John was about to make some retort when Tilly suddenly came out to them.
She was dressed in white, wore no head-covering, and appeared very
pretty and somehow changed.
"Oh, you are all ready to go!" she said, smiling on John. "Here is
something for you to wear." She held out a few leaves of geranium and a
white rosebud and proceeded to pin them on the lapel of his coat. "It
is the custom," she explained. "All the girls give them to the young men
they go with. Now, now, isn't that nice, Mr. Cavanaugh?"
"Fine! Beautiful! It sets him off just right!" the old man cried.
John looked pleased, but said nothing.
"Why don't he thank the little trick?" Cavanaugh wondered, resentfully.
"And why don't the goose stand up?"
"I don't believe you like flowers," Tilly said, pretending to pout.
Still John said nothing, but what astonished Cavanaugh was the fact that
Tilly evidently understood his mood, for she gave a little pat to a
wrinkle the pin had made in his lapel and smiled.
"I thought I heard wheels just now," she remarked. "They seemed to stop
here."
"It was that fellow Eperson with his sister," John blurted out. "They
came by to take you to the party. He acted like he owned you."
"Oh, it was Joel and Martha Jane!" Tilly smiled. "Oh no, he doesn't
think he owns me, by any means. Martha Jane put him up to it. She and I
are great friends and she was afraid I wouldn't get an escort."
John shrugged dubiously and answered: "You may look at it that way if
you want to, but I see through him. I know his brand."
To Cavanaugh's wonderment, Tilly seemed pleased rather than offended,
for she indulged in a little satisfied laugh.
"I suppose you told him we would be there?" she said, lightly, and it
was the old man who answered, seeing that John had nothing to say.
"Yes, he knows that now, Miss Tilly, though he looked sorter set back.
In my day and time about the last thing I'd want to do would be to take
a sister of mine to a shindig. Going and coming was always the biggest
part of the game, and you may bet there was times when I was in for
busting a party up as soon as supper was over so as to be on the road
again."
Tilly laughed merrily. "I'll make you a buttonhole bouquet if you will
wear it," she proposed.
"Well, not to-night--I thank you all the same," Cavanaugh returned, "but
you may some other time when I've got my best clothes on. I don't want
to part with you two, but don't you think you ought to be on the way?"
"Yes, it is time," Tilly said, and John rose to his feet and stiffly
held his arm out to her.
"Please tell mother that we are gone," she said, as she took John's arm
and the two turned away.
"What a purty sight!" the old man mused, standing and gazing after them
as they walked away in the moonlight. He followed as far as the gate and
leaned on it and watched them till they were out of sight.
Presently Mrs. Whaley came out and joined him. He delivered Tilly's
message and they sat down and chatted for half an hour; then she went
back into the kitchen.
She was making dough for bread to be baked the next day when her husband
came and stood beside her. He wore no coat and his coarse suspenders
hung loose over his hips; the collar of his shirt was open, showing his
hairy chest.
"I saw you out there talking to Cavanaugh," he began. "Did you say
anything about that matter?"
"I did--in a roundabout way," she said, taking the great lump of wheat
dough in her hands and rolling it into a heap of dry flour at one end of
the long wooden bowl. "I didn't want him to take up a notion that we
want to marry her off, but I tried to find out what I could. Mr. Trott
never has had any love-affairs. He is mighty young--younger than you'd
naturally think to have the job he has, and somehow he never has taken
to a girl before. Mr. Cavanaugh says this is the first time, and I know
he is telling the truth. Oh, he had a lot to say in Mr. Trott's favor.
He says he has a wonderful mind for building and the like, and that the
time will come when he will make piles of money. He already gets high
wages, and it is always cash, too. He doesn't have to wait till the end
of the year like Joel Eperson and other farmers do, and then be up to
their eyes in debt, with nothing left over to begin another crop on."
"Does he drink or gamble? That is what I want to know," Whaley put in
suddenly.
"No, he doesn't. Mr. Cavanaugh says he hardly thinks of anything but
figuring, planning, and calculating. He goes to bed early and gets up
early, and can handle a gang of men better even than he can, he's so
popular with them."
"Didn't you find out about the feller's religion?"
"No, I didn't. I sorter touched on that--said you wanted to know--but
Mr. Cavanaugh made light of it--said all that would come out right in
due time. He said he was no hand for hurrying up the young on those
lines. He said John Trott at bottom was the right sort, and that he
would count on him serving the Lord in the long run as well as the next
one."
"I don't know as I'd let that old skunk pick a religion for a son-in-law
of mine." Whaley's lip was drawn tight as he spoke. "He don't take
enough interest in doctrine, and when you force him to talk about it he
says entirely too much about salvation through works alone. I like a man
that knows what he believes and can point straight to Biblical authority
in page, line, and word. It behooves a Christian to watch out what sort
of a mate his daughter picks. Infidelity will breed at a fireside faster
than tadpoles under skum in a mud-puddle."
"Well, I'm for keeping that part out of it just now," Mrs. Whaley
suggested, timidly. "This is a good chance for the girl, and you know
you have made a lot of folks mad by the way you talk to them."
"Well, I haven't said anything to Trott yet," Whaley answered, "and I
may not, though he hasn't been out to meeting yet and that seems odd,
when the Sabbath is a day of rest and there is nothing else to do."
"I happened to hear him tell Tilly that he was going next Sunday," Mrs.
Whaley answered, "so you see that will work out all right."
"Well, we'll wait and see," Whaley returned. "They dance over there at
Teasdale's house, don't they?"
"Some do and some don't," was the answer, slowly made. "Tilly don't and
Mr. Trott never did in his life."
"There isn't much difference in actually dancing and giving sanction to
it by looking on," Whaley said, his heavy brows meeting in a frown, "an'
I'm in for calling a halt on Tilly going to such places. Looks like
there would be plenty of decent amusements without hot-blooded young
folks hugging up tight together and spinning around on the floor till
they are wet with sweat from head to foot. Sally Teasdale ought to be
churched, and she would be if she was a Methodist. The Presbyterians
ain't strict enough. Well, if I believed in foreordained baby damnation
as they do I'd let a child of mine dance her way into hell and be done
with it. They make me sick. I had an argument with old Bill Tye
yesterday and I fairly flayed up the ground with him--didn't leave him a
leg to stand on, but he was mad--oh, wasn't he mad? The crowd laughed at
him good."
Whaley turned away. He intended to chat with Cavanaugh outside, but he
met the contractor coming in at the front door on his way to bed.
"I found that passage from Paul and read the whole chapter," Whaley
began, but Cavanaugh stopped him.
"I'll see it to-morrow," he said. "My eyes are not strong enough to read
at night, even with my specs, and I'm a little bit tired, too. I walked
out to the sawmill--five miles and back--this morning, to see about
some timber, and it was quite a stretch for me. Good night."
"No wonder he didn't want to see it," Whaley smiled to himself as he
leaned in the doorway. "I had him beat and he knows it. I'll bet the old
skunk has already looked it up, or asked somebody about it."