Part 6

I didn't expect to become an expert milker at once, but I knew from observation how to milk, and I went to work with frantic energy. In a calmer frame of mind I might have waited to tie Ariadne's legs together, they looked so excessively agile; however, she allowed me to exhaust every possible grip and password without protest, also,--alas!--without acknowledgment. When I retreated at last with the empty pail, my dismay was increased by the sideways leaps of joyful anticipation indulged in by the calf in the next stall. Something had to be done to fill up that creature, and I realized with a sense of utter desolation that I was left alone to do it. A word of advice, a protest, tears or angry reprisals, would alike have been sweet to my ears at that moment, but I knew Marion too well to hope that she would come to my help until I implored her forgiveness; even then,--oh, maddening inconsistency!--she would perhaps be plunged in gloom because I had not enough strength of character to stick to my convictions. No, there was but one course for me: I must prove the worth of my theory, if possible; if not, I would at least be in a position to capitulate with the honors of war.

I went into the house and looked up the directions for teaching a calf to drink. I found that you merely seized it by the nostrils with the thumb and little finger, inserting the other three into its mouth as you drew its head gently into the pail of milk. This operation sounded rather objectionable, but I could not afford to be squeamish, and I prepared to smuggle our small supply of milk out of the pantry and add it up with water to make a sufficient bulk. As I passed through the kitchen I glanced furtively at Marion in the faint hope that she might be ready to hold out the olive branch, but when I saw that she did not deign to notice my existence a sudden violent resentment seized me. Instead of surreptitiously abstracting the milk, as I had intended, I poured it into the pail with defiant ostentation; still, I left the kitchen with a sinking heart, for when Marion neglected to ask me what I was going to do with that, I knew that she must indeed be in a serious mood.

I know I followed the directions to the letter up to the point when I drew the calf's head into the pail and inserted my fingers, though much perseverance was needed, for it seemed to be able to travel backwards in all directions at once, faster than I could go forwards; but after that I am not quite sure what happened. I know there was a violent explosion and upheaval,--a blank followed, then I discovered that I was standing in the stable doorway frantically squeezing three of my fingers between my knees to deaden the pain, while the calf stood outside looking at me with an expression of incredulous wonder, its legs sticking out in four different directions like props. I wonder whether it was blown out or carried out; I don't think it walked. I don't think, either, that I lost my presence of mind; if I did, I found it again instantly. Instead of going into the house for liniment, I calmly turned the cow out of the stable also, then I looked on grimly, resigned to non-interference if the calf should happen to bite its parent or the cow kick her offspring.

Ariadne looked around apprehensively when she emerged from the stable; the calf ambled crookedly toward her; she edged away with forward pointed ears; it followed hungrily. She trotted toward the open gate, the calf gamboling in pursuit; suddenly her tail straightened and she broke into a mad gallop,--so did the calf, so also did I. It was in this order we passed the kitchen door where Marion stood calling out to me in wild alarm to run, that the cow had broken loose.

Perhaps it was this cheery information that inspired me to overtake my movable property a mile further down the road, where our butcher, homeward bound, had got off his wagon to turn them back.

"You might be able to milk a cow that _had_ milk," he said with a chuckle, after listening to my tale, "but it'd take Old Nick to raise a calf on a dry one."

"A dry one!" I shouted. "Do you mean"----

"Did the old man tell you it was _this_ cow's calf?" he interrupted.

"Well, no,--I can't remember that he did. He said I'd better take the calf too, and I supposed----"

"Exactly--then he's salted you right enough! You've paid forty dollars for a beef cow that he offered to give me for a twenty dollar account he owes me. I'm sorry--dashed sorry--that you've been took in, but--he, he! ha, ha, ha!--but you let on you knowed all about cattle, and I told you to keep your weather eye----"

"I can stand being swindled," I shouted, in wrath, "but I won't stand any told-you-so business. You ought to have more sense than to talk that way when--when----"

"There, there," he interjected soothingly--"I know jest how you feel. The other day my missis told me I'd smash my hand if I went hammerin' nails with an axe. Well sir, it wasn't three minutes till I did. Of course I swore a bit, but when I went into the kitchen and the missis asked me first how I done it, and then said she knowed I would, I jest went clean out of my head with rage. I'd sooner have gone out and smashed the other thumb than have been spoke to that way."

My heart warmed to the butcher; he is a man of fine feelings. He not only gave me twenty dollars for the cow, but promised to frighten John Waydean into silence by representing that I was preparing evidence for a criminal prosecution.

"And now," I said, in conclusion, "I'd like your candid opinion about the calf. If I decided to raise it, would it be likely to grow into a valuable cow?"

"Well," he answered, gulping in a peculiar, hesitating way, as if he were reluctant to answer, "you mostly can't tell what kind of a cow a calf will make when it's a week old, but if you--if you wanted to raise a _cow_, you--you----"

His face became suffused with a dull purple flush, as if he were struggling with a mighty spasmodic sneeze; he turned his face away, his body shaking convulsively, then with obvious difficulty he continued: "If you wanted to raise a _cow_ you'd ought to have bought a--a--ha, ha, ha!----"

"Have bought _what_?" I cried, in exasperation.

He stopped laughing and looked up and down the road, then leaned over the edge of the wagon-seat with his whip hand shielding one side of his mouth. I hung breathless on his words.

"A--cow--calf," he whispered.

VII

THE ADVENT OF WILLIAM WEDDER

I like to forget unpleasant experiences quickly, particularly mistakes of my own, and to that end I hurried home and told Marion everything. Few husbands, I know, would have done so, but I am not one who lacks the moral courage to do right when I know it will be better for me in the end; nor would I be unwise enough to attempt to conceal the fact that I have faults when I know that it is infinitely wiser to acknowledge them. An error thrust in Marion's way may arouse her compassion, while a good deed, too obviously placed there, may be pushed aside with well-merited contempt. I prefer to let my virtues bloom in seclusion on either side of her path, for her artistic eye delights to spy out the modest flower that hides itself in verdure.

Marion vibrated between laughter and tears as she listened to my tale. Did I try to extenuate my conduct, or gloss over my unspeakable stupidity? No; I castigated myself unsparingly. I anticipated the worst that might be said, and said it with superlative fervor. Only thus could I hope to avert the useless, humiliating process of having my mistakes pointed out in detail; only thus could I evoke the sweet human sympathy I craved, and divert my wife's indignation toward that adroit old swindler, John Waydean. She was visibly affected by my self-accusation, and I began to breathe more freely. She seemed to be in no haste to interrupt with a word of reproach, or to say that she told me so, or to hope the experience would be a lesson to me. I had begun to reflect that, after all, I wasn't a bad sort of fellow and that man was made to err, when suddenly she burst into tears.

"Marion," I cried, aghast, "I'm an idiot, but there's no use crying over----"

"No," she moaned--"no--use."

"It's _my_ fault," I urged, in despair, "but if it were yours, I'm--I'm blamed if I'd cry!"

"It _is_--my fault," she gasped, with a fresh relapse.

In a flash I jumped to the conclusion that she was overcome with remorse for having told the butcher that I knew all about cattle. I saw that it really was her fault, after all, but this was not the time to say so.

"Not at all," I assured her, with soothing generosity. "You must not blame yourself--you didn't realize the awkward position you placed me in."

"No--use," she repeated, unheeding. "To think that--I--should be so--taken in!"

"_You_ taken in?" I cried. "It was I. Who--what--to--oh----"

The words died away in my throat as Marion uncovered her face. Not a word did she say, but her look was insufferable.

"I didn't," I protested hotly; "I never said I knew all about cattle when"----

I stopped, disconcerted by the expressive interrogatory turn to the corners of her mouth. If she had said, in words, that I had convicted myself by my denial, I could have argued the point, but this silent denunciation was distracting. I stared for a moment with uncomprehending hauteur, then strode from the room, trying to make my back view appear like that of a man who might possibly escape being mangled by a train or dying of heart failure until his wife had an opportunity to apologize for her heartless conduct. This device had never failed; it didn't this time. I was reaching for my hat in the hall when Marion called me. I looked back, virtuously impassive, but I could not suppress my joy when I saw in her face, not a sorrowful willingness to forgive me this time, but loving toleration. What mattered forty dollars, or even forty cows, if I might once more be restored to favor?

It was in all sincerity that I assured her that I would profit by my experience, for it did not seem possible that I could ever again meet a cow on terms of mental superiority, and yet, in a few days, time and my elastic temperament had such a mellowing influence that I lost all sensitiveness on the subject; indeed, after pledging the butcher to secrecy, I found myself telling Andy Taylor with the gusto of an onlooker. And later, when we had, through the good offices of the butcher, found a suitable cow that wasn't dry, I became able to appreciate the humor of the situation with quite an impersonal relish. Our new cow was not a graceful animal, like Ariadne, but she was easy to milk and docile, and, as Marion said, Paul could never be impaled on her horns, for she hadn't any.

I would not willingly have missed the pleasure of owning a cow, nor the satisfaction of being able to milk her, but I did not try to disguise from Marion the fact that it was hard work; indeed, the harder I work, the more I like her to be aware of it. Solicitude is cheering to me, so when, at first, she used to stand beside me and express a fear that I might hurt my back or burst a blood-vessel, I worked enthusiastically; but later, when attending to our cow became a part of the inevitable daily routine, and when I milked in solitude, I got very tired and thought morbid thoughts about hired men and other farm accessories that were not.

It is odd that the butcher's aggravating habit of leaving our gate open should have resulted in Marion's suggesting that we should hire William Wedder, the one available man exactly suited to our requirements. Also, I afterwards reminded Marion, if it had not been for what she called my negligence in not removing the gate-semaphore when winter set in, William's observant eye would not have detected anything unusual in the appearance of the place. I recalled, too, that I had several times been prevented from taking down the sign-board by the impossibility of finding the hammer and the wrench at the same time; not only that, but when both tools were to hand I had a strange instinct against making use of them for that purpose. Marion smilingly admitted that it was extraordinary; she suggested that perhaps I was influenced by the same instinct that led me to leave the Venetian shutters on the window frames all winter, instead of taking them off in the fall and putting them on again in the spring. However, I was proud enough of the success of my invention to be content to see the obtrusive request "PLEASE CLOSE THIS GATE" swing uselessly in the wintry winds, while the gate itself stood open, half buried in the snowdrift that formed around it after every storm. If the gate were closed, the request retreated into obscurity behind a post, but when it was opened the board swung across the roadway, so that a person driving in or out would have to duck his head to avoid it. The butcher, for whose especial benefit I had taken all this trouble, regarded the device with gloomy suspicion when I showed him how it worked. Instead of admiring my ingenuity, he insinuated that it would be the means of frightening his horses, so I insisted upon his driving in and out several times until they showed complete unconcern. He appeared depressed by the thought that he could never again pretend that he forgot to close the gate, and although I secretly sympathized with him in his repugnance to taking unnecessary trouble, I was determined to break him off the habit of leaving the gate open.

Thus it happened that William Wedder, tramping along the road with a red bundle swung over his shoulder, against a blustering March wind, spied something that caused him to stop and think, to lay his stick and bundle in the hollow of a snowdrift, smooth out his face to a becoming gravity, and wend his way up to the house.

It was several hours later in the day when I, returning from the city, halted in the same spot and stared in amazement. The semaphore had vanished, the gate, standing open for months, imbedded in several feet of snow and ice, was now closed, a way being neatly cleared for its movement. I opened it and the warning notice shot out over my head, in perfect working order. I walked up to the house, puzzled but gratified, trying to conjecture how and why Marion had prepared this surprise. She opened the door, struggling to conceal her laughter at my countenance.

"How ever did"--I began.

"Hush! Come into the sitting-room," she said mysteriously. "There's a man in the kitchen!"

"A man!" I exclaimed, in agitation. I had warned Marion never to admit a tramp in my absence, and somehow I leaped to the conclusion that she had been imposed upon by a hardened villain. It was a relief to think she was no longer alone.

She nodded. "Not an ordinary tramp," she said. "He's the dearest, funniest little old man, with pink cheeks like a baby's, and so clean looking. When he'd had his dinner"----

"You gave him his dinner?"

"Certainly I did. You don't suppose I sold it to him? Oh, you needn't look so stern; I'll tell you how it happened. I was just taking my pies out of the oven about eleven o'clock when he knocked at the door and said he'd like to borrow a shovel for a few minutes. About half an hour later I remembered he hadn't brought it back, and when I looked out of the front window there was the top of his head bobbing up and down at the gate. I got on my things in a hurry and went out to see what he was doing, and he was scraping the ice so hard with his back turned to me that I had to shout three times before he heard."

"'What's that for?' I called out. 'For you, ma'am,' he answered, turning round with the oddest look. 'For me?' I said. 'Why, I never asked you to dig out our gate.' 'No, ma'am,' he said, 'but when I seen that there sign hung out, I thought to myself that some widow with small children lived here, and it wouldn't be much of a job to dig out her gate. Then when you come to the door I seen I was mistaken, but I thought I'd do it anyway, for it wasn't your fault that you was so young and--and----'"

I smiled.

"No, I didn't pay him," she protested, the becoming flush on her cheeks deepening. "I offered him a quarter, but he wouldn't take it, so I knew he wasn't trying to flatter me, and I made him come up to the house to get some dinner when he got the gate closed. You should have seen his face when the semaphore went behind the gate-post. He was so delighted that he opened and shut the gate several times to see it work, exclaiming, 'My, my! ain't he got a head! Don't that work beautiful!'"

"I suppose you did right to give the poor old chap some dinner," I observed, with a complacent smile.

"When he came into the kitchen," she continued, "he said the smell of hot raspberry pies was the most appetizing smell in the whole world. He said his aunt used to make them when he was a boy, and once he stole a whole one and ate it, and ever since when he tries to feel sorry the remembrance of the delightful sensation in his insides overpowers his conscience and makes him feel glad. Of course I gave him one for dinner, and I told him he might have another if he wished, but he declared that one was enough--that no mortal could stand more than a certain amount of bliss. Just fancy, Henry; he says his aunt's pies weren't a circumstance to mine!"

"The old flatterer!" I exclaimed.

"You didn't say that when he praised your semaphore," cried Marion, with resentment.

I hadn't intended any reflection on the quality of her pies, but it was some little time before she could understand that I really thought them to be infinitely superior to my mother's.

"After dinner," she went on, "he said he wasn't in a hurry, so he'd just cut up some wood and do the stable work until you came home, for he wanted to see you."

My curiosity was aroused, also my suspicions, for my wife's manner was distinctly ingratiating. That might mean either that she had some new project of her own in the background to submit to me, or that she was about to tack off in another direction in regard to one of mine, as she had done in the case of the cow.

"About my semaphore?" I inquired warily.

"So he said," she replied, with a tantalizing laugh. "He wants to--to--handle the county right!"

My heart thumped; my brain seemed to turn a somersault. If Marion had not been swaying to and fro with her handkerchief covering her face as she struggled with her mirth I could not have concealed my exultation. Months before, the success of my device had led me to think of having it patented under the name of "The Eureka Non-Automatic Gate-Closing Attachment," but Marion had nipped my project in the bud. The butcher, too, when I asked his opinion, had chilled my enthusiasm by declaring that if my gate-attachment proved salable in this locality he would move to some other. Of course, that was before he had become expert in keeping his head out of the way of the sign-board, and while he still wore a strip of court plaster on the bridge of his nose.

Now my judgment was vindicated. A man could surely sell one hundred semaphores at five dollars each in one county; ten counties would enable me to buy Waydean; ten more would pay for a train load of implements, as in my day dream of long ago; another ten would stock the farm with domestic animals; tens of hundreds of counties still remained to furnish the means for nebulous philanthropic schemes.

Did I breathe hard, grow flushed or pale with excitement, or do anything to indicate that it was the moment of my triumph? No, I didn't. For one thing, I was sure Marion was keeping something from me; otherwise, why should it seem so funny to her? Until I understood what she meant, I must appear calm, even bored.

"Well," I said, stifling a yawn, "I'll go and send him off. I wouldn't be bothered selling county rights; besides, the semaphore isn't patented."

Marion looked puzzled. "Wait," she said hurriedly, "till I tell----"

"I'll get rid of him first," I said, with determination, "and then you can tell me the rest."

"But he's not to be sent off," she insisted. "Sit down, and I'll tell you everything. He's looking for a place."

"A place!" I exclaimed, beginning to see light. "What has that got to do with us? When I proposed hiring a man you said we couldn't afford to hire more than a quarter or an eighth of a man."

"Exactly. And this old man wants a place where he need work only two or three hours a day. He won't take any wages, but he'd like to have the reading of our books and newspapers. He says he hasn't any use for money as long as he has 'good readin' and nice vittles.'"

I smiled at the persuasive eagerness of her tone. She was evidently bent upon hiring this peculiar old man, but she had expected me to make the proposal so that she could gracefully accede to it. There would be certain advantages, I concluded, accruing to the possession of even the fractional part of a hired man. For instance, I would at once be relieved of the stable work and the milking of Mary Jane. Then spring was coming on, and I would be able to enjoy the luxury of watching him toiling in the vegetable garden under Marion's supervision. Furthermore, my birthday would arrive with the first green grass, and there were indications that I would be presented with a lawn-mower.

"Well, what did you tell him?" I asked, trying to look judicial.

"I said that of course it was a matter for you to decide and I couldn't say anything about it."

I could not repress a gleam of ironical amusement. She was absolutely truthful, yet it was a convention of hers that my word was law, and that I was the autocrat of the household. It was a postulate I dared not dispute.

"Yes, of course," I admitted, in response to her frigid, inquiring glance. "I'll--I'll think it over. In the meantime I'll have a look at him."

"Well, you'd better decide,--that is, I'm quite, quite willing to give the poor old man a trial."

Had I been of a different mind from Marion, I could scarcely have resisted William Wedder's persuasive arguments, and when I had talked with him for a few minutes I did not wonder that she had succumbed to his fascinating eloquence. I knew his praise of my semaphore must be flattery, and yet--I liked it. I felt sure from his manner, his appearance and his conversation that he was merely masquerading as a hired man, but I wanted to see him play the part, although he looked more like a well-to-do retired farmer taking a holiday than a man who needed to travel about looking for work. He did not present credentials, but I ignored the question of references, which seemed quite unnecessary in view of his obvious respectability. He knew how to do farm work, he assured me; he was handy with tools, understood gardening, and could churn and make butter as well as milk the cow. As to terms, he would not take money, but he would be more than satisfied if he had his board and plenty of reading matter. In the slack time in midsummer,--his smooth-shaven jolly face grew solemn as he spoke,--perhaps, if it wouldn't be too much to ask, and if he needed a new suit of clothes, I might let him have just a township right to sell my gate-closer.

I fixed my curious gaze upon his rigid features. I knew instinctively that his earnest solemnity was assumed; I knew by experience that nothing was so effective in baffling any attempt to play off as a steady concentrated stare. His eyes drooped slightly; he studied the names on the drawers of the spice-cabinet attentively; too attentively.

"William," I said, with deliberate, unbending determination, "I have avoided asking you embarrassing questions, but I must know the truth about this semaphore business before I decide whether to engage you or not. What prompted you to dig out my gate?"

I saw a faint flicker of almost contemptuous amusement in his face. "Why," he replied, as if he wondered at my asking such a simple question, "I seen that there notice up, of course."