Part 11 (2/2)

Joe did not like those late starts which Morgan made of a morning, long after he and Isom were in the field, nor the early homings, long before they came in to do the ch.o.r.es. Joe left the house each morning with reluctance, after Isom's departure, lingering over little things, finding hitherto undiscovered tasks to keep him about in the presence of Ollie, and to throw him between her and the talkative boarder, who seemed always hanging at her heels. Since their talk at dinner on the day that Morgan came, Joe had felt a new and deep interest in Ollie, and held for her an unaccountable feeling of friendliness.

This feeling had been fed, for a few days, by Ollie, who found odd minutes to talk with him as she had not talked before, and by small attentions and kindnesses. She had greeted him in the morning with smiles, where her face once wore the sad mask of misery; and she had touched his hand sometimes, with encouraging or commending caress.

Joe had yielded to her immediately the unreserved loyalty of his unsophisticated soul. The lot of his bondage was lightened by this new tie, the prospect of the unserved term under Isom was not so forbidding now. And now this fellow Morgan had stepped between them, in some manner beyond his power to define. It was as one who beholds a shadow fall across his threshold, which he can neither pick up nor cast away.

Ollie had no more little attentions for Joe, but endless solicitude for Morgan's comfort; no more full smiles for him, but only the reflections of those which beamed for the chattering lounger who made a pretense of selling books while he made love to another man's wife.

It was this dim groping after the truth, and his half-conception of it, that rendered Joe miserable. He did not fully understand what Morgan was about, but it was plain to him that the man had no honest purpose there.

He could not repeat his fears to Isom, for Isom's wrath and correction would fall on Ollie. Now he was left in charge of his master's house, his lands, his livestock, and _his honor_.

The vicarious responsibility rested on him with serious weight. Knowing what he knew, and seeing what he saw, should he allow things to proceed as they had been going? Would he be true to the trust that Isom had placed in him with his parting word in standing aside and knowingly permitting this man to slip in and poison the heart of Isom's wife?

She was lonely and oppressed, and hungry for kind words, but it was not this stranger's office to make green the barrenness of her life. He was there, the bondboy, responsible to his master for his acts. She might come to him for sympathy, and go away with honor. But with this other, this man whose pale eyes s.h.i.+fted and darted like a botfly around a horse's ear, could she drink his counsel and remain undefiled?

Joe thought it up and down as he worked in the field near the house that morning, and his face grew hot and his eyes grew fevered, and his resentment against Morgan rose in his throat.

He watched to see the man drive away on his canva.s.sing round, but the sun pa.s.sed nine o'clock and he did not go. He had no right there, alone in the house with that woman, putting, who could say, what evil into her heart.

Ten o'clock and the agent's buggy had not left the barn. Joe could contain himself no longer. He was at work in a little stony piece of late clover, so rough he did not like to risk the mower in it. For three hours he had been laying the tumbled swaths in winding tracks across the field, and he had a very good excuse for going to the well, indeed.

Coupled with that was the need of a whet-rock, and behind it all the justification of his position. He was there in his master's place; he must watch and guard the honor of his house.

Joe could not set out on that little trip without a good deal of moral cudgeling when it came to the point, although he threw down his scythe with a muttered curse on his lips for the man who was playing such an underhanded game.

It was on Ollie's account he hesitated. Ollie would think that he suspected her, when there was nothing farther from his mind. It was Morgan who would set the snare for her to trip into, and it was Morgan that he was going to send about his business. But Ollie might take offense and turn against him, and make it as unpleasant as she had shown that she could make it agreeable.

But duty was stronger than friends.h.i.+p. It was stern and implacable, and there was no pleasant road to take around it and come out with honor at the other end.

Joe made as much noise as he could with his big feet--and that was no inconsiderable amount--as he approached the house. But near the building the gra.s.s was long, and soft underfoot, and it bore Joe around to the kitchen window silently. His lips were too dry to whistle; his heart was going too fast to carry a tune.

He paused a little way beyond the window, which stood open with the sun falling through it, listening for the sound of their voices. It was strangely silent for a time when the book-agent was around.

Joe went on, his shadow breaking the sunbeam which whitened the kitchen floor. There was a little quick start as he came suddenly to the kitchen door; a hurried stir of feet. As he stepped upon the porch he saw Morgan in the door, Ollie not a yard behind him, their hands just breaking their clasp. Joe knew in his heart that Morgan had been holding her in his arms.

Ollie's face was flushed, her hair was disturbed. Her bosom rose and fell like troubled water, her eyes were brighter than Joe ever had seen them. Even Morgan was different, sophisticated and brazen that he was. A flash of red showed on his cheekbones and under his eyes; his thin nostrils were panting like gills.

Joe stood there, one foot on the porch, the other on the ground, as blunt as honesty, as severe as honor. There was nothing in his face that either of them could read to indicate what was surging in his breast. He had caught them, and they wondered if he had sense enough to know.

Joe pushed his hat back from his sweating forehead and looked inquiringly at Morgan.

”Your horse sick, or something?” he asked.

”No,” said Morgan, turning his back on Joe with a little jerk of contempt in his shoulders.

”Well, I think he must be down, or something,” said Joe, ”for I heard a racket in the barn.”

”Why didn't you go and see what was the matter?” demanded Morgan crossly, s.n.a.t.c.hing his hat from the table.

Ollie was drowned in a confusion of blushes. She stood hanging her head, but Joe saw the quick turn of her eyes to follow Morgan as he went away in long strides toward the barn.

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