In the meantime Red's actions would have awakened suspicion. He hunted around until he found a tin can, then lit a match and rummaged the barn, amid terror-stricken squawks from the inhabitants, the hens.

"One, two, three, four," he counted. "Reckon I can last out till morning on that. Mattie, she's white people--just the nicest I ever saw, but she ain't used to providing for a full-grown man."

He stepped to the back of the barn and looked about him. "n.o.body can see me from here," he said, in satisfaction. Then he sc.r.a.ped together a pile of chips and sticks and built a fire, filled the tin can at the brook, sat it on two stones over the fire, rolled himself a cigarette and waited. A large, yellow tom-cat came out of the brush and threw his green headlights on him, meaowing tentatively.

"h.e.l.lo, p.u.s.s.y!" said Red. "You hungry too? Well, just wait a minute, and we'll help that feeling--like bread, p.u.s.s.y?" The cat gobbled the morsel greedily, came closer and begged for more. The tin can boiled over. Red popped the eggs in, puffed his cigarette to a bright coal, and looked at his watch by the light. "Gee! Ten minutes more, now!" said he. "Hardly seems to me as if I could wait." He pulled the watch out several times. "What's the matter with the d.a.m.n thing? I believe it's stopped," he growled. But at last "Time!" he shouted gleefully, kicked the can over and gathered up its treasures in his handkerchief.

"Now, Mr. Cat, we're going to do some real eating," said he. "Just sit right down and make yourself at home--this is kind of fun, by Jinks!" Down went the eggs and down went the loaf of bread in generous slices, never forgetting a fair share for the cat.

"Woosh! I feel better!" cried Red, "and now for some sleep." He swung up into the hay-loft, spread the blanket on the still fragrant old hay, and rolled himself up in a trice.

"I did a good turn when I came on here," he mused. "If I have got only one relation, she's a dandy--so pretty and quiet and nice.

She's a marker for all I've got, is Mattie."

The cat came up, purring and "making bread." He sniffed feline fashion at Red's face.

"Foo! Shoo! Go 'way, p.u.s.s.y! Settle yourself down and we'll pound our ear for another forty miles. I like you first rate when you don't walk on my face." He stretched and yawned enormously. "Yes sir! Mattie's all right," said he. "A-a-a-ll ri-" and Chantay Seeche Red was in the land of dreams. Here, back in G.o.d's country, within twenty miles of the place where he was born, the wanderer laid him down again, and in spite of raid and foray, whisky and poker-cards, wear-and-tear, hard times, and hardest test of all, sudden fortune, he was much the same impulsive, honest, generous, devil-may-care boy who had left there twenty-four years ago.

II

The next morning when Red awoke, arrows of gold were shooting through the holes in the old barn, and outside, the bird life, the twittering and chirping, the fluent whistle and the warble, the cackle and the pompous crow, were in full chorus.

"Where am I at, this time?" said he, as he took in the view. "Oh, I remember!" and his heart leapt. "I'm in my own home, by the Lord!"

He went down to the brook and washed, drying hands and face on the silk neckerchief, which is meant for use as well as for decoration.

In the meantime, Miss Mattie had awakened, with a sense of something delightful at hand, the meaning of which escaped her for the time. And then she remembered, and sprang out of bed like a girl. She went to the window, threw open the shutters and let the stirring morning air flow in. This had been her habit for a long time. The window faced away from the road, and no one could see who was not on Miss Mattie's own premises.

But this morning Red had wandered around. Stopping at the rose bushes he picked a bud.

"That has the real old-time smell," he said, as he held it to his nose. "Sweetbriars are good, and I don't go back on 'em, but they ain't got the fram these fellers have."

Bud in hand he walked beneath Miss Mattie's windows, and he was the first thing her eye fell upon.

Her startled exclamation made him look up before she had time to withdraw.

"h.e.l.lo there!" he called joyfully. "How do you open up this day? You look pretty well!" he added with a note of admiration.

Miss Mattie had the wavy hair which is never in better order than when left to its own devices. Her idea of coiffure was not the most becoming that could have been selected, as she felt that a "young" style of hair dressing was foolish for a single woman of her years.

Now, with the pretty soft hair flying, her eyes still humid with sleep, and a touch of color in her face from the surprise, relieved against the fleecy shawl she had thrown about her shoulders, she was incontestably both a discreet and pretty picture. Yet Miss Mattie could not forget the bare feet and night-gown, although they were hidden from masculine eyes by wood and plaster, and she was embarra.s.sed. Still, with all the super-sensitive fancies, Miss Mattie had a strong back-bone of New England common-sense. She answered that she felt very well indeed, and, to cover any awkwardness, inquired what he had in his hand.

"Good old rose," replied Red. "Old-time smeller--better suited to you than to me--ketch!"

At the word he tossed it, and Miss Mattie caught it dexterously. Red had an exceedingly keen eye for some things, and he noticed the certainty of the action. He hated fumblers. "A person can do things right if they've got minds that work," was one of his pet sayings. "'Taint the muscles at all--it's in the head, and I like the kind of head that's in use all the time." Therefore this small affair made an impression on him.

"Why, you could be a baseball player," said he.

"I used to play with Joe, when I was a girl," said Miss Mattie, smiling. "I always liked boy's play better than I did girl's. Joe taught me how to throw a ball, too. He said he wouldn't play with me unless I learned not to 'scoop it,' girl fashion. I suppose you will be wanting breakfast?" There was a hint of sarcasm in the doubt of the inquiry.

"That's what I do!" said Red. "You must just hustle down and get things to boiling, or I'll throw bricks through the windows.

I've been up for the last two hours."

"Why! I don't believe it!" said Miss Mattie.

"No more do I, but it seems like it,"

replied Red. "Don't you want the fire started?

Come down and open up the house."

When Miss Mattie appeared at the door, in he strode with an armful of wood, dropping it man-fashion, crash! on the floor.

"Skip out of the way!" said he. "I'll show you how to build a fire!"

The early morning had been the most desolate time to Miss Mattie. As the day warmed up the feeling of loneliness vanished, perhaps to return at evening, but not then with the same absoluteness as when she walked about the kitchen to the echo of her own footsteps in the morning.

Now the slamming and the banging which accompanied Red's energetic actions rang in her ears most cheerily. She even found a relish in the smothered oath that heralded the thrust of a splinter in his finger. It was very wicked, but it was also very much alive.

Red arose and dusted off his knees. "Now we're off!" he said as the fire began to roar.

"What's next?"

"If you'd grind the coffee, Will?" she suggested.

"Sure! Where's the hand organ?"

He put the mill between his knees, and converted the beans to powder, to the tune of "Old dog Tray" through his nose, which Miss Mattie found very amusing.

She measured out the coffee, one spoonful for each cup, and one for the pot. Red watched her patiently, and when she had finished, he threw in the rest of the contents of the mill-drawer. "I like it fairly strong," said he in explanation.

"Now, Will!" protested Miss Mattie.

"Look at you! That will be as bitter as boneset!"

"Thin her up with milk and she'll be all right," replied Red.

"Well, such wasteful ways I never did see.

n.o.body'd think you were a day over fifteen."

"I'm not," said Red stoutly, "and,"

catching her chin in his hand and turning her face up toward him--"n.o.body'd put your score much higher than that neither, if they trusted to their eyes this morning."

The compliment hit so tender a place that Miss Mattie lacked the resolution to tear it out, besides, it was so honest that it sounded much less like a compliment than a plain statement of fact. She bent hastily over the fire.

"I'm glad I look young, Will," she said softly.

"So'm I!" he a.s.sented heartily. "What's the sense in being old, anyhow? I'm as limber and good for myself as ever I was, in spite of my forty years."

"You're not _forty_ years old!" exclaimed Miss Mattie. "You're joking!"

"Nary joke--forty round trips from flying snow to roses since I hit land, Mattie--why, you were only a little girl when I left here--don't you remember? You and your folks came to see us the week before I left. I got a thrashing for taking you and Joe to the millpond, and helping you to get good and wet.

The thrashing was one of the things that gave me a hankering for the West. Very liberal man with the hickory, father. Spare the clothes and spoil the skin was his motto. He used to make me strip to the waist--phee-hew!