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?"