THE sun--and it had never seemed to shine so brightly before--had been
up about half an hour when the couple drove up to Porter's gate.
“There's mother at the window now,” Cynthia said, as she got out of the
buggy. “I can see that she's angry even from here.”
“I'll hitch Jack and go in and explain,” offered Floyd.
“Oh no, don't!” Cynthia said, quickly. “I'll tell her all about it. Go
on. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, then,” Floyd said, and he drove on to the village.
But Mrs. Porter did not come to the door to meet her as Cynthia
expected. The girl found her alone in the sitting-room seated sulkily at
the fireplace, where a few sticks of damp wood were burning gloomily.
“Well, where did you spend the night?” the old woman asked, icily.
Cynthia stood before her, withered to her soul by the tone in which her
mother's question had been asked.
“You are not going to like it a bit, mother,” the girl said, resignedly.
“The storm overtook us just as we got to Long's mill. The horse was
frightened and about to run away and the road was awfully dangerous.
There was nothing for us to do but to go in.”
“Long's mill! Oh, my God! there is no one living there, nor in miles of
it!”
“I know it, mother.”
Mrs. Porter buried her pale, wrinkled face in her hands and leaned
forward in her chair, her sharp elbows on her knees.
“I'm never going to get over this!” she groaned--“never--never; and you
are my _only_ child!”
“Mother!” Cynthia bent down and almost with anger drew the old woman's
hand from her face. “Do you know what you are saying? Do you know
that--that you may drive me from home with that insinuation?”
Mrs. Porter groaned. She got up stiffly, and, like a mechanical thing
moved by springs, she caught her daughter's wrist and led her to a
window, sternly staring at her from her great, sunken eyes. “Do you mean
to tell me that you and _that_ man sat together all the live-long night
in that mill?”
“Mother, I was completely tired out. There was some fodder on the floor.
I sat down on it, and after a long time I dropped asleep. He did too. He
was near the door, and I--”
Mrs. Porter extended the stiff fingers of her hand and plucked a piece
of fodder from Cynthia's hair, and held it sneeringly up to the light.
“It's a pity you didn't have a comb and brush with you,” she said. “You'd
have been supplied at a hotel. Your hair is all in a mess. I'm going to
keep this little thing. Light as it is, it has knocked life and hope out
of me.”
Cynthia looked at her steadily for a moment, and then turned from the
room. “I'm not going to defend myself against such suspicions as you
have,” she said from the door. “I know what I am, if you don't.”
“I reckon this whole county will know what you are before many days,”
snarled Mrs. Porter. “Minnie Wade had somebody in her family with
enough manhood in 'im to want to defend her honor, but you haven't. Your
sleepy-headed old father--” The girl was gone. For several minutes the
old woman stood quivering in the warm sunlight at the window, and then
she stalked calmly through the dining-room and kitchen and out to the
barn. One of the stable-doors was open, and she could see her husband
inside.
“Nathan Porter!” she called out--“you come here. I've got something to
tell you.”
“All right,” he answered. “I'll be thar in a minute. Dern yore lazy
soul, hain't I give you enough corn to eat without you havin' to chaw
up a brand-new trough? I'm a good mind to take this curry-comb an' bust
yore old head with it!”
“Nathan Porter, I say, come out here! Let that horse alone!”
“All right, I'm a-comin'. Now, I reckon I'll have to fetch a hammer an'
saw an' nails an' buy planks to make another trough, jest fer you to
chaw up into powder.”
“Nathan Porter, do you hear me?”
“Well, I reckon ef I don't, they do over at Baker's,” and the farmer,
bareheaded and without his coat, came from the stable.
“That blasted hoss has deliberately set to work an' chaw--”
“Nathan Porter”--the old woman thrust her slim fingers into his
face--“do you see that piece of fodder?”
“Yes, I see it. Is it a sample o' last year's crop? Are you buy in' or
sellin'? You mought 'a' fetched a bundle of it. A tiny scrap like--”
“I got that out o' Cynthia's hair.”
“You don't say! It must be a new sort o' ornament! I wouldn't be
surprised to see a woman with a bundle of it under each arm on the front
bench at meetin' after seein' them Wilson gals t'other night ready fer
the dance with flour in the'r hair an' the ace o' spades pasted on the'r
cheeks.”
“Cynthia and Nelson Floyd stayed all night in Long's mill,” panted Mrs.
Porter. “There wasn't another soul there nor in miles of it.”
“Huh, you don't say!” the farmer sniffed. “I reckon ef they had 'a' sent
out a proclamation through the country that they was goin' to stay thar
a lot o' folks would 'a' waded through the storm to be present.”
“I got this out of her hair, I tell you!” the old woman went on,
fiercely. “Her head was all messed up, and so was her dress. If you've
got any manhood in you, you'll go to town and call Nelson Floyd out and
settle this thing.”
“Huh! Me go to his store on his busiest day an' ax 'im about a piece o'
fodder no bigger'n a gnat's wing? He'd tell me I was a dern fool, an'
I'd deserve it. Oh! see what you are a-drivin' at, an' I tell you it
gits me out o' patience. You women are so dad blasted suspicious
an' guilty at the bottom yorese'ves that you imagine bad acts is as
plentiful as the leaves on the ground in the fall. Now, let me tell you,
you hain't obeying the Scriptural injunction to judge not lest ye
be judged accordin'ly. I want you to let that little gal an' her
sweetheart business alone. You hain't a-runnin' it. You don't have to
live with the feller she picks out, an' you hain't no say whatever in
the matter. Nur you h'aint got no say, nuther, as to the way she does
her particular courtin'. The Lord knows, nobody was kind enough to put
in away back thar when you was makin' sech a dead set fer me. Folks talk
a little about Floyd, but let me tell you my _own_ character them days
wasn't as white as snow. I don't know many men wuth the'r salt that
hain't met temptation. I sorter cut a wide swath 'fore I left the turf,
an' you know it. Didn't I hear you say once that you reckoned you never
would 'a' tuck me ef I'd 'a' been after you day an' night? You knowed
thar was other fish in the sea, an' you didn't have any bait to speak
of, with them Turner gals an' the'r nigger slaves an' plantations in
the'r own right livin' next door to pa's. Yore old daddy said out open
that you an' yore sister needn't expect a dollar from him; he'd educated
you, an' that was all he could do. I hain't grumblin', mind you. I never
cry over spilt milk; it hain't sensible. It don't help a body out of a
bad matter into a better one.”
“Oh, I wish you'd hush and listen to me.” Mrs. Porter had not heard half
he had said. “I tell you Cynthia and that man stayed all night long in
that lonely mill together, an' she came home at sunrise this morning all
rumpled up and--”
“Now, you stop right thar! _You stop right thar!_” Porter said, with as
much sternness as he could command. “As to stayin' in that mill all by
the'rse'ves, I want you jest to put on yore thinkin'-cap, ef the old
thing hain't wore clean to tatters or laid away till it's moth-et. Do
you remember when that lonely old widder Pelham pegged out durin' our
courtin'-time? You do? _Well!_ We went thar--you an' me did--expectin'
to meet the Trabue crowd, an' that passle o' young folks from Hanson's,
to set up with the corpse. Well, when me'n' you got thar about eight
o'clock the Trabue crowd sent word that as long as the Hanson lay-out
was comin', they believed they wouldn't drive so fur; an' right on top
o' that come a message from the Hanson folks, sayin' that you an' me an'
the Trabues was as many as the little house would hold, so they would
stay away; an' thar you an' me was with nobody to make us behave but a
dead woman, an' _her_ screwed down tight in a box. I remember as clear
as day that you laughed an' said you didn't care, an' you set in to
makin' coffee an' cookin' eggs an' one thing another to keep us awake
an' make me think you was handy about a house. Well, now, here's the
moral to that tale. The neighbors--tough as my record was--was kind
enough not to say nasty things about us afterwards, an' it hain't
Christian or motherly of you to start a tale about our gal when as big
a storm as that driv' her an' her beau in out o' danger. Besides, I tell
you, you are standin' in Cynthia's light. She's got as good a right to
the best in the land as anybody, an' I believe Nelson Floyd is goin' to
git married sooner or later. He's had a chance to look over the field,
an' I hope she'll suit 'im. I never made money by marryin', myself, an'
I sorter like the idea o' my child gittin' a comfortable berth. That gal
hain't no common person nohow. She'll show off a fine house as well as
any woman in this state. She's got sense, an' a plenty of it; folks say
she's like me.”
“You don't know what you are talking about.” Mrs. Porter was looking at
the ground. Her hard face had softened; she was drawn perforce to words
at her husband's view of the matter. His rebuke rang harshly in her
ears. She turned towards the house and took several steps, then she
looked back. “I pray God you are right, Nathan,” she said. “Maybe all
the worry I had through the night has made me unable to see the matter
fairly.”
“That's it!” said Porter, as he leaned on the fence; “and let me tell
you, if you don't quit makin' so many mountains out o' mole-hills, an'
worryin' at sech a rate, you'll go like yore sister Martha did. Try
worryin' about _yorese'f_ awhile; ef I thought as mean about my own
child as you do I'd bother about the condition o' my soul.”
With her head hanging low, Mrs. Porter walked slowly to the house. Her
view was more charitable and clearer, though she was so constituted that
she could not at once obey her inclination to apologize to her daughter.
“I'm actually afraid I'm losing my mind,” she said. “I am acting exactly
as Sister Martha did.”