"THE LIGHT THAT LIES"
During the summer Sandy worked faithfully to make amends for his
failure to win the scholarship. He had meekly accepted the torrent of
abuse which Mrs. Hollis poured forth, and the open disapproval shown
by the Meeches; he had winced under Martha's unspoken reproaches, and
groaned over the judge's quiet disappointment.
"You see, my boy," the judge said one day when they were alone, "I had
set my heart on taking you into the office after next year. I had
counted on the scholarship to put you through your last year at the
academy."
"It was the fool I was," cried Sandy, in deep contrition, "but if
ye'll trust me the one time more, may I die in me traces if I ever
stir out of them!"
So sincere was his desire to make amends that he asked to read law
with the judge in the evenings after his work was done. Nothing could
have pleased the judge more; he sat with his back to the lamp and his
feet on the window-sill, expounding polemics to his heart's desire.
Sandy sat in the shadow and whittled. Sometimes he did not listen at
all, but when he did, it was with an intensity of attention, an utter
absorption in the subject, that carried him straight to the heart of
the matter. Meanwhile he was unconsciously receiving a life-imprint of
the old judge's native nobility.
From the first summer Sandy had held a good position at the
post-office. His first earnings had gone to a round little surgeon on
board the steamship _America_. But since then his funds had run rather
low. What he did not lend he contributed, and the result was a chronic
state of bankruptcy.
"You must be careful with your earnings," the judge warned. "It is
not easy to live within an income."
"Easier within it than without it, sir," Sandy answered from deep
experience.
After the Lexington episode Sandy had shunned Martha somewhat; when he
did go to see her, he found she was sick in bed.
"She never was strong," said Mrs. Meech, sitting limp and disconsolate
on the porch. "Mr. Meech and I never thought to keep her this long.
The doctor says it's the beginning of the end. She's so patient it's
enough to break your heart."
Sandy went without his dinner that day, and tramped to town and back,
in the glare of the noon sun, to get her a basket of fruit. Then he
wrote her a letter so full of affection and sympathy that it brought
the tears to his own eyes as he wrote. He took the basket with the
note and left them at her door, after which he promptly forgot all
about her. For his whole purpose in life these days, aside from
assisting the government in the distribution of mail and reading a
musty old volume of Blackstone, was learning to dance.
In ten days was the opening of the county fair, and Sandy had received
an invitation to be present at the fair hop, which was the social
excitement of the season. It was to be his introduction into society,
and he was determined to acquit himself with credit.
He assiduously practised the two-step in the back room of the
post-office when the other clerk was out for lunch; he tried elaborate
and ornate bows upon Aunt Melvy, who considered even the mildest "reel
chune" a direct communication from the devil. The moment the
post-office closed he hastened to Dr. Fenton's, where Annette was
taking him through a course of private lessons.
Dr. Fenton's house was situated immediately upon the street. Opening
the door, one passed into a small square hall where the Confederate
flag hung above a life-size portrait of General Lee. On every side
were old muskets and rusty swords, large pictures of decisive
battles, and maps of the siege of Vicksburg and the battle of Bull
Run. In the midst of this warlike atmosphere sat the unreconstructed
little doctor, wearing his gray uniform and his gray felt hat, which
he removed only when he ate and slept.
Here he ostensibly held office hours, but in reality he was doing
sentry duty. His real business in life was keeping up with Annette,
and his diversion was in the constant perusal of a slim sheet known as
"The Confederate Veteran."
It was Sandy's privilege to pass the lines unchallenged. In fact, the
doctor's strict surveillance diminished, and he was occasionally
guilty of napping at the post when Sandy was with Annette.
"Come in, come in," he said one day. "Just looking over the 'Veteran.'
Ever hear of Sam Davis? Greatest hero South ever knew! That's his
picture. Wasn't afraid of any damned Yankee that ever pulled a
trigger."
"Was he a rebel?" asked the unfortunate Sandy.
The doctor swelled with indignation. "He was a Confederate, sir! I
never knew a rebel."
"It was the Confederates that wore the gray?" asked Sandy, trying to
cover his blunder.
"They did," said the doctor. "I put it on at nineteen, and I'll be
buried in it. Yes, sir; and my hat. Wouldn't wear blue for a farm.
Hate the sight of it so, that I might shoot myself by mistake. Ever
look over these maps? This was the battle of--"
A door opened and a light head was thrust out.
"Now, d-dad, you hush this minute! You've told him that over and over.
Sandy's my company. Come in here, Sandy."
A few moments later there was a moving of chairs, and Annette's voice
was counting, "One, two, three; one, two, three," while Sandy went
through violent contortions in his efforts to waltz. He had his
tongue firmly between his teeth and his eyes fixed on vacancy as he
revolved in furniture--destroying circles about the small parlor.
"That isn't right," cried Annette. "You've lost the time. You d-dance
with the chair, Sandy, and I'll p-play the p-piano."
"No, you don't!" he cried. "I'll dance with you and put the chair at
the piano, but I'll dance with no chair."
Annette sank, laughing and exhausted, upon the sofa and looked up at
him hopelessly. Her hair had tumbled down, making her look more like a
child than ever.
"You are so b-big," she said; "and you've got so m-many feet!"
"The more of me to love ye."
"I wonder if you d-do?" She put her chin on her palms, looking at him
sidewise.
"Don't ye do that again!" he cried. "Haven't I passed ye the warning
never to look at me when you fix your mouth like that?"
She tried to call him a goose, though she knew that _g_'s were fatal.
A moment later she sat at one end of the sofa in pretended dudgeon,
while Sandy tried to make his peace from the other.
"May the lightning strike me dead if I ever do it again without the
asking! I'll be good now--honest to goodness, Nettie. I'll shut me
eyes when you take the hurdles, and be blind to temptation. Won't ye
be putting me on about the hop now, and what I must do?"
Annette counted her fraternity pins and tried to look severe. She used
them in lieu of scalps, and they encircled her neck, fastened her
belt, and on state occasions even adorned her shoe-buckles.
"Well," she at last said, "to b-begin with, you must be nice to
everyb-body. You mustn't sit out more than one d-dance with one
g-girl, and you must b-break in on every dance I'm not sitting out."
"Break in? Sit out?" repeated Sandy, realizing that the intricacies
of society are manifold.
"Of course," said his mentor. "Whenever you see the g-girl you like
dancing with any one else, you just p-put your hand on the man's
shoulder, and then she d-dances with you."
"And will they all stop for me?" cried Sandy, not understanding at all
why he should have the preference.
"Surely," said Annette. "And sitting out is when you like a girl so
m-much that you would rather take her away to some quiet little corner
and talk to her than to d-dance with her."
"That'll never be me," cried Sandy--"not while the band plays."
"Shall we try it again?" she asked; and with much scoffing and
scolding on her part, and eloquent apologies and violent exertion on
his, they struggled onward toward success.
In the midst of the lesson there was a low whistle at the side
window. Annette dropped Sandy's hands and put her finger to her lips.
"It's Carter," she whispered. "D-dad doesn't allow him to come here."
"Little's the wonder," grumbled Sandy.
Annette's eyes were sparkling at the prospect of forbidden fruit. She
tiptoed to the window and opened the shutter a few inches.
At the opening Carter's face appeared. It was a pale, delicate face,
over-sensitive, over-refined, with the stamp of weakness on every
feature. His restless, nervous eyes were slightly bloodshot, and there
was a constant twitching about his lips. But as he pushed back the
shutter and leaned carelessly against the sill, there was an easy
grace in his figure and a devil-may-care light in his eyes that would
have stirred the heart of a maiden less susceptible than the one who
smiled upon him from between the muslin curtains.
He laughed lightly as he caught at a flying lock of her hair.
"You little coward! Why didn't you meet me?"
She frowned significantly and made warning gestures toward the
interior of the room.
At the far window, standing with his back to them, was Mr. Sandy
Kilday. He was engaged in a fierce encounter with an unnamed monster
whose eyes were green. During his pauses for breath he composed a few
comprehensive and scathing remarks which he intended to bestow upon
Miss Fenton at his earliest convenience. Fickleness was a thing not to
be tolerated. She had confessed her preference for him over all
others; she must and should prove it. Just when his indignation had
reached the exploding-point, he heard his name called.
"Sandy," cried Annette, "what do you think? Ruth is coming home!
Carter is on his way to the d-depot to meet her now. She's been gone
nearly a year. I never was so crazy to see anyb-body in all my life."
Sandy wheeled about. "Which depot?" he cried excitedly; and without
apologies or farewell he dashed out of the house and down the street.
When the Pullman train came into the Clayton station, he was leaning
against a truck in a pose of studied indifference. Out of the tail of
his eye he watched the passengers alight.
There were the usual fat women and thin men, tired women with
children, and old women with baskets, but no sign of a small girl with
curls hanging down her back and dresses to her shoe-tops.
Suddenly he caught his breath. Standing in the car door, like a saint
in a niche, was a radiant figure in a blue traveling-suit, with a bit
of blue veil floating airily from her hat brim. She was not the little
girl he was looking for, but he transferred his devotion at a bound;
for long skirts and tucked-up curls rendered her tenfold more
worshipful than before.
He watched her descend from her pedestal, bestow an affectionate kiss
upon her brother, then look eagerly around for other familiar faces.
In one heart-suspending instant her eyes met his, she hesitated in
confusion, then blushed and bowed.
Sandy reeled home in utter intoxication of spirit. Even the town pump
wore a halo of glorified rosy mist.
At the gate he met Mrs. Hollis returning from a funeral. With a sudden
descent from his ethereal mood he pounced upon her and, in spite of
violent protestations, danced her madly down the walk and deposited
her breathless upon the milk-bench.
"He's getting worse all the time," she complained to Aunt Melvy, who
had watched the performance with great glee.
"Yas,'m," said Aunt Melvy, with a fond look at his retreating figure.
"He's jus' like a' Irish potato: when he ain't powerful cold, he's
powerful hot."