A Young Man in a Hurry, and Other Short Stories Part 29

It was pretty nearly the last straw. Never had she been conscious of being so spontaneously, so unreasonably approved of since that wretched boy had suggested flight at her first party. She could not separate the memory of the innocent youth from Burleson; he was intensely like that boy; and she had liked the boy, too--liked him so much that in those ten heavenly minutes' acquaintance she was half persuaded to consent--only there was nowhere to fly to, and before they could decide her nurse arrived.

"If you had not told me your first name," said Burleson, "how could anybody make out a check to your order?"

"Is _that_ why--" she began; and without the slightest reason her heart gave a curious little tremor of disappointment.

"You see," he said, cheerfully, "it was not impertinence--it was only formality."

"I see," she said, approvingly, and began to find him a trifle tiresome.

Meanwhile he had confidently skipped to another subject. "Phosphates and nitrogen are what those people need for their farms. Now if you prepare your soil--do your own mixing, of course--then begin with red clover, and plough--"

Her gray eyes were so wide open that he stopped short to observe them; they were so beautiful that his observation continued until she colored furiously. It was the last straw.

"The fire is out, I think," she said, calmly, rising to her feet; "my duty here is ended, Mr. Burleson."

"Oh--are you going?" he asked, with undisguised disappointment. She regarded him in silence for a moment. How astonis.h.i.+ngly like that boy he was--this six-foot--

"Of course I am going," she said, and wondered why she had said "of course" with emphasis. Then she whistled to her mare.

"May I ride with you to the house?" he asked, humbly.

She was going to say several things, all politely refusing. What she did say was, "Not this time."

Then she was furious with herself, and began to hate him fiercely, until she saw something in his face that startled her. The mare came up; she flung the bridle over hastily, set foot to metal, and seated herself in a flash. Then she looked down at the man beside her, prepared for his next remark.

It came at once. "When may we ride together, Miss Elliott?"

She became strangely indulgent. "You know," she said, as though instructing youth, "that the first proper thing to do is to call upon my father, because he is older than you, and he is physically unable to make the first call."

"Then by Wednesday we may ride?" he inquired, so guilessly that she broke into a peal of delicious laughter.

"How old are you, Mr. Burleson? Ten?"

"I feel younger," he said.

"So do I," she said. "I feel like a little girl in a muslin gown." Two spots of color tinted her cheeks. He had never seen such beauty in human guise, and he came very near saying so. Something in the aromatic mountain air was tempting her to recklessness. Amazed, exhilarated by the temptation, she sat there looking down at him; and her smile was perilously innocent and sweet.

"Once," she said, "I knew a boy--like you--when I wore a muslin frock, and I have never forgotten him. He was extremely silly."

"Do you remember only silly people?"

"I can't forget them; I try."

"Please don't try any more," he said.

She looked at him, still smiling. She gazed off through the forest, where the men were going home, shovels shouldered, the blades of axe and spade blood-red in the sunset light.

How long they stood there she scarcely reckoned, until a clear primrose light crept in among the trees, and the evening mist rose from an unseen pond, floating through the dimmed avenues of pines.

"Good-night," she said, gathered bridle, hesitated, then held out her ungloved hand.

Galloping homeward, the quick pressure of his hand still burning her palm, she swept along in a maze of disordered thought. And being by circ.u.mstances, though not by inclination, an orderly young woman, she attempted a mental reorganization. This she completed as she wheeled her mare into the main forest road; and, her happy, disordered thoughts rearranged with a layer of cold logic to quiet them, reaction came swiftly; her cheeks burned when she remembered her own att.i.tude of half-accepted intimacy with this stranger. How did he regard her? How cheaply did he already hold her--this young man idling here in the forest for his own pleasure?

But she had something more important on hand than the pleasures of remorseful cogitation as she rode up to the store and drew bridle, where in their s.h.i.+rt-sleeves the prominent citizens were gathered. She began to speak immediately. She did not mince matters; she enumerated them by name, dwelt coldly upon the law governing arson, and told them exactly where they stood.

She was, by courtesy of long residence, one of them. She taught their children, she gave them pills and powders, she had stood by them even when they had the law against them--stood by them loyally and in the very presence of Grier, fencing with him at every move, combating his brutality with deadly intelligence.

They collapsed under her superior knowledge; they trusted her, fawned on her, whined when she rebuked them, carried themselves more decently for a day or two when she dropped a rare word of commendation. They respected her in spite of the latent ruffianly instinct which sneers at women; they feared her as a parish fears its priest; they loved her as they loved one another--which was rather toleration than affection; the toleration of half-starved bob-cats.

And now the school-marm had turned on them--turned on them with undisguised contempt. Never before had she betrayed contempt for them.

She spoke of cowardice, too. That bewildered them. n.o.body had ever suggested that.

She spoke of the shame of jail; they had heretofore been rather proud of it--all this seated there in the saddle, the light from the store lamp s.h.i.+ning full in her face; and they huddled there on the veranda, gaping at her, stupefied.

Then she suddenly spoke of Burleson, praising him, endowing him with every quality the n.o.bility of her own mind could compa.s.s. She extolled his patience under provocation, bidding them to match it with equal patience. She bad them be men in the face of this Burleson, who was a man; to display a dignity to compare with his; to meet him squarely, to deal fairly, to make their protests to his face and not whisper crime behind his back.

And that was all; she swung her mare off into the darkness; they listened to the far gallop, uttering never a word. But when the last distant hoof-stroke had ceased, Mr. Burleson's life and forests were safe in the country. How safe his game was they themselves did not exactly know.

That night Burleson walked into the store upon the commonplace errand of buying a jack-knife. It was well that he did not send a groom; better still when he explained, "one of the old-fas.h.i.+oned kind--the kind I used as a school-boy."

"To whittle willow whistles," suggested old man Santry. His voice was harsh; it was an effort for him to speak.

"That's the kind," said Burleson, picking out a one-blader.

Santry was coughing; presently Burleson looked around.

"Find swallowing hard?" he asked.

"Swallerin' ain't easy. I ketched cold."

"Let's see," observed Burleson, strolling up to him and deliberately opening the old man's jaws, not only to Santry's astonishment, but to the stupefaction of the community around the unlighted stove.

"Bring a lamp over here," said the young man.

Somebody brought it.

"Tonsilitis," said Burleson, briefly. "I'll send you something to-night?"

"Be you a doctor?" demanded Santry, hoa.r.s.ely.

"Was one. I'll fix you up. Go home; and don't kiss your little girl.

I'll drop in after breakfast."

Two things were respected in Fox Cross-roads--death and a doctor--neither of which the citizens understood.

But old man Santry, struggling obstinately with his awe of things medical, rasped out, "I ain't goin' to pay no doctor's bills fur a cold!"

"n.o.body pays me any more," said Burleson, laughing. "I only doctor people to keep my hand in. Go home, Santry; you're sick."