The Jucklins Part 6

"Oh, do you mean that I am always ready to talk? I didn't think that of you."

I reached out and took the jar from her. "You know I didn't mean that,"

I said; and, looking up, with her eyes full of mischief, she asked: "What did you mean, then?"

"I mean that you talk easily and brightly--like a book."

"You'd better let me have the jar," she said, holding out her hands.

"I'm afraid that you'll fall and break it, after that. You know that a man is never so likely to slip as he is when he's trying to compliment a woman."

"No, I don't know that, but I do know that a Southern woman ought to know the difference between flattery and a real compliment."

"Why a Southern woman?" she asked. She looked to me as if she were really in earnest and I strove to answer her earnestly.

"Because Southern women are not given to flirting; because they place more reliance in what a man says, and----"

"I think you've got yourself tangled up," she said, laughing at me, and I could but acknowledge that I had; and then it was, in the sweetest of tones, that she said: "But if I had thought you really were tangled I would not have spoken of it. Now tell me what you were going to say, and I promise to listen like a mouse in a corner."

"No, I'm afraid to attempt it again." I was in advance of her, for the path was narrow and the dew was now gathering on the gra.s.s, but she shot past me, and, looking back, said beseechingly: "Won't you, please?" The sun was long since down and the twilight was darkening, but I could see the eagerness on her face. "Do, please, for I like to hear such things.

I'm nothing but the simplest sort of a girl, as easy to amuse as a child, and you must remember that you are a great big man, from out in the world."

"Come on with that b.u.t.ter!" the old man shouted, and with a laugh the girl ran away from me. I wondered whether she were playing with me, but I could not believe that she was. In those eyes there might be mischief, but there could not be deceit.

Bed time came immediately after supper. The old man did not go out to look after his chickens, so tired was he, and there was no song in the sitting-room. I sat in the pa.s.sage, where the moonlight fell, and hoped that the girl might join me, but she did not, and I went to my room, where I found Alf, half undressed, sitting on the edge of the bed. I had sat down and had filled my pipe before he took notice of me, but when I began to search about for a light he looked up and remarked: "Matches on the corner of your library."

"Here's one," I replied, and had lighted the pipe when he said: "Saw her to-day, Bill--saw her riding along the road with Dan Stuart. She didn't even look over in the field toward me, but he waved his hand, and I saw more hatred than friendship in it. Blame it all, Bill, I'm not going to follow a plow through the dirt all the time. I can do something better, and after this crop's laid by I'm going to do it. I don't think that she wants to marry a farmer."

"What does Stuart do?" I asked. "How can he afford to be riding about when other men are at work?"

"Oh, I guess he's pretty well fixed. He's got a lot of negroes working for him and he raises a good deal of tobacco. No, sir, she didn't even look toward me."

"But haven't you pa.s.sed her house when you were almost afraid to look toward the porch when you knew that she was standing there?"

"Of course I have!" he cried. "Yes, sir, I've done that many a time--just pretended that I had business everywhere else but on that porch. Ain't it strange how love does take hold of a fellow? It gets into his heart and his heart shoots it to the very ends of his fingers; it gets into his eyes, and he can't see anything but love, love everywhere. It may catch you one of these days, Bill, and when it does, you'll know just how I feel."

I looked at this strong and honest man, this man idolizing an image that he had enshrined in his soul, and I thought to tell him that, with my forehead touching the ground, I had worshiped his sister, but no, it was too delicate a confidence--I would keep it to myself.

We were astir in the dawn the next day, ate breakfast by the light of a lamp, but Guinea was not at the table, and I loitered there after the others were gone out, hoping to see her, but she did not come, and then I remembered that Mrs. Jucklin was also absent, and that the services of the meal had been performed by a negro woman.

When I returned at evening, with the droning of the children's voices echoing in my ears, it seemed to me that I had been gone an age. I came again by the spring, but Guinea was not there, but I heard her singing as I drew near to the house. She was in the pa.s.sage, gleefully dancing, with a broom for a partner. When she saw me she threw down the broom and ran away, laughing; but she came back when she found that I had really discovered her. "You must think that I am the silliest creature in the world," she said, "and I don't know that I can dispute you. Millie Lundsford has just gone home. She and I have been going through with our old-time play, when, with window curtains wound about us to represent long dresses, and with brooms to personate the brave knights who had rescued us from the merciless Turks, we danced in the castle. And I was just taking a turn with a duke when you came. What a knight you would have been."

"And what an inspiration I should have had to drive me onward and to set my soul aflame with ambition," I replied, looking into her eyes.

It must have been my look rather than my words that threw a change over her; my manner must have told her that I was becoming too serious for one who had known her so short a time, but be that as it may, a change had come upon her. She was no longer a girl, gay and airy, with a romping spirit, but a woman, dignified.

"Has your work been hard to-day?" she asked.

"It has been more or less stupid, as it always is," I answered, slowly walking with her toward the dining-room.

When we had sat down to the table Alf came in with his new clothes on, and whispering to me when his sister had turned to say something to her mother, he said: "Got something to tell you when we go up stairs."

Mrs. Jucklin was afraid that I did not eat enough; she had heard that brain workers required much food; her uncle, who had been a justice of the peace, had told her that it made but small difference what he ate while engaged in getting out saw logs, but that when he began to meditate over a case in court he required the most stimulating provender. "And now," she said, "if there's anything that I can fix for you, do, please, let me know what it is. Now, Guinea, what are you t.i.tterin' at? And that negro woman doesn't half do her work, either. I declare to goodness I'd rather do everything on the place than to see her foolin' round as if she's afraid to take hold of anything; and her fingers full of bra.s.s rings, too. I jest told her that she'd have to take 'em off, that I didn't want to eat any bra.s.s. Laws a ma.s.sy, n.i.g.g.e.rs are jest as different from what they was as day is from night. Talk to me about freedom helpin' 'em. But the Lord knows best," she added, with a sigh of resignation. "If He wants 'em to be free, why, no one ought to complain, and goodness knows I don't. Yes, they ought to be free," she went on after a moment of reflection. "Oh, it was a sin and a shame to sell 'em away from their children. But it's all over now, thank G.o.d.

Now, I wonder where your father is, Alf. Never saw sich a man in my life. Looks jest like he begrudges time enough to eat. There he comes now."

The old man came in, covered with dirt. "Alf, is the shot gun loaded?"

he asked, brushing himself.

"Yes, sir. Why?" We looked at the old fellow, wondering what he meant, but he made no explanation. Alf repeated his question. "Why?" And the old man exclaimed: "Oh, nothin'. Jest goin' to blow that red steer's head off, that's all. Confound his hide. I wish I may die this minute if I ever had sich a jolt in my life. Went along by him, not sayin' a word to him, and if he didn't up and let me have both heels I'm the biggest liar that ever walked a log. Hadn't done a thing to him, mind you; walkin' along 'tendin' to my own business, when both of his heels flew at me. And I'll eat a bite and then go and blow his head off."

"Oh, Limuel," his wife protested; "a body to hear you talk would think that you don't do anything at all but thirst for blood. If the Lord puts it in the mind of a steer to kick you, why, it ain't the poor creeter's fault."

The old man snorted. "And if the Lord puts it in my mind to kill the steer it ain't my fault, m.u.t.h.e.r. Conscience alive, what are we all dressed up so about?" he added, looking at Alf. "So much stile goin' on that a body don't know whuther he's a shuckin' corn or is at a picnic.

Blow his head off as soon as I eat a bite."

I could see that Alf was anxious to tell me something, and immediately after supper I went up stairs with him. He took off his coat, and after dusting it carefully hung it up and sat down. He looked at me as if he were delighted with the curiosity that I was showing, and then as he reached for his pipe he began: "I was a-plowing out in the field about three hours by sun, when I saw Millie come out of the valley like a larkspur straightening up in the spring of the year, and after waiting a while, but always with my eye on the house, I quit work, slipped up here and dressed myself so as to be ready to walk home with her. I was rather afraid to ask her at first, knowing that this was breaking away from all my former strings and announcing my determination of keeping company with her, out and out, and I don't know exactly how I got at it, but I did, and the first thing I knew I was walking down the road with her.

And this time I do remember what she said, but there wasn't anything so encouraging in it. The fact is she had something to tell me about you."

"About me? What can she know about me? Probably she was giving you her father's estimate of me."

"No, but somebody else's estimate," he replied. "You recollect a fellow named Bentley?"

"Bentley? Of course, I do. We lived on adjoining farms, and I have a sore cause to remember him. But how could she have heard anything about him?"

"Well, I'll tell you. Mrs. Bentley is old man Aimes' sister, and she's over here now on a visit, and when she heard that you were teaching school in the neighborhood she declared that it would be a mercy if you didn't kill somebody before you got through. And then she told that you had waylaid her son one night and come mighty nigh killing him. She said that she was perfectly willing to forgive you until she saw the scar left on her son's forehead, and a woman can't very well forgive a scar, you know. Old Aimes and all his sons are slaughter-house dogs, and they appeared to take up a hatred against you at once. Don't you remember as we drove to the school a boy threw a chunk at us as we were pa.s.sing a clearing and swore that he could whip us both? Well, that was the youngest Aimes, and the trick now is, as I understand it, to send him to school with instructions to do pretty much as he pleases and to take revenge on you in case you whip him. Millie said that her father swore that it was a shame and that if you wanted any help from him you could get it. n.o.body likes the Aimes family. Came in here several years ago, and have been kicking up disturbances ever since."

I told Alf why I had s.n.a.t.c.hed Bentley off his horse, nor in the least did I shield myself. I even called myself a brute. But I told him of the season of sorrow and humiliation through which I had pa.s.sed, that I had insisted upon giving Bentley the only valuable thing I possessed, that against his mother's command I had striven to work for him during the time he was laid up, and that I had even plowed his field at night.

"I don't know that you were so far wrong in beating him in the first place," said Alf, "but if you were, your course afterward should have more than atoned for it. By gracious, I feel that if some one would plow for me I'd let him maul me until he got tired. Millie said that she was afraid that something might happen to get you into trouble. She seemed a good deal concerned about it, for I reckon she's got the n.o.blest and purest heart of any human being now in the world, and she said that she thought that if you were to give up the school her father could make some arrangements for you to study law in Purdy, the county seat. I told her that you would be delighted to quit teaching under ordinary circ.u.mstances, but that just at present you'd teach or die. Was I right?"

"Surely, and I thank you for having defined my position. I wonder if we can commit an innocent error, an error that will lie asleep and never rise up to confront us? Now, I shall have a fine reputation in this neighborhood."

"Oh, don't let that worry you, Bill. It'll come out all right. I'd be willing to have almost any sort of name if it would influence that girl to talk in my favor as she did in yours. I don't know what to think; somehow I can't find out her opinion of me. I slily spoke about that fellow, Dan Stuart, but she didn't say a word. Confound it, Bill, can't a woman see that she's got a fellow on the gridiron? They can't even bear to see a hog suffer, but they can smile and look unconcerned while a man is writhing over the coals. I don't understand it."

"Nor do I, Alf, but I've been over the coals--I mean that I can well imagine what it is to be there."

He lay down, and with his head far back on the pillow, looked upward as if with his gaze he would bore through the roof and reach the stars. He was silent for a long time, but when I had blown out the light and had gone to bed, thinking that he was asleep, I heard him muttering.

"Talking to me, Alf?" He turned over with a sigh and answered: "No, not particularly. I was just wondering whether a man ought to try to outlive a disappointment in love or kill himself and end the matter. We are told that G.o.d is love, and if G.o.d is denied to a man, what's the use of trying to struggle on? I suppose the advantage of knowledge is that it enables a man to settle such questions at once, but as I am not learned, having grabbed but a little here and there, I have to worry along with a thing that another man might dismiss at once. What's your idea, Bill?"

"My idea is that a man ought never to give up; but, of course, there are times when he is so completely beaten that to fight longer is worse than useless. But learning cannot settle questions wherein the heart is involved. The philosopher may kill himself in despair, while the ignorant man may continue to fight and may finally win. The other day you spoke of something that was in your favor--something that has to do with your sister's education. Would you think it impertinent if I ask you what that something is?"

"No, I'd not think that," he answered. I had risen up in bed and was straining my eyes, trying to find his face, to study his expression, but darkness lay between us. "Not impertinent in the least, but I can't tell you just now. After a while, if you stay here long enough, you'll know all about it. Bill, if that young Aimes comes to school and begins any of his pranks, take him down and I'll stand by you, and people that know me well will tell you that I mean what I say. The old man has never been whipped yet, I mean my father, and n.o.body ever saw his son knock under."

CHAPTER VII.