"Father knew you were an enemy. He told me that you, Batchelor, I mean,
had made him lose a lot of money last week and would probably make him
lose more next week. Maybe father thought as you did, that if you were
out of the city--" she knitted her brows and gazed off across the
valley. "Father telegraphed just before we went to that place behind
the bam, right after dinner. I know, for I saw him go to the office.
Why don't you tell me the truth, Jerry?"
"God, Billy, ain't I giving you the straight goods?"
"Not about father," replied Bartlett's daughter gravely.
"Why--er--he may have telegraphed--"
"Certainly, he did," said Billy. "This whole trip was father's idea."
She brushed the subject aside as one to be returned to later. "Tell me,
Jerry, isn't your father a minister?"
"Yes, that's straight. He was poor, darned poor. We were all poor. He
used to say that a man with more children than brains had no place in
the ministry."
"I should think that possibly your father had brains," suggested Billy.
"Yes," admitted the Watermelon. "But they didn't keep pace with the
children."
"What happened to you all? Why--er--why couldn't you have worked at
something?"
She was gazing at him bewildered, trying to get a grasp on the new state
of affairs.
"Aw, we went from bad to worse," muttered the Watermelon sullenly.
"Father left the ministry. He used to say that you could appreciate the
glory of the Almighty much better in a dollar bill than in the Bible."
"Maybe he had--er--no leanings toward the ministry," murmured Billy,
endeavoring to express as politely as possible her growing conviction
that the Reverend Mr. Martin was not a godly man.
"Maybe not," agreed the Watermelon. "But when a man's down, every one's
down on him. Nothing father did went right. Ma died and the home broke
up--I don't know what's become of all the others--working, I suppose,
day after day, like slaves in a galley, you know. I tried it, and every
night I drank to drown the damnable monotony and stupidity of it all.
So, you see what I am, a bum--a tramp."
"And yourself, my love, my Jerry."
Billy held out her hands and he caught them and held them tightly in
both his own for a moment, then dropping them, turned away with half a
sob.
"Don't, Billy. Don't make it so hard for me, dear. We can't marry.
I'm filth and you're sweetness and purity."
"But other men have married. You aren't the only one who isn't clean."
"I know, but I love you. See? When you love a person, you don't make
them suffer for it. You can't understand, Billy, for you have never
known life. You don't begin to know what it means. I will probably
marry a girl from the streets, or one with no brains and no soul. But,
you see, I love you."
Billy's eyes blazed. "You will never marry any one else with me alive,"
said she.
"How could I marry you, dear? I have nothing--absolutely nothing. We
couldn't have a home anywhere."
"We can make a home," pleaded Billy. She leaned toward him and laid her
hand on his arm, smiling into his moody face with all the charm, the
daring, the tenderness of a woman who loves and is fighting for her
happiness with every weapon at her command.
"You can't make a home with nothing to make it on," said the Watermelon.
"Ah, but we have something to make it on," cried Billy. "We have you
and me."
"But no money."
"Why, Jerry, I have money; hundreds, thousands, dear."
But the Watermelon shook his head. "Money wouldn't be any good when I'm
rotten," said he.
"Dear," crooned Billy, and kissed him on the chin, for she could reach
no higher.
"Billy," he groaned.
"Tell me you love me, Jerry."
"Tell you I love you? Ah, sweetheart."
"Tell it to me, Jerry."
"Billy, I love you so, that if there is a God, I will thank Him all my
life for this week and the thought of you."
"You may not," said Billy, "when we have been married a year."
"We can't marry, dear. Don't you understand? I am a tramp."
"And so am I."
"Your father will kick me out when he knows--"
"It's none of my father's business," said Billy with a saucy tilt of her
small chin. "He's marrying whom he pleases and I shall do the same."
"Wait until I speak to him--"
"No," said Billy promptly. "I will speak, Jerry. Promise me that you
won't say a thing until we get to the town where we can telegraph. Oh,
Jerry, my love, promise me."
"I promise, Billy, kid."
"Promise you won't say a thing until I speak."
"I won't say a thing until I can't help it, but what good will that do?"
"Let's be happy while we can," returned Billy, with a pretty evasion.
"We have one more day."
"Oh, Billy," whispered the Watermelon.
Billy turned and led the way up the path to the house while the
Watermelon picked up the two suit-cases and followed her.
At the house they found the general with his usual inability to conceal
a thing, explaining that they had no money, but wished to have a
two-seated team and a driver to take them to the nearest town.
The farmer did not hail the proposition with unalloyed joy. He looked
thoughtfully from one to the other while Bartlett explained earnestly
who he was, who the general was, who they all were, in a vain attempt to
undo the general's commendable, if mistaken, frankness. Upon promising
to let the driver keep his watch as a guaranty of good faith, to be
returned when the money they were to telegraph for arrived, Bartlett
persuaded the man to give in and go to the barn for the horses.
Billy drew her father aside, while the general, Henrietta and the
Watermelon retired discreetly to the well for a drink.
"Father," said Billy, coming directly to the point and evading it with a
skill that befitted her father's daughter. "Jerry wants to marry me.
Oh, father, I love him so. I love him as much as you do Henrietta."
Bartlett flushed and dismissed Henrietta from the conversation. "My
dear Billy, you have only known him a week."
"I know, father," agreed Billy, "but a week is long enough to fall in
love in. Truly, it is, father. And we both care so much, so very
much."
Bartlett was secretly elated at the idea. He and Batchelor, with their
differences reconciled, fighting together, instead of each other, would
become rulers of the Street, could attain to any height. Batchelor was
young, clever, lovable. There seemed nothing to object to. But he felt
that he should. Conventionality, Henrietta, Mrs. Grundy, one or all
would clearly see that there was something wrong, would counsel delay,
waiting. He had never given a daughter away in marriage and was not
sure what to do. He hemmed and hawed and wished that he could consult
Henrietta.
"We don't want the others to know," went on Billy guilefully. "Wait
until we get to the town before you say anything, won't you, father?"
"But, Billy, a week."
"Now, father," advised Billy, "just forget it. And I will forget about
you and Henrietta."
"About me and Henrietta?" snapped Bartlett.
"Yes," said Billy, "and last night on the porch when you thought we had
all gone in."
"That will do, Billy. We did nothing at all but say good night. I have
no objection to Batchelor as a son-in-law from what I know of him; but
only a week--"
"It was only an hour," said Billy. "I loved him that very first day.
And please, father, you won't say anything, will you, even to him, about
it? Just be nice to him, you know. And then I won't say anything."
"Certainly I won't say a thing if you don't want me to, Billy--but there
is nothing whatever that you could say."
"No," said Billy, "only what I heard."
The carriage drove up at that moment, which was well.
*CHAPTER XXIII*
*BACK TO THE ROAD*
Bartlett took the telegram the clerk handed him in an elation it was
hard to conceal from Batchelor, who leaned against the counter of the
store and telegraph office combined, and watched him moodily.
"Realizes that it was a piece of foolishness, his taking that trip,"
thought Bartlett with the sympathy of the victor for the beaten. "Has
probably forgotten Billy for the time. Poor Billy!"
He tore open the telegram quickly and read it eagerly and then slowly
and still again more slowly, while his florid face grew first red and
then white.
"Come back, for God's sake. B. here all the time. Where have you
been?" signed by his broker's name.
After the third reading, Bartlett raised his eyes and glanced dully at
the Watermelon, leaning against the counter, among the gay rolls of
calico and boxes of rubber overshoes and stockings, watching him with
thoughtful wary eyes, and Bartlett wondered if he were going mad.
It was late in the afternoon. The general and the girls, having
telegraphed for money, had gone to the hotel to wait for the answers,
while Bartlett and the Watermelon had remained in the store, Bartlett
eager to receive the answer to the joyful congratulations he had sent
his broker on the success of his plan, and the Watermelon because he
scorned to run away like a whipped cur, preferring Bartlett to know who
he was.
"To ask me for Billy," Bartlett had at first decided, but changed his
mind as the youth's gloom became apparently impenetrable.
Bartlett's jaw was set squarely, sternly, his eyes gleamed angrily and a
small pulse beat in his cheek. He handed the Watermelon the telegram
and watched him as he read it.
"Who are you?" he demanded hoarsely, when the Watermelon had finished
reading the message and returned it.
"Jeroboam Martin," said the Watermelon slowly, a grim amusement in his
half-shut eyes.
"Jero--what?"
"Jeroboam Martin."
"But Batchelor," stammered Bartlett, confused. The power of suggestion
had been so strong that, though he occasionally thought the youth a bit
eccentric for a stock-broker, it had never entered his head to question
his identity.
"Batchelor is in New York," returned the Watermelon. "I just
telegraphed him, C.O.D., where he could find his blooming car. Don't
suppose the police had sense enough to look for it at the hotel."
"A low dirty trick," sputtered Bartlett.
The Watermelon agreed. "Typical of the Street," he sneered. "Yah, it
fairly reeks with the filth of money, your plan and mine."
"My plan?" Bartlett flushed and looked away. "Stung," said he humbly,
and crumpled the telegram in his hand as he gazed moodily through the
open door to the village street, impotent to refute the words of the
Watermelon.
The Watermelon nodded without any undue elation, in fact, not thinking
at all about Bartlett, he was too entirely absorbed in his own troubles.
"I suppose you are his partner--friend?" questioned Bartlett, after a
moment's painful readjusting of ideas.
"No, I am a stranger. We met by chance, as you might say. I am a
tramp."
"A tramp!" Bartlett's business chagrin vanished before the rush of his
paternal alarm and surprise. "But, by heavens, man, I told Billy she
could marry you."
The horror in his tones angered the Watermelon. The hot blood leaped
into his face and his hands clenched.
"Well, why not?" he demanded. "I am a man if I am a tramp."
"Bah," sneered Bartlett. "A man? A cow, rather, an animal too lazy to
work. I suppose you stole your clothes."
Both talked in low voices that the clerk, who only restrained himself
from approaching by the exertion of tremendous will power, might not
hear them. The Watermelon's face was very white, and he spoke slowly,
carefully, as he retold the episode of the swimming-hole and the stolen
car, still leaning against the varied assortment of dress goods. "I
borrowed these clothes," he concluded, "to keep you away from New York
for a week. That object may not sound original to you, and it wasn't.
You were the one who suggested it to me through the telegraph clerk last
Sunday."
"That boy would take candy from the baby," swore Bartlett gently.
"You were stung, that's all. I love Billy and she loves me. I hate
work, but for Billy I will work and am going to work. I love her."
"Does she know you are a tramp?"
[Illustration: "Does she know you are a tramp?"]
"Yes."
"You haven't a cent, I suppose."
"No, but I can earn some."
"How?"
"Working."
"At what?"
"Something."
"What?"
"Anything. Damn it, I ain't incapable of anything but sleep!"
"I've lost thousands through that dirty trick of yours--"
"Yours. You originated it, you know."
Bartlett leaned against the counter beside the Watermelon and glared at
the floor. Neither thought to leave the store, and even forgot the
clerk, who gazed at them dubiously from a discreet distance and wondered
how many more telegrams they wanted.
Bartlett knew Billy. Billy said that she was going to marry this man
and so she would marry him--unless something more effective than verbal
opposition were used. He had never exerted any authority over Billy and
knew that it would be too late to begin now. Billy would only laugh at
him. But after all, he was Billy's father, he loved the girl and had
some right to object to her marriage with a tramp.
He glanced at the thin clever face beside him and admitted that the man
had brains and apparently was not besotted or brutalized, merely
indifferent, lazy and wholly unambitious; besides, very young, impatient
of restraint and the dull grind of a poor man's life.
"Who are your people?" asked Bartlett to gain time. He must make a plan
to separate Billy from this impecunious suitor. Authority was useless.
He must use tact, finesse.
"My father was a minister," returned the Watermelon. "Yours was a
grocer. Billy told me. Families don't count in America."