A Man for the Ages Part 21

"But you don't know anything about my troubles," said she, with a sigh.

"I don't get the chance."

There was half a moment of silence. She ended it by saying:

"Ann and I are going to the spelling school to-night."

"Can I go with you?"

"Could you stand it to be talked to and scolded by a couple of girls till you didn't care what happened to you?"

"Yes; I've got to be awful careless."

"We'll be all dressed up and ready at quarter of eight. Come to the tavern. I'm going to have supper with Ann. She is just terribly happy.

John McNeil has told her that he loves her. It's a secret. Don't you tell."

"I won't. Does she love him?"

"Devotedly; but she wouldn't let him know it--not yet."

"No?"

"Course not. She pretends she's in love with somebody else. It's the best way. I reckon he'll be plum anxious before she owns up. But she truly loves him. She'd die for him."

"Girls are awful curious--n.o.body can tell what they mean," said Harry.

"Sometimes they don't know what they mean themselves. Often I say something or do something and wonder and wonder what it means."

She was looking off at the distant plain as she spoke.

"Sometimes I'm surprised to find out how much it means," she added. "I reckon every girl is a kind of a puzzle and some are very easy and some would give ye the headache."

"Or the heartache."

"Did you ever ride a horse sitting backwards--when you're going one way and looking another and you don't know what's coming?" she asked.

"What's behind you is before you and the faster you go the more danger you're in?" Harry laughed.

"Isn't that the way we have to travel in this world whether we're going to love or to mill?" the girl asked, with a sigh. "We can not tell what is ahead. We see only what is behind us. It is very sad."

Barry looked at Bim. He saw the tragic truth of the words and suddenly her face was like them. Unconsciously in the midst of her playful talk this thing had fallen. He did not know quite what to make of it.

"I feel sad when I think of Abe," said Harry. "He don't know what is ahead of him, I guess. I heard Mrs. Traylor say that he was in love with Ann."

"I reckon he is, but he don't know how to show it. You might as well ask me to play on a flute. He's never told her. He just walks beside her to a party and talks about politics and poetry and tells funny stories. I reckon he's mighty good, but he don't know how to love a girl. Ann is afraid he'll step on her, he's so tall and awkward and wanderin'. Did you ever see an elephant talking with a cricket?"

"Not as I remember," said Harry.

"I never did myself, but if I did, I'm sure they'd both look very tired.

It would be still harder for an elephant to be engaged to a cricket. I don't reckon the elephant's love would fit the cricket or that they'd ever be able to agree on what they'd talk about. It's some that way with Abe and Ann. She is small and spry; he is slow and high. She'd need a ladder to get up to his face, and I just tell you it ain't purty when ye get there. She ain't got a chance to love him."

"I love him," said Harry. "I think he's a wonderful man. I'd fight for him till I died. John McNeil is nothing but a gra.s.shopper compared to him."

"That's about what my father says," Bim answered. "I love Abe, too, and so does Ann, but it ain't the hope to die, marryin' love. It's like a man's love for a man or a woman's love for a woman. John McNeil is handsome--he's just plum handsome, and smart, too. He's bought a big farm and is going into the grocery business. Mr. Rutledge says he'll be a rich man."

"I wouldn't wonder. Is he going to the spelling school?"

"No, he went off to Richland to-day with my father to join the company.

They're going to fight the Injuns, too."

Harry stood smoothing the new coat of Colonel with his hand, while Bim was thinking how she would best express what was on her mind. She did not try to say it, but there was something in the look of her eyes which the boy remembered.

He was near telling her that he loved her, but he looked down at his muddy boots and soiled overalls. They were like dirt thrown on a flame.

How could one speak of a sweet and n.o.ble pa.s.sion in such attire? Clean clothes and white linen for that! The sh.e.l.l sounded for dinner. Bim started for the road at a gallop, waving her hand. He unhitched his team and followed it slowly across the black furrows toward the barn.

He did not go to the spelling school. Abe came at seven and said that he and Harry would have to walk to Springfield that night and get their equipment and take the stage in the morning. Abe said if they started right away they could get to the Globe tavern by midnight. In the hurry and excitement Harry forgot the spelling school. To Bim it was a tragic thing. Before he went to bed that night he wrote a letter to her.

CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH BIM KELSO MAKES HISTORY, WHILE ABE AND HARRY AND OTHER GOOD CITIZENS OF NEW SALEM ARE MAKING AN EFFORT TO THAT END IN THE INDIAN WAR.

Many things came with the full tide of the springtime--innumerable flowers and voices, the flowers filled with glowing color, the voices with music and delight. Waves of song swept over the limitless meadows.

They went on and on as if they traveled a sh.o.r.eless sea in a steady wind.

Bob-whites, meadow-larks, bobolinks, song sparrows, bluebirds, competed with the crowing of the meadow c.o.c.ks. This joyous tumult around the Traylor cabin sped the day and emphasized the silence of the night.

In the midst of this springtime carnival there came also cheering news from the old home in Vermont--a letter to Sarah from her brother, which contained the welcome promise that he was coming to visit them and expected to be in Beardstown about the fourth of May. Samson drove across country to meet the steamer. He was at the landing when _The Star of the North_ arrived. He saw every pa.s.senger that came ash.o.r.e, and Eliphalet Biggs, leading his big bay mare, was one of them, but the expected visitor did not arrive. There would be no other steamer bringing pa.s.sengers from the East for a number of days.

Samson went to a store and bought a new dress and sundry bits of finery for Sarah. He returned to New Salem with a heavy heart. He dreaded to meet his faithful partner and bring her little but disappointment. The windows were lighted when he got back, long after midnight. Sarah stood in the open door as he drove up.

"Didn't come," he said mournfully.

Without a word, Sarah followed him to the barn, with the tin lantern in her hand. He gave her a hug as he got down from the wagon. He was little given to like displays of emotion.

"Don't feel bad," he said.

She tried bravely to put a good face on her disappointment, but, while he was unharnessing and leading the weary horses into their stalls, it was a wet face and a silent one.

"Come," he said, after he had thrown some hay into the mangers. "Let's go into the house. I've got something for ye."

"I've given them up--I don't believe we shall ever see them again," said Sarah, as they were walking toward the door. "I think I know how the dead feel who are so soon forgotten."

"Ye can't blame 'em," said Samson. "They've probably heard about the Injun scare and would expect to be ma.s.sacreed if they came."

Indeed the scare, now abating, had spread through the border settlements and kept the people awake o' nights. Samson and other men, left in New Salem, had met to consider plans for a stockade.