CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A boy and a girl sat on the doorsteps of the Randall house.
It was almost a year since the night of the rally. It was an evening inlate May--late, but it was May, and the fairies' month still. There wasa pleasant, shivery chill in the air. A far sprinkling of stars made thedark of the still, windless night look darker and warmer and safer towhisper in. The big horse-chestnut tree at the corner of the syringahedge was only a darker blot against the surrounding dark, and the slopeof faintly lit street on the other side of the hedge looked far away,with the dark sweep of lawn between. It was a night for the fairies, orfor the girl and boy, and that was quite as it should be, for it wastheir first together for months.
Judith and Neil sat discreetly erect on the steps, undoing what thosemonths apart had done with little bursts of shy speech, and long, shysilences that helped them more. In the longest and shyest silence theirhands had groped for each other once, met as if they had never touchedbefore, and clung together for a minute as if they never meant to letgo, but Judith kept firmly to impersonal subjects still.
"You did it all," she said. "Things do happen so fast when they happen.Just think, this time last year he was like a king!"
"Everard?"
"Yes. Do you remember how I used to be cross when you called him that,and wouldn't say Colonel? How childish that was!" Judith patronized herdead self, as a young lady may, with her twentieth birthday almost uponher.
"You weren't childish."
"What was I?"
"Just what you are now."
"What's that?"
"Wonderful." Neil chose his one adequate word, from the tiny vocabularyof youth, small because few words are worthy to voice the infinitedreams of it. "Wonderful."
"No, I'm not wonderful. You are. That dreadful old man, and every oneknew he was dreadful and wouldn't do anything about it till you----"
"Bawled him out? That's all I did, you know, really. It was a kid'strick. He lost out because it was coming to him anyway. Poor Theodoresaw to that. He turned the town against Everard when he killed himself.It wasn't turning fast, but it was turning. I did give it a shove andmake it turn faster, but I didn't even have sense enough to know I haduntil the day after the rally, when the Judge sent for me and told me. Ididn't dare go near him until he sent for me, and I thought he had sentfor me to fire me."
"But you broke up the rally. They were dead still in the hall until youleft, and then they went crazy, calling for you, and all talking atonce, talking against you, some of them, till it really wasn't a rallyany more, but just like a mob. Oh, I know. The Judge tells me, everytime I go to ride with him, and when he came on to the school lastwinter and saw me there, he told me all over again. Father has neverhalf told me. He hates to talk about the rally or the Colonel either,but I don't care, he and mother are both so sweet to me lately--justsweet.
"So it was just like a mob, and then poor Mrs. Burr got up and tried tospeak, and they got quiet and listened, and she said "Every word the boysays is true and more--more----" just like that, and then she got faintand had to stop, and then the Judge took hold. That's what he says hedid, took hold, and he says it was time, because they might have tarredand feathered the Colonel if he hadn't. I don't suppose they would, butI wish I could have seen the Judge take hold. I love him."
"Don't you love anybody else?"
Judith ignored this frivolous interruption, as it deserved.
"And so your work was done, though you didn't know it and ran away. Andthe Judge says you are a born orator, Neil. That you've got the realgift, the thing that makes an audience yours. I don't know just what hemeans, but I know you've got it, too. You're going to be a great man,Neil."
"I didn't do anything."
"You're the only man in town who thinks that, then, or has since thatnight. He--Everard--was done for the minute you stepped on the stage,the Judge says. Only they managed it decently, the Judge and the fewthat kept their heads. They announced that Colonel Everard wasindisposed and couldn't speak, and the Judge took him home. He reallywas ill next day. There's something wrong with his horrid heart. Andthat gave him a good excuse not to run for mayor, he gave that uphimself. And in a few days the Judge and Luther Ward went to him andtold him what else he had to do, and he did it. He had to resign fromeverything, everything he was in charge of or was trustee of, or hadanything to do with, and get out of town. If he'd do that, they wouldn'tmake any scandal or bother him afterward, but let him start new. Andthey gave him six months to do all that decently and save his face. Whydid he have to do it decently? Why couldn't they tar and feather him? Iwish they had. I wish----"
"Wish something else, Judith. Something about us."
"What do you mean by us?"
"You and me."
"Isn't it splendid the Judge is going to be president of the bank?" saidJudith hastily.
"Splendid," said a future president of the Green River Bank, who wasoccupying the step beside her.
"And isn't it nice that poor Mrs. Burr is going to marry Mr. Sebastian,even if she does have to move away from Green River? I like people to behappy, don't you?"
"No. No, I don't. Not other people. I don't care whether they are happyor not, and I don't want to talk about them, only about you and me."
"If you don't like the way I talk, I'll keep still," Judith said, in asevere but small voice, but a small hand groping for his softened thethreat, and a soft, sudden laugh as his arm slipped round her atoned forit entirely. Then there was silence on the steps, a long, whispering,wonderful silence. Long before Judith spoke again all the work of thelonely months was undone. And the low whispers that the two exchangedconveyed no further information about Colonel Everard.
But there was no more to tell. The master of Green River was master nolonger and the end of all the intricate planning and scheming that hadmade and kept him master was a story that Judith could tell in a fewcareless sentences and forget. If she had seen and guessed some thingsthat she could not forget, in the strange little circle that had found aplace for her, she would never see them again. That order was gone fromthe town forever, with the man who had created it, and beside her on thesteps was the boy who could make her forget it, and see beyond the long,hard years between. And, as she almost could guess, in these magicminutes when she could dream and dream true, that boy was the futuremaster of Green River.
Judith sighed, and stirred in his arms.
"Are you happier now?" she whispered.
"Yes."
"But you're going to be great. You are, really."
"I am if you want me to. Judith, how long does your father think you andI ought to wait?"
"I don't know. You can ask him. He likes you better than me. He alwayswanted me to be a boy.... Neil, I want to tell you something. Keep yourarm like that, but don't look at me."
"Why?"
"It's about what you don't like me to talk about."
"Everard?"
"Yes, and it's about something dreadful, that day in his library when Iwas alone with him, and you came. He--frightened me."
"Never mind, dear, now."
"He frightened me but that was--all. I wasn't hurt or anything. I justdidn't know he--anybody--could look the way he was looking, or act theway he was acting, and then I felt sick all over. I was afraid. But hewas just trying to kiss me, of course, and I wasn't going to let him,the horrid old man. So I think now it was silly to be frightened. Wasit?"
"No, it wasn't silly, dear."
"I'm glad. And Neil--I want to tell you something else. It's about--thatnight--in the buggy, on the old road to Wells, you know, when you weregoing to elope with me and changed your mind."
"When I frightened you so. Oh, Judith."
"You didn't--frighten me," said a very small voice indeed. "You----"
"What, dear?"
"Made me want you--want to go away with you. I never felt like thatbefore, all waked up and different and--happy. Oh, you didn't frightenme. I wasn't angry because you tried to take me
away. It was because youbrought me back."
"Don't you know why I brought you back?"
"No."
"Why, because I loved you. I didn't love you till then, not really; nottill that minute in the carriage. I know just what minute. When you letme kiss you, and didn't mind any more. Then I knew about--love. I neverknew before, but I'll never forget again. It isn't just wanting people,it's taking care of them, and not hurting them. Waiting till you canhave things--right. So I wanted to have you right and be fit for you,and after that night I went to work and I wouldn't be stopped, not byanything in this town or the world. Oh, Judith, why don't you speak tome? It isn't much use to talk. You don't understand."
"I--do."
"You're crying!"
She was crying, and she did understand. Before this unexpected,beautiful proof of it, the boy was reverent and half ashamed, as if awoman's tears were a sacred miracle invented for him. He held her handtimidly and pressed it. Presently she drew it away, and suddenly she wasnot crying, but laughing, a low, full-throated laugh as wonderful tohim as her tears.
"I told you, you did it all," she said softly. "Well, you didn't. Neil,there's what did it all. Because, if you only go on believing in thingsand being sweet and true and not afraid, and--wishing, then everythingwill come right. It's got to, just because you want it to. So there'swhat did it all and made us so happy, you and me. I love it. Love it,Neil."
Neil looked where Judith was looking. Above the horse-chestnut tree, sofilmy and faint that the stars looked brighter than ever, so pale thatit was not akin to the stars, but to the dark beyond, where adventureswere, so friendly and sweet that it could make the wish in your heartcome true, hung a new-risen silvery crescent of light.
"But it's only the moon," Neil said.
"It's--the wishing moon," said Judith.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Note:
Minor spelling and typographical errors have been correctedwithout note. Some illustrations have been relocated forbetter flow.
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