"No," he answered, glad to disappoint her.
"Oh, I do. Don"t you, really?"
"Well, she"s not ugly."
"But don"t you think she"s handsome?"
"Yes," he said, and looked as if he wanted to add: "Now what are you going to do about it?"
"I knew you did. Men have such queer tastes. Well, I don"t think she"s a bit handsome. It"s no trick at all to keep the eyes wide open; and any woman can let her hair go to seed. Of course, I ought not to say anything, but I should think that you would hold a brighter picture of some one who is waiting--but what am I saying? How warm it is! We are surely going to have rain."
She heard the boy bawling out in the orchard. She ran to him. Milford stalked off toward home. "She"s a little fool," he thought, and dismissed her. In the road he met the "discoverer" and the "peach,"
decked with purple flowers. He waited for them to show a disposition to halt. They did not, so he bowed and pa.s.sed them by. On the knoll in the oat field he turned and looked back. On the veranda he saw a purple glimmer. Was the girl waving flowers at him? He turned toward home, with the music of her accent in his heart. The place was deserted. The hired man was out among the women, poverty once bitten, looking for another bite. Milford stretched himself out upon the gra.s.s under the walnut tree. Grimly, he compared himself with a man thrown from a horse, not knowing yet whether or not he was hurt. He had the plainsman"s sense of humor, and he laughed at himself. "No matter which way I turn, I"m generally up against it," he said, and he could hear his words whispered up among the leaves of the tree. The earth seemed to throb beneath him.
The heat made the whole world pant. He dozed, and dreamed that he saw violets rained from a purple cloud.
CHAPTER VII.
THE PROFESSOR.
Milford was aroused from his dozing by some one walking up and down the veranda. "Don"t let me disturb you," a cheery voice cried out, when he got up. "I dropped over to pay you a visit, and finding you asleep, thought I would wait till you reached the end of your nap. And I am sorry if I have disturbed you." He held out his hand as Milford came within reach, and in the heartiest manner said that his name was Professor Dolihide. "I suppose you heard that I moved into your neighborhood. Yes, sir, I have lived near you some ten days or more--a longtime to live anywhere during these grinding times, sir."
Milford had heard that Professor Dolihide had moved into an old house that had long stood deserted. He shook hands on suspicion, and then, on better acquaintance, he brought out two chairs, planted the Professor in one, sat down himself, and said he hoped that his visitor found the new home pleasant. The Professor closed his eyes till he looked through narrow cracks. "Well, as to that, I must say that I never expect to find another pleasant home. It is one"s occupation abroad that makes the home pleasant, and when one has been compelled against his liking to change his trade, the home suffers. But I must explain," he said, opening his eyes and rubbing his hands together. "For years, I held the chair of English literature in a Kansas college. My salary was small, but I was happy, and my family had an exalted respect for me, as a learned man.
But now I keep books at a planing-mill up here at Lake Villa, and am ent.i.tled to no respect whatever, not because I am not respectable, but for the reason that I have failed."
He came as a fresh breeze, and Milford enjoyed him. He possessed a sort of comical dignity. His eyes were lamp-dimmed. His beard was thin and red.
"Failed," he repeated, "not on the account of incompetence, mind you, but traceable, I may say, to a changed condition of the times. I had been led to believe that my work was giving entire satisfaction. My scope was not broad, it is true, but the ground was thoroughly tilled.
But a difference arose in the board of supervisors. And it was decided that I was not idiomatic enough in my treatment of our mother tongue.
They argued that English is progressive. I did not doubt that, but I said that slang was not true progress. They cited an extract from a speech delivered by the president of an Eastern grove of learning, in which he said that the purist was as dead as stagnant water. I was pleased to be called a purist, sir. I had striven to maintain that position; but it did not compensate me for the loss of my living. After that, I taught in a common school, but they said I was wanting in discipline. Then I drifted about, and now here I am, bookkeeper at a planing-mill. But I have a hope that it will all come right, and I could exist fairly, but my wife and my daughter do not share my hope. I trust I do not shock you when I affirm that a woman has a contempt for the hope of a man. She is a materialist; she wants immediate results, and all that keeps her from being a gambler is the fear of losing. I trust I have not shocked you."
He stroked his thin beard to a point, and twisted it. He c.o.c.ked his head, and looked at Milford as if he expected a weighty decision concerning an important matter. His clothes were well-kept relics, but his dignity came out fresh, as if it had been newly dusted. What a tenderfoot he would have been in a mining camp; what a guy at a variety show! Milford agreed that his views were no doubt correct. The man was an unconscious joke, and argument would spoil him.
"I thank you," said the Professor. "Such ready and cheerful agreement is rarely found, except between two intelligent men, and the admission of a third man of equal intelligence would greatly lessen the chances. And now I may tell you that my wife and daughter objected to my calling, affirming, as they had a right to do, that it was your place to call on me, as I was the newer comer. And I said, "Madam, there are no women in this case, so, therefore, we have no need to be finical and unnatural.""
He cleared his throat, and c.o.c.ked his head. The sharp face of his host looked serious, but there was a t.i.tter in his breast.
"Of course," said the Professor, "one may have ever so hairy an ear, and yet the gossip of the neighborhood will force its way in. I have heard much concerning you. I heard that they did not understand you, and then I said to myself that you must be a man worth knowing."
"Then I must be rare," said Milford.
"Ah, sharp; that is sharp, sir. A dignified contempt for man may not belong to the text of the virtues, but it is one of the pictures that brightens the page. I beg pardon for even the appearance of infringement, but do you expect to reside here permanently?"
"No, I have stopped to stay over night, and to chop wood for breakfast."
"A judicious answer, sir; a shrewd statement. They told me that you were strangely guarded in speech, that you suffered yourself to seem dull rather than to trip off a waste of words. That is true wisdom, not, indeed, to have nothing to say, but keeping the something that fain would fly forth. I take it that you came from the city to these parts."
"Yes, directly. But I was there only a short time."
"A stranger, indeed. Have you ever chanced to live in Kansas?"
"I"ve broken out there in spots."
"Ha! an idiomatic answer. I see that you belong to the new school.
Perhaps it is better, but I am too old to learn. Did you ever happen to break out in a spot called Grayson?"
"I pa.s.sed through there on my way to break out somewhere else."
"You did? That was my town, sir--a seat of learning made famous by a bank robbery. When our city was ten years old, I read a paper at the celebration. Were you ever engaged in any educational work?"
"Yes, one of the greatest. I sold a cook-book."
"Shrewd; yes, sharp. From what I heard, I thought that you would be worth knowing. I have met your landlady, a most impressive woman, but with a vulgar contempt for my profession. She said that it was a good thing that I had left off fooling and at last got down to work. And I think that this has precluded any relationship between her and my wife.
She can"t stand a reference, not that kind of a reference, to my decline. In this regard, women haven"t so much virtue as a man possesses. They can not piece a torn quilt with an aphorism. In what part of the country have your labors been mostly confined?"
"Mostly between here and sunset."
"More poetic than sharp," said the Professor, clearing his throat. "May I trouble you for a drink of water?"
Milford drew water from the well near the walnut tree, and in the kitchen dipper conveyed a quart of it to the Professor, who drank with the thirst of a toper and the suck of a horse. "I am sufficiently watered," he said, bowing and returning the dipper to Milford, who threw it out upon the gra.s.s where the hired man could find it. "What a delightful way to live!" said the Professor. "You throw things about as you please, and there is no one to complain. You may leave your pipe anywhere, and probably find it again; you let hunger, instead of time, summon you to eat. I trust I do not shock you when I say that Adam enjoyed his greatest freedom before the appearance of Eve."
Milford said that he was not shocked, and the Professor thanked him. It was pleasant to meet a philosopher, a man who did not foolishly feel called upon in resentment to declare, that his mother was a woman. A shrewder man than Milford might have inferred that the Professor had been nagged by his wife through the tedium of a Sunday forenoon.
Work-day annoyances fester on Sunday. In the country, when a man has, on a Sunday, killed the chickens for dinner, salted the sheep in the pasture, and returned to the house, he is in the way; everything he does is wrong; everything he leaves undone is worse. He is kept on the ducking verge of a constant dodge.
"No man has more respect for a woman than I have," said the Professor, "but I am forced to admit that she is a constant experiment. Nature herself does not as yet know what to make of her. One moment she is a joy, and the next she is searching for a man"s weak spots, like a disease. I think that it was some such expression, spoken in a sententious mood, that helped to oust me from the easy chair of congenial letters." A clock struck the hour of five. The Professor seemed surprised at the swift rush of time. "Well, I must take my leave," said he, getting up and standing with his hands resting on the back of the chair. "Ah, and would you mind walking over to my home with me?"
The lingering dawn of Milford"s suspicions was now streaked with gray.
"I"d like to, but the hired man"s gone out, and I"ve got to do the ch.o.r.es about the place."
"But perhaps I may return with you and a.s.sist you. I am an apt hand."
"No, thank you, not to-day; some other time."
A shade of disappointment fell upon him and darkened his dignity. "I am sorry," he said. "I had hoped to know you better, and we were making such fair progress. It is not often that I get along so well with a new acquaintance." He brightened suddenly, as if the reserve forces of his mind had been brought up. "Ah, would you object to my helping you with your work, and then taking a bachelor"s supper with you?"
"That"s all right--fits me like a glove," said Milford.
"Good!" cried the Professor. "Idiomatic, and divested of all shrewdness.
Now, what shall we do first?"
"I"ll hatch up a bite to eat, and then we"ll feed the stock. You sit here."
He protested against a decree that might make a lazy guest of him, but he yielded, and sat down to hum a tune of contentment, pliant heart postponing trouble, procrastinator of annoyances. It did not take Milford long to prepare the meal, crisp strips of bacon, bread, and coffee boiled in a tin pail. The host said that it was but ranch fare.
The guest rubbed his hands together, and declared that freedom was a pudding"s sweetest sauce. He had read of many great feasts, in the days of the barons, when bulls were roasted whole, of the wild boar"s head served upon the golden platter of the king, but to him there was one banquet mellower with sentiment than all the rest--General Marion and the British officer in the forest, with a pile of roasted sweet potatoes on a log. He sipped the dreggy coffee as if it were the mulled wine of a New Year"s night. He talked loudly as if he enjoyed the resonant freedom of his own voice. He laughed in the present, and then was silent as a cool shadow of the future fell upon him. But he shifted from under the shadow, and went on with his talk, in florid congratulation of his host, his ease, his independence. There were no soft cushions, but there was rough repose, the undisturbed rest of honest weariness. Milford"s judgment of men told him that this man had ever been a laughing-stock, afflicted as he was with a certain incompetent refinement of mind. But, in the varied society of life, how important is the office of such a failure! A shiftless man sometimes makes shiftless men more contented, softening enmities against life, and quieting clamors against discriminating nature. Here was a man who really was worth knowing, and the cowboy gratefully accepted him. He opened up his Noah"s Ark of adventures, and entertained the man-child. He shoved back from the table, and sang a roaring song of a plainsman who died for love. He recited a poem by Antrobus, the herdsman"s sneer of abandoned recklessness--"Like a Centaur, he speeds where the wild bull feeds." The Professor clapped his hands. He swore that no Eastcheap could afford a more delicious entertainment. Milford brought cider from the cellar, beading in a brown, earthen ewer, and the Professor snapped his eyes.
"Where the wild bull feeds," he laughed, pa.s.sing his cup for more. They shook hands, that they held in common so many old songs, lines familiar to our grandmothers--"Come, dearest, the daylight hath gone;" "The tiger"s cub I"d bind with a chain." They sang till the daylight was gone, and then went forth laughingly to feed the stock. But the Professor left off his part of the singing before the work was completed. The shadow of the future had again fallen upon him, and he could not shift from under it.