'A woman’s reason is not reason,' he said. 'Any man would tell you it was my duty to give you up. The world is not made as you would have it.'
'Listen,' she said. (She interrupted herself to glance with a smile at her husband, and said to him in English, 'I am trying to explain to him. He is a little dull. He does not understand.') 'Listen'—she spoke again to the other. 'Be reasonable. See it as it is. Do not cheat yourself into thinking this horrible failure of ours was a virtue. Review the facts with me and face them. These are they: we compromised with life, and in a cowardly fashion. I married, to buy my sister health, because I had not the courage to see her suffer. You renounced me and went away, so that you might have a certain peace of mind, and because youhad not the courage to go counter to tradition and the world’s approval. What would the world have said—a man as ill as you were, to accept the life and devotion of a woman? It was that that tormented and swayed you. You left me, and went away to escape that. We both bought a certain worldly peace of mind, and a kind of conventional self-approval. And with what? With what did we buy these trifling things? What price did we pay for them? We bought them with the entire wealth and treasure God had given us—the most precious in his treasuries, beside which kings' ransoms are as nothing. We bought these trifles, these worthless baubles, with the priceless love we had for each other. He gave it to us in such ample measure, you remember. And what did we do with it? What have we to show for it now? In God’s world are there to be found, do you think, two such spendthrifts?'
'There! It is your old way,' he replied. 'You speak always in figures, like a poet. It is misleading. Deal only with the facts. I leave them to any one. I was to die of a lingering illness. I had no money. I had only a wealth of horrors to drag you through. A slow death it was to be. You would have had two years of that.'
'Two years,' she repeated. 'I have been married eight months; and I think those eight months have been twice eight years. And two years, two years together, you and I! But oh, if it had been one year only; if we had had but one year together! Only one year!' There was a kind of pleading in her voice. 'Only one year! It is as if one were to say "only springtime"—"only love,"—"only heaven,"—"only God!"'
'What does he say?' said her husband. Perhaps he was curious at the tone of her voice; or merely impatient at the length of their conversation.
'Tell him anything,' said the other, 'We must converseat any cost. Tell him anything you like; only do not cease to speak to me.'
She turned to her husband.
'He is quite interesting. He thinks he used to know this man when he was a child; that his father had some dealings with him in that very coal affair in Illinois. Let me question him a little more. I will tell you by and by. We must not seem to be too curious. Do not interrupt me; just let me lead him on. It may take a few moments.'
The other began now, without waiting for her to take up the conversation.
'But I tell you, you do not see the thing as it is. It would have been a criminal thing for a man doomed as I was, to link his life with a woman like you, frail, exquisite, young, beautiful, the very rose of the world. Is it permissible for a man to drag a woman with him to the scaffold, even for love? I leave it to any man.'
'Yes, to any man,'—her reply was quick on his,—'but you dare not leave it to a woman. Any man would tell you it is not permissible that one about to die should lay his hand in that of the woman he loves. And any man would grant you, that if the woman is his wife,—if that tradition has bound them,—then it is his right and her duty that they should share fatality, even though they have not the high calling of love. If this man who is my husband were stricken, you, even you, would expect me—'
The sentence broke and she left it as though there could be no need of making the truth plainer. Instead, she folded her hands tensely.
'But, oh, let us not argue. We have squandered God’s treasure, you and I. We have squandered it for the sake of convention, for old precedents, for men’s opinions; just as this man, my husband, buys railway shares and mining properties at the fearful price of his honor, his human kindness,his soul. You despise him and shrink from him. Truly, I cannot, except when he lays his hand upon me; for we are no better than he. That is the horrible part of it. We are all three spendthrifts, the three of us, here in this little space. But oh, what new folly! Only think of our spending these precious, precious moments in argument! Shall we never have done being wasteful!'
He fell in with her thought immediately.
'You love me still, then.'
'Yes, always.'
'Yet I have not the right, even now, to so much as touch your hand.'
'No; yet my hand lies in yours by the hour. These are things one cannot keep from God.'
'Do you know,'—his voice was even,—'I cannot help wondering if the little girl over there in the corner just might possibly understand.'
'No; I think not,' she said gently; 'besides, if she did, it would not matter.'
'No, perhaps not. I think she would say nothing. I notice that her eyes are shaped somewhat like yours. Some day some man will love her also.'
'Yes, without doubt. But it is of ourselves I would talk. If there is a heaven, there, there, you shall some day possess me!'
Her husband broke in now:—
'Are you finding out anything?'
'Yes, quite a little!' She smiled palely, then turned back to the other.
'How can you lie to him like that?' he said. 'And I also.'
'We waste time,' she urged. 'A carriage meets us at the next town. From there he and I are to drive over to the adjoining county. You and I have only a few moments more left at the most in this world together.'
'Yes.' His fingers interlaced tightly, resting in his lap. 'Let us not argue any more. You remember the night by the river, O my beloved?'
'As though it were the only night in the world.'
'I remember that at first I dared not even be near you; I sat on the bank a little away from you,' he continued; 'but by and by the moon came up and all around us was stillness and beauty; the sheep slept in the pasture; the hills were all cool with the light of the moon; I have not forgotten; I can never forget—I dared just to lay the tips of my fingers on the hem of your gown. You did not notice that. It was as though I had dared lay my hand on the garment of God, but sweeter, sweeter even than that.'
'Oh yes, I saw. I saw and felt. And it was exactly as if by that token God had chosen me among women, as he chose the Virgin; only, he chose me there in the moonlight, not for glory and suffering as he chose her, but just for love. He chose and called me for that. I was to love you; was chosen by that touch to love you; only you, among a thousand; only you in all the world of many men. And then, just then, the nightingale, like some little feathered angel of annunciation, broke into song in the trees near by.'
'Yes; and to me it was as if white fire were all about you—as about some altar; and I was afraid to touch you. I dared not. You were too beautiful, too glorious. The night was too still, too holy. And then, at last, I reached out my hand and dared, as if one were to try a miracle. I laid it on yours. And still I lived. And then, the whole scenery of earth and heaven shifted, after that—as you know. You leaned and kissed me. Everything was changed forever.'
'Yes; I know. After that there was nothing but the night and the silence, and thou and I. Even the nightingale did not sing.'
'Yes.'
'And since that night there has been no one else in the world but only thou and I. Other people, do they not seem like shadows, myriads of shadows, like the inconsiderable leaves of a forest that shall fade and fall and be renewed—but only leaves and shadows?'
'Only thou and I,' he assented, 'in the wide forest, in the woods of the world. And soon, soon, soon, I shall walk the woods no more.'
'Since you must go, do not be discomfited,' she replied; 'nor trouble at all this. If as a kind of lasting torment, to match my own, you were permitted, after death, to be near, to see this man kiss and possess me, you have but to remember the night by the river in the moonlight. You are but to remember that this is the only night in the world; that there are no others; that the rest are dreams; that no lips but yours have ever really touched mine.' Her voice was beautiful, rich; a kind of farewell in itself. 'You must promise me this.'
Her husband leaned forward a little impatiently.
'We are nearly there. Can’t you find out, Louise, what I want you to? The thing I want to know is whether he still has an interest in the coal lands. If he has it will be worth a good many thousands. Now do your best. Try.'
'But you must have patience,' she said, 'I am trying to find out something.'
'I cannot quite get it out of my head,' said the other, 'that we deserve to be damned for this. Does not your conscience misgive you?'
'No; rather my honor. I have a hatred of deception. It is the only time in my life that I have deceived. And you?'
'I might do penance.'
He smiled, I thought. He drew the cord of his habit through his slim transparent fingers until one of the knots rested in his palms.
'You could not really mean anything so horrible! And your body, so slim, so beautiful, that I have loved!'
His voice, though it was low, rang also, now—quivered almost.
'You forget that the stripes might be sweet, my well-beloved,'—I could see that his lips trembled,—'something still suffered for your sake.'
She put her hand to her brow, a little lovely gesture, as though all this troubled her, perhaps dazed her; or perhaps it was some old recollection in his voice.
'How absurd we are! We shall be parting soon.'
'Yes,' he said, 'for always. What can I say to you that you will remember?'
'Only say that you can never forget the night by the river.'
'I can never forget it.'
Something in his words fell final, like a fate.
She turned now to her husband. The stage was already slowing up.
'Is this the county seat? I have found out quite a great deal. I will tell you more about the coal lands as we drive. He is an interesting man.'
Suddenly, from having been intently upon them, my attention became aware of a familiar sound, the thudding hundred-hoofed sound of an approaching herd; I had been so absorbed in the strange world of the other happening that I had not known of their approach. Almost suddenly they were about us, black and brown backs, spreading horns, broad wet noses, massive foreheads.
The driver looked down through the little hole reassuringly.
'Just wait till they get past. They’re on their way to the stockyards!'
We waited, the four of us, huddled together, with a strange kind of intimacy, it seemed, in the 'bus, while the trampling mass of driven dumb creatures surged and swayed around us, and finally struggled painfully by, each crowding the other, on their way to death. The woman watched them with eyes in which there met fear and pity.
With the last of the herd past, the driver was already opening the stage door. The woman’s husband rose, stooping.
'If you’ll allow me, I’ll get out first with these.'
He took the satchels and got out of the 'bus, heavily.
He turned to assist the woman. She did not give him her hand at once. The Franciscan drew back a little to let her pass. She paused the fraction of a moment and gave her hand to him.
'Good-bye.'
When she was beside the large man on the road, he also offered his hand to the Franciscan.
'Thank you; thank you very much indeed.'
He turned. 'Guess that’s our surrey over there, Louise.' The darkey driver of the surrey hurried toward him. 'Yes; take these.'
The woman followed him. She did not look back. He assisted her into the surrey and followed, himself, his weight bending it heavily to one side as he entered.
I saw them drive away, along a broad cross-road into the lovely rolling country, her brown veil floating a little, unknown to her, but like a living thing, with a little wild waving of its folds. The Franciscan I saw follow a road in another direction. The curve of it soon hid him. I did not see him again.
I remained in the 'bus. We were to stay only a little while at the county seat, for we were already late. Newhorses were put to the pole, and within twenty minutes we were driving over the same road by which we had come.
An old gentleman who, I think, was a lawyer returning from county court, was the only other occupant, and he was soon dozing. It was a strange ride back. When we came to Latonia the light was so altered as to make a new and lovely adventure of it. The sun was not yet set, but the sunlight had withdrawn to the tops of the tall trees. Below, the hotel lawn was cool, almost twilit, mysterious in shadows. It was there only a little while ago that I had first seen these two coming down the path to enter the 'bus. The last few hours had changed life for me entirely. Though I did not know it at the time, I know now that the two worlds of reality and of romance—before that distinct and separate in my mind and all untried—were forever mingled with each other now, for me, and were one with my own life. I shall never henceforth be able to see a herd of cattle on a dusty road without seeing those two in their last meeting; nor shall I ever see any who remind me of him or her without a sense of love and death and the inevitable.
This is a true story. I have never told it before. I have kept it locked away as something too cherished, too intimate to share with any one. There always seemed to me a finality about it beyond any story I could ever read. Yet I am telling it now, partly from a sense of honor, partly from a hidden hope; because it was not, after all, finished that day. She may still be living. This may chance to meet her eye. If so, I would have her know that the dark-eyed child who rode with them that day came in time, by that strange chance, so much more strange in life than in any story, to meet just what she had met: to meet Love, theglorious and radiant presence, only to find that there walked beside Love,—road-companions of the way,—Poverty, and one whose face had all the likeness of Death. And I would have her know that, because of that day, and because of the memory of her in my heart, so long cherished, I, at the chosen moment, laid my hand in that of the shining Presence,—despite those other presences,—to go with it, in what paths soever it might lead me.
It is so, I take it, life deals with us more largely than we know. Fools in our folly; spendthrifts though we may be, throwing priceless wisdom away to the winds, as these two had done; wasting our wealth and our substance of joy irretrievably; careless of God’s treasure intrusted to us; squandering gold worth the ransom of all the kings of the earth, and this for some trifling thing, some inconsiderable bauble; yet God, unknown to us, does most usually, no doubt, save from our wrecked fortunes and our lost argosies something—something precious still, and above price—with which, at a future day, with merciful largesse of wisdom and of love, some other soul may yet be blest and may yet be enriched, as it were by all the treasure of the earth.
THEYwere sitting at the breakfast table when the morning mail came in. There was something for Mr. Henry Tarbell—there was always something for him; there was something for Mrs. Henry Tarbell—there was usually something for her. The only thing at all unusual was that there was something for Master Crosby Tarbell. It was rather a strange-looking document, too. Beside the address was a picture of a pony with a long, sweeping tail, and just under the pony were some words. Crosby was learning to read in a school which was proud of its 'phonetic method,' and he read the words slowly, with many little lip sounds to help him on.
'Would you like a pony for your vacation? You can have her free.'
His father’s glance fell on the picture.
'Hullo, where does all that come from?'
'It says I can have her free,' began Crosby, with a characteristic pause in the middle of his sentence, which always gave the effect of steadying the inclination to a slight tremble in his small, earnest voice; 'it says—I can have her free.' His face flushed. 'Can I—have her, father?'
'Where would you keep her?' inquired his father casually, opening a letter. 'In the kitchen?'
'No, in the—in the barn! They used to keep a horse there—before we lived here! I—I could keep her in the barn!'
'M—m, barn? I’m afraid she wouldn’t recognize it.'
'But there’s a stall there! A nice stall!Couldn’tI have her?'
His father looked up again.
'What’s this? A prize contest? Oh, I see.' He smiled absently as he went on with his mail. 'Yes, it’s safe to say you can have her—if you can get her.'
Crosby’s face flushed slowly again, and his eyes looked very bright.
'If you can get her,' repeated his father, pushing his chair back and looking at his watch; 'but you can’t, Crosby. There isn’t a chance in a thousand that you could.' He put his watch in his pocket and looked at his wife. 'Well, I must go. Come on, old man. Better take your pony correspondence outside! Too good a day for the house.'
From the low porch-steps Crosby waved an absent good-bye, his eyes still on the pictured pony. As he tore away some yellow seals, a letter fell out, and he creased the big folder again and cautiously sat down on it so that it would not blow away. Then he spread the letter across his knees.
It was more than half an hour later that he looked up and drew a long breath of relief. It was the first really full-sized breath that he had taken since he began the letter—and he had just finished it. His eyes dwelt on the last sentences again, and as he pulled the folder from under him, they traveled back to the beginning.
'I have some good news for you!' It read more easily this time. 'What would make you happier than anything else you can think of? To have me tell you that you can have a pony ofyour own?' The characteristic, slow flush came into his cheeks. 'Well, that is just what Iamgoing to tell you! Because on the twentieth of August we are going to give away to some boy or girl, one of the prettiest little Indian ponies you ever saw. Her name is "Lightfoot," andyou can have her if you get started right away. The thing is to start right out—'
Oh, he understood the rest perfectly! He was simply to get subscriptions for themost delicious breakfast food that had ever been boxed for the public market!Its name? Buttercup Crisps! He was simply to get the names of people who were willing to put their names down for one order or more of Buttercup Crisps!
'Buttercup Crisps!' he whispered, and caught another deep breath at the mere sound of it, as he opened up the big folder.'A Prize for Every Contestant!'It stared at him in huge letters, and his eyes traveled swiftly from the shining bicycle to the little mahogany writing-desk, to the violin, to the beautiful gold watch—then rested again gently, lingeringly, on THE PONY. Just once again his glance shifted to the sentence which seemed to shine out from all the others.'Her name is "Lightfoot," and you can have her if you get started right away.'
He gathered up all his papers and went in.
'Mother—' he began; but he found that he needed a steadying pause at the very beginning. 'Mother—can I go out—for a little while? I want to—do something.'
She looked at the folded sheets in his hand.
'O Crosby, that’s so foolish!' she protested. 'You know you couldn’t get that pony, no matter how hard you tried.'
'Well, can I go?' he repeated, sticking characteristically to the original question.
'Oh, yes, I suppose so. But I wouldn’t waste my time overthat, if I were you. It’s too warm a day.'
He was already storing all the papers and pictures inside his waist for safe keeping, and as he marched steadily down town toward 'the centre,' he kept one hand of protection upon them and made out a careful plan of campaign. He must go to every house in town, beginning with the one right there, next the post-office. But it wasn’t a house. It was a store. Never mind, he would begin with thestore. He felt very strange, though, as he stood before the counter, while the man behind it waited, flirting some string which hung down from a suspended ball, and evidently quite ready for business.
'Would you like,' began Crosby, his voice growing so faint that he had to swallow to get it back again; 'would you like—some Buttercup Crisps?'
'Like somewhat?' bawled the man.
Crosby had an idea that he might get arrested if he asked that again, at least if he didn’t make some variation, so he launched desperately into another construction.
'It’s something—to eat! For breakfast! Buttercup Crisps! It comes—in boxes.'
'Well, what about it?' questioned the man behind the counter distractedly.
'I—do you—do you want some?' continued Crosby bravely.
'No, I don’t,' declared the man behind the counter with both strength and finality. '’Twouldn’t make any differencewhatit came in! I’m so overrun now with these breakfast concoctions that there ain’t room left for anything else!'
'Yes, sir,' returned Crosby politely, and walked out to the street again.
It was not a very promising beginning, to be sure, but it was a relief to have that first dreadful plunge over. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad after that. And he marched on to the next house, whichwasa house and not a store. A middle-aged colored woman, in an ample white apron, came to the door and stood smiling at him while he screwed his courage into words again.
'Would you like—would you like—to try a few Buttercup Crisps?' he asked, with a fleeting consciousness that he had made a really elegant effort.
'W’at’s dat, chile?' inquired the woman of color in kindly tones.
'Buttercup Crisps!' stammered Crosby. 'Crisps!A few—'
'One o' dese yere breakfus' fancies, I s’pose?' came the kindly encouragement. 'An’ it soun' good, too, doan’t it? But'—she lowered her voice to a note of confidential intimacy—'dey doan’t 'low me ter transac' no business at de do', chile, no matterw’atyer offers. Dey wouldn’t trus' it!'
'Yes’m,' returned Crosby faintly, and walked down the steps.
It made him positively dizzy to think of asking that question again. But his hand rose mechanically to the folded papers under his waist, and once more a vision of a beautiful, long-tailed pony swept before his eyes.
'It said I could have her if I got started right away,' he reasoned steadily, 'and I have got started right away, so I—I guess I better keep right on.'
He looked so hot and tired when he came in to dinner, that his mother glanced at him questioningly.
'Why, Crosby, wherehaveyou been? You look perfectly roasted. Is is so hot in the sun? Well, don’t go out again this afternoon until it’s cooler.'
'I’m not—so very hot,' he assured her.
But he thought, himself, that he wouldn’t go out again right away. He had been to a good many houses that morning, but for some reason he had not a real name to show for it. He had not seen the right people! Most of them had been servants, and of course they couldn’t have bought Buttercup Crisps—if they had wanted to. No—he must begin asking for 'the lady of the house.' And he must become more familiar with the literature of his folder. Its advertising value was his chief asset.
He set forth the next morning with new hope and confidence. And something very exhilarating soon happened. The very first 'lady of the house' who smiled down at him from her doorway, as he explained with conscientious, steadying pauses, the full meaning of his call, and then, pointing to the pictured pony, explained, with even longer steadying pauses, that he wanted to get her for a prize—why, that very first generous lady decided that she would give him her name for six boxes of Buttercup Crisps! Crosby fairly tottered with the monstrous significance of it. But as he drew more papers out from under his waist and found the page where subscribers' names were to be written, she glanced it hastily over.
'Yes, now I am to give you seventy-five cents,' she explained kindly, as she wrote her name, 'and it tells you in this little notice here that that counts you one point. It says, too, I see, that it takes six points to become a contestant.'
'Everybody gets a prize,' explained Crosby; and he unfolded the beautiful folder again with its large and frequent letters of assurance still staring joyously.
'Yes, but—' She looked down at his small, upturned face, and flushed with a kind of helpless shame,—'but don’t you see, dear child—it tells you here, in fine print, that it takessix pointsto become a contestant?'
Crosby looked puzzled. 'Every contestant gets—a prize,' he repeated slowly. 'Does that mean that if you work—and get names—that perhaps you won’t get a prize either?'
'That’s just what it means, and I wouldn’t bother with it if I were you. You see it means so much work for you—and it’s so uncertain.'
'But the letter—was written to me,' explained Crosby. 'And the Pony Man says—I can’t lose!'
'Well, then he’s saying what isn’t so. Because you can lose very easily, and I’m very much afraid that you will. But if you want to keep trying,'—she just touched his cheek with her hands,—'I—I hope that you will be successful!'
He went down the steps with a troubled face, tying three silver quarters into the corner of his handkerchief. So he did not yet understand all those printed documents! He looked up and down the warm, tree-lined street, and sat down under the first tree, spreading them all carefully out upon the grass. When he got up and started on again, he still looked troubled, but there was, too, a look of patient determination about him—entirely characteristic. He understood it all now. He understood about the points.
At dinner-time his eyes looked very bright. He had six names on his list for varying and assorted orders of Buttercup Crisps! As he brought out all his money and showed it to his mother, she smiled at him and told him that he was wasting his time. But he looked back at her with bright, confident eyes, as he went out again, his precious papers still buttoned under his waist.
As his campaign went on with steadily growing success, he trudged off as regularly as possible every morning, back again at noon and again at night. His mother listened and smiled at explanations of wonderful progress, at the growing list of names, and occasionally his father half listened, and smiled too.
After perhaps three weeks of it, there came a day when Crosby’s most confident hope, at all times unwavering, became a thing which seemed to soar away with him into a kind of pony heaven, where he heard only the word 'Lightfoot,' and saw only one beautiful animal with a long, sweeping tail, because it kept flashing so continuously before his eyes. That was the day when he was obliged to send for anew subscription blank. That was the day when his hope, if it had ever in the past wavered even unconsciously, became a thing of absolute fixedness. And when there were seven new names on the new blank, and his little bag of money was so fat and heavy that he doubted whether it would hold any more, anyway, he had a conference with his mother about dates, and decided that it was time—it was thedayto send everything—all the returns—to the Pony Man.
She helped him, with the same smile of forbearance, about the money-order, made out with such dashing effect by the man at the post-office, and together they got off an impressive-looking envelope full of impressive-looking matter. It gave just the last touch of safety and surety to it all to have his mother helping, and Crosby looked up at her with shining eyes.
'You can ride in the pony-cart,—after the pony comes,—can’t you?'
It took longer pauses than usual to keep things steady that time, and her glance wandered to his bright eyes.
'Would you be very much disappointed if it didn’t come?'
A puzzled reproach crept over his face. She felt guilty of an unwarrantable suspiciousness of nature as he looked back at her—and then hurried off to the old stall in the barn. It seemed so strange not to have to think about names any more. He could give all his time to the barn now. He wished that it was a nicer one, but with a little well-spent labor he thought he might make it very presentable, after all.
It was the next morning, after he had been working there with a fixed, concentrated pucker between his eyes for almost three hours, that a small boy from the next house appeared.
'Say, Crosby.' he began, 'there’s a lady lives up there on the hill road—you know, after you’ve crossed the long bridge and turned up on the hill road?' Crosby nodded. 'Well, there’s a lady lives up there says she’ll be glad to help you. You know, for the pony you’re trying to get. I was telling her about it yesterday, and she said she didn’t know anything about the breakfast food, but she’d be glad to help you just the same.'
'But I’ve sent the names already,' explained Crosby, looking perplexed with fortune’s almost immoderate favors.
'Well, send hers alone. Can’t you do that?'
Crosby meditated. 'What house did you say she lived in?'
'It’s the only house up there on the hill road. You know! The big, white house. You couldn’t miss it.'
'I guess I better go up there then.'
He glanced out to the street, where the sun simmered on the white, hot road, and wiped some little beads of perspiration from his forehead. Then he walked slowly out through the yard.
When, what seemed a long time afterwards, he dragged himself in from the simmering, white street again, his legs pulling listlessly behind him, he even forgot, for the time being, what the walk had all been about, and sat down vacantly on the cool step in the shade, his cheeks burning a deep, dull red. Then he remembered and pulled himself up again. And that evening another letter started on its way to the Pony Man.
The next morning he waked up with a confused consciousness that something important was hanging over him. Gradually it came back quite clearly. It was the twentieth. And then, for the first time, he became aware of facing a quite unheralded question of challenge.Was thereany doubt about the pony’s coming?His long list of subscription names flashed before his eyes, his big, shining pile of money, his mother’s smile, the post-office man’s 'whew!' of admiration before he made out the money-order, the promises in the letter if he began 'right away' and worked—and he had worked all the time ever since! There was but one possible answer to that question. The pony would come—to-day—before night.
He stumbled gayly down the stairs as he thought of all that he was going to do that morning in the barn. It was such a strange, rickety little affair, that barn; it did seem to look so much more like a shed than anything else, that he was continually haunted by his father’s words: 'Barn? I’m afraid she wouldn’t recognize it.' But he could make it clean, anyway, if it wasn’t new. He looked up at the battered manger, from his kneeling position on the floor, as he scrubbed with soap and water, and wondered what he could do about that. Something he was sure. Why, there were plenty of ways to do things if you only had sense. He thought he must be mistaken when he heard his mother calling him to dinner; but then, when he stopped and looked around, he felt a tired glow of satisfaction. The walls and floor of the old stall had not changed color, as he had hoped they would by washing, but they looked damp, and clean, too. Across the battered front of the manger was tacked a shining but crooked piece of clean, brown paper, and inside was a fresh little pile of grass and three large, round ginger-cakes beside it. But Crosby’s eyes traveled most lovingly to a small row of implements which hung down from the wall, at one side, from nails which he had pounded in. Of course ponies had to be groomed, and he looked up proudly at the small, clean brush, hanging by a string and suggestive no longer of the sink; at the worn whisk-broom next; at the broken comb; and finally at a little, shrunken lastwinter’s glove, with its fingers cut off evenly, which completed the line. He would wear that glove when he did his daily grooming.
'I’ll finish everything after dinner,' he meditated, and went in.
When he came back, a saucer of milk trembled dangerously in one hand, and with a faint, half-conscious smile flickering about his mouth, he put it down on the floor in the corner.
'She’ll be thirsty when she gets here,' he reasoned; and then, half apologetically, he glanced down at a big, loose bunch of summer goldenrod, supported by the other hand. Standing high on his toes, he propped it very jauntily over a time-worn beam just opposite the door. 'To look nice when she comes in,' he whispered; and then he cast round a final look, sighed a tired sigh of satisfaction—and went out and closed the door.
He wandered about restlessly that afternoon, and finally, with a queer, light feeling in his head, that he associated dimly with the long walk on the hill road the day before, he turned out of the yard and struck off across the street in the direction of the railroad station. He wanted to inquire about trains and the station was near. Besides, he knew the station-master, and he would tell him just what he wanted to know.
To be sure! The station-master was both alert and intelligent.
'A pony from New York?' he echoed. 'You’re expecting a pony from New York? Well, now I hope you aren’t going to be disappointed about it! You say it was to leave New York to-day? Well, there’s a New York-Boston train that gets in here at half-past six. That’s the last one there is. So if there’s any pony coming, she’ll be onthat train, won’t she? Yes, if she’s coming at all, she’ll be on that train.'
'Half-past six? What time is it—now?' questioned Crosby.
'It’s just half-past four. Now, you don’t want to hang round here for two hours. No, you run home and make yourself easy. I pass your place on my way home to supper, and if you’re outside I’ll let you know whether there’s anything for you. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high.'
Crosby looked up gratefully. He had not even heard the last sentence. He was already making his way out of the station and back home again, wondering just how he could spend all that time.
Two hours later, his father came swinging up the walk. Crosby, sitting on the grass close to the sidewalk, hardly saw him. He thought he saw some one else—away down the walk—moving slowly towards him.
'Hullo, Crosby,' began his father cheerfully. 'What you doing? Looking at the view?'
Crosby smiled faintly, but his eyes were straining away down the walk.
'You look pale, son; what’s the matter? You’d better come in to supper.'
'No, it isn’t going to be ready—quite yet, mother said.'
His father gave him another questioning look and went on into the house.
'What’s the matter with Crosby?' he asked inside. 'He looks as if he’d been frightened half to death.'
'Oh, he’s worrying himself to pieces about that pony. He’s been fussing round in the barn all day long. He really thinks he’s going to get it, I suppose.'
'Pony? What pony? Has he been working himself to death overthatbusiness? What’s he been doing in the barn?'
He walked through the house and down the back steps and crossed the yard. Then he opened the door which led directly into the old stall and stopped.
'Oh, Lord above us!' he whispered.
Never, since he was a child, a child like the one who had just looked up at him from the grass, had such an over-mastering desire swept over him to sit down, right where he was, and drop his head down into his hands—and cry.
'Oh, Lord above us!' he whispered again faintly, pushing his hand up to his eyes.
It was all just as it had been left, the old walls and floor with great splinters scoured out of them everywhere; the manger with its shining, crooked front of clean, brown paper; the little hanging row of grooming implements: the small brush, the worn whisk-broom, the comb, the little old glove, the pile of grass in the manger, and the three ginger-cakes, the saucer of milk in the corner—and the jaunty bunch of goldenrod nodding down upon it all from the beam just opposite the door.
He pushed his hands blindly to his eyes again; then he went out, closed the door, and walked down the yard where Crosby was sitting—no, he was standing, standing and looking dumbly after a man who was walking away and blowing his nose.
'Crosby,' began his father huskily, 'Crosby,—come into the house, come in to supper,—I want to see you.'
Crosby looked up with dry, hunted-looking eyes, and his chin trembled just perceptibly.
'I’m coming—in just a minute,' he began, with a quivering appeal in the dry, hunted eyes to be left—to be left alone—just for a minute!
His father turned and went up the steps, while Crosby’s gaze shifted mechanically back to the man who was going on up the street. But he turned, too, slowly, and crossedthe yard to the barn and opened the door and went in. He hoped no one had seen it, and he pulled off the brown paper from the manger and wrapped it round the pile of ginger-cakes. Then he reached up for the little row of grooming implements and took them down one by one.
When Crosby was three, he had tumbled down on a brick walk one day, and had sat up winking vaguely while drops of blood ran down his face—and tried to smile at his mother. It had never been just natural for Crosby to cry when he was hurt; but as he came slowly back into the old stall and stooped down to take up the saucer of milk, something dropped with a splashing sound into the milk, making rings away out to the edge. He raised his arm and dragged his hand across his eyes, and then he reached up for the jaunty bunch of flowers on the beam. But that strange, light feeling in his head, dimly associated with the hill road, seemed to confuse him again—and he could not just remember what he was going to do next. As he pushed open the door, he tripped over some scattered goldenrod, and then went stumbling along to the house.
'He said—I could have her—if I got started right off—he said—I could have her—if I got started right off—he said—he said—he said I could have her—if I got started—'
His mother met him at the door.
'Come in—Crosby—' she began brokenly, 'come in—'
'He said—I could have her—if I got started right off!' he shrieked out in a high, quivering, babyish wail, 'and—Idid—get started—right—off—'
'Hush—hush! You have worked—so hard! You are so tired!' She looked, with frightened eyes, at his dully burning cheeks.
'Take him up to bed—let me take him up,' came ahusky voice behind them; and he was lifted in his father’s arms and carried upstairs.
As they undid the straining buttons of the well-filled little waist, some papers dropped down to the floor and the man stooped and picked them up. He looked at them and put them in his pocket.
'I’m going to call up the doctor,' he whispered.
But after the doctor had come and gone, he went upstairs again and sat down by the bed, while his shocked eyes sought the small, still upturned face. It was so characteristic of the boy that, in a high fever, he should not chatter in delirium, that he should not scream wild things about a pony, that he should only lie there quietly, with his eyes closed and his face turned upwards. For a long time the watcher by the bed looked down in the flickering half-light, and then he went downstairs to his study and shut the door. When he had read the papers, which he took from his pocket, from beginning to end, he placed a clean sheet sharply on the desk before him, and with his mouth closed into a taut, straight line which relaxed into no curve of compromise as his pen marched down the sheet, Mr. Henry Tarbell wrote a letter to the Pony Man.
He sealed and directed it—and walked out of the house, with long strides, to the post-box.
It was many days later that he hung over the bed where a child lay tired out with fever, and gently said something that he thought might bring a little light back into the white face.
'They did send you a prize, Crosby, after all! A first-class little prize that has just come this morning! Look!' And he held up a small but crisply ticking watch upon a cheaply shining chain.
Crosby reached up his hand. 'I don’t believe—it would keep the—right time—would it?' he asked slowly, with asuspiciousness quite new. And his unwavering eyes sought his father’s.
'Whydid they—write such a—lie to me—about the pony?' he challenged faintly.
'Forget it, boy!' returned his father gayly. 'We’ll have a pony yet! We’ll have to have one to get the color back into your face, I’m thinking! Say, sonny, I’m glad you got the old stall fixed up for it, aren’t you?'
The unwavering eyes were still upon his father, and the first entirely unresisted tears that any one had ever seen in them since he stepped out of his baby’s dresses and marched forth to life, with brave but unaccustomed feet, and steadying pauses, slipped quietly down the white cheeks.
'You—youwouldn’t—talk that way—unless you meant it!' whispered Crosby.
THEsquire was a bachelor, and lived alone in his house; therefore he was able to use the parlor and dining-room for offices. The parlor contained only a pine desk, a map, hanging 'at' the wall, as Millerstown would have said, and a dozen or so plain pine chairs. The law was administered with scant ceremony in Millerstown.
The squire sat now in the twilight in his 'back' office, which was furnished with another pine table, two chairs, and a large old-fashioned iron safe. He was clearly of a geographical turn of mind, for table, safe, and floor were littered with railroad maps and folders. The squire was about sixty years old; he had all the grave beauty which the Gaumer men acquired. Their hair did not thin as it turned gray, their smooth-shaven faces did not wrinkle. They all looked stern, but their faces brightened readily at sight of a little child or an old friend, or with amusement over some untold thought.
The squire’s face glowed. He was going—his age, his inexperience, the certain disapproval of Millerstown notwithstanding—he was going round the world! He would start in a month, and thus far he had told no one but Edwin Seem, an adventurous young Millerstonian who was to leave that night for a ranch in Kansas, and whom the squire was to visit on his own journey. For thirty years he had kept Millerstown straight; there was no possible case for which his substitute would not find a precedent. Fortunately there were no trusts to be investigated and reproved, and no vote-buyers or bribers to be imprisoned orfined. There were disputes of all kinds, dozens of them. There was one waiting for the squire now in the outer office; he shook his head solemnly at thought of it, as he gathered up his maps and thrust them back into the safe, that precious old safe which held the money for his journey. He had been thirty years gathering the money together.
The law might be administered in Millerstown without formality, but it was not administered without the eager attention of the citizens. Every one in the village was on hand when simple-minded Venus Stuber was indicted for stealing, or when the various dramatic scenes of the Miller-Weitzel feud were enacted. This evening’s case, Sula Myers vs. Adam Myers for non-support, might be considered part of the Miller-Weitzel feud, since the two real principals, Sula’s mother and Adam’s mother, had been respectively Sally Miller and Maria Weitzel.
The air was sultry, and rain threatened. The clouds seemed to rest on the tops of the maple trees; it was only because the Millerstonians knew the rough brick pavements as they knew the palms of their hands that there were no serious falls in the darkness. They laughed as they hurried to the hearing: it was seldom that a dispute promised so richly. There was almost no one in the village who could not have been subpœnaed as a witness, so thorough was every one’s knowledge of the case.
Already the real principals faced each other, glaring, under the blinding light of the squire’s hanging lamp. It made no difference that Millerstown listened and chuckled or that the squire had taken his seat behind the pine desk.
'When it don’t give any religion, it don’t give any decent behaving. But God trieth the hearts of the righteous,' said Mrs. Myers meaningly.
She was a large, commanding woman, who had been converted in middle life to the fervent sect of the new Mennonites,and young Adam had been brought up in that persuasion. Except for his marriage, young Adam had been thus far his mother’s creature, body and soul.
Sula’s mother, Mrs. Hill, was large also. She took off her sunbonnet, and folded her arms as tightly as possible across her broad bosom.
'There is sometimes too much religion' she said.
'Not in your family, Sally,' rejoined Mrs. Myers, her glance including not only Mrs. Hill and Sula, but all their sympathizers, and even Caleb Stemmel, who was supposed to be neutral.
Caleb Stemmel belonged in the same generation with the squire; his interest could be only general. Caleb did not see Mrs. Myers’s scornful glance; he was watching pretty Sula, who sat close by her mother’s side.
Sula looked at nobody, neither at her angry mother beside her, nor at her angry mother-in-law opposite, nor even at Adam her husband, sitting close by his mother. She wore her best clothes, her pretty summer hat, the white dress in which she had been married a year before. Even her wedding handkerchief was tucked into her belt.
Sula had been strangely excited when she dressed in the bedroom of her girlhood for the hearing. There was the prospect of getting even with her mother-in-law, with whom she had lived for a year and whom she hated; there was the prospect of seeing Adam’s embarrassment; there was another reason, soothing to her pride, and as yet almost unacknowledged, even to herself.
Now, however, the glow had begun to fade, and she felt uncomfortable and distressed. She heard only dimly Mrs. Myers’s attack and her mother’s response. Immediately Mrs. Myers told Mrs. Hill to be quiet, and Mrs. Hill replied with equal elegance.
'You will both be quiet' said the squire sternly. 'The court will come to order. Now, Sula, you are the one that complains; you will tell us what you want.'
Sula did not answer; she was tugging at her handkerchief. The handkerchief had been pinned fast, its loosening took time.
'It was this way,' began Mrs. Myers and Mrs. Hill, together.
The squire lifted his hand. 'We will wait for Sula.' He looked sternly at Mrs. Hill. 'No whispering, Sally!'
Sula’s complaint came out with a burst of tears.
'He won’t support me. For three months already I didn’t have a cent.'
'All this time I supported her,' said her mother.
'She had a good home and wouldn’t stay in it,' said Mrs. Myers.
The squire commanded silence again.
'Sula, you were willing to live with Adam’s mother when you were married. Why aren’t you now?'
'She—she wouldn’t give me no peace. She wouldn’t let him take me for a wedding-trip, not even to the Fair.' She repeated it as though it were the worst of all her grievances: 'Not even a wedding-trip to the Fair would he dare to take.'
Mrs. Hill burst forth again. She would have spoken if decapitation had followed.
'He gave all his money to his mom.'
'He is yet under age,' said Mrs. Myers.
Again Mrs. Hill burst forth:—
'She wanted that Sula should convert herself to the Mennonites.'
'I wanted to save her soul,' declared Mrs. Myers.
'You needn’t to worry yourself about her soul,' answered Mrs. Hill. 'When you behave as well as Sula when you’re young, you needn’t to worry yourself about other people’s souls when you get old.'
Mrs. Myers’s youth had not been as strait-laced as her middle age; there was a depth of reminiscent innuendo in Mrs. Hill’s remark. Millerstown laughed. It was one of the delights of these hearings that no allusion failed to be appreciated.
'Besides, I did give her money,' Mrs. Myers hastened to say.
'Yes; five cents once in a while, and I had to ask for it every time,' said Sula. 'I might as well stayed at home with my mom as get married like that.' Sula’s eyes wandered about the room, and suddenly her face brightened. Her voice hardened as though some one had waved her an encouraging sign. 'I want him to support me right. I must have four dollars a week. I can’t live off my mom.'
The squire turned for the first time to the defendant.
'Well, Adam, what have you to say?'
Adam had not glanced toward his wife. He sat with bent head, staring at the floor, his face crimson. He was a slender fellow, he looked even younger than his nineteen years.
'I did my best,' he said miserably.
'Can’t you make a home for her alone, Adam?'
'No.'
'How much do you earn?'
'About seven dollars a week. Sometimes ten.'
'Other people in Millerstown live on that.'
'But I have nothing to start, no furniture or anything.'
'Your mother will surely give you something, and Sula’s mother.' The squire looked commandingly at Mrs. Myers and Mrs. Hill. 'It is better for young ones to begin alone.'
'I have nothing to spare,' said Mrs. Myers stiffly.
'I wouldn’t take any of your things,' blazed Sula. 'I wouldn’t use any of your things, or have any of your things.'
'You knew how much he had when you married him,'said Mrs. Myers calmly. 'You needn’t have run after him.'
'Run after him!' cried Sula.
It was the climax of sordid insult. They had been two irresponsible children mating as birds mate, with no thought for the future. It was not true that she had run after him. She burst into loud crying.
'If you and your son begged me on your knees to come back, I wouldn’t.'
'Run after him!' echoed Sula’s mother. 'I had almost to take the broom to him at ten o’clock to get him to go home!'
Adam looked up quickly. For the moment he was a man. He spoke as hotly as his mother; his warmth startled even his pretty wife.
'It isn’t true; she—never ran after me.'
He looked down again; he could not quarrel, he had heard nothing but quarreling for months. It made no difference to him what happened. A plan was slowly forming in his mind. Edwin Seem was going West; he would go too, away from mother and wife alike.
'She can come and live in the home I can give her or she can stay away,' he said sullenly, knowing that Sula would never enter his mother’s house.
The squire turned to Sula once more. He had been staring at the back of the room, where Cabel Stemmel’s keen, selfish face moved now into the light, now back into the shadow. On it was a strange expression, a hungry gleam of the eyes, a tightening of the lips, an eager watching of the girlish figure in the white dress. The squire knew all the gossip of Millerstown, and he knew many things which Millerstown did not know. He had known Caleb Stemmel for fifty years. But it was incredible that Caleb Stemmel with all his wickedness should have any hand in this.
The squire bent forward.
'Sula, look at me. You are Adam’s wife. You must live with him. Won’t you go back?'
Sula looked about the room once more. Sula would do nothing wrong—yet. It was with Caleb Stemmel that her mother advised, it was Caleb Stemmel who came evening after evening to sit on the porch. Caleb Stemmel was a rich man even if he was old enough to be her father, and it was many months since any one else had told Sula that her hat was pretty or her dress becoming.
Now, with Caleb’s eyes upon her, she said the little speech which had been taught her, the speech which set Millerstown gasping, and sent the squire leaping to his feet, furious anger on his face. Neither Millerstown nor the squire, English as they had become, was yet entirely of the world.
'I will not go back,' said pretty Sula lightly. 'If he wants to apply for a divorce, he can.'
'Sula!' cried the squire.
He looked about once more. On the faces of Sula’s mother and Caleb Stemmel was complacency, on the face of Mrs. Myers astonished approval, on the faces of the citizens of Millerstown—except the very oldest—there was amazement, but no dismay. There had never been a divorce in Millerstown; persons quarreled, sometimes they separated, sometimes they lived in the same house without speaking to each other for months and years, but they were not divorced. Was this the beginning of a new order?
If there were to be a new order, it would not come during the two months before the squire started on his long journey! He shook his fist, his eyes blazing.
'There is to be no such threatening in this court,' he cried; 'and no talking about divorce while I am here. Sula! Maria! Sally! Are you out of your heads?'
'There are higher courts,' said Mrs. Hill.
Millerstown gasped visibly at her defiance. To its further amazement, the squire made no direct reply. Instead he went toward the door of the back office.
'Adam,' he commanded, 'come here.'
Adam rose without a word, to obey. He had some respect for the majesty of the law.
'Sula, you come, too.'
For an instant Sula held back.
'Don’t you do it, Sula,' said her mother.
'Sula!' said the squire; and Sula, too, rose.
'Don’t you give up,' commanded her mother. Then she got to her feet. 'I’m going in there, too.'
Again the squire did not answer. He presented instead the effectual response of a closed and locked door.
The back office was as dark as a pocket. The squire took a match from the safe, and lit the lamp. Behind them the voices of Mrs. Myers and Mrs. Hill answered each other with antiphonal regularity. Adam stood by the window; Sula advanced no farther than the door. The squire spoke sharply.
'Adam!'
Adam turned from the window.
'Sula!'
Sula looked up. She had always held the squire in awe; now, without the support of her mother’s elbow and Caleb Stemmel’s eyes, she was badly frightened. Moreover, it seemed to her suddenly that the thing she had said was monstrous. The squire frightened her no further. He was now gentleness itself.
'Sula,' he said, 'you didn’t mean what you said in there, did you?'
Sula burst into tears, not of anger but of wretchedness.
'You’d say anything, too, if you had to stand the things I did.'
'Sit down, both of you,' commanded the squire. 'Now, Adam, what are you going to do?'
Adam hid his face in his hands. The other room had been a torture-chamber. 'I don’t know.' Then, at the squire’s next question, he lifted his head suddenly. It seemed as if the squire had read his soul.
'When is Edwin Seem going West?'
'To-night.'
'How would you like to go with him?'
'He wanted me to. He could get me a place with good wages. But I couldn’t save even the fare in half a year.'
'Suppose,'—the squire hesitated, then stopped, then went on again,—'suppose I should give you the money?'
'Give me the money!'
'Yes, lend it to you?'
A red glow came into Adam’s face. 'I would go to-night.'
'And Sula?' said the squire.
'I would—' The boy was young, too young to have learned despair from only one bitter experience. Besides, he had not seen Caleb Stemmel’s eyes. 'I would send for her when I could.'
The squire made a rapid reckoning. He did not dare to send the boy away with less than a hundred dollars, and it would take a long while to replace it. He could not, could not send Sula, too, no matter how much he hated divorce, no matter how much he feared Caleb Stemmel’s influence over her, no matter how much he loved Millerstown and every man, woman, and child in it. If he sent Sula, it would mean that he might never start on his own journey. He looked down at her, as she sat drooping in her chair.
'What do you say, Sula?'
Sula looked up at him. It might have been the thought of parting which terrified her, or the recollection of Caleb Stemmel.
'Oh, I would try,' she said faintly; 'I would try to do what is right. But they are after me all the time—and—and—' Her voice failed, and she began to cry.
The squire swung open the door of the old safe.
'You have ten minutes to catch the train,' he said gruffly. 'You must hurry.'
Adam laid a shaking hand on the girl’s shoulder. It was the first time he had been near her for weeks.
'Sula,' he began wretchedly.
The squire straightened up. He had pulled out from the safe a roll of bills. With it came a mass of brightly colored pamphlets which drifted about on the floor.
'Here,' he said, 'I mean both of you, of course.'
'I am to go, too?' cried Sula.
'Of course,' said the squire. 'Edwin will look after you.'
'In this dress?' said Sula.
'Yes, now run.'
For at least ten minutes more the eager company in the next room heard the squire’s voice go on angrily. Each mother was complacently certain that he was having no effect on her child.
'He is telling her she ought to be ashamed of herself,' said Mrs. Myers.
'He is telling him he is such a mother-baby,' responded Mrs. Hill. 'She will not go back to him while the world stands.'
'The righteous shall be justified, and the wicked shall be condemned,' said Mrs. Myers.
Suddenly the squire’s monologue ended with a louder burst of oratory. The silence which followed frightened Mrs. Hill.
'Let me in!' she demanded, rapping on the door.
'This court shall be public, not private,' cried Mrs. Myers.
She thrust Mrs. Hill aside and knocked more loudly, at which imperative summons the squire appeared. He stood for an instant with his back to the door, the bright light shining on his handsome face. Seeing him appear alone, the two women stood still and stared.
'Where is he?' asked Mrs. Myers.
'Where is she?' demanded Mrs. Hill.
The squire’s voice shook.
'There is to be no divorcing in Millerstown yet awhile,' he announced.
'Where is he?' cried Mrs. Myers.
'Where is she?' shrieked Mrs. Hill.
The squire smiled. The parting blast of the train whistle, screaming as if in triumph, echoed across the little town. They had had abundance of time to get aboard.
'He is with her, where he should be,' he answered Mrs. Myers, 'and she is with him, where she should be,' he said to Mrs. Hill, 'and both are together.' This time it seemed that he was addressing all of Millerstown. In reality he was looking straight at Caleb Stemmel.
'You m-m-mean that—' stammered Mrs. Myers.
'Whatdoyou mean?' demanded Mrs. Hill.
'I mean,'—and now the squire was grinning broadly,—'I mean they are taking a wedding-trip.'