Chapter 10

There was complaint in the old man's voice, and they knew that he meant his own son Seffy. To add to their embarrassment, this same son was now appearing over the Lustich Hill--an opportune moment for a pleasing digression. For you must be told early concerning Old Baumgartner's longing for certain lands, tenements and hereditaments--using his own phrase--which were not his own, but which adjoined his. It had passed into a proverb of the vicinage; indeed, though the property in question belonged to one Sarah Pressel, it was known colloquially as "Baumgartner's Yearn."

And the reason of it was this: Between his own farm and the public road (and the railroad station when it came) lay the fairest meadow-land farmer's eye had ever rested upon. (I am speaking again for the father of Seffy and with his hyperbole.) Save in one particular, it was like an enemy's beautiful territory lying between one's less beautiful own and the open sea--keeping one a poor inlander who is mad for the seas--whose crops must either pass across the land of his adversary and pay tithes to him, or go by long distances around him at the cost of greater tithes to the soulless owners of the turnpikes--who aggravatingly fix a gate each way to make their tithes more sure. So, I say, it was like having the territory of his enemy lying between him and the deep water--save, as I have also said, in one particular, to wit: that the owner--the Sarah Pressel I have mentioned--was not Old Baumgartner's enemy.

In fact, they were tremendous friends. And it was by this friendship--and one other thing which I mean to mention later--that Old Baumgartner hoped, before he died, to attain the wish of his life, and see, not only the Elysian pasture-field, but the whole of the adjoining farm, with the line fences down, a part of his. The other thing I promised to mention as an aid to this ambition--was Seffy. And, since the said Sarah was of nearly the same age as Seffy, perhaps I need not explain further, except to say that the only obstruction the old man could see now to acquiring the title by marriage was--Seffy himself. He was, and always had been, afraid of girls--especially such aggressive, flirtatious, pretty and tempestuous girls as this Sarah.

These things, however, were hereditary with the girl. It was historical, in fact, that, during the life of Sarah's good-looking father, so importunate had been Old Baumgartner for the purchase of at least the meadow--he could not have ventured more at that time--and so obstinate had been the father of the present owner--(he had red hair precisely as his daughter had)--that they had come to blows about it, to the discomfiture of Old Baumgartner; and, afterward, they did not speak. Yet, when the loafers at the store laughed, Baumgartner swore that he would, nevertheless, have that pasture before he died.

But then, as if fate, too, were against him, the railroad was built, and its station was placed so that the Pressel farm lay directly between it and him, and of course the "life" went more and more in the direction of the station--left him more and more "out of it"--and made him poorer and poorer, and Pressel richer and richer. And, when the store laughed at _that_, Baumgartner swore that he would possess half of the farm before he died; and as Pressel and his wife died, and Seffy grew up, and as he noticed the fondness of the little red-headed girl for his little tow-headed boy, he added to his adjuration that he would be harrowing that whole farm before _he_ died,--_without paying a cent for it_!

But both Seffy and Sally had grown to a marriageable age without anything happening. Seffy had become inordinately shy, while the coquettish Sally had accepted the attentions of Sam Pritz, the clerk at the store, as an antagonist more worthy of her, and in a fashion which sometimes made the father of Seffy swear and lose his temper--with Seffy. Though, of course, in the final disposition of the matter, he was sure that no girl so nice as Sally would marry such a person as Sam Pritz, with no extremely visible means of support--a salary of four dollars a week, and an odious reputation for liquor. And it was for these things, all of which were known (for Baumgartner had not a single secret) that the company at the store detected the personal equation in Old Baumgartner's communications.

Seffy had almost arrived by this time, and Sally was in the store! With Sam! The situation was highly dramatic. But the old man consummately ignored this complication and directed attention to his son. For him, the molasses-tapper did not exist. The fact is he was overjoyed. Seffy, for once in his life, would be on time! He would do the rest.

"Now, boys, chust look at 'em! Dogged if they ain't bose like one another! How's the proferb? Birds of a feather flock wiss one another? I dunno. Anyhow, Sef flocks wiss Betz constant. And they understand one another good. Trotting like a sidewise dog of a hot summer's day!" And he showed the company, up and down the store-porch, just how a sidewise dog would be likely to trot on a hot summer day--and then laughed joyously.

If there had been an artist eye to see they would have been well worth its while--Seffy and the mare so affectionately disparaged. And, after all, I am not sure that the speaker himself had not an artist's eye. For a spring pasture, or a fallow upland, or a drove of goodly cows deep in his clover, I know he had. (Perhaps you, too, have?) And this was his best mare and his only son.

The big bay, clad in broad-banded harness, soft with oil and glittering with brasses, was shambling indolently down the hill, resisting her own momentum by the diagonal motion the old man had likened to a dog's sidewise trot. The looped trace-chains were jingling a merry dithyramb, her head was nodding, her tail swaying, and Seffy, propped by his elbow on her broad back, one leg swung between the hames, the other keeping time on her ribs, was singing:

"'I want to be an angel And with the angels stand, A crown upon my forehead A harp within my hand--'"

His adoring father chuckled. "I wonder what for kind of anchel he'd make, anyhow? And Betz--they'll have to go together. Say, I wonder if it _is_ horse-anchels?"

No one knew; no one offered a suggestion.

"Well, it ought to be. Say--he ken perform circus wiss ol' Betz!"

They expressed their polite surprise at this for perhaps the hundredth time.

"Yas--they have a kind of circus-ring in the barnyard. He stands on one foot, then on another, and on his hands wiss his feet kicking, and then he says words--like hokey-pokey--and Betz she kicks up behind and throws him off in the dung and we all laugh--happy efer after--Betz most of all!"

After the applause he said:

"I guess I'd better wake 'em up! What you sink?"

They one and all thought he had. They knew he would do it, no matter what they thought. His method, as usual, was his own. He stepped to the adjoining field, and, selecting a clod with the steely polish of the plowshare upon it, threw it at the mare. It struck her on the flank. She gathered her feet under her in sudden alarm, then slowly relaxed, looked slyly for the old man, found him, and understanding, suddenly wheeled and ambled off home, leaving Seffy prone on the ground as her part of the joke.

The old man brought Seffy in triumph to the store-porch.

"Chust stopped you afore you got to be a anchel!" he was saying. "We couldn't bear to sink about you being a anchel--an' wiss the anchels stand--a harp upon your forehead, a crown within your hand, I expect--when it's corn-planting time."

Seffy grinned cheerfully, brushed off the dust and contemplated his father's watch--held accusingly against him. Old Baumgartner went on gaily.

"About an inch and a half apast ten! Seffy, I'm glad you ain't breaking your reputation for being fastnachtich. Chust about a quarter of an inch too late for the prize wiss flour on its hair and arms and its frock pinned up to show its new petticoat! Uhu! If I had such a nice petticoat--" he imitated the lady in question, to the tremendous delight of the gentle loafers.

Seffy stared a little and rubbed some dust out of his eyes. He was pleasant but dull.

"Yassir, Sef, if you'd a-got yere at a inch and a quarter apast! Now Sam's got her. Down in the cellar a-licking molasses together! Doggone if Sam don't git eferysing--except his due bills. He don't want to be no anchel tell he dies. He's got fun enough yere--but Seffy--you're like the flow of molasses in January--at courting."

This oblique suasion made no impression on Seffy. It is doubtful if he understood it at all. The loafers began to smile. One laughed. The old man checked him with a threat of personal harm.

"Hold on there, Jefferson Dafis Busby," he chid. "I don't allow no one to laugh at my Seffy--except chust me--account I'm his daddy. It's a fight-word the next time you do it."

Mr. Busby straightened his countenance.

"He don't seem to notice--nor keer--'bout gals--do he?"

No one spoke.

"No, durn him, he ain't no good. Say--what'll you give for him, hah? Yere he goes to the highest bidder--for richer, for poorer, for better, for worser, up and down, in and out, swing your partners--what's bid? He ken plow as crooked as a mule's hind leg, sleep hard as a 'possum in wintertime, eat like a snake, git left efery time--but he ken ketch fish. They wait on him. What's bid?"

No one would hazard a bid.

"Yit a minute," shouted the old fellow, pulling out his bull's-eye watch again, "what's bid? Going--going--all done--going--"

"A dollar!"

The bid came from behind him, and the voice was beautiful to hear. A gleam came into the old man's eyes as he heard it. He deliberately put the watch back in its pocket, put on his spectacles, and turned, as if she were a stranger.

"Gone!" he announced then. "Who's the purchaser? Come forwards and take away you' property. What's the name, please?" Then he pretended to recognize her. "Oach! Sally! Well, that's lucky! He goes in good hands. He's sound and kind, but needs the whip." He held out his hand for the dollar.

It was the girl of whom he had spoken accurately as a prize. Her sleeves were turned up as far as they would go, revealing some soft lace-trimmed whiteness, and there _was_ flour on her arms. Some patches of it on her face gave a petal-like effect to her otherwise aggressive color. The pretty dress was pinned far enough back to reveal the prettier petticoat--plus a pair of trimly-clad ankles.

Perhaps these were neither the garments nor the airs in which every farmer-maiden did her baking. But then, Sally was no ordinary farmer-maiden. She was all this, it is true, but she was, besides, grace and color and charm itself. And if she chose to bake in such attire--or, even, if she chose to pretend to do so, where was the churl to say her nay, even though the flour was part of a deliberate "make up"? Certainly he was not at the store that summer morning.

And Seffy was there. Her hair escaped redness by only a little. But that little was just the difference between ugliness and beauty. For, whether Sally were beautiful or not--about which we might contend a bit--her hair was, and perhaps that is the reason why it was nearly always uncovered--or, possibly, again, because it was so much uncovered was the reason it was beautiful. It seemed to catch some of the glory of the sun. Her face had a few freckles and her mouth was a trifle too large. But, in it were splendid teeth.

In short, by the magic of brilliant color and natural grace she narrowly escaped being extremely handsome--in the way of a sunburned peach, or a maiden's-blush apple. And even if you should think she were not handsome, you would admit that there was an indescribable rustic charm about her. She was like the aroma of the hay-fields, or the woods, or a field of daisies, or dandelions.

The girl, laughing, surrendered the money, and the old man, taking an arm of each, marched them peremptorily away.

"Come to the house and git his clothes. Eferysing goes in--stofepipe hat, butterfly necktie, diamond pin, toothbrush, hair-oil, razor and soap."

They had got far enough around the corner to be out of sight of the store, during this gaiety, and the old man now shoved Seffy and the girl out in front of him, linked their arms, and retreated to the rear.

"What Sephenijah P. Baumgartner, Senior, hath j'ined together, let nobody put athunder, begoshens!" he announced.

The proceeding appeared to be painful to Seffy, but not to Sally. She frankly accepted the situation and promptly put into action its opportunities for coquetry. She begged him, first, with consummate aplomb, to aid her in adjusting her parcels more securely, insisting upon carrying them herself, and it would be impossible to describe adequately her allures. The electrical touches, half-caress, half-defiance; the confidential whisperings, so that the wily old man in the rear might not hear; the surges up against him; the recoveries--only to surge again--these would require a mechanical contrivance which reports not only speech but action--and even this might easily fail, so subtle was it all!

"Sef--Seffy, I thought it was his old watch he was auctioning off. I wanted it for--for--a nest-egg! aha-ha-ha! You must excuse me."

"You wouldn't 'a' bid at all if you'd knowed it was me, I reckon," said Seffy.

"Yes, I would," declared the coquette. "I'd rather have you than any nest-egg in the whole world--any two of 'em!"--and when he did not take his chance--"if they were made of gold!"

But then she spoiled it.

"It's worse fellows than you, Seffy." The touch of coquetry was but too apparent.

"And better," said Seffy, with a lump in his throat. "I know I ain't no good with girls--and I don't care!"

"Yes!" she assented wickedly. "There _are_ better ones."

"Sam Pritz--"

Sally looked away, smiled, and was silent.

"Sulky Seffy!" she finally said.

"If he does stink of salt mackerel, and 'most always drunk!" Seffy went on bitterly. "He's nothing but a molasses-tapper!"

Sally began to drift farther away and to sing. Calling Pritz names was of no consequence--except that it kept Seffy from making love to her while he was doing it--which seemed foolish to Sally. The old man came up and brought them together again.

"Oach! go 'long and make lofe some more. I like to see it. I expect I am an old fool, but I like to see it--it's like ol' times--yas, and if you don't look out there, Seffy, I'll take a hand myself--yassir! go 'long!"

He drew them very close together, each looking the other way. Indeed he held them there for a moment, roughly.

Seffy stole a glance at Sally. He wanted to see how she was taking his father's odiously intimate suggestion. But it happened that Sally wanted to see how he was taking it. She laughed with the frankest of joy as their eyes met.

"Seffy--I _do_--like you," said the coquette. "And you ought to know it. You imp!"

Now this was immensely stimulating to the bashful Seffy.

"I like _you_," he said--"ever since we was babies."

"Sef--I don't believe you. Or you wouldn't waste your time so--about Sam Pritz!"

"Er--Sally--where you going to to-night?" Seffy meant to prove himself.

And Sally answered, with a little fright at the sudden aggressiveness she had procured.

"Nowheres that _I_ know of."

"Well--may I set up with you?"

The pea-green sunbonnet could not conceal the utter amazement and then the radiance which shot into Sally's face.

"Set--up--with--me!"

"Yes!" said Seffy, almost savagely. "That's what I said."

"Oh, I--I guess so! Yes! of course!" she answered variously, and rushed off home.

"You know I own you," she laughed back, as if she had not been sufficiently explicit. "I paid for you! Your pappy's got the money! I'll expect my property to-night."

"Yas!" shouted the happy old man, "and begoshens! it's a reg'lar bargain! Ain't it, Seffy? You her property--real estate, hereditaments and tenements." And even Seffy was drawn into the joyous laughing conceit of it! Had he not just done the bravest thing of his small life?

"Yes!" he cried after the fascinating Sally. "For sure and certain, to-night!"

"It's a bargain!" cried she.

"For better or worser, richer or poorer, up an' down, in an' out, chassez right and left! Aha-ha-ha! Aha-ha-ha! But, Seffy,"--and the happy father turned to the happy son and hugged him, "don't you efer forgit that she's a feather-head and got a bright red temper like her daddy! And they both work mighty bad together sometimes. When you get her at the right place onct--well, nail her down--hand and feet--so's she can't git away. When she gits mad her little brain evaporates, and if she had a knife she'd go round stabbing her best friends--that's the only sing that safes her--yas, and us!--no knife. If she had a knife it would be funerals following her all the time."

II

They advanced together now, Seffy's father whistling some tune that was never heard before on earth, and, with his arm in that of his son, they watched Sally bounding away. Once more, as she leaped a fence, she looked laughingly back. The old man whistled wildly out of tune. Seffy waved a hand!

"Now you shouting, Seffy! Shout ag'in!"

"I didn't say a word!"

"Well--it ain't too late! Go on!"

Now Seffy understood and laughed with his father.

"Nice gal, Sef--Seffy!"

"Yes!" admitted Seffy with reserve.

"Healthy."

Seffy agreed to this, also.

"No doctor-bills!" his father amplified.

Seffy said nothing.

"Entire orphen."

"She's got a granny!"

"Yas," chuckled the old man at the way his son was drifting into the situation--thinking about granny!--"but Sally owns _the farm_!"

"Uhu!" said Seffy, whatever that might mean.

"And Sally's the boss!"

Silence.

"And granny won't object to any one Sally marries, anyhow--she dassent! She'd git licked!"

"Who said anything about marrying?"

Seffy was speciously savage now--as any successful wooer might be.

"Nobody but me, sank you!" said the old man with equally specious meekness. "Look how she ken jump a six-rail fence. Like a three-year filly! She's a nice gal, Seffy--and the farms j'ine together--her pasture-field and our corn-field. And she's kissing her hand backwards! At me or you, Seffy?"

Seffy said he didn't know. And he did not return the kiss--though he yearned to.

"Well, I bet a dollar that the first initial of his last name is Sephenijah P. Baumgartner, _Junior_."

"Well!" said Seffy with a great flourish, "I'm going to set up with her to-night."

"Oach--git out, Sef!"--though he knew it.

"You'll see."

"No, I won't," said his father. "I wouldn't be so durn mean. Nossir!"

Seffy grinned at this subtle foolery, and his courage continued to grow.

"I'm going to wear my high hat!" he announced, with his nose quite in the air.

"No, Sef!" said the old man with a wonderful inflection, facing him about that he might look into his determined face. For it must be explained that the stovepipe hat, in that day and that country, was dedicated only to the most momentous social occasions and that, consequently, gentlemen wore it to go courting.

"Yes!" declared Seffy again.

"Bring forth the stovepipe, The stovepipe, the stovepipe--"

chanted Seffy's frivolous father in the way of the Anvil Chorus.

"And my butterfly necktie with--"

"Wiss the di'mond on?" whispered his father.

They laughed in confidence of their secret. Seffy, the successful wooer, was thawing out again. The diamond was not a diamond at all--the Hebrew who sold it to Seffy had confessed as much. But he also swore that if it were kept in perfect polish no one but a diamond merchant could tell the difference. Therefore, there being no diamond merchant anywhere near, and the jewel being always immaculate, Seffy presented it as a diamond and had risen perceptibly in the opinion of the vicinage.

"And--and--and--Sef--Seffy, what you goin' to _do_?"

"Do?"

Seffy had been absorbed in what he was going to wear. "Yas--yas--that's the most important." He encircled Seffy's waist and gently squeezed it. "Oh, of _course_! Hah? But what _yit_?"

I regret to say that Seffy did not understand.

"Seffy," he said impressively, "you haf' tol' me what you goin' to wear. It ain't much. The weather's yit pooty col' nights. But I ken stand it if you ken--God knows about Sally! Now, what you goin' to _do_--that's the conuntrum I ast you!"

Still it was not clear to Seffy.

"Why--what I'm a-going to do, hah? Why--whatever occurs."

"Gosh-a'mighty! And nefer say a word or do a sing to help the occurrences along? Goshens! What a setting-up! Why--say--Seffy, what you set up _for_?"

Seffy did not exactly know. He had never hoped to practise the thing--in that sublimely militant phase.

"What do _you_ think?"

"Well, Sef--plow straight to her heart. I wisht I had your chance. I'd show you a other-guess kind a setting-up--yassir! Make your mouth warter and your head swim, begoshens! Why, that Sally's just like a young stubble-field; got to be worked constant, and plowed deep, and manured heafy, and mebby drained wiss blind ditches, and crops changed constant, and kep' a-going thataway--constant--constant--so's the weeds can't git in her. Then you ken put her in wheat after a while and git your money back."

This drastic metaphor had its effect. Seffy began to understand. He said so.

"Now, look here, Seffy," his father went on more softly, "when you git to this--and this--and this,"--he went through his pantomime again, and it included a progressive caressing to the kissing point--"well, chust when you bose comfortable--hah?--mebby on one cheer, what I know--it's so long sence I done it myself--when you bose comfortable, ast her--chust ast her--aham!--what she'll take for the pasture-field! She owns you bose and she can't use bose you and the pasture. A bird in the hand is worth seferal in another feller's--not so?"

But Seffy only stopped and stared at his father. This, again, he did _not_ understand.

"You know well enough I got no money to buy no pasture-field," said he.

"Gosh-a'mighty!" said the old man joyfully, making as if he would strike Seffy with his huge fist--a thing he often did. "And ain't got nossing to trade?"

"Nothing except the mare!" said the boy.

"Say--ain't you got no feelings, you idjiot?"

"Oh--" said Seffy. And then: "But what's feelings got to do with cow-pasture?"

"Oach! No wonder he wants to be an anchel, and wiss the anchels stand--holding sings in his hands and on his head! He's too good for this wile world. He'd linger shifering on the brink and fear to launch away all his durn life--if some one didn't push him in. So here goes!"

This was spoken to the skies, apparently, but now he turned to his son again.

"Look a-yere, you young dummer-ux,[2] feelings is the same to gals like Sally, as money is to you and me. You ken buy potatoes wiss 'em! Do you understand?"

Seffy said that he did, now.

"Well, then, I'fe tried to _buy_ that pasture-field a sousand times--"

Seffy started.

"Yas, that's a little bit a lie--mebby a dozen times. And at last Sally's daddy said he'd lick me if I efer said pasture-field ag'in, and I said it ag'in and he licked me! He was a big man--and red-headed yit, like Sally. Now, look a-yere--_you_ ken git that pasture-field wissout money and wissout price--except you' dam' feelings which ain't no other use. Sally won't lick _you_--if she is bigger--don't be a-skeered. You got tons of feelin's you ain't got no other use for--don't waste 'em--they're good green money, and we'll git efen wiss Sally's daddy for licking me yit--and somesing on the side! Huh?"

[Footnote 2: Dumb ox--a term of reproach.]

At last it was evident that Seffy fully understood, and his father broke into that discordant whistle once more.

"A gal that ken jump a six-rail fence--and wissout no running start--don't let her git apast you!"