"You see how hit is, Mr. Lindsay; you can't put no dependence on Miss Lucy's estimate o' people."

"And we oughtn't to blame her fer that," said Mr. Lindsay: "the charity that 'thenks no evil' hain't so common in folks as to be a bad theng!

Miss Lucy, she's a Christian, ef there ever wuz one in Kentucky, I reckon, and ef she wuz ever out o' humor I never knowed hit. But"--his face darkened, and though his voice did not rise above its ordinary soft murmur, there was a tremulous vibration in it that told that he was fiercely moved--"she's mighty fooled in old Brock, ef she thenks he's good!"

"Hit's her cousin, Sim Willis, that's a makin' 'em thenk that," broke in Jim. "He considers Brock all right, because they both vote the same ticket, I reckon, and he hain't caught on yit to Brock's night habits."

"Hit's a pity," continued Mr. Lindsay, "but what Miss Lucy knowed about him a gittin' blind drunk in town a Christmas Eve, and a havin' to be carried down to the cellar and laid there like a sack o' bran ontel mornin'.

"I wuz in town a gittin' ready to start out, and Reub Brock, he come to me, a beggin' me to please come and holp him carry his pappy sommers. I didn't want to, but I felt sorry fer Reub--him a puffin' and a wheezin'--tryin' to git the old dead drunk fool off the sidewalk to where he wouldn't be run over er freeze, so I tuck holt, and we got him down in the cellar! Made me plumb sick a handlin' him!"

"I'd jest tell Miss Lucy," suggested Jim. "What's the use in keepin'

back thengs a body ought to know?"

"I hain't never told hit to n.o.body, on account o' Reub and Evy,"

declared Mr. Lindsay. "Reub said, Christmas, 'Fer poor Mammy's sake, Mr.

Lindsay, don't tell on Pappy!' and I hain't up to this time.

"I been a keepin' back more'n that too. The Jameses always set sech store by old Brock, and he wuzn't a pesterin' me, but--" he rose and threw on his coat, a hot and angry red flushing his face--"but now I despise the old snivellin' hypocrite! My mother always taught me the sin o' fightin', and I have tried to live at peace with ever'body like she taught me to, but ef I'd 'a' been brung up to wipe out them that needs a wipin' out, there wouldn't be no trace of old Brock in this vicinity long! And I'm a goin' to let Miss Lucy James know how her new beau's been in the habit o' conductin' himse'f, ef hit's the last act o' my life!"

CHAPTER VIII

AT THE TOBACCO BARN

"Farewell grief and welcome joy, Ten thousand times therefore!"

"Got on your red waist ag'in this mornin', have you? Tuck to primpin' on a week day fer old Lindsay, have you, and what does he keer fer you? And ef he did, what is _he_ anyhow? I jest wisht you knowed somethin' I've heard about him lately!"

Miss Lucy's eyes, circled and swollen, told on Monday morning of a troubled and sleepless night. She turned wearily away from Miss Nancy, making no attempt at excuse for the new waist which she had thrust on hastily in the darkness when she arose, too dispirited to care what she put on. Mr. Lindsay, coming in at this moment, met Miss Lucy's look of consternation with one of settled determination.

Miss Nancy's last words (she never mumbled her speeches, but invariably made them sharp and distinct) had reached him, and given his resolution to speak to Miss Lucy at the earliest opportunity, a sudden impetus, like that given a door that bursts open behind a fierce blast of wind.

The little dairy under the harness-room was out of range of the kitchen windows, and quite out of earshot.

"Let me carry the milk down the milk-house steps fer you, Miss Lucy," he suggested, as Miss Lucy attempted to lift one of the pails from the table: "the wind's a blowin' turrible hard, and might blow you down with them full buckets." But Miss Nancy forestalled him.

"Me and Lucy together can git them two buckets safe in the milk-house, I reckon, Mr. Lindsay. Ain't no use you a doin' ever'thing," she said, with the handle of each tin pail in a tenacious grasp.

"Open the milk-house door, Lucy."

Mr. Lindsay, rebuffed, withdrew to the woodpile, defeated for the time, but with purpose undaunted. Under cover of the stone walls of the dairy, Miss Nancy further browbeat her sister.

"Lucy, hain't you ashamed o' yourse'f a lettin' Lindsay foller you around all the mornin'?"

"He ain't been a follerin' me around, Nancy," faltered Miss Lucy.

"He ain't?" Scorn gave Miss Nancy's voice a hoa.r.s.e note. "I reckon you're green enough to thenk, too, old Zeke's hind feet don't foller his front ones when he's a walkin': but I ain't! See here, Lucy Ann, this foolishness is got to be stopped. You don't want to have folks a talkin'

about you, do you?"

Nothing to the sisters was more dreaded than to be "talked about."

"Then you jest keep yourse'f out o' his way, 'tel he leaves here for good, Wednesday. Termorrer is marketin' day, and the mud'll be dried enough ef the wind keeps up fer you to go, and today you can jest git ready and go up to Becky Willises, and stay all day."

"Hit's sorter muddy for walkin', Nancy," objected Miss Lucy.

"'Twon't hurt you: you can wear your gum shoes!" spouted Miss Nancy, stamping up the rough stone steps.

"I won't go to Becky's a cryin'," thought Miss Lucy, as she neared the yard of Jim Doggett, beyond which, a few hundred yards, lay the house of her cousin: "Becky'd ask so many questions! I believe I'll jest stop here, and see Henrietty and little Katie."

Henrietty greeted her with her hands in a bowl of bread-dough. Katie ran to her with a little happy cry: "O Miss Lucy, I's dot somepin' show 'oo!

Tome wis me--I's dot somepin' show 'oo in the batter barn!"

"Why, Katie, let Miss Lucy have time to take off her thengs!"

expostulated her mother. "Hit's puppies she's a talkin' about," she explained: "I'm sortie feerd fer her to go out to the barn by herse'f, a thenkin' a tier pole might fall on her. I've been skeered o' barns ever sence that time Gil Dutton broke his knee all to pieces on account of a tier pole made out of a wind-shook piece of timber a breakin' and lettin' him fall, and she's jest crazy when anybody steps in to git 'em to go with her."

Miss Lucy, glad of an excuse to take her red eyes out of range of Henrietty's keen ones, followed the eager child to the great barn on the rise above the house. The heavy sliding doors at the north end refused to move more than eight inches apart under Miss Lucy's nervous hand, but little Katie pressed her fat body through the crevice, darted like a sparrow half the length of the building, and squatted with a squeal of rapture behind a high pile of sticks, heaped in careless fashion, after the tobacco was lifted off them. Here, on the dirt floor, three brown and white puppies crawled aimlessly over each other.

"You want to git inside?" Miss Lucy felt her fingers gently removed, and the door pushed back. She looked up to meet Mr. Lindsay's eyes fixed in stern earnestness upon her.

"You thought you'd run off from me, did you?" he queried abruptly: "I 'lowed when I saw you a startin' off in this wind that you'd had your orders give you, and what I follered you wuz to find out ef you really wanted to obey them orders and to git away from me."

Miss Lucy backed inside the door and looked furtively about her. The tobacco had all been taken down, stripped, and bulked down in a half dozen long, high ricks, from "long red," to "green,"--ready for the buyers' inspection, and the dusk of the empty s.p.a.ces, from the cypress-shingled roof, to the floor, covered with its confusion of broken leaves, was only relieved by the sunlight that filtered in between the outer planks of the barn. The wind rumbled around the barn, and above its roar sounded the far off call of a crow, and the chugging of a freight on the nearest railway, told of a not far distant rain.

"You needn't be oneasy, Miss Lucy": Mr. Lindsay drew the doors together softly. "There hain't n.o.body a watchin' us here, ner a listenin' as fur as I know, and you are perfectly safe to talk. Ef you don't keer to have me around no more, jest say so, and I'll go right back to the house, and gether up my thengs, and leave now, instid of waitin' until the middle o' the week." He paused, his tone of reckless indifference belied by his grave face and appealing eyes. For once in her life, Miss Lucy was forced out of her habitual indecision.

"I--I--" she stammered, clasping and unclasping her hands, her eyes following a dry tobacco leaf that a sudden gust whirled rattling by her feet, "Mr. Lindsay, I hope I haven't never done anything to make you thenk I don't want you around!"

The tense cords at his temples relaxed slightly: he took a step nearer her. "Then you don't believe nothin' ag'in me, and don't keer nothin'

fer old Brock?"

"Mr. Brock--why, Mr. Brock--he hasn't never said nothin' about me bein'

anything to him!" cried Miss Lucy in wonderment.

"I know he hain't yit," he broke out tumultuously, "fer very shame, but he wants to, and the way you treated him yisterday made me thenk maybe you'd listen to what he's got to say--maybe you'd ruther have him around than me!"

"I jest treated him like I would Mr. Castle or any other of the neighbors when they come in," defended Miss Lucy.

Mr. Lindsay looked at her to a.s.sure himself there was no dissimulation in her speech. "Yes, Miss Lucy," he went on, rea.s.sured, "but he hain't one them kind o' men that'll take good treatment. Ef you jest treat him with common politeness, he'll thenk you're a courtin' him! I could tell you some thengs about old Brock that'd make you feel like leavin' the room when he comes around, but considerin' you don't keer nothin' fer him, hit's jest as well not to bother you with 'em. What I want to know in particular is, do you keer anytheng fer _me_?"

Miss Lucy, blushing furiously, looked wildly about her for a means of escape. The moment she had longed for, for weeks, had come, but the habit of fleeing from his presence, lest Miss Nancy should charge her with forwardness, was strong.

But Mr. Lindsay leaned against the fastening of the closed doors. "Jest say 'No, I keer nothin' fer you,'" he prompted, "and Miss Lucy, I won't keep you here a second longer!"

"I--I--that ain't what I want to say!" Miss Lucy managed to gasp.