THE GIRL IN GRAY.
For days after the fight Jud caught himself stealing surreptitious
glances at his wife, with the miserable feeling that some time he would
take her unawares and detect scornful pity in her eyes. He was sure
she could not respect a man who had been forced to submit to defeat,
especially after he had vaingloriously forced the conflict upon an
unwilling foe.
But Justine loved him more deeply than ever. In her eyes he was a
hero. For her sake he had fought a desperate man in the face of
certain defeat.
At the house as she tenderly bathed his swollen face, "Jud," she said,
"you won't fight him again, will you?" A lump rose in his throat. He
felt that she was begging him to desist merely because she knew his
shameful incompetency.
"You won't fight him again, will you?" she repeated earnestly.
"I can't whip him, Justine," he said humbly. "I thought I could. How
you must despise me!"
"Despise you! Despise _you_! Oh, how I love you, Jud!" she cried. He
looked into her eyes, fearing to see a flicker of dishonesty, but none
was there.
"I won't fight him until I know I can lick him fair and square. It may
be never, but maybe I'll be man enough some day. He's too much for me
now. He'd have killed me if it hadn't been for you, dear. Good God,
Justine, I thought I was dying. You don't know how terrible it was!"
The story of the fight was soon abroad. The fact that Jud's face bore
few signs of the conflict struck the people as strange. 'Gene had told
wondrous tales of his victory. On the other hand, 'Gene's face was a
mass of cuts and bruises. It was hard for them to believe, but the
farmers soon found themselves saying that Jud Sherrod had whipped 'Gene
Crawley. Even when Jud acknowledged that 'Gene had whipped him, every
one said that Jud was so magnanimous that he "couldn't crow over 'Gene."
"Now, mebby 'Gene Crawley'll take back what he said 'bout Jed an'
Jestine las' spring," said James Hardesty, down at the toll-gate, in
the presence of a large audience. "He'll keep his dern mouth shet now,
I reckon. He cain't go 'roun' here talkin' like that 'bout our women
folks. Gosh dern him, ef he ever opened his head 'bout my wife I'd
knock him over into Butter township, Indiany. What'n thunder's the use
bein' afeared o' 'Gene Crawley? He's a big blow an' he cain't lick
nobody 'nless he gits in a crack 'fore the other feller's ready. Good
gosh, ef I was as young as some o' you fellers, I'd had him licked
forty-seven times 'fore this."
So 'Gene's reputation as a fighter suffered. But not for long. Harve
Crose, Joe Perkins, and Link Overshine undertook, on separate
occasions, to "take it out'n his hide" for old-standing grievances, and
'Gene reestablished himself in their estimation. Link Overshine was in
bed for a week afterwards.
The winter passed rather uneventfully. In a few of the simpler country
gatherings Jud and Justine took part, but poverty kept them pretty
closely at home. The yield of grain had not been up to the average and
prices were low. It was only by skimping almost to niggardliness that
they managed to make both ends meet during the last months of the
winter. Justine's school-teaching was their salvation, notwithstanding
the fact that the township was usually in arrears. Jud chopped wood
for an extra dollar now and then. Justine made frocks for herself.
She wore plain colors and plain material. The other girls wondered why
it was that Justine Van--they always called her Justine Van--looked "so
nice in them cheap little calicos." The trimness and daintiness of her
dress was refreshing in a community where the taste of woman ran to
ribbons, rainbows, and remnants. No girl in the neighborhood
considered herself befittingly gowned for parade unless she could
spread sail with a dozen hues in the breeze, the odor of perfume in the
air, and unblushable pink in her cheeks. Society in Clay township
could never be accused of color-blindness. The young gallants, in
their store clothes, were to be won by ribbons and rouge, and, as the
sole object of the girls was to get married and have children, the
seasons apparently merged in an ever-lasting Eastertide. Justine,
then, aroused curiosity. In the winter she wore a rough black coat and
a featherless fedora. In the spring her modest gowns would have been
sniffed at had they covered the person of any one less dainty. A
single rose in her dark hair, a white trifle at her throat, or a red
ribbon somewhere, made up her tribute to extravagance.
Jud sketched her adoringly. He had scores of posings even. When
spring came and they began to plant, in the midst of privation they
found time to be happy. It was on one of their Sunday-afternoon
sketching expeditions that an incident occurred which was to change the
whole course of their lives. They had walked several miles across the
hills, through leafy woodland, to Proctor's Falls. Here the creek
wriggled through a mossy dell until it came to a sudden drop of twenty
feet or more, into a pool whose shimmering surface lay darkly in the
shade of great trees that lined the banks. It was one of the prettiest
spots in the country, and Jud had long meant to try his skill in
sketching it.
This day he sat far down the ravine, facing the Falls, and rested his
back against a tree. She nestled beside him, leaning against his
shoulder, watching with proud eyes the hand that fashioned the picture.
To her, his art was little short of the marvelous; to a critic, it
would have shown crudities enough, though even the faults were those of
genius. Her eye followed his pencil with a half-knowing squint,
sending an occasional glance into Nature's picture up the glen as if
seeing blemishes in the subject rather than in the work of the artist.
"What a pity there is not more water coming over the rock," she said
regretfully. "And that log would look better if it were turned upside
down, don't you think, Jud? Goodness, how natural you have made it,
though. I don't see how you do it."
Presently she ventured, somewhat timidly: "Don't you think you might
sell some of your pictures, Jud, dear? If I were rich, I know I'd like
to have them, and I----"
"They're yours, anyway," he interrupted, laughing. "Everything I draw
is yours. You don't have to be rich."
"I mean, I'd like to have them if I was somebody else, somebody who
wasn't anything to you. They'd look so nice in frames, Jud. Honestly,
they would. Dear me, they're much nicer than those horrid things
'Squire Roudebush paid a dollar and a quarter apiece for."
"Nobody would want to buy my things, Justine. They're not worth the
paper they cover. Now, who the dickens is there in this county that
would give me a dollar for the whole lot? I couldn't give them
away--that is, excepting those I've made of you. Everybody wants one
of you. I guess I must draw you better than anything else."
"You make me look so much prettier than I really am," she expostulated.
"No, I don't, either," he responded. For a long time she forgot to
look at his pencil. Her eyes were bent reflectively upon the brown,
smooth face with the studious wrinkle in the forehead, and she was not
thinking of the picture. Suddenly she patted his cheek and afterwards
toyed in silence with the curls that clustered around his ear.
An elderly lady, a slender young woman in a modish gown of gray, and a
tall, boyish chap slowly approached the point from which Proctor's
Falls could best be viewed. Their clothes and manner proclaimed them
to be city people. The boy, over whose sullen forehead tilted a rakish
traveling cap, seemed to be expostulating with the young woman. From
his manner it was easy to be seen that he did not regard further
progress into the wilds as pleasant, profitable, or necessary. The
elder lady, who was fleshy, evidently supported the youth in his
impatience, but the gray gown was enthusiastically in the foreground
and was determined to push its very charming self into the heart of the
sylvan discovery.
When they had come within a hundred feet of the big tree that sheltered
the artist and his companion, the little bit of genre in their
landscape attracted them. The visitors halted and surveyed the
unconscious couple, the young lady showing curiosity, the young man
showing disgust, the old lady showing indecision. Their brief
discussion resolved itself into a separation of forces. The young lady
petulantly forsook her companions and picked her way through the trees
toward the Falls.
"Let 'em alone, Sis," objected the youth, as she persisted in going
forward; "it's some country jay and his girl and he'll not thank you
for----"
"Oh, go back to the train, Randall," interrupted the young maiden. "He
won't eat me, you know, and one can't see that pretty little waterfall
unless one gets out there where your lovers sit. If you won't go with
me, let me go alone in peace. Wait here, mamma, until I come back, and
don't let little Randall sulk himself into tears."
"You make me sick," growled the youth wrathfully.
The girl in gray soon came to the edge of the little opening in which
Jud and Justine sat, pausing some twenty feet away to smile admiringly
upon the unsuspecting pair. It was a charming picture that lay before
her, and she was loth to disturb its quiet beauty. With a sudden
feeling that she might be intruding, she turned to steal away as she
had come. A twig crackled under her shoe. The other girl, startled,
looked up at her with amazement in her eyes, her ripe lips apart as if
ready to utter an exclamation that would not come. The youth's eyes
also were upon her. The intruder, feeling painfully out of place,
laughed awkwardly, her cheeks turning a brilliant pink.
"I did not mean to disturb you," she stammered. "I wanted to see the
Falls and--and--well, you happened to be here."
Jud recovered himself first and, in visible agitation, arose, not
forgetting to assist to her feet his wife, who in all her life had seen
no such creature as this. To her the stranger was like a visitor from
another world. Her own world had been Clay township. She did not
dream that she was the cause of envy in the heart of the immaculate
stranger, who, perhaps for the first time in her short, butterfly life,
was looking upon a perfect type of rural health and loveliness.
"You don't disturb us," said Jud quickly. "I was only trying to draw
the Falls and I--we don't mind. You can see very well if you will step
over here by the tree."
"But you must not let me disturb you for the tiniest second. Please go
on with your drawing," said the stranger, pausing irresolutely. She
was waiting for an invitation from the vivid creature at Jud's side.
"He has it nearly finished," said Justine, almost unconsciously. The
new arrival was charmed more than ever by the soft, timid voice.
"Won't you let me see the picture, too?" she asked eagerly. "Let me be
the critic. I'll promise not to be harsh." But Jud, suddenly
diffident, put the picture behind him and shook his head with an
embarrassed smile.
"Oh, it's no good," he said. "I don't know anything about drawing
and----"
"Let me judge as to that," persisted Gray Gown, more eager than before,
now that she had found opposition. "I am sure it must be good. Your
modesty is the best recommendation." She held forth her small gloved
hand appealingly. Justine looked upon that hand in admiration. It was
so unlike her own strong brown hand.
"It isn't quite finished," objected Jud, pleased and almost at ease.
She was charmingly fair and unconventional.
"This is the first time he ever tried to get the Falls," apologized
Justine, and her smile bewitched the would-be critic. She was charmed
with these healthy, comely strangers, found so unexpectedly in the
wilds. They were not like the rustics she had seen or read about.
"Then I'll watch him finish it," she said decisively. "Will it take a
very long while?"
"Just a few more lines," said Jud. "But I can't work with any one
looking on."
"Wasn't this young lady looking on?"
"Oh, but I am different," cried Justine.
"I know," said the other delightedly, "you are--are sweethearts. Of
course, that does make a difference. Now, aren't you sweethearts?"
The two flushed unreasonably and exchanged glances.
"I guess it's not hard to guess that," said Jud lamely. "You probably
saw us before we saw you."
"Show her the picture," murmured Justine, dimly conscious that she and
Jud had seemed amusing to a stranger. Jud reluctantly held up the
sketching board. The stranger uttered a little cry of amazement.
"Why!" she cried, looking from the picture to the Falls up the glen,
"this is clever!" Then a quizzical expression came into her eyes and
she looked from one to the other with growing uncertainty. "Pardon me,
I thought you were--I mean, I thought you lived near here. You must
overlook my very strange behavior. But you will admit that you are
dressed like country people, and you are tanned, and----" Here she
checked herself in evident confusion.
"And we are country people," said Jud blankly. The young lady looked
bewildered.
"Are you in earnest?" she demanded doubtingly. "Are you not out here
from the city?"
"We have lived all our lives within five miles of this spot," said Jud,
flushing.
"And I have never seen a big city," added Justine, first to divine the
cause of the stranger's mistake. The critic thought herself to be in
the presence of a genius from some city studio. It was a pretty and
unfeigned compliment to Jud's picture.
"I cannot believe it," she cried. "You may live here, sir, but you
have studied drawing. I have never seen a more perfect sketch."
"I have never taken an hour's instruction in my life," said Jud, his
voice trembling with joy.
"Oh, now I know you have been trifling with me," she cried, flushing
slightly.
"It is the truth, isn't it, Justine? I thought anybody could see that
I know nothing about drawing. I only wish I could go to an art school."
"You really are in earnest?" the stranger asked, looking from one to
the other. "Then you must tell me all about yourself. A man with your
talent should not be lost in these wilds. You have a wonderful gift.
Truly, I can hardly believe even now that you are not deceiving me."
The two glanced at each other rather helplessly, not knowing how to
reply.
"You haven't looked at the Falls," stammered Jud, at last. The girl in
gray laughed and her eyes went to Justine's rich, warm face as if
expecting her to join in the merriment at his expense. Justine,
however, was too deep in admiration to think of smiling. Caught by the
gaze of the stranger, she was at last forced to smile vaguely.
"I haven't time for the Falls," said the stranger. "I am interested
only in you. You are worth cultivating. Dear me, if I had you in
Chicago, I'd make a lion of you. How long have you been hiding this
talent out here in the woods?"
Then Jud proceeded to tell her in a disjointed, self-conscious manner
how he had been drawing ever since he was a child; how his mother had
assisted him; how Justine had encouraged him; how much he longed to be
an artist. At the end of his brief biography, the listener abruptly
asked:
"Will you sell me this picture?"
"I--I--If you'd really like to have it, I--I--will give it to you. I
could not ask you anything for it. It's not worth a price. Besides,
you've been so kind to me. Won't you accept it as a gift?" he
answered, beginning awkwardly, but ending eagerly. Justine's eyes were
pleading with the young lady to take it.
"But you must let me pay you for it. You don't know me, nor I you; you
are under no obligation to me. And I would rather pay you for it. You
see, it may be your start in life."
[Illustration: "YOU MUST LET ME PAY YOU FOR IT."]
"It's not worth anything," objected Jud.
"I know what it is worth. Fifty dollars is cheap."
Before she had finished speaking she was counting the money from her
purse. Thrusting five bills into Jud's hand, she snatched up the
picture and said:
"It's a bargain, isn't it? You can't take back the picture because you
have accepted payment."
"Good heaven!--I mean, I can't take all of this!"
"But you can and shall," she cried delightedly. "It is not enough, I'm
sure, but it is all I have with me. Some day, when you are famous, I
shall have a valuable picture. Now I must be going. My mother and
brother are probably in convulsions. See them? Don't they look angry?
Our train had to wait three hours over at the other side of the woods
until they could repair the engine. We had a breakdown."
"I wish you wouldn't force me to----" Jud began.
"Don't object, now!" she cried. "I am the gainer. Save that money to
give to your sweetheart on your wedding day. That's a very pretty
idea, isn't it? I know she will approve." And here she came to
Justine and kissed her. "I know I should like you very much," she said
honestly. Justine felt a queer sensation in her throat and her heart
went out more than ever to the girl in gray.
"Remember, it is to be your wedding present when the sweet day comes."
Jud and Justine glanced sheepishly at one another, but before either
had found words to tell her they were already married, she was
hastening away.
"Oh, by the way," she cried, turning back, "what is your name?"
"Dudley Sherrod."
"It would be well for me to know it when you are famous. Good-bye!"
she called cheerfully.
Jud hesitated an instant.
"Won't you tell me your name?" he cried. Justine clasped his arm in
mute astonishment.
The receding girl turned, smiled, and held up her card, hastily
withdrawn from its case. It fluttered to the grass, and she was gone.