The Cottage of Delight: A Novel

CHAPTER VI

"Oh, not at all," the contractor mumbled. "I think you are right about that. I always do it at home. Of course, if there is an ordained minister on hand, I ask him, but otherwise I don't."

"Well, I don't even in that case," Whaley answered, crustily. "I've always made it a rule, and I stick to it." Then he cleared his throat, lowered his head again, and prayed aloud at some length. John could not have recalled afterward what it was that he had said, for the most of the words used were unusual and high-sounding.

The prayer was no sooner ended than Tilly rose and hastened from the room. She came back almost instantly with a great platter of fried ham and eggs and a plate of steaming biscuits, and began to pass them around.

"What is the matter with your hand, Tilly?" her mother asked, and John, who was helping himself from the dish the girl was offering him, noted that a red welt lay across the back of one of her small hands.

"I burnt it getting the biscuits out," Tilly answered, almost beneath her breath.

"How foolish!" her mother retorted. "You are getting more and more careless. Bring in the coffee next. I want to be pouring it out. Most folks like to start a meal that way."

Tilly disappeared and returned with the coffee-pot. Somehow John, as he ate his supper, found himself thinking of the painful burn on Tilly's hand, and was oblivious of the conversation regarding religious matters between Cavanaugh and Whaley and his wife.

"Now, come set down and eat your supper," Mrs. Whaley said to her daughter, and Tilly took the chair she had occupied while grace was being said. She kept her eyes downcast, and John noticed her long, slightly curled lashes as they rested on her flushed cheeks and her pretty, tapering hands. She said nothing during the entire meal.

When supper was over, Whaley led the two men into the parlor and lighted an oil-lamp which stood on the mantel-piece, for it was growing dark. They had seated themselves when Whaley rose and took a song-book from the cottage organ and extended it to Cavanaugh.

"Have you got this new book of revival hymns down your way?" he inquired.

"I don't think so," the contractor answered, inspecting it.

"Well, it is by all odds the best all-round collection I've ever run across," Whaley said. "Tilly plays all of 'em pretty well, and we have a regular song-service here whenever we feel like it. Do you sing, Mr.—Mr. Trott?"

"No, sir," John replied. "I have no turn that way."

"Well, maybe you'll get the hang of it while you are here," Whaley smiled coldly. "I don't believe there is any way in the world that a man can get to God quicker, straighter, or closer than in sacred song. I've seen a congregation stand out against the finest appeal ever made from the stand, and the minute some good singer started a rousing hymn they were all ablaze, like soldiers following fife and drum." Herewith Whaley went to the door and called out:

"Amelia, let the dishes rest and you and Tilly come in. We want some music."

"Good! Good!" Cavanaugh chimed in, rubbing his hands. "We are in luck, John. If there is anything on earth I like after a hearty meal it is hymn-singing. It takes me back to the good old camp-meeting days when everybody, young and old, sang, and even shouted when the spirit was on them."

Tilly and her mother came in. The girl went to the organ on which her father was placing the lamp, and sat on the stool. The light fell on her face and John, sitting against the wall on her right, had a full view of it and her graceful figure. Her father had opened the song-book and placed it on the music-rack. Her slender fingers rested on the yellow keys; the red welt on her hand showed plainly, and John wondered if it pained her much. There was no way of deciding, for she showed no sign of suffering. She began to pump the organ with her little feet. She drew out the stops and began to play. She did it badly, but there were no expert musical critics in the room. Whaley and his wife stood behind her and both of them sang loudly. Cavanaugh had never heard the song, and so he did not take active part, though John saw him beating time with his finger and now and then contributing a suitable bass note. Cavanaugh was delighted with the hymn.

"Why don't you join in, little girl?" he asked, gently, as he beamed on Tilly.

"I can't sing and play at the same time," she explained, modestly, catching John's attentive stare and avoiding it, her brown lashes flickering.

They sang some old familiar hymns now, and all three of the singers joined in together.

"I tell you we make a good trio," Whaley exulted. "You've got a roaring bass, Brother Cavanaugh. We'll surprise the natives some night at prayer-meeting. We'll set to one side like and spring it on 'em all at once."

John felt like an alien in the religious and musical atmosphere and was somewhat irritated by the announcement later from Whaley that he always had a chapter read from the Bible and a prayer before going to bed, and, as he believed in retiring early, he suggested that they have the service over with. Accordingly, he removed the lamp from the organ to the table, and from the sitting-room brought a big family Bible. A further surprise was in store for John, for Whaley placed a chair under the lamplight and called on his daughter to sit in it. He smiled coldly as she obeyed and opened the Bible. "You may think it odd, Brother—er—Cavanaugh—you've got a hard name to remember, sir. I say, you may think it odd for me to call on my daughter to read out loud this way. I admit it isn't the general custom, but, the truth is, I discovered that she'd got the habit of not listening to me while I was reading, or commenting, either. So I made up my mind that I'd have her do the reading herself. It has worked pretty well. She is in my Bible-class, and now answers as many questions right as any of the rest, no matter the age or the education."

Tilly was blushing as she lowered her head over the big tome with its brass corners and clasps, and John was sorry for her. A storm of rage against her father ran through him. This was dispelled quickly, however, for when the girl began to read in her clear and sweetly modulated voice he sat transfixed by the sheer charm and music of the delivery. Her neck was bare, and he saw her white throat throbbing like that of a warbling bird. He did not grasp the full sense of what she read, for some of the words were unusual to him. Had she been reading in a foreign tongue, it would have been no more marvelous to him. Her flush had died down; her eyes rested unperturbed on the page; one little hand curved around a corner of the big book; the fingers of its mate held a leaf ready to be turned. The lamplight fell into the brown mass of hair that crowned her well-poised head like a halo. Her long lashes seemed mystic films through which he glimpsed her eyes. Looking across the room, he saw Cavanaugh, his rough fingers interlocked over his knee, staring steadily at the reader. Was it imagination or were the old man's eyes actually moist? They seemed to glitter in the light.

Tilly finished the chapter and slowly closed the book, fastening the clasps carefully. She raised her eyes to John's face and quickly, almost guiltily, looked away. Her father had risen and stood holding the back part of his chair with his two hands.

"Now we'll kneel down and pray," he said. "Brother—er—er—Cavanaugh, I don't know what your habit or turn is, but I'm going to ask you to lead if you feel so inclined."

Cavanaugh was rising. "I make a poor out," he said, "but I'll do my best. I—I don't often refuse when called on." He was looking at John almost appealingly. "I—I regard it as a duty to—to my religion and membership."

The strange, alien feeling swept over John again. He had never heard his jovial associate pray, though he had been told that Cavanaugh did so now and then; besides, John felt as if he were being personally imposed upon. He was not religious; he had never even been to church, and here he was expected to kneel down with the others. Whaley and his wife knelt side by side, the worn bottoms of their coarse shoes standing steadily, their heels upward. As John knelt he felt the uneven planks of the floor press into his knees unpleasantly, and he moved them for a more comfortable spot. He had an impulse to laugh over his own predicament, but checked it, for, glancing to his right, he saw Tilly bent over her crude split-bottom chair like a wilted human flower. She looked so weary and so utterly helpless, and yet so brave and patient. As he feasted on her sweet profile he wondered if she, like himself, were thinking of other things than the ceremony at hand. He could not decide. Surely, he thought, she could not be so silly, with that broad brow and those discerning eyes, as to believe that there was an invisible being away off somewhere who was now listening to what Cavanaugh was saying in his faltering, singsong tone. Somehow he expected absolute truthfulness to be found in the girl. As for the others, they knew what they claimed was untrue. They—even Cavanaugh—were hypocrites, and in their secret souls they knew it.

Cavanaugh's prayer was labored—it did not flow as from the tongue of a man who loves the sound of his own mouthing—and it was soon ended. Whaley's smug omission of any comment on it showed the farmer's estimate of its value or lack of value in any religious campaign.

Now that they were all standing, John found himself near Tilly. He felt that he was expected to say something, for she had raised a dubious glance to his face, but his tongue was tied. How could he speak there under such circumstances when he had never met a girl of her sort on any terms of social equality? He grew hot from head to foot. In kneeling his trousers had caught a white thread from the floor. He saw it and bent to remove it. It was too delicate for his thick, brick-worn fingers to grasp, and he stood awkwardly trying, now to lift it, again to brush it off. He failed, and then he forgot and swore softly. Tilly may not have heard the oath, but something excited her mirth and she smiled—smiled straight into his eyes. He smiled in return, for he had never seen such a smile as hers before. In rippling streams of delight it seemed to go through his whole being. He saw her pretty hand start down toward the thread and then check itself as she noticed her mother looking at her. It was as if she had started to remove the thread herself and decided that the act would invoke criticism from her elders as a thing too forward for a girl to do.

With a laugh that was bold now in its sheer merriment John took out his pocket-knife, opened the blade, and managed to pick up the thread.

"Well, I reckon you are both tired and we are early to bed and early to rise here," Whaley was saying. "You both know the way up-stairs."

There were no formal good-nights exchanged. The Whaleys withdrew to their rooms on the ground floor and John and Cavanaugh went up the stairs. John thought Cavanaugh would go straight into his room, but he followed him into his and helped him find and light his lamp.

"I want to tell you something, my boy," he began, his eyes shifting back and forth from John's face to the jagged flame of the small lamp. "I want to get something out of me and be done with it. I made a regular fool of myself there to-night."

"I don't understand," John said, in surprise.

"Well, I did," Cavanaugh went on, flushed, and in a voice that shook a little. "That prayer of mine was the worst mixed-up mess I ever got off. You see, I never have talked much religion to you boys down home, and as far as I know none of you ever heard me pray out loud in public. Well, I—somehow when I got down to-night I just got to thinking about what you thought—you see, I've heard you sneer at the belief I hold in common with many others, and somehow to-night—well, I found that I was thinking more about what you thought of me than what I was prepared to say, and so I balled it all up. I can do first-rate in meeting at home, but I slid from it to-night. Why, I almost heard Brother Whaley grunt when I suddenly forgot what I started to say and switched off to something else. Oh, I made a fool of myself! Now, really didn't you think so?"

"I didn't hear what you were saying," John answered. "I wouldn't care if I was you."

"Well, I do care," Cavanaugh muttered. "If ever a man insulted his God, I did mine to-night. I was reeling off a lot o' stuff, but not one word of it was from the heart, and a prayer that don't come from the heart ain't worth shucks. Mine wasn't much more than a song and dance before the Throne, and I'm ashamed of it."

"I wouldn't care," John repeated, still absently.

"Well, I don't know as I do care much about what that old hard-shell codger, or his wife that is just like him, thinks, but I do for that little girl. My Lord! ain't she sweet?"

John stared straight and warmly, but said nothing. He was conscious of the intensest interest and that he was trying not to show it.

Cavanaugh stood slowly shaking his head in the negative way that implies affirmation. "Yes, yes, she is a wonderful, wonderful little trick. While she was reading there to-night I seemed to be listening to the voice of an angel that had just come from behind the clouds. I was shedding tears of joy from every pore of my old body. I could have taken her in my arms and cried my heart out. That is why I wish I could have done better in my prayer. What she read was from her soul. 'The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want!' I'll never to my dying day forget them words, and the sweet twist she gave to them. I never had a child, John, and if I could have had one like her, I—I— And just think of it! They make her work like a slave, even with her little hand blistered like it was to-night! Old Whaley thinks he walks side by side with God in all his rules and regulations, but his child is one of God's own glories, and don't you forget it."

Turning suddenly, as if overcome with emotion, Cavanaugh stalked out through the door and crossed the passage into his own room. As John undressed he heard the old man's heavy tread on the floor. A window was raised. There was sudden silence. Cavanaugh was looking out into the starlight.

John was tired, but he remained awake till near midnight. Fancies filled his mind which he had never had before. Why did he think so often of the bride and bridegroom he had seen on the train that morning?

"It is ahead of you, too, my boy," Cavanaugh's words rang in his ears. Could such a thing be for him, really for him? How could it be? He had given no thought to women. He had never dreamed of marriage, but to-night the sheer idea of it was fairly tearing his being to shreds, and the flame of the impulse had risen in the face of a girl—a poor, abused, misunderstood girl. The world lay before him. He would rise in his trade, and earn money which he would lavish on the little filial slave he already adored.

He slept and dreamed that he heard Cavanaugh saying: "It is the cottage of delight, my boy, and it is for you and her—for you and her. Don't forget, for you and her!"

CHAPTER VII

John said nothing, for he had caught sight of Tilly seated with her mother in the front row of benches. She was dressed in white muslin from head to foot. She wore a cheap sailor straw hat he had never seen her wear before, and some flowers were pinned on her breast. The whiteness of her attire seemed to accentuate the rare pinkness of her face, which deepened as she caught his stealthy glance. She was the last of the choir to take her place, the others being seated when she finally went forward, seated herself on the organ-stool, and began to look over the music. How calm and unruffled she seemed to John! On the platform sat a candidate for the Governorship of the state, several ministers, the Ordinary of the county, the Sheriff, an ex-judge, and several other men of prominence, and yet in the eyes of the younger spectators John Trott, who was to place and seal the stone, and stood with a new trowel in his hand, was the most envied person there. He was well dressed, good-looking, possessed with a forceful demeanor, and it was rumored that he was a mason who could demand any wages he liked. It was little wonder that poor young farmers who lived from hand to mouth to eke out an existence should deem him most fortunate, and that the girls should regard him with favor.

John was young; he was human, and he was experiencing a sort of new birth. Aside from Cavanaugh, no one present knew of his mother's reputation or of the social wall between him and the citizens of Ridgeville, and here to-day he was being treated as he had never been treated before. He felt strangely, buoyantly, at his ease. He was too happy to analyze his wonderful transition. He wanted to do his part well, not chiefly on account of Cavanaugh and the contract, or the dignitaries about him, but it must be admitted that above all he was considering Tilly. It pleased the poor boy to think of her as conducting the music, and of himself as having charge of the other details. There was a vague, new, and even confident dignity about his erect figure, face, and tone of voice as he directed the laborers to bring the corner-stone forward. There was a square cavity in the stone into which souvenirs were to be placed, and it devolved upon John to collect them from the audience. He did it well. He was a man drawn out of an old environment by the dazzling experience of being in love. A copy of a fresh issue of the county weekly was handed to him by the paper's editor; the Ordinary contributed a photograph of the old court-house, some one else put in a sheet containing the autographs of leading citizens, and there were coins and various trinkets of more or less historic significance. John placed them in the cavity, and under the eyes of all began to close the opening. His new trowel tinkled softly as he worked in the dead silence on all sides. When it was finished the band played. There was much applause, and then the choir sang. During this part of the program John had a chance to look at Tilly without being seen by her. She sat very erectly at the organ, unabashed, unperturbed. John, even from where he stood at one side, saw the red welt on her hand. He told himself, sentimentally, that those were the same little hands which churned daily, washed dishes, made fires in the range, washed, hung out, and ironed clothes, and he marveled. Once as she turned a page of the music-book she looked at him, seemed in a flash to sense his admiration, and dropped her eyes. Something came into her face which he could not have described, but it played there for an instant like a beam of rose-colored light, and he throbbed and thrilled in his whole being.

The speeches passed off. The band played again and John was asked by the Ordinary to announce that the barbecue was ready to be served at the tables.

John had never spoken in public, and yet to-day a new daring possessed him. Quite unperturbed, he rang his trowel on the corner-stone till quiet was restored, and then, with a half-jest, appropriately worded, he made the announcement. Immediately the audience was on its feet and surging toward the aromatic trenches and tables. The platform was soon vacated, and John saw Tilly alone at the organ, putting up the music-books. He longed to go to her, but a vast and sudden embarrassment checked him. He started, but stopped and pretended to be inspecting the corner-stone. She was behind him now, but she was the light and breath of his new existence and he half saw, half felt her presence. He told himself that she must think him an awkward fool, and yet he could not approach her.

Suddenly he saw something for which he was not prepared. A tall, thin young man with a scant brown mustache and rather long hair, who was tanned like a farmer, and who had large, coarse hands and wore a frock-coat which was thick enough for winter, was stepping upon the platform and approaching Tilly.

"You must come get some of the barbecue," he said. "You are doing most of the work and must be fed. I saw your ma and pa over at the first table."

"I'm not very hungry, Joel," John heard Tilly say, and from the corner of his eyes he saw that she was shaking hands with the young man. A moment later they were passing close behind John. He knew that to pretend still to be inspecting the corner-stone would be absurd and so he turned and faced the couple. Tilly smiled, nodded, and glanced at the stone.

"It is very pretty," she said, pausing and looking at the work he had done. "This is my friend, Mr. Joel Eperson—Mr. Trott," she added.

The hands of two laboring-men met and swung up and down before the little maid. "Pleased to meet you," both men said, and they stared at each other, dumb, concealed thoughts in the depths of their eyes.

"You ran that singing all right." John dug the words from his perturbed self-consciousness. "It went off fine."

"Yes, you certainly did that," the young farmer agreed. "You all must have met and practised."

"Only once, last night," Tilly said. "We met at the church."

"We are going to get some of that barbecue," Eperson said, rather stiffly, to John. "Won't you come along with us? I've got two places reserved and can easily make room for another."

"Two places reserved!" The words had an unpleasant sound to John. Evidently the fellow had been counting on eating with Tilly even before he invited her. John hesitated. He noticed that Tilly had nothing to say, and that irritated him.

"Oh, I'm not a bit hungry," he answered, now in his old, rough, Ridgeville way, and he frowned.

"Well, you might come and see the rest of the animals fed," Eperson jested. "I'd like to talk to you. Tilly wrote me about you coming. I certainly would like to have a job like yours. Farming has gone to pieces in this section."

Tilly had written him. Again John was conscious of irritation and a strange, deep-seated uneasiness. Were the two on such terms of familiarity that they exchanged letters while living so near together? John was still hesitating when Cavanaugh suddenly elbowed his way through the surging throng to his side.

"They expect you and me to set at the Ordinary's table along with the speakers," he announced, momentously. "I've been looking for you all about."

"We just asked him to go with us, Mr. Cavanaugh," Tilly said, "but of course, if the Ordinary wants him we'll have to excuse him." She introduced Eperson, and Cavanaugh smiled.

"I've heard about Mr. Eperson already," he said. "And I'll tell 'im to his face that he has fine taste and knows a good thing in the female line when he sees it."

The young farmer flushed red and smiled, but Tilly's face was unchanged. "I see you are a tease," she said, indifferently. "Well, we'd better be going."

John felt Cavanaugh grasp his arm and begin to lead him through the crowd toward a distant table which was smaller than the others and at which several local dignitaries were seated.

"We might as well give them young turtle-doves a chance to coo on a perch by themselves," the contractor said, with a low chuckle. "I understand the fellow don't get many chances to see his girl. They say he has been in love with her ever since he was a little boy, but old Whaley don't seem to like him. They say the old chap has shut down on Eperson's visits—don't let 'im come around as often as he used to. I reckon to-day is one of the fellow's chances to see her. My! what a nice little trick she is! And take it from me—she deserves a better fate than to marry a slow-going farmer like that one. She'd just change one life of drudgery for another."

As if in a tantalizing dream, John heard these things as he walked along, still tightly clutched by his old friend. He told himself that it was incredible that he should care so much about the affairs of a simple country girl whom he had known such a short time, but the startling fact remained and haunted him.

They found their places at the table and sat down. The Ordinary, a genial man of middle age, with a full brown beard, had a big jug of fresh cider in front of him and was filling some tin cups with the amber fluid.

"We are going to drink to the health and success of these two gentlemen," he announced, when every one at the table had received his cup of the beverage. "They are both agreeable men and are an honor to our community. Moreover, I am satisfied that they are going to give us the finest public building for the money in the state."

They all drank standing, and, as they resumed their seats, they glanced at Cavanaugh as if expecting a response from him.

"I am much obliged," Cavanaugh stammered. "I can't make a speech or I'd tell you how tickled I am by your compliment, and my young friend on my right is, too. We are combining business and pleasure on this jaunt and are having a fine time."

John was gloomily unconscious of the fact that he, too, was expected to say something. Seeing Cavanaugh sit down, he did likewise. He was watching Eperson and Tilly, who at one of the long tables near by sat facing him. Eperson was bending eagerly toward her, smiling and saying something in her ear. Tilly seemed to be listening, for she was smiling also. Farther down the same table sat her father and mother. Whaley had a plate heaped high with the meat and its accompanying peppery relish, and was eating voraciously. Mrs. Whaley was chatting with a woman at her side and scarcely eating at all. The brass band was playing, there was a great clatter of knives and forks and tin cider-cups. John was in one of his surliest moods. He was really hungry enough to have enjoyed the feast, but his thoughts kept him from doing so. Presently he managed to slip away from the table, and found himself alone. He wandered aimlessly about the foundation of the new building, trying to make himself believe that he was inspecting the work already done. The band had ceased playing. The crowd of white citizens was thinning out, and the negroes were falling into the vacant places at the tables. John saw Cavanaugh and the elder Whaleys trudging homeward. Where was Tilly? he wondered. Then he saw Eperson driving a poor horse drawing a ramshackle buggy around from the public hitching-rack. Tilly stood waiting for him alone on the edge of the sidewalk. Eperson got out, helped her into the seat, and then got in beside her and drove her homeward.

John lingered about the foundations for half an hour. Then he saw Eperson returning in the buggy alone. He had to pass close to where John stood, but John refused to look up as he went by and turned into the country road. There was a vague look of placid content on the earnest face of the man which portended things John dared not think about.

CHAPTER VIII

"Why, you are different, that's all"—the contractor laughed—"as different from what you used to be down at home as night from day. You used to have a grouch on you nearly all the time, but now you are as pleasing as a basket of chips. Your mind seems brighter. You often say funny things, and you ain't as rough with the boys that work under you as you used to be. If they are a little slow with brick or mortar you don't fuss so much, and—say—you have mighty nigh quit cursing. I'm glad of that, too, I must say I am, for taking the Lord's name in vain never helped a man get ahead. You see it is a slap in the face to so many well-meaning folks. Gee! ain't we having a fine time? It is about as hard to understand myself as to understand you—I mean this combination picnic and hard labor we are at. There is one point about it that I wouldn't dare tell my wife. By gum! I don't know that I'm ready to admit it even to myself yet, but it is a queer notion."

"What is that?" John asked, only half attentively, for he was listening to the sounds in the kitchen below and picturing Tilly at work.

"Why"—the old man stared gravely as he answered—"it is a fact that I don't miss Mandy at all—hardly at all, and it has set me wondering—wondering. I know I love her, you see; that fact is as solid and plain to me as that brush you've got in your hand, and why I don't miss her more I don't know. I lay in bed awake between four and five this morning, turning it over in my mind, but to no effect. However, it may be this way: a man and a woman may actually be—well, almost too well suited to each other, if such a thing is possible."

"You are getting tangled up." John laughed as he tied afresh a new cravat he had just bought and thrust a cheap, gaudy pin into its folds.

"You may think so, but I hain't," Cavanaugh denied. "I mean this, John. A couple may live together so long and become so near alike that nothing exciting happens to either one of 'em, and along with that may come a sort of strain of marriage responsibility. Down at Ridgeville somehow I was always wondering what Mandy would want done and what not, but up here when my day's work is over I can slap on a clean shirt and my best suit, brush my shoes, light my pipe, and sit around till bedtime and have a good free evening of it. And I sleep—I'll admit it—I even sleep sounder and seem to get more out of it. At home I lie with one eye open, you might say. If Mandy has a bad cold, I can hear her sniffling, and if she has an attack of rheumatism I can smell the liniment she rubs on. I don't mind it, you understand, oh no, not one bit! but the—the very worry about her upsets me. She's the same about me. I know it is a fair deal between us, for she takes it powerful hard even if I come home with a cut or any little injury. I said that it was a fair deal on both sides, but I'll take that back. It is not. The woman gets the worst of married life, and I reckon that's what is bothering my conscience. I sent mine off once for a week at a big camp-meeting over in Canton. She sewed and fixed and packed and cooked for three weeks to get ready, and was gone just two days and a night. She hired a special team to fetch her back, and come acting like she'd been off for a year and had escaped from ten thousand ills and misfortunes. You see, she just couldn't live without her pans and pots and chickens and the cow and calf which she was afraid I wouldn't feed—and, I don't know, maybe—me. And that's what hurts. She keeps writing now about what I'm fed on, how my duds are washed and mended, and how long it will be before I get back home. All that when I'm cracking jokes and arguing with old Whaley over some of his hidebound Bible views about the end of the world. Why, he couldn't predict the outcome of a county election, and yet he knows to the day and hour when him and some more are going to be lifted up on a cloud of glory and all the rest of us stand looking on, wringing our hands like the bunch Noah left without a thing to cling to. But don't you let anything I say about marriage influence you against it, my boy. It is the greatest institution in the world to-day, and while I don't somehow miss my wife, I'd die if I lost her. I know that as well as I know I'm alive. There must be such a thing as loving folks you don't want to be with all the time."

CHAPTER IX

She did so, although the path was clear and the distance short, and the gentle pressure of her hand on his arm sent an inexplicable thrill through him. She even leaned slightly and confidently against his shoulder, and that, too, was a wonderful experience. He was filled with ecstatic emotion. He slowed down his step and clumsily adapted his long stride to her shorter one. There was a vast, swelling joy in his throat. At the barn-yard gate she released his arm and opened it, and at once he had a fear that he had made a mistake in not forestalling her. He was flooded with shame at the thought that Joel Eperson would have known what was proper and have acted quicker.

"Excuse me," the poor fellow stammered, his eyes on hers. He had never used such words before and they sounded as strange to him as if they had belonged to a foreign tongue.

"Excuse you, why?" she inquired, perplexed.

"Because—because I didn't open the gate for you," he replied. "I wasn't thinking."

"Oh, that doesn't matter," she answered, evidently pleased, and there was something in her eyes that he had never seen there before. Her face seemed to fill with a warm light, and her pretty lips were slightly parted. They walked on. The chicken-house, a shack with a lean-to roof against the barn, was near and he stood by her as she looked in at the open door.

"One of the planks they roost on fell down," she explained. "Too many of them got on it. They will huddle together, warm as it is."

"I can fix it," he proposed, "but I'd have to have a light."

Tilly hesitated, looking again into the shack. There was a low chirping from the perches overhead.

"Never mind to-night," she said. "They have found new places and will soon settle down."

She turned back, facing him, and slowly they started toward the house. This time she took his arm without being asked, and the act gave him additional delight. He allowed the natural weight of his arm to gently press her hand against his side and she did not resent it. In fact, he felt as if her touch was responsive. The moonlight fell on her bare head and played in her wonderful hair, upon which the moisture of the night was settling. Half-way between the barn and the house there was an empty road-wagon. Its massive tongue stood out straight a foot or so above the ground. To his wonderment, Tilly sat down on it, thrusting her little feet out in front of her.

"Let's sit here," she said. "They won't be back for some time yet."

He complied, his wonder and delight growing. They were silent. Finally she spoke again.

"You are the strangest man I ever saw," she said, looking into his face with her calm, probing eyes.

"Am I?" he asked. "Why, how so?"

"I don't know," she made answer, thoughtfully, and she locked her little hands in her lap and looked down. "I can't make you out. You are so—so gentle and tender with me. You are a mystery, a deep mystery. You don't seem to take to women in general, and yet, and yet with me—" She sighed and broke off abruptly.

In his all but dazed delight he could not supply the words she had failed to summon, though he knew what he would have said could he but have untangled his enthralled tongue.

"Oh, I'm no mystery!" He tried to laugh away his awkwardness. "I'm as plain as an old shoe; no frills about me. You ask the boys that work with me."

She was unconvinced. He saw her shake her wise little head and twist her fingers together as she answered:

"A girl I know who saw you on the platform that day said she'd bet you'd had an unfortunate love-affair. She said nothing else would make as—as fine a young man as you are shun all the girls like you do. She even hinted that maybe you were—were married down in Georgia and for some reason or other was not telling it."

"Oh no, I'm not married," he laughed. "Gee! Sam would think that is funny. Me married!"

"Then you have had a—a love-affair with some girl, and—"

"Wrong again!" he laughed, deep in the throat of his ebullient joy. "I've just been a sort of stay-at-home, pretty busy, you know. I've had my hands full of night work, figuring, writing, and planning, and through the day I've been hard at it, as a general thing. No, I'm just, I reckon, not a natural ladies' man." How could he explain to her what he had never understood or even tried to fathom, the reason why he was different from other young men of his age whose manner of life he had only superficially observed?

Tilly seemed still unconvinced. "That girl was Sally Teasdale," she went on. "She was here yesterday. You may remember her—the tall, dark-haired girl that sang in the choir that day and turned my music for me once. She is going to have a party at her house down the road Wednesday night. She is—is dead set on having you there. She says all the girls want to get acquainted with you, and she—she wanted me to—to take you to it."

"To take me to it?" he repeated, hardly understanding what was really meant, for how could a young lady be asking him to a party at her house when no home of that sort had ever been open to him? How could that be true, and that another girl of Tilly's social rank should really be inviting him to escort her?

"I see, you don't want to go," Tilly said, with a touch of mild resentment. "Well, that is for you to decide, and I would not have asked you but there was no way out of it. Even mother advised me to mention it."

Never had his confusion been greater. "Why, I want to go!" he blurted out. "I don't see how you could doubt it. And you say that you will let me go along with you?"

"Yes, but it was Sally's idea; not mine," Tilly urged. "Don't think I go about inviting boys to take me places. You see, you are stopping at our house, and that is why Sally mentioned it to me, but the fact that you pay us board doesn't give me the right to pull you into things you don't care for. You must be your own judge. No doubt you are frightfully tired at night, and if you have writing and figuring to do after work hours, why, it would be wrong of you to bother with a crowd of silly country girls that you never saw before."

"Me tired? Oh no! Leave that out of the question," he warmly thrust in. "I've set up with the boys when they were sick all night long, and worked the next day without feeling it. What ails you? Why don't you think I'd like to go with you? Well, I would— I do want to go."

"Well then, we'll go," Tilly said. "I know you will like the girls—Sally, especially, for she is crazy, simply crazy about you. Huh! and you don't know it? Why, she goes to town nearly every day just to pass the new court-house. Shucks! she knows every layer of brick that goes in it, and every man by name that works under you."

"I think I remember the girl you mean." John was not absorbing the compliment. "She is a tall, dark girl, as straight as an Indian squaw. She stopped one day and asked me some questions about the rooms on the lower floor. Sam come and showed her around— I was too busy. Sam's on the ladies' entertainment committee— I am not."

"She told me she had never met you." Tilly leaned toward him as she spoke. She clasped her hands over her knee. She was staring steadily, her eyes flashing. "Oh, my! what won't some girls do to get in with a new man? Huh! She has failed to get at you in every other way and is now making a cat's-paw of me."

"I declare I don't know what you mean," John asserted, "but if you are in earnest—about the party, I mean—why, you can count me in. I've never been a party man—I wouldn't know what to do or say—but if you will go with me, I'll be ready long before you are, I'll bet you. I'll hire a horse and buggy at the livery-stable, and—"

"Oh no, I seldom ride," Tilly protested. "It is only about a mile and we can walk that far in pretty weather like this. They all live close about except Joel Eperson. He always drives in and brings his sister, Martha Jane."

"Oh, so he's going—that feller is going!" John exclaimed in a crestfallen tone. "I see—I see—he's going."

"Yes. He is Sally's first cousin."

The uncouth mason sat silent. He folded his ponderous hands and scowled as he did when displeased with the work of a bungling assistant. Tilly was covertly and studiously regarding his profile.

"Why do you say it like that?" she inquired. "Is there anything strange about Joel going to a party?"

"Strange? Not if he knows you are to be there. Does he?"

"I suppose he does think I may be there, but what of it—what of it?"

John turned and stared toward the house. It was as if he were trying to keep her from seeing the fierce expression he knew had clutched his face. Tilly leaned closer to him. Her shoulder touched his. She sat waiting for him to turn his head toward her again. Presently he looked at her, his honest eyes holding a famished expression.

"What is there strange about Joel going?" she asked, softly and all but propitiatingly.

"Nothing strange about it—just the reverse," he sighed. "I've heard that he has been loving you ever since he was a little boy, and that he comes to see you every chance he gets. I've heard that your father doesn't like him. I see—his cousin has got this party up so you and he can—"

Tilly sprang to her feet. John kept his seat, unaware that even rural courtesy demanded that he rise when she did. But Tilly was no stickler for conventions. She was a working-girl; he was a laborer, and there was something to be fathomed in the man before her which lurked deep within him. She was angry, or perhaps only impatient, but the mood passed as if melting into the moonlight which laved her dainty form like some supernal fluid.

"What you said is not kind or just," she objected, sweetly. "You intimate that I'd meet Joel somewhere against my father's wishes. I would not do so. I would not disobey my father or do anything on the sly that he would oppose."

In dumb, almost stupid alarm John sat staring up at her. He quaked under the sudden realization that he had offended her, and yet he had never apologized to any one in his life. The fine sense of that sort of restitution belonged to social paths John Trott had never traversed. "Excuse me," he might have said, as he had said at the gate, but somehow under her bent gaze he found himself unable to utter a word. It may have been the sheer blank look in his eyes, or the helpless twitching of his lips, that decided her, for she suddenly sat down by him again and leaned forward till their eyes met.

"You did not mean to say that I'd do anything underhand, I'm sure," she faltered. "I'm sure of it now."

"Oh no," he slowly shook his head and seemed to swallow an emotional contraction in his throat. "I didn't mean any harm, but—but he will be there, you say? He'll be there?"

"Yes, yes, of course," Tilly responded. "I suppose he will bring Martha Jane. He usually does. But what of that?"

"He'll want to talk to you, I suppose?" John went on, his nether lip hanging limp, his gaze steady.

"Why, yes—that is, maybe he will. Sometimes couples walk about between the games and dances. I don't dance. My father and mother oppose it, and our church does not sanction it; but you dance, don't you?"

"No, I've never even been to a dance. I hardly know what they are like. The young folks at Ridgeville have them often at their club and at the hotels and in their homes, but the boys are a lot of dudes that have nothing else to do, and I hate them. I've always had to work for a living and most of them are well off and look down on poor folks. People here treat a fellow like me different somehow."

"It seems very strange that you don't dance," Tilly mused aloud, "especially when you don't belong to the church. How does it happen that you never joined?"

He shrugged and sniffed with uncurbed contempt, unaware of the fact that what he was saying was an unheard-of thing in Tilly's circle. "I don't believe in them," he jerked out. "They are a bunch of close-fisted, grafting hypocrites. Most of them haven't the brains of a gnat. I've helped build meeting-houses, run against the leaders, and know their private lives. They say they believe there is a God— I don't!"

Tilly sighed unresentfully. "You will see it differently some day," she said. "Will you do me a favor?"

"Will I? Try me," he laughed, and he sat eagerly waiting for her to continue.

In her earnestness she put her hand on his knee as she leaned closer to him. "Then don't tell father how you feel about it—please don't. You don't know him. You can't imagine how furious that would make him. A man stopped at our house once to stay overnight. He was selling harvesting-machines, and after supper he and my father had an argument on the veranda. He said—the man said something like what you've just said to me, and father made him leave the house—made him pack up and leave at once, for father said it would be a sin for us to sleep under the same roof. Mother did not object, either. She was glad to see him go. Our preacher preached a sermon on it and said my father did right. I'm sorry you believe as you do, but won't you promise me not to say anything about it while you are here?"

"I'll promise you anything on earth you ask." John sat up straight. Her little hand was still on his knee. He yearned to take it into his calloused grasp and fondle into it his assurances of compliance with her desires. "I don't object to any man's religion unless it rubs against my rights as a man," he went on. "These church folks here may be better than any I've run across, but down home the breed doesn't suit me. Why, when I was a little fellow in the public school I've had them—women and men—invite other boys to go to Christmas-tree parties, Sunday-school festivals, or picnics, and leave me out. They would do it right before my face, as if I was the very dirt under their feet. A thing like that would be noticed by a little boy who wonders why he can't go along with the rest."

"I didn't know there were such church members as that anywhere," Tilly said, thoughtfully. "Oh, I see. I wonder if your folks are Catholics?"

"No. My father is dead. My mother doesn't go to any church."

"Oh, that's odd. Not any at all?"

"No. I guess she is like me. She doesn't know any of the members or care a hill of beans about them. Why did you ask if we were Catholics?"

"Because Catholics are looked down on so much around here. If you had said you were one, I was going to ask you not to mention that to my father, either. The greatest trouble my family ever had came through the Catholics. You see, I had a brother. He died five years ago. He was a professing member of our church, and father was awfully proud of him because he was a fine exhorter at revivals. When he wasn't more than sixteen my brother actually preached in public, though he wasn't ordained. They called him 'the boy wonder' and many people were converted under him."

"I've seen his sort," John said, reflectively. "They had one down our way, a sissy of a chap, that women fairly went crazy over, but you say your brother died."

"Yes, but not before he caused us that great trouble," Tilly went on. "It was this way. Father's chief ambition was to have him preach, and when he was about twenty, and after father had saved and stinted to put him through the Methodist seminary, an Irish family moved here. They were Catholics. There was a girl in the family, and in some way or other George got acquainted with her and got to visiting at her house. You know the Catholics have no church here—there are so few of them—but at her house my brother met Catholics who talked to him and gave him books to read. The truth is, he fell in love with the girl and our trouble began. She and her folks somehow convinced him that her religion was the oldest one—that it was really established by our Lord, and that all the other denominations had shot off from it. George had the manhood to come to father and tell him what he believed and that he was going to join the Catholics, so that he and the girl could marry according to Catholic rites. I was too young to know what it was all about, but I was terrified by father's fury. He acted like a crazy man. He couldn't eat or sleep. He disowned my brother and drove him from home. George married the girl and they all moved away. By accident we heard that he had died of consumption away out West, and then a man—a Catholic, some kin of George's wife—came to deliver some message George had sent from his death-bed. We were all sitting in the parlor. Before father would let him say what the message was father asked the man if George died a Catholic, and when the man said he did and that a priest had been called in, my father refused to hear the message and showed him the door. My mother seemed willing to listen to it, but she always obeys my father. They are almost exactly alike, and so she said nothing."

The gate latch clicked. Voices were heard from the house. "They are back. I'll have to go in," Tilly said, and she sighed as from weighty memories awakened by her recital.

John got up and Tilly took his arm again. It seemed to him that her hold upon it was somehow insecure, and he took her hand and drew it higher up. He had never touched her hand till now, and, while it was rough from her accustomed toil, by contrast with his own brick-and-stone rasped palm, it felt as soft as velvet. There was a warm lack of resistance in it and he released it reluctantly. How glorious and bliss-drenching seemed the moonlight as it lay on the landscape! And it was not to end, he told himself. There was the party to look forward to. That would give him another chance to see her alone. He was a strong man, and yet he was all but swooning under emotions which he had never dreamed could exist.

"Oh, there they are!" he heard Mrs. Whaley exclaiming.

Tilly now released John's arm, stepped forward, and casually explained the mishap in the chicken-house.

"The same thing happened some time ago," Mrs. Whaley said, pleasantly, to John. "We've got too many chickens, anyway. I'm going to ship some of them off."

He told her awkwardly that he would send one of the carpenters up to repair the damage, and further showed his crudeness by adding that it should not cost her anything, all of which struck her as being quite gentlemanly of him, and proving his ability to command men who ranked lower than himself in the scale of his trade.

They all separated for the night and John went to his bed stirred by hopes and passions that kept sleep from his brain for hours.

CHAPTER X

With a happy laugh, John bent downward and the contractor pulled the narrow strip of lawn into place around the stiff collar and managed to tie it fairly well. "You will cut a dash, my boy, for that is a dandy suit, and it fits you like a kid glove. These mountain fellers don't get as stylish a cut as that from these cross-roads stores, and no such material by a long shot. I'm going to say something and I'm afraid you will be hurt, but I hope you will remember that I feel like a father to you."

"Shoot it out!" John laughed. "Fire away."

"Well, you can't accuse me of being foolish about what is style and what ain't, John, but there are a few things that I wish you'd remember not to do any more. You see, I never lived with you down home—never set with you at the table and the like, and so I didn't notice anything out of the way, but—" The contractor was avoiding John's questioning stare and suddenly broke off.

"Why, what do you mean?" John asked. "Have I been doing anything wrong?"

"Oh no, and maybe not a single one has ever noticed what I have, but I must say there are a few things that sometimes I wish you wouldn't do. Oh, I'm going to tell you and be done with it, because if I don't some young lady may and that would hurt worse. John, I don't like the way you act at the table sometimes. I hope you won't get mad, but I don't."

"Well, what's wrong?" John asked, a look of shame crossing his face as he stood mechanically brushing his coat-sleeve with his big, splaying hand.

"There are several little things," Cavanaugh went on, lamely. "For instance, there is always a big spoon on the bean-dish or the cabbage-plate, and we are expected to use it when we are asked to help ourselves, but I've seen you take your knife, fork, or teaspoon and rake it out exactly as if you was scraping mortar from a board."

"Oh, I see, I see." John smiled in a sheepish sort of way. "So that is wrong, eh?"

"Yes, and then you stick your knife in your mouth loaded to the brink with stuff, and I've seen you use your fingers, John. I've seen you pick up a chunk of meat with your fingers and ram it in like you was plugging a hole in a sinking boat. You begin eating before the rest do, too, and that don't look nice, I must say. You are all right—all right, but it is just a few little things like those that you ought to watch out for and try to avoid. These are plain-living folks, but still they seem to have pretty good manners—that is, except the old man. He does a lot o' things that he ought not to do. He drinks coffee out of a saucer, and, although I saw him rubbing the back of a cat just before we sat down yesterday, he broke off a piece of bread with his hands and handed it to me that way, and not on a fork or a plate, as would be proper. If the women hadn't been there and akin to him, I'd have throwed it down."

John had turned to the bureau for a handkerchief. He was angry, but more at himself than his gentle companion.

"It is all poppycock," he said, suddenly. "I'm astonished, Sam, to hear you say such fool things—you, a man of your age and trade. I thought you was a plain, sensible man. Why, you are trying to be a dude."

Nevertheless, as the old man sat silent, John made up his mind that the advice was worth heeding and he forced a smile.

"All right, Sam," he said; "I'll remember next time. I'm new at this game."

"I thought you'd take it sensible," Cavanaugh said, in relief. "Now there is another little thing. It seems to me that, as you are going to escort Tilly there, you oughtn't to be behind time. You know you always had a bad memory, and it wouldn't look exactly right for you to keep her sitting somewhere waiting on you. A man ought to be first on deck in a jaunt like this."

"I was wondering about that." John stared eagerly. "She didn't say what time we'd leave the house. Do you suppose she'd want to start now?"

"I don't know, but I'll tell you what we'll do to be on the safe side. Let's go down in the yard and set about. I've got two cigars. You take one and I'll take one and we'll smoke till something turns up."

They went down the stairs and out into the yard. They saw no one about the house and they took chairs under the trees near the fence. They had hardly seated themselves when a horse and buggy stopped at the gate. A man and a woman sat in the buggy. Giving the reins to his companion, the man sprang down and came in at the gate. In the light of the rising moon John saw that it was Joel Eperson.

"Good evening," the young farmer said to John. "Is Miss Tilly about?"

John sat immovable. He turned his cigar over in his mouth and looked up fiercely. "What are you asking me for?" he snarled. "I'm not keeping the door."

"I beg your pardon;" Joel said, in a startled tone. "I meant no harm. My sister and I came by to see if she'd like to go to a party over at my cousin's house."

John made no reply. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and pulled at his cigar. Cavanaugh saw that he was in a rage and rose to his feet.

"I believe Miss Tilly is getting ready now," he explained, mildly. "She is going with my young friend here, I understand; but, of course, if you and your sister want to see her, why, maybe you'd better knock at the door. Somebody will hear and come out."

"Oh no, no!" Joel was now flooded with embarrassment. "I didn't know she was provided for so nicely, and— No, we'll drive on. I wouldn't want to hurry Miss Tilly. I can explain it to her at the party. She will understand, anyway, for sister and I often come by after her."

Bowing politely and still confused, Eperson backed away a few feet, and then, restoring his hat to his head, he rejoined his sister.

"I'm sorry to see you act that way, John," Cavanaugh deplored, as the buggy disappeared down the road. "I know the reason of it, I reckon, but still you went a bit too far. It is give and take in a game like the one you and this chap are playing, and if you don't want to lose, you'd better be careful."

John stared, still angry. "I've got no use for him," he sniffed. "He looks like a jack-leg preacher or a mountain singing-teacher, bowing and scraping and holding his hat in his hand before two men. He has no backbone. He is as yellow as a pumpkin, and ought to have that long hair of his parted in the middle and tied in a knot behind his head."

"I know, but he looks honest and straight, and he is dead in love. That's one reason he's so timid, even with us. It works that way with some men. You are different. It makes a wild man of you, especially when the fair one is looked at by somebody else. But you've got to hold in. This fellow has got prior rights to you in this deal, and if you are too rough it may go against you. I don't say it will, but it may."