Chapter II: Part 2

With this preliminary puff, the speaker paused and glanced slowly over his audience with the air of a practiced physiognomist. The crowd before him was, in many respects, an interesting one. Its most prominent individual, and the hero of this sketch, was Dave Cook, sometimes called Dr. Cook, but more commonly answering to the somewhat savage sounding sobriquet of Big Medicine--a man some thirty-five years of age, standing six feet six in his ponderous boots; broad, bony, muscular, a real giant, with a strongly marked Roman face, and brown, shaggy hair. He was dressed in a soiled and somewhat patched suit of butternut jeans, topped off with a wide rimmed wool hat, wonderfully battered, and lopped in every conceivable way. He wore a watch, the chain of which, depending from the waistband of his pants, was of iron, and would have weighed fully a pound avoirdupois. He stood quite still, near the auctioneer, smoking a clay pipe, his herculean arms folded on his breast, his feet far apart. As for the others of the crowd, they were, taken collectively, about such as one used always to see in the "dark corners" of Indiana, such as Boone county used to be before the building of any railroads through it, such as the particular locality of Jimtown was before the ditching law and the I. B. & W. Railway had lifted the fog and enlightened the miasmatic swamps and densely timbered bog lands of that region of elms, burr oaks, frogs and herons. Big Medicine seemed to be the only utterly complacent man in the assembly. All the others discovered evidences of much inward disturbance, muttering mysteriously to each other, and casting curious, inquiring glances at an individual, a stranger in the place, who, with a pair of queer green spectacles astride his nose, and his arms crossed behind him, was slowly sauntering about the building offered for sale, apparently examining it with some care. His general appearance was that of a well dressed gentleman, which of itself was enough to excite remark in Jimtown, especially when an auction was on hand, and everybody felt jolly.

"Them specs sticks to that nose o' his'n like a squir'l to a knot!" said one.

"His pantaloons is ruther inclined to be knock-kneed," put in an old, grimy sinner leaning on a single barrelled shot gun.

"Got lard enough onto his hair to shorten a mess o' pie crust," added a liver colored boy.

"Walks like he'd swallered a fence rail, too," chimed in a humpbacked fellow split almost to his chin.

"Chaws mighty fine terbacker, you bet."

"Them there boots o' his'n set goin' an' comin' like a grubbin' hoe onto a crooked han'le."

"Well, take'm up one side and down t'other, he's a mod'rately onery lookin' feller."

These remarks were reckoned smart by those who perpetrated them, and were by no means meant for real slurs on the individual at whom they were pointed. Indeed they were delivered in guarded undertones, so that he might not hear them; and he, meanwhile, utterly ignorant of affording any sport, continued his examination of the house, the while some happy frogs in a neighboring pond rolled out a rattling, jubilant chorus, and the summer wind poured through the leafy tops of the tall elms and athletic burr oaks with a swash and roar like a turbulent river.

"What am I now offered for this magnificent property? Come, give me a bid! Speak up lively! What do I hear for the house?"

The auctioneer, as he spoke, let his eyes wander up the walls of the old, dingy building, to where the blue birds and the peewees had built in the cracks and along the warped cornice and broken window frames, and just then it chanced that a woman's face appeared at one of those staring holes, which, with broken lattice and shattered glass, still might be called a window. The face was a plump, cheerful one, the more radiant from contrast with the dull wall around it--a face one could never forget, however, and would recall often, if for nothing but the fine fall of yellow hair that framed it in. It was a sweet, winning, intellectual face, full of the gentlest womanly charms.

"Forty dollars for the house, 'oman and all!" cried Big Medicine, gazing up at the window in which, for the merest moment, the face appeared.

The man with the green spectacles darted a quick glance at the speaker.

"I am bid forty dollars, gentlemen, forty dollars, do all hear? Agoing for forty dollars! Who says fifty?" bawled the auctioneer.

The crowd now swayed earnestly forward, closing in solid order around the goods box. Many whiskered, uncouth, but not unkindly faces were upturned to the window only in time to see the beautiful woman disappear quite hastily.

"Hooray for the gal!" cried a lusty youth, whose pale blue eyes made no show of contrast with his faded hair and aguish complexion. "Dad, can't ye bid agin the doctor so as I kin claim 'er?"

"Fifty dollars!" shouted the sunburnt man addressed as Dad.

This made the crowd lively. Every man nudged his neighbor, and the aguish, blue-eyed boy grinned in a ghastly, self-satisfied way.

"Agoing at fifty dollars! Fiddlesticks! The house is worth four thousand. No fooling here now! Agoing at only fifty dollars--going--"

"Six hundred dollars," said he of the green glasses in a clear, pleasant voice.

"Six hundred dollars!" echoed the auctioneer in a triumphant thunderous tone. "That sounds like business. Who says the other hundred?"

"Hooray for hooray, and hooray for hooray's daddy!" shouted the tallow-faced lad.

The frogs pitched their song an octave higher, the blue birds and peewees wheeled through the falling floods of yellow sunlight, and lower and sweeter rose the murmur of the tide of pulsating air as it lifted and swayed the fresh sprays of the oaks and elms. The well dressed stranger lighted a cigar, took off his green glasses and put them carefully in his pocket, then took a cool straight look at Big Medicine.

The Roman face of the latter was just then a most interesting one. It was expressive of more than words could rightly convey. Six hundred dollars, cash down, was a big sum for the crazy old house, but he had made up his mind to buy it, and now he seemed likely to have to let it go or pay more than it was worth. The stem of his clay pipe settled back full three inches into his firmly-set mouth, so that there seemed imminent danger to the huge brown moustache that overhung the fiery bowl. He returned the stare of the stranger with interest, and said--

"Six hundred an' ten dollars."

"Agoing, a----," began the auctioneer.

"Six twenty," said the stranger.

"Ago----."

"Six twenty-one!" growled Big Medicine.

"Six twenty-five!" quickly added his antagonist.

Big Medicine glanced heavenward, and for a moment allowed his eyes to follow the flight of a great blue heron that slowly winged its way, high up in the yellow summer reaches of splendor, toward the distant swamps where the white sycamores spread their fanciful arms above the dark green maples and dusky witch-hazel thickets. The auctioneer, a close observer, saw an ashy hue, a barely discernible shade, ripple across the great Roman face as Big Medicine said, in a jerking tone:

"Six twenty-five and a half!"

The stranger took his cigar from his mouth and smiled placidly. No more imperturbable countenance could be imagined.

"Six twenty-six!" he said gently.

"Take the ole house an' be derned to you!" cried Big Medicine, looking furiously at his antagonist. "Take the blamed ole shacke-merack an' all the cussed blue-birds an' peer-weers to boot, for all I keer!"

Everybody laughed, and the auctioneer continued:

"Agoing for six twenty-six! Who says seven hundred? Bid up lively! Agoing once, agoing twice--once, twice, three-e-e-e-e times! Sold to Abner Golding for six hundred and twenty-six dollars, and as cheap as dirt itself!"

"Hooray for the man who hed the most money!" shouted the tallow-faced boy.

The sale was at an end. The auctioneer came down from his box and wiped his face with a red handkerchief. The crowd, as if blown apart by a puff of wind, scattered this way and that, drifting into small, grotesque groups to converse together on whatever topic might happen to suggest itself. Big Medicine seemed inclined to be alone, but the irrepressible youth of the saffron skin ambled up to him and said, in a tone intended for comic:

"Golly, doctor, but didn't that 'ere gal projuce a orful demand for the ole house! Didn't she set the ole trap off when she peeked out'n the winder!"

Big Medicine looked down at the strapping boy, much as a lion might look at a field rat or a weasel, then he doubled his hand into an enormous fist and held it under the youth's nose, saying in a sort of growl as he did so:

"You see this 'ere bundle o' bones, don't ye?"

"Guess so," replied the youth.

"Well, would you like a small mess of it?"

"Not as anybody knows of."

"Well, then, keep yer derned mouth shet!"

Which, accordingly, the boy proceeded to do, ambling off as quickly as possible.

About this time, the stranger, having put the green spectacles back upon his nose, walked in the direction of 'Squire Tadmore's office, accompanied by the young woman who had looked from the window. When Big Medicine saw them he picked up a stick and began furiously to whittle it with his jack-knife. His face wore a comically mingled look of chagrin, wonder, and something like a new and thrilling delight. He puffed out great volumes of smoke, making his pipe wheeze audibly under the vigor of his draughts. He was certainly excited.

"Orful joke the boys 'll have on me arter this," he muttered to himself. "Wonder if the 'oman's the feller's wife? Monstrous poorty, shore's yer born!"

He soon whittled up one stick. He immediately dived for another, this time getting hold of a walnut knot. A tough thing to whittle, but he attacked it as if it had been a bit of white pine. Soon after this 'Squire Tadmore's little boy came running down from his father's office to where Big Medicine stood.

"Mr. Big Medicine," cried he, all out of breath, "that 'ere man what bought the ole house wants to see you partic'ler!"

"Mischief he does! Tell 'im to go to----; no, wait a bit. Guess I'll go tell 'im myself."

And, so saying, he moved at a slashing pace down to the door of the 'Squire's office. He thrust his great hirsute head inside the room, and glaring at the mild mannered stranger, said:

"D'ye want to see me?"

Mr. Golding got up from his seat and coming out took Big Medicine familiarly by the arm, meanwhile smiling in the most friendly way.

"Come one side a little, I wish to speak with you privately, confidentially."

Big Medicine went rather sulkily along. When they had gone some distance from the house Mr. Golding lifted his spectacles from his nose, and turning his calm, smiling eyes full upon those of Big Medicine, said, with a shrug of his finely cut shoulders:

"I outbid you a little, my friend, but I'm blessed if I haven't got myself into a ridiculous scrape on account of it."

"How so?" growled Big Medicine.

"Why, when I come to count my funds I'm short a half dollar."

"You're what?"

"I lack just a half dollar of having enough money to pay for the house, and I thought I'd rather ask you to loan me the money than anybody else here."

Big Medicine stood for a time in silence, whittling away, as if for dear life, on the curly knot. Dreamy gusts of perfumed heat swept by from adjacent clover and wheat fields, where the blooms hung thick; little whirlwinds played in the dust at their feet as little whirlwinds always do in summer; and far away, faint, and made tenderly musical by distance, were heard the notes of a country dinner-horn. Big Medicine's ample chest swelled, and swelled, and then he burst at the mouth with a mighty bass laugh, that went battling and echoing round the place. Mr. Golding laughed too, in his own quiet, gentlemanly way. They looked at each other and laughed, then looked off toward the swamps and laughed. Big Medicine put his hands in his pockets almost up to the elbows, and leaned back and laughed out of one corner of his mouth while holding his pipe in the other.

"I say, mister," said he at length, "a'n't you railly got but six hundred and twenty-five an' a half?"

"Just that much to a cent, and no more," replied Mr. Golding, with a comical smile and bow.

Big Medicine took his pipe from his mouth, gave the walnut knot he had dropped a little kick and guffawed louder and longer than before. To have been off at a little distance watching them would have convinced any one that Mr. Golding was telling some rare anecdote, and that Big Medicine was convulsed with mirth, listening.

"Well I'm derned if 'taint quare," cried the latter, wringing himself into all sorts of grotesque attitudes in the ecstasy of his amusement. "You outbid me half a dollar and then didn't have the half a dollar neither! Wha, wha, wha-ee!" and his cachinnations sounded like rolling of moderate thunder.

At the end of this he took out a greasy wallet and paid Mr. Golding the required amount in silver coin. His chagrin had vanished before the stranger's quiet way of making friends.

A week passed over Jimtown. A week of as rare June weather as ever lingered about the cool places of the woods, or glimmered over the sweet clover fields all red with a blush of bloom, where the field larks twittered and the buntings chirped, and where the laden bees rose heavily to seek their wild homes in the hollows of the forests. By this time it was generally known in Jimtown that Mr. Golding would soon receive a stock of goods with which to open a "store" in the old corner brick; but Big Medicine knew more than any of his neighbors, for he and Golding had formed a partnership to do business under the "name and style" of Cook & Golding.

This Abner Golding had lately been a wealthy retail man in Cincinnati, and had lost everything by the sudden suspension of a bank wherein the bulk of his fortune was on deposit. His creditors had made a run on him and he had been able to save just the merest remnant of his goods, and a few hundred dollars in money. Thus he came to Jimtown to begin life and business anew.

To Big Medicine the week had been a long one; why, it would not be easy to tell. No doubt there had come a turning point in his life. In those days, and in that particular region, to be a 'store keeper' was no small honor. But Big Medicine acted strangely. He wandered about, with his hands in his pockets, whistling plaintive tunes, and often he was seen standing out before the old corner brick, gazing up at one of the vacant windows where pieces of broken lattice were swaying in the wind. At such times he muttered softly to himself:

"Ther's wher I fust seed the gal."

Four big road wagons (loaded with boxes), three of them containing the merchandise and one the scanty household furniture of Mr. Golding and his daughter Carrie, came rumbling into Jimtown. Big Medicine was on hand, a perfect Hercules at unloading and unpacking. Mr. Golding was sadly pleasant; Carrie was roguishly observant, but womanly and quiet.

The tallow-faced youth and two or three others stood by watching the proceedings. The former occasionally made a remark at which the others never failed to laugh.

"Ef ye'll notice, now," said he, "it's a fac 'at whenever Big Medicine goes to make a big surge to lift a box, he fust takes a peep at the gal, an' that 'ere seems to kinder make 'im 'wax strong an' multiply,' as the preacher says, an' then over goes the box!"

"Has a awful effect on his narves," some one replied.

"I'm a thinkin'," added tallow-face, "'at ef Big Medicine happens to look at the gal about the time he goes to make a trade, it'll have sich a power on 'im 'at he'll sell a yard o' caliker for nigh onto forty dollars!"

"Er a blanket overcoat for 'bout twelve an' a half cents!" put in another.

"I'm kinder weakly," resumed tallow-face with a comical leer at Big Medicine; "wonder if 't wouldn't be kinder strengthnin' on me ef I'd kinder sidle up towards the gal myself?"

"I'll sidle up to you!" growled Big Medicine; and making two strides of near ten feet each, he took the youth by his faded flaxen hair, and holding him clear of the ground, administered a half dozen or so of resounding kicks, then tossed him to one side, where he fell in a heap on the ground. When he got on his feet again he began to bristle up and show fight, but when Big Medicine reached for him he ambled off.

In due time the goods were all placed on the shelves and Mr. Golding's household furniture arranged in the upper rooms where he purposed living, Carrie acting as housekeeper.

On the first evening after all things had been put to rights, Mr. Golding said to Big Medicine:

"I suppose we ought to advertise."

"Do how?"

"Advertise."

"Sartinly," said Big Medicine, having not the faintest idea of what his partner meant.

"Who can we get to paint our fence advertisements?"

A gleam of intelligence shot from Big Medicine's eyes. He knew now what was wanted. He remembered once, on a visit to Crawfordsville, seeing these fence advertisements. He comprehended in a moment.

"O, I know what ye mean, now," he said, with a grin, as if communing with himself on some novel suggestion. "I guess I kin 'tend to that my own self. The moon shines to-night, don't it?"

"Yes; why?"

"I'll do the paintin' to-night. A good ijee has jist struck me. You jist leave it all to me."

So the thing was settled, and Big Medicine was gone all night.

The next day was a sluice of rain. It poured incessantly from daylight till dark. Big Medicine sat on the counter in the corner brick and chuckled. His thoughts were evidently very pleasant ones. Mr. Golding was busy marking goods and Carrie was helping him. The great grey eyes of Big Medicine followed the winsome girl all the time. When night came, and she went up stairs, he said to Golding:

"That gal o' your'n is a mighty smart little 'oman."

"Yes, and she's all I have left," replied Mr. Golding in a sad tone.

Big Medicine stroked his brown beard, whistled a few turns of a jig tune, and, jumping down from the counter, went out into the drizzly night. A few rods from the house he turned and looked up at the window. A little form was just vanishing from it.

"Ther's wher I fust seed the gal," he murmured, then turned and went his way, occupied with strange, sweet imaginings. As a matter of the merest conjecture, it is interesting to dwell upon the probable turn taken by his thoughts as he slowly stalked through the darkness and rain that night; but I shall not trench on what, knowing all that I do, seems sanctified and hallowed. It would be breaking a sacred confidence. Who has stood and watched for a form at a window? Who has expressed, in language more refined, to the inner fountain of human sympathy, the idea conveyed in the rough fellow's remark? Who that has, let him recall the time and the place holy in his memory.

"Ther's wher I fust seed the gal," said the man, and went away to his lonely bed to dream the old new dream. All night the rain fell, making rich music on the roof and pouring through his healthy slumber a sound like the flowing of strange rivers in a land of new delights--a land into which he had strayed hand in hand with some one, the merest touch of whose hand was rapture, the simplest utterance of whose voice was charming beyond expression. The old new dream. The dream of flesh that is divine--the vision of blood that is love's wine--the apocalypse that bewildered the eyes of the old singer when from a flower of foam in the sweet green sea rose the Cytherean Venus. We have all dreamed the dream and found it sweet.

It is quite probable that no fence advertisements ever paid as well, or stirred up as big a "muss" as those painted by Big Medicine on the night mentioned heretofore. As an artist our Hoosier was not a genius, but he certainly understood how to manufacture a notoriety. If space permitted I would copy all those rude notices for your inspection; but I must be content with a few random specimens taken from memory, with an eye to brevity. They are characteristic of the man and in somewhat an index of the then state of society in and around Jimtown. On Deacon Jones's fence was scrawled the following: "Dern yer ole sole, ef yer want good Koffy go to Cook & Golding's nu stoar."

John Butler, a nice old quaker, had the following daubed on his gate: "Yu thievin' duk-legged ya and na ole cuss, ef the sperit muves ye, go git a broad-brimmed straw hat at Cook & Golding's great stand at Jimtown." The side of William Smith's pig pen bore this: "Bill, ye ornery sucker, come traid with Cook & Golding at the ole corner brick in Jimtown." Old Peter Gurley found writing to the following effect on his new wagon bed: "Ef yoor dri or anything, you'll find a virtoous Kag of ri licker at Cook & Golding's." On a large plank nailed to a tree at Canaan's Cross Roads all passers by saw the following: "Git up an brindle! Here's yer ole and faithful mewl! Come in gals and git yer dofunny tricks and fixens, hats, caps, bonnets, parrysols, silk petty-coat-sleeves and other injucements too noomerous too menshen! Rip in--we're on it! Call at Cook & Golding's great corner brick!"

These are fair specimens of what appeared everywhere. How one man could have done so much in one night remains a mystery. Some people swore, some threatened to prosecute, but finally everybody went to the corner brick to trade. Jimtown became famous on account of Big Medicine and the corner brick store.

The sun rose through the morning gate beyond the quagmires east of Jimtown and set through the evening gate past the ponds and maple swamps to the west. The winds blew and there were days of calm. The weather ran through its mutations of heat and cold. The herons flew over, the blue birds twittered and went away and came again, and the peewees disappeared and returned. A whole year had rolled round and it was June again, with the air full of rumors about the building of a railroad through Jimtown.

During this flow of time Big Medicine had feasted his eyes on the bright curls and brighter eyes of Carrie Golding, till his heart had become tender and happy as a child's. They rarely conversed more than for him to say, "Miss Carrie, look there," or for her to call out, "Please, Mr. Cook, hand me down this bolt of muslin." But Big Medicine was content.

It was June the 8th, about ten o'clock in the morning, and Big Medicine was slowly making his way from his comfortable bachelor's cabin to the corner brick. A peculiar smile was on his face, his heart was fluttering strangely, and all on account of a little circumstance of the preceding day, now fresh in his memory. Great boy that he was, he was poring ever a single sweet smile Carrie Golding had given him!

The mail hack stood at the post-office door, whence Mr. Golding was coming with a letter in his hand. Big Medicine stopped and looked up at the window. There stood Carrie. She was looking hopefully toward her father. Big Medicine smiled and murmured:

"Ther's wher I fust seed the gal--bless her sweet soul!" There was a whole world of sincere happiness in the tones of his voice.

Mr. Golding passed him hastily, his green spectacles on his nose, and a great excitement flashing from his face. Big Medicine gazed wonderingly after his partner till he saw him run up stairs to Carrie's room. Then he thought he heard Carrie cry out joyfully, but it may have been the wind.

When an hour had passed Mr. Golding and Carrie came down dressed for travelling. How strangely, wondrously beautiful the girl now looked! Mr. Golding was as nervous as an old woman. He rubbed his thin white hands together rapidly and said:

"Mr. Cook, I have glorious news this morning!"

"And what mought it be?" asked Big Medicine, as a damp chilliness crept over him, and his face grew pinched and almost as white as his shirt bosom.

"Krofton & Kelly, the bankers, have resumed payment, and I'll get all my money! It _is_ glorious news, is it not, my friend?"

Big Medicine was silent. He tried to speak, but his mouth was dry and powerless. A mist drifted across his eyes. He hardly realized where he was or what was said, but he knew all.

"I have concluded to give you this house and all my interest in this store. You must not refuse. I haven't time to make the transfer now, but I'll not neglect it. Carrie and I must hasten at once to Cincinnati. The hack is waiting; so good bye, my dear friend, God bless you!" Mr. Golding wrung his partner's cold, limp hand, without noticing how fearfully haggard that Roman face had suddenly grown.

"Good bye, Mr. Cook," said Carrie in her sweet, sincere way. "I'm real sorry to leave you and the dear old house--but--but--good bye, Mr. Cook. Come to see us in Cincinnati. Good bye." She gave him her hand also.

He smiled a wan, flickering smile, like the last flare of a fire whose fuel is exhausted. Carrie's woman's heart sank under that look, though she knew not wherefore.

The hack passed round the curve of the road.

They were gone!

Big Medicine stood alone in the door of the corner brick. He looked back over his shoulders at the well filled shelves and muttered:

"She ain't here, and what do I want of the derned old store?"

The wind rustled the elm leaves and tossed the brown locks of the man over his great forehead; the blue birds sang on the roof; the dust rose in little columns along the street; and, high over head, in the yellow mist of the fine June weather, sailed a great blue heron, going to the lakes. Big Medicine felt like one deserted in the wilderness. He stood there a while, then closed and locked the door and went into the woods. A month passed before he returned. Jimtown wondered and wondered. But when he did return his neighbors could not get a word out of him. He was silent, moody, listless. Where had he been? Only hunting for Mr. Golding and Carrie. He found them, after a long search, in a splendid residence on the heights just out of Cincinnati. Mr. Golding greeted him cordially, but somehow Big Medicine felt as though he were shaking hands with some one over an insurmountable barrier. That was not the Mr. Golding he had known.

"Carrie is out in the garden. She will be glad to see you. Go along the hall there. You will see the gate."

Mr. Golding waved his hand after the manner of a very rich man, and a patronizing tone would creep into his voice. Somehow Big Medicine looked terribly uncouth.

With a hesitating step and a heart full of unreal sensations, Big Medicine opened the little gate and strode into the flower garden. Suddenly a vision, such as his fancy had never pictured, burst on his dazzled eyes. Flowers and vines and statues and fountains; on every hand rich colors; perfumes so mixed and intensified that his senses almost gave way; long winding walks; fairy-like bowers and music. He paused and listened. A heavy voice, rich and manly, singing a ballad--some popular love song--to the sweet accompaniment of a violin, and blended through it all, like a silvery thread, the low sweet voice of Carrie Golding. The poor fellow held his breath till the song was done.

Two steps forward and Big Medicine towered above the lovers.

Carrie sprang to her feet with a startled cry; then, recognizing the intruder, she held out her little hand and welcomed him. Turning to her lover she said:

"Henry, this is Mr. Cook, lately papa's partner in Indiana."

The lover was a true gentleman, so he took the big hard hand of the visitor and said he was glad to see him.

Big Medicine stood for a few moments holding a hand of each of the lovers. Presently a tremor took possession of his burly frame. He did not speak a word. His breast swelled and his face grew awfully white. He put Carrie's hand in that of her lover and turned away. As he did so a tear, a great bitter drop, rolled down his haggard cheek. A few long strides and Big Medicine was gone.

Shrilly piped the blue birds, plaintively sang the peewees, sweetly through the elms and burr oaks by the corner brick blew the fresh summer wind, as, just at sunset, Big Medicine once more stood in front of the old building with his eyes fixed on the vacant, staring window.

It was scarcely a minute that he stood there, but long enough for a tender outline of the circumstances of the past year to rise in his memory.

A rustling at the broken lattice, a sudden thrill through the iron frame of the watching man, a glimpse of a sweet face--no, it was only a fancy. The house was still, and old and desolate. It stared at him like a death's head.

Big Medicine raised his eyes toward heaven, which was now golden and flashing resplendently with sunset glories. High up, as if almost touching the calm sky, a great blue heron was toiling heavily westward. Taking the course chosen by the lone bird, Big Medicine went away, and the places that knew him once know him no more forever.

THE VENUS OF BALHINCH.

When I returned from Europe with a finished education, I found that my fortune also was finished in the most approved modern style, so I left New York and drifted westward in search of employment. At length I came to Indiana, and, having not even a cent left, and mustering but one presentable suit of clothes, I looked about me in a hungry, half desperate sort of way, till I pounced upon the school in Balhinch. Now Balhinch is not a town, nor a cross-road place, nor a post-office--it is simply a neighborhood in the southwestern corner of Union Township, Montgomery County--a neighborhood _sui generis_, stowed away in the breaks of Sugar Creek, containing as good, quiet, law-abiding folk as can be found anywhere outside of Switzerland. My school was a small one in numbers, but the pupils ranged from four to six feet three in altitude, and well proportioned. The most advanced class had thumbed along pretty well through the spelling book. I need not take up your time with the school, however, for it has nothing at all to do with my story, excepting merely to explain how I came to be in Balhinch, in the State of Indiana.

My first sight of Susie Adair was on Sunday at the Methodist prayer meeting. I was sitting with my back to a window and facing the door of the log meeting house when she entered. It was July--a hot glary day, but a steady wind blew cool and sweet from the southwest, bringing in all sorts of woodland odors. The grasshoppers were chirruping in the little timothy field hard by, and over in a bit of woodland pasture a swarm of blue jays were worrying a crow, keeping up an incessant squeaking and chattering. The dumpy little class leader--the only little man in Balhinch--had just begun to give out the hymn

"Love is the sweetest bud that blows,
Its beauties never die,
On earth among the saints it grows
And ripens in the sky," &c.,

when Susie came in. Ben Crane was sitting by me. He nudged me with his elbow and whispered:

"How's that 'ere for poorty?"

I made him no answer, but remained staring at the girl till long after she had taken her seat. Nature plays strange tricks. Susie, the daughter of farmer Adair, was as beautiful in the face as any angel could be, and her form was as perfect as that of the Cnidian Venus. Her motion when she walked was music, and as she sat in statuesque repose, the undulations of her queenly form were those of perfect ease, grace and strength. Her hands were small and taper, a little browned from exposure, as was also her face. Her hair was the real classic gold, and her grey eyes were riant with health and content. When her red lips parted to sing, they discovered small even teeth, as white as ivory. I can give you no idea of her. Physically she was perfection's self in the mould of a Venus of the grandest type. Her head, too, was an intellectual one (though feminine), in the best sense of the word. The first thought that flashed across my mind was embodied in the words--_A Venus_--and I still think of her as the best model I ever saw.

"How's that for poorty?" repeated Crane.

"Who is she!" I replied interrogatively.

"She's my jewlarker," said he.

"Your what?"

"My sweetheart."

"What is her name?"

"Susie Adair."

So I came to know her and admire her, and even before that little prayer meeting was over I loved her. Introductions were an unknown institution in Balhinch, but I was not long in finding a way to the personal acquaintance of Susie. I found her remarkably intelligent for one of her limited opportunities, very fond of reading, sprightly in conversation, womanly, modest, sweet tempered, and, indeed, altogether charming as well as superbly beautiful.

As for me, I am an insignificant looking man, and then I was even more so than now. My hair is terribly stiff and red, you know, and my eyes are very pale blue, nearly white. My neck is very long and has a large Adam's apple. I am small and narrow chested, and have slender bow legs. My teeth are uneven and my nose is pug. I have a very fine thin voice, decidedly nasal, as you perceive. One thing, however, I am well educated, polite, and not a bad conversationalist.

Susie was a most entertaining and perplexing study for me from the start. She treated me with decided consideration and kindness, seemed deeply interested in my accounts of my travels, asked me many questions about the old world and good society, sat for hours at a time listening to me as I read aloud. In fact I felt that I was impressing her deeply, but she would go with Ben Crane, that long, awkward, ignorant gawk. How could a young woman of such fine magnetic presence, and endowed with such genuine, instinctive purity of taste in everything else, bear the presence of a rough greenhorn like that? Finally I said to myself: she is kind and good; she cannot bear to slight Ben, though she cares nothing for him.

What a strange state being in love is! It is like dreaming in the grass. One hears the flow of the wind--it is the breath of love--one smells the flowers, and it is the perfume of a young cheek, the sharp fragrance of blonde curls. What dreams I had in those days! I could scarcely endure my school to the end of the first three months. Then I gave it up, and collecting my wages purchased me some fine clothes--that is, fine for the time and the place. I recollect that suit now, and wonder how a man of my taste could have borne to wear it. A black coat, a scarlet vest and white pants, ending with calf boots and a very tall silk hat! If you should see me dressed that way now you would laugh till your ribs would hurt. I do not know how true it is, but, from a pretty good source, I heard that Ben Crane said I looked like a red-headed woodpecker. One thing I do know, I never saw a woodpecker with a freckled face. I have a freckled face.

Ben soon recognized me as his rival and treated me with supreme impertinence, even going so far as to rub his fist under my nose and swear at me--a thing at which I felt profoundly indignant, and considering which I was surely justified in sticking a lucifer match into Ben's six valuable hay stacks one night thereafter. It was a great fire, and two hundred dollars loss to Ben. Let him keep his fist out from under my nose.

But I must come to my story, cutting short these preliminaries. It is a story I never tire of telling, and a story which has elicited ejaculations from many.

It was a ripe sweet day in the latter part of September--clear, but hazy and dreamful--a prelude to the Indian summer. I stood before the glass in my room at 'Squire Jones's, where I boarded, and very carefully arranged my bright blue neck-tie. Then I combed my hair. I never have got thoroughly familiar with my hair. I cannot, even now, comb it, while looking in a glass, without cringing for fear of burning my fingers. The long, wavy red locks flow through the comb like flames, and underneath is a gleam of live coals and red hot ashes. Ben Crane said he believed my head had set his hay stacks a-fire. Maybe it did. I wished that a stray flash from the same source would kindle the heart of Susie Adair and heat it until it lay under her Cytherean breasts a puddle of molten love. I put my silk hat carefully upon my head and wriggled my hands into a pair of kid gloves; then, walking-stick in hand, I set out to know my fate at the hands of Susie. My way was across a stubble field in which the young clover, sown in the spring, displayed itself in a variety of fantastic modes. Have you ever noticed how much grass is like water? Some one, Hawthorne, perhaps, has spoken of "a gush of violets," and Swinburne, going into one of his musical frenzies, cries:

"Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers."

I have seen pools of clover and streams of timothy; I have stood ankle deep in shoal blue grass and have watched for hours the liquid ripples of the red top. I have seen the field sparrows dive into the green waves of young wheat, and the black starlings wade about in the sink-foil of southern countries. Grass is a liquid that washes earth's face till it shines like that of a clean, healthy child. But clover prefers to stand in pools and eddies, in which oft and oft I have seen the breasts of meadow larks shine like gold, the while a few sweet notes, like rung silver, rose and trembled above the trefoil, all woven, in and out, through the swash of the wind's palpitant currents--a music of unspeakable influence. Swallows skim the surface of grass just as they do that of water. When the summer air agitates the smooth bosom of a broad green meadow field, you will see these little random arrows glancing along the emerald surface, cutting with barbed wings through the tossing, bloom-capped waves, thence ricochetting high into the bright air to whirl and fall again as swiftly as before. Many a time I have traced streams of grass to their fresh fountains, where jets of tender foliage and bubbles of tinted flowers welled up from dark, rich earth, and flowed away, with a velvet rustle and a ripple like blown floss, to break and recoil and eddy against the dark shadows of a distant grove. Such a fountain is a place of fragrance and joy. The bees go thither to get the sweetest honey, and find it a very Hybla. The butterflies float about it in a dreamful trance, while in the cool, damp shade of a dock leaf squats a great toad, like a slimy dragon guarding the gate of a paradise.

As I slowly walked across that stubble field, now and then stepping into a tuft of clover, out from which a quail would start, whirling away in a convulsion of flight, I allowed dreams of bliss to steal rosily across my brain. I scarcely saw the great gold-sharded beetles that hummed and glanced in the mellow sun-light. I heard like one half asleep, as if far away, the sharp twitter of the blue bird and the tender piping of the meadow lark. Susie Adair was all my thought. I recollect that, just as I climbed the fence at the farther side of the clover field, I saw a white winged, red headed woodpecker pounce upon and carry off a starry opal-tinted butterfly, and I thought how sweet it would be if I could thus steal away into the free regions of space the object of my gentler passion. But then what wonderful big wings I should have needed, for my Venus of the hollow of the hill of Balhinch was no airy thing. Her tall, strong body and magnificent limbs equalled one hundred and forty pounds avoirdupois! My own weight was about one hundred and twenty.

As I neared Susie's home I began, for the first time in my life, to suffer from palpitation. The shadow of a doubt floated in the autumn sun-light. I set my teeth together and resolved not to be faint hearted. I must go in boldly and plead my cause and win.

When I reached the gate of the Adair farmhouse I had to look straight over the head of a very large, sanctimonious-faced bull-dog to get a view of the vine covered porch. This dog looked up at me and smiled ineffably; then he came to the gate and stood over against me, peeping between the slats. I hesitated. About this time Ben Crane came out of the house with a banjo in his hand. He had been playing for Susie. He was a natural musician.

"'Feared o' the dog, Mr. Woodpecker?" said he. "Begone, Bull!" and he kicked the big-headed canine aside so that I could go in.

I heard him thrumming on his banjo far down the road as Susie met me at the door. How wondrously beautiful she was!

"Sit down Mr. ----, and, if you do not care, I'll bring the churn in and finish getting the butter while we talk."

I was delighted--I was charmed--fascinated. Susie's father had gone to a distant village, and her mother, a gentle work-worn matron, was in the other room spinning flax, humming, meantime, snatches of camp meeting hymns. The sound of that spinning-wheel seemed to me strangely mournful and sad, but Susie's deep, clear gray eyes and cheerful voice were the very soul of joyousness, health and youth. She brought in a great fragrant cedar churn, made to hold six or eight gallons of cream, and forthwith began her labor. She stood as she worked, and the exercise throwing her entire body into gentle but well-defined motion, displayed all the riches of her contour. The sleeves of her calico gown were rolled up above the elbows, leaving her plump, muscular arms bare, and her skirt was pinned away from her really small feet and shapely ankles in such a way as to give one an idea, a suggestion, of supreme innocence and grace. Her long, crinkled gold hair was unbound, hanging far below her waist, and shining like silk. Her lips, carmine red, seemed to overflow with tender utterances.

Ever since that day I have thought churning a kind of sacred, charmingly blessed work, which ought to be, if really it is not, the pastime of those delightful beings the ancients called deities. Cream is more fragrant, more delicious, more potent than nectar or ambrosia. A cedar churn is more delicately perfumed than any patera of the gods. And, I say it with reverence, I have seen, swaying lily-like above the churn, a beauty more perfect than that which bloomed full grown from the bright focus of the sea's ecstatic travail.

What a talk Susie and I had that day! Slowly, stealthily I crept nearer and nearer to the subject burning in my heart. I watched Susie closely, for her face was an enigma to me. I never think of her and of that day without recalling Baudelaire's dream of a giantess. More happy than the poet, I really saw my colossal beauty stand full grown before me, but, like him, I wondered--

* * * "Si son coeur couve une sombre flamme
Aux humides brouillards qui nagent dans ses yeux."

I could not tell, from any outward sign, what was going on in her heart. No sphinx could have been more utterly calm and mysterious. She had a most baffling way about her, too. When at last I had reached the point of a confession of my maddening love, she broke into one of my charmingest sentences to say--

"Mr. ----, you'd better move farther away from the churn or I might spatter your clothes."

This, somehow, disconcerted and bothered me. But Susie was so calm and sweet about it, her gray eyes beamed so mysteriously innocent of any impropriety, that I soon regained my lost eloquence.

How sharply and indelibly cut in my memory, like intaglios in ivory, the surroundings of that scene, even to the minutest detail! For instance, I can see as plainly as then my new silk hat on the floor between my knees, containing a red handkerchief and a paper of chewing tobacco. I recall, also, that a slip-trod shoe lay careened to one side near the centre of the room. The bull-dog came to the door and peeped solemnly in a time or two. A string of dried pumpkin cuts hung by the fireplace, and under a small wooden table in one corner were piled a few balls of "carpet rags." I sat in a very low chair. A picture of George Washington hung above a small square window. The floor was ash boards uncarpeted. I heard some chickens clucking and cackling under the house.

Finally, I recollect it as if it were but yesterday, I said:

"I love you, Susie--I love you, and I have loved you ever since I first saw you!"

How tame the words sound now! but then they came forth in a tremulous murmur that gave them character and power. Susie looked straight at me a moment, and I thought I saw a softer light gather in her eyes. Then she took away the churn dasher and lid and fetched a large bowl from a cupboard. What a fine golden pile of butter she fished up into the bowl!

I drew my chair somewhat nearer, and watched her pat and roll and squeeze the plastic mass with the cherry ladle. A little gray kitten came and rubbed and purred round her. Again the bull-dog peeped in. A breeze gathered some force and began to ripple pleasantly through the room. Far away in the fields I heard the quails whistling to each other. An old cow strolled up the lane by the house and round the corner of the orchard, plaintively tinkling her bell. Steadily hummed Mrs. Adair's spinning wheel. I slipped my hat and my chair a little closer to Susie, and by a mighty effort directed my burning words straight to the point. I cannot repeat all I said. I would not if I could. Such things are sacred.

"Susie, I love you, madly, blindly, dearly, truly! O, Susie! will you love me--will you be my wife?"

Again she turned on me that strange, sweet, half smiling look. Her lips quivered. The flush on her cheeks almost died out.

"Answer me, Susie, and say you will make me happy."

She walked to the cupboard, put away the bowl of butter and the ladle, then came back and stood by the churn and me. How indescribably charming she looked! She smiled strangely and made a motion with her round strong arms. I answered the movement. I spread wide my arms and half rose to clasp her to my bosom. A whole life was centred in the emotion of that moment. Susie's arms missed me and lifted the churn. I sank back into my chair. How gracefully Susie swayed herself to her immense height, toying with the ponderous churn held far above her head. I saw a kitten fairly fly out of the room, its tail as level as a gun barrel; I saw the bull-dog's face hastily withdraw from the door; I saw the carpet balls, the pumpkin cuts and the print of Washington all through a perpendicular cataract of deliciously fragrant buttermilk! I saw my hat fill up to the brim, with my handkerchief afloat. I heaved an awful sigh and leaped to my feet. I saw old Mrs. Adair standing in the partition door, with her arms akimbo, and heard her say--

"W'y, Susan Jane Samantha Ann! What 'pon airth hev ye done?"

And the Venus replied:

"I've been givin' this 'ere little woodpecker a good dose of buttermilk!"

I seized my hat and shuffled out of the door, feeling the milk gush from the tops of my boots at each hasty step I made. I ran to the gate, went through and slammed it after me. As I did so I heard a report like the closing of a strong steel trap. It was the bull-dog's teeth shutting on a slat of the gate as he made a dive at me from behind. I smiled grimly, thinking how I'd taste served in buttermilk.

On my way home I passed Ben Crane's house. He was sitting at a window playing his banjo, and singing in a stentorian voice:

"O! Woodpecker Jim,
Yer chance is mighty slim!
Jest draw yer red head into yer hole
And there die easy, dern your soul,
O! slim Woodpecker Jim!"

I was so mad that I sweat great drops of pure buttermilk, but over in the fields the quails whistled just as clear and sweet as ever, and I heard the wind pouring through the stubble as it always does in autumn!

THE LEGEND OF POTATO CREEK.

Big yellow butterflies were wheeling about in the drowsy summer air, and hovering above the moist little sand bars of Potato Creek. A shady dell, wrapped in the hot lull of August, sent up the spires and domes of its walnut and poplar trees, clearly defined, and sheeny, while underneath the forest roof the hazel and wild rose bushes had wrung themselves into dusky mats. The late violets bloomed here and there, side by side with those waxlike yellow blossoms, called by the country folk "butter and eggs." Through this dell Potato Creek meandered fantastically, washing bare the roots of a few gnarled sycamores, and murmuring among the small bowlders that almost covered its bed. It was not a strikingly romantic or picturesque place--rather the contrary--much after the usual type of ragged little dells. "A scrubby little holler" the neighborhood folk called it.

Perched on the topmost tangle of the dry, tough roots of an old upturned tree, sat little Rose Turpin, sixteen that very August day; pretty, nay beautiful, her school life just ended, her womanhood just beginning to clothe her face and form in that mysterious mantle of tenderness--the blossom, the flower that brings the rich sweet fruit of love. From her high perch she leaned over and gazed down into the clear water of the creek and smiled at the gambols of the minnows that glanced here and there, now in shadowy swarms and anon glancing singly, like sparks of dull fire, in the limpid current. Some small cray-fishes, too, delighted her with their retrograde and side-wise movements among the variegated pebbles at the bottom of the water. A small sketch book and a case of pencils lay beside her. So busy was she with her observations, that a fretful, peevish, but decidedly masculine voice near by startled her as if from a doze. She had imagined herself so utterly alone.

"Wo-erp 'ere, now can't ye! Wo, I say! Turn yer ole head roun' this way now, blast yer ole picter! No foolin', now; wo-erp, I tell ye!"