THAT very evening Henley took even another step in his amusing enterprise. He returned to the store after supper and sat writing letters till about eight o'clock. Then he got up, brushed his clothes, and made Pomp polish his boots, and adjusted his black string tie before a glass over the water-pail and basin. Then he went out and walked leisurely up the street till he came to the dark stairway of a little public hall over a feed-store. He ascended the steps with a respectful tread and entered the hall. It was furnished with crude unpainted benches and lighted by kerosene lamps in concave-mirrored brackets on the white walls. At the end stood a table holding a pitcher of water, a goblet, and a Bible, and behind the table sat an earnest-eyed, middle-aged evangelistic preacher, who bowed and smiled in agreeable surprise at the new-comer. The room held fifty or sixty men and women, all silently awaiting the beginning of the services. Henley seated himself on the front bench nearest the preacher, and put his hat on the floor, and dropped his handkerchief into it.
The meeting was opened with the singing by the congregation of familiar hymns, in which Henley joined harmoniously with a fair bass. It was known of him that he never declined an invitation to lead in prayer, and on being asked this evening he readily complied. His voice was deep and round and mellow, and the burden of his utterances was suitable to that or any otherreligious occasion, being a sort of singsong tribute to the eternal glory of humility and submission to the divine will. The prayer was followed by a rousing sermon from the preacher, and, in closing, he called attention, as Henley evidently had gathered from some source that he would do, to the future plans of the organization. The time was ripe for work in the highways and byways—the sowing of seed in out-of-the-way places, and the preacher was to "take the road" with one or two good singers, a cornet-player, and a cottage-organ, and give people in isolated mountain-nooks a chance to hear the Word and profit thereby for their eternal weal.
He had just seated himself and was mopping his perspiring brow when Henley rose and stood hemming and hawing and clearing his throat.
"I want to say in this same connection," he began, "that I plumb approve of this new idea of taking the great and living Truth into remote corners of our spiritually dark land. Here in Chester we are, you might say, basking in the sunshine of Christian civilization, but away out off of the main roads in the mountains the Book hain't read and prayer hain't held except now and then. I heard that you had already entered into negotiations with an Atlanta tent factory to furnish you with a tabernacle, an' I must say it ain't a bad notion, because many a fine bush-arbor meeting has been busted all to flinders by sudden showers that good, stout canvas would shed as well as a roof of shingles. I want to contribute five dollars toward the fund myself; but I'm here to confess to you frankly that I wouldn't like to see the money throwed away. The great majority of them meeting-tents on the market are simply made to sell and not for hard use. They look all right in the sample-room, but they are full of starch to give 'em body, and when they get wet they are about as porous as a fish-net."
"That's a fact, Brother Henley," spoke up the preacher, with a slow and deliberate nod. "We've been looking around and receiving circulars from all sides, and we have found it purty hard to run across a durable tent at a price we can afford; but there was a drummer here from Nashville the other day, and he claimed—"
"I'd advise you to let drummers alone, too," and Henley brushed away the preacher's words with a firm and all-wise hand. "You see, in my constant contact at the store I know 'em all the way down to the ground. They are the most ungodly pack on earth. Most of 'em drink and play poker, an' never look inside of a Bible. The fact is, if I may be allowed to speak of it at such a time, I happened myself, awhile back, to buy a whopping big tent from a stranded show. I thought at the time that some such a need as this might arise, and so I bid it in. To get it, I had to pay for a lot of old planks and such-like, but in doing it I secured a rattling good thing. It was a bargain; but I could let a good organization like yours have it for a sight less than a new tent not halt as big would cost. It would last a lifetime. It is big enough to hold the multitude that ate the loaves and fishes. It was made for rough wear and must have cost a pile of money. I don't know but what we all could agree on a price—that is, if I had any idea of how much your body would feel disposed to—to invest in a tent."
"We have fifty dollars in the treasury," spoke up the preacher, with an eagerness that blended in his face and voice. "Of course, it may not be near enough to—" He blew his nose and coughed.
Henley stroked his face thoughtfully, and he had the look of a man who was making a polite effort to be resigned to disappointment.
"Well, of course, Ihadhoped that I might do much better than that," he said finally, looking around at theanxious group, "but, as I said at the start, I want to help you along. You know I said I'd contribute five myself, so—to be accurate—we'd better call the price fifty-five. Then I'll take what you've got in the treasury and call it even."
There was a murmur and shuffle of released suspense throughout the hall. The preacher beamed joyfully as he reached forward and shook Henley warmly by the hand.
"There's no use putting it to a vote," he said. "I'll take the responsibility and accept your magnificent offer right now. Brethren, we are in luck. A special providence seems to have been at work through the whole thing. A vain and ungodly enterprise broke down in our midst, and we are, by our act, directing streams of evil into channels of good. In putting this tent to our use we will be turning over the tables of the money-changers, and causing grain of righteousness to grow where tares of evil flourished."
As Henley walked homeward along the lonely road he mused: "I could have run that crowd up to seventy-five as easy as not. They would have raked up the balance, but I reckon a fellow ought to let well enough alone."
Of all the denizens of Chester and its environs, no one had keener enjoyment over the gossip concerning these various deals than Dixie Hart. She had enough of the speculative tendency in her make-up to heartily appreciate the situation in all its phases, and she was glad, too, that her friend had found, so soon after his return home, such good opportunities to exercise his rare gifts. She went into the store only a day or two after the sale of the tent, and found Henley alone.
"So you won out in that venture, after all?" she laughed. "And, if what folks say is true, you made big money."
"I'm not out of the woods yet," he smiled. "There is always a drawback, you know." He pointed through the open doorway to the lion's cage on the shoemaker's lot across the street. "I've still got that thing, and I'm afraid it's going to be a white elephant. I'm sorry, too, for I'd like to make a clean sweep, just because folks bet that I'd lose heavy. I'd give the cage away if I could do it, but, like a fool, I went and said that I'd show 'em that I could turn every item in the lot over at a profit."
"What are you asking for it?" Dixie inquired.
"Twenty-five dollars," he replied. "If I can't sell it like it stands I'll split it up an' use the iron some way or other."
"It would be a pity to do that," the girl said, thoughtfully. "Let me take a look at it."
He stood in the doorway and watched her as she crossed the street in her easy, graceful way, and then he saw her approach the lion's cage, turn the bolt of the door, and look in, and heard the sound of her fist as it rapped against the wooden sides. Then she disappeared. She had entered the cage and was out of sight for several minutes. Emerging, she came directly across the street to Henley, her head hanging thoughtfully, a slight flush on her face.
"You may think I've plumb lost my senses," she smiled, "but I want to buy that thing. I've heard so much about your deals that I'm itching to speculate some myself. You seem to have come to the end of your rope as far as this cage is concerned, and I want to try my hand. They say two heads is better 'n one, if one is a cabbage-head."
"You?—good Lord, what could you do with it?" Henley gasped.
"A heap of things," she retorted, lightly. "You've been offering it for twenty-five dollars, and I'm going to take you up. I had just started to the bank todeposit some money, and so I happen to have the ready cash."
She put her hand into her pocket and drew out a roll of bills, but Henley held up his hand protestingly, and flushed red.
"You don't spend your hard-earned money like that and through my foolish example," he said. "I've had experience in all sorts of junk-handling, and what I do is a different matter. Besides, I know there's no money to be made out of that thing. I got the cream out of the deal, and I won't let you throw money away."
Jim Cahews came in at this moment, and, redder in the face than ever, Henley explained the situation.
"Alf's right, Miss Dixie," the clerk joined in. "You'd better take his advice. If there was anything in that old pile of iron he'd have seen it long ago."
But her money was lying on the show-case before Henley's eyes, and she had retreated to the door.
"I've bought it," she insisted. "It's mine, and I'm going to make some money out of it, too. I'm tired of working like a corn-field nigger for puny profits, while you men make jokes here in the shade and get rich at it."
Henley refused to touch the money. His flush had given place to a look of pained concern.
"I can't—just can't let you do it!" he said. "Like a good many women, I reckon, Dixie, you look at the dealings of men from the outside, and are willing to go an' plunge into unknown waters and get ducked and leave your money at the bottom. Profit ain't ever made by getting in at the tail-end of another fellow's venture. I've squeezed this thing dry, and—"
"I'm a more experienced milker than you are," Dixie laughed, "and the cage is mine. There's your money. It's mine, and if I make money out of it I won't have you grumbling, either."
Henley and Cahews exchanged glances of actual alarm.
"What do you intend to do with it?" Henley almost snapped in his impatience.
"Did anybody ask you what you intended to do with it whenyoubought it?" Dixie asked. "You haven't any right to ask. But I'll tell youonething. I'm not going to turn it into a corn-crib, though it would make a dandy, and one that no nigger could steal from. I'm buying it to sell for at least twice as much as I've paid for it, and I want you to watch me. I've been tickled mighty nigh to death over your late deals, and I want to amuse you. I know you'd like to see me make some money, and I'm going to do it as sure as I'm knee-high to a duck."
When she had gone Henley and Cahews stood in the doorway disconsolately staring after her as she walked briskly down the street.
"You see, Jim, I'm afraid I'm responsible for it," the storekeeper said, with a frown. "She's got a long head for a woman in most matters, but she's had it turned by watching this little game of mine. It is the first time I've ever seen her fly off the handle at all. As a rule she's very cautious, but, Lord, Lord, the idea of paying twenty-five dollars for that thing! Why, if it gets out she'll be the laughing-stock of the town."
THE next morning when Henley arrived at the store, Cahews, who with a face drawn long was standing at the front, pointed mutely at the lion's cage. Henley looked and groaned. It bore a pasteboard placard, and the words, in big, irregular capitals:
FOR SALE. APPLY TO DIXIE HART.
"She come in here yesterday evening after you'd gone," Cahews explained, "and borrowed my marking-pot and brush. Then she had me get her the pasteboard, and after she had painted the sign she took the nail-box and hammer and went over there and tacked it up. A crowd of school-boys was watching, and raised a laugh, but she come away without paying any attention to them. I tried to get her to reason a little, and told her the money was there in the drawer waiting for her to change her mind, but she said she knowed exactly what she was about, and if I'd lie low I might learn a trick or two in business methods."
"She's off—she's away off!" Henley sighed. "And I'm plumb sorry, for she is, in many other ways, as quick as a steel trap and bright as a new dollar."
One morning, two days later, as the storekeeper was at his desk in the rear writing letters, his attention was called by a keen whistle from Cahews, who stood inthe front-door wildly signalling him to approach. And going to the clerk, who was now on the front porch staring toward the lion's cage, he saw that Seth Woods, the begrimed shoemaker, had torn down the placard and stood looking into the cage.
"He's mad about it, I'll bet," was Henley's troubled comment. "I reckon folks have been guying him. That railroad man said he consented to let me use the lot. Maybe he lied to close the trade."
"Maybe he did," agreed Cahews; "but look! What do you make of that?"
A negro man with the shoemakers bench on his shoulder had turned the corner and was headed for the cage. "Put it inside an' go back for the rest," they heard Woods order.
Wonderingly, Henley strode across the street and reached the cage just after the negro had put down the bench on the inside and was coming out of the narrow doorway.
"What's the meaning of this?" Henley inquired of the shoemaker.
"Why," and a complacent smile broke through the grime on Woods's face, "it means, Alf, that I'm at last my own landlord. I've been paying old Welborne fifty dollars a year rent fer that little hole in a wall, away back from the square, because I couldn't get enough ahead to build on this lot or get any other shop. I think I've had a stroke of luck, and, strange to say, it come through a woman. Yesterday evening Dixie Hart come in my shop and axed me if I could straighten the heels of her shoes while she set thar. I told her certainly, an' while I was at work we got to talking first on one topic and then on another. She likes my wife an' daughter, an' she said a good deal about 'em. She axed me if I had any objections to lettin' this cage, which she said she had raked in fromyou at a big bargain, to set on my lot till somebody come along and bought it. I thought buyin' sech a thing was a powerful quar thing for a young woman to do, but of course I didn't say so to her, for it wa'n't any o' my business. Well, one thing fetched on another till she got to lookin' about my shop while I was trimmin' the heel-taps, an' all at once she wanted to know—if thar was no harm in axin'—what rent I was payin'. I told 'er fifty dollars, an' she whistled kind o' keenlike an' said: 'My gracious! an' got a vacant lot, too, right in the heart o' the square.' I explained to her that I wasn't able to build a shop, an' was afraid I never would be, gettin' old like I am an' so many to feed. Then, Alf, what you think that gal said? As cool as a cucumber in a spring branch, as she set thar wigglin' her toes in 'er stockin' feet, she said: 'You'd better listen to me, an' I'll fix you so you won't haveanyrent to pay. That lion's cage, just at it stands, with the door openin' on the sidewalk, would make the dandiest shoe-shop in seven States. It's plenty wide and long; it is well-roofed with painted sheet-iron, an' would be as tight in cold weather as a jar of preserves. It faces every street that leads into the square, and you'd get twice as much custom there as you do away back here next to this little pig-trail alley.' By gum, what she said struck me like a bolt of lightnin'. I'd examined the cage, as everybody else in town has, I reckon, an' I knowed all about it, so I up an' axed 'er what she'd paid you for it, an' she kind o' dodged my question.
"'Has that got anything to do with it?' she axed, an' I told 'er, I did, that I heard you was offerin' it fer twenty-five dollars. That seemed to set 'er studyin' fer a minute, an' then she said:
"'To tell you the truth, Mr. Woods, thatisall I had to pay, but I got it, you mought say, at that figure by the very skin o' my teeth. In a thoughtless momentAlf Henley said he'd take twenty-five, and, knowing what it was railly worth, I yanked out the money on the spot and laid it down. He's a gentleman'—she said—'Alf Henley is a plumb gentleman, but he tried his level best to back down. Jim Cahews will testify that I was actually obliged to leave the money on the counter and walk out before he'd give in.' Is that so, Alf?"
"I am obliged to say it is, Seth," Henley answered, flushing. "Some'n like that actuallydidtake place."
"I didn't think she'd fib about it," Woods went on, "and I finally axed her what she'd take, an' she said nothin' less than fifty dollars cash down would interest her, as she had a winter cloak to lay in, an' shoes for three women, an' what not.
"I told her fifty looked purty steep, but she throwed herself back an' laughed hearty. She said my rent in the shop fer one year alone would pay it, and after that I'd be a free man. She said in the summer I could prop up both these flap sides, to cut off the sun, an' the wind would blow clean through. She said the very oddity of the thing would draw trade, that I could have the picture of the lion painted out an' a big boot an' shoe put in place of it. Oh, I can't begin to tell you all she said. She'd 'a' been talkin' till now if I hadn't traded: Besides, betwixt me'n you, she give me a scare; you see I was afraid the thing would slip through my fingers, fer she set in to talkin' about havin' it moved to t'other side o' the square and rentin' it fer a barber-shop, an' she 'lowed, too, that it would be a bang-up thing to sell to a convict-camp to keep chain-gang prisoners in.
"As a last resort, I axed her, I did, if she thought I ought to pay her a clean hundred per cent. profit, an' she said: 'That ain't for you to consider at all, Mr. Woods. You must jest let your mind rest on whatyouare goin' to get out of it. Alf Henley's made money outof it; I must make my part, and you can do the same. It is the way business is run all over the world. As soon as it becomes yours, somebody may come along and pay you a hundred for it, though you'd be a fool to let it go even at that. You are the one man in all the world that ought to hold on to it.' She was right, Alf. I'm tickled over the change. I feel like a new man. You ought to have seen old Welborne's face when I told 'im I was goin' to vacate. He swore Dixie Hart was a meddlesome hussy, an' that she had cheated the hindsight off of me. He said she owed him an' was behind in her pay, an' that he was goin' to fetch 'er to taw."
Henley went back to his desk. There was a flush on his brow.
"Beat to a finish, and by a girl," he mused. "Here I've been thinking I had nothing to learn about trading, and she picks up one of my remnants and turns it over at a hundred per cent. profit as easy as knitting a pair of socks. If I'd lived a hundred years I'd never have thought about that shoe-shop."
HENLEY did not see Dixie Hart till a week had elapsed. He had started to drive over to Carlton one morning, when he passed her as she was mending a rail-fence round one of her fields which extended down to the road. She had on a sunbonnet and heavy gloves, and stood in a dense patch of prickly blackberry briers which reached to her shoulders.
"That work's too hard for you," Henley greeted her cordially. "I've done all sorts of jobs on a farm, from splitting rails to feeding a steam thresher, and they are picnics beside what you are now at."
"I believe you are right," she smiled, as she pushed back her bonnet and exposed her red face and neck. "But I had to do it; the pigs have rooted away the rotten rails next to the ground under these briers and got in to my turnips and potatoes. But I've nearly finished, thank goodness."
"I'm off for Carlton," he informed her. "I go every day or so now on business. Is there anything I can do for you over there?"
"There really is, Alfred." She parted the clinging briers and came quite close to him in one of the fence corners which was infested with the wild growth. She had drawn off her gloves, and now thrust a pink hand into her pocket and got out a handkerchief, in a corner of which were tied some coins. "I want you to step into the book-store and get me a Second Reader—thesort they use in the public schools over there. It's for little Joe. I'm learning him to read, and he's doing it as fast as a dog can trot."
"I wish you'd let me pay for the book," Henley ventured, as she put the money into his hand. "You know I've got twenty-five dollars of your cash, anyway. That old cage wasn't worth anything."
"You mean I've got twenty-five dollars ofyourmoney," she retorted. "Why, I've been ashamed to look you in the face. I didn't act right about it, and I hardly know why I done it. As a friend to you I ought to have told you about the chance I saw and not set in to gain myself. I don't feel right about it. I'd rather you'd have it—I can't feel like it's mine. You'd made money out of all the other things, and you ought to have made a clean sweep of the whole job."
"You are forgetting two main things," he said, gravely, his eyes averted. "You forget that you paid me all I asked for the blame thing, and that if it hadn't been for you I'd not have been at the sale of the circus, anyway."
"You mean—" She flushed knowingly, and avoided his earnest gaze.
"That you stopped me that night, and kept me from doing the biggest fool thing a sensible man ever was guilty of. I've thanked you in my heart, Dixie, thousands and thousands of times. It would have ruined me for life, but you looked ahead and saw it and saved me."
"Oh, well, that's past and gone," Dixie said, touched by a certain new and deep quality in his voice. "I'll keep the money if you want me to. I really need it. Old Welborne got hopping mad at me for ousting his tenant, and simply rowed me up Salt River. Some day I may come to you for legal advice. I want you to look over the document he got me to sign. I want to know more about it than I do. There are too many 'aforesaids'and 'herebys' in it to suit me. I bought that farm with my eyes shut. I was so anxious to own land that I was willing to take the property on any terms. Welborne is getting to be like that old man in the fairy-book that stuck to the feller's neck and never could be shook off till he was made drunk. Welborne never touches a drop, you know, and so he'll stick till death claims him. I'm in an awful mess. I work like a slave from break of day till away after dark, and never seem to move a peg toward any sort of landing-place."
"You really ought to marry," Henley said. "That's exactly what you ought to do. There's many a good man in the world that is actually suffering for the need of the right sort of a helpmeet."
"You hit the nail on the head that whack," she said, quite seriously. "I know I'm better-looking now—when I'm fixed up, at least—than I will be ten years later; and I've got sense enough to know that old maids don't make natural-looking brides. No, I really ought to give the subject more thought. I ain't acting in a businesslike way about it. I ought to put myself on the market, but I let first one thing and then another interfere, and now it seems to be little Joe. I think I've got a sort of mother-love for him, Alfred. He works over in his field, and me in mine, and when it's twelve o'clock I get out my dinner-bucket and call to him, and we both go down to the spring and have a picnic. That's where I learn him to read. If old Pitman was to get on to it I reckon he'd raise a row. Joe fetches his pore little scraps of streak-o'-lean, streak-o'-fat bacon an' hoe-cake along, but I make 'im throw the stuff away. I don't know, but I believe I'd rather see that child's big, hungry eyes as I open that bucket than to be admired by the handsomest young man in the county. I don't know, though—I've never tried the young-man part."
"Yes, you ought to marry, Dixie." Henley, with thetrue feeling of a gentleman that he ought not to sit while she stood, got out of his buggy and leaned on the fence. "I'm going to confess that I've thought a lot about that very thing since I got home, and, if I'm the judge I think I am, I believe I've run across the very man for you."
"You don't say!" Dixie cried, eagerly. "Well, well!"
"You know I drive over to Carlton every now and then," Henley went on, "and as Jim always has a few pounds of butter, a box or so of eggs, and the like, to send, I take 'em to a store run by a young feller that I always did like. Jasper Long is his name. He got his start by the hardest licks that was ever dealt by a poor boy. He was a half-orphan, and had to take care of his old mother till she died and left him all alone. He drove a dray about town till he was twenty, and with money he'd saved he set up for himself in business. He's the wonder of the town now, for he made money hand over fist. He's hitched on a brick warehouse to his shebang, and buys cotton when it reaches its lowest ebb and holds it till it gets to the top—then he lets loose. Me and him are pretty thick, and when I go over there either I have to eat with him at the hotel or he does with me. Sometimes we toss up head-or-tails to see who pays."
"I've never seen him," Dixie said, quite interested, "but I've heard about him. Carrie Wade said he come out to camp-meeting one Sunday, and was pointed out as a big catch, but she said he was sort of clumsy and awkward in his movements."
"Carrie wouldn't think his gait was so bad if he was trotting at her side," commented Henley. "But Long's all right; he's honest, and straight as a shingle. I'd trust him to act square in any deal, and that's a lot to say these times. He ain't had much to do with women. You see, they've got a sort of stuck-up society crowd over there that don't think he's quite the thing,and so he's out of what you might call theelyte. His sort are the kind that always count in any struggle, though. He bunks in a big, wide bed in the back end of his store, and one night when I had to lie over there because the river was out o' banks he made me sleep with him. That was the time I advised him to marry. It pleased him powerful, and he up and told me that he'd been giving the matter considerable thought and investigation. He said that every now and then it would occur to him that precious time was passing, but that he'd been so busy he'd not had time to go at it right. He said that most of the women on any list of the kind he'd seen was fussy and looked lazy and thriftless. Then he come right out and asked me if I happened to know a suitable candidate, and—well, Dixie, I couldn't hold in. I talked as earnest as a preacher at a ranting revival. I had his eye and I helt it clean through. I described you to him and—"
"You did?" Dixie laid an eager hand on his arm and laughed merrily, "What did you say? Tell me exactly. I won't let you leave till you do. Tell me, Alfred."
"Oh, I couldn't do that, Dixie!" Henley flushed to his hat. "I'd make a botch of it. I could talk to him, but I couldn't to you—at least—at least not on that line."
"But you'vegotto do it!" the girl insisted. "I want to hear it. I've always wanted to know what a man would say about me behind my back. I know what women will say, for they will tell you to your teeth exactly what they will behind your back, only worse, if they can possibly do it. Try to remember exactly what you said."
Henley's blood burned fiercely in his tanned face. "I couldn't tell you like I did him, and I hain't going to try. I ain't made that way—some men are, but I ain't."
"You are afraid I'll feel bad about it, I see," the girl said, with well-assumed severity, and she glanced aside that he might not read the look of conscious power in her eyes. "You and me have been such stanch friends that you hate to tell me what a poor opinion you have of me and my looks. I see. I see. Well, I hain't got no right to think anybody would think well of me—you least of all."
"Shucks! If you'd heard me you'd never complain," Henley burst forth. "I told him you was the prettiest thing that ever wore shoe-leather; that you had hair of a reddish-brownish mixture that no man could begin to describe, and eyes so big and deep and drawing-like that a feller couldn't look in 'em without wondering what they was made of, and cheeks and lips as red and ripe and laughing as—"
"That will do," Dixie laughed, pleasurably. "You was determined to trade me off, and you went at it like I was a horse you was trying to get rid of for more than he was worth. Well, what else did you say?"
"Why, I told 'im about your awful struggle against adversity; about the hold old Welborne had on you; about your mother and aunt being helpless on your hands, and about how you wanted to add to it all by helping Pitman's bound boy. But when I told him the other day about the way you bought and sold that lion's cage I thought he would bust wide open. He throwed himself back agin the counter and yelled and clapped his hands. Said he:
"'Alf, that's the woman for me. Every trading man, needs a partner like her. Such women as her are the mothers of kings and presidents and great geniuses.Mymother was that way; she made me what I am.' And then he railed out against conditions that could make you undergo so much hardship, and said he'd just love to give a girl like you a good home that you could keepneat and clean and in apple-pie order. He said his life was lonely, and that he wanted to see a smiling face at the window when he got home after work. He says he's able to build as good a house as any man in Carlton, and that he already owns a corner lot on Tilbury Avenue, the swell street of the town. The truth is, he wants to take a look at you powerful bad, and I promised him, if it was possible, that I would—"
"Well, I don't know about that," Dixie objected suddenly, and her pretty brow wrinkled. "You know what they say about a burnt child. I've already as good as offered myself to one chap. I didn't come up to requirements, and I don't want to do it again. What you'd say tohimabout me and what he'd actuallythinkare two different things. If I was to meet him and I saw from his looks that he didn't think much of your judgment I'd hate you both and feel like scratching your eyes out. I'd make a sensible man a good wife, and I'd do my part; but I'll be hanged if I'll walk up to him wearing a 'For Sale' tag. What you say is mighty interesting, and I may let it bother me a good deal, for a woman owes it to herself to look out for number one, but there is a line of self-respect that a woman can't cross. I'm in an awful mess, and I'd marry to get out of it. You may say what you please about me to him, but that's as far as I'll go."
"You don't think you could send the poor chap some word or other?" Henley ventured, at the end of his diplomacy, as he got into his buggy and took up the reins.
"No, I don't," was the thoughtful answer. "He's a friend of yours, and you recommend him high enough, but we hain't been introduced, and to take any step beforehand onmyside would be unbecoming of a lady, and that's what I am."
"Yes—of course, and you know best," said Henley, as he clucked to his horse, "but Long will be powerfullydisappointed. He's got sort of keyed up over this thing, and it has gone and unsettled him. I reckon he's got a pretty picture of you in his mind, and keeps it before him all the time."
"That's it," said Dixie. "And I wouldn't like to see it turn to a chromo on his hands. I know what I look like to myself, but I wouldn't expect to suit every taste."
THAT evening, just after dark, when Henley drove his horse into his barn-yard, he saw Dixie over in her own lot milking her cow. She was a brave, erect little figure as she stood in the soft, black loam. "So, so!" she was saying in her sweet, persuasive voice to the restless animal. "Can't you stand still and keep that pesky fly-brush out of my eyes? Them hairs cut like so many knives when they are flirted about like a wagon-whip. You may as well let me get that milk out of your bag. It will give you trouble through the night if you don't."
Henley turned his horse into one of the stalls, and fed him with fodder and corn in the ear, and came and leaned on the fence behind her. She was now crouched down beside the cow; he could see her brown, tapering arms and wrists against the cow's flank, and hear the milk as it ran into her tin pail with a sharp, intermittent sound. Above the back of the cow, of which she seemed a part in the thickening darkness, loomed up her cottage. There was a yellow light in the kitchen from a bank of blazing logs in the wide-open fireplace. Henley waited till she had finished and stood up.
"Hard at it," he jested. "Day or night, it's all the same to you. I wonder if you work when you are asleep."
"Huh," she laughed, as she advanced toward him, her pail swinging by her side. "This is my reception-day, and this is my parlor. Won't you come in and setawhile? Take that rocking-chair over near the piano—or maybe you'd rather smoke in the bay-window, where you can get fresh air."
"What's the joke now?" he inquired. "I'm not exactly on."
"Why, you see, you are the second beau I've had right here in the mud, and with these dirty clothes on, in the last ten minutes."
"The second?" he said, wondering what she was driving at.
"Yes," she made answer, as she rested her pail at her feet and stood smiling blandly at him. "Hank Bradley has just left. He come over to invite me to go with a party of girls and boys to the Springs day after to-morrow. I wish I knew exactly what to do in a case like that. I want to go—my! I want to go so bad I hardly know what to do. Mother and Aunt Mandy both think I ought to accept such invitations. I know folks talk about Hank, and say all sorts of things about girls he goes with. But he says he has quit drinking and gambling and wants to settle down. His sister, Mrs. Bailey, is going along to give respectability to it, and it is to be a great blow-out. I've never been on such a trip; they say there is a lot of fashionable Atlanta folks at the hotel, and a fine band, a ten-pin alley, and a lawn-tennis court, and I hardly know what all."
"Hank Bradley? Good gracious!" Henley said, but he could think of nothing further that would voice the protestations running wildly through his brain.
"Oh, I see you'll oppose it, too," she sighed. "I reckon I've just been trying to make myself believe I ought to go. Hank begged so hard, and—and said such nice things about liking me. I reckon almost any girl would want to believe even a fellow like him, if she'd been a wall-flower all her life, and somehow didn't think she ought to be."
"But did you accept—did you? That's the main thing," Henley asked, and his eyes were fixed on her mobile face where the pink shadows chased one another beneath her long, drooping lashes.
"No, not positive," she said. "I simply couldn't get rid of him to do my work without saying something; so I agreed to talk it over with my folks and let him know after supper. He is to send a man over for the answer. I already see my finish—I see it in the way you are staring at me right now."
"He ain't for you, Dixie," Henley answered, decidedly. "You said once that you looked on me like a big brother. Well, if your brother was to see you driving off that way beside that man—thatsortof a man—he'd be miserable. I can't do much to show my interest and friendship—though I've tried hard to think of some way. I know you deserve more than has come to you. You are young and full of life, and bright and pretty—so pretty that you'd be the main one in any cluster, and it is hard to think you have to pass your days as you do. But Hank Bradley ain't the one to extend a hand. He ain't—God knows he ain't."
"I know it; you needn't say another word." The girl came nearer. The moon was out now in a clear sky, and its rays fell athwart her face and gleamed in the gold of her abundant tresses. His hand was resting on the top rail of the fence, and she laid her own on it reassuringly. "Don't bother, big brother," she said, in a deep, trembling tone. "I'll write him that I can't go. I'd not enjoy a minute of it knowing that your judgment was against it. Let's not talk about it. Let's talk about something else. I've been thinking all day about that Carlton storekeeper."
"Your ears must have burned." Henley betrayed his relief by the free breath he drew. "I saw him over there, and we talked about you for an hour on a stretch. Iwasn't going to see him, but he heard I was in town and sent his porter after me. He wanted to see me about you."
"Me?That's funny, if you ain't joking."
"I ain't joking," Henley declared. "He said he'd been unable to get his mind on business like he used to. He says, from what I've told him, that he knows just how you look. He pinned me down again about fetching you over there; and when I told him that you felt sort of backward about taking such a step, he seemed more tickled than set back. He said he'd seen so many women that throwed theirselves at him and interfered with his movements that the hold-off sort was just what he was looking for. He went on and told me about the old maids that knitted socks for him, and the giddy young ones that tittered and looked at him out of the corners of their eyes whenever he passed, and how many widows and mothers of gals was trading at his store now that hadn't before, and how much bother they all was in refusing to let his clerks wait on 'em, and was always coming back to his desk to make him get what they needed."
"Shucks, I'll bet he's had his head turned," was Dixie's comment. "Well, he needn't think he's the whole show; they wouldn't do him that away if he didn't have money. Well, I needn't criticise them, for, as good as I think I am, I don't reckon I'd give him a second thought if he was just a farm-hand at seventy-five a day. Money adds a lot to a person, and I reckon if a girl went about it right and as a matter of duty she could love a rich man as quick as a poor one."
"Well, I simply couldn't head 'im off," Henley resumed. "I couldn't get around his arguments. He said there was a way you and him could meet without compromising your pride, and that was this: he said me and you was good friends, and that if I wanted tomake you pass a pleasant day I could invite you to drive over there next Saturday week and see the fire tournament that is to be held."
"Well, he's got cheek enough, I must say," Dixie said. "I reckon he might let you run your own business and extend your own invites. It ain't for him to up and dictate to you—huh! I say!"
"But, you see, I'd already told him that I'd enjoy fetching you over at any time. You see, he knowed it would be a pleasure to me. I'm going over, anyway, and your company the ten miles and back would be a sight better than being alone."
"Well, that's different," said Dixie, "and I really would enjoy the trip. But it would have to be fully understood that I went just with you, and was not going along to exhibit myself, to see if I'd suit him or not."
"Good!—now you've hit it!" Henley laughed. "It will be fun all round. I'm going again to-morrow, and I'll tell him to be—I'll tell him me and you have decided to take in the tournament."
"Yes, put it that way," said Dixie, and she took up her pail. "It may be a flash in the pan, and I'd hate everybody in creation—you included—if I was accused of—of missing fire thesecond time!"
They both happened to glance toward the cottage, and standing framed in the kitchen doorway with a background of light they saw a mute and motionless figure.
"It's little Joe!" Henley exclaimed. "Wait, I forgot what you sent me for." He went to his buggy and returned with a parcel. "I got the Second Reader, and I had the man put in a Geography-book full of pretty maps and pictures. I thought maybe Joe would—"
"He'll be tickled to death," Dixie cried, as she reached for the parcel. "The poor little fellow is watching us now. I told him you'd bring it to-night, and he's been down several times to see if you was back. It's awfullysweet of you, Alfred, to think of the Geography. I need it myself, and me and Joe'll study it together. If that thing we was talking about should happen to go through, the first move I'd make would be to try to get that boy out of Pitman's clutch. I love 'im—he's so gentle and patient that I can't help it."
They heard a step behind them, and, turning, they saw old Wrinkle peering at them through the dark as he stood near the barn.
"If that's you, Alf," he called out, "you'd better come on to supper. After a square meal at the Carlton Hotel you may look on our fare as purty pore stuff. But you may choke it down. It's gettin' cold; the grease in the beef hash is turnin' to tallow, an' the bread was baked yesterday an' is as hard as a brick."
"All right; I'm with you," Henley said, good-naturedly, as he saw Dixie hurrying away.
ON the morning set for the excursion to Carlton, Henley went down to the stable and harnessed and hitched his horse to his buggy. Old Jason, who was with him, made no offer to assist with the various buckles and straps, but stood leaning in the barn-door chewing tobacco. He was sufficiently courteous, however—as Henley started away with the remark that he was going to give Dixie Hart a lift over to Carlton and back—to slouch in front, his hands in his pockets, his tousled head bared to the slanting rays of the sun, and open the big gate.
Reaching the front-door of Dixie Hart's cottage, Henley had only a minute to wait. Mrs. Hart, followed by her sister with an arm in a sling, came down the steps with a mincing step, her weak eyes shaded by her thin hand, and approached him.
"It's powerful good of you to take my daughter," she said, in grateful tones. "She has so little pleasure in her life, and she's been wanting to go to Carlton for a long time. A place even as much like a city as that is, kind o' interests a young girl. She's always reading about the doings over there among the rich folks."
"I'll see that nothing happens to her, and fetch her back safe," he promised. Then Dixie emerged from the house wearing her best dress, a white muslin, immaculately clean and well ironed, and adorned by broad, pink ribbons which heightened her complexion. Her hat wasnew and most becoming, and as she rustled out to the gate he felt a thrill of pride in having such a presentable companion. She touched her mother playfully under the chin and kissed her on the cheek.
"Now, Muttie," she said, "you've got to be on your good behavior while I'm off or I'll switch you good when I get back. I have put the exact feed for the horse in his trough, and pumped the tub full of water, and you only have to let down the stable-door bars at twelve and he'll do the rest. The chicken-feed is already mixed in the dish-pan, and you only have to tilt it out of the kitchen-window and they'll divide it amongst 'em."
"Oh, I can attend to everything!" Mrs. Hart remarked to Henley. "I reckon you've found out that she's a regular case."
"Case or not," Dixie broke in, as Henley was smiling and nodding his response, "I'm not through yet. If I don't tell you, you'll be begging for something to eat amongst the neighbors. Your dinner is already cooked and the coffee made. All you'll have to do is to set it on the coals and warm it up. The sugar is right at the coffee-pot, and the cream is in the spring-house to keep it from souring.
"I didn't dare hint to 'em about—about that Carlton fellow," Dixie said, in a confidential tone, as they drove away. She was holding her big hat on to keep it from blowing off in the crisp current of their own making.
"You didn't?" he said, interrogatively, charmed as he had never been before by her propinquity and vivaciousness.
"Not after being sold as bad as I was by letting them know about that other scrape," she laughed, as she glanced at him archly. "Why, they would meet us a mile out on the road to-night—the halt leading the blind—to know every particular. No, I've been burnt once, and I don't want a second coat of blisters."
"You certainly look stunning." Henley allowed his admiring eyes to take her in from head to foot. "You needn't be one bit afraid of what that galoot will say. I tell you I've been about over the country and I know a thing or two."
"Well, I've got my all on my back," she said—"that is, except my wedding outfit. I don't know how I'll ever get my money out of it. I've thought about selling it, but nobody of my size seems to be marrying round here. Even ifthisthing is a go—I mean even if me and Mr. Longdocome to terms—I don't believe I'd feel just right in using it. It would be sort o' like marrying in widow's weeds, wouldn't it?"
They were now passing Farmer Wade's house, on the edge of the village, and they saw Carrie on the veranda-steps with Johnny Cartwright at her side. The couple stood close together, and Henley saw that the boy was holding Carrie's hands and gazing at her ardently. Seeing the passing buggy, Carrie suddenly drew herself back and stared at them curiously. There was no salutation from either side, and Henley drove on, noting that Dixie kept her eyes on the pair till they were out of sight.
"I thought I'd give her a good, straight look," she said, "so she'd see that I wasn't doing anything I am ashamed of. I know that girl through and through, and you mark my words, Alfred, she'll be low enough to throw out hints about me driving with a young, married man like you. The way she's acting with that poor silly boy is disgusting. His poor old mother is so upset she's talking to everybody about it. She is afraid Carrie will actually run off with him, and Carrie will, too, if she gets a good chance—she's just that desperate. It's funny how mean, spiteful folks can make other people the same way. Right now, I'd rather have this Long man come out here and take me to meeting where Carrie could see it than to do a kind deed of any sort."
After this, to Henley's mystification, she did not talk as freely as at the outset, and she seemed to be very thoughtful. As they were driving into the bustling town, she looked at him fixedly and said:
"The papers say the programme don't begin till eleven o'clock. That's the hour set for the first race with the reel-wagons. I was just wondering what we'd better do to kill time till then. I hain't got a thing to buy that you hain't got in your stock at home, and I hain't a person to go in and nose about and have clerks pull down a whole raft of bolts and boxes without paying for the trouble. You see, I reckon it ain't later 'n nine o'clock now, and—"
"Oh, I see," said Henley. "Why, Dixie, I sort o' mapped it out this way. You see, knowing how anxious Long will be to meet you right off, I thought we'd drive straight to his shebang and 'light and hitch. He's got a chair or two in the back-end of his shack, and we could kind o' set about, and when he ain't waiting on customers, why, we—"
"I thought you had more sense than that," Dixie burst out with unexpected warmth. "Youcan go there if you like, but I won't go a step! Huh, I say—Iwouldcut a purty dash, wouldn't I?—setting around amongst chicken-coops, lard-cans, and salt pork for a fool, vain man to look me over and sniff and feel set back because I didn't happen to—to come quite up—shucks! I don't believe any of you men understand women. Huh! but we understandyouall right."
"I'm awfully sorry I made you mad," Henley stammered. "You know, Dixie, I wouldn't say a thing for worlds that would—"
Dixie laughed. "You couldn't make me mad at you to save your life, Alfred. I'm mad at myself, that's all, for starting out on such a silly jaunt. I might have knowed that it would be hard to put this thing throughin any decent shape. I don't care what Long'll say or think. I come over here to this tournament with you, at your invite, and if he shows by a single bat of the eye that he thinks I meant anything else he'll hear something that will ring in his ears till he's put under ground. I reckon the idea never got within a mile of his brain that he may not suitmeat all. Why, I may hate the very sight of him."
"You no doubt will if you keep on looking at the thing that way," said Henley, admiring the very mystery that cloaked her words and manner, and quite convinced that she was wiser, in some vague way, at least, than all the rest of mankind put together. "I only thought that would be the best way to start the ball rolling."
"Well, it won't start at all if I have to tote it to the top of a hill and give it the first kick," Dixie said, firmly. "I'm a big fool. I'll bet you haven't a bit of respect for me. That other racket of mine was enough to brand me as the champion woman idiot of the earth, and this goes that one better. What's the use o' being a fool if you don't learn sense by it?"
"Oh, don't talk that way, Dixie," Henley protested, at the end of his resources. "I thought we was going to have such a fine time, and now you hardly know what you want. If you won't go to his store, then I'll tell you what we could do. The public wagon-yard is the best place to see the tournament from. I could unhitch at the edge of the sidewalk in the shade of the trees, and you'd have a reserved seat through it all."
"That'ssomebetter, anyway," she said, as if relieved. "I come near showing my temper, didn't I? Well, I've got one hid away inside of me, and it kicks up sand sometimes when I'm least expecting it."
Leaving his sprightly charge in the buggy watching the gathering of the festive crowd and listening to the blatant music of the town band from the balcony of the CarltonHouse, Henley, making some excuse about having to mail a letter, hastened round a corner and down to Long's store.
The young man, in his best suit of clothes and with the odor of bay-rum in his smooth, compact hair, and the barber's powder on his razor-scraped face, was busy giving instructions to his chief clerk.
"Don't come to me to ax a single question," Henley overheard him saying. "This isoneday I simply will have off. If there is anything you don't know about, let it lie over—tell 'em I'm on the committee of entertainment, tell 'em any darned thing you want to, but don't bother me. Oh!" He had caught sight of Henley, who stood half hidden by a stack of soap-boxes, and came forward, his face falling. "My Lord, Alf, don't tell me you didn't fetch her in!" he panted. "Good Lord, don't say that!"
Henley grinned and explained the situation, much to the storekeeper's relief.
"It don't railly make any great difference." Long twisted his small mustache under its coat of pomade till the ends looked like facial spikes, and pulled at his white waistcoat. "I had a nigger make a bucket of lemonade with ice in it, and left an order at the hotel for three of the best meals they know how to put up. I supply the shebang with produce, and I stand in with 'em. They would spread themselves for me. I was counting on having us all three eat in my back-room. I wanted to do exactly the right thing, you see, so she'd know at the outset that I understand how to make a woman comfortable, and that I ain't a man to split hairs when it comes to a little outlay."
"The back-room wouldn't suit at all." Henley was already a wiser man than when he left home that morning. "I wouldn't think of asking her or any decent woman to eat in a room where you bunk, or where anybody bunks, for that matter—male or female."
"I'll just countermand that order, then," Long said, "and we'll all go to the hotel. We'll see the fust part of the show from the buggy, and then repair to the big dining-room and have our banquet."
"I think she'd really like that," Henley declared, "but I'm going to give you both the slip and take dinner with Judge Temple's folks. They made me promise to come the next time I was in; besides, I want to give you both full swing on this day of days."
"Right you are," Long rubbed his heavy hands together in delight, "and you may have the worth of your meal in the finest cigars in my shebang. Alf, you are my friend. Let's go down where she's at. To tell you the God's holy truth, man to man, I don't feel half as good as I make out. It wouldn't take the weight of a hair to make me show the white feather. I have a sort of forewarning that I ain't agoing to walk straight into this thing. If she'd 'a' driv' right up to the front, and got out and gone back to the rear and set down and looked about like she was taking stock of my belongings, I'd have knowed how to proceed, but this way of having to walk a plank that she's propped up has made me sorter weak at the knees. How do I look, anyway—honest, I don't want any flattery? If you think I'd look better in my silk plug-hat and long Prince Albert I can whisk 'em on in a jiffy."
"You are just right." Henley charitably viewed the individual from his own point rather than that of the over-critical Dixie. "In hot sun like this to-day your straw hat will look better, and that sack coat fits like a kid glove."
"I sorter thought this would be the thing." Long bent down and for the twentieth time dusted his shoes with his handkerchief. "Now get them cigars." He led the way to a show-case near the front. "Help yourself—them's the genuine Havana fillers in the corner. Take good ones—by George, take the best."
"I won't take but one," Henley said, as he opened the case and reached for a cigar. "I don't like to collect pay in advance; and while I don't want to throw cold water on you, Long, I'm free to confess I don't know exactly how she'll act. I always knowed women was curious, but they are more curious about selecting a mate than everything else combined. When I was talking this meeting up at such a rate, I thought I could count on 'er; but, la me! she's got me so mixed that I don't know whether I'm a Methodist preacher or an escaped convict. But let's go down. I want to see whatyou'llmake of her."
AS the two friends approached the buggy, Dixie, who had seen them, suddenly turned her head in an opposite direction and seemed to be laughing immoderately at the beginning of a barrel-race. To attract her attention Henley cleared his throat and coughed. But whether she heard he never knew. At all events she was heartily amused, as was evidenced by her free laughter and the sparkle of her merry eyes. As it was, Henley reached the buggy and clutched the front wheel and shook it, while, with his left hand, he held Long's arm in a nervous grasp.
"Oh, it's you!" she said, sweeping him with a careless glance and allowing her eyes to be drawn back at once to the racers. "Ain't it fun? You ought to have seen that boy try to climb the greasy pole just now. He put sand all over his pants to make 'em rough, but he could only go so high, and there he stopped, unable to budge a hair's-breadth. He hung to it for a minute, as red as blood in the face, and then begun to slide down as slow as the hour-hand of a clock till he sat flat on the ground."
"I fetched Mr. Long down; you know—you may remember he wanted to meet you," Henley stammered, under a restraint that was new to him. And, as the couple stared at each other, he finished with a gulp—"Mr. Jasper Long, Miss Dixie Hart—Miss Dixie Hart, Mr. Jasper Long."
Dixie was polite and absolutely unruffled, while Longwas one straight flush from head to foot. "Come—come over to see our brag show?" he stuttered, with an untoward jerk of the body, for he had tried to put his foot on the hub of the wheel and missed it. It was a bow so pronounced that Long's hat was dislodged and hurled to the ground. In his shocked sympathy for his friend, Henley was bewildered by noting that Dixie was actually subduing a laugh, her rebellious lips covered with her white-gloved hand. Long secured his hat, drew himself up, and repeated his platitude.
"I thought I would," she said, now gravely studying his face, his hair, his clothing, and his broad, restless hands, on the backs of which rather long hairs lay beaded with perspiration. "Alfred was coming along, and as I have never been to a tournament before, and as he was so set on bringing me, I decided to make the trip. I've heard him speak of you. You are in the bank, ain't you?"
"Why, no, Miss Dixie—" Henley began, but there was a certain warning quality darting from her eyes, now fixed on him, that broke into his puzzled correction, and then he caught the drift of her harmless pretence and obliterated himself with a low grunt of perplexity.
"Why, no, I'mJ. W.Long, of the 'Live and Let Live Grocery,'" the merchant said. "The other feller isL. A.I've had circulars scattered broadcast all over your county. Looks like you'd have seen some of 'em. I believe in lettin' folks know you are alive and in the push. I'm surprised that Alf didn't tell you about me and my business, even if you hain't heard it from others over your way or through the papers."
"There are some Longs that rented land from me a few years ago," Dixie said, evasively. "I wonder if they are akin to you. Seems to me, now I think of it, that you favor 'em some."
"They may be away-off fourth or fifth cousins, I don'treally know." Long looked as if he thought the conversation had taken quite an unprofitable turn. "I never was much of a hand to keep track of far-off kin. Folks is liable to want credit on a score like that, and think they never have to settle."
Then the colloquy languished. Henley was plainly not a success as a manager of delicate situations. What puzzled him beyond any mystery he had ever stumbled on in the intricate make-up of his charming neighbor was her evident cool and detached enjoyment of his and Long's awkwardness. At any rate, he reflected with satisfaction, he could extricate himself from the tangle, and in that, at least, he felt that he had the advantage of Long.
"I see an old fellow over there at that covered wagon that was bantering me for a hoss-trade the other day," he courageously threw into the gap. "I believe I'll go see how he talks now. There will be a sight of hoss-flesh change hands to-day. I understand there's a gypsy camp in the edge o' town, and they are the dickens on a swap."
"Hold on a minute!" Long called out, as Henley was moving off, his hat lifted. "I want to see you."
Henley pulled up a few yards away, behind Dixie's back, and Long joined him.
"Are you going to leave me the bag to hold?" Long asked, in a tone of blended gratification and nervousness.
"I don't see that I'm doing you one bit of good," Henley answered, gravely. "This is your day of grace. If you can't fix things up after what I've done we'll have to call it off. I've done my part. I fetched her here, but I can't make women out, and I don't intend to try. Life is too short. When I get bothered about what a woman's going to do or not do I want to get blind, staving drunk; it always has that effect on me, and you know I'm inclined to sobriety."
"The trouble is, I don't know whether I'm welcome or not," Long declared, grimly. "I have never felt exactly that way before. Do you reckon she'd look with favor on the invite to dinner at the hotel?"
"You bet she will!" Henley was more sure of his ground now. "Cooking and fixing up the table is a woman's joy, and they'll go just to see what hotel fare is like, and, as a rule, they will sample every article that's passed."
"Well, I'll risk it on your judgment, Alf. You've stood by me so far like a man and a brother, and I don't believe you'd set a trap for me to tumble in."
"Not me," answered Henley. "But I was wondering what you think of her looks; men differ in tastes, and—"
"Shucks!" Long sniffed. "You needn't ask me that. That'ud be a fool question for a blind man to ask. Why, Alf, she is the stunningest trick that ever wore shoe-leather. She's so dadblamed purty I can't look her straight in the face. There is some'n in her eyes and the way she sets and bends her neck an' cocks 'er head that makes me feel like one of the chaps in olden times that knelt on a strip of carpet at a queen's throne. But it ain't just her looks and trim shape and nobby little feet—it's the woman herself, by gosh! She looks clean through a feller; what she says goes from her as straight as a gun-shot. Well, I'll hurry back and do the best I can. I'm having a big time, Alf—a big, roaring time."
All the rest of the morning, as he strolled here and there through the merry assemblage, Henley managed to keep the pair in sight. Long kept the same position, his right foot on the hub of the wheel, his face upturned to Dixie's. It was the passing of the local military company and the surging of the spectators forward that gave Long a valuable opportunity, for he got into the buggy and sat beside the girl. Henley could see him lashingthe air over the dashboard with his whip in a most reckless manner.
"The blame fool!" Henley ejaculated. "He's wearing out that whip. I wonder if he thinks I buy the best whalebone for him to court with. She'd like 'im better if he'd set still, anyway, and not be cavorting about like a jumping-jack."
Noon came, and Henley saw the pair alight from the buggy and walk across to the hotel. Thereupon he betook himself to the house of his friends, and had his own dinner. When it was time to start home he went down to the wagon-yard. He found them seated in the buggy, and, to his surprise, he saw nothing in the manner of either to indicate that any sort of understanding had been reached.
"I reckon it's time we was on the way," Henley announced to her, as he shaded his eyes and glanced at the declining sun.
"Yes, it's high time," Dixie answered, crisply. "I was wondering where on earth you was. I'll have to pay for this jaunt, and the sooner I set in to my work at home the better it will be for me."
Long made elaborate excuses to Dixie for absenting himself, and followed Henley to where his horse was hitched.
"Well," said Henley, as he was putting the collar on the animal, "how did you make out?"
"I hardly know, Alf." Long looked very grave. "There is no use saying she is exactly the thing I am looking for, but, as much as I've seen of her to-day, I don't know any more'n a rabbit what my showing is. She ain't a bit like these town-women; youcansorter get at them, for they are on the carpet, and they don't make no beans about it. But this un has a way of making you watch every step you take and every word you speak. I've been in the habit of having women folkslisten to all I say, and laugh hearty now and then, but this un has her eyes on everything that is passing, and seems to me to laugh at the wrong time, when there ain't the slightest call for amusement. I reckon maybe I'd have made more progress if we'd been where thar wasn't so much to attract her attention. I don't know—I'm just guessing. But I'm game to the backbone, Alf, and I'm in the race. You hear me? I'm in to stay."
"That's the way to talk," Henley agreed. "A woman that ain't hard to win ain't worth having. These town-gals are after your money; it is my opinion that this one will have to like you a powerful lot before she gives up her freedom."
"She's as independent as a hog on ice." Long smiled, but not at his simile. "I hardly knowed what to do when we got to the hotel. I thought she was accepting my invite, you see, when, lo and behold, at settling time she drawed out her money and insisted on planking down her part to a fraction of a cent. I argued as strong as I knowed how agin it, but nothing would do her but to pay her way. I feel mean about that, Alf. What wouldyouhave done?"
"Why, it's the part of a gentleman to let a lady have her way inevery single thing," Henley opined. "If she asks you to get her a drink of water, she wants it; and if she asks to pay her bill at a hotel, she wants that; to accuse her of anything else would be prying into her private matters. If she didn't want to eat at your expense the first day she was throwed with you—well, that was her business. I think it is spunky, myself. I reckon you didn't come right out and talk marrying?" Henley ended with a rather anxious look at his friend.
"No, Alf, I was afraid to—I don't know why, but, as much as I wanted to ease my mind on the matter, I just couldn't get it out. It seemed to lodge in my throat; in fact, I was scared half the time. Every time I'd say athing, no matter how little, I'd wonder if it injured my case or not. Alf, I'm a goner—a clean goner. I'll never have a minute's peace till she's mine. It's going to be slow work. I asked her if I couldn't drive out to see her next Sunday, but she wouldn't hear to it. She finally said I could come on the first Sunday of next month to hear a brag preacher that is billed to appear for the first time on that date. It's a dern long time to wait, but she's laid down the law, and I'll have to obey it."
During the drive home Dixie seemed wilfully uncommunicative, and she and Henley were silent most of the way. As they were on the brow of the hill overlooking Chester, however, she drew a deep breath and said: "Well, Alfred, I certainly had a bang-up time. Carrie Wade may make her brags of how she runs things, but I certainly had a rip-roaring time."
"But," ventured Henley, his eyes on the jostling back of his horse, "from what Long intimated—at least from what he hinted—it appears that you and him didn't come to any, that is to say, anypositiveagreement."
The girl laughed heartily, covering her face with both hands, and bent downward.
"You men are so silly, Alfred. You want an important thing like that to be over in a minute, while a woman—a woman naturally would like for it to last. If that fellow could insure me, in some shape or other, that he'd keep acting and talking like he did to-day,after we was married, I'd be more interested than I am. But hot-headed ones like him cool down about as quick as they get het up. As a general thing the marriage altar seems to rest on a big cake of ice, and overheated couples catch colds that make 'em sniff the rest of their lives."
"I've been waiting to hear you say how he—what you thought of Long's looks," stammered the match-maker; "that always seems the main thing in—in a deal o' this sort."
"Well," she chuckled, "I'm better at making rag-dolls than men, but if men-making was my trade I think I could have turned out a better job than Long. Folks say that to be wide betwixt the eyes shows sense. That may be so up to certain limits, but I'm afraid his are entirely too far apart. Why, when you set close to him you can't see both of 'em at the same time; you have to look first at one and then at the other. I tried to get around the trouble by looking at his nose, but that seemed to be crooked and awful flat. I didn't like them long hairs on his hands; his forefathers must have lived in a cold climate."