The Best of Gene Stratton-Porter

by Gene Stratton-Porter

  “Oh dear no!” cried the Girl in a panic. “I never could face that! It is not quite one hundred, and that seems big as a mountain to me.”

  “Forget it!” he cried. “The ginseng will pay more than half; that I know. I can bring you the cash in a little over a week.”

  She started to speak, hesitated, and at last turned to him.

  “Would you mind,” she said, “if I asked you to keep it until I can find a way to go to town? It’s too far to walk and I don’t know how to send it. Would I dare put it in a letter?”

  “Never!” said the Harvester. “You want a draft. That money will be too precious to run any risks. I’ll bring it to you and you can write a note and explain to whom you want it paid, and I’ll take it to the bank for you and get your draft. Then you can write a letter, and half your worry will be over safely.”

  “It must be done in a sure way,” said the Girl. “If I knew I had the money to pay that much on what I owe, and then lost it, I simply could not endure it. I would lie down and give up as Aunt Molly has.”

  “Forget that too!” said the Harvester. “Wipe out all the past that has pain in it. The future is going to be beautifully bright. That little bird on the bush there just told me so, and you are always safe when you trust the feathered folk. If you are going to live in the country any length of time, you must know them, and they will become a great comfort. Are you planning to be here long?”

  “I have no plans. After what I saw Chicago do to my mother I would rather finish life in the open than return to the city. It is horrible here, but at least I’m not hungry, and not afraid—all the time.”

  “Gracious Heaven!” cried the Harvester. “Do you mean to say that you are afraid any part of the time? Would you kindly tell me of whom, and why?”

  “You should know without being told that when a woman born and reared in a city, and all her life confined there, steps into the woods for the first time, she’s bound to be afraid. The last few weeks constitute my entire experience with the country, and I’m in mortal fear that snakes will drop from trees and bushes or spring from the ground. Some places I think I’m sinking, and whenever a bush catches my skirts it seems as if something dreadful is reaching up for me; there is a possibility of horror lurking behind every tree and—”

  “Stop!” cried the Harvester. “I can’t endure it! Do you mean to tell me that you are afraid here and now?”

  She met his eyes squarely.

  “Yes,” she said. “It almost makes me ill to sit on this log without taking a stick and poking all around it first. Every minute I think something is going to strike me in the back or drop on my head.”

  The Harvester grew very white beneath the tan, and that developed a nice, sickly green complexion for him.

  “Am I part of your tortures?” he asked tersely.

  “Why shouldn’t you be?” she answered. “What do I know of you or your motives or why you are here?”

  “I have had no experience with the atmosphere that breeds such an attitude in a girl.”

  “That is a thing for which to thank Heaven. Undoubtedly it is gracious to you. My life has been different.”

  “Yet in mortal terror of the woods, and probably equal fear of me, you are here and asking for work that will keep you here.”

  “I would go through fire and flood for the money I owe. After that debt is paid—”

  She threw out her hands in a hopeless gesture. The Harvester drew forth a roll of bills and tossed them into her lap.

  “For the love of mercy take what you need and pay it,” he said. “Then get a floor under your feet, and try, I beg of you, try to force yourself to have confidence in me, until I do something that gives you the least reason for distrusting me.”

  She picked up the money and gave it a contemptuous whirl that landed it at his feet.

  “What greater cause of distrust could I have by any possibility than just that?” she asked.

  The Harvester arose hastily, and taking several steps, he stood with folded arms, his back turned. The Girl sat watching him with wide eyes, the dull blue plain in their dusky depths. When he did not speak, she grew restless. At last she slowly arose and circling him looked into his face. It was convulsed with a struggle in which love and patience fought for supremacy over honest anger. As he saw her so close, his lips drew apart, and his breath came deeply, but he did not speak. He merely stood and looked at her, and looked; and she gazed at him as if fascinated, but uncomprehending.

  “Ruth!”

  The call came roaring up the hill. The Girl shivered and became paler.

  “Is that your uncle?” asked the Harvester.

  She nodded.

  “Will you come to-morrow for your drawing materials?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you try to believe that there is absolutely nothing, either underfoot or overhead, that will harm you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you try to think that I am not a menace to public safety, and that I would do much to help you, merely because I would be glad to be of service?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you try to cultivate the idea that there is nothing in all this world that would hurt you purposely?”

  “Ruth!” came a splitting scream in gruff man-tones, keyed in deep anger.

  “That sounds like it!” said the Girl, and catching up her skirts she ran through the woods, taking a different route toward the house.

  The Harvester sat on the log and tried to think; but there are times when the numbed brain refuses to work, so he really sat and suffered. Belshazzar whimpered and licked his hands, and at last the man arose and went with the dog to the wagon. As they came through Onabasha, Betsy turned at the hospital corner, but the Harvester pulled her around and drove toward the country. Not until they crossed the railroad did he lift his head and then he drew a deep breath as if starved for pure air and spoke. “Not to-day Betsy! I can’t face my friends just now. Someway I am making an awful fist of things. Everything I do is wrong. She no more trusts me than you would a rattlesnake, Belshazzar; and from all appearance she takes me to be almost as deadly. What must have been her experiences in life to ingrain fear and distrust in her soul at that rate? I always knew I was not handsome, but I never before regarded my appearance as alarming. And I ‘fixed up,’ too!”

  The Harvester grinned a queer little twist of a grin that pulled and distorted his strained face. “Might as well have gone with a week’s beard, a soiled shirt, and a leer! And I’ve always been as decent as I knew! What’s the reward for clean living anyway, if the girl you love strikes you like that?”

  Belshazzar reached across and kissed him. The Harvester put his arm around the dog. In the man’s disappointment and heart hunger he leaned his head against the beast and said, “I’ve always got you to love and protect me, anyway, Belshazzar. Maybe the man who said a dog was a man’s best friend was right. You always trusted me, didn’t you Bel? And you never regretted it but once, and that wasn’t my fault. I never did it! If I did, I’m getting good and well paid for it. I’d rather be kicked until all the ribs of one side are broken, Bel, than to swallow the dose she just handed me. I tell you it was bitter, lad! What am I going to do? Can’t you help me, Bel?”

  Belshazzar quivered in anxiety to offer the comfort he could not speak.

  “Of course you are right! You always are, Bel!” said the Harvester. “I know what you are trying to tell me. Sure enough, she didn’t have any dream. I am afraid she had the bitterest reality. She hasn’t been loving a vision of me, working and searching for me, and I don’t mean to her what she does to me. Of course I see that I must be patient and bide my time. If there is anything in ‘like begetting like’ she is bound to care for me some day, for I love her past all expression, and for all she feels I might as well save my breath. But she has got to awake some day, Bel. She can make up her mind to that. She can’t see ‘why.’ Over and over! I wonder what she would think if I’d up and tell her ‘why’ with no f
rills. She will drive me to it some day, then probably the shock will finish her. I wonder if Doc was only fooling or if he really would do what he said. It might wake her up, anyway, but I’m dubious as to the result. How Uncle Henry can roar! He sounded like a fog horn. I’d love to try my muscle on a man like that. No wonder she is afraid of him, if she is of me. Afraid! Well of all things I ever did expect, Belshazzar, that is the limit.”

  Chapter 10

  The Chime of the Blue Bells

  The Harvester finished his evening work and went to examine the cocoons. Many of the moths had emerged and flown, but the luna cases remained in the bottom of the box. As he stood looking at them one moved and he smiled.

  “I’d give something if you would come out and be ready to work on by to-morrow afternoon,” he said. “Possibly you would so interest her that she would forget her fear of me. I’d like mighty well to take you along, because she might care for you, and I do need the pattern for my candlestick. Believe I’ll lay you in a warmer place.”

  The first thing the next morning the Harvester looked and found the open cocoon and the wet moth clinging by its feet to a twig he had placed for it.

  “Luck is with me!” he exulted. “I’ll carry you to her and be mighty careful what I say, and maybe she will forget about the fear.”

  All the forenoon he cut and spread boneset, saffron, and hemlock on the trays to dry. At noon he put on a fresh outfit, ate a hasty lunch, and drove to Onabasha. He carried the moth in a box, and as he started he picked up a rake. He went to an art store and bought the pencils and paper she had ordered. He wanted to purchase everything he saw for her, but he was fast learning a lesson of deep caution. If he took more than she ordered, she would worry over paying, and if he refused to accept money, she would put that everlasting “why” at him again. The water-colour paper and paint he could not forego. He could make a desire to have the moth coloured explain those, he thought.

  Then he went to a furniture store and bought several articles, and forgetting his law against haste, he drove Betsy full speed to the river. He was rather heavily ladened as he went up the bank, and it was only one o’clock. There was an hour. He rolled away the log, raked together and removed the leaves to the ground. He tramped the earth level and spread a large cheap porch rug. On this he opened and placed a little folding table and chair. On the table he spread the pencils, paper, colour box, and brushes, and went to the river to fill the water cup. Then he sat on the log he had rolled to one side and waited. After two hours he arose and crept as close the house as he could through the woods, but he could not secure a glimpse of the Girl. He went back and waited an hour more, and then undid his work and removed it. When he came to the moth his face was very grim as he lifted the twig and helped the beautiful creature to climb on a limb. “You’ll be ready to fly in a few hours,” he said. “If I keep you in a box you will ruin your wings and be no suitable subject, and put you in a cyanide jar I will not. I am hurt too badly myself. I wonder if what Doc said was the right way! It’s certainly a temptation.”

  Then he went home; and again Betsy veered at the hospital, and once more the Harvester explained to her that he did not want to see the doctor. That evening and the following forenoon were difficult, but the Harvester lived through them, and in the afternoon went back to the woods, spread his rug, and set up the table. Only one streak of luck brightened the gloom in his heart. A yellow emperor had emerged in the night, and now occupied the place of yesterday’s luna. She never need know it was not the one he wanted, and it would make an excuse for the colour box.

  He was watching intently and saw her coming a long way off. He noticed that she looked neither right nor left, but came straight as if walking a bridge. As she reached the place she glanced hastily around and then at him. The Harvester forgave her everything as he saw the look of relief with which she stepped upon the carpet. Then she turned to him.

  “I won’t have to ask ‘why’ this time,” she said. “I know that you did it because I was baby enough to tell what a coward I am. I’m sure you can’t afford it, and I know you shouldn’t have done it, but oh, what a comfort! If you will promise never to do any such expensive, foolish, kind thing again, I’ll say thank you this time. I couldn’t come yesterday, because Aunt Molly was worse and Uncle Henry was at home all day.”

  “I supposed it was something like that,” said the Harvester.

  She advanced and handed him the roll of bills.

  “I had a feeling you would be reckless,” she said. “I saw it in your face, so I came back as soon as I could steal away, and sure enough, there lay your money and the books and everything. I hid them in the thicket, so they will be all right. I’ve almost prayed it wouldn’t rain. I didn’t dare carry them to the house. Please take the money. I haven’t time to argue about it or strength, but of course I can’t possibly use it unless I earn it. I’m so anxious to see the pencils and paper.”

  The Harvester thrust the money into his pocket. The Girl went to the table, opened and spread the paper, and took out the pencils.

  “Is my subject in here?” she touched the colour box.

  “No, the other.”

  “Is it alive? May I open it?”

  “We will be very careful at first,” said the Harvester. “It only left its case in the night and may fly. When the weather is so warm the wings develop rapidly. Perhaps if I remove the lid—”

  He took off the cover, exposing a big moth, its lovely, pale yellow wings, flecked with heliotrope, outspread as it clung to a twig in the box. The Girl leaned forward.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “One of the big night moths that emerge and fly a few hours in June.”

  “Is this what you want for your candlestick?”

  “If I can’t do better. There is one other I prefer, but it may not come at a time that you can get it right.”

  “What do you mean by ‘right’?”

  “So that you can copy it before it wants to fly.”

  “Why don’t you chloroform and pin it until I am ready?”

  “I am not in the business of killing and impaling exquisite creatures like that.”

  “Do you mean that if I can’t draw it when it is just right you will let it go?”

  “I do.”

  “Why?”

  “I told you why.”

  “I know you said you were not in the business, but why wouldn’t you take only one you really wanted to use?”

  “I would be afraid,” replied the Harvester.

  “Afraid? You!”

  “I must have a mighty good reason before I kill,” said the man. “I cannot give life; I have no right to take it away. I will let my statement stand. I am afraid.”

  “Of what please?”

  “An indefinable something that follows me and makes me suffer if I am wantonly cruel.”

  “Is there any particular pose in which you want this bird placed?”

  “Allow me to present you to the yellow emperor, known in the books as eagles imperialis,” he said. “I want him as he clings naturally and life size.”

  She took up a pencil.

  “If you don’t mind,” said the Harvester, “would you draw on this other paper? I very much want the colour, also, and you can use it on this. I brought a box along, and I’ll get you water. I had it all ready yesterday.”

  “Did you have this same moth?”

  “No, I had another.”

  “Did you have the one you wanted most?”

  “Yes—but it’s no difference.”

  “And you let it go because I was not here?”

  “No. It went on account of exquisite beauty. If kept in confinement it would struggle and break its wings. You see, that one was a delicate green, where this is yellow, plain pale blue green, with a lavender rib here, and long curled trailers edged with pale yellow, and eye spots rimmed with red and black.”

  As the Harvester talked he indicated the points of difference with a pencil he had picked up; now
he laid it down and retreated beyond the limits of the rug.

  “I see,” said the Girl. “And this is colour?”

  She touched the box.

  “A few colours, rather,” said the Harvester. “I selected enough to fill the box, with the help of the clerk who sold them to me. If they are not right, I have permission to return and exchange them for anything you want.”

  With eager fingers she opened the box, and bent over it a face filled with interest.

  “Oh how I’ve always wanted this! I scarcely can wait to try it. I do hope I can have it for my very own. Was it quite expensive?”

  “No. Very cheap!” said the Harvester. “The paper isn’t worth mentioning. The little, empty tin box was only a few cents, and the paints differ according to colour. Some appear to be more than others. I was surprised that the outfit was so inexpensive.”

  A skeptical little smile wavered on the Girl’s face as she drew her slender fingers across the trays of bright colour.

  “If one dared accept your word, you really would be a comfort,” she said, as she resolutely closed the box, pushed it away, and picked up a pencil.

  “If you will take the trouble to inquire at the banks, post office, express office, hospital or of any druggist in Onabasha, you will find that my word is exactly as good as my money, and taken quite as readily.”

  “I didn’t say I doubted you. I have no right to do that until I feel you deceive me. What I said was ‘dared accept,’ which means I must not, because I have no right. But you make one wonder what you would do if you were coaxed and asked for things and led by insinuations.”

  “I can tell you that,” said the Harvester. “It would depend altogether on who wanted anything of me and what they asked. If you would undertake to coax and insinuate, you never would get it done, because I’d see what you needed and have it at hand before you had time.”

  The Girl looked at him wonderingly.

  “Now don’t spring your recurrent ‘why’ on me,” said the Harvester. “I’ll tell you ‘why’ some of these days. Just now answer me this question: Do you want me to remain here or leave until you finish? Which way would you be least afraid?”