"'Oh, you are cruel! You are heartless!' Julia said, and then she busted out crying. Then, before we knowed it, me and her was walking in the woods, 'long a narrow, shady road. She said, Alf, that she'd loved me good and true all along and wanted to quit everything that was foolish and settle down. We are going to be married Christmas, and, Alf, I'm so happy I could holler at the top of my voice. If I don't sell goods to-day there won't be a customer in forty miles of the store."
Henley nodded slowly. "The thing worked," he said, "and I'm glad. The only thing I hate about it is that we had to fool that poor woman to do it. But Carrie was acting wrong with that boy. I had to do it to save him and his old mammy. We must make it up to Carrie some way. We'll find her a husband if we have to advertise in the papers and put up cash inducements. She's got a mischievous tongue and lots of malice, but hard luck fetched 'em on her."
"Alf, you are a good chap," Cahews said, with emotion. "I know well enough you ain't any too happy at home—a blind man could see that—and yet you are always trying to help others."
Henley's kindly eyes wavered as they rested on those of his friend. "My wife is doing the best she can, too, Jim. I don't blame her. In fact, I blame myself. When that fellow went off and died I ought to have left her alone with her grief, but I was blinded by the desire to have what I'd tried so long to win. I reckon I took an unfair advantage of her at a time when she wasn't in a mood to fight off anything. Now, let's get to work. I've got lots to do."
CHAPTER XXIII
S was his custom on Sunday mornings, Henley accompanied his wife and the Wrinkles to church service in Chester on the day Long was expected to pay his visit to Dixie. Henley and the old man fell in leisurely behind the two women. The day was fine, being one of those rare June days which had the moderate temperature of spring.
As they came within sight of Dixie Hart's cottage, Henley noticed a sleek pair of horses and a stylish trap held by a negro boy at the gate, and knew that the girl's suitor had arrived. He fancied that the couple might pass him on his way to church, and in his mind's eye he saw himself waving a cordial salutation to them. It was not, however, until the church was reached and he had conducted his party to their usual seats that Dixie and her escort arrived. Accustomed as the congregation was to direct its attention to the door as much as the pulpit, at least before the services began, all eyes were turned thither when a sudden commotion at the front showed that something of an unusual nature had occurred. The fact was that Long's driver, being unfamiliar with the ways of a place much smaller than his own town, had driven the prancing, snorting pair close to the door in the effort to land his passengers on the steps, and his loud, "Woah dar, blast yo' skins!" rang clearly through the resonant building. As it was, the coming of a bridal pair themselves could not have attracted more attention. Every pivotal head turned on its axis; even the visiting parson, with the huge Bible on his thin knees, half rose that he might peer over the pulpit behind which he sat.
Dixie, in her new gown and new hat, was the very embodiment of easy self-possession as she piloted her escort to a seat in the middle of the room. Long, red and perspiring, and rigged out in all the splendor of the haberdasher's art, even to boots that screamed in pain, had the air of a social laborer who was worthy of his hire. As soon as he was seated he reached for Dixie's fan and began waving it to and fro with the conscientious regularity of a pendulum, thereby increasing his warmth and not lessening Dixie's.