“I suppose first we would have had to satisfy ourselves that she wasn't in town, anyway.”
“Sure! That would be the logical way to go at it! And so you found her?”
“Yes sir, I found her! Just Belshazzar and I! I was going along on my way to the place, and he ran past me and made a stiff point, and when I came up, there she was!”
“There she was?”
“Yes sir; there she was!”
They shook hands again.
“Then of course you spoke to her.”
“Yes I spoke to her.”
“Were you pleased?”
“With her speech and manner?——yes. But, Doc, if ever a woman needed everything on earth!”
“Well did you get any kind of a start made?”
“I couldn't do so very much. I had to go a little slow for fear of frightening her, but I tried to get her to come here and she won't until a debt she owes is paid, and she's in no condition to work.”
“Got any idea how much it is?”
“No, but it can't be any large sum. I tried to offer to pay it, but she had no hesitation in telling me she preferred owing a man she knew to a stranger.”
“Well if she is so particular, how did she come to tell you first thing that she was in debt?”
The Harvester explained.
“Oh I see!” said the doctor. “Well you'll have to baby her along with the idea that she is earning money and pay her double until you get that off her mind, and while you are at it, put in your best licks, my boy; perk right up and court her like a house afire. Women like it. All of them do. They glory in feeling that a man is crazy about them.”
“Well I'm insane enough over her,” said the Harvester, “but I'd hate like the nation for her to know it. Seems as if a woman couldn't respect such an addle-pate as I am lately.”
“Don't you worry about that,” advised the doctor. “Just you make love to her. Go at it in the good old-fashioned way.”
“But maybe the 'good old-fashioned way' isn't my way.”
“What's the difference whose way it is, if it wins?”
“But Kipling says: 'Each man makes love his own way!'”
“I seem to have heard you mention that name be fore,” said the doctor. “Do you regard him as an authority?”
“I do!” said the Harvester. “Especially when he advises me after my own heart and reason. Miss Jameson is not a silly girl. She's a woman, and twenty-four at least. I don't want her to care for a trick or a pretence. I do want her to love me. Not that I am worth her attention, but because she needs some strong man fearfully, and I am ready and more 'willing' than the original Barkis. But, like him, I have to let her know it in my way, and court her according to the promptings of my heart.”
“You deceive yourself!” said the doctor flatly. “That's all bosh! Your tongue says it for the satisfaction of your ears, and it does sound well. You will court her according to your ideas of the conventions, as you understand them, and strictly in accordance with what you consider the respect due her. If you had followed the thing you call the 'promptings of your heart,' you would have picked her up by main force and brought her to my best ward, instead of merely suggesting it and giving up when she said no. If you had followed your heart, you would have choked the name and amount out of her and paid that devilish debt. You walk away in a case like that, and then have the nerve to come here and prate to me about following your heart. I'll wager my last dollar your heart is sore because you were not allowed to help her; but on the proposition that you followed its promptings I wouldn't stake a penny. That's all tommy-rot!”
“It is,” agreed the Harvester. “Utter! But what can a man do?”
“I don't know what you can do! I'd have paid that debt and brought her to the hospital.”
“I'll go and ask Mrs. Carey about your courtship. I want her help on this, anyway. I can pick up Miss Jameson and bring her here if any man can, but she is nursing a sick woman who depends solely on her for care. She is above average size, and she has a very decided mind of her own. I don't think you would use force and do what you think best for her, if you were in my place. You would wait until you understood the situation better, and knew that what you did was for the best, ultimately.”
“I don't know whether I would or not. One thing is sure: I'm mighty glad you have found her. May I tell my wife?”
“Please do! And ask her if I may depend on her if I need a woman's help. Now I'll call off the valiant police and go home and take a good, sound sleep. Haven't had many since I first saw her.”
So Betsy trotted down the valley, up the embankment, crossed the railroad, over the levee across Singing Water, and up the hill to the cabin. As they passed it, the Harvester jumped from the wagon, tossed the hitching strap to Belshazzar, and entered. He walked straight to her door, unlocked it, and uncovering, went inside. Softly he passed from piece to piece of the furniture he had made for her, and then surveyed the walls and floor.
“It isn't half good enough,” he said, “but it will have to answer until I can do better. Surely she will know I tried and care for that, anyway. I wonder how long it will take me to get her here. Oh, if I only could know she was comfortable and happy! Happy! She doesn't appear as if she ever had heard that word. Well this will be a good place to teach her. I've always enjoyed myself here. I'm going to have faith that I can win her and make her happy also. When I go to the stable to do my work for the night if I could know she was in this cabin and glad of it, and if I could hear her down here singing like a happy care-free girl, I'd scarcely be able to endure the joy of it.”
“She is on Henry Jameson's farm, four miles west of Onabasha,” said the Harvester, as he opened his eyes next morning, and laid a caressing hand on Belshazzar's head. “At two o'clock we are going to see her, and we are going to prolong the visit to the ultimate limit, so we should make things count here before we start.”
He worked in a manner that accomplished much. There seemed no end to his energy that morning. Despatching the usual routine, he gathered the herbs that were ready, spread them on the shelves of the dry-house, found time to do several things in the cabin, and polish a piece of furniture before he ate his lunch and hitched Betsy to the wagon. He also had recovered his voice, and talked almost incessantly as he worked. When it neared time to start he dressed carefully. He stood before his bookcase and selected several pamphlets published by the Department of Agriculture. He went to his beds and gathered a large arm load of plants. Then he was ready to make his first trip to see the Dream Girl, but it never occurred to him that he was going courting.
He had decided fully that there would be no use to try to make love to a girl manifestly so ill and in trouble. The first thing, it appeared to him, was to dispel the depression, improve the health, and then do the love making. So, in the most business-like manner possible and without a shade of embarrassment, the Harvester took his herbs and books and started for the Jameson woods. At times as he drove along he espied something that he used growing beside the road and stopped to secure a specimen.
He came down the river bank and reached the ginseng bed at half-past one. He was purposely early. He laid down his books and plants, and rolled the log on which she sat the day before to a more shaded location, where a big tree would serve for a back rest. He pulled away brush and windfalls, heaped dry brown leaves, and tramped them down for her feet. Then he laid the books on the log, the arm load of plants beside them, and went to the river to wash his soiled hands.
Belshazzar's short bark told him the Girl was coming, and between the trees he saw the dog race to meet her and she bent to stroke his head. She wore the same dress and appeared even paler and thinner. The Harvester hurried up the bank, wiping his hands on his handkerchief.
“Glad to see you!” he greeted her casually. “I've fixed you a seat with a back rest to-day. Don't be frightened at the stack of herbs. You needn't gather all of those. They are only suggestions. They are just common roadside plants that have some medicinal value and are worth collecting. Please try my davenport.”
“Thank you!” she said as she dropped on the log and leaned her head against the tree. It appeared as if her eyes closed a few seconds in spite of her, and while they were shut the Harvester looked steadily and intently on a face of exquisite beauty, but so marred by pallor and lines of care that search was required to recognize just how handsome she was, and if he had not seen her in perfection in the dream the Harvester might have missed glorious possibilities. To bring back that vision would be a task worth while was his thought. With the first faint quiver of an eyelash the Harvester took a few steps and bent over a plant, and as he did so the Girl's eyes followed him.
He appeared so tall and strong, so bronzed by summer sun and wind, his face so keen and intense, that swift fear caught her heart. Why was he there? Why should he take so much trouble for her? With difficulty she restrained herself from springing up and running away. Turning with the plant in his hand the Harvester saw the panic in her eyes, and it troubled his heart. For an instant he was bewildered, then he understood.
“I don't want you to work when you are not able,” he said in his most matter-of-fact voice, “but if you still think that you are, I'll be very glad. I need help just now, more than I can tell you, and there seem to be so few people who can be trusted. Gathering stuff for drugs is really very serious business. You see, I've a reputation to sustain with some of the biggest laboratories in the country, not to mention the fact that I sometimes try compounding a new remedy for some common complaint myself. I rather take pride in the fact that my stuff goes in so fresh and clean that I always get anywhere from three to ten cents a pound above the listed prices for it. I want that money, but I want an unbroken record for doing a job right and being square and careful, much more.”
He thought the appearance of fright was fading, and a tinge of interest taking its place. She was looking straight at him, and as he talked he could see her summoning her tired forces to understand and follow him, so he continued:
“One would think that as medicines are required in cases of life and death, collectors would use extreme caution, but some of them are criminally careless. It's a common thing to gather almost any fern for male fern; to throw in anything that will increase weight, to wash imperfectly, and commit many other sins that lie with the collector; beyond that I don't like to think. I suppose there are men who deliberately adulterate pure stuff to make it go farther, but when it comes to drugs, I scarcely can speak of it calmly. I like to do a thing right. I raise most of my plants, bushes, and herbs. I gather exactly in season, wash carefully if water dare be used, clean them otherwise if not, and dry them by a hot air system in an evaporator I built purposely. Each package I put up is pure stuff, clean, properly dried, and fresh. If I caught any man in the act of adulterating any of it I'm afraid he would get hurt badly—and usually I am a peaceable man. I am explaining this to show how very careful you must be to keep things separate and collect the right plants if you are going to sell stuff to me. I am extremely particular.”
The Girl was leaning toward him, watching his face, and hers was slowly changing. She was deeply interested, much impressed, and more at ease. When the Harvester saw he had talked her into confidence he crossed the leaves, and sitting on the log beside her, picked up the books and opened one.
“Oh I will be careful,” said the Girl. “If you will trust me to collect for you, I will undertake only what I am sure I know, and I'll do exactly as you tell me.”
“There are a dozen things that bring a price ranging from three to fifteen cents a pound, that are in season just now. I suppose you would like to begin on some common, easy things, that will bring the most money.”
Without a breath of hesitation she answered, “I will commence on whatever you are short of and need most to have.”
The heart of the Harvester gave a leap that almost choked him, for he was vividly conscious of a broken shoe she was hiding beneath her skirts. He wanted to say “thank you,” but he was afraid to, so he turned the leaves of the book.
“I am working just now on mullein,” he said.
“Oh I know mullein,” she cried, with almost a hint of animation in her voice. “The tall, yellow flower stem rising from a circle of green felt leaves!”
“Good!” said the Harvester. “What a pretty way to describe it! Do you know any more plants?”
“Only a few! I had a high-school course in botany, but it was all about flower and leaf formation, nothing at all of what anything was good for. I also learned a few, drawing them for leather and embroidery designs.”
“Look here!” cried the Harvester. “I came with an arm load of herbs and expected to tell you all about foxglove, mullein, yarrow, jimson, purple thorn apple, blessed thistle, hemlock, hoarhound, lobelia, and everything in season now; but if you already have a profession, why do you attempt a new one? Why don't you go on drawing? I never saw anything so stupid as most of the designs from nature for book covers and decorations, leather work and pottery. They are the same old subjects worked over and over. If you can draw enough to make original copies, I can furnish you with flowers, vines, birds, and insects, new, unused, and of exquisite beauty, for every month in the year. I've looked into the matter a little, because I am rather handy with a knife, and I carve candlesticks from suitable pieces of wood. I always have trouble getting my designs copied; securing something new and unusual, never! If you can draw just well enough to reproduce what you see, gathering drugs is too slow and tiresome. What you want to do is to reproduce the subjects I will bring, and I'll buy what I want in my work, and sell the remainder at the arts and crafts stores for you. Or I can find out what they pay for such designs at potteries and ceramic factories. You have no time to spend on herbs, when you are in the woods, if you can draw.”
“I am surely in the woods,” said the Girl, “and I know I can copy correctly. I often made designs for embroidery and leather for the shop mother and I worked for in Chicago.”
“Won't they buy them of you now?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Do they pay anything worth while?”
“I don't know how their prices compare with others. One place was all I worked for. I think they pay what is fair.”
“We will find out,” said the Harvester promptly.
“I——I don't think you need waste the time,” faltered the Girl. “I had better gather the plants for a while at least.”
“Collecting crude drug material is not easy,” said the Harvester. “Drawing may not be either, but at least you could sit while you work, and it should bring you more money. Besides, I very much want a moth copied for a candlestick I am carving. Won't you draw that for me? I have some pupae cases and the moths will be out any day now. If I'd bring you one, wouldn't you just make a copy?”
The Girl gripped her hands together and stared straight ahead of her for a second, then she turned to him.
“I'd like to,” she said, “but I have nothing to work with. In Chicago they furnished my material at the shop and I drew the design and was paid for the pattern. I didn't know there would be a chance for anything like that here. I haven't even proper pencils.”
“Then the way for you to do this is to strip the first mullein plants you see of the petals. I will pay you seventy-five cents a pound for them. By the time you get a few pounds I can have material you need for drawing here and you can go to work on whatever flowers, vines, and things you can find in the woods, with no thanks to any one.”
“I can't see that,” said the Girl. “It would appear to me that I would be under more obligations than I could repay, and to a stranger.”
“I figure it this way,” said the Harvester, watching from the corner of his eye. “I can sell at good prices all the mullein flowers I can secure. You collect for me, I buy them. You can use drawing tools; I get them for you, and you pay me with the mullein or out of the ginseng money I owe you. You already have that coming, and it's just as much yours as it will be ten days from now. You needn't hesitate a second about drawing on it, because I am in a hurry for the moth pattern. I find time to carve only at night, you see. As for being under obligations to a stranger, in the first place all the debt would be on my side. I'd get the drugs and the pattern I want; and, in the second place, I positively and emphatically refuse to be a stranger. It would be so much better to be mutual helpers and friends of the kind worth having; and the sooner we begin, the sooner we can work together to good advantage. Get that stranger idea out of your head right now, and replace it with thoughts of a new friend, who is willing”—the Harvester detected panic in her eyes and ended casually—“to enter a partnership that will be of benefit to both of us. Partners can't be strangers, you know,” he finished.
“I don't know what to think,” said the Girl.
“Never bother your head with thinking,” advised the Harvester with an air of large wisdom. “It is unprofitable and very tiring. Any one can see that you are too weary now. Don't dream of such a foolish thing as thinking. Don't worry over motives and obligations. Say to yourself, 'I'll enter this partnership and if it brings me anything good, I'm that much ahead. If it fails, I have lost nothing.' That's the way to look at it.”
Then before she could answer he continued: “Now I want all the mullein bloom I can get. You'll see the yellow heads everywhere. Strip the petals and bring them here, and I'll come for them every day. They must go on the trays as fresh as possible. On your part, we will make out the order now.”
He took a pencil and notebook from his pocket.
“You want drawing pencils and brushes; how many, what make and size?”
The Girl hesitated for a moment as if struggling to decide what to do; then she named the articles.
“And paper?”
He wrote that down, and asked if there was more.
“I think,” he said, “that I can get this order filled in Onabasha. The art stores should keep these things. And shouldn't you have water-colour paper and some paint?”
Then there was a flash across the white face.
“Oh if I only could!” she cried. “All my life I have been crazy for a box of colour, but I never could afford it, and of course, I can't now. But if this splendid plan works, and I can earn what I owe, then maybe I can.”
“Well this 'splendid plan' is going to 'work,' don't you bother about that,” said the Harvester. “It has begun working right now. Don't worry a minute. After things have gone wrong for a certain length of time, they always veer and go right a while as compensation. Don't think of anything save that you are at the turning. Since it is all settled that we are to be partners, would you name me the figures of the debt that is worrying you? Don't, if you mind. I just thought perhaps we could get along better if I knew. Is it——say five hundred dollars?”
“Oh dear no!” cried the Girl in a panic. “I never could face that! It is not quite one hundred, and that seems big as a mountain to me.”
“Forget it!” he cried. “The ginseng will pay more than half; that I know. I can bring you the cash in a little over a week.”
She started to speak, hesitated, and at last turned to him.
“Would you mind,” she said, “if I asked you to keep it until I can find a way to go to town? It's too far to walk and I don't know how to send it. Would I dare put it in a letter?”
“Never!” said the Harvester. “You want a draft. That money will be too precious to run any risks. I'll bring it to you and you can write a note and explain to whom you want it paid, and I'll take it to the bank for you and get your draft. Then you can write a letter, and half your worry will be over safely.”
“It must be done in a sure way,” said the Girl. “If I knew I had the money to pay that much on what I owe, and then lost it, I simply could not endure it. I would lie down and give up as Aunt Molly has.”
“Forget that too!” said the Harvester. “Wipe out all the past that has pain in it. The future is going to be beautifully bright. That little bird on the bush there just told me so, and you are always safe when you trust the feathered folk. If you are going to live in the country any length of time, you must know them, and they will become a great comfort. Are you planning to be here long?”
“I have no plans. After what I saw Chicago do to my mother I would rather finish life in the open than return to the city. It is horrible here, but at least I'm not hungry, and not afraid——all the time.”
“Gracious Heaven!” cried the Harvester. “Do you mean to say that you are afraid any part of the time? Would you kindly tell me of whom, and why?”
“You should know without being told that when a woman born and reared in a city, and all her life confined there, steps into the woods for the first time, she's bound to be afraid. The last few weeks constitute my entire experience with the country, and I'm in mortal fear that snakes will drop from trees and bushes or spring from the ground. Some places I think I'm sinking, and whenever a bush catches my skirts it seems as if something dreadful is reaching up for me; there is a possibility of horror lurking behind every tree and——”
“Stop!” cried the Harvester. “I can't endure it! Do you mean to tell me that you are afraid here and now?”
She met his eyes squarely.
“Yes,” she said. “It almost makes me ill to sit on this log without taking a stick and poking all around it first. Every minute I think something is going to strike me in the back or drop on my head.”
The Harvester grew very white beneath the tan, and that developed a nice, sickly green complexion for him.
“Am I part of your tortures?” he asked tersely.
“Why shouldn't you be?” she answered. “What do I know of you or your motives or why you are here?”
“I have had no experience with the atmosphere that breeds such an attitude in a girl.”
“That is a thing for which to thank Heaven. Undoubtedly it is gracious to you. My life has been different.”
“Yet in mortal terror of the woods, and probably equal fear of me, you are here and asking for work that will keep you here.”
“I would go through fire and flood for the money I owe. After that debt is paid——”
She threw out her hands in a hopeless gesture. The Harvester drew forth a roll of bills and tossed them into her lap.
“For the love of mercy take what you need and pay it,” he said. “Then get a floor under your feet, and try, I beg of you, try to force yourself to have confidence in me, until I do something that gives you the least reason for distrusting me.”
She picked up the money and gave it a contemptuous whirl that landed it at his feet.
“What greater cause of distrust could I have by any possibility than just that?” she asked.
The Harvester arose hastily, and taking several steps, he stood with folded arms, his back turned. The Girl sat watching him with wide eyes, the dull blue plain in their dusky depths. When he did not speak, she grew restless. At last she slowly arose and circling him looked into his face. It was convulsed with a struggle in which love and patience fought for supremacy over honest anger. As he saw her so close, his lips drew apart, and his breath came deeply, but he did not speak. He merely stood and looked at her, and looked; and she gazed at him as if fascinated, but uncomprehending.
“Ruth!”
The call came roaring up the hill. The Girl shivered and became paler.
“Is that your uncle?” asked the Harvester.
She nodded.
“Will you come to-morrow for your drawing materials?”
“Yes.”
“Will you try to believe that there is absolutely nothing, either underfoot or overhead, that will harm you?”
“Yes.”
“Will you try to think that I am not a menace to public safety, and that I would do much to help you, merely because I would be glad to be of service?”
“Yes.”
“Will you try to cultivate the idea that there is nothing in all this world that would hurt you purposely?”
“Ruth!” came a splitting scream in gruff man-tones, keyed in deep anger.
“That SOUNDS like it!” said the Girl, and catching up her skirts she ran through the woods, taking a different route toward the house.
The Harvester sat on the log and tried to think; but there are times when the numbed brain refuses to work, so he really sat and suffered. Belshazzar whimpered and licked his hands, and at last the man arose and went with the dog to the wagon. As they came through Onabasha, Betsy turned at the hospital corner, but the Harvester pulled her around and drove toward the country. Not until they crossed the railroad did he lift his head and then he drew a deep breath as if starved for pure air and spoke. “Not to-day Betsy! I can't face my friends just now. Someway I am making an awful fist of things. Everything I do is wrong. She no more trusts me than you would a rattlesnake, Belshazzar; and from all appearance she takes me to be almost as deadly. What must have been her experiences in life to ingrain fear and distrust in her soul at that rate? I always knew I was not handsome, but I never before regarded my appearance as alarming. And I 'fixed up,' too!”
The Harvester grinned a queer little twist of a grin that pulled and distorted his strained face. “Might as well have gone with a week's beard, a soiled shirt, and a leer! And I've always been as decent as I knew! What's the reward for clean living anyway, if the girl you love strikes you like that?”
Belshazzar reached across and kissed him. The Harvester put his arm around the dog. In the man's disappointment and heart hunger he leaned his head against the beast and said, “I've always got you to love and protect me, anyway, Belshazzar. Maybe the man who said a dog was a man's best friend was right. You always trusted me, didn't you Bel? And you never regretted it but once, and that wasn't my fault. I never did it! If I did, I'm getting good and well paid for it. I'd rather be kicked until all the ribs of one side are broken, Bel, than to swallow the dose she just handed me. I tell you it was bitter, lad! What am I going to do? Can't you help me, Bel?”
Belshazzar quivered in anxiety to offer the comfort he could not speak.
“Of course you are right! You always are, Bel!” said the Harvester. “I know what you are trying to tell me. Sure enough, she didn't have any dream. I am afraid she had the bitterest reality. She hasn't been loving a vision of me, working and searching for me, and I don't mean to her what she does to me. Of course I see that I must be patient and bide my time. If there is anything in 'like begetting like' she is bound to care for me some day, for I love her past all expression, and for all she feels I might as well save my breath. But she has got to awake some day, Bel. She can make up her mind to that. She can't see 'why.' Over and over! I wonder what she would think if I'd up and tell her 'why' with no frills. She will drive me to it some day, then probably the shock will finish her. I wonder if Doc was only fooling or if he really would do what he said. It might wake her up, anyway, but I'm dubious as to the result. How Uncle Henry can roar! He sounded like a fog horn. I'd love to try my muscle on a man like that. No wonder she is afraid of him, if she is of me. Afraid! Well of all things I ever did expect, Belshazzar, that is the limit.”
The Harvester finished his evening work and went to examine the cocoons. Many of the moths had emerged and flown, but the luna cases remained in the bottom of the box. As he stood looking at them one moved and he smiled.
“I'd give something if you would come out and be ready to work on by to-morrow afternoon,” he said. “Possibly you would so interest her that she would forget her fear of me. I'd like mighty well to take you along, because she might care for you, and I do need the pattern for my candlestick. Believe I'll lay you in a warmer place.”
The first thing the next morning the Harvester looked and found the open cocoon and the wet moth clinging by its feet to a twig he had placed for it.
“Luck is with me!” he exulted. “I'll carry you to her and be mighty careful what I say, and maybe she will forget about the fear.”
All the forenoon he cut and spread boneset, saffron, and hemlock on the trays to dry. At noon he put on a fresh outfit, ate a hasty lunch, and drove to Onabasha. He carried the moth in a box, and as he started he picked up a rake. He went to an art store and bought the pencils and paper she had ordered. He wanted to purchase everything he saw for her, but he was fast learning a lesson of deep caution. If he took more than she ordered, she would worry over paying, and if he refused to accept money, she would put that everlasting “why” at him again. The water-colour paper and paint he could not forego. He could make a desire to have the moth coloured explain those, he thought.
Then he went to a furniture store and bought several articles, and forgetting his law against haste, he drove Betsy full speed to the river. He was rather heavily ladened as he went up the bank, and it was only one o'clock. There was an hour. He rolled away the log, raked together and removed the leaves to the ground. He tramped the earth level and spread a large cheap porch rug. On this he opened and placed a little folding table and chair. On the table he spread the pencils, paper, colour box and brushes, and went to the river to fill the water cup. Then he sat on the log he had rolled to one side and waited. After two hours he arose and crept as close the house as he could through the woods, but he could not secure a glimpse of the Girl. He went back and waited an hour more, and then undid his work and removed it. When he came to the moth his face was very grim as he lifted the twig and helped the beautiful creature to climb on a limb. “You'll be ready to fly in a few hours,” he said. “If I keep you in a box you will ruin your wings and be no suitable subject, and put you in a cyanide jar I will not. I am hurt too badly myself. I wonder if what Doc said was the right way! It's certainly a temptation.”
Then he went home; and again Betsy veered at the hospital, and once more the Harvester explained to her that he did not want to see the doctor. That evening and the following forenoon were difficult, but the Harvester lived through them, and in the afternoon went back to the woods, spread his rug, and set up the table. Only one streak of luck brightened the gloom in his heart. A yellow emperor had emerged in the night, and now occupied the place of yesterday's luna. She never need know it was not the one he wanted, and it would make an excuse for the colour box.
He was watching intently and saw her coming a long way off. He noticed that she looked neither right nor left, but came straight as if walking a bridge. As she reached the place she glanced hastily around and then at him. The Harvester forgave her everything as he saw the look of relief with which she stepped upon the carpet. Then she turned to him.
“I won't have to ask 'why' this time,” she said. “I know that you did it because I was baby enough to tell what a coward I am. I'm sure you can't afford it, and I know you shouldn't have done it, but oh, what a comfort! If you will promise never to do any such expensive, foolish, kind thing again, I'll say thank you this time. I couldn't come yesterday, because Aunt Molly was worse and Uncle Henry was at home all day.”
“I supposed it was something like that,” said the Harvester.
She advanced and handed him the roll of bills.
“I had a feeling you would be reckless,” she said. “I saw it in your face, so I came back as soon as I could steal away, and sure enough, there lay your money and the books and everything. I hid them in the thicket, so they will be all right. I've almost prayed it wouldn't rain. I didn't dare carry them to the house. Please take the money. I haven't time to argue about it or strength, but of course I can't possibly use it unless I earn it. I'm so anxious to see the pencils and paper.”
The Harvester thrust the money into his pocket. The Girl went to the table, opened and spread the paper, and took out the pencils.
“Is my subject in here?” she touched the colour box.
“No, the other.”
“Is it alive? May I open it?”
“We will be very careful at first,” said the Harvester. “It only left its case in the night and may fly. When the weather is so warm the wings develop rapidly. Perhaps if I remove the lid——”
He took off the cover, exposing a big moth, its lovely, pale yellow wings, flecked with heliotrope, outspread as it clung to a twig in the box. The Girl leaned forward.
“What is it?” she asked.
“One of the big night moths that emerge and fly a few hours in June.”
“Is this what you want for your candlestick?”
“If I can't do better. There is one other I prefer, but it may not come at a time that you can get it right.”
“What do you mean by 'right'?”
“So that you can copy it before it wants to fly.”
“Why don't you chloroform and pin it until I am ready?”
“I am not in the business of killing and impaling exquisite creatures like that.”
“Do you mean that if I can't draw it when it is just right you will let it go?”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“I told you why.”
“I know you said you were not in the business, but why wouldn't you take only one you really wanted to use?”
“I would be afraid,” replied the Harvester.
“Afraid? You!”
“I must have a mighty good reason before I kill,” said the man. “I cannot give life; I have no right to take it away. I will let my statement stand. I am afraid.”
“Of what please?”
“An indefinable something that follows me and makes me suffer if I am wantonly cruel.”
“Is there any particular pose in which you want this bird placed?”
“Allow me to present you to the yellow emperor, known in the books as eagles imperialis,” he said. “I want him as he clings naturally and life size.”
She took up a pencil.
“If you don't mind,” said the Harvester, “would you draw on this other paper? I very much want the colour, also, and you can use it on this. I brought a box along, and I'll get you water. I had it all ready yesterday.”
“Did you have this same moth?”
“No, I had another.”
“Did you have the one you wanted most?”
“Yes——but it's no difference.”
“And you let it go because I was not here?”
“No. It went on account of exquisite beauty. If kept in confinement it would struggle and break its wings. You see, that one was a delicate green, where this is yellow, plain pale blue green, with a lavender rib here, and long curled trailers edged with pale yellow, and eye spots rimmed with red and black.”
As the Harvester talked he indicated the points of difference with a pencil he had picked up; now he laid it down and retreated beyond the limits of the rug.
“I see,” said the Girl. “And this is colour?”
She touched the box.
“A few colours, rather,” said the Harvester. “I selected enough to fill the box, with the help of the clerk who sold them to me. If they are not right, I have permission to return and exchange them for anything you want.”
With eager fingers she opened the box, and bent over it a face filled with interest.
“Oh how I've always wanted this! I scarcely can wait to try it. I do hope I can have it for my very own. Was it quite expensive?”
“No. Very cheap!” said the Harvester. “The paper isn't worth mentioning. The little, empty tin box was only a few cents, and the paints differ according to colour. Some appear to be more than others. I was surprised that the outfit was so inexpensive.”
A skeptical little smile wavered on the Girl's face as she drew her slender fingers across the trays of bright colour.
“If one dared accept your word, you really would be a comfort,” she said, as she resolutely closed the box, pushed it away, and picked up a pencil.
“If you will take the trouble to inquire at the banks, post office, express office, hospital or of any druggist in Onabasha, you will find that my word is exactly as good as my money, and taken quite as readily.”
“I didn't say I doubted you. I have no right to do that until I feel you deceive me. What I said was 'dared accept,' which means I must not, because I have no right. But you make one wonder what you would do if you were coaxed and asked for things and led by insinuations.”
“I can tell you that,” said the Harvester. “It would depend altogether on who wanted anything of me and what they asked. If you would undertake to coax and insinuate, you never would get it done, because I'd see what you needed and have it at hand before you had time.”
The Girl looked at him wonderingly.
“Now don't spring your recurrent 'why' on me,” said the Harvester. “I'll tell you 'why' some of these days. Just now answer me this question: Do you want me to remain here or leave until you finish? Which way would you be least afraid?”
“I am not at all afraid on the rug and with my work,” she said. “If you want to hunt ginseng go by all means.”
“I don't want to hunt anything,” said the Harvester. “But if you are more comfortable with me away, I'll be glad to go. I'll leave the dog with you.”
He gave a short whistle and Belshazzar came bounding to him. The Harvester stepped to the Girl's side, and dropping on one knee, he drew his hand across the rug close to her skirts.
“Right here, Belshazzar,” he said. “Watch! You are on guard, Bel.”
“Well of all names for a dog!” exclaimed the Girl. “Why did you select that?”
“My mother named my first dog Belshazzar, and taught me why; so each of the three I've owned since have been christened the same. It means 'to protect' and that is the office all of them perform; this one especially has filled it admirably. Once I failed him, but he never has gone back on me. You see he is not a particle afraid of me. Every step I take, he is at my heels.”
“So was Bill Sikes' dog, if I remember.”
The Harvester laughed.
“Bel,” he said, “if you could speak you'd say that was an ugly one, wouldn't you?”
The dog sprang up and kissed the face of the man and rubbed a loving head against his breast.
“Thank you!” said the Harvester. “Now lie down and protect this woman as carefully as you ever watched in your life. And incidentally, Bel, tell her that she can't exterminate me more than once a day, and the performance is accomplished for the present. I refuse to be a willing sacrifice. 'So was Bill Sikes' dog!' What do you think of that, Bel?”
The Harvester arose and turned to go.
“What if this thing attempts to fly?” she asked.
“Your pardon,” said the Harvester. “If the emperor moves, slide the lid over the box a few seconds, until he settles and clings quietly again, and then slowly draw it away. If you are careful not to jar the table heavily he will not go for hours yet.”
Again he turned.
“If there is no danger, why do you leave the dog?”
“For company,” said the Harvester. “I thought you would prefer an animal you are not afraid of to a man you are. But let me tell you there is no necessity for either. I know a woman who goes alone and unafraid through every foot of woods in this part of the country. She has climbed, crept, and waded, and she tells me she never saw but two venomous snakes this side of Michigan. Nothing ever dropped on her or sprang at her. She feels as secure in the woods as she does at home.”
“Isn't she afraid of snakes?”
“She dislikes snakes, but she is not afraid or she would not risk encountering them daily.”
“Do you ever find any?”
“Harmless little ones, often. That is, Bel does. He is always nosing for them, because he understands that I work in the earth. I think I have encountered three dangerous ones in my life. I will guarantee you will not find one in these woods. They are too open and too much cleared.”
“Then why leave the dog?”
“I thought,” said the Harvester patiently, “that your uncle might have turned in some of his cattle, or if pigs came here the dog could chase them away.”
She looked at him with utter panic in her face.
“I am far more afraid of a cow than a snake!” she cried. “It is so much bigger!”
“How did you ever come into these woods alone far enough to find the ginseng?” asked the Harvester. “Answer me that!”
“I wore Uncle Henry's top boots and carried a rake, and I suffered tortures,” she replied.
“But you hunted until you found what you wanted, and came again to keep watch on it?”
“I was driven—simply forced. There's no use to discuss it!”
“Well thank the Lord for one thing,” said the Harvester. “You didn't appear half so terrified at the sight of me as you did at the mere mention of a cow. I have risen inestimably in my own self-respect. Belshazzar, you may pursue the elusive chipmunk. I am going to guard this woman myself, and please, kind fates, send a ferocious cow this way, in order that I may prove my valour.”
The Girl's face flushed slightly, and she could not restrain a laugh. That was all the Harvester hoped for and more. He went beyond the edge of the rug and sat on the leaves under a tree. She bent over her work and only bird and insect notes and occasionally Belshazzar's excited bark broke the silence. The Harvester stretched on the ground, his eyes feasting on the Girl. Intensely he watched every movement. If a squirrel barked she gave a nervous start, so precipitate it seemed as if it must hurt. If a windfall came rattling down she appeared ready to fly in headlong terror in any direction. At last she dropped her pencil and looked at him helplessly.
“What is it?” he asked.
“The silence and these awful crashes when one doesn't know what is coming,” she said.
“Will it bother you if I talk? Perhaps the sound of my voice will help?”
“I am accustomed to working when people talk, and it will be a comfort. I may be able to follow you, and that will prevent me from thinking. There are dreadful things in my mind when they are not driven out. Please talk! Tell me about the herbs you gathered this morning.”
The Harvester gave the Girl one long look as she bent over her work. He was vividly conscious of the graceful curves of her little figure, the coil of dark, silky hair, softly waving around her temples and neck, and when her eyes turned in his direction he knew that it was only the white, drawn face that restrained him. He was almost forced to tell her how he loved and longed for her; about the home he had prepared; of a thousand personal interests. Instead, he took a firm grip and said casually, “Foxglove harvest is over. This plant has to be taken when the leaves are in second year growth and at bloom time. I have stripped my mullein beds of both leaves and flowers. I finished a week ago. Beyond lies a stretch of Parnassus grass that made me think of you, it was so white and delicate. I want you to see it. It will be lovely in a few weeks more.”
“You never had seen me a week ago.”
“Oh hadn't I?” said the Harvester. “Well maybe I dreamed about you then. I am a great dreamer. Once I had a dream that may interest you some day, after you've overcome your fear of me. Now this bed of which I was speaking is a picture in September. You must arrange to drive home with me and see it then.”
“For what do you sell foxglove and mullein?”
“Foxglove for heart trouble, and mullein for catarrh. I get ten cents a pound for foxglove leaves and five for mullein and from seventy-five to a dollar for flowers of the latter, depending on how well I preserve the colour in drying them. They must be sealed in bottles and handled with extreme care.”
“Then if I wasn't too childish to be out picking them, I could be earning seventy-five cents a pound for mullein blooms?”
“Yes,” said the Harvester, “but until you learned the trick of stripping them rapidly you scarcely could gather what would weigh two pounds a day, when dried. Not to mention the fact that you would have to stand and work mostly in hot sunshine, because mullein likes open roads and fields and sunny hills. Now you can sit securely in the shade, and in two hours you can make me a pattern of that moth, for which I would pay a designer of the arts and crafts shop five dollars, so of course you shall have the same.”
“Oh no!” she cried in swift panic. “You were charged too much! It isn't worth a dollar, even!”
“On the contrary the candlestick on which I shall use it will be invaluable when I finish it, and five is very little for the cream of my design. I paid just right. You can earn the same for all you can do. If you can embroider linen, they pay good prices for that, too and wood carving, metal work, or leather things. May I see how you are coming on?”
“Please do,” she said.
The Harvester sprang up and looked over the Girl's shoulder. He could not suppress an exclamation of delight.
“Perfect!” he cried. “You can surpass their best drafting at the shop! Your fortune is made. Any time you want to go to Onabasha you can make enough to pay your board, dress you well, and save something every week. You must leave here as soon as you can manage it. When can you go?”
“I don't know,” she said wearily. “I'd hate to tell you how full of aches I am. I could not work much just now, if I had the best opportunities in the world. I must grow stronger.”
“You should not work at anything until you are well,” he said. “It is a crime against nature to drive yourself. Why will you not allow——”
“Do you really think, with a little practice, I can draw designs that will sell?”
The Harvester picked up the sheet. The work was delicate and exact. He could see no way to improve it.
“You know it will sell,” he said gently, “because you already have sold such work.”
“But not for the prices you offer.”
“The prices I name are going to be for NEW, ORIGINAL DESIGNS. I've got a thousand in my head, that old Mother Nature shows me in the woods and on the water every day.”
“But those are yours; I can't take them.”
“You must,” said the Harvester. “I only see and recognize studies; I can't materialize them, and until they are drawn, no one can profit by them. In this partnership we revolutionize decorative art. There are actually birds besides fat robins and nondescript swallows. The crane and heron do not monopolize the water. Wild rose and golden-rod are not the only flowers. The other day I was gathering lobelia. The seeds are used in tonic preparations. It has an upright stem with flowers scattered along it. In itself it is not much, but close beside it always grows its cousin, tall bell-flower. As the name indicates, the flowers are bell shape and I can't begin to describe their grace, beauty, and delicate blue colour. They ring my strongest call to worship. My work keeps me in the woods so much I remain there for my religion also. Whenever I find these flowers I always pause for a little service of my own that begins by reciting these lines: