miss sally madeira, trying to make her way down main street one saturday afternoon, in the early spring of the year 1900, had to go very slowly because of the country people in front of the grange. occasionally some of the farm-wives called to her shily. the road was noisy and dusty with the passing of mule-teams, buggies, buckboards, riders on horseback. out of the continuous rattle a child's voice piped shrilly. the owner of the voice was a little girl who wore a hat with a bunch of cherries on it. she stood up in the bed of a farm-waggon and screamed at miss madeira, who at once made her way to the edge of the side-walk of broken bricks and waited for the little girl's waggon to come in to the curb. the waggon was full of children, but miss madeira was somehow able to call them all by name.
"he gimme fifty cents!" was what the cherry-hat little girl said immediately, with some genius for steering conversation toward the things that interested her.
"you rich thing!" cried miss madeira, and then foolishly, and unnecessarily, inquired, "who is he?"
"yo' sweetheart."
miss madeira lowered her voice in such a suggestive manner that when the little girl spoke again her voice was lowered, too.
"when did you see him?" asked miss madeira.
"see him ev' day. i cand go daown to sowfoot by myse'f. he's sick." miss madeira looked quickly at some of the older members of the family in the waggon. they were a hill farm family from sowfoot crossing neighbourhood. "yep, he's been sick,--with the malary simlike," was what the older members had to say upon the subject. miss madeira quickly left the subject and talked about the corn crop and the price of chickens for a little while, then presently went on down main street toward her father's bank, where her black horses were hitched.
far down main street, in front of one of the frame houses that edged the street on either side, some children were enjoying a bonfire of dead leaves, front doors were opening and women were coming out to watch the fire; and, by their interest-lit eyes and by what they called to each other across the slumberous afternoon air, were showing that they were skilled in getting diversion out of smaller things than bonfires. it was the neighbourhood of canaan's biggest and best. the doors that had opened had shown glimpses of the finest three-ply carpets in all tigmore county, and though the women who had come out on the porches had grammatical peculiarities of their own, they were distinctly unapologetic and assured. you could easily imagine them laughing, with a consciousness of advantage, at the other grades of grammar and carpets in canaan.
"smells real good, don't it?" called one who was comfortable and portly, and who had her apron wrapped about her hands, "always makes me feel that spring's came when the rakin' and burnin' begin."
"mrs. pringle told me that they had some big fires aout toward the ridge las' night. burned the rakin' aout to madeira place. i missed that. d'you see it? i mighta seen it just as well's not from my back porch, tew!" shrilled another woman, in whose words a well-defined jealousy was patent, the jealousy of the person whose life is too small for her to afford to miss any of it.
"yes, you oughta saw it," chimed in another. "cert'n'y was no little-small flame. i could see sally movin' araoun' in the flare. had that tramp-boy taggin' abaout with her. i declare, if he di'n' look like a gipsy!"
the neighbourly throng was at this moment augmented by the appearance of two ladies who fluttered out on the porch of a rose-trellised cottage, like small, proud pouter pigeons. they were the misses marion, twin-sisters, quite inseparable, and, because their minds had run in exactly the same groove for all of their lives and because they were of about equal mental readiness, apt to get the same impression at exactly the same time, and apt to attempt expression in exactly the same breath.
occasionally this was trying, both to the misses marion and to their hearers, and it was particularly trying when the two now called simultaneously from the rose-embowered porch to the women in the neighbouring yards:
"have you heard----"
"have you heard----"
miss shelley marion turned to miss blair marion with delicate courtesy: "continue, sister," she said, just as miss blair said, "sister, continue."
"have we heard what, for goodness' sake?" snapped one of the would-be hearers, breaking in rawly upon the soft waves of the hand and the imploring taps with which each of the two gentlewomen was endeavouring to make way for the other.
"i continued last time, sister."
"i think not, blair; i think i did. proceed."
"have you heard the news?" miss blair having yielded with great self-rebuke to miss shelley, the question gurgled liquidly from yard to yard, like a small twisting brook.
the two women whose yards adjoined the misses marions' yard came down to the separating fences and leaned their arms on the paling rails waitingly; the third woman moved up to the corner of her yard which was nearest the misses marion. she was the woman who had deplored missing the hill fires, and there was a resolute look on her face.
"talk loud, miss blair," she said commandingly. but before miss blair could get her mouth open to talk at all there was the sound of horses' hoofs from up toward court house square, and a light vehicle, drawn by two powerful kentucky blacks, rolled into view.
"lawk, it's sally madeira!" cried miss blair impulsively, and then looked immediately convicted, for miss shelley had got only as far as "lawk!"
when the slender equipage, with its spirited, long-tailed horses, and its high springy seat, with the erect young figure on it, had gone by, the women looked at each other, with pursed lips and knowing eyes.
"there, aint i been sayin'," cried the fat one, "she's a-lookin' peaked!"
then somebody noticed that the misses marion were in the throes of another spasm of courtesy, and, reminded by that of the critical juncture where miss blair had left off a few minutes before, one of the women called to her:
"what news was that, miss blair? say, you! miss blair! what news?"
"why," said miss blair, having finally effected some sort of affectionate compromise with miss shelley, "why, these news,--they say that that n'york man is sally madeira's sweetheart, tew!"
"lan' alive! i've heard that m'self!" said mrs. beasley, the wife of the grange storekeeper. she had heard no such thing, but mrs. beasley was an idealist of no mean order, and she at once got a feeling about the matter that was little short of knowledge, and went on with headlong impetus, "i've heard that m'self. yes, he's her sweetheart."
"the men up to the grange said not, at first."
"men never know."
meantime, out beyond the town, miss madeira had circled around to the river road, and, coming up behind madeira place, passed it at a smart clip.
farther along, the river road left the river to bend through poetical on its little plateau, and the gait at which miss madeira went through poetical was disturbing to the geese and hogs there. east of poetical she got back to the river. it was very still along the di. she could hear her own heart beating. once it occurred to her that life would have been much simpler if she had gone to europe the past fall, as miss elsie gossamer had insisted upon her doing. once she murmured, "it would be all right if he would only tell me,--i can't do anything until he tells me--what can a woman do until he tells her!" on ahead of her she could see a little shack perched up the bluff, and in front of the shack, on a log that served for a bench, a man sat, making something out of something. his hands were busy.
he got to his feet a little unsteadily as she came toward him. it seemed to him that there was a blue veil across his eyes, but he winked it away quickly enough, shook the ache out of his shoulders, put down the shoe-string that he was making out of a squirrel's skin, and stood in front of the shack waiting, with his hat in his hand. he had on a mud-stained corduroy hunting suit and big buckskin leggings, and there was a week's growth of beard on his face. he looked not unlike a highly civilised bear, and he felt his looks. she did not seem to see him until she was close upon him.
"oh," she cried, "i was not expecting to find you here," and when that sounded a little bald, added quickly, "i heard that you were sick and i thought it likely that you were up in canaan."
"oh, no, i am not sick," he told her, hastening down to the trap, the delicious excitement that possessed him well restrained, "and since you have found me here, won't you get out and have some,--well, let me see,--some coffee and bacon? and i can make a lovely corn-dodger. also i have some kind of good stuff in a can, though i can't get the can open. do please stop and dine." steering, sick, gaunt, gay, mocking at hardship, hope deferred and far-reaching disappointment, was at his best. her eyes slipped away from his as he pressed his invitation. then she laughed softly, with the little shake of her laughter when a notion appealed to her happily.
"i'm going to accept," she said, "i'll cook things and you can eat them."
"i'll make a sacred duty of my part," he promised gravely; he was lifting her from the buggy; her hands were on his shoulders; for a little delirious minute she was in his arms; he could not keep his hands from closing about her sweet body lingeringly as he lifted her; her eyes were looking into his, her face was coming down close to his; he had a wild fleeting hallucination that she----
"don't imagine," she began, and his senses came back to him and he set her down, "don't imagine that i can't cook. where's your range?"
he showed her a scooped-out place in the side of the bluff. "there are two bricks in the back, two on each side and two on the top," he explained with some pride.
"i am afraid you have brought foolish habits of luxury out of the east with you," was her reply. she made him build her a fire and bring some water and meal and then she took things entirely out of his hands.
"it's a picnic," she said. her gown she had folded back and pinned up until a little tangle of silk and lace frou-froued beneath it bewilderingly; her sleeves she had rolled back until the creamy tan of her round slim arms showed to the elbow; her hat she had taken off, and the sun danced in the gold lustres of her hair. she was all aglow; she belonged out in the fresh air and the sunlight like this; she could stand it; that dusky-gold radiance played from her like a burnish. steering sat down on the log bench and watched her, hypnotised by her into haunting fancies of something, somebody, somewhere. she was one of those beings whose rich magnetism of face and personality brings them close to you, not only for the present, but also for the past, one of those people who are apt to make you feel that you have known them before, forever, a feeling that flowers into elusive fragrances, suggestions, reminiscences, flown on the first stir of a thought to catch them.
"what a long time since i even so much as saw you," he sighed happily, happy because here before him in the body again she was exactly the girl he remembered, exactly the girl he had dreamed of all winter. "what have you done all winter?" he asked.
"nursed father. he has stayed at home with me a good deal. it was a lovely winter, wasn't it?"
steering thought of the long, quiet, lonely days, the weeks, the months during which he had seen her only to bow to her. then he thought of the calendar inside his office. every day that he had seen her on his rare trips up river to canaan was marked with an imitation of the rising sun. there were only eight rising suns for the whole winter. then he thought how the memory of those sun days had stayed with him and made him feel blessed. then he answered, "yes, it has been lovely,--nice, open weather. i have been out on the di in a skiff almost every day." he did not add that every day his journey had been to the upper water near madeira place; but he might have.
"once or twice i have seen you." she did not add that she had stood at her window, behind a partly drawn blind, gazing after him through slow tears; but she might have. "what a very long time indeed since we saw each other,--and talked to each other!"
"oh, about two thousand years," he answered with careful calculation.
"i wonder if you remember the ride across country into the sunset?"
should he ever forget it? then the spring wind blew up to them from off the di with a coolish, dampening touch. "what do you hear from elsie?" he asked, heeding the wind's touch.
"she is in love. what do you hear from mr. carington?"
"that same. it seems very right and fit. carington and elsie are well mated. the wedding will happen in july. carry wants me to come back to him for it."
she was stirring the meal and water together briskly, with her back half turned to him. at his words she stopped in her work and put her hand up to her heart with her strange little pushing gesture, as though she must push her heart down. "and you will go, i suppose?"
"no, i shan't go."
she took her hand down and laughed lightly. he could not hear the joyful relief in the laugh, but she could. "my, but you have become attached to redbud, haven't you? hasn't it been lonely for you here?"
"well, the cherry hat little girl up above sowfoot has been a comfort. and then i've studied a heap."
"studied what?"
"mizzourah!"
"redbud and sowfoot are good teachers," she laughed; then her face sobered quickly, "but i don't think you should stay down here by the river when you are ill," she said. her sweet, wistful interest was balsamic to him. for a moment he tried to look sicker than he was.
"oh, it's nothing, nothing," he protested in a gone voice.
"yes, it is something," she had the corn-dodgers going over a slow fire and was dubiously regarding a second skillet that he had brought her. "don't you ever try water for it?" she interrupted herself to ask. he admitted that he was not as careful of the skillet as he should be, and she went back to her first anxiety, "why do you stay here when you are ill?"
"oh, i'm not ill a bit, not really." he had forgotten to be ill. regarding her dreamily from his bench he was wishing that the moment could be eternity, that he could be hungry forever and that forever she could make corn-dodgers for him.
"i think you are sick. something is the matter with you?"
"yes," he changed his position a little on the bench, "something is the matter with me."
"well, why don't you go on and say what?" she put the skillet on some of the coals and the coffee-pot on the skillet, being too busy to look around at him.
"oh!"--he wanted to tell her, but his pride saved him in time. she was in rich in gold and land and cattle, in ore, too now; and he? he didn't know how he was going to fill his meal sack the next time it was empty. that was where matters had got with him. "i think i won't go on and say what, after all; let's not bother. let's just be happy for the minute. that's something i have learned out here in missouri, just to be happy when you get the chance, minute by minute, no matter what sort of hours are to come after. this, now, is so much more than i had hoped for. i hadn't really hoped to see you again before----"
"before what?"
"well, a fellow can't go on like this forever, can he? i expect i am going to cut all this."
"what! and leave uncle bernique?"
"uncle bernique can hold the claim alone, you know. and i'm wasting hope and energy here. what's the use in staying longer?"
she was very busy with the bacon now and he did not see her face. there was a wild quiver on it, of grief, fright, dismay.
"you ought not to leave uncle bernique and piney, i am sure of that," she said at last earnestly, almost commandingly.
"heigh-ho! i think bernique is getting restless, too. he will be drifting off soon on that tidal wave of ore fever that comes over him; piney has been gone for a great while. it's pretty lonely. it's getting on my nerves. of course i shouldn't pet my nerves if i had any hope about the run here, but i haven't. i think that the work we have carried on is fairly conclusive."
"but wait a minute, didn't you buy this land? didn't you put some money in it?"
steering laughed blithely. "not much," he said. the thing that made him laugh was the fact that though it was not much it was all that he had, and it was, in a way, amusing to consider how he was to get away from canaan. looking at sally madeira, who suggested luxury nonchalantly, trouble about ways and means was bound to be untimely and laughable. indeed, looking at sally madeira all troubles were more or less laughable.
"you haven't gone to europe?" he reminded her, after he had drunk her health in the coffee.
"no! i haven't gone."
"are you going?"
"not unless father's health improves."
"isn't he well?"
"no," her face clouded sadly, "he is over-working. oh, you don't know how sorry i am," she began, and faltered.
"sorry? for him?"
"yes. and for you. and for m-- and because things have come around like this."
"let's not be sorry just now," said steering. "won't you, please, talk about glad things now. it's so pleasant to have you here." since she was unhappy, he took charge of her unhappiness, and would not be serious any longer about anything. when she brought him his corn-dodger on a shingle and more coffee in a tin dipper, he was foolish with happiness, kept his own spirits high and overcame every little disposition to seriousness on her part until their picnic had to come to an end, and she must be starting back down the river road.
"do you feel like doing something for me?" she asked, her hand in his, as she made ready to go.
"something? everything."
"then wait just as long as you can, will you?"
"yes, i will, gladly, since you ask it, just as long as i can." steering's voice sang as he answered.
she would not let him accompany her on her homeward journey, but went on down the river road alone, and steering returned to the shack, and carefully measured the amount left in his meal sack, and carefully counted the money in his wallet. there was just about enough in the sack to last ten days, flanked by the potatoes and the bacon, and there was so little in the wallet that any kind of emotion about it seemed a waste. still, he did not appear to appreciate the extremity of the situation as yet. his face was all lit up and the sound of his own voice pleased him.
"i will wait, just as long as i can," he repeated at the end of his calculations, "and i can till the meal gives out."
