HE DID NOT COME.
The neighbors continued to speculate and to ply Mrs. Stuvic with
questions concerning Milford. Men who had spent many a rainy day in the
hay-mow, gambling, knew that he had played poker. An old man, with a
Rousseau love for botanizing, had been found dead in the woods, with
five red leaves in his hand. And Milford had said: "The poor old fellow
made his flush and died." They knew that he was brave, for, with a stick
of brushwood, he had attacked a dog reported to be mad. But they
believed, also, that he had something heavy on his mind, for they had
seen him walking about in the woods at night, once when a hard rain was
beating him. Steve Hardy, the man who had hauled the stranger from the
station, was caught in a storm one night, and a flash of lightning
revealed Milford standing gaunt in the middle of a marsh. But he had
never attempted to borrow money in the neighborhood, and of all the
virtues held dear by the rural Yankee, restraint in the matter of
borrowing is the brightest. "Yes, sir, old Brady was as mean a man as
ever lived among us, but, sir, he died out of debt." Old Brady could
have illumined his death-bed with no brighter light.
One evening, while Milford and Mitchell were at supper, the hired man
said: "They keep on askin' me all sorts of questions about you. I never
saw folks so keen. They are like spring sheep after salt. I've got so I
throw up my hands whenever I meet any of 'em in the road."
Milford reached over and turned down the ragged blaze of the smoking
lamp. "Am I the first stranger that ever happened along here?"
"It would look that way. But there is a sort of a somethin' about you,
Bill. I heard Henwood's daughter say you was mighty good-lookin', but
she hasn't got much sense." Milford looked up with a smile. "No, she
ain't," Mitchell went on. "And if her daddy was to die she'd have to
have a gardeen appointed. But to-day, while I was gettin' a drink at the
windmill, I heard two or three of Mrs. Stuvic's women standin' over in
the road talkin'. One of 'em said that she had a cousin that's a
detective in Chicago, and she was goin' to bring him out here and let
him investigate you just for fun."
Milford turned down the light. "I'll throw this thing into the road the
first thing you know. Bring a detective, eh? All right, let her bring
him."
"What will you do, Bill?"
"Knock him down if he gets in my road."
"I guess that's the way to look at it. But have you got any cause to be
afraid of a detective, Bill?"
"If I had, do you suppose I'd tell you?"
"Well, I don't know why. We're workin' here together, and I wouldn't say
anythin' about it. What did you do, Bill?"
"Stole a saw-mill."
"You don't say so! What did you want with a saw-mill?"
"To rip out new territory--I wanted to make a state."
"That's all right. You're guyin' me. But say, where did you get your
education?"
"I stole that, too. Did you ever hear of a French marquise that ran
stage lines and shot fellows out West? Well, I robbed his ranch, and
carried off a cook-book. That's how I learned to boil salt pork."
"That's where you learned how to feed a fellow on guff. I'm givin' it to
you straight. I want to know, for they say that a fellow never gets too
old to learn, and I'd like to have education enough to get out of hard
work."
"You don't see me out of it, do you?"
"No, but I guess you could do somethin' else if you wanted to. Did you
go to school much when you was a boy?"
"I saw the worn doorsteps in the old part of Yale, for two days, and
then I turned away and went West. My father died, and I didn't want to
be a tax on mother, so I decided to shift for myself."
"Was it a good shift?"
"I can't say it was. Are you going to bed?" Milford asked, as Mitchell
got up from the table.
"No, not now. I've got an engagement to take the Dutch girl out in a
boat."
"She'll upset your craft and drown you."
"I'm goin' to take the scow."
He went out whistling a light tune, but dragging his feet heavily, for
he had worked hard all day, keeping pace with Milford's bounding
energy. Milford sat musing, and his brow was not clear. From behind the
clock on the mantel-piece, he took a newspaper, and strove to read it by
the smoky light, but his mind wandered off. He went out and sat on the
grass beneath the walnut tree. The night was hot. The slow air fumbled
among the leaves. Far in the sultry west was an occasional play of
lightning, the hot eye of day peeping back into the sweltering night. He
heard some one coming up the hill, talking. It was Mrs. Stuvic's voice.
She arose into the dim light, and he saw that she was alone. He called
to her, and she came forward at a faster gait, still talking. "Wouldn't
believe me--couldn't get him to believe me, but he does now--yes, you
bet!"
"What's the matter, ma'am?"
"Old Lewson--told him he was dyin'--wouldn't believe me. He's dead.
Conscience alive! and they were thumpin' on the piana all the time. The
hired man can't be found since I gave him the larrupin'. I hope he's
drowned himself. He's no account on the face of the earth, and I wish
now I'd kept Mitchell when I had him. He seems to work well enough for
you. But what I want you to do is to go to the old man's daughter and
tell her. She lives about two miles down the road, just beyant the
second corners--white house to the right. Come on with me. The buggy'll
be hitched up by the time we get to the house. Yes, set right there,
lookin' right at me, with his chin droppin' down. I says, 'Lewson, you
are dyin'.' And he mumbled that he wan't. But I reckon he knows now
whether he was or not."
She talked nearly all the way over, sobbing at times, and then hardening
herself with scolding. The buggy was ready in the road. Low tones came
from the veranda. Through the shrubbery along the fence could be seen
the ghost-like outlines of women dressed in white. A dog howled under
the old apple tree.
"Wait," said the old woman, as Milford gathered up the lines. "I want
you to kill that infernal dog before you go. Never set down under that
tree before in his life, and now that the poor old man's dead he goes
there to howl, as if everythin' wan't dismal enough anyway. Get out and
I'll fetch the gun."
"Oh, no. Don't kill him. He doesn't know any better. By the way, what's
the name of the woman I am going to see?"
"Now, just look at that! If I haven't forgot her name I'm the biggest
fool on earth. Did you ever see anythin' like that? If that confounded
John, the hired man, was here, he'd know. I'm almost sorry now that I
licked him. But if I ever ketch him again I'll give it to him for
treatin' me this way when I need him. Well, go on, and stop at the house
I told you. And if that horse don't want to go, lick the life out of
him."
Milford drove off, and the dog jumped over the fence and came trotting
along behind the buggy. It did not take long to reach the place. A man
came to the door in answer to Milford's knock. There was no attempt to
soften the news. "I came to tell you that old Mr. Lewson is dead," said
Milford. And there was no effort on the man's part to show surprise.
"Well, I'm not an undertaker," he replied.
"But you married his daughter."
"But not with his consent or good-will. He was nothing to us. Well," he
added, as Milford continued to stand there, "anything else?"
"Yes, just a word or two more. I want to tell you that you are a brute
and a coward; and if you'll just step out here I'll mop up the ground
with you."
The man stepped back and shut the door. Milford came away, the muscles
in his arms hard with a desire to fight. He thought of the tenderness of
a mining camp, of the cowboy's manly tear, of hard men who were soft
toward a dead stranger. "Hearts full of cold ashes," he mused, bitterly.
"And how can it be in a place so beautiful? An infidel from the
sand-hills would here cry out that there is a God, an artist God. And
some of these wretches would teach him that there is a hell. Well, I'm
going to fight it out. I don't see any other way. I guess I'm a fool,
but I've got that thing to do."
Mrs. Stuvic tiptoed in her rage. "Horton," she said, almost dancing in
the road. "That's the scoundrel's name. And don't you dare to judge us
by him. He's a stranger here, too. I hope the hogs will root him up and
crack his bones. Well, go on to bed, Bill. I guess the old man can take
care of himself till mornin'."
Early the next day, the old man's daughter came, stricken with grief and
remorse. She said that her husband had forced her to treat her father
cruelly. She knelt beside the poor old relic of weary bones, and prayed
that the Lord might forgive her. Mrs. Stuvic relented. "Come," she said,
leading the daughter away. "We believe you, and won't hold it against
you, but I'll never love you till you poison that man of yours. There,
now, don't whimper. Everythin's all right."
The sympathy of the community was aroused, and it was a genuine
sympathy. Milford found that this neighborhood was very much like the
rest of the world, lacking heart only in places. He stood at the grave,
listening to the faltering tones of an aged man, and he muttered to
himself, "I've got to do that one thing."
Old Lewson had convinced Mrs. Stuvic of the truth of spiritualism. She
was attracted by a faith that entailed no prayers and no church-going.
It left her free, not to lie down in the green pastures of the poetic
psalmist, but to tramp rough-shod among the nettles of profanity. The
church advised that no eye should be turned upon wine, rich in deceitful
color, and the old woman was not always sober. Therefore, she took up
old Lewson's faith, first because it was easy, and afterward because it
seemed natural that she should come back and haunt her enemies. More
than once she had been heard to say, gazing after some one driving along
the road, "Oh, but I'll make it lively for him when I come back! He
shan't sleep a wink!" But to the old man she did not make a complete
confession of her conversion to his faith till she saw death staring out
of his eyes, and then she reminded him of his promise to return on the
third night, and make himself known to her. Had there remained in her
heart any fag-end of rebellion gainst the pliable tenets of his
credulous doctrine, the last look that he gave her would have driven it
out. "I believe you, Lewson," she gasped, when his wrinkled chin sank
upon his withered breast.
The third night came. She did not give her secret to the boarders; she
was not afraid of the heat of an argument or the scorch of a fight, but
the thought of ridicule's cold smile made her shudder. She hated
education, and was afraid of its nimble trickery. There was more of
insult in a word which she did not understand than in a term familiarly
abusive. But she told Milford. He was under obligations, and dared not
scoff. She requested him to sit upon the veranda, to wait for her coming
from the spirit's presence chamber. She drove the Dutch girl to bed, not
in the house, but in an outlying cottage. In the dining-room she
whispered to Milford, ready to turn him out upon the veranda. The
clock's internals growled the five-minute verge of twelve. She turned
Milford out, and hastened into Lewson's room. She sat down in a rocking
chair, her nervous hands fidgeting in her lap. Spirits keep their
promises best in the dark, and she had not lighted a lamp. Moonbeams
fell through the window, a ladder of light, upon which a spirit might
well descend to earth. The clock in the dining-room struck twelve. The
dog howled under the apple tree.
"Lewson, are you here?"
Two eggs on a shelf caught the light of the moon. She started. Surely,
they were not there a moment ago. Was the old man robbing hens' nests in
the spiritual world? A breeze stirred, and there was a whisper of
drapery at the window.
"Lewson, is that you?"
She glanced again at the eggs. Hadn't they moved? A midnight cock crew,
and she started. Why should he crow just as she glanced at the eggs? She
waited.
"Lewson, oh, Lewson! Do you hear me? Don't you remember your promise?
Come, now, don't treat me this way. You know how hard it was for me to
believe in your doctrine. You know how I've tried to have some sort of
religion. And now, please don't knock down all the props. Haven't I been
kind to you? Didn't I take you when nobody else would? Then help me,
Lewson. Give me something to cling to. Just say one word--just
one--somethin' to let me know you have told the truth. I want the truth,
that's all I want, Lewson. You haven't come. No, you haven't, and you
needn't say you have. You can't come, and you know it. Well, I'm goin'
now. Are you comin'? No, you ain't. You are an old fraud, that's what
you are." She flounced out upon the veranda, and said to Milford: "Go to
bed. There never was a bigger liar than that old fool."