The Tobacco Tiller Part 31

"You'd be less than human, if you did! G.o.d, man, what do they raise it for? The world, and myself with it, would quit chewin' tomorrow, if I had to raise its tobacco and mine. Mr. Long-beard a.s.sured me this morning, we'd have less than eight more days of it, but _one_ more day in that h.e.l.l's vestibule would have been my finish, and I preferred ignominious flight to pauper burial!"

"So I see," grinned Mr. Lindsay, with his eyes on the kid b.u.t.toned woman's shoe that protruded from the Sister's black skirts: "but where'd you git them church clothes, Dunaway?"

Mr. Dunaway indulged in another wink. "In the closet of an upstairs bedroom not a thousand miles from Chicago," he cited oracularly, "there were wont to hung the black garments of a mother, in mourning for a daughter whose last name was not _Block_. They no longer hang there!"

Mr. Lindsay's restrained laugh expressed both understanding and enjoyment.

"But the funds--the travelling funds?" he persisted.

Dunaway grinned cheerfully. "I once knew a Sister of Charity, in one day of soliciting aid for a town of fever-stricken dagoes (Italian workmen, I should say), to collect enough, had it been applied to such a purpose, to buy a ticket to Los Angeles."

"When'll the mournin' rig quit hit's travels?" chuckled Mr. Lindsay.

"'I could exscribe him over the tillephorm, and he wouldn't hev no chance a runnin'!'" quoted Dunaway, irrelevantly. "Say, Mr. Lindsay, how far is it from here to Kansas City? The telephone service doesn't claim to be good over eight hundred miles, I believe."

"No, hit don't," Mr. Lindsay answered him, "although hit won't be necessary to go as a lady more'n a tenth that fur. But you hain't a goin' to throw them cothes away, are you? _I've_ got a right to hold a grudge agi'n her, ef anybody has, but I hain't a holdin' hit fur enough to want to see her lose her wearin' thengs. The poor theng has to work so hard for what few she has, and never sees a cent o' the terbaccer money fer clothes. What's ag'in expressin' 'em back to her, onct you git on male togs, Sister?"

"Nothing!" Dunaway a.s.sured him. "How much are you willing to contribute toward the good cause (of express charges), my brother?"

Mr. Lindsay laid fifty cents in the palm of Mrs. Doggett's black glove.

"Be sh.o.r.e you send 'em, Dunaway," he whispered: "I've got to go back to her; she'll be a wonderin'."

A flicker of uneasiness pa.s.sed over Dunaway's face, and the ghost of an expression of shame came into his eyes. "You'll not tell her," he pet.i.tioned: "I'm a true Catholic Sister to _her_! She gave me a quarter this morning, besides--"

"Do you thenk I haven't got any grat.i.tude in me, Dunaway, after all you've done fer us, that I couldn't do a turn fer you?" rebuked Mr.

Lindsay. "I give you my word, she'll never know from _me_!"

"Who was that lady in mournin' you was a talkin' to, Nathan?" inquired Miss Lucy, when Mr. Lindsay had resumed his seat beside her: "she makes me thenk of a Sister of Charity I saw on the street today."

"Hit's the same person," answered Mr. Lindsay: "he--she was a tellin' me about them sick Italians, she'd been a collectin' fer."

"I wisht you'd 'a' give her a little money, Nathan, ef you'd thought of hit, to help those poor folks."

"I give her fifty cents: hit certainly was fer a good cause," responded Mr. Lindsay.

"Ain't hit pleasin' to our Maker to be livin' sech a saintly life?"

whispered Miss Lucy, a little wistfully: "a body don't never have to deceive ner nothin'. I believe, ef I hadn't seen you, Nathan, I'd love to have been a nun or somethin'. They're always so good."

"I am glad you ain't one, Lucy," murmured Mr. Lindsay, letting the arm he had extended along the back of the seat, drop gently down in a more comfortable position: "you're good enough for me!"

When Mr. Doggett ceased staring after the outgoing train, the rain was falling on him and dampening the splendors of the sow-and-pig purchased buggy: there lay before him the long homeward drive, and the dreary prospect of working until dawn, that the buggy might be washed clean, and mounted on its pedestal once more, before the awakening of the "old lady." But nothing could mar his serenity of mind, nor take the sunshine of rejoicing for his friends' happiness out of his heart.

"Mr Lindsay's sore heel'll pester him some when he goes to step out fer the saremony," he mused, as he drove through the silent streets. "Miss Lucy's teeth won't stay tied in but a week er so: Johnny Leeds' prize shoes is sorter slazy and ill-fittin': the old man'll ondoubtedly cut her out of his will, and, although I'm mighty hoped up about terbaccer prices a goin' up reasonable, a body can't tell. But a body can't have ever'theng like they want hit in this world, and they've got a heap to be thankful fer, _anyhow_!"