 | Hoosier mosaics |  |
Hoiden.
The house was known as Rackenshack
throughout the neighborhood for miles around.
It was a frame structure, originally of sorry
workmanship, at least thirty years old, and
upon which not a cent's worth of repairing had
been done since first erected, wherefore the
name was peculiarly appropriate. It was not
only old, rickety, paintless, half rotten and
sadly sunken at one end, but the fencing
around the place was broken, grown over with
weeds, and slanted in as many ways as there
were panels. The lawn or yard in front of the
house had some old cherry trees, gnarled and
decaying, growing in what had once been
straight rows, but storms and more insidious
vicissitudes had twisted and curled them
about till they looked as though they had been
thrown end foremost at the ground hap-hazard.
Under and all round these trees young sprouts,
from the scattered cherry seeds of many years
of fruiting, had grown so thick that one could
with difficulty get through them. A narrow,
lazily lolled on one hinge, up to the decayed
and sunken porch, in front of which was the
well, with its lop-eared windlass and dilapidated
curb and shed.
A country thoroughfare, one of the old State
roads leading westward to a ferry on the Wabash
river near the village of Attica and eastward
to either Crawfordsville, Indianapolis or
Lafayette. This road was in the direct line of
emigration, and in the proper seasons long lines
of covered wagons rolled past, the drivers, a
jolly set, hallooing to each other and bandying
sharp wit and rude sarcasm at the expense of
Rackenshack. Poor old house, it leered at the
passers, with its windows askew, and clattered
its loose boards and battered shutters in utter
and complacent defiance of all their jeers!
Rackenshack belonged to Luke Plunkett
and Betsy, his sister; the latter an old maid
beyond all cavil, the former a bachelor of about
thirty. The lands of the estate were pretty
broad, comprising some two thousand acres
of rich prairie and “river bottom” land, which
had been kept in a much better state of improvement
than the house had. In fact, Luke
was considered a careful, industrious, frugal
farmer. He had large, well regulated barns
horses, cattle, hogs, sheep and mules, all well
fed and cared for, and it was generally understood
that he had a pretty round deposit in a
bank.
Perhaps 'Squire Rube Fink, sometimes called
“the Rev. Major Fink” and sometimes “Talking
Rube,” gives the best description of Luke's
condition, habits and surroundings, that I can
offer. It is truthful and singularly graphic.
He says:
“Luke Plunkett's no fool if he does live at
Rack-a-me-shack and 'spect the ole rotten tabernacle
to fall down on him every time a rooster
crows close by. That feller's long-headed,
he is. To be sure, sartinly, his barn's a dern
sight better 'n his house, but his head's level,
for, d'ye see, that's the way to make money.
A house don't never make no money for a feller—it's
nothin' but dead capital to put money
into a fine dwellin'. Luke's pilin' his money in
the bank. He's been doin' a sharp thing in
wheat and live stock at Cincinnati, and I guess
he knows what he's about. He don't keer
about what sort o' house he lives in. But I
tell you that red haired sister o' his'n is lightning.
She's what bosses the job all round that
ole shanty; but she can't red-hair it over Luke
He's so quiet and peculiar; a still, say nothin',
bull-dog sort o' man he is.”
Indeed, Luke was one of that quiet sort of
men who, without ever once loudly asserting a
right or disputing any word you say, invariably
go ahead on their own judgment and carry
their point in everything. Nevertheless, he
was a man of fine, generous nature at bottom,
a good brother and a worthy friend.
But it was with Luke just as it is, more or
less, with us all. He absorbed into his life the
spirit of his surroundings. He grew somewhat
to resemble Rackenshack in outward appearance.
He became slovenly in his dress and
let his hair and beard grow wild. His naturally
handsome face gradually took on a sort of
good humored ugliness, and his heavy shoulders
slanted over like the uneven gables of his house
He became an inveterate chewer and smoker
of tobacco. What time a quid of the weed
was not in his mouth, the short thick stem of a
dark, nicotine-coated briar-root pipe took its
place there.
Luke was an early riser; therefore it happens
that our story properly begins on a fine
June morning, just before sunrise. The birds
seemed to suspect that a story was to date
usual and made a great rustle of wings and a
sweet Babel of voices in the old cherry trees.
There were the oriole, the cat bird, the yellow
throat, the brown thrush and the red bird, all
putting forth at once their charmingest efforts.
The old cherry trees, knee deep in the foliage
of their under growing seedlings, gleamed
dusky green in the early light, as Luke, bareheaded,
barefooted and in his “shirt sleeves,”
as the phrase goes, issued from the front door
of Rackenshack, and walked down the path
across the yard to the gate at the road. Of
late he had been in the habit of “taking a
smoke” the first thing after getting up in the
morning, and somehow the gate, though off
one hinge and having doubtful tenure of the
other, was his favorite thing to lean upon
while watching the whiffs of blue smoke slowly
float away.
On this particular morning he seemed a little
agitated; and, indeed, he was vexed more
deeply than he had ever before been. Just
the preceding evening he had learned that a
corps of civil engineers were rapidly approaching
his premises with a line of survey, and
that the purpose was to locate and build a
railway right through the middle of his farm.
felt that he could never stand such an imposition.
His land was his own, and when he
wanted it dug up and leveled down and a track
laid across it he would do it himself. He did
not want his farm cut in two, his fields disarranged
and his fences moved, nor did he
wish to see his live stock killed by locomotives.
The truth is he was bitterly opposed to railroads,
any how. They were innovations. They
were enemies to liberty. They brought fashion,
and spendthrift ways, and speculation, and all
that along with them. Other folks might have
railroads if they wanted them, but they must
not bother him with them. He could take care
of his affairs without any railroads. Besides,
if he wanted one he could build it. He hung
heavily upon the gate, thinking the matter
over, and would not have bestowed a second
glance at the carriage that came trundling
past if he had not caught the starry flash of a
pair of blue eyes and a rosy, roguish girl's face
within. The beauty of that countenance struck
the great rough fellow like a blow. He stared
in a dazed, bewildered way. He took his pipe
from his mouth and involuntarily tried to hide
his great big bare feet behind the gate post.
He felt a queer, dreamy thrill steal all over
feminine beauty. Instantly that round, happy,
mischievous face, with its dimples and indescribable
shining lines of half latent mirth, set
itself in his heart forever.
The carriage trundled on in the direction of
the ferry. Luke followed it with his eyes till
it disappeared round a turn in the road; then
he put the pipe to his mouth again and began
puffing vigorously, wagging his head in a way
that indicated great confusion of mind. There
are times when a glimpse of a face, the sudden
half-mastering of a new, grand idea, a
view of a rare landscape or even a cadence in
some new tune, will start afresh the long dried
up wells of a heart. Something like this had
happened to Luke.
“Sich a gal! sich a gal!” he murmured from
the corner of his mouth opposite his pipe stem.
“I don't guess I'm a dreamin' now, though I
feel a right smart like it. I hev dreamed of
that 'ere face though, many of times. I've
seed it in my sleep a thousand times, but I
never s'posed 'at I'd see it shore enough when
I'd be awake! Sweetest dreams I ever had—
sweetest face God ever made! I wonder who
she is?” As if to supplement Luke's soliloquy
at this point, a cardinal red bird flung out
tree an ecstatic carol, and a swallow, swooping
down from the clear purple heights, almost
touched the man's cheek with its shining
wings, and the sun lifted its flaming face in
the east and flooded the fields with gold.
Luke turned slowly toward the old house.
The breeze that came up with the sun poured
through the orchard with a broad, joyous
surge, while something like blowing of strange
winds and streaming of soft sunlight made
strangely happy the inner world of the smitten
Hoosier. His big strong heart fluttered
mysteriously. He actually took his pipe from
his lips and broke into a snatch of merry song,
that startled Betsy, his sister, from her morning
nap.
For the time the hated railroad survey was
forgotten. The landscape at Rackenshack, as
if by a turn of the great prisms of nature,
suddenly took on rainbow hues. The fields
flashed with jewels, and the woods, a wall of
dusky emerald, were wrapped in a roseate
mist, stirred into dreamy motion by the breeze.
A light, grateful fragrance seemed to pervade
all space, as if flung from the sun to soften and
enhance the charm of his gift of light and heat.
Such a hold did all this take upon Luke, and
was ready Betsy was obliged to remind
him of the fact that he had neglected to wash
his face and hands, and comb his hair and
beard—things absolutely prerequisite to eating
at her table.
“Forgot it, sure's the world,” said Luke;
“don't know what ever possessed me.”
“Maybe you've forgot to turn the cows into
the milk stalls, too?” said Betsy.
“If I ha'n't I'm a gourd!” and Luke scratched
his head distractedly.
“What 'd I tell you, Luke Plunkett? It's
come at last, O lordy! You're as crazy as a
June bug all along of smoking that old pipe!
Rot the nasty, stinking old thing! It's a perfect
shame, Luke, for a man to just smoke
what little brains he's got clean out. You
ought to be ashamed of yourself, so you
ought!”
While she was speaking Betsy got the big
wooden washbowl for her brother, whereupon
he proceeded to make his ablutions in a most
energetic way, taking up great double handfuls
of water and sousing his face therein with
loud puffings, that enveloped his head in a
cloud of spray.
When a clean tow linen towel had served
its purpose, Luke remarked:
“Don't know but what I am some'at crazy
in good earnest, Betsy, since I come to think
it all over. I'm r'ally onto it a right smart.
What 'd you think, Betsy, if I'd commence
talkin' 'oman to ye?”
“Luke, Luke! are you crazy? Is your
mind clean gone out of your poor smoky
head?”
“That's not much of a answer to my question.”
“Well, what do you mean, anyhow?”
“I mean business, that's what!”
“Luke!”
“Yes 'm.”
“Do try to act sensible now. What is it,
Luke? What makes your eyes look so strange
and dance about so? What do you mean by
all this queer talk?”
Luke finished combing, and, going to the
table, sat down and was proceeding to discuss
the fried chicken and coffee without further
remark, but Betsy was not so easily balked.
She, like most red haired women, wished her
questions to be fully and immediately answered,
wherefore some indications of a storm
began to appear.
Luke smiled a quiet little smile that had
hard work getting out through his beard.
hand trembled as she poured the coffee—trembled
so violently that she scalded her left
thumb. It was about time for Luke to speak
or have trouble, so, in a very gentle voice, he
said:
“Well, I saw a gal—a gal an' her father, I
reckon—go by this mornin'.”
“Well, what of it? S'pose there's plenty
of girls and their fathers, ain't there?” snapped
Betsy.
Luke drew a chicken leg through his mouth,
laid down the bone, leered comically at his
sister from under his bushy eyebrows, and
said:
“But the gal was purty, Betsy—purty as a
pictur', sweet as a peach, juicy an' temptin'
as a ripe, red cored watermillion! You can't
begin to guess how sweet an' nice she did
look. My heart just flolloped and flopped
about, an' it's at it yet!”
“Luke Plunkett, you are crazy! You're
just as distracted as a blind dog in high rye.
Drink a cup of hot coffee, Luke, and go lie
down a bit, you'll feel better.” The spinster
was horrified beyond measure. She really
thought her brother crazy.
The man finished his meal in silence, smiling
he took his shot gun and a pan of salt and
trudged off to a distant field to salt some cattle.
He always carried his gun with him on
such occasions, and not unfrequently brought
back a brace of partridges or some young
squirrels. As he strode along, thinking all
the time of the girl in the carriage, he suddenly
came upon a corps of engineers with transit,
level, rod and chain, staking out, through the
centre of a choice field, a line of survey for a
railroad. In an instant he was like a roaring
lion. He glared for a second or so at the intruders,
then lowering his gun he charged
them at a run, storming out as he did so:
“What you doin' here, you onery cusses,
you! Leave here! Get out! Scratch! Sift!
Dern yer onery skins, I'll shoot every dog of
ye! Git out 'n here, I say—out, out!”
The corps stampeded at once. The surveyor
seized his transit, the leveller his level, the
rod man his rod, the axe men and chain men
their respective implements, and away they
went, “lick-to-split, like a passel o' scart hogs,”
as Luke afterwards said, “as fast as they
could ever wiggle along!”
No wonder they ran, for Luke looked like a
demon of destruction. It was a wild race for
leveler, being the hindmost man, rolled over
this fence just as a heavy bowlder, hurled by
Luke, struck the top rail. It was a close shave,
a miss of a hair's breadth, a marvelous escape.
Luke rushed up to the fence and glared over
at his intended victims. Here he knew he
must stop, for he doubted the legality of pursuing
them beyond the confines of his own
premises. Somewhat out of breath he leaned
on the fence and proceeded to swear at the
corps individually and collectively, shaking his
fists at them excitedly, till the appearance of
a new man on the scene made him start and
stare as if looking at a ghost. He was a well
dressed, gentlemanly appearing person of about
the age of forty-five, pale and thoughtful—
calm, gray eyed, commanding. Luke recognized
him at once as the man he had seen in
the carriage, and, indeed, the vehicle itself
stood hard by, with a beautiful, laughing,
roguish face looking out of one of the windows.
The lion in the stalwart farmer was quelled in
an instant. He felt his legs grow weak. He
set his gun by the fence and touched his hat
to the little lady.
“Your name, I believe, is Luke Plunkett?”
said the approaching gentleman.
“Yes, sir,” said Luke.
“You own two thousand acres of land here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your residence is called Rackenshack?”
“Yes, sir.” (Suppressed titter from the carriage.)
“So I thought. Pull back, men (addressing
the corps), pull back to where you dropped
the line and bring it right along. Mr. Plunkett
will not harm you now.”
The corps began to move. Luke fiercely
seized his gun; but before he could lift it or
utter a word, a ten-inch Colt's repeater was
thrust into his face by the calm gentleman,
and a steady hand held it there.
“Mr. Plunkett,” said the man, “I am the
chief engineer of the — Railroad. I am
making a location. The laws of this State
give me the right to go upon your land with
my corps and have the survey made. I am
not to be trifled with. If you offer to cock
that gun I'll put six holes through you. What
do you say, now?”
The voice was that of a cold man of business.
There was a coffin in every word. The
muzzle of the pistol steadily covered Luke's
left eye. The situation was rigid. Luke hesitated—his
face ashy with anger and fear, his
muzzle of the pistol and that wonderful shining
face at the carriage.
“Shoot him, papa, shoot him! Shoot him!”
Sweet as a silver bell rang out the girl's voice,
more like a ripple of idle song than a murderous
request, and then a clear, happy laugh
went echoing off through the woods in which
the carriage stood.
Slowly, steadily, Luke let fall the breech of
his gun upon the ground beside him. The
engineer smiled grimly and lowered his pistol,
while the corps, headed by the surveyor, took
up its line of march to the point where work had
been so suddenly left off.
The young lady clapped her tiny white hands
for joy.
A big black woodpecker began to cackle in a
tree hard by.
Luke felt like a man in a dream.
The whole adventure, so far, had been
clothed in most unreal seeming.
It can hardly be told how, by rapid transitions
from one thing to another in his talk,
the engineer drew Luke's mind away from the
late difficulty and gradually aroused in him a
kindly feeling. In less than ten minutes the
two men were sitting side by side on a log,
chatting calmly, amicably.
Luke's eyes often rested steadily fixed in the
direction of the carriage. Through the thin
veil of tobacco smoke the face of the young
girl seemed to the farmer angelic in its beauty.
All around the sweets of summer rose and
fell, and drifted like scarcely visible shining
mists, fraught with the spice of leaf and perfume
of blossom, agitated by swells of tricksy
wind, going on and on to the mysterious goal
of the season.
The two men talked on until the corps had
pushed the line of survey far past them into
the cool, shady deeps of the woods, whence
their voices came back fainter and fainter
every moment. At length the engineer arose,
and stretching out his hand to Luke, said:
“Mr. Plunkett, I'm sure I'll be able to serve
you some time; let us be friends. I shall be in
this vicinity most of the time till the road is
built. No doubt I can show a way to profit by
the construction of a railroad across your land.
If you are sharp it will make your fortune. I
like your independent way, sir, and hope to
know you better. Here is my card.”
Luke took the bit of pasteboard without
saying a word. They shook hands and the
engineer got into his carriage.
“Here's my card, too, Mr. Plunkett,” cried
the girl. She said something more, but the
horses were made to plunge rapidly away, and
the words were lost; but the flash of a white
jewelled hand caught Luke's eye as a delicately
tinted card came fluttering towards him. He
sprang and seized it. If a bag of diamonds
had been flung at his feet he could not have
been more excited. His hands trembled. All
the incidents of the only fairy tale he had ever
read came at once into his mind. He stood
with his feet turned in, like some great awkward
boy, a bashful, shame-faced look lurking
about his mouth and eyes. He filled his pipe
and lighted it from the stump of his cigar with
nervous eagerness. A squirrel came down to
the lowest limbs of a beech tree hard by and
barked at him, but he did not notice it. He
read the names on the cards:
“Elliot Pearl, C. E.”
“Hoiden Pearl.”
The first printed in small capitals, the second
written in a delicate, rather cramped feminine
hand. He stood for a long time dreamily employed
in turning these bits of paper over and
over. His thoughts were so vague in outline
and so dim in filling up that they cannot be
reproduced. They slipped away on the summer
lost, to be found by many and many a one in
the ineffable places of dreamland. Finally,
shaking himself as if to break the charm that
held him in its meshes, he took up his gun and
slowly made his way homeward. All along his
walk he kept smiling to himself and talking
aloud, but his words were such that it would
be sacrilege to repeat them now. Let them
hover about in the sunlight of summer, where
he uttered them, as things too delicate to be
pressed between the lids of a book.
Betsy had trouble with Luke for some days
after this. He lay about the house, saying little,
eating little, giving little attention to the many
tenants who worked his estate. He was in good
health, was not in trouble (so he said to his
sister), but he did not care to be bothered with
business. He was tired and would rest awhile.
“He smoked pretty near all the time,” as
Betsy declared. But not a hint fell from his
lips as to what might be running in his mind.
So the days slipped past till July hung golden
mists on the horizon and filled the woods with
that rare stillness and dusky slumbrousness
that follows the maturing of the foliage and the
coming on of fruit. The cherry trees at Rackenshack
had grown ragged and dull, and the
the old chimney tops, had all flown away to
the woods and fields. The wheat had been
cut and stacked, the corn had received its last
ploughing. Still Luke hung about the house
annoying Betsey with his pipe and his utter
carelessness. That he was “distracted” Betsy
did not for a moment doubt. She used every
means her small stock of wit could invent to
urge him out of his singular mood, but without
avail. He took to the few old novels he
could find about the house, but sometimes he
would gaze blankly at a single paragraph for
a whole hour.
One morning as he lay on the porch, his head
resting upon the back of a chair, reading, or
pretending to read an odd volume of “The
Scottish Chiefs,” a little boy, 'Squire Brown's
son, came to bring home a monkey-wrench his
father had borrowed some time before. The
boy was a bright, rattle-box, say-everything,
pop-eyed sort of child, and was not long telling
all the news of the neighborhood. Luke
gave little attention to what he was saying,
till at length he let fall something about a
young lady—a fine, rich young lady, staying at
Judge Barnett's—a young lady who could out-run
him, out jump him, beat him playing marbles
June apple tree, who could ride a colt bareback,
who could beat Jim Barnett shooting at
a mark, who could, in fact, do a half a hundred
things to perfection that strict persons would
think a young lady should never do at all, but
which seemed to make a heroine of her in the
narrator's boyish view.
“What's the gal's name?” queried Luke in
a slow, lazy way, but his eyes shot a gleam of
hope.
“Hoidy Pearl,” replied the lad.
Hoiden Pearl! That name had been woven
into every sound that had reached Luke's ears
for days and nights and nights together, and
now, like a sweet tune nearly mastered, it took
a deeper, tenderer meaning as the boy pronounced
it in his childish way.
“Hoidy Pearl is her name,” the lad continued.
“She's come to stay at the Judge's all
summer till the new railroad's finished. Her
father's the boss of the road. She's jest the
funniest girl, o-o-e! And she likes me, too!”
Luke raised himself to a sitting posture and
looked at the boy so earnestly that he drew
back a pace or two as if afraid.
“Boy, you're not lyin', are ye?” said the man
in a low, earnest tone.
“No I'm not, neither,” was the quick reply.
Luke got up, flung aside his book and strolled
off into the woods. Wandering there in the
cool, silent places, he dreamed his dream. For
hours he sat by a little spring stream in the
dense shadow of a big cotton-wood tree. The
birds congregated about him, and chirped and
sang; the squirrels came out chattering and
frisking from branch to branch; but he gave
them no look of recognition—he saw them not,
heard them not. The birds might have lit
upon his head and the squirrels might have
run in and out of his pockets with impunity.
He smoked all the time, refilling and relighting
his pipe whenever it burned out. He did
not know how much he was smoking, nor that
he was smoking at all. A bright face set in a
mass of yellow curls, a wee white hand all
spangled with jewels, a voice sweeter than any
bird's, a name—Hoiden Pearl—these rang,
and danced, and echoed, and shone in the recesses
of his brain and heart to the exclusion
of all else. He was trying to think, but he
could not. He wanted to mature a plan, but
not even an outline could find room in his head.
It was full. Strange, indeed, it may seem, that
a rough farmer of Luke's age should thus fall
into the ways of the imaginative, sentimental
some time in life. No doubt it goes harder
with some constitutions than with others.
Luke may have been unwittingly strongly predisposed
that way. Neither the exterior of
a man nor his surroundings will do to judge
him by. Nature is that mysterious in all her
ways. Luke talked aloud, sometimes gesticulating
in a quiet way.
“I must see the gal—I will see the gal,” he
muttered at last. “It's no use talkin', I jist
will see her!”
Suddenly a light broke from his face. He
smiled like one who has victory in his grasp—
like an editor who has an idea, like a reviewer
who has found some bad verse. He got up
immediately, went back to the barn, hitched a
horse to a small road wagon and drove to town.
There he spent time and money with a merchant
tailor and other vendors of clothing.
He was very fastidious in his selection. Nothing
but the finest would do him. A few days
after this he brought home a trunk full of
princely raiment—broad cloth and fine linen.
Betsy was struck dumb with amazement when
the trunk was opened. A dream of such costly
things, such reckless extravagance, would have
driven her mad. Silent, open-eyed, wondering,
was unpacking. He looked up presently and
saw her. His face flushed violently, and in a
half-whining, half-ashamed tone he muttered:
“Now, Betsy, you jest git out'n here faster'n
ye come in, for I'm not goin' to stan' no foolin'
at all, now. These 'ere's my clothes and paid
for out'n my money, an' I'm the jedge of what
I need. I ha'n't had any good duds for a long
time, and I'm tired o' lookin' like a scarecrow
made out 'n a salt bag. I've been thinkin' for
a long time I'd git these 'ere things, an' now
I've got 'm. You kin git you some if ye like,
but I don't want ye a standin' round here gawpin'
at me on 'count o' my clothes; so you go
off an' mind yer own affairs. It's no great sight
to see some shirts, an' coats, and pants, an' collars,
an' vests, an' sich like, is it?”
Before this speech was finished Betsy had
backed out of the room and closed the door.
As she did so she let go a sigh that came back
to Luke like a Parthian arrow; but it happened
just then that he was holding up in front of
him a buff linen vest which kept the missile
from his heart.
He dressed himself with great care, and an
hour later he slipped out of the house unseen,
and took his way towards the rather pretentious
of which, a mile away, gleamed between rows
of Lombardy poplars. The Judge was one or
those half cultivated men who, in every country
neighborhood, pass for prodigies of learning
and ability. He was the autocrat of the
county in political and social affairs—one of
those men who really know a great deal, but
who arrogate more. He got his title from
having been County Commissioner when the
court house was building. Some said he made
money out of the transaction, but our story is
silent there.
It would have been an interesting study for
a philosopher to have watched Luke throughout
the singular ramble he took that morning.
It would have been such a manifest revelation
of the state of the fellow's feelings. It would
have minutely disclosed, and more eloquently
than any verbal confession, the rise and fall,
the ebb and flow, the alternating strength and
weakness of his purpose, and the will behind
it. Then, too, it would have let fall delightful
hints of the unselfishness of his new and all-engrossing
passion, and of the charming simplicity
and sincerity of his great rugged nature
at its inner core. At first he struck out boldly
a direct line to Judge Barnett's residence, his
but as he neared the pleasant grounds
surrounding the house he began to discover
some trepidation. His gait wavered, the expression
of his face shifted with each step, and
soon his course was indeterminate—a fitful
sauntering from this place to that—a tricksy,
uneven flight, like that of a lazy butterfly, if
one may indulge the comparison—a meandering
in and out among the trees of a small walnut
grove—a strolling here and there, now
along the verge of a well set old orchard, now
down the low hedge behind the garden, and
anon leaning over the board fence that inclosed
the Judge's ample barn and stable lot;
he gazed wistfully, half comically, in the direction
of the upper windows of the farm house.
It was one of those peculiarly yellow days of
summer, when everything swims in a golden
mist. The blue birds floated aimlessly about
from stake to stake of the fences; the wind,
felt only in jerky puffs, blew no particular
way, and as idly and as eccentrically as any
blue bird, and in full accord with the fitful will
of the wind, Luke drifted through the sheen
of summer all round Barnett Place. He lazed
about, humming a tune, and, for a wonder, not
smoking—half restless, half contented, looking
When once a great rough man does get into a
childish way, he is a child of which ordinary
children would be ashamed, and just then
Luke, the big bashful fellow, was an instance
strikingly in point. Occasionally he talked
half aloud to himself. Once, while lounging
on the orchard fence, gazing down between the
long rows of russet and pippin trees, he said
dreamily,
“I must see her. I can't go back 'ithout
seein' her.” It so chanced that just then a
shower of blackbirds fell upon the orchard,
covering the trees and the ground, flying over
and over each other, twittering and whistling
as only blackbirds can. Their wings smote
together with a tender rustling sound like that
of a spring wind in young foliage, or of a
thousand lovers whispering together by moonlight.
Luke watched them a long while, a
doleful shade gathering in his face. “The
little things loves each other,” he muttered;
“everything loves something; an' jest dern my
lights ef I don't love the gal, an' I'm boun' to
see her!” Seemingly nerved by sudden resolution,
he climbed over the fence and started
at a slashing pace across the orchard towards
the house, scaring all the birds into an ecstasy
against the foliage of the apple trees, making
it rustle and sway as if blown on by a strong
wind. He did not keep on, however. His
resolution seemed to burn out about midway
the orchard. He began to drift around again,
his pace becoming slower and slower. His
shoulders drooped forward as if burdened
with a great load, his eyes turned restlessly
from side to side.
“I jest can't do it!” he murmured—“I jest
can't do it, an' I mought as well go back!”
There was a petulant ring to his voice—a
nervous, worried tone, that had despair in it.
Out of a June apple tree right over his head
fell a sweet, silvery, half child's, half woman's
voice, that thrilled him through every fibre to
the marrow of his bones.
“What's the matter, Goosey?” What have
you lost? What are you hunting for? Want
a good apple?”
Luke looked up just in time to catch squarely
on his nose a fine, ripe June apple, and
through a mist of juice and a sheeny curtain
of leaves he saw the lovely face he had come
to look for. A thump on the nose from an
apple, no matter if it is ripe and soft, is a little
embarrassing, and it only makes it more so
eyes and all over one's new clothes. But there
are moments of supreme bliss when such a
mishap passes unnoticed. Luke felt as if the
blow had been the touch of a magician conjuring
up a scene that held him rapt and speechless.
“O, my! I didn't go to hit you! Please
excuse me, sir—do. I thought you 'd catch it
in your hands.”
She came lightly down from the tree, descending
like a bird, easily, gracefully, as if
she had been born to climb. She murmured
many apologies, but the genius of fun danced
in her saucy, almost impertinent eyes, belying
her regretful words. Luke looked down at
her dazed and speechless. She, however, was
full of prattle—half childish, half womanly,
half serious, half bantering—her eyes upturned
to his, her voice a very bird's in melody. In
the more innocent sense of the word she
looked like her name, Hoiden. Nothing unchaste
or indelicate about her appearance; just
a sort of want of restraint; a freedom that
amounted to an utter lack of responsibility to
the ordinary claims and dictates of propriety.
A close, trained, intelligent observer would
have seen at once that she was wilful, spoiled,
really innocent and full of good impulses. She
was beautiful, too—wonderfully beautiful—just
on the hither side of womanhood, plump, budding,
bewitching. How she did it can never
be known, but she soon had Luke racing with
her all over the orchard. They climbed trees
together, they scrambled for the same apple,
they laughed, and shouted, and played till the
horn at the farmhouse called the field hands
to dinner. They parted then, as children
part, promising to meet again the next day.
The girl's cheeks were rosy with exercise, so
were Luke's.
How strange! Day after day that great,
bearded, almost middle-aged, uncouth farmer
went and played slave to that chit of a girl,
doing whatever ridiculous or childish thing
she proposed, caring for nothing, asking for
nothing but to be with her, listen to her voice
and feast his eyes upon her beauty. He
gladly bore everything she heaped upon him,
and to be called “Goosey” by her was to him
inexpressibly charming.
Betsy's womanly nature was not to be deceived.
She soon comprehended all; but she
dared not mention the subject to Luke. He
was in no mood to be opposed. So he went
on—and Betsy sighed.
The summer softened into autumn. The
maple leaves reddened. The long grass turned
brown and lolled over. A softness and tenderness
lurked in the deep blue sky, and the
air had a sharp racy fragrance from ripe fruit
and grain. Meantime the railroad had been
pushed with amazing rapidity nearly to completion.
Every day long construction trains
went crashing across Luke's farm. Passenger
coaches were to be put on in a few days. Luke
was the very picture of happiness. He seemed
to grow younger every day. His worldly
prospects, too, were flattering. A station had
been located on his land, around which a town
had already begun to spring up. The vast
value of Luke's timber, walnut and oak, was
just beginning to appear; indeed, immense
wealth lay in his hands. But his happiness
was of a deeper and purer sort than that generated
by simple pecuniary prosperity. Hoiden
Pearl was in the focus of all his thoughts;
her face lighted his dreams, her voice made
the music that charmed him into a wonderland
of bliss. He said little about her, even
to Betsy, but it needed no sharpness of sight
to discover from his face what was going on
in his heart. He had even forgotten his pipe.
He had not smoked since that first day in the
a span taller.
The girl did not seem to dream of any tender
attachment on Luke's part. In fact he gave
her no cause for it. He fed on his love inwardly
and never thought of telling it. To be
with her was enough. It satisfied all his
wants. She was frank and free with him, but
tyrannized over him—ordered him about like
a servant, scolded him, flattered him, pouted
at him, smiled on him, indeed kept him crazy
with rapture all the time. Once only she became
confidentially communicative. It was
one day, sitting on an old mossy log in the
Judge's woodland pasture, she told him the
story of her past life. How thrillingly beautiful
her face became as it sobered down with
the history of early orphanage! Her father
had died first; then her mother, who left her
four years old in the care of Mr. Pearl, her
paternal uncle, with whom she had ever since
been, going from place to place, as the calls of
his nomadic profession made it necessary,
from survey to survey, from this State to that,
seeing all sorts of people, and receiving her
education in small, detached parcels. The
story was a sad, unsatisfactory one, breathing
neglect, yet full of a certain kind of sprightliness,
fascination of true romance.
It is hard to say when Luke would have
awakened from his tender trance to the strong
reality of love. He was too contented for self-questioning,
and no act or word of Hoiden's
invited him to consider what he was doing or
whither he was drifting.
It was well for Luke and the girl, too, that
it was a sparsely settled neighborhood, for evil
tongues might have made much of their constant
companionship and childish behavior.
As for the Judge, after it was all over he
admitted that he felt some qualms of conscience
about allowing such unlimited intimacy
to go on, but he excused himself by saying that
the girl, when confined to the house, was such
an unmitigated nuisance that he was glad for
some one to monopolize her company.
“Why,” said he, in his peculiar way, “she
set the whole house by the ears. She made
more clatter and racket than a four-horse Pennsylvania
wagon coming down a rocky hill.
She would go from garret to cellar like a whirlwind
and twist things wrong side out as she
went— she was a tart!”
But at length, toward the middle of autumn
the end came. Luke had business with some
several days. Meantime the railroad was
completed, and Mr. Pearl came to the Judge's
early one morning and called for Hoiden. His
business with his employers was ended, and
he had just finished an arrangement that had
long been on foot to go to one of the South
American States and take charge of a vast
engineering scheme there. The girl was de
lighted. Such a prospect of travel and adventure
was enough to set one of her temperament
wild with enthusiasm. She flew to
packing her trunk, her face radiant with joy.
Only an hour later Mr. Pearl and Hoiden
stood at the new station on Luke's land, waiting
for the east-going train. Mr. Pearl happened
to think of a business message he wished
to leave for Luke, so he went into the depôt
building and wrote it. When Hoiden saw the
letter was for Luke she begged leave to put in
a few words of postscript, and she had her
way.
The train came and the man and girl were
whirled away to New York, and thence they
took ship for South America, never to return.
Next day Luke came back, bringing with
him a beautifully carved mahogany box
mounted in silver. Betsy met him at the
Hoiden's departure almost at the first breath.
“Gone all the way to South America,” she
added, after premising that she would never
return.
A peculiarly grim, grayish smile mantled
the face of Luke. He swallowed a time or
two before he could speak.
“Come now, sis” (he always said “sis”
when he felt somewhat at Betsy's mercy),
“come now, sis, don't try to fool me. I'm
goin' right over to see the gal now, an' I've
got what'll tickle her awfully right here in
this 'ere box.”
Out in the yard the blue jays and wood-peckers
were quarrelling over the late apples
heaped up by the cider mill. The sky was
clear, but the sunlight, coming through a
smoky atmosphere, was pale, like the smile of
a sick man. The wind of autumn ran steadily
through the shrubby weedy lawn with a sigh
that had in it the very essence of sadness.
“I tell you, Luke, I'm not trying to fool you;
they've gone clean to South America to stay
always,” reiterated Betsy.
Luke gazed for a moment steadily into his
sister's eyes, as if looking for a sign. Slowly
his stalwart body and muscular limbs relazed
a crash, where it burst, letting roll out great
hoops of gold and starry rings and pins—a
gold watch and chain, a beautiful gold pen
and pencil case, and trinkets and gew-gaw
things almost innumerable. They must have
cost the full profits of his business trip.
Luke staggered into a chair. Betsy just
then happened to think of the letter that had
been left for her brother. This she fetched
and handed to him. It was the note of business
from Mr. Pearl. There was a postscript
in a different hand:
“Good-bye, Goosey!
Hoidy Pearl.”
That was all. Luke is more morose and
petulant than he used to be. He is decaying
about apace with Rackenshack, and he smokes
constantly. He is vastly wealthy and unmarried.
Betsy is quiet and kind. Up stairs in her
chest is hidden the mahogany coffer full of
golden testimonials of her brother's days of
happiness and the one dark hour of his despair!
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