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  DADDY DEERING

  I

  They were threshing on Farmer Jennings's place when Daddy made his verycharacteristic appearance. Milton, a boy of thirteen, was gloomilyholding sacks for the measurer, and the glory of the October day wasdimmed by the suffocating dust, and poisoned by the smarting beards andchaff which had worked their way down his neck. The bitterness of thedreaded task was deepened also by contrast with the gambols of hiscousin Billy, who was hunting rats with Growler amid the last sheaves ofthe stack bottom. The piercing shrieks of Billy, as he clapped his handsin murderous glee, mingled now and again with the barking of the dog.

  The machine seemed to fill the world with its snarling boom, whichbecame a deafening yell when the cylinder ran empty for a moment. It wasnearly noon, and the men were working silently, with occasional glancestoward the sun to see how near dinner-time it was. The horses, drippingwith sweat, and with patches of foam under their harness, moved roundand round steadily to the cheery whistle of the driver.

  The wild, imperious song of the bell-metal cog-wheel had sung intoMilton's ears till it had become a torture, and every time he lifted hiseyes to the beautiful far-off sky, where the clouds floated like ships,a lump of rebellious anger rose in his throat. Why should he work inthis choking dust and deafening noise while the hawks could sail andsweep from hill to hill with nothing to do but play?

  Occasionally his uncle, the feeder, smiled down upon him, his face blackas a negro, great goggles of glass and wire-cloth covering his merryeyes. His great good-nature shone out in the flash of his white teeth,behind his dusky beard, and he tried to encourage Milton with his smile.He seemed tireless to the other hands. He was so big and strong. He hadalways been Milton's boyish hero. So Milton crowded back the tears thatcame into his eyes, and would not let his uncle see how childish he was.

  A spectator riding along the road would have remarked upon the lovelysetting for this picturesque scene--the low swells of prairie, shroudedwith faint, misty light from the unclouded sky, the flaming colors ofthe trees, the faint sound of cow-bells, and the cheery sound of themachine. But to be a tourist and to be a toiler in a scene like this arequite different things.

  They were anxious to finish the setting by noon, and so the feeder wascrowding the cylinder to its limit, rolling the grain in with slow andapparently effortless swaying from side to side, half buried in theloose yellow straw. But about eleven o'clock the machine came to astand, to wait while a broken tooth was being replaced, and Milton fledfrom the terrible dust beside the measuring spout, and was shaking thechaff out of his clothing, when he heard a high, snappy, nasal voicecall down from the straw-pile. A tall man, with a face completely maskedin dust, was speaking to Mr. Jennings:--

  "Say, young man, I guess you'll haf to send another man up here. It'spoorty stiff work f'r two; yes, sir, poorty stiff."

  "There, there! I thought you'd cry 'cavy,'" laughed Mr. Jennings. "Itold you it wasn't the place for an old man."

  "Old man," snarled the figure in the straw. "I ain't so old but I candaown you, sir,--yessir, condemmit, yessir!"

  "I'm your man," replied Jennings, smiling up at him.

  The man rolled down the side of the stack, disappearing in a cloud ofdust and chaff. When he came to light, Milton saw a tall, gaunt old manof sixty years of age, or older. Nothing could be seen but a dustyexpanse of face, ragged beard, and twinkling, sharp little eyes. Hiscolor was lost, his eyes half hid. Without waiting for ceremony, the menclenched. The crowd roared with laughter, for though Jennings was theyounger, the older man was a giant still, and the struggle lasted forsome time. He made a gallant fight, but his breath gave out, and he layat last flat on his back.

  "I wish I was your age, young man," he said ruefully, as he rose. "I'dknock the heads o' these young scamps t'gether,--yessir!--I could do it,too!"

  "Talk's a good dog, uncle," said a young man.

  The old man turned on him so ferociously that he fled.

  "Run, condemn yeh! I own y' can beat me at that."

  His face was not unpleasant, though his teeth were mainly gone, and hisskin the color of leather and wrinkled as a pan of cream. His eyes had acertain sparkle of fun that belied his rasping voice, which seemed tohave the power to lift a boy clean off his feet. His frame was bent andthin, but of great height and breadth, bony and tough as hickory. Atsome far time vast muscles must have rolled on those giant limbs, buttoil had bent and stiffened him.

  "Never been sick a day 'n my life; no, sir!" he said, in his rapid,rasping, emphatic way, as they were riding across the stubble to dinner."And, by gol! I c'n stand as long at the tail of a stacker as any man,sir. Dummed if I turn my hand for any man in the state; no, sir; no,sir! But if I do two men's works, I am goin' to have two men'spay--that's all, sir!"

  Jennings laughed and said: "All right, uncle. I'll send another man upthere this afternoon."

  The old man seemed to take a morbid delight in the hard and dirtyplaces, and his endurance was marvellous. He could stand all day at thetail of a stacker, tirelessly pushing the straw away with an indifferentair, as if it were all mere play.

  He measured the grain the next day, because it promised to be a noisierand dustier job than working in the straw, and it was in this capacitythat Milton came to know and to hate him, and to associate him withthat most hated of all tasks, the holding of sacks. To a twelve-year-oldboy it seems to be the worst job in the world.

  All day, while the hawks wheel and dip in the glorious air, and thetrees glow like banks of roses; all day, while the younger boys aretumbling about the sunlit straw, to be forced to stand holding sacks,like a convict, was maddening. Daddy, whose rugged features, bentshoulders, and ragged cap loomed through the suffocating, blinding dust,necessarily came to seem like the jailer who held the door to freedom.

  And when the dust and noise and monotony seemed the very hardest tobear, the old man's cackling laugh was sure to rise above the howl ofthe cylinder.

  "Nem mind, sonny! Chaff ain't pizen; dust won't hurt ye a mite." Andwhen Milton was unable to laugh, the old man tweaked his ear with hisleathery thumb and finger.

  Then he shouted long, disconnected yarns, to which Milton could makeneither head nor tail, and which grew at last to be inaudible to him,just as the steady boom and snarl of the great machine did. Then he fellto studying the old man's clothes, which were a wonder to him. He spenta good deal of time trying to discover which were the original sectionsof the coat, and especially of the vest, which was ragged and yellowwith age, with the cotton batting working out; and yet Daddy took thegreatest care of it, folding it carefully and putting it away during theheat of the day out of reach of the crickets.

  One of his peculiarities, as Mrs. Jennings learned on the second day,was his habit of coming to breakfast. But he always earned all he got,and more too; and, as it was probable that his living at home wasfrugal, Mrs. Jennings smiled at his thrift, and quietly gave him hisbreakfast if he arrived late, which was not often.

  He had bought a little farm not far away, and settled down into a modeof life which he never afterward changed. As he was leaving at the endof the third day, he said:--

  "Now, sir, if you want any bootcherin' done, I'm y'r man. I don't turnm' hand over f'r any man in the state; no, sir! I c'n git a hawg on thegambrils jest a leetle quicker'n any other man I ever see; yes, sir; bygum!"

  "All right, uncle; I'll send for you when I'm ready to kill."

  II

  Hog-killing was one of the events of a boy's life on a Western farm, andDaddy was destined to be associated in the minds of Shep and Milton withanother disagreeable job, that of building the fire and carrying water.

  It was very early on a keen, biting morning in November when Daddy camedriving into the yard with his rude, long-runnered sled, one horse halfhis length behind the other in spite of the driver's clucking. He wasdelighted to catch the boys behind in the preparation.

  "A-a-h-h-r-r-h-h!" he rasped out, "you lazy vagabon's? Why ain't you gotthat fire blazin'? What t
he devil do y' mean, you rascals! Here it isbroad daylight, and that fire not built. I vum, sir, you need athrashin', the whole kit an bilun' of ye; yessir! Come, come, come!hustle now, stir your boots! hustle y'r boots--ha! ha! ha!"

  It was of no use to plead cold weather and damp chips.

  "What has that got to do with it, sir? I vum, sir, when I was your age,I could make a fire of green red-oak; yessir! Don't talk to me of colds!Stir your stumps and get warm, sir!"

  The old man put up his horses (and fed them generously with oats), andthen went to the house to ask for "a leetle something hot--mince pie orsassidge." His request was very modest, but, as a matter of fact, he satdown and ate a very hearty breakfast, while the boys worked away at thefire under the big kettle.

  The hired man, under Daddy's direction, drew the bob-sleighs intoposition on the sunny side of the corn-crib, and arranged the barrel atthe proper slant, while the old man ground his knives, Milton turningthe grindstone--another hateful task, which Daddy's stories could notalleviate.

  Daddy never finished a story. If he started in to tell about a horsetrade, it infallibly reminded him of a cattle trade, and talking ofcattle switched him off upon logging, and logging reminded him of someheavy snow-storm he had known. Each parenthesis outgrew its properlimits, till he forgot what should have been the main story. His storieshad some compensation, for when he stopped to try to recollect where hewas, the pressure on the grindstone was released.

  At last the water was hot, and the time came to seize the hogs. This wasthe old man's great moment. He stood in the pen and shrieked withlaughter while the hired men went rolling, one after the other, upon theground, or were bruised against the fence by the rush of the burlyswine.

  "You're a fine lot," he laughed. "Now, then, sir, _grab 'im_! Why don'tye nail 'im? I vum, sir, if I couldn't do better'n that, sir, I'd sellout; I would, sir, by gol! Get out o' the way!"

  With a lofty scorn he waved aside all help and stalked like a gladiatortoward the pigs huddled in one corner of the pen. And when the selectedvictim was rushing by him, his long arm and great bony hand swept out,caught him by the ear, and flung him upon his side, squealing withdeafening shrillness. But in spite of his smiling concealment of effort,Daddy had to lean against the fence and catch his breath even while heboasted:--

  "I'm an old codger, sir, but I'm worth--a dozen o' you--spindle-leggedchaps; dum me if I ain't, sir!"

  His pride in his ability to catch and properly kill a hog was as genuineas the old knight-errant's pride in his ability to stick a knife intoanother steel-clothed brigand like himself. When the slain shote wasswung upon the planking on the sled before the barrel, Daddy rested,while the boys filled the barrel with water from the kettle.

  There was always a weird charm about this stage of the work to the boys.The sun shone warm and bright in the lee of the corn-crib; the steamrose up, white and voluminous, from the barrel; the eaves droppedsteadily; the hens ventured near, nervously, but full of curiosity,while the men laughed and joked with Daddy, starting him off on longstories, and winking at each other when his back was turned.

  At last he mounted his planking, selecting Mr. Jennings to pull upon theother handle of the hog-hook. He considered he conferred a distincthonor in this selection.

  "The time's been, sir, when I wouldn't thank any man for his help. No,sir, wouldn't thank 'im."

  "What do you do with these things?" asked one of the men, kicking twoiron candlesticks which the old man laid conveniently near.

  "Scrape a hawg with them, sir. What do y' s'pose, you numskull?"

  "Well, I never saw anything--"

  "You'll have a chance mighty quick, sir. Grab ahold, sir! Swing 'imaround--there! Now easy, easy! Now then, one, two; one, two--that'sright."

  While he dipped the porker in the water, pulling with his companionrhythmically upon the hook, he talked incessantly, mixing up scraps ofstories and boastings of what he could do, with commands of what hewanted the other man to do.

  "The best man I ever worked with. _Now turn 'im, turn 'im!_" he yelled,reaching over Jennings's wrist. "Grab under my wrist. There! won't yenever learn how to turn a hawg? _Now out with 'im!_" was his next wildyell, as the steaming hog was jerked out of the water upon the planking."Now try the hair on them ears! Beautiful scald," he said, clutching hishand full of bristles and beaming with pride. "Never see anything finer.Here, Bub, a pail of hot water, quick! Try one of them candlesticks!They ain't no better scraper than the bottom of an old iron candlestick;no, sir! Dum your new-fangled scrapers! I made a bet once with old JakeRidgeway that I could scrape the hair off'n two hawgs, by gum, quicker'nhe could one. Jake was blowin' about a new scraper he had....

  "Yes, yes, yes, dump it right into the barrel. Condemmit! Ain't you gotno gumption?... So Sim Smith, he held the watch. Sim was a mighty goodhand t' work with; he was about the only man I ever sawed with whodidn't ride the saw. He could jerk a crosscut saw.... Now let him inagain, now, _he-ho_, once again! _Rool him over now_; that foreleg needsa tech o' water. Now out with him again; that's right, that's right! Bygol, a beautiful scald as ever I see!"

  Milton, standing near, caught his eye again. "Clean that ear, sir! Whatthe devil you standin' there for?" He returned to his story after apause. "A--n--d Jake, he scraped away--_hyare_!" he shouted suddenly,"don't ruggle the skin like that! Can't you see the way I do it? Leaveit smooth as a baby, sir--yessir!"

  He worked on in this way all day, talking unceasingly, never shirking ahard job, and scarcely showing fatigue at any moment.

  "I'm short o' breath a leetle, that's all; never git tired, but my windgives out. Dum cold got on me, too."

  He ate a huge supper of liver and potatoes, still working away hard atan ancient horse trade, and when he drove off at night, he had not yetfinished a single one of the dozen stories he had begun.

  III

  But pitching grain and hog-killing were on the lower levels of his art,for above all else Daddy loved to be called upon to play the fiddle fordances. He "officiated" for the first time at a dance given by one ofthe younger McTurgs. They were all fiddlers themselves,--had been forthree generations,--but they seized the opportunity of helping Daddy andat the same time of relieving themselves of the trouble of furnishingthe music while the rest danced.

  Milton attended this dance, and saw Daddy for the first time earning hismoney pleasantly. From that time on the associations around hispersonality were less severe, and they came to like him better. He cameearly, with his old fiddle in a time-worn white-pine box. His hair wasneatly combed to the top of his long, narrow head, and his face was veryclean. The boys all greeted him with great pleasure, and asked him wherehe would sit.

  "Right on that table, sir; put a chair up there."

  He took his chair on the kitchen-table as if it were a throne. He worehuge moccasins of moose-hide on his feet, and for special occasions likethis added a paper collar to his red woollen shirt. He took off his coatand laid it across his chair for a cushion. It was all very funny to theyoung people, but they obeyed him laughingly, and while they "formedon," he sawed his violin and coaxed it up to concert pitch, and twangedit and banged it into proper tunefulness.

  "A-a-a-ll ready there!" he rasped out, with prodigious force. "Everybodygit into his place!" Then, lifting one huge foot, he put the fiddleunder his chin, and, raising his bow till his knuckles touched thestrings, he yelled, "Already, G'LANG!" and brought his foot down with astartling bang on the first note. _Rye doodle duo, doodle doo_.

  As he went on and the dancers fell into rhythm, the clatter of heavyboots seemed to thrill him with old-time memories, and he keptboisterous time with his foot, while his high, rasping nasal rang highabove the confusion of tongues and heels and swaying forms.

  "_Ladies_' gran' change! Four hands round! _Balance_ all! _Elly_-manleft! Back to play-cis."

  His eyes closed in a sort of intoxication of pleasure, but he saw allthat went on in some miraculous way.

  "_First_ lady lead to the right--_toodle rum
rum!_ _Gent_ foller after(step along thar)! Four hands round--"

  The boys were immensely pleased with him. They delighted in his anticsrather than in his tunes, which were exceedingly few and simple. Theyseemed never to be able to get enough of one tune which he called"Honest John," and which he played in his own way, accompanied by achant which he meant, without a doubt, to be musical.

  "HON-ers tew your pardners--_tee teedle deedle dee dee dee dee_! Standup straight an' put on your style! _Right_ an' left four--"

  The hat was passed by the floor-manager during the evening, and Daddygot nearly three dollars, which delighted Milton very much.

  At supper he insisted on his prerogative, which was to take theprettiest girl out to supper.

  "Look-a-here, Daddy, ain't that crowdin' the mourners?" objected theothers.

  "What do you mean by that, sir? No, sir! Always done it, in Michigan andYark State both; yes, sir."

  He put on his coat ceremoniously, while the tittering girls stood aboutthe room waiting. He did not delay. His keen eyes had made selectionlong before, and, approaching Rose Watson with old-fashioned, elaborategallantry, he said: "_May_ I have the pleasure?" and marched outtriumphantly, amidst shouts of laughter.

  His shrill laugh rang high above the rest at the table, as he said: "I'mthe youngest man in this crowd, sir! Demmit, I bet a hat I c'n dancedown any man in this crowd; yes, sir. The old man can do it yet."

  They all took sides in order to please him.

  "I'll bet he can," said Hugh McTurg; "I'll bet a dollar on Daddy."

  "I'll take the bet," said Joe Randall, and with great noise the matchwas arranged to come the first thing after supper.

  "All right, sir; any time, sir. I'll let you know the old man is onearth yet."

  While the girls were putting away the supper dishes, the young man luredDaddy out into the yard for a wrestling-match, but some others objected.

  "Oh, now, that won't do! If Daddy was a young man--"

  "What do you mean, sir? I am young enough for you, sir. Just let me getahold o' you, sir, and I'll show you, you young rascal! you demjackanapes!" he ended, almost shrieking with rage, as he shook his fistin the face of his grinning tormentors.

  His friends held him back with much apparent alarm, and ordered theother fellows away.

  "There, there, Daddy, I wouldn't mind him! I wouldn't dirty my hands onhim; he ain't worth it. Just come inside, and we'll have thatdancing-match now."

  Daddy reluctantly returned to the house, and, having surrendered hisviolin to Hugh McTurg, was ready for the contest. As he stepped into themiddle of the room he was not altogether ludicrous. His rusty trouserswere bagged at the knee, and his red woollen stockings showed betweenthe tops of his moccasins and his pantaloon legs, and his coat, utterlycharacterless as to color and cut, added to the stoop in his shoulders;and yet there was a rude sort of grace and a certain dignity about hisbearing which kept down laughter. They were to have a square dance ofthe old-fashioned sort.

  "_Farrm_ on," he cried, and the fiddler struck up the first note of theVirginia Reel. Daddy led out Rose, and the dance began. He straightenedup till his tall form towered above the rest of the boys like aweather-beaten pine tree, as he balanced and swung and led and calledoff the changes with a voice full of imperious command.

  The fiddler took a malicious delight toward the last in quickening thetime of the good old dance, and that put the old man on his mettle.

  "Go it, ye young rascal!" he yelled. He danced like a boy and yelledlike a demon, catching a laggard here and there, and hurling them intoplace like tops, while he kicked and stamped, wound in and out and wavedhis hands in the air with a gesture which must have dated back to thedays of Washington. At last, flushed, breathless, but triumphant, hedanced a final breakdown to the tune of "Leather Breeches," to show hewas unsubdued.

  IV

  But these rare days passed away. As the country grew older it lost thewholesome simplicity of pioneer days, and Daddy got a chance to play butseldom. He no longer pleased the boys and girls--his music was toomonotonous and too simple. He felt this very deeply. Once in a while hebroke forth in protest against the changes.

  "The boys I used to trot on m' knee are gittin' too high-toned. Theywouldn't be found dead with old Deering, and then the preachers aregittin' thick, and howlin' agin dancin', and the country's filling upwith Dutchmen, so't I'm left out."

  As a matter of fact, there were few homes now where Daddy could sit onthe table, in his ragged vest and rusty pantaloons, and play "HonestJohn," while the boys thumped about the floor. There were few homeswhere the old man was even a welcome visitor, and he felt this rejectionkeenly. The women got tired of seeing him about, because of hisuncleanly habits of spitting, and his tiresome stories. Many of the oldneighbors died or moved away, and the young people went West or to thecities. Men began to pity him rather than laugh at him, which hurt himmore than their ridicule. They began to favor him at threshing or at thefall hog-killing.

  "Oh, you're getting old, Daddy; you'll have to give up this heavy work.Of course, if you feel able to do it, why, all right! Like to have youdo it, but I guess we'll have to have a man to do the heavy lifting, Is'pose."

  "I s'pose not, sir! I am jest as able to yank a hawg as ever, sir; yes,sir, demmit--demmit! Do you think I've got one foot in the grave?"

  Nevertheless, Daddy often failed to come to time on appointed days, andit was painful to hear him trying to explain, trying to make light of itall.

  "M' caugh wouldn't let me sleep last night. A goldum leetle, nasty,ticklin' caugh, too; but it kept me awake, fact was, an'--well, m' wife,she said I hadn't better come. But don't you worry, sir; it won't happenagain, sir; no, sir."

  His hands got stiffer year by year, and his simple tunes becamepractically a series of squeaks and squalls. There came a time when thefiddle was laid away almost altogether, for his left hand got caught inthe cog-wheels of the horse-power, and all four of the fingers on thathand were crushed. Thereafter he could only twang a little on thestrings. It was not long after this that he struck his foot with the axeand lamed himself for life.

  As he lay groaning in bed, Mr. Jennings went in to see him and tried torelieve the old man's feelings by telling him the number of times he hadpractically cut his feet off, and said he knew it was a terrible hardthing to put up with.

  "Gol dummit, it ain't the pain," the old sufferer yelled, "it's the dumawkwardness. I've chopped all my life; I can let an axe in up to themaker's name, and hew to a hair-line; yes, sir! It was jest them dum newmittens my wife made; they was s' slippery," he ended with a groan.

  As a matter of fact, the one accident hinged upon the other. It was thefailure of his left hand, with its useless fingers, to do its duty, thatbrought the axe down upon his foot. The pain was not so much physical asmental. To think that he, who could hew to a hair-line, right and lefthand, should cut his own foot like a ten-year-old boy--that scared him.It brought age and decay close to him. For the first time in his lifehe felt that he was fighting a losing battle.

  A man like this lives so much in the flesh, that when his limbs begin tofail him everything else seems slipping away. He had gloried in hisstrength. He had exulted in the thrill of his life-blood and in theswell of his vast muscles; he had clung to the idea that he was strongas ever, till this last blow came upon him, and then he began to thinkand to tremble.

  When he was able to crawl about again, he was a different man. He wasgloomy and morose, snapping and snarling at all that came near him, likea wounded bear. He was alone a great deal of the time during the winterfollowing his hurt. Neighbors seldom went in, and for weeks he saw noone but his hired hand, and the faithful, dumb little old woman, hiswife, who moved about without any apparent concern or sympathy for hissuffering. The hired hand, whenever he called upon the neighbors, orwhenever questions were asked, said that Daddy hung around over thestove most of the time, paying no attention to any one or anything. "Heain't dangerous 't all," he said, meaning that Daddy was not dang
erouslyill.

  Milton rode out from school one winter day with Bill, the hand, and wasso much impressed with his story of Daddy's condition that he rode homewith him. He found the old man sitting bent above the stove, wrapped ina quilt, shivering and muttering to himself. He hardly looked up whenMilton spoke to him, and seemed scarcely to comprehend what he said.

  Milton was much alarmed at the terrible change, for the last time he hadseen him he had towered above him, laughingly threatening to "warm hisjacket," and now here he sat, a great hulk of flesh, his mind flickeringand flaring under every wind of suggestion, soon to go out altogether.

  In reply to questions he only muttered with a trace of his old spirit:"I'm all right. Jest as good a man as I ever was, only I'm cold. I'll beall right when spring comes, so 't I c'n git outdoors. Somethin' to warmme up, yessir; I'm cold, that's all."

  The young fellow sat in awe before him, but the old wife and Bill movedabout the room, taking very little interest in what the old man said ordid. Bill at last took down the violin. "I'll wake him up," he said."This always fetches the old feller. Now watch 'im."

  "Oh, don't do that!" Milton said in horror. But Bill drew the bow acrossthe strings with the same stroke that Daddy always used when tuning up.

  He lifted his head as Bill dashed into "Honest John," in spite ofMilton's protest. He trotted his feet after a little and drummed withhis hands on the arms of his chair, then smiled a little in a pitifulway. Finally he reached out his right hand for the violin and took itinto his lap. He tried to hold the neck with his poor, old, mutilatedleft hand, and burst into tears.

  "Don't you do that again, Bill," Milton said. "It's better for him toforget that. Now you take the best care of him you can to-night. I don'tthink he's going to live long; I think you ought to go for the doctorright off."

  "Oh, he's been like this for the last two weeks; he ain't sick, he'sjest old, that's all," replied Bill, brutally.

  And the old lady, moving about without passion and without speech,seemed to confirm this; and yet Milton was unable to get the picture ofthe old man out of his mind. He went home with a great lump in histhroat.

  * * * * *

  The next morning, while they were at breakfast, Bill burst wildly intothe room.

  "Come over there, all of you; we want you."

  They all looked up much scared. "What's the matter, Bill?"

  "Daddy's killed himself," said Bill, and turned to rush back, followedby Mr. Jennings and Milton.

  While on the way across the field Bill told how it all happened.

  "He wouldn't go to bed, the old lady couldn't make him, and when I gotup this morning I didn't think nothin' about it. I s'posed, of course,he'd gone to bed all right; but when I was going out to the barn Istumbled across something in the snow, and I felt around, and there hewas. He got hold of my revolver someway. It was on the shelf by thewashstand, and I s'pose he went out there so 't we wouldn't hear him. Idassn't touch him," he said, with a shiver; "and the old woman, she jestslumped down in a chair an' set there--wouldn't do a thing--so I comeover to see you."

  Milton's heart swelled with remorse. He felt guilty because he had notgone directly for the doctor. To think that the old sufferer had killedhimself was horrible and seemed impossible.

  The wind was blowing the snow, cold and dry, across the yard, but thesun shone brilliantly upon the figure in the snow as they came up to it.There Daddy lay. The snow was in his scant hair and in the hollow of hiswide, half-naked chest. A pistol was in his hand, but there was no markupon him, and Milton's heart leaped with quick relief. It was delirium,not suicide.

  There was a sort of majesty in the figure half buried in the snow. Hishands were clenched, and there was a frown of resolution on his face, asif he had fancied Death coming, and had gone defiantly forth to meethim.

  A STOP-OVER AT TYRE

  I

  Albert Lohr was studying the motion of the ropes and lamps, andlistening to the rumble of the wheels and the roar of the ferocious windagainst the pane of glass that his head touched. It was the midnighttrain from Marion rushing toward Warsaw like some savage thingunchained, creaking, shrieking, and clattering through the wild stormwhich possessed the whole Mississippi Valley.

  Albert lost sight of the lamps at last, and began to wonder what hisfuture 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 toWashington."

  In imagination he saw that wonderful city. As a Western boy, Boston tohim was historic, New York was the great metropolis, but Washington wasthe great American city, and political greatness the only fame.

  The car was nearly empty: save here and there the wide-awake Westerndrummer, and a woman with four fretful children, the train was asdeserted as it was frightfully cold. The engine shrieked warningly atintervals, the train rumbled hollowly over short bridges and acrosspikes, swung round the hills, and plunged with wild warnings past littletowns 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 theseats, and swore cordially at the railway company for not heating thecars. The woman with the children inquired for the tenth time, "Is thenext station Lodi?"

  "Yes, ma'am, it is," snarled the drummer, as he jerked viciously at thestrap on his valise; "and darned glad I am, too, I can tell yeh! I'll bestiff as a car-pin if I stay in this infernal ice-chest another hour. Iwonder what the company think--"

  At Lodi several people got on, among them a fat man with a prettydaughter, who appeared to be abnormally wide awake--considering the timeof night. She saw Albert for the same reason that he saw her--they wereboth young and good-looking.

  The student began his musings again, modified by this girl's face. Hehad left out the feminine element; obviously he must recapitulate. He'dstudy law, yes; but that would not prevent going to sociables and churchfairs. And at these fairs the chances were good for a meeting with agirl. Her father must be influential--county judge or district attorney.Marriage 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, envelopedin a cloud of fine snow.

  "Yes, here!" called Albert.

  "Here's a telegram for you."

  Albert snatched the envelope with a sudden fear of disaster at home; butit was dated "Tyre":

  "Get off at Tyre. I'll be there. "HARTLEY."

  "Well, now, that's fun!" said Albert, looking at the brakeman. "When dowe 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 will do the matter justice."

  "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 hesitatingway:

  "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'm no Vanderbilt. I can't afford to stop at two-dollar-a-day hotels."

  The brakeman sat down opposite, encouraged by Albert's smile.

  "Y' see, my division ends at Warsaw, and I run back and forth here everyother day, but I don't get much chance to see them, and I ain't worth acuss f'r letter-writin'. Y' see, she's only aunt by marriage, but I likeher; an' I guess she's got about all she can stand up under, an' so Ilike t' help her a little when I can. The old man died owning nothingbut 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 brakemanslammed out on the platform.

  "Tough night for twisting brakes," suggested Albert, when he came inagain.

  "Yes--on the freight."

  "Good heavens! I should say so. They don't run freight such nights asthis?"

  "Don't they? Well, I guess they don't stop for a storm like this ifthey's any money to be made by sending her through. Many's the nightI've broke all night on top of the old wooden cars, when the wind wassharp enough to shear the hair off a cast-iron mule--_woo-o-o!_ There'swhere 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. Afellow don't take that kind of a job for the fun of it. Not much! Hetakes it because he's got to. That's as sure's you're a foot high. Itell you, a feller's got t' rustle these days if he gits any kind of ajob--"

  "_Toot, too-o-o-o-t, toot!_"

  The station passed, the brakeman did not return, perhaps because hefound some other listener, perhaps because he was afraid of boring thispleasant young fellow.

  Albert shuddered with a sympathetic pain as he thought of the heroicfellows on the tops of icy cars, with hands straining at frosty brakes,the wind cutting their faces like a sand-blast. Oh, those tireless handsat the wheel and throttle!--

  He looked at his watch; it was two o'clock; the next station was Tyre.As he began to get his things together, the brakeman again addressedhim:

  "Oh, I forgot to say that the old lady's name is Welsh--Mrs. RobertWelsh. 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 tostay."

  Albert clutched his valise, and pulled his cap firmly down on his head.

  "Here goes!" he muttered.

  "Hold y'r breath!" shouted the brakeman. Albert swung himself to theplatform before the station--a platform of planks along which the snowwas streaming like water.

  "Good-night!" shouted the brakeman.

  "_Good_-night!"

  "All-l abo-o-o-ard!" called the conductor somewhere in the storm. Thebrakeman swung his lantern, the train drew off into the blinding whirl,and its lights were soon lost in the clouds of snow.

  No more desolate place could well be imagined. A level plain, apparentlybare of houses, swept by a ferocious wind; a dingy little den called astation--no other shelter in sight; no sign of life save the dull glareof 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 asked of a dimly seen figure with a lantern--aman 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' 'llfreeze t' death. I'd go over to the Arteeshun House an' go t' bed if Iwas in your fix."

  "Well, where _is_ the Artesian House?"

  "See them lights?"

  "I see them lights."

  "Well, they're it."

  "Oh, wouldn't your grammar make Old Grammaticuss curl up, though!"

  "What say?" queried the man bending his head toward Albert, his formbeing 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'ssome 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.

  In the little bar-room, lighted by a vilely smelling kerosene lamp, theclerk, hitherto a shadow and a voice, came to light as a middle-aged manwith a sullen face slightly belied by a sly twinkle in his eyes.

  "This beats all the winters I ever _did_ see. It don't do nawthin' butblow, _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 lightout 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 theman.

  "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, as he tramped along a narrow hallway. He spoke in avoice 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 onone o' the bell-collar steaks this house puts up," ended the clerk, ashe put the lamp down.

  "Sufficient unto the morn is the evil thereof,'" called Albert afterhim.

  He was awakened the next morning by the cooks pounding steak down in thekitchen and wrangling over some division of duty. It was a vile place atany time, but on a morning like this it was appalling. The water wasfrozen, the floor like ice, the seven-by-nine glass frosted so that hecouldn't see to comb his hair.

  "All that got me out of bed," he remarked to the clerk, "was the thoughtof leaving."

  The breakfast was incredibly bad--so much worse than he expected thatAlbert was forced to admit he had never seen its like. He fled from theplace without a glance behind, and took passage in an omnibus for thetown, a mile away. It was terribly cold, the thermometer registeringtwenty below zero; but the sun was very brilliant, and the air still.

  The driver pulled up before a very ambitious wooden hotel entitled "TheEldorado," and Albert dashed in at the door and up to the stove, withboth hands covering his ears.

  As he stood there, frantic with pain, kicking his toes and rubbing hishands, 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 youtelegraph me at Marion? A deuce of a night I've had of it!"

  "Do ye good," laughed Hartley, a tall, alert, handsome fellow nearlythirty years of age.

  After a short and vigorous "blowing up," Albert asked: "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 countyfor a _Life of Logan_, and thinks I, 'By jinks! I'd better drop in aheadof him with Blaine's _Twenty Tears_.' I telegraphed f'r territory, gotit, 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 are you going t' do with me?"

  "I'll use you some way. First thing is to find a boarding-place where wecan 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 abrakeman gave me a pointer on."

  "All right; here goes!"

  Scarcely any one was stirring on the streets. The wind was pitilesslycold, though not strong. The snow under their feet cried out with a notelike glass and steel. The windows of the stores were thick with frost,and Albert shivered with a sense of homelessness. He had neverexperienced anything like this before. "I don't want much of this," hemuttered, through his scarf.

  Mrs. Welsh lived in a large frame house standing on the edge of a bank,and as the young men waited at the door they could look down on themeadow-land, where the river lay blue and hard as steel.

  A pale little girl, ten or twelve years of age, opened the door.<
br />
  "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 come in and sit down by thefire?" she added, with a quaint air of hospitality.

  The room was the usual village sitting-room. A cylinder heater full ofwood stood at one side of it. A rag carpet, much faded, covered thefloor. The paper on the wall was like striped candy, and the chairs werenondescript; but everything was clean--worn more with brushing than withuse.

  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, andlooking 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 uspeople. Why, yes; I've got room for you, I guess--this room here." Shepushed 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 ortwo if we have luck."

  Mrs. Welsh smiled. "Excuse me, won't you? I've got to be at my baking;make y'rselves at home."

  Bert remarked how much she looked like his own mother in the back. Shehad the same tired droop in the shoulders, the same colorless dress,characterless with much washing.

  "Certainly. I feel at home already," replied Bert. "Now, Jim," he said,after she left the room, "I'm going t' stay right here while you go andorder our trunks around--just t' pay you off f'r last night."

  "All right," said Hartley cheerily, going out.

  After getting warm, Bert returned to the sitting-room, and sat down atthe parlor organ and played a gospel hymn or two from the Moody andSankey hymnal. He was in the midst of the chorus of _Let Your LowerLights_, etc., when a young woman entered the room. She had awhisk-broom in her hand, and stood a picture of gentle surprise. Bertwheeled about on his stool.

  "I thought it was Stella," she began.

  "I'm a book agent," Bert explained. "I might as well out with it. Thereare two of us. Come here to board."

  "Oh!" said the girl, with some relief. She was very fair and veryslight, almost frail. Her eyes were of the sunniest blue, her face paleand 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 I _was_ surprised. When did you come?"

  "Just a few moments ago. Am I in your way?" he inquired, with elaboratesolicitude.

  "Oh no! Please go on. You play very well. It is seldom young men play atall."

  "I had to at college; the other fellows all wanted to sing. You play, ofcourse."

  "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 Madison, I suppose?"

  "Yes; I'm in my second year."

  "I went there two years. Then I had to quit and come home to helpmother."

  "Did you? That's why I'm out here on this infernal book business--to getmoney to go on with."

  She looked at him with interest now, noticing his fine eyes and wavingbrown hair.

  "It's dreadful, isn't it? But you've got a hope to go back. I haven't."She ended with a sigh, a far-off expression in her eyes. "It almostkilled me to give it up. I don't s'pose I'd know any of the scholarsyou know. Even the teachers are not the same. Oh, yes--Sarah Shaw; Ithink 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 needsme at home." There was another pause, broken by the little girl, whocalled:

  "Maud, mamma wants you."

  Maud rose and went out, with a tired smile on her face that emphasizedher resemblance to her mother. Bert couldn't forget that smile, and hewas still thinking about the girl, and what her life must be, whenHartley came in.

  "By jinks! It's _snifty_, as dad used to say. You can't draw a longbreath through your nostrils without freezing y'r nose solid as abottle," he announced, throwing off his coat. "By-the-way, I've justfound out why you was so anxious to get into this house. Another case o'girl, hey?"

  Bert blushed; he couldn't help it, notwithstanding his innocence in thiscase. "I didn't know it myself till about ten minutes ago," heprotested.

  Hartley winked prodigiously.

  "Don't tell me! Is she pretty?"

  The girl returned at this moment with an armful of wood.

  "Let _me_ put it in," cried Hartley, springing up. "Excuse me. My nameis Hartley, book agent: Blaine's _Twenty Years_, plain cloth, sprinklededges, 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 theparlor. Hartley followed her in, and Bert could hear them rattling awayat the stove.

  "Won't you sit down and play for us?" asked Hartley, after they returnedto the sitting-room. The persuasive music of the book agent was in hisfine 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 doorleading to the kitchen; "if you want anything, just let me know."

  "All right. We will," replied Hartley.

  By the time the dinner-bell rang they were feeling at home in their newquarters. At the table they met the usual group of village boarders: theBrann brothers, newsdealers; old man Troutt, who ran thelivery-stable--and smelled of it; and a small, dark, and wizened womanwho kept the millinery store. The others, who came in late, were clerksin the stores near by.

  Maud served the dinner, while Stella and her mother waited upon thetable. Albert admired the hands of the girl, which no amount of workcould quite rob of their essential shapeliness. She was not more thantwenty, he decided, but she looked older, so wistful was her face.

  "They's one thing ag'in' yeh," Troutt, the liveryman, remarked toHartley: "we've jest been worked for one o' the goldingedest schemes you_ever_ see! 'Bout six munce ago s'm' fellers come all through hereclaimin' t' be after information about the county and the leadin'citizens; wanted t' write a history, an' wanted all the pitchers of theleading men, old settlers, an' so on. You paid ten dollars, an' you hada 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. Idon'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 youever see a madder lot o' men in your life. In the first place, they gotthe names and the pitchers mixed so that I was Judge Ricker, an' JudgeRicker 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 goldinged _black_ you couldn'ttell 'em from niggers. You know how kind o' lily-livered Lawyer Ransomis? Wal, he looked like ol' black Joe; he was the maddest man of thehull bi'lin'. He throwed the book in the fire, and tromped around like ablind 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 bookstheirselves; they hired Dick Bascom to do it f'r them. 'Course, Dickwa'n't t' blame."

  "No; I never tried it before," Albert was saying to Maud, at their endof the table. "Hartley offered me a job, and as I needed money, I came.I don't know 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. Hehad brought
his books with him, planning to keep up with his class, ifpossible, and was deep in "Caesar" when a timid knock came upon the door.

  "Come!" he called, student fashion,

  Maud entered, her face aglow.

  "How natural that sounds!" she said.

  Albert sprang up to take the wood from her arms. "I wish you'd let me dothat," he said, pleadingly, as she refused his aid.

  "I wasn't sure you were in. Were you reading?"

  "Caesar," 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 these _oratia obliqua_. They bother meyet. I hate these 'Caesar saids.' I like Vergil better."

  She stood at his shoulder while he pointed out the knotty passage. Sheread it easily, and he thanked her. It was amazing how well acquaintedthey felt after this.

  The wind roared outside in the bare maples, and the fire boomed in itspent place within, but these young people had forgotten time and place.The girl sank into a chair almost unconsciously as they talked ofMadison--a great city to them--of the Capitol building, of the splendidcampus, of the lakes, and the gay sailing there in summer andice-boating in winter.

  "Oh, it makes me homesick!" cried the girl, with a deep sigh. "It wasthe happiest, sunniest time of all my life. Oh, those walks and talks!Those recitations in the dear, chalky old rooms! Oh, _how_ I would liketo go back over that hollow door-stone again!"

  She broke off, with tears in her eyes, and he was obliged to cough twoor three times before he could break the silence.

  "I know just how you feel. The first spring when I went back on the farmit seemed as if I couldn't stand it. I thought I'd go crazy. The daysseemed forty-eight hours long. It was so lonesome, and so dreary onrainy 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?" he asked, deeply affected by her voice andmanner.

  "I did teach here for a year, but I couldn't endure the strain; I'm notvery strong, and the boys were so rude. If I could teach in aseminary--teach Latin and English--I should be happy, I think. But Ican't leave mother now."

  She was a wholly different girl in Albert's eyes as she said this. Hercheap dress, her check apron, could not hide the pure intellectual flameof her spirit. Her large, blue eyes were deep with thought, and the paleface, lighted by the glow of the fire, was as lovely as a rose. Almostbefore 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 wasnothing but work, work, and dust or mud the whole year round; farm-life,especially on a dairy farm, is slavery."

  "Yes," she agreed, "that is true. Father was a carpenter, and I'vealways lived here; but we have people who are farmers, and I know how itis with them."

  "Why, when I think of it now it makes me crawl! To think of getting upin 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 ondirt. Waiting and tending on cows seven hundred times a year. Goin'round and round in a circle, and never getting out. You needn't talk tome of the poetry of a farmer's life."

  "It's just the same for us women," she corroborated. "Think of us goingaround the house day after day, and doing just the same things over an'over, year after year! That's the whole of most women's lives.Dishwashing almost drives me crazy."

  "I know it," said Albert; "but somebody has t' do it. And if a fellow'sfolks 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."

  "I don't suppose anybody is, but it makes me sad to see mother goingaround as she does, day after day. She won't let me do as much as Iwould." The girl looked at her slender hands. "You see, I'm not verystrong. 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 girlcontinued in a low, hesitating voice:

  "Mother's had an awful hard time since father died. We had to go tokeeping boarders, which was hard--very hard for mother." The boy felt asympathetic lump in his throat as the girl went on again: "But shedoesn't complain, and she didn't want me to come home from school; butof course I couldn't do anything else."

  It didn't occur to either of them that any other course was open, northat there was any special heroism or self-sacrifice in the act; it wassimply _right_.

  "Well, I'm not going to drudge all my life," said Albert, at last. "Iknow it's kind o' selfish, but I can't live on a farm. I've made up mymind to study law and enter the bar. Lawyers manage to get hold ofenough to live on decently, and that's more than you can say of thefarmers. And they live in town, where something is going on once in awhile, 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 usualbreeze.

  "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 upto the court-house and roped in three of the county officials. In thesesmall towns the big man is the politician or the clergyman. I've nailedthe politicians through the ear; now you must go for the ministers tohead the list--that's your lay-out."

  "How 'm I t' do it?" asked Bert, in an anxious tone. "I can't sell booksif they don't want 'em."

  "Why, cert! That's the trick. Offer a big discount. Say full calf, twofifty; 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 ofthese leaders of the flock, the rest will follow like lambs to theslaughter. Tra-la-la--who-o-o-_ish_, whish!"

  Albert laughed at Hartley as he plunged his face into the ice-coldwater, puffing and wheezing.

  "Jeemimy Crickets! but ain't that water cold! I worked Rock River thisway last month, and made a boomin' success. If you take hold here inthe--"

  "Oh, I'm all ready to stand anything short of being kicked out."

  "No danger of that if you're a real book agent. It's the snide that getskicked. You've got t' have some savvy in this, just like any otherbusiness." He stopped in his dressing to say, "We've struck a greatboarding-place, hey?"

  "Looks like it."

  "I begin t' cotton to the old lady a'ready. Good 'eal like mother usedt' be 'fore she broke down. Didn't the old lady have a time of itraisin' me? Phewee! Patient! Job wasn't a patchin'. But the test isgoin' t' come on the biscuit; if her biscuit comes up t' mother's I'mhern till death."

  He broke off to comb his hair, a very nice bit of work in his case.

  II

  There was no discernible reason why the little town should have beencalled Tyre, and yet its name was as characteristically American as itsarchitecture. It had the usual main street lined with low brick orwooden stores--a street which developed into a road running back up awide, sandy valley away from the river. Being a county town, it had acourt-house in a yard near the centre of the town, and a big summerhotel. Curiously shaped and oddly distributed hills rose abruptly out ofthe valley sand, forming a sort of amphitheatre in which the villagelay. These square-topped hills ended at a common level, showing thatthey were not the result of an upheaval, but were the remains of theoriginal stratification formations left standing after the scoopingaction of the post-glacial floods had ceased.

  Some of them looked like ruined walls of castles ancient as hills, onwhose massive tops time had sown sturdy oaks and cedars. They lent adistinct air of romance to the landscape at all
times; but when insummer graceful vines clambered over their rugged sides, and underbrushsoftened their broken lines, it was not at all difficult to imagine themthe remains of an unrecorded and very war-like people.

  Even now, in winter, with yellow-brown and green cedars standing starklyupon their summits, these towers possessed a distinct charm, and in theearly morning when the trees glistened with frost, or at evening whenthe white light of the sun was softened and violet shadows lay along thesnow, the whole valley was a delight to the eye, full of distinct andlasting charm.

  In the campaign which Hartley began, Albert did his best, and his bestwas done unconsciously; for the simplicity of his manner--all unknown tohimself--was the most potent factor in securing consideration.

  "I'm not a book agent," he said to one of the clergymen to whom he firstappealed; "I'm a student trying to sell a good book and make a littlemoney to help me to complete my course at the university."

  In this way he secured three clergymen to head the list, much to thedelight and admiration of Hartley.

  "Good! Now corral the alumni of the place. Work the fraternal racket tothe bitter end. Oh, say! there's a sociable to-morrow night; I guesswe'd better go, hadn't we?"

  "Go alone?"

  "Alone? No! Take some girls. I'm going to take neighbor Pickett'sdaughter; she's homely as a hedge fence, but I'll take her for businessreasons."

  "Hartley, you're an infernal fraud!"

  "Nothing of the kind--I'm a salesman," ended Hartley, with a laugh.

  After supper the following day, as Albert was still lingering at thetable with the girls and Mrs. Welsh, he said to Maud:

  "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 eveningunder my guidance and protection?"

  "Yes, thank you; but I must wash the dishes first."

  "I'll wash the dishes; you go get ready," said Mrs. Welsh.

  Albert felt that he had one of the loveliest girls in the room as he ledMaud down the floor of the vestry of the church. Her cheeks wereglowing, and her eyes shining with maidenly delight as they took seatsat the table to sip a little coffee and nibble a bit of cake.

  Maud introduced him to a number of young people who had been students atthe university. They received him cordially, and in a very short time hewas enjoying himself very well indeed. He was reminded ratherdisagreeably of his office, however, by seeing Hartley surrounded by alaughing 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 wasnearly eleven o'clock when the young people began to wander off towardhome in pairs. Albert and Maud were among the first of the young folksto bid the rest good-night.

  The night was clear and keen but perfectly still, and the young people,arm in arm, walked slowly homeward under the bare maples, in deliciouscompanionship. Albert held Maud's 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 asigh, "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, notheatres. I like theatres, don't you?"

  "I can't go half enough."

  "But nothing worth seeing ever comes into these little towns--and thenwe're all so poor, anyway."

  The lamp, turned low, was emitting a terrible odor as they entered thesitting-room.

  "My goodness! it's almost twelve o'clock! Good-night!" She held out herhand.

  "Good-night!" he said, taking it, and giving it a cordial pressure whichshe remembered long.

  "Good-night!" she repeated, softly, going up the stairs.

  Hartley, who came in a few minutes later, found his partner sittingthoughtfully by the fire, with his coat and shoes off, evidently in deepabstraction.

  "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 likethe way you speak of her when--"

  "Phew! You don't? Oh, all right! I'm mum as an oyster--only keep it up!Get into all the church sociables you can; there's nothing like it."

  * * * * *

  Hartley soon had canvassers out along the country roads, and was workingevery house in town. The campaign promised to lengthen into amonth--perhaps longer. Albert especially became a great favorite. Everyone declared there had never been such book agents in the town. "They'resuch gentlemanly fellows. They don't press anybody to buy. They don'trush about and 'poke their noses where they're not wanted.' They aremore like merchants with books to sell." The only person who failed tosee the attraction in them was Ed Brann, who was popularly supposed tobe engaged to Maud. He grew daily more sullen and repellent, towardAlbert 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 aparty, and slumber came almost instantly.

  Maud came in shortly, hearing no response to her knock, and afterhanging some towels on the rack went out without seeing the sleeper. Inthe sitting-room she met Ed Brann. He was a stalwart young man withcurling black hair, and a heavy face at its best, but set and sullennow. 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'clockwith 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 girlturned pale and her breath quickened.

  "Why, Ed, what's the matter?"

  "Matter is just this: you ain't got any business goin' around with thatfeller with my ring on your finger, that's all." He ended with anunmistakable threat in his voice.

  "Very well," said the girl, after a pause, curiously quiet; "then Iwon't; here's your ring."

  The man's bluster disappeared instantly. Bert could tell by the changein 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'msorry."

  "I'm _glad_ you did it _now_, so I can know you. Take your ring, Ed; Inever 'll wear it again."

  Albert had heard all this, but he did not know how the girl looked asshe faced the man. In the silence which followed she scornfully passedhim and went out into the kitchen. Brann went out and did not return atsupper.

  Young people of this sort are not self-analysts, and Maud did notexamine closely into causes. She was astonished to find herself moreindignant than grieved. She broke into an angry wail as she went to hermother'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 quarrelling again? Never mind;it'll come out all right."

  "No, it won't--not the way you mean," the girl declared. "I've given himback his ring, and I'll never wear it again."

  The mother could not understand with what wounding brutality the man'stone had fallen upon the girl's spirit, and Maud could not explainsufficiently to justify herself. Mrs. Welsh consoled herself with theidea that it was only a lover's quarrel--one of the little jars sure tocome when two natures are settling together--and that all would bemended in a day or two.

&nbs
p; Albert, being no more of a self-analyst than Maud, simply said, "Servedhim right," and dwelt no more upon it for the time.

  At supper, however, he was extravagantly gay, and to himselfunaccountably so. He joked Troutt till Maud begged him to stop, andafter the rest had gone he remained seated at the table, enjoying theindignant color in her face and the flash of her infrequent smile, whichit was such a pleasure to provoke. He volunteered to help wash thedishes.

  "Thank you, but I'm afraid you'd be more bother than help," she replied.

  "Thank _you_, but you don't know me. I ain't so green as I look by nomanner o' means. I've been doing my own housekeeping for four terms."

  "I know all about that," laughed the girl. "You young men rooming doprecious little cooking and no dish-washing at all."

  "That's a base calumny! I made it a point to wash every dish in thehouse, 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 useit."

  "Oh, horrors!--Mother, listen to that!"

  "Why, what more could you ask? You wouldn't have me wipe it _six_ timesa 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 into the kitchen, where Maud stoodwith her sleeves rolled up, deep in the dishpan.

  "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. Go on. The air will do you good."

  "W'y, Maud!" said the little girl, "you said you didn't want to whenEd--"

  Mrs. Welsh silenced her, and said:

  "Run right along, dear; it's just the nicest time o' day. Are there manyteams out?"

  "They're just beginning to come out," said Albert. "I'll have a cutteraround here in about two jiffies; be on hand, sure."

  Troutt was standing in the sunny doorway of his stable when the youngfellow dashed up to him.

  "Hullo, Uncle Troutt! Harness your fastest nag into your swellest outfitinstanter."

  "Aha! Goin' t' take y'r girl out, hey?"

  "Yes; and I want to do it in style."

  "I guess ol' Dan's the horse for you. Gentle as a kitten and as knowin'as a fox. Drive him with one hand--left hand." The old man laughed tillhis long, faded beard flapped up and down and quivered with the stressof his enjoyment of his joke. He ended by hitching a vicious-lookingsorrel 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 thereins, but don't drop 'em."

  "Don't you worry about me; I grew up with horses," said theover-confident youth, leaping into the sleigh and gathering up thelines. "Stand aside, my lord, and let the cortege pass. Hoop-la!"

  The brute gave a tearing lunge, and was out of the doorway before theold man could utter another word. Albert thrilled with pleasure as hefelt the reins stiffen in his hands, and saw the traces swing slackbeside the thills.

  "If he keeps this up he'll do," he said aloud.

  As he turned up at the gate Maud came gayly down the path, muffled tothe eyes.

  "Oh, what a nice cutter! But the horse--is he gentle?" she asked, as sheclimbed in.

  "As a cow," Albert replied.--"Git out o' this, Bones!"

  The main street was already filled with wood sleighs, bob-sleds filledwith children, and men in light cutters, out for a race. Laughter was onthe air, and the jingle-jangle of bells. The sun was dazzling in itsbrightness, and the gay wraps and scarfs lighted up the scene withflecks of color. Loafers on the sidewalks fired familiar phrases at theteams as they passed:

  "Step up, Bones!"

  "Let 'er _go_, Gallagher!"

  "Get there, Eli," and the like.

  But what cared the drivers? If the shouts were insolent they laid themto envy, and if they were pleasant they smiled in reply.

  Albert and Maud had made two easy turns up and down the street when aman driving a span of large Black Hawk horses dashed up a side streetand whirled in just before them. The man was a superb driver, and satwith the reins held carelessly but securely in his left hand, guidingthe team more by his voice than by the bit.

  "_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."

  "Something _is_ sure to happen; I'm goin' to pass him if old Bones hasany _git_ to him."

  "It'll make him mad."

  "Who mad? Brann?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, s'pose it does, who cares?"

  There were a dozen similar rigs moving up or down the street, andgreetings passed from sleigh to sleigh. Everybody except Brann welcomedAlbert with sincere pleasure, and exchanged rustic jokes with him. Asthey slowed up at the upper end of the street and began to turn, a manon the sidewalk said, confidentially:

  "Say, cap', if you handle that old rack o' bones just right, he'lldistance anything on this road. When you want him to do his best let himhave 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 greatred mouth open, his ears laid back. Brann and the young doctor of theplace were turning together, a little farther up the street. The blacks,responding to their driver's word, came down with flying hoofs, theirgreat glossy breasts flecked with foam, their jaws champing.

  "Come on, crow-bait!" yelled Brann, insultingly, as he came down pastthe doctor, and seemed about to pass Albert and Maud. There was hate inthe glare of his eyes.

  But he did not pass. The old sorrel seemed to lengthen; to thespectators his nose appeared to be glued to the glossy side of Brann'soff 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 shewas far from doing her best. There was a wild light in her eyes.

  These were the fast teams of the town. All interest was centred 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 ashe could for the flung snowballs, the doctor's mare draw slowly, foot byfoot, past the blacks. Suddenly Brann gave a shrill yell and stood up inhis sleigh. The gallant little bay broke and fell behind; Brann laughed,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, remembering what the fellow had said, let the reins loose. Theold sorrel's teeth came together with a snap; his head lowered and histail rose; he shot abreast of the blacks. Maud, frightened into silence,covered her head with the robe to escape the flying snow. The sorreldrew steadily ahead and was passing the blacks when Brann turned.

  "Durn y'r old horse!" he yelled through his shut teeth, and laid thewhip across the sorrel's hips. The blacks broke wildly, but, strange tosay, the old sorrel increased his speed. Again Brann struck, but thelash fell on Bert's outstretched wrists. He did not see that the blackswere crowding him to the gutter, but he heard a warning cry.

  "Look _out_, there!"

  Before he could turn to look, the
cutter seemed to be blown up by abomb. He rose in the air like a vaulter, and when he fell the light wentout.

  The next that he heard was a curious soft murmur of voices, out of whicha sweet, agonized girl-voice broke:

  "Oh, where's the doctor? He's dead--oh, he's dead! _Can't_ you hurry?"

  Next came a quick, authoritative voice, still far away, and a hushfollowed it; then an imperative order:

  "Stand out o' the way! What do you think you can do by crowding on topof him?"

  "Stand back! stand back!" other voices called.

  Then he felt something cold on his scalp: they were taking his cap offand putting snow on his head; then the doctor--he knew him now--said:

  "Let me take him!"

  A dull, throbbing ache came into his head, and as this grew the noise ofvoices became more distinct, and he could hear sobbing. Then he openedhis lids, but the glare of the sunlight struck them shut again; he sawonly Maud's face, agonized, white, and wet with tears, looking down intohis.

  They raised him a little more, and he again opened his eyes on thecircle of hushed and excited men thronging about him. He saw Brann, withwild, scared face, standing in his cutter and peering over the heads ofthe 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 whisperedslowly, "Yes; I guess--I'm all--right."

  "Put him into my cutter; Maud, get in here, too," the doctor commanded.The crowd opened as the doctor and Troutt helped the wounded man intothe sleigh. The pain in his head grew worse, but Albert's perception ofthings sharpened in proportion; he closed his eyes to the sun, but inthe shadow of Maud's breast opened them again and looked up at her. Hefelt a vague, child-like pleasure in knowing that she was holding him inher arms; he thought of his mother--"how it would frighten her if sheknew."

  "Hello!" called a breathless, hearty voice, "what the deuce y' beendoing with my pardner? Bert, old fellow, are you there?" Hartley asked,clinging to the edge of the moving cutter, and peering into his friend'sface. Albert smiled.

  "I'm here--what there is left of me," he replied, faintly.

  "Glory! How did 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 groaned, and tried to rise, but the girl gently yet firmlyrestrained him. Hartley was walking beside the doctor, talking loudly."It was a devilish thing to do; the scoundrel ought to be jugged!"

  Albert tried again to rise. "I'm bleeding yet; I'm soaking you; let meget up!"

  The girl shuddered, but remained firm.

  "No; we're 'most home."

  She felt no shame, but a certain exaltation as she looked into the facesabout her. She gazed unrecognizingly upon her nearest girl friends, andthey, gazing upon her white face and unresponsive eyes, spoke in awedwhispers.

  At the gate the crowd gathered and waited with deepest interest. It wasenthralling romance to them.

  "Ed Brann done it," said one.

  "How?" asked another.

  "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 himout of the sleigh.

  "Goodness sakes alive! Ain't it terrible! How is he?" asked an old lady,peering at him as he passed.

  On the porch stood Mrs. Welsh, supported by Ed Brann.

  "She's all right, I tell you. He ain't hurt much, either; just stunned alittle, that's all."

  "Maud! child!" cried the mother, as Maud appeared, followed by a bevy ofgirls.

  "_I'm_ all right, mother," she said, running into the trembling armsoutstretched toward her; "but, oh, poor Albert!"

  After the wounded man disappeared into the house the crowd dispersed.Brann went off by the way of the alley; he was not prepared to meet thequestions of his accusers.

  "Now, what in ---- you been up to?" was the greeting of his brother, ashe re-entered the shop.

  "Nothing."

  "Welting a man on the head with a whip-stock ain't anything, hey?"

  "I didn't touch him. We was racing, and he run into the culvert."

  "Hank says he saw you strike him."

  "He lies! I was strikin' the horse to make him break!"

  "Oh, yeh was!" sneered the older man. "Well, I hope you understand thatthis'll ruin you in this town. If you didn't strike him, they'll say yourun him into the culvert, 'n' every man, woman, 'n' child'll be down onyou, and _me_ f'r bein' related to you. They all know how you feeltoward him for cuttin' you out with Maud Welsh."

  "Oh, don't bear down on him too hard, Joe. He didn't mean t' do anyharm," said Troutt, who had followed Ed down to the store. "I guess theyoung feller 'll come out all right. Just go kind o' easy till we seehow he turns out. If he dies, why, it'll haf t' be looked into."

  Ed turned pale and swallowed hastily. "If he should die I'll be amurderer," he thought. He acknowledged that hate was in his heart, andhe shivered as he remembered the man's white face with the bright redstream flowing down behind his ear and over his cheek. It almost seemedto him that he _had_ struck him, so close had the accident followed uponthe fall of his whip.

  III

  Albert sank into a feverish sleep that night, with a vague perception offour figures in the room--Maud, her mother, Hartley, and the youngdoctor. When he awoke fully in the morning his head felt prodigiouslyhot and heavy.

  It was early dawn, and the lamp was burning brightly. Outside, a man'sfeet could be heard on the squealing snow--a sound which told how stilland cold it was. A team passed with a jingle of bells.

  Albert raised his head and looked about. Hartley was lying on the sofa,rolled up in his overcoat and some extra quilts. He had lain down atlast, worn with watching. Albert felt a little weak, and fell back onhis pillow, thinking about the strange night he had passed--a night morefilled with strange happenings than the afternoon.

  As the light grew in the room his mind cleared, and lifting his musculararm he opened and shut his hand, saying aloud, in his old boyish manner:

  "I guess I'm all here."

  "What's that?" called Hartley, rolling out of bed. "Did you ask foranything?"

  "Give me some water, Jim; my mouth is dry as a powder-mill."

  "How yeh feelin', anyway, pardner?" said Hartley, as he brought thewater.

  "First-rate, Jim; I guess I'll be all right."

  "Well, I guess you'd better keep quiet."

  He threw on his coat next, and went out into the kitchen, returning soonwith some hot water, with which he began to bathe his partner's face andhands as tenderly as a woman.

  "There; now I guess you're in shape f'r grub--feel any like grub?--Comein," he called, in answer to a knock on the door.

  Mrs. Welsh entered.

  "How is he?" she whispered, anxiously.

  "Oh, I'm all right," replied Albert.

  "I'm glad to find you so much better," she said, going to his bedside."I've hardly slep', I was so much worried about you. Your breakfast isready, Mr. Hartley. I've got something special for Albert."

  A few minutes later Maud entered with a platter, followed closely by hermother.

  The girl came forward timidly, but when Albert turned his eyes on herand called, cheerily, "Good morning!" she flamed out in rosy color andrecoiled. She had expected to see him pale, dull-eyed, and with a weakvoice, but there was little to indicate invalidism in his firm greeting.She gave place to Mrs. Welsh, who prepared his breakfast. She wassmitten dumb by his tone, and hardly dared look at him as he sat proppedup in bed.

  However, though he was feeling absurdly well, there was a good
deal ofbravado in his tone and manner, for he ate but little, and soon sankback on the bed.

  "I feel better when my head is low," he explained, in a faint voice.

  "Can't I do something?" asked the girl, her courage reviving as sheperceived how ill and faint he really was.

  "I guess you better write to his folks," said Mrs. Welsh.

  "No, don't do that," he protested, opening his eyes; "it will only worrythem, and do me no good. I'll be all right in a few days. You needn'twaste your time on me; Hartley will wait on me."

  "Don't mind him," said Mrs. Welsh. "I'm his mother now, and he's goin'to do just as I tell him to--aren't you, Albert?"

  He dropped his eyelids in assent, and went off into a doze. It was allvery pleasant to be thus waited upon. Hartley was devotion itself, andthe doctor removed his bandages with the care and deliberation of a manwith a moderate practice; besides, he considered Albert a personalfriend.

  Hartley, after the doctor had gone, said with some hesitation:

  "Well, now, pard, I _ought_ to go out and see a couple o' fellows Ipromised t' meet this morning."

  "All right, Jim; all right. You go right ahead on business; I'm goin' t'sleep, anyway, and I'll be all right in a day or two."

  "Well, I will; but I'll run in every hour 'r two and see if you don'twant something. You're in good hands, anyway, when I'm gone."

  * * * * *

  "Won't you read to me?" pleaded Albert, one afternoon, when Maud came inwith her mother to brush up the room. "It's getting rather slow businesslayin' here like this."

  "Shall I, mother?"

  "Why, of course, Maud."

  So Maud got a book, and sat down over by the stove, quite distant fromthe bed, and read to him from _The Lady of the Lake_, while the mother,like a piece of tireless machinery, moved about the house at thenever-ending succession of petty drudgeries which wear the heart andsoul out of so many wives and mothers, making life to them a pilgrimagefrom stove to pantry, from pantry to cellar, and from cellar togarret--a life that deadens and destroys, coarsens and narrows, till theflesh and bones are warped to the expression of the wronged and cheatedsoul.

  Albert's selfishness was in a way excusable. He enjoyed beyond measurethe sound of the girl's soft voice and the sight of her graceful headbent over the page. He lay, looking and listening dreamily, till thevoice and the sunlit head were lost in a deep, sweet sleep.

  The girl sat with closed book, looking at his face as he slept. It was acurious study to her, a young man--_this_ young man, asleep. His brownlashes lay on his cheek as placid as those of a child. As she looked shegained courage to go over softly and peer down on him. How boyish heseemed! How little to be feared! A boy outside uttered a shout, and shehurried away, pale and breathless. As she paused in the door and lookedback at the undisturbed sleeper, she smiled, and the pink came back intoher thin face.

  Albert's superb young blood began to assert itself, and on the afternoonof the fifth day he was able to sit in his rocking-chair before the fireand read a little, though he professed that his eyes were not strong, inorder that Maud should read for him. This she did as often as she couldleave her other work, which was "not half often enough," the invalidgrumbled.

  "More than you deserve," she found courage to say.

  Hartley let nothing interfere with the book business. "You take iteasy," he repeated. "Don't you worry--your pay goes on just the same.You're doing well right where you are. By jinks! biggest piece o' luck,"he went on, half in earnest. "Why, I can't turn around without taking anorder--fact! Turned in a book on the livery bill, so that's all fixed.We'll make a clear hundred dollars out o' that little bump o' yours."

  "Little bump! Say, now, that's--"

  "Keep it up--put it on! Don't hurry about getting well. I don't need youto canvass, and I guess you enjoy being waited on." He ended with a slywink and cough.

  Yes, convalescence was delicious, with Maud reading to him, bringing hisfood, and singing for him; all that marred his peace was the stream ofpeople who came to inquire how he was getting along. The sympathy waslargely genuine, as Hartley could attest, but it bored the invalid. Hehad rather be left in quiet with Walter Scott and Maud. In the light ofcommon day the accident was hurrying to be a dream.

  At the end of a week he was quite himself again, though he still haddifficulty in wearing his hat. It was not till the second Sunday afterthe accident that he appeared in the dining-room for the first time,with a large travelling-cap concealing the suggestive bandages. Helooked pale and thin, but his eyes danced with joy.

  Maud's eyes dilated with instant solicitude. The rest sprang up insurprise, with shouts of delight, as hearty as brethren.

  "Ginger! I'm glad t' see yeh!" said Troutt, so sincerely that he lookedalmost winning to the boy. The rest crowded around, shaking hands.

  "Oh, I'm on deck again."

  Ed Brann came in a moment later with his brother, and there was asignificant little pause--a pause which grew painful till Albert turnedand saw Brann, and called out:

  "Hello, Ed! How are you? Didn't know you were here."

  As he held out his hand, Brann, his face purple with shame andembarrassment, lumbered heavily across the room and took it, mutteringsome poor apology.

  "Hope y' don't blame me."

  "Of course not--fortunes o' war. Nobody to blame; just mycarelessness.--Yes; I'll take turkey," he said to Maud, as he sank intothe seat of honor.

  The rest laughed, but Brann remained standing near Albert's chair. Hehad not finished yet.

  "I'm mighty glad you don't lay it up against me, Lohr; an' I want to saythe doctor's bill is all right; you un'erstand, it's _all right_."

  Albert looked at him a moment in surprise. He understood that this,coming from a man like Brann, meant more than a thousand prayers from aready apologist. It was a terrible victory, and he was disposed to makeit as easy for his rival as he could.

  "Oh, all right, Ed; only I'd calculated to cheat him out o' part ofit--I'd planned to turn in a couple o' Blaine's _Twenty Years_ on thebill."

  Hartley roared, and the rest joined in, but not even Albert perceivedall that it meant. It meant that the young savage had surrendered hisclaim in favor of the man he had all but killed. The struggle had beenprodigious, but he had snatched victory out of defeat; his better naturehad conquered.

  No one ever gave him credit for it; and when he went West in the spring,people said his passion for Maud had been superficial. In truth, he hadloved the girl as sincerely as he had hated his rival. That he couldrise out of the barbaric in his love and his hate was heroic.

  When Albert went to ride again, it was on melting snow, with the slowesthorse Troutt had. Maud was happier than she had been since she leftschool, and fuller of color and singing. She dared not let a goldenmoment pass now without hearing it ring full, and she dared not thinkhow short this day of happiness might be.

  IV

  At the end of the fifth week of their stay in Tyre a suspicion of springwas in the wind as it swept the southern exposure of the valley. Marchwas drawing to a close, and there was more than a suggestion of April inthe rapidly melting snow which still lay on the hills and under thecedars and tamaracks in the swamps. Patches of green grass, appearing onthe sunny side of the road where the snow had melted, led to predictionsof spring from the loafers beginning to sun themselves on thesalt-barrels and shoe-boxes outside the stores.

  A group sitting about the blacksmith shop were discussing it.

  "It's an early seedin'--now mark my words," said Troutt, as he threw hisknife into the soft ground at his feet. "The sun is crossing the lineearlier this spring than it did last."

  "Yes; an' I heard a crow to-day makin' that kind of a--a spring noisethat sort o'--I d' know what--kind o' goes all through a feller."

  "And there's Uncle Sweeney, an' that settles it; spring's comin' sure!"said Troutt, pointing at an old man, much bent, hobbling down thestreet. "When _he_ gits out the frogs ain't fur behind."

 
; "We'll be gittin' on to the ground by next Monday," said Sam Dingley toa crowd who were seated on the newly painted harrows and seeders whichSvend & Johnson had got out ready for the spring trade. "Svend &Johnson's Agricultural Implement Depot" was on the north side of thestreet, and on a spring day the yard was one of the pleasantestloafing-places that could be imagined, especially if one wished company.

  Albert wished to be alone. Something in the touch and tone of thisspring afternoon made him restless and inclined to strange thoughts. Hetook his way out along the road which followed the river-bank, and inthe outskirts of the village threw himself down on a bank of grass whichthe snows had protected, and which had already a tinge of green becauseof its wealth of sun.

  The willows had thrown out their tiny light-green flags, though theirroots were under the ice, and some of the hardwood twigs were tingedwith red. There was a faint but magical odor of uncovered earth in theair, and the touch of the wind was like a caress from a moist, magnetichand.

  The boy absorbed the light and heat of the sun as some wild thing might.With his hat over his face, his hands folded on his breast, he lay asstill as a statue. He did not listen at first, he only felt; but atlength he rose on his elbow and listened. The ice cracked and fell alongthe bank with a long, hollow, booming crash; a crow cawed, and a jayanswered it from the willows below. A flight of sparrows passed,twittering innumerably. The boy shuddered with a strange, wistfullonging, and a realization of the flight of time.

  He could have wept, he could have sung, but he only shuddered and laysilent under the stress of that strange, sweet passion which quickenedhis heart, deepened his eyes, and made his breath come and go with aquivering sound. Across the dazzling blue arch of the sky the crowflapped, sending down his prophetic, jubilant note; the breeze, as softand sweet as April, stirred in his hair; the hills, deep in their duskyblue, seemed miles away; and the voices of the care-free skaters on themelting ice of the river below came to the ear subdued to a unity withthe scene.

  Suddenly a fear seized upon the boy--a horror! Life, life was passing!Life that can be lived only once, and lost, is lost forever! Life, thatfatal gift of the Invisible Powers to man--a path, with youth and joyand hope at its eastern gate, and despair, regret, and death at its lowwestern portal!

  The boy caught a momentary glimpse of his real significance. "I am onlya gnat, a speck in the sun, a youth facing the millions of great andwise and wealthy!" He leaped up in a frenzy. "Oh, I mustn't stay here! Imust get back to my studies. Life is slipping by me, and I am doingnothing, being nothing!"

  His face, as pale as death, shone with passionate resolution, and hishands were clinched in silent vow.

  But on his way back he met the jocund party of skaters going home fromthe river, and with the easy shift and change of youth joined in theirringing laughter. The weird power of the wind's voice was gone, and hesank to the level of the unthinking boy again. However, the problem wasonly put off, not solved.

  That night Hartley said: "Well, pardner, we're getting 'most ready topull out. Someways I always get restless when these warm days begin."This was as sentimental as Hartley ever got; or, if he ever felt moresentiment, he concealed it carefully.

  "I s'pose it must 'a' been in spring that those old chaps, on theirsteeds and in their steel shirts, started out for to rescue some damsel,hey?" he ended, with a grin. "Now, that's the way I feel--just likestriking out for, say, Oshkosh. That little piece of lofty tumbling ofyours was a big boom, and no mistake. Why, your share o' this campaignwill be a hundred and twenty dollars sure."

  "More'n I've earned," replied Bert.

  "No, it ain't. You've done your duty like a man. Done as much in yourway as I have. Now, if you want to try another county with me, say so.I'll make a thousand dollars this year out o' this thing."

  "I guess I'll go back to school."

  "All right; I don't blame you for wanting to do that."

  "I guess, with what I can earn for father, I can pull through the year.I _must_ get back. I'm awfully obliged to you, Jim."

  "That'll do on that," said Hartley, shortly; "you don't owe me anything.We'll finish delivery to-morrow, and be ready to pull out on Friday orSat."

  There was an acute pain in Albert's breast somewhere; he had notanalyzed his case at all, and did not now, but the idea of goingaffected him strongly. It had been so pleasant, that daily return to alovely girlish presence.

  "Yes, sir," Hartley was going on, "I'm going to just quietly leave abook on her centre-table. I don't know as it'll interest her much, butit'll show we appreciate the grub, and so on. By jinks! you don't seemto realize what a worker that woman is! Up five o'clock in themorning--By-the-way, you've been going around with the girl a good deal,and she's introduced you to some first-rate sales; now, if you want toleave her a little something, make it a morocco copy, and charge it tothe firm."

  Albeit knew that he meant well, but he couldn't, somehow, help saying,ironically:

  "Thanks, but I guess _one_ copy of Blaine's _Twenty Years_ will beenough in the house, especially--"

  "Well, give her anything you please, and charge it up to the firm. Idon't insist on Blaine; only suggested that because--"

  "I guess I can stand the expense of a present."

  "I didn't say you couldn't, man! But _I_ want a hand in this thing.Don't be so turrible keen t' snap a feller up," complained Hartley,turning on him. "What the thunder is the matter of you, anyway? I likethe girl, and she's been good to us all round; she tended you like anangel--"

  "There, there! That's enough o' that," put in Albert, hastily. "ForGod's sake, don't whang away on that string forever, as if I didn't knowit!"

  Hartley stared at him as he turned away.

  "Well, by jinks! What _is_ the matter o' you?"

  He was too busy to dwell upon it much, but concluded his partner washomesick.

  Albert was beginning to have a vague underconsciousness of his realfeeling toward the girl, but he fought off the acknowledgment of it aslong as possible. His mind moved in a circle, coming back to the onepoint ceaselessly--a dreary prospect, in which that slender girl-figurehad no place--and each time the prospect grew more intolerably blank,and the pain in his heart more acute and throbbing.

  When he faced her that night, after they had returned from a final walkdown by the river, he was as far from a solution as ever. He had avoidedall reference to their separation, and now he stood as a man might atthe parting of the ways, saying: "I will not choose; I cannot choose. Iwill wait for some sign, some chance thing, to direct me."

  They stood opposite each other, each feeling that there was more to besaid: the girl tender, her eyes cast down, holding her hands to thefire; he shivering, but not with cold. He had a vague knowledge of thevast importance of the moment, and he hesitated to speak.

  "It's almost spring again, isn't it? And you've been here"--she pausedand looked up with a daring smile--"seems as if you'd been here always."

  It was about half-past eight. Mrs. Welsh was setting her bread in thekitchen; they could hear her moving about. Hartley was down-townfinishing up his business. They were almost alone in the house. Albert'sthroat grew dry and his limbs trembled. His pause was ominous. Thegirl's smile died away as he took a seat without looking at her.

  "Well, Maud, I suppose you know--we're going away to-morrow."

  "Oh, must you? But you'll come back?"

  "I don't expect to--I don't see how I can. I may never see you again."

  "Oh, don't say that!" cried the girl, her face as white as silver, herclasped hands straining.

  "I must go--I must!" he muttered, not daring to look upon her face.

  "Oh, what can I do--_we_ do--without you! I can't bear it!"

  She stopped, and sank back into a chair, her breath coming heavily fromher twitching lips, the unnoticed tears falling from her staring,pitiful, wild, appealing eyes, her hands nervously twisting her gloves.

  There was a long silence. Each was undergoing a self-revelation; eachwas trying to face a fu
ture without the other.

  "I must go!" he repeated, aimlessly, mechanically. "What can I do here?"

  The girl's heavy breathing deepened into a wild little moaning sound,inexpressibly pitiful, her hungry eyes fixed on his face. She gave wayfirst, and flung herself down upon her knees at his side, her handsseeking his neck.

  "Albert, I can't _live_ without you now! Take me with you! Don't leaveme!"

  He stooped suddenly and took her in his arms, raised her, and kissed herhair.

  "I didn't mean it, Maud; I'll never leave you--never! Don't cry!"

  She drew his head down and kissed his lips, then turned her face to hisbreast--then joy and confidence came back to her.

  "I know now what you meant," she cried, gayly, raising herself andlooking into his face; "you were trying to scare me; trying to make meshow how much I--cared for you--first!" There was a soft smile on herlips and a tender light in her eyes. "But I don't mind it."

  "I guess I didn't know myself what I meant," he answered, with a gravesmile.

  When Mrs. Welsh came in, they were sitting on the sofa, talking in lowvoices of their future. He was grave and subdued, while she was radiantwith love and hope. The future had no terrors for her, but the boyunconsciously felt the gravity of life somehow deepened by therevelation of her love.

  "Why, Maud!" Mrs. Welsh exclaimed, "what are you doing?"

  "Oh, mother, I'm so happy--just as happy as a bird!" she cried, rushinginto her mother's arms.

  "Why, why!--what is it? You're crying, dear!"

  "No, I'm not; I'm laughing--see!"

  Mrs. Welsh turned her dim eyes on the girl, who shook the tears from herlashes with the action of a bird shaking water from its wings. Sheseemed to shake off her trouble at the same moment.

  Mrs. Welsh understood perfectly. "I'm very glad, too, dearie," she said,simply, looking at the young man with motherly love irradiating her wornface. Albert went to her, and she kissed him, while the happy girl puther arms about them both in an ecstatic hug.

  "_Now_ you've got a son, mother."

  "But I've lost a daughter--my first-born."

  "Oh, wait till you hear our plans! He's going to settle downhere--aren't you, Albert?"

  Then she went away and left the young people alone. They had a sweet,intimate talk of an hour, full of plans and hopes and confidences, andthen he kissed his radiant love good-night, and, going into his ownroom, sat down by the stove and there pondered on the change that hadcome into his life.

  Already he sighed with the stress of care, the press of thought, whichcame upon him. The longing uneasiness of the boy had given place toanother unrest--the unrest of the man who must face the world in earnestnow, planning for food and shelter. To go back to school was out of thequestion. To expect help from his father, overworked and burdened withdebt, was impossible. He must go to work, and go to work to aid _her_. Aliving must be wrung from this town. All the home and all the propertyMrs. Welsh had were here, and wherever Maud went the mother must follow.

  He was in the midst of his mental turmoil when Hartley came in, hummingthe _Mulligan Guards_.

  "In the dark, hey?"

  "Completely in the dark."

  "Well, light up, light up!"

  "I'm trying to."

  "What the deuce do you mean by that tone? What's been going on heresince my absence?"

  Albert did not reply, and Hartley shuffled about after a match, lightedthe lamp, threw his coat and hat in the corner, and then said:

  "Well, I've got everything straightened up. Been freezing out oldDaggett; the old skeesix has been promisin' f'r a week, and I just said,'Old man, I'll camp right down with you here till you fork over,' and hedid. By-the-way, everybody I talked with to-day about leaving said,'What's Lohr going to do with that girl?' I told 'em I didn't know; doyou? It seems you've been thicker'n I supposed."

  "I'm going to marry her," said Albert, calmly, but his voice soundedstrained and hoarse.

  "What's that?" yelled Hartley.

  "Sh! don't raise the neighbors. I'm going to marry her."

  "Well, by jinks! When? Say, looky here! Well, I swanny!" exclaimedHartley, helplessly. "When?"

  "Right away; some time this summer--June, maybe."

  Hartley thrust his hands into his trousers pockets, stretched out hislegs, and stared at his friend in vast amaze.

  "You're givin' me guff!"

  "I'm in dead earnest."

  "I thought you was going through college all so fast?"

  "Well, I've made up my mind it isn't any use to try," replied Albert,listlessly.

  "What y' goin' t' do here, or are y' goin' t' take the girl away withyeh?"

  "She can't leave her mother. We'll run this boarding-house for thepresent. I'll try for the principalship of the school here. Raff isgoing to resign, they say. If I can't get that, I'll go into a lawoffice. Don't worry about me."

  "But why go into this so quick? Why not put it off fifteen or twentyyears?" asked Hartley, trying to get back to cheerful voice.

  "What would be the use? At the end of a year I'd be just about as pooras I am now."

  "Can't y'r father step in and help you?"

  "No. There are three boys and two girls, all younger than I, to belooked out for, and he has all he can carry. Besides, _she_ needs meright here and right now, and if I can do anything to make life easierfor her I'm going t' do it. Besides," he ended, in a peculiar tone, "wedon't feel as if we could live apart much longer."

  "But, great Scott! man, you can't--"

  "Now, hold on, Jim! I've thought this thing all over, and I've made upmy mind. It ain't any use to go on talking about it. What good would itdo me to go to school another year? I'd come out without a dollar, andno more fitted for earning a living for her than I am now! And, besidesall that, I couldn't draw a free breath thinking of her workin' awayhere to keep things moving, liable at any minute to break down."

  Hartley gazed at him in despair, and with something like awe. It was atremendous transformation in the young, ambitious student.

  Like most men in America, and especially Western men, he still clung tothe idea that a man was entirely responsible for his success or failurein life. He had not admitted that conditions of society might be soadverse that only men of most exceptional endowments, and willing andable to master many of the best and deepest and most sacred of theirinspirations and impulses, could succeed.

  Of the score of specially promising young fellows who had been with himat school, seventeen had dropped out and down. Most of them had marriedand gone back to farming, or to earn a precarious living in the small,dull towns where farmers trade and traders farm. Conditions were tooadverse; they simply weakened and slipped slowly back into dulness andan ox-like or else a fretful patience. Thinking of these men, andthinking their failure due to themselves alone, Hartley could not endurethe idea of his friend adding one more to the list of failures. Hesprang up at last.

  "Say, Bert, you might just as well hang y'rself, and done with it! Why,it's suicide! I can't allow it. I started in at college bravely, andfailed because I'd let it go too long. I couldn't study--couldn't getdown to it; but you--why, old man, I'd _bet_ on you!" He had a tremor inhis voice. "I hate like thunder to see you give up your plans. Say, youcan't afford to do this; it's too much to pay."

  "No, it isn't."

  "I say it is--and, besides, you'd get over this in a week--"

  "Jim!" called Albert, warningly, sharply.

  "All right," said Jim, in the tone of a man who knows it's allwrong--"all right; but the time 'll come when you'll wish I'd--You ain'tdoin' the girl enough good to make up for the harm you're doin'yourself." He broke off again, and said in a tone of finality: "I'mdone. I'm all through, and I c'n see you're through with Jim Hartley.All right!"

  "Darn curious," he muttered to himself, "that boy should get caught justat this time, and not with some o' those girls in Marion. Well, it'snone o' my funeral," he ended, with a sigh; for it had stirred him tothe bottom of his sunny nature, aft
er all. A dozen times, as he laythere beside his equally sleepless companion, he started to saysomething more in deprecation of the step, but each time stifled theopening word into a groan.

  It would not be true to say that love had come to Albert Lohr as arelaxing influence, but it had changed the direction of his energies soradically as to make his whole life seem weaker and lower. As long ashis love-dreams went out toward a vague and ideal woman, supposedlyhigher and grander than himself, he was spurred on to face the terriblesheer escarpment of social eminence; but when he met, by accident, theactual woman who was to inspire his future efforts, the difficulties hefaced took on solid reality. His aspirations fell to the earth, theirwings clipped, and became, perforce, submissive beasts at the plough.The force that moved so much of his thought was transformed into otherenergy.

  The table was very gay at dinner next day. Maud was standing at thehighest point of her girlhood dreams. Her flushed cheeks and shiningeyes made her seem almost a child, and Hartley wondered at her, andrelented a little in the face of such happiness.

  "They're gay as larks now," thought Hartley to himself, as he joined inthe laughter; "but that won't help 'em any ten years from now."

  He could hardly speak next day as he shook hands at the station with hisfriend.

  "Good-by, ol' man; I hope it'll come out all right, but I'm afraid--Butthere! I promised not to say anything about it. Good-by till we meet inCongress," he ended, in a resolute attempt to conceal his dismay.

  "Can't you come to the wedding, Jim? We've decided on June. You see,they need a man around the house, so we--You'll come, won't you, oldfellow? And don't mind my being a little crusty last night."

  "Oh yes; I'll come," Jim said, in a tone which concealed a desire toutter one more protest, but to himself he said:

  "That ends him! He's jumped into a hole and pulled the hole in afterhim. A man can't marry a family like that at his age, and pull out ofit. He _may_, but I doubt it. Well, as I remarked before, it's none o'my funeral so long as _he's_ satisfied."

  But he said it with a painful lump in his throat, and he could not bringhimself to feel that Albert's course was right, and felt himself to besomehow culpable in the case.