One morning about the first of May, Virginia Hemingway went to Wilson's
store to purchase some sewing-thread she needed. The long, narrow room
was crowded with farmers and mountaineers, and Wilson had called in
several neighbors to help him show and sell his wares. Langdon Chester
was there, a fine double-barrelled shot-gun and fishing-rod under his
arm, wearing a slouch hat and hunter's suit, his handsome face well
tanned by exposure to the sun in the field and on the banks of the
mountain streams. He was buying a reel and a metallic fly that worked
with a spring and was set like a trap. Fred Masters was there, lounging
about behind the counters, and now and then "making a sale" of some
small article from the shelves or show-cases. He had opened his big
sample trunks at the hotel in Springtown, half a mile distant, and a
buggy and pair of horses were at the door, with which he intended to
transport the store-keeper to his sample-room as soon as business became
quieter. Seeing the store so crowded, Virginia only looked in at the
door and walked across the street and sat down in Mrs. Wilson's
sitting-room to rest and wait for a better opportunity to get what she
had come for.
Langdon Chester had recognized an old school-mate in the drummer, but he
seemed not to care to show marked cordiality. However, the travelling
man was no stickler for formality. He came from behind the counter and
cordially slapped Langdon on the shoulder. "How are you, old chap?" he
asked; "still rusticating on the old man's bounty, eh? When you left
college you were going into the law, and soar like an eagle with the
worm of Liberty in its beak skyward through the balmy air of politics,
by the aid of all the 'pulls' of influential kin and money, but here you
are as easy-going as of old."
"It was the only thing open to me," Chester said, with a flush of
vexation. "You see, my father's getting old, Masters, and the management
of our big place here was rather too much for him, and so--"
"Oh, I see!" And the drummer gave his old friend a playful thumb-thrust
in the ribs. "And so you are helping him out with that gun and rod?
Well, that's _one_ way of doing business, but it is far from my
method--the method that is forced on me, my boy. When you get to a town
on the four-o'clock afternoon train and have to get five sample trunks
from the train to a hotel, scrap like the devil over who gets to use the
best sample-room, finally buy your way in through porters as rascally as
you are, then unpack, see the best man in town, sell him, or lose your
job, pack again, trunks to excess-baggage scales--more cash and tips,
and lies as to weight--and you roll away at midnight and try to nap
sitting bolt-upright in the smoker--well, I say, you won't find that
sort of thing in the gun-and-fishing-pole line. It's the sort of work,
Chester, that will make you wish you were dead. Good Lord, I don't blame
you one bit. In England they would call you one of the gentry, and,
being an only son, you could tie up with an heiress and so on to a green
old age of high respectability; but as for me, well, I had to dig, and I
went in for it."
"I had no idea you would ever become a drummer," Langdon said, as he
admired his friend's attire. Such tasty ties, shirts, and bits of
jewelry that Masters wore, and such well brushed and pressed clothes
were rarely seen in the country, and Langdon still had the good ideas of
dress he had brought from college, and this was one extravagance his
father cheerfully allowed him.
"It seemed the best thing for me," smiled the drummer. "I have a cousin
who is a big stockholder in my house, and he got the job for me. I've
been told several times by other members of the firm that I'd have been
fired long ago but for that family pull. I've made several mistakes,
sold men who were rotten to the core, and caused the house to lose money
in several instances, and, well--poker, old man. Do you still play?"
"Not often, out here," said Langdon; "this is about the narrowest,
church-going community you ever struck. I suppose you have a good deal
of fun travelling about."
"Oh yes, fun enough, of its kind." Masters laughed. "Like a sailor in
every port, a drummer tries to have a sweetheart in every town. It makes
life endurable; sometimes the dear little things meet you at the train
with sweet-smelling flowers and embroidered neckties so long that you
have to cut off the ends or double them. Have a cigar--they don't cost
me a red cent; expense account stretches like elastic, you know. My
house kicked once against my drinking and cigar entries, and I said, all
right, I'd sign the pledge and they could tie a blue ribbon on me, if
they said the word, but that half my trade, I'd discovered, never could
see prices right except through smoke and over a bottle. Then, what do
you think? Old man Creighton, head of the firm, deacon in a swell
joss-house in Atlanta, winked, drew a long face, and said: 'You'll have
to give the boy _some_ freedom, I reckon. We are in this thing to pull
it through, boys, and sometimes we may have to fight fire with fire or
be left stranded.'"
"He's an up-to-date old fellow," Chester laughed. "I've seen him. He
owns some fine horses. When a man does that he's apt to be progressive,
no matter how many times he says his prayers a day."
"Yes, for an old duck, Creighton keeps at the head of the procession. I
can generally get him to help me out when I get in a tight. He thinks
I'm a good salesman. Once, by the skin of my teeth, I sold the champion
bill in the history of the house. A new firm was setting up in business
in Augusta, and I stocked three floors for them. It tickled old man
Creighton nearly to death, for they say he walked the floor all night
when the thing was hanging fire. There was a pile of profit in it, and
it meant more, even, than the mere sale, for Nashville, Memphis, New
Orleans, and Louisville men were as thick as flies on the spot. When I
wired the news in the firm did a clog-dance in the office, and they were
all at the train to meet me, with plug-hats on, and raised sand
generally. Old Creighton drew me off to one side and wanted to know how
I did it. I told him it was just a trick of mine, and tried to let it go
at that, but he pushed me close, and I finally told him the truth. It
came about over a game of poker I was playing with the head of the new
firm. If I lost I was to pay him a hundred dollars. If he lost I was to
get the order. He lost. I think I learned that 'palming' trick from
you."
Langdon laughed impulsively as he lighted the drummer's cigar. "And what
did the old man say to that?" he inquired.
"It almost floored him." Masters smiled. "He laid his hand on my
shoulder. His face was as serious as I've seen it when he was praying in
the amen corner at church, but the old duck's eyes were blazing. 'Fred,'
he said, 'I want you to promise me to let that one thing alone--but,
good gracious, if Memphis had sold that bill it would have hurt us
awfully!'"
"You were always fond of the girls," Chester remarked as he smoked.
"Well, out here in the country is no place for them."
"No place for them! Huh, that's _your_ idea, is it? Well, let me tell
you, Chester, I saw on the road as I came on just now simply the
prettiest, daintiest, and most graceful creature I ever laid my eyes on.
I've seen them all, too, and, by George, she simply took the rag off the
bush. Slender, beautifully formed, willowy, small feet and hands, high
instep, big, dreamy eyes, and light-brown hair touched with gold. She
came out of a farm-house, walking like a young queen, about half a mile
back. I made Ike drive slowly and tried to get her to look at me, but
she only raised her eyes once."
"Virginia Hemingway," Chester said, coldly. "Yes, she's pretty. There's
no doubt about that."
"You know her, then?" said the drummer, eagerly. "Say, old man,
introduce a fellow."
Chester's face hardened. The light of cordiality died out of his eyes.
There was a significant twitching of his lips round his cigar. "I really
don't see how I could," he said, after an awkward pause, during which
his eyes were averted. "You see, Masters, she's quite young, and it
happens that her mother--a lonely old widow--is rather suspicious of men
in general, and I seem to have displeased her in some way. You see, all
these folks, as a rule, go regularly to meeting, and as I don't go
often, why--"
"Oh, I see," the drummer said. "But let me tell you, old chap,
suspicious mother or what not, I'd see something of that little beauty
if I lived here. Gee whiz! she'd make a Fifth Avenue dress and Easter
hat ashamed of themselves anywhere but on her. Look here, Chester, I've
always had a sneaking idea that sooner or later I'd be hit deep at first
sight by some woman, and I'll be hanged if I know but what that's the
matter with me right now. I've seen so many women, first and last, here
and there, always in the giddy set, that I reckon if I ever marry I'd
rather risk some pure-minded little country girl. Do you know, town
girls simply know too much to be interesting. By George, I simply feel
like I'd be perfectly happy with a little wife like the girl I saw this
morning. I wish you could fix it so I could meet her this trip, or my
next."
"I--I simply can't do it, Masters." There was a rising flush of vexation
in the young planter's face as he knocked the ashes from his cigar into
a nail-keg on the floor. "I don't know her well enough, in the first
place, and then, in the next, as I said, her mother is awfully narrow
and particular. She scarcely allows the girl out of sight; if you once
saw old Jane Hemingway you'd not fancy making love before her eyes."
"Well, I reckon Wilson knows the girl, doesn't he?" the drummer said.
Chester hesitated, a cold, steady gleam of the displeasure he was trying
to hide flashed in his eyes.
"I don't know that he knows her well enough for _that_," he replied.
"The people round here think I'm tough enough, but you drummers--huh!
some of them look on you as the very advance agents of destruction."
"That's a fact," Masters sighed, "the profession is getting a black eye
in the rural districts. They think we are as bad as show people. By
George, there she is now!"
"Yes, that's her," and the young planter glanced towards the front
doorway through which Virginia Hemingway was entering. So fixed was the
drummer's admiring gaze upon the pretty creature, that he failed to
notice that his companion had quietly slipped towards the rear of the
store. Chester stood for a moment in the back doorway, and then stepped
down outside and made his way into the wood near by. The drummer
sauntered behind the counter towards the front, till he was near the
show-case at which the girl was making her purchase, and there he stood,
allowing the fire of his cigar to die out as he watched her, while
Wilson was exhibiting to her a drawer full of thread for her to select
from.
"By all that's good and holy, she simply caps the stack!" Masters said
to himself; "and to think that these galoots out here in the woods are
not onto it. She'd set Peachtree Street on fire. I'm going to meet that
girl if I have to put on old clothes and work for day wages in her
mother's cornfield. Great goodness! here I am, a hardened ladies' man,
feeling cold from head to foot on a hot day like this. I'm hit, by
George, I'm hit! Freddy, old boy, this is the thing you read about in
books. I wonder if--"
But she was gone. She had tripped out into the sunshine. He saw the
yellow light fall on her abundant hair and turn it into a blaze of gold.
As if dreaming, he went to the door and stood looking after her as she
moved away on the dusty road.
"I see you are killing time." It was George Wilson at his elbow. "I'll
be through here and with you in a minute. My crowd is thinning out now.
That's the way it comes--all in a rush; like a mill-dam broke loose."
"Oh, I'm in no hurry, Wilson," said Masters, his gaze bent upon the
bushes behind which Virginia had just disappeared. "Say, now, old man,
don't say you won't do it; the fact is, I want to be introduced to that
girl--the little daisy you sold the thread to. By glory, she is the
prettiest little thing I ever saw."
"Virginia Hemingway!" said the store-keeper. "Yes, she's a regular
beauty, and the gentlest, sweetest little trick in seven states. Well,
Masters, I'll be straight with you. It's this way. You see, she really
_is_ full grown, and old enough to receive company, I reckon, but her
mother, the old woman I told you about who hates Ann Boyd so
thoroughly--well, she doesn't seem to realize that Virginia is coming
on, and so she won't consent to any of the boys going near her. But old
Jane can't make nature over. Girls will be girls, and if you put too
tight a rein on them they will learn to slip the halter, or some chap
will teach them to take the bit in their teeth."
A man came to Wilson holding a sample of syrup on a piece of
wrapping-paper, to which he had applied his tongue. "What's this here
brand worth?" he asked.
"Sixty-five--best golden drip," was Wilson's reply. "Fill your jug
yourself; I'll take your word for it."
"All right, you make a ticket of it--jug holds two gallons," said the
customer, and he turned away.
"Say, Wilson, just a minute," cried the drummer; "do you mean that
she--"
"Oh, look here now," said the store-keeper. "I don't mean any reflection
against that sweet girl, but it has become a sort of established habit
among girls here in the mountains, when their folks hold them down too
much, for them to meet fellows on the sly, out walking and the like.
Virginia, as I started to say, is full of natural life. She knows she's
pretty, and she wouldn't be a woman if she didn't want to be told
so--though, to be so good-looking, she is really the most sensible girl
I know."
"You mean she has her fancies, then," said Masters, in a tone of
disappointment.
"I don't say she has." Wilson had an uneasy glance on a group of women
bending over some bolts of calico, one of whom was chewing a sample
clipped from a piece to see if it would fade. "But--between me and you
now--Langdon Chester has for the last three months been laying for her.
I see he's slipped away; I'd bet my hat he saw her just now, and has
made a break for some point on the road where he can speak to her."
"Chester? Why, the rascal pretended to me just now that he hardly knew
her."
Wilson smiled knowingly. "That's his way. He is as sly as they make 'em.
His daddy was before him. When it comes to dealing with women who strike
their fancy they know exactly what they are doing. But Langdon has
struck flint-rock in that little girl. He, no doubt, is flirting with
all his might, but she'll have him on his knees before he's through with
it. A pair of eyes like hers would burn up every mean thought in a man."
The drummer sighed, a deep frown on his brow. "You don't know him as
well as I do," he said. "I knew him at college. George, that little
trick ought not to be under such a fellow's influence I'm just a
travelling man, but--well--"
"Well, what are you going to do about it--even if there _is_ any
danger?" said Wilson. "Get a drink in him, and Langdon, like his father,
will fight at the drop of a hat. Conscience? He hasn't any. I sometimes
wonder why the Almighty made them like they are, and other men so
different, for it is only the men who are not bothered by conscience
that have any fun in this life. One of the Chesters could drive a
light-hearted woman to suicide and sleep like a log the night she was
buried. Haven't I heard the old man laugh about Ann Boyd, and all she's
been through? Huh! But I'm not afraid of that little girl's fate. She
will take care of herself, and don't you forget it."
"Well, I'm sorry for her," said Masters, "and I'm going to try to meet
her. I'm tough, George--I'll play a game of cards and bet on a horse,
and say light things to a pretty girl when she throws down the bars--but
I draw the line at downright rascality. Once in a while I think of home
and my own folks."
"Now you are a-talking." And Wilson hurried away to a woman who sat in a
chair holding a bolt of calico in her arms, as if it were her first-born
child and the other women were open kidnappers.
Masters stood motionless in the doorway, his eyes on the dusty road that
stretched on towards Jane Hemingway's house.
"Yes, she's in bad, _bad_ hands," he said; "and she is the first--I
really believe she's the first that ever hit me this hard."