The Wind Before the Dawn Part 17

It was a good bit of argument to put forth at that moment. The sun poured his heat out upon them in scalding fierceness, and John Hunter had cursed his luck every mile he had covered that morning. He had been accustomed to reach her in fifteen minutes, and the suggestion that she go back to the old place began to look more reasonable, yet he hesitated and was reluctant to let a breath of gossip touch his future wife. Whether Elizabeth were right or wrong did not enter into his calculations.

It looked as if his consent was not to be obtained. She could not go back.

"I'm not going home, and that is all that there is about it," the girl announced in desperation.

John still hung back.

When he did not reply and it became necessary for her to go into the details she had been trying to avoid, it was done reluctantly and with as little emphasis put upon the possibility of physical chastis.e.m.e.nt as could be done and convince him at all. To Elizabeth's surprise John did not take much notice of that element. It did not occur to her at that time that it was a strange thing that her lover should fail to be stirred by the probability of her receiving a blow. Elizabeth had never had consideration shown her by any one but Susan Hornby and had not yet learned to expect it. John struck the horses with the dangling lines he held and drove on toward the waiting trunk. She watched him as he rode by her side moodily thinking of the gossip threatened, and while it was not the mood she wished him to entertain, it did not occur to her that it was anything but a natural one. They rode without speaking until the house was reached.

"This'll have to be explained to mother," he remarked discontentedly as he shoved the unoffending trunk into the back of the wagon. Elizabeth made no reply. She had been thinking of that very thing.

VIII

CYCLONES

Susan Hornby asked no questions when Elizabeth and John presented themselves at her door. Their embarra.s.sed faces warned her. She gathered Elizabeth into her arms for a brief hug, and then pushed her toward the inside of the house, remaining behind to show John where to put the trunk.

When it had been set beside the kitchen door she dismissed him by saying:

"I won't ask you to stay for a bite of dinner, since your mother is alone, Mr. Hunter."

"Well--er--that is--mother expected Elizabeth over there," John stammered, looking toward the front room.

"Tell your mother Elizabeth will stay right here till she has rested up from that headache," the woman replied with the tone of having settled the matter.

Elizabeth, in the other room, noted that he did not argue about it and heard him drive away with mixed feelings. When at last Aunt Susan's questions were answered the girl in turn became questioner.

"Will she think--John's mother--that we're coa.r.s.e and common?" she asked when she had told as much as she could bring herself to tell of the morning's altercation.

The look on the older woman's face was not a hopeful one, and the girl got up restlessly from the trunk-top where she had dropped beside her. She remembered the fear, half expressed, on the schoolhouse steps two days before and drew within herself, sick with life.

"Can I put my trunk away?" she asked, to break the awkward silence she felt coming.

"Yes," was the relieved answer, and each took a handle, carrying the light piece of baggage to the bedroom. At the door Elizabeth stopped short. A strange coat and vest were spread carelessly over the bed, and a razor strop lay across the back of the little rocking chair.

"Oh, I forgot!" Susan Hornby exclaimed, sweeping the offending male attire into her ap.r.o.n. "A young fellow stopped last night and asked to stay till he could get a house built on that land west of Hunter's. You're going to have a bachelor for a neighbour."

"Who?" Elizabeth asked, and then added, "What will he do for a room if I take this one?"

"I don't know," Aunt Susan replied to the last clause of the question.

"The room is yours, anyhow. I'm so glad to have you back that I'd turn him out if need be. Honestly, we could hardly eat Sat.u.r.day. Nate was as bad as I was. They've gone to Colebyville together to-day. I'm glad Nate's got him--he's lonesome enough these days."

It was Elizabeth's turn to cheer up Aunt Susan, for she always fell into a gloom when she mentioned Nathan. It took Elizabeth's mind from her own affairs, and by the time the unpacking was finished the volatile spirits of youth had a.s.serted themselves. They took a walk toward evening, and only returned in time to meet John Hunter, who had come to see his betrothed about a trip he had decided suddenly to take to Mitch.e.l.l County.

He had spoken of it to Elizabeth before, and had only waited to get his mother established and a desirable hired man to run the place in his absence. The man had come that day asking for work and giving good references and John had decided to go at once.

In the excitement of preparation John seemed to have forgotten the discomforts of the morning, and though he soon took his departure, he left Elizabeth less unhappy than she had been. Nathan and the new man were coming in the distance as John Hunter drove away, and the girl turned back into the kitchen to help with the supper.

"Lizzie Farnshaw! And you are the Elizabeth these folk have been talkin'

about? Well, I'll be hornswoggled!"

Nathan and the new boarder had just come in.

"Is it really you, Luther?" Elizabeth asked, and there was no mistaking the glad tones.

They looked each other over for changes; they sat beside each other at the table, and Elizabeth asked questions and talked excitedly while he ate.

"Your hair is darker, and it's curly," she remarked, remembering the tow-coloured locks cut square across the boyish, sunburned neck.

Luther Hansen's face crinkled into fine lines and his blue-gray eyes laughed amusedly.

"Got darker as I got older, Lizzie, an' th' typhoid put them girl-twists into th' ends of it. Bet you're a wishin' for it--all th' women folks do.

Wish you had it."

They went for a walk after supper and talked of many things. He was the same Luther, grown older and even more companionable. Elizabeth learned that both his parents had died, leaving the then seventeen-year-old boy a piece of land heavily mortgaged, and with nothing but a broken down team and a superannuated cow to raise the debt. By constant labour and self-denial the boy had lifted the financial load, and then happening to meet a man who owned this Kansas land had traded, with the hope that on the cheaper land he could reach out faster and get a good increase on the original price besides.

"I remembered th' kind of land it was about here, an' didn't need t' come an' see it first," he said. "I was goin' t' hunt you up 'fore long, anyhow. I never thought of these folks a knowin' you, though, after I got here. Funny, ain't it? I'm right glad t' be back t' you," was his frank confession.

And Elizabeth Farnshaw looked up happily into his face, meeting his eye squarely and without embarra.s.sment. It was as natural to have Luther, and to have him say that he wanted to see her, as it would have been to listen to the announcement from her brother.

"I'm so glad," she replied, "and I've so much to tell you that I hardly know where to begin."

Luther laughed.

"Mrs. Hornby thought I'd be put out about that room, but I told 'er nothin' like that'd bother me if it brought you t' th' house. I've been sleepin' under th' wagon all th' way down from Minnesoty an' I can go right on doin' it."

They did not go far, but wandered back and sat on Nathan's unpainted doorstep while the stars came out, and Elizabeth forgot all about the trials of the morning, and told him of her engagement to John Hunter.

"I'm going to live right next to your farm, Luther, and you must----"

Elizabeth Farnshaw had started to say that he must know John, and somehow the words got suddenly tangled in her throat, and the sentence was unfinished for the fraction of a moment and then ended differently from what she had intended: "And I shall be so glad to have you for a neighbour, and You'll marry--now who will you marry?"

Luther, who had begun to like this new Elizabeth even better than the girl of six years ago, had his little turn in the dark shadow of Nathan's overhanging roof at the mention of this love affair, but he swallowed the bitter pill like a man. The renewed acquaintance had been begun on friendly lines and through all the days which followed it was kept rigidly on that ground. He was glad to have been told frankly and at once of John Hunter's claims.

In spite of the fact that Elizabeth had stumbled and found herself unable to suggest that John and Luther were to be friends, she talked to Luther of her plans, her hopes of becoming a good housekeeper, her efforts at cooking, and of the sewing she was engaged upon. He learned, in time, of the disagreements with her father, and was not surprised, and with him she took up the subject of the marital relations at home. Luther's experience was more limited than Susan Hornby's, but he looked the matter of personal relations squarely in the face and discussed them without reserve. There was always something left to be finished between them, and night after night they walked or sat together on the doorstep till late. Nathan looked on disapprovingly, not understanding the bond between them, but Susan, who heard the girl chatting happily about her coming marriage, saw that the friendship was on safe ground and laughed away his fears.

Nathan had found his first friend since his Topeka experience, and was unwilling to see him come to harm; also, while Nathan had come to love Elizabeth almost as much as his own daughter, and to miss her when she was away, he was uncomfortably aware that she prized a culture which he did not possess, and was subject to fits of jealousy and distrust because of it.

Days pa.s.sed. Elizabeth could not induce herself to call on her future mother-in-law. The surety that she was cheapened by reports of her home affairs stung her consciousness and made it impossible to make the call which she knew she would certainly give offence by omitting. This, too, she talked over with Luther, and he advised her to go at once. Each day she would promise, and each day she would make excuses to herself and him, till at last the man's sober sense told him it must not be put off longer.

One evening, after John had been gone two weeks, and Elizabeth explained the fact of not having gone to see Mrs. Hunter because of the extreme heat, Luther suggested that she go over to the "shanty" with him.

"I forgot my coat, and it looks as if it'd rain 'fore mornin'," he remarked. "I kept th' harness on th' horses, so's t' drive over."