"But I never took a shine to Rache; and if I did, I couldn"t noways come in. They"s too many knocking at that door."
"But Rachel ain"t no vool," said the elder. "She knows a good piece of lant w"en she sees it, an" maybe she"s got enough of voolin" rount."
All that afternoon Henry revolved this proposition in his mind, and he even did what he had never done before in his life--he lay awake at night. The next day, after the midday dinner, he said to himself: "I might as well resk it. Albaugh"s got an all-fired good place, and all out of debt. And that"s a tre-mendous nice eighty father"s offered to give me."
So he went up stairs and put on a new suit of blue jeans fresh from his mother"s loom. Then he walked over to Albaugh"s, to find Rachel sewing on the front porch.
Rachel had been "kindah dauncey like," as her mother expressed it, ever since her visit to Barbara. She had received as many attentions as usual, but they seemed flat and unrelishable to her now. She began seriously to reflect that a girl past twenty-three was growing old in the estimation of the country, and yet she was further than ever from being able to make a choice between the lovers that paid her court, more or less seriously.
When she looked up and saw Henry Miller coming in at the gate she felt a strange surprise. She had never before seen him in Sunday clothes or visiting on a week-day.
"h.e.l.lo, Henry! Looking for Ike?" she asked, with neighborly friendliness.
"No, not as I know of. I"ve come to talk to you, Rache."
"To me? Well, you"re the last one I"d look for to come to talk to me; and in day-time, and corn-shucking not begun yet." There was an air of excited curiosity in her manner. It was plain to be seen that she was inwardly asking, "What _can_ Henry Miller be up to, anyhow?" but to him she said, "Come in, Henry, an" take a cheer."
"No, I"ll sed down here," he answered, taking a seat on the edge of the porch, like the outdoor man that he was, approaching a house with half reluctance.
The relations between Henry and Rachel were unconstrained. They had played "hide and whoop" together in childhood, and times innumerable they had gone on black-berrying and other excursions together; he had swung her on long grape-vine swings on the hill-side; they had trudged to and from school in each other"s company, exchanging sweet-cakes from their lunch-baskets, and yet they had never been lovers.
"Rache," he said, locking his broad, brown hands over his knee, "father says he"ll give me that east-eighty whenever I get married, if I won"t go off West."
"You"ll be a good while getting married, Henry. You never was a hand to go after the girls."
"No, but I might chance to get married shortly, for all that. The boys that do a good deal of sparking and the girls that have a lot of beaux don"t always get married first. You"d ought to know that, Rache, by your own experience."
Rachel laughed good-naturedly, and waited with curiosity to discover what all this was leading up to.
"What I "m thinking," said Henry, with the air of a man approaching a horse-trade cautiously, lest he should make a false step, "is this: that eighty of our"n jines onto your medder and west corn-field."
"Do you want to sell it?" said Rachel. "You might see father; he"d like to have it, I expect."
"Can"t you guess what it is that I"m coming at?"
"No, I _can"t_," said Rachel; "not to save my life."
"Looky here, Rache," and Henry gave his shoulders a twitch, "the two farms jine; now, what if you and me was to jine?"
"Well, Henry Miller, if you don"t beat the Dutch! I never heard the like of that in all my born days!" Rachel had heard many propositions of marriage, but this sort of love-making, with eighty acres of prairie land for a buffer, was a novelty to her.
"Looky here, Rache," he said, in a tone of protest, "I"ve knew you ever since you was knee-high to a gra.s.shopper. Now, what"s the use of fooling and nonsense betwixt you and me? You know what _I_ am--a good, stiddy-going, hard-working farmer, sh.o.r.e to get my sheer of what"s to be had in the world without scrouging anybody else. And I know just _ex_actly what you air. We"ve always got along mighty well together, and if I haven"t ever made a fool of myself about your face, w"y, so much the better for me. Now, whaddy yeh say? Let"s make it a bargain."
"W"y, Henry Miller, what a way of talking!"
"Rache, come, go along with me and see where"bouts I"m going to put up a house. Father"s promised to help me. It"s down by the spring, just beyand your medder fence. Will you go along down?"
"Well, I don"t care if I do go down with you, Henry. But it"s awful funny to come to such a subject in that way."
Rachel put on her sun-bonnet, and they went through the orchard together.
"We could put up a nice house there. Father"s willing to throw in a forty of timber too--the forty that jines onto this eighty over yander.
We"d be well fixed up to begin, no matter what your father done or didn"t do for us. Whaddy you think of the plan?"
"You--you haven"t said you loved me, or anything," said Rachel, piqued at having her charms quite left out of the account. But she could not hide from herself that Henry"s proposition had substantial advantages.
She only added, "What a curious man you are!"
"Don"t you believe I"d make a good husband?"
"Yes, of course you would."
"And a good provider?"
"Yes, I"m sh.o.r.e of that."
"Well, now, I"m not going to pretend I"m soft on you. If you say "No,"
well and good; there"s an end. I sha"n"t worry myself into consumption.
You"ve got a right to do as you please. I"m not going to have folks say that I"m another of the fools that"s broke their hearts over Rache Albaugh. Once you"re mine, I"ll set my heart on you fast enough. But I never set my heart on anything I mightn"t be able to get."
Rachel did not say anything to this bit of philosophy. She had in the last two weeks recognized the advisability of her getting married as soon as she could settle herself. But on taking an inventory of her present stock of beaux, she had mentally rejected them all. They were prospectively an unprosperous lot, and Rachel was too mature to marry adversity for the sake of sentiment. She found herself able to listen to Henry Miller"s cool-blooded proposition with rather more tolerance than she felt when hearing the kind of love-talk she had been used to. Why not get her father to do as well by her as the Millers would by Henry, or to do better, seeing he was the richer and had but two children? Then they might begin life with plenty of acres and a good stock of b.u.t.ter cows.
Henry showed her where they could put their house, where the barn would be placed, and where they would have a garden. Rachel felt a certain pleasure in fancying herself the mistress of such a place. But it was contrary to all the precedents laid down in the few romances she had read for a woman to marry a man who was not her "slave"; that was the word the old romancers took delight in. She tried to coquet with Henry, in order to draw from him some sort of professions of love. A flirtation with a lay figure would have been quite as successful. He was plain prose, and she presently saw that if she accepted him it must be done in prose. She couldn"t help liking his very prose; she was a little tired of slaves; it seemed, on the whole, better to have a man at least capable of being master of himself.
In much the same tone--the tone of a man buying, or selling, or proposing a co-partnership for business purposes--Henry Miller carried on the conversation all the way back until they reached the corn-crib, where he came to a stand-still.
"Whaddy yeh say, Rachel? Is it a bargain?"
"Well, Henry, it"s sudden like. I want to take time to think it over."
"Then I"ll take back the offer and put out for the Ioway country. I"m not a-going to have my skelp a-hanging to your belt for days and days, like the rest of them. What"s the use of thinking? You don"t want to take Magill, do you?"
"He"s too old, and his nose is rather red," laughed Rachel.
"Nor Tom Grayson, I suppose?" Henry mentioned Tom as the second because he was the one about whom he had misgivings.
"I give him the sack before the shooting, and I"m not going to go back to him now."
Rachel faltered a little in this reply, but she spoke with that resolute insincerity for which women hold an indulgence in advance when their hearts are being searched.
"Well," said Henry, "if you think you can do better by waiting, I m off.
If you think I"m about as good a man as you"re likely to pick up, here"s your chance. It"s going, going, gone with me. Either I marry you and take father"s offer, or I put out for the Ioway country. I don"t ask you to think I"m perfection, but just to take a sober, common-sense look at things."
Rachel saw that it was of no use to expect Henry to court her, and she could not help liking him the better for his honest straightforwardness.
She looked down a minute, in the hope that he would say something that might make it easier for her to answer, but he kept his silence.
"Henry," she said at length, rolling a corn-cob over and over under the toe of her shoe, "I"ve got a good mind to say "Yes." You don"t make me sick, like the rest of them. Father"ll be struck when he hears of it.
He"s always said I"d marry some good-for-nothing town-fellow."