Wayside Courtships

by Garland, Hamlin

  "Oh, it makes me homesick!" cried the girl, with a deep sigh. "It was the happiest, sunniest time of all my life. Oh, those walks and talks! Those recitations in the dear, chalky old rooms! Oh, how I would like to go back over that hollow doorstone again!"

  She broke off, with tears in her eyes. He was obliged to cough two or three times before he could break the silence.

  "I know just how you feel. I know, the first spring when I went back on the farm, it seemed as if I couldn't stand it. I thought I'd go crazy. The days seemed forty-eight hours long. It was so lonesome, and so dreary on rainy days! But of course I expected to go back; that's what kept me up. I don't think I could have stood it if I hadn't had hope."

  "I've given it up now," she said plaintively; "it's no use hoping."

  "Why don't you teach?" asked Albert, deeply affected by her voice and manner.

  "I did teach here for a year, but I couldn't endure the noise; I'm not very strong, and the boys were so rude. If I could teach in a seminary—teach Latin and English—I should be happy, I think. But I can't leave mother now."

  She began to appear a different girl in the boy's eyes; the cheap dress, the check apron, could not hide her pure intellectual spirit. Her large blue eyes were deep with thought, and the pale face, lighted by the glow of the fire, was as lovely as a rose. Almost before he knew it, he was telling her of his life.

  "I don't see how I endured it as long as I did," he went on. "It was nothing but work, work, and mud the whole year round; it's just so on all farms."

  "Yes, I guess it is," said she. "Father was a carpenter, and I've always lived here; but we have people who are farmers, and I know how it is with them."

  "Why, when I think of it now it makes me crawl! To think of getting up in the morning before daylight, and going out to the barn to do chores, to get ready to go into the field to work! Working, wasting y'r life on dirt. Goin' round and round in a circle, and never getting out."

  "It's just the same for us women," she corroborated. "Think of us going around the house day after day, and doing just the same things over an' over, year after year! That's the whole of most women's lives. Dish-washing almost drives me crazy."

  "I know it," said Albert; "but a fellow has t' do it. If his folks are workin' hard, why, of course he can't lay around and study. They're not to blame. I don't know that anybody's to blame."

  "No, I don't; but it makes me sad to see mother going around as she does, day after day. She won't let me do as much as I would." The girl looked at her slender hands. "You see, I'm not very strong. It makes my heart ache to see her going around in that quiet, patient way; she's so good."

  "I know, I know! I've felt just like that about my mother and father, too."

  There was a long pause, full of deep feeling, and then the girl continued in a low, hesitating voice:

  "Mother's had an awful hard time since father died. We had to go to keeping boarders, which was hard—very hard for mother." The boy felt a sympathetic lump in his throat as the girl went on again: "But she doesn't complain, and she didn't want me to come home from school; but of course I couldn't do anything else."

  It didn't occur to either of them that any other course was open, nor that there was any heroism or self-sacrifice in the act; it was simply right.

  "Well, I'm not going to drudge all my life," said the boy at last. "I know it's kind o' selfish, but I can't live on a farm; it 'u'd kill me in a year. 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 courthouse 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?" said Bert, in an anxious tone. "I can't sell books if they don't want 'em."

  "Yes, yeh can. That's the trade. 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 do anything that is needed, 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 courthouse in a yard near the center of the town, and a big summer hotel. The valley was peculiarly picturesque. Curiously shaped and oddly distributed hills rose out of the valley sand abruptly, forming a sort of amphitheater in which the village lay. These square-topped hills rose to a common level, showing that they were not the result of an upheaval, but were the remains of the original stratification left standing after the vast scooping action of the post-glacial floods.

  The abrupt cliffs and lone huge pillars and peaks rising out of tamarack swamps here and there showed the original layers of rock unmoved. They 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 valley at all times; but when in summer 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, very warlike people.

  Even now, in winter, with yellow-brown and green cedars standing starkly upon their summits, the hickories and small ashes blue-black with their masses of fine bare limbs meshed against the snow, these towers had a distinct charm. The weather was glorious winter, 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, part of the beautiful and strange Mississippi River scenery.

  In the campaign which Hartley began Albert did his best, and his best was done unconsciously, for the charm 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."

  He did not go to the back door, but walked up to the front, asked to see the minister, and placed his case at once before him with a smiling candor and a
leisurely utterance quite the opposites of the brazen timidity and rapid, parrot-like tone of the professional. He secured three clergymen of the place to head his 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 Picket's daughter; she's homely as a hedge fence, but I'll take her—great scheme!"

  "Hartley, you're an infernal fraud!"

  "Nothing of the kind—I'm business," 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 thought of the sociable, and said on the impulse:

  "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."

  "I'll be ready before you are."

  "No doubt; I've got to wash the dishes."

  "I'll wash the dishes; you go get ready," said the self-regardless mother.

  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, filled with laughing young people moving about or seated at the long tables. Maud's cheeks were full of delicate color and her eyes shone with maidenly delight as they took seats at the table to sip a little coffee and nibble a bit of cake.

  "I suppose they must have my fifteen cents some way," said Albert, in a low voice, "and I guess we'd better sit down."

  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 cold, but perfectly still, and the young people, arm in arm, walked slowly homeward under the bare maples, in delicious companionship. Albert held her 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 theaters. I like theaters, 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 came in a few moments later, and found Bert 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 in all the church sociables, and all that; 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: such gentlemanly fellows, they didn't press anybody to buy; they didn't rush about and "poke their noses where they were not wanted." They were 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 looked him in the face, and scornfully passed him and went out into the kitchen. He 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 quarreling? Never mind; it'll come out all right."

  "No, it won't—not the way you mean," the girl cried, lifting her head; "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 felt in some way as if she could not explain sufficiently to justify herself. Mrs. Welsh consoled herself with the idea that it was only a lovers' 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.

  But there was a peculiar set look on the girl's face that promised little for Brann. 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 volu
nteered 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 dish pan, while Stella stood wiping the dishes handed to her.

  "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; the air'll 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 t' 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 the fastest nag into your swellest outfit instanter."