CHAPTER XXI
The next morning Wilbur found the Penniman household in turmoil. Thespirit of an outraged Judge Penniman pervaded it darkly, and his wifewept as she flurried noisily about the kitchen. Neither of them wouldregard him until he enforced their notice. The judge, indignantlyfanning himself in the wicker porch chair, put him off with vague blackmutters about Winona. The girl had gone from bad to worse. But hisskirts were clean. The mother was the one to blame. He'd talked all hecould.
Then Wilbur, in the disordered kitchen, put himself squarely in the wayof the teary mother. He commanded details. The distraught woman, hairtumbling from beneath a cap set rakishly to one side, vigorously stirredyellow dough in an earthen mixing dish.
"Stop this nonsense!" he gruffly ordered.
Mrs. Penniman abandoned the long spoon and made a pitiful effort to dryher eyes with an insufficient apron.
"Winona!" she sobbed. "Telegram--coming home tomorrow--nothing cookedup--trying to make chocolate cake--"
"Why take it so hard? You knew the blow had to fall some time."
Mrs. Penniman broke down again.
"It's not a joke!" she sobbed. Then with terrificeffort--"Mar--married!"
"Winona Penniman married?"
The stricken mother opened swimming eyes at him, nodding hopelessly.
"Why, the little son of a gun!" said Wilbur, admiringly. "I didn't thinkshe'd be so reckless!"
"I'm so glad!" whimpered the mother.
She seized the spoon and the bowl. Judge Penniman hovered at the opendoor of the kitchen.
"I told her what would happen!" he stormed. "She'll listen to me nexttime! Always the way in this house!"
Mrs. Penniman relapsed.
"We don't know the party. Don't know him from Adam. She don't even signher right name."
Wilbur left the house of mourning and went out to the barn, where allthat day he worked at the Can, fretting it at last into a decentactivity.
Dave Cowan that night became gay and tasteless on hearing the news. Hedid what he could to fan the judge's resentment. He said it wasprobably, knowing Winona's ways, that she had wed a dissolute Frenchnobleman, impoverished of all but his title. He hoped for the best, buthe had always known that the girl was a light-minded baggage. Hewondered how she could ever justify her course to Matthew Arnold if theneed rose. He said the old house would now be turned into a saloon, orsalong, as the French call it. He wished to be told if the right to beaddressed as Madame la Marquise could compensate the child for thosethings of simple but enduring worth she had cast aside. He somewhatcheered Mrs. Penniman, but left the judge puffing with scorn.
* * * * *
Wilbur Cowan met the noon train next day. The Can rattled far too muchfor its size, but it went. Then from the train issued Winona, bedeckedin alien gauds and fur-belows, her keen little face radiant under aParis trifle of brown velvet, her small feet active--under a skirt whosescant length would once have appalled her--in brown suede pumps andstockings notoriously of silken texture. Her quick eyes darting alongthe platform to where Wilbur stood, she rushed to embrace him.
"Where's the other one?" he demanded.
Astoundingly she tripped back to the still emptying car and led forwardnone other than Edward--Spike--Brennon. He was in the uniform of aprivate and his eyes were hidden by dark glasses. Wilbur fell upon him.Spike's left arm went up expertly to guard his face from the rush, butcame down when he recognized his assailant. Wilbur turned again toWinona.
"But where's he?" he asked. "Where's the main squeeze?"
Winona looked proudly at Spike Brennon.
"I'm him," said Spike.
"He's him," said Winona, and laid an arm protectingly across hisshoulder.
"You wild little son of a gun!" He stared incredulously at the bride,then kissed her. "You should say 'he's he,' not 'he's him,'" he toldher.
"Lay off that stuff!" ordered Winona.
"You come on home to trouble," directed Wilbur. He guided Spike to thecar.
"It's like one of these dreams," said Spike above the rattle of the Can."How a pretty thing like her could look twice at me!"
Winona held up a gloved hand to engage the driver's eye. Then shewinked.
"Say," said Spike, "this is some car! When I get into one now'days Ilike to hear it go. I been in some lately you could hardly tell youmoved."
The front of the house was vacant when the Can laboured to the gate,though the curtain of a second-floor front might have been seen to move.Winona led her husband up the gravelled walk.
"It's lovely," she told him, "this home of mine and yours. Here you gobetween borders all in bloom, phlox and peonies, and there are pansiesand some early dahlias, and there's a yellow rosebush out."
"It smells beautiful," said Spike. He sniffed the air on each side.
"Sit here," said Winona, nor in the flush of the moment was sheconscious of the enormity of what she did. She put Spike into a chairthat had for a score of years been sacred to the person of her invalidfather. Then she turned to greet her mother. Mrs. Penniman, arrayed infancy dress-making, was still damp-eyed but joyous.
"Your son, mother," said Winona. "Don't try to get up, Spike."
Mrs. Penniman bent over to kiss him. Spike's left went up accurately.
"He's so nervous," explained Winona, "ever since that French generalsneaked up and kissed him on both cheeks when he pinned that medal onhim."
"Mercy!" exclaimed Mrs. Penniman.
"For distinguished service beyond the line of duty," added the youngwife, casually.
"I was so happy when I got your wire," sputtered her mother. "Of course,I was flustered just at first--so sudden and all."
"In the Army we do things suddenly," said Winona.
Heavy steps sounded within, and the judge paused at the open door. Hewas arrayed as for the Sabbath, a portentous figure in frock coat andgray trousers. A heavy scent of moth balls had preceded him.
"What's that new one I get?" asked Spike, sniffing curiously.
Winona pecked at her father's marbled cheeks, then led him to the chair.
"Father, this is my husband."
"How do you do, sir?" began the judge, heavily.
Spike's left forearm shielded his face, while his right hand went tomeet the judge's.
"It's all right, Spike. No one else is going to kiss you."
"Spike?" queried the judge, uncertainly.
"It's a sort of nickname for him," explained Winona.
She drew her mother through the doorway and they became murmurous in theparlour beyond.
"This here is a peach of a chair," said Spike.
The judge started painfully. Until this moment he had not detected theoutrage.
"Wouldn't you prefer this nice hammock?" he politely urged.
"No, thanks," replied Spike, firmly. "This chair kind of fits my frame."
Wilbur Cowan, standing farther along the porch, winked at Spike beforehe remembered.
"Say, ain't you French?" demanded the judge with a sudden qualm.
He had taken no stock in that fool talk of Dave Cowan's about a Frenchnobleman; still, you never could tell. He had thought it as well to bedressed for it should he be required to meet even impoverished nobility.
"Hell, no!" said Spike. "Irish!" He moved uneasily in the chair. "Excuseme," he added.
"Oh!" said the judge, regretting the superior comfort of his linen suit.He eyed the chair with covetous glance. "Well, I hope everything's allfor the best," he said, doubtfully.
"How beautiful it smells!" said Spike, sniffing away from the moth ballstoward the rosebush. "Everything's beautiful, and this peach of a chairand all. What gets me--how a beautiful girl like she is could ever takea second look at me."
The judge regarded him sharply, with a new attention to the hidden eyes.
"Say, are you blind?" he asked.
"Blind as a bat! Can't see my hand before my face."
The horrified judge stalked to the door.
br /> "You hear that?" he called in, but only the parrot heeded him.
"Flapdoodle, Flapdoodle, Flapdoodle!" it screeched.
Winona and her mother came to the door. They had been absent for a briefcry.
"What she could ever see in me," Spike was repeating--"a pretty girllike that!"
"Pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty girl! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" screamedthe parrot.
Its concluding laugh was evil with irony. Winona sped to the cage,regarding her old pet with dismay. She glanced back at Spike.
"Smart birdie, all right, all right," called Spike. "He knows her."
"Pretty girl, pretty girl!" Again came the derisive guffaw.
Never had Polly's sarcasm been so biting. Winona turned a murderousglance from it and looked uneasily back at her man.
"Dinner's on," called Mrs. Penniman.
"I'm having one of my bad days," groaned the judge. "Don't feel as if Icould eat a mouthful."
But he was merely insuring that he could be the first to leave the tableplausibly. He intended that the apparent misunderstanding about thewicker chair should have been but a thing of the moment, quickly pastand forgotten.
"Why, what's the trouble with you, Father?" asked Winona in the tone ofone actually seeking information.
The judge shot her a hurt look. It was no way to address an invalid ofhis standing.
"Chow, Spike," said Wilbur, and would have guided him, but Winona waslightly before him.
Dave Cowan followed them from the little house.
"Present me to His Highness," said he, after kneeling to kiss the handof Winona.
* * * * *
The mid-afternoon hours beheld Spike Brennon again strangely occupyingthe wicker porch chair. He even wielded the judge's very own palm-leaffan as he sat silent, sniffing at intervals toward the yellow rose. Oncehe was seen to be moving his hand, with outspread fingers, before hisface.
Winona had maneuvered her father from the chair, nor had she the graceto veil her subterfuge after she lured him to the back of the house. Shemerely again had wished to know what, in plain terms, his ailment was;what, for that matter, had been the trouble with him for twenty years.The judge fell speechless with dismay.
"You eat well and you sleep well, and you're well nourished" went on thedaughter, remorseless all at once.
"Little you know," began the judge at last.
"But I shall know, Father. Remember, I've learned things. I'm going totake you in hand. I may even have to be severe with you but all for yourown good."
She spoke with icy conviction. There was a new, cold gleam in her pryingeyes. The judge suffered genuinely.
"I should think you had learned things!" he protested, miserably. "Forone thing, miss, that skirt ain't a respectable garment."
Winona slid one foot toward him.
"Pooh! Don't be silly!" Never before had Winona poohed her father.
"Cigarette fiend, too," accused the judge.
"My husband got me to stop."
"Strong drink," added the judge.
"Pooh!" again breathed Winona. "A little nip of something when you'redone up."
"You talking that way!" admonished the twice-poohed parent. "You thatwas always so----"
"I'm not it any longer." She did a dance step toward the front door, butcalled back to him: "Spike's set his heart on that chair. You'll have tofind something else for yourself."
"'Twon't always be so," retorted the judge, stung beyond reason at thecareless finality of her last words. "You wait--wait till the revolutionsweeps you high and mighty people out of your places! Wait till theworkers take over their rights--you wait!"
But Winona had not waited. She had gone to confer on Wilbur Cowan a fewprecious drops of that which had caused her father to put upon her thestigma of alcoholic intemperance.
"It's real genuine dandelion wine," she told him. "One of the nursesgot it for me when we left the boat in Boston. Her own mother made it,and she gave me the recipe, and it isn't a bit of trouble. I'm goingafter dandelions to-morrow, Spike and I. Of course we'll have to besecret about it."
In the sacred precincts of the Penniman parlour Wilbur Cowan raised thewineglass to his lips and tasted doubtingly. After a second consideringsip he announced--"They can't arrest you for that."
Winona looked a little relieved, but more than a little disappointed.
"I thought it had a kick," she mourned.
"Here's to you and him, anyway! Didn't I always tell you he was one goodlittle man?"
"He's all of that," said Winona, and tossed off her own glass of whatshe sincerely hoped was not a permitted beverage.
"You've come on," said Wilbur.
"I haven't started," said Winona.
* * * * *
Later that afternoon Winona sat in her own room in close consultationwith Juliana Whipple. Miss Whipple, driving her own car as no otherWhipple could have driven it, had hastened to felicitate the bride.Tall, gaunt, a little stooped now, her weathered face aglow, she hadascended the steps to greet the couple. Spike's tenancy of the chair hadbeen made doubly secure by Winona on the step at his feet.
Juliana embraced Winona and took one of Spike's knotted hands to presswarmly between both her own. Then Winona had dragged her to privacy, andtheir talk had now come to a point.
"It's that--that parrot!" exploded Winona, desperately. "I never used tonotice, but you know--that senseless gabble, 'pretty girl, pretty girl,'and then the thing laughs like a fiend. It would be all right if hewouldn't laugh. You might think he meant it. And poor Spike is sosensitive; he gets things you wouldn't think he'd get. That awful birdmight set him to thinking. Now he believes I'm pretty. In spite ofeverything I've said to him, he believes it. Well, I'm not going to havethat bird putting any other notion into his mind, not if I have to--"
She broke off, but murder was in her tone.
"I see," said Miss Whipple. "You're right, of course--only you arepretty, Winona. I never used to think--think about it, I mean, butyou've changed. You needn't be afraid of any parrot."
Winona patted the hand of Miss Whipple, an able hand suggesting that ofSpike in its texture and solidity.
"That's ever so nice of you, but I know all about myself. Spike's eyesare gone, but that bird is going, too."
"Why not let me take the poor old thing?" said Juliana. "It can say'pretty girl' to me and laugh its head off if it wants." She hung amoment on this, searching Winona's face with clear eyes. "I have noblind husband," she finished.
"You're a dear," said Winona.
"I'm so glad for you," said Juliana.
"I must guard him in so many ways," confided Winona. "He's happynow--he's forgotten for the moment. But sometimes it comes back on himterribly--what he is, you know. I've seen him over there losecontrol--want to kill himself. He says he can't help such times. It willseem to him that someone has shut him in a dark room and he must breakdown its walls--break out into the light. He would try to break thewalls down--like a caged beast. It wasn't pretty. And I'm his eyes andall his life, and no old bird is ever going to set him thinking I'm notperfectly beautiful. That's the plain truth. I may lie about it myselfto him pretty soon. I might as well. He only thinks I'm being flirtywhen I deny it. Oh, I know I've changed! Sometimes it seems to me now asif I used to be--well, almost prudish."
"My dear, he knows better than you do, much better, how beautiful youare. But you're right about the bird. I'll take him gladly." Shereflected a moment. "There's a fine place for the cage in my room--on myhope chest."
"You dear!" said Winona. "Of course I couldn't have killed it."
Downstairs ten minutes later Winona, the light of filial devotion in hereyes, was explaining to her father that she was giving the parrot awaybecause she had noticed that it annoyed him.
The judge beamed gratitude.
"Why, it's right thoughtful of you, Winona. It does annoy me, kind of.That miserable Dave Cowan's taught it some new rigmarole--no meani
ng toit, but bothersome when you want to be quiet."
Even in the days of her white innocence Winona Penniman had not beenabove doing a thing for one reason while advancing another lesspersonal. She had always been a strange girl.
Juliana took leave of Spike.
"You have a lovely wife," she told him. "It isn't going to be too hardfor you, this life."
"Watch us!" said Winona. "I'll make his life more beautiful than I am."Her hand fluttered to his shoulder.
"Oh, me? I'll be all right," said Spike.
"And thank you for this wonderful bird," said Juliana.
She lifted the cage from its table and went slowly toward the gate. Theparrot divined that dirty work was afoot, but it had led a peaceful lifeand its repertoire comprised no call of alarm.
"Pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty girl!" it shrieked. Then followed itsharshest laugh of scorn.
Juliana did not quicken her pace to the car; she finished the littlejourney in all dignity, and placed her burden in the tonneau.
"Pretty girl, pretty girl!" screamed the dismayed bird. The laugh waslong and eloquent of derision.
Dave Cowan reached the Penniman gate, pausing a moment to watch the carleave. Juliana shot him one swift glance while the parrot laughed.
"Who was that live-looking old girl?" he demanded as he came up thesteps. "Oh!" he said when Winona told him.
He glanced sympathetically after the car. A block away it had slowed toturn a corner. The parrot's ironic laughter came back to them.
"Yes, I remember her," said Dave, musingly. He was glad to recall thathe had once shown the woman a little attention.
CHAPTER XXII
Of all humans cumbering the earth Dave Cowan thought farmers the mostpitiable. To this tireless-winged bird of passage farming was not aloose trade, and the news that his son was pledged to agrarian pursuitsshocked him. To be mewed up for life on a few acres of land!
"It was the land tricked us first," admonished Dave. "There we were,footloose and free, and some fool went and planted a patch of ground.Then he stayed like a fool to see what would happen. Pretty soon hefenced the patch to keep out prehistoric animals. First thing he knew hewas fond of it. Of course he had to stay there--he couldn't take if offwith him. That's how man was tricked. Most he could ever hope after thatwas to be a small-towner. You may think you can own land and still befree, but you can't. Before you know it you have that home feeling.Never owned a foot of it! That's all that saved me."
Dave frowned at his son hopefully, as one saved might regard one whostill might be.
"I'm not owning any land," suggested his son.
"No; but it's tricky stuff. You get round it, working at it, nursingit--pretty soon you'll want to own some, then you're dished. It's thefirst step that counts. After that you may crave to get out and seeplaces, but you can't; you have to plant the hay and the corn. You tofool round those Whipple farms--I don't care if it is a big job with bigmoney--it's playing with fire. Pretty soon you'll be as tight-fixed to apatch of soil as any yap that ever blew out the gas in a city hotel.You'll stick there and raise hogs _en masse_ for free people that cantake a trip when they happen to feel like it." Dave had but latelylearned _en masse_ and was glad to find a use for it. He spoke with theuntroubled detachment of one saved, who could return at will to the gladlife of nomady. "You, with the good loose trades you know! Do you wantto take root in this hole like a willow branch that someone shoves intothe ground? Don't you ever want to move--on and on and on?"
His son at the time had denied stoutly that he felt this urge. Now,after a week of his new work, he would have been less positive. It was aSunday afternoon, and he sprawled face down on the farther shaded slopeof West Hill, confessing a lively fear that he might take root like thewillow. Late in that first week the old cry had begun to ring in hisears--Where do we go from here?--bringing the cold perception that hewould not go anywhere from here.
Through all his early years in Newbern he had not once felt thewander-bidding; never, as Dave Cowan put it, had he been itchy-footedfor the road. Then, with the war, he had crept up to look over the topof the world, and now, unaccountably, in the midst of work he had lookedforward to with real pleasure, his whole body was tingling for newhorizons.
It seemed to be so with a dozen of the boys he had come back with. Someof these were writing to him, wanting him to come here, to come there;to go on and on with them to inviting places they knew--and on againfrom there! Mining in South America, lumbering in the Northwest,ranching in the Southwest; one of his mates would be a sailor, and onewould be with a circus. Something within him beyond reason goaded him tobe up and off. He felt his hold slipping; his mind floated in an ecstasyof relaxation.
His first days at the Home Farm had been good-enough days. SharonWhipple had told him a modern farmer must first be a mechanic, and hewas already that--and no one had shot at him. But the novelty ofapproaching good machine-gun cover without apprehension had worn off.
"Ain't getting cold feet, are you?" asked Sharon one day, observing himhang idly above an abused tractor with the far-off look in his eyes.
"Nothing like that," he had protested almost too warmly. "No, sir; I'llslog on right here."
Now for the first time in all their years of association he saw animmense gulf between himself and Sharon Whipple. Sharon was an old man,turning to look back as he went down a narrow way into a hidden valley.But he--Wilbur Cowan--was climbing a long slope into new light. Howcould they touch? How could this old man hold him to become another oldman on the same soil--when he could be up and off, a happy world romperlike his father before him?
"Funny, funny, funny!" he said aloud, and lazily rolled over to stareinto blue space.
Probably it was quite as funny out there. The people like himself onthose other worlds would be the sport of confusing impulses, in the longrun obeying some deeper instinct whose source was in the parent stardust, wandering or taking root in their own strange soils. But why notwander when the object of it all was so obscure, so apparently trivial?Enough others would submit to rule from the hidden source, take rootlike the willow--mate! That was another chain upon them. Women held themback from wandering. That was how they were tricked into the deadly homefeeling his father warned him of.
"Funny, funny, funny!" he said again.
From an inner pocket he drew a sheet of note paper worn almost throughat the fold, stained with the ooze of trenches and his own sweat. It hadcome deviously to him in the front line a month after his meeting withPatricia Whipple. In that time the strange verse had still run in hismind--a crown of stars, and under her feet the moon! The tumult offighting had seemed to fix it there. He had rested on the memory of herand become fearless of death. But the time had changed so tremendously.He could hardly recall the verse, hardly recall that he had faced deathor the strange girl.
"Wilbur, dear," he read, "I am still holding you. Are you me? What doyou guess? Do you guess we were a couple of homesick ninnies, tired andweak and too combustible? Or do you guess it meant something about usfinding each other out all in one second, like a flash of something? Doyou guess we were frazzled up to the limit and not braced to hold backor anything, the way civilized people do? I mean, will we be the sameback home? If we will be, how funny! We shall have to find out, shan'twe? But let's be sporty, and give the thing a chance to be true if itcan. That's fair enough, isn't it? What I mean, let's not shatter itsmorale by some poky chance meeting with a lot of people round, whom itis none of their business what you and I do or don't do. That would befierce, would it not? So much might depend.
"Anyway, here's what: The first night I am home--your intelligencedepartment must find out the day, because I'm not going to write to youagain if I never see you, I feel so unmaidenly--I shall be at our stileleading out to West Hill. You remember it--above the place where thosesplendid gypsies camped when we were such a funny little boy and girl.The first night as soon as I can sneak out from my proud family. Youcome there. We'll know!"
* * * * *
"Funny, funny, funny--the whole game!" he said.
He lost himself in a lazy wonder if it could be true. He didn't know.Once she had persisted terribly in his eyes; now she had faded. Herfigure before the broken church was blurred.
Sharon Whipple found him the next afternoon teaching two new men the useand abuse of a tractor, and plainly bored by his task. Sharon seized themoment to talk pungently about the good old times when a farm handdidn't have to know how to disable a tractor, or anything much, andwould work fourteen hours a day for thirty dollars a month and his keep.He named the wage of the two pupils in a tone of disgruntled awe thatpiqued them pleasantly but did not otherwise impress. When they hadgone their expensive ways he turned to Wilbur.
"Did you get over to that dry-fork place to-day?"
"No; too busy here with these highbinders."
He spoke wearily, above a ripening suspicion that he would not muchlonger be annoyed in this manner. A new letter had that morning comefrom the intending adventurer into South America.
"I'll bet you've had a time with this new help," said Sharon.
"I've put three men at work over on that clearing, though."
"I'll get over there myself with you to-morrow; no, not tomorrow--nextday after. That girl of ours gets in to-morrow noon. Have to be there,of course."
"Of course."
"She trotted a smart mile over there. Everybody says so. Family tickledto death about her. Me, too, of course."
"Of course."
"Rattlepate, though."
"Yes, sir," said Wilbur.
When the old man had gone he looked out over the yellowing fields with afrank distaste for the level immensity. Suddenly there rang in his earsthe harsh singing of many men: "Where do we go from here, boys, where dowe go from here?" Old Sharon was rooted in the soil; dying there. But hewas still free. He could wire Leach Belding he was starting--and start.
* * * * *
About eight o'clock the following night he parked the Can beside theridge road, and for the first time in his proud career of ownershipcursed its infirmities. It was competent, but no car for a tryst onemight not wish to advertise. When its clamour had been stilled he waitedsome moments, feeling that a startled countryside must rush to the spot.Yet no one came, so at last he went furtively through the thinned groveand about clumps of hazel brush, feeling his way, stepping softly,crouching low, until he could make out the stile where it broke thelines of the fence. The night was clear and the stile was cleanlyoutlined by starlight. Beyond the fence was a shadowed mass, first aclump of trees, the outbuildings of the Whipple New Place, the houseitself. There were lights at the back, and once voices came to him, thenthe thin shatter of glass on stone, followed by laughs from twodissonant throats. He stood under a tall pine, listening, but no othersound came. After a while he sat at the foot of the tree. Cricketschirped and a bat circled through the night. The scent of the pine fromits day-long baking was sharp in his nostrils. His back tired againstthe tree, and he eased himself to the cooled grass, face down, his handscrossed under his chin. He could look up now and see the stile againststars.
He waited. He had expected to wait. The little night sounds thatcomposed the night's silence, his own stillness, his intent watching,put him back to nights when silence was ominous. Once he found he hadstopped breathing to listen to the breathing of the men on each side ofhim. He was waiting for the word, and felt for a rifle. He had to riseto shake off this oppression. On his feet he laughed softly, being againin Newbern on a fool's mission. He lay down hands under his chin, butagain the silent watching beset him with the old oppression. He must bestill and strain his eyes ahead. Presently the word would come, or hewould feel the touch of a groping foe. He half dozed at last from thememory of that other endless fatigue. He came to himself with a startand raised his head to scan the stile. The darkness had thickened butthe two posts at the ends of the fence were still outlined. He watchedand waited.
After a long time the east began to lighten; a deepening glow rimmedWest Hill, picking out in silver the trees along its edge. If she meantto come she must come soon, he thought, but the rising moon distinctlyshowed the bare stile. She had written a long time ago. She wasnotoriously a rattlepate. Of course she would have forgotten. Then fora moment his straining eyes were puzzled. His gaze had not shifted evenfor an instant, yet the post at the left of the stile had unaccountablythickened. He considered it a trick of the advancing moonshine, andlooked more intently. It was motionless, like the other post, yet it hadthickened. Then he saw it was taller, but still it did not move. Itcould be no one. Mildly curious, he crept forward to make the post seemright in this confusing new glamour. But it broadened as he neared it,and still was taller than its neighbour, its lines not so sharp.
He rose to his feet, with a dry laugh at his own credulity, taking someslow steps forward, expecting each stride to resolve the post to itstrue dimensions. He was within a dozen feet of it before he saw it couldnot be a post--anyway, not the same post. His scalp crept into minutewrinkles at the back of his head. He knew the feeling--fear! But, as inother times, he could not make his feet go back. Two other steps and hesaw she must be there. She had not stirred, but the rising light caughther wan face and a pale glint of eyes.
All at once his fear was greater--greater than any he had known inbattle. His feet dragged protestingly, but he forced them on. He wantedher to speak or move to break that tension of fear. But not until hereached out stiffening fingers to touch her did she stir. Then she gavea little whispered cry and all at once it was no longer moonlight forhim, but full day. A girl in nurse's cap and a faded, much laundereddress of light blue stood before a battered church, beside a timberedbreach in its gray stone wall. He was holding her.
The song was coming to him, harsh and full throated from many men:"Where do we go from here, boys, where do we go from here?"
"We don't go anywhere from here," he heard himself say in anger. Theywere the only words he had spoken.
The girl was shaking as she had shaken back at that church; utteringlittle shapeless cries from a throat that by turns fluttered andtightened. One clenched hand was fiercely thumping his shoulder. Theywere on strange land, as if they had the crust of the moon itselfbeneath their feet. They seemed to know it had been true.
* * * * *
They were sitting on a log in shadow. He rose and stepped into thelight, facing his watch to the moon, now gone so high it had paled fromgold to silver. He went to her again.
"Do you know it's nearly one?"
"It must be that--I suppose so."
"Shouldn't you be going?"
She leaned forward, shoulders drooping, a huddled bit of black in theloose cloak she wore. He waited. At length she drew her shoulders upwith a quick intake of breath. She held this a moment, her chin lifted.
"There, now I've decided," she said.
"What?"
"I'm not going back."
"No?"
"Not going through any more fuss. I'm too tired. It seemed as if I'dnever get here, never get out of that dreadful place, never get out ofParis, never get out of Brest, never get off the boat, never get home!I'm too tired for any more never gets. I'm not going to have talking andplanning and arguments and tearful relatives forever and a day more. Seeif I do! I'm here, and I'm not going to break it again. I'm not goingback!"
He reached down to pat her hand with a humouring air.
"Where will you go?"
"That's up to you."
"But what can I----"
"I'm going where you go. I tell you I'm too tired to have any talk."
He sat down beside her.
"Yes, you're a tired child," he told her.
She detected the humoring inflection.
"None of that! I'm tired, but I'm stubborn. I'm not going back. I'msupposed to be sleeping soundly in my little bed. In the morning, beforeI'm supposed to be up, I'll issue a communi
que from--any old place; ortell 'em face to face. I won't mind that a little bit after everything'sover. It's telling what's going to be and listening to talk about itthat I won't have. I'm not up to it. Now you talk!"
"You're tired. Are you too tired to know your own mind?"
"No; just too tired to argue with it, fight it; and I'm free, white, andtwenty-one; and I've read about the self-determination of smallpeoples."
"Say, aren't you afraid?"
"Don't be silly! Of course I'm afraid! What is that about perfect lovecasting out fear?--don't believe it! I'm scared to death--truly!"
"Go back till to-morrow."
"I won't! I've gone over all that."
"All right! Shove off!"
He led her to the ambushed Can, whose blemishes became all too apparentin the merciless light of the moon.
"What a lot of wound chevrons it has!" she exclaimed.
"Well, I didn't expect anything like this. I could have got----"
"It looks like a permanent casualty. Will it go?"
"It goes for me. You're sure you don't think it's better to----"
"On your way!" she gayly ordered, but her voice caught, and she clung tohim a moment before entering the car. "No; I'm not weakening--don't youthink it! But let me rest a second."
She was in the car, again wearily gay. The Can hideously broke thequiet.
"Home, James!" she commanded.
* * * * *
Dawn found the car at rest on the verge of a hill with a wide-sweepingview over and beyond the county seat of Newbern County. Patricia sleptwithin the fold of his arm. At least half of the slow forty miles shehad slept against his shoulder in spite of the car's resoundingprogress over a country road. Once in the darkness she had wakened longenough to tell him not to go away.
The rising sun lighted the town of Halton below them, and sent levelrays across a wide expanse of farmland beyond it, flat meadows androlling upland. White mist shrouded the winding trail of a creek. It wasthe kind of landscape he had viewed yesterday with a rising distaste;land that had tricked people from their right to wander; to go places ona train when they would.
He brought his eyes back from the treacherous vista and turned them downto the face of the sleeping girl. A pale scarf was wound about her head,and he could see but little beyond it but the tip of her nose, a fewscattered, minute freckles on one cheek. She was limp, one bare handfalling inertly over the edge of the seat between them. He looked outagain at the checkerboard of farms. He, too, had been tricked.
"But what a fine trick!" he said aloud. "No wonder it works!"
He dozed himself presently, nodding till his forward-pitching head wouldwaken him. Afterward he heard Spike saying: "So dark you can't see yourhand before your face." He came awake. His head was on Patricia'sshoulder, her arm supporting him.
"You must have gone to sleep and let the car stop," she told him. Hestared sleepily, believing it. "But I want my breakfast," she remindedhim. He sat up, winking the sleep from his eyes, shaking it from hishead.
"Of course," he said.
He looked again out over the land to which an old device had inveigledhim. A breeze had come with the dawn, stirring the grain fields intolong ripples. At the roadside was the tossing silver of birch leaves.
"This is one whale of a day for us two, isn't it?" he demanded.
"You said it!" she told him.
"Breakfast and a license and--"
"You know it!" she declared.
"Still afraid?"
"More than ever! It's a wonder and a wild desire, but it scares mestiff--you're so strange."
"You know, it isn't too late."
She began to thump him with a clenched fist up between his shoulders.
"Carry on!" she ordered. "There isn't a slacker in the whole car!"
* * * * *
A few hours later, in the dining room of the Whipple New Place, Gideon,Harvey D., and Merle Whipple were breakfasting. To them entered SharonWhipple from his earlier breakfast, ruddy, fresh-shaven, bubbling.
"On my way to the Home Farm," he explained, "but I had to drop in for alook at the girl by daylight. She seemed too peaked last night."
"Pat's still sleeping," said her father over his egg cup.
"That's good! I guess a rest was all she needed. Beats all, girlsnowadays seem to be made of wire rope. You take that one--"
A telephone bell rang in the hall beyond, and Merle Whipple went to it.
"Hello, hello! Whipple New Place--Merle Whipple speaking." He listened,standing in the doorway to turn a puzzled face to the group about thetable. "Hello! Who--who?" His bewilderment was apparent. "But it's Pattalking," he said, "over long distance."
"Calling from her room upstairs to fool you," warned Sharon. "Don't Iknow her flummididdles?"
But the look of bewilderment on Merle's face had become a look of purefright. He raised a hand sternly to Sharon.
"Once more," he called, hoarsely, and again listened with widening eyes.He lifted his face to the group, the receiver still at his ear. "Shesays--good heaven! She says, 'I've gone A.W.O.L., and now I'm safe andmarried--I'm married to Wilbur Cowan.'" He uttered his brother's namein the tone of a shocked true Whipple.
"Good heaven!" echoed Harvey D.
"I'm blest!" said Gideon.
"I snum to goodness!" said the dazed Sharon. "The darned skeesicks!"
Merle still listened. Again he raised a now potent hand.
"She says she doesn't know how she came to do it, except that he put acomether on her."
He hung up the receiver and fell into a chair before the table that heldthe telephone.
"Scissors and white aprons!" said Sharon. "Of all things you wouldn'texpect!"
Merle stood before the group with a tragic face.
"It's hard, Father, but she says it's done. I suppose--I suppose we'llhave to make the best of it."
Hereupon Sharon Whipple's eyes began to blink rapidly, his jaw dropped,and he slid forward in his chair to writhe in a spasm of what might beweirdly silent laughter. His face was purple, convulsed, but no soundcame from his moving lips. The others regarded him with alarm.
"Not a stroke?" cried Harvey D., and ran to his side. As he sought toloosen Sharon's collar the old man waved him off and became happilyvocal.
"Oh, oh!" he gasped. "That Merle boy has brightened my whole day!"
Merle frowned.
"Perhaps you may see something to laugh at," he said, icily.
Sharon controlled his seizure. Pointing his eyebrows severely, he cockeda presumably loaded thumb at Merle.
"Let me tell you, young man, the best this family can make of thatmarriage will be a darned good best. Could you think of a betterbest--say, now?" Merle turned impatiently from the mocker.
"Blest if I can--on the spur of the moment!" said Gideon.
Harvey D. looked almost sharply at the exigent Merle.
"Pat's twenty-five and knows her own mind better than we do," he said.
"I never knew it at all!" said Gideon.
"It's almost a distinct relief," resumed Harvey D. "As I think of it Ilike it." He went to straighten the painting of an opened watermelonbeside a copper kettle, that hung above the sideboard. "He's a fineyoung chap." He looked again at Merle, fixing knife and fork in a justeralignment on his plate. "I dare say we needed him in the family."
* * * * *
Late the following afternoon Sharon triumphantly brought his car to astop before the gateway leading up to the red farmhouse. The front doorproving unresponsive, he puffed about to the rear. He found a perturbedPatricia Cowan, in cap and apron, tidying the big kitchen. Her hegreeted rapturously.
"This kitchen--" began the new mistress.
"So he put a comether on you!"
"Absolutely--when I wasn't looking!"
"Put one on me, too," said Sharon; "years ago."
"This kitchen," began Patricia again, "is an unsanitary out
rage. Itneeds a thousand things done to it. We'd never have put up with this inthe Army. That sink there"--she pointed it out--"must have something ofa carbolic nature straight off."
"I know, I know!" Sharon was placating. "I'm going to put everythingright for you."
"New paint for all the woodwork--white."
"Sure thing--as white as you want it."
"And blue velours curtains for the big room. I always dreamed I'd have ahouse with blue velours curtains."
"Sure, sure! Anything you want you order."
"And that fireplace in the big room--I burned some trash there thismorning, and it simply won't inhale."
"Never did," said Sharon. "We'll run the chimney up higher. Anythingelse?"
"Oh, lots! I've a long list somewhere."
"I bet you have! But it's a good old house; don't build 'em like thisany more; not a nail in it; sound as a nut. Say, miss, did you knowthere was high old times in this house about seventy-three years ago?Fact! They thought I wasn't going to pull through. I was over two daysold before it looked like I'd come round. Say, I learned to walk out inthat side yard. That reminds me--" Sharon hesitated in mildembarrassment--"there's a place between them two wings--make a bullyplace for a sun room; spoil the architecture, mebbe, but who cares? Sunroom--big place to play round in--play room, or anything like that."
Patricia had been searching among a stack of newspapers, but she hadcaught "sun room."
"Stunning!" she said. "We need another big place right now, or when mythings get here."
Sharon coughed.
"Need it more later, I guess."
But Patricia had found her paper.
"Oh, here's something I put aside to ask you about! I want you tounderstand I'm going to be all the help I can here. This advertisementsays 'Raise Belgian hares,' because meat is so high. Do you know--dopeople really make millions at it, and could I do the work?"
Sharon was shaking his head.
"You could if you didn't have something else to do. And I suppose theysell for money, though I never did hear tell of a Belgian-haremillionaire. Heard of all other kinds, but not him. But you look here,young woman, I hope there'll be other things not sold by the poundthat'll keep you from rabbit raising. This family's depending a lot onyou. Didn't you hear my speech about that fine sun room?"
"Will you please not bother me at a time like this?" scolded Patricia."Now out with you--he's outside somewhere! And can't you ever in theworld for five minutes get mere Whipples out of your mind?" She activelywaved him on from the open door.
Sharon passed through a grape arbour, turning beyond it to study thesite of the sun room. All in a moment he built and peopled it. How hehoped they would be coming along to play in there; at least three beforehe was too old to play with them. He saw them now; saw them, moreover,upon the flimsiest of promises, all superbly gifted with the Whipplenose. Then he went hopefully off toward the stables. He came upon WilburCowan inspecting a new reaper under one of the sheds. This time the oldman feigned no pounding of the boy's back--made no pretense that he didnot hug him.
"I'm so glad, so glad, so almighty glad!" he said as they stood apart.
He did not speak with his wonted exuberance, saying the words veryquietly. But Sharon had not to be noisy to sound sincere.
"Thanks," said Wilbur. "Of course I couldn't be sure how her peoplewould----"
"Stuff!" said Sharon. "All tickled to death but one near-Whipple andhe's only annoyed. But you've been my boy--in my fool mind I always hadyou for my boy, when you was little and when you went to war. You couldof known that, and that was enough for you to know. Of course I neverdid think of you and Pat. That was too gosh-all perfect. Of course Icalled her a rattlepate, but she was my girl as much as you was my boy."
The old eyes shone mistily upon Wilbur, then roved to the site of hisdream before he continued.
"Me? I'm getting on--and on. Right fast, too. But you--you and that finegirl--why, you two are a new morning in a new world, so fresh and youngand proud of each other, the way you are!" He hesitated, his eyes comingback. "Only thing I hope for now--before I get bedfast orsomething--say, take a look at the space between them south wings--standover this way a mite." Sharon now built there, with the warmestimplications, a perfect sun room. "That'll be one grand place," heaffirmed of his work when all was done.
"Yes, it sounds good," replied Wilbur.
"Oh, a grand place, big as outdoors, getting any sun there is--greatfor winter, great for rainy days!" Wistfully he searched the other'sface. "You know, Buck, a grand place to--play in, or anything likethat."
"Yes, sir," said Wilbur.
THE END
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