THE CUP AND THE SLIP.
In a pelting rain a funeral passed along the road, and a man who had no
time for such affairs, hastening with his milk-cans to the railway
station, caught sight of Mrs. Stuvic's face, pressed against the
water-streaked glass of a carriage window. He lashed his team to make up
for loss of time in turning aside; he wondered at the mysterious tie
that could have drawn her out, not indeed on such a day, but at all, for
he knew her to be at enmity's edge with neighbors and frosty to every
relative. At the station he met Milford, walking up and down beneath the
shed. Milford remembered him, Steve Hardy, the man who had given him a
"lift" from the station on the day of his coming into the neighborhood.
And to his head-shakings, winks, nods, wise mutterings, the new-comer
owed much of his reputation for mystery.
"I see your old boss off down the road there goin' to a funeral," said
Hardy.
"Did you? It's one of the privileges granted by the constitution of the
State."
"Yes. They don't have to take out license to go to funerals, or I don't
guess the old woman would er went. Guess all her boarders have gone, or
I don't s'pose she'd found the time. Who's dead?"
"Her sister, I believe."
"That so? Then I wonder more than ever. Believe I did hear somethin'
about it t'uther evenin', but I was milkin' at the time and I didn't
think that she was the old woman's sister. They must have made it up."
"Made what up?"
"Why, the row they had over the line-fence a good while ago. Somebody
told me you wanted to buy some calves."
"Yes, I'd like to get a few good ones."
"Well, mine are as good as ever stood on four feet. I guess you mean to
settle here permanently. Well, folks that have stirred around a good bit
tell me that there ain't a purtier place on the earth. I've had my house
full all summer, and there ain't been a word of complaint. Goin' out my
way?"
"Not till after the mail comes."
The post office was in a weather-beaten cottage, in the midst of an
apple orchard, just across the railway tracks; and of late Milford had
become well-acquainted with the postmaster, calling on him early and
sitting with him till the last pouch had been thrown off for the day.
But not a word had he received from Gunhild. He strove to console
himself with the thought that it was too soon, that she had not gone to
the country, but a consolation that comes with strife, consoles but
poorly. The train came, the mail-pouch was thrown off, and he followed
the postmaster to the house, stood close in anxiety till the letters
were all put into the pigeon-holes, and then turned sadly away. He took
his course through the wet grass, across the fields. He halted at the
ditch, and in the rain and the gathering dark stood there to think, amid
the wind-tangled stems and the rain-shattered blooms of the wild
sunflowers. He stepped down into the ditch, deep with mire, and the grim
humor of his nickname in the West, "Hell-in-the-Mud," fell upon him like
a cowboy's rope. He drew himself out, threw down a handful of grass that
he had pulled up by the roots, and strode on, through the green slop of
the low land. As he turned in at the gate, to pass through the hickory
grove, he saw the light of a lantern moving about in Mrs. Stuvic's
barnyard. He spoke to a dog that came scampering to meet him; the light
shot upward, came toward him; and he recognized the old woman,
bareheaded, with the rain pattering on her gray hair.
"Is that you, Bill? Now what are you pokin' round in this rain for? Come
over to the house and get your supper."
"No, I must go home."
"Home? Why, you haven't got any home and never will have."
"That's true," he agreed.
"Not till you go where we took my old sister to-day," she said, letting
the lantern down till her face was in the dark. "And just to think it
should have come as it did, while I was talkin' about her! I'd been
thinkin' about her all day, and I knowed somethin' was goin' to happen.
But come on in the house, and don't be standin' here in the rain like a
fool. Get away, Jack. I do think he's got less sense than any dog I ever
set eyes on. Now, if you do put your muddy feet on me I'll cut your
throat. You just dare to do it, you triflin' whelp! Are you goin' to the
house with me, Bill?"
"You're not afraid, are you?" he asked, now that her fear of the dead
cat was gone.
"Now you keep still. I'm not afraid of the devil himself. But this is
just the sort of a night for me to die. Yes, I'll tell you that."
"I thought you were to die on a cold night, with the wagons creaking
along the road."
"That was the plan, but it has been changed. Now I'm goin' to die when
the ground is soaked. You don't know Peterson, do you? Well, no matter.
But he lived just down the road there not long ago, and a meaner
neighbor never breathed. I caught him drivin' his turkeys into my tomato
patch. Yes. And his well went dry, and he come to my house and wanted to
haul off water in barrels. Yes. And I wouldn't let him. And what did he
say? He said he'd see my grave full of water. And now just think of what
I've had to contend with all my life. Think of me lyin' there in the
water, with that feller prancin' around!"
"But the chances are that you'll outlive him, Mrs. Stuvic."
"Yes, you bet, that's what I'm goin' to do," she said, her voice strong
with encouragement. "I'll outlive the whole pack of 'em, and then mebbe
they'll let me alone. Well, I'm not goin' to stand here any longer like
a fool."
When Milford reached home he found the Professor warm in a disquisition
delivered to the hired man. He hopped up from his chair and seized
Milford by the hand. "Ha," said he, "I was just telling our friend here
that exact memory is not the vital part of true culture. It is the
absorption of the idea rather than the catching of the words."
"Sit down," said Milford. "But what does he know about it? Woman is his
culture, and he's not only caught her idea, but has learned her by
heart."
"Now you're trottin'," spoke the hired man. "If there's anything in a
woman's nature that I don't know, why, it must have come to her in the
last hour or so."
The Professor crossed his legs and slowly nodded his head. "You ask,"
said he, speaking to Milford, "what does he know about it? A man never
knows unless he learns. Even to the ignorant, wisdom may be music. The
man whose mind has been dried and hardened in the field of harsh toil,
may sip the delicious luxury, the god-flavored juice of knowledge.
Wisdom cannot be concealed. You may lock it in an iron box, but it will
seep through."
Upon entering the room Milford had seen the hired man put aside an
earthen ewer, and now he knew that cider had been brought from the
cellar.
"Nearly all utterances upon knowledge, human nature or life, are trite,"
the learned man proceeded. "And so are herbs and flowers trite, the
stars in the heavens common, but once in a while there appears from the
ground a shoot so new that botany marvels, a star in the sky so strange
that astronomers gape in the wonder of a discovery. And I, humble as the
lowly earth, may sprout a new thought."
"I was going to suggest more cider," said Milford, "but I guess you've
had enough."
"Ha! enough and not too much. To pause at the line, a virtue; to cross
but an inch, a vice. Do you know of a publication that would buy a paper
upon the decadence of the modern drama? I have one in my head, a hot and
withering blast of fierce contempt."
"The last play I saw was a hummer," said the hired man. "There was a
whole lot of dancin' and cavortin' before they got down to it, fellers
givin' each other gags, and women singin' songs. But when they got down
to her she was there--a sort of a Mormon play; and they had a bed that
reached clear across the platform."
"Melpomene rioting as a bawd," declared the Professor. "I could
elucidate if permitted one more russet cup, drawn from the oak." He
looked at Milford. "One more, and let it be russet."
"No more to-night, Professor," said Milford. "I am going to get a bite
to eat pretty soon. Won't you join me?"
"To eat, to clog the stomach, to stupefy the nimble brain, that fine
machinery of wheels invisible and pulleys more delicate than the
silkworm's dream of a gauzy thread! No, I will not eat, but I will
drink--one more russet cup."
"Just one," said Milford.
"I spoke one, one in true sincerity; and if I squeeze the gentle hand of
hospitality till the bones crack, and ask for more--give it to me," he
roared, throwing his head back.
"Bob, bring him a cup of cider," said Milford.
"This has been an off day with me," the Professor remarked, following
the hired man with his eyes. "The mill shut down to undergo repairs, and
I am a boy out of school." He listened, as if straining his ears to
catch the babble of the cider. "I sat about the house, with a dry book,
to feel the contrast of the rain; I sniffed the dust of an Elizabethan's
pedantry--and then my wife and my daughter began on me. I beggared
myself and got them a sofa, and now they want a set of chairs. I made
with them a treaty of peace, and, barbarians, they violated it. What a
reproach it is to woman to see a man think! She must stir him up,
scatter his faculties."
"Not all women," said Milford.
"Ha! About how many women have you married, sir?"
Mitchell came in with the cider, and the Professor reached for it. He
placed the cup on the table and gazed at the bursting beads as if
counting them. He drank, smacked his mouth, and no whip-lash could have
popped keener; he gazed down into the cup, regretting the fall of the
yellow tide. He leaned back, with his eyes turned upward, and breathed
long; he whistled softly as if to coax back a thought that had escaped
him; he leaned forward, drained the cup, and sadly put it down, shoving
it far across the table. "Just within arm's reach of a temptation to ask
for more," he said, thrusting forth his hand. "But I will not. My word
has been given. Yes, about how many women have you married?"
"Well, just about one fewer than yourself if you've married only one,"
Milford answered.
The Professor's eyes snapped. "Was that word fewer contemplated or was
it an accident? Do you study to find such niceties of distinction?"
"I don't give a snap for niceties of distinction, Professor; I don't
know them, in fact. They might have been hammered into my head once, but
they were jolted out by bucking horses. Sometimes we forced them out. We
didn't want to be hampered. I knew a rancher, an Oxford man, who
wilfully clawed the polish off his tongue. He wanted to live down among
men, he said, and the rougher the better. One day I saw him get down off
his horse to kick a book that some one had dropped in the trail."
"I don't blame him for kicking a book that he might find out there,"
said the Professor.
"You don't? A scholar lost an AEschylus on the prairie, and some one
might have kicked it."
"Ha! I draw you on apace. We'll discuss the ancient goat-song next."
"No, I'd rather talk about sheep and calves. I know more about them. I
never look at a learned man that I don't fancy him weary of his burden.
Think of a professor's moldy pack, dead languages, dried thought----"
"Hold on, my dear friend. I was a professor, and I had no such pack.
Like the modern peddler, I carried the wants of to-day. But, after all,
I agree with you in the main. I know that the average doctor of learning
is not able to see virtue in the new. To him old platitude is of more
value than new vigor. And with one more cup I could----"
"No more."
"Not in the interest of clear elucidation?"
"Not in any interest that you can fish up. I don't want you to go home
drunk."
"Drunk! Why, my dear boy, I hadn't thought of such a thing; it hasn't
entered my head. You mistake me, and I am here to refute it. A man needs
something beyond his needs; there are times when we look for something
aside from our own natural forces; there are wants which nature was ages
in supplying. Look at tobacco. The Greeks missed it as they sat deep in
the discussion of their philosophy. They did not know what it was they
were missing, but they knew it was something and I know it was tobacco.
But be that as it may. You have said that I shall have no more, and I
bow." He twisted his beard and seemed to force into himself the spirit
of resignation. They heard a tramping on the veranda. A voice called
Mitchell. He went to the door and opened it, told some one to come in,
and then stepped out. There came a mumbling, and then a profane
exclamation. Mitchell stepped back into the room and slammed the door.
He sat down and leaned over with his arms upon his knees. The Professor
looked at him, still twisting his beard. Milford asked him what had
happened. He looked up with a sour snarl. "It's all off," he said.
"What's all off?" Milford asked.
"It's all off with me, that's what. My girl's married."
"You don't mean it!" the Professor cried.
"Then what the devil do I want to say it for? She married about two
hours ago, so Miles Brent tells me, and he was there--married a feller
named Hogan. I see him around there once or twice, but don't think
anythin' of it. Well, I'll swear. I thought I knowed her, and I did know
her at one time, but she changed. Blamed if you can tell how soon
they'll change on you. Hogan--an old widower."
"I know him," said Milford. "He milks fifteen cows. His milk caught
her."
"I hate to think that," Mitchell drawled, "but I'll have to. Yes, sir,
hauled off in a milk-wagon. And she owns a piece of land worth fifty
dollars an acre."
"She must have wanted milk to wash off her freckles," said Milford.
"Don't, Bill--don't make light of a man's trouble. She's a big loss to
me, I tell you."
"But, Bob, you didn't really love her, now, did you?"
"Bill, there's different sorts of love. I loved her in my way, as much
as any man ever loved a woman, I reckon, in his way. I put my faith in
her, and that was goin' a good ways. Humph! I can't hardly believe it,
but I know it's so."
"When the heart is rent," said the Professor, twisting his beard to aid
his thought; "when the heart is rent----"
"It's the failure of the rent--on the land, that gets Bob," Milford
broke in. "His heart has nothing to do with it."
"Bill, I thought you had more sympathy than----"
"Sympathy for a man who has failed to beat a woman out of her property?
Of course, I wish you'd succeeded, but I'm not going to console you
because you haven't. I'm a scoundrel all right enough, but a scoundrel
has his limits."
"That's all right, Bill, but somebody may give you the slip."
"That's true enough, but my heart and not my pocket will do the
grieving. I haven't any time to give to a man's pocket grief."
"Wait till you have a real grief," said the Professor. "Wait till
ignorance comes heavy of hoof down your hallway to tell you that your
years of study are but a waste-land, covered with briars; to cut you
with the blue steel of a chilling smile, and to turn you out of an
institution that you hold dear. That's grief." He leaned forward upon
the table, with his head on his arms.
"You had no right to go to see her," said Milford. "You had no divorce."
"But I could've got one, couldn't I? Are they so blamed scarce that a
man can't get 'em? Well, let it go."
"Yes, I must go," said the Professor, getting up. "Is it raining yet? I
slipped off between showers without an umbrella."
"Sorry I haven't one," Milford replied. "Yes, it's raining. Take that
coat up there. It may protect you some."
"Thank you. I shall avail myself of your offer."
He put on the coat, bade them good-night, and set out for home. The road
was muddy and he walked close to the fence. Once he strode into a patch
of briars. "The waste land of my years of study," he said. He shied when
he saw the light in his window, and he cleared his throat and braced
himself. His wife and Miss Catherine, hearing him upon the veranda, sat
down upon the floor, as if they had no chairs. He stepped in, looked at
them, and sadly shook his head.
"I would be polite enough to choose a finer insinuation," said he.
"There may be virtue in a hint--there may be all sorts of spice in it,
but there's nothing but insult in squatting around on the floor like
this. I don't know how to choose words for the occasion. I will simply
bid you good-night."
He heard them talking after he went to bed. He sighed out his distemper
and fell asleep. In the morning he found that he had hung Milford's coat
upside down. A paper had fallen from the pocket. He took it up, opened
it, and with a start he recognized his medical treatise.