Prairie Folks

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"My! ain't you strong!" she said, half-ruefully and half-admiringly, as
she shrugged her shoulders. "If you'd use a little more o' _that_
choppin' wood, Dad wouldn't 'a' lost s' much money by yeh."

Lime grew grave.

"There's the hog in the fence, Merry; what's yer dad goin' t' say"----

"About what?"

"About our gitt'n' married this spring."

"I guess you'd better find out what _I'm_ a-goin' t' say, Lime Gilman,
'fore you pitch into Dad."

"I _know_ what you're a-goin' t' say."

"No, y' don't."

"Yes, but I _do_, though."

"Well, ask me, and see, if you think you're so smart. Jest as like 's
not, you'll slip up."

"All right; here goes. Marietty Bacon, ain't you an' Lime Gilman goin'
t' be married?"

"No, sir, we ain't," laughed the girl, snatching up the plate and
darting away to the house, where she struck up "Weevily Wheat," and went
busily on about her cooking. Lime threw a kiss, at her, and fell to work
on his log with startling energy.

Lyman looked forward to his interview with the old man with as much
trepidation as he had ever known, though commonly he had little fear of
anything--but a girl.

Marietta was not only the old man's only child, his housekeeper, his
wife having at last succumbed to the ferocious toil of the farm. It was
reasonable to suppose, therefore, that he would surrender his claim on
the girl reluctantly. Rough as he was, he loved Marietta strongly, and
would find it exceedingly hard to get along without her.

Lyman mused on these things as he drove the gleaming ax into the huge
maple logs. He was something more than the usual hired man, being a
lumberman from the Wisconsin pineries, where he had sold out his
interest in a camp not three weeks before the day he began work for
Bacon. He had a nice "little wad o' money" when he left the camp and
started for La Crosse, but he had been robbed in his hotel the first
night in the city, and was left nearly penniless. It was a great blow to
him, for, as he said, every cent of that money "stood fer hard knocks
an' poor feed. When I smelt of it I could jest see the cold, frosty
mornin's and the late nights. I could feel the hot sun on my back like
it was when I worked in the harvest-field. By jingo! It kind o' made my
toes curl up."

But he went resolutely out to work again, and here he was chopping wood
in old man Bacon's yard, thinking busily on the talk which had just
passed between him and Marietta.

"By jingo!" he said all at once, stopping short, with the ax on his
shoulder. "If I hadn't 'a' been robbed I wouldn't 'a' come here--I
never'd met Merry. Thunder and jimson root! Wasn't that a narrow
escape?"

And then he laughed so heartily that the girl looked out of the window
again to see what in the world he was doing. He had his hat in his hand
and was whacking his thigh with it.

"Lyman Gilman, what in the world ails you to-day? It's perfectly
ridiculous the way you yell and talk t' y'rself out there on the chips.
You beat the hens, I declare if you don't."

Lime put on his hat and walked up to the window, and, resting his great
bare arms on the sill, and his chin on his arms, said:

"Merry, I'm goin' to tackle 'Dad' this afternoon. He'll be settin' up
the new seeder, and I'm goin' t' climb right on the back of his neck.
He's jest _got_ t' give me a chance."

Marietta looked sober in sympathy.

"Well! P'raps it's best to have it over with, Lime, but someway I feel
kind o' scary about it."

Lime stood for a long time looking in at the window, watching the
light-footed girl as she set the table in the middle of the sun-lighted
kitchen floor. The kettle hissed, the meat sizzled, sending up a
delicious odor; a hen stood in the open door and sang a sort of cheery
half-human song, while to and fro moved the sweet-faced, lithe and
powerful girl, followed by the smiling eyes at the window.

"Merry, you look purty as a picture. You look just like the wife I be'n
a-huntin' for all these years, sure 's shootin'."

Marietta colored with pleasure.

"Does Dad pay you to stand an' look at me an' say pretty things t' the
cook?"

"No, he don't. But I'm willin' t' do it without pay. I could jest stand
here till kingdom come an' look at you. Hello! I hear a wagon. I guess I
better hump into that wood-pile."

"I think so, too. Dinner's most ready, and Dad'll be here soon."

Lime was driving away furiously at a tough elm log when Farmer Bacon
drove into the yard with a new seeder in his wagon. Lime whacked away
busily while Bacon stabled the team, and in a short time Marietta
called, in a long-drawn, musical fashion:

"Dinner-r-r!"

After sozzling their faces at the well the two men went in and sat down
at the table. Bacon was not much of a talker at any time, and at
mealtime, in seeding, eating was the main business in hand; therefore
the meal was a silent one, Marietta and Lime not caring to talk on
general topics. The hour was an anxious one for her, and an important
one for him.

"Wal, now, Lime, seedun' 's the nex' thing," said Bacon, as he shoved
back his chair and glared around from under his bushy eyebrows, "We
can't do too much this afternoon. That seeder's got t' be set up an' a
lot o' seed-wheat cleaned up. You unload the machine while I feed the
pigs."

Lime sat still till the old man was heard outside calling "Oo-ee,
poo-ee" to the pigs in the yard; then he smiled at Marietta, but she
said:

"He's got on one of his fits, Lime; I don't b'lieve you'd better tackle
him t'-day."

"Don't you worry; I'll fix him. Come, now, give me a kiss."

"Why, you great thing! You--took"----

"I know, but I want you to _give_ 'em to me. Just walk right up to me
an' give me a smack t' bind the bargain."

"I ain't made any bargain," laughed the girl. Then, feeling the force of
his tender tone, she added: "Will you behave, and go right off to your
work?"

"Jest like a little man--hope t' die!"

"_Lime!_" roared the old man from the barn.

"Hello!" replied Lime, grinning joyously and winking at the girl, as
much as to say, "This would paralyze the old man if he saw it."

He went out to the shed where Bacon was at work, as serene as if he had
not a fearful task on hand. He was apprehensive that the father might
"gig back" unless rightly approached, and so he awaited a good
opportunity.

The right moment seemed to present itself along about the middle of the
afternoon. Bacon was down on the ground under the machine, tightening
some burrs. This was a good chance for two reasons. In the first place
the keen, almost savage eyes of Bacon were no longer where they could
glare on him, and in spite of his cool exterior Lime had just as soon
not have the old man looking at him.

Besides, the old farmer had been telling about his "river eighty," which
was without a tenant; the man who had taken it, having lost his wife,
had grown disheartened and had given it up.

"It's an almighty good chance for a man with a small family. Good house
an' barn, good land. A likely young feller with a team an' a woman could
do tip-top on that eighty. If he wanted more, I'd let him have an eighty
j'inun'"----

"I'd like t' try that m'self," said Lime, as a feeler. The old fellow
said nothing in reply for a moment.

"Ef you had a team an' tools an' a woman, I'd jest as lief you'd have it
as anybody."

"Sell me your blacks, and I'll pay half down--the balance in the fall. I
can pick up some tools, and as for a woman, Merry Etty an' me have
talked that over to-day. She's ready to--ready to marry me whenever you
say go."

There was an ominous silence under the seeder, as if the father could
not believe his ears.

"What's--what's that?" he stuttered. "Who'd you say? What about Merry
Etty?"

"She's agreed to marry me."

"The hell you say!" roared Bacon, as the truth burst upon him. "So
that's what you do when I go off to town and leave you to chop wood. So
you're goun' to git married, hey?"

He was now where Lime could see him, glaring up into his smiling blue
eyes. Lime stood his ground.

"Yes, sir. That's the calculation."

"Well, I guess I'll have somethin' t' say about that," nodding his head
violently.

"I rather expected y' would. Blaze away. Your privilege--my bad luck.
Sail in, ol' man. What's y'r objection to me fer a son-in-law?"

"Don't you worry, young feller. I'll come at it soon enough," went on
Bacon, as he turned up another burr in a very awkward corner. In his
nervous excitement the wrench slipped, banging his knuckle.

"Ouch! Thunder--m-m-m!" howled and snarled the wounded man.

"What's the matter? Bark y'r knuckle?" queried Lime, feeling a mighty
impulse to laugh. But when he saw the old savage straighten up and glare
at him he sobered. Bacon was now in a frightful temper. The veins in his
great, bare, weather-beaten neck swelled dangerously.

"Jest let me say right here that I've had enough o' you. You can't live
on the same acre with my girl another day."

"What makes ye think I can't?" It was now the young man's turn to draw
himself up, and as he faced the old man, his arms folded and each vast
hand grasping an elbow, he looked like a statue of red granite, and the
hands resembled the paws of a crouching lion: but his eyes smiled.

"I don't _think_, I know ye won't."

"What's the objection to me?"

"Objection? Hell! What's the inducement? My hired man, an' not three
shirts to yer back!"

"That's another; I've got four. Say, old man, did you ever work out for
a living?"

"That's none o' your business," growled Bacon, a little taken down.
"I've worked, an' scraped, an' got t'gether a little prop'ty here, an'
they ain't no sucker like you goun' to come 'long here, an' live off me,
an' spend my prop'ty after I'm dead. You can jest bet high on that."

"Who's goin' t' live on ye?"

"You're aimun' to."

"I ain't, neither."

"Yes, y'are. You've loafed on me ever since I hired ye."

"That's a"---- Lime checked himself for Marietta's sake, and the enraged
father went on:

"I hired ye t' cut wood, an' you've gone an' fooled my daughter away
from me. Now you jest figger up what I owe ye, and git out o' here. Ye
can't go too soon t' suit _me_."

Bacon was renowned as the hardest man in Cedar County to handle, and
though he was getting old, he was still a terror to his neighbors when
roused. He was honest, temperate, and a good neighbor until something
carried him off his balance; then he became as cruel as a panther and as
savage as a grizzly. All this Lime knew, but it did not keep his anger
down so much as did the thought of Marietta. His silence infuriated
Bacon, who yelled hoarsely:

"Git out o' this!"

"Don't be in a rush, ol' man"----

Bacon hurled himself upon Lime, who threw out one hand and stopped him,
while he said in a low voice:

"Stay right where you are, ol' man. I'm dangerous. It's for Merry's
sake"----

The infuriated old man struck at him. Lime warded off the blow, and with
a sudden wrench and twist threw him to the ground with frightful force.
Before Bacon could rise, Marietta, who had witnessed the scene, came
flying from the house.

"Lime! Father! What are you doing?"

"I--couldn't help it, Merry. It was him 'r me," said Lime, almost
sadly.

"Dad, ain't you got no sense? What 're you thinking of? You jest stop
right now. I won't have it."

He rose while she clung to him; he seemed a little dazed. It was the
first time he had ever been thrown, and he could not but feel a certain
respect for his opponent, but he could not give way.

"Pack up yer duds," he snarled, "an' git off'n my land. I'll have the
money fer ye when ye come back. I'll give ye jest five minutes to git
clear o' here. Merry, you stay here."

The young man saw it was useless to remain, as it would only excite the
old man; and so, with a look of apology, not without humor, at Marietta,
he went to the house to get his valise. The girl wept silently while the
father raged up and down. His mood frightened her.

"I thought you had more sense than t' take up with such a dirty houn'."

"He ain't a houn'," she blazed forth, "and he's just as good and clean
as you are."

"Shut up! Don't let me hear another word out o' your head. I'm boss here
yet, I reckon."

Lime came out with his valise in his hand.

"Good-by, Merry," he said cheerily. She started to go to him, but her
father's rough grasp held her.

"Set _down_, an' stay there."

Lime was going out of the gate.

"Here! Come and get y'r money," yelled the old man, extending some
bills. "Here's twenty"-----

"Go to thunder with your money," retorted Lime. "I've had my pay for my
month's work." As he said that, he thought of the sunny kitchen and the
merry girl, and his throat choked. Good-by to the sweet girl whose smile
was so much to him, and to the happy noons and nights her eyes had made
for him. He waved his hat at her as he stood in the open gate, and the
sun lighted his handsome head into a sort of glory in her eyes. Then he
turned and walked rapidly off down the road, not looking back.

The girl, when she could no longer see him, dashed away, and, sobbing
violently, entered the house.

II.

There was just a suspicion of light in the east, a mere hint of a glow,
when Lyman walked cautiously around the corner of the house and tapped
at Marietta's window. She was sleeping soundly and did not hear, for she
had been restless during the first part of the night. He tapped again,
and the girl woke without knowing what woke her.

Lyman put the blade of his pocket-knife under the window and raised it
a little, and then placed his lips to the crack, and spoke in a
sepulchral tone, half groan, half whisper:

"Merry! Merry Etty!"

The dazed girl sat up in bed and listened, while her heart almost stood
still.

"Merry, it's me--Lime. Come to the winder." The girl hesitated, and
Lyman spoke again.

"Come, I hain't got much time. This is your last chance t' see me. It's
now 'r never."

The girl slipped out of bed and, wrapping herself in a shawl, crept to
the window.

"Boost on that winder," commanded Lyman. She raised it enough to admit
his head, which came just above the sill; then she knelt on the floor by
the window.

Her eyes stared wide and dark. "Lime, what in the world do you mean"----

"I mean business," he replied. "I ain't no last year's chicken; I know
when the old man sleeps the soundest." He chuckled pleasantly.

"How'd y' fool old Rove?"

"Never mind about that now; they's something more important on hand.
You've got t' go with me."

She drew back. "Oh, Lime, I can't!"

He thrust a great arm in and caught her by the wrist.

"Yes, y' can. This is y'r last chance. If I go off without ye t'night,
I never come back. What make ye gig back? Are ye 'fraid o' me?"

"N-no; but--but"----

"But what, Merry Etty?"

"It ain't right to go an' leave Dad all alone. Where y' goin' t' take
me, anyhow?"

"Milt Jennings let me have his horse an' buggy; they're down the road a
piece, an' we'll go right down to Rock River and be married by sun-up."

The girl still hesitated, her firm, boyish will unwontedly befogged.
Resolute as she was, she could not at once accede to his demand.

"Come, make up your mind soon. The old man 'll fill me with buck-shot if
he catches sight o' me." He drew her arm out of the window and laid his
bearded cheek to it. "Come, little one, we're made for each other; God
knows it. Come! It's him 'r me."

The girl's head dropped, consented.

"That's right! Now a kiss to bind the bargain. There! What, cryin'? No
more o' that, little one. Now I'll give you jest five minutes to git on
your Sunday-go-t'-meetin' clo'es. Quick, there goes a rooster. It's
gittin' white in the east."

The man turned his back to the window and gazed at the western sky with
a wealth of unuttered and unutterable exultation in his heart. Far off a
rooster gave a long, clear blast--would it be answered in the barn?
Yes; some wakeful ear had caught it, and now came the answer, but faint,
muffled and drowsy. The dog at his feet whined uneasily as if suspecting
something wrong. The wind from the south was full of the wonderful odor
of springing grass, warm, brown earth, and oozing sap. Overhead, to the
west, the stars were shining in the cloudless sky, dimmed a little in
brightness by the faint silvery veil of moisture in the air. The man's
soul grew very tender as he stood waiting for his bride. He was rough,
illiterate, yet there was something fine about him after all, a kind of
simplicity and a gigantic, leonine tenderness.

He heard his sweetheart moving about inside, and thought: "The old man
won't hold out when he finds we're married. He can't get along without
her. If he does, why, I'll rent a farm here, and we'll go to work
housekeepin'. I can git the money. She sha'n't always be poor," he
ended, with a vow.

The window was raised again, and the girl's voice was heard low and
tremulous: "Lime, I'm ready, but I wish we didn't"----

He put his arm around her waist and helped her out, and did not put her
down till they reached the road. She was completely dressed, even to her
hat and shoes, but she mourned:

"My hair is every-which-way; Lime, how can I be married so?"

They were nearing the horse and buggy now, and Lime laughed. "Oh, we'll
stop at Jennings's and fix up. Milt knows what's up, and has told his
mother by this time. So just laugh as jolly as you can."

Soon they were in the buggy, the impatient horse swung into the road at
a rattling pace, and as Marietta leaned back in the seat, thinking of
what she had done, she cried lamentably, in spite of all the caresses
and pleadings of her lover.

But the sun burst up from the plain, the prairie-chickens took up their
mighty chorus on the hills, robins met them on the way, flocks of wild
geese, honking cheerily, drove far overhead toward the north, and, with
these sounds of a golden spring day in her ears, the bride grew
cheerful, and laughed.

III.

At about the time the sun was rising, Farmer Bacon, roused from his
sleep by the crowing of the chickens on the dry knolls in the fields as
well as by those in the barnyard, rolled out of bed wearily, wondering
why he should feel so drowsy. Then he remembered the row with Lime and
his subsequent inability to sleep with thinking over it. There was a
dull pain in his breast, which made him uncomfortable.

As was his usual custom, he went out into the kitchen and built the fire
for Marietta, filled the tea-kettle with water, and filled the
water-bucket in the sink. Then he went to her bedroom door and knocked
with his knuckles as he had done for years in precisely the same
fashion.

Rap--rap--rap. "Hello, Merry! Time t' git up. Broad daylight, an' birds
a-singun'."

Without waiting for an answer he went out to the barn and worked away at
his chores. He took such delight in the glorious morning and the
turbulent life of the farmyard that his heart grew light and he hummed a
tune which sounded like the merry growl of a lion. "Poo-ee, poo-ee," he
called to the pigs as they swarmed across the yard.

"Ahrr! you big, fat rascals, them hams o' yourn is clear money. One of
ye shall go t' buy Merry a new dress," he said as he glanced at the
house and saw the smoke pouring out the stove-pipe. "Merry 's a good
girl; she's stood by her old pap when other girls 'u'd 'a' gone back on
'im."

While currying horses he went all over the ground of the quarrel
yesterday, and he began to see it in a different light. He began to see
that Lyman was a good man and an able man, and that his own course was a
foolish one.

"When I git mad," he confessed to himself, "I don't know anythin'. But
I won't give her up. She ain't old 'nough t' marry yet--and, besides, I
need her."

After finishing his chores, as usual, he went to the well and washed his
face and hands, then entered the kitchen--to find the tea-kettle boiling
over, and no signs of breakfast anywhere, and no sign of the girl.

"Well, I guess she felt sleepy this mornin'. Poor gal! Mebbe she cried
half the night."

"Merry!" he called, gently, at the door. "Merry, m' gal! Pap needs his
breakfast."

There was no reply, and the old man's face stiffened into a wild
surprise. He knocked heavily again and got no reply, and, with a white
face and shaking hand, he flung the door open and gazed at the empty
bed. His hand dropped to his side; his head turned slowly from the bed
to the open window; he rushed forward and looked out on the ground,
where he saw the tracks of a man.

He fell heavily into the chair by the bed, while a deep groan broke from
his stiff and twitching lips.

"She's left me! She's left me!"

For a long half-hour the iron-muscled old man sat there motionless,
hearing not the songs of the hens or the birds far out in the brilliant
sunshine. He had lost sight of his farm, his day's work, and felt no
hunger for food. He did not doubt that her going was final. He felt
that she was gone from him forever. If she ever came back it would not
be as his daughter, but as the wife of Gilman. She had deserted him,
fled in the night like a thief; his heart began to harden again, and he
rose stiffly. His native stubbornness began to assert itself, the first
great shock over, and he went out to the kitchen, and prepared, as best
he could, a breakfast, and sat down to it. In some way his appetite
failed him, and he fell to thinking over his past life, of the death of
his wife, and the early death of his only boy. He was still trying to
think what his life would be in the future without his girl, when two
carriages drove into the yard. It was about the middle of the forenoon,
and the prairie-chickens had ceased to boom and squawk; in fact, that
was why he knew that he had been sitting two hours at the table. Before
he could rise he heard swift feet and a merry voice. Then Marietta burst
through the door.

"Hello, Pap! How you makin' out with break"---- She saw a look on his
face that went to her heart like a knife. She saw a lonely and deserted
old man sitting at his cold and cheerless breakfast, and with a
remorseful cry she ran across the floor and took him in her arms,
kissing him again and again, while Mr. John Jennings and his wife stood
in the door.

"Poor ol' Pap! Merry couldn't leave you. She's come back to stay as long
as he lives."

The old man remained cold and stern. His deep voice had a raucous note
in it as he pushed her away from him, noticing no one else.

"But how do you come back t' me?"

The girl grew rosy, but she stood proudly up.

"I come back a wife of a _man_, Pap; a wife like my mother, an' this t'
hang beside hers;" and she laid down a rolled piece of parchment.

"Take it an' go," growled he; "take yer lazy lubber an' git out o' my
sight. I raised ye, took keer o' ye when ye was little, sent ye t'
school, bought ye dresses,--done every thin' for ye I could, 'lowin' t'
have ye stand by me when I got old,--but no, ye must go back on yer ol'
pap, an' go off in the night with a good-f'r-nothin' houn' that nobuddy
knows anything about--a feller that never done a thing fer ye in the
world"----

"What did you do for mother that she left _her_ father and mother and
went with you? How much did you have when you took her away from her
good home an' brought her away out here among the wolves an' Indians?
I've heard you an' her say a hundred times that you didn't have a chair
in the house. Now, why do you talk so t' me when I want t' git--when
Lime comes and asks for me?"

The old man was staggered. He looked at the smiling face of John
Jennings and the tearful face of Mrs. Jennings, who had returned with
Lyman. But his face hardened again as he caught sight of Lime looking in
at him. His absurd pride would not let him relent. Lime saw it, and
stepped forward.

"Ol' man, I want t' take a little inning now. I'm a fair, square man. I
asked ye fer Merry as a man should. I told you I'd had hard luck, when I
first came here. I had five thousand dollars in clean cash stole from
me. I hain't got a thing now except credit, but that's good fer enough
t' stock a little farm with. Now, I wan' to be fair and square in this
thing. You wan' to rent a farm; I need one. Let me have the river
eighty, or I'll take the whole business on a share of a third an' Merry
Etty, and I to stay here with you jest as if nothin' 'd happened. Come,
now, what d' y' say?"

There was something winning in the whole bearing of the man as he stood
before the father, who remained silent and grim.

"Or if you don't do that, why, there's nothin' left fer Merry an' me but
to go back to La Crosse, where I can have my choice of a dozen farms.
Now this is the way things is standin'. I don't want to be underhanded
about this thing"----

"That's a fair offer," said Mr. Jennings in the pause which followed.
"You'd better do it, neighbor Bacon. Nobuddy need know how things
stood; they were married in my house--I thought that 'u'd be best. You
can't live without your girl," he went on, "any more 'n I could without
my boy. You'd better"----

The figure at the table straightened up. Under his tufted eyebrows his
keen gray eyes flashed from one to the other. His hands knotted.

"Go slow!" went on the smooth voice of Jennings, known all the country
through as a peace-maker. "Take time t' think it over. Stand out, an'
you'll live here alone without chick 'r child; give in, and this house
'll bubble over with noise and young ones. Now is short, and forever's a
long time to feel sorry in."

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