# A Platonic Affair

Extracted from Harper's magazine, V.80 1889-90, pp. 347–362. Accompanying illustrations may be omitted. A whimsical story of city values and country values; of love and ambition; and of ambition and marriage.
A PLATONIC AFFAIR
BY HJALMAR H. BOYESEN.
I.
MR. ALFRED TALLCOTT had gone through college because he thought it was a proper thing to do. At the end of two years, during which he had been vainly trying to find a niche for himself in the world, he came to the conclusion that there was something radically wrong in the universe. Whether it was that there were too few niches, or that there were too many college-bred men, he could not quite determine; but in either case the situation was embarrassing. In one of his idle moments, of which he had a great abundance, he took down his diploma, which hung in its frame on the wall, and the original idea occurred to him that it might be worth reading. He soon discovered, after a little puzzling over the construction, that this parchment, officially signed and sealed by good men and true, declared him to be worthy of a variety of honors and dignities. The honors and dignities, however, had appeared to be in no haste to descend upon him. He had in an ambitious moment aspired to the dignity of a newspaper reporter, and had visited some twenty editors in the hope of realizing this ambition. But the editors were, as a rule, so embarrassed with a superfluity of talent seeking employment that they politely begged him to call again—next year. It had been suggested to him by a disgruntled relative that the honors attending a clerkship in a dry-goods store might not be beyond his reach: but with the music of choric odes and Homeric hexameters singing in his brain, how could he condescend to measuring tapes and ribbons? To be sure, this music was becoming very dim of late, and the roar of a rude and prosaic reality was beginning to drown the faint classical echoes. But this same prosaic reality had the advantage of containing a creature who was very dear to Mr. Tallcott, and on that account could not help interesting him. He had made the discovery that a certain young lady named Kate Remington was surpassingly fair; but Kate unfortunately, in spite of her loveliness, had a streak of prose in her, and she demanded in the most sweetly peremptory language his reconciliation with reality. In other words, she refused to marry him, or even to be engaged to him, unless he could make a living. It was this perverseness on Kate's part, in connection with a note from his guardian informing him that his slender patrimony was well-nigh exhausted—it was these two unpleasant circumstances which at last moved him to a desperate resolution. He determined to go West. Kate—the sweet practical Kate—when he cautiously broached the subject to her, had the cruelty to approve of his plan. She even parted from him with heart-rending cheerfulness at the railroad depot, and advised him not to take a sleeping car, because, she said, it was such a pity to sleep away so much money. He attempted to kiss her, because of her "amusing worldliness"; but she objected to any such demonstration, because it looked so engaged.
"And we are not engaged, Hal," she said; "you know we are not."
"I thought we were what you might call provisionally engaged," he said, in smiling dismay.
"What do you mean by that??"
"I mean that if I make a success of life, you will marry me; and if I don't, you will marry some one else. In other words, I am engaged to you, but not you to me."
"Hal," she cried, radiantly, "I will kiss you good-by; for that is the cleverest thing I have heard you say yet." And she promptly executed her threat. "You will succeed in the West, Hal. I know you will succeed."
He jumped aboard, and she stood waving her handkerchief to him while the train moved out of the depot.
II.
For two months Tallcott roamed through the Western States, from Ohio to Colorado, presenting letters of introduction, and making himself preternaturally agreeable to preternaturally disagreeable people. He was snubbed and patronized as if he had never known a word of Greek, and he disliked the latter mode of treatment more than the former. He had to listen to long discourses from lumber dealers and railroad kings on the uselessness of his accomplishments and on the lack of practical sense characteristic of scholars. He had, as it were, taken chance by the forelock, hoping to compel it to yield him an advantage; but he felt as if the forelock had come off. Plunged in lugubrious meditation, he sat in a railroad train which was carrying him he scarcely cared whither. He was half inclined to give up the battle and declare himself vanquished. If it had not been for the fear of making this avowal to Kate and meeting her bright mocking eyes, he would, indeed, have turned his back on the West, and shaken its dust from off his shoes, at the risk of shaking off the shoes too; for they were not in a condition to be shaken with safety. But Kate's respect for success and contempt for failure seemed in the depth of his heart quite justifiable; and it was this perception which nerved him to resume the unequal fight.
In order to banish his importunate thoughts, Tallcott put his hand into his valise, and took out the first book he chanced upon. It was an old school-book—a well-thumbed edition of the Dialogues of Plato. He opened it and began to read, and smiled at the little trickeries he had practised, of which the book gave ample evidence. He had read a page or two of the "Phaido," when the man in the seat behind him leaned forward, and without any preliminary said:
"Do yer read them things easy?"
Tallcott turned around in astonishment, and saw a middle-aged farmer, dressed in brown jeans and a checked homespun shirt. His soft felt hat, which had once been black, exhibited a fine deposit of what was either dust or flour, and its drooping brim slouched about his ears in a melancholy manner. The man's face, however, was as remarkable as his costume was indifferent. It reminded Tallcott of the features of Seneca; the same eager eyes, with an expression of interest which looked more like pain; the same bushy brows, and the high, strongly curved nose, which would have been aquiline if it had not been for the little knob in the middle, which spoiled its classical intention. His beard, too, which was of a brownish hue and cropped close, emphasized his likeness to the Roman philosopher.
"Ye don't find all them little crotchets and crooks and things sorter confusin'?" he queried, undiscouraged by Tallcott's silence. "Them little tails yere," he added, pointing with a cracked, horny finger at the text—"them is what fetches me."
"Then you know Greek?" the young man remarked, in a tone of frigid interest.
"That's whar ye hev got me," the farmer replied, with a laugh, gazing up into Tallcott's eyes as if he expected him to join him. "I tackled Greek once, twenty years ago now and better; but it was a mighty cantankerous language, and it gave me no end of trouble. Now the dictionary, I maintain, is reason'ble enough, but the grammar, I reckon, was writ by somebody as had the jimjams. It knocked everything topsy-turvy in my upper story, and there is some folks as says I hain't never got right up thar sence."
He laughed once more, straight into Tallcott's face, but seemed not in the least disposed to resent the latter 's unresponsiveness.
"Ef ye will loan me yer book," he went on, "I reckon I kin make out the letters yit. Now that thar, that is ypsilon, and that is pe, and that is omikron. That spells hoopo, I reckon, and means 'of.'"
His pleased laugh again appealed to the young man for sympathy, and the latter's curiosity at last conquered his disinclination to made railroad acquaintances. An Indiana farmer who had taught himself Greek, or even aspired to such heights of knowledge, must he indeed an extraordinary character; and it was, moreover, soothing to Tallcott's wounded pride, after all the rebuffs he had had to endure, to find some one who professed an interest in the accomplishments upon which, in great part, he based his self-respect.
"If you will permit me to ask, what induced you to take up the study of Greek?" he inquired, with some animation.
"Waal, that's rather a s'prisin' story; but ef ye hev a mind to hear it, I don't mind tellin' it ter ye. It was twenty-three years ago, nigh on ter New-Year, we got a new preacher. He had ben ter college, and he was a mighty smart man. But the folks yereabouts didn't never like him, 'cause be didn't preach enough about hell, and the weepin' and wailin' and gnashin' o' teeth. They somehow suspicioned he wasn't quite sound on hell. But they might hev swallowed his keepin' still about the fire and brimstone ef he hadn't taken to boomin' the heathen."
"Booming the heathen?"
"Yes, booming the old chaps as lived afore Christ come to save 'em. Mr. Clapp, he had a notion that Socrates and Plato and all their gang was a mighty good lot o' fellers; and as fer their bein' born afore Christ come to save 'em, why, that was mighty hard on 'em, to be sure; but he couldn't, howsomever, see how the Almighty could make out His case agin 'em, allowin' as they hadn't been axed when they wanted ter be born. Mr. Clapp, he talked ter me sensible like about it, and he brung me his Greek book, and read ter me in English some o' the sayin's of them old fellers. And I will be darned ef it wasn't the sensiblest stuff I ever hearn in my livin' days. So I jest tole Clapp to go ahead and read them very things ter the elders and the folks in church, and ef they thought the Almighty could afford ter damn a man as could write such stuff, allowin' he was born at the wrong time—why, says I, ef they think such things, then they hevn't good sense, that's all, says I."
The speaker here paused impressively, and with his hands on his knees and lips compressed gazed into Tallcott's eyes, as if challenging dissent. To the student, however, these views were not sufficiently novel to invite discussion, and he therefore only nodded approvingly, and requested his companion to continue.
"Now what do ye spect them dad-burned fools did?" the latter went on, slapping his leg in righteous wrath. "They axed Mr. Clapp to resign—that's what they done, sir. They axed him to pack up his duds and scamper. They hedn't no call ter quarrel with the gospel; and the gospel, they said, didn't give no quarter ter the heathen onless he was converted. Then, I tell ye, I got my dander up, and I jest tole 'em they was a set of dad-burned fools; and they said I wasn't no Christian; and so they got together and read me out o' the church. I axed Mr. Clapp ter come and stay with me ontil he got a call ter some other church, and he come and staid with me nigh outer a year. And his wife, too, staid with me: she was a quiet like sorter person, but powerful cantankerous, I suspicioned, when nobody was by. She somehow held on ter the salary, and was powerful down on them heathen philosophers."
The locomotive here gave a long wail, and the farmer started up in surprise and looked out of the window.
"I'll be durned!" he exclaimed, "ef we hain't got to Todd's Junction already, an' I hain't tole ye half the story yit. But look ayere" (a sudden thought lighted up his countenance), "why don't ye come and rest a spell with me, and to-morrer ye kin go on ef ye like? I hev got mighty comfertable quarters, and lots ter eat ye shall hev too. Now come along with yer; ye hain't got no time fur speckerlatin'."
The train was now slackening its speed, and soon came to a stand still.
"I am greatly obliged," Tallcott stammered, his haughty reserve again possessing him, "but I couldn't possibly accept your hospitality."
"All right, young feller; no offence," the farmer replied, cheerfully. "An' thar is my darter Cynthy come fur her daddy with the wagon. Ef ye ever come to southern Indiany agin, don't ye forgit ter ax fur Gideon Tarbox. No chile in this yere county but kin show ye the way ter Gideon. An' now good-by ter ye."
Mr. Tarbox here grasped Tallcott's hand, and shook it with extreme cordiality. The young man in the mean while had caught a glimpse of a large sun-bonnet, and a lock of blond hair with a sheen as of burnished gold in it beneath the sun-bonnet; and the more Mr. Tarbox shook his hand, the more his resolution wavered. It may have been the hair, it may have been the slender and not ungraceful figure of the girl in the wagon which stimulated his fancy, but it was beyond dispute that he was suddenly consumed with a whimsical desire to know how the face looked which that pink sun-bonnet concealed.
"Mr. Tarbox," he said, as the latter was about to withdraw his hand, "since you are so very kind, I don't know but I will accept your invitation to spend the night with you."
"All right. Jest step inter the wagon. I hev got some grocery stuffs yere ter carry. Trot ahead, and in a minnit I'll be arter ye."
The coolness of this second invitation jarred a little on Tallcott's sensitive nerves; but he forgot to take into account that the train was already beginning to move, and that there was no time for idle civilities. He managed to seize his valise and to jump off just as the conductor swung himself up on the rear platform of the last car. Gideon was less successful, for in making the leap he sat down in his basket of groceries, and presumably did some damage. But he picked himself up without loss of dignity, took the broken basket under his arm, and made his way with Tallcott to the wagon.
"Cynthy," he began, stationing himself behind the girl and pushing the basket under the seat, "this yere chap is a mighty l'arned feller. I jest axed him ter come an' rest a spell with us afore he goes any further."
Miss Cynthy turned her head, and revealed a face which at first look was perhaps disappointing. The features were her father's, with the exception of the chin, which was stronger, and the eyes, which were of a liquid brown color, and without the eagerness which characterized those of Gideon. There was a light in them, however, as of something wild and untamable, and yet not ungentle. Her dress, which was of blue homespun, exhibited no aspirations toward gentility in the way of flounces and fringes. There was something shy, alert, and sylvan in her appearance—something that reminded Tallcott of a bird ready for flight. As he stood gazing at her, after having returned her timid greeting, he regretted in his heart his foolish whim, and wished himself back again on the train. He had an idea that Cynthia in all probability wished him there too, for her manner indicated a vague fear or discomfort as, at her father's invitation, he took his seat at her side, and endeavored to open a conversation. Gideon, he surmised, was apt to do Quixotic things, and was afterward reproved for them by his daughter. In the present instance, however, he concluded that the daughter was right. Considering her ignorance of his antecedents, nay, even of his name, he had to admit that coolness on her part was the only attitude compatible with self-respect. Nevertheless, as a mere experiment, he would try if he could not obliterate the unfavorable impression. They were now driving along a level dusty highway, the old man sitting on the front seat holding the reins. It was about seven o'clock in the afternoon, and the sun was setting gorgeously behind a dense forest of beech and hickory. Enormous fields of ripening wheat stretched like a waving sea toward the horizon on either side, interrupted here and there by green meadow patches and clumps of dark-leafed trees. Every now and then they met a dozen cows driven by a little barelegged boy with a big straw hat, or a yoke of dull-eyed oxen pursuing their homeward way, attended by a lumbering fellow who smoked a corn-cob pipe. For five or ten minutes they drove along in silence. Gideon, although the opportunity was now afforded him to finish his story, had lost his desire to talk, and Cynthia persisted in maintaining her attitude of chilly reserve. Tallcott, in spite of his determination to be amiable, found every remark which suggested itself to his mind forced and absurd, and was utterly unable to select anything appropriate.
"It is a beautiful country about here," he said at last, leaning forward so as to catch the girl's eye.
"It might be better and it might be worse," was the non-committal reply. There was another pause, which would have been oppressive but for the creaking of the wheels and-the responsive chirping of the katydids.
"The wheat seems to be in good condition," Tallcott observed.
"About twenty bushels to the acre, more or less," she answered, with her eyes on the far horizon.
A wide half-grass-grown lane here diverged from the highway, leading up to a large square two-story farm-house, built of red brick. A wildly luxuriant Virginia creeper, enlivened by interspersed trumpet-vines and honeysuckle, held the front piazza in its strong embrace, and sent rank shoots straggling over the walls up to the eaves. The barns and stables, which were also built on a generous scale, had a forlorn and dilapidated look. The front gate hung on one hinge, and the fruit trees in the orchard were overgrown and untrimmed.
"Waal, now, yere we be," said the old man as the horse stopped in the middle of the barn-yard, "and ye kin bet yer hat on it that ye air mighty welcome."
III.
It rained the next day, and Gideon had ample time to finish his story. But it was obvious that he was under restraint when his daughter was by. The daughter for some reason seemed to keep watch on him. It was only during the time which she devoted to her household duties that he felt at liberty to talk, and it was touching to see the eagerness with which he then pounced upon his guest, keeping all the while an anxious eye upon the door, lest he should be caught discoursing concerning the Greek philosophers.
"Cynthy, she don't take no stock in Socrates and his gang," he said, confidentially, just as Cynthia closed the door. "She is powerful smart, Cynthy is, and powerful sot in her ways. But I kin never be a-studyin' Plato when she is hangin' around. She says Plato has been the ruin of this yere farm."
He laughed heartily at the absurdity of this proposition, and Tallcott, for the sake of politeness, made an effort to join him.
"I want ter tell yer something," Gideon went on, seizing his guest by the arm, and leading him up to a small bookcase which hung on the wall—"I want ter tell yer a awful joke I hev hed on Cynthy." He paused, went to the door, and stood for a moment listening. "No, she ain't thar," he said, chuckling, and stealing on tiptoe back to the bookcase. "It is a fust-rate joke, I tell yer. Ye know Mr. Clapp, the preacher, arter he went away, sent me this yere set of books, jest as a token, I reckon, 'cause I hed stood by him when the rest was down on him."
He pointed to a complete set of Professor Jowett's Plato, handsomely bound, which nearly filled the single shelf. "Ye wouldn't never believe it," he continued, with the same naïve delight, "but this is Plato jest as he would be ef he hed talked English like you and me. I reckon I know most of him by heart by this time; but I tell yer I'd give half the farm, and the critters to boot, ef I could hev the fun over again of readin' them books afresh. Ye know Cynthy, she sorter looks arter me, and when she missed one of them books in the bookcase yere, she jest started right fer the field, and tuk it away from me, an' carried it home. Then I kinder speckerlated around, an' I tell yer I was mighty tickled when I hit upon a way ter git around Cynthy."
He glanced again furtively toward the kitchen door; then took down one of the volumes, all the leaves of which were loose, soiled with finger marks, and worn in the middle and along the edges as if they had been carried for a long time in somebody's pocket. "Stidder takin' the hull book, I cut out a leaf or two and tuk it with me inter the field, and when I come ter the end o' the furrer, I jest sot down fur a minute or two on the plough, and read about Socrates an' his gang, an' the fun they used ter hev in them old times loafin' about in them Greek groves, an' talkin' religeon ter each other with no sorter spite, but as peaceful like as ef they was buskin' corn. I tell ye they hed a mighty comfertable time, them old chaps, an' I hev hankered many an' many a time fur a chance ter be with them. Old Socrates, he says, in his defence before the jury, 'Ef death,' says he, 'is a kind er heavy sleep, then I ain't afeard of it, fur I like sleepin' mighty well, and when I think back, it ain't often I hev ben as comfertable as when I hev ben asleep. But,' says he, 'ef I kin count on bein' awake when I am dead, an' ef I kin hev a chance ter talk with old Homer and Hercules and all the other big chaps as hev died, why, then ye kin bet yer life I ain't afeard o' passin' in my chips. Now that, I reckon, is mighty sensible talk, an' a heap o' comfort I hev gotten out o' it, sittin' on the plough and speckerlatin' about the things as is ter be when we hev turned up our toes, and don't no more fret about pennies and victuals and critters and crops."
He sat long lost in thought, staring at the besmirched page, and smiling absently as some particularly delightful reminiscence was recalled to his mind. Tallcott, in the mean while, took down one volume after the other, and found them all in the same condition—filled with loose, soiled leaves. He had somehow conceived a profound respect for the old man. The avidity with which his starved intellect devoured the first wholesome food that had been offered it seemed quite touching. His Socratic meditations behind the plough, and his ingenious ruse to deceive his daughter's vigilance, formed an interesting complication of character which appealed to the young man's fancy. He determined during his brief sojourn to cultivate Gideon, and, if possible, also to entice the tyrannical Cynthia into a more confidential attitude. She, too, had perhaps her story, and, as he dimly divined, a pathetic one. He began to suspect that her non-committal manner was, perhaps, a shield beneath which she hid a heart full of crushed aspirations. Tallcott was, in fact, in an adventurous mood, and after his experience with Gideon was prepared for startling discoveries. After a long Platonic discussion, he had accepted Gideon's invitation to spend a couple of days at the farm, and he could scarcely during that time fail to make some progress in the favor of a young woman whom, for psychological reasons, he was bent upon exploring.
Cynthia had been busy with household tasks during the entire day, and he had only caught occasional glimpses of her—baking, cooking, or scrubbing with tireless energy. It did not occur to him that it was his presence which imposed these duties upon her; that she was straining every nerve to make the house present a decent appearance before a stranger. She did not even sit down with her father and the guest at meals, and avoided meeting the latter's eyes while she set the table. For all that, he had no scruple in following her when, after the last meal at sundown, he saw her walk across the fields toward the woods. The rain had ceased, and the air was soft and warm. Little shreds of mist were hovering along the edges of the forest; the long shadows lost their distinctness and faded; the shallow pools in the highway caught reflections of deep blue sky with white drifting clouds. A damp, warm odor exhaled from the ground and mingled with the whiffs of stronger aroma that came from the blooming elder at the road-side. Deep in some tangled copse the thrush was warbling, and the scarlet-hooded woodpecker flitted from trunk to trunk sounding his plaintive note. Tallcott, I regret to say, observed only in a vague and general way these familiar phenomena. He had to exert himself to overtake Cynthia, who was walking rapidly. She was evidently intent upon something, for she looked neither to the right nor to the left. When she became aware of his presence behind her, she turned abruptly about and gazed at him with surprised resentment.
"I hope you will pardon me," he said, in response to her look, "if I annoy you. But the fact is I have seen so little of country life, and I was anxious to utilize my time, while I stay here, in making explorations."
"Air ye goin' ter stay long?" she asked, with engaging frankness.
"If you wish to give me to understand that I am not welcome, I will leave to-morrow morning," he answered, gently.
The light in her fawn-like eyes softened.
"I did not say ye wasn't welcome," she said, a little bashfully.
"But I still have an impression that you would rather see me go—the sooner the better."
She looked intently at the ground for a moment as if she were pondering; then she glanced up at him suddenly and said,
"Can I trust yer?"
"I think you can."
"Ye won't blab?"
"Do I look like a mischief-maker?"
"I don't know as ye do. But ye air hand in glove with pop; and, as I was a-thinkin', ye might be doin' him good instid o' doin' him harm."
"Do I do your father harm?"
"Oh, now, don't take on so. I reckon ye don't understand. Pop, he sets mighty store by them Greeks, and they have made a heathen of him, and turned him away both from God and man. The neighbors, they think he is cracked, fur he don't never go ter church, and he has said many a time in their hearin' that Socrates knowed a heap more things than Jesus Christ."
She paused once more and gazed at him steadily, as if to judge how her words impressed him. Then she seated herself on a recumbent trunk, while he remained standing in front of her.
"Pop," she went on, "he is a bit foolish at times, and talks silly stuff, but there ain't no harm in him. He is merciful to all critters—excepting himself an' me. He is hard on me, but he don't know it, an' he don't mean ter be. It is jest his way ter be queer, and he can't help it; but it ain't no fun ter be the darter of a queer man, pertiklar when he is a heathen, and when ye can't help keerin' for what the folks say about him."
Her voice broke, and she turned her face away; but he still saw the tears which coursed slowly down over her cheeks. He had a glimpse at last of the tragedy which he had half divined. She suffered because her father's pagan predilections isolated her from the world in which she lived. A deep compassion for her filled his soul. If he could but help her!
"Did it ever occur to you," he said, "that it is not because your father is inferior to his neighbors, but because he is their superior, that they fail to understand him?"
She looked up at him with a quick, incredulous glance. "Ye don't mean that yerself?" she said.
"Indeed I do mean it. Your father, with his tastes and ambitions, could have risen to a high position in the world, if he had had educational advantages in his youth."
"Ye don't say!"
The idea had evidently never occurred to her, and it took her some time to adjust her mind to so novel a point of view.
"He is a mighty pore farmer," she went on, in a tone of remonstrance. "He has two mortgages on the farm, an' he couldn't pay the interest if my brother Paul, as is in a machine shop in Cincinnatter, did not send him half his earnin's, jest to keep him afloat. An' it ain't right fur pop ter do that, makin' the pore boy slave from mornin' till night, an' then eat up his savin's. We air gittin' porer an' porer every year, an' yit pop, he is as cheery an' chipper as if nothin' didn't bother him a bit. He talks about them old Greeks, an' I reckon they was a mighty shiftless lot, fur pop says they loafed most of the time in the woods, an' talked about the soul an' the life ter come. If they was married folks, as I reckon they was, they hadn't no business ter be loafin' in work hours. An' pop loafs jest because Socrates loafed, an' he says them Bible Jews couldn't never hold a candle ter Socrates fur smartness."
The distress in the girl's face, in spite of her uncouth vocabulary, appealed to Tallcott's sympathies. He had a moment ago anticipated a certain pleasure in bringing her to a truer appreciation of her father's character, and in re-establishing cordial relations between them. But he now began to perceive that their trouble lay too deep to be reached by the simple remedies at his disposal.
"Let us take a walk," he said; "I would like to talk more with you."
"I am a-goin' to see Pete Jones, the chicken man," she replied; "an' ef ye'll come along, ye air welcome. I trusted four dozen chickens ter Pete, an' he tuck 'em to Cincinnatter along with his'n, fur to sell. But he hain't paid me up yit, and I ain't goin' ter give him no peace till he does."
"But it is getting late," he objected; "it will be dark before you return."
"I ain't afeard in the dark," she answered, sadly; "it is in the light I am afeard."
IV.
It was after nine o'clock when they returned to the farm; but the moon lighted their homeward way. Down the stately colonnades of beech and hickory and sumach it sent long shimmering shafts of light, which made the intervening gloom look blacker. They walked silently side by side, her face strangely animated, as with some new emotion of mingled pleasure and pain. As they entered the garden they saw through the shutterless window two men, one of whom was seated, while the other was pacing the floor.
"Why, I do declar'," cried the girl, springing up the steps to the piazza, "ef that ain't Paul come back!"
In spite of her vehement impulse she entered the sitting-room sedately, and shook hands with her brother with small show of emotion. Father and son had evidently been engaged in hot discussion, for they looked both flushed and ill at ease. Gideon, however, threw off his constraint readily as Tallcott entered, and seemed delighted to find an excuse for changing the subject of conversation.
"This yere young chap, Paul," he said, "is Mester Tallcott, from New York. He is out of a job jest now, and so I axed him ter stay yere fur a couple o' days."
The young man addressed as Paul shook hands with Tallcott rather frigidly, but made no remark. He was of middle height, strongly built, and had a stern, practical face. In his fierce brown eyes, close-shut mouth, and square jaw there were determination and courage, but none of the finer mobility and pathos which illuminated his father's face. After the insight he had just acquired into the affairs of the family, Tallcott could not doubt but that this severe-looking payer of mortgages would view him with the eyes of hostile criticism, and he resolved, in order to save his host from unpleasantness, to betake himself away before another day had passed. Cynthia, apparently, was also apprehensive of some demonstration on her brother's part, for she gazed at him with undisguised anxiety, until he seemed to divine her meaning.
"What is your line of business, Mr. Tallcott?" he asked, a little gruffly. "If you will tell me, perhaps I might find a job for you."
"I am a college graduate," Tallcott answered, flushing to his ears. To be patronized by a young man in a machine shop was a little more than he could endure.
"A college man," echoed the young Tarbox. "That is a mighty poor business, to my thinking. If you had been in the iron business, now, I might have helped you."
"Paul, is a mighty forternate 'coon," observed his father, admiringly. "He's scarce turned five-and-twenty, an' now he's got a foreman's place in a big machine shop in New York. He will be a-makin' a smart lot o' money thar, you jest bet yer boots on that; fur Paul ain't the kind er chap ter be a-layin' off on account er laziness or drunks or disserpation."
The latter half of this eulogy was addressed to Tallcott, but uttered chiefly with a view to its conciliatory effect upon its subject. The old man, however, before he had finished, became faintly aware of its awkwardness, and the nervous manner in which he moved his head and his hands while he spoke nearly brought tears to Tallcott's eyes, it seemed so indescribably pathetic.
"I reckon Paul has been a-workin' hard fur his luck, though," Cynthia threw in, rather irrelevantly.
"Harder nor you ever worked since the day you was born, pop," Paul asseverated, with emphasis.
"Waal, waal, Paul, it ain't fur me ter conterdict ye," retorted the old man, humbly, "though I hain't been as back'ard as ye think, now. I hev done some powerful hard work in my day, afore ye was born, Paul, and Cynthy too."
"It must have been afore I was born," rejoined Paul, facetiously, "for you hain't done much to brag of since."
Cynthia, not because she pitied her father, but out of regard for the visitor, sent her brother another imploring look, and he got up nervously, and beckoning to her, left the room. The girl, though appearing not to notice the gesture, found in another minute an excuse for going to the kitchen. Old Gideon, as soon as he had convinced himself that the door was closed, heaved a sigh of relief, and went straight to his bookcase.
"Them is powerful smart childer I hev got," he remarked, casually, and without a shadow of bitterness; "powerful smart—powerful smart," he repeated, half absently, while he seated himself near the lamp and turned the soiled leaves of his Plato.
Tallcott, who had discovered a forgotten cigar in his breast pocket, vouchsafed no reply, and the old man probably did not expect any. He pulled out, with much deliberation, a pair of big brass-rimmed spectacles, adjusted them carefully upon his nose, and was soon deeply absorbed in the conversations of Socrates.
"Look a-yere," he said, after a while, glancing up with his fine, absent-minded smile; "I don't want ter be hard on the old feller, but I reckon he warn't no jedge of horseflesh. This yere story about the gadfly as stimmerlated the horse, that won't hold water; for the fly is a pesterin', bothersome customer, and she don't never stimmerlate the horse worth a cent, as Socrates says; but she makes him stand still in the furrer, and whisk his tail, and kick up under his belly."
"That was exactly what the city of Athens did, to which he compares the horse," said Tallcott, blowing a ring of smoke toward the ceiling; "and Socrates, the inconvenient gadfly, was kicked into eternity."
"So he was, poor critter—so he was," responded the old man, gravely; "but he was a thunderin' smart-spoken chap, now—a thunderin' smart-spoken chap, that's what he was," he repeated, thrusting his chin forward as if he was determined to stand up for Socrates, whatever his detractors might say.
He was just preparing to enter upon a more extended discussion, when the kitchen door was opened, and the son and daughter entered. Gideon, who was unprepared for this interruption, crammed the leaves he was holding in his hand into his trousers' pockets; but the binding, with its detached contents, fell on the floor, and the other loose leaves flew in all directions. He stood, with a half-sheepish, embarrassed smile, leaning upon the table, but made no effort to gather up his scattered treasures. Then Cynthia, who was the first to take in the situation, stooped to pick up a leaf, and walked rapidly up to the lamp. Another quick movement brought her to the bookcase, where she examined each of the remaining volumes.
"Father," she said, with a calm but menacing face, "ye hev been deceivin' me."
"Waal, Cynthy," her father answered, contritely, "I reckon I hain't been quite on the squar' with ye."
"Ye tuk them leaves afield with yer," she continued, holding up the proof of his guilt against the light.
"Ye hev got me now, Cynthy."
"And ye," Cynthia proceeded, turning reproachfully to Tallcott, "didn't ye promise ter help me? An' now ye air encouragin' him in his heathendom and wickedness."
Tallcott, thus taken by surprise, rose to justify himself, but before he could formulate his excuse, Paul took a stride forward and faced his father.
"Pop," he said, in a voice that was ominously low and quiet, "I want ye to hand me them books."
He stretched out his hand, as if he expected a willing surrender. The old man stood staring helplessly at him, as if he did not comprehend.
"I want them books," repeated the son, more sharply, "and if ye don't give 'em to me, I'll take 'em myself, and ye shan't never see 'em again."
He spoke with his teeth set, and with a face full of dogged determination, which contrasted strangely with the anxious, imploring look of the father. Receiving no reply, he picked up the dilapidated volume on the table, glanced at it contemptuously, and flung it on the floor. The old man, with patient humility, stooped and gathered together the dispersed contents. It was a laborious process, and in his anxiety not to lose one precious fragment, he took no heed of the threat of his son. Page was carefully added to page, the numbers were scrutinized, the creases smoothed out; when at last he arose and straightened his aching back, he found himself alone in the room with Tallcott.
"Whar is them childer—" he began, with a tremulous effort to appear unconcerned; but in the same instant Paul's threat flashed through his brain; he tottered with uplifted hands toward the empty bookcase. With a groan he fell upon the floor, carrying the bookcase with him. Tallcott rushed forward and knelt at his side.
"You should not take it so to heart," he said, feeling the feebleness of his words as he uttered them.
"Oh, it is them childer of mine," moaned the old man. "I hain't never done 'em no harm."
The noise of the fall had brought Paul and Cynthia back, and at the sound of their footsteps the father ceased his complaint.
"Get up wi' ye, pop," the son commanded; "I've got some business with ye, and I have got no time fur foolin'."
Gideon picked himself up obediently, and leaning on Tallcott's arm, shuffled toward the table. The latter, thinking that his presence might be embarrassing, walked toward the door.
"Hold on, I want ye fur a witness," Paul called after him. "Ye have heard so much now, ye had better hear the rest."
"Very well," Tallcott replied, returning to his former seat; "I am at your service."
"I have taken them books away from pop," Paul began, in a tone as if he were addressing a jury, "because they ain't doin' him no good. They air makin' him shiftless and tricky, and he lets the farm go to rack and ruin. If he will look after things like a decent man and bother no more about them pesky heathen, I'll pay off the eight hundred dollar mortgage inside of a year, and t'other of eleven hundred I reckon he can carry fur a couple of years more, if he'll go into the farmin' business again, and give up heathen philosopherin'."
He paused, as if greatly satisfied with himself, when he had finished this speech; and Gideon nodded his head dejectedly at every impressive point, as if to intimate that there was no gainsaying such logic.
"Now I want Mr. Tallcott to draw up a paper," Paul went on, in the same aggressive voice, "an' I am a-goin' to tell him what to write."
Tallcott signified his willingness, and Cynthia, after a prolonged search, brought pen, ink, and paper.
"I, the said Gideon Tarbox," Paul dictated, with a much wrinkled forehead, "do hereby promise—"
"But," Tallcott objected, "he has not been mentioned before."
"Write as I tell you," rejoined the other, peremptorily. "I guess I know what I want to say."
"All right! 'The said Gideon Tarbox—'"
"The said Gideon Tarbox, of the State of Indiana, and the county of ——, do hereby promise that I will swear off all heathendom and philosopherin', and particular the readin' in the furrer of the plough of the books of the aforesaid Plato, so help me God! and be up smart and early in the mornin' to attend to the folks, an' to sell chickens an' vegetables in town, and not to be cheated by nobody in buyin' an' in sellin' things off of the farm. In return for which my aforesaid son, Paul H. Tarbox, do promise to pay off the eight hundred dollar mortgage on the aforesaid farm within one year."
The signatures of the two contracting parties were attached to this curious document, and Tallcott and Cynthia added theirs as witnesses.
All were silent and depressed during the remainder of the evening. Tallcott smoked, Paul paced the floor, and Cynthia betook herself to the kitchen. Gideon sat at the window casting shy and yearning glances at the remaining volume of Plato, which yet lay on the table, and which he hoped was not included in the abjuration. His hopes were, however, rudely shattered when, at the stroke of nine, Paul picked up the book and joined his sister in the kitchen. A few minutes later a strong smell of burning paper spread through the house. Gideon started up with a look of alarm, sniffed the air, and rushed across the floor toward the kitchen. He fumbled a moment for the latch, then tore the door open. A great roaring flame leaped up the chimney, filling both rooms with its ruddy glow. The old man flung up his arms and tumbled backward; he reeled across the floor, sank into a chair, buried his face in his hands, and wept.
V.
Paul, clean-shaven, cool, and decisive, confronted Tallcott the next morning as he stood on his knees packing his grip-sack. "If I get ye the district school," he said, with his usual contempt of preliminaries, "would ye care to stay?"
Tallcott was dumfounded. He had counted Paul among his enemies. "I scarcely know," he began, being inclined to resentment rather than to gratitude.
"Then tell me as soon as ye do know," said Paul, turning his back and staring out of the window.
Tallcott's eyes strayed about the room, and caught a glimpse of yellow hair in the crack of the kitchen door. The latch clicked abruptly, and the yellow hair vanished. Why that evidence of feminine curiosity accelerated his heart-beat he was at a loss to know. Nevertheless a vague agitation filled him, which was half apprehension, half expectant elation. Just as at their first meeting at the station, he now had a dim sense that she was in some way intertangled with his fate, and he was drawn to her by a strange kinship which he was unable to define. "I shall be much obliged," he said, addressing Paul's back, and smothering his ill will. "I am not in a position to reject a friendly offer."
"All right," answered Paul, snatching his hat from the table. "I shall be back by noon."
Cynthia remained invisible for the rest of the morning; while Gideon fussed and fumed and rummaged about in barns and stables, making a great show of activity. He had resigned himself to his fate apparently, and was brimming over with good resolutions.
"Them childer of mine," he said to Tallcott, who found him currying an ancient nag with a toothless and battered curry-comb—"them childer of mine is mighty smart, now; mighty enterprisin'. Ye won't think I am riled, will ye? Law, I ain't riled a bit. I am a rickety old chap, I don't mind tellin' ye that. I am like Socrates' nag, as needed the flies to bite him afore he would stir his creaky old j'ints. Mind ye. I don't say as no horse needs them kind o' flies: but I reckon I do; and Paul and Cynthy, they air good enough gadflies for me."
He came out from the stall, and seating himself on an inverted barrel, began a long and vivid discourse on the improvements he meant to make on the farm; with a truly Socratic delight in the mere process of thought and speech, he evolved a brilliant vision of future prosperity. At the stroke of noon, when he heard his son's voice in the yard, he hurried back into the stall, and resumed his aimless scratching of the horse with the decrepit curry-comb. Presently the dinner-bell rang. He gave a hitch to his trousers, where the suspender had once been attached, rubbed his stubbly chin, with a sort of bewildered thoughtfulness, and started in the direction of the kitchen door. Tallcott took the same course, and met Cynthia on the threshold as he was about to enter.
"Paul, he 'lowed as ye hev got it," she said, timidly, and without looking at him.
"Got what?" he queried, with sudden interest.
"The district school."
She tried to get past him, but he seized her gently by the arm. With a look of shy appeal she gazed up into his face, and her cheeks were deluged with color.
"You shall not get away from me," he cried, jocosely, "until you have answered my questions. How much is the salary?"
"Six hundred and fifty."
"And your brother went about and saw the trustees; that was very kind of him. By-the-way, what has become of him? I should like to thank him."
"He is gone to New York."
"To New York! I heard his voice here five minutes ago."
"Yes. He ran acrost a man with a wagon as gave him a lift to the station."
It was a vast relief to him to know that he should escape thanking Paul; as, in all probability, it was a relief to Paul to escape being thanked. There was, after all, a God in Israel, he reasoned, as he sat down to dinner, and made up for the loss of appetite which Paul's oppressive presence had occasioned.
In the afternoon Deacon Todd, one of the school trustees, called, and offered Tallcott board in his family at a mere nominal price. The offer was in every way favorable, and Tallcott had no hesitation in accepting it. It was not until he had completed his arrangements that he noted a troubled look in Cynthia's eyes, as if she would have liked to say something, if she had only known how to say it. Her father, too, opened his mouth repeatedly, with a helpless expression, but shut it again without speaking. At last, when the deacon had his hand on the door-knob, he arose, with an uncertain smile, took a few aimless steps around the table, and ejaculated, cheerily: "I reckon as Cynthy don't want yer ter take the young chap away, deacon. Young chaps ain't plenty around this hyar farm—"
He was about to continue, when the daughter started forward, with blazing cheeks, and grabbed him by the arm. "Oh, pop!" she cried, as if overwhelmed with shame, "ye'll be the death o' me."
The old man looked at her in pathetic bewilderment. "No, darter—no," he muttered, meekly. "I wouldn't harm ye for the world; and didn't ye say, now—"
"No, no, no, I didn't say it," she protested, passionately. "I didn't say nothin'."
"Waal, darter, ye know best," he assented, feebly, dropping his arms at his sides, as if giving up all further attempt at comprehending. Cynthia, who still clung to his arm, was evidently afraid to leave him alone for fear of his making more compromising revelations. Therefore, as soon as Tallcott withdrew his gaze, she dragged him to the door, and pushed him out into the kitchen.
"I reckon ye know, both of ye," she said, turning to the two men, "that my father hain't got good sense. He don't mean no harm," she added, in a voice through which the tears trembled; "but—but—he hain't got good sense."
Her intention had been to impeach his veracity, but she could not bring herself to do this; and she finished by repeating her first charge. Tallcott, who heartily regretted his agreement with the deacon, would have liked to comfort her; but after the old man's blunder, what could he say that would not be wounding in its inferences? That Cynthia had wished him to remain was clear to him; hut whether for economic or sentimental reasons he was unable to decide. He had even a suspicion that Paul's sudden zeal for his welfare was clue to a conference with her. With so many surmises staring him in the face, however, he could not behave toward her with his former naturalness; the situation had become too complex for his inexperience. And, as he was unwilling to forfeit her good opinion, he made haste to retreat with the deacon.
VI.
Except in Presidential elections, startling things rarely occur in Indiana. But news is sometimes received there of startling things that occur outside the Hoosier sphere. Thus it came to pass that Kate Remington sent an epistle (not a tender one, for Kate was not addicted to tenderness) to her lover in the West, informing him that she had made the acquaintance of "a young engineer" named Paul Tarbox. And the delightful part of it was that she had made his acquaintance in such a perfectly unconventional manner. He had ejected a man who had shown her some disrespect from a street car; had actually hustled him out as if he were a bag of straw, and projected him headlong into the gutter. It was so coolly and admirably done that Kate could not help complimenting him. Alfred knew she had always had a taste for the heroic. And Mr. Tarbox was the only man she had known who could do a brave thing silently, and with no more ado than if he were pulling off his boots. Swift and decisive action was the one thing which she positively adored, etc., etc. At this point Tallcott tore the letter into a hundred bits, and sent the fragments fluttering, like a flock of butterflies, out over the deacon's garden. He would have liked to recall them in the next moment from the winds that had them in their keeping. It would have been interesting to know just how far the acquaintance had progressed. One little strip of paper—evidently the last lines upon a page—had attached itself to the window-sill. He caught it eagerly, and read: "to be wooed overmasteringly, fearlessly, rapaciously, as if I myself had nothing to do with it. I should—" It was tantalizing. It could scarcely be possible that they had arrived at that point yet. But the fact that Kate was speculating on such scandalous possibilities was in itself suspicious. He seized his hat, under the impression that he was unhappy, and strode away over the fields, in the belief that exercise was good for unhappiness. He would have liked to despair in some picturesque manner, but his inventiveness was limited, and no effective method suggested itself. A mild form of misery, resulting rather from wounded vanity than a broken heart, took possession of him. To think that he, with his classics and his correct behavior, could be in danger of rivalry from a man who wore top-boots, and probably made love with complete disregard of grammar! He pitied himself in one moment, and laughed at himself in the next. It struck him as a brilliant thought, psychologically speaking, that he, with his failures and fastidious indecision, had whetted Kate's appetite for his antithesis—a man of crude energy and top-boots.
There was a splendid and venerable beech wood, intersprinkled with sumach and hickory, which intercepted the view between the Tarbox farm and that of the deacon. It was full of mysterious hollows and primeval stillness. Even the blue-jays—shrill pirates as they are—behaved decorously in the gloom which hovered among the dense leaves, and the squirrels robbed birds' nests with a sense of secrecy and pricks of conscience. It was hither the new-fangled school-master made his way, ruminating over the fragments of Kate's letter. He slackened his speed and fell into an aimless saunter as soon as he felt the privacy of the woods about him. His progress was unexpectedly interrupted by a huge beech trunk, which lay like a fallen giant stretching appealing arms against the sky. He looked up, and to his surprise saw Cynthia. She was seated among the prostrate branches, with her feet drawn up and her hands meditatively clasped about her knees. Her head was bent backward, and she was staring vacantly into the air. The moss had muffled the sound of his approach, but now a crackling twig betrayed him. She glanced up with a wild surprise, leaped to the ground, and broke vehemently through the interlacing branches.
"Hold on there," cried Tallcott, gayly. "You are not afraid of me?"
She paused irresolutely, and gave him a shy look over her shoulder. There was something sweet and sylvan in the attitude which appealed to him. Her blazing cheeks (which seemed a tribute to his masculine importance) made him feel kindly, almost tenderly, to her. She reminded him of mythological nymphs that fled before the ardently pursuing god and transformed themselves into botanical specimens.
"Why do you run away from me, Miss Cynthia?" he queried, reproachfully, seizing her hand, and urging her back to her seat upon the fallen trunk. "You are certainly not afraid of me?"
"Yes," she whispered, with averted face. "I am afeard of ye."
"Now I wish you would tell me," he said, with sudden earnestness, "what is there about me that is so formidable?"
"Yer ways is not my ways," she replied, still gazing resolutely at the ground. "I don't feel right ter be talkin' with yer now," she added, rising with embarrassment.
"It was that unhappy remark of your father's," he urged, laying his hand upon her arm, and gazing at her with grave friendliness; "but I assure you it had no effect whatever upon me. You know I am a very lonely mortal, Cynthia, and I should be quite miserable without you. Therefore you must keep company with me. You must promise me not to run away from me any more."
A vague tenderness for her filled his heart. All the straggling tendrils of his being yearned to reattach themselves, and they curled tentatively about her, and began to feel at home. Kate's letter had made havoc in his soul; but here were peace and consolation.
Cynthia was in no haste to answer. Her blood rioted in her veins, and surged in her temples with tumultuous beating. To her his empty words meant more than they were intended to mean, and when she turned her face to him it shone with a soft exultation.
"Ye want ter keep company with me," she said, while all tinges of red chased each other across her cheeks; "an' air ye sure ye bean't a-makin' game of me?"
The radiance of her face took him by surprise. It almost touched him. The innocence of her reply (the full import of which he by no means understood) appealed to him, and he could scarcely refrain from throwing his arms about her and offering her his hand and his heart. That the phrase "to keep company" in rural parlance is equivalent to such an offer he did not for a moment suspect.
It was dusk when they parted. As he looked back he saw her skip along the wood path as if dancing to some airy melody. Remembering her old weary tread, he grew thoughtful, and a burden of responsibility began to weigh upon him. For all that, he met her again the next day and the next. She was always at the fallen beech before him. She panted with pleasure at the sight of him. By some marvellous process she bloomed out into sweetness and beauty and peace with the world. She grew lightsome, with a hushed kind of gayety; then, in sudden fits of consciousness, blushed at her own caprices. These strange lapses into seriousness puzzled him at first, but before long they began to make him uneasy. What had wrought the transformation in her? There is but one god who finds pastime in miracles of this sort; and he, though he is small, is dangerous.
VII.
A year had passed, and the autumn was already far advanced. The maples had donned their scarlet robes, while the sumachs preferred purple. Tallcott had made some pleasant and some unpleasant experiences in his capacity as instructor; but had, on the whole, found the occupation more congenial than he had expected. He was such a thoroughly average mortal, and with such kindly impulses, that it would have been strange if he had not given satisfaction. He was fairly well endowed, fairly moral, and fairly good-looking; and he had, moreover, that plodding kind of industry which within modest limits achieves sure results. Kate had long ceased to write to him, and he had ceased to write to Kate. They had drifted so far apart that not even the post could establish connection between them, for the mails, as is well known, do not extend to the arctic regions. In the mean while time was running its rapid course, and Tallcott was afforded unlimited opportunities for seeing another young lady. Without express vows or declarations he had assumed the attitude of a lover to Cynthia; and it seemed a pleasant thing to both of them to be sailing thus thoughtlessly along with favoring winds and stars. They felt that people were talking about them, though they never heard what was said. They suspected that perhaps Gideon had heard something, for he hushed whenever Cynthia spoke to him, and seemed ill at ease even in Tallcott's presence. One day, when he surprised them in a tender attitude, he grew so embarrassed that they could not help feeling sorry for him.
"Don't yer mind me, folks," he said, with anxious and conciliatory cordiality; "I ain't no 'count, noways."
And off he shuffled, murmuring apologies for his inopportune appearance. His daughter had, indeed, had a quickening of conscience of late, and, as life began to wear a pleasanter complexion to her, she had begun to appreciate his loneliness, and to make efforts to approach him. But, strange to say, he seemed to be more afraid of her than ever. Often he started out early in the morning with a team of plough horses and some agricultural implement, and remained away until late in the afternoon. But it was not observable that the fields showed any effects from his activity, nor did the horses show signs of weariness or hunger. If Cynthia had been less passively happy, or so actively economical as formerly, she could not have failed to take note of these phenomena. But she had achieved that blissful state when agriculture, small change, or ruin seem to be of no consequence. She might have continued to drift on in lethargic bliss to this intoxicating music if a letter had not arrived from Paul, which roused her like a bugle call. Paul had patented an invention, it appeared—some ingenious mechanical contrivance—which would bring him an income of from $20,000 to $30,000 a year. As a logical sequence to this he was going to be married: and as he did not wish to have any false pretences about this affair, he meant to take his wife home, and show her exactly "what he was, who he was, and where he started from." Paul omitted to mention the name of the young lady to whom he was engaged, and the only description he vouchsafed of her was that "she was as bright as a dollar." Scarcely had Cynthia adjusted herself to this startling announcement when a telegram arrived saying that Paul was married, and would arrive with his wife on the noon train. Paul's actions always came like cannon-shots—abrupt and unprepared. They made you jump even though you knew they were coming. His sister, though she was not a woman of weak nerves, trembled as she contemplated the unavoidable meeting with Paul's wife. She turned to Tallcott as her natural refuge, and begged him to accompany her to the station. It was a Saturday, and Tallcott had no excuse for refusing. He had grown callous to criticism of late, and faced the publicity of his engagement with unprotesting quiescence. As they drove up to the station in the old wagon, people included both in their greetings, as if they naturally belonged together; and while they stood waiting for the train, Cynthia kept in the background, and subordinated herself as if she had been a wife of many years' standing. Presently the train came thundering along with smoke and deafening tumult, and Tallcott, after having shaken hands with Paul in a confused sort of way, found himself confronted with a young lady, who lifted her veil and revealed the face of—Kate Remington. She was delightfully trim, stylish, and unembarrassed. She was radiant, in a well-bred and undemonstrative way, with contentment and prosperity.
"How do you do, Mr. Tallcott," she said. "This is my—oh, I forgot, you know my husband. By-the-way, Paul"—here she turned her charming head and put her hand on her husband's arm—"do you know Mr. Tallcott and I were once as good as engaged? It was in the days when my purse and my pinafores were both getting too short for me. You know Mr. Tallcott aspired for the Presidency of the United States before he discovered his genius for school-teaching. That accounts for my infatuation."
She spoke with a laughing ease which made it impossible to take offence. There was a sort of sovereign, metropolitan air about her which reduced every one to smiling subjection. Even Paul smiled laboriously and stroked his rebellious hair, which looked as if it had recently been disciplined. He appeared supremely satisfied, self-contained, and a trifle challenging.
Cynthia, from the moment she had put her eyes on her sister-in-law, had felt so completely effaced that she forgot that anything was expected of her. She seemed lost in a crowd, and if it had trampled her down, she would scarcely have thought of protesting. It was Paul who first espied her and catching her by the hand, drew her toward his wife. "This is my sister, Kate," he said; "she is a good girl, and I hope you will be friends."
Kate imprinted a frigid kiss upon Cynthia's cheek, but had the good taste to respect her reserve and make no hypocritical show of feeling. As they stood there, face to face, Kate, with her brilliant, sagacious stare, regarding the shy and unpretentious Cynthia, a sneaking cowardice threatened for one moment to invade Tallcott's heart; but he quickly recovered himself. He felt as if the cold glare of the world's enlightened criticism had been poured upon the defenceless head of this shrinking woodland creature, and with all the chivalry of his soul he rushed to her rescue. With her sweet clinging affection and her true unspoiled heart, how infinitely higher she stood in the scale of being than this coldly ambitious coquette, who speculated in the holiest relations as she would in railroad shares! Even the quaint practical sense and the pathetic little economies which played so large a part in Cynthia's life endeared her in this moment to him. With an impulsive movement he pulled her hand away from Paul's grasp, and folded it caressingly about his arm.
"In spite of your efforts to escape from me, Mrs. Tarbox," he said, with easy unconcern, "we seem doomed to remain in relationship, for Cynthia here slipped into my heart by the same door which you forgot to close when you departed."
"It was a pity I didn't think to close it," Kate responded, lightly; "it would have been so romantic to have your heart kept, as they keep the chambers where queens die, undisturbed after the royal presence."
Cynthia listened with a sense of bewildered vacuity, in which the touch of Tallcott's hand seemed the only thing secure and tangible. She did not comprehend Kate's jeu d'esprit, simply because Kate herself was so absorbing that it seemed of small consequence what she said. She was exultantly aware that Tallcott acknowledged her, and though she had never feared that he would not, the sight of Kate's magnificence had suddenly suggested the awful possibility. She took her place at his side on the back seat of the wagon, while Kate, putting a, miraculous boot on the hub of the wheel, swung herself, with Paul's aid, into the front seat.
"How is the old man, Cynthy?" asked Paul, seizing the reins, and whipping up the drooping big-bellied horse.
"I reckon he's afield," Cynthia answered. "He was tremenjious cut up about them heathen books," she added, after a pause; "an' he's aworkin' harder nor he ever worked afore."
"Poor old chap!" exclaimed Paul, with a pleased glance at his wife. "Kate here, she has taken a great fancy to pop—to father, I mean—from what I have told her, and she thinks we was too hard on him, Cynthy."
"I think he is simply delightful," ejaculated Kate, shifting the angle of her parasol. "I am going to make a great pet of him while I am here, just to make up for Paul's and your maltreatment."
"You'll scare him, Kate," said her husband, chuckling at the idea. "He won't know what to make of you."
If Kate had not been too busy keeping watch over Paul's grammar, and nudging him whenever he lapsed from propriety, she would have parried this insinuation with her wonted spirit. But it frequently happened that the sense of his remarks escaped her, because she was too intent upon their sound. "I have prepared a surprise for the old gentleman," she remarked, presently. "I have made Paul buy him a new set of the books which he so wantonly destroyed. I did it half to discipline Paul, because he just prided himself on that piece of gratuitous cruelty. You know you are very headstrong, sir," she added, shaking her parasol in playful threat; "and it is time now that you should recognize your master."
Cynthia gazed with undisguised surprise at this little comedy, while Tallcott was silently congratulating himself on his transfer of allegiance. Paul, however, who saw nothing ominous in it, laughed as he would at the pranks of a kitten. He was satisfied that he had secured the most expensive article in the matrimonial market, and his experience taught him that expense and excellence were usually synonymous.
"I reckon I am rich enough now," he said, answering the question in his sister's eyes, "to afford a father who is a little bit loony. I have paid off the mortgages, and I mean to make a settlement on the old chap for life."
Kate's capricious regard for Gideon had, somehow, made him appear to all a dignified and interesting person; and by common consent they drove on past the house toward the field where they expected to find him. Paul, with an anticipation of pleasure which did honor to the suppressed side of his nature, hauled three bulky volumes from the depth of his valise, tied his horse to the fence, and stood for a moment breathing luxuriously the mellow autumn air. The landscape round about was wrapped in sunlit smoke, and the trees lifted toward the skies their naked arms, to which brilliant bits of drapery were still clinging. They gazed about them in all directions, and saw only a dozen irregular furrows in a field of stubble and overgrown weeds. Presently a team of horses were seen peacefully grazing at the edge of the woods, dragging the traces and a half-detached whiffletree behind them.
"I reckon the old man is takin' a snooze," said Paul, with visible disgust at the evidences of neglect about him.
"You mean a siesta?" suggested Kate.
"Very likely," he responded, with honey-moon affability.
"'The thane of Fife had a wife,'" said Kate, dramatically, "who is determined to keep him up to his good resolutions."
"I won't make a fool of myself, Kate," her husband replied, seating himself doggedly on a log of wood; "the old man is no good."
"The old man is much good," Kate persisted; "and he shall have his books."
"Then let Cynthia give them to him; I won't."
He arose, handed the books to Cynthia, and seizing his wife's arm, strolled back toward the house. Tallcott heard them talk with an animation which in the honey-moon seemed a trifle ominous. He heard Kate's shrill, high-keyed voice cut the mellow air like some sharp instrument; but it grew fainter and fainter, until it was lost in the distance. His eyes strayed to Cynthia, who stood leaning against a tree, gazing at him with a face full of hope and unreflecting contentment. A strange peace, a gentle, hopeful assurance of happiness, wrapped his soul and enfolded him like a soft and radiant garment.
"Cynthia," he said, clasping her hand, and drawing her close up to him, "let us go and find your father."
It was wondrously still in the forest. Not a leaf stirred; no acorn fell. The misty silence of the Indian summer filled the earth and the sky. Among the branches of the fallen beech which had witnessed their first happiness they found Gideon sitting. He held a book in his hand, and with his fine absent-minded smile, indicative of much enjoyment, was reading half aloud to himself. They were within a few feet of him before he noticed their approach. With a confused exclamation, he started forward, dropped the book furtively, and strove to disguise the fright which possessed him.
"I was jest a-takin' a stroll, Cynthy," he said, with an air of pitiful bewilderment, and glancing anxiously at the book under his foot; "the hosses, they was badly used up, an' I was jest a-takin' a stroll."
Cynthia made no answer, but walked up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. He was so startled that he tumbled back into his seat among the branches.
"Pop," she cried, kneeling down, a tremulous repentance welling up in her tones, "I hain't been good ter ye, pop. But I won't worry ye no more; I won't be bad ter ye no more."
She hid her face upon his knee and sobbed. He touched her hair, where the golden light shimmered, warily, as if he was afraid to hurt it. Catching sight of the books, which she had flung upon the ground, he could no longer suppress his emotion. He turned hastily and brushed away a tear.
"I hain't been on the squar' with ye, darter," he said, huskily; "I hain't been on the squar'."
"An' I hain't done right ter ye, pop," she murmured, with gentle humility; "but we'll be quits, pop, ef you will."
She blushed with sweet confusion, and held out her hand to Tallcott, who seized it fervidly. The old man, open-mouthed and in unutterable amazement, gazed from the one to the other. He made two or three attempts to speak, but every time his voice failed him.
"Waal, I do declar',' he cried, as the explanation at last dawned upon him, "ef that don't fetch me. I am a-shaken all ter pieces."
He stood resting his hands on his knees, and stared at them in happy bewilderment. "I tell ye, Cynthy," he exclaimed, suddenly, picking up the volume he had hidden, and showing the title, "it was he brung the young chap here. It was Plato done it."
"Yes," answered Tallcott, smiling; "it is a Platonic affair."
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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