CHAPTER XVIII

It was seven o'clock on Main Street. A very faint glow still lingered in the western sky and above it cool points of stars p.r.i.c.ked a gray-blue curtain. Over to the left the moon was peeping above a gambrel roof and the near side was steely blue up to the shadow of the purple chimney. Joe walked along shuffling with his feet in the little hollows of dry leaves. They crunched cheerily, sending up a faint, dry fragrance. Up ahead was a dying fire with only here and there a tiny flame tongue; the rest, a black and smoking crust underlaid with dull embers. The smoke that curled upward from the fire was pale blue-gray and mixed with tiny dust particles, and it hung in thin motionless strata or came curling in feathery wisps almost invisible in the shadow but heavy laden with magic scent. Up slid the moon, till Main Street was a phantom cloister, the maple boles huge columns casting purple shadows on a milky floor. Fairy lights winked in hooded windows like deep-set eyes, and a soft warm haze lapped round him dreamily, lulling his senses.

Joe had left the road-camp and tramped three miles into town. In the dusk he had come upon it unawares; it seemed quite deserted. Very quietly he had come through the back lanes, and now it lay before him, its heart open in a sort of whispered confidence. Crude, inert, makeshift sort of place it might betray itself to be in daylight, it now lay snug and warm and breathing in its cl.u.s.ter of trees. It had gathered its brood to it, its warm lights blinking red, and above, clear liquid moonlight. Joe walked along slowly, an outsider, and yet feeling himself slipping somehow into the warmth and protection of the street. The odour of the burning leaves was heady, a superdistillate of memories. October and moonlight and burning leaves! It meant nuts and wine-sap apples, lingering in the dusk, watching the bull-bats rise. It meant hot supper and a ravenous appet.i.te and a slow roasting before an open fire. Sharp little pictures flashed before his eyes as he walked along, and he fancied he could hear the soft crunch of buggy wheels in the dried leaves and the pad-pad of hoofs. It all seemed wrapped up in the same parcel with his childhood, stored away somewhere in musty archives. You couldn't pull out one without stirring up all the others. He half closed his eyes and peered through his lashes down a sharp black line of roofs like a knife edge against a liquid, shimmering sky, down a broad ghostly band of silver white that was the road, all flecked and mottled with leaf shadows that moved slowly to and fro. He paused a moment. He scarcely dared breathe lest the whole thing vanish. A fairy touch on his arm, light as thistle-down, a subtle sense of warmth and a dim, intangible fragrance, and he started, blinking, and then walked on. Something was dry and dusty in his throat. "Golly, the old place sorta gets next to you on a night like this," he thought. "Guess I'd better get in.

They'll think I'm nuts, mooning around on the street all night."

He came to a long stretch of wooden picket fence, beyond it a silver plaque of moon-splashed gra.s.s, the house all hollow-eyed and gaunt, like a thing watching. As he approached the gate a man came hurrying out, his head hunched forward on his shoulders. Joe stood aside to let him pa.s.s. The man peered sharply at him from under his hat brim, grunted, and then pa.s.sed on. It was Mr. Burrus. Joe had a sense of being too late. Over the house hung the stillness of death, and a thing like Burrus leaving! It was an ugly thought. He walked up to the porch and knocked softly on the door.

A moment's silence and then it slowly opened. Someone stood in the doorway. A voice said, "Well?" in a low vibrant tone. There was blended in it the soft mistiness of the night, something of regret, something of purple shadows, something of stirring memories. He moistened his lips with his tongue.

"Is it you?" the voice went on, and then Mary Louise came out.

"I just heard to-day that Miss Susie had had another spell," he explained.

She stood beside him on the porch and looked up into his face. He could see she was shivering a little.

"Not to amount to anything," she said. "Aunt Susie has 'em periodically. She'll be all right in a day or two."

Joe stood in indecision. There had come a high-pitched, nervous tension into her tone, an eagerness that he did not like. The other thing had vanished.

"Won't you sit down?" said Mary Louise. "I'd ask you in, but Aunt Susie's asleep and the sound of our voices might disturb her. She hasn't had much sleep the last few nights."

Joe fingered his hat.

"Aren't you going to stay and tell me about yourself?" she urged.

"It's been ages since we had a talk. Let's go down to the summerhouse."

He felt doubtful. Already a chill was gathering in the air, and he fancied she spoke through set teeth. The charm was melting away and the moon, rising above the tops of the maples, seemed cheerless and cold. But he could not be unfriendly; she had had a lot to upset her.

He had read about Claybrook in the paper and while the news had caused him no discomfort--if anything quite the contrary--still, it was different now. She was alone in that bleak, staring house, alone with a sick woman. So he followed her awkwardly across the gra.s.s that was already gathering dew.

They sat facing each other in the summerhouse, sat on the edges of the chairs, bending slightly forward. Mary Louise was softly chafing her hands.

"So you've really come back," she began.

"Well, three miles from 'back,'" he replied. She was making a pretty brave show; her voice sounded bright and cheery. If only she would stop rubbing her hands together--be still for a moment.

"I expect we're meant for this place, Joe."

"Yes? How do you mean?"

"Oh, if you bend a twig young enough, the tree will grow that way."

She laughed softly and he gave her a quick look.

For a few moments they sat in silence.

"How did you happen to make another change, Joe?" she asked at length, very quietly.

He paused before replying. "Well," he began, "you see I've never had any real preparation for anything I was doin'. I never could have got anywhere. Those jobs I had in town--I just drifted into 'em. Anybody could have filled 'em. I--what was the use of 'em?" He paused and was silent.

She nodded slowly. "I think you said something like that once before.

I begin to see where you were right."

He made no reply. Why did she want to talk about such things? He hoped she wouldn't bring in Claybrook and her relations with him. He did not feel in the mood for raking over ashes.

"Has Miss Susie been in bed?" He carefully headed on another tack.

"Oh, up and down. She's always that way. You cannot imagine how surprised I was to see you with that road gang. I was riding along with Zeke, all wrapped up in my thoughts, and suddenly I looked up and saw you there----" She trailed off and sat thinking.

Again he was uneasy. Apparently the uncomfortable topic was not entirely buried yet. It might rise up exhumed, in its shroud, any moment.

"Yes," he said. "I'm used to that sort of thing--managin' n.i.g.g.e.rs. Had 'em doin' most every sort of rough work in my time, diggin' ditches, mendin' roads, cuttin' fence posts--all that sort of thing. Guess it's about all I'm fit for." The effort died lugubriously and he sat, waiting. He hated personal confidences and there hung a most particularly uncomfortable one in the offing.

The silence was like a living thing. It crushed down upon the summerhouse with huge, downy black wings. A very faint rustling started up in the dry leaves of the creeper on the roof and clammy little draughts of air came twisting through the cracks. All the languorous glamour of the night had pa.s.sed. It was merely autumn moonlight, and too late in the year to be sitting out in a summerhouse mouthing inconsequentialities--two people who were old enough to know better. Joe stirred restlessly. Surely she must be convinced that he meant to be friendly. He leaned back and looked up at the sky.

"What do you mean to do, Joe?" Mary Louise began again.

"Huh?" He recovered with a start. "Oh, I don't know. Think sometimes I will come back and try my hand at farmin'. Think maybe I'll be more of a real person doing that than anything else I know. But this road business is a necessary thing. Bloomfield needs a good road--all the way into the city. Something to put her on the map. Maybe with a good road we can get somewhere." Speaking out the idea seemed to crystallize it. He began to enthuse a little over it inwardly.

"Mightn't be so bad. Might buy back the old place even, some day.

Jenkins is not makin' too much speed with it, I hear."

Mary Louise leaned forward toward him.

"Oh, Joe, I wish you would," she said. "I've been thinking a lot here lately and it seems to me it's just as essential for real men to settle and live in places like Bloomfield as anywhere else. Big people should spread their influence. Why should they all cl.u.s.ter in little knots and bunches like the cities? I think there's a better chance to grow--here. I really do." She turned away and sat with her chin on her hands, her face averted.

Joe, carried momentarily away with the thought, did not notice her agitation; moreover, it was quite dark in the summerhouse, with only odds and ends of moonlight slipping through the roof. And he did not answer her, but sat thinking.

"I'm going to," she continued after a bit, her voice sounding somewhat broken and m.u.f.fled against her open hand.

"Goin' to what?"

"Going to stay here and see what I can make out of it."

She was groping for his friendship and he did not know it. A new line of thought had been stimulated and it brought up very pleasing pictures. After all, what could be better than a respectable life on a farm producing things, seeing the direct results of the work of his own hands, establishing his very own ident.i.ty? By contrast, how much better than working for someone else, furnishing the effort while someone else worked out the plans, losing his ident.i.ty completely in an economic machine? He could start modestly, pay off as he went, out of the profits. And meantime, he could be living--real life. Only first he must get a little money to make a start on.

He realized Mary Louise had spoken, paused in his thought and then remembered. "Oh--yeah. Don't know but what it's about the best thing to do. Might try it myself--soon's I can get enough money together."

She made no reply and he watched her dim profile. Her head drooped quite dejectedly. There was a little splash of moonlight on her cheek; tendrils of her hair curled about the line of her neck. "She's had a pretty heavy b.u.mp," he thought.

He briskly rose to his feet. "Must be on my way," he said and stood looking down at the shadow of her. "It's three miles or more out to the camp. We get up at six."

For a moment she did not move, and then heavily she stood up. She made no protest and he could not see her face. If only he might get away, now that he had started, she might not be tempted to make any allusions to her affair. He shunned it instinctively as a dark closet containing a few unburied bones of his own skeleton.

Accordingly he walked slowly out upon the lawn and headed for the front gate. He could feel the dew lapping about his ankles through his socks and his shadow was clear cut and black on the gra.s.s, Mary Louise came and walked the short distance by his side, neither saying a word.

They came to the gate and stood there in silence. Not a sound could be heard, the street stretching along before them a broad white ribbon, with splotches of mottled shade along the edges, the dark line of houses across the street like mysterious creatures crouching in the shadow.

As they stood there, each occupied with his own thoughts, there came a distant sound, low and yet distinct, like the sound of one metal striking upon another. It was clear and somewhat musical, lingering in the air with a dying cadence. As the waves of sound died slowly away there came silence and then the soft rustle of the leaves overhead.