XI
In the Corn
Summer had come.
The soft days of spring had gone by, the days when the feeling of growth impresses every sense. The haze-filled April mornings, warming into the forcing ardor of noon, had stirred into life the activity latent in root and twig. May's glowing sun, shining through the scantily covered branches, made dancing motes of heat wave above the surface of red clay. The aspens fluttered into exquisite greenness. The sourwood put forth the satin of its tender leaves. All over the mountain-sides and through the forest thickets the oak-tips blushed faint pink, a delicate velvet against the stout bristles of the yellow pines.
Birds flew over, bound for the North, each with his instinctive goal; some almost at their journey's end, others with many a long ethereal mile before them. Some of them sojourned for a few days, following the ploughman as he overturned the mellow earth. Others let this high land be the end of their wanderings, and settled here to the duty of love-making and the pleasures of domestic life.
The azalea flamed in yellow and orange and scarlet glory, a note of savage color on spring's soft palette. The delicate clusters of the laurel, and, later, of the rhododendron, crowned the stems of the parent bush, as sometimes a fair girl springs from a rough and ugly father.
The germ grew strong within its warm seed-prison, and sent inquiring leaflets into the upper world; and the adventurers never returned, but sent back demands for food and drink, as colonists to a new land rely upon the mother-country for sustenance and support.
On the steep mountain-sides, and in the coves that dimple the lower slopes; on the flat lands of the plateau, and in the meadows along the French Broad, the slender shafts of the corn-leaves were pushing upward with what success their position fostered. By mid-June the crop in the bottom-land was knee-high, while that nourished by the field over which Sydney had stumbled on the top of Buck Mountain was only half as tall.
Bud Yarebrough and Pink Pressley were hoeing among stalks half-way between these heights on the upland slopes of the Baron's farm, whose cultivable land they had hired for the season. Stripped to their shirts, whose open throats showed each a triangle of sunburned skin, they worked rapidly down the adjoining furrows, one keeping a hoe's length behind the other, that their tools might not interfere. Conversation was more pithy than voluble.
"Damn hot," ejaculated Pink, stopping to hitch up his trousers, and then to spit on his hands before resuming his hoe.
"Mos' dinner time," returned Bud, looking up at the sun, and then over his shoulder towards the spring-betraying group of trees to which Melissa was accustomed to bring his dinner when he was working here. "They's some feller tyin' his horse in front of the cabin. Who is hit?"
Pink leaned on his hoe and squinted across the blazing field to the grove that sheltered von Rittenheim's house.
"Bob Morgan, Ah reckon. Looks like his horse."
"Come to get somethin' fo' Mr. Baron. O-oh, Bob!"
Bob looked around his horse's nose, and held up his hand in token of understanding. He unlocked the cabin and disappeared within, coming out again with a bundle, which he tied on to the saddle, and then led his animal towards the trees at the spring. The two laborers tossed down their hoes and moved to the same haven.
"What time is hit, Bob?"
Morgan looked at his watch.
"Five past twelve, Pink. Working hard?"
"Yep. Tol'able big crop." He sat down at the foot of a tree and opened his dinner-pail.
"Have some?" he asked, pointing the opening at Bob, who was settling into repose with his hat over his face.
"No, I thank you. I must be going home in a few minutes. How are you getting on? Bought any more stock lately?"
Bob lay on his back with one long leg balanced on the other knee like a see-saw on a saw-horse. The rowel of his spur rattled as he jerked his foot up and down at the ankle.
"No." Pink had his mouth full.
"How many head have you got now?"
"Oh, jus' a mule 'n a couple o' cows."
"Sold your horse?"
"'M. Here Bud, take some o' this. Ah jus' natchelly hate to have you-all die o' starvation."
"No, she's comin'. Ah see her now." And Bud ran to meet his wife and to relieve her of the baby.
"Hungry, ain' he?" sneered Pink, as he watched his partner's alacrity, while Bob struggled to his feet to greet Melissa.
"Say, you-all wasn' wantin' to buy a cow, was ye, Bob?" asked Pink.
"Got one to sell?"
"Yes, the muley cow."
"No, I don't guess I want her."
"You seemed so damn curious about my stock, Ah 'lowed ye were purchasin'."
"Oh, no. I just thought you must have an extra lot of cattle to be providing for, or you wouldn't have needed to hire this land and to make an extra big crop of corn."
A dull red showed on Pink's forehead above the tan-mark, and crowded into his pale-blue eyes, destitute of lashes. The two men looked steadily at each other. Then, as Melissa drew near, Pink broke into an ugly laugh.
"Give a dog a bad name, eh? You-all needn' be quite so bigoty now yo' fine friends have been at the same business."
He waved his hand towards the cabin, and Bob, in his turn, flushed as he shook hands with Melissa.
The girl gave scant greeting to Pressley. Her husband's new friendship with him was distasteful to her; it filled her with foreboding when she remembered his threats.
Yet there had been nothing definite of which she could complain to Bud since the day when Miss Carroll had caught Pink trying to kiss her. He had never been to the cabin since his rebuff, but she knew that he and Bud were constantly together, and this partnership in the hiring of the Baron's land was a culmination of their friendly relations.
"Ah don' see how ye c'n stan' him, nohow, Bud," she often said, and Bud as often replied,—
"Ah never did see anythin' like the prejudice o' women! They certainly ain' no doubt about yo' sex, M'lissy."
Pink bore his part in the present conversation with no trace of embarrassment. Indeed, there was an assertiveness in his bearing that reacted upon Melissa to produce extreme shyness. Neither cause nor effect escaped Morgan's shrewd black eyes.
"How's Mr. Baron?" asked Bud, between bites.
"Doing very well. He gets out on the porch every day now."
"Great luck he has," growled Pressley. "Yo' father never paid my fine when Ah was given mah choice between 'a hundred dollars or three months.'"
"My father likes to choose his friends," replied Bob, sternly. Melissa looked distressed.
"What's sauce fo' the goose ought to be sauce fo' the gander," argued the ex-moonshiner.
"It ain' fittin' fo' you-all to say anythin' ag'in' Dr. Morgan, whatever he mayse-lect to do," asserted Bud, combatively, and Pink hastened to hedge.
"Ah 'low not. He certainly was white to me when Ah broke mah laig. 'N as fo' Mr. Baron, Ah always did like him, 'n this is a new tie between us. Now we're brothers."
He chuckled with a full appreciation of his insolence, for the story of von Rittenheim's downfall and its cause was well known throughout the country.
Melissa went white at the malignity of his tone. She turned to Bob with a question:
"Mrs. Carroll 'n Miss Sydney—are they wore to a frazzle takin' care o' him?"
"Mrs. Carroll's all right. They've had two nurses from Asheville all the time, you know. Miss Sydney's wonderful. There's such a lot to do about a house when there's a serious illness, even for people who aren't doing the actual nursing."
"Ah s'pose so. Wouldn' hit be nice, jus' like a story, 'f they'd fall in love with each other—Mr. Baron 'n Miss Sydney?"
"Now, ain' that jus' like a girl!" ejaculated Bud, gulping the last of his coffee.
Bob sat down and fanned himself with his hat.
"Hot, ain' hit?" observed Pink, dryly. Then he turned to Melissa.
"You-all's fo'gittin' that he might be in prison at this minute. No woman o' his class would marry him now. No woman likes to think her man's guilty o' breakin' the law, eh? You-all wouldn' like yo' husband to be a moonshiner, would ye?"
The man's body leaned towards the girl, and he fixed her with a cruel stare from which she seemed unable to move her eyes. Seated as he was, he looked like a huge snake upreared to strike.
He went on mercilessly. "O' co'se ye wouldn'. Ah expect you'd never hol' up yo' haid ag'in. What woman can when her man's that-a-way?"
"Oh, dry up, Pink," cried Bud. "You-all make me feel like Ah had the constable after me now, 'n Lawd knows hit ain'methat's raced 'em through these woods."
Pink acknowledged the shot with a grunt.
Melissa rose to go, and Bud picked up the baby and handed it to her.
"Hit's her busy day fo' sleepin', ain' hit?" he said, poking a blunt finger into the soft cheek.
"I must go, too," said Bob, "or my mother'll jar me up for being late."
"Good-by," said Bud, genially. "Stop by ag'in some time."
"Miss Sydney's been so busy she ain' rode over here fo' a long time. Will you-all give mah love to her, please?" said Melissa, timidly.
"'N mine," Pink started to add, but a dangerous look in Bob's eye induced him to change it to "'N mahre-gards to Mr. Baron," though his grin remained unaltered.
XII
Illumination
For the first time since the beginning of his illness, von Rittenheim was walking unassisted towards the cluster of trees on the Oakwood lawn, beneath whose shelter rugs and low chairs and a tea-table made a summer sitting-room. Mrs. Carroll, who already was established in the shade, watched anxiously her guest's feeble approach.
"You should have let the nurse or James come with you," she called to him. "It's too far for you to walk alone."
"Ah, dear Mrs. Carroll, it is so good not to have that admirable nurse or the good Uncle Yimmy with me."
He let himself down carefully into a big chair.
"And you see that not yet do I disdain cushions. The down of that pr-rovident bird, the eider duck, makes a substitute for the flesh that ought to pad my poor bones. Thank you, Uncle Yimmy," to the old negro, who had just set down the tea-tray, "thank you, yes, one more pillow behind my shoulders."
"You'll have tea?"
"May I have tea? Is it possible that I r-return in one same day to two examples of independence? I walk abr-road alone, and I say again to my dear Mrs. Carroll, 'I thank you. It does me pleasure to accept a cup of tea from your hands.'" He held up his own hand against the sun. "A little worse for the wear, my hand, eh? But still of use."
A slight change of position brought into view the field at the foot of the knoll upon whose top they were. Friedrich sat upright in his chair, while a flush tinged his worn cheeks.
"What makes Miss Sydney down there?" he cried.
"Sydney? Oh, she is breaking some of the colts; teaching them to jump, I think she said, to-day."
Mrs. Carroll adjusted her eye-glasses. Two negro grooms were setting up a low hurdle with wings, while two small black boys dangled joyously from the halters of a couple of young horses, and a third bore Sydney's saddle upon his head.
"Is it Bob Mor-rgan with Miss Sydney?" asked Friedrich, wistfully, as the girl walked across the field beside a man who was leading a tall gray, already saddled.
"Yes, that's Bob. A huge fellow, isn't he?"
"And fear you not that Miss Sydney should ride those so wild colts?"
"Not now. I used to be frightened to death, but I've seen her and Bob down there doing that for so many years that I've learned not to be afraid. She rides really very well, you know, and Bob is careful of her."
"He would be."
Von Rittenheim sighed, and leaned back with closed eyes. He wished with all his soul that it were he down in the field fitting the saddle—thatdearside-saddle—to that dancing creature; that it were he who was responsible for the safety of Sydney.
"Bob gives her a lead over, you see, on his horse, which is a well-trained animal."
Friedrich opened his eyes in time to see the gray take off neatly. Sydney followed, and lifted her mount so cleverly that he had leaped his first hurdle before he knew what he was doing. The watchers on the knoll could see Bob, sitting on his horse at one side, clap his hands in approval, while the pickaninnies turned cartwheels in the grass.
"She does r-ride most beautifully, Miss Sydney. It is truly pleasurable to see her," murmured von Rittenheim, though his expression was one of approval rather than delight.
"Do you know, Mrs. Carroll, have I told you how much thisAussicht—view, is it not?—and the position of your house make me to think of my home? It is on the edge of the Schwarzwald, and we look down from the Schloss into a valley, oh, so lovely! with trees and a little r-river."
"A much wilder prospect than we have here at Oakwood."
"But not more beautiful, and the feeling is the same."
A vulgar emotion assailed the well-kept precincts of Mrs. Carroll's mind. Curiosity, commonplace curiosity surged within her. She yielded to its force.
"How could you bear to leave it?"
"It was the old pr-reference of the man in the window of the burning castle,—behind, the flames r-roaring mightily, and below, the spears of his enemies."
"A choice between evils."
"Yes, if you will for-rgive my calling your country an evil. I was unhappy—too unhappy to stay where every day I saw something to make me worse; and that evil was gr-reater than to banish myself, even though I do love my country dearly."
"Was it necessary for you to come so far? Could you not find peace in your own land?"
"I thought not. You see—if I do not weary you I will tell you. Shall I tell you?"
"You never weary me," returned Mrs. Carroll, heartily. "I shall consider that you do me an honor if you care to speak to me about yourself."
"It shall be only a little," began Friedrich, repenting of his expansiveness. "Perhaps I have told you that I am the older of my family. I have one br-rother four years younger. Our parents are dead several years, and Maximilian is married two years ago with Hilda von Arnim."
"You spoke of them both when you were ill; in your delirium, you know."
"Of Max and Hilda? What did I say?"
A sharp note was in Friedrich's voice.
"My dear Baron, I must make the humiliating confession that long disuse has impaired sadly my understanding of German. If you should speak to me very slowly, probably I could comprehend you, but at that time you were not speaking slowly."
"My nurses?"
"Neither of them speaks a word of anything but English."
"It is an escape," he murmured. "Forgive me,gnädige Frau. It is a startle to think that perhaps you have given to the world your heart's thoughts."
"Be reassured. It was only the names, Max and Hilda, that we understood."
"When my tr-rouble came to me, it was unbearable to stay at the Schloss, so I must go away. Yet Maximilian was not able to pr-reserve the estate as it should be kept. He is not r-rich, Max, and he is a little what you call swift, eh? He spends much."
"I see."
"So if I leave him to care for the Schloss I must leave him also my incomings, and, if I act so, I cannot live myself in my own country where I have friends of the army and of society; where I have a—what is it?—a stand?"
"Position?"
"Yes, yes, a position to hold up. I must go where it concerns nobody if I am changed in purse. So to America I came, it is about two years since, and for one year I tr-ravelled everywhere to see where I liked best, and for the diversion also, for I was most sad. Then my money grew down so small that I saw I must stop, so to this lovely land I happened, and I bought my little farm. But, alas! I fear I am not a farmer. Still, I shall learn. I am determined of that."
"I'm sure you will. You haven't had a chance yet."
"And this year, what can I do? I am so misfortunate as to be away and sick at the time of planting."
"You won't be without some little return, for when we found that you would be ill so long we let your fields to two men who have planted them, and will pay you one-third of their crop of corn. That's the customary rent here, and it will keep your mule through next winter, at any rate."
"Now, that is truly kind and thoughtful. It is, indeed, fr-riendly!"
"You must thank Dr. Morgan for that arrangement."
Von Rittenheim sat erect and stared at the little old lady before him. A look of confused and struggling recollection was called into life by her words.
"I must thank—whom?"
The spirit of the gallant adventurer who had been Mrs. Carroll's immigrant ancestor to the Virginia wilds pushed her on to dare the situation. She also sat upright, and the two faced each other undauntedly.
"You must thank Dr. Morgan for that kindness, and for others even greater."
"Dr. Mor-rgan?"
Clearer remembrance brought with it the old feeling of suspicion and its accompanying look of hatred, which distorted Friedrich's handsome face.
"Yes, Dr. Morgan. I want you to listen to what I am going to tell you. You are well enough now to hear the truth."
"It is your right, madam, to say to me what you may like."
Von Rittenheim turned his stern face towards the training-field, and kept his eyes upon the moving forms that shifted below him.
Mrs. Carroll was unabashed.
"Dr. Morgan is an old and tried friend of mine and of all my family. He has seen life come and go at Oakwood. He rejoiced with us at Sydney's birth, and he was my chief help and support when her father and mother left us two here together, alone."
With a certain tenderness—the yearning that a man feels to protect the feeble and the helpless—Friedrich turned his softened eyes towards her.
"I tell you this because I can say truthfully that I know him to be faithful in friendship and incapable of treachery."
Friedrich turned again with tightened lips to his contemplation of the meadow.
"We heard of your being summoned to court and for what purpose."
Mrs. Carroll stopped, for a grayness settled over the young man's face, and the eyes that he turned upon hers were filled with horror.
"You had forgotten?"
"Yes, I had forgotten."
All the pride went out of him, as the fading of the sun's flush leaves the evening clouds without illumination and dull.
"I had for-rgotten, but now I r-remember. It comes back to me. Yes, now I r-remember all—all."
He turned away his face both from her and from the field below, and rested his cheek on his hand. Mrs. Carroll noticed the thinness of his wrist, and her heart misgave her.
"Shall I go on?"
"If it please you."
"Bob Morgan went into Asheville to follow your career in behalf of all your friends here."
Von Rittenheim's head fell lower.
"He was in the court-room when you were——"
The old lady hesitated and watched von Rittenheim sharply. She was doubtful of his strength after all.
"When I was—yes, continue, please," he said, with muffled voice.
"When you were sentenced."
She hastened on, pretending not to hear the groan that followed her revelation.
"He galloped out here at once as fast as he could, and told us about it—his father and me. He feared an illness for you then—you looked not yourself, he said. We decided that it was best for you to come here to Oakwood. We could not bear to think of your going to the hospital."
Friedrich felt vaguely across the table for the plump little hand of his hostess, and pressed it blindly.
"They drove into town that same afternoon, Dr. Morgan in our carriage, and Bob in his buggy, and found you in the—found you very ill."
"Found me where?"
"You were delirious even then."
"Found me where?"
Friedrich pushed aside the cups and placed both elbows on the table. He seemed to Mrs. Carroll to have grown haggard since she had begun her recital.
"Found me where?" he repeated for the third time.
"You insist?"
"It is my r-right."
"They found you in—in the jail."
Mrs. Carroll turned away from the wretched man before her and sobbed undisguisedly. On them fell a quiet pregnant with emotion. The hush was broken by the crash of a tea-cup upon which Friedrich's fingers had happened to fall.
"Bob secured the nurses and drove one of them out in the buggy, and the Doctor and the other one brought you in the carriage."
"Why did they let me go from the—jail?"
"The Doctor paid your fine."
Often during the preceding weeks Mrs. Carroll had thought of this conversation with von Rittenheim, and the statement that she had just made always had figured as the climax of her argument in the Doctor's behalf. Now she felt no pleasure in it. The man before her was too crushed for her to exult over. He made no comment, merely said, reflectively,—
"Yes, there was a fine. It comes to me,—'one hundred dollars or three months.' It is the last thing I r-remember."
"You were dangerously ill by the time you reached Oakwood, and for three days Dr. Morgan left you only to visit his other patients. Between the attacks of stupor you talked a great deal, usually in German, but occasionally in English. From what you said then, and what Dr. Morgan remembered of conversations you had had with him, and from what Bob learned in Asheville, we gathered that you thought that when Dr. and Mrs. Morgan met the marshal on the road after they had been to your house, they betrayed you to him, and your arrest was the consequence. Is that so?"
Von Rittenheim nodded. "Yes, it is so."
"I hope it will come to you as clearly as we see it who are the Doctor's friends, that he is incapable of such a thing."
"Dear lady, even already I think I see it. I r-remember darkly my trial; how the officer told of his trick to entr-rap me into selling. Ah, dear Mrs. Carroll, I was anxious to despair from my so unusual poverty, and I was hungry, and bitten with shame for my weakness—and hopeless."
Unconsciously his eyes turned to the field below, where Sydney's hair gleamed red bronze in the sunset light. She was dismissing the men and horses. A great wall seemed to von Rittenheim to spring up between them, a wall made thick by his folly, and high by his disgrace, and strong by his weakness.
"Though I am shameful to say such things as if they were excuses, nothing excuses me. I am without justification. I say so most humbly to you."
Weakly he leaned back among his cushions. Mrs. Carroll glanced at him and hurried on.
"When the first fury of the disease was spent, you seemed distressed at the sight of the Doctor, though you did not recognize him fully; so, though he has not failed to come here twice each day, it is through the nurses' reports and Bob's that he has been treating you. He can do so much better for you now if you will see him."
"If I will see him?" he repeated. "Yes, I can at least make some little amends for my folly—my distr-rust. But can I win back ever my self-r-respect, so that you and other people can r-respect me? So that——"
He stopped as Sydney's voice reached him. She was coming up the hill, laughing with Bob.
Von Rittenheim looked appealingly at Mrs. Carroll.
"Sydney," she called, "go on to the house, dear, with Bob, and send James here."
She rose and laid her hand tenderly on the bent head.
"Stay here a while. It is still quite warm enough for you."
She went slowly across the lawn and disappeared beneath the veranda's roses. A level ray from the setting sun touched Friedrich's fair hair with gold, and went on to be splintered into a thousand tiny shafts against the swelling side of the silver cream-jug.
XIII
Reconciliation
The sunshine of a clear June day was beating upon the gravel of the driveway, and a few woolly clouds, the forerunners of the early afternoon's daily shower, clung over the tops of the southern mountains.
Behind the screen of vines and climbing roses that sheltered the porch von Rittenheim sat reading a New York paper of two days before. It was the morning after his explanation with Mrs. Carroll, and the emotional outcome of the talk had been a state of abasement of soul that had sapped his little store of strength. His thin hands shook weakly, and he continually changed his position, and glanced expectantly at the long window which opened upon the gallery.
Sydney's voice inside the house made him clutch his paper nervously. She spoke loudly, as in warning.
"The Baron? You'll find him on the porch, Dr. Morgan. The nurse says he didn't sleep very well last night."
"He didn't? We must mend that." And the Doctor stepped from the window and approached his long-unseen patient.
Von Rittenheim looked up into the wrinkled brown face with its shrewd, kind eyes, and covered his own eyes with his hand.
"You know?" he asked, brokenly. "Mrs. Carroll has told you?" He felt his other hand taken into a cordial grasp.
"Mrs. Carroll has told me that she has described to you all the happenings of yo' illness that had escaped yo' attention, so to speak. Curious troubles, these brain affairs, aren't they? Make you feel as if you'd been on an excursion outside of yo'self for a while, and had to hear all the home news when you got back."
Von Rittenheim grew composed as the Doctor rambled on.
"She has not told you," he said, insistently, "of my so deep r-regret for the injustice that I made towards you. I can never do atonement for my br-rutal behavior, for my unjust suspiciousness. That you can take my hand shows much par-rdon in you."
"Now, don't talk about that any more, Baron. It ain't worth it," Dr. Morgan replied, awkwardly. "Ah don't guess that circumstances looked very favorable to me. Anyway, you-all can please me best now by doing credit to my doctoring skill. Quit having the appearance of a skeleton just as quick as you can."
"I'll try," answered Friedrich, meekly.
"And don't worry too much over what's gone by," went on the Doctor, clumsily. "Breaking the law's breaking the law, Ah'm not denying that; but it makes a lot of difference what the motive is, and you've suffered your share of punishment, too. It's the right of every man to begin afresh. Avoid mud and give yo' horse a firm take-off, and he'll leap as clean as a whistle for you. Lawd, Ah'm getting plumb religious," he ejaculated, wiping his face.
Friedrich's knowledge of English was put to a test, but he listened with his eyes as well as his ears, and nodded slowly.
"I think I understand," he said. "But do you think that people—my fr-riends"—his eyes turned towards the house—"that my friends can overlook it—can ever think of me as they used to think of me?"
"Oh, I reckon she will," replied Dr. Morgan, with a smile that disconcerted von Rittenheim and drove him to a new topic.
"You will for-rgive me if I do talk some business with you," he said, hastily.
"Do you feel well enough?"
"Oh, yes. I shall feel much better when I have cleared my mind of all these things. I want to say to you that I do much appr-reciate, also, besides your kindness, all the money that you have paid, and—no, let me talk, please, Herr Doctor—and I must tell you that I shall write to-day to Germany for a r-remittance. There is a sum which I can have. Yes, I see you look, wondering that I have lived so poor. Well, I explain to you that I have sworn that I would not use it for myself—I have another use for it—so long as I am well and can earn enough for living; but now I am not well, and I have expenses in the past weeks, and I must live until I grow str-rong to work in some way; so am I justified to myself to send for the money, you see."
"Fix it any way you like," said the Doctor, cheerily, "only remember that if it ain't convenient to pay upever,—why, just banish it from your mind, and Ah'll never think of it again, Ah promise you. Now, is that all?" he asked, as he leaned towards his patient and put a practised finger on his pulse. "Yes? Then Ah'd like to know where that Sydney is with that egg-nog. Here, you Sydney," he cried, putting his head into the house and letting his cracked voice echo into the darkness. "What kind of a nurse are you? How do you expect to rise in the profession, miss, if you don't have an egg-nog ready the instant yo' patient happens to think of it? Oh, here you are! Well, sit down here, then, and see that the Baron takes every drop of that, and don't tire him out with yo' chatter. Do you understand?"
After which burst he kissed her, and disappeared into the house. Sydney turned blushing to the Baron, and laughed at his wistful look.
"Age has its compensations," he said, as he took the tumbler from her. "But I do not begrudge the good Doctor all the happiness that comes to him. He is a most generous man."
"He's a darling!"
"A darling? Ah, yes. I should not have used that word forhim, but I agree with the sentiment."
"You are critical this morning. Don't you ever allow yourself any liberty of speech in German? Do you always say exactly what you mean, and use exactly the right word?"
"Oh, Miss Sydney, you describe to me a pig—no, a pr-rig person. Surely I use many picture words in my thinking of—well, just to illustrate what I mean, I will say, in my thinking ofyou!"
Sydney moved her position so that her face was partly hidden behind the back of the Baron's wheeled chair.
"Now, there isSchatz," went on Friedrich, sipping his egg-nog placidly, but keeping a wary eye upon the bit of pink cheek that was still within his range of vision. "I like to think of you asSchatz,"—there was a danger-betokening movement of the glowing head,—"because you are such a treasure to your grandmother."
He paused a moment, but there was no reply.
"AndPerle—it is a pretty word,Perle—it makes you to think of the r-radiance of the moon, so pure, so soft. Yes," he went on, hastily, "Perler-rhymes withErle—that means an alder-tree—and that r-reminds me of you."
"I must say I fail to see the resemblance," came an injured voice from behind the chair.
"Not see? Oh, Miss Sydney, surely—with your cleverness! Listen to this, then; perhaps you like it better that I call you my—I meana—Rose."
"That's because my hair is red."
"It is a white r-rose that always figures in my mind. A beautiful white r-rose with a heart of gold."
By a dexterous touch upon one wheel he whirled his chair about so that he saw her downcast face.
"A heart full of goodness to others is it, and of courage, and of love."
He was leaning eagerly towards her. She lifted her eyes with an effort, and met his. Then he remembered.
"Yes," he continued, hurriedly, "full of love for the poor and the desolate."
Sydney rose.
"Your pretty figures do me too much honor," she said, unsteadily, and went into the house with lingering tread and look.
Friedrich gazed after her.
"God knows I would be counted among the poor and the desolate," he cried, softly, to himself. "But I must not speak again of this until I am more worthy to stand before her—if ever that can be!"
XIV
The Fourth of July
That the settle-mentcelebrated the Fourth of July was not due to an exuberance of patriotism, but to the mercantile spirit of Uncle Jimmy's son, Pete.
Pete was married, and lived in one of the cottages on the Oakwood estate, where he worked intermittently, sandwiching between thin slices of manual labor thick layers of less legitimate emprise.
Independence Day, as the anniversary of the birth of our country's liberty, is not celebrated with enthusiasm in the South. It meets with more cordial acceptance when regarded as another opportunity for knocking off work.
Pete's plan catered to all conditions of conscience, from the seared commodity that asked no excuse for playing to the scrupulous article that considered justification necessary, and found it in the infrequency of such amusement.
He advertised far and wide, by placards in the scattered stores and post-offices that cling near the railway stations and dot the Haywood Road on the other side of the river, a—
GANDER PULINFORTH OF JULYAT 5 OCLOCK.FRADYS FEILD.
GANDER PULINFORTH OF JULYAT 5 OCLOCK.FRADYS FEILD.
"I always make a point of going to these outdoor gatherings of the country people," explained Mrs. Carroll to the Baron, as they drove towards the field. "I think they like to have me."
Von Rittenheim had insisted upon going home to his cabin a few days before, since which time the old lady had missed him grievously. He was not yet strong enough to take the five-mile ride to Oakwood on his mule, and she had made the gander-pulling an excuse to go to his cabin to see how his housekeeping was progressing, and to take him for a drive.
"We don't have gander-pullings often now, since the law requires that the fowl shall be dead," she explained. "It demands less skill to break the poor thing's neck when it isn't writhing wildly."
"And it does not r-rouse the br-rutal desire to kill that seems to live in every one of us men. Will Miss Sydney be there?"
"Yes, she is going on horseback—"
"Ah!"
"—with John Wendell."
"Eh?"
"You didn't meet them—John and Katrina Wendell—when they were here in the spring. They went North again not long after you came to Oakwood."
"Oh, dear madam, I do so earnestly hope that my going to Oakwood did not depr-rive you of more welcome guests."
"Not the least in the world. They went back to New York to put the crown to a pretty romance."
"A love-story!"
"Katrina was sent down here, under her brother's care, to forget a certain Tom Schuyler, whom her mother considered impossible because he was penniless."
"The poor but honest suitor."
"A poor but lavish suitor would describe him better. It seems that an aunt of his was moved to give him a present of five hundred dollars. He says that he had just paid his tailor's bill as a concession to his desire torangehimself, and he really didn't know what to do with the money. It wasn't enough to get anything really nice with,—he'd been trying to make his father give him an automobile,—unless it were a ring for Katrina. He concluded, however, that Mrs. Wendell would object to her daughter's accepting it, and that he might as well take a little flyer with it."
"Take—what is that?"
"Speculate—in stocks."
"And he made his for-rtune?"
"No, on the contrary. He took his father's advice about his purchase, and lost his five hundred dollars within twenty-four hours."
"Then wherefr-rom came his good luck? For surely I perceive the pr-resence of good luck."
"His father was so remorseful over his poor counsel, and so delighted with Tom's apparent desire to 'settle down,' that he made amends for his unfortunate 'tip' by giving his son a very decent sum of money."
"It is like a story, is it not? So the brother and sister went up from here to the wedding."
"It was only a few days ago, and now Tom and Katrina have come to us on theirHochzeitreise."
"And the brother?"
Mrs. Carroll glanced amusedly at her companion.
"He came to-day on the afternoon train, to continue the visit which Katrina insisted on shortening for him in May, he says."
"You will enjoy them."
Friedrich's tone was not enthusiastic, and he pulled his moustache gloomily.
"Very much. They are charming young people. See, there are Tom and Katrina now, just turning into the field."
Von Rittenheim raised his hat as Mrs. Schuyler waved her hand to Mrs. Carroll, and studied critically the bride's radiant face and pretty gown as the victoria followed the phaeton through the opened fence-rails. He found her charming and acknowledged it reluctantly, not because he begrudged her her beauty, nor because he thought her handsomer than Sydney, for he did not, but because he had a secret fear of the attractiveness of the brother of so fascinating a girl.
"Tom," said Mrs. Carroll, as Mrs. Schuyler came to the side of the carriage, "I want you to know my very dear friend, Baron von Rittenheim—Mr. Schuyler. Now take the Baron over to Katrina, Tom, and then find Mrs. Morgan,—that's she in the red-wheeled buggy,—and beg her to come and sit with me here. Vandeborough," to the coachman, "drive me under that apple-tree, where there is more shade. How do you do, Eliza?" she said to a woman by whom the carriage slowly passed; "I'm glad to see you out to-day. And you, Mary. Jack Garren, is that you? You grow too fast for my memory. Ah, Jane, I hope your rheumatism is better,—and is that Mattie's Bertha? Stop here, Vandeborough. This will be comfortable. Ah, Mrs. Morgan, it is kind of you to make me a little visit, but I couldn't possibly climb into that buggy of yours. I don't know how you achieve it."
"Nor do Ah, Mrs. Carroll. Ah thought it was high five years ago, when Ah didn't consider mahself overly fat, so you can imagine what the effort is now." And she shook jovially.
"Is the Doctor here?"
"Yes, indeed. He drove me. He always comes to these things. They generally need him before they get through, and it often saves him a long trip into the mountains if he's on the spot when things happen."
"I dare say his presence prevents a good many quarrels."
"Maybe so; but Ah should hate to have any mo' fights than there are. There's always whisky about, you know."
"If the chief crop of this country could be changed, what a blessing it would be!"
"Ah don't know as it would make much difference as long as potatoes were left."
"And thirst."
"There's Bob now. O-oh, Bob!" she called, waving a fat hand to her son as he cantered across the open on his gray.
Bob looked about for the source of the call, and turned his horse towards the tree.
"He's growing handsome, Mrs. Morgan," said Mrs. Carroll, in an undertone, as the tall fellow leaped to the ground, slipped the bridle over his arm, and pulled off his cap.
"He looks as his father did at his age," returned Mrs. Morgan, fondly, glancing across to where her husband was talking to a group of lank mountaineers from whom he was hardly to be distinguished.
"It's right nice of you to come this afternoon, Mrs. Carroll," Bob was saying. "The people always appreciate it. What is it, mother? Those boys? Oh, they're having a game of ball; and the men you see over yonder are throwing horseshoes over a peg—with mighty poor skill, too. Here come Patton McRae and Susy. Excuse me. I'll help him with his horses," for Patton's black mare hated the harness even more than she did the saddle, and was doing her best to demoralize her mate and overturn the buggy.
Sydney, entering the field from the State Road, glanced past the tethered mules and the chair-laden wagons, from which the horses had been taken, to where Bob sat in the carriage beside Susy, saying something very pretty to her, if downcast lids and a blush are any evidence; in reality, teasing her about an absent sweetheart.
Wandering farther, her eyes saw the quoit-throwers, and the groups of women and children sitting in the shade, enjoying an interchange of gossip with the zest of infrequent meetings. She saw the clusters of laughing negroes, and the tent where Pete and his wife were doing a vigorous business in cakes and ice-cream and lemonade. She waved her hand to her grandmother and Mrs. Morgan. She noticed the men and boys who strolled with apparent aimlessness towards the thicket on the edge of the field, and returned wiping their lips on their sleeves. And she saw Katrina talking animatedly to Baron von Rittenheim, who sat beside her, while Patton McRae watched her with adoring eyes, and Tom wore the conscious smile that indicates the young husband's pride of possession.
Sydney had been feeling very much without occupation since the Baron had gone home, and the anticipation of seeing him again this afternoon had been pleasant to her. He never had made love to her more definitely than on the morning after his interview with Dr. Morgan, but to herself she acknowledged that he admired her, and while she was not sure of his entertaining a more pronounced feeling, up to this time she had known, at least, that his eyes were only for her. And here he wasrevelling—she underlined the word in her thought—in Katrina's vivacity and charm. The sensation of rivalry was new to her and not pleasant.
As for Bob, she had a feeling of warm affection for dear old Bob, and a desire to be useful to him, and she meant to make her influence over him one for good, if that were possible. She was thoroughly glad in the news that had come to her that Bob had not been drinking for several months now. But how he could help referring to the passage that had occurred between them she could not understand. She didn't really want him to make love to her,—that was a notion altogether too unmaidenly,—but she did feel as if an expression of affection fromsomebodywould be very comforting.
She turned to John Wendell, who rode beside her, and gave him a more generous smile than it had been his lot to receive while Sydney was the possessor of those agreeable anticipations of the early afternoon.
"You like it? All this?" She waved her hand comprehensively.
"I love it," he answered, promptly, looking at her clear-cut face with its frame of red hair under her sailor hat, and at the well-made linen habit.
"It must be novel to you."
"Not very." He pulled his moustache to conceal an amused smile. "It depends upon where new ends and old begins, you see. Now, I came down here in April, so my feeling is not 'the last cry.'"
"But at that time of year you didn't see—oh, how foolish you are!" she cried, and touched Johnny with her spur. His response brought him near the phaeton, which seemed a focal point for a general movement.
"They're going to have the gander-pulling now," exclaimed Bob, who had come with Susy to join the group. "The best view will be from this side."
"Are you going to ride, Mr. Morgan?" asked Katrina.
"Yes, I think so."
"Bob never can resist any game that's played with a horse," said Sydney, laughing.
"You know you'd like right well to try it yourself," he retorted.
Baron von Rittenheim gave his seat beside Mrs. Schuyler to Miss McRae, and went to Sydney's side.
"At last the sun begins to shine," he said, in a low voice, smiling up at her and patting Johnny's neck.
"Your universe has many suns, I'm afraid," responded Sydney, a trifle pettishly, yet swiftly, scanning his face for signs of returning health. She was not unobservant, either, of his new white summer clothes.
Friedrich glanced across the horse to Mrs. Schuyler.
"I find agr-reeable the light of the lesser planets," he said, "but—there is only one Sun."
Looking up at her, he laughed again, so heartily and with such genuine pleasure at seeing her that Sydney melted.
"You look sowell," she cried. "It is a delight to see you. But it's not a compliment to our care that you grow better so fast when you leave us."
"R-rather is it a tr-ribute to your so admirable nursing that has pr-repared me to r-recover with speed, even though I have it no longer."
"Will you ride, Baron?" asked Bob. "You're welcome to Gray Eagle if you will."
"I thank you, gr-reatly, but I dare not. The eye of my care-taker is upon me, and your Herr Father is here somewhere. No, decidedly, I am afraid," and he leaned with every appearance of contentment against Johnny's shoulder.
"How about you, Mr. Wendell?"
"I think I will, if Miss Sydney will trust me with the horse."
"Of course; and I'll give you a lovely prize if you bring me the head."
"It's yours," cried John, while Friedrich bit his lip, in annoyance, and thought on theEwigweibliche.
"Can you find me something, Mr. Morgan?" cried Schuyler. "I really can't stand here and see you fellows having this fun without me."
"What's Mr. Schuyler driving, Sydney? 'Possum? She'll do, if you don't mind. I'll swipe a saddle off of one of those mules over there." And he and Tom fell to unharnessing the useful 'Possum, while the Baron held Gray Eagle and commented on Bob's resource.
"He is full of device," he said, heartily, "and r-ready, always, to think and to do." And Sydney remembered some of the things he had done, and nodded with misty eyes.