Part 14 (1/2)

CHAPTER III. Fletcher's Move and Christopher's Counterstroke

Not until September, when he lounged one day with a gla.s.s of beer in the little room behind Tom Spade's country store, did Christopher hear the news of Maria's approaching marriage. It was Sol Peterkin who delivered it, hiccoughing in the enveloping smoke from several pipes, as he sat astride an overturned flour barrel in one corner.

”I jest pa.s.sed a wagonload of finery on the way to the Hall,” he said, bulging with importance. ”It's for the gal's weddin', I reckon; an' they do say she's a regular Jezebel as far as clothes go. I met her yestiddy with her young man that is to be, an' the way she was dressed up wasn't a sight for modest eyes. Not that she beguiled me, suh, though the devil himself might have been excused for mistakin' her for the scarlet woman--but I'm past the time of life when a man wants a woman jest to set aroun' an' look at. I tell you a good workin' pair of hands goes to my heart a long ways sooner than the blackest eyes that ever oggled.”

”Well, my daughter Jinnie has been up thar sewin' for a month,”

put in Tom Spade, a big, greasy man, who looked as if he had lived on cabbage from his infancy, ”an' she says that sech a sight of lace she never laid eyes on. Why, her very stockin's have got lace let in 'em, Jinnie says.”

”Now, that's what I call hardly decent,” remarked Sol, as he spat upon the dirty floor. ”Them's the enticin' kind of women that a fool hovers near an' a wise man fights shy of. Lace in her stockin's! Well, did anybody ever?”

”She's got a pretty ankle, you may be sho',” observed Matthew Field, a long wisp of a man who had married too early to repent it too late, ”an' I must say, if it kills me, that I always had a sharp eye for ankles.”

”It's a pity you didn't look as far up as the hand,” returned Tom Spade, with boisterous mirth. ”I have heard that Eliza lays hers on right heavy.”

”That's so, suh, that's so,” admitted Matthew, puffing smoke like a s.h.i.+fting engine, ”but that's the fault of the marriage service, an' I'll stand to it at the Judgment Day yes, suh, in the very presence of Providence who made it. I tell you, 'twill I led that woman to the altar she was the meekest-mouthed creetur that ever wiggled away from a kiss. Why, when I stepped on her train jest as I swung her up the aisle, if you believe me, all she said was, 'I hope you didn't hurt yo' foot'; an', bless my boots, ten minutes later, comin' out of church, she whispered in my year, 'You white-livered, hulkin' hound, you, get off my veil!' Well, well, it's sad how the ceremony can change a woman's heart.”

”That makes it safer always to choose a widow,” commented Sol.

”Now, they do say that this is a fine weddin' up at the Hall-- but I have my doubts. Them lace let in stockin's ain't to my mind.”

”What's the rich young gentleman like?” inquired Tom Spade, with interest. ”Jinnie says he's the kind of man that makes kissin'

come natural--but I can't say that that conveys much to the father of a family.”

”Oh, he's the sort that looks as if G.o.d Almighty had put the finis.h.i.+n' touches an' forgot to make the man,” replied Sol. ”He's got a mustache that you would say went to bed every night in curl papers.”

Christopher pushed back his chair and drained his gla.s.s standing, then with a curt nod to Tom Spade he went out into the road.

It was the walk of a mile from the store to his house, and as he went on he fell to examining the tobacco, which appeared to ripen hour by hour in the warm, moist season. There was no danger of frost as yet, and though a little of Fletcher's crop had already been cut, the others had left theirs to mature in the favourable weather. From a clear emerald the landscape had changed to a yellowish green, and the huge leaves had crinkled at the edges like s.h.i.+rred silk. Here and there pale-brown splotches on a plant showed that it had too quickly ripened, or small perforations revealed the destructive presence of a hidden tobacco worm.

As Christopher neared the house the hounds greeted him with a single bay, and the cry brought Cynthia hastily out upon the porch and along the little path. At the gate she met him, and slipping her hand under his arm, drew him across the road to the rail fence that bordered the old field. At sight of her tearless pallor his ever-present fear shot up, and without waiting for her words he cried out quickly: ”Is mother ill?”

”No, no,” she answered, ”oh, no; but, Christopher, it is the next worse thing.”

He thought for a breath. ”Then she has found out?”

”It's not that either,” she shook her head. ”Oh, Christopher, it's Fletcher!”

”It's Fletcher! What in thunder have we to do with Fletcher?”

”You remember the deed of trust on the place--the three hundred dollars we borrowed when mother was sick. Fletcher has bought it from Tom Spade and he means to foreclose it in a week. He has advertised the farm at the cross-roads.”

He paled with anger. ”Why, I saw Tom about it three days ago,” he said, striking the rotten fence rail until it broke and fell apart; ”he told me it could run on at the same interest.”

”It's since then that Fletcher has bought it. He meant it as a surprise, of course, to drive us out whether or no, but Sam Murray came straight up to tell you.”

He stood thinking hard, his eyes on the waving goldenrod in the old field.

”I'll sell the horses,” he said at last.