"You do not understand," he returned, sadly, wishing, before her, to be unmercifully just to himself. "I came here because I couldn"t make a living anywhere else. And the "wonderful melodies"--I have known you only one evening--and the melodies--" He rose to his feet and took a few steps toward the garden. "Come," he said. "Let me take you back. Let us go before I--" he finished with a helpless laugh.
She stood by the bench, one hand resting on it; she stood all in the tremulant shadow. She moved one step toward him, and a single, long sliver of light pierced the sycamores and fell upon her head. He gasped.
"What was it about the melodies?" she said.
"Nothing! I don"t know how to thank you for this evening that you have given me. I--I suppose you are leaving to-morrow. No one ever stays here.--I----"
"What about the melodies?"
He gave it up. "The moon makes people insane!" he cried.
"If that is true," she returned, "then you need not be more afraid than I, because "people" is plural. What were you saying about----"
"I _had_ heard them--in my heart. When I heard your voice to-night, I knew that it was you who sang them there--had been singing them for me always."
"So!" she cried, gaily. "All that debate about a pretty speech!" Then, sinking before him in a deep courtesy, "I am beholden to you," she said.
"Do you think that no man ever made a little flattery for me before to-night?"
At the edge of the orchard, where they could keep an unseen watch on the garden and the bank of the creek. Judge Briscoe and Mr. Todd were ensconced under an apple-tree, the former still armed with his shot-gun.
When the two young people got up from their bench, the two men rose hastily, and then sauntered slowly toward them. When they met, Harkless shook each of them cordially by the hand, without seeming to know it.
"We were coming to look for you," explained the judge. "William was afraid to go home alone; thought some one might take him for Mr.
Harkless and shoot him before he got into town. Can you come out with young Willetts in the morning, Harkless," he went on, "and go with the ladies to see the parade? And Minnie wants you to stay to dinner and go to the show with them in the afternoon."
Harkless seized his hand and shook it fervently, and then laughed heartily, as he accepted the invitation.
At the gate, Miss Sherwood extended her hand to him and said politely, and with some flavor of mockery: "Good-night, Mr. Harkless. I do not leave to-morrow. I am very glad to have met you."
"We are going to keep her all summer if we can," said Minnie, weaving her arm about her friend"s waist. "You"ll come in the morning?"
"Good-night, Miss Sherwood," he returned, hilariously. "It has been such a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for saving my life. It was very good of you indeed. Yes, in the morning. Good-night--good-night."
He shook hands with them all again, including Mr. Todd, who was going with him.
He laughed most of the way home, and Mr. Todd walked at his side in amazement. The Herald Building was a decrepit frame structure on Main Street; it had once been a small warehouse and was now sadly in need of paint. Closely adjoining it, in a large, blank-looking yard, stood a low brick cottage, over which the second story of the warehouse leaned in an effect of tipsy affection that had reminded Harkless, when he first saw it, of an old Sunday-school book wood-cut of an inebriated parent under convoy of a devoted child. The t.i.tle to these two buildings and the blank yard had been included in the purchase of the "Herald"; and the cottage was Harkless"s home.
There was a light burning upstairs in the "Herald" office. From the street a broad, tumble-down stairway ran up on the outside of the building to the second floor, and at the stairway railing John turned and shook his companion warmly by the hand.
"Good-night, William," he said. "It was plucky of you to join in that muss, to-night. I shan"t forget it."
"I jest happened to come along," replied the other, drowsily; then, with a portentous yawn, he asked: "Ain"t ye goin" to bed?"
"No; Parker wouldn"t allow it."
"Well," observed William, with another yawn, which bade fair to expose the veritable soul of him, "I d"know how ye stand it. It"s closte on eleven o"clock. Good-night."
John went up the steps, singing aloud:
"For to-night we"ll merry, merry be, For to-night we"ll merry, merry be,"
and stopped on the sagging platform at the top of the stairs and gave the moon good-night with a wave of the hand and friendly laughter. At that it suddenly struck him that he was twenty-nine years of age; that he had laughed a great deal that evening; that he had laughed and laughed over things not in the least humorous, like an excited schoolboy making his first formal call; that he had shaken hands with Miss Briscoe when he left her, as if he should never see her again; that he had taken Miss Sherwood"s hand twice in one very temporary parting; that he had shaken the judge"s hand five times, and William"s four!
"Idiot!" he cried. "What has happened to me?" Then he shook his fist at the moon and went in to work--he thought.
CHAPTER VII. MORNING: "SOME IN RAGS AND SOME IN TAGS AND SOME IN VELVET GOWNS"
The bright sun of circus-day shone into Harkless"s window, and he awoke to find himself smiling. For a little while he lay content, drowsily wondering why he smiled, only knowing that there was something new.
It was thus, as a boy, he had wakened on his birthday mornings, or on Christmas, or on the Fourth of July, drifting happily out of pleasant dreams into the consciousness of long-awaited delights that had come true, yet lying only half-awake in a cheerful borderland, leaving happiness undefined.
The morning breeze was fluttering at his window blind; a honeysuckle vine tapped lightly on the pane. Birds were trilling, warbling, whistling. From the street came the rumbling of wagons, merry cries of greeting, and the barking of dogs. What was it made him feel so young and strong and light-hearted? The breeze brought him the smell of June roses, fresh and sweet with dew, and then he knew why he had come smiling from his dreams. He would go a holiday-making. With that he leaped out of bed, and shouted loudly: "Zen! h.e.l.lo, Xenophon!"
In answer, an ancient, very black darky put his head in at the door, his warped and wrinkled visage showing under his grizzled hair like charred paper in a fall of pine ashes. He said: "Good-mawn", suh. Yessuh. Hit"s done pump" full. Good-mawn", suh."
A few moments later, the colored man, seated on the front steps of the cottage, heard a mighty splashing within, while the rafters rang with stentorian song:
"He promised to buy me a bunch o" blue ribbon, He promised to buy me a bunch o" blue ribbon, He promised to buy me a bunch o" blue ribbon, To tie up my bonny brown hair
"Oh dear! What can the matter be?
Oh dear! What can the matter be?
Oh dear! What can the matter be?
Johnnie"s so long at the Fair!"
At the sound of this complaint, delivered in a manly voice, the listener"s jaw dropped, and his mouth opened and stayed open. "_Him!_"
he muttered, faintly. "_Singin"_!"
"Well, the old Triangle knew the music of our tread; How the peaceful Seminole would tremble in his bed!"
sang the editor. "I dunno huccome it," exclaimed the old man, "an" dat ain" hyer ner dar; but, bless Gawd! de young man" happy!" A thought struck him suddenly, and he scratched his head. "Maybe he goin" away,"
he said, querulously. "What become o" ole Zen?" The splashing ceased, but not the voice, which struck into a n.o.ble marching chorus. "Oh, my Lawd," said the colored man, "I pray you listen at dat!"
"Soldiers marching up the street, They keep the time; They look sublime!
Hear them play Die Wacht am Rhein!
They call them Schneider"s Band.
Tra la la la, la!"
The length of Main Street and all the Square resounded with the rattle of vehicles of every kind. Since earliest dawn they had been pouring into the village, a long procession on every country road. There were great red and blue farm wagons, drawn by splendid Clydesdales; the elders of the family on the front seat and on boards laid from side to side in front, or on chairs placed close behind, while, in the deep beds back of these, children tumbled in the straw, or peeped over the sides, rosy-cheeked and laughing, eyes alight with blissful antic.i.p.ations.
There were more pretentious two-seated cut-unders and stout buckboards, loaded down with merrymakers, four on a seat meant for two; there were rattle-trap phaetons and comfortable carry-alls drawn by steady spans; and, now and then, mule teams bringing happy negroes, ready to squander all on the first Georgia watermelons and cider. Every vehicle contained heaping baskets of good things to eat (the previous night had been a woeful Bartholomew for Carlow chickens) and underneath, where the dogs paced faithfully, swung buckets and fodder for the horses, while colts innumerable trotted dose to the maternal flanks, viewing the world with their big, new eyes in frisky surprise.
Here and there the trim side-bar buggy of some prosperous farmer"s son, escorting his sweetheart, flashed along the road, the young mare stepping out in pride of blood to pa.s.s the line of wagons, the youth who held the reins, resplendent in Sunday best and even better, his scorched brown face glowing with a fine belief in the superiority of both his steed and his lady; the latter beaming out upon life and rejoicing in the light-blue ribbons on her hat, the light-blue ribbon around her waist, the light-blue, silk half-mittens on her hands, and the beautiful red coral necklace about her neck and the red coral b.u.t.tons that fastened her gown in the back.
The air was full of exhilaration; everybody was laughing and shouting and calling greetings; for Carlow County was turning out, and from far and near the country people came; nay, from over the county line, clouds of dust rising from every thoroughfare and highway, and sweeping into town to herald their coming.
Dibb Zane, the "sprinkling contractor," had been at work with the town water-cart since the morning stars were bright, but he might as well have watered the streets with his tears, which, indeed, when the farmers began to come in, bringing their cyclones of dust, he drew nigh unto, after a spell of profanity as futile as his cart.
"Tief wie das Meer soll deine Liebe sein,"
hummed the editor in the cottage. His song had taken on a reflective tone as that of one who cons a problem, or musically ponders which card to play. He was kneeling before an old trunk in his bedchamber. From one compartment he took a neatly folded pair of duck trousers and a light-gray tweed coat; from another, a straw hat with a ribbon of bright colors. They had lain in the trunk a long time undisturbed; and he examined them musingly. He shook the coat and brushed it; then he laid the garments upon his bed, and proceeded to shave himself carefully, after which he donned the white trousers, the gray coat, and, rummaging in the trunk again, found a gay pink cravat, which he fastened about his tall collar (also a resurrection from the trunk) with a pearl pin.