AT TOP SPEED
Brent had at one time promised Dale to take him out on the survey. This
promise had been made in an unguarded moment--or, at least, without a
suspicion that the mountaineer would keep so tenaciously after him until
it was fulfilled. Now, with school closed the day before, he felt that
the evil hour could no longer be postponed. He had no objection to Dale,
or having him along on the work, if he would only take some recesses in
his interminable string of questions. But this impetuous student, whose
soul craved the heights of Lincoln and Clay, took no recesses.
Petulantly Brent had carried his woe to the Colonel, but, instead of
sympathy, he found the old gentleman radiant;--declaring Dale would
become so utterly absorbed in learning the secrets of this science, that
the engineer would find himself being led out by the ears each morning
at sunrise.
"The road is just as good as built," he had cried, "if you have along
Dale's example of application!" Which comforted Brent not at all.
So this very morning the Colonel was astir long before breakfast,
sharing in a measure the mountaineer's excitement. Anything, he had
jovially averred, which inspired Brent to work, was worth getting up
early to see.
"Don't stay out too long," he had counseled. "My Commencement dinner is
tonight!"
Standing on the terrace he watched them trudge off toward the knobs,
followed by five darkies carrying the lunch, axes, poles and transit. He
noted, also--just as upon that day when Bob first took Dale to Flat
Rock--that the mountaineer was forging ahead, and that his companion was
evidently cautioning less speed.
"A little bit of that will put the road through," he chuckled.
They were crossing a pasture luxuriant with bluegrass where Lucy had
been pensioned to while away in comfort her declining years; and now a
more tender light came into the old gentleman's face. For he saw her
head go up while yet a great way off from them, and saw her intently
looking. He knew what difficulty, and with what yearning, she was urging
her clouded eyes to do their best; and he guessed the exultation
gradually creeping through her frame as she began to realize that Dale
was near. Suddenly, as fast as age would permit, she broke into an
awkward gallop, furiously whinnying, excitedly calling out her delight.
Overtaking her master, who had not been once to see her in all these
days, she thrust her muzzle across his shoulder to be petted, as of
yore--and this deeply affected the Colonel. But the next instant he
stiffened as a man of iron, for the mountaineer, furious at the
interference, had struck her cruelly across the face. In utter
dejection now she stood, looking after him as he strode away.
"Did you see dat?" Uncle Zack cried, and not till then did the Colonel
know he was nearby.
"It wasn't fair! It wasn't fair, Zack! Take her out four quarts of
oats!"
"I don' see whar she's gwine put 'em, wid all dat grass inside her," he
laughed. "If she wuz a man, I'd a-tucken her a toddy 'foh now to cheer
her ole heart! But only de likes of me an' you kin eat ice-cream an' poh
down hot coffee, an' pickle 'em wid licker an' not git ourse'ves
kilt--ain' dat right, Marse John? Hawses an' dawgs an' cows an' sich,
cyarn' put de stuff in dey stumicks dat we kin. It takes a suah-nuff man
to do dat!"
The old gentleman was not listening. To his surprise he now saw Brent
quickly make up the intervening space, grasp Dale by the shoulder and
spin him around with every evidence of tremendous anger, then shake his
fist in the mountaineer's face as though he were emphasizing a speech.
To the Colonel's further astonishment he then saw Dale walk meekly back
to the mare, put out his hand, and for several moments stroke her nose.
"An' did you see dat?" Uncle Zack yelled in high glee.
"I wouldn't have missed it for a million," the old gentleman cried.
"Mebbe she don' need no oats now! But I reckon she'd better have 'em,
wid yoh com'liments, jest de same!"
"I wish Jane could have seen it," the Colonel murmured, keeping his eyes
on them.
"Dar ain' no reason why she cyarn' be tol' 'bout it," Zack winked to
himself, starting to the stables for a full measure of oats.
At the Colonel's request she came over early in the afternoon to see to
the decorations for his table, and brought a bag with the idea of
dressing there. While carrying this into the house Zack graphically made
known the drama in the pasture--which may or may not have been the
reason why, an hour later as she moved about the flowers, the old
gentleman several times wondered why he had never before remarked the
beauty of her voice.
This dinner was a new institution at Arden. It came into existence with
the opening day of school, when the old gentleman announced his
intention of entertaining after each commencement for the girl who had
made the greatest progress. When Jane told him a week ago that Nancy was
to be his guest of honor, he had received the news as though she were a
princess. However he might have flinched inside, no suspicion of it
reached as far as his eyes or face. That very night other guests were
appropriately selected from the neighborhood, and the invitations sent
forthwith.
The sun hung low in the sky when the surveyors returned. Dale, as might
have been expected, came leading, and dashed up the steps with scarcely
a nod to the Colonel who sat amusedly looking on. He impetuously entered
the library, searched feverishly along the shelves for a text book on
surveying that he had previously seen, jerked it out and began to scan
its pages. Brent, on the other hand, was dragging himself along,
groaning wearily. When he reached the porch he flopped into a chair and
again groaned.
"Uncle Zack, you'll have to bring my dinner up stairs. I can't dress, or
anything!"
"Why, sir," the Colonel turned in alarm, "what has happened?"
"Everything's happened," Brent groaned. "That boob in there walked my
legs off, and talked my head off, and I'm all in! Gee!--push my foot out
a little farther, Uncle Zack! Oh, Lord! Can't somebody catch somebody's
eye? The seven-year drought of Egypt's in my throat!"
The Colonel began to laugh, while Zack, highly elated, said:
"Dat wuz a plague, Marse Brent!"
"Well, don't I know it?" he looked pitifully up at him.
"Naw, sah," Zack laughed again. "I mean de 'Gyptians didn' have no
drought; dey had de plague dem seben yeahs! I 'member dat story!"
"Zack, this isn't any time to split hairs over what the Egyptians had.
Come out of the ages, and focus your mind on what I've got!"
The old fellow disappeared with a chuckle, still audible after reaching
the dining-room. The Colonel, too, was chuckling.
"It's all right to laugh, Colonel, and make everybody hate you, but
I'll bet we walked forty miles! From the very moment that human engine
cranked himself up this morning, he's been pressing the accelerator with
spark advanced every second of the time. Don't think I'm crazy, but gas
engine terms are the only ones to describe him. The next time he and I
go on that survey, I go alone--which accounts for the Mac in McElroy,"
he added with a grin.
"Never mind," the old gentleman said, "you'll feel better in a few
minutes."
"That's just the trouble," Brent complained. "If I hadn't lapped up so
much of your delectable nose-paint, that hayseed couldn't have walked me
to death. I'm as good a man as he is any day--when in condition!"
Jane, standing within the hall, heard this, and at once perceived the
great dawning hope which chance had suddenly thrust before her. It was a
hope for the railroad, for her people. Passing into the library she
looked over Dale's shoulder, took the book from his hand, and smiled at
it.
"You can't make anything out of this, yet," she said. "If you want to
build railroads yourself some time, what you need now is actual
experience; and you can get it if you persist."
"How?" he asked eagerly.
"Make Brent go out every day till the work is done--then I've a plan for
you."
"What?" he was growing very much excited.
"Sh," she laughed. "I'll tell you some other time. Now go up and dress;
dinner will be ready in half an hour."
As he sprang to obey, a glance at his determined jaw, the enthusiasm of
his stride, told her that Brent might not henceforth have such an idle
time of it. His voice came in to her now.
"----and he threw all the lunch away," he was telling the Colonel,
"because he said we didn't have time to eat it. I wanted to kill him;
and would, if it hadn't struck me as being so darned funny! But I will
say that we did more than I've ever seen done in a day--even with a
trained party! What's more, we can save three miles. Dale did that,
too!"
"This is encouraging, sir!" the old gentleman cried.
"It's more than that, Colonel--it's a find! Entirely disregarding the
fact that I'd made a reconnaissance, he dragged me about like a toy, and
finally, blest if he didn't scoot into a natural tunnel. I knew it was
there, too, but never thought of following it up! We can go through it
without turning a shovel of earth or shooting a stone. It not only saves
the three miles I spoke of, but a terrible amount of cutting, and
doesn't add a fraction to our ruling grade; bringing us out--I'll tell
you where it brings us out! You know a place, about three hundred feet
under a bold spur sticking to the north face of Snarly?--where a stream
boils down into a sort of cave and disappears?"
"Oh, yes. That is our natural freak around this country--that and your
tunnel! I know them well!"
"Well, we come out there, about two miles above this disappearing
stream. It's a cinch! By the way, what becomes of that stream?"
"No one knows. Years ago we painted several pieces of wood, and hacked
some logs in a certain way for identification, then let them all float
down and be sucked into that hole. None ever bobbed up at our end, and,
so far as we ever heard, they were never found floating on other
streams. I fancy the water rushes into some vast subterranean sea."
Zack came out with the beverage, Brent bowed to the Colonel, drank it
and sighed. It was an atrociously strong toddy, purposely made so by the
old servant to compensate for the long day's absence; and almost at
once, especially as he had eaten nothing since breakfast, its strength
began to tell.
"Zack, when Doctor Meal comes tonight, I wish you'd send him up to graft
a dozen mule legs on me."
"Mule legs, Marse Brent!" the old negro peered at him.
"I haven't heard from Meal," the old gentleman laughed. "But there is a
young doctor named Stone who will be here; he might do it."
There were, indeed, now two doctors in Buckville: the former old man
with a soft name, who wore long whiskers which served to hide the
missing collar and cravat, who had for forty years ministered to the
needs of the surrounding country, who rode a pacing mare and carried
medicines in a saddle-bag across her back;--and he of the hard name, who
had lately come as graduate of the University, who visited the sick in
a gasoline runabout of uncertain age which steered with a lever and
heaved prodigiously, who wrote prescriptions to be filled at the
drug-store. If Doctor Meal were not among his bees, or grafting pear
buds, he might be found in a tilted chair on the sidewalk, beneath the
giant locust trees which shaded the town's one pharmacy. But Doctor
Stone's telephone was invariably answered by a trained servant who, if
he were away, knew exactly where to find him. Perhaps in no other
respects was the changing life of Buckville better illustrated than by
these two doctors: the old and the new; the passing and the coming. And
because it was the passing, Doctor Meal had not yet gone as far as the
post office for his mail; but in less than an hour after the stamp had
been cancelled on Stone's invitation, the Colonel received his
acceptance by telephone.
"Well," Brent sighed, "I've got to get 'em somewhere!"
"You might gallop up stairs on the four you have," the Colonel
suggested. "Our guests will soon be arriving."
"And Dale will beat you down," Jane called from the library.
"Oh, Jane, I'm all in," he groaned. "I can't, honest!"
"Are you so much more tired than Dale?" she asked sweetly.
"Certainly not," he flushed.
He pushed himself slowly out of the chair and went to the French
window.
"Where are you?" he began asking before stepping through. "I want some
encouragment to climb those stairs!"
She was sitting, balanced lightly on the library table, with her hands
clasped about one knee.
"What an old man you've suddenly become," she laughed.
"You'd be an old man, too," he said, "if you'd been paced all day by a
camel!"
"I thought engineers were inured to those things;--I thought they could
withstand all manner of hardships;--that, really, the elements
themselves were playthings in their hands!"
He leaned against the table and looked down at her. That toddy, put into
his tired and empty frame, was gripping him with surprising activity.
"No," he slowly replied. "Engineers can't master all the elements;--at
least, I know one who can't. I wish he could!"
She may have flushed slightly, but her chin kept its tantalizing tip and
her eyes their laughing mischief.
"One never knows what one can do until one tries," she said; and after a
dangerous hesitation, added: "I believe this is the first day you've
really attempted any serious work since you came."
Now, when a girl balances on the edge of a table in a softly lighted
room, with her hands clasped about one of her knees, her chin tipped
enticingly up, and a riot of mischief rippling through her eyes and
parted lips, she has no business telling an over-toddied gentleman that
he'll never know what he can do until he tries. She may add that she
refers to the building of a railroad, to the conquering of a nation, to
the playing of a hand of bridge--but he will see nothing beyond the
seductive challenge. And Brent looked another instant at that enticing
picture, then stooped down and kissed her hair.
There was no tilted chin, no laughing challenge, now as she sprang up
and faced him. The change in her was like that of a limpid pool which
has suddenly become roiled by a violent splash, and her eyes flashed as
though all the vials of hate were about to be broken upon his head.
"I thought you were a gentleman." Her voice came slowly, with such utter
contempt that he winced.
"Your thought is quite correct," he said. "I am a gentleman, and a man,
and therefore vulnerable to such a temptation as you willfully threw at
me."
Her cheeks flamed. "I never dreamed of such a thing!"
"Don't misunderstand me. I didn't say invitation; I said temptation."
"But you meant invitation," she hotly retorted.
"I know I did," he surprised her by admitting, "and you meant
invitation, also. If you didn't, you're stupid;--and I'd rather think of
you as daring than stupid."
"You will please not think of me at all, or speak to me, ever again!"
she coolly said, and left the room.
Brent looked at the door through which she had disappeared. For several
minutes he stood, without any sign of movement, except that his teeth
were pressing rather hard upon his lower lip.
"John Barleycorn, you're a damned sneak," he muttered. "I've half a
notion never to speak to you again!"
Then, with a sigh, he went up stairs to dress.