Will N. Harben - Westerfelt

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"No," went on the old woman, sternly, "you've brought about a pile o'
misery in yore life, John Westerfelt, an' you hain't a-gwine to throw
it off like a ol' coat, an' dance an' make merry. You may try that
game; but yore day is over; you already bear the mark of it in yore
face an' sunk cheeks. You've got another gal on yore string by this
time, too."

"You are mistaken, Mrs. Dawson."

"How about the one at the hotel that nussed you through yore sick
spell?"

"There is nothing between us." He hesitated, then added: "Nothing at
all, nor there never will be."

"_You_ say thar hain't, but that don't prove it. I want to lay eyes on
_her_; I can tell ef you have been up to yore old tricks when I see
'er. Ef she's got a purty face you have."

He made no reply.

She hitched her burden up on her left hip and curved her body to the
right. "I'm a-gwine to put up thar, an' I'll see. The Bradleys 'll
think quar ef I don't put up with them, I reckon; but I'm gwine to try
hotellin' fer once. Right now it's in my line uv business.
Good-mornin'; I don't owe you anything--nothin' in the money way, I
mean. Ah! you think I'm a devil, I reckon; well, you made me what I
am. I'm yore work, John Westerfelt!"

He stood in the stable door and watched the little bent figure walk
away. He saw her pass the cottages, the store, the bar, and enter the
hotel; then he went through the stable into the back yard and stood
against the wall in the warm sunlight. He didn't want Washburn to come
to him just then with any questions about business. A sudden,
startling fear had come to him. He was going to lose Harriet now, and
through Mrs. Dawson, and it would be the just consequences of his early
indiscretion.

Chapter XVI

As the old woman entered the hotel she saw no one. Looking into the
parlor, and seeing it empty, she went down the hall to the rear of the
house. The door of the dining-room was open. Mrs. Floyd was there
arranging some jars of preserves in the cupboard, and turned at the
sound of the slip-shod feet.

"Good-morning," Mrs. Floyd said; "won't you have a seat?"

Mrs. Dawson put her shawl and carpetbag on a chair. "I want to put up
heer to-night," she said. "I never put up at a tavern in my life, an'
I'm a sorter green hand at it. I reckon you could tell that by lookin'
at me."

"We are pretty full," said Mrs. Floyd; "but we will manage to make a
place for you somehow. My daughter will show you a room. Oh, Harriet!"

"Yes, mother." Harriet came in from the kitchen. She had overheard
the conversation. Mrs. Dawson eyed her critically and slowly from head
to foot.

"This lady wants to stop with us," said Mrs. Floyd; "show her to the
little room upstairs."

Harriet took the carpet-bag. "Do you want to go up now?"

"I reckon I mought as well."

Harriet preceded her to a little room at the head of the stairs. The
girl was drawing up the window-shade to let light into the room when
the old woman spoke. "You are the gal that nussed John Westerfelt
through his spell, I reckon," she said.

Harriet turned to her in surprise. "Yes, he was with us," she replied.
"Do you know him?"

"A sight better 'n you do, I'm a-thinkin'," Mrs. Dawson seated herself,
took off her bonnet, and began nervously folding it on her knee. "But
not better 'n you _will_, ef you don't mind what yo're about."

Harriet flushed in mingled embarrassment and anger. Without replying,
she started to leave the room, but Mrs. Dawson caught the skirt of her
dress and detained her.

"You don't know who I am. I had a daughter--"

"I know all about it." Harriet jerked her skirt from the old woman's
hand and looked angrily into her face. "She drowned herself because he
didn't love her. I do know who you are; you are a devil disguised as a
woman! He may have caused your daughter's death, but he did not do it
intentionally, but you--you would murder him in cold blood if you
could. You have come all the way over here to drive him to
desperation. You--you are a bad woman. I mean it!"

For a moment Mrs. Dawson was thrown entirely off her guard by the
unexpected attack. She rose and stretched out a quivering hand for her
carpet-bag, which she had put on the bed. She shifted it excitedly
from one hand to the other, and looked towards the door.

"Yo're jest one more uv his fool victims, I kin see that," she gasped.
"He's the deepest, blackest scoundrel on the face of the earth!"

Harriet's eyes flashed. "He's the best man I ever saw, and has had
more to put up with. You've come over here to persecute him; but you
sha'n't stay in this house. Get right out; we don't want you!"

"Why, Harriet, what on _earth_ do you mean?" exclaimed Mrs. Floyd,
suddenly entering the room.

Harriet pointed at Mrs. Dawson. "This woman has come over here to
worry the life out of Mr. Westerfelt because he didn't marry her
daughter. She wrote threatening letters to him while he was at death's
door, and is doing her best now to drive him crazy. She sha'n't stay
under this roof while I am here. You know I mean exactly what I say,
mother. She goes or I do. Take your choice!"

"Mr. Westerfelt has had a lot of trouble," began Mrs. Floyd, wondering
what it could all be about; "everybody here is in sympathy with him.
We are all liable to mistakes; surely you can pardon him if--"

"Not while I'm above ground," shrieked the old woman. She dropped her
bag, then picked it up awkwardly, and started to leave by a door which
opened into another room. She burst into hysterical weeping when Mrs.
Floyd caught her arm to detain her. "Not while I'm alive an' have my
senses," she went on, in sobs and piping tones. "I'll hound him to his
grave. I wouldn't stay heer over night to save my life. I'd ruther
sleep in a hay-stack ur in a barn-loft."

Harriet turned her white, rigid face to the window, and stood between
the parted curtains as still as a statue. Mrs. Floyd tried again to
detain the old woman, but she flounced out of the room and thumped
down-stairs.

The next morning a young girl came into the village by one of the
mountain roads. Her face was sad and troubled, and she looked as if
she had walked a long distance. She was poorly dressed, and her shoes
were coarse and coated with dust, but her face was pretty and sweet.

In front of the meeting-house she stopped and sat down on a log near
the road-side. When people passed she would draw her sun-bonnet over
her face and turn her head from them. Suddenly she rose and trudged on
to the post-office.

It was a busy day at Cartwright, and the little porch was filled with
loungers. Old Jim Hunter was there with his long-barrelled rifle and a
snarling opossum, the tail of which was held between the prongs of a
split stick. When the animal showed a disposition to bite anybody, or
crawl away, he subdued it instantly by turning the stick and twisting
its tail. Joe Longfield had come with a basket of eggs packed in
cotton-seed to exchange for their value in coffee, and the two wags
were entertaining the crowd with jokes at the expense of each other.

As the girl passed into the store Martin Worthy was weighing a pail of
butter for a countryman in a slouch hat and a suit of brown jeans. She
returned his nod and went to the little pen in the corner in which the
mail was kept.

"I cayn't 'low you but ten cents a pound for yore butter," Worthy said
to the man. "Yore women folks never _will_ work the water out, an'
it's al'ays puffy an' white. Town people don't want sech truck. It
has to be firm and yaller. Look what the Beeson gals fetch once a
week. I gladly pay 'em fifteen fer it." He uncovered a pile of firm
golden balls and struck them with his paddle. "Any woman can make sech
butter ef they won't feed the cows cotton-seed an' will take 'nough
trouble."

When the man had joined the group outside, Worthy came from behind the
counter into the pen, wiping his hands on a sheet of brown paper.

"I don't think thar's a thing fer any o' yore folks, Miss Hettie," he
said to the girl, "but I'll look jest to satisfy you." He took a
bundle of letters from a pigeon-hole and ran them hurriedly through his
hands. "Not a thing," he concluded, putting the letters back; "jest as
I thought."

She paused for a moment as if about to ask a question. She put a thin
hand on the cover of a sugar-barrel, and looked at him timidly from the
depths of her bonnet as he came out of the pen, but she said nothing.
As she started to go, her skirt caught on a sliver of the barrel, and,
as she stooped to unfasten it, she almost fell forward. But she
recovered herself and went out of the door towards the hitching-rack in
front, paused, and looked back at the road over which she had come.

"Don't seem to know exactly whar she _does_ want to go," remarked Jim
Hunter, breaking the silence which had followed her departure from the
store. "Who is she, anyway?"

"Oz Fergerson's daughter Hettie," replied Worthy, leaning against the
door-jamb. "She don't look overly well; I reckon that's why she quit
workin' at the hotel. She's dyin' to git a letter from some'rs; she
comes reg'lar every day an' goes away powerfully disappointed."

"Never seed her before as I know of," said Longfield, handing Worthy
his basket of eggs.

The girl suddenly turned down the sidewalk. She passed Mrs. Webb's
cottage and the bar and went into the hotel. Mrs. Floyd met her at the
door.

"Mis' Floyd, I want to see Harriet," she said.

"She's up-stairs," replied Mrs. Floyd. "I'll call her; but you'd
better go in to the fire."

The girl shook her head and muttered something Mrs. Floyd could not
understand, so she left her in the hall.

Mrs. Floyd found Harriet in her room. "Hettie Fergerson is down-stairs
and wants to see you," she said. "She still acts very strange. I
asked her to go into the parlor, but she wouldn't."

"How do you do, Hettie?" said Harriet, as she came down the steps.
"Come into the parlor; you look cold."

The girl hesitated, but finally followed Harriet into the warm room.
They sat down before the fire, and there was an awkward silence for
several minutes, then the visitor suddenly pushed back her bonnet and
said, in a hard, desperate tone:

"Where is Toot Wambush, Harriet?"

Harriet looked at her in surprise for an instant, then she answered:

"Why, Hettie, how could I know? Nobody in Cartwright does now, I
reckon."

"I thought _you_ might." Both girls were silent for a moment, then the
visitor looked apprehensively over her shoulder at the door. "Is yore
ma coming in here?"

"No; she's busy in the kitchen; do you want to see her?"

"No." The girl spoke quickly and moved uneasily.

"You came to see me?"

"I come to see _some_body--oh, Harriet, I'm so miserable! You didn't
suspicion it, Harriet, but I'm afraid that man has made a plumb fool of
me. I haven't slept hardly one wink since they driv' 'im off. I--"
She put her hand to her eyes, and as she paused Harriet thought she was
crying, but a moment later, when she removed her hand, her eyes were
dry.

"Why did you come to--to see me, Hettie?" questioned Harriet.

"Because," was the slow-coming reply, "I thought maybe he had wrote
back to you."

"He has never written to me, Hettie--never a line."

The face of the girl brightened. "Then you ain't engaged to him, _are_
you, Harriet?"

"The idea! of course not."

"Oh, I'm mighty glad of that," exclaimed the visitor. "You see, I'm
such a fool about him I got jealous. Oh, Harriet, there ain't no use
in me tryin' to deceive myself; I know he would marry you at the drop
of a hat if you'd have him. I know that, and still I am crazy about
him. I ain't much to blame, Harriet, if I am foolish. He made me so,
an' 'most any pore, lonely girl like I am would care for a good-looking
man like he is. Oh, Harriet, it is awfully humiliating to have to
think it, but I believe the reason he treats me like he does is that I
showed him too plainly how much I loved him."

"I did not suspect till the other day," said Harriet, to avoid that
point, "that he was paying you any particular attention. Mother told
me he often drove you out home."

"Oh, la, that ain't a circumstance, Harriet! He used to come out home
mighty nigh every day or night. Pa an' ma think he is a regular
prince. You know he swore pa out of a big whiskey scrape in Atlanta,
and since then pa and him has been mighty thick. They thought all
along that Toot wanted to marry me, and it made 'em mighty proud, and
then it began to look like he was settin' up to you. That's why I quit
staying here, Harriet. I couldn't be around you so much and know--or
think, as I did, that he was beginning to love you."

"I don't think," protested Harriet, "that he was ever deeply interested
in me. You must not think that. In fact, I believe now, Hettie, that
you and he will be happily married some day--if he ever gets out of his
trouble."

Hettie drew in her breath quickly and held it, raising a glad glance to
the speaker's face.

"Why do you think so, Harriet?--oh, you are just saying this to make me
feel better."

Harriet deliberated for a moment, then she said: "He was here the night
they run him off--the night they all took Mr. Westerfelt out. Mother
and I had a long talk with him. Mother talked straight to him about
flirting with you, and told him what a good, nice girl you were, and--"

"Oh, did she, Harriet? I could hug her for it!"

"Yes, and he talked real nice about you, too, and admitted he had acted
wrong. Hettie, I believe in time that he'll come back and ask you to
marry him. I believe that in the bottom of my heart."

The countenance of the visitor was now aglow with hope.

"Maybe he will--maybe he will," she said. "I was afraid I let him see
too plain that I was a fool about him, but some men like that, I
reckon; he always seemed to come oftener. Harriet, one thing has
worried the life nearly out of me. I heard Frank Hansard say a young
man never would think as much of a girl after she let him kiss her.
I'm no hypocrite--I'm anything else; but as much as I'd love to have a
young man I cared for kiss me, I'd die in my tracks before I'd let 'im
put his arm around me if I thought it would make 'im think less of me.
Do you reckon" (she was avoiding Harriet's eyes)--"do you think that
would make any difference with Toot--I mean, with any young man?"

Harriet smiled in spite of the look of gravity in Hettie's eyes.

"Some men might be that way," she finally said, consolingly--she was
thinking of the innate coarseness of Hettie's lover--"but I don't think
Mr. Wambush is. That was one of the first things my mother ever taught
me. She told me she'd learned it by experience when she was a girl. I
don't pretend to be better than other girls, but I've always made men
keep their distance."

Hettie shrugged her shoulders, as if to throw off some unpleasant idea.

"Oh, I don't care. I'd do it over again. Lord, I couldn't help it. I
love him so, and he is so sweet and good when he tries to be. He
thinks I'm all right, too, in some ways. He says I'm just the girl to
marry a dare-devil like he is. Did you ever know it was me that helped
get him away from the revenue men the night he had a barrel o' whiskey
on his wagon?" Hettie laughed impulsively, and her graceful little
body shook all over.

"Mother thought you had a hand in it," answered Harriet, with an
appreciative smile.

"It was fun," giggled Hettie. "Toot drove nipitytuck down the street
from the Hawkbill as fast as he could lick it, and them a-gallopin'
after 'im. I had been on the front porch talkin' to his father, who
was anxious about 'im and wanted to see 'im. Toot pulled up at the
side gate an' said: 'No use, Het, damn it; I can't make it, and they'll
know my horse and wagon an' prove it on me.' Then I thought what to
do; the men wasn't in sight back there in the woods. Quicker 'n
lightnin', I made Toot push the whiskey across the porch into the
kitchen an' shet the door, an' when the revenue men stopped at the gate
Toot was settin' up as cool as a cucumber in his wagon talkin' to me
over the fence. I think he was asking me to get in the wagon and go
out home with him. I never seed--saw 'im so scared, though, in my
life; but la me! it was fun to me, an' I had more lies on my tongue 'n
a dog has fleas.

"'Did you have a barrel on that wagon a minute ago?' one of the two men
asked.

"'What'n the hell are you talkin' about?' asked Toot. 'I haven't
seed--seen no barrel.'" Hettie was trying to speak correctly, but the
spirit of the narrative ran away with her meagre ideas of grammar.

"'Oh,' said I, 'you've got the wrong sow by the ear; a wagon went
whizzin' by here a minute ago like it was shot out of a gun.'

"'Which way?' the officer asked, rippin' out an oath that 'u'd a-took
the prize at a cussin'-bee.

"I pointed down the road and said: 'I hear it a-clatterin' now,' and
off they galloped. Well, Toot soon loaded the whiskey again and drove
off up the mountain, but he's laughed about that a hundred times and
told the moonshiners about it. Whenever I meet one in the road--I know
the last one of 'em--they ask me if I've seen a whiskey wagon anywheres
about. Harriet," she added, more soberly, "you've give me a sight of
comfort. Now tell me about you-know-who. Toot told me the last time
he was at our house that he knowed you were gone on that new feller.
I'm sorry they fit, but he had no business refusin' to credit Toot.
Nobody else ever did the like, and it was calculated to rile him,
especially when he was full an' loaded for bear, as folks say. How are
you and him makin' out, Harriet?"

Harriet's face had taken on a sober look, and she hesitated before
replying; finally she said:

"There is nothing between us, Hettie, and I'd rather not talk about
him."

"Oh, I'm _so_ sorry!" the other exclaimed. "He is such a good-looking
man, and so many thought you and him would come to a understanding.
They say a girl gets a mighty good whack at a man when he is laid up
flat of his back. I never have tried it, but it looks reasonable."

Then Hettie rose. "I'm goin' to stay to dinner with you all," she
said, "and I'm going out now to help yore ma. Pore woman, she looked
dead tired jest now!"

A few minutes later Mrs. Floyd came to Harriet, who was still seated in
the parlor, an expression of deep thought on her face.

"Harriet," said the old lady, wiping her damp hands on her apron,
"Hettie has gone to work washing dishes in there like a house a-fire.
I declare she's a big help; as soon as she comes about I feel rested,
for I know she won't leave a thing undone. What have you been saying
to her? I never saw her so cheerful. She's been runnin' on in the
kitchen like a fifteen-year-old child. I declare I can't keep from
liking her. You must a-told her some'n about Toot Wambush."

"I did," admitted Harriet. "Mother, I've been standing in her way. I
believe he likes her, and will marry her now that I have given him his
last answer."

"Do you really, daughter?"

"Yes, I think he will--I'm almost sure of it, and I just had to tell
her so, she looked so down-hearted."

Mrs. Floyd laid her hand on Harriet's head and smiled.

"You deserve to be happy, too, daughter, and somehow I feel like you
are going to be. Mr. Westerfelt is nobody's fool; he knows you're
sweet and good, and--"

"I don't want to talk about him, mother," Harriet said, firmly, as she
rose. "I think we ought to keep Hettie a few days; she'd like to be
near the post-office, I know."

"Well, the Lord knows I'm willing," consented Mrs. Floyd, as she
followed her daughter to the kitchen.

Chapter XVII

Sue Dawson leaned on the front gate at the Bradleys'.

"Hello! Hello! Hello! in thar!" she cried, in a shrill, piping voice.
No one replied. "I'm a good mind to go in anyway," she thought. "I
reckon they hain't got no bitin' dog." She raised the iron ring from
the post and drew the sagging gate through the grooves worn in the
pebbly ground and entered the yard. The front and back doors were
open, and she could see a portion of the back yard through the hall.

No one seemed to be in the house. A young chicken had hopped up the
back steps, crossed the entry, and was stalking about in the hall
chirping hollowly, as if bewildered by its surroundings. Across the
rear door a sudden gust of wind blew a wisp of smoke, and then it
occurred to Mrs. Dawson that some one might be in the back yard. She
drove the chicken before her as she stalked through the hall.

Martha Bradley was making soap. With her back to the house, she was
stirring a boiling mixture of grease and lye in a large wash-pot.
Under the eaves of the kitchen stood an ash-hopper, from the bottom of
which trickled a tiny amber stream.

"Howdy, Marthy?" said Mrs. Dawson, behind Mrs. Bradley's back. "It was
so still in the house, I 'lowed you wus all dead an' buried."

Mrs. Bradley turned and dropped her paddle. "Why, ef it hain't Mis'
Dawson, as I'm alive! Whar on earth are you bound fer?"

"Jest come over fer a day ur so," was the reply. "I thought some o'
stoppin' at the hotel, but, on second thought, I 'lowed you an' Luke
mought think strange ef I did, so heer I am."

"I've al'ays got room fer a old neighbor, an' you'd a-been lonely at
the hotel. I'm glad you come, but--" Mrs. Bradley took up her paddle
and began to stir the contents of the pot. "I reckon, I ortter tell
you, plain, Mis' Dawson, that John Westerfelt is stayin' with us.
We've got plenty o' room fer you both, but I thought it mought not be
exactly agreeable fer you."

A spiteful fire kindled in Mrs. Dawson's eyes. "It mought upset _him_
a little speck, Marthy, but I hain't done nothin' to be ashamed uv
myse'f."

Mrs. Bradley went to the ash-hopper and filled a dipper with lye and
poured it into the pot. Then she wiped her hands on her apron. "John
Westerfelt's had enough trouble to kill a ordinary man, Mis' Dawson,"
she said, "an' I'm his friend to the backbone; ef you've got any
ill-will agin 'im, don't mention it to me. Besides, now would be a
good time fer you to show Christian forbearance. He's been
thoughtless, but heer lately he is a changed man, an' I believe he's
tryin' his level best to do right in God's sight. He's had a peck o'
trouble in one way or another over heer, but, in addition to that, I'm
mistaken ef he don't suffer in secret day and night."

"You don't say," cried Mrs. Dawson, eagerly. "I 'lowed he wus cuttin'
a wide swath over heer."

"Never was a bigger mistake. He don't visit a single gal in the place.
He neglects his business, an' spends most o' his time in the woods
pretendin' to hunt, but he seldom fetches back a thing, and you know he
used to be the best shot at the beef matches. Luke thinks his mind is
turned a little bit. Luke happened to go 'long the Shader Rock road
t'other day an' seed John lyin' flat o' his back in the woods. He
passed 'im twice inside of a hour, an' he hadn't moved a peg. No
healthy minded man don't carry on that way, Mis' Dawson."

"Hain't he a-settin' up to that hotel gal?" Mrs. Bradley turned towards
the house with her guest. "No, he hain't," she answered. "She nussed
him when he wus down, an'--well, maybe she does kinder fancy _him_ a
little--any natcherl girl would--I don't say she _does_ nor _doesn't_,
but he hain't been to see 'er, to my knowledge, a single time, nur has
never tuk her out to any o' the parties. No, thar's nothin' twixt 'em;
she tried to git 'im to come stay at the hotel when he wus sick atter
the Whitecap outrage, an' I thought she acted a little for'ard then,
but he refused an' come to us instead."

"You don't say so; why, I heerd--"

"A body kin always heer more about a thing fur off than right whar it
happens," concluded Mrs. Bradley. They were now in the sitting-room,
and Mrs. Dawson took off her bonnet and shawl. Mrs. Bradley put some
pieces of pine under the smouldering logs in the fireplace and swept
the hearth.

That night when Westerfelt came home supper was on the table. He was
surprised to see the visitor, but she did not notice him and he said
nothing to her. The meal passed awkwardly. Luke made an effort to
keep up the conversation with her by asking about his friends in her
neighborhood, but her replies were in a low tone and short, and he
finally gave up the attempt.

Westerfelt rose from the table before any of the others and left the
house. As he turned from the gate to go to the stable, he looked
through the window and saw Mrs. Dawson move her chair to the fire. He
paused and leaned against the fence. The firelight shone in the old
woman's face; it was sad and careworn. Somehow she reminded him of his
mother, as she had looked a short time before she died. He started on
slowly, but came back again to the same spot. Luke wiped his mouth on
the corner of the table-cloth, rose from the table, and went out at the
back door. Westerfelt heard his merry whistle at the barn. Mrs.
Bradley filled a large pan with dishes and took them into the kitchen.
Mrs. Dawson bent over the fire. Something in the curve of her back and
the trembling way she held her hands to the blaze made him think again
of his mother. He hesitated a moment, then, lifting the ring from the
post, he pushed the gate open and went round the house and into the
kitchen.

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