Life at High Tide Part 2

"No," he said, sadly; "no; I know what it's like at the Farm. There is no room there for anything but bodies. No time for anything but Death."

"How long would it take you to put it together?" she asked; and Dyer, who was lounging across his counter, shook his head at her, warningly.

"There ain't nothin' to it, Mrs. Graham," he said, under his breath; "he's--" He tapped his forehead significantly.

"Oh, man!" Nathaniel cried out, pa.s.sionately, "you don't know what you say! Are the souls of the departed 'nothing'? I have it in my hand--right here in my hand, Lizzie Graham--to give the world the gift of sight. And they won't give me a crust of bread and a roof over my head till I can offer it to them!"

"Couldn't somebody put it together for you?" she asked, the tears in her eyes. "I would try, Nathaniel;--you could explain it to me; I could come and see you every day, and you could tell me."

His face brightened into a smile. "No, kind woman. Only I can do it. I can't see very clearly, but there is a glimmer of light, enough to get it together. But it would take at least two months; at least two months. The doctor said the light would last, perhaps, three months.

Then I shall be blind. But if I could give eyes to the blind world before I go into the dark, what matter? What matter, I say?" he cried, brokenly.

Lizzie was silent. Dyer shook his head, and tapped his forehead again; then he lounged out from behind his counter, and settled himself in one of the armchairs outside the office door.

Nathaniel dropped his head upon his breast, and sunk back into his dreams. The office was very still, except for two bluebottle flies b.u.t.ting against the ceiling and buzzing up and down the window-panes.

A hot wind wandered in and flapped a mowing-machine poster on the wall; then dropped, and the room was still again, except that leaf shadows moved across the square of sunshine on the bare boards by the open door. When Lizzie got up to go, he did not hear her kind good-by until she repeated it, touching his shoulder with her friendly hand.

Then he said, hastily, with a faint frown: "Good-by. Good-by." And sank again into his daze of disappointment.

Lizzie wiped her eyes furtively before she went out upon the hotel porch; there Dyer, balancing comfortably on two legs of his chair, detained her with drawling gossip until Hiram Wells came up, and, lounging against a zinc-sheathed bar between two hitching-posts, added his opinion upon Nathaniel May's affairs.

"Well, Lizzie, seen any ghosts?" he began.

"I seen somebody that'll be a ghost pretty soon if you send him off to the Farm," Lizzie said, sharply.

"Well," Hiram said, "I don't see what's to be done--'less some nice, likely woman comes along and marries him."

Dyer snickered. Lizzie turned very red, and started home down the elm-shaded street. When she reached her little gray house under its big tree, she went first into the cow-barn--a crumbling lean-to with a sagging roof--to see if a sick dog which had found shelter there was comfortable. It seemed to Lizzie that his bleared eyes should be washed; and she did this before she went through her kitchen into a shed-room where she slept. There she sat down in hurried and frowning preoccupation, resting her elbows on her knees and staring blankly at the braided mat on the floor. As she sat there her face reddened; and once she laughed, nervously. "An' me 'most fifty!" she said to herself....

The next morning she went to see Nathaniel again.

He was up-stairs in a little hot room under the sloping eaves. He was bending over, straining his poor eyes close to some small wheels and bands and reflectors arranged on a shaky table. He welcomed her eagerly, and with all the excitement of conviction plunged at once into an explanation of his principle. Then suddenly conviction broke into despair: "I am not to be allowed to finish it!" He gave a quick sob, like a child. He had forgotten Lizzie's presence.

"Nathaniel," she said, and paused; then began again: "Nathaniel--"

"Who is here? Oh yes: Lizzie Graham. Kind woman; kind woman."

"Nathaniel, you know I ain't got means; I'm real poor,--"

"Are you?" he said, with instant concern. "I am sorry. If I could help you--if I had anything of my own--or if they will let me finish my machine; then I shall have all the money I want, and I will help you; I will give you all you need. I will give to all who ask!" he said, joyfully; then again, abruptly: "But no; but no; I am not allowed to finish it."

"Nathaniel, what I was going to say was--I am real poor. I got James's pension, and our house out on the upper road;--do you mind it--a mite of a house, with a big elm right by the gate? And woods on the other side of the road? Real shady and pleasant. And I got eight hens and a cow;--well, she'll come in in September, and I'll have real good milk all winter. Maybe this time I could raise the calf, if it's a heifer.

Generally I sell it; but if you--well, it might pay to raise it, if--we--" Lizzie stammered with embarra.s.sment.

Nathaniel had forgotten her again; his head had fallen forward on his breast, and he sighed heavily.

"You see, I _am_ poor," Lizzie said; "you wouldn't have comforts."

Nathaniel was silent.

Lizzie laughed, nervously. "Well? Seems queer; but--will you?"

Nathaniel, waking from his troubled dream, said, patiently: "What did you say? I ask your pardon; I was not listening."

"Why," Lizzie said, her face very red, "I was just saying--if--if you didn't mind getting married, Nathaniel, you could come and live with me?"

"Married?" he said, vacantly. "To whom?"

"Me," she said.

Nathaniel turned toward her in astonishment. "Married!" he repeated.

"If you lived with me, you could finish the machine; there's an attic over my house; I guess it's big enough. Only, we'd _have_ to be married, I'm afraid. Jonesville is a mean place, Nathaniel. We'd have to be married. But you could finish the machine."

He stood up, trembling, the tears suddenly running down his face.

_"Finish it?"_ he said, in a whisper. "Oh, you are not deceiving me? You would not deceive me?"

"I don't see why you couldn't finish it," she told him, kindly. "But, Nathaniel, mind, I am poor. You wouldn't get as good victuals even as you would at the Farm. And you'd have to marry me, or folks would talk about me. But you could finish your machine."

Nathaniel lifted his dim eyes to heaven.

III

"Well," said Mrs. b.u.t.terfield, "I suppose you know your own business.

But my goodness sakes alive!"

"I just thought I'd tell you," Lizzie said.

"But, Lizzie Graham! you ain't got the means."

"I can feed him."

"There's his clothes; why, my land--"

"I told Hiram Wells that if the town would see to his clothes, I'd do the rest. They'd have to clothe him if he went to the Farm."

"Well," said Mrs. b.u.t.terfield, "I never in all my born days--Lizzie, now _don't_. My goodness,--I--I ain't got no words! Why, his victuals--"

"He ain't hearty. Sam Dyer told me he wa'n't hearty."

"Well, then, Sam Dyer had better feed him, 'stid o' puttin' it onto you!"

Lizzie was silent. Then she said, with a short sigh, "Course if I could 'a' just taken him in an' kep' him--but you said folks would talk--"

"Well, I guess so. Course they'd talk--you know this place. You've always been well thought of in Jonesville, but that would 'a' been the end of you, far as bein' respectable goes."

"Well, you can't say this ain't respectable."