A Young Man in a Hurry, and Other Short Stories Part 30

Mr. Santry went, pausing at the door to survey the gathering with vacant astonishment.

Burleson paid for the knife, bought a dozen stamps, tasted the cheese and ordered a whole one, selected three or four barrels of apples, and turned on his heel with a curt good-night.

"Say!" broke out old man Storm as he reached the door; "you wasn't plannin' to hev the law on Abe, was you?"

"About that gra.s.s fire?" inquired Burleson, wheeling in his tracks. "Oh no; Abe lost his temper and his belt. Any man's liable to lose both.

By-the-way"--he came back slowly, b.u.t.toning his gloves--"about this question of the game--it has occurred to me that it can be adjusted very simply. How many men in this town are hunters?"

n.o.body answered at first, inherent suspicion making them coy. However, it finally appeared that in a community of twenty families there were some four of nature's n.o.blemen who "admired to go gunnin' with a smell-dog."

"Four," repeated Burleson. "Now just see how simple it is. The law allows thirty woodc.o.c.k, thirty partridges, and two deer to every hunter.

That makes eight deer and two hundred and forty birds out of the preserve, which is very little--if you shoot straight enough to get your limit!" he laughed. "But it being a private preserve, you'll do your shooting on Sat.u.r.days, and check off your bag at the gate of the lodge--so that you won't make any mistakes in going over the limit." He laughed again, and pointed at a lean hound lying under the counter.

"Hounds are barred; only 'smell-dogs' admitted," he said. "And"--he became quietly serious--"I count on each one of you four men to aid my patrol in keeping the game-laws and the fire-laws and every forest law on the statutes. And I count on you to take out enough fox and mink pelts to pay me for my game--and you yourselves for your labor; for though it is my game by the law of the land, what is mine is no source of pleasure to me unless I share it. Let us work together to keep the streams and coverts and forests well stocked. Good-night."

About eleven o'clock that evening Abe Storm slunk into the store, and the community rose and fell on him and administered the most terrific beating that a husky young man ever emerged from alive.

III

In October the maple leaves fell, the white birches showered the hill-sides with crumpled gold, the ruffed grouse put on its downy stockings, the great hare's flanks became patched with white. Cold was surely coming; somewhere behind the blue north the Great White Winter stirred in its slumber.

As yet, however, the oaks and beeches still wore their liveries of rustling amber, the short gra.s.s on hill-side pastures was intensely green, flocks of thistle-birds disguised in demure russet pa.s.sed in wavering flight from thicket to thicket, and over all a hot sun blazed in a sky of sapphire, linking summer and autumn together in the magnificence of a perfect afternoon.

Miss Elliott, riding beside Burleson, had fallen more silent than usual.

She no longer wore her sombrero and boy's clothes; hat, habit, collar, scarf--ay, the tiny polished spur on her polished boot--were eloquent of Fifth Avenue; and she rode a side-saddle made by Harrock.

"Alas! alas!" said Burleson; "where is the rose of yesterday?"

"If you continue criticising my habit--" she began, impatiently.

"No--not for a minute!" he cried. "I didn't mention your habit or your stock--"

"You are always bewailing that soiled sombrero and those unspeakable breeches--"

"I never said a word--"

"You did. You said, 'Where is the rose of yesterday?'"

"I meant the wild rose. You are a cultivated rose now, you know--"

She turned her face at an angle which left him nothing to look at but one small, close-set ear.

"May I see a little more of your face by-and-by?" he asked.

"Don't be silly, Mr. Burleson."

"If I'm not, I'm afraid you'll forget me."

They rode on in silence for a little while; he removed his cap and stuffed it into his pocket.

"It's good for my hair," he commented, aloud; "I'm not married, you see, and it behooves a man to keep what hair he has until he's married."

As she said nothing, he went on, reflectively: "Eminent authorities have computed that a man with lots of hair on his head stands thirty and nineteen-hundredths better chance with a girl than a man who has but a scanty crop. A man with curly hair has eighty-seven chances in a hundred, a man with wavy hair has seventy-nine, a man--"

"Mr. Burleson," she said, exasperated, "I am utterly at a loss to understand what it is in you that I find attractive enough to endure you."

"Seventy-nine," he ventured--"my hair is wavy--"

She touched her mare and galloped forward, and he followed through the yellow suns.h.i.+ne, attendant always on her caprice, ready for any sudden whim. So when she wheeled to the left and lifted her mare over a snake-fence, he was ready to follow; and together they tore away across a pasture, up a hill all purple with plumy bunch-gra.s.s, and forward to the edge of a gravel-pit, where she whirled her mare about, drew bridle, and flung up a warning hand just in time. His escape was narrower; his horse's hind hoofs loosened a section of undermined sod; the animal stumbled, sank back, strained with every muscle, and dragged himself desperately forward; while behind him the entire edge of the pit gave way, cras.h.i.+ng and clattering into the depths below.

They were both rather white when they faced each other.

"Don't take such a risk again," he said, harshly.

"I won't," she answered, with dry lips; but she was not thinking of herself. Suddenly she became very humble, guiding her mare alongside of his horse, and in a low voice asked him to pardon her folly.

And, not thinking of himself, he scored her for the risk she had taken, alternately reproaching, arguing, bullying, pleading, after the fas.h.i.+on of men. And, still shaken by the peril she had so wilfully sought, he asked her not to do it again, for his sake--an informal request that she accepted with equal informality and a slow droop of her head.

Never had she received such a thorough, such a satisfying scolding.

There was not one word too much--every phrase refreshed her, every arbitrary intonation sang in her ears like music. And so far not one selfish note had been struck.

She listened, eyes downcast, face delicately flushed--listened until it pleased him to make an end, which he did with amazing lack of skill:

"What do you suppose life would hold for _me_ with you at the bottom of that gravel-pit?"

The selfish note rang out, unmistakable, imperative--the clearest, sweetest note of all to her. But the question was no question and required no answer. Besides, he had said enough--just enough.

"Let us ride home," she said, realizing that they were on dangerous ground again--dangerous as the gravel-hill.

And a few moments later she caught a look in his face that disconcerted and stampeded her. "It was partly your own fault, Mr. Burleson. Why does not your friend take away the mare he has bought and paid for?"

"Partly--my--fault!" he repeated, wrathfully.

"Can you not let a woman have that much consolation?" she said, lifting her gray eyes to his with a little laugh. "Do you insist on being the only and perfect embodiment of omniscience?"

He said, rather sulkily, that he didn't think he was omniscient, and she pretended to doubt it, until the badinage left him half vexed, half laughing, but on perfectly safe ground once more.

Indeed, they were already riding over the village bridge, and he said: "I want to stop and see Santry's child for a moment. Will you wait?"

"Yes," she said.

So he dismounted and entered the weather-battered abode of Santry; and she looked after him with an expression on her face that he had never surprised there.

Meanwhile, along the gray village thoroughfare the good folk peeped out at her where she sat her mare, unconscious, deep in maiden meditation.

She had done much for her people; she was doing much. Fiction might add that they adored her, wors.h.i.+pped her very footprints!--echoes all of ancient legends of a grateful tenantry that the New World believes in but never saw.

After a little while Burleson emerged from Santry's house, gravely returning the effusive adieus of the family.