It was clearly an insult to ask him to come. They had slandered him, and now they wanted him at their entertainment. He told the boy to tell them that he would not be there. He plowed during the afternoon, with never a look toward the house when he turned at the end of a row. He hoped that they expected him; he would smack his lips over the vicious joy of disappointing them. The invitation had, no doubt, come from Mrs. Blakemore; Miss Strand could have had no hand in it. She did not care enough for him to wish for his company. But it made no difference who did the inviting, he would not go. He went home tired, and was sleepy at the supper table. He took down his pipe and lighted it. Mitchell talked about the woman whose freckles were as gold to him. He had found a valuable rod and reel in the rushes; he would sell them and buy a divorce.
"If you take my advice," said Milford, "you'll let the women alone."
"But a feller that's in love can't take advice."
"Love!" Milford sneered. "You in love?"
"That's what. Fell in love about a quarter to two, last Sunday was a week. What are you doin' with that boiled shirt lyin' out there? Goin' to put it on?"
"I don't know. Is there any water in the rain barrel?"
"Ought to be if it hain't leaked out; poured in there last night. Goin' to take a bath?"
"Don't suppose I want to drink out of the rain barrel, do you?"
"Didn't know; no tellin' much what a feller'll do. But it hits me that when a man begins to take baths he's sorter in love himself, now that we're on that subject."
"Well, I don't have to get a divorce."
"That don't sound like you, Bill. Don't believe I'd gouge you that way."
Milford's dark countenance flushed; he made a noise in his throat. He held out his hand, and in a gentle voice said: "I beg your pardon. Shake."
"You've said enough," Mitchell replied, shaking hands with him. "All that a son of old Illinois needs is that sort of play, and he's done. Goin' somewhere to-night?"
"No; thought I'd put on clean clothes and walk about in the woods."
He dressed himself and walked down by the lake. He heard the merry splashings of moonlight bathers, the hound-like baying of the bull frogs, far away in the rushes. He picked his way over a barbed-wire fence, and went into the thick woods where the close air still held the heat of the day. He came out into the road a quarter of a mile below Mrs. Stuvic's house. It was too dark to go back through the woods; there were numerous stumps, tangled vines, and the keen briar of the wild gooseberry. The grass field further along was drenched with dew. He would pass the house and take the road through the hickory grove. As he drew near, he heard the piano. It reminded him of an old box that had been hauled over the mountains and set up in a mining camp. The red lantern swung from the eaves of the veranda. Some one began to sing, and he halted at the gate. Why make an outcast of himself? he mused. He went into the yard, and stood there. Who was he, to be sulking? What right had he, a laborer, to expect anything? They had made him a gift of their attention. In the city, they would not have noticed him. He would go in, a nobody, and pick up a crumb of entertainment. The door stood open. Mrs. Blakemore saw him. She came out with a smile.
"Oh, I thought you would come if you could," she said. "So kind of you. Come in."
The first person whom he saw upon entering the room was the Professor, in earnest conversation with the "discoverer." He was telling her of the pleasure it would give him to have her meet his wife. They would strike up a friendship, both being patronesses of art and intellect. But his wife was a great home-body. She rarely went out; she was contented to have him represent her with his praises. And he thought that it was pardonable in a man to praise his wife. He offered no apology for it. Romance had not deserted his fireside. A fresh bow of blue ribbon was ever at the throat of his married life. At this moment he spied Milford, and blustered up to greet him. It was not enough to saythat he was pleased; he was delighted. He grasped Milford's hand and shook it warmly. He spoke of Milford's charming visit to his home; it was an honor that his family keenly appreciated. "Oh, you are acquainted with Mrs. Goodwin. Yes, I remember now, you paid her a deserved compliment. He spoke of your great gifts, madam."
Gunhild was not in the room. Footsteps came down the passage-way, and Milford's eyes flew to the floor. Some one at the piano loosened a dam, and let flow a merry rivulet, and into the room danced Mrs. Stuvic, her head high, and her back as straight as an ironing board. The children shrieked with laughter, and the men and women clapped their hands. She was oblivious to applause. She was looking far back upon a hewed log floor, bright faces about a great fireplace, and a fiddler in the corner, beneath a string of dried pumpkin, hanging from a rafter. The rillet of music ran out.
"Yes, you bet!" she said, with tears in her eyes. "Many and many a time, Bill; and all night long, with the snow three feet outside, and the wolves howlin' in the woods. Yes, you bet! Who is this?"
Mrs. Goodwin introduced the Professor. He hopped to one side, back again, bowed, and expressed his great pleasure. "Dolihide," said Mrs. Stuvic. "I'd forget that name even if it was my own. But my, what names they do fish up these days! Oh, let me see, you've moved over to the old Pruitt place. Yes, I saw your wife at Lake Villa. Big fat woman. And I've met you before."
The Professor bowed. "Not lean, madam; not lean, but not fat. She couldn't dance as you do, but not fat, madam."
"No, you bet she couldn't," said Mrs. Stuvic. "And there ain't many that can. Strike up a tune there, and, Bill, you come out here and dance with me."
"Oh, yes, do!" Mrs. Blakemore cried.
Milford not only declined; he "bucked." He was not to be caught in such a trap. He might be made to look ridiculous, but not with his willing assistance. He might have nerve enough to break wild horses, he said, but not enough to get out on a floor to dance. Why not take the Professor? Milford expected to see him run, but he stepped forth with a gracious smile, and took hold of the old woman. And while they were dancing Gunhild entered the room. Without even the slightest tint of embarrassment, she went straightway to Milford and shook hands with him. She had been out bareheaded, under the trees, and dewdrops gleamed in her hair.
"Did you find Mrs. Goodwin much scared about you last night?"
"Not much. She knew I would come home safe. This morning, when I said how kind it was of you to keep a light burning in a pan for me, they laughed. And I was angry till they told me it was all a joke."
"I heard about it. Blakemore told me."
"Did he? Oh, it was not much important."
"And they tried to guy you about me, did they?"
"Guy me? They tried to plague. Then I get mad till I understand, and then I laugh."
"Blakemore said they told you that I—that I was engaged."
"Yes, but that was of no difference. They tried to make me think I do wrong to walk with you when you engaged. I told them that it made no difference."
"But I am not engaged."
"No? But it makes no difference. You know, I think it almost a shame for that old woman to dance. It makes me feel—feel—I do not know, but you know—you understand."
"Yes; I feel the same way."
"Yes. Have you been working hard to-day?"
"Pretty hard. What have you been doing?"
"Reading a book and trying to draw. I could do neither. Spread everywhere was a drawing that I could not catch; and hummed in the air were words more beautiful than in the book. They have quit dancing. I am glad."
The Professor resumed his talk with the "discoverer." "One of the truest pleasures enjoyed by man is to meet a woman with a mind."
"Indeed! And are they so very rare?"
"Oh, no, no," the Professor quickly replied, realizing that he had struck the wrong key. "As an educator, I know the scope and the power of the female mind—I do not like the expression, female mind, but I must employ it to make my meaning clear. Yes, I know the scope and the power, comparing more than favorably with the mind of man.But—" and here he halted, with a finger in the air, to give the word emphasis—"but, once in a long while, we meet an exceptional female mind, and it is then that we experience our truest pleasure. Such a mind, I may say, is possessed by my wife; and, begging the pardon of your presence, such is the mind that I have met here to-night."
She looked at him with a woman's doubt, which means more than half believing. She glanced at Gunhild, wondering whether the girl had overheard the remark. She seemed anxious that some one should have caught it. Compliments are almost worthless when they reach none but the flattered ear. And to tell that they have been paid is too much like presenting one with a withered flower. Gunhild had not heard the remark. She was picking up Milford's slowly dropping words.
"You are very kind, Professor, but, really, you don't expect me to believe you when you express such satisfaction at meeting me."
The Professor appeared grief-smitten. "Madam, as an educator, I have been accustomed to deal with many phases of the human mind. And I have lived long enough to verify the adage that honesty is the best policy, in words as well as in acts; and I have learned that, while truth told to man is a virtue, it is, told to a woman, a sublimity." He bowed and twisted the sharp point of his red beard, a gimlet with which he would bore through the soft sheeting of a woman's incredulity. At this moment, it flashed upon her that she had made another discovery, not of a genius, but of a philosopher. But shemust be cautious. He might have a treatise ready for the publisher. She sighed a regret that the doctor was not present to hear the exalted talk of this gifted man. How dim his eyes were, with groping in the dusk, looking for the learning of the ancients! In such wisdom there must be sincerity. But it was not wise to swallow with too keen a show of relish. She would dally with this delicious food.
"Oh," she laughed, "it is so easy for a man to pay a compliment."
"Madam, I admit that a studied art may become a careless grace, witness the Frenchman and the Spaniard; but the blunt Anglo-Saxon must still depend upon truth for his incentive—the others taste dainty viands; he feeds upon blood-dripping meat."
She did not know exactly what he meant, but it sounded well, and bowing thoughtfully, she said: "How true!"
Some one raised a clamor for a song from Mrs. Stuvic. She was as ready to sing as to dance. Her accomplishments belonged to her boarders. And she sang a song popular in her day:
"Pretty little Miss, don't stand on beauty,"That's a flower that must soon decay,Reddest rose in yonder's garden,"Half an hour will fade away.No, no, no, sir, no; all the answer she made was no."
"Pretty little Miss, don't stand on beauty,"That's a flower that must soon decay,Reddest rose in yonder's garden,"Half an hour will fade away.No, no, no, sir, no; all the answer she made was no."
Milford was called upon for a story. He refused, but the girl's eyes implored him, and he told a story of heroism in a blizzard. The Professor was thencalled out for a speech. The Liberty of the American was his theme; the glory of every man having a castle, his climax. Milford smiled to think of the road leading from the Professor's castle, of the portcullis that had come near falling on him. He saw the mistress of the castle standing with her hands on her hips.
"He has so many fine words," said Gunhild. "Why don't they send him to the Congress?"
"Because they've got too many fine words there already, I guess," Milford answered.
"But is he not a very smart man?"
"Oh, yes, smart enough, I guess. That's what's the matter with him—too smart."
"But how can a man be too smart?"
"I give it up. But it seems as if it takes a fool to make a success of life; the hogs of the business world root up money."
"I do not understand. You are making some fun of me."
"No, I'm giving it to you straight. The successful business man wears bristles on his back."
She laughed at this. She said that she knew he was making fun of her; but she liked to hear him talk like that. It was so new to her.
"Ha! her complexion reminds me of a tinted vase with the light seeping through it," said the Professor, talking to the "discoverer," but with his eyes fixed upon the Norwegian girl. "A flower come up out of the wild and long-neglected garden of the Viking. And how truly American those people soon become! Blood, madam; it is blood."
"Gunhild is a good girl, and knows nothing so well as she does honor."
"A girl who knows honor is splendidly equipped, madam. I have a daughter. And who is it that accompanies her? It is honor, madam. Throughout the seasons, they are together, arm about waist, like school girls, studying virtue from the same book."
She leaned over and touched his arm. "I want to ask you something. Do you know very much about Mr. Milford?"
"He warmed his hand with his heart, madam, and extended it to me."
"But don't you think he's peculiar?"
"All things are peculiar until we understand them."
"I know, but isn't there something strange about his being here as he is, working on a farm?"
"Not to me, when I meditate upon the fact that I myself keep books and do general roust-about work for a planing mill. Roust-about—idiomatic, good, and to the point."
"But farm work is so hard," she persisted. "And he appears to be so well equipped for something better. At times, he is almost brilliant."
"A brightness in the rough," said the Professor. "He has that crude quality of force which sometimes puts to shame the more nearly even puissance of a systematic training."
She looked at him as if her eyes said, "Charming." And the world had suffered him to go to seed, nodding his ripe and bursting pod in the emptyair. It was a shame. But his treatise on philosophy—she must find out about that.
"Professor, have you ever written anything?"
He smiled. "Madam, the web I have woven, if spun straight, would encircle the globe. I have written."
"Philosophy?"
"Finance, madam."
She choked a laugh in its infant uprising. That this threadbare man should write about money! How ridiculous! But true genius has many a curious kink.
Mrs. Blakemore, feeling that she was neglected, brought in Bobbie to annoy the company with him. She bade him shake hands with Mr. Milford; she commanded him to recite for the Professor. The learned man smiled. He said that there was nothing so sweet as the infant lip, lisping its way into the fields of knowledge. Multicharged by his mother, the boy began to fire off, "I am not mad, no, am not mad." Mrs. Stuvic, who had been remarkably quiet, got up and remarked as she passed Milford: "This lets me out; yes, you bet!"
The Professor applauded the youngster. He would be a great man, some day. He had the voice and the manner of the true orator. Only seven years old? Quite remarkable. His mother stroked his hair, and said that, in fact, he would not be seven till the eighteenth of September. At this the Professor was much surprised. Really a remarkable boy.
Mr. Josh Spence, a fat man rounding out a corner of the room with his retiring flesh, was calledupon for a song. He was modest, and he declined, but yielded upon persuasion, and in strained tenor sang "Marguerite."
"Do you like his voice?" Gunhild asked.
"It's not big enough to fit him," Milford answered. "But let him sing. It keeps the boy quiet."
"Oh, are you not ashamed? He is a nice little man, and his mother loves him so."
"And only seven years old," said Milford.
"You must not make fun. The boy is her heart. You must not laugh at a heart."
Milford flinched. He had not said the right thing. "Mitchell, the man who works with me, called me down for saying something that I oughtn't to have said, and I apologized, and we shook hands. I apologize to you. Shall we shake hands?"
She shook her head. "No, it will not be necessary. You do not mean to be cruel."
This touched him. He tried to hide himself with a laugh. She looked at him earnestly, and his face sobered. He thought of the night before, his kneeling to her on the floor of the haunted house, and felt that it would be a comfort to drop upon his knees again, not to talk of the wind rising among the trees, but to tell her that she had clasped her hands about his heart.
"Shall we go out on the veranda?" he asked, eating her with his glutton eyes.
"No, it is getting late. See, Mrs. Goodwin is telling the Professor good-night. I must go too."
"May I see you again soon?"
"Oh, you may come. Mrs. Goodwin will not care."
"But do you want me to—do you care if I come?"
"Yes, I will like for you to come. We will be friends."
"And shall we go over into the woods where the mandrakes are in bloom?"
"Yes, Mrs. Goodwin likes the flowers that grow in the woods. She calls them beautiful barbarians."
Mrs. Stuvic took the lantern down from under the eaves of the veranda. She called it a sign to every rat to hunt his hole. She joked at Milford as he passed her, going out. Even her blunt eye saw that he was enthralled. "Not so loud," he said. "Those people might hear you."
"I'd better flag you down," she replied, swinging the red lantern before his face.
Milford and the Professor walked off together along the road running through the grove. "Professor, you seemed to be happy to-night."
"My dear fellow, I am the most miserable man alive—just at this time."
"What's the trouble?"
"Life insurance. It will be due on the ninth of this present month, three days from now, ninety-seven dollars and forty cents, and how I am to raise it the Lord only knows. I have been carrying it for seven years, a galling burden, shifted from shoulder to shoulder, with but a moment of relief between the shifts. Many a time as the day approached have I wished that the lightning might strike me. And I pledge you my word that I would rather die anysort of death than to have it lapse. It has been a hard fight, a fight that my wife and daughter, as intelligent as they are, could not fully understand. They argue sometimes that the money thus invested would make them comfortable, with better clothes and more furniture in the house. They cannot comprehend that I am making this great sacrifice for a rainy day, a day when I shall be out in the rain and they in a better house."
"Well, I want to tell you that it's noble in you."
"No, I don't look at it that way. It is a self-defense, an easing of my conscience for not providing better for them. But I must manage to raise it somehow, and I have an idea. I have been sounding Mrs. Goodwin. She has faith in my ability. I am going to write something and upon it borrow enough money from her to pay my installment. Her husband can send the paper to a medical review with his name signed to it. Some sanitary measures that I have long pondered shall be set forth. Result, notoriety for the doctor and his wife and a moment of ease between the shifts for me. Would you resort to anything like that?"
"Would I? Well, I should think so. Do you know what I'd do? If I had—had some one dependent upon me and had my life insured, I'd go out on the highway and hold up a chosen servant of the Lord before I'd let it lapse."
"My dear boy, I am delighted to know that you understand how I feel. I don't want to be a rascal; I would like to be honest. But I tell you that I have resorted to many a piece of trickery—almosttreachery—to pay my premiums. I could tell you something, but you would hate me for it."
"No, I wouldn't."
"Well, I would better not tell it. What a charming young woman!"
"Yes. Blakemore calls her a 'peach.'"
"A vulgarism not altogether unbefitting," said the Professor, stumbling along in the dark. "She has not the dash of the American girl, perhaps, but I rather admire her for the lack of it. Well, our roads part here. From now until morning I must work on my medical paper."
The hot weather fled before a cool mist that came floating over from Lake Michigan. A cold rain began to fall. Cows lowed, and dogs, soonest of all creatures to feel a change in the atmosphere, crouched shivering in the doorways. Milford worked in the barn till there was nothing more to do, and then he went to the house and sat down with a newspaper. But he could not find interest in it. He threw down the paper and from his bag he took out a worn copy of Whittier. It was a day when we like to read the old things which long ago we committed to memory. We know the word before we reach it, but reaching it, we find it full of a new meaning. But the hours are long when the heart is restless. Out in the woods the mist hung in the tree-tops as if vapor were the world's slow-moving time, balking among the dripping leaves. From a longing Milford's desire to go over to Mrs. Stuvic's became a feverish throb. But the old woman's grin and the red lantern waved in his face constantly arose before him. He strove to recall what the girl had said. He could not find the words that she had spoken, but he remembered that he had felt an encouragement. He went out in the drizzle, to the knoll in the oat field, and stood there, gazing toward the house. He cursed himself for a fool and returnedto his cheerless shelter. The hired man sat at the dining-room table, playing solitaire with a pack of greasy cards.
"I worked this thing the other day, but it won't come now," he said.
"But what have you done when you do it?"
"Well, not much of anything, but you're on top. Heigho! I'd almost rather work than to sit around such a day as this. I don't believe we can do anything in the field to-day. Think so?"
"No. Thinking about going somewhere?"
"Not exactly. Didn't know but I might go over to see my girl. Told me the other day she was lonesome without me. And when you get a woman so she's lonesome without you, why, you've got her foul. Haven't changed your mind about not wantin' her here, have you?"
"No, and I don't expect to change it. I don't know how long I'll be here." He strode up and down the room. "But I'll stick it out," he added, talking to himself. "It's got to be done, no matter what comes."
"Yes, stick it out," said the hired man. "You've got too good a hold to turn loose now. The fellers around have begun to praise you. They say you are goin' to make a go of it."
"A go of what?"
"I don't know, but that's what they said."
"Bob, do you remember my telling you not long ago that I once jumped on a horse and galloped away from a girl.''
"Yes, and I thought of how different your casewas from mine. Girl galloped away from me. But what about it?"
"That woman is over at Mrs. Stuvic's now."
"You don't mean the same woman?"
"Yes, I do; the very same woman—a Norwegian."
"Did she say she was the same?"
"She hasn't said anything about it and neither have I. But I know she's the same. She wasn't quite grown when I saw her in a little town out West. She was at a hotel—I think her uncle ran the place. I don't believe she ever noticed me. But I noticed her, and I made up my mind that I wasn't going to be tangled up with her, so I rode away, whistling over the prairie. Yes, sir, the same woman. I never could forget that face, not so beautiful, but a face that takes hold and never turns loose."
"Well, that is strange," said the hired man, looking at an ace of clubs and slowly placing it on the table. Believe I'm going to fluke on this thing. Smart woman, Bill?"
"I don't know; I can't tell."
"But you've heard her talk, haven't you?"
"Yes," said Milford, standing at the window, looking out at the mist, now trailing low over the fields. "I've heard her talk, but when a man has galloped away from a woman he's not much of a judge of her mind."
"This ten specker wants to go right here. Now let me see. I guess you're right, Bill. But what are you goin' to do about it?"
"I don't know."
"Well, that's perfectly natural. Six goes here. You better not let the old woman find it out. She'll devil you to death."
"She already knows there's something up. It didn't take but a moment for me to satisfy myself that this was the same girl; and I struck out again, intending to go away; but I stopped at the gate and went back."
"But what makes you run away from 'em? I run after 'em. Built that way. Canal cook goes here," he said, referring to a queen. "Is she skittish, Bill?"
"No," said Milford, turning from the window and walking up and down the room. "She's modest, but not skittish.''
"And you don't remember whether she's got good sense or not?"
"Of course she has. What the devil are you talking about?"
"All right. But you said you didn't know. I simply want to get at the merits of the case. I know a good deal about women as women go, and they go. Been married once and slipped up three times. Can she talk without smilin' all the time?"
"Yes. She's very earnest at times."
Mitchell raked the cards together, shuffled them and threw the pack on the table. "A woman that smiles all the time wants you to think she's better than she is. I married a smile."
"A frown trailing the skirts of a smile," said Milford, and then with a laugh, he added: "I must have caught that from the Professor."
"I don't know, Bill. But a man that'll sit up andread poetry is apt to say most anythin'. I once heard a fellow say that men read poetry because they like it and women because they think they do."
"That fellow was a fool and a liar."
"Well, it's easy enough to be both. That sort of double harness is always handy. I don't know much about your case, as I haven't seen her, but if I was in your place I don't believe I'd rush things. A man that starts in by being badly stuck generally has to win the woman—not often that they are stuck alike. I'd stay away and make her get lonesome to see me."
"But how can I tell whether or not she's lonesome to see me?"
"By her tryin' not to seem glad when she sees you again.''
"But that leaves the case open for a trip-up. How can I tell that she's trying not to seem glad?"
"Well, your horse-sense will have to tell you that. But I thought you didn't want any woman on the place."
"I don't. In looking at it I haven't strained my eye as far as marriage."
"Then what's the use of lovin' her? It's a waste of raw material."
"There's something I must do before I could permit myself to think of marrying, and I'm going to do it if it takes a leg. But I'll tell you what's a fact, I'd rather have that woman's love than anything on the earth. Sometimes I think that if I knew she loved me I'd be willing to die. There's somebody out there on the veranda."
A boy came with a note from the Professor's wife, inviting Milford to supper that evening. There was no allusion to the cause that led to his kicking up the dust in front of her gate. It would give her husband, her daughter and herself great pleasure to have him come, and it was hoped that he would not disappoint them. The boy had not waited for an answer. The courtesy fell as an obligation. There was no easy way to dodge it. He would go.
The afternoon was long. Mitchell rigged himself in his best, bought of a peddler after much haggling, and went forth to woo the freckled woman. Milford strolled out into the woods. It was a pleasure to stand in the mist, the trees shadowy about him. It was dreamy to fancy the fog a torn fragment of night, floating through the day. It was easy to imagine the lake a boundless sea. Over the rushes a loon flew, a gaunt and feathered loneliness, looking for a place to light. Milford strolled along a pathway, over high ground, once the brow of the receding lake; and here the growth was heavy, with great trees leaning toward the marsh and hawthorn thickets standing in rounded groups. He came to an open space. In the midst of it stood a sapling. A grape vine had spread over its branches, neatly trimming its outer edges, a hoisted umbrella of leaves. He stopped short. On a boulder beneath this canopy, with her back toward him, almost hidden, sat a woman. She was wrapped in a cloak. But there was no mistaking her hair. She heard his footstep and looked round. She did not appear much surprised. She arose with a smile.
"I have been sitting here in Norway," she said. "See the cliffs?" she added, pointing to a mountain range of mist.
"But you must have got wet."
"No. But it would make no difference. I do not mind it. I love such a day. It is an etching. Do you go this way? I have stayed long enough."
She walked along the path in front of him, bending to avoid the low boughs, laughing when a wet leaf slapped her cheek.
"Let me go in front to clear the way," he said.
"Oh, no, I like this."
She leaped across a gulley. A briar pulled at her skirts. She turned about with the merest tint of a blush. He was not enough of an idealist to etherealize her. He felt her spirit, but acknowledged her a flesh and blood woman, belonging to the earth, but as the flower does, with a perfume. Her lips bespoke passion; her eyes control. He was glad that he saw her so clearly.
"We shall soon be to the road," she said.
"And you mean that you will leave me there as you did the other night?"
"You are quick to guess."
"Is it because you don't want to be seen with me?"
"Yes. Those women talk."
"But haven't they—haven't they any faith in their kind?"
"Not much," she said frankly.
"But why should you care what they say?"
She looked back at him. "I mean that you are sofar above them," he added. "You are worth all of them put together."
"It is very kind of you to say so. But I am not."
"I would swear it on a stack of Bibles."
"Your oath would not be taken. But let us not talk about it. You do not know what you say when you praise me. I don't place myself above them. I know myself." She halted, turned about and held forth her hand. "See, I have worked in the potato field. I have been a laborer."
"I am a laborer now," he said as they walked on. "There's no disgrace in work."
"Not for a man, not for a woman, but in a field with rough men—" she shrugged her shoulders.
"But the rough men—they had no effect on you," he said, almost pleadingly. "What effect could they have?"
"I was very young. Even at school I had not forgotten their oaths. My uncle sent me to school. He was a poor man, but he sent me."
"Didn't he run a hotel at one time?" he asked.
"Yes, out in Dakota. I worked for him between terms. There were many Norwegians about, and I learned English slowly. But this is of no interest to you."
"Yes, it is—the keenest sort of interest. I mean I like to hear it. What became of your uncle?"
"He is a gripman on a cable train in the city. One of these days I am going to pay him back. And I am going to pay Mrs. Goodwin, too. I will be her companion as long as it pleases her, and then I must find work. I think I can teach drawing inthe country. I could do nothing at it in town. Now, you see, I must be careful not to have any talk. I can take care of myself anywhere, in a potato field or in the woods, but I must not distress Mrs. Goodwin. This is the road."
"Wait a moment. I feel more at liberty to talk to you."
"Now that you find out that I have been a laborer? I do not like that. I wish you had not said it."
"Wait. No, not that, but because we are more of a kind in a way—we both have an object. I am going to pay a man. That's the reason I dig in the hot sun."
"Are you so honest?"
"No, I'm worse than a thief. Don't go—just one moment, please. Sometime I may tell you. They think I like to work, but I hate it. In my thoughts I have committed a thousand murders with my hoe. Let me ask you a question, one laborer of another. Do you like me?"
"Very much," she answered, looking at him steadily.
"I thank the Lord for that much. We might help each other to—"
"No, our battles are apart."
"Oh, I didn't mean that. I mean we can help each other spiritually. Don't you think so?"
"We can all help one another spiritually," she said. "May I go now?" she asked, smiling.
"I wish I could keep you from going. Wait. I can't understand that you have labored in a field. You are the most graceful woman I ever saw—themost perfect lady couldn't discount you. You've got good blood. I believe in blood."
"I am of a good family," she said. "My father was once a man of some importance. But the world turned against him. Blood is all that saved me."
"I've got one more word to say, now that we are better acquainted. I jumped on a horse once and galloped away from you—out at the little town on the prairie. You don't remember me, but I do you."
"Galloped away from me!" she said in surprise. "Why did you do that?"
"Because I didn't want to get tangled up. Did you ever see a bigger fool? And when I saw you out here I started off again, but I stopped and said, 'I'll be damned if I do.' Once is enough. May I tell you more?"
"No," she said, stepping back. "I have heard enough. And what you tell me may not be true—about galloping away. I don't mean to offend you. But I have been taught to believe—"
"That all men are liars," he suggested. She nodded. "They taught you about right," he went on. "Yes, they did. But sometimes the biggest liar may tell the truest truth. They took you out of the field and taught you politeness. I went from a college out into the wilds and there I forgot learning and learned deviltry. Do you know what they used to call me? Hell-in-the-Mud. That was my nickname. Hell-in-the-Mud, think of it! And what saved me, if I am saved? An old woman living on a hillside in Connecticut—my mother—prayed for me and died. It's a fact. I don't know whetherthere's a God or not, that is, for the average run of us, but there's one for her. Prayed for Hell-in-the-Mud, and her prayer was printed in the village paper, and I got hold of it. Then I said I would pay him—a man. But go on, I'm telling you too much."
She turned away without saying another word and almost ran along the road. He stood watching her, hoping that she would look back at him, but she did not. He went to the house. He snatched the cards from the table and tore them into bits. "I hate the sight of them," he said. The clock struck five. He was reminded of his engagement at the Professor's, and he hastened to fill it. He had dreaded to meet the woman who had scared him out of her dooryard. His nerve had been lead. Now it was iron.
As Milford hastened over the road that led to the Professor's house, a picture thrust itself into his mind, to shorten his stride, to make him slow. He saw the girl's hand held out to him, and he wondered why he had not dared to touch it. Surely, there was no labor mark upon it, pink and soft-looking, a hand for the pressure of love and not for work in a field. She had said that she liked him. But any one might have said that. She had said it with a frankness which showed that she had not told more than the truth. But why should she have told more than the truth? Why have had more than truth to tell? He put it all aside and strode onward toward the Professor's house. A light gleamed feebly through the mist.
He unwound the chain from about the gate-post. A dog barked. The door opened and the Professor stepped out, gowned and slippered. He seized his visitor warmly by the hand and led him into the sitting-room, dim with faded furnishings. His fingers were ink-stained, and his red hair was awry as if he had raked his head for thought. Mrs. Dolihide came into the room.
"My dear," said the Professor, "permit me to present to you, and to the humble hospitality of our home, our neighbor and my friend, Mr. Milford, theso-called mysterious, but, indeed, the plain and straightforward. Mrs. Dolihide, Mr. Milford."
She smiled pleasantly, drew back with a bow, stepped forward and held out her hand. She said that she was delighted to meet him. She had heard her husband speak of him so often. Milford breathed a new atmosphere. He saw that there was to be no allusion to the dust that was kicked up in front of the house. From the dining-room there came a stimulating sniff of coffee. A cat came in with a limber walk and stiffened herself to rub against Milford's chair.
"A fine cat," he said, stroking her.
"A marvelous animal," replied the Professor. "We have had her now going on—how long have we had her, my dear?"
"Oh, she's only been here about two weeks," his wife answered.
"Ah, I was thinking of her predecessor, a most wonderful cat, with a keen sense of propriety, never disturbing the loose ends of thought that a student suffers to lie upon his table."
Mrs. Dolihide agreed that the other cat was good enough, but that she had fits, and in his way Milford acknowledged that fits, while not necessarily arguing a want of merit, could not avoid giving an erratic cast even to most pronounced worth. This was all the Professor needed, and he forthwith launched a ship of disquisition, but when he had fully rigged it and neatly trimmed its sails, his wife broke in with the remark that the country was overrun with common people from the city. One would naturallyexpect noisy uncouthness, and a lack in many instances of refined reading, but—
"My dear," the Professor interrupted, "you must bear in mind that the minor summer resort is a kind of Castle Garden, with now and then a shining exception. Here we have the drudges of trade. Am I right, Mr. Milford?"
"Yes, the experiments, the hagglers and the failures."
The Professor slapped his leg. "A goodly remark, sir; upon my soul, a worthy illustration."
"And I have a good deal of fault to find with the home society," said Mrs. Dolihide. "It is jagged and raw, with a constant scuffle after the dollar—"
"The necessary dollar," observed the Professor.
"The scarce dollar," she replied.
"And therefore necessary, my dear. But you are right as to society. There are many good people here, excellent families, but the rank and file are common scratchers of the soil. But they thrive, a reproach to men of more intelligence. And now, sir," he added, turning to Milford, "upon what does success depend? Mind? Oh, no. Industry? No. What then? Temperament. Temperament is of itself a success. It—"
"Supper," said a young woman appearing in the door.
At the table Milford was presented to Miss Katherine Dolihide, slim, cold and prettyish. She might have had a respect for her father's learning, but it was evident that she held his failure in contempt. With her, a mind that gathered the trinkets ofknowledge and fell short of providing luxuries for the body could not be reckoned among the virtues. Wisdom's reflected light was dimmer than an earring. She looked at Milford, and he felt that he failed to reach her mark. She gave him, he thought, the dry and narrow smile of ironic pity. She asked him if he liked the country. He answered that he did, and she remarked that it was a crude picture daubed with green. There were no old mills. She loved old mills; no country was beautiful without them. Had she seen old mills? No, she had not, but she had read of them and had found them scattered throughout the pages of art. She acknowledged after a time that the lakes were charming, the woods replete with sweet dreaming, the lanes full of a vagabond fancy, tinkers of imagination sleeping under the leaves; but without a ruined mill there could be no perfect rest for the mind. Milford knew that this was a pretense, not from any psychological reasoning, but because she was so unlike the Norwegian girl. To him there was more of conviction in silent opposites than in noisy arguments.
"I heard of you the other night over at the honey sociable," she said.
"Honey sociable?"
"Yes, honey and biscuit for the benefit of the church. Quite a unique affair, and wholly new to me, I assure you. A Mrs. Blakemore was present and spoke of you; she said it was a pity that you hadn't come to tell stories of the West. A very intelligent woman, don't you think?"
"Yes, I guess she is."
"But the most intelligent woman over there," said the Professor, "is Mrs. Goodwin."
"Over where?" his wife asked.
"Why, over at Mrs. Stuvic's."
"When did you meet her?"
"Why—er—let me see. I was passing, stepped in to get a drink of water, and was presented to the lady by Mrs. Stuvic. I didn't stay long, mind you, but long enough to discover the lady's intelligence. Mr. Milford, it may take years to discover a comet, sir, but intelligence, brighter in quality, shines out at once. Pass your cup."
"You didn't tell me you'd met her," said Mrs. Dolihide.
"Didn't I mention it? I thought I did. Speaking of this part of the country, Mr. Milford, is like discussing a new picture with old spots on it; but all great pictures were once new. Take the view, for instance, from our veranda. Nothing could be more charming. The grass land, with scattered trees, trim and graceful in their individuality, the cattle beneath them, the woods beyond, and—"
"No, you didn't mention meeting her," said Mrs. Dolihide.
"But what difference does it make, mother?" the daughter spoke up. "By this time you ought to know that he meets many intelligent persons that we never see. Stuck here all the time," she added under her breath.
"Ah," said the Professor, "man may be walking pleasantly with prosperity hooked upon his arm, talking of the deeds they are to perform in common,when up gallops misfortune on a horse, and that is the end. I was going to take my family to Europe, but there came a galloping down the road and overtook me. Since then my hands have been tied."
"When I look around," said Mrs. Dolihide, "and see ordinary people living on the best in the land, it makes me mad to think that as smart a man as the Professor—"
"My dear, like you I could question fate, but—"
"Fate nothing; I don't know what it is, but it does seem strange to me. I don't understand why a man as well educated as you are has to struggle with the world when the commonest sort of a person can buy property. I don't understand it."
"Easy enough," the Professor replied. "The commonest sort of a person may have money, and having money, buys property. Nut-shell argument, Milford," he added, slapping his hand flat upon the table.
"Failure has always been easier to understand than success," said Milford. "Failure is natural, it seems to me. It comes from the weakness of man and nothing is more natural than weakness. I am arguing from my own case, and don't mean to reflect on any one else. I have thrown away many an opportunity, but that was in keeping with my weakness."
"But I hear that you are anything but weak," said the Professor's daughter. "They call you a mystery, and a mystery is a success until it is solved."
"But an unsolved conundrum might starve to death," he replied.
"Not so long as it remained unsolved," the Professor declared. "We feed the performer till he explains the trick."
"Then I suppose Mr. Milford will not explain his trick," said the girl.
"I'd be foolish to shut off my supplies, wouldn't I?"
"Yes," she admitted, "but if you have a mystery you ought to let your friends share it."
"Ha," said the Professor, "that would mean the disposition of all the shares. But I don't see why they call my friend a mystery. A man comes into the neighborhood and goes to work. Is there anything so mysterious about that? It would be more of a mystery if he lived without work."
"Father sometimes fails to catch the atmosphere of a situation," said the girl, giving Milford a smile not so narrow and not so dry with irony. "One's appearance might have something to do with the estimate formed of him," she continued.
"The hired man marches from the east to the west and back again," said Milford. "And I am a hired man—hired by myself to do something, and I am going to do it," he added with a tightening of his face.
"But that mysterious something?" queried the girl. "What is it?"
"To make money," he answered. "Simmer it down and that's all there is to life."
In her heart she agreed with him, but she tookissue. She said that there was something better than money. He asked if it were an old mill, and they laughed themselves into better acquaintance.
"It would be well to sit here," said the Professor to Milford, "but I want you to go up to my work shop with me. I wish to show you something."
As Milford arose to follow him, he thought that on the woman's face he saw a sneer at "work shop," and he felt that she and her daughter had learned to look upon it as an idle corner, full of useless lumber. The schemes of this ducking failure of a man were not of serious interest to them. His readiness to talk made him seem light of purpose, and a sigh that came from his heart might have been an unuttered word breathed upon the air, a word in excuse of his poverty.
Milford was conducted to an upper room, furnished with two chairs, a worn carpet and a table. But the Professor entered it reverently, as if it were the joss-house of hope. He turned down his light to steady the flame, placed the lamp upon the table, motioned his visitor to a chair, sat down, drew a pile of papers toward him, and said: "My dear fellow, I think I have something here that will tide me over the quarterly rapids. I believe that among these sheets lie a life insurance premium of ninety-seven dollars and forty cents. I want you to hear it, and then I will steal it forth to that woman. Now, in writing for a professional man, a physician, we will say, you must of all things employ sky-scraping terms. Medicine has no use for the simple. I wanted to start off with a cloud-capped sentence, aquotation, and here is one I found in Hazlett, referring to old Sir Thomas Brown: 'He scooped an antithesis from fabulous antiquity and raked up an epithet from the sweepings of chaos.' Isn't that a wild pigeon with the sun on its back?"
"Yes, I know, but what has it to do with an article on medicine?"
"Everything. Now let me tell you something. In a paper of this sort you must take a text, and with sophistry draw your deductions. You must never be clear. In the opinion of the world involution is depth. It takes a simple book a hundred years to become a classic. The writer has starved to death. He sleeps under marble. And who is it that is lost out there among the briars? The man who wrote the pampered fad. Yes, sir; let contemporaneous man seek to untangle your skein and you flatter him. Now, listen."
He read his paper, making alterations from time to time, marking out small words and writing in larger ones; and when he was done he looked at his visitor with a smile.
"It catches me," said Milford. "I don't know anything about it, but I'm caught all the same. Have you read it to the ladies?"
"What!" gasped the Professor. "Read it to them? They would scoff at me, not because they would catch its pretentious weakness, but because I wrote it—because I am a failure. And now, sir, do you know I begin to fall down, as the idiomatics would have it? Yes, sir, I am weakening."
"How so?"
"Why, I've hardly got the nerve to take it to that woman. She hasn't said so, but I know she wants it. When do you expect to see her again?"
"I don't know."
"Now let me see. Would you mind taking this thing along and handing it to her the next time you see her? It would be one of the greatest favors you could do me. You can explain; I'll trust you for that. It is my only recourse; my hope has been built on it, and if I fail I swear I—but I must not fail. You remember I told you that I did something once to help out the amount, something that would cause you to hate me. I will tell you what it was. It was a mean trick—dastardly—but I had to do it. A dog came to my house, a handsome dog with a brass collar. And what did I do? I sneaked that dog off and sold him for six dollars. Now you'll hate me."
"Give me the paper," said Milford, reaching for it. "Don't say another word. Give it to me. I don't know you very well as knowing men goes, but you are kind to me, and I want to put my arm around you. I said down there that money was everything. But it isn't. There's something better—to find a kinsman in the wilderness. She shall take this thing. She's got to. If she doesn't, I'll take it to her husband." He put his arm about the Professor. Tears streamed from the old man's eyes. "There, it's all right. I'll go over there now. If she won't have it, I'll take the train for town. I'm going now."
"Wait a moment," said the Professor, wiping hiseyes. "I must not go down this way. Let me recover myself. You have touched my heart, and, poor withered thing, it is fluttering. Just a moment. Now we'll go."
He led the way down the stairs. "I wish you could stay longer," he said cheerily, "but you know your own affairs. My dear, Mr. Milford is going. We hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again soon. Our latch-string is out. Katherine, shake hands with Mr. Milford. I will light him out."
He stood on the veranda holding the lamp. "It is a dark night, and I wish we had a lantern. But the road is straight to your house. Good-night, and God bless you."
"They have struck up a warm friendship," said the girl.
"Astonishing," her mother replied.
The Professor put the lamp on the mantel-piece. "Is he your lost brother?" his wife asked.
"He is more than that," the Professor answered, sinking into a chair. "He is a man."
Early the next morning, the Professor hastened from the dining-room to answer a rap at his door. And there stood Milford with a roll of bank notes in his hand.
"Ha, you've got it; I see you have. Let me shut the door. They must not hear. Was there ever such luck? Yes, let me take it, the money. Is it all here? Yes, down to the forty cents." He stuffed the notes into his pocket. He held up his hand to enjoin caution. "They would rather have a new settee than an assurance of protection against want in the future. They live from sun to sun. I live for them, but my mind is fixed on the time to come. I don't know how to thank you. You are a man of nerve. And that woman! She is glorious. What did she say?"
"Oh, nothing much."
"Didn't she agree that it was the very thing for the Doctor? Didn't she acknowledge that it would spread the news of his high standing as a physician and a thinker?"
"Yes, she said it would do him a great deal of good abroad."
"A woman in a million. Did the abstruse parts seem to impress her?"
"Yes, she caught all the kinks."
"The Socrates of her sex. Did she say that she would send it off at once?"
"By the first train. She was particular to ask if you had let any one else into the secret. She's sensitive—and as I was about to go, she asked me not to refer to the matter again, and she hoped that you wouldn't. I don't think she can bear to be thanked. So I promised that neither of us would speak of the transaction, even to her."
"Delicate soul! And you did well to promise. My boy, if sincere thanks are winged things that fly to heaven, there is now a flight of gratitude to the sky. Won't you come in?"
"No, I've just had breakfast and must go to work."
"Well, I hope to see you again before long. And, by the way, I wish to tell you that my wife and daughter were charmed with your visit. They are dear to me, but they do not understand. Pardon me, I am detaining you."
For more than a week the Professor had drooped under anxiety, but now he walked high of head. When he entered the dining-room his wife asked who had called. He answered that it was some one who wanted directions to Mrs. Stuvic's. Lying might at one time have been a luxury with him, but now it was a necessity. She rarely expected the truth from him. It took him longer to tell a lie, and he was fond of talking. And besides, a failure is under no obligations to tell the truth.
"It took you quite a while to give him directions."
"Yes, it is a roundabout way."
"But you seem to have quite a knack for finding it yourself—to be presented to remarkable women."
"My knack for finding remarkable women began in my earlier years."
"Indeed! And you have been keeping yourself well in practice ever since."
"Constant rehearsal with a former discovery keeps me from growing rusty."
"Well, I don't care, but there's one thing certain! When you come home to-night you'll find that I have thrown that old sofa out into the back yard."
"It's a dreadful thing, pa," said Miss Katherine. "It's a disgrace."
"I know it, but we shall have a new one pretty soon."
"I've heard that for years," said his wife. "Why don't you let that old life insurance go? Gracious alive, it's nonsense to deny yourself everything."
"It's worse than that," the girl spoke up; "it's almost a crime. We don't want you to fret your life out for us. If we are to have anything we want you to share it. You haven't seen anything but worry since you took out the policy. Let it drop. The money you'd have to give for the next payment would make us happy. We could get so many nice things with it, and wouldn't feel ashamed every time a visitor comes into the house. Do, pa." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him appealingly.
He shook his head. "A crime, you say. Then let us acknowledge it a crime. But let us alsoacknowledge that it is not so dark a crime as it is for a man to die and leave his family in distress. Look at Norwood; look at Bracken. The neighbors had to contribute."
"But you aren't going to die yet a while," said his wife. "You are in good health. Well, there's no two ways about it. I'm going to throw that old sofa out into the yard. I've stood it as long as I can. It's the first thing a stranger sees when he comes into the house."
"And I imagine that people stop just to look in at it," Katherine spoke up.
"We might label it as having been the property of some great man," said the Professor.
"Oh, I know it's a joke with you, but it's not with us," his wife retorted. "I don't see any fun in a disgrace."
"Have you no respect for the aged?" he asked, trying to wink at his daughter, but she would not accept it. "Let us trail a vine about it and call it a ruined mill."
"That's a stab at me, mother," said the girl. "I am not permitted to have a sentiment."
"Well, I don't want any; I've had enough," the mother replied. "It's sentiment, sentiment ever since I can remember, and I'm sick of it."
"You want poetry, my dear," said the Professor. "Or at least you set store by it, for didn't you give Tennyson to the preacher?"
"I don't care if I did, I'm going to throw that old thing out. Wesley, when is your insurance due?"
"It is paid, madam, thanks be to the Lord. I sent the money off yesterday."
"Why didn't you tell me you were going to send it?"
"Oh, it was a mere trifle, and I forgot it."
"For pity sake! And where did you get the money?"
"I combed it out of the grass."
"Well, you'd better comb out some for us while you are combing. I've lived this way till I'm tired of it. Where did you get that money?"
"The grass was thick, and the grass was long, and the comb pulled heavy and slow."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself. That's all I've got to say."
"I'm afraid not."
"I'll talk just as much as I please."
"I'm afraid so. But let us all be cheerful now. Yesterday it was dark and misty, and now the sun is bright. Here, mamma, kiss me to my labor. I haven't drawn at the weak sinews of my feeble salary, and you shall have enough to buy a new sofa."
"That's a good dear," she said, kissing him. "Don't let what I said worry you. I didn't mean it."
He whistled at the dog as he went out; he sang merrily as he walked along the road, with the sunrise on his face and the noontime in his heart.