The Tobacco Tiller Part 30

"Listen to him, Miss Lucy," chuckled Mr. Doggett. "Fergot a ready when he got with you, and all the way up here, he wuz a frettin' over that foot! I told him thar wuzn't nothin' so bad but what hit might be wuss!

I knowed a man that had a raisin' come in his _jaw_ the day of his weddin': he couldn't open his mouth, and the weddin' had to be put off!"

"Ain't he good to us, Nathan?" murmured Miss Lucy, from behind the thick barege veil she had tied over the bridal hat to protect it from the night dampness, as Mr. Doggett strode ahead with the lantern.

"Whose buggy did you git?" she asked after a moment.

Mr. Lindsay smiled wickedly in the darkness. "_I_ never got no buggy--Uncle Eph--he got hit. This is Mrs. Doggett's new buggy she got last week with her hogs (Johnny Leeds ordered hit fer her cheap), and hit hain't been rid in before. She tuck some of her b.u.t.ter'n-aig money and bought tarred paper to make a roof over hit, she's so choice of hit."

Miss Lucy gasped. "Hit's a wonder she'd a loaned hit!"

The darkness again hid a grin, a still more wicked one.

"She _never_ loaned hit. Uncle Eph slipped hit out after her office hours--I mean after she was asleep."

Miss Lucy looked uneasy. "Do you thenk hit's right fer us to be a ridin'

in hit?"

"Don't give yourse'f no worry about that, my dear," said Mr. Lindsay calmly: "she owes you that much on her account of stealin' your letter out of my Bible Sunday week."

At the juncture of the dirt road with the turnpike, Mr. Doggett cleaned his boots carefully, climbed into the buggy, and shutting himself up like a jackknife, with his knees touching his breast, seated himself on the floor of the vehicle on a small box he drew from under the seat.

"I'm afraid you ain't comfortable, Mr. Doggett," Miss Lucy protested.

"S'pose'n you let me set on the box, Uncle Eph," proposed Mr. Lindsay: "I take up some less room than you."

"Keep your seat, Mr. Lindsay," insisted Mr. Doggett, gathering up the reins: "this buggy top wuzn't built fer a man o' my height, and I do better on the floor whar I can fold myse'f three times."

"Hain't hit a gittin' _dark_!" murmured Miss Lucy fearfully, as the few stars disappeared in a black cloud: "somebody might run into us on the pike."

"Hit's a comin' up a rain after a leetle," remarked Mr. Doggett: "but don't you git oneasy, Miss Lucy: this here huntin' lantern Mr. Lindsay borryed from Archie Evans, helt in front o' a buggy'll make t'other feller on wheels thenk he's a meetin' a ottermobill', and he'll hug t'other side the road. Now, Big Money, git 'long towards town!"

"Big Money done mighty well over that mud we jest pa.s.sed," complimented Mr. Lindsay.

Mr. Doggett's face beamed. "Now hain't he turned out well to be a swapped-for plug? I'm a purty good jedge o' hosses, yes, sir! Anybody can fool Lem with any old plug, ef hit's jest fat enough, but I can't be fooled much. Marshall, he said when he seed the false tail they had tied on this un come off jest after I left town the Court day I got him--'Pap,' he said, 'you've got cheated! You'll have to sell that hoss fer a song and seng hit yourse'f!' But old Big Money, he's turned out to be a right peert old nag, yes, sir, a right peert old nag!"

"We wouldn't be puttin' you to all this trouble, Mr. Doggett," regretted Miss Lucy, presently, "ef Brother Avery hadn't moved to Lexington."

"Hit hain't no trouble," protested Mr. Doggett, covertly feeling of one knee to a.s.sure himself that it was not paralyzed--"I'm injoyin' hit!"

"Whar are you goin' from Lexington?" he asked when he had, by a gentle wriggle, slightly eased his position.

"We're a talkin' of goin' to visit Mr. Lindsay's nephew: hit's in Owensboro, ain't hit, where he lives?" Miss Lucy turned to Mr. Lindsay.

"Goin' to Owensboro, I reckon," answered the bridegroom, a perceptible touch of sarcasm in his tone, "to see that wife and family some the good people o' this neighborhood has saddled on to me!"

Had there been sufficient light to distinguish facial tints, it would have been observed that a shamed color sat upon Mr. Doggett's countenance.

"Now, Mr. Lindsay," he pet.i.tioned the unforgiving gentleman, "don't hold that ag'in the old lady. She don't mean fer truth much over a quarter o'

what comes out'n her mouth. Me and her gits along mighty well, though, considerin'. They say a man and his wife orter be _one_, and fer all people pa.s.sin' our house sometimes might thenk instid o' me and her bein' one, we wuz half a dozen, we are _one_, and she's the one."

"Why, Mr. Doggett," exclaimed Miss Lucy, "Mrs. Doggett thenks the world of you!"

"Yes, sir, Miss Lucy, although she hain't as foolish over me as a old lady I used to know over in Bourbon. This old lady wouldn't let _her_ husband out'n her sight, and when their spreng went dry one summer, and they had to go a mile to git water, he used to carry a bucket o' water on hossback on his head, and she'd be a settin' behind him on the hoss.

The fust time my old lady saw 'em a doin' that, she says to me, 'Eph Doggett, a body never lives to be too old to learn--look, I've learned _that_!'"

As the lights of town met the travellers, Miss Lucy, who had for many minutes been trying to muster up courage to tell of her shoeless condition, burst out desperately: "O Nathan, I ain't got on no shoes!

Mine got--got _misplaced_ tonight, ever' pair, while I was takin' a nap, and I--I--ain't got on nothin' but a pair of carpet slippers!"

She did not add that they were a home-made pair, fas.h.i.+oned by Miss Nancy out of an ancient and moth-eaten carpet satchel.

"The dry goods stores, I'm afeerd, are all closed now," remarked Mr.

Lindsay: "maybe you can sorter hide your feet under your skirts, until we git to Lexington," he added encouragingly.

"I'll tell you what," suggested Mr. Doggett, "I seed some women's shoes in Johnny Leeds' grocery store a leetle while back. Johnny he tole me his boss keeps 'em to give fer prizes when a body's bought thirty dollars wuth. Johnny, he sets up night' aver' night, 'tel twelve, and I'll jest git him to onlock the store and fetch Miss Lucy out a pair o'

them!"

"You jest hold the hoss, Mr. Lindsay." Mr. Doggett drew Big Money to a standstill beside the depot platform. "I'll jest clip around to Johnny's and be back inside o' ten minutes!"

It was not until the ten minutes had lengthened themselves to twenty-five, however, and the train was whistling at the first crossing, that Mr. Doggett, his whiskers cutting the air like whips, and his blowing rivalling the incoming engine's, reappeared, to find Mr. Lindsay and Miss James, standing beside the buggy in a high state of nervous tension.

"Johnny," panted Mr. Doggett, "Johnny, he wuz in bed, but I h'isted him, and we tore to the store, and," he thrust a slackly-tied newspaper-wrapped bundle in Miss Lucy's trembling hands,--"here them shoes is, Miss Lucy! You'll have to put 'em on after you git on the cars!"

Miss Lucy clutched the k.n.o.bby bundle thankfully. "O Mr. Doggett," she cried with s.h.i.+ning eyes, "I can't never pay you for what you've done for me!"

"We'll never fergit you in the world, Uncle Eph, fer this night's work fer us," declared Mr. Lindsay fervently, as he wrung Mr. Doggett's hand, "and week after next, ef you'll say the word, I'm a goin' to cut the stovewood, and she's a goin' to cook a big dinner fer you in our house!"

"I'll be thar," promised Mr. Doggett, as Mr. Lindsay, bearing the valise, quickly drew Miss Lucy, holding fast to the handle of the cat's basket, and to the strings of the bundle to the steps of the rear coach.

"Ef ever you git in a tight place in your terbaccer, Mr. Lindsay, you know who to send fer. Teck keer yourselves, and good luck go with you ferever and ever!"

Mr. Doggett turned to a tall lady in a black dress and flowing veil, the only other pa.s.senger to take the midnight train.

"Can I holp you to git on, Ma'am?" he asked her deferentially. The Sister of Charity for it was she, laid her black-gloved hand in his, as he started down the steps.

"May G.o.d be with you, brother," she wished him devoutly, "and prosper you in your life of toil!"

When the train had thundered over ten miles of ties, Miss Lucy, hesitating and blus.h.i.+ng, unwrapped the Johnny Leeds shoes.

Mr. Lindsay considerately walked to the water cooler in the opposite end of the coach, and after getting a drink, sat down on the seat behind it, that his intended bride might change her shoes without embarra.s.sment. He found himself facing the Sister of Charity.

"It's beginning to rain. Had you observed it, sir?" the Sister said to him, presently.

"I hain't surprized," he answered her: "the clouds have been comin' up fer a rain fer about two hours. Seems like I've seen you before, ma'am, somewhere: your voice is familiar," he added, looking at her quickly and sharply.

The Sister deliberately winked at him. An amused light of recognition came into his eyes: she saw it and bent toward him, whispering: "When the mouse slips out of the trap, you're never the man to set the cat on his trail, are you, Mr. Lindsay?"

"Not I," Mr. Lindsay whispered back, a precaution which seemed wholly unnecessary, since Miss Lucy, at the far end of the car, was busy over her shoes, and the other two pa.s.sengers, weary long-distance travellers, their soft hats shading their faces, slept heavily. "I hain't blamin'

you fer wantin' to git away from the terbaccer patch jest now!"