HOLLIS FARM
Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, had decided instead to go around.
Main street, broad and shady under an unbroken arch of maple boughs, was flanked on each side by "Back street," the generic term applied to all the parallel streets. The short cross-streets were designated by the most direct method: "the street by the Baptist church," "the street by Dr. Fenton's," "the street going out to Judge Hollis's," or "the street where Mr. Moseley used to live." In the heart of thetown was the square, with the gray, weather-beaten court-house, the new and formidable jail, the post-office and church.
For twenty years Dr. Fenton's old high-seated buggy had jogged over the same daily course. It started at nine o'clock and passed with never-varying regularity up one street and down another. When any one was ill a sentinel was placed at the gate to hail the doctor, who was as sure to pass as the passenger-train. It was a familiar joke in Clayton that the buggy had a regular track, and that the wheels always ran in the same rut. Once, when Carter Nelson had taken too much egg-nog and his aunt thought he had spinal meningitis, the usual route had been reversed, and again when the blacksmith's triplets were born. But these were especial occasions. It was a matter for investigation when the doctor's buggy went over the bridge before noon.
"Anybody sick out this way?" asked the miller.
The doctor stopped the buggy to explain.
He was a short, fat man dressed in a suit of Confederate gray. The hand that held the reins was minus two fingers, his willing contribution to the Lost Cause, which was still to him the great catastrophe of all history. His whole personality was a bristling arsenal of prejudices. When he spoke it was in quick, short volleys, in a voice that seemed to come from the depths of a megaphone.
"Strange boy sick at Judge Hollis's. How's trade?"
"Fair to middlin'," answered the miller. "Do you reckon that there boy has got anything ketchin'?"
"Catching?" repeated the doctor savagely. "What if he has?" he demanded. "Two epidemics of typhoid, two of yellow fever, and one of smallpox that's my record, sir!"
"Looks like my children will ketch a fly-bite," said the miller, apologetically.
A little farther on the doctor was stopped again this time by a maiden in a pink-and-whitegingham, with a mass of light curls bobbing about her face.
"Dad!" she called as she scrambled over the fence. "Where you g-going, dad?"
The doctor flapped the lines nervously and tried to escape, but she pursued him madly. Catching up with the buggy, she pulled herself up on the springs and thrust an impudent, laughing face through the window at the back.
"Annette," scolded her father, "aren't you ashamed? Fourteen years old, and a tomboy! Get down!"
"Where you g-going, dad?" she stammered, unabashed.
"To Judge Hollis's. Get down this minute!"
"What for?"
"Somebody's sick. Get down, I say!"
Instead of getting down, she got in, coming straight through the small window, and arriving in a tangle of pink and white at his side.
The doctor heaved a prodigious sigh. Asa colonel of the Confederacy he had exacted strict discipline and unquestioning obedience, but he now found himself ignominiously reduced to the ranks, and another Fenton in command.
At Hollis Farm the judge met them at the gate. He was large and loose-jointed, with the frame of a Titan and the smile of a child. He wore a long, loose dressing-gown and a pair of slippers elaborately embroidered in green roses. His big, irregular features were softened by an expression of indulgent interest toward the world at large.
"Good morning, doctor. Howdy, Nettie. How are you all this morning?"
"Who's sick?" growled the doctor as he hitched his horse to the fence.
"It's a stray lad, doctor; my old cook, Melvy, played the good Samaritan and picked him up off the road last night. She brought him to me this morning. He's out of his head with a fever."
"Where'd he come from?" asked the doctor.
"Mrs. Hollis says he was peddling goods up at Main street and the bridge last night."
"Which one is he?" demanded Annette, eagerly, as she emerged from the buggy. "Is he g-good-looking, with blue eyes and light hair? Or is he b-black and ugly and sort of cross-eyed?"
The judge peered over his glasses quizzically. "Thinking about the boys, as usual! Now I want to know what business you have noticing the color of a peddler's eyes?"
Annette blushed, but she stood her ground. "All the g-girls noticed him. He wasn't an ordinary peddler. He was just as smart and f-funny as could be."
"Well, he isn't smart and funny now," said the judge, with a grim laugh.
The two men passed up the long avenue and into the house. At the door they were met by Mrs. Hollis, whose small angular person breathed protest. Her black hair was arranged in symmetrical bands which were drawn tightly back from a straightpart. When she talked, a gold-capped tooth was disclosed on each side of her mouth, giving rise to the judge's joke that one was capped to keep the other company, since Mrs. Hollis's sense of order and regularity rebelled against one eye-tooth of one color and the other of another.
"Good morning, doctor," she said shortly; "there's the door-mat. No, don't put your hat there; I'll take it. Isn't this a pretty business for Melvy to come bringing a sick tramp up here on general cleaning-day, too?"
"Aren't all days cleaning-days to you, Sue?" asked the judge, playfully.
"When you are in the house," she answered sharply. Then she turned to the doctor, who was starting up the stairs:
"If this boy is in for a long spell, I want him moved somewhere. I can't have my carpets run over and my whole house smelling like a hospital."
"Now, Susan," remonstrated the judge, gently, "we can't turn the lad out. We'vegot room and to spare. If he's got the fever, he'll have to stay."
"We'll see, we'll see," said the doctor.
But when he tiptoed down from the room above there was no question about it.
"Very sick boy," he said, rubbing his hand over his bald head. "If he gets better, I might take him over to Mrs. Meech's; he can't be moved now."
"Mrs. Meech!" cried Mrs. Hollis, in fine scorn. "Do you think I would let him go to that dirty house and with this fever, too? Why, Mrs. Meech's front curtains haven't been washed since Christmas! She and the preacher and Martha all sit around with their noses in books, and never even know that the water-spout is leaking and the porch needs mopping! You can't tell me anything about the Meeches!"
Neither of the men tried to do so; they stood silent in the doorway, looking very grave.
"For mercy sake! what is that in the front lot?" exclaimed Mrs. Hollis.
The doctor had an uncomfortable premonition, which was promptly verified. One of the judge's friskiest colts was circling madly about the driveway, while astride of it, in triumph, sat Annette, her dress ripped at the belt, her hair flying.
"If she don't need a woman's hand!" exclaimed Mrs. Hollis. "I could manage her all right."
The doctor looked from Mrs. Hollis, with her firm, close-shut mouth, to the flying figure on the lawn.
"Perhaps," he said, lifting his brows; but he put the odds on Annette.
That night, when Aunt Melvy brought the lamp into the sitting-room, she waited nervously near Mrs. Hollis's chair.
"Miss Sue," she ventured presently, "is de cunjers comin' out?"
"The what?"
"De cunjers what dat pore chile's got. I done tried all de spells I knowed, but look lak dey didn't do no good."
"He has the fever," said Mrs. Hollis; "and it means a long spell of nursing and bother for me."
The judge stirred uncomfortably. "Now, Sue," he remonstrated, "you needn't take a bit of bother. Melvy will see to him by day, and I will look after him at night."
Mrs. Hollis bit her lip and heroically refrained from expressing her mind.
"He's a mighty purty chile," said Aunt Melvy, tentatively.
"He's a common tramp," said Mrs. Hollis.
After supper, arranging a tray with a snowy napkin and a steaming bowl of broth, Mrs. Hollis went up to the sick-room. Her first step had been to have the patient bathed and combed and made presentable for the occupancy of the guest-chamber. It had been with rebellion of spirit that she placed him there, but the judge had taken one of those infrequent stands which she knew it was useless to resist. She put the tray on a table near the big four-poster bed, and leaned over to look at the sleeper.
Sandy lay quiet among the pillows, his fair hair tumbled, his lips parted. As the light fell on his flushed face he stirred.
"Here's your supper," said Mrs. Hollis, her voice softening in spite of herself. He was younger than she had thought. She slipped her arm under the pillow and raised his head.
"You must eat," she said kindly.
He looked at her vacantly, then a momentary consciousness flitted over his face, a vague realization that he was being cared for. He put up a hot hand and gently touched her cheek; then, rallying all his strength, he smiled away his debt of gratitude. It was over in a moment, and he sank back unconscious.
Illustration: He smiled away his debt of gratitude
Through the dreary hours of the night Mrs. Hollis sat by the bed, nursing him with the aching tenderness that only a childless woman can know. Below, in the depths of a big feather-bed, the judge slept in peaceful unconcern, disturbing the silence by a series of long, loud, and unmelodious snores.
CONVALESCENCE
"Is that the Nelson phaéton going out the road?" asked Mrs. Hollis as she peered out through the dining-room window one morning. "I shouldn't be a bit surprised if it was Mrs. Nelson making her yearly visits, and here my bricks haven't been reddened."
Sandy's heart turned a somersault. He was sitting up for the first time, wrapped in blankets and wearing a cap to cover his close-cropped head. All through his illness he had been tortured by the thought that he had talked of Ruth, though now wild horses could not have dragged forth a question concerning her.
"Melvy," continued Mrs. Hollis, as she briskly rubbed the sideboard with some unsavoryfurniture-polish, "if Mrs. Nelson does come here, you be sure to put on your white apron before you open the door; and for pity sake don't forget the card-tray! You ought to know better than to stick out your hand for a lady's calling-card. I told you about that last week."
Aunt Melvy paused in her dusting and chuckled: "Lor', honey, dat's right! You orter put on airs all de time, wid all de money de judge is got. He says to me yisterday, says he, 'Can't you 'suade yer Miss Sue not to be cleanin' up so much, an' not to go out in de front yard wid dat ole sunbonnet on?'"
"Well, I'd like to know how things would get done if I didn't do them," exclaimed Mrs. Hollis, hotly. "I suppose he would like me to let things go like the Meeches! The only time I ever saw Mrs. Meech work was when she swept the front pavement, and then she made Martha walk around behind her and read out loud while she was doing it."
"It's Mr. Meech that's in the yard now," announced Sandy from the side window. "He's raking the leaves with one hand and a-reading a book with the other."
"I knew it!" cried Mrs. Hollis. "I never saw such doings. They say she even leaves the dishes overnight. And yet she can sit on her porch and smile at people going by, just like her house was cleaned up. I hate a hypocrite."
Sandy had had ample time to watch the Meeches during his long convalescence. He had been moved from the spare room to a snug little room over the kitchen, which commanded a fine view of the neighbors. When the green book got too heavy to hold, or his eyes grew too tired to look at the many magazines with which the judge supplied him, he would lie still and watch the little drama going on next door.
Mrs. Meech was a large, untidy woman who always gave the impression of needing to be tucked up. The end of her gray braid hung out behind one ear, her waist hung outof her belt, and even the buttons on her shoes hung out of the buttonholes in shameless laziness.
Mr. Meech did not need tucking in; he needed letting out. He seemed to have shrunk in the wash of life. In spite of the fact that he was three sizes too small for his wife, to begin with, he emphasized it by wearing trousers that cleared his shoe-tops and sleeves half-way to his elbows. But this was only on week-days, for on Sunday Sandy would see him emerge, expand, and flutter forth in an ample suit of shiny broadcloth. For Mr. Meech was the pastor of the Hard-Shell Baptist Church in Clayton, and if his domestic economy was a matter of open gossip, there was no question concerning the fact of his learning. It had been the boast of the congregation for years that Judge Hollis was the only man in town who was smart enough to understand his sermons. When Mr. Meech started out in the morning with a book under his arm and one sticking out of eachpocket, Sandy would pull up on his elbow to watch proceedings. He loved to see fat Mrs. Meech pat the little man lovingly on the head and kiss him good-by; he loved to see Martha walk with him to the gate and throw kisses after him until he turned the curve in the road.
Martha was a pale, thin girl with two long, straight plaits and a long, straight dress. She went to school in the morning, and when she came home at noon her mother always hurried to meet her and kissed her on both cheeks. Sandy had got quite in the habit of watching for her at the side window where she came to study. He leaned forward now to see if she were there.
"I thought so!" cried Mrs. Hollis, looking over his shoulder. "There comes the Nelson phaéton this minute! Melvy, get on your white apron. I'll wind up the cuckoo-clock and unlock the parlor door."
"Who is it?" ventured Sandy, with internal tremors.
"Hit's Mrs. Nelson an' her niece, MissRufe," said Aunt Melvy, nervously trying to reverse her apron after tying the bow in the front. "Dey's big bugs, dey is. Dey is quality, an' no mistake. I b'longed to Miss Rufe's grandpaw; he done lef' her all his money, she an' Mr. Carter. Poor Mr. Carter! Dey say he ain't got no lungs to speak of. Ain't no wonder he's sorter wild like. He takes after his grandpaw, my ole mars'. Lor', honey, de mint-juleps jus' nachelly ooze outen de pores ob his grandpaw's skin! But Miss Rufe she ain't like none ob dem Nelsons; she favors her maw. She's quality inside an' out."
A peal of the bell cut short further interesting revelations. Aunt Melvy hurried through the hall, leaving doors open behind her. At the front door she paused in dismay. Before her stood the Nelsons in calling attire, presenting two immaculate cards for her acceptance. Too late she remembered her instructions.
"'Fore de Lawd!" she cried in consternation,"ef I ain't done fergit dat pan ag'in!"
Sandy, left alone in the dining-room, was listening with every nerve a-quiver for the sound of Ruth's voice. The thought that she was here under the same roof with him sent the blood bounding through his veins. He pulled himself up, and trailing the blanket behind him, made his way somewhat unsteadily across the room and up the back stairs.
Behind the door of his room hung the pride of his soul, a new suit of clothes, whole, patchless, clean, which the judge had bought him two days before. He had sat before it in speechless admiration; he had hung it in every possible light to get the full benefit of its beauty; he had even in the night placed it on a chair beside the bed, so that he could put out his hand in the dark and make sure it was there. For it was the first new suit of clothes that he remembered ever to have possessed. He had not intended to wear it until Sunday,but the psychological moment had arrived.
With trembling fingers and many pauses for rest, he made his toilet. He looked in the mirror, and his heart nearly burst with pride. The suit, to be sure, hung limp on his gaunt frame, and his shaven head gave him the appearance of a shorn lamb, but to Sandy the reflection was eminently satisfying. One thing only seemed to be lacking. He meditated a moment, then, with some misgiving, picked up a small linen doily from the dresser, and carefully folding it, placed it in his breast-pocket, with one corner just visible.
Triumphant in mind, if weak in body, he slipped down the back steps, skirted Aunt Melvy's domain, and turned the corner of the house just as the Nelson phaéton rolled out of the yard. Before he had time to give way to utter despair a glimmer of hope appeared on the horizon, for the phaéton stopped, and there was evidently something the matter. Sandy did not wait for it to beremedied. He ran down the road with all the speed he could muster.
Near the gate where the little branch crossed the turnpike was a slight embankment, and two wheels of the phaéton had slipped over the edge and were buried deep in the soft earth. Beside it, sitting indignantly in the water, was an irate lady who had evidently attempted to get out backward and had taken a sudden and unexpected seat. Her countenance was a pure specimen of Gothic architecture; a massive pompadour reared itself above two Gothic eyebrows which flanked a nose of unquestioned Gothic tendencies. Her mouth, with its drooping corners, completed the series of arches, and the whole expression was one of aspiring melancholy and injured majesty.
Kneeling at her side, reassuring her and wiping the water from her hands, was Ruth Nelson.
"God send you ain't hurt, ma'am!" cried Sandy, arriving breathless.
The girl looked up and shook her headin smiling protest, but the Gothic lady promptly suffered a relapse.
"I am I know I am! Just look at my dress covered with mud, and my glove is split. Get my smelling-salts, Ruth!"
Ruth, upon whom the lady was leaning, turned to Sandy.
"Will you hand it to me? It is in the little bag there on the seat."
Sandy rushed to do her bidding. He was rather hazy as to the object of his search; but when his fingers touched a round, soft ball he drew it forth and hastily presented it to the lady's Roman nose.
She, with closed eyes, was taking deep whiffs when a laugh startled her.
"Oh, Aunt Clara, it's your powder-puff!" cried Ruth, unable to restrain her mirth.
Mrs. Nelson rose with as much dignity as her draggled condition would permit. "You'd better get me home," she said solemnly. "I may be internally injured."She turned to Sandy. "Boy, can't you get that phaéton back on the road?"
Sandy, whose chagrin over his blunder had sent him to the background, came promptly forward. Seizing the wheel, he made several ineffectual efforts to lift it back to the road.
"It is not moving an inch!" announced the mournful voice from above. "Can't you take hold of it nearer the back, and exert a little more strength?"
Sandy bit his lip and shot a swift glance at Ruth. She was still smiling. With savage determination he fell upon the wheel as if it had been a mortal foe; he pushed and shoved and pulled, and finally, with a rally of all his strength, he went on his knees in the mud and lifted the phaéton back on the road.
Then came a collapse, and he leaned against the nearest tree and struggled with the deadly faintness that was stealing over him.
"Why why, you are the boy who was sick!" cried Ruth, in dismay.
Sandy, white and trembling, shook his head protestingly. "It's me bellows that's rocky," he explained between gasps.
Mrs. Nelson rustled back into the phaéton, and taking a piece of money from her purse, held it out to him.
"That will amply repay you," she said.
Sandy flushed to the roots of his close-cropped hair. A tip, heretofore a gift of the gods, had suddenly become an insult. Angry, impetuous words rushed to his lips, and he took a step forward. Then he was aware of a sudden change in the girl, who had just stepped into the phaéton. She shot a quick, indignant look at her aunt, then turned around and smiled a good-by to him.
He lifted his cap and said, "I thank ye." But it was not to Mrs. Nelson, who still held the money as they drove out of the avenue.
Sandy went wearily back to the house.He had made his first trial in behalf of his lady fair, but his soul knew no elation. His beautiful new armor had sustained irreparable injury, and his vanity had received a mortal wound.
AUNT MELVY AS A SOOTHSAYER
It was a crisp afternoon in late October. The road leading west from Clayton ran the gantlet of fiery maples and sumac until it reached the barren hillside below "Who'd 'a' Thought It." The little cabin clung to the side of the steep slope like a bit of fungus to the trunk of a tree.
In the doorway sat three girls, one tall and dark, one plump and fair, and the third straight and thin. They were anxiously awaiting the revelation of the future as disclosed by Aunt Melvy's far-famed tea-leaves. The prophetess kept them company while waiting for the water to boil.
"He sutenly is a peart boy," she wassaying. "De jedge done start him in plumb at de foot up at de 'cademy, an' dey tell me he's ketchin' up right along."
"Wasn't it g-grand in Judge Hollis to send him to school?" said Annette. "Of course he's going to work for him b-between times. They say even Mrs. Hollis is glad he is going to stay."
"'Co'se she is," said Aunt Melvy; "dere nebber was nobody come it over Miss Sue lak he done."
"Father says he is very quick," ventured Martha Meech, a faint color coming to her dull cheek at this unusual opportunity of descanting upon such an absorbing subject. "Father told Judge Hollis he would help him with his lessons, and that he thought it would be only a little while before he was up with the other boys."
"Dad says he's a d-dandy," cried Annette. "And isn't it grand he's going to be put on the ball team and the glee club!"
Ruth rose to break a branch laden with crimson maple-leaves. "Was he ever herebefore?" she asked in puzzled tones. "I have seen him somewhere, and I can't think where."
"Well, I'd never f-forget him," said Annette. "He's got the jolliest face I ever saw. M-Martha says he can jump that high fence b-back of the Hollises' without touching it. I d-drove dad's buggy clear up over the curbstone yesterday, so he would come to the r-rescue, and he swung on to old B-Baldy's neck like he had been a race-horse."
"But you don't know him," protested Ruth. "And, besides, he was he was a peddler."
"I don't care if he was," said Annette. "And if I don't know him, it's no sign I am not g-going to."
Aunt Melvy chuckled as she rose to encourage the fire with a pair of squeaking old bellows.
Martha looked about the room curiously. "Can you really tell what's going to happen?" she asked timidly.
"Indeed she can," said Annette. "She told Jane Lewis that she was g-going to have some g-good luck, and the v-very next week her aunt died and left her a turquoise-ring!"
"Yas, chile," said Aunt Melvy, bending over the fire to light her pipe; "I been habin' divisions for gwine on five year. Dat's what made me think I wuz gwine git religion; but hit ain't come yit not yit. I'm a mourner an' a seeker." Her pipe dropped unheeded, and she gazed with fixed eyes out of the window.
"Tell us about your visions," demanded Annette.
"Well," said Aunt Melvy, "de fust I knowed about it wuz de lizards in my legs. I could feel 'em jus' as plain as day, dese here little green lizards a-runnin' round inside my legs. I tole de doctor 'bout hit, Miss Nettie; but he said 't warn't nothin' but de fidgits. I knowed better 'n he did dat time. Dat night I had a division, an' de dream say, 'Put on yer purple mournin'-dress an' set wid yer feet in a barrel obb'ilin' water till de smoke comes down de chimbly.' An' so I done, a-settin' up dere on dat chist o' drawers all night, wid my purple mournin'-dress on an' my feet in de b'ilin' water, an' de lizards run away so fur dat dey ain't even stopped yit."
"Aunt Melvy, do you tell fortunes by palmistry?" asked Ruth.
"Yas'm; I reckon dat's what you call hit. I tells by de tea-leaves. Lor', Miss Rufe, you sutenly put me in min' o' yer grandmaw! She kerried her haid up in de air jus' lak you do, an' she wuz jus' as putty as you is, too. We libed in de ole plantation what's done burned down now, an' I lubed my missus I sutenly did. When my ole man fust come here from de country I nebber seen sech a fool. He didn't know no more 'bout courtin' dan nothin'; but I wuz better qualified. I jus' tole ole miss how 't wuz, an' she fixed up de weddin'. I nebber will fergit de day we walk ober de plantation an' say we wuz married. George he had on a brand-new pair pants dat costtwo hundred an' sixty-four dollars in Confederate money."
"Isn't the water b-boiling yet?" asked Annette, impatiently.
"So 't is, so 't is," said Aunt Melvy, lifting the kettle from the crane. She dropped a few tea-leaves in three china cups, and then with great solemnity and occasional guttural ejaculations poured the water over them.
Before the last cup was filled, Annette, with a wry face, had drained the contents of hers and held it out to Aunt Melvy.
"There are my leaves. If they don't tell about a lover with b-blue eyes and an Irish accent, I'll never b-believe them."
Aunt Melvy bent over the cup, and her sides shook. "You gwine be a farmer's wife," she said, chuckling at the girl's grimace. "You gwine raise chickens an' chillun."
"Ugh!" said Annette as the other girls laughed; "are his eyes b-blue?"
Aunt Melvy pondered over the leaves."Well, now, 'pears to me he's sorter dark-complected an' fat, like Mr. Sid Gray," she said.
"Never!" declared Annette. "I loathe Sid."
"Tell my future!" cried Martha, pushing her cup forward eagerly.
"Dey ain't none!" cried Aunt Melvy, aghast, as she saw the few broken leaves in the bottom of the cup. "You done drinked up yer fortune. Dat's de sign ob early death. I gwine fix you a good-luck bag; dey say ef you carry it all de time, hit's a cross-sign ag'in' death."
"But can't you tell me anything?" persisted Martha.
"Dey ain't nothin' to tell," repeated Aunt Melvy, "'cep'n' to warn you to carry dat good-luck bag all de time."
"Now, mine," said Ruth, with an incredulous but curious smile.
For several moments Aunt Melvy bent over the cup in deep consideration, and then she rose and took it to the window, withfearsome, anxious looks at Ruth meanwhile. Once or twice she made a sign with her fingers, and frowned anxiously.
"What is it, Aunt Melvy?" Ruth demanded. "Am I going to be an old maid?"
"'T ain't no time to joke, chile," whispered Aunt Melvy, all the superstition of her race embodied in her trembling figure. "What I see, I see. Hit's de galluses what I see in de bottom ob yer cup!"
"Do you m-mean suspenders?" laughed Annette.
Aunt Melvy did, not hear her; she was looking over the cup into space, swaying and moaning.
"To t'ink ob my ole missus' gran'chile bein' mixed up wif a gallus lak dey hang de niggers on! But hit's dere, jus' as plain as day, de two poles an' de cross-beam."
Ruth laughed as she looked into the cup.
"Is it for me?"
"Don't know, honey; de signs don't p'int to no one person: but hit's in yer life, an' de shadow rests ag'in' you."
By this time Martha was at the door, urging the others to hurry. Her face was pale and her eyes were troubled. Ruth saw her nervousness and slipped her arm about her. "It's all in fun," she whispered.
"Of course," said Annette. "You m-mustn't mind her foolishness. Besides, I g-got the worst of it. I'd rather die young or be hanged, any day, than to m-marry Sid Gray."
Aunt Melvy followed them to the door, shaking her head. "I'se gwine make you chillun some good-luck bags. De fust time de new moon holds water I'se sholy gwine fix 'em. 'T ain't safe not to mind de signs; 't ain't safe."
And with muttered warnings she watched them until they were lost to view behind the hill.
TRANSITION
The change from the road to the school-room was not without many a struggle on Sandy's part. The new life, the new customs, and the strange language, were baffling.
The day after the accident in the road, Mrs. Hollis had sent him to inquire how old Mrs. Nelson was, and he had returned with the astonishing report that she was sixty-one.
"But you didn't ask her age?" cried Mrs. Hollis, horrified.
Sandy looked perplexed. "I said what ye bid me," he declared.
Everything he did, in fact, seemed to be wrong; and everything he said, to bring asmile. He confided many a woe to Aunt Melvy as he sat on the kitchen steps in the evenings.
"Hit's de green rubbin' off," she assured him sympathetically. "De same ones dat laugh at you now will be takin' off dey hats to you some day."
"Oh, it ain't the guyin' I mind," said Sandy; "it's me wooden head. Them little shavers that can't see a hole in a ladder can beat me figurin'."
"You jus' keep on axin' questions," advised Aunt Melvy. "Dat's what I always tole Rachael. Rachael's dat yaller gal up to Mrs. Nelson's. I done raise her, an' she ain't a bit o'count. I use' ter say, 'You fool nigger, how you ebber gwine learn nothin' effen you don't ax questions?' An' she'd stick out her mouth an' say, 'Umph, umph; you don't ketch me lettin' de white folks know how much sense I ain't got.' Den she'd put on a white dress an' a white sunbonnet an' go switchin' up de street, lookin' jus' lak a fly in a glass ob buttermilk."
"It's the mixed-up things that bother me," said Sandy. "Mr. Moseley was telling of us to-day how ye lost a day out of the week when ye went round the world one way, and gained a day when ye went round the other."
Aunt Melvy paused with the tea-towel in her hand. "Lost a day outen de week? Where'd he say you lost it at?"
Sandy shook his head in perplexity.
"Dat's plumb foolishness," said Aunt Melvy, indignantly. "I'se s'prised at Mr. Moseley, I sholy is. Dey sorter gits notions, dem teachers does. When dey tells you stuff lak dat, honey, don't you pay 'em no mind."
But Sandy did "pay 'em mind." He followed Aunt Melvy's advice about asking questions, and wrestled with each new proposition until he mastered it. It did not take him long, moreover, to distinguish the difference between himself and those about him. The words and phrases that had passed current on the street seemed to ringfalse here. He watched the judge covertly and took notes.
His progress at the academy was a singular succession of triumphs and failures. His natural quickness, together with an enthusiastic ambition to get on, enabled him soon to take his place among the boys of his own age. But a superabundance of high spirits and an inordinate love of fun caused many a dark entry on the debit side of his school ledger. There were many times when he exasperated the judge to the limit of endurance, for he was reckless and impulsive, charged to the exploding-point with vitality, and ever and always the victim of his last caprice; but when it came to the final issue, and the judge put a question fairly before him, the boy was always on the side of right, even though it proved him guilty.
At first Mrs. Hollis had been strongly opposed to his remaining on the farm, but she soon became silent on the subject. It was a heretofore unknown luxury to have the outside work promptly and efficientlyattended to. He possessed "the easy grace that makes a joke of toil"; and when he despatched his various chores and did even more than was required of him, Mrs. Hollis capitulated.
It was something more, however, than his ability and service that won her. The affection of the world, which seemed to eddy around her, as a rule, found an exception in Sandy. His big, exuberant nature made no distinction: he swept over her, sharp edges and all; he teased her, coaxed her, petted her, laughed at her, turned her tirades with a bit of blarney, and in the end won her in spite of herself.
"He's ketchin' on," reported Aunt Melvy, confidently. "I heared him puttin' on airs in his talk. When dey stops talkin' nachel, den I knows dey are learnin' somethin'."
WATERLOO
It was not until three years had passed and Sandy had reached his junior year that his real achievement was put to the test.
After that harrowing experience in the Hollis driveway, he had seen Ruth Nelson but twice. She had spent the winters at boarding-school, and in the summers she traveled with her aunt. She was still the divinity for whom he shaped his end, the compass that always brought him back to the straight course. He looked upon her possible recognition and friendship as a man looks upon his reward in heaven. In the meantime he suffered himself to be consoled by less distant joys.
The greatest spur he had to study was Martha Meech. She thought he was a genius; and while he found it a bit irksome to live up to his reputation, he made an honest effort to deserve it.
One spring afternoon the two were under the apple-trees, with their books before them. The years that had lifted Sandy forward toward vigor and strength and manhood had swept over Martha relentlessly, beating out her frail strength, and leaving her weaker to combat each incoming tide. Her straight, straw-colored hair lay smooth about her delicate face, and in her eyes was the strained look of one who seeks but is destined never to attain.
"Let's go over the Latin once more," she was saying patiently, "just to make sure you understand."
"Devil a bit more!" cried Sandy, jumping up from where he lay in the grass and tossing the book lightly from her hand; "it's the sin and the shame to keep you poking in books, now the spring is here.Martha, do you mind the sound of the wind in the tree-tops?"
She nodded, and he went on:
"Does it put strange words in your heart that you can't even think out in your head? If I could be translating the wind and the river, I'd never be minding the Latin again."
Martha looked at him half timidly.
"Sometimes, do you know, I almost think you are a poet, Sandy; you are always thinking the things the poets write about."
"Do you, now, true?" he asked seriously, dropping down on the grass beside her. Then he laughed. "You'll be having me writing rhymes, now, in a minute."
"Why not?" she urged.
"I must stick to my course," he said. "I'd never be a real one. They work for the work's sake, and I work for the praise. If I win the scholarship, it'll be because you want me to, Martha; if I come to be a lawyer, it's because it's the wish of the judge's heart; and if I win out in the end, it will be for the love of some one some one whocares more for that than for anything else in the world."
She dropped her eyes, while he watched the flight of a song-bird as it wheeled about overhead. Presently she opened an old portfolio and took from it a little sketch.
"I have been trying to get up courage to show it to you all week," she said, with a deprecatory laugh.
"It's the river," cried Sandy, "just at sundown, when the shadows are slipping away from the bank! Martha, why didn't ye tell me? Are there more?"
He ransacked the portfolio, drawing out sketch after sketch and exclaiming over each. They were crude little efforts, faulty in drawing and in color; but the spirit was there, and Sandy had a vague instinct for the essence of things.
"I believe you're the real kind, Martha. They're crooked a bit, but they've got the feel of the woods in 'em, all right. I can just hear the water going over those stones."
Martha's eyes glowed at the praise. Fora year she had reached forward blindly toward some outlet for her cramped, limited existence, and suddenly a way seemed open toward the light.
"I wanted to learn how before I showed you," she said. "I am never going to show them to any one but you and mother and father."
"But you must go somewhere to study," cried Sandy. "It's a great artist you'll be some day."
She shook her head. "It's not for me, Sandy. I'll always be like a little beggar girl that peeps through the fence into a beautiful garden. I know all the wonderful things are there, but I'll never get to them."
"But ye will," cried Sandy, hot with sympathy. "I'll be making money some day, and I'll send ye to the finest master in the country; and you will be getting well and strong, and we'll go "
Mr. Meech, shuffling up the walk toward them, interrupted. "Studying for the examination, eh? That's right, my boy. Thejudge tells me that you have a good chance to win the scholarship."
"Did he, now?" said Sandy, with shameless pleasure; "and you, Mr. Meech, do ye think the same?"
"I certainly do," said Mr. Meech. "Anybody that can accomplish the work you do at home, and hold your record at the academy, stands an excellent chance."
Sandy thought so, too, but he tried to be modest. "If it'll be in me, it will come out," he said with suppressed triumph as he swung his books across his shoulder and started home.
Martha's eyes followed him wistfully, and she hoped for a backward look before he turned in at the door. But he was absorbed in sailing a broomstick across Aunt Melvy's pathway, causing her to drop her basket and start after him in hot pursuit.
That evening the judge glanced across the table with great satisfaction at Sandy, who was apparently buried in his Vergil. The boy, after all, was a student; he wasjustifying the money and time that had been spent upon him; he was proving a credit to his benefactor's judgment and to his knowledge of human nature.
"Would ye mind telling me a word that rhymes with lance?" broke in Sandy after an hour of absorbed concentration.
"Pants," suggested the judge. But he woke up in the night to wonder again what part of Vergil Sandy had been studying.
"How about the scholarship?" he asked the next day of Mr. Moseley, the principal of the academy.
Mr. Moseley pursed his lips and considered the matter ponderously. He regarded it as ill befitting an instructor of youth to dispose of any subject in words of less than three syllables.
"Your proteacute;geacute;, Judge Hollis, is an ambiguous proposition. He possesses invention and originality, but he is sadly lacking in sustained concentration."
"But if he studies," persisted the judge, "you think he may win it?"
Mr. Moseley wrinkled his brows and looked as if he were solving a problem in Euclid. "Probably," he admitted; "but there is a most insidious enemy with which he has to contend."
"An enemy?" repeated the judge, anxiously.
"My dear sir," said Mr. Moseley, sinking his voice to husky solemnity, "the boy is stung by the tarantula of athletics!"
It was all too true. The Ambiguous Proposition had found, soon after reaching Clayton, that base-ball was what he had been waiting for all his life. It was what he had been born for, what he had crossed the ocean for, and what he would gladly have died for.
There could have been no surer proof of his growing power of concentration than that he kept a firm grasp on his academy work during these trying days. It was a hand-to-hand fight with the great mass of knowledge that had been accumulating at such a cruel rate during the years he hadspent out of school. He was making gallant progress when a catastrophe occurred.
The great ball game of the season, which was to be played in Lexington between the Clayton team and the Lexington nine, was set for June 2. And June 2 was the day which cruel fate masked as the board of trustees—had set for the academy examinations. Sandy was the only member of the team who attended the academy, and upon him alone rested the full agony of renunciation. His disappointment was so utterly crushing that it affected the whole family.
"Couldn't they postpone the game?" asked the judge.
"It was the second that was the only day the Lexingtons could play," said Sandy, in black despair. "And to think of me sitting in the bloomin' old school-room while Sid Gray loses the game in me place!"
For a week before the great event he lived in retirement. The one topic of conversation in town was the ball game, and he found the strain too great to be borne.The team was to go to Lexington on the noon train with a mighty company of loyal followers. Every boy and girl who could meet the modest expenses was going, save the unfortunate victims of the junior class at the academy. Annette Fenton had even had a dress made in the Clayton colors.
As Sandy went into town on the important day, his heart was like a rock in his breast. There was glorious sunshine everywhere, and a cool little undercurrent of breezes stirred every leaf into a tiny banner of victory. Up in the square, Johnson's colored band was having a final rehearsal, while on the court-house steps the team, glorious in new uniforms, were excitedly discussing the plan of campaign. Little boys shouted, and old boys left their stores to come out and give a bit of advice or encouragement to the waiting warriors. Maidens in crisp lawn dresses and flying ribbons fluttered about in a tremor of anticipation.
Sandy Kilday, with his cap pulled overhis eyes, went up Back street. If he could not make the devil get behind him, he at least could get behind the devil. Without a moment's hesitation he would have given ten years of sober middle-age life for that one glorious day of youth on the Lexington diamond, with the victory to be fought for, and the grand stand to be won.
He tried not to keep step with the music—he even tried to think of quadratic equations—as he marched heroically on to the academy. His was the face of a Christian martyr relinquishing life for a good but hopeless cause.
Late that afternoon Judge Hollis left his office and walked around to the academy. He had sympathized fully with Sandy, and wanted, if possible, to find out the result of the examination before going home. The report of the scholarship won would reconcile him to his disappointment.
At the academy gate he met Mr. Moseley, who greeted him with a queer smile. They both asked the same question:
"Where's Sandy?"
As if in answer, there came a mighty shout from the street leading down to the depot. Turning, they saw a cheering, hilarious crowd; bright-flowered hats flashed among college caps, while shrill girlish voices rang out with the manly ones. Carried high in the air on the shoulders of a dozen boys, radiant with praise and success, sat the delinquent Sandy, and the tumult below resolved itself into one mighty cheer: