Wisdom had all but conquered Nella-Rose's folly when she came in sight
of Calvin Merrivale's store. But--who knows?--perhaps the girl's story
had been written long since, and she was not entirely free. Be that as
it may, she paused, for no reason whatever as far as she could tell, and
carefully took one dozen eggs from the basket and hid them under some
bushes by the road! Having done this she went forward so blithely and
lightly that one might have thought her load had been considerably
eased. She appeared before Calvin Merrivale, presently, like a
refreshing apparition from vacancy. It was high noon and Merrivale was
dozing in a chair by the rusty stove, in which a fire, prepared against
the evening chill, was already burning.
"How-de, Mister Merrivale?" Calvin sprang to his feet.
"If it ain't lil' Nella-Rose. How'se you-all?"
"Right smart. I've brought you three dozen eggs and ten pounds of pork."
Nella-Rose almost said po'k--not quite! "And you must be mighty generous
with me when you weigh out--let me see!--oh, yes, pepper, salt, and
sugar."
"I'll lay a siftin' more in the scale, Nella-Rose, on 'count o' yo'
enjoyin' ways. But I can't make this out"--he was counting the
eggs--"yo' said three dozen aigs?"
"Three dozen, and ten pounds of pork!" This very firmly.
Merrivale counted again and as he did so Nella-Rose remembered! The red
came to her face--the tears to her ashamed eyes.
"Stop!" she said softly, going close to the old man. "I forgot. I took
one dozen out!"
Merrivale stood and looked at her and then, what he thought was
understanding, came to his assistance.
"Who fo', Nella-Rose, who fo'?"
There was no reply to this.
"Yo' needn't be afraid to open yo' mind ter me, Nella-Rose. Keeping sto'
is a mighty help in gettin' an all-around knowin' o' things. Folks jest
naterally come here an' talk an' jest naterally I listen, an' 'twixt Jim
White, the sheriff, an' old Merrivale, there ain't much choosin',
jedgmatically speakin'. I know White's off an' plannin' ter round up
Burke Lawson from behind, as it war. T'warnt so in my day, lil'
Nella-Rose. When we-uns had a reckonin comin', we naterally went out an'
shot our man; but these torn-down scoundrels like Jed Martin an' his
kind they trap 'em an' send 'em to worse'n hell. Las' night"--and here
Merrivale bent close to Nella-Rose--"my hen coop was 'tarnally gone
through, an' a bag o' taters lifted. I ain't makin' no cry-out. I ain't
forgot the year o' the fever an'--an'--well, yo' know who--took care o'
me day an' night till I saw faces an' knew 'em! What's a matter o' a hen
o' two an' a sack o' taters when lined up agin that fever spell? I tell
yo', Nella-Rose, if _yo'_ say thar war three dozen aigs, thar _war_
three dozen aigs, an' we'll bargain accordin'!"
And now the dimples came slowly to the relieved face.
"I'll--I'll bring you an extra dozen right soon, Mister Merrivale."
"I ain't a-goin' ter flex my soul 'bout that, Nella-Rose. Aigs is aigs,
but human nater is human nater; an' keepin' a store widens yo' stretch
o' vision. Now, watch out, lil' girl, an' don't take too much fo'
granted. When a gun goes off yo' hear it; but when skunks trail, yo'
don't get no sign, 'less it's a smell!"
Nella-Rose took her packages, smiled her thanks, and ran on. She ate her
lunch by the bushes where the eggs lay hidden, then depositing in the
safe shelter the home bundles Merrivale had so generously weighed, she
put the eggs in the basket, packed with autumn leaves, and turned into
the trail leading away from the big road.
Through the bare trees the clear sky shone like a shield of blue-gray
metal. It was a sky open for storm to come and pass unchecked. The very
stillness and calm were warnings of approaching disturbance. Nature was
listening and waiting for the breaking up of autumn and the clutch of
frost.
It was only two miles from the Centre to White's clearing and the
afternoon was young when Nella-Rose paused at the foot of the last climb
and took breath and courage. There was a tangled mass of rhododendrons
by the edge of the wood and suddenly the girl's eyes became fixed upon
it and her heart beat wildly. Something alive was crouching there,
though none but a trained sense could have detected it! They waited--the
hidden creature and the quivering girl! Then a pair of eager, suspicious
eyes shone between the dead leaves of the bushes; next a dark, thin face
peered forth--it was Burke Lawson's! Nella-Rose clutched her basket
closer--that was all. After a moment she spoke softly, but clearly:
"I'm alone. You're safe. How long have you been back?"
"Mor'n two weeks!"
Nella-Rose started. So they had known all along, and while she had
played with Marg the hunt might at any moment have become deadly
earnest.
"More'n two weeks," Lawson repeated.
"Where?" The girl's voice was hard and cold.
"In the Holler. Miss Lois Ann helped--but Lord! you can't eat a helpless
old woman out of house and home. Last night--"
"Yes, yes; I know. And oh, Burke, Mister Merrivale hasn't forgot--the
fever and your goodness. He won't give you up."
"He won't need to. I'm right safe, 'cept for food. There's an old hole,
back of a deserted still--I can even have a bit of fire. The devil
himself couldn't find me. After a time I'm going--"
"Where? Where, Burke?"
"Nella-Rose, would you come with me? 'Twas you as brought me back--I had
to come. If you will--oh! my doney-gal--"
"Stop! stop, Burke. Some one might be near. No, no; I couldn't leave the
hills--I'd die from the longing, you know that!"
"If I--dared them all--could you take me, Nella-Rose? I'd run my chances
with you! Night and day you tug and pull at the heart o' me,
Nella-Rose."
Fear, and a deeper understanding, drove Nella-Rose to the wrong course.
"When you dare to come out--when they-all let you stay out--then ask me
again, Burke Lawson. I'm not going to sweetheart with one who dare not
show his head."
Her one desire was to get Lawson away; she must be free!
"Nella-Rose, I'll come out o' this."
"No! no!" the girl gasped, "they're not after you to shoot you, Burke;
Jed Martin is for putting you in jail!"
"Good God--the sneaking coward."
"And Jim White is off raising a posse, he means to--to see fair play.
Wait until Jim comes back; then give yourself up."
"And then--then, Nella-Rose?"
The young, keen face among the dead leaves glowed with a light that sent
the blood from Nella-Rose's heart.
"See"--she said inconsequently--"I have" (she counted them out), "I have
a dozen eggs; give them to Miss Lois Ann!"
"Let me touch you, Nella-Rose! Just let me touch your lil' hand."
"Wait until Jim White comes back!"
Then, because a rabbit scurried from its shelter, Burke Lawson sank into
his, and Nella-Rose in mad haste took to the trail and was gone! A
moment later Lawson peered out again and tried to decide which way she
went, but his wits were confused--so he laughed that easy, fearless
laugh of his and put in his hat the eggs Nella-Rose had left. Then,
crawling and edging along, he retraced his steps to that hole in the
Hollow where he knew he was as safe as if he were in his grave.
With distance and reassurance on her side, Nella-Rose paused to take
breath. She had been thoroughly frightened. Her beautiful plans,
unsuspected by all the world, had been threatened by an unlooked-for
danger. She had never contemplated Burke Lawson as a complication. She
was living day by day, hour by hour. Jim White she had accepted as a
menace--but Burke never! She was no longer the girl Lawson had known,
but how could she hope to make him understand that? Her tender,
love-seeking nature had, in the past, accepted the best the mountains
offered--and Burke had been the best. She had played with him--teased
Marg with him--revelled in the excitement, but _now_? Well, the
blindness had been torn from her eyes--the shackles from her feet. No
one, nothing, could hold her from her own! She must not be defrauded and
imprisoned again!
Yes, that was it--imprisoned just when she had learned to use her wings!
Standing in the tangle of undergrowth, Nella-Rose clenched her small
hands and raised wide eyes to the skies.
"I seem," she panted--and at that moment all her untamed mysticism
swayed her--"like I was going along the tracks in the dark and something
is coming--something like that train long ago!"
Then she closed her eyes and her uplifted face softened and quivered.
Behind the drooping lids she saw--Truedale! Quite vividly he
materialized to her excited fancy. It was the first time she had ever
been able to command him in this fashion.
"I'm going to him!" The words were like a passionate prayer rather than
an affirmation. "I'm going to follow like I followed long ago!" She
clutched the basket and fled along.
And while this was happening, Truedale, in his cabin, was working as he
had not worked in years. He had burned all his bridges and outlying
outposts; he was waiting for White, and his plans were completed. He
meant to confide everything to his only friend--for such Jim seemed in
the hazy and desolated present--then he would marry Nella-Rose off-hand;
there must be a minister somewhere! After that? Well, after that
Truedale grasped his manuscript and fell to work like one inspired.
Lynda Kendall would never have known the play in its present form.
Truedale's ideal had always been to portray a free woman--a super-woman;
one who had evolved into the freedom from shattered chains. He now had a
heroine free, in that she had never been enslaved. If one greater than
he had put a soul in a statue, Truedale believed that he could awaken a
child of nature and show her her own beautiful soul. He had outlined, a
time back, a sylvan Galatea; and now, as he sat in the still room, the
framework assumed form and substance; it breathed and moved him
divinely. It and he were alone in the universe; they were to begin the
world--he and--
Just then the advance messenger of the coming change of weather entered
by way of a lowered window. It was a smart little breeze and it
flippantly sent the ashes flying on the hearth and several sheets of
paper broadcast in the room. Truedale sprang to recover his treasures;
he caught four or five, but one escaped his notice and floated toward
the door, which was ajar.
"Whew!" he ejaculated, "that was a narrow escape," and he began to sort
and arrange the sheets on the table.
"Sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two. Now where in thunder is that sixty-three?"
A light touch on his arm made him spring to his feet, every nerve
a-tingle.
"Here it is! It seemed like it came to meet me."
"Nella-Rose!"
The girl nodded, holding out the paper.
"So you have come? Why--did you?"
The dimples came into play and Truedale stood watching them while many
emotions flayed him; but gradually his weakness passed and he was able
to assume an extremely stern though kindly manner. He meant to set the
child right; he meant to see _only_ the _child_ in her until White
returned; he would ignore the perilously sweet woman-appeal to his
senses until such time as he could, with safety, let them once more hold
part in their relations with each other.
But even as he arrived at this wise conclusion, he was noting, as often
before he had noted, the fascinating colour and quality of Nella-Rose's
hair. It was both dark and light. If smoke were filled with sunlight it
would be something like the mass of more or less loosened tendrils that
crowned the girl's pretty head. Stern resolve began to melt before the
girlish sweetness and audacity, but Truedale made one last struggle; he
thought of staunch and true Brace Kendall! And, be it to Brace Kendall's
credit, the course Conning endeavoured to take was a wise one.
"See here, Nella-Rose, you ought not to come here--alone!"
"Why? Aren't you glad to see me?"
"Of course. But why did you come?" This was risky. Truedale recognized
it at once.
"Just to say--'how-de'! You certainly do look scroogy."
At this Truedale laughed. Nella-Rose's capacity for bringing forth his
happier, merrier nature was one of her endearing charms.
"You didn't come just for that, Nella-Rose!" This with stern
disapproval.
"Take off the scroogy face--then I'll tell you why I came."
"Very well!" Truedale smiled weakly. "Why?"
"I'm right hungry. I--I want a party."
Of course this would never do. White, or one of the blood-and-thunder
raiders, might appear.
"You must go, Nella-Rose."
"Not"--here she sat down firmly and undid her ridiculous plaid
shawl--"not till you give me a bite. Just a mighty little bite--I'm
starving!"
At this Truedale roared with laughter and went hurriedly to his closet.
The girl must eat and--_go_. Mechanically he set about placing food upon
the table. Then he sat opposite Nella-Rose while she ate with frank
enjoyment the remains of his own noon-day meal. He could not but note,
as he often did, the daintiness with which she accomplished the task.
Other women, as Truedale remembered, were not prepossessing when
attacking food; but this girl made a gracious little ceremony of the
affair. She placed the small dishes in orderly array before her; she
poised herself lightly on the edge of the chair and nibbled--there was
no other word for it--as a perky little chipmunk might, the morsels she
raised gracefully to her mouth. She was genuinely hungry and for a few
minutes devoted her attention to the matter in hand.
Then, suddenly, Nella-Rose did something that shattered the last scrap
of self-control that was associated with the trusty Kendall and his good
example. She raised a bit of food on her fork and held it out to
Truedale, her lovely eyes looking wistfully into his.
"Please! I feel so ornery eating alone. I want to--share! Please play
party with me!"
Truedale tried to say "I had my dinner an hour ago"; instead, he leaned
across his folded arms and murmured, as if quite outside his own
volition:
"I--I love you!"
Nella-Rose dropped the fork and leaned back. Her lids fell over the wide
eyes--the smile faded from her lips.
"Do you belong to any one--else, Nella-Rose?"
"No--oh! no." This like a frightened cry.
"But others--some one must have told you--of love. Do you know what love
means?"
"Yes."
"How?"
And now she looked at him. Her eyes were dark, her face deadly pale; her
lips were so red that in the whiteness they seemed the only trace of
colour.
"How do I know? Why because--nothing else matters. It seems like I've
been coming all my life to it--and now it just says: 'Here I am,
Nella-Rose--here'!"
"I, too, have been coming to it all my life, little girl. I did not
know--I was driven. I rebelled, because I did not know; but nothing else
_does_ matter, when--love gets you!"
"No. Nothing matters." The girl's voice was rapt and dreamy. Truedale
put his hands across the space dividing them and took hold of hers.
"You will be--mine, Nella-Rose?"
"Seems like I must be!"
"Yes. Doesn't it? Do you--you must understand, dear? I mean to live the
rest of my life here in the hills--your hills. You once said one was of
the hills or one wasn't; will they let me stay?"
"Yes"--almost fiercely--"but--but your folks--off there--will they let
you stay?"
"I have no folks, Nella-Rose. I'm lonely and poor--at least I was until
I found you! The hills have given me--everything; I mean to serve them
well in return. I want you for my wife, Nella-Rose; we'll make a
home--somewhere--it doesn't matter; it will be a shelter for our love
and--" He stopped short. Reality and conventions made a last vain
appeal. "I don't want you ever again to go out of my sight. You're mine
and nothing could make that different--but" (and this came quickly,
desperately) "there must be a minister somewhere--let's go to him! Do
not let us waste another precious day. When he makes you mine by
his"--Truedale was going to say "ridiculous jargon" but he modified it
to--"his authority, no one in all God's world can take you from me.
Come, come _now_, sweetheart!"
In another moment he would have had her in his arms, but she held him
off.
"I'm mighty afraid of old Jim White!" she said.
Truedale laughed, but the words brought him to his senses.
"Then you must go, darling, until White returns. After I have explained
to him I will come for you, but first let me hold you--so! and kiss
you--so! This is why--you must go, my love!"
She was in his arms, her lifted face pressed to his. She shivered, but
clung to him for a moment and two tears rolled down her cheeks--the
first he had ever seen escape her control. He kissed them away.
"Of what are you thinking, Nella-Rose?"
"Thinking? I'm not thinking; I'm--happy!"
"My--sweetheart!" Again Truedale pressed his lips to hers.
"Us-all calls sweetheart--'doney-gal'!"
"My--my doney-gal, then!"
"And"--the words came muffled, for Truedale was holding her still--"and
always I shall see your face, now. It came to-day like it came long ago.
It will always come and make me glad."
Truedale lifted her from his breast and held her at arms' length. He
looked deep into her eyes, trying to pierce through her ignorance and
childishness to find the elusive woman that could meet and bear its part
in what lay before. Long they gazed at each other--then the light in
Nella-Rose's face quivered--her mouth drooped.
"I'm going now," she said, "going till Jim White comes back."
"Wait--my--"
But the girl had slipped from his grasp; she was gone into the misty,
threatening grayness that had closed in about them while love had
carried them beyond their depths. Then the rain began to fall--heavy,
warning drops. The wind, too, was rising sullenly like a monster roused
from its sleep and slowly gathering power to vent its rage.
Into this darkening storm Nella-Rose fled unheedingly. She was not
herself--not the girl of the woods, wise in mountain lore; she was
bewitched and half mad with the bewildering emotions that, at one moment
frightened her--the next, carried her closer to the spiritual than she
had ever been.