Wayside Courtships
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16 WAYSIDE COURTSHIPS
BY HAMLIN GARLAND
AUTHOR OF A SPOIL OF OFFICE, A LITTLE NORSK, ETC.
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
M DCCC XCVII
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Copyright, 1897, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1895, 1896, 1897, by Hamlin Garland
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WAYSIDE COURTSHIPS
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Hamlin Garland's Books.
Uniform edition. Each, 12mo, cloth, $1.25.
Wayside Courtships.
Jason Edwards.
A Spoil of Office.
A Member of the Third House.
A Little Norsk. 16mo. 50 cents.
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, NEW YORK.
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The meeting of true lovers' eyes
Seems wrought of chance; and yet
Perhaps the same grim law abides
Therein as when the dead one lies
Low in the grave, and memory chides,
And with hot tears love's lids are wet.
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CONTENTS.
PAGE
AT THE BEGINNING 1
A PREACHER'S LOVE STORY 5
A MEETING IN THE FOOTHILLS 55
A STOP-OVER AT TYRE 99
AN ALIEN IN THE PINES 171
THE OWNER OF THE MILL FARM 201
OF THOSE WHO SEEK:
I.--THE PRISONED SOUL 223
II.--A SHELTERED ONE 226
III.--A FAIR EXILE 230
IV.--THE PASSING STRANGER 247
BEFORE THE LOW GREEN DOOR 253
UPON IMPULSE 263
THE END OF LOVE IS LOVE OF LOVE 279
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AT THE BEGINNING.
She was in the box; he was far above in the gallery.
He looked down and across and saw her sitting there fair as a flower and
robed like a royal courtesan in flame and snow.
Like a red torch flamed the ruby in her hair. Her shoulders were framed
in her cloak, white as marble warmed with firelight. Her gloved hands
held an opera glass which also glowed with flashing light.
His face grew dark and stern. He looked down at his poor coat and around
at the motley gallery which reeked with the smell of tobacco and liquor.
Students were there--poor like himself, but with great music-loving,
hungry, ambitious souls. Men and women of refinement and indomitable
will sat side by side with drunken loafers who had chanced to stumble up
the stairway.
His eyes went back to her. So sweet and dainty was every thread on her
fair body. No smell of toil, nor touch of care, nor mark of weariness.
Her flesh was ivory, her eyes were jewels, her heart was as clean and
sweet as her eyes. She was perfectly clothed, protected, at ease.
No, not at ease. She seemed restless. Again and again she swept her
glass around the lower balcony.
The man in the gallery knew she was looking for him, and he took a
bitter delight in the distance between them. He waited, calm as a lion
in his power.
The man at her elbow talks on. She does not hear. She is still
looking--a little swifter, a little more anxiously--her red lips ready
to droop in disappointment.
The noise of feet, of falling seats, continues. Boys call shrilly.
Ushers dart hastily to and fro. The soft laughter and hum of talk come
up from below.
She has reached the second balcony. She sweeps it hurriedly. Her
companion raises his eyes to the same balcony and laughs as he speaks.
She colors a little, but smiles as she lifts her eyes to the third
balcony.
Suddenly the glass stops. The color surges up her neck, splashing her
cheeks with red. Her breath stops also for a moment, then returns quick
and strong.
Her smile settles into a curious contraction that is almost painful to
see. His unsmiling eyes are looking somberly, sternly, accusingly into
hers. They are charged with all the bitterness and hate and disappointed
ambition which social injustice and inequality had wrought into his
soul.
She shivered and dropped her glass. Shivered and drew her fleecy, pink
and pale-blue cloak closer about her bare neck.
Her face grew timid, almost appealing, as she turned it upward toward
him like a flower, to be kissed across the height that divided him from
her.
His heart swelled with exultation. His face softened. From the height of
his intellectual pride he bent his head and sent a winged caress
fluttering down upon that flowerlike face.
And then the stealing harmony of the violins began, gliding like mist
above the shuddering, tumultuous, obscure thunder of the drums, and the
man's soul swept across that sea of song with the heart of a lion and
the wings of an eagle.
A tender, musing smile was on the woman's lips.
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WAYSIDE COURTSHIPS
A PREACHER'S LOVE STORY.
I.
The train drew out of the great Van Buren Street depot at 4.30 of a dark
day in late October. A tall young man, with a timid look in his eyes,
was almost the last one to get on, and his pale face wore a worried look
as he dropped into an empty seat and peered out at the squalid buildings
reeling past in the mist.
The buildings grew smaller, and vacant lots appeared stretching away in
flat spaces, broken here and there by ridges of ugly squat little
tenement blocks. Over this landscape vast banners of smoke streamed,
magnified by the misty rain which was driven in from the lake.
At last there came a swell of land clothed on with trees. It was still
light enough to see they were burr oaks, and the young student's heart
thrilled at sight of them. His forehead smoothed out, and his eyes grew
tender with boyish memories.
He was seated thus, with head leaning against the pane, when another
young man came down the aisle from the smoking car and took a seat
beside him with a pleasant word.
He was a handsome young fellow of twenty-three or four. His face was
large and beardless, and he had beautiful teeth. He had a bold and keen
look, in spite of the bang of yellow hair which hung over his forehead.
Some commonplaces passed between them, and then silence fell on each.
The conductor coming through the car, the smooth-faced young fellow put
up a card to be punched, and the student handed up a ticket, simply
saying, "Kesota."
After a decent pause the younger man said "Going to Kesota, are you?"
"Yes."
"So am I. I live there, in fact."
"Do you? Then perhaps you can tell me the name of your County
Superintendent. I'm looking for a school." He smiled frankly. "I'm just
out of Jackson University, and----"
"That so? I'm an Ann Arbor man myself." They took a moment for mutual
warming up. "Yes, I know the Superintendent. Why not come right up to my
boarding place, and to-morrow I'll introduce you? Looking for a school,
eh? What kind of a school?"
"Oh, a village school, or even a country school. It's too late to get a
good place; but I've been sick, and----"
"Yes, the good positions are all snapped up; still, you might by
accident hit on something. I know Mott; he'll do all he can for you. By
the way, my name's Allen."
The young student understood this hint and spoke. "Mine is Stacey."
The younger man mused a few minutes, as if he had forgotten his new
acquaintance. Suddenly he roused up.
"Say, would you take a country school several miles out?"
"I think I would, if nothing better offered."
"Well, out in my neighborhood they're without a teacher. It's six miles
out, and it isn't a lovely neighborhood. However, they will pay fifty
dollars a month; that's ten dollars extra for the scrimmages. They
wanted me to teach this winter--my sister teaches it in summer--but,
great Peter! I can't waste my time teaching school, when I can run up to
Chicago and take a shy at the pit and make a whole term's wages in
thirty minutes."
"I don't understand," said Stacey.
"Wheat Exchange. I've got a lot of friends in the pit, and I can come in
any time on a little deal. I'm no Jim Keene, but I hope to get cash
enough to handle five thousand. I wanted the old gent to start me up in
it, but he said, 'Nix come arouse.' Fact is, I dropped the money he gave
me to go through college with." He smiled at Stacey's disapproving look.
"Yes, indeedy; there's where the jar came into our tender relations. Oh,
I call on the governor--always when I've got a wad. I have fun with
him." He smiled brightly. "Ask him if he don't need a little cash to pay
for hog-killin', or something like that." He laughed again. "No, I
didn't graduate at Ann Arbor. Funny how things go, ain't it? I was on my
way back the third year, when I stopped in to see the pit--it's one o'
the sights of Chicago, you know--and Billy Krans saw me looking over the
rail. I went in, won, and then took a flyer on December. Come a big
slump, and I failed to materialize at school."
"What did you do then?" asked Stacey, to whom this did not seem
humorous.
"I wrote a contrite letter to the governor, stating case, requesting
forgiveness--and money. No go! Couldn't raise neither. I then wrote
casting him off. 'You are no longer father of mine.'" He smiled again
radiantly. "You should have seen me the next time I went home! Plug hat!
Imported suit! Gold watch! Diamond shirt-stud! Cost me $200 to paralyze
the general, but I did it. My glory absolutely turned him white as a
sheet. I knew what he thought, so I said: 'Perfectly legitimate, dad.
The walls of Joliet are not gaping for me.' That about half fetched
him--calling him _dad_, I mean--but he can't get reconciled to my
business. 'Too many ups and downs,' he says. Fact is, he thinks it's
gambling, and I don't argue the case with him. I'm on my way home now to
stay over Sunday."
The train whistled, and Allen looked out into the darkness. "We're
coming to the crossing. Now, I can't go up to the boarding place when
you do, but I'll give you directions, and you tell the landlady I sent
you, and it'll be all right. Allen, you remember--Herman Allen."
Following directions, Stacey came at length to a two-story frame house
situated on the edge of the bank, with its back to the river. It stood
alone, with vacant lots all about. A pleasant-faced woman answered the
ring.
He explained briefly. "How do you do? I'm a teacher, and I'd like to get
board here a few days while passing my examinations. Mr. Herman Allen
sent me."
The woman's quick eye and ear were satisfied. "All right. Walk in, sir.
I'm pretty full, but I expect I can accommodate you--if you don't mind
Mr. Allen for a roommate."
"Oh, not at all," he said, while taking off his coat.
"Come right in this way. Supper will be ready soon."
He went into a comfortable sitting room, where a huge open fire of soft
coal was blazing magnificently. The walls were papered in florid
patterns, and several enlarged portraits were on the walls. The fire was
the really great adornment; all else was cheap, and some of it was
tawdry.
Stacey spread his thin hands to the blaze, while the landlady sat down a
moment, out of politeness, to chat, scanning him keenly. She was a
handsome woman, strong, well rounded, about forty years of age, with
quick gray eyes and a clean, firm-lipped mouth.
"Did you just get in?"
"Yes. I've been on the road all day," he said, on an impulse of
communication. "Indeed, I'm just out of college."
"Is that so?" exclaimed Mrs. Mills, stopping her rocking in an access of
interest. "What college?"
"Jackson University. I've been sick, and only came West----"
There came a look into her face that transformed and transfigured her.
"_My_ boy was in Ann Arbor. He was killed on the train on his way home
one day." She stopped, for fear of breaking into a quaver, and smiled
brightly. "That's why I always like college boys. They all stop here
with me." She rose hastily. "Well, you'll excuse me, won't you, and I'll
go an' 'tend to supper."
There was a great deal that was feminine in Stacey, and he felt at once
the pathos of the woman's life. He looked a refined, studious, rather
delicate young man, as he sat low in his chair and observed the light
and heat of the fire. His large head looked to be full of learning, and
his dark eyes were deep with religious fervor.
Several young women entered, and the room was filled with clatter of
tongues. Herman came in a few moments later, his face in a girlish glow
of color. Everybody rushed at him with loud outcry. He was evidently a
great favorite. He threw his arms about Mrs. Mills, giving her a hearty
hug. The girls pretended to be shocked when he reached out for them, but
they were not afraid of him. They hung on his arms and besieged him with
questions till he cried out, in jolly perplexity:
"Girls, girls! This will never do."
Mrs. Mills brushed out his damp yellow curls with her hands. "You're all
wet."
"Girls, if you'll let me sit down, I'll take one on each knee," he said,
pleadingly, and they released him.
Stacey grew red with sympathetic embarrassment, and shrank away into a
corner.
"Go get supper ready," commanded Herman. And it was only after they left
that he said to Stacey: "Oh, you found your way all right. I didn't see
you--those confounded girls bother me so." He took a seat by the fire
and surveyed his wet shoes. "I took a run up to Mott's house--only a
half block out o' the way. He said they'd be tickled to have you at
Cyene. By the way, you're a theolog, aren't you?" Wallace nodded, and
Herman went on: "So I told Mott. He said you might work up a society out
there at Cyene."
"Is there a church there?"
"Used to be, but--say, I tell you what you do: you go out with me
to-morrow, and I'll give you the whole history."
The ringing of the bell took them out into the cheerful dining room in
a good-natured scramble. Mrs. Mills put Stacey at one end of the table,
near a young woman who looked like a teacher, and he had full sweep of
the table, which was surrounded by bright and sunny faces. The station
hand was there, and a couple of grocery clerks, and a brakeman sat at
Stacey's right hand. The table was very merry. They called each other by
their Christian names, and there was very obvious courtship on the part
of several young couples.
Stacey escaped from the table as soon as possible, and returned to his
seat beside the fire. He was young enough to enjoy the chatter of the
girls, but his timidity made him glad they paid so little attention to
him. The rain had changed to sleet outside, and hammered at the window
viciously, but the blazing fire and the romping young people set it at
defiance. The landlady came to the door of the dining room, dish and
cloth in hand, to share in each outburst of laughter, and not
infrequently the hired girl peered over her shoulder with a broad smile
on her face. A little later, having finished their work, they both came
in and took active part in the light-hearted fun.
Herman and one of the girls were having a great struggle over some
trifle he had snatched from her hand, and the rest stood about laughing
to see her desperate attempts to recover it. This was a familiar form of
courtship in Kesota, and an evening filled with such romping was
considered a "cracking good time." After the girl, red and disheveled,
had given up, Herman sat down at the organ, and they all sang Moody and
Sankey hymns, negro melodies, and college songs till nine o'clock. Then
Mrs. Mills called, "Come, now, boys and girls," and they all said good
night, like obedient children.
Herman and Wallace went up to their bedroom together.
"Say, Stacey, have you got a policy?" Wallace shook his head. "And don't
want any, I suppose. Well, I just asked you as a matter of form. You
see," he went on, winking at Wallace comically, "nominally I'm an
insurance agent, but practically I'm a 'lamb'--but I get a mouthful o'
fur myself occasionally. What I'm working for is to get on that Wheat
Exchange. That's where you get life! I'd rather be an established broker
in that howling mob than go to Congress."
Suddenly a thought struck him. He rose on his elbow in bed and looked at
Wallace just as he rose from a silent prayer. Catching his eye, Herman
said:
"Say! why didn't you shout? I forgot all about it--I mean your
profession."
Wallace crept into bed beside his communicative bedfellow in silence. He
didn't know how to deal with such spirits.
"Say!" called Herman suddenly, as they were about to go to sleep, "you
ain't got no picnic, old man."
"Why, what do you mean?"
"Wait till you see Cyene Church. Oh, it's a daisy snarl."
"I wish you'd tell me about it."
"Oh, it's quiet now. The calmness of death," said Herman. "Well, you
see, it came this way. The church is made up of Baptists and Methodists,
and the Methodists wanted an organ, because, you understand, father was
the head center, and Mattie is the only girl among the Methodists who
can play. The old man has got a head like a mule. He can't be switched
off, once he makes up his mind. Deacon Marsden he don't believe in
anything above tuning forks, and he's tighter'n the bark on a bulldog.
He stood out like a sore thumb, and dad wouldn't give an inch.
"You see, they held meetings every other Sunday. So dad worked up the
organ business and got one, and then locked it up when the Baptists held
their services. Well, it went from bad to worse. They didn't speak as
they passed by--that is, the old folks; we young folks didn't care a
continental whether school kept or not. Well, upshot is, the church died
out. The wind blew the horse sheds down, and there they lie--and the
church is standing there empty as an--old boot--and----" He grew too
sleepy to finish.
Suddenly a comical idea roused him again. "Say, Stacey--by Jinks!--are
you a Baptist?"
"Yes."
"Oh, Peter! ain't that lovely?" He chuckled shamelessly, and went off to
sleep without another word.
II.
Herman was still sleeping when Stacey rose and dressed and went down to
breakfast. Mrs. Mills defended Herman against the charge of laziness:
"He's probably been out late all the week."
Stacey found Mott in the county courthouse, and a perfunctory
examination soon put him in possession of a certificate. There was no
question of his attainments.
Herman met him at dinner-time.
"Well, elder, I'm going down to get a rig to go out home in. It's
colder'n a blue whetstone, so put on all the clothes you've got. Gimme
your check, and I'll get your traps. Have you seen Mott?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, everything's all fixed."
He turned up about three o'clock, seated on the spring seat of a lumber
wagon beside a woman, who drove the powerful team. Whether she was young
or old could not be told through her wraps. She wore a cap and a thick,
faded cloak.
Mrs. Mills hurried to the door. "Why, Mattie Allen! What you doin' out
such a day as this? Come in here instanter!"
"Can't stop," called a clear, boyish voice. "Too late."
"Well, land o' stars!--you'll freeze."
When Wallace reached the wagon side, Herman said, "My sister, Stacey."
The girl slipped her strong brown hand out of her huge glove and gave
him a friendly grip. "Get right in," she said. "Herman, you're going to
stand up behind."
Herman appealed to Mrs. Mills for sympathy. "This is what comes of
having plebeian connections."
"Oh, dry up," laughed the girl, "or I'll make you drive."
Stacey scrambled in awkwardly beside her. She was not at all
embarrassed, apparently.
"Tuck yourself in tight. It's mighty cold on the prairie."
"Why didn't you come down with the baroosh?" grumbled Herman.
"Well, the corn was contracted for, and father wasn't able to come--he
had another attack of neuralgia last night after he got the corn
loaded--so I had to come."
"Sha'n't I drive for you?" asked Wallace.
"No, thank you. You'll have all you can do to keep from freezing." She
looked at his thin coat and worn gloves with keen eyes. He could see
only her pink cheeks, strong nose, and dark, smiling eyes.
It was one of those terrible Illinois days when the temperature drops
suddenly to zero, and the churned mud of the highways hardens into a
sort of scoriac rock, which cripples the horses and sends the heavy
wagons booming and thundering along like mad things. The wind was keen
and terrible as a saw-bladed sword, and smote incessantly. The desolate
sky was one thick, impenetrable mass of swiftly flying clouds. When they
swung out upon the long pike leading due north, Wallace drew his breath
with a gasp, and bent his head to the wind.
"Pretty strong, isn't it?" shouted Mattie.
"Oh, the farmer's life is the life for me, tra-la!" sang Herman, from
his shelter behind the seat.
Mattie turned. "What do you think of _Penelope_ this month?"
"She's a-gitten there," said Herman, pounding his shoe heels.
"She's too smart for young Corey. She ought to marry a man like
Bromfield. My! wouldn't they talk?"
"Did y' get the second bundle of magazines last Saturday?"
"Yes; and dad found something in the _Popular Science_ that made him
mad, and he burned it."
"Did 'e? Tum-la-la! Oh, the farmer's life for me!"
"Are you cold?" she asked Wallace.
He turned a purple face upon her. "No--not much."
"I guess you better slip right down under the blankets," she advised.
The wind blew gray out of the north--a wild blast which stopped the
young student's blood in his veins. He hated to give up, but he could no
longer hold the blankets up over his knees, so he slipped down into the
corner of the box, with his back to the wind, with the blankets drawn
over his head.
The powerful girl slapped the reins down on the backs of the snorting
horses, and encouraged them with shouts like a man: "Get out o' this,
Dan! Hup there, Nellie!"
The wagon boomed and rattled. The floor of the box seemed beaten with a
maul. The glimpses Wallace had of the land appalled him, it was so flat
and gray and bare. The houses seemed poor, and drain-pipe scattered
about told how wet it all was.
Herman sang at the top of his voice, and danced, and pounded his feet
against the wagon box. "This ends it! If I can't come home without
freezing to death, I don't come. I should have hired a rig, irrespective
of you----"
The girl laughed. "Oh, you're getting thin-blooded, Herman. Life in the
city has taken the starch all out of you."
"Better grow limp in a great city than freeze stiff in the country," he
replied.
An hour's ride brought them into a yard before a large gray-white frame
house.
Herman sprang out to meet a tall old man with head muffled up. "Hello,
dad! Take the team. We're just naturally froze solid--at least I am.
This is Mr. Stacey, the new teacher."
"How de do? Run in; I'll take the horses."
Herman and Wallace stumbled toward the house, stiff and bent.
Herman flung his arms about a tall woman in the kitchen door. "Hello,
muz!" he said. "This is Mr. Stacey, the new teacher."
"Draw up to the fire, sir. Herman, take his hat and coat."
Mattie came in soon with a boyish rush. She was gleeful as a happy babe.
She unwound the scarf from her head and neck, and hung up her cap and
cloak like a man, but she gave her hair a little touch of feminine care,
and came forward with both palms pressed to her burning cheeks.
"Did you suffer, child?" asked Mrs. Allen.
"No; I enjoyed it."
Herman looked at Stacey. "I believe on my life she did."
"Oh, it's fun. I don't get a chance to do anything so exciting very
often."
Herman clicked his tongue. "Exciting? Well, well!"
"You must remember things are slower here," Mattie explained.
She came to light much younger than Stacey thought her. She was not
eighteen, but her supple and splendid figure was fully matured. Her
hair hung down her back in a braid, which gave a subtle touch of
childishness to her.
"Sis, you're still a-growin'," Herman said, as he put his arm around her
waist and looked up at her.
She seemed to realize for the first time that Stacey was a young man,
and her eyes fell.
"Well, now, set up the chairs, child," said Mrs. Allen.
When the young teacher returned from his cold spare room off the parlor
the family sat waiting for him. They all drew up noisily, and Allen
said:
"Ask the blessing, sir?"
Wallace said grace.
As Allen passed the potatoes he continued:
"My son tells me you are a minister of the gospel."
"I have studied for it."
"What denomination?"
"Tut, tut!" warned Herman. "Don't start any theological rabbits
to-night, dad. With jaw swelled up you won't be able to hold your own."
"I'm a Baptist," Stacey answered.
The old man's face grew grim. It had been ludicrous before with its
swollen jaw. "Baptist?" The old man turned to his son, whose smile
angered him. "Didn't you know no more'n to bring a Baptist preacher into
this house?"
"There, there, father!" began the wife.
"Be quiet. I'm boss of this shanty."
Herman struck in: "Don't make a show of yourself, old man. Don't mind
the old gent, Stacey; he's mumpy to-day, anyhow."
Stacey rose. "I guess I--I'd better not stay--I----"
"Oh, no, no! Sit down, Stacey. It's all right. The old man's a little
acid at me. He doesn't mean it."
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