Chapter XXXIII: Postscriptum (10)

"We'd like to have you back, Tom," he said; "and you'd be a general favorite now."

"I want to go home first, Uncle Tom, and get the place out of debt, so mother and Barb'll be easy in their minds. Then I don't know what I _shall_ do. I don't feel as if I could ever come to town again without fetching mother with me. But I can't tell; I want to get out of this town; I hate the very sight of it. Come, Barb; do let's get off. Where's the horse? I want to get home, where I won't see any more of this crowd, and where I can be alone with you and mother."

Before they had made their way to the front door of the court-house the multitude outside had got firm hold of the fact of Tom's acquittal and the manner of it, and when he appeared they set up a shout; then there were cheers and more cheers. But Tom only looked worried, and sought to extricate himself from the people who followed him. At length he managed to get away from the last of them.

"You haven't ate anything to-day," said Janet, who clung to his hand and danced along by his side. "Come to our house to supper. I expect we'll have warm biscuits and honey."

"You dear little body!" said Tom. "I can't stop for supper to-night, Janet; I must go home with mother. I want to get out of the ugly town. I'll come and see you sometimes, and I'll have you out at the farm lots of times." He stopped to put his pale, trembling hand under her pretty chin; he turned her face up to his, he stooped and kissed her. But no entreaty could prevail on him to delay his departure. Not even the biscuits and honey on which Janet insisted. Hiram Mason helped him to hitch up old Blaze-face to the wagon. Then Tom turned to Hiram and grasped both his arms.

"You're going with us," he said abruptly.

"Not to-night, Tom. I'll come in a few days, when I've finished my writing in the clerk's office. I'll stop on my way home."

"I want to thank you, but I can't; confound it," said Tom.

"Never mind, Tom; I'm almost happier than you are."

"I'm not exactly happy, Mason," said Tom; "I've got that plaguey feeling of a rope around my neck yet. I can't get rid of it here in Moscow. Maybe out at the farm I shall be able to shake it off. Janet, won't you run into the house and tell mother and Barbara to come out quick--I want to get away."

Tom had expected that Bob McCord would take a place in the wagon, but Bob was not so modest as to forego a public triumph. He first went and recovered the wagon-spoke from beneath the court-house steps, where he had hidden it the night before. This he put into the baggy part of his "wamus," or hunting-jacket--the part above the belt into which he had often thrust prairie-chickens when he had no game-bag. Then he contrived to encounter Jake Hogan in the very thick of the crowd.

"O Jake!" he called, "what's the price uh rope? How's the hangin' business a-gittin' along these days? Doin' well at it, ain't yeh?"

"Wha' joo mean?" asked Jake, as he half turned about and regarded Bob with big eyes.

"Seems like's ef you'd ort to be'n ole han' by this time, Jake. You sot the time fer Tom's funeral three deffer'nt nights: wunst you wuz a-goin' to have it over't Perrysburg, un wunst the Sunday night that Pete Markham throwed you off the track weth that air yarn about a wall-eyed man weth red whiskers, un wunst ag'in las' night. Ev'ry time you sot it they wuz some sort uv a hitch; it didn't seem to come off rightly. S'pose un you try yer hand on Dave Sovine awhile. They's luck in a change."

"I hain't had no han' in no hangin's nor nuthin' uh that sort," snarled Jake.

"_You_ hain't? Jest you go un tell that out on Broad Run, sonny. Looky h-yer, Jake. I've got the evidence agin you, un ef you _dare_ me I'll go afore the gran' jury weth it. I jest dare you to dare me, _ef_ you dare."

But Jake did not dare to dare him. He only moved slowly away toward his horse, the excited crowd surging after him, to his disgust.

"Looky h-yer, Jake," Bob went on, following his retreat. "I want to gin you some _ad_vice as a well-wishin' friend un feller-citizen. Barb'ry knowed your v'ice las' night, un Barb'ry Grayson hain't the sort uv a gal to stan' the sort uv foolin' 't you've been a-doin' about Tom."

"Aw, you shet up yer jaw, now wonchoo?" said Jake.

"I say, Jake," said McCord, still pursuing the crest-fallen leader of Broad Run, while the crowd moved about Big Bob as a storm center. "I say there, Jake; liker 'n not Barb'ry'll stay in town to-night un go afore the gran' jury to-morry. Now ef I wuz you I'd cl'ar the county this very _i_dentical night. Your ornery lantern-jawed face wouldn' look half's han'some as Tom's in that air box in front uv the sher'f."

"You shet up!" said Jake.

"Come un shet me up, wonch you?" said Bob, rubbing his hands and laughing.

Jake had reached his horse now, and without another word he mounted and rode away. But Bob kept walking about with his fists in his pockets, his big elbows protruding, and his face radiant with mischief until Sheriff Plunkett came out of the court-house.

"I say, Sher'f," he called, "how many men'd you say they wuz in that air fust mob?"

"Nigh onto forty, I should think," said Plunkett; "but of course I can't just exactly say." And he walked away, not liking to be catechised. There was something mysterious about that mob, and he was afraid there might be something that would count in the next election.

"They had pistols, didn't they?" Bob continued, following him.

"Yes, to be sure," said Plunkett, pausing irresolutely.

"Now looky h-yer, Sher'f; I know sumpin about that air mob. They wuzn't but jest on'y two men in the whole thing. I don't say who they _wuz_"; and here Bob looked about on the crowd, which showed unmistakable signs of its relish for this revelation.

"Un as fer pistols, they did have 'em. I've got one of 'em h-yer." Bob here pulled the wagon-spoke from the depths of his hunting-shirt. "That's one of the identical hoss-pistols that wuz p'inted at your head las' night. Felt kind-uh cold un creepy like, didn't it now, Hank Plunkett, when its muzzle was agin yer head, un it cocked, besides? Ha-a! ha!"

The crowd jeered and joined in Bob's wild merriment.

"I'll have you arrested," said the sheriff severely. "You've confessed enough now to make the grand jury indict you."

"Fer what? Fer savin' the life uv a innercent man? That'd be a purty howdy-do, now wouldn't it? Un it would be a lovely story to tell at my trial, that the sher'f uv this yere county gin up his keys to two men, _two lonesome men weth on'y wagon-spokes_! He-e! An' the wagon-spokes cocked! A wagon-spoke's a mighty bad thing when it does go off, especially ef it's loadened with buckshot."

Plunkett came close to McCord, and said in an undertone loud enough to be heard by others: "Ah, Bob, I knowed it wuz your voice, un I knowed your grip. They ain't any other man in this county that can put me down the way you did las' night. But don't you tell Jake ur any of his crowd about it"; and he winked knowingly at Bob.

"Aw, go to thunder, now!" said Bob, speaking loudly and not to be cajoled into giving up his fun. "Sher'f, you can't come no gum games on _me_. By jeementley crickets, you wuz skeered, un that's all they is about it. You wilted so 't I wuz afeerd you'd clean faint away afore I could git out uv yeh where the keys wuz. Why didn't you hide Tom summers? You wuz afeerd Broad Run'd vote agin you, un you as good as tole Jake Hogan ut you wouldn' make no trouble when he come to lynch Tom."

"No, I didn't; I didn't have anything to say to Jake."

"Ef you take my case afore the gran' jury un I'm tried, I'll prove it on yeh. Now, Hank Plunkett, they's two things that'll never happen." Here Bob smote his right fist into his left palm. "One is 't you'll ever fetch my case afore the gran' jury. That's as shore's you're born. T' other is that you'll ever be elected ag'in! Wha'd joo turn off Pete Markham fer? Fer tryin' to save Tom, un to please Broad Run. Now you're come up weth, ole hoss. Markham'll be the nex' sher'f. You jest cut a notch in a stick to remember't Big Bob McCord tole you so. Ef 't hadn' been fer me 'n' Abe Lincoln you 'n' Jake, 'twext and 'tween yeh, 'd 'a' hung the wrong feller. Now I jest want to see you fetch me afore the court wunst. Ef you pester me too much, I'm derned 'f I don't go thar on m' own hook."

"You've been drinking, Bob," said Plunkett, as he hurried away; but the people evidently sided with McCord, whose exploit of mobbing the sheriff almost single-handed had made him more than ever the champion of the county.

That night Jake Hogan, afraid of arrest, succeeded in trading his cabin, with the front door still unhinged, and his little patch of rugged ground for a one-horse wagon and some provisions. Over the wagon he stretched his only two bed-sheets of unbleached domestic for covering. Before noon the next day, he had passed safely out of the county. The raw-boned horse, the rickety wagon, the impoverished and unwilling cow tied behind, the two yellow mongrel pups between the wagon-wheels, and the frowsy-headed wife alongside of him were token enough to every experienced eye that here was a poor whitey on his travels. To all inquiries regarding his destination, Jake returned:

"I'm boun' fer _Mes_souri. Yeh see they hain't no kind of a chance fer a poor man in this yer daudrautted Eelinoys country."

Once an example of migration had been set, his neighbors grew restless also, and in a year or two nearly all of them had obeyed their hereditary instinct and followed him to Pike County in Missouri. The most of the Broad Run neighborhood is now included in a great grazing farm; here a few logs, there some tumble-down ruins of a stick-chimney, and in another place a rough stone hearth, only remain to indicate the resting-place for a few years of a half-nomadic clan, whose members or their descendants are by this time engaged, probably, in helping to rid the Pacific coast of its unchristian Chinese.

XXIX

THE CLOSE OF A CAREER

Dave Sovine's partial confession, which had served to acquit Tom, was sufficient at the next term of the court to condemn him, for no plea of accidental shooting could save him after he had tried to escape at the expense of another man's life. During his trial the motive for shooting Lockwood remained an inexplicable mystery. But when once Dave was convinced that his execution was inevitable and there was an end to all the delights of deviltry, he proceeded to play the only card remaining in his hand, and to euchre Justice on her own deal. Like other murderers of his kind he became religious, and nothing could be more encouraging to criminals than the clearness and fervor of his religious experience, and his absolute certainty of the rewards of paradise. His superiority in wickedness had made him the hero of all the green goslings of the village; his tardy conversion and shining professions made him an object of philanthropic interest to sentimental people and gave him the consolations of conspicuity to the last.

It was during this lurid sunset period of his unnecessary existence that Dave made confessions. These were not always consistent one with another; the capacity for simple and direct truth-telling is a talent denied to men of Sovine's stamp, nor can it be developed in a brief season of penitence. It is quite probable that Sovine failed to state the exact truth even when narrating his religious experiences. But by a comparison of his stories, with some elimination of contradictory elements, the main facts regarding the death of George Lockwood were made out with passable clearness. Being of a thrifty turn of mind, Lockwood had, by a series of careful observations, detected one of the principal tricks employed by Dave to win the money of the unwary. It had been Lockwood's purpose to play the trick back on Dave at some favorable opportunity, but this he found quite impossible. To bring himself to Dave's proficiency in manipulation no end of assiduous practice would be needful. There remained one other way in which he might utilize his discovery. It was an established rule in that part of the country that he who detected his opponent in the very act of cheating at cards might carry off the stakes.

When Lockwood went to the camp-meeting he put into his pocket a bit of candle, in order to have a game with Dave; and when on encountering him Dave proposed the game, the two went out into the woods, remote from the meeting, Lockwood lighted his candle and they sat down on a log to play. Lockwood won at first and doubled the stakes at every game, until Dave, seeing that his pocket-money was running short, and the candle fast wasting in the breezes, concluded to sweep in the stakes with his favorite trick. George Lockwood exposed the cheat at the very instant, and put the stakes in his pocket. But Dave had received his education in its higher branches in the South-west of half a century ago, and he had no notion of suffering himself to be bankrupted so easily. He drew his pistol and demanded the stakes, following Lockwood with reiterated threats, until, in a moment of exasperation, he shot him. A crowd came quickly at the sound of the pistol, and Dave had the shrewdness not to run away and not to attempt to take any money from George Lockwood's person. Remembering Tom Grayson's threats, he declared, with his usual alertness in mendacity, that he had seen Grayson do the shooting, and thus diverted attention from himself.

He had no further thought at the time than to get out of a present difficulty; it was his purpose to leave the country before the trial should come on. But he found himself watched, and he imagined that he was suspected. He saw no chance to move without making sure of his own arrest; he became alarmed and unfitted for decision by the sense of his peril; as the trial approached, his nerves, shaken by dissipations, were unstrung by the debate within him. He saw ghosts at night and his sleep almost entirely forsook him. This horror of a doom that seemed perpetually to hang over him was greatly enhanced by the cross-examination to which he was subjected; from the first he misdoubted that Lincoln had penetrated his whole secret and possessed the means of making it known. And when he heard himself charged publicly with the murder and as publicly arrested, he believed that some evidence against him had been found; he did not draw the line between the charge and the proof, and the half confession escaped him in the first breakdown produced by sudden despair.

But at the last he spoke edifyingly from the scaffold, and died with as much composure and more self-complacency than Tom would have shown had he fallen a victim to Dave's rascality. What becomes of such men in another world is none of my business. But I am rather pleased to have them depart, be it to paradise, or purgatory, or limbo, or any other compartment of the world of spirits. In some moods I could even wish them a prosperous voyage to the Gehenna of our forefathers, now somewhat obsolescent, if only they would begone and cease to vex this rogue-ridden little world of ours.

XXX

TOM AND RACHEL

When Tom rode home from the trial with his mother and Barbara, his emotions were not just what one might expect; the events of the day and the tremendous strain on his nerves had benumbed him. He was only conscious that it gave him a great pleasure to leave the village behind, and to get once more upon the open prairie, which was glorified by the tints and shadows of the setting sun. The fields of maize, with their tassels growing brown and already too ripe and stiff to wave freely, and with their long blades becoming harsh and dry, so that the summer rustle had changed to a characteristic autumnal rattling, seemed to greet him like old friends who had visibly aged in his absence. Tom found his mind, from sheer strain and weariness, fixing itself on unimportant things; he noted that the corn-silk which protruded from the shucks was black, and that the shucks themselves were taking on that sear look which is the sure token of the ripeness of the ear within the envelope. Now and then he marked an ear that had grown so long as to push its nose of cob quite beyond the envelope. The stretches of prairie grass showed a mixture of green and brown; the September rains had freshened a part of the herbage, giving it a new verdure, but the riper stalks and blades had maintained their neutral colors. These things interested Tom in a general way, as marking the peaceful changes that had taken place in the familiar face of nature during his period of incarceration. What he felt in regarding these trifles was simply that he was alive and once more free to go where he pleased. He said little, and replied to the remarks of his mother and Barbara briefly, and he drove old Blaze-face at a speed quite unbecoming a horse at his time of life. The people whom he passed cheered him, or called out their well-meant congratulation, or their bitter remarks about Dave Sovine, but Tom on his part was not demonstrative; he even drove past Rachel Albaugh and her brother Ike with only a nod of recognition. To any remark of his mother and Barbara about Dave's villainy, and to any allusion to the case, he returned the briefest answers, giving the impression that he wished to get mentally as well as physically away from the subject. When he got home he asked for an old-fashioned country hoe-cake for supper, and he would have the table set out on the kitchen porch; he said it seemed so delightful to be permitted to go out-of-doors again. After supper he turned old Blaze into the pasture, with a notion that he too might prefer his liberty.

In reflecting on the events of the day, Barbara remembered with pleasure that Rachel had congratulated Tom. It made his vindication complete that the young woman who had refused his attentions when he was accused of nothing worse than foolish gambling had now taken pains to show her good-will in public. But when the question of a possible renewal of the relations between Tom and his old sweetheart came up in Barbara's mind, there was always a doubt. Not that there was anything objectionable about Rachel Albaugh. Barbara said to her mother over and over again, in the days that followed Tom's acquittal, that there was nothing against Rachel. If Rachel was not very industrious she was certainly "easy-tempered." In her favor it could be said that she had a beautiful face, and that she would be joint heiress with her brother to a large and well-improved prairie farm, to say nothing of her father's tract of timber-land.

After a while Barbara came to wish that Tom's old affection for Rachel might be kindled again. She did not like to see him so changed. He plodded incessantly at farm work, and he seemed to have lost his relish for society. If any one came to the house, he managed to have business abroad. He was not precisely gloomy, but the change in him was so marked that it made his sister unhappy.

"Why don't you go to see Rachel?" she asked, a week after the trial. Barbara was straining her eyes down the road, as she often did in those days. "Rachel would be glad to see you again, Tom, like as not."

"Maybe she would," answered Tom, as he picked up the pail and started to the spring for water by way of cutting off all further talk on the question.

The days went by without Tom's showing by any sign that he cared to see Rachel, and to Barbara's grief the days went by without Hiram Mason's promised arrival at the Graysons'. But there came presently a note from Hiram to Barbara, saying that he had been detained by the necessity he was under of finishing Magill's writing, and by the difficulty he found in getting his pay from the easy-going clerk for what he had done. But he hoped to stop on his way home in three or four days. This note was brought from Moscow by Bob McCord, who also brought Janet. The child had teased her father into letting her come out in Aunt Martha's wagon with Bob, whom she had seen driving past the house on his way in.

Janet spent her time in the country wholly with Tom. She followed him afield, she climbed with him into the barn lofts, she sat on the back of old Blaze when Tom led him to water, she went into the forest when Tom went to fell trees for fire-wood, she helped him to pick apples, and she was as happy in all this as she would have been in the Elysian Fields.

"Cousin Tom," she said, the day after her arrival, as she leaned out of the high, open window of the hay-loft, "yonder's a lady getting down on the horse-block at the house."

Tom climbed up from the threshing-floor to the mow, and, standing well back out of sight in the gloom of the loft, he recognized Rachel Albaugh's horse. Then he went back again to his wheat-fanning on the threshing-floor.

"Aren't you going to go and help her?" said Janet, when Tom stopped the noisy fanning-mill to shovel back the wheat and to rake away the cheat.

"Pshaw!" said Tom. "A country girl doesn't need any help to get off a horse."

Rachel had come to call on Barbara, nor did she admit to herself that her visit had anything to do with Tom. But she found herself in an attitude to which she was unaccustomed. From the moment that Tom had been charged with murder her liking for him increased. The question of his guilt or innocence did not disturb her--except in so far as it jeoparded his life; he was at least a dashing fellow, out of the common run. And now that he had been acquitted, and was a hero of everybody, Rachel found in herself a passion that was greater than her vanity, and that overmastered even her prudence. She was tormented by her thoughts of Tom in the day, she dreamed of him at night. Tom would not come to her, and she felt herself at length drawn by a force she could not resist to go to him.

Barbara asked Rachel to stay to dinner, and promised that Tom would put away her horse as soon as he knew that she had come. This was but the common hospitality of the country, but Barbara hoped that Rachel's presence might evoke Tom's old buoyant self again. And so, while Barbara sat on the loom-bench weaving a web of striped linsey, Rachel sat near her, knitting. It appeared to Barbara that Rachel had undergone almost as great a change as Tom. She had lost her taciturnity. Her tongue kept pace with the click of her needles. She only broke the thread of her talk when she paused to take the end of one needle out of the quill of her knitting-case and put another in. Under color of sympathy for the Graysons in their troubles she talked of what was in her mind. How dreadful it must have been for Tom to be in jail! How anxious he must have been at the trial! How well he bore up under it all! How proud he must have been when he was acquitted! These and such remarks were web and woof of her talk, while Barbara was throwing her nimble shuttle to and fro and driving the threads home with the double-beat of her loom-comb.

By half-past 11 the early farm dinner was almost ready, and Mrs. Grayson blew a blast on the tin horn which hung outside of the door, to let Tom and Janet know that they were to come in.

When Tom heard the horn he went and led Rachel's horse to the stable, after perching Janet in the saddle; and then he delayed long enough to shuck out and give him eight or ten ears of corn. After this he came to the house and washed his hands and face in the country way, with much splash and spatter, in a basin that sat on a bench outside of the door, and Janet washed hers, imitating to the best of her ability Tom's splattering way of dashing the water about. Then the two used the towel that hung on a roller in the kitchen porch, and Tom entered the kitchen with his clothes soiled by labor and with that look of healthful fatigue which comes of plentiful exercise in the open air.

"Howdy, Rachel? All well 't your house?" This was the almost invariable formula of country politeness, and it was accompanied by a faint smile of welcome and a grasp of her hand.

"Howdy, Tom?" said Rachel, cordially. "I hope you are well." Rachel regarded him a moment, and then let her eyes droop. Had Rachel discovered that her face was at its best when her long eyelashes were lowered in this fashion, or was the action merely instinctive?

"Oh, so-so!" answered Tom, uneasily, as he seated himself with the rest at the table. Rachel sat next to him, and he treated her with hospitable politeness, but she looked in vain for any sign of his old affection. She hardly once fairly encountered his eye during the meal. He seemed more indifferent to her attractions than she had ever known any man, old or young, to be. And yet she knew that her charms had lost nothing of their completeness. That very morning she had gone into the rarely opened Albaugh parlor and examined herself in the largest looking-glass in the house--the one that hung between the parlor windows, and that had a print of Mount Vernon in the upper panel of the space inclosed between the turned frames. Her fresh and yet delicate complexion was without a speck or flaw, her large eyes were as lustrous as ever, and there was the same exquisite symmetry and harmony of features that had made her a vision of loveliness to so many men. But Tom seemed more interested in his cousin, whom he kept laughing with a little childish byplay while talking to his sister's guest. Rachel felt herself baffled, and by degrees, though treated cordially, she began to feel humiliated. When dinner was finished by a course of pumpkin pie and quince preserves served with cream, Tom pushed back his chair and explained that he was just going to begin building some rail pens to hold the corn when it should be gathered and shucked, and that he could not allow himself the usual noon-time rest. The days were getting so short, you know. Would Rachel excuse him? Barbara would blow the horn so that he could put the saddle on Rachel's horse when she wanted it. But wouldn't she stay to supper?

Rachel declined to stay to supper, and she was visibly less animated after dinner than she had been before. The conversation flagged on both sides; Barbara became preoccupied with her winding-blades, her bobbins, and her shuttle, while Rachel was absorbed in turning the heel of her stocking. By half-past 1 o'clock the guest felt bound to go home; the days were getting shorter and there was much to be done at home, she remembered. The horn was blown, and Tom led her horse out to the block and helped her to mount. As he held her stirrup for her to place her foot, it brought to his memory, with a rush, her refusal to let him ride home with her from the Timber Creek school-house after the "singing." When he looked up he saw that Rachel's mind had followed the same line of association; both of them colored at this manifest encounter of their thoughts.

"I suppose I oughtn't to have said 'no' that day at the school-house." Rachel spoke with feeling, moved more by the desperate desire she felt to draw Tom out than by any calculation in making the remark.

"Yes, you ought," said Tom. "I never blamed you."

Then there was an awkward pause.

"Good-bye, Tom," said Rachel, extending her hand. "Won't you come over and see us sometime?"

"I'm generally too tired when night comes. Good-bye, Rachel"; and he took her hand in a friendly way. But this was one of those farewells that are aggravated by mental contrast, and Rachel felt, as she looked at Tom's serious and preoccupied face, that it was to her the end of a chapter.

Tom started up the pathway toward the house, but stopped half-way and plucked a ripe seed-pod from the top of a poppy-stalk, and rubbed it out between his two hands as he looked a little regretfully after Rachel until she disappeared over the hill. Then he turned and saw Barbara standing on the porch regarding him inquiringly.

"You aren't like yourself any more, Tom," she said.

"I know that," he answered, meditatively, at the same time filliping the minute poppy-seeds away, half a dozen at a time, with his thumb. "I don't seem to be the same fellow that I was three months ago. Then I'd 'a' followed Rachel like a dog every step of the way home."

"She's awfully in love with you, poor girl."

"Oh! she'll get over that, I suppose. She's been in love before."

"And you don't care for her any more?"

"I don't seem to care for anything that I used to care for. I wouldn't like to be what I used to be."

This sentence was rather obscure, and Barbara still looked at Tom inquiringly and waited for him to explain. But he only went on in the same inconsequential way, as he plucked and rubbed out another poppy-head. "I don't care for anything nowadays, but just to stay with you and mother. When a fellow's been through what I have, I suppose he isn't ever the same that he was; it takes the _ambition_ out of you. Hanging makes an awful change in your feelings, you know"; and he smiled grimly.

"Don't say that; you make me shiver," said Barbara.

"But I say, Barb," and with this Tom sowed broadcast all the poppy-seed in his hand, "yonder comes somebody over the hill that'll get a warmer welcome than Rachel did, I'll guarantee."

How often in the last week had Barbara looked to see if somebody were not coming over the hill! Now she found her vision obstructed by a "laylock" bush, and she came down the path to where her brother stood. As soon as she had made out that the pedestrian was certainly Hiram Mason, she turned and went into the house, to change her apron for a fresher one, and with an instinctive wish to hide from Mason a part of the eagerness she had felt for his coming. But when he had reached the gate and was having his hand cordially shaken by Tom, Barbara came back to the door to greet him; and just because she couldn't help it, she went out on the porch, then down the steps and half-way to the gate to tell him how glad she was to see him.

XXXI

HIRAM AND BARBARA

The cordiality of his welcome was a surprise to Mason; he could hardly tell why. The days had dragged heavily since his separation from Barbara, and his mind had been filled with doubts. The delay imposed upon him by Barbara's circumstances and then by his own was unwholesome; love long restrained from utterance is apt to make the soul sick. During his last week in Moscow he had copied court minutes and other documents into the folio records in an abstracted fashion, while the conscious part of his intellect was debating his chance of securing Barbara's consent. He fancied that she might hold herself more than ever aloof from him now; that her pride had been too deeply wounded to recover, and that she would never bring herself to accept him.

When he had at length finished all there was for him to do in the clerk's office at Moscow, and Magill had contrived to borrow enough money to pay him his fifty cents a day, Mason was too impatient to wait for some wagon bound for the Timber Creek neighborhood. He started on foot, intending to pass the night under the friendly roof of the Graysons, and to push on homeward in the morning; for he would already be a month late in beginning his college year. His mind was revolving the plan of his campaign against Barbara's pride all the way over the great lonely level prairie, the vista of which stretched away to the west until it was interrupted by a column of ominous black smoke, which told of the beginning of the autumnal prairie fires that annually sweep the great grassy plains and keep them free of trees. At length the tantalizing forest, so long in sight, was reached, and he entered the pale fringe of slender poplar-trees--that forlorn hope thrown out by the forest in its perpetual attempt to encroach on a prairie annually fire-swept. But when at last he entered the greater forest itself, now half denuded of its shade, the problem was still before him. He contrived with much travail of mind what seemed to him an ingenious device for overcoming Barbara's fear of his family. He would propose that his mother should write her a letter giving a hearty assent to his proposal of marriage. If that failed, he could not think of any other plan likely to be effective.

Like many conversations planned in absence, this one did not seem so good when he had the chance to test it. The way in which Tom welcomed him at the gate, shaking his hand and taking hold of his arm in an affectionate, informal way, gave him an unexpected pleasure, though nothing could be more natural under the circumstances than Tom's gratitude. And when Tom said, "Barbara'll be awful glad to see you, an' so'll Mother," Mason was again surprised. Not that he knew any good reason why Barbara and her mother should not be glad to see him, but he who broods long over his feelings will hatch forebodings. When Hiram looked up from Tom at the gate, he saw Barbara's half-petite figure and piquant face, full as ever of force and aspiration, waiting half-way down the walk. Barbara paused there, half-way to the gate, but she could not wait even there; she came on down farther and met him, and looked in his eyes frankly and told him--with some reserve in her tone, it is true, but with real cordiality--that she was glad to see him. And by the time he reached the porch, Mother Grayson herself--kindly, old-fashioned soul that she was--stood in the door and greeted Mason with tears in her eyes.

After a little rest and friendly talk in the cool, well-kept, home-like sitting-room, Hiram went out with Tom to look about the familiar place. The fruit trees were pretty well stripped of their foliage by a recent wind and the ground was carpeted with brown and red and yellow leaves, while the rich autumn sunlight, which but half warmed the atmosphere, gave one an impression of transientness and of swift-impending change. It was one of those days on which the seasons are for the instant arrested--a little moment of repose and respite before the inevitable catastrophe. The busiest man can hardly resist the influence of such a day; farmers are prone to bask in the slant sunlight at such times and to talk to one another over line-fences or seated on top-rails. The crows fly hither and thither in the still air, and the swallows, gathered in noisy concourse, seem reluctant to set out upon their southward journey. But Mason soon left Tom and entered the kitchen, where he sat himself down upon a bench over against the loom and watched the swift going to and fro of Barbara's nimble shuttle, and listened to the muffled pounding of the loom-comb, presently finding a way to make himself useful by winding bobbins.

The two were left alone at intervals during the afternoon, but Mason could not summon courage to reopen the question so long closed between them. His awkward reserve reacted on Barbara, and conversation between them became difficult, neither being able to account for the mood of the other.

After a while Janet, tired with following Tom the livelong day, came into the kitchen and besought Barbara to sing "that song about Dick, you know"; and though Mason did not know who Dick might be, he thought he would rather hear Barbara sing than to go on trying to keep up a flagging conversation; so he seconded Janet's request. When Barbara had tied a broken string in the "harness" of the loom, she resumed her seat on the bench and sang while she wove.

BARBARA'S WEAVING SONG.

Fly, shuttle, right merrily, merrily,
Carry the swift-running thread;
Keep time to the fancy that eagerly
Weaveth a web in my head.

For Dick he will come again, come again,
Dick he will come again home from afar
With musket and powder-horn,
Musket and powder-horn, home from the war.

Beat up the threads lustily, lustily,
Weave me a web good and strong;
Heart brimful and flowing with joyousness
Ever is bursting with song.

For Dick he will come again, etc.

Warp, hold the woof lovingly, lovingly,
Taking and holding it fast;
Hearts bound together in unity
Love with a love that will last.

For Dick he will come again, come again,
Dick he will come again home from afar
With musket and powder-horn,
Musket and powder-horn, home from the war.

By the time the ditty was ended, Mrs. Grayson was setting the supper-table by the fire-place, doing her best to honor her guest. She took down the long-handled waffle-irons and made a plate of those delicious cakes unknown since kitchen fire-places went out, and the like of which will perhaps never be known again henceforth. She got out some of the apple-butter, of which half a barrel had been made so toilsomely but the week before, and this she flanked with a dish of her peach preserves, kept sacredly for days of state. The "chaney" cups and saucers were also set out in honor of Hiram, and the almost transparent preserved peaches were eaten with country cream, from saucers thin enough to show an opalescent translucency, and decorated with a gilt band and delicate little flowers. This china, which had survived the long wagon-journey from Maryland, was not often trusted upon the table.

"My! What a nice supper we've got, Aunt Marthy!" said Janet, clapping her hands, as they took their seats at the table.

"It seems to me you're making company out of me," said Mason, in a tone of protest.

"We sha'n't have you again soon, Mason," said Tom, "and we don't often see the like of you."

The words were spontaneous, but Tom ducked his head with a half-ashamed air when he had spoken them. Barbara liked Tom's little speech: it expressed feelings that she could not venture to utter; and it had, besides, a touch of Tom's old gayety of feeling in it.

When supper was well out of the way Hiram proposed a walk with Barbara, but it did no good. They talked mechanically about what they were not thinking about, and by the time they got back to the house Mason was becoming desperate. He must leave in the morning very early, and he had made no progress; he could not bring himself to approach the subject about which Barbara seemed so loath to speak, and concerning which he dreaded a rebuff as he dreaded death.

They entered the old kitchen and found no one there; the embers were flickering in the spacious fire-place and peopling the room with grotesque shadows and dancing lights.

"Let us sit here awhile, Barbara," he said, with a strange note of entreaty in his tone, as he swung the heavy door shut and put down the wooden latch--relic of the pioneer period.

"Just as you please, Mr. Mason," answered Barbara,

"Oh! say _Hiram_, won't you?" He said this with a touch of impatience.

"Hiram!" said Barbara, laughing.

He led her to the loom-bench.

"Sit there on high, as you did the night you put me into a state of misery from which I haven't escaped yet. There, put your feet on the chair-rung, as you did that night."

He spoke with peremptoriness, as he placed a chair for her feet, so that she might sit with her back to the loom. Then he drew up another shuck-bottomed chair in such a way as to sit beside and yet half facing her, but lower.

"Now," he said, doggedly, "we can finish the talk we had then."

"That seems ages ago," said Barbara, dreamily; "so much has happened since."

"So long ago that you don't care to renew the subject?"

"I--" But Barbara stopped short. The feeble blaze in the fire-place suddenly went out.

Hiram did not know where to begin. He got up and took some dry chips from a basket and threw them on the slumbering coals, so as to set the flame a-going again. Then he sat down in his chair and looked up at the now silent Barbara, and tried in vain to guess her mood. But she remained silent and waited for him to take the lead.

"Do you remember what you said then?" he asked.

"No! how can I? It seems so long ago."

"You said a pack of nonsense." As he blurted out this charge Mason turned his head round obliquely, still regarding Barbara.

"Did I? That's just like me," Barbara answered, with a little laugh.

"No, it isn't like you," he replied, almost rudely. "You're the most sensible woman I ever knew, except on one subject."

"What's that?" Barbara was startled by the vehemence and abruptness of his speech, and she asked this in a half-frightened voice.

"Your pride. I looked up to you then, as I do now. You're something above me--I just worship you." To a man of maturity this sort of talk seems extravagant enough. But one must let youth paint itself as it will, with all its follies on its head. You've said sillier things than that in your time, sober reader--you know you have!

"I do just worship you, Barbara Grayson," Hiram went on; "but you talked a parcel of fool stuff that night about the superiority of my family, and about your not being able to bear it that my people should look down on you, and--well, a pack of tomfoolery; that's what it was, Barbara, and there's no use of calling it anything else."

Barbara was silent.

"Now, I'm not going to give you a chance to make any more such speeches. But I want to ask you whether, if I should send you a letter from my mother when I get home, and maybe from my sisters too, after I have told them the whole truth, urging you to accept me and become one of our family--I want to know whether, then, you would be willing; whether you'd take pity on a poor fellow who can't get along without you. Would that suit you?"

"No, it wouldn't," said Barbara, looking at the now blazing chips in the fire-place with her head bent forward.

"Well, what on earth _would_, then?" And Mason tilted back his chair in the nervousness of desperation and brought his eyes to a focus on her face, which was strangely illuminated in the flickering foot-lights from the hearth.

"Did I talk that way last summer?"

"Yes, you did."

"It must have hurt you. I can see it hurt you, from the way you speak about it."

"Yes," said Mason; "I've been in a sort of purgatory ever since."

"And I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I'd rather do anything than to hurt your feelings." Here she paused, unable to proceed at once, but he waited for her to show the way. Presently she went on:

"Now, Mr. Mason,--Hiram, I mean,--I'm going to punish myself for my foolish pride. I must have felt very differently then to what I do now. The more I have seen of you the more I have--admired you." Barbara stopped and took up the hem of her apron and picked at the stitches as though she would ravel them. Then she proceeded, dropping her head lower, "Somehow I hate to say it,--but I'm going to punish myself,--the more I have seen of you the more I have--_liked_ you. It don't matter much to me now whether your mother likes me or not, and I really don't seem to care what your sisters think about your loving a poor girl from the country."

"Hush! Don't talk that way about yourself," said Hiram. But Barbara was so intent on finishing what she had resolved to say that she did not give any heed to him, but only went on pulling and picking at the hem of her apron.

"I only want to know one thing, Mr. Mason, and that is whether you--whether you really and truly want me?" Her face blushed deeply, she caught her breath, her head bowed lower than before, as though trying in vain to escape from Hiram's steadfast gaze.

"God only knows how I do love you, Barbara," said Hiram, speaking softly now and letting his eyes rest on the floor.

"Well," said Barbara, "as good a man as you deserves to have what he wants, you know"; and here she smiled faintly. "I'll put in the dust all the wicked pride that hurts you so." And Barbara made a little gesture. Then after a moment she began again, stammeringly, "If--if you really want me, Hiram Mason,--why--then--I'll face anything rather than miss of being yours. Now will that do? And will you forgive me for keeping you in purgatory, as you call it, all this time?" There were tears in her eyes as she spoke; partly of penitence, perhaps, but more than half of happiness.

When she had finished, Mason got up and pushed his chair away and came and sat down on the loom-bench beside her, Barbara making room for him, as for the first time she lifted her eyes timidly to his.

"I've been a goose, Barbara, not to understand you before. What a woman you are!"

XXXII

THE NEXT MORNING

When Tom waked up the next morning in the gray daybreak, he found that Mason, who should have shared his room, had not come to bed at all. And when Tom came down to uncover the live coals and build up the kitchen fire, he found that the embers had not been covered under the ashes as usual; there were instead smoking sticks of wood that had newly burned in two, the ends having canted over backward outside of the andirons. The table stood in the floor set with plates and cups and saucers for two, and there were the remains of an early breakfast. There was still heat in the coffee-pot when Tom touched it, and from these signs he read the story of Barbara's betrothal to Mason; he conjectured that this interview, which was to precede a separation of many months, had been unintentionally protracted until it was near the time for Mason's departure. The debris of the farewell love-feast, eaten in the silent hour before daybreak, seemed to have associations of sentiment. Tom regarded these things and was touched and pleased, but he was also amused. This sitting the night out seemed an odd freak for a couple so tremendously serious and proper as the little sister and the schoolmaster.

An hour later, when Tom, having finished his chores, came in for his breakfast, Barbara had reappeared below stairs with an expression of countenance so demure--so entirely innocent and unconscious--that Tom could not long keep his gravity; before he had fairly begun to eat he broke into a merry, boyish laugh.

"What _are_ you laughing about?" demanded Barbara, looking a little foolish and manifesting a rising irritation, that showed how well she knew the cause of his amusement.

"Oh! nothing; but why don't you eat your breakfast, Barb? You seem to have lost your appetite."

"Don't tease Barb'ry now," said Mrs. Grayson.

"I'm not teasing," said Tom; "but I declare, Barb, it must have seemed just like going to housekeeping when you two sat down to eat breakfast by yourselves this morning."

"O Tom!" broke in Janet, who couldn't quite catch the drift of the conversation, "Barbara went to bed with her clothes on last night. When I waked up this morning she was lying on the bed by me with her dress on."

Tom now laughed in his old unrestrained fashion.

"Say, Barbara," Janet went on, "are you going to marry that Mr. Mason that was here yesterday?"

Knowing that she could not get rid of Janet's inquiries except by answering, Barbara said: "Oh, I suppose so," as she got up to set the pot of coffee back on the trivet and hide a vexation that she knew to be foolish.

"Don't you _know_ whether you're going to marry him or not?" put in Janet. "I sh'd think you'd know. And I sh'd think he'd be a real nice husband." Then after a few moments of silence, Janet turned on Tom. "Tom, who's _your_ sweetheart?"

"Haven't got any," said Tom.

"Isn't that purty girl that was here yesterday your sweetheart?"

"No!"

"Aren't you _ever_ going to get married?"

"Maybe, some day. Not right off, though."

"I wish you would find a good wife, Tom," said Barbara without looking from her plate. "It would cheer you up." Barbara felt a little guilty at the thought of leaving the brother who had always seemed her chief responsibility.

"Say, Tom, won't you wait for me?" said Janet, solemnly.

"Yes, that's just what I'll do," said Tom, looking at her. "I hadn't thought of it before; but that's just exactly what I'll do, Janet. I'll wait for you, now you mention it."

"Will you, indeed, and double deed?"

"Yes, indeed, and deed and double deed, I'll wait for you, Janet."

"That'll be nice," said Janet, continuing her breakfast with meditative seriousness. "Now I'm your sweetheart, ain't I?"

XXXIII

POSTSCRIPTUM