Main-Travelled Roads Part 22

"I ain't found her."

"What! And yet you're goin' away t' get married!"

"I'm goin' t' bring a wife back with me ten days fr'm date."

"I see his scheme," put in Jim Rivers. "He's goin' back East somewhere, an' he's goin' to propose to every girl he meets."

"Hold on!" interrupted Rob, holding up his fork. "Ain't quite right.

Every good-lookin' girl I meet."

"Well, I'll be blanked!" exclaimed Jack impatientiy; "that simply lets me out. Any man with such a cheek ought to-"

"Succeed," interrupted Seagraves.

"That's what I say," bawled Hank whiting, the proprietor of the house. "You fellers ain't got any enterprise to yeh. Why don't you go to work an' help settle the country like men? 'Cause y' ain't got no sand. Girls are thicker'n huckleberries back East. I say it's a dum shame!"

"Easy, Henry," said the elegant bank clerk, Wilson, looking gravely about through his spectacles. "I commend the courage and the resolution of Mr. Rodemaker. I pray the lady may not

"Mislike him for his complexion, The shadowed livery of the burning sun."

"Shakespeare," said Adams at a venture.

"Brother in adversity, when do you embark? Another 3ason on an untried sea~"

"Hay!" said Rob, winking at Seagraves. "Oh, I go tonight-night train."

"And return?"

"Ten days from date."

"I'll wager a wedding supper he brings a blonde," said Wilson in his clean-cut, languid speech.

"Oh, come now, Wilson; that's too thin! We all know that rule about dark marryin' light."

"I'll wager she'll be tall," continued Wilson. "I'll wager you, friend Rodemaker, she'll be blonde and tall."

The rest roared at Rob's astonishment and contusion. The absurdity of it grew, and they went into spasms of laughter. But Wilson remained impa.s.sive, not the twitching of a muscle betraying that he saw anything to laugh at in the proposition.

Mrs. Whiting and the kitchen girls came in, wondering at the merriment. Rob began to get uneasy.

"What is it? What is it?" said Mrs. Whiting, a jolly little matron.

Rivers put the case. "Rob's on his way back to Wisconsin t' get married, and Wilson has offered to bet him that his wife will be a blonde and tall, and Rob da.s.sent bet!" And they roared again.

"Why, the idea! The man's crazy!" said Mrs. Whiting. The crowd looked at each other. This was hint enough; they sobered, nodding at each other.

"Aha! I see; I understand."

"It's the heat."

"And the Boston beans."

"Let up on him, Wilson. Don't badger a poor irresponsible fellow. I thought something was wrong when I saw the collar."

"Oh, keep it up!" said Rob, a little nettled by their evident intention to "have fun" with him.

"Soothe him-soo-o-o-o-the him!" said Wilson. "Don't be harsh."

Rob rose from the table. "Go to thunder! You make me tired."

"The fit is on him again!"

He rose disgustedly and went out. They followed him in singie file.

The rest of the town "caught on." Frank Graham heaved an apple at him and joined the procession. Rob went into the store to buy some tobacco. They followed and perched like crows on the counters till he went out; then they followed him, as before. They watched him check his trunk; they witnessed the purchase of the ticket. The town had turned out by this time.

"Waupac!" announced the one nearest the victim.

"Waupac!" said the next man, and the word was pa.s.sed along the street up town.

"Make a note of it," said Wilson: "Waupa-a county where a man's proposal for marriage is honored upon presentation. Sight drafts."

Rivers struck up a song, while Rob stood around, patientiy bearing the jokes of the crowd:

"We're lookin' rather seedy now, While holdin' down our claims, And our vittles are not always of the best, And the mice play slyly round us As we lay down to sleep In our little old tarred shanties on the claim.

"Yet we rather like the novelty Of livin' in this way, Though the bill of fare is often rather tame; An' we're happy as a clam On the land of Uncle Sam In our little old tarred shanty on the claim."

The train drew up at length, to the immense relief of Rob, whose stoical resiguation was beginning to weaken.

"Don't y' wish y' had sand?" he yelled to the crowd as he plunged into the car, thinking he was rid of them.

But no; their last stroke was to follow him into the car, nodding, pointing to their heads, and whispering, managing in the half-minute the train stood at the platform to set every person in the car staring at the crazy man. Rob groaned and pulled his hat down over his eyes-an action which confirmed his tormentors'

words and made several ladies click their tongues in sympathy-"Tick! tick! poor fellow!"

"All abo-o-o-a-rd!' said the conductor, grinning his appreciation at the crowd, and the train was off.

"Oh, won't we make him groan when he gets back!" said Barney, the young lawyer who sang the shouting tenor.

"We'll meet him with the timbrel and the harp. Anybody want to wager? I've got two to one on a short brunette," said Wilson.

II

"Follow it far enough and it may pa.s.s the bend in the river where the water laughs eternally over its shallows."

A CORNFIELD in July is a hot place. The soil is hot and dry; the wind comes across the lazily murmuring leaves laden with a warm sickening smell drawn from the rapidly growing, broad-flung banners of the corn. The sun, nearly vertical, drops a flood of dazzing light and heat upon the field over which the cool shadows run, only to make the heat seem the more intense.

Julia Peterson, faint with fatigue, was tolling back and forth between the corn rows, holding the handles of the double-shovel corn plow while her little brother Otto rode the steaming horse.

Her heart was full of bitterness, and her face flushed with heat, and her muscles aching with fatigue. The heat grew terrible. The corn came to her shoulders, and not a breath seemed to reach her, while the sun, nearing the noon mark, lay pitilessly upon her shoulders, protected only by a calico dress. The dust rose under her feet, and as she was wet with perspiration it soiled her till, with a woman's instinctive cleanliness, she shuddered. Her head throbbed dangerously. what matter to her that the king bird pitched jovially from the maples to catch a wandering bluebottle fly, that the robin was feeding its young, that the bobolink was singing? All these things, if she saw them, only threw her bondage to labor into greater relief.