by Grey, Zane
"No, I'm bound to confess that he handled me as if I were a boy or an old sack," replied Lucy honestly.
"Well, then, try to understand him. It will not be easy. He's a savage. But savages are closer to nature than other men, and somehow the better for it...What surprises me is that Edd has not made any fuss yet over Bud Sprall's attentions to you."
"Bud Sprall!" exclaimed Lucy with a start of amaze. "Have I met him?"
"Wal, I reckon," as Edd would say, rejoined the teacher, amused at Lucy's consternation. "You have danced twice with Bud, and showed that you liked it."
"Oh, but I didn't know," wailed Lucy. "I didn't catch half the names...Show him to me."
The school teacher managed presently, in an unobtrusive manner, to indicate which one of Lucy's partners had been the disreputable Bud Sprall.
"That handsome young fellow!" she burst out incredulously.
"Handsome, yes; Bud's good-looking enough and he can dance. But he is not just the fellow you can have dangling after you."
"I took him for one of the relations. There're so many. And I didn't see anything wrong with him except, come to think of it, he might have been drinking a little. But he was not the only one upon whom I detected drink."
"White mule! These boys will fetch a bottle to the dances. It's the one objectionable feature about their social family affairs. Naturally white mule kicks up fights."
"Oh, how unfortunate! How thoughtless of me not to know what I was doing!" cried Lucy.
"Don't be distressed," he returned kindly. "No harm yet. But I advise you to avoid Bud hereafter."
"I'm sure I promised him another dance," said Lucy in perplexity.
"Get out of it, then. And that's the worst of it. Bud will be sore and make trouble, unless you are very clever."
"Oh dear! How can I get out of a dance I've promised?...And that Sam Johnson I was nice to him, deliberately. He's such a conceited fellow. I'm afraid I let him think he'd made a wonderful impression on me."
"Miss Watson, I have an inspiration," rejoined Mr. Jenks animatedly. "Confide in Edd. Get him to help you out of your dilemma."
"Edd! How could I? Impossible!" replied Lucy heatedly.
"Of course that's for you to say. But if you don't, and cannot extricate yourself, I imagine you will only get in deeper."
Lucy, seeing Mrs. Denmeade approaching with friends, was unable to continue discussing the situation with Mr. Jenks. The parents of the children present were eager to talk to Lucy, and they asked innumerable questions. Before she realised the fleeting by of the supper hour the fiddler started one of his several tunes, and there followed a rush of dancers to the floor.
Edd did not exhibit any considerable alacrity in approaching her for this first number after the intermission.
"Want to dance this with me?" he queried coolly.
"Isn't it customary?" replied Lucy as she glanced over the dancers to select some she knew.
"Shore. But if you don't want to dance with me I'd as lief not have you."
"Oh, really!...Would you expect me to be dying to dance with you?" retorted Lucy with sarcasm.
"Nope. I'm not thinkin' about myself. But you think I am. My folks all reckon you're havin' the wonderfulest time. Wal, I hope so, but I've a hunch you're not. For I've been watchin' you. I saw you with Mr. Jenks."
"Really, it'd only be honest to confess that--that I'm enjoying myself--when I forget how I happened to come," said Lucy.
"So I reckoned. An' you can have this dance with anyone you want."
"But--you brought me here. Won't it look strange if you don't dance with me?" she queried with concern.
"Wal, the strangest thing that ever happened in this school-house was for a Denmeade's girl to dance with a Sprall," he returned bitterly.
"Oh! I am not your girl...And I had not the remotest idea I was dancing with Bud Sprall. I only just found out. Mr. Jenks told me."
"Say, you didn't know it was Bud Sprall you danced with twice?" he demanded, with piercing eyes of doubt.
"Absolutely no. I never caught his name," confessed Lucy.
"Wal, I'll be dog-goned! I wish everybody knew that. Shore I can tell my folks," he said ponderingly.
"Edd, I'm afraid I promised him another dance--after supper," went on Lucy nervously. She realised there was an undercurrent here, a force of antagonism quite beyond her. When his face turned white she was nearer the truth. Abruptly he wheeled to leave her, but Lucy was quick to catch his sleeve and draw him back. The dancers crowded them to the wall.
"Do not leave me alone," she said swiftly. "Remember that I am a stranger here. You brought me against my will. I can hardly be blamed for dancing with Bud Sprall when I did not know who he was."
"Reckon that's all right," he replied, gazing down on her. "But you was sweet on Bud, an' you've shore turned Sam Johnson's head."
Lucy strove valiantly to keep her temper and find her wits. She began to have an inkling why Mr. Jenks was so concerned over her predicament.
"Suppose I was? Didn't you deserve to be punished?" she queried.
"Reckon I don't savvy you," he rejoined doubtfully. "Shore you strike me a little like Sadie Purdue."
"We are all women. Nevertheless, I don't consider that a compliment. But...you brought me here. I've made a mess of it. I was--well, never mind now. Only, it's your duty to help me not make, it worse."
"Who's sayin' I wouldn't help you?" he queried.
"You started to leave me."
"Wal, you said you'd another dance with Bud."
"But I didn't know who he was. Now I do know, I won't dance with him. I don't want to. I'm very sorry I blundered. But he seemed nice and--and---"
"Bud has a way with girls," said Edd simply, "Shore he's slicker than Sam."
"Will you take me home?" she asked urgently.
"Shore. But I reckon that'd make worse talk. You'd better stay an' let me take care of you."
"I--I'll do what you want me to," replied Lucy faintly.
"Wal, dance this with me. Then I'll hang around an' keep an eye on you. Keep out of that ring-around dance where they change partners all the time. When Bud or Sam comes up, you give me a look, an' I'll be there pronto. Shore all your dances are mine, an' I don't have to give any more to Bud or Sam."
"Thank you. I--I hope it turns out all right," replied Lucy.
While she danced her mind was active. She regretted her rash determination to make this crude backwoods youth jealous. He had certainly disappointed her in that regard. After awakening to the situation, first through her conversation with Mr. Jenks and later with Edd, she realised she had jeopardised her welfare work. No matter what affront she had suffered; she should not have been so silly, so reckless, so undeserving of the trust placed in her. Yet what provocation! Her nerves tingled at the thought.
When the dance ended Edd relinquished her to one of his cousins, and gradually Lucy lost her worry for the time being. The next dance was the ring-around, which Lucy refused to enter, remaining beside Mrs. Denmeade. Here she had opportunity to watch, and enjoyed it immensely. The dancing grew fast and furious. When the dancers formed in a ring and wheeled madly round the room, shrieking and laughing, they shook the school-house till it rattled.
It developed that Edd Denmeade was more than a match for Bud Sprall when he presented himself for the dance Lucy had promised. But the interchange of cool speech struck Lucy keenly with its note of menace. Sprall's dark handsome face expressed a raw, sinister hate. Denmeade wore a laconic mask, transparent to any observer. The advantage was his. Finally Sprall turned to Lucy.
"I ain't blamin' you, for I know you want to dance with me," he said. "Reckon I'll not forget. Good night."
Sam Johnson was not so easy to dispose of. Manifestly he and Edd were friends, which fact made the clash devoid of rancour.
"Wal, Sam, see here," drawled Edd finally. "You go an' fetch Sadie up. Reckon I'd like a dance with her. You've only had five dances with Miss Lucy. This here one will be six, if
Sadie is willin' to trade off. So fetch her up."
"Edd, I haven't got Sadie for this dance," fumed Sam. "Then you're out of luck. For I shore won't give up my partner."
Sam tramped away in high dudgeon. Lucy danced once round the room with Edd, and then joined the group outside eating ice cream beside the fire. Dawn was grey in the east. How dark the forest and mournful the wind! Lucy edged nearer the fire. She had become conscious of extreme fatigue, and longed for this unforgettable night to end.
Nevertheless, she danced until daylight. Her slippers were worn through. Her feet were dead. Never before in her life had Lucy expended such physical energy. She marvelled at those girls who were reluctant to let the old fiddler off.
Lucy changed the white dress and slippers for her riding clothes. Though the morning was frosty, she did not feel the cold. How she could ever ride up to the Denmeade cabin she had no idea.
"Better get me on your horse before I drop," she told Edd.
He wanted her to remain there at the school-house with the children and girls, who were not to go home until evening. Mrs. Denmeade and Mrs. Claypool were getting breakfast for those who stayed. Lucy, refusing, was persuaded to drink a cup of coffee. Then Edd put her up on Baldy. All around the clearing boys and girls were mounting horses, and some of the older folk were driving off in wagons. Gay good-byes were exchanged. Lucy rode into the woods with the Denmeades.
At first the saddle and motion seemed a relief after such incessant dancing. But Lucy soon discovered that her strength was almost spent. Only vaguely did she see the beauty of the forest in the clear, crisp, fragrant morning. She had no sense of the stirrups and she could not catch the swing of the horse. The Denmeades trotted and loped on the levels, and walked up the slopes. Lucy could not have endured any one kind of riding for very long. She barely managed to hang on until they reached home.
The sun was rising in rosy splendour over the eastern wall. Wild turkeys were gobbling from the ridge behind the cabin. The hounds rang out a chorus of bays and barks in welcome.
Lucy almost fell out of the saddle. Edd was there beside her, quick to lend a hand.
"Wal, I reckon it was a night for both of us," he said. "But shore I don't want another like it, unless what I pretended was really true."
Murmuring something in reply, Lucy limped to her room, and barring the door she struggled to remove her boots. They might as well have been full of thorns, considering the pangs they gave her.
"Oh--oh--what a--terrible night!" she gasped, falling on the bed, fully dressed. "Yet--I know I wouldn't have missed it--for worlds...Oh, I'm dead! I'll never wake up!"
Chapter VII
It was midsummer. The mornings were pleasant, the days hot and still, the evenings sultry and purple, with massed clouds in the west.
The July rains had left the ridges and open patches and the edges of the clearings colourful and fragrant with flowers. Corn and cane and beans were green and wavy in the fields. A steady line of bees flew by the cabin porch, to and fro from hives to woods. And a drowsy murmuring hum made music down by-the shady stream.
At sunrise the home of the Denmeades seemed to be a rendezvous for the frisky chipmunk and chattering red squirrel, for squalling blue jay and whistling hawk and cawing crow, and for the few wild singing birds of the locality. At noon the woods were locked in hot, drowsy stillness; the pine needles did not quiver; heat veils rose smokily from the glades. At evening a melancholy pervaded the wilderness.
One Saturday Lucy sat meditating in the tent that had long been her abode. It was situated out under the pines on the edge of the gully. The boys had built a platform of rough-hewn boards, and a framework of poles, over which the canvas had been stretched. The floor was high above the ground, so that Lucy had long lost the fear of snakes and tarantulas. Indeed this outdoor home had grown wonderfully dear to her. By day she heard the tiny patter of pine needles on the tent; at night the cool winds blew through, and in the moonlight shadows of swaying branches moved above her.
Lucy had problems on her mind. As far as the Denmeades were concerned, her welfare work had been successful beyond her dreams. The time was approaching when in all fairness she must go to another family. She would keenly regret leaving this place she had learned to love, yet she wanted to do as well by others as she had done by the Denmeades. When to go--that was part of the problem.
Another disturbing factor came in the shape of a letter from her sister Clara. It had shocked her and induced a regurgitation of almost forgotten emotions. The letter lay open in her lap. It must be reread and considered and decided upon--matters Lucy was deferring.
The last and perhaps most perplexing question concerned Edd Denmeade. Lucy had to go back in retrospect. The trouble between Edd and her dated back to the dance in May, the one which he had forced her to attend. Lucy had gone to other dances since then, but Edd had never attended another. She might in time have forgiven him for that exhibition of his primitiveness, but shortly afterward he had precipitated something which resulted in their utter estrangement. The bee hunter was the only one of the Denmeades who had not wondrously benefited by her work. He had lost by her presence. He had gone back farther. He exhibited signs of becoming a solitary wanderer in the woods most of the time, a violent and dangerous young man when he did mingle with people. Lucy had forced upon her the undoubted fact that she was the cause of this. No one else knew yet, not even Edd's mother. Lucy could not take unadulterated pride and joy in her success. She did not see how she could have avoided such a situation, yet regret haunted her. And now with decisions to make she vacillated over the important ones, and brought to mind the scene that had turned Edd Denmeade aside from the happier influences and tasks which she had imposed upon his family.
Shortly after that dance Edd had come up to her where she sat on the corral fence watching the boys roping and shoeing a horse.
"I reckon I'm goin' to ask you a question," he announced. Almost his tone was the cool drawling one habitual with him; here, however, there seemed something deep, inevitable behind his words.
"Goodness! Don't ask me to go to another dance," laughed Lucy.
"Reckon I'll never dance again, unless--" He broke off. "An' what I'm goin' to ask you I've asked other girls. Shore this is the last time."
"Well, what is it?" queried Lucy, suddenly perturbed. "Will you marry me?"
Notwithstanding the fact that she was startled, Lucy burst into mirth. It must have been the opposite to what she felt, a nervousness expressing itself in laughter. But it appeared to be unfortunate.
"I--I beg pardon, Edd," she made haste to say. "Really! didn't mean to laugh at you. But you--you surprised me so...You can't be serious."
"Reckon I don't know just what I am," he replied grimly. "But I'm askin' you to marry me."
"Because you want a home and a woman? I heard your father say that."
"Shore. That's the way I've felt. Reckon this is more. I've told my folks an' relations I was askin' you. Wanted them to know."
"Edd, I cannot marry you," she replied gravely.
"Why not?" he demanded. "You're here. You want to work for us. An' I reckon I could help you as much as you could me."
"That's true. You could help me a great deal. But I'm sorry I can't marry you."
"Reckon you're too good for a backwoodsman, a wild-bee hunter who's been jilted by other girls," he asserted, with a strange, deep utterance.
"No. You're wrong," declared Lucy, both touched and angered by his speech. "I don't think I'm too good. That dance you dragged me to cured me of my vanity."
"Wal, then, what's the reason?" he went on. "Ma says you're goin' to stay among us people for years. If that's so you'll have to marry one of us. I'm askin' you first."
"Edd, an honest girl could not marry a man she didn't love," replied Lucy. "Nor can a man be honest asking a girl whom he does not love."
"Shore I am honest. I'm no liar," he retorted. "I'm just plain man. I don't know much of people or books. But I know the
woods, an' reckon I can learn what you want me to."
"I don't mean honest in that sense," rejoined Lucy. "I mean you don't love me."
"Love you! Are you like Sadie, who told around that I'd never kissed her?"
"No, I'm not like Sadie," answered Lucy with rising temper.
"Wal, I'm askin' your pardon," he said. "Shore you're different from Sadie...As for this love you girls talk about I don't know--I always felt a man should keep his hands an' his lips to himself until he had a wife."
"Edd, I respect you for that," replied Lucy earnestly. "And understand you better...But love is not kisses and all that."
"Wal, what is it, then?"
"It is something beautiful, spiritual as well as physical. It is a longing for the welfare, the happiness, the good of someone as well as the sweetness of desire. For a woman love means what Ruth said in the Bible, 'Whither thou goest, I will go. Thy people shall be my people, thy God my God.'...A man who loves a woman will do anything for her--sacrifice himself. The greater his sacrifice the greater his love. And last he ought to feel that he could not live without the object of his affections."
"Wal, I reckon I don't love you," replied Edd ponderingly.
"Of course you don't. You're only thinking of yourself," rejoined Lucy.
"Reckon I can't help what I think. Who put all this in my head?"
"Edd, you haven't got anything in your head," retorted Lucy, unable to restrain her pique and scorn. "That's the trouble. You need education. All your people need education more than anything else."
"Wal, why don't you teach me same as you do Liz and Lize?" he complained.
"You're a grown man!" ejaculated Lucy. "You want to molly me! And you talk like a child."
"Shore I could make you marry me--same as I made you go to the dance," he said ruthlessly.
For an instant Lucy stared at him, too stunned to reply. The simplicity of his words and conviction was as monstrous as the idea they conveyed. How strange that, though a fury suddenly flamed up in her breast, she had a doubt of herself, a fear that he could do what he wanted to do with her!