THE CONQUEST OF ABNER
Some time during the night, I was awakened by the mice frisking through
the hay about my ears. My head was aching again, and I could not get
back into sleep. Besides, Hurley was snoring mercilessly.
We two had chosen for our resting-place the little mow of half a load
or so, which had not been stowed away above, but lay ready for present
use over by the side-door opening on the cow-yard. Temporary beds had
been spread for the women with fresh straw and blankets at the further
end of the central threshing-floor. Abner himself had taken one of the
rescued ticks and a quilt over to the other end, and stretched his
ponderous length out across the big doors, with the gun by his side. No
one had, of course, dreamed of undressing.
Only a few minutes of wakefulness sufficed to throw me into a desperate
state of fidgets. The hay seemed full of strange creeping noises. The
whole big barn echoed with the boisterous ticking of the old eight-day
clock which had been saved from the wreck of the kitchen, and which
M'rye had set going again on the seat of the democrat wagon. And then
Hurley!
I began to be convinced, now, that I was coming down with a great spell
of sickness—perhaps even “the fever.” Yes, it undoubtedly was the
fever. I could feel it in my bones, which now started up queer prickly
sensations on novel lines, quite as if they were somebody else's bones
instead. My breathing, indeed, left a good deal to be desired from the
true fever standpoint. It was not nearly so rapid or convulsive as I
understood that the breathing of a genuine fever victim ought to be.
But that, no doubt, would come soon enough—nay! was it not already
coming? I thought, upon examination, that I did breathe more swiftly
than before. And oh! that Hurley!
As noiselessly as possible I made my way, half-rolling, half-sliding,
off the hay, and got on my feet on the floor. It was pitch dark, but I
could feel along the old disused stanchion-row to the corner; thence
it was plain sailing over to where Abner was sleeping by the big front
doors. I would not dream of rousing him if he was in truth asleep, but
it would be something to be nigh him, in case the fever should take a
fatal turn before morning. I would just cuddle down on the floor near
to him, and await events.
When I had turned the corner, it surprised me greatly to see ahead
of me, over at the front of the barn, the reflection of a light.
Creeping along toward it, I came out upon Abner, seated with his back
against one of the doors, looking over an account-book by the aid of
a lantern perched on a box at his side. He had stood the frame of an
old bobsleigh on end close by, and hung a horse-blanket over it, so
that the light might not disturb the women-folk at the other end of the
barn. The gun lay on the floor beside him.
He looked up at my approach, and regarded me with something, I fancied,
of disapprobation in his habitually grave expression.
“Well, old seventy-six, what's the matter with you?” he asked, keeping
his voice down to make as little noise as possible.
I answered in the same cautious tones that I was feeling bad. Had any
encouragement suggested itself in the farmer's mien, I was prepared to
overwhelm him with a relation of my symptoms in detail. But he shook
his head instead.
“You'll have to wait till morning, to be sick,” he said—“that is, to
get 'tended to. I don't know anything about such things, an' I wouldn't
wake M'rye up now for a whole baker's dozen o' you chaps.” Seeing my
face fall at this sweeping declaration, he proceeded to modify it
in a kindlier tone. “Now you just lay down again, sonny,” he added,
“an' you'll be to sleep in no time, an' in the morning M'rye'll fix
up something for ye. This ain't no fit time for white folks to be
belly-achin' around.”
“I kind o' thought I'd feel better if I was sleeping over here near
you,” I ventured now to explain, and his nod was my warrant for
tiptoeing across to the heap of disorganized furniture, and getting out
some blankets and a comforter, which I arranged in the corner a few
yards away and simply rolled myself up in, with my face turned away
from the light. It was better over here than with Hurley, and though
that prompt sleep which the farmer had promised did not come, I at
least was drowsily conscious of an improved physical condition.
Perhaps I drifted off more than half-way into dreamland, for it was
with a start that all at once I heard someone close by talking with
Abner.
“I saw you were up, Mr. Beech”—it was Esther Hagadorn who spoke—“and I
don't seem able to sleep, and I thought, if you didn't mind, I'd come
over here.”
“Why, of course,” the farmer responded. “Just bring up a chair there,
an' sit down. That's it—wrap the shawl around you good. It's a cold
night—snowin' hard outside.”
Both had spoken in muffled tones, so as not to disturb the others. This
same dominant notion of keeping still deterred me from turning over,
in order to be able to see them. I expected to hear them discuss my
illness, but they never referred to it. Instead, there was what seemed
a long silence. Then the school-ma'am spoke.
“I can't begin to tell you,” she said, “how glad I am that you and
your wife aren't a bit cast down by the—the calamity.”
“No,” came back Abner's voice, buoyant even in its half-whisper,
“we're all right. I've be'n sort o' figurin' up here, an' they ain't
much real harm done. I'm insured pretty well. Of course, this bein'
obleeged to camp out in a hay-barn might be improved on, but then it's
a change—somethin' out o' the ordinary rut—an' it'll do us good. I'll
have the carpenters over from Juno Mills in the forenoon, an' if they
push things, we can have a roof over us again before Christmas. It
could be done even sooner, p'raps, only they ain't any neighbors to
help _me_ with a raisin' bee. They're willin' enough to burn my house
down, though. However, I don't want them not an atom more'n they want
me.”
There was no trace of anger in his voice. He spoke like one
contemplating the unalterable conditions of life.
“Did they really, do you believe, _set_ it on fire?” Esther asked,
intently.
“No, _I_ think it caught from that fool-fire they started around
back of the house, to heat their fool tar by. The wind was blowing
a regular gale, you know. Janey Wilcox, she will have it that that
Roselle Upman set it on purpose. But then, she don't like him—an' I
can't blame her much, for that matter. Once Otis Barnum was seein'
her home from singin' school, an' when he was goin' back alone this
Roselle Upman waylaid him in the dark, an' pitched onto him, an'
broke his collar-bone. I always thought it puffed Janey up some, this
bein' fought over like that, but it made her mad to have Otis hurt
on her account, an' then nothing come of it. I wouldn't a' minded
pepperin' Roselle's legs a trifle, if I'd had a barrel loaded, say,
with birdshot. He's a nuisance to the whole neighborhood. He kicks up
a fight at every dance he goes to, all winter long, an' hangs around
the taverns day in an' day out, inducin' young men to drink an' loaf. I
thought a fellow like him 'd be sure to go off to the war, an' so good
riddance; but no! darned if the coward don't go an' get his front teeth
pulled, so 't he can't bite ca'tridges, an' jest stay around, a worse
nuisance than ever! I'd half forgive that miserable war if it—only took
off the—the right men.”
“Mr. Beech,” said Esther, in low fervent tones, measuring each word as
it fell, “you and I, we must forgive that war together!”
I seemed to feel the farmer shaking his head. He said nothing in reply.
“I'm beginning to understand how you've felt about it all along,” the
girl went on, after a pause. “I knew the fault must be in my ignorance,
that our opinions of plain right and plain wrong should be such poles
apart. I got a school-friend of mine, whose father is your way of
thinking, to send me all the papers that came to their house, and I've
been going through them religiously—whenever I could be quite alone. I
don't say I don't think you're wrong, because I _do_, but I am getting
to understand how you should believe yourself to be right.”
She paused as if expecting a reply, but Abner only said, “Go on,” after
some hesitation, and she went on:
“Now take the neighbors all about here—”
“Excuse _me_!” broke in the farmer. “I guess if it's all the same to
you, I'd rather not. They're too rich for my blood.”
“Take these very neighbors,” pursued Esther, with gentle
determination. “Something must be very wrong indeed when they behave
to you the way they do. Why I know that even now, right down in their
hearts, they recognize that you're far and away the best man in
Agrippa. Why, I remember, Mr. Beech, when I first applied, and you were
school-commissioner, and you sat there through the examination—why,
you were the only one whose opinion I gave a rap for. When you praised
me, why, I was prouder of it than if you had been a Regent of the
University. And I tell you, everybody all around here feels at bottom
just as I do.”
“They take a dummed curious way o' showin' it, then,” commented Abner,
roundly.
“It isn't _that_ they're trying to show at all,” said Esther. “They
feel that other things are more important. They're all wrought up over
the war. How could it be otherwise when almost everyone of them has
got a brother, or a father, or—or—_a son_—down there in the South, and
every day brings news that some of these have been shot dead, and more
still wounded and crippled, and others—_others_, that God only knows
_what_ has become of them—oh, how can they help feeling that way? I
don't know that I ought to say it—” the school-ma'am stopped to catch
her breath, and hesitated, then went on—“but yes, you'll understand
me _now_—there was a time here, not so long ago, Mr. Beech, when I
downright hated you—you and M'rye both!”
This was important enough to turn over for. I flopped as
unostentatiously as possible, and neither of them gave any sign
of having noted my presence. The farmer sat with his back against
the door, the quilt drawn up to his waist, his head bent in silent
meditation. His whole profile was in deep shadow from where I
lay—darkly massive and powerful and solemn. Esther was watching him
with all her eyes, leaning forward from her chair, the lantern-light
full upon her eager face.
“M'rye an' I don't lay ourselves out to be specially bad folks, as
folks go,” the farmer said at last, by way of deprecation. “We've got
our faults, of course, like the rest, but—”
“No,” interrupted Esther, with a half-tearful smile in her eyes. “You
only pretend to have faults. You really haven't got any at all.”
The shadowed outline of Abner's face softened. “Why, that _is_ a fault
itself, ain't it?” he said, as if pleased with his logical acuteness.
The crowing of some foolish rooster, grown tired of waiting for the
belated November daylight, fell upon the silence from one of the
buildings near by.
Abner Beech rose to his feet with ponderous slowness, pushing the
bedclothes aside with his boot, and stood beside Esther's chair. He
laid his big hand on her shoulder with a patriarchal gesture.
“Come now,” he said, gently, “you go back to bed, like a good girl, an'
get some sleep. It'll be all right.”
The girl rose in turn, bearing her shoulder so that the fatherly hand
might still remain upon it. “Truly?” she asked, with a new light upon
her pale face.
“Yes—truly!” Abner replied, gravely nodding his head.
Esther took the hand from her shoulder, and shook it in both of hers.
“Good-night again, then,” she said, and turned to go.
Suddenly there resounded the loud rapping of a stick on the barn-door,
close by my head.
Abner squared his huge shoulders and threw a downright glance at the
gun on the floor.
“Well?” he called out.
“_Is my da'ater inside there?_”
We all knew that thin, high-pitched, querulous voice. It was old “Jee”
Hagadorn who was outside.