At the house she carried Agag to her room, where she spent the afternoon in the big chair by the window.Miss Saidie, coming in with her dinner, inquired if she were sick, and then picked up the torn dress from the bed.
"Why, Maria, how on earth did you do it?""Some hounds jumped on me in the road."
"Well, I never! They were those dreadful Blake beasts, I know.Ideclare, I'll go right down and speak to Brother Bill about 'em.""For heaven's sake, don't," protested the girl."We've had quarrelling enough as it is--and, tell me, Aunt Saidie, have you ever known what it was all about?"Miss Saidie was examining the rent with an eye to a possible mending, and she did not look up as she answered."I never understood exactly myself, but your grandpa says they squandered all their money and then got mad because they had to sell the place.That's about the truth of it, I reckon.""The Hall belonged to them once, didn't it?""Oh, a long time ago, when they were rich.Sakes alive, Maria, what's the matter with your face?""I struck it getting away from the hounds.It's too bad, isn't it? And Jack coming so soon, too.Do I look very ugly?""You're a perfect fright now, but I'll fix you a liniment to draw the bruise away.It will be all right in a day or two.I declare, if you haven't gone and brought a little po'-folksy yellow dog into the house." Maria was feeding Agag with bits of chicken from her plate, bending over him as he huddled against her dress.
"I found him in the road," she returned, "and I'm going to keep him.I saved him from the hounds.""Well, it seems to me you might have got a prettier one,"remarked Miss Saidie, as she went down to mix the liniment.
It was several mornings after this that Fletcher, coming into the dining-room where Maria sat at a late breakfast, handed her a telegram, and stood waiting while she tore it open.
"Jim Weatherby brought it over from the crossroads," he said."It got there last night.""I hope there's nobody dead, child," observed Miss Saidie, from the serving-table, where she was peeling tomatoes.
"More likely it points to a marriage, eh, daughter?" chuckled Fletcher jocosely.
The girl folded the paper and replaced it carefully in the envelope."It's from Jack Wyndham," she said, "and he comes this evening.May I take the horses to the crossroads, grandpa?""Well, I did have a use for them," responded Fletcher, in high good-nature, "but, seeing as your young fellow doesn't come every day, I reckon I'll let you have 'em out."Maria flinched at his speech; and then as the clear pink spread evenly in her cheeks, she spoke in her composed tones."I may as well tell you, grandpa, that we shall marry almost immediately,"she said.
CHAPTER III.Fletcher's Move and Christopher's Counterstroke Not until September, when he lounged one day with a glass of beer in the little room behind Tom Spade's country store, did Christopher hear the news of Maria's approaching marriage.It was Sol Peterkin who delivered it, hiccoughing in the enveloping smoke from several pipes, as he sat astride an overturned flour barrel in one corner.
"I jest passed a wagonload of finery on the way to the Hall," he said, bulging with importance."It's for the gal's weddin', Ireckon; an' they do say she's a regular Jezebel as far as clothes go.I met her yestiddy with her young man that is to be, an' the way she was dressed up wasn't a sight for modest eyes.Not that she beguiled me, suh, though the devil himself might have been excused for mistakin' her for the scarlet woman--but I'm past the time of life when a man wants a woman jest to set aroun' an' look at.I tell you a good workin' pair of hands goes to my heart a long ways sooner than the blackest eyes that ever oggled.""Well, my daughter Jinnie has been up thar sewin' for a month,"put in Tom Spade, a big, greasy man, who looked as if he had lived on cabbage from his infancy, "an' she says that sech a sight of lace she never laid eyes on.Why, her very stockin's have got lace let in 'em, Jinnie says.""Now, that's what I call hardly decent," remarked Sol, as he spat upon the dirty floor."Them's the enticin' kind of women that a fool hovers near an' a wise man fights shy of.Lace in her stockin's! Well, did anybody ever?""She's got a pretty ankle, you may be sho'," observed Matthew Field, a long wisp of a man who had married too early to repent it too late, "an' I must say, if it kills me, that I always had a sharp eye for ankles.""It's a pity you didn't look as far up as the hand," returned Tom Spade, with boisterous mirth."I have heard that Eliza lays hers on right heavy.""That's so, suh, that's so," admitted Matthew, puffing smoke like a shifting engine, "but that's the fault of the marriage service, an' I'll stand to it at the Judgment Day yes, suh, in the very presence of Providence who made it.I tell you, 'twill I led that woman to the altar she was the meekest-mouthed creetur that ever wiggled away from a kiss.Why, when I stepped on her train jest as I swung her up the aisle, if you believe me, all she said was, 'I hope you didn't hurt yo' foot'; an', bless my boots, ten minutes later, comin' out of church, she whispered in my year, 'You white-livered, hulkin' hound, you, get off my veil!' Well, well, it's sad how the ceremony can change a woman's heart.""That makes it safer always to choose a widow," commented Sol.
"Now, they do say that this is a fine weddin' up at the Hall--but I have my doubts.Them lace let in stockin's ain't to my mind.""What's the rich young gentleman like?" inquired Tom Spade, with interest."Jinnie says he's the kind of man that makes kissin'
come natural--but I can't say that that conveys much to the father of a family.""Oh, he's the sort that looks as if God Almighty had put the finishin' touches an' forgot to make the man," replied Sol."He's got a mustache that you would say went to bed every night in curl papers."Christopher pushed back his chair and drained his glass standing, then with a curt nod to Tom Spade he went out into the road.
