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THEN I'LL COME BACK TO YOU
by
LARRY EVANS
Author of
Once to Every Man
Illustrated by Will Stevens
[Frontispiece: "I Ain't Never Seen Nothin'," He Stated Patiently. "I
Ain't Never Seen More'n Three Houses in a Clearin' Before. I Ain't
Never Been Outen the Timber--Till To-Day. But I Aim to See More
Now--Before I Get Done."]
New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers
Copyright, 1915, by
The H. K. Fly Company.
Copyright, 1915, by
The Metropolitan Magazine Company.
To the Memory of
My Mother
CONTENTS.
Chapter
I. I DON'T MIND IF I DO!
II. THE LOGICAL CUSTODIAN
III. THREE QUARTERS AND SIX EIGHTHS
IV. I'LL TELL HER YOU'RE A BAPTIST
V. THEN I'LL COME BACK TO YOU
VI. MY MAN O'MARA
VII. HARRIGAN, THAT'S ME!
VIII. GREETINGS, SIR GALLAHAD!
IX. A MATTER OF ORNITHOLOGY
X. NOT A CHANCE IN THE WORLD
XI. I NEVER DID LIKE TO BE BEATEN
XII. THAT WOODS-RAT
XIII. THIS LITERARY THING
XIV. A GIRL LIKE HER
XV. LAW AND LUMBER
XVI. ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN
XVII. HONEY!
XVIII. I'M TELLING YOU GOOD-BYE
XIX. SOME LETTERS AND A REPLY
XX. BLUE FLANNEL AND CORDUROY
XXI. SETTING THE STAGE
XXII. IT HAPPENS IN BOOKS
XXIII. TO-MORROW--
XXIV. --AND TO-MORROW, AND TO-MORROW
XXV. IN REAL LIFE TOO
ILLUSTRATIONS
"I Ain't Never Seen Nothin'," He Stated Patiently. "I Ain't Never Seen
More'n Three Houses in a Clearin' Before. I Ain't Never Been Outen the
Timber--Till To-Day. But I Aim to See More Now--Before I Get
Done." . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
"I've Always Had to Wait a Long Time for Everything I've Wanted," the
Boy Answered, "But I Always Get It, Just the Same, if I Only Want it
Hard Enough."
"Blessings, My Children," He Called to the Two in the Shadow. "My
Felicitations! and E'en though I know Not Your Identity, Still I May
Sense Your Fond Confusion."
"Oh, I Can't Tell You How Glad I Am to See You So--So Well!"
THEN I'LL COME BACK TO YOU
CHAPTER I
I DON'T MIND IF I DO!
That year no rain had fallen for a score of days in the hill country.
The valley road that wound upward and still upward from the town of
Morrison ran a ribbon of puffy yellow dust between sun-baked,
brown-sodded dunes; ran north and north, a tortuous series of loops on
loops, to lose itself at last in the cooler promise of the first
bulwark of the mountains. They looked cooler, the distant wooded
hills; for all the shimmering heat waves that danced and eddied in the
gaps and glanced, shaft-like, from the brittle needles of the pines
which sentineled the ridges, they hinted at depths to which the sun's
rays could not penetrate; they hinted at chasms padded with moss,
shadowed and dim beneath chapel arches of spruce and hemlock, even
chilly with the spray of spring-fed brooks that brawled in miniature
rocky canyons. And they made the gasping heat of the valley a little
more unendurable by very contrast.
Since early afternoon Caleb Hunter had been sitting almost immobile in
the shade of the trellis which flanked the deep verandas of his huge
white, thick-pillared house on the hill above the river. It was
reminiscent of another locality--the old Hunter place on the valley
road. When Caleb Hunter's father had come north, back when his loyalty
to a flag and his pity for a gaunt and lonely figure in the White House
had been stronger than bonds of blood, he had left its counterpart down
on the Tennessee. Afterward, with one empty sleeve pinned across his
breast, he had directed with the other hand the placing of the columns.
And finally, when he had had to leave this home in turn, along with its
high, white painted walls and glossy green shutters, he had passed down
to his son his inborn love of the warmth, his innocent delight in
indolence--and an unsurpassed judgment of mint. The mint bed still lay
where he had located it, to the west of the house, moist and fragrant
in the shadow.
Caleb Hunter had been drowsing contentedly since early afternoon, his
chin on his chest and the bowl of his pipe drooping down over his
comfortably bulging, unbuttoned waistcoat. The lazy day was in his
blood and even the whine of the sawmills on the river-bank, a mile or
more to the south, tempered as it was by the distance to the drone of a
surly bumble-bee, still vaguely annoyed him. Tiny dots of men in
flannel shirts of brilliant hue, flashing from time to time out across
the log-choked space between the booms, caught his eye whenever he
lifted his head, during the passage of a green-sprayed glass from the
veranda rail to his lips, and almost reminded him of the unnatural
altitude of the mercury. He, without being analytical about it, would
have preferred it without the industry and the noise, even softened as
both were by the distance.
Morrison had changed since Caleb Hunter's father topped with the
white-columned house that hill above the river. In those days it had
been little more than a sleepy, if conservatively prosperous and
self-sufficient, community, without industry of any sort, or, it might
be added, ambition or seeming need of one. The Basin where the river
widened and ran currentless a mile or two from bank to bank, in Caleb's
father's time for weeks and weeks on end often had showed no more signs
of activity than a dawdling fisherman or two who angled now and then
and smoked incessantly. And now even the low-lying foothills in which
the elder Hunter had tried to see from homesick eyes a resemblance to
the outguard of his own Cumberlands were no longer given over to
pasturage. They had taken on an entirely different aspect.
The northern streets of the town were still dotted with the homes of
those families who had been content with just the shade and the silence
and the sheen of the river, and an ample though inaugmented income.
But the outside world, ignoring the lack of an invitation too long in
the coming, had in the last year or so grown in to meet it more than
half way. From the Hunter verandas a half-dozen red-roofed,
brown-shingled bungalows, half camps and half castles, were visible
across the land stretches where the cattle had grazed before. And just
beyond Caleb Hunter's own high box hedge, Dexter Allison's enormous
stucco and timber "summer lodge" sprawled amid a round dozen acres of
green lawn and landscape gardening, its front to the river.
To Dexter Allison's blame or credit--the nature of the verdict
depending entirely upon whether it was rendered by the older or the
newer generation--was laid the transformation of Morrison, the town
proper. Caleb Hunter had known Allison at college, where the latter
had been prominent both because of the brilliance of his wardrobe and
the reputed size of his father's steadily accumulating resources.
Since that time seven-figure fortunes such as the younger Allison had
inherited, had become too general to be any longer spectacular. But
Dexter Allison's garments had always retained their insistent note.
Hunter himself had sold Allison the ground upon which the stucco house
stood; he had heartily agreed that it was an ideal spot for a loafing
place--and the fishing was good, too! Now whenever Caleb thought of
those first conferences which had preceded the sale, and recalled
Allison's accentuation of the natural beauties of the spot, Caleb
allowed himself to smile.
The fishing was still far above reproach, a little further back
country--and Dexter Allison owned the sawmills that droned in the
valley. His men drove his timber down from the hills in the north; his
men piled the yellow planks upon his flat cars which ran in over his
spur line that had crept up from the south. His hundreds and hundreds
of rivermen already trod the sawdust-padded streets of the newer
Morrison that had sprung into being beyond the bend; they swarmed in on
the drives, a hard-faced, hard-shouldered horde, picturesque,
proficient and profane. They brought with them color and care-free
prodigality and a capacity for abandonment to pleasure that ran the
whole gamut of emotions, from raucous-roared chanties to sudden, swift
encounters which were as silent as they were deadly. And they spent
their money without stopping to count it.
The younger generation of the older Morrison was quick to point out the
virtues of this vice. And after a time, when the older generation
found that the rivermen preferred their own section of the town,
ignoring as though they had never existed the staid and sleepy
residential streets above, they heaved a sigh of partial relief and
tried to forget their proximity.
Little more than a year had been required for that transformation. The
boards of some of the newer shacks down river were still damp with
pitch. And twice during that period Dexter Allison had come into the
hills to take up a transitory abode in the stucco house which had been
quite six months in the building:--once, two years before, when he had
disappeared into the mountains upon a prolonged fishing trip, to return
fishless but with an astonishing mass of pencilled data and contour
maps; and the second time for an even longer stay, a year ago when the
mill was being erected.
Since then the stucco and timber place had been closed, with no one but
a doddering old caretaker and a gardener or two about the premises,
until early that last hot August week. On Monday Caleb Hunter had
noticed that the blinds had been thrown open to the air; on Wednesday,
from his point of vantage upon the porch, he had watched a rather
astounding load of trunks careen in at the driveway, piloted by a mill
teamster who had for two seasons held the record for a double-team load
of logs and was making the most of that opportunity to prove his skill.
And the next morning the tumult raised by a group of children racing
over the shorn lawns had awakened him; he had descended to be hailed by
Dexter Allison's own booming bass from behind the intervening high box
hedge.
It was the hottest day of the hottest fortnight that the hill country
had known in years. The very temperature gave color to Allison's
statement that the heat had driven them north from the shore--him and
his wife and Barbara, their daughter of ten, and the half-dozen or more
guests whose trunks, coming on the next day, made an even more imposing
sight than had Allison's own. And yet as he sat there in the shadow,
methodically pulling upon his pipe, Caleb Hunter smiled from time to
time, reminiscently. He last of all would have been the one to admit
that the owner of the big stucco place and the mills, and--yes, of the
newer Morrison itself--had not given a good account of the talents and
tens of talents which had been passed down to him. But the use of so
much evasion, where no evasion at all seemed necessary, rather puzzled
as well as amused Caleb; and yet, after all, this merely branded him as
old-fashioned, so far as the newer business methods were concerned
which were crowding into Morrison. Allison's way of going about a
thing made him think of the old valley road that wound north in its
series of loops on loops; and yet, reflecting upon that parallel, he
had to admit to himself, too, that the road achieved final heights
which, in a straightaway route across country would have necessitated
more than a few wearisome and heart-breaking grades.
The comparison pleased Caleb. He was nodding his head over it as he
buried his nose in the mint-sprayed glass again, when a haze of dust to
the north caught his vagrant attention. Quite apparently it was raised
by a foot-traveler, and the latter were not frequent upon that road,
especially foot-travelers who came from that direction. Trivial as it
was, it piqued his interest, and he lay back and followed it from
lazily half-closed eyes. It topped a rise and disappeared--the dust
cloud--and reappeared in turn, but not until it had advanced to within
a scant hundred yards of him could he make out the figure which raised
it. And then, after one sharp glance, with a quick intake of breath,
he rose and went a trifle hastily out across his own lawn toward the
iron picket fence that bordered the roadside. He went almost hurriedly
to intercept the boy who came marching over the brow of the last low
hill.
Caleb Hunter, particularly in the last year or so, had seen many a
strange and brilliant costume pass along that wilderness highway, but
as he hung over the front gate he remembered that none of them had ever
before drawn him from his deep chair in the shadow. For him none of
them had ever approached in sensationalism the quite unbelievable garb
of the boy who came steadily on and on--who came steadily nearer and
nearer.
With a little closer view of him the watching man understood the reason
for the dense cloud of dust above the lone pedestrian. For when the
boy raised his feet with each stride, the man-sized, hob-nailed boots
which encased them failed to lift in turn. Indeed, the toes did clear
the ground, but the heels, slipping away from the lean ankles, dragged
in the follow-through. And the boy's other garments, save for his
flannel shirt and flapping felt hat, were of a size in keeping with the
boots.
His trousers had once been white cotton drill, but the whiteness had
long before given up the unequal struggle against grime and grease and
subsided to a less conspicuous, less perishable grey. They had been
cut off just below the knees and, unhemmed, hung flapping with every
step he took above a stretch of white-socked, spindly shanks. But it
was the coat he wore which held Caleb spellbound. It was of a style
popularly known as a swallowtail, faced with satin as to lapels and
once gracefully rounded to a long, bisected skirt in the rear. The
satin facings were gone and the original color of the fabric, too, had
faded to a shiny, bottle-green. But the long skirts--at least all that
was left of them--still flapped bravely, as did the trousers. For
they, like the nether garments, had been cut off, with more regard for
haste than accuracy, so that the back of the coat cleared the ground by
a good foot and a half. The sleeves, rolled back from two slender,
browned wrists, were cuffed with a six-inch stretch of striped, soiled
lining.
For a time Caleb had been at a loss to make out the object which the
boy carried upon one shoulder, balanced above a blanket tight-rolled
and tied with string. Not until the grotesque little figure was within
a dozen paces of him did he recognize it, and then, at the same moment
that he caught a glimpse of an old and rusted revolver strapped to the
boy's narrow waist, he realized what it was. The boy was toting a
double-springed steel trap, big enough it seemed to take all four feet
of any bear that ever walked--and it was beautifully dull with oil!
Caleb stood and stared, mouth agape. A moment or two earlier he had
had to fight off an almost uncontrollable desire to roar with laughter,
but that mood had passed somehow as the boy came nearer. For the
latter was not even aware of his presence there behind the iron fence;
he was walking with his head up, thin face thrust forward like that of
a young and overly eager setter with the bird in plain sight. The
world of hunger in that strained and staring visage helped Caleb to
master his mirth, and when, at a tentative cough from him, the small
figure halted dead in his tracks and wheeled, even the vestige of a
smile left the wide-waisted watcher's lips. Then Caleb had his first
full view of the boy's features.
There were wide, deep shadows beneath the grey eyes, doubly noticeable
because of the heavy fringe of the lashes that swept above them; there
was a pallid, bluish circle around the thin and tight-set lips. And
the lean cheeks were very, very pale, both with the heat of the sun and
a fatigue now close to exhaustion. But the eyes themselves, as they
met Caleb's, were alight with a fire which afterward, when he had had
more time to ponder it, made him remember the pictured eyes of the
children of the Crusades. They fairly burned into his own, and they
checked the first half-jocular words of greeting which had been
trembling upon his lips. His voice was only grave and kindly when he
began to speak.
"You--you look a trifle tired, young man," he said then. "Are
you--going far?"
The boy touched his lips delicately with the point of his tongue. His
gravity more than matched that of his questioner.
"Air--air thet the--city?"
The words were soft of accent and a little drawling; there was an
accompanying gesture of one thumb thrown backward over a thin shoulder.
But Caleb had to smile a little at the breathless note in the query.
"The city?" he echoed, a little puzzled. "The city! Well, now--I----"
and he chuckled a bit.
The boy caught him up swiftly, almost sharply.
"Thet's--ain't thet Morrison?" he demanded.
And then Caleb had a glimmer of comprehension. He nodded.
"Yes," he answered quietly. "That's the city. That's Morrison down
there."
The shoulders of the ancient coat lifted and fell with a visible sigh
as the strange little figure turned again, head keenly forward, to gaze
hungrily down at the town in the valley. And Caleb translated that
long-drawn breath correctly; without stopping to reason it out, he knew
that it meant fulfillment of a dream most marvelous in anticipation,
but even more wonderful in its coming true. Words would have failed
where that single breath sufficed. The man remained quiet until the
boy finally turned back to him, eased the heavy trap to his other
shoulder and wet his lips once more.
"I thought it war," he murmured, and a thread of awe wove through the
words. "I thought it est nachelly _hed_ to be! Haow--haow many houses
would you reckon they might be daown--daown in thet there holler?"
The owner of the white-columned house gave the question its meed of
reflection.
"Well, I--I'd say quite a few hundred, at least."
The odd little figure bobbed his head.
"Thet's what Old Tom always sed," he muttered, more to himself than to
his hearer. "An'--an' I guess I ain't never rightly believed him till
naow." And then: "Is--is New Yor-rk any bigger?" he asked.
The man at the picket fence smiled again, but the smile was without
offense.
"Well, yes," he answered. "Yes, considerably bigger, I should judge.
Twice as large, at least, and maybe more than that."
The boy did not answer. He just faced about to stare once more. And
then the miracle came to pass. Around a far bend in Dexter Allison's
single spur track there came careening an ashmatic switch engine with a
half-dozen empty flats in tow. With a brave puffing and blowing of
leaky cylinder heads, it rattled across an open space between piles of
timber in the mill-yard and disappeared with a shrill toot of warning
for unseen workmen upon the tracks ahead. The boy froze to
granite-like immobility as it flashed into view. Long after it had
passed from sight he stood like a bit of a fantastic figure cut from
stone. Then a tremor shook him from head to foot, and when it came
slowly about Caleb saw that his small face was even whiter than it had
been before beneath its coat of tan and powdery dust.
He swallowed hard, and tried to speak--and had to swallow again before
the words would come.
"Gawd--I--may--die!" ho broke out falteringly then. "There goes a
injine! A steam injine--wan't it?"
Long afterward, when he had realized that the boy's life was to bring
again and again a repetition of that sublime moment of realization--a
moment of fulfillment unspoiled by surfeit or sophistication or a
blunted capacity to marvel, which Caleb had seen grow old and stale
even in the children he knew, he wondered and wished that he might have
known it himself, once at least. Years of waiting, starved years of
anticipation, he felt after all must have been a very little price to
pay for that great, blinding, gasping moment. But at the time, amazed
at the boy's white face, amazed at the hushed fervor in the words he
forgot,--he spoke before he thought.
"But haven't you ever seen an engine before?" he exclaimed.
As soon as the question had left his lips he would have given much to
have had it back again; but at that it failed to have the effect which
he feared too late to check. Instead of coloring with hurt and shame,
instead of subterfuge or evasion, the boy simply lifted his eyes
levelly to Caleb's face.
"I ain't never seed nuthin'," he stated patiently. "I ain't never seed
more'n three houses together in a clearin' before. I--I ain't never
been outen the timber--till today. But I aim to see more, naow--before
I git done!"
The man experienced a peculiar sensation. The boy's low, passionlessly
vehement statement somehow made him feel that it wasn't a boy to whom
he was talking, but a little and grave old man. And suddenly the
desire seized him to hear more of that low, direct voice; the impulse
came to him and Caleb, whose whole life had been as free from erratic
snap-judgments as his broad face was of craft, found joy in acting upon
it forthwith, before it had time to cool.
"The view is excellent from my veranda," he waved a hand behind him.
"And--you look a little warm and tired. If your business is not of too
pressing a nature--have you----" he broke off, amazed at his helpless
formality in the matter--"have you come far?"
And he wondered immediately how the boy would receive that suggestion
that he hesitate, there with the "city" in front of him, a fairy-tale
to be explored. And again he was allowed to catch a glimpse of age-old
spirit--a glimpse of a man-sized self-discipline--beneath the childish
exterior.
The boy hesitated a moment, but it was his uncertainty as to just what
Caleb's invitation had offered, and not the lure of the town which made
him pause. He took one step forward.
"I been comin' since last Friday," he explained. "I been comin' daown
river for three days naow--and I been comin' fast!"
Again that measuring, level glance.
"An' I ain't got no business--yit," he went on. "Thet's what I aim to
locate, after I've hed a chance to look around a trifle. But I am
tired a little, an' so if you mean thet you're askin' me to stop for a
minit--if you mean thet you're askin' me that--why, then . . . then, I
guess I don't mind if I do!"
"That's what I mean," said Caleb.
And the little figure preceded him across his soft, cropped lawn.