The Tobacco Tiller Part 21

"I'm afraid she's about past medicine," Mr. Brock regretted, placidly seating himself. "If you wish it, though, I'll stay and take a look at her ever' once and a while, and if there's no change by three o'clock, and you wish it, I'll send home for my rifle to shoot the poor creature."

Mrs. Doggett bent reluctant eyes on the clock.

"I'm bound to go," she declared,--"them hungry men--"

"Mrs. Doggett, don't you want some cabbage plants? Pa said we was done settin' yesterday," proffered Miss Lucy. Miss Nancy scowled.

"You've surely forgot about Miss Maude Floss engagin' some last week, Lucy," she reminded her. "But maybe she won't take 'em all," she conciliated.

"Cabbage!" Mrs. Doggett's voice rang out shrilly. "Miss Lucy, don't say _cabbage_ to me! I hain't raised a stalk o' cabbage sence the summer Jim and Henrietty married. That year the cabbage snake come a one o' killin'

us all! But hit sh.o.r.e wuz the cause o' Jim and Henrietty a marryin'."

"Was. .h.i.t?" asked Miss Lucy, innocently, while Mr. Brock smiled at her over his former parent-in-law's head. Mrs. Doggett resumed her seat.

"Hit wuz one them awful hot days in June, and Henrietty wuz a visitin'

my Hattie that day. Our cabbage wuz jest a comin' in, and late Meriller cherries wuz turnin'--jest ripe enough to taste good, and we all et a right smart o' cherries before dinner and we wuz all a talkin' about the cabbage snake skeer, and about hit a sickenin' people nigh to death when one got accidentally cooked with the cabbage. Eph, he didn't believe thar wuz no pizen snake on cabbage, but I wuz sorter oneasy when I put hit on the table,--the first mess we'd had.

"Jim, he wuz a workin' in Cincinnati that summer. He wanted to see some new people he said, and he seed enough of 'em.

"'Ma,' he says when he come home, 'them people up thar is so distant a turn, and so selfish, they never ask you to eat a meal o' victuals; and they don't have no bread fitten to eat. I hain't ketched sight of a hoe-cake o' corn bread, ner smelt a biscuit sence I've been gone!'

"I set dinner on the table at twelve, and before the long hand drapped to two, ever' soul of us but Eph wuz a doublin' up like figur' eights!

Eph, he don't never eat cabbage ner cherries. He het water fer us, and doctered us up with mustard and red pepper, ontel we all got some better, then he set off to the still-house to git a little whiskey fer us.

"While we wuz at our worst, Henrietty she crawled to the table and writ a letter, and when Eph, he started she give hit to him to mail on the road. Hit wuz her dyin' farewell to Jim, beggin' him to meet her in heaven, ef she died!

"Henrietty had been a lovin' Jim a long time, and though she wuz mighty purty behaved--never runnin' after him ner nothin'--she told Hattie onct, ef she didn't git to marry Jim, whoever married her would marry her lovin' another man, and that man Jim Doggett! Jim, he never paid much 'tention to Henrietty though--never tuck no holt on her. Seemed like he fancied most any the other girls more, 'tel he got that letter.

Then he come home on the next Sunday excursion, and 'twuzn't no time 'tel they married! My belief is they wouldn't never 'a' married, ef hit hadn't 'a' been fer the cabbage snake.

"Mr. Castle, he read them Gover'ment disports, and said they wuzn't no cabbage snake, but I pulled up ever' head and throwed 'em in the creek, so's not to resk anytheng else gittin' pizened! I'm as bad about cabbage, as Jim is about a black cat, and he wouldn't have a black cat to save your life! I hain't raised nary head sence, ner I hain't a goin'

to!"

"Ef that's the way you feel about hit, I wouldn't, Mrs. Doggett," said Miss Lucy, kindly.

"Did Mr. Doggett git back with the whiskey?" asked Mr. Brock, as Mrs.

Doggett once more arose to go.

"He never got back 'tel midnight," she answered, "and I hain't never tasted nary drap o' _that_ whiskey yit!"

A hundred times since Mr. Lindsay had been commanded to hold no further communication with the James household, he had taken a pencil in his fingers to write to Miss Lucy: a dozen times had walked as far toward her home, as the great beech that stood by the dividing fence of James and Castle: more than once he had set his foot on the mossy fence, but every time, the wounded pride of his sensitive nature, whispering that she ought to write or contrive to see him if she still loved him, held his hand and stayed his foot.

But his heart was not obedient to the pride that ruled his hand, and his foot, and its daily cry refused to be stifled. Mrs. Doggett never failed to wound him by her hints about Mr. Brock and Miss Lucy, but he could not deprive himself of the uncertain consolation of hearing from her, through the Doggetts.

On the evening of this third day of the tobacco setting, Mr. Lindsay, muddy, tired, and footsore, walked in at the Doggett back door. Mrs.

Doggett, for reasons, could have hugged herself when he appeared. Joey, while his mother did her after-supper kitchen work, gave a skeleton-like account of the excitement of the day to the new-comer, but Mrs. Doggett, when she was free, repeated the tale with embellishments for his benefit.

"I jest wisht you could 'a' seed that pore old cow, Mr. Lindsay, after she got to cuttin' up," she narrated gleefully. "After Mr. Brock come, Miss Lucy, by the old man's directions, ondertuck to water her. I seed Mr. Brock wuz uneasy, fer he picked up a old hickory hoe handle, and follered Miss Lucy in the stall. The pore creeter no sooner ketcht sight o' the water'n she tuck violent. She run at the bra.s.s kittle, and mashed hit flat as a batty-cake, and ef Mr. Brock hadn't kep' her off Miss Lucy with that stick, she'd 'a' horned her to death!"

"Why didn't Brock water her hisse'f?" demanded Mr. Lindsay, indignantly.

"He did want to: tuck the kittle in his hand to," defended Mrs. Doggett: "but the old man--he's childish you know--he 'lowed that the cow, bein'

used to Miss Lucy, wouldn't hurt her. Mr. Brock, he gethered up Miss Lucy when she fell, and got out o' the stable mighty quick, and 'twuz all me and Miss Nancy could do to git the door shet and barred."

"Wuz Miss Lucy hurt?" Mr. Lindsay was very white.

"Naw, she wuz jest stunned and had a little scratch on the side o' her forehead whar her head hit the wall. Mr. Brock, he 'peared desp'rit oneasy about her, though. Kerried her ever' step o' the way to the house in his arms hisse'f--wouldn't let n.o.body tech her to help him kerry her!

Watch out, Mr. Lindsay! Ef you don't quit a whittlin' so reckless, you'll cut your hand!

"Mr. Brock, he saved Miss Lucy's life sh.o.r.e, fer after they got out, the cow's eyes turned right green, and glared like a tagger's, and she tried to tear up ever'theng in sight! She tore down the rack, and bit the trough, and hooked in the ground, and flung the stable dirt plumb to the j'ist! Then she bawled and bawled the mournfulest you ever heerd!

"I asked Mr. Brock what he thought ailded her, and he said she wuz sh.o.r.e mad, and all he knowed to do fer her wuz to shoot her and put her out'n her misery! She wuz a gittin' more furiouser all the time when I left."

"Did Brock leave when you did?" asked Mr. Lindsay.

"No, indeed--he staid to dinner. Miss Nancy and her Pa, they looked like they wuz mighty pleased to have him! Miss Nancy, she went and killed a spreng chicken (one them fine black 'Nockers she's so choice of) and before I left she wuz a puttin' on some macaronian, and she knows how to cook hit too! I et some up thar onct--the first I ever et--all cooked up with aigs and cheese, and I thought hit wuz the best stuff I ever et. I took out twice, and I thenks to myse'f, 'ef I wuz out behind the house, I'd take all out!'

"When I left, Miss Lucy wuz a layin' on the divan sorter shuck up and weak, but talkin' to Mr. Brock cheerful. She wuz all over dirt when she fell, but she put on a purty palish blue kimonian when she come to, and Mr. Brock, he had on his good clothes, (actually wouldn't come down thar 'tel he put on his good clothes!) He wuz a takin' on about a pan o'

wonderin' Jews she had a hangin' in the winder, and a pale yaller tea rose she'd got at the warm-house, a bein' so purty, 'as purty as their owner,' he says."

At this point Mrs. Doggett was so elated with the charm of the picture that her imagination had painted, that she could not resist giving it an additional touch.

"And Miss Lucy," she added, "she told him to git the clothes bresh out'n the press drawer, and bresh off the dust whar he had got hit on him at the barn, and then he might have one her roses to put in his b.u.t.ton-hole."

Mr. Lindsay's cheeks became a gray-white. "I wouldn't thenk a man'd have much chance to be a primpin' up and visitin' on a rush time--a terbaccer settin' season," he remarked icily.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Lindsay, yes, sir,--croppin' and courtin' don't go together right handy, do they?" Mr. Doggett agreed with Mr. Lindsay.

At this moment, Dock, who had been so consumed with curiosity to know the fate of the cow, that he had forced his weary feet to walk to the James house, returned, bringing new information.

"Mr. Brock, he went home long in the evenin' to git Reub's rifle," he informed his questioners; "and when he come back 'bout an hour ago, he shot the cow. He's thar now and says fer as many of us as hain't too tired, to come up and help cut wood to burn the carkis. Says. .h.i.t'll spread the mad all over the country ef dogs git any of hit!"

"I plumb hate to not go," remarked Mr. Doggett, rubbing one of his stiffened lower limbs: "Joey, can't you and Roscoe, and some you young fellers go and holp Mr. Brock out!"

"Hit looks more like imperdence than anytheng else, fer him to ask fellers as wore out as you all, to do any more work tonight! The theng fer you all to do is to go to bed, and let him peel off them Sundays, and be his own 'hewer o' wood,'" said Gran'dad, unfeelingly. Mr. Lindsay smiled in the dim light of the small lamp, and gave Gran'dad's lean arm a pinch of commendation.

"That's right, Gran'dad," he said: "ef Miss Lucy's beau wants to raise hisse'f in the estimation o' her family, by conductin' a cow-burnin' fer 'em, less don't bother him none; less jest let him have his cow-burnin', and all the pleasure and honor there is in hit to hisse'f!" And every tobacco-setter agreed.

On his way to the tobacco field next morning, Dock made it convenient to go by the way of the Jameses and the funeral pyre, and from him, Miss Lucy learned that Mr. Lindsay had pa.s.sed the night at the Doggetts.

Because of this information, she drove even more slowly than usual on her way to town.

"Perhaps," she thought hopefully, "he'll remember hit's my marketin'

day, and maybe he'll walk to town and overtake me, and ride 'long to town with me. Hit surely wouldn't be no harm."

She looked from the gla.s.s in the back curtain of her buggy. n.o.body was coming along the road toward her, but if her eyes and ears could have pierced three miles, they would have seen a slender, brown-eyed man, with a heart sore and full of rancor toward the world, going rapidly in the opposite direction, and would have heard him saying,--his voice wistful with the tears his pride would not allow his eyes to shed:

"They've set her ag'in me, I reckon, and hit looks like she's got to preferrin' Brock to me. Ef she has, she can have him; I won't stand in her way! But I wouldn't have thought hit of her, no I wouldn't, and hit's--O Lucy, hit's--hit's good bye to the home I laid out to have!"