Louisiana Part 15

"Father," she said, at dinner, "there are some things upstairs I want to send to Cousin Jenny. I have done with them, and I think she'd like to have them."

"Dresses an' things, Louisianny?" he said.

"Yes," she answered. "I shall not need them any more. I--don't care for them."

"Don't--" he began, but stopped short, and, lifting his gla.s.s, swallowed the rest of the sentence in a large gla.s.s of milk.

"I'll tell Leander to send fer it," he said afterward. "Jenny'll be real sot up, I reckon. Her pappy bein' so onfort'nit, she don't git much."

He ate scarcely more dinner than breakfast, and spent the afternoon in wandering here and there among the workmen. Sometimes he talked to them, and sometimes sat on his pile of plank and watched them in silence. Once, when no one was looking, he stooped down and picked up a rusty nail which had fallen from its place in a piece of board.

After holding it in his hand for a little he furtively thrust it into his pocket, and seemed to experience a sense of relief after he had done it.

"Ye don't do nothin' toward helpin' us, Uncle Elbert," said one of the young men. (Every youngster within ten miles knew him as "Uncle Elbert.") "Ye aint as smart as ye was when last ye built, air ye?"

"No, boys," he answered, "I ain't. That's so. I aint as smart, an',"

he added, rather hurriedly, "it'd sorter go agin me to holp ye at what ye're doin' now. Not as I don't think it's time it was done, but--it'd sorter go ag'in me."

When Louisiana entered the house-room at dusk, she found him sitting by the fire, his body drooping forward, his head resting listlessly on his hand.

"I've got a touch o' dyspepsy, Louisianny," he said, "an' the knockin'

hes kinder giv me a headache. I'll go to bed airly."

CHAPTER XII.

"MEBBE."

She had been so full of her own sharp pain and humiliation during the first few days that perhaps she had not been so quick to see as she would otherwise have been, but the time soon came when she awakened to a bewildered sense of new and strange trouble. She scarcely knew when it was that she first began to fancy that some change had taken place in her father. It was a change she could not comprehend when she recognized its presence. It was no alteration of his old, slow, quiet faithfulness to her. He had never been so faithfully tender. The first thing which awakened her thought of change was his redoubled tenderness. She found that he watched her constantly, in a patient, anxious way. When they were together she often discovered that he kept his eyes fixed upon her when he thought she was not aware of his gaze.

He seemed reluctant to leave her alone, and continually managed to be near her, and yet it grew upon her at last that the old, homely good-fellows.h.i.+p between them had somehow been broken in upon, and existed no longer. It was not that he loved her any less--she was sure of that; but she had lost something, without knowing when or how she had lost it, or even exactly what it was. But his anxiety to please her grew day by day. He hurried the men who were at work upon the house.

"Louisianny, she'll enjoy it when it's done," he said to them. "Hurry up, boys, an' do yer plum best."

She had been at home about two weeks when he began to drive over to the nearest depot every day at "train time." It was about three miles distant, and he went over for several days in his spring wagon. At first he said nothing of his reason for making the journey, but one morning, as he stood at his horses' heads, he said to Louisiana, without turning to look at her, and affecting to be very busy with some portion of the harness:

"I've ben expectin' of some things fer a day or so, an' they haint come. I wasn't sure when I oughter to look fer 'em--mebbe I've ben lookin' too soon--fer they haint come yet."

"Where were they to come from?" she asked.

"From--from New York City."

"From New York?" she echoed, trying to show an interest. "I did not know you sent there, father."

"I haint never done it afore," he answered. "These yere things--mebbe they'll come to-day, an' then ye'll see 'em."

She asked no further questions, fancying that he had been buying some adornments for the new rooms which were to be a surprise for her.

After he had gone away she thought a little sadly of his kindness to her, and her unworthiness of it. At noon he came back and brought his prize with him.

He drove up slowly with it behind him in the wagon--a large, s.h.i.+ning, new trunk--quite as big and ponderous as any she had seen at the Springs.

He got down and came up to her as she stood on the porch. He put his hand on her shoulder.

"I'll hev 'em took in an' ye kin look at 'em," he said. "It's some new things ye was a-needin'."

She began to guess dimly at what he meant, but she followed the trunk into the house without speaking. When they set it down she stood near while her father fumbled for the key and found it, turned it in the lock and threw back the lid.

"They're some things ye was a-needin'," he said. "I hope ye'll like 'em, honey."

She did not know what it was in his voice, or his face, or his simple manner that moved her so, but she did not look at what he had brought at all--she ran to him and caught his arm, dropped her face on it, and burst into tears.

"Father--father!" she cried. "Oh, father!"

"Look at 'em, Louisianny," he persisted, gently, "an' see if they suit ye. Thar aint no reason to cry, honey."

The words checked her and made her feel uncertain and bewildered again.

She stopped crying and looked up at him, wondering if her emotion troubled him, but he did not meet her eye, and only seemed anxious that she should see what he had brought.

"I didn't tell ye all I hed in my mind when I went to the Springs," he said. "I hed a notion I'd like to see fer myself how things was. I knowed ye'd hev an idee thet ye couldn't ask me fer the kind o' things ye wanted, an' I knowed _I_ knowed nothin' about what they was, so I ses to myself, 'I'll go an' stay a day an' watch and find out.' An' I went, an' I found out. Thar was a young woman thar as was dressed purtier than any of 'em. An' she was clever an' friendly, an' I managed it so we got a-talkin'. She hed on a dress that took my fancy.

It was mighty black an' thick--ye know it was cold after the rains--an'

when we was talkin' I asked her if she mind a-tellin' me the name of it an' whar she'd bought it. An' she laughed some, an' said it was velvet, an' she'd got it to some store in New York City. An' I asked her if she'd write it down; I'd a little gal at home I wanted a dress off'n it fer--an' then, someways, we warmed up, an' I ses to her, 'She aint like me. If ye could see her ye'd never guess we was kin.' She hadn't never seen ye. She come the night ye left, but when I told her more about ye, she ses, 'I think I've heern on her. I heern she was very pretty.' An' I told her what I'd hed in my mind, an' it seemed like it took her fancy, an' she told me to get a paper an' pencil an'

she'd tell me what to send fer an' whar to send. An' I sent fer 'em, an' thar they air."

She could not tell him that they were things not fit for her to wear.

She looked at the rolls of silk and the laces and feminine extras with a bewildered feeling.

"They are beautiful things," she said. "I never thought of having such things for my own."

"Thar's no reason why ye shouldn't hev 'em," he said. "I'd oughter hev thought of 'em afore. Do they suit ye, Louisianny?"

"I should be very hard to please if they didn't," she answered. "They are only too beautiful for--a girl like me."

"They cayn't be that," he said, gravely. "I didn't see none no handsomer than you to the Springs, Louisianny, an' I ses to the lady as writ it all down fer me, I ses, 'What I want is fer her to hev what the best on 'em hev. I don't want nothin' no less than what she'd like to hev if she'd ben raised in New York or Philadelphy City. Thar aint no reason why she shouldn't hev it. Out of eleven she's all that's left, an' she desarves it all. She's young an' handsome, and she desarves it all.'"

"What did she say to that?" Louisiana asked.

He hesitated a moment before answering.

"She looked at me kinder queer fer a minnit," he replied at length.

"An' then she ses, 'She'd oughter be a very happy gal,' ses she, 'with such a father,' an' I ses, 'I 'low she is--mebbe.'"

"Only maybe?" said the girl, "only maybe, father?"

She dropped the roll of silk she had been holding and went to him. She put her hand on his arm again and shook it a little, laughing in the same feverish fas.h.i.+on as when she had gone out to him on the porch on the day of her return. She had suddenly flushed up, and her eyes shone as he had seen them then.

"Only maybe," she said. "Why should I be unhappy? There's no reason.

Look at me, with my fine house and my new things! There isn't any one happier in the world! There is nothing left for me to wish for. I have got too much!"