_ An hour later Christopher was at work in the stable, when he
heard a careless whistle outside, and Will Fletcher looked in at
the open door.
"I say, Chris, take a turn off and come down to Tom Spade's," he
urged.
Christopher, who was descending from the loft with an armful of
straw, paused midway of the ladder and regarded his visitor with
perceptible hesitation.
"I can't this evening," he answered; "the light is almost gone,
and I've a good deal to get through with after dark. I'll manage
better to-morrow, if I can. By the way, why didn't you show up at
Weatherby's?"
Will came in and sat down on the edge of a big wooden box which
contained the harness. In the four years he had changed but
little in appearance, though his slim figure had shot up rapidly
in height. His chestnut hair grew in high peaks from his temples
and swept in a single lock above his small, sparkling eyes, which
held an expression of intelligent animation. On the whole, it was
not an unpleasing face, despite the tremulous droop of the mouth,
already darkened by the faint beginning of a brown mustache.
"Oh, Molly Peterkin stopped me in the road," he replied readily.
"I'd caught her eye once or twice before, but this was the first
chance we'd had to speak. I tell you she's a peach, Christopher."
Christopher came down from the ladder and spread the straw evenly
in the horses' stalls.
"So they say," he responded; "but I haven't much of an eye for
women, you know. Now, when it comes to judging a leaf of tobacco,
I'm a match for any man."
"Well, one can't be everything," remarked Will consolingly. He
snatched at a piece of straw that had fallen on the lowest rung
of the ladder and began idly chewing it. "As for me I know a
blamed sight more about women than I do about tobacco," he added,
with a swagger.
Christopher glanced up, and at sight of the boyish figure burst
into a hearty laugh.
"Oh, you're a jolly old sport, I know, and to think that Tom
Spade has been accusing me of leading you astray! Why, you are
already twice the man that I am."
"Pshaw! That's just grandpa's chatter! The old man rails at me
day and night about you until it's a mortal wonder he doesn't
drive me to the dogs outright. I'd like to see another fellow
that would put up with it for a week. Captain Morrison told him,
you know, that I hadn't done a peg of study for a year, and it
brought on a scene that almost shook the roof. Now he swears I'm
to go to the university next fall or hang."
"Well, I'd go, by all means."
"What under heaven could I do there? All those confounded
languages Morrison poured into my head haven't left so much as a
single letter of the alphabet. Ad nauseam is all I learned of
Latin. I tell you I'd rather be a storekeeper any time than a
scholar--books make me sick all over--and, when it comes to that,
I don't believe I know much more to-day than you do."
A smile crossed Christopher's face, leaving it very grim. The
words recalled to him his own earlier ambition--that of the
gentlemanly scholar of the old order--and there flickered before
his eyes the visionary library, suffused with firelight, and the
translation of the "Iliad" he had meant to finish.
"I always told you it wasn't worth anything," he said roughly.
"She'd love you any better if you could spurt Greek?"
Will broke into a pleased laugh, his mind dwelling upon the fancy
the other had conjured up so skilfully.
"Did you ever see such lips in your life?" he inquired.
Christopher shook his head. "I haven't noticed them, but Sol's
have a way of sticking in my memory."
"Oh, you brute! It's a shame that she should have such a father.
He's about the worst I ever met."
"Some think the shame is on the other side, you know."
"That's a lie--she told me so. Fred Turner started the whole
thing because she refused to marry him at the last moment. She
found out suddenly that she wasn't in love with him. Girls are
like that, you see. Why, Maria--" Christopher looked up quickly.
"I've nothing to do with your sister," he observed. "I know that;
but it's true, all the same. Maria couldn't tell her own mind any
better. Why, one day she was declaring that she was over head and
ears in love with Jack, and the next she was wringing her hands
and begging him to go away." "What are you going to do down at
the store?" asked Christopher abruptly. "Oh, nothing in
particular--just lounge, I suppose; there's never anything to do.
By the way, can't we have a hunt to-morrow?" "I'll see about it.
Look here, is your grandfather any worse than usual? He stormed
at me like mad yesterday because I wouldn't turn my team of oxen
out of the road." "It's like blasting rock to get a decent word
out of him. The only time he's been good-humoured for four years
was the week we were away together. He offered me five thousand
dollars down if I'd never speak to you again." "You don't say
so!" exclaimed Christopher. He bent his head and stood looking
thoughtfully at the matted straw under foot. "Well, you had a
chance to turn a pretty penny," he said, in a tone of gentle
raillery. "Oh, hang it! What do you mean?" demanded Will. "Of
course, I wasn't going back on you like that just to please
grandpa. I'd have been a confounded sneak if I had!" "You're a
jolly good chap and no mistake! But the old man would have been
pleased, I reckon?" Will grinned.
"You bet he would! I could twist him round my finger but for you,
Aunt Saidie says." "It will be all the same in the end, though.
The whole thing will come to you some day." "Oh, yes. Maria got
her share, and Wyndham has made ducks and drakes of it." "Your
grandfather's aging, too, isn't he?"
"Rather," returned Will, with a curious mixture of amiable
lightness and cool brutality. "He's gone off at least twenty
years since that time I had pneumonia in your barn. That wrecked
him, Aunt Saidie says, and all because he knew he'd have to put
up with you when the doctor told him to let me have my way. His
temper gets worse, too, all the time. I declare, he sometimes
makes me wish he were dead and buried." "Oh, he'll live long
enough yet, never fear--those wiry, cross-grained people are as
tough as lightwood knots. It's a pity, though, he wants to bully
you like that--it would kill me in a day." A flush mounted to
Will's forehead. "I knew you'd think so," he said, "and it's what
I tell him all the time. He's got no business meddling with me so
much, and I won't stand it." "He ought to get a dog," suggested
Christopher indifferently. "Well, I'm not a dog, and I'll make
him understand it yet. Oh, you think I'm an awful milksop, of
course, but I'll show you otherwise some day. I'd like to know if
you could have done any better in my place?" "Done! Why, I
shouldn't have been in your place long, that's all." "I shan't,
either, for that matter; but I've got to humour him a little, you
see, because he holds the purse-strings." "He'd never go so far
as to kick you out, would he?" "Well, hardly. I'm all he has, you
know. He doesn't like Maria because of her fine airs, much as he
thinks of education. I've got to be a gentleman, he says; but as
for him, he wouldn't give up one of his vulgar habits to save
anybody's soul. His trouble with Maria all came of her reproving
him for drinking out of his saucer. Now, I don't mind that kind
of thing so much, but Maria used to say she'd rather have him
steal, any day, than gulp his coffee. Why are you laughing so?"
"Oh, nothing. Are you going to Tom's now? I've got to work." Will
slid down from the big box and sauntered toward the door, pausing
on the little wooden step to light a cigarette. "Drop in if you
get a chance," he threw back over his shoulder, with a puff of
smoke. In a few moments Christopher finished his work, and,
coming
outside, closed the stable door. Then he walked a few paces along
the little path stopping from time to time to gaze across the
darkening landscape. A light mist was wreathed about the tops of
the old lilac-bushes, where it glimmered so indistinctly that it
seemed as if one might dispel it by a breath; and farther away
the soft evening colours had settled over the great fields,
beyond which a clear yellow line was just visible above the
distant woods. The wind was sharp with an edge of frost, and as
it blew into his face he raised his head and drank long,
invigorating drafts. From the cattle-pen hard by he smelled the
fresh breath of the cows, and around him were those other odours,
vague, familiar, pleasant, which are loosened at twilight in the
open country. The time had been when the mere physical contact
with the air would have filled him with a quiet satisfaction, but
during the last four years he had lost gradually his
sensitiveness to external things--to the changes of the seasons
as to the beauties of an autumn sunrise. A clear morning had
ceased to arouse in him the old buoyant energy, and he had lost
the zest of muscular exertion which had done so much to sweeten
his labour in the fields. It was as if a clog fettered his
simplest no less than his greatest emotion; and his enjoyment of
nature had grown dull and spiritless, like his affection for his
family. With his sisters he was aware that a curious constraint
had become apparent, and it was no longer possible for him to
meet his mother with the gay deference she still exacted. There
were times, even, when he grew almost suspicious of Cynthia's
patience, and at such moments his irritation was manifested in a
sullen reserve. To himself he could give no explanation of his
state of mind; he knew merely that he retreated day by day
farther into the shadow of his loneliness, and that, while in his
heart he still craved human sympathy, an expression of it even
from those he loved was, above all, the thing he most bitterly
resented. A light flashed in the kitchen, and he went on slowly
toward the house. As he reached the back porch he saw that Lila
was sitting at the kitchen window looking wearily out into the
dusk. The firelight scintillated in her eyes, and as she turned
quickly at a sound within the room he noticed with a pang that
the sparkles were caused by teardrops on her lashes. His heart
quickened at the sight of her drooping figure, and an impulse
seized him to go in and comfort her at any cost. Then his severe
constraint laid an icy hold upon him, and he hesitated with his
hand upon the door.
"If I go in and speak to her, what is there for me to say?" he
thought, overcome by his horror of any uncontrolled emotion. "We
will merely go over the old complaints, the endless explanations.
She will probably weep like a child, and I shall feel a brute
when I look on and keep silent. In the first place, if I speak to
her, what is there for me to say? If I simply beg her to stop
crying, or if I rush in and urge her to marry Jim Weatherby
to-morrow, what good can come of either course? She doesn't wait
for my consent to the marriage, for she is as old as I am, and
knows her own heart much better than I know mine. It is true that
she is too beautiful to waste away like this, but how can I
prevent it, or what is there for me to do?"
Again came the impulse to go in and fold her in his arms, but
before he had taken the first step he yielded, as always, to his
strange reserve, and he realised that if he entered it would be
but to assume his customary unconcern, from the shelter of which
he would probably make a few commonplace remarks on trivial
subjects. The emotional situation would be ignored by them all,
he knew; they would treat it absolutely as if it had no
existence, as if its voice was not speaking to them in the
silence, and they would break their bread and drink their coffee
in apparent unconsciousness that supper was not the single thing
that engrossed their thoughts. And all the time they would be
face to face with the knowledge that they had demanded that Lila
should sacrifice her life.
Presently Cynthia came out and called him, and he went in
carelessly and sat down at the table. Lila left the window and
slipped into her place, and when Tucker joined them she cut up
his food as usual and prepared his coffee.
"Uncle Tucker's cup has no handle, Cynthia," she said with
concern. "Let me take this one and give him another."
"Well, I never!" exclaimed Cynthia, bending over to examine the
break with her near-sighted squint. "We'll soon have to begin
using Aunt Susannah's set, if this keeps up. Uncle Boaz, you've
broken another cup to-day."
Her tone was sharp with irritation, and the fine wrinkles caused
by ceaseless small worries appeared instantly between her
eyebrows. Christopher, watching her, remembered that she had worn
the same expression during the scene with Lila, and it annoyed
him unspeakably that she should be able to descend so readily,
and with equal energy, upon so insignificant a grievance as a bit
of broken china.
Uncle Boaz hobbled round the table and peered contemptuously at
the cup which Lila held.
"Dar warn' no use bruckin' dat ar one," he observed, "'caze 'twuz
bruck a'ready." " Oh, there won't be a piece left presently,"
pursued Cynthia indignantly; and Christopher felt suddenly that
there was something contemptible in the passion she expended upon
trifles. He wondered if Tucker noticed how horribly petty it all
was to lament a broken cup when the tears were hardly dried on
Lila's cheeks. Finishing hurriedly, he pushed back his chair and
rose from the table, shaking his head in response to Cynthia's
request that he should go in to see his mother. "Not now," he
said impatiently, with that nervous avoidance of the person he
loved best. "I'll be back in time to carry her to bed, but I've
got to take a half-hour off and look in on Tom Spade." "She
really ought to go to bed before sundown," responded Cynthia,
"but nothing under heaven will persuade her to do so. It's her
wonderful will that keeps her alive, just as it keeps her sitting
bolt upright in that old chair. I don't believe there's another
woman on earth who could have done it for more than twenty
years." Taking down his hat from a big nail in the wall,
Christopher stood for a moment abstractedly fingering the brim.
"Well, I'll be back shortly," he said at last, and went out
hurriedly into the darkness. At the instant he could not tell why
he had so suddenly decided to follow Will Fletcher to the store,
but, as usual, when the impulse came to him he proceeded to act
promptly as it directed. Strangely enough, the boy was the one
human being whom he felt no inclination to avoid, and the least
oppressive moments that he knew were the reckless ones they spent
together. While his daily companion was mentally and morally upon
a lower plane than his own, the association was not without a
balm for his wounded pride; and the knowledge that it was still
possible to assume superiority to Fletcher's heir was, so far as
he himself admitted, the one consolation that his life contained.
As for his feeling toward Will Fletcher as an individual, it was
the outcome of so curious a mixture of attraction and repulsion
that he had long ceased from any attempt to define it as pure
emotion. For the last four years the boy had been, as Tom Spade
put it, "the very shadow on the man's footsteps," and yet at the
end of that time it was almost impossible for Christopher to
acknowledge either his liking or his hatred. He had suffered him
for his own end, that was all, and he had come at last almost to
enjoy the tolerance that he displayed. The hero worship--the
natural imitation of youth-- was at least not unpleasant, and
there had been days during a brief absence of the boy when
Christopher had, to his surprise, become aware of a positive
vacancy in his surroundings. So long as Will made no evident
attempt to rise above him--so long, indeed, as Fletcher's
grandson kept to Fletcher's level, it was possible that the
companionship would continue as harmoniously as it had begun. In
the store he found Tom Spade and his wife--an angular,
strong-featured woman, in purple calico, who carried off the
reputation of a shrew with noisy honours. When he asked for Will,
the storekeeper turned from the cash-drawer which he was emptying
and nodded toward the half-open door of the adjoining room.
"Several of the young fellows are in thar now," he remarked
offhand, "an' I've jest had to go in an' git between Fred Turner
an' Will Fletcher. They came to out an' out blows, an' I had to
shake 'em both by the scuff of thar necks befo' they'd hish
snarlin'. Bless yo' life, all about a woman, too, every last word
of it. Well, well, meanin' no disrespect to you, Susan, it's a
queer thing that a man can't be born, married, or buried without
a woman gittin' herself mixed up in the business. If she ain't
wrappin' you in swaddlin' bands, you may be sho' she's measurin'
off yo' windin'-sheet. Mark my words, Mr. Christopher, I don't
believe thar's ever been a fight fought on this earth--be it a
battle or a plain fisticuff--that it warn't started in the brain
of somebody's mother, wife, or sweetheart an' it's most likely to
have been the sweetheart. It is strange, when you come to study
'bout it, how sech peaceable-lookin' creaturs as women kin have
sech hearty appetites for trouble."
"Well, trouble may be born of a woman, but it generally manages
to take the shape of a man," observed Mrs. Spade from behind the
counter, where she was filling a big glass jar with a fresh
supply of striped peppermint candy. "And as far as that goes,
ever sence the Garden of Eden, men have taken a good deal mo'
pleasure in layin' the blame on thar wives than they do in layin'
blows on the devil. It's a fortunate woman that don't wake up the
day after the weddin' an' find she's married an Adam instid of a
man. However, they are as the Lord made 'em, I reckon," she
finished charitably, "which ain't so much to thar credit as it
sounds, seein' they could have done over sech a po' job with
precious little trouble."
"Oh, I warn't aimin' at you, Susan," Tom hastened to assure her,
aware from experience that he entered an argument only to be
worsted. "You've been a good wife to me, for all yo' sharp
tongue, an' I've never had to git up an' light the fire sence the
day I married you. Yes, you've been a first-rate wife to me, an'
no mistake."
"I'm the last person you need tell that to," was Mrs. Spade's
retort. "I don't reckon I've b'iled inside an' sweated outside
for mo' than twenty years without knowin' it. Lord! Lord! If it
took as hard work to be a Christian as it does to be a wife,
thar'd be mighty few but men in the next world--an' they'd git
thar jest by followin' like sheep arter Adam--"
"I declar', Susan, I didn't mean to rile you," urged Tom,
breaking in upon the flow of words with an appealing effort to
divert its course. "I was merely crackin' a joke with Mr.
Christopher, you know."
"I'm plum sick of these here jokes that's got to have a woman on
the p'int of 'em," returned Mrs. Spade, tightly screwing on the
top of the glass jar. "I've always noticed that thar ain't
nothin' so funny in this world but it gits a long sight funnier
if a man kin turn it on his wife."
"Now, my dear--" helplessly expostulated Tom.
"My name's Susan, Tom Spade, an' I'll have you call me by it or
not at all. If thar's one thing I hate on this earth it's a
'dear' in the mouth of a married man that ought to know better.
I'd every bit as lief you'd shoot a lizard at me, an' you ain't
jest found it out. If you think I'm the kind of person to git any
satisfaction out of improper speeches you were never mo' mistaken
in yo' life; an' I kin p'int out to you right now that I ain't
never heard one of them words yit that I ain't had to pay for it.
A 'dear' the mo' is mighty apt to mean a bucket of water the
less. Oh, you can't turn my head with yo' soft tricks, Tom Spade.
I'm a respectable woman, as my mother was befo' me, an' I don't
want familiar doin's from any man, alive or dead. The woman who
does, whether she be married or single, ain't no better than a
female--that's my opinion!"
She paused to draw breath, and Tom was quick to take advantage of
the intermission. "Good Lord, Mr. Christopher, those darn young
fools are at it agin! " he exclaimed, darting toward the
adjoining room.
With a stride, Christopher pushed past him and, opening the door,
stopped uncertainly upon the threshold.
At the first glance he saw that the trouble was between Will and
Fred Turner, and that Will, because of his slighter weight, had
got very much the worst of the encounter. The boy stood now,
trembling with anger and bleeding at the mouth, beside an
overturned table, while Fred--a stout, brawny fellow--was busily
pummelling his shoulders.
"You're a sneakin', puny-livered liar, that's what you are!"
finished Turner with a vengeance.
Christopher walked leisurely across the room.
"And you're another," he observed in a quiet voice--the voice of
his courtly father, which always came to him in moments of white
heat. "You are exactly that--a sneaking, puny-livered liar." His
manner was so courteous that it came as a surprise when he struck
out from the shoulder and felled Fred as easily as he might have
knocked over a wooden tenpin. "You really must learn better
manners," he remarked coolly, looking down upon him.
Then he wiped his brow on his blue shirt-sleeve and called for a
glass of beer. _