"Oh, d.a.m.n!" and he turned to move away.
His utter ignorance coupled with his rudeness, made his companion, despite her well-laid plan, cry out, "I"ve something for you to see; it was in one of my newspapers. It concerns you and you ought to know. It"s about----"
"Put the old thing in my room," he called back as he walked down the street.
Watching his fast disappearing figure, Mrs. Pickens decided that was just what she would do. He should read the tale for himself, and she would then have the privilege of giving him advice and comforting sympathy. She would put the paper where it would greet him when he returned. She went within, very much excited, and upon his cluttered bureau, with his traveling case tumbling its contents over the fresh linen cover, she laid the important sheet. That it might at once convey the desired news she marked the paragraph with a pencil lying at hand.
"Will he mind so very much?" she asked herself. "It"s all in the past."
And then, expectant, hoping that in the end all would come out right with the young people, she left the room.
d.i.c.k, for his part, as he walked off forgot his landlady in his dismay at the thought that Hertha might go away. He had made so many plans for those vacation days! He was hot with disappointment when a stumbling step made him glance down to be soothed by the sight of his white flannels. The remembrance of Hertha"s half promise to play tennis made him believe that no governess" place was yet secured, and he resolved to buy a net the next morning that they might that afternoon start in to play. They would play Sunday, too, if she desired. The devil might get him for a Sabbath breaker for all he cared! The grim imagery of his religious teaching came to him and he pictured Hertha and himself, tennis rackets in hand, dragged down to the fiery pit. Then he smiled whimsically. His Georgia home with all its crudities, its rough, unpainted houses, its poorly tilled fields, its ignorant, frenzied religion was immeasurably far away. Turning to the present and its shining hope he followed his lode-star down the street.
CHAPTER x.x.xIII
It was the first hot evening of summer. Families were sitting on door-steps and verandas breathing in the night air as it came up from the city"s baking streets, hoping for a refreshing ocean breeze. But no breeze came, the leaves on the trees hung motionless, and the smoke from the chimneys moved in a straight line upward. d.i.c.k found Hertha alone on the stoop with Bob, and man and boy exchanged pleasantries, the latter exhibiting much pride at his ability to make jokes. To d.i.c.k"s surprise Hertha was the first to make a movement to go. Kissing the child good-night, and laying her hand for a second on d.i.c.k"s arm, she walked with him along the street. Bob, though disconsolate, made no attempt to follow them, knowing that with growing darkness it was wisest for him to be inconspicuous, a small figure in the shadow whom parents might forget and fail to send early to bed.
The two figures whom his eyes followed did not go back toward their home but crossed the avenue at the entrance to the park. They walked very slowly, stopping as they reached the first group of trees. He wondered what they were saying. Perhaps Miss Ogilvie was telling d.i.c.k one of her stories.
What she was saying was this: "I"ve something to tell you about myself but I don"t know how to begin."
d.i.c.k"s heart leaped at this sign of confidence. "Begin anywhere it"s easiest," he said, "and don"t begin at all unless you want to."
"I do want to. At least I think you ought to know. It isn"t fair to you not to tell."
"Fire away then," d.i.c.k cried cheerfully. "I hope it means that there"s something for me to do. Isn"t there a cruel father who needs to be hunted in his lair, or an unforgiving sister who is as ugly as you are beautiful whom I can melt with my pleadings? Don"t have a fortune anywhere for I want to do everything for you myself."
"No," Hertha said, making a vain attempt to laugh, "there isn"t anything like that."
"Whatever there is," d.i.c.k"s voice trembled in his earnestness, "it can"t make any difference to me. I couldn"t love you any more, and there isn"t any possible thing that could make me love you less."
His shaking voice and the intensity of his speech made Hertha unconsciously draw away. Always hurt by his pa.s.sion, she stopped for a moment wondering if she were not making a mistake, if she should not leave before it was too late with everything unsaid. But as she looked down the long street the loneliness of a life by herself made her keep her resolve. Holding herself tense she walked quietly by the man"s side.
They were under the arc-light that flooded the entrance to the park.
Large trees rose about them, their branches meeting overhead. To the right and left small paths wound among the shrubbery to disappear in the darkness. The air was sweet with the fragrance of syringa and honeysuckle and of the fresh, warm earth.
"Shall we walk a little way?" d.i.c.k said. "It"s jolly hot, isn"t it?"
fumbling at his stiff collar. "Girls have the bulge on a man this weather when it comes to clothes."
Hertha had intended going to the lake, but the way looked so lonely, so apart from the city lights and sounds, that she shrank from taking one of the paths. "Don"t you want to smoke?" she asked. "I"d like to talk with you when you"re enjoying your cigar."
The young man laughed and started to comply with her request, but for the first time that evening a breeze sprang up and extinguished his match. With an exclamation of annoyance he moved out of the light into the shrubbery searching in his pocket for a second match. Hertha still stood in the broad light of the road.
Meanwhile, from his vantage ground at home, trying to guess at their possible talk, Bob kept watch, deciding in his mind that what they said was probably not worth much as Miss Ogilvie kept her best stories for him. He had learned from d.i.c.k that she had never once told that young man of Tom-of-the-Woods. As he sat meditating he noticed a boy hurry up the street from the car-line below, who, as he came under the near light, proved to be none other than Tom-of-the-Woods himself. With a jump of pleasure, forgetting that he was in hiding, Bob left his perch and ran out with a greeting.
"h.e.l.lo, Tom!" he called.
Tom looked at the little boy for a moment in perplexity, and then without answering started to walk past.
"Want to see her?" Bob asked cheerfully.
Tom stopped. "Yes," he answered.
"I can tell you where she is," Bob went on cautiously. "What"ll you give me if I let you know?"
"I"m in a hurry," Tom said. "Don"t fool."
"Gimme your top?"
Tom thrust his hand in his pocket and brought the top out. Grabbing it with one hand, Bob pointed with the other. "See her over there?" He indicated the white figure across the street. "That"s her. Say," he called after Tom as he dashed away, "will it vanish for me?"
"Bob, come to bed," came a man"s voice from within the house, and, accepting the inevitable, Bob went within.
Tom had hurried across the street. He was the bearer of bad news and had no thought for anything but the white figure ahead to whom he must bring sorrow. Running to where Hertha stood in the bright light he touched her on the arm saying gently, "Sister!"
The girl started back with a cry. The sight of her brother, here in the night, unnerved her. Was he G.o.d"s messenger, come out of the shadow of the past, to stop her in the path she was about to take? The thought rushed through her mind as she gave her startled cry.
Then behind her came a sound like the bellowing of some wild creature, and d.i.c.k flung himself upon the Negro. With a blow he struck the lad to the earth, and holding him fast beat him fiercely.
"Let him alone," Hertha cried, pulling with all her might at d.i.c.k"s arm.
"He did me no harm!"
The man never heard her. His eyes bulging, his breath coming quick, he pounded the prostrate boy with a fury that made Hertha cry out in horror.
"What"s up?" A group of men came running in from the street. "What you got?" one demanded. "A n.i.g.g.e.r? Gimme a turn at him."
Moving a moment from where he bent over Tom to turn to his questioners, d.i.c.k gave the lad a chance to wriggle from his grasp. In an instant the black boy was on his feet and running from his enemy into the darkness of the park.
"Catch him," d.i.c.k cried, leaping up and calling on the others. "Lynch the n.i.g.g.e.r!"
The men, there were a dozen by this time, scattered among the trees, d.i.c.k leading in the pursuit. Some ran from curiosity, interested to learn the turn events would take; others were bent on executing vengeance. None of them listened to Hertha who in her sweet, light voice was reiterating that the boy had done her no harm.
It was very dark away from the lamp and Tom, who had dashed down one of the paths, turned among the trees and slipped along close to the bushes.
He knew nothing of his way but he hoped in the obscurity to elude his pursuers until, weary with their search, they should turn back. He cursed himself for having brought trouble upon Hertha. "If I can jest hide for a s.p.a.ce," he thought, "I reckon they"ll all go away, and she won"t be bothered no more." And crouching under a great bush filled with snow-white blossoms he waited for the men to pa.s.s.
It would have turned out as he desired had not his first pursuer been a man from Georgia to whom a hunt for a Negro"s skin was as justifiable as a hunt for the skin of a rabbit. And d.i.c.k"s fury was at its height, for he had seen Tom touch Hertha"s arm. He bent to the ground, deaf to everything but his work, and slipped among the bushes until he found Tom crouching close. Then with a great cry he sprang on the boy again.
His grasp slipped and Tom was up and on once more, but this time men closed in about him to the right and left while d.i.c.k bellowed behind.
Running on ahead as fast as his strength would carry him his foot slipped, and he fell headlong on the path close to the lake. Before he could rise d.i.c.k was striking him cruelly in the face.
"Come on, boys," he cried, "somebody get a rope. We"ll string this d.a.m.ned buck on the nearest tree!"
"Let him alone," came Hertha"s voice as she ran toward them through the trees. "Let him alone."
Her call only infuriated her lover. Turning upon the black boy he kicked him with his boot; and as though he could not wait for the rope for which he had called, encircled his neck with his hands as though to strangle him.