The Harvester Part 64

"No. This is jest out of your reach," said the old lady. "I want----I want to see Doctor Carey bad."

"Are you strong enough to ride in or shall I bring him?"

"I can go! I can go as well as not, David, if you'll take me."

"Let me run Betsy to the barn and get the Girl's phaeton. The wagon is too rough for you. Are the pains in your chest dreadful?"

"I don't know how to describe them," said Granny with perfect truth.

The Harvester leaped into the wagon and caught up the lines. As he disappeared around the curve of the driveway Granny s.n.a.t.c.hed the letters from her dress front and thrust them deep into one of her stockings.

"Now, drat you!" she cried. "Stick out all you please. n.o.body will see you there."

In a few minutes the Harvester helped her into the carriage and drove rapidly toward the city.

"You needn't strain your critter," said Granny. "It's not so bad as that, David."

"Is your chest any better?"

"A sight better," said Granny. "Shakin' up a little 'pears to do me good."

"You never should have tried to walk. Suppose I hadn't been here. And you came the long way, too! I'll have a telephone run to your house so you can call me after this."

Granny sat very straight suddenly.

"My! wouldn't that get away with some of my foxy neighbours," she said.

"Me to have a 'phone like they do, an' be conversin' at all hours of the day with my son's folks and everybody. I'd be tickled to pieces, David."

"Then I'll never dare do it," said the Harvester, "because I can't keep house without you."

"Where's your own woman?" promptly inquired Granny.

"She can't leave her people. Her grandmother is sick."

"Grandmother your foot!" cried the old woman. "I've been hearing that song and dance from the neighbours, but you got to fool younger people than me on it, David. When did any grandmother ever part a pair of youngsters jest married, for months at a clip? I'd like to cast my eyes on that grandmother. She's a new breed! I was as good a mother as 'twas in my skin to be, and I'd like to see a child of mine do it for me; and as for my grandchildren, it hustles some of them to re-cog-nize me pa.s.sing on the big road, 'specially if it's Peter's girl with a town beau."

The Harvester laughed. The old lady leaned toward him with a mist in her eyes and a quaver in her voice, and asked softly, "Got ary friend that could help you, David?"

The man looked straight ahead in silence.

"Bamfoozle all the rest of them as much as you please, lad, but I stand to you in the place of your ma, and so I ast you plainly----got ary friend that could help?"

"I can think of no way in which any one possibly could help me, dear,"

said the Harvester gently. "It is a matter I can't explain, but I know of nothing that any one could do."

"You mean you're tight-mouthed! You COULD tell me just like you would your ma, if she was up and comin'; but you can't quite put me in her place, and spit it out plain. Now mebby I can help you! Is it her fault or yourn?"

"Mine! Mine entirely!"

"Hum! What a fool question! I might a knowed it! I never saw a lovinger, sweeter girl in these parts. I jest wors.h.i.+p the ground she treads on; and you, lad you hain't had a heart in your body sence first you saw her face. If I had the stren'th, I'd haul you out of this keeridge and I'd hammer you meller, David Langston. What in the name of sense have you gone and done to the purty, lovin' child?"

The Harvester's face flushed, but a line around his mouth whitened.

"Loosen up!" commanded Granny. "I got some rights in this case that mebby you don't remember. You asked me to help you get ready for her, and I done what you wanted. You invited me to visit her, and I jest loved her sweet, purty ways. You wanted me to shet up my house and come over for weeks to help take keer of her, and I done it gladly, for her pain and your sufferin' cut me as if 'twas my livin' flesh and blood; so you can't shet me out now. I'm in with you and her to the end. What a blame fool thing have you gone and done to drive away for months a girl that fair wors.h.i.+pped you?"

"That's exactly the trouble, Granny," said the Harvester. "She didn't!

She merely respected and was grateful to me, and she loved me as a friend; but I never was any nearer her husband than I am yours."

"I've always knowed they was a screw loose somewhere," commented Granny.

"And so you've sent her off to her worldly folks in a big, wicked city to get weaned away from you complete?"

"I sent her to let her see if absence would teach her anything. I had months with her here, and I lay awake at nights thinking up new plans to win her. I worked for her love as I never worked for bread, but I couldn't make it. So I let her go to see if separation would teach her anything."

"Mercy me! Why you crazy critter! The child did love you! She loved you 'nough an' plenty! She loved you faithful and true! You was jest the light of her eyes. I don't see how a girl could think more of a man.

What in the name of sense are you expecting months of separation to teach her, but to forget you, and mebby turn her to some one else?"

"I hoped it would teach her what I call love, means," explained the Harvester.

"Why you dratted popinjay! If ever in all my born days I wanted to take a man and jest lit'rally mop up the airth with him, it's right here and now. 'Absence teach her what you call love.' Idiot! That's your job!"

"But, Granny, I couldn't!"

"Wouldn't, you mean, no doubt! I hain't no manner of a notion in my head but that child, depending on you, and grateful as she was, and tender and loving, and all sech as that I hain't a doubt but she come to you plain and told you she loved you with all her heart. What more could you ast?"

"That she understand what love means before I can accept what she offers."

"You puddin' head! You blunderbuss!" cried Granny. "Understand what you mean by love. If you're going to bar a woman from being a wife 'til she knows what you mean by love, you'll stop about nine tenths of the weddings in the world, and t'other tenth will be women that no decent-minded man would jine with."

"Granny, are you sure?"

"Well livin' through it, and up'ard of seventy years with other women, ort to teach me something. The Girl offered you all any man needs to ast or git. Her foundations was laid in faith and trust. Her affections was caught by every loving, tender, thoughtful thing you did for her; and everybody knows you did a-plenty, David. I never see sech a master hand at courtin' as you be. You had her lovin' you all any good woman knows how to love a man. All you needed to a-done was to take her in your arms, and make her your wife, and she'd 'a' waked up to what you meant by love."

"But suppose she never awakened?"

"Aw, bos.h.!.+ S'pose water won't wet! S'pose fire won't burn! S'pose the sun won't s.h.i.+ne! That's the law of nature, man! If you think I hain't got no sense at all I jest dare you to ask Doctor Carey. 'Twouldn't take him long to comb the kinks out of you."

"I don't think you have left any, Granny," said the Harvester. "I see what you mean, and in all probability you are right, but I can't send for the Girl."

"Name o' goodness why?"

"Because I sent her away against her will, and now she is remaining so long that there is every probability she prefers the life she is living and the friends she has made there, to Medicine Woods and to me. The only thing I can do now is to await her decision."

"Oh, good Lord!" groaned Granny. "You make me sick enough to kill. Touch up your nag and hustle me to Doc. You can't get me there quick enough to suit me."

At the hospital she faced Doctor Carey. "I think likely some of my innards has got to be cut out and mended," she said. "I'll jest take a few minutes of your time to examination me, and see what you can do."

In the private office she held the letters toward the doctor. "They hain't no manner of sickness ailin' me, Doc. The boy out there is in deep water, and I knowed how much you thought of him, and I hoped you'd give me a lift. I went over to his place this mornin' to take him a pie, and I found his settin' room fireplace heapin' with letters he'd writ to Ruth about things his heart was jest so bustin' full of it eased him to write them down, and then he hadn't the horse sense and trust in her jedgment to send them on to her. I picked two fats, a lean, and a middlin' for samples, and I thought I'd send them some way, and I struck for home with them an' he ketched me plumb on the bridge. I had to throw my pie overboard, willer plate and all, and as G.o.d is my witness, I was so fl.u.s.tered the boy had good reason to think I was sick a-plenty; and soon as he noticed it, I thought of you spang off, and I knowed you'd know her whereabouts, and I made him fetch me to you. On the way I jest dragged it from him that he'd sent her away his fool self, because she didn't sense what he meant by love, and she wa'ant beholden to him same degree and manner he was to her. Great day, Doc! Did you ever hear a piece of foolishness to come up with that? I told him to ast you! I told him you'd tell him that no clean, sweet-minded girl ever had known nor ever would know what love means to a man 'til he marries her and teaches her. Ain't it so, Doc?"