“Oh,” said the old man quickly, “you ain't ready nuther,”—he studied her with narrowing eyes and through a puzzled frown—“but I reckon hit's all right, if you air goin' to git married some time.”
“What's all right, Dad?” The old man checked himself:
“Ever' thing,” he said shortly, “but don't you make a fool of yo'self with a good man like Jack Hale.” And, wondering, June was silent. The truth was that the old man had wormed out of Hale an admission of the kindly duplicity the latter had practised on him and on June, and he had given his word to Hale that he would not tell June. He did not understand why Hale should have so insisted on that promise, for it was all right that Hale should openly do what he pleased for the girl he was going to marry—but he had given his word: so he turned away, but his frown stayed where it was.
June went on, puzzled, for she knew that her father was withholding something, and she knew, too, that he would tell her only in his own good time. But she could go away when she pleased—that was the comfort—and with the thought she stopped suddenly at the corner of the garden. She could see Hale on his big black horse climbing the spur. Once it had always been his custom to stop on top of it to rest his horse and turn to look back at her, and she always waited to wave him good-by. She wondered if he would do it now, and while she looked and waited, the beating of her heart quickened nervously; but he rode straight on, without stopping or turning his head, and June felt strangely bereft and resentful, and the comfort of the moment before was suddenly gone. She could hear the voices of the guests in the porch around the corner of the house—there was an ordeal for her around there, and she went on. Loretta and Loretta's mother were there, and old Hon and several wives and daughters of Tolliver adherents from up Deadwood Creek and below Uncle Billy's mill. June knew that the “bean-stringing” was simply an excuse for them to be there, for she could not remember that so many had ever gathered there before—at that function in the spring, at corn-cutting in the autumn, or sorghum-making time or at log-raisings or quilting parties, and she well knew the motive of these many and the curiosity of all save, perhaps, Loretta and the old miller's wife: and June was prepared for them. She had borrowed a gown from her step-mother—a purple creation of home-spun—she had shaken down her beautiful hair and drawn it low over her brows, and arranged it behind after the fashion of mountain women, and when she went up the steps of the porch she was outwardly to the eye one of them except for the leathern belt about her slenderly full waist, her black silk stockings and the little “furrin” shoes on her dainty feet. She smiled inwardly when she saw the same old wave of disappointment sweep across the faces of them all. It was not necessary to shake hands, but unthinkingly she did, and the women sat in their chairs as she went from one to the other and each gave her a limp hand and a grave “howdye,” though each paid an unconscious tribute to a vague something about her, by wiping that hand on an apron first. Very quietly and naturally she took a low chair, piled beans in her lap and, as one of them, went to work. Nobody looked at her at first until old Hon broke the silence.
“You haint lost a spec o' yo' good looks, Juny.”
June laughed without a flush—she would have reddened to the roots of her hair two years before.
“I'm feelin' right peart, thank ye,” she said, dropping consciously into the vernacular; but there was a something in her voice that was vaguely felt by all as a part of the universal strangeness that was in her erect bearing, her proud head, her deep eyes that looked so straight into their own—a strangeness that was in that belt and those stockings and those shoes, inconspicuous as they were, to which she saw every eye in time covertly wandering as to tangible symbols of a mystery that was beyond their ken. Old Hon and the step-mother alone talked at first, and the others, even Loretta, said never a word.
“Jack Hale must have been in a mighty big hurry,” quavered the old step-mother. “June ain't goin' to be with us long, I'm afeerd:” and, without looking up, June knew the wireless significance of the speech was going around from eye to eye, but calmly she pulled her thread through a green pod and said calmly, with a little enigmatical shake of her head:
“I—don't know—I don't know.”
Young Dave's mother was encouraged and all her efforts at good-humour could not quite draw the sting of a spiteful plaint from her voice.