THE GRIZZLY AND THE PANTHER.
Blakemore came up briskly, shook hands with a quick grasp, looked at his
watch and sat down on the edge of the veranda. His eye was no longer
fixed and rusty, but bright and restless. He did not drool his words,
hanging one with doubtful hesitation upon another, but blew them out
like a mouthful of smoke. He talked business; he had just engineered
another land deal. He had traveled about among the surrounding towns,
and spoke of a railway ticket as a "piece of transportation." Sunday to
him was a disease spot, the blotch of an inactive liver. Rest! There was
no rest for a man who wanted to work.
"What's to be the end of this rush?" Milford asked. "What's your
object?"
"Money, of course. You know what the object of money is, so there you
are."
"I don't know that I do. Money's object is to increase, but I've never
been able to discover its final aim, except possibly in a few instances.
We struggle to get rich. Then what? We read an advertisement and find
that we have kidney trouble. We take medicines, go to springs, grow
puffy, turn pale--die. That's the average man who makes money for
money's sake. But it's a waste of words to talk about it."
"It is undoubtedly a waste of time to think about it," said Blakemore.
"Not only that, to give it daily attention would mean stagnation and dry
rot. There'd be no land sales. But, speaking of an object, you have one,
of course."
"Yes, such as it is. And strain my eyes as I may, I can't look beyond
it. I made up my mind a good while ago that there's not much to live
for. This is an old idea, I know, but at some time it is new to every
man. We fight off trouble that we may fight into more trouble. And our
only pleasure is in looking back upon a past that was full of trouble,
or in looking forward to a time that will never come."
"You're a queer sort of a duck, anyhow," Blakemore replied, throwing the
stub of a cigar out into the grass. "You must have been burnt sometime.
And yet you're no doubt looking for the fire again."
"Did you ever catch a bass with his mouth full of rusty hooks? I'm
one--hooks sticking out all around, but I must have something to eat,
and I may snap a phantom minnow."
"Yes, sir, you're a queer duck. But there's a lot of good stuff in you,
I'll tell you that; and I could take you in tow and make a winner of
you. Drop this farm and come to town."
Milford smiled and shook his head. "Winning looks easy to the man that
wins. No, when I leave this place I'll have my object in my pocket."
"Queer duck," Blakemore repeated. "Any insanity in your family?"
"No, none to speak of. My father took the bankrupt law and paid his
debts ten years afterwards."
Blakemore lighted a cigar. "Did you disown him?"
"No. He went to the springs, grew pale--and we buried him."
Blakemore turned his cigar about between his lips. "And your idea is to
pay your debts, grow pale, and let them bury you. Is that it?"
"Not exactly," and then he added: "I owe a peculiar sort of debt."
"A man's foolish to pay a peculiar debt," Blakemore replied.
"But a peculiar debt might take a strange hold on the conscience."
"Yes," Blakemore agreed, "but a tender conscience has no more show in
business than a peg leg has in a foot-race. Do you know what I did? I
moped about under a debt of twenty thousand dollars. After a while I
looked up and didn't see anybody else moping. I quit. Am I going to pay
it? Maybe, but not till the last cow has come home, I'll tell you that.
They scalped me, and I'm going to scalp them. By the way, I met a fellow
just now--fellow named Dorsey. You might have seen him out here. Met him
a while ago, and he told me that a horse kicked him over yonder in the
woods. Didn't do a thing but kick his teeth out. He's gone to town to
have his jaw attended to. Your horse?"
"No, a horse that Dorsey hired when he was out some time ago. He must
have misused him."
"He got in his work all right. Well, I've come after you. They want you
at the house. Rig yourself up; I'll wait."
Upon benches and in chairs, and lolling on the thick grass, Milford
found Mrs. Stuvic's summer family. They told jokes and sang vaudeville
songs and slyly tickled one another's necks with spears of timothy,
frolicking in the shade while time melted away in the sun. The ladies
came forward to shake hands. They called Milford a stranger. They
inquired as to the health of the young woman in Antioch. He disclaimed
all knowledge of a woman in Antioch. They knew better, shaking their
fingers at him. Blakemore and Mrs. Stuvic entered upon a harangue.
Milford sat down on a bench with Mrs. Goodwin and Gunhild. Although
under the eye of the "discoverer," the girl had shaken hands warmly with
him. Between them there was a quiet understanding, and he was at ease.
Mrs. Blakemore sat in a rocking chair that threatened to tip over on the
uneven ground. She liked the uncertainty, she said. It gave her
something to think about. Mrs. Goodwin had read during all the forenoon,
and was sententious. It would soon be time for her to return to the
city, and she felt that she wore a yellow leaf in her hair. She was
anxious to return, of course, but to go away from a sweet season's
death-bed was always a sad departure. Mr. Milford, she said, would
attend the summer's funeral.
"I will help dig the grave," he replied.
She thanked him for following her idea. So few men had the patience to
fondle the whimsical children of a woman's mind. When they crept out to
the Doctor he scouted them back to bed, and there they lay trembling,
not daring to peep out at him. Some men thought it a manly quality to
despise a pretty conceit, but it was pretty conceits that made marble
live, that made a canvas breathe. At one time she had been led to
believe that the realist was the man of the hour. And indeed, he
was--just for one hour. And the veritist--what was he? One whose soul
was kept cool in a moldy cellar. None but the artist had a right to
speak. And what was art? A semblance of truth more beautiful than the
truth. But writers were often afraid to be artists, even at the
promptings of an artistic soul. They were told that women would not read
them, and man must write for woman. What nonsense! Take up a book and
find the beautiful passages marked. A woman has read it.
"I can make a great noise in shallow water," said Milford, "but if I
follow you, you'll lead me out over my head. I believe you, however; I
believe you speak the truth. I don't know anything about art, but, so
far as I am concerned, it is a waste of time for any scholar to pick
flaws in a thing that makes me feel. He may tell me why it is bad taste
to feel, but he can't convince me that I haven't felt."
He said this looking at the girl, and their eyes warmed with the
communion. "I have studied art," she said, "until I do not know anything
about it; and I am beginning to believe if the world listens to--to a
talk about it, it is with a sneer. No one wants to know. No one is
willing to listen, except like this, out in the country when there is
nothing else to do."
"I find plenty to do," said Mrs. Stuvic, overhearing the remark and
turning from Blakemore, who had been "joshing" her about an old man.
"Yes, you bet. There's always a plenty to do in the country if a body's
a mind to do it. The country people ain't such fools. No, you bet. The
most of 'em's got sense enough to keep a horse from kickin' 'em. Yes,
walked right over in the woods and let a horse kick him. Why, old Lewson
would've knowed better than that, and he didn't have sense enough to
know that he couldn't come back. Now, Bill, you keep quiet. Don't you
say a word."
"If you were afraid the old fellow would come back, why didn't you marry
him?" said Blakemore.
"Now, you keep still, too. I wan't so anxious about him comin' back. It
wan't nothin' to me. But I do believe he robbed my hens' nests after he
was dead. Now, whose team is that goin' along the road? If a man would
rein up my horses that way I'd break his neck. Bill, why haven't you
been over here?"
"I've been too busy."
"You haven't been too busy to trudge off to Antioch. What did you go
for?"
"Because it was nobody's business but mine."
"Oh, you don't say so? What made you box with that Irishman? Oh, you
can't fool me. I know more than you think I do. Went up there to
practice. And then a horse kicked Dorsey over in the woods. How about
that? You met him over in the grove some time ago, and he licked you.
How about that? Then you took lessons till you was able to knock his
teeth out. How about that?"
"Who told you all that rubbish?" Milford demanded, uneasy under the gaze
of the company.
"Never mind. There's a freckled faced woman not far from here. And she
couldn't keep a secret any more than a sieve could hold water. You've
got a hired man, too, you must remember."
"Yes, and I'll----"
"You'll do nothin' of the sort. It was perfectly natural. I knowed it
was comin'. I knowed that he mashed your mouth. And what was it all
about? How about that?"
Milford arose to go. Mrs. Goodwin begged him to sit down. Mrs. Blakemore
was in a flutter of excitement. Blakemore stood with his mouth open.
Gunhild looked straight at Milford. "Did you hit him, Mr. Milford?" she
asked.
"Yes," he promptly answered.
"Then you must have had a good cause, and I shall wait before feeling
sorry for him. But I could not feel very sorry anyway. I do not like
him. He has the eye of a beast. May we ask why you struck him?"
"He made a remark about you."
The girl jumped up from her seat, anger flaming in her eyes. Mrs.
Goodwin made some sort of cooing noise. Mrs. Blakemore cried "Oh!" and
fluttered.
"That's all I've got to say," said Milford. "I oughtn't to have said
that much, and wouldn't if it hadn't come round as it did. And now I
must ask you to let the subject drop."
Gunhild sat down without a word. But in her quietness of manner was a
turbulent spirit choked into subjection. In all things it seemed that
her modesty was a conscious immodesty held in restraint. The uncouth
girl, with utterance harsh in rough words of men from the far north, had
been remodeled by the English school. But the blood of the Viking was
strong within her, as she sat there, striving to appear submissive; but
Milford fancied that she would like to dash out Dorsey's brains with a
war-club. He sat down beside her, and with a cool smile she said: "Made
a remark about me. It takes me back to the potato-field. I must thank
you. We are fellow workmen." She spoke in a low voice. He looked from
one to another, as if afraid that they might hear her. "It makes no
difference," she said.
"Yes, it does. It is none of their business. I am going to set claim to
all that part of the past. You may share your pleasure with them, but
your trouble belongs to me. I will mix it with mine."
"The color might be dark," she replied.
"But two dark colors may make a white hope."
She shook her head and looked about as if now she were afraid that some
one might hear. But the other boarders were talking among themselves.
Mrs. Goodwin, at the far end of the bench, was giving to Blakemore her
idea of the future life; Mrs. Blakemore had run off, summoned by an
alarming howl from the boy; Mrs. Stuvic, still a believer in
spiritualism and a devotee of fortune-telling, stood near, sniffing in
contempt.
"Nothing can keep us apart," said Milford. "I'm not a soft wooer; I
don't know how to play the he dove; I don't know how to sing a lie made
by some one else; I don't pretend to be a gentleman; I am out of the
rut, and they may call me unnatural. But let me tell you that all hell
can't keep us apart."
"Mr. Milford, you must not talk like that. I too am out of the rut, and
they may call me unnatural, but I do not like to hear you talk that
way."
"Yes, you do. You can't help yourself. If it's the devil that brought us
together, then blessed be the name of the devil."
"Hush, Mr. Milford."
"I won't hush. I must talk. I suppose I ought to call you an angel. But
you are not. You are a woman--once a hired hand. But you jump on me like
a panther; you suck the blood out of my heart. Am I a brute? Yes. So are
you. You are a beautiful brute--the panther and the grizzly. Is that
it?"
She looked at him, and her eyes were not soft. "I used to peep in at the
grizzly--into the dining-room when he had come to feed. But no more now.
No, nothing can keep us apart. But we must wait. What a courtship!" she
said, with a sigh.
"It's not a courtship," he replied. "It's a fight, a draw fight. Now
I'll hush. What's the wrangle?" he asked, turning toward Mrs. Goodwin.
"Nothing," she answered, moving closer to him. "It hasn't the dignity of
a wrangle. Mrs. Stuvic is trying to convert me to fortune-telling."
"Nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Stuvic. "I don't care whether she
believes in it or not. It's nothin' to me; but truth's truth, and you
can't get round it; no, Bill, you bet. I know what I've been told, and I
know what's come to pass. A woman told me that a man was goin' to beat
me out of board, and he did. She never saw him. How about that? And she
told me I was goin' to lose a cow, and I did. She was dead by the time I
got home. How about that? Don't come talkin' to me about what you expect
after you're dead. Truth's truth. Now, there's Bill. He thinks I'm an
old fool. But I know more than he thinks I do. Yes, you bet!"
"No, I don't think that, Mrs. Stuvic," Milford replied. "I'm under too
many obligations to you to think that."
"Now, there is honesty," Mrs. Goodwin spoke up. "Gunhild, my dear, do
you catch the drift of it?"
"It's not honesty, but villainy," Blakemore declared, and turning to his
wife, who had just returned, he asked if the boy were hurt. She said
that he had got hung in the forks of an apple tree.
"But villainy holds a virtue when it tells the truth," Mrs. Goodwin
replied.
"Holds fiddlesticks," said Mrs. Stuvic, with a sniff. "Why can't you
folks talk sense? Just as soon as a woman reads a book, she's got to
talk highfurlutin' blabber. Now, what does that man out there want?"
"He wants beer," said Blakemore.
"Well, he can't get it. He looks like the man that had me fined last
summer. I hate a detective on the face of the earth. One went down in
my cellar and drank beer, and then had me up. Go on away from here," she
shouted. "There's not a drop of beer on this place. Move on off with
you. I'll let you know that I don't keep beer."
The man went away, grumbling. Blakemore turned to Milford and said:
"Come join me in a bottle."
"Now, you keep still," Mrs. Stuvic snapped. "Bill don't drink. And the
first thing I know you'll have me up."
Milford asked Mrs. Goodwin when she expected to go home. She answered
that she would leave on the following Tuesday. He remarked that he would
come over to go to the station with her, and then, waving a farewell to
the company, he strode off toward home. In his heart there flamed the
exultation of a great conquest after a fierce battle.