He wormed his way after her through the surging throng to the parlor,
where a fat man in dark trousers and a white-linen coat stood vigorously
cooling himself with a palm-leaf fan and talking to some middle-aged men
and women.
"Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Trotter--I mean Trott," he said,
extending a clammy hand. "I've seen you about the court-house several
times but you were always busy and I didn't want to climb up those
rickety planks to you. How is it moving along?"
"All right," John said, bluntly. He was not awed by the man, for he was
used to men of all types. Besides, John could not descend to empty
platitudes for the sake of making conversation, and he half resented the
unnecessary question about a matter that was obvious to every passer-by.
"Come in here with me." The old man took a large grasp on his arm and
began to fan lazy waves of warm air into his face as he drew him into an
adjoining room, which was evidently a sleeping-apartment from which the
bed had been removed. There was a table against the wall, and on its
snow-white cloth stood a great bowl of mint, some goblets, a pitcher of
water, a dish of sugar, and a brown jug containing whisky.
"I want you to try one of my juleps," Teasdale chuckled. "That is some
of the best old rye that ever slid down a thirsty throat."
"I don't drink," John said. "I won't take anything."
"What, what? You don't? Well, I won't insist--I never do--but stay with
me a minute till I take one straight. My old lady says I take too much
at every party Sally has, and unless some feller is in here with me she
thinks I am tanking up all by myself."
"Go ahead," John answered, and the farmer proceeded to help himself to
an ample supply of the amber fluid. While he drank, the sound of tuning
fiddles and the twanging of guitars came from the parlor.
"The niggers have come," Teasdale gurgled, as he smacked his lips and
screwed the corn-cob stopper back into the neck of the jug. "Sally will
start out with dancing, I reckon. I used to be a great hand at it, but
I'm too heavy now."
He led the way back to the parlor. Four black men sat in a corner
vigorously sawing and picking their instruments. One of them, the
leader, called out in stentorian tones, "All hands fer de fust set!" and
there was a laughing rush from the hall and the veranda of several
couples to secure places. Seeing a chance to get away from his host,
John drew back into the hall, where he found himself jostled and ignored
by the tempestuous human mass. He edged his way along a wall to the
veranda, and there saw something startlingly disagreeable. It was Joel
Eperson and Tilly standing side by side, their faces averted toward the
gate. Joel was regarding her with the eyes of dumb adoration and
listening closely to something she was saying. John saw that the
opposite end of the veranda was deserted and he went to it. He tried to
keep his eyes from the pair, but it was impossible. His misery
increased, seeming to ooze into him from some external reservoir of
pain. All around him surged a life bewilderingly new and fatuous. He
saw Joel bend down to pick up a flower Tilly dropped and saw him smile
as he gave it back to her. What could she be saying, with that sweet,
drawn look about her lips? What was Joel asking? He saw her nod, and
Joel took her arm and the two went down the steps to the gravel walk
that led from the house to the gate. Here back and forth they walked,
arm in arm, now in the full light from the door and windows, again in
the half-darkness near the fence. Once for fully five minutes they
lingered at the gate while the silent spectator of their movements
leaned tense and rigid against the balustrade. The promenade was quite
in accordance with rural propriety and custom, but John could not
understand why that pair in particular should be the only ones in the
entire company to engage in it. It did not seem right. How could it be
right?
The music, the sonorous calls to the dancers, the tripping of feet,
pounded his tortured brain. The whole world in its new aspect seemed to
meet him with fangs and claws exposed. He wanted to fight something
physically, to express by oaths and blows the resentment packed within
his primitive breast. He felt his gnarled and hardened fingers at Joel
Eperson's thin neck. He saw the long hair sway back and forth as he
shook the love-smitten man. His clutch tightened till Joel's eyes bulged
from their sockets, and then, in gloating fancy, John dashed him to the
ground, where he lay exposed to Tilly's view. But reality has little to
do with the tricks of the imagination, and there stood Eperson at the
fence with Tilly by his side.
Two girls were approaching. One was Sally Teasdale, the other Martha
Jane Eperson.
"They've told the truth about you," the former greeted John, with a
teasing laugh, as she introduced the slight, plain, dark girl whose
hand she held. "You are really a woman-hater, or you would not be off
here by yourself when all the girls want to know you."
Again he was scarcely conscious of what he was saying or leaving unsaid,
and suddenly waked to the fact that his hostess had hurried away, and
that the plain girl was in his care. After all, she was Eperson's
sister, and he eyed her curiously, wondering if she, too, were his
enemy.
"You've met my brother," she began. "He spoke about it the day the
corner-stone was laid. There he is out there with Tilly now. I didn't
want to come to-night, but he was crazy to be here so that he could see
her."
"I thought that was it," John permitted his slow lips to say. "They have
been going together a long time. That is, I've heard so."
"Yes, and I thought--we all thought that Tilly would end up by taking
him, but it is all off now," Miss Eperson sighed, her eyes on the pair
at the fence.
"All off?" John in his sober senses would have wondered at his ability
to talk so freely with a girl he had just met. "Why, what do you mean?"
"As if you didn't know--as if _everybody_ doesn't know!" Martha Jane
laughed half sardonically.
"But I don't know what you mean." Something new and bountiful in its
promise of joy filled John and drove the words from his palpitating
tongue.
"The idea!" scoffed Martha Jane. "Well, if you don't know it you are
blind as a bat in daytime. Brother knows it, I know it--everybody knows
it."
"Knows what?" John demanded, his breath checked, his eyes gleaming, his
whole being athrob under the dawn of an ecstasy the plain girl seemed to
offer.
"Well, I'm not going to tell you, if you don't know," the girl
answered, with a little shrug. "But if you want to understand, watch my
poor brother. He never had a look like that before. She has been his
very life. People that doubt real love ought to know Joel. He would go
through fire and water for Tilly. He'd steal, he'd kill, he'd do
anything. He is desperate to-night. When we got to her house and found
that you and she were going to walk out here, it was the last straw. But
he is a gentleman, my brother is, and he will never make a row over it."
Under the sheer blaze of this information, John stood speechless. He,
boldly now, gave his arm to his little companion and they started to
walk back and forth on the lawn as others were doing. His face was now
turned from Tilly, but subconsciously he could fairly feel her
proximity. John almost loved the little woman on his arm. How could he
help it? She was so kind to him.
They were turning toward the steps when Tilly and Eperson approached.
There was a wilted look of resignation on Eperson's face, a sentient
animation in Tilly's eyes and about her lips, when she said to John:
"I hope you are having a good time and meeting all the girls. Sally said
she would look after you."
He smiled and nodded. Something seemed to bear down on his brain and
befog his sight. The lights, the lawn, the people, swirled around him.
"Yes, I'm all right," he said.
They were all on the veranda now and Joel stood facing his rival, a look
of wondering respect in his shrinking gaze.
"Oh, Joel!" a voice was heard, and Sally Teasdale approached. "We need
you. Mother is going to serve the refreshments and all the men who know
the ins and outs of our kitchen are helping wait on the crowd. Will you
come? Father is already unable to walk steady."