"Philosophy?"
"Finance, madam."
She choked a laugh in its infant uprising. That this threadbare man should write about money! How ridiculous! But true genius has many a curious kink.
Mrs. Blakemore, feeling that she was neglected, brought in Bobbie to annoy the company with him. She bade him shake hands with Mr. Milford; she commanded him to recite for the Professor. The learned man smiled.
He said that there was nothing so sweet as the infant lip, lisping its way into the fields of knowledge. Multicharged by his mother, the boy began to fire off, "I am not mad, no, am not mad." Mrs. Stuvic, who had been remarkably quiet, got up and remarked as she pa.s.sed Milford: "This lets me out; yes, you bet!"
The Professor applauded the youngster. He would be a great man, some day. He had the voice and the manner of the true orator. Only seven years old? Quite remarkable. His mother stroked his hair, and said that, in fact, he would not be seven till the eighteenth of September. At this the Professor was much surprised. Really a remarkable boy.
Mr. Josh Spence, a fat man rounding out a corner of the room with his retiring flesh, was called upon for a song. He was modest, and he declined, but yielded upon persuasion, and in strained tenor sang "Marguerite."
"Do you like his voice?" Gunhild asked.
"It"s not big enough to fit him," Milford answered. "But let him sing.
It keeps the boy quiet."
"Oh, are you not ashamed? He is a nice little man, and his mother loves him so."
"And only seven years old," said Milford.
"You must not make fun. The boy is her heart. You must not laugh at a heart."
Milford flinched. He had not said the right thing. "Mitch.e.l.l, the man who works with me, called me down for saying something that I oughtn"t to have said, and I apologized, and we shook hands. I apologize to you.
Shall we shake hands?"
She shook her head. "No, it will not be necessary. You do not mean to be cruel."
This touched him. He tried to hide himself with a laugh. She looked at him earnestly, and his face sobered. He thought of the night before, his kneeling to her on the floor of the haunted house, and felt that it would be a comfort to drop upon his knees again, not to talk of the wind rising among the trees, but to tell her that she had clasped her hands about his heart.
"Shall we go out on the veranda?" he asked, eating her with his glutton eyes.
"No, it is getting late. See, Mrs. Goodwin is telling the Professor good-night. I must go too."
"May I see you again soon?"
"Oh, you may come. Mrs. Goodwin will not care."
"But do you want me to--do you care if I come?"
"Yes, I will like for you to come. We will be friends."
"And shall we go over into the woods where the mandrakes are in bloom?"
"Yes, Mrs. Goodwin likes the flowers that grow in the woods. She calls them beautiful barbarians."
Mrs. Stuvic took the lantern down from under the eaves of the veranda.
She called it a sign to every rat to hunt his hole. She joked at Milford as he pa.s.sed her, going out. Even her blunt eye saw that he was enthralled. "Not so loud," he said. "Those people might hear you."
"I"d better flag you down," she replied, swinging the red lantern before his face.
Milford and the Professor walked off together along the road running through the grove. "Professor, you seemed to be happy to-night."
"My dear fellow, I am the most miserable man alive--just at this time."
"What"s the trouble?"
"Life insurance. It will be due on the ninth of this present month, three days from now, ninety-seven dollars and forty cents, and how I am to raise it the Lord only knows. I have been carrying it for seven years, a galling burden, shifted from shoulder to shoulder, with but a moment of relief between the shifts. Many a time as the day approached have I wished that the lightning might strike me. And I pledge you my word that I would rather die any sort of death than to have it lapse.
It has been a hard fight, a fight that my wife and daughter, as intelligent as they are, could not fully understand. They argue sometimes that the money thus invested would make them comfortable, with better clothes and more furniture in the house. They cannot comprehend that I am making this great sacrifice for a rainy day, a day when I shall be out in the rain and they in a better house."
"Well, I want to tell you that it"s n.o.ble in you."
"No, I don"t look at it that way. It is a self-defense, an easing of my conscience for not providing better for them. But I must manage to raise it somehow, and I have an idea. I have been sounding Mrs. Goodwin. She has faith in my ability. I am going to write something and upon it borrow enough money from her to pay my installment. Her husband can send the paper to a medical review with his name signed to it. Some sanitary measures that I have long pondered shall be set forth. Result, notoriety for the doctor and his wife and a moment of ease between the shifts for me. Would you resort to anything like that?"
"Would I? Well, I should think so. Do you know what I"d do? If I had--had some one dependent upon me and had my life insured, I"d go out on the highway and hold up a chosen servant of the Lord before I"d let it lapse."
"My dear boy, I am delighted to know that you understand how I feel. I don"t want to be a rascal; I would like to be honest. But I tell you that I have resorted to many a piece of trickery--almost treachery--to pay my premiums. I could tell you something, but you would hate me for it."
"No, I wouldn"t."
"Well, I would better not tell it. What a charming young woman!"
"Yes. Blakemore calls her a "peach.""
"A vulgarism not altogether unbefitting," said the Professor, stumbling along in the dark. "She has not the dash of the American girl, perhaps, but I rather admire her for the lack of it. Well, our roads part here.
From now until morning I must work on my medical paper."
CHAPTER X.
HIS NICKNAME.
The hot weather fled before a cool mist that came floating over from Lake Michigan. A cold rain began to fall. Cows lowed, and dogs, soonest of all creatures to feel a change in the atmosphere, crouched shivering in the doorways. Milford worked in the barn till there was nothing more to do, and then he went to the house and sat down with a newspaper. But he could not find interest in it. He threw down the paper and from his bag he took out a worn copy of Whittier. It was a day when we like to read the old things which long ago we committed to memory. We know the word before we reach it, but reaching it, we find it full of a new meaning. But the hours are long when the heart is restless. Out in the woods the mist hung in the tree-tops as if vapor were the world"s slow-moving time, balking among the dripping leaves. From a longing Milford"s desire to go over to Mrs. Stuvic"s became a feverish throb.
But the old woman"s grin and the red lantern waved in his face constantly arose before him. He strove to recall what the girl had said.
He could not find the words that she had spoken, but he remembered that he had felt an encouragement. He went out in the drizzle, to the knoll in the oat field, and stood there, gazing toward the house. He cursed himself for a fool and returned to his cheerless shelter. The hired man sat at the dining-room table, playing solitaire with a pack of greasy cards.
"I worked this thing the other day, but it won"t come now," he said.
"But what have you done when you do it?"
"Well, not much of anything, but you"re on top. Heigho! I"d almost rather work than to sit around such a day as this. I don"t believe we can do anything in the field to-day. Think so?"
"No. Thinking about going somewhere?"
"Not exactly. Didn"t know but I might go over to see my girl. Told me the other day she was lonesome without me. And when you get a woman so she"s lonesome without you, why, you"ve got her foul. Haven"t changed your mind about not wantin" her here, have you?"