more nervous you are the more nervous you get. He groaned in
perfect misery: "Ohoho! That I should have seen the day when I was
afraid to ask anybody anything. What's come over me anyhow? It's
this darn country, I believe--'tain't me," then he stopped short.
"What you saying, Red?" he queried. "Why don't you own up like a
man!" The fact that it had a funny side struck him, and he
laughed, half forlornly, and half in thorough enjoyment. He
suddenly sobered down. "She's worth it, anyway," said he. "She's
the best there is, and I ought to feel kind of leery of the
outcome--Well--Now, I guess I won't say anything till there's a
downright good chance. I see I didn't savvy this kind of business
like I thought I did. 'Twouldn't be no kind of manners to step up
to a lady and shout, 'I'd like to have you marry me, if you feel
you've got the time!' That don't go no more than a Chinaman on
roller-skates. Your work is good, Red, but it's a little lumpy in
spots; them two left feet bother you; you're good in your place,
but you'd better build a fence around the place--damn the luck!
Smotheration! I think she likes me, all right, but when it comes
to more'n that--oh, blast it, I'll just have to wait for a real
good chance; now come, old man, get four feet on the ground and
don't roll your eyes, take it easy till the chance comes."
Little he knew the chance was coming up the street at that moment.
He only saw Miss Mattie step out into the bed of flowers, her face
looking unusually pretty and youthful under the big straw hat, and
start to reduce the weeds to order. She glanced around as though
in search of some one, and Red felt intuitively that the one was
himself.
"Here's where I ought to act as if I wore long pants," said he;
"now, what's to hinder me from going out there and get a-talking?"
And then he sat down hastily, more disgusted than ever, and smote
the air with his fist. "You'd think the nicest, quietest woman
that ever lived was a wild beast, the way I act; yes sir, you
would!"
Meantime the chance drew nearer. It was not a pleasant looking
opportunity. Its eyes, full of dread and dreadful, peeped out from
beneath a brush of matted hair; a tough, ropy foam hung from its
mouth. If you put as much of that foam as would go on the point of
a pin in an open cut, you would have an end that your worst enemy
would shudder at. For this was the most horrifying of dangerous
animals--a mad dog. Poor brute! As he came shambling down the
road, he was the grisly mask of tragedy.
It was near noon, intensely hot, and the street of Fairfield was
deserted. No one saw the dog, and if his occasional rattling,
strangling howl reached any ears, they were dead to its meaning.
He was unheeded until he lurched through the gate which Lettis had
left open, as usual, and spinning around in a circle gave voice to
his cry.
It brought Miss Mattie to her feet in an unknown terror; it brought
Red from the barn in a full cognizance--he had heard that sound
before, when a mad coyote landed in a cabin-full of fairly strong
nerved cowmen, and set them screeching like hysterical women before
a chance shot ended him.
Red saw the brute jump toward Miss Mattie. Instantly his hand flew
to his hip, and as instantly he remembered there was nothing there.
Then with great, uneven leaps he sprang forward. "Keep your hands
up, Mattie, and don't move!" he screamed. "Let him chew the dress!
For God's sake, don't move!"
She turned her white face toward his, and through the dimness of
sight from his straining efforts, he saw her try to smile, as she
obeyed him to the letter, and without a sound. "O, brave girl!" he
thought, and threw the ground behind him desperately.
At twenty feet distance he dove like a base-runner, and his hands
closed around the dog's neck. Over they went with the shock of the
onset, and before they were still, the hands had finished their
work. A clutch, and a snap, and it was done.
The dog lay quivering. Red rose to his knees wondering at the
humming in his head. His wits came back to him sharply.
"Did he bite you, Mattie?" he cried. But she had already caught
his hands and was looking at them, with a savage eagerness one
would not have believed to be in her.
"There is no mark," she said, suddenly weak, "he didn't touch you?"
"Answer me when I speak to you!" shouted Red, beside himself. "Did
he bite you?"
She answered him with a sob "No." And then his question asked
itself, and answered itself, although, again, he did not know it.
He gathered her up in his arms, kissed her like one raised from the
dead, and swore and prayed and thanked God all in the same breath.
His old imperious nature came back with the relief. "Here!" said
he, putting her away for a moment. "Take off that dress--that
slime on there's enough to kill a hundred men--take it right off."
Miss Mattie started blindly to obey, then stopped. "Not here,
Will--I'll go in the house," she said.
"You'll take it off right here and now," said Red, "and I'll burn
it up on the spot. I'd ruther have forty rattlesnakes around than
that stuff--off with it. This is no child's play, and I don't care
a damn what the old lady next door thinks."
Miss Mattie slipped off her outer skirt, and stood a second,
confused and dainty. She took flight to the house, running as
lithely as a greyhound.
"By Jingo!" said Red in admiration.
"Let's see you bring another woman that can run like that!"
He gathered some hay and piled it on the dress, firing the heap.
Then he turned to his antagonist. "Poor old boy! Hard luck, eh?
But I had to do it," he said, and gave him decent interment at the
end of the garden; washed his hands carefully and went into the
house on pleasanter duties.
"I'll ask her now, by the great horn spoon!" said he, valiantly.
Miss Mattie was in a curious state of mind. There was an after
effect from the fright, which made her tremble, and a remembrance
of Cousin Will's actions which made her tremble more yet. When she
heard him coming she started to fly, although now clothed beyond
reproach, but her knees deserted her, and she was forced to sink
back in her chair. Red came in whistling blithely--vainglorious
man!
He had _his_ suspicions, generated by the peculiar fervour Miss
Mattie had shown in regard to his hands.
"Mattie," quoth he, "I'm tired of living out there in the barn--I
want a respectable house of my own."
"Yes, Will," replied Miss Mattie, astonished that he should choose
such a subject at such a time.
"Yes," he continued, "and I want a wife, too. You often said you'd
like to do something for me, Mattie; suppose you take the job?"
How much of glancing at a thing in one's mind as a beautiful
improbability will ever make such a cold fact less astonishing?
Miss Mattie eyed him with eyes that saw not; speech was stricken
from her.
Red caught fright. He sprang forward and took her hand. "Couldn't
you do it, Mattie?" said he. There was a world of pleading in the
tone. Miss Mattie looked up, her own honest self; all the little
feminine shrinkings left her immediately.
"Ah, but I _could_, Will!" she said. Lettis came up on the stoop
unheard. He stopped, then gingerly turned and made his way back on
tip-toe, holding his arms like wings.
"Well, by George!" he murmured, "I'll come back in a little while,
when I'll be more welcome."
He spoke to Red in strong reproach that night, in the barn. "You
never told me a word, you old sinner!" said he.
"Tell you the honest truth, Let," replied Red earnestly, looking up
from drawing off a boot, "I didn't know it myself till you told me
about it."
They talked it all over a long time before blowing out the light,
but then the little window shut its bright eye, and the only life
the mid-night stars saw in Fairfield was Miss Mattie, her elbow on
the casement, looking far, far out into the tranquil night, and
thinking mistily.
THE END
By Stewart Edward White
THE BLAZED TRAIL
Mr. White has intermingled the romance of the forests with the
romance of a man's heart, making a story that is big and elemental,
while not lacking in sweetness and tenderness. It is an epic of
the life of the lumbermen in the great forests of the Northwest,
permeated in every line by out-of-door freshness and the glory of
the labor of the struggle with nature. It will appeal to everyone
who cares for trees, the forests or the open air.
"Mr. White has the power to make you feel the woods as the masters
of salt-water fiction make you feel the sea."--_The Boston Herald_.
"Of the majesty of the falling forests the book is eloquent, and
its place in the history of our literature is secure."--_The
Chicago Nevis_.
"He has realized to the full the titanic character of the struggle
between man and nature in the forest, and has reproduced it in his
pages with an enthusiasm and strength of insight worthy of his
theme."--_The St. James Gazette_.
_Eleven Editions in eleven months_ $1.50
McClure, Phillips & Co.
By George Douglas
THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS
A story remarkable for its power, remarkable for its originality,
and remarkable for its success. The unique masterpiece of an
unfortunate young author, who died without knowing the unstinted
praise his work was to receive. The book portrays with striking
realism a phase of Scottish life and character new to most
novel-readers. John Gourlay, the chief personage in the drama,
inhabitant of the "House With the Green Shutters" and master of the
village destinies, looms up as the personification of the brute
force that dominates. He stands apart from all characters in
fiction. In the broad treatment and the relentless sweep of its
tragedy, the book suggests the work of Dumas.
"If a more powerful story than this has been written in recent
years we have not seen it. It must take first honors among the
novels of the day."--_Philadelphia Item_.
"One of the most powerful books we have seen for a long time, and
it marks the advent of a valuable writer."--_New York Press_.
$1.50
McClure, Phillips & Co.
By Seumas McManus
Author of "Through the Turf Smoke"
"A LAD OF THE O'FRIEL'S"
This is a story of Donegal ways and customs; full of the spirit of
Irish life. The main character is a dreaming and poetic boy who
takes joy in all the stories and superstitions of his people, and
his experience and life are thus made to reflect all the essential
qualities of the life of his country. Many characters in the book
will make warm places for themselves in the heart of the reader.
Cloth, 12mo $l.50
McClure, Phillips & Co.
By Shan F. Bullock
Author of "The Barrys," "Irish Pastorals"
THE SQUIREEN
Mr. Bullock takes us into the North of Ireland among
North-of-Ireland people. His story is dominated by one remarkable
character, whose progress towards the subjugation of his own
temperament we cannot help but watch with interest. He is swept
from one thing to another, first by his dare-devil, roistering
spirit, then by his mood of deep repentance, through love and
marriage, through quarrels and separation from his wife, to a
reconciliation at the point of death, to a return to health, and
through the domination of the devil in him, finally to death. It
is a strong, convincing novel suggesting, somewhat, "The House with
the Green Shutters." What that book did for the Scotland of Ian
Maclaren and Barrie, "The Squireen" will do for Ireland.
Cloth, 12mo $1.50
McClure, Phillips & Co.
By Arthur Morrison
THE HOLE IN THE WALL
No one knows the lower side of London life so well as Arthur
Morrison, and this novel is his most masterly presentation of the
underworld with which he is so familiar. He has knit mean
characters, mean passions, mean stage setting into a powerful drama
of life that thrills as much because of the realism with which it
is drawn as because of the exciting scenes that come treading
helter-skelter upon each others heels. The rough sailors, the
thugs and criminals that frequent the "Hole in the Wall" Inn lose
none of their picturesqueness, nor any of their sordidness either,
from Mr. Morrison's treatment of them. He handles his material in
a way that suggests strongly the work of Dickens. As an intimate
picture of the lowest life in London, the novel is without an equal.
"It is a section of human life showing true lights and shadows, a
section cut by an exceedingly sharp blade. Some of the things that
Dickens is most praised for are evident in the work of Mr.
Morrison."--_Springfield Republican_.
"All of Mr. Morrison's work deserves the recognition it has
attained, but this is undoubtedly the most artistic, the most
virile, and the most heartrendingly true."--_Baltimore Sun_.
$1.50
McClure, Phillips & Co.
By Arnold Bennett
Author of "The Great Babylon Hotel"
ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS
Probably no story of the year is so simply and yet so artistically
told as this one. It portrays the development of a sweet and
natural girl's character, amid a community of strict Wesleyan
Methodists in a Staffordshire town. How her upright nature
progresses with constant rebellions against the hypocrisy and cant
of the religionists, by whom she is surrounded, is brought out by
the author faithfully and with great delicacy of insight. Many
will love Anna, and not a few will find something in her to suggest
"Tess of the Durbervilles." The plot is extremely simple, but the
reader will find a surprise in the last chapters.
The English letter from W. L. Alden, in the _New York Times Review_
says:
"It will be promptly recognized by the critics whose opinion is
worth something _as the most artistic story of the year_."
Cloth. 12mo $1.50
McClure, Phillips & Co.