"MEBBE."
She had been so full of her own sharp pain and humiliation during the
first few days that perhaps she had not been so quick to see as she
would otherwise have been, but the time soon came when she awakened to
a bewildered sense of new and strange trouble. She scarcely knew when
it was that she first began to fancy that some change had taken place
in her father. It was a change she could not comprehend when she
recognized its presence. It was no alteration of his old, slow, quiet
faithfulness to her. He had never been so faithfully tender. The
first thing which awakened her thought of change was his redoubled
tenderness. She found that he watched her constantly, in a patient,
anxious way. When they were together she often discovered that he kept
his eyes fixed upon her when he thought she was not aware of his gaze.
He seemed reluctant to leave her alone, and continually managed to be
near her, and yet it grew upon her at last that the old, homely
good-fellowship between them had somehow been broken in upon, and
existed no longer. It was not that he loved her any less--she was sure
of that; but she had lost something, without knowing when or how she
had lost it, or even exactly what it was. But his anxiety to please
her grew day by day. He hurried the men who were at work upon the
house.
"Louisianny, she'll enjoy it when it's done," he said to them. "Hurry
up, boys, an' do yer plum best."
She had been at home about two weeks when he began to drive over to the
nearest depot every day at "train time." It was about three miles
distant, and he went over for several days in his spring wagon. At
first he said nothing of his reason for making the journey, but one
morning, as he stood at his horses' heads, he said to Louisiana,
without turning to look at her, and affecting to be very busy with some
portion of the harness:
"I've ben expectin' of some things fer a day or so, an' they haint
come. I wasn't sure when I oughter to look fer 'em--mebbe I've ben
lookin' too soon--fer they haint come yet."
"Where were they to come from?" she asked.
"From--from New York City."
"From New York?" she echoed, trying to show an interest. "I did not
know you sent there, father."
"I haint never done it afore," he answered. "These yere things--mebbe
they'll come to-day, an' then ye'll see 'em."
She asked no further questions, fancying that he had been buying some
adornments for the new rooms which were to be a surprise for her.
After he had gone away she thought a little sadly of his kindness to
her, and her unworthiness of it. At noon he came back and brought his
prize with him.
He drove up slowly with it behind him in the wagon--a large, shining,
new trunk--quite as big and ponderous as any she had seen at the
Springs.
He got down and came up to her as she stood on the porch. He put his
hand on her shoulder.
"I'll hev 'em took in an' ye kin look at 'em," he said. "It's some new
things ye was a-needin'."
She began to guess dimly at what he meant, but she followed the trunk
into the house without speaking. When they set it down she stood near
while her father fumbled for the key and found it, turned it in the
lock and threw back the lid.
"They're some things ye was a-needin'," he said. "I hope ye'll like
'em, honey."
She did not know what it was in his voice, or his face, or his simple
manner that moved her so, but she did not look at what he had brought
at all--she ran to him and caught his arm, dropped her face on it, and
burst into tears.
"Father--father!" she cried. "Oh, father!"
"Look at 'em, Louisianny," he persisted, gently, "an' see if they suit
ye. Thar aint no reason to cry, honey."
The words checked her and made her feel uncertain and bewildered again.
She stopped crying and looked up at him, wondering if her emotion
troubled him, but he did not meet her eye, and only seemed anxious that
she should see what he had brought.
"I didn't tell ye all I hed in my mind when I went to the Springs," he
said. "I hed a notion I'd like to see fer myself how things was. I
knowed ye'd hev an idee thet ye couldn't ask me fer the kind o' things
ye wanted, an' I knowed _I_ knowed nothin' about what they was, so I
ses to myself, 'I'll go an' stay a day an' watch and find out.' An' I
went, an' I found out. Thar was a young woman thar as was dressed
purtier than any of 'em. An' she was clever an' friendly, an' I
managed it so we got a-talkin'. She hed on a dress that took my fancy.
It was mighty black an' thick--ye know it was cold after the rains--an'
when we was talkin' I asked her if she mind a-tellin' me the name of it
an' whar she'd bought it. An' she laughed some, an' said it was
velvet, an' she'd got it to some store in New York City. An' I asked
her if she'd write it down; I'd a little gal at home I wanted a dress
off'n it fer--an' then, someways, we warmed up, an' I ses to her, 'She
aint like me. If ye could see her ye'd never guess we was kin.' She
hadn't never seen ye. She come the night ye left, but when I told her
more about ye, she ses, 'I think I've heern on her. I heern she was
very pretty.' An' I told her what I'd hed in my mind, an' it seemed
like it took her fancy, an' she told me to get a paper an' pencil an'
she'd tell me what to send fer an' whar to send. An' I sent fer 'em,
an' thar they air."
She could not tell him that they were things not fit for her to wear.
She looked at the rolls of silk and the laces and feminine extras with
a bewildered feeling.
"They are beautiful things," she said. "I never thought of having such
things for my own."
"Thar's no reason why ye shouldn't hev 'em," he said. "I'd oughter hev
thought of 'em afore. Do they suit ye, Louisianny?"
"I should be very hard to please if they didn't," she answered. "They
are only too beautiful for--a girl like me."
"They cayn't be that," he said, gravely. "I didn't see none no
handsomer than you to the Springs, Louisianny, an' I ses to the lady as
writ it all down fer me, I ses, 'What I want is fer her to hev what the
best on 'em hev. I don't want nothin' no less than what she'd like to
hev if she'd ben raised in New York or Philadelphy City. Thar aint no
reason why she shouldn't hev it. Out of eleven she's all that's left,
an' she desarves it all. She's young an' handsome, and she desarves it
all.'"
"What did she say to that?" Louisiana asked.
He hesitated a moment before answering.
"She looked at me kinder queer fer a minnit," he replied at length.
"An' then she ses, 'She'd oughter be a very happy gal,' ses she, 'with
such a father,' an' I ses, 'I 'low she is--mebbe.'"
"Only maybe?" said the girl, "only maybe, father?"
She dropped the roll of silk she had been holding and went to him. She
put her hand on his arm again and shook it a little, laughing in the
same feverish fashion as when she had gone out to him on the porch on
the day of her return. She had suddenly flushed up, and her eyes shone
as he had seen them then.
"Only maybe," she said. "Why should I be unhappy? There's no reason.
Look at me, with my fine house and my new things! There isn't any one
happier in the world! There is nothing left for me to wish for. I
have got too much!"
A new mood seemed to have taken possession of her all at once. She
scarcely gave him a chance to speak. She drew him to the trunk's side,
and made him stand near while she took the things out one by one. She
exclaimed and laughed over them as she drew them forth. She held the
dress materials up to her waist and neck to see how the colors became
her; she tried on laces and sacques and furbelows and the hats which
were said to have come from Paris.
"What will they say when they see me at meeting in them?" she said.
"Brother Horner will forget his sermons. There never were such things
in Bowersville before. I am almost afraid they will think I am putting
on airs."
When she reached a box of long kid gloves at the bottom, she burst into
such a shrill laugh that her father was startled. There was a tone of
false exhilaration about her which was not what he had expected.
"See!" she cried, holding one of the longest pairs up, "eighteen
buttons! And cream color! I can wear them with the cream-colored silk
and cashmere at--at a festival!"
When she had looked at everything, the rag carpet was strewn with her
riches,--with fashionable dress materials, with rich and delicate
colors, with a hundred feminine and pretty whims.
"How could I help but be happy?" she said. "I am like a queen. I
don't suppose queens have very much more, though we don't know much
about queens, do we?"
She hung round her father's neck and kissed him in a fervent, excited
way.
"You good old father!" she said, "you sweet old father!"
He took one of her soft, supple hands and held it between both his
brown and horny ones.
"Louisianny," he said, "I _'low _to make ye happy; ef the Lord haint
nothin' agin it, I _'low_ to do it!"
He went out after that, and left her alone to set her things to rights;
but when he had gone and closed the door, she did not touch them. She
threw herself down flat upon the floor in the midst of them, her
slender arms flung out, her eyes wide open and wild and dry.