WANTED THE HORSE.
The days were linked out into weeks; there had been rag-time music and
break-down dancing at Mrs. Stuvic's, but Milford had not shown himself.
A farmer passing late at night had looked through the window and had
seen him boxing with the hired man. Some one else had seen him sparring
with an Irishman in Antioch. The old woman swore that he was "going
daft." But it was noised around that he had threshed out nearly two
thousand bushels of oats, and this redeemed his standing. He had not
arrived in time to sow the oats, but the luck of the harvest had fallen
to him. The crop had been threatened with rust and the old woman advised
him to plow up the fields, but he had held out against her and was
rewarded, not alone with a surprising yield of grain, but with a
recognized right to exercise freedom of action, such as would not have
been tolerated in a man who had fallen short. A wise old skinflint
halted one day to ask his opinion of a bulky subscription book for which
he had paid one dollar down and signed notes for three more, payable, of
course, at times when money worries would buzz thickly about him. And
news came through the hired man that a young woman, thin of chest and
clumsy of foot, but worth a hundred acres, had set her cap for him.
"Of course, I wouldn't advise you to take her," said Mitchell, putting
on his necktie before a three-cornered fragment of a looking-glass, "but
I want to tell you that land's land out here. And besides, she might die
in a year or two. You never can tell. I may see her at church to-day.
She and my girl are sorter kin to each other. I'm a marryin' man,
myself. I don't see enough difference in married life or single life to
get scared at either one, so I take the marryin' side. A married man has
a place to keep away from and a single man hasn't any place to go to, so
it's all about the same, that is, without property. Goin' anywhere
to-day?"
"There's no place for me to go except over to the old woman's, and I
don't care to go there yet awhile. I wonder why she hasn't been over
here?"
"Who, the girl?"
"No, the old woman. Do you suppose I expect the girl to come?"
"Well, I didn't know," said Mitchell, brushing his stiff hair. "You
never can tell what a girl will do. They keep me guessin' and I'm on to
their curves pretty well. I see that Mrs. Goodwin yesterday evenin'. And
she looked like a full-rigged ship. Guess I'd be a little afraid of her
with her big talk. But you could tackle her all right enough. Say, I'm
sore as I can be, boxin' with you. Is that cigar up by the clock, one
that the prize-fighter give you? Let me take it along. I want to perfume
my way with it. Thanks," he added, taking the cigar before Milford had
said a word. "How do these pants set?"
"They strike me as being a trifle short," said Milford, surveying him.
"That's what I was afraid of, but they dragged the ground till the
peddler left, and then they began to draw up. A man's sure to get the
worst of it when he buys out of a pack. I'd like to have a suit of
clothes made to order, but I can't afford it now. Did you ever have a
suit put up to your own notion?"
"Yes, a few."
"Well, I said all the time that you wan't no common man."
"And right there you struck the ancient and the modern idea of what a
man is--garments. You can't get away from the effect of clothes. The
city and the backwoods are alike. With the exception that the city
insists that the coat shall fit better and the pantaloons be a little
longer," he added, smiling.
"Don't laugh at 'em, Bill; they're all I've got. When a man's got two
pair of briches you may laugh at one, but when he's got only one pair,
don't laugh. Are you goin' to set up here and read that book all day?
What's his name? Whitson?"
"Whittier. I don't know. I'm a Quaker waiting to be moved. I had this
old book with me out West. We used to read it at night in the shack. We
had some pretty smart fellows with us. Some of them pretended to be
ignorant when in fact they had read their names on a sheepskin. They had
been beaten over the head with books till they were sick of them."
"I don't blame 'em," said the hired man. "I'd rather set up with a
corpse than a book."
"Sometimes it's about the same thing," Milford replied. "Did you ever
read the Bible?"
"What do you take me for?"
"I don't take you for a man who has read very much of it. But it's the
greatest thing ever written."
"It's out of date, Bill."
"Yes, to those who don't think. Why, there's more wisdom in it than in
all other books put together. I don't care anything about creed, or what
one man or another may believe; I don't care how or why it was
written--I brush aside the oaths that have been sworn on it, and the
dying lips that have kissed it; I shut my eyes to everything but the
fact that it is the greatest opera, the greatest poem, the greatest
tragedy ever written."
"If I could talk that way I'd go out and preach about it, Bill."
"Not with my record behind you, old fellow."
"But why should a man that believes as you do have a record to hold him
down?"
"There you've got me. That's what I'd like to know. But when a man has
learned to understand himself, then all things may become clear. We
sometimes say that it was not natural for a man to do a certain thing.
The fact is, it's natural for a man to do almost anything that he can
do."
"This is good Sunday mornin' talk, all right, Bill. But I've got to go
after my girl. She's got lots of sense, horse sense and flap-doodle
sense all mixed up. She's got more flap-doodle sense than I have; she
reads books, and not long ago she give me a piece of poetry that she'd
cut out of a newspaper. I said, 'Read her off and take her back.' And
she did. Well, I'm off."
Milford hailed a man who drove up in a buggy, gave ten cents for a
Sunday newspaper, and sat on the veranda to read it. The wind blew a
sheet out into the yard. He started after it, but halted, looking at a
man who was crossing the field where the oats had been reaped, striding
with basket and rod toward the lake. Milford left the paper to the wind.
He hastened to the woods between the oat field and the lake and waited
for the man, leaning musingly against a tree. The man got over the fence
and came along the path. Milford stepped out.
"Good-morning, Mr. Dorsey."
"Why, helloa. How's everything?"
"All right, I hope. Are you done with that horse?"
"Oh, that horse. Yes, I'm about done with him."
"Hold on. I want him."
"What do you mean?"
"You remember the last time we met I--well, we'll say, I let you have a
horse."
"You mean we fought over yonder in the grove."
"That's what I mean."
"Well, what about it?"
"We are going to fight over here in this grove."
"Why, I thought you had enough?"
"I did have then, but I want more. I said then that I'd never been
beaten for long at a time. I've been waiting for you."
"A man don't have to wait for me very long. But say, this is all rank
foolishness. I've got nothing against you; and as for what I said about
the woman, why, I'm willing to apologize, although I don't know what it
was."
"You will apologize, but not till I get through with you. Take off your
coat."
"You beat any fellow I ever saw. I don't want to fight; I want to fish."
"I don't want to fish, I want to fight. Take off your coat or I'll knock
you down in it."
"All right, my son." He threw his coat on a stump. Milford was in his
shirt sleeves. "Wait a moment," said Dorsey. "You have brought this
thing about, and I want to tell you that I won't let you off as easy as
I did the last time."
They went at it. Dorsey fell sprawling. He scrambled to his feet with
trash in his hair and blood in his mouth. Milford knocked him over a
stump. He got up again and came forward, cutting the capers of a tricky
approach, but Milford caught him with a surprising blow and sent him to
grass again. This time he did not get up. He squirmed about on the
ground. Milford took him under the arms and lifted him to his knees. "Go
away," he muttered, his head drooping. "You've--you've broken my jaw."
Milford ran to the lake and brought water in his hat. Dorsey was sitting
up when he returned.
"You've knocked out two of my teeth," he mumbled.
"Here, let me bathe your face."
"Biggest fool thing I ever saw," Dorsey blubbered through the water
applied to the mouth. "I told you I'd apologize."
"Yes, and you may do so now. Do you?"
"Of course. What else can I do?"
"I'm almost sorry I hit you so hard."
"Almost! I don't stop at that. I don't want you to say anything about
it," he added. "It would hurt my business."
"A horse kicked you," said Milford. "You're all right now. You can go to
the house."
"I'm going to town by the first train. I'm done up. You've been
practicing. You ought to make a success of yourself if that's the sort
of fellow you are."
Milford helped him put on his coat. "Now, I wish I could do something
for you," he said. "No matter what I do, I always get the worst of it."
"You didn't get the worst of this, by a long shot."
"Yes. Now I've got to grieve over it. I've been trying to do right, but
the cards are against me."
"You needn't grieve over me. You have licked a good man."
"I grieve because you were willing to apologize."
"Don't let that worry you. I wouldn't have apologized any too strong.
Well, I don't believe the fish will bite to-day. I'll go back."
Milford watched him as he walked slowly across the stubble field, and
strove to harden his heart against the cutting edge of remorse. The
fellow was a bully. To him there was nothing sacred, and he thought evil
of all women. His manliest words waited to be knocked out of him.
Milford returned to the house and gathered up the scattered sheets of
his newspaper. But he sat a long time without reading. The gathered
vengeance of his arm had been spent. It had shot forth with delight,
like a thought inspired by devoted study, but like a hot inspiration
grown cold, it faded under the strong light of reason. He heard the
shriek of a railway train, rushing toward the city. He saw George
Blakemore coming up the hill.