Chapter V (4)

"Me, too, kid, glad to see you! How's the boy, huh? Gettin' educated, huh? Swell school, ain't it?" babbled Bert, fighting for time.

"Aw, it's all right, I guess," Freddy replied listlessly, glancing at the Misses Blair. Then turning again with eager interest to Bert, "But say, Bert, what in the hell a----I mean what-ta you doin' here?"

"Why--ah--ah--jus' stoppin' by to say howdy, see, an'----"

"Playin'in N'Yawk?"

"No."

"Jus'come in?"

"Yeah."

Freddy drew his breath in quickly.

"Say, Bert, you--you ain't seen Florette anywheres?"

"Why, ye-yeah."

"Where is she, Bert?"

There was a deathly hush.

Then Miss Eva motioned to Miss Nellie and said, "If you will excuse us, Mr. Brannigan, we have some arrangements to make about the concert to-night. Madame d'Avala is to sing in the school auditorium, a benefit performance," and she went out, followed by her sister and niece.

"Where's Florette?" Freddy asked again, his voice trembling with eagerness.

"I--seen her in K.C., sonny."

"How's the ac'?"

"Fine! Fine! Great!"

"No kiddin'?"

"No kiddin'."

"Florette--all right?"

"Why, what made you think any different?"

"Who hooks her up now, Bert?"

"She hires the dresser at the theatre."

"I could 'a' kep' on doin' it," said Freddy, with a sigh.

"Aw, now, kid, it's better for you here, gettin' educated an' all."

"I don't like it, Bert."

"You don't like it?"

"Naw."

"You don't like it! After all she done!"

"I hate this ole school. I wanna leave. You tell Florette."

"Aw, now, Freddy----"

"I'm lonesome. I don't like nobody here." His voice dropped. "An'--an' they don't like me."

"Aw, now, Freddy----"

"Maybe Miss Mary does. But Miss Eva don't. Anyway, I ain't no use to anybody here. What's the sense of stayin' where you ain't no use? An' they're always callin' me down. I don't do nothin' right. I can't even talk so's they'll like it. Florette liked the way I talked all right. An' you get what I mean, don't you, Bert? But they don't know nothin'. Why, they don't know nothin', Bert! Why, there's one boy ain't ever been inside a theatre! What-ta you know about that, Bert? Gee, Bert, I'm awful glad you come! I'd 'a' bust not havin' somebody to talk to."

Bert was silent. He still held Freddy in his arms. His heart reeled at the thought of what he must tell the child. He cleared his throat, opened his mouth to speak, but the words would not come.

Freddy chattered on, loosing the flood gates of his accumulated loneliness. He told how Florette had bidden him "learn to be a li'l gem'mum," and how he really tried; but how silly were the rules that governed a gentlemanly existence; how the other li'l gem'mum laughed at him, and talked of things he had never heard of, and never heard of the things he talked of, until at last he had ceased trying to be one of them.

"You tell Florette I gotta leave this place," he concluded firmly. "Bert, now you tell Florette. Will you, Bert? Huh?"

"Freddy--I----Freddy, lissen now. I got somethin' to tell you."

"What?"

"I--I come on to tell you, Freddy. Tha's why I come out to tell you, see?"

"Well, spit it out," Freddy laughed.

Bert groaned.

"Whassa matter, Bert? What's eatin' you?"

"I--I----Say, Freddy, lissen--lissen, now, Freddy. I----"

"Florette! She ain't sick? Bert, is Florette sick?"

"No! No, I----"

"You tell me, Bert! If it's bad news about Florette----"

His voice died out. His face grew white. Bert could not meet his eyes.

"No, no, now, Freddy," Bert mumbled, turning away his head. "You got me all wrong. It--it's good news, sonny."

Like a flash Freddy's face cleared.

"What about, Bert? Good news about what?"

"Why--ah--why, the ac's goin' big, like I tole you. An'--an' say, boy, out at one place--out at K.C., it--why, it stopped the show!"

"Stopped the show!" breathed Freddy in awe. "Oh, Bert, we never done that before!"

"An' so--so she--ah, Florette--y'see, kid, account of the ac' goin' so big, why, she--has to--go away--for a little while."

"Go away, Bert! Where?"

"To--to--Englund, an'--Australia."

"To Englund, an'--Australia?"

"Yeah, they booked her up 'count o' the ac' goin' so great."

"Oh, Bert!"

"Yeah. An' lissen. She's booked for fifty-two weeks solid!"

"Fifty-two weeks! Oh, Bert, that ain't never happened to us before!"

"I know. It's--great!"

Bert blew out his breath loudly, mopped his forehead. He could look at Freddy now, and he saw a face all aglow with love and pride.

"When she comin' to get me, Bert?" the child asked confidently.

"Why--why, Freddy--now--you---"

Bert could only flounder and look dismayed.

"She ain't goin' off an' leave me!" wailed the child.

"Now, lissen! Say, wait a minute! Lissen!"

"But, Bert! Bert! She--"

"Say, don't you wanna help Florette, now she's got this gran' bookin' an' all?"

"Sure I do, Bert. I wanna he'p her with her quick changes like I useter."

"You he'p her! Say, how would that look in all them swell places she's goin' to? W'y, she'll have a maid!"

"Like the headliners, Bert?"

"Sure!"

"A coon, Bert?"

"Sure! Like a li'l musical com'dy star."

"Honest?"

"Honest!"

"But, Bert, w'y can't I go, too?"

"Aw, now, say--w'y--w'y, you're too big!"

"What-ta y' mean, Bert?"

"W'y, kid, you talk's if you never bin in the p'fession. How ole does Miss Le Fay look? Nineteen, tha's all. But with a great big boy like you taggin' on--W'y, say, you'd queer her with them English managers right off. You don' wanna do that now, Freddy?"

"No, but I--"

"I knew you'd take it sensible. You always bin a lot of help to Florette."

"Did she tell you, Bert?"

"Sure!"

"A' right. I'll stay. When--when's she comin' to tell me goo'-by?"

"Why--why--look-a-here. Brace up, ole man. She had to leave a'ready."

"She's gone?"

"Say, you don' think bookin' like that can wait, do you? It was take it or leave it--quick. You didn't wan' her to throw away a chancet like that, huh, Freddy? Huh?"

Freddy's head sank on his chest. His hands fell limp. "A' right," he murmured without looking up.

The big man bent over the child clumsily and tried to raise his quivering chin.

"Aw, now, Freddy," he coaxed, "wanna come out with me an'--an' have a soda?"

Freddy shook his head.

"Buy ya some candy, too. Choc'late drops! An' how about one o' them li'l airyplane toys I seen in the window down the street? Huh? Or some marbles? Huh? Freddy, le's go buy out this here dinky li'l ole town. What-ta ya say, huh? Le's paint this li'l ole town red! What-ta ya say, sport?"

Freddy managed a feeble smile.

"How come you so flush, Brudder Johnsing?" he asked in what he considered an imitation of darky talk. "Mus' 'a' bin rollin' dem bones!"

"Tha's a boy!" shouted Bert with a great guffaw. "There's a comeback for you! Game! Tha's what I always liked about you, Freddy. You was always game."

"I wanna be game!" said Freddy, stiffening his lips. "You tell Florette. You write to her I was game. Will ya, Bert?"

A bell rang.

"Aw, I gotta go dress for supper, Bert. They dress up for supper here."

"A' right, kid. Then I'll be goin'----"

"Goo'-by, Bert. You tell her, Bert."

"So long, kid."

"Will ya tell her I was game, Bert?"

"Aw, she'll know!"

Madame Margarita d'Avala found herself in a situation all the more annoying because it was so absurd. She had promised to sing at the Misses Blair's School for the benefit of a popular charity, and she had motored out from New York, leaving her maid to do some errands and to follow by train. But it was eight o'clock and the great Madame d'Avala found herself alone in the prim guest room of the Misses Blair's School, with her bag and dressing case, to be sure, but with no one to help her into the complicated draperies of her gown. There was no bell. She could not very well run down the corridor, half nude, shouting for help, especially as she had no idea of where the Misses Blair kept either themselves or their servants. The Misses Blair had been so fatiguingly polite on her arrival. Perhaps she had been a little abrupt in refusing their many offers of service and saying that she wanted to rest quite alone. Now, of course, they were afraid to come near her. And, besides, they would think that her maid was with her by this time. They had given orders to have Madame d'Avala's maid shown up to her as soon as she arrived, and of course their maid would be too stupid to know that Madame d'Avala's maid had never come.

Margarita d'Avala bit her lips and paced the floor, looked out of the window, opened the door, but there was no one in sight. Well, no help for it. She must try to get into the gown alone. She stepped into it and became entangled in the lace; stepped out again, shook the dress angrily and pushed it on over her head, giving a little impatient scream as she rumpled her hair. Then she reached up and back, straining her arms to push the top snap of the corsage into place. But with the quiet glee of inanimate things the snap immediately snapped out again. Flushing, Madame d'Avala repeated her performance, and the snap repeated its. Madame d'Avala stamped both feet and gave a little gasp of rage. She attacked the belt with no better luck. Chiffon and lace became entangled in hooks, snaps flew out as fast as she could push them in. Her arms ached, and the dress assumed strange humpy outlines as she fastened it up all wrong.

She would like to rip the cursed thing from her shoulders and tear it into a million pieces! She felt hysteria sweeping over her. She knew that she was going to have one of her famous fits of temper in a minute.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Madame d'Avala screamed aloud, stamping her feet up and down as fast as they could go. "Oh! Oh! Oh! Damn! Damn! Damn!"

She did not swear in Italian, because she was not an Italian except by profession. Her name had been Maggie Davis, but that was a secret between herself and her press agent.

"Oh! Damn!" screamed Madame d'Avala again.

"Ain't it hell?" remarked an interested voice, and Madame d'Avala saw a small pale face staring at her through the door which she had left ajar.

"Come in!" she ordered, and a small thin boy entered, quite unabashed, looking at her with an air of complete understanding.

"Who are you?" asked Madame d'Avala.

"Freddy."

"Well, Freddy, run at once and find a maid for me, please. Mine hasn't come, and I'm frantic, simply frantic. Well, why don't you go?"

"I'll hook you up," said Freddy.

"You!"

"Sure! I kin do it better'n any maid you'd get in this helluva school."

"Why, Freddy!"

"Aw, I heard you sayin' damn! You're in the p'fession, huh? Me, too."

"You, too?"

His face clouded.

"Oh! And now--you have retired?"

"Yeah--learnin' to be a gem'mum. Lemme there," said Freddy, stepping behind Madame d'Avala. "Say, you've got it all started wrong." He attacked the stubborn hooks with light, deft fingers.

"Why, you can really do it!" cried Madame d'Avala.

"Sure! This ain't nothin'." Freddy's fingers flew.

"Careful of that drapery. It's tricky."

"Say, drapery's pie to me. I fastened up lots harder dresses than this."

"Really?"

"Sure! Florette had swell clo'es. This'n's swell, too. My! ain't it great to see a classy gown again!"

Madame d'Avala laughed and Freddy joined her.

"Say, you seen the teachers at this school?" he asked. "You seen 'em?"

Madame d'Avala nodded.

"Nice ladies," said Freddy in an effort to be fair. "But no class--you know what I mean. Way they slick their hair back, an' no paint or powder. Gee, Florette wouldn't wear their clo'es to a dog fight!"

"Nor I," said Madame d'Avala; "I love dogs."

"I tole Miss Eva she ought to put peroxide in the rinsin' water for her hair like Florette useter, but it made her mad. I b'lieve in a woman fixin' herself up all she can, don't you?" asked Freddy earnestly.

"Indeed, I do! But tell me, who is Florette?"

So Freddy told her all about his mother, and about the good fortune that had come to her.

"Fifty-two weeks solid! Some ac' to get that kinda bookin, huh?" he ended.

"Yes! Oh, yes, indeed!"

"There y'ah now! Look at youse'f! See if it's a'right."

Madame d'Avala turned to the mirror. Her gown fell in serene, lovely folds. It seemed incredible that it was the little demon of a few minutes before.

"Perfect! Freddy, you're a wonder. How can I thank you?"

"Tha's a'right. You're welcome."

He was regarding her with worshipful eyes.

"You're awful pretty," he breathed.

"Thank you," said Madame d'Avala. "Are you coming to my concert?"

"No, they put us to bed!" cried Freddy in disgust. "Puttin' me to bed at 8:30 every night! What-ta y' know about that! Jus' w'en the orchestra would be tunin' up for the evenin' p'formance."

"What a shame! I'd like to have you see my act."

"I bet it's great. You got the looks, too. Tha's what it takes in this p'fession. Make a quick change?"

"No, I wear the same dress all through."

"Oh! Well," he sighed deeply--"well, it's been great to see you, anyway. Goo'-bye."

The great lady bent down to him and kissed his forehead.

"Good-bye, Freddy," she said. "You've helped me so much."

Freddy drew in a long breath.

"M-m," he sighed, "you know how I come to peek in your door like that?"

"Because you heard me screaming 'damn'?"

"No, before that. Comin' all the way down the hall I could smell it. Smelled so nice. Don't none of these ladies use perfume. I jus' knew somebody I'd like was in here soon's I got that smell."

"Oh, Freddy, I like you, too! But I've got to hurry now. Good-bye. And thanks so much, dear."

She started out the door.

"Oh, gee! I can't go to bed!" Freddy wailed.

"Come along, then!" cried Madame d'Avala, impetuously seizing his hand. "I'll make them let you go to the concert. They must!"

They ran down the hall together hand in hand, Freddy directing the way to the Misses Blair's study. Miss Eva and Miss Nellie and Mary were there, and they looked at Freddy compassionately. And though Miss Eva said it was most unusual, Miss Nellie agreed to Madame d'Avala's request.

"For," said gentle Miss Nellie, drawing Madame d'Avala aside and lowering her voice--"for we are very sorry for Freddy now. His mother----"

"Oh, yes, she has gone to England."

"Why, no! She--is dead!"

"Oh, _mio povero bambino_! And how he adores her!"

"Yes."

"And what will he do then?"

"He can stay on here. But I am afraid he doesn't like us," Miss Nellie sighed.

"Has he no one else?"

"No--that is, a stepfather. But his mother put him here to save him from the stepfather's abuse, and--and all the coarsening influences of stage life, if you understand."

"Ah, yes, I understand," said Madame d'Avala. "And yet I think I understand the little one, too. He and I--we have the same nature. We cannot breathe in the too-high altitudes. For us there must be dancing in the valley, laughter and roses, perfume and sunshine--always sunshine."

"Oh--er--yes," replied Miss Nellie, taken aback by this effusiveness, which she could only explain as being foreign.

"It's 8:30," said Miss Eva, looking at her watch.

"Ah, then I must fly," cried Madame d'Avala.

"Goo'-bye!" said Freddy wistfully.

"_Au revoir_," said Madame d'Avala, and electrified the Misses Blair by adding, "See you after the show, kid."

"I am very lonely, too," said Margarita d'Avala after the concert--"lonely and sad."

"You are?" Freddy cried in amazement. Then, practically, "What about?"

"It's about a man," confessed the lady.

"Aw, g'wan!" exclaimed Freddy incredulously. "Say," lowering his voice confidentially, "lemme tell you something! They ain't a man on earth worth crying for."

"How did you know?" asked Margarita.

"Flo--Florette used to say so." Then a cloud passed over his face. "She used to say so," he added.

There was a moment's silence, while the lady watched him. Then Freddy's mobile face cleared, his eyes shone with their old gay confidence.

"Say, I'm telln' you!" said Freddy, spreading his feet apart, thrusting his hands in his pockets. "I ain't got no use for men a-tall! An' you take my advice--don't bother over 'em!"

Margarita laughed. She laughed so hard that Freddy had joined her, and without knowing how, he was by her side, holding on to her hand while they both rocked with merriment. When they could laugh no more he snuggled up to the shoulder that smelled so nice. His face became babyish and wistful. He stroked the satin of the lovely gown with one timid finger, while his blue eyes implored hers.

"Ladies an' children is nicest, ain't they?" he appealed.

Suddenly the great Margarita d'Avala caught him in her arms and drew him to that warm, beautiful breast where no child's head had ever rested.

"Oh, Freddy, Freddy!" she cried. "You are right, and I must have you!"

"You kin, s' long's Florette's away," said Freddy.

WILD EARTH

By SOPHIE KERR

From _Saturday Evening Post_

The big department store so terrified Wesley Dean that he got no farther than five steps beyond the entrance. Crowds of well-dressed ladies milling round like cattle, the noise of many feminine voices, the excessive warmth and the heady odour of powder and perfume--the toilet goods were grouped very near the door--all combined to bewilder and frighten him. He got out before the floorwalker of the centre aisle could so much as ask him what he wanted.

Once outside he stood in the spring wind and meditated. There must be other stores in Baltimore, little ones, where a man could buy things in quiet and decency. Until the four-o'clock motor stage started for Frederick he had nothing to do.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and started down the crowded crookedness of Lexington Street. He reached the market and strolled through it leisurely, feeling very much at home with the meats and vegetables and the good country look of many of the stall keepers. Its size amazed him; but then he'd always heard that Baltimore was a big city, and so many people must take a lot to eat. He went on, all the way through, and after a little hesitation struck down a quiet street to the right. But he saw no shops of the sort he was looking for, and he had thoughts of going back and braving the big store again. He turned again and again, pleased by the orderly rows of red-brick-with-white-trim houses, homey-looking places in spite of their smallness and close setting. At last, right in the middle of a row of these, he saw a large window set in place of the two usual smaller ones, a window filled with unmistakable feminine stuff, and the sign, small, neatly gilt lettered: Miss Tolman's Ladies' Shop. Hemstitching Done.

There wasn't a soul going in or out, so he braved it, and was happier still when he found himself the sole customer. The opening of the door made a bell tinkle in a back room.

A girl came through parted green wool curtains, a girl so flaxen-haired, with such blue eyes--like a friendly kitten--that Wesley Dean almost forgot the errand that had brought him so far.

As for the girl, she was surprised to see a man, and particularly a young country man, among the gloves and stockings, cheap pink underthings, and embroideries of Miss Tolman's shop.

"You got any--any aprons?" he stammered.

"White aprons or gingham?" The girl's smile helped Wesley a great deal. A very nice girl, he decided; but she made him feel queer, light-headed.

"I'm not sure, ma'am. When I come away from home this morning I asked Aunt Dolcey did she need anything, and she said 'yes, a couple of aprons,' but she didn't say what kind."

The girl thought it over. "I reckon maybe if she's your auntie she'd want white aprons."

Her mistake gave him a chance for the conversation which he felt a most surprising wish to make.

"No'm, she's not my auntie. She's the old coloured woman keeps house for me."

Oh, she was a very nice girl; something about the way she held her head made Wesley think of his spunky little riding mare, Teeny.

"H'm. Then I think you'd be safe to get a gingham; anyway, a gingham apron comes in handy to anybody working round a kitchen. We got some nice big ones."

"Aunt Dolcey's not so awful big; not any bigger'n you, but heavier set, like."

There is a distinct advance in friendly intimacy when one has one's size considered in relation to a customer's needs, particularly when the consideration shows how little a man knows about women's garments. The girl reached beneath the counter and brought up an armful of blue-and-white-checked aprons. She unfolded them deftly, and Wesley saw that she had small strong hands and round wrists.

"These got bibs and nice long strings, cover you all up while you're cooking. They're a dollar."

His gaze, intent on her rather than the aprons, brought her eyes to his.

"Good-looking, but country," was her swift appraisal, adding to it, "And what a funny mark he's got on his forehead."

It was true. His young hawklike face, tanned brown by sun and wind, was made strangely grim by a dark vein on his brow, which lent a frowning shadow to his whole visage. Yet the eyes she had looked into were shy and gentle and reassuringly full of open admiration.

"If you think she'll like 'em I'll take two," he said after an instant's pause.

"I'm sure she'll like 'em. They're good gingham and real well made. We don't keep shoddy stuff. You could go into one of the big stores and get aprons for fifty, sixty cents, but they wouldn't be good value."

The soft cadence of her voice gave Wesley a strange and stifled feeling around the heart. He must--he must stay and talk to her. Hardly knowing what he said, he burst into loquacity.

"I did go into one of the big stores, and it sort of scared me--everything so stuffy and heaped up, and such a lot of people. I don't get down to Baltimore very often, you see. I do most of my buying right in Frederick, but I'd broke my disker, and if you send, it's maybe weeks before the implement house will 'tend to you. So I just come down and got the piece, so there won't be but one day lost."

The girl looked up at him again, and he could feel his heart pound against his ribs. This time she was a little wistful.

"They say it's real pretty country out round Frederick. I've never been out of Baltimore, 'cept to go down the bay on excursions--Betterton and Love Point, and places like that. It makes a grand sail in hot weather."

She handed him the package and picked up the two bills he had laid down on the counter. There was plainly no reason for his further lingering. But he had an artful idea.

"Look here--maybe I ought to get Aunt Dolcey a white apron, too. Maybe she won't want the gingham ones at all."

The girl looked surprised at such extravagance.

"But if she doesn't you can bring 'em back when you come to Baltimore again, and we'd exchange 'em," she argued mildly.

"No, I better get a white one now. She puts on a white apron evenings," he added craftily.

A box of white aprons was lifted from the shelf and a choice made, but even that transaction could not last forever, as Wesley Dean was desperately aware.

"Look here, are you Miss Tolman?" he burst out. "I saw the name outside on the window."

"Mercy, no! Miss Tolman's a kind of cousin of mine. She's fifty-two, and she can't hardly get through that door there."

He disregarded the description, for the second bundle was being tied up fast. He had never seen any one tie so fast, he thought.

"My name's Wesley Dean, and I got a farm in the mountains back of Frederick. Say--I don't want you to think I'm fresh, but--but--say, would you go to the movies with me to-night?"

It had come to him in a flash that he could disregard the seat in the four-o'clock bus and go back to-morrow morning. Sweat stood out on his forehead and on his curving, clean-shaven upper lip. His boy's eyes hung on hers, pleading. All the happiness of his life, he felt, waited for this girl's answer, this little yellow-haired girl whom he had never seen until a quarter of an hour before.

"We-ell," she hesitated, "I--I don't like to have you think I'd pick up like this with any fellow that come along----"

"I don't think so!" he broke in fiercely. "If I thought so I'd never've asked you."

There was a strange breathless moment in the tiny cluttered shop, a moment such as some men and women are lucky enough to feel once in a lifetime. It is the moment when the heart's wireless sends its clear message, "This is my woman" and "This is my man." The flaxen-haired girl and the dark boy were caught in the golden magic of it and, half scared, half ecstatic, were thrown into confusion.

"I'll go," she whispered breathlessly. "There's a little park a block down the street. I'll be there at seven o'clock, by the statue."

"I'll be there, waiting for you," he replied, and because he could not bear the strange sweet pain that filled him he plunged out of the shop, jerking the door so that the little bell squealed with surprise. He had forgotten his packages.

Also, as he remembered presently, he did not know her name.

He was at the feet of the statue in the park by half-past six, and spent a restless half hour there in the cool spring twilight. Perhaps she would not come! Perhaps he had frightened her, even as he had frightened himself, by this inexplicable boldness. Other girls passed by, and some of them glanced with a coquettish challenge at the handsome tall youth with his frowning brow. But he did not see them. Presently--and it was just on the stroke of seven--he saw her coming, hesitantly, and with an air of complete and proper primness. She had on a plain little shabby suit and hat, but round her throat was a string of beads of a blue to match her eyes, an enticing, naive harmony.

She carried the forgotten aprons, and handed them to him gravely.

"You left these," she said; and then, to regularize the situation, "My name's Anita Smithers. I ought've told you this afternoon, but--I guess I was kind of forgetful, too."

That made them both smile, and the smile left them less shy. He stuffed the forgotten aprons into his overcoat pocket.

"I was so afraid you wouldn't come. Where can we go? I don't know anything much about the city. I'd like to take you to a nice picture show, the best there is."

She flushed with the glory of it.

"There's a real nice picture house only a little ways from here. They got a Pauline Frederick film on. I'm just crazy about Pauline Frederick."

By this time they were walking sedately out of the park, not daring to look at each other. She watched him while he bought the tickets and then a box of caramels from the candy stand inside.

"He knows what to do," she thought proudly. "He's not a bit of a hick."

"D'you go to the pictures a lot?" he asked when they were seated.

"'Most every night. I'm just crazy about 'em."

"I expect you've got steady company, then?" The question fairly jerked out of him.

She shook her head. "No, I almost always go by myself. My girl friend, she goes with me sometimes."

He sighed with relief. "They got good picture shows in Frederick. I go 'most every Saturday night."

"But you don't live right in Frederick, you said."

He seized the chance to tell her about himself.

"Oh, my, no. I live back in the mountains. Say, I just wish you could see my place. It's up high, and you can look out, ever so far--everything kind of drops away below, and you can see the river and the woods, and it takes different colours, 'cording to the season and the weather. Some days when I'm ploughing or disking and I get up on the ridge, it's so high up and far away seems like I'm on top the whole world. It's lonesome--it's off the pike, you see--but I like it. Here in the city everything crowds on you so close."

She had listened with the keenest interest.

"That's so. It must be grand to get off by yourself and have plenty room. I get so tired of that squinched-in, narrow, stuffy shop; and the place where I board is worse. I don't make enough to have a room by myself. There's two other girls in with me, and seems like we're always under-foot to each other. And there isn't any parlour, and we got only one bureau for the three of us, and you can guess what a mess that is. And the closet's about as big as a pocket handkerchief."

"Ain't you got any folks?"

The blue eyes held a sudden mist.

"Nobody but Miss Tolman, and she's only a distant cousin. Ma died two years ago. She used to sew, but she wasn't strong, and we never could get ahead."

"My folks are all gone, too."

How little and alone she was, but how much nearer to him her aloneness brought her. He wanted to put his hand over hers and tell her that he would take care of her, that she need never be alone again. But the beginning of the film choked back the words. He poked the box of caramels at her, and she took it, opened it with a murmured "Oh, my, thank you!" Presently they both had sweetly bulging cheeks. Where their elbows touched on the narrow chair arm made tingling thrills run all over him. Once she gave him an unconscious nudge of excitement.

Out of the corner of his eye he studied her delicate side face as she sat, with her lips parted, intent on the film.

"She's pretty--and she's good," thought Wesley Dean. "I expect she's too good for me."

But that unwontedly humble thought did not alter it a hair's breadth that she must be his. The Deans had their way always. The veins in his wrists and the vein in his forehead beat with his hot purpose. He shifted so that his arm did not touch hers, for he found the nearness of her disturbing; he could not plan or think clearly while she was so close. And he must think clearly.

When the last flicker of the feature was over and the comic and the news had wrung their last laugh and gasp of interest from the crowd, they joined the slow exit of the audience in silence. On the sidewalk, however, she found her voice.

"It was an awful nice picture," she said softly. "'Most the nicest I ever saw."

"Look here, let's go somewhere and have a hot choc'late, or some soda, or ice cream," he broke in hurriedly. He could not let her go with so much yet unsaid. "Or would you like an oyster stew in a reg'lar restaurant? Yes, that'd be better. Come on; it isn't late."

"Well, after all those caramels, I shouldn't think an oyster stew----"

"You can have something else, then." The main thing was to get her at a table opposite him, where they wouldn't have to hurry away. "Let's go in there."

He pointed toward a small restaurant across the street where red candlelights glimmered warmly through panelled lace.

"But that looks like such a stylish place," she protested, even as she let him guide her toward it.

But it was not so stylish when they got inside, and the appearance of the stout woman, evidently both proprietor and cashier, who presided over the scene at a table on a low platform near the door reassured them both. And the red candleshades were only crinkled paper; the lace curtains showed many careful darns. A rebellious boy of fourteen, in a white jacket and apron, evidently the proprietor's son, came to take their order. After a good bit of urging Anita said that she would take a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee.

Wesley ordered an oyster stew for himself, and coffee, and then grandly added that they would both have vanilla and chocolate ice cream.

"He looks as if he just hated being a waiter," said Anita, indicating the departing boy servitor.

"Sh'd think he would," said Wesley. He put his arms on the table and leaned toward her. "I was going home this afternoon till I saw you. I stayed over just to see you again. I've got to go back in the morning, for I've not got my spring work done; but--you're going with me."

The vein on his forehead heightened his look of desperate determination. He was not so much a suitor as a commander.

"You haven't got any folks and neither have I, so that makes it easy. I'll come for you in the morning, about eight o'clock, and we'll go get a license and get married, and then we can get the ten-o'clock bus out to Frederick. Oh, girl, I never saw any one like you! I--I'll be good to you--I'll take care of you. It don't matter if I didn't ever see you till this afternoon, I'd never find anybody else that I want so much in a hundred thousand years. I've not got a lot of money, but the farm's mine, all free and clear, and if my wheat turns out all right I'll have a thousand dollars' cash outright come the end of the year, even after the taxes are paid and everything. Won't you look at me, Anita--won't you tell me something? Don't you like me?"

The girl had listened with her eyes cast down, her hands nervously picking at the edge of the tablecloth. But he was not mistaken in her. She had wherewith to meet him, and her gaze was honest, without coquetry or evasion.

"Oh, I do like you!" she cried with quick colour. "I do! I do! I always thought somebody like you'd come along some day, just like this, and then--it just seemed foolish to expect it. But look here. I told you a story, right off. My name's not Anita--it's Annie. I took to pretending it's Anita because--it does seem sort of silly, but I got to tell you--because I saw it in the movies, and it seemed sort of cute and different, and Annie's such a plain, common name. But I couldn't let you go on talking like that and calling me by it, now could I?"

The mutinous young waiter brought their food and thumped it truculently down before them.

"Look out!" said Dean with sudden violent harshness, the vein in his forehead darkening ominously. "What do you think you're doing, feeding cattle?"

The boy drew back in confusion, and Annie exclaimed: "Oh, he didn't mean it anything against us--he's just mad because he has to be a waiter."

"Well, he'd better be careful; kids can be too smart Aleck."

The little gust had deflected them away from their own affairs. But Annie brought them back. She leaned toward him.

"You make me kind of afraid of you. If you ever spoke to me like that it'd just about kill me."

He was contrite. "Why, I couldn't ever speak to you like that, honey; it just made me mad the way he banged things down in front of you. I don't want people to treat you like that."

"And you look so fierce, too--scowling so all the time."

He put up a brown finger and touched his savage vein.

"Now, now--you mustn't mind my look. All the Dean men are marked like that; it's in the blood. It don't mean a thing." He smiled winningly. "I reckon if you're beginning to scold me you're going to marry me, huh?"

Something very sweet and womanly leaped in Annie's blue eyes.

"I--I reckon I am," she said, and then confessed herself a brave adventurer and philosopher in one. "Yes, I'd be a fool to sit round and make excuses and pretend it wouldn't do to be so out of the ordinary when here you are and here I am, and it means--our whole lives. I don't care, either, if I didn't ever set eyes on you till to-day--I know you're all right and that what you say's true. And I feel as if I'd known you for years and years."

"That's the way I felt about you the minute I looked at you. Oh"--he gave a vast and shaking sigh--"I can't hardly believe my luck. Eat up your supper and let's get out of here. Maybe there's some stores open yet and I could buy you a ring."

"And I have to be in my boarding house by half-past ten," offered Annie, "or I'll be locked out. What the girls are going to say when I come in and tell 'em----" She looked at him with intense and piteous question--the question that every woman at the moment of surrender asks sometimes with her lips, but always with her heart: "It is going to be all right, isn't it? And you'll be good to me?"

"So help me God," said young Wesley Dean.

* * * * *

The farm lay high, as Wesley had said. Indeed, all the way from Baltimore they had seemed to be going into the hills, those placidly rounding friendly Maryland hills that rise so softly, so gradually that the traveller is not conscious of ascent. The long straight road dips across them gallantly, a silver band of travel to tie them to the city, with little cities or towns pendent from it at wide intervals. Trees edge it with a fringe of green; poor trees, maimed by the trimmers' saws and shears into twisted caricatures of what a tree should be, because the telegraph wires and telephone wires must pass, and oaks and locusts, pines and maples, must be butchered of their spreading branches to give them room.

It was along this highway that the motor bus, filled with passengers and baggage and driven with considerably more haste than discretion, carried the newly married pair. Annie's eyes grew wide at the wonder and beauty of it. She was not at all afraid. She snuggled her hand into Wes's and loved it--and loved him, too, with his look of pride and joy in her. She was content to be silent and let him talk. Now and then she looked at the little turquoise ring on her finger above the shiny new wedding ring, and loved that, too, for he had chosen it at once from the trayful offered them, blurting out that she must have it because it matched her eyes.

"All this country out here's rich," he bragged, "but Fred'rick County's far the richest land of all. Richest in the state. Maybe richest in the whole United States, I dunno. And all the farms are big. Great big farms--and great big teams to till 'em. People don't use mules here s'much as they do over on the Eastern Shore. And there's not any sand, like there is over there--in spots, that is."

"What's that man doing?" asked Annie alertly.

"Ploughin'. Say, didn't you ever see a man ploughin' before?" "Only in the movies," said Annie, unabashed. "Do you ever plough?"

He laughed outright.

"Say, you're going to be some little farmer's wife. I can see that. Yes'm, I plough a little now and then. It's like fancywork--awful fascinating--and once you get started you don't want to stop till you get a whole field done."

"Quit kidding."

"Say, Annie, do you know a chicken when you see it walking round? Or a turkey? Or a guinea keet? We got 'em all. Aunt Dolcey, she takes care of 'em."

"I'd like to take care of 'em. I'll feed 'em, if she'll show me how."

"Aunt Dolcey'll show you. She'll be tickled to death to have somebody feed 'em when she's got the mis'ry."

At Frederick they left the big motor bus and got into Wes's own rackety flivver, the possession of which delighted Annie's heart.

"My land, I never thought I'd get married to a man that owned an automobile," she confessed with flattering frankness in her voice.

"This ain't an automobile," said Wes. "It's a coffeepot, and an awful mean one. Sometimes she won't boil, no matter what I do."

The coffeepot on this particular day chose to boil. They rattled merrily out of Frederick and off into the higher hills beyond. It was a little after noon when they reached the farm.

They had had to turn off the pike and take a winding wood road, rough and muddy from the spring rains. All through the budding green of the trees dogwood had hung out white bridal garlands for them, and there were violets in all the little mossy hollows. At last they came through to the clearing, where lay the farm, right on the ridge, its fields smiling in the sun, a truce of Nature with man's energy and persistence. Yet not a final truce. For all around, the woods crept up to the open and thrust in tentative fingers--tiny pine trees, sprouts and seedlings of hardwood, scraps of underbrush--all trying to gain a foothold and even when cut and overturned by the sharp plough still clinging tenaciously to their feeble rooting.

"It looks somehow," said Annie, vaguely understanding this, "as if the trees and things were just waiting to climb over the walls."

"And that's what they are," said Wesley Dean. "The time I put in grubbing! Well--let's go in and see Aunt Dolcey."

He had told her, coming out, that he was afraid she would find the house sort of plain, but just the space of it delighted her. The rooms were bare and square, whitewashed exquisitely, the furniture dark old cherry and walnut of a style three generations past.

There were no blinds or curtains, and in the streaming sunlight Annie could see that everything was clean and polished to the last flicker of high light. Here and there were bits of colour--crimson and blue in the rag carpet, golden brass candlesticks on the mantel, a red-beaded mat on the table under the lamp, the lamp itself clear glass and filled with red kerosene that happily repeated the tint of the mat. It all pleased Annie, touching some hitherto untwanged chord of beauty in her nature. And there was about it the unmistakable atmosphere of home.

"Old-fashioned but sort of swell, too," she decided. "Looks kind of like some of the parlours of those old houses on Charles Street that I used to rubber into in the evenings when the lights were lit and they'd forgot to put the blinds down."

She liked the impassive almost Egyptian face of Aunt Dolcey, too. The old coloured woman had received her with a serious regard but friendly.

"Mist' Wes, he stahtle me mighty frequen', but he nevah stahtle me with no marryin' befo'," she said. "Honey, it'll be mighty nice to have a pret' young gal in de house. I'll serve you de bes' I kin, faithful an' stiddy, like I always serve him. Ef I'd 'a' known you was a-comin' I'd sho' had somethin' fo' dinneh to-day besides greens an' po'k, cracklin' pone an' apple dumplin's. That's nuffin' fo' a weddin' dinneh."

But when they came to eat it, it was delicious--the greens delicately seasoned, not greasy, the salt pork home-cured and sweet, the cracklin' pone crumbling with richness, and the apple dumpling a delight of spicy flavour.

They sat opposite each other, in as matter-of-fact fashion as if they had been married for years. They were young and exceedingly hungry, and hunger destroys self-consciousness.

The china was very old--white plates with a curving pattern of blue leaves and yellow berries. The knives and forks were polished steel with horn handles. The spoons were silver; old handmade rat-tail spoons they were, with the mark of the smith's mallet still upon them and the initials W.D. cut in uneven letters.

"Those were my great-granddad's," said Wesley. "Same name as mine. He had 'em made out of silver money by a man down in Frederick. They must be nearly a hundred years old. My great-granddad, he was the man that bought this land and began to clear it. He wanted to be away off from everybody."

"Why?" asked Annie, interested in the story.

The vein on Wesley's forehead seemed to grow larger and darker as he answered:

"Oh, he got into trouble--knocked a man down, and the fellow struck his head on a stone and died. It didn't come to trial--it really was an accident--but it didn't make granddad popular. Not that he cared. He was a hard-headed, hard-fisted old son of a gun, if there ever was one, according to the stories they tell about him."

"What were they fighting about?"

"Oh, I dunno--granddad was high-tempered, and this fellow was sort of smart Aleck; give him some lip about something and dared him to touch him. And quick's a wink granddad punched him. At least that's the way I always heard it. Prob'ly they'd both been taking too much hard cider. Bring me another dumplin', Aunt Dolcey, please."

As the old woman entered, bringing the dumpling, Annie fancied there were both warning and sympathy in her eyes. Why, she couldn't imagine. In a moment she forgot it, for Wesley was looking at her hard.

"It's funny," he said, "to think I only saw you yesterday, and that we got married this morning. Seems as if you'd been here for years and years. Does it seem awful strange to you, honey?"

"No," said Annie. "No, it doesn't. It is queer, but all the way here, and when I come into the house, I had a sense of having been here before sometime; kind of as if it was my home all along and I hadn't known about it."

"So it was--and if I hadn't ever met you I'd been an old bach all my life."

"Yes, you would."

"Yes, I wouldn't."

They were both laughing now. He got up and stretched himself.

"Well, Mrs. Dean," he said, "I gotta go out and fix my disker, and you gotta come along. I don't want to let you out of my sight. You might fly off somewhere, and I'd never find you again."

"Don't you worry about that. You couldn't lose me if you tried."

They went through the kitchen, and there a tall gaunt old coloured man rose and bowed respectfully. He and Aunt Dolcey were having their own dinner at the kitchen table.

"This here's Unc' Zenas," said Wesley. "He's Aunt Dolcey's husband, and helps me on the place."

And again Annie saw, this time in the old man's eyes, the flicker of sympathy and apprehension that she had marked in Aunt Dolcey's.

"And right glad to welcome y', Missy," said Unc' Zenas. "We didn' 'spect Marse Wes to bring home a wife whenas he lef', but that ain' no sign that it ain' a mighty fine thing."

They went out into the mellow spring day. Wesley Dean, now in his blue overalls and working shirt, became a king in his own domain, a part of the fair primitiveness about them. It was as if he had sprung from this dark fertile soil, was made of its elements, at one with it. Here he belonged, and the very spring of the earth beneath his feet was repeated in the measured beating of his blood. The land could not warp or break him, as it does so many, for he belonged to it as essentially and as completely as it belonged to him. Dimly the little town girl beside him felt this, and dimly she hoped that she, too, might prove to be of the same mould.

"Look at the barn, and the stables, and the corncrib," he was saying. "See how they're all built? Hand-hewn logs chinked with plaster. Great-granddad built them all, helped by his two slaves. That's all the slaves he had, just two and one of 'em was Unc' Zenas's grandfather. Everything's strong and sound as the day he finished it."

"That one looks newer," said Annie, pointing.

Wesley looked a little shamefaced, as does every typical Anglo-Saxon discovered in sentiment.

"I built that," he confessed. "It's a chicken house. Somehow I didn't want to go down to the sawmill and get planks and build with 'em 'mongst all these old log things. So I got the logs out in the woods and build same as great-granddad. Maybe it was foolish, but I couldn't help it."

"It wasn't foolish; it was nice," she affirmed.

She perched on the tongue of a wagon while he mended the disker, dividing her attention between him and the live things of the barnyard. A string of decorative white ducks marched in single file about the edge of the cow pound. Beyond them a proud red-wattled cock paraded and purred among his harem of trim hens, now and then disturbed in his dignity by the darting nervousness of a pair of malicious guineas, acknowledged brigands of the feathered tribes. Trim iridescent pigeons toddled about on their coral feet, looking for leftovers from the chickens' table.

"Say, Wes, I should think you'd have a dog," she said suddenly. "A nice big dog lazying round here would sort of complete it."

He bent suddenly over his disker and gave the nut he was working on a mighty twist, but he had tossed aside his hat, and she could see the sudden jump and darkening of his menacing vein.

"I had a dog," he said in a low voice, "but he died."

A curious restraint fell on them, and for the first time Annie felt herself an alien, a stranger, far adrift from familiar shores. She shivered in the light wind.

"You cold? You better go in the house and get something round you," Wes said to her.

"I guess I'd better." And she left him hammering.

In the house she found Aunt Dolcey in the big bedroom over the living room. She had just finished remaking the bed--an old maple four-poster, the wood a soft and mellowed orange, fine and colourful against the white quilt, the lace-edged pillow slips.

"I put on clean sheets," said Aunt Dolcey as Annie hesitated on the threshold. "Yes'm, I put on everything clean, an' the bes'. I know what's fitten. My chile, dish yer de third bridal bed I made up for wives of de Dean men."

Something caught in Annie's throat, terrified her. This old black woman, with her remoteness, her pitying wise eyes, what did she mean? Annie wanted terribly to ask her. But how begin? How get through this wall of inscrutability which the black and yellow races have raised for their protection?

She fluttered nearer to the old woman.

"Look," she began tremulously--"look--it's all right, isn't it, my marrying him so quick? I haven't got any folks, and--and I suppose I haven't got much sense; but there was something about him that just made me trust him and--and want him. But it was all so quick, and--now I'm here it seems like maybe--there was--something----Oh, you'd tell me, wouldn't you? It is all right, isn't it?"

The old woman considered. "It's all right ef you're all right," she pronounced at length.

"But--but what do you mean? And--and look here--Aunt Dolcey--tell me--what'd he do to that dog he had?"

"What you know 'bout any dog?"

"I don't know--anything; but when I asked him why he didn't have a dog--he was queer. It scared me."

"Doan be skeered. They ain' nuffin' to be skeered of 'bout Marse Wes. Eve'ything all right ef you got patience, an' ef you got sense, an' ef you got haht enough. Sperrit an' sense go far, but the haht gwine carry you froo. Now I said my say"--her tone mellowed into unctuous kindness--"what you want, Missy? Som'n Aun' Dolcey c'n fotch you? Temme what it is, f'r I got to be up an' erbout my wuk. I got er weddin' cake to mek yit this ebenin'. Yes, ma'am--I gwi' mek you weddin' cake fill de bigges' pan in de kitchen."

She helped Annie rummage in her trunk and get out the sweater she had come in for, and it was not until the girl was running back to the barns that she realized Aunt Dolcey had not answered her question. But the old woman's words had steadied her, reassured her.

And Wes received her gayly. His repairs were done, his team in harness, ready to start.