A GENTLEMAN MULE-BUYER.
Two days later Lyman was sitting in his office, musing over a pink
note from Eva, thanking him for the book, when Zeb Sawyer tapped at
the door. Lyman bade him enter and he stepped forward with a limp. He
sat down before saying a word, took out a handkerchief and wiped his
face.
"Haven't you got out of bed rather soon?" Lyman asked.
"No, I reckon not, though the doctor told me to lie there awhile
longer. But I couldn't--I wanted to come to see you. I am not much of
a writer," he added, looking about, "but I want to write an article
for your paper. I want to tell the public what a wolf I've been. And
it was mostly owing to liquor. I shot a man once when I was about half
drunk, and nearly every mean thing I ever did I can trace to whisky. I
don't often get what you might call drunk, but I generally go about
with a few drinks and that makes me mean. Will you print the
article?"
"No; let it all go. We all do wrong at times; we all have little
meannesses, like rheumatic pains in bad weather."
"Well, is there anything I can do to prove--to prove--you know what I
mean."
"Yes, you can be gentler toward man, remembering that there is
something good in every one."
"I believe that more than I used to," said Sawyer, mopping his
perspiring face. "I have laughed at preachers, and I hated you, but
you came along and showed me that, whether a man professes it or not,
there is something in the doctrine of mercy and forgiveness. I don't
think I ever prayed with my heart till this morning, and then I prayed
to be forgiven for my meanness; and it seemed to me that if you would
forgive me, the Higher Power would. I drove over to mother's before I
came here and I told her how mean I had been, and it struck her to the
heart with grief, but when I told her that I was going to be a better
man and follow in my father's footsteps, she cried for joy. She is so
shaken with palsy that she can't write, but she managed to write this
and she told me to give it to you." He handed Lyman a piece of paper,
and on it were the words: "God will bless you."
"She didn't think it would disturb you so, or I am sure she wouldn't
have sent it," he said, looking at Lyman.
"Tell her," said Lyman, "that her blessing alone is more--give her my
kindest regards," he added, with an effort.
Sawyer wiped his eyes. "I went to another place before coming here,"
he said. "I went over to the bank and waited till McElwin came, and I
had a talk with him. I told him that his daughter could never care for
me, and that even if you should sign the petition I would refuse to
recognize his authority in trying to compel her to marry me. She is in
every way above me, so far beyond my reach that I don't love her. I
have to go to another place--the court house. I am going to surrender
myself to the law and be punished for that White Cap affair. I am
going to acknowledge the whole thing."
"No," said Lyman. "The law knows well enough what was done and who did
it. And, besides, your old mother--"
"Yes," Sawyer broke in, "but I thought it might be kept from her."
"No, some one would tell her, some over-zealous friend. Let it drop."
"Your word is law with me. And now I hope you won't feel hurt if I ask
you something?"
"The time for you and me to hurt each other is passed," said Lyman.
"I thank you for saying that. You are a man if I ever met one. And how
did you get the name of being desperate?"
"I simply punished an over-bearing bully and my act was exaggerated."
"They always exaggerate such things in this country. But that's not
what I wanted to ask you. It's this: Do you need any money? now don't
feel hurt; do you need any, and, if you do, won't you let me lend it
to you for a year or so without interest?"
"My dear fellow," said Lyman, "my affairs have prospered wonderfully
of late. It's a singular position for me to be in, but I don't need
money."
"I was in hopes you did. I told McElwin just now that your check would
be good as long as I had any money at his bank, and it made him wink,
but before I went out he acknowledged that you were about the truest
sort of a man he ever ran against. You have educated us all. And now
as to a more delicate matter. I don't know what Eva thinks of you, or
what you think of her, but I believe that the old man would be willing
to recognize the law as young Bostic administered it. But we won't
talk about that, and I ought not to have mentioned it. Is Mr. Warren
out there? I want to see him a moment."
He shook hands with Lyman and they parted friends. Shortly after
Sawyer went out, Warren came running into the room. "Old Billy Fate is
trying himself," he cried. "What do you think has happened? That
fellow Sawyer has subscribed for fifty copies of the paper, for one
year, and has paid for them in advance. He has put down uncles, aunts,
cousins--but there's one thing about it I don't like. That fellow
Jerry, Nancy's cousin, is a sort of tenth rate cousin to Sawyer, and
he has put him down. Jerry Dabbs. Think of that poor girl becoming
Nancy Dabbs. There ought to be a law against such outrages. And now
he'll read your stuff and commit the odd phrases to memory and give
them to her. I don't see how I can keep away from there for a week.
I'm going out there Friday. Well, after all, I guess it was better
that you didn't drown that fellow. Fifty subscribers are not picked up
every day. I don't know but sometimes it pays to let revenge go."
"It pays the heart," Lyman replied. "Did you ever think that when the
heart was paid the whole world is out of debt?"
"I never thought of it, but I guess you are right. I met the express
agent this morning and he tipped his hat to me. And it's all owing to
you. Everybody is talking about you. Where are you going?" he asked as
Lyman got up.
"One day, while walking about aimlessly," said Lyman, "I stopped in
front of a house down the street not far from here, and saw a boy
digging in the yard. At the window I saw the pale face of a man. He
lay there to catch the last rays of the world, slowly fanning himself.
I asked the boy what he was doing and he said that he was digging a
grave for his father. The pale face at the window haunted me. I made
inquiry and found that a very poor family inhabited the house, and I
have called there several times to talk with the man. I am going there
now."
"I know, he's a fellow named Hillit. He's got consumption. I send him
the paper free. Give him my regards, please, and tell him that I have
put him down as a life subscriber."
"It won't be for long," said Lyman, as he turned away.
The sun had baked the ground and the strange child had suspended his
labor, but heaps of earth beneath the bushes showed that he had
continued his work as long as his rude spade was adequate to a
disturbance of the soil. The boy looked up as the gate latch clicked,
and stood surveying Lyman with his feet far apart and his hands in his
pockets. Lyman spoke to him, and bringing a nail out of his pocket he
held it out to the visitor as an offering of his hospitality. Lyman
tossed him a piece of money; he caught it up and with a shout he
disappeared in the shrubbery. The visitor's knock at the door was
attended by a frail, tired woman. She stood with her hand on the door
as if meekly to tell the comer that he had doubtless made a mistake
in the house. He bowed and asked if she were Mrs. Hillit, and when
she had nodded an acknowledgment, with no word, though her thin lips
moved, he informed her that he desired to see her husband. She
preceded him into the sick man's room.
"A gentleman wishes to see you," she said.
The sufferer turned his wasted face toward Lyman and asked him to sit
down. Then followed a few words of explanation.
"I am very glad you came," said Hillit, speaking slowly and with
effort. "We have been getting your paper for some time and it has been
great company for us. The neighbors have been very kind, but when a
man hangs on this way he wears everybody out."
The woman had left the room, and Lyman was relieved to find that she
had not remained to hear her husband's hopeless words. "You ought not
to feel that way," he said.
The consumptive withdrew his wistful gaze from the bar of sunlight
that lay across the window sill, and looked at Lyman. "I am in a
position to say what I think, and that's what I do think," he
answered. "But I do hope it won't be much longer. I see by the paper
that the farmers have been praying for rain. I have been praying for
light, light, light--all the time praying for light. When a passing
cloud hides the sun my heart grows heavier, and when the night comes I
feel the shadow of eternity resting cold upon me."
In reply to this Lyman could say nothing; he simply said: "You haven't
lived here long, I understand."
"Not long. I came from the city to look for a place where I could die
cheap. I lost my place--my brethren lost their place--we were swept
away by the machine. I am a compositor."
"Oh, are you? Then I am more than glad I came."
"And I am more than glad to see you. I have seen you stop at the
fence, and I managed one day to learn your name. You are making a name
for yourself; I have read your work at night and there is sunlight in
it. Ah, the old craft is gone," he said. "We sang like crickets,
laughing at the idea that a frost might come in the shape of a machine
to set type; we worked three days a week and spent our money, with no
thought of the destroyer slowly forming fingers of steel under the
lamp light. But the machine came. It was like the bursting of a shell,
and our army, the most intelligent body of craftsmen ever known, was
scattered over the face of the land. Once in a while I had a serious
moment, and I kept up my life insurance, but what is to become of the
other women and children the Lord only knows."
"The picturesque old philosopher known as the tramp printer is only a
memory now," said Lyman. "I have seen him strolling along the road,
sore of foot, stubble-faced, almost ragged, hungry, but with a cynical
head full of contempt for the man of regular habits. I recall one
particularly--Barney Caldwell."
"What?" cried Hillit, raising upon his elbows, "did you know old
Barney? He was once foreman of an office in Cincinnati where I was a
cub. He was comparatively young then, but they called him the old man.
And what a disciplinarian! He used to say, 'Boys, if you get drunk
with me it is your own look out, and if you don't walk the chalk line
that's my look out. Don't expect favors, because you happen to be a
good fellow.' One day, he came into the office, and after starting to
put on his apron he hesitated, and turning to a fellow named Hicks, he
said: 'Charley, I've a notion to be a gentleman once more.' Then I
heard a man standing near me say: 'There'll be a vacant foremanship in
this office within five minutes. The old man is going to take to the
road.' And he did. He resigned his position and walked out. Life was
worth living in those days, Mr. Lyman."
Just at this moment Mrs. Hillit appeared at the door. "The young lady
who brought the flowers has come again," she said. Lyman looked up and
his heart leaped, for, in the hall-way, stood Eva with her hands full
of roses. She turned pale at seeing him, but with the color returning
she came forward and held out her hand. Hillit's wasted eye, slow in
movement but quick in conception, divined the meaning of the changing
color of her face, and when his wife had brought a vase for the roses,
he said: "I hope you two will talk just as if I wasn't here. And I
won't be here long, you know."
"William," his wife spoke up, turning from the table whereon she had
placed the young woman's contribution, "you promised me that you
wouldn't talk that way any more."
"I forgot this time," he replied.
"Mr. Lyman," said Eva, "I want to thank you again for the book. I have
read it twice, and I hope you won't think I gush when I say it is
charming. One idea was uppermost in my mind as I read it--that I had
never before heard the beating of so many hearts; and the atmosphere
is so sweet that, more than once, I fancied that the paper must have
been scented."
"Oh, come now," Lyman cried, "you are guying me."
"It does sound like it, I admit, but really I am not. And I don't
bring you my opinion alone. Last night I induced father to read a
chapter. He read chapter after chapter, and when I asked him what he
thought, he simply said, 'Beautiful.' Wasn't that a conquest?"
"It was a great kindness."
"But why should you be surprised? Haven't you worked year after year
and now should a just reward come as an astonishment?"
"It's all luck," said the consumptive, looking at his thin hands
lying on the counterpane. "If a man has luck early in life, he's
likely to pay for it later; and if he has bad luck till along toward
middle life, the chances are that he will pick up. I had my luck
early; I sang my song and finished it." His wife looked at him
beseechingly. "I'm not complaining," he added. "It's no more than
just. You and the young lady were speaking about a book, Mr. Lyman.
How long did it take you to write it?"
"It seems now that I had to live it," Lyman answered. "The actual work
did not take long, but the dreams, the night-mares, were continued
year after year. To be condemned to write a conscientious book is a
severe trial, almost a cruel punishment, and I am not surprised that
the critics, sentenced to read it, should look upon it as an
additional pain thrust into their lives."
The talk wandered into the discussion of books in general. The young
woman told of the great libraries she had visited abroad. The printer
had helped to set up a Bible and he gave an amusing account of the
mistakes that had crept into the proof-sheets. A careless fellow had
made one of the Prophets stricken with grip instead of grief, and
another one had the type declare that Moses lifted up the sea
serpent in the wilderness. The bar of sunlight passed beyond the
window ledge and the sick man fell into silence. Eva rose to go. Lyman
said that he would walk a part of the way with her. She smiled but
said nothing. They bade the invalid and his wife good-bye and passed
out into the shaded thoroughfare. A man stared at them, but a woman
passed with merely a glance.
[Illustration: the butter churn]
"Even in a village a wonder wears away after awhile," said Lyman.
"Yes," she laughed, "our strange relationship has almost ceased to be
an oddity."
They turned into a lane. He helped her across a rivulet and felt her
hand grow warm in his grasp. She looked up at him and his blood
tingled. He felt a sense of gladness and then remembered that she had
praised his book. It was a victory to know that it had broken through
her father's hauberk of prejudice. He spoke of Sawyer. She had heard
of his narrow escape from drowning; indeed, he had called at the
house.
"He did not hesitate to acknowledge everything," she said, "and I
never liked him half so well as I did today."
"But you couldn't like him well enough to marry him," Lyman was weak
enough to say.
"Oh, no; I liked him because he acknowledged your generosity," she
frankly confessed. Lyman had weaknesses, and one of them was an
under-appraisal of self. At times and in some men this is a virtue,
but more often it is a crime committed against one's own chance of
prosperity. The people's candidate is the man who loudest avows his
fitness for the office.
"You remember last Sunday as you were driving away from the church--"
he said.
"Yes--" she answered, walking close beside him.
"I thought I saw your mother reprimand you for urging her to stay."
"Yes. She was half inclined to yield and she was really scolding
herself for her weakness."
"You went away without congratulating the preacher."
"That was thoughtless. We have sent him a letter of congratulation."
"How stately your house looks from here; how cool and restful."
"I used to take great pride in the fact that I lived there, as I
looked at the humbler homes scattered about, but I haven't been so
foolishly proud since I came to know you."
"Then that is where we must have fallen apart. I have been prouder
since I knew you."
"I said foolishly proud," she replied, laughing.
They came to the wooden bridge. "Well, I turn back here," he said,
halting and leaning against the rail.
"Surely there would be no harm in your coming to the house," she
replied. "You are my protector," she added, with a smile. He was
beginning to dislike the word, and now he felt a heaviness settle upon
his heart.
"When your father has invited me as a friend of the family, I will
come," he said, leaning over and looking down into the water. He
looked up and in her eyes he thought he saw a gentle rebuke, but it
was gone in a moment. She must have had it in her mind to tell him
that he ought to be bolder, but another feeling seemed swiftly to
come, and she said: "Your instinct is right." She held out her hand.
He grasped it, looked into her eyes, turned about and hastened toward
the town.