Scattergood Baines Part 58

"It'll look queer if I dance all of them with you."

"Jest ask me, and see if I care," he said, desperately. "It's like I'd want to have it. I couldn't never dance more'n I want to with you. I wisht I could dance all the dances there'll be in your life with you.... Come on. This here's a quadrille."

Pliny Pickett, self-appointed caller of square dances, was arranging the floor. "One more couple wanted to this end," he bellowed. "Here's two couples a-waitin'. Don't hang back. Music's a-waitin'.... Right there.

All ready?... Nope. One couple needed in the middle."

Homer and Yvette approached that square where three couples awaited the fourth to complete their set. They took their places, to the manifest embarra.s.sment of the other six. Suddenly Norma Grainger whispered something to her young man and tugged at his arm. He looked sidewise, sheepishly, at Homer, and hung back.

"You come right along," said Norma. "I hain't goin' to have it said of me that I danced in no set with her."

"Nor me," said Marion Towne, also tugging at her escort.

The young men were forced to give way, and, not too proud to cast glances of placating nature at Homer, they fell from their places and walked to the benches around the hall. Yvette and Homer were left standing alone, conspicuous, the center of all eyes.

Homer clenched his fists and glared about him; then--for in his ungainly body there resided something that is essential to manhood, and without which none may be called a gentleman--he offered his arm to Yvette. "I guess we better go," he said, softly. Then squaring his powerful shoulders and glancing about him with a real dignity which Scattergood Baines, sitting in one corner, noted and applauded, he led the girl from the room.

"I'll see you home," he said, formally. "I hain't got nothin' to say."

"It--it's not your fault," she said, tremulously.

"Somebody'll wisht it wa'n't their fault 'fore mornin'," he answered.

"I shouldn't have gone."

"Why? Hain't you as good as any of them, and better? Hain't you the pertiest girl I ever see?... You hain't mad with _me_, be you?"

"'No.... Not with anybody, I guess. I--I ought to be used to it. I--"

She began to cry.

It was a dark spot there on the bridge. Homer was not apt at words, but he could feel and he did feel. It was no mere impulse to comfort a pretty girl that moved him to inclose her with his muscular arms and to press her to him none too gently.

"I kin lick the hull world fer you," he said, huskily, and then he kissed her wet cheek again and again, and repeated his ability to thrash all comers in her cause, and stated his desire to undertake exactly that task for the term of her natural life. "If you was to marry me," he said, "they wouldn't n.o.body dast trample on you.... You're a-goin' to marry me, hain't you?"

"I--I don't know.... You--you don't know anything about me."

"Calc'late I know enough," he said.

"Your folks wouldn't put up with it."

"Huh!"

There was a silence. Then she said, brokenly: "I must go away. I can't ever go back to the store to-morrow to have everybody staring at me and talking about me.... I want to go away to-night."

"You sha'n't. Nor no other time, neither."

And then, out of the darkness behind, spoke Scattergood Baines's voice.

"Hain't calc'latin' to bust the gal, be you?... Jest happened along to say the deacon's been talkin' to your pa about you 'n' her, and your pa's het up consid'able. He's startin' out to look fer you. Lucky I come along, wa'n't it?"

"I'm of age," said Homer, aggressively.

"Lots is," said Scattergood. "'Tain't nothin' to take special pride in.... Homer, I've watched you raised from a colt, hain't I? Be you willin' to kind of leave this here to me a spell? I sort of want to look into things. You go along about your business and leave me talk to Wife-ette here.... Made up your mind you want her?"

"Yes."

"She want you?"

"I--What business is it of yours?" Yvette demanded, angrily. "Who are you? What are you interfering for?"

"Kind of a habit with me," said Scattergood, "and my wife hain't ever been able to cure me, even puttin' things in my coffee on the sly....

G'-by, Homer. And don't go lickin' n.o.body. G'-by."

The habit of obedience to Scattergood's customary dismissal was strong in Coldriver. For more than a generation the town had been trained to heed it and to trust its affairs to the old hardware merchant. Homer hesitated, coughed, mumbled good night to Yvette, and slouched away.

"There," said Scattergood, "now you and me kin talk. We'll go up to your room, where n.o.body kin disturb us." The conventions nor the tongue of gossip was non-existent to Scattergood Baines, and Yvette, not reared in a school where trust in men is easily learned, was shrewd enough to recognize Scattergood's purpose and her own safety.

"I s'pose you're the local Mr. Fix-it," she said, with sarcasm.

"I s'pose," said Scattergood, "that I've knowed Homer sence he was knee high to a mouse's kitten, and I don't know nothin' about you a-tall. I gather you're calc'latin' on marryin' Homer.... Mebby you be and mebby you hain't.... Depends. Come along."

He led the way to the hotel and allowed Yvette to precede him up the stairs to her room, which she unlocked and stood aside for him to enter.

He looked about him in the sharp-eyed way characteristic of him, not omitting to include in his survey the toilet articles on the dresser.

"Hain't you perty enough without them?" he asked, indicating the lip stick and rice powder. "Us folks hain't used to 'em, much.... Wunst we give a home-talent play here, and there come a feller from Boston to help out. Mis' Blossom was into it, and he come around to paint her up.

She jest give him one look, and says, says she, 'I hain't never painted my face yit, and I don't calc'late to start in now.' ... I got to admit she looked kind of pale and peeked amongst the rest, but she stuck to her principles."

Yvette stared at Scattergood, nonplused for the first time. What did he mean? How was she to take him? His face was serene and there was no glint of humor in his eye.... Yet, somehow, she gathered the idea he was chuckling inwardly and that there resided in him a broad and tender toleration for the little antics and makes.h.i.+fts of mankind. Possibly he was holding Mrs. Blossom up to her as a model of rect.i.tude; perhaps he was asking her to laugh with him at a foible of one of his own people.

She wished she knew which.

"Calc'late on marryin' Homer?" he asked.

"I--"

"Yes or no--quick."

"Yes," she said, lifting her chin bravely.

"Um!... Knowed him four days, hain't you? Think it's long enough? Plenty of time to figger it all out?"

She sat down on the bed, drooping wearily. "I'm tired," she said, "awful tired. I can't stand this life any longer. I've got to have a place to rest."

"Hain't goin' to have Homer used for no sanitorium," said Scattergood.

"I like him," said Yvette.

"'Tain't enough. Up this way folks mostly loves when they git married--or owns adjoinin' timber."

Again she was at a loss. What did he mean? If he would only smile!

"I--I've got a feeling I could _trust_ him," she said, "and he'd be good to me."