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Will N. Harben - Westerfelt

W >> Will N. Harben >> Westerfelt




Harriet stared wonderingly at her mother; then she said:

"Did she want to help us again?"

Mrs. Floyd laughed significantly.

"That's what she pretended she wanted, but she didn't have no more idea
of working here than I have of flying through the air at this minute.
Harriet, she is dead crazy in love with Toot Wambush. That is the
truth about it."

"Why, mother, I can't believe it!" cried Harriet, her brow wrinkling in
perplexity. "He hardly ever went with her or talked to her."

"He took her out home with him in a buggy six or seven times to my
knowledge," declared Mrs. Floyd, "and there's no telling how often he
saw her at home. He is awfully thick with her father. I never was
fooled in a woman; she is in love with him, and right now she is
worried to death about him. She couldn't hide her anxiety, and asked a
good many round-about questions about where he was gone to, and if we
knew whether the sheriff was hunting for him now, and if we thought Mr.
Westerfelt would prosecute him."

Harriet laughed. "Well, I never dreamt there was a thing between those
two. When he asked her to go with him in his buggy out home, I thought
it was because she lived on the road to his father's, and that he just
did it to accommodate her, and--"

"Oh, I've no doubt that is what _he_ did it for, darling, but she was
falling in love with him all the time, and now that he is in trouble,
she can't hide it. Do you know her conduct this morning has set me to
thinking? The night you and I spent over at Joe Long's I heard Wambush
came very near being arrested with a barrel of whiskey he was taking to
town, and that he managed to throw the officers off his track while he
was talking to Hettie in our back yard. Do you know it ain't a bit
unlikely that she helped him play that trick somehow? They say he was
laughing down at the store after that about how he gave them the slip.
I'll bet she helped him."

"If she is in love with him she did, I reckon," returned Harriet,
wisely. "I wish he was in love with her. He is getting entirely too
troublesome."

"He'll never care a snap for her as long as you are alive," retorted
the old lady. "I'm sorry now that I ever let you go with him so much.
He seems to be getting more and more determined to make you marry him
whether or no. He is jealous of Mr. Westerfelt." Mrs. Floyd lowered
her voice. "If he hadn't been, he wouldn't have fought him as he did.
That is at the bottom of it, daughter, and now that he is a regular
outlaw I am awfully uneasy. If I ever get a chance, I'm going to
convince him that it is useless for him to worry you as he does. I'd
rather see you in your grave than married to a man like that."




Chapter IX

It was a week before John Westerfelt was strong enough to leave his
room in the hotel. Inflammation of his wound had set in, and at one
time his condition was thought to be quite critical.

One day Luke Bradley came in his buggy to drive him out to his house.

"Marthy won't heer to a refusal," he said. "She's powerful' troubled.
She 'lowed ef we'd 'a' made you stay with us you'd not 'a' been apt to
'a' met Wambush that day, an' 'a' been laid up like this. She's jest
dyin' to git to cook things fer you an' doctor you up."

"I'll go and stay a day, anyway," promised Westerfelt. He glanced at
Harriet Floyd, who stood behind the curtains looking out of the window.
"I don't need any finer treatment than I've had, Luke. Miss Harriet's
been better than a sister to me. She saved my life the other night,
too. If she hadn't interfered that gang would have nabbed me as sure
as preaching, and I was unarmed and too weak to stand rough handling."

Harriet came from the window. She took the roll of blankets that
Bradley had brought and held one of them before the fire.

"It's chilly out to-day," she said. "You'd better wrap him up well,
Mr. Bradley."

Bradley did not reply. He heard a noise outside, and went out hastily
to see if his horse was standing where he had left him. Westerfelt
dragged himself from his chair and stood in front of the fire. He had
grown thinner during his confinement, and his clothes hung loosely on
him.

"You have been good to me," he repeated, in a low tone, "and I wish I
could do something to pay you back." She said nothing. She bent over
and felt the blanket to see if it were scorching, and then turned the
other side to the fire.

"Mrs. Bradley is a fine nurse," she said, presently. "She'll take good
care of you. Besides, she has a better claim on you than we--mother
and I--have; she has known you longer."

"I'll tell you the truth," he answered, after studying her face for a
moment in silence. "I'd really be willing to get hurt over again for
an excuse to live here like I have. I am the loneliest man that was
ever born--lonely is no name for it. In the dead hours of the night I
suffer agonies--you see, I am not a good sleeper. I have been as near
insanity as any man that ever lived out of an asylum. But I have been
mighty nearly free from all that since you began to nurse me. I wish
to God it could go on forever--forever, do you understand?--but it
can't--it can't. I have my troubles and you have yours--that is," he
added, quickly, as she shot a sudden glance of inquiry at him, "I
reckon you have troubles, most girls do."

"Yes, I have my troubles, Mr. Westerfelt," she said, simply.
"Sometimes I think I cannot bear mine, but I do."

He said nothing, but his eyes were upon her almost with a look of fear.
Was she about to tell him frankly of her love for Wambush?

She rolled up one of the blankets and put it on the rug in front of the
fire, and held up another to be warmed. He thought he had never seen a
face so full of sweet, suffering tenderness. His heart bounded
suddenly with a thought so full of joy that he could hardly breathe.
She had driven the outlaw from her heart and already loved him; she had
learned to love him since he had been there. He could see it, feel it
in her every tender word and act, and he--God knew he loved her--loved
her with his whole wearied soul. Then the thought of her appeal to old
John Wambush and the lies she had told that night to save her lover
struck him like a blow in the face, and he felt himself turning cold
all over in the embrace of utter despair. "No, no, no!" he said, in
his heart, "she's not for me! I could never forget that--never! I've
always felt that the woman I loved must never have loved before, and
Wambush--ugh!"

She raised her great eyes to his in the mellow firelight, and then, as
if puzzled by his expression, calmly studied his face.

"You are not going back to that room over the stable, are you?" she
questioned.

"Yes, to-morrow night."

"Don't do it--it is not comfortable; it is awfully roomy and bare and
cold."

"Oh, I am used to that. Many a time I've slept out in the open air on
a frosty night, with nothing round me but a blanket."

"You could occupy this room whenever it suited you; it is seldom used.
I heard mother say yesterday that she wished you would."

"I'd better stay there," he answered, moved again by her irresistible
solicitude, and that other thing in her tone to which he had laid claim
and hugged to his bruised heart. He felt an almost uncontrollable
desire to raise her in his arms, to unbosom his anguish to her, and
propose that they both fight their battles of forgetfulness side by
side, but he shrank from it. The thought of Wambush was again upon him
like some rasping soul-irritant.

"No, no; I'm going back to the stable," he said, fiercely. "I will not
stay here any longer--not a day longer!"

He saw her start, and then she put down the blanket and stood up. "I
do not understand you at all, sometimes" she faltered, "not at all."

"But I understand you, God knows," he returned, bitterly. "Harriet,
little, suffering, wronged woman, I know something about you. I know
what has been worrying you so much since I came here."

She started and an awful look crept into her face.

"Oh, Mr. Westerfelt, do you?"

"Yes, I know it--that's enough now; let's agree never again to speak of
it. I don't want to talk about it, and I reckon you don't. Anyway, it
can't be helped."

"No, it can't be helped." Her lips began to twitch and quiver, and her
eyes went down.

"I understand it all now," she added. "And I don't blame you. I told
mother yesterday that I thought you might suspect--"

"Your mother knows then?"

"Yes, of course," raising her eyes in surprise.

For a moment they were silent. Westerfelt leaned against the
mantel-piece; he had never felt such utter despair. It was like being
slowly tortured to death to hear her speaking so frankly of the thing
which he had never been able to contemplate with calmness.

"So you see now that I'd better go back to the stable, don't you?" he
asked, gloomily.

"I suppose so," she said. "I suppose you mean that--" but she was
unable to formulate what lay in her confused mind. Besides, Luke
Bradley was coming in. They heard his heavy tread on the veranda.

"Well, come on, John, ef you are ready," he called out. "That blamed
nag o' mine won't stand still a minute."

When Westerfelt had been driven away, and Harriet had watched him out
of sight down the road, she came back to the fire and sat down in the
chair Westerfelt had used during his convalescence. She kept her eyes
fixed on the coals till her mother entered the room.

"I reckon he thought funny that I didn't come in to tell him good-bye,"
she said, with a knowing little laugh; "but I'll be bound he was glad I
didn't. Even Mr. Bradley had the good sense to go outside."

"Mother, what are you talking about?"

"You know mighty well what I mean," returned Mrs. Floyd, with a smile.
"I know Mr. Westerfelt is dead in love with you, and goodness knows you
couldn't fool me about how you feel if you tried. I was a girl once."

"Mother," said Harriet, "I never want you to mention him to me again,"
and she put her hands over her face and began to cry softly.

"Why, what is the matter, dear?" the old woman sat down near her
daughter, now alarmed by her conduct. Harriet stared her mother in the
face. "He knows all about it, mother--he knows I am not your child,
that nobody knows where I came from. Oh, mother, I can't stand it--I
simply cannot. I wanted him to know, and yet when he told me he knew,
it nearly killed me."

Mrs. Floyd turned pale. "There must be some mistake," she said; "no
one here knows it--and only one or two up in Tennessee."

"There is no mistake," sighed the girl. "He told me the other day that
he had relatives in Tennessee. Oh, mother, more people know it than
you think. I have always felt that they knew. So many have noticed
that you and I do not look alike."

Mrs. Floyd's eyes were moist and her face was wrung with sympathy. She
put her arms around the girl and drew her to her breast. "I ought
never to have told you," she said; "but the lawyers knew it, and when
your papa's estate was wound up it had to be told to a few. I thought
you would soon forget it, but you have never stopped thinking about it.
You are entirely too sensitive, too--"

"Mother, you don't know anything about it," said Harriet. "When you
told me I was not your child I actually prayed to die. It has been the
only real trouble I ever had. I never see poor, worthless people
without thinking that I may be closely related to them, and since Mr.
Westerfelt has been here and told me about his aristocratic relatives
and his old family, I have been more unhappy than ever. I was going to
tell him some day, but he saved me the trouble."

"I can't imagine how he knew it," gave in Mrs. Floyd, thoughtfully.
"Perhaps he has had some dealings with our lawyers, though they
promised not to speak of it. I thought when we moved down here among
strangers you'd quit troubling about that. You know you are as good as
anybody else, so what is the good of worrying? You make me very
unhappy, Harriet. I feel almost as if I did wrong to bring you up.
But you know I love you just the same as if you was my own child, don't
you?"

"Yes, and I love you as if you were my own mother. I love you more,
too, when I am in trouble, though I reckon I don't show it; but,
mother, I am dying to know something about my own flesh and blood. I'd
rather know that my blood was good than have all the wealth of the
earth. You have let enough out to show me that I must have had very,
very poor parents."

"I simply said that when they left you at my house you had on rather
cheap clothing, but you know that was just after the war, when nobody
could dress their children much."

"But they deserted me," said Harriet; "they could not have been very
honorable. I reckon Mr. Westerfelt knows all about it."

"Well, he won't think any the less of you if he does," said Mrs. Floyd.
"He looks like a born gentleman to me. You will never see a man like
him turning against a girl for something she can't help. You ought not
to say your parents were not honorable; they may have left you,
thinking it would be best for you. We were considered pretty well off
then."

Harriet made no reply for several minutes, and then she said:

"I think Mr. Westerfelt is the best man I ever knew, but he must be
like his father some, and he told me that his father, who was a captain
in the army, refused to ever see his daughter again who married the son
of his overseer. She moved to Texas, and died out there. Mother, the
legitimate daughter of an overseer would stand higher in any Southern
community than--" At this point a sob broke in her voice, and the girl
could go no further. Mrs. Floyd rose and kissed her on the cheek. "I
see," she said, "that as long as you keep talking about this you will
search and search for something to worry about. I'm glad Mr.
Westerfelt knows about it, though, for he would have to be told some
day, and now he knows what to count on. I'll bet you anything he keeps
on loving you, and--"

"Oh, mother," broke in Harriet, "I don't think he lo--cares that much
for me; I really do not."




Chapter X

"By George!" exclaimed Bradley, as they drove away, "you certainly lit
on your feet when you struck that house. It looks like it 'ud pay you
to git stabbed every day in the week; it's paid the community, the Lord
knows, fer it is shet of the biggest dare-devil that wus ever in it.
The ol' lady seems to have about as bad a case on you as the gal. I've
been thar a time or two to ax about you, an' I never seed the like o'
stirrin' round fixin' things they 'lowed would suit yore taste."

"They have been mighty good to me, indeed," answered the young man,
simply. "I don't think I could have had such thoughtful attention,
even at home."

"I don't like fer anything to puzzle me," said Luke, with a little
laugh, "an' I'll swear Miss Harriet's a riddle. I would a-swore on the
stand a week ago that she wus as big a fool about Wambush as a woman
kin git to be, but now--well, I reckon she's jest like the rest. Let
the feller they keer fer git a black eye an' have bad luck, an' they'll
sidle up to the fust good-lookin' cuss they come across. A man that
reads novels to git his marryin' knowledge frum is in pore business;
besides the book hain't writ that could explain a woman unless it is
the Great Book, an' it wouldn't fit no woman o' this day an' time."

"You think, then, Luke," said Westerfelt, "that a good woman--a real
good woman--could love twice in--in a short space of time?"

"Gewhillikins! What a question; they kin love a hundred times before
you kin say Jack Robinson with yore mouth open. When you git married,
John, you must make up your mind that yo're marryin' fer some'n else
besides dern foolishness. The Bible says the prime intention of the
business wus to increase an' multiply; ef you an' yore wife ever git to
multiplyin', you an' her won't find much time to suck thumbs an' talk
love an' pick flowers an' press 'em in books an' the like. Folks may
say what they damn please about women lovin' the most; it's the feller
mighty nigh ever' whack that acts the fool. I was plumb crazy about
Marthy, an' used to be afeerd she wus so fur gone on me that she
wouldn't take a sufficient supply o' victuals to keep up 'er strength.
That wus when I was courtin' of 'er an' losin' sleep, an' one thing or
other. After we wus married, though, me an' 'er mother come to words
one day about a shoat pig she claimed had her mark on its yeer an' was
penned up with mine, an' she up an' told me out o' spite that the very
night before me 'n' Marthy got married, Ward Billingsley wus thar at
the house tryin' to get 'er to run off with him, an' that Marthy come
as nigh as pease a-doin' of it. Her maw said she'd a-gone as shore as
preachin' ef she'd a-had a dress fitten to take the trip on the train
in. I reckon it wus every word the truth, fer to this day Marthy won't
deny it; but it don't make a bit of difference to me now. Marthy would
a-done as well by Ward as she did by me, I reckon. When women once git
married they come down to hard-pan like a kickin' mule when it gits
broke to traces."

Westerfelt drew the blankets closer about him. The road had taken a
sharp turn round the side of a little hill, and the breeze from the
wide reach of level valley lands was keen and piercing. Bradley's
volubility jarred on him. It brought an obnoxious person back, and
roughly, into the warm memory of Harriet Floyd's presence, and gentle,
selfless tenderness. He ground his teeth in agony. He had just been
debating in his mind the possibility of his being, in consideration of
his own mistakes, able to take the girl, in her new love, into his
heart and hold her there forever, but if she loved Wambush, as, of
course, she once did, might she not later love some other man--or might
she not even think--remember--Wambush?

"Great God!" He uttered the words aloud, and Bradley turned upon him
in surprise.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," said Westerfelt; "my wound twinged just a little, that is
all."

"I was driving too fast over these rocks anyway," said Bradley,
solicitously.

The horse stopped at a clear mountain stream that leaped in a
succession of waterfalls down the sheer hill-side into the valley.
Bradley got out to loosen the bridle to allow the animal to drink, and
stood with one foot on the shore and the other on a brown stone in the
water. Try as he would, Westerfelt could not banish Harriet from his
mind. Her sweet personality seemed to be trying to defend itself
against the unworthy thoughts which fought for supremacy in his mind.
He thought of her wonderful care of him in his illness; her unfailing
tenderness and sympathy when he was suffering; her tears--yes, he was
sure he had detected tears in her eyes one day when the doctor was
giving him unusual pain in dressing his wound. Ah, how sweet that was
to remember! and yet the same creature had loved a man no higher than
Wambush; had even sobbed out a confession of her love in the arms of
his father. Such was the woman, but he loved her with the first real
love of his life.

The next day but one, Westerfelt, feeling sufficiently strong, was
driven by Washburn down to the livery-stable, where he sat in the warm
sunshine against the side of the house. While sitting there watching
the roads which led down to the village from the mountains, he was
surprised to see Peter Slogan ride up on his bony bay horse and alight.

"Howdy' do, John?" he said. "I wus jest passin' on my way home an'
thought I'd halt an' ax about that cut o' yore'n."

"Oh, I'm doing pretty well, Peter," answered Westerfelt, as he extended
his hand without rising. "But I didn't know that you ever got this far
from home."

"Hain't once before, since I went to fight the Yanks," grinned Slogan.
"Seems to me I've rid four hundred an' forty-two miles on that
churndasher thar. My legs is one solid sore streak from my heels up,
an' now it's beginnin' to attact my spine-bone. I'm too ol' an' stiff
to bear down right in the stirrups, I reckon."

"What has brought you over here?" asked Westerfelt, with a smile.

Slogan took out his clay pipe with its cane stem and knocked it on the
heel of his boot, then he put it into his mouth and blew through it
till the liquid nicotine cracked audibly. "I've been huntin'," he
said, dryly. "In my day an' time I've been on all sorts o' hunts, from
bear an' deer down to yaller-hammers, but I waited till I wus in my
sixty-fifth year--goin' on sixty-six--'fore I started out huntin' fer a
dad-blasted woman."

"A woman!" exclaimed the listener.

"You could guess who it wus ef you'd make a stab ur two at it," Slogan
made answer, as he scratched a match and began to smoke. "Day before
yesterday Clariss' went out in the yard to rake up a apron o' chips,
an' happened to take notice that thar wusn't a sign o' smoke comin' out
o' the old woman's chimney. It was cold enough to freeze hard boiled
eggs, an' she 'lowed some'n had gone wrong down at the cabin, so she
run in whar I wus, skeerd into kinniptions. 'Mr. Slogan,' sez she, 'I
believe sister's friz in 'er bed, ur dropped off sudden, fer as shore
as yore a-smokin' in that cheer, thar ain't a speck o' fire in 'er
chimney.' Well, I wus in my stockin' feet, like I ginerally am when I
want to take it easy before a fire on a cold day, an' I slid my feet
into my shoes as quick as I could an' went out an' took a look. Shore
enough, thar wusn't a bit o' smoke about the cabin. So I tol' Clariss'
to run down an' see what wus wrong, but she wouldn't budge out o' her
tracks. You see, she ain't never felt right about the way she used to
do the old woman, an' I reckon she wus afeerd her dead body would do a
sight more accusin'--I dunno, she wouldn't go a step fer some reason ur
other, but she stood thar twistin' 'er hands an' cryin' an' beggin' me
to do her duty. I tol' 'er the last time I wus thar the ol' huzzy
wouldn't so much as notice me, an' that I'd had 'nough trouble lookin'
atter my own pore kin without galivantin' about atter my kin by a'
unfortunate marriage, but nothin' would do 'er but fer me to go, so I
did, an' found the old woman had run clean off. Well, when I told
Clariss' that, she mighty nigh had a fit. She swore she had driv her
sister desperate by her conduct in the past an' that 'er body would be
found as stiff as a bar o' iron in the woods some'rs whar she wus
tryin' to keep warm. So the long an' short of it wus that me 'n' my
hoss had to start out."

"And you have found her?" asked the young man, now thoroughly concerned.

"You bet I did, after scourin' the entire face of creation. I traced
'er frum one old acquaintance to another, till last night I run up on
'er over at Bill Wyman's, ten miles down the valley. It was ten
o'clock when I got thar, an' as cold as a cake o' ice in the small o'
yore back. I called Bill out in his shift on the porch. I was mighty
nigh friz, an' I reckon he soon got that away, fer he kept dancin'
about fust on one foot an' then on another, while we talked. He
admitted she wus thar, but he wouldn't let me stay all night, although
I offered to plank down the usual price fer man an' beast. She'd been
talkin' to him, I could see that, fer he up an' said some'n about folks
bein' churched in his settlement fer the mistreatment o' widows, but
he'd admit, he said, that he wusn't posted on the manners an' customs
uv all the places over beyant the mount'in; he reckoned the nigher
people got to the railroad the furder they wus from the cross. I tried
to reason with 'im, but he said ef I wanted to argue my case, I'd
better come round in the summer.

"Thar wusn't any other house nigher'n six miles, an' so I made me a
fire in a little cove by the road, an' set over it an' thought, mostly
about women, all night. I've heerd preachers say a man oughtn't to
think too much about women anyway, but I reckon I backslid last night,
fer I thought hard about mighty nigh ever' woman I ever seed or heerd
of."

"How has Mrs. Dawson been getting on since I left?" ventured Westerfelt.

"Just about as bad as she knowed how, I reckon, John. After you left,
she seemed to take 'er spite out on Lizzie Lithicum. Liz never could
pass anywhar nigh 'er without havin' the old cat laugh out loud at 'er.
Liz has been goin' with that cock-eyed Joe Webb a good deal--you know
he's jest about the porest ketch anywhars about, an' that seemed to
tickle Mis' Dawson mightily. I reckon somebody told 'er some'n Liz
said away back when you fust started to fly around 'er. I axed Clem
Dill ef he knowed anything about it, an' Clem 'lowed Liz had kind o'
made fun o' Sally about you gittin' tired uv 'er, an' one thing ur
other. I dunno; I cayn't keep up with sech things. I jest try to find
'em out once in awhile because Clariss' is sech a hand to want to know.
When she gits to rantin' about anythin' I've done--ur hain't done--all
I got to do to shet 'er up is to start to tell 'er some'n somebody's
has said about somebody else, an' she gits 'er cheer. So I try to keep
a stock o' things on hand. Clem Dill's afeerd o' Mis' Dawson now. I
was in the store one day about a week ago, an' she come in to swap a
pair o' wool socks she had knit fer coffee, an' Clem 'lowed, jest to
pass the time, while he wus at the scales, he'd ax 'er what ailed her
an' Lizzie, anyway. But I reckon Clem has quit axin' fool questions,
fer she turned on 'im like a tiger-cat. Sez she:

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