Pole Baker
BY WILL N. HARBENAuthor of “The Georgians,” “Abner Daniel,” etc.
In a small Georgia town a friendship has grown up between Pole Baker, reformed moonshiner and an unusual and likable character, and young Nelson Floyd, who was left as a baby in a mountain cabin by an unknown woman just before her death. Floyd, in the face of many trials and temptations, has worked his way up in the world and made a man of himself. Jeff Wade appears at the store, in which Floyd has become a partner, to avenge on him a rumored injustice to Wade’s sister. Pole Baker’s tact prevents a duel by making Floyd see that the unselfish course is for him to avoid a meeting. Cynthia Porter comes to the store, alarmed for Floyd’s safety. On his way home to his family Pole falls a victim to his besetting sin of drink.
IT was Sunday morning a week later. Springtown’s principal church stood in the edge of the village, on the red clay road leading up the mountainside, now in the delicate green of spring, touched here and there by fragrant splotches of pink honeysuckle and white, dark-eyed dogwood blossoms. The building was a diminutive affair, with five shuttered windows on either side, a pulpit at one end and a door at the other. A single aisle cut the rough benches into two halves, one side being occupied by the men and the other by the women. The only exception to this rule was a bench set aside, as if by common consent, for Captain Duncan, who always sat with his family, as did any male guests who attended service with them.
The Rev. Jason Hillhouse was the regular pastor. He was under thirty years of age, very tall, slight of build and nervous in temperament. He wore the conventional black frock coat, high-cut waistcoat, black necktie and gray trousers. He was popular. He had applied himself closely to the duties of his calling and was considered a man of character and worth. While not a college graduate, he was yet sufficiently well-read in the Bible and religious literature to suit even the more progressive of mountain churchgoers. He differed radically from many of the young preachers who were living imitations of that noted evangelist, the Rev. Tom P. Smith, “the whirlwind preacher,” in that he was conservative in the selection of topics for discourse and in his mild delivery.
Today he was at his best. Few in the congregation suspected it, but if he distributed his glances evenly over the upturned faces, his thoughts were focussed on only one personality—that of modest Cynthia Porter, who, in a becoming gray gown, sat with her mother on the third bench from the front. Mrs. Porter, a woman fifty-five years of age, was very plainly attired in a homespun dress, to which she had added no ornament of any kind. She wore a gingham poke-bonnet, the hood of which hid her face even from the view of the minister. Her husband, old Nathan Porter, sat directly across the aisle from her. He was one of the roughest-looking men in the house. He had come without his coat, and wore no collar or necktie, and for comfort, as the day was warm, he had even thrown off the burden of his suspenders, which lay in careless loops about his hips. He had a broad expanse of baldness, to the edge of which hung a narrow fringe of white hair, a healthful, pink complexion and blue eyes.
When the sermon was over and the doxology sung, the preacher stepped down into the congregation to take the numerous hands cordially extended tohim. While he was thus engaged old Mayhew came from the amen corner on the right, and nodded and smiled patronizingly.
“You did pretty well today, young man,” he said. “I like doctrinal talks. There’s no getting around good, sound doctrine, Hillhouse. We’d have less lawlessness if we could keep our people filled plumb full of sound doctrine. But you don’t look like you’ve been eating enough, my boy. Come home with me and I’ll give you a good dinner. I heard a fat hen squeal early this morning, as my cook jerked her head off. It looks a pity to take life on a Sunday, but if that hen had been allowed to live, she might have broken a commandment by hunting for worms on this day of rest. Come on with me.”
“I can’t, Brother Mayhew; not today, thank you.” The young man flushed as his glance struggled on to the Porters, who were waiting near the door. “The fact is, I’ve already accepted an invitation.”
“From somebody with a girl in the family, I’ll bet.” Mayhew laughed as he playfully thrust the crooked end of his walking-stick against the preacher’s side. “I wish I knew why so many women are dead set on getting a preacher in the family. It may be because they know they will be provided for after some fashion or other by the church at large, in case of death or accident.”
The preacher laughed as he moved on, shaking hands and dispensing cheery words of welcome right and left. Presently the way was clear and he found himself near Cynthia and her mother.
“Sorry to keep you standing here,” he said, his color rising as he took the girl’s hand.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter at all, Brother Hillhouse,” the old woman assured him. “I’ll go on an’ overtake Mr. Porter; you and Cynthia can stroll home by the shadiest way. You needn’t walk fast; you’ll get hot if you do. Cynthia, I won’t need you before dinner. I’ve got everything ready, with nothing to do but lay back the cloth and push the plates into their places. I want Brother Hillhouse just to taste that pound cake you made. I’m a good hand at desserts myself, Brother Hillhouse, but she can beat me any day in the week.”
“Oh, I know Miss Cynthia can cook,” said the minister. “At the picnic at Cohutta Springs last week she took the prize for her fried chicken.”
“I told you all that mother fried that chicken,” said the girl indifferently. She had seen Nelson Floyd mounting his fine Kentucky horse among the trees across the street, and had deliberately turned her back toward him.
“Well, I believe Ididfix the chicken,” Mrs. Porter admitted, “but she made the custards and the cake and icing. Besides, the poor girl was having a lot of trouble with her dress. She washed and did up that muslin twice—the iron spoiled it the first time. I declare I’d have been out of heart, but she was cheerful all through it. Here comes Nathan now. He never will go home by himself; he is afraid I’ll lag behind and he’ll get a late dinner.”
“How are you today, Brother Porter?” Hillhouse asked as they came upon the old man under the trees, a little way from the church.
“Oh, I’m about as common,” was the drawling answer. “You may notice that I limp a little in my left leg. Ever since I had white swellin’ I’ve had trouble with that selfsame leg. I wish you folks would jest stop an’ take a peep at it. It looks to me like the blood’s quit circulatin’ in the veins. It went to sleep while you was a-talkin’ this mornin’—now, I’ll swear I didn’t mean that as a reflection.”
He paused at a fallen tree, put his foot upon it and started to roll up the leg of his trousers, but his wife drew him on impatiently.
“I wonder what you’ll do next,” she said reprovingly. “This is no time and place for that. What would the Duncans think if they was to drive by while you was doing the like of thaton a public road? Come on with me, and let’s leave the young folks to themselves.”
Grumblingly Porter obeyed. His wife walked briskly and made him keep pace with her, and they were soon several yards ahead of the young couple. Hillhouse was silent for several minutes, and his smooth-shaven face was quite serious in expression.
“I’m afraid I’m going to bore you on that same old line, Miss Cynthia,” he said presently. “Really, I can’t well help it. This morning I fancied you listened attentively to what I was saying in my sermon.”
“Oh, yes, I always do that,” the girl returned, with an almost perceptible shudder of her shoulders.
“It helped me wonderfully, Miss Cynthia, and once a hope actually flashed through me so strong that I lost my place. You may have seen me turning the pages of the Bible. I was trying to think where I’d left off. The hope was this: that some day, if I keep on begging you, and showing my deep respect and regard you will not turn me away. Just for one minute this morning it seemed to me that you had actually consented, and—and the thought was too much for me.”
“Oh, don’t speak any more about it, Mr. Hillhouse,” Cynthia pleaded, giving him a full look from her wonderful brown eyes. “I have already said all I can to you.”
“But I’ve known many of the happiest marriages to finally result from nothing but the sheer persistence of the man concerned, and when I think ofthat—and when I think of the chance of losing you, it nearly drives me crazy. I can’t help feeling that way. You are simply all I care for on earth. Do you remember when I first met you? It was at Hattie Mayfield’s party, just after I got this appointment; we sat on the porch alone and talked. I reckon it was merely your respect for my calling that made you so attentive, but I went home that night out of my head with admiration. Then I saw that Frank Miller was going with you everywhere, and that people thought you were engaged, and, as I did not admire his moral character, I was very miserable in secret. Then I saw that he stopped, and I got it from a reliable source that you had refused him because you did not want to marry such a man, and my hopes and admiration climbed still higher. You had proved that you were the kind of a woman for a preacher’s wife—the kind of woman I’ve always dreamed of having as my companion in life.”
“I didn’t love him, that was all,” Cynthia said calmly. “It would not have been fair to him or myself to have received his constant attentions.”
“But now I am down in the dregs again, Miss Cynthia.” Hillhouse gave a sigh. It was almost a groan.
She glanced at him once and then lowered her eyes half fearfully. And, getting his breath rapidly, the preacher bent more closely over her shoulder, as if to catch some reply from her lips. She made none.
“Yes, I’m in the dregs again—miserable, afraid, jealous! You know why, Miss Cynthia. You know that any lover would be concerned to see the girl upon whom he had based his every hope going often with Nelson Floyd. Of all men, he——”
“Stop!” The girl paused, turned upon him suddenly and gazed at him steadily. “If you have anything to say about him don’t say it to me. He’s my friend, and I will not listen to anything against those I like.”
“I’m not going to criticize him.” Hillhouse bit his white, unsteady lip. “A man’s a fool who tries to win by running down his rival. The way to run a man up in a woman’s eyes is to openly run him down. Men are strong enough to bear such things, but women shelter them like they do their babies. No, I wasn’t going to run him down, but I am afraid of him. When you go out driving with him, I——”
Again Cynthia turned upon him and looked at him steadily, her eyes flashing. “Don’t go too far; you might regret it,” she said. “It is an insult to be spoken to as you are speaking to me.”
“Oh, don’t, don’t! You misunderstand me,” protested the bewildered lover. “I—I am not afraid, you understand, of course, I’m not afraid you will not be able to—to take care of yourself, but he has so many qualities that win and attract women that—Oh, I’m jealous, Miss Cynthia, that’s the whole thing in a nutshell! He has the reputation of being a great favorite with all women, and now that he seems to admire you more than any of the rest——”
The girl raised her eyes from the ground; a touch of color rose to her cheeks. “He doesn’t admire me more than the others,” she said tentatively. “You are mistaken, Mr. Hillhouse.”
He failed to note her rising color, the subtle eagerness oozing from her compact self-control.
“No, I’m not blind,” he went on, blindly building up his rival’s cause. “He admires you extravagantly—he couldn’t help it. You are beautiful, you have vivacity, womanly strength and a thousand other qualities that are rare in this section. Right here I want to tell you something. I know you will laugh, for you don’t seem to care for such things, but you know Colonel Price is quite an expert on genealogical matters. He’s made a great study of it, and his chief hobby is that many of these sturdy mountain people are the descendants of fine old English families, from younger sons, you know, who settled first in Virginia and North Carolina, and then drifted into this part of Georgia. He didn’t know of my admiration for you, but one day at the meeting of the Confederate Veterans at Springtown he saw you on the platform with the other ladies and he said: ‘I’ll tell you, Hillhouse, right there is a living proof of what I have always argued. That daughter of Nathan Porter’s has a face that is as patrician as any woman of English royal birth. I understand,’ the Colonel went on, ‘that her mother was a Radcliff, which is one of the best and most historic of the Virginia families, and Porter, as rough as he is, comes from good old English stock.’ Do you wonder, Cynthia, that I agree with him? There really is good blood in you. Your grandmother is one of the most refined and elegant old ladies I have ever met anywhere, and I have been about a good deal.”
“I am not sure that Colonel Price is right,” the girl said. “I’ve heard something of that kind before. I think Colonel Price had an article in one of the Atlanta papers about it, with a list of old family names. My father knows little or nothing about his ancestry, but my grandmother has always said her forefathers were wealthy people. She remembers her grandmother as being a fine old lady, who, poor as she was, tried to make her and the other children wear their bonnets and gloves in the sun to keep their complexions white. But I don’t like to discuss that sort of thing, Mr. Hillhouse. It won’t do in America. I think we are what we make ourselves, not what others made of themselves. One is individuality, the other imitation.”
The young man laughed. “That’s all very fine,” he said, “when it was your forefathers who made it possible for you to have the mental capacity for the very opinion you have expressed. At any rate, there is a little comfort in your view, for if you were to pride yourself on Price’s theories, as many a woman would, you would look higher than a poor preacher with such an untraceable name as mine. And you know, ordinary as it is, you have simply got to wear it sooner or later.”
“You must not mention that again,” Cynthia said firmly. “I tell you, I am not good enough for a minister’s wife. There is a streak of worldliness in me that I shall never overcome.”
“That cuts me like a knife,” said Hillhouse. “It cuts because it reminds me of something I once heard Pole Baker say in a group at the post-office. He said that women simply do not like what is known as a ‘goody-goody’ man. Sometimes as coarse a man as Pole hits the nail of truth on the head, while a better educated man would miss and mash his thumb. Butif I am in the pulpit, I’m only human. It seemed to me the other day when I saw you and Nelson Floyd driving along up the mountain that the very fires of hell itself raged inside of me. I always hold family prayer at home for the benefit of my mother and sister, but that night I cut it out and lay on the bed rolling and tossing like a crazy man. He’s handsome, Miss Cynthia, and he has a soft voice and a way of making all women sympathize with him—why they do it I don’t know. It’s true he’s had a most miserable childhood, but he is making money hand over hand now and has everything in his favor.”
“He’s not a happy man, Mr. Hillhouse, in spite of his success. Anyone who knows him can see that.”
“Oh, I suppose he broods over the mystery that hangs over his childhood,” said the preacher. “That’s only natural for an ambitious man. I once knew a fellow like that, and he told me he never intended to get married on that account. He was morbidly sensitive about it, but it is different with Floyd. He does know his name, and he will, no doubt, discover his relatives some day. But it hurts me to see you with him so much.”
“Why, he goes with other girls,” Cynthia said, her lips set together tightly, her face averted.
“And perhaps you know, Miss Cynthia, that people talk about some of the girls he has been with.”
“I know,” said the girl, looking at him with an absent glance. “There is no use going over that. I hear nothing all day long at home except that—that—that! Oh, sometimes I wish I were dead!”
“Ah, that hurts worse than anything you have ever said!” declared the minister in a tone of pain as he stroked his thin face with an unsteady hand. “Why should a beautiful, pure, human flower like you be made unhappy because of contact with a human weed——?”
“Stop, I tell you! Stop!” The girl stared at him with flashing eyes. “I am not going to have you talk to me as if I were a child. I know him as well as you do. You preach all day long that a person ought to be forgiven of his sins, and yet you want to load some of them down with theirs—that is, when it suits you. He has as good a right to—to—to reform as anyone, and I, myself, have heard you say that the vilest sin often purifies and lifts one up. Don’t get warped all to one side. I shall not respect your views any more if you do.”
Hillhouse was white in the face and trembling helplessly.
“You are tying me hand and foot,” he said, with a groan. “If I ever had a chance to gain my desires, I am killing them, but God knows I can’t help it. I am fighting for my life.”
“And behind another’s back,” added the girl firmly. “You’ve got to be fair to him! As for myself, I don’t believe half the things that the busybodies have said about him. Let me tell you something.”
They had come to a little brook which they had to cross on brown, almost submerged stepping-stones, and she paused, laying her small hand on his arm, and said portentously: “Nelson Floyd has been alone with me several times and has never yet told me that he loved me.”
“I’m not going to say what is in my mind,” Hillhouse said, with a cold, significant sneer on his white lip, as he took her hand and helped her across the stream.
“You say you won’t?” Cynthia gave him her eyes wonderingly, almost pleadingly.
“That is, not unless you will let me be plain with you,” Hillhouse answered; “as plain as I’d be to my sister.”
They walked on side by side in silence, now very near her father’s house.
“You may as well finish what you were going to say,” the girl gave in, with a sigh of resignation tinged with a curiosity that devoured her precaution.
“Well, I was going to say that, if what I have gathered here and there is true, it is Nelson Floyd’s favoritemethod tolook, do you understand?—tolooklove to the girls he goes with. He has never, it seems, committed himself by a scratch of a pen or by word of mouth, and yet every silly woman he has paid attention to, before he began to go with you, has secretly sworn to herself that she was the world and all to him.”
Cynthia’s face became grave. Her glance went down and for a moment she seemed incapable of speech. Finally, however, her color rose and she laughed defiantly.
“Well, here is a girl, Mr. Hillhouse, who will not be fooled that way, and you may rely on that. So, don’t worry about me. I’ll take care of myself.”
“I’ve no doubt you will,” said the preacher gloomily.
“Yes, you’ll see that I can,” Cynthia declared with animation. “There’s mother on the porch. Good gracious, do change the subject. If she sets in on it, I’ll not come to the table. She likes you and hates the ground Nelson Floyd walks on.”
“Perhaps that, too, will be my damnation,” Hillhouse retorted. “I know something about human nature. I may see the day that I’d be glad of a doubtful reputation.”
He caught her reproachful glance at this remark as he opened the gate for her and followed her in. Porter sat on the porch in the shade reading a newspaper, and his wife stood in the doorway.
“Run in and take off your things, Cynthia,” Mrs. Porter said, with a welcoming smile. “Brother Hillhouse can sit with your pa till we call dinner. I want you to help me a little bit. Your grandmother is lying down, and doesn’t feel well enough to come to the table.”
When the women had gone in, and the preacher had seated himself in a rough, hide-bottomed chair near his host, Porter with a chuckle reached down to the floor and picked up a smooth stick about twenty inches long, to the end of which was attached a piece of leather about three inches wide and four inches long.
“That’s an invention o’ mine,” Porter explained proudly as he tapped his knee with the leather. “Brother Hillhouse, ef you was to offer me a new five-dollar note fer this thing, an’ I couldn’t git me another, I’d refuse p’int-blank.”
“You don’t say,” said Hillhouse, concentrating his attention on the article by strong effort; “what is it for?”
“I don’t know any other name fer it than a ‘fly-flap,’” said Porter. “I set here one day tryin’ to read, an’ the flies made sech a dead set at my bald head that it mighty nigh driv’ me crazy. I kept fightin’ ’em with my paper an’ knockin’ my specs off an’ losin’ my place at sech a rate that I got to studyin’ how to git out of the difficulty, fer thar was a long fly spell ahead of us. Well, I invented this thing, an’ I give you my word it’s as good fun as goin’ a-fishin’. I kin take it in my hand—this way—an’ hold the paper too, an’ the minute one o’ the devilish things lights on my scalp I kin give a twist o’ the wrist an’ that fly’s done fer. You see, the leather is too flat an’ soft to hurtme, an’ I never seen a fly yit that was nimble enough to git out from under it. But my fun is mighty nigh over,” Porter went on. “Flies has got sense; they profit by experience the same as folks does. At any rate, they seem to know thar’s a dead-fall set on my bald spot, an’ they’ve quit tryin’ to lay their eggs in the root-holeso’my hair. Only now and then a newcomer is foolhardy an’ inclined to experiment. The old customers are as scared o’ my head as they are of a spider-web.”
“That certainly is a rare device,” said Hillhouse. “I don’t know that I ever heard of one before.”
“I reckon not,” the farmer returned placidly. “Somebody always has to lead out in matters of improvement. My wife an’ daughter was dead set agin me usin’ it at fust. They never looked into the workin’ of it close, an’ thought I mashed my prey on my head, but thar never was a bigger mistake. The flap don’t even puncture the skin, as tender as their hides are. I know,beca’se they always fall flat o’ their backs an’ kick awhile before givin’ up.”
At this moment Mrs. Porter came to the door and announced that dinner was ready.
Pole Baker decided to give the young people of the neighborhood a corn-shucking. He had about fifty bushels of the grain, which he said had been mellowing and sweetening in the husk all the winter, and, as the market had advanced from sixty to seventy-five cents, he decided to sell.
Pole’s corn-shuckings were most enjoyable festivities. Mrs. Baker usually had some good refreshments and the young people came from miles around. The only drawback was that Pole seldom had much corn to husk, and the fun was over too soon. The evening chosen for the present gathering was favored with clear moonlight and balmy weather. When Nelson Floyd walked over, after working an hour on his books at the store, he found a merry group in Pole’s front yard.
“Yo’re jest in time,” Pole called out to him as he threw the frail gate open for the guest to pass through. “I was afeard thar was a few more petticoats than pants to string around my pile o’ corn, but you’ll help even up. Come on, all of you, let’s mosey on down to the barn. Sally,” he called out to his wife, a sweet-faced woman on the porch, “put them childern to sleep an’ come on.”
With merry laughter the young men and girls made a rush in the direction of the barn. Nelson Floyd, with a sudden throbbing of the heart, had noticed Cynthia Porter with the other girls, and as he and Baker fell in behind, he asked:
“Who came with Cynthia Porter, Pole?”
“Nobody,” said Baker. “She come over jest ’fore dark by the short cut through the meadow. I’ll bet a hoss you are thinkin’ o’ gallivantin’ ’er back home.”
“That’s what I came for,” said Floyd, with a smile.
“Well, I’m sorry, for this once,” said Pole, “but I cayn’t alter my plans fer friend or foe. I don’t have but one shuckin’ a year, an’ on that occasion I’m a-goin’ to be plumb fair to all that accept my invite. You may git what you want, but you’ll have to stand yo’r chance with the balance. I’ll announce my rules in a minute, an’ then you’ll understand what I mean.”
They had now reached the great cone of corn, heaped up at the door of the barn, and the merrymakers were dancing around it in the moonlight, clapping their hands and singing.
“Halt one minute!” Pole called out peremptorily, and there was silence. “Now,” he continued, “all of you set down on the straw an’ listen to my new rules. I’ve been studyin’ these out ever since my last shuckin’, an’ these will beat all. Now, listen! Time is a great improver, an’ we-all don’t have to shuck corn jest like our granddaddies did. I want to make this thing interest you, fer that pile o’ corn has to be shucked an’ throwed into the barn ’fore you leave yo’r places.”
“Well, I wouldn’t preach a sermon fust,” laughed Mrs. Baker as she appeared suddenly. “Boys an’ gals that git together fer a good time don’t want to listen to an old married man talk.”
“But one married man likes to listen tothat womantalk, folks,” Pole broke in, “fer her voice makes sweet music to his ear. That’s a fact, gentlemen an’ ladies; here’s one individual that could set an’ listen to that sweet woman’s patient voice from dark to sunup, an’ then pray fer more dark an’ more talk. I hain’t the right sort of a man to yoke to, but she is the right sort of a woman. They hain’t all that way, though, boys, an’ I’d advise you that are worthy of a good helpmeet to think an’ look before you plunge into matrimony. Matrimony is like ice, which, until you bust it, may cover pure, runnin’ water or a stagnant mud-hole. Before marriage a woman will say yes an’ no as meek as that entire bunch of females. Sugar wouldn’t melt in hermouth, but when she hooks her fish she’ll do her best to make a sucker out’n it ef it’s a brook trout at the start. I mean a certainkindof a woman now, but, thank the Lord, He made the other sort, too, an’ the other sort, boys, is what you ort to look fer. I heard a desperate old bach say once that he believed he’d stand a better chance o’ gettin’ a good female nature under a homely exterior than under a pretty one, an’ he was on the rampage fer a snaggle tooth; but I don’t know. A nature that’s made jest by a face won’t endure one way or another long. Thar’s my little neighbor over thar; ef she don’t combine both a purty face an’ a sweet, patient nature I’m no judge.”
“Hush, Pole; Cynthia don’t want you to single her out in public that a-way,” protested Mrs. Baker.
“He’s simply bent on flattering more work out of me,” responded Cynthia, quite adroitly, Floyd thought, as he noted her blushes in the moonlight. “We are waiting for your rules, Mr. Baker.”
“Yes,” spoke up Floyd, “give us the rules, and let us go to work, and then you can talk all you want to.”
“All right, here goes. Now, you are all settin’ about the same distance from the pile, an’ you’ve got an equal chance. Now, the fust man or woman who finds a red ear of corn must choose a partner to work with, an’, furthermore, it shall be the duty o’ the man to escort the gal home, an’, in addition to that, the winnin’ man shall be entitled to kiss any gal in the crowd, an’ she hereby pledges herself to submit graceful. It’s a bang-up good rule, fer them that want to be kissed kin take a peep at the ear ’fore it’s shucked, an’ throw it to any man they select, an’ them that don’t kin hope fer escape from sech an awful fate by blind luck.”
“I think myself that it would be an awful fate to be kissed by a man you didn’t care for,” laughed Mrs. Baker. “Pole has made his rules to suit the men better than the women.”
“The second rule is this,” added Pole, with a smile, “an’ that is, that whoever finds a red ear, man or woman, I git to kiss my wife.”
“Good, that’s all right!” exclaimed Floyd, and everybody laughed as they set to work. Pole sat down near Floyd, and filled and lighted his pipe. “I used to think everything was fair in a game whar gals was concerned,” he said in an undertone. “I went to a shuckin’ once whar they had these rules, an’ I got on to exactly what I see you are on to.”
“Me? What do you mean?” asked Floyd.
“Why, you sly old dog, you are not shuckin’ more than one ear in every three you pick up. You are lookin’ to see ef the silk is dark. You have found out that a red ear always has dark silk.”
Floyd laughed. “Don’t give me away, Pole. I learned that when old man Scott used to send me out on frosty mornings to feed the cattle.”
“Well, I won’t say nothin’,” Pole promised. “Ef money was at stake, it ’ud be different, but they say all’s fair whar war an’ women is concerned. Besides, the sharper a man is the better he’ll provide fer the wife he gits, an’ a man ought to be allowed to profit by his own experience. You go ahead; ef you root a red ear out o’ that pile, old hog, I’ll count you in.”
Pole rose and went round the other side of the stack. There was a soft rustling sound as the husks were torn away and swept in rising billows behind the workers, and the steady thumping of the ears as they fell inside the barn.
There was a lull in the merriment and general rustle, and Floyd heard Hattie Mayhew’s clear voice say: “I know why Cynthia is so quiet. It’s because there wasn’t somebody here to open with prayer.”
Floyd was watching Cynthia’s face, and he saw it cloud over for a moment. She made some forced reply which he could not hear. It was Kitty Welborn’s voice that came to him on her merry laugh.
“Oh, yes; Cynthia has us all beaten badly!” said that little blonde. “We wore our fingers to the bones fixingup his room. Cynthia didn’t lay her hand to it, and yet he never looks at anyone else while he is preaching, and as soon as the sermon is over he rushes for her. They say Mr. Porter thinks Mr. Hillhouse is watching him, and has quit going to sleep.”
“That’s a fact,” said Fred Denslow as he aimed a naked ear of corn at the barn door and threw it. “The boys say Hillhouse will even let ’em cuss in his presence, just so they will listen to what he says about Miss Cynthia.”
“That isn’t fair to Miss Cynthia,” Nelson Floyd observed suddenly. “I’m afraid you are making it too hot for her over on that side, so I’m going to invite her over here. You see, I have found the first red ear of corn, and it’s big enough to count double.”
There was a general shout and clapping of hands as he held it up to view in the moonlight. He put it into the pocket of his coat as he rose and moved round toward Cynthia. Bending down to her, he said: “Come on; you’ve got to obey the rules of the game, you know.”
She allowed him to draw her to her feet.
“Now fer the fust act!” Pole Baker cried out. “I hain’t a-goin’ to have no bashful corn-shuckers. Ef you balk or kick over a trace, I’ll leave you out next time, shore.”
“You didn’t make a thoroughly fair rule, Pole,” said Floyd. “The days of woman slavery are past. I shall not take advantage of the situation.”
Everybody laughed as Floyd led her round to his place and raked up a pile of shucks for her to sit on.
“Well, there ought to have been another rule,” laughed Fred Denslow, “an’ that to the effect that if the winning man, through sickness, lack of backbone or sudden death, is prevented from takin’ the prize, somebody else ought to have a chance. Here I’ve been workin’ like a cornfield nigger to win, and now see the feller heaven has smiled on throwin’ that sort of a flower away. Good gracious, what’s the world comin’ to?”
“Well, I’ll havemine,” Pole Baker was heard to say, and he took his little wife in his arms and kissed her tenderly.
Refreshments had been served, the last ear of corn was husked and thrown into the barn, and they had all risen to depart, when Hillhouse came down the path from the cottage. He was panting audibly, and had evidently been walking fast. He shook hands hurriedly with Pole and his wife, and then turned to Cynthia.
“I’m just from your house,” he said, “and I promised your mother to come over after you. I was afraid I’d be late. The distance never seemed so long before.”
“I’m afraid youaretoo late,” said Floyd, with a cold smile. “I was lucky enough to find the first red ear of corn, and the reward was that I might take home anyone I asked. I assure you I’ll see that Miss Cynthia is well taken care of.”
“Oh! I—I see.” The preacher seemed stunned by the disappointment. “I didn’t know; I thought——”
“Yes, Floyd has won fast enough,” said Pole, “an’ he’s acted the part of the gentleman all through.” Pole explained what Floyd had done in excusing Cynthia from the principal forfeit he had won.
Hillhouse seemed unable to reply. The young people were moving toward the house, and he fell behind Floyd and his partner, walking along with the others and saying nothing.
It was a lonely, shaded road which Floyd and Cynthia traversed to reach her house.
“My luck turned just in the nick of time,” Floyd said exultantly. “I went there, little girl, especially to talk with you, and I was mad enough to fight when I saw how Pole had arranged everything. Then by good fortune and cheating I found that red ear; and—well, here we are. I never wanted to see anyone so badly in my life. Really, I——”
“Stop, don’t begin that!” Cynthia suddenly commanded, and she turned her eyes upon him steadily.
“Stop? Why do you say that?”
“Because,” retorted she, “you talk that way to all the girls, and I don’t want to hear it.”
Floyd laughed. “You know I mean what I say,” he replied. “You know it; you are just talking to hear your sweet, musical voice. Keep on; I could listen all night.”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t like you when you speak that way,” the girl said seriously. “It sounds insincere—it makes me doubt you more than anything else.”
“Then some things about me don’t make you doubt me,” he said, with tentative eagerness.
She was silent for a moment, then she nodded her head. “I’ll admit that some things I hear of you make me admire you—that is, in a way.”
“Please tell me what they are,” he said, with a laugh.
“I’ve heard, for one thing, of your being very good and kind to poor people—people that Mr. Mayhew would have turned out of their homes for debt if you hadn’t interfered.”
“Oh, that was only business, little girl,” Floyd laughed. “I can simply see farther than the old man can. He thought they never would be able to pay, but I knew they would some day, and, also, that they would come up with the back interest.”
“I don’t believe it!” the girl said firmly. “Those things make me rather like you, while the others make me—they make me—afraid.”
“Afraid? Oh, how absurd—how very absurd!” They had reached a spring which flowed from a great bed of rocks in the side of a rugged hill. He pointed to a flat stone quite near it. “Do you remember the first time I ever had a talk with you? It was while we were seated on this rock.”
She recalled it, but only nodded her head.
“It was a year ago,” he went on. “You had on a pink dress and wore your hair like a little girl, in a plait down your back. Cynthia, you were the prettiest creature I had ever seen. I could hardly talk to you for wondering over your dazzling beauty. You are even more beautiful now; you have ripened physically and mentally—grown to be a wonderful woman.”
He sat down on the stone, still holding to her hand, and drawing her toward him.
She hesitated, looking back toward Baker’s cottage.
“Sit down, little girl,” he entreated her. “I’m tired. I’ve worked hard all day at the store, and that corn-shucking wasn’t the best thing to taper off on.”
She hesitated an instant longer, and then allowed him to draw her down beside him.
“There, now,” he said, “that’s more like it.” He still held her hand; it lay warm, pulsating and helpless in his strong grasp.
“Do you know why I did not kiss you back there?” he asked suddenly.
“I don’t know why you didn’t, but it was good of you,” she answered.
“No, it wasn’t,” he laughed. “I don’t want credit for what I don’t deserve. I simply put it off, little girl—I put it off. I knew we would be alone on our way home, and that you would not refuse me.”
“But I shall!” she said. “I’m not going to let you kiss me here in—in—this way.”
“Then you’ll not be keeping your part of the contract,” he said, tightening his grasp on her hand. “I’ve always considered you so fair in everything; and, Cynthia, you don’t know how much I want to kiss you. No, you won’t refuse me—you can’t!” His left arm was behind her, and it encircled her waist. She made an effort to draw herself erect, but he drew her closer to him. Her head sank upon his shoulder and lay there while he pressed his lips to hers.
Then she sat up, and firmly pushed his arm down from her waist.
“I’m sorry I let you do it,” she said, under her breath.
“But why, darling?”
“Because I’ve said a thousand times that I would not; but I have—Ihave, and I shall hate myself always.”
“When you have made me the happiest fellow in the state?” Floyd said. “Don’t go!” he urged.
She had risen and turned toward her home. He walked beside her, suiting his step to hers.
“Do you remember the night we sat and talked in the grape-arbor at your house?” he asked. “Well, you never knew it, but I’ve been there three nights within the last month, hoping that I’d get to see you by some chance or other. I always work late on my accounts, and when I am through and the weather is fine, I walk to your house, climb over the fence, slip through the orchard, and sit in that arbor, trying to imagine you are there with me. I often see a light in your room, and the last time I became so desperate that I actually whistled for you. This way.” He put his thumb and little finger between his lips and made an imitation of a whippoorwill’s call. “You see, no one could tell that from the real thing. If you ever hear that sound from the grape-arbor, you’ll know I need you, little girl, and you must not disappoint me.”
“I’d never respond to it,” Cynthia said firmly. “The idea of such a thing!”
“But you know I can’t go to your house often, with your mother opposing my visits as she does, and when I’m there she never leaves us alone. No, I must have you to myself once in awhile, little woman, and you must help me. Remember, if I call you, I’ll want you badly.”
He whistled again, and the echo came back on the still air from a nearby hillside. They were passing a log cabin which stood a few yards from the roadside.
“Budd Crow moved there today,” Cynthia said, as if desirous of changing the subject. “He rented twenty acres from my father. The White Caps whipped him a week ago, for being lazy and not working for his family. His wife came over and told me all about it. She said it really had brought him to his senses, but that it had broken her heart. She cried while she was talking to me. Why does God afflict some women with men of that kind, and make others the wives of governors and Presidents?”
“Ah, there you are beyond my philosophic depth, Cynthia! You mustn’t bother your pretty head about those things. I sometimes rail against my fate for giving me the ambition of a king, while I do not even know who—But I think you know what I mean!”
“Yes, I think I do,” said the girl sympathetically, “and some day I believe all that will be cleared up. Some coarse natures wouldn’t care a straw about it, but youdocare, and it is the things we want and can’t get that count.”
“It is strange,” he said thoughtfully, “but of late I always think of my mother as being young and beautiful. I think of her, too, as being well-bred and educated. I think all those things without any proof even as to what her maiden name was or where she came from—Are you still unhappy at home, Cynthia?”
“Nearly all the time,” the girl sighed. “As she grows older my mother seems more faultfinding and suspicious than ever. Then she has set her mind on my marrying Mr. Hillhouse. They seem to be working together to that end, and it is very tiresome to me.”
“I’m glad you don’t love him,” Floyd said. “I don’t think he could make anyone of your nature happy.”
The girl stared into his eyes. They had reached the gate of the farmhouse, and he opened it for her.
“Now, good night,” he said, pressing her hand. “Remember, if you ever hear a lonely whippoorwill calling, that he is longing for companionship.”
She leaned over the gate, drawing it toward her till the latch clicked in its catch. She was thinking of the hot kiss he had pressed upon her lips, and what he might later think about it.
“I’ll never meet you there at night,” she said firmly. “My mother does not treat me right, but I shall not do thatwhen she is asleep. You may come to see me here once in awhile if you wish.”
“Well, I shall sit alone in the arbor,” he returned, with a low laugh, “and I hope your hard heart will keep you awake.”
She opened the front door, which was never locked, and went into her room on the right of the little hall. The night was very still, and down the road she heard Floyd’s whippoorwill call growing fainter and fainter as he strode away. She found a match and lighted the lamp on her bureau, and looked at her reflection in the little oval-shaped mirror. Instinctively she shuddered and brushed her lips with her hand as she remembered his embrace.
“He’ll despise me,” she muttered. “He’ll think I am weak like all the rest, but I am not.I am not!I’ll show him that he can’t—and yet”—her head sank to her hands, which were folded on the top of the bureau—“I couldn’t help it. My God, I couldn’t help it! I must have wanted—no, I didn’t. I didn’t!”
There was a soft step in the hall. The door of her room creaked like the low scream of a cat. A figure in white stood on the threshold. It was Mrs. Porter in her nightdress, her feet bare, her iron-gray half-twisted hair hanging upon her shoulders.
“I couldn’t go to sleep, Cynthia,” she said, “till I knew you were safe at home.”
“Well, I’m here all right, mother; so go back to bed, and don’t catch your death of cold.”
The old woman moved across the room to Cynthia’s bed and sat down on it. “I heard you coming down the road and went to the front window. I had sent Brother Hillhouse for you, but it was Nelson Floyd who brought you home. Didn’t Brother Hillhouse get there before you left?”
“Yes, but I had already promised Mr. Floyd.”
The old woman met her daughter’s glance steadily. “I suppose all I’ll do or say won’t amount to anything. Cynthia, you know what I’m afraid of.”
Cynthia stood straight, her face set and white, her great dreamy eyes flashing.
“Yes, and that’s the insult of it, mother. I tell you, you will drive me too far. A girl at a certain time of her life wants a mother’s love and sympathy; she doesn’t want threats, fears and disgraceful suspicions.”
Mrs. Porter covered her face with her bony hands and groaned aloud.
“You are confessing,” she said, “that you are tied an’ bound to him by the heart, and that there isn’t anything left for you but the crumbs he lets fall from his profligate table.”
“Stop!” Cynthia sprang to her mother and laid her small hand heavily on the thin shoulder. “Stop! You know you are telling a deliberate—” She paused, turned and went slowly back to the bureau. “God forgive me! God help me remember my duty to you as my mother. You’re old; you’re out of your head!”
“There, you said something.” The old woman had drawn herself erect and sat staring at her daughter, her hands on her sharp knees. “You know my sister Martha got to worryin’ when she was along about my age over her lawsuit matters, and kept it up till her brain gave way. Folks always said she and I were alike. Dr. Strong has told me time after time to guard against worry, or I’d go out and kill myself as she did. I haven’t mentioned this before, but I will now. I can’t keep down my fears and suspicions while the very air is full of that man’s doings. He’s a devil. Your pretty face has caught his fancy, and your holding him off, so far, has made him determined to crush you like a plucked flower. Why don’t he go to the Duncans, and the Prices, and lay his plans? Because the men of those families shoot at the drop of the hat. He knows your pa is not of that stamp, and that you haven’t any men kin to defend our honor. He hasn’t any of his own; nobody knows who or what he is.”
“Mother!” Cynthia’s tone had softened. Her face was filling with sudden pity for the quivering creature on the bed. “Mother, will you not have confidence in me? If I promise you faithfully to take care of myself with him, and make him understand what and who I am, won’t that satisfy you? Even men with bad reputations have a good side to their natures, and they often reach a point at which they reform. I well know there are strong women and weak women. Mother, I’m not a weak woman. As God is my judge, I’m able to take care of myself. It pains me to say this, for you ought to know it; you ought to feel it, see it in my eye and hear it in my voice. Now, go to bed and sleep. I’m really afraid you may lose your mind, since you told me about Aunt Martha.”
The face of the old woman changed; it lighted up with hope.
“Somehow, I believe what you say,” she said, with a faint smile. “Anyway, I’ll try not to worry any more.” She rose and went to the door. “Yes, I’ll try not to worry any more,” she repeated. “It may all come out right.”
When she found herself alone Cynthia turned and looked at her reflection in the glass.
“He didn’t once tell me in so many words that he loved me,” she said. “He has never used that word. He has never said that he wanted to mar—” She broke off, staring into the depths of her own great, troubled eyes. “And yet I let him kiss me—me!” A hot flush filled her neck and face and spread to the roots of her hair. Then suddenly she blew out the light and crept to her bed.
(To be continued.)