THE INCONSEQUENT ENGINEER
Uncle Zack's watchful eyes discerned the returning riders and busily he
went to prepare juleps, while, at the same time, a company of little
darkies dashed past the house eager to lead the horses stableward.
This aroused a man who had been day-dreaming on the deep, cool porch.
His feet were comfortably perched on the seat of an opposite chair, and
an open book lay face down on his lap. Within convenient reaching
distance stood a silver goblet topped with sprigs of mint. He was
dressed in immaculate white, a suit which showed the character of expert
tailorship when subjected to the arm and leg stretch of the frantic yawn
he now deliberately enjoyed. For young Mr. Brent McElroy was as well
groomed as he was good to look upon. Although Bod had called him the
laziest chap in clothes, and Miss Liz had berated his lack of ambition,
and all had sometimes resented his ironies, a very critical glance at
his face would have belied these faults. For his chin was cast in a good
mould, and his eyes looked at one with steady, honest interest. They
were spirited, but tender, and a trained observer would have found in
them a deep, lingering hunger for something which seemed not to have
come. He would also have found strength in the mouth, ordinarily too
cynical.
Brent managed to get along pretty well with everything but work, and in
severing diplomatic relations with this he usually found himself persona
non grata with Jane and her strongest ally, Miss Liz. For Jane, more
than all of them, realized the blessings a railroad would bring to her
people in that wild area beyond Snarly Knob. She knew how each artery
leading from the virgin heart of those mountains, carrying to the world
its stream of warmth, would return twofold riches to the benighted
denizens of their antiquity. She knew that through each vein from the
distant centers of the world's culture would flow back a broader
understanding of life, its responsibilities, ambitions, opportunities.
To her, the little road was a savior, to such a degree God-sent, that it
seemed a sacrilege to let it halt. Moreover, since Brent came, she felt
that the Colonel had been given fresh inspiration to imbibe. It had not
occurred to her to reverse this indictment, which might have been done
with an equal amount of truth. At any rate, she had lost patience with
the good-looking engineer, while the Colonel was finding him more and
more attractive.
He arose now as the men dismounted, stretched again, and smiled down at
them.
"Ah, sir," the Colonel cried, "I'm glad you are home in time to join
us!"
"I've just been joining," he laughed, "but, of course, if you can't get
along without me--" he waved a hand toward his empty goblet. Uncle Zack
had made provision for this--Uncle Zack, who believed that a
thoroughbred gentleman should always be "jes' a li'l bit toddied up."
Dale stood at the bottom step staring with the open curiosity
characteristic of his kind, and convinced that he was gazing upon the
most elegant gentleman in all creation. No detail of the toilette
escaped his minute scrutiny--from the white buckskin shoes to the white
cravat, from the immaculate linen to the flashing teeth; and for a
second time that day his eyes lowered to pass slowly over the crudeness
of his own attire.
The Colonel saw this and smiled, but it was not a mirthful smile. His
former interest had become quickened by this helpless and pathetic look,
and mentally he strengthened a previous resolution.
"Brent," he said, "I want you to know Dale Dawson! Mr. McElroy," he
turned to the still staring mountaineer, "is staying with me, and making
a survey for the railroad we hope to see running through here before
long, sir."
"I hain't never seed a train but onct," Dale exclaimed, shaking hands
with more open admiration. "Then hit 'most scared the gizzard outen me!
How do ye make 'em?"
"Oh," Brent laughed, "screws, and nuts, and hammers, and things. But I
don't make trains, old fellow; I'm just making the survey!"
"Good-bye everybody!" Bob gurgled, swinging into the saddle. The Colonel
called him sternly back.
"Now, Bob," he whispered, stepping out to the tanbark drive, "you've no
right to leave me like this, sir. I can't put up with it, I tell you!
Why, God bless my soul, the fellow hasn't a rag except what's on his
back! Must I ask him to sleep in the stable, sir? Those mountain people
are sensitive to the very core, you know that, and his feelings would be
immeasurably hurt if he suspected I complain of his clothes. But, Bob,
it's impossible! You're both of a size; help an old man out--there's a
good fellow!"
"I'll do anything but stay here and disgrace myself," Bob assured him.
"Tactfully, sir, tactfully," the Colonel warned.
"Trust me to do it tactfully," Bob whispered. "I'm not out to get shot."
And turning to the porch he called: "Dale, like to ride over and meet my
family? You might get a word with Miss Jane about the school, too!"
There was no reply to this except a quick step toward the old white
mare.
"Will hit be all right ter leave my rifle hyar, Cunnel?" he asked, with
one foot in the stirrup.
"Certainly, sir," that gentleman gave cheery acquiescence. "But take my
horse. Your own seems tired."
"Yourn _air_ faster," he nodded, passing unnoticed Lucy's invitation to
be caressed and rising into the Colonel's saddle. There was something
pathetic in the wistful way she looked after him, whinnying twice or
three times in a sudden panic of apprehension. The old gentleman stroked
her nose, murmuring:
"I don't think he ought to have done it just that way, old faithful. But
if I read the signs correctly you'd better get used to it now. There'll
be plenty more times."
Bob called from the gate: "Send Zack over; I want my hair cut!" And the
Colonel, understanding, waved his hand as they again cantered away--Dale
in advance, and the young planter evidently cautioning him to spare his
horse in the noon hour heat.
"Who's Bob's anthropoid friend?" Brent asked, as he and the Colonel now
stretched in their chairs.
"A young man from the mountains, violently in search of an education. He
will be asking you every question in the range of thought, Brent, and I
hope you will have patience with him. It's such a pity to see one so
hungry for knowledge--really starving for it--while the whole wide board
before him holds more than enough for all!"
"He's welcome to banquet on my feast of reason, but he'll get mighty
tired of it. Do you think he's serious?"
The Colonel smiled at this from Brent.
"It has been my observation that believing in people usually brings out
their best," he answered, "and so I think he is serious. I hope you
will, also."
"You bet I will," Brent cordially agreed, burying his nose in the mint.
"He's all right;--I like him!"
After a moment of affectionate contemplation of his own julep, the
Colonel said:
"Bob's household will be over to dinner tonight. I trust you can be with
us, sir!"
Before he could reply, Miss Liz appeared in the doorway, and both men
arose with courtly bows. When Brent had arranged a place for her--and
the Colonel had slipped into the house holding the telltale goblet
under his coat--this severe lady, balancing on the chair with prim
nicety, raised her lorgnette and observed:
"You have come home early!"
It was not hospitably done. Indeed, Miss Liz, sister of the Colonel's
angelic wife, inherited few of that departed lady's endearments. While
both had passed their girlhood in the Shenandoah, this one alone managed
to absorb and retain all the stern qualities from the surroundings of
her nativity. Now a spinster of perhaps sixty years, this firmness had
become imbedded in her nature as unalterably as the Blue Ridge rock; her
eyes and hair were as gray, and her voice--unless she were deeply
moved--as hard; also was her sense of duty as unyielding. Before her
sister's death she regularly visited Arden, and afterwards the Colonel
had insisted upon her making it a permanent home.
He paid the price for this, as he knew he would pay; but without a word,
and with as few outward signs as possible. For Miss Liz could not have
been termed in sympathy with the easy-going Colonel, nor, in her
self-righteous moods, sympathetic with any man. From long practice and
research she had at her fingers' tips the measurements of every male
transgressor from Cain to Judas Iscariot, and could work up about as
unhappy an hour for gay Lotharios as might be found this side of the
Spanish Inquisition. At any rate, Miss Liz did come to Arden, finding
rest and quiet and peace--not imparting them.
The little darkies never tired of twisting pieces of bale-wire into an
imitation of lorgnettes and airily strutting in her wake when she
visited the garden---being careful to keep their carousal well away from
the danger zone. At the same time, all who had been allowed peeps into
her gentler side were gripped with tentacles of affection as firm as was
her own relentless adherence to duty. In just one respect might Miss Liz
have been rated below par, and this was a hopeless incapacity to see
when others were teasing her. She took all in good faith when they
looked her straight in the eyes and told the most flagrant absurdities.
Brent now smiled blandly into her face and accepted the implied rebuke a
moment in silence.
"Isn't it extraordinary," he said at last, "that I guessed you would be
having on that becoming gown, and looking just this cool and
attractive?"
In spite of her stiffening shoulders and frown of extreme displeasure,
an echo of color crept slowly into her cheeks. For it is a curious fact
that, while stern and self-denying people may be found who are
impregnable to the fiercest attacks of passion, indifferent to the most
insidious lures of avarice, unmoved by the most convincing whispers of
jealousy, and impartial in every act toward fellowman--all, all will
yield an inch to the smile of flattery.
"Fiddlesticks!" she exclaimed. "I am old enough to be your grandmother!"
The lorgnette never faltered, and Brent's eyes lowered in feigned
distress.
"Yes, I suppose so," he quietly admitted. "The fact is, when you come
out on the porch this way and begin to talk so pleasantly, I'm always
forgetting that you're so--so terribly old as you insist. I'll try to
remember, Miss Liz."
"I am not inviting old age," she smiled, with a freezing lack of mirth;
but yet she may have yielded the inch, for one of her thin hands went
timidly up to the iron gray curls which hung before her ears, and her
eyes turned to gaze dreamily over the fields as though in search of some
long past, golden memory.
His own eyes took this opportunity to cast another sly look at the
tell-tale goblet, hoping to light upon some method of spiriting it away.
"Mr. McElroy," she suddenly exclaimed, "I have been talking to brother
John, and have told him my views about you!"
Brent's mouth opened a moment in surprise and then he frankly began to
laugh.
"I'm glad I wasn't in hearing distance!"
"You might have heard to your advantage. I told him that I considered
marriage to some determined girl your only chance of reformation."
"Marriage!" he almost rose out of his chair. "Heavens, Miss Liz! I've
got an alarm clock that does that sort of thing!"
"Alarm clock?" she gasped. "Pray, what do you suppose marriage is?"
"I've never tried to suppose! I don't want to suppose"
She arose with dignity and went toward the door. There was another
minute, while he stood making humble apologies to which she seemed
indifferent, and then her voice came like the crackling of dry twigs. "I
bid you good morning, Mr. McElroy!"