XIV
It was with a growing feeling of contempt for himself that Wolfe watched Tot Singleton go silently and broken-heartedly toward her old home in the south end of the basin. He knew that he had been grossly unkind to her, to say the least. She had done that which she had done only because of her deep interest in his own welfare. She had been his guardian angel, ever ready to make any sacrifice for him, and she had never asked anything of him but—forgiveness.
He grappled with the foolish primitive pride that had more than once come near to being his undoing, and put it down.
"Wait, Tot!" he said.
Instead of waiting, she began to run from him. She, too, had a certain amount of primitive pride.
And he frowned and let her go.
Not long afterward, Alex Singleton appeared with twenty-seven of his kinsmen, among whom was his son. He proffered the services of himself and the twenty-seven strapping hill princes in the work of finishing the railroad. Under the new circumstances, he believed Wolfe wouldfeel free to accept. Wolfe did accept, with gratitude, and the little lumber track began once more to move onward.
When the mill-site was reached, the Singletons, with old Alex as foreman, went to one of the big coves and began to wage war upon the giant oaks and poplars. A better force of woodsmen never felled trees.
Wolfe hurried out the necessities for the building of the monster sawmill as fast as they could be shipped. Following the material, came carpenters, masons, and millwrights. The plant went up with a rapidity that was next to amazing. The first day of November saw all the machinery installed and belted, and a huge pile of perfect logs waiting to be converted into export stock worth above a hundred dollars a thousand feet. Since entering the basin, there had not been a single hitch anywhere.
And in October, that month of silences, dying leaves and soft, hazy skies, Wolfe did something besides watch over the building of the sawmill. On the spot where his father's rambling, rotting, leaky cabin had stood, an extra force of workmen had put up a very comfortable dwelling of six rooms; it was furnished throughout with modern furnishings, and lying on one of the cabinet mantels was a beautiful orange-and-brown violin. The whole was to be a surprise present for the elder Buck Wolfe. After some persuasion from the colonel and his good wife, Sheriff Starnes had agreed to bring the old clan leader out to see it.
The son was counting upon this surprise present to do much toward softening the hard iron of his father's heart. He had drawn his salary for fifteen months in advance, in order that he might build and furnish the house and buy the violin. It had put him to wearing cheap blue shirts and corduroys; he was saving his one presentable suit for special occasions.
The mill was to be started at noon. The Masons and Tot Singleton, Alice Fair—who was still dazzlingly pretty—and her father had come out to see it. Whitney Fair now owned a controlling interest in the company, which was no fault of Colonel Mason's, and he wasn't going to miss anything. Physically, Fair was a big fellow, corpulent and florid, with an unlikeable cleft in his chin and eyes that were a little too small for the rest of his features.
Promptly at twelve o'clock the great whistle blew and awoke ten thousand echoes from the walls of the basin; Progress the Brobdignagian was once more defying the spirits of the wilds. The sawyer threw a log to the carriage by means of a powerful steam apparatus; he thrust his main lever forward, and the foot-wide ribbon of steel dove into the wood with a scream like that of some victorious medieval warrior. The edgers and trimmers and slashers began to roar intermittently; it was like the quarreling of demons. Fine yellow poplar panel stock began to drift down the transfer chains and to where an inspector stood with a new rule in one hand and a new tally-book in the other.
The Masons and the Fairs shook Wolfe's grimy hands in congratulation. The humming of machinery and the sounds of the saws made speech impossible; but the man who had built the mill understood.
Then Wolfe missed Tot Singleton, and wondered where she had gone. Her absence was, somehow, a fly in this ointment. He left the Masons and the Fairs, and went down the outside stairway to the ground. The Singletons met him in a body. He found himself on old Alex's shoulders, while the rest of them cheered. When he was set on his feet, Granny Wolfe appeared with her staff and her dog; she put her arms proudly around his neck, drew his head down and kissed him on the forehead.
"Granmaw's so happy today, honey," she told him brokenly, "'at she could jest drap dead in her consarned old tracks. Kiss grammaw!"
He did, quite affectionately. Old Grandpap Bill Singleton then shook his hand as heartily as his poor strength would permit, and said to him, "Well done! You shorely ain't a slothful servant."
But the fly was still in this ointment ofWolfe's. Tot had stolen away to keep from meeting him. She was still angry with him, and the thought was oddly annoying!
His footsteps led him, it seemed without the aid of his will, up the creek and to the stately old willow that still towered over its bar of pure white sand. He came upon Tot standing motionless against the body of the gently whispering tree. She met his eager gaze with a pair of blue eyes that were half-curious and half-defiant.
It was Tot that spoke first. "I understood that the mill was to be set in the very center o' the basin. This tree is in the very center o' the basin. Why didn't you put your mill here, Mr. Wolfe?"
He stared at her. Then he took a sort of grip on himself.
"Because I didn't want to—er, desecrate this fine old spot," he told her. "Now please don't call me 'Mr. Wolfe' any more!"
"Oh, Mr. Wolfe," with the very queerest, chilliest little smile, "how many times did you figure out the amount o' lumber you could get from this tree before you mag-nan-i-mously decided to let it stand—Mr. Wolfe?"
He winced. A sharp reply sprang to his lips, but he kept himself from giving it voice.
"If you don't mind," he said, "I'd rather you wouldn't tease—now."
"Well," and her eyes scintillated peculiarly, "'Little Buck' sounds so much like an outlaw's name, or the name of an ox, you know."
She was strikingly handsome in that moment. A sudden feeling that he was her inferior kept him from being very much exasperated. He looked down at his ragged and greasy corduroys, at his grimy hands, at his worn old boots. He touched the short, stubby beard on his chin with finger and thumb. But he must offer his long-delayed apology.
"I wanted to ask pardon, Tot," said he, "for telling you a month ago that I didn't think I'd forgive you for sending the sheriff out here. I've seen you but twice since that day, and you avoided meeting me both times, or I'd have apologized sooner. Will you pardon me, Tot, and try to forget that I was such a brute?"
The mountain heart within her leaped wildly. What was an apology, the mere uttering of a few courteous words, compared to the nights and nights of poignant suffering his wounding her had brought? She had drawn deeply from self-pity for solace, without knowing that self-pity is one of the most poisonous weeds in the garden of life. She remembered more keenly than ever now. The wrong was magnified in her intensely human breast. And—she loved him.
Tot Singleton straightened proudly and proudly lifted her head. Deliberately she repeated the words that he had said to her when it was she that begged forgiveness.
"I don't think I will."
"Tot, you can't mean that!"
"But I do mean it," quite calmly.
"Then I'm mighty sorry, little girl."
He faced about slowly and left her, going toward his sawmill.
"I'm lowdown!" she whispered to herself when he had disappeared in the bush. "I made fun o' his name, and how could he help his people if he used any other name? Oh, I'm lowdown—He's such a fine man, and I—I have to watch myself, or I can't even talk proper!"
She turned her face to the body of the old willow that had been a witness to so much in her life, and sobbed because she hated herself for having taken her revenge.