Part 4

"There's a big circus picture on Mr. Wade's barn, just stuck up this morning. It has a great big tiger crawling up an elephant, and soldiers fighting Indians, all big, in splendid colors! Come over and see it."

Ruth frowned. In her very pretty eyes, as she turned them in sadness on the prospective groom, was pity--the almost tearful yet contemptuous pity with which Wisdom looks on Folly.

"Cyrus, you are just a boy. You don't understand things."

"Don't understand what things?"

"How important this marriage is."

"Oh, that's all right. I'm ready. Let's go ahead now and have it over with. What do we do first?"

"We must go in to father and ask him to marry us, just as he did those people this morning."

"All right. Come along."

As the two children entered the house, Zac with a bark of joy bounced into the hall ahead of them. It was a loud bark, a piercing, youthful bark, that might disturb a dozen clergymen if working on their sermons.

Ruth stopped. "Hush, you horrid dog!"

"Zac, shut up!" said Cyrus. "Go back, and stay on the porch."

But Zac preferred to accompany the expedition. Without openly refusing to obey, he merely bounced about, just out of reach, wagged his tail and smiled in the faces of the bride and groom.

"Shall we let him come?" said Cyrus.

Ruth hesitated, but only for an instant. "No. A dog barking at a wedding would be unreligious."

So Cyrus, by pleadings, threats and gentle force induced his more worldly comrade to remain without. But he said good-by to him as he turned away. For, in parting with this bachelor friend, he may have had feelings in common with other matrimonial heroes when marching to the altar.

Meanwhile, the Rev. George Bentley Heywood, father of the prospective bride, stood at the west window of his study. His thoughts were far away. In his hand was a letter from a friend in China. This friend, a missionary, had presented, in eloquent and convincing words, the various joys, spiritual, material and social that attended the servant of God when converting the heathen of the Orient.

Mr. Heywood's imagination had responded to the winged words and was already disporting itself in the Chinese vineyard. There had been other letters, all with the same message. And, now, standing at the window with the letter in his hand, he was thinking, and thinking hard, over the most important decision of his life.

Mr. Heywood was a serious man. Upon his person lay no superfluous flesh. His face, otherwise severe, was tempered by the eyes of a poet--eyes of a gentle, somewhat solemn beauty. They were pleasant to look into. Ruth had inherited these eyes, and in her childish face they shone with an added beauty. They were dreamy eyes, a soft brown-black with blacker lashes, and either tragic or mirthful, as occasion called.

When the study door opened--with no preliminary knock--there was annoyance in the clergyman's manner as his eyes turned toward the intruder. This time there were two intruders,--Cyrus and his fiancée. Mr. Heywood frowned when the two small people advanced to the center of the room. He was in no mood for answering children's questions. But, as he frowned, Cyrus bowed--one of his best and most elaborate efforts, bringing the heel of one foot against the instep of the other, all with a gracious, sweeping salutation of his free hand--the one that was not leading Ruth. It was the greeting of one gentleman of the old school to another, of deference and good wishes. Mr. Heywood, partly, perhaps, from his thoughts being in China, found himself also bowing deferentially, as if to some exalted and venerable person. Suddenly realizing the absurdity of such an obeisance he straightened up and frowned again. Then he spoke more harshly than if he had not blundered into such a foolish action.

"Well, children, what is it?"

Cyrus spoke. "We have come to get married."

"Who?"

"We. We--us."

"What do you mean?"

"Ruth and I want to get married."

Mr. Heywood frowned again and blinked, as if to summon his wandering wits, undecided whether to believe or doubt his eyes and ears. His thoughts, barely returned from China, seemed unequal to a sudden grasp of the situation.

"What are you saying?"

"I am saying that Ruth and I want to get married."

"Whose idea is this?"

"Mine," said Ruth.

As the father met the earnest eyes of his daughter he almost smiled.

"Where did you get such an idea, Ruth?"

"From seeing the people you married this morning. You said marriage was a beautiful thing."

"So it is. So it is. But that was very different. Only grown people marry, so run away, children. I have no time for play this morning." And he turned away and sat down at his desk.

"But, Mr. Heywood," said Cyrus, "this is not play. This is important."

"Important? Why important, Cyrus?"

"'Cause Ruth wants it."

This time Mr. Heywood smiled. "That's a good sentiment, Cyrus. It shows a kind regard for the lady. But run away, both of you. I am very busy this morning."

"But, Mr. Heywood," said Cyrus, "what's Ruth done that she should be punished and not have what she wants, and wants ever so much?"

"How punished?"

"By not getting what she wants."

"And what do you say she wants?"

"Me."

The father laughed. "Oh, it's you she wants, is it?"

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Heywood drew a hand slowly across his mouth as he looked inquiringly at Ruth.

Ruth smiled and nodded. "Yes, sir."

Her father also nodded as in polite recognition of her wishes. Turning to Cyrus, he inquired, "What are you going to live on? What is going to be your business?"

"I'm going to be a discoverer, like Columbus."

"I am afraid there won't be much left to discover by the time you are a man--not on this earth, at least. The big continents are already discovered."

"But there will be new countries at the bottom of the sea, and under the earth and on the moon, and such places."

"On _such_ places! Dear me, Cyrus, do you think of taking your wife to the moon?"

"Yes, sir."

"But how will you be supporting Ruth all that time? A husband should be earning money."

"Oh, that part'll be all right! I'm going to be a train robber."

"A train robber!"

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Heywood whistled softly and looked at his daughter. "Well--now--is that a nice business, Ruth, for a model husband? Do you want to marry a train robber?"

Ruth smiled and nodded. "Yes, I shall always like Cyrus and whatever he does."

"But suppose Cyrus is imprisoned for life, or hanged, as often happens to train robbers?"

Cyrus interrupted, and spoke contemptuously. "No, I shan't be that kind! It's only the stupid ones that's caught!"

Mr. Heywood closed his eyes for a moment and appeared to be thinking it over. "Of course, it's possible,--just possible, that you may change your mind as you get older."

"No, sir. 'Cause a man gets lots of money that way and gets it quick and easy. And there'll be jewelry, too. I shall give the jewelry to Ruth."

"And I," said Ruth, "shall give lots of it to mother. Mother likes jewelry."

"Yes," said Mr. Heywood, "most women do. But isn't stolen jewelry a little----"

Again Cyrus interrupted. "But that won't be stolen jewelry. When you steal anything you get it when the other feller isn't looking--kind of sneakin'. I shall take it right before their faces."

"Yes, but you threaten to kill them if they resist. That's robbery, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir, but robbery isn't like stealing. It's more--more--it's braver."

"Braver? Possibly. And you really consider robbery an honorable business?"

"Oh, yes."

"And I can help him," said Ruth; "we would work together."

Mr. Heywood looked from the cherubic lips of the groom into the clear eyes of his superlatively conscientious little daughter and murmured: "Yes, you would be of great assistance." Then, after a pause:

"Now, Cyrus, you and Ruth come to me twenty years hence and if we are all alive and Ruth still wants you I have no doubt we can arrange a wedding."

"Twenty years!" exclaimed Ruth. "Why, father, we shall all be dead!"

"Oh, no! I trust not."

"Or too old--too awful old!"

"No, indeed! You will be twenty-seven. Call it fourteen years, then you will be only twenty-one."

"But," said Cyrus, "we may forget all about it in fourteen years."

"Then it will be no disappointment to you if you can't marry. But run along now, children, I have no more time for you." He spoke with such decision as he began reading the letter in his hand that the unmarried couple turned about and slowly vanished.

When they passed out into the open air, a stranger might have thought, from the manner in which Zac bounced with joy and lifted up his voice, that Cyrus was emerging from the Valley of the Shadow of Death. As they stood again on the porch, the corners of Ruth's mouth were drooping. There were tears in her irresistible eyes. Cyrus laid his hands on her shoulders.

"Now don't you feel bad, Ruthy. If you want to be married, we just will."

The maiden shook her head. "He said not."

"No, he didn't. He only said he was busy."

"He said only grown people got married."

"But he didn't say children couldn't if they wanted to."

In the maiden's face came a brighter look. "Yes, that is true, isn't it?"

"'Course it is! And we will be doing something new and different. It makes folks famous to be the first to do things. Look at Christopher Columbus, and look at Benjamin Franklin, the first man to fly a kite and steer lightnin' and make it mind him."

"Was he married when he was a child?"

"Nobody knows. But if you and I are the first children to get married--the very first, why our pictures might be in history books."

Ruth laughed. "That would be funny, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, wouldn't it! And under it would be printed Mr. and Mrs. Ruth Heywood."

"Oh, no! It would be Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus Alton. It's always that way."

"Then we'll be the first ones to do it the new way. We needn't do just like everybody else. But who's going to wait fourteen years. Not us! If your father is too busy to do it, we'll get somebody else."

"Who?"

"I dunno." And he looked away toward the common and became thoughtful.

Now Cyrus' ideas of matrimony were vague, and impersonal. As a game it had never interested him. He had given it no attention. On some other subject he had definite views--such as war, baseball, voyages of discovery, balloons, maple sugar, battleships and the different kinds of ice cream. But this marriage business, now that Ruth wanted it, had suddenly become important. And when Ruth really wanted a thing he felt that reason, religion and the Laws of Man and Nature should stand aside. Moreover, Cyrus was no quitter. He was not of those who are easily discouraged. Persistence, the sort that stiffens in disaster, was one of his dominant traits. A precious gift on occasions; but there were times, in the bosom of his own family, when it was not admired. As guides to character the drowsy eyes and cherubic mouth were, in this particular, misleading. Behind them lay the tenacity of purpose which so often transforms defeat into victory. In this present emergency there seemed to him especial demand for achievement. Ruth wanted something and when Ruth wanted something it was not for him, nor for others, to reason why.

So now, while the bride, crushed to earth, was mourning the downfall of a high endeavor, her companion had not accepted defeat. With roving eyes and tight shut mouth he was seeking some other road to victory.

Inspiration came.

Seeing no road to victory, up or down the village street, his eyes turned heavenward. As they rested on the spire of the Unitarian church, just across the way, there came an answer to his appeal. It came through the open windows of the church--the notes of an organ. He turned and seized his fiancée by an arm.

"Ruth! Listen!"

"To what?"

"To that music! It's Horace Phillips practising on the organ!"

Ruth nodded in acknowledgment of the fact, but she saw no relation between the music and their late rebuff.

"We can go right over there and get married," said Cyrus. "It doesn't matter who does it so long as it is in a church and there's music."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, of course! Ask anybody."

There was nobody to ask, so he took her by the hand and started forward. She held back. He pulled harder. "Come along. There's the church all open; and the organ playing. It's just the place to be married."

She yielded. "But there's no minister to do it."

"That don't make any difference. As long as we are married in a church with music, anybody can do it."

He spoke with authority--the kind that carries conviction and puts an end to controversy.

As they started, however, she again held back, and exclaimed, in a final despair, "Oh, I forgot!"

"Forgot what?"

"The ring. We have to have a ring."

"What's the use of a ring?"

"Nobody is married without a ring. The man puts a ring on the woman's finger and says things."

"Well--I can say the things and we'll just play there's a ring."

"No."

"Oh, come along!"

"No."

Now Cyrus had become interested in this business. He felt a pride in carrying it through. To fail now would be disgrace. In vexation he raised his right hand--the one not holding Ruth's--and thrust its thumb between his teeth. On that hand something glistened.

"Why, there's a ring!" exclaimed Ruth, "right on your finger! Isn't it lucky."

Cyrus regarded the little silver band.

Ruth repeated: "Isn't it lucky!"

Cyrus hesitated. "Do I have to give it to you?"

"Yes."

"For you to keep and not give back?"

"Yes, of course!"

"But Henry Wheelock made it for me out of a ten-cent piece. I've only had it a little while."

"Oh, Cyrus! Would you be so mean as that?"

"I'm not mean! You know I'm not mean! Henry Wheelock made it out of my own ten-cent piece and I--I--don't want to lose it."

A look of sorrow in Ruth's eyes suddenly changed to contempt. "Then keep your old ring! I'm sure I don't want it." And she pulled away the hand that was in his, wheeled about and started to reënter the house. But Cyrus caught her by the arm.

"Oh, that's all right, Ruthy! You shall have it. Come. Don't let's fight."

So began this lovers' quarrel. But as often happens, the male of the species besought and appealed, apologized, promised everything, acknowledged guilt and sufficiently humbled himself until Sweet Peace returned. Then all was forgiven, and a second time they started for the church. Zac brought up the rear.

On the church steps sat Luther Dean and the New Boy. The New Boy had lived in Longfields only a few weeks. He differed, in many ways, from the other boys of the village. He was blasé, and older in his feelings; he came from a larger town and had seen more of the world. His tendency, now,--natural, perhaps, but unrepressed--was to despise more simple people. He gave the impression among still younger boys of having crowded into his ten years of life a red career of war and piracy, of wild adventure, of reckless deeds and thrilling escapes. These experiences were rather suggested than described, always in a casual off-hand way, calmly and without excitement, in a voice and manner tempered by the wisdom of the ages. And his eyes, light blue and frigidly serene, moved slowly from one listener to another in a weary but patient condescension. His usual haunts, it appeared, were the upper ether, and the deep sea, the cañon and the prairie, the impenetrable forest, the decks of battleships and fields of carnage.

As the bridal couple approached the steps, Cyrus called to Luther Dean and beckoned to him. Luther came forward. So also did the New Boy--the Budding Outlaw--although he was not invited; and his presence embarrassed Cyrus, for this was a private business, in a sense, and not for the general public. Besides, Cyrus did not like the New Boy. However, he braced up and put on a careless front.

"We want you to marry us, Luther, now, here in the church."

Luther frowned, then smiled. "Me? Marry?"

"Yes, marry us--Ruth and me."

"Golly! I--I--never married anybody."

"That don't matter. Anybody can do it."

"But I'm too young. It takes a man."

"No, it doesn't. Ruth can tell you what to say. It's all easy. Come along."

They entered the church; but Zac, like many of his kind, was unpleasantly affected by music, so he remained outside.

Up the main aisle they started, Luther in front, the bride and groom behind, holding hands. In the gallery above Horace Phillips was practising various tunes, and the voice of the great organ filled the church. To the bride and groom, both lovers of music, the notes of the organ seemed more impressive than ever in the now empty building.

But the wedding procession had barely started up the aisle when the ceremonies were rudely interrupted. The Budding Outlaw, smarting perhaps at being ignored, followed close behind and yielded to a vengeful impulse. Ruth's hair, gathered by a ribbon behind her head, was flowing down her back like a golden mane. The Budding Outlaw reached forth and seized a handful, then gave it a violent jerk, as if driving a horse, and he said,

"Hi there! Giddap; giddap!"

Ruth cried aloud in pain, "Stop it! Oh, stop it! It hurts!"

She could not turn her head, but raised her hands in vain efforts at protection.

Cyrus wheeled about. "Let go that hair!"

And he scowled in anger at the aggressor. But the aggressor merely renewed the twitchings with: "Giddap hossey. Giddap."

"Let go that hair," once more said Cyrus.

The Budding Outlaw, for answer, twitched the golden hair again, and harder than before. As Ruth in helpless agony was still raising her hands to her head, Cyrus aimed a blow at the Budding Outlaw and hit him in the face. But the Budding Outlaw was one year older and one year bigger than Cyrus, and twenty years cooler, more cynical and more blasé. So, without even loosening his hold on the bride's hair, he struck out with his free hand and landed full on Cyrus's mouth. The blow was so well directed that the recipient staggered back and stood for a second or two as if dazed. On the Budding Outlaw's face was a smile of easy victory--and contempt. Cyrus saw it. In Ruth's face he saw torture and helpless anger. Then he threw himself again at the enemy. And again the enemy without loosening his left-hand clutch on the golden hair, sent his fist against the approaching face, landing full on its nose and followed it by a sudden push. Cyrus staggered back across the aisle and leaned against the nearest pew. He blinked, and drew a hand across his bleeding mouth. His nose seemed--to him--about twice its usual size and rapidly growing bigger. Then Ruth, forgetting her own pain, cried out:

"Oh, Luther, Luther! Help Cyrus!"

But, either from wisdom or some other reason, Luther refrained from interfering. He looked at Ruth, then down at the floor, then up again at the Budding Outlaw, now terrible in his easy triumph. Ruth called again to him, yet more urgent--a passionate appeal for help. It was the cry of one old playmate to another, for the rescue of a bosom friend. But the organ above was pouring forth its music and Luther turned away, pretending not to hear the cry.

Cyrus, during this moment's lull, did some rapid thinking. He saw the folly of his previous attacks. So, as Ruth was uttering her second appeal to his lukewarm friend, he advanced again, but more slowly than before, ducked his head and dodged a blow, then jumped, and closed with the enemy. And to the Budding Outlaw it seemed as if a dozen boys were on him. Blows rained upon his face. Copper toed shoes were hammering, with the rage of demons, against his sensitive shins. He let go the maiden's hair, as all his hands were none too many for this peaceable boy now suddenly transformed into a reckless and bloodthirsty athlete. He could not reach Cyrus's face, as that face, for protection, was pressed close against the Outlaw's own chest. And when, at last, he got both hands against Cyrus's face and body to push him off he felt ten fingers tighten about his throat with a grip that scared him. For now, as the two iron thumbs were pressing his windpipe with murderous power, he realized that this boy was fighting with the fury and the strength of those who fight for victory or for death. He gurgled, gasped, pulled Cyrus's hair and beat wildly at his head. But when a man is fighting for the woman of his choice--or for any other holy cause--he has the strength of many. So with Cyrus. The tearing of his hair, the blows upon his head and face and body were as summer zephyrs. For him, at the moment, death could have no terrors. He was in this struggle for victory or annihilation.

No boy can live without breathing, and the Budding Outlaw's strength was going. Cyrus forced him to the floor. Then, knowing nothing of the Rules of the Ring, he hammered him in the face and jammed his knees into his stomach, as if to kill.

At last, after a final blow and jab and kick, he climbed to his feet, stepped back and looked down at him. Ruth seized him by an arm and tried to drag him from the church.

"Come! Come quick, before he gets up!"

But a change had come over the once peaceful groom. The lust of battle was in him. He paid no attention to her words. Breathing hard, with bruises on his face, his lips bleeding, he beckoned to the figure on the floor as if angry at delay:

"Come along. Get up."

But the Dare-devil of the West, the killer of Indians, the Pirates' Terror, had no intention of rising. Enough was sufficient for this Despiser of Peace, this Tormentor of Brides. To fight in orderly fashion with a boy you know you can lick--that's one thing. But to struggle with wild animals, cyclones and supernatural forces that ignore the rules of war and really mean to kill you, and will,--unless you can get away,--that's very different. Moreover, something was telling him now that a big will in a little body can demolish giants. He knew he was stronger than Cyrus, but the thing with which he had so suddenly become acquainted was the spirit within this smaller boy--the same old spirit that stirred the Greeks at Marathon, and the handful of Lexington farmers. And now, before him, with the swelling nose and bleeding lips, glowered the embodiment of that immortal spirit. The Tormentor of Brides suspected, and his suspicions were correct, that if he hurled this boy a dozen times against the opposite pews he would still come at him, and each assault would be more deadly than its predecessor.

Cyrus, again ignoring the Rules of the Ring, stepped forward and kicked him. "Come, get up! Get up. Finish it!"

Slowly the New Boy shook his head, with a gesture of defeat. He muttered something too low to hear--words drowned in the notes of the organ. He refused to rise.

Then Cyrus turned and held out his hand to Ruth. In drawing the back of a fist across his mouth during the conflict his cheeks had become smeared with blood. As Ruth stared in a kind of terror at this gory visage with riotous hair, swelling nose and still bleeding lips, she saw in the erstwhile drowsy eyes a look that was unfamiliar; a look of determination, as if no arguments from God or man or devil would be considered. Weak and all atremble, her one desire was for hurrying home. But she obeyed the unspoken mandate and laid her hand in his. Then Luther, also in obedience to an unspoken command, this time a peremptory gesture toward the pulpit, again started up the aisle. And it so happened as the little assemblage resumed its interrupted progress the great organ in the gallery burst forth with Wagner's "Wedding March"; and it filled the church.