The Tobacco Tiller Part 20

"I reckon he's a settin' tobacco, too, 'way down that away," she mused sorrowfully, turning her face toward the north: "and maybe he'll overwork and make hisse'f sick. I wisht I could hear from him some way.

I ain't heard sence Pa--sence Pa ordered him never to come about us any more! Seems like he might write, but he's afraid of gittin' me in trouble, I guess, ef he sent me a letter through the mail. Pa and Nancy'd--"

The spider curled on the web that hung from the top rail of the gate to the post, felt a heavy drop on his back, and pirouetted away in fright.

But a long mournful bellow from beyond the barn prevented the fall of any more drops on his web.

"Poor old Belle! She must be a gittin' worse," thought Miss Lucy, hurrying to the barn-lot, in which, the night before, she had left the roan cow that for more than a week had drooped and languished. To her surprise, the cow was pacing back and forth, restless as something caged, while the other cattle in the adjoining gra.s.s field, cl.u.s.tered not far from the boundary fence, regarding their sick mate in a peculiar, half-fearful fas.h.i.+on. Miss Lucy set down her buckets, and flew to the house.

"O Pa!" she cried: "I wisht you'd come down to the barn a minute. Old Belle's worse, I believe, and she's actin' so strange I am afraid to milk the other cows in the lot with her!"

"Aw, she won't hurt ye, Lucy," grumbled the old man, rising reluctantly.

"Have the mar's come up to be fed yit?"

When Mr. James had seen the sick beast, he was much vexed.

"The best cow on the place, exceptin' the one you claim, Lucy Ann, and me not able to work with her! Now as soon as you git the milkin' done, and eat, you go git old man Doggett. Maybe _he_ can do somethin' fer her."

Not for many weeks had Miss Lucy been allowed at the Doggetts. Mr.

Lindsay kept his trunk there, and came back occasionally. This Miss Nancy knew, and though she was quite happy in the thought that Mr.

Lindsay, in his anger toward her father, had given up Miss Lucy, she reasoned that if Miss Lucy were allowed to go to the Doggetts, it were possible she might sometime see him there, and the spell of his anger might be broken. So Mr. James, instructed by his youngest daughter, had ordered Miss Lucy to keep away from the Doggetts.

"People'll be a talkin' about you, Lucy Ann, ef you go there," they had said, and Miss Lucy meekly accepted their dictum, and staid away.

"I don't know ef there ever was a woman situated like me," she thought to herself, as she ran down the familiar little path, "fifty years old--afraid of her folks--afraid to do like she wants to!"

A sob escaped her, a rebellious sob for the hard fate that rendered her path of love, one so stony.

"Jest look at these here plants, Ann. Ef I do say hit, I've got the purtiest plant beds in the country, and I've seed all the beds around whar they are a raisin' hit this year, and went to some purty night'

over the Kentucky River country! Jest let a feller have the weather to sow his seed in February, and he'll sh.o.r.e have early plants!"

Mr. Doggett, who might have posed for a member of the Grallatores family, with his bare feet, and ungainly exposure of muddy red leg, coming into the yard with a great basket of newly pulled tobacco plants, was astonished to see Miss Lucy hurrying to meet him.

"Why, yes, sir, Miss Lucy," he acquiesced, hastily brus.h.i.+ng off a little of the mud plastering from his lengthy stretch of blue overalls: "I'm sh.o.r.ely one the busy ones: got up at three this mornin', and won't git to tech bed 'tel nigh on to ten. Them two days' rain we had has give us a plantin' season right. Thar's enough wet in the ground fer four days, and ef we jest do the work, we'll have a fine set.

"A body has a heap to be thankful fer, now don't they? Me and my hands, we helped Jim a yistiddy and the day afore, and Jim and his hands is holpin' _me_ today, aimin' to git done by termorrer, so's not to have to do no Sunday plantin'."

When Mr. Doggett paused for breath, Miss Lucy, who was listening in a nervous tremor, jerked out her errand. Mr. Doggett's face fell.

"I don't see how I kin jest possible spare the time. I'm a payin' the hands eighteen cents a hour, and _I'm_ all the one thar is to keep 'em in plants and time 'em. But I'll jest go anyhow fer a few minutes. A body ortn't to be selfish, no, sir. I'll jest step over to the field and take these plants to the boys. You jest tell your Pa I'll come right on.

Maybe I'll git thar time you do, hit's so nigh from the patch. Jest speak to the old lady thar in the house,--maybe she'll try to hobble up thar with you."

The cow stood stolid and quiet, when the three reached the barn-yard, unheeding the attentions of Miss Nancy and her father, who were trying to persuade her to eat a steaming mash.

"Hain't you no idy what ails her, Mr. Jeemes?" asked Mr. Doggett, contemplating her heaving sides.

"I dunno," replied Mr. James, "onless she's a runnin' mad. About three weeks ago a strange dog come through the lot when Lucy Ann was a milkin', and instid o' rockin' hit,--Lucy Ann, she run and climbed up in the loft!"

"Pa, I was afraid of hit!" Miss Lucy defended. "Hit was a frothin' at hit's mouth," she explained to Mr. Doggett.

"When Lucy Ann clumb down," went on the old man, "the dog wuzn't nowher's in sight, and she couldn't tell whuther the cow wuz bit er not."

"Well, Mr. Jeemes": Mr. Doggett rubbed his mud-coated hands uncertainly together, "I dunno what to tell you. She hain't got no holler-horn, ner hain't down in her back, but I ondoubtedly believe she's in a dangerous fix."

"S'pose'n you send fer Mr. Brock, Mr. Jeemes," suggested Mrs. Doggett: "_he'll_ know ef anybody does what to do fer her!"

"That's right, Mr. Jeemes, yes, sir," affirmed Mr. Doggett: "Mr. Brock, he's got so many hands, he jest oversees. He don't work none hisse'f,--he don't have to work."

If there was a suspicion of irony in Mr. Doggett's voice, it was veiled from his hearers by the good-nature that habitually clothed his utterances.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Brock'll sh.o.r.ely be able to come, ef you send fer him, and I'll jest git 'long back to the boys!"

"I've got dinner to git," said Mrs. Doggett, as her husband disappeared in the direction of his barefooted a.s.sistants, "and ef thar's one time when men folks can lay in victuals faster'n another time, hit's at plantin' season! Stoopin' over sorter stretches their insides I reckon.

And ef I didn't have dinner to git, thar'd be somethin' else to do. Whar you keep house, thar's always somethin' to do, and that a whole heap of hit! But I'll jest stay a while any way, and see how she gits."

Miss Nancy was dispatched on old Maude, the fattest of the two fat mares for Mr. Brock, with strict injunctions to ride slowly.

Though she had only a quarter of a mile to go, it was a full half hour before she returned with Mr. Brock, walking carefully and with mincing steps (because of the mud, and the extreme tightness of a new pair of summer tans), wearing his Sunday gray suit, a white s.h.i.+rt, collar, and tie, and carrying a gallon bucket full of ripe strawberries.

"I'd have been back sooner," explained Miss Nancy, "but Mr. Brock wouldn't come until he changed his clothes, and I had to help old Jane hunt their bottle of cow bitters."

"Hain't them nice!" Mrs. Doggett sniffed Mr. Brock's offering of fruit, in appreciation. "Miss Lucy, didn't I tell you, Mr. Brock was the nicest man out?"

"Hit's awful good of you, Mr. Brock, to breng 'em, and awful good of you to come," Miss Lucy tendered. "Maybe you can do somethin' for Pa's poor old cow!"

During Miss Nancy's absence, the watchers had gotten the sick beast in one of the double stalls, the inner of which was separated from the outer stall by a long pole having one end caught over a hook.

"Lucy Ann, take that bucket, and fill it with water and fetch that bra.s.s kittle in the barn," ordered her father: "that cow ort to be watered."

Miss Lucy drew a bucket of water from the cistern which covered with loose planks, stood on the upper side of the barn, and carried the water to the open door of the stall in which the cow stood quiet, with eyes downcast, and feet spread apart.

"I'll take the water in to her, Miss Lucy," volunteered Mr. Brock, lifting the kettle. Mr. James objected.

"The cow is used to Lucy, Mr. Brock, and she might show fight to you."

Obedient to her father's wishes, Miss Lucy shrinkingly pushed the kettle under the dividing pole, and poured the water into it, while Mr. Brock, with prudent forethought, picked up a thick stick and took a position in the doorway.

Suddenly the animal, hearing the splash of water, turned and unexpectedly lunged at the kettle. The dividing pole cracked under her onslaught. Miss Lucy started back with a scream, and fell violently. Mr.

Brock thrust strongly at the cow as she rushed forward again, and the creature reeled back on her haunches. Before she could recover herself for another plunge, he had lifted Miss Lucy over the sill, and together, Miss Nancy and Mrs. Doggett had slammed the door, and thrust its iron bar in place.

"Lord!" shuddered Mrs. Doggett, "that wuz a narrer call!"

"Open the gate for me," wheezed the breathless Mr. Brock, staggering along with his limp burden on whose forehead appeared a little blood, trickling from a slight cut. "We'd better git her to the house quick!"

Miss Lucy, laid on the sitting-room lounge, presently revived and feebly murmured her distress at causing so much of trouble.

"Don't you thenk we'd better go back and doctor on the cow, Mr.

Brock--give her them bitters, er somethin'?"

The old man's mind, his anxiety for his daughter relieved, presently turned again to his barn-yard patient.