Mountain Part 41

"Dey done made me a deppity, dey is."

Pelham turned off.

"Mr. Pelham, ole Tom Cole done come back."

"Not dead yet?"

"You cain't kill 'im. Dey cut 'im open, but he growed back agin. He am powerful sickly, do'. De Ole Boy'll cotch him nex' time; he nacherally favors preachers."

"But not company deputies, Peter?"

The negro chuckled off; Pelham walked back with Dawson from the new shack village. The big organizer was thoroughly out of spirits. "It just ain't moving, Judson."

"What's especially wrong?"

"The negro question, for one thing."

"I know," Pelham said slowly. "Our white labor won't a.s.similate them, as the rest of the country's labor does to the most backward white races.

They're a perpetual scab menace."

"h.e.l.l, yes," in sobered agreement. "Then, the South's general backwardness."

"That's natural, here. Our capitalists, some of the slave-owning blood, and all inheriting its att.i.tude, feel less equality: they see labor still as their slaves. Ultimately this will help awaken our people; but now----"

"That's the h.e.l.l of it; we ain't got the public with us. What with petty union squabbles, and all--it's a job to make a dent in a saint's patience."

"Any chance of a sympathetic strike?"

"What can you do with Bowden and these yellow pups?"

The enthusiasm of the workers, dragged down physically by the hard rigors, slipped lower and lower. Picketing continued, and each arrival of new trainloads of northern scabs threatened a break; but something of the original zest had gone.

Pelham, however, found a compensating zest, in which life overpaid him for the wintry gloom at strike headquarters. After a glum day with the dispirited leaders he could count upon a solace that overbalanced worry and sorrow; downhearted planning for the intransigent struggle gave way to warm-hearted dusk dreams of a future bent to heart's will; the mines and miners were deserted for Jane.

"It doesn't seem fair, dearest dear, for us to be so unreasonably happy, when Ben Wilson, and his tubercular wife, and all the rest, have so little...."

"Your father isn't a happy man."

"... No. He may have been as happy as we, once; fancy him as a young lover! There is a price for ambition centered in grasping things: the soul dries up and shrivels."

"Poor man!"

"This is the real wealth...."

He took her within his arms. At home in his kiss, her lips parted slightly within his, like a bud daring to offer its tenderest petals to the crush of the enveloping wind. When he let her go, he lay slack with delicious unrest.

Abruptly he sat up, a decisive ring in his voice. "I'm going to marry you, Jane."

"I had hoped so." She could not prevent the dimple from smiling within her rounded cheek.

"I mean--now!"

"To-night?"

"I'll get the license to-morrow, adorable child--and we can have Dr.

Gulley, or the mayor----"

"Let's have His Honor! An Irish blessing isn't to be scoffed at, and the Free Tabernaclers, as rebels, are a bit pallid. 'The Courthouse Wedding'--how your mother will relish that!"

"They wouldn't come anyhow----"

"It isn't that; but they've gotten so used to your shocking them, that life would lose its savor if you couldn't achieve a fresh shock every month or two. I'm glad my new suit came----"

"As if that made any difference!"

"Ah, it will make a lot--to His Honor, for instance, and whatever reporters carry word of it to the society editresses. 'A dove-colored traveling suit,' they'll call it----"

"Wouldn't red be more appropriate?" he queried judiciously. "With the local en ma.s.se as best man, and the Suffrage a.s.sociation as matron of honor----"

"Don't be horrid. I'll have Mrs. Anderson, and you can bring along your precious Lane Cullom, who is so sure that Nellie Tolliver would be much better for you."

"It's almost a Christmas wedding! We'll steal off for that week to Pascagoula and New Orleans we mentioned. We could take the Gulf Express to-morrow night--you have a time table; I brought it out last month, when we aircastled on honeymoons.... But just think, if you hadn't scorned the country club, you might have had either of the Birrell boys, or----"

"You angler! It's not too late.... No; I have the pick of the bunch."

"Jane, my ... wife." There was comfort and joy in the word.

Considering the matter alone, he was delighted he had dared the plunge.

It was not easy, now, to prevent yielding to the watchful voices ever whispering to him, wakened by Dorothy Meade, refired by the rocketing affair with Louise, and now restirred by Jane herself. He had even wandered once or twice down Butler's Avenue and the furtive alleys behind, obsessed with red-lit imaginings of what went on behind those night-lighted windows. His aggressive purism had left him; love should be freely given and taken, he told himself. And it was to be his!

Odd that he had suggested New Orleans, when Louise Richard might be there.... It was a relief that that affair was dead.... This was to-day; the to-morrows were Jane's.

After his departure Jane located the time-table. She studied the formal details dreamily. To-morrow night, by this time, they would be.... And when they had pa.s.sed this place, and that, what would they be saying?

What doing?

The black and white schedule merited respect; it would time their first day ... night ... together.

She laid it aside with a blush; then, bidding her fancies behave, she read over the unemotional schedule until she knew it, appropriately, by heart.

GULF EXPRESS P. M.

Hazelton 8.07 ADAMSVILLE Ar. 8.20

Exercising the best man's prerogative, Lane Cullom insisted upon having the abbreviated wedding party as his guests at a bridal dinner. The chef at the University Club grill lifted the covers promptly at six, in order that the Queen and Crescent's prized express might not have to cool its wheels in the new Union Station, waiting for the essential pair.

Lane, a satisfied fatigue relieving the crease in his brow, almost missed the first course. "I had to see that the eggnog was mixed properly, Pelham, before it was frozen,--soup or no soup."

The last delicious morsel melted upon their tongues; the host paid a final flying visit to the club's pantry, conscripting two pocketfuls of rice. "Now let's go!"

ADAMSVILLE Lv. 8.30