It must have been daylight before I worried my way into a sleep that
seemed jagged and sharp-cornered with many an evil turn; and when I
awoke the sun was shining. I looked out, and far across the field I saw
Alf, walking behind his plow. The hour was late for one to rise in the
country, for the sun was far above the tops of the trees. But I cared
not for any impression that might be made by my apparent laziness; my
head was heavy and my heart was crushed. No sound came from below, and
after dressing--and how mean my clothes did look--I sat down at my
writing desk--sat and mused, just as I had seen Guinea sitting, with her
elbows on the table and with her chin in her hands. And Alf would ask
the old man to tell me something. Tell me what?
I went down stairs. Mrs. Jucklin was sweeping the yard. She put down her
broom upon seeing me and came forward, wiping her hands. I began to
apologize for being so late. "Oh, that makes no difference," she said.
"Alf told us not to wake you. I will go in and fix you something to
eat."
"Now, don't put yourself to any trouble, for, really, I couldn't eat a
bite; I'm not very well. Where is Mr. Jucklin?"
"Why, you must eat something. He's gone to the blacksmith shop broke the
point off his plow against a rock and had to go and get it fixed. He
ought to be back by now. It ain't but a little ways down the road. Are
you goin' over there? Well, if you see him tell him that Guinea and I
are goin' to see Mrs. Parker and won't be back till evenin'. Tell him
that we'll leave everything on the table."
Down the road I went, looking for the blacksmith shop, and I had not
gone far before I saw the old man coming, with his plow on his shoulder.
He was talking to himself and did not see me until I spoke to him. "Let
me take that plow," I said. "Give it to me. I'm stronger than you."
"I reckon you are right," he replied, looking up at me with a grin, "but
I can tote it all right enough."
But I took the plow from him, and walked along with it on my shoulder,
waiting for him to say something.
"You haven't seen Alf this mornin', have you?" he asked.
"No; I was asleep when he got up. Why?"
"Well, jest wanted to know. Alf takes some strange notions into his head
once in a long while, and he had one this mornin'. Told me to tell you
suthin' that very few folks know. Don't know why, unless he thinks more
of you than he does of any other young man. Never saw him take to a
person as he has to you. And I reckon I better tell you. But I hate to
talk about it."
We walked on in silence, and in my impatience I shifted the plow from
one shoulder to the other. "I'll take it when you git tired of it," he
said. "Now, it may be putty hard for you to understand the situation,
and I'm free to say that I can't make it so very plain, but I'll do the
best I can. One day, a long time ago, old General Lundsford came to
me--long after I had wallowed him, you understand. And now as to that
wallowin', why, he could have killed me if he had wanted to. He's game.
Well, he came to me, and about as nearly as I can ricollect said this:
'My son Chydister, strong-headed little rascal that he is, vows an'
declares that when he grows up he is goin' to marry your daughter
Guinea. I'll be frank with you and tell you that I didn't approve of it,
and I scouted the idea, not that your daughter ain't as good as any
girl, but because I don't mind tellin' you, I've got a family name to
keep up. I told him this, but he was so young and so headstrong that he
swore that it made no difference to him. You know they have played
together, up and down the branch, and he thinks there aint nobody like
her. Well, sir, he kept on talkin about it until I knowed that he was
set, and that there wasn't any use to try to turn him, so I began to
think it over seriously. That boy is my life's blood, and I want to
please him in every way I can, and I don't want him to marry beneath
him. I'm goin' to make a doctor out of him, the very best that can be
made, and his companion must be an educated woman. They are goin' to
marry when they grow up in spite of anything we can do, and now I've
got a request to make of you. I know that you wouldn't let me give you a
cent of money, but as an honest man you can't refuse to let me lend you
enough money to send your daughter to school along with my own daughter;
and whenever you think that you are able to pay me back, all right, and
if you never are able, it will still be all right.'"
The old man paused, and now I walked, along carrying the plow in front
of me, stumbling, seeing no road, caring not whither my feet might
wander. "I'll take it now," he said, reaching for the plow. "You don't
know how to tote it, nohow."
I pushed him back and said: "Go on with your story."
I was walking so fast that he was almost trotting to keep up with me.
"Right there I was weak," he said. "I thought of what a bright creature
my girl was, thought of what education would do for her, thought that I
could soon pay back the money, and I agreed. And I want to tell you that
it has been hot ashes on me ever since. They are goin' to marry all
right enough, but it galls me to think that I had to send her out to
have her educated at another man's expense--cuts me to think that she
wasn't good enough for any man just as I could give her to him. And I'm
goin' to pay back that money if I have to sell this strip of poor dirt,
that's what I'm goin' to do. Yes, sir, even if it's ten years after they
are married. Chyd is off at school now, and has been for a long time;
only comes home for a while at vacation, and it seems to me that if
he's goin' to be a doctor it's time he was at it. But I understand that
they are goin' to send him to another place after he gits through with
this one. I don't know much about him, but they say that he's a
first-rate sort of a fellow. Oh, I knowed him well enough when he was
little, but I haven't seen so very much of him since he growed up.
Guinea thinks all the world of him, of course, and says that they were
born for each other. Gimme that plow here. You don't know how to tote it
nohow. I'm not goin' right straight back to the field; I'm goin' to the
house. Them hot ashes is on me an inch thick."
I let him take the plow; I left him at the draw bars, and with heavy and
dragging feet I climbed up to my room. I sat down to my desk, but not
with elbows resting on the board, not with my chin in my hands; I
couldn't bear to think of that attitude. Now, I understood why she had
said "Oh" with such coolness when I had declared that I hated doctors.
My heart was freezing, my head was hot, and in a fevered fancy I saw
Guinea and that boy playing up and down the rivulet. I saw them wading
in the water; heard him tell her that when they grew up she must be his
wife, and I saw her, holding her dress about her ankles, look up at him
and smile. I knew that he had never been awkward, I knew that he looked
like Bentley, knew that he would have made fun of me, and down in my
heart there was a poisonous hatred, yellow, green, venomous. I am
seeking to hide nothing; I cannot paint myself as a generous and
high-minded man. When stirred, I seem to have more rank sap than other
men--less reason, more senseless passion. I roared at the picture,
sitting there gripping the desk, and frightened it away; and to myself I
acknowledged the faults which I now set forth, but an acknowledgment of
a fault is not within itself virtue. The fool's recourse is to call
himself a fool, to upbraid himself, curse himself and then in
graciousness to pardon himself. You might as well reason with a
rattlesnake, striking at you--might as well seek to temporize and argue
with a dog drooling hydrophobic foam, as to tell the human heart what it
ought to do. Reason is a business matter and it can make matches, but it
cannot make love.
Long I sat there, gripping the desk, gazing at the rafters overhead,
groaning in the lover's conscious luxury of despair. Should I go away?
No; I would stay and see it out. I would be light and gay--a bear's
waltz. I would laugh and rebuke fate; I would punish Guinea for having
played with that boy up and down the brook; I would be all sorts of a
fool.
The old man's voice came ringing through the air. "Hike, there, Sam;
hike, there, Bob. Get him down. Hike, there!"
He was having a round with his chickens, to fan off the atmosphere of
humiliation, to blow away the hot ashes that were so thick upon him. I
remembered that I had not delivered Mrs. Jucklin's message, and I
hastened out to the "stockade," and knocked at the gate. "Hike, there,
boys! Who's that? Whoa, boys, that'll do! Go in there, Sam! Ho, it's
you, eh?" he said, opening the gate. "Sorry, but you didn't git here
quite in time. You had the opportunity, but you flung it away. What,
gone over to Parker's? That's all right. Well, I must be gettin' back to
the field. Looks like the grass will take me in spite of everything I
can do. You'll help until they get the school-house built? Now, I'm much
obleeged to you, but we can't rig up another outfit. Why, yander you go
already," he added, pointing to a wagon load of lumber drawn along the
road. "It's Perdue's wagon. Yander comes another one, with Ren Bowles,
the carpenter, on board. Oh, they are goin' to rush things. I've heard
that already this mornin'. You never saw a neighborhood stirred up much
worse than this one is over that affair, and there is strong talk of
lynchin' them fellers; and this mornin' a party went over to see old
Aimes and told him that if he wan't gone by 10 o'clock they would string
him up, and I reckon he's gone by this time. They are makin' great
heroes oute'n you and Alf, I tell you. A number of 'em wanted to see
you, but Alf wouldn't let 'em wake you up. I saw Parker while I was down
at the shop; he'd jest got back from town; and he told me that the grand
jury that's now in session would indict them fellers to-day, and as
court is already set they may be brought to trial for murderous assault
and arson right away, and I want to tell you that they'll do well if
they save their necks. Parker said that he reckoned you and Alf better
go over to Purdy to-morrow. Well, I must git back, for that grass is
musterin' its forces every minute I'm away."
I worried through the day, saw Guinea in a haze, heard her voice afar
off, and at night I went to bed worn out and limp. Alf did not come up
until some time after I lay down. He came softly whistling a doleful air
to prove that his sympathies were with me, sat down upon the edge of my
bed and remained there a long time motionless and silent. I knew not
what to say to him and he was evidently puzzled as to what he ought to
say to me. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth may speak, but out
of the heart's fullness there also flows a silence.
"Bill," he said, reaching over and turning down the light which I had
left brightly burning, "I killed a snake to-day that I reckon must be
six feet long. Came crawling across the field as if he had important
business over in the woods, but he didn't get there. Ever kill many big
snakes?"
"Not very many," I answered, "but I am well acquainted with them and I
have been bitten by a big snake that lies coiled about the universe,
striking at a heart whenever he sees it."
He got up, blew out the low blaze of the lamp, and sat down on his own
bed, I could tell from the creaking of the slats; and after a time he
said something about the gridiron on which a man was compelled to
wallow. Ordinarily I would have laughed, hot ashes on the father and hot
coals under the son, but now I sighed deeply.
"Bill, you know, the other day I said that there was something in my
favor, an outgrowth of my sister's education. A family union, don't you
see? But I had no idea when I said it that this very thing would put the
fire under a man that has stood by me. I'm awfully sorry that things had
to be shaped that way. You know what I mean; father told you all about
it. Is it bad, Bill? I won't say a word about it and the old folks don't
suspect a thing, but do you love her much? Tell me just as if she wasn't
any kin to me."
"Did the martyrs who stood in the fire love their God?" I asked.
He sighed. "She's got you, Bill. The time has been so short that I
didn't think it could be so bad, but love doesn't look at the clock nor
keep a calendar. Are you going to try to keep on living, Bill?"
"Yes, I'm going to study law when I get through with this school, and
I'm going to make the law of divorce a specialty. If I can't do I may
undo; I'm going to be a wolf, and whenever I see a man aiming a gun at
another man, I'm not going to catch the hammers. Why, yesterday my heart
was tender because it thought to please her. Discretion! I've got no
discretion. I'm a brute. I murdered an innocent rabbit on my way to your
home--killed it just because I could; and what man is as innocent as a
rabbit? Yes, Alf, I am going to live."
"But you won't hate Guinea, will you? She couldn't help it."
"Oh, I couldn't hate her. No, I won't hate her; I'm going to stand by,
ready to give her my life whenever I think she needs it."
And thus we talked, senseless creatures, sighing in the dark. But so it
is with human life everywhere--a foolish chatter and in the dark a
sighing.
Several days passed and yet we were not summoned to appear at court. I
did not avoid Guinea, neither did I seek her. But often we were
together, sometimes alone, on the oak bench under the tree, at the
spring, on the old and smooth rock at the brink of the ravine; and her
smile none the less bright, was warmer with sympathy. A Sunday had gone
by and Alf had seen Millie, but she was riding to church with Dan
Stuart.
One evening Parker sent us word to be in Purdy early the next day. And
at dawn the next morning the buck-board stood ready for the journey.
Mrs. Jucklin had worked nearly the night through, baking bread and
roasting chickens to tide us over the trip. Alf complained at the load
we were expected to carry, and this grieved her. "You know there's
nothin' fitten to eat there," she said. "You know that Lum Smith stayed
there three days year before last and come home and was sick for a
month. Mr. Hawes, I appeal to you--make him take it."
And off we drove with our bread and roasted chickens. The women stood on
the step and shouted at us, and we waved our hands at them as we turned
a bend in the road. Ours was an important journey, and many of the
neighbors came out as we passed along and cried words of encouragement.
On a hill-top we heard the gallop of a horse, and out of a lane dashed a
girl--Millie. She smiled at us, nodded as her horse jumped, and gave us
a gleam of her white hand as she sped off down into the woods.
"They tell us that the Savior rode an ass," said Alf, "but we have seen
heaven gallop by on a horse." He stood up and gazed toward the woods.
Our horse gradually came to a standstill, but Alf stood there, gazing,
shading his eyes with his hand. "It ain't the sun that dazzles," he
said. "It's her smile."
"She'll make a poet of you, Alf."
"She could do more than that; she could make a man of me."
I don't know of a more dingy and desolate-looking town than Purdy. The
houses are old, and the streets are rutted. The court-house, in the
center of the square--my temple of fame--is mean and rain-streaked. And
this is what I saw at a glance: An enormous wooden watch, with its paint
cracking off, hanging in front of a jeweler's; the mortar and pestle of
a druggist on top of a post; a brick jail, with a pale face at the bars;
lawyers' signs; doctors' signs; a livery stable, with a negro in front,
pouring water on the wheels of a buggy; a red-looking negro, with a
string of shuck horse collars; a dog in front of the court-house
sniffing at a hog; the tavern, with its bell outside on a pole; men
pitching horse-shoes in the shade; a woman, with her arms on a gate; a
girl trying to pull a dirty child into a yard; a man in front of a store
stuffing straw into a box; horses tied to racks about the square; men
lolling about the court-house--these features made the face of Purdy.
We had put up the horse, Alf had gone to see a friend of his and I was
walking past a vacant lot when some one shouted at me, and, turning
round, I saw a man coming toward me. "Helloa, there," he said, coming
up, smiling. "You ought not to forget your old friends."
"Oh," I replied, recalling his face, "you are the agent at the station
where I got off the train."
"Yes, used to be," he said, shaking hands with me, "but I'm over here
now, but not as a railroad agent, for there's no road here. I am the
honored and distinguished telegraph operator of this commercial
emporium. Couldn't stay over yonder any longer. No calico--not a rag
there. Got to see the flirt of calico. See that?" A woman was passing.
"You can stand here and see it going along all the time, and you've got
to be mighty respectful toward it, I tell you, for there's a shot-gun in
every house and a father or a brother more than ready to pull both
triggers at once. That's right, I suppose; but it does hamper a fellow
mightily. Ever in St. Louis? That's the place. Muslin and soft goods
everywhere and nine chances to one there ain't a gun in the house. Might
be, you know, but there is so much mull and moriantique and all that
sort of thing that there ain't guns enough to go round, so you can
smile and nod on the street; but you can't do it here. Here you've got
to have a three-ply, doubled and twisted introduction before you can
smile even at cottonade. I've been here a week, and hold about the most
responsible position in the town, and society hasn't taken me up yet,
but I reckon it will after a while. I reckon you could get in all right.
They have heard all about your fight--know that you are game, and
nothing counts more than that, for they have an idea that a game fellow
is always a gentleman."
Just then a boy came up and told him that there was a call. "I'll be
there after a while," the operator replied. "Go on back. I've been
pitching horse-shoes with some fellows," he continued, speaking to me,
"and ain't quite through yet. I'll have to teach him so that he will be
able to tell them that I'm busy when I'm not there. I've found out that
what we want in this life is leisure. People are getting too swift.
There's no need of half the telegraphing that's done. Why don't they
write and save trouble and expense? There goes a nice piece of calico. I
must get acquainted with it, too, I tell you. Well, believe I'll stroll
on back. Come in while you're here. The trial won't take up much of your
time. It's all pretty much cut and dried, anyway."
At 10 o'clock the Aimes brothers were brought before the bar. The jury
was already selected and the trial was at once taken up. I was put upon
the stand and instructed to tell my story without any fear of reflecting
too much credit upon myself. I could see that they wanted a thrilling
recital and I gave it to them. And when Alf followed, he found them
eager for more. The prosecuting attorney made a speech, as red as the
fire that had burned the school-house; the lawyer appointed for the
defence made a few cool remarks, and the case was closed. We were
anxious to take the verdict home with us, and we had made preparations
to remain over night, but the jury came to an agreement without leaving
the box, so we had nothing to do but to return home. The Aimes brothers
were given a term of fifteen years each in the penitentiary.
The sun was down when we got upon the buck-board, and over the road we
drove, under the stars, our stars, for in sympathy they looked down upon
us. The moon was late, but we preferred the dark--it was sadder.
"I wonder how it's all going to end," said Alf. "If we could only rip
apart that black thing down the road and look into the future."
"And if you could rip it," I replied, "if you could and were about to do
so, I would grab your hand with a harder grip than I gave the gun when I
caught the hammers."
"Then you don't want to know? You'd rather continue to writhe on the
gridiron than to turn over and fall into the fire and end the matter?"
"Alf," said I, "does it strike you that we are a couple of as big fools
as ever drove along a county road?"
"Whoa!" he shouted, pulling upon the reins and stopping the horse. And
then he laughed. "Fools; why, two idiots are two Solomons compared with
us. Let's stop it; let's be sensible; let's be men."
"I'm with you, Alf. Shake hands."
We drove along in silence. After a long time he said: "Here's where she
crossed the road; and do you see that?" he asked, pointing to the Milky
Way. "That was done by the waving of her hand. I wish to the Lord I knew
just how much she thinks of Dan Stuart."
"Ah, but that wouldn't relieve you," I replied, "for I know how much
Guinea thinks of Chyd Lundsford and feel all the worse for it. There are
always two hopes, walking with a doubt, one on each side, but a
certainty walks alone."
"I reckon you are right," he rejoined with a sigh. "How many strange
things love will make a man say, things that an unpoisoned man would
never think of. Poisoned is the word, Bill; and I'll bet that if I'd
bite a man it would kill him in a minute."
"What sort of a fellow is young Lundsford?" I asked, with my teeth set
and my feet braced against the dashboard.
"Oh, he ain't a bad fellow; he ain't our sort exactly, but he's all
right."
"Smart and full of poetry, isn't he?"
"I never heard him say anything that had poetry in it. Don't think he
knows half as much about books as you do. Oh, about certain sorts of
books he does, books with skeletons in them, but knowing all about
skeletons don't make a man interesting to a woman. I have read enough
to find that out. Why, I have more than held my own with men that are
well up in special books--have held my own with all except that fellow
Stuart. Now there's Etheredge, that I told you about one day--kin to Dan
Stuart. He's a doctor, and they tell me that he is well educated, but I
never heard him say a thing worth remembering. I reckon old Mrs. Nature
has a good deal to do with it after all."
They were sitting up waiting for us at home, although it was past the
midnight hour when we drove into the yard. Old Lim snorted when he
learned that the Aimes boys were not to be hanged, but his wife,
merciful creature, was saddened to think that even more mercy had not
been shown them. And then she anxiously inquired whether we had found
ourselves short in the matter of provisions. We told her that we had
brought back nearly all the load which her kindness had imposed upon us,
and then with disappointment she said: "Goodness alive, why didn't you
give it to those poor fellows to take to the penitentiary with 'em, for
I know that there's nothin' there fitten to eat."
The old man stood looking at her, with his coat off and with his
shirt-sleeves rolled up. "Susan," said he, "I don't want to git mad, I
don't want to go out yander, snatch them chickens out of the coop an'
make 'em nod at each other in the dark, but when you talk that way you
almost drive me--by jings, you almost drive me out there agin that tree,
hard enough to butt the bark off. Do you reckon they are takin' them
fellers down there to feed 'em, to fatten 'em up and then turn 'em
loose? Hah, is that your idee? 'Zounds, madam, they are lucky to get
there with their necks. And here you are lamentin' that there's nothin'
at the penitentiary fitten to eat. Go on to bed, Susan, for if you don't
I'm afeered that I'll have to say somethin' to hurt your feelin's, and
then I'd worry about it all night."
"Now Limuel, what is the use in snortin' round that way? Can't a body
say a word?"
"It do look like a body can," he rejoined; "and I'm afeered that a body
will, and that's the reason I want you to go to bed."
Old Lim sat down and the subject was dropped. I noticed his wife looking
anxiously at me, and just as I was about to leave the room she said:
"Mr. Hawes, you'll please pardon me for mentionin' it, but there's a
button off your coat, and I'll be glad to sew it on if you will be so
kind as to leave it down here."
"No, I will sew it on," Guinea spoke up. "Give me your coat, Mr. Hawes."
"I will not be the means of keeping you up any longer," I replied,
looking into her eyes, and feeling the thrill of their sweet poison; "I
will do it myself."
"And rob me of a pleasure?" she asked.
"No, relieve you of a drudgery. Come on, Alf."
Two fools went to bed in the dark and sighed themselves to sleep, and
two fools dreamed; I know that one did--dreamed of eyes and smiles and a
laugh like a musical cluck.