NEEDED HIS SPIRITUAL HELP.
Early the next morning, before the clanging bell had shattered the
boarder's dream, the old woman hastened to Milford's cottage. When she
surprised him at breakfast, he thought that possibly the old man might
have called at some time during the night, and that she had come to
bring the good news, but this early hope was killed by the darkness of
her brow. "I've come over to tell you that if ever you say a word about
what happened last night, I'll drive you out of the county," she said,
her lips parted and her teeth sharp-set.
"Why, nothing did happen," he replied with a laugh.
"No, you bet! But don't you ever dare to say that I expected anythin' to
happen. I won't allow any old man, dead or alive, to make a monkey of
me. Well, I'll eat breakfast with you. What, is this all you've got,
just bread and bacon? Conscience alive! you are livin' hard."
"I can't afford anything else," he replied, looking down upon his rough
fare.
"Well, you ought to get rich at this rate. There's not one man in a
thousand that would be willin' to put up with it. What's your aim,
anyway?"
"To make money."
"Money! It's some woman, that's what it is. Well, you're a fool. What
thanks do you reckon she'll ever give you? She'll growl because you
didn't make more. I'll get back. I don't like your grub. But recollect,
now," she added, as she turned toward the door, "that if you say a word
about what I expected to happen last night, I'll drive you out of the
county." She went out, but her head soon reappeared at the door. "Bill,"
she said, "there's a sucker born every minute."
"And sometimes twins," he replied. She leaned against the door-facing to
laugh, not in the jollity of good-humor, but in the sharp and racking
titter of soured self-pity. "Sometimes twins--yes, you bet!"
"If I didn't have a word for it that I couldn't dispute, I'd think that
I was the weakling of a set of triplets," said Milford.
"Oh, you'll do. There's no flies buzzing around you, I tell you. Well,
I'll leave you, sure enough now."
For a time, he clattered the rough dishes, clearing them out of the way,
despising the work--a loathing shared by all human beings. Mitchell was
at the barn, among the horses, and there came the occasional and almost
rhythmic tap, tap, tap of his currycomb against the thin wall. In the
damp sags of the corn field, the plow could not be used with advantage,
and Milford assigned to himself the work of covering this territory with
a hoe. The advisory board, men who drove past in milk wagons, condemned
it as a piece of folly. They said that a man might wear himself out
among the clods, and to no great purpose, either; but Milford appeared
to rejoice in his conquest over the combative soil. Steve Hardy said
that he must be doing penance in the hot sun for some crime committed in
the cool shade. But the old woman had given it out that her man was
working for a woman, and the women commended it. How soft is the voice
of woman when she speaks of one who sweats for her sex! They sat upon
the veranda, watching Milford as he delved in the blaze of the sun. It
was a romance. Afar off there must be a sighing woman, waiting for him.
Mrs. Blakemore could see her, and she sighed with her, watching the hero
dealing the hard licks of love. With her scampering son, she crossed the
field, going toward the lake, the morning after the expected visit from
Lewson. She was determined to speak to Milford. Mrs. Stuvic had just
said, "That man is killin' himself for a woman." On she came, her feet
faring ill among the clods. She stumbled and laughed, and the boy, in
budding derision of woman's weakness, shouted contemptuously.
"Why did you come across this rough place?" Milford asked, planting his
hoe in front of him. To her he was a man behind the flag-staff of his
honor.
"Because it's so much nearer to the lake," she answered. The boy cried
out that he had found a rattlesnake, and proceeded to attack with clods
a rusty toad.
"Come away, Bobbie. He'll bite you." She saw that it was a toad, and she
knew that it would not bite him; but motherly instinct demanded that
she must warn him. "Oh, it's such a jaunt, coming across here. Really, I
don't see how you can stand it to work so long in the hot sun. Let me
bring you some cool water."
She felt that she ought to do something for him. He smiled, and glanced
down at her thin-shod feet. He felt that there was genuineness in this
slim creature, and he was moved to reply: "No, I thank you. Your
sympathy ought to relieve a man of thirst."
"Really, that is so nice of you. No wonder all the women like you when
you say such kind things. But there is one thing I wish, Mr. Milford--I
wish you'd taken more to my husband. He's awfully low-spirited, and I'm
so distressed about him. He's worried nearly to death in town, and he
comes out here and mopes about. I didn't know but you might say
something to interest him. He'll be out again this evening. Will you
please come over to the house to see him?"
He thought of his weariness after his day of strain, of his own
melancholy that came with the shades of night. He thought that, in
comparison with himself, the man ought to be boyishly happy; but he told
her that to come would give him great pleasure.
"Oh, I'm so glad to hear you say so. Tell him of fights, of men that
wouldn't give up, but fought their way out of hard luck. Tell him what
you are doing. I know it's preposterous to ask you, but will you do it?"
Her eyes were as bright as the dew caught by the cobweb, shaded by the
clod, he thought--as he stood there leaning on the handle of his hoe,
looking at her; and he read woman's great chapter of anxious affection.
"I will tell him of a man who failed in everything, and then found that
he had a fortune in his wife," he said. She put out her hand toward him,
and snatched it back to hide her eyes for a moment. She turned toward
the boy, and in a cool voice commanded him not to romp so hard over the
rough ground. Milford saw a soul that loved to be loved, that lived to
be loved, a soul that may not be the most virtuous, but which is surely
the most beautiful. He did not presume to understand women; he estimated
her by a "hunch" as to whether she was good or bad. He remembered that
he had jumped upon his pony and galloped off to the further West, to
keep from falling in love with one. And since that time he had felt
himself safe, so into this woman's eyes he could look without fear.
"Yes," she said, "tell him that love is the greatest estate. It will
make him think, coming from a man. Poor George was in the hardware
business, and he failed not long ago, and I don't know why, for I'm sure
I saved every cent I could. What you tell him will have a good deal of
weight."
Milford had to laugh at this. "I don't know why," said he.
"Because you are a good man."
Milford sneered. "Madam, I'm a crank." He begged her pardon for his
harshness. Her forgiveness came with a smile. He told her that he was
as morbid as a mad dog, and he said it with such energy that she drew
back from him. "But you won't fail to see George, will you? Come on,
Bobbie. Oh, I forgot to tell you of some new arrivals--a Mrs. Goodwin,
wife of a well-known doctor in town, and her companion, one of the
handsomest young women I ever saw--a Norwegian girl, as graceful as one
of her native pines. You won't fail to come, will you? Good-bye."
The evening was sultry, with a lingering smear of red in the western
sky. At the supper table Milford nodded in his chair. The hired man
spoke to him, and he looked up, his batting eyes fighting off sleep.
"Them slashes have about got the best of you, haven't they, Bill? I'd
let that corn go before I'd dig my life out among them tough clods. I'm
givin' it to you straight."
"I don't doubt it. But it will pay in the end. I've come to the
conclusion that all hard work pays. It pays a man's mind, and he
couldn't get a much better reward. But I'd like to go to bed, just the
same."
"Why don't you? Not goin' to dig any more to-night, are you?"
"No, but I've got to go over to Mrs. Stuvic's to see a man."
"A man?" Mitchell asked, with a wink.
"I said a man."
"Yes, I know you said a man."
"Then why not a man?"
"Well, I don't know, only it seems to me that if I was as tired as you
look I wouldn't go to see no man's man."
"How about any woman's woman?"
"Well, that's different. You can put off seein' a man, and you might put
off seein' a woman, but you don't want to. But maybe you ain't as big a
chump about a woman as I am."
Milford said that the wisest man among wise men could easily be a fool
among women. Solomon's wisdom, diluted by woman, became a weak quality.
"Except once," he added, taking down his pipe from the clock shelf, "and
that was when he called for a sword to cut a child in two to divide it
between two mothers; but if the question had been between himself and a
woman, I don't know but he'd have got the worst of it."
It was the hired man's turn to clear away the dishes, and Milford sat
smoking in a muse. Night flies buzzed about the lamp, and the mosquito,
winged sting of the darkness, sang his sharp tune over the rain-water
barrel beneath the window. The hired man put away the dishes, and went
into his shell-like bedroom, a thin addition built against the house.
Milford heard him sit upon the edge of his bed, heard his heavy shoes
drop upon the floor, heard him stretch out upon the creaking slats to
lie a log till the peep of day. The tired laborer's pipe fell to the
floor. He got up with a straining shrug of his stiff shoulders, snatched
off his sticking garments, bathed in a tub, put on clean clothing, and
set out to keep his appointment. He muttered as he walked along the
road. He halted upon a knoll in the oat-field, and stood to breathe the
cool air from the low-lying meadow. As he drew near to the house, he
heard the shouts of children and the imploring tones of nurses and
mothers, begging them to go to bed. A lantern hanging under the eaves of
the veranda shed light upon women eager to hear gossip from the city
apartment house, and men, who, though breathing a fresh escape from
business, had already begun to inquire as to the running of the trains.
In the dooryard, a dull fire smoked in a tin pan,--a "smudge" to drive
off the mosquitoes. Some one flailed the piano. The Dutch girl, singing
a song of the lowlands, was grabbing clothes off a line, with no fear of
running over an old man. Mrs. Blakemore and George were sitting at a
corner of the veranda, apart from the general nest of gossipers. Bobbie
had been bribed to bed. The woman got up and gave Milford her hand. In
his calloused palm it felt like the soft paw of a kitten. George nodded
with an indistinct grunt.
"Well, how is everything?" Milford asked.
"Rotten," George answered. His wife sighed, and brushed off a white moth
that had lighted on his coat sleeve. "But it will get better," she said.
"Don't you think so, Mr. Milford?"
"Bound to," Milford agreed. "I'm a firm believer in everything coming
out all right. I've seen it tested time and again. Hope is the world's
best bank account." George looked at him. "That's all right enough," he
admitted.
"Hope is the soul's involuntary prayer," his wife observed, and he
looked at her. "That's all well enough, too," said he, "but what's the
use of tying a ribbon around your neck in a snow-storm, when what you
need is an overcoat? A man can wrap all the hope in the world around
himself, and then freeze to death."
"That's true," said Milford, catching sight of the woman's eyes as she
drew a long breath, "but hope may lead him out of the storm. Pardon me,
but I infer that you've met business reverses."
"Struck the ceiling," said George.
"How often?"
"Isn't once enough?"
"Yes, but I've struck it a hundred times. I've been kept on the bounce,
like a ball."
"That's all right, but do you feel thankful for it?"
"Well, my heart isn't bursting with gratitude, but it might have been
worse--I might have stuck to the ceiling. When you throw a dog into the
water, he always shakes himself when he comes out. It's a determination
to be dry again. And that's the way a man ought to do--shake himself
every time he's thrown."
"I don't know but you're right. What are you doing here, anyway?"
"Rooting like a hog for something to eat. And I've not only failed in
nearly everything I undertook, but I've been a fool besides. But I've
got sense enough to know that it has all been my own fault. I believe
that, if a man's in good health, it's always his own fault if he don't
succeed. I could sit down and growl at the world; I could wish I had it
under my heel to grind the life out of it; and the truth is, we all have
a part of it under our heels, and if we keep on grinding we'll make an
impression. I am what you might call a national egotist. I believe that
nearly everything lies within the range of an American. He may do
wrong--he does do wrong. Sometimes he does a great wrong, but nine times
out of ten he tries to make it right. I believe that the Yankee has more
conscience than other men. He may keep it well sheathed, but after a
while the edge eats through the scabbard and cuts him. He works with an
object. They say it is to make money. That's true, but the money is to
serve a purpose, a heart, a conscience."
George turned about in his chair, and looked with keen interest at the
laboring man. "Look here, you are a man of brains. Why do you stay here
and dig? You are fitted for something better."
Milford smiled at him. "How often that's said of a man who's not fitted
for anything. As I remarked to your wife, I'm a crank. But I've got an
object--there's something that must be done, and I'm going to do it or
broil out my life in that field."
"You are a brave man. Not all of us are so nervy. But you may not have
to broil out your life."
"Hope," said Milford. "And what a muscle it is, hardening with each
stroke. Now, it's not my place to say anything to you, but don't fool
along with affairs that are hopelessly tangled. Strike at something
else. Perhaps that wasn't the business you were fitted for, anyway."
"Can't tell. But I wasn't stuck on it, that's a fact. What line have you
failed in, mostly?" he asked, laughing; and his wife's thin shoulders
shook as if she were seized with a sudden physical gladness.
"Oh I've been a sort of bounty jumper of occupations."
"But we know," said Mrs. Blakemore, "that your work was always honest."
"Well," he replied, his white teeth showing through the dark of his
beard, "I never squatted on the distress of an old soldier to discount
his pension."
"That's not bad. Louise," he added, playfully touching his wife's hand,
"how is it you took to me when you have a knack of finding such
interesting fellows?"
"Why, you were one of the most interesting fellows I ever found. Is that
Bobbie crying? Yes. I must go to him. Good-night, Mr. Milford. I'm ever
so glad you came over this evening." She gave him a grateful look, and
hastened away, crying out, "Mamma's coming," as she ran up the stairs.
And now Mrs. Stuvic's voice arose from the outlying darkness of the
road. "Well," she shouted at some one, "you tell him that if he ever
leaves my gate open again I'll fill his hide so full of shot he'll look
like a woodpecker'd pecked him. A man that's too lazy to shut a gate
ought to be made to wear a yoke like a breachy cow. Yes, you bet!" she
said over and again as she came toward the veranda. "Like a breachy cow.
And here's Bill, bigger than life! Why, the way I saw you pounding them
clods over yonder, I didn't think you could move at night. This is
Mr.--What-his-name? I never could think of it. Are you still mopin'
about? Bah, why don't you get down to somethin'? Suppose the women was
to mope that way? Do you reckon anythin' would be done. No, you bet!
There's no time for them to mope. I saw Eldridge hauling a load of folks
from the station to-day. And I know 'em--the Bostics, out here last
year, and went off without payin' their board. Well, he can have 'em,
for all of me. Stuck up. 'Please do this,' and 'Please do that,' and
'How do you feel this mornin', dear mamma?' 'Bah!' I said, 'why don't
dear mammy get out and stir around?' Bill, I want you to come over here
to dinner to-morrow--settin' about readin' all day Sunday. You come over
here and get somethin' to eat. But don't let Mitchell come. I had a
chance to hire him, and didn't do it, and now I haven't got any too much
use for him. The rascal deceived me. I didn't know he was half as good a
worker as he is. But you be sure to come," and leaning over, she added
in a whisper: "I've got the putties gal here you ever saw in your life."
"But that's not the question. Will you have anything to eat?"
"Better than you've had for many a day, sir, I can tell you that."
"I'll be here," he replied, getting up.
"Going?" said George. "I'll walk out a piece with you."
And talking knavishly of the old woman and the wives who pretended to be
so glad to see their husbands, they walked out into the hickory grove.
"The old lady whispered to you about a pretty girl," said George. "Might
just as well have shouted it. But she is a stunner! I hunted deer up in
the mountains once, and I never saw one, but I imagined what one ought
to look like, stepping around in the tangle; and when I saw that girl
out here in the woods to-day, I thought of the deer that I didn't see.
She's with a fussy woman, a doctor's wife, a sort of companion, I
believe. I should think so! Anybody'd like to be her companion. Well,
sir, I'm just getting on to the beauty of this place. I never saw such
grass, and between here and the station there's a thousand colors
growing out of the ground. Huh!" he grunted, "and I'm just beginning to
remember them. Old fellow, I guess the little talk we had to-night has
done me good. Yes; and what's the use in worrying? Things are going to
come out just as they are--they always do--and all the worry in the
world won't help matters. I think you are right about the Yankee."
"Children of fate, gathered from the four corners of the world, and
planted here," said Milford.
"I guess you are right. Well, I'm going back to town Monday and do a
little hustling. I've got to. There's no two ways about it. I'll turn
back here. Glad I met you again. So long."