AS Mrs. Porter stepped down into the yard the whippoorwill call sounded
again. “Huh!” she said to herself, exultingly, “I reckon I'll reach
there soon enough to suit you, Nelson Floyd. You wanted to get her away
from her mother's tongue, did you? Well, you'll find that I'm no fool,
if I _am_ old.”
As she emerged from the shade of the apple-trees into the little open
in front of the grape-arbor, Nelson Floyd, the red, impatient flare of a
cigar in his face, appeared in the door-way.
“Thank God you didn't fail me!” he exclaimed, in accents of vast relief.
“For a while I was actually afraid--”
“Afraid that I wouldn't be on time!” Mrs. Porter broke in, with a
metallic little laugh. “I always keep my engagements, Nelson Floyd--or,
I beg your pardon, Cynthia says you don't call yourself by that name
now.”
“Great God, it's _you!_” he exclaimed, and his cigar fell at his feet.
“Why, Mrs. Porter--”
“Oh, we needn't stand here and take up time talking about whether it's
going to rain or not,” she sneered. “The truth is, I'm due in bed. I've
been asleep in my chair half a dozen times since supper. You see, I
promised Cynthia that I'd keep this appointment for her, and she tumbled
into bed, and is snoozing along at a great rate, while I am doing her
work.”
“You--you promised--I--I--don't understand,” Floyd managed to get out
of the chaos of his brain.
“Oh, I reckon you don't see it exactly _our_ way,” Mrs. Porter sneered.
“And that's because of your high opinion of your own charm. There is
nothing on earth that will lead a man from the road of fact as quick as
vanity. You thought my girl would jump at your proposition, but, la me!
she just dallied with you to get you away last Friday night. At least,
that's what I think, for she brought the whole thing to me the next
morning, even telling me how you abused me behind my back. She asked me
how she'd better get out of it. Most girls plunge headlong into things
of this kind without deliberation, but she's not that way. She generally
looks ahead, and the truth is, if I may tell state secrets, she has a
strong leaning towards Brother Hillhouse. He's a good man--a man that
can be counted on--and a man with a respectable family behind him, and,
while I'm not sure about it, I think she intends to accept him.”
“Great God, Mrs. Porter, you don't mean that she--”
“You see there! I knew you were incapable of seeing anything that don't
tend to your own glory. You thought all along that my girl was crazy
about you, but you didn't know her. She's no fool. She's got a long head
on her shoulders.”
“But didn't she--she send me any message?” Floyd asked, in a tone of
abject bewilderment.
“Oh yes, now I come to think of it, she did. She said for me to beg you
never to bother her any more.”
“She said that? Oh, Mrs. Porter, I--”
“Yes, and just as she was cuddling up in bed”--Mrs. Porter's selection
of words had never been so adroit--“she called me to her and said that
she wondered if you would mind never telling how foolish she had been to
meet you out here like she did. I don't know why she was so particular,
unless it is that people in this day and time love to throw up to a
preacher's wife all the imprudent things she did when she was young.”
“Mrs. Porter, do you actually think Cynthia loves that man?” Floyd's
voice shook, and he leaned heavily against the frame of the arbor.
“Love him? How can anybody tell who a woman loves? They don't know
themselves half the time; but I'll say this to you: Mr. Hillhouse has
been courting her in an open, straightforward way, and that pleased her.
He's a man of brains, too, and is going to work his way high up in his
profession. He'll be a great light some day. The regard of a man like
that is a compliment to a poor country girl; and then she is sure of a
life of solid respectability, while with you--good gracious! What's the
use of talking about it? But you haven't told me whether you will agree
not to bother her again. She'll be anxious to know what you said about
that. You see, you might get drunk again, and there is no telling how
foolish and persistent you may become, and--”
“I shall not bother her again,” said Floyd. “Tell her I gave you my
faithful promise on that. Not only that, but I am going away, and shall
never come back here again.”
“Well, I'll tell her--I'll tell her in the morning as soon as she wakes
up. La me! I used to be a girl myself, and there was no bother equal
to having an old beau hanging around, as we girls used to say in slang,
after he'd got his 'walking papers'--that is, after the right man was
settled on.”
“There is one thing I want you to tell her”--Floyd breathed
heavily--“and that is that I'll never care for any other girl.”
“Shucks! I won't take any such message as that,” the old woman sniffed.
“Besides, what's the use? After a flirtation is laid away it ought
to die a natural death. The biggest wasters of time in the world are
married women who love to look back on old love-scrapes, and sit
and brag about them, instead of mending socks and attending to the
responsibilities that are piled up on every hand. Well, I'm going in
now. It's been a long, hot day, but in this thin dress I feel chilly. I
don't want to be hard on you, and I wish you well, so I do, where-ever
you go.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Porter,” and, with his head hanging low, Nelson Floyd
turned to leave. “I can only assure you,” he added, “that I'll never
trouble Cynthia any more. I shall certainly respect her wish.”
“All right; that's as much as she could ask of you,” the old woman
returned; “and perhaps, since you are so polite, I ought to thank you.”
As she was drawing near the house, she said to herself with a low,
satisfied chuckle: “I believe I worked him exactly right. If I'd 'a' let
him know I suspected his full villany he wouldn't have been shaken off
so easily. But what am I going to do about that drop of blood on my
brain?” she laughed. “If I get rid of it too suddenly Cynthia may smell
a mouse. I believe I'll wait a few days and then tell her I think my
stroke was due to that new hair-restorer I'm using, an' promise to throw
it away.” She paused at the steps and shuddered. “But am I not really a
little off?” she mused. “Surely no woman in the full possession of her
senses could have gone through all that, as if it were God's truth from
beginning to end.”
Inside the hall, after she had softly shut the front door, she saw
Cynthia standing on the threshold of her chamber.
“Did you see him, mother?” The question was hardly above a whisper.
“Oh yes, I saw him,” the old woman answered, frigidly. “I saw him.”
“What did he say, mother?” The girl's voice was low, tremulous, and
halting.
“Oh, I don't know as he said much of anything, he was so set back
by seeing me in this outfit instead of you in your best
Sunday-go-to-meeting, with your valise in hand, ready to fly to the
moon with him. He let me do most of the talking.” Mrs. Porter managed
to stifle a chuckle of satisfaction, and the darkness hid her impulsive
smile. “He seemed to be more reasonable, though, than most men would
be in his condition. I don't think he was fully sober; he smoked like a
steam-engine, dropping cigars and lighting fresh ones, as if they were
his main-stay and support. He agreed with me, in a roundabout way, that
it was a foolish thing for him to expect a respectable girl to run off
in the dead of night with a man of his stamp, and he ended by saying for
me to tell you that he was going away off somewhere and that he wouldn't
bother you any more. He looked and acted like a thief caught on the
spot with the goods in hand and was ready to promise anything to escape
arrest and prosecution.”
“Well, you have had your way, mother,” Cynthia said, quietly; “I hope
you will feel better satisfied now.”
“Oh, I will, I will--in fact, I feel some better already.” There was
another incipient chuckle far down in Mrs. Porter's throat, but she
coughed it away. “I really feel like I'm going to get well. I'll sleep
like a log to-night. You'd better turn in yourself, daughter.”
“All right, mother--good-night.”
The next morning, shortly after breakfast, as Mrs. Porter was attending
to some hens' nests in the barn-yard, Hillhouse crept out of the thicket
just beyond the fence and approached her. He was quite pale and nervous,
and bent his head and shoulders that the high staked-and-ridered
rail-fence might hide him from the view of the house.
“I've been out here in the woods for an hour watching your back-door,”
he said. “I was in hopes that I'd see Cynthia moving about in the
diningroom or kitchen. You see, I don't know yet whether she went off
last night or stayed. I haven't closed my eyes since I saw you.”
“Well, you _have_ got it bad,” Mrs. Porter laughed, dryly, “and you
needn't worry any more. I reckon I spilled ink all over my record in the
Lamb's Book of Life, but I set in to succeed, and I worked it so fine
that she let me go out and send him away for good and all.”
“Oh, Sister Porter, is that true?”
“It's a great deal truer than anything that passed my lips last night,”
Mrs. Porter answered, crisply. “Brother Phillhouse, if I ever get
forgiveness, there is one of the commandments that will have to be cut
out of the list, for I certainly broke it all to smash. I had a separate
lie stowed away in every pore of my skin last night, and they hung like
cockle-burs to every hair of my head. I wish I was a Catholic.”
“A Catholic?” Hillhouse repeated, his eyes dancing in delight, his
sallow skin taking on color.
“Yes, I'd sell our horses and cows and land, and give it to a priest,
and tell him to wipe my soul clean with the proceeds. I feel happy,
and I feel mean. Something tells me that I'd have made an expert woman
thief--perhaps the greatest in the history of all nations.”
“What sort of fibs did you tell, Sister Porter?” Hillhouse was smiling
unctuously and rubbing his long hands together.
“Well, I don't intend to tell you,” said the old woman; “besides, it
would take a week. I spun the finest fabric of falsehood that was ever
made. And I'm not done yet, for I've got to keep it up, and not let it
lop off too suddenly.”
“Well, do you think there will be any living chance for me?” the
preacher said.
“Yes, I do--that is, if you won't push matters too fast and will be
patient. I have a plan now that you will like. Didn't you tell me you
were going to preach two sermons this month at Cartersville?”
“Yes, I take Brother Johnston's place for two weeks while he goes off
for his vacation.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Porter, “you know Nathan's brother George lives there.
In fact, his wife and daughters belong to Mr. Johnston's church. George
is a well-to-do lawyer, and his children dote on Cynthia; now I'm going
to send her down there for a change.”
“Oh, that will be simply fine!” Hillhouse cried, his face aglow.
“Yes, and if you can't make hay while the sun shines down there, you'll
deserve to fail. Cynthia has promised to give Floyd up, and he's agreed
not to bother her any more. Now you slip back into the woods. I wouldn't
have her see you here at this time of day for anything. When she gets
her thinking apparatus to work she's going to do a lot of wondering,
anyway.”