It didn't occur to either of them that any other course was open, nor that there was any special heroism or self-sacrifice in the act; it was simply right.
"Well, I'm not going to drudge all my life," said Albert, at last. "I know it's kind o' selfish, but I can't live on a farm. I've made up my mind to study law and enter the bar. Lawyers manage to get hold of enough to live on decently, and that's more than you can say of the farmers. And they live in town, where something is going on once in a while, anyway."
In the pause which followed, footsteps were heard on the walk outside, and the girl sprang up with a beautiful blush.
"My stars! I didn't think—I forgot—I must go."
Hartley burst into the room shortly after she left it, in his usual breeze.
"Hul-lo! Still at the Latin, hey?"
"Yes," said Bert, with ease. "How goes it?"
"Oh, I'm whooping 'er up! I'm getting started in great shape. Been up to the court-house and roped in three of the county officials. In these small towns the big man is the politician or the clergyman. I've nailed the politicians through the ear; now you must go for the ministers to head the list—that's your lay-out."
"How 'm I t' do it?" asked Bert, in an anxious tone. "I can't sell books if they don't want 'em."
"Why, cert! That's the trick. Offer a big discount. Say full calf, two fifty; morocco, two ninety. Regular discount to the clergy, ye know. Oh, they're on to that little racket—no trouble. If you can get a few of these leaders of the flock, the rest will follow like lambs to the slaughter. Tra-la-la—who-o-o-ish, whish!"
Albert laughed at Hartley as he plunged his face into the ice-cold water, puffing and wheezing.
"Jeemimy Crickets! but ain't that water cold! I worked Rock River this way last month, and made a boomin' success. If you take hold here in the—"
"Oh, I'm all ready to stand anything short of being kicked out."
"No danger of that if you're a real book agent. It's the snide that gets kicked. You've got t' have some savvy in this, just like any other business." He stopped in his dressing to say, "We've struck a great boarding-place, hey?"
"Looks like it."
"I begin t' cotton to the old lady a'ready. Good 'eal like mother used t' be 'fore she broke down. Didn't the old lady have a time of it raisin' me? Phewee! Patient! Job wasn't a patchin'. But the test is goin' t' come on the biscuit; if her biscuit comes up t' mother's I'm hern till death."
He broke off to comb his hair, a very nice bit of work in his case.
II
There was no discernible reason why the little town should have been called Tyre, and yet its name was as characteristically American as its architecture. It had the usual main street lined with low brick or wooden stores—a street which developed into a road running back up a wide, sandy valley away from the river. Being a county town, it had a court-house in a yard near the centre of the town, and a big summer hotel. Curiously shaped and oddly distributed hills rose abruptly out of the valley sand, forming a sort of amphitheatre in which the village lay. These square-topped hills ended at a common level, showing that they were not the result of an upheaval, but were the remains of the original stratification formations left standing after the scooping action of the post-glacial floods had ceased.
Some of them looked like ruined walls of castles ancient as hills, on whose massive tops time had sown sturdy oaks and cedars. They lent a distinct air of romance to the landscape at all times; but when in summer graceful vines clambered over their rugged sides, and underbrush softened their broken lines, it was not at all difficult to imagine them the remains of an unrecorded and very war-like people.
Even now, in winter, with yellow-brown and green cedars standing starkly upon their summits, these towers possessed a distinct charm, and in the early morning when the trees glistened with frost, or at evening when the white light of the sun was softened and violet shadows lay along the snow, the whole valley was a delight to the eye, full of distinct and lasting charm.
In the campaign which Hartley began, Albert did his best, and his best was done unconsciously; for the simplicity of his manner—all unknown to himself—was the most potent factor in securing consideration.
"I'm not a book agent," he said to one of the clergymen to whom he first appealed; "I'm a student trying to sell a good book and make a little money to help me to complete my course at the university."
In this way he secured three clergymen to head the list, much to the delight and admiration of Hartley.
"Good! Now corral the alumni of the place. Work the fraternal racket to the bitter end. Oh, say! there's a sociable to-morrow night; I guess we'd better go, hadn't we?"
"Go alone?"
"Alone? No! Take some girls. I'm going to take neighbor Pickett's daughter; she's homely as a hedge fence, but I'll take her for business reasons."
"Hartley, you're an infernal fraud!"
"Nothing of the kind—I'm a salesman," ended Hartley, with a laugh.
After supper the following day, as Albert was still lingering at the table with the girls and Mrs. Welsh, he said to Maud:
"Are you going to the sociable?"
"No; I guess not."
"Would you go if I asked you?"
"Try me and see!" answered the girl, with a laugh, her color rising.
"All right. Miss Welsh, will you attend the festivity of the evening under my guidance and protection?"
"Yes, thank you; but I must wash the dishes first."
"I'll wash the dishes; you go get ready," said Mrs. Welsh.
Albert felt that he had one of the loveliest girls in the room as he led Maud down the floor of the vestry of the church. Her cheeks were glowing, and her eyes shining with maidenly delight as they took seats at the table to sip a little coffee and nibble a bit of cake.
Maud introduced him to a number of young people who had been students at the university. They received him cordially, and in a very short time he was enjoying himself very well indeed. He was reminded rather disagreeably of his office, however, by seeing Hartley surrounded by a laughing crowd of the more frolicsome young people. He winked at Albert, as much as to say, "Good stroke of business."
The evening passed away with songs, games, and recitations, and it was nearly eleven o'clock when the young people began to wander off toward home in pairs. Albert and Maud were among the first of the young folks to bid the rest good-night.
The night was clear and keen but perfectly still, and the young people, arm in arm, walked slowly homeward under the bare maples, in delicious companionship. Albert held Maud's arm close to his side.
"Are you cold?" he asked, in a low voice.
"No, thank you; the night is lovely," she replied; then added, with a sigh, "I don't like sociables so well as I used to—they tire me out."
"We stayed too long."
"It wasn't that; I'm getting so they seem kind o' silly."
"Well, I feel a little that way myself," he confessed.
"But there is so little to see here in Tyre at any time—no music, no theatres. I like theatres, don't you?"
"I can't go half enough."
"But nothing worth seeing ever comes into these little towns—and then we're all so poor, anyway."
The lamp, turned low, was emitting a terrible odor as they entered the sitting-room.
"My goodness! it's almost twelve o'clock! Good-night!" She held out her hand.
"Good-night!" he said, taking it, and giving it a cordial pressure which she remembered long.
"Good-night!" she repeated, softly, going up the stairs.
Hartley, who came in a few minutes later, found his partner sitting thoughtfully by the fire, with his coat and shoes off, evidently in deep abstraction.
"Well, I got away at last—much as ever. Great scheme, that sociable, eh? I saw your little girl introducing you right and left."
"Say, Hartley, I wish you'd leave her out of this thing; I don't like the way you speak of her when—"
"Phew! You
don't? Oh, all right! I'm mum as an oyster—only keep it up! Get into all the church sociables you can; there's nothing like it."
* * *
Hartley soon had canvassers out along the country roads, and was working every house in town. The campaign promised to lengthen into a month—perhaps longer. Albert especially became a great favorite. Every one declared there had never been such book agents in the town. "They're such gentlemanly fellows. They don't press anybody to buy. They don't rush about and 'poke their noses where they're not wanted.' They are more like merchants with books to sell." The only person who failed to see the attraction in them was Ed Brann, who was popularly supposed to be engaged to Maud. He grew daily more sullen and repellent, toward Albert noticeably so.
One evening about six, after coming in from a long walk about town, Albert entered his room without lighting his lamp, lay down on the bed, and fell asleep. He had been out late the night before with Maud at a party, and slumber came almost instantly.
Maud came in shortly, hearing no response to her knock, and after hanging some towels on the rack went out without seeing the sleeper. In the sitting-room she met Ed Brann. He was a stalwart young man with curling black hair, and a heavy face at its best, but set and sullen now. His first words held a menace:
"Say, Maud, I want t' talk to you."
"Very well; what is it, Ed?" replied the girl, quietly.
"I want to know how often you're going to be out till twelve o'clock with this book agent?"
Perhaps it was the derisive inflection on "book agent" that woke Albert. Brann's tone was brutal—more brutal even than his words, and the girl turned pale and her breath quickened.
"Why, Ed, what's the matter?"
"Matter is just this: you ain't got any business goin' around with that feller with my ring on your finger, that's all." He ended with an unmistakable threat in his voice.
"Very well," said the girl, after a pause, curiously quiet; "then I won't; here's your ring."
The man's bluster disappeared instantly. Bert could tell by the change in his voice, which was incredibly great, as he pleaded:
"Oh, don't do that, Maud; I didn't mean to say that; I was mad—I'm sorry."
"I'm glad you did it now, so I can know you. Take your ring, Ed; I never 'll wear it again."
Albert had heard all this, but he did not know how the girl looked as she faced the man. In the silence which followed she scornfully passed him and went out into the kitchen. Brann went out and did not return at supper.
Young people of this sort are not self-analysts, and Maud did not examine closely into causes. She was astonished to find herself more indignant than grieved. She broke into an angry wail as she went to her mother's bosom:
"Mother! mother!"
"Why, what's the matter, Maudie? Tell me. There, there! don't cry, pet! Who's been hurtin' my poor little bird?"
"Ed has; he said—he said—"
"There, there! poor child! Have you been quarrelling again? Never mind; it'll come out all right."
"No, it won't—not the way you mean," the girl declared. "I've given him back his ring, and I'll never wear it again."
The mother could not understand with what wounding brutality the man's tone had fallen upon the girl's spirit, and Maud could not explain sufficiently to justify herself. Mrs. Welsh consoled herself with the idea that it was only a lover's quarrel—one of the little jars sure to come when two natures are settling together—and that all would be mended in a day or two.
Albert, being no more of a self-analyst than Maud, simply said, "Served him right," and dwelt no more upon it for the time.
At supper, however, he was extravagantly gay, and to himself unaccountably so. He joked Troutt till Maud begged him to stop, and after the rest had gone he remained seated at the table, enjoying the indignant color in her face and the flash of her infrequent smile, which it was such a pleasure to provoke. He volunteered to help wash the dishes.
"Thank you, but I'm afraid you'd be more bother than help," she replied.
"Thank you, but you don't know me. I ain't so green as I look by no manner o' means. I've been doing my own housekeeping for four terms."
"I know all about that," laughed the girl. "You young men rooming do precious little cooking and no dish-washing at all."
"That's a base calumny! I made it a point to wash every dish in the house, except the spider, once a week; had a regular cleaning-up day."
"And about the spider?"
"I wiped that out nicely with a newspaper every time I wanted to use it."
"Oh, horrors!—Mother, listen to that!"
"Why, what more could you ask? You wouldn't have me wipe it six times a day, would you?"
"I wonder it didn't poison you," commented Mrs. Welsh.
"Takes more'n that to poison a student," laughed Albert, as he went out.
The next afternoon he came bursting into the kitchen, where Maud stood with her sleeves rolled up, deep in the dishpan.
"Don't you want a sleigh-ride?" he asked, boyishly eager.
She looked up with shining eyes.
"Oh, wouldn't I! Can you get along, mother?"
"Certainly, child. Go on. The air will do you good."
"W'y, Maud!" said the little girl, "you said you didn't want to when Ed—"
Mrs. Welsh silenced her, and said:
"Run right along, dear; it's just the nicest time o' day. Are there many teams out?"
"They're just beginning to come out," said Albert. "I'll have a cutter around here in about two jiffies; be on hand, sure."
Troutt was standing in the sunny doorway of his stable when the young fellow dashed up to him.
"Hullo, Uncle Troutt! Harness your fastest nag into your swellest outfit instanter."
"Aha! Goin' t' take y'r girl out, hey?"
"Yes; and I want to do it in style."
"I guess ol' Dan's the horse for you. Gentle as a kitten and as knowin' as a fox. Drive him with one hand—left hand." The old man laughed till his long, faded beard flapped up and down and quivered with the stress of his enjoyment of his joke. He ended by hitching a vicious-looking sorrel to a gay, duck-bellied cutter, saying, as he gave up the reins:
"Now, be keerful. Dan's foxy; he's all right when he sees you've got the reins, but don't drop 'em."
"Don't you worry about me; I grew up with horses," said the over-confident youth, leaping into the sleigh and gathering up the lines. "Stand aside, my lord, and let the cortége pass. Hoop-la!"
The brute gave a tearing lunge, and was out of the doorway before the old man could utter another word. Albert thrilled with pleasure as he felt the reins stiffen in his hands, and saw the traces swing slack beside the thills.
"If he keeps this up he'll do," he said aloud.
As he turned up at the gate Maud came gayly down the path, muffled to the eyes.
"Oh, what a nice cutter! But the horse—is he gentle?" she asked, as she climbed in.
"As a cow," Albert replied.—"Git out o' this, Bones!"
The main street was already filled with wood sleighs, bob-sleds filled with children, and men in light cutters, out for a race. Laughter was on the air, and the jingle-jangle of bells. The sun was dazzling in its brightness, and the gay wraps and scarfs lighted up the scene with flecks of color. Loafers on the sidewalks fired familiar phrases at the teams as they passed:
"Step up, Bones!"
"Let 'er go, Gallagher!"
"Get there, Eli," and the like.
But what cared the drivers? If the shouts were insolent they laid them to envy, and if they were pleasant they smiled in reply.
Albert and Maud had made two easy turns up and down the street when a man driving a span of large Black Hawk horses dashed up a side street and whirled in just before them. The man was a superb driver, and sat with the reins held carelessly but securely in his left hand, guiding the team more by his voice than by the bit.
"Hel-lo!" cried Bert; "that looks like Brann."
"It is," sa
id Maud.
"Cracky! that's a fine team—Black Hawks, both of them. I wonder if ol' sorrel can pass 'em?"
"Oh, please don't try!" pleaded the girl.
"Why not?"
"Because—because I'm afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"Afraid something 'll happen."
"Something is sure to happen; I'm goin' to pass him if old Bones has any git to him."
"It'll make him mad."
"Who mad? Brann?"
"Yes."
"Well, s'pose it does, who cares?"
There were a dozen similar rigs moving up or down the street, and greetings passed from sleigh to sleigh. Everybody except Brann welcomed Albert with sincere pleasure, and exchanged rustic jokes with him. As they slowed up at the upper end of the street and began to turn, a man on the sidewalk said, confidentially:
"Say, cap', if you handle that old rack o' bones just right, he'll distance anything on this road. When you want him to do his best let him have the rein; don't pull a pound. I used to own 'im—I know 'im."
The old sorrel came round "gauming," his ugly head thrown up, his great red mouth open, his ears laid back. Brann and the young doctor of the place were turning together, a little farther up the street. The blacks, responding to their driver's word, came down with flying hoofs, their great glossy breasts flecked with foam, their jaws champing.
"Come on, crow-bait!" yelled Brann, insultingly, as he came down past the doctor, and seemed about to pass Albert and Maud. There was hate in the glare of his eyes.
But he did not pass. The old sorrel seemed to lengthen; to the spectators his nose appeared to be glued to the glossy side of Brann's off black.
"See them blacks trot!" shouted Albert, in ungrammatical enthusiasm.
"See that old sorrel shake himself!" yelled the loafers.
The doctor came tearing down with a spirited bay, a magnificent stepper. As he drew along so that Bert could catch a glimpse of the mare's neck, he thrilled with delight. There was the thoroughbred's lacing of veins; the proud fling of her knees and the swell of her neck showed that she was far from doing her best. There was a wild light in her eyes.
Other Main-Travelled Roads Page 12
