University of Virginia Library

6. "YE'LL TAK' THE HIGH ROAD AND I'LL TAK THE LOW ROAD"

THE day broke with a scream of wind out of the prairies and such cloudbursts of snow that Joe could see neither bank of the river as he made his way down the big bend of ice. The wind struck so bitterly that now and then he stopped and, panting and gasping, leaned his weight against it. The snow on the ground was caught up and flew like sea spume in a hurricane; it swirled about him, joining the flakes in the air, so that it seemed to be snowing from the ground upward as much as from the sky downward. Fierce as it was, hard as it was to fight through, snow from the earth, snow from the sky, Joe was grateful for it, feeling that it veiled him, making him safer, though he trusted somewhat the change of costume he had effected at Beaver Beach. A rough, workman's cap was pulled down over his ears and eyebrows; a knitted comforter was wound

about the lower part of his face; under a ragged overcoat he wore blue overalls and rubber boots; and in one of his red-mittened hands he swung a tin dinner-bucket.

When he reached the nearest of the factories he heard the exhaust of its engines long before he could see the building, so blinding was the drift. Here he struck inland from the river, and, skirting the edges of the town, made his way by unfrequented streets and alleys, bearing in the general direction of upper Main Street, to find himself at last, almost exhausted, in the alley behind the Pike Mansion. There he paused, leaning heavily against a board fence and gazing at the vaguely outlined gray plane which was all that could be made of the house through the blizzard. He had often, very often, stood in this same place at night, and there was one window (Mrs. Pike's) which he had guessed to be Mamie's.

The storm was so thick that he could not see this window now, but he looked a long time through the thickness at that part of the gray plane where he knew it was. Then his lips parted.

"Good-bye, Mamie,'' he said, softly. "Goodbye, Mamie.''

He bent his body against the wind and went on, still keeping to the back ways, until he came to the alley which passed behind his own home,

where, however, he paused only for a moment to make a quick survey of the premises. A glance satisfied him; he ran to the next fence, hoisted himself wearily over it, and dropped into Roger Tabor's back yard.

He took shelter from the wind for a moment or two, leaning against the fence, breathing heavily; then he stumbled on across the obliterated paths of a vegetable-garden until he reached the house, and beginning with the kitchen, began to make the circuit of the windows, peering cautiously into each as he went, ready to tap on the pane should he catch a glimpse of Ariel, and prepared to run if he stumbled upon her grandfather. But the place seemed empty: he had made his reconnaisance apparently in vain, and was on the point of going away, when he heard the click of the front gate and saw Ariel coming towards him, her old water-proof cloak about her head and shoulders, the patched, scant, faded skirt, which he knew so well, blowing about her tumultuously. At the sound of the gate he had crouched close against the side of the house, but she saw him at once.

She stopped abruptly, and throwing the water-proof back from her head, looked at him through the driven fog of snow. One of her hands was stretched towards him involuntarily, and it was in that attitude that he long remembered her:

standing in the drift which had piled up against the gate almost knee-deep, the shabby skirt and the black water-proof flapping like torn sails, one hand out-stretched like that of a figure in a tableau, her brown face with its thin features mottled with cold and unlovely, her startled eyes fixed on him with a strange, wild tenderness that held something of the laughter of whole companionship in it mingling with a loyalty and championship that was almost ferocious—she looked an Undine of the snow.

Suddenly she ran to him, still keeping her hand out-stretched until it touched his own.

"How did you know me?'' he said.

"Know you!'' was all the answer she made to that question. "Come into the house. I've got some coffee on the stove for you. I've been up and down the street waiting for you ever since it began to get light.''

"Your grandfather won't—''

"He's at Uncle Jonas's; he won't be back till noon. There's no one here.''

She led him to the front-door, where he stamped and shook himself; he was snow from head to foot.

"I'm running away from the good Gomorrah,'' he said, "but I've stopped to look back, and I'm a pretty white pillar.''

"I know where you stopped to look back,'' she

answered, brushing him heartily with her red hands. "You came in the alley way. It was Mamie's window.''

He did not reply, and the only visible token that he had any consciousness of this clairvoyance of hers was a slight lift of his higher eyebrow. She wasted no time in getting him to the kitchen, where, when she had removed his overcoat, she placed him in a chair, unwound the comforter, and, as carefully as a nurse, lifted the cap from his injured head. When the strip of towel was disclosed she stood quite still for a moment with the cap in her hand; then with a broken little cry she stooped and kissed a lock of his hair, which escaped, discolored, beneath the bandage.

"Stop that!'' he commanded, horribly embarrassed.

"Oh, Joe,'' she cried, "I knew! I knew it was there—but to see it! And it's my fault for leaving you—I had to go or I wouldn't have—I—''

"Where'd you hear about it?'' he asked, shortly.

"I haven't been to bed,'' she answered. "Grandfather and I were up all night at Uncle Jonas's, and Colonel Flitcroft came about two o'clock, and he told us.''

"Did he tell you about Norbert?''

"Yes—a great deal.'' She poured coffee into a cup from a pot on the stove, brought it to him,

then placing some thin slices of bread upon a gridiron, began to toast them over the hot coals. "The Colonel said that Norbert thought he wouldn't get well,'' she concluded; "and Mr. Arp said Norbert was the kind that never die, and they had quite an argument.''

"What were you doing at Jonas Tabor's?'' asked Joe, drinking his coffee with a brightening eye.

"We were sent for,'' she answered.

"What for?''

She toasted the bread attentively without replying, and when she decided that it was brown enough, piled it on a warm plate. This she brought to him, and kneeling in front of him, her elbow on his knee, offered for his consideration, looking steadfastly up at his eyes. He began to eat ravenously

"What for?'' he repeated. "I didn't suppose Jonas would let you come in his house. Was he sick?''

"Joe,'' she said, quietly, disregarding his questions—"Joe, have you got to run away?''

"Yes, I've got to,'' he answered.

"Would you have to go to prison if you stayed?'' She asked this with a breathless tensity.

"I'm not going to beg father to help me out,'' he said, determinedly. "He said he wouldn't, and he'll be spared the chance. He won't mind

that; nobody will care! Nobody! What does anybody care what I do!''

"Now you're thinking of Mamie!'' she cried. "I can always tell. Whenever you don't talk naturally you're thinking of her!''

He poured down the last of the coffee, growing red to the tips of his ears. "Ariel,'' he said, "if I ever come back—''

"Wait,'' she interrupted. "Would you have to go to prison right away if they caught you?''

"Oh, it isn't that,'' he laughed, sadly. "But I'm going to clear out. I'm not going to take any chances. I want to see other parts of the world, other kinds of people. I might have gone, anyhow, soon, even if it hadn't been for last night. Don't you ever feel that way?''

"You know I do,'' she said. "I've told you— how often! But, Joe, Joe,—you haven't any money! You've got to have money to live!''

"You needn't worry about that,'' returned the master of seven dollars, genially. "I've saved enough to take care of me for a long time.''

"Joe, please! I know it isn't so. If you could wait just a little while—only a few weeks,—only a few, Joe—''

"What for?''

"I could let you have all you want. It would be such a beautiful thing for me, Joe. Oh, I know

how you'd feel; you wouldn't even let me give you that dollar I found in the street last year; but this would be only lending it to you, and you could pay me back sometime—''

"Ariel!'' he exclaimed, and, setting his empty cup upon the floor, took her by the shoulders and shook her till the empty plate which had held the toast dropped from her hand and broke into fragments. "You've been reading the Arabian Nights! ''

"No, no,'' she cried, vehemently. "Grandfather would give me anything. He'll give me all the money I ask for!''

"Money!'' said Joe. "Which of us is wandering? Money? Roger Tabor give you money?''

"Not for a while. A great many things have to be settled first.''

"What things?''

"Joe,'' she asked, earnestly, "do you think it's bad of me not to feel things I ought to feel?''

"No.''

"Then I'm glad,'' she said, and something in the way she spoke made him start with pain, remembering the same words, spoken in the same tone, by another voice, the night before on the veranda. "I'm glad, Joe, because I seemed all wrong to myself. Uncle Jonas died last night, and I haven't been able to get sorry. Perhaps it's because I've been so frightened about you,

but I think not, for I wasn't sorry even before Colonel Flitcroft told me about you.''

"Jonas Tabor dead!'' said Joe. "Why, I saw him on the street yesterday!''

"Yes, and I saw him just before I came out on the porch where you were. He was there in the hall; he and Judge Pike had been having a long talk; they'd been in some speculations together, and it had all turned out well. It's very strange, but they say now that Uncle Jonas's heart was weak—he was an old man, you know, almost eighty,—and he'd been very anxious about his money. The Judge had persuaded him to risk it; and the shock of finding that he'd made a great deal suddenly—''

"I've heard he'd had that same shock before,'' said Joe, "when he sold out to your father.''

"Yes, but this was different, grandfather says. He told me it was in one of those big risky businesses that Judge Pike likes to go into. And last night it was all finished, the strain was over, and Uncle Jonas started home. His house is only a little way from the Pikes', you know; but he dropped down in the snow at his own gate, and some people who were going by saw him fall. He was dead before grandfather got there.''

"I can't be sorry,'' said Joe, slowly.

"Neither can I. That's the dreadful part of it!

They say he hadn't made a will, that though he was sharper than anybody else in the whole world about any other matter of business, that was the one thing he put off. And we're all the kin he had in the world, grandfather and I. And they say''— her voice sank to a whisper of excitement—"they say he was richer than anybody knew, and that this last business with Judge Pike, the very thing that killed him—something about grain—made him five times richer than before!''

She put her hand on the boy's arm, and he let it remain there. Her eyes still sought his with a tremulous appeal.

"God bless you, Ariel!'' he said. "It's going to be a great thing for you.''

"Yes. Yes, it is. "The tears came suddenly to her eyes. "I was foolish last night, but there had been such a long time of wanting things; and now—and now grandfather and I can go—''

"You're going, too!'' Joe chuckled.

"It's heartless, I suppose, but I've settled it! We're going—''

"I know,'' he cried. "You've told me a thousand times what he's said ten times a thousand. You're going to Paris!''

"Paris! Yes, that's it. To Paris, where he can see at last how the great ones have painted,— where the others can show him! To Paris, where

we can study together, where he can learn how to put the pictures he sees upon canvas, and where I—''

"Go on,'' Joe encouraged her. "I want to hear you say it. You don't mean that you're going to study painting; you mean that you're going to learn how to make such fellows as Eugene ask you to dance. Go ahead and say it!''

"Yes—to learn how to dress!'' she said.

Joe was silent for a moment. Then he rose and took the ragged overcoat from the back of his chair. "Where's that muffler?'' he asked.

She brought it from where she had placed it to dry, behind the stove.

"Joe,'' she said, huskily, "can't you wait till—''

"Till the estate is settled and you can coax your grandfather to—''

"No, no! But you could go with us.''

"To Paris?''

"He would take you as his secretary.''

"Aha!'' Joe's voice rang out gayly as he rose, refreshed by the coffee, toast, and warmth she had given him. "You've been story-reading, Ariel, like Eugene! `Secretary'!''

"Please, Joe!''

"Where's my tin dinner-pail?'' He found it himself upon the table where he had set it down. "I'm going to earn a dishonest living,'' he went

on. "I have an engagement to take a freight at a water-tank that's a friend of mine, half a mile south of the yards. Thank God, I'm going to get away from Canaan!''

"Wait, Joe!'' She caught at his sleeve. "I want you to—''

He had swung out of the room and was already at the front-door. She followed him closely.

"Good-bye, Ariel!''

"No, no! Wait, Joe!''

He took her right hand in his own, and gave it a manly shake. "It's all right,'' he said.

He threw open the door and stepped out, but she sought to detain him. "Oh, have you got to go?'' she cried.

"Don't you ever worry about me.'' He bent his head to the storm as he sprang down the steps, and snow-wreaths swirled between them.

He disappeared in a white whirlwind.

She stood for several minutes shivering in the doorway. Then it came to her that she would not know where to write to him. She ran down to the gate and through it. Already the blizzard had covered his footprints.