Chapter 8

"I'll try," answered Friedrich, meekly.

"And don't worry too much over what's gone by," went on the Doctor, clumsily. "Breaking the law's breaking the law, Ah'm not denying that; but it makes a lot of difference what the motive is, and you've suffered your share of punishment, too. It's the right of every man to begin afresh. Avoid mud and give yo' horse a firm take-off, and he'll leap as clean as a whistle for you. Lawd, Ah'm getting plumb religious," he ejaculated, wiping his face.

Friedrich's knowledge of English was put to a test, but he listened with his eyes as well as his ears, and nodded slowly.

"I think I understand," he said. "But do you think that people--my fr-riends"--his eyes turned towards the house--"that my friends can overlook it--can ever think of me as they used to think of me?"

"Oh, I reckon she will," replied Dr. Morgan, with a smile that disconcerted von Rittenheim and drove him to a new topic.

"You will for-rgive me if I do talk some business with you," he said, hastily.

"Do you feel well enough?"

"Oh, yes. I shall feel much better when I have cleared my mind of all these things. I want to say to you that I do much appr-reciate, also, besides your kindness, all the money that you have paid, and--no, let me talk, please, Herr Doctor--and I must tell you that I shall write to-day to Germany for a r-remittance. There is a sum which I can have. Yes, I see you look, wondering that I have lived so poor. Well, I explain to you that I have sworn that I would not use it for myself--I have another use for it--so long as I am well and can earn enough for living; but now I am not well, and I have expenses in the past weeks, and I must live until I grow str-rong to work in some way; so am I justified to myself to send for the money, you see."

"Fix it any way you like," said the Doctor, cheerily, "only remember that if it ain't convenient to pay up _ever_,--why, just banish it from your mind, and Ah'll never think of it again, Ah promise you. Now, is that all?" he asked, as he leaned towards his patient and put a practised finger on his pulse. "Yes? Then Ah'd like to know where that Sydney is with that egg-nog. Here, you Sydney," he cried, putting his head into the house and letting his cracked voice echo into the darkness. "What kind of a nurse are you? How do you expect to rise in the profession, miss, if you don't have an egg-nog ready the instant yo' patient happens to think of it? Oh, here you are! Well, sit down here, then, and see that the Baron takes every drop of that, and don't tire him out with yo' chatter. Do you understand?"

After which burst he kissed her, and disappeared into the house. Sydney turned blushing to the Baron, and laughed at his wistful look.

"Age has its compensations," he said, as he took the tumbler from her. "But I do not begrudge the good Doctor all the happiness that comes to him. He is a most generous man."

"He's a darling!"

"A darling? Ah, yes. I should not have used that word for _him_, but I agree with the sentiment."

"You are critical this morning. Don't you ever allow yourself any liberty of speech in German? Do you always say exactly what you mean, and use exactly the right word?"

"Oh, Miss Sydney, you describe to me a pig--no, a pr-rig person. Surely I use many picture words in my thinking of--well, just to illustrate what I mean, I will say, in my thinking of _you_!"

Sydney moved her position so that her face was partly hidden behind the back of the Baron's wheeled chair.

"Now, there is _Schatz_," went on Friedrich, sipping his egg-nog placidly, but keeping a wary eye upon the bit of pink cheek that was still within his range of vision. "I like to think of you as _Schatz_,"--there was a danger-betokening movement of the glowing head,--"because you are such a treasure to your grandmother."

He paused a moment, but there was no reply.

"And _Perle_--it is a pretty word, _Perle_--it makes you to think of the r-radiance of the moon, so pure, so soft. Yes," he went on, hastily, "_Perle_ r-rhymes with _Erle_--that means an alder-tree--and that r-reminds me of you."

"I must say I fail to see the resemblance," came an injured voice from behind the chair.

"Not see? Oh, Miss Sydney, surely--with your cleverness! Listen to this, then; perhaps you like it better that I call you my--I mean _a_--_Rose_."

"That's because my hair is red."

"It is a white r-rose that always figures in my mind. A beautiful white r-rose with a heart of gold."

By a dexterous touch upon one wheel he whirled his chair about so that he saw her downcast face.

"A heart full of goodness to others is it, and of courage, and of love."

He was leaning eagerly towards her. She lifted her eyes with an effort, and met his. Then he remembered.

"Yes," he continued, hurriedly, "full of love for the poor and the desolate."

Sydney rose.

"Your pretty figures do me too much honor," she said, unsteadily, and went into the house with lingering tread and look.

Friedrich gazed after her.

"God knows I would be counted among the poor and the desolate," he cried, softly, to himself. "But I must not speak again of this until I am more worthy to stand before her--if ever that can be!"

XIV

The Fourth of July

That the settle-_ment_ celebrated the Fourth of July was not due to an exuberance of patriotism, but to the mercantile spirit of Uncle Jimmy's son, Pete.

Pete was married, and lived in one of the cottages on the Oakwood estate, where he worked intermittently, sandwiching between thin slices of manual labor thick layers of less legitimate emprise.

Independence Day, as the anniversary of the birth of our country's liberty, is not celebrated with enthusiasm in the South. It meets with more cordial acceptance when regarded as another opportunity for knocking off work.

Pete's plan catered to all conditions of conscience, from the seared commodity that asked no excuse for playing to the scrupulous article that considered justification necessary, and found it in the infrequency of such amusement.

He advertised far and wide, by placards in the scattered stores and post-offices that cling near the railway stations and dot the Haywood Road on the other side of the river, a--

GANDER PULIN FORTH OF JULY AT 5 OCLOCK. FRADYS FEILD.

"I always make a point of going to these outdoor gatherings of the country people," explained Mrs. Carroll to the Baron, as they drove towards the field. "I think they like to have me."

Von Rittenheim had insisted upon going home to his cabin a few days before, since which time the old lady had missed him grievously. He was not yet strong enough to take the five-mile ride to Oakwood on his mule, and she had made the gander-pulling an excuse to go to his cabin to see how his housekeeping was progressing, and to take him for a drive.

"We don't have gander-pullings often now, since the law requires that the fowl shall be dead," she explained. "It demands less skill to break the poor thing's neck when it isn't writhing wildly."

"And it does not r-rouse the br-rutal desire to kill that seems to live in every one of us men. Will Miss Sydney be there?"

"Yes, she is going on horseback--"

"Ah!"

"--with John Wendell."

"Eh?"

"You didn't meet them--John and Katrina Wendell--when they were here in the spring. They went North again not long after you came to Oakwood."

"Oh, dear madam, I do so earnestly hope that my going to Oakwood did not depr-rive you of more welcome guests."

"Not the least in the world. They went back to New York to put the crown to a pretty romance."

"A love-story!"

"Katrina was sent down here, under her brother's care, to forget a certain Tom Schuyler, whom her mother considered impossible because he was penniless."

"The poor but honest suitor."

"A poor but lavish suitor would describe him better. It seems that an aunt of his was moved to give him a present of five hundred dollars. He says that he had just paid his tailor's bill as a concession to his desire to _range_ himself, and he really didn't know what to do with the money. It wasn't enough to get anything really nice with,--he'd been trying to make his father give him an automobile,--unless it were a ring for Katrina. He concluded, however, that Mrs. Wendell would object to her daughter's accepting it, and that he might as well take a little flyer with it."

"Take--what is that?"

"Speculate--in stocks."

"And he made his for-rtune?"

"No, on the contrary. He took his father's advice about his purchase, and lost his five hundred dollars within twenty-four hours."

"Then wherefr-rom came his good luck? For surely I perceive the pr-resence of good luck."

"His father was so remorseful over his poor counsel, and so delighted with Tom's apparent desire to 'settle down,' that he made amends for his unfortunate 'tip' by giving his son a very decent sum of money."

"It is like a story, is it not? So the brother and sister went up from here to the wedding."

"It was only a few days ago, and now Tom and Katrina have come to us on their _Hochzeitreise_."

"And the brother?"

Mrs. Carroll glanced amusedly at her companion.

"He came to-day on the afternoon train, to continue the visit which Katrina insisted on shortening for him in May, he says."

"You will enjoy them."

Friedrich's tone was not enthusiastic, and he pulled his moustache gloomily.

"Very much. They are charming young people. See, there are Tom and Katrina now, just turning into the field."

Von Rittenheim raised his hat as Mrs. Schuyler waved her hand to Mrs. Carroll, and studied critically the bride's radiant face and pretty gown as the victoria followed the phaeton through the opened fence-rails. He found her charming and acknowledged it reluctantly, not because he begrudged her her beauty, nor because he thought her handsomer than Sydney, for he did not, but because he had a secret fear of the attractiveness of the brother of so fascinating a girl.

"Tom," said Mrs. Carroll, as Mrs. Schuyler came to the side of the carriage, "I want you to know my very dear friend, Baron von Rittenheim--Mr. Schuyler. Now take the Baron over to Katrina, Tom, and then find Mrs. Morgan,--that's she in the red-wheeled buggy,--and beg her to come and sit with me here. Vandeborough," to the coachman, "drive me under that apple-tree, where there is more shade. How do you do, Eliza?" she said to a woman by whom the carriage slowly passed; "I'm glad to see you out to-day. And you, Mary. Jack Garren, is that you? You grow too fast for my memory. Ah, Jane, I hope your rheumatism is better,--and is that Mattie's Bertha? Stop here, Vandeborough. This will be comfortable. Ah, Mrs. Morgan, it is kind of you to make me a little visit, but I couldn't possibly climb into that buggy of yours. I don't know how you achieve it."

"Nor do Ah, Mrs. Carroll. Ah thought it was high five years ago, when Ah didn't consider mahself overly fat, so you can imagine what the effort is now." And she shook jovially.

"Is the Doctor here?"

"Yes, indeed. He drove me. He always comes to these things. They generally need him before they get through, and it often saves him a long trip into the mountains if he's on the spot when things happen."

"I dare say his presence prevents a good many quarrels."

"Maybe so; but Ah should hate to have any mo' fights than there are. There's always whisky about, you know."

"If the chief crop of this country could be changed, what a blessing it would be!"

"Ah don't know as it would make much difference as long as potatoes were left."

"And thirst."

"There's Bob now. O-oh, Bob!" she called, waving a fat hand to her son as he cantered across the open on his gray.

Bob looked about for the source of the call, and turned his horse towards the tree.

"He's growing handsome, Mrs. Morgan," said Mrs. Carroll, in an undertone, as the tall fellow leaped to the ground, slipped the bridle over his arm, and pulled off his cap.

"He looks as his father did at his age," returned Mrs. Morgan, fondly, glancing across to where her husband was talking to a group of lank mountaineers from whom he was hardly to be distinguished.

"It's right nice of you to come this afternoon, Mrs. Carroll," Bob was saying. "The people always appreciate it. What is it, mother? Those boys? Oh, they're having a game of ball; and the men you see over yonder are throwing horseshoes over a peg--with mighty poor skill, too. Here come Patton McRae and Susy. Excuse me. I'll help him with his horses," for Patton's black mare hated the harness even more than she did the saddle, and was doing her best to demoralize her mate and overturn the buggy.

Sydney, entering the field from the State Road, glanced past the tethered mules and the chair-laden wagons, from which the horses had been taken, to where Bob sat in the carriage beside Susy, saying something very pretty to her, if downcast lids and a blush are any evidence; in reality, teasing her about an absent sweetheart.

Wandering farther, her eyes saw the quoit-throwers, and the groups of women and children sitting in the shade, enjoying an interchange of gossip with the zest of infrequent meetings. She saw the clusters of laughing negroes, and the tent where Pete and his wife were doing a vigorous business in cakes and ice-cream and lemonade. She waved her hand to her grandmother and Mrs. Morgan. She noticed the men and boys who strolled with apparent aimlessness towards the thicket on the edge of the field, and returned wiping their lips on their sleeves. And she saw Katrina talking animatedly to Baron von Rittenheim, who sat beside her, while Patton McRae watched her with adoring eyes, and Tom wore the conscious smile that indicates the young husband's pride of possession.

Sydney had been feeling very much without occupation since the Baron had gone home, and the anticipation of seeing him again this afternoon had been pleasant to her. He never had made love to her more definitely than on the morning after his interview with Dr. Morgan, but to herself she acknowledged that he admired her, and while she was not sure of his entertaining a more pronounced feeling, up to this time she had known, at least, that his eyes were only for her. And here he was _revelling_--she underlined the word in her thought--in Katrina's vivacity and charm. The sensation of rivalry was new to her and not pleasant.

As for Bob, she had a feeling of warm affection for dear old Bob, and a desire to be useful to him, and she meant to make her influence over him one for good, if that were possible. She was thoroughly glad in the news that had come to her that Bob had not been drinking for several months now. But how he could help referring to the passage that had occurred between them she could not understand. She didn't really want him to make love to her,--that was a notion altogether too unmaidenly,--but she did feel as if an expression of affection from _somebody_ would be very comforting.

She turned to John Wendell, who rode beside her, and gave him a more generous smile than it had been his lot to receive while Sydney was the possessor of those agreeable anticipations of the early afternoon.

"You like it? All this?" She waved her hand comprehensively.

"I love it," he answered, promptly, looking at her clear-cut face with its frame of red hair under her sailor hat, and at the well-made linen habit.

"It must be novel to you."

"Not very." He pulled his moustache to conceal an amused smile. "It depends upon where new ends and old begins, you see. Now, I came down here in April, so my feeling is not 'the last cry.'"

"But at that time of year you didn't see--oh, how foolish you are!" she cried, and touched Johnny with her spur. His response brought him near the phaeton, which seemed a focal point for a general movement.

"They're going to have the gander-pulling now," exclaimed Bob, who had come with Susy to join the group. "The best view will be from this side."

"Are you going to ride, Mr. Morgan?" asked Katrina.

"Yes, I think so."

"Bob never can resist any game that's played with a horse," said Sydney, laughing.

"You know you'd like right well to try it yourself," he retorted.

Baron von Rittenheim gave his seat beside Mrs. Schuyler to Miss McRae, and went to Sydney's side.

"At last the sun begins to shine," he said, in a low voice, smiling up at her and patting Johnny's neck.

"Your universe has many suns, I'm afraid," responded Sydney, a trifle pettishly, yet swiftly, scanning his face for signs of returning health. She was not unobservant, either, of his new white summer clothes.

Friedrich glanced across the horse to Mrs. Schuyler.

"I find agr-reeable the light of the lesser planets," he said, "but--there is only one Sun."

Looking up at her, he laughed again, so heartily and with such genuine pleasure at seeing her that Sydney melted.

"You look so _well_," she cried. "It is a delight to see you. But it's not a compliment to our care that you grow better so fast when you leave us."

"R-rather is it a tr-ribute to your so admirable nursing that has pr-repared me to r-recover with speed, even though I have it no longer."

"Will you ride, Baron?" asked Bob. "You're welcome to Gray Eagle if you will."

"I thank you, gr-reatly, but I dare not. The eye of my care-taker is upon me, and your Herr Father is here somewhere. No, decidedly, I am afraid," and he leaned with every appearance of contentment against Johnny's shoulder.

"How about you, Mr. Wendell?"

"I think I will, if Miss Sydney will trust me with the horse."

"Of course; and I'll give you a lovely prize if you bring me the head."

"It's yours," cried John, while Friedrich bit his lip, in annoyance, and thought on the _Ewigweibliche_.

"Can you find me something, Mr. Morgan?" cried Schuyler. "I really can't stand here and see you fellows having this fun without me."

"What's Mr. Schuyler driving, Sydney? 'Possum? She'll do, if you don't mind. I'll swipe a saddle off of one of those mules over there." And he and Tom fell to unharnessing the useful 'Possum, while the Baron held Gray Eagle and commented on Bob's resource.

"He is full of device," he said, heartily, "and r-ready, always, to think and to do." And Sydney remembered some of the things he had done, and nodded with misty eyes.

XV

The Gander-Pulling

Under all the trees where horses had been hitched, the mountaineers were tightening girths, mending unsound bridles, and pulling down stirrups from the saddles across which they had been flung to be safe from fly-kicking hoofs.

Some men had switches tucked under their saddle-flaps. Others, less provident, swung on to their beasts, and, heavily elastic, trotted across to the brush to cut a "hickory" from a sourwood-tree.

Pete was testing the strength of a stout oak pole driven into the ground, across whose fork was lashed, like the cross-bar of a "T," a leaf-stripped sapling. To the tip of this rod the negro was tying the legs of a big, white goose, whose extended wings and pendant head betrayed compliance with inexorable law.

"Hit's a damn shame," Pete murmured, as he anointed the creature's neck and head with liberal smearings of lard. "Whar de fun o' pullin' on a ole daid t'ing lak dis? But Ah hope dey'll tink hit's great!" And he beat vigorously on a pan to attract the attention of all hearers.

"Gen'lemen. O-oh, gen'lemen!" he cried, at the top of his lungs. "Now fo' a great ole gander-pullin'! De only one we've had in dis settle-_ment_ fo' t'ree year. Every gen'leman as craves to enter dis gander-pullin' will kin'ly ride up here and _de_-posit a quarter 'f a dollar. Only twenty-five cen's fo' de priv'lege o' takin' a pull at dis yer goose,--warranted a tasty goose! One-half dis sum o' money goes to de gen'leman who succeeds in _re_-movin' de haid from dis fowl, an' also de goose hitself, which sho' do look lak good eatin'!"

Pete's old hat soon sagged with the coins that were tossed into it, while his keen eye noted each entry as surely as if he wrote the name in black and white. It would have been useless for anyone to try to enter the lists without paying the proper fee.

Two lines of excited onlookers served at once to define a lane, whose ultimate point was the gallows whereon hung the goose, and to rouse to excitement the horses, whose overworked spirits did not respond promptly to the sudden stimulus.

They cheered the aspirants with jovial condemnation.

"Show us what yo' ole plug c'n do, 'Gene."

"Sho', Alf, you-all ain' goin' to ride that po' critter!"

"He's powerful gaunted up, yo' war-horse, Bud."

"Mighty strength'nin' ploughin' is, but not stimmerlatin'!"

"High-strung animal, that clay-bank o' Pink's."

Pink's temper was in that state where he enjoyed hugely gibes at his friends' expense, but was in no mood to receive amiably jests directed against himself.

"Whar's you-all's horse?" he shouted, in exasperation, to one of his tormentors. "Ah reckon no one would len' you anythin' mo' vallyble 'n a billy-goat. Now dry up. Pete, start this thing."

He rode to the end of the passage where the horsemen were gathering. Alf Lance, Melissa's father, whose horses Bud and Pink were riding, scanned them both to make sure that they were not too drunk to be trusted with his animals.

Pete fussed about nervously.

"Which o' you gents will begin dis pullin'?" he called. "Now, sahs, come on."

Pink pushed his horse towards the edge of the crowd, but he was hailed with dissuasive cries.

"Aw, hold on, Pink."

"Don' be so bigoty."

"Who you-all think ye are?"

"Where's Bob Morgan?"

"Yes, Bob's the feller!"

"O-oh, Bob!"

It was their tribute to the Doctor, this giving precedence to his son, and Bob so understood it. It was, therefore, irritating to have Pink thrust forward his red face and look him over sneeringly.

"Aw, gwan," he cried, "lessee what you-all c'n do."

The bunch of horsemen fell to one side, and Bob started Gray Eagle from well back in the field near the deserted wagons. He passed the mounted men and thundered through the lines of standing howlers. The gray had been his master's coadjutor in so many situations of excitement and even peril, that the cheering mob did not provoke him unduly. He galloped, unswervingly, up to the hanging goose, though his ears were pricked forward, and he shuddered as the instinctive repulsion from death pulsed through him. Bob's outstretched hand grasped the long and slippery neck, while the inarticulate yell with which the Southern farmer calls his dogs and chases his cows and terrifies his enemies went up from the onlookers. Tightly he clutched the greasy thing, and tried to give a sharp twist that should break the vertebrae. But his hand slipped swiftly down to the flat head, which offered no hold for his grasp, the beak ripped through his fingers, and the sapling, which had bent and followed him as Gray Eagle dashed on, snapped back, waving triumphantly its unharmed burden.

"Hard lines, old man, but the fun lasts longer so," cried Wendell, as Bob pulled up beside him after circling the spectators.

"Who's that?" the New Yorker asked, as a lank country horse plunged down the lane, shied violently at the feathered horror, threw his rider into the crowd, and galloped with flapping stirrups over the field.

"'Gene Frady. He never can stay on anything. He's all right, dad," to the Doctor, who was moving towards the upper end. "See, he's chasing his horse now."

With a drunken whoop, Pink Pressley rushed his animal towards the prize; but his condition, combined with twitches and jerks of the bridle, and rakings of the spur, had acted upon his mount's usually stolid nerves, and half-way up the alley he whirled about and tore back, carrying his cursing rider far up the road before he calculated the probable results to himself of this outburst, and consented to return.