At supper he insisted on his prerogative, which was to take the prettiest girl out to supper.
"Look-a-here, Daddy, ain't that crowdin' the mourners?" objected the others.
"What do you mean by that, sir? No, sir! Always done it, in Michigan and Yark State both; yes, sir."
He put on his coat ceremoniously, while the tittering girls stood about the room waiting. He did not delay. His keen eyes had made selection long before, and, approaching Rose Watson with old-fashioned, elaborate gallantry, he said: "May I have the pleasure?" and marched out triumphantly, amidst shouts of laughter.
His shrill laugh rang high above the rest at the table, as he said: "I'm the youngest man in this crowd, sir! Demmit, I bet a hat I c'n dance down any man in this crowd; yes, sir. The old man can do it yet."
They all took sides in order to please him.
"I'll bet he can," said Hugh McTurg; "I'll bet a dollar on Daddy."
"I'll take the bet," said Joe Randall, and with great noise the match was arranged to come the first thing after supper.
"All right, sir; any time, sir. I'll let you know the old man is on earth yet."
While the girls were putting away the supper dishes, the young man lured Daddy out into the yard for a wrestling-match, but some others objected.
"Oh, now, that won't do! If Daddy was a young man—"
"What do you mean, sir? I am young enough for you, sir. Just let me get ahold o' you, sir, and I'll show you, you young rascal! you dem jackanapes!" he ended, almost shrieking with rage, as he shook his fist in the face of his grinning tormentors.
His friends held him back with much apparent alarm, and ordered the other fellows away.
"There, there, Daddy, I wouldn't mind him! I wouldn't dirty my hands on him; he ain't worth it. Just come inside, and we'll have that dancing-match now."
Daddy reluctantly returned to the house, and, having surrendered his violin to Hugh McTurg, was ready for the contest. As he stepped into the middle of the room he was not altogether ludicrous. His rusty trousers were bagged at the knee, and his red woollen stockings showed between the tops of his moccasins and his pantaloon legs, and his coat, utterly characterless as to color and cut, added to the stoop in his shoulders; and yet there was a rude sort of grace and a certain dignity about his bearing which kept down laughter. They were to have a square dance of the old-fashioned sort.
"Farrm on," he cried, and the fiddler struck up the first note of the Virginia Reel. Daddy led out Rose, and the dance began. He straightened up till his tall form towered above the rest of the boys like a weather-beaten pine tree, as he balanced and swung and led and called off the changes with a voice full of imperious command.
The fiddler took a malicious delight toward the last in quickening the time of the good old dance, and that put the old man on his mettle.
"Go it, ye young rascal!" he yelled. He danced like a boy and yelled like a demon, catching a laggard here and there, and hurling them into place like tops, while he kicked and stamped, wound in and out and waved his hands in the air with a gesture which must have dated back to the days of Washington. At last, flushed, breathless, but triumphant, he danced a final breakdown to the tune of "Leather Breeches," to show he was unsubdued.
IV
But these rare days passed away. As the country grew older it lost the wholesome simplicity of pioneer days, and Daddy got a chance to play but seldom. He no longer pleased the boys and girls—his music was too monotonous and too simple. He felt this very deeply. Once in a while he broke forth in protest against the changes.
"The boys I used to trot on m' knee are gittin' too high-toned. They wouldn't be found dead with old Deering, and then the preachers are gittin' thick, and howlin' agin dancin', and the country's filling up with Dutchmen, so't I'm left out."
As a matter of fact, there were few homes now where Daddy could sit on the table, in his ragged vest and rusty pantaloons, and play "Honest John," while the boys thumped about the floor. There were few homes where the old man was even a welcome visitor, and he felt this rejection keenly. The women got tired of seeing him about, because of his uncleanly habits of spitting, and his tiresome stories. Many of the old neighbors died or moved away, and the young people went West or to the cities. Men began to pity him rather than laugh at him, which hurt him more than their ridicule. They began to favor him at threshing or at the fall hog-killing.
"Oh, you're getting old, Daddy; you'll have to give up this heavy work. Of course, if you feel able to do it, why, all right! Like to have you do it, but I guess we'll have to have a man to do the heavy lifting, I s'pose."
"I s'pose not, sir! I am jest as able to yank a hawg as ever, sir; yes, sir, demmit—demmit! Do you think I've got one foot in the grave?"
Nevertheless, Daddy often failed to come to time on appointed days, and it was painful to hear him trying to explain, trying to make light of it all.
"M' caugh wouldn't let me sleep last night. A goldum leetle, nasty, ticklin' caugh, too; but it kept me awake, fact was, an'—well, m' wife, she said I hadn't better come. But don't you worry, sir; it won't happen again, sir; no, sir."
His hands got stiffer year by year, and his simple tunes became practically a series of squeaks and squalls. There came a time when the fiddle was laid away almost altogether, for his left hand got caught in the cog-wheels of the horse-power, and all four of the fingers on that hand were crushed. Thereafter he could only twang a little on the strings. It was not long after this that he struck his foot with the axe and lamed himself for life.
As he lay groaning in bed, Mr. Jennings went in to see him and tried to relieve the old man's feelings by telling him the number of times he had practically cut his feet off, and said he knew it was a terrible hard thing to put up with.
"Gol dummit, it ain't the pain," the old sufferer yelled, "it's the dum awkwardness. I've chopped all my life; I can let an axe in up to the maker's name, and hew to a hair-line; yes, sir! It was jest them dum new mittens my wife made; they was s' slippery," he ended with a groan.
As a matter of fact, the one accident hinged upon the other. It was the failure of his left hand, with its useless fingers, to do its duty, that brought the axe down upon his foot. The pain was not so much physical as mental. To think that he, who could hew to a hair-line, right and left hand, should cut his own foot like a ten-year-old boy—that scared him. It brought age and decay close to him. For the first time in his life he felt that he was fighting a losing battle.
A man like this lives so much in the flesh, that when his limbs begin to fail him everything else seems slipping away. He had gloried in his strength. He had exulted in the thrill of his life-blood and in the swell of his vast muscles; he had clung to the idea that he was strong as ever, till this last blow came upon him, and then he began to think and to tremble.
When he was able to crawl about again, he was a different man. He was gloomy and morose, snapping and snarling at all that came near him, like a wounded bear. He was alone a great deal of the time during the winter following his hurt. Neighbors seldom went in, and for weeks he saw no one but his hired hand, and the faithful, dumb little old woman, his wife, who moved about without any apparent concern or sympathy for his suffering. The hired hand, whenever he called upon the neighbors, or whenever questions were asked, said that Daddy hung around over the stove most of the time, paying no attention to any one or anything. "He ain't dangerous 't all," he said, meaning that Daddy was not dangerously ill.
Milton rode out from school one winter day with Bill, the hand, and was so much impressed with his story of Daddy's condition that he rode home with him. He found the old man sitting bent above the stove, wrapped in a quilt, shivering and muttering to himself. He hardly looked up when Milton spoke to him, and seemed scarcely to comprehend what he said.
Milton was much alarmed at the terrible change, for the last time he had seen him he had towered above him, laughingly threatening to "warm his jacket," and now here he sat, a great hulk of flesh, his mi
nd flickering and flaring under every wind of suggestion, soon to go out altogether.
In reply to questions he only muttered with a trace of his old spirit: "I'm all right. Jest as good a man as I ever was, only I'm cold. I'll be all right when spring comes, so 't I c'n git outdoors. Somethin' to warm me up, yessir; I'm cold, that's all."
The young fellow sat in awe before him, but the old wife and Bill moved about the room, taking very little interest in what the old man said or did. Bill at last took down the violin. "I'll wake him up," he said. "This always fetches the old feller. Now watch 'im."
"Oh, don't do that!" Milton said in horror. But Bill drew the bow across the strings with the same stroke that Daddy always used when tuning up.
He lifted his head as Bill dashed into "Honest John," in spite of Milton's protest. He trotted his feet after a little and drummed with his hands on the arms of his chair, then smiled a little in a pitiful way. Finally he reached out his right hand for the violin and took it into his lap. He tried to hold the neck with his poor, old, mutilated left hand, and burst into tears.
"Don't you do that again, Bill," Milton said. "It's better for him to forget that. Now you take the best care of him you can to-night. I don't think he's going to live long; I think you ought to go for the doctor right off."
"Oh, he's been like this for the last two weeks; he ain't sick, he's jest old, that's all," replied Bill, brutally.
And the old lady, moving about without passion and without speech, seemed to confirm this; and yet Milton was unable to get the picture of the old man out of his mind. He went home with a great lump in his throat.
* * *
The next morning, while they were at breakfast, Bill burst wildly into the room.
"Come over there, all of you; we want you."
They all looked up much scared. "What's the matter, Bill?"
"Daddy's killed himself," said Bill, and turned to rush back, followed by Mr. Jennings and Milton.
While on the way across the field Bill told how it all happened.
"He wouldn't go to bed, the old lady couldn't make him, and when I got up this morning I didn't think nothin' about it. I s'posed, of course, he'd gone to bed all right; but when I was going out to the barn I stumbled across something in the snow, and I felt around, and there he was. He got hold of my revolver someway. It was on the shelf by the washstand, and I s'pose he went out there so 't we wouldn't hear him. I dassn't touch him," he said, with a shiver; "and the old woman, she jest slumped down in a chair an' set there—wouldn't do a thing—so I come over to see you."
Milton's heart swelled with remorse. He felt guilty because he had not gone directly for the doctor. To think that the old sufferer had killed himself was horrible and seemed impossible.
The wind was blowing the snow, cold and dry, across the yard, but the sun shone brilliantly upon the figure in the snow as they came up to it. There Daddy lay. The snow was in his scant hair and in the hollow of his wide, half-naked chest. A pistol was in his hand, but there was no mark upon him, and Milton's heart leaped with quick relief. It was delirium, not suicide.
There was a sort of majesty in the figure half buried in the snow. His hands were clenched, and there was a frown of resolution on his face, as if he had fancied Death coming, and had gone defiantly forth to meet him.
* * *
A STOP-OVER AT TYRE
I
Albert Lohr was studying the motion of the ropes and lamps, and listening to the rumble of the wheels and the roar of the ferocious wind against the pane of glass that his head touched. It was the midnight train from Marion rushing toward Warsaw like some savage thing unchained, creaking, shrieking, and clattering through the wild storm which possessed the whole Mississippi Valley.
Albert lost sight of the lamps at last, and began to wonder what his future would be. "First I must go through the university at Madison; then I'll study law, go into politics, and perhaps some time I may go to Washington."
In imagination he saw that wonderful city. As a Western boy, Boston to him was historic, New York was the great metropolis, but Washington was the great American city, and political greatness the only fame.
The car was nearly empty: save here and there the wide-awake Western drummer, and a woman with four fretful children, the train was as deserted as it was frightfully cold. The engine shrieked warningly at intervals, the train rumbled hollowly over short bridges and across pikes, swung round the hills, and plunged with wild warnings past little towns hid in the snow, with only here and there a light shining dimly.
One of the drummers now and then rose up from his cramped bed on the seats, and swore cordially at the railway company for not heating the cars. The woman with the children inquired for the tenth time, "Is the next station Lodi?"
"Yes, ma'am, it is," snarled the drummer, as he jerked viciously at the strap on his valise; "and darned glad I am, too, I can tell yeh! I'll be stiff as a car-pin if I stay in this infernal ice-chest another hour. I wonder what the company think—"
At Lodi several people got on, among them a fat man with a pretty daughter, who appeared to be abnormally wide awake—considering the time of night. She saw Albert for the same reason that he saw her—they were both young and good-looking.
The student began his musings again, modified by this girl's face. He had left out the feminine element; obviously he must recapitulate. He'd study law, yes; but that would not prevent going to sociables and church fairs. And at these fairs the chances were good for a meeting with a girl. Her father must be influential—county judge or district attorney. Marriage would open new avenues—
He was roused by the sound of his own name.
"Is Albert Lohr in this car?" shouted the brakeman, coming in, enveloped in a cloud of fine snow.
"Yes, here!" called Albert.
"Here's a telegram for you."
Albert snatched the envelope with a sudden fear of disaster at home; but it was dated "Tyre":
"Get off at Tyre. I'll be there.
Hartley
"Well, now, that's fun!" said Albert, looking at the brakeman. "When do we reach there?"
"About 2.20."
"Well, by thunder! A pretty time o' night!"
The brakeman grinned sympathetically. "Any answer?" he asked, at length.
"No; that is, none that will do the matter justice."
"Hartley friend o' yours?"
"Yes; know him?"
"Yes; he boarded where I did in Warsaw."
When he came back again, the brakeman said to Albert, in a hesitating way:
"Ain't going t' stop off long, I s'pose?"
"May an' may not; depends on Hartley. Why?"
"Well, I've got an aunt there that keeps boarders, and I kind o' like t' send her one when I can. If you should happen to stay a few days, go an' see her. She sets up first-class grub, an' it wouldn't kill anybody, anyhow, if you went up an' called."
"Course not. If I stay long enough to make it pay I'll look her up sure. I'm no Vanderbilt. I can't afford to stop at two-dollar-a-day hotels."
The brakeman sat down opposite, encouraged by Albert's smile.
"Y' see, my division ends at Warsaw, and I run back and forth here every other day, but I don't get much chance to see them, and I ain't worth a cuss f'r letter-writin'. Y' see, she's only aunt by marriage, but I like her; an' I guess she's got about all she can stand up under, an' so I like t' help her a little when I can. The old man died owning nothing but the house, an' that left the old lady t' rustle f'r her livin'. Dummed if she ain't sandy as old Sand. They're gitt'n' along purty—"
The whistle blew for brakes, and, seizing his lantern, the brakeman slammed out on the platform.
"Tough night for twisting brakes," suggested Albert, when he came in again.
"Yes—on the freight."
"Good heavens! I should say so. They don't run freight such nights as this?"
"Don't they? Well, I guess they don't stop for a storm like this if they's any money to be made b
y sending her through. Many's the night I've broke all night on top of the old wooden cars, when the wind was sharp enough to shear the hair off a cast-iron mule—woo-o-o! There's where you need grit, old man," he ended, dropping into familiar speech.
"Yes; or need a job awful bad."
The brakeman was struck with this idea. "There's where you're right. A fellow don't take that kind of a job for the fun of it. Not much! He takes it because he's got to. That's as sure's you're a foot high. I tell you, a feller's got t' rustle these days if he gits any kind of a job—"
"Toot, too-o-o-o-t, toot!"
The station passed, the brakeman did not return, perhaps because he found some other listener, perhaps because he was afraid of boring this pleasant young fellow.
Albert shuddered with a sympathetic pain as he thought of the heroic fellows on the tops of icy cars, with hands straining at frosty brakes, the wind cutting their faces like a sand-blast. Oh, those tireless hands at the wheel and throttle!—
He looked at his watch; it was two o'clock; the next station was Tyre. As he began to get his things together, the brakeman again addressed him:
"Oh, I forgot to say that the old lady's name is Welsh—Mrs. Robert Welsh. Say I sent yeh, and it'll be all right."
"Sure! I'll try her in the morning—that is, if I find out I'm going to stay."
Albert clutched his valise, and pulled his cap firmly down on his head.
"Here goes!" he muttered.
"Hold y'r breath!" shouted the brakeman. Albert swung himself to the platform before the station—a platform of planks along which the snow was streaming like water.
"Good-night!" shouted the brakeman.
"Good-night!"
"All-l abo-o-o-ard!" called the conductor somewhere in the storm. The brakeman swung his lantern, the train drew off into the blinding whirl, and its lights were soon lost in the clouds of snow.
Other Main-Travelled Roads Page 10
