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Two days later Lyman was sitting in his office, musing over a pink note from Eva, thanking him for the book, when Zeb Sawyer tapped at the door. Lyman bade him enter and he stepped forward with a limp. He sat down before saying a word, took out a handkerchief and wiped his face.
"Haven't you got out of bed rather soon?" Lyman asked.
"No, I reckon not, though the doctor told me to lie there awhile longer. But I couldn't—I wanted to come to see you. I am not much of a writer," he added, looking about, "but I want to write an article for your paper. I want to tell the public what a wolf I've been. And it was mostly owing to liquor. I shot a man once when I was about half drunk, and nearly every mean thing I ever did I can trace to whisky. I don't often get what you might call drunk, but I generally go about with a few drinks and that makes me mean. Will you print the article?"
"No; let it all go. We all do wrong at times; we all have little meannesses, like rheumatic pains in bad weather."
"Well, is there anything I can do to prove—to prove—you know what I mean."
"Yes, you can be gentler toward man, remembering that there is something good in every one."
"I believe that more than I used to," said Sawyer, mopping his perspiring face. "I have laughed at preachers, and I hated you, but you came along and showed me that, whether a man professes it or not, there is something in the doctrine of mercy and forgiveness. I don't think I ever prayed with my heart till this morning, and then I prayed to be forgiven for my meanness; and it seemed to me that if you would forgive me, the Higher Power would. I drove over to mother's before I came here and I told her how mean I had been, and it struck her to the heart with grief, but when I told her that I was going to be a better man and follow in my father's footsteps, she cried for joy. She is so shaken with palsy that she can't write, but she managed to write this and she told me to give it to you." He handed Lyman a piece of paper, and on it were the words: "God will bless you."
"She didn't think it would disturb you so, or I am sure she wouldn't have sent it," he said, looking at Lyman.
"Tell her," said Lyman, "that her blessing alone is more—give her my kindest regards," he added, with an effort.
Sawyer wiped his eyes. "I went to another place before coming here," he said. "I went over to the bank and waited till McElwin came, and I had a talk with him. I told him that his daughter could never care for me, and that even if you should sign the petition I would refuse to recognize his authority in trying to compel her to marry me. She is in every way above me, so far beyond my reach that I don't love her. I have to go to another place—the court house. I am going to surrender myself to the law and be punished for that White Cap affair. I am going to acknowledge the whole thing."
"No," said Lyman. "The law knows well enough what was done and who did it. And, besides, your old mother—"
"Yes," Sawyer broke in, "but I thought it might be kept from her."
"No, some one would tell her, some over-zealous friend. Let it drop."
"Your word is law with me. And now I hope you won't feel hurt if I ask you something?"
"The time for you and me to hurt each other is passed," said Lyman.
"I thank you for saying that. You are a man if I ever met one. And how did you get the name of being desperate?"
"I simply punished an over-bearing bully and my act was exaggerated."
"They always exaggerate such things in this country. But that's not what I wanted to ask you. It's this: Do you need any money? now don't feel hurt; do you need any, and, if you do, won't you let me lend it to you for a year or so without interest?"
"My dear fellow," said Lyman, "my affairs have prospered wonderfully of late. It's a singular position for me to be in, but I don't need money."
"I was in hopes you did. I told McElwin just now that your check would be good as long as I had any money at his bank, and it made him wink, but before I went out he acknowledged that you were about the truest sort of a man he ever ran against. You have educated us all. And now as to a more delicate matter. I don't know what Eva thinks of you, or what you think of her, but I believe that the old man would be willing to recognize the law as young Bostic administered it. But we won't talk about that, and I ought not to have mentioned it. Is Mr. Warren out there? I want to see him a moment."
He shook hands with Lyman and they parted friends. Shortly after Sawyer went out, Warren came running into the room. "Old Billy Fate is trying himself," he cried. "What do you think has happened? That fellow Sawyer has subscribed for fifty copies of the paper, for one year, and has paid for them in advance. He has put down uncles, aunts, cousins—but there's one thing about it I don't like. That fellow Jerry, Nancy's cousin, is a sort of tenth rate cousin to Sawyer, and he has put him down. Jerry Dabbs. Think of that poor girl becoming Nancy Dabbs. There ought to be a law against such outrages. And now he'll read your stuff and commit the odd phrases to memory and give them to her. I don't see how I can keep away from there for a week. I'm going out there Friday. Well, after all, I guess it was better that you didn't drown that fellow. Fifty subscribers are not picked up every day. I don't know but sometimes it pays to let revenge go."
"It pays the heart," Lyman replied. "Did you ever think that when the heart was paid the whole world is out of debt?"
"I never thought of it, but I guess you are right. I met the express agent this morning and he tipped his hat to me. And it's all owing to you. Everybody is talking about you. Where are you going?" he asked as Lyman got up.
"One day, while walking about aimlessly," said Lyman, "I stopped in front of a house down the street not far from here, and saw a boy digging in the yard. At the window I saw the pale face of a man. He lay there to catch the last rays of the world, slowly fanning himself. I asked the boy what he was doing and he said that he was digging a grave for his father. The pale face at the window haunted me. I made inquiry and found that a very poor family inhabited the house, and I have called there several times to talk with the man. I am going there now."
"I know, he's a fellow named Hillit. He's got consumption. I send him the paper free. Give him my regards, please, and tell him that I have put him down as a life subscriber."
"It won't be for long," said Lyman, as he turned away.
The sun had baked the ground and the strange child had suspended his labor, but heaps of earth beneath the bushes showed that he had continued his work as long as his rude spade was adequate to a disturbance of the soil. The boy looked up as the gate latch clicked, and stood surveying Lyman with his feet far apart and his hands in his pockets. Lyman spoke to him, and bringing a nail out of his pocket he held it out to the visitor as an offering of his hospitality. Lyman tossed him a piece of money; he caught it up and with a shout he disappeared in the shrubbery. The visitor's knock at the door was attended by a frail, tired woman. She stood with her hand on the door as if meekly to tell the comer that he had doubtless made a mistake in the house. He bowed and asked if she were Mrs. Hillit, and when she had nodded an acknowledgment, with no word, though her thin lips moved, he informed her that he desired to see her husband. She preceded him into the sick man's room.
"A gentleman wishes to see you," she said.
The sufferer turned his wasted face toward Lyman and asked him to sit down. Then followed a few words of explanation.
"I am very glad you came," said Hillit, speaking slowly and with effort. "We have been getting your paper for some time and it has been great company for us. The neighbors have been very kind, but when a man hangs on this way he wears everybody out."
The woman had left the room, and Lyman was relieved to find that she had not remained to hear her husband's hopeless words. "You ought not to feel that way," he said.
The consumptive withdrew his wistful gaze from the bar of sunlight that lay across the window sill, and looked at Lyman. "I am in a position to say what I think, and that's what I do think," he answered. "But I do hope it won't be much longer. I see by the paper that the farmers have been praying for rain. I have been praying for light, light, light—all the time praying for light. When a passing cloud hides the sun my heart grows heavier, and when the night comes I feel the shadow of eternity resting cold upon me."
In reply to this Lyman could say nothing; he simply said: "You haven't lived here long, I understand."
"Not long. I came from the city to look for a place where I could die cheap. I lost my place—my brethren lost their place—we were swept away by the machine. I am a compositor."
"Oh, are you? Then I am more than glad I came."
"And I am more than glad to see you. I have seen you stop at the fence, and I managed one day to learn your name. You are making a name for yourself; I have read your work at night and there is sunlight in it. Ah, the old craft is gone," he said. "We sang like crickets, laughing at the idea that a frost might come in the shape of a machine to set type; we worked three days a week and spent our money, with no thought of the destroyer slowly forming fingers of steel under the lamp light. But the machine came. It was like the bursting of a shell, and our army, the most intelligent body of craftsmen ever known, was scattered over the face of the land. Once in a while I had a serious moment, and I kept up my life insurance, but what is to become of the other women and children the Lord only knows."
"The picturesque old philosopher known as the tramp printer is only a memory now," said Lyman. "I have seen him strolling along the road, sore of foot, stubble-faced, almost ragged, hungry, but with a cynical head full of contempt for the man of regular habits. I recall one particularly—Barney Caldwell."
"What?" cried Hillit, raising upon his elbows, "did you know old Barney? He was once foreman of an office in Cincinnati where I was a cub. He was comparatively young then, but they called him the old man. And what a disciplinarian! He used to say, 'Boys, if you get drunk with me it is your own look out, and if you don't walk the chalk line that's my look out. Don't expect favors, because you happen to be a good fellow.' One day, he came into the office, and after starting to put on his apron he hesitated, and turning to a fellow named Hicks, he said: 'Charley, I've a notion to be a gentleman once more.' Then I heard a man standing near me say: 'There'll be a vacant foremanship in this office within five minutes. The old man is going to take to the road.' And he did. He resigned his position and walked out. Life was worth living in those days, Mr. Lyman."
Just at this moment Mrs. Hillit appeared at the door. "The young lady who brought the flowers has come again," she said. Lyman looked up and his heart leaped, for, in the hall-way, stood Eva with her hands full of roses. She turned pale at seeing him, but with the color returning she came forward and held out her hand. Hillit's wasted eye, slow in movement but quick in conception, divined the meaning of the changing color of her face, and when his wife had brought a vase for the roses, he said: "I hope you two will talk just as if I wasn't here. And I won't be here long, you know."
"William," his wife spoke up, turning from the table whereon she had placed the young woman's contribution, "you promised me that you wouldn't talk that way any more."
"I forgot this time," he replied.
"Mr. Lyman," said Eva, "I want to thank you again for the book. I have read it twice, and I hope you won't think I gush when I say it is charming. One idea was uppermost in my mind as I read it—that I had never before heard the beating of so many hearts; and the atmosphere is so sweet that, more than once, I fancied that the paper must have been scented."
"Oh, come now," Lyman cried, "you are guying me."
"It does sound like it, I admit, but really I am not. And I don't bring you my opinion alone. Last night I induced father to read a chapter. He read chapter after chapter, and when I asked him what he thought, he simply said, 'Beautiful.' Wasn't that a conquest?"
"It was a great kindness."
"But why should you be surprised? Haven't you worked year after year and now should a just reward come as an astonishment?"
"It's all luck," said the consumptive, looking at his thin hands lying on the counterpane. "If a man has luck early in life, he's likely to pay for it later; and if he has bad luck till along toward middle life, the chances are that he will pick up. I had my luck early; I sang my song and finished it." His wife looked at him beseechingly. "I'm not complaining," he added. "It's no more than just. You and the young lady were speaking about a book, Mr. Lyman. How long did it take you to write it?"
"It seems now that I had to live it," Lyman answered. "The actual work did not take long, but the dreams, the night-mares, were continued year after year. To be condemned to write a conscientious book is a severe trial, almost a cruel punishment, and I am not surprised that the critics, sentenced to read it, should look upon it as an additional pain thrust into their lives."
The talk wandered into the discussion of books in general. The young woman told of the great libraries she had visited abroad. The printer had helped to set up a Bible and he gave an amusing account of the mistakes that had crept into the proof-sheets. A careless fellow had made one of the Prophets stricken with grip instead of grief, and another one had the type declare that Moses lifted up the sea serpent in the wilderness. The bar of sunlight passed beyond the window ledge and the sick man fell into silence. Eva rose to go. Lyman said that he would walk a part of the way with her. She smiled but said nothing. They bade the invalid and his wife good-bye and passed out into the shaded thoroughfare. A man stared at them, but a woman passed with merely a glance.
the butter churn
"Even in a village a wonder wears away after awhile," said Lyman. "Yes," she laughed, "our strange relationship has almost ceased to be an oddity."
They turned into a lane. He helped her across a rivulet and felt her hand grow warm in his grasp. She looked up at him and his blood tingled. He felt a sense of gladness and then remembered that she had praised his book. It was a victory to know that it had broken through her father's hauberk of prejudice. He spoke of Sawyer. She had heard of his narrow escape from drowning; indeed, he had called at the house.
"He did not hesitate to acknowledge everything," she said, "and I never liked him half so well as I did today."
"But you couldn't like him well enough to marry him," Lyman was weak enough to say.
"Oh, no; I liked him because he acknowledged your generosity," she frankly confessed. Lyman had weaknesses, and one of them was an under-appraisal of self. At times and in some men this is a virtue, but more often it is a crime committed against one's own chance of prosperity. The people's candidate is the man who loudest avows his fitness for the office.
"You remember last Sunday as you were driving away from the church—" he said.
"Yes—" she answered, walking close beside him.
"I thought I saw your mother reprimand you for urging her to stay."
"Yes. She was half inclined to yield and she was really scolding herself for her weakness."
"You went away without congratulating the preacher."
"That was thoughtless. We have sent him a letter of congratulation."
"How stately your house looks from here; how cool and restful."
"I used to take great pride in the fact that I lived there, as I looked at the humbler homes scattered about, but I haven't been so foolishly proud since I came to know you."
"Then that is where we must have fallen apart. I have been prouder since I knew you."
"I said foolishly proud," she replied, laughing.
They came to the wooden bridge. "Well, I turn back here," he said, halting and leaning against the rail.
"Surely there would be no harm in your coming to the house," she replied. "You are my protector," she added, with a smile. He was beginning to dislike the word, and now he felt a heaviness settle upon his heart.
"When your father has invited me as a friend of the family, I will come," he said, leaning over and looking down into the water. He looked up and in her eyes he thought he saw a gentle rebuke, but it was gone in a moment. She must have had it in her mind to tell him that he ought to be bolder, but another feeling seemed swiftly to come, and she said: "Your instinct is right." She held out her hand. He grasped it, looked into her eyes, turned about and hastened toward the town.
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A few days later, at the breakfast table, Mrs. Staggs remarked that Mrs. McElwin and her daughter were gone on a visit to friends and would be absent several weeks. Lyman did not think to disguise his concern. With an abruptness that made the cups totter in the saucers he shoved himself back from the table and fell into a deep muse. Why should the girl have gone away just at that particular time? Was it a blow aimed at him? He had wanted to tell her something. It was in the nature of a confession, not startling, not, as he now viewed it, beyond a commonplace acknowledgment, and he wondered why he should have suppressed it. He wanted simply to tell her that, at the time when the joking ceremony had been performed, he had looked at her, with his mind reverting to the sick man whose face he had seen that day at the window, and had thought of the charm she could throw upon the gloom-weighted scene should she step into the room. This had come to pass; he had beheld it, and his mind had been sweetened by it; he had walked nearly all the way home with her and had not mentioned it. He had been too talkative as a protector and too silent as a man. And, all day, there was a bitter taste in his mouth, and, at evening, as he sat alone in the office he cut himself with a cynical smile. Warren came in, bright and brusque.
"Well, I've just got back from old man Pitt's," said he. "I couldn't wait any longer, so I went. The old man was at work in the field and I went out and told him not to disturb himself. The old lady was weaving a rag carpet, and I told her not to let the loom fall into silence. The girl was churning and I told her to keep at it. Ah, what a picture, that girl at the churn. Her red calico dress was tucked up, and her sleeves were rolled, and her hair had been grabbed in a hurry and fastened with a thorn. She blushed and put her hand to her hair as if she wanted to fix it, but I cried to her not to tamper with it. I said that she might have gold pins, but couldn't improve on that thorn; I swore that the finest hairdresser in the world would spoil it; and she laughed and I saw the inside of her mouth—"
"A rose with the bud pinched out," said Lyman.
"How did you know? Did you ever see the inside of her mouth? You've hit it all right. Yes, sir, that's what you have. Well, I took hold of the churn dasher and helped her, and she pretended to be afraid that we might turn the churn over, and our hands came together and I felt like throwing up my hat and dancing right there."
"Did you find out as to how she stands?"
"Lyman, would you believe that I weakened? I put both my hands on her hair and I snatched a kiss from her, but she looked up at me and I weakened; I couldn't ask her. She wasn't scared; she was astonished; and when she looked down, I kissed the back of her neck, standing there in full view of the world, and she shivered as if she was cold, but her face was scarlet."
"Do you call it weakening when you grab a woman and kiss her? I should think that was rather strengthening."
"I didn't find out how she stood, that is, I did not get it in words, so I must have weakened. But I think it's all right. After dinner, while we were in the 'big room,' she showed me a photograph of a yap and said that it was Cousin Jerry. 'Permit me,' said I, bowing, and I sailed the picture out into the yard where the dog lay asleep in the sun. And there it lay, with the June bugs buzzing about it, till I relented and went after it. I weakened in going after it, but she pouted and I gave in. I reckon that after all, it's better not to be so headlong. Many a fellow would have rushed the thing and spoiled it right there. I am learning patience from you, Lyman."
"Well, don't keep on learning, or you'll get the worst of it. A woman will pardon a thing that's rash where she would look with scorn upon a gentle stupidity. You bite like a black bass and I'm a sucker; you leap up into the sunshine, and I lie under a rotting log. I am inclined to think, old boy, that there is a good deal of what they call the chump about me. You have gone to Pitt's and said more than you intended to say. And look at me: I have not said half of what I ought to have said. You know where to find your girl, but I have let mine go away. And I know now that she went away in disgust. However, I ought not to say that. It might imply that she was impatient with me and that would mean that she was waiting for me to say something, when in fact I don't believe she thinks of me at all, except as her protector and friend."
Warren sat nibbling at the stem of a corn-cob pipe. He stretched forth his legs and chewed upon the stem till it cracked between his teeth.
"This disposition to under-estimate yourself is where the whole trouble lies," said Warren. "It is the only weakness I have ever been able to find in your character. Don't you think it must be on account of some sort of work you have done? Haven't you at some time been in a position where everybody could come along and boss you?"
"I waited in a dining-room to pay my way through college. And you have struck it. Yes, sir, you've struck it on the top of the head. If a man has once stood as a servant, he is, if at all sensitive, ever afterward afflicted with a sort of self-repression. It is a sense of independence that makes the cow-boy aggressive; it is the wear of discipline that makes the regular soldier, long after quitting the army, appear humble. To wear a white apron and to carry a bowl of soup across a dining-room, one must not have had a high spirit or must have stabbed it. I stabbed mine."
"And yet you are as proud as the devil," said Warren.
"Yes, and I am not afraid of a pistol, but I fancy that anyone could drive me with a teaspoon. If I am ever the father of a boy I will teach him to work, to cut down trees, to dig ditches, to do anything rather than to wait on another man."
"But you don't regret having made the sacrifice to get the education, do you?"
"You over-rate my learning. I don't know anything thoroughly. I sailed through with the class and put myself in a position to learn, that's about all. But I have acquired one great piece of knowledge, which, had I not received a regular training, might have seemed to me as the arrogance of ignorance, and that is the fact that profound knowledge hurts the imagination. Of course I had read this—but ascribed it to prejudice. I know now, however, that it is true; and I would take care not to over-educate the boy with an instinct for art. His technique would destroy his creation. And take it in the matter of writing. I believe in correctness, but it is a fact that when a writer becomes a purist he conforms but does not create. After all, I believe that what's within a man will come out regardless of his training. There may be mute, inglorious Miltons, but Art struggles for expression. The German woman worked in a field and had no books, but she brought tears to the eyes of the Empress, with a little poem, dug up out of the ground."
"That sounds all right enough," said Warren, "but I don't know about its truth. It strikes me—and I like to think about it—that, if Nancy had been schooled and all that, she could have written about the sweetest poetry that ever was sent out."
Lyman smiled at his friend. "Education would undoubtedly assist her in the writing of verses," said he. "The log school-house would have given her the expression for poetry."
"May be so. But I don't want her to write. She'd fill up the paper and hurt the circulation. Sad day for a newspaper man when his wife fills up the paper. By the way, I forgot to tell you that I had a talk with the old man. I went out to the field with him after dinner; he was cutting oak sprouts from among the young corn and we had quite a chat. I reminded him of the fact that I hadn't known his daughter long, but I gave him to understand that I was all right. I told him that the express company had a high regard for me, and this made him open his eyes. He gradually caught my drift, and then he leaned on his hoe and laughed till the tears ran down his face; and I didn't have anything to lean on, so I took hold of the hoe handle and laughed too. After awhile the absurdity of the situation struck him, both of us leaning on a hoe, laughing fit to kill ourselves, and then he shook me off. But I wasn't to be put off this way. I told him I guessed I had to have some place to laugh, and I grabbed the hoe-handle again, and went on with my tittering. 'Young fellow,' he said, 'you just about suit me. You won't stay shuck off, and that's the sort of a man that gets next to me.' So we shook hands and without another word on the tender subject we went on talking about something else. Oh, he's all right, and the girl is too, I think. I don't know about the mother, but she is blue-eyed and tender-looking and I think she'll give in. Have you seen the banker lately?"
"I met him in the street this morning and spoke to him, and he bowed very politely. I've been thinking. Suppose my serial story should be accepted and they should send me a check. How could I get it cashed without going to his bank? And if any royalties should come from the sale of my book, what then? There's no other way open and I'll have to do business through his bank."
"That will be all right, if the check should happen to be large enough. Anyway, we don't do business with a bank because we like the owner of the concern. Oh, I didn't tell you that we have an account there already. We have about two hundred and fifty dollars over there and we don't owe a cent."
"Good!" Lyman cried, not because of the money, but that Warren had broken the ice.
"Good; I should say it is. I call it glorious. And it has come mainly through you. Why, when you came in I was still bleeding under the heel, you know."
"It has been your business management and economy, Warren. I have done nothing but scribble at odd times—I have played and you have worked."
"That's all right."
"No, it isn't all right. Whatever success may come to this paper belongs to you. What there is already has flowed through the channel of your energy, and I am not going to claim half the profits. The plant is yours, not mine. Without you the paper could not have lived a week."
"We'll fix that all right. But say, isn't it terrible to wait. I don't mind work, but I hate to wait, and I ought not to go out yonder again before day after tomorrow."
"What, ought not to go before day after tomorrow! You ought not to go before next week."
"Oh, come, now, old man, don't say that. This thing of waiting is awful. I think I could stand to be hanged if they'd do it at once, but the waiting would put me out. I never could wait. And besides I don't believe in it. One day I saw an old man at a soldiers' home and I asked him concerning his prospects and he said that he was waiting, and when I asked him what for, he said, 'to die.' And then I couldn't help but ask him what he was going to do then. I don't believe in waiting for anything; my idea is to go to it at once."
"Yes, that's all very well; but the old soldier was right after all, for life is but waiting for death."
"No," said Warren, "life is a constant fight against death, and we don't wait so long if we are fighting. If I thought as you do, I couldn't wait—I'd have to go out and hunt up death at once. I reckon you are low-spirited today. I'm glad I'm not a writer, Lyman. Writing saps all a man's spirit and leaves him no nourishment."
"I have always regarded the necessity to write as a sad infliction," Lyman replied. "A man steals from himself his most secret beliefs and emotions and puts them in the mouth of his characters. He is a sham."
"You ain't, old fellow."
"I am a fraud. Where are you going?"
"I've got to stir about," Warren answered. "I have to think when I sit still and I don't want to think. The truth is, I want to know how she stands. I wish I had a picture of her as she stood at the churn. It would make the fortune of a painter. Believe I'll get up a prayer-meeting at Mt. Zion."
"What, you get up a prayer-meeting?"
"Yes, so I can go home with her through the woods. I think that after a season of prayer and song she would lean toward me."
"Why not wait for a thunder storm and comfort her between flashes of lightning?"
"I wish I could get up a thunder storm. I'd like for that girl to grab me and choke me half to death. Well, I've got to stir around."
Warren went away, and during all the evening Lyman sat picking a nervous quarrel with himself.
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Lyman saw nothing of Warren the next day, but on the day following he strode into the room, whistling in tuneless good humor.
"It's all right," he said, as he sat down. "I went out there and found her at the churn. I said, 'Look here, you'll drive me mad if you don't let that churn alone—I mean with the charm of the position.' And then she blushed, and I would have grabbed a kiss, but she shied to one side. She scolded me somewhat for coming so soon. She said that people would wonder what brought me out that way so often. I told her that if people had any sense they wouldn't wonder long—they would know that she had brought me there. Then I came out square-toed. I told her that I had discovered early in the action that I loved her, that I had waited long enough to be sure that it was not a passing fancy, but a genuine case of love. I told her that her cousin Jerry might believe in waiting, but that I did not. Then how she did blush and shy. I looked away, to give her a chance to get herself together again, looked out into the field where the old man was at work, and peeped through a crack at the old lady thumping the carpet loom. I didn't wait too long, though; I didn't want the girl to have time to cool off completely, so I said, looking at her. 'I want you to marry me, you understand; with my prospects I could go throughout the country and pick up most any woman who is struck on writing verses and essays, but I don't want one of them—I want you, and I want your promise to tell that fellow Jerry to go to the deuce, as far as you are concerned; and I want you to promise to wait for me a week or two and then be my wife.' Then I thought of how tedious it would be to wait so long and I corrected my statement by telling her that we needn't wait at all. How she did flounce in surprise. She said she had no idea that I cared anything for her. But I stopped her right there. 'That ain't the question,' I said, 'do you care anything for me? That's the question.' At this she hung her head and said that she didn't know, exactly, but that she would think about it. 'I don't want any thinking,' said I. 'What I want is for you to tell me right now.' Then she said something about that fool cousin. And I told her that I would shoot him on sight and look for him at that. I started to go away and she caught hold of me and said that if I promised not to shoot Jerry she would tell me the next day. 'You tell me now,' said I, 'or that fellow will be a corpse before morning.' Then she agreed that she thought she did love me a little. I told her that a little wouldn't satisfy me—I didn't want a breeze, I wanted a storm. She said I was hard to satisfy. She didn't think she could please me; she knew that she didn't amount to much in the eyes of town people. She had hoped so much to please me, and now she was grieved at her disappointment. She acknowledged that she was afraid to love me, and I told her that she needn't have any fear and that she might let herself out at once. And after a good deal of talk she did. I put her arms around my neck and made her squeeze me, and I called her a divine boa constrictor. She didn't exactly know what I meant, but it tickled her all the same. Then I went over into the field to consult the old man about the time I'd have to wait, and when I mentioned day after tomorrow he snorted. 'Young fellow,' said he, 'I like your pushing ways, but I don't want to be crowded off the face of the earth. You wait awhile. I don't want folks to think that I am anxious to git rid of the best gal that ever lived.' He got next to me when he put it that way, and I agreed to wait a week or so. Yes, sir, it's all right, with the exception that I've got to wait. But I won't wait alone; I'll go out there every once in awhile and make her wait with me."
Lyman caught hold of him and they stood near the window, laughing, but the laughter had more the sound of soft music than of two men in a merry mood. They sat down in the twilight, and their cigars glowed like the eyes of a beast, far apart.
Warren's restlessness was worn away in part, and the next day and for days succeeding he went about his work, humming what he supposed to be a tune. Two weeks dragged along and the time for the marriage was approaching. Every day or so the young fellow would drive out into the country to argue with the old man. He had rented a cottage and had furnished it and he pleaded the crime of permitting it to stand there empty of the two hearts that yearned to inhabit it. The old man acknowledged the logic of the argument, but swore that he could not have it said that he was anxious to get rid of his girl; and Warren always agreed to this, at the time of its emphatic utterance, but when he had driven back to town, and put up his horse, a spirit of rebellion would arise and back he would go the next day to renew the contest.
One night when Lyman went home he found old man Staggs in the sitting-room waiting for him. "I've got something to tell you," said the old man.
Lyman's heart jumped. "Has she returned?" he asked.
"Has who returned?"
"Why, Mrs. McElwin and her daughter?"
"Oh, I reckon not."
"Then what did you want to tell me?"
"I want to tell you that I won't drink any more."
"You told me that some time ago."
"Yes, but under different circumstances. When I told you, I was sick and wouldn't have touched a drop if a barrel full had been under my nose; but I tell you now when I am well. Do you know the reason why I am so strong in the faith now? Of course you don't, and that is what I am going to tell you. I was out in the stable this evening and I found a bottle of liquor. Blast me if I hadn't been wanting it all day. But what did I do? I went out and threw the bottle—and the liquor—as far as I could send it, and I heard it squash in the street. And now I want to ask you if that wasn't nerve."
Lyman summoned his patience and agreed that it was nerve, and the old man continued. "I told my wife about it, but she didn't believe me. And now what I want you to do is to convince her that it is a fact. You can do it with a clear conscience, for I will swear to it. The fact is there's going to be a reunion of the old home guard at Downer's grove, about fifteen miles from here, and I want to go. I went last year and—well, I fell, somewhat. But I wouldn't fall this time, and I want you to tell Tobithy and Annie to let me go."
"And what if you come home drunk?"
"Lyman," said the old man, puffing up, "I have always stood as your friend. I have got out of bed at night to argue in your behalf, and I didn't expect no sich treatment as this. If you want to stab me, why don't you out with your knife and pop it to me right under the ribs. Here," he added, turning toward Lyman and smoothing his shirt tight over his side, "stab me right here and I won't say a word; but, for the Lord's sake, don't question my honor. Let me tell you something: I am a poor man and in debt; I need clothes and sometimes I am out of tobacco, but I wouldn't touch a drop of whisky for money enough to dam the Mississippi river. That's me, Lyman, and you may wollop it about in your mouth and chew on it. It is no more than natural that I should want to join my old friends. Of course we were not actually in the army, but we would have been soldiers if we hadn't been captured and disarmed, and we have an affection for the old organization. There ain't many of us left and it is cruelty to keep us apart. And I can't go unless Tobithy lets me take the money. It won't require more than five dollars. Will you assure her that I'll come home sober?"
"I don't think I can do that, Uncle Jasper. Understand, now, I believe you think you'll keep sober, but the truth of it is you can't. Why, if you didn't drink, the old fellows wouldn't be your companions."
The "veteran" smoothed his shirt over his side. "Stab me," he said. "Pop your knife under this rib—this one, right here. It will be a mercy to me if you do. When a man out-lives his word of honor, it's time to go and go violently. Pop it."
"Your drinking doesn't amount to much, Uncle Jasper. You don't drink viciously, but reminiscently. However, it is a crime to take money from those women—Hold on; I know you do all you can to earn a living; you work whenever anything comes up, but you haven't earned five dollars in—"
"I earned the money, but the scoundrel didn't pay me," the old fellow broke in. "I've got hundreds of dollars owin' to me, but the rascals laugh at me. I cured old Thompson's sick horse—worked with him all night, nearly, and he gave me a dollar. Haven't earned five dollars! the devil! How can a man earn five dollars when a scoundrel pays him one dollar for fifteen dollars' worth of labor? The shirt ain't very thick. The knife will go in all right. Pop it." He smoothed his shirt and closed his eyes as if expecting the death blow.
"You didn't let me get through," said Lyman. "I was going to say that your drinking did no particular harm. To meet your old cronies and to warm up with them is about all that is left to you of real enjoyment. Sooner or later we all live in the past, and there can be no very great evil in bringing the past near. So, now, if you will promise me to come home in as good condition as you can, I will give you five dollars."
The old fellow gulped, wheeled about to hide his eyes and leant forward with his face in his hands. Lyman slipped a bank note between his fingers and without saying a word went up stairs. At breakfast the next morning, which was the day of the reunion of the gallant home guard, old Jasper was full of life and hope, but that night when Lyman came home, he found him leaning on the gate, unable to find the latch. "I'm all right," he said.
"I believe you are," Lyman replied.
"Am, for a fact. I promised to come in good shape. Here, all right."
Lyman managed to get him to bed without disturbing anyone, but later at night he heard the women lashing him with their tongues. He knew that there was justice in the lashing and he dreaded lest they should cut at him for abetting the crime, but they did not, for at breakfast they smiled at him, doubtless not having discovered his complicity. The old man was heart-sick. "I want to see you," he said to Lyman, and leading him into the sitting-room, continued: "I have said it before, I know, but I want to say it now once for all that I'll never touch another drop as long as I live. Why, confound my old hide, don't I know exactly what it will do for me; and do you think I'll deliberately make a brute of myself? I won't, that's all. It's all right to bring the past back, that is, for a man who can do it, but it isn't for me, I tell you that. And I don't want to see those home guards any more. Why, if they had taken my advice, do you suppose they would have surrendered without firing a gun? They wouldn't. I argued with them and swore at them, but they stacked their guns; and then what could I do but surrender? That's neither here nor there, though—I'm never goin' to drink another drop. Oh, I've said it before—I know that, but it sticks, this time."
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Lyman's book met with a favor that no one had ventured to forecast. It did not touch the public's fad-nerve; it was too close to the soil for that. It was so simple, with an art so sly, with a humor that, like an essence, so quietly stole the senses, that the reviewers did not arise in resentment against it. They had expected nothing and were surprised to find much. Worn out with heavy volumes from the pens of the learned and the pretentious, they seemed to find in this little book a rest, a refuge for reverie, cooled with running water and sheltered by leaves from the burning sun. And at night, when the author lay down to rest and to muse upon himself, his heart did not beat with the exultant throb of victory—it was full of a melancholy gratitude. One morning a letter startled him. It came from a great periodical and enclosed a check in payment for a serial story. It represented more money than he had ever hoped to possess; he called Warren, and handed him the piece of paper.
"I can hardly trust my eyes," he said. "What do you make of it?"
Warren flew into a fit of enthusiasm. "Five thousand dollars," he cried. "And it comes from the advertising the newspapers have been giving you. I want to tell you that advertising pays. Five thousand dollars, and it didn't take you more than six months to write the thing. Those fellows don't know whether it's good or not. All they know is that the newspapers have given your other story a send-off. Talk about newspapers; the first thing you know we'll have money enough to paper the town. But this is all yours. No matter, I'm as much interested as if it were mine. Say, let me have this check a minute. I want to go across the street and show it to a fellow and tell him to go to—He spoke of this office one day as Poverty's Nest. Let me take it over there."
"No," said Lyman, laughing, "but I'll tell you what you may do with it—take it over to the bank and deposit it in my name."
"But you'll have to come along and leave your signature."
"Is that the way they do? All right; but I don't want to see McElwin."
"That won't be necessary. But don't you think we'd better carry the check around town awhile before depositing it?"
"No, that would be silly."
"Silly! It would be business. You let me have it and I'll rake in fifty subscriptions before three o'clock. It's business."
"No, we'll go over and deposit it."
They went over to the bank, laughing like boys as they crossed the street. McElwin had not come down. The ceremony was conducted by the cashier, a humdrum performance to him, but to Lyman and Warren one of marked impressiveness. They returned to the office with the air of capitalists. At the threshold of the "sanctum" they met a man who wanted to subscribe for the paper. Warren took his name and his money, and when he was gone, turned to Lyman with a smile. "It has begun to work already. The news of the deposit has flashed around town and they are coming in for recognition. Oh, we're all right. Do you remember those cigars you brought from the moonlight picnic? I believe I'll go out and get some just like them. Why, helloa, here is our old friend."
Uncle Buckley was standing at the door. Lyman jumped up and seized the old fellow by the hand and led him to a chair. "Look out, Sammy," he said with an air of caution. "Don't shake me or you'll make me spill the things Mother has stuffed me with. These here are harvest apples," he went on, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his brown jeans coat and drawing forth yellow apples. "I'll jest put them here on the table. And here is an Indian peach or two, the earliest ones I ever saw. And look at this, a pone of cracklin' bread. Think of that, this time of year. The fact is we killed a shote the other day. Mother 'lowed you couldn't git any sich bread in town and a feller has to have somethin' to eat once in awhile. Now, I do wonder what this here is," he added, tugging at his pocket. "Well, if it ain't the thighs and the pully-bone of a fried chicken, I'm the biggest liar that ever walked a log. Oh, I'm full up. She got up before day, mother did, and stuffed me for an hour or more. Blamed if a peart youngster didn't yell, 'Hi, there, sausage,' as I come in town. Now, I'm blowed if I know what this is. Yes, sir, it's a pair of socks, knit under the light of a tallow candle without the drappin' of a stitch. Oh, it ain't no laughin' matter, boys; there ain't no fun in gettin' up at four o'clock of a mornin' to be stuffed, I tell you. Well, I reckon I'm reasonably empty now." He leaned back and looked at his cargo, arrayed upon the table.
"I'll hire a wagon and have these things taken over to the house," said Lyman. "You tell her, bless her old heart, that I'm coming out there pretty soon with enough stuff to smother both of you. Warren, get those cigars."
"Sure. Is there anything else we want? Uncle Buckley, don't you want something to drink?"
"Well, if you've got some right good buttermilk handy I mout take a glass. But I don't want no licker, young man. I never touched it but once, and then I swapped a fine young mare for an old mule, and I swore then that I'd never tech it again. Go on and get your segyars and I'll make a shift of burnin' one of 'em."
Warren went out. Lyman feasted his eyes on the old man. "How are they all, Uncle Buckley?"
"Jest about the same. Jimmy killed the biggest black snake yistidy—I think it was yistidy. Let me see. I know in reason it was yistidy, for I was a splittin' some wood when he fotch the thing along, draggin' it by the tail. Though that mout have been day before yistidy. I believe it was day before yistidy. Anyhow it was the biggist black snake ever killed out there since the war, but of course in my day they killed bigger ones. He found him out in a blackberry patch and mauled him to death. Oh, he was a snorter. That's about the biggest piece of news I've got. Let me see. Lige met a pole-cat somewhere in the woods and socity ain't been hankering after Lige since then. I seen him this mornin' as I was comin' in, and I yelled at him to keep his distance, and he did or I would have hit him. Yes, sir, I can't stand a pole-cat. You ricollect Mab Basey, I reckon. She run away with a feller that come to help cut wheat and they ain't seen her sense. Oh, he married her and all that, but they don't know where she is. Luke Brizentine didn't git over it."
"What, Mab's running away?"
"Oh, no, not that. Didn't I tell you? Why, Jeff Sarver filled him so full of shot that his hide looked like a nutmeg grater. Yes, sir. They got into a difficulty over a steer that had been jumpin' into a field, and he tried to stab Jeff and Jeff shot him. Made a good deal of a stir at the time and Luke didn't live but two days, but how he could live that long was more than we could see, and it caused a good deal of surprise. Now, wait a minit. It was day before yistidy that Jimmy killed the snake. Sammy, where is that man that was your partner?"
"He has an office on the other side of the square."
"Yes, but are you sure, Sammy, that he ain't your partner?"
"Absolutely certain, Uncle Buckley."
The old man scratched his head. "Sammy, that man ain't honest."
"I am quite sure of that."
"He has fotch it home to me that he ain't, Sammy. But I don't know that I ought to tell you about it; I reckon I ought to let it go. And still, it wouldn't be treatin' you exactly right. He is a forger, Sammy. Look at this."
He had taken out a pocket-book and from about it was unwinding a string, and when the string came off, he took out a piece of paper and handed it to Lyman. It was a note for one hundred dollars and appended were the names of John Caruthers and Samuel Lyman.
"Understand, Sammy, that I don't want you to pay it; I simply want you to know that the feller has used your name wrong."
"It is a forgery," said Lyman.
"Yes, that's what I have been believing for some time past, but I didn't say anything about it to mother. When you went out that day he comes to me and says, 'We must have a hundred dollars and though we don't like to do it we have to appeal to you. Lyman says that he hasn't the heart to ask, so he has put it off on me.' And so, I snatches out my wallet and lets him have the money. But I don't ask you to pay it, Sammy."
"Why, my dear old friend, do you suppose I would let you lose it? I can pay it without a flinch; more than that, if you are in need of money, I can let you have five times as much." He tucked the note into his pocket and took up his check-book.
"Why, Sammy, I don't know whuther to laugh or to cry or to holler when you talk like that. But I don't need no money, and especially none that you have raked together."
"But you must take this," said Lyman, handing him a check. "It's the first check I ever made out," he added, laughing.
"Then you ain't been rich very long, Sammy," said the old man, taking the piece of paper. "But you've writ this in jest like you are used to it. You can't write as well, however, as Blake Peel. I reckon he's the finest writer in this country. Why, he can make a bird with a pen, and it looks like it's jest ready to fly—he's teached writin' school all up and down the creek, and I reckon he's the best. But I'm sorry about this thing, and I don't feel like takin' it."
"You've got to take it."
"Then I must. But you know where it is any time you want it," he said, putting the check into his pocket. "And now, Sammy, what are you going to do with that feller? The note wasn't signed as a firm, but your names was put on individual, and as you didn't write your name he forged it. What are you goin' to do with him?"
"I don't know. Here comes Warren. Don't say anything more about it now."
Warren came in. "Uncle Buckley," said he, "here is a cigar that will make you forget your woes."
"Thank you, my son. I don't believe I've got time to smoke jest now. I'll take this thing home and crumble it up and mother and I will smoke it in our pipes."
Warren staggered. "Gracious alive, don't do that!" he cried.
"All right, my son, I'll set out on a stump and burn it in the moonlight, a thinkin' of you and Sammy. Well, I must be movin'. Good-bye, all han's, and ricollect that my latch-string hangs on the outside."
They shook hands affectionately, and then sat in silence, listening to his footsteps as he trod slowly down the stairs.
"Why don't you light your cigar?" Warren asked.
"I don't care to smoke just now," Lyman answered. "I have some business on the other side of the square."