THERE was a quilting-party at Porter's that day. Cynthia had invited some of her friends to help her, and the quilt, a big square of colored scraps, more or less artistically arranged in stars, crescents, and floral wreaths, occupied the centre of the sitting-room. It was stitched to a frame made of four smooth wooden bars which were held together at the corners by pegs driven into gimlet-holes and which rested on the backs of four chairs. The workers sat on two sides of it, and stitched with upward and downward strokes, towards the centre, the quilt being rolled up as the work progressed.
Hattie Mayhew was there, and Kitty Welborn, and two or three others. As usual, they were teasing Cynthia about the young preacher.
“I know he's dead in love,” laughed Kitty Welborn. “He really can't keep from looking at her during preaching. I noticed it particularly one Sunday not long ago, and told Matt Digby that I'd be sure to get religion if a man bored it into me with big, sad eyes like his.”
“I certainly would go up to the mourners' bench every time he called for repentant sinners,” said Hattie Mayhew. “I went up once while he was exhorting, and he didn't even take my hand. He turned me over to Sister Perdue, that snaggletoothed old maid who always passes the wine at sacrament, and that done me.”
Cynthia said nothing, but she smiled good-naturedly as she rose from her chair and went to the side of the quilt near the crudely screened fireplace to see that the work was rolled evenly on the frame. While thus engaged, her father came into the room, vigorously fanning himself with his old slouch hat. The girls knew he had been to the village, and all asked eagerly if he had brought them any letters.
“No, I clean forgot to go to the office,” he made slow answer, as he threw himself into a big armchair with a raw-hide bottom near a window on the shaded side of the house.
“Why, father,” his daughter chided him, “you promised the girls faithfully to call at the office. I think that was very neglectful of you when you knew they would be here to dinner.”
“And he usually has a good memory,” spoke up Mrs. Porter, appearing in the door-way leading to the dining-room and kitchen. She was rolling flakes of dough from her lank hands, and glanced at her husband reprovingly. “Nathan, whatdidyou go and do that way for, when you knew Cynthia was trying to make her friends pass a pleasant day?”
“Well, I clean forgot it,” Porter said, quite undisturbed. “To tell you the truth, thar was so much excitement on all hands, with this un runnin' in with fresh news, an' another sayin' that maybe it was all a false alarm, that the post-office plumb slipped out o' my head. Huh! I hain't thought post-office once sense I left here. I don't know whether I could 'a' got waited on, anyway, fer the postmaster hisse'f was runnin' round outside like a chicken with its head chopped off. Besides, I tell you, gals, I made up my mind to hit the grit. I never was much of a hand to want to see wholesale bloodshed. Moreover, I've heard of many a spectator a-gittin' shot in the arms an' legs or some vital spot. No, I sorter thought I'd come on. Mandy, have you seed anything o' my fly-flap? When company's here you an' Cynthia jest try yoreselves on seein' how many things you kin stuff in cracks an' out-o'-way places. I'm gittin' sick an' tired o'—”
“Nathan, what's going on in town?” broke in Mrs. Porter. “What are you talking about?”
“I don't know what's goin' onnow,” Porter drawled out, as he slapped at a fly on his bald pate with an angry hand. “I say I don't know what's goin' on right at this minute, but I know what was jest gittin' ready to go on when I skipped. I reckon the coroner's goin' on with the inquest ef he ain't afeared of an ambush. Jeff Wade—” Porter suddenly bethought himself of something, and he rose, passed through the composite and palpable stare of the whole room, and went to the clock on the mantel-piece and opened it. “Thar!” he said, impatiently. “I wonder what hole you-uns have stuck my chawin'-tobacco in. I put it in the corner of this clock, right under the turpentine-bottle.”
“There's your fool tobacco,” Mrs. Porter exclaimed, running forward and taking the dark plug from beneath the clock. “Fill your mouth with it, maybe it will unlock your jaw. What is the trouble at Springtown?”
“I was jest startin' to tell you,” said Porter, diving into his capacious trousers-pocket for his knife, and slowly opening the blade with his long thumb-nail. “You see, Jeff Wade has at last got wind o' all that gab about Minnie an' Nelson Floyd, an' he sent a war-cry by Pole Baker on hoss-back as fast as Pole could clip it to tell Floyd to arm an' be ready at exactly twelve o'clock, sharp.”
“I knew it would come,” said Mrs. Porter, a combination of finality and resignation in her harsh voice. “I knew Jeff Wade wasn't going to allow that to go on.” She was looking at her daughter, who, white and wide-eyed, stood motionless behind Hattie Mayhew's chair. For a moment no one spoke, though instinctively the general glance went to Cynthia, who, feeling it, turned to the window looking out upon the porch, and stood with her back to the room. Mrs. Porter broke the silence, her words directed to her daughter.
“Jeff Wade will kill that man if he was fool enough to wait and meet him. Do you think Floyd waited, Nathan?”
“No, he didn't wait,” was Porter's answer. “The plucky chap went 'im one better. He sent word by Mel Jones to Wade that it would be indecent to have a rumpus like that in town on a Saturday, when so many women an' childem was settin' round in bullet-range, an' so if it was agreeable he'd ruther have it in the open place at Price's Spring. Mel passed me as he was goin' to Jeff with that word. It's nearly one o'clock now, an' it's my candid opinion publicly expressed that Nelson Floyd has gone to meet a higher power. I didn't want to be hauled up at court as a witness, an' so, as I say, I hit the grit. I've been tied up in other folks's matters before this, an' the court don't allow enough fer witness-fees to tempt me to set an' listen to them long-winded lawyers talk fer a whole week on a stretch.”
“Poor fellow!” exclaimed Hattie Mayhew. “I'm right sorry for him. He was so handsome and sweet-natured. He had faults and bad ones, if what folks say is true, but they may have been due to the hard life he had when he was a child. I must say I have always been sorry for him; he had the saddest look about the eyes of any human being I ever saw.”
“And he knew how to use his eyes, too,” was the sting Mrs. Porter added to this charitable comment, while her sharp gaze still rested on her daughter.
There was a sound at the window. Cynthia, with unsteady hands, was trying to raise the sash. She finally succeeded in doing this, and in placing the wooden prop under it. There was a steely look in her eyes and her features were rigidly set, her face pale.
“It's very warm in here,” they heard her say. “There isn't a bit of draught in this room. It's that hot cook-stove. Mother, I will—I—”
She turned and walked from the room. Mrs. Porter sighed, as she nodded knowingly and looked after the departing form.
“Did you notice her face, girls?” she asked. “It was as white as death itself. She looked as if she was about to faint. It's all this talk about Floyd. Well, theyweresort of friends. I tried to get her to stop receiving his attentions, but she thought she knew better. Well, he has got his deserts, I reckon.”
“And all on account of that silly Minnie Wade,” cried Kitty Welborn, “when you know, as well as I do, Mrs. Porter, that Thad Pelham—” The speaker glanced at Nathan Porter, and paused.
“Oh, you needn't let up on yore hen-cackle on my account,” that blunt worthy made haste to say. “I'll go out an' look at my new hogs. You gals are out fer a day o' pleasure, an' I wouldn't interfere with the workin' of yore jaws fer a purty.”
Mrs. Porter didn't remain to hear Kitty Welborn finish her observation, but followed her daughter. In the dining-room, adjoining, an old woman sat at a window. She was dressed in dingy black calico, her snowy hair brushed smoothly down over a white, deeply wrinkled brow, and was fanning herself feebly with a turkey-feather fan. She had Mrs. Porter's features and thinness of frames.
“Mother,” Mrs. Porter said, pausing before her, “didn't Cynthia come in here just now?”
“Yes, she did,” replied the old woman, sharply. “Shedid. And I just want to know, Mandy, what you all have been saying to her in there. I want to know, I say.”
“We haven't been saying anything to her, as I know of,” said the farmer's wife, in slow, studious surprise.
“I know you have—I say, I know youhave!” The withered hand holding the fan quivered in excitement. “I know you have; I can always tell when that poor child is worried. I heard a little of it, too, but not all. I heard them mention Hillhouse's name. I tell you, I am not going to sit still and let a whole pack of addle-pated women tease as good a girl as Cynthia is plumb to death.”
“I don't think they were troubling her,” Mrs. Porter said, her face drawn in thought, her mind elsewhere.
“I know theywere!” the old woman insisted. “She may have hidden it in there before you all, but when she came in here just now she stopped right near me and looked me full in the face, and never since she was a little baby have I seen such an odd look in her eyes. She was about to cry. She saw me looking at her, and she come up behind me and laid her face down against my neck. She quivered all over, and then she said, 'Oh, granny! oh, granny!' and then she straightened up and went right out at that door into the yard. I tell you, it's got to let up. She sha'n't have the life devilled out of her. If she don't want to marry that preacher, she don't have to. As for me, I'd rather have married any sort of man on earth when I was young than a long-legged, straight-faced preacher.”
“You say she went out in the yard?” said Mrs. Porter, absently. “I wonder what she went out there for.”
Mrs. Porter went to the door and looked out. There was a clothes-line stretched between two apple-trees near by, and Cynthia stood at it taking down a table-cloth. She turned with it in her arms and came to her mother.
“I just remembered,” she said, “that there isn't a clean cloth for the table. Mother, the iron is hot on the stove. You go back to the girls and I'll smooth this out and set the table.”
The eyes of the two met. Mrs. Porter took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “I'll go back to the company, but I've got something to say, and then I'm done for good. I want to say that I'm glad a daughter of mine has got the proper pride and spunk you have. I see you are not going to make a goose of yourself before visitors, and I'm proud of you. You are the right sort—especially after he's acted in the scandalous way he has, and—and laid you, even as good a girl as you, liable to be talked about for keeping company with him.”
The girl's eyes sank. Something seemed to rise and struggle up within her, for her breast heaved and her shoulders quivered convulsively.
“I'll fix the cloth,” she said, in a low, forced voice, “and then I'll set the table and call you.”
“All right.” Mrs. Porter was turning away. “I'll try to keep them entertained till you come back.”
BENEATH a big oak Pole stood holding his bridle-rein and waiting, his earnest gaze on the long road leading to Jeff Wade's farm. Suddenly he descried a cloud of dust far ahead, and chuckled.
“He's certainly on time,” he mused. “He must 'a' had his hoss already hitched out in the thicket. Mel made good time, too. The dern scamp wants to see bloodshed. Mel's that sort. By gum! that hain't Wade; it's Mel hisse'f, an' he's certainly layin' the lash to his animal.”
In a gallop, Jones bore down on him, riding as recklessly as a cowboy, his broad hat in one hand, a heavy switch in the other. He drew rein when he recognized Baker.
“Did you deliver that message?” Pole questioned.
“Oh yes, I finally got him alone; his wife seems to suspicion some'n, and she stuck to 'im like a leech. She's a jealous woman, Pole, an' I don't know but what she kinder thought Jeff was up to some o' his old shines. She's in a family-way, an' a little more cranky than common. He was a sorter tough nut before he married, you know, an' a man like that will do to watch.”
“Well, what did he say?” Pole asked, as indifferently as his impatience would allow.
“Why, he said, 'All hunkeydory.' The spring plan ketched him jest right. He said thatonething—o' bloodyin' up the main street in town—had bothered him more than anything else. He admired it in Floyd, too. Jeff said: 'By gum! fer a town dude, that feller's got more backbone than I expected.. He's a foe wuth meetin', an' I reckon killin' 'im won't be sech a terrible disgrace as I was afeard it mought be.'”
“But whar are you headin' fer in sech a rush?” Pole asked.
Jones laughed slyly as he put his hat carefully on his shaggy head and pressed the broad brims up on the sides and to a point in front. “Why, Pole,” he answered, “to tell you the truth, I am headed fer that thar spring. I'm goin' to acknowledge to you that, as long as I've lived in this world, I hain't never been on hand at a shootin'-scrape. Mighty nigh every man I know has seed oodlin's of 'em, but my luck's been agin me. I was too young to be in the war, an' about the most excitin' thing I ever attended was a chicken-fight, and so I determined to see this through. I know a big rock jest above the spring, and I'm a-goin' to git thar in plenty o' time. You let me git kivered all but my eyes, an' I'll run the resk o' gettin' hit from thar up. Wharyoumakin' fer, Pole?”
“Me? Oh, I'm on the way home, Mel. I seed the biggest rattlesnake run across this road jest now I ever laid eyes on. I got down to settle his hash, but I didn't have anything to hit 'im with, an' I'm done stompin' on them fellers sence Tobe Baker, my cousin, over at Hillbend, got bliffed in the knee-j'int.”
“Well, so long,” Jones laughed. “I'll hunt rattlesnakes some other time. Are you plumb shore you hain't got the jimmies ag'in, Pole? Take my advice an' don't tell anybody about seein' snakes; it sets folks to thinkin'. Why, I seed you once in broad daylight when you swore black spiders was playin' sweepstakes on yore shirt-front.”
“So long, Mel,” Pole smiled. He made a fair pretence at getting ready to mount as Jones galloped away in a cloud of dust. The rider was scarcely out of sight when a pair of fine black horses drawing a buggy came into view. The vehicle contained Captain Duncan and his daughter Evelyn. She was a delicate, rather pretty girl of nineteen or twenty, and she nodded haughtily to Pole as her father stopped his horses.
“You are sure that thing's off, are you, Baker?” the planter said, with a genial smile.
“Oh yes, captain.” Pole had his eyes on the young lady and had taken off his hat, and stood awkwardly swinging it against the baggy knees of his rough trousers.
“Well, I'm very glad,” Duncan said. “I heard you'd told some of the crowd back at the store that it had been settled, but I didn't know whether the report was reliable or not.”
Pole's glance shifted between plain truth and Evelyn Duncan's refined face for a moment, and then he nodded. “Oh yes, it was all a mistake, captain. Reports get out, you know; and nothin' hain't as bad as gossip is after it's crawled through a hundred mouths an' over a hundred envious tongues.”
“Well, I'm glad, as I say,” the planter said, and he jerked his reins and spoke to his horses.
As he whirled away, Pole growled. “Derned ef I hain't a-makin' a regular sign-post out o' myself,” he mused, “an' lyin' to beat the Dutch. Ef that blasted fool don't hurry on purty soon I'll—but thar he is now, comin' on with a swoop. His hoss is about to run from under 'im, his dem legs is so long. Now, looky' here, Pole Baker, Esquire, hog-thief an' liar, you are up agin about the most serious proposition you ever tackled, an' ef you don't mind what you are about you'll have cold feet inside o' ten minutes by the clock. You've set in to carry this thing through or die in the attempt, an' time's precious. The fust thing is to stop the blamed whelp; you cayn't reason with a man that's flyin' through the air like he's shot out of a gun, an' Jeff Wade's a-goin' to be the devil to halt. He's got the smell o' blood, an' that works on a mad man jest like it does on a bloodhound—he's a-goin' to run some'n down. The only thing in God's world that'll stop a man in that fix is to insult 'im, an' I reckon I'll have that to do in this case.”
Jeff Wade was riding rapidly. Just before he reached Pole he drew out his big, silver, open-faced watch and looked at it. He wore no coat and had on a gray flannel-shirt, open at the neck. Round his waist he wore a wide leather belt, from which, on his right side, protruded the glittering butt of a revolver of unusual size and length of barrel. Suddenly Pole led his own horse round until the animal stood directly across the narrow road, rendering it impossible for the approaching rider to pass at the speed he was going.
“Hold on thar, Jeff!” Pole held up his hand. “Whar away? The mail-hack hain't in yet. I've jest left town.”
“I hain't goin' after no mail!” Wade said, his lips tight, a fixed stare in his big, earnest eyes. “I'm headed fer Price's Spring. I'm goin' to put a few holes in that thar Nelson Floyd, ef I git the drap on him 'fore he does on me.”
“Huh!” Pole ejaculated; “no, you hain't a-goin' to see him, nuther—that is, not till me'n you've had a talk, Jeff Wade. You seem in a hurry, but thar's a matter betwixt me an' you that's got to be attended to.”
“What the hell d' you mean?” Wade demanded, a stare of irritated astonishment dawning in his eyes.
“Why, I mean that Nelson Floyd is a friend o' mine, an' he ain't a-goin' to be shot down like a dog by a man that could hit a nickel a hundred yards away nine times out o' ten. You an' me's face to face, an' I reckon chances 'ud be somewhar about equal. I hain't a brag shot, but I could hit a pouch as big as yourn is, at close range, about as easy as you could me.”
“You—you—by God! do you mean to take this matter up?”
Jeff Wade slid off his horse and stood facing Pole.
“Yes, I do, Jeff—that is, unless you'll listen to common-sense. That's what I'm here fer. I'm a-goin' to stuff reason into you ef I have to make a hole to put it in at. You are a-goin' entirely too fast to live in an enlightened Christian age, an' I'm here to call a halt. I've got some things to tell you. They are a-goin' to hurt like pullin' eye-teeth, an' you may draw yore gun before I'm through, but I'm goin' to make a try at it.”
“What the hell do you—”
“Hold on, hold on, hold on, Jeff!” Pole raised a warning hand. “Keep that paw off'n that cannon in yore belt or thar'll be a war right here before you hear my proclamation of the terms we kin both live under. Jeff, I am yore neighbor an' friend I love you mighty nigh like a brother, but I'm here to tell you that, with all yore grit an' good qualities, you are makin' a bellowin' jackass o' yourself. An' ef I let you put through yore present plans, you'll weep in repentance fer it till you are let down in yore soggy grave. Thar's two sides to every question, an' you are lookin' only at yore side o' this un. You cayn't tell how sorry I am about havin' to take this step. I've been a friend to yore entire family—to yore brothers, an' yore old daddy, when he was alive. I mighty nigh swore a lie down in Atlanta to keephimout o' limbo, when he was arrested fer moon-shinin'.”
“I know all that!” growled Wade; “but, damn it, you—”
“Hold yore taters, now, an' listen. You mought as well take yore mind off'n that spring. You hain't a-goin' to git at Nelson Floyd without you walk over my dead body—an' thar's no efs an' an's about that. You try to mount that hoss, an' I'll kill you ef it's in my power. I say I've got some'n to tell you that you'll wish you'd listened to. I know some'n about Minnie that will put a new color on this whole nasty business; an' when you know it, ef you kill Nelson Floyd in cold blood the law will jerk that stiff neck o' your'n—jerk it till it's limber.”
“You say you know some'n about Minnie?” The gaunt hand which till now had hovered over the butt of the big revolver hung straight down. Wade stood staring, his lip hanging loose, a sudden droop of indecision upon him.
“I know this much, Jeff,” Pole said, less sharply, “I know you are not on the track o' the fust offender in that matter, an' when I provethatto you I don't believe you'll look at it the same.”
“You say—you say—”
“Listen now, Jeff, an' don't fly off the handle at a well-wisher sayin' what he thinks has to be said in justice to all concerned. The truth is, you never seed Minnie like other folks has all along. You seed 'er grow up an' she was yore pet. To you she was a regular angel, but other folks has knowed all along, Jeff, that she was born with a sorter light nature. Women folks, with the'r keen eyes, has knowed that ever since she got out o' short dresses. Even yore own wife has said behind yore back a heap on this line that she was afeard to say to your face. Not a soul has dared to talk plain to you, an' evenIwouldn't do it now except in this case o' life an' death.”
Wade shook back his long, coarse hair. He was panting like a tired dog. “I don't believe a damn word of what you are a-sayin,” he muttered, “an' I'll make you prove it, by God, or I'll have yore lifeblood!”
“Listen to me, Jeff,” Pole said, gently. “I'm not goin' to threaten any more. Believe me or not,but listen. You remember when Thad Pelham went off to Mexico a year or so ago?”
Wade made no reply, but there was a look of groping comprehension in his great, blearing eyes.
“I see you remember that,” Pole went on. “Well, you know, too, that he was goin' with Minnie a lot about that time—takin' her buggy-ridin' an' to meet-in'. He was a devil in pants, Jeff—his whole family was bad. The men in it would refuse the last call to go in at the gate o' heaven ef a designin' woman was winkin' at 'em on the outside. Well, Thad started fer Mexico one day, an' at the same time Minnie went on a visit to yore brother Joe in Calhoun.”
“She went thar a year ago,” Wade put in, “fer I bought 'er ticket myself at Darley.”
“She toldyoushe went to Calhoun.” Pole's eyes were mercifully averted. “Jeff, I met her an' Thad down in Atlanta.”
Wade caught his breath. He shook from head to foot as with a chill.
“You say—Pole, you say—”
“Yes, I met 'em comin' out o' the Globe Hotel—that little resort jest off'n Decatur Street. They was comin' out o' the side-door, an' me an' them met face to face. Minnie, she turned as white as a sheet, but Thad sorter laughed like it was a good joke, an' winked at me. I bowed to 'em an' passed on, but I seed 'em lookin' back, an' then they motioned to me to stop, an' they come to me. Minnie set in to cryin' an' begun tellin' me not to take the news back home—that her an' Thad loved each other so much she jesthadto play the trick on you an' go as fur as Atlanta with 'im. She said he was comin' back after he got located, an' that they was goin' to git decently married an' so on. An' that devilish Thad smiled an' sorter pulled his cheek down from his left eye an' said, 'Yes, Pole, we are a-goin' to git married. That is, when the proper times comes.'”
A sigh escaped Jeff Wade's tense lips.
“Are you plumb shore the two done wrong down thar, Baker?” he asked.
Pole pulled his mustache and looked at the ground. A smile dawned and died on his face.
“Well, I reckon they wasn't down thar to attend a Sunday-school convention, Jeff. They didn't have that look to me. But I was so worried fer fear I mought be doin' a woman injustice in my mind, that, after they left me, to make sure, I went in the office o' the hotel. The clerk was standin' thar doin' nothin', an' so I axed 'im who that young couple was that had jest gone out, an' he laughed an' said they was a newly married pair from up in the mountains—'Mr. an' Mrs. Sam Buncombe,' an' he showed me whar Thad had writ the names in his scrawlin' hand-write on the book. The clerk said that fer a freshly linked couple they headed off any he'd ever had in his bridal-chamber. He said they was orderin' some sort o' drink every minute in the day, an' that they made so much racket overhead that he had to stop 'em several times. He said they danced jigs an' sung nigger songs. He said he'd never married hisse'f—that he'd always been afeard to make the riffle, but that ef he could be shore matrimony was like that, that he'd find him a consort 'fore sundown or break his neck tryin'.”
Suddenly Wade put out his hand and laid it heavily on Pole's shoulder. “Looky' here, Baker,” he said, “if you are lying to me, I—”
“Hold on,hold on, Jeff Wade!” Pole broke in sternly. “When you use words like them don't you look serious! So fur, this has been a friendly talk, man to man, as I see it; but you begin to intimate that I'm a liar, an' I'll try my best to make you chaw the statement. You're excited, but you must watch whar yore a-walkin'.”
“Well, I want the truth, by God,I want the truth!”
“Well, you are a-gittin' it, with the measure runnin' over,” Pole said, “an' that ought to satisfy any reasonable man.”
“So you think, then, that Nelson Floyd never done any—any o' the things folks says he did—that trip to the circus at Darley, when Minnie said she was stayin' all night with the Halsey gals over the mountains—that was just report?”
“Well, I ain't here to say that,nuther,” said Pole, most diplomatically. “Nelson Floyd ain't any more'n human, Jeff. His wings hain't sprouted—at least, they ain't big enough to show through his clothes. He's like you used to be before you married an' quit the turf, only—ef I'm any judge—you was a hundred times wuss. Ef all the men concerned in this county was after you like you are after Nelson Floyd, they'd be on yore track wuss'n a pack o' yelpin' wolves.”
“Oh, hell! let up on me an' what I've done! I kin take care o' myself,” Wade snarled.
“All right, Jeff,” Pole laughed. “I was only drappin' them hints on my way to my point. Well, Minnie she come back from Atlanta, an' fer three whole days she looked to me like she missed Thad, but she got to goin' with the Thornton boys, an' then Nelson Floyd run across her track. I ain't here to make excuses fer 'im, but she was every bit as much to blame as he was. He's been around some, an' has enough sense to git in out o' the rain, an' I reckon he had his fun, or he wouldn't be a-settin' at Price's Spring waitin' to meet death at the end o' that gun o' yourn.”
Jeff Wade turned an undecided, wavering glance upon the towering mountain on his right. He drew a deep breath and seemed about to speak, but checked himself.
“But la me! what a stark, ravin' fool you was about to make o' yoreself, Jeff!” Pole went on. “You started to do this thing to-day on yore sister's account, when by doin' it you would bust up her home an' make the rest of her life miserable.”
“You mean—”
“I mean that Joe Mitchell, that's been dead-stuck on Minnie sence she was a little gal, set up to her an' proposed marriage. They got engaged, an' then every old snaggle-toothed busybody in these mountains set in to try to bust it up by totin' tales about Floyd an' others to 'im. As fast as one would come, Minnie'd kill it, an' show Joe what a foolish thing it was to listen to gossip, an' Joe finally told 'em all to go to hell, an' they was married, an' moved on his farm in Texas. From all accounts, they are doin' well an' are happy, but, la me! they wouldn't be that away long ef you'd 'a' shot Nelson Floyd this mornin'.”
“You say they wouldn't, Pole?”
“Huh, I reckonyouwouldn't dance a jig an' sing hallelujah ef you was to pick up a newspaper this mornin' an' read in type a foot long that yore wife's brother, in another state, had laid a man out stiff as a board fer some'n' that had tuck place sometime back betwixt the man an' her.”
“Huh!” Wade's glance was now on Pole's face. “Huh, I reckon you are right, Pole. I reckon you are right. I wasn't thinkin' about that.”
“Thar wasanotherduty you wasn't a-thinkin' about, too,” Pole said. “An' that is yore duty to yore wife an' childern that would be throwed helpless on the world ef this thing had 'a' tuck place to-day.”
“Well, I don't seethat, anyway,” said Wade, dejectedly.
“Well, I do, Jeff. You see, ef you'd 'a' gone on an' killed Floyd, after I halted you, I'd 'a' been a witness agin you, an' I'd 'a' had to testify that I told you, in so many words, whar theraleblame laid, an' no jury alive would 'a' spared yore neck.”
“I reckon that's so,” Wade admitted. “Well, I guess I'll go back, Pole; I won't go any furder with it. I promise you not to molest that scamp. I'll not trade any more at his shebang, an' I'll avoid 'im all I kin, but I'll not kill 'im as I intended.”
“Now you're a-talkin' with a clear head an' a clean tongue.” Pole drew a breath of relief, and stood silent as Wade pulled his horse around, put his foot into the heavy, wooden stirrup, and mounted. Pole said nothing until Wade had slowly ridden several paces homeward, then he called out to him and beckoned him back, going to meet him, leading his horse.
“I jest thought o' some'n' else, Jeff—some'n' I want to say fer myself. I reckon I won't sleep sound to-night or think of anything the rest o' the day ef I don't git it off my mind.”
“What's that, Pole?”
“Why, I don't feel right about callin' you to halt so rough jest now, an' talkin' about shootin' holes in you an' the like, fer I hain't nothin' agin you, Jeff. In fact, I'm yore friend now more than I ever was in all my life. I feel fer youway down inside o' me. That look on yore face cuts me as keen as a knife. I—I reckon, Jeff, you sorter feel like—like yore little sister's dead, don't you?”
The rough face looking down from the horse filled. “Like she was dead an' buried, Pole,” Wade answered.
“Well, Jeff”—Pole's voice was husky—“don't you ever think o' what I said awhile ago about shootin'. Jeff, I jest did that to git yore attention. You mought a-blazed away at me, but I'll be danged ef I believe I could 'a' cocked or pulled trigger on you to 'a' saved my soul from hell.”
“Same here, old neighbor,” said Wade, as he wiped his eyes on his shirt-sleeve. “I wouldn't 'a' tuck them words from no other man on the face o' God's green globe.”
When Wade had ridden slowly away, Pole mounted his own horse.
“Now I'll go tell Nelson that the danger is over,” he said. Suddenly, however, he reined his horse in and sat looking thoughtfully at the ground.
“No, I won't,” he finally decided. “He kin set thar an' wonder what's up. It won't hurt him to be in doubt, dab blame his hot-blooded skin. Thar I was in a hair's-breadth of eternity, about to leave a sweet wife an' kids to starvation an' tumble in a bloody grave, jest beca'se a rich chap like he is had to have his dirty bout. No, Nelsy, my boy, you look old Death in the eye fer awhile; it won't do you no harm. Maybe it'll cool you off a little.”
And Pole Baker rode to the thicket where he had hidden his bag of corn-meal that' morning and took it home.
HAT afternoon, for Cynthia Porter, dragged slowly along. The quilt was finished, duly admired, and laid away. The visiting girls put on their sun-bonnets about four o'clock and went home. No further news had come from the village in regard to the impending duel, and each girl hurried away in the fluttering hope that she would be the first to hear of the outcome.
Fifty times during the remainder of the afternoon Cynthia went to the front-door to see if any one was passing from whom she might hear what had happened, but the road leading by the house was not a main-travelled one, and she saw only the shadows fall in advance of the long twilight and heard the dismal lowing of the cows as they swaggered homeward from the pasture. Then it was night, and with the darkness a great weight descended on her young heart that nothing could lift.
The simple supper was over by eight o'clock. Her father and mother retired to their room, and she went, perforce, to hers. Outside the still night, with its pitiless moonlight, seemed to be a vast, breathless thing under the awful consciousness of tragedy, deeper than the mere mystery of the grave. Dead! Nelson Floyd dead! How impossible a thing it seemed, and yet how could it be otherwise? She threw herself on her bed without undressing, and lay there staring at her flickering tallow-dip and its yellow, beckoning ghost in her tilted mirror. Suddenly she heard a step in the hall. It was a faint, shuffling one, accompanied by the soft slurring of a hand cautiously sliding along the wall. The girl sat up on the bed wonderingly, and then the door was softly opened and her grandmother came in, and with bent form advanced to her.
“Sh!” the old woman said, raising a warning hand. “I don't want your ma and pa to know I came here, darling. They wouldn't understand it. But I had to come; I couldn't sleep.”
“Oh, granny, you oughtn't to be up this way!” exclaimed Cynthia. “You know it is long past your bedtime.”
“I know that, honey, I know that,” said the old woman; “but to be late once in a while won't hurt me. Besides, as I said, I couldn't sleep, anyway, and so I came in to you. I knew you were wide awake—I felt that. You see, honey, your ma can't keep anything—even anything she wants to be silent on has to come out, sooner or later, and I discovered what was the matter with you this morning. You see, darling, knowing what your trouble was, old granny felt that it was her duty to try to comfort you all she could.”
“Oh, granny, granny!” cried the girl, covering her face with her hands.
“The trouble is, I don't know what to say,” continued the old woman; “but I thought I'd tell you what pride will do sometimes, when anybody calls in its aid. If—if what they all think is so—if the young manhasreally lost his life in—in a matter of such a questionable nature, then your womanly pride ought to back you up considerably. I have never alluded to it, Cynthia, for I haven't been much of a hand to encourage ideas of superiority in one person over another, but away back in the history of the Radcliffes and the Cuylers and the Prestons, who were our kin in Virginia, I've been told that the women were beautiful, and great belles in the society at Richmond, before and, after the Revolution. Why, honey, I can remember my grandmother telling us children about being at big balls and dinners where George Washington was entertained, and lords and ladies of the old country. I was too young to understand what it meant, but I remember she told us about the great droves of negroes her father owned, and the carriages and silver, and the big grants of land from the king to him. One of her uncles was a royal governor, whose wife was a lady of high title. I was talking to Colonel Price about a month ago at the veteran's meeting at Cohutta Springs, and he said he had run across a family history about the Radcliffes where it said all of them came down from the crowned heads of England. I believe he was right, putting all I remember to what he said, and, lying in bed just now, it struck me that maybe one of those ladies away back there would not let a tear drop from her proud eyes over—over a young man who had met with misfortune as a consequence of bad conduct. Ever since you were a little girl I have been proud of your looks, honey. You have fine, delicate features; your hands are small and taper to the end of the fingers, and your ankles are slender like a fine-blooded race-horse, and your feet have high insteps and are pretty in shape. We are poor; we have been so such a long time that almost all record of the old wealth and power has passed out of our memory, but a few generations of poverty won't kill well-grounded pride and dignity.”
“Oh, granny, granny, you needn't talk to me so,” Cynthia said, calmly. “I know what you mean, and you sha'n't be ashamed of me. I promise you that.”
“I believe you, Cynthia, for you are showing self-respect right now. Go to bed, dear, and take your mind off of it. I'm going now. Good-night.”
“Good-night, granny.” Cynthia stood up, and with her arms around the frail, bowed old woman, she tenderly kissed her on the brow and led her to the door.
“Pride!” she muttered, as the old woman's steps rang in the corridor. “Pride is only a word.This! this!”—she struck her breast—“is my soul under a knife. Why did I sit still while she was talking and not tell her that he wasgood—good—as good a man as ever drew human breath? Why didn't I tell her what Pole Baker's wife told me about his carrying food at midnight on his shoulder (through the swamp, wet to his waist) to her and the children, when Pole was off on a spree—making her swear almost on a Bible that she never would tell? And why didn't I tell her what Mrs. Baker said about his sitting down on the children's bed when they were asleep and talking so beautifully about their futures, and all the sadness of his own childhood and his anxiety to know who and what he was? What if hedidmeet that Minnie Wade, and she and he—Oh, my God!” She stood staring at her pale face in her mirror, and then tottered back to the bed and sank upon it, sitting erect, her tense hands clutching her knees, as if for support against some invisible torrent that was sweeping her away. “Dead—oh! and forthatreason—he, Nelson Floyd!”
Suddenly a sound fell on her ears. She sprang to her feet, straining her hearing to catch a repetition of it, her eyes wide, the blood of new life bounding in her veins. There it was again, the soft, mellow, insistent call of the whippoorwill from down by the grape-arbor. For a moment she stood still, crying to herself with an inward voice that had no sound: “Alive! Alive! Alive!” Then blowing out her candle, she sprang to the door of her chamber, and opened it, and passed on to the outer one, that was never locked, and which opened on the front porch. But there, with her hand on the knob, she paused, clutching it tightly, but not turning the bolt. Alive; yes, alive, but why? how could it be unless—unless he had killed Jeff Wade? Ah, that was it—red-handed, and fleeing from the arm of the law of man and God, he had come to say good-bye. A memory of her past determination never to meet him clandestinely flashed through her brain, but it was like overhead lightning that touches nothing, only warns man of its power and dies away. She turned the bolt and passed out into the night, running, it seemed, almost with the dragging feet of one in a nightmare, towards the trysting-place.
“Ah, here you are!” Nelson Floyd stood in the door-way of the little arbor, his arms outstretched. She allowed him to catch her cold, bloodless hands and lead her to the rustic seat within.
They sat down together. She felt his strong arm encompass her but had not the strength or will to resist. He pressed his cheek down on her cold brow, then his lips, and clasped one of her hands with his big warm one. Still she could not put him off. It was like a perplexing dream. There was the horror, and yet here was vague reassurance that at once inspired hope and benumbed her.
“What's the matter, little girl?” he asked, tenderly. “I declare you are quivering all over.”
She sat up. Pushing him back from her, and twisting her hand from his grasp, she looked straight into his eyes.
“Jeff Wade!” she gasped. “Jeff Wade!—have you—did you—”
“Oh, Isee!” he laughed, awkwardly. “I might have known you would hear about that. But never mind, little girl, the whole of it was gossip—there was nothing in it!”
“You mean—oh, Nelson, you say that you and he did not—”
“Not a bit of it,” he laughed again, mechanically. “Everybody in town this morning was declaring that Jeff Wade was going to kill me on sight, but it wasn't true. I haven't seen him to-day.”
“Oh, Nelson, I heard that he'd actually killed you.”
“Killed me? Oh, that's a good joke!” he laughed. “But you must promise me never again to pay any attention to such stuff. The idea! Why, Cynthia, don't you know better than to believe everything that comes by word of mouth in this section? I'll bet somebody started that who really wanted me out of the way. I've got enemies, I know that.” She drew herself still farther from him, eying him half suspiciously through the darkness. Her lips were parted; she was getting her breath rapidly, like a feverish child.
“But he was mad at you, I know that. You need not tell me an untruth.”
“A man is almost justifiable,” he laughed, “when he wants to keep such dirty stuff from young, refined ears like yours. Let's not talk of it any more, little girl. Why spoil this delightful meeting with thoughts of such things? You have no idea how much I've wanted to see you.”
“Then”—she put out her cold hand to the latticework and drew herself up—“why did you whistle for me? You said you'd—you'd call me if you—you really needed me badly.”
“Well, that's what I did to-night, I assure you,” he laughed. “I felt like I justhadto see you and talk with you. You see, I knew this thing would finally get to you, and that you would worry and perhaps lose sleep over it. I knew when you saw me with a whole skin and solid bones that you'd—”
“You flattered yourself that I'd care! Huh, I see! I suppose I'd hate to seeany oneshot down in cold blood at a moment's notice like that.”
He caught her hand and laughingly attempted to draw her to him again, but she remained leaning against the door-frame.
“You are not going to be mad at me,” he said, pleadingly, “now, are you?”
“No, but I'm going into the house I told you I'd not meet you here after all the others have gone to bed, when you whistled as you would to your dog, and I want you to know I would not have come if I had not been over-excited. Good-night.”
“Wait a moment. I really did want to see you particularly, Cynthia—to make an engagement. The young folks are all going over to Pine Grove next Sunday afternoon to attend meeting, and I want to take you in my new buggy behind my Kentucky horse.”
“You couldn't wait till to-morrow to ask me,” she said, interrogatively.
“No, I couldn't wait till to-morrow, for that long, slim 'sky-pilot' will run over before breakfast to ask you to go with him. I know that. But can I count on you?”
She hesitated for a moment, then she said, simply: “Yes, I'll go with you; but I shall leave you now. Good-night.”
“Good-night, then. Well, I'll see you Sunday—I guess that will have to do.”