The most careless eye would have seen instantly that the newcomer was not a native of that backwoods district. She was not a large woman, but there was, nevertheless, a full, rounded strength, which saved her trim and rather slender body from appearing small. Neither would a discriminating observer describe her by that too-common term “pretty.” She was more than that. In her large, gray eyes, there was a look of frank, straightforward interest that suggested an almost boyish good-fellowship, while at the same time there was about her a general air of good breeding; with a calm, self-possessed and businesslike alertness which, combined with a wholesome dignity, commanded a feeling of respect and confidence. Her voice was clear and musical, with an undertone of sympathetic humor. One felt when she spoke that while she lacked nothing of intelligent understanding and sympathetic interest, she was quite ready to laugh at you just the same.
When the two stood speechless, she said, looking straight at Brian: “It seems to me, sir, that the young lady has all the best of the argument. But I really think she should have some dry clothes as well.”
She turned to the dripping and dishevelled Judy: “You poor child. Aren't you cold! It is rather early in the season for a dip in the river, I should think. Let me take whatever you have there, and you make for the house as fast as you can go,—the run will warm you.”
As she spoke, she went to the mountain girl, holding out her hand to take the manuscript, and smiling encouragingly.
But Judy backed away, her stealthy, oblique gaze fixed with watchful surprise on the fair stranger.
“This here ain't none of your put-in,” and her shrill drawling monotone contrasted strangely with the other's pleasing voice. “Where'd you-all happen from, anyhow? How'd you-all git here?”
“I came over the bluff by the path,” answered the other. “You see, I left the train from the south at White's Crossing because I knew I could drive up from there by the river road quicker than I could go by rail away around through the hills to Thompsonville, and then make the drive down the river from there. When I reached Elbow Rock, I was in such a hurry, I took the short cut, while the man with my trunk and things went by the road over Schoolhouse Hill, you know. I arrived here just as this gentleman was pulling you from the water.”
Before Brian could speak, Judy returned with excitement: “I know who you-all be now. I ought ter knowed the minute I set eyes on you. You-all are the gal with that there no-'count name, an' you've come ter work for him, there,”—she pointed to Brian,—“a-helpin' him ter write his book, what ain't his'n no more, nohow, 'cause he done throwed hit away,—plumb inter the river.”
“I am Miss Williams,” returned the other. “My 'no-'count name,' I suppose, is Betty Jo.” She laughed kindly. “Perhaps it won't seem so 'no'count' when we are better acquainted, Judy. Won't you run along to the house, and change to some dry clothes? You will catch your death of cold if you stand here like this.”
“How'd you-all know I was Judy?”
“Why, Auntie Sue wrote me about you, of course.”
“An' you knowed me 'cause I'm so all crooked an' ugly, I reckon,” came the uncompromising return.
Betty Jo turned to Brian: “You are Mr. Burns, are you not, for whom I am to work?”
Brian made no reply,—he really could not speak. “And this,”—Betty Jo included Judy, the manuscript, and the river in a graceful gesture,—“this, I suppose, is the result of what is called 'the artistic temperament'?”
Still the man could find no words. The young woman's presence and her reference to his work brought to him, with overwhelming vividness, the memory of all to which he had so short a time before looked forward, and which was now so hopelessly lost to him. He felt, too, a sense of rebellion that she should have come at such a moment,—that she could stand there with such calm self-possession and with such an air of competency. Her confidence and poise in such contrast to the chaotic turmoil of his own thoughts, and his utter helplessness in the situation which had so suddenly burst upon him, filled him with unreasoning resentment.
Betty Jo must have read in Brian Kent's face something of the suffering that held him there dumb and motionless before her, and so sensed a deeper tragedy than appeared on the surface of the incident; and her own face and voice revealed her understanding as she said, with quiet, but decisive, force: “Mr. Burns, Judy must go to the house. Won't you persuade her?”
Brian started as one aroused from deep abstraction, and went to Judy; while Betty Jo drew a little way apart, and stood looking out over the river.
“Give me the manuscript, Judy,” said Brian gently, “and go on to the house.”
“You-all ain't a-goin' ter sling hit inter the river again?” The words were half-question and half-assertion.
“No,” said Brian. “I promise not to throw it into the river again.”
As Judy gave him the manuscript, she turned her beady eyes in a stealthy, oblique look toward Betty Jo, and whispered: “You-all best tell her 'bout hit. I sure hate her poison-bad; but hit's easy ter see she'd sure know what ter do.”
“Be careful that Auntie Sue doesn't see you like this, Judy,” was Brian's only answer; and Judy started off for her much-needed change to dry clothing.
When the mountain girl was gone, Brian stood looking at the water-stained volume of manuscript in his hand. He had no feeling, now, of more than a curious idle interest in this work to which, during the months just past, he had given so without reserve the best of himself. It was, he thought, strange how he could regard with such indifference a thing for which a few hours before he would have given his life. Dumbly, he was conscious of the truth of Judy's words,—that the book was no longer his. Judy was right—this book which he had called his had always been, in reality, Auntie Sue's. So the matter of his work, at least so far as he had to do with it, was settled—definitely and finally settled.
But what of himself? What was to become of him? Of one thing only he was certain about himself;—he never could face Auntie Sue again. Knowing, now, what he had done, and knowing that she knew;—that all the time she was nursing him back to health, all the time she had been giving him the inspiration and strength and peace of her gentle, loving companionship, in the safe and quiet harbor of her little house by the river, she had known that it was he who had—A clear, matter-of-fact, but gentle, voice interrupted his bitter thoughts: “Is it so very badly damaged, Mr. Burns?”
He had forgotten Betty Jo, who now stood close beside him.
“Let me see?” She held out her hand as he turned slowly to face her.
Without a word, he gave her the manuscript.
Very businesslike and practical, but with an underlying feeling of tenderness that was her most compelling charm, Betty Jo examined the water-stained volume.
“Why, no,” she announced cheerfully; “it isn't really hurt much. You see, the sheets being tied together so tightly, the water didn't get all the way through. The covers and the first and last pages are pretty wet, and the edges of the rest are rather damp. It'll be smudged somewhat, but I don't believe there is a single word that can't be made out. It is lucky it didn't prolong its bath, though, isn't it? All we need to do, now, is to put it in the sun to dry for a few minutes.”
Selecting a sunny spot near by, she arranged the volume against a stone and deftly separated the pages so that the air could circulate more freely between them; and one would have said, from her manner of ready assurance, that she had learned from long experience exactly how to dry a manuscript that had been thrown in the river and rescued just in the nick of time. That was Betty Jo's way. She always did everything without hesitation,—just as though she had spent the twenty-three years of her life doing exactly that particular thing.
Kneeling over the manuscript, and gently moving the wet sheets, she said, without looking up: “Do you always bath your manuscripts like this before you turn them over to your stenographer to type, Mr. Burns?”
In spite of his troubled state of mind, Brian smiled.
The clear, matter-of-fact voice went on, while the competent hands moved the drying pages. “You see, I never worked for an author before. I suspect I have a lot to learn.”
She looked up at him with a Betty Jo smile that went straight to his heart, as Betty Jo's smiles had a curious way of doing.
“I hope you will be very patient with me, Mr. Burns. You will, won't you? There is no real danger of your throwing ME in the river when the 'artistic temperament' possesses you, is there?”
It was no use. When Betty Jo set out to make a man talk, that man talked. Brian yielded not ungracefully: “I owe you an apology, Miss Williams,” he said.
“Indeed, no,” Betty Jo returned, giving her attention to the manuscript again. “It is easy to see that you are terribly upset about something; and everybody is so accustomed to being upset in one way or another that apologies for upsetments are quite an unnecessary bother, aren't they?”
That was another interestingly curious thing about Betty Jo,—the way she could finish off a characteristic, matter-of-fact statement with a question which had the effect of making one agree instantly whether one agreed or not.
Brian felt himself quite unexpectedly feeling that “upsetments” were quite common, ordinary, and to be expected events in one's life. “But I am really in very serious trouble, Miss Williams,” he said in a way that sounded oddly to Brian himself, as though he were trying to convince himself that his trouble really was serious.
Betty Jo rose to her feet, and looked straight at him, and there was no mistaking the genuineness of the interest expressed in those big gray eyes.
“Oh, are you? Is it really so serious? I am so sorry. But don't you think you better tell me about it, Mr. Burns? If I am to work for you, I may just as well begin right here, don't you think?”
There it was again,—that trick-question. Brian felt himself agreeing in spite of himself, though how he was to explain his painful situation to this young woman whom, until a few minutes before, he had never even seen, he did not know. He answered cautiously, speaking half to himself: “That is what Judy said.”
Betty Jo did not understand, and made no pretense,—she never made a pretense of anything. “What did Judy say?” she asked.
“That I had better tell you about it,” he answered.
And the matter-of-fact Betty Jo returned: “Judy seems to be a very particular and common-sensing sort of Judy, doesn't she?”
And Brian realized all at once that Judy was exactly what Betty Jo said.
“But,—I—I—don't see how I CAN tell you, Miss Williams.”
“Why?” laughed Betty Jo. “It is perfectly simple, Mr. Burns, here, now, I'll show you: You are to sit down there on that nice comfortable rock,—that is your big office-chair, you know,—and I'll sit right here on this rock,—which is my little stenography-chair,—and you will just explain the serious business proposition to me with careful attention to details. I must tell you that 'detailing' is one of my strong points, so don't spare me. I really should have my notebook, shouldn't I?”
Again, in spite of himself, Brian smiled; also, before he was aware, they were both seated as Betty Jo had directed.
“But this is not a business matter, Miss Williams,” he managed to protest half-heartedly.
Betty Jo was looking at her watch in a most matter-of-fact manner, and she answered in a most matter-of-fact voice: “Everything is more or less a business matter, isn't it, Mr. Burns?”
And Brian, if he had answered, would have agreed.
Betty Jo slipped her watch back into her pocket, and continued: “You will have plenty of time before that man with my trunk and things can get away 'round over Schoolhouse Hill and down again to Auntie Sue's. He will be obliged to stop at neighbor Tom's, and tell them all about me, of course. We mustn't let him beat us to the house, though; so, perhaps, you better begin, don't you think?”
That “don't-you-think?” so characteristic of Betty Jo, did its work, as usual; and so, almost before Brian Kent realized what he was doing, it had been decided for him that to follow Judy's advice was the best possible thing he could do, and he was relating his whole wretched experience to this young woman, about whom he knew nothing except that she was a niece of an old pupil of Auntie Sue's, and that she had just finished a course in a business college in Cincinnati.
At several points in his story Betty Jo asked straightforward questions, or made short, matter-of-fact comments; but, always with her businesslike air of competent interest. Indeed, she managed to treat the situation as being wholly impersonal; while at the same time the man was never for a moment made to feel that she was lacking in sincere and genuine sympathy. Only when he told her that his name was Brian Kent, and mentioned the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank, did she for the moment betray excited surprise. When she saw that he had noticed, she said quickly: “I read of the affair in the papers, of course.”
Auntie Sue had indeed taken a big chance when she decided for Betty Jo to come to help Brian with his book. But Auntie Sue had taken no chance on Betty Jo herself. Perhaps it was, in fact, the dear old teacher's certainty about Betty Jo herself that had led her to accept the risk of sending for the niece of her friend and pupil under such a peculiar combination of circumstances.
When Brian had finished his story with the account of his discovery of the distressing fact that he had robbed Auntie Sue and that she knew he had robbed her, Betty Jo said: “It is really a sad story, isn't it, Mr. Burns? But, oh, isn't Auntie Sue wonderful! Was there ever such another woman in the world! Don't you love her? And couldn't you do anything—anything that would make her happy? After all, when you think of Auntie Sue, and how wonderful she has been, this whole thing isn't so bad, is it?”
“Why, I—I—don't think I see what you mean,” Brian replied, puzzled by the unexpected turn she had given to the situation, yet convinced by that little question with which she finished that she was somehow right.
“Well, I mean wouldn't YOU love to do for some one what Auntie Sue has done for you? I should if I were only big enough and good enough. It seems to me it would make one the happiest and contentedest and peacefulest person in the world, wouldn't it?”
Brian did not answer. While he felt himself agreeing with Betty Jo's view, he was wondering at himself that he could discuss the matter so calmly. It was not that he no longer felt deeply the shame of this terrible thing that he had done; it was not that he had ceased to suffer the torment that had caused his emotional madness, which had found expression in his attempt to destroy his manuscript; it was only that this young woman somehow made it possible for him to retain his self-control, and instead of venting his emotions in violent and wholly useless expressions of regret, and self-condemnation, and in irrational, temperamental action, to consider coolly and sanely what he must do. He was strangely possessed, too, of an instinctive certainty that Betty Jo knew exactly how he felt and exactly what she was doing.
While he was thinking these things, or, rather, feeling them, Betty Jo went to see how the manuscript was drying. She returned to her seat on the rock presently, saying: “It is doing very nicely,—almost dry. I think it will be done pretty soon. In the meantime, what are we going to do about everything? You have thought of something for you to do, of course!”
“I fear I have felt rather more than I have thought,” returned Brian.
She nodded. “Yes, I know; but feeling alone never arrives anywhere. An excess of thoughtless feeling is sheer emotional extravagance. I sound like a book, don't I?” she laughed. “It is so just the same, Mr. Burns. And now that you have—ah—been properly—not to say gloriously—extravagant at poor Judy's expense, we had better do a little thinking, don't you think?”
The man's cheeks reddened at her words; but the straightforward, downright sincerity of those gray eyes, that looked so frankly into his, held him steady; while the interrogation at the end of her remark carried its usual conviction.
“There is only one possible thing left for me to do, Miss Williams,” he said earnestly.
“And what is that?” A smile that sent a glow of courage to Brian Kent's troubled heart accompanied the flat question.
“I can't face Auntie Sue again, knowing what I know now.” He spoke with passion.
“Of course you would expect to feel that way, wouldn't you?” came the matter-of-fact answer.
“The only thing I can do,” he continued, “is to give myself up, and go to the penitentiary; arranging, somehow, to do it in such a way that the reward will go to Auntie Sue. God knows she deserves it! Sheriff Knox would help me fix that part, I am sure.”
For a moment there was a suspicious moisture in Betty Jo's gray eyes. Then she said, “And you would really go to prison for Auntie Sue?”
“It is the least I can do for her now,” he returned.
And Betty Jo must have felt the sincerity of his purpose, for she said, softly: “I am sure that it would make Auntie Sue very happy to know that you would do that; and”—she added—“I know that you could not possibly make her more unhappy and miserable than by doing it, could you?”
Again she had given an unexpected turn to the subject with the usual convincing question-mark.
“But what can I do?” he demanded, letting himself go a little.
Betty Jo steadied him with: “Well, suppose you listen while I consider? Did I tell you that 'considering' was another of my strong points, Mr. Burns? Well, it is. You may consider me while I consider, if you please.
“The first thing is, that you must make Auntie Sue happy,—as happy as you possibly can do at any cost. The second thing is, that you must pay her back that money, every penny of it. Now, it wouldn't make her happy for you to go to prison, and the reward wouldn't pay back all the money; and if you were in prison, you never could pay the rest; besides, if you were wasting your time in prison, she would just die of miserableness, and she wouldn't touch a penny of that reward-money—not if she was to die for want of it. So that settles that, doesn't it?”
And Brian was forced to admit that, as Betty Jo put it, it did.
“Very well, let us consider some more: Dear Auntie Sue has been wonderfully, gloriously happy in doing what she has for you this past winter,—meaning your book and all. I can see that she must have been. No one could help being happy doing such a thing as that. So you just simply can't spoil it all, now, by letting her know that you know what you know.”
Brian started to speak, but she checked him with: “Please, Mr. Burns, I must not be interrupted when I am considering. Next to the prison,—which we have agreed won't do at all,—you could do nothing that would make Auntie Sue more unhappy than to spoil the happiness she has in your not knowing what you have done to her. That is very clear, isn't it? And think of her miserableness if, after all these weeks of happy anticipation, your book should never be published. No, no, no; you can't rob Auntie Sue of her happiness in you just because you stole her money, can you?”
And Brian knew in his heart that she was right.
“So, you see,” Betty Jo continued, “the only possible way to do is to go right along just as if nothing had happened. And there is this final consideration,—which must be a dark secret between you and me,—when the book is finished, you must see to it that every penny that comes from it goes to Auntie Sue until she is paid back all that she lost through you. Now, isn't that pretty fine 'considering,' Mr. Burns?”
And Brian was convinced that it was. “But,” he suggested, “the book may not earn anything. Nothing that I ever wrote before did.”
“You never wrote one before just like this, did you?” came the very matter-of-fact answer. “And, besides, if your book never earns a cent, it will do Auntie Sue a world more good than your going to prison for her. That would be rather silly, now that you think of it, wouldn't it? And now that we have our conspiracy all nicely conspired, we must hurry to the house before that man arrives with my things.”
She went for the manuscript as she spoke. “See,” she cried, “it is quite dry, and not a bit the worse for its temperamental experience!” She laughed gleefully.
“But, Miss Williams,” exclaimed Brian, “I—I—can't understand you! You don't seem to mind. What I have told you about myself doesn't seem to—to—make any difference to you—I mean in your attitude toward me.”
“Oh, yes, it does,” she returned. “It makes me very interested in you, Mr. Burns.”
“But, how can you have any confidence—How can you help me with my book now that you know what I am?” he persisted, for he was sincerely puzzled by her apparent indifference to the revelation he had made of his character.
“Auntie Sue,”—she answered,—“just Auntie Sue. Come,—we must go.”
“How in the world can I ever face her!” groaned Brian.
“You won't get the chance at her, for awhile, with me around;—she will be so busy with me that she won't notice anything wrong with you. So you will get accustomed to the conspiracy feeling before you are even suspected of conspiring. You know, when one has once arrived at the state of not feeling like a liar, one can lie with astonishing success. Haven't you found it so?”
They laughed together over this as they went toward the house.
As they reached the porch, Betty Jo whispered a last word of instruction: “You better find Judy, and fix her the first thing;—fix her good and hard. Here is Auntie Sue now. Don't worry about her noticing anything strange about you. I'll attend to her.”
And the next minute, Betty Jo had the dear old lady in her arms.
The weeks that followed the coming of Betty Jo to the little log house by the river passed quickly for Brian Kent. Perhaps it was the peculiar circumstances of their first meeting that made the man feel so strongly that he had known her for many years, instead of for only those few short weeks. That could easily have been the reason, because the young woman had stepped so suddenly into his life at a very critical time;—when his mental faculties were so confused by the turmoil and suffering of his emotional self that the past was to him, at the moment, far more real than the present.
And Betty Jo had not merely come into his life casually, as a disinterested spectator; but, by the peculiar appeal of herself, she had led Brian to take her so into his confidence that she had become immediately a very real part of the experience through which he was then passing, and thus was identified with his past experience out of which the crisis of the moment had come.
Again Betty Jo, in the naturalness of her manner toward him, and by her matter-of-fact, impersonal consideration of his perplexing situation, had brought to his unsettled and chaotic mind a sense of stability and order; and by subtly insinuating her own practical decisions as to the course he should follow, had made herself a very literal part of his inner life. In fact, Betty Jo knew Brian Kent more intimately at the close of their first meeting than she could have known him after years of acquaintanceship under the ordinary course of development.
Brian's consciousness of this would naturally cause him to feel toward the young woman as though she had long been a part of his life. Still other causes might have contributed to the intimate companionship that so quickly became to them both an established and taken-for-granted fact; but, the circumstances of their first meeting, given, of course, their peculiar individualities, were, really, quite enough. The fact that it was springtime might also have had something to do with it.
The morning after her arrival, Betty Jo set to work typing the manuscript. Brian went to his work on the timbered hillside. In the evenings, Brian worked over the typewitten pages,—revising, correcting, perfecting,—and then, as Betty Jo made the final copy for the printers, they went critically over the work together.
So the hours flew past on busy wings, and the days of the springtime drew toward summer. The tender green of the new-born leaves and grasses changed to a stronger, deeper tone. The air, which had been so filled with the freshness and newness of bursting buds and rain-blessed soil, and all the quickening life of tree and bush and plant, now carried the perfume of strongly growing things,—the feel of maturing life.
To Brian, the voices of the river brought a fuller, deeper message, with a subtle undertone of steady and enduring purpose.
From the beginning, Betty Jo established for herself the habit of leaving her work at the typewriter in the afternoons, and going for a walk over the hills. Quite incidentally, at first, her walks occasionally led her by way of the clearing where Brian was at work with his ax, and it followed, naturally, that as the end of the day drew near, the two would go together down the mountain-side to the evening meal. But long before the book was finished, the little afternoon visit and the walk together at the day's close had become so established as a custom that they both accepted it as a part of their day's life; and to Brian, at least, it was an hour to which he looked forward as the most delightful hour of the twenty-four. As for Betty Jo,—well, it was really Betty Jo who established the custom and developed it to that point where it was of such importance.
Auntie Sue was too experienced from her life-long study of boys and girls not to observe the deepening of the friendship between the man and the woman whom she had brought together. But if the dear old lady felt any twinges of an apprehensive conscience, when she saw the pair day after day coming down the mountain-side through the long shadows of the late afternoon, she very promptly banished them, and, quite consistently, with what Brian called her “River philosophy,” made no attempt to separate these two life currents, which, for the time at least, seemed to be merging into one.
And often, as the three sat together on the porch after supper to watch the sunsets, or later in the evening as Auntie Sue sat with her sewing while they were busy with their work and unobserving, the dear old lady would look at them with a little smile of tender meaning, and into the gentle eyes would come that far-away look that was born of the memories that had so sweetened the long years of her life, and of the hope and dream of a joy unspeakable that awaited her beyond the sunset of her day.
In her long letter to Betty Jo, asking the girl to come, Auntie Sue had told the young woman the main facts of Brian's history as she knew them, omitting only the man's true name and the name of the bank. She had even mentioned her conviction that there had been a woman in his trouble. But Auntie Sue had not mentioned in her letter the money she had lost; nor did she now know that Brian had himself told Betty Jo at the time of their first meeting.
On the day that Betty Jo typed the last page, and the book was ready for the printers, the young woman went earlier than usual to the clearing where Brian was at work. The sound of his ax reached her while she was yet some distance away, and guided her to the spot where he was chopping a big white oak.
Brian, with his eyes fixed on the widening cut at the base of the tree, did not notice the girl, who stood watching him. She was smiling to herself at his ignorance of her presence and in anticipation of the moment when he should discover her, and there was in her eyes a look of wholesome womanly admiration for the man who swung his ax with such easy strength. In truth, Brian Kent at his woodman's labor made a picture not at all unattractive.
Swiftly, the cut in the tree-trunk widened as the ax bit deeply at every skilful stroke, and the chips flew about the chopper's feet. The acrid odor of the freshly cut oak mingled with the woodland perfume. The sun warmly flooded the clearing with its golden light, and, splashing through the openings in the forest foliage, formed pools of yellow beauty amid the dark, rich green of the shadowy undergrowth. The air was filled with the sense of life, vital and real, and strong and beautiful.
And the young woman, as she stood smiling there, was keenly conscious of it all. Most of all, perhaps, Betty Jo was conscious of the man, who worked with such vigor at his manly task.
Slowly, accurately, the bright ax sank deeper and deeper into the heart of the tree. The chips increased in scattered profusion. And then, as Betty Jo watched, the swinging ax cut through the last fibre of the tree's strength, and the leafy top swayed gently toward its fall. Almost imperceptibly, at first, it moved while Betty Jo watched breathlessly. Brian swung his ax with increasing vigor, now, while the wood, still remaining, cracked and snapped as the weight of the tree completed the work of the chopper. Faster and faster the towering mass of foliage swung in a wide graceful arc toward the ground. The man with the ax stepped back, his eyes fixed on the falling tree as, with swiftly increasing momentum, its great weight swept swiftly downward to its crashing end.
Betty Jo clapped her hands in triumph; and Brian, turning, saw her standing there. His face was flushed and glistening with perspiration; his broad chest heaved with the deep breathing gained by his exertion, and his eyes shone with the gladness of her presence.
“You are early, to-day!” he cried. “Have you finished? Is it actually completed?”
“All finished,” she returned; and, going to the fallen tree, she put her hands curiously on the trunk, which lay a little higher than her waist. “Help me up,” she commanded.
Brian set his ax against the stump, and, laughingly, lifted her to the seat she desired. Then he stood watching her face as she surveyed the tangled mass of branches.
“It looks so strange from here, doesn't it?” she said.
“Yes; and I confess I don't like to see it that way;” he returned. “I wish they didn't have to be cut. I feel like a murderer,—every one I fall.”
She looked down into his eyes, as she returned: “I know you must. YOU would, of course. But, after all, it has to be, and I don't suppose the tree minds so much, do you?”
“No; I don't suppose it feels it much.” He laughed, and, throwing aside his hat, he ran his fingers through his tumbled hair for all the world like a schoolboy confused by being caught in some sentimental situation which he finds not only embarrassing, but puzzling as well.
“I like you for feeling that way about it, though,” Betty Jo confessed with characteristic frankness. “And I am sure it must be a very good thing for the world that every one is not so intensely practical that they can chop down trees without a pang. And that reminds me: Speaking of the practical, now that the book is finished, what are we going to do with it?”
“Send it to some publisher, I suppose,” answered Brian, soberly; “and then, when they have returned it, send it to some other publisher.”
“Have you any particular publisher to whom you will send it first?” she asked.
“They are all alike, so far as my experience goes,” he returned.
“I suppose it would be best if you could take your book East, and interview the publishers personally, don't you think?”
Brian shook his head: “I am not sure that it would make any difference, and, in any case, I couldn't do it.”
“I know,” said Betty Jo, “and that is what I wanted to get at. Why don't you appoint me your agent, and let me take your book East, and make the publishing arrangements for you?”
Brian looked at her with such delighted surprise that Betty Jo smiled back at him well pleased.
“Would you really do it?” he demanded, as though he feared she was jesting.
“You are sure that you don't mean 'COULD I do it'?”—she returned,—“sure you could trust me?”
To which Brian answered enthusiastically: “You could do anything! If you undertake the job of landing a publisher for my stuff, it is as good as done.”
“Thank you,” she said, jumping down from the tree-trunk. “Now that we have settled it, let us go to the house and tell Auntie Sue, and I will start in the morning.”
As they went down the hill, they discussed the matter further, and, later, at the house, Brian took a moment, when Auntie Sue was in her room, to hand an envelope to his assistant. “Your salary,” he said, hurriedly, “and expense money for the trip.”
“Oh!” Betty Jo's exclamation was one of surprise. Then she said, in her most matter-of-fact, businesslike tone: “Thank you. I will render a statement of my account, but—” For once, Betty Jo seemed at a loss for words. “You don't mind if I ask—is—is this money—?”
Brian's face was a study. “Yes,” he said, “it is really Auntie Sue's money; but it is all I have, and I can't return it to her—without her knowing—so I—”
Betty Jo interrupted: “I understand. It is all we can do,—forgive me?”
Brian Kent did not know that Betty Jo, a few minutes later, buried the envelope he had given her deep in the bottom of her trunk without even opening it.
The next day, Brian drove to Thompsonville with Betty Jo, who took the noon train for the East.
The two were rather quiet as “Old Prince” jogged soberly along the beautiful river road. Only now and then did they exchange a few words of the most commonplace observation.
They were within sight of the little Ozark settlement when Brian said, earnestly: “I wish I could tell you, Miss Williams, just what your coming to help me with this work has meant to me.”
“It has meant a great deal to me, too, Mr. Burns,” she returned. Then she added quickly: “I suppose the first real work one does after finishing school always means more than any position following could possibly mean, don't you think? Just like your book. No matter how many you may write in the future, this will always mean more to you than any one of them.”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “This book will always mean more to me than all the others I may write.”
For a moment their eyes met with unwavering frankness. Then Betty Jo turned her face away, and Brian stiffened his shoulders, and sat a little straighter in the seat beside her. That was all.
Very brave they were at the depot purchasing Betty Jo's ticket and checking her trunk. With brave commonplaces they said good-bye when the train pulled in. Bravely she waved at him from the open window of the coach. And bravely Brian stood there watching until the train rounded the curve and disappeared from sight between the hills.
The world through which Brian Kent drove that afternoon on his way back to Auntie Sue and Judy in the little log house by the river was a very dull and uninteresting world indeed. All its brightness and its beauty seemed suddenly to have vanished. And as “Old Prince” jogged patiently on his way, sleepily content with thoughts of his evening meal of hay and grain, the man's mind was disturbed with thoughts which he dared not own even to his innermost self.
“Circumstances to a man,” Auntie Sue had said, “always meant a woman.” And Brian Kent, while he never under any pressure would have admitted it, knew within his deepest self that it was a woman who had set him adrift on the dark river that dreadful night when he had cursed the world which he thought he was leaving forever.
“Circumstances” in the person of Auntie Sue had saved him from destruction, and, in the little log house by the river, had brought about his Re-Creation.
And then, when that revelation of his crime toward Auntie Sue had come, and the labor of months, with all that it implied of the enduring salvation of himself and the happiness of Auntie Sue, hung wavering in the balance, it was the “Circumstances” of Betty Jo's coming that had set him in the right current of action again.
What waited for him around the next bend in the river, Brian wondered,—calm and peaceful waters, with gently flowing currents, or the wild tumult of dangerous rapids wherein he would be forced to fight for his very existence? Would Betty Jo succeed as his agent to the publishers? If she did succeed in finding a publisher to accept his book, would the reading public receive his message? And if that followed, what then? When Betty Jo's mission in the East was accomplished, she was to return to Auntie Sue for the summer. Then—?
“Old Prince,” of his own accord, was turning in at the gate, and Brian awoke from his abstraction to see Auntie Sue and Judy waiting for him.
All during the evening meal and while he sat with Auntie Sue on the porch overlooking the river, as their custom was, Brian was preoccupied and silent; while his companion, with the wisdom of her seventy years, did not force the conversation.
It was the time of the full moon, and when Auntie Sue at last bade him good-night, Brian, saying that the evening was too lovely to waste in sleep, remained on the porch. For an hour, perhaps, he sat there alone; but his thoughts were not on the beauties of the scene that lay before him in all its dreamy charm of shadowy hills and moonlit river. He had no ear for the soft voices of the night. The gentle breeze carried to him the low, deep-toned roar of the crashing waters at Elbow Rock; but he did not hear. Moved at last by a feeling of restless longing, and the certainty that only a sleepless bed awaited him in the house, he left the porch to stroll along the bank of the river.
Brian Kent, strolling along the bank of the river in the moonlight, and preoccupied with thoughts that were, at the last, more dreams than thoughts, was not far from the house when a sound from behind some near-by bushes broke in upon his reveries. A moment, he listened. Then telling himself that it was some prowling animal, or perhaps, a bird that his presence had disturbed, he went on. But he had gone only a few feet farther when he was conscious of something stealthily following him. Stepping behind the trunk of a tree, he waited, watching. Then he saw a form moving toward him through the shadows of the bushes. Another moment, and the form left the concealing shadow, and, in the bright moonlight, he recognized Judy.
At first, the man's feeling was that of annoyance. He did not wish to be disturbed at such a time by the presence of the mountain girl. But his habitual gentleness toward poor Judy, together with a very natural curiosity as to why she was following him at that time of the night, when he had supposed her in bed and asleep, led him to greet her kindly as he came from behind the tree: “Well, Judy, are you, too, out enjoying the moonlight?”
The girl stopped suddenly and half-turned as if to run; but, at his words, stood still.
“What is it, Judy?” he asked, going to her. “What is the matter?”
“There's a heap the matter!” she answered, regarding him with that sly oblique look; while Brian noticed a feeling of intense excitement in her voice. “I don't know what you-all are a-goin' ter think of me, but I'm bound ter tell you just the same,—seems like I got ter,—even if you-all was ter lick me for hit like pap used ter.”
“Why, Judy, dear,” the puzzled man returned, soothingly, “you know I would never strike you, no matter what you did. Come, sit down here on this log, and tell me about whatever it is that troubles you; then you can go back to sleep again.”
“I ain't a-wantin' ter set down. I ain't been asleep. Hit seems like I can't never sleep no more.” She wrung her hands and turned her poor twisted body about nervously; then demanded with startling abruptness: “When do you-all 'low she'll git back?”
The wondering Brian did not at first catch her meaning, and she continued, with an impatient jerk of her head: “Hit's that there gal with the no-'count name, Betty Jo, I'm a-talkin' 'bout.”
“Oh, you mean Miss Williams,” Brian returned. “Why, I suppose she will be back in two or three weeks, or a month, perhaps; I don't know exactly, Judy. Why?”
“'Cause I'm a-tellin' you-all not ter let her come back here ever,” came the startling answer, in a voice that was filled with menacing anger. Then, before Brian could find a word to reply, the mountain girl continued, with increasing excitement: “You-all dassn't let her come back here, nohow, 'cause, if you do, I'll hurt her, sure. You-all have been a-thinkin' as how I was plumb blind, I reckon; but I seen you,—every evenin', when she'd pretend ter just go for a walk an' then'd make straight for the clearin' where you was a-choppin', an' then you'd quit, an' set with her up there on the hill. Youuns never knowed I was a-watchin' from the bresh all the time, did you? Well, I was; an' when youuns'd walk down ter the house, so slow like an' close together, I'd sneak ahead, an' beat you home; but all the time I was a-seein' you, an' youuns never knowed, 'cause youuns just naturally couldn't see nor hear nothin' but each other. Don't you-all 'low as how I'd know by the way you looked at her, while youuns was a-fixin' that there book, every night, what you-all was a-thinkin' 'bout her? My God-A'mighty! hit was just as plain ter me as if you was a-sayin' hit right out loud all the time,—a heap plainer hit was than if you'd done writ' hit down in your book. I can't make out ter read print much, nohow, like youuns kin; but I sure kin see what I see. I—”
“Judy! Judy!” Brian broke the stream of the excited girl's talk. “What in the world are you saying? What do you mean, child?”
“You-all knows dad burned well what I'm a-meanin'!” she retorted, with increasing anger. “I'm a-meanin' that you-all are plumb lovin' that there Betty Jo gal,—that's what I'm a-meanin'!—an' you-all sure ain't got ary right for ter go an' do sich a thing, nohow!”
Brian tried to check her, but she silenced him with: “I won't neither hush! I can't! I tell you I'm a-goin' ter say my say if you-all kills me! I've just naturally got ter! Seems like I was all afire inside an' would burn plumb up if I didn't! I've got rights, I reckon, if I be all crooked an' twisted out er shape, an' ugly-faced an' no learnin', ner nothin'.”
A dry sob choked the torrent of words for an instant; but, with a savage effort she went on: “I know I ain't nothin' alongside of her, but you-all ain't a-goin' ter have her just the same,—not if I have ter kill her first! You ain't got no right ter have her, nohow, 'cause hit's like's not you-all done got a woman already somewheres, wherever 'twas you-all come from; an' even if you ain't got no woman already, I sure ain't a-goin' ter let you have her! What'd she ever do for you? Hit was me what dragged you-all from the river when you was mighty nigh dead from licker an' too plumb sick ter save yourself! Hit's me that's kept from tellin' the Sheriff who you be an' a-takin' that there reward-money! Hit was me what jumped inter the river above Elbow Rock just ter git your dad burned old book, when you'd done throwed hit plumb away!
“I knowed first time I heard Auntie Sue name her what she'd do ter you! Any fool would a-knowed what a woman with a half-gal, half-boy name like her'n would do, an' she's done hit,—she sure has! But she ain't a-goin' ter do no more! You-all belongs ter me a heap more'n you do ter her,—if hit comes ter that,—though, I ain't a-foolin' myself none a-thinkin' that sich as you could ever take up with sich as me,—me bein' what I am. No, sir; I ain't never fooled myself ary bit like that, Mr. Burns. But hit ain't a-makin' no difference how ugly an' crooked an' no 'count I be outside; the inside of me is a-lovin' you like she never could, ner nobody else, I reckon. An' I'll just go on a-lovin' you, no matter what happens; an' I ain't a-carin' whether you got a woman already er not, er whether you-all have robbed er killed, er what you done. An'—an'—so I'm a-tellin' you, you'd best not let her come back here no more, 'cause—'cause I just naturally can't stand hit ter see youuns tergether! 'Fore God, I'm a-tellin' you true,—I'll sure hurt her!”
The girl's voice raised to a pitch of frenzied excitement, and, whirling, she pointed to the river, as she cried: “Look out there! What do you-all reckon your fine Betty Jo lady would do if I was ter git her ketched in them there rapids? What do you-all reckon the Elbow Rock water would do ter her? I'll tell you what hit'd do: Hit would smash an' grind an' tear an' hammer that there fine, straight body of hers 'til hit was all broken an' twisted an' crooked a heap worse'n what I be,—that's what hit would do; an' hit would scratch an' cut an' beat up that pretty face an' mess up her pretty hair an' choke her an' smother her 'til she was all blue-black an' muddy, an' her eyes was red an' starin', an' she was nothin' but just an ugly lump of dirt; an' hit wouldn't even leave her her fine clothes neither,—the Elbow Rock water wouldn't,—hit'd just naturally tear 'em off her, an' leave her 'thout ary thing what's makin' you love her like you're a-doin'! An' where would all her fine schoolin' an' smart talk an' pretty ways be then? Eh? She wouldn't be no better, nor half as good as me, I'm a-tellin' you, onct Elbow Rock got done with her!”
The poor creature finished in wild triumph; then suddenly, as though spent with the very fury of her passion, she turned from the river, and said dully: “You'd sure best not let her come back, sir! 'Fore God, I ain't a-wantin' ter do hit, but hit seems like I can't help myself; I can't sleep for wantin' ter fix hit so,—so's you just couldn't want ter have her no more'n you're a-wantin' me. I—I—sure ain't a-foolin' myself none, not ary bit, a-thinkin' you-all could ever git ter likin' sich as me; but, I can't help sort of dreamin' 'bout hit an' a-pretendin', an'—an' all the while I'm a-knowin', inside er me like, that there ain't nobody,—not Auntie Sue, nor this here Betty Jo, nor that there other woman, nor anybody,—what kin care for you like I'm a-carin',—they just naturally couldn't care like me; 'cause—'cause, you see, sir, I ain't got nobody else,—ain't no man but you ever even been decent ter me. I sure ain't got nobody else—”
The distraught creature's sobs prevented further speech, and she dropped down on the ground, weak and exhausted; her poor twisted body shaking and writhing with the emotion she could not voice.
For a little while, Brian Kent himself was as helpless as Judy. He could only stand dumbly, staring at her as she crouched at his feet. Then, very gently, he lifted her from the ground, and tried as best he could to comfort her. But he felt his words to be very shallow and inadequate, even though his own voice was trembling with emotion.
“Come, Judy, dear,” he said, at last, when she seemed to have in a measure regained her self-control. “Come. You must go back to the house, child.”
Drawing away from his supporting arm, she answered, quietly: “I ain't no child, no more, Mr. Burns: I'm sure a woman, now. I'm just as much a woman as—as—she is, if I be like what I am. I'm plumb sorry I had ter do this; but I just naturally couldn't help hit. You ain't got no call ter be scared I'll do hit again.”
When they were nearing the house, Judy stopped again, and, for a long minute, looked silently out over the moonlit river, while Brian stood watching her.
“Hit is pretty, ain't hit, Mr. Burns?” she said at last. “With the hills all so soft an'—an' dreamy-like, an' them clouds a-floatin' 'way up there over the top of Table Mountain; with the moon makin' 'em all silvery an' shiny 'round the edges, an' them trees on yon side the river lookin' like they was made er smoke er fog er somethin' like that; an' the old river hitself a-layin' there in The Bend like—like a long strip of shinin' gold,—hit sure is pretty! Funny, I couldn't never see hit that a-way before,—ain't hit?”
“Yes, Judy; it is beautiful to-night,” he said.
But Judy, apparently without hearing him, continued: “'Seems like I can sense a little ter-night what Auntie Sue an' youuns are allus a-talkin' 'bout the river,—'bout hit's bein' like life an' sich as that. An' hit 'pears like I kin kind of git a little er what you done wrote 'bout hit in your book,—'bout the currents an' the still places an' the rough water an' all. I reckon as how I'm a part of your river, too, ain't I, Mr. Burns?”
“Yes, Judy,” he answered, wonderingly; “we are all parts of the river.”
“I reckon you're right,” she continued. “Hit sure 'pears ter be that a-way. But I kin tell you-all somethin' else 'bout the river what you didn't put down in your book, Mr. Burns: There's heaps an' heaps er snags an' quicksands an' sunk rocks an' shaller places where hit looks deep an' deep holes where hit looks shaller, an' currents what's hid 'way down under that'll ketch an' drag you in when you ain't a-thinkin', an' drown you sure. 'Tain't all of the river what Auntie Sue an' youuns kin see from the porch. You see, I knows 'bout hit,—'bout them other things I mean,—'cause I was borned and growed up a-knowin' 'bout 'em; an'—an'—the next time you-all writes er book, Mr. Burns, I 'low you-all ought ter put in 'bout them there snags an' things, 'cause folks sure got ter know 'bout 'em, if they ain't a-wantin' ter git drowned.”
When Judy had gone into the house, Brian again sat alone on the porch.
An hour, perhaps, had passed when a voice behind him said: “Why, Brian, are you still up? I supposed you were in bed long ago.”
He turned to see Auntie Sue, standing in the doorway.
“And what in the world are you prowling about for, this time of the night?” Brian retorted, bringing a chair for her.
“I am prowling because I couldn't sleep,—thinking about you, Brian,” she answered.
“I fear that is the thing that is keeping me up, too,” he returned grimly.
“I know,” she said gently. “Sometimes, one's self does keep one awake. Is it—is it anything you care to tell me? Would it help for me to know?”
For some time, he did not answer; while the old teacher waited silently. At last, he spoke, slowly: “Auntie Sue, what is the greatest wrong that a woman can do?”
“The greatest wrong a woman can do, Brian, is the greatest wrong that a man can do.”
“But, what is it, Auntie Sue?” he persisted.
“I think,” she answered,—“indeed I am quite sure,—that the greatest wrong is for a woman to kill a man's faith in woman; and for a man to kill a woman's faith in man.”
Brian Kent buried his face in his hands.
“Am I right, dear?” asked the old gentlewoman, after a little.
And Brian Kent answered: “Yes, Auntie Sue, you are right—that is the greatest wrong.”
Again they were silent. It was as though few words were needed between the woman of seventy years and this man who, out of some great trouble, had been so strangely brought to her by the river.
Then the silvery-haired old teacher spoke again: “Brian, have you ever wondered that I am so alone in the world? Have you ever asked yourself why I never married?”
“Yes, Auntie Sue,” he answered. “I have wondered.”
“Many people have,” she said, with simple frankness. Then—“I am going to tell you something, dear boy, that only two people in the world beside myself ever knew, and they are both dead, many years now. I am going to tell you, because I feel—because I think—that, perhaps, it may help you a little. I, too, Brian, had my dreams when I was a girl,—my dreams of happiness,—such as every true woman hopes for;—of a home with all that home means;—of a lover-husband;—of little ones who would call me 'mother';—and my dreams ended, Brian, on a battlefield of the Civil War. He went from me the very day we were promised. He never returned. I have always felt that we were as truly one as though the church had solemnized and the law had legalized our union. I promised that I would wait for him.”
“And you—you have kept that promise? You have been true to that memory?” Brian Kent asked, wonderingly.
“I have been true to him, Brian;—all the years of my life I have been true to him.”
Brian Kent bowed his head, reverently.
Rising, the old gentlewoman went close to him, and put her hands on his shoulders. “Brian, dear, I have told you my secret because I thought it might help you to know. Oh, my boy—my boy,—don't—don't let anything—don't let anyone—kill your faith in womanhood! No matter how bitter your experience, you can believe, now, that there are women who can be faithful and true. Surely, you can believe it now, Brian,—you must!”
And as he caught her hands in his, and raised his face to whisper, “I do believe, Auntie Sue,” she stooped and kissed him.
Then, again, Brian Kent was alone in the night with his thoughts.
And the river swept steadily on its shining way through the moonlit world to the distant sea.
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