The Tobacco Tiller Part 15

"Mighty well--mighty well!" encouraged Mrs. Doggett: "are you both a goin' the McLean road?"

"Aw hush, Ann," interposed Mr. Doggett, "don't you know him and Marshall's tracks wouldn't nary one fit t'other's? Ef McLean is a gray lookin' house jest over the hill, Mr. Lindsay's a goin' to McLean!"

Exactly three-quarters of an hour from the time of their vainglorious departure, Mr. Lindsay walked into the Doggett kitchen and sat quietly behind the stove, afflicted of mien and crestfallen to a degree.

"What _is_ the matter with Mr. Lindsay?" thought Mrs. Doggett: but she made no comment on his hasty return. "He won't do no talkin' 'tel he gits good and ready," she argued. At four o'clock Joe came home from his brother Lem's.

"I want to git a horse, Joe, to fetch my trunk, and my valises, and my enlarged picture away from old man Jameses," Mr. Lindsay said to him, "and ef you know anybody's got one to spare, I wisht you'd tell me. I tried to git one at Jim's and Willises, but Jim and Henrietty wuz gone, and old man Willis wuz in town with his buggy mare."

"What you wanter breng your trunk away on Sunday fer, Mr. Lindsay?"

wondered Joe.

"I'll tell you, Joey, ef you'll git me a horse!"

"Thar hain't nary bit o' use a huntin' up a hoss when you can jest kerry them thengs down here, Mr. Lindsay," protested Mrs. Doggett: "They hain't heavy and 'tain't fur. Eph, he'll be in d'rectly--he jest stepped acrost the creek in Dock's boat, to look at Mr. Archie Evans' new terbaccer barn--and he can holp you kerry one end o' the trunk, and one valise, and Joey can kerry your ma's enlarged picture, and t'other valise."

When, an hour after, a baggage-laden procession came in at Mrs.

Doggett's front door, her curiosity had reached its utmost tension.

"Set the thengs right down, Eph--you all," she cried: "you can take 'em upstairs after supper. Mr. Lindsay looks plumb worried!"

Mr. Lindsay looked at her dejectedly. "I am worried, Mrs. Doggett--I've been treated bad--never wuz treated worse in my life, and onexpectedly too, and by people I never done nothin' to in my life! Ever sence I left the James, the old man has been a sendin' me word to come to see 'em--"

"Yes, sir, he has," broke in Mr. Doggett: "hit's been 'tell Lindsay to come up and set a while some night,' 'tell Lindsay to come,' ever' time he sees me er the boys."

"I went too, two Sundays, as you all know," went on Mr. Lindsay, "and they treated me nice, and I thought I'd git the same treatment today, but--"

"You don't mean to say, Mr. Lindsay, they didn't treat you well, after all that sendin' word fer you to come?" shrilled Mrs. Doggett.

"I'll tell you how the old man done me," said Mr. Lindsay, bitterly. "I seed him a standin' at the gate, and I thenks 'the pore old creeter's a sunnin' his rheumatiz.' When I got up clost I says, 'Good evenin', Mr.

James,' but he never let on he heerd my 'good evenin'--jest begun on me.

'Sir,' he says, 'your trunk's here in my house, and I want you to take hit away! I sent word to you as fur back as Friday to come and git hit, and hit's here yit!' I says: 'Why, Mr. James, I hain't heerd nothin' of hit!' 'Well you hear hit now,' he says: 'I want hit tuck away, and don't you never come on my place ag'in, ner never speak another word to any o'

my family!'"

Mrs. Doggett's heart beat with a throb of ecstasy. Surely old July's words were coming true! Mr. Brock's rival was set aside: Mr. James had "turned on him!" Mrs. Doggett was diplomatic; her face a.s.sumed a look of indignant horror.

"O mercy goodness, Mr. Lindsay!" she cried, "you know Mr. Jeemes never said that!"

"Yes, he did," went on Mr. Lindsay, "and when I told him I'd try to git the thengs away Monday, he said like somethin' crazy: 'That trunk's got to be tuck out before the sun sets, er I'll know the reason why!' I says then: 'What have I done, Mr. James, that you're a talkin' to me this away?' And he says: 'I din't need to s.m.u.t my tongue with pertic'lers, but you hain't no nice person--no fit person to be in no nice house with nice people!'

"I left him then, seein' he wuz jest bent on insultin' me. I tell you, Uncle Eph, it made me feel bad to thenk I'd never done the old man a bit o' harm in my life--never nothin' but kindness--and yit he'd talk to me that away!"

Mr. Lindsay, honest and as upright as one of the boulders that stand on the granite-clad hills of his Scotch ancestors, and conscious of his rect.i.tude, flushed deeply as he spoke of the indignity that had been put upon him.

"I wouldn't 'a' thought hit o' him, no sir, I wouldn't!" murmured Mr.

Doggett, in amazement.

"Hain't hit outdacious," execrated Mrs. Doggett, "him been here ever'

sence the flood might' night', and a talkin' that away?"

"When I wuz up thar a Friday a helpin' him fix the yard fence whar Mr.

Castle's jinnies busted hit," Joey volunteered, "he said to me: 'Joey, you take them old overhalls o' Lindsay's a hangin' thar in the shed, and throw 'em in the creek! And tell him to send after the balance of his old duds--I don't want him to come after 'em hisse'f, but send somebody after 'em!'"

"Why didn't you tell me, Joey, afore now?" Mr. Lindsay's voice was mildly reproving.

"I wuz a thenkin' about hit," answered Joey, "but I jest thought hit wuz too mean to tell anybody, and ef he wanted to tell you, he might as well do hit hisse'f."

"What did the old man say when you went to fetch the trunk and thengs?"

asked Mrs. Doggett.

"I couldn't git Uncle Eph ner Joey to go to the door," Mr. Lindsay said aggrievedly, "and when Miss Lucy met me and I told her I'd come after my trunk she looked surprised and said hit wuzn't in the way, and whyn't I let hit stay? And ef I must take hit away, whyn't I wait 'tel a week day? I told her her pa'd ordered hit to be tuck away before dark. 'Pa,'

she said, and hit wuz the first time I ever heerd her speak sharp to him, 'what made you do that?' He never made her no answer--never invited me to set down ner nothin'."

"Wher' wuz Miss Nancy at?" queried Mrs. Doggett.

"I never seen her, but when me and Joey wuz a packin' out the trunk and thengs, poor Miss Lucy jest stood a lookin' at us, the tears a streamin'

down her face." The husky note in Mr. Lindsay's voice warned him to silence. He reached out and taking the picture frame off the trunk, laid it on his knees, and gazed soberly at the gentle face that looked out of the frame.

"I never fell out with n.o.body in my life," he went on presently, "and I wuz plumb thunderstruck at the old man's conduct."

"Maybe Miss Nancy er some person that wanted to git you in disfaver with him, had somethin' to do with hit," suggested Mr. Doggett.

"Aw hush, Eph," interrupted Mrs. Doggett, "you know they didn't!"

Mr. Lindsay cogitated a moment. "I never knowed what kind o' people they wuz ontel I went there and staid a while," he said, presently: "and I'll jest tell you the truth, Uncle Eph, I found out two of 'em wuzn't the kind o' people you can live with. I've been a holdin' back all the meanness of old man James, but now hit's out and his daughter's too!

I've been around among a heap o' different people, but I've never seen a woman as mean as Miss Nancy, and as fer him, he jest sets and studies up meanness! I knowed he wuz fractious, old and childish, and I didn't want to go there, but they kept at me ontel I went and done the work fer ten weeks, and never charged 'em a cent--jest got my board and washin' fer pay.

"I allus thought Miss Nancy and Miss Lucy wuz one as good as t'other, and when I first went there to stay, Miss Nancy couldn't 'a' been no nicer to me, but jest in a little while--and I couldn't tell you the reason to save my soul--she turned on me and treated me worse than a dog all the time I stayed."

"Miss Lucy is more pleasin' somehow'n Miss Nancy," observed Mr. Doggett.

"Yes, they say she takes after her ma, a good woman. Miss Nancy is strange ever' way," continued Mr. Lindsay, "she don't keer what she says to a person to hurt his feelin's. She fusses at Miss Lucy all the time, and Miss Lucy jest knuckles down to her, and sets under their abuse as dumb as an oyster. She tried to keep hit hid from me how they done her, but 'twuzn't no use.

"And I couldn't do nothin' to _suit_ Miss Nancy neither. Ef I made a fire in the stove, the sticks wouldn't be laid to suit her, and she'd take 'em out and lay 'em in the fireplace, and make the fire over! Most of the time she wuz so savin' o' wood, she wouldn't let Miss Lucy kindle a fire in the fireplace in the kitchen at all, and the poor theng would churn in that cold kitchen without a fire, all that cold weather!

"When I first went there I kep' a wonderin' what made the old man quarrel so much about hit a takin' so much feed fer 'that black cow and calf,' and I come to find out they wuz Miss Lucy's! When he's able, he walks around the pasture and never lets them two old mares o' his git out o' his sight, and he feeds 'em twelve years o' corn at a time, and never allows 'em to be drove out o' a walk, but he begrudges ever' bite o' hay and corn that goes into the black cow and calf, and stints 'em scandalous. I fed 'em a plentiful, when I wuz there. Miss Lucy wuz mighty pleased how well they done.

"And grudgin' feed hain't all: That old man hain't got an honest bone in his body. Miss Lucy told me one day, in the last ten years, (sence her ma died) that old man had tuck three of her hiefers and sold 'em and put the money in his pocket! Miss Lucy she takes what money she makes different ways, and buys ever'theng they need and use. Nancy puts the money she makes in the bank fer herse'f.

"Miss Lucy'd been a sewin' all fall fer n.i.g.g.e.rs, and ef you'll believe me, she tuck ever' cent o' that money to make the last payment on her ma's tombstone! And at Christmas, she had three dollars left she wanted to git Christmas presents with, and she laid hit on the mantel while she wuz a gittin' ready to go to town, and that old man slyly put hit in his pocket!"

"Mr. Lindsay, you know he never done the pore creetur that away!" burst out Mrs. Doggett. "Well, hain't the world a comin' on? I don't see how hit can stand much longer! Hit's might' night' as wicked as 'twuz before the flood! I don't see how you kep' quiet, a seein' sech doin's!" she went on in a warm excess of pretended sympathy. Mr. Lindsay's eyes flashed.

"I couldn't hardly," he avowed, "after I seen that! And many a time after that when I've heerd the old man a bemeanin' her--innocent theng--my hands have jest itched, and I've jest set still sometimes a clinchin' my finger nails into the palms o' my hands 'tel they bled, a makin' myse'f remember he wuz a feeble old man, ef he wuz onjest and cruel to _her_.

"I done my best to sorter make up to Miss Lucy, while I wuz there fer the way they wuz a doin' her, and Miss Nancy ketched on to hit. Then ever' time me and Miss Lucy'd be a talkin' pleasant, she'd make signs to the old man, like 'jest look at Lucy tryin' to court, won't you, Pa!'

"One evenin' jest about dusk I went out in the hall, a startin' up stairs to git my milkin' coat, and I accidentally met Miss Lucy in the hall. Miss Nancy wuz on the porch, and she snarled out to the old man, so loud I heerd her: 'How does that look, her in the hall with him, and hit _dark_?'