The Tobacco Tiller Part 24

These letters had widened and healed with the growth of the melon, until, in its maturity, they were like something done in crewel embroidery. It looked an unique thing. Mr. Brock was proud of it to a degree, and had planned on Sunday to take it to Miss Lucy.

"Here's our melon!" cried Dunaway, thumping the prize gift.

"Don't plunk right," objected Dock: "hit needs about one more day's sun: less hunt another un."

At that moment a sneeze betrayed to the raiders the approach of their enemy. Mr. Brock, coming out to test the ripeness of his intended gift, thought he saw two shapes by the big stump: he wheezed forward, but when he reached the stump, no one was there, and the gate at the lower end of the patch hung wide open.

Dock and his a.s.sistant did not dare to make another venture that night, but laid their plans for an invasion at a later hour on the following evening. Fatigue was the portion next evening of Dunaway, who, under Mr.

Doggett's constant urging, did a fair day's work, and of Dock, who never shirked in the tobacco patch, but ten o'clock found Dunaway gleefully bearing the big melon ornamented with the words of presentation in the direction of the gate of exit, and Dock, filling an empty flour sack with cantaloupes.

"Lay down that melon!" suddenly sounded gruffly on their ears, and a thick-set man, brandishing a stout leather whip, emerged from the shadow of a big walnut near the fence.

"Lay down that melon, I tell you, or I'll smash you flat!"

Something was smashed, but it was not the bondsman. Dunaway, cornered, lifted the melon high, and dropped it heavily on a flat rock that lay near the gate. It burst in a dozen pieces, and the sweet juice flew in the face of the horrified Mr. Brock.

That gentleman, enraged at this wanton destruction of Miss Lucy's present, said something that would have fallen harshly on the lady's ear, and rushed forward with his cowhide. But Dunaway had fled and Dock, his booty cast aside, was making a wild dash toward the open gate. Fate, in the shape of fatigue, r.e.t.a.r.ded his movements; a tough vine tripped him, and he fell.

Before he could rise, the sole of a heavy foot was forcibly applied to the rear side of his trousers, the lash of his pursuer had twice smote his bare legs, and before he could reach the gate and safety, a half dozen more mighty cuts were bestowed on those insignificant members that Gran'dad called Dock's foot-handles.

Early next morning, Mr. Brock appeared at Mr. Doggett's with anger burning in his eyes. Mrs. Doggett was not at home, but Mr. Doggett had remained at the house a few minutes behind his workmen, and into his ears Mr. Brock poured his melon tale. Mr. Doggett was solicitously sympathetic.

"Who on earth you reckon 'twuz tuck your big millern, Mr. Brock?" he asked wonderingly.

"The man was n.o.body but that vagabond, Dunaway, you've got a workin' for you, and the little feller with him, judgin' by his size, was _Dock_!"

Mr. Doggett smiled. "Sh.o.r.ely, Mr. Brock, you are mistakened. We all worked in the rain, day before yistiddy, and hit wuz all the boys could do to git upstairs last night to bed, after they et, and I noticed Dock wuz so stiffened up, he wuz walkin' lame this mornin'."

"I saw a man's track in the mud by the gate this mornin'," said Mr.

Brock: "a pointed shoe track."

Dunaway had reviled the long needle-pointed shoes, but his worn patent leathers had come in pieces on the second day of his labors, and he had been, perforce, to the great delight of the other men, obliged to put the "new" shoes on to protect his feet from blistering and the dry clods.

"And," added Mr. Brock in fine scorn, "there's n.o.body in the County a wearin' needle-pointed shoes at present, but your hireling. As for his companion, I didn't see his face, for the cloud that came up over the moon when I was close to him, and he got away before I could git my hands on his collar, but an old cowhide in my hand came in close contact with his legs. You never noticed any stripes on Dock's standards this mornin' did you?"

Mr. Doggett was much troubled.

"I jest hate hit awful, Mr. Brock," he deplored, "ef _'twuz_ them. I hain't never warned the boys ag'in goin' in millern patches, no, sir, I hain't, although I ort to 'a' done hit, yes, sir. But I'll see they don't go in yourn no more."

"If I catch Dunaway in again," said Mr. Brock, thickly and with heat, as he started homeward, "it certainly won't be good for _him_. I'll just manage to get word to the sheriff down where he wintered, where he broke jail without servin' out his time for indulgin' in some law breakin'!"

Dock's legs, Mr. Doggett's public reproof, and the ungratified longing in his stomach for melons, were still giving the boy trouble late Sat.u.r.day afternoon, after the flight of Friday evening.

"Old devil!" Dock remarked to Dunaway as they went from the field together, conversing of their enemy: "he's a layin' hisse'f out to please the Jeemeses--sendin' 'em water-millerns and canterlopes, and mush-millerns! He thenks he's a gittin' on with Miss Lucy, and I don't b'lieve Miss Lucy'd give Mr. Lindsay's little fenger fer all old Galvin Brock, ef Mr. Jeemes and Miss Nancy'd let her have Mr. Lindsay. I b'lieve old Brock told old Mr. Jeemes some lies, anyway, on Mr. Lindsay!

And he couldn't let us jes' _taste_ one his old millerns! Old devil!

I'll stamp him yit!"

"Consarn his old moley, red nose! I'll help you stamp him, Dock!"

offered Dunaway, mindful of possible weary days in a Mississippi jail.

"Miss Lucy Jeemes used to give me pears sometimes; her'n is gittin' ripe now," Dock remarked irrelevantly: "I believe I'll go up thar in the mornin', ef Miss Nancy is gone to church (she's stingy), and git some.

Wanter go with me?"

"I'd go in a minute," said Dunaway, "if it were not for the figure I cut in the confounded short jeanses, and these blasted needle-pointers, and that Noah's Ark derby!"

"Ef I'll slip you out a pair o' j.a.ppy's pants, and his last year's Sunday slippers, and one of his white shirts and collars, and Joey's cap, will you go?" asked Dock.

"Sure!" agreed Dunaway.

Dunaway had liked the gentle Mr. Lindsay, from their first meeting. From Dock, he had learned of Mr. Lindsay's connection with the James family, of the affair of the trunk, and of the interrupted winter's courtship.

He had discovered that Mrs. Doggett was espousing the cause of Brock, had observed that Mr. Lindsay on his Sat.u.r.day evening's visit, had winced when she had prophesied that Mr. Brock would be married to Miss Lucy before his tobacco was cured, and had resolved to help him when opportunity offered itself.

After Mrs. Doggett's application of locks to her food supplies, and after Mr. Brock's threats became known to him, Dunaway had the incentive of revengeful desires to stimulate him to aid Mr. Lindsay in the cause of love.

"My hair is a gittin' turrible long, Mr. Lindsay," Mr. Doggett remarked on Sunday morning to his guest who, more pallid and worn than the week before, had come on Sat.u.r.day evening: "and your'n's might' night' long enough to do up in a French twist: less git a pair clippers, and have a hair cuttin'."

"All right," agreed Mr. Lindsay, "I'll jest step over to Archie Evans'--he's got ever'thing--and borry his. Anybody want to go with me?"

Dunaway proffered his company immediately.

"You're paler and thinner than you were this time last week," he observed, on their way, "and hard work oughtn't to bleach you that way.

What's the matter? Sweetheart gone back on you?"

Mr. Lindsay looked at him intently: but sympathetic interest alone was expressed in the shining black eyes.

"I dunno about _her_, Dunaway," he said, after a moment: "sometimes I believe her folks have set her ag'in me, and turned her toward another man, then ag'in I dunno whether I am right er not!"

"I hear she's like an angel," reflected Dunaway. "You still think so too, don't you?"

"I don't deny I still thenk hit," confided Mr. Lindsay, "and I believe she'd 'a' married me too," he added impulsively, "ef hit hadn't been fer Galvin Brock lyin' about me to old Milton! Brock--maybe you don't know hit--wants her hisse'f!"

Dunaway declined entering the brick house of the Evans', but remained a respectable distance out, in the field, giving "the confounded jeanses"

as his reason. His mind rapidly formulated a plan, on the way back to the Doggett home. Dock impatiently awaited him at the woodpile.

"I snooped up thar in Mr. Jeemeses pastur," he whispered, "and seed Miss Nancy a startin' off to church--she's plumb out o' sight by now; now's our time to go ast Miss Lucy fer them pears. I got them clothes ready on the back side Mr. Jeemeses strawstack."

The pear tree of Dock's admiration stood in the northeast corner of the orchard, out of range of the porch, and next the garden, from which the orchard was separated by a post-and-rail fence, easily climbed; along the eastern side of the garden and orchard lay a picket fence, over which leaned blackberry bushes on the orchard side, and golden rod on the pasture field side.

There was no opening into the pasture field from the orchard, but a small gate led into the gra.s.s field from the garden. Miss Lucy James, gathering green beans, looked up to see Dock, accompanied by a tall and good-looking young man, in a neat shirt-waist costume, coming toward her.

"This is Ma's cousin, Alfred Bronston, Miss Lucy," said Dock (acting by instructions) by way of introduction. "He's been a workin' fer us a month. He's the one Mr. Lindsay thenks so much of."

Miss Lucy's slim hand was very cold when she held it out to Dunaway.

"How is Mr. Lindsay, Mr. Bronston?" she asked. "Have you saw him lately?"

"He's at our house today," answered Dunaway, "but I'm sorry to say, he is not looking well."