"She"s a worker. She teaches school. I can"t do that, for mother needs me at home." There was another pause, broken by the little girl, who called:
"Maud, mamma wants you."
Maud rose and went out, with a tired smile on her face that emphasized her resemblance to her mother. Bert couldn"t forget that smile, and he was still thinking about the girl, and what her life must be, when Hartley came in.
"By jinks! It"s _snifty_, as dad used to say. You can"t draw a long breath through your nostrils without freezing y"r nose solid as a bottle," he announced, throwing off his coat. "By-the-way, I"ve just found out why you was so anxious to get into this house. Another case o"
girl, hey?"
Bert blushed; he couldn"t help it, notwithstanding his innocence in this case. "I didn"t know it myself till about ten minutes ago," he protested.
Hartley winked prodigiously.
"Don"t tell me! Is she pretty?"
The girl returned at this moment with an armful of wood.
"Let _me_ put it in," cried Hartley, springing up. "Excuse me. My name is Hartley, book agent: Blaine"s _Twenty Years_, plain cloth, sprinkled edges, three dollars; half calf, three fifty. This is my friend Mr.
Lohr, of Marion; German extraction, soph at the university."
The girl bowed and smiled, and pushed by him toward the door of the parlor. Hartley followed her in, and Bert could hear them rattling away at the stove.
"Won"t you sit down and play for us?" asked Hartley, after they returned to the sitting-room. The persuasive music of the book agent was in his fine voice.
"Oh no! It"s nearly dinner-time, and I must help about the table."
"Now make yourselves at home," said Mrs. Welsh, appearing at the door leading to the kitchen; "if you want anything, just let me know."
"All right. We will," replied Hartley.
By the time the dinner-bell rang they were feeling at home in their new quarters. At the table they met the usual group of village boarders: the Brann brothers, newsdealers; old man Troutt, who ran the livery-stable--and smelled of it; and a small, dark, and wizened woman who kept the millinery store. The others, who came in late, were clerks in the stores near by.
Maud served the dinner, while Stella and her mother waited upon the table. Albert admired the hands of the girl, which no amount of work could quite rob of their essential shapeliness. She was not more than twenty, he decided, but she looked older, so wistful was her face.
"They"s one thing ag"in" yeh," Troutt, the liveryman, remarked to Hartley: "we"ve jest been worked for one o" the goldingedest schemes you _ever_ see! "Bout six munce ago s"m" fellers come all through here claimin" t" be after information about the county and the leadin"
citizens; wanted t" write a history, an" wanted all the pitchers of the leading men, old settlers, an" so on. You paid ten dollars, an" you had a book an" your pitcher in it."
"I know the scheme," grinned Hartley.
"Wal, sir, I s"pose them fellers roped in every man in this town. I don"t s"pose they got out with a cent less"n one thousand dollars. An"
when the book come--wal!" Here he stopped to roar. "I don"t s"pose you ever see a madder lot o" men in your life. In the first place, they got the names and the pitchers mixed so that I was Judge Ricker, an" Judge Ricker was ol" man Daggett. Didn"t the judge swear--oh, it was awful!"
"I should say so."
"An the pitchers that wa"n"t mixed was so goldinged _black_ you couldn"t tell "em from n.i.g.g.e.rs. You know how kind o" lily-livered Lawyer Ransom is? Wal, he looked like ol" black Joe; he was the maddest man of the hull bi"lin". He throwed the book in the fire, and tromped around like a blind bull."
"It wasn"t a success, I take it, then. Why, I should "a" thought they"d "a" nabbed the fellows."
"Not much! They was too keen for that. They didn"t deliver the books theirselves; they hired d.i.c.k Bascom to do it f"r them. "Course, d.i.c.k wa"n"t t" blame."
"No; I never tried it before," Albert was saying to Maud, at their end of the table. "Hartley offered me a job, and as I needed money, I came.
I don"t know what he"s going to do with me, now I"m here."
Albert did not go out after dinner with Hartley; it was too cold. He had brought his books with him, planning to keep up with his cla.s.s, if possible, and was deep in "Caesar" when a timid knock came upon the door.
"Come!" he called, student fashion,
Maud entered, her face aglow.
"How natural that sounds!" she said.
Albert sprang up to take the wood from her arms. "I wish you"d let me do that," he said, pleadingly, as she refused his aid.
"I wasn"t sure you were in. Were you reading?"
"Caesar," he replied, holding up the book. "I am conditioned on Latin.
I"m going over the "Commentaries" again."
"I thought I knew the book," she laughed.
"You read Latin?"
"Yes, a little--Vergil."
"Maybe you can help me out on these _oratia obliqua_. They bother me yet. I hate these "Caesar saids." I like Vergil better."
She stood at his shoulder while he pointed out the knotty pa.s.sage. She read it easily, and he thanked her. It was amazing how well acquainted they felt after this.
The wind roared outside in the bare maples, and the fire boomed in its pent place within, but these young people had forgotten time and place.
The girl sank into a chair almost unconsciously as they talked of Madison--a great city to them--of the Capitol building, of the splendid campus, of the lakes, and the gay sailing there in summer and ice-boating in winter.
"Oh, it makes me homesick!" cried the girl, with a deep sigh. "It was the happiest, sunniest time of all my life. Oh, those walks and talks!
Those recitations in the dear, chalky old rooms! Oh, _how_ I would like to go back over that hollow door-stone again!"
She broke off, with tears in her eyes, and he was obliged to cough two or three times before he could break the silence.
"I know just how you feel. The first spring when I went back on the farm it seemed as if I couldn"t stand it. I thought I"d go crazy. The days seemed forty-eight hours long. It was so lonesome, and so dreary on rainy days! But of course I expected to go back; that"s what kept me up.
I don"t think I could have stood it if I hadn"t had hope."
"I"ve given it up now," she said, plaintively; "it"s no use hoping."
"Why don"t you teach?" he asked, deeply affected by her voice and manner.
"I did teach here for a year, but I couldn"t endure the strain; I"m not very strong, and the boys were so rude. If I could teach in a seminary--teach Latin and English--I should be happy, I think. But I can"t leave mother now."
She was a wholly different girl in Albert"s eyes as she said this. Her cheap dress, her check ap.r.o.n, could not hide the pure intellectual flame of her spirit. Her large, blue eyes were deep with thought, and the pale face, lighted by the glow of the fire, was as lovely as a rose. Almost before he knew it, he was telling her of his life.
"I don"t see how I endured it as long as I did," he went on. "It was nothing but work, work, and dust or mud the whole year round; farm-life, especially on a dairy farm, is slavery."