Rose of Old Harpeth Part 7

"I'm sorry, too, you didn't find the oil on the old gentleman's place," he said in his most open and dulcet tones. "I am very fond of Mr. Alloway; I may say of the whole family. Farming is too hard work for him at his years and I would have liked for him to have had the ease of an increased income. Some time ago a phosphate expert examined these regions, but reported nothing worth working. I had more hope of the oil. As I say, I am interested in Mr. Alloway and the family--I may say it to you in confidence, particularly interested in one of the members." And the smile that the Senator bestowed upon Everett aroused a keen desire for murder in the first degree. There was a challenge and a warning in it and a cunning, too, that was deeper than both.

Controlling his impulse to smash the Senatorial bulldog jaw, Everett's mind went instantly after the cunning.

"So you only got the phosphate in your examination report of the Alloway place?" he asked in a friendly, interested tone, as if the hint had failed to make a landing. The cunning in his own glance and tone he was shrewd enough to hide.

"That was about all--nothing that was worth taking up then," answered the Senator again carelessly, and at that moment Mr. Crabtree came out to join them.

In a few minutes Everett threw away his cigar, glanced across at the Briars, where he could see Rose Mary and Uncle Tucker establis.h.i.+ng Miss Lavinia, in her high company cap, in the big chair on the front porch, and without a word he strode out the back door of the store and across the fields toward Boliver. He stopped at the Rucker side fence and entrusted a message to the willing Jenny, and then went on into the twilight in the direction of the lights of the distant town.

And as he walked along his mood was, to say the least, savage, and he cut, with a long switch he had picked up, at some nodding little wind bells that had begun to show their colors along the side of the road.

He was hungry and he was having his supper in detached visions. Now Rose Mary was handing the Senator a plate of high-piled supper rolls, each with a golden stream of b.u.t.ter cascading down the side, and as her lovely bare arm held them across to the guest probably she was helping Stonie's plate with her other hand to a spoonful of cream gravy over his nicely browned chicken leg. On her side of the table Miss Lavinia was pouring the rich cream over her bowl of steaming mush and the materialized aroma from Uncle Tucker's cup of coffee that Rose Mary had just poured him brought tears to Everett's eyes. Then came a flash of Aunt Amandy helping herself under Rose Mary's urging to a second crisp waffle, and the Senator was preparing to accept his sixth, impelled by the same solicitous smile that had landed the second on the little old lady's plate. Again Rose Mary was pouring the Senator's second cup and stirring in the cream. If she had lifted the spoon to her lips, as she always did with Uncle Tucker's and sometimes forgot and did with his, Everett would have--And at this point he turned the bend and ran smash into the dramatic scene of a romance.

Seated by the side of the road was Louisa Helen Plunkett, and before her stood young Bob Nickols, an agony of helplessness showing in every line of his face and big loose-jointed figure, for Louisa Helen was weeping into a handkerchief and one of her blue muslin sleeves. And it was not a series of sentimental sobs and sighs or controlled and effective sniffs in which Louisa Helen was indulging, but she was boo-hooing in good earnest with real chokings and gurgles of sobs. Bob was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the toe of his boot into the dust and saying and doing absolutely and desperately nothing.

"Why, Louisa Helen, what is the matter?" demanded Everett as he seated himself beside the wailer and endeavored to bring down the pitch of the sobs by a kindly pat on the heaving shoulder.

"What's happened, Bob?" he demanded of the silent and dejected lover, who only shook his head as he answered from the depths of confusion.

"I don't know; she just of a sudden flung down and began to hollow and I ain't never got her to say."

"Oh, I want a supper and a veil and a bokay!" came in a perfect howl from the folds of the sleeve.

"I want some supper, too, Louisa Helen," said Everett quickly, and a smile lifted the corners of his mouth as the situation began to unravel itself to his sympathetic concern. "I guess I could take the bouquet and veil, too," he added to himself in an undertone.

"I ain't a-going to let Maw insult Bob no more, but I don't want no Boliver wedding in the office of no hotel. I want to be married where folks can look at me, and have something good to eat, and throw old shoes and rice at me," came in a more constrained and connected flow, as the poor little fugitive raised her head from her arm and reached down to settle her skirts about her ankles, from which she had flirted them in the kicks of one of her most violent paroxysms. Louisa Helen was very young and just as pretty as she was young. She was rosy and dimpled and had absurd little baby curls trailing down over her eyes, and her tears had no more effect on her face than a summer shower.

"Why, what did your mother say to Bob?" asked Everett, thus drawn into the position of arbitrator between two family factions.

"She told him that Jennie Rucker would be about his frying size when he got old enough to pick a wife, and it hurt his feelings so he didn't come to see me for a week, and he says he ain't never coming no more. If I want him I will have to go over to Boliver and marry him to-morrow." A sob began to rise again in the poor little bride prospective's throat at the thought of the horrible Boliver wedding.

The autocrat s.h.i.+fted uneasily, and in the dusk Everett could see that he was completely melted and ready to surrender his position if he could only find the line of retreat.

"Well," said Everett judicially, as he looked up at Bob with a wink, which was answered by the slightest beginning of laugh from the insulted one, "I don't believe Bob wants to do without that bouquet and veil and supper either. They are just the greatest things that ever happen to a man"--another wink at Bob--"and Bob don't want to give them up. Now suppose you go on back home to-night and don't say anything to your mother about the matter, and to-morrow I'll ask Mr.

Crabtree to step over and make it up with Bob for her. I feel sure she'll invite them both in to supper, and then sometime soon we can all discuss the veil-bouquet question. You aren't in a hurry, are you?"

"Naw," answered Bob promptly. "Me and Paw ain't got all the winter wheat in yet, and we've got to cut clover next week. We're mighty busy now. I ain't in no hurry."

"And I don't want to get married no way except when the briar roses is in bloom so I can have the church tucked out in 'em. And I've got to get some pretty clothes made, too," answered Louisa Helen, thus putting in direct contrast the feminine and masculine att.i.tude towards nuptials in general and also in particular.

"Then go on back home, you two," said Everett with a laugh, as he rose to his feet and drew to hers the now smiling Louisa Helen. "And I predict that by the time the briar roses are out something will happen to make it all right. Put your faith in Mr. Crabtree, I should advise, I suspect that he has--er influence with your mother." A giggle from Louisa Helen and a guffaw from Bob, as the two young people started on back along the Road, showed that they had both appreciated his veiled sally.

And as he stood watching them out of sight down the Road the twilight faded from off the Valley and darkness came down in a starlit veil from over old Harpeth. Everett climbed up and seated himself on the top rail of the fence and again gave himself over to his moods. This time one of bitterness, almost anger, rose to the surface. The same old wheel grinding out here in the wilderness that he had left in the market places of the world. The vision he had caught of the great cycle being turned by some still greater source above the hills was--a vision. The wheels ground on with the victims strapped and the cogs dripping. Loot and the woman--loot and the woman! And he had thought that out here "_in the hollow of His hand_" he had lost the sound of that grind. And such a woman--the lovely gracious thing with the unfaithful, dishonored lover's child in her arms, other women's tumbling children clinging to her skirts and with hands outstretched to protect and comfort the old gray heads in her care! A woman with a sorrow in her heart but with eyes that were deep blue pools in which there mirrored loves for all her little world! For a long time he sat and looked out into the darkness, then suddenly he squared his shoulders, gripped the rail tight in his hands for a half second and then slipped to the ground. Picking up his switch he turned and strode off toward Sweetbriar, which by this time was a little handful of fireflys glowing down in the sweet meadows.

When he got as far as the blacksmith's shop Everett climbed the wall and approached the house through the garden, for in front of the store had been piled high a bonfire of empty boxes and dry wood boughs, and most of the inhabitants of Sweetbriar, small fry and large, were a.s.sembled in jocular groups around its blaze of light. He could see Mr. Crabtree and Bob rolling out an empty barrel to serve as a speaking stand for the Honorable Gid, who stood in the foreground in front of the store steps talking to Uncle Tucker, with an admiring circle around him. Horses and wagons and buggies were hitched at various posts along the road, which indicated the gathering of a small crowd from neighboring towns to hear the coming oration, and the front porch of the store presented a scene of unwonted excitement.

Everett clicked the garden gate and steered around to the back door of the kitchen in hopes of finding black Mag still at her post and begging of her a gla.s.s of milk and a biscuit. But as he stood in the doorway, instead of Mag he discovered Rose Mary with her white skirts tucked up under one of her long kitchen ap.r.o.ns, putting the final polis.h.i.+ng touch to a s.h.i.+ning pile of dishes. She looked up at him for a second, and then went on with her work, and Everett could see that her curled lips were trembling like a hurt child's.

"I--I thought I might get a bite of something from--from Mag if she hadn't left--the kitchen--I--I--" Everett hesitated on the threshold and in speech. "I--I am sorry to trouble you," he finished lamely.

"I don't believe you care--care if you do," answered Rose Mary, and her blue eyes showed a decided temper spark under their black lashes.

"I see I made a mistake in expecting anything of you. A friend's fingers ought not to slip through yours when you need them to hold tight. But come, get your supper--"

"Please, Rose Mary, I'm most awfully ashamed," he said as he came and stood close beside her, and there was a note in his voice that fairly startled him with its tenderness. "I'm just a cross old bear, and I don't deserve anything, no supper and no--no Rose Mary to care whether I'm hungry or not and no--"

"But I put the supper up," said Rose Mary, with a little laugh and catch in her voice. "I couldn't let you be hungry, even if you did treat me that way."

"Didn't Jennie Rucker come to tell you I couldn't get here to supper?" asked Everett with what he felt to be a contemptible feint of defense.

"Yes, she came; but you knew we were going to have company and that I wanted you to be here. You know Mr. Newsome is the best friend we have in the world and your staying away meant that you didn't care if he had been good to us. It hurt me! And the first bowl of lilacs was on the table; I had been saving them for a surprise for you for two days, and everything was so good and just as you like it and--" Rose Mary's voice faltered again and a little tear splashed on the saucer she held poised in her hand.

"Well," answered Everett, like a sulky boy, "I didn't want any of the Honorable Gid Newsome's lilacs or waffles or fried chicken, and I didn't want to see you fix any coffee for him," he ended by blurting out.

"I didn't--I--that is--you are _horrid_," answered Rose Mary, but she raised her eyes to his in which smiles waltzed around with tears and the glint of her white teeth showed through red lips curling with laugh that was forcing itself over them by way of the dimple in the corner of her chin. "Anyway, what I have here on the top of the stove is your waffles and your fried chicken, and these are your lilacs,"

and she drew out a purple spray from her belt and dropped it on the table beside him. "Sit down and I'll give it all to you right here while I finish wiping the dishes. Mag was taken with a spell before supper was over and had to go lie down and I stayed to finish things while the others went over to the speaking," she added as she began to bustle about with her usual hospitable concern.

"You are an angel, Rose Mary Alloway," said Everett as he placed himself on a split-bottom kitchen chair, bestowed his long legs under the table and drew up as near to Rose Mary and her dish-towel as was possible to be sure of keeping out of the flirt. "And I--I'm a brute," he added contritely, though he dared a quick kiss on the bare arm next and close to him.

"No, you're not--just a boy," answered Rose Mary, as she set his supper on the table before him. She had poured his coffee, stirred in the cream and sugar and then laid the spoon decorous and straight in the saucer beside the cup. For an instant Everett sat very still and looked at her, then she picked up the cup and tipped it against her lips, sipped judiciously and set it down with a satisfied air. For just a second her eyes had gleamed down at him over the edge of the cup and a tiny laugh gurgled in her throat as she swallowed her sip of his beverage.

"That was mine, anyway--he can have his chicken wings," said Everett with a laugh as he began operations on the food before him.

"It wasn't a very nice party," answered Rose Mary as she went on with her work on the pile of china. "Stonie acted awfully. He piled up his plate with pieces of chicken, and when Aunt Viney reproved him he said he was saving it for you. And Aunt Viney said she was sure you were sick, and then Uncle Tucker wanted to go look for you and I had to tell him before them all that you had sent me word. Then Aunt Amandy said she was afraid you were not a Prohibitionist, and Aunt Viney said she would have to talk to you in the morning. Then they all told Mr. Newsome all about you, and I don't think he liked it much because he likes to tell us things about himself. We are so fond of him, and we always want to hear him talk about where he has been and what he has done. I tried to stop them and make him talk, but I couldn't. It's strange how liking a person gets them on your mind so that even if you don't talk about them you think about them all the time, isn't it? But I oughtn't to blame them, for I was so afraid they wouldn't leave enough of things for you that I forgot to talk myself.

I was glad Stonie acted that way about the chicken, for the piece he saved made three pieces of white meat for you. Oh, please let's hurry, because we will miss the speaking if we don't. Mr. Newsome makes such beautiful speeches that I want you to hear him. Is there any kind of pride in the world like that you have over your friends?"

CHAPTER VI

THE ENEMY, THE ROD AND THE STAFF

And the days that followed the Senator's prohibition rally at Sweetbriar were those of carnival for jocund spring all up and down Providence Road and out over the Valley. Rugged old Harpeth began to be crowned with wreaths of tender green and pink which trailed down its sides in garlands that spread themselves out over meadow and farm away beyond the river bend. Overnight, rows of jonquils in Mrs.

Poteet's straggling little garden lifted up golden candlestick heads to be decapitated at an early hour and transported in tight little bunches in dirty little fists to those of the neighbors whose spring flowers had failed to open at such an early date. In spite of what seemed an open neglect, the Poteet flowers were always more prolific and advanced than any others along the Road, much to the pride of the equally prolific and spring-blooming Mrs. Poteet. And in a spirit of nature's accord the white poet's narcissus showed starry flowers to the early sun in the greatest abundance along the Poteet fence that bordered on the Rucker yard. They peeped through the pickets, and who knows what challenge they flung to the poetic soul of Mr. Caleb Rucker as he sat on the side porch with his stockinged feet up on a chair and his nose tilted to an angle of ecstatic inhalation?

Down at the Plunketts the early wistaria vine that garlanded the front porch hung thick with long purple cl.u.s.ters which dropped continually little bouquets of single blossoms with perfect impartiality on the head of widow and maid, as the compromise of entertaining both young Bob and Mr. Crabtree at the same time was carried out by Louisa Helen.

And often with the most absolute unconsciousness the demure little widow allowed herself to be drawn by the wily Mr. Crabtree into the mystic circle of three, which was instantly on her appearance dissolved into clumps of two. And if the prodigal vine showered blessings down upon a pair of clasped hands hid beside Louisa Helen's fluffy pink muslin skirts n.o.body was the wiser, except perhaps Mr.

Crabtree.

And perched on the side of the hill the Briars found itself in a perfect avalanche of blossoms. The s...o...b..a.l.l.s hung white and heavy from long branches, and gorgeous lilac boughs bent and swayed in the wind.

A clump of bridal wreath by the front gate was a great white drift against the new green of a crimson-starred burning bush, while over it all trailed the perfume-laden honeysuckle which bowered the front porch, decorated trellis and trees and finally flung its blossoms down the hill to well-nigh cloister Rose Mary's milk-house.

One balmy afternoon Everett brushed aside a spray of the pink and white blossoms and stood in the stone doorway with his prospecting kit in his hands. Rose Mary lifted quick welcoming eyes to his and went on with her work with bowl and paddle. Everett had some time since got to the point where it was well-nigh impossible for him to look directly into Rose Mary's deep eyes, quaff a draft of the tenderness that he always found offered him and keep equanimity enough to go on with the affairs in hand. What business had a woman's eyes to be so filled with a young child's innocence, a violet's shyness, a pa.s.sion of fostering gentleness, mirth that ripples like the surface of the crystal pools, and--could it be dawning--love? Everett had been in a state of uncertainty and misery so abject that it hid itself under an unusually casual manner that had for weeks kept Rose Mary from suspecting to the least degree the condition of his mind. There is a place along the way in the pilgrimage to the altar of Love, when the G.o.d takes on an awe-inspiring phase which makes a man hide his eyes in his hands with fear of the most abject. At such times with her lamp of faith a woman goes on ahead and lights the way for both, but while Rose Mary's flame burned strongly, her unconsciousness was profound.

"I'm so glad you came," she said with the usual rose signal to him in her cheeks. "I've been wondering where you were and just a little bit uneasy about you. Mr. Newsome has been here and wants to see you. He stayed to dinner and waited for you for two hours. Stonie and Tobe and all the others looked for you. I know you are hungry. Will you have a drink of milk before I go with you to get your dinner I saved?"

"What did the Honorable Gid want?" asked Everett, and there was a strange excitement in his eyes as he laid his hand quickly on a small, irregular bundle of stones that bulged out of his kit. His voice had a sharp ring in it as he asked his question.

"Oh, I think he just wanted to see you because he likes you,"

answered Rose Mary with one of her lifted glances and quick smiles. "A body can take their own liking for two other people and use it as a good strong rope just to pull them together sometimes. I'm awfully fond of Mr. Newsome--and you," she added as she came over from one of the crocks with Peter Rucker's blue cup br.i.m.m.i.n.g with ice cold cream in her hand and offered it to Everett.