A Yankee from the West: A Novel

by Opie Percival Read

"Bob, do you know anything about boxing?"

"I used to be somethin' of a scrapper. Why?"

"I want you to teach me."

"Don't believe I'd be a very good teacher. But, say, I know a feller that's all right. He used to be a sort of a prize fighter and he's now got a little saloon up here at Antioch, 'bout ten miles up the road. His name's Mulligan."

"All right. You go ahead with your work just as if I was with you. I'm going up there."

"Sure enough? All right. When I get through with one thing I'll go at another."

Milford trudged off across the fields toward the village of Antioch. At a well beneath a tree where cows stood in the shade, he stopped to bathe his face. He saw his dark countenance wrinkling in the disturbed water; he committed the natural folly of talking to himself. "You are a fool," he said, looking down into his wavering eye. "You are a fool, and you want to prove it." He smiled to think how easy it was to produce the testimony. In such cases nature cheerfully gives her deposition.

He continued his way across the fields, through a skirt of wooded land and out into a road. Bicycles crackled past him. A buggy overtook him. Some one spoke. He looked round and recognized the "discoverer" and the Norwegian. It was only a two-seated vehicle, but they invited him to ride. He declined to accept their kindness, trying to hide his face. He said that he had heard Mrs. Stuvic say that the buggy was not strong. They were going to the village of Lake Villa. They might stop at the mill and have a word with the Professor. Milford remarked that the Professor would no doubt be pleased to see them, but that he was no doubt very busy. They drove on without having noticed the wounds on his face. To one not bent upon a vengeful mission, to a thoughtful man with a mind in tone with the scented air, the soft sky, the spread of green, the gleam of water, the clouds of blackbirds, such a stroll would have been rich with an inner music played upon many sweet chords. At a crossroads stood an old brick house, an ancient rarity upon a landscape white-spotted with wooden cottages. It was a rest for the eye, a place for a moment of musing, a page of a family's record, a bit of dun-colored history. It was built long before the railroad set the clocks of the country, before man entered into business copartnership with the minute and employed the second as his agent. It was a relief to look upon a worn door-sill, a rotting window-blind hanging by one hinge. In the years long gone the congressman's carriage, laboring through the mud, had halted there, and the statesman had warmed himself at a fire of wood, delighting an old Whig with predictions of a glorious victory. At this place Milford halted to get a drink of water and to sit for a few moments in the shade. A man came out and asked him if he wanted a team. He had a team that would not run away. He was not prepared to take boarders, but when it came to a team he was there. He had driven great men, pork-packers of Chicago. The man who owned the enormous ice-house over on the lake had ridden with him. And it was probably one of the largest ice-houses in the world. It took thousands of dollars the year before to paint it. Milford told him that he did not want a team, and the fellow shambled off in disgust.

There was not much time to be wasted, for the sun was now far over toward the west. Milford's anger had settled into a cool determination, and he walked easier, not so hard upon the ground. He began to notice more things, a cat sitting at a window, looking out upon the narrow world, a boy with a goat harnessed to a wagon, a farmer who starved his boarders, hauling veal to the railway, to be shipped to town. He fell in with a tramp and divided smoking tobacco with him. They strolled along together.

"Beautiful country to walk through," said Milford.