It was Mitchell's day to cook, and when Milford came in to dinner, the hired man told him that he had something of importance to tell.
"Out with it," said Milford.
"No, not till you eat. I never like to choke off a man's appetite. I wouldn't like to have a man choke off mine. I'd be like old Matt Lindsey. The court said he must hang for murderin' a peddler. His lawyers took his case before the supreme bench. And after it had been argued one of 'em came down to the jail to see old Matt. Just about that time the jailer brought in his dinner. Old Matt said to the lawyer, 'Don't tell me till I've eat this stuff. Afterwards I mightn't be in the humor, and I don't want to miss a meal.' And it was a good thing he eat first."
"Well, is what you've got to say so bad as all that?"
"Not a hangin' affair, but it's bad enough. The fact is, you can make it just as bad as you want it.''
"If it rests with me, I'll not make it very bad. I'll tell you that."
"But I'll be hanged if it hain't made you turn pale. Why, you're scared, Bill. Oh, it's not so bad. I'll tell you now, seein' that I've already choked off your appetite. Why, there's a feller overat Mrs. Stuvic's that's too fresh. I was out by the windmill and your girl and a woman came along; and this feller was standin' off, not far away, talkin' to a chump that was with him, and he made a remark about the girl—won't tell you what it was, for a feller that's stuck don't like to hear such things repeated—I know I wouldn't. And I said to myself at the time, 'If Bill knowed that he'd mash your mouth.'"
"What sort of a looking fellow is he?" Milford quietly asked.
"Big feller. The hired man over there says his name's Dorsey. Just got here, I believe."
"All right. Did you fix the fence where the sheep broke in?"
"Somebody left the gap down. It's all right now."
"Did you wrap the collar so it won't hurt the horse's shoulder?"
"Yes, works all right, now. Haven't got enough to eat, have you?"
"Not very hungry to-day," said Milford as he walked out. The hired man called after him, but he did not stop. He took the straight road to Mrs. Stuvic's. He saw Mrs. Blakemore coming out to the gate. She smiled upon him as he drew near. She said that she had just received a letter from George. He was in business again; a real estate firm had taken him as an experiment. He made a large sale the second day, and was now regularly employed at a good commission. It had made her very happy. She never would forget Mr. Milford; there was no doubt about it, he had inspiredher husband with strength. Milford asked if a man named Dorsey were at the house. She said that she believed there was; he was at dinner. "If you want to see him, I'll tell Mrs. Stuvic," she said.
"I wish you would. Tell her I want to see him now. I haven't time to wait."
"I will. But isn't that glorious news from George? Oh, you don't know how low-spirited he was. Sometimes I thought he never would get up again. Don't you know that just a word, even though lightly spoken, may sometimes spur one to renewed action? Oh, it's undoubtedly a fact."
"Yes, words may sometimes be ashes, but often they are coals of fire. Will you please—"
"Oh, that's a good sentiment. I must remember it and tell George. He'll be out again Saturday evening. But I'll go and tell Mrs. Stuvic that you want to see—that's the man coming out now."
A strong-looking man came walking out toward the gate. Mrs. Blakemore stepped aside, and he was about to pass when Milford said: "Your name is Dorsey, I understand."
"That's it," the man replied, taking a toothpick out of his mouth.
"I'd like to see you a moment on business; over in the grove."
"What's your name?"
"Come over into the grove. I want to see you a moment. My name's Milford."
"Do you want to see me about a horse? I want to hire one. Is that it?"
"Yes, over in the grove."
"All right. Got him there? I don't care whether he's gentle or not. I can manage him all right. The first thing one of you farmers tells a fellow is that his horse is gentle, when he knows that all he wants is an opportunity to run away. So you may save yourself that trouble."
Milford conducted him to a spot out of view from the house. He halted and threw his hat on the ground. He told him what the hired man had said.
"Well," said Dorsey, "this is a fine proceeding."
"Take off your coat."
"What are you going to do?"
"Whip you if I can."
"But I'm not looking for any trouble."
"You may not have looked for it, but you've found it."
"Say, this is all nonsense. You won't tell me what I said, and I don't remember. But let me tell you something. You can't whip me. I can mop the earth with you—my way. Is that the way you want to fight?"
"Yes.Myway would mean something. But it won't do in this country. Take off your coat."
The fellow was an athlete. Milford was no match for him. He had the strength, but not the skill in boxing. But once Milford got him down, ran under and snatched his feet from under him. In a moment, though, he was up again, meeting strength with skill. Three times he knocked Milford down. It was useless to continue to fight. Milford held up his hands. "We'll call it off for the present," he said, panting.
"Suit yourself. I've got nothing to fight about except to keep from getting licked, and it's for you to say when to stop."
"Well, I say stop, for the present. I haven't been used to fighting your way. I'm from the West, and if I had you there we'd soon settle it. It's not over with as it is. I'll see you again. Do you expect to come back out here this summer?"
"Well, I'm not going to let you keep me away. You don't know what you've run up against, young fellow. I teach boxing in town. That's my lay."
"All right. I'll see you again."
"But my way, understand. Don't come any Western business on me."
"I'll see you again and your way. I never was beaten long at a time."
"Good enough. Got through seeing me about the horse?"
"I'm through. No, wait a moment. If you go back to the house and say anything about this affair, I'll try you the Western way. Do you understand?"
"Oh, it's nothing to me. I won't mention it. Good-day. I'll take care of your horse."
Milford went home, covered with blood. He washed himself and lay down under the walnut tree to steam in his anger. His lip was cut and his cheek was bruised. He jumped up suddenly, ran into the house and took two pistols out of a battered leather bag, but he put them back and sat down in the door to cool. The hired man came around the corner of the house.
"I guess you must have found him," he said, halting with a smile and a nod.
"Yes, and he was too much for me. But I'll get even with him."
"That's the way to look at it. May take a long time, but it's to come round all right. I used to drive a team in Chicago. And one day I had to cuss the driver of a coal wagon, and he ups with a lump of coal and smashes my face. I was a long time getting even with him, but I got there."
"Did you kill him?"
"Kill him! Well, I should say not. I didn't have enough money to kill him and get away with it. I just waited, watchin' him close every time I saw him. And one day he jumped off his wagon, slipped on the ice and broke his leg. Satisfied me, and after that I turned him loose."
"Bob, do you know anything about boxing?"
"I used to be somethin' of a scrapper. Why?"
"I want you to teach me."
"Don't believe I'd be a very good teacher. But, say, I know a feller that's all right. He used to be a sort of a prize fighter and he's now got a little saloon up here at Antioch, 'bout ten miles up the road. His name's Mulligan."
"All right. You go ahead with your work just as if I was with you. I'm going up there."
"Sure enough? All right. When I get through with one thing I'll go at another."
Milford trudged off across the fields toward the village of Antioch. At a well beneath a tree where cows stood in the shade, he stopped to bathe hisface. He saw his dark countenance wrinkling in the disturbed water; he committed the natural folly of talking to himself. "You are a fool," he said, looking down into his wavering eye. "You are a fool, and you want to prove it." He smiled to think how easy it was to produce the testimony. In such cases nature cheerfully gives her deposition.
He continued his way across the fields, through a skirt of wooded land and out into a road. Bicycles crackled past him. A buggy overtook him. Some one spoke. He looked round and recognized the "discoverer" and the Norwegian. It was only a two-seated vehicle, but they invited him to ride. He declined to accept their kindness, trying to hide his face. He said that he had heard Mrs. Stuvic say that the buggy was not strong. They were going to the village of Lake Villa. They might stop at the mill and have a word with the Professor. Milford remarked that the Professor would no doubt be pleased to see them, but that he was no doubt very busy. They drove on without having noticed the wounds on his face. To one not bent upon a vengeful mission, to a thoughtful man with a mind in tone with the scented air, the soft sky, the spread of green, the gleam of water, the clouds of blackbirds, such a stroll would have been rich with an inner music played upon many sweet chords. At a crossroads stood an old brick house, an ancient rarity upon a landscape white-spotted with wooden cottages. It was a rest for the eye, a place for a moment of musing, a page of a family's record, abit of dun-colored history. It was built long before the railroad set the clocks of the country, before man entered into business copartnership with the minute and employed the second as his agent. It was a relief to look upon a worn door-sill, a rotting window-blind hanging by one hinge. In the years long gone the congressman's carriage, laboring through the mud, had halted there, and the statesman had warmed himself at a fire of wood, delighting an old Whig with predictions of a glorious victory. At this place Milford halted to get a drink of water and to sit for a few moments in the shade. A man came out and asked him if he wanted a team. He had a team that would not run away. He was not prepared to take boarders, but when it came to a team he was there. He had driven great men, pork-packers of Chicago. The man who owned the enormous ice-house over on the lake had ridden with him. And it was probably one of the largest ice-houses in the world. It took thousands of dollars the year before to paint it. Milford told him that he did not want a team, and the fellow shambled off in disgust.
There was not much time to be wasted, for the sun was now far over toward the west. Milford's anger had settled into a cool determination, and he walked easier, not so hard upon the ground. He began to notice more things, a cat sitting at a window, looking out upon the narrow world, a boy with a goat harnessed to a wagon, a farmer who starved his boarders, hauling veal to the railway, to be shipped to town. He fell in with a tramp anddivided smoking tobacco with him. They strolled along together.
"Beautiful country to walk through," said Milford.
"That's no lie," said the tramp.
"But all countries are about the same when times are hard, I should think," Milford remarked.
"That's no pipe," said the tramp.
"They tell us, however, that we are to have better times."
"They are smokin'," said the tramp.
Their roads separated, and they parted company. The sun was down when Milford reached the village. It was an easy matter to find Mulligan's saloon. One of the oldest citizens pointed it out. Mulligan was half-dozing behind his bar. Several men were at a table, playing cards. Milford made short work of his introduction. He told his story. There was but one way to get even. Mulligan laughed. That sort of revenge appealed to his Irish heart. He would give lessons, and it should not cost a cent. He put out his whisky bottle. His face beamed. He was glad to meet a civilized man. The very fact that Milford had come on such a mission was a proof of an improvement in the country.
"Dorsey," he said. "Dorsey. He can't box; I never heard of him. Well, we'll make a jelly out of his face."
They went out to supper together. "This man has heard of me and has come miles to get lessons," said Mulligan to the tavern keeper.
They boxed till late at night and shook handswarmly at parting. Earnestness is genius, and when Milford set out for home, the moon on his right shoulder, he felt that he had made surprising progress. It was nearly daylight when he reached the end of his journey. The hired man was going out to the barn.
"You are born to be a great man," said Mitchell. "The cards are shuffled and cut that way and you can't help it. What are you goin' to do now?"
"I'm going to sleep for a few hours and then get to work."
"When are you goin' to take another lesson?"
"Day after to-morrow."
"Ain't that feller a bird?"
"He understands his business."
"About when do you think you can tackle your job again?"
"Not till I have learned how. I'm going to get some gloves and have you box with me between times."
He went into the house and lay down, and when Mitchell came in he was asleep with his head on his fist.
Blakemore came out on Sunday morning, snapping his watch and complaining against the pall-bearing march of time. He was full of business. His pockets were stuffed with papers. He made figures on the backs of envelopes as he sat at the table. He asked after Milford. His wife said that the place had somehow lost its charm for Mr. Milford. Mrs. Goodwin and Miss Strand had seen him in the road. Mrs. Stuvic, standing near, pressed her lips close together. She shook her head. She did not understand him, she declared. Lately he had been seen in Antioch. She did not know what business could have taken him there.
"You may not be supposed to know," said George, making his figures.
"Now you keep still," she replied. "I am supposed to know more than you think for. I wasn't born yesterday, and I'm goin' to live longer than any of you, I tell you that."
"It's very natural for us to expect every one else to die," said George. "It's a pretty hard matter to picture one's self as dead. But the old fellow is coming along yonder whetting his scythe as he comes."
"George," said his wife, "don't talk to her that way."
"Oh, let him talk," the old woman spoke up. "Idon't care what he says. Goes in at one ear and comes out at the other, with me. I'll live to see him cold, I'll tell you that."
"Oh, please don't talk that way, Mrs. Stuvic; you give me the shudders. By the way, Mr. Dorsey has gone back to town, hasn't he?"
"Yes," Mrs. Stuvic answered. "And he owes me, too."
"That's what you say about everybody," George declared. "You'll be saying it about me, next."
"Well, you did owe me till to-day; and see that you don't do it again. But that feller Dorsey'll pay. He'll be back again in about two weeks. He says I've got the finest place in the county."
"The 'peach,'" George whispered, as Mrs. Goodwin and Gunhild came into the dining-room. His wife pulled at him. The boy wanted to know what he had said. For a wonder he had not heard. His mind was among the green apples in the orchard. George bowed to the ladies and began to tell them about the great improvement in business. The banks had plenty of money to lend. Real estate, the true pulse of the times, had begun to throb with a new life. Mrs. Goodwin did not think that there had been any improvement. The Doctor had written that money was scarce. Every one complained of slow collections. George asked the Norwegian if there were any sale for pictures.
"There is no sale for mine," she answered. "I do not expect to sell any."
"Then," said George, "it's a waste of time to paint them."
"I do not paint," the girl replied. "My ambition was not dressed in colors."
Mrs. Goodwin smiled upon her, and Mrs. Blakemore drew her husband's attention to what she termed the bright aptness of the remark. George said that it did not make any difference whether art was done with a brush or pencil, it was a waste of time if it failed to sell; and hereupon Mrs. Stuvic began to sniff as a preliminary to an important statement.
"A man boarded with me a while last winter that could knock 'em all out when it comes to makin' pictures with a pen," she said. "He drew a bird without takin' his pen up from the paper, and it looked for all the world like it was flyin'. But when that was said all was said. He wan't no manner account. He went away owin' me. Now, what does he want to go to Antioch for? I'd just like for somebody to tell me that."
"The man that drew the bird?" George spoke up.
"Oh, you keep still. I mean Milford."
"Probably the woman he's been working for so hard has moved into the neighborhood," said George. Mrs. Stuvic declared that you never could tell what a man was working for. No man was worth trusting. She knew; she had tried them. Milford was no better than the rest of them. Why didn't he explain himself? Why didn't he stand out where every one could see him? She had defended him. She was getting tired of it. He had not rewarded her with his confidence. He came a stranger andhad been a stranger ever since. One of these days he might set fire to the house and run away.
"You shall not talk about him so," the girl declared. "No one shall abuse him."
"Good for you," Mrs. Stuvic cried. "I've been fightin' his battles all along and I'm glad to get some help. Why, she looks like a cat, don't she? And it's what I like to see, I tell you. But it's usually the way; a man works for one woman and is took up for and defended by another."
"He is not working for any woman, madam," said Gunhild. "No woman has any claim on him."
Mrs. Blakemore shook her head. "With that dark, handsome face it would be difficult long to escape the claim of a woman."
"Come off," said George. "I don't see anything so killing about him.''
"Men never see killing features in man," his wife replied. "They are left for softer eyes to discover."
"Oh," he rejoined, looking worriedly at her.
"The 'peach,'" she whispered. "Am I to hear that again?"
He scratched upon an envelope and handed to her the words: "I give in. Let us call it even and quits."
Mrs. Goodwin looked at Gunhild as if by a new light. Next in importance to the discovery of genius itself, is the discovery that genius is picking its way along the briary path of love, lifting a thorny bough in bloom to peep blushingly from a hiding place, or boldly to tear through the brambles outinto the open, and in honest resentment defy the wondering gaze of the common eye. It would be a pretty sight to see this girl in love, the woman mused. She did not wish to see her married to a man who labored in a field; but it would be delicious to see her love him and hating herself for it, fighting a rosy battle with her heart. There was no romance in loving an "available" man; there was no suffering in it, and how empty was a love that did not swallow a midnight sob! She asked Gunhild to walk out into the woods with her. They crossed a low, marshy place where pickerel split the trashy water in the spring of the year, and strolled up a slope into the woods. They gathered flowers, talking of things that interested neither of them; they found an old log covered with moss and here they sat down to rest. It was always sad to feel that the summer would soon be gone, the elderly woman said, gazing at a soldierly mullein stalk, nodding its yellow head. More summers were coming, and the leaves and the flowers would be the same, the grass as green, the birds as full of happy life; but the heart could not be turned back to live over the hours and the days—only, in dreaming, in reminders of the time forever gone. To the youthful, two summers are twins; to the older, they are relatives; to the aged, strangers.
"You make me sad when you talk that way," said the girl.
"My dear child, a sadness to-day may be food for sweet reflection in the future. Indeed, it would even be well for you to suffer now."
"But I do not want to suffer. I do not see the need of it."
"My dear, suffering prepares us for the better life. It makes us more thankful."
"I do not know that," she said with energy. "Sometimes it may harden us. We may be kept from food so long that we have no manners when we come to the table."
"Gunhild, that is a very good remark—a thoughtful remark, true in the main, but not illustrative of the point I wish to make. But you are so full of hope that—"
"Full of hope, madam?"
"Yes, the hope that rises from health and strength. You have so much to look forward to. You might make a brilliant match."
"Then I must hope that sometime I may sell myself?"
"Oh, no, no. I didn't mean that. I mean that you have prospects. Shall I be plain? You have the prospects of loving one man and marrying another. That is called a brilliant match, I believe. Or, at least, it is a feature of nearly all brilliant matches. Don't you think so?"
"I am not supposed to know, madam."
"Not even to please me?"
"Oh, if it please you, I am supposed to know everything."
"Good. Then tell me what you know about Mr. Milford. You understand that it is my mission to find interest in nearly all—well, I might say, odd persons. You have met him when I wasnot with you. And he must have told you something."
"He has told me nothing that I can repeat."
"Oh, is it that bad?"
"Is what that bad, Mrs. Goodwin? I do not understand what you mean by that bad. Perhaps what he told me did not make enough impression to be remembered."
"But didn't he say things you did not remember, but continued to feel?"
"Yes, I believe so. You know that I do not understand men very well. I do not understand any one very well. They make remarks about him and say that he is mysterious, but he is plainer to me than any one. Somehow I feel with him. He has had a hard life, I think, and that brings him closer to me."
"Ah, my dear, the suffering I spoke of just now."
"But," the girl added, "I do not know that his hard life has made him any better."
"Perhaps not. But it must have made him more thoughtful. After all, I'm not so much interested in him. He is one of the characters that throw a side-light on our lives. He can never take an essential part in our affairs. Do you think so?"
"I must again say that I do not understand."
"Why, don't you know that we meet many persons, and become quite well acquainted with them, and yet never feel that they belong to our atmosphere? They are not necessary to the story of our lives, so to speak, and yet that atmosphere of which they are not really a part, would not be wholly completewithout them. They stand ready for our side talks; sometimes they even flip a sentiment at us. We catch it, trim it with ribbons and hand it back. They keep it; we forget. The Blakemores are such persons. We may never see them again—may almost wholly forget them, and yet something that we have said may influence their lives. And perhaps to Mr. Milford, we are but side-lights. He may soon be in his saddle again, forgetting that he ever knew us. But are we to forget him? Has his light been strong enough to dazzle us?"
"I shall not forget him, madam."
"Then he may have made himself essential to the story of your life."
"He has made himself a part of my recollection."
"No more than that? Sometimes we recall because it is no trouble, and sometimes we remember with pain. You know, Gunhild, that I think a great deal of you."
"I can never forget that. It is an obligation—"
"Now, my child, I don't want you to look at it that way. You must not. What I have done has given me pleasure. And if I deserve any reward, it is—well, frankness."
"You deserve more than that—gratitude."
"Then let frankness be an expression of gratitude. Are you in love with that man?"
"Madam, a long time ago I used to slip to the door of the dining-room of the little hotel in the West and peep in at him. They said he was bad, that he would kill; but he came like a cavalier, with his spurs jingling, and fascinated me. I felt thatmy own spirit if turned loose would be as wild as his, for had not my forefathers fought on the sea till the waves were bloody about them, and had they not dashed madly into wild lands? I peeped in at him; I did not speak to him; but I watched for his coming. And late at night I have lain awake to hear his wild song in the bar-room, just below me. One day I met him in the passage-way, and looked into his eyes, with my heart in my own, I feared; and I did not see him again till I came out here. I did not know his name. They called him Hell-in-the-Mud."
Mrs. Goodwin did not remain quiet to hear the story. With many exclamations, she walked up and down, sometimes with her back toward the girl sitting on the log, her hands in her lap, lying dreamily; sometimes she wheeled about and stood wide of eye and with mouth open.
"Well, who ever heard of the like? But are you sure he is the same man?"
"Yes. I did not remind him that I had seen him there. He said that he had seen me—he said—"
"But what did he say? You must keep nothing back now. It would spoil everything. What did he say?"
"He said that he got on his horse and galloped away—from me. He said that he did not want to be—be tangled up."
"Well, well, who ever heard of such a thing? And you have met out here. Has he asked you to marry him?"
"No, and I do not think he will. I must not marry him."
"But you love him."
"Bitterly, madam."
"Oh, isn't that sweet—I mean, how peculiar a situation it is! No, you can't think of marrying him. It wouldn't at all do. I don't believe he could live tied down to one place. It is a first love and must live only as a romance. It will help you in your art. It will be an inspiration to all your after life, a poem to recite to your daughter in the years to come. I had one, my dear. He was wild, wholly impossible, you might say. And I was foolish enough to have married him, but my mother—she married me to the dear Doctor. And how fortunate it was for both of us, I mean for me and for Arthur! He threw himself away."
"But he might not have thrown himself away, madam, if you had married him."
"Oh, yes, he was really thrown away before I met him. My mother was right. She knew. She had married the opposite to her romance."
"But are women never to marry the men they love?"
"Oh, yes, to be sure. We all love our husbands. But we ought not to marry our first love. That would be absurd. It would leave our after life without a sweet regret. My dear, romantic love is one thing and marriage is another. Love is a distress and marriage is business. That's what the Doctor says."
"And pardon me, madam, but he lives it."
"How? What do you mean?"
"Why, you are his business partner. You take care of his house. If you are not there your servants keep the house. He may be pleased to see you, but there is never any joy in his eyes—or yours. You are dissatisfied with life. You try to make yourself believe you are not, but you are. You look about for something, all the time. If you and the Doctor should fail in business, you would grow tired of each other. You told me to be frank."
"Oh, yes, but you must not believe that. I think the world of him. I don't see how I could live without him. He is absolutely necessary to me. But he wasn't my romance. And I am glad of it. I couldn't dream over him if he were. But your story. It almost upsets me. Got on his horse and rode away! It is evident that he didn't want a romance. What wise man could have warned him against it? I am glad you told me, my dear. I can be of a great deal of assistance to you. Suppose we go back to the house. Well, well, you have given me a surprise."
The days were linked out into weeks; there had been rag-time music and break-down dancing at Mrs. Stuvic's, but Milford had not shown himself. A farmer passing late at night had looked through the window and had seen him boxing with the hired man. Some one else had seen him sparring with an Irishman in Antioch. The old woman swore that he was "going daft." But it was noised around that he had threshed out nearly two thousand bushels of oats, and this redeemed his standing. He had not arrived in time to sow the oats, but the luck of the harvest had fallen to him. The crop had been threatened with rust and the old woman advised him to plow up the fields, but he had held out against her and was rewarded, not alone with a surprising yield of grain, but with a recognized right to exercise freedom of action, such as would not have been tolerated in a man who had fallen short. A wise old skinflint halted one day to ask his opinion of a bulky subscription book for which he had paid one dollar down and signed notes for three more, payable, of course, at times when money worries would buzz thickly about him. And news came through the hired man that a young woman, thin of chest and clumsy of foot, but worth a hundred acres, had set her cap for him.
"Of course, I wouldn't advise you to take her," said Mitchell, putting on his necktie before a three-cornered fragment of a looking-glass, "but I want to tell you that land's land out here. And besides, she might die in a year or two. You never can tell. I may see her at church to-day. She and my girl are sorter kin to each other. I'm a marryin' man, myself. I don't see enough difference in married life or single life to get scared at either one, so I take the marryin' side. A married man has a place to keep away from and a single man hasn't any place to go to, so it's all about the same, that is, without property. Goin' anywhere to-day?"
"There's no place for me to go except over to the old woman's, and I don't care to go there yet awhile. I wonder why she hasn't been over here?"
"Who, the girl?"
"No, the old woman. Do you suppose I expect the girl to come?"
"Well, I didn't know," said Mitchell, brushing his stiff hair. "You never can tell what a girl will do. They keep me guessin' and I'm on to their curves pretty well. I see that Mrs. Goodwin yesterday evenin'. And she looked like a full-rigged ship. Guess I'd be a little afraid of her with her big talk. But you could tackle her all right enough. Say, I'm sore as I can be, boxin' with you. Is that cigar up by the clock, one that the prize-fighter give you? Let me take it along. I want to perfume my way with it. Thanks," he added, taking the cigar before Milford had said a word. "How do these pants set?"
"They strike me as being a trifle short," said Milford, surveying him.
"That's what I was afraid of, but they dragged the ground till the peddler left, and then they began to draw up. A man's sure to get the worst of it when he buys out of a pack. I'd like to have a suit of clothes made to order, but I can't afford it now. Did you ever have a suit put up to your own notion?"
"Yes, a few."
"Well, I said all the time that you wan't no common man."
"And right there you struck the ancient and the modern idea of what a man is—garments. You can't get away from the effect of clothes. The city and the backwoods are alike. With the exception that the city insists that the coat shall fit better and the pantaloons be a little longer," he added, smiling.
"Don't laugh at 'em, Bill; they're all I've got. When a man's got two pair of briches you may laugh at one, but when he's got only one pair, don't laugh. Are you goin' to set up here and read that book all day? What's his name? Whitson?"
"Whittier. I don't know. I'm a Quaker waiting to be moved. I had this old book with me out West. We used to read it at night in the shack. We had some pretty smart fellows with us. Some of them pretended to be ignorant when in fact they had read their names on a sheepskin. They had been beaten over the head with books till they were sick of them."
"I don't blame 'em," said the hired man. "I'd rather set up with a corpse than a book."
"Sometimes it's about the same thing," Milford replied. "Did you ever read the Bible?"
"What do you take me for?"
"I don't take you for a man who has read very much of it. But it's the greatest thing ever written."
"It's out of date, Bill."
"Yes, to those who don't think. Why, there's more wisdom in it than in all other books put together. I don't care anything about creed, or what one man or another may believe; I don't care how or why it was written—I brush aside the oaths that have been sworn on it, and the dying lips that have kissed it; I shut my eyes to everything but the fact that it is the greatest opera, the greatest poem, the greatest tragedy ever written."
"If I could talk that way I'd go out and preach about it, Bill."
"Not with my record behind you, old fellow."
"But why should a man that believes as you do have a record to hold him down?"
"There you've got me. That's what I'd like to know. But when a man has learned to understand himself, then all things may become clear. We sometimes say that it was not natural for a man to do a certain thing. The fact is, it's natural for a man to do almost anything that he can do."
"This is good Sunday mornin' talk, all right, Bill. But I've got to go after my girl. She's got lots of sense, horse sense and flap-doodle sense all mixed up. She's got more flap-doodle sense than I have; she reads books, and not long ago she give me a piece of poetry that she'd cut out of a newspaper. Isaid, 'Read her off and take her back.' And she did. Well, I'm off."
Milford hailed a man who drove up in a buggy, gave ten cents for a Sunday newspaper, and sat on the veranda to read it. The wind blew a sheet out into the yard. He started after it, but halted, looking at a man who was crossing the field where the oats had been reaped, striding with basket and rod toward the lake. Milford left the paper to the wind. He hastened to the woods between the oat field and the lake and waited for the man, leaning musingly against a tree. The man got over the fence and came along the path. Milford stepped out.
"Good-morning, Mr. Dorsey."
"Why, helloa. How's everything?"
"All right, I hope. Are you done with that horse?"
"Oh, that horse. Yes, I'm about done with him."
"Hold on. I want him."
"What do you mean?"
"You remember the last time we met I—well, we'll say, I let you have a horse."
"You mean we fought over yonder in the grove."
"That's what I mean."
"Well, what about it?"
"We are going to fight over here in this grove."
"Why, I thought you had enough?"
"I did have then, but I want more. I said then that I'd never been beaten for long at a time. I've been waiting for you."
"A man don't have to wait for me very long.But say, this is all rank foolishness. I've got nothing against you; and as for what I said about the woman, why, I'm willing to apologize, although I don't know what it was."
"You will apologize, but not till I get through with you. Take off your coat."
"You beat any fellow I ever saw. I don't want to fight; I want to fish."
"I don't want to fish, I want to fight. Take off your coat or I'll knock you down in it."
"All right, my son." He threw his coat on a stump. Milford was in his shirt sleeves. "Wait a moment," said Dorsey. "You have brought this thing about, and I want to tell you that I won't let you off as easy as I did the last time."
They went at it. Dorsey fell sprawling. He scrambled to his feet with trash in his hair and blood in his mouth. Milford knocked him over a stump. He got up again and came forward, cutting the capers of a tricky approach, but Milford caught him with a surprising blow and sent him to grass again. This time he did not get up. He squirmed about on the ground. Milford took him under the arms and lifted him to his knees. "Go away," he muttered, his head drooping. "You've—you've broken my jaw."
Milford ran to the lake and brought water in his hat. Dorsey was sitting up when he returned.
"You've knocked out two of my teeth," he mumbled.
"Here, let me bathe your face."
"Biggest fool thing I ever saw," Dorsey blubbered through the water applied to the mouth. "I told you I'd apologize."
"Yes, and you may do so now. Do you?"
"Of course. What else can I do?"
"I'm almost sorry I hit you so hard."
"Almost! I don't stop at that. I don't want you to say anything about it," he added. "It would hurt my business."
"A horse kicked you," said Milford. "You're all right now. You can go to the house."
"I'm going to town by the first train. I'm done up. You've been practicing. You ought to make a success of yourself if that's the sort of fellow you are."
Milford helped him put on his coat. "Now, I wish I could do something for you," he said. "No matter what I do, I always get the worst of it."
"You didn't get the worst of this, by a long shot."
"Yes. Now I've got to grieve over it. I've been trying to do right, but the cards are against me."
"You needn't grieve over me. You have licked a good man."
"I grieve because you were willing to apologize."
"Don't let that worry you. I wouldn't have apologized any too strong. Well, I don't believe the fish will bite to-day. I'll go back."
Milford watched him as he walked slowly across the stubble field, and strove to harden his heart against the cutting edge of remorse. The fellow was a bully. To him there was nothing sacred, and he thought evil of all women. His manliest words waited to be knocked out of him.
Milford returned to the house and gathered up the scattered sheets of his newspaper. But he sat a long time without reading. The gathered vengeance of his arm had been spent. It had shot forth with delight, like a thought inspired by devoted study, but like a hot inspiration grown cold, it faded under the strong light of reason. He heard the shriek of a railway train, rushing toward the city. He saw George Blakemore coming up the hill.
Blakemore came up briskly, shook hands with a quick grasp, looked at his watch and sat down on the edge of the veranda. His eye was no longer fixed and rusty, but bright and restless. He did not drool his words, hanging one with doubtful hesitation upon another, but blew them out like a mouthful of smoke. He talked business; he had just engineered another land deal. He had traveled about among the surrounding towns, and spoke of a railway ticket as a "piece of transportation." Sunday to him was a disease spot, the blotch of an inactive liver. Rest! There was no rest for a man who wanted to work.
"What's to be the end of this rush?" Milford asked. "What's your object?"
"Money, of course. You know what the object of money is, so there you are."
"I don't know that I do. Money's object is to increase, but I've never been able to discover its final aim, except possibly in a few instances. We struggle to get rich. Then what? We read an advertisement and find that we have kidney trouble. We take medicines, go to springs, grow puffy, turn pale—die. That's the average man who makes money for money's sake. But it's a waste of words to talk about it."
"It is undoubtedly a waste of time to think aboutit," said Blakemore. "Not only that, to give it daily attention would mean stagnation and dry rot. There'd be no land sales. But, speaking of an object, you have one, of course."
"Yes, such as it is. And strain my eyes as I may, I can't look beyond it. I made up my mind a good while ago that there's not much to live for. This is an old idea, I know, but at some time it is new to every man. We fight off trouble that we may fight into more trouble. And our only pleasure is in looking back upon a past that was full of trouble, or in looking forward to a time that will never come."
"You're a queer sort of a duck, anyhow," Blakemore replied, throwing the stub of a cigar out into the grass. "You must have been burnt sometime. And yet you're no doubt looking for the fire again."
"Did you ever catch a bass with his mouth full of rusty hooks? I'm one—hooks sticking out all around, but I must have something to eat, and I may snap a phantom minnow."
"Yes, sir, you're a queer duck. But there's a lot of good stuff in you, I'll tell you that; and I could take you in tow and make a winner of you. Drop this farm and come to town."
Milford smiled and shook his head. "Winning looks easy to the man that wins. No, when I leave this place I'll have my object in my pocket."
"Queer duck," Blakemore repeated. "Any insanity in your family?"
"No, none to speak of. My father took the bankrupt law and paid his debts ten years afterwards."
Blakemore lighted a cigar. "Did you disown him?"
"No. He went to the springs, grew pale—and we buried him."
Blakemore turned his cigar about between his lips. "And your idea is to pay your debts, grow pale, and let them bury you. Is that it?"
"Not exactly," and then he added: "I owe a peculiar sort of debt."
"A man's foolish to pay a peculiar debt," Blakemore replied.
"But a peculiar debt might take a strange hold on the conscience."
"Yes," Blakemore agreed, "but a tender conscience has no more show in business than a peg leg has in a foot-race. Do you know what I did? I moped about under a debt of twenty thousand dollars. After a while I looked up and didn't see anybody else moping. I quit. Am I going to pay it? Maybe, but not till the last cow has come home, I'll tell you that. They scalped me, and I'm going to scalp them. By the way, I met a fellow just now—fellow named Dorsey. You might have seen him out here. Met him a while ago, and he told me that a horse kicked him over yonder in the woods. Didn't do a thing but kick his teeth out. He's gone to town to have his jaw attended to. Your horse?"
"No, a horse that Dorsey hired when he was out some time ago. He must have misused him."
"He got in his work all right. Well, I've come after you. They want you at the house. Rig yourself up; I'll wait."
Upon benches and in chairs, and lolling on the thick grass, Milford found Mrs. Stuvic's summer family. They told jokes and sang vaudeville songs and slyly tickled one another's necks with spears of timothy, frolicking in the shade while time melted away in the sun. The ladies came forward to shake hands. They called Milford a stranger. They inquired as to the health of the young woman in Antioch. He disclaimed all knowledge of a woman in Antioch. They knew better, shaking their fingers at him. Blakemore and Mrs. Stuvic entered upon a harangue. Milford sat down on a bench with Mrs. Goodwin and Gunhild. Although under the eye of the "discoverer," the girl had shaken hands warmly with him. Between them there was a quiet understanding, and he was at ease. Mrs. Blakemore sat in a rocking chair that threatened to tip over on the uneven ground. She liked the uncertainty, she said. It gave her something to think about. Mrs. Goodwin had read during all the forenoon, and was sententious. It would soon be time for her to return to the city, and she felt that she wore a yellow leaf in her hair. She was anxious to return, of course, but to go away from a sweet season's death-bed was always a sad departure. Mr. Milford, she said, would attend the summer's funeral.
"I will help dig the grave," he replied.
She thanked him for following her idea. So few men had the patience to fondle the whimsical children of a woman's mind. When they crept out to the Doctor he scouted them back to bed, and therethey lay trembling, not daring to peep out at him. Some men thought it a manly quality to despise a pretty conceit, but it was pretty conceits that made marble live, that made a canvas breathe. At one time she had been led to believe that the realist was the man of the hour. And indeed, he was—just for one hour. And the veritist—what was he? One whose soul was kept cool in a moldy cellar. None but the artist had a right to speak. And what was art? A semblance of truth more beautiful than the truth. But writers were often afraid to be artists, even at the promptings of an artistic soul. They were told that women would not read them, and man must write for woman. What nonsense! Take up a book and find the beautiful passages marked. A woman has read it.
"I can make a great noise in shallow water," said Milford, "but if I follow you, you'll lead me out over my head. I believe you, however; I believe you speak the truth. I don't know anything about art, but, so far as I am concerned, it is a waste of time for any scholar to pick flaws in a thing that makes me feel. He may tell me why it is bad taste to feel, but he can't convince me that I haven't felt."
He said this looking at the girl, and their eyes warmed with the communion. "I have studied art," she said, "until I do not know anything about it; and I am beginning to believe if the world listens to—to a talk about it, it is with a sneer. No one wants to know. No one is willing to listen, except like this, out in the country when there is nothing else to do."
"I find plenty to do," said Mrs. Stuvic, overhearing the remark and turning from Blakemore, who had been "joshing" her about an old man. "Yes, you bet. There's always a plenty to do in the country if a body's a mind to do it. The country people ain't such fools. No, you bet. The most of 'em's got sense enough to keep a horse from kickin' 'em. Yes, walked right over in the woods and let a horse kick him. Why, old Lewson would've knowed better than that, and he didn't have sense enough to know that he couldn't come back. Now, Bill, you keep quiet. Don't you say a word."
"If you were afraid the old fellow would come back, why didn't you marry him?" said Blakemore.
"Now, you keep still, too. I wan't so anxious about him comin' back. It wan't nothin' to me. But I do believe he robbed my hens' nests after he was dead. Now, whose team is that goin' along the road? If a man would rein up my horses that way I'd break his neck. Bill, why haven't you been over here?"
"I've been too busy."
"You haven't been too busy to trudge off to Antioch. What did you go for?"
"Because it was nobody's business but mine."
"Oh, you don't say so? What made you box with that Irishman? Oh, you can't fool me. I know more than you think I do. Went up there to practice. And then a horse kicked Dorsey over in the woods. How about that? You met him over in the grove some time ago, and he licked you. Howabout that? Then you took lessons till you was able to knock his teeth out. How about that?"
"Who told you all that rubbish?" Milford demanded, uneasy under the gaze of the company.
"Never mind. There's a freckled faced woman not far from here. And she couldn't keep a secret any more than a sieve could hold water. You've got a hired man, too, you must remember."
"Yes, and I'll——"
"You'll do nothin' of the sort. It was perfectly natural. I knowed it was comin'. I knowed that he mashed your mouth. And what was it all about? How about that?"
Milford arose to go. Mrs. Goodwin begged him to sit down. Mrs. Blakemore was in a flutter of excitement. Blakemore stood with his mouth open. Gunhild looked straight at Milford. "Did you hit him, Mr. Milford?" she asked.
"Yes," he promptly answered.
"Then you must have had a good cause, and I shall wait before feeling sorry for him. But I could not feel very sorry anyway. I do not like him. He has the eye of a beast. May we ask why you struck him?"
"He made a remark about you."
The girl jumped up from her seat, anger flaming in her eyes. Mrs. Goodwin made some sort of cooing noise. Mrs. Blakemore cried "Oh!" and fluttered.
"That's all I've got to say," said Milford. "I oughtn't to have said that much, and wouldn't if ithadn't come round as it did. And now I must ask you to let the subject drop."
Gunhild sat down without a word. But in her quietness of manner was a turbulent spirit choked into subjection. In all things it seemed that her modesty was a conscious immodesty held in restraint. The uncouth girl, with utterance harsh in rough words of men from the far north, had been remodeled by the English school. But the blood of the Viking was strong within her, as she sat there, striving to appear submissive; but Milford fancied that she would like to dash out Dorsey's brains with a war-club. He sat down beside her, and with a cool smile she said: "Made a remark about me. It takes me back to the potato-field. I must thank you. We are fellow workmen." She spoke in a low voice. He looked from one to another, as if afraid that they might hear her. "It makes no difference," she said.
"Yes, it does. It is none of their business. I am going to set claim to all that part of the past. You may share your pleasure with them, but your trouble belongs to me. I will mix it with mine."
"The color might be dark," she replied.
"But two dark colors may make a white hope."
She shook her head and looked about as if now she were afraid that some one might hear. But the other boarders were talking among themselves. Mrs. Goodwin, at the far end of the bench, was giving to Blakemore her idea of the future life; Mrs. Blakemore had run off, summoned by an alarming howl from the boy; Mrs. Stuvic, still a believerin spiritualism and a devotee of fortune-telling, stood near, sniffing in contempt.
"Nothing can keep us apart," said Milford. "I'm not a soft wooer; I don't know how to play the he dove; I don't know how to sing a lie made by some one else; I don't pretend to be a gentleman; I am out of the rut, and they may call me unnatural. But let me tell you that all hell can't keep us apart."
"Mr. Milford, you must not talk like that. I too am out of the rut, and they may call me unnatural, but I do not like to hear you talk that way."
"Yes, you do. You can't help yourself. If it's the devil that brought us together, then blessed be the name of the devil."
"Hush, Mr. Milford."
"I won't hush. I must talk. I suppose I ought to call you an angel. But you are not. You are a woman—once a hired hand. But you jump on me like a panther; you suck the blood out of my heart. Am I a brute? Yes. So are you. You are a beautiful brute—the panther and the grizzly. Is that it?"
She looked at him, and her eyes were not soft. "I used to peep in at the grizzly—into the dining-room when he had come to feed. But no more now. No, nothing can keep us apart. But we must wait. What a courtship!" she said, with a sigh.
"It's not a courtship," he replied. "It's a fight, a draw fight. Now I'll hush. What's the wrangle?" he asked, turning toward Mrs. Goodwin.
"Nothing," she answered, moving closer to him. "It hasn't the dignity of a wrangle. Mrs. Stuvic is trying to convert me to fortune-telling."
"Nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Stuvic. "I don't care whether she believes in it or not. It's nothin' to me; but truth's truth, and you can't get round it; no, Bill, you bet. I know what I've been told, and I know what's come to pass. A woman told me that a man was goin' to beat me out of board, and he did. She never saw him. How about that? And she told me I was goin' to lose a cow, and I did. She was dead by the time I got home. How about that? Don't come talkin' to me about what you expect after you're dead. Truth's truth. Now, there's Bill. He thinks I'm an old fool. But I know more than he thinks I do. Yes, you bet!''
"No, I don't think that, Mrs. Stuvic," Milford replied. "I'm under too many obligations to you to think that."
"Now, there is honesty," Mrs. Goodwin spoke up. "Gunhild, my dear, do you catch the drift of it?"
"It's not honesty, but villainy," Blakemore declared, and turning to his wife, who had just returned, he asked if the boy were hurt. She said that he had got hung in the forks of an apple tree.
"But villainy holds a virtue when it tells the truth," Mrs. Goodwin replied.
"Holds fiddlesticks," said Mrs. Stuvic, with a sniff. "Why can't you folks talk sense? Just as soon as a woman reads a book, she's got to talk highfurlutin' blabber. Now, what does that man out there want?"
"He wants beer," said Blakemore.
"Well, he can't get it. He looks like the man that had me fined last summer. I hate a detectiveon the face of the earth. One went down in my cellar and drank beer, and then had me up. Go on away from here," she shouted. "There's not a drop of beer on this place. Move on off with you. I'll let you know that I don't keep beer."
The man went away, grumbling. Blakemore turned to Milford and said: "Come join me in a bottle."
"Now, you keep still," Mrs. Stuvic snapped. "Bill don't drink. And the first thing I know you'll have me up."
Milford asked Mrs. Goodwin when she expected to go home. She answered that she would leave on the following Tuesday. He remarked that he would come over to go to the station with her, and then, waving a farewell to the company, he strode off toward home. In his heart there flamed the exultation of a great conquest after a fierce battle.
In the evening the hired man returned with his trousers drawing shorter every moment. He swore that he was going to kill the peddler, which of course meant that he would buy another pair from him. He would take off the wretched leg-wear and hang weights to the legs, he said. No peddler could get ahead of him. He called himself an inventive "cuss." He said that his grandfather had sat upon a granite hillside and with a jackknife whittled out a churn-dasher that revolutionized the art of butter-making in that community. He smacked his mouth as he spoke of the delights of the day just ended. It had been like sitting under a rose-bush, with sweetened dew dripping upon him. He had seen his girl trip from one rapture to another, mirroring a smile from the sun and throwing it at him. Her face was joy's looking-glass. And aside from all that, she had sense. She was an uncommon woman. He was not afraid to tell her everything. It was certain to go no further. He could read a woman the moment he set eyes upon her. They all invited confidence, but few of them were worthy of it. Milford did not have it in his heart to smash the fellow's idol. He said that he was pleased to know that so true a woman had been found.
"Oh, you can trust her all right, Bill. But to tellyou the truth, I don't believe you could trust the girl that has set her cap for you. Her tongue's too slippery, and I said to myself that you'd better stick to the Norwegian. I'm not stuck on foreigners myself. The girl I married had a smack of the Canadian French about her. But Lord, she was putty. You ought to have seen her eyes—black as a blackberry, and dancin' a jig all the time. And they danced me out of the set, I tell you that. I could have her again if I wanted her. But I don't exactly want her. Would you, Bill?"
"I'd cut her throat."
"Say, you ought to see her throat, speakin' about throats. Puttiest thing you ever seen in your life—white as snow——"
"With the pink of the sunset falling on it," said Milford, with his gluttonous mind's eye upon the Norwegian's neck.
"If that ain't it, I'm the biggest liar that ever milked a cow. Just exactly it. And yet you wouldn't advise me to take her again."
"I'd kick her downstairs," said Milford.
"Yes, that's all right, Bill; but it would save getting a divorce. Still, my other girl's the thing. I can put confidence in her, and the first one was tricky. I couldn't tell her a thing that wan't repeated. I'll stand for anythin' sooner than bein' repeated all the time. How are you gettin' along over at the house?"
Milford put him off with the remark that everything was all right so far as he knew. A man may gabble of a love that is spreading over the heart,but when it has gathered the whole world beneath its wings he is more inclined to silence.
The hired man continued to talk. Before he met the freckled woman he had looked forward to sixteen hours a day at eighteen dollars a month. He had not dared to see the flush of the sunrise light his bedroom window, except perhaps on some odd Sunday when he might steal the sweet essence of a forbidden nap, but his "love" for that woman had promised him an unbroken dream at dawn and a breakfast of soft-boiled eggs at eight. After all, it was fortunate that the first woman had run away. She was saucy and had made his heart laugh, at times, but he was a hired man still, and the cold dew of the morning had cracked his rough boots and caused his wet trousers to flap about his ankles.
"Bill," he asked, "do you ever expect to wear a boiled shirt all the week and sleep till after sun-up?"
Milford had learned that this was the hired man's notion of elegance and of ease. He answered that such a time might come.
"It's got to come with me," said Mitchell. "It's comin', and I'd be a fool to dodge it. Yes, sir, and I'm goin' to have me about a dozen shirts made. I don't care so much about the coat and pants; I want the shirts. And I want 'em made as broad as I can fill 'em out, with a ruffle or two, and as white as chalk. That's the way I want to be dressed when fellers come to me and ask if I want to hire a man. Bill, you look like you've made up your mind to do some thin'. What is it? Git married?"
"I came here with my mind already made up,"Milford replied, new lines seeming to come to the surface of his countenance. "And I'm not going to change it," he declared, louder of tone, as if he had been debating with himself. "I'm going to follow the line, and then if something else comes, all the better."
"What is your line, Bill?"
"Haven't you learned enough not to ask that?"
"Oh, well, but I didn't know but you'd found out there wouldn't be any harm in tellin' me. We've been working together a good while, and I've got an interest in you. I've told you what my object is."
"To wear white shirts and to see the sun shine in on you of a morning, I believe. That's a good enough object."
"I think so, Bill. At least, it won't do nobody no harm. And I tell you what's a fact: I'd like, after a while, to live in town, so's I could come out in the country and clar my throat and ask fellers about the crops. But you always sorter turn up your nose at my object. I wouldn't at yours. Tell a feller what it is, Bill."
"The idea of every man having an object seems to have become rather popular in this community," said Milford. "Everybody looks on me with a sort of suspicion, and this object business comes out of that. You may not know it, but you've been set as a trap to catch me."
The hired man was genuinely astonished. His mouth flew open, and he drooled his surprise. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve; he hemmed, hawed, and grunted. But, after a time, he admitted thathis "girl" had shown the edge of a keen interest in Milford. However, there was nothing vicious in it. She had never been stirred by a vicious instinct. She was naturally interested in the man who gave employment to her future husband. Of course, his object did not amount to much when compared with Milford's; he was nothing but a hired man, but presidents had been hired men, and the world could not afford to turn its scornful back upon the affairs of the farm-hand. The field laborer had a heart, a talkative heart, perhaps, but a heart that society would one day learn to fear. It was not heartlessness that would overthrow the political state and trample upon the rich; it was heart, abused heart, that would give crushing weight to the vengeful foot. This was the substance of his talk, the egotism of muscle, a contempt for the luxuries of the refined brain, but with a longing to imitate the appearance of leisure by wearing white linen and lying in bed till the sun was high. Milford recognized the voice of the discontented farmer.
"You remember the speeches of the last campaign," said he. "You believe that the laborer is to overturn society. All right. But that has nothing to do with my object. That makes no difference, however, since everything leads to the distress of the farmer. But I want to tell you and all the rest that it is your own fault, as one and as a whole. You never read anything but murders and robberies, or the grumblings of some skate that wants an office. You haven't schooled yourselves into sharpness enough to see that he is trying to use you. You getup before sunrise, and work till after dark, and think that the whole world is watching you. The world doesn't care a snap, I'll tell you that."
"And that's just it, Bill; the world's tryin' to do us."
"Yes, and it will do you."
"I know it, and that's the reason I want to marry out of it."
"That is to say, you want to 'do' a woman to get out of it yourself. What do you expect to give her?"
"Why, I'll give her a good husband, a man that'll fight for her, do anything——"
"Except to work for her," Milford broke in. The hired man grinned. He said that a good husband was about all that a woman ought to expect, these days; he would not fall short, and a man who did not disappoint a good woman came very near to the keeping of all commandments. He was not going to marry for property. But if property made a woman beautiful to the rich, why should it make her ugly to the poor?"
"But you say she is homely and freckled."
"I said freckled, Bill; I didn't say homely. Why, I like freckles. I think they are the puttiest things in the world. They catch me every time. A trout wouldn't be half as putty if he wan't speckled. And if this woman is a trout and has snapped at my fly, all right. The world ain't got a right to say a word."
"The world doesn't know that you are born or ever will be."
"Oh, I know you don't think I amount to much,Bill; I know the world don't care for me, but I'll make her care one of these days."
"When the worm turns on the woodpecker."
"That's all right, Bill. Have all the flings you want. But I'll tell you one thing: I don't talk about the Bible bein' the greatest book in the world, and then go in the woods and lay for a feller to mash his mouth. Oh, I know all about it. My girl's brother see the feller git on the train with his jaw tied up, and I knowed what had happened."