CHAPTER VI.
THE GIRL IN GRAY.
For days after the fight Jud caught himself stealing surreptitious glances at his wife, with the miserable feeling that some time he would take her unawares and detect scornful pity in her eyes. He was sure she could not respect a man who had been forced to submit to defeat, especially after he had vaingloriously forced the conflict upon an unwilling foe.
But Justine loved him more deeply than ever. In her eyes he was a hero. For her sake he had fought a desperate man in the face of certain defeat.
At the house as she tenderly bathed his swollen face, "Jud," she said, "you won't fight him again, will you?" A lump rose in his throat. He felt that she was begging him to desist merely because she knew his shameful incompetency.
"You won't fight him again, will you?" she repeated earnestly.
"I can't whip him, Justine," he said humbly. "I thought I could. How you must despise me!"
"Despise you! Despise you! Oh, how I love you, Jud!" she cried. He looked into her eyes, fearing to see a flicker of dishonesty, but none was there.
"I won't fight him until I know I can lick him fair and square. It may be never, but maybe I'll be man enough some day. He's too much for me now. He'd have killed me if it hadn't been for you, dear. Good God, Justine, I thought I was dying. You don't know how terrible it was!"
The story of the fight was soon abroad. The fact that Jud's face bore few signs of the conflict struck the people as strange. 'Gene had told wondrous tales of his victory. On the other hand, 'Gene's face was a mass of cuts and bruises. It was hard for them to believe, but the farmers soon found themselves saying that Jud Sherrod had whipped 'Gene Crawley. Even when Jud acknowledged that 'Gene had whipped him, every one said that Jud was so magnanimous that he "couldn't crow over 'Gene."
"Now, mebby 'Gene Crawley'll take back what he said 'bout Jed an' Jestine las' spring," said James Hardesty, down at the toll-gate, in the presence of a large audience. "He'll keep his dern mouth shet now, I reckon. He cain't go 'roun' here talkin' like that 'bout our women folks. Gosh dern him, ef he ever opened his head 'bout my wife I'd knock him over into Butter township, Indiany. What'n thunder's the use bein' afeared o' 'Gene Crawley? He's a big blow an' he cain't lick nobody 'nless he gits in a crack 'fore the other feller's ready. Good gosh, ef I was as young as some o' you fellers, I'd had him licked forty-seven times 'fore this."
So 'Gene's reputation as a fighter suffered. But not for long. Harve Crose, Joe Perkins, and Link Overshine undertook, on separate occasions, to "take it out'n his hide" for old-standing grievances, and 'Gene reëstablished himself in their estimation. Link Overshine was in bed for a week afterwards.
The winter passed rather uneventfully. In a few of the simpler country gatherings Jud and Justine took part, but poverty kept them pretty closely at home. The yield of grain had not been up to the average and prices were low. It was only by skimping almost to niggardliness that they managed to make both ends meet during the last months of the winter. Justine's school-teaching was their salvation, notwithstanding the fact that the township was usually in arrears. Jud chopped wood for an extra dollar now and then. Justine made frocks for herself.
She wore plain colors and plain material. The other girls wondered why it was that Justine Van—they always called her Justine Van—looked "so nice in them cheap little calicos." The trimness and daintiness of her dress was refreshing in a community where the taste of woman ran to ribbons, rainbows, and remnants. No girl in the neighborhood considered herself befittingly gowned for parade unless she could spread sail with a dozen hues in the breeze, the odor of perfume in the air, and unblushable pink in her cheeks. Society in Clay township could never be accused of color-blindness. The young gallants, in their store clothes, were to be won by ribbons and rouge, and, as the sole object of the girls was to get married and have children, the seasons apparently merged in an ever-lasting Eastertide. Justine, then, aroused curiosity. In the winter she wore a rough black coat and a featherless fedora. In the spring her modest gowns would have been sniffed at had they covered the person of any one less dainty. A single rose in her dark hair, a white trifle at her throat, or a red ribbon somewhere, made up her tribute to extravagance.
Jud sketched her adoringly. He had scores of posings even. When spring came and they began to plant, in the midst of privation they found time to be happy. It was on one of their Sunday-afternoon sketching expeditions that an incident occurred which was to change the whole course of their lives. They had walked several miles across the hills, through leafy woodland, to Proctor's Falls. Here the creek wriggled through a mossy dell until it came to a sudden drop of twenty feet or more, into a pool whose shimmering surface lay darkly in the shade of great trees that lined the banks. It was one of the prettiest spots in the country, and Jud had long meant to try his skill in sketching it.
This day he sat far down the ravine, facing the Falls, and rested his back against a tree. She nestled beside him, leaning against his shoulder, watching with proud eyes the hand that fashioned the picture. To her, his art was little short of the marvelous; to a critic, it would have shown crudities enough, though even the faults were those of genius. Her eye followed his pencil with a half-knowing squint, sending an occasional glance into Nature's picture up the glen as if seeing blemishes in the subject rather than in the work of the artist.
"What a pity there is not more water coming over the rock," she said regretfully. "And that log would look better if it were turned upside down, don't you think, Jud? Goodness, how natural you have made it, though. I don't see how you do it."
Presently she ventured, somewhat timidly: "Don't you think you might sell some of your pictures, Jud, dear? If I were rich, I know I'd like to have them, and I——"
"They're yours, anyway," he interrupted, laughing. "Everything I draw is yours. You don't have to be rich."
"I mean, I'd like to have them if I was somebody else, somebody who wasn't anything to you. They'd look so nice in frames, Jud. Honestly, they would. Dear me, they're much nicer than those horrid things 'Squire Roudebush paid a dollar and a quarter apiece for."
"Nobody would want to buy my things, Justine. They're not worth the paper they cover. Now, who the dickens is there in this county that would give me a dollar for the whole lot? I couldn't give them away—that is, excepting those I've made of you. Everybody wants one of you. I guess I must draw you better than anything else."
"You make me look so much prettier than I really am," she expostulated.
"No, I don't, either," he responded. For a long time she forgot to look at his pencil. Her eyes were bent reflectively upon the brown, smooth face with the studious wrinkle in the forehead, and she was not thinking of the picture. Suddenly she patted his cheek and afterwards toyed in silence with the curls that clustered around his ear.
An elderly lady, a slender young woman in a modish gown of gray, and a tall, boyish chap slowly approached the point from which Proctor's Falls could best be viewed. Their clothes and manner proclaimed them to be city people. The boy, over whose sullen forehead tilted a rakish traveling cap, seemed to be expostulating with the young woman. From his manner it was easy to be seen that he did not regard further progress into the wilds as pleasant, profitable, or necessary. The elder lady, who was fleshy, evidently supported the youth in his impatience, but the gray gown was enthusiastically in the foreground and was determined to push its very charming self into the heart of the sylvan discovery.
When they had come within a hundred feet of the big tree that sheltered the artist and his companion, the little bit of genre in their landscape attracted them. The visitors halted and surveyed the unconscious couple, the young lady showing curiosity, the young man showing disgust, the old lady showing indecision. Their brief discussion resolved itself into a separation of forces. The young lady petulantly forsook her companions and picked her way through the trees toward the Falls.
"Let 'em alone, Sis," objected the youth, as she persisted in going forward; "it's some country jay and his girl and he'll not thank you for——"
"Oh, go back to the train, Randall," interrupted the young maiden. "He won't eat me, you know, and one can't see that pretty little waterfall unless one gets out there where your lovers sit. If you won't go with me, let me go alone in peace. Wait here, mamma, until I come back, and don't let little Randall sulk himself into tears."
"You make me sick," growled the youth wrathfully.
The girl in gray soon came to the edge of the little opening in which Jud and Justine sat, pausing some twenty feet away to smile admiringly upon the unsuspecting pair. It was a charming picture that lay before her, and she was loth to disturb its quiet beauty. With a sudden feeling that she might be intruding, she turned to steal away as she had come. A twig crackled under her shoe. The other girl, startled, looked up at her with amazement in her eyes, her ripe lips apart as if ready to utter an exclamation that would not come. The youth's eyes also were upon her. The intruder, feeling painfully out of place, laughed awkwardly, her cheeks turning a brilliant pink.
"I did not mean to disturb you," she stammered. "I wanted to see the Falls and—and—well, you happened to be here."
Jud recovered himself first and, in visible agitation, arose, not forgetting to assist to her feet his wife, who in all her life had seen no such creature as this. To her the stranger was like a visitor from another world. Her own world had been Clay township. She did not dream that she was the cause of envy in the heart of the immaculate stranger, who, perhaps for the first time in her short, butterfly life, was looking upon a perfect type of rural health and loveliness.
"You don't disturb us," said Jud quickly. "I was only trying to draw the Falls and I—we don't mind. You can see very well if you will step over here by the tree."
"But you must not let me disturb you for the tiniest second. Please go on with your drawing," said the stranger, pausing irresolutely. She was waiting for an invitation from the vivid creature at Jud's side.
"He has it nearly finished," said Justine, almost unconsciously. The new arrival was charmed more than ever by the soft, timid voice.
"Won't you let me see the picture, too?" she asked eagerly. "Let me be the critic. I'll promise not to be harsh." But Jud, suddenly diffident, put the picture behind him and shook his head with an embarrassed smile.
"Oh, it's no good," he said. "I don't know anything about drawing and——"
"Let me judge as to that," persisted Gray Gown, more eager than before, now that she had found opposition. "I am sure it must be good. Your modesty is the best recommendation." She held forth her small gloved hand appealingly. Justine looked upon that hand in admiration. It was so unlike her own strong brown hand.
"It isn't quite finished," objected Jud, pleased and almost at ease. She was charmingly fair and unconventional.
"This is the first time he ever tried to get the Falls," apologized Justine, and her smile bewitched the would-be critic. She was charmed with these healthy, comely strangers, found so unexpectedly in the wilds. They were not like the rustics she had seen or read about.
"Then I'll watch him finish it," she said decisively. "Will it take a very long while?"
"Just a few more lines," said Jud. "But I can't work with any one looking on."
"Wasn't this young lady looking on?"
"Oh, but I am different," cried Justine.
"I know," said the other delightedly, "you are—are sweethearts. Of course, that does make a difference. Now, aren't you sweethearts?" The two flushed unreasonably and exchanged glances.
"I guess it's not hard to guess that," said Jud lamely. "You probably saw us before we saw you."
"Show her the picture," murmured Justine, dimly conscious that she and Jud had seemed amusing to a stranger. Jud reluctantly held up the sketching board. The stranger uttered a little cry of amazement.
"Why!" she cried, looking from the picture to the Falls up the glen, "this is clever!" Then a quizzical expression came into her eyes and she looked from one to the other with growing uncertainty. "Pardon me, I thought you were—I mean, I thought you lived near here. You must overlook my very strange behavior. But you will admit that you are dressed like country people, and you are tanned, and——" Here she checked herself in evident confusion.
"And we are country people," said Jud blankly. The young lady looked bewildered.
"Are you in earnest?" she demanded doubtingly. "Are you not out here from the city?"
"We have lived all our lives within five miles of this spot," said Jud, flushing.
"And I have never seen a big city," added Justine, first to divine the cause of the stranger's mistake. The critic thought herself to be in the presence of a genius from some city studio. It was a pretty and unfeigned compliment to Jud's picture.
"I cannot believe it," she cried. "You may live here, sir, but you have studied drawing. I have never seen a more perfect sketch."
"I have never taken an hour's instruction in my life," said Jud, his voice trembling with joy.
"Oh, now I know you have been trifling with me," she cried, flushing slightly.
"It is the truth, isn't it, Justine? I thought anybody could see that I know nothing about drawing. I only wish I could go to an art school."
"You really are in earnest?" the stranger asked, looking from one to the other. "Then you must tell me all about yourself. A man with your talent should not be lost in these wilds. You have a wonderful gift. Truly, I can hardly believe even now that you are not deceiving me."
The two glanced at each other rather helplessly, not knowing how to reply.
"You haven't looked at the Falls," stammered Jud, at last. The girl in gray laughed and her eyes went to Justine's rich, warm face as if expecting her to join in the merriment at his expense. Justine, however, was too deep in admiration to think of smiling. Caught by the gaze of the stranger, she was at last forced to smile vaguely.
"I haven't time for the Falls," said the stranger. "I am interested only in you. You are worth cultivating. Dear me, if I had you in Chicago, I'd make a lion of you. How long have you been hiding this talent out here in the woods?"
Then Jud proceeded to tell her in a disjointed, self-conscious manner how he had been drawing ever since he was a child; how his mother had assisted him; how Justine had encouraged him; how much he longed to be an artist. At the end of his brief biography, the listener abruptly asked:
"Will you sell me this picture?"
"I—I—If you'd really like to have it, I—I—will give it to you. I could not ask you anything for it. It's not worth a price. Besides, you've been so kind to me. Won't you accept it as a gift?" he answered, beginning awkwardly, but ending eagerly. Justine's eyes were pleading with the young lady to take it.
"But you must let me pay you for it. You don't know me, nor I you; you are under no obligation to me. And I would rather pay you for it. You see, it may be your start in life."
"YOU MUST LET ME PAY YOU FOR IT."
"It's not worth anything," objected Jud.
"I know what it is worth. Fifty dollars is cheap."
Before she had finished speaking she was counting the money from her purse. Thrusting five bills into Jud's hand, she snatched up the picture and said:
"It's a bargain, isn't it? You can't take back the picture because you have accepted payment."
"Good heaven!—I mean, I can't take all of this!"
"But you can and shall," she cried delightedly. "It is not enough, I'm sure, but it is all I have with me. Some day, when you are famous, I shall have a valuable picture. Now I must be going. My mother and brother are probably in convulsions. See them? Don't they look angry? Our train had to wait three hours over at the other side of the woods until they could repair the engine. We had a breakdown."
"I wish you wouldn't force me to——" Jud began.
"Don't object, now!" she cried. "I am the gainer. Save that money to give to your sweetheart on your wedding day. That's a very pretty idea, isn't it? I know she will approve." And here she came to Justine and kissed her. "I know I should like you very much," she said honestly. Justine felt a queer sensation in her throat and her heart went out more than ever to the girl in gray.
"Remember, it is to be your wedding present when the sweet day comes."
Jud and Justine glanced sheepishly at one another, but before either had found words to tell her they were already married, she was hastening away.
"Oh, by the way," she cried, turning back, "what is your name?"
"Dudley Sherrod."
"It would be well for me to know it when you are famous. Good-bye!" she called cheerfully.
Jud hesitated an instant.
"Won't you tell me your name?" he cried. Justine clasped his arm in mute astonishment.
The receding girl turned, smiled, and held up her card, hastily withdrawn from its case. It fluttered to the grass, and she was gone.