[A YANKEE FROM THE WEST.]
[CHAPTER I.]
[CHAPTER II.]
[CHAPTER III.]
[CHAPTER IV.]
[CHAPTER V.]
[CHAPTER VI.]
[CHAPTER VII.]
[CHAPTER VIII.]
[CHAPTER IX.]
[CHAPTER X.]
[CHAPTER XI.]
[CHAPTER XII.]
[CHAPTER XIII.]
[CHAPTER XIV.]
[CHAPTER XV.]
[CHAPTER XVI.]
[CHAPTER XVII.]
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
[CHAPTER XIX.]
[CHAPTER XX.]
[CHAPTER XXI.]
[CHAPTER XXII.]
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
[CHAPTER XXV.]
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
[CHAPTER XXVIII.]

A YANKEE FROM THE WEST.

FOURTEENTH EDITION.

A Novel

BY

OPIE READ,

AUTHOR OF

"Judge Elbridge," "The Waters of Caney Fork," "An Arkansas Planter."

Chicago and New York: RAND, MCNALLY & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS.

Copyright,1898, by Rand, McNally & Co

A YANKEE FROM THE WEST.

CHAPTER I.

MILFORD.

In his mind the traveler holds of Illinois a tiresome picture, the kitchen garden of a great people, a flat and unromantic necessity. The greatest of men have trod the level ground, but it is hard to mark history upon a plane; there is no rugged place on which to hang a wreath, and on the prairie the traveling eye is accommodated by no inn whereat it may halt to rest. Such is the Illinois as remembered by the hastening tourist. But in the southern part of the State there are mountains, and in the north, the scene of this story, there is a spread and a roll of romantic country—the green billows of Wisconsin gently breaking into Illinois; lakes scattered like a handful of jewels thrown broadcast, quiet rivers singing low among the rushes. Traveling north, we have left the slim, man-tended tree of the prairies, and here we find the great oak. There are hillsides where the forest is heavy. There are valleys sweet in a riot of flowers. Along the roads the fences are almost hidden by grape-vines. On a knoll the air is honeyed with wild crab-apple; along a slope the senses tingle with the scent of the green walnut. There are lanes so romantic that cool design could have had no hand in their arrangement—they hold the poetry of accident. The inhabitants of this scope of country have done nothing to beautify it. They have built wooden houses and have scarred the earth, but persistent nature soon hides the scars with vines and grasses. The soil is wastefully strong. In New England and in parts of the South, the feeble corn is a constant care, but here it grows with the rankness of a jungle weed. And yet, moved by our national disease, nervousness, the farmer sells his pastoral dales to buy a wind-swept space of prairie in the far West. A strange shiftlessness, almost unaccountable in a climate so stimulating, has suffered many a farm to lie idle, with fences slowly moldering under flowering vines—a reproach to husbandry, but a contri Line 2620 column 53 - Query missing paragraph break?bution to sentiment. Amid these scenes many an astonished muser has asked himself this question: "Where are the poets of this land, where the bluebell nods in metre to the gentle breeze?" Not a poem, not a story has he se Line 2620 column 53 - Query missing paragraph break?en reflecting the life of this rude England in America. In the summer the Sunday newspaper prints the names of persons who, escaping from Chicago, have "sardined" themselves in cottages or suffered heat and indigestion at a farm-house; the maker of the bicycle map has marked the roads and dotted the villages; the pen and ink worker for the daily press has drawn sketches of a lily pad, a tree and a fish much larger than the truth; the reporter has caught a bit of color here and there, but the contemplative writer has been silent and the American painter has shut his eyes to open them upon a wood-shod family group in Germany.

This region was settled by Yankees. They brought with them a tireless industry and a shrewd humor. But to be wholly himself the Yankee must live on thin soil. Necessity must extract the full operation of his energy. Under his stern demand, the conquered ground yields more than enough. Vanquished poverty stuffs his purse. He sets up schools and establishes libraries. But on a soil that yields with cheerful readiness, he becomes careless and loses the shrewd essence of his energy. His humor, though, remains the same. Nervous and whimsical, he sees things with a hollow eye, and his laugh is harsh. Unlike his brother of the South, he does not hook arms with a joke, walk with it over the hill and loll with it in the shade of the valley; it is not his companion, but his instrument, and he makes it work for him.

One afternoon in early summer a man got off a train at Rollins, a milk station, and stood looking at a number of farmers loading into wagons the empty milk cans that had been returned from the city. He was tall and strong-appearing. He wore a dark, short beard, trimmed sharp, and his face was almost fierce-looking, with a touch of wildness, such as the art of the stage-man tries in vain to catch. He was not well dressed; he carried the suggestion that he might have lived where man is licentiously free. With his sharp eye he must have been quick to draw a bead with a gun; but his eye, though sharp, was pleasing. A dog sniffed him and walked off, satisfied with his investigation. The countryman stands ready to sanction a dog's approval of a stranger—it is wisdom fortified by superstition, by tales told around the fire at night—so a look of mistrust was melted with a smile, and the owner of the dog spoke to the stranger.

"Don't guess you've got a newspaper about you?" said the farmer, putting his last can into the wagon.

"No. The afternoon papers weren't out when I left town."

"Morning paper would suit me just as well—haven't seen one to-day. I get a weekly all winter, and I try to get a daily in the summer, but sometimes I fail. Goin' out to anybody's house?"

"I don't know."

The farmer looked at him sharply. A man who did not know—who didn't even guess that he didn't know—was something of a curiosity to him. "Did you expect anybody to meet you?"

"No; I came out to look around a little—thought I might rent a farm if I could strike the right sort of terms."

"Well, I guess you've come to the right place." He turned and pointed far across a meadow to a windmill above tree tops on the brow of a hill. "Mrs. Stuvic, a widow woman, that lives over yonder, has an adjoinin' farm to rent. Get in, and I'll drive you over—goin' that way anyhow, and it shan't cost you a cent. Throw your carpet-bag in there, it won't fall out. Whoa, boys! They won't run away. Yes, sir, as good a little place as there is in the county," he added, turning down a lane. "But the old woman has had all sorts of bad luck with it. That horse would have a fit if he couldn't clap his tail over that line every five minutes. But he won't run away."

"I don't care if he does," said the stranger.

"Well, you would if you had to pick up milk cans for half a mile. He scattered them from that house up yonder down to that piece of timber day before yesterday."

"Did he run away?"

"Well, he wasn't walkin'."

"Then how do you know he won't run away again?"

"Well, I think I've sorter Christian scienced him."

The stranger laughed, and the farmer clucked an applause of his own wisdom. They had reached a corner where a large white house stood surrounded by blooming cherry trees. Bees hummed, and the air was heavy with sweetness. The stranger took off his hat, and straightening up breathed long. "Delicious," he said. The farmer turned to the right, into another road. "I'm almost glad I'm alive," said the stranger.

"You must have paid your taxes and got it over with," the farmer replied. The stranger did not rejoin. His mind and his eye had gone forth to roam in a piece of woods gently sloping toward the road. He saw the mandrake's low canopy, shading the sod, the crimson flash of a woodpecker through the blue of the air beneath the green of the trees, like a spurt of blood. The farmer's eye, cloyed with the feasts that nature spreads, followed a horse that galloped through the rank tangle of a marsh-dip in a meadow.

"Over on that other hill is where the old lady lives," he said.

"What did you say her name was?"

"Well, her name was first one thing then another, but it's Stuvic now. She's been married several times—a Dutchman the last time, a good-hearted fellow that used to work for her first husband—a good talker in his way, smokin' all the time, and coughin' occasionally fit to kill himself. He liked to read, but he had to keep his books hid in the barn, for the old lady hates print worse than she does a snake. He'd wait till she was off the place, and then he'd go out and dig up his learnin'. But the minute he heard her comin'—and he could hear her a mile—he'd cover up his knowledge again. One day he told her he was goin' to die, and she might have believed him, but he had lied to her a good deal, so she hooted at him; but a few days afterwards he convinced her, and when she found he had told the truth, she jumped into a black dress and cried. Strangest creature that ever lived, I guess; and if you want to come to good terms with her tell her you can't read. She gets on a rampage once in a while, and then she owns the road. I saw her horse-whip a hired man. He had let a horse run away with him. She took the horse, hitched him to a buggy, jumped in, laid on the whip, and drove him at a gallop till he was only too glad to behave himself. Well, you can get out here."

The stranger got down in front of a white "frame" house near the road. The farmer waved him a good-bye and drove on. From a young orchard behind the house there came the laughter of children at play. In the yard sat an aged man beneath an old apple tree. The place was a mingling of the old and the new, a farm-house with an extension for summer boarders.

As the stranger entered the gate, a tall, heavy, but graceful old woman stepped out upon the veranda. "Wasn't that Steve Hardy that you rode up with?" she asked, gazing at him. The visitor bowed, and was about to answer when she snapped: "Oh, don't come any of your bowin' and scrapin' to me. All I want is the truth."

"The man didn't tell me his name, madam."

"Well, you didn't lose anythin'. It was Steve Hardy, and a bigger liar never trod luther. Come in."

The visitor stepped upon the veranda, and sat down upon a bench. The old woman stood looking at him. "Do you want board?" she asked. He took off his hat and placed it upon the bench beside him. She gazed at his bronzed face, his white brow, and grunted:

"I asked if you wanted board."

"I want something more than board, madam; I want work."

She snapped her eyes at him. "You look more like you was dodgin' it than huntin' for it; yes, you bet. I know all about a man lookin' for work. All he wants is a chance to get drunk and lie down in the corner of the fence. Yes, you bet. What sort of work do you want?"

"A man that needs work is not very particular. I've never been lazy enough to look for an easy job."

She leaned toward him; she held out her hand. "Shake! You've earned your supper by sayin' that." He took her hard hand and smiled. She frowned. "Don't try to look putty at me! No, you bet! It won't work with me."

There came a hoarse cry from the old apple tree. An enormous Dutch girl ran by, laughing. An old man came forward, brushing himself.

"Now what's the matter with you, Lewson?" the old woman asked.

The aged man was in a rage. "That infernal Dutch cow ran over me again. Why the devil can't she walk? What does she want to snort around for like a confounded heifer? If I don't get me a gun and shoot her I'm the biggest liar on the earth."

"Now, you keep still, Lewson; you keep right still!"

"Still! How the deuce am I going to keep still when she's knocking me down all the time? Every time I walk out she runs over me; if I sit down she runs over me; if I go to my room to take a nap she runs against the house and wakes me up. She can't understand a word you say to her—and confound her, I hit her with a stick, and was three days trying to explain it. Why don't you drive her away?"

A bell at the end of a pole at the kitchen door rang furiously. There came an answering shout from the lake across the meadow. "You've earned your supper," said the old woman. "Yes, you bet!"

CHAPTER II.

LIKED HIM.

Summer was just opening, and there were not many boarders at Mrs. Stuvic's house. But the posting of a railway time-card in the dining-room showed that everything was in readiness. A cook had come from the city to set up her temper against the slouching impudence of the hired man, and an Irish girl stood ready to play favorites at the table. Mrs. Stuvic gave the stranger a seat at the head of the table, and three tired women—hens, worn out with clucking to their boisterous broods—began a whispered comment upon him. One, with a paper novel lying beside her plate, said that he was fiercely handsome. Mrs. Stuvic sat down near him.

"What is your name?" she asked.

"Milford," he answered, and the woman with the novel seemed pleased with the sound.

"Yes, I know," said Mrs. Stuvic, as if she had divined as much, "but your other name. I can't remember outlandish names."

"William."

"Yes, Bill," she said. "Well, Bill, you hinted you wanted work."

The woman with the novel withdrew her attention. Milford shot a glance at her. "Yes," he replied. "The man you say is the biggest liar that ever trod leather told me that you had a farm to rent."

"Well, land sakes! when did he take to tellin' the truth? But just keep still now and say nothin'. Don't say a word, but keep still, and after supper I'll show you somethin'."

A red-headed boy, the natural incumbrance of the woman with the novel, snorted over his plate, and the old woman set her teeth on edge and looked hard at him. "Yes, well, now what's the matter with you? Who told you to break out?"

"Eat plenty of supper, Bobbie, or you'll be hungry before bed-time," said the mother. "He hasn't had much appetite lately," she added, and the boy tried to look pitiful. Mrs. Stuvic cleared her throat, and under her breath muttered "Calf." The mother looked at Milford. "I beg your pardon," she said, "but are you related to the Milfords that live down in Peoria County?"

"I think not, madam," Milford answered.

"They are such nice people," the woman went on; "distant relatives of mine. Sit up straight, Bobbie. One of the boys has made quite a name as a lawyer—Alfred, I think. And I hear that the daughter, Julia, is about to be married to a foreigner of considerable distinction."

"I've lived down in that part of the country," said a woman with a lubberly cub in her arms, "and I know a family down there named Wilford. They have a son named Alfred, and a daughter Julia who is about to be married to a foreigner."

"Wilford, now let me see," mused the mother of the red boy. "Well, I declare, I believe that is the name!"

"And that," said Milford, "is no doubt the reason, or at least one of the reasons, why they are not kin to me."

"Oh, you keep still!" Mrs. Stuvic cried, snapping a smile in two. "You didn't have to say that—but when you don't know what to say, Bill, say the next best thing. Yes, you bet! Oh, I know a lot, but I don't tell it all. People come here and think they can fool me, but they can't. Some of them come a turnin' up their noses at the table, when I know as well as I know anythin' that they haven't got half as good at home. We had one family in particular that was always growlin'. And when they went home in the fall I said to myself, I'll just slip into town one of these days, and see what you've got to eat.' I did, and I never set down to such a meal in my life—soup that looked like tea, and birds put on thin pieces of burnt bread. But if you are through, Bill, come with me; I want to show you somethin'."

She put on her bonnet, and as she stepped out told the Irish girl to take Milford's bag upstairs. It was evident that her favorable impression of him extended as far as a night's lodging. They crossed the road, passed through a gate, so heavy on its hinges that it had to be dragged open, and entered a grove of hickory trees. The sward was thick. Here and there were patches of white and pink wild flowers. The sun was going down, and the lake, seen through a gap in the trees, looked like a prairie fire. They came to a broad lane shaded by wild-cherry trees. Milford stopped.

"I've never seen anything more beautiful than this," he said.

"You just keep still!" she replied. "Yes, and I'll show you somethin' worth lookin' at."

They passed through another gate, went up a graceful rise, into a field, along a broad path hedged with vines and flowers. "Just look at this!" she said. "There ain't better land in this county, and here it lies all gone to waste. The men out here ain't worth the powder and lead it would take to kill 'em. I've rented this farm half a dozen times in the last three years. And what do they do? Get so drunk Sunday that it takes them nearly all week to sober up. I've had to drive 'em away. And the last one! Mercy sakes! The biggest fool that ever made a track; and a hypercrit with it. I found him in the corner of the fence prayin' for rain. Well, I just gathered a bridle and slipped up on him, and if his prayer didn't have a hot end I don't know beans when I see 'em. There was a streak of barbed wire on the fence, and in tryin' to get over he got tangled; and if I didn't give it to him! The idea of a fool gettin' down on his knees tryin' to persuade the Lord to change his mind! All that belongs to me," she went on, waving her hand—"best farm right now in Lake County. And there's the house on the hill, as nice a cottage as you'd want to live in. What do you think of it all?"

"Charming," said Milford. "There's many an old cow in the West that would like to stick her nose up to her eyes into this rich grass."

"You bet, Bill! Are you from the West?"

"Yes, from all over the West. I used to herd cattle; I tried to raise sheep—and I could have done something, but I was restless and wanted to stir about. But I've got over that. Now I want to work."

"That's the way I like to hear a man talk," she said, lifting the latch of a gate. "I don't believe you'd pray for rain."

"The only thing worth prayin' for, madam, is a soul."

"Good enough! Bill, I like you. They say you have to eat a barrel of salt with a man before you know him, and I reckon it's true. But I've eaten so many barrels of salt with men that I know one as far as I can see him. You don't profess to be so awful honest, do you?"

There was hollowness in his laugh, and bitterness in his smile. "I haven't made any pretensions," he said.

"Well, you just keep still and don't make any," she replied.

Through an orchard, they passed to a house on a hill. It stood in the shade of a great walnut tree. She pointed out the barn, the garden-patch, and the woods that belonged to the place. In the soft light it appeared a paradise to the man from the West, green with grass, purple with flowers. She asked him a question, and he answered with a sigh. Then he told her that he was almost moneyless. He had no capital but his will—his muscle. Such a place would be a godsend to him. In his past life there was much to grieve over—time thrown away, opportunities laughed at, money squandered. He could not help dreaming over his follies, and his dream choked him; so he wanted to work with his hands, to fight against a blunt opposition. He stood bareheaded, his face strong. She looked upon him with admiration. From the first, something about him had caught her odd fancy. She was an implacable enemy and a surprising friend. She put her hand on his arm.

"Now, don't you fret," she said. "You didn't have to tell me you had no money. That's all right. If you want this farm you can have it. It's no use to me, lyin' this way. Yes, Bill, you can take it right now. Oh, you may go around here, and some of 'em will tell you that a meaner woman never lived—them that's tried to have their own way over me—but the poor and the needy will tell a different tale. They know where to get somethin' to eat. Well, it's settled. Come on, now, and we'll go back and fix up the particulars when we get time."

He was cheerful as they walked back toward the old woman's home. New tones came out of his voice. There was baritone music in his laugh. She assured him that the details could be arranged without a hitch, that for the present he might rest at ease. He replied that there could be no ease for him, except as he might dig it out of the ground; he seemed to crave a strain of the body to relieve a strain of the mind. She was accustomed to meet all sorts of men, the scum and the leisure of the city, but this man gave her a new feeling of interest. He looked like a man that would fight, and this kindled the fire of her admiration. She loathed a coward. As a girl, she had hunted with her father in the woods of Ohio. One night his house was attacked by roughs, and she had fought with him. To her there was no merit that did not show action; thought that did not lead to action was a waste of the mind. A book was the record of laziness. She tolerated newspapers—in one she had found the announcement that a man whom she hated was dead. Once a man slandered her. She laughed—a sound as cold as the trickling of iced water—and said that she would live to see his last home marked out upon the ground. She did. She was seen in the cemetery, digging. "What are you doing there?" was asked. And she answered: "I'm planting a hog-weed on Thompson's grave." Old Lewson, the man who sat under the apple tree, gave his meager property to his children. They turned him out to die. Mrs. Stuvic took him. "I won't live long," he said. "I'm eighty-three years old." "Don't you fret," she replied; "a man that's as big a fool as you be may live to be a hundred and fifty." And the heart of this old woman was deeply stirred by Milford, not by his misfortunes, his homelessness, the touch of the adventurous vagabond in his face, but by her belief that he possessed an unconquerable spirit.

"Yes, you keep still, and we'll arrange it all in time," she said, as they entered the hickory grove. "And you needn't tell me anythin' about yourself, nuther. A man's never so big a liar as when he's tellin' things about himself or his enemy. It seems that he can't tell the truth about either one. So you keep still. It's most too late in the season for you to do very much now in the way of plantin', but you can make a good beginnin'. There's stuff enough in the cottage back yonder, and you may take possession to-morrow if you want to. There's a fellow named Bob Mitchell around here that's out of work, and you can hire him to help you. He's a good hand to work—the only trouble is, he thinks he's smart. But he'll follow if there's any one to lead."

"Madam, I wish I knew how to thank you," said Milford, as he opened the gate leading into the main road. "I came without an introduction, without a single letter——"

"Don't you dare come fetchin' any of your letters to me! There ain't nothin' much easier than to write a lie."

"I'm not going in now. I'll walk about a while."

"Do as you like," she replied. "Your room's at the end up there," she added, pointing. She went into the house, and he turned back into the grove. He sat down with his back against a tree, his hat on the ground. He muttered words to himself; he felt the cool air upon his moist brow; he breathed the perfume of the fresh night.

CHAPTER III.

INTERESTED IN HIM.

Milford took possession of the farm-cottage. The terms were so loose-jointed that the neighbors lamented the old woman's lack of business sense. She told them to keep still. She said that for years she had been following the advice of a lawyer, and that every string of her affairs had come untied. Now she was going to act for herself. It was hinted that her methods would reflect discredit upon the practical sense of the community. She replied that she paid her own taxes.

On the old farm there was a sprout of new life. At break of day the dozing idler heard a song afield; the hired man, going to milk the cows, the city man, snapping his watch, hastening to catch a train, saw the Westerner working, wet with dew. And when the evening's lamps were lighted, the wild notes of his cowboy song rang from the hillside. Farmers going to the village of a Saturday afternoon stopped at his fence to engage him in talk, but he answered their questions as he went on with his work. One day they heard him say to his hired man: "Go to the house, Mitchell, and rest a while. You are worn out." A man whose table was light, whose shipments of veal and poultry to town were heavy, and who had been requested to put a better quality of water into his milk, declared that he had lived too long and had too much experience of the world to be fooled by a man from the West. He had committed some crime—murder, no doubt—and Steve Hardy was censured for hauling him over from the station. This surmise reached the ears of Mrs. Stuvic. She waited till she saw the wise man driving past her house, and she stopped him in the road.

"I'm glad you know all about my man over there, Hawkins."

"Why, I don't know anything about him."

"Oh, yes, you said he'd committed murder."

"No, I said most likely; but I didn't want it repeated, for, of course, I don't know."

"Yes, you bet! And there's a good many things you don't want repeated. You don't want it repeated that you put old Lewson's brats up to turning him out of the house."

"Look here, madam, I didn't do anything of the sort. I simply said I didn't see how they could live with him; and I didn't, either."

"Well, it's all right. The old man's got a better home than he ever had; and you needn't worry yourself about my man over yonder. He couldn't sell as much milk from five cows as you can do, and I don't believe you can keep it up unless we have rain pretty soon, but he knows how to attend to his own business, and that's somethin' you've never been able to learn."

"Madam, if you'll step from in front of my horses I'll drive on."

"Yes, and mighty glad of the opportunity. You stir trouble, and are the first one to hitch up and drive out of it. Now go on, and don't you let me hear of any more murder stories."

Mrs. Blakemore, mother of the red boy, would not presume to say that there was a stain on Milford's character; but he was undoubtedly peculiar, with an air which bespoke a constant effort to hide something. She knew, however, that there was good blood somewhere in his family. She believed in blood. Her husband had failed in business, and she could afford to despise trade. One Sunday, with her vacant-eyed husband and her red tormentor, she halted at Milford's cottage. He was sitting on the veranda, with the billows of a Sunday newspaper about him on the floor. She introduced her husband, who nodded. She spoke of the fervor of the day and the ragged cloud-skirts flaunting in the sky. She thought it must be going to rain. In the city a rain was wasted, a sloppy distress; but in the country it was a beautiful and refreshing necessity. In each great drop there was a stanza of sentiment.

Milford's eyes twinkled. "You ought to go to a mining-camp," he said. "Men who couldn't parse would call you a poem."

She turned to her husband. "George, do you hear that? Isn't that sweet? So unaffected, too." George grunted; he was thinking of the receiver that had had charge of his affairs. His wife continued, speaking to Milford: "In my almost hothouse refinement, I have longed to see the rude chivalry of the West—where a rhythm of true gallantry beats beneath a woolen shirt."

"Yes," said Milford, "and beneath a linen shirt, too. The West is just as wide but not so woolen as it was."

"Oh, what quaint conceits! George, do you hear them? George, dear."

"George, dear" turned a tired eye upon her. Affection seeking to console a loved one sometimes chooses an unseasonable moment for the exercise of its tender office. She felt the look of her husband's worry-rusted eye; a memory of his weary pacing up and down the floor at night came to her, of his groans upon a comfortless bed, his sighs at breakfast, his dark brow as he went forth to try again to save his credit. She thought of this; she felt that at this moment he needed her help. And affectionately she put her hand upon his arm, and said: "You have met reverses, George, but you've still got me." And George muttered: "You bet I have." She glanced at him as if she felt that he said it with a lack of enthusiasm, as if it were a sad fact acknowledged rather than a possession declared; and she would have replied with a thin sentiment strained through the muslin of a summer book, but George turned away. She followed and he opened a gate and halted, waiting for her to pass through. The boy crawled under the fence. She scolded the youngster, brushed at his clothes, and said to George:

"He is almost a gentleman."

"Who is so far gone as that?"

"Why, the man back there on the veranda."

"I don't know what you mean by almost a gentleman."

"Oh, George, don't you know that there are distinctions?"

"But I don't see how a man can be almost a gentleman. You might as well say that a man almost has money."

"Bobbie, don't try to climb over that stump. There's a poison vine on it. Money is not everything, George."

"Comes devilish near it."

"No, George. Money is not love."

"Well, I don't know about that," he said, in a way implying that he did know.

"Don't be cynical, dear," she replied. "We are both young; we have everything before us."

"Everything we had is behind us."

She pulled upon his arm, and kissed his dry cheek. "Don't be downcast. Everything will come right."

Mitchell, the hired man, came out upon the veranda. "A sappy pea-vine and a dried pea-stick," said Milford, pointing toward George and his wife.

"He looks like he's tired," said the hired man.

"Yes, a fly in a pot of jam. She's too sweet for him. He ought to break loose from her and run wild for a while—ought to rough it out West on fat sow bosom and heifer's delight. Never were married, were you, Bob?"

"Well, not for any length of time. I did marry a girl over near Antioch once, but shortly afterwards they took me up for sellin' liquor without a license, and when I got through with the scrape I found my wife was gone with a feller to Kansas."

"Did you ever hear of her?"

"Oh, yes, she writ to me. She wanted to come back, but I scratched her word that I'd try to jog along without her. I don't guess women are exactly what they used to be. I reckon the bicycle has changed 'em a good bit."

"They want money, Bob. That's what's the matter with 'em."

"Well, they've got about all I ever had, them and liquor together, and still they don't seem to be satisfied. Ever married, Bill?"

"No. But I was on the edge of falling in love once. She squirted poison at me out of her eyes, and I shook in the knees. Her smile kept me awake two nights, and on the third morning I got on my pony, said good-bye to the settlement, and rode as hard as I could. I don't suppose she really saw me—but I saw her, and that was enough. Well, I believe I'll go over and chin the old woman."

Mrs. Stuvic was walking up and down the yard. A number of new boarders had arrived, and she was in a great flurry. She was ever on the lookout for new-comers, but was never prepared for them. She told every one to keep still; she spoke in bywords that barked the shins of profanity. Just as Milford came up, some one told her that her hired man was lying out in the grove, drunk and asleep. Upon her informer she bent a recognition of virtue. It was not exactly a grin. The boarders called it her barbed-wire smile. She thanked him with a nod and a courtesy caught up from a memory of her grandmother. She snatched a buggy whip and sallied forth into the grove. Milford followed her. She told him to stand back. She swore she would give it to him if he presumed to interfere. She knew her business. The Lord never shut her eyes to a duty that lay in front of her. The hired man went howling through the woods, and she returned to the house, smiling placidly. She was always better humored when she had kept faith with duty.

"Bill," she said to Milford, "tell those women who you are. They are all crazy to know."

"Why didn't you tell them?"

"Well, how was I to tell 'em somethin' I didn't know? You haven't told me. Who are you, Bill? Come, speak up. I've fooled with you long enough. Come, who are you?"

"A Yankee from the West."

"Shut up. Go on away from here. Who told you to come? Did anybody send after you?" By this time they had reached the veranda. A kitten came out to meet her. She called to the Dutch girl to bring some milk in a saucer. "Poor little wretch," she said. "Well, sir, it do beat all. About a week ago I found that I'd have to drown a litter of kittens. I had a barrel of water ready at the corner of the house. I got all the kittens together except one. I couldn't find him. After a while, I heard him mewing under the house. I looked under and see him fastened, and he couldn't get out. He was nearly starved. I said, 'You little wretch, I'll fix you,' and I crawled under after him. I had a time at gettin' him, too; and when I did get him he looked so pitiful that I gave him some milk. Then I gave the others milk, and didn't drown 'em. I have provided homes for all except this one, and I'm goin' to keep him. Here, lap your milk."

Old Lewson sat beneath an apple tree. Milford went out to talk with him. The old man looked up, his eyes red under white lashes. His hat was on the ground, and in it were two eggs.

"My dinner," said he, pointing to the eggs. "If I didn't listen for the cackling of the hens I'd starve to death. I can't eat anything but eggs; and they must be fresh. That infernal Dutch girl spoiled my supper last night. She ran over me, as usual, and broke my eggs. I wish she was dead."

"They ought to hobble her like a horse," said Milford.

"They ought to break her bones, and I would if I was strong enough," the old man declared. "She kindled a fire with my spiritualist books. Are you a spiritualist?"

"No, I'm merely an ordinary crank."

"Fool, you mean," said the old fellow. "A man that shuts his eyes to the truth is a fool. See this?" He took from his pocket a pale photograph, and handed it to Milford. "That's a picture of my wife, taken ten years after the change. She came to see me not long ago, and I cut off a piece of her dress. Here it is." From a pocketbook he took a piece of white silk.

"They dress pretty well over there," said Milford, examining it.

"Yes. She wove it herself."

"Looks as if it might have been done by a fine machine."

"It was; it was woven in the loom of her mind. Over there, whatever the mind wills is done. But you can't make fools understand it."

"I suppose not. What will become of the Dutch girl when she goes over?"

"They'll make a dray-horse of her. Here comes the old woman. She pretends she don't believe in it. But she does. She can't help herself."

The old fellow hid his eggs. She looked at him sharply. "He'd rather hear the cackle of a hen than a church organ," she said to Milford.

"Yes, it means more," the old man replied.

"Well, you won't rob my hens much longer. Your days are numbered."

"So are yours, ma'am."

"Now, don't you fret. I'll plant flowers on your grave."

"See that you don't plant hog-weeds."

"What difference will it make to you? Your soul will be gone. But what will you do over there? You'd be out of place makin' silk dresses. If you do make any send me one. I'll want it when I marry again."

"Why do you want to dress up to meet a fool?"

"Shut your rattle-trap. It will be a wise man that marries me. If Bill here was a little older, I'd set my cap for him. Wouldn't I, Bill?"

"I don't doubt it. We can all set a trap for a fox, but it takes a shrewd trapper to catch him."

The old man chuckled. She looked at him and said that he would have been hauled off long ago, but that the devil didn't care to hitch up for one—Yankee-like, wanting a load whenever he drove forth. "But before you go, Lewson, I want you to promise me one thing,—that you will come back. You've got me half-way into the notion that you can."

"I will come back the third night, ma'am," he replied, his voice earnest. "When my body has been in the grave three days I will come back to my room and meet you there."

Milford turned away. The old woman followed him. "Do you believe he can come back?" she asked.

His sharp eyes cut round at her, like the swing of a scythe. "An old log may learn to float up-stream," he said. She stepped in front of him. "You've done somethin' that you don't want known," she declared. "As smart a man as you wouldn't come out here and work on a farm for nothin'."

"I don't expect to work for nothing."

"Come into the house, Bill. Those women want to get acquainted with you."

"Why don't they get acquainted with their husbands?"

"I know it," she replied, with a look, and in a younger eye the light would have been a gleam of mischief, but with her it was a glint almost of viciousness. "I know it. They are always after a curiosity. They've got it into their heads that you've done some sort of deviltry, and they want to talk to you. One of them said her husband was such a dear, dull business man. And nearly all of them hate children."

"I hate a woman that hates children," Milford replied, and the old woman said, "I know it."

Mrs. Blakemore, the tired George, and the tugging boy came into the yard. The woman's eyes brightened when she saw Milford. It seemed that the other women had commissioned her to sound his mysterious depth. His keen eyes, his sharp-cut beard, a sort of sly unconcern marked him a legitimate summer exploration. Men from the city came and went, shop-keepers, tailors, machinists, lawyers, driveling of hard times and the hope of a business revival, and no particular attention was paid to them, but here was a man with a hidden history. Perhaps he was a deserter from the regular army; doubtless he had killed an officer for insulting him. This was a sweet morsel and they made a bon-bon of it.

"I hope you are not going just because we came," said Mrs. Blakemore to Milford. "George, do take that rocker and sit down. You look so tired. Go away, Bobbie. You are such a pest."

A straining voice in the sitting-room and the tin-pan tones of a piano were hushed, and out upon the veranda came several women. Milford was introduced to them. Some of them advanced with a smile, and some hung back in a sweet dread of danger. Milford sat down on a corner of the veranda with his feet on the ground. A wagon load of beer-drinkers, singing lustily, drove past the house. From the lake came the report of a gun, some one firing at a loon. There seemed to be no law to enforce respect for the day which the Puritan called Sabbath, and which the austerity of his creed had made so cold and cheerless. On Sunday night there had been a hop on the shore of the lake, and a constable had danced with a skillet-wiper from town. The children of the New Englander sell their winter piety for the summer dollar.

"I can't conceive of anything more delicious than this atmosphere," said Mrs. Blakemore. "It's heavenly down by the lake. And in the woods there are such beautiful ferns. Are you fond of ferns, Mr. Milford?"

"Don't believe I ever ate any," Milford answered, and the women screamed with laughter. One of them spoke of such charming impudence, and George looked at her with his cankered eye. Mrs. Stuvic said, "Oh, you keep still!" The Dutch girl passed at a spraddling gallop, setting a dog at a chicken condemned to death. Old Lewson shouted and shrank behind a tree. Mrs. Blakemore's thin hand was seen in the air. It was a command, and silence fell.

"Would you mind telling us something of the wild life in the West?"

"There's no wild life in the West now," Milford answered. "It is there, as it is nearly everywhere, a round of stale dishonesty."

"George, dear, do you hear that? Stale dishonesty! Really, there is thought in that. Western men are so apt in their phrasing. They aren't afraid of critical judgment. But they are too picturesque to be simple. They are like an old garden run to blossoming weeds—the impudent new springing from the venerable old. Did you hear me, George?"

"How's that?" George asked, looking up from a dream of trouble.

"Oh, I shall not repeat it. Mr. Milford, nearly all my thoughts are wasted on him. His mind is occupied by things sterner but not nearer true." George grunted something that sounded like "bosh." She smiled and tapped him on the arm. Her face was thin but pretty. Milford gave her an admiring look. She caught it in an instant and drooped her eyes at him. Some of the women saw it and pulled at one another, standing close together. But the old woman did not see it. Her eye was not set for so fine a mischief. A Mrs. Dorch began to hum a tune. She left off to tell Milford that she had a sister in Dakota. She had gone out as a school-teacher, and had been married by a rancher. His name was Lampton. It was possible that Mr. Milford might know him. He did not, but it gave her a chance to talk, and the slim Mrs. Blakemore began to droop her eyes. The man was nothing to her. She wouldn't stoop to set up a conquest over him, so much in love was she with her husband, but what right had this woman to cut in?

"Oh, I could never think of talking commonplaces with a man from the wilds," she said. "He may never have read poetry, but he is a lover of it. Tell me, is it true that certain flowers disappeared with the buffalo?"

"I don't know, ma'am, but a good deal of grass disappeared with him."

It was a cue to laugh, and they laughed. Mrs. Blakemore said that Milford was becoming intentionally droll. She much preferred unconscious drollery.

Attention was now given to three men who came across the meadow from the lake. One of them proudly held up a string of sun-fish. A fisherman's ear is keen-set for flattery. The women knew this, and they uttered "ohs" and "ahs" of applause. The fishermen came up, everybody talking at once, and Milford slipped away. He passed through the hickory grove and turned into the broad lane leading to the lake. He saw Mrs. Stuvic's hired man, sitting under a tree, muttering, a red streak across his face.

CHAPTER IV.

HE DID NOT COME.

The neighbors continued to speculate and to ply Mrs. Stuvic with questions concerning Milford. Men who had spent many a rainy day in the hay-mow, gambling, knew that he had played poker. An old man, with a Rousseau love for botanizing, had been found dead in the woods, with five red leaves in his hand. And Milford had said: "The poor old fellow made his flush and died." They knew that he was brave, for, with a stick of brushwood, he had attacked a dog reported to be mad. But they believed, also, that he had something heavy on his mind, for they had seen him walking about in the woods at night, once when a hard rain was beating him. Steve Hardy, the man who had hauled the stranger from the station, was caught in a storm one night, and a flash of lightning revealed Milford standing gaunt in the middle of a marsh. But he had never attempted to borrow money in the neighborhood, and of all the virtues held dear by the rural Yankee, restraint in the matter of borrowing is the brightest. "Yes, sir, old Brady was as mean a man as ever lived among us, but, sir, he died out of debt." Old Brady could have illumined his death-bed with no brighter light.

One evening, while Milford and Mitchell were at supper, the hired man said: "They keep on askin' me all sorts of questions about you. I never saw folks so keen. They are like spring sheep after salt. I've got so I throw up my hands whenever I meet any of 'em in the road."

Milford reached over and turned down the ragged blaze of the smoking lamp. "Am I the first stranger that ever happened along here?"

"It would look that way. But there is a sort of a somethin' about you, Bill. I heard Henwood's daughter say you was mighty good-lookin', but she hasn't got much sense." Milford looked up with a smile. "No, she ain't," Mitchell went on. "And if her daddy was to die she'd have to have a gardeen appointed. But to-day, while I was gettin' a drink at the windmill, I heard two or three of Mrs. Stuvic's women standin' over in the road talkin'. One of 'em said that she had a cousin that's a detective in Chicago, and she was goin' to bring him out here and let him investigate you just for fun."

Milford turned down the light. "I'll throw this thing into the road the first thing you know. Bring a detective, eh? All right, let her bring him."

"What will you do, Bill?"

"Knock him down if he gets in my road."

"I guess that's the way to look at it. But have you got any cause to be afraid of a detective, Bill?"

"If I had, do you suppose I'd tell you?"

"Well, I don't know why. We're workin' here together, and I wouldn't say anythin' about it. What did you do, Bill?"

"Stole a saw-mill."

"You don't say so! What did you want with a saw-mill?"

"To rip out new territory—I wanted to make a state."

"That's all right. You're guyin' me. But say, where did you get your education?"

"I stole that, too. Did you ever hear of a French marquise that ran stage lines and shot fellows out West? Well, I robbed his ranch, and carried off a cook-book. That's how I learned to boil salt pork."

"That's where you learned how to feed a fellow on guff. I'm givin' it to you straight. I want to know, for they say that a fellow never gets too old to learn, and I'd like to have education enough to get out of hard work."

"You don't see me out of it, do you?"

"No, but I guess you could do somethin' else if you wanted to. Did you go to school much when you was a boy?"

"I saw the worn doorsteps in the old part of Yale, for two days, and then I turned away and went West. My father died, and I didn't want to be a tax on mother, so I decided to shift for myself."

"Was it a good shift?"

"I can't say it was. Are you going to bed?" Milford asked, as Mitchell got up from the table.

"No, not now. I've got an engagement to take the Dutch girl out in a boat."

"She'll upset your craft and drown you."

"I'm goin' to take the scow."

He went out whistling a light tune, but dragging his feet heavily, for he had worked hard all day, keeping pace with Milford's bounding energy. Milford sat musing, and his brow was not clear. From behind the clock on the mantel-piece, he took a newspaper, and strove to read it by the smoky light, but his mind wandered off. He went out and sat on the grass beneath the walnut tree. The night was hot. The slow air fumbled among the leaves. Far in the sultry west was an occasional play of lightning, the hot eye of day peeping back into the sweltering night. He heard some one coming up the hill, talking. It was Mrs. Stuvic's voice. She arose into the dim light, and he saw that she was alone. He called to her, and she came forward at a faster gait, still talking. "Wouldn't believe me—couldn't get him to believe me, but he does now—yes, you bet!"

"What's the matter, ma'am?"

"Old Lewson—told him he was dyin'—wouldn't believe me. He's dead. Conscience alive! and they were thumpin' on the piana all the time. The hired man can't be found since I gave him the larrupin'. I hope he's drowned himself. He's no account on the face of the earth, and I wish now I'd kept Mitchell when I had him. He seems to work well enough for you. But what I want you to do is to go to the old man's daughter and tell her. She lives about two miles down the road, just beyant the second corners—white house to the right. Come on with me. The buggy'll be hitched up by the time we get to the house. Yes, set right there, lookin' right at me, with his chin droppin' down. I says, 'Lewson, you are dyin'.' And he mumbled that he wan't. But I reckon he knows now whether he was or not."

She talked nearly all the way over, sobbing at times, and then hardening herself with scolding. The buggy was ready in the road. Low tones came from the veranda. Through the shrubbery along the fence could be seen the ghost-like outlines of women dressed in white. A dog howled under the old apple tree.

"Wait," said the old woman, as Milford gathered up the lines. "I want you to kill that infernal dog before you go. Never set down under that tree before in his life, and now that the poor old man's dead he goes there to howl, as if everythin' wan't dismal enough anyway. Get out and I'll fetch the gun."

"Oh, no. Don't kill him. He doesn't know any better. By the way, what's the name of the woman I am going to see?"

"Now, just look at that! If I haven't forgot her name I'm the biggest fool on earth. Did you ever see anythin' like that? If that confounded John, the hired man, was here, he'd know. I'm almost sorry now that I licked him. But if I ever ketch him again I'll give it to him for treatin' me this way when I need him. Well, go on, and stop at the house I told you. And if that horse don't want to go, lick the life out of him."

Milford drove off, and the dog jumped over the fence and came trotting along behind the buggy. It did not take long to reach the place. A man came to the door in answer to Milford's knock. There was no attempt to soften the news. "I came to tell you that old Mr. Lewson is dead," said Milford. And there was no effort on the man's part to show surprise. "Well, I'm not an undertaker," he replied.

"But you married his daughter."

"But not with his consent or good-will. He was nothing to us. Well," he added, as Milford continued to stand there, "anything else?"

"Yes, just a word or two more. I want to tell you that you are a brute and a coward; and if you'll just step out here I'll mop up the ground with you."

The man stepped back and shut the door. Milford came away, the muscles in his arms hard with a desire to fight. He thought of the tenderness of a mining camp, of the cowboy's manly tear, of hard men who were soft toward a dead stranger. "Hearts full of cold ashes," he mused, bitterly. "And how can it be in a place so beautiful? An infidel from the sand-hills would here cry out that there is a God, an artist God. And some of these wretches would teach him that there is a hell. Well, I'm going to fight it out. I don't see any other way. I guess I'm a fool, but I've got that thing to do."

Mrs. Stuvic tiptoed in her rage. "Horton," she said, almost dancing in the road. "That's the scoundrel's name. And don't you dare to judge us by him. He's a stranger here, too. I hope the hogs will root him up and crack his bones. Well, go on to bed, Bill. I guess the old man can take care of himself till mornin'."

Early the next day, the old man's daughter came, stricken with grief and remorse. She said that her husband had forced her to treat her father cruelly. She knelt beside the poor old relic of weary bones, and prayed that the Lord might forgive her. Mrs. Stuvic relented. "Come," she said, leading the daughter away. "We believe you, and won't hold it against you, but I'll never love you till you poison that man of yours. There, now, don't whimper. Everythin's all right."

The sympathy of the community was aroused, and it was a genuine sympathy. Milford found that this neighborhood was very much like the rest of the world, lacking heart only in places. He stood at the grave, listening to the faltering tones of an aged man, and he muttered to himself, "I've got to do that one thing."

Old Lewson had convinced Mrs. Stuvic of the truth of spiritualism. She was attracted by a faith that entailed no prayers and no church-going. It left her free, not to lie down in the green pastures of the poetic psalmist, but to tramp rough-shod among the nettles of profanity. The church advised that no eye should be turned upon wine, rich in deceitful color, and the old woman was not always sober. Therefore, she took up old Lewson's faith, first because it was easy, and afterward because it seemed natural that she should come back and haunt her enemies. More than once she had been heard to say, gazing after some one driving along the road, "Oh, but I'll make it lively for him when I come back! He shan't sleep a wink!" But to the old man she did not make a complete confession of her conversion to his faith till she saw death staring out of his eyes, and then she reminded him of his promise to return on the third night, and make himself known to her. Had there remained in her heart any fag-end of rebellion gainst the pliable tenets of his credulous doctrine, the last look that he gave her would have driven it out. "I believe you, Lewson," she gasped, when his wrinkled chin sank upon his withered breast.

The third night came. She did not give her secret to the boarders; she was not afraid of the heat of an argument or the scorch of a fight, but the thought of ridicule's cold smile made her shudder. She hated education, and was afraid of its nimble trickery. There was more of insult in a word which she did not understand than in a term familiarly abusive. But she told Milford. He was under obligations, and dared not scoff. She requested him to sit upon the veranda, to wait for her coming from the spirit's presence chamber. She drove the Dutch girl to bed, not in the house, but in an outlying cottage. In the dining-room she whispered to Milford, ready to turn him out upon the veranda. The clock's internals growled the five-minute verge of twelve. She turned Milford out, and hastened into Lewson's room. She sat down in a rocking chair, her nervous hands fidgeting in her lap. Spirits keep their promises best in the dark, and she had not lighted a lamp. Moonbeams fell through the window, a ladder of light, upon which a spirit might well descend to earth. The clock in the dining-room struck twelve. The dog howled under the apple tree.

"Lewson, are you here?"

Two eggs on a shelf caught the light of the moon. She started. Surely, they were not there a moment ago. Was the old man robbing hens' nests in the spiritual world? A breeze stirred, and there was a whisper of drapery at the window.

"Lewson, is that you?"

She glanced again at the eggs. Hadn't they moved? A midnight cock crew, and she started. Why should he crow just as she glanced at the eggs? She waited.

"Lewson, oh, Lewson! Do you hear me? Don't you remember your promise? Come, now, don't treat me this way. You know how hard it was for me to believe in your doctrine. You know how I've tried to have some sort of religion. And now, please don't knock down all the props. Haven't I been kind to you? Didn't I take you when nobody else would? Then help me, Lewson. Give me something to cling to. Just say one word—just one—somethin' to let me know you have told the truth. I want the truth, that's all I want, Lewson. You haven't come. No, you haven't, and you needn't say you have. You can't come, and you know it. Well, I'm goin' now. Are you comin'? No, you ain't. You are an old fraud, that's what you are." She flounced out upon the veranda, and said to Milford: "Go to bed. There never was a bigger liar than that old fool."

CHAPTER V.

NEEDED HIS SPIRITUAL HELP.

Early the next morning, before the clanging bell had shattered the boarder's dream, the old woman hastened to Milford's cottage. When she surprised him at breakfast, he thought that possibly the old man might have called at some time during the night, and that she had come to bring the good news, but this early hope was killed by the darkness of her brow. "I've come over to tell you that if ever you say a word about what happened last night, I'll drive you out of the county," she said, her lips parted and her teeth sharp-set.

"Why, nothing did happen," he replied with a laugh.

"No, you bet! But don't you ever dare to say that I expected anythin' to happen. I won't allow any old man, dead or alive, to make a monkey of me. Well, I'll eat breakfast with you. What, is this all you've got, just bread and bacon? Conscience alive! you are livin' hard."

"I can't afford anything else," he replied, looking down upon his rough fare.

"Well, you ought to get rich at this rate. There's not one man in a thousand that would be willin' to put up with it. What's your aim, anyway?"

"To make money."

"Money! It's some woman, that's what it is. Well, you're a fool. What thanks do you reckon she'll ever give you? She'll growl because you didn't make more. I'll get back. I don't like your grub. But recollect, now," she added, as she turned toward the door, "that if you say a word about what I expected to happen last night, I'll drive you out of the county." She went out, but her head soon reappeared at the door. "Bill," she said, "there's a sucker born every minute."

"And sometimes twins," he replied. She leaned against the door-facing to laugh, not in the jollity of good-humor, but in the sharp and racking titter of soured self-pity. "Sometimes twins—yes, you bet!"

"If I didn't have a word for it that I couldn't dispute, I'd think that I was the weakling of a set of triplets," said Milford.

"Oh, you'll do. There's no flies buzzing around you, I tell you. Well, I'll leave you, sure enough now."

For a time, he clattered the rough dishes, clearing them out of the way, despising the work—a loathing shared by all human beings. Mitchell was at the barn, among the horses, and there came the occasional and almost rhythmic tap, tap, tap of his currycomb against the thin wall. In the damp sags of the corn field, the plow could not be used with advantage, and Milford assigned to himself the work of covering this territory with a hoe. The advisory board, men who drove past in milk wagons, condemned it as a piece of folly. They said that a man might wear himself out among the clods, and to no great purpose, either; but Milford appeared to rejoice in his conquest over the combative soil. Steve Hardy said that he must be doing penance in the hot sun for some crime committed in the cool shade. But the old woman had given it out that her man was working for a woman, and the women commended it. How soft is the voice of woman when she speaks of one who sweats for her sex! They sat upon the veranda, watching Milford as he delved in the blaze of the sun. It was a romance. Afar off there must be a sighing woman, waiting for him. Mrs. Blakemore could see her, and she sighed with her, watching the hero dealing the hard licks of love. With her scampering son, she crossed the field, going toward the lake, the morning after the expected visit from Lewson. She was determined to speak to Milford. Mrs. Stuvic had just said, "That man is killin' himself for a woman." On she came, her feet faring ill among the clods. She stumbled and laughed, and the boy, in budding derision of woman's weakness, shouted contemptuously.

"Why did you come across this rough place?" Milford asked, planting his hoe in front of him. To her he was a man behind the flag-staff of his honor.

"Because it's so much nearer to the lake," she answered. The boy cried out that he had found a rattlesnake, and proceeded to attack with clods a rusty toad.

"Come away, Bobbie. He'll bite you." She saw that it was a toad, and she knew that it would not bite him; but motherly instinct demanded that she must warn him. "Oh, it's such a jaunt, coming across here. Really, I don't see how you can stand it to work so long in the hot sun. Let me bring you some cool water."

She felt that she ought to do something for him. He smiled, and glanced down at her thin-shod feet. He felt that there was genuineness in this slim creature, and he was moved to reply: "No, I thank you. Your sympathy ought to relieve a man of thirst."

"Really, that is so nice of you. No wonder all the women like you when you say such kind things. But there is one thing I wish, Mr. Milford—I wish you'd taken more to my husband. He's awfully low-spirited, and I'm so distressed about him. He's worried nearly to death in town, and he comes out here and mopes about. I didn't know but you might say something to interest him. He'll be out again this evening. Will you please come over to the house to see him?"

He thought of his weariness after his day of strain, of his own melancholy that came with the shades of night. He thought that, in comparison with himself, the man ought to be boyishly happy; but he told her that to come would give him great pleasure.

"Oh, I'm so glad to hear you say so. Tell him of fights, of men that wouldn't give up, but fought their way out of hard luck. Tell him what you are doing. I know it's preposterous to ask you, but will you do it?"

Her eyes were as bright as the dew caught by the cobweb, shaded by the clod, he thought—as he stood there leaning on the handle of his hoe, looking at her; and he read woman's great chapter of anxious affection. "I will tell him of a man who failed in everything, and then found that he had a fortune in his wife," he said. She put out her hand toward him, and snatched it back to hide her eyes for a moment. She turned toward the boy, and in a cool voice commanded him not to romp so hard over the rough ground. Milford saw a soul that loved to be loved, that lived to be loved, a soul that may not be the most virtuous, but which is surely the most beautiful. He did not presume to understand women; he estimated her by a "hunch" as to whether she was good or bad. He remembered that he had jumped upon his pony and galloped off to the further West, to keep from falling in love with one. And since that time he had felt himself safe, so into this woman's eyes he could look without fear.

"Yes," she said, "tell him that love is the greatest estate. It will make him think, coming from a man. Poor George was in the hardware business, and he failed not long ago, and I don't know why, for I'm sure I saved every cent I could. What you tell him will have a good deal of weight."

Milford had to laugh at this. "I don't know why," said he.

"Because you are a good man."

Milford sneered. "Madam, I'm a crank." He begged her pardon for his harshness. Her forgiveness came with a smile. He told her that he was as morbid as a mad dog, and he said it with such energy that she drew back from him. "But you won't fail to see George, will you? Come on, Bobbie. Oh, I forgot to tell you of some new arrivals—a Mrs. Goodwin, wife of a well-known doctor in town, and her companion, one of the handsomest young women I ever saw—a Norwegian girl, as graceful as one of her native pines. You won't fail to come, will you? Good-bye."

The evening was sultry, with a lingering smear of red in the western sky. At the supper table Milford nodded in his chair. The hired man spoke to him, and he looked up, his batting eyes fighting off sleep.

"Them slashes have about got the best of you, haven't they, Bill? I'd let that corn go before I'd dig my life out among them tough clods. I'm givin' it to you straight."

"I don't doubt it. But it will pay in the end. I've come to the conclusion that all hard work pays. It pays a man's mind, and he couldn't get a much better reward. But I'd like to go to bed, just the same."

"Why don't you? Not goin' to dig any more to-night, are you?"

"No, but I've got to go over to Mrs. Stuvic's to see a man."

"A man?" Mitchell asked, with a wink.

"I said a man."

"Yes, I know you said a man."

"Then why not a man?"

"Well, I don't know, only it seems to me that if I was as tired as you look I wouldn't go to see no man's man."

"How about any woman's woman?"

"Well, that's different. You can put off seein' a man, and you might put off seein' a woman, but you don't want to. But maybe you ain't as big a chump about a woman as I am."

Milford said that the wisest man among wise men could easily be a fool among women. Solomon's wisdom, diluted by woman, became a weak quality. "Except once," he added, taking down his pipe from the clock shelf, "and that was when he called for a sword to cut a child in two to divide it between two mothers; but if the question had been between himself and a woman, I don't know but he'd have got the worst of it."

It was the hired man's turn to clear away the dishes, and Milford sat smoking in a muse. Night flies buzzed about the lamp, and the mosquito, winged sting of the darkness, sang his sharp tune over the rain-water barrel beneath the window. The hired man put away the dishes, and went into his shell-like bedroom, a thin addition built against the house. Milford heard him sit upon the edge of his bed, heard his heavy shoes drop upon the floor, heard him stretch out upon the creaking slats to lie a log till the peep of day. The tired laborer's pipe fell to the floor. He got up with a straining shrug of his stiff shoulders, snatched off his sticking garments, bathed in a tub, put on clean clothing, and set out to keep his appointment. He muttered as he walked along the road. He halted upon a knoll in the oat-field, and stood to breathe the cool air from the low-lying meadow. As he drew near to the house, he heard the shouts of children and the imploring tones of nurses and mothers, begging them to go to bed. A lantern hanging under the eaves of the veranda shed light upon women eager to hear gossip from the city apartment house, and men, who, though breathing a fresh escape from business, had already begun to inquire as to the running of the trains. In the dooryard, a dull fire smoked in a tin pan,—a "smudge" to drive off the mosquitoes. Some one flailed the piano. The Dutch girl, singing a song of the lowlands, was grabbing clothes off a line, with no fear of running over an old man. Mrs. Blakemore and George were sitting at a corner of the veranda, apart from the general nest of gossipers. Bobbie had been bribed to bed. The woman got up and gave Milford her hand. In his calloused palm it felt like the soft paw of a kitten. George nodded with an indistinct grunt.

"Well, how is everything?" Milford asked.

"Rotten," George answered. His wife sighed, and brushed off a white moth that had lighted on his coat sleeve. "But it will get better," she said. "Don't you think so, Mr. Milford?"

"Bound to," Milford agreed. "I'm a firm believer in everything coming out all right. I've seen it tested time and again. Hope is the world's best bank account." George looked at him. "That's all right enough," he admitted.

"Hope is the soul's involuntary prayer," his wife observed, and he looked at her. "That's all well enough, too," said he, "but what's the use of tying a ribbon around your neck in a snow-storm, when what you need is an overcoat? A man can wrap all the hope in the world around himself, and then freeze to death."

"That's true," said Milford, catching sight of the woman's eyes as she drew a long breath, "but hope may lead him out of the storm. Pardon me, but I infer that you've met business reverses."

"Struck the ceiling," said George.

"How often?"

"Isn't once enough?"

"Yes, but I've struck it a hundred times. I've been kept on the bounce, like a ball."

"That's all right, but do you feel thankful for it?"

"Well, my heart isn't bursting with gratitude, but it might have been worse—I might have stuck to the ceiling. When you throw a dog into the water, he always shakes himself when he comes out. It's a determination to be dry again. And that's the way a man ought to do—shake himself every time he's thrown."

"I don't know but you're right. What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Rooting like a hog for something to eat. And I've not only failed in nearly everything I undertook, but I've been a fool besides. But I've got sense enough to know that it has all been my own fault. I believe that, if a man's in good health, it's always his own fault if he don't succeed. I could sit down and growl at the world; I could wish I had it under my heel to grind the life out of it; and the truth is, we all have a part of it under our heels, and if we keep on grinding we'll make an impression. I am what you might call a national egotist. I believe that nearly everything lies within the range of an American. He may do wrong—he does do wrong. Sometimes he does a great wrong, but nine times out of ten he tries to make it right. I believe that the Yankee has more conscience than other men. He may keep it well sheathed, but after a while the edge eats through the scabbard and cuts him. He works with an object. They say it is to make money. That's true, but the money is to serve a purpose, a heart, a conscience."

George turned about in his chair, and looked with keen interest at the laboring man. "Look here, you are a man of brains. Why do you stay here and dig? You are fitted for something better."

Milford smiled at him. "How often that's said of a man who's not fitted for anything. As I remarked to your wife, I'm a crank. But I've got an object—there's something that must be done, and I'm going to do it or broil out my life in that field."

"You are a brave man. Not all of us are so nervy. But you may not have to broil out your life."

"Hope," said Milford. "And what a muscle it is, hardening with each stroke. Now, it's not my place to say anything to you, but don't fool along with affairs that are hopelessly tangled. Strike at something else. Perhaps that wasn't the business you were fitted for, anyway."

"Can't tell. But I wasn't stuck on it, that's a fact. What line have you failed in, mostly?" he asked, laughing; and his wife's thin shoulders shook as if she were seized with a sudden physical gladness.

"Oh I've been a sort of bounty jumper of occupations."

"But we know," said Mrs. Blakemore, "that your work was always honest."

"Well," he replied, his white teeth showing through the dark of his beard, "I never squatted on the distress of an old soldier to discount his pension."

"That's not bad. Louise," he added, playfully touching his wife's hand, "how is it you took to me when you have a knack of finding such interesting fellows?"

"Why, you were one of the most interesting fellows I ever found. Is that Bobbie crying? Yes. I must go to him. Good-night, Mr. Milford. I'm ever so glad you came over this evening." She gave him a grateful look, and hastened away, crying out, "Mamma's coming," as she ran up the stairs. And now Mrs. Stuvic's voice arose from the outlying darkness of the road. "Well," she shouted at some one, "you tell him that if he ever leaves my gate open again I'll fill his hide so full of shot he'll look like a woodpecker'd pecked him. A man that's too lazy to shut a gate ought to be made to wear a yoke like a breachy cow. Yes, you bet!" she said over and again as she came toward the veranda. "Like a breachy cow. And here's Bill, bigger than life! Why, the way I saw you pounding them clods over yonder, I didn't think you could move at night. This is Mr.—What-his-name? I never could think of it. Are you still mopin' about? Bah, why don't you get down to somethin'? Suppose the women was to mope that way? Do you reckon anythin' would be done. No, you bet! There's no time for them to mope. I saw Eldridge hauling a load of folks from the station to-day. And I know 'em—the Bostics, out here last year, and went off without payin' their board. Well, he can have 'em, for all of me. Stuck up. 'Please do this,' and 'Please do that,' and 'How do you feel this mornin', dear mamma?' 'Bah!' I said, 'why don't dear mammy get out and stir around?' Bill, I want you to come over here to dinner to-morrow—settin' about readin' all day Sunday. You come over here and get somethin' to eat. But don't let Mitchell come. I had a chance to hire him, and didn't do it, and now I haven't got any too much use for him. The rascal deceived me. I didn't know he was half as good a worker as he is. But you be sure to come," and leaning over, she added in a whisper: "I've got the putties gal here you ever saw in your life."

"But that's not the question. Will you have anything to eat?"

"Better than you've had for many a day, sir, I can tell you that."

"I'll be here," he replied, getting up.

"Going?" said George. "I'll walk out a piece with you."