The Call of the Cumberlands Part 25

"Evenin', Sally," he greeted.

"Evenin', Brother Spencer. How air ye?"

"Tol'able, thank ye, Sally." The body-and-soul mender studied the girl awhile in silence, and then said bluntly:

"Ye've done broke right smart, in the last year. Anything the matter with ye?"

She shook her head, and laughed. It was an effort to laugh merrily, but only the ghost of the old instinctive blitheness rippled into it.

"I've jest come from old Spicer South's," volunteered the doctor.

"He's ailin' pretty consid'able, these days."

"What's the matter with Unc' Spicer?" demanded the girl, in genuine anxiety. Every one along Misery called the old man Unc' Spicer.

"I can't jest make out." Her informer spoke slowly, and his brow corrugated into something like sullenness. "He hain't jest to say sick.

Thet is, his organs seems all right, but he don't 'pear to have no heart fer nothin', and his victuals don't tempt him none. He's jest puny, thet's all."

"I'll go over thar, an' see him," announced the girl. "I'll cook a chicken thet'll tempt him."

The physician's mind was working along some line which did not seem to partake of cheerfulness. Again, he studied the girl, still upright and high-chinned, but, somehow, no longer effervescent with wild, resilient strength.

"Hit sometimes 'pears to me," he said, gruffly, "thet this here thing of eddication costs a sight more than hit comes to."

"What d'ye mean, Brother Spencer?"

"I reckon if Samson South hadn't a-took this hyar hankerin' atter larnin', an' had stayed home 'stid of rainbow chasin', the old man would still be able-bodied, 'stid of dyin' of a broken heart--an' you----"

The girl's cheeks flushed. Her violet eyes became deep with a loyal and defensive glow.

"Ye mustn't say things like them, Brother Spencer." Her voice was very firm and soft. "Unc' Spicer's jest gettin' old, an' es fer me, I wasn't never better ner happier in my life." It was a lie, but a splendid lie, and she told herself as well as Brother Spencer that she believed it.

"Samson would come back in a minit ef we sent fer him. He's smart, an'

he's got a right ter l'arnin'! He hain't like us folks; he's a--" She paused, and groped for the word that Lescott had added to her vocabulary, which she had half-forgotten. "He's a genius!"

There rose to the lips of the itinerant preacher a sentiment as to how much more loyalty availeth a man than genius, but, as he looked at the slender and valiant figure standing in the deep dust of the road, he left it unuttered.

The girl spent much time after that at the house of old Spicer South, and her coming seemed to waken him into a fitful return of spirits. His strength, which had been like the strength of an ox, had gone from him, and he spent his hours sitting listlessly in a split-bottomed rocker, which was moved from place to place, following the sunshine.

"I reckon, Unc' Spicer," suggested the girl, on one of her first visits, "I'd better send fer Samson. Mebby hit mout do ye good ter see him."

The old man was weakly leaning back in his chair, and his eyes were vacantly listless; but, at the suggestion, he straightened, and the ancient fire came again to his face.

"Don't ye do hit," he exclaimed, almost fiercely. "I knows ye means. .h.i.t kindly, Sally, but don't ye meddle in my business."

"I--I didn't 'low ter meddle," faltered the girl.

"No, little gal." His voice softened at once into gentleness. "I knows ye didn't. I didn't mean ter be short-answered with ye neither, but thar's jest one thing I won't 'low n.o.body ter do--an' thet's ter send fer Samson. He knows the road home, an', when he wants ter come, he'll find the door open, but we hain't a-goin' ter send atter him."

The girl said nothing, and, after awhile, the old man wait on:

"I wants ye ter understand me, Sally. Hit hain't that I'm mad with Samson. G.o.d knows, I loves the boy.... I hain't a-blamin' him, neither...."

He was silent for awhile, and his words came with the weariness of dead hopes when he began again. "Mebby, I oughtn't ter talk about sech things with a young gal, but I'm an old man, an' thar hain't no harm in hit....

From the time when I used ter watch you two children go a-trapsin' off in the woods together atter hickory nuts, thar's been jest one thing thet I've looked forward to and dreamed about: I wanted ter see ye married. I 'lowed--" A mistiness quenched the sternness of his gray eyes. "I 'lowed thet, ef I could see yore children playin' round this here yard, everything thet's ever gone wrong would be paid fer."

Sally stood silently at his side, and her cheeks flushed as the tears crept into her eyes; but her hand stole through the thick mane of hair, fast turning from iron-gray to snow-white.

Spicer South watched the fattening hog that rubbed its bristling side against the rails stacked outside the fence, and then said, with an imperious tone that did not admit of misconstruction:

"But, Sally, the boy's done started out on his own row. He's got ter hoe hit. Mebby he'll come back--mebby not! Thet's as the Lord wills.

Hit wouldn't do us no good fer him to come withouten he come willin'ly.

The meanest thing ye could do ter me--an' him--would be ter send fer him. Ye mustn't do hit. Ye mustn't!"

"All right, Unc' Spicer. I hain't a-goin' ter do hit--leastways, not yit. But I'm a-goin' ter come over hyar every day ter see ye."

"Ye can't come too often, Sally, gal," declared the old clansman, heartily.

Wilfred Horton found himself that fall in the position of a man whose course lies through rapids, and for the first time in his life his pleasures were giving precedence to business. He knew that his efficiency would depend on maintaining the physical balance of perfect health and fitness, and early each morning he went for his gallop in the park. At so early an hour, he had the bridle path for the most part to himself. This had its compensations, for, though Wilfred Horton continued to smile with his old-time good humor, he acknowledged to himself that it was not pleasant to have men who had previously sought him out with flatteries avert their faces, and pretend that they had not seen him.

Horton was the most-hated and most-admired man in New York, but the men who hated and snubbed him were his own sort, and the men who admired him were those whom he would never meet, and who knew him only through the columns of penny papers. Their sympathy was too remote to bring him explicit pleasure. He was merely attempting, from within, reforms which the public and the courts had attempted from without.

But, since he operated from within the walls, he was denounced as a Judas. Powerful enemies had ceased to laugh, and begun to conspire. He must be silenced! How, was a mooted question. But, in some fashion, he must be silenced. Society had not cast him out, but Society had shown him in many subtle ways that he was no longer her favorite. He had taken a plebeian stand with the ma.s.ses. Meanwhile, from various sources, Horton had received warnings of actual personal danger. But at these he had laughed, and no hint of them had reached Adrienne's ears.

One evening, when business had forced the postponement of a dinner engagement with Miss Lescott, he begged her over the telephone to ride with him the following morning.

"I know you are usually asleep when I'm out and galloping," he laughed, "but you pitched me neck and crop into this hurly-burly, and I shouldn't have to lose everything. Don't have your horse brought. I want you to try out a new one of mine."

"I think," she answered, "that early morning is the best time to ride.

I'll meet you at seven at the Plaza entrance."

They had turned the upper end of the reservoir before Horton drew his mount to a walk, and allowed the reins to hang. They had been galloping hard, and conversation had been impracticable.

"I suppose experience should have taught me," began Horton, slowly, "that the most asinine thing in the world is to try to lecture you, Drennie. But there are times when one must even risk your delight at one's discomfiture."

"I'm not going to tease you this morning," she answered, docilely. "I like the horse too well--and, to be frank, I like you too well!"

"Thank you," smiled Horton. "As usual, you disarm me on the verge of combat. I had nerved myself for ridicule."

"What have I done now?" inquired the girl, with an innocence which further disarmed him.

"The Queen can do no wrong. But even the Queen, perhaps more particularly the Queen, must give thought to what people are saying."

"What are people saying?"

"The usual unjust things that are said about women in society. You are being constantly seen with an uncouth freak who is scarcely a gentleman, however much he may be a man. And malicious tongues are wagging."

The girl stiffened.

"I won't spar with you. I know that you are alluding to Samson South, though the description is a slander. I never thought it would be necessary to say such a thing to you, Wilfred, but you are talking like a cad."