"Yes, she's at dinner. Won't you come in, Mr. Ramsey?"
He entered without further words, and followed her into the reception room, which was the most splendid room he had ever seen. He stood with his feet upon a rug which was worth more than his year's pay, and he knew it.
"Just take a seat here, and I'll announce you," said the girl, who was almost trembling with eagerness to explode her torpedo of news.
"Don't disturb them. I'll wait."
But she had whisked out of the room, having plans of her own; perhaps revenges of her own.
Arthur listened. He could not help it. He heard the girl's clear, distinct voice; the open doorways conveyed every word to him.
"It's Mr. Ramsey, ma'am, to see Miss Newell."
The young man's strained ears heard the sudden pause in the click of knives and plates. He divined the gasps of astonishment with which Mrs. Thayer's utterance began.
"Well, I declare! Now, Major, you see what I told you?"
"The plucky young dog!" said Saulisbury, in sincere admiration.
Mrs. Thayer went on:
"Now, Mr. Thayer, this is the result of treating your servants as equals."
The Major laughed.
"My dear, you're a little precipitate. It may be a mistake. The young man may be here to tell me one of the colts is sick."
"You don't believe any such thing! You heard what the girl said—Oh, look at Edith!"
There was a sudden pushing and scraping of chairs. Arthur rose, tense, terrified. A little flurry of voices followed.
"Here, give her some wine! The poor thing! No wonder——"
Then a slight pause.
"She's all right," said the Major in a relieved tone. "Just a little surprised, that's all."
There came a little inarticulate murmur from the girl, and then another pause.
"By Jove! this is getting dramatic!" said Saulisbury.
"Be quiet, Sam," said his wife. "I won't have any of your scoffing. I'm glad there is some sincerity of emotion left in our city girls."
Mrs. Thayer broke in:
"Major, you go right out there and send that impudent creature away. It's disgraceful!"
Arthur turned cold and hard as granite. His heart rose with a murderous, slow swell. He held his breath, while the calm, amused voice of the Major replied:
"But, see here, my dear, it's none of my business. Mr. Ramsey is an American citizen—I like him—he has a perfect right to call——"
"H'yah, h'yah!" called Saulisbury in a chuckle.
"He's a man of parts, and besides, I rather imagine Edith has given him the right to call."
The anger died out of Arthur's heart, and the warm blood rushed once more through his tingling body. Tears came to his eyes, and he could have embraced his defender.
"Nothing like consistency, Majah," said Saulisbury.
"Sam, will you be quiet?"
The Major went on:
"I imagine the whole matter is for Edith to decide. It's really very simple. Let her send word to him that she does not care to see him, and he'll go away—no doubt of it."
"Why, of course," said Mrs. Thayer. "Edith, just tell Mary to say to Mr. What's-his-name——"
Again that creeping thrill came into the young man's hair. His world seemed balanced on a needle's point.
Then a chair was pushed back slowly. There was another little flurry. Again the blood poured over him like a splash of warm water, leaving him cold and wet.
"Edith!" called the astonished, startled voice of Mrs. Thayer. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to see him," said the girl's firm voice.
There was a soft clapping of two pairs of hands.
As she came through the portière, Edithwalked like a princess. There was amazing resolution in her back-flung head, and on her face was the look of one who sets sail into unknown seas.
Someway—somehow, through a mist of light and a blur of sound, he met her—and the cling of her arms about his neck moved him to tears.
No word was uttered till the Major called from the doorway:
"Mr. Ramsey, Mrs. Thayer wants to know if you won't come and have some dinner."
A STOP-OVER AT TYRE.
Albert Lohrwas studying the motion of the ropes and lamps, and listening to the rumble of the wheels and the roar of the ferocious wind against the pane of glass that his head touched. It was the midnight train from Marion rushing toward Warsaw like some savage thing unchained, creaking, shrieking, and clattering through the wild storm which possessed the whole Mississippi Valley.
Albert lost sight of the lamps at last, and began to wonder what his future would be. "First I must go through the university at Madison; then I'll study law, go into politics, and perhaps some time I may go to Washington."
In imagination he saw that wonderful city. As a Western boy, Boston to him was historic, New York was the great metropolis, but Washington was the great American city, and political greatness the only fame.
The car was nearly empty: save here and there the wide-awake Western drummer, anda woman with four fretful children, the train was as deserted as it was frightfully cold. The engine shrieked warningly at intervals, the train rumbled hollowly over short bridges and across pikes, swung round the hills, and plunged with wild warnings past little towns hid in the snow, with only here and there a light shining dimly.
One of the drummers now and then rose up from his cramped bed on the seats, and swore dreadfully at the railway company for not heating the cars. The woman with the children inquired for the tenth time, "Is the next station Lodi?"
"Yes, ma'am, it is," snarled the drummer, as he jerked viciously at the strap on his valise; "and darned glad I am, too, I can tell yeh! I'll be stiff as a car-pin if I stay in this infernal ice chest another hour. I wonder what the company think——"
At Lodi several people got on, among them a fat man and his pretty daughter abnormally wide awake considering the time of night. She saw Albert for the same reason that he saw her—they were both young and good-looking.
He began his musings again, modified by this girl's face. He had left out the feminine element; obviously he must recapitulate. He'd study law, yes; but that would not prevent going to sociables and church fairs. And at these fairs the chances were good for a meeting with a girl. Her father must be influential—countryjudge or district attorney; this would open new avenues.
He was roused by the sound of his own name.
"Is Albert Lohr in this car?" shouted the brakeman, coming in, enveloped in a cloud of fine snow.
"Yes, here!" shouted Albert.
"Here's a telegram for you."
Albert snatched the envelope with a sudden fear of disaster at home; but it was dated "Tyre":
"Get off at Tyre. I'll be there.
"Hartley."
"Well, now, that's fun!" said Albert, looking at the brakeman. "When do we reach there?"
"About 2.20."
"Well, by thunder! A pretty time o' night!"
The brakeman grinned sympathetically. "Any answer?" he asked at length.
"No; that is, none that 'u'd do the matter justice," Albert said, studying the telegram.
"Hartley friend o' yours?"
"Yes; know him?"
"Yes; he boarded where I did in Warsaw."
When he came back again, the brakeman said to Albert, in a hesitating way:
"Ain't going t' stop off long, I s'pose?"
"May an' may not; depends on Hartley. Why?"
"Well, I've got an aunt there that keeps boarders, and I kind o' like t' send her one when I can. If you should happen to stay a few days, go an' see her. She sets up first-class grub, an' it wouldn't kill anybody, anyhow, if you went up an' called."
"Course not. If I stay long enough to make it pay I'll look her up sure. I ain't no Vanderbilt to stop at two-dollar-a-day hotels."
The brakeman sat down opposite Albert, encouraged by his smile.
"Y' see, my division ends at Warsaw, and I run back and forth here every other day, but I don't get much chance to see them, and I ain't worth a cuss f'r letter-writin'. Y' see, she's only aunt by marriage, but I like her; an' I guess she's got about all she can stand up under, an' so I like t' help her a little when I can. The old man died owning nothing but the house, an' that left the old lady t' rustle f'r her livin'. Dummed if she ain't sandy as old Sand. They're gitt'n' along purty——"
The whistle blew for brakes, and, seizing his lantern, the brakeman slammed out on the platform.
"Tough night for twisting brakes," suggested Albert, when he came in again.
"Yes—on the freight."
"Good heavens! I should say so. They don't run freight such nights as this?"
"Don't they? Well, I guess they don't stop for a storm like this if they's any money to be made by sending her through. Many's the night I've broke all night on top of the old wooden cars, when the wind cut like a razor. Shear the hair off a cast-iron mule—woo-o-o! There's where you need grit, old man," he ended, dropping into familiar speech.
"Yes; or need a job awful bad."
The brakeman was struck with this idea. "There's where you're right. A fellow don't take that kind of a job for the fun of it. Not much! He takes it because he's got to. That's as sure's you're a foot high. I tell you, a feller's got t' rustle these days if he gits any kind of a job——"
"Toot, too-o-o-o-t, toot!"
The station passed, the brakeman did not return, perhaps because he found some other listener, perhaps because he was afraid of boring this pleasant young fellow. Albert shuddered with a sympathetic pain as he thought of the men on the tops of the icy cars, with hands straining at the brake, and the wind cutting their faces like a sand-blast. His mind went out to the thousands of freight trains shuttling to and fro across the vast web of gleaming iron spread out on the mighty breast of the Western plains. Oh, those tireless hands at the wheel and throttle!
He looked at his watch; it was two o'clock; the next station was Tyre. As he began toget his things together, the brakeman came in.
"Oh, I forgot to say that the old lady's name is Welsh—Mrs. Robert Welsh. Say I sent yeh, and it'll be all right."
"Sure! I'll try her in the morning—that is, if I find out I'm going to stay."
"Tyre!Tyre!" yelled the brakeman, as with clanging bell and whizz of steam the train slowed down and the wheels began to cry out in the snow.
Albert got his things together, and pulled his cap firmly down on his head.
"Here goes!" he muttered.
"Hold y'r breath!" shouted the brakeman. Albert swung himself to the platform before the station—a platform of planks along which the snow was streaming like water.
"Good night!" called the brakeman.
"Goodnight!"
"All-l abo-o-o-ard!" called the conductor somewhere in the storm; the brakeman swung his lantern, and the train drew off into the blinding whirl, and the lights were soon lost in the clouds of snow.
No more desolate place could well be imagined. A level plain, apparently bare of houses, swept by a ferocious wind; a dingy little den called a station—no other shelter in sight; no sign of life save the dull glare of two windows to the left, alternately lost and found in the storm.
Albert's heart contracted with a sudden fear; the outlook was appalling.
"Where's the town?" he yelled savagely at a dimly seen figure with a lantern—a man evidently locking the station door, his only refuge.
"Over there," was the surly reply.
"How far?"
"'Bout a mile."
"A mile!"
"That's what I said—a mile."
"Well, I'll be blanked!"
"Well, y' better be doing something besides standing here, 'r y' 'll freeze t' death. I'd go over to the Arteeshun House an' go t' bed if I was in your fix."
"Oh, y' would!"
"I would."
"Well, whereisthe Artesian House?"
"See them lights?"
"I see them lights."
"Well, they're it."
"Oh, wouldn't your grammar make Old Grammati-cuss curl up, though!"
"What say?" queried the man, bending his head toward Albert, his form being almost lost in the snow that streamed against them both.
"I said I guessed I'd try it," grinned the youth invisibly.
"Well, I would if I was in your fix. Keep right close after me; they's some ditches here, and the foot-bridges are none too wide."
"The Artesian is owned by the railway, eh?"
"Yup."
"And you're the clerk?"
"Yup; nice little scheme, ain't it?"
"Well, it'll do," replied Albert.
The man laughed without looking around.
"Keep your longest cuss words till morning; you'll need 'em, take my word for it."
In the little barroom, lighted by a vilely smelling kerosene lamp, the clerk, hitherto a shadow and a voice, came to light as a middle-aged man with a sullen face slightly belied by a sly twinkle in his eyes.
"This beats all the winters I everdidsee. It don't do nawthin' but blow,blow. Want to go to bed, I s'pose. Well, come along."
He took up one of the absurd little lamps and tried to get more light out of it.
"Dummed if a white bean wouldn't be better."
"Spit on it!" suggested Albert.
"I'd throw the whole business out o' the window for a cent," growled the man.
"Here's y'r cent," said the boy.
"You're mighty frisky f'r a feller gitt'n' off'n a midnight train," replied the man, tramping along a narrow hallway, and talking in a voice loud enough to awaken every sleeper in the house.
"Have t' be, or there'd be a pair of us."
"You'll laugh out o' the other side o' y'r mouth when you saw away on one o' the bell-collarsteaks this house puts up," ended the clerk as he put the lamp down.
"'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,'" called Albert after him, and then plunged into the icy bed.
He was awakened the next morning by the cooks pounding steak down in the kitchen and wrangling over some division of duty. It was a vile place at any time, but on a morning like this it was appalling. The water was frozen, the floor like ice, the seven-by-nine glass frosted so that he couldn't see to comb his hair.
"All that got me out of bed," said Albert to the clerk, "was the thought of leaving."
"Got y'r teeth filed?" said the day clerk, with a wink. "Old Collins's beef will try 'em."
The breakfast was incredibly bad—so much worse than he expected that Albert was forced to admit he had never seen its like. He fled from the place without a glance behind, and took passage in an omnibus for the town, a mile away. It was terribly cold, the thermometer twenty below zero; but the sun was very brilliant, and the air still.
The driver pulled up before a very ambitious wooden hotel entitled "The Eldorado," and Albert dashed in at the door and up to the stove, with both hands covering his ears.
As he stood there, frantic with pain, kicking his toes and rubbing his ears, he heard a chuckle—a slow, sly, insulting chuckle—turned, andsaw Hartley standing in the doorway, visibly exulting over his misery.
"Hello, Bert! that you?"
"What's left of me. Say, you're a good one, you are? Why didn't you telegraph me at Marion? A deuce of a night I've had of it!"
"Do ye good," laughed Hartley, a tall, alert, handsome fellow nearly thirty years of age.
After a short and vigorous "blowing up," Albert said: "Well, now, what's the meaning of all this, anyhow? Why this change from Racine?"
"Well, you see, I got wind of another fellow going to work this county for a 'Life of Logan,' and thinks I, 'By jinks! I'd better drop in ahead of him with Blaine'sTwenty Years.' I telegraphed f'r territory, got it, and telegraphed to stop you."
"You did it. When did you come down?"
"Last night, six o'clock."
Albert was getting warmer and better-natured.
"Well, I'm here; what ye going t' do with me?"
"I'll use you some way; can't tell. First thing is to find a boarding place where we can work in a couple o' books on the bill."
"Well, I don't know about that, but I'm going to look up a place a brakeman gave me a pointer on."
"All right; here goes!"
Scarcely any one was stirring on the streets.The wind was pitilessly cold, though not strong. The snow under the feet cried out with a note like glass and steel. The windows of the stores were thick with frost, and Albert gave a shudder of fear, almost as if he were homeless. He had never experienced anything like it before.
Entering one of the stores, they found a group of men sitting about the stove, smoking, chatting, and spitting aimlessly into a huge spittoon made of boards and filled with sawdust. Each man suspended smoking and talking as the strangers entered.
"Can any of you gentlemen tell us where Mrs. Welsh lives?"
There was a silence; then the clerk behind the counter said:
"I guess so. Two blocks north and three west, next to last house on left-hand side."
"Clear as a bell!" laughed Hartley, and they pushed out into the cold again, drawing their mufflers up to their eyes.
"I don't want much of this," muttered Bert through his scarf.
The house was a large frame house standing on the edge of a bank, and as the young men waited they could look down on the meadow land, where the river lay blue and still and as hard as iron.
A pale little girl ten, or twelve years of age, let them in.
"Is this where Mrs. Welsh lives?"
"Yes, sir."
"Will you ask her to come here a moment?"
"Yes, sir," piped the little one. "Won't you sit down by the fire?" she added, with a quaint air of hospitality.
The room was the usual village sitting room: a cylinder heater full of wood at one side of it; a rag carpet, much faded, on the floor; a cabinet organ; a doleful pair of crayon portraits on the wall, one supposedly a baby—a figure dressed like a child of six months, but with a face old and cynical enough to be forty-five. The paper on the wall was of the hideous striped sort, and the chairs were nondescript; but everything was clean—so clean it looked worn more with brushing than with use.
A slim woman of fifty, with hollow eyes and a patient smile, came in, wiping her hands on her apron.
"How d'ye do? Did you want to see me?"
"Yes," said Hartley, smiling. "The fact is, we're book agents, and looking for a place to board."
"Well—a—I—yes, I keep boarders."
"I was sent here by a brakeman on the midnight express," put in Bert.
"Oh, Tom," said the woman, her face clearing. "Tom's always sending us people. Why, yes; I've got room for you, I guess—this room here." She pushed open a folding door leading into what had been her parlor.
"You can have this."
"And the price?"
"Four dollars."
"Eight dollars f'r the two of us. All right; we'll be with you a week or two if we have luck."
The woman smiled and shut the door. Bert thought how much she looked like his mother in the back—the same tired droop in the shoulders, the same colorless dress, once blue or brown, now a peculiar drab, characterless with much washing.
"Excuse me, won't you? I've got to be at my baking; make y'rselves at home."
"Now, Jim," said Bert, "I'm going t' stay right here while you go and order our trunks around—just t' pay you off f'r last night."
"All right," said Hartley, cheerily going out. After getting warm, Bert sat down at the organ and played a gospel hymn or two from the Moody and Sankey hymnal. He was in the midst of the chorus of "Let your lower lights," etc., when a young woman entered the room. She had a whisk-broom in her hand, and stood a picture of gentle surprise. Bert wheeled about on his stool.
"I thought it was Stella," she began.
"I'm a book agent," said Bert, rising with his best grace; "I might as well out with it. I'm here to board."
"Oh!" said the girl, with some relief. She was very fair and very slight, almost frail. Her eyes were of the sunniest blue, her face pale and somewhat thin, but her lips showed scarlet,and her teeth were fine. Bert liked her and smiled.
"A book agent is the next thing to a burglar, I know; but still——"
"Oh, I didn't mean that, but Iwassurprised. When did you come?"
"Just a few moments ago. Am I in your way?" he inquired, with elaborate solicitude.
"Oh, no! Please go on; you play very well, I think. It is so seldom young men play."
"I had to at college; the other fellows all wanted to sing. You play, of course."
"When I have time." She sighed. There was a weary droop in her voice; she seemed aware of it, and said more brightly:
"You mean Marion, I suppose?"
"Yes; I'm in my second year."
"I went there two years. Then I had to quit and come home to help mother."
"Did you? That's why I'm out here on this infernal book business—to get money."
She looked at him with interest now, noticing his fine eyes and waving brown hair.
"It's dreadful, isn't it? But you've got a hope to go back. I haven't. At first I didn't think I could live; but I did." She ended with a sigh, a far-off expression in her eyes.
There was a pause again. Bert felt that she was no ordinary girl, and she was quite as strongly drawn to him.
"It almost killed me to give it up. I don't s'pose I'd know any of the scholars you know.Even the teachers are not the same. Oh, yes—Sarah Shaw; I think she's back for the normal course."
"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Bert, "I know Sarah. We boarded on the same street; used t' go home together after class. An awful nice girl, too."
"She's a worker. She teaches school. I can't do that, for mother needs me at home." There was another pause, broken by the little girl, who called:
"Maud, mamma wants you."
Maud rose and went out, with a tired smile on her face that emphasized her resemblance to her mother. Bert couldn't forget that smile, and he was still thinking about the girl, and what her life must be, when Hartley came in.
"By jinks! It'ssnifty, as dad used to say. You can't draw a long breath through your nostrils; freeze y'r nose solid as a bottle," he announced, throwing off his coat with an air which seemed to make him an old resident of the room.
"By the way, I've just found out why you was so anxious to get into this house, hey?" he said, slapping Bert's knee. "Another case o' girl."
Bert blushed; he couldn't help it, notwithstanding his innocence in this case. Hartley went on.
"Oh, I know you! A girl in the house;might 'a' known it," Hartley continued, in a hoarse whisper.
"I didn't know it myself till about ten minutes ago," protested Bert.
Hartley winked prodigiously.
"Don't tell me! Is she pretty?"
"No—that is,youwouldn't call her so."
"Oh, the deuce I wouldn't! Don't youwishI wouldn't? I'd like to see the girl I wouldn't call pretty, right to her face, too."
The girl returned at this moment with an armful of wood.
"Letmeput it in," cried Hartley, springing up. "Excuse me. My name is Hartley, book agent: Blaine's 'Twenty Years,' plain cloth, sprinkled edges, three dollars; half calf, three fifty. This is my friend Mr. Lohr, of Marion; German extraction, soph at the university."
The girl bowed and smiled, and pushed by him toward the door of the parlor. Hartley followed her in, and Bert could hear them rattling away at the stove.
"Won't you sit down and play for us?" asked Hartley, after they returned to the sitting room, with the persuasive music of the book agent in his fine voice.
"Oh, no! It's nearly dinner time, and I must help about the table."
"Now make yourselves at home," said Mrs. Welsh, appearing at the door leading to the kitchen; "if you want anything, just let me know."
"All right. We will; don't worry. We'll be trouble enough.—Nice people," said Hartley, as he shut the door of their room and sat down. "But the girlain'twhat I call pretty."
By the time the dinner bell rang they were feeling at home in their new quarters. At the table they met the other boarders: the Brann brothers, newsdealers; old man Troutt, who kept the livery stable (and smelled of it); and a small, dark, and wizened woman who kept the millinery store. The others, who came in late, were clerks.
Maud served the dinner, while Stella and her mother waited upon the table. Albert was accustomed to this, and made little account of the service. He did notice the hands of the girl, however, so white and graceful; no amount of work could quite remove their essential shapeliness.
Hartley struck up a conversation with the newsdealers and left Bert free to observe Maud. She was not more than twenty, he decided, but she looked older, so careworn and sad was her face.
"They's one thing ag'in' yeh," Troutt, the liveryman, was bawling to Hartley: "they's jest been worked one o' the goldingedest schemes youeversee! 'Bout six munce ago s'm' fellers come all through here claimin' t' be after information about the county and the leadin' citizens; wanted t' write a history, an' wanted all the pitchers of the leading men, old settlers,an' so on. You paid ten dollars, an' you had a book an' your pitcher in it."
"I know the scheme," grinned Hartley.
"Wal, sir, I s'pose them fellers roped in every man in this town. I don't s'pose they got out with a cent less'n one thousand dollars. An' when the book come—wal!" Here he stopped to roar. "I don't s'pose you ever see a madder lot o' men in your life. In the first place, they got the names and the pitchers mixed so that I was Judge Ricker, an' Judge Ricker was ol' man Daggett. Didn't the judge swear—oh, it was awful!"
"I should say so."
"An' the pitchers that wa'n't mixed was so goldingedblackyou couldn't tell 'em from niggers. You know how kind o' lily-livered Lawyer Ransom is? Wal, he looked like ol' black Joe; he was the maddest man of the hull b'ilin'. He throwed the book in the fire, and tromped around like a blind bull."
"It wasn't a success, I take it, then. Why, I should 'a' thought they'd 'a' nabbed the fellows."
"Not much! They was too keen for that. They didn't deliver the books theirselves; they hired Dick Bascom to do it f'r them. Course Dick wa'n't t' blame."
"No; I never tried it before," Albert was saying to Maud, at their end of the table. "Hartley offered me a good thing to come, and as I needed money, I came. I don'tknow what he's going to do with me, now I'm here."
Albert did not go out after dinner with Hartley; it was too cold. Hartley let nothing stand in the way of business, however. He had been at school with Albert during his first year, but had gone back to work in preference to study.
Albert had brought his books with him, planning to keep up with his class, if possible, and was deep in a study of Cæsar when he heard a timid knock on the door.
"Come!" he called, student fashion.
Maud entered, her face aglow.
"How natural that sounds!" she said.
Albert sprang up to help her put down the wood in her arms. "I wish you'd let me bring the wood," he said pleadingly, as she refused his aid.
"I wasn't sure you were in. Were you reading?"
"Cæsar," he replied, holding up the book. "I am conditioned on Latin. I'm going over the 'Commentaries' again."
"I thought I knew the book," she laughed.
"You read Latin?"
"Yes, a little—Vergil."
"Maybe you can help me out on theseoratia obliqua. They bother me yet. I hate these 'Cæsar saids.' I like Vergil better."
She stood at his shoulder while he pointed out the knotty passage. She read it easily, andhe thanked her. It was amazing how well acquainted they felt after this; they were as fellow-students.
The wind roared outside in the bare maples, and the fire boomed in its pent place within. The young people forgot the time and place. The girl sank into a chair almost unconsciously as they talked of Madison—a great city to them—of the Capitol building, of the splendid campus, of the lakes and the gay sailing there in summer and ice-boating in winter, of the struggles of "rooming."
"Oh, it makes me homesick!" cried the girl, with a deep sigh. "It was the happiest, sunniest time of all my life. Oh, those walks and talks! Those recitations in the dear, chalky old rooms! Oh,howI would like to go back over that hollow doorstone again!"
She broke off, with tears in her eyes. He was obliged to cough two or three times before he could break the silence.
"I know just how you feel. I know, the first spring when I went back on the farm, it seemed as if I couldn't stand it. I thought I'd go crazy. The days seemed forty-eight hours long. It was so lonesome, and so dreary on rainy days! But of course I expected to go back; that's what kept me up. I don't think I could have stood it if I hadn't had hope."
"I've given it up now," she said plaintively; "it's no use hoping."
"Why don't you teach?" asked Albert, deeply affected by her voice and manner.
"I did teach here for a year, but I couldn't endure the noise; I'm not very strong, and the boys were so rude. If I could teach in a seminary—teach Latin and English—I should be happy, I think. But I can't leave mother now."
She began to appear a different girl in the boy's eyes; the cheap dress, the check apron, could not hide her pure intellectual spirit. Her large blue eyes were deep with thought, and the pale face, lighted by the glow of the fire, was as lovely as a rose. Almost before he knew it, he was telling her of his life.
"I don't see how I endured it as long as I did," he went on. "It was nothing but work, work, and mud the whole year round; it's just so on all farms."
"Yes, I guess it is," said she. "Father was a carpenter, and I've always lived here; but we have people who are farmers, and I know how it is with them."
"Why, when I think of it now it makes me crawl! To think of getting up in the morning before daylight, and going out to the barn to do chores, to get ready to go into the field to work! Working, wasting y'r life on dirt. Goin' round and round in a circle, and never getting out."
"It's just the same for us women," she corroborated. "Think of us going around the house day after day, and doing just the samethings over an' over, year after year! That's the whole of most women's lives. Dish-washing almost drives me crazy."
"I know it," said Albert; "but a fellow has t' do it. If his folks are workin' hard, why, of course he can't lay around and study. They're not to blame. I don't know that anybody's to blame."
"No, I don't; but it makes me sad to see mother going around as she does, day after day. She won't let me do as much as I would." The girl looked at her slender hands. "You see, I'm not very strong. It makes my heart ache to see her going around in that quiet, patient way; she's so good."
"I know, I know! I've felt just like that about my mother and father, too."
There was a long pause, full of deep feeling, and then the girl continued in a low, hesitating voice:
"Mother's had an awful hard time since father died. We had to go to keeping boarders, which was hard—very hard for mother." The boy felt a sympathetic lump in his throat as the girl went on again: "But she doesn't complain, and she didn't want me to come home from school; but of course I couldn't do anything else."
It didn't occur to either of them that any other course was open, nor that there was any heroism or self-sacrifice in the act; it was simplyright.
"Well, I'm not going to drudge all my life," said the boy at last. "I know it's kind o' selfish, but I can't live on a farm; it 'u'd kill me in a year. I've made up my mind to study law and enter the bar. Lawyers manage to get hold of enough to live on decently, and that's more than you can say of the farmers. And they live in town, where something is going on once in a while, anyway."
In the pause which followed, footsteps were heard on the walk outside, and the girl sprang up with a beautiful blush.
"My stars! I didn't think—I forgot—I must go."
Hartley burst into the room shortly after she left it, in his usual breeze.
"Hul-lo!Still at the Latin, hey?"
"Yes," said Bert, with ease. "How goes it?"
"Oh, I'm whooping 'er up! I'm getting started in great shape. Been up to the courthouse and roped in three of the county officials. In these small towns the big man is the politician or the clergyman. I've nailed the politicians through the ear; now you must go for the ministers to head the list—that's your lay-out."
"How 'm I t' do it?" said Bert, in an anxious tone. "I can't sell books if they don't want 'em."
"Yes, yeh can. That's the trade. Offer a big discount. Say full calf, two fifty; morocco,two ninety. Regular discount to the clergy, ye know. Oh, they're on to that little racket—no trouble. If you can get a few of these leaders of the flock, the rest will follow like lambs to the slaughter. Tra-la-la—who-o-o-ish, whish!"
Albert laughed at Hartley as he plunged his face into the ice-cold water, puffing and wheezing.
"Jeemimy Crickets! but ain't that water cold! I worked Rock River this way last month, and made a boomin' success. If you take hold here in the——"
"Oh, I'm all ready to do anything that is needed, short of being kicked out."
"No danger of that if you're a real book agent. It's the snide that gets kicked. You've got t' have some savvy in this, just like any other business." He stopped in his dressing to say, "We've struck a great boarding place, hey?"
"Looks like it."
"I begin t' cotton to the old lady a'ready. Good 'eal like mother used t' be 'fore she broke down. Didn't the old lady have a time of it raisin' me? Phewee! Patient! Job wasn't a patchin'. But the test is goin' t' come on the biscuit; if her biscuit comes up t' mother's I'm hern till death."
He broke off to comb his hair, a very nice bit of work in his case.
There was no discernible reason why the little town should have been called Tyre, and yet its name was as characteristically American as its architecture. It had the usual main street lined with low brick or wooden stores—a street which developed into a road running back up a wide, sandy valley away from the river. Being a county town, it had a courthouse in a yard near the center of the town, and a big summer hotel. The valley was peculiarly picturesque. Curiously shaped and oddly distributed hills rose out of the valley sand abruptly, forming a sort of amphitheater in which the village lay. These square-topped hills rose to a common level, showing that they were not the result of an upheaval, but were the remains of the original stratification left standing after the vast scooping action of the post-glacial floods.
The abrupt cliffs and lone huge pillars and peaks rising out of tamarack swamps here and there showed the original layers of rock unmoved. They looked like ruined walls of castles ancient as hills, on whose massive tops time had sown sturdy oaks and cedars. They lent a distinct air of romance to the valley at all times; but when in summer vines clambered over their rugged sides and underbrush softened their broken lines, it was not at all difficult to imagine them the remains of an unrecorded, very warlike people.
Even now, in winter, with yellow-brown and green cedars standing starkly upon their summits, the hickories and small ashes blue-black with their masses of fine bare limbs meshed against the snow, these towers had a distinct charm. The weather was glorious winter, and in the early morning when the trees glistened with frost, or at evening when the white light of the sun was softened and violet shadows lay along the snow, the whole valley was a delight to the eye, full of distinct and lasting charm, part of the beautiful and strange Mississippi River scenery.
In the campaign which Hartley began Albert did his best, and his best was done unconsciously, for the charm of his manner (all unknown to himself) was the most potent factor in securing consideration.
"I'm not a book agent," he said to one of the clergymen to whom he first appealed; "I'm a student trying to sell a good book and make a little money to help me to complete my course at the university."
He did not go to the back door, but walked up to the front, asked to see the minister, and placed his case at once before him with a smiling candor and a leisurely utterance quite the opposites of the brazen timidity and rapid, parrot-like tone of the professional. He secured three clergymen of the place to head his list, much to the delight and admiration of Hartley.
"Good! Now corral the alumni of theplace. Work the fraternal racket to the bitter end. Oh, say! there's a sociable to-morrow night; I guess we'd better go, hadn't we?"
"Go alone?"
"Alone? No! Take some girls. I'm going to take neighbor Picket's daughter; she's homely as a hedge fence, but I'll take her—great scheme!"
"Hartley, you're an infernal fraud!"
"Nothing of the kind—I'm business," ended Hartley, with a laugh.
After supper the following day, as Albert was still lingering at the table with the girls and Mrs. Welsh, he thought of the sociable, and said on the impulse:
"Are you going to the sociable?"
"No; I guess not."
"Would you go if I asked you?"
"Try me and see!" answered the girl, with a laugh, her color rising.
"All right. Miss Welsh, will you attend the festivity of the evening under my guidance and protection?"
"Yes, thank you."
"I'll be ready before you are."
"No doubt; I've got to wash the dishes."
"I'll wash the dishes; you go get ready," said the self-regardless mother.
Albert felt that he had one of the loveliest girls in the room as he led Maud down the floor of the vestry of the church, filled with laughing young people moving about or seated at thelong tables. Maud's cheeks were full of delicate color and her eyes shone with maidenly delight as they took seats at the table to sip a little coffee and nibble a bit of cake.
"I suppose theymusthave my fifteen cents some way," said Albert, in a low voice, "and I guess we'd better sit down."
Maud introduced him to a number of young people who had been students at the university. They received him cordially, and in a very short time he was enjoying himself very well indeed. He was reminded rather disagreeably of his office, however, by seeing Hartley surrounded by a laughing crowd of the more frolicsome young people. He winked at Albert, as much as to say, "Good stroke of business."
The evening passed away with songs, games, and recitations, and it was nearly eleven o'clock when the young people began to wander off toward home in pairs. Albert and Maud were among the first of the young folks to bid the rest good night.
The night was clear and cold, but perfectly still, and the young people, arm in arm, walked slowly homeward under the bare maples, in delicious companionship. Albert held her arm close to his side.
"Are you cold?" he asked in a low voice.
"No, thank you; the night is lovely," she replied; then added with a sigh, "I don't like sociables so well as I used to—they tire me out."
"We stayed too long."
"It wasn't that; I'm getting so they seem kind o' silly."
"Well, I feel a little that way myself," he confessed.
"But there is so little to see here in Tyre at any time—no music, no theaters. I like theaters, don't you?"
"I can't go half enough."
"But nothing worth seeing ever comes into these little towns—and then we're all so poor, anyway."
The lamp, turned low, was emitting a terrible odor as they entered the sitting room.
"My goodness! it's almost twelve o'clock. Good night." She held out her hand.
"Good night," he said, taking it, and giving it a cordial pressure which she remembered long.
"Good night," she repeated softly, going up the stairs.
Hartley came in a few moments later, and found Bert sitting thoughtfully by the fire, with his coat and shoes off, evidently in deep abstraction.
"Well, I got away at last—much as ever. Great scheme, that sociable, eh? I saw your little girl introducing you right and left."
"Say, Hartley, I wish you'd leave her out of this thing; I don't like the way you speak of her when——"
"Phew! You don't? Oh, all right! I'mmum as an oyster—only keep it up! Get in all the church sociables, and all that; there's nothing like it."
Hartley soon had canvassers out along the country roads, and was working every house in town. The campaign promised to lengthen into a month, perhaps longer. Albert especially became a great favorite. Every one declared there had never been such book agents in the town: such gentlemanly fellows, they didn't press anybody to buy; they didn't rush about and "poke their noses where they were not wanted." They were more like merchants with books to sell. The only person who failed to see the attraction in them was Ed Brann, who was popularly supposed to be engaged to Maud. He grew daily more sullen and repellent, toward Albert noticeably so.
One evening about six, after coming in from a long walk about town, Albert entered his room without lighting his lamp, lay down on the bed, and fell asleep. He had been out late the night before with Maud at a party, and slumber came almost instantly.
Maud came in shortly, hearing no response to her knock, and after hanging some towels on the rack went out without seeing the sleeper. In the sitting room she met Ed Brann. He was a stalwart young man with curling black hair, and a heavy face at its best, but set and sullen now. His first words held a menace:
"Say, Maud, I want t' talk to you."
"Very well; what is it, Ed?" replied the girl quietly.
"I want to know how often you're going to be out till twelve o'clock with this book agent?"
Perhaps it was the derisive inflection on "book agent" that woke Albert. Brann's tone was brutal—more brutal even than his words, and the girl turned pale and her breath quickened.
"Why, Ed, what's the matter?"
"Matter is just this: you ain't got any business goin' around with that feller with my ring on your finger, that's all." He ended with an unmistakable threat in his voice.
"Very well," said the girl, after a pause, curiously quiet; "then I won't; here's your ring."
The man's bluster disappeared instantly. Bert could tell by the change in his voice, which was incredibly great, as he pleaded:
"Oh, don't do that, Maud; I didn't mean to say that; I was mad—I'm sorry."
"I'mgladyou did itnow, so I can know you. Take your ring, Ed; I never'll wear it again."
Albert had heard all this, but he did not know how the girl looked as she faced the man. In the silence which followed she looked him in the face, and scornfully passed him and went out into the kitchen. He did not return at supper.
Young people of this sort are not self-analysts, and Maud did not examine closely into causes. She was astonished to find herself more indignant than grieved. She broke into an angry wail as she went to her mother's bosom:
"Mother! mother!"
"Why, what's the matter, Maudie? Tell me. There, there! don't cry, pet! Who's been hurtin' my poor little bird?"
"Ed has; he said—he said——"
"There, there! poor child! Have you been quarreling? Never mind; it'll come out all right."
"No, it won't—not the way you mean," the girl cried, lifting her head; "I've given him back his ring, and I'll never wear it again."
The mother could not understand with what wounding brutality the man's tone had fallen upon the girl's spirit, and Maud felt in some way as if she could not explain sufficiently to justify herself. Mrs. Welsh consoled herself with the idea that it was only a lovers' quarrel—one of the little jars sure to come when two natures are settling together—and that all would be mended in a day or two.
But there was a peculiar set look on the girl's face that promised little for Brann. Albert, being no more of a self-analyst than Maud, simply said, "Served him right," and dwelt no more upon it for the time.
At supper, however, he was extravagantlygay, and to himself unaccountably so. He joked Troutt till Maud begged him to stop, and after the rest had gone he remained seated at the table, enjoying the indignant color in her face and the flash of her infrequent smile, which it was such a pleasure to provoke. He volunteered to help wash the dishes.
"Thank you, but I'm afraid you'd be more bother than help," she replied.
"Thankyou, but you don't know me. I ain't so green as I look, by no manner o' means. I've been doing my own housekeeping for four terms."
"I know all about that," laughed the girl. "You young men rooming do precious little cooking and no dish-washing at all."
"That's a base calumny! I made it a point to wash every dish in the house, except the spider, once a week; had a regular cleaning-up day."
"And about the spider?"
"I wiped that out nicely with a newspaper every time I wanted to use it."
"Oh, horrors!—Mother, listen to that!"
"Why, what more could you ask? You wouldn't have me wipe itsixtimes a day, would you?"
"I wonder it didn't poison you," commented Mrs. Welsh.
"Takes more'n that to poison a student," laughed Albert, as he went out.
The next afternoon he came bursting intothe kitchen, where Maud stood with her sleeves rolled up, deep in the dish pan, while Stella stood wiping the dishes handed to her.
"Don't you want a sleigh ride?" he asked, boyishly eager.
She looked up with shining eyes.
"Oh, wouldn't I!—Can you get along, mother?"
"Certainly, child; the air'll do you good."
"W'y, Maud!" said the little girl, "you said you didn't want to when Ed——"
Mrs. Welsh silenced her, and said:
"Run right along, dear; it's just the nicest time o' day. Are there many teams out?"
"They're just beginning t' come out," said Albert. "I'll have a cutter around here in about two jiffies; be on hand, sure."
Troutt was standing in the sunny doorway of his stable when the young fellow dashed up to him.
"Hullo, Uncle Troutt! Harness the fastest nag into your swellest outfit instanter."
"Aha! Goin' t' take y'r girl out, hey?"
"Yes; and I want 'o do it in style."
"I guess ol' Dan's the idee, if you can drive him; he's a ring-tailed snorter."
"Fast?"
"Nope; but safe. Gentle as a kitten and as knowin' as a fox. Drive him with one hand—left hand," the old man chuckled.
"Troutt, you're an insinuating old insinuator, and I'll——"
Troutt laughed till his long faded beard flapped up and down and quivered with the stress of his enjoyment of his joke. He ended by hitching a vicious-looking sorrel to a gay, duck-bellied cutter, saying as he gave up the reins:
"Now, be keerful; Dan's foxy; he's all right when he sees you've got the reins, but don't drop 'em."
"Don't you worry about me; I grew up with horses," said the over-confident youth, leaping into the sleigh and gathering up the lines. "Stand aside, my lord, and let the cortège pass. Hoop-la!"
The brute gave a tearing lunge, and was out of the doorway like a shot before the old man could utter a word. Albert thrilled with pleasure as he felt the reins stiffen in his hands, while the traces swung slack beside the thills.
"If he keeps this up he'll do," he thought.
As he turned up at the gate Maud came gayly down the path, muffled to the eyes.
"Oh, what a nice cutter! But the horse—is he gentle?" she asked, as she climbed in.
"As a cow," Albert replied.—"Git out o' this, Bones!"
The main street was already full of teams, wood sleighs, bob-sleighs filled with children, and here and there a man in a light cutter alone, out for a race. Laughter was on the air, and the jingle-jangle of bells. The sunwas dazzling in its brightness, and the gay wraps and scarfs lighted up the street with flecks of color. Loafers on the sidewalks fired a fusillade of words at the teams as they passed:
"Go it, Bones!"
"'Let 'ergo, Gallagher!'"
"Ain't she a daisy!"
But what cared the drivers? If the shouts were insolent they laid them to envy, and if they were pleasant they smiled in reply.
Albert and Maud had made two easy turns up and down the street, when a man driving a span of large black-hawk horses dashed up a side street and whirled in just before them. The man was a superb driver, and sat with the reins held carelessly but securely in his left hand, guiding the team more by his voice than by the bit. He sat leaning forward with his head held down in a peculiar and sinister fashion.
"Hel-lo!" cried Bert; "that looks like Brann."
"It is," said Maud.
"Cracky! that's a fine team—Black Hawks, both of them. I wonder if ol' sorrel can pass 'em?"
"Oh, please don't try," pleaded the girl.
"Why not?"
"Because—because I'm afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"Afraid something'll happen."
"Somethingisgoin' t' happen; I'm goin' t' pass him if old Bones has got anygitto him."
"It'll make him mad."
"Who mad? Brann?"
"Yes."
"Well, s'pose it does, who cares?"
The teams moved along at an easy pace. Some one called to Brann:
"They're on y'r trail, Ed."
There was something peculiar in the tone, and Brann looked behind for the first time, and saw them. He swore through his teeth, and turned about. He looked dogged and sullen, with his bent shoulders and his chin thrust down.
There were a dozen similar rigs moving up or down the street, and greetings passed from sleigh to sleigh. Everybody except Brann welcomed Albert with sincere pleasure, and exchanged rustic jokes with him. As they slowed up at the upper end of the street and began to turn, a man on the sidewalk said confidentially:
"Say, cap', if you handle that old rack-o'-bones just right, he'll distance anything on this road. When you want him to do his best let him have the rein; don't pull a pound. I used to own 'im—I know 'im."
The old sorrel came round "gauming," his ugly head thrown up, his great red mouth open, his ears back. Brann and the young doctor of the place were turning together a little fartherup the street. The blacks, superbly obedient to their driver, came down with flying hoofs, their great glossy breasts flecked with foam from their champing jaws.
"Come on, fellers!" yelled Brann, insultingly, as he came down past the doctor, and seemed about to pass Albert and Maud. There was hate in the glare of his eyes.
But he did not pass. The old sorrel seemed to lengthen; to the spectators his nose appeared to be glued to the glossy side of Brann's off black.
"See them blacks trot!" shouted Albert, in ungrammatical enthusiasm.
"See that old sorrel shake himself!" yelled the loafers.
The doctor came tearing down with a spirited bay, a magnificent stepper. As he drew along so that Bert could catch a glimpse of the mare's neck, he thrilled with delight. There was the thoroughbred's lacing of veins; the proud fling of her knees and the swell of her neck showed that she was far from doing her best. There was a wild light in her eyes.
These were the fast teams of the town. All interest was centered in them.
"Clear the track!" yelled the loafers.
"The doc's good f'r 'em."
"If she don't break."
Albert was pulling at the sorrel heavily, absorbed in seeing, as well as he could for the flung snowballs, the doctor's mare draw slowly,foot by foot, past the blacks. Suddenly Brann gave a shrill yell and stood up in his sleigh. The gallant little bay broke and fell behind; Brann gave a loud laugh; the blacks trotted on, their splendid pace unchanged.
"Let the sorrel out!" yelled somebody.
"Let him loose!" yelled Troutt on the corner, quivering with excitement. "Let him go!"
Albert remembered what the fellow had said; he let the reins loose. The old sorrel's teeth came together with a snap; his head lowered and his tail rose; he shot abreast of the blacks. Brann yelled:
"Sam—Saul,git!"
"See them trot!" shouted Bert, lost in admiration; but Maud, frightened into silence, had covered her head with the robe to escape the blinding cloud of flying snow. The sorrel drew steadily ahead; he was passing when Brann turned.
"Durn y'r old horse!" he yelled through his shut teeth, and laid the whip across the sorrel's hips. The blacks broke wildly, but, strange to say, the old sorrel increased his speed. Again Brann struck at him, but missed him, and the stroke fell on Bert's outstretched wrists. He turned to see what Brann meant by it; he did not see that the blacks were crowding him to the gutter; his hands felt numb.
"Lookout, there!"
Before he could turn to look, the cutterseemed to be blown up by a bomb, and he rose in the air like a vaulter; he saw the traces part, he felt the reins slip through his hands, and that was all; he seemed to fall an immeasurable depth into a black abyss…. The next that he knew was a curious soft murmur of voices, out of which a sweet, agonized girl-voice broke, familiar but unrecognized:
"Oh, where's the doctor! He's dead—oh, he's dead!Can'tyou hurry?"
Next came a quick, authoritative voice, still far away, and a hush followed it; then an imperative order:
"Stand out o' the way! What do you think you can do by crowding on top of him?"
"Stand back! stand back!" other voices called.
Then he felt something cold on his head: they were taking his cap off and putting snow on his head; then the doctor (he knew him now) said:
"Let me take him!"
"Oh, can't I do something?" said the sweet voice.
"No—nothing."
Then there came a strange fullness in his head. Shadows lighted by dull red flashes passed before his eyes; he wondered, in a slow, dull way, if he were dying. Then this changed: a dull, throbbing ache came into his head, and as this grew the noise of voices grew more distinct and he could hear sobbing. Then thedull, rhythmic red flashes passed slowly away from his eyes, and he opened his lids, but the glare of the sunlight struck them shut again; he saw only Maud's face, agonized, white, and wet with tears, looking down into his. He felt the doctor's hands winding bandages about his head, and he felt a crawling stream of blood behind his ear, getting as cold as ice as it sank under his collar.
They raised him a little more, and he opened his eyes on the circle of hushed and excited men thronging about him. He saw Brann, with wild, scared face, standing in his cutter and peering over the heads of the crowd.
"How do you feel now?" asked the doctor.
"Can you hear us? Albert, do you know me?" called the girl.
His lips moved stiffly, but he smiled a little, and at length whispered slowly, "Yes; I guess—I'm all—right."
"Put him into my cutter; Maud, get in here, too," the doctor commanded, with all the authority of a physician in a small village. The crowd opened, and silenced its muttered comments as the doctor and Troutt helped the wounded man into the sleigh. The pain in his head grew worse, but Albert's perception of things grew in proportion; he closed his eyes to the sun, but in the shadow of Maud's breast opened them again and looked up at her. He felt a vague, childlike pleasure in knowing she was holding him in her arms; he felt the sleighmoving; he thought of his mother, and how it would frighten her if she knew.
The doctor was driving the horse and walking beside the sleigh, and the people were accosting him. Albert could catch their words now and then, and the reply:
"No; he isn't killed, nor anything near it; he's stunned, that's all; he isn't bleeding now. No; he'll be all right in a day or two."
"Hello!" said a breathless, hearty voice, "what the deuce y' been doing with my pardner? Bert, old fellow, are you there?" Hartley asked, clinging to the edge of the moving cutter, and peering into his friend's face. Albert smiled.
"I'm here—what there is left of me," he replied faintly.
"Glory! how'd it happen?" he asked of the girl.
"I don't know—I couldn't see—we ran into a culvert," replied Maud.
"Weren't you hurt?"
"Not a bit. I stayed in the cutter."
Albert felt a steady return of waves of pain, but did not know that they were waves of returning life. He groaned, and tried to rise. The girl gently but firmly restrained him. Hartley was walking beside the doctor, talking loudly. "It was a devilish thing to do; the scoundrel ought 'o be jugged!"
Albert groaned, and tried to rise again. "I'm bleeding yet; I'm soaking you!"
The girl shuddered, but remained firm.
"No; we're 'most home."
She felt no shame, but a certain exaltation, as she looked into the curious faces she saw in groups on the sidewalk. The boys who ran alongside wore in their faces a look of awe, for they imagined themselves in the presence of death.
Maud gazed unrecognizingly upon her nearest girl friends. They seemed something alien in that moment; and they, gazing upon her white face and unrecognizing eyes, spoke in awed whispers.
At the gate the crowd gathered and waited with deepest interest, with a sort of shuddering pleasure. It was all a strange, unusual, inthralling romance to them. The dazzling sunshine added to the wonder of it all.
"Ed Brann done it."
"How?" asked several.
"With the butt end of his whip."
"That's a lie! His team ran into Lohr's rig."
"Not much; Ed crowded him into the ditch."
"What fer?"
"'Cause Bert cut him out with Maud."
"Come, get out of the way! Don't stand there gabbing," yelled Hartley, as he took Albert in his arms and, together with the doctor, lifted him out of the sleigh.
"Goodness sakes alive! Ain't it terrible!How is he?" asked an old lady, peering at him as he passed.