The Tinder-Box Part 7

"Eve!" He said again, and it is a wonder that I didn't answer:

"Adam!"

I don't know just what would have happened if Uncle Peter hadn't broken in on the interview with his crustiest chips on both shoulders and so much excitement bottled up that he had to let it fly like a double reporter.

"Dodson is down at the Hotel looking for you, James," he began as he hurried up the steps. "Big scheme this--got him in a corner if the C. & G. comes along this side of Old Harpeth--make him squeal--hey?"

"Who's Dodson?" I asked with the greatest excitement. I was for the first time getting a whiff of the schemes of the masculine mighty, but I was squelched promptly by Uncle Peter.

"We've no time for questions, Evelina, now--go back to your tatting--hey?" He answered me as he began to b.u.t.tonhole the Crag and lead him down the steps.

"Dodson is the man who is laying down and contracting for the line across the river, Evelina," answered Cousin James without taking any notice whatever of Uncle Peter's squelching of me. "If this other line can just be secured he will have to come to our terms--and the situation will be saved." As he spoke he took my hand in his and led me at his side, down the front walk to the gate, talking as he went, for Uncle Peter was chuckling on ahead like a steam tug in a hurry.

"And the shades of Henry will again a.s.sume the maintenance of his family," I hazarded with lack of respect of the dead, impudence to Cousin James about his own affairs, and unkindness by implication to Sallie, who loves me better than almost anybody in the world does. And I got my just punishment by seeing a lovely look of tender concern rise in Cousin James's eyes as he stopped short in the middle of the walk.

"I want to go back a minute to speak to Sallie before I go on down town," he said, quickly, and before Uncle Peter's remonstrances had exploded, he had taken the steps two at a bound and disappeared in the front door.

"Sooner he marries that lazy lollypop the better," fumed Uncle Peter, as he waited at the gate. "The way for a man to quench his thirst for woman-sweets is to marry a pot of honey like that, and then come right on back to the bread and b.u.t.ter game. Here's a letter Jasper gave me to bring along for you from town. Go on and read it and do not disturb the workings of my brain while I wait for James--workings of a great brain--hey?"

I took the letter and hurried across the street because I wanted anyway to get to some place by myself and think. There was no earthly reason for it but I felt like an animal that has been hurt and wants to go off and lick its wounds. A womanly woman that lives a lovely appealing life right in a man's own home has a perfect right to gain his love, especially if she is beautifully unconscious of her appeal. Besides, why should a man want to take an independent, explosive, impudent firebrand with all sorts of dreadful plots in her mind to his heart? He wouldn't and doesn't!

There is no better sedative for a woman's disturbed and wounded emotions than a little stiff brain work. Richard's letter braced my viny drooping of mind at once and from thinking into the Crag's affairs of sentiment, I turned with masculine vigor to begin to mix into his affairs of finance. However, I wish that the first big business letter I ever got in my life hadn't had to have a strain of love interest running through it! Still d.i.c.kie is a trump card in the man pack.

It seems that as his father is one of the most influential directors and largest stockholders in this new branch of the Cincinnati and Gulf railroad he has got the commission for making the plans for all the stations along the road, and he wants to give me the commission for drawing all the gardens for all the station-yards. It will be tremendous for both of us so young in life, and I never dared hope for such a thing. I had only hoped to get a few private gardens of some of my friends to laze and pose over, but this is startling. My mind is beginning to work on in terms of hedges and fountains already and d.i.c.kie may be coming South any minute.

And besides the hedges and gravel paths I have a feeling that d.i.c.kie's father and the Crag and Sallie's girl-babies are fomenting around in my mind getting ready to pop the cork of an idea soon. The combination feels like some kind of a hunch--I sat still for a long time and let it seethe, while I took stock of the situation.

There is a strange, mysterious kind of peace that begins to creep across the Harpeth Valley, just as soon as the sun sinks low enough to throw the red glow over the head of Old Harpeth. I suppose it happens in other hill-rimmed valleys in other parts of the Universe, but it does seem as if G.o.d himself is looking down to brood over us, and that the valley is the hollow of His hand into which he is gathering us to rest in the darkness of His night. I felt buffeted and in need of Him as I sank down under the rose-vine over the porch and looked out across my garden to the blue and rose hills beyond.

I have been in Glendale a whole month now, and I can't see that my influence has revolutionized the town as yet. I don't seem to be of half the importance that I thought I was going to be. I have tried, and I have offered that bucket of love that I thought up to everybody, but whether they have drunk of it to profit I am sure I can't say. In fact, my loneliness has liquefied my gaseous affection into what almost looks like officiousness.

Still, I know Uncle Peter is happier than he ever was before, because he has got me to come to as a refuge from Aunt Augusta, a confidante for his views of life that he is not allowed to express at home, and also the certainty of one of Jasper's juleps.

Sallie has grown so dependent on me that my shoulders are a.s.suming a masculine squareness to support her weight. I am understudying Cousin James to such an extent over at Widegables that I feel like the heir to his house. Cousin Martha sends for me when the chimney smokes and the cows get sick. I have twice changed five dollars for little Cousin Jasmine, and sternly told the man from out on their farm on Providence Road that he must not root up the lavender bushes to plant turnip-greens in their places. I afterwards rented the patch from him to grow the lavender because he said he couldn't lose the price that the greens would bring him "for crotchets."

Mrs. Hargrove has given me her will to keep for her, and the sealed instructions for her burial. I hope when the time comes the two behests will strike a balance, but I doubt it.

Her ideas of a proper funeral seem to coincide with those of Queen Victoria, whom she has admired through life and mourns sincerely.

Henrietta has not been heard to indulge in profane language since I had a long talk with her last week out in the garden, that ended in stubby tears and the gift of a very lovely locket which I impressed upon her was as chaste in design as I wished her speech to become.

The twins have been provided with several very lovely pieces of wearing apparel from my rapidly skill-acquiring needle. That's on the credit side of my balance. But that is _all_--and it doesn't sound revolutionary, does it, Jane?

Petunia married Jasper according to his word of promise, and I have taught her to cook about five French dishes that he couldn't concoct to save his life, and which help her to keep him in his place. His pomposity grows daily but he eyes me with suspicion when he sees me in secret conclave with Petunia.

"We needs a man around this place," I heard him mutter the other day as I left the kitchen.

I wonder!

The garden has been weeded, replanted, trained, clipped and garnished, and my arms are as husky and strong as a boy's and my nose badly sunburned from my strenuosity with hoe and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g scissors.

All of which I have done and done well. But when I think of all those five girls that are waiting for me to solve the emotional formula by which they can work out and establish the fact that man equals woman, I get weak in the knees.

Jane's letters are just prods.

Your highly cultivated artistic nature ought to be a very beautiful revelation to the spiritual character of the young Methodist divine you wrote me of in your last letter. Encourage him in every way with affectionate interest in his work, especially in the Epworth League on his country circuit. I am enclosing fifty dollars' subscription to the work and I hope you will give as much You have not mentioned Mr. Hayes for several letters. I fear you are prejudiced against him. Seek to know and weigh his character before you judge him as unfit for your love.

The highly spiritual Mr. Haley glared at Polk for an hour out here on my porch, when he interrupted us in one of our Epworth League talks, in such an unspiritual manner that Polk said he felt as if he had been introduced to the Apostle Paul while he was still Saul of Tarsus. I had to pet the Dominie decorously for a week before he regained his benign manner. Of course, however, it was trying to even a highly spiritual nature like his to have Polk insist on pinning a rose in my hair right before his eyes.

About Polk I feel that I am in the midst of one of those great calm, oily stretches of ocean that a ship is rocked gently in for a few hours before the storm tosses it first to Heaven and then to h.e.l.l. He is so psychic, and in a way attuned to me, that he partly understands my purpose in declaring my love for him to put him at a disadvantage in his love-making to me, and he hasn't let me do it yet, while his tacit suit goes on. It is a drawn battle between us and is going to be fought to the death. In the meantime Nell--

And while I was on the porch sitting with Richard Hall's letter in my hand, still unread, Nell herself came down the front walk and sat down beside me.

"Why, I thought you had gone fishing with Polk," I said as I cuddled her up to me a second. She laid her head on my shoulder and heaved such a sigh that it shook us both.

"I didn't quite like to go with him alone and Henrietta wouldn't go because a bee had stung the red-headed twin, and she wanted to stay to scold Sallie," she answered with both hesitation and depression in her voice.

"Polk is--is strenuous for a whole day's companionship," I answered, experimentally, for I saw the time had come to exercise some of the biceps in Nell's femininity in preparation for just what I knew she was to get from Polk. My heart ached for what I knew she was suffering. I had had exactly those growing pains for months following that experience with him on the front porch after the dance four years ago. And I had had change of scene and occupation to help.

"I don't understand him at all," faltered Nell, and she raised her eyes as she bared her wound to me.

"Nell," I said with trepidation, as I began on this my first disciple, "you aren't a bit ashamed or embarra.s.sed or humiliated in showing me that you love me, are you?"

"You know I've adored you ever since I could toddle at your heels, Evelina," she answered, and the love-message her great brown eyes flashed into mine was as sweet as anything that ever happened to me.

"Then, why should you wonder and suffer and restrain and be humiliated at your love for Polk?" I asked, firing point blank at all of Nell's traditions. "Why not tell him about it and ask him if he loves you?"

The shot landed with such force that Nell gasped, but answered as straight out from the shoulder as I had aimed.

"I would rather die than have Polk Hayes know how he--he affects me,"

she answered with her head held high.

"Then, what you feel for him is not worthy love, but something entirely unworthy," I answered loftily, with a very poor imitation of Jane's impressiveness of speech.

"I know it," she faltered into my shoulder, "if it were Mr. James Hardin I loved, I wouldn't mind anybody's knowing it, but something must be wrong with Polk or me or the way I feel. What is it?"

For a moment I got so stiff all over that Nell raised her head from my shoulder in surprise. Do all women feel about the Crag as I do?

"I don't know," I answered weakly.

And I don't know! Oh, Jane, your simple experiment proposition is about to become compound quadratics.

Then I got a still further surprise.