Part 11

"Why not before people? People have become too artificial. They must not love, nor hate, nor have any feelings, apparently, before people. Feelings are interesting and we ought to show them more."

Henrietta laughed. "Oh, you are silly, silly, silly. I never knew a New York broker could be so silly, so mushy."

"There's not a man living whom the right woman can't make mushy. Women never realize how silly men are at bottom, my own. They are frightened by our exteriors, by the ingrain fear of the chattel for her master, born in women since Eve handed the larger share of the apple to Adam."

"I always thought that I would be dignified and sweet--"

"You are, my love."

"No, I am as silly as you. I put my head on your shoulder just as these girls do whom you see in Central Park on Sunday afternoons. I never thought that I would be like that."

"You have never loved before--"

"Indeed, I have. I have loved nearly every one I have ever met. Most all girls do."

"That isn't love. Merely an increased vibration of the muscles of the heart. Love--ah, Henrietta, do I have to tell you what love is?"

"No," whispered Henrietta. "It's just giving."

She paused, gazing before her into the deepening shadows of the evening with misty eyes, for the first time realizing the completeness of life.

She nodded after a moment toward the approaching Billy and the Watermelon. "What's the matter with the children? They look so serious, and yet they must have something to eat, for they are carrying bundles."

"Probably couldn't arrange for a tow for Charlie's car and see where we sit up with it all night and hold its head."

*CHAPTER XX*

*THE SEVEN O'CLOCK EXPRESS*

As Bartlett said, the hill was cut through by a railroad. The deep gully brought Billy and the Watermelon to a halt when they had outstripped Bartlett and Henrietta, leaving them behind at the foot of the hill. The sides of the gully were overgrown with grass and tangled briers, but a narrow foot-path led down to the tracks and up the incline on the other side. The Watermelon helped Billy down one side and dragged her up the other.

"I would hate to be a tramp," panted Billy as she reached the other side and paused a moment for breath. "I would get so cross if I were hungry and knew I couldn't get anything to eat for a long time."

The Watermelon flushed hotly, but she was not looking, and when he spoke he spoke carelessly enough. "You would get used to it," said he. "You can get used to anything. Father used to say that the idea of hell for all eternity was an absurdity--you were sure to get used to it and then it wouldn't count any more as a punishment."

"I suppose that's so," agreed Billy. "But how do you know? You weren't ever a tramp, were you, Jerry?"

"A tramp, kid, is the only man in America to-day, besides the millionaire, who is his own master. Do you know that?"

"I would kind of hate that sort of master," said Billy.

"A tramp never has to worry about rent--"

"I know, but I should think the house might be worth the worry."

The Watermelon changed the subject.

A grim, elderly woman, thin and work-worn before her time, listened to their troubles in the faded, weather-gray farm-house. Her man, she explained, was out in the fields with the horses, but when he returned, she would send him around and he would tow the car in for them. She never took boarders. The house was a sight, but if they didn't mind, she did not and they could have two rooms. She wrapped some bread, fruit and cookies up for them in newspapers, and they started back to wait with the others by the machine until the farmer came.

The still hush of evening was over everything, creeping with the lengthening shadows across the pasture. A flock of turkeys was making noisy preparations for bed in some trees near by. The frogs had begun to croak and once in a while a whippoorwill called from the woods. In an adjoining hay-field, hurrying to get in the last load before dark, the Watermelon saw the farmer. A pair of sorry looking nags drooped drearily, attached to the cart with its high, shaky load of new-mown hay.

"I'm going to speak to him myself," said the Watermelon, stopping. "It will save time. You wait here. I won't be long."

"Give me the food," said Billy. "I will take it to the others. Poor things, they must be starving."

"I won't be long," objected the Watermelon. "You can't carry it alone."

"Indeed, I can," protested Billy.

The Watermelon laughed down at her. "You couldn't get up the other side of the crossing," he teased.

"A girl," said Billy sagely, "is a lot more capable when she is alone than when she is with a man."

She took the ungainly bundle and he watched her hurry away across the fields, slim and graceful, dainty and sweet, while he was--a tramp! His eyes darkened with pain and he threw one hand out after the small figure in a gesture that was full of mingled longing and hopelessness.

"Billy, Billy," he whispered, then turned from the thoughts which were coming thick and fast and started toward the distant field and the farmer.

The farmer listened with blunt stupidity, hot and tired and cross. Yes, he would come for the car as soon as he could, but the hay had to be got in first. It was late now. That train whistle you could hear was the seven o'clock express. His horses were tired, too, but, of course, if he were paid, why that made a difference. He would be around as soon as he could get his load in. It was the last load, anyway.

The Watermelon turned and far in the distance, echoing and reechoing through the hills, he heard again the scream of the approaching train.

"Billy win be across the tracks by this time," he thought. "I will have to wait for it to pass. Glad it ain't a freight."

He hurried moodily through the field. His position had become intolerable and yet he could find no chance to get away without revealing his identity, and to do that now would do no good. They could not reach the railroad any sooner than they were trying to. He longed for the morrow that would end it all and yet dreaded the barrenness of the future without Billy.

As he approached the cut, he saw the smoke of the train rising above the bushes, an express, tearing its way through the evening calm like some terrible passion searing the soul. The Watermelon stepped to the edge of the cut and glanced carelessly downward.

There was Billy on the track, struggling to free herself from the rail which held one small foot. Around the bend came the huge engine with its headlight already lit for the wild night run.

The next two minutes were ever after a blank to the Watermelon. He was in the cut, beside the white-faced, struggling girl almost simultaneously with seeing her. As he shot down the bank, he felt for and drew his knife. The engineer had seen them and the engine screamed a warning, while the emergency brakes shrieked as they slipped, grinding on the rails. On his knees, with one slash, the Watermelon cut the lacings which, becoming knotted, had held her prisoner, then with one and the same move, he had regained his feet and forced her flat against the bank, as the train whirled by in a cloud of dust and cinders, brakes grinding, wheels slipping, whistle screaming, a white-faced engineer leaning horrified from the cab window.

Trembling violently, Billy clung sobbing to the Watermelon, her face hidden in his breast. The Watermelon crushed her to him as if he would never let her go, his arms tightening with the agony of remembrance. He was trembling as much as she from the horror of that terrible moment. His head rested on her hair and he talked, poured out his love in a rush of misery and thankfulness. Words tumbled over themselves and were repeated again and again, in phrases hot from his lips came all his pent-up longing for the girl.

"Sweetheart, sweetheart," he whispered with white lips as Billy still sobbed. "Darling, hush. Dear heart, my love, my Billy."

After a time her sobs stopped and she raised her face. The Watermelon bent his head and they kissed frankly with the simplicity of perfect understanding, perfect love. For a moment they clung together, still, then Billy was the first to rally.

"We've got to go," said she, her hands raised to her tumbled hair as she tried her best to laugh.

The Watermelon caught her hands and forced them down, drinking her in with hungry eyes. Then he bent his head and buried his face for a moment in the backs of her small hands, while something like a sob shook his shoulders.

"Jerry," whispered the girl, a woman now, tender, compassionate, gracious.

The Watermelon dropped her hands and turned abruptly. "I'm a damn fool," he muttered and picked up the bundle, still beside the track.

"Why did you come?" she asked, all solicitude for him. "You might have been killed."

The Watermelon did not answer. He stalked across the track to the other foot-path and Billy perforce had to follow.

Henrietta and Bartlett had not even heard the wild scream of the engine as it shrieked past, and when the Watermelon and Billy joined them, were too preoccupied to notice anything for long in any one else. All four returned to the general, quiet and apparently depressed. The general was depressed himself. He did not see how it would be possible to get gasolene in that neighborhood, and without gasolene they might as well be without a car.

Billy divided the bread and fruit, and without a word, they sat side by side and partook of their humble repast, the two girls, the general, the tramp and the financier. The color returned to Billy's face and in her eyes was a great and shining light every time she looked at the Watermelon, where he sat on the step of the car, bread in one hand, an apple in the other, a part of the paper spread on his knees to serve for napkin.

But he would not look at her. His face was still white and he read the paper before him that he might not think. Billy knew of his love and loved in return, white, pure, decent Billy, and he a filthy piece of flotsam washed for the moment from the slime of the gutter. Slowly, precisely, he reread the article he had just read without having comprehended a word of it.

The parting that evening was slightly prolonged, much to the general's annoyance. He was tired and wanted to go to bed, and why the others should prefer to linger on the small stoop which served for porch, he could not understand, and what he could not understand always vexed him. Bartlett wanted to take a stroll before turning in, and when the general kindly offered to accompany him, he decided suddenly and rudely, the general thought, that he didn't care to go. Henrietta wanted to sit on the stoop apparently all night. Billy wanted to walk, too. Walking, the general decided, ran in the Bartlett family, but instead of taking a stroll with her father, she hung around the stoop with Henrietta; while the Watermelon did not know what he wanted to do as far as the general could make out. He was quiet, strangely uncommunicative, seemed to be thinking deeply on some important subject. Worried over the past week, thought the general. Irritated and tired, the general could not bother with such nonsense and tramped off to bed.

The Watermelon felt that he could not say good night alone with Billy. He had read the desire in her eyes for a bit of a walk with him and to escape the temptation, he wished them all good night and followed the general up to bed.

All the strength of the man cried constantly for the girl, for her sweetness, her charm, her grace. But he loved with the love that is love, that will give all and ask nothing, a love that is rare and fine and that comes to king and peasant alike, and to no one twice, to some not at all. His week was up. He would slip away that night when they were all asleep. Billy would forget him and he would be better with his old cronies, fat blear-eyed Mike and James of the bon-ton.

Long he lay on his narrow cot and stared at the gray square of the window, while the gentleman he was born fought gallantly with the tramp he had become.

*CHAPTER XXI*

*RICH AND POOR ALIKE*

He lay staring at the window while Bartlett's and the general's snores rose and fell, mingling in a steadily growing crescendo of sound. As he stared, he noticed suddenly a faint glow in the east. It was too early for daybreak and the glow was of a different color, brighter, more orange in tint. He watched it a while without comprehending, waiting until it was time for him to steal away from Billy, back to the road again. And as he watched, he was brought to quick consciousness of what it was by a tiny crimson flame which appeared for an instant and was gone.

The Watermelon leaped to the window. The barn, which, fortunately, was unlike Maine barns, stood some little way from the house instead of being attached to it. With a mighty burst of flames the roof caught from the sides, which had been slowly smoldering. Every moment the flames mounted higher and higher, fanned by a bit of a wind that had arisen when the sun went down. The place was filled with the summer hay, and even as the Watermelon took in the scene, he knew that there was no hope to do more than to save the live stock, if they could do that.

Turning he aroused the general and Bartlett.

"Get up," he whispered, not to disturb the girls, "the barn's on fire."

Bartlett was up and half in his clothes before the general had opened his eyes. The Watermelon had already slipped quietly from the room.

"Fire," cried the general hoarsely, at last awake. He stood a moment in the window, brightly lighted now from the dancing flames in the summer darkness. Then he swore.

"My car!"

"Quick." snapped Bartlett. "The gasolene--"

"There was no gasolene," said the general sadly, as one would talk about a loved and dying friend. He turned mournfully from the window.

The fire had gained too much headway to leave the slightest possibility of saving the barn. The farmer, with the help of the Watermelon, Bartlett and the general, had barely time to lead out the horses and turn the cows into a temporary shelter. When that was done there was nothing more that could be done but to watch the walls crumble and the roof fall in a shower of sparks and a roar of flames, leaping and dancing in a mad riot of destruction. All night the fire burned and all night the four men and the three women turned their efforts to protect the house.

The general, by right and instinct, took command. He formed a bucket brigade, stationing the Watermelon on the roof, at one end of the line, and the girls and the farmer's wife at the well to fill the buckets at the other end of the line. They worked hard and quietly, as people work when face to face with the grim forces of nature. Under the general's able management the few sparks which did threaten were quickly extinguished and save for a slight scorching here and there the house was safe. In the excitement no one but the general thought of the general's car.

The cold, gray streaks of dawn found them worn out, excited and hungry. Unable to console the farmer and his wife, the five drew in a semicircle around the smoldering heap which had been the barn, and forlornly watched the last tiny flames licking around the twisted, blackened ruin that had once been a motor-car.

"Gone," said the general sadly.

And Billy sniffed.

"Better Alphonse had taken it," lamented Henrietta.

"What shall we do now?" asked Bartlett. It was Saturday and Batchelor would not be able to reach New York now no matter what happened. He had won, the ring was safe, but he turned sadly to the general, and laid his hand kindly on his old friend's shoulder. "Hard luck, man," said he. "Hard luck."

"We will have to go home," said Henrietta dully.

"We have no money," replied the general quietly, unmoved by his penniless condition, thinking only of the motor-car that was no more.

"I have a little," said Henrietta. "About six dollars."

"We owe at least all of that here for supper and rooms," said Bartlett.

Henrietta glanced from one to the other, then laughed, a gay little bubble of mirth. They had no money, but what did that matter? What did anything matter when one loved and is loved? She felt guilty because she was not sorrier over the loss of the car, and she patted the general lovingly on the shoulder.

"Cheer up, daddy, we haven't a cent, none of us," she crooned.

"We can telegraph," suggested Billy.

"From where?" asked Bartlett shortly.

"Why, we can drive somewhere where we can," returned Billy desperately, under her father's calm scrutiny of amusement.

"Drive what?" asked Bartlett.

"A horse," said Henrietta mildly.

"What horse?" questioned Bartlett. "There are two. The farmer wants them both to help clear up and to go to a neighbor's for assistance. What shall we drive?"

"Shank's mare," said Henrietta. "At the nearest farm, we can get a team and drive to some town where we can telegraph."

Bartlett and Billy agreed. The general said nothing. There was nothing to say. The dream of his heart, the occupation of his days, was gone. What was there to say?

The Watermelon also was silent. He felt that he could not leave them, now that they were again in trouble. When they reached the town and had telegraphed, he would go--back to the road. He was chewing a straw, hands in his pockets, gazing with the others in dull apathy at the remains of the car, and he raised his head instinctively to read the sky for approaching storms. There would be a moon that night and a good breeze, which would make walking easy.

"Hungry?" asked Billy gaily, smiling at him, her eyes asking what the matter was. Had she done anything to offend him since the evening before when they had climbed the railroad cut together?

"I'm always hungry, Billy," said he and joined the general on the way to the house.

Billy stood a moment, hurt and flushed, then she followed the others in to breakfast.

The farmer's wife had made some hot coffee, strong and black, and fried some bacon, and with thick slices of bread and butter, they all ate ravenously at the bare deal table in the kitchen, with no pretense whatever of tablecloth or napkins. The Watermelon and the farmer's wife stood alone in the kitchen after the others had left and he looked down kindly at her with the camaraderie felt only by one unfortunate in trouble for another in a like place.

"It's damn hard on you," he said.

"And on him," said the woman. "All the hay was just in."

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures--" murmured the Watermelon laconically, instinctively turning to the Bible on every occasion. "Pity you aren't a man. Then you could chuck the whole show and hit the road with me. I'm stony broke, too."

He patted her shoulder gently and tears leaped into the woman's tired eyes. She cried a bit and he soothed her softly as one would soothe a tired child.

"Those others," said she, wiping her eyes on her coarse apron, "they are kind, but they don't understand."

"They mean well," said the Watermelon, "but you have to go through the mill yourself, to _do_ well. I know what poverty means. Its ways ain't ways of pleasantness by a dog-gone sight."

"Beggars all, beggars all," cried Henrietta, as they started up the road, in the dewy freshness of early morning.

It was still early and quite cool, with the breeze of the night following them, laden with the depressing odor of charred timbers and burning leather. The road wound around a hill, sloping now and again into the valley and rising again to the heights. The view swept fields and hills and woods, all of the deep green of mid-June, and over all bent the blue sky of a summer day.

The air was like ozone. It was a physical joy simply to walk, to breathe the odor of fields and woods and open places and to let one's eyes dwell on the beauty and the glory of the land.

"I am glad it pleases you, Henrietta," said the general tartly.

Henrietta sobered. "Father, I feel as badly as you do about the car. But I can't go into mourning for it."

"You needed another one anyway," consoled Billy, with the kindly reassurance and hopeless misunderstanding of the rich. "The last model is out now, you know."

"Billy," said Henrietta, "do you think we can buy a car every time the humor moves us? You don't understand."

"I know," said Billy humbly, crushed under repeated rebuffs from every one. "I am a perfect fool, Henrietta, but I can't help it."

If the general could have forgotten the car for a while, he would have been agreeably pleased and flattered by the Watermelon's sudden apparent infatuation for him. The young man insisted on walking with him, suiting his long, lazy strides to the general's best endeavors. Bartlett, Henrietta and Billy swung along briskly ahead. Henrietta was touched. The boy was trying to show his sympathy, she thought, and liked him more than ever.

It was nearly noon when they came in sight of their destination, a gaunt gray farm-house, perched on the top of the gentle slope overlooking the valley and the winding river to the woods on the hills beyond. They came to the bars of a cow pasture and a narrow cow path leading across the field to the house, a shorter way than by the road.

Henrietta and Billy, seeing no cows in sight, allowed the Watermelon to let down the bars and to pass through. Billy waited inside the fence, standing by the path, among the sweet fern, until all had entered and all but the Watermelon had started up the path for the house.

Quietly she watched the Watermelon as he slowly and reluctantly replaced the bars.

"Jerry," said she, when he had at last finished, "what's the matter?" She had stepped into the path in front of him and he had to stop and face her.

He flushed hotly and would not look at her. "There is nothing the matter," said he. "Why? What makes you think so?"

She drew herself up with pretty dignity. "You need not have told me what you did yesterday in the railroad cut, if it were not so," said she, quite simply.

*CHAPTER XXII*

*THE TRUTH AT LAST*

"Billy," began the Watermelon, turning aside with darkening eyes, his flushed face growing slowly white as he realized that the reckoning had come. Billy must know all now, know who her companion of the past week was, know the status of the man who had told her he loved her. Then he turned to her again with all his mad, wild, foolish, hopeless longing in his eyes and voice and held out his arms.

"Oh, kid, I love you," he whispered, as she went to him, frankly and happily. "I love you so I can't marry you."

"It's old-fashioned to love your wife, I know," chirruped Billy, "but let's be old-fashioned."

"It isn't that, Billy," said the Watermelon slowly. He held her a moment, looking down into her eyes as she looked up at him, her hands on his shoulders, her head back.

"What is it?" she asked, frankly puzzled, but refusing to be dismayed. "You can't afford a wife, you who made three--four--millions this year?"

"Yes," said the Watermelon, grim and quiet, "that's it." He let her go and thrust his hands into his pockets. "I haven't a cent, haven't ever had one. I'm not Batchelor with a few millions. I'm a tramp without a cent, stony broke. That suit-case," kicking Batchelor's suit-case which he had carried with him, "is another's and I'm going to chuck it to-night."

Billy stared, mouth slightly parted, her brows drawn together in wonder, unbelieving. "Not Batchelor?" she stammered. "William Hargrave Batchelor?"

"I am Jeroboam Martin of Nowhere and Everywhere," said the Watermelon bitterly. "That Sunday I met you, I found Batchelor in bathing down in the woods. I swiped his clothes, Billy, for the dinner I could get at the hotel. Then I saw you. I wanted the week with you and I just went on being Batchelor. See?"