee!" which came again in a softer echo from the nearest hill.
"I wonder what she is thinking?" he mused, the hot blood from his
surcharged heart tingling through his entire body. "I'd go to her now,
but she'd not like it. She wouldn't look at me while the old man was
talking. The sweet little thing is scared--she don't know what at, but
she's scared."