Within a few days a great change was wrought in the appearance of the
old log house. The roof, which had been humped in the middle like the
back of a lean, acorn-hunting hog, was straightened and reshingled; the
yard was enclosed with a neat fence; and the stack chimney which had
leaned off from the house as if it would fall, was shoved back and held
in place with strong iron bands. And the interior was transformed. Soft
carpets were spread, easy chairs provided, the rough walls were papered
and the windows were curtained. The fire-light fell upon pictures, and a
cat had come to take her place at the corner of the hearth; but in the
dead of night, when all the birds were hushed, when the wind moaned in
the plum thicket, the hollow and distressing cough echoed throughout the
house. At evening sorrowful-looking cows would come down the lane, and
standing at the gate would low mournfully, an attention which they ever
seek to pay a dismal place, but Jim Taylor entered a complaint,
threatened violence and finally compelled their owners to have them
driven home before the arrival of their time for lonesome lowing. It was
Jim's custom to call at morning and at evening. Sometimes, after
looking about the place, he would merely come to the door and ask after
Mr. Pennington and then go away.
One morning when Louise answered his tap at the door, she told him that
the sufferer was much better and that she believed he was going to get
well.
"I'm mighty glad to hear it," he replied. "The doctors can't always
tell."
"Won't you come in?"
"No, I might worry him."
"Oh, not in the least. He's asleep anyway, and I'm lonesome. Come in,
please."
He followed her into the house, trying to lessen his weight as if he
were walking on thin ice; and the old house cracked its knuckles, but
his foot-fall made not a sound. She placed a chair for him and sat down
with her hands in her lap, and how expressive they were, small and thin,
but shapely. She was pale and neat in a black gown. To him she had never
looked so frail, and her eyes had never appeared so deeply blue, but her
hands--he could not keep his eyes off them--one holding pity and the
other full of appeal.
"Don't you need a little more wood on?" he asked.
"No, it's not cold enough for much fire."
"Where did you get that cat?"
"She came crying around the other day and I let her in, and she has made
herself at home."
"The negroes say it's good luck for a cat to come to the house." She
sighed. "I don't believe in luck."
"I do. I believe in bad luck, for it's generally with me. Does your
mother come every day?"
"Yes, although I beg her not to."
"I reckon she'll do about what she wants to. Has the Major----"
She held up her hand and he sat looking at her with his mouth half open.
But at the risk of offending her, he added: "I didn't know but he might
have come over."
"He would, but I won't let him."
"And do you think it's exactly right not to let him?"
"I think it is exactly right to do as a something within me dictates,"
she answered. "He placed me in a certain position----"
"But he is more than willing to take you out of it," Taylor broke in.
"He doesn't want you to remain in that position."
"No, he can't take me out of it. He charged me with ingratitude, and I
would rather he had driven me off the place. Nothing can be much crueler
than to remind one of ingratitude; it is like shooting from behind a
rock; it is having one completely at your mercy."
Now she sat leaning forward with her hands clasped over her knees.
Pennington coughed slightly in his sleep and she looked toward the bed.
She straightened up and put the hair back out of her eyes and Taylor
followed the motion of her hand.
"Did he eat the squirrel?"
"Yes, and enjoyed it."
The cat got up, stretched, and rubbing against the tongs, knocked them
down with a clatter. Pennington awoke. Louise was beside him in a
moment. "Ah, it's you, Mr. Taylor," he said.
"Yes, but it wasn't me that made the noise."
"Oh, it didn't disturb me, I assure you. I was just about waking up
anyway. That will do, thank you." Louise had begun to arrange the
pillows. "I'll sit up. See how strong I am. Give me a pipe. I believe I
can smoke a little."
She went to fill a pipe for him, and turning to Taylor, he said: "I'm
getting stronger now every day; good appetite, sleep first-rate. And
I'll be able to walk about pretty soon. Oh, they had me dead, you know,
but I knew better all the time."
Louise placed a coal upon his pipe and handed it to him. She said that
she was afraid it might make him cough, but it did not.
"I have always maintained that there was nothing the matter with my
lungs," he said, contentedly blowing rings of smoke. "Why, I hadn't a
symptom of consumption except the cough, and that's about gone. And my
prospects were never better than they are this minute. Received a letter
yesterday from over in Alabama--want me to take a professorship in a
college. The first thing you know I shall have charge of the entire
institution. And when I get up in the world I want it understood, Mr.
Taylor, that I shall never forget you. Your kindness----"
"Don't speak of it," Taylor put in, holding up his hand in imitation of
Louise. "I've known this little lady, sir, all her life, and I'd be a
brute to forget her in time of trouble."
"Yon are a true-hearted man, Mr. Taylor, and I shall never forget you,
sir." And after a short silence, he added: "All I desire is a chance,
for with it, I can make Louise happy. I need but little money, I should
not know how to disport a large fortune, but I do desire a comfortable
home with pictures and books. And I thank the Lord that I appreciate the
refinements of this life." In silence he smoked, looking up at the
rings. "Ah, but it was dark for me a short time ago, Mr. Taylor. They
made me believe that I was going to die. We hear a great deal of
resignation, of men who welcome the approach of death, but I was in
despair. And looking upon a strong man, a man whose strength was thrown
upon him, a man who had never thought to take even the slightest care
of himself, I was torn with blasphemous rage. It wasn't right. But thank
God, I lived through that dark period, and am now getting well. Don't
you think so?"
"Why, yes, I can see it. And I'll tell you what we'll do: I'll bring
over the dogs pretty soon and we'll go hunting. How does that strike
you?"
Pennington propped himself higher in the bed and put his pipe on a
chair. "It has been a long time since I went hunting," he said,
musingly. "It seems a long time since I have done anything, except to
brood over my failing health. But I will have no more of that. Yes, I
will go hunting with you." He shoved up the sleeve of his shirt and
called his wife's attention. "Don't you think I'm getting more flesh on
my arm? Look here. No dying man has this much muscle. Louise, I'm going
to get up. There is really no use of my lying here."
He threw off the covers and the giant arose and stood looking upon him,
smiling sadly. He asked for his clothes, and when Louise had brought
them he picked at a worn spot and said: "I must get some clothes with
the first money I earn. I didn't know that this coat was so far gone.
Why, look, it is almost threadbare; and the trousers are not much
better. Let a man get sick and he feels that the world is against him;
let him get well and wear poor clothes, and he will find that the world
doesn't think enough of him to set itself against him--find that the
world does not know him at all."
Taylor ventured upon the raveled platitude that clothes do not make the
man. Pennington shook his head, still examining his trousers. "That will
do in a copy-book, but not in life," said he. And then looking up as
Taylor moved toward the door, he asked: "Are you going?"
"Yes, I must get back to see how things are getting along. Be over again
to-morrow."
Louise went with him out into the passage. He halted at the log step and
stood there, looking at her. "Mr. Taylor, I can never forget your
kindness," she said.
"All right, but I hope you won't remember to mention it again."
He looked at her hands, looked into her eyes; and frankly she returned
his gaze, for it was a gaze long and questioning.
"Your friendship----" he held up his hand to stop her. "Won't you let me
speak of that, either?"
"You may speak of it, but you must know that it does not exist," he
answered, leaning against a corner of the house, still looking at her.
"But you don't mean that you are not my friend?"
"I mean what I told you some time ago--that there can be no friendship
between a big man and a little woman."
"Oh, I had forgotten that."
"No, you hadn't; you thought of it just then as you spoke."
"Why, Mr. Taylor, how can you say that?"
"I can say it because it is true. No, there can be no friendship between
us."
"You surely don't mean that there can be anything else." She had drawn
back from him and was stiffly erect with her arms folded, her head high;
and so narrow was the hard look she gave him that her eyes appeared
smaller. Her lips were so tightly compressed that dimples showed in her
cheeks; and thus with nature's soft relics of babyhood, she denied her
own resentment.
"On your part I don't presume that there can be anything else," he
answered, speaking the words slowly, as if he would weigh them one at a
time on the tip of his tongue. "You may think of me as you please, as
circumstances now compel you to think, and I will think of you not as I
please, but as I must."
"Please don't talk that way. Don't reproach me when I am in such need
of--of friendship. One of these days you may know me better, but now you
can regard me only as a freak. Yes, I am a freak."
"You are an angel."
"Mr. Taylor!" Again her head was high, and in her eyes was the same
suggestion of a sharp squint.
"You didn't tell me that I shouldn't think of you as I please."
"But I didn't tell you to speak what you might be pleased to think.
There, Carl is calling me. Good-bye."