SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS
In a small Georgia town a friendship has grown up between Pole Baker, reformed moonshiner and an unusual and likable character, and young Nelson Floyd, who was left as a baby in a mountain cabin by an unknown woman just before her death. Floyd, in the face of many trials and temptations, has worked his way up in the world and made a man of himself. Jeff Wade appears at the store, in which Floyd has become a partner, to avenge on him a rumored injustice to Wade’s sister. Pole Baker’s tact prevents a duel by making Floyd see that the unselfish course is for him to avoid a meeting. Cynthia Porter comes to the store, alarmed for Floyd’s safety. On his way home to his family Pole falls a victim to his besetting sin of drink. Cynthia rejects the suit of the Rev. Jason Hillhouse and refuses to act on his warnings against Floyd’s attentions. At a corn-shucking given by Pole, Floyd wins the right to kiss Cynthia, and on their way home claims his privilege without actually asking to marry her and proposes in vain that, since her mother dislikes him, she meet him at times on signal in the grape-arbor. That night, while Cynthia is regretting even her slight weakness, her suspicious and tactless mother half accuses her and hints that the worry over Cynthia and Floyd has caused her to fear an attack of insanity.
CHAPTER VII
ON the following Saturday morning there was a considerable gathering of farmers at Springtown. A heavy fall of rain during the night had rendered the soil unfit for plowing, and it was a sort of enforced holiday. Many of them stood around Mayhew & Floyd’s store. Several women and children were seated between the two long counters, on boxes and the few available chairs. Nelson Floyd was at the high desk in the rear, occupied with business letters, when Pole Baker came in at the back door and stood near him, closely scanning the long room.
“Where’s the old man?” he asked when Floyd looked up and saw him.
“Not down yet; dry up, Pole! I was making a calculation and you knocked it hell-west and crooked.”
“Well, I reckon that kin wait. I’ve got a note fer you.” Pole was taking it from his coat pocket.
“Miss Cynthia?” Floyd asked eagerly.
“Not by a long shot,” said Pole. “I reckon maybe you’ll wish it was.” He threw the missive on the desk and went on in quite a portentous tone: “I come by Jeff Wade’s house, Nelson, on my way back from the mill. He was inside with his wife and childern, an’ as I was passin’ one of the little boys run out to the fence and called me in to whar he was. He’s a queer fellow! I saw he was tryin’ to keep his wife in the dark, fer what you reckon he said?”
“How do I know?” The young merchant, with a serious expression of face, had torn open the envelope but not yet unfolded the sheet of cheap, blue-lined writing paper.