Louisiana Part 16

A new mood seemed to have taken possession of her all at once. She scarcely gave him a chance to speak. She drew him to the trunk's side, and made him stand near while she took the things out one by one. She exclaimed and laughed over them as she drew them forth. She held the dress materials up to her waist and neck to see how the colors became her; she tried on laces and sacques and furbelows and the hats which were said to have come from Paris.

"What will they say when they see me at meeting in them?" she said.

"Brother Horner will forget his sermons. There never were such things in Bowersville before. I am almost afraid they will think I am putting on airs."

When she reached a box of long kid gloves at the bottom, she burst into such a shrill laugh that her father was startled. There was a tone of false exhilaration about her which was not what he had expected.

"See!" she cried, holding one of the longest pairs up, "eighteen b.u.t.tons! And cream color! I can wear them with the cream-colored silk and cashmere at--at a festival!"

When she had looked at everything, the rag carpet was strewn with her riches,--with fas.h.i.+onable dress materials, with rich and delicate colors, with a hundred feminine and pretty whims.

"How could I help but be happy?" she said. "I am like a queen. I don't suppose queens have very much more, though we don't know much about queens, do we?"

She hung round her father's neck and kissed him in a fervent, excited way.

"You good old father!" she said, "you sweet old father!"

He took one of her soft, supple hands and held it between both his brown and h.o.r.n.y ones.

"Louisianny," he said, "I _'low _to make ye happy; ef the Lord haint nothin' agin it, I _'low_ to do it!"

He went out after that, and left her alone to set her things to rights; but when he had gone and closed the door, she did not touch them. She threw herself down flat upon the floor in the midst of them, her slender arms flung out, her eyes wide open and wild and dry.

CHAPTER XIII.

A NEW PLAN.

At last the day came when the house was finished and stood big and freshly painted and bare in the sun. Late one afternoon in the Indian summer, Casey and his men, having bestowed their last touches, collected their belongings and went away, leaving it a lasting monument to their ability. Inside, instead of the low ceilings, and painted wooden walls, there were high rooms and plaster and modern papering; outside, instead of the variegated piazza, was a substantial portico.

The whole had been painted a warm gray, and Casey considered his job a neat one and was proud of it. When they were all gone Louisiana went out into the front yard to look at it. She stood in the gra.s.s and leaned against an apple-tree. It was near sunset, and both trees and gra.s.s were touched with a yellow glow so deep and mellow that it was almost a golden haze. Now that the long-continued hammering and sawing was at an end and all traces of its accompaniments removed, the stillness seemed intense. There was not a breath of wind stirring, or the piping of a bird to be heard. The girl clasped her slender arms about the tree's trunk and rested her cheek against the rough bark.

She looked up piteously.

"I must try to get used to it," she said. "It is very much nicer--and I must try to get used to it."

But the strangeness of it was very hard on her at first. When she looked at it she had a startled feeling--as if when she had expected to see an old friend she had found herself suddenly face to face with a stranger.

Her father had gone to Bowersville early in the day, and she had been expecting his return for an hour or so. She left her place by the tree at length and went to the fence to watch for his coming down the road.

But she waited in vain so long that she got tired again and wandered back to the house and around to the back to where a new barn and stable had been built, painted and ornamented in accordance with the most novel designs. There was no other such barn or stable in the country, and their fame was already wide-spread and of an enviable nature.

As she approached these buildings Louisiana glanced up and uttered an exclamation. Her father was sitting upon the door-sill of the barn, and his horse was turned loose to graze upon the gra.s.s before him.

"Father," the girl cried, "I have been waiting for you. I thought you had not come."

"I've been yere a right smart while, Louisianny," he answered. "Ye wasn't 'round when I come, an' so ye didn't see me, I reckon."

He was pale, and spoke at first heavily and as if with an effort, but almost instantly he brightened.

"I've jest ben a-settin' yere a-steddyin'," he said. "A man wants to see it a few times an' take it sorter gradual afore he kin do it jestice. A-lookin' at it from yere, now," with a wide sweep of his hand toward the improvements, "ye kin see how much style thar is to it.

Seems to me thet the--the mountains now, they look better. It--waal it kinder sets 'em off--it kinder sets 'em off."

"It is very much prettier," she answered.

"Lord, yes! Thar aint no comparison. I was jest a-settin' thinkin'

thet anyone thet'd seed it as it was afore they'd not know it. Ianthy, fer instants--Ianthy she wouldn't sca'cely know it was home--thar's so much style to it."

He suddenly stopped and rested against the door-lintel. He was pale again, though he kept up a stout air of good cheer.

"Lord!" he said, after a little pause, "it's a heap stylisher!"

Presently he bent down and picked up a twig which lay on the ground at his feet. He began to strip the leaves from it with careful slowness, and he kept his eyes fixed on it as he went on talking.

"Ye'll never guess who I've ben a-talkin' to to-day, an' what I've ben talkin' to 'em about."

She put her hand on his knee caressingly.

"Tell me, father," she said.

He laughed a jerky, high-pitched laugh.

"I've ben talkin' to Jedge Powers," he said. "He's up yere from Howelsville, a-runnin' fer senator. He's sot his mind on makin' it, too, an' he was a-tellin' me what his principles was. He--he's got a heap o' principles. An' he told me his wife an' family was a-goin' to Europe. He was mighty sosherble--an' he said they was a-goin' to Europe."

He had stripped the last leaf from the twig and had begun upon the bark. Just at this juncture it slipped from his hand and fell on the ground. He bent down again to pick it up.

"Louisianny," he said, "how--would ye like to go to Europe?"

She started back amazed, but she could not catch even a glimpse of his face, he was so busy with the twig.

"I go to Europe--I!" she said. "I don't--I never thought of it. It is not people like us who go to Europe, father."

"Louisianny," he said, hurriedly, "what's agin it? Thar aint nothin'--nothin'! It come in my mind when Powers was a-tellin' me. I ses to myself, 'Why, here's the very thing fer Louisianny! Travel an'

furrin langwidges an' new ways o' doin'. It's what she'd oughter hed long ago.' An' Powers he went on a-talkin' right while I was a-steddyin, an' he ses: 'Whar's that pretty darter o' yourn thet we was so took with when we pa.s.sed through Hamilton last summer? Why,' ses he,--he ses it hisself, Louisianny,--'why don't ye send her to Europe?

Let her go with my wife. She'll take care of her.' An' I stopped him right thar. 'Do ye mean it, Jedge?' I ses. 'Yes,' ses he. 'Why not?

My wife an' daughter hev talked about her many a time, an' said how they'd like to see her agin. Send her,' ses he. 'You're a rich man, an' ye kin afford it, Squire, if ye will.' An' I ses, 'So I kin ef she'd like to go, an' what's more, I'm a-goin' to ask her ef she would--fer thar aint nothin' agin it--nothin'.'"

He paused for a moment and turned to look at her.

"Thet's what I was steddyin' about mostly, Louisianny," he said, "when I set yere afore ye come."

She had been sitting beside him, and she sprang to her feet and stood before him.

"Father," she cried, "are you tired of me?"

"Tired of ye, Louisianny?" he repeated. "Tired of ye?"

She flung out her hand with a wild gesture and burst into tears.

"Are you tired of me?" she said again. "Don't you love me any more?

Don't you want me as you used to? Could you do without me for months and months and know I was far away and couldn't come to you? No, you couldn't. You couldn't. I know that, though something--I don't know what--has come between us, and I feel it every minute, and most when you are kindest. Is there nothing in the way of my going away--nothing? Think again."