An Arkansas Planter Part 10

"Well, go on, I'm listening."

"I didn't know that you cared to hear."

"Then why did you begin to tell me?"

She did not answer this question. She waited for him to say more. "Of course I'd like to know what has become of her."

"I went over to see her," said Mrs. Cranceford.

"The deuce you did."

"John, don't talk that way."

"I won't. You went to see her."

"Yes, and in that miserable house, all open, she is nursing her dying husband."

The Major got up and began to walk about the room. "Don't, Margaret, I'd rather not hear about it."

"But you must hear. No place could be more desolate. The wind was moaning in the old plum thicket. The gate was down and hogs were rooting in the yard. Louise did not hear me as I drove up, the wind was moaning so distressfully among the dead plum bushes--she did not know that I was on the place until I entered the room where she sat at the bedside of her husband. She jumped up with a cry and----"

"Margaret, please don't."

"I must tell you, John. I will tell you. She jumped up with a cry and ran to me, and started to take off my cloak, but remembering that there was no fire in the damp room, she let it stay on. She tried to speak, but couldn't. Her husband held out his waxen hand, and when I took it I shuddered with the cold chill it sent through me."

"Margaret, I am going out," said the Major, turning toward the door.

"If you do, John, I will go with you and tell you as we walk along.

Please sit down."

He sat down with an air of helplessness. He fumbled with his fingers, which seemed to have grown thicker; he moved his foot as if it were a heavy weight. His wife continued: "In the room there was scarcely any furniture, nothing to soften the appearance of bleakness. I asked why no fire had been made, and Louise said that she had engaged a negro to cut some wood, but that he had gone away. She had paid him in advance. She would herself have kindled a fire, but there was no axe on the place, and she was afraid to leave her husband long enough to go to the woods to gather sticks. I went out and found the negro dozing in the sun. He was impudent when I spoke to him, but when I told him my name and threatened him with you, he scuffled to his feet and sauntered off, and I thought that we should see no more of him, but soon we heard the lazy strokes of his axe. And shortly afterward we had a fire. Louise was in one of her silent moods, but Pennington talked as much as his cough would permit him. He said that it was all his fault. 'I told her,' said he, 'that unless she married me I would die blaspheming the name of G.o.d, and that if she would save me from h.e.l.l she must be my wife. I know that it was selfish and mean, but I couldn't help it. And so she has married me to save my soul.' He grew excited and I tried to calm him. I told him that you were angry at first, but that now you were in a better humor toward him."

"Margaret----"

"This appeared to help him, but I saw that Louise did not believe me.

However, I commanded her to come home and bring her husband with her.

But she shook her head and declared that she would never again enter your house until she could in some way discharge the debt of grat.i.tude with which you reproached her, which she says you flaunted in her face at a time when she was greatly distressed."

"What! I don't exactly understand."

"Yes, you do, dear. You reminded her that you had saved her life, and told her that you based your plea for obedience upon your own gallantry."

"Oh, that was a piece of mere nonsense, a theatrical trick. Of course I don't deserve any credit for having saved the life of my own child."

"It may have been a theatrical trick with you, but it wasn't with her.

She keenly feels your reproach."

"Confound it, you are both making a monster of me."

"No, dear, that is not our design."

"Our design! Have you too, set yourself against me? Let me go to old Gideon. He's the only friend I've got."

"John, you mustn't say that. And why, at this time, should you refer to that old sinner? But let me go on. While I was there the doctor came, and shortly afterward we heard a heavy tread on the flapping boards of the pa.s.sageway that divides the two sections of the old house."

"Jim Taylor," said the Major.

"Yes, Jim Taylor. Louise jumped up in a flutter. He didn't take any notice of her excitement. 'I heard that you were living here,' he said, 'and knowing what sort of an old place it is, I've come to see if I can be of any use to you.' Here he looked about at the cracks in the walls and the holes in the roof. 'And you'll pardon me,' he went on, 'but I took the liberty to bring a carpenter along to patch up things a little.

That's him out there at work on the gate.' Louise began to cry. He pretended not to notice her. 'It won't take long to make this a very comfortable place,' he went on, 'and I hope you won't feel offended, but I have brought some young chickens and a squirrel or two--in a basket out there in the kitchen. I always was a sort of a neighborly fellow you know.' 'You are the best man in the world,' Louise broke out. 'No, not in the world, but I reckon I can stand flat-footed and lift with the most of them,' he replied, a.s.suming that he thought she referred to his strength. 'Yes,' he continued, 'and the boys will be here pretty soon with the wagon to haul you some wood. And I hope you'll pardon me again, but nothing would do old Aunt Nan but she must come over to cook for you and help you take care of Mr. Pennington until he gets about again.

She's the best cook in the whole country. You know the governor of the state once said that she could beat anybody frying a chicken, and----'"

"Confound his impudence!" exclaimed the Major, grinding the floor as he wheeled about, "he's performing the offices that belong to me. And I won't stand it."

"The offices that did belong to you, dear, but you have washed your hands of them."

"Have I? Well, we'll see about that. I'll send over there and have everything put to rights. No, I'll send the carriage and have them brought home. I'll be--I say I won't be made a scape-goat of in this way. Why, confound----"

"John."

"Yes, I understand, but I won't put up with it any longer. I'll send Tom over there--I'll send the law over there and bring them home under arrest."

She shook her head. "No, it will be of no use to send for them. Louise will not come, and you know she won't. Besides, we can make her just as comfortable there as here. It will not be for long, so let her have her own way."

"By the blood, she has had it!"

"John, have you forgotten that you are a member of the church?"

"That's all right. But do you mean by member of the church that I am to draw in my head like a high-land terrapin every time anything is said to me? Am I to be brow-beaten by everybody just because I belong to the church? Oh, it's a happy day for a woman when she can squash her husband with the church. I gad, it seems that all a married woman wants with a church is to hit her husband on the head with it."

"John, now you are the echo of old Gid."

"I'm not and you know it, but there are times when a man would be excusable for being the echo of the devil. But for gracious sake don't cry. Enough to make a man b.u.t.t his head against the wall. Just as a man thinks a woman is stronger than a lion she tunes up and cries. There, Margaret, let it all go. There." He put his arm about her. "Everything will come out all right. I am wrong and I confess it. I am bull-headed and as mean as a dog."

"No, you are not," she protested, wiping her eyes.

"Yes, I am and I see it now. You are always right. And you may manage this affair just as you see fit. Poor little girl. But never mind, it will all come right. Let us walk down the lane. It is beautiful down there. The frost has painted things up for you; the sumac bushes are flaming and the running briars on the fences are streams of fire. Come on." He took her by the hand and led her away.

CHAPTER IX.

Within a few days a great change was wrought in the appearance of the old log house. The roof, which had been humped in the middle like the back of a lean, acorn-hunting hog, was straightened and res.h.i.+ngled; the yard was enclosed with a neat fence; and the stack chimney which had leaned off from the house as if it would fall, was shoved back and held in place with strong iron bands. And the interior was transformed. Soft carpets were spread, easy chairs provided, the rough walls were papered and the windows were curtained. The fire-light fell upon pictures, and a cat had come to take her place at the corner of the hearth; but in the dead of night, when all the birds were hushed, when the wind moaned in the plum thicket, the hollow and distressing cough echoed throughout the house. At evening sorrowful-looking cows would come down the lane, and standing at the gate would low mournfully, an attention which they ever seek to pay a dismal place, but Jim Taylor entered a complaint, threatened violence and finally compelled their owners to have them driven home before the arrival of their time for lonesome lowing. It was Jim's custom to call at morning and at evening. Sometimes, after looking about the place, he would merely come to the door and ask after Mr. Pennington and then go away.

One morning when Louise answered his tap at the door, she told him that the sufferer was much better and that she believed he was going to get well.

"I'm mighty glad to hear it," he replied. "The doctors can't always tell."