“Oh, I beg your pardon,” cried Burleson, red as a pippin.
“I am not a bit sensitive,” she said. Her mouth, the white, heavy lids of her eyes, contradicted her.
“There was a very dreadful smash-up of the house of Elliott, Mr. Burleson. If you feel a bit friendly towards that house, you will advise me how I may sell ‘The Witch.’ I don’t mind telling you why. My father has simply got to go to some place where rheumatism can be helped — be made bearable. I know that I could easily dispose of the mare if I were in a civilized region; even Grier offered half her value. If you know of any people who care for that sort of horse, I’ll be delighted to enter into brisk correspondence with them.”
“I know a man,” observed Burleson, deliberately, “who would buy that mare in about nine-tenths of a second.”
“Oh, I’ll concede him the other tenth!” cried the girl, laughing. It was the first clear, care-free laugh he had heard from her — and so fascinating, so delicious, that he sat there silent in entranced surprise.
“About the value of the mare,” she suggested, diffidently, “you may tell your friend that she is only worth what father paid for her—”
“Good Lord!” he said, “that’s not the way to sell a horse!”
“Why not? Isn’t she worth that much?”
“What did your father pay for her?”
The girl named the sum a trifle anxiously. “It’s a great deal, I know—”
“It’s about a third what she’s worth,” announced Burleson. “If I were you, I’d add seventy-five per cent., and hold out like — like a demon for it.”
“But I cannot ask more than we paid—”
“Why not?”
“I — don’t know. Is it honorable?”
They looked at each other for a moment, then he began to laugh. To her surprise, she felt neither resentment nor chagrin, although he was plainly laughing at her. So presently she laughed, too, a trifle uncertainly, shy eyes avoiding his, yet always returning curiously. She did not know just why; she was scarcely aware that she took pleasure in this lean-faced young horseman’s company.
“I have always believed,” she began, “that to sell anything for more than its value was something as horrid as — as usury.”
“Such a transaction resembles usury as closely as it does the theory of Pythagoras,” he explained; and presently their laughter aroused the workmen, who looked up, leaning on spade and pick.
“I cannot understand,” she said, “why you make such silly remarks or why I laugh at them. A boy once affected me in the same way — years ago.”
She sat up straight, a faint smile touching her mouth and eyes. “I think that my work is about ended here, Mr. Burleson. Do you know that my pupils are enjoying a holiday — because you choose to indulge in a forest-fire?”
He strove to look remorseful, but he only grinned.
“I did not suppose you cared,” she said, severely, but made no motion to rise.
Presently he mentioned the mare again, asking if she really desired to sell her; and she said that she did.
“Then I’ll wire to-night,” he rejoined. “There should be a check for you day after to-morrow.”
“But suppose the man did not wish to buy her?”
“No chance of that. If you say so, the mare is sold from this moment.”
“I do say so,” she answered, in a low voice, “and thank you, Mr. Burleson. You do not realize how astonished I am — how fortunate — how deeply happy—”
“I can only realize it by comparison,” he said.
What, exactly, did he mean by that? She looked around at him; he was absorbed in scooping a hole in the pine-needles with his riding-crop.
She made up her mind that his speech did not always express his thoughts; that it was very pleasant to listen to, but rather vague than precise.
“It is quite necessary,” he mused aloud, “that I meet your father—”
She looked up quickly. “Oh! have you business with him?”
“Not at all,” said Burleson.
This time the silence was strained; Miss Elliott remained very still and thoughtful.
“I think,” he said, “that this country is only matched in paradise. It is the most beautiful place on earth!”
To this astonishing statement she prepared no answer. The forest was attractive, the sun perhaps brighter than usual — or was it only her imagination due to her own happiness in selling The Witch?
“When may I call upon Mr. Elliott?” he asked, suddenly. “To-night?”
No; really he was too abrupt, his conversation flickering from one subject to another without relevance, without logic. She had no time to reflect, to decide what he meant, before, crack! he was off on another trail — and his English no vehicle for the conveyance of his ideas.
“There is something,” he continued, “that I wish to ask you. May I?”
She bit her lip, then laughed, her gray eyes searching his. “Ask it, Mr. Burleson, for if I lived a million years I’m perfectly certain I could never guess what you are going to say next.”
“It’s only this,” he said, with a worried look, “I don’t know your first name.”
“Why should you?” she demanded, amused, yet instinctively resentful. “I don’t know yours, either, Mr. Burleson — and I don’t even ask you.”
“Oh, I’ll tell you,” he said; “my name is only John William. Now will you tell me yours?”
She remained silent, coping with a candor that she had not met with since she went to parties in a muslin frock. She remembered one boy who had proposed elopement on ten minutes’ acquaintance. Burleson, somehow or other, reminded her of that boy.
“My name,” she said, carelessly, “is Constance.”
“I like that name,” said Burleson.
It was pretty nearly the last straw. Never had she been conscious of being so spontaneously, so unreasonably approved of since that wretched boy had suggested flight at her first party. She could not separate the memory of the innocent youth from Burleson; he was intensely like that boy; and she had liked the boy, too — liked him so much that in those ten heavenly minutes’ acquaintance she was half persuaded to consent — only there was nowhere to fly to, and before they could decide her nurse arrived.
“If you had not told me your first name,” said Burleson, “how could anybody make out a check to your order?”
“Is that why—” she began; and without the slightest reason her heart gave a curious little tremor of disappointment.
“You see,” he said, cheerfully, “it was not impertinence — it was only formality.”
“I see,” she said, approvingly, and began to find him a trifle tiresome.
Meanwhile he had confidently skipped to another subject. “Phosphates and nitrogen are what those people need for their farms. Now if you prepare your soil — do your own mixing, of course — then begin with red clover, and plough—”
Her gray eyes were so wide open that he stopped short to observe them; they were so beautiful that his observation continued until she colored furiously. It was the last straw.
“The fire is out, I think,” she said, calmly, rising to her feet; “my duty here is ended, Mr. Burleson.”
“Oh — are you going?” he asked, with undisguised disappointment. She regarded him in silence for a moment. How astonishingly like that boy he was — this six-foot —
“Of course I am going,” she said, and wondered why she had said “of course” with emphasis. Then she whistled to her mare.
“May I ride with you to the house?” he asked, humbly.
She was going to say several things, all politely refusing. What she did say was, “Not this time.”
Then she was furious with herself, and began to hate him fiercely, until she saw something in his face that startled her. The mare came up; she flung the bridle over hastily, set foot to metal, and seated herself in a flash. Then she looked down at the man beside her, prepared for his next remark.
&
nbsp; It came at once. “When may we ride together, Miss Elliott?”
She became strangely indulgent. “You know,” she said, as though instructing youth, “that the first proper thing to do is to call upon my father, because he is older than you, and he is physically unable to make the first call.”
“Then by Wednesday we may ride?” he inquired, so guilessly that she broke into a peal of delicious laughter.
“How old are you, Mr. Burleson? Ten?”
“I feel younger,” he said.
“So do I,” she said. “I feel like a little girl in a muslin gown.” Two spots of color tinted her cheeks. He had never seen such beauty in human guise, and he came very near saying so. Something in the aromatic mountain air was tempting her to recklessness. Amazed, exhilarated by the temptation, she sat there looking down at him; and her smile was perilously innocent and sweet.
“Once,” she said, “I knew a boy — like you — when I wore a muslin frock, and I have never forgotten him. He was extremely silly.”
“Do you remember only silly people?”
“I can’t forget them; I try.”
“Please don’t try any more,” he said.
She looked at him, still smiling. She gazed off through the forest, where the men were going home, shovels shouldered, the blades of axe and spade blood-red in the sunset light.
How long they stood there she scarcely reckoned, until a clear primrose light crept in among the trees, and the evening mist rose from an unseen pond, floating through the dimmed avenues of pines.
“Good-night,” she said, gathered bridle, hesitated, then held out her ungloved hand.
Galloping homeward, the quick pressure of his hand still burning her palm, she swept along in a maze of disordered thought. And being by circumstances, though not by inclination, an orderly young woman, she attempted a mental reorganization. This she completed as she wheeled her mare into the main forest road; and, her happy, disordered thoughts rearranged with a layer of cold logic to quiet them, reaction came swiftly; her cheeks burned when she remembered her own attitude of half-accepted intimacy with this stranger. How did he regard her? How cheaply did he already hold her — this young man idling here in the forest for his own pleasure?
But she had something more important on hand than the pleasures of remorseful cogitation as she rode up to the store and drew bridle, where in their shirt-sleeves the prominent citizens were gathered. She began to speak immediately. She did not mince matters; she enumerated them by name, dwelt coldly upon the law governing arson, and told them exactly where they stood.
She was, by courtesy of long residence, one of them. She taught their children, she gave them pills and powders, she had stood by them even when they had the law against them — stood by them loyally and in the very presence of Grier, fencing with him at every move, combating his brutality with deadly intelligence.
They collapsed under her superior knowledge; they trusted her, fawned on her, whined when she rebuked them, carried themselves more decently for a day or two when she dropped a rare word of commendation. They respected her in spite of the latent ruffianly instinct which sneers at women; they feared her as a parish fears its priest; they loved her as they loved one another — which was rather toleration than affection; the toleration of half-starved bob-cats.
And now the school-marm had turned on them — turned on them with undisguised contempt. Never before had she betrayed contempt for them. She spoke of cowardice, too. That bewildered them. Nobody had ever suggested that.
She spoke of the shame of jail; they had heretofore been rather proud of it — all this seated there in the saddle, the light from the store lamp shining full in her face; and they huddled there on the veranda, gaping at her, stupefied.
Then she suddenly spoke of Burleson, praising him, endowing him with every quality the nobility of her own mind could compass. She extolled his patience under provocation, bidding them to match it with equal patience. She bad them be men in the face of this Burleson, who was a man; to display a dignity to compare with his; to meet him squarely, to deal fairly, to make their protests to his face and not whisper crime behind his back.
And that was all; she swung her mare off into the darkness; they listened to the far gallop, uttering never a word. But when the last distant hoof-stroke had ceased, Mr. Burleson’s life and forests were safe in the country. How safe his game was they themselves did not exactly know.
That night Burleson walked into the store upon the commonplace errand of buying a jack-knife. It was well that he did not send a groom; better still when he explained, “one of the old-fashioned kind — the kind I used as a school-boy.”
“To whittle willow whistles,” suggested old man Santry. His voice was harsh; it was an effort for him to speak.
“That’s the kind,” said Burleson, picking out a one-blader.
Santry was coughing; presently Burleson looked around.
“Find swallowing hard?” he asked.
“Swallerin’ ain’t easy. I ketched cold.”
“Let’s see,” observed Burleson, strolling up to him and deliberately opening the old man’s jaws, not only to Santry’s astonishment, but to the stupefaction of the community around the unlighted stove.
“Bring a lamp over here,” said the young man.
Somebody brought it.
“Tonsilitis,” said Burleson, briefly. “I’ll send you something to-night?”
“Be you a doctor?” demanded Santry, hoarsely.
“Was one. I’ll fix you up. Go home; and don’t kiss your little girl. I’ll drop in after breakfast.”
Two things were respected in Fox Cross-roads — death and a doctor — neither of which the citizens understood.
But old man Santry, struggling obstinately with his awe of things medical, rasped out, “I ain’t goin’ to pay no doctor’s bills fur a cold!”
“Nobody pays me any more,” said Burleson, laughing. “I only doctor people to keep my hand in. Go home, Santry; you’re sick.”
Mr. Santry went, pausing at the door to survey the gathering with vacant astonishment.
Burleson paid for the knife, bought a dozen stamps, tasted the cheese and ordered a whole one, selected three or four barrels of apples, and turned on his heel with a curt good-night.
“Say!” broke out old man Storm as he reached the door; “you wasn’t plannin’ to hev the law on Abe, was you?”
“About that grass fire?” inquired Burleson, wheeling in his tracks. “Oh no; Abe lost his temper and his belt. Any man’s liable to lose both. By-the-way” — he came back slowly, buttoning his gloves— “about this question of the game — it has occurred to me that it can be adjusted very simply. How many men in this town are hunters?”
Nobody answered at first, inherent suspicion making them coy. However, it finally appeared that in a community of twenty families there were some four of nature’s noblemen who “admired to go gunnin’ with a smell-dog.”
“Four,” repeated Burleson. “Now just see how simple it is. The law allows thirty woodcock, thirty partridges, and two deer to every hunter. That makes eight deer and two hundred and forty birds out of the preserve, which is very little — if you shoot straight enough to get your limit!” he laughed. “But it being a private preserve, you’ll do your shooting on Saturdays, and check off your bag at the gate of the lodge — so that you won’t make any mistakes in going over the limit.” He laughed again, and pointed at a lean hound lying under the counter.
“Hounds are barred; only ‘smell-dogs’ admitted,” he said. “And” — he became quietly serious— “I count on each one of you four men to aid my patrol in keeping the game-laws and the fire-laws and every forest law on the statutes. And I count on you to take out enough fox and mink pelts to pay me for my game — and you yourselves for your labor; for though it is my game by the law of the land, what is mine is no source of pleasure to me unless I share it. Let us work together to keep the streams and coverts and forests well stocked. Good-night.”
>
About eleven o’clock that evening Abe Storm slunk into the store, and the community rose and fell on him and administered the most terrific beating that a husky young man ever emerged from alive.
III
In October the maple leaves fell, the white birches showered the hill-sides with crumpled gold, the ruffed grouse put on its downy stockings, the great hare’s flanks became patched with white. Cold was surely coming; somewhere behind the blue north the Great White Winter stirred in its slumber.
As yet, however, the oaks and beeches still wore their liveries of rustling amber, the short grass on hill-side pastures was intensely green, flocks of thistle-birds disguised in demure russet passed in wavering flight from thicket to thicket, and over all a hot sun blazed in a sky of sapphire, linking summer and autumn together in the magnificence of a perfect afternoon.
Miss Elliott, riding beside Burleson, had fallen more silent than usual. She no longer wore her sombrero and boy’s clothes; hat, habit, collar, scarf — ay, the tiny polished spur on her polished boot — were eloquent of Fifth Avenue; and she rode a side-saddle made by Harrock.
“Alas! alas!” said Burleson; “where is the rose of yesterday?”
“If you continue criticising my habit—” she began, impatiently.
“No — not for a minute!” he cried. “I didn’t mention your habit or your stock—”
“You are always bewailing that soiled sombrero and those unspeakable breeches—”
“I never said a word—”
“You did. You said, ‘Where is the rose of yesterday?’”
“I meant the wild rose. You are a cultivated rose now, you know—”
She turned her face at an angle which left him nothing to look at but one small, close-set ear.
“May I see a little more of your face by-and-by?” he asked.
“Don’t be silly, Mr. Burleson.”
“If I’m not, I’m afraid you’ll forget me.”
They rode on in silence for a little while; he removed his cap and stuffed it into his pocket.
“It’s good for my hair,” he commented, aloud; “I’m not married, you see, and it behooves a man to keep what hair he has until he’s married.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1128