A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties Part 11

Tom thought the scene very funny and laughed boisterously. Had Tom been scolded, Rita would have wept.

"Go it, mother," said Tom. "This is better than a jury trial."

"Oh, Tom, be still, son!" said Mrs. Bays, and then turning to Rita: "Now you've got to tell me what happened at Scott's social. Out with it!"

Rita and Dic were sitting near each other on the edge of the porch. Mr.

Bays and Tom occupied rocking-chairs, and Billy Little was standing on the ground, hat in hand.

"Tell me this instant," cried Mrs. Bays, rising from her chair and going over to the girl, who shrank from her in fear. "Tell me, or I'll--I'll--"

"I can't, mother," the girl answered tremblingly. "I can't tell you before all these--these folks. I'll tell you in the house."

"You went into the kissing game. That's what you did," cried Mrs. Bays, "and your punishment shall be to confess it before Mr. Little." Rita began to weep, and answered gently:--

"Yes, mother, I did, but I did not--did not--" A just and injured wrath gathered on the face of Justice.

"Didn't I command you not?"

"I'll tell you all about it, Mrs. Bays," interrupted Dic. "I coaxed her to go in." (Rita's heart thanked him for the lie.) "The others all insisted. One of the boys dragged her to the centre of the room and she just had to go into the game. She only remained a short time, and what Tom referred to is this: she would not allow any one to--to kiss her, and she quit the game when she--she refused me."

"She quit the game when it quit, I 'low. Isn't that right?" asked the inquisitor.

"The game stopped when she went out--"

"I thought as much," replied Mrs. Bays, straightening up for the purpose of delivering judgment. "Now go to bed at once, you disobedient, indecent girl! I'm ashamed of you, and blush that Mr. Little should know your wickedness."

"Oh, please let me stay," sobbed Rita, but Mrs. Bays pointed to the door and Rita rose, gave one glance to Dic, and went weeping to her room. Mr.

Bays said mildly:--

"Margarita, you should not have been so hard on the girl."

"Now, Tom Bays," responded the strenuous spouse, "I'll thank you not to meddle with my children. I know my duty, and I'll do it. Lord knows I wish I could s.h.i.+rk it as some people do, but I can't. I must do my duty when the Lord is good enough to point it out, or my conscience will smite me. There's many a person with my heart would sit by and let her child just grow up in the wilderness like underbrush; but I _must_ do my duty, Mr. Little, in the humble sphere in which Providence has placed me. Give every man his just dues, and do my duty. That's all I know, Mr.

Little. 'Justice to all and punishment for sinners;' that's my motto and my husband will tell you I live up to it." She looked for confirmation to her spouse, who said regretfully:--

"Yes, I must say that's true."

"There," cried triumphant Justice. "You see, I don't boast. I despise boasting." She took up her knitting, put on her gla.s.ses, closed her lips, and thus announced that court was also closed.

Poor Rita, meantime, was sobbing, upstairs at her window.

After a long, awkward silence, Billy Little addressed Dic. "I came up to spend the night with you, and if you are going home, I'll walk and lead my horse. I suppose you walked down?"

"Yes," answered Dic; "I'll go with you."

"I'm sorry to carry off your company, Mrs. Bays," said Billy, "but I want to--"

"Oh, Dic's no company; he's always here. I don't know where he finds time to work. I'd think he'd go to see the girls sometimes."

"Rita's a girl, isn't she?" asked Billy, glancing toward Dic.

"Rita's only a child, and a disobedient one at that," replied Mrs. Bays, but Billy's words put a new thought into her head that was almost sure to cause trouble for Rita.

When Billy and Dic went around the house to fetch Billy's horse, Rita was sitting at the window upstairs. She smiled through her tears and tossed a note to Dic, which he deciphered by the light of the moon. It was brief, "Please meet me to-morrow at the step-off--three o'clock."

The step-off was a deep hole in the river halfway between Bays's and Bright's.

Dic and Billy walked up the river path a little time in silence. Billy was first to speak.

"I consider," said he, "that profane swearing is vulgar, but I must say d.a.m.n that woman. What an inquisitor she would make. I hope Kennedy is right about her heart. Think of her as your mother-in-law!"

"When Rita is my wife," replied Dic, "I'll protect her, if I have to--to--"

"What will you do, Dic?" asked Billy. "Such a woman is utterly unmanageable. You see, the trouble is, that she believes in herself and is honest by a species of artificial sincerity. Show me a stern, hard woman who is bent on doing her duty, her whole duty, and nothing but her duty, and I'll show you a misery breeder. Did you give Rita the ring?"

"I haven't had the chance," answered Dic. "I'll do it to-morrow. Billy Little, I want to thank you--you must let me tell you what I think, or I'll burst."

"Burst, then," returned Billy. "I'd rather be kicked than thanked. I knew how Rita and you would feel, or I should not have given you the ring. Do you suppose I would have parted with it because of a small motive? Have you told the Chief Justice?"

"No; she will learn when she sees the ring on Rita's finger."

Silence then ensued, which was broken after a few minutes by Billy Little humming under his breath, "Maxwelton's braes are bonny." Dic soon joined in the sweet refrain, and, each encouraging the other, they swelled their voices and allowed the tender melody to pour forth. I can almost see them as they walked up the river path, now in the black shadow of the forest, and again near the gurgling water's edge, in the yellow light of the moon. The warm, delicious air was laden with the odor of trees and sweetbrier, and to the song the breath of the south wind played an accompaniment of exquisite cadence upon the leaves. I seem to hear them singing,--Billy's piping treble, plaintive, quaint, and almost sweet, carrying the tenor to Dic's ba.s.s. There was no soprano. The concert was all tenor and ba.s.s, south wind, and rustling leaves. The song helped Dic to express his happiness, and enabled Billy to throw off the remnants of his heartache. Music is a surer antidote to disappointment, past, present, and future, than the philosophy of all the Stoics that ever lived; and if all who know the truth of that statement were to read these pages, Billy Little would have many millions of sympathizers.

Dic did not neglect Rita's note, but read it many times after he had lighted the candle in the loft where he and Billy were to sleep. Long after Billy had gone to bed Dic sat up, thinking of Rita, and anon replenis.h.i.+ng his store of ecstasy from the full fountain of her note.

After an unreasonable period of waiting Billy said:--

"If you intend to sit there all night, I wish you would smother the candle. It's filling the room with bugs. Here is a straddle-bug of some sort that's been trying to saw my foot off."

"In a moment, Billy Little," answered Dic. The moment stretched into many minutes, until Billy, growing restive, threw his shoe at the candle and felled it in darkness to the floor. Dic laughed and went to bed, and Billy fell into so great a fit of laughter that he could hardly check it. Neither slept much, and by sun-up Billy was riding homeward.

That he might be sure to be on time, Dic was at the step-off by half-past two, and five minutes later Rita appeared. The step-off was at a deep bend in the river where the low-hanging water-elm, the redbud, and the dogwood, springing in vast luxuriance from the rich bottom soil, were covered by a thick foliage of wild grape-vines.

"The river path," used only as a "horse road" and by pedestrians, left the river at the upper bend, crossing the narrow peninsula formed by the winding stream, and did not intrude upon the shady nook of raised ground at the point of the peninsula next the water's edge. There was, however, a horse path--wagon roads were few and far apart--on the opposite side of the river. This path was little used, save by hunters, the west side of the river being government land, and at that time a vast stretch of unbroken forest. Rita had chosen the step-off for her trysting-place because of its seclusion, and partly, perhaps, for the sake of its beauty. She and Dic could be seen only from the opposite side of the river, and she thought no one would be hunting at that time of the year.

The pelts of fur-giving animals taken then were unfit for market.

Venison was soft, and pheasants and turkeys were sitting. There would be nothing she would wish to conceal in meeting Dic; but the instinct of all animate nature is to do its love-making in secret.

"Oh, Dic," said the girl, after they were seated on a low, rocky bench under a vine-covered redbud, "oh, Dic, I did so long to speak to you last night. After what happened night before last--it seems ages ago--I have lived in a dream, and I wanted to talk to you and a.s.sure myself that it is all true and real."

"It is as real as you and I, Rita, and I have brought you something that will always make you know it is real."

"Isn't it wonderful, Dic?" said the girl, looking up to him with a childish wistfulness of expression that would always remain in her eyes.

"Isn't it wonderful that this good fortune has come to me? I can hardly realize that it is true."

"Oh, but I am the one to whom the good fortune has really come,"

replied Dic. "You are so generous that you give me yourself, and that is the richest present on earth."

"Ah, but you are so generous that you take me. I cannot understand it all yet; I suppose I shall in time. But what have you brought that will make me know it is all real?"

Dic then brought forth the ivory box and held it behind him.