"Come and try it," said Bradley, throwing off his coat.
The excitement had reached the point where blows begin. Several irresponsible fellows were urging their companion on.
"Jump "im! Jump "im, Hank! We"ll see fair play."
"Stand yer ground, Brad!" shouted the friends of the speaker. "We"ll see they come one at a time."
"Oh, see here! No fightin"," shouted others. The man Hank was not to be silenced. He pushed his way to the wagon-wheel and shook his extended fist at the speaker.
"Take that back, you"--
Bradley caught him by his uplifted wrist, and bracing himself against the wheel, jerked his a.s.sailant into the wagon-box, and tumbled him out in a disjointed heap on the other side before he could collect his scattered wits.
Then Bradley stood up in his splendid height and breadth. "I say it"s the truth; and if there are any more rowdies who want "o try yankin" me out o" this wagon, now"s your time. You never"ll have a better chance."
n.o.body seemed anxious. The cheers of the crowd and the young orator"s determined att.i.tude discouraged them. "Now I"ll tell yeh who the man was who presented that order. It was William Bacon; mebbe some o" you fellers want to tell him _he_ lies."
He finished his speech without any marked interruption, and was roundly congratulated by the farmers. On the way back to Rock River, however, he seemed very much depressed, while Milton exulted over it all.
"Gosh! I wish I had your muscle, old man! I ain"t worth a cent in things like that. Caesar! But you s.n.a.t.c.hed him bald-headed."
"Makes me feel sick," Bradley said. "I ain"t had but one squabble before since I was a boy. It makes me feel like a plug-ugly."
Milton was delighted with it all. It made such a capital story to tell!
"Say Brad, do you know what I thought of when you was yankin" that feller over the wheel? Scaldin" hogs! You pulled on him just as if he was a three-hundred pound shote. It was funny as all time!"
But Bradley had trouble in going to sleep that night, thinking about it. He was wondering what _She_ would have thought of him in that disgraceful row. He tried to remember whether he swore or not. He felt, even in the darkness, her grave, sweet eyes fixed upon him in a sorrowful, disappointed way, and it made him groan and turn his face to the wall, to escape the picture of himself standing there in the wagon, with his coat off, shouting back at a band of rowdies.
But the story spread, and it pleased the farmers immensely. The boldness of the charge and the magnificent muscle that backed it up took hold of the people"s imagination strongly, and added very greatly to his fame.
When the story reached Judge Brown, he was deeply amused. On the following Monday morning, as Brad was writing away busily, the Judge entered the room.
"Well, Brad, they say you called the Russells thieves."
"I guess perhaps I did."
"Well, aint that goin" to embarra.s.s you a little when--when you"re calling on Nettie?"
"I aint a-goin" to call there any more."
"Oh, I see! Expect the colonel to call on you, eh?"
"I don"t care what he does," Bradley cried, turning and facing his employer. "I said what I know to be the truth. I call it thieving, and if they don"t like it, they can hate it. I aint a-goin" to back down an inch, as long as I know what I know."
"That"s right!" chuckled the Judge. As a Democrat, he rejoiced to see a Republican ring a.s.saulted. "Go ahead, I"ll stand by you, if they try the law."
IX.
BRADLEY MEETS MRS. BROWN.
Though Bradley had called a good many times at the Russell house, to accompany Nettie to parties or home from school, yet he had never had any conversation to speak of with Russell, who was a large and somewhat pompous man. He knew his place, as a Western father, and never interfered with his daughter"s love affairs. He knew Bradley as a likely and creditable young fellow, and besides, his experience with his two older daughters had taught him the perfect uselessness of trying to marry them to suit himself or his wife.
He was annoyed at this attack of Bradley upon him and his brother, the treasurer. It was really carrying things too far. Accustomed to all sorts of epithets and charges on the part of opposing candidates, he ought not to have been so sensitive to Bradley"s charge, but the case was peculiar. It was exactly true, in the first place, and then it came from a young man whom his daughter had brought into the family, and whom he had begun to think of as a probable son-in-law.
On Tuesday morning, just as Bradley was tumbling his dishes into a pan of hot water ("their weekly bath," Milton called it), there came a sharp knock on the door, and a girl"s voice called out clearly:
"h.e.l.lo, Brad! Can I come in?"
"Yes, come in."
Nettie came in, her cheeks radiant with color, her eyes shining. "Oh, washing your dishes? Wait a minute, I"ll help." She flung off her coat in a helter-skelter way, and rolled up her sleeves.
Bradley expostulated: "No, no! Don"t do that! I"ll have "em done in a jiffy. They aint but a few."
"I"ll wipe "em, anyway," she replied. "Oh, fun! What a towel!" she held up the side of a flour-sack, on which was a firm-name in brown letters.
She laughed in high glee. There was a delicious suggestion in the fact that she was standing by his side helping him in his household affairs.
Bradley was embarra.s.sed, but she chattered away, oblivious of s.p.a.ce and time. Her regard for him had grown absolutely outspoken and without shame. There was something primitive and savage in her frank confession of her feelings. She had come to make all the advances herself, in a confidence that was at once beautiful and pathetic. She met him in the morning on the way to school, and clung to him at night, and made him walk home with her. She came afternoons with a team, to take him out driving. The presence of the whole town really made no difference to her. She took his arm just the same, proud and happy that he permitted it.
"Oh, say," she broke off suddenly, "pa wants to see you about something. He wanted me to tell you to come down to-night." She was dusting the floor at the moment, while he was moving the furniture. "I wonder what he wants?" she asked.
"I don"t know," he replied, evasively.
"Something about politics, I suppose." She came over and stood beside him in silence. She was very girlish, in spite of her a.s.sumption of a young lady"s dress and airs, and she loved him devouringly. She stood so close to him that she could put her hand on his, as it lay on the table. Her clear, sweet eyes gazed at him with the confidence and purity of a child.
It was a relief to Bradley to hear the last bell ring. She withdrew her hand and threw down the broom which she had been holding in her left hand. "Oh, that"s the last bell. Help me on with my cloak, quick!" He put her cloak on for her. She stamped her foot impatiently. "Pull my hair outside!"
He took her luxuriant hair in both his hands, and pulled it outside the cloak, and fitted the collar about her neck. She caught both his hands in hers, and looking up, laughed gleefully.
"You da.s.sent kiss me now!"
He stooped and kissed her cheek, and blushed with shame. On the way up the walk to the chapel, he suffered an agony of remorse. He felt dimly that he had done his ideal an irreparable wrong. Nettie talked on, not minding his silence, looking up into his face in innocent glee, planning some new party or moonlit drive.
All that morning he was too deep in thought to give attention to his cla.s.ses, and at noon he avoided Nettie, and went home to think, but try as he might, something prevented him from getting hold of the real facts in the case.
He was fond of Nettie. She stood near him, an embodied pa.s.sion. His love for Miss Wilbur, which he had no idea of calling love, was a vague and ma.s.sive feeling of adoration, entirely disa.s.sociated from the flesh. She stood for him as the embodiment of a world of longings and aspirations undeveloped and undefined.
One thought was clear. He ought not to allow--that is the way it took shape in his mind--he ought not to allow Nettie to be seen with him so much, unless he intended to marry her, and he had never thought of her as a possible wife.
He didn"t know how to meet Russell, so put off going down to his house, as he had promised. He excused himself by saying he was busy moving, anyway. He had determined upon taking a boarding-place somewhere in correspondence with his change of fortunes and when he had spoken of it, the Judge had said:
"Why not come up to my house? Mrs. Brown and I get kind of lonesome sometimes, and then I hate to milk, an" curry horses, an" split kindlings, always did. Come up and try living with us."
Bradley had accepted the offer with the greatest delight. It meant a great deal to him. It took him out of a cellar and put him into one of the finest houses in town--albeit it was a cold and gloomy house. It was large, and white, and square, with sharp gables, and its blinds were always closed. He went up to dinner that day with the judge, to meet Mrs. Brown, whom he had never seen; n.o.body saw her, for she was a "perfect recluse."