II.
There was just a suspicion of light in the east, a mere hint of a glow,when Lyman walked cautiously around the corner of the house and tappedat Marietta's window. She was sleeping soundly and did not hear, for shehad been restless during the first part of the night. He tapped again,and the girl woke without knowing what woke her.
Lyman put the blade of his pocket-knife under the window and raised ita little, and then placed his lips to the crack, and spoke in asepulchral tone, half groan, half whisper:
"Merry! Merry Etty!"
The dazed girl sat up in bed and listened, while her heart almost stoodstill.
"Merry, it's me--Lime. Come to the winder." The girl hesitated, andLyman spoke again.
"Come, I hain't got much time. This is your last chance t' see me. It'snow 'r never."
The girl slipped out of bed and, wrapping herself in a shawl, crept tothe window.
"Boost on that winder," commanded Lyman. She raised it enough to admithis head, which came just above the sill; then she knelt on the floor bythe window.
Her eyes stared wide and dark. "Lime, what in the world do you mean"----
"I mean business," he replied. "I ain't no last year's chicken; I knowwhen the old man sleeps the soundest." He chuckled pleasantly.
"How'd y' fool old Rove?"
"Never mind about that now; they's something more important on hand.You've got t' go with me."
She drew back. "Oh, Lime, I can't!"
He thrust a great arm in and caught her by the wrist.
"Yes, y' can. This is y'r last chance. If I go off without ye t'night,I never come back. What make ye gig back? Are ye 'fraid o' me?"
"N-no; but--but"----
"But what, Merry Etty?"
"It ain't right to go an' leave Dad all alone. Where y' goin' t' takeme, anyhow?"
"Milt Jennings let me have his horse an' buggy; they're down the road apiece, an' we'll go right down to Rock River and be married by sun-up."
The girl still hesitated, her firm, boyish will unwontedly befogged.Resolute as she was, she could not at once accede to his demand.
"Come, make up your mind soon. The old man 'll fill me with buck-shot ifhe catches sight o' me." He drew her arm out of the window and laid hisbearded cheek to it. "Come, little one, we're made for each other; Godknows it. Come! It's him 'r me."
The girl's head dropped, consented.
"That's right! Now a kiss to bind the bargain. There! What, cryin'? Nomore o' that, little one. Now I'll give you jest five minutes to git onyour Sunday-go-t'-meetin' clo'es. Quick, there goes a rooster. It'sgittin' white in the east."
The man turned his back to the window and gazed at the western sky witha wealth of unuttered and unutterable exultation in his heart. Far off arooster gave a long, clear blast--would it be answered in the barn?Yes; some wakeful ear had caught it, and now came the answer, but faint,muffled and drowsy. The dog at his feet whined uneasily as if suspectingsomething wrong. The wind from the south was full of the wonderful odorof springing grass, warm, brown earth, and oozing sap. Overhead, to thewest, the stars were shining in the cloudless sky, dimmed a little inbrightness by the faint silvery veil of moisture in the air. The man'ssoul grew very tender as he stood waiting for his bride. He was rough,illiterate, yet there was something fine about him after all, a kind ofsimplicity and a gigantic, leonine tenderness.
He heard his sweetheart moving about inside, and thought: "The old manwon't hold out when he finds we're married. He can't get along withouther. If he does, why, I'll rent a farm here, and we'll go to workhousekeepin'. I can git the money. She sha'n't always be poor," heended, with a vow.
The window was raised again, and the girl's voice was heard low andtremulous: "Lime, I'm ready, but I wish we didn't"----
He put his arm around her waist and helped her out, and did not put herdown till they reached the road. She was completely dressed, even to herhat and shoes, but she mourned:
"My hair is every-which-way; Lime, how can I be married so?"
They were nearing the horse and buggy now, and Lime laughed. "Oh, we'llstop at Jennings's and fix up. Milt knows what's up, and has told hismother by this time. So just laugh as jolly as you can."
Soon they were in the buggy, the impatient horse swung into the road ata rattling pace, and as Marietta leaned back in the seat, thinking ofwhat she had done, she cried lamentably, in spite of all the caressesand pleadings of her lover.
But the sun burst up from the plain, the prairie-chickens took up theirmighty chorus on the hills, robins met them on the way, flocks of wildgeese, honking cheerily, drove far overhead toward the north, and, withthese sounds of a golden spring day in her ears, the bride grewcheerful, and laughed.
III.
At about the time the sun was rising, Farmer Bacon, roused from hissleep by the crowing of the chickens on the dry knolls in the fields aswell as by those in the barnyard, rolled out of bed wearily, wonderingwhy he should feel so drowsy. Then he remembered the row with Lime andhis subsequent inability to sleep with thinking over it. There was adull pain in his breast, which made him uncomfortable.
As was his usual custom, he went out into the kitchen and built the firefor Marietta, filled the tea-kettle with water, and filled thewater-bucket in the sink. Then he went to her bedroom door and knockedwith his knuckles as he had done for years in precisely the samefashion.
Rap--rap--rap. "Hello, Merry! Time t' git up. Broad daylight, an' birdsa-singun'."
Without waiting for an answer he went out to the barn and worked away athis chores. He took such delight in the glorious morning and theturbulent life of the farmyard that his heart grew light and he hummed atune which sounded like the merry growl of a lion. "Poo-ee, poo-ee," hecalled to the pigs as they swarmed across the yard.
"Ahrr! you big, fat rascals, them hams o' yourn is clear money. One ofye shall go t' buy Merry a new dress," he said as he glanced at thehouse and saw the smoke pouring out the stove-pipe. "Merry 's a goodgirl; she's stood by her old pap when other girls 'u'd 'a' gone back on'im."
While currying horses he went all over the ground of the quarrelyesterday, and he began to see it in a different light. He began to seethat Lyman was a good man and an able man, and that his own course was afoolish one.
"When I git mad," he confessed to himself, "I don't know anythin'. ButI won't give her up. She ain't old 'nough t' marry yet--and, besides, Ineed her."
After finishing his chores, as usual, he went to the well and washed hisface and hands, then entered the kitchen--to find the tea-kettle boilingover, and no signs of breakfast anywhere, and no sign of the girl.
"Well, I guess she felt sleepy this mornin'. Poor gal! Mebbe she criedhalf the night."
"Merry!" he called, gently, at the door. "Merry, m' gal! Pap needs hisbreakfast."
There was no reply, and the old man's face stiffened into a wildsurprise. He knocked heavily again and got no reply, and, with a whiteface and shaking hand, he flung the door open and gazed at the emptybed. His hand dropped to his side; his head turned slowly from the bedto the open window; he rushed forward and looked out on the ground,where he saw the tracks of a man.
He fell heavily into the chair by the bed, while a deep groan broke fromhis stiff and twitching lips.
"She's left me! She's left me!"
For a long half-hour the iron-muscled old man sat there motionless,hearing not the songs of the hens or the birds far out in the brilliantsunshine. He had lost sight of his farm, his day's work, and felt nohunger for food. He did not doubt that her going was final. He feltthat she was gone from him forever. If she ever came back it would notbe as his daughter, but as the wife of Gilman. She had deserted him,fled in the night like a thief; his heart began to harden again, and herose stiffly. His native stubbornness began to assert itself, the firstgreat shock over, and he went out to the kitchen, and prepared, as besthe could, a breakfast, and sat down to it. In some way his appetitefailed him, and he fell to thinking over his past life, of the death ofhis wife, an
d the early death of his only boy. He was still trying tothink what his life would be in the future without his girl, when twocarriages drove into the yard. It was about the middle of the forenoon,and the prairie-chickens had ceased to boom and squawk; in fact, thatwas why he knew that he had been sitting two hours at the table. Beforehe could rise he heard swift feet and a merry voice. Then Marietta burstthrough the door.
"Hello, Pap! How you makin' out with break"---- She saw a look on hisface that went to her heart like a knife. She saw a lonely and desertedold man sitting at his cold and cheerless breakfast, and with aremorseful cry she ran across the floor and took him in her arms,kissing him again and again, while Mr. John Jennings and his wife stoodin the door.
"Poor ol' Pap! Merry couldn't leave you. She's come back to stay as longas he lives."
The old man remained cold and stern. His deep voice had a raucous notein it as he pushed her away from him, noticing no one else.
"But how do you come back t' me?"
The girl grew rosy, but she stood proudly up.
"I come back a wife of a _man_, Pap; a wife like my mother, an' this t'hang beside hers;" and she laid down a rolled piece of parchment.
"Take it an' go," growled he; "take yer lazy lubber an' git out o' mysight. I raised ye, took keer o' ye when ye was little, sent ye t'school, bought ye dresses,--done every thin' for ye I could, 'lowin' t'have ye stand by me when I got old,--but no, ye must go back on yer ol'pap, an' go off in the night with a good-f'r-nothin' houn' that nobuddyknows anything about--a feller that never done a thing fer ye in theworld"----
"What did you do for mother that she left _her_ father and mother andwent with you? How much did you have when you took her away from hergood home an' brought her away out here among the wolves an' Indians?I've heard you an' her say a hundred times that you didn't have a chairin the house. Now, why do you talk so t' me when I want t' git--whenLime comes and asks for me?"
The old man was staggered. He looked at the smiling face of JohnJennings and the tearful face of Mrs. Jennings, who had returned withLyman. But his face hardened again as he caught sight of Lime looking inat him. His absurd pride would not let him relent. Lime saw it, andstepped forward.
"Ol' man, I want t' take a little inning now. I'm a fair, square man. Iasked ye fer Merry as a man should. I told you I'd had hard luck, when Ifirst came here. I had five thousand dollars in clean cash stole fromme. I hain't got a thing now except credit, but that's good fer enought' stock a little farm with. Now, I wan' to be fair and square in thisthing. You wan' to rent a farm; I need one. Let me have the rivereighty, or I'll take the whole business on a share of a third an' MerryEtty, and I to stay here with you jest as if nothin' 'd happened. Come,now, what d' y' say?"
There was something winning in the whole bearing of the man as he stoodbefore the father, who remained silent and grim.
"Or if you don't do that, why, there's nothin' left fer Merry an' me butto go back to La Crosse, where I can have my choice of a dozen farms.Now this is the way things is standin'. I don't want to be underhandedabout this thing"----
"That's a fair offer," said Mr. Jennings in the pause which followed."You'd better do it, neighbor Bacon. Nobuddy need know how thingsstood; they were married in my house--I thought that 'u'd be best. Youcan't live without your girl," he went on, "any more 'n I could withoutmy boy. You'd better"----
The figure at the table straightened up. Under his tufted eyebrows hiskeen gray eyes flashed from one to the other. His hands knotted.
"Go slow!" went on the smooth voice of Jennings, known all the countrythrough as a peace-maker. "Take time t' think it over. Stand out, an'you'll live here alone without chick 'r child; give in, and this house'll bubble over with noise and young ones. Now is short, and forever's along time to feel sorry in."
The old man at the table knitted his eyebrows, and a distorted,quivering, ghastly smile broke out on his face. His chest heaved; thenhe burst forth:
"Gal, yank them gloves off, an' git me something to eat--breakfus 'rdinner, I don't care which. Lime, you infernal idiot, git out there andgear up them horses. What in thunder you foolun' around about hyere inseed'n'? Come, hustle, all o' ye!"
And then they shouted in laughter, while the cause of it all strodeunsteadily but resolutely out toward the barn, followed by thebridegroom, who was laughing--silently.
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