The Harvester Part 15

"You've found her, David!"

The Harvester grabbed the hand of his friend and stood pumping it up and down while he gulped at the lump in his throat, and big tears squeezed from his eyes, but he could only nod his proud head.

"Found her!" exulted Doctor Carey. "Really found her! Well that's great!

Sit down and tell me, boy! Is she sick, as we feared? Did you only see her or did you get to talk with her?"

"Well sir," said the Harvester, choking back his emotions, "you remember that ginseng I told you about getting on the old Jameson place last night. To-day, I learned I'd lost that hand-made mattock I use most, and I went back for it, and there she was."

"In the country?"

"Yes sir!"

"Well why didn't we think of it before?"

"I suppose first we would have had to satisfy ourselves that she wasn't in town, anyway."

"Sure! That would be the logical way to go at it! And so you found her?"

"Yes sir, I found her! Just Belshazzar and I! I was going along on my way to the place, and he ran past me and made a stiff point, and when I came up, there she was!"

"There she was?"

"Yes sir; there she was!"

They shook hands again.

"Then of course you spoke to her."

"Yes I spoke to her."

"Were you pleased?"

"With her speech and manner?----yes. But, Doc, if ever a woman needed everything on earth!"

"Well did you get any kind of a start made?"

"I couldn't do so very much. I had to go a little slow for fear of frightening her, but I tried to get her to come here and she won't until a debt she owes is paid, and she's in no condition to work."

"Got any idea how much it is?"

"No, but it can't be any large sum. I tried to offer to pay it, but she had no hesitation in telling me she preferred owing a man she knew to a stranger."

"Well if she is so particular, how did she come to tell you first thing that she was in debt?"

The Harvester explained.

"Oh I see!" said the doctor. "Well you'll have to baby her along with the idea that she is earning money and pay her double until you get that off her mind, and while you are at it, put in your best licks, my boy; perk right up and court her like a house afire. Women like it. All of them do. They glory in feeling that a man is crazy about them."

"Well I'm insane enough over her," said the Harvester, "but I'd hate like the nation for her to know it. Seems as if a woman couldn't respect such an addle-pate as I am lately."

"Don't you worry about that," advised the doctor. "Just you make love to her. Go at it in the good old-fas.h.i.+oned way."

"But maybe the 'good old-fas.h.i.+oned way' isn't my way."

"What's the difference whose way it is, if it wins?"

"But Kipling says: 'Each man makes love his own way!'"

"I seem to have heard you mention that name be fore," said the doctor.

"Do you regard him as an authority?"

"I do!" said the Harvester. "Especially when he advises me after my own heart and reason. Miss Jameson is not a silly girl. She's a woman, and twenty-four at least. I don't want her to care for a trick or a pretence. I do want her to love me. Not that I am worth her attention, but because she needs some strong man fearfully, and I am ready and more 'willing' than the original Barkis. But, like him, I have to let her know it in my way, and court her according to the promptings of my heart."

"You deceive yourself!" said the doctor flatly. "That's all bos.h.!.+ Your tongue says it for the satisfaction of your ears, and it does sound well. You will court her according to your ideas of the conventions, as you understand them, and strictly in accordance with what you consider the respect due her. If you had followed the thing you call the 'promptings of your heart,' you would have picked her up by main force and brought her to my best ward, instead of merely suggesting it and giving up when she said no. If you had followed your heart, you would have choked the name and amount out of her and paid that devilish debt.

You walk away in a case like that, and then have the nerve to come here and prate to me about following your heart. I'll wager my last dollar your heart is sore because you were not allowed to help her; but on the proposition that you followed its promptings I wouldn't stake a penny.

That's all tommy-rot!"

"It is," agreed the Harvester. "Utter! But what can a man do?"

"I don't know what you can do! I'd have paid that debt and brought her to the hospital."

"I'll go and ask Mrs. Carey about your courts.h.i.+p. I want her help on this, anyway. I can pick up Miss Jameson and bring her here if any man can, but she is nursing a sick woman who depends solely on her for care.

She is above average size, and she has a very decided mind of her own.

I don't think you would use force and do what you think best for her, if you were in my place. You would wait until you understood the situation better, and knew that what you did was for the best, ultimately."

"I don't know whether I would or not. One thing is sure: I'm mighty glad you have found her. May I tell my wife?"

"Please do! And ask her if I may depend on her if I need a woman's help.

Now I'll call off the valiant police and go home and take a good, sound sleep. Haven't had many since I first saw her."

So Betsy trotted down the valley, up the embankment, crossed the railroad, over the levee across Singing Water, and up the hill to the cabin. As they pa.s.sed it, the Harvester jumped from the wagon, tossed the hitching strap to Belshazzar, and entered. He walked straight to her door, unlocked it, and uncovering, went inside. Softly he pa.s.sed from piece to piece of the furniture he had made for her, and then surveyed the walls and floor.

"It isn't half good enough," he said, "but it will have to answer until I can do better. Surely she will know I tried and care for that, anyway.

I wonder how long it will take me to get her here. Oh, if I only could know she was comfortable and happy! Happy! She doesn't appear as if she ever had heard that word. Well this will be a good place to teach her.

I've always enjoyed myself here. I'm going to have faith that I can win her and make her happy also. When I go to the stable to do my work for the night if I could know she was in this cabin and glad of it, and if I could hear her down here singing like a happy care-free girl, I'd scarcely be able to endure the joy of it."

CHAPTER IX. THE HARVESTER GOES COURTING

"She is on Henry Jameson's farm, four miles west of Onabasha," said the Harvester, as he opened his eyes next morning, and laid a caressing hand on Belshazzar's head. "At two o'clock we are going to see her, and we are going to prolong the visit to the ultimate limit, so we should make things count here before we start."

He worked in a manner that accomplished much. There seemed no end to his energy that morning. Despatching the usual routine, he gathered the herbs that were ready, spread them on the shelves of the dry-house, found time to do several things in the cabin, and polish a piece of furniture before he ate his lunch and hitched Betsy to the wagon.

He also had recovered his voice, and talked almost incessantly as he worked. When it neared time to start he dressed carefully. He stood before his bookcase and selected several pamphlets published by the Department of Agriculture. He went to his beds and gathered a large arm load of plants. Then he was ready to make his first trip to see the Dream Girl, but it never occurred to him that he was going courting.

He had decided fully that there would be no use to try to make love to a girl manifestly so ill and in trouble. The first thing, it appeared to him, was to dispel the depression, improve the health, and then do the love making. So, in the most business-like manner possible and without a shade of embarra.s.sment, the Harvester took his herbs and books and started for the Jameson woods. At times as he drove along he espied something that he used growing beside the road and stopped to secure a specimen.

He came down the river bank and reached the ginseng bed at half-past one. He was purposely early. He laid down his books and plants, and rolled the log on which she sat the day before to a more shaded location, where a big tree would serve for a back rest. He pulled away brush and windfalls, heaped dry brown leaves, and tramped them down for her feet. Then he laid the books on the log, the arm load of plants beside them, and went to the river to wash his soiled hands.