A spark of dignity still burned within him.He strode to the barn-yard fence, and, leaning over it, dropped Flopit rather brusquely at his mistress's feet.Then, without a word even without a look --William walked haughtily away, continuing his stern progress straight through the barn-yard gate, and thence onward until he found himself in solitude upon the far side of a smoke-house, where his hauteur vanished.
Here, in the shade of a great walnut-tree which sheltered the little building, he gave way--not to tears, certainly, but to faint murmurings and little heavings under impulses as ancient as young love itself.It is to be supposed that William considered his condition a lonely one, but if all the seventeen-year-olds who have known such half-
hours could have shown themselves to him then, he would have fled from the mere horror of billions.Alas! he considered his sufferings a new invention in the world, and there was now inspired in his breast a monologue so eloquently bitter that it might deserve some such title as A Passion Beside the Smoke-house.During the little time that William spent in this sequestration he passed through phases of emotion which would have kept an older man busy for weeks and left him wrecked at the end of them.
William's final mood was one of beautiful resignation with a kick in it; that is, he nobly gave her up to George and added irresistibly that George was a big, fat lummox! Painting pictures, such as the billions of other young sufferers before him have painted, William saw himself a sad, gentle old bachelor at the family fireside, sometimes making the sacrifice of his reputation so that SHE and the children might never know the truth about George; and he gave himself the solace of a fierce scene or two with George: ``Remember, it is for them, not you--you THING!''
After this human little reaction he passed to a higher field of romance.He would die for George and then she would bring the little boy she had named William to the lonely headstone--Suddenly William saw himself in his true and fitting character--Sydney Carton! He had lately read A Tale of Two Cities, immediately re-reading until, as he would have said, he ``knew it by heart''; and even at the time he had seen resemblances between himself and the appealing figure of Carton.Now that the sympathy between them was perfected by Miss Pratt's preference for another, William decided to mount the scaffold in place of George Crooper.The scene became actual to him, and, setting one foot upon a tin milk-pail which some one had carelessly left beside the smoke-house, he lifted his eyes to the pitiless blue sky and unconsciously assumed the familiar attitude of Carton on the steps of the guillotine.He spoke aloud those great last words:
``It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to--''
A whiskered head on the end of a long, corrugated red neck protruded from the smoke-
house door.
``What say?'' it inquired, huskily.
``Nun-nothing!'' stammered William.
Eyes above whiskers became fierce.``You take your feet off that milk-bucket.Say! This here's a sanitary farm.'Ain't you got any more sense 'n to go an'--''
But William had abruptly removed his foot and departed.
He found the party noisily established in the farm-house at two long tables piled with bucolic viands already being violently depleted.Johnnie Watson had kept a chair beside himself vacant for William.Johnnie was in no frame of mind to sit beside any ``chattering girl,'' and he had protected himself by Joe Bullitt upon his right and the empty seat upon his left.William took it, and gazed upon the nearer foods with a slight renewal of animation.
He began to eat; he continued to eat; in fact, he did well.So did his two comrades.Not that the melancholy of these three was dispersed--far from it! With ineffaceable gloom they ate chicken, both white meat and dark, drumsticks, wishbones, and livers; they ate corn-on-the-cob, many ears, and fried potatoes and green peas and string-beans; they ate peach preserves and apricot preserves and preserved pears; they ate biscuits with grape jelly and biscuits with crab-
apple jelly; they ate apple sauce and apple butter and apple pie.They ate pickles, both cucumber pickles and pickles made of watermelon rind;
they ate pickled tomatoes, pickled peppers, also pickled onions.They ate lemon pie.
At that, they were no rivals to George Crooper, who was a real eater.Love had not made his appetite ethereal to-day, and even the attending Swedish lady named Anna felt some apprehension when it came to George and the gravy, though she was accustomed to the prodigies performed in this line by the robust hands on the farm.George laid waste his section of the table, and from the beginning he allowed himself scarce time to say, ``I dunno why it is.'' The pretty companion at his side at first gazed dumfounded; then, with growing enthusiasm for what promised to be a really magnificent performance, she began to utter little ejaculations of wonder and admiration.With this music in his ears, George outdid himself.He could not resist the temptation to be more and more astonishing as a heroic comedian, for these humors sometimes come upon vain people at country dinners.
George ate when he had eaten more than he needed; he ate long after every one understood why he was so vast; he ate on and on sheerly as a flourish--as a spectacle.He ate even when he himself began to understand that there was daring in what he did, for his was a toreador spirit so long as he could keep bright eyes fastened upon him.
Finally, he ate to decide wagers made upon his gorging, though at times during this last period his joviality deserted him.Anon his damp brow would be troubled, and he knew moments of thoughtfulness.
