Wayside Courtships

H >> Hamlin Garland >> Wayside Courtships

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"Well, that settles that," said Arthur. "One thing more--I don't want
you to say what made the row between us."

"All right, pard; only, you'd better see Tim."

In spite of his care, the matter came to the ears of Richards, who
laughed over it and told his wife, who stared blankly.

"Good land! When did it happen?"

"A couple of days ago."

"Wal, there! I thought there was a nigger in the fence. Dan had a head
on him like a bushel basket. What was it about?"

"Something Tim said about Edith."

"I want to know! Wal, wal! An' here they've been going around as
peaceful as two kittens ever since."

"Of course. They pitched in and settled it man fashion; they ain't a
couple of women who go around sniffin' and spittin' at each other," said
Richards, with brutal sarcasm. "As near as I can learn, Tim and Dan come
at him to once."

"They're a nice pair of tramps!" said Mrs. Richards indignantly. "I told
you when they come they'd make trouble."

"I told you the cow'd eat up the grindstone," Richards replied with a
grin, walking away.

The more Mrs. Richards thought of it, the finer it all appeared to her.
She was deeply engaged now on Arthur's side, and was very eager to do
something to help on in his "sparking," as she called it. She seized the
first opportunity to tell Edith.

"Don't s'pose you heard of the little fracas we had t'other day," she
began, in phrase which she intended to be delicately indirect.

Edith was sitting in the cart, and Mrs. Richards stood at the wheel,
with her apron shading her head.

"Why, no. What was it?"

"Mr. Ramsey come mighty near gettin' killed." The old woman enjoyed
deeply the dramatic pallor and distortion of the girl's face.

"Why--why--what do you mean?"

"Wal, if he hadn't a lammed one feller with a bucket he'd a been laid
out sure. So Richards says; as it is, it's the other feller that has the
head." She laughed to see the girl's face grow rosy again.

"Then--Mr. Ramsey isn't hurt?"

"Not a scratch! The funny part of it is, they've been going around here
for a week, quiet as you please. I wouldn't have known anything about it
only for Richards."

"Oh, isn't it dreadful?" said the girl.

"Yes, 'tis!" the elder woman readily agreed; "but why don't you ask what
it was all about?"

"Oh, I don't want to know anything more about it; it's too terrible."

Mrs. Richards was approaching the climax.

"It was all about you."

The girl could not realize what part she should have with a disgraceful
row in the barnyard of her uncle's farm.

"Yes, these men--they're regular tramps; I told Richards so the first
time I set eyes on 'em--they made a little free with your name, and Art
he overheard them and he went for 'em, and they both come at him, two
to one, and he lammed both out in a minute--so Richards says. Now I call
that splendid; don't you? A young feller that'll stand up for his girl
ag'in two big tramps----"

The Major had been motioning for Edith to drive on down toward the gate,
and she seized the chance for escape. Her lips quivered with shame and
anger. It seemed already as if she had been splashed with mire.

"Oh, the vulgar creatures!" she said, in her throat, her teeth shut
tight.

"There, isn't that a fine field?" asked the Major, as he pointed to the
cabbages. "There is a chance for an American imitator of Monet--those
purple-brown deeps and those gray-blue-pink pearl tints--What's the
matter, my dear?" he broke off to ask. "Are you ill?"

"No, no, only let's go home," she said, the tears coming into her eyes.

He got in hastily.

"My dear, you are really ill. What's the matter? Has your old enemy the
headache--" He put his arm about her tenderly.

"No, no! I'm sick of this place--I wish I'd never seen it! How could
those dreadful men fight about me? It's horrible!"

The Major whistled.

"Oh, ho! that's got around to you, has it? I didn't know it myself until
yesterday; I was hoping it wouldn't reach you at all. I wouldn't mind
it, my dear. It's the shadow every lovely woman throws, no matter where
she walks; it's only your shadow that has passed over the cesspool."

"But I can't even bear that; it seems like a part of me. What do you
suppose they said of me?" she asked, in morbid curiosity.

"Now, now, dearest, to know that would be stepping into the muck after
your shadow; the talk of such men is unimaginable to you."

"You don't mean Mr. Ramsey?"

"No; Mr. Ramsey is a different sort of man, and I don't suppose anything
else would have brought him to blows with those rough men."

They sat looking straight forward.

"Oh, it's horrible, horrible!"

Her uncle tightened his arm about her.

"I suppose the knowledge of such lower deeps must come to you some day,
but don't seek it now; I've told you all you ought to know. Ramsey meant
well," he went on, after a silence, "but such things do little good, not
enough to pay for the outlay of self-respect. He can't control their
talk when he's out of hearing."

"But I supposed that if a woman was--good--I mean--I didn't know that
men talked in that way about girls--like me. How could they?"

The abyss still fascinated her.

"My dear, such men are only half civilized. They have all the passions
of animals, and all the vices of men. Ramsey was too hot-headed; their
words do not count; they weren't worth whipping."

There was a little silence. They were nearing the mountains again, and
both raised their eyes to the peaks deeply shadowed in Tyrian purple.

"I know how you feel, I think," the Major went on, "but the best thing
to do is to forget it. I'm sorry Ramsey fought. To walk into a gang of
rough men like that is foolish and dangerous too, for the ruffian is
generally the best man physically, I'm sorry to say."

"It was brave, though, don't you think so?" she asked.

He looked at her quickly.

"Oh, yes; it was brave and very youthful."

She smiled a little for the first time.

"I guess I like youth."

"In that case I'll have to promote him for it," he said with a smile
that made her look away toward the mountains again.

V.

Saulisbury took a sudden turn to friendliness, and defended the action
when the Major related the story that night at the dinner table, as they
were seated over their coffee and cigars. He was dining with the
Saulisburys.

"It's uncommon plucky, that's what I think, d'ye kneow. By Jeove, I
didn't think the young dog had it in him, really. He did one fellow up
with a bucket, they say, and met the other fellow with his left. Where
did the young beggah get his science?"

"At college, I suppose."

"But I suppeosed these little Western colleges were a milk-and-wahta
sawt of thing, ye kneow--Baptist and Christian Endeavor, and all that,
ye kneow."

"Oh, no," laughed the Major. "They are not so benighted as that. They
give a little attention to the elementary studies, though I believe
athletics do come second on the curriculum."

"Well, the young dog seems to have made some use of his chawnce," said
Saulisbury, who had dramatized the matter in his own way, and saw Ramsey
doing the two men up in accordance with Queensberry rules. "I wouldn't
hawf liked the jobe meself, do ye kneow. They're forty years apiece, and
as hard as nails."

Mrs. Saulisbury looked up from her walnuts.

"Sam is ready to carry the olive club to Mr. Ramsey. 'The poor beggar,'
as he has called him all along, will be a gentleman from this time
forward."

After the Major had gone, Saulisbury said:

"There's one thing the Majah was careful note to mention, my deah. Why
should this young fellow be going abeout defending the good name of his
niece? Do ye kneow, my deah, I fancy the young idiot is in love with
her."

"Well, suppose he is?"

"But, my deah! In England, you kneow, it wouldn't mattah; it would be a
case of hopeless devotion. But as I understand things heah, it may
become awkward. Don't ye think so, love?"

"It depends upon the young man. Edith could do worse than marry a good,
clean, wholesome fellow like that."

"Good gracious! You deon't allow your mind to go that fah?"

"Why, certainly! I'd much rather she'd marry a strong young workingman
than some burnt-out third-generation wreck of her own set in the city."

"But the fellow has no means."

"He has muscle and brains, and besides, she has something of her own."

Saulisbury filled his pipe slowly.

"Luckily, it's all theory on our part; the contingency isn't heah--isn't
likely to arrive, in fact."

"Don't be too sure. If I can read a girl's heart in the lines of her
face, she's got where principalities and powers are of small account."

"Really?"

"Sure as shooting," she smilingly said.

Saulisbury mused and puffed.

"In that case, we will have to turn in and give the fellow what you
Americans call a boost."

"That's _right_," his wife replied slangily.

Edith went to her room that night with a mind whirling in dizzying
circles, whose motion she could not check. It was terrible to have it
all come in this way.

She knew Arthur cared for her--she had known it from the first--but with
the happy indifference of youth, she had not looked forward to the end
of the summer. The sure outcome of passion had kept itself somewhere in
a golden glimmer on the lower sweep of the river.

She wished for some one to go to for advice. Mrs. Thayer, she knew,
would exclaim in horror over the matter. The Major had hinted the course
she would have to take, which was to show Arthur he had no connection
with her life--if she could. But deep in her heart she knew she could
not do that.

Suddenly a thought came to her which made her flush till the dew of
shame stood upon her forehead. He had never been to see her; she had
always been to see him!

She knew that this was true. She did not attempt to conceal it from
herself now. The charm of those rides with her uncle was the chance of
seeing Arthur. The sweet, never-wearying charm that made this summer one
of perfect happiness, that had made her almost forget her city ways and
friends, that had made her brown and strong with the soil and wind, was
daily contact with a robust and wholesome young man, a sturdy figure
with brown throat and bare, strong arms.

She went off at this point into a retrospective journey along the
pathways of her summer outing. At this place he stood at the watering
trough, leaning upon his great gray horse. Here he was walking behind
his plow; he was lifting his hat--the clear sunshine fell over his face.
She saw again the splendid flex of his side and powerful thigh. Here he
was in the hayfield, and she saw the fork-handle bend like a willow twig
under his smiling effort, the muscles on his brown arms rolling like
some perfect machinery. She idealized all he did, and the entire summer
and the wide landscape seemed filled with prismatic colors.

Then her self-accusations came back. She had gone down into the field to
see him; perhaps the very man who was with him then was one of those who
had jested of her and whom he had punished. Her little hands clutched.

"I'll never go out there again! I'll never see him again--never!" she
said, with her teeth shut tight.

Mrs. Thayer did not take any very great interest in the matter until
Mrs. Saulisbury held a session with her. Then she sputtered in deep
indignation.

"Why, how dare he make love to my niece? Why, the presumptuous thing!
Why, the idea! He's a workingman!"

Mrs. Saulisbury remained calm and smiling. She was the only person who
could manage Mrs. Thayer.

"Yes, that's true. But he's a college-bred man, and----"

"College-bred! These nasty little Western colleges--what do they amount
to? Why, he curries our horses."

Mrs. Saulisbury was amused.

"I know that is an enormity, but I heard the Major tell of currying
horses once."

"That was in the army--anyhow, it doesn't matter. Edith can simply
ignore the whole thing."

"I hope she can, but I doubt it very much."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that Edith is interested in him."

"I don't believe it! Why, it is impossible! You're crazy, Jeannette!"

"He's very handsome in a way."

"He's red and big-jointed, and he's a common plowboy." Mrs. Thayer
gasped, returning to her original charge.

Mrs. Saulisbury laughed, being malevolent enough to enjoy the whole
situation.

"He appears to me to be a very uncommon plowboy. Well, I wouldn't try to
do anything about it, Charlotte," she added. "You remember the fate of
the Brookses, who tried to force Maud to give up her clerk. If this is a
case of true love, you might as well surrender gracefully."

"But I can't do that. I'm responsible for her to her father. I'll go
right straight and ask her."

"Charlotte," Mrs. Saulisbury's voice rang with a stern note, "don't you
_presume_ to do such a thing! You will precipitate everything. The girl
don't know her own mind, and if you go up there and attack this young
man, you'll tip the whole dish over. Don't you know you can't safely
abuse that young fellow in her hearing? Sit down now and be reasonable.
Leave her alone for a while. Let her think it over alone."

This good counsel prevailed, and the other woman settled into a calmer
state.

"Well, it's a dreadful thing, anyhow."

"Perfectly dreadful! But you mustn't take a conventional view of it. You
must remember, a good, handsome, healthy man should come first as a
husband, and this young man is very attractive, and I must admit he
seems a gentleman, so far as I can see. Besides, you can't do anything
by storming up to that poor girl. Let her alone for a few days."

Following this suggestion, no one alluded to the fight, or appeared to
notice Edith's changed moods, but Mrs. Saulisbury could not forbear
giving her an occasional squeeze of wordless sympathy, as she passed
her.

It was pitiful to see the tumult and fear and responsibility of the
world coming upon this dainty, simple-hearted girl. Life had been so
straightforward before. No toil, no problems, no choosing of things for
one's self. Now suddenly here was the greatest problem of all coming at
the end of a summer-time outing.

Meanwhile Arthur was longing to see Edith once more, and wondering why
she had stopped coming.

The Major came up on Friday and Saturday, but came alone, and that left
only the hope of seeing Edith at church, and the young fellow worked on
with that to nerve his arm.

The family respected his departure on Sunday. They plainly felt his
depression, and sympathized with it.

"Walk home with her. I would," said Mrs. Richards, as he went through
the kitchen.

"So would I. Dang me if I'd stand off," Richards started to say, but
Arthur did not stop to listen.

As he rode down to the city, he recovered, naturally, a little of his
buoyancy. Sleep had rested his body and cleared his mind for action.

He sat in his usual place at the back of the church, and his heart
throbbed painfully as he saw her moving up the aisle, a miracle of lace
and coolness, with fragrant linen enveloping her lovely young form, so
erect and graceful and slender.

Then his heart bowed down before her, not because she was above him in a
social class--he did not admit that--but because he was a lover, and
she was his ideal. He was cast down as suddenly as he had been exalted
by her timid look around, as was her custom, in order to bow to him.

He stood at the door as they came out, though he felt foolish and boyish
in doing so. She approached him with eyes turned away; but as she passed
him she flashed an appealing, mystical look at him, and, flushing a
radiant pink, slipped out of the side door, leaving him stunned and
smarting for a moment.

As he mounted his horse and rode away toward the ranch, his thoughts
were busy with that strange look of hers. He came to understand and to
believe at last that she appealed to him and trusted in him and waited
for him.

Then something strong and masterful rose in him. He lifted his big brown
fist in the air in a resolution which was like that of Napoleon when he
entered Russia. He turned and rode furiously back toward the town.

As he walked up the gravel path to the Thayer house it seemed like a
castle to him. The great granite portico, the curving flight of steps,
the splendor of the glass above the door, all impressed him with the
terrible gulf between his fortune and hers.

He was met at the door by the girl from the table. He greeted her as his
equal, and said:

"Is Miss Newell at home?"

The girl smiled with perfect knowledge and sympathy. She was on his
side; and she knew, besides, how much it meant to have the hired man
come in at the front door.

"Yes, she's at dinner. Won't you come in, Mr. Ramsey?"

He entered without further words, and followed her into the reception
room, which was the most splendid room he had ever seen. He stood with
his feet upon a rug which was worth more than his year's pay, and he
knew it.

"Just take a seat here, and I'll announce you," said the girl, who was
almost trembling with eagerness to explode her torpedo of news.

"Don't disturb them. I'll wait."

But she had whisked out of the room, having plans of her own; perhaps
revenges of her own.

Arthur listened. He could not help it. He heard the girl's clear,
distinct voice; the open doorways conveyed every word to him.

"It's Mr. Ramsey, ma'am, to see Miss Newell."

The young man's strained ears heard the sudden pause in the click of
knives and plates. He divined the gasps of astonishment with which Mrs.
Thayer's utterance began.

"Well, I declare! Now, Major, you see what I told you?"

"The plucky young dog!" said Saulisbury, in sincere admiration.

Mrs. Thayer went on:

"Now, Mr. Thayer, this is the result of treating your servants as
equals."

The Major laughed.

"My dear, you're a little precipitate. It may be a mistake. The young
man may be here to tell me one of the colts is sick."

"You don't believe any such thing! You heard what the girl said--Oh,
look at Edith!"

There was a sudden pushing and scraping of chairs. Arthur rose, tense,
terrified. A little flurry of voices followed.

"Here, give her some wine! The poor thing! No wonder----"

Then a slight pause.

"She's all right," said the Major in a relieved tone. "Just a little
surprised, that's all."

There came a little inarticulate murmur from the girl, and then another
pause.

"By Jove! this is getting dramatic!" said Saulisbury.

"Be quiet, Sam," said his wife. "I won't have any of your scoffing. I'm
glad there is some sincerity of emotion left in our city girls."

Mrs. Thayer broke in:

"Major, you go right out there and send that impudent creature away.
It's disgraceful!"

Arthur turned cold and hard as granite. His heart rose with a murderous,
slow swell. He held his breath, while the calm, amused voice of the
Major replied:

"But, see here, my dear, it's none of my business. Mr. Ramsey is an
American citizen--I like him--he has a perfect right to call----"

"H'yah, h'yah!" called Saulisbury in a chuckle.

"He's a man of parts, and besides, I rather imagine Edith has given him
the right to call."

The anger died out of Arthur's heart, and the warm blood rushed once
more through his tingling body. Tears came to his eyes, and he could
have embraced his defender.

"Nothing like consistency, Majah," said Saulisbury.

"Sam, will you be quiet?"

The Major went on:

"I imagine the whole matter is for Edith to decide. It's really very
simple. Let her send word to him that she does not care to see him, and
he'll go away--no doubt of it."

"Why, of course," said Mrs. Thayer. "Edith, just tell Mary to say to Mr.
What's-his-name----"

Again that creeping thrill came into the young man's hair. His world
seemed balanced on a needle's point.

Then a chair was pushed back slowly. There was another little flurry.
Again the blood poured over him like a splash of warm water, leaving him
cold and wet.

"Edith!" called the astonished, startled voice of Mrs. Thayer. "What are
you going to do?"

"I'm going to see him," said the girl's firm voice.

There was a soft clapping of two pairs of hands.

As she came through the portiere, Edith walked like a princess. There
was amazing resolution in her back-flung head, and on her face was the
look of one who sets sail into unknown seas.

Someway--somehow, through a mist of light and a blur of sound, he met
her--and the cling of her arms about his neck moved him to tears.

No word was uttered till the Major called from the doorway:

"Mr. Ramsey, Mrs. Thayer wants to know if you won't come and have some
dinner."

A STOP-OVER AT TYRE.

I.

Albert Lohr was studying the motion of the ropes and lamps, and
listening to the rumble of the wheels and the roar of the ferocious wind
against the pane of glass that his head touched. It was the midnight
train from Marion rushing toward Warsaw like some savage thing
unchained, creaking, shrieking, and clattering through the wild storm
which possessed the whole Mississippi Valley.

Albert lost sight of the lamps at last, and began to wonder what his
future 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 to
Washington."

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

The car was nearly empty: save here and there the wide-awake Western
drummer, and a woman with four fretful children, the train was as
deserted as it was frightfully cold. The engine shrieked warningly at
intervals, the train rumbled hollowly over short bridges and across
pikes, swung round the hills, and plunged with wild warnings past little
towns 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 the
seats, and swore dreadfully at the railway company for not heating the
cars. The woman with the children inquired for the tenth time, "Is the
next station Lodi?"

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

At Lodi several people got on, among them a fat man and his pretty
daughter abnormally wide awake considering the time of night. She saw
Albert for the same reason that he saw her--they were both young and
good-looking.

He began his musings again, modified by this girl's face. He had left
out the feminine element; obviously he must recapitulate. He'd study
law, yes; but that would not prevent going to sociables and church
fairs. And at these fairs the chances were good for a meeting with a
girl. Her father must be influential--country judge or district
attorney; this 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, enveloped
in a cloud of fine snow.

"Yes, here!" shouted Albert.

"Here's a telegram for you."

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

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

"Well, now, that's fun!" said Albert, looking at the brakeman. "When do
we 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 'u'd do the matter justice," Albert said,
studying the telegram.

"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 hesitating
way:

"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 ain't no Vanderbilt to stop at two-dollar-a-day hotels."

The brakeman sat down opposite Albert, encouraged by his smile.

"Y' see, my division ends at Warsaw, and I run back and forth here every
other day, but I don't get much chance to see them, and I ain't worth a
cuss f'r letter-writin'. Y'see, she's only aunt by marriage, but I like
her; an' I guess she's got about all she can stand up under, an' so I
like t' help her a little when I can. The old man died owning nothing
but 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 brakeman
slammed out on the platform.

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

"Yes--on the freight."

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

"Don't they? Well, I guess they don't stop for a storm like this if
they's any money to be made by sending her through. Many's the night
I've broke all night on top of the old wooden cars, when the wind cut
like a razor. Shear the hair off a cast-iron mule--_woo-o-o_! There's
where you need grit, old man," he ended, dropping into familiar speech.

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