DICK WRINKLE, travel-stained and covered with dust, a small valise in his hand, trudged down the declivitous footpath of the mountain amid the splendor of late summer leafage and occasional dashes of rhododendron and other wild flowers, the color and scent of which greeted his senses, dulled as they were to the finer things of life, as a subtle something belonging to the past which had been lost and was regained. Now and then he would stop, rest his bag on the ground, and breathe in the crisp air as if it were a palpable substance that was pleasing to his palate. At such moments, when the open spaces between hanging boughs, tangled vines, and trunks of trees would permit, his glance, half doubtful, half confident, would rest on the palatial residence in the valley below, which, at every step, had been growing nearer and nearer.
"Yes, that's the place," he said once, in a certain tone of exultation. "It must be; I've followed the directions to the letter, and there couldn't be two such dandy houses as that round here. And it is hers, in her own right, to boss over and to keep or to sell or to do as we please with."
When he had reached the level ground he found himself in a broad, well-graded road that led straight to the gates of the mansion, and when he was quite near to it he observed on the right-hand side an extensive peach-orchard. It was the gathering season, and in a shedopen at the sides, and containing long, canvas-covered tables, several negro men and women were busy packing the ripe peaches into new crates which were being nailed up by a white man in overalls and a conical straw-hat. The pedestrian leaned against the whitewashed board-fence and scanned the group, seeking a familiar face. But those before him had a strange look. He was wondering if he could be mistaken in the place, after all, when, his glance roving to the nearest row of trees, he saw an aged man emerge with his arms full of peaches, which he took to the nearest negro packer. Dick Wrinkle didn't recognize him under his broad hat and in his fine clothes, but a thrill went through him when he heard him address the servant.
"Put these jim-dandies on top with the yaller side up," he commanded. "They are a lettle mite soft, but they've only got to go over the mountain. They are for the head boss, an' you'd better pack 'em right. He's powerful fond o' good ripe peaches. I've seed 'im eat 'em with the skin on, an', as much as I like 'em, I can't do that. I'd as soon chaw sandpaper."
"It's Pa," the man at the fence said, in a tone of relief. "I'd know his voice amongst a million. He looks younger by ten years than he did. I reckon high living did it. Well, it's my turn at it, an' it won't be long 'fore I set in. I may have trouble at the start, but I'll weather the storm. I know who I'm dealing with. I didn't live with 'er as long as I did without learning a few things."
Dropping his bag over the fence, he climbed over after it. He stood for a moment, hesitatingly, and then, taking out his pocket-handkerchief, he flicked the dust off his coat and trousers and new shoes. He was well and rather tastily attired. He was shaved, and his scant hair showed that it had been brushed. He wore a heavy gold chain, which had a prosperous look stretching acrosshis black waistcoat. The old man had turned back toward the trees, and, without being noticed by the active packers, his son followed him, bag in hand. Old Jason, his eyes raised in searching for the choicest fruit among the low branches of the trees, did not see his son till he was close behind him.
"Now, Pa," Dick Wrinkle began, calmly enough, "don't jump out o' your hide. Reports to the contrary, I'm alive and kicking."
Turning at the sound of the familiar voice, the old man started, an exclamation, half of fear, half of gratified wonder, escaping his lips. He stared fixedly, and his mouth fell open, exposing his quid of tobacco. The peaches in his hands rolled to the ground, and, utterly bewildered, he stooped as if to pick them up, but paused and stared again. "Lord, have mercy!" he cried. "Lord, have mercy, who'd have dreamt it—you back—you—you here! Why, we all heard—we all 'lowed—we all was plumb sure you was—"
"I know. Never mind about that," the younger said, with a shrug meant to shake off the topic. "Where's Ma, and—and Hettie?"
"Your Ma?—your Ma? Why, she's down at the spring-house watchin' 'em try a new-fangled churn, or—or was a few minutes ago. Why, Dick, we all thought you was—was—"
"Oh, I know, but where is Hettie?"
"Hettie? Oh, my Lord! Why, Dick, boy, hain't you heard a thing?"
"I've heard a sight more 'n I want to hear or will again," Dick Wrinkle said, with lowering brows and a voice which seemed to bury itself in a mass of inner threats as to dire approaching events. "I've come to propose a—a settlement, without blood if it can be arranged; if not, we kin spill plenty of it in the up-to-date Western style. I've been away, and was detainedlonger 'n I expected by circumstances over which I had no control, and in my absence, I'm told, my household—an', by gosh, my honor!—has been stained. I'm not out looking for trouble, but trouble may throw itself in my way. I'm prepared to do an outraged man's part. I've got a medium-sized gun in my hip-pocket and a young cannon in this valise."
"Oh, Dick, Dick, we mustn't have blood spilt, for all we do!" Old Jason's display of actual concern was the first ever wrung from him. "Besides, the law—the law must be considered."
"Oh, I'm willing to consider the law," Dick said. "I'll do a lot o' things if I'm not made any madder 'n I am right now. I'm glad to git back, an' I don't want to be mad. I'll do as much toward keepin' peace as any other man. There ain't anything so awfully unheard of in what happened to me. Fellers has been off from home before, an' the whole world wasn't plumb upset by it."
"But they didn't rise from the dead," old Jason submitted, argumentatively. "How on earth did you manage to do it? I mean—"
The son's glance for the first time wavered. He looked toward the towering mountain as if for moral sustenance. His lips mutely moved as if he were conning a lesson he was learning by rote, and then, seeing the question still in his father's blearing eyes, he began:
"I met with trouble, Pa—I reckon some would style it an accident. When that big tornado struck the country out there and so many was blowed to smithereens and never had even the pieces of 'em put together again—I say, Pa, when all that happened I was struck in the back of the head by a rock or a beam or a plank—I never knew exactly which—and never got my right senses back for a long, long time afterward. In fact, I didn't even know my own name or even recall you andMa, or my old home back here. I say, it was all a plumb blank till—till—"
"I know, till you heard about Hettie and—and—but go on. I'm a listenin'."
"Well, there ain't much to tell." Dick Wrinkle was perspiring freely. He took off his hat and wiped his red neck and bald pate with an impatient hand. "Being hit that way, you see, was the last thing I remembered. Folks say I must have wandered about over the plains like a wild animal that didn't know how to do a thing but eat and drink what I could run across. Some cowboys tuck me up and l'arned me to cook, and I followed that for a long time. Then, t'other day, they put me on the back of a bucking bronco, just for the fun o' the thing. I stayed on as long as I could, but he finally flung me over on my head. That fetched me to. The whole thing come back like a flash. Several years had slipped by, but when I come to my right mind I thought that same storm was raging. I refused to believe so much time had passed till a cowboy showed me the date on a newspaper, and that plumb floored me."
"You don't say!" Old Wrinkle stroked his beard thoughtfully and, in paternal sympathy, avoided his son's anxious eyes. "Well, well, that was all-powerful curious, but—but I've read of sech things, and maybe Hettie has, too; if she hain't, I'll try to show her that—I mean—but I reckon I'd better trot over to the spring-house and kinder lead your Ma up to it, and not have it sprung too suddenlike. She ain't one o' your weak sort that flops down at the slightest report of good or bad luck, but we'd better be on the safe side. I'll tell yore Ma, I say, an' then I'll go up to the big house an see if I can do anything with Hettie."
"Well, maybe you'd better," Dick Wrinkle agreed, slowly, "and I reckon you'd better give her a full accounto' how it all happened. I don't want to be eternally going over it. I've had enough of it myself."
"You mean about—yore crazy spell?" The old man stared inquiringly.
"Yes, about all that. I've told you—I've done give you full particulars. You know as much about it as I do. A man out of his right senses don't remember anything worth while, nohow."
"Well, I hope I'll git it straight, an' not backside foremost. It would be funny if I begun it whar the bronco throwed you and ended up in the tornado. Het will have to be worked fine, Dick. She sorter feels 'er oats now. She always did hold 'er head in the air, but it's higher now since she got rich. She mought take a fool notion that the bronco throwed you powerful soon after her change o' luck."
"I don't want 'er dern money!" Dick Wrinkle snarled, his glance shifting unsteadily. "I don't needanybody'scash. I've got a thousand dollars in my pocket now."
"You say you have?" The eyes under the bushy gray brows fluttered thoughtfully. "Well, if I was you, I believe, Dick, that I'd not haul it out an' make a show of it. You see—well, you see, it's like this: Het's a thinkin' woman, an' sorter keen-eyed at times, when she wants to be, an' lookin' at a wad like that mought—I don't say, itwould—but it mought, bein' a sort o' money-maker herself, it mought set her to wonderin' how a feller clean out o' his senses could accumulate so much cash in times as hard as these. If crazy fellers kin load up like that out thar, men of brains could walk clean off with the State."
Dick Wrinkle started slightly and let his glance trail along the ground, in several directions before lifting it again to the would-be helpful countenance before him.
"I made itafter I got my senses back," he said, finally, and rather doggedly.
"Well, I don't believe I'd let that out,nuther," said old Wrinkle, in a tone that was meant to be kindness itself. "You see, Dick, the bronco throwed you just t'other day, an' a thing like that is liable to git you all balled up. A woman like Het mought ax a heap o' fool questions, an' you hain't had yore right mind back long enough to go into a game like that yet awhile."
"Oh, I don't give a damn, one way or another!" the younger snorted. "It ain't any o' her business, nohow where I was nor how long I was gone. She's my wife, I ain't the fust man that ever went away for a spell and then come home."
"I was jest wonderin'," the old man said, soothingly, "if yore old high-an'-mighty way wouldn't be best, Dick. All the tornado an' buckin'-bronco business may be a waste of talk. Het tuck to you in the fust place beca'se you sorter held a tight rein over 'er, an', if I'm any judge, Alf Henley, with all his easy ways an' indulgence, hain't driv' her over any smooth road. I've heard it said that a woman will kitten to a man that beats 'er quicker 'n she'll kitten to one that kittens to her; an', if you set in on this fine place with a bowed head, you'll be duckin' at every turn."
"Well, you go on an' tell her I've got home," was the request of the son. "Tell 'er I want to see 'er, too, an' that right off. You may tell 'er I'm loaded for bear—that I've heard about the way she's been going on with Alf Henley behind my back, an' that a day of reckoning has arrived. It's been delayed, but it's here."
"All right," old Wrinkle said, gravely, "that's the best way. You are comin' to yore senses, Dick. It wouldn't be natural for you to let a fine place an' a little money scare the life out of you. It's lucky Alf ain't here. I don't think he'll give you any trouble, though. Some thought Het's good luck would spoil 'im, but, if I'm any judge, he seems sorter 'shamed about it. He hain't beenhere but once, an' then acted like a fish out o' water. He's a money-maker, an' too live a chap to want to put on a dead man's shoes. You've come in good time, an' if Het will let you stay you'll be in clover the rest o' yore days. Between you an' Alf I naturally favoryou, of course. Me 'n yore Ma felt all right here, but wedidhave a shaky sort o' claim, you'll admit, bein' akin to the fountain-head in sech a roundabout way, an' with Alf Henley's name in the pot, too. Well, I'll be goin'. Watch the back porch, an' if you see me wave my hat up and down, this way, you come right on. If I was to wave it to one side, like this—but never mind; we'll do the best we kin."
"All right," agreed Dick. "I'll go pick me some ripe peaches. The very sight of 'em makes my mouth water."
ONE clear, warm evening three days later, on his return to his lonely house, Henley went into the kitchen and prepared his simple meal, and, after eating it, he went to his room to get his pipe and tobacco for a smoke. He had no sooner entered the room than he noticed that it had undergone a change. Some one had taken the white lace curtains from his wife's room and put them up over his windows. Pictures in frames which had been ill-placed in the parlor now hung by his bed and over the mantelpiece. A neat-colored rug from Mrs. Henley's room ornamented the floor, and on it stood a table from the hall, holding the family Bible, an album of photographs, some other books from the parlor, and a vase containing fresh roses. The open fireplace was filled with evergreens, and the rough, brick hearth had been whitewashed, the lime giving out a cool, pungent odor.
"She done it!" he exclaimed. "Nobody else would have thought of it." And he sat down in a rocking-chair, in which some cushions had been placed, and, not wishing to contaminate his surroundings by smoke, he leaned back and enjoyed it as he had enjoyed few things in his life. "Yes, she done it," he kept saying. "She slipped over here, busy as she is at home, and done it just to please me. She is a sweet, good, noble girl."
As the dusk came on he went outdoors, lighted his pipe, and strolled down to the gate. Leaning on it, he lookedtoward the mountains, which were rapidly receding into the night. How majestic and glorious it all seemed! How soothing to his sore spirit was the gift which had been so delicately bestowed and which nothing should ever take from him! He wouldn't have admitted to himself that he was there at the gate because it was the hour at which Dixie drove her cow up from the pasture across the way, but he was there with his glance on the pasture-gate. He saw her coming presently, and went to meet her. Her color rose as she recognized him above the back of the waddling cow, and she assayed a mien of casual indifference as she returned his smile.
"I have to tell you," he began, as he turned and suited his step to hers, "how tickled I am over the way you fixed up my room. I'm certainly much obliged to you. It's a different place altogether."
"I'm glad you didn't scold me for the liberty I took," she said. "I saw your front-door wide open, and—and, well, I just couldn't help it. I never saw such a mess in all my life. It made me sick to look at it. I simply had to clean it up. Oh, Alfred, you are just a big baby, and it's a pity to see you left this way."
"And to think that you done it!" Henley said. "With them little hands, and—and for a big, hulking chap like me."
"Oh, it was fun," she answered. "Joe was with me; he whitewashed the hearth and cut the pine-tops for the chimney. He'd have moved every stick of furniture out of the parlor if I'd 'a' let him."
"I kept bachelor's hall for years," Henley said, "but I never once thought of fixing up the room I occupied. I can see now how much difference it makes. La me, Dixie, I could set there by the hour and just—just enjoy it, knowing that you—"
"Don't talk about it any more," she interrupted, with a wistful, upward glance. "It makes me feel sad tothink that after all you've done for other folks you should make so much over what you ought to have by rights. I actually cried the other night. I was driving the cow 'long here and saw you through the window in the kitchen cooking your supper. A woman's heart is tender toward children and to a man that she—to a man that is plumb helpless and bungling about over things he has no business to fool with. Alfred, your frying-pan had a sediment of eggs, meat, grease, and pure dirt on the bottom as hard as the iron itself. I had to chop it out with a hatchet. Your coffee-kettle was full to the spout with old grounds, and you left a ham of meat lying flat on the floor, and the flour-barrel was open for the hens to nest in."
"So you was there, too," said Henley. "I thought Pomp done it."
"Pomp? He's a man, if he is black," the girl sniffed. "He wouldn't have thought anything was wrong if he'd found the house-cat sleeping in the bread-tray. No, you've got to be attended to some way or other. I don't know how, but it's got to be done."
"I'll make it all right," Henley declared. "I'm used to knocking about."
Dixie shook her head. They had reached his gate, and she paused, allowing the cow to trudge on homeward. "You may not know it, Alfred," she said, "but you are changed. You look restless and unsettled. You made one of your best trades the other day in buying them mules, but you haven't been to see 'em once since you turned 'em in the pasture. It ain't like you. You used to be so full of fun. This money your wife has come into has upset you. You don't feel exactly right about it."
"I'll admit it," he said, softly. "I want her to get all she can out of the good things of this world; but, somehow, that knocked me out—clean out. I've made myown way in this life, and I want to keep doing it. Men come to me every day and wish me joy in another man's death. I get mad enough to slap 'em in the mouth. One fool said it was silly of me to keep working when I had such a soft bed to lie on."
"I knew you'd feel that way," Dixie said, her eyes full of sympathetic tenderness. "I was just thinking to-day of how many trials we've been through together. I've helped you a little, maybe, and you've been my mainstay. There is only one thing I'm plumb ashamed of, Alfred, and when I think of it I get hot enough to singe my hair."
"What was that?" he asked in surprise.
"You remember—the time I engaged myself to a man I had never laid my eyes on." And Henley saw that she was blushing. "I'd give my right arm, and do my work with my left, to wipe that off my slate forever."
"Don't bother about that." He tried to comfort her. "You only come nigh making the mistake I actually tumbled into. You ought to be thankful you escaped the consequences that I had to shoulder. I didn't know Hettie, and the only true love is the sort that comes from a deep knowledge of a person's character. You see, I know you, little girl, through and through. I've seen you in trouble and in joy, and found you all there—true blue, the sweetest woman God ever made. If I'm out o' sorts here lately it is because I can't keep from seeing what an awful, life-long mistake I made. It is seeing the thing you'd die to have, but which is out of your reach, that makes you see how empty the whole world is."
"Don't say any more." Dixie impulsively touched his arm and then drew her hand away. "I could listen to you talk that way all night, but I must do my duty to you and me both. Talking of what we've lost won't bring us any nearer to it. As for me, well—I'm a sighthappier than I was before she went off. I don't exactly know why, but I am. Every night before I go to bed I tuck away my two old folks, and then hear little Joe say his lessons and his prayers, and then I go out in the yard and look at your light gleaming and twinkling through the vines about your window. Then my heart gets full of a feeling so sweet and soothing that when I look above the whole starry sky seems to shower down comfort and blessings. Then I thank God, Alfred—not for giving you to me like other women get their partners for life, but for giving me a love that can't die as long as the universe stands."
He saw her breast heave with emotion. He tried to find his voice, but it seemed to have sunken too deep within his throat for utterance. The vague form of a horse and rider appeared outlined against the horizon down the road. She was moving away, but he touched her arm and detained her.
"Wait till he passes," he said. "Don't go yet—not just yet!"
"I ought not to be here talking to you after dark," she mildly protested. There was a pause, during which the eyes of both were on the horseman. "Why," she cried, "it is Mr. Wrinkle!"
And so it was. The old man reined in his sweating mount, and, throwing a stiff leg over the animal's rump, he stood down beside them.
"Howdy do?" he greeted them. "I've just started to yore house, Alf. I'm totin' a big piece o' news. I'm late. I had to stop an' tell it to a hundred, at least, on the way. You mought guess all day and all night an' never once hit it. Alf, we've had an increase in the family—but hold on, hold on! it hain't that—it hain't another one o' my baby jokes. I know better 'n to try a second dose on you out o' the same bottle. Alf, Dick Wrinkle hain't dead."
"Not dead?" Henley and Dixie repeated the words in the same breath as they tensely leaned forward.
"No, an' that ain't the only thing to be reckoned with. He's over at home now, stouter and in better trim than he ever was in his life. He appeared to me in the orchard whar we was packin' peaches, an' I was plumb flabbergasted. It seems that he would have reported sooner if he had been fully at hisself. He wasn't actually killed in that tornado, but blowed off somers an' got a hit in the skull and was fixed so that his remembrance played tricks on him. At one time he imagined he was a cook for some cowboys, and a lot more fool antics. He would have been that way yet—I mean in his crazy fix—but he says a pony throwed 'im an' it all come back. You'll have to get him to tell you about it. I've got it all mixed up."
Henley's wide-staring eyes sought Dixie's face. She was pale, still, and mute.
"Well, I've got to be going," she said, in a quavering voice to old Jason. "I haven't had a chance, Mr. Wrinkle, to ask you how Mrs. Henley likes it over there. I hope your wife is well. They say the water is freestone on that side of the mountain, and that is better for the health than our hard limestone. You must tell them both that we all miss them every day."
"Hold on! hold on!" Wrinkle said. "You'd better hear the straight o' this thing. You'll wish you did, for folks will have it all lopsided by to-morrow, an' I'll give you dead cold facts."
"But I've got my cow to milk," Dixie faltered, her color coming back, "and it's growing late."
"I was going to tell you how Het tuck it," Wrinkle ran on, and there was nothing for the girl to do but remain. "Dick told me to go on up to the big house an' hand in his report in as fair shape as I could, an' I sent his mammy, who was havin' ten fits a minute, to him, andwent up to Het's room, whar she lies down at that time o' the day. She's as tough as rawhide, you know, an' I wasn't afraid she'd keel over, so while she was frownin' at me like she thought I ought not to have butted in on her privacy that way, I up an' told her the news. Well, sir, it plumb floored her. You kin well imagine it would take a big thing to down Het, but that did. She set up on the edge o' the bed, makin' wild stabs with 'er feet at 'er slippers, and lookin' wall-eyed an' scared.
"'Pa,' says she, 'this is one o' yore jokes.'
"'Joke a dog's hind-foot!' says I. 'If you think it's a joke you jest step to that thar window an' look down at the peach-packin' shed.'
"Well, sir, you don't have to tell a woman twice how to verify an important report. She riz like she was on springs, an' thumped across the room in her stockin'-feet, an' looked out o' the window, with me right in her wake. An' thar, as plain as a sheep in the middle of a stream, stood Dick a-pealin' an' eatin' the peaches his mammy was fetchin' him. An' now comes the part that may not suit you, Alf, one bit; but I've come to fetch the whole truth an' nothin' but the truth. In consideration of what Het has fell heir to, an' one thing an' another, it may not be good news to you to hear that, instead o' lookin' sorry, Het actually chuckled an' reddened up like a gal in her teens.
"'It's him!' she said. 'Thank God, it's Dick—it's Dick!'
"I couldn't pull 'er away from the window. She jest leaned agin the sash an' stared, an' rubbed 'er hands together, an' went on like she was gettin' religion. Then I set in, as well as I knowed how, to tell 'er about Dick's mishap, but she waved her hand backward-like, an' stopped me. 'Leave all that out,' she said, sorter impatient, as if she couldn't think of but one thingat a time. 'You needn't tell about that—he's alive, that's enough—Dick's alive!' And, would you believe it, folks? She flopped herself down in a chair an' cried and tuck on at a great rate. It upset me so that I give up the whole dang business. I went down an' told Dick he'd better go attend to 'er. He axed me how the crazy spell went down, an' I told 'im I didn't think she'd even heard it, or ever would, for that matter. Women seem to scent a thing from far off that they don't want to believe, an' close every pore of their bodies an' eyes an' ears so it can't get in."
"Well, what was the final upshot of it all?" Henley was quite calm, though a great new light was flaring in his eyes as they rested on Dixie, who was looking off in the direction of the mountain, her little hands grasping the palings of the fence, her tense body thrown slightly backward.
"Dick's my own son," Wrinkle made answer, "but I got out o' all patience with him. He ought to 'a' let well enough alone, bein' as Het was willin' to let bygones be bygones. But not him. As me 'n him walked up to the house, an' he looked over them broad acres on all sides, an' as we went in at that fine door, he seemed to get back to his old self—an' that is one thing that sorter makes me believe a little in the crazy spell, for he looked like a man that had just waked up from a long nap, shore enough. He was the maddest chap I ever laid eyes on as he went up them steps to her private quarters. I followed. I wasn't wanted, I reckon, but I had to see the thing through. She come up to him, Het did, all wet from head to foot with tears, and tried to throw 'er arms around his neck, but he shoved 'er off, he did, an' begun the awfulest rip-rantin' jowerin' you ever heard, about the scan'lous way she'd carried on with you while he was off. He didn't say nothin' about his spell—he had no apologies to make. Accordin' to his way o' lookin' atit, she'd blackened the white purity of his home while his back was turned, an' nothing but blood, an' whole gurglin' streams of it, would suit him. Well, they had it nip and tuck for fully an hour, an' then they come to an agreement. They was to drive over to Carlton the next day and ax Judge Fisk if Het had disgraced 'erself past recall; and so we hit the road bright an' early. The judge was mighty nice. He said a big mistake had evidently been made, but it was one that the law could rectify if Het 'u'd just grease its wheels properly. He said he'd quit settin' on the bench hisse'f—bein' beat by the Prohibitionists in the last election—an' had gone back to practise at the bar, an' would gladly take the case in hand. He saw plainly, he said, that it was Het's duty, havin' come into sech a big estate as that, to clear her record all she could, even if itdidcost her considerable outlay, first an' last. He summed the whole thing up as calm, an' bent over with his pencil in his hand, an' peepin' above his specs, just like he was deliverin' a charge to a jury in a murder case. It was for Het to weigh the evidence pro and con, an' consider, an' deliberate, an' make her final choice betwixt the two claimants she had got tangled up with. He didn't know, he went on to say—an', of course, he must have suspicioned that she'd already made up her mind, bein' as she had fetched Dick along an' left you out in the wet—he didn't know, he said, but what jestice sorter leaned to the prior claimant, possession bein' nine parts of the law, an' Dick bein' incapacitated an' rendered null an' void fer the time involved. As to the crazy spell Dick had, he gave it as his opinion that such things had been heard of often. He'd 'a' made a good doctor, that judge would; he said the brain was the finest constructed part of the human an—an—anatomy—that's it,—anatomy. He said it was made up of a bunch of fibres an' strings as thin as spider-webs, an' that an expertwith the saw an' knife could open a man's skull an' tickle the ends of 'em an' make the patient cut a different caper for every nerve he touched. He said that's why human nature was so varied. He said, with all fees paid, that Het could suit her own tastes an' inclination. He said that she could claim that Dick's quar condition an' his disinclination to furnish a support equal to her reasonable demands justified her in callin' the fust deal off; or, on t'other hand, that she could regyard it as the only obligation to which she was bound by law or religion, an' that he would set about—after the fee was paid in cash, or by check on any good, reliable bank, or even by a solid, negotiable note—he would set about to have the second weddin' set aside, and an-an—"
"Annulled," Henley threw into the gap.
"Yes, that's it—annulled," Wrinkle echoed. "An' he advised her to have it docketed for next week's special term o' court, and that he'd promise to rush it through without hitch or bobble. Dick seemed better satisfied after they left the judge, an' they driv' back home without any more wranglin'. Dick has bought him some new fishin'-tackle, an' is off to the river to-day. He has a natural pride in the big plantation, and rid all over it this mornin'. He says he has some new ideas that he picked up in the West—before he had his spell, I reckon—which he intends to apply there."
"Well, I really must hurry on," Dixie said, turning away. "Give my love to your wife and to Mrs.—to your daughter-in-law. Good-night."
The two men saw her hastening away in the thickening shadows. There was a vast throbbing within Henley's breast. The whole firmament above seemed to be shimmering with a subtle, spiritual light. He laid his hand almost affectionately on the old man's shoulder and beamed down into his eyes.
"It is all for the best," he said. "I had no right to Dick's place. I found that out long ago."
"Thar's one thing I don't like about it." Wrinkle was thoughtful, and a rare mood it was for him. "I was thinkin' about it ridin' over here. Alf, I don't like to give you up. As God is my holy judge, I like you—I like you plumb down to the ground. You are a man an' a gentleman."
"Thank you." Henley's voice rang with a triumph he strove hard to suppress. "Come in and put up your hoss and stay all night. I'll cook you some supper and you can sleep in your bed, like old times."
"Much obliged all the same, Alf, but I reckon I can't. Het an' Dick both laid down the law on that particular point. He's throwed that at 'er several times already—I mean about lettin' you support me an' his Ma. Seems like that sorter hurts his pride. He's threatened several times to come over here an' instigate a civil war, but he won't do it right away. He knows what a temper you got, an' I reckon he don't like the idea o' that big tombstone already marked in Welborne's new graveyard. No, I can't put up with you to-night. Het give me a five-dollar William to defray expenses at the hotel, an' I sorter like the idea o' makin' a splurge for a change. I'll make 'em give me the best drummer's quarters, an' I'll order just what I want to eat."
Henley watched him remount and ride away, his legs swinging back and forth against the flanks of the animal. He heard little Joe calling to Dixie from the kitchen-door, and from the cow-lot her clear answering "Whooee!" which came again in a softer echo from the nearest hill.
"I wonder what she is thinking?" he mused, the hot blood from his surcharged heart tingling through his entire body. "I'd go to her now, but she'd not like it. She wouldn't look at me while the old man was talking. The sweet little thing is scared—she don't know what at, but she's scared."
ALTHOUGH Henley, now grown oddly timid himself, made several efforts within the next week to catch sight of Dixie, he failed signally. He began by haunting the cow-lot at milking-time, but she did not come as usual. From the front porch one evening he observed something that explained this to him. It was the sight of little Joe driving the cow up to the house instead of into the lot.
"She's milking up there to keep from meeting me," Henley said, his heart growing heavy. "Maybe, after all, I've been hoping too much. Maybe she sorter thought she'd like me well enough when I was bound to another, like I was, but now she sees it different. Folks is likely to think twice in a matter like this, for I mean business, an' she knows it. My God, I may lose 'er—actually lose 'er, after all!"
For the next week Henley really suffered; the gravest doubts had beset him; as close as Dixie had been to him, she now seemed farther away than ever. He was constantly wavering between the hungry impulse to go directly to her and the abiding fear that such an intrusion might offend her beyond pardon.
One day, however, he felt that he could stand his suspense no longer. It was the day his lawyer at Carlton had written him that he was a free man. Surely, he argued, he would have the right to inform her of such an important fact, after all that had passed between them,simply as a friend, if nothing more. He left the store early in the afternoon, and on his way home, and with a chill of doubt on him, he stopped at Dixie's cottage.
Mrs. Hart was seated behind the vines on the little box-like porch, and she rose at the click of the gate-latch and stood peering at him under her thin hand.
"Oh, it's you, Alfred!" she cried, in pleased surprise. "I was just wondering what had become of you. Did you want to see Dixie?"
"Yes, I thought I'd ask if she was about the house," Henley made reply, in a jerky sort of fashion. "There is a little matter I wanted to speak to her about."
"So the poor child is right, after all," the old woman sighed. "Well, I reckon you must protect your own interests, Alfred, let the burden fall where it may. She's done 'er best to pay out, an' if she can't do it, why, she'll have to give in, that's all. She's undertaken too much, anyway."
"I don't understand, Mrs. Hart." Henley was unable to follow her drift, and, with his hat in hand and a puzzled expression on his face, he stood silent.
"Why, for the last week, Alfred, Dixie hain't done a thing but fret and worry about the money she owes you," Mrs. Hart explained, plaintively. "Why, when you advanced the money to get her out of old Welborne's clutch she was so happy she sung day and night, and me and her Aunt Mandy thought the worst was over, because—well, because you seemed so kind and friendly that we felt like you would not push her, that you'd give her plenty o' time to make the payments. But now that her cotton fell short of her expectations and the overflow killed half her potato-crop she's all upset. She didn't say, in so many words, that you was going to sue for your rights, but we couldn't, to save us, see what she was so upset for, if you hadn't, at least, hinted about it. My sister thought that maybe—that maybe, now that yourwife's big fortune had gone off in an unexpected direction, that you was obliged to raise money to make good some investments that you made while you was counting on things remaining the same. We couldn't talk it over with Dixie, because she'd get out of patience every time we'd bring it up."
"You are quite mistaken, Mrs. Hart," Henley said, his face aglow from a new light on the situation. "I don't want to collect any money from Dixie. She can keep it as long as she wants it. If she thinks I want that money, she is away off from the facts. Is she about the house?"
"No, she ain't," Mrs. Hart fairly gasped in relief. "Her and Joe went down to the creek to fish. They are at the first bend; you can see the spot from the gate. So that was a mistake! Well, I certainly am glad. I reckon she just imagined it. She's acted funny for the last week, anyway—sometimes just as happy and jolly as you please, and then bringing up this money question—sayin' that she couldn't bear to be in debt, and the like. She said if she could just sell the farm for anything near its worth she'd do it and pay all she owes."
"She could easily sell it," Henley said, "but she won't have to do it to pay me. I'll go down there, I believe, and see if they are having any luck."
He walked away slowly, for the burden of doubt as to his chances was still on him. From the bend of the road he looked across the level pasture and hay-land to the green line of willows and canebrake that marked the course of the stream. At first he saw nothing but his grazing horses and mules, some of Dixie's sheep and lambs, and then he descried a purplish blur against the living green, and recognized it as the girl's sunbonnet, the back part of which was turned toward him. Across the uneven ground, his feet retarded by creeping earth-vines and furrows where grain had grown and ripened,he strode, his doubt and awkwardness increasing with every step.
She saw him as he was nearing the grass-covered bank upon which she sat, an open book in her lap. It was quite clear to him that she, too, was embarrassed, for a violent color rose in her cheeks, and her glance deliberately avoided his. She called out quite distinctly and irrelevantly to Joe, who sat on a log which jutted out into the stream, telling him to be careful and not fall in. Henley saw the boy shrug his shoulders and heard him laugh contemptuously, as he whipped his rod and line into the stream and reseated himself, his bare feet sinking into the cooling water. "Why, it ain't up to my waist," he said. "I could wade across."
"No, he's safe enough," Henley heard his coarse voice saying, as he stood over her and looked down on her expressionless bonnet.
She looked up and pushed her bonnet back farther so that a wisp of her beautiful hair was exposed to the sunlight against the shell-like pinkness of her neck. "He hasn't caught a thing," she said; "but he's had some bites that was just as much fun."
"I'm sorter tired," he ventured. "I've been on my feet all day, running first one place and another. This is your picnic, and you are the boss. I wonder if you'd care if I set down a minute."
"It may be my picnic, but it happens to be your ground," she laughed. "There's a sign up at the fence that no trespassing is allowed, but me and Joe neither one can read, and so we came right in and helped ourselves."
He lowered himself to the grass at her feet, glad that he had it, and yet almost afraid of the full view he now had of her face when he dared to look directly at her. He leaned forward and began to pluck blades of grass and twist them nervously in his fingers.
"You are powerful good to that boy," he said, after a silence through which several kinds of thoughts percolated. "His own mammy couldn't treat him better."
"I don't know whether I'm spoiling him or not." He detected a slight quavering in her voice which was not exactly that of her usual composure. "Some folks say I am. I know I can't bear to have him work hard, although he is plumb well now. He had such a hard time under Sam Pitman that, somehow, I want him to have a good, long vacation. Alfred—" She raised her hand to her lips impulsively, colored vexatiously, and then with a shrug, as if the familiar use of his name were a matter that could not be remedied, she continued; "I started to say that it makes me awful sad to think of the slavery that child went through, short as it was. It might have made a scoundrel of him, in the long-run, for he was getting hardened."
"And now he's just the reverse." Henley meant it as a tribute to her, and it was as bold a compliment as he would have dared to pay her in the dense anxiety through which he was groping. "He's a manly little chap, and is sure to come out on top. I've been studying over it"—Henley was growing a trifle bolder—his eyes met hers—"and I've wondered if you'd get jealous if I said that I want to do something substantial for him. He'll need good schooling, you know, and a lot o' things to start 'im out fairly."
"You? Why, Al—why, surely you don't mean it—you don't meanthat."
"Why, why not, Dixie—Miss Dixie?" he corrected, as his warm, anxious gaze rested on her lowered lids, for she was turning the pages of the arithmetic in her lap. "You see, I'm not exactly a poor man; the Lord has been powerful good to me, and—and you see, now I'm all alone in the world. I—I got news to-day about—about, well,I'm a free man now, with no responsibilities on me, and—well, you see how it is."
"I don't know what to say about it—about Joe." She lowered her head over the book. "It would be wrong for me to stand in his way, and I won't. He was helpless on the world when I took him, and he is yet, for I'm over head and ears in debt. I thought I could do wonders by buying land on a credit, but I'm as near a bankrupt as could be possible. I'd be down and out now if others got what was coming to them. As proud as I am, and as hard as I've worked, I'm right now living on charity."
"Shucks! Don't be silly, Dixie!" burst from Henley's lips with considerable warmth. "You sha'n't set here and talk such foolishness; you've done more than thousands o' men could have done. You are a plumb wonder."
"All you say don't alter facts," Dixie sighed. "I know that I've got a big debt to pay, and it's got to be paid by fair means or foul. Let's talk about something else. I've been setting here an hour trying to work this example for Joe. It looks as easy as two and two make four, but it ain't; it's simply terrible. Listen: 'Sixty is two-thirds of what number?'"
"Let me see." And Henley crawled to her aide till he could see, as he rested on his elbow, the page and the lines at which her finger pointed. "That's easy enough, I reckon. 'Sixty is two-thirds of what number?' Why, it's—" His eyes became fixed in vacancy, as he gazed at the blue sky above the tree-tops, and then at the ground. "Why, it's a fool thing—it must be a misprint. You often find mistakes like that in school-books. I know my teacher used to write the correct thing on the edge of the page."
"No, I reckon it's all right," Dixie argued. "It's a funny thing, for every minute I seem to be on the point of catching it, and then it slips away. You see, it hasbeen so long since I went to school that I can't remember how such sums are done."
"Well, I can work any sort o' example that I have use for in my business," Henley defended himself as well as he could, "but the Lord knows I never had any use for a—a thing as silly as that is on the very face of it. Huh, I say—'Sixty is two-thirds of what number?' Why, the fool don't even give the number he asks you to divide. How can you divide a thing that hain't been seen, measured, or weighed? It is as silly as asking how many inches long is two-thirds of a piece of string, or how many bushels of wheat in two-thirds of a barn that's twice as big as four-fifths of one that never was built."
Dixie laughed heartily. "It does seem that way, don't it? But, after all, you do know that sixty must be two-thirds ofsomenumber, for every number is two-thirds of something, ain't it?"
"By gum, yes!" he exclaimed, with a start. "You are sure right. Ah, I see now. By gosh, I've got it! No, it's gone already." He had reached for her pencil and paper, but his hand fell idly on his knee. "Good gracious! Some'n is dead wrong with me."
"I think it can be done," Dixie declared, her brow furrowed. "You see, since sixty must be two-thirds of some number, I'm picking different numbers and dividing by three and multiplying by two. The last trial I made was one hundred, and I got sixty-six and two-thirds for the answer. You see, that ain't so powerful far off."
"I see, I see," Henley cried, eagerly. "Now, what you want to do is to keep getting lower and lower till you hit the nail on the head. I reckon it's one o' them sums just got up to make the sprouting intellect hop and skip about for practice. Suppose you try ninety-nine next? It's better to go slow, and be sure, than to have to go back. Le'me see: three into nine, three times and nothing tocarry; three into nine again—there, you've got thirty-three, and twice thirty-three are sixty-six. See, we are still closer to the mark, for we have already wiped off the two-thirds."
"We are warm!" Dixie cried, with the laugh of a child playing a game. "Now let's try ninety-six."
Henley made a rapid calculation. "Sixty-four!" he cried out, gleefully. "We are closer. Now let's take a stab at ninety-three." And he began to figure, but she stopped him.
"My judgment is ninety," she said. "One-third of ninety is thirty and twice thirty is—glory, Alfred, we've nailed it! We've got it—we've got it! And we thought it couldn't possibly be done."
"That's so," he admitted. "But I'd hate to make a hoss-trade by such figuring as that. The feller would back out or the hoss would git too old."
The conversation languished. He had a feeling that she might object to his closeness to her, and yet he hardly knew how to draw away without attracting undue attention to the act, so he took the book into his hands and began to look through it. And then he remembered what Mrs. Hart had said about Dixie's desire to sell her farm, and a slow twinkle of a set purpose began to burn in his eyes. "It might work," he said to himself. "Anyways, that debt notion has got to be got out of the way or I'll never make any progress.
"I was just wondering whether I oughtn't to give you a piece of advice, in a business sort of a way," he said to her, his fingers rapidly twirling the pages of the book. "You see, a feller that trades as much as I do in all sorts of things is calculated to know the drift of the market better, maybe, than a girl like you. You was speaking about how you hated the idea of being in debt just now, and your mother says you want to sell your farm—the fact is, I don't see why you don't sell it and quit workinglike an ox in a yoke. It's plumb wrong; you oughtn't to do it, that's all."
"Sell it? Why, Alfred," and she looked at him eagerly, "I'd only be too glad to do it if I knew any one who would pay anything near its worth. You see, it's cost me first and last something over two thousand dollars, and if I could get that much—"
"That much!" he sniffed contemptuously. "Why, you'd be crazy to sell at a figure like that. You see, I know the field pretty well. I rub against moneyed men every day who are simply itching for something to invest in. The most of 'em believe the new railroad will eventually strike Chester on its way to hook on to the trunk-line through Tennessee and North Carolina, and they are willing to bet on it. You know old Welborne wanted your farm, and it nearly killed him to lose his hold on it. But—while I ain't exactly free to use names—I know a man right now who wants your property. He'd pay you three thousand dollars in cash right down."
"Oh, Alfred, you don't mean it—surely you don't!"
"You say you'll take it," Henley laughed, though the edges of his mouth were drawn tensely from some inner cause, "and I'll close the deal before you can say Jack Robinson."
"Take it?" Dixie cried, and in her eagerness and gratitude she actually laid her hand on his arm. "Oh, Alfred, if you'd only do that for me I'd be the happiest girl in the world!"
"Well, it will be done to-morrow morning early," Henley said, a certain purpose rendering his face rigid, his eyes fixed as if a great crisis had arrived in his life. "The only thing is, that I'd naturally feel like I'd be entitled to some commission—" He tried to smile into her staring eyes, but failed. He caught hold of her hand and she seemed wholly unconscious of the fact.
"Why, of course," she groped, "I'd be willing to pay all costs and anything else you'd ask."
"There is only one thing I could want, or would ever care to have," he swallowed, "and that is you, Dixie. You must be my wife. I'm free now. Nothing stands between us. I want you, sweetheart—I want you!"
Their eyes met, volumes of tenderness sweeping to and fro between them. A great light had taken possession of her face. He felt her lean against him confidingly, and he put his arm around her and drew her head to his shoulder, and then, with a boldness he would till now have ascribed only to a god, he put his hand under her warm face, turned it upward and kissed her on the lips. She nestled closer to him and shut her eyes, remaining still and silent. He felt her warmth striking into his body.
For several minutes they sat thus, and then she opened her eyes and smiled.
"Oh, Alfred, I'm so happy!" she said, softly.
"Well, maybeIain't," he said, huskily, and then he kissed her again.
"I'm so glad about the farm," she said. "I can come to you now freer. I couldn't bear the idea of being in debt to the manIwas going to marry. I've been independent so long that—that it actually hurt me. Are you plumb sure you can sell it, Alfred—absolutely sure?"
"Absolutely," he answered. "The only thing that's bothering me is that it's worth more."
"Never mind about that," she cried. "But tell me who is to take it, Alfred?"
Their eyes met again steadily, a warm, confident, fearless smile lighted up his face. He put his arm about her again, drew her close to him, and held her cheek in his hand.
"There ain't but one man under God's eye that's got a right to own the land you toiled on like you did," hesaid, "and that is the man that worships every hair on your head and every drop of blood in your veins. I'm the feller, Dixie."
"Oh, Alfred!" she cried out, but, seeing his eyes burning into hers, she smiled, nestled closer into his arms, and said: "Well, what's the use? My fight's over. I've got you, and nothing on earth can take you from me."
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