Early the next morning, before the clanging bell had shattered the boarder's dream, the old woman hastened to Milford's cottage. When she surprised him at breakfast, he thought that possibly the old man might have called at some time during the night, and that she had come to bring the good news, but this early hope was killed by the darkness of her brow. "I've come over to tell you that if ever you say a word about what happened last night, I'll drive you out of the county," she said, her lips parted and her teeth sharp-set.
"Why, nothing did happen," he replied with a laugh.
"No, you bet! But don't you ever dare to say that I expected anythin' to happen. I won't allow any old man, dead or alive, to make a monkey of me. Well, I'll eat breakfast with you. What, is this all you've got, just bread and bacon? Conscience alive! you are livin' hard."
"I can't afford anything else," he replied, looking down upon his rough fare.
"Well, you ought to get rich at this rate. There's not one man in a thousand that would be willin' to put up with it. What's your aim, anyway?"
"To make money."
"Money! It's some woman, that's what it is.Well, you're a fool. What thanks do you reckon she'll ever give you? She'll growl because you didn't make more. I'll get back. I don't like your grub. But recollect, now," she added, as she turned toward the door, "that if you say a word about what I expected to happen last night, I'll drive you out of the county." She went out, but her head soon reappeared at the door. "Bill," she said, "there's a sucker born every minute."
"And sometimes twins," he replied. She leaned against the door-facing to laugh, not in the jollity of good-humor, but in the sharp and racking titter of soured self-pity. "Sometimes twins—yes, you bet!"
"If I didn't have a word for it that I couldn't dispute, I'd think that I was the weakling of a set of triplets," said Milford.
"Oh, you'll do. There's no flies buzzing around you, I tell you. Well, I'll leave you, sure enough now."
For a time, he clattered the rough dishes, clearing them out of the way, despising the work—a loathing shared by all human beings. Mitchell was at the barn, among the horses, and there came the occasional and almost rhythmic tap, tap, tap of his currycomb against the thin wall. In the damp sags of the corn field, the plow could not be used with advantage, and Milford assigned to himself the work of covering this territory with a hoe. The advisory board, men who drove past in milk wagons, condemned it as a piece of folly. They said that a man might wear himself out among the clods, and to nogreat purpose, either; but Milford appeared to rejoice in his conquest over the combative soil. Steve Hardy said that he must be doing penance in the hot sun for some crime committed in the cool shade. But the old woman had given it out that her man was working for a woman, and the women commended it. How soft is the voice of woman when she speaks of one who sweats for her sex! They sat upon the veranda, watching Milford as he delved in the blaze of the sun. It was a romance. Afar off there must be a sighing woman, waiting for him. Mrs. Blakemore could see her, and she sighed with her, watching the hero dealing the hard licks of love. With her scampering son, she crossed the field, going toward the lake, the morning after the expected visit from Lewson. She was determined to speak to Milford. Mrs. Stuvic had just said, "That man is killin' himself for a woman." On she came, her feet faring ill among the clods. She stumbled and laughed, and the boy, in budding derision of woman's weakness, shouted contemptuously.
"Why did you come across this rough place?" Milford asked, planting his hoe in front of him. To her he was a man behind the flag-staff of his honor.
"Because it's so much nearer to the lake," she answered. The boy cried out that he had found a rattlesnake, and proceeded to attack with clods a rusty toad.
"Come away, Bobbie. He'll bite you." She saw that it was a toad, and she knew that it would not bite him; but motherly instinct demanded thatshe must warn him. "Oh, it's such a jaunt, coming across here. Really, I don't see how you can stand it to work so long in the hot sun. Let me bring you some cool water."
She felt that she ought to do something for him. He smiled, and glanced down at her thin-shod feet. He felt that there was genuineness in this slim creature, and he was moved to reply: "No, I thank you. Your sympathy ought to relieve a man of thirst."
"Really, that is so nice of you. No wonder all the women like you when you say such kind things. But there is one thing I wish, Mr. Milford—I wish you'd taken more to my husband. He's awfully low-spirited, and I'm so distressed about him. He's worried nearly to death in town, and he comes out here and mopes about. I didn't know but you might say something to interest him. He'll be out again this evening. Will you please come over to the house to see him?"
He thought of his weariness after his day of strain, of his own melancholy that came with the shades of night. He thought that, in comparison with himself, the man ought to be boyishly happy; but he told her that to come would give him great pleasure.
"Oh, I'm so glad to hear you say so. Tell him of fights, of men that wouldn't give up, but fought their way out of hard luck. Tell him what you are doing. I know it's preposterous to ask you, but will you do it?"
Her eyes were as bright as the dew caught by thecobweb, shaded by the clod, he thought—as he stood there leaning on the handle of his hoe, looking at her; and he read woman's great chapter of anxious affection. "I will tell him of a man who failed in everything, and then found that he had a fortune in his wife," he said. She put out her hand toward him, and snatched it back to hide her eyes for a moment. She turned toward the boy, and in a cool voice commanded him not to romp so hard over the rough ground. Milford saw a soul that loved to be loved, that lived to be loved, a soul that may not be the most virtuous, but which is surely the most beautiful. He did not presume to understand women; he estimated her by a "hunch" as to whether she was good or bad. He remembered that he had jumped upon his pony and galloped off to the further West, to keep from falling in love with one. And since that time he had felt himself safe, so into this woman's eyes he could look without fear.
"Yes," she said, "tell him that love is the greatest estate. It will make him think, coming from a man. Poor George was in the hardware business, and he failed not long ago, and I don't know why, for I'm sure I saved every cent I could. What you tell him will have a good deal of weight."
Milford had to laugh at this. "I don't know why," said he.
"Because you are a good man."
Milford sneered. "Madam, I'm a crank." He begged her pardon for his harshness. Her forgiveness came with a smile. He told her that he was asmorbid as a mad dog, and he said it with such energy that she drew back from him. "But you won't fail to see George, will you? Come on, Bobbie. Oh, I forgot to tell you of some new arrivals—a Mrs. Goodwin, wife of a well-known doctor in town, and her companion, one of the handsomest young women I ever saw—a Norwegian girl, as graceful as one of her native pines. You won't fail to come, will you? Good-bye."
The evening was sultry, with a lingering smear of red in the western sky. At the supper table Milford nodded in his chair. The hired man spoke to him, and he looked up, his batting eyes fighting off sleep.
"Them slashes have about got the best of you, haven't they, Bill? I'd let that corn go before I'd dig my life out among them tough clods. I'm givin' it to you straight."
"I don't doubt it. But it will pay in the end. I've come to the conclusion that all hard work pays. It pays a man's mind, and he couldn't get a much better reward. But I'd like to go to bed, just the same."
"Why don't you? Not goin' to dig any more to-night, are you?"
"No, but I've got to go over to Mrs. Stuvic's to see a man."
"A man?" Mitchell asked, with a wink.
"I said a man."
"Yes, I know you said a man."
"Then why not a man?"
"Well, I don't know, only it seems to me that if Iwas as tired as you look I wouldn't go to see no man's man."
"How about any woman's woman?"
"Well, that's different. You can put off seein' a man, and you might put off seein' a woman, but you don't want to. But maybe you ain't as big a chump about a woman as I am."
Milford said that the wisest man among wise men could easily be a fool among women. Solomon's wisdom, diluted by woman, became a weak quality. "Except once," he added, taking down his pipe from the clock shelf, "and that was when he called for a sword to cut a child in two to divide it between two mothers; but if the question had been between himself and a woman, I don't know but he'd have got the worst of it."
It was the hired man's turn to clear away the dishes, and Milford sat smoking in a muse. Night flies buzzed about the lamp, and the mosquito, winged sting of the darkness, sang his sharp tune over the rain-water barrel beneath the window. The hired man put away the dishes, and went into his shell-like bedroom, a thin addition built against the house. Milford heard him sit upon the edge of his bed, heard his heavy shoes drop upon the floor, heard him stretch out upon the creaking slats to lie a log till the peep of day. The tired laborer's pipe fell to the floor. He got up with a straining shrug of his stiff shoulders, snatched off his sticking garments, bathed in a tub, put on clean clothing, and set out to keep his appointment. He muttered as he walked along the road. He halted upon a knoll inthe oat-field, and stood to breathe the cool air from the low-lying meadow. As he drew near to the house, he heard the shouts of children and the imploring tones of nurses and mothers, begging them to go to bed. A lantern hanging under the eaves of the veranda shed light upon women eager to hear gossip from the city apartment house, and men, who, though breathing a fresh escape from business, had already begun to inquire as to the running of the trains. In the dooryard, a dull fire smoked in a tin pan,—a "smudge" to drive off the mosquitoes. Some one flailed the piano. The Dutch girl, singing a song of the lowlands, was grabbing clothes off a line, with no fear of running over an old man. Mrs. Blakemore and George were sitting at a corner of the veranda, apart from the general nest of gossipers. Bobbie had been bribed to bed. The woman got up and gave Milford her hand. In his calloused palm it felt like the soft paw of a kitten. George nodded with an indistinct grunt.
"Well, how is everything?" Milford asked.
"Rotten," George answered. His wife sighed, and brushed off a white moth that had lighted on his coat sleeve. "But it will get better," she said. "Don't you think so, Mr. Milford?"
"Bound to," Milford agreed. "I'm a firm believer in everything coming out all right. I've seen it tested time and again. Hope is the world's best bank account." George looked at him. "That's all right enough," he admitted.
"Hope is the soul's involuntary prayer," his wifeobserved, and he looked at her. "That's all well enough, too," said he, "but what's the use of tying a ribbon around your neck in a snow-storm, when what you need is an overcoat? A man can wrap all the hope in the world around himself, and then freeze to death."
"That's true," said Milford, catching sight of the woman's eyes as she drew a long breath, "but hope may lead him out of the storm. Pardon me, but I infer that you've met business reverses."
"Struck the ceiling," said George.
"How often?"
"Isn't once enough?"
"Yes, but I've struck it a hundred times. I've been kept on the bounce, like a ball."
"That's all right, but do you feel thankful for it?"
"Well, my heart isn't bursting with gratitude, but it might have been worse—I might have stuck to the ceiling. When you throw a dog into the water, he always shakes himself when he comes out. It's a determination to be dry again. And that's the way a man ought to do—shake himself every time he's thrown."
"I don't know but you're right. What are you doing here, anyway?"
"Rooting like a hog for something to eat. And I've not only failed in nearly everything I undertook, but I've been a fool besides. But I've got sense enough to know that it has all been my own fault. I believe that, if a man's in good health, it's always his own fault if he don't succeed. I could sit down and growl at the world; I could wish I had itunder my heel to grind the life out of it; and the truth is, we all have a part of it under our heels, and if we keep on grinding we'll make an impression. I am what you might call a national egotist. I believe that nearly everything lies within the range of an American. He may do wrong—he does do wrong. Sometimes he does a great wrong, but nine times out of ten he tries to make it right. I believe that the Yankee has more conscience than other men. He may keep it well sheathed, but after a while the edge eats through the scabbard and cuts him. He works with an object. They say it is to make money. That's true, but the money is to serve a purpose, a heart, a conscience."
George turned about in his chair, and looked with keen interest at the laboring man. "Look here, you are a man of brains. Why do you stay here and dig? You are fitted for something better."
Milford smiled at him. "How often that's said of a man who's not fitted for anything. As I remarked to your wife, I'm a crank. But I've got an object—there's something that must be done, and I'm going to do it or broil out my life in that field."
"You are a brave man. Not all of us are so nervy. But you may not have to broil out your life."
"Hope," said Milford. "And what a muscle it is, hardening with each stroke. Now, it's not my place to say anything to you, but don't fool along with affairs that are hopelessly tangled. Strike at something else. Perhaps that wasn't the business you were fitted for, anyway."
"Can't tell. But I wasn't stuck on it, that's a fact. What line have you failed in, mostly?" he asked, laughing; and his wife's thin shoulders shook as if she were seized with a sudden physical gladness.
"Oh I've been a sort of bounty jumper of occupations."
"But we know," said Mrs. Blakemore, "that your work was always honest."
"Well," he replied, his white teeth showing through the dark of his beard, "I never squatted on the distress of an old soldier to discount his pension."
"That's not bad. Louise," he added, playfully touching his wife's hand, "how is it you took to me when you have a knack of finding such interesting fellows?"
"Why, you were one of the most interesting fellows I ever found. Is that Bobbie crying? Yes. I must go to him. Good-night, Mr. Milford. I'm ever so glad you came over this evening." She gave him a grateful look, and hastened away, crying out, "Mamma's coming," as she ran up the stairs. And now Mrs. Stuvic's voice arose from the outlying darkness of the road. "Well," she shouted at some one, "you tell him that if he ever leaves my gate open again I'll fill his hide so full of shot he'll look like a woodpecker'd pecked him. A man that's too lazy to shut a gate ought to be made to wear a yoke like a breachy cow. Yes, you bet!" she said over and again as she came toward the veranda. "Like a breachy cow. And here's Bill, bigger than life! Why, the way I saw you pounding them clodsover yonder, I didn't think you could move at night. This is Mr.—What-his-name? I never could think of it. Are you still mopin' about? Bah, why don't you get down to somethin'? Suppose the women was to mope that way? Do you reckon anythin' would be done. No, you bet! There's no time for them to mope. I saw Eldridge hauling a load of folks from the station to-day. And I know 'em—the Bostics, out here last year, and went off without payin' their board. Well, he can have 'em, for all of me. Stuck up. 'Please do this,' and 'Please do that,' and 'How do you feel this mornin', dear mamma?' 'Bah!' I said, 'why don't dear mammy get out and stir around?' Bill, I want you to come over here to dinner to-morrow—settin' about readin' all day Sunday. You come over here and get somethin' to eat. But don't let Mitchell come. I had a chance to hire him, and didn't do it, and now I haven't got any too much use for him. The rascal deceived me. I didn't know he was half as good a worker as he is. But you be sure to come," and leaning over, she added in a whisper: "I've got the putties gal here you ever saw in your life."
"But that's not the question. Will you have anything to eat?"
"Better than you've had for many a day, sir, I can tell you that."
"I'll be here," he replied, getting up.
"Going?" said George. "I'll walk out a piece with you."
And talking knavishly of the old woman and the wives who pretended to be so glad to see theirhusbands, they walked out into the hickory grove. "The old lady whispered to you about a pretty girl," said George. "Might just as well have shouted it. But she is a stunner! I hunted deer up in the mountains once, and I never saw one, but I imagined what one ought to look like, stepping around in the tangle; and when I saw that girl out here in the woods to-day, I thought of the deer that I didn't see. She's with a fussy woman, a doctor's wife, a sort of companion, I believe. I should think so! Anybody'd like to be her companion. Well, sir, I'm just getting on to the beauty of this place. I never saw such grass, and between here and the station there's a thousand colors growing out of the ground. Huh!" he grunted, "and I'm just beginning to remember them. Old fellow, I guess the little talk we had to-night has done me good. Yes; and what's the use in worrying? Things are going to come out just as they are—they always do—and all the worry in the world won't help matters. I think you are right about the Yankee."
"Children of fate, gathered from the four corners of the world, and planted here," said Milford.
"I guess you are right. Well, I'm going back to town Monday and do a little hustling. I've got to. There's no two ways about it. I'll turn back here. Glad I met you again. So long."
Milford was at the dinner table, talking to Blakemore, when a young Norwegian woman entered the room. Blakemore nudged him. He looked up and quickly looked down. He heard a woman say, "Sit here, Gunhild." He heard her introduced as Miss Strand.
"Isn't she a peach?" Blakemore whispered.
"What did you say, George?" his wife asked, picking at him.
"I didn't say anything."
"What was it you whispered?"
"About a peach," the boy blurted. "I want a peach. Maw, give me a peach."
She commanded him to hush; she raked the wayward flax out of his eyes, and straightened him about in his chair. George shook with the abandoned laughter of a man's gross mischief. His wife did not see anything to laugh at; she thought it was impolite to whisper. Mr. Milford was not laughing. No, Mr. Milford was not. His face wore a look of distress. He shot sharp glances at the Norwegian girl. He heard her voice, her laugh. A moment ago he draped Mrs. Blakemore with an overflow of sentimental sympathy, but now his soul was as selfish as a hungry wolf. He had talked with pleasant drollery. Now he offered nothing, and cut hisanswers down to colorless brevity. Mrs. Stuvic came in and stood near him. He was silent under her Gatling talk, chill-armored against her fire. She said she would introduce him to the Norwegian girl, and he flinched. He excused himself, got up, and went out. He walked as far as the gate opening into the grove, stood there a moment, turned and came back to the veranda.
"He was hit quick and hard," said George to his wife, as Mrs. Stuvic left them. "She's a stunner, and she stunned him."
"George, please don't. She may remind him of some one, that's all. Why, he's engaged, and is working——"
"That's all right. I said she hit him, and she did. Hit anybody."
"George!"
"Well, that's what I said. I can't help it."
"I despise her."
"Of course, but she's a stunner all the same. But come, now, don't look that way. I'm not in love with her."
"I'm not so sure about it. You called her a 'peach'," she said, helping the boy out of his chair, and telling him to run along.
It was too much to ask her not to suspect him, now that he was determined not to be cast down by business troubles. She had buoyed him with her sympathy, and it was natural that she should resent his notice of the young woman, if not his good humor. But after a lowly wallow in melancholy, a sudden rise of spirits is always viewed with suspicion by a woman. It is one of the sentimental complexities, of her nature. She looked at him with eyes that might never have been soft. No doubt there was in George's breast a strong cast of the rascal. He was not a stepson of old Adam, but a full blood. He knew, however, the proper recourse, and he took it. He began to fret over his vanished business, and, forgetting the "peach," she gave him her sympathy.
Milford, meanwhile, was slowly striding up and down the veranda. Mrs. Stuvic came out, followed by the Norwegian.
"She didn't want to meet you, Bill, but here she is."
That was the introduction, an embarrassment that fed the old woman's notion of fun. Milford stammered, and the young woman blushed.
"I did not say I did not want to meet you," she said, with a slight accent, her unidiomatic English learned at school. "I would not say such a thing. Mrs. Stuvic is full of jokes. She makes me laugh." And she did laugh, strange echo from North Sea cliffs, the glow of the midnight in her eyes, a thought that shot through the cowboy's mind as he gazed upon her. Mrs. Stuvic went back, laughing, to the dining-room, having flushed the young woman and turned the dark man red.
"She is a very funny woman," said the "peach," looking far across the meadow toward the lake, her long lashes slowly rising and falling. She was not beautiful; her features were not regular, but there was a marvelous light in her countenance, and herbronze-tinted hair was as rank in growth as the yellowing oats where the soil is rich and damp. She looked to be just ripe, but was too lithe to be luscious. Mrs. Blakemore said that her nose was slightly tipped up, a remark more slanderous than true, and when taken to task by an oldish woman who had no cause to be jealous, declared that it was not a matter of taste but a question of observation. At any rate, she had come as a yellow flash, and must soon fade.
Milford continued to gaze at her, wanting to say something, but not knowing what to say. He heard the gruff laughter of the men in the dining-room, joking with Mrs. Stuvic, and the romping of the children coming out.
"I guess that's the best rabbit dog anywhere around here," he said, as a flea-bitten cur trotted past. He had never seen the dog hunt rabbits. He knew nothing about him except that he had been ordered to shoot him for howling, the dreary night when old Lewson died.
"He does not look that he could run very fast," she replied, turning her eyes upon the dog.
"Oh, yes, he runs like a streak. He outran a pack of wolves up in the Wisconsin woods."
"Wolves!" she said, looking at him.
He knew that he was a liar, but he said "wolves." He asked if she had ever seen any wolves. She had seen packs of coyotes on the prairie. "I went to my uncle when I came to this country," she said. "He lived away in the West. I stayed there two years, and then I came with himto Chicago. I did not like it so far off. The wind was always blowing lonesome in the night, and I thought of my old home where the grass fringed the edge of the cliff."
"Did you speak English before you came to this country?"
"I could read it, and I did read much—old tales of fierce fights on the sea."
"How long do you expect to stay out here?"
"I am with Mrs. Goodwin, and when she says go, I go. She is very kind to me."
Mrs. Goodwin came out, calling "Gunhild." She was tall, with grayish hair, and on the stage might have played the part of a duchess. Her husband's affairs were prosperous, and she devoted herself to the discovery of genius. She had found a young girl with a marvelous voice, and had educated her into a common-rate singer, put her in opera, and the critics scorched her. The discoverer swallowed a lump of disappointment, and turned about to find another genius. In an obscure corner of a newspaper, she found a gem in verse, the soul-spurt of a young man. She sought him out, and paid for the printing of a volume of verses. The critics scoffed him, and she swallowed another lump. One of her assistant discoverers brought to her a pencil sketch of a buffalo, and this led to the finding of Gunhild Strand. The girl was modest. She disclaimed genius, but she was sent to the Art Institute; she would climb the mountain. But she got no higher than the foot-hills. "I did not have any confidence in myself," the girl declared. "And now I mustwork for you to pay you for what has been spent." This was surely a proof that she had no genius, but it was an evidence of gratitude, a rarer quality, and Mrs. Goodwin was pleased. "You shall be my companion," she said, "Your society will more than repay me. You must not refuse. I set my heart upon it."
Milford was introduced, and the stately woman threw her searchlight upon him. Here might be another genius.
"They tell me, Mr. Milford, that you are a man of great industry."
"They might have told you, madam, that I am a great fool."
Ha! a gleam of true light. She warmed toward him. She thought of Burns plowing up a mouse. But she was skeptical of poets. They have a contempt for their patrons if their wares do not sell.
"You credit them with too shrewd a discovery," she replied.
"I simply give them credit for ordinary eyesight, madam."
"You prove the contrary." She smiled upon him. "They tell me that you came like a mist, out of the mysterious woods."
"A fog from the marsh," he replied, laughing; and the "peach" laughed, too—more music from the North Sea. He saw the pink of her arm through the gauze of her sleeve. Mrs. Goodwin thought that he knew nothing about women, and she was right, but, as a rule, if rule can be applied, a womanthinks this of a man when, indeed, he has mastered innocent hearts to make wantons of them.
"Where is your field?" the discoverer inquired.
"Over yonder, where the sun is hottest."
"And your house?"
"Over on the hill, yonder, where the wind will blow coldest in winter."
Surely, he had a volume of verse hidden under the old clothes in his trunk. She could have wished that he was even an inventor. She shuddered at the thought of another attempt to set up a shaft to American letters. The jovial doctor had shaken his fat sides at her. Suddenly she was inspired with forethought. She asked him if he had ever written any verse. He said that once he had been tempted to toss a firebrand into an enemy's wheat-rick, but had never ruined a sheet with measured lines. She saw that he had caught the spirit of the paragrapher's fling. So this fear was put aside; still, he must be a genius of some sort—an inventor, perhaps. She asked if he had ever invented anything, and he answered, "Yes, a lie." This stimulated her interest in him. He was so frank, so refreshing. She had heard that a laborer could be quaintly entertaining. She contrasted him with the numerous men of her acquaintance, men whose sentences were as dried herbs, the sap and the fragrance gone. She was weary of the doctor's shop-talk, the impoverished blood of conversation, the dislocated joint of utterance. She would have welcomed track talk with a race-horse starter. And the bluntness of this man from the hillside was invigorating. His words werenot dry herbs, but fresh pennyroyal, sharp with scent. Milford smiled at her, wishing that she were locked among her husband's jars of pickled atrocities. He wanted to talk silliness with the girl.
The other boarders came out, George and his wife among them. George handed Milford a cigar, telling him to light it,—that the ladies did not object to smoking.
"You haven't asked them," said his wife.
"Well, I know they don't."
"There, don't you see? Mrs. Dorch is moving off."
George grinned. "Her husband is a great smoker, and she don't want to be reminded of home," he said.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she replied.
"I can't afford it. I'm too much loser."
Mrs. Goodwin asked Gunhild to walk with her. She looked at Milford, but he lost his nerve and did not offer to go with them.
"That was a bid," said George. His wife reprimanded him. "It is a wonder you didn't offer to go," she declared. "But let us take a walk," she added.
"Too soon after eating. Believe I'll go up and take a snooze," he said.
A mother, worn out with hot nights of worrying over the ills of a teething child, sat rocking the little one. Bobbie stood looking on with the critical eye of a boy. "A baby sticks out his tongue when you wipe his face with a wet rag," he said, and Georgesnorted. "What a boy don't see ain't worth seeing," he said. The boy's mother reached out, drew him to her, and attempted to take from his clenched hands a piece of castiron, a rusty key, and a hog's tooth. "Throw those nasty things away."
"Let him keep his tools," said George. "A boy can't work without tools." He hung to the implements of his trade. She turned him about and set him adrift. "Mr. Milford," she said, "you don't seem to be quite yourself this afternoon. You aren't enjoying yourself."
He appeared surprised that she should think so. If he were not enjoying himself it was news to him, deserving of a big headline. She saw his eye searching the woods; she thought of the young woman who sighed out her breath at a window far away, waiting for him to hoe out a place for her. The wreath that she had hung upon him began to wither. After all, he was but a man with a shifting soul, and she did not believe that his talk had morally helped her husband. George was nodding. She shook him, and he looked up quickly, as if he expected a railway conductor to tell him that he was to get off there.
"What makes you so stupid?"
"The beastly weather. Well, I'm going up."
She sat there rocking herself, with a knife in her bosom for the man who sat near, the deceitful laborer. He was, after all, nothing but a hired man. What could she have expected of him? She was foolish to believe that there was anything spiritual about him. She would give him a dig.
"The young woman whom you were pleased to call a 'peach'——"
"I didn't call her a 'peach'."
"No matter. The young woman who has been called a 'peach,' with a bouquet of man's promises perfuming her heart, thinks, no doubt, that he is longing to see her again, when, perhaps, he has forgotten her, or remembers her only as a joke. Those foreign girls are so simple." She looked at him with her drooping eyes. Her fancy rewarded her with the belief that there was a sudden mixture of red in the brown of his face.
"Don't you think she's handsome?" she asked, after waiting for him to speak.
"No," he answered, glad to disappoint her.
"Oh, I do. Don't you, really?"
"Well, she's not ugly."
"But don't you think she's handsome?"
"Yes," he said, and looked as if he wanted to add: "Now what are you going to do about it?"
"I knew you did. Men have such queer tastes. Well, I don't think she's a bit handsome. It's no trick at all to keep the eyes wide open; and any woman can let her hair go to seed. Of course, I ought not to say anything, but I should think that you would hold a brighter picture of some one who is waiting—but what am I saying? How warm it is! We are surely going to have rain."
She heard the boy bawling out in the orchard. She ran to him. Milford stalked off toward home. "She's a little fool," he thought, and dismissed her. In the road he met the "discoverer" and the"peach," decked with purple flowers. He waited for them to show a disposition to halt. They did not, so he bowed and passed them by. On the knoll in the oat field he turned and looked back. On the veranda he saw a purple glimmer. Was the girl waving flowers at him? He turned toward home, with the music of her accent in his heart. The place was deserted. The hired man was out among the women, poverty once bitten, looking for another bite. Milford stretched himself out upon the grass under the walnut tree. Grimly, he compared himself with a man thrown from a horse, not knowing yet whether or not he was hurt. He had the plainsman's sense of humor, and he laughed at himself. "No matter which way I turn, I'm generally up against it," he said, and he could hear his words whispered up among the leaves of the tree. The earth seemed to throb beneath him. The heat made the whole world pant. He dozed, and dreamed that he saw violets rained from a purple cloud.
Milford was aroused from his dozing by some one walking up and down the veranda. "Don't let me disturb you," a cheery voice cried out, when he got up. "I dropped over to pay you a visit, and finding you asleep, thought I would wait till you reached the end of your nap. And I am sorry if I have disturbed you." He held out his hand as Milford came within reach, and in the heartiest manner said that his name was Professor Dolihide. "I suppose you heard that I moved into your neighborhood. Yes, sir, I have lived near you some ten days or more—a longtime to live anywhere during these grinding times, sir."
Milford had heard that Professor Dolihide had moved into an old house that had long stood deserted. He shook hands on suspicion, and then, on better acquaintance, he brought out two chairs, planted the Professor in one, sat down himself, and said he hoped that his visitor found the new home pleasant. The Professor closed his eyes till he looked through narrow cracks. "Well, as to that, I must say that I never expect to find another pleasant home. It is one's occupation abroad that makes the home pleasant, and when one has been compelled against his liking to change his trade, the home suffers. But I must explain," he said, opening his eyes and rubbing his hands together. "For years, I held the chair of English literature in a Kansas college. My salary was small, but I was happy, and my family had an exalted respect for me, as a learned man. But now I keep books at a planing-mill up here at Lake Villa, and am entitled to no respect whatever, not because I am not respectable, but for the reason that I have failed."
He came as a fresh breeze, and Milford enjoyed him. He possessed a sort of comical dignity. His eyes were lamp-dimmed. His beard was thin and red.
"Failed," he repeated, "not on the account of incompetence, mind you, but traceable, I may say, to a changed condition of the times. I had been led to believe that my work was giving entire satisfaction. My scope was not broad, it is true, but the ground was thoroughly tilled. But a difference arose in the board of supervisors. And it was decided that I was not idiomatic enough in my treatment of our mother tongue. They argued that English is progressive. I did not doubt that, but I said that slang was not true progress. They cited an extract from a speech delivered by the president of an Eastern grove of learning, in which he said that the purist was as dead as stagnant water. I was pleased to be called a purist, sir. I had striven to maintain that position; but it did not compensate me for the loss of my living. After that, I taught in a common school, but they said I was wanting in discipline. Then I drifted about, and now here I am, bookkeeper at a planing-mill. But I have ahope that it will all come right, and I could exist fairly, but my wife and my daughter do not share my hope. I trust I do not shock you when I affirm that a woman has a contempt for the hope of a man. She is a materialist; she wants immediate results, and all that keeps her from being a gambler is the fear of losing. I trust I have not shocked you."
He stroked his thin beard to a point, and twisted it. He cocked his head, and looked at Milford as if he expected a weighty decision concerning an important matter. His clothes were well-kept relics, but his dignity came out fresh, as if it had been newly dusted. What a tenderfoot he would have been in a mining camp; what a guy at a variety show! Milford agreed that his views were no doubt correct. The man was an unconscious joke, and argument would spoil him.
"I thank you," said the Professor. "Such ready and cheerful agreement is rarely found, except between two intelligent men, and the admission of a third man of equal intelligence would greatly lessen the chances. And now I may tell you that my wife and daughter objected to my calling, affirming, as they had a right to do, that it was your place to call on me, as I was the newer comer. And I said, 'Madam, there are no women in this case, so, therefore, we have no need to be finical and unnatural.'" He cleared his throat, and cocked his head. The sharp face of his host looked serious, but there was a titter in his breast.
"Of course," said the Professor, "one may have ever so hairy an ear, and yet the gossip of theneighborhood will force its way in. I have heard much concerning you. I heard that they did not understand you, and then I said to myself that you must be a man worth knowing."
"Then I must be rare," said Milford.
"Ah, sharp; that is sharp, sir. A dignified contempt for man may not belong to the text of the virtues, but it is one of the pictures that brightens the page. I beg pardon for even the appearance of infringement, but do you expect to reside here permanently?"
"No, I have stopped to stay over night, and to chop wood for breakfast."
"A judicious answer, sir; a shrewd statement. They told me that you were strangely guarded in speech, that you suffered yourself to seem dull rather than to trip off a waste of words. That is true wisdom, not, indeed, to have nothing to say, but keeping the something that fain would fly forth. I take it that you came from the city to these parts."
"Yes, directly. But I was there only a short time."
"A stranger, indeed. Have you ever chanced to live in Kansas?"
"I've broken out there in spots."
"Ha! an idiomatic answer. I see that you belong to the new school. Perhaps it is better, but I am too old to learn. Did you ever happen to break out in a spot called Grayson?"
"I passed through there on my way to break out somewhere else."
"You did? That was my town, sir—a seat oflearning made famous by a bank robbery. When our city was ten years old, I read a paper at the celebration. Were you ever engaged in any educational work?"
"Yes, one of the greatest. I sold a cook-book."
"Shrewd; yes, sharp. From what I heard, I thought that you would be worth knowing. I have met your landlady, a most impressive woman, but with a vulgar contempt for my profession. She said that it was a good thing that I had left off fooling and at last got down to work. And I think that this has precluded any relationship between her and my wife. She can't stand a reference, not that kind of a reference, to my decline. In this regard, women haven't so much virtue as a man possesses. They can not piece a torn quilt with an aphorism. In what part of the country have your labors been mostly confined?"
"Mostly between here and sunset."
"More poetic than sharp," said the Professor, clearing his throat. "May I trouble you for a drink of water?"
Milford drew water from the well near the walnut tree, and in the kitchen dipper conveyed a quart of it to the Professor, who drank with the thirst of a toper and the suck of a horse. "I am sufficiently watered," he said, bowing and returning the dipper to Milford, who threw it out upon the grass where the hired man could find it. "What a delightful way to live!" said the Professor. "You throw things about as you please, and there is no one to complain. You may leave your pipe anywhere, and probablyfind it again; you let hunger, instead of time, summon you to eat. I trust I do not shock you when I say that Adam enjoyed his greatest freedom before the appearance of Eve."
Milford said that he was not shocked, and the Professor thanked him. It was pleasant to meet a philosopher, a man who did not foolishly feel called upon in resentment to declare, that his mother was a woman. A shrewder man than Milford might have inferred that the Professor had been nagged by his wife through the tedium of a Sunday forenoon. Work-day annoyances fester on Sunday. In the country, when a man has, on a Sunday, killed the chickens for dinner, salted the sheep in the pasture, and returned to the house, he is in the way; everything he does is wrong; everything he leaves undone is worse. He is kept on the ducking verge of a constant dodge.
"No man has more respect for a woman than I have," said the Professor, "but I am forced to admit that she is a constant experiment. Nature herself does not as yet know what to make of her. One moment she is a joy, and the next she is searching for a man's weak spots, like a disease. I think that it was some such expression, spoken in a sententious mood, that helped to oust me from the easy chair of congenial letters." A clock struck the hour of five. The Professor seemed surprised at the swift rush of time. "Well, I must take my leave," said he, getting up and standing with his hands resting on the back of the chair. "Ah, and would you mind walking over to my home with me?"
The lingering dawn of Milford's suspicions was now streaked with gray. "I'd like to, but the hired man's gone out, and I've got to do the chores about the place."
"But perhaps I may return with you and assist you. I am an apt hand."
"No, thank you, not to-day; some other time."
A shade of disappointment fell upon him and darkened his dignity. "I am sorry," he said. "I had hoped to know you better, and we were making such fair progress. It is not often that I get along so well with a new acquaintance." He brightened suddenly, as if the reserve forces of his mind had been brought up. "Ah, would you object to my helping you with your work, and then taking a bachelor's supper with you?"
"That's all right—fits me like a glove," said Milford.
"Good!" cried the Professor. "Idiomatic, and divested of all shrewdness. Now, what shall we do first?"
"I'll hatch up a bite to eat, and then we'll feed the stock. You sit here."
He protested against a decree that might make a lazy guest of him, but he yielded, and sat down to hum a tune of contentment, pliant heart postponing trouble, procrastinator of annoyances. It did not take Milford long to prepare the meal, crisp strips of bacon, bread, and coffee boiled in a tin pail. The host said that it was but ranch fare. The guest rubbed his hands together, and declared that freedom was a pudding's sweetest sauce. He had readof many great feasts, in the days of the barons, when bulls were roasted whole, of the wild boar's head served upon the golden platter of the king, but to him there was one banquet mellower with sentiment than all the rest—General Marion and the British officer in the forest, with a pile of roasted sweet potatoes on a log. He sipped the dreggy coffee as if it were the mulled wine of a New Year's night. He talked loudly as if he enjoyed the resonant freedom of his own voice. He laughed in the present, and then was silent as a cool shadow of the future fell upon him. But he shifted from under the shadow, and went on with his talk, in florid congratulation of his host, his ease, his independence. There were no soft cushions, but there was rough repose, the undisturbed rest of honest weariness. Milford's judgment of men told him that this man had ever been a laughing-stock, afflicted as he was with a certain incompetent refinement of mind. But, in the varied society of life, how important is the office of such a failure! A shiftless man sometimes makes shiftless men more contented, softening enmities against life, and quieting clamors against discriminating nature. Here was a man who really was worth knowing, and the cowboy gratefully accepted him. He opened up his Noah's Ark of adventures, and entertained the man-child. He shoved back from the table, and sang a roaring song of a plainsman who died for love. He recited a poem by Antrobus, the herdsman's sneer of abandoned recklessness—"Like a Centaur, he speeds where the wild bull feeds." The Professor clappedhis hands. He swore that no Eastcheap could afford a more delicious entertainment. Milford brought cider from the cellar, beading in a brown, earthen ewer, and the Professor snapped his eyes. "Where the wild bull feeds," he laughed, passing his cup for more. They shook hands, that they held in common so many old songs, lines familiar to our grandmothers—"Come, dearest, the daylight hath gone;" "The tiger's cub I'd bind with a chain." They sang till the daylight was gone, and then went forth laughingly to feed the stock. But the Professor left off his part of the singing before the work was completed. The shadow of the future had again fallen upon him, and he could not shift from under it.
"Look here," he said, "you must go home with me. Do you understand?"
"I think I do, and I'll go anywhere with you."
"Idiomatic, and accommodating. Put her there!" he cried, striking hands with Milford. "Ha! how is that for idiom? Stay by me, gentle keeper, my soul is heavy, and I fain would—would duck." He leaned against the barn door and shook. Milford clapped him on the shoulder, and shook with him.
Across a field, through a wood and along a grassy slope, they went, toward the Professor's home, passing a house which schoolboys said was haunted. The Professor talked philosophy. He had a religious theory, newly picked up on the way: If we die suddenly at night, dreaming a sweet dream, we continue the dream throughout eternity—heaven. If we die dreaming a troubled dream, we go on dreaming it after death—hell. Moral, then let us strive to live conducively to pleasant dreams. Milford agreed that, as a theory, it was good enough. Nearly anything was good enough for a theory. But wise men had summed up the future, and had died trusting in their creed. The Professor hung back at the word future. The future was now too near to be discussed as a speculation. He saw it shining through the window of his house. He heard it in the slamming of a door.
"Well, here we are," he said, unwinding a chain from about a post, and opening a gate. "Step in. We will sit on the veranda—cooler than in the house."
The door opened, and a large woman stepped out upon the veranda. Seeing who came, she uttered one of anger's unspellable words, a snort. She was a good woman, no doubt, but she was of the class who, in the old days, lent virtue to the ducking stool. In short, she was one who deemed herself the most abused of all earthly creatures, a scold. Pretending not to see her husband, she asked Milford what he wanted.
"Mrs. Dolihide," said the Professor, "this is my very dear friend, Mr. Milford, our neighbor, and a man who has lived over most of the ground between here and sunset."
"Oh, is that you? Really, I didn't expect to see you again. It's a pretty time to come poking home now, when you were to be here to go to church with us. Oh, you needn't blink your eyes, having us get ready and set here and wait and wait."
"Mad and dressed up," muttered the Professor. "What could be more pitiable? Don't go," he whispered to Milford. "I pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me. Idiomatically, I am half shot."
"Let me go," said Milford.
"Not on your idiomatic life," muttered the Professor. "Mother, I am very sorry that I didn't get here in time to accompany you and my daughter to the humble house of the Lord. But we may not be too late now to catch the welcome end of a long sermon."
A voice came from within the house. "Is that pa?"
"Yes," the Professor's wife replied, "and he's as drunk as a fool."
"Oh, for pity sake! How dreadful, how humiliating to us! But he never thinks of us." An inner door slammed.
Milford strove to pull away. The Professor clung to him. "It is not fear," he said. "It is a sort of awe that the sex inspires. But there is a time for boldness. Madam, you have told your daughter that I am drunk. I am here to refute that statement. I am not drunk. My friend is not drunk. We drank some cider, sinuous with age, but we are not drunk. He is a man of high moral character, and I breathe a respect for letters——"
"Your breath would scorch a feather right now," she snapped, looking at him with contempt, her hands on her hips.
"I deny that statement, also. I am here to refute it. I have been merrier than is my wont; we haveshaken warm hands over a stone jug, but nobody's character was assailed. And I had thought, in view of the fact that I present a neighbor, you would treat me with a little more courtesy."
"You didn't know me."
"It appears not, madam. A man may think that he knows his wife to-day, but to-morrow there appears in her system the symptoms of a strange disease. But, if you will forgive me," he added, slowly advancing, "forgive a memory for slipping up in a slippery place, I will promise that there shall be no recurrence of the fall. Mrs. Dolihide, Mr. Milford."
Milford roared with laughter. He broke loose from the Professor, and fled through the gate, and he did not check his flight till he was far down the road, and then he halted to laugh again.
Since early evening, the sky had been overcast, and drops of rain began to fall. Milford hastened onward. In the woods, far across a willow flat, the wind blew hard, and the rain lashed the leaves. He turned aside into the haunted house. All the doors were open. He went to the back door and stood looking out at the coming of the rain. A noise quickened his blood, and looking about he saw a vision of white in the front door.
"Who is that?"
A slight cry, a swaying of the vision, a voice replying: "Oh, I did not know there was any one in here. I have stopped in out of the rain."
And now his blood jumped. "Is that you, Miss Strand?"
"Oh, yes, but I do not know you. Oh, is it Mr. Milford? How strange! But you do not live here?"
"No, I've simply dodged in out of the wet. It's pouring down."
"Yes, the clouds were a long time here, but the rain was quick. I went far over after a laundress. Mrs. Stuvic would have sent me in the buggy, but I wanted to walk; and now I shall be made sorry."
"I hope not. Let me see if I can't make it more comfortable for you."
He struck a match, and looked about. The room was bare. In places the floor was broken. She said, with a laugh, that she would not mind it so much but for the dark.
"I hope you have many matches," she said.
"I haven't, but I can remedy it. Here is an old smudge pan. I'll build a fire in it."
He broke up a piece of board, split fine pieces with his knife, tore up a letter, and made a fire in the pan. In a shed-room he found a bench, dusted it, and brought it in for her. She sat down, and he stood looking at the play of the shadows and the light on her hair. The spirit of the cider was gone. He wondered why he had run down the road, laughing. He got down on his knees to feed the fire. It was a trick; it was stealing an attitude to pay a homage.
"Mrs. Goodwin will be very much worried," she said. "I wish that I did not come. It was so much further than they said. I left when the sun was down. Now it is late, and I walked all the time."
"I will run over there and bring the buggy for you."
"Oh, no, no. The rain pours too much. When it is done I will go with you. The road is hard. There will be not much mud. We found many flowers in the woods to-day."
"I saw you with an armful."
"Did you see me wave at you when you stand on the high place in the oats?"
"I did, but I was almost afraid to believe it."
"Almost afraid? Why, what harm? There is no harm to wave a flower. Now it rains easier. It will soon quit."
Never did a promised clearing of the sky so mock a man. He mended the fire, for, in his enraptured gazing, he had neglected it. He got up and looked out, to see a glimmer of the threatening moon and a star peeping from a nest of glinted cloud-wool. He returned and knelt near the fire-pan.
"Is it clearing away?" she asked.
"It's going to pour down."
"But it is getting lighter."
"I know, but another cloud is coming."
"I may get home before the new rain falls."
"No, I hear it in the woods off yonder."
"If I run I may get to a house where some one lives."
"The rain will catch you. A wind is behind it."
"I don't hear the wind."
"It is a low wind, but it will soon be high."
"The smoke hurts my eyes. You have put on too much wood at once."
"And we must stay till it burns out to keep the house from catching fire."
"Oh, the moon is out. I must go now."
"I will go with you."
"Take me to the straight road, and then I will go alone."
He took the pan between two sticks, and threw it far out upon the wet grass. A flock of sheep pattered by. "Sheep always run past a haunted house," he said, leading her to the road.
"Is this place haunted?" she asked, looking back.
"Yes, by a young man who drowned himself in the lake."
"Why did he drown himself?"
"On account of a young woman who lived here."
She laughed at the cowboy's impromptu lie. "He was foolish to drown himself. Let us walk fast now. Mrs. Goodwin will be much afraid for me. Can you not walk faster?"
When they reached the corners, where a broad road crossed their path, she turned to him and said: "I know where I am now. This is my road, and I am not far. I thank you ever so much, and I bid you good-night." She fled swiftly down the road, and he stood there long after she had faded from sight.
The low place where Milford hoed the young corn was not far from Mrs. Stuvic's, and more than once during the forenoon he went to the top of the rise and looked toward the house. He saw George out in the road, teaching his wife to ride a wheel, saw the Dutch girl driving the turkeys out of the garden, heard the old woman shout for the pony-cart to take her to the town of Waukegan, but saw nothing of the young woman who had filled his sleep with dreams. He returned to his work, chopping the stubborn clods, the heat growing fiercer with the approach of noon, the wet land steaming. Of a sudden, he cursed his hoe, and threw it from him. "But I've got to do it," he said, and resumed his labor. George came across the field.
"Well, sir," said he, "I didn't go back to town this morning as I laid out to do, and now I'm like a fish out of water. Just as I got ready to go, my wife misunderstood something I said, and then it was all off. A man's a fool to leave his wife with a misunderstanding in her head. Everything ought to be smoothed over before he goes. One morning, not long ago, I scolded the boy at the breakfast table, and he was crying when I left the house. I got on the car and tried to read a newspaper, but couldn't. And, sir, I hopped off the car, tookanother one back, and made it up with him. He had forgotten all about it, but I hadn't. We were all pretty well stirred up over the 'peach' last night. Got caught out in the rain, and we thought the doctor's wife would have a fit. And at the breakfast table this morning, she gave an account of herself. Oh, she's straightforward. She said you entertained her with a fire."
"A flash in the pan," said Milford.
"Well, I don't know as to that, for when there's a flash in the pan there's no report, but I guess you'll hear report enough when you meet those women over at the house. They've made a love affair out of it—they say you're treating a certain young woman shamefully. Oh, they've got it all fixed up to suit themselves. They told the 'peach' you were engaged, and that she's wrong to encourage you."
"The devil they did!" Milford shouted. "What right have they got to presume——"
"It's not presuming on the part of a woman, my dear fellow; it's a natural conclusion. The girl couldn't say a thing. She stammered, and finally she stormed. She said it was nothing to her if you were engaged to a thousand women. She threatened to leave, and then the women apologized. And about that time I decided that I wouldn't go to town to-day."
"I'll go over there," said Milford.
"No, don't do anything of the sort, not while you're mad. It's all right now."
"No, it's not all right, but I want to tell you that I'll make it all right".
"Now, don't go on getting hot. The thing was a joke, and is all smoothed over. It arose out of pity for the other young woman."
"Confound it! there isn't any other woman."
"That's all right; that's what I told them. No other woman, of course not. There never is. Well, I'll be off. I go at twelve forty-five."
George trudged off over the clods, and Milford stood looking after him, a dark scowl on his face. Those miserable women, not half so innocent as blanketed squaws drooling about a camp-fire. And that slim Mrs. Blakemore, lithe as a viper, had inspired it all. How could a refined woman be so full of the devil's poisonous juice? In his humble way, he had tried to help her out of a trouble. Tired, and with every bone aching, he had fought off sleep to make good his word with her. Wasp! she had stung him. It was nearly noon, and he went to the house to make fat meat hiss in a hot pan. He sat brooding over the table when Mitchell came in. "Are you stalled in sight of the stable?" the hired man asked, seeing that Milford had not begun to eat.
"I'm down to the hub in a rut."
"Prize out," said Mitchell, sitting down.
"That's right, I guess; only thing I can do. Shove that hog down this way. How are you getting along over there?"
"Be done by night. Rain put the ground in pretty good fix. You about done?"
"Yes. I'll plow this afternoon."
"Say, Bill, what are divorces worth?"
"Divorces? I never bought one."
"Well, it looks to me like I ought to get one pretty cheap under the circumstances. Wife ran away."
"Yes, they ought to give you a good discount. Don't you think you'd better get two while you're at it? You might need another one after a while."
"No, I guess one'll be about enough."
"Generally, when a man is looking for a divorce, he wants to marry again. Have you got any such notion?"
"Well, I know a woman that would make a man a mighty good livin'. She ain't putty; she's as freckled as a turkey egg, but she's a hustler from 'way back. I could bring her here. You could board with us. She's a rattlin' cook; and she's got land. What do you say?"
"I say you are a scoundrel?"
"Oh, that's all right; I'm a man. But I don't see anythin' wrong in it. She's a woman, and if it ain't right for a woman to keep house, then I don't know what it is right for her to do. She wants to marry, and I don't see that anybody is kickin' up much dust around her. What do you say?"
"I told you what I said."
"Yes, you said I was a scoundrel, and there hain't been any argument raised on that p'int. What do you say about her comin'?"
"She'll not come while I'm here; I'll tell you that."
"That's all you need to tell me. I'm a good scuffler, but I know when I'm flung down. Youdidn't see the Professor's daughter when you was over there, did you?"
"Is she the woman?"
"That I'm thinkin' of marryin'? Not much! Willie bows to her and passes on. She reminds me of a blue heron, and the wind whistles when she passes."
"How did you happen to mention her?"
"Oh, she flew into my head—so different from my woman. I know'd the Professor when he tried to keep boarders over near Antioch. Talked his house empty. Took up a tramp that had book sense, and kept him till the old woman drove him off. It took more than a hint to get rid of him. She throw'd his wallet and stick out into the road. He picked 'em up, and went back into the house to argy Scripture with the Professor. Then she flew at him with a fire-shovel, and he hulled out. What makes you so glum on women, Bill?"
"What makes a dog so glum on cats?"
"There must be somethin' wrong, sure enough, when you put it that way. What's wrong?"
"Oh, they've raised hell over at the house."
"The women have? Well, that's their business, Bill; that's their trade."
"I guess you're right," Milford replied, with a laugh. He got up, took down his pipe, and went out for a half-hour's smoke on the grass, in the shade of the walnut tree. The smoke soothed him. Tobacco may be a great physical enemy, he argued, but a briar-root pipe is the most trustworthy timber for president of a peace society. Why are women sounforgiving? Because they do not smoke. Why was James the First a pedantic ass? Because he wrote a pamphlet against tobacco. Milford lay back in a forgiving muse. Perhaps, after all, the slim woman had not been so much at fault. She had too much sympathy to be very strong, and it is manly to forgive a woman's weakness; it is, at least, manly to acknowledge to ourselves that we do. It is also manly to hold a slight grudge as a warning against a recurrence of the offense. Milford would hold a grudge, and show it by sulking. He would keep himself apart from them during the week, and on Sunday he would walk high-headed past the house. This was a sound and respectable resolution, and he smiled upon his own resources. It took occasion to inspire a plan. And the woman who did not care whether he were engaged to a thousand women? He would—of course, he would speak to her, but with distinct reserve. However, some time must pass before he would give any of them a chance to speak to him.
A boy came up through the orchard and halted at the garden fence. Milford asked him what was wanted. "They are going to have some music over at Mrs. Stuvic's to-night, and they told me to come over and tell you to be sure and come."