The Desired Woman Part 3

"What's wrong with Ann? I remember now that I didn't see her in that drove just now, and she certainly ain't at home, because I'm just from thar."

"No, she isn't at home," Dolly frowned, and, for an obvious reason, raised her voice to a high pitch, "but I'll tell you where she is, and as her own blood uncle you can share my humiliation." Therewith Dolly grimly pointed at a closet door close by. "Open it," she said. "The truth is, I told her she would have to stay there twenty minutes, and I've been bothered all through the last recitation for fear she wouldn't get enough air. All at once she got still, though she kept up a terrible racket at first."

With a grin Webb mounted the platform and opened the door of the closet. He opened it quite widely, that Dolly might look into the receptacle from where she stood. And there against the wall, seated on the floor, was Dolly's sister Ann, a slim-legged, rather pretty girl about fourteen years of age, her eyes sullenly cast down. Around her were some dismantled, ill-smelling lamps, a step-ladder, an old stove, and a bench holding a stack of hymn-books.

"She ain't _quite_ dead," John said, dryly. "She's still breathin'

below the neck, an' she's got some red in the face."

"She ought to be red from head to foot," Dolly said, for the culprit's ears. "Ann, come here!"

There was no movement on the part of the prisoner save a desultory picking of the fingers at a fold of her gingham skirt.

"Didn't you hear what Dolly--what your teacher said?" Webb asked, in an effort at severity which was far from his mood.

"Of course she heard," Dolly said, sharply. "She thinks it will mend matters for her to pout awhile. Come here, Ann."

"I want to stay here," Ann muttered; "I like it. Shut the door, Uncle John. It is cool and nice in here."

"She wants to stay." Webb's eyes danced as he conveyed the message.

"She says she likes it, an' I reckon she does. Scripture says them whose deeds is evil likes darkness better'n light. You certainly made a mistake when you clapped 'er in here--that is, if you meant to punish 'er. Ann's a reg'lar bat, if not a' owl."

"Pull her out!" Dolly cried. "I've got to talk to her, and recess is almost over."

"Come out, young lady," Webb laid hold of the girl's wrist and drew the reluctant creature to her feet, half pus.h.i.+ng, half leading her to her sister.

"I'm glad you happened in, Uncle John," Dolly said. "I want you to take a look at that face. How she got the money I don't know, but she bought a dozen sticks of licorice at the store as she pa.s.sed this morning and brought them to school in her pocket. She's been gorging herself with it all day. You can see it all over her face, under her chin, behind her neck, and even in her ears. Look here at her new geography." Dolly, in high disgust, exhibited several brown smudges on an otherwise clean page.

Webb took the book with all the gravity of a most righteous, if highly amused judge. "Looks like ham gravy, don't it?" he said. "An' as I understand it, the book has to be handed on to somebody else when she gits through with it. What a pity!"

"I know you are ashamed of her, Uncle John, for I am," Dolly continued.

"You see, she's my own sister."

"And my own sister's child," Webb deplored. "Of course, she ain't _quite_ as close to me as she is to you, but she's nigh enough to make me feel plumb ashamed. I've always tuck pride in both you gals; but lawsy me, if Ann is goin' to gaum 'erself from head to foot like a pig learnin' to root, why, I reckon I'll jest hang my head in shame."

"I've lost all patience," the teacher said. "Go home, Ann, and let mother look at you. Don't come back to-day. I don't want to see you again. I've lost heart completely. I want to be proud of you and George, but I'm afraid I never can be. She can't write, Uncle John; she can't spell the simplest words in three syllables; and as for using correct grammar and p.r.o.nunciation--" But Ann was stalking off without looking back.

Dolly sat down at the table and drew a sheet of paper toward her.

"She's got me all upset," she sighed. "Mr. DeWitt, the new teacher, has been sending about a test example in arithmetic to see who can work it.

He says he can do it, and one or two other _men_, but that he never has seen a woman teacher yet who could get the answer. I was within an inch of the solution when I caught sight of that girl's face, and it went from me in a flash. Uncle John, if fifteen men own in common three hundred and eighty-four bushels of wheat, and three men want to buy sixty-seven and three-fourths of--"

"Oh, Lord--thar you go!" Webb groaned. "Let me tell you some'n', Dolly.

The fool feller that concocted that thing to idle time away with never hoed a row of corn or planted a potato. Do you know what that's meant for? It is for no other reason under the s.h.i.+nin' sun than to make the average parent think teachers know more'n the rest o' humanity. In the first place, the fifteen common men must be common sh.o.r.e enough if they couldn't own all told more than that amount o' wheat in this day and time when even a one-horse farmer can raise--"

"You don't understand," Dolly broke in, with an indulgent smile.

"And I don't want to, either," John declared. "It is hard enough work to sow and reap and thresh wheat in hot weather like this without sweatin' over fifteen able-bodied men that are jowerin' about a pile no bigger'n that."

Dolly glanced at the round rosewood clock on the plastered wall and reached for the bell-handle. "My time's up," she said. "I wish I could stop my ears with cotton. They always come in like a drove of iron-shod mules on a wooden bridge."

"Your pa's got a piece o' news this mornin'." Webb knew his words would stay the hand now resting on the bell.

"What is it?" Dolly inquired.

"He got a letter from Mr. Mostyn; he's comin' up to board at the house for a month."

The pretty hand dropped from the bell-handle. Dolly was staring at the speaker in surprise. She said nothing, though he was sure a flush was creeping into her cheeks.

"I sorter thought that 'ud stagger you," Webb said with a significant grin.

"Me? I don't see why." Dolly was fighting for perfect composure under trying circ.u.mstances, considering her uncle's mischievous stare.

"Well, I do, if you don't, Miss Dolly," he t.i.ttered. "You wasn't a bit older 'n Ann is when he was here last, but you was daffy about 'im the same as your ma an' all the rest o' the women. In fact, you was wuss than the balance."

"Me? I'm ashamed of you, Uncle John; I'm ashamed to hear you accuse me of--of--why, I never heard of such a thing."

"No matter, I wasn't plumb blind," Webb went on. "You kept puttin'

fresh flowers in his room an' you eyed his plate like he was a pet cat to see if he was bein' fed right. La me, I'm no fool! I know a _little_ about females, an' I never saw a mountain woman yet that wouldn't go stark crazy over a town man or a' unmarried preacher. I reckon it must be the clothes the fellers wear or the prissy stuff they chat about."

Dolly put her hand out toward the bell, but dropped it to the table.

"When is he coming?" she asked, her eyes holding a tense, eager stare.

"Thursday," was the answer, accompanied by a widening grin. "I wouldn't give the children a holiday on the strength of it if I was you. Part o'

these mountain folks is men an' moons.h.i.+ners, an' they don't think any more about a feller that owns a bank in Atlanta 'an they do of a mossback clod-hopper with the right sort o' heart in 'im. Say, Mostyn ain't nothin' but human, an' if what _some_ say is so he ain't the highest grade o' that. Over at Hilton's warehouse in Ridgeville t'other day I heard some cotton-buyers talkin' about men that had riz fast an'

the underhanded tricks sech chaps use to hoodwink simple folks, an'

they said d.i.c.k Mostyn capped the stack. Accordin' to them, he--"

"I don't believe a word of it!" Dolly stood up and angrily grasped the bell-handle. "It's not true. It's a meddlesome lie. They are jealous.

People are always like that--it makes them furious to see another person prosper. They are mean, low back-biters."

"Oh, I don't say that Mostyn will actually be arrested before he gits up here," John said, dryly. "From all reports he generally has the law on his side, an'--"

But Dolly, still angry, was ringing the bell. She had turned her back to Webb; and, unable to make himself heard, he made his way down the aisle to the door.

"She's a regular spitfire when she gits 'er back up," he mused. "Now I _know_ she likes 'im. It's been three years since she laid eyes on 'im, but she's as daffy now as she was then. It must 'a' been the feller's gallant way. I remember he used to say she was the purtiest an'

brightest little trick he ever seed. Maybe he said somethin' o' the sort to her, young as she was. I remember I used to think Sis was a fool to let 'im walk about with Dolly so much, pickin' flowers an' the like. Well, if he thought she was purty an' smart then he'll be astonished now--he sh.o.r.e will."

CHAPTER IV

As Mostyn's train ascended the grade leading up to the hamlet of Ridgeville, within a mile of which lay the little farm to which he was going, he sat at an open window and viewed the scene with delight, drawing into his lungs with a sense of restful content the crisp, rarefied air. To the west, and marking the vicinity of Drake's farm, the mountain loomed up in its blended coat of gray and green, growing more and more indistinct as the range gradually extended into the bluish haze of distance.

"I'm going to like it," he said, almost aloud, with the habit he had of talking to himself when alone. "I feel as if I shall never want to look inside a bank again. This is life, real, sensible life. I have, after all, always had a yearning for genuine simplicity. It must have come to me from my pioneer, Puritan ancestry. That man over there plowing corn with his mule and ragged harness is happier than I ever was down there in that G.o.d-forsaken turmoil. The habit of wanting to beat other men in the expert turning over of capital is as dangerous, once it clutches you, as morphine. I must call a halt. That last narrow escape shall be a lesson. I am getting normal again, and I must stay so. What are Alan Delbridge's operations to me? He has no nerves nor imagination. He could have slept through that last tangle of mine which came within an inch of laying me out stiff and stark. I wonder how all the Drakes are, especially Dolly. She must be fully grown now. Saunders says she is beautiful and as wise as Socrates. I suppose there are a dozen mountain boys after her by this time. For a little girl she was astonis.h.i.+ngly mature in manner and thought. I ought not to have talked to her as I did. I have never forgotten her face and voice as I saw and heard them that last night. I see the wonderful eyes and mouth, the like of which I have never run across since. I am ashamed to think that I acted as I did, and she only an inexperienced child; but I really couldn't help it. I seemed to be in a dream. It was really an unpardonable thing--and proves that I _do_ lack character--for me to tell her that I would often think of her. But the worst of all, really the most cowardly, considering her unsuspecting innocence and exaggerated faith in me, was my kissing her as I did there in the moonlight. How exquisite was her vow that she'd never kiss any other man as long as she lived! Lord, I wonder what ails me. Surely I am not silly enough to be actually--"

Mostyn's meditations were interrupted by a shrill shriek from the locomotive. Leaning out of the window, he saw the little old-fas.h.i.+oned brick car-shed ahead and heard the grinding of the brakes on the smooth wheels beneath the car. Grasping his bag in his hand, he made his way out and descended to the ground.