Main-Travelled Roads Part 34

She was pa.s.sing through tribulation on his account, but she sald nothing about it. The old man, her father, no longer spoke to her, and the mother sputtered continually, but the girl seemed sustained by some inner power. She calmly went about doing as she pleased, and no fury of words could check her or turn her aside.

Her hands grew smooth and supple once more, and her face lost the parboiled look it once had.

Claude noticed all these gains and commented on them with the freedom of a man who had established friendly relations with a child.

"I tell you what, Nina, you're coming along, sure. Next ground hop you'll be wearin' silk stockin's and high-heeled shoes. How's the old man? Still mad?"

"He don't speak to me no more. My mudder says I am a big fool."

"She does? Well, you tell her I think you're just getting sensible."

She smiled again, and there was a subtle quality in the mixture of boldness and timidity of her manner. His praise was so sweet and stimulating.

"I sold my pigs," she said. "The old man, he wa.s.s madt, but I didn't mind. I pought me a new dress with the money."

"That's right! I like to see a woman have plenty Of new dresses,"

Claude replied. He was really enjoying the girl's rebellion and growing womanliness.

Meanwhile his own affairs with Lucindy were in a bad way. He seldom saw her now. Mrs. Smith was careful to convey to her that Claude stopped longer than was necessary at Haldeman's, and so Mrs. Kennedy attended to the matter of recording the cream.

Kennedy hersell was always in the field, and Claude had no opportunity for a conversation with him, as he very much wished to have. Once, when he saw 'Cindy in the kitchen at work, he left his team to rest in the shade and sauntered to the door and looked in.

She was kneading out cake dough, and she looked the loveliest thing he had ever seen. Her sleeves were rolled up. Her neat brown dress was covered with a big ap.r.o.n, and her collar was open a liffle at the throat, for it was warm in the kitchen. She frowned when she saw him.

He began jocularly. "Oh, thank you, I can wait till it bakes. No trouble at all."

"Well, it's a good deal of trouble to me to have you standin' there gappin' at me!"

"Ain't gappin' at you. I'm waitin' for the pie."

"'Tain't pie; it's cake."

"Oh, well, cake'll do for a change. Say, 'Cindy-"

"Don't call me 'Cindy!"

"Well, Lucindy. It's mighty lonesome when I don't see you on my trips."

"Oh, I guess you can stand it with Nina to talk to."

"Aha! jealous, are you?"

"Jealous of that Dutchwoman! I don't care who you talk to, and you needn't think it."

Claude was learned in woman's ways, and this pleased him mightily.

"Well, when shall I speak to your daddy?"

"I don't know what you mean, and I don't care."

"Oh, yes, you do. I'm going to come up here next Sunday in my best bib and tucker, and I'm going to say, 'Mr. Kennedy'-'~

The sound of Mrs. Kennedy's voice and footsteps approaching made Claude suddenly remember his duties.

"See ye later," he said with a grin. "I'll call for the cake next time."

"Call till you split your throat, if you want to," said 'Cindy.

Apparently this could have gone on indefinitely, but it didn't.

Lucindy went to Minneapolis for a few weeks to stay with her brother, and that threw Claude deeper into despair than anything Mrs. Kennedy might do or any word Lucindy might say. It was a dreadful blow to him to have her pack up and go so suddenly and without one backward look at him, and, besides, he had planned taking her to Tyre on the Fourth of July.

Mr. Kennedy, much better-natured than the mother, told Claude where she had gone.

"By mighty! That's a knock on the nose for me. When did she go?"

"Yistady. I took her down to the Siding."

"When's she coming back?"

"Oh, after the hot weather is over; four or five weeks."

"I hope I'll be alive when she returns," said Claude gloomily.

Naturally he had a little more time to give to Nina and her remarkable doings, which had set the whole neighborhood to wondering "what had come over the girl."

She no longer worked in the field. She dressed better, and had taken to going to the most fas.h.i.+onable church in town. She was a woman transformed. Nothing was able to prevent her steady progression and bloom. She grew plumper and fairer and became so much more attractive that the young Germans thickened round her, and one or two Yankee boys looked her way. Through it all Claude kept up his half-humorous banter and altogether serious daily advice, without once realizing that any-thing sentimental connected him with it all. He knew she liked him, and sometimes he felt a little annoyed by her attempts to please him, but that she was doing all that she did and ordering her whole life to please him never entered his self-sufficient head.

There wasn't much room left in that head for anyone else except Lucindy, and his plans for wining her. Plan as he might, he saw no way of making more than the two dollars a day he was earning as a cream collector.

Things ran along thus from week to week till it was nearly time for Lucindy to return. Claude was having his top buggy repainted and was preparing for a vigorous campaign when Lucindy should be at home again. He owned his team and wagon and the buggy-nothing more.

One Sat.u.r.day Mr. Kennedy said, "Lucindy's coming home. I'm going down after her tonight."

"Let me bring her up," said Claude with suspicious eagerness.

Mr. Kennedy hesitated. "No, I guess I'll go myself. I want to go to town, anyway."

Claude was in high spirits as he drove into Haldeman's yard that afternoon.

Nina was leaning over the fence singing softly to herself, but a fierce altercation was going on inside the house. The walls resounded. It was all Dutch to Claude, but he knew the old people were quarreling.

Nina smiled and colored as Claude drew up at the side gate. She seemed not to hear the eloquent discussion inside.

"What's going on?" asked Claude.

"Dey tink I am in house."

"How's that?"