THE SECRET OF THE CLOVER
Until the time he had entered Isom Chase's house, temptation never had
come near Joe Newbolt. He never had kissed a maiden; he never had felt
the quickening elixir of a soft breast pressed against his own. And so
it fell that the sudden conception of what he had unwittingly come to,
bore on him with a weight which his sensitive and upright mind magnified
into an enormous and crushing shame. While his intention could bear
arraignment and come away with acquittal, the fact that he had been
perverted enough in the grain, as he looked at it, to drift unknowingly
into love with another man's wife, galled him until his spirit groaned.
Isom did not return that evening; the conclusion of his household was
that he had been chosen on a jury. They discussed it at supper, Ollie
nervously gay, Morgan full of raucous laughter, Joe sober and grudging
of his words.
Joe never had borne much of a hand at the table-talk since Morgan came,
and before his advent there was none to speak of, so his taciturnity
that evening passed without a second thought in the minds of Ollie and
her guest. They had words enough for a house full of people, thought
Joe, as he saw that for every word from the lips they sent two speeding
from their eyes. That had become a language to which he had found the
Rosetta Stone; it was as plain to him now as Roman text.
Perhaps Morgan regarded her with an affection as sincere as his own. He
did not know; but he felt that it could not be as blameless, for if Joe
had desired her in the uninterpreted passion of his full young heart, he
had brought himself up to sudden judgment before the tribunal of his
conscience. It would go no farther. He had put his moral foot down and
smothered his unholy desire, as he would have stamped out a flame.
It seemed to Joe that there was something in Morgan's eyes which
betrayed his heart. Little gleams of his underlying purpose which his
levity masked, struck Joe from time to time, setting his wits on guard.
Morgan must be watched, like a cat within leaping distance of an
unfledged bird. Joe set himself the task of watching, determined then
and there that Morgan should not have one dangerous hour alone with
Ollie again until Isom came back and lifted the responsibility of his
wife's safety from his shoulders.
For a while after supper that night Joe sat on the bench beside the
kitchen door, the grape-vine rustling over his head, watching Ollie as
she went to and fro about her work of clearing away. Morgan was in the
door, his back against the jamb, leisurely smoking his pipe. Once in a
while a snoring beetle passed in above his head to join his fellows
around the lamp. As each recruit to the blundering company arrived,
Morgan slapped at him as he passed, making Ollie laugh. On the low,
splotched ceiling of the kitchen the flies shifted and buzzed, changing
drowsily from place to place.
"Isom ought to put screens on the windows and doors," said Morgan,
looking up at the flies.
"Mosquito bar, you mean?" asked Ollie, throwing him a smile over her
shoulder as she passed.
"No, I mean wire-screens, everybody's gettin' 'em in now; I've been
thinkin' of takin' 'em on as a side-line."
"It'll be a cold day in July when Isom spends any money just to keep
_flies_ out of his house!" said she.
Morgan laughed.
"Maybe if a person could show him that they eat up a lot of stuff he'd
come around to it," Morgan said.
"Maybe," said Ollie, and both of them had their laugh again.
Joe moved on the bench, making it creak, an uneasy feeling coming over
him. Close as Isom was, and hard-handed and mean, Joe felt that there
was a certain indelicacy in his wife's discussion of his traits with a
stranger.
Ollie had cleared away the dishes, washed them and placed them in the
cupboard, on top of which the one clock of that household stood,
scar-faced, but hoarse-voiced when it struck, and strong as the
challenge of an old cock. Already it had struck nine, for they had been
late in coming to supper, owing to Joe's long set-to with his conscience
at the edge of the hazel-copse in the woods.
Joe got up, stretching his arms, yawning.
"Goin' to bed, heh?" asked Morgan.
"No, I don't seem to feel sleepy tonight," Joe replied.
He went into the kitchen and sat at the table, his elbows on the board,
his head in his hands, as if turning over some difficult problem in his
mind. Presently he fell to raking his shaggy hair with his long fingers;
in a moment it was as disorderly as the swaths of clover hay lying out
in the moonlight in the little stone-set field.
Morgan had filled his pipe, and was after a match at the box behind the
stove, with the familiarity of a household inmate. He winked at Ollie,
who was then pulling down her sleeves, her long day's work being done.
"Well, do you think you'll be elected?" he asked, lounging across to
Joe, his hands in his pockets.
Morgan wore a shirt as gay-striped as a Persian tent, and he had removed
his coat so the world, or such of it as was present in the kitchen,
might behold it and admire. Joe withdrew his hands from his forelock and
looked at Morgan curiously. The lad's eyes were sleep-heavy and red, and
he was almost as dull-looking, perhaps, as Morgan imagined him to be.
"What did you say?" he asked.
"I asked you if you thought you'd be elected this fall," repeated
Morgan, in mock seriousness.
"I don't know what you mean," said Joe, turning from him indifferently.
"Why, ain't you runnin' for President on the squash-vine ticket?" asked
Morgan. "I heard you was the can'idate."
Joe got up from the table and moved his chair away with his foot. As he
was thus occupied he saw Ollie's shadow on the wall repeat a gesture of
caution which she made to Morgan, a lifting of the hand, a shaking of
the head. Even the shadow betrayed the intimate understanding between
them. Joe went over and stood in the door.
"No use for you to try to be a fool, Morgan; that's been attended to for
you already," said he.
There wasn't much heart in Morgan's laugh, but it would pass for one on
account of the volume of sound.
"Oh, let a feller have his joke, won't you, Joe?" said he.
"Go ahead," granted Joe, leaning his shoulder against the jamb, facing
out toward the dark.
Morgan went over and put his hand on the great lad's shoulder, with a
show of friendly condescension.
"What would the world be without its jokes?" he asked. And then, before
anybody could answer: "It'd be like home without a mother."
Joe faced him, a slow grin spreading back to his ears.
"Or a ready-reckoner," said he.
Morgan's laugh that time was unfeigned.
"Joe, you've missed your callin'," said he. "You've got no business
foolin' away your time on a farm. With that solemn, long-hungry look of
yours you ought to be sellin' consumption cure and ringbone ointment
from the end of a wagon on the square in Kansas City."
"Or books, maybe," suggested Joe.
"No-o-o," said Morgan thoughtfully, "I wouldn't just say you're up to
the level of books. But you might rise even to books if you'd cultivate
your mind and brain. Well, I think I'll fly up to roost. I've got to
take an early start in the morning and clean up on this neck of the
woods tomorrow. Good night, folks."
"I don't suppose Isom'll be home tonight," Ollie ventured, as Morgan's
feet sounded on the stairs.
"No, I guess not," Joe agreed, staring thoughtfully at the black oblong
of the door.
"If he does come, I don't suppose it'll hurt him to eat something cold,"
she said.
"I'll wait up a while longer. If he comes I can warm up the coffee for
him," Joe offered.
"Then I'll go to bed, too," she yawned wearily.
"Yes, you'd better go," said he.
Ollie's room, which was Isom's also when he was there, was in the front
of the house, upstairs. Joe heard her feet along the hall, and her door
close after her. Morgan was still tramping about in the room next to
Joe's, where he slept. It was the best room in the house, better than
the one shared by Isom and his wife, and in the end of the house
opposite to it. Joe sat quietly at the table until Morgan's complaining
bed-springs told him that the guest had retired. Then he mounted the
narrow kitchen stairs to his own chamber.
Joe sat on the edge of his bed and pulled off his boots, dropping them
noisily on the floor. Then, with shirt and trousers on, he drew the
quilt from his bed, took his pillow under his arm, and opened the door
into the hall which divided the house from end to end.
The moon was shining in through the double window in the end toward
Ollie's room; it lay on the white floor, almost as bright as the sun.
Within five feet of that splash of moonlight Joe spread his quilt. There
he set his pillow and stretched his long body diagonally across the
narrow hall, blocking it like a gate.
Joe roused Morgan next morning at dawn, and busied himself with making a
fire in the kitchen stove and bringing water from the well until the
guest came down to feed his horse. Morgan was in a crusty humor. He had
very little to say, and Joe did not feel that the world was any poorer
for his silence.
"This will be my last meal with you," announced Morgan at breakfast.
"I'll not be back tonight."
Ollie was paler than usual, Joe noticed, and a cloud of dejection seemed
to have settled over her during the night. She did not appear to be
greatly interested in Morgan's statement, although she looked up from
her breakfast with a little show of friendly politeness. Joe thought
that she did not seem to care for the agent; the tightness in his breast
was suddenly and gratefully eased.
"You haven't finished out your week, there'll be something coming to you
on what you've paid in advance," said she.
"Let that go," said Morgan, obliterating all claim with a sweep of his
hand.
"I think you'd better take back what's coming to you," suggested Joe.
Morgan turned to him with stiff severity.
"Are you the watch-dog of the old man's treasury?" he sneered.
"Maybe I am, for a day or two," returned Joe, "and if you step on me
I'll bite."
He leveled his steady gray eyes at Morgan's shifting orbs, and held them
there as if to drive in some hidden import of his words. Morgan seemed
to understand. He colored, laughed shortly, and busied himself buttering
a griddle-cake.
Ollie, pale and silent, had not looked up during this by-passage between
the two men. Her manner was of one who expected something, which she
dreaded and feared to face.
Morgan took the road early. Joe saw him go with a feeling of relief. He
felt like a swollen barrel which had burst its close-binding hoops, he
thought, as he went back to the place where he dropped his scythe
yesterday.
As he worked through the long morning hours Joe struggled to adjust
himself to the new conditions, resulting from the discovery of his own
enlargement and understanding. It would be a harder matter now to go on
living there with Ollie. Each day would be a trial by fire, the weeks
and months a lengthening highway strewn with the embers of his own
smoldering passion. Something might happen, almost any day, youth and
youth together, galled by the same hand of oppression, that would
overturn his peace forever. Yet, he could not leave. The bond of his
mother's making, stamped with the seal of the law, held him captive
there.
At length, after spending a harrowing morning over it, he reached the
determination to stand up to it like a man, and serve Isom as long as he
could do so without treason. When the day came that his spirit weakened
and his continence failed, he would throw down the burden and desert.
That he would do, even though his mother's hopes must fall and his own
dreams of redeeming the place of his birth, to which he was attached by
a sentiment almost poetic, must dissolve like vapor in the sun.
It was mid-afternoon when Joe finished his mowing and stood casting his
eyes up to the sky for signs of rain. There being none, he concluded
that it would be safe to allow yesterday's cutting to lie another night
in the field while he put in the remainder of the day with his scythe in
the lower orchard plot, where the clover grew rank among the trees.
Satisfied that he had made a showing thus far with which Isom could find
no fault, Joe tucked the snath of his scythe under his arm and set out
for that part of the orchard which lay beyond the hill, out of sight of
the barn and house, and from that reason called the "lower orchard" by
Isom, who had planted it with his own hand more than thirty years ago.
There noble wine-sap stretched out mighty arms to fondle willow-twig
across the shady aisles, and maidenblush rubbed cheeks with Spitzenberg,
all reddening in the sun. Under many of the trees the ground was as bare
as if fire had devastated it, for the sun never fell through those
close-woven branches from May to October, and there no clover grew. But
in the open spaces between the rows it sprang rank and tall, troublesome
to cut with a mower because of the low-swinging, fruit-weighted limbs.
Joe waded into this paradise of fruit and clover bloom, dark leaf and
straining bough, stooping now and then to pick up a fallen apple and try
its mellowness with his thumb. They were all hard, and fit only for
cider yet, but their rich colors beguiled the eye into betrayal of the
palate. Joe fixed his choice upon a golden willow-twig. As he stood
rubbing the apple on his sleeve, his eye running over the task ahead of
him in a rough estimate of the time it would require to clean up the
clover, he started at sight of a white object dangling from a bough a
few rods ahead of him. His attention curiously held, he went forward to
investigate, when a little start of wind swung the object out from the
limb and he saw that it was a woman's sun-bonnet, hanging basket-wise by
its broad strings. There was no question whose it was; he had seen the
same bonnet hanging in the kitchen not three hours before, fresh from
the ironing board.
Joe dropped his apple unbitten, and strode forward, puzzled a bit over
the circumstance. He wondered what had brought Ollie down there, and
where she was then. She never came to that part of the orchard to gather
wind-falls for the pigs--she was not gathering them at all during Isom's
absence, he had relieved her of that--and there was nothing else to call
her away from the house at that time of the day.
The lush clover struck him mid-thigh, progress through it was difficult.
Joe lifted his feet like an Indian, toes turned in a bit, and this
method of walking made it appear as if he stalked something, for he
moved without noise.
He had dropped his scythe with the apple, his eyes held Ollie's swinging
bonnet as he approached it as if it were some rare bird which he hoped
to steal upon and take. Thus coming on, with high-lifted feet, his
breath short from excitement, Joe was within ten yards of the bonnet
when a voice sounded behind the intervening screen of clover and
boughs.
Joe dropped in his tracks, as if ham-strung, crouched in the clover,
pressed his hands to his mouth to stifle the groan that rose to his
lips. It was Morgan's voice. He had come sneaking back while the
watch-dog was off guard, secure in the belief that he had gone away. As
Joe crouched there hidden in the clover, trembling and cold with anger,
Morgan's voice rose in a laugh.
"Well, I wouldn't have given him credit for that much sense if I hadn't
seen him with my own eyes," said he.
"He's smarter than he looks," said Ollie, their voices distinct in Joe's
shamed ears, for it was as quiet in the orchard as on the first day.
They both laughed over what she said.
"He thinks I'm gone, he'll go to bed early tonight," said Morgan. "Don't
bother about bringing anything with you."
"Not even my diamonds?" she laughed.
Morgan's gruffer mirth joined her, and Joe found himself straining to
hear, although he despised himself for spying and eavesdropping, even on
guilt.
"We can get on without the diamonds," said Morgan, "and I don't suppose
you've got any ball dresses or sealskin cloaks?"
"Three calico wrappers that he's bought me, and a dress or two that I
had when I came," said Ollie, bitterly.
"You'll have all you want in a day or two, honey," said Morgan, in
comforting voice.
They were silent a while; then Joe heard her ask the time. Morgan told
her it was half-past four.
"Oh, I had no idea it was that late--time goes so fast when I'm with
you! I must go back to the house now, Joe might come in and find me
gone."
"Yes, I'd like to wring his damned neck!" said Morgan.
"He's a good boy, Curtis," she defended, but with lightness, "but he's a
little----"
She held her words back coquettishly.
"Heh?" queried Morgan.
"Jealous, you old goose! Can't you see it?"
Morgan had a great laugh over that. From the sound of his voice Joe knew
that he was standing, and his whole body ached with the fear that they
would discover him lying there in the clover. Not that he was afraid of
Morgan, but that he dreaded the humiliation which Ollie must suffer in
knowing that her guilty tryst had been discovered.
"I'll meet you at the gate, I'll have the buggy on down the road a
little ways," Morgan told her. "There's only a little while between you
and liberty now, sweetheart."
Joe dared not look up nor move, but he needed no eyes to know that
Morgan kissed her then. After that he heard her running away toward the
house. Morgan stood there a little while, whistling softly. Soon Joe
heard him going in the direction of the road.
Morgan was quite a distance ahead when Joe sprang out of his concealment
and followed him, for he wanted to give Ollie time to pass beyond
ear-shot of the orchard. As Joe made no attempt to smother the sound of
his feet, Morgan heard him while he was still several yards behind him.
He turned, stopped, and waited for Joe to come up.
Joe's agitation was plain in his face, his shocked eyes stared out of
its pallor as if they had looked upon violence and death.
"What's the matter, kid?" inquired Morgan carelessly.
"I've got something to say to you," answered Joe thickly. He was
panting, more from rage than exertion; his hands trembled.
Morgan looked him over from boots to bandless hat with the same evidence
of curiosity as a person displays when turning some washed-up object
with the foot on the sands. It was as if he had but an abstract interest
in the youth, a feeling which the incident had obtruded upon him without
penetrating the reserve of his private cogitations.
"Kid, you look like you'd seen a snake," said he.
"You let that woman alone--you've got to let her alone, I tell you!"
said Joe with explosive suddenness, his passion out of hand.
Morgan's face grew red.
"Mind your own business, you sneakin' skunk!" said he.
"I am minding it," said Joe; "but maybe not as well as I ought to 'a'
done. Isom left me here in his place to watch and look after things, but
you've sneaked in under my arm like a dirty, thieving dog, and
you've--you've----"
Morgan thrust his fist before Joe's face.
"That'll do now--that'll do out of you!" he threatened.
Joe caught Morgan's wrist with a quick, snapping movement, and slowly
bent the threatening arm down, Morgan struggling, foot to foot with him
in the test of strength. Joe held the captured arm down for a moment,
and they stood breast to breast, glaring into each other's eyes. Then
with a wrench that spun Morgan half round and made him stagger, Joe
flung his arm free.
"Now, you keep away from here--keep away!" he warned, his voice growing
thin and boyish in the height of his emotion, as if it would break in
the treble shallows.
"Don't fool with me or I'll hurt you," said Morgan. "Keep your
nose----"
"Let her alone!" commanded Joe sternly, his voice sinking again even
below its accustomed level, gruff and deep in his chest. "I heard you--I
didn't mean to, but I couldn't help it--and I know what you're up to
tonight. Don't come around here tonight after her, for I'm not going to
let her go."
"Ya-a, you pup, you pup!" said Morgan nastily.
"It's a hard life for her here--I know that better than you do," said
Joe, passing over the insult, "but you can't give her any better--not as
good. What you've done can't be undone now, but I can keep you from
dragging her down any further. Don't you come back here tonight!"
"If you keep your fingers out of the fire," said Morgan, looking at the
ground, rolling a fallen apple with his toe, "you'll not get scorched.
You stick to your knittin' and don't meddle with mine. That'll be about
the healthiest thing you can do!"
"If Isom knew what you've done he'd kill you--if he's even half a man,"
said Joe. "She was a good woman till you came, you hound!"
"She's a good woman yet," said Morgan, with some feeling, "too good for
that old hell-dog she's married to!"
"Then let her stay good--at least as good as she is," advised Joe.
"Oh, hell!" said Morgan disgustedly.
"You can't have her," persisted Joe.
"We'll see about that, too," said Morgan, his manner and voice
threatening. "What're you goin' to do--pole off and tell the old man?"
"I'll do what Isom left me here to do, the rest of the time he's away,"
said Joe. "Ollie shan't leave the house tonight."
"Yes, you flat-bellied shad, you want her yourself--you're stuck on her
yourself, you fool! Yes, and you've got just about as much show of
gittin' her as I have of jumpin' over that tree!" derided Morgan.
"No matter what I think of her, good or bad, she'd be safe with me," Joe
told him, searching his face accusingly.
"Yes, of course she would!" scoffed Morgan. "You're one of these saints
that'll live all your life by a punkin and never poke it with your
finger. Oh, yes, I know your kind!"
"I'm not going to quarrel with you, Morgan, unless you make me," said
Joe; "but you've got the wrong end of the stick. I don't want her, not
the way you do, anyhow."
Morgan looked at him closely, then put out his hand with a gesture of
conciliation.
"I'll take that back, Joe," said he. "You're not that kind of a kid. You
mean well, but you don't understand. Look-a here, let me tell you, Joe:
I love that little woman, kid, just as honest and true as any man could
love her, and she thinks the world and all of me. I only want to take
her away from here because I love her and want to make her happy. Don't
you see it, kid?"
"How would you do that? You couldn't marry her."
"Not for a while, of course," admitted Morgan. "But the old possum he'd
get a divorce in a little while."
"Well, I'm not going to let her go," Joe declared, turning away as if
that settled the matter for good and all. "You've done--I could kill you
for what you've done!" said he, with sudden vehemence.
Morgan looked at him curiously, his careless face softening.
"Now, see here, don't you look at it that way, Joe," he argued. "I'm not
so bad; neither is Ollie. You'll understand these matters better when
you're older and know more about the way men feel. She wanted love, and
I gave her love. She's been worked to rags and bones by that old devil;
and what I've done, and what I want to do, is in kindness, Joe. I'll
take her away from here and provide for her like she was a queen, I'll
give her the love and comradeship of a young man and make her happy,
Joe. Don't you see?"
"But you can't make her respectable," said Joe. "I'm not going to let
her leave with you, or go to you. If she wants to go after Isom comes
back, then let her. But not before. Now, you'd better go on away,
Morgan, before I lose my temper. I was mad when I started after you, but
I've cooled down. Don't roil me up again. Go on your way, and leave that
woman alone."
"Joe, you're a man in everything but sense," said Morgan, not unkindly,
"and I reckon if you and I was to clinch we'd raise a purty big dust and
muss things around a right smart. And I don't know who'd come out on top
at the finish, neither. So I don't want to have any trouble with you.
All I ask of you is step to one side and leave us two alone in what
we've started to do and got all planned to carry out. Go to bed tonight
and go to sleep. You're not supposed to know that anything's due to
happen, and if you sleep sound you'll find a twenty-dollar bill under
your hat in the morning."
The suggestion brought a blush to Joe's face. He set his lips as if
fighting down hot words before he spoke.
"If I have to tie her I'll do it," said Joe earnestly. "She shan't
leave. And if I have to take down that old gun from the kitchen wall to
keep you away from here till Isom comes home, I'll take it down. You can
come to the gate tonight if you want to, but if you do----"
Joe looked him straight in the eyes. Morgan's face lost its color. He
turned as if to see that his horse was still standing, and stood that
way a little while.
"I guess I'll drive on off, Joe," said Morgan with a sigh, as if he had
reached the conclusion after a long consideration.
"All right," said Joe.
"No hard feelin's left behind me?" facing Joe again with his old,
self-assured smile. He offered his hand, but Joe did not take it.
"As long as you never come back," said Joe.
Morgan walked to the fence, his head bent, thoughtfully. Joe followed,
as if to satisfy himself that the wily agent was not going to work some
subterfuge, having small faith in his promise to leave, much less in the
probability that he would stay away.
Joe stood at the fence, looking after Morgan, long after the dust of his
wheels had settled again to the road. At last he went back to the place
where he had dropped his scythe, and cut a swath straight through to the
tree where Ollie's bonnet had hung. And there he mowed the trampled
clover, and obliterated her footprints with his own.
The weight of his discovery was like some dead thing on his breast. He
felt that Ollie had fallen from the high heaven of his regard, never to
mount to her place again. But Isom did not know of this bitter thing,
this shameful shadow at his door. As far as it rested with him to hold
the secret in his heart, poison though it was to him, Isom should never
know.