An Arkansas Planter Part 24

"You said I wouldn't want to walk to-night, but I must," he spoke, and his voice had a smothered sound. "I am going out to look for her. And now you know why I have been walking all day, gazing at the faces in the crowd." He had turned from the glimmering lights and was looking at Tom.

"I traced that letter she wrote, and in my mind I settled that it must have come from this place. But I didn't tell your mother what I suspected; I kept it to myself."

"If you go out again I'll go with you, Jim."

"No, I insist upon going alone."

He went out; and when he returned, just before the dawn, he found the boy asleep on a chair. He took him up, put him upon a bed and sat himself down at a window; and when Tom awoke, along toward ten o'clock, the giant was still sitting there.

"Jim."

"Well."

"How long have you been in?"

"Don't know."

"You didn't--didn't find her?"

"No. I went to the place where you had the fight--wish to the Lord I had been with you--but of course couldn't learn anything. I was--was afraid to ask about her. But I tramped around all night, and I went into all sorts of places, looking for her, and all the time afraid that I might find her. G.o.d, what am I talking about! Afraid of finding her! Why, she couldn't be in a place where--where she oughtn't to be."

"But she was!" the boy cried, bounding out upon the floor. "She was and--Great G.o.d, I can hardly believe it, I don't realize it! I have been so swallowed up that I haven't thought about her much lately--she's crazy, Jim. Oh, she must be. She was the purest-minded girl----"

The giant stopped him with an uplifting of his ponderous hand. "Don't say any more. Don't say she _was_ pure-minded. She _is_ pure-minded. I will find her and she shall tell me----"

"She can't tell you anything to clear herself, Jim. She's lost--she's crazy."

"She's an angel," said the giant.

"My dear Jim, she's my sister and I loved her, but angels can't go----"

"Don't say it."

"I won't, but don't you be foolish. Truth is truth, and we have to look at it whether we want to or not." He walked up and down the room. "Who would have thought that such a thing could happen?" he went on. "It's a dream. But why did she leave home when she knew how much we all loved her? What made her run away from you when she knew how you loved her?

Jim, I'm going home to-day. Are you coming with me?"

"No, I'm going to stay here and look for her."

"And when you have found her she'll treat you as she did me. She'll say she has as much right there as you have. I don't believe it's any use.

Better come home with me."

"No, I'm going to look for her, and if she'll marry me I'll bring her home."

"Jim, she is my sister, but--I won't say it. I love her, but I would rather have seen her dead than where I saw her last night. I'm going home."

"Wait a moment." For a time he pondered and then he said: "You may tell your mother, but don't tell the Major."

"But why should it be kept from him? He ought to know it. We'll have to tell him some time."

"Some time, may be, but not now, and don't you even hint it to him, and don't you tell Sallie. Don't tell any one but your mother. Do you hear?"

"Yes, and I reckon you're right. I'll do as you tell me. Well, it's time and I'm going."

Jim went with him to the levee, saw him on a boat and then resumed his search throughout the town. But he asked no questions; and three days later when he went aboard the home-bound boat, he knew no more than he had known the night when the boy had told his story.

CHAPTER XX.

The night was rainy and a fierce wind was blowing. The Major and his wife were by the fire in the sitting-room, when there came a heavy tread upon the porch, but the knock that fell upon the door was gentle. They knew who had come, and the door was opened for Jim Taylor. Quietly he responded to their greeting, and with both hands he took off his slouch hat, went to the fireplace and over the blaze shook it.

"Put myself in mind of a wet dog," he said. "Didn't think to shake outside. How are you all getting along?"

He was looking at Mrs. Cranceford, but the Major answered him. "In the same old way. Tilt that cat out of the rocking-chair and sit down."

"Have you heard of the death of Mrs. Wash Sanders?" Mrs. Cranceford asked, fearing that the Major might get ahead of her with this piece of news, but all along determined that he should not.

"No, I haven't," he said; but his want of surprise was not satisfying, and Mrs. Cranceford said: "I mean Mrs. Wash Sanders."

"Yes, I know; but this is the first I've heard of it. I came from the boat right up here. So the poor woman's dead? She never knew anything but hard work. How long was she sick? Shouldn't think she could take the time to be sick long, poor soul."

"She was not in bed more than two days. It was awful, the way she suffered. And all the time Wash was whining that he couldn't eat anything, as if anybody cared. I never was so provoked at a man in my life. I'd like to know who cares whether he eats another bite or not.

Actually, I believe he thought the neighbors had come to sympathize with him instead of to nurse his wife. And when she was dead he went about blubbering that he couldn't live but a few days."

"He'll outlive us all," said the Major. "He told us yesterday that he was threatened with convulsions, and Gid swore that a convulsion was about the last thing he ought to fear, that he was too lazy to entertain such an exertion."

In this talk Jim felt not even the slightest interest. He wanted to talk about Louise. But not in Mrs. Cranceford's manner nor in her eyes when she looked straight at him was there a hint that Tom had told her that the girl had been seen. Perhaps the boy had decided to elect him to this unenviable office. The Major asked him about his trip, but he answered as if he cared not what he said; but when shortly afterward the Major went out, Taylor's unconcern fell from him and he stood up and in tremulous anxiousness looked at Mrs. Cranceford, expecting her to say something. Surely Tom had told her nothing, for she quietly smiled at him as he stood there, awkwardly and distressfully fumbling with himself.

"I have a letter from her," she said.

Taylor sat down hard. "A letter from her!"

"Yes; received it this morning."

"But has Tom told you anything?"

"Yes; everything."

"And she has written to you since then?"

"Yes; I will show you." On a corner of the mantel-piece was a work-box, and unlocking it, she took out a letter and handed it to him. "Read it,"

she said, "and if you hear the Major coming, put it away. Some references in it would have to be explained, and so I have decided not to let him see it."

He took the letter, and standing where the light from the hanging lamp fell brightest, read the following:

"My Dear Mother:--By this time Tom must have told you of our meeting.

And what a meeting it was. He was worse than an orang-outang, but I must say that I admire his courage, and I struggled to help him when he was in the thick of his fight, but my friends tore me away, realizing that flight was our only redemption. Of course you will wonder why I was in such a place, and I don't know that I can explain in a satisfactory manner to you, and surely not to father. I would have introduced Tom to my friends had he given me time, but it appears that he was in too much of a hurry to attend upon the demands of politeness. Fight was boiling in his blood and it had to bubble out. Mother, I was with a slumming party. Do you know what a slumming party is? It is a number of respectable people whom curiosity leads into the resorts of crime and vice. Society thinks that it makes one wiser, and that to know the aspect of depravity does not make one less innocent. But I know that you will not approve of a slumming party, and I cannot say that I do. The Rev. H. Markham, whose sermons you must have read, was with me. As the champion of virtue he has planned and executed an invasion of the haunts of iniquity, and his weekly discourses here are very popular, particularly with women. Well, he was sitting beside me, and I have since thought that it must have been a great shock to his dignity when Tom struck him; but his greatest solicitude was the fear that the occurrence might be spread by the newspapers, and to keep it out was his first care. That night on business I left the city, and I write this in a quiet, Arcadian neighborhood. It is with pleasure that I feel myself a success in the work which I have chosen. What work? you naturally ask.