As Mostyn's train ascended the grade leading up to the hamlet of Ridgeville, within a mile of which lay the little farm to which he was going, he sat at an open window and viewed the scene with delight, drawing into his lungs with a sense of restful content the crisp, rarefied air. To the west, and marking the vicinity of Drake's farm, the mountain loomed up in its blended coat of gray and green, growing more and more indistinct as the range gradually extended into the bluish haze of distance.
"I'm going to like it," he said, almost aloud, with the habit he had of talking to himself when alone. "I feel as if I shall never want to look inside a bank again. This is life, real, sensible life. I have, after all, always had a yearning for genuine simplicity. It must have come to me from my pioneer, Puritan ancestry. That man over there plowing corn with his mule and ragged harness is happier than I ever was down there in that God-forsaken turmoil. The habit of wanting to beat other men in the expert turning over of capital is as dangerous, once it clutches you, as morphine. I must call a halt. That last narrow escape shall be a lesson. I am getting normal again, and I must stay so. What are Alan Delbridge's operations to me? He has no nerves nor imagination. He could have slept through that last tangle of mine which came within an inch of laying me out stiff and stark. I wonder how all the Drakes are, especially Dolly. She must be fully grown now. Saunders says she is beautiful and as wise as Socrates. I suppose there are a dozen mountain boys after her by this time. For a little girl she was astonishingly mature in manner and thought. I ought not to have talked to her as I did. I have never forgotten her face and voice as I saw and heard them that last night. I see the wonderful eyes and mouth, the like of which I have never run across since. I am ashamed to think that I acted as I did, and she only an inexperienced child; but I really couldn't help it. I seemed to be in a dream. It was really an unpardonable thing—and proves that Idolack character—for me to tell her that I would often think of her. But the worst of all, really the most cowardly, considering her unsuspecting innocence and exaggerated faith in me, was my kissing her as I did there in the moonlight. How exquisite was her vow that she'd never kiss any other man as long as she lived! Lord, I wonder what ails me. Surely I am not silly enough to be actually—"
Mostyn's meditations were interrupted by a shrill shriek from the locomotive. Leaning out of the window, he saw the little old-fashioned brick car-shed ahead and heard the grinding of the brakes on the smooth wheels beneath the car. Grasping his bag in his hand, he made his way out and descended to the ground.
He saw the long white three-story hotel close by with its green blinds, extensive veranda, and blue-railed balustrade, the row of stores and law-offices, forming three sides of a square of which the car-shed, depot, and railway made the fourth. In the open space stood some canvas-covered mountain-wagons containing produce for shipment to the larger markets, and the usual male loungers in straw hats, baggy trousers, easy shoes, and shirts without coats.
A burly negro porter hastened down the steps of the hotel and approached swinging his slouch hat in his hand, his eyes on the traveler's bag.
"All right, boss—Purcell House, fus'-class hotel, whar all de drummers put up. Good sample-rooms an' fine country cookin'."
Mostyn held on to his bag, which the swarthy hands were grasping. "No, I'm not going to stop," he explained. "I'm going out to Drake's farm."
"Oh,isyou? Well, suh, Mr. John Webb is in de freight depot. I done hear 'im say he fetched de buggy ter tek somebody out."
At this juncture the florid and flushed face of Webb was seen as he emerged from the doorway of the depot. He was bent under a weighty bag of flour, and smiled and waved his hat by way of salutation as he advanced to a buggy at a public hitching-rack and deposited his burden in the receptacle behind the single seat. This done, he came forward, brushing the sleeve of his alpaca coat and grinning jovially.
"How are you?" He extended a fat, perspiring hand luckily powdered with flour. "I reckon you won't mind riding out with me. Tom said he'd bet you'd rather walk to limber up your legs, but Lucy made me fetch the buggy along, as some said you wasn't as well as common. But you look all right to me-that is, as well asanyof you city fellers ever do. The last one of you look as white as convicts out o' jail. I reckon thar is so much smoke over your town that the sun don't strike it good and straight."
"Oh, I'm all right," Mostyn said, good-naturedly, "just a little run down from overwork, that's all."
"Run down?" Webb seemed quite concerned with getting at the exact meaning of the statement, and as he took Mostyn's bag and put it in with the flour he eyed the banker attentively."Run down?"he repeated, with his characteristic emphasis. "I don't see how a man as big an' hearty as you look an' weighin' as much could git sick or eventiredwithout havin' any more work to do than you have. I've always meant to ask you or Mr. Saunders what you fellers do,anyway.I reckon banks are the same in big towns as in little ones. They haven't got a regular bank here in Ridgeville, but I've been to the one in Darley. I went in with Tom when he wanted to draw the cash on a cotton check. Talk about hard work—I'll swear I couldn't see it. Me 'n' Tom had been up fully three hours knockin' about the streets tryin' to kill the best part o' the day before that shebang opened up for business, an'thensomebody said they shet up at three o'clock an' went home to take a nap or whiz about in their automobiles. The whole thing's bothered me a sight, for Idolike to understand things. Howcoulda checker-playin' business like that tire anybody?"
"It's head-work," Mostyn obligingly explained, as he followed John into the buggy and sat beside him."Head-work,"Webb echoed, the cloud still on his brow. He clucked to his horse and gently shook the reins. "To save me I don't see how head-work—if there is such a thing—could tire out a man's legs and arms and body."
"There is a good deal of worry attached to it," Mostyn felt impelled to say. "Nowadays they are saying that worry will kill a man quicker than any sort of physical ailment. You see, good sound sleep is necessary, and when a man is greatly bothered he simply can't sleep."
"Oh, I see, I see," Webb's blue eyes flashed. "Thar may be something in that, but it does seem like a man would have more gumption 'an to worry hisse'f to death about something that won't be of use to 'im after he dies. That's common sense, ain't it?"
Mostyn was compelled to admit the truth of the remark. They had driven out of the village square and were now in the open country.
"Thar is one more thing about town folks an' country folks that I've always wanted to know," John began again after a silence of several minutes, "and that is why town folks contend that country folks is green. As I look at it it is an even swap. Now, you are a town man, an' I'm a country feller. I could take you to the edge o' that cotton-field whar it joins on to the woods on that slope thar, an' point out a spot whar you couldn't make cotton grow more'n six inches high though it will reach four feet everywhar else in the field. Now, I'd be an impolite fool to lie down thar betwixt the rows an' split my sides laughin' at you for not knowin' what I jest got on to by years an' years o' farm life. The truth is that cotton won't take any sort o' root within twenty feet of a white-oak tree."
"I didn't know that," Mostyn said.
"I knowed you didn't, an' that's why I fetched it up," Webb went on, blandly, "an' me nor no other farmer would poke fun at you about it, but it is different in town. Jest let a spindle-legged counter-jumper at a store with his hair parted in the middle git a joke on a country feller, an' the whole town will take a hand in it. Oh, I know, for they've shore hadmeon the run."
"I'm surprised at that," Mostyn answered, smiling. "You seem too shrewd to be taken in by any one."
"Humph, I say!" Webb laughed reminiscently. "I supplied all the fun Darley had one hot summer day when all hands was lyin' round the stores and law-offices tryin' to git cool by fannin' and sprinklin' the sidewalks. Did you ever hear tell of the Tom Collins gag?"
"I think not," the banker answered.
"Well, I have—you bet I have," John said, dryly, "an" it is one thing that makes me afraid sometimes that a country feller railly hain't actually overloaded with brains. Take my advice; if anybody ever tells you that a feller by the name o' Tom Collins is lookin' for you an' anxious to see you about something important, just skin your eye at 'im, tell 'im right out that you don't give a dang about Tom Collins. La me, what a fool—what a fool I was! A feller workin' at the cotton-compress told me that a man by the name o' Tom Collins wanted to see me right off, an' that he was up at the wholesale grocery. Fool that I was, I hitched my hosses an' struck out lickity-split for the grocery. I axed one of the storekeepers standin' in front if Tom Collins was anywhars about, and, as I remember now, he slid his hand over his mouth an' sorter turned his face to one side and yelled back in the store:
"'Say, boys, is Tom Collins back thar?' An' right then, Mr. Mostyn, if I had had the sense of a three-year-old baby I'd have smelt a mouse, for fully six clerks, drummers, and all the firm hurried to whar I was at an' stood lookin' at me, their eyes dancin'. 'Hewashere, but he's just left,' a clerk said. 'He went to the hotel to git his grip. He was awfully put out. He's been all over town lookin' for you.' Well, as I made a break for the hotel, wonderin' if somebody had died an' left me a hunk o' money, the gang at the grocery stood clean out on the sidewalk watchin' me. When I inquired at the hotel, the clerk an' two nigger waiters said Tom was askin' about me an' had just run over to the court-house, whar I'd be shore to find him."
"I see the point," Mostyn laughed.
"I'm glad you do so quick, for I had to have it beat into me with a sledge-hammer," Webb said, dryly. "I was so mad I could have chawed nails, but I blamed myself more'n anybody else, for they was just havin' their fun an' meant no harm."
"I suppose not," Mostyn said.
"Well, I can't complain; they have their sport with one another. Dolph Wartrace, you know, that keeps the cross-roads store nigh us, clerked in Darley before he went in on his own hook out here, an' I've heard 'im tell of a lot o' pranks that they had over thar. He said thar was an old bachelor that, kept a dry-goods store who never had had much to do with women. He was bashful-like, but thar wasoneyoung woman that he had his eye on, an' now an' then he'd spruce up an' go to see 'er or take 'er out to meetin', but Jeff said he was too weak-kneed to pop the question, an' the gal went off on a visit to Alabama and got married. Now, the old bach' had a gang o' friends that was always in for fun, an' with long, sad faces they went about askin' everybody they met if they had heard that Bob Hadley—that was the feller's name—if they had heard that he was dead. Bob knowed what they was sayin' an' tried to put a pleasant face on it, but it must have been hard work, considerin' all that happened.
"Well, one thing added to another till a gang of Bob's friends met the next night in a grocery store after he had gone to bed and still with sad, solemn faces declared that, considerin' his untimely end, it was their bounden duty to bury 'im in a respectable way. So they went to the furniture store close by an' borrowed a coffin an' picked out pall-bearers. A feller that slept with Bob in the little room cut off at the end o' his store was in the game, an' he had a key an' unlocked the door, an' the solemn procession marched in singin' some sad hymn or other with every man-jack of 'em wipin' his eyes an' snufflin'. Now, that was all well an' good as far as it went, but thar was a traitor in the camp. Somebody had let the dead man in on the job, an' when the gang got to the door of the little room he jumped out o' bed with a surprised sort o' grunt an' let into firin' blank-cartridges straight at 'em. Folks say that thar was some o' the tallest runnin' an' jumpin' an' hidin' under counters an' bustin' show-cases that ever tuck place out of a circus. After that night Jeff said the whole town was meetin' the gang an' tellin' 'em that thar must 'a' been some mistake about the report of Bob Hadley's death anyway."
Mostyn laughed heartily. Indeed, he was conscious of a growing sense of deep content and restfulness. The turmoil of business and city life seemed almost dreamlike in its remoteness from his present more rational existence. With the handle of his whip Webb pointed to the roof of the farmhouse, the fuzzy gray shingles of which were barely showing above the trees by which it was shaded.
"You haven't told me how the family are," Mostyn said, "I suppose the children are much larger now. Dolly, at least, must be a young lady, from what Saunders tells me of her school-work."
Webb's blue eyes swept the face of the banker with a steady scrutiny. There was a faint twinkle in their mystic depths as he replied.
"Yes, she's full grown. She's kin folks o' mine, an' it ain't for me to say, but I'd be unnatural if I wasn't proud of 'er. She's the head of that shebang, me included. What she says goes with young or old. She ain't more'n eighteen, if she's that, an' yet she furnishes brains for us an' mighty nigh all the neighborhood. You wait till you see 'er an' hear 'er talk, an' you will know what I mean."
The next morning the new boarder waked at sunrise, and stood at a window of his room on the upper floor of the farmhouse and looked out across the fields and meadows to the rugged, mist-draped mountain. The beautiful valley was flooded with the soft golden light. An indescribable luster seemed to breathe from every dew-laden stalk of cotton or corn, plant, vine, blade of grass and patch of succulent clover. Cobwebs, woven in the night and bejeweled with dewdrops, festooned the boughs of the trees in the orchard and on the lawn. From the barn-yard back of the farmhouse a chorus of sounds was rising. Pigs were grunting and squealing, cows were mooing, a donkey was braying, ducks were quacking, hens were clucking, roosters were crowing.
"Saunders is right," Mostyn declared, enthusiastically. "I don't blame the fellow for spending so much time on his plantation. This is the only genuine life. The other is insanity, crazy, competitive madness, for which there is no cure this side of the grave. I must have two natures. At this moment I feel as if I'd rather die than sweat and stew over investments and speculations in a bank as I have been doing, and yet I may be sure that the thing will clutch me again. One word of Delbridge's lucky manipulations or old Mitchell's praise, and the fever would burn to my bones. But I mustn't think of them if I am to benefit by this. I must fill myself with this primitive simplicity and dream once more the glorious fancies of boyhood."
Finishing dressing, he descended the stairs to the hall below and passed through the open door to the veranda. No one was in sight, but from the kitchen in the rear he heard the clatter of utensils and dishes, and smelt the aroma of boiling coffee and frying ham. Already his appetite was sharpened as if by the mountain air. He decided on taking a walk, and, stepping down to the grass, he turned round the house, coming face to face upon Dolly, whom he had not yet seen, as she came from a side door.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, flushing prettily. "I did not think you would rise so early—at least, not on your first morning."
He eyed her almost in bewilderment as he took the hand she was cordially extending. Could this full-blown rose of young womanhood, this startling beauty, be the slip of a timid girl he had so lightly treated three years ago? What hair, what eyes, what palpitating, sinuous grace! She was fast recovering calmness. There was a womanly dignity about her which seemed incongruous in one so young.
"I am rather surprised at myself for waking so early," he answered. "I slept like a log. It is the first real rest I have had since—since I was here before. Why, Dolly"—he caught himself up—"I suppose I must say Miss Drake now—"
"No, I am not that to any one in all this valley, and don't want to be!" she cried, the corners of her mouth curving bewitchingly. "Even the little children call me 'Dolly,' and I like it."
"I mustn't stop you if you are going somewhere," he said, still in the grasp of her wondrous beauty.
"I'm going down to Tobe Barnett's cabin in the edge of our field." She showed a small vial half filled with medicine in the pocket of her white apron. "His baby, little Robby, was taken sick a few days ago. I sat up there part of last night. They have no paragoric and I am taking some over."
"So that's where you were; I wondered when I didn't see you at supper," Mostyn said, turning with her toward the gate. "I'll go with you if you don't mind."
"Oh yes, come on," Dolly answered. "We'll have plenty of time before the breakfast-bell rings. It is not far. I am awfully sorry for Tobe and his wife; they are both young and inexperienced."
"And you are a regular grandmother in wisdom," Mostyn jested. "Only eighteen, with the world on your shoulders."
"Well, Idoseem to know a few things, a fewordinarythings," Dolly said, seriously, "but they are not matters to boast about. For instance, Tobe and Annie—that's his wife—were so scared and excited when I got there last night that they were actually harming the poor little baby, and I set about to calm them the very first thing. I can't begin to tell you how they went on. Think of it, they had actually given up and were crying—both of them—and there lay the little mite fairly gasping for breath. I made Tobe go after some wood for the fire, and put Annie at work helping me. Then I forced them to be still until the baby got quiet and fell asleep."
"You'd make a capital nurse." Mostyn was regarding her admiringly. "It would be a pleasure to be sick in your hands."
Dolly ignored his compliment. She was thinking of something alien to his mood and deeper. "Do you know," she said, after she had passed through the gate which he had held open, "the world is all out of joint."
"Do you think so?" he asked, as he walked beside her, suiting his step to hers.
"Yes, for if it were right," she sighed, her brows meeting thoughtfully, "such well-meaning persons as the Barnetts would not have to live as they do and bring helpless children into the world."
"Things do seem rather uneven," Mostyn admitted, lamely, "but you know really that we ought to have a law that would keep such couples from marrying."
"Poof!" She blew his argument away with a fine sniff of denial, and her eyes shot forth fresh gleams of conviction. "How absurd to talk about a human law to keep persons from doing God's infinite will. God intends for persons to love each other. Love is the one divine thing that we can be absolutely sure of. Annie and Tobe can't help themselves. They are out in a storm. It is beating them on all sides—pounding, driving, dragging, and grinding them. They love each other with a love that is celestial, a love that is of the spirit rather than of their poor ill-fed, ill-clothed bodies."
Mostyn's wonder over the girl's depth and facility of expression clutched him so firmly that he found himself unable to formulate a fitting reply.
"Oh yes, their love is absolutely genuine," Dolly ran on, loyally. "Tobe could have married the daughter of a well-to-do farmer over the mountain whom he had visited several times before he met his wife. The farmer was willing, I have heard, to give them land to live on, and it might have been a match, but Tobe accidentally met Annie. She was a poor girl working in the Ridgeville cotton factory at two or three dollars a week, which she was giving to her people. She had only two dresses, the tattered bag of a thing she worked in and another which she kept for Sundays. Tobe met her and talked to her one day while he was hauling cotton to the factory, and something in her poor wretched face attracted him, or maybe it was her sweet voice, for it is as mellow as music. She wasn't well—had a cough at the time—and he had read something in a paper about the lint of a factory causing consumption, and it worried him; people say he couldn't keep from talking about it. She was on his mind constantly. He was still going to see the other girl, but he acted so oddly that she became angry with him and, to spite him, began to go with another young man. But Tobe didn't seem to care. He kept going to the factory and—well, the upshot of it was that he married Annie."
"And then therealtrouble began," Mostyn said, smiling lightly.
"And actually through no fault of their own," Dolly declared. "He rented land, bought some supplies on credit, and went to work to make a crop. You ask father or Uncle John; they will tell you that Tobe Barnett was the hardest worker in this valley. But ill luck clung to him like a leach. The drouth killed his first crop, and the winter caught him in debt. Then Annie got sick—she had exposed herself to the bad weather milking a cow for a neighbor to earn a little money. Then no sooner was she up when a wagon ran over Tobe and hurt his foot so that he could hardly get about. Then the baby came, and their load of trouble was heavier than ever."
"A case of true love, without doubt," Mostyn said.
"And the prettiest thing on earth," Dolly declared. "Sometimes it seems to make their poor shack of a place fairly glow with heavenly light."
"You are a marvel to me, Dolly—you really are!" Mostyn paused, and she turned to him, a groping look of surprise on her face.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Why, you have such an original way of speaking," he said, somewhat abashed by her sudden demand. "I mean—that—that what you say sounds different from what one would naturally expect. Not ordinary, not commonplace; I hardly know how to express it. Really, you are quite poetic."
He saw her face fall. "I am sorry about that," she faltered. "I have been told the same thing before, and I don't like to be that way. I am afraid I read too much poetry. It fairly sings in my head when I feel deeply, as I do about Tobe and Annie, for instance, or when I have to make a speech."
"Make a speech? You?" Mostyn stared.
"Oh yes, these people expect all that sort of thing from a teacher, and it was very hard for me to do at first, but I don't mind it now. One is obliged to open school with prayer, too, and it mustn't be worded the same way each time or the mischievous children will learn it by heart and quote it. The most of my speeches are made in our debating society."
"Oh, I see; you have a debating society!" Mostyn exclaimed.
"Yes, and as it happens I am the only woman member," Dolly proceeded to enlighten him. "The men teachers in the valley got it up to meet at my school twice a month, and the patrons took a big interest in it and began to make insinuations that my school ought to be represented. They talked so much about it that I was afraid some man would get my job, so one day when Warren Wilks, the teacher in Ridgeville, asked me to join I did."
"How strange!" Mostyn said, admiringly, "and you really do take part."
Dolly laughed softly. "You'd think so if you ever attended one of our public harangues. I've heard persons say I was the whole show. Of course, I'm joking now, but the women all take up for me and applaud everything I say, whether it has a point to it or not.'Whole show!'I oughtn't to have said that. When I try to keep from using bookish expressions I drop plumb into slang; there is no middle ground for me."
"What sort of subjects does your society take up?" Mostyn inquired, highly amused.
"Anything the human mind can think up," Dolly answered. "Warren Wilks reads all the philosophical and scientific magazines, and he fairly floors us—there I go again; when I talk I either grab the stars or stick my nose in the mire. I mean that Warren's subjects are generally abstruse and profound."
"For instance?" Mostyn suggested, still smiling.
"Well, the last one was—and there was a crowd, I tell you, for the presiding elder had just closed a revival in our church and a good many stayed over for the debate. We all tried to show off because he was present, and it was a religious subject. It was this: Is it possible for human beings in the present day to obey the commandment of Jesus to love your neighbor as yourself?"
"And which side were you on?" the banker asked.
"I was affirmative, and almost by myself, too," Dolly answered. "I oughtn't to say that either; it sounds like bragging, for there were two men on my side, but I saw at the start that I couldn't depend on them. They were weak-kneed—afraid of our premise. They didn't believe Jesus meant it, anyway. I did the best I could. I not only think He meant it, but I am sure the day will come when the whole world will live up to the rule. Christ wouldn't be for all time, as He is, if His best ideas were acceptable to such a grossly material age as ours. Neither side won in that debate—the judges couldn't agree. I wish you had been here last month. We had up a subject that you could have helped me on. The question was: Which is the better place to rear a man, the city or the country? Or, in other words, can the mind of man develop in a busy, crowded place as well as in a quiet spot in the country? I was on the side of the rural districts that night, and we won. We had no trouble showing that the majority of great characters in all lines of endeavor had come from rural spots. I think it is the same to-day. I know I wouldn't live in a big town. City people are occupied with automobiles, golf, dances, card parties, and gossip—of course, I don't mean anything personal, you understand, but it is a fact that they are that way. And it is a fact, too, that here our crowd, at least, will get a good book and actually wear it to tatters passing it around. That is the sort of education that sticks when it once gets hold of a person."
"I am sure you are right," Mostyn admitted, and he felt the blood rise to his face as he thought of the emptiness of his own life in Atlanta, which now, somehow, seemed like a vanishing dream. The morning sun was blazing over the verdant landscape, filling the dewdrops on the grass with red, blue, and yellow light. An indescribable aura seemed to encircle the exquisite face of his young companion. There was a restful poise about her, a sure grasp of utterance, that soothed and thrilled him. Something new and vivifying sprang to life in his breast. The thought flashed into his consciousness that here with this embodiment of intellectual purity he could master the cloying vices of his life. He could put them behind him—turn over a new leaf, be a new man in body and spirit. Perhaps he could kill the temptation to gain by sordid business methods; perhaps he could subdue the reluctant intention to marry for ulterior motives regardless of the magnitude of the temptation. It really was not too late. He couldn't remember having said anything to Mitchell or his daughter which would bind him in any absolute sense. Yes, the ideal was the thing. Providence had rescued him from his recent financial danger, and meant this encounter as a chance for redemption. He could make some sort of compromise with old Jefferson Henderson—a reasonable sum of money to one so hard pressed for funds would not only silence the too active tongue, but win his gratitude and the approval of all business men. Then there was the other thing—the thing he scarcely dared think of in the presence of this pure young girl—the disagreeable case of Marie—but there was no use reflecting over what could not be helped. A man ought to be pardoned for mistakes due to uncontrollable natural passion. The woman is generally as much to blame as her companion in indiscretion, especially one of the sort to whom his mind now reverted. She had shown her lack of character, if not her prime motive, by accepting and using the money he had offered her. She had been troublesome, and more so of late than before, but she might be persuaded to let him alone. His conscience was clear, for he had made no promises to her. He remembered distinctly that he had made no effort actually to win her affections. How different was this pure mountain flower from such a soiled and degraded creature!
"There," Dolly was speaking again, and the soft cadences of her voice put his shameful memories to flight as she pointed to an opening between the trees of the wood on the right, "you can see your partner's house from here. He has had it repainted. It is a beautiful old place, isn't it?"
He nodded as he surveyed the stately mansion in the distance, the white porch columns of which shone like snow in the slanting rays of the sun. "It is Saunders's pride," he said. "Atlanta is becoming more and more distasteful to him. He is never really happy anywhere but up here. He yawns his head off at every party, dance, or dinner down there. They all laugh at him and call him 'Farmer.'"
"Well, he is that," Dolly declared. "He works in the fields like a day-laborer when he is up here on a holiday."
They walked on a few paces in silence; then Dolly said: "Mr. Saunders has been very kind to our club; he gave us a lot of good books; he comes to our debates sometimes and seems very much interested. We all like him. The boys declare they could elect him to the legislature from this county if only he would let them, but he doesn't care a fig for it."
"He is something of a dreamer, I think," Mostyn remarked, "and still he's practical. He has a long head on him—never gets excited and seldom makes a wrong move in a deal."
They were now nearing the cabin occupied by Tobe Barnett. It was a most dilapidated shack. It was made of pine logs, the bark of which had become worm-eaten and was falling away. The spaces between the logs were filled with dried clay. It had a mud-and-stick chimney, from the cracks of which the smoke oozed. It contained only one room, was roofed with crudely split boards of oak, and was without a window of any sort. Outside against the wall on the right of the shutterless door was a shelf holding a battered tin water pail and a gourd.
Within, as the visitors approached nearer, was heard the grinding of feet on the rough planks of the floor and the faint, tremulous cry of a child. A lank young man appeared at the door. He wore a ragged, earth-stained shirt and patched pants. His yellowish hair was tousled, a scant tuft of beard was on his sharp chin, and whiskers of a week's standing mottled his hollow cheeks. His blue eyes peered out despondently from their shadowy sockets.
"How is Robby now, Tobe?" Dolly asked.
The man stepped down to the ground, and in his tattered, gaping shoes slowly shambled forward.
"I can't see no change, Miss Dolly," he gulped. "He seems to me as sick as ever. If anything, he don't git his breath as free as he did. Annie's mighty nigh distracted. I don't know which way to turn or what to do when she gives up."
"I know it—poor thing!" Dolly answered. She turned to Mostyn. "Wait here. I'll be out before long."
Followed by the anxious father, she went into the cabin. Mostyn sat down at the root of a big beech tree and glanced over the peaceful landscape. How wonderful the scene! he thought. The top of the mountain was lost in the lifting mist along its base and sides. The level growing fields stretched away to the north in a blaze of warming yellow. A boy was leading a harnessed horse along the road; behind him lagged a dog to which the boy was cheerfully whistling and calling. A covey of quails rose from a patch of blackberry vines and fluttered away toward the nearest hillside.
Yes, he was going to turn over a new leaf. Mostyn was quite sure of this. He would take Saunders for his model instead of that crack-brained Delbridge who had the hide of an ox and no refinement of feeling. Yes, yes, and forget—above all, he would forget; that was the thing.
At this moment he saw Dolly crossing the room with the child in her arms. It was only for an instant, and yet he noted the unspeakable tenderness which pervaded her attitude and movement. He was reminded of a picture of a Madonna he had seen in a gallery in New York. The crying of the child had ceased; there was scarcely any sound in the cabin, for Dolly's tread was as light as falling snow.
From the doorway came Tobe Barnett. He approached Mostyn in a most dejected mien.
"This is Mr. Mostyn, ain't it?" he asked. "I heard Tom Drake say they was expectin' you up."
The banker nodded. "How do you think the baby is now?" he asked, considerately.
"Only the Lord could answer that, sir," the man sighed. "I believe it would have died in the night if Miss Dolly hadn't got out o' bed an' come over."
"I was half awake," Mostyn said. "I thought I heard some one calling out at the gate. It was about two o'clock, I think."
"That was the fust time, sir. The second time was just before daybreak. I didn't go for her that time. She come of her own accord—said she jest couldn't git back to sleep. She loves children, Mr. Mostyn, an' she seems to think as much o' Robby as if he was her own. I ketched 'er cryin' last night when she was settin' waitin' in the dark for 'im to git to sleep. La, la, folks brag powerful on Miss Dolly, but they don't know half o' the good she does on the quiet. She tries to keep 'em from findin' out what she does. I know I'm grateful to 'er. If the Lord don't give me a chance to repay 'er for her kindness to me an' mine I'll never be satisfied." The speaker's voice had grown husky, and he now choked up. Silence fell. It was broken by a sweet voice in the cabin humming an old plantation lullaby. There was a thumping of a rockerless chair on the floor. Presently the mother of the child came out. She blinked from the staring blue eyes which she timidly raised to Mostyn's face. Her dress was a poor drab rag of a thing which hung limply over her thin form. Her hair was tawny and drawn into a tight, unbecoming knot at the back of her head. No collar of any sort hid her sun-browned, bony neck.
"Miss Dolly said please not wait for her," she faltered. "Breakfast at the house will be over. She's done give the child the medicine an' wants to put it to sleep. It will sleep for her, but won't for me or Tobe. We have sent for a doctor, but we don't know whether he will come or not. Doctors can't afford to bother with real pore folks as much out o' the way as this is."
"He won't be likely to come," Barnett sighed. "They are all out for cases whar they kin git ready cash an' plenty of it."
Mostyn turned away. What a wonderful girl Dolly was, he said to himself, as he strode along, his heart beating with strange new elation. He was sure she still liked him. She showed it in her eyes, in her tone of voice. She had not forgotten his last talk with her; she was so young, so impressionable, and, withal, so genuine!
At the front gate he saw John Webb waiting for him. "You'd better hurry," Webb smiled, as he swung the gate open. "The bell's done rung. I seed you an' Dolly walkin' off, an' I was afeared you'd git cold grub. As for her, she don't care when she eats or what is set before her."
It was the following Tuesday. Dolly, with a bundle of books and written exercises under her arm, was returning from school. Close behind her walked George and Ann.
"I'm ashamed of you both," Dolly said, with a frown. "We've got company, and you are both as black as the pot. If I were you I'd certainly stop at the branch and wash the dirt off before getting home."
"That's a good idea," George laughed. "Come on, Sis!" He caught the struggling Ann by the arm and began to drag her toward the stream. "I'll give you a good ducking. Dol' said I could."
Leaving them quarreling, and even exchanging mild blows, Dolly walked on. "They are beyond me—beyondanybodyexcept an army of soldiers with guns pointed," she said. "I don't know what Mr. Mostyn thinks of us, I'm sure. People don't live that way in Atlanta—that is,nicepeople don't; but he really doesn't seem to care much. He doesn't seem to notice the mistakes father and mother make, and he lets Uncle John talk by the hour about any trivial thing. I wonder if he really,reallylikes me—as—as much as he seems to. It has been three years since he first hinted at it, and, oh, my! I must have been as gawky and silly as Ann. Still, you never can tell; the heart must have a lot to do with it. I wasn't thinking of looks, or clothes, or the rich man they all said he was, and I guess he wasn't thinking of anything but—" She checked herself; the blood had mounted to her face, and she felt it wildly throbbing in the veins. "Anyway, he seems to like to be with me now even more than he did then. He listens to all I say—doesn't miss a word, and looks at me as if—as if—" Again she checked herself; her plump breast rose high, and a tremulous sigh escaped her lips. "Well," she finished, as she opened the gate and saw her mother in the doorway, "people may say what they like, but I don't believe anybody can love but once in life, either man or woman. God means it that way just as He doesn't let the same sweet flower bloom twice on the same stem."
Mrs. Drake had advanced to the edge of the porch. "Hurry up," she said, eagerly. "Miss Stella Munson is in my room waiting for you. She come at two o'clock and has been here ever since."
"What does she want?" Dolly asked, putting her books down on the upper step of the porch.
"I don't want to tell you till you see it," Mrs. Drake said, smiling mysteriously; "it is by all odds the prettiest thing you ever laid eyes on, an' she says she is willin' to let it go for the bare cost of the material. She is in a sort o' tight for cash."
"A hat?" Dolly inquired, eagerly.
"Something you need worse than a hat," the mother smiled. "It is a dress—an organdie, a regular beauty. She made it for Mary Cobb, and you know Mary always orders the best, but, the poor girl's mother bein' dead, the dress come back on Miss Stella's hands. She could force Mary to stick to her agreement, but she hates to do it when the girl has to put on black and is in so much trouble. Even as it is, you wouldn't have had the chance at it, but you and Mary are exactly of a size, an' there'll be no alterations to make."
"Oh, I want to see it!" Dolly sprang lightly up the steps and hurried into her mother's room on the right of the hall, where a tall, angular, middle-aged spinster sat with her stained and needle-pricked fingers linked in her lap.
"How are you, Miss Stella?" she cried, kissing the thin cheek cordially. "I've already heard about that dress. Winnie Mayfield helped Mary pick out the cloth and trimmings, and she said you would make it the sweetest thing in the valley. Pink is my color. Where is—oh!" She had descried it as it lay on the bed, and with hands clasped in delight, she sprang toward it. "Oh, it is a dream—a dream, Miss Stella! You are an artist."
She picked the flimsy garment up and held it at arm's length. Then she hung it on one of the tall bed-posts and stood back to admire it, uttering little ejaculations of delight. "I know it will fit. I wore one of Mary's dresses to a party one night, and it was exactly right in every way. Oh, oh, what a beauty! You are a wonder. You could get rich in a city."
"I think Miss Stella is trying to advertise her work," Mrs. Drake jested. "She knows Mr. Mostyn will see it, and he'd have to talk about it. Town men are close observers of what girls put on—more so, by a long shot, than country men. I wouldn't be surprised if some rich person wrote to you to come down to Atlanta, Miss Stella."
Dolly was dancing about the room like a happy child, now placing herself in one position, then another, in order to view the dress from every possible point of vantage. She even went out into the hall and sauntered back as if to surprise herself by a sudden sight of the treasure.
"Stop your silliness!" her mother laughingly chided her. "You are a regular circus clown or monkey in a cage when you try yourself."
"I just want you to put it on, Dolly," the seamstress said, with elation. "All the time I was at work on it I kept thinking how nice it would look on you. Mary is plain; I reckon there is no harm in saying that, even if her motherisdead."
"She will look better in black," said Mrs. Drake, "or pure white. Colors as full of life as this dress has would die dead on a dingy complexion like Mary's, or any of the Cobb women, for that matter. They look for the world as if they lived on coffee and couldn't git it out of their systems. Dolly, shuck off your dress and try it on."
Dolly needed no urging. In her excitement she forgot to correct her mother's speech, which she would have done on any other occasion, and began at once to divest her slender form of her waist and skirt, dropping the latter at her feet and springing lightly out of the circular heap. The seamstress took up the dress carefully and held it in readiness.
"You will be a regular butterfly in it," she said, laughingly. "You are light on your feet as a grasshopper anyway."
While the two women were buttoning and hooking the garment on her Dolly kept up a running fire of amusing comments, arching her beautiful bare neck as she eyed herself in the mirror on the bureau.
"It will come in handy for meeting on the First Sunday," Mrs. Drake remarked. "Folks will have on their best if the weather is fine, an' I don't see no sign o' rain. It will make Ann awful jealous; she is just at the age to think she is as big as anybody, an' don't seem to remember that Dolly makes 'er own money. But Dolly's to blame for that; she spoils Ann constantly by letting her wear things she ought to keep for herself."
"Growing girls are all that way about things to put on," mumbled Miss Munson, the corner of her mouth full of pins. "I knowIhad all sorts o' high an' mighty ideas. I fell in love with a widower old enough to be my grandfather. And I was—stand a little to the right, please. There, that is all right. Quit wiggling. I was such a fool about him, and showed it so plain that it turned the old scamp's head. He actually called to see me one night. Oh, it was exciting! Father took down his shotgun from the rack over the fireplace and ordered him off the place. Then he spanked me—father spanked me good and sound and made me go to bed. You may say what you please, but that sort o' medicine will certainly cure a certain brand o' love. It did more to convince me that I was not grown than anything else had ever done. From that day on I hated the sight of that man. All at once he looked to me as old as Santa Claus. I had a sort of smarting feeling every time I thought of him, and he did look ridiculous that night as he broke an' run across the yard with two of our dogs after him."
"Oh,isn'tit lovely?" Dolly was now before the looking-glass, bending right and left, stepping back and then forward, fluffing out her rich hair, her cheeks flushed, her eyes gleaming with delight.
"I wish you could just stand off and take a good look at yourself, Dolly," Mrs. Drake cried, enthusiastically. "I simply don't know what to compare you to. Where you got your good looks I can't imagine. But mother used to say thathermother in Virginia come of a long line of noted beauties. Our folks away back, Miss Stella, as maybe you know, had fine blood in 'em."
"It certainly crops out in Dolly," Miss Munson declared. "I've heard folks say they took their little ones to school just to get a chance to set and look at her while she was teaching. I know that I, myself, have always—"
"Oh, you both make me sick—you make me talk slang, too," Dolly said, impatiently. "I'm not good-looking—that is, nothing to brag about—but, Miss Stella, this dress would make a scarecrow look like an angel, and itdoesfit. Poor Mary! I hope she won't see it on me. It is hard enough to lose a mother without—"
"Go out on the grass and walk about," Mrs. Drake urged her. "An' let us look at you from the window. I want to see how you look at a distance."
"Do you think I'm crazy?" Dolly demanded, but as merrily as a child playing a game, she lifted the skirt from the floor and lightly tripped away. The watchers saw her go down the porch steps with the majestic grace of a young queen and move along the graveled walk toward the gate. At this point an unexpected thing happened. John Webb and Mostyn had been fishing and were returning in a buggy. The banker got out and came in at the gate just as Dolly, seeing him, was turning to retreat into the house.
"Hold on, do, please!" Mostyn cried out.
Dolly hesitated for a moment, and then, drawing herself erect, she stood and waited for him quite as if there was nothing unusual in what was taking place.
"What have you been doing to yourself?" he cried, his glance bearing down admiringly on her.
"Oh, just trying on a frock," she answered, her face charmingly pink in its warmth, her long lashes betraying a tendency to droop, and her rich round voice quivering. "Those two women in there made me come out here so they could see me. I ought to have had more sense."
"I'm certainly glad they did, since it has given me a chance to see you this way. Why, Dolly, do you know that dress is simply marvelous. I have always thought you were—" Mostyn half hesitated—"beautiful, but this dress makes you—well, it makes you—indescribable."
Avoiding his burning eyes, Dolly frankly explained the situation. "You see it is a sort of windfall," she added. "I've got enough saved up to pay for it as it is, but if it were not a bargain I could never dream of it. Mary's father is well off, and she is the special pet of a rich uncle."
Glancing down the road, she saw the bowed figure of a man approaching, and at once her face became grave. "It is Tobe Barnett," she said. "I want to ask him about Robby."
Leaving Mostyn, she hastened to the fence, meeting the uplifted and woeful glance of Barnett as he neared her. "Why, Tobe, what is the matter? You look troubled. Robby isn't worse, is he?"
"I declare, I hardly know, Miss Dolly," the gaunt man faltered. "I'm no judge, nor Annie ain't neither. She's plumb lost heart, an' I'm not any better. The doctor come this morning. He said it was a very serious case. He—but I don't want to bother you, Miss Dolly; the Lord above knows you have done too much already."
"Tobe Barnett, listen to me!" Dolly cried. "What are you beating about the bush for? Haven't I got a right to know about that child? I love it. If anything was to happen to that baby it would kill me. Did the doctor say there was no—no hope?"
"It ain't that, exactly, Miss Dolly." Barnett avoided her eyes and gulped, his half-bare, hairy breast quivering with suppressed emotion.
"Well, what is it, then?" Dolly demanded, impatiently.
"Why, if you will know my full shame it is this, Miss Dolly," he blurted out, despondently; he started to cover his face with his gaunt hand, but refrained. "I'm a scab on the face of the world. I've lost the respect and confidence of all men. The doctor left a prescription for several kinds of medicine and a rubber hot-water bag and syringe. I went to the drug store in Darley and the one here in Ridgeville but they wouldn't credit me—they said they couldn't run business on that plan. And I can't blame 'em. I owe 'em too much already."
"Look here, Tobe!" Dolly was leaning over the fence, regardless of the fact that the sleeves of the new dress were against the palings. "How much do those things cost?"
Barnett turned and stared hesitatingly at her. "More than I'd letyoupay for," he blurted out, doggedly. "Six dollars. When I git so low as to put my yoke on your sweet young neck I—I will kill myself—that's what I'll do. I tell you I've had enough, an' Annie has, too; but we ain't goin' to let you do no more. We had a talk about it last night. We are fairly blistered with shame. You've already give us things that you couldn't afford to give."
Dolly's sweet face grew rigid, the lips of her pretty mouth twitched. "Look here, Tobe," she said, huskily. "You've hurt my feelings. I love you and Annie and Robby, and it is wrong for you to talk this way when I'm so worried about the baby. You are not a cold-blooded murderer, are you? Well, you will make yourself out one if you let silly false pride stand between you and that sweet young life. Why, I would never get over it. It would haunt me night and day. Turn right around and go to the Ridgeville drug store and tell them to charge the things to me. I will pay for them to-morrow. They are anxious for my trade. They are eternally ding-donging at—bothering me, I mean, about not buying from them."
"Miss Dolly, I can't. I justcan't."
"If you don't, thenI'llhave to go myself, as soon as I can get out of this fool contraption," she answered, with determination. "You don't want to make me dress and go, I know, but I will if you don't, and I won't lose a minute, either."
"Why, Miss Dolly—"
"Hush, Tobe, don't be a fool!" Dolly was growing angry. She had thrust her hand over her shoulder to the topmost hook of the dress at the neck, that no time should be lost in changing her clothes. "Hurry up, and I'll go straight to Annie. I'll have the hot water ready. I know what the doctor wants. It is the same treatment I helped him give Pete Wilson's baby."
"Lord have mercy!" Tobe Barnett groaned.
"Well, I'll go, Miss Dolly. I'll go. God bless you! I'll go."
She watched him for a moment as he trudged away, and then, still trying in vain to unfasten the hook at the back of her neck and jerking at it impatiently, she turned toward the house.
Mostyn was waiting for her at the porch steps, having put down his game-bag and fishing-rod.
"I declare you are simply stunning in that thing," he said, admiration showing itself in every part of him. "It is a dream!"
She frowned, arching her brows reflectively. She bit her lip.
"Oh, I don't know!" she said. "I was just trying it on to please mother and Miss Stella. Look at the silly things gaping like goggle-eyed perch at the window. One would think that the revolutions of the earth on its axis and the movement of all the planets depended on this scrap of cloth and the vain thing that has it on."
"Take my advice and buy it," Mostyn urged. "It fairly transforms you—makes you look like a creature from another world."
She shrugged her shoulders. She cast a slow glance after the figure trudging along the dusty road. She looked down at her breast and daintily flicked at the pink ribbons which were fluttering in the gentle breeze.
"It is a flimsy thing," he heard her say, as if in self-argument. "It wouldn't stand many wearings before it would look a sight. It wouldn't wash—man as you are, Mr. Mostyn, you know it wouldn't wash. I'm going to take it off and try to have some sense. I'm in no position to try to make a show. School-teachers here in the backwoods have no right to excite comment by the gaudy finery they wear. I'm paid by people's taxes. Did you know that? I might find myself out of a job—out of employment, I mean. Some of these crusty old fellows that believe it is wrong to have an organ in church had just as soon as not enter a complaint against me as being too frivolous to hold a position of trust like mine."
"Oh, I think you are very wrong to allow such an idea as that to influence you," Mostyn argued, warmly. He was about to add more, but Tom Drake sauntered round the corner, chewing tobacco and smiling broadly. He scarcely deigned to notice Dolly's altered appearance.
"John says you didn't git a nibble," he laughed. "I hardly 'lowed you would. The water is too low and clear. I've ketched 'em with my hand under the rocks in such weather as this."
Leaving them together, Dolly went into the house, where she was met by the two eager women.
"I'll bet Mr. Mostyn thought it was nice," Mrs. Drake was saying.
"Well, I certainly hope so," Miss Munson answered. "They say Atlanta men in his set are powerful good judges of women's wear."
Dolly had advanced straight to the mirror and stood looking at her reflection, a quizzical expression on her face.
"Hurry, unhook me!" she ordered, sharply. "Quick! I've got to run over to Barnett's cabin. Robby isn't any better. In fact, he is dangerous and Annie needs me."
The two women, eying each other inquiringly, edged up close to her, one on either side. "Dolly, what is the matter? I knew something was wrong the minute you come in the door."
"It is all right," Dolly said, in a low tone. "It is very sweet and pretty, Miss Stella, but I have decided not to—not to take it."
"Not take it!" The words came from two pairs of lips simultaneously. "Not take it!" The miracle happened again, in tones of double bewilderment.
"Well, I can't say I really expected you to," Miss Munson retorted, in frigid tones. "I only stopped by. To tell you the truth, I am on the way over to Peterkins'. Sally is the right size and will jump at it."
Dolly's lips were tight. Her eyes held a light, half of anger, half of an odd sort of doggedness.
"Please unhook me!" she said, coldly. "There is no time to lose. Annie is out of her head with trouble."
"Well, well, well!" Mrs. Drake sank into a chair and folded her slender hands with a vigorous slap of the palms. "Nobody under high heavens can ever tell what you will do or what you won't do," she wailed. "I never wanted anything for myself as much as for you to have that dress, and—" Her voice ended in a sigh of impatience.
With rapid, angry fingers the seamstress was disrobing the slender form roughly, jerking hooks, ribbons, and bits of lace. "Huh, huh!" she kept sniffing, as she filled her mouth with pins. "I might as well not have stopped, but it don't matter; it don't make a bit o' difference. You couldn't have it now if you offered me double the cost."
Dolly seemed oblivious of what was passing. Getting out of the garment, she quickly put on her skirt and waist, noting as she did so that her father was seated behind her on the window-sill, nursing his knee and chewing and spitting vigorously on the porch floor.
"What a bunch o' rowin' she-cats!" she heard him chuckling. "An' about nothin' more important than a flimsy rag that looks like a hollyhock bush with arms an' legs."
Without noticing him Dolly hurriedly finished buttoning her waist, and, throwing on her sun-bonnet, she dashed out of the room.
"I don't blame you for losin' patience, Miss Stella," Mrs. Drake sighed, "but I've thought it out. It is as plain as the nose on your face. You know an' I know she was tickled to death with it till she met Mr. Mostyn in the yard just now. Mark my words, he said something to her about the style of it. Maybe it's not exactly the latest wrinkle accordin' to town notions."
"Yes, that's it." Miss Munson paused in her flurried efforts to restore the dress to its wrapper. The twine hung from her teeth as she stood glaring. "Yes,he'sat the bottom of it. As if a man ofhisstripe an' character would be a judge. I have heard a few items about him if you all haven't. Folks talk about 'im scand'lous in Atlanta. They say he leads a fast life down there. You'd better keep Dolly away from 'im. He won't do. He has robbed good men an' women of their money in his shady deals, an' folks tell all sorts o' tales about 'im."
"Thar you go ag'in," Tom Drake broke in, with a hearty laugh. "First one thing an' then another. You would swear a man's life away one minute an' hug it back into 'im the next. Now, I kin prove what I say, an' you both ought to be ashamed. Mostyn not only told Dolly that dress was the purtiest thing he ever seed, but he told me to come in here an' make 'er take it."
The twine fell from the spinster's mouth. She eyed Mrs. Drake steadily. Mrs. Drake rose slowly to her feet. She went to the dressmaker and touched her tragically on the arm. She said something in too low a voice for her husband to catch it.
"Do you think that's it?" Miss Munson asked, a womanly blaze in her eyes.
"Yes, I saw her talkin' to Tobe at the fence," Mrs. Drake said, tremulously. "He turned square around and went back to town. Then you remember Dolly wanted to hurry over there. Miss Stella, she is my own daughter, an' maybe I oughtn't to say it, bein' 'er mother, but she's got the biggest, tenderest heart in her little body that ever the Lord planted in human form." Miss Munson stood with filling eyes for a silent moment, then she tossed the dress, paper, and twine on the bed.
"I'm goin' to leave it here," she faltered. "She can pay me for it if she wants to, in one year, two years, or ten—it don't make no odds to me. She needn't pay for it at all if she doesn't want to. I never want to see it on anybody else. She is a good girl—a regular angel of light."
Therewith the two women fell into each other's arms and began to cry.
A sniff of amusement came from Tom Drake. "Fust it was tittle-tattle, then a bar-room knock-down-and-drag-out fight, an' now it is a weepin' camp-meetin'. I wonder what will happen when the wind changes next."