"That house may be empty," said the Watermelon. "Then we would be all
over there and have to come back."
"We've been in empty houses before," said Henrietta crossly.
"But what good would that do, to be over there without food?" asked the
Watermelon.
"What good to be here without gasolene?" retorted Henrietta.
"I can not leave the car," reiterated the general.
"Father," exclaimed the exasperated Henrietta, "some night I will find
that you have taken the car to bed with you."
"Suppose we leave the car here--" began the general argumentatively.
"We can't," sighed Henrietta. "Such a supposition would be impossible
with you the owner of the car."
The Watermelon laughed. "Aw, cut out the conversation," said he. "I
will be right back."
"So will I," said Billy.
Now the Watermelon objected. He did not feel equal to a _tete-a-tete_
with the adorable Billy, adorable still, though a bit cross.
"Cut out the conversation," mimicked Billy, and scrambled with more
speed than grace under the broken bars of the worm-eaten fence.
The Watermelon leaped the fence after her. Henrietta slipped under the
fence after the Watermelon. Bartlett hesitated one moment, glanced
guiltily at the deserted general and then followed Henrietta.
Billy and the Watermelon were young and light of foot and soon
outdistanced the stout Bartlett, who did his gallant best to keep up
with the nimble Henrietta, but found that the years of good living told
against him.
Henrietta waited politely for him at the stone wall which Billy had just
scaled and the Watermelon jumped.
"What are we hurrying for?" asked Bartlett, removing his hat to wipe his
heated brow.
"I am sure I don't know," laughed Henrietta. "Monkey see, monkey do, I
suppose. That is why there is such a thing as style. No one thinks."
"If we waited here," suggested Bartlett, "our dinner would come to us."
"As the office to the man," agreed Henrietta.
"Precisely."
Henrietta sat down on the wall and Bartlett leaned beside her, gazing
over the field to the distant woods. He felt thoroughly comfortable and
contented. No matter what happened now, Batchelor could not reach the
city by Saturday. The cotton ring was saved.
The scene before them was a typical Maine landscape, rugged, hilly,
beautiful, with the long shadows of approaching evening creeping across
the fields. From where they rested, the farm seen from the road was
hidden from sight. The whole place seemed desolate, primeval, with a
beauty and a charm that were all its own.
Henrietta drew a quick sigh of pleasure and fell silent, with dreaming
eyes wandering into the mysterious shades of the distant woodland, her
hunger for the time forgotten. The place, the time of day, just at
eventide, suggested romance, the one man and the one woman, and the
world not lost, but just attained. She wished she was Billy, young and
foolish and pretty, and that Bartlett was the Watermelon, long-limbed,
broad-shouldered, with the glory of youth that sees only glory down the
pathway of the future.
Bartlett broke in upon her reveries. "See that hill?" and he waved
toward the slope ahead of them.
Henrietta nodded, still wrapped in her dream. "The hill of life," said
she, "with glory at its top."
"A railroad," said Bartlett, prosaically matter-of-fact, "a railroad has
been cut through the hill. See, there go the children, suddenly out of
sight."
Henrietta came back to earth. "How do you know? Maybe there is just a
steep incline the other side and that is why they disappeared so
quickly."
"No, there is a cut up there. Don't you notice how abrupt it looks, and
there are no trees or bushes. They haven't had time to grow since the
cut was made. And those big lumps, see, covered with grass, they are
the earth thrown up out of the cut. It's the Grand Trunk. It runs
through Maine, you know, into New Hampshire."
Henrietta nodded and frowned. "There is no more romance," and she threw
out her hands with a graceful gesture of hopeless disappointment. "It
went when the first steam-engine came."
Bartlett looked at her, amused, with a man's tolerance. "What do you
want romance for? A railroad pays better."
"Pays, pays, pays," cried Henrietta. "I want something that doesn't
pay--that isn't associated with returns. You men have nothing but a
bank-book for a heart. It's so lovely here, so quiet. Don't you feel
it? With the shadows creeping across the pasture? I was young and
beautiful--"
"And a princess."
"No, a goose maid. My hair was brown and thick and hung over each
shoulder in two long braids. I was bare-headed, with sleeves rolled to
the elbows of my shapely arms--"
"You would have got malaria," said Bartlett. "It's very damp here. I
think there must be a pond over there in the woods. You can hear the
frogs."
"Oh, yes," agreed Henrietta. "I would have had malaria and rheumatism,
but I wouldn't have cared, then--for you see, I had come after the
geese, and down here in the tiny glen, with the hush of evening over
all, I had met him--"
"Who? Me?"
"My lover," said Henrietta.
"Me," said Bartlett softly, and to Henrietta's surprise he laid his hand
gently on hers.
Henrietta blushed and looked away. Her lover, this stout, grim,
hard-eyed man of business? She raised her hands to her cheeks and her
heart fluttered so she could hardly breathe, while before her startled
gaze swam the vision the years had been unconsciously forming. Had
romance come to her thus late, in this guise? Was a middle-aged member
of the New York Stock Exchange her prince?
"Henrietta," he asked gently, leaning toward her, "shall I finish the
story?"
"Why no," said Henrietta, "there was no finish. It had just begun."
"Just begun," whispered Bartlett, and took her suddenly into his arms.
"Oh, please," begged Henrietta, feeling that modesty called for some
remonstrance.
"Please," he taunted. "When you were the goose girl and I was the
prince, you didn't say please."
Henrietta laughed. "And neither did the prince," she dared him.
"No decent lover would," said Bartlett, bending and kissing her full on
her whimsical mouth.
After some little time they saw the others reappear over the top of the
hill. Henrietta had returned to her seat on the fence and Bartlett was
beside her, his arm around her waist, her head on his shoulder with a
simplicity truly bucolic. So might the Parkers' shifty-eyed stable-boy
be wooing the slatternly maid-servant in some secluded place behind the
barn.
Henrietta straightened quickly and blushing crimson after the manner of
the maid-servant, raised her hands to her hair so that one side of her
coiffure might not appear unnecessarily flattened before the sharp eyes
of the youthful Billy.
"Aren't we silly?" said she, glancing at Bartlett with the same
expression with which the maid-servant would have glanced at the
stable-boy.
"Why silly?" demanded Bartlett. "We love each other, don't we? Why
shouldn't I put my arm around you?"
"Oh," said Henrietta, "you should, but--er--er we seem so old for such
things."
"Old?" Bartlett laughed. "Love is the oldest thing in the world."
"I know," agreed Henrietta, "but not before people."
"Why not before people? People have become too artificial. They must
not love, nor hate, nor have any feelings, apparently, before people.
Feelings are interesting and we ought to show them more."
Henrietta laughed. "Oh, you are silly, silly, silly. I never knew a
New York broker could be so silly, so mushy."
"There's not a man living whom the right woman can't make mushy. Women
never realize how silly men are at bottom, my own. They are frightened
by our exteriors, by the ingrain fear of the chattel for her master,
born in women since Eve handed the larger share of the apple to Adam."
"I always thought that I would be dignified and sweet--"
"You are, my love."
"No, I am as silly as you. I put my head on your shoulder just as these
girls do whom you see in Central Park on Sunday afternoons. I never
thought that I would be like that."
"You have never loved before--"
"Indeed, I have. I have loved nearly every one I have ever met. Most
all girls do."
"That isn't love. Merely an increased vibration of the muscles of the
heart. Love--ah, Henrietta, do I have to tell you what love is?"
"No," whispered Henrietta. "It's just giving."
She paused, gazing before her into the deepening shadows of the evening
with misty eyes, for the first time realizing the completeness of life.
She nodded after a moment toward the approaching Billy and the
Watermelon. "What's the matter with the children? They look so
serious, and yet they must have something to eat, for they are carrying
bundles."
"Probably couldn't arrange for a tow for Charlie's car and see where we
sit up with it all night and hold its head."
*CHAPTER XX*
*THE SEVEN O'CLOCK EXPRESS*
As Bartlett said, the hill was cut through by a railroad. The deep
gully brought Billy and the Watermelon to a halt when they had
outstripped Bartlett and Henrietta, leaving them behind at the foot of
the hill. The sides of the gully were overgrown with grass and tangled
briers, but a narrow foot-path led down to the tracks and up the incline
on the other side. The Watermelon helped Billy down one side and
dragged her up the other.
"I would hate to be a tramp," panted Billy as she reached the other side
and paused a moment for breath. "I would get so cross if I were hungry
and knew I couldn't get anything to eat for a long time."
The Watermelon flushed hotly, but she was not looking, and when he spoke
he spoke carelessly enough. "You would get used to it," said he. "You
can get used to anything. Father used to say that the idea of hell for
all eternity was an absurdity--you were sure to get used to it and then
it wouldn't count any more as a punishment."
"I suppose that's so," agreed Billy. "But how do you know? You weren't
ever a tramp, were you, Jerry?"
"A tramp, kid, is the only man in America to-day, besides the
millionaire, who is his own master. Do you know that?"
"I would kind of hate that sort of master," said Billy.
"A tramp never has to worry about rent--"
"I know, but I should think the house might be worth the worry."
The Watermelon changed the subject.
A grim, elderly woman, thin and work-worn before her time, listened to
their troubles in the faded, weather-gray farm-house. Her man, she
explained, was out in the fields with the horses, but when he returned,
she would send him around and he would tow the car in for them. She
never took boarders. The house was a sight, but if they didn't mind,
she did not and they could have two rooms. She wrapped some bread,
fruit and cookies up for them in newspapers, and they started back to
wait with the others by the machine until the farmer came.
The still hush of evening was over everything, creeping with the
lengthening shadows across the pasture. A flock of turkeys was making
noisy preparations for bed in some trees near by. The frogs had begun
to croak and once in a while a whippoorwill called from the woods. In
an adjoining hay-field, hurrying to get in the last load before dark,
the Watermelon saw the farmer. A pair of sorry looking nags drooped
drearily, attached to the cart with its high, shaky load of new-mown
hay.
"I'm going to speak to him myself," said the Watermelon, stopping. "It
will save time. You wait here. I won't be long."
"Give me the food," said Billy. "I will take it to the others. Poor
things, they must be starving."
"I won't be long," objected the Watermelon. "You can't carry it alone."
"Indeed, I can," protested Billy.
The Watermelon laughed down at her. "You couldn't get up the other side
of the crossing," he teased.
"A girl," said Billy sagely, "is a lot more capable when she is alone
than when she is with a man."
She took the ungainly bundle and he watched her hurry away across the
fields, slim and graceful, dainty and sweet, while he was--a tramp! His
eyes darkened with pain and he threw one hand out after the small figure
in a gesture that was full of mingled longing and hopelessness.
"Billy, Billy," he whispered, then turned from the thoughts which were
coming thick and fast and started toward the distant field and the
farmer.
[Illustration: "Billy, Billy," he whispered]
The farmer listened with blunt stupidity, hot and tired and cross. Yes,
he would come for the car as soon as he could, but the hay had to be got
in first. It was late now. That train whistle you could hear was the
seven o'clock express. His horses were tired, too, but, of course, if
he were paid, why that made a difference. He would be around as soon as
he could get his load in. It was the last load, anyway.
The Watermelon turned and far in the distance, echoing and reechoing
through the hills, he heard again the scream of the approaching train.
"Billy win be across the tracks by this time," he thought. "I will have
to wait for it to pass. Glad it ain't a freight."
He hurried moodily through the field. His position had become
intolerable and yet he could find no chance to get away without
revealing his identity, and to do that now would do no good. They could
not reach the railroad any sooner than they were trying to. He longed
for the morrow that would end it all and yet dreaded the barrenness of
the future without Billy.
As he approached the cut, he saw the smoke of the train rising above the
bushes, an express, tearing its way through the evening calm like some
terrible passion searing the soul. The Watermelon stepped to the edge
of the cut and glanced carelessly downward.
There was Billy on the track, struggling to free herself from the rail
which held one small foot. Around the bend came the huge engine with
its headlight already lit for the wild night run.
The next two minutes were ever after a blank to the Watermelon. He was
in the cut, beside the white-faced, struggling girl almost
simultaneously with seeing her. As he shot down the bank, he felt for
and drew his knife. The engineer had seen them and the engine screamed a
warning, while the emergency brakes shrieked as they slipped, grinding
on the rails. On his knees, with one slash, the Watermelon cut the
lacings which, becoming knotted, had held her prisoner, then with one
and the same move, he had regained his feet and forced her flat against
the bank, as the train whirled by in a cloud of dust and cinders, brakes
grinding, wheels slipping, whistle screaming, a white-faced engineer
leaning horrified from the cab window.
Trembling violently, Billy clung sobbing to the Watermelon, her face
hidden in his breast. The Watermelon crushed her to him as if he would
never let her go, his arms tightening with the agony of remembrance. He
was trembling as much as she from the horror of that terrible moment.
His head rested on her hair and he talked, poured out his love in a rush
of misery and thankfulness. Words tumbled over themselves and were
repeated again and again, in phrases hot from his lips came all his
pent-up longing for the girl.
"Sweetheart, sweetheart," he whispered with white lips as Billy still
sobbed. "Darling, hush. Dear heart, my love, my Billy."
After a time her sobs stopped and she raised her face. The Watermelon
bent his head and they kissed frankly with the simplicity of perfect
understanding, perfect love. For a moment they clung together, still,
then Billy was the first to rally.
"We've got to go," said she, her hands raised to her tumbled hair as she
tried her best to laugh.
The Watermelon caught her hands and forced them down, drinking her in
with hungry eyes. Then he bent his head and buried his face for a
moment in the backs of her small hands, while something like a sob shook
his shoulders.
"Jerry," whispered the girl, a woman now, tender, compassionate,
gracious.
The Watermelon dropped her hands and turned abruptly. "I'm a damn
fool," he muttered and picked up the bundle, still beside the track.
"Why did you come?" she asked, all solicitude for him. "You might have
been killed."
The Watermelon did not answer. He stalked across the track to the other
foot-path and Billy perforce had to follow.
Henrietta and Bartlett had not even heard the wild scream of the engine
as it shrieked past, and when the Watermelon and Billy joined them, were
too preoccupied to notice anything for long in any one else. All four
returned to the general, quiet and apparently depressed. The general
was depressed himself. He did not see how it would be possible to get
gasolene in that neighborhood, and without gasolene they might as well
be without a car.
Billy divided the bread and fruit, and without a word, they sat side by
side and partook of their humble repast, the two girls, the general, the
tramp and the financier. The color returned to Billy's face and in her
eyes was a great and shining light every time she looked at the
Watermelon, where he sat on the step of the car, bread in one hand, an
apple in the other, a part of the paper spread on his knees to serve for
napkin.
But he would not look at her. His face was still white and he read the
paper before him that he might not think. Billy knew of his love and
loved in return, white, pure, decent Billy, and he a filthy piece of
flotsam washed for the moment from the slime of the gutter. Slowly,
precisely, he reread the article he had just read without having
comprehended a word of it.
The parting that evening was slightly prolonged, much to the general's
annoyance. He was tired and wanted to go to bed, and why the others
should prefer to linger on the small stoop which served for porch, he
could not understand, and what he could not understand always vexed him.
Bartlett wanted to take a stroll before turning in, and when the general
kindly offered to accompany him, he decided suddenly and rudely, the
general thought, that he didn't care to go. Henrietta wanted to sit on
the stoop apparently all night. Billy wanted to walk, too. Walking,
the general decided, ran in the Bartlett family, but instead of taking a
stroll with her father, she hung around the stoop with Henrietta; while
the Watermelon did not know what he wanted to do as far as the general
could make out. He was quiet, strangely uncommunicative, seemed to be
thinking deeply on some important subject. Worried over the past week,
thought the general. Irritated and tired, the general could not bother
with such nonsense and tramped off to bed.
The Watermelon felt that he could not say good night alone with Billy.
He had read the desire in her eyes for a bit of a walk with him and to
escape the temptation, he wished them all good night and followed the
general up to bed.
All the strength of the man cried constantly for the girl, for her
sweetness, her charm, her grace. But he loved with the love that is
love, that will give all and ask nothing, a love that is rare and fine
and that comes to king and peasant alike, and to no one twice, to some
not at all. His week was up. He would slip away that night when they
were all asleep. Billy would forget him and he would be better with his
old cronies, fat blear-eyed Mike and James of the bon-ton.
Long he lay on his narrow cot and stared at the gray square of the
window, while the gentleman he was born fought gallantly with the tramp
he had become.
*CHAPTER XXI*
*RICH AND POOR ALIKE*
He lay staring at the window while Bartlett's and the general's snores
rose and fell, mingling in a steadily growing crescendo of sound. As he
stared, he noticed suddenly a faint glow in the east. It was too early
for daybreak and the glow was of a different color, brighter, more
orange in tint. He watched it a while without comprehending, waiting
until it was time for him to steal away from Billy, back to the road
again. And as he watched, he was brought to quick consciousness of what
it was by a tiny crimson flame which appeared for an instant and was
gone.
The Watermelon leaped to the window. The barn, which, fortunately, was
unlike Maine barns, stood some little way from the house instead of
being attached to it. With a mighty burst of flames the roof caught
from the sides, which had been slowly smoldering. Every moment the
flames mounted higher and higher, fanned by a bit of a wind that had
arisen when the sun went down. The place was filled with the summer
hay, and even as the Watermelon took in the scene, he knew that there
was no hope to do more than to save the live stock, if they could do
that.
Turning he aroused the general and Bartlett.
"Get up," he whispered, not to disturb the girls, "the barn's on fire."
Bartlett was up and half in his clothes before the general had opened
his eyes. The Watermelon had already slipped quietly from the room.
"Fire," cried the general hoarsely, at last awake. He stood a moment in
the window, brightly lighted now from the dancing flames in the summer
darkness. Then he swore.
"My car!"
"Quick." snapped Bartlett. "The gasolene--"
"There was no gasolene," said the general sadly, as one would talk about
a loved and dying friend. He turned mournfully from the window.
The fire had gained too much headway to leave the slightest possibility
of saving the barn. The farmer, with the help of the Watermelon,
Bartlett and the general, had barely time to lead out the horses and
turn the cows into a temporary shelter. When that was done there was
nothing more that could be done but to watch the walls crumble and the
roof fall in a shower of sparks and a roar of flames, leaping and
dancing in a mad riot of destruction. All night the fire burned and all
night the four men and the three women turned their efforts to protect
the house.
The general, by right and instinct, took command. He formed a bucket
brigade, stationing the Watermelon on the roof, at one end of the line,
and the girls and the farmer's wife at the well to fill the buckets at
the other end of the line. They worked hard and quietly, as people work
when face to face with the grim forces of nature. Under the general's
able management the few sparks which did threaten were quickly
extinguished and save for a slight scorching here and there the house
was safe. In the excitement no one but the general thought of the
general's car.
The cold, gray streaks of dawn found them worn out, excited and hungry.
Unable to console the farmer and his wife, the five drew in a semicircle
around the smoldering heap which had been the barn, and forlornly
watched the last tiny flames licking around the twisted, blackened ruin
that had once been a motor-car.
"Gone," said the general sadly.
And Billy sniffed.
"Better Alphonse had taken it," lamented Henrietta.
"What shall we do now?" asked Bartlett. It was Saturday and Batchelor
would not be able to reach New York now no matter what happened. He had
won, the ring was safe, but he turned sadly to the general, and laid his
hand kindly on his old friend's shoulder. "Hard luck, man," said he.
"Hard luck."
"We will have to go home," said Henrietta dully.
"We have no money," replied the general quietly, unmoved by his
penniless condition, thinking only of the motor-car that was no more.
"I have a little," said Henrietta. "About six dollars."
"We owe at least all of that here for supper and rooms," said Bartlett.
Henrietta glanced from one to the other, then laughed, a gay little
bubble of mirth. They had no money, but what did that matter? What did
anything matter when one loved and is loved? She felt guilty because
she was not sorrier over the loss of the car, and she patted the general
lovingly on the shoulder.
"Cheer up, daddy, we haven't a cent, none of us," she crooned.
"We can telegraph," suggested Billy.
"From where?" asked Bartlett shortly.
"Why, we can drive somewhere where we can," returned Billy desperately,
under her father's calm scrutiny of amusement.
"Drive what?" asked Bartlett.
"A horse," said Henrietta mildly.
"What horse?" questioned Bartlett. "There are two. The farmer wants
them both to help clear up and to go to a neighbor's for assistance.
What shall we drive?"
"Shank's mare," said Henrietta. "At the nearest farm, we can get a team
and drive to some town where we can telegraph."
Bartlett and Billy agreed. The general said nothing. There was nothing
to say. The dream of his heart, the occupation of his days, was gone.
What was there to say?
The Watermelon also was silent. He felt that he could not leave them,
now that they were again in trouble. When they reached the town and had
telegraphed, he would go--back to the road. He was chewing a straw,
hands in his pockets, gazing with the others in dull apathy at the
remains of the car, and he raised his head instinctively to read the sky
for approaching storms. There would be a moon that night and a good
breeze, which would make walking easy.
"Hungry?" asked Billy gaily, smiling at him, her eyes asking what the
matter was. Had she done anything to offend him since the evening before
when they had climbed the railroad cut together?
"I'm always hungry, Billy," said he and joined the general on the way to
the house.
Billy stood a moment, hurt and flushed, then she followed the others in
to breakfast.
The farmer's wife had made some hot coffee, strong and black, and fried
some bacon, and with thick slices of bread and butter, they all ate
ravenously at the bare deal table in the kitchen, with no pretense
whatever of tablecloth or napkins. The Watermelon and the farmer's wife
stood alone in the kitchen after the others had left and he looked down
kindly at her with the camaraderie felt only by one unfortunate in
trouble for another in a like place.
"It's damn hard on you," he said.
"And on him," said the woman. "All the hay was just in."
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures--" murmured the Watermelon
laconically, instinctively turning to the Bible on every occasion.
"Pity you aren't a man. Then you could chuck the whole show and hit the
road with me. I'm stony broke, too."
He patted her shoulder gently and tears leaped into the woman's tired
eyes. She cried a bit and he soothed her softly as one would soothe a
tired child.
"Those others," said she, wiping her eyes on her coarse apron, "they are
kind, but they don't understand."
"They mean well," said the Watermelon, "but you have to go through the
mill yourself, to _do_ well. I know what poverty means. Its ways ain't
ways of pleasantness by a dog-gone sight."
"Beggars all, beggars all," cried Henrietta, as they started up the
road, in the dewy freshness of early morning.
It was still early and quite cool, with the breeze of the night
following them, laden with the depressing odor of charred timbers and
burning leather. The road wound around a hill, sloping now and again
into the valley and rising again to the heights. The view swept fields
and hills and woods, all of the deep green of mid-June, and over all
bent the blue sky of a summer day.
The air was like ozone. It was a physical joy simply to walk, to
breathe the odor of fields and woods and open places and to let one's
eyes dwell on the beauty and the glory of the land.
"I am glad it pleases you, Henrietta," said the general tartly.
Henrietta sobered. "Father, I feel as badly as you do about the car.
But I can't go into mourning for it."
"You needed another one anyway," consoled Billy, with the kindly
reassurance and hopeless misunderstanding of the rich. "The last model
is out now, you know."
"Billy," said Henrietta, "do you think we can buy a car every time the
humor moves us? You don't understand."
"I know," said Billy humbly, crushed under repeated rebuffs from every
one. "I am a perfect fool, Henrietta, but I can't help it."
If the general could have forgotten the car for a while, he would have
been agreeably pleased and flattered by the Watermelon's sudden apparent
infatuation for him. The young man insisted on walking with him,
suiting his long, lazy strides to the general's best endeavors.
Bartlett, Henrietta and Billy swung along briskly ahead. Henrietta was
touched. The boy was trying to show his sympathy, she thought, and liked
him more than ever.
It was nearly noon when they came in sight of their destination, a gaunt
gray farm-house, perched on the top of the gentle slope overlooking the
valley and the winding river to the woods on the hills beyond. They
came to the bars of a cow pasture and a narrow cow path leading across
the field to the house, a shorter way than by the road.
Henrietta and Billy, seeing no cows in sight, allowed the Watermelon to
let down the bars and to pass through. Billy waited inside the fence,
standing by the path, among the sweet fern, until all had entered and
all but the Watermelon had started up the path for the house.
Quietly she watched the Watermelon as he slowly and reluctantly replaced
the bars.
"Jerry," said she, when he had at last finished, "what's the matter?"
She had stepped into the path in front of him and he had to stop and
face her.
He flushed hotly and would not look at her. "There is nothing the
matter," said he. "Why? What makes you think so?"
She drew herself up with pretty dignity. "You need not have told me what
you did yesterday in the railroad cut, if it were not so," said she,
quite simply.
*CHAPTER XXII*
*THE TRUTH AT LAST*
"Billy," began the Watermelon, turning aside with darkening eyes, his
flushed face growing slowly white as he realized that the reckoning had
come. Billy must know all now, know who her companion of the past week
was, know the status of the man who had told her he loved her. Then he
turned to her again with all his mad, wild, foolish, hopeless longing in
his eyes and voice and held out his arms.
"Oh, kid, I love you," he whispered, as she went to him, frankly and
happily. "I love you so I can't marry you."
"It's old-fashioned to love your wife, I know," chirruped Billy, "but
let's be old-fashioned."
"It isn't that, Billy," said the Watermelon slowly. He held her a
moment, looking down into her eyes as she looked up at him, her hands on
his shoulders, her head back.
"What is it?" she asked, frankly puzzled, but refusing to be dismayed.
"You can't afford a wife, you who made three--four--millions this year?"
"Yes," said the Watermelon, grim and quiet, "that's it." He let her go
and thrust his hands into his pockets. "I haven't a cent, haven't ever
had one. I'm not Batchelor with a few millions. I'm a tramp without a
cent, stony broke. That suit-case," kicking Batchelor's suit-case which
he had carried with him, "is another's and I'm going to chuck it
to-night."
Billy stared, mouth slightly parted, her brows drawn together in wonder,
unbelieving. "Not Batchelor?" she stammered. "William Hargrave
Batchelor?"
"I am Jeroboam Martin of Nowhere and Everywhere," said the Watermelon
bitterly. "That Sunday I met you, I found Batchelor in bathing down in
the woods. I swiped his clothes, Billy, for the dinner I could get at
the hotel. Then I saw you. I wanted the week with you and I just went
on being Batchelor. See?"
"How?" asked Billy through white lips, staring at him from where she
stood in the middle of the tiny cow lane, winding away up the hill among
the sweet fern and the bracken.
The Watermelon raised his hand to his head and gently brushed his back
hair with futile embarrassment. "Why, you know that guy we heard
coughing in the bushes? Well, he put me wise to the fact that your
father--er--that your father and Batchelor were enemies on the Street
and I thought--maybe--er--if--why, your father asked me to go with you
on the trip, you know, and I thought--er--that if Batchelor was in the
city alone and your father thought he was with him--why, Batchelor could
beat him on the Street and not mind the loss of the few things I had to
take--er--see, I deceived the gang of you for a week's fun. See what a
cheap guy I am, Billy? A bad egg."
"Yes," said Billy. "Father asked you to go. Why did he do that?"