A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties

by Charles Major

UNDER THE ELM CANOPY

CHAPTER V

Under the Elm Canopy

Dic and Rita rode home through the forest in silence. His anger soon evaporated, and he was glad she had refused to pay the forfeit. He would be content with the friendship that had been his since childhood, and would never again risk losing it. What right had he, a great, uncouth "clodhopper," to expect even friendship from so beautiful and perfect a creature as the girl who rode beside him; and, taking it all in all, the fault, thought he, lay entirely at his door. In this sombre mood he resolved that he would remain unmarried all his life, and would be content with the incompleted sweet of loving. He would put a guard upon himself, his acts, his words, his passion. The latter was truly as noble and pure as man ever felt for woman, but it should not be allowed to estrange his friend. She should never know it; no, never, never, never.

Rita's cogitations were also along the wrong track. During her silent ride homeward the girl was thinking with an earnestness and a rapidity that had never before been developed in her brain. She was, at times, almost unconscious that Dic was riding beside her, but she was vividly conscious of the fact that she would soon be home and that he also would be there. She determined to do something before parting from him to make amends for her conduct at the social. But what should she do? Hence the earnest and rapid intellection within the drooping head. She did not regret having refused to kiss Dic. She would, under like circumstances, again act in the same manner. She regretted the circumstances. To her, a kiss should be a holy, sacred thing, and in her heart she longed for the time when it would be her duty and her privilege to give her lips to the one man. But kissing games seemed to her little less than open and public shame.

She could not, for obvious reasons, tell Dic she was sorry she had refused him, and she certainly would not mend matters by telling him she was glad. Still less could she permit him to leave her in his present state of mind. All together it was a terrible dilemma. If she could for only one moment have a man's privilege to speak, she thought, it would all be very simple. But she could not speak. She could do little more than look, and although she could do that well, she knew from experience that the language of her eyes was a foreign tongue to Dic.

When they reached home, Dic lifted Rita from her saddle and stabled her horse. When he came from the barn she was holding his horse and waiting for him. He took the rein from her hands, saying:—

"It seems almost a pity to waste such a night as this in the house. I believe one might read by the light of the moon."

"Yes," murmured the girl, hanging her head, while she meditatively smoothed the grass with her foot.

"It's neither warm nor cold—just pleasant," continued Dic.

"No," she responded very softly.

"But we must sleep," he ventured to assert.

She would not contradict the statement. She was silent.

"If the days could be like this night, work would be a pleasure," observed Dic, desperately.

"No," came the reply, hardly louder than a breath. She was not thinking of the weather, but Dic stuck faithfully to the blessed topic.

"It may rain soon," he remarked confusedly. There was not a cloud in sight.

"Yes," breathed the pretty figure, smoothing the grass with her foot.

"But—but, I rather think it will not," he said.

The girl was silent. She didn't care if it snowed. She longed for him to drop the subject of the weather and to say something that would give her an opportunity to speak. Her manner, however, was most unassuring, and convinced Dic that he had offended beyond forgiveness, while his distant, respectful formality and persistency in the matter of the weather almost convinced the girl that he was lost to her forever. Thus they stood before each other, as many others have done, a pair of helpless fools within easy reach of paradise. Dic's straightforward habits of thought and action came to his aid, however, and he determined to make at least one more effort to regain the girl's friendly regard. He abandoned the weather and said somewhat abruptly:—

"Rita, if I offended you to-night, I am sorry. I cannot tell you all the pain I feel. When you dropped the handkerchief behind me, I thought—I know I was wrong and should have known better at the time—but I thought—"

"Oh, Dic," she softly interrupted, still smoothing the grass with her foot, "I am not offended; it is you."

Had the serene yellow moon burst into a thousand blazing suns, Dic could not have been more surprised.

"Rita, do you mean it? Do you really mean it?" he asked.

"Yes," she whispered.

"And were you afraid I was offended?"

"Yes," again very softly.

"And did you care?"

"Yes," with an emphatic nod of the head.

"And do you—" he paused, and she hesitatingly whispered:—

"Yes." She did not know what his question would have been; but whatever he wished to ask, "Yes" would be her answer, so she gave it, and Dic continued:—

"Do you wish me to remain for a few minutes?"

This time the "Yes" was given by a pronounced drooping of the head, but she took his hand for an instant that she might not possibly be misunderstood.

Dic hitched his horse to the fence, and, turning to Rita, said:—

"Shall we go over to the log by the river?"

"Yes." Ah, how many yeses she had for him that night, and yes is a sweet word.

When they were seated on the log the girl waited a reasonable time for Dic to begin the conversation. He remained silent, and soon she concluded to take the matter temporarily in her own hands. He had begun a moment before, but had stopped; perhaps with a little help he would begin again.

"I was sure you were angry," she said, "and I thought you would not forgive me this time. I have so often given you cause to dislike me."

"Oh, Rita, I don't believe you know that you could not make me dislike you. When I thought that—that you did not care for me, I was so grieved that life seemed almost worthless, but I love you so dearly, Rita—" but that was just what he had determined never, never to tell her. He stopped midway in his unintentional confession, surprised that the girl did not indignantly leave him. Her heart beat wofully. Breathing suddenly became harder work than churning. She sat demurely by his side on the log, only too willing to listen, with a dictionary full of "Yeses" on the end of her tongue, and he sat beside her, unable for the moment to think. After a long pause she determined to give him a fresh start.

"I was in the wrong, Dic, and if you wish I'll apologize to you before all who saw me. But I was frightened. I should not have gone into the game. It may be right for other girls—I would not say that it is not right—but for me, I know it would be a sin—a real sin. I am not wise, but, Dic, something tells me that certain things cannot occupy a middle ground. They must be holy and sacred, or they are sinful, and I—I did not want it to—to happen then, because—because—" there she stopped speaking. She had unintentionally used the word "then," with slight emphasis; but slight as it was, it sent Dic's soul soaring heavenward, buoyant with ecstasy.

"Why, Rita, why did you not want it to happen—" he feared to say "then," and it would seem from the new position of his arm, he also feared she might fall backward off the log.

"Because—because," came in soft whispers. The beautiful head was drooped, and the face was hidden from even the birds and the moon, while Dic's disengaged hand, out of an abundance of caution lest she might fall, clasped hers.

"Because—why, Rita?" he pleaded.

Softly came the response, "Because I wanted to be alone with—with—you when it—it happened." It happened before she had finished her sentence, but when it was finished the head lay upon his shoulder, and the birds, should they awaken, or the moon, or any one else, might see for aught she cared. It was holy and sacred now, and she felt no shame: she was proud. The transfer of herself had been made. She belonged to him, and he, of course, must do with his own property as he saw fit. It was no longer any affair of hers.

The victory of complete surrender is sometimes all-conquering; at any rate, Dic was subjugated for life. His situation was one that would be hard to improve upon in the way of mere earthly bliss. Heaven may furnish something better, and if it does, the wicked certainly have no conception of what they are going to miss. Tom, for example, would never have put buttons in the offering. Doug would not gamble and drink. Poor, painted Nanon would starve rather than sin. Old man Jones, in the amen corner, would not swindle his neighbor; nor would Wetmore, the Baptist, practise the holy calling of shepherd, having in his breast the heart of a wolf. We all, saving a woman here and there, have our sins, little and great, and many times in the day we put in jeopardy that future bliss. But I console myself with the hope that there is as much forgiveness in heaven as there is sin on earth, save for the hypocrite. There may be forgiveness even for him, but I trust not.

I have done this bit of philosophizing that I might give Dic and Rita a moment to themselves on the sycamore divan. You may have known the time in your life when you were thankful for the sight of a dear friend's back.

There was little said between our happy couple for many minutes after the explosion; but like a certain lady, who long ago resided for a time in a beautiful garden, the girl soon began to tempt the man: not to eat apples, for Rita was one of the "women here and there" spoken of above. She was pure and sinless as the light of a star. Her tempting was of another sort. Had Rita been Eve, there would have been no fall.

After several efforts to speak, she said, "Now you will not go to New York, will you?"

"Why, Rita," he responded confidently, "of course I'll go. There is more reason now for my going than ever before."

"Why more now than ever before?" asked the girl.

"Because I want money that I may support you," he responded. "I'll tell you a great secret, Rita, but you must promise you will never tell it to any one."

"I promise—cross my heart," she answered, and Dic knew that wild horses could not tear the secret from her girlish breast.

"I'm studying law," continued Dic. "Billy Little has been buying law books for me. They are too expensive for me to buy. He bought me 'Blackstone's Commentaries'—four large volumes." The big words tasted good in his mouth, and were laden with sweetness and wisdom for her ears.

"I have read them twice," continued Dic. "He is going to buy 'Kent,' and after that I'll take up works on pleading and special subjects. He has consulted Mr. Switzer, and if I can save enough money to keep you and me for two or three years in idleness, I am to go into Mr. Switzer's office to learn the practice. It is a great and beautiful study."

"Oh, it must be, Dic," cried the girl, delightedly. "To think that you will be a lawyer. I have always known that you would some day be a great man. Maybe you will be a judge, or a governor, or go to Congress."

"That is hardly possible," responded Dic, laughing.

"Indeed it is possible," she responded very seriously. "Anything is possible for you—even the presidency, and I'll help you. I will not be a millstone, Dic. I'll help you. We'll work together—and you'll see I'll help you."

Accordingly, she began to help him at once by putting her arm coaxingly over his shoulder, and saying:—

"But if you are going to do all this you should not waste your time leading horses to New York."

"But you see, Rita," he responded, "I can make a lot of money by going, and I shall see something of the world, as you heard Billy Little say."

"Oh, you would rather see the world than me?" queried the girl, drawing away from him with an injured air, whereupon Dic, of course, vowed that he would rather see her face than a thousand worlds.

"Then why don't you stay where you can see it?" she asked poutingly.

"Because, as I told you, I want to make money so that when I go into Mr. Switzer's office I can support you—and the others—" He stopped, surprised by his words.

"The others? What others?" asked the girl. That was a hard question to answer, and he undertook it very lamely.

"You see, Rita," he stammered, "there will be—there might—there may be—don't you know, Rita?"

"No, I don't know, Dic. Why are you so mysterious? What others—who—oh!" And she hid her face upon his breast, while her arms stole gently about his neck.

"You see," remarked Dic, speaking softly to the black waves of lustrous hair, "I must take Iago's advice and put money in my purse. I have always hoped to be something more than I am. Billy Little, who has been almost a father to me, has burned the ambition into me. But with all my yearning, life has never held a real purpose compared with that I now have in you. The desire for fame, Rita, the throbbing of ambition, the lust for gold and dominion, are considered by the world to be the great motives of human action. But, Rita, they are all simply means to one end. There is but one great purpose in life, and that is furnished to a man by the woman he loves. Billy Little gave me the thought. It is not mine. How he knew it, being an old bachelor, I cannot tell."

"Perhaps Billy Little has had the—the purpose and lost it," said Rita, being quite naturally in a sentimental mood.

"I wonder?" mused Dic.

"Poor, dear old Billy Little," mused Rita. "But you will not go to New York?" continued Miss Persistency.

Dic had resolved, upon hearing Rita's first petition concerning the New York trip, that he would be adamant. His resolution to go was built upon the rock of expediency. It was best for him, best for Rita, that he should go, and he had no respect for a poor, weak man who would permit a woman to coax him from a clearly proper course. She should never coax him out of doing that which was best for them both.

"We'll discuss it at another time," he answered evasively, as he tried to turn her face up toward him. But her face would not be turned, and while she hid it on his breast she pushed his away, and said:—

"No, we'll discuss it now. You must promise me that you will not go. If you do not, I shall not like you, and you shall not—" She did not finish the sentence, and Dic asked gently:—

"I shall not—what, Rita?"

"Anything," came the enlightening response from the face hidden on his breast. "Besides, you will break my heart, and if you go, I'll know you don't care for me. I'll know you have been deceiving me." Then the face came up, and the great brown eyes looked pleadingly into his. "Dic, I've leaned on you so long—ever since I was a child—that I have no strength of my own; but now that I have given myself up to you, I—I cannot stand alone, even for a day. If you go away from me now, it will break my heart. I tell you it will."

Dic felt her tears upon his hand, and soon he heard soft sobs and felt their gentle convulsions within her breast. Of course the result was inevitable; the combatants were so unevenly matched. Woman's tears are the most potent resolvent know to chemistry. They will dissolve rocks of resolution, and Dic's resolutions, while big with intent, were small in flintiness, though he had thought well of them at the time they were formed. He could not endure the pain inflicted by Rita's tears. He had not learned how easy and useful tears are to women. They burned him.

"Please, Rita, please don't cry," he pleaded.

The tears, while they came readily and without pain, were honest; at any rate, the girl being so young, they were not deliberately intended to be useful. They were a part of her instinct of self-preservation.

"Don't cry, please, Rita. Your tears hurt me."

"Then promise me you won't go to New York." I fear there is no getting away entirely from the theory of utility. With evident intent to crowd the battle upon a wavering foe, the tears came fast and furious.

"Promise me," sobbed Rita; and I know you will love Dic better when I tell you that he promised. Then the girl's face came up, and, I grieve to say, the tears, having served their purpose, ceased at once.

Next morning Dic went to see Billy Little and told him he had come to have a talk. Billy locked the store door and the friends repaired to the river. There they found a shady resting-place, and Billy, lighting his pipe, said:—

"Blaze away."

"I know you will despise me," the young man began.

"No, I won't," interrupted Billy. "You are human. I don't look for unmixed good. If I did, I should not find it except once in a while in a woman. What have you been doing? Go on." Billy leaned forward on his elbows, placed the points of his fingers together, and, while waiting for Dic to begin, hummed his favorite stanza concerning the braes of Maxwelton.

"Well," responded Dic, "I've concluded not to go to New York."

Billy's face turned a shade paler as he took his pipe from his lips and looked sadly at Dic. After a moment of scrutiny he said:—

"I had hoped to get you off before it happened. It's all off now. You might as well throw Blackstone into Blue."

"What do you mean?" queried Dic. "Before what happened?"

"Before Rita happened," responded Billy.

"Rita?" cried Dic in astonishment. "How did you know?"

"How do I know that spring follows winter?" asked Billy. "I had hoped that winter would hold a little longer, and that I might get you off to New York before spring's arrival."

"Billy Little, you are talking in riddles," said Dic, pretending not to understand. "Drop your metaphor and tell me what you mean."

"You know well enough what I mean, but I'll tell you. I hoped that you would go to New York before Rita came to you. There would have been oceans of time after your return. She is very young, not much over sixteen."

"But you see, Billy Little, it was this way."

"Oh, I know all about how it was. She cried and said you didn't care for her, that you were breaking her heart, and wouldn't let you kiss her till you gave her your promise. Oh, bless your soul, I know exactly how it came about. Maxwelton's braes are um, um, um, um, yes, yes."

"Have you seen Rita?" asked Dic, who could not believe that she would tell even Billy of the scene on the log.

"Of course I have not seen her. How could I? It all happened last night after the social, and it is now only seven A.M."

"Billy Little, I believe you are a mind reader," said Dic, musingly.

"No, I'm not," replied Billy, with asperity. "Let's go back to the store. You've told me all I want to know; but I don't blame you much after all. You couldn't help it. No man could. But you'll die plowing corn. Perhaps you'll be happier in a corn field than in a broader one. Doubtless the best thing one can do is to drift. With all due reverence, I am almost ready to believe that Providence made a mistake when it permitted our race to progress beyond the pastoral age. Stick to your ploughing, Dic. It's good, wholesome exercise, and Rita will furnish everything else needful to your happiness."

They walked silently back to the store. Dic, uninvited, entered and sat down on a box. Billy distributed the morning mail and hummed Maxwelton Braes. Then he arranged goods on the counter. Dic followed the little old fellow with his eyes, but neither spoke. The younger man was waiting for his friend to speak, and the friend was silent because he did not feel like talking. He loved Dic and Rita with passionate tenderness. He had almost brought them up from infancy, and all that was best in them bore the stamp of his personality. Between him and Dic there was a feeling near akin to that of father and son, but unfortunately Rita was not a boy. Still more unfortunately the last year had added to her already great beauty a magnetism that was almost mesmeric in its effect. There had also been a ripening in the sweet tenderness of her gentle manner, and if you will remember the bachelor heart of which I have spoken, you will understand that poor Billy Little couldn't help it at all, at all. God knows he would have helped it. The fault lay in the girl's winsomeness; and if Billy's desire to send Dic off to New York was not an unmixed motive, you must not blame Billy too severely. Neither must you laugh at him; for he had the heart of a boy, and the most boyish act in the world is to fall in love. Billy had never misunderstood Rita's tenderness and love for him. There was no designing coquetry in the girl. She had always since babyhood loved him, perhaps better even than she loved her parents, and she delighted to show him her affection. Billy had never been deceived by her preference, and of course was careful that she should not observe the real quality of his own regard for her. But the girl's love, such as she gave, was sweet to him—oh, so sweet, this love of this perfect girl—and he, even he, old and gray though he was, could not help longing for that which he knew was as far beyond his reach as the bending rainbow is beyond the hand of a longing child. He was more than fifty in years, but his heart was young, and we, of course, all agree that he was very foolish indeed—which truth he knew quite as well as we.

So this disclosure of Dic's was a shock to Billy, although it was the thing of all others he most desired should come to pass.

"Are you angry, Billy Little?" asked Dic, feeling somewhat inclined to laugh, though standing slightly in fear of his little friend.

"Certainly not," returned Billy. "Why should I be angry? It's no affair of mine."

"No affair of yours, Billy Little?" asked Dic, with a touch of distress in his voice, though he knew that it was an affair very dear to Billy's heart. "Do you really mean it?"

"No, of course I don't mean it," returned Billy; "but I wish you wouldn't bother me. Don't you see I'm at work?"

Billy's conduct puzzled Dic, as well it might, and the young man turned his face toward the door, determined to wait till an explanation should come unsought.

Billy's bachelor apartment—or apartments, as he called his single room—was back of the store. There were his bed,—a huge, mahogany four-poster,—his library, his bath-tub, a half-dozen good pictures in oil and copper-plate, a pair of old fencing foils,—relics of his university days,—a piano, and a score of pipes. Under the bed was a flat leather trunk, and on the floor a rich, though worn, velvet carpet. Three or four miniatures on ivory rested on the rude mantel-shelf, and in the middle of the room stood a mahogany table covered with Blackwood's Magazines, pamphlets, letters, and books. In the midst of this confusion on the table stood a pair of magnificent gold candlesticks, each holding a half-burned candle, and over all was a mantle of dust that would have driven a woman mad. Certainly the contents of Billy's "apartments" was an incongruous collection to find in a log-cabin of the wilderness.

At the end of half an hour Billy called to Dic, saying:—

"I wish you would watch the store for me. I'm going to my apartments for a bit. If Mrs. Hawkins comes in, give her this bottle of calomel and this bundle of goods. The calomel is a fippenny bit; the goods is four shillin', but I don't suppose she'll want to pay for them. Don't take coonskins. I won't have coonskins. If I can't sell my goods for cash, I'll keep 'em. Butter and eggs will answer once in a while, if the customer is poor and has no money, but I draw the line on coonskins. The Hawkinses always have coonskins. I believe they breed coons, but they can't trade their odoriferous pelts to me. If she has them, tell her to take them to Hackett's. He'll trade for fishing worms, if she has any, and then perhaps get more than his shoddy goods are worth. Well, here's the calomel and the goods. Get the cash or charge them. There's a letter in the C box for Seal Coble. Give it to Mrs. Hawkins, and tell her to hand it to Seal as she drives past his house. Tell her to read it to the old man. He doesn't know a from x. I doubt if Mrs. Hawkins does. But you can tell her to read it—it will flatter her. I'll return when I'm ready. Meantime, I don't want to be disturbed by any one. Understand?"

"Yes," answered Dic, and the worthy merchant disappeared, locking the door behind him.

Billy sat down in the arm-chair, leaned his head backward, and looked at the ceiling for a few minutes; then, resting his elbows on his knees, he buried his face in his hands. There he sat without moving for an hour. At the end of that time he arose, drew the trunk from under the bed, unlocked it, and raised the lid. A woman's scarf, several bundles of letters, two teakwood boxes, ten or twelve inches square and three or four inches deep, beautifully mounted in gold, and a dozen books neatly wrapped in tissue paper, made up the contents. These articles seemed to tell of a woman back somewhere in Billy's life; and if they spoke the truth, there must have been grief along with her for Billy. For although he was created capable of great joy, by the same token he could also suffer the deepest grief.

Out of the trunk came one of the gold-mounted boxes, and out of the box came a package of letters neatly tied with a faded ribbon. Billy lifted the package to his face and inhaled the faint odor of lavender given forth; then he—yes, even he, Billy Little, quaint old cynic, pressed the dainty bundle to his lips and breathed a sigh of mingled sorrow and relief.

"Ah, I knew they would help me," he said. "They always do. Whatever my troubles, they always help me."

He opened the package, and, after carefully reading the letters, bound them again with the ribbon, and took from the box a small ivory jewel case, an inch cube in size. From the ivory box he took a heavy plain gold ring and went over to the chair, where he sat in bachelor meditation, though far from fancy free.

Suddenly he sprang from the chair, exclaiming: "I'll do it. I'll do it. She would wish me to—I will, I will."

He then went back to the storeroom, loitered behind the letter-boxes a few minutes, called Dic back to him, and said:—

"You are going to have one of the sweetest, best girls in all the world for your wife," said he. "You are lucky, Dic, but she is luckier. When you first told me of—of what happened last night, I was disappointed because I saw your career simply knocked end over end. No man, having as sweet a wife as Rita, ever amounted to anything, unless she happened to be ambitious, and Rita has no more ambition than a spring violet. Such a woman, unless she is ambitious, takes all the ambition out of a man. She becomes sufficient for him. She absorbs his aspirations, and gives him in exchange nothing but contentment. Of course, if she is ambitious and sighs for a crown for him, she is apt to lead him to it. But Rita knows how to do but one thing well—first conjugation, present infinitive, amare. She knows all about that, and she will bring you mere happiness—nothing else. By Jove, I'm sorry for you. You'll only be happy."

"But, Billy Little," cried Dic, "you have it wrong. Don't you see that she will be an inspiration? She will fire me. I will work and achieve greater things for her sake than I could possibly accomplish without her."

"That's why you're going to New York, is it?" asked Dic's cynical friend.

"Well, you know, that was her first request, and—and, you must understand—"

"Yes, I understand. I know she will coax you out of leaving her side long enough to plow a corn row if you are not careful. There'll be happy times for the weeds. Women of Rita's sort are like fire and water, Dic; they are useful and delightful, but dangerous. No man, however wise, knows their power. Egad! One of them would coax the face off of ye if she wanted it, before you knew you had a face. It's their God-given privilege to coax; but bless your soul, Dic, what a poor world this would be without their coaxing. God pity the man who lacks it! Eh, Dic?" Billy was thinking of his own loneliness.

"Rita certainly knows how to coax," replied Dic. "And—and it is very pleasant."

"Have you an engagement ring for her?" asked Billy.

"No," responded Dic, "I can't afford one now, and Rita doesn't expect it. After I'm established in the law, I'll buy her a beautiful ring."

"After you're established in the law! If the poor girl waits for that—but she shan't wait. I have one here," said Billy, drawing forth the ivory box. "I value it above all my possessions." His voice broke piteously. "It is more precious to me ... than words can ... tell or ... money can buy. It brought me ... my first great joy ... my first great grief. I give it to you, Dic, that you may give it to Rita. Egad! I believe I've taken a cold from the way my eyes water. There, there, don't thank me, or I'll take it back. Now, I want to be alone. Damme, I say, don't thank me. Get out of here, you young scoundrel; to come in here and take my ring away from me! Jove! I'll have the law on you, the law! Good-by."

"I fear I should not have given them the ring," mused Billy when Dic had gone.... "It might prove unlucky.... It came back to me because she was forced to marry another.... I wonder if it will come back to Dic? Nonsense! It is impossible.... Nothing can come between them.... But it was a fatal ring for me.... I am almost sorry ... but it can bring no trouble to Dic and Rita ... impossible. But I am almost sorry ... go off, Billy Little; you are growing soft and superstitious ... but it would break her heart. I wonder ... ah! nonsense. Maxwelton's braes are bonny, um, um, um, um, um, um." And Billy first tried to sing his grief away, then sought relief from his beloved piano.

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