Other Main-Travelled Roads

by Garland, Hamlin

  Emma feared her husband, too; he was so self-contained, and so inexorably moral, at least in appearance. He sweetly said he bore no ill will toward the Grays, but he must insist that his wife should not visit them until they apologized. He took the matter very serenely, however.

  The sound of the cow-bell was a constant daily irritation to Bill; he was slow to wrath, but the bell seemed to rasp on his tenderest nerve; it had a curiously exultant sound heard in the early morning—it seemed to voice Harkey's triumph. Bill's friends were astonished at the change in him. He grew dark and thunderous with wrath whenever Harkey's name was mentioned.

  One day Ike's cattle broke out of the pasture into Bill's young oats, and though Ike hurried after them, it seemed to Bill he might have got them out a little quicker than he did. He said nothing then, however, but when a few days later they broke in again, he went over there in very bad humor.

  "I want this thing stopped," he said.

  Ike was mending the fence. He smiled in his sweet way, and said smoothly, "I'm sorry, but when they once git a taste of grain it's pretty hard to keep 'em—"

  "Well, there ought to be a new fence here," said Bill. "That fence is as rotten as a pumpkin."

  "I s'pose they had; yes, sir, that's so," Harkey assented quickly. "I'm ready to build my half, you know," he said, "any time—any time you are."

  "Well, I'll build mine to-morrow," said Bill. "I can't have your cattle pasturing on my oats."

  "All right, all right. I'll have mine done as quick as yourn."

  "Well, see't you do; I don't want my grain all tramped into the ground and I ain't a-goin' to have it."

  Harkey hastily gathered up his tools, saying, "Yes, yes, all right."

  "You might send home that cow-bell of mine while you're about it," Bill called after him, but Harkey did not reply or turn around.

  IV

  The line fence ran up the bluff toward the summit of the ridge to the east. On each side it was set with smooth green slopes of pasture and pleasant squares of wheat, until it reached the woods and ran under the oaks and walnuts and birches to the cliffs of lichen-spotted stone which topped the summit.

  Bill walked the full length of the fence to see how much of the old material could be used. He recognized the bell on one of Harkey's cattle, and he grew wrathful at the sight of another cow peacefully gnawing the fresh, green grass, with the bell, which belonged to the black cow, on her neck.

  It was mid-spring. Everywhere was the vivid green of the Wisconsin landscape; the slopes were like carefully tended lawns, without stumps or stones; the groves rose up the hills, pink and gray and green in softly rounded billows of cherry bloom and tender oak and elm foliage. Here and there under the forest tender plants and flowers had sprung up, slender and succulent like all productions of a rich and shadowed soil.

  Early the next morning Bill and his two hands began to work in the meadow, working toward the ridge; Harkey and his brother and their hands began at the ridge and worked down toward the meadow; each party could hear the axes of the other ringing in the still, beautiful spring air.

  Bill's hired hand, on his way to the spring about the middle of the forenoon, met Jim Harkey, who said wickedly in answer to a jocular greeting:—

  "Don't give me none of your lip now; we'll break your necks for two cents."

  The hand came to Bill with the story. "Bill, they're on the fight."

  "Oh, I guess not."

  "Well, they be. We better not run up against them to-day if we don't want trouble."

  "Well, I ain't goin' to dodge 'em," said Bill; "I ain't in that business; if they want fight, we'll accommodate 'em with the best we've got in the shop."

  At noon, Harkey's gang went to dinner a little earlier, and, as they came down the path quite near, Jim said with a sneer:—

  "You managed to git the easiest half of the fence, didn't yeh?"

  "We took the half that belongs to us," said Bill. "We don't take what don't belong to us."

  "Cow-bells, for instance," put in Bill's hired hand, with a provoking intonation.

  Jim stopped and his face twisted with rage; Ike paused a little farther on down the path. Jim came closer.

  "Say, I know what you're driving at and you're a liar, and for a leather cent I'd lick you like hell!"

  "You can't do it. You don't weigh enough."

  "Oh, shut up, Jack," called Bill. "Go about y'r business," he said to Jim, "or I'll take a hand."

  Jim's face flamed into a wild wrath. His lips lifted at the corners like a wolf's as he leaped the fence with a wild spring and lunged against Bill's breast. The larger man went down, but his great arms closed about his assailant's neck with a bear-like grip. Jim could neither rise nor strike; with a fury no animal could equal he pressed his hands upon Bill's throat and thrust his elbow into his mouth in the attempt to strangle him. He meant murder.

  Jack faced the other men, who came running up. Ike seized a stake, and was about to leap over, when Jack raised an axe in the air.

  "Stand off!" he yelled, and his voice rang through the woods; he noticed how harsh and wild it sounded in the silence. He heard a grunting sound, and gave one glance at the two men writhing amid the ferns silent as grappling bull-dogs.

  Bill had fallen in the brake and seemed wedged in. At last there came into his heart a terrible shiver, a blind desperation that uncoiled all the strength in his great bulk. Then he seemed to bound from the ground, as he twisted the other man under him, and shook himself free.

  He dragged one great maul of a fist free and drove it at the face beneath him. Jim saw it coming and turned his head. The blow fell on his neck and his carnivorous grin smoothed out as if sleep had suddenly fallen upon him. He drew a long, shuddering breath, his muscles quivered, and his clenched hands fell open.

  Bill rose upon his knees and looked at him. A deep awe fell upon him. In the pause he heard the robins rioting from the trees in the lower valley, and the woodpecker cried resoundingly.

  "You've killed him!" cried Ike, as he climbed hastily over the fence.

  Bill did not reply. The men faced each other in solemn silence, all wish for murder going out of their hearts. The sobbing cry of the mourning dove, which they had been hearing all day, suddenly assumed new meaning.

  "Ah, woe, woe is me!" it cried.

  "Bring water!" shouted Ike, kneeling beside his brother.

  Bill knelt there with him, while the rest dashed water upon Jim's face.

  At last he began to breathe like a fretful, waking child, and looking up into the scared faces above him, motioned the water away from him. The angry look came back into his face, but it was mixed with perplexity.

  He touched his hand to his face and brought it down covered with blood. "How much am I hurt?" he said fiercely.

  "Oh, nothing much," Ike hastened to say; "it's just a scratch."

  Jim struggled to his elbow and looked around him. It all seemed to come back to him. "Did he do it fair?" he demanded of his companions.

  "Oh, yes; it was fair enough," said Ike.

  Jim looked at Jack. "That thing didn't hit me with his axe, did he?"

  Jack grinned. "No, but I was just a-goin' to when Bill belted you one," was the frank and convincing reply.

  Jim got up slowly and faced Bill. "Well, that settles it; it's all right! You're a better man than I am. That's all I've got to say."

  He climbed back over the fence and led the way down to dinner without looking back.

  "What give ye that lick on the side o' the head, Jim?" his wife asked, when he sat down at the dinner-table.

  "Never you mind," he replied surlily, but he added, "Ike's axe come off, and give me a side-winder."

  Bill carefully removed all marks of his struggle and walked into dinner shamefacedly, all muscle gone out of his bulk of fat. His sudden return to primeval savagery grew monstrous in the cheerful kitchen, with its noise of hearty children, sizzling meat, and the clatter of dishes.

  The stove was not drawing well and
Sarah did not notice anything out of the way with Bill.

  "I never see such a hateful thing in all my life," she said, referring to the stove. "That rhubarb duff won't be fit for a hog to eat; the undercrust ain't baked the least bit yet, and I have had it in there since fifteen minutes after 'leven."

  Bill said generously, "Oh, well, never mind, Serry; we'll worry it down some way."

  V

  All through July and August Mrs. Jim Harkey seemed to renew her endeavors to keep the sisters apart; she still carried spiteful tales to and fro, amplifying them with an irresistible histronic tendency. It had become a matter of self-exoneration with her then. She could not stop now without seeming to admit she had been mischief-making in the past. If the sisters should come together, her lies would instantly appear.

  Emma grew morose, irritable, and melancholy; she was suffering for her sister's wholesome presence, and yet, being under the dominion of the mischief-maker, dared not send word or even mention the name of her sister in the presence of the Harkeys.

  Mrs. Jim came up to the house to stay as Emma got too ill to work, and took charge of the house. The children hated her fiercely, and there were noisy battles in the kitchen constantly wearing upon the nerves of the sick woman who lay in the restricted gloom of the sitting room bed-chamber, within hearing of every squall.

  There were moments of peace only when Ike was in the house. Smooth as he was, Jim's wife was afraid of him. There was something compelling in his low-toned voice; his presence subdued but did not remove strife.

  His silencing of the tumult hardly arose out of any consideration for his wife, but rather from his inability to enjoy his paper while the clamor of war was going on about him.

  He was not a tender man, and yet he prided himself on being a very calm and even-tempered man. He kept out of Bill's way, and considered himself entirely justified in his position regarding the cow-bell. It is doubtful if he would have accepted an apology.

  Emma suffered acutely from Mrs. Harkey's visits. Something mean and wearying went out from her presence, and her sharp, bold face was a constant irritation. Sometimes when she thought herself alone, Emma crawled to the window which looked up the Coolly, toward Sarah's home, and sat there silently longing to send out a cry for help. But at the sound of Jane Harkey's step she fled back into bed like a frightened child.

  She became more and more childish and more flighty in her thoughts as her time of trial drew near, and she became more subject to her jailer. She grew morbidly silent, and her large eyes were restless and full of pleading.

  One day she heard Mrs. Smith talking out in the kitchen.

  "How is Emmy to-day, Mrs. Jim?"

  "Well, not extry. She ain't likely to come out as well as usual this time, I don't think," was the brutally incautious reply; "she's pretty well run down, and I wouldn't be surprised if she had some trouble."

  "I suppose Sarah will be down to help you," said Mrs. Smith.

  "Well, I guess not—not after what she's told."

  "What has she told?" asked Mrs. Smith, in her sweet and friendly voice.

  "Why, she said she wouldn't set foot in this house if we all died."

  "I never heard her say that, and I don't believe she ever did say it," said Mrs. Smith, firmly.

  Emma's heart glowed with a swift rush of affection toward her sister and Mrs. Smith; she wanted to cry out her faith in Sarah, but she dared not.

  Mrs. Harkey slammed the oven door viciously. "Well, you can believe it or not, just as you like; I heard her say it."

  "Well, I didn't, so I can't believe it."

  When Mrs. Smith came in, Emma was ready to weep, so sweet and cheery was her visitor's face.

  She found no chance to talk with her, however, for Mrs. Harkey kept near them during her visit. Once, while Mrs. Jim ran out to look at the pies, Mrs. Smith whispered: "Don't you believe what they say about Sarah. She's just as kind as can be—I know she is. She's looking down this way every day, and I know she'd come down instanter if you'd send for her. I'm going up that way, and—"

  She found no further chance to say anything, but from that moment Emma began to think of letting Sarah know how much she needed her. She planned to hang out the cloth as she used to. She exaggerated its importance in the way of an invalid, until it attained the significance of an act of treason. She felt like a criminal even in thinking about it.

  Several times in the night she dreamed she had put the cloth out and that Jim and his wife had seen it and torn it down. She awoke two or three times to find herself sitting up in bed staring out of the window, through which the moon shone and the multitudinous sounds of the mid-summer insects came sonorously.

  Once her husband said, "What's the matter? It seems to me you'd rest better if you'd lay down and keep quiet." His voice was low enough, but it had a peculiar inflection, which made her sink back into bed by his side, shivering with fear and weeping silently.

  The next day Jim and her husband both went off to town, and Jim's wife, after about ten o'clock, said:—

  "Now, Emmy, I'm going down to Smith's to get a dress pattern, and I want you to keep quiet right here in bed. I'll be right back; I'll set some water here, and I guess you won't want anything else until I get back. I'll run right down and right back."

  After hearing the door close, Emma lay for a few minutes listening, waiting until she felt sure Mrs. Harkey was well out of the yard, then she crept out of bed and crawled to the window. Mrs. Jim was far down the road; she could see her blue dress and her pink sunbonnet.

  The sick woman seized the sheet and pulled it from the bed; the clothes came with it, but she did not mind that. She pulled herself painfully up the stairway and across the rough floor of the chamber to the window which looked toward her sister's house, and with a wild exultation flung the sheet far out and dropped on her knees beside the open window.

  She moaned and cried wildly as she waved the sheet. The note of a scared child was in her voice.

  "Oh, Serry, come quick! Oh, I need you, Serry! I didn't mean to be mean; I want to see you so! Oh, dear, oh, dear! Oh, Serry, come quick!"

  Then space and the world slipped away, and she knew nothing of time again until she heard the anxious voice of Sarah below.

  "Emmy, where are you, Emmy?"

  "Here I be, Serry."

  With swift, heavy tread Sarah hurried up the stairs, and the dear old face shone upon her again; those kind gray eyes full of anxiety and of love.

  Emma looked up like a child entreating to be lifted. Her look so pitifully eager went to the younger sister's maternal heart.

  "You poor, dear soul! Why didn't you send for me before?"

  "Oh, Serry, don't leave me again, will you?"

  When Mrs. Harkey returned she found Sarah sitting by Emma's side in the bed-chamber. Sarah looked at her with all the grimness her jolly fat face could express.

  "You ain't needed here," she said coldly. "If you want to do anything, find a man and send him for the Doctor—quick. If she dies you'll be her murderer."

  Mrs. Harkey was subdued by the bitterness of accusation in Sarah's face as well as by Emma's condition. She hurried down the Coolly and sent a boy wildly galloping toward the town. Then she went home and sat down by her own hearthstone feeling deeply injured.

  When the Doctor came he found a poor little boy baby crying in Sarah's arms. It was Emma's seventh child, but the ever sufficing mother-love looked from her eyes undimmed, limitless as the air.

  "Will it live, Doctor? It's so little," she said, with a sigh.

  "Oh, yes, I suppose so!" said the Doctor, as if its living were not entirely a blessing to itself or others. "Yes, I've seen lots of lusty children begin life like that. But," he said to Sarah at the door, "she needs better care than the babe!"

  "She'll git it," said Sarah, with deep solemnity, "if I have to move over here—and live."

  * * *

  A FAIR EXILE

  The train was ambling across the hot, russet plain. The wind, strong a
nd warm and dry, sweeping up from the south, carried with it the subtle odor of September grass and gathered harvests. Out of the unfenced roads the dust arose in long lines, like smoke from some hidden burning which the riven earth revealed. The fields were tenanted with thrashing crews, the men diminished by distance to pygmies, the long belt of the engine flapping and shining like a ribbon in the flaming sunlight.

  The freight-cars on the accommodation train jostled and rocked about and heaved up laterally till they resembled a long line of awkward, frightened, galloping buffaloes. The one coach was scantily filled with passengers, mainly poorly clothed farmers and their families.

  A young man seated well back in the coach was looking dreamily out of the window, and the conductor, a keen-eyed young fellow, after passing him several times, said, in a friendly way:

  "Going up to Boomtown, I imagine."

  "Yes—if we ever get there."

  "Oh, we'll get there. We won't have much more switching. We've only got an empty car or two to throw in at the junction."

  "Well, I'm glad of that. I'm a little impatient, because I've got a case coming up in court, and I'm not exactly fixed for it."

  "Your name is Allen, I believe."

  "Yes; J. H. Allen, of Sioux City."

  "I thought so. I've heard you speak."

  The young lawyer was a tall, slender, dark-eyed man, rather sombre in appearance. He did not respond to the invitation in the conductor's voice.

  "When do you reach the junction?"

  "Next stop. We're only a few minutes late. Expect to meet friends there?"

  "No; thought I'd get a lunch, that's all."

  At the junction the car became pretty well filled with people. Two or three Norwegian families came clattering in, the mothers clothed in heavy shawls and cheap straw hats, the flaxen-haired children in faded cottonade and blue denims. They filled nearly half the seats. Several drummers came in, laughing loudly, bearing heavy valises. Then Allen heard, above the noise, the shrill but sweet voice of a girl, and caught the odor of violets as two persons passed him and took a seat just before him.