9051
HE young people assembled slowly at the dance that evening. Towards dark it had begun raining, and according to custom two livery-stable carriages, called “hacks,” were engaged to convey all the couples to and from the hotel. There was no disputing over who should have the first use of the vehicles, for the young ladies who had the reputation of getting ready early on such occasions were gone after first, and those who liked to take their time in making preparations were left till later.
Everything in life is relative, and to young people who often went to even less pretentious entertainments this affair was rather impressive in its elegance. Lamps shone everywhere, and bunches of candles blazed and sputtered in nooks hung about with evergreens. The girls were becomingly attired in light evening-gowns, and many of them were good-looking, refined, and graceful. All were soft-spoken and easy in their manners, and either wore or carried flowers. The evening-suits of the young men were well in evidence, and more noticeable to the wearers themselves than they would have been to a spectator used to conventional style of dress. They could be seen in all stages of inadaptability to figures too large or too small, and even after the dance began there were several swaps, and a due amount of congratulation on the improvement from the appreciative fair sex. The young lady accompanying each young man had pinned a small bouquet on his lapel, so that it would have been impossible to tell whether a man had a natural taste for flowers or was the willing victim to a taste higher than his own.
Rayburn Miller and Alan sat smoking and talking in the room of the latter till about half-past nine o' clock, and then they went down. As a general rule, young men were expected to escort ladies to dances, when the young men went at all; but Alan was often excused from so doing on account of living in the country, and Miller had broken down every precedent in that respect and never invited a girl to go with him. He atoned for this shortcoming by contributing most liberally to every entertainment given by the young people, even when he was out of town. He used to say he liked to graze and nibble at such things and feel free to go to bed or business at will.
As the two friends entered the big parlor, Alan espied the girl about whom he had been thinking all day. She was seated in one of the deep, lace-curtained windows behind the piano. Frank Hillhouse was just presenting to her a faultlessly attired travelling salesman. At this juncture one of the floor-managers with a white rosette on his lapel called Miller away to ask his advice about some details, and Alan turned out of the parlor into the wide corridor which ran through the house. He did this in obedience to another unwritten law governing Darley's social intercourse—that it would be impolite for a resident gentleman to intrude himself upon a stranger who had just been introduced to a lady. So he went down to the ground floor and strolled into the office. It was full of tobacco smoke and a throng of men, some of whom were from the country and others from the town, drawn to the hotel by the festivities. From the office a door opened into a bar and billiard room, whence came the clicking of ivory balls and the grounding of cues. Another door led into the large dining-room, which had been cleared of its tables that it might be used for dancing. There was a sawing of fiddles, the twanging of guitars, the jingle of tambourines, and the groaning of a bass-viol. The musicians, black and yellow, occupied chairs on one of the tables, which had been placed against the wall, and one of the floor-managers was engaged in whittling paraffine-candles over the floor and rubbing it in with his feet. Seeing what he was doing, some of the young men, desirous of trying their new patent-leather pumps, came in and began to waltz singly and in couples.
When everything was in readiness the floor-managers piloted the dancers down-stairs. From the office Alan saw them filing into the big room and taking seats in the chairs arranged against the walls on all sides. He saw Frank Hillhouse and Dolly Barclay sit down near the band; the salesman had disappeared. Alan threw his cigar away and went straight to her.
“Oh, here you are,” laughed Frank Hillhouse, as Alan shook hands with her. “I told Miss Dolly coming on that the west wind would blow you this way, and when I saw Ray Miller just now I knew you'd struck the town.”
“It wasn't exactly the wind,” replied Alan. “I'm afraid you will forget me if I stay on the farm all the time.”
“We certainly are glad to have you,” smiled Miss Barclay.
“I knew she'd say that—I knew it—I knew it,” said Hillhouse. “A girl can always think of nicer things to say to a feller than his rival can. Old Squire Trabue was teasing me the other day about how hard you was to beat, Bishop, but I told him the bigger the war the more victory for somebody; and, as the feller said, I tote fair and am above board.”
Alan greeted this with an all but visible shudder. There was much in his dignified bearing and good appearance to commend him to the preference of any thinking woman, especially when contrasted to Hill-house, who was only a little taller than Dolly, and was showing himself even at a greater disadvantage in his unrefined allusions to his and Alan' s attentions to her. Indeed, Alan was sorry for the spectacle the fellow was making of himself, and tried to pass it over.
“I usually come in on Saturdays,” he explained.
“That's true,” said Dolly, with one of her rare smiles.
“Yes”—Hillhouse took another header into forbidden waters—“he's about joined your church, they tell me.”
Alan treated this with an indulgent smile. He did not dislike Hillhouse, but he did not admire him, and he had never quite liked his constant attentions to Miss Barclay. But it was an acknowledged fact among the society girls of Darley that if a girl refused to go out with any young man in good standing it was not long before she was left at home oftener than was pleasant. Dolly was easily the best-looking girl in the room; not, perhaps, the most daintily pretty, but she possessed a beauty which strength of character and intellect alone could give to a face already well featured. Even her physical beauty alone was of that texture which gives the beholder an agreeable sense of solidity. She was well formed, above medium height, had a beautiful neck and shoulders, dark-gray eyes, and abundant golden-brown hair.
“May I see your card?” asked Alan. “I came early to secure at least one.”
At this Frank Hillhouse burst out laughing and she smiled up at Alan. “He's been teasing me all evening about the predicament I'm in,” she explained. “The truth is, I'm not going to dance at all. The presiding elder happened in town to-day, on his way through, and is at our house. You know how bitter he is against church-members dancing. At first mamma said I shouldn't come a step; but Mr. Hillhouse and I succeeded in getting up a compromise. I can only look on. But my friends are having pity on me and filling my card for what they call stationary dances.”
Alan laughed as he took the card, which was already almost filled, and wrote his name in one of the blank spaces. Some one called Hillhouse away, and then an awkward silence fell upon them. For the first time Alan noticed a worried expression on her face, now that it was in repose, but it lighted up again when she spoke.
“You have no button-hole bouquet,” she said, noticing his bare lapel. “That's what you get for not bringing a girl. Let me make you one.”
“I wish you would,” he said, thoughtfully, for as she began to search among her flowers for some rosebuds and leaves he noted again the expression of countenance that had already puzzled him.
“Since you are so popular,” he went on, his eyes on her deft fingers, “I'd better try to make another engagement. I'd as well confess that I came in town solely to ask you to let me take you to church tomorrow evening.”
He saw her start; she raised her eyes to his almost imploringly, and then she looked down. He saw her breast heave suddenly as with tightened lips she leaned forward to pin the flowers on his coat. The jewels in her rings flashed under his eyes; there was a delicate perfume in the air about her glorious head. He had never seen her look so beautiful before. He wondered at her silence at just such a moment. The tightness of her lips gave way and they fell to trembling when she started to speak.
“I hardly know what to say,” she began. “I—I—you know I said the presiding elder was at our house, and—”
“Oh, I understand,” broke in Alan; “that's all right. Of course, use your own—”
“No, I must be plain with you,” she broke in, raising a pair of helpless, tortured eyes to his; “you will not think I had anything to do with it. In fact, my heart is almost broken. I'm very, very unhappy.”
He was still totally at sea as to the cause of her strange distress. “Perhaps you'd rather not tell me at all,” he said, sympathetically; his tone never had been so tender. “You need not, you know.”
“But it's a thing I could not keep from you long, anyway,” she said, tremulously. “In fact, it is due you—an explanation, I mean. Oh, Alan, papa has taken up the idea that we—that we like each other too much, and—”
The life and soul seemed to leave Alan' s face.
“I understand,” he heard himself saying; “he does not want me to visit you any more.”
She made no reply; he saw her catch a deep breath, and her eyes went down to her flowers. The music struck up. The mulatto leader stood waving his fiddle and calling for “the grand march” in loud, melodious tones. There was a scrambling for partners; the young men gave their left arms to the ladies and merrily dragged them to their places.
“I hope you do not blame me—that you don't think that I—” but the clatter and clamor ingulfed her words.
“No, not at all,” he told her; “but it's awful—simply awful I I know you are a true friend, and that's some sort of comfort.”
“And I always shall be,” she gulped. “You must try not to feel hurt. You know my father is a very peculiar man, and has an awful will, and nobody was ever so obstinate.”
Then Alan' s sense of the great injustice of the thing rose up within him and his blood began to boil. “Perhaps I ought to take my name off your card,” he said, drawing himself up slightly; “if he were to hear that I talked to you to-night he might make it unpleasant for you.”
“If you do I shall never—never forgive you,” she answered, in a voice that shook. There was, too, a glistening in her eyes, as if tears were springing. “Wouldn't that show that you harbored ill-will against me, when I am so helpless and troubled?”
“Yes, it would; and I shall come back,” he made answer. He rose, for Hillhouse, calling loudly over his shoulder to some one, was thrusting his bowed arm down towards her.
“I beg your pardon,” he said to Dolly. “I didn't know they had called the march. We've got some ice-cream hid out up-stairs, and some of us are going for it. Won't you take some, Bishop?”
“No, thank you,” said Alan, and they left him.
9058
LAN made his way along the wall, out of the track of the promenaders, into the office, anxious to escape being spoken to by any one. But here several jovial men from the mountains who knew him intimately gathered around him and began to make laughing remarks about his dress.
“You look fer the world like a dirt-dauber.” This comparison to a kind of black wasp came from Pole Baker, a tall, heavily built farmer with an enormous head, thick eyebrows, and long, shaggy hair. He lived on Bishop's farm, and had been brought up with Alan. “I 'll be derned ef you ain't nimble on yore feet, though. I've seed you cut the pigeon-wing over on Mossy Creek with them big, strappin' gals 'fore you had yore sights as high as these town folks.”
“It's that thar vest that gits me,” said another. “I reckon it's cut low so you won't drap saft victuals on it; but I guess you don't do much eatin' with that collar on. It don't look like yore Adam's-apple could stir a peg under it.”
With a good-natured reply and a laugh he did not feel, Alan hurried out of the office and up to his room, where he had left his lamp burning. Rayburn Miller's hat and light overcoat were on the bed. Alan sat down in one of the stiff-backed, split-bottom chairs and stared straight in front of him. Never in his life had he suffered as he was now suffering. He could see no hope ahead; the girl he loved was lost to him. Her father had heard of the foolhardiness of old man Bishop, and, like many another well-meaning parent, had determined to save his daughter from the folly of marrying a penniless man, who had doubtless inherited his father's lack of judgment and caution.
There was a rap on the closed door, and immediately afterwards Rayburn Miller turned the knob and came in. His kindly glance swept the face of his friend, and he said, with forced lightness:
“I was doing the cake-walk with that fat Howard girl from Rome when I saw you leave the room. She can' t hide the fact that she is from a city of ten thousand population. She kept calling my attention to what our girls had on and sniggering. She's been to school in Boston and looked across the ocean from there. You know I don't think we lead the world, but it makes me fighting mad to have our town sneered at. When she was making so much fun of the girls' dresses, I came in an inch of asking her if she was a dressmaker. By God, I did! You remember,” Miller went on lightly, as if he had divined Alan' s misery and was trying to cheer him up—“you remember how Percy Lee, Hamilton's shoe-clerk, hit back at that Savannah girl. She was stopping in this house for a month one summer, and he called on her and took her driving several times; but one day she let herself out. 'Everything is so different up here, Mr. Lee,' she giggled. 'Down home, girls in good society never receive young men in your business.'It was a lick between the eyes; but old North Georgia was ready for it. 'Oh,' said Percy, whose mother's blood is as blue as indigo, 'the Darley girls draw the line, too; I only get to go with hotel girls.'”
Alan looked up and smiled, but his face seemed frozen. Miller sat down, and an awkward silence fell for several minutes. It was broken by the lawyer.
“I don't want to bore you, old man,” he said, “but I just had to follow you. I saw from your looks as you left the ballroom that something was wrong, and I am afraid I know what it is.”
“You think you do?” asked Alan, flashing a glance of surprise upward.
“Yes. You see, Colonel Barclay is a rough, outspoken man, and he made a remark the other day which reached me. I wasn't sure it was true, so I didn't mention it; but I reckon my informant knew what he was talking about.”
Alan nodded despondently. “I asked her to go to church with me to-morrow night. She was awfully embarrassed, and finally told me of her father's objections.”
“I think I know what fired the old devil up,” said Miller.
“You do?”
“Yes, it was that mistake of your father's. As I told you, the Colonel is as mad as a wet hen about the whole thing. He's got a rope tied to every nickel he's got, and he intends to leave Dolly a good deal of money. He thinks Frank Hillhouse is just the thing; he shows that as plain as day. He noticed how frequently you came to see Dolly and scented danger ahead, and simply put his foot down on it, just as fathers have been doing ever since the Flood. My dear boy, you've got a bitter pill to take, but you've got to swallow it like a man. You've reached a point where two roads fork. It is for you to decide which one you 'll take.”
Alan made no reply. Rayburn Miller lighted a cigar and began to smoke steadily. There was a sound of boisterous laughter in a room across the corridor. It had been set aside as the dressing-room for the male revellers, and some of them were there, ordering drinks up from the bar. Now and then from below came muffled strains of music and the monotonous shuffling of feet.
“It's none of my business,” Miller burst out, suddenly; “but I'm friend enough of yours to feel this thing like the devil. However, I don't know what to say. I only wish I knew how far you've gone into it.”
Alan smiled mechanically.
“If you can' t look at me and see how far I've gone you are blind,” he said.
“I don't mean that,” replied Miller. “I was wondering how far you had committed yourself—oh, damn it!—made love, and all that sort of thing.”
“I've never spoken to her on the subject,” Alan informed him, gloomily.
“Good, good! Splendid!”
Alan stared in surprise.
“I don't understand,” he said. “She knows—that is, I think she knows how I feel, and I have hoped that—”
“Never mind about that,” interrupted Miller, laconically. “There is a chance for both of you if you 'll turn square around like sensible human beings and look the facts in the face.”
“You mean—”
“That it will be stupid, childish idiocy for either or both of you to let this thing spoil your lives.”
“I don't understand you.”
“Well, you will before I'm through with you, and I 'll do you up brown. There are simply two courses open to you, my boy. One is to treat Colonel Barclay's wishes with dignified respect, and bow and retire just as any European gentleman would do when told that his pile was too small to be considered.”
“And the other?” asked Alan, sharply.
“The other is to follow in the footsteps of nearly every sentimental fool that ever was born, and go around looking like a last year's bird's-nest, looking good for nothing, and being good for nothing; or, worse yet, persuading the girl to elope, and thus angering her father so that he will cut her out of what's coming to her and what is her right, my boy. She may be willing to live on a bread-and-water diet for a while, but she 'll lose flesh and temper in the long run. If you don't make as much money for her as you cause her to lose she 'll tell you of it some day, or at least let you see it, an' that's as long as it's wide. You are now giving yourself a treatment in self-hypnotism, telling yourself that life has not and cannot produce a thing for you beyond that particular pink frock and yellow head. I know how you feel. I've been there six different times, beginning with a terrible long first attack and dwindling down, as I became inoculated with experience, till now the complaint amounts to hardly more than a momentary throe when I see a fresh one in a train for an hour's ride. I can do you a lot of good if you 'll listen to me. I 'll give you the benefit of my experience.”
“What good would your devilish experience do me?” said Alan, impatiently.
“It would fit any man's case if he'd only believe it. I've made a study of love. I've observed hundreds of typical cases, and watched marriage from inception through protracted illness or boredom down to dumb resignation or sudden death. I don't mean that no lovers of the ideal, sentimental brand are ever happy after marriage, but I do believe that open-eyed courtship will beat the blind sort all hollow, and that, in nine cases out of ten, if people were mated by law according to the judgment of a sensible, open-eyed jury, they would be happier than they now are. Nothing ever spoken is truer than the commandment, 'Thou shalt have no other God but me.'Let a man put anything above the principle of living right and he will be miserable. The man who holds gold as the chief thing in life will starve to death in its cold glitter, while a pauper in rags will have a laugh that rings with the music of immortal joy. In the same way the man who declares that only one woman is suited to him is making a god of her—raising her to a seat that won't support her dead, material weight. I frankly believe that the glamour of love is simply a sort of insanity that has never been correctly named and treated because so many people have been the victims of it.”
“Do you know,” Alan burst in, almost angrily, “when you talk that way I think you are off. I know what's the matter with you; you have simply frittered away your heart, your ability to love and appreciate a good woman. Thank Heaven! your experience has not been mine. I don't see how you could ever be happy with a woman. I couldn't look a pure wife in the face and remember all the flirtations you've indulged in—that is, if they were mine.”
“There you go,” laughed Miller; “make it personal, that's the only way the average lover argues. I am speaking in general terms. Let me finish. Take two examples: first, the chap crazily in love, who faces life with the red rag of his infatuation—his girl. No parental objection, everything smooth, and a car-load of silverware—a clock for every room in the house. They start out on their honeymoon, doing the chief cities at the biggest hotels and the theatres in the three-dollar seats. They soon tire of themselves and lay it to the trip. Every day they rake away a handful of glamour from each other, till, when they reach home, they have come to the conclusion that they are only human, and not the highest order at that. For a while they have a siege of discontent, wondering where it's all gone. Finally, the man is forced to go about his work, and the woman gets to making things to go on the backs of chairs and trying to spread her trousseau over the next year, and they begin to court resignation. Now if they had not had the glamour attack they would have got down to business sooner, that's all, and they would have set a better example to other plungers. Now for the second illustration. Poverty on one side, boodle on the other; more glamour than in other case, because of the gulf between. They get married—they have to; they've inherited the stupid idea that the Lord is at the bottom of it and that the glamour is His smile. Like the other couple, their eyes are finally opened to the facts, and they begin to secretly wonder what it's all about; the one with the spondoolix wonders harder than the one who has none. If the man has the money, he will feel good at first over doing so much for his affinity; but if he has an eye for earthly values—and good business men have—there will be times when he will envy Jones, whose wife had as many rocks as Jones. Love and capital go together like rain and sunshine; they are productive of something. Then if the woman has the money and the man hasn't, there's tragedy—a slow cutting of throats. She is irresistibly drawn with the rest of the world into the thought that she has tied herself and her money to an automaton, for such men are invariably lifeless. They seem to lose the faculty of earning money—in any other way. And as for a proper title for the penniless young idiot that publicly advertises himself as worth enough, in himself, for a girl to sacrifice her money to live with him—well, the unabridged does not furnish it. Jack Ass in bill-board letters would come nearer to it than anything that occurs to me now. I'm not afraid to say it, for I know you'd never cause any girl to give up her fortune without knowing, at least, whether you could replace it or not.”
Alan rose and paced the room. “That,” he said, as he stood between the lace curtains at the window, against which the rain beat steadily—“that is why I feel so blue. I don't believe Colonel Barclay would ever forgive her, and I'd die before I'd make her lose a thing.”
“You are right,” returned Miller, relighting his cigar at the lamp, “and he'd cut her off without a cent. I know him. But what is troubling me is that you may not be benefited by my logic. Don't allow this to go any further. Let her alone from to-night on and you 'll find in a few months that you are resigned to it, just like the average widower who wants to get married six months after his loss. And when she is married and has a baby, she 'll meet you on the street and not care a rap whether her hat's on right or not. She 'll tell her husband all about it, and allude to you as her first, second, or third fancy, as the case may be. I have faith in your future, but you've got a long, rocky row to hoe, and a thing like this could spoil your usefulness and misdirect your talents. If I could see how you could profit by waiting I'd let your flame burn unmolested; but circumstances are agin us.”
“I'd already seen my duty,” said Alan, in a low tone, as he came away from the window. “I have an engagement with her later, and the subject shall be avoided.”
“Good man!” Miller's cigar was so short that he stuck the blade of his penknife through it that he might enjoy it to the end without burning his fingers. “That's the talk! Now I must mosey on down-stairs and dance with that Miss Fewclothes from Rome—the one with the auburn tresses, that says 'delighted' whenever she is spoken to.”
Alan went back to the window. The rain was still beating on it. For a long time he stood looking out into the blackness. The bad luck which had come to his father had been a blow to him; but its later offspring had the grim, cold countenance of death itself. He had never realized till now that Dolly Barclay was so much a part of his very life. For a moment he almost gave way to a sob that rose and struggled within him. He sat down again and clasped his hands before him in dumb self-pity. He told himself that Rayburn Miller was right, that only weak men would act contrary to such advice. No, it was over—all, all over.
9067
FTER the dance Frank Hillhouse took Dolly home in one of the drenched and bespattered hacks. The Barclay residence was one of the best-made and largest in town. It was an old-style Southern frame-house, painted white, and had white-columned verandas on two sides. It was in the edge of the town, and had an extensive lawn in front and almost a little farm behind.
Dolly's mother had never forgotten that she was once a girl herself, and she took the most active interest in everything pertaining to Dolly's social life. On occasions like the one just described she found it impossible to sleep till her daughter returned, and then she slipped up-stairs, and made the girl tell all about it while she was disrobing. To-night she was more alert and wide-awake than usual. She opened the front door for Dolly and almost stepped on the girl's heels as she followed her up-stairs.
“Was it nice?” she asked.
“Yes, very,” Dolly replied. Reaching her room, she turned up the low-burning lamp, and, standing before a mirror, began to take some flowers out of her hair. Mrs. Barclay sat down on the edge of the high-posted mahogany bed and raised one of her bare feet and held it in her hand. She was a thin woman with iron-gray hair, and about fifty years of age. She looked as if she were cold; but, for reasons of her own, she was not willing for Dolly to remark it.
“Who was there?” she asked.
“Oh, everybody.”
“Is that so? I thought a good many would stay away because it was a bad night; but I reckon they are as anxious to go as we used to be. Then you all did have the hacks?”
“Yes, they had the hacks.” There was a pause, during which one pair of eyes was fixed rather vacantly on the image in the mirror; the other pair, full of impatient inquiry, rested alternately on the image and its maker.
“I don't believe you had a good time,” broke the silence, in a rising, tentative tone.
“Yes, I did, mother.”
“Then what's the matter with you?” Mrs. Barclay's voice rang with impatience. “I never saw you act like you do to-night, never in my life.”
“I didn't know anything was wrong with me, mother.”
“You act queer; I declare you do,” asserted Mrs. Barclay. “You generally have a lot to say. Have you and Frank had a falling out?”
Dolly gave her shoulders a sudden shrug of contempt.
“No, we got along as well as we ever did.”
“I thought maybe he was a little mad because you wouldn't dance to-night; but surely he's got enough sense to see that you oughtn't to insult brother Dill-beck that way when he's visiting our house and everybody knows what he thinks about dancing.”
“No, he thought I did right about it,” said Dolly.
“Then what in the name of common-sense is the matter with you, Dolly? You can' t pull the wool over my eyes, and you needn't try it.”
Dolly faced about suddenly.
“I reckon you 'll sit there all night unless I tell you all about it,” she said, sharply. “Mother, Alan Bishop was there.”
“You don't say!”
“Yes, and asked me to let him take me to church to-morrow evening.”
“Oh, he did?”
“Yes, and as I didn't want father to insult him, I—”
“You told him what your pa said?”
“No, I just told him father didn't want me to receive him any more. Heaven knows, that was enough.”
“Well, that was the best thing for you to do.” Mrs. Barclay took a deep breath, as if she were inhaling a delicious perfume. “It's much better than to have him plunge in here some day and have your father break out like he does in his rough way. What did Alan say?”
“He said very little; but he looked it. You ought to have seen him. Frank came up just about that time and invited me to have some ice-cream, and I had to leave him. He was as white as a sheet. He had made an engagement with me to sit out a dance, and he didn't come in the room again till that dance was called, and then he didn't even mention it. He acted so peculiarly, I could see it was nearly killing him, but he wouldn't let me bring up the subject again. I came near doing it; but he always steered round it.”
“He's a sensible young man,” declared Mrs. Barclay. “Any one can see that by looking at him. He's not responsible for his father's foolhardy venture, but it certainly leaves him in a bad fix as a marrying man. He's had bad luck, and he must put up with the consequences. There are plenty of girls who have no money or prospects who would be glad to have him, but—”
“Mother,” broke in Dolly, as if she had been listening to her own troubled thoughts rather than her mother's words; “he didn't act as if he wanted to see me alone. The other couples who had engagements to talk during that dance were sitting in windows and out-of-the-way corners, but he kept me right where I was, and was as carefully polite as if we had just been introduced. I was sorry for him and mad at the same time. I could have pulled his ears.”
“He's sensible, very sensible,” said Mrs. Barclay, in a tone of warm admiration. “A man like that ought to get along, and I reckon he will do well some day.”
“But, mother,” said Dolly, her rich, round voice rising like a wave and breaking in her throat, “he may never think about me any more.”
“Well, that really would be best, dear, under the circumstances.”
“Best?” Dolly blurted out. “How can you say that, when—when—”
“Dolly, you are not really foolish about him, are you?” Mrs. Barclay's face dropped into deeper seriousness.
Dolly looked away and was silent for a moment; then she faltered: “I don't know, mother, I—I'm afraid if I keep on feeling like I do now I 'll never get over it.”
“Ah, but you 'll not keep on feeling like you do now,” consoled the older woman. “Of course, right now, just after seeing how hard he took it, you will kind o' sympathize with him and want to help him; but that will all pass away. I remember when I was about your age I had a falling out with Will Despree—a young man my father didn't like because his grandfather had been an overseer. And, do you know, I thought I would actually kill myself. I refused to eat a bite and threatened to run away with Will. To this day I really don't know what I would have done if your grandfather hadn't scared him away with a shot-gun. Will kept writing notes to me. I was afraid to answer them, but my father got hold of one and went after him on a fast horse. Will's family heard what was up and they kept him out in the swamp for a few days, and then they sent him to Texas. The whole Despree family took it up and talked scand'lous about us.”
“And you soon got over it, mother?” asked Dolly, almost in a tone of dismay.
“Well,” said Mrs. Barclay, reflectively, “Will acted the fool so terribly; he wasn't out in Texas three months before he sent back a marked paper with an article in it about his engagement to the daughter of a rich man who, we found out afterwards, used to keep a livery-stable; then I reckon hardly any girl would keep caring for a boy when his folks was telling such lies about her family.”
Dolly was staring studiously at the speaker.
“Mother,” she asked, “don't you believe in real love?”
Mrs. Barclay laughed as if highly amused. “I believe in a different sort to the puppy love I had for that boy. Then after that there was another young man that I thought more of, if anything, than I did of Will; but he was as poor as Job's turkey, and my folks was all crazy for me 'n' your pa, who I'd never seen, to get married. I held out against the idea, just like you are doing with Frank, I reckon; but when your pa come with his shiny broadcloth coat and spotted silk vest—no, it was satin, I think, with red spots on it—and every girl in town was crazy to catch him, and there was no end of reports about the niggers he owned and his high connections—well, as I say, it wasn't a week before I was afraid he'd see Joe Tinsley and hear about me 'n' him. My father was in for the match from the very jump, and so was your pa's folks. He put up at our house with his nigger servant and didn't want to go about town much. I reckon I was pleased to have him pick me out, and so we soon fixed it up. Lordy, he only had to mention Joe Tinsley to me after we got married to make me do anything he wanted. To this day he throws him up to me, for Joe never did amount to anything. He tried to borrow money from your pa after you was born. The neighbors had to feed his children.”
“But you loved father, didn't you?” Dolly breathed, in some relief over what she thought was coming.
“Well, I can' t say I did,” said Mrs. Barclay. “We had a terrible time getting used to one another's ways. You see, he'd waited a good while, and was some older than I was. After a while, though, we settled down, and now I'm awful glad I let my father manage for me. You see, what your pa had and what my father settled on me made us comfortable, and if a couple is that it's a sight more than the pore ones are.”
Dolly stood before her mother, close enough to touch her. Her face wore an indescribable expression of dissatisfaction with what she had heard.
“Mother, tell me one thing,” she said. “Did you ever let either of those boys—the two that you didn't marry, I mean—kiss you?”
Mrs. Barclay stared up at her daughter for an instant and then her face broke into a broad smile of genuine amusement. She lowered her head to her knee and laughed out.
“Dolly Barclay, you aresucha fool!” she said, and then she laughed again almost immoderately, her face in her lap.
“I know whatthatmeans,” said Dolly, in high disgust. “Mother, I don't think you can do me any good. You'd better go to bed.”
Mrs. Barclay rose promptly.
“I think I'd better, too,” she said. “It makes your pa awful mad for me to sit up this way. I don't want to hear him rail out like he always does when he catches me at it.”
After her mother had gone, Dolly sat down on her bed. “She never was in love,” she told herself. “Never, never, never! And it is a pity. She never could have talked that way if she had really loved anybody as much as—” But Dolly did not finish what lay on her tongue. However, when she had drawn the covers up over her the cold tears rose in her eyes and rolled down on her pillow as she thought of Alan Bishop's brave and dignified suffering.
“Poor fellow!” she said. “Poor, dear Alan!”
9074
HERE is a certain class of individuals that will gather around a man in misfortune, and it differs very little, if it differs at all, from the class that warms itself in the glow of a man' s prosperity. It is made up of human failures, in the first instance, congratulating themselves on not being alone in bad luck; in the second, desirous of seeing how a fortunate man would look and act and guessing at his feelings. From the appearance of Bishop's home for the first fortnight after his return from Atlanta, you would have thought that some one was seriously ill in the house or that some general favorite had returned to the family after a long absence.
Horses were hitched to the fence from the front gate all the way round to the side entrance. The mountain people seemed to have left their various occupations to subtly enjoy the spectacle of a common man like themselves who had reached too far after forbidden fruit and lay maimed and torn before them. It was a sort of feast at which the baser part of their spiritual natures was fed, and, starved as they were, it tasted good. Many of them had never aspired to bettering their lot even with small ventures such as buying Jersey cows at double the value of common cattle when it was reported that the former gave four times as much milk and ate less, and to these cautious individuals Bishop's visible writhing was sweet confirmation of their own judgment.
Their disapproval of the old man's effort to hurry Providence could not have been better shown than in the failure of them all to comment on the rascally conduct of the Atlanta lawyer; they even chuckled over that part of the incident. To their minds Perkins was a sort of far-off personification of a necessary evil—who, like the devil himself, was evidently created to show mortals their limitations. They were not going to say what the lawyer had a right to do or should avoid doing, for they didn't pretend to know; but they did know what their old neighbor ought to have done, and if they didn't tell him so to his face they would let him see it by their actions. Yes, Bishop was a different thing altogether. He belonged to them and theirs. He led in their meetings, prayed in public, and had till now headed the list in all charitable movements.
The Reverend Charles B. Dole, a tall, spare man of sixty, who preached the first, second, third, and fourth Sundays of each month in four different meetinghouses within a day's ride of Bishop's, came around as the guest of the farm-house as often as his circuit would permit. He was called the “fightin' preacher,” because he had had several fearless hand-to-hand encounters with certain moonshiners whose conduct he had ventured to call ungodly, because unlawful.
On the second Saturday after Bishop's mishap, as Dole was to preach the next day at Rock Crest meetinghouse, he rode up as usual and turned his horse into the stable and fed him with his own hands. Then he joined Abner Daniel on the veranda. Abner had seen him ride up and purposely buried his head in his newspaper to keep from offering to take the horse, for Abner did not like the preacher “any to hurt,” as he would have put it.
Dole did not care much for Abner either. They had engaged in several doctrinal discussions in which the preacher had waxed furious over some of Daniel's views, which he described as decidedly unorthodox. Daniel had kept his temper beautifully and had the appearance of being amused through it all, and this Dole found harder to forgive than anything Abner had said.
“You all have had some trouble, I heer, sence I saw you last,” said the preacher as he sat down and began to wipe his perspiring brow with a big handkerchief.
“Well, I reckon it mought be called that,” Abner replied, as he carefully folded his newspaper and put it into his coat-pocket. “None of us was expectin' of it an' it sorter bu'sted our calculations. Alf had laid out to put new high-back benches in Rock Crest, an' new lamps an' one thing another, an' it seems to me”—Abner wiped his too facile mouth—“like I heerd 'im say one day that you wasn't paid enough fer yore thunder, an' that he'd stir around an' see what could be done.” Abner's eyes twinkled. “But lawsy me! I reckon ef he kin possibly raise the scads to pay the tax on his investment next yeer he 'll do all the Lord expects.”
“Huh, I reckon!” grunted Dole, irritated as usual by Abner's double meaning. “I take it that the Lord hain't got much to do with human speculations one way or other.”
“Ef I just had that scamp that roped 'im in before me a minute I'd fix 'im,” said Abner. “Do you know what denomination Perkins belongs to?”
“No, I don't,” Dole blurted out, “an' what's more, I don't care.”
“Well, I acknowledge it sorter interests me,” went on our philosopher, in an inscrutable tone, “beca'se, brother Dole, you kin often trace a man' s good ur bad doin' s to his belief in Bible matters. Maybe you don't remember Jabe Lynan that stold Thad Wilson's stump-suckin' hoss an' was ketched an' put up. I was at the court-house in Darley when he received his sentence. His wife sent me to 'im to carry his pipe an' one thing or other—a pair o' socks an' other necessary tricks—a little can o' lye-soap, fer one thing. She hadn't the time to go, as she said she had a patch o' young corn to hoe out. I found 'im as happy as ef he was goin' off on a excursion. He laughed an' 'lowed it ud be some time 'fore he got back, an' I wondered what could 'a' made him so contented, so I made some inquiries on that line. I found that he was a firm believer in predestination, an' that what was to be was foreordained. He said that he firmly believed he was predestinated to go to the coal-mines fer hoss-stealin', an' that life was too short to be kickin' agin the Lord's way o' runnin' matters; besides, he said, he'd heerd that they issued a plug o'.tobacco a week to chawin' prisoners, an' he could prove that he was one o' that sort ef they'd look how he'd ground his jaw-teeth down to the gums.”
“Huh!” grunted Dole again, his sharp, gray eyes on Abner's face, as if he half believed that some of his own theories were being sneered at. It was true that he, being a Methodist, had not advocated a belief in predestination, but Abner Daniel had on more than one occasion shown a decided tendency to bunch all stringent religious opinions together and cast them down as out of date. When in doubt in a conversation with Abner, the preacher assumed a coldness on the outside that was often not consistent with the fires within him. “I don't see what all that's got to do with brother Bishop's mistake,” he said, frigidly, as he leaned back in his chair.
“It sets me to wonderin' what denomination Perkins belongs to, that's all,” said Abner, with another smile. “I know in reason he's a big Ike in some church in Atlanta, fer I never knowed a lawyer that wasn't foremost in that way o' doin' good. I 'll bet a hoe-cake he belongs to some highfalutin crowd o' worshippers that kneel down on saft cushions an' believe in scoopin' in all they kin in the Lord's name, an' that charity begins at home. I think that myse'f, brother Dole, fer thar never was a plant as hard to git rooted as charity is, an' a body ought to have it whar they kin watch it close. It 'll die a heap o' times ef you jest look at it, an' it mighty nigh always has bad soil ur a drougth to contend with.”
Just then Pole Baker, who has already been introduced to the reader, rode up to the fence and hitched his horse. He nodded to the two men on the veranda, and went round to the smoke-house to get a piece of bacon Bishop had promised to sell him on credit.
“Huh!” Dole grunted, and he crossed his long legs and swung his foot up and down nervously. He had the look of a man who was wondering why such insufferable bores as Abner should so often accompany a free dinner. He had never felt drawn to the man, and it irritated him to think that just when his mental faculties needed rest, Abner always managed to introduce the very topics which made it necessary for him to keep his wits about him.
“Take that feller thar,” Abner went on, referring to Baker. “He's about the hardest customer in this county, an' yet he's bein' managed right now. He's got a wife an' seven children an' is a holy terror when he gits drunk. He used to be the biggest dare-devil moonshiner in all these mountains; but Alan kept befriendin' 'im fust one way an' another tell he up one day an' axed Alan what he could do fer 'im. Alan ain't none o' yore shoutin' kind o' Christians. He shakes a nimble toe at a shindig when he wants to, an' knows the ace from a ten-spot; but he gits thar with every claw in the air when some 'n' has to be done. So, when Pole axed 'im that, Alan jest said, as quiet as ef he was axin' 'im fer a match to light a cigar, 'Quit yore moonshinin', Pole.' That was all he said. Pole looked 'im straight in the eye fer a minute, an' then said:
“'The hell you say! By God, Alan Bishop, you don't mean that!'
“'Yes, I do, Pole,' said Alan, 'quit! Quit smack off!'
“'You ax that as a favor?' said Pole.
“'Yes, as a favor,' said Alan, 'an' you are a-goin' to do it, too.'
“Then Pole begun to contend with 'im. 'You are a-axin' that beca'se you think I 'll be ketched up with,' he said; 'but I tell you the' ain't no man on the face o' the earth that could find my still now. You could stand in two feet of the door to it all day an' not find it if you looked fer it with a spy-glass. I kin make bug-juice all the rest o' my life an' sell it without bein' ketched.'
“'I want you to give it up,' said Alan, an' Pole did. It was like pullin' an eye-tooth, but Pole yanked it out. Alan is workin' on 'im now to git 'im to quit liquor, but that ain't so easy. He could walk a crack with a gallon sloshin' about in 'im. Now, as I started to say, Alan 'ain't got no cut-and-dried denomination, an' don't have to walk any particular kind o' foot-log to do his work, but it's a-goin' on jest the same. Now I don't mean no reflection on yore way o' hitchin' wings on folks, but I believe you could preach yore sermons—sech as they are—in Pole Baker's yeers till Gabriel blowed his lungs out, an' Pole ud still be moonshinin'. An' sometimes I think that sech fellers as Alan Bishop ort to be paid fer what they do in betterin' the world. I don't see why you fellers ort always to be allowed to rake in the jack-pot unless you'd accomplish more'n outsiders, that jest turn the'r hands to the job at odd times.”
Dole drew himself up straight and glared at the offender.
“I think that is a rather personal remark, brother Daniel,” he said, coldly.
“Well, maybe it is,” returned Abner; “but I didn't mean fer it to be. I've heerd you praise up certain preachers fer the good they was a-doin', an' I saw no harm in mentionin' Alan's method. I reckon it's jest a case o' the shoe bein' on another foot. I was goin' to tell you how this misfortune o' Alf's had affected Pole; he's been like a crazy man ever since it happened. It's been all Alan could do to keep 'im from goin' to Atlanta and chokin' the life out o' Perkins. Pole got so mad when he wouldn't let 'im go that he went off cussin' 'im fer all he was worth. I wonder what sort of a denomination a man ud fit into that 'll cuss his best friends black an' blue beca'se they won't let 'im fight fer 'em. Yes, he 'll fight, an' ef he ever does jine the ranks above he 'll do the work o' ten men when thar's blood to spill. I seed 'im in a row once durin' election when he was leggin' fer a friend o' his'n; he stood right at the polls an' wanted to slug every man that voted agin 'im. He knocked three men's teeth down the'r throats an' bunged up two more so that they looked like they had on false-faces.”
Here the preacher permitted himself to laugh. Being a fighting man himself, his heart warmed towards a man who seemed to be born to that sort of thing.
“He looks like he could do a sight of it,” was his comment.
At this juncture the subject of the conversation came round the house, carrying a big piece of bacon wrapped in a tow grain-bag.
“Say thar, Pole,” Abner called out to the long, lank fellow. “We are a-goin' to have preachin' at Rock Crest to-morrow; you'd better have a shirt washed an' hung out to dry. They are a-beatin' the bushes fer yore sort.”
Pole Baker paused and brushed back his long, thick hair from his heavy eyebrows.
“I've been a-waitin' to see ef meetin' ever'd do you any good, Uncle Ab,” he laughed. “They tell me the more you go the wuss you git to be. Neil Filmore said t'other day ef you didn't quit shootin' off yore mouth they'd give you a trial in meetin'.”
Abner laughed good-naturedly as he spat over the edge of the veranda floor to the ground.
“That's been talked, I know, Pole,” he said, “but they don't mean it. They all know how to take my fun. But you come on to meetin'; it will do you good.”
“Well, maybe I will,” promised Pole, and he came to the steps, and, putting his bacon down, he bent towards them.
“It's a powerful hard matter to know exactly what's right an' what's wrong, in some things,” he said. “Now looky heer.” Thrusting his hand down into the pocket of his trousers he drew out a piece of quartz-rock with a lump of yellow gold about the size of a pea half embedded in it. “That thar's puore gold. I got it this away: A feller that used to be my right bower in my still business left me when I swore off an' went over to Dalonega to work in them mines. T'other day he was back on a visit, an' he give me this chunk an' said he'd found it. Now I know in reason that he nabbed it while he was at work, but I don't think I'd have a right to report it to the minin' company, an' so I'm jest obleeged to receive stolen goods. It ain't wuth more'n a dollar, they tell me, an' I 'll hang on to it, I reckon, ruther'n have a laborin' man discharged from a job. I'm tryin' my level best to live up to the line now, an' I don't know how to manage sech a thing as that. I've come to the conclusion that no harm will be done nohow, beca'se miners ain't too well paid anyway, an' ef I jest keep it an' don't git no good out of it, I won't be in it any more'n ef I'd never got hold o' the blamed thing.”
“But the law, brother Baker,” said Dole, solemnly; “without the law we'd be an awful lot o' people, an' every man ort to uphold it. Render the things that are Caesar's unto Caesar.”
Pole's face was blank for a moment, and Abner came to his rescue with a broad smile and sudden laugh.
“I reckon you don't remember him, Pole,” he said. “He's dead. He was a nigger that used to belong to old man Throgmartin in the cove. He used to be sech an awful thief during slavery days that it got to be a common sayin' that everything lyin' round mought as well be his'n, fer he'd take it sooner ur later, anyways.”
“I've heerd o' that nigger,” said Pole, much to the preacher's disgust, which grew as Pole continued: “Well, they say a feller that knows the law is broke an' don't report it is as guilty as the man who does the breakin'. Now, Mr. Dole, you know how I come by this nugget, an' ef you want to do your full duty you 'll ride over to Dalonega an' report it to the right parties. I can't afford the trip.”
Abner laughed out at this, and then forced a serious look on his face. “That's what you railly ort to do, brother Dole,” he said. “Them Cæsars over thar ud appreciate it.”
Then Mrs. Bishop came out to shake hands with the preacher, and invited him to go to his room to wash his face and hands. As the tall man followed his hostess away, Abner winked slyly at Pole and laughed under his long, scrawny hand.
“Uncle Ab, you ort to be killed,” smiled Pole. “You've been settin' heer the last half-hour pokin' fun at that feller, an' you know it. Well, I'm goin' on home. Sally's a-goin' to fry some o' this truck fer me, an' I'm as hungry as a bear.”
A few minutes after he had gone, Dole came out of his room and sat down in his chair again. “That seems to be a sorter bright young man,” he remarked.
“As bright as a new dollar,” returned Abner, in a tone of warm admiration. “Did you notice that big, wedge-shaped head o' his'n? It's plumb full o' brains. One day a feller come down to Filmore's store. He made a business o' feelin' o' heads an' writin' out charts at twenty-five cents apiece. He didn't waste much time on the rest o' the scabs he examined; but when he got to Pole's noggin he talked fer a good hour. I never heerd the like. He said ef his talents had been properly directed Pole ud 'a' made a big public man. He said he hadn't run across sech a head in a month o' Sundays. He was right, you bet, an' every one o' the seven brats Pole's got is jest as peert as he is. They are a-growin' up in idleness an' rags, too. I wisht I could meet some o' them dum big Yankees that are a-sendin' the'r money down heer an' buildin' fine schools to educate niggers an' neglectin' the'r own race beca'se it fit agin 'em. You cayn't hardly beat larnin' into a nigger's head, an' it ud be only common-sense to spend money whar it ud do the most good. I 'ain't got nothin' agin a nigger bein' larnt to read an' write, but I cayn't stomach the'r bein' forced ahead o' deservin' white folks sooner 'n the Lord counted on. Them kind o' Yankees is the same sort that makes pets o' dogs, an' pampers 'em up when pore white children is in need of food an' affection.”
“Pole looks like he had natural capacity,” said Dole. He was fond of conversing with Abner on any topic except that of religious matters.
“He'd make a bang-up detective,” laughed Abner. “One day I was at Filmore's store. Neil sometimes, when he's rushed, gits Pole to clerk fer 'im, beca'se he's quick at figures. It happened that Pole had the store to 'imse'f one day when Neil had gone off to cut down a bee-tree with a passle o' neighbors, an' a triflin' feller come in an' begun to nose about. An' when Pole's back was turned to weigh up some cotton in the seed he stole a pocket-book out o' the show-case. I reckon Pole didn't like his looks much nohow, fer as soon as the skunk had gone he begun to look about to see ef he'd tuck anything. All at once he missed the pocket-book, an' told Neil that night that he was mighty nigh shore the feller lifted it, but he couldn't railly swear to it. About a week after that he seed the same feller comin' down the road headed fer the store on his gray mule. Me 'n' Neil was both thar an' Pole hustled us in the back room, an' told us to stay thar. He said he was a-goin' to find out ef the feller stold the book. Neil was afeerd of a row an' tried to prevent 'im, but he jest shoved us back an' shet the door on us. Neil got 'im a crack in the partition an' I found me a knothole.
“The feller hitched an' come in an' said howdy-do, an' started to take a cheer nigh the door, but Pole stopped 'im.
“'Come heer to the show-case,' ses he; 'I want to show you some 'n'.'The feller went, an' I seed Pole yank out the box 'at had the rest o' the pocket-books in it. 'Look y'heer,' Pole said, in a loud, steady voice—you could 'a' heerd 'im clean to the creek—'look y'heer. The regular price o' these books is fifty cents; that's what we sell 'em fer; but you've got to run yore hand down in yore pocket an' give me a dollar fer one quicker'n you ever made a trade in yore life.'
“'What in the hell do you mean?' the feller said.
“'I mean exactly what I said, an' you are a-losin' time.' said Pole, talkin' louder an' louder. 'The price is fifty cents; but you got to gi'me a dollar fer one. Haul 'er out, my friend; haul 'er out! It 'll be the cheapest thing you ever bought in yore life.'
“The feller was as white as a sheet. He gulped two or three times 'fore he spoke, then he said: 'I know what you think; you think I took one t'other day when I was lookin' in the show-case; but you are mistaken.'
“'I never said a word about you takin' one,' Pole yelled at 'im, 'but you'd better yank out that dollar an' buy one; you need it.'
“The feller did it. I heerd the money clink as he laid it on the glass an' I knowed he was convicted.
“'They are only wuth fifty cents,' he said, kinder faint-like.
“'Yo're a liar,' Pole yelled at 'im, 'fer you've jest paid a dollar fer one on yore own accord. Now I 'll jest give you two minutes to straddle that mule. Ef you don't I 'll take you to the sheriff myself, you damned thief.
“'I've always done my tradin' heer,' said the feller, thinkin' that ud sorter pacify Pole, but he said: 'Yes, an' yore stealin', too, I reckon, you black-livered jailbird. Git out, git out!'
“Me 'n' Neil come in when the feller'd gone, but Pole was actually too mad to speak. 'He got off too durned light,' he said, after a while. 'I could 'a' sold 'im a big bill o' goods at a hundred per cent, profit, fer he had plenty o' money. Now he's ridin' off laughin' at me.'”