breakfast, Barbara had reappeared below stairs with an expression of
countenance so demure--so entirely innocent and unconscious--that Tom
could not long keep his gravity; before he had fairly begun to eat he
broke into a merry, boyish laugh.
"What _are_ you laughing about?" demanded Barbara, looking a little
foolish and manifesting a rising irritation, that showed how well she
knew the cause of his amusement.
"Oh! nothing; but why don't you eat your breakfast, Barb? You seem to
have lost your appetite."
"Don't tease Barb'ry now," said Mrs. Grayson.
"I'm not teasing," said Tom; "but I declare, Barb, it must have seemed
just like going to housekeeping when you two sat down to eat breakfast
by yourselves this morning."
"O Tom!" broke in Janet, who couldn't quite catch the drift of the
conversation, "Barbara went to bed with her clothes on last night. When
I waked up this morning she was lying on the bed by me with her dress
on."
Tom now laughed in his old unrestrained fashion.
"Say, Barbara," Janet went on, "are you going to marry that Mr. Mason
that was here yesterday?"
Knowing that she could not get rid of Janet's inquiries except by
answering, Barbara said: "Oh, I suppose so," as she got up to set the
pot of coffee back on the trivet and hide a vexation that she knew to be
foolish.
"Don't you _know_ whether you're going to marry him or not?" put in
Janet. "I sh'd think you'd know. And I sh'd think he'd be a real nice
husband." Then after a few moments of silence, Janet turned on Tom.
"Tom, who's _your_ sweetheart?"
"Haven't got any," said Tom.
"Isn't that purty girl that was here yesterday your sweetheart?"
"No!"
"Aren't you _ever_ going to get married?"
"Maybe, some day. Not right off, though."
"I wish you would find a good wife, Tom," said Barbara without looking
from her plate. "It would cheer you up." Barbara felt a little guilty at
the thought of leaving the brother who had always seemed her chief
responsibility.
"Say, Tom, won't you wait for me?" said Janet, solemnly.
[Illustration: "SAY, TOM, WON'T YOU WAIT FOR ME?"]
"Yes, that's just what I'll do," said Tom, looking at her. "I hadn't
thought of it before; but that's just exactly what I'll do, Janet. I'll
wait for you, now you mention it."
"Will you, indeed, and double deed?"
"Yes, indeed, and deed and double deed, I'll wait for you, Janet."
"That'll be nice," said Janet, continuing her breakfast with meditative
seriousness. "Now I'm your sweetheart, ain't I?"
XXXIII
POSTSCRIPTUM
It was in the last days of October, a few weeks after the proper close
of the story which I have just related, when Henry Miller--the most
matter-of-fact and unsensational of young men--threw his family into a
state of excitement and supplied the gossip of the neighborhood with a
fresh topic by announcing at home and abroad that he was going to leave
the country, either for the Iowa country to the west of the Mississippi
or for the fertile bottom-lands up north on the "Wisconse" River, as it
was called. He was the only son of his father, and had inherited the
steady, plodding industry and frugality so characteristic of a
"Pennsylvania Dutch" race. Until he was of age he was bound, not only by
law, but by the custom of the country, to serve his father much as a
bondsman or an apprentice might have served, for an able-bodied son was
distinctly recognized as an available and productive possession in that
day. When he became of age his close-fisted father made no new
arrangement with him, offered him no start, paid him no wages, and gave
him no share in the produce of the fields. It was enough, in the
father's estimation, that Henry would succeed to a large part of the
property at his death. But Henry, on mature reflection, had made up his
mind that emigration would be better than a reversionary interest that
must be postponed to the death of so robust a man as his father, who was
yet in middle-life and who came of a stock remarkable for longevity. Was
not his grandfather yet alive in Pennsylvania, while his
great-grandfather had not been dead many years? It was after calculating
the "expectation of life" in the Miller family that Henry notified his
father of his intention to go where land was cheap and open a large farm
for himself. In vain the father urged that he could not get on without
him, and that there would be no one to look after things if the father
should die. Henry persisted that he must do something for himself and
that his father would have to hire a man, for he should surely leave as
soon as the crops were gathered, so as to get land enough open in some
frontier country to afford him a small crop of corn the first year.
Henry's mother and sisters were even more opposed to his going than his
father was, and they did not hesitate to blame the senior Miller with
great severity for not having "done something" for Henry. Henry's father
had never before known how unpleasant a man's home may come to be. He
was reminded that Henry had not an acre, nor even a colt, that he could
call his own, and that other farmers had done better than that. This
state of siege became presently quite intolerable, and the elder Miller
resolved not only "to do something" for Henry, but to do it in such a
way that his son would begin life very well provided for. He wanted to
silence the clamor of the house and the neighborhood once for all, and
prove to his critics how much they were mistaken.
It was about a week after Henry's first resolution was taken that he and
his father were finishing the corn-gathering. They were throwing the
unshucked ears into a great wagon of the Pennsylvania pattern--a wagon
painted blue, the "bed" of which rose in a great sweep at each end as
though some reminiscence of the antique forms of marine architecture had
affected its construction. When all the corn within easy throwing
distance had been gathered, Henry, who was on the near side, would slip
the reins from the standard over the fore wheel and drive forward the
horses, which even in moving bit off the ends of corn ears or nibbled at
the greenest-looking blades within their reach.
"Let's put on the sideboards," said the elder, "and we can finish the
field this load." Though Miller's ancestors had come to this country
with the Palatine immigration, away back in 1710, there was a little bit
of German in his accent; he said something like "gorn" for corn. The
sideboards were put up, and these were so adjusted that when they were
on the wagon the inclosing sides were rendered level at the top and
capable of holding nearly double the load contained without the boards.
"Henry," said the father, when the two were picking near together and
throwing corn over the tail-gate of the wagon, "if you give up goin'
away an' git married right off, an' settle toun here, I'm a-mine to teed
you that east eighty an' a forty of timber. Eh?"
"That's purty good," said Henry; "but if your deed waits till I find a
wife, it may be a good while coming."
"That eighty lays 'longside of Albaugh's medder an' lower gorn-field,"
said the father, significantly.
"You mean if I was to marry Rache, Albaugh might give us another slice."
"Of gourse he would; an' I'd help you put up a house, an' maybe I'd let
you hav' the roan golt. You'd hav' the red heifer anyhow."
"But I never took a shine to Rache; and if I did, I couldn't noways come
in. They's too many knocking at that door."
"But Rachel ain't no vool," said the elder. "She knows a good piece of
lant w'en she sees it, an' maybe she's got enough of voolin' rount."
All that afternoon Henry revolved this proposition in his mind, and he
even did what he had never done before in his life--he lay awake at
night. The next day, after the midday dinner, he said to himself: "I
might as well resk it. Albaugh's got an all-fired good place, and all
out of debt. And that's a tre-mendous nice eighty father's offered to
give me."
So he went up stairs and put on a new suit of blue jeans fresh from his
mother's loom. Then he walked over to Albaugh's, to find Rachel sewing
on the front porch.
Rachel had been "kindah dauncey like," as her mother expressed it, ever
since her visit to Barbara. She had received as many attentions as
usual, but they seemed flat and unrelishable to her now. She began
seriously to reflect that a girl past twenty-three was growing old in
the estimation of the country, and yet she was further than ever from
being able to make a choice between the lovers that paid her court, more
or less seriously.
When she looked up and saw Henry Miller coming in at the gate she felt a
strange surprise. She had never before seen him in Sunday clothes or
visiting on a week-day.
"Hello, Henry! Looking for Ike?" she asked, with neighborly
friendliness.
"No, not as I know of. I've come to talk to you, Rache."
"To me? Well, you're the last one I'd look for to come to talk to me;
and in day-time, and corn-shucking not begun yet." There was an air of
excited curiosity in her manner. It was plain to be seen that she was
inwardly asking, "What _can_ Henry Miller be up to, anyhow?" but to him
she said, "Come in, Henry, an' take a cheer."
"No, I'll sed down here," he answered, taking a seat on the edge of the
porch, like the outdoor man that he was, approaching a house with half
reluctance.
The relations between Henry and Rachel were unconstrained. They had
played "hide and whoop" together in childhood, and times innumerable
they had gone on black-berrying and other excursions together; he had
swung her on long grape-vine swings on the hill-side; they had trudged
to and from school in each other's company, exchanging sweet-cakes from
their lunch-baskets, and yet they had never been lovers.
"Rache," he said, locking his broad, brown hands over his knee, "father
says he'll give me that east-eighty whenever I get married, if I won't
go off West."
"You'll be a good while getting married, Henry. You never was a hand to
go after the girls."
"No, but I might chance to get married shortly, for all that. The boys
that do a good deal of sparking and the girls that have a lot of beaux
don't always get married first. You'd ought to know that, Rache, by your
own experience."
Rachel laughed good-naturedly, and waited with curiosity to discover
what all this was leading up to.
"What I 'm thinking," said Henry, with the air of a man approaching a
horse-trade cautiously, lest he should make a false step, "is this: that
eighty of our'n jines onto your medder and west corn-field."
"Do you want to sell it?" said Rachel. "You might see father; he'd like
to have it, I expect."
"Can't you guess what it is that I'm coming at?"
"No, I _can't_," said Rachel; "not to save my life."
"Looky here, Rache," and Henry gave his shoulders a twitch, "the two
farms jine; now, what if you and me was to jine?"
"Well, Henry Miller, if you don't beat the Dutch! I never heard the like
of that in all my born days!" Rachel had heard many propositions of
marriage, but this sort of love-making, with eighty acres of prairie
land for a buffer, was a novelty to her.
"Looky here, Rache," he said, in a tone of protest, "I've knew you ever
since you was knee-high to a grasshopper. Now, what's the use of fooling
and nonsense betwixt you and me? You know what _I_ am--a good,
stiddy-going, hard-working farmer, shore to get my sheer of what's to be
had in the world without scrouging anybody else. And I know just
_ex_actly what you air. We've always got along mighty well together, and
if I haven't ever made a fool of myself about your face, w'y, so much
the better for me. Now, whaddy yeh say? Let's make it a bargain."
"W'y, Henry Miller, what a way of talking!"
"Rache, come, go along with me and see where'bouts I'm going to put up a
house. Father's promised to help me. It's down by the spring, just
beyand your medder fence. Will you go along down?"
"Well, I don't care if I do go down with you, Henry. But it's awful
funny to come to such a subject in that way."
Rachel put on her sun-bonnet, and they went through the orchard
together.
"We could put up a nice house there. Father's willing to throw in a
forty of timber too--the forty that jines onto this eighty over yander.
We'd be well fixed up to begin, no matter what your father done or
didn't do for us. Whaddy you think of the plan?"
"You--you haven't said you loved me, or anything," said Rachel, piqued
at having her charms quite left out of the account. But she could not
hide from herself that Henry's proposition had substantial advantages.
She only added, "What a curious man you are!"
"Don't you believe I'd make a good husband?"
"Yes, of course you would."
"And a good provider?"
"Yes, I'm shore of that."
"Well, now, I'm not going to pretend I'm soft on you. If you say 'No,'
well and good; there's an end. I sha'n't worry myself into consumption.
You've got a right to do as you please. I'm not going to have folks say
that I'm another of the fools that's broke their hearts over Rache
Albaugh. Once you're mine, I'll set my heart on you fast enough. But I
never set my heart on anything I mightn't be able to get."
Rachel did not say anything to this bit of philosophy. She had in the
last two weeks recognized the advisability of her getting married as
soon as she could settle herself. But on taking an inventory of her
present stock of beaux, she had mentally rejected them all. They were
prospectively an unprosperous lot, and Rachel was too mature to marry
adversity for the sake of sentiment. She found herself able to listen to
Henry Miller's cool-blooded proposition with rather more tolerance than
she felt when hearing the kind of love-talk she had been used to. Why
not get her father to do as well by her as the Millers would by Henry,
or to do better, seeing he was the richer and had but two children? Then
they might begin life with plenty of acres and a good stock of butter
cows.
Henry showed her where they could put their house, where the barn would
be placed, and where they would have a garden. Rachel felt a certain
pleasure in fancying herself the mistress of such a place. But it was
contrary to all the precedents laid down in the few romances she had
read for a woman to marry a man who was not her "slave"; that was the
word the old romancers took delight in. She tried to coquet with Henry,
in order to draw from him some sort of professions of love. A flirtation
with a lay figure would have been quite as successful. He was plain
prose, and she presently saw that if she accepted him it must be done in
prose. She couldn't help liking his very prose; she was a little tired
of slaves; it seemed, on the whole, better to have a man at least
capable of being master of himself.
In much the same tone--the tone of a man buying, or selling, or
proposing a co-partnership for business purposes--Henry Miller carried
on the conversation all the way back until they reached the corn-crib,
where he came to a stand-still.
"Whaddy yeh say, Rachel? Is it a bargain?"
"Well, Henry, it's sudden like. I want to take time to think it over."
"Then I'll take back the offer and put out for the Ioway country. I'm
not a-going to have my skelp a-hanging to your belt for days and days,
like the rest of them. What's the use of thinking? You don't want to
take Magill, do you?"
"He's too old, and his nose is rather red," laughed Rachel.
"Nor Tom Grayson, I suppose?" Henry mentioned Tom as the second because
he was the one about whom he had misgivings.
"I give him the sack before the shooting, and I'm not going to go back
to him now."
Rachel faltered a little in this reply, but she spoke with that resolute
insincerity for which women hold an indulgence in advance when their
hearts are being searched.
"Well," said Henry, "if you think you can do better by waiting, I m off.
If you think I'm about as good a man as you're likely to pick up, here's
your chance. It's going, going, gone with me. Either I marry you and
take father's offer, or I put out for the Ioway country. I don't ask you
to think I'm perfection, but just to take a sober, common-sense look at
things."
Rachel saw that it was of no use to expect Henry to court her, and she
could not help liking him the better for his honest straightforwardness.
She looked down a minute, in the hope that he would say something that
might make it easier for her to answer, but he kept his silence.
"Henry," she said at length, rolling a corn-cob over and over under the
toe of her shoe, "I've got a good mind to say 'Yes.' You don't make me
sick, like the rest of them. Father'll be struck when he hears of it.
He's always said I'd marry some good-for-nothing town-fellow."
"Is it a bargain, good and fast?" said Henry, holding out his hand, as
he would have done to clinch the buying of a piece of timber land or a
sorrel horse.
"Yes," said Rachel, laughing at the oddness of it and the suddenness of
it, "I'm tired of fooling. It's a bargain, Henry."
"Good fer you, Rache! Now I begin to like you better than ever."