Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight Part 15

He had acquired the knack under his wife's tutelage of beginning an argument with a man and gradually coming around to his antagonist's way of thinking; complimenting his opponent upon his way of making a difficult question clear. He would tell him: "Now I understand it for the first time. I was wrong, you are right." Thereupon he and his opponent usually began a sort of Alphonse and Gaston species of concessions which ended in Saylor convincing the man to his way of thinking. His wife said it was the Clay way of persuasion.

Several days after Rosamond and her husband arrived, John's mother had a slight illness which kept Mary at home. Rosamond insisted on continuing the rambles which had been planned, and her husband refusing to accompany her, John was forced to do so.

Thus, in a way, the relations of more than a half-dozen years before were re-established. When they were with Dorothy and Bradford she insisted on going where they with their little, two-year-old boy could not go, and in this way managed that she and John were much together.

When they pa.s.sed some place she remembered from her former rambles of the years before, she had a way of recalling it and saying: "It was here, John, we sat on the rock and you brought me water from the spring in a cup of leaves; let's do it again for old-time's sake. It was here, John, we seined the minnows; it was here you taught me the jack-knife dive; it was here you picked me up, oh, so tenderly! and with so much anxious solicitude, I have half a mind to fall again" until John grew timid, and the next time begged Mary to come with them, and when she said it was impossible, sought to keep with the other members of the party, but Rosamond was the better manager and their solitary rambles continued.

A day or two before she was to return home, as they sat resting on a moss-grown rock in a secluded cove far up the mountainside, she placed her hand over John's and said:

"Tell me, John, what you were going to ask the night of the dance so many years ago, when you brought me out to the arbor and we found Dorothy and Howard Bradford there?"

"I thought I loved you and was going to ask you to be my wife."

"Why didn't you, John--do; didn't you love me?"

"I had a horrid dream about you and before I recovered from it you became offended and returned home. I never saw you afterwards until Mary and I were married."

"So you let a dream shatter my dreams of love and happiness."

"You should not say that, Rosamond. You are married and to a man of your own choosing and I to the wife of my choice."

"Mine was a marriage of convenience; I did it believing that I could manage my husband and, with even the crude material at hand, make a man.

I am regretting it even now after less than four months. He either has less sense than I thought or is harder to manage. I do not even respect him and if you were still single and wished it, I could get a divorce.

Why did you not follow me home, John? That's what I expected you to do."

"Don't; such talk is not right and you must not say such things to me.

Even though I loved you once, I now love only one woman in the world and that is Mary. Were we both single, I could not marry you unless Mary was married to some other man. There is no use talking about such things; they are a forgotten past. I shall not go out with you again; I dare not; you are a fascinating woman and the old love might return."

"You coward!"

John rose from his seat and, deathly pale, walked ahead of Rosamond down the mountainside and she, pale and trembling with anger, followed after.

Neither spoke until they joined Dorothy and Bradford under some old elms near the river.

From that day until the Saylors left for home John was too busy at the office for any more rambles. Rosamond was ill-tempered and spent most of her time in her room. When her door was opened the quiet of the house was occasionally disturbed by loud-voiced wrangling with her husband; though in the presence of strangers she always greeted him in a gently modulated voice and with a smile.

The following spring the Pittsburgh Coal & c.o.ke Company sold out to a Detroit manufacturer of automobiles and John was instrumental in closing the deal. As fee and profit on the sale of his stock in the company he realized a little more than twenty-three thousand dollars.

He was retained by the new company as their local counsel at a salary of three thousand dollars and from his other business realized an income of four thousand dollars more. This seemed to be about the limit of earning capacity in the little, mountain city, though he and his wife never thought of moving. They were both satisfied and loved the mountains and their neighbors. Their mother was content where her children, John and Mary, were.

In the fall of 1911 he was the Democratic elector from the Eleventh Congressional District and made a few speeches which attracted some little attention. The following summer he was offered and declined the a.s.sistant United States District Attorneys.h.i.+p for the Eastern Kentucky District.

On the 12th day of May, 1910, his thirty-eighth birthday, his wife presented him with a son. After a discussion lasting several days, in which he and Mary had less to say than his mother or Mrs. Neal or Mrs.

Simeon Saylor, who was visiting her daughter, the boy was christened John Saylor Cornwall; and to avoid confusion in an otherwise quiet and well-regulated household, was called Saylor.

His father called him "Sailor Boy" and wanted to take him down to the river to sail toy boats before he cut his stomach teeth but the boy's grandmothers would not permit it.

The two grandmothers were constantly quarrelling as to who should hold John Saylor Cornwall, while the baby was either crying to go to his father or squirming to get down and crawl on the floor.

His grandfather, who was now Colonel Simeon Saylor (i. e., by courtesy, since he was quite an extensive land-owner), began to think that John Saylor Cornwall in the years to come might grow to be almost as great as his Uncle John Calhoun, who was now Congressman from the Eighth District.

He began telling the boy how great he was going to be until his mother put a stop to it by threatening to send him home before the boy's second birthday, the celebration of which event the grandfather and two grandmothers looked forward to with excited expectancy, as he was the only grandchild in either family.

On his second birthday he was showered with presents. Everybody remembered him, except his Aunt Rosamond. She left the Cornwall family alone after her visit in August, following the marriage of John and Mary.

She was now in Was.h.i.+ngton with her husband; or, as some of her friends put it, she was in Was.h.i.+ngton, accompanied by her husband.

As a politician, he was not in her cla.s.s. She some time since had ceased in her attempts to gratify ambition by reflective honors from her husband and had marched forth under the leaders.h.i.+p of Mrs. Catt as a most trusted lieutenant. She was head of the Woman's Suffrage Organization of Kentucky; was in great demand as a public speaker and heralded by an extensive following as the probable successor of Mrs.

Catt in the fight for the emanc.i.p.ation of women.

Her husband, in spite of his distinguished air and faculty as a personal press agent, was slowly losing his ident.i.ty. He was not infrequently referred to, particularly in Was.h.i.+ngton, as the husband of Mrs. Rosamond Clay Saylor.

On the way home from his visit. Grandpa Saylor stopped off at Pineville and spent a day or two on the head of Straight Creek with his former neighbors.

The old home place was occupied by Jim Helton, who, when he sold his land to the coal company, moved into the Saylor house. He spent a day with the Heltons; he even visited the old cliff-house still and at twilight started down the creek for Pineville. In the valley it was very dark, as the moon had not yet risen above the mountain.

When opposite Elhannon Howard's, the horse he was riding stumbled over something in the middle of the road and horse and rider were hurled over the bank into the creek. Elhannon, hearing the noise made by the horse floundering around in the water and old man Saylor swearing, came out bearing a flaming pine knot, and the two old enemies faced each other.

Saylor's horse had stumbled over one of Elhannon's cows asleep in the road and the frightened cow, struggling to her feet, had thrown horse and rider over the bank. The rider was unhurt, but the horse's right foreleg was broken.

"d.a.m.n you, Elhannon, why don't you and your wife sleep out in the middle of the road, too. You will certainly pay for that horse and my wetting.

I am too old to fight you, but I will law you in Squire Ingram's court."

"All right, Sim Saylor; I'll be thar."

"And if I lose thar, I'll take it to the Circuit Court."

"All right, Sim Saylor, I'll be thar."

"And if I lose in the Circuit Court, I'll take it to the Court of Appeals."

"All right, Sim Saylor; I'll be thar."

"And if I lose in the Court of Appeals, I'll take it to h.e.l.l, the next place."

"All right, Sim Saylor, I won't be thar, but my lawyer will. Keep on your s.h.i.+rt, Sim, and come into the house. The old woman can make you comfortable for the night."

They went to the house and Mr. Saylor took off his wet clothes and went to bed. When he awoke the next morning they hung on a chair, dry and nicely cleaned; there was even a fas.h.i.+onable crease down the trouser legs. Elhannon's dude son had pressed them for him.

As he and Elhannon sat at breakfast they talked about the bees and the old Southdown ram which several years before had been gathered to his fathers, leaving several n.o.ble scions behind.

When breakfast was over Elhannon's boy, the dude, drove up in front of the house in a buckboard, and Saylor climbed in beside him. As the boy started off Elhannon called: "Look here, dood, don't drive that horse over any cows in the road."

Old man Saylor laughed and called back: "You and I are too old to law; you settle with old man Samuels for his horse and we'll call it square.

You and the old woman come down to the fair and stop with us."

"All right, Sim Saylor; I'll be thar; so long and good luck."