A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties Part 18

Williams looked up in surprise. He had not suspected that sarcasm could lurk behind those wonderful eyes, but he was undeceived by her remark, and answered laughingly:--

"That is true, Miss Bays."

"Boston has much to be proud of," continued the girl, surprised and somewhat frightened at the rate she was bowling along. She had never before talked so freely to any one but Billy Little and Dic. "Yes, all good comes out of Boston. I've been told that if you hear her church bells toll, your soul is saved. There is a saving grace in their very tones. It came over in the _Mayflower_, as you might transport yeast. If you walk through Harvard, you will be wise; if you stand on Bunker Hill, treason flees your soul forever; and if you once gaze upon the Common, you are safe from the heresy of the Quaker and the sin of witchcraft."

"I fear you are making a jest of Boston, Miss Bays," replied Williams, who shared the sensitiveness peculiar to his people.

"No," she replied, "I jest only at your boasting. Your city is all you claim for it; but great virtue needs no herald."

Williams remained silent for a moment, and then said, "Have you ever been in Boston?"

"I? Indeed, no," she answered laughingly. "I've never been any place but to church and once to a Fourth of July picnic. I was once at a church social, but it brought me into great trouble and I shall never go to another." Williams was amused and again remained, for a time, in silent meditation. She did not interrupt him, and at length he spoke stammeringly:--

"Pardon me--where did you learn--how comes it--I am speaking abruptly, but one would suppose you had travelled and enjoyed many advantages that you certainly could not have here."

"You greatly overestimate me, Mr. Williams. I have only a poor smattering of knowledge which I absorbed from two friends who are really educated men,--Mr. Little and Dic--Mr. Bright!"

"Are they old--elderly men?" asked Williams.

"One is," responded Rita.

"Which one?" he asked.

"Mr. Little."

"And the other--Mr. Bright--is he young?" asked the inquisitive Bostonian. There was no need for Rita to answer in words. The color in her cheeks and the radiance of her eyes told plainly enough that Mr.

Bright _was_ young. But she replied with a poor a.s.sumption of indifference:--

"I think he is nearly five years older than I." There was another betrayal of an interesting fact. She measured his age by hers.

"And that would make him--?" queried Williams.

"Twenty-two--nearly."

"Are you but seventeen?" he asked. Rita nodded her head and answered:--

"Shamefully young, isn't it? I used to be sensitive about my extreme youth and am still a little so, but--but it can't be helped." Williams laughed, and thought he had never met so charming a girl.

"Yes," he answered, "it is more or less a disgrace to be so young, but it is a fault easily overlooked." He paused for a moment while he inspected the heavens, and continued, still studying astronomy: "I mean it is not easily overlooked in some cases. Sometimes it is 'a monster of such awful mien' that one wishes to jump clear over the enduring and the pitying, and longs to embrace."

"We often see beautiful sunsets from this porch," answered Rita, "and I believe one is forming now." There was not a society lady in Boston who could have handled the situation more skilfully; and Williams learned that if he would flatter this young girl of the wilderness, he must first serve his probation. She did not desire his flattery, and gave him to understand as much at the outset. She found him interesting and admired him. He was the first man of his type she had ever met. In the matter of education he was probably not far in advance of Dic, and certainly was very far arrear of Billy Little. But he had a certain polish which comes only from city life. Billy had that polish, but it was of the last generation, was very English, and had been somewhat dimmed by friction with the unpolished surfaces about him. Dic's polish was that of a rare natural wood.

As a result of these conditions, Rita and Williams walked up the river on the following afternoon--Sunday. More by accident than design they halted at the step-off and rested upon the same rocky knoll where she and Dic were sitting when Doug Hill hailed them from the opposite bank of the river. The scene was crowded with memories, and the girl's heart was soon filled with Dic, while her thoughts were busy with the events of that terrible day. Nothing that Williams might say could interest her, and while he talked she listened but did not hear, for her mind was far away, and she longed to be alone.

One would suppose that the memory of the day she shot Doug Hill would have been filled with horror for her, but it was not. This gentle girl, who would not willingly have killed a worm, and to whom the sight of suffering brought excruciating pain, had not experienced a pang of regret because of the part she had been called upon to play in the tragedy of the step-off. When Doug was lying between life and death, she hoped he would recover; but no small part of her interest in the result was because of its effect upon Dic and herself. Billy Little had once expressed surprise at this callousness, but she replied with a touch of warmth:--

"I did right, Billy Little. Even mother admits that. I saved Dic's life and my own honor. I would do it again. I am sorry I _had_ it to do, but I am glad, oh so glad, that I had strength to do it. G.o.d helped me, or I could never have fired the shot. You may laugh, Billy Little--I know your philosophy leads you to believe that G.o.d never does things of that sort--but I know better. You know a great deal more than I about everything else, but in this instance I am wiser than you. I know G.o.d gave me strength at the moment when I most needed it. That moment taught me a lesson that some persons never learn. It taught me that G.o.d will always give me strength at the last moment of my need, if I ask it of Him, as I asked that day."

"He gave it to you when you were born, Rita," said Billy.

"No," she replied, "I am weak as a kitten, and always shall be, unless I get my strength from Him."

"Well," said Billy, meaning no irreverence, "if He would not give to you, He would not give to any one."

"Ah, Billy Little," said the girl, pleased by the compliment--you see her pleasure in a compliment depended on the maker of it--"you think every one admires me as much as you do." Billy knew that was impossible, but for obvious reasons did not explain the true situation.

Other small matters served to neutralize the horror Rita might otherwise have felt. The affair at the step-off had been freely talked about by her friends in her presence, and the thought of it had soon become familiar to her; but the best cure was her meeting with Doug Hill a fortnight after the trial. It occurred on the square in the town of Blue River. She saw Doug coming toward her, and was so shaken by emotions that she feared she could not stand, but she recovered herself when he said in his bluff manner:--

"Rita, I don't want to have no more fights with you. You're too quick on trigger for Doug. But I want to tell you I don't hold no grudge agin'

you. You did jes' right. You orter a-killed me, but I'm mighty glad you didn't. That shot of your'n was the best sermon I ever had preached to me. I hain't tasted a drap of liquor since that day, and I never will.

I'm goin' to start to Illinoy to-morrow, and I'm goin' to get married and be a man. Better marry me, Rita, and go along."

"I'm sure you will be a man, Doug," responded Rita. "I don't believe I want to get married, but--but will you shake hands with me?"

"Bet I will, Rita. Mighty glad to. You've the best pluck of any girl on yarth, with all you're so mild and kitten-like, and the purtiest girl, too--yes, by gee, the purtiest girl in all the world. Everybody says so, Rita." Rita blushed, and began to move away from his honest flattery, so Doug said:--

"Well, good-by. Tell Dic good-by, and tell him I don't hold no grudge agin' him neither. Hope he don't agin' me. He ortent to. He's got lots the best of it--he won the fight and got you. Gee, I'd 'a' been glad to lose the fight if I could 'a' got you."

Thus it happened that these two, who had last met with death between them, parted as friends. Doug started for Illinois next day; and now he drops out of this history.

I have spoken thus concerning Rita's feeling about the shooting of Doug Hill to show you how easy it was for her, while sitting beside Williams that placid Sunday afternoon, to break in upon his interesting conversation with the irrelevant remark:--

"I once shot a man near this spot."

For a moment or two one might have supposed she had just shot Williams.

He sprang to his feet as if he intended to run from her, but at once resumed his place, saying:--

"Miss Bays, your humor always surprises me. It takes me unawares. Of course you are jesting."

"Indeed, I am not. I have told you the truth. You will hear it sooner or later if you remain on Blue. It is the one great piece of neighborhood history since the Indians left. It is nothing to boast of. I simply state it as a fact,--a lamentable fact, I suppose I should say. But I don't feel that way about it at all."

"Did you kill him?" asked the astonished Bostonian.

"No, I'm glad to say he lived; but that was not my fault. I tried to kill him. He now lives in Illinois."

Williams looked at her doubtingly, and still feared she was hoaxing him.

He could not bring himself to believe there dwelt within the breast of the gentle girl beside him a spirit that would give her strength to do such a deed under any conditions. Never had he met a woman in whom the adorable feminine weaknesses were more p.r.o.nounced. She was a coward. He had seen her run, screaming in genuine fright, from a ground squirrel.

She was meek and unresisting, to the point of weakness. He had seen her endure unprovoked anger and undeserved rebuke from her mother, and intolerable slights from Tom, that would surely have aroused retaliation had there been a spark of combativeness in her gentle heart. That she was tender and loving could be seen in every glance of her eyes, in every feature of her face, in every tone of her soft, musical voice.

Surely, thought Williams, the girl could not kill a mouse. Where, then, would she find strength to kill a man? But she told him, in meagre outline, her story, and he learned that a great, self-controlled, modest strength nestled side by side with ineffable gentleness in the heart of this young girl; and that was the moment of Roger Williams's undoing, and the beginning of Rita's woe. Prior to that moment he had believed himself her superior; but, much to his surprise, he found that Roger occupied second place in his own esteem, while a simple country girl, who had never been anywhere but to church, a Fourth of July picnic, and one church social, with his full consent quietly occupied first. This girl, he discovered, was a living example of what una.s.sisted nature can do when she tries. All this change in Williams had been wrought in an instant when he learned that the girl had shot a man. She was the only woman of his acquaintance who could boast that distinction.

What was the mental or moral process that had led him to his conclusions? We all know there is a fascination about those who have lived through a moment of terrible ordeal and have been equal to its demands. But do we know by what process their force operates upon us?

We are fascinated by a noted duellist who has killed his score of men.

We are drawn by a certain charm that lurks in his iron nerve and gleams from his cold eyes. The toreador has his way with the Spanish dons and senoritas alike. The high-rope dancer and the trapeze girl attract us by a subtle spell. Is it an unlabelled force in nature? I can but ask the question. I do not pretend to answer.

Whatever the force may be, Rita possessed it; and, linked with her gentleness and beauty, its charm was irresistible.

Here, at last, was the rich man from the city who could give Rita the fine mansion, carriages, and servants she deserved. Now that these great benefactions were at her feet, would Dic be as generous as when he told Billy Little that Rita was not for him, but for one who could give her these? Would he unselfishly forego his claim to make her great, and perhaps happy? Great love in a great heart has often done as much, permitting the world to know nothing of the sacrifice. I have known a case where even the supposed beneficiary was in ignorance of the real motive. Perhaps Billy Little could have given us light upon a similar question, and perhaps the beneficiary did not benefit by the mistaken generosity, save in the poor matter of gold and worldly eminence; and perhaps it brought years of dull heartache to both beneficiary and benefactor, together with hours of longing and conscience-born shame upon two sinless hearts.