And still morning after morning, with lowered head and dragging footstep, he returned to the house alone--still alone; not so much as a single egg as companion.

Then it was that a pair of imp-like, black eyes danced 'neath the careless ringlets above them.

"How would you like your door-k.n.o.b this morning--hard or soft?"

This raillery went on day after day until even Steve--gentle, patient Steve had enough.

He looked up at the window and said quietly, but firmly:

"There, Nannie, drop it, if you please."

"On toast?" she screamed, and Steve went into the house.

But his triumph was near at hand, for one morning, about four weeks after he had bought the chickens, he discovered something besides the door-k.n.o.b in one of the nests, and forthwith came strutting toward the house, holding the egg on high that Nannie might see it from the window of her room.

Hearing no noise he looked up. Was she dead? Ah, no! There she sat, straining her eyes through a field-gla.s.s to see the yield of his first month.

"Mix well," she called to him, "thirteen hens, one rooster, one door-k.n.o.b, and one month, and you'll have a delicious egg."

And again Steve got into the house.

He was obliged to come out again later on, for there were many things upon this miniature plantation which were clamoring for attention.

Indeed, Steve was slowly coming to believe in communities, such a.s.sociations meaning in his mind a body of men banded together to run a small acre of ground; one man attending to the chickens, one to the fruit trees, one to the vegetable garden, one to the horse, several to the cow, and so on. It will be seen later on why, in this distribution of labor, Steve always a.s.signed several men--able-bodied at that--to the cow. It has already been mentioned that he was persuaded early in his matrimonial career to buy a beast of this variety. This beautiful animal (for she was handsome, unless she be judged by the homely rule that regulates beauty by conduct) he immediately presented to Nannie.

Whether she was originally vicious (and this her former owner vehemently denied) or was affected by the nature of her mistress, no one knows. Suffice it to say that upon Nannie's flying out of the house to gaze upon her new possession, the latter lowered her head, raised her tail like a flagstaff, and galloped to meet her, and it was only by the execution of a sort of double-barreled backward somersault that Nannie saved her life.

"Most extraordinary conduct," said Steve. "Threatening from both ends."

Nannie was in no wise dismayed, and either by reason of her fearlessness or because of a secret bond between their natures, she and Sarah Maria--for so she named her after a troublesome neighbor--became comrades after a fashion. Between Sarah Maria and Brownie, however, there was always war from horn to heel, and nothing could effect a reconciliation. The danger of this enmity was clearly demonstrated on a Sabbath morning, otherwise peaceful, when Nannie started out with Brownie (the former carrying a milk pail, for some reason best known to herself, since she knew nothing of milking) and went down to the pasture for Sarah Maria. The latter was awaiting them at the bars, and, as it appeared, was ready for the business of the day. No sooner was she liberated from the bondage of the pasture than she made a bold charge upon Brownie, who promptly took to cover behind his mistress, barking the while in a manner both rasping and aggravating to one of Sarah Maria's irritable nervous system. The bovine's attention being now drawn to Nannie, it behooved the latter to clear the path, and in short order, and Steve, who came running to the scene, attracted by the din of battle, beheld with horror-stricken sight a confused medley consisting of wife, dog, Sarah Maria, milk pail--all going head over heels into the nearest ditch.

By some miracle no one was hurt, and an energetic use of the milk pail--a use unforeseen by the manufacturers--restored quiet to the agitated district.

It was soon after this escapade that Jacob, the man about the place thought himself called to some other profession than farming, and accordingly left. As Sarah Maria remained, it was necessary to secure a milker. This difficulty was happily surmounted about eleven o'clock the first morning, when a man selling rustic chairs appeared upon the scene and good-naturedly consented for the time to step within the breach made by Jacob's disappearance.

Later on it was borne in on Steve's consciousness that he was the man to whom Sarah Maria must look for relief. The situation was a critical one, but Steve's was not a nature to shirk responsibilities or shun sacrifices. Accordingly, arming himself with a hatchet and a club, on the end of which latter instrument he suspended the milk pail, he set out, and in this new business worked with such gentle deliberation that at the end of an hour he could have shown a quart of milk for his pains had not Sarah Maria testified to her respect for the day of small things by lifting the aforementioned pail on high.

By the end of a week, however, Steve succeeded in bringing his milking lessons to a favorable conclusion, and was ready to take his place not among the best, it is true, but still among the milkers of the world.

He must have prosecuted his education with remarkable ardor, for his overalls had given out in spots, and one industrious day Nannie took it into her head to patch them. Having no suitable material at hand--such is the misfortune of the newly wedded, with everything whole about them--she utilized some Scotch plaid pieces left over from a tea gown. But hardly was the patch well set than she began to reflect that its rather conspicuous beauty would no doubt catch the eye of Sarah Maria, and might occasion nothing less than Steve's death if he were taken unawares when his back was turned. To extract the patch was not to be thought of for a moment, since it was a wonderful triumph of art for Nannie, nor could she consent, wicked though she was, to let Steve walk forth arrayed in all its glory. A bottle of shoe polish solved the problem and made a somewhat stiff but subdued foundation, upon which Steve rested with more or less insecurity.

VII

One morning Nannie was out in the garden, not at work as she should have been (she left all that to Steve), but walking around in a sort of lordly way, after the fashion of many idlers in this world who without scruple appropriate the results of industry.

She had often noted an old codger whose place backed up on hers, but had never held any converse with him. This morning, however, he seemed inclined to break the ice, as it were, for as she strutted about he leaned on the fence and said cheerily:

"Good-morning, neighbor."

Nannie gave one glance at his old broad-brimmed straw hat and rusty overalls, and then said with a certain winning sauciness all her own:

"Good-morning, old Hayseed."

The man laughed. He had a rotund, jovial countenance, which even his smoked gla.s.ses could not plunge into gloom. His every feature had an upward turn, and there was something strong and good about the face that made one feel that his heart also curved upward.

"So ye're gard'nin', be yer?" he remarked by way of introduction.

"No, I ain't," said Nannie curtly. "Steve gardens, and you know it.

You've seen him bent like a bow over these beds ever since we came here."

"Yes, that's so."

"And I've held myself as straight as an arrow."

"Now thet's so, too," and the old man laughed. "Ye're cute, yer air."

"I can see right ahead of me. I don't wear smoked gla.s.ses," said Nannie with a pretty little grimace.

"There's a deal goes on ahind smoked gla.s.ses sometimes," said the old fellow with a laugh.

"How do you keep house?" asked Nannie with an abrupt change of subject. "You haven't any wife or daughter."

"I don't keep it; jest trust it. Don't turn no key nor nothin' on it, an' I ain't never knowed it to stray outside ther yard. Ther's a heap in hevin' faith in things."

Nannie's face grew thoughtful.

"Yer kin 'most b'lieve a man inter bein' honest, an' I reckon it acts ther same on wimmin, though they be a leetle different."

Nannie looked up from under her curls with a glance half inquiring, half defiant.

"When wimmin's young they be like a colt--it's hard ter keep 'em stiddy. When they git older they be somethin' like a mule--it's hard ter start 'em up now an' agin."

"I guess men are the same. They belong to the same stock--all the world's akin, you know," said Nannie mischievously.

"All the world's akin, eh?" said the old man slowly, turning this thought over in his mind. "Well, now, mebbe thet's so, but if it is ther's a deal of difference atween ther cousins."

Again Nannie's face grew thoughtful. Then she raised her eyes and pointed, with a little laugh, to a pa.s.ser-by.

"There goes one kind of a cousin, I suppose."

"He's a c.o.o.n," said the old man. "Him an' his mother, they live off yonder nigh ther swamp. They used ter own this 'ere place ye're on, an' then it pa.s.sed ter ther datter, an' then her husban' bought it.

She's in ther insane asylum now, an' these rel'tives claim she ain't crazy, but thet she was put in by ther malice of her husban'. An' they claim he's got ther place wrongful, an' hadn't a right ter sell ter you folks."

"That's why they're bothering us so?"

"Thet's why," said old Hayseed.