not wait for Dave to come to town, but boldly sallied out along the road
past the house of Sovine's father. How could he wait? His pockets and
his fingers were burned by the possession of so much hard cash. He felt
obliged to take it out and count it once or twice, and to make an
inspection of his pockets, which had a treacherous way of coming into
holes under the strain of the big, muscular hands, so often rammed into
their depths for purposes of meditation.
After walking past the Sovine house once or twice without encountering
Dave, he sat down by a prairie brook, the gentle current of which
slipped noiselessly along, dragging its margins softly against the
grass, whose seed-laden heads at this season of the year hung over into
the water, the matted blades lying prone upon the unbroken
surface:--their tips all curved in one way mark the direction of the
gentle stream. Bob reclined on the low bank, where he was concealed from
the road by a little yellow-twigged water-willow, the only thing within
a mile or two that could be called a tree.
After awhile Dave Sovine, sauntering, ruminating tobacco, and looking
warily about, as was his way, came slowly along the road. When he caught
sight of Bob he started, and paused irresolutely as though about to
retreat. But seeing that Bob was looking at him, he recovered himself
and came toward the reclining figure. Truth to tell, Dave was lonesome
in retirement, and the sight of Bob had awakened a desire to talk.
"Have you seed a man go a-past h-yer weth a bag of wheat on his hoss?"
queried Bob. "I'm a-waitin' h-yer to buy a half-bushel uv seed wheat fer
fall sowin' f'om a feller what's a-comin' in f'om t' other eend uv the
k-younty."
The story was impromptu, and Bob had no time to fill in details. Dave
looked at him suspiciously, and only replied by shaking his head. By way
of confirming his theory of the reason for his waiting, Bob idly jingled
the silver coins in his pocket as he talked about the crops and the
relative advantage of living in the timber, where you can raise winter
wheat, or out on the perrary. The sound of tinkling silver caught Dave's
ear, as it was meant to.
"Play a game of seven-up?" said Dave languidly.
"You're too good a hand fer me," answered Bob with affected wariness.
"Oh! we'll only try small stakes. Luck's ag'inst me here lately"; and
he pulled out a well-worn pack of cards without waiting for Bob to
reply.
"No; ef I play, I want to play weth my k-yards," said Bob, who had a
lurking hope of winning, notwithstanding Dave's reputation.
"I don't mind where the cards come from," said Dave, as he took Bob's
pack, which was in a worse state than his own. Then, with habitual
secretiveness, he said, "Let's go into the corn-field."
They crossed the road and climbed into the corn-field, seating
themselves on the edge of the unplowed grassy balk between the corn and
the fence. Here they were hidden and shaded by the broad-leaved horse
and trumpet weeds in the fence-row. As was to be expected, Bob won
rather oftener than he lost at first. After a while the luck turned, and
Bob stopped playing.
"You'd better go on," said Dave.
"I d' know," answered Bob; "I'm about as well off now as I wuz in the
beginnin'. I 'low I'd better hold up."
"Aw, no; let's go on. You might make sumpin."
"Well," said Bob, running the ends of the cards through his fingers, "ef
you'll tell me jest how that air shootin' tuck place, I will."
"I don't keer to talk about that," said Dave, with a nonchalant air,
that hardly concealed his annoyance. "The prosecuting attorney thought
I'd better not."
"I wuzn't at the eenques'," Bob pleaded, "un they's so many stories
a-goin' that I want to h-yer it f'om you."
"Oh, I know _you_," said Dave. "You think I haven't got my eye-teeth
cut yet. You have been a-layin' for me and I know what you are here fer.
Do you think I don't see through your winter wheat? I know you're on
Tom's side."
"Well, in course I am," said Bob, roused to audacity by his failure to
deceive. "But it mout be jest as well fer you to tell me. Un maybe a
leetle better. It mout be the very k-yard fer you to throw at this p'int
in the game." And Bob's face assumed a mysterious and suggestive look as
he laid his cards on the grass and leaned forward regarding Dave.
"Well," said Dave, in a husky half-whisper, letting his eyes fall from
Bob's, "I'll tell you what: I don't really keer to have Tom hung, un
I've been feelin' bad un wishin' I could git out ov it. Ef I had anuff
money to go to New Orleans like a gentleman, I'd just light out some
night, and give Tom a chance for his life."
"Maybe you mout git the money," said McCord, picking up his cards. "But
your story wouldn' hang him nohow, I 'low." Here Bob laid down a
half-dollar for a new game, and Dave covered it.
"Of course, if I stay he's _got_ to swing," said Dave; and by way of
proving this to Bob, he told his story of the shooting with some
particularity, while he proceeded to win one half-dollar after another
almost without interruption. "Now," he said, when he had told the story
and answered Bob's questions, "you can see that's purty tolerable bad. I
sh'd think they'd ruther I'd clear out. An' if somebody'd give you a
hundred dollars an' you'd let me play three or four games of poker with
you some fine day I'd make tracks, an' the prosecuting attorney'd have
to get along without me."
By this time all of the five dollars that Barbara had furnished, except
the last twenty-five-cent piece, had passed from Bob's reluctant hands
to Dave Sovine's greedy pockets. This one quarter of a dollar Bob had
prudently placed in the great pocket of his hunting-shirt, that he might
have something to fill his stone jug with. For though he was devoted to
the Graysons' side of the controversy, Bob McCord could hardly be called
a disinterested philanthropist; and he held that even in serving one's
friends one must not forget to provide the necessaries of life.
"You're awful good on a game," said Bob, with a rueful face. "You've
cleaned me out, by hokey; I'll see ef I can't git you that hundred
dollars, so's you kin win it. But it'll take time fer the Widder Grayson
to raise it, I 'low."
"Oh! they ain't no _partik'lar_ hurry," said Dave, cheerfully counting
over his winnings and stowing the silver about in his pockets as a
ship-master might distribute his ballast. "Only if I don't get the money
I'll have to stay h-yer an' go to court, I guess." And Dave hitched up
his trousers and walked off with the air of a man who has a
master-stroke of business in view.
Lincoln came to town the next week and Bob told him the story, while
Lincoln made careful notes of Dave's account of the shooting.
"He says ef Widder Grayson'll let me have a hunderd dollars, un I'll let
him play draw poker fer it, he'll light out fer parts onknown."
"Oh! he wants pay, does he?" And the young lawyer sat and thought
awhile. Then he turned full on Bob and said:
"Could I depend on you to be in court at the trial without fail, and
without my sending a subpoena?"
"Oh, I'll be there un nowheres else," said Bob. "You needn't soopeeny
me. I'll come 'thout callin', foller 'thout tollin', un stan' 'thout
hitchin'."
"Now if Dave Sovine comes after you for that hundred dollars, you'd
better put him off, as easy as you can. If we should buy him off we
wouldn't want to give the prosecution time to fetch him back."
Bob thought he saw a twinkle in Lincoln's eye as he said this; a
something in his expression that indicated more than he said. But though
he looked at the lawyer curiously, he got no further light. That
evening, as Bob passed the Grayson farm-house, he told the anxious
Barbara something about it, and added: "Abe Lincoln's powerful deep.
He's got sumpin ur nuther in 'is head 't I can't noways see into. I
don't half believe 't 'e means to buy up that low-lived scoundrel arter
all. He acts like a man that's got a deadfall all sot, un is a-tryin' to
honey-fugle the varmint to git 'im to come underneath."
And Barbara took what comfort she could out of this assurance.
XXI
HIRAM AND BARBARA
To Barbara, indeed, the unrelieved apprehension and suspense of those
long, hot August days were almost intolerable. The frequent excursions
to the Moscow jail, to carry some tidbits of home cookery, or some
article for Tom's personal comfort, afforded a practical outlet to
feeling and a relief from the monotony of passive suffering, but these
journeys also brought sharp trials of their own to Barbara's courage and
self-control. She might not betray to Tom or to her mother how much she
suffered; it was for her to support both the one and the other.
Doubtless it would have been a relief could she have told Hiram Mason
all the dreadful apprehensions that haunted her during the long,
sleepless nights. But from the hour of Mason's entering the house he had
avoided confidential relations with Barbara. Before and after school
Hiram attended to all those small cares that about a farm-house usually
fall to the lot of a man. Gentle and considerate to Mrs. Grayson and
Barbara, he preserved toward the latter a careful reserve. He could not
resume the subject discussed the evening they had peeled apples by the
loom; it seemed out of the question that he should talk to Barbara of
such things while her mind was engrossed with the curse of Cain
impending upon her brother. He might have sought to renew the matter
under cover of giving her a closer sympathy and a more cordial support
in her sorrows, but he saw in her demureness only the same sensitive
pride that had shrunk from his advances; and he knew that this pride had
been wounded to the quick by the family disgrace. Moreover, to urge his
claims as a lover at such a time would cover all his services to the
family with a verdigris of self-interest; and he thought that such
advances would add to Barbara's distress. In making them he would be
taking an unfair advantage of the obligations she might feel herself
under to him, and the more he thought of it the more he abhorred to put
himself in such an attitude. So he daily strengthened his resolution to
be nothing but Mrs. Grayson's next friend while he remained under her
roof, and to postpone all the rest until this ordeal should be past.
In many ways he was able to be helpful to the two troubled women. He
stood between them and the prying curiosity of strangers, answering all
questions about the family, about Tom, and about the case. He was their
messenger on many occasions, and he went with them every Saturday or
Sunday to Moscow. But at other times Barbara saw little of him except at
the table, and he avoided all conspicuous attentions to her. Even Mely
McCord, though often at the house, could find no subject for chaff in
the relations of the two. When the matter was under discussion among the
young gossips at the Timber Creek school-house, Mely declared she "did
n' 'low they wuz anything in the talk about the master un Barbary,--he
did n' pay Barbary no 'tention 't all, now 't 'e 'd got every chance."
If Mason had been a person of less habitual self-repression he would not
have been able to house his feelings so securely; but this man came of
an austere stock; self-control was with him not merely habitual, it was
hereditary.
Hiram had besides a battle of his own to fight. The Monday morning after
the killing of Lockwood, as he went to the school-house, he was met in
the road by Lysander Butts, next neighbor to the Graysons--a
square-built man with a cannon-ball head. Butts was from the hill
country of New Jersey, a man of narrow prejudices and great obstinacy.
"Looky here, Mr. Mason," he said, "d' you think now that a schoolmaster
ought to take up for a rascal like Tom Grayson, that's a gambler, and I
don't know what, and that's killed another fellow, like a sneak, in the
dark?"
"I have n't taken up for Tom any more than to want him to have fair
play," said Mason. "But I thought that the poor old lady needed somebody
to be her friend, and so I went there, and am going to do what I can for
her."
"Well, I know the Graysons mighty well, first and last, this many a
ye'r, and they're all cut off of the same piece; and none of them is to
be overly trusted, now you mind that."
"You have a right to your opinion," said Hiram; "but I am Mrs. Grayson's
friend, and that is my lookout."
"Mrs. Grayson's friend?" said Butts, with a sneer. "Mrs. Grayson, ainh?
As if you could make me believe it was the mother you're defending. It's
Barbary _you_'re after."
Mason colored as though accused of a crime. Then, recovering himself, he
said: "It's very impudent of you to be meddling, Mr. Butts. So long as I
behave myself, it's none of your business." And he went on toward the
school.
"None of my business, ainh? You'll find out whose business it is mighty
shortly," Butts called after Hiram.
The quarrel between the Buttses and the Graysons dated back to their
first settlement in Illinois. Butts had regularly cut wild hay on the
low-lying meadow between the two farms. Fond of getting something for
nothing, he gave out among his neighbors that this forty acres was his
own, but he put off entering it at the Land Office. When Tom Grayson's
father entered his farm he found this piece blank and paid for it. From
that time Butts had been his enemy, for there was no adjunct to a farm
in the timber so highly prized as a bit of meadow. When once near
neighbors in the country have quarreled their proximity is usually a
guarantee that they will never be reconciled;--there are so many
occasions of offense between people who must always be eating off the
same plate. It was universally known that "the Buttses and the Graysons
couldn't hitch." Where two of their fields joined without an
intervening road they had not been able even to build a line fence
together; but each man laid up a rail fence on the very edge of his own
land, and the salient angles of the two hostile fences stood so near
together that a half-grown pig could not have passed between. This is
what is called, in the phrase of the country, a "devil's lane," because
it is a monument of bad neighborhood.
When Mason reached the school-house that morning Angeline Butts had her
books and those of her younger brother and two younger sisters gathered
in a heap, and the rest of the scholars were standing about her, while
she did her best to propagate the family antagonism to the master. The
jealousy of Lysander Butts's family had been much inflamed by Barbara's
swift success in study. Angeline had never been able to get beyond the
simple rules of arithmetic; her feeble bark had quite gone ashore on the
sandy reaches of long division. The Buttses were therefore not pleased
to have Barbara arrive at the great goal of the Rule of Three, and even
become the marvel of the neighborhood by passing into the mysterious
realm of algebraic symbols. For Angeline's part she "couldn't see no
kind-uv good, noways you could fix it, in cipherin' with such
saw-bucks." Figgers was good enough for common folks, she said, and all
this gimcrack work with x's and y's was only just a trick to ketch the
master. For her part she wouldn' fool away time settin' her cap for sech
as him, not if he was the only man in the world.
When Tom was arrested for murder, the Buttses felt that their day had
come. Folks would find out what sort of people the Graysons were now;
and what would become of all Barbary's fine match with the master? Hey?
But when, on the very day after the shooting, Angeline came home
bursting with indignation, that the master'd gone and took up his board
and lodging at the Graysons', and had put John Buchanan into his place
for a day and gone off down to the jail with the Graysons, their
exasperation knew no bounds. Butts rose to the occasion, and resolved to
take his children out of the school. No man that countenanced murder
could teach Butts's children. It is the inalienable right of the
free-born American citizen to relieve his indignation by taking his
children from school, and by stopping his newspaper.
When Mason entered the school-room after his encounter with the father
he was not surprised to find the whole battalion of Butts infantry drawn
up in martial array, while Angeline held forth to the assembled pupils
on the subject of the master's guilt in countenancing Tom Grayson, and
the general meanness of the whole Grayson "click," living and dead. When
the auditors saw Hiram come in they fell away to their seats; but
Angeline, pleased to show her defiance of the master, who could no
longer punish her, stood bolt upright with her bonnet on until the
school had been called to order. The younger Buttses sat down from
habitual respect for authority, and the brother pulled off his hat; but
Angeline jammed it on his head again, and pulled him to his feet. She
might have left before the school began; but she preferred to have a
row, if possible. So when the school had grown quiet, she boldly
advanced to the space in front of the master's desk, with the younger
and more timid Buttses slinking behind her.
"Mr. Mason, father's goin' to take me out of school," she said.
"So he told me."
"He wants us to come right straight home this morning."
"Well, you know the road, don't you?" said Hiram, smiling. "If he's in a
hurry for you, I should have thought you might have been there by this
time."
This reply set the school into an audible smile. Angeline grew red in
the face, but the master was standing in silence waiting for her to get
out, and the scholars were laughing at her. There was nothing more to be
said, and nothing for it but to be gone or burst. In her irritation she
seized her youngest sister, who was shamefacedly sneaking into
Angeline's skirts, and gave her a sharp jerk, which only added a fresh
impulse to the titter of the scholars, and Angeline and her followers
were forced to scuffle out of the door in confusion.
Lysander Butts was not a man to give over a struggle. Conflict was his
recreation, and he thought he could "spite the master" not only by
refusing payment for the tuition his children had already received, but
by getting the Timber Creek district to shut Mason out of their
school-house. There were those in the district who resented Mason's
friendship for the Graysons, but they were not ready to go so far as
Butts proposed. And in asking Buchanan to teach school for him a single
day Mason had unwittingly made friends against the time of trouble; for
the old schoolmaster now took the young man's part, and brought over to
his side the three Scotch families in the district, who always acted in
unison, as a sort of clan. Butts was at a serious disadvantage in that
he lived beyond the limits of the Timber Creek district. "What does he
want to come a-maiddlin' wi'us fer?" Buchanan demanded of the Timber
Creekers. "Let 'im attaind to the beesness of his own deestrict, and not
go to runnin' his wee crookit daivils' lanes doun here." Such arguments,
with the help of Mason's good-nature, his popularity with the pupils,
and his inflexible determination to keep his own gait, caused the
opposition to weaken and die out gradually without doing serious damage
to the school.
To this favorable issue the friendly influence of the Albaugh family,
who were outside of the district on the other side from Butts,
contributed something. With Rachel Albaugh Mason became better
acquainted through her interest in Tom's fate. She sought a conversation
with the master almost every day to gain information about the case. The
placidity of her face was not ruffled by solicitude, the glory of her
eyes was not dimmed by tears. But interest in Tom's fate there surely
was. It did not greatly matter to her whether Tom had committed the deed
or not: in any case he was a bold and daring fellow who had lifted
himself out of the commonplace, and who was proportionately interesting
to Rachel's imagination.
But the people generally did not see things through the eyes of a
romantic young woman. They were for the most part dead against Tom, and
the adverse tide set more and more strongly against him when the long
August days had worn themselves away and September with its bursts of
storm had come in. If Tom had shot Lockwood in a street affray there
would have been a disposition to condone the offense, seeing there was
"a girl in the case," a circumstance that goes for much in the minds of
pioneer people; for girls and horses are two things accounted well worth
fighting for in a new country. Some philosophers explain this by saying
that both the one and the other are means of ascent in the scale of
civilization. But the fact is, that new-country people set much more
store by their horses and their sweethearts than they do by
civilization, for which, in the abstract, they care but little. They
also esteem courage very highly. But to shoot a man in the dark as
Lockwood had been shot was cowardly, and cowardice was in itself almost
ground enough for hanging a man.
This increased momentum in the popular feeling against Tom could not
escape the knowledge of Mason, to whom people talked with some freedom,
but he managed to conceal it from Barbara and Mrs. Grayson. His
situation indeed was becoming more and more difficult. He foresaw that
the maintenance of his present attitude toward Barbara might soon
become impossible. To be always near to her, and yet to keep himself so
aloof, was more than even his nature would bear. Above all, to see her
consumed by sorrow and to be afraid to speak the tenderest word of
sympathy was torment. The very aspect of her suffering face set his
nerves in a tremor; it became difficult for him to say good-morning to
her with composure. There is the uncontrollable in all of us; and
self-contained as Hiram was, he came upon the uncontrollable in himself
at last.
He had reached the closing days of his school term, though it yet lacked
a fortnight of the September "court week" at Moscow. It was his purpose
to remain and see the Graysons through their trouble: what would become
of his own trouble, when Tom's fate should have been settled one way or
the other, he could not foretell. And he was, moreover, filled with the
worst forebodings in regard to the issue of the trial. He came home from
school a little earlier than usual on the last day but one of his school
session, and fearing to trust himself too much in Barbara's presence, he
had gone past the house directly to the barn, to do those night and
morning things which are classed as chores or "choores," according to
the accent of the region in which you chance to hear the word. On
entering the barn he was surprised to find Barbara sitting on the
"draw-horse" or shaving-bench. She had fled to the threshing-floor, with
the belief that she was seeking for eggs, but really to find relief in
tears that she could not shed in the house without opening the great
deep of her mother's sorrows. She had remained longer than she intended,
weeping heartily, with no witness but the chattering swallows in the
rafters above, and old Blaze-face, who looked placidly at her from
behind the bars of his hay-rack.
The sight of Barbara alone in the dusky light of the threshing-floor
awakened in Hiram an inexpressible longing to tell her of all there was
in his heart; the vision of Barbara in tears was too much for his
resolution. He went forward and sat down by her; he involuntarily put
his right arm about her shoulders, and drew her to him in a gentle
embrace; he took her handkerchief in his left hand and wiped the tears
from her cheeks and said softly:
"Dear Barbara, now don't cry any more; I'm so sorry for you."