Other Main Travelled Roads

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

It didn't occur to either of them that any other course was open, nor
that there was any special heroism or self-sacrifice in the act; it was
simply _right_.

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

In the pause which followed, footsteps were heard on the walk outside,
and the girl sprang up with a beautiful blush.

"My stars! I didn't think--I forgot--I must go."

Hartley burst into the room shortly after she left it, in his usual
breeze.

"Hul-_lo!_ Still at the Latin, hey?"

"Yes," said Bert, with ease. "How goes it?"

"Oh, I'm whooping 'er up! I'm getting started in great shape. Been up
to the court-house and roped in three of the county officials. In these
small towns the big man is the politician or the clergyman. I've nailed
the politicians through the ear; now you must go for the ministers to
head the list--that's your lay-out."

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

"Why, cert! That's the trick. Offer a big discount. Say full calf, two
fifty; morocco, two ninety. Regular discount to the clergy, ye know. Oh,
they're on to that little racket--no trouble. If you can get a few of
these leaders of the flock, the rest will follow like lambs to the
slaughter. Tra-la-la--who-o-o-_ish_, whish!"

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

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

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

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

"Looks like it."

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

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

II

There was no discernible reason why the little town should have been
called Tyre, and yet its name was as characteristically American as its
architecture. It had the usual main street lined with low brick or
wooden stores--a street which developed into a road running back up a
wide, sandy valley away from the river. Being a county town, it had a
court-house in a yard near the centre of the town, and a big summer
hotel. Curiously shaped and oddly distributed hills rose abruptly out of
the valley sand, forming a sort of amphitheatre in which the village
lay. These square-topped hills ended at a common level, showing that
they were not the result of an upheaval, but were the remains of the
original stratification formations left standing after the scooping
action of the post-glacial floods had ceased.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Go alone?"

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

"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 the
table 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 evening
under 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 led
Maud down the floor of the vestry of the church. Her cheeks were
glowing, and her eyes shining with maidenly delight as they took seats
at 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 at
the university. They received him cordially, and in a very short time he
was enjoying himself very well indeed. He was reminded rather
disagreeably of his office, however, by seeing Hartley surrounded by a
laughing crowd of the more frolicsome young people. He winked at Albert,
as much as to say, "Good stroke of business."

The evening passed away with songs, games, and recitations, and it was
nearly eleven o'clock when the young people began to wander off toward
home in pairs. Albert and Maud were among the first of the young folks
to bid the rest good-night.

The night was clear and keen but perfectly still, and the young people,
arm in arm, walked slowly homeward under the bare maples, in delicious
companionship. 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 a
sigh, "I don't like sociables so well as I used to--they tire me out."

"We stayed too long."

"It wasn't that; I'm getting so they seem kind o' silly."

"Well, I feel a little that way myself," he confessed.

"But there is so little to see here in Tyre at any time--no music, no
theatres. I like theatres, don't you?"

"I can't go half enough."

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

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

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

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

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

Hartley, who came in a few minutes later, found his partner sitting
thoughtfully by the fire, with his coat and shoes off, evidently in deep
abstraction.

"Well, I got away at last--much as ever. Great scheme, that sociable,
eh? I saw your little girl introducing you right and left."

"Say, Hartley, I wish you'd leave her out of this thing; I don't like
the way you speak of her when--"

"Phew! You don't? Oh, all right! I'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 working
every house in town. The campaign promised to lengthen into a
month--perhaps longer. Albert especially became a great favorite. Every
one declared there had never been such book agents in the town. "They're
such gentlemanly fellows. They don't press anybody to buy. They don't
rush about and 'poke their noses where they're not wanted.' They are
more like merchants with books to sell." The only person who failed to
see the attraction in them was Ed Brann, who was popularly supposed to
be engaged to Maud. He grew daily more sullen and repellent, toward
Albert noticeably so.

One evening about six, after coming in from a long walk about town,
Albert entered his room without lighting his lamp, lay down on the bed,
and fell asleep. He had been out late the night before with Maud at a
party, and slumber came almost instantly.

Maud came in shortly, hearing no response to her knock, and after
hanging some towels on the rack went out without seeing the sleeper. In
the sitting-room she met Ed Brann. He was a stalwart young man with
curling black hair, and a heavy face at its best, but set and sullen
now. His first words held a menace:

"Say, Maud, I want t' talk to you."

"Very well; what is it, Ed?" replied the girl, quietly.

"I want to know how often you're going to be out till twelve o'clock
with this book agent?"

Perhaps it was the derisive inflection on "book agent" that woke Albert.
Brann's tone was brutal--more brutal even than his words, and the girl
turned pale and her breath quickened.

"Why, Ed, what's the matter?"

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

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

The man's bluster disappeared instantly. Bert could tell by the change
in his voice, which was incredibly great, as he pleaded:

"Oh, don't do that, Maud; I didn't mean to say that; I was mad--I'm
sorry."

"I'm _glad_ you did it _now_, so I can know you. Take your ring, Ed; I
never 'll wear it again."

Albert had heard all this, but he did not know how the girl looked as
she faced the man. In the silence which followed she scornfully passed
him and went out into the kitchen. Brann went out and did not return at
supper.

Young people of this sort are not self-analysts, and Maud did not
examine closely into causes. She was astonished to find herself more
indignant than grieved. She broke into an angry wail as she went to her
mother's bosom:

"Mother! mother!"

"Why, what's the matter, Maudie? Tell me. There, there! don't cry, pet!
Who's been hurtin' my poor little bird?"

"Ed has; he said--he said--"

"There, there! poor child! Have you been 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 him
back his ring, and I'll never wear it again."

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

Albert, being no more of a self-analyst than Maud, simply said, "Served
him right," and dwelt no more upon it for the time.

At supper, however, he was extravagantly gay, and to himself
unaccountably so. He joked Troutt till Maud begged him to stop, and
after the rest had gone he remained seated at the table, enjoying the
indignant color in her face and the flash of her infrequent smile, which
it was such a pleasure to provoke. He volunteered to help wash the
dishes.

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

"Thank _you_, but you don't know me. I ain't so green as I look by no
manner o' means. I've been doing my own housekeeping for four terms."

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

"That's a base calumny! I made it a point to wash every dish in the
house, except the spider, once a week; had a regular cleaning-up day."

"And about the spider?"

"I wiped that out nicely with a newspaper every time I wanted to use
it."

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

"Why, what more could you ask? You wouldn't have me wipe it _six_ times
a day, would you?"

"I wonder it didn't poison you," commented Mrs. Welsh.

"Takes more'n that to poison a student," laughed Albert, as he went out.

The next afternoon he came bursting into the kitchen, where Maud stood
with 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 when
Ed--"

Mrs. Welsh silenced her, and said:

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

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

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

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

"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 till
his long, faded beard flapped up and down and quivered with the stress
of his enjoyment of his joke. He ended by hitching a vicious-looking
sorrel to a gay, duck-bellied cutter, saying, as he gave up the reins:

"Now, be keerful. Dan's foxy; he's all right when he sees you've got the
reins, but don't drop 'em."

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

The brute gave a tearing lunge, and was out of the doorway before the
old man could utter another word. Albert thrilled with pleasure as he
felt the reins stiffen in his hands, and saw the traces swing slack
beside 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 to
the eyes.

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

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

The main street was already filled with wood sleighs, bob-sleds filled
with children, and men in light cutters, out for a race. Laughter was on
the air, and the jingle-jangle of bells. The sun was dazzling in its
brightness, and the gay wraps and scarfs lighted up the scene with
flecks of color. Loafers on the sidewalks fired familiar phrases at the
teams 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 them
to envy, and if they were pleasant they smiled in reply.

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

"_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 has
any _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, and
greetings passed from sleigh to sleigh. Everybody except Brann welcomed
Albert with sincere pleasure, and exchanged rustic jokes with him. As
they slowed up at the upper end of the street and began to turn, a man
on the sidewalk said, confidentially:

"Say, cap', if you handle that old rack o' bones just right, he'll
distance anything on this road. When you want him to do his best let him
have the rein; don't pull a pound. I used to own 'im--I know 'im."

The old sorrel came round "gauming," his ugly head thrown up, his great
red mouth open, his ears laid back. Brann and the young doctor of the
place were turning together, a little farther up the street. The blacks,
responding to their driver's word, came down with flying hoofs, their
great glossy breasts flecked with foam, their jaws champing.

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

But he did not pass. The old sorrel seemed to lengthen; to the
spectators his nose appeared to be glued to the glossy side of Brann's
off black.

"See them blacks trot!" shouted Albert, in ungrammatical enthusiasm.

"See that old sorrel shake himself!" yelled the loafers.

The doctor came tearing down with a spirited bay, a magnificent stepper.
As he drew along so that Bert could catch a glimpse of the mare's neck,
he thrilled with delight. There was the thoroughbred's lacing of veins;
the proud fling of her knees and the swell of her neck showed that she
was far from doing her best. There was a wild light in her eyes.

These were the fast teams of the town. All interest was 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 as
he could for the flung snowballs, the doctor's mare draw slowly, foot by
foot, past the blacks. Suddenly Brann gave a shrill yell and stood up in
his sleigh. The gallant little bay broke and fell behind; Brann 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. The
old sorrel's teeth came together with a snap; his head lowered and his
tail rose; he shot abreast of the blacks. Maud, frightened into silence,
covered her head with the robe to escape the flying snow. The sorrel
drew steadily ahead and was passing the blacks when Brann turned.

"Durn y'r old horse!" he yelled through his shut teeth, and laid the
whip across the sorrel's hips. The blacks broke wildly, but, strange to
say, the old sorrel increased his speed. Again Brann struck, but the
lash fell on Bert's outstretched wrists. He did not see that the blacks
were 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 a
bomb. He rose in the air like a vaulter, and when he fell the light went
out.

The next that he heard was a curious soft murmur of voices, out of which
a 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 hush
followed it; then an imperative order:

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

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

Then he felt something cold on his scalp: they were taking his cap off
and 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 of
voices became more distinct, and he could hear sobbing. Then he opened
his lids, but the glare of the sunlight struck them shut again; he saw
only Maud's face, agonized, white, and wet with tears, looking down into
his.

They raised him a little more, and he again opened his eyes on the
circle of hushed and excited men thronging about him. He saw Brann, with
wild, scared face, standing in his cutter and peering over the heads of
the crowd.

"How do you feel now?" asked the doctor.

"Can you hear us? Albert, do you know me?" called the girl.

His lips moved stiffly, but he smiled a little, and at length whispered
slowly, "Yes; I guess--I'm all--right."

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

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

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

"Glory! How 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 firmly
restrained 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 me
get 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 faces
about her. She gazed unrecognizingly upon her nearest girl friends, and
they, gazing upon her white face and unresponsive eyes, spoke in awed
whispers.

At the gate the crowd gathered and waited with deepest interest. It was
enthralling 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 him
out of the sleigh.

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

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 a
little, that's all."

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

"_I'm_ all right, mother," she said, running into the trembling arms
outstretched 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 the
questions of his accusers.

"Now, what in ---- you been up to?" was the greeting of his brother, as
he 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 that
this'll ruin you in this town. If you didn't strike him, they'll say you
run him into the culvert, 'n' every man, woman, 'n' child'll be down on
you, and _me_ f'r bein' related to you. They all know how you feel
toward him for cuttin' you out with Maud Welsh."

"Oh, don't bear down on him too hard, Joe. He didn't mean t' do any
harm," said Troutt, who had followed Ed down to the store. "I guess the
young feller 'll come out all right. Just go kind o' easy till we see
how 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 a
murderer," he thought. He acknowledged that hate was in his heart, and
he shivered as he remembered the man's white face with the bright red
stream flowing down behind his ear and over his cheek. It almost seemed
to him that he _had_ struck him, so close had the accident followed upon
the fall of his whip.

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