FROM HER.
Early the next morning Milford was leading a horse out of the barn when
he met the Professor at the door. For a moment the scholar stood puffing
the short breath of his haste; he had not picked his way, for his
clothes were bespattered with mud, as if in his eagerness he had split
the middle of the road.
"You're out early," said Milford.
"But not early enough. One who has been deceived is always too late. Mr.
Milford, I have been grossly imposed upon by--by your generosity, sir.
That paper, the medical treatise. It fell out of your coat. I found it
this morning. Can you explain?"
"Well, I haven't time just now," said Milford, preparing to mount the
horse. "I've got to ride over to Hardy's to see about some calves. We'll
talk about the treatise some other time."
"No, sir," the Professor replied, holding up his hand. "We must talk
about it now. You were to take that paper to the Doctor's wife. You
brought me the money for it. You said that she liked it. And this
morning it fell out of the pocket of your coat."
"It does seem a little strange, I admit."
"Strange! No, it is not strange. It is a generous outrage. I don't know
what else to call it. I have been tricked, laughed at in the pocket of
your treacherous coat."
Milford mounted the horse. The Professor took hold of the bridle rein.
"You must not leave me thus. I have been left too long to simper and
smirk in self-cajolery, with an inward swell to think that my pen had
paid my insurance. You must explain."
"All right, I'll tell you. I thought well of your paper, you understand,
but when I got over to the house and faced the woman, my nerve failed
me, and I couldn't ask her to buy it."
"But you praised it," said the Professor, with a gulp, still holding the
bridle reins.
"Yes, and it was all right, but I lost my nerve. I had conjured up a
sort of speech to make to her, but it slipped me, and then my nerve
failed. It wasn't my fault, for I liked the paper all right enough, you
understand."
"But you brought the money. How about that?"
"Well, I had a few dollars, and I borrowed the rest from the old woman.
But that needn't worry you, for I paid her back when I sold my oats.
It's all right."
"Needn't worry me! Why, you fail to catch the spirit of my distress.
Your act leaves me in debt. Why did you do it, Milford? Why?"
Milford looked down at him, his eyes half closed. "You'd acknowledged
yourself a thief. You said you'd stolen a dog."
"Yes, I know," the Professor agreed, glancing about. "I know, but what
of that?"
"Well, it made you my brother. And don't you think a man ought to help
his brother in distress? Don't let it worry you. Don't think about it.
If you can ever pay it back, all right. If you can't, it's still all
right, so there you are. Let me go."
"Milford, in the idiom of the day, I am not a dead beat. I do not like
the term, and I employ it only out of necessity. Beat is well enough,
but dead is lacking in the significance of natural growth. I hope that
you give me credit for seriousness. I am not a flippant man; I am
innately solemn, knowing that the only progressive force in the human
family is earnestness. But sometimes in the hour of my heaviest
solemnity I may appear light; and why? In the hope that I may deceive my
own heart into a few moments of forgetful levity. And you say that you
are going over to look at some calves. Now that gives me an idea. I can
fatten two calves very nicely--could keep them all winter and get a very
good price for them in the spring. I abhor debt, but do you think you
could make arrangements for me to get two, or three? Do you think you
could?"
"The man I am to deal with is close and I don't believe he'll give
credit."
"Very likely he might object. I didn't know, however, but that you might
make some arrangements with him, and let me settle with you afterward.
Such things have been done in trade, you know."
"Yes, but I'm not prepared to do it now, Professor."
"Well, you know best. But I want you to understand that the money you
advanced me shall be repaid."
"I understand that."
"But you must understand it thoroughly. I am afraid that you do not
grasp the full significance of it."
"I think I do. Well, I must go."
"Yes, and so must I. One of these days, Milford, you will think well of
me."
"I do now, Professor. You are my brother."
"Ah! I have strengths that you----"
"Your brother on account of your weaknesses, Professor."
"I would rather that our kinship rested upon other qualities, but we
will not discuss the question, since we both of us are in a hurry.
Therefore, I bid you good-morning and wish you good luck."
When Milford returned at noontime the hired man gave him a letter. It
was from Gunhild. In a Michigan community she had found, not a field,
indeed, but a garden-patch for her labors. "The pay is very small, but
it is an encouragement," she said. "It has been hard to find a place,
and I was willing to accept almost anything. The people are not awake to
art; to them life demands something sterner, and I have come to believe
that everything but a necessity is a waste of time, but then what I do
is a necessity, and I find my excuse to myself in that. I had a letter
from Mrs. Goodwin a few days ago, and I also met a woman who had seen
her recently. She has made another discovery, a musical genius on the
piano, a girl whom she found in a mission school. I take this to mean
that she has put me aside, for with her the new blots out the old. And
this makes my success as a teacher all the more----" Here she had erased
several words and substituted "needful." "She will never remind me of my
obligation, I am sure, but I cannot forget it. I feel that she was
disappointed in me, but it is not my fault, for I all the time told her
that I was not to be great. I will make no false modesty to hide that I
have thought of you many times. I dreamed of you in English. This may
not mean much to you, but I nearly always dream in Norwegian, and
persons who speak English to me when I am awake, speak Norwegian in my
dreams. But you did not. I thought I saw you standing in a ditch and the
rain was falling, and it was night. I ran to you, and you spoke the name
they used to call you in the West. It was the ditch you helped me over.
I had been thinking about it in the day, and was sorry because the
sunflowers must be all dead. I had to send some money to my uncle. He
lost his place on the street-car, but they have taken him back. He has
five children and cannot afford to be idle. Oh, that was a beautiful
summer out there. Do you remember the night at the house where they said
the spirits are? I can see you now, kneeling on the floor. I will be
bold and say that I wanted to kneel beside you. Will there ever come
another summer like that? It was my first rest. But I cannot hope for
another soon. Mrs. Goodwin will not want me to come out with her next
year. She will have with her the musical genius then. But we shall see
each other. I feel that you spoke the truth when you said that
all--something could not keep us apart. I board at the house of a man
who had this season a large potato field. I went out when the digging
time was at hand, and behind the plow I saw a woman from Norway and I
wanted to help her, but it would not do for these people to know that I
have ever worked in a field. The teacher of the public school spoke of
me as the graceful young woman, and I thought that it might please you
to know that he had said it."
"Please me?" said Milford, talking aloud to himself. "Blast his
impudence, what right----"
"Anything wrong, Bill?" Mitchell inquired.
"Oh, no, everything's all right."
"Letter from her, ain't it?"
"Yes. She's in Michigan."
"I used to go with a woman from Michigan," said the hired man. "And I
thought I'd like to marry her, but I found out she'd been married twice,
and I didn't feel like bein' no third choice."
"I didn't suppose you'd object to that," Milford replied, folding his
letter.
"Well, I may be more particular than most fellers, but it sorter stuck
in my crop. I guess it's a good plan to let all the women alone. For
awhile at least," he added. "The best of 'em don't bring a man nothin'
but trouble. What does your girl say in her letter?"
"Oh, nothing much. She's teaching."
"I guess she's a pretty good sort of a woman. Are you goin' to bring her
here?"
"Not if I know myself."
"Yes, but a feller that keeps on foolin' with a woman gits so after a
while he don't know himself. What's your object in not wantin' to bring
her here?"
"I've got something else to do first. She may not want me after I've
told her--the truth."
"Then don't do it, Bill. Talk to a woman all you're a mind to, but don't
tell her any more truth than you can help. It gives her the upper hand
of you."
"I don't know, Bob, that I'd be warranted in accepting your theories
about woman."
"Mebbe not, but I'm the chap that's had the experience."
Milford replied in effect that experience does not always make us wise.
It sometimes tends to weaken rather than to make us strong. It might
make freshness stale; it is a thief that steals enthusiasm; it enjoins
caution at the wrong time. He took out his letter and read it again,
studying the form of each word. The hired man said that he had received
many a letter, had read them over and over, but that did not alter the
fact that the writer thereof had proved false to him. "I don't want to
pile up trash in no man's path," he said, "but I want to give it out
strong that it's a mighty hard matter for a woman to be true even to
herself. Look how I've been treated."
Milford did not reply. He studied his letter, and the words, "wanted to
kneel beside you," gathered a melody, and were sweet music to him.