The Sherrods Part 2

For a year Jud cared for his mother, and worked in the fields with David Strong's men at wages of twelve dollars a month. Half of the year's crop Strong gave to the widow of John Sherrod, although not a penny's worth of it was hers by right. After her death Strong and his family moved into the big old house, and Jud Sherrod lived in a room in what had been his home.

Justine Van's grandmother, in her will, left to the girl a thirty-acre piece of ground, half timber, half cultivated, about a mile from the white house in which the beneficiary was born and which was swallowed up by the great disaster. Bereft of every penny, James Van took his wife and daughter to the miserable little cottage. The girl shouldered as much of the burden of poverty as her young and tender shoulders could carry. She begged for an appointment as teacher in the humble schoolhouse where her a-b-abs had been learned, and for two years and a half before her marriage she had taught the little flock of boys and girls. Especially necessary did this means of earning a livelihood become when, two years after the failure, her father died. Then Mrs.

Van followed him, and Justine, not nineteen, was face to face with the world, a trembling, guileless child.

Her wages at the schoolhouse were twenty-five dollars a month, for six months in a year, and the yield of grain from her poorly tilled farm was barely enough to pay the taxes and the help hire. Old Jim Hardesty farmed the place for her, and he robbed her. For six months after the mother's death she lived alone in the cottage, and then the neighbors finally taking the matter in hand and insisting that she be provided with a companion, her old nurse, Mrs. Crane, came to the place. She was shrewd from years of adversity and persuaded Justine to send Jim Hardesty packing--and that was the hardest duty Justine had ever had to meet.

The discouraged boy, over on David Strong's place, worn thin with hard work and sickness, deprived of every chance, as he thought, to realize his ambitions, found in the girl a sympathetic comrade. Of all the people in his world she was the only one who understood his desires, and could, in a way, share with him the despair that made life as he lived it seem like a narrow cell from which he could look longingly with no hope of escape. Tired and sore from misfortune, these two simple, loving natures turned to each other. His first trembling kiss upon her surprised, parted lips was a treasure that never left her memory. The bloom came to her cheeks, lightness touched her flagging heart, happiness shone through the gloom, and the whole countryside marveled at her growing beauty. This slim, budding maid of the meadow and wood was as fair a bit as nature ever perfected. The sweetness and purity of womanhood undefiled dwelt in her body and soul. No taint of worldliness had blighted her. She was a pure, simple, country girl, ignorant of wile, sinless and trustful.

Justine was like her father, fair faced and straight of form. Her hair was long and reddish-brown, her brow was broad and full, her eyes big and brown and soft with love, her cheeks smooth and clear. A trifle above the medium height, straight and strong, of slender mold, she was as graceful as a gazelle. Health seemed to glow in the atmosphere about her.

With Jud, too, the realization of love and the feeling that there was something to live for, brought a change. His stooping shoulders straightened, his eyes brightened, his steps became springy. He whistled and sang at his work, took an interest in life, and presently even resumed his drawing. The country folk winked knowingly. The two were constantly together when opportunity afforded, so it soon became common report that he was her "feller, fer sure," and she was his "girl."

One evening, as they sat in the dusk down by the creek, which ran through her bit of pasture land, Jud drew his mother's plain gold ring from his little finger and slipped it upon Justine's third. They were betrothed.

Never were such sweethearts as Jud and Justine. They were lovers, friends, comrades. Her sweet, serious face took a new life, new color at his approach, her dreamy eyes grew softer and more wistful, her low voice more musical. Her soul was his, her life belonged to him, her heart beat only for him. Jud's famished hopes of something beyond the farm found fresh encouragement in her simple, wondering praise. She was his critic, his unconscious mentor. Beneath her untrained eye he sketched as he never sketched before. Looking over his shoulder as he lay stretched upon the gra.s.s, she marveled at the skill with which his pencil transferred the world about them to the dearly bought drawing pads, and her enthusiastic little cries of delight were tributes that brought confidence to the heart of the artist.

The girl had scores of admirers. Every boy, every man in the township longed to "make up" to her, but she gave no thought to them. Half a dozen widowers with children asked her to marry them. She and Jud laughed when Eversole Baker besought her to become mother to his nine children, including two daughters older than herself.

But there was one determined suitor, and she feared him with an uncanny dread that knew no rest until she was safely Jud's on the wedding night. That one was Eugene Crawley, drunkard and blasphemer.

Crawley was born in the dense timber land north of Glenville. His father had been a woodchopper, hunter, and fisherman. Hard stories came down to town about Sam Crawley. Of 'Gene, the boy, nothing against his honesty at least could be said. He was a vile wretch when drinking, little better when sober, but he was as honest as the sun.

He had gone to school with Jud and Justine when they were little "tads," and his rough affection for her began when they were mastering the "first reader." He and Jud had fought over her twice and each had been a victor. The girl despised him, from childhood, and he knew it.

Still, he clung to the hope that he could take her away from his rival.

He dogged her footsteps, frightened her with his mad protestations, and finally alarmed her by his threats. The day before the wedding he had met her as she left the schoolhouse and had sworn to kill Jud Sherrod.

She did not tell Jud of this, nor did she tell him that she had pleaded with Crawley to spare her lover's life. Had she told Jud all this she would have been obliged to tell him how the brute had suddenly burst into tears and promised he would not harm Jud if he could help it.

CHAPTER IV.

MRS. HARDESTY'S CHARITY.

For many days after their marriage Jud and Justine were obliged to endure coa.r.s.e jokes, kindly meant if out of tune with their sensitive minds. Happy weeks sped by, weeks replete with the fullness of joy known only to the newly wedded. Days of toil, that had once been long and irksome, now were flitting seasons of antic.i.p.ation between real joys. At dusk he came home with eyes glowing in the delight that knows no fatigue, with a heart leaping with the love that is young and eager, and blood carousing under the intoxication of pa.s.sion's wine. In the kitchen door of the little cot, no longer dismal in its weather-worn plainness, there always stood the slim, supple girl, her heart leaping with the eagerness to be clasped in his arms. She was growing into perfect womanhood, perfect in figure, perfect in love, perfect in all its mysteries. Her whole life before now appeared as a dreamless sleep to her; the present was the beginning of a divine dream that softens the rest of life into mellow forgetfulness.

She walked with him in the hayfield, from choice, delighted to toil near him, to breathe the same air, to endure the same sun, to enjoy the same moments of rest beneath the great oaks, to drink from the same brown jug of spring water, to sing, to laugh, to play with him. It was not work. Then came the harvesting, the thrashing, and the fall sowing. Six months were soon gone and still these children played like cupids. Other married people in the neighborhood, whose honeymoons had not been more than a week old before they began to show callous spots, wondered dumbly at the beautiful girl who grew prettier and straighter instead of turning sour, frowsy, and bent under the rigors of connubial joy--as they had found it. They could not understand how the husband could be so blithe and cheery, so upstanding and strong, and so devoted. The wives of the neighborhood pondered over the latter condition. The husbands did not deem it worth while or expedient to wonder--they merely called Jud a "dinged shif'less boy that'll wake up some time er 'nother an' understan' more 'n he does now." Yet they had to admit that Jud was conducting the little farm faultlessly, even though he did find time to moon with his wife, to bask in the sunshine of her love, to wander over wood and field with her beside him, sketching, sketching, eternally sketching.

Rainy days and Sundays brought hours of sweet communion to the happy, simple young couple. So thoroughly were they devoted to one another that their lack of attention to the neighbors was the source of more or less indignation on the part of those who "knowed that Jud and her hadn't no right to be so infernal stuck-up." And yet these same discontents were won over in the briefest conversation with the pair when they chanced to meet. Even the most snappish and envious were overcome by the gentle good humor, the proud simplicity of these young sweethearts, who saw no ugliness, who knew no bitterness, who found life and its hardships no struggle at all.

They were desperately poor, but they made no complaint. The vigor of life was theirs, and they sang as they suffered, looking forward with bright, confident eyes to the East of their dreams, in which their sun of fortune was to rise.

Justine was to have the school another year, beginning in October, after a six-months' vacation. Jud's pride revolted at first against this decision of hers, but she overcame every argument, and he loved her more than ever for the share she was taking in the dull battle against poverty. The land he tilled was not fertile; it had been overworked for years. The crops were growing thinner; the timber was slowly falling beneath the stove-wood ax; the meadow plot was almost barren of gra.s.s. It was not a productive "thirty," and they knew it.

There was a bare existence in it when crops were good, but there was, as yet, no mortgage to face. Jud owned a team of horses, and Justine two cows and a dozen hogs. They had no other vehicle than a farm wagon, old and rattling. When they went to the village it was in this wagon; when to church, they walked, although the distance was two miles, so tender was their pride.

Little Justine was the politic one. Jud was proud, and was ever ready to resent the kindly offices of neighbors. Had it been left to him, young Henry Bossman would have been summarily dismissed when he offered to help Jud stack the hay, "jes' fer ole times' sake." It was Justine who welcomed poor, awkward Henry, and it was she who sent him away rejoicing over a good deed, determined to help "Jud and Justine ever'

time he had a chanst."

It was she who accepted the proffer to thrash their thirty acres of wheat, free of charge, from David Strong, stopping off one day as his separator and engine pa.s.sed by. She thanked him so graciously that he went his way wondering whether he was indebted to them or they to him.

When Harve Crose offered to get their mail at the crossroads post-office every day and leave it at the cottage gate as he rode by, she thanked him so beautifully that he felt as though she ought to scold him when he was late on rare occasions. Doc Ramsey, the man who was knocked down by 'Gene Crawley at the toll-gate one night, helped Jud build a rail fence over half a mile long, and said he "guessed he'd call it square if Jud 'd give him that picter he drawed of Justine summer 'fore las'. Kinder like to have that picter, 'y ginger; skeer the rats away with," ending with a roar of apologetic laughter at his homely excuse.

'Gene Crawley was never to be seen in the little lane. Sullen and savage, he frequented the toll-gate, but not so much as formerly. He drank more than ever, and it was said that Martin Grimes had taken him out of jail twice at the county seat, both times on a charge of "drunk and disorderly conduct." It seemed that he avoided all possible chance of meeting Jud and his wife. Curious people speculated on the outcome of his increasing moroseness, and not a few saw something tragic in the scowl that seldom left his swarthy brow.

For many weeks after her marriage Justine dreamed of the fierce eyes and the desperate threats of this lover, and the only bar to complete happiness was the fear that 'Gene Crawley would some day wreak vengeance upon her husband. As the weeks wore away, this fear dwindled, until now she felt secure in the hope that he had forgotten her. And yet, when his name was mentioned in her presence, she could not restrain the sudden leaping of her heart or the troubled look that widened her tender brown eyes. When Jud bitterly alluded to him and a.s.sured her, with more or less boyish braggadocio, that he would whip him if he ever so much as spoke to her or him again, she felt a dread that seemed almost a presentiment of evil. She did not fear Crawley for herself, but for Jud.

'Gene's boast before the men at the toll-gate created a sensation in the usually unruffled community. The blow that felled Doc Ramsey was universally condemned, yet no man had the courage to take to task the man who delivered it. The story of his mad declaration concerning Justine spread like wildfire. Of course, no one believed that his boast could be carried out, or attempted, for that matter; but, as gossip traveled, the substance of his vow increased. Within a week the tale had grown in vileness until Crawley was credited with having given utterance to the most unheard-of a.s.sertions. Black and foul as his actual words had been, they were tame and weak in comparison with the things the honest farmers and their wives convinced themselves and others that he had said.

In the course of time the incident which made historical her wedding night reached the ears of Justine Sherrod. She had seen 'Gene but two or three times in the four months that intervened between that time and the day on which she heard the wretched story from Mrs. Hardesty--an honest soul who had heard 'Gene's words plainly, and was therefore qualified to exaggerate if she saw fit. Once the girl pa.s.sed him in the lane near the toll-gate. He was leaning on the fence at the roadside as she pa.s.sed. She had seen him looking at her hungrily as she approached, but when she lifted her eyes again, his broad back was toward her and he was looking across the fields. There was something foreboding in the strong shoulders and corded brown arms that bore down upon the fence in an evident effort at self-control. She felt the panic which makes one wish to fly from an unknown danger. Not daring to look back, she walked swiftly by, possessed of the fear that he was following, that he was ready to clutch her from behind. But he stood there until she turned into the gate a half mile down the lane.

It remained for Mrs. Hardesty to tell Justine the story. The bony wife of the toll-gate keeper carried her busy presence up to the cottage one afternoon late in September, and found the young wife resting after a hard, hot ironing. Her pretty face was warm and rosy, her strong arms were bare to the shoulder, her full, deep breast was heaving wearily beneath the loose blue-and-white figured calico. As Mrs. Hardesty came up the path from the gate she could not resist saying to herself, as she looked admiringly but with womanly envy upon the straight figure leaning against the door-casing, fanning a hot face with an old newspaper:

"I don' blame 'Gene Crawley er enny other man fer wantin' to have her.

They ain't no one like her in the hull State, er this country, either, fer that matter."

Justine greeted her cordially.

"How do you do, Mrs. Hardesty? Aren't you almost baked in this sun?

Come into the shade and sit down. I'll get you a dipper of water and a fan."

"Don't put yourself out enny--don't trouble yourself a bit now, Jestine. Jes' git me a sup o' water an' I'll be all hunky-dory. I don't mind the sun very much. My, I'm glad to set down in the shade, though. Never saw the roads so dusty, did you? Thank ye, Jestine--much obliged. You must have a grand spring here to git such fine water. It's as cold, purt' nigh, as the ice water you git up to town. Set down, my dear; you look hot an' tired. I know you look nice standin' up like that, but you'll be a heap sight more comfortable if you set down an' rest them tired legs o' your'n. Where's Jed?"

"He's gone over to Hawkins's blacksmith shop on the pike to have Randy shod. She cast two shoes yesterday," explained the girl, sitting on the doorstep. "Do you want to see him about anything in particular, Mrs. Hardesty? He said he'd be home by six."

"No; I jes' ast. Thought ef he was aroun' I'd like to see his good-lookin' face fer a minnit er two. I reckon, though, he don't look at other women when you're aroun'," t.i.ttered the visitor, who was not a day under sixty.

"Oh, yes, he does," laughed Justine, turning a shade rosier. "He's getting tired of seeing me around all the time. You see, I'm an old married woman now."

"Good heavens, child, wait tell you've been married thirty-nine years like I have, an' then you kin begin to talk about gittin' tired o'

seein' certain people all the time. I know I could see Jim Hardesty ef I was as blind as a bat. I kin almost tell how menny hairs they is in his whiskers."

"Well, how many, for instance?" asked Justine gaily.

"Two hundred and ninety-seven," answered Mrs. Jim, promptly and positively. She regaled the young wife with a long and far from original dissertation on married life as she had encountered it with James. Finally she paused and changed the subject abruptly, leaping to a question that had doubtless been on her mind for days.

"Have you saw much of 'Gene Crawley lately, Jestine?" The question was so unexpected that the girl started, and stammered in replying.

"No; very little. I don't believe I've seen him more than twice in several months. Is he still working for Martin?"

"Oh, yes. They was some talk o' his goin' over to Rumley to work in a saw-mill, but seems as though he can't leave this part o' the country."

After a moment's hesitation, she went on boldly, smiling with the awkwardness of one who is determined to learn something at any cost.

"I s'posed he'd been comin' 'roun' here quite a little."

"Coming here, Mrs. Hardesty?" cried the girl in surprise. "Why, he'll never come here. He and Jud are not friends and he knows I don't like him. Whatever put that into your head?"

"Oh, I dunno," said Mrs. Hardesty evasively. "I heerd somethin' 'bout his sayin' he was a great frien' o' your'n, so I thought, like as not, he was--er--that is, he might 'a' drapped in onct in awhile, you know--jes' like fellers will, you know."

"Well, you may be sure 'Gene will never come here."

"He wouldn't be welcome, I take it."