Part 2 (1/2)

”Why, I don't know anything about him.”

”Oh, yes, you said he'd committed murder.”

”No, I said most likely; but I didn't want it repeated, for, of course, I don't know.”

”Yes, you bet! And there's a good many things you don't want repeated.

You don't want it repeated that you put old Lewson's brats up to turning him out of the house.”

”Look here, madam, I didn't do anything of the sort. I simply said I didn't see how they could live with him; and I didn't, either.”

”Well, it's all right. The old man's got a better home than he ever had; and you needn't worry yourself about my man over yonder. He couldn't sell as much milk from five cows as you can do, and I don't believe you can keep it up unless we have rain pretty soon, but he knows how to attend to his own business, and that's somethin' you've never been able to learn.”

”Madam, if you'll step from in front of my horses I'll drive on.”

”Yes, and mighty glad of the opportunity. You stir trouble, and are the first one to hitch up and drive out of it. Now go on, and don't you let me hear of any more murder stories.”

Mrs. Blakemore, mother of the red boy, would not presume to say that there was a stain on Milford's character; but he was undoubtedly peculiar, with an air which bespoke a constant effort to hide something.

She knew, however, that there was good blood somewhere in his family.

She believed in blood. Her husband had failed in business, and she could afford to despise trade. One Sunday, with her vacant-eyed husband and her red tormentor, she halted at Milford's cottage. He was sitting on the veranda, with the billows of a Sunday newspaper about him on the floor. She introduced her husband, who nodded. She spoke of the fervor of the day and the ragged cloud-skirts flaunting in the sky. She thought it must be going to rain. In the city a rain was wasted, a sloppy distress; but in the country it was a beautiful and refres.h.i.+ng necessity. In each great drop there was a stanza of sentiment.

Milford's eyes twinkled. ”You ought to go to a mining-camp,” he said.

”Men who couldn't pa.r.s.e would call you a poem.”

She turned to her husband. ”George, do you hear that? Isn't that sweet?

So unaffected, too.” George grunted; he was thinking of the receiver that had had charge of his affairs. His wife continued, speaking to Milford: ”In my almost hothouse refinement, I have longed to see the rude chivalry of the West--where a rhythm of true gallantry beats beneath a woolen s.h.i.+rt.”

”Yes,” said Milford, ”and beneath a linen s.h.i.+rt, too. The West is just as wide but not so woolen as it was.”

”Oh, what quaint conceits! George, do you hear them? George, dear.”

”George, dear” turned a tired eye upon her. Affection seeking to console a loved one sometimes chooses an unseasonable moment for the exercise of its tender office. She felt the look of her husband's worry-rusted eye; a memory of his weary pacing up and down the floor at night came to her, of his groans upon a comfortless bed, his sighs at breakfast, his dark brow as he went forth to try again to save his credit. She thought of this; she felt that at this moment he needed her help. And affectionately she put her hand upon his arm, and said: ”You have met reverses, George, but you've still got me.” And George muttered: ”You bet I have.” She glanced at him as if she felt that he said it with a lack of enthusiasm, as if it were a sad fact acknowledged rather than a possession declared; and she would have replied with a thin sentiment strained through the muslin of a summer book, but George turned away.

She followed and he opened a gate and halted, waiting for her to pa.s.s through. The boy crawled under the fence. She scolded the youngster, brushed at his clothes, and said to George:

”He is almost a gentleman.”

”Who is so far gone as that?”

”Why, the man back there on the veranda.”

”I don't know what you mean by almost a gentleman.”

”Oh, George, don't you know that there are distinctions?”

”But I don't see how a man can be almost a gentleman. You might as well say that a man almost has money.”

”Bobbie, don't try to climb over that stump. There's a poison vine on it. Money is not everything, George.”

”Comes devilish near it.”

”No, George. Money is not love.”