Chapter 10

Then I laughed. Lord, how I laughed! Twenty-four years I had lived, and until now I had never known a real joke, one that made the heart beat quicker, and sent the blood singing through the veins; that made the fingers tingle, the ears burn, and brought tears to the eyes. I don't suppose that other people would have thought this one so amusing. The young doctor upstairs might not have feigned a smile, for instance. That was what made it all the better for me, for it was my own joke and Mary's, and in all the world I was the only man who could see the fun of it.

"When you turn that collar up again I am going," said I.

So she sprang away from me, laughing, and quick as I reached out to seize her, she avoided me.

"You know I can't catch you," I cried, taunting her, "so I must wait."

As she stood there before me quietly, her hands clasped, her eyes looking up into mine, I saw how fair she was, and I wondered. The picture of Weston in the woods, standing off there gazing at me, came back then, and with it a vague feeling of fear and distrust. I saw myself as Weston saw me, and I marvelled.

"Mary," I said, "this morning up there in the woods I told Robert Weston everything, and he stood off just as you are standing now. It seemed to me he wondered how it could be true, and now I wonder too. Maybe it's all a mistake."

"It's not a mistake, Mark," the girl said, and she came to me again and put a hand on each shoulder and looked up. "If I did not care for you I'd never have given you the promise I did last night. But I do care for you, Mark, more than for anyone else in the world. You are big and strong and good--that's why--it's all any woman can ask. You are true, Mark--and that's more than most men----"

"But, Mary, there's Tim," I protested, for I did not care to usurp to myself the sum of all the virtues allotted to my sex.

"Tim?" said she lightly, as though she had never heard of him.

"Yes, Tim," I said shortly. "Why did you choose me instead of a lad like Tim?"

"Mark, I care for you more than anyone else in the world," said Mary.

"But do you love me?" I asked quickly.

"I think I do," she said. But reaching up, she turned my collar again and buttoned my coat against the storm.

XIV

Tim was home in three days. His few months of town life had wrought many changes in him, and they were for the better. I was forced to admit that, but I could not help being just a little in awe of him. He was not as heavy as of old, but there was more firmness in his face and figure. Perhaps it was his clothes that had given him a strange new grace, for in the old days he was a ponderous, slow-moving fellow. Now there was a lightness in his step and quickness in his every motion. Had I not known him, I should have seen in the scrupulous part in his hair a suggestion of the foppish. But I knew him, and while I liked him best with his old tousled head, and tanned face, and homely hickory shirt, I felt a certain pride that he had taken so well with the world and was learning the ways of the town as well as those of the field and wood. His gloves did seem foolish, for it was a bitter December day when the blood had best had full swing in the veins, but he held out to me a hand pinched in a few square inches of yellow kid. The grasp was just as warm though, and I forgave that. When he threw aside his silly little overcoat and stood before me, so tall and strong, so clean-cut and faultless, from the part in his hair to the shine on his boot-tips, I cried, "Heigh-ho, my fine gentleman!"

Then he blushed. I suspected that it pleased him vastly.

"Do you think it an improvement?" he faltered, standing with his back to the fireplace and lifting himself to his full height.

Before I could reply, the door flew open without the formality of a knock, and old Mrs. Bolum ran in. When she saw him, she stopped and stared.

"Well, ain't he tasty!" she cried.

Then she courtesied most formally. "How do you do, Mr. Hope?" she said.

"And how is Mrs. Bolum?" returned Tim gravely, advancing toward her with his hand outstretched.

The old woman rubbed her own hand on her apron, an honor usually accorded only to the preacher, and held it out. Tim seized it, but he brought his other arm around her waist and lifted her from the floor in one mighty embrace.

"You'll spoil your Sunday clothes," panted Mrs. Bolum, when she reached the floor again. Stepping back, she eyed him critically. "You look handsomer than a drummer," she cried admiringly.

"Thank you, ma'am," said Tim very meekly.

"I'm so sorry I left my spectacles at home," she went on. "My eyes ain't as good as they used to be and I can't see you plain as I'd like. Mebbe it's my sight as is the trouble, but it seems to me, as I see you now without my glasses, you're just about the prettiest man that ever come to Six Stars."

"Lord, ma'am," protested Tim. "And how is Mr. Bolum?"

"And such a lovely suit," continued the old woman, cautiously approaching and moving her hand across my brother's chest. "Why, Tim, you must have on complete store clothes--dear, oh, dear--to think of Tim Hope gittin' so fine and dressy! Now had it 'a' been Mark I wouldn't 'a' been so took back, for he allus was uppy and big feelin'. But Tim!"

Mrs. Bolum shook her head and held her hands up in astonishment.

"And how is Mr. Bolum?" shouted Tim.

"Never was better, 'ceptin' for his rheumatism and asphmy," was the answer, but the good woman was not to be turned aside that way. "And a cady," she cried, for her eyes had caught Tim's hat and the silly yellow overcoat on the chair where I had thrown them. "A cady, too! Now just put it on and let me see how you look."

Tim obeyed. Mrs. Bolum stepped hack to get a better effect.

"It ain't as pretty as your coon-skin," she said critically; "you'd look lovely in that suit with your coon-skin cap--but hold on--don't take it off--I want Bolum to see you."

She ran from the room and we heard her calling from the porch: "Bo-lum--Bo-lum--Isaac Bo-oh-lum."

Isaac was at the store. It seemed to me that his wife should have known that without much research. The little pile of sticks by the kitchen-door showed that his day's work was done, for when he had split the wood for the morrow it was the old man's custom to put aside all worldly care and start on a tour of the village, which generally ended on the bench at Henry Holmes's side.

It was almost dusk. Tim had come on a mission to Robert Weston. I had sent word to him of the accident, that Weston's friends might know, and the first thought of the injured man's partner was to hurry to Six Stars, but my second despatch, announcing that our friend was well on the road to recovery, led to the change in plans that brought Tim to us. Mrs. Bolum did not succeed in alarming the village before he and I were well up the road, past the school-house and climbing the hill to Warden's.

Tim had a great deal to tell me in that short walk. I had much to tell him, but I was silent and let him chatter on, giving but little attention to what he said, for I was planning a great surprise. The simplest thing would have been to tell him my secret then, but I had pictured something more dramatic. I wanted Mary to witness his dumfounding when he heard the news. I wanted her to be there when its full import broke upon him; then the three of us, Mary and Tim and I, would do a wild jig. What boon companions we should be--we three--to go through life together! And Edith? Four of us--so much the better! I had never seen this Edith, but Tim is a wonderful judge of women.

So I let him talk, on and on about the city and his life there, until we reached the house. We found that Mrs. Spiker had secured her rights, and was on duty that day as nurse. The young doctor was there, too, as were Mrs. Tip Pulsifer and a half dozen others, a goodly company to greet us.

"Hello, Mary!" Tim cried, breaking through the others, when he caught sight of her, standing at the foot of the stairs with a lighted candle in her hand.

"Hello, Tim!" cried Mary. "And where is Edith?"

"Edith?" Tim exclaimed, stopping as if to collect the thoughts her sudden taunting question had scattered. "I left her behind this time, but when I come again you shall see her." Tim, with arms akimbo, stood there laughing.

"We country girls, I understand, cannot compare with her," said Mary, tilting her chin.

She had started up the stairs, and now paused, looking down on us. And I looked up at her face showing out of the darkness in the half light, and I laughed, wondering what Tim thought, wondering if he was blind, or was this Edith really bewildering.

"Did I say that?" cried Tim. "Then I must have meant it when I said it. To-night I have learned better, Mary, but you know I never saw you standing that way before--on the stairs above me--kind of like an angel with a halo----"

"Indeed!" retorted Mary; "but we women of Black Log deck ourselves out in gaudy finery, Mr. Tim, I believe. We women of Black Log do not inspire a man, like your Edith."

"Confound my Edith!" Tim exclaimed hotly. "Why, Mary, can't you see I was joking? The idea of comparing Edith with you--why, Mary----"

Tim in his protest started to mount the stairs, and there was an earnestness in his tone that made me think it high time he knew our secret, for his own sake and for Edith's. It seemed to me unfair of him to desert her so basely in the presence of an enemy. He should have stood by her to the very end, and had he boldly declared that as compared to her Mary was a mummy I should have admired him the more; I should have understood; I should have known he was mistaken, but endured it. Now I seized him by the coat and pulled him back.

"Tim," I said solemnly, "I have something to tell you."

My brother turned and gave me a startled look.

"Mary and I have something to tell you," I went on.

That should have given him a clew. I had expected that at this point he would embrace me. But he didn't.

"I suppose you think I've been a fool about Edith?" he muttered ruefully.

"No, it isn't that," I laughed. "Mary, will you tell him?"

But we were in darkness! She had dropped the candle, and down the stairs the stick came clattering. It landed on the floor and went rolling across the room. Tim made a dive for it. He groped his way to the corner where its career had ended. Then he lighted it again.

Behind us stood the doctor, and Mrs. Tip Pulsifer, and Elmer Spiker's much better half. Mary was at the head of the stairs.

"Come, Tim," she called. "Mr. Weston wants to see you."

"Weston does want to see you very much, Tim," the wounded man said smiling, lifting a thin hand from the bed for my brother; "I heard you chattering downstairs, and I thought you were never coming."

"It was Mary's fault," Tim said. "I came back as soon as I could, sir. Mr. Mills sent me up on the night train--out this afternoon in a livery rig--here afoot just as fast as Mark would let me--then Mary blocked the way. Mark was going to tell me something when she dropped the candle."

"Why, don't you know--" began Weston.

But over my brother's shoulders I shook my head sternly at him and he stopped and broke into a laugh.

Mrs. Elmer Spiker was standing by him; the young doctor was moving about the room, apparently very busy; Mrs. Tip Pulsifer was peeping in at the door.

"Didn't you know," said Weston, "how I'd shot myself all to pieces, and how there's a live fox in the hollows across the ridge?"

"Mark told me of it," answered the innocent Tim, "and I'm glad to find it is not serious. They were worried at the store. Mr. Mills was for coming right away, but we got word you were better, and he thought I should run up anyway for a day to see if we could do anything. I'm to go back to-morrow."

"It was good of you to come," Weston said, "but there is nothing to be done. Just tell Mills the whole valley is nursing me; tell him that I've one nurse alone who is worth a score." Mrs. Spiker looked very conscious, but Weston smiled at Mary. Then he quickly added: "Tell him that Mrs. Bolum and Mrs. Spiker and Mrs. Pulsifer--" he paused to make sure that none was missed--"and Mark here are a hospital corps, taken singly or in a body."

"I've told him that already," said Tim. "He knows everybody in Six Stars, I guess, and he says as soon as you get well and come back to the office, he will take a holiday himself, fox hunting."

"Poor little Colonel!" murmured Weston. "He'll have a melancholy career. And Mary, too, she'll----"

"But it was when I told him about Mary that he made up his mind to come," Tim said.

"Indeed." The girl spoke very quietly. "And, perhaps, Tim, you'll send Edith along to help us. We women of Black Log are so clumsy."

"A good idea," said Weston. "Capital. You must bring Miss Smyth up, too, Tim."

"Parker," I corrected, "Edith Parker."

"But is it Parker?" Weston appealed to my brother. "Mark tells me she's the book-keeper's daughter. Has old Smyth gone?"

"No," Tim stammered, very much confused. "I guess you don't know Parker. He's come lately."

"That explains it, then," said Weston.

But he turned and looked away from us, his brow knitted. Something seemed to puzzle him, for he was frowning, but by and by the old cynical smile came back.

He said suddenly: "Tim, I wish you luck. I'm glad anyway it isn't Smyth's daughter. That was what I couldn't understand. Ever see Smyth's daughter? No. Well, you needn't bemoan it. I dare say Miss Parker is all you picture her, and I hope you'll win."

"Don't you think you'd better rest now?" asked Tim, with sudden solicitation. Though he addressed himself to Weston, his eyes were appealing to the doctor.

"I think I had," Weston answered, not waiting for the physician to interpose any order. "I get tuckered out pretty easily these days, with this confounded bullet-hole in me--but stay a moment, Tim. They've got a letter from me at the office by this time. It may surprise them; it may surprise you, but I wanted you to know I'd fixed it all right for you, my boy. I did it for Edith's sake."

Tim, with face flushed and hands outstretched in protest, arose from his chair and went to the bedside.

"But don't you see it's all a joke," he cried. "I can't take it. Won't you believe me this time? There isn't any Edith!"

"I knew that long ago, Tim," Weston answered quietly. "But there may be some day."

He turned his back to us.

"Please go," he said brusquely. "I want to rest. Don't stand over me that way, Tim. Why, you look like little Colonel!"

* * * * * *

At the school-house door Tim halted suddenly.

"I'm going back, Mark," he whispered, "just for a minute. Weston will think I'm a fraud and I want to tell him something. Now that the others have left I may have a chance. Confound these kind-hearted women that overrun the house! Why, a fellow couldn't say a word without a dozen ears to hear it."

"I'll go back with you," said I.

We had fallen a few steps behind the others, but somehow they divined our purpose and stopped, too.

"You needn't," said Tim. "I'll only be a minute."

"But I've something to tell you--a secret--and Mary----"

He was gone.

"I'll be back in a minute," he called. "Go on home."

He was lost in the darkness, and I started after him.

"Ain't you comin'?" cried Nanny Pulsifer.

"I must go back to Warden's," I answered.

"Then we'll go with you," said Mrs. Spiker firmly.

"Can't you go on home?" I said testily. "There's no use of your troubling yourself further."

"Does you think we'll walk by that graveyard alone?" demanded the tavern-keeper's wife.

"But there are no ghosts," I argued.

"We know that," returned Mrs. Pulsifer. "Everybody knows that, but it's never made any difference."

"A graveyard is a graveyard even if there is no bodies in it," said Mrs. Spiker, planting herself behind me so as to cut off further retreat.

Tim must have caught some echoes of the argument on the spirit world, for down the hill, through the darkness, came his call.

"Go on home, Mark--I'll be back in a minute."

I believed him, and I obeyed.

XV

Tim's minute? God keep me from another as long!

I had my pipe in my chair by the fire, and knocking the ashes out, I went to the door, and with a hand to my ear listened for his footsteps. Tim's minutes are long! Another pipe, and the clock on the mantel marked nine. Still I smoked on. He had had a long talk with Weston, perhaps, and had stopped downstairs for a minute with Mary. She had told him all. How astounded the boy must be! Why, it would take her a half hour at least to convince him that she spoke the truth when she told him she was to marry his wreck of a brother; then when he believed it, another half hour would hardly be enough for him to welcome her into the family of Hope, and to talk over the wonderful fortunes of its sons. Doubtless he had felt it incumbent on himself to sing my praises, for he had always been blind to my faults. In this possibility of his tarrying to display my virtues there was some compensation for my sitting alone, with old Captain and young Colonel, both sleeping, and only my pipe for company. Of course, I should really be there with Tim, but Nanny Pulsifer and Mrs. Spiker had decreed otherwise. Who knows how great may be my reward for bringing them safely past the graveyard!

The third pipe snuffled out. I opened the door and listened. Tim's minutes are long, for the last light in the village is out now. I went to the gate and stood there till I caught the sound of foot-falls. Then I whistled softly. There was no reply, but in a moment Perry Thomas stepped into the light of our window.

"Good-evening," he said cheerfully. "It's rather chilly to be swinging on the gate."

"I was waiting for Tim," I answered.

Perry gave a little dry cackle. "Let's go in," he said. "It's too cold out here to discuss these great events."

I did not know what he meant, neither did I much care, for Perry always treated the most trivial affairs in the most elegant language he knew. But now that he stood there with his back to the fire, warming his hands, he made himself more clear.

"Well, Mark," he said, "I congratulate you most heartily."

I divined his meaning. It did not seem odd that he had learned my secret, for I was lost in admiration of his having once weighed an event at its proper value. So I thanked him and returned to my chair and my pipe.

"Of course it hurts me a bit here," said he, laying his hand on his watch-pocket. "I had hopes at one time myself, but I fear I depended too much on music and elocution. Do you know I'm beginnin' to think that a man shouldn't depend so much on art with weemen. I notice them gets along best who doesn't keep their arms entirely occupied with gestures and workin' the fiddle."

Perry winked sagely at this and cackled. He rocked violently to and fro on his feet, from heel to toe and toe to heel.

"Yet it ain't a bit onreasonable," he went on. "The artist thinks he is amusin' others, when, as a matter of fact, he is gettin' about ninety per cent. of the fun himself. We allus enjoys our own singin' best. I see that now. I thought it up as I was comin' down the road and I concided that the next time I seen a likely lookin' Mrs. Perry Thomas, she could do the singin' and the fiddlin' and the elocution, and I'd set by and look on and say, 'Ain't it lovely?'"

"You bear your disappointments bravely," said I.

"Not at all," Perry responded. "I'm used to 'em. Why, I don't know what I'd do if I wasn't disappointed. Some day a girl will happen along who won't disappoint me, and then I'll be so set back, I allow I won't have courage to get outen the walley. Had I knowd yesterday how as all the courtin' I've done since the first of last June was to come tumblin' down on my head to-night like ceilin' plaster, not a wink of sleep would I 'a' had. Now I know it. Does I look like I was goin' to jump down the well? No, sir. 'Perry,' I says, 'you've had a nice time settin' a-dreamin' of her; you've sung love-songs to her as you followed the plough; you've pictured her at your side as you've strayed th'oo fields of daisies and looked at the moon. Now in the natural course of events she's goin' to marry another. When she's gettin' peekit like trying to keep the house goin' and at the same time prevent her seven little ones from steppin' into the cistern or fallin' down the hay-hole, you can make up another pretty pickter with one of the nine hundred million other weemen on this globe as the central figger!'"

At the conclusion of this philosophic speech my visitor adjusted his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, brought himself to rest with a click of his heels and smiled his defiance.

"But I congratulate you truly, heartily," he added.

"Thank you, Perry," I answered. "In spite of your trifling way of regarding women, I hope that some day you may find another as good as Mary Warden."

"The same to you, Mark," said he.

"The same to me?" I cried, with a touch of resentment.

"Of course," he replied. "I says to myself to-night, 'I hope Mark is as fortunate,' I says, when I saw them two a----"

"What two?" I exclaimed, lifting myself half out of my chair in my eagerness.

"Why, Tim and her," Perry answered. "Ain't you heard it yet, Mark? Am I the first to know?"

"Tim and her," I cried. "Tim and Mary?"

"Yes," said Perry.

He saw now that he was imparting strange news to me. In my sudden agitation he divined that that news had struck hard home, and that I was not blessed with his own philosophic nature. The smile left his face. He stepped to me, as I sat there in the chair staring vacantly into the fire, and laid a hand on my shoulder.

"I thought of course you knowd it," he said gently. "I thought of course you knowd all about it, and when I seen them up there to-night, her a-holdin' to him so lovin', says I to myself, 'How pleased Mark will be--he thinks so much of Tim and Mary.'"

Tim's minute! I knew now why it was so long. I should have known it long ago. I feared to ask Perry what he had seen. I divined it. I had debated with myself too much the strangeness of Mary's promise, and often in the last few days there had come over me a vague fear that I was treading in the clouds. She had told me again and again that she cared for me more than for anyone else in the world. But that night when I had asked her if she loved me, she had turned my collar up. I believed that when she spoke then it was what she thought the truth. She had pledged herself to me and I had not demanded more. I had been selfish enough to ask that she link herself to my narrow life, and she had looked at me clear in the eye. "You are strong, Mark, and good, and true," she had said, "and in all the world there is none I trust more. I'll love you, too. I promise."

On that promise I had built all my hopes and happiness, and it had failed me. It was not strange. I had been a fool, a silly dreamer, and now I had found it out. A soldier? Paugh! Away back somewhere in the past, I had gone mad at a bugle-call. A hero? For a day. For a day I had puffed myself up with pride at my deeds. And now those deeds were forgotten. I was a veteran, a crippled pensioner, an humble pedagogue, a petty farmer. This was the lot I had asked her to share. She had made her promise, and that promise made and broken was more than I deserved. From a heaven she had smiled down on me, and I had climbed to the clouds, reaching out for her. Then her face was turned from me, and down I had come, clattering to common earth, cursing because I had hurt myself.