It sounds ludicrous: it was tragic. Weak minds can be desperate as well as strong ones, and poor Wilson, between drink and diseased vanity, was very near the edge of mania. So he hung about the station at every train hour; haggard, sodden, miserable; and really, the wonder is that no tragedy came of it. One might so easily have come, had it not been for that blessed rain.
The farmers had been saying for a month that what we wanted now was a nice warm rain. We got it, at the end of this week. It rained, and rained, and rained; one day, two days, three days. Not in showers or spurts, but in a steady, even downpour, without haste and without rest. For the first day, Cyrus held out bravely, tied up its roses and sped on its errands in waterproof and umbrella, hung about the station in mackintosh and rubber boots. The second day, the elders stayed indoors, looking anxiously out of window, listening eagerly for sound of hoofs or wheels; only young Cyrus patrolled the Street, and hung about the station. By evening of the third day, pretty much everybody had abandoned the Quest of the Duke, collective Cyrus expressing the opinion that no duke that ever was hatched was worth spoiling all your clothes and getting pneumonia for. It was on the evening of this third day that John Tucker gave up and took to his bed, his rheumatism taking an inflammatory turn. Kitty, alarmed at his condition, sent Amos Barrell off to Tinkham for Dr. Pettijohn, with rash orders not to come back without him. Amos found the doctor out of town, not to return till nine o'clock; obeyed orders, bestowed Dan in the livery-stable, and went to the "Movies." Briefly, when the 8:30 train was due, it was Kitty and Pilot who met it.
Number 47 was an express train, the pride of the Road; it was making its usual speed, and confidently expected to arrive "on the dot" at Cyrus and every other station on the line; nevertheless, to one passenger on board, Number 47 seemed the very limit of slowness. The tall broad-shouldered young man who sat in the furthest seat forward, elbows on knees, chin in hands, was deep in thought through most of the journey, but as eight o'clock drew near he waxed impatient. Call this an express train? If he ever let an accommodation—or a freight for that matter—crawl at this rate over any road he had anything to do with—good-night! Stopping at every back yard! to pick up the milk cans, he supposed! He fumed, looked at his watch (front and back: the latter seemed to interest him most, though the bright face that smiled at him from a kodak print had little to say about time), then plunged in thought again. Did she look like that now? he wondered. Had she changed much in these three years? Three years! it was a breath—it was an eternity!
"My soul! What if she—what if somebody else——"
He sprang up as if something had stung him; recollected himself, with a startled glance around him; met the interested gaze of a Vassar freshman across the aisle; sat down and with a shrug of his broad shoulders settled into his reverie again. Nonsense! that kind of girl—there was only one of the kind—wouldn't forget in three years, nor in thirteen. That last look she gave him, standing at the gate—he paused, letting the thought of it curl warm about his heart, sent the blood pulsing up into his ears. Beautiful ears, the Vassar freshman thought; they were all she could see now over his coat collar, except the thick crop of hay-colored hair. Kitty used to say that when the Cyrus hay-crop failed they could fall back on Tom's hair, and then she would quote with her own delicious twinkle, "Good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow!"
If she had changed, Tom told himself severely, it could only be for the better. She was a woman now, his little girl: his little dancing gentlewoman of high quality. He hummed a tune between his teeth; whistled it; hummed it again. A quaint tune, with no special beginning or ending. A gentleman in the seat behind him became restive, shot irritated glances in his direction; was on the point of remonstrating when the tune ceased. The young man, glancing up, had caught a glimpse of himself in a wall mirror. Talk about change! what would Kitty say to him?
He stared straight into the wide-apart gray-blue eyes with their thick short lashes like a black fringe; noted the three deep lines ruled straight across the broad forehead; scrutinized the curious scar on the left cheek. "Well, you are a show!" muttered Tom.
Of course he couldn't help the scar; well, he couldn't help any of it, for that matter; but she might like to know about the scar. They almost got him that time! It was rum, that particular tribe taking a round piece out of an enemy's cheek and stringing 'em on a necklace to hang round the joss's neck. Gee! that was a close shave! His eyes narrowed, seeing strange things through their thick lashes. A camp in a mountain pass, snowbound; food gone, water low. Lowering faces of yellow men, huddled round a fire, casting evil looks at the two, the white man and his faithful "boy," guarding the water skin. Then the rush, five against two; the daggers gleaming, the wild cries, the shots—how the echoes went battering back and forth between the rock walls! then the shriek, the fall—Tom shut his eyes, and drew a quick breath. He was a kindly man. It was an ugly sight, that figure pitching headlong over the edge, its yellow robes fluttering back like the wings of some great swooping bird—bah!
"I had to kill him!" said Tom. "He almost got me, and anyway we couldn't have managed but four. All the same," he added, his eyes still on the bronzed face in the glass, "it is not precisely a ducal countenance that will greet you, Kitty my dear. Will you mind very much? You shall have the silks and satins all right, little girl.