The manager did not at first recognise the new star that had arisen
in the firmament of the Street Fair, and this was no great wonder.
Clotilda Pinnott was standing quite isolated near the intersection
of one of the streets with the public square. Near her was the great
waggon which had been thriftily utilised to take advantage of the
excursion, laden with an immense number of fresh splint baskets
presumably for sale; some were hanging all along the sides; others
protruded from the white hood at the back; still larger ones were
glimpsed through the aperture of the front. One of the team of
red-and-white oxen was yet afoot, steadily chewing his cud; the other,
unmindful of the diagonal tilt of the yoke which he had thus pulled
awry, had lain down on the ground and sleepily eyed the square, with no
apparent perception in his dull bovine mind that its aspect was more
populous and animated than he had beheld it of yore.
Some half dozen of the dogs had seen fit to accompany this jaunting
abroad of the family, and naturally had furnished their own
transportation. The pace at which the ox-team had travelled had
by no means taxed their brisk energies, but the day was nearing
the noon-tide, the September sun was hot, and they too had seated
themselves, several under the shade of the waggon, and thence with
lolling tongues and small hot eyes they gazed at the commotion, their
intentness of observation broken now and then by sudden snaps at
flies, and once one, with an air of indignant interruption, dislocated
every rule of canine symmetry in the twist he gave his anatomy to get
his teeth to bear on the fleas that tormented him. Two evidently had
some joke between them, for without warning they occasionally rushed
jocosely at each other, the bigger rolling the smaller over and over
and tickling and biting him, humorously growling the while, till he
whimpered hysterically aloud.
But the girl--Lloyd saw recognition in her eyes which fixed his
attention; then he paused to stare wonderingly. "Why, what on earth
have you done to yourself?" he broke out in blunt amazement.
Ah, never, never could he have recognised the classic grape-laden
canephora of the orchard in the figure that stood before him. Here,
here was true rusticity--the other a dream, a poem, some materialised
strain from the oaten reed of Theocritus. He had spoken to her
then with the deference that befitted the personified poetry of
her presence. He now was not intentionally rude, but he was stern,
plain, determined. The artistic interests of the promised "turn" were
slaughtered.
"How'd ever you make yourself such a jay?" he cried in dismay.
Then he began to perceive in added surprise that she fancied herself
arrayed to strike the beholder with admiration and destroy the peace
of every man who looked upon her. She stared at him with an amazement
that matched his own, so comprehensive that at first it gave no room
for anger. As the gradual realisation of objection began to redden her
cheeks he made haste to call some good-natured euphemism to his aid,
for he would not willingly hurt her feelings.
"Don't you know, child, that 'beauty unadorned is adorned the most'?"
he said. "Why didn't you wear those togs you had on when I saw you up
in the mountains?"
"Them r-a-ags?" she drawled contemptuously, and with a complacent hand
she adjusted the folds of her coarse brown and green mottled muslin,
that had at intervals a small egg-shaped pattern in glaring white. It
stood out from her heels like a board, so stiffly was it starched.
A row of big black beads was around her throat. A yellow sunbonnet,
lined with blue, hid all the grace of her head and hair and showed only
a moon-like contour of face, and he wondered that he had not before
noticed her freckles. And then, worst of all, her shoes. For now her
feet were encased in thick red yarn stockings and the stiffest of
brogans, several sizes too large.
Lloyd could scarcely stem the flood of despair that surged about
him, and the struggle was the more desperate as he perceived how far
afield was her complacent mental attitude from any constraint of
comprehension. Could he ever make her understand?
"You can't dance in them soap-boxes," he said didactically. "Them shoes
won't bend. You can't do nothing but hop--and no bloke is going to pay
a red to see a lydy hop. Why didn't you wear the old slippers you had
on the other day?"
"Was you uns thinkin' ez I'd 'pear so pore ez ter dance in them old
shoes?" she demanded with a flash of the eyes and drawing up her
figure with dignity, but alack, a flash, however fiery, from out the
blue and yellow frills of the sunbonnet, and the prideful pose of a
form disguised by the angular folds of the unyielding fabric that held
the starch so stiffly, lost all impressiveness in their disastrous
environment.
"I was thinking that same," he retorted unequivocally. He turned to her
eldest brother, who had just come up, followed at a little distance
by her staring father, and sought to reach here more pliancy of
receptivity. "Well, sport," he said genially to Daniel Pinnott, "you
see I wanted to show a nymph of the orchard--such as dance among the
trees."
The jaws of both mountaineers fell. "When did they dance, stranger?"
they uneasily demanded in a breath, as if the mere idea of
terpsichorean intrusion among their trees had an inherent disquietude
for them.
"Oh, there's no such folks sure enough," Lloyd made haste to explain.
"People have pretended that there were spirits of the trees and the
like." He hesitated; Shadrach Pinnott's eyes fixed in stultified
wonderment on his face were disconcerting. "Of course nobody
ever saw them, unless the feller was dreamin' or drunk;"--at the
last word Shadrach Pinnott's countenance took on the insignia of
comprehension--"anyhow, the book-guys have written a lot of poetry
about 'em, and the artist-guys have painted pictures of what they
thought these lydies looked like; so when I saw Miss here, dancing
and singing in the orchard, she took my eye for a dryad, or oread
or a bacchante or some of them nationalities, and I'd like to try
the turn on the public--but--" he concluded sternly, "not in them
clothes--that's just an everyday Persimmon Cove girl, and no dryad
about it."
Clotilda made no sign of relenting, and Lloyd stared disconsolately
at her while the slow brains of the two other men turned over his
discourse reflectively. "The right kind of glad rags for dancing are
never stiff," he urged. "I can't figure out how the lydy managed to
stay so stiff and starched these seven miles and more, waggoning down
from the mountain. She looks to be just off the ironing-board."
"An' stranger, she _be_," the old grandam's voice broke in suddenly as
she hobbled up on her stick. "Clotildy changed into them clothes, under
the kiver of the waggin, whenst we uns war about half a mile from
town."
Lloyd made a bolt toward the canvas-covered vehicle. "And she has
got the same togs along?" he exclaimed. "Three cheers! Three cheers!
Get 'em out,--get 'em out. And child, take off your cap or bonnet or
whatever that disguise is called--blazes, girl! what _have_ you got on
your hair?"
Clotilda, overborne by the trend of events and perceiving very
definitely that the opportunity for display was lost unless she
surrendered her persuasions as to toilette, obediently bared her head
to the light, the locks all sleek and smooth and closely banded to her
forehead. They were streaked dark and light and glistened when the sun
fell upon them. She lifted her hands deprecatingly to her head as he
vociferated, "What _is_ it that you have got on your hair?"
"Nuthin' but lard," she faltered.
"Oh,--oh--" Lloyd gave a sigh of despair. Then didactically he
rejoined: "A lydy who performs in public must be more natural
than--than--nature--or seem to be,--which is all the same thing. She
can paint her cheeks, which yours don't need--and beautify along
natural lines--but no oread that I ever saw billed had a greased head.
I take it that this ain't the style among the ones in the mountains,
or the boards would have followed the fashion. We will all pray that a
cake of tar soap and a pail of river water will wash that grease off.
I understand that you are going to camp here a little distance from
town," he added, turning to Shadrach Pinnott, and as the mountaineer
assented, he continued, "Well, she can go now to the camping ground
and get that larded hair washed, and sit in the sun till it dries off,
for," declared this disciple of realism severely, "no oread, nor dryad,
nor bacchante can do a song-and-dance turn in my show with a greased
head!"
Time is a potent remedial agent, and with the aid of tar soap and river
water and the benign influence of the sun and the wind it so restored
the integrity of Clotilda's locks that when it was almost five o'clock
that afternoon and the excitement and interest of the fair had reached
the culmination it was announced from the stage of the high-class
concert that the next attraction, which was already widely advertised,
would consist of a song-and-dance turn by a talented young lady of
their own county, Miss Clotilda Josephine Belinda Pinnott.
Lloyd's divination of the value of local interest was justified,
for the tent was crowded, and the attractions elsewhere suffered in
consequence. Several members of the company left their posts, actuated
by curiosity concerning this new feature. The Flying Lady ceased her
winged gyrations, since her tent was deserted for the nonce, and came
and occupied a back seat, where she looked odd enough, in her short
white satin gown, with her illusion scarf and her mechanical wings
embarrassing her posture and hanging over the bench, but most of the
audience consisted of the rural element with a smaller proportion
of the town folks all expectantly staring, anticipating who knows
what wonders. The orchestra was in place and the music had been for
some moments in full swing when suddenly the curtain drew slowly up
showing a stage, dappled with the shadows of peach boughs and calcium
light. Beyond could be dimly descried the mountains with sunset on the
amethystine slopes and a crimson cloud aloft--this effect had been
compassed by the simple expedient of dropping a section of the canvas.
The rear of the tent gave on a vacant space above the bluffs of the
river; the slight elevation of the stage nullified this interval and
thus it was against a background of forests and mountains that the
oread came softly bounding on the stage, grace personified, as light of
foot, as innocently sportive as a fawn. Her left arm upheld the skirt
of her yellow dress, into which she had gathered apron-wise a mass of
purple grapes; here and there a cluster with leaves and tendrils fell
over against her dark red petticoat.
With her right hand she now caught at a peach on the boughs, deftly
interlaced beneath the roof of the tent, and now with a touch she
steadied the pail or basket on her head, so overladen with the clusters
of grapes that only the contour of the vessel could be descried in
their midst. And as she danced she sang, the crude loudness of
her voice annulled by the crowd, the space, and perchance a trifle
of shyness. But indeed this was not predicable of the gay abandon
with which she threw herself into the spirit of the "turn." The
lime-light, that simulated the clear and burnished sunshine, showed
every perfection of her beautiful face, the soft aureola of her
auburn hair, all a fluffy mass, once more, of picturesque disorder;
the slender charm of her lissome figure and feet and ankles; the
exquisite shape of her arms, seeming in the artificial radiance of an
alabastine whiteness. To her voice, like a murmurous rune rather than
an accompaniment, for Lloyd was afraid that the unaccustomed adjunct to
her singing might throw her off the key, the violins played a gentle
pizzicato variant of the theme, of which she had been warned to take
no heed, and it was in accord with the effect of the whole performance
that, in lieu of the last furious whirl of the danseuse, the usual
panting bow, the appealing gesture for the plaudits, the sunlit scene
should vaguely vanish, the curtain slowly, softly descending, leaving
the oread still sporting in the sylvan shadows amongst the immemorial
fantasies of the realms of poesy.
The curtain was, however, ready to rise anew; the manager's touch was
on the bell, while the pizzicato theme "Kind shepherd, tell me true,"
sounded from the violins, and now, to simulate an echo, only one
repeated the strain, and again the first and second together, with a
note from the viol no louder than a booming bee, and again the faint
tones of the single instrument, and then--silence.
It remained unbroken for several minutes, but presently the audience
stirred and exchanged comments. There was not the clap of a hand, not
a voice raised in applause. Nothing could have fallen more absolutely
flat than the whole performance. The musicians, their violins still
adjusted under their chins ready to begin anew on the first tinkle
of the bell, cast surprised glances at one another, then leered open
ridicule, and seeing Lloyd turn away from the hand-bell they lowered
their instruments and began to scrape them noisily, changing the pitch
and tuning them for a performance in the pantomime tent of a comically
illustrated version of "A hot time in the old town to-night."
Lloyd's face was flushed, his jaunty confident expectation wilted
utterly. He could not conceive how he could be so far out of touch
with the sentiment of others that their appraisement should differ so
radically. The value of the "turn" in his mind was not abated one jot
by their lack of appreciation; he still thought it beautiful, unique,
an exquisite rustic idyl, but he listened with a pained curiosity to
the comments on every hand, vaguely seeking to comprehend the reason of
this divergence of opinion.
"Warn't them shoes jes' old injer-rubbers?" a country woman was saying
to another, with a lowered voice and a scandalised mien.
"I reckon mebbe she don't own no better shoes," her interlocutor of
charitable interpretations replied.
"Mought hev been afeard she would wear 'em out with all that prancin'
an' hoppin' up an' down," a speculative third suggested.
"Wisht I hed my dime back," a grizzly old malcontent sighed. "Special
puffawmance--shucks! I don't see nuthin' special in a mountain gal
hoppin' up an' down arter a peach--ye kin see that any day ye look out
o' the winder or alongside o' the road."
"Waal, that's what riles me," another of his own sort asseverated. "I
can't see the p'int o' that show."
The "stunt" encountered even more than a dull lack of appreciation and
disapproval: in one instance Lloyd, looking about with a manager's
keen eyes to discriminate effect, detected ridicule, absolute and
hearty--a covert ridicule which was to his mind more disparaging to
the value of the turn than bluff open laughter. A rural wight, whose
intent interest he had earlier noted, was still in his seat, holding
his head down till his chin was sunk in the frayed and dirty lapels of
his old grey coat. He wore his hat in the tent, the habit of most of
the country contingent, and the broad flapping white wool brim almost
hid his face, but his bent shoulders shook with convulsive merriment,
and again and again he muttered to himself, "What a fool he hev made
of her--what a fool--what a fool!" More than once he drew out a great
bandana handkerchief to wipe the moisture from his eyes. It was a
genuine demonstration of enjoyment of the fiasco as Lloyd, nettled
and troubled, could but perceive, for on each of these occasions
of the requisition of the red handkerchief the spectator seemed to
glance about anxiously over its folds at the surrounding crowd, as if
solicitous that his sentiment should not be observed.
The more experienced townspeople had not more receptivity for the
subtler elements of the presentation. As the crowd pressed out of the
tent, for the special performance had been given a place to itself,
Lloyd overheard the comments of one of the village youths, tinged with
the contempt always felt by the urban denizens for the dwellers in the
mountains and coves.
"I must apologise, Miss Minnie," he was saying to the young lady whose
parasol he carried, "for bringing you in here, for imposing on your
patience--I thought from the advertisements that this was really going
to be something extra."
"She was right pretty," said the young lady politely, trying to seem
not to have been so ill-entertained by the performance.
"Pretty?--perhaps--if she were properly dressed--and had had her hair
combed--and had sung something new, with snap and ginger in it,
instead of the fag end of a drawling old song, as old as Noah."
More than one of the town ladies of mature years murmured in pettish
reprobation over her fan to another, "She was real shabby and untidy,
wasn't she?" "Perhaps she is poor?" Lloyd heard this excuse suggested,
yet once again.
The reply to it stayed in his mind: "_She_ isn't poor--old Shadrach
Pinnott has the best of all good reasons for not being poor, they say."
The echo of the general rural criticism from persons of local
station and presumable propriety and refinement, albeit Lloyd felt
their animadversions ill-taken and out of keeping with any artistic
perceptions, made him unwilling to retain the position of arbiter in
the matter.
It seemed to Lloyd that with his trials, many and various as they were,
he hardly needed the added discipline of self-reproach and the fear
of having inflicted a disparagement upon an innocent and unoffending
soul. He had begun to be so doubtful of himself and the value of his
own persuasions that he fairly feared to lay the matter before the old
mountaineer and his eldest son. But he had discerned a conservative
quality in the serious, steady Daniel Pinnott, and he esteemed himself
fortunate in finding the two men together. They were at the camping
place they had selected near the town, and although the oxen of the
team had been turned out to graze, the waggon stood still laden as he
had seen it when in the streets. A fire burned briskly on a rocky
space sloping to the river-bank, though amongst the ledges the grass
was rank and green. Several great trees, oak, elm, beech, and ash,
cast broad shadows from their full-foliaged boughs. The sky, all red
and gold in the west, was mottled here and there with purple flecks,
and across the blue zenith were two long cirrus clouds dazzlingly
white with a suggestion of wings, drooping, folded, not in ill accord
with the thoughts attendant on the down-dropping of the vermilion
sphere of the sun behind the dark, massive western mountains, and the
illuminated, almost translucent aspect of the amethystine ranges to
the east. The reflection of the white clouds gave the surface of the
river a vivid glint here and there among the rocks that fretted its
current. Close to the shore it was smooth, and here the bank was low
and shelving. Cows, homeward bound from the range of the woodlands,
loitered knee deep in the ripples, now bending a horned head to drink
of the crystal-clear water, now in the serene bovine content gazing
meditatively, motionlessly, at the illusive apotheosis of the eastern
mountains, as ethereal, as unearthly of aspect as a dream of the
hills of heaven. There was no glimpse of the town from this point; a
slight elevation cut off the view as completely as if this exponent of
civilisation were miles distant. Except for the serpentine curves of
the road the spot was as isolated as any such sylvan nook on their own
mountain. Three sticks and a crane supported a pot over the fire and
old Mrs. Pinnott, with a crutch stick, a discerning, excited eye, and a
long spoon, bent over to stir the steaming contents. As she caught up
her skirts to avoid the flames and circled hirpling about to compass
this devoir Lloyd was ashamed to entertain a reminder of Macbeth's
witches, whom he knew only in their stage aspect. She did not hail him
as "thane of Cawdor" as he passed, but her greeting was hardly less
flattering. Mrs. Pinnott had been deeply impressed by the splendours of
the Street Fair. There was a pulse within her which beat responsive to
worldly glories, and high social preferments, and Lloyd's station in
her estimation had appreciated in due proportion. She waved the long
spoon at him in the fervour of her congratulation.
"It's plumb beautiful," she opined enthusiastically. "I ain't never
seen the beat! I wisht I hed eyes all around my head so ez I mought
stare my fill. You--you air a plumb special showman an' no mistake,"
and once more she bent to the stirring of the pot.
"Now I'll take no denial," said Lloyd, advancing. "You have got to come
up to town with me after tea and we will go up in the Ferris Wheel
together. That'll be full safe--I'll see to it that you don't fall out.
I'll sit by you--the settees are made for two."
"Fine for courtin'," Mrs. Pinnott was airily coquettish. "Some o' them
high-steppin' town gals that I see lookin' arter you uns so lovin'
this evenin' mought put a spider in my cup, seein' me 'tended by sech
a handsome proud-sperited young man."
"Proud-spirited," cried poor Lloyd, with a dreary laugh. "I feel as
meek as Moses."
Mrs. Daniel Pinnott was peeling potatoes at a little distance, and the
baby in a blue calico slip, lying in the grass, kicking up its dimpled
pink heels, was consigned to the care of a great cur, that now licked
its face and now affected to bite the soft hand which the infant thrust
up into his open jaws, and now squealed in shrill pain as the baby
fingers pinched and tugged at his defenceless ears with a strength
hardly to be expected of such callow muscles.
"Both you lydies must come in time to see the pyrotechnic exhibition,
and go through the whole show, and if you bring any money with you I'll
hold you up and throw every cent you have got into the river."
Old Mrs. Pinnott inclined graciously to this proposition. She had
already paid to see a part of the show and thus satisfied her sense of
independence. If the manager were polite enough to favour her with a
second view of the scenes which her memory gloated upon with so much
delight, she saw no reason why she should deny herself this pleasure.
"I be goin' ter stay all night with my niece, Malviny Bostel, her who
merried a Fenton before she merried Bostel--Fenton bein' gone ter
glory, pore man! All we wimmen folks, 'bout bedtime, air goin' ter
her house fur the night, bein' ez we uns don't favour sleepin' round
a camp fire like Towse thar, or the men-folks--thar ain't room in the
waggin. An', stranger, I ain't settin' out ter saftsawder you uns
whenst I say ez I had ruther go ridin' in that big swing with you uns
than ter set in Malviny's 'parlour,' ez she calls it, an' hear her talk
so mealy-mouthed, an' finified, an' explain all the town doin's ter
her kentry kin--she 'lowed ter me ez she talked through a telly-fun
whenst she war in Glaston, an' Rufe Bostel hearn her at Shaftesville,
full twenty odd mile off--though mebbe _he_ did--his ears air long
enough fur anything. He minds me of a mule in more ways than one! Waal,
I know fust off ez much about the Street Fair ez Malviny kin tell me,
an' more--fur I know her well enough ter take my affle-david to it that
she didn't spen' many dimes with you uns. An' I'd be glad ter pass my
evenin' somewhar else, so's I kin purtend ter be so tired I can't do
nuthin' but sink on my pillow fur my solemn night's rest whenst I git
back ter Malviny's 'parlour,' ez she calls it."
"I'll engage that nobody can teach you anything about the Street Fair
after I'm through showing you around," Lloyd declared, and mechanically
lifting his hat he passed on, leaving her staring after him admiring
his grace. "The man's got the manners of a red-bird," she exclaimed
enthusiastically.
But Lloyd was ill at ease as he approached Shadrach Pinnott and his
son Daniel. The old man stood with the ox-yoke in his hand, half
leaning on it as he disentangled a rope that had become wound about it,
while his son bent under a bundle of fodder, taken from the rear of the
waggon, and was flinging it down on the flat surface of an outcropping
ledge of rock near the river, preparing the supper of the oxen. Both
mountaineers looked at him with such eager expectant apprehensiveness
that the awkwardness of his mission seemed augmented by their attitude.
He felt that it was necessary to break the ice at once--in fact he
could not be silent before the coercive inquiry of their gaze.
"Did you hear your daughter sing, Mr. Pinnott?" he asked. The surprise,
the tension of doubt in the expression of their faces gave way
suddenly, with an effect of flouting contempt, as if they had expected
or feared to hear something different. Shadrach did not reply. Both
seemed absorbed in a silent communion with their own thoughts. Lloyd
perceived that what he had said was of such slight importance in their
opinion in comparison with what they had in mind that he would have
some difficulty in securing and holding their attention.
"It was a good turn--a better song-and-dance I never saw,--but I am
sorry I asked her to show. I want to explain to you that I'd rather she
wouldn't appear--favour us--again at all."
"Why--why?" There was only curiosity in the old man's tones. The
confidence which Lloyd had won was very complete. He suspected no
rudeness--he appreciated no lack of tact.
"I feel very responsible for a misunderstanding that has got about,"
said Lloyd. "I insisted, against her preference, that she should appear
in a rustic costume and her soft old shoes. I heard some comments
afterwards in the audience. People thought it shabby and inappropriate
and disrespectful to the public."
"Them town toads?" said Daniel. "We uns ain't carin' what _they_ think
'bout shoes an' sech."
"Call Clotildy--ax the child herself," said Shadrach Pinnott hastily.
She was not far away, filling a bucket with water at the spring which
bubbled out from a mass of rocks close by the river side--a clear pool
of crystal brown, its depths catching the light like some gigantic
topaz. The three men all approached her when her clear answering
voice in the evening stillness revealed her presence there. She bent
down, sunk the bucket into the depths, then placing it on her head,
stood, one hand on her hip, the other lifted to the pail, and waited,
motionless, their coming within speaking distance. She was again garbed
in her holiday gown of brown mottled muslin, that had so offended
the manager's artistic predilections, and once more her feet were
encased in the brogans that disguised beyond all suggestion their
grace of form and elasticity of fibre. But her hair still showed its
soft flaunting auburn hue, and rose in pliant, redundant waves from
her brow and was coiled in a great knot at the back of her head. She
listened without a word to the explanation which the three men made in
disconnected instalments, her eyes turning from one to the other as
each successively took up the story. She showed no confusion; her face
was absolutely inexpressive. Lloyd began to doubt how he might best
reach her understanding. But when she suddenly spoke it was obvious
that she had grasped the whole situation.
"The mounting folks purtend ez I ain't got no better shoes--waal,
ef they look right sharp ter-night they'll see these, bran new an'
middlin' stout." She glanced down at them with the pride of possession.
"An' the town folks purtend ter be powerful shocked kase my old calico
dress ain't fine enough. Why, they air obleeged ter know ez it air a
part of the 'turn' like the peach-tree branches. Nobody gathers fruit
and dances in an orchard in thar Sunday-go-ter-meetin' clothes."
Her logic reassured Lloyd as to the merely captious nature of the
criticism--he had not insisted on a point that could fairly discredit
her in her neighbours' eyes. "But since the question has been raised,"
he said, "I think we won't have the song-and-dance again."
She withered him with a glance. "These folks can't ondertake ter teach
_me_ whut's respectable," she said not without dignity. "I'll dance
in my old shoes and my yellow calico dress _every_ day whilst I'm in
town, an' then I'll go creakin' all around in my new shoes an' my new
muslin ter show the folks I hev got 'em. I won't allow ez they kin gin
_me_ the word what air 'spectable."
Then with the utmost composure, her bucket poised upon her head, she
took her way past them and shouldered the responsibility herself.
Lloyd was infinitely relieved, but as he walked back toward the
town he overtook a man whom he remembered instantly to have earlier
noticed--he had been laughing like a satyr at the spectacle of the
dancing oread in the show that afternoon. There was something so
malicious, so triumphant in the character of his mirth that Lloyd's
keen observation might have discriminated its peculiar relish of the
girl's failure to win the public favour, even if he had not had the
success of the "turn" so much at heart. With his retentive mind he
would have remembered the demonstration in any event, but as he passed
the man whose face was also turned toward the village he received an
unpleasant impression that he had been followed. If this man had gone
by the Pinnott encampment along the road, as several others had done,
Lloyd argued within himself that he would likewise have noticed the
fact; the man had obviously left the town last, and it was certainly
somewhat odd that within so short an interval of time he should be
overtaken wending his way thither. He was not of the type or station to
indulge in a stroll for pleasure or a constitutional tramp. He seemed,
moreover, infirm, walking very slowly and he leaned heavily on a stout
cane. Lloyd noticed as he passed that the high cowhide boots which he
wore had been split by a knife with longitudinal strokes above the toes
of each foot, suggesting the torture of bunions. The gray coat loose
and long was not of the usual homespun jeans, but of some store-bought
fabric, and from the web the nap had so worn that the original texture
was indeterminable. The garment boasted few buttons; the substitute of
a ten-penny nail was dexterously inserted in the upper buttonhole and
an opportune rent in the opposite side. It was frayed and even jagged
around the edges, and the trousers of the same goods, loose and bagging
about the knees, were in scarcely better repair. His shoulders were
bent and slouched, and the coat was either too large at first or had
stretched with wear into many rucks and wrinkles. It had suggestions of
a miller's habit, for here and there were traces of flour, and the old
white wool hat had neither binding on its wide brim nor a hatband.
Lloyd sought to cast off the disagreeable impression. He had naught
to hide. He could be followed, if indeed his steps had been dogged at
all, only from the idlest curiosity. The rural people seemed in fact so
elementary, so primitive, that the showman, himself, might be accounted
an object of interest. And even as he thus reasoned he perceived the
fallacy, but he had scant leisure to canvass the incident.