Main-Travelled Roads Part 33

Nina in her poor way had longings and aspirations. She wanted to marry "a Yankee," and not one of her own kind. She had a little schooling obtained at the small brick shed under the towering cottonwood tree at the corner of her father's farm; but her life had been one of hard work and mighty little play. Her parents spoke in German about the farm, and could speak English only very brokenly. Her only brother had adventured into the foreign parts of Pine County and had been killed in a sawmill. Her life was lonely and hard.

She had suitors among the Germans, plenty of them, but she had a disgust of them-considered as possible husbands-and though she went to their beery dances occasionally, she had always in her mind the ease, lightness, and color of Claude. She knew that the Yankee girls did not work in the fields-even the Norwegian girls seldom did so now, they worked out in town-but she had been brought up to hoe and pull weeds from her childhood, and her father and mother considered it good for her, and being a gentle and obedient child, she still continued to do as she was told.

Claude pitied the girl, and used to talk with her, during his short stay, in his cheeriest manner.

"h.e.l.lo, Nina! How you va.s.s, ain't it? How much cream already you got this morning? Did you hear the news, not?"

"No, vot ha.s.s happened?"

"Everything. Frank Mcvey's horse stepped through the bridge and broke his leg, and he's going to sue the county-mean Frank is, not the horse."

"Iss dot so?"

"Sure! and Bill Hetner had a fight, and Julia Dooriliager's got home."

"Vot wa.s.s Bill fightding apoudt?"

"Oh, drunk-fighting for exercise. Hain't got a fresh pie cut?"

Her face lighted up, and she turned so suddenly to go that her bare leg showed below her dress. Her unstockinged feet were thrust into coa.r.s.e working shoes. Claude wrinkled his nose in disgust, but he took the piece of green currant pie on the palm of his hand and bit the acute angle from it.

"First-rate. You do make lickin' good pies," he said Out of pure kindness of heart, and Nina was radiant.

"She wouldn't be so bad-lookin' if they didn't work her in the fields like a horse," he said to himself as he drove away.

The neighbors were well aware of Nina's devotion, and Mrs.

Smith, who lived two or three houses down the road, said, "Good evening, Claude. Seen Nina today?"

"Sure! and she gave me a piece of currant pie-her own make."

"Did you eat it?"

"Did I? I guess yes. I ain't refusin' pie from Nina-not while her pa has five hundred acres of the best land in Mola.s.ses Gap."

Now, it was this innocent joking on his part that started all Claude's trouble. Mrs. Smith called a couple of days later and had her joke with 'Cindy.

"'Cindy, your cake's all dough."

"Why, what's the matter now?"

"Claude come along t'other day grinnin' from ear to ear, and some currant pie in his musstache. He had jest fixed it up with Nina. He jest as much as said he was after the old man's acres."

"Well, let him have 'em. I don't know as it interests me," replied 'Cindy, waving her head like a banner. "If he wants to sell himself to that greasy Dutchwoman why, let him, that's all! I don't care."

Her heated manner betrayed her to Mrs. Smith, who laughed with huge enjoyment.

"Well, you better watch out!"

The next day was very warm, and when Claude drove up under the shade of the big maples he was ready for a chat while his horses rested, but 'Cindy was nowhere to be seen. Mrs. Kennedy came out to get the amount of the skimming and started to re-enter the house without talk.

"Where's the young folks?" asked Claude carelessly.

"If you mean Lucindy, she's in the house."

"Ain't sick or nothin', is she?"

"Not that anybody knows of. Don't expect her to be here to ga.s.s with you every time, do ye?"

"Well, I wouldn't mind"' replied Claude. He was too keen not to see his chance. "In fact, I'd like to have her with me all the time, Mrs. Kennedy," he said with engaging frankness.

"Well, you can't have her," the mother replied ungraciously.

"What's the matter with me?"

"Oh, I like you well enough, but 'Cindy'd be a big fool to marry a man without a roof to cover his head."

"That's where you take your inning, sure," Claude replied. "I'm not much better than a hired hand. Well, now, see here, I'm going to make a strike one of these days, and then-look out for me! You don't know but what I've invested in a gold mine. I may be a Dutch lord in disguise. Better not be brash."

Mrs. Kennedy's sourness could not stand against sueb sweetness and drollery. She smiled in wry fas.h.i.+on. "You'd better be moving, or you'll be late."

"Sure enough. If I only had you for a mother-in-law-that's why I'm so poor. n.o.body to keep me moving. If I had someone to do the talking for me, I'd work." He grinned broadly and drove out.

His irritation led him to say some things to Nina which he would not have thought of saying the day before. She had been working in the field and had dropped her hoe to see him.

"Say, Nina, I wouldn't work outdoors such a day as this if I was you. I'd tell the old man to go to thunder, and I'd go in and wash up and look decent Yankee women don't do that kind of work, and your old dad's rich; no use of your sweatin' around a cornfield with a hoe in your hands. I don't like to see a woman goin' round without stockin's and her hands all chapped and calloused. It ain't accordin' to Hoyle. No, sir! I wouldn't stand it. I'd serve an injunction on the old man right now."

A dull, slow flush crept into the girl's face, and she put one hand over the other as they rested on the fence. One looked so much less monstrous than two.

Claude went on, "Yes, sir! I'd brace up and go to Yankee meeting instead of Dutch; you'd pick up a Yankee beau like as not."

He gathered his cream while she stood silently by, and when he looked at her again she was in deep thought.

"Good day," he said cheerily.

"Goodbye," she replied, and her face flushed again.

It rained that night, and the roads were very bad, and he was late the next time he arrived at Haldeman's. Nina came out in her best dress, but he said nothing about it, supposing she was going to town or something Like that, and he hurried through with his task and had mounted his seat before he realized that anything was wrong.

Then Mrs. Haldeman appeared at the kitchen door and hurled a lot of unintelligible German at him. He knew she was mad, and mad at him, and also' at Nina, for she shook her fist at them alternately.

Singular to tell, Nina paid no attention to her mother's sputter. She looked at Claude with a certain timid audacity.

"How you like me today?"

"That's better," he said as he eyed her critically. "Now you're talkin'! I'd do a little reading of the newspaper myself, if I was.

you. A woman's business ain't to work out in the hot sun-it's to cook and fix up things round the house, and then put on her clean dress and set in the shade and read or sew on something. Stand up to 'em! Doggone me if I'd paddle round that hot cornfield with a mess o' Dutchmen-it ain't decent!"

He drove off with a chuckle at the old man, who was seated at the back of the house with a newspaper in his hand. He was lame, or pretended he was, and made his wife and daughter wait upon him.

Claude had no conception of what was working in Nina's mind, but he could not help observing the changes for the better in her appearance. Each day he called she was neatly dressed and wore her shoes laced up to the very top hook.