Homer gets vivacious and smirks something horrible, and says, well, he don't see why people make a secret of such things; and the fact is that that lady and him have about decided that Fate has flung 'em together for a lofty purpose. Of course nothing was settled definite yet--no dates nor anything; but probably before long there'd be a nice little home adorning a certain place he'd kept his eye on, and someone there keeping a light in the window for him--and so on. It sounded almost too good to be true that this old sh.e.l.lback had been harpooned at last.

Then Minna spoke up, when Homer had babbled to a finish, and smirked and looked highly offensive. She says brightly:

"Oh, yes; Mrs. Judson Tolliver. I know her well; and I'm sure, Mr. Gale, I wish you all the happiness in the world with the woman of your choice.

She's a very sterling character indeed--and such a good mother!"

"How's that?" says Homer. "I didn't hear you just right. Such a good what?"

"I said she's such a good mother," Minna answers him.

Homer's smirk kind of froze on his face.

"Mother to what?" he says in a low, pa.s.sionate tone, like an actor.

"Mother to her three little ones," says Minna. Then she says again quick: "Why, what's the matter, Mr. Gale?" For Homer seemed to have been took bad.

"Great G.o.dfrey!" he says, hardly able to get his voice.

"And, of course, you won't mind my saying it," Minna goes on, "because you seem so broad-minded about children, but when I taught primary in Red Gap last year those three little boys of hers gave me more trouble than any other two dozen of the pests in the whole room."

Homer couldn't say anything this time. He looked like a doctor was knifing him without anesthetics.

"And to make it worse," says Minna, "the mother is so crazy about them, and so sensitive about any little thing done to them in the way of discipline--really, she has very little control of her language where those children are concerned. Still, of course, that's how any good mother will act, to be sure; and especially when they have no father.

"I'm glad indeed the poor woman is to have someone like you that will take the responsibility off her shoulders, because those boys are now at an age where discipline counts. Of course she'll expect you to be gentle with them, even though firm. Oswald--he's eleven now, I believe--will soon be old enough to send to reform school; but the younger ones, seven and nine--My! such spirits as they have! They'll really need someone with strength."

Homer was looking as if this bright chatter would add twenty years to his age. He'd slumped down on the stoop, where he'd been setting, like he'd had a stroke.

"So she's that kind, is she?" he kind of mutters. "A good thing I found it out on her!"

"The children live with their grandmother in Red Gap while their mother is away," says Minna. "They really need a strong hand."

"Not mine!" says Homer. Then he got slowly up and staggered down a few steps toward the gate. "It's a good thing I found out this scandal on her in time," says he. "Talk about underhandedness! Talk about a woman hiding her guilty secret! Talk about infamy! I'll expose her, all right. I'm going straight to her and tell her I know all. I'll make her cower in shame!" He's out on his horse with his reckless threat.

"Now you've sunk the ship," I says to Minna. "I knew the woman was leading a double life as fur as Homer was concerned, but I wasn't going to let on to the poor zany. It's time he was speared, and this would of been a judgment on him that his best friends would of relished keenly.

Lots of us was looking forward to the tragedy with great pleasure. You spoiled a lot of fun for the valley."

"But it would not have been right," says Minna. "It would truly have been the blackest of tragedies to a man of Mr. Gale's sensitive fibres. You can't enter into his feelings because you never taught primary. Also, I think he is very far from being a poor zany, as you have chosen to call him." The poor thing was warm and valiant when she finished this, looking like Joan of Arc or someone just before the battle.

And Homer never went back and made the lady cower like he said he meant to. Mebbe it occurred to him on the way that she was not one of them that cower easy. Mebbe he felt he was dealing with a desperate adventuress, as cunning as she was false-hearted. Anyway, he weakened like so many folks that start off brave to tell someone so-and-so right to their faces. He didn't go back at all till the middle of the night, when he p.u.s.s.yfooted in and got his things out, and disappeared like he had stumbled down a well.

Uncle Henry had to feed his own stock next morning, while Mrs. Tolliver took on in great alarm and wanted a posse formed to rescue Homer from wherever he was. Her first idea was that he had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom; but someway she couldn't get any one else very hearty about this notion. So then she said he had been murdered, or was lying off in the brush somewhere with a broken leg.

It was pointed out to her that Homer wouldn't be likely to come and collect all his things in the night in order to keep a date with an a.s.sa.s.sin, or even to have his leg broke. About the third day she guessed pretty close to the awful truth and spoke a few calm words about putting her case in the hands of some good lawyer.

The valley was interested. It looked like a chance for the laugh of the year. It looked like the lightnings of a just heaven had struck where they was long overdue. Then it was discovered that Homer was hiding out over in the hills with a man after coyotes with traps and poison. His job must of appealed to Homer's cynical nature at that moment--anything with traps and poison in it.

Dave Pickens was the man that found him, he not having much else to do.

And he let Homer know the worst he could think of without mincing words.

He said the deserted fiancee was going to bring suit against Homer for one hundred thousand dollars--that being the biggest sum Dave could think of--for breach of promise, and Homer might as well come out and face the music.

Homer did come out, bold as bra.s.s. He'd been afraid the lady might gun him or act violent with something; but if she wasn't threatening anything but legal violence he didn't care. He just couldn't conceive that a lady with three children could make a suit like that stick against any man--especially three children that was known to be h.e.l.lions. He didn't even believe the lady would start a suit--not with the facts of her shame known far and wide. He was jaunty and defiant about this, and come right out of hiding and agreed to work for me again, Scott Humphrey having sent his wife and children on a visit to Grandma Humphrey.

But, lands. He didn't earn his salt. Friends and well-wishers took the jauntiness all out of him in no time. Parties rode from far and near to put him wise. Ranchers from ten miles up and down the creek would drop important work just to ride over and tell him harsh facts about the law, and how, as man to man, it looked dark indeed for him. These parties told him that the possession of three children by a lawful widow was not regarded as criminal by our best courts. It wasn't even considered shameful. And it was further pointed out by many of the same comforters that the children would really be a help to the lady in her suit, cinching the sympathy of a jury.

Also, they didn't neglect to tell him that probably half the jury would be women--wives and mothers. And what chance would he have with women when they was told how he regarded children? He spent a good half of the time I paid him for in listening to these friendly words. They give Homer an entirely new slant on our boasted civilization and lowered it a whole lot in his esteem.

About the only person in the whole valley that wasn't laughing at him and giving him false sympathy with a sting in its tail was Minna Humphrey.

Homer told her all about the foul conspiracy against his fortune, and how his life would be blasted by marrying into a family with three outcasts like he'd been told these was. And what was our courts coming to if their records could be stained by blackmailers.

And Minna give him the honest sympathy of a woman who had taught school twelve years, loathed the sight of any human under twenty, and even considered that the inst.i.tution of marriage had been greatly overpraised.

Certainly she felt it was not for her; and she could understand Homer's wanting to escape. She and him would set out and discuss his chances long after he had ought to of been in bed if he was going to earn his pay.

Minna admitted that things looked dark for him on account of the insane prejudice that would be against him for his views on children. She said he couldn't expect anything like a fair trial where these was known even with a jury of his peers; and it was quite true that probably only five or six of the jury would be his peers, the rest being women.

Homer told me about these talks--out of working hours, you can bet! How Minna was the only person round that would stand by anyone in trouble; how she loathed kids, and even loathed the thought of human marriage.

"Minna is a nice girl," I told him; "but I should think you'd learn not to pay attention to a woman that talks about children that way. Remember this other lady talked the same way about 'em before the scandal come out."

But he was indignant that any one could suspect Minna's child hating wasn't honest.

"That little girl is pure as a prism!" he says. "When she says she hates 'em, she hates 'em. The other depraved creature was only working on my better nature."

"Well," I says, "the case does look black; but mebbe you could settle for a mere five thousand dollars."

"It wouldn't be a mere five thousand dollars," says Homer; "it would be the savings of a lifetime of honest toil and watching the pennies. That's all I got."

"Serves you right, then," I says, "for not having got married years ago and having little ones of your own about your knee!"

Homer shuddered painfully when I said this. He started to answer something back, but just choked up and couldn't.

The adventuress had, of course, sent letters and messages to Homer. The early ones had been pleading, but the last one wasn't. It was more in the nature of a base threat if closely a.n.a.lyzed. Then she finished up her sewing at the Mortimers' and departed for Red Gap, leaving a final announcement to anybody it concerned that she would now find out if there was any law in the land to protect a defenseless woman in her sacred right to motherhood.

Homer shivered when he heard it and begun to think of making another get-away, like he had done from Idaho. He thought more about it when someone come back from town and said she was really consulting a lawyer.

He'd of gone, I guess, if Minna hadn't kept cheering him up with sympathy and hating children with him. Homer was one desperate man, but still he couldn't tear himself away from Minna.

Then one morning he gets a letter from the Red Gap lawyer. It says his client, Mrs. Judson Tolliver, has directed him to bring suit against Homer for five thousand dollars; and would Homer mebbe like to save the additional cost--which would be heavy, of course--by settling the matter out of court and avoiding pain for all?

Homer was in a state where he almost fell for this offer. It was that or facing a jury that would have it in for him, anyway, or disappearing like he had done in Idaho; only this lady was highly determined, and reports had already come to him that he would be watched and nailed if he tried to leave. It would mean being hounded from pillar to post, even if he did get away. He went down and put it up to Minna, as I heard later.

"I'm a desperate man," he says, "being hounded by this here catamount; and mebbe it's best to give in."

"It's outrageous!" says Minna. "Of course you don't care about the money; but it's the principle of the thing."

"Well, yes and no," says Homer. "You might say I care some about the money. That's plain nature, and I never denied I was human."

So they went on to discuss it back and forth warmly, when a misunderstanding arose that I was very careful to get the rights of a couple of weeks later.