Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight Part 9

Leo began his regular Sunday call on Rachael Rothchilds at 11 a. m. and continued it without break or intermission until 11 o'clock every Sunday night.

Rachael, during each of three winters, expended a month's salary buying geese to feed Leo and he grew fat and slick, the sly, old fox, on hot-baked goose for dinner and cold roast goose for supper. Every time he sneezed she pressed upon him the gift of a jar of goose grease with which to anoint his chest, and he blackened and sold it to his customers for shoe oil.

Leo was slow and careful in making proposals and suggesting a wedding day. For three long, suspensive years he called from two to three times weekly upon the girl and each Sunday feasted upon the fat of Gooseland, which is at the headwaters of the c.u.mberland River--all the while making the girl believe that she was to be his wife, though she was made to understand that the date was far ahead in the dim vistal future when his financial position justified marrying one who bore the name of that celebrated family of bankers. The day of the girl's contemplated happiness might have been moved forward with satisfactory celerity had not Leo inquired of his friend Simon, of Louisville, as to old man Rothchild's bank account, and learned that he had nothing that sounded like real money but his name, whereas to Leo a rich Jewess by any other name would have seemed sweeter.

After the courtship had continued three years, the shoe merchant in preparing for a fire sale left too many tracks in the snow. The fire marshal reported that the fire was caused by an Israelite in the bas.e.m.e.nt and Leo, after many worries and the loss of his insurance, sought other goose pastures.

In the early summer Cornwall wrote Howard Bradford, reminding him of his promise to spend his summer vacation with them, and received an answer saying he looked forward with pleasure to the time of keeping it, which would be about the 20th of July.

The first week in July, John, pa.s.sing the Neal home, was surprised to see Dorothy Durrett standing on the porch. She had arrived the day before. He was glad to learn that she expected to spend the summer with her aunt. They had a pleasant chat, for the most part, about their parties of the summer of two years before. Dorothy was now nearly twenty-one and in appearance even more attractive than when he had first known her. He told her of Howard Bradford's contemplated visit, and they began formulating plans for the summer.

"You have not seen our house since it was remodeled according to Mr.

Bradford's suggestion, nor have you seen my mother; come with me now. I am thinking of giving a dance in honor of our guest. Three rooms of the lower floor are so arranged that they can be made into one, giving us plenty of room to dance. Will you please help me out?"

"Certainly I will, John. You used to say we were meant to help each other. Let me get a hat and tell Aunt Anna where I am going."

"How the place is improved! The grounds were always delightful; now the whole is toned and in concord; a very delightful picture. There is your mother at the door waiting for her John. The woman who takes you off her hands gets an armload of responsibility. A man always compares his wife with his mother and you, John, will expect your wife to love and mother you as she has done."

"Oh, Dorothy! I am glad to see you! I did not know you in the start, or John, either. I do not see so well and I did not expect to see John with a woman. When did you come? You are even more attractive than when you were here two years ago. John has acted like an old man since then. I wish some nice girl would marry him."

"Oh, John and I understand each other; we could be the best of friends, but never lovers. I will have to find him a good wife, else in his inexperience, with his head buried in a book, he may make a mistake. I know the very girl--Rosamond Clay, of Madison County; she visited me last winter. I shall have my aunt ask her to visit us while I am with her. Then I shall a.s.sign John to her and depend on Mr. Bradford or Mr.

Duffield to entertain me. Watch what a match-maker I am, Mrs. Cornwall.

Let us go through the house and then into the garden. My aunt insisted that I hurry back. What a delightful place for your dance! We can decorate with hydrangeas and golden glow. John, the garden looks just the same as it did that Sunday afternoon two years ago when we sat on this same bench under the arbor of ripening grapes and I told you my dream of the humming birds. For a while I regretted having done so, knowing that you saw too deeply into my heart and was not wholly satisfied with the vision. What you saw was, in a way, the soul of Dorothy. Now I am glad I told it. We would never have been real happy, John, though we were beginning to think so. I hope before I marry the one I love will tell me even his dreams; they sometimes lift the curtain to the inner self. I must go now."

"Mother, I am walking home with Dorothy and shall come right back."

"Don't say that, John; no sentiment; that day is gone, perhaps for our mutual happiness. You are my friend, John Cornwall, and always will be.

Come over tomorrow evening and tell me about yourself and your friends.

When Mr. Bradford comes I imagine I will like him. Good-night, John."

The following evening John called on Dorothy. He found Duffield and Helen Creech there. Duffield, rising when he came in, resumed his seat beside Dorothy, while he sat on the opposite side of the porch talking with Miss Creech. He remained an hour, walking home with her. As they were leaving, Dorothy said: "Aunt Anna wrote to Miss Clay today.

Good-night, Mr. Cornwall. Come again whenever you can, Helen."

CHAPTER VIII.

DOROTHY AND BRADFORD--ROSAMOND AND CORNWALL.

Howard Bradford arrived on the 21st of July. As he and Cornwall drove through the gateway, he had an excellent view of the Cornwall home. He declared the house charming as modified and complimented John on his efforts as a landscape gardener.

They spent the afternoon loafing around home, except an hour when John went to the office, while Bradford slept, fanned by a breeze that blew down the river and sang in softest murmurs through the windows of his corner room.

When Cornwall returned, Duffield came with him and remained for dinner and until a late hour. Bradford, when he learned that they each owned a saddle horse and that those for hire were saddle-galled and the free-goers nearly ridden to death, handed $250.00 to Duffield, who had said that he knew of a horse for sale at that price and worth the money, saying: "Though I shall be here but two weeks, the horse can be sent to Pittsburgh, or sold again if I do not like him."

They had intended camping on Poor Fork at the camp site of the preceding summer; but as each would have his own horse, and the fishing was better just at that time five miles from town than near the head of the river, they concluded to remain at home, spending the mornings fishing and the afternoons boating, swimming or mountain-climbing. At least this was the agreed programme until Duffield should complete surveying the Lockard grant in Leslie County, when his vacation commenced.

The next morning Cornwall sent Dorothy a note, telling her of his guest's arrival and asking permission to bring him around that evening.

She answered: "You are to come at six and dine with us, remaining for the evening. I have a surprise for you, John. It is unnecessary to answer unless you find my invitation impossible. Dorothy."

At six o'clock the young men, looking fresh and comfortable in their white flannels walked over to the Neal home. Mrs. Neal and Dorothy were sitting on the porch and after greetings all found seats. Rosamond Clay, Dorothy's guest, came out and joined them.

She was a tall, athletic, strikingly handsome brunette, just eighteen and, as the boys subsequently found out, a better shot, swimmer and mountain-climber than either of them. In disposition and appearance she seemed the very ant.i.thesis of Dorothy, though Dorothy enjoyed an open-air life, and her wiry, little body was capable of withstanding great physical strain.

"Mr. Bradford, this is Miss Clay, and, John, this is Rosamond. She had just gotten in when I received your note and is the surprise I mentioned. She is to remain a month and I am counting on you helping to entertain her."

"May my surprises always be as agreeable. With Miss Clay's permission I shall do all in my power to make her visit a pleasant one. If she is fond of out-door sports, riding, fishing, boating and mountain-climbing, which we have a right to a.s.sume since she has come to the mountains, we can promise her a good time."

"That is just what I adore. I have brought my own saddle, fishing tackle and swimming suit. I wanted to bring a canoe, but Bradford said I could easily procure a dug out and refused to express anything but the paddles. I even thought of sending my horse, but father said that would scare Mrs. Neal to death, as she was expecting a visitor and had not offered to adopt me. I understand you have a fine saddle mare; I shall ride her and you can get a mule."

"You have mentioned just the things she loves. She constantly wants to be doing something or going somewhere. She rides, drives, swims, shoots, climbs cliffs and trees and is a good, all-round sportsman. I'm not sure, but I think she keeps several fox hounds. Her brother, Bradley, says they belong to him to save her reputation. As soon as she wrote she would visit me, I ordered some hob-nailed shoes and a bathing-suit from Louisville and sent to the drug store for a bottle of iodine, some surgeon's tape and several sheets of adhesive plaster. If you gentlemen can work in a dance in the evening after each mountain climb, her happiness is a.s.sured. Here comes father. Mr. Bradford, you are to sit beside me at dinner and you, John, with Rosamond."

After dinner Duffield and Miss Creech and Mr. Cornett and Miss Hall came in; and the time until eleven o'clock was spent in chit-chat on the porch or, when Mrs. Neal could be prevailed upon to play the piano, in dancing in the drawing-room.

Before the party broke up Bradford and Cornwall made an engagement to take Dorothy and Rosamond up the river fishing at 6:30 the next morning.

As the boys went home they stopped by the livery stable to hire three saddle horses. Finding this impossible, they engaged a light jersey wagon, which Cornwall and the girls were to use, while Bradford was to ride Cornwall's horse.

They had an early breakfast and left on time. When near the ford of Poor Fork, Bradley discovered that he had left his tackle at the stable. He rode back for it while the others, crossing the river, drove up the fork.

When they came to the creek, where it was planned they should seine their minnows, they waited some time for Bradford; then Cornwall tried to seine, but the stream was too deep and the seine too large for individual effort.

This Rosamond, the young and enticing Diana of the party, noticed and, gathering up the cotton lap-robe, a coffee sack and some twine, which she found in the box under the wagon seat, retired to a clump of elder bushes and in a few minutes came forth draped in the lap-robe and moccasined with coffee sacking.

Cornwall was a slave to her most fantastic command from the moment she stepped forth from her screen of elder bushes, topped with their white, pancake flowers, and, taking hold of one end of the seine, jerked and floundered him around while he attempted to retain possession of the other, dragging him barefoot over sharp pebbles and, when on a smooth ledge of rock, sat him down in water to his shoulders. He rejoiced at Bradford's absence and that no other man had seen her loveliness, half-hidden, half-revealed.

They soon had a bucket of minnows and as they drove up the river were overtaken by Bradford, who, mistaking the road, had ridden quite a distance down the main stream.

Miss Clay, Dorothy and Bradford had no trouble in landing a nice catch, but Cornwall's eyes were never on his float, which the fish converted into a submarine when baited and after the minnow had been stolen reposedly floated upon the surface, the resting-place of a big, lace-winged snake doctor.

"Mr. Cornwall, why don't you rebait your hook and try to catch something? What was the good of my going to all that trouble in helping you seine if you will not use the minnows? You look everywhere, except at your float; first at me, then over the treetops as though you wished I were at home or in Heaven."

"That's right, I look first at you. The minnows have helped you land the fish. I feel like a c.r.a.ppie on a dusty turnpike. You have caught more than one variety today! Let's go home. And I am not going to drive those sleepy, old plow horses unless you sit on the front seat." And so they rode home together.

The next afternoon they planned to climb the mountain, but when Bradford and Cornwall came to the house, he said to Rosamond: "Let us drive up the river to Helen Creech's; Bradford and Dorothy can find something else to do," to which she a.s.sented.

Driving slowly along the narrow, shaded road that bordered the river bank, he held her hand and called her "dear," and told her the love story that Kentucky boys tell the girls with whom they go; and she parried and checked him as she had several times before been called upon to do with other boys.

Thus each day, either paddling on the river or riding horseback, or fishing, or bathing, or mountain-climbing, the four were together or paired off; he with Rosamond and Bradford with Dorothy; and each repeatedly declared that they had never before had so glorious a holiday.

Cornwall, at the end of two weeks, made up his mind to propose; and Rosamond, expecting it, had decided she would accept--if he would consent to defer the marriage a couple of years.

Strange that Cornwall and Bradford should each have decided to propose at the same time and place; that is, the night of his dance and on the bench in the garden. Bradford, because he expected to leave the following Monday, his stay already having consumed more than the intended two weeks; Cornwall, thinking that he would first like to show Rosamond through his home.

While they were decorating the house, in which Mrs. Neal, Dorothy and Rosamond a.s.sisted Mrs. Cornwall, he showed her over the house and grounds and, pointing out the bench in the arbor, said: "Tonight, Rosamond, at eleven I shall bring you out here and ask you something.

Watch the time and save that dance for me. If you do not, I may take it for your answer."