The Sherrods

by George Barr McCutcheon

"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——"