XXXII
THE NEXT MORNING
When Tom waked up the next morning in the gray daybreak, he found that Mason, who should have shared his room, had not come to bed at all. And when Tom came down to uncover the live coals and build up the kitchen fire, he found that the embers had not been covered under the ashes as usual; there were instead smoking sticks of wood that had newly burned in two, the ends having canted over backward outside of the andirons. The table stood in the floor set with plates and cups and saucers for two, and there were the remains of an early breakfast. There was still heat in the coffee-pot when Tom touched it, and from these signs he read the story of Barbara's betrothal to Mason; he conjectured that this interview, which was to precede a separation of many months, had been unintentionally protracted until it was near the time for Mason's departure. The débris of the farewell love-feast, eaten in the silent hour before daybreak, seemed to have associations of sentiment. Tom regarded these things and was touched and pleased, but he was also amused. This sitting the night out seemed an odd freak for a couple so tremendously serious and proper as the little sister and the schoolmaster.
An hour later, when Tom, having finished his chores, came in for his breakfast, Barbara had reappeared below stairs with an expression of countenance so demure – so entirely innocent and unconscious – that Tom could not long keep his gravity; before he had fairly begun to eat he broke into a merry, boyish laugh.
"What are you laughing about?" demanded Barbara, looking a little foolish and manifesting a rising irritation, that showed how well she knew the cause of his amusement.
"Oh! nothing; but why don't you eat your breakfast, Barb? You seem to have lost your appetite."
"Don't tease Barb'ry now," said Mrs. Grayson.
"I'm not teasing," said Tom; "but I declare, Barb, it must have seemed just like going to housekeeping when you two sat down to eat breakfast by yourselves this morning."
"O Tom!" broke in Janet, who couldn't quite catch the drift of the conversation, "Barbara went to bed with her clothes on last night. When I waked up this morning she was lying on the bed by me with her dress on."
Tom now laughed in his old unrestrained fashion.
"Say, Barbara," Janet went on, "are you going to marry that Mr. Mason that was here yesterday?"
Knowing that she could not get rid of Janet's inquiries except by answering, Barbara said: "Oh, I suppose so," as she got up to set the pot of coffee back on the trivet and hide a vexation that she knew to be foolish.
"Don't you know whether you're going to marry him or not?" put in Janet. "I sh'd think you'd know. And I sh'd think he'd be a real nice husband." Then after a few moments of silence, Janet turned on Tom. "Tom, who's your sweetheart?"
"Haven't got any," said Tom.
"Isn't that purty girl that was here yesterday your sweetheart?"
"No!"
"Aren't you ever going to get married?"
"Maybe, some day. Not right off, though."
"I wish you would find a good wife, Tom," said Barbara without looking from her plate. "It would cheer you up." Barbara felt a little guilty at the thought of leaving the brother who had always seemed her chief responsibility.
"Say, Tom, won't you wait for me?" said Janet, solemnly.
"Yes, that's just what I'll do," said Tom, looking at her. "I hadn't thought of it before; but that's just exactly what I'll do, Janet. I'll wait for you, now you mention it."
"Will you, indeed, and double deed?"
"Yes, indeed, and deed and double deed, I'll wait for you, Janet."
"That'll be nice," said Janet, continuing her breakfast with meditative seriousness. "Now I'm your sweetheart, ain't I?"
XXXIII
POSTSCRIPTUM
It was in the last days of October, a few weeks after the proper close of the story which I have just related, when Henry Miller – the most matter-of-fact and unsensational of young men – threw his family into a state of excitement and supplied the gossip of the neighborhood with a fresh topic by announcing at home and abroad that he was going to leave the country, either for the Iowa country to the west of the Mississippi or for the fertile bottom-lands up north on the "Wisconse" River, as it was called. He was the only son of his father, and had inherited the steady, plodding industry and frugality so characteristic of a "Pennsylvania Dutch" race. Until he was of age he was bound, not only by law, but by the custom of the country, to serve his father much as a bondsman or an apprentice might have served, for an able-bodied son was distinctly recognized as an available and productive possession in that day. When he became of age his close-fisted father made no new arrangement with him, offered him no start, paid him no wages, and gave him no share in the produce of the fields. It was enough, in the father's estimation, that Henry would succeed to a large part of the property at his death. But Henry, on mature reflection, had made up his mind that emigration would be better than a reversionary interest that must be postponed to the death of so robust a man as his father, who was yet in middle-life and who came of a stock remarkable for longevity. Was not his grandfather yet alive in Pennsylvania, while his great-grandfather had not been dead many years? It was after calculating the "expectation of life" in the Miller family that Henry notified his father of his intention to go where land was cheap and open a large farm for himself. In vain the father urged that he could not get on without him, and that there would be no one to look after things if the father should die. Henry persisted that he must do something for himself and that his father would have to hire a man, for he should surely leave as soon as the crops were gathered, so as to get land enough open in some frontier country to afford him a small crop of corn the first year.
Henry's mother and sisters were even more opposed to his going than his father was, and they did not hesitate to blame the senior Miller with great severity for not having "done something" for Henry. Henry's father had never before known how unpleasant a man's home may come to be. He was reminded that Henry had not an acre, nor even a colt, that he could call his own, and that other farmers had done better than that. This state of siege became presently quite intolerable, and the elder Miller resolved not only "to do something" for Henry, but to do it in such a way that his son would begin life very well provided for. He wanted to silence the clamor of the house and the neighborhood once for all, and prove to his critics how much they were mistaken.
It was about a week after Henry's first resolution was taken that he and his father were finishing the corn-gathering. They were throwing the unshucked ears into a great wagon of the Pennsylvania pattern – a wagon painted blue, the "bed" of which rose in a great sweep at each end as though some reminiscence of the antique forms of marine architecture had affected its construction. When all the corn within easy throwing distance had been gathered, Henry, who was on the near side, would slip the reins from the standard over the fore wheel and drive forward the horses, which even in moving bit off the ends of corn ears or nibbled at the greenest-looking blades within their reach.
"Let's put on the sideboards," said the elder, "and we can finish the field this load." Though Miller's ancestors had come to this country with the Palatine immigration, away back in 1710, there was a little bit of German in his accent; he said something like "gorn" for corn. The sideboards were put up, and these were so adjusted that when they were on the wagon the inclosing sides were rendered level at the top and capable of holding nearly double the load contained without the boards.
"Henry," said the father, when the two were picking near together and throwing corn over the tail-gate of the wagon, "if you give up goin' away an' git married right off, an' settle toun here, I'm a-mine to teed you that east eighty an' a forty of timber. Eh?"
"That's purty good," said Henry; "but if your deed waits till I find a wife, it may be a good while coming."
"That eighty lays 'longside of Albaugh's medder an' lower gorn-field," said the father, significantly.
"You mean if I was to marry Rache, Albaugh might give us another slice."
"Of gourse he would; an' I'd help you put up a house, an' maybe I'd let you hav' the roan golt. You'd hav' the red heifer anyhow."
"But I never took a shine to Rache; and if I did, I couldn't noways come in. They's too many knocking at that door."
"But Rachel ain't no vool," said the elder. "She knows a good piece of lant w'en she sees it, an' maybe she's got enough of voolin' rount."
All that afternoon Henry revolved this proposition in his mind, and he even did what he had never done before in his life – he lay awake at night. The next day, after the midday dinner, he said to himself: "I might as well resk it. Albaugh's got an all-fired good place, and all out of debt. And that's a tre-mendous nice eighty father's offered to give me."
So he went up stairs and put on a new suit of blue jeans fresh from his mother's loom. Then he walked over to Albaugh's, to find Rachel sewing on the front porch.
Rachel had been "kindah dauncey like," as her mother expressed it, ever since her visit to Barbara. She had received as many attentions as usual, but they seemed flat and unrelishable to her now. She began seriously to reflect that a girl past twenty-three was growing old in the estimation of the country, and yet she was further than ever from being able to make a choice between the lovers that paid her court, more or less seriously.
When she looked up and saw Henry Miller coming in at the gate she felt a strange surprise. She had never before seen him in Sunday clothes or visiting on a week-day.
"Hello, Henry! Looking for Ike?" she asked, with neighborly friendliness.
"No, not as I know of. I've come to talk to you, Rache."
"To me? Well, you're the last one I'd look for to come to talk to me; and in day-time, and corn-shucking not begun yet." There was an air of excited curiosity in her manner. It was plain to be seen that she was inwardly asking, "What can Henry Miller be up to, anyhow?" but to him she said, "Come in, Henry, an' take a cheer."
"No, I'll sed down here," he answered, taking a seat on the edge of the porch, like the outdoor man that he was, approaching a house with half reluctance.
The relations between Henry and Rachel were unconstrained. They had played "hide and whoop" together in childhood, and times innumerable they had gone on black-berrying and other excursions together; he had swung her on long grape-vine swings on the hill-side; they had trudged to and from school in each other's company, exchanging sweet-cakes from their lunch-baskets, and yet they had never been lovers.
"Rache," he said, locking his broad, brown hands over his knee, "father says he'll give me that east-eighty whenever I get married, if I won't go off West."
"You'll be a good while getting married, Henry. You never was a hand to go after the girls."
"No, but I might chance to get married shortly, for all that. The boys that do a good deal of sparking and the girls that have a lot of beaux don't always get married first. You'd ought to know that, Rache, by your own experience."
Rachel laughed good-naturedly, and waited with curiosity to discover what all this was leading up to.
"What I 'm thinking," said Henry, with the air of a man approaching a horse-trade cautiously, lest he should make a false step, "is this: that eighty of our'n jines onto your medder and west corn-field."
"Do you want to sell it?" said Rachel. "You might see father; he'd like to have it, I expect."
"Can't you guess what it is that I'm coming at?"
"No, I can't," said Rachel; "not to save my life."
"Looky here, Rache," and Henry gave his shoulders a twitch, "the two farms jine; now, what if you and me was to jine?"
"Well, Henry Miller, if you don't beat the Dutch! I never heard the like of that in all my born days!" Rachel had heard many propositions of marriage, but this sort of love-making, with eighty acres of prairie land for a buffer, was a novelty to her.
"Looky here, Rache," he said, in a tone of protest, "I've knew you ever since you was knee-high to a grasshopper. Now, what's the use of fooling and nonsense betwixt you and me? You know what I am – a good, stiddy-going, hard-working farmer, shore to get my sheer of what's to be had in the world without scrouging anybody else. And I know just exactly what you air. We've always got along mighty well together, and if I haven't ever made a fool of myself about your face, w'y, so much the better for me. Now, whaddy yeh say? Let's make it a bargain."
"W'y, Henry Miller, what a way of talking!"
"Rache, come, go along with me and see where'bouts I'm going to put up a house. Father's promised to help me. It's down by the spring, just beyand your medder fence. Will you go along down?"
"Well, I don't care if I do go down with you, Henry. But it's awful funny to come to such a subject in that way."
Rachel put on her sun-bonnet, and they went through the orchard together.
"We could put up a nice house there. Father's willing to throw in a forty of timber too – the forty that jines onto this eighty over yander. We'd be well fixed up to begin, no matter what your father done or didn't do for us. Whaddy you think of the plan?"
"You – you haven't said you loved me, or anything," said Rachel, piqued at having her charms quite left out of the account. But she could not hide from herself that Henry's proposition had substantial advantages. She only added, "What a curious man you are!"
"Don't you believe I'd make a good husband?"
"Yes, of course you would."
"And a good provider?"
"Yes, I'm shore of that."
"Well, now, I'm not going to pretend I'm soft on you. If you say 'No,' well and good; there's an end. I sha'n't worry myself into consumption. You've got a right to do as you please. I'm not going to have folks say that I'm another of the fools that's broke their hearts over Rache Albaugh. Once you're mine, I'll set my heart on you fast enough. But I never set my heart on anything I mightn't be able to get."
Rachel did not say anything to this bit of philosophy. She had in the last two weeks recognized the advisability of her getting married as soon as she could settle herself. But on taking an inventory of her present stock of beaux, she had mentally rejected them all. They were prospectively an unprosperous lot, and Rachel was too mature to marry adversity for the sake of sentiment. She found herself able to listen to Henry Miller's cool-blooded proposition with rather more tolerance than she felt when hearing the kind of love-talk she had been used to. Why not get her father to do as well by her as the Millers would by Henry, or to do better, seeing he was the richer and had but two children? Then they might begin life with plenty of acres and a good stock of butter cows.
Henry showed her where they could put their house, where the barn would be placed, and where they would have a garden. Rachel felt a certain pleasure in fancying herself the mistress of such a place. But it was contrary to all the precedents laid down in the few romances she had read for a woman to marry a man who was not her "slave"; that was the word the old romancers took delight in. She tried to coquet with Henry, in order to draw from him some sort of professions of love. A flirtation with a lay figure would have been quite as successful. He was plain prose, and she presently saw that if she accepted him it must be done in prose. She couldn't help liking his very prose; she was a little tired of slaves; it seemed, on the whole, better to have a man at least capable of being master of himself.
In much the same tone – the tone of a man buying, or selling, or proposing a co-partnership for business purposes – Henry Miller carried on the conversation all the way back until they reached the corn-crib, where he came to a stand-still.
"Whaddy yeh say, Rachel? Is it a bargain?"
"Well, Henry, it's sudden like. I want to take time to think it over."
"Then I'll take back the offer and put out for the Ioway country. I'm not a-going to have my skelp a-hanging to your belt for days and days, like the rest of them. What's the use of thinking? You don't want to take Magill, do you?"
"He's too old, and his nose is rather red," laughed Rachel.
"Nor Tom Grayson, I suppose?" Henry mentioned Tom as the second because he was the one about whom he had misgivings.
"I give him the sack before the shooting, and I'm not going to go back to him now."
Rachel faltered a little in this reply, but she spoke with that resolute insincerity for which women hold an indulgence in advance when their hearts are being searched.
"Well," said Henry, "if you think you can do better by waiting, I m off. If you think I'm about as good a man as you're likely to pick up, here's your chance. It's going, going, gone with me. Either I marry you and take father's offer, or I put out for the Ioway country. I don't ask you to think I'm perfection, but just to take a sober, common-sense look at things."
Rachel saw that it was of no use to expect Henry to court her, and she could not help liking him the better for his honest straightforwardness. She looked down a minute, in the hope that he would say something that might make it easier for her to answer, but he kept his silence.
"Henry," she said at length, rolling a corn-cob over and over under the toe of her shoe, "I've got a good mind to say 'Yes.' You don't make me sick, like the rest of them. Father'll be struck when he hears of it. He's always said I'd marry some good-for-nothing town-fellow."
"Is it a bargain, good and fast?" said Henry, holding out his hand, as he would have done to clinch the buying of a piece of timber land or a sorrel horse.
"Yes," said Rachel, laughing at the oddness of it and the suddenness of it, "I'm tired of fooling. It's a bargain, Henry."
"Good fer you, Rache! Now I begin to like you better than ever."