The Sherrods Part 10

"No; a week, 'Gene. Thet's what the letter said."

"Aw, what you givin' us! Him to git $15 a week? Why, goldern it, I'm only gittin' $18 a month, an' I've allus been counted a better hand'n him. Who said that was in the letter?" Jealousy was getting the better of 'Gene.

"Charlie Spangler heerd Justine Van read it right out loud, an' he's a powerful quick-witted boy. He gen'rally hears things right."

"He's the cussedest little liar in Clay township," snarled 'Gene.

"You know better'n that, 'Gene Crawley. You're jest mad 'cause Jed's doin' well, thet's what you air, and you know it," cried she.

"Mad? What fer?" exclaimed he, trying to recover his temper for the first time in his life.

"'Cause you're jealous an' 'cause he's got her, thet's what fer," she said, conscious that she was stirring his violent nature to the boiling point. But to her surprise--and to his own, for that matter--he gulped and laughed coa.r.s.ely.

"Well, he's welcome to her, ain't he?" he asked. "Who's got a better right?"

"Thet ain't the way you talked a year ago," she said meaningly.

"You know too dern much," he said and walked away, leaving behind a thoroughly dissatisfied woman. But Mrs. Hardesty did not know how deeply she had cut nor how he raged inwardly as he hurried homeward through the night.

Several days later he boldly climbed the meadow fence, and, for the first time since the fight, started across Justine's property on a short cut to the hills. What his object was in going to the hills in the dusk of that evening he himself did not clearly understand, but at the bottom of it all was the desire to intrude upon forbidden ground.

Beneath the ugliness of his motive, however, there lurked a certain timidity. He was conscious that he was trespa.s.sing, and he knew she would not like it. But if she saw him cross the meadow, he never knew.

His intention had been, of course, to attract her notice, and he was filled with disappointment. Late in the night he walked back from the hills. There was a light in one of her rear windows, and he peered eagerly from the garden fence, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. When Yank began to bark, he threw stones at the faithful brute and stood his ground, trusting that she would come to the door. He cursed when old Mrs. Crane appeared in the yard, calling in frightened tones to the dog. Then he slunk away in the night. The next day and the next he strode through the meadow. With each failure he grew uglier and more set in his purpose, for he had a fair certainty that she saw and avoided him.

One evening he ventured across the meadow, his black eyes searching for her. Suddenly he came upon her. She was driving a cow home from a far corner of the pasture, leisurely, in the waning daylight, her thoughts of Jud and the future. She did not see Crawley until he was almost beside her, and she could not restrain the gasp of terror. Hoping that he would not speak to her, she hurried on.

"Have you heerd from Jud ag'in, Justine?" he asked, his voice trembling in spite of himself.

"How dare you speak to me?" she cried, not checking her speed, nor glancing toward him.

"Well, I guess I've got a voice an' they ain't no law ag'in me usin'

it, is there? What's the use bein' so unfriendly, anyhow? I'll drive the cow in fer you, Justine," he went on with a strange bashfulness.

His stride toward her brought her to a standstill, her eyes flashing with resentment.

"'Gene Crawley, you've been ordered to keep off of our place and I want you to stay off. If you ever put your foot in this pasture again I'll sic' Yank on you. Don't you ever dare speak to me again." She drew her form to its full height and looked into his face.

"If you sic' Yank on me I'll kill him, jes' as I could 'a' killed _him_ when we fit over yander by the crick. I let him up fer your sake an'

I've been sorry fer it ever sence. Say, Justine, I want to be your friend----"

"Friend!" she exclaimed scornfully. "You're a treacherous dog and you don't deserve to have a friend on earth. If you were a man you'd keep off this place and quit bothering me. You know that Jud's away and you are coward enough to take the advantage. I want you to _go_--go at once!"

"You ain't got no right to call me a coward," he growled.

"Do you think it brave to say what you did about me and to make your boasts down at the toll-gate? Is that the way a man acts?"

"Somebody's been lyin' to you----" he began confusedly.

"No! You did say it and there's no use lying to me. I loathe you worse than a snake, and I wouldn't trust you as far. 'Gene Crawley, I've got a loaded shotgun in the house. So help me G.o.d, I'll kill you if you don't keep away from me."

She was in deadly earnest and he knew it. The rage of despair burned away every vestige of the brutal confidence in which he had intruded upon her little domain.

"I'm not such a bad feller, Justine----" he began, with a mixture of defiance and humbleness in his voice. It was now dark and they were alone, but she commanded the situation despite her quaking heart.

"You lie, 'Gene Crawley!" she exclaimed. "You are a drunken brute, and you don't deserve to be spoken to by any woman. You are not fit to talk to--to--to the hogs!"

He clenched his fists and an oath sprang to his lips. "I've a notion to----" he hissed, but could not complete the threat. The suppressed words were "brain you."

"I expect you to," she cried. "Why don't you do it, you coward?" He glared at her for a moment, baffled. Suddenly his eyes fell, his shoulders trembled, and his voice broke.

"I wouldn't hurt you for the whole world, Justine." He turned and walked away from her without another word.

'Gene Crawley never touched liquor after that night. "Not fit to talk to the hogs," "a drunken brute," were sentences that curdled in his heart, freezing forever the l.u.s.t of liquor. He was beginning to crave the respect of a woman. Deep in his soul lay the hope that if he could only cease drinking he might win more than respect from her.

CHAPTER X.

THE CLOTHES AND THE MAN.

It was six weeks before Jud had saved enough money to make the rather expensive trip to Glenville. In that time he found many experiences, novel and soul-trying. The busy city clashed against the rough edges of this unsophisticated youth and quickly wore them off. By the time he was ready to board the train for a two-days' stay with Justine he had acquired what it had taken other men years to learn. Keen and quick-witted, he easily fell into the ways of strangers, putting forward as good a foot as any country-bred boy who ever went to Chicago.

The newspaper on which he was employed recognized his worth, and at the end of the month he was pleased beyond all expression to find a twenty dollar gold piece in his envelope instead of a ten and a five. The chief artist told him his salary would improve correspondingly with his work. Still, he realized that twenty dollars a week was but little more than it required to keep him "going" in this spendthrift metropolis. The men he met were good fellows and they spent money with the freedom customary among newspaper workers. Jud did not spend his foolishly, yet he found he could save but little. He did not touch liquor; the other boys in the office did. His friend, the chief artist, advised him to save what money he could, but to avoid as much as possible the danger of being called a "cheap skate." He was told to be anything but stingy.

The young artist would gladly have eaten at lunch counters and slept in the lowliest of flats if he could have followed his own inclinations.

But how could he let the other boys spend money on expensive meals without responding as liberally? It was with joy, then, that he welcomed the increase; and besides, it proved to him that there was promise of greater advancement, and that at no far distant day he could bring Justine to the city.

He took a bright twenty dollar gold piece to her on that first and long-expected visit. She met him at the station. All the way out to the little cottage he beamed with the pleasure and pride of possessing such love as came to him from this glowing girl. He forgot to compare her with the visions of loveliness he had become accustomed to seeing in the city. So overjoyed was he that he did not notice her simple garments, her sunburnt hands, her brown face. To him she was the most beautiful of all beings--the most perfect, the most to be desired.

"Jud, dear, I am so happy I could die," she whispered as they entered the cottage door after the drive home. He took her in his arms and held her for neither knew how long.

"Are you so glad to see me, sweetheart?" he asked tenderly.

"Glad! If you had not come to-day I should have gone to Chicago to-night. I could not have waited another day. Oh, it is so good to have you here; it is so good to be in your arms! You don't know how I have longed for you, Jud;--you don't know how lonely I have been all these years."

"Years! It has been but a month and a half," he said, smiling.

"But each day has been a year. Have they not seemed long to you?" she cried, chilled by the fear that they had been mere days to him when they had been such ages to her.

"My nights were years, Justine. My days were short; it was in the nights that I had time to think, and then I felt I should go wild with homesickness. You will never know how often I was tempted to get up out of bed and come back to you. It can't be long, it must not, till I can have you up there with me. I can't go through many such months as the last one; I'd die, Justine, honest I would."

"It won't be long, I know. You are getting on so nicely and you'll be able soon to take me with you. Maybe this winter?" She asked the question eagerly, dubiously.

"This winter? Good heavens, if I can't have you up there this winter, what's the use of trying to do anything? I want you right away, but I know I can't do it for a month or two----"

"Don't hope too strongly, dear. You must not count on it. I don't believe you can do it so soon--no, not for six months," she said, again the loving adviser.

"You don't know me," he cried. "I can do it!"