THE PRODUCT OF SUNLIGHT PATCH
As the weeks passed, a great relief spread throughout the place when it
became known that Mesmie would recover. The grafts had taken hold, and
it now seemed as though her days might be long and prosperous. Fair
judgment placed this to the credit of the young physician, and Jane had
congratulated herself more than once for having transgressed the
Colonel's wishes in calling him instead of Doctor Meal. For the slow
moving, sympathetic Doctor Meal would have applied linseed oil, patted
the child's head and called her a good little girl. Then, carried by his
pacing mare, he might have started townward for a bag of candy or a
doll; while she, on the speedier wings of deadly tetanus, would in all
probability have gone to her ancestors.
This, at least, was the prevailing opinion of everyone except the
Colonel, who would tolerate no suggestion of it. Doctor Meal had always
cured his ailments, and he knew his skill from long experience. The fact
of the matter was, the Colonel possessed a strong constitution and
happened to be lucky. His old friend and physician, if called
professionally, had a way of beginning his examinations in this wise:
"Well, John, what you reckon ails you?" The Colonel would then give a
diagnosis as suggested to him by a night of discomfort. "Well, well!
You must feel right bad, John! What you reckon I'd better give you?" The
Colonel would then name some nostrum, also decided upon during the long
night. Old Doctor Meal would open his saddle-bags and mix it, along with
a toddy to make it palatable; then he would build a toddy for himself,
and sit down to talk. Of course, the Colonel swore by him!
Nancy had long since been brought over to the big house, because neither
the Colonel nor Aunt Timmie would consent to her going home--both
through purely different motives. It meant but one more addition to the
Colonel's eleemosynary institution (as Ann had acquired the habit of
calling Arden) and gave Doctor Stone an additional reason for making his
daily visits: thirty minutes at Mesmie's bedside, and anywhere from one
to three hours walking beneath the trees with his older patient.
But in other directions matters were not so hopeful. For a fortnight
Jess and his bloodhound had grimly searched the mountains. He felt the
necessity of raising a posse, but the Colonel would have none of that;
no others besides themselves and the trusted sheriff, he swore, must
share the story, lest it be bandied from tongue to tongue and eventually
distorted--too many characters, he said, were sacrificed every Saturday
night by those gods who whittled upon their thrones in front of the
village store to take any chances. So Jess had searched alone and in
vain.
Brent, working at the survey with an ardor that might have been inspired
by the example of Dale, had each evening come home by way of the partly
rebuilt cabin, hoping--praying--to get a glimpse of the outlaw. Nor had
the Colonel remained passive, but his activities progressed on the back
of a horse. There had been one other watcher of whom neither of them
knew.
This particular morning the engineer was in his room, plotting out an
accumulation of field notes. By him, and bending over the large drawing
board with as deep, though not as accurate, an interest, the Colonel
stood. Not infrequently now did the old gentleman come up to watch this
railroad grow upon paper, and talk as the other worked. They had been
speculating on the whereabouts of Tusk, and Brent was supporting Jess'
theory that he had fled into Virginia; but it was a most unpleasant
subject to them both and the Colonel exclaimed:
"I understand Tom has accepted my price!"
"Yes. He sent his wife to Dulany. They're leaving almost at once."
The old gentleman chuckled. "You've won the neighborhood's everlasting
gratitude, sir! And did he promise to brace up in the country of his
adoption?"
"By proxy," Brent mumbled, at the moment carefully drawing a line. "But
promises don't amount to a fiddle-de-dee. Men brace up when they want
to. Have you seen Jane lately?"
"Not for some days. You know I urged her not to ride alone. Why?"
"I was just wondering if she had spoken to you about Dale. Have you
noticed anything strange in him?"
"I've noticed that he is thinner," a shade of worry passed over the
fine old face, "and his eyes--" he hesitated.
"That's it," Brent looked up. "His eyes have a haunted look. He's sick,
Colonel."
"I should have spoken to Stone, Brent, but have been so worried over
that dear girl! She seems changed, too. I don't know what is happening
to us!"
"Better speak to him today, then. He's leaving for a few days'
pilgrimage to distant patients."
The old gentleman went to the door and called down to Uncle Zack,
sending him after the doctor whom he knew, since the little motor
vehicle was in front, must be somewhere on the grounds.
In silence they waited; the Colonel meditative, Brent leaning above his
drawing and making line after line which would weld the mountains with
civilization. Still their man did not come, so without further comment
the Colonel went slowly down stairs and out to the porch, there gazing
sternly at the grouped lawn chairs where the attentive physician was
sitting with Nancy. But, as he approached them, a measure of
recollection must have returned to the man of science, for he looked
hurriedly at his watch and began to stammer:
"Colonel, I am greatly to be excused! I was just--just giving Nancy a
few--a few instructions till I come back for her!"
"For her, or to her?" the old gentleman's eyes twinkled.
"He said 'to her,'" she insisted, blushing furiously.
"I really--that is, I said 'for her,'" the doctor smiled happily, as
she gave him a rather bewildering look and precipitately fled.
They watched her go into the house and then turned to each other, one
with an accusing smile, the other grinning self-consciously.
"You'll find her here when you return," the old gentleman murmured. "I
shall never permit her to go back to those who are neither her blood nor
breeding, and my home shall be her home until she chooses to leave it;
but, sir," he began to smile again now, "my consent will have to be
obtained--I warn you!"
The doctor, still crimson to the roots of his hair, was endeavoring to
say something rational about his practice and his prospects, when the
Colonel sternly interrupted him.
"Stone, all the worldly goods you may possess or ever expect to possess,
if they were greater than these mountains behind us, would not amount to
a damn, sir, unless your mind is clean and your body healthy! If you can
say before your God that they are no worse than those of any man whom
you would have your sister wed, go then and win your bride!"
A silence followed, so prolonged that the Colonel was beginning to feel
the sickening weight of dread about his heart, when the other said
quietly:
"Then I may as well ask you now!"
"God bless my soul, sir," the old gentleman cried, "I consent right
merrily! Nor shall I keep you another minute from her, after we speak a
word of Dale!"
"Miss Jane telephoned me about him this morning."
"And what did you tell her?"
"That he's working too hard."
"Nothing more serious?"
"That's plenty serious enough, Colonel, if he sticks at it. I talked to
him a little while ago, and he wanted to throw me out the window. Nobody
can make him stop that grind!"
"Jane can," the old gentleman grunted.
"She's going to try, anyway, when he takes his lessons to her this
afternoon. But she told me he was so impatient now preparing himself to
go up in the mountains and be a Lincoln to his people, that she really
doubts if she can influence him without help."
"Be a Lincoln to his people, eh?"
"Yes, emancipate them from the chains of ignorance, he calls it."
"By Godfry, sir, that isn't a bad idea! Whose help does she want?"
"Oh, I suppose your's, and Brent's, and mine, and everybody's."
For awhile the old gentleman appeared to be wrapped in thought. At last
he asked:
"When do you leave to see your distant patients?"
"In the morning."
"How far to the east does that duty lead you?"
"Pretty well into the next county."
"If you should locate that place called Sunlight Patch," the Colonel
looked up, "and bring him word from his sister to rest for a month, he'd
do it!"
Stone slapped himself upon the leg and hopefully announced: "That's the
only way to handle him! I want to go there, anyhow, and get a look at
that woman!"
"So do I," the old gentleman murmured. "Some day I want to go up there,
and take her back nine dollars and the mare; and tell her what her
influence has stood for in this valley--better ideals and ways of
living!--who can tell how far it reaches!"
"Yes, who can tell!" the doctor softly answered. "It all seems to stand
as a sort of product of Sunlight Patch, which will stay with us long
after Dale has gone."
"That is it," the Colonel nodded, his serious gaze upon the ground, "the
product of Sunlight Patch, which will remain long after Dale and we have
gone. But come," he looked up, "I am keeping you!"
"Well, if you don't mind, I'll go in for a minute and say good-bye--then
come out and join you again."
"I'll be damned if I wait here till sundown," the old gentleman
chuckled. "Shake hands now, sir, and let me wish you God-speed in this,
and all your journeys; then you may take your own good time about saying
good-bye, sir! I'm going up to Brent, anyway, and tell him!--about Dale,
about Dale," he added hastily, seeing a look of consternation come into
the doctor's face. But, a few minutes later when he had climbed to
Brent's room, so excited was he with news and fresh plans that his very
first words were: "Did you know that that fellow, Stone, is going to
marry our Nancy?" He, like Aunt Timmie, put his secrets in safe places.
Being in the third floor is why he failed to see Jess come onto the
porch, or Uncle Zack admit him to the library.
Dale did not at first hear the sheriff, even when the old darky had
announced him and pushed a chair up to the table. But Jess, possessing
less delicacy in matters of this sort, or being more in earnest, laid a
hand on the mountaineer's shoulder and gave it a rough shake. This
brought him back from Cicero with a glare of fury, though quickly
dismissed at sight of his visitor.
"I reckoned I'd find you 'sleep," were the sheriff's first words, when
Zack had gone.
"Oh, I sleep some in the evenin's. Sleep's mostly for women, anyhow."
"I wouldn't be s'prised if a leetle wa'n't fer men, now an' then," Jess
grinned. "You can't lay out watchin' his cabin till daylight, as you've
been doin', an' set around with these heah books all day. Fu'st thing
you know you'll be drappin' off in a snooze out thar, an' missin' him!"
"Don't let that worry you," Dale clenched his fists. "I got to be with
these books all day, an' I got to watch for him at night--or the books
won't do me any good."
"I don't quite foller yoh reasonin'!"
"I didn't think you would," he gave Jess a superior look. "Got any
news?"
"Nope; an' I've come to say I'm ready to give up! My hound says thar
ain't a smell of 'im 'tween heah an' hell."
"Then your hound lies; for I tell you he's around somewhere, an' not so
very far off, either!"
"Look-ee-heah," the sheriff raised half up in his chair, "I don't 'llow
no man to call my hound a liar!"
"Oh, sit down, Jess! Didn't I just tell you I _know_ he's around
somewhere?"
"Then what kind of a dawg might _you_ be, Mister Dawson?"
But Dale either did not hear, or did not want to take this up. All he
said was:
"Let's keep on trying, Jess!"
"Oh, all right, if yoh're so dod-gasted suah! Go on, then, an' watch
tonight, an' I'll relieve you, same as usual, jest 'foh day!"
There was nothing more to be said, so the mountaineer turned back to the
table, thus curtly dismissing the sheriff whose face flushed as he got
up and went out.