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[Illustration: THE BACKWOODS PHILOSOPHER
_(Frontispiece. See page 40.)_]

The End of the World.

A LOVE STORY,

BY

EDWARD EGGLESTON

AUTHOR OF "THE HOOSIER SCHOOLMASTER," ETC.

WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS.

1872

PREFACE.

[IN THE POTENTIAL MOOD.]

It is the pretty unanimous conclusion of book-writers that prefaces are
most unnecessary and useless prependages, since nobody reads them. And
it is the pretty unanimous practice of book-writers to continue to write
them with such pains and elaborateness as would indicate a belief that
the success of a book depends upon the favorable prejudice begotten of u
graceful preface. My principal embarrassment is that it is not customary
for a book to have more than one. How then shall I choose between the
half-dozen letters of introduction I might give my story, each better
and worse on many accounts than either of the others? I am rather
inclined to adopt the following, which might for some reasons be
styled the

PREFACE SENTIMENTAL.

Perhaps no writer not infatuated with conceit, can send out a book full
of thought and feeling which, whatever they may be worth, are his own,
without a parental anxiety in regard to the fate of his offspring. And
there are few prefaces which do not in some way betray this nervousness.
I confess to a respect for even the prefatory doggerel of good Tinker
Bunyan--a respect for his paternal tenderness toward his book, not at
all for his villainous rhyming. When I saw, the other day, the white
handkerchiefs of my children waving an adieu as they sailed away from
me, a profound anxiety seized me. So now, as I part company with August
and Julia, with my beloved Jonas and my much-respected Cynthy Ann, with
the mud-clerk on the Iatan, and the shaggy lord of Shady-Hollow Castle,
and the rest, that have watched with me of nights and crossed the ferry
with me twice a day for half a year--even now, as I see them waving me
adieu with their red silk and "yaller" cotton "hand-kerchers," I know
how many rocks of misunderstanding and criticism and how many shoals of
damning faint praise are before them, and my heart is full of misgiving.

--But it will never do to have misgivings in a preface. How often have
publishers told me this! Ah! if I could write with half the heart and
hope my publishers evince in their advertisements, where they talk about
"front rank" and "great American story" and all that, it would doubtless
be better for the book, provided anybody would read the preface or
believe it when they had read it. But at any rate let us not have a
preface in the minor key.

A philosophical friend of mine, who is addicted to Carlyle, has
recommended that I try the following, which he calls

THE HIGH PHILOSOPHICAL PREFACE.

Why should I try to forestall the Verdict? Is it not foreordained in the
very nature of a Book and the Constitution of the Reader that a certain
very Definite Number of Readers will misunderstand and dislike a given
Book? And that another very Definite Number will understand it and
dislike it none the less? And that still a third class, also definitely
fixed in the Eternal Nature of Things, will misunderstand and like it,
and, what is more, like it only because of their misunderstanding? And
in relation to a true Book, there can not fail to be an Elect Few who
understand admiringly and understandingly admire. Why, then, make bows,
write prefaces, attempt to prejudice the Case? Can I change the Reader?
Will I change the Book? No? Then away with Preface! The destiny of the
Book is fixed. I can not foretell it, for I am no prophet. But let us
not hope to change the Fates by our prefatory bowing and scraping.

--I was forced to confess to my friend who was so kind as to offer to
lend me this preface, that there was much truth in it and that truth is
nowhere more rare than in prefaces, but it was not possible to adopt it
for two reasons: one, that my proof-reader can not abide so many
capitals, maintaining that they disfigure the page, and what is a
preface of the high philosophical sort worth without a profusion of
capitals? Even Carlyle's columns would lose their greatest ornament if
their capitals were gone. The second reason for declining to use this
preface was that my publishers are not philosophers and would never be
content with an "Elect Few," and for my own part the pecuniary interest
I have in the copyright renders it quite desirable that as many as
possible should be elected to like it, or at least to buy it.

After all it seems a pity that I can not bring myself to use a
straightforward

APOLOGETIC AND EXPLANATORY PREFACE.

In view of the favor bestowed upon the author's previous story, both by
the Public who Criticise and the Public who Buy, it seems a little
ungracious to present so soon, another, the scene of which is also laid
in the valley of the Ohio. But the picture of Western country life in
"The Hoosier School-Master" would not have been complete without this
companion-piece, which presents a different phase of it. And indeed
there is no provincial life richer in material if only one knew how to
get at it.

Nothing is more reverent than a wholesome hatred of hypocrisy. If any
man think I have offended against his religion, I must believe that his
religion is not what it should be. If anybody shall imagine that this is
a work of religious controversy leveled at the Adventists, he will have
wholly mistaken my meaning. Literalism and fanaticism are not vices
confined to any one sect. They are, unfortunately, pretty widely
distributed. However, if--

--And so on.

But why multiply examples of the half-dozen or more that I might, could,
would, or should have written? Since everybody is agreed that, nobody
reads a preface, I have concluded to let the book go without any.

BROOKLYN, September, 1872.

"_And as he [Wordsworth] mingled freely with all kinds of men, he found
a pith of sense and a solidity of judgment here and there among the
unlearned which he had failed to find in the most lettered; from obscure
men he heard high truths.... And love, true love and pure, he found was
no flower reared only in what was called refined society, and requiring
leisure and polished manners for its growth.... He believed that in
country people, what is permanent in human nature, the essential
feelings and passions of mankind, exist in greater simplicity and
strength_."--PRINCIPAL SHAIRP.

A DEDICATION.

It would hardly be in character for me to dedicate this book in good,
stiff, old-fashioned tomb-stone style, but I could not have put in the
background of scenery without being reminded of the two boys,
inseparable as the Siamese twins, who gathered mussel-shells in the
river marge, played hide-and-seek in the hollow sycamores, and led a
happy life in the shadow of just such hills as those among which the
events of this story took place. And all the more that the generous boy
who was my playmate then is the generous man who has relieved me of many
burdens while I wrote this story, do I feel impelled to dedicate it to
GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON, a manly man and a brotherly brother.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER       I.--In Love with a Dutchman.
CHAPTER      II.--An Explosion.
CHAPTER     III.--A Farewell.
CHAPTER      IV.--A Counter-Irritant.
CHAPTER       V.--At the Castle.
CHAPTER      VI.--The Backwoods Philosopher.
CHAPTER     VII.--Within and Without.
CHAPTER    VIII.--Figgers won't Lie.
CHAPTER      IX.--The New Singing-Master.
CHAPTER       X.--An Offer of Help.
CHAPTER      XI.--The Coon-dog Argument.
CHAPTER     XII.--Two Mistakes.
CHAPTER    XIII.--The Spider Spins.
CHAPTER     XIV.--The Spider's Web.
CHAPTER      XV.--The Web Broken.
CHAPTER     XVI.--Jonas Expounds the Subject.
CHAPTER    XVII.--The Wrong Pew.
CHAPTER   XVIII.--The Encounter.
CHAPTER     XIX.--The Mother.
CHAPTER      XX.--The Steam-Doctor.
CHAPTER     XXI.--The Hawk in a New Part.
CHAPTER    XXII.--Jonas Expresses his Opinion on Dutchmen.
CHAPTER   XXIII.--Somethin' Ludikerous.
CHAPTER    XXIV.--The Giant Great-heart.
CHAPTER     XXV.--A Chapter of Betweens.
CHAPTER    XXVI.--A Nice Little Game.
CHAPTER   XXVII.--The Result of an Evening with Gentlemen.
CHAPTER  XXVIII.--Waking up an Ugly Customer.
CHAPTER    XXIX.--August and Norman.
CHAPTER     XXX.--Aground.
CHAPTER    XXXI.--Cynthy Ann's Sacrifice.
CHAPTER   XXXII.--Julia's Enterprise.
CHAPTER  XXXIII.--The Secret Stairway.
CHAPTER   XXXIV.--The Interview.
CHAPTER    XXXV.--Getting Ready for the End.
CHAPTER   XXXVI.--The Sin of Sanctimony.
CHAPTER  XXXVII.--The Deluge.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.--Scaring a Hawk.
CHAPTER   XXXIX.--Jonas takes an Appeal.
CHAPTER      XL.--Selling out.
CHAPTER     XLI.--The Last Day and What Happened in it.
CHAPTER    XLII.--For Ever and Ever.
CHAPTER   XLIII.--The Midnight Alarm.
CHAPTER    XLIV.--Squaring Accounts.
CHAPTER     XLV.--New Plans.
CHAPTER    XLVI.--The Shiveree.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

BY FRANK BEARD

The Backwoods Philosopher
Taking an Observation
A Talk with a Plowman
A little rustle brought her to consciousness
Gottlieb
The Castle
The Sedilium at the Castle
"Look at me"
"Don't be oncharitable, Jonas"
The Hawk
"Tell that to Jule"
Tempted
"Now I hate you"
At Cynthy's Door
Cynthy Ann had often said in class-meeting that temptations abounded on
   every hand
Jonas
Julia sat down in mortification
"Good-by!"
The Mother's Blessing
Corn-Sweats and Calamus
"Fire! Murder! Help!"
Norman Anderson
Somethin' Ludikerous
To the Rescue
A Nice Little Game
The Mud-Clerk
Waking up an Ugly Customer
Cynthy Ann's Sacrifice
A Pastoral Visit
Brother Goshorn
"Say them words over again"
"I want to buy your place"

THE END OF THE WORLD.

CHAPTER I.

IN LOVE WITH A DUTCHMAN.

"I don't believe that you'd care a cent if she did marry a Dutchman! She
might as well as to marry some white folks I know."

Samuel Anderson made no reply. It would be of no use to reply. Shrews
are tamed only by silence. Anderson had long since learned that the
little shred of influence which remained to him in his own house would
disappear whenever his teeth were no longer able to shut his tongue
securely in. So now, when his wife poured out this hot lava of
_argumentum ad hominem_, he closed the teeth down in a dead-lock way
over the tongue, and compressed the lips tightly over the teeth, and
shut his finger-nails into his work-hardened palms. And then,
distrusting all these precautions, fearing lest he should be unable to
hold on to his temper even with this grip, the little man strode out of
the house with his wife's shrill voice in his ears.

Mrs. Anderson had good reason to fear that her daughter was in love with
a "Dutchman," as she phrased it in her contempt. The few Germans who had
penetrated to the West at that time were looked upon with hardly more
favor than the Californians feel for the almond-eyed Chinaman. They were
foreigners, who would talk gibberish instead of the plain English which
everybody could understand, and they were not yet civilized enough to
like the yellow saleratus-biscuit and the "salt-rising" bread of which
their neighbors were so fond. Reason enough to hate them!

Only half an hour before this outburst of Mrs. Anderson's, she had set a
trap for her daughter Julia, and had fairly caught her.

"Jule! Jule! O Jul-y-e-ee!" she had called.

And Julia, who was down in the garden hoeing a bed in which she meant to
plant some "Johnny-Jump-ups," came quickly toward the house, though she
know it would be of no use to come quickly. Let her come quickly, or let
her come slowly, the rebuke was sure to greet her all the name.

"Why don't you come when you're called, _I'd_ like to know! You're never
in reach when you're wanted, and you're good for nothing when you
are here!"

Julia Anderson's earliest lesson from her mother's lips had been that
she was good for nothing. And every day and almost every hour since had
brought her repeated assurances that she was good for nothing. If she
had not been good for a great deal, she would long since have been good
for nothing as the result of such teaching. But though this was not the
first, nor the thousandth, nor the ten thousandth time that she had
been told that she was good for nothing, the accustomed insult seemed to
sting her now more than ever. Was it that, being almost eighteen, she
was beginning to feel the woman blossoming in her nature? Or, was it
that the tender words of August Wehle had made her sure that she was
good for something, that now her heart felt her mother's insult to be a
stale, selfish, ill-natured lie?

"Take this cup of tea over to Mrs. Malcolm's, and tell her that it a'n't
quite as good as what I borried of her last week. And tell her that
they'll be a new-fangled preacher at the school-house a Sunday, a
Millerite or somethin', a preachin' about the end of the world."

Julia did not say "Yes, ma'am," in her usually meek style. She smarted a
little yet from the harsh words, and so went away in silence.

Why did she walk fast? Had she noticed that August Wehle, who was
"breaking up" her father's north field, was just plowing down the west
side of his land? If she hastened, she might reach the cross-fence as he
came round to it, and while he was yet hidden from the sight of the
house by the turn of the hill. And would not a few words from August
Wehle be pleasant to her ears after her mother's sharp depreciation? It
is at least safe to conjecture that some such feeling made her hurry
through the long, waving timothy of the meadow, and made her cross the
log that spanned the brook without ever so much as stopping to look at
the minnows glancing about in the water flecked with the sunlight that
struggled through the boughs of the water-willows. For, in her thorough
loneliness, Julia Anderson had come to love the birds, the squirrels,
and the fishes as companions, and in all her life she had never before
crossed the meadow brook without stooping to look at the minnows.

All this haste Mrs. Anderson noticed. Having often scolded

[Illustration: TAKING AN OBSERVATION.]

Julia for "talking to the fishes like a fool," she noticed the omission.
And now she only waited until Julia was over the hill to take the path
round the fence under shelter of the blackberry thicket until she came
to the clump of alders, from the midst of which she could plainly see
if any conversation should take place between her Julia and the comely
young Dutchman.

In fact, Julia need not have hurried so much. For August Wehle had kept
one eye on his horses and the other on the house all that day. It was
the quick look of intelligence between the two at dinner that had
aroused the mother's suspicions. And Wehle had noticed the work on the
garden-bed, the call to the house, and the starting of Julia on the path
toward Mrs. Malcolm's. His face had grown hot, and his hand had
trembled. For once he had failed to see the stone in his way, until the
plow was thrown clean from the furrow. And when he came to the shade of
the butternut-tree by which she must pass, it had seemed to him
imperative that the horses should rest. Besides, the hames-string wanted
tightening on the bay, and old Dick's throat-latch must need a little
fixing. He was not sure that the clevis-pin had not been loosened by the
collision with the stone just now. And so, upon one pretext and another,
he managed to delay starting his plow until Julia came by, and then,
though his heart had counted all her steps from the door-stone to the
tree, then he looked up surprised. Nothing could be so astonishing to
him as to see her there! For love is needlessly crafty, it has always an
instinct of concealment, of indirection about it. The boy, and
especially the girl, who will tell the truth frankly in regard to a love
affair is a miracle of veracity. But there are such, and they are to be
reverenced--with the reverence paid to martyrs.

On her part, Julia Anderson had walked on as though she meant to pass
the young plowman by, until he spoke, and then she started, and blushed,
and stopped, and nervously broke off the top of a last year's iron-weed
and began to break it into bits while he talked, looking down most of
the time, but lifting her eyes to his now and then. And to the
sun-browned but delicate-faced young German it seemed, a vision of
Paradise--every glimpse of that fresh girl's face in the deep shade of
the sun-bonnet. For girls' faces can never look so sweet in this
generation as they did to the boys who caught sight of them, hidden
away, precious things, in the obscurity of a tunnel of pasteboard
and calico!

This was not their first love-talk. Were they engaged? Yes, and no. By
all the speech their eyes were capable of in school, and of late by
words, they were engaged in loving one another, and in telling one
another of it. But they were young, and separated by circumstances, and
they had hardly begun to think of marriage yet. It was enough for the
present to love and be loved. The most delightful stage of a love affair
is that in which the present is sufficient and there is no past or
future. And so August hung his elbow around the top of the bay horse's
hames, and talked to Julia.

It is the highest praise of the German heart that it loves flowers and
little children; and like a German and like a lover that he was, August
began to speak of the anemones and the violets that were already
blooming in the corners of the fence. Girls in love are not apt to say
any thing very fresh. And Julia only said she thought the flowers seemed
happy in the sunlight In answer to this speech, which seemed to the
lover a bit of inspiration, he quoted from Schiller the lines:

     "Yet weep, soft children of the Spring;
     The feelings Love alone can bring
     Have been denied to you!"

With the quick and crafty modesty of her sex, Julia evaded this very
pleasant shaft by saying: "How much you know, August! How do you
learn it?"

[Illustration: A TALK WITH A PLOWMAN.]

And August was pleased, partly because of the compliment, but chiefly
because in saying it Julia had brought the sun-bonnet in such a range
that he could see the bright eyes and blushing face at the bottom of
this _camera-oscura_. He did not hasten to reply. While the vision
lasted he enjoyed the vision. Not until the sun-bonnet dropped did he
take up the answer to her question.

"I don't know much, but what I do know I have learned out of your Uncle
Andrew's books."

"Do you know my Uncle Andrew? What a strange man he is! He never comes
here, and we never go there, and my mother never speaks to him, and my
father doesn't often have anything to say to him. And so you have been
at his house. They say he has all up-stairs full of books, and ever so
many cats and dogs and birds and squirrels about. But I thought he never
let anybody go up-stairs."

"He lets me," said August, when she had ended her speech and dropped her
sun-bonnet again out of the range of his eyes, which, in truth, were too
steadfast in their gaze. "I spend many evenings up-stairs." August had
just a trace of German in his idiom.

"What makes Uncle Andrew so curious, I wonder?"

"I don't exactly know. Some say he was treated not just right by a woman
when he was a young man. I don't know. He seems happy. I don't wonder a
man should be curious though when a woman that he loves treats him not
just right. Any way, if he loves her with all his heart, as I love Jule
Anderson!"

These last words came with an effort. And Julia just then remembered
her errand, and said, "I must hurry," and, with a country girl's
agility, she climbed over the fence before August could help her, and
gave him another look through her bonnet-telescope from the other Hide,
and then hastened on to return the tea, und to tell Mrs. Malcolm that
there was to be a Millerite preacher at the school-house on Sunday
night. And August found that his horses were quite cool, while he was
quite hot. He cleaned his mold board, and swung his plow round, and
then, with a "Whoa! haw!" and a pull upon the single line which Western
plowmen use to guide their horses, he drew the team into their place,
and set himself to watching the turning of the rich, fragrant black
earth. And even as he set his plowshare, so he set his purpose to
overcome all obstacles, and to marry Julia Anderson. With the same
steady, irresistible, onward course would he overcome all that lay
between him and the soul that shone out of the face that dwelt in the
bottom of the sun-bonnet.

From her covert in the elder-bushes Mrs. Anderson had seen the parley,
and her cheeks had also grown hot, but from a very different emotion.
She had not heard the words. She had seen the loitering girl and the
loitering plowboy, and she went back to the house vowing that she'd
"teach Jule Anderson how to spend her time talking to a Dutchman." And
yet the more she thought of it, the more she was satisfied that it
wasn't best to "make a fuss" just yet. She might hasten what she wanted
to prevent. For though Julia was obedient and mild in word, she was none
the less a little stubborn, and in a matter of this sort might take the
bit in her teeth.

And so Mrs. Anderson had recourse, as usual, to her husband. She knew
she could browbeat him. She demanded that August Wehle should be paid
off and discharged. And when Anderson had hesitated, because he feared
he could not get another so good a hand, and for other reasons, she
burst out into the declaration:

"I don't believe that you'd care a cent if she did marry a Dutchman! She
might as well as to marry some white folks I know."

CHAPTER II.

AN EXPLOSION.

It was settled that August was to be quietly discharged at the end of
his month, which was Saturday night. Neither he nor Julia must suspect
any opposition to their attachment, nor any discovery of it, indeed.
This was settled by Mrs. Anderson. She usually settled things. First,
she settled upon the course to be pursued. Then she settled her husband.
He always made a show of resistance. His dignity required a show of
resistance. But it was only a show. He always meant to surrender in the
end. Whenever his wife ceased her fire of small-arms and herself hung
out the flag of truce, he instantly capitulated. As in every other
dispute, so in this one about the discharge of the "miserable, impudent
Dutchman," Mrs. Anderson attacked her husband at all his weak points,
and she had learned by heart a catalogue of his weak points. Then, when
he was sufficiently galled to be entirely miserable; when she had
expressed her regret that she hadn't married somebody with some heart,
and that she had ever left her father's house, for her _father_ was
_always_ good to her; and when she had sufficiently reminded him of the
lover she had given up for him, and of how much _he_ had loved her, and
how miserable she had made _him_ by loving Samuel Anderson--when she had
conducted the quarrel through all the preliminary stages, she always
carried her point in the end by a _coup de partie_ somewhat in
this fashion:

"That's just the way! Always the way with you men! I suppose I must give
up to you as usual. You've lorded it over me from the start. I can't
even have the management of my own daughter. But I do think that after
I've let you have your way in so many things, you might turn off that
fellow. You might let me have my way in one little thing, and you
_would_ if you cared for me. You know how liable I am to die at any
moment of heart-disease, and yet you will prolong this excitement in
this way."

Now, there is nothing a weak man likes so much as to be considered
strong, nothing a henpecked man likes so much as to be regarded a
tyrant. If you ever hear a man boast of his determination to rule his
own house, you may feel sure that he is subdued. And a henpecked husband
always makes a great show of opposing everything that looks toward the
enlargement of the work or privileges of women. Such a man insists on
the shadow of authority because he can not have the substance. It is a
great satisfaction to him that his wife can never be president, and that
she can not make speeches in prayer-meeting. While he retains these
badges of superiority, he is still in some sense head of the family.

So when Mrs. Anderson loyally reminded her husband that she had always
let him have his own way, he believed her because he wanted to, though
he could not just at the moment recall the particular instances. And
knowing that he must yield, he rather liked to yield as an act of
sovereign grace to the poor oppressed wife who begged it.

"Well, if you insist on it, of course, I will not refuse you," he said;
"and perhaps you are right." He had yielded in this way almost every day
of his married life, and in this way he yielded to the demand that
August should he discharged. But he agreed with his wife that Julia
should not know anything about it, and that there must be no
leave-taking allowed.

The very next day Julia sat sewing on the long porch in front of the
house. Cynthy Ann was getting dinner in the kitchen at the other end of
the hall, and Mrs. Anderson was busy in her usual battle with dirt. She
kept the house clean, because it gratified her combativeness and her
domineering disposition to have the house clean in spite of the
ever-encroaching dirt. And so she scrubbed and scolded, and scolded and
scrubbed, the scrubbing and scolding agreeing in time and rhythm. The
scolding was the vocal music, the scrubbing an accompaniment. The
concordant discord was perfect. Just at the moment I speak of there was
a lull in her scolding. The symphonious scrubbing went on as usual.
Julia, wishing to divert the next thunder-storm from herself, erected
what she imagined might prove a conversational lightning-rod, by asking
a question on a topic foreign to the theme of the last march her mother
had played and sung so sweetly with brush and voice.

"Mother, what makes Uncle Andrew so queer?"

"I don't know. He was always queer." This was spoken in a staccato,
snapping-turtle way. But when one has lived all one's life with a
snapping-turtle, one doesn't mind. Julia did not mind. She was curious
to know what was the matter with her uncle, Andrew Anderson. So
she said:

"I've heard that some false woman treated him cruelly; is that so?"

Julia did not see how red her mother's face was, for she was not
regarding her.

"Who told you that?" Julia was so used to hearing her mother speak in an
excited way that she hardly noticed the strange tremor in this question.

"August."

The symphony ceased in a moment. The scrubbing-brush dropped in the pail
of soapsuds. But the vocal storm burst forth with a violence that
startled even Julia. "August said _that_, did he? And you listened, did
you? You listened to _that? You_ listened to that? _You listened_ to
_that_? Hey? He slandered your mother. You listened to him slander your
mother!" By this time Mrs. Anderson was at white heat. Julia was
speechless. "_I_ saw you yesterday flirting with that _Dutchman_, and
listening to his abuse of your mother! And now you _insult_ me! Well,
to-morrow will be the last day that that Dutchman will hold a plow on
this place. And you'd better look out for yourself, miss! You--"

Here followed a volley of epithets which Julia received standing. But
when her mother's voice grew to a scream, Julia took the word.

"Mother, hush!"

It was the first word of resistance she had ever uttered. The agony
within must have been terrible to have wrung it from her. The mother was
stunned with anger and astonishment. She could not recover herself
enough to speak until Jule had fled half-way up the stairs. Then her
mother covered her defeat by screaming after her, "Go to your own room,
you impudent hussy! You know I am liable to die of heart-disease any
minute, and you want to kill me!"

CHAPTER III.

A FAREWELL.

Mrs. Anderson felt that she had made a mistake. She had not meant to
tell Julia that August was to leave. But now that this stormy scene had
taken place, she thought she could make a good use of it. She knew that
her husband co-operated with her in her opposition to "the Dutchman,"
only because he was afraid of his wife. In his heart, Samuel Anderson
could not refuse anything to his daughter. Denied any of the happiness
which most men find in loving their wives, he found consolation in the
love of his daughter. Secretly, as though his paternal affection were a
crime, he caressed Julia, and his wife was not long in discovering that
the father cared more for a loving daughter than for a shrewish wife.
She watched him jealously, and had come to regard her daughter as one
who had supplanted her in her husband's affections, and her husband as
robbing her of the love of her daughter. In truth, Mrs. Samuel Anderson
had come to stand so perpetually on guard against imaginary
encroachments on her rights, that she saw enemies everywhere. She hated
Wehle because he was a Dutchman; she would have hated him on a dozen
other scores if he had been an American. It was offense enough that
Julia loved him.

So now she resolved to gain her husband to her side by her version of
the story, and before dinner she had told him how August had charged her
with being false and cruel to Andrew many years ago, and how Jule had
thrown it up to her, and how near she had come to dropping down with
palpitation of the heart. And Samuel Anderson reddened, and declared
that he would protect his wife from such insults. The notion that he
protected his wife was a pleasant fiction of the little man's, which
received a generous encouragement at the hands of his wife. It was a
favorite trick of hers to throw herself, in a metaphorical way, at his
feet, a helpless woman, and in her feebleness implore his protection.
And Samuel felt all the courage of knighthood in defending his
inoffensive wife. Under cover of this fiction, so flattering to the
vanity of an overawed husband, she had managed at one time or another to
embroil him with almost all the neighbors, and his refusal to join
fences had resulted in that crooked arrangement known as a "devil's
lane" on three sides of his farm.

Julia dared not stay away from dinner, which was miserable enough. She
did not venture so much as to look at August, who sat opposite her, and
who was the most unhappy person at the table, because he did not know
what all the unhappiness was about. Mr. Anderson's brow foreboded a
storm, Mrs. Anderson's face was full of an earthquake, Cynthy Ann was
sitting in shadow, and Julia's countenance perplexed him. Whether she
was angry with him or not, he could not be sure. Of one thing he was
certain: she was suffering a great deal, and that was enough to make him
exceedingly unhappy.

Sitting through his hurried meal in this atmosphere surcharged with
domestic electricity, he got the notion--he could hardly tell how--that
all this lowering of the sky had something to do with him. What had he
done? Nothing. His closest self-examination told him that he had done no
wrong. But his spirits were depressed, and his sensitive conscience
condemned him for some unknown crime that had brought about all this
disturbance of the elements. The ham did not seem very good, the cabbage
he could not eat, the corn-dodger choked him, he had no desire to wait
for the pie. He abridged his meal, and went out to the barn to keep
company with his horses and his misery until it should be time to return
to his plow.

Julia sat and sewed in that tedious afternoon. She would have liked one
more interview with August before his departure. Looking through the
open hall, she saw him leave the barn and go toward his plowing. Not
that she looked up. Hawk never watched chicken more closely than Mrs.
Anderson watched poor Jule. But out of the corners of her eyes Julia saw
him drive his horses before him from the stable. At the field in which
he worked was on the other side of the house from where she sat she
could not so much as catch a glimpse of him as he held his plow on its
steady course. She wished she might have helped Cynthy Ann in the
kitchen, for then she could have seen him, but there was no chance for
such a transfer.

Thus the tedious afternoon wore away, and just as the sun was settling
down so that the shadow of the elm in the front-yard stretched across
the road into the cow pasture, the dead silence was broken. Julia had
been wishing that somebody would speak. Her mother's sulky
speechlessness was worse than her scolding, and Julia had even wished
her to resume her storming. But the silence was broken by Cynthy Ann,
who came into the hall and called, "Jule, I wish you would go to the
barn and gether the eggs; I want to make some cake."

Every evening of her life Julia gathered the eggs, and there was nothing
uncommon in Cynthy Ann's making cake, so that nothing could be more
innocent than this request. Julia sat opposite the front-door, her
mother sat farther along. Julia could see the face of Cynthy Ann. Her
mother could only hear the voice, which was dry and commonplace enough.
Julia thought she detected something peculiar in Cynthy's manner. She
would as soon have thought of the big oak gate-posts with their round
ball-like heads telegraphing her in a sly way, as to have suspected any
such craft on the part of Cynthy Ann, who was a good, pious,
simple-hearted, Methodist old maid, strict with herself, and censorious
toward others. But there stood Cynthy making some sort of gesture, which
Julia took to mean that she was to go quick. She did not dare to show
any eagerness. She laid down her work, and moved away listlessly. And
evidently she had been too slow. For if August had been in sight when
Cynthy Ann called her, he had now disappeared on the other side of the
hill. She loitered along, hoping that he would come in sight, but he did
not, and then she almost smiled to think how foolish she had been in
imagining that Cynthy Ann had any interest in her love affair. Doubtless
Cynthy sided with her mother.

And so she climbed from mow to mow gathering the eggs. No place is
sweeter than a mow, no occupation can be more delightful than gathering
the fresh eggs--great glorious pearls, more beautiful than any that men
dive for, despised only because they are so common and so useful! But
Julia, gliding about noiselessly, did not think much of the eggs, did
not give much attention to the hens scratching for wheat kernels amongst
the straw, nor to the barn swallows chattering over the adobe dwellings
which they were building among the rafters above her. She had often
listened to the love-talk of these last, but now her heart was too heavy
to hear. She slid down to the edge of one of the mows, and sat there a
few feet above the threshing-floor with her bonnet in her hand, looking
off sadly and vacantly. It was pleasant to sit here alone and think,
without the feeling that her mother was penetrating her thoughts.

A little rustle brought her to consciousness. Her face was fiery red in
a minute. There, in one corner of the threshing-floor, stood August,
gazing at her. He had come into the barn to find a single-tree in place
of one which had broken. While he was looking for it, Julia had come,
and he had stood and looked, unable to decide whether to speak or not,
uncertain how deeply she might be offended, since she had never once let
her eyes rest on him at dinner. And when she had come to the edge of the
mow and stopped there in a reverie, August had been utterly spell-bound.

A minute she blushed. Then, perceiving her opportunity, she dropped
herself to the floor and walked up to August.

"August, you are to be turned off to-morrow night."

"What have I done? Anything wrong?"

"No."

"Why do they send me away?"

"Because--because--" Julia stopped.

But silence is often better than speech. A sudden intelligence came
into the blue eyes of August. "They turn me off because I love Jule
Anderson."

[Illustration: A LITTLE RUSTLE BROUGHT HER TO CONSCIOUSNESS.]

Julia blushed just a little.

"I will love her all the same when I am gone. I will always love her."

Julia did not know what to say to this passionate speech, so she
contented herself with looking a little grateful and very foolish.

"But I am only a poor boy, and a Dutchman at that"--he said this
bitterly--"but if you will wait, Jule, I will show them I am of some
account. Not good enough for you, but good enough for _them_.
You will--"

"I will wait--_forever_--for _you_, Gus." Her head was down, and her
voice could hardly be heard. "Good-by." She stretched out her hand, and
he took it trembling.

"Wait a minute." He dropped the hand, and taking a pencil wrote on a
beam:

"March 18th, 1843."

"There, that's to remember the Dutchman by."

"Don't call yourself a Dutchman, August. One day in school, when I was
sitting opposite to you, I learned this definition, 'August: grand,
magnificent,' and I looked at you and said, Yes, that he is. August is
grand and magnificent, and that's what you are. You're just grand!"

I do not think he was to blame. I am sure he was not responsible. It was
done so quickly. He kissed her forehead and then her lips, and said
good-by and was gone. And she, with her apron full of eggs and her
cheeks very red--it makes one warm to climb--went back to the house,
resolved in some way to thank Cynthy Ann for sending her; but Cynthy
Ann's face was so serious and austere in its look that Julia concluded
she must have been mistaken, Cynthy Ann couldn't have known that August
was in the barn. For all she said was:

"You got a right smart lot of eggs, didn't you? The hens is beginnin' to
lay more peart since the warm spell sot in."

CHAPTER IV.

A COUNTER-IRRITANT.

"Vot you kits doornt off vor? Hey?"

Gottlieb Wehle always spoke English, or what he called English, when he
was angry.

"Vot for? Hey?"

All the way home from Anderson's on that Saturday night, August had
been, in imagination, listening to the rough voice of his honest father
asking this question, and he had been trying to find a satisfactory
answer to it. He might say that Mr. Anderson did not want to keep a hand
any longer. But that would not be true. And a young man with August's
clear blue eyes was not likely to lie.

"Vot vor ton't you not shpeak? Can't you virshta blain Eenglish ven you
hears it? Hey? You a'n't no teef vot shteels I shposes, unt you ton't
kit no troonks mit vishky? Vot you too tat you pe shamt of? Pin lazin'
rount? Kon you nicht Eenglish shprachen? Oot mit id do vonst!"

"I did not do anything to be ashamed of," said August. And yet he looked
ashamed.

"You tidn't pe no shamt, hey? You tidn't! Vot vor you loogs so leig a
teef in der bentenshry? Vot for you sprachen not mit me ven ich sprachs
der blainest zort ov Eenglish mit you? You kooms sneaggin heim Zaturtay
nocht leig a tog vots kot kigt, unt's got his dail dween his leks; and
ven I aks you in blain Eenglish vot's der madder, you loogs zheepish
leig, und says you a'n't tun nodin. I zay you tun sompin. If you a'n't
tun nodin den, vy don't you dell me vot it is dat you has tun? Hey?"

[Illustration: GOTTLIEB.]

All this time August found that it was getting harder and harder to tell
his father the real state of the case. But the old man, seeing that he
prevailed nothing, took a cajoling tone.

"Koom, August, mine knabe, ton't shtand dare leig a vool. Vot tit
Anterson zay ven he shent you avay?"

"He said that I'd been seen a-talking to his daughter, Jule Anderson."

"Vell, you nebber said no hoorm doo Shule, tid you? If I dought you
said vot you zhoodn't zay doo Shule, I vood shust drash you on der
shpot! Tid you gwarl mit Shule, already?"

"Quarrel with Jule! She's the last person in the world I'd think of
quarreling with. She's as good as--"

"Oh! you pe in lieb mit Shule! You vool, you! Is dat all dat I raise you
vor? I dells you, unt dells you, unt _dells_ you to sprach nodin put
Deutsche, unt to marry a kood Deutsche vrau vot kood sprach mit you, unt
now you koes right shtraight off unt kits knee-teep in lieb mit a vool
of a Yangee kirl! You doo ant pe doornt off!"

August's countenance brightened. All the way home he had felt that it
was somehow an unpardonable sin to be a Dutchman. Anderson had spoken
hardly to him in dismissing him, and now it was a great comfort to find
that his father returned the contempt of the Yankees at its full value.
All the conceit was not on the side of the Yankees. It was at least an
open question which was the most disgraced, he or Julia, by their little
love affair.

But more comforting still was the quiet look of his sweet-faced mother,
who, moving about among her throng of children like a hen with more
chickens than she can hover[1], never forgot to be patient and
affectionate. If there had been a look of reproach on the face of the
mother, it would have been the hardest trial of all. But there was that
in her eyes--the dear Moravian mother--that gave courage to August. The
mother was an outside conscience, and now as Gottlieb, who had lapsed
into German for his wife's benefit, rattled on his denunciation of this
Cannanitish Yankee, with whom his son was in love, the son looked every
now and then into the eyes, the still German eyes of the mother, and
rejoiced that he saw there no reflection of his father's rebuke. The
older Wehle presently resumed his English, such as it was, as better
adapted to scolding. Whether he thought to make his children love German
by abusing them in English, I do not know, but it was his habit.

[Footnote 1: Not until my attention was called to this word in the proof
did I know that in this sense it is a provincialism. It is so used, at
least in half the country, and yet neither of our American
dictionaries has it.]

"I dells you tese Yangees is Yangees. Dere neber voz put shust von cood
vor zompin. Antrew Antershon is von. He shtaid mit us ven ve vos all
zick, unt he is zhust so cood as if he was porn in Deutschland. Put all
de rest is Yangees. Marry a Deutsche vrau vot's kot cood sense to ede
kraut unt shleep unter vedder peds ven it's kalt. Put shust led de
Yangees pe Yangees."

Seeing August put on his hat and go to the door, he called out testily:

"Vare you koes, already?"

"Over to the castle."

"Veil, das is koot. Ko doo de gassel. Antrew vlll dell you vat sorts do
Yangee kirls pe!"

CHAPTER V.

AT THE CASTLE.

By the time August reached Andrew Anderson's castle it was dark. The
castle was built in a hollow, looking out toward the Ohio River, a river
that has this peculiarity, that it is all beautiful, from Pittsburgh to
Cairo. Through the trees, on which the buds were just bursting, August
looked out on the golden roadway made by the moonbeams on the river. And
into the tumult of his feelings there came the sweet benediction of
Nature. And what is Nature but the voice of God?

Anderson's castle was a large log building of strange construction.
Everything about it had been built by the hands of Andrew, at once its
lord and its architect. Evidently a whimsical fancy had pleased itself
in the construction. It was an attempt to realize something of medieval
form in logs. There were buttresses and antique windows, and by an
ingenious transformation the chimney, usually such a disfigurement to a
log-house, was made to look like a round donjon keep. But it was
strangely composite, and I am afraid Mr. Ruskin would have considered it
somewhat confused; for while it looked like a rude castle to those who
approached it from the hills, it looked like something very different to
those who approached the front, for upon that side was a portico with
massive Doric columns, which were nothing more nor less than maple logs.
Andrew maintained that the natural form of the trunk of a tree was the
ideal and perfect form of a pillar.

To this picturesque structure, half castle, half cabin, with hints of
church and temple, came August Wehle on Saturday evening. He did not go
round to the portico and knock at the front-door as a stranger would
have done, but in behind the donjon chimney he pulled an alarm-cord.
Immediately the head of Andrew Anderson was thrust out of a Gothic
hole--you could not call it a window. His uncut hair, rather darker than
auburn, fell down to his waist, and his shaggy red beard lay upon his
bosom. Instead of a coat he wore that unique garment of linsey-woolsey
known in the West as wa'mus (warm us?), a sort of over-shirt. He was
forty-five, but there were streaks of gray in his hair and board, and he
looked older by ten years.

"What ho, good friend? Is that you?" he cried. "Come up, and right
welcome!" For his language was as archaic and perhaps as incongruous as
his architecture. And then throwing out of the window a rope-ladder, he
called out again, "Ascend! ascend! my brave young friend!"

And young Wehle climbed up the ladder into the large upper room. For it
was one peculiarity of the castle that the upper part had no visible
communication with the lower. Except August, and now and then a literary
stranger, no one but the owner was ever admitted to the upper story of
the house, and the neighbors, who always had access to the lower rooms,
regarded the upper part of the castle with mysterious awe. August was
often plied with questions about it, but he always answered simply that
he didn't think Mr. Anderson would like to have it talked about. For the
owner there must have been some inside mode of access to the second
story, but he did not choose to let even August know of any other way
than that by the rope-ladder, and the few strangers who came to see his
books were taken in by the same drawbridge.

[Illustration: THE CASTLE.]

The room was filled with books arranged after whimsical associations.
One set of cases, for instance, was called the Academy, and into these
he only admitted the masters, following the guidance of his own
eccentric judgment quite as much as he followed traditional estimate.
Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Milton of course had undisputed possession of
the department devoted to the "Kings of Epic," as he styled them.
Sophocles, Calderon, Corneille, and Shakespeare were all that he
admitted to his list of "Kings of Tragedy." Lope he rejected on literary
grounds, and Goethe because he thought his moral tendency bad. He
rejected Rabelais from his chief humorists, but accepted Cervantes, Le
Sage, Molière, Swift, Hood, and the then fresh Pickwick of Boz. To these
he added the Georgia Scenes of Mr. Longstreet, insisting that they were
quite equal to Don Quixote. I can only stop to mention one other
department in his Academy. One case was devoted to the "Best Stories,"
and an admirable set they were! I wish that anything of mine were worthy
to go into such company. His purity of feeling, almost ascetic, led him
to reject Boccaccio, but he admitted Chaucer and some of Balzac's, and
Smollett, Goldsmith, and De Foe, and Walter Scott's best, Irving's Rip
Van Winkle, Bernardin St. Pierre's "Paul and Virginia," and "Three
Months under the Snow," and Charles Lamb's generally overlooked
"Rosamund Gray." There were eases for "Socrates and his Friends," and
for other classes. He had amused himself for years in deciding what
books should be "crowned," as he called it, and what not. And then he
had another case, called "The Inferno." I wish there was space to give a
list of this department. Some were damned for dullness and some for
coarseness. Miss Edgeworth's Moral Tales, Darwin's Botanic Garden,
Rollin's Ancient History, and a hideously illustrated copy of the Book
of Martyrs were in the First-class, Don Juan and some French novels in
the second. Tupper, Swinburne, and Walt Whitman he did not know.

In the corner next the donjon chimney was a little room with a small
fireplace. Thus the hermit economized wood, for wood meant time, and
time meant communion with his books. All of his domestic arrangements
were carried on after this frugal fashion. In the little room was a
writing-desk, covered with manuscripts and commonplace books.

"Well, my young friend, you're thrice welcome," said Andrew, who never
dropped his book language. "What will you have? Will you resume your
apprenticeship under Goethe, or shall we canter to Canterbury with
Chaucer? Grand old Dan Chaucer! Or, shall we study magical philosophy
with Roger Bacon--the Friar, the Admirable Doctor? or read good Sir
Thomas More? What would Sir Thomas have said if he could have thought
that he would be admired by two such people as you and I, in the woods
of America, in the nineteenth century? But you do not want books! Ah! my
brave friend, you are not well. Come into my cell and let us talk. What
grieves you?"

And Andrew took him by the hand with the courtesy of a knight, with the
tenderness of a woman, and with the air of an astrologer, and led him
into the apartment of a monk.

[Illustration: THE SEDILIUM AT THE CASTLE.]

"See!" he said, "I have made a new chair. It is the highest evidence of
my love for my Teutonic friend. You have now a right to this castle. You
shall be perpetually welcome. I said to myself, German scholarship shall
sit there, and the Backwoods Philosopher will sit here. So sit down on
my _sedilium_, and let us hear how this uncivil and inconstant world
treats you. It can not deal worse with you than it has with me. But I
have had my revenge on it! I have been revenged! I have done as I
pleased, and defied the world and all its hollow conventionalities."
These last words were spoken in a tone of misanthropic bitterness common
to Andrew. His love for August was the more intense that it stood upon a
background of general dislike, if not for the world, at least for that
portion of it which most immediately surrounded him.

August took the chair, ingeniously woven and built of rye straw and
hickory splints. He knew that all this formality and apparent pedantry
was superficial. He and Andrew were bosom friends, and as he had often
opened his heart to the master of the castle before, so now he had no
difficulty in telling him his troubles, scarcely heeding the appropriate
quotations which Andrew made from time to time by way of embellishment.

CHAPTER VI.

THE BACKWOODS PHILOSOPHER.

One reason for Andrew's love of August Wehle was that he was a German.
Far from sharing in the prejudices of his neighbors against foreigners,
Andrew had so thorough a contempt for his neighbors, that he liked
anybody who did not belong to his own people. If a Turk had emigrated to
Clark township, Andrew would have fallen in love with him, and built a
divan for his special accommodation. But he loved August also for the
sake of his gentle temper and his genuine love for books. And only
August or August's mother, upon whom Andrew sometimes called, could
exorcise his demon of misanthropy, which he had nursed so long that it
was now hard to dismiss it.

Andrew Anderson belonged to a class noticed, I doubt not, by every acute
observer of provincial life in this country. In backwoods and
out-of-the-way communities literary culture produces marked
eccentricities in the life. Your bookish man at the West has never
learned to mark the distinction between the world of ideas and the
world of practical life. Instead of writing poems or romances, he falls
to living them, or at least trying to. Add a disappointment in love, and
you will surely throw him into the class of which Anderson was the
representative. For the education one gets from books is sadly
one-sided, unless it be balanced by a knowledge of the world.

Andrew Anderson had always been regarded as an oddity. A man with a good
share of ideality and literary taste, placed against the dull background
of the society of a Western neighborhood in the former half of the
century, would necessarily appear odd. Had he drifted into communities
of more culture, his eccentricity, begotten of a sense of superiority to
his surroundings, would have worn away. Had he been happily married, his
oddities would have been softened; but neither of these things happened.
He told August a very different history. For the confidence of his
"Teutonic friend" had awakened in the solitary man a desire to uncover
that story which he had kept under lock and key for so many years.

"Ah! my friend," said he with excitement, "don't trust the faith of a
woman." And then rising from his seat he said, "The Backwoods
Philosopher warns you. I pray you give good heed. I do not know Julia.
She is my niece. It ill becomes me to doubt her sincerity. But I know
whose daughter she is. I pray you give good heed, my Teutonic friend. _I
know whose daughter she is_!

"I do not talk much. But you have arrived at a critical point--a point
of turning. Out of his own life, out of his own sorrow, the Backwoods
Philosopher warns you. I am at peace now. But look at me. Do you not see
the marks of the ravages of a great storm? A sort of a qualified
happiness I have in philosophy. But what I might have been if the
storm had not torn me to pieces in my youth--what I might have been,
that I am not. I pray you never trust in a woman's keeping the happiness
of your life!"

[Illustration: "LOOK AT ME."]

Here Andrew slipped his arm through Wehle's, and began to promenade with
him in the large apartment up and down an alley, dimly lighted by a
candle, between solid phalanxes of books.

"I pray you give good heed," he said, resuming. "I was always eccentric.
People thought I was either a genius or fool. Perhaps I was much of
both. But this is a digression. I did not pay any attention to women. I
shunned them. I said that to be a great author and a philosophical
thinker, one must not be a man of society. I never went to a
wood-chopping, to an apple-peeling, to a corn-shucking, to a
barn-raising, nor indeed to any of our rustic feasts. I suppose this
piqued the vanity of the girls, and they set themselves to catch me. I
suppose they thought that I would be a trophy worth boasting. I have
noticed that hunters estimate game according to the difficulty of
getting it. But this is a digression. Let us return.

"There came among us, at that time, Abigail Norman. She was pretty. I
swear by all the sacred cats of Egypt, that she was beautiful. She was
industrious. The best housekeeper in the state! She was high-strung. I
liked her all the more for that. You see a man of imagination is apt to
fall in love with a tragedy queen. But this is a digression. Let
us return.

"She spread her toils in my path. While I was wandering through the
woods writing poetry to birds and squirrels, Abby Norman was ambitious
enough to hope to make me her slave, and she did. She read books that
she thought I liked. She planned in various ways to seem to like what I
liked, and yet she had sense enough to differ a little from me, and so
make herself the more interesting. I think a man of real intellect never
likes to have a man or woman agree with him entirely. But let us return.

"I loved Abigail desperately. No, I did not love Abigail Norman at all.
I did not love her as she was, but I loved her as she seemed to my
imagination to be. I think most lovers love an ideal that hovers in the
air a little above the real recipient of their love. And I think we men
of genius and imagination are apt to love something very different from
the real person, which is unfortunate.

"But I am digressing again. To return: I wrote poetry to Abby. I courted
her. I cut off my long hair for a woman, like Samson. I tried to dress
more decently, and made myself ridiculous no doubt, for a man can not
dress well unless he has a talent for it. And I never had a genius for
beau-knots.

"But pardon the digression. Let us return. I was to have married her.
The day was set. Then I found accidentally that she was engaged to my
brother Samuel, a young man with better manners than mind. She made him
believe that she was only making a butt of me. But I think she really
loved me more than she knew. When I had discovered her treachery, I
shipped on the first flat-boat. I came near committing suicide, and
should have jumped into the river one night, only that I thought it
might flatter her vanity. I came back here and ignored her. She broke
with Samuel and tried to regain my affections. I scorned her. I trod on
her heart! I stamped her pride into the dust! I was cruel. I was
contemptuous. I was well-nigh insane. Then she went back to Samuel, and
_made_ him marry her. Then she forced my imbecile old father, on his
death-bed, to will all the property to Samuel, except this piece of
rough hill-land and one thousand dollars. But here I built this castle.
My thousand dollars I put in books. I learned how, to weave the
coverlets of which our country people are so fond, and by this means,
and by selling wood to the steamboats, I have made a living and bought
my library without having to work half of my time. I was determined
never to leave. I swore by all the arms of Vishnu she should never say
that she had driven me away. I don't know anything about Julia. But I
know whose daughter she is. My young friend, beware! I pray you take
good heed! The Backwoods Philosopher warns you!"

CHAPTER VII.

WITHIN AND WITHOUT.

If the gentleman is not born in a man, it can not be bred in him. If it
is born in him, it can not be bred out of him. August Wehle had
inherited from his mother the instinct of true gentlemanliness. And now,
when Andrew relapsed into silence and abstraction, he did not attempt to
rouse him, but bidding him goodnight, with his own hands threw the
rope-ladder out the window and started up the hollow toward home. The
air was sultry and oppressive, the moon had been engulfed, and the first
thunder-cloud of the spring was pushing itself up toward the zenith,
while the boughs of the trees were quivering with a premonitory shudder.
But August did not hasten. The real storm was within. Andrew's story had
raised doubts. When he went down the ravine the love of Julia Anderson
shone upon his heart as benignly as the moon upon the waters. Now the
light was gone, and the black cloud of a doubt had shut out his peace.
Jule Anderson's father was rich. He had not thought of it before! But
now he remembered how much woodland he owned and how he had two large
farms. Jule Anderson would not marry a poor boy. And a Dutchman! She was
not sincere. She was trifling with him and teasing her parents. Or, if
she were sincere now, she would not be faithful to him against every
tempting offer. And he would have to drive on the rocks, too, as Andrew
had. At any rate, he would not marry her until he stood upon some sort
of equality with her.

The wind was swaying him about in its fitful gusts, and he rather liked
it. In his anguish of spirit it was a pleasure to contend with the
storm. The wind, the lightning, the sudden sharp claps of thunder were
on his own key. He felt in the temper of old Lear. The winds might blow
and crack their cheeks.

But it was not alone the suggestions of Andrew that aroused his
suspicions. He now recalled a strange statement that Samuel Anderson
made in discharging him. "You said what you had no right to say about my
wife, in talking to Julia." What had he said? Only that some woman had
not treated Andrew "just right." Who the woman might be he had not known
until his present interview with Andrew. Had Julia been making mischief
herself by repeating his words and giving them a direction he had not
intended? He could not have dreamed of her acting such a part but for
the strange influence of Andrew's strange story. And so he staggered on,
wet to the skin, defying in his heart the lightning and the wind, until
he came to the cabin of his father. Climbing the fence, for there was no
gate, he pulled the latch-string and entered. They were all asleep; the
hard-working family went to bed early. But chubby-faced Wilhelmina, the
favorite sister, had set up to wait for August, and he now found her
fast asleep in the chair.

"Wilhelmina! wake up!" he said.

"O August!" she said, opening the corner of one eye and yawning, "I
wasn't asleep. I only--uh--shut my eyes a minute. How wet you are! Did
you go to see the pretty girl up at Mr. Anderson's?"

"No," said August.

"O August! she is pretty, and she is good and sweet," and Wilhelmina
took his wet checks between her chubby hands and gave him a sleepy kiss,
and then crept off to bed.

And, somehow, the faith of the child Wilhelmina counteracted the
skepticism of the and Andrew, and August felt the storm subsiding.

When he looked out of the window of the loft in which he slept the
shower had ceased as suddenly as it had come, the thunder had retreated
behind the hills, the clouds were already breaking, and the white face
of the moon was peering through the ragged rifts.

CHAPTER VIII.

FIGGERS WON'T LIE

"Figgers won't lie," said Elder Hankins, the Millerite preacher. "I say
figgers won't lie. When a Methodis' talks about fallin' from grace he
has to argy the pint. And argyments can't be depended 'pon. And when a
Prisbyterian talks about parseverance he haint got the absolute
sartainty on his side. But figgers won't lie noways, and it's figgers
that shows this yer to be the last yer of the world, and that the final
eend of all things is approachin'. I don't ask you to listen to no
'mpressions of me own, to no reasonin' of nobody; all I ask is that you
should listen to the voice of the man in the linen-coat what spoke to
Dan'el, and then listen to the voice of the 'rithmetic, and to a sum in
simple addition, the simplest sort of addition."

All the Millerite preachers of that day were not quite so illiterate as
Elder Hankins, and it is but fair to say that the Adventists of to-day
are a very respectable denomination, doing a work which deserves more
recognition from others than it receives. And for the delusion which
expects the world to come to an end immediately, the Adventist leaders
are not responsible in the first place. From Gnosticism to Mormonism,
every religious delusion has grown from some fundamental error in the
previous religious teaching of the people. By the narrowly verbal method
of reading the Scripture, so much in vogue in the polemical discussions
of the past generation, and still so fervently adhered to by many
people, the ground was prepared for Millerism. And to-day in many
regions the soil in made fallow for the next fanaticism. It is only a
question of who shall first sow and reap. To people educated as those
who gathered in Sugar Grove school-house had been to destroy the spirit
of the Scripture by distorting the letter in proving their own sect
right, nothing could be so overwhelming as Elder Hankins's "figgers."

For he had clearly studied figgers to the neglect of the other branches
of a liberal education. His demonstration was printed on a large chart.
He began with the seventy weeks of Daniel, he added in the "time and
times and a half," and what Daniel declared that he "understood not when
he heard," was plain sailing to the enlightened and mathematical mind of
Elder Hankins. When he came to the thousand two hundred and ninety days,
he waxed more exultant than Kepler in his supreme moment, and on the
thousand three hundred and five and thirty days he did what Jonas
Harrison called "the blamedest tallest cipherin' he'd ever seed in all
his born days."

Jonas was the new hired man, who had stopped into the shoes of August at
Samuel Anderson's. He sat by August and kept up a running commentary, in
a loud whisper, on the sermon, "My feller-citizen," said Jonas,
squeezing August's arm at a climax of the elder's discourse, "My
feller-citizen, looky thar, won't you? He'll cipher the world into
nothin' in no time. He's like the feller that tried to find out the
valoo of a fat shoat when wood was two dollars a cord. 'Ef I can't do it
by substraction I'll do it by long-division,' says he. And ef this
'rithmetic preacher can't make a finishment of this sub_lu_nary speer by
addition, he'll do it by multiplyin'. They's only one answer in his
book. Gin him any sum you please, and it all comes out 1843!"

Now in all the region round about Sugar Grove school-house there was a
great dearth of sensation. The people liked the prospect of the end of
the world because it would be a spectacle, something to relieve the
fearful monotony of their lives. Funerals and weddings were commonplace,
and nothing could have been so interesting to them as the coming of the
end of the world, as described by Elder Hankins, unless it had been a
first-class circus (with two camels and a cage of monkeys attached, so
that scrupulous people might attend from a laudable desire to see the
menagerie!) A murder would have been delightful to the people of Clark
township. It would have given them something to think and talk about.
Into this still pool Elder Hankins threw the vials, the trumpets, the
thunders, the beast with ten horns, the he-goat, and all the other
apocalyptic symbols understood in an absurdly literal way. The world was
to come to an end in the following August. Here was an excitement,
something worth living for.

All the way to their homes the people disputed learnedly about the "time
and times and a half," about "the seven heads and ten horns," and the
seventh vial. The fierce polemical discussions and the bold sectarian
dogmatism of the day had taught them anything but "the modesty of true
science," and now the unsolvable problems of the centuries were taken
out of the hands of puzzled scholars and settled as summarily and
positively as the relative merits of "gourd-seed" and "flint" corn.
Samuel Anderson had always planted his corn in the "light" of the moon
and his potatoes in the "dark" of that orb, had always killed his hogs
when the moon was on the increase lest the meat should all go to gravy,
and he and his wife had carefully guarded against the carrying of a hoe
through the house, for fear "somebody might die." Now, the preaching of
the elder impressed him powerfully. His life had always been not so much
a bad one as a cowardly one, and to get into heaven by a six months'
repentance, seemed to him a good transaction. Besides he remembered that
there men were never married, and that there, at last, Abigail would no
longer have any peculiar right to torture him. Hankins could not have
ciphered him into Millerism if his wife had not driven him into it as
the easiest means of getting a divorce. No doom in the next world could
have alarmed him much, unless it had been the prospect of continuing
lord and master of Mrs. Abigail. And as for that oppressed woman, she
was simply scared. She was quite unwilling to admit the coming of the
world's end so soon. Having some ugly accounts to settle, she would fain
have postponed the payday. Mrs. Anderson might truly have been called a
woman who feared God--she had reason to.

And as for August, he would not have cared much if the world had come to
an end, if only he could have secured one glance of recognition from the
eyes of Julia. But Julia dared not look. The process of cowing her had
gone on from childhood, and now she was under a reign of terror. She did
not yet know that she could resist her mother. And then she lived in
mortal fear of her mother's heart-disease. By irritating her she might
kill her. This dread of matricide her mother held always over her. In
vain she watched for a chance. It did not come. Once, when her mother's
head was turned, she glanced at August. But he was at that moment
listening or trying to listen to one of Jonas Harrison's remarks. And
August, who did not understand the circumstances, was only able to
account for her apparent coldness on the theory suggested by Andrew's
universal unbelief in women, or by supposing that when she understood
his innocent remark about Andrew's disappointment to refer to her
mother, she had taken offense at it. And so, while the rest were
debating whether the world would come to an end or not, August had a
disconsolate feeling that the end of the world had already come. And it
did not make him feel better to have Wilhelmina whisper, "Oh! but she
_is_ pretty, that Anderson girl--a'n't she, August?"

CHAPTER IX.

THE NEW SINGING-MASTER

"He sings like an owlingale!"

Jonas Harrison was leaning against the well-curb, talking to Cynthy Ann.
He'd been down to the store at Brayville, he said, a listenin' to 'em
discuss Millerism, and seed a new singing-master there. "Could he sing
good?" Cynthy asked, rather to prolong the talk than to get information.

"Sings like an owlingale, I reckon. He's got more seals to his ministry
a-hanging onto his watch-chain than I ever seed. Got a mustache onto the
top story of his mouth, somethin' like a tuft of grass on the roof of a
ole shed kitchen. Peart? He's the peartest-lookin' chap I ever seed. But
he a'n't no singin'-master--not of I'm any jedge of turnips. He warn't
born to sarve his day and generation with a tunin'-fork. I think he's
a-goin' to reckon-water a little in these parts and that he's only
a-playin' singin'-master. He kin play more fiddles'n one, you bet a
hoss! Says he come up here fer his wholesome, and I guess he did. Think
ef he'd a-staid where he was, he mout a-suffered a leetle from
confinement to his room, and that room p'raps not more nor five foot by
nine, and ruther dim-lighted and poor-provisioned, an' not much chance
fer takin' exercise in the fresh air!"

[Illustration: "DON'T BE ONCHARITABLE, JONAS."]

"Don't be oncharitable, Jonas, don't. We're all mis'able sinners, I
s'pose; and you know charity don't think no evil. The man may be all
right, ef he does wear hair on his lip. Charity kivers lots a sins."

"Ya-as, but charity don't kiver no wolves with wool. An' ef he a'n't a
woolly wolf they's no snakes in Jarsey, as little Ridin' Hood said when
her granny tried to bite her head off. I'm dead sot in favor of charity,
and mean to gin her my vote at every election, but I a'n't a-goin' to
have her put a blind-bridle on to me. And when a man comes to Clark
township a-wearing straps to his breechaloons to keep hisself from
leaving terry-firmy altogether, and a weightin' hisself down with pewter
watch-seals, gold-washed, and a cultivating a crap of red-top hay onto
his upper lip, and a-lettin' on to be a singin'-master, I suspicions
him. They's too much in the git-up fer the come-out. Well, here's yer
health, Cynthy!"

And having made this oracular speech and quaffed the hard limestone
water, Jonas hung the clean white gourd from which he had been drinking,
in its place against the well-curb, and started back to the field, while
Cynthy Ann carried her bucket of water into the kitchen, blaming herself
for standing so long talking to Jonas. To Cynthy everything pleasant had
a flavor of sinfulness.

The pail of water was hardly set down in the sink when there came a
knock at the door, and Cynthy found standing by it the strapped
pantaloons, the "red-top" mustache, the watch-seals, and all the rest
that went to make up the new singing-master. He smiled when he saw her,
one of those smiles which are strictly limited to the lower half of the
face, and are wholly mechanical, as though certain strings inside were
pulled with malice aforethought and the mouth jerked out into a square
grin, such as an ingeniously-made automaton might display.

"Is Mr. Anderson in?"

"No, sir; he's gone to town."

"Is Mrs. Anderson in?"

And so he entered, and soon got into conversation with the lady of the
house, and despite the prejudice which she entertained for mustaches,
she soon came to like him. He smiled so artistically. He talked so
fluently. He humored all her whims, pitied all her complaints, and staid
to dinner, eating her best preserves with a graciousness that made Mrs.
Anderson feel how great was his condescension. For Mr. Humphreys, the
singing-master, had looked at the comely face of Julia, and looked over
Julia's shoulders at the broad acres beyond; and he thought that in
Clark township he had not met with so fine a landscape, so nice a
figure-piece. And with the quick eye of a man of the world, he had
measured Mrs. Anderson, and calculated on the ease with which he might
complete the picture to suit his taste.

He staid to supper. He smiled that same fascinating square smile on
Samuel Anderson, treated him as head of the house, talked glibly of
farming, and listened better than he talked. He gave no account of
himself, except by way of allusion. He would begin a sentence thus,
"When I was traveling in France with my poor dear mother," etc., from
which Mrs. Anderson gathered that he had been a devoted son, and then he
would relate how he had seen something curious "when he was dining at
the house of the American minister at Berlin." "This hazy air reminds me
of my native mountains in Northern New York." And then he would allude
to his study of music in the Conservatory in Leipsic. To plain country
people in an out-of-the-way Western neighborhood, in 1843, such a man
was better than a lyceum full of lectures. He brought them the odor of
foreign travel, the flavor of city, the "otherness" that
everybody craves.

[Illustration: THE HAWK.]

He staid to dinner, as I have said, and to supper. He staid over night.
He took up his board at the house of Samuel Anderson. Who could resist
his entreaty? Did he not assure them that he felt the need of a home in
a cultivated family? And was it not the one golden opportunity to have
the daughter of the house taught music by a private master, and thus
give a special _eclat_ to her education? How Mrs. Anderson hoped that
this superior advantage would provoke jealous remarks on the part of her
neighbors! It was only necessary to the completion of her triumph that
they should say she was "stuck up." Then, too, to have so brilliant a
beau for Julia! A beau with watch-seals and a mustache, a beau who had
been to Paris with his mother, studied music in the Conservatory at
Leipsic, dined with the American minister in Berlin, and done ever so
many more wonderful things, was a prospect to delight the ambitious
heart of Mrs. Anderson, especially as he flattered the mother instead of
the daughter.

"He's a independent citizen of this Federal Union," said Jonas to
Cynthy, "carries his head like he was intimately 'quainted with the
'merican eagle hisself. He's playin' this game sharp. He deals all the
trumps to hisself, and most everything besides. He'll carry off the gal
if something don't arrest him in his headlong career. Jist let me git a
chance at him when he's soarin' loftiest into the amber blue above, and
I'll cut his kite-string for him, and let him fall like fork-ed
lightnin' into a mud-puddle."

Cynthy said she did see one great sin that he had committed for sure.
That was the puttin' on of gold and costly apparel. It was sot down in
the Bible and in the Methodist Discipline that it was a sin to wear
gold, and she should think the poor man hadn't no sort o' regard for his
soul, weighing it down with them things.

But Jonas only remarked that he guessed his jewelry warn't no sin. He
didn't remember nothing agin wearin' pewter.

CHAPTER X.

AN OFFER OF HELP.

The singing-master, Mr. Humphreys, went to singing-school and church
with Julia in a matter-of-course way, treating her with attention, but
taking care not to make himself too attentive. Except that Julia could
not endure his smile--which was, like some joint stock companies,
strictly limited--she liked him well enough. It was something to her, in
her monotonous life under the eye of her mother, who almost never left
her alone, and who cut off all chance for communication with August--it
was something to have the unobtrusive attentions of Mr. Humphreys, who
always interested her with his adventures. For indeed it really seemed
that he had had more adventures than any dozen other men. How should a
simple-hearted girl understand him? How should she read the riddle of a
life so full of duplicity--of _multiplicity_--as the life of Joshua
Humphreys, the music-teacher? Humphreys intended to make love to her,
but during the first two weeks he only aimed to gain her esteem. He felt
that there was a clue which he had not got. But at last the key dropped
into his hands, and he felt sure that the unsophisticated girl was in
his power.

Among the girls that attended Humphreys's singing-school was Betsey
Malcolm, the near neighbor of the Andersons. The singing-master often
saw her at Mr. Anderson's, and he often wished that Julia were as easy
to win as he felt Betsey to be. The sensuous mouth, the giddy eyes of
Betsey, showed quickly her appreciation of every flattering attention he
paid her, and though in Julia's presence he was careful how he treated
her, yet when he, walking down the road one day, alone, met her, he
courted her assiduously. He had not to observe any caution in her case.
She greedily absorbed all the flattery he could give, only pettishly
responding after a while: "O dear! that's the way you talk to me, and
that's the way you talk to Jule sometimes, I s'pose. I guess she don't
mind keeping two of you as strings to her bow."

"Two! What do you mean, my fair friend? I havn't seen one, yet."

"Oh, no! You mean you haven't seen two. You see one whenever you look in
the glass. The other is a Dutchman, and she's dying after him. She may
flirt with you, but her mother watches her night and day, to keep her
from running off with Gus Wehle."

Like many another crafty person, Betsey Malcolm had fairly overshot the
mark. In seeking to separate Humphreys from Julia, she had given him the
clue he desired, and he was not slow to use it, for he was almost the
only person that Mrs. Anderson trusted alone with Julia.

In the dusk of the evening of the very day of his talk with Betsey, he
sat on the long front-porch with Julia. Julia liked him better, or
rather did not dislike him so much in the dark as she did in the light.
For when it was light she could see him smile, and though she had not
learned to connect a cold-blooded face with a villainous character, she
had that childish instinct which made her shrink from Humphreys's square
smile. It always seemed to her that the real Humphreys gazed at her out
of the cold, glittering eyes, and that the smile was something with
which he had nothing to do.

Sitting thus in the dusk of the evening, and looking out over the green
pasture to where the nigher hills ceased and the distant seemed to come
immediately after, their distance only indicated by color, though the
whole Ohio "bottom" was between, she forgot the Mephistopheles who sat
not far away, and dreamed of August, the "grand," as she fancifully
called him. And he let her sit and dream undisturbed for a long time,
until the darkness settled down upon the hills. Then he spoke.

"I--I thought," began Humphreys, with well-feigned hesitancy, "I
thought, I should venture to offer you my assistance as a true and
gallant man, in a matter--a matter of supreme delicacy--a matter that I
have no right to meddle with. I think I have heard that your mother is
not friendly to the suit of a young man who--who--well, let us say who
is not wholly disagreeable to you. I beg your pardon, don't tell me
anything that you prefer to keep locked in the privacy of your own
bosom. But if I can render any assistance, you know. I have some little
influence with your parents, maybe. If I could be the happy bearer of
any communications, command me as your obedient servant."

Julia did not know what to say. To get a word to August was what she
most desired. But the thought of using Humphreys was repulsive to her.
She could not see his face in the gathering darkness, but she could
_feel_ him smile that same soulless, geometrical smile. She could not do
it. She did not know what to say. So she said nothing. Humphreys saw
that he must begin farther back.

"I hear the young man spoken of as a praiseworthy person. German, I
believe? I have always noticed a peculiar manliness about Germans. A
peculiar refinement, indeed, and a courtesy that is often wanting in
Americans. I noticed this when I was in Leipsic. I don't think the
German girls are quite so refined. German gentlemen in this country seem
to prefer American girls oftentimes."

All this might have sounded hollow enough to a disinterested listener.
To Julia the words were as sweet as the first rain after a tedious
drouth. She had heard complaint, censure, innuendo, and downright abuse
of poor Gus. These were the first generous words. They confirmed her
judgment, they comforted her heart, they made her feel grateful, even
affectionate toward the fop, in spite of his watch-seals, his curled
mustache, his straps, his cold eyes, and his artificial smile. Poor fool
you will call her, and poor fool she was. For she could have thrown
herself at the feet of Humphreys, and thanked him for his words. Thank
him she did in a stammering way, and he did not hesitate to repeat his
favorable impressions of Germans, after that. What he wanted was, not to
break the hold of August until he had placed himself in a position to be
next heir to her regard.

CHAPTER XI.

THE COON-DOG ARGUMENT.

The reader must understand that all this time Elder Hankins continued to
bombard Clark township with the thunders and lightnings of the
Apocalypse, continued to whirl before the dazed imaginations of his
rustic hearers the wheels within wheels and the faces of the living
creatures of 'Zek'el, continued to cipher the world out of existence
according to formulas in Dan'el, marched out the he-goat, made the seven
heads and ten horns of the beast do service over and over again. And all
the sweet mysteries of Oriental imagery, the mystic figures which
unexpounded give so noble a depth to the perspective of Scripture, were
cut to pieces, pulled apart, and explained, as though they were tricks
of legerdemain. Julia was powerfully impressed, not by the declamations
of Hankins, for she had sensibility enough to recoil from his
vivisection of Scripture, though she had been all her life accustomed to
hear it from other than Millerites, but she was profoundly affected by
the excitement about her. Her father, attracted in part by the promise
that there should be no marrying there, had embraced Millerism with all
his heart, and was in such a state of excitement that he could not
attend to his business. Mrs. Anderson was in continual trepidation about
it, though she tried not to believe it. She was on the point of
rebelling and declaring that the world _should_ not come to an end. But
on the whole she felt that the government of the universe was one affair
in which she would have to give up all hope of having her own way.
Meantime there was no increase of religion. Some were frightened out of
their vices for a time, but a passionate terror of that sort is the
worst enemy of true piety.

"Fer my part," said Cynthy Ann, as she walked home with Jonas, "fer my
part, I don't believe none of his nonsense. John Wesley" (Jonas was a
New-Light, and Cynthy always talked to him about Wesley) "knowed a heap
more about Scripter than all the Hankinses and Millerses that ever was
born, and he knowed how to cipher, too, I 'low. Why didn't he say the
world was goin' to wind up? An' our persidin' elder is a heap better
instructed than Hankins, and he says God don't tell nobody when the
world's goin' to wind up."

"Goin' to run down, you mean, Cynthy Ann. 'Kordin' to Hankins it's a old
clock gin out in the springs, I 'low. How does Hankins know that
'Zek'el's livin' creeters means one thing more'n another? He talks about
them wheels as nateral as ef he was a wagon-maker fixin' a ole buggy. He
says the thing's a gone tater; no more craps of corn offen the bottom
land, no more electin' presidents of this free and glorious Columby, no
more Fourths, no more shootin' crackers nor spangled banners, no more
nothin'. He ciphers and ciphers, and then spits on his slate and wipes
us all out. Whenever Gabr'el blows I'll b'lieve it, but I won't take
none o' Hankins's tootin' in place of it. I shan't git skeered at no
tin-horns, and as for papaw whistles, why, I say Jericho wouldn't
a-tumbled for no sech music, and they won't fetch down no stars that
air way."

Here old Gottlieb Wehle, who had just joined the Millerites, came up.
"Yonas, you mags shport of de Piple. Ef dem vaces in der veels, and dem
awvool veels in der veels, and dem figures vot always says aideen
huntert vordy dree, ef dem tond mean sompin awvool, vot does dey mean?
mean? Hey?"

"My venerated friend and feller-citizen of forren birth," said Jonas,
"you hit the nail on the crown of the head squar, with the biggest sort
ov a sledge-hammer. You gripped a-holt of the truth that air time like
the American bird a-grippin' the arries on the shield. What do they
mean? That's jest the question, and you Millerites allers argies like
the man who warranted his dog to be a good coon-dog, bekase he warn't
good fer nothin' else under the amber blue. Now, my time-honored friend
and beloved German voter, jest let me tell you that _on the coon-dog
principle_ you could a-wound up the trade and traffic of this airth any
time. Fer ef they don't mean 1843, what do they mean? Why, 1842 or 1844,
of course. You don't come no coon-dog argyments over me, not while I
remain sound in wind and limb."

"Goon-tog! Who zed goon-tog? Ich tidn't, Hankins tidn't, Ze'kel's wision
tidn't zay nodin pout no goon-tog. What's goon-togs cot do too mit de
end of de vorld? Yonas, you pe a vool, maype."

"The same to yerself, my beloved friend and free and enlightened
feller-citizen. Long may you wave, like a green bay boss, and a
jimson-weed on the sunny side of a board-fence!"

Gottlieb hurried on, finding Jonas much harder to understand than the
prophecies.

"I hear the singing-master is goin' to jine," said Cynthy Ann. "Wonder
ef they'll take him with all his seals and straps, and hair on his upper
lip, with the plain words of the Bible agin gold and costly apparel?
Wonder ef he's tuck in, too?"

"Tuck in? He an't one of that kind. He don't never git tuck in--he tucks
in. He knows which side of his bread's got quince preserves onto it. I
used to run second mate on the Dook of Orleans, and I know his kind.
He'll soar around like a turkey-buzzard fer a while. Presently he'll
'light. He's rusticatin' tell some scrape blows over. An' he'll make
somethin' outen it. Business afore pleasure is his motto. He don't hang
that seducin' grin under them hawky eyes fer nothin'. Wait till the
pious and disinterested example 'lights somewheres. Then look out for
the feathers, won't ye! He won't leave nary bone. But here we air. I
declare, Cynthy, this walk seems _the shortest_, when I'm in superfine,
number-one comp'ny!"

Cynthy was so pleased with this remark, that she did penance in her mind
for a week afterwards. It was so wicked to enjoy one's self out of
class-meeting!

CHAPTER XII.

TWO MISTAKES.

At the singing-school and at the church August waited as impatiently as
possible for some sign of recognition from Julia. He little knew the
fear that beset her. Having seen her hysterical mother prostrated for
weeks by the excitement of a dispute with her father, it seemed to her
that if she turned one look of love and longing toward young Wehle,
whose sweet German voice rang out above the rest in the hymns, she might
kill her mother as quickly as by plunging a knife into her heart. The
steam-doctor, who was the family physician, had warned her and her
father separately of the danger of exciting Mrs. Anderson's most
excitable temper, and now Julia was the slave of her mother's disease.
That lucky hysteria, which the steam-doctor thought a fearful
heart-disease, had given Mrs. Abigail the whip-hand of husband and
daughter, and she was not slow to know her advantage, using her heart in
a most heartless way.

August could not blame Julia for not writing, for he had tried to break
the blockade by a letter sent through Jonas and Cynthy Ann, but the
latter had found herself so well watched that the note oppressed her
conscience and gave a hangdog look to her face for two weeks before she
got it out of her pocket, and then she put it under the pillow of
Julia's bed, and had reason to believe that the suspicious Mrs. Anderson
confiscated it within five minutes. For the severity of maternal
government was visibly increased thereafter, and Julia received many
reminders of her ingratitude and of her determination to kill her
self-sacrificing mother by her stubbornness.

"Well," Mrs. Anderson would say, "it's all one to me whether the world
comes to an end or not. I should like to live to see the day of
judgment. But I shan't. No affectionate mother can stand such treatment
as I receive from my own daughter. If Norman was only at home!"

It is proper to explain here that Norman was her son, in whom she took a
great deal of comfort when he was away, and whom she would have utterly
spoiled by indulgence if he had not been born past spoiling. He was the
only person to whom she was indulgent, and she was indulgent to him
chiefly because he was so weak of will that there was not much glory in
conquering him, and because her indulgence to him was a rod of
affliction to the rest of her family.

Failing to open communication through Jonas and Cynthy Ann, August found
himself in a desperate strait, and with an impatience common to young
men he unhappily had recourse to Betsey Malcolm. She often visited
Julia, and twice, when Julia was not at meeting, he went home with the
ingenuous Betsey, who always pretended to have something to tell him
"about Jule," and who yet, for the pure love of mischief-making, tried
to make him think as poorly as possible of Julia's sincerity, and who,
from pure love of flirtation, puckered her red lips, and flashed at him
with her sensuous eyes, and sighed and blushed, or rather flushed, while
she sympathized with him in a way that might have been perilous if he
had been an American instead of a constant-hearted "Dutchman," wholly
absorbed with the image of Julia. But, so far as carrying messages was
concerned, Betsey was certainly a non-conductor. She professed never to
be able to run the blockade with any communication of his. She said to
herself that she wasn't going to help Jule Anderson to keep _all_ the
beaus. She meant to capture one or the other of them if she could. And,
indeed, she did not dream how grievous was the wrong she did. For she
could appreciate no other feeling in the matter than vanity, and she
could not see any particular harm in "taking Jule Anderson down a peg."
And so she assured the anxious and already suspicious August that if she
was in his place she should want that singing-master out of the way.
"Some girls can't stand people that wear jewelry and mustaches and
straps and such things. And Mr. Humphreys is very careful of her, won't
let her sit too late on the porch, and is very comforting in his way of
talking to her. And she seems to like it. I tell you what it is, Gus
"--and she looked at him so bewitchingly that the pure and sensitive
August blushed, he could hardly tell why--"I tell you Jule's a nice
girl, and got a nice property back of her, and I hope she won't act like
her mother. And, indeed, I can't hardly believe she will, though the way
she eyes that Humphreys makes me mad." She had suggested the old doubt.
A doubt is dangerous when its face grows familiar, and one recognizes
the "Monsieur Tonson come again."

And all the message the disinterested and benevolent Betsey bore to
Julia was to tell her exultingly that Gus had twice walked home with
her. And they had had such a nice time! And Julia, girl that she was,
declared indignantly that she didn't care whom he went with; though she
did care, and her eyes and face said so. Thus the tongue sometimes
lies--or seems to lie--when the whole person is telling the truth. The
only excuse for the tongue is that it will not be believed, and it knows
that it will not be believed! It only speaks diplomatically, maybe. But
diplomatic talking is bad. Better the truth. If Jule had known that her
words would be reported to August, she would have bitten out her tongue
rather than to have let it utter words that were only the cry of her
wounded pride. Of course Betsey met August in the road the next morning,
in a quiet hollow by the brook, and told him, sympathizingly, almost
affectionately, that she had begun to talk to Julia about him, and that
Jule had said she didn't care. So while Julia uttered a lie she spoke
the truth, and while. Betsey uttered the truth she spoke a lie, willful,
malicious, and wicked.

Now, in the mean time, Julia, on her side, had tried to open
communication through the only channel that offered itself. She did not
attempt it by means of Betsey, because, being a woman, she felt
instinctively that Betsey was not to be trusted. But there was only one
other to whom she was allowed to speak, except under a supervision as
complete as it was unacknowledged. That other was Mr. Humphreys. He
evinced a constant interest in her affairs, avowing that he always did
have a romantic desire to effect the union of suitable people, even
though it might pain his heart a little to see another more fortunate
than himself. Julia had given up all hope of communicating by letter,
and she could not bring herself to make any confessions to a man who had
such a smile and such eyes, but to a generous proposition of Mr.
Humphreys that he should see August and open the way for any
communication between them, she consented, scarcely concealing her
eagerness.

August was not in a mood to receive Humphreys kindly. He hated him by
intuition, and a liking for him had not been begotten by Betsey's
assurances that he was making headway with Julia. August was riding
astride a bag of corn on his way to mill, when Humphreys, taking a
walk, met him.

"A pleasant day, Mr. Wehle!"

"Yes," said August, with a courtesy as mechanical as Humphreys's smile.

The singing-master was rather pleased than otherwise to see that August
disliked him. It suited his purpose, just now to gall Wehle into saying
what he would not otherwise have said.

"I hear you are in trouble," he proceeded.

"How so?"

"Oh! I hear that Mrs. Anderson doesn't like Dutchmen." The smile now
seemed to have something of a sneer in it.

"I don't know that that is your affair," said August, all his
suspicions, by a sort of "resolution of force," changing into anger.

"Oh! I beg pardon," with a tone half-mocking. "I did not know but I
might help settle matters. I think I have Mrs. Anderson's confidence;
and I know that I have Miss Anderson's confidence in an unusual degree.
I think a great deal of her. And she thinks me _her friend_ at least. I
thought that there might be some little matters yet unsettled between
you two, and she suggested that maybe there might be something you would
like to say, and that if you would say it to me, it would be all the
same as if it were said to her. She considers that in the relation I
bear to her and the family, a message delivered to me is the same in
effect as if given to her. I told her I did not think you would, as a
gentleman, wish to hold her to any promises that might be irksome to
her now."

These words were spoken with a coolness and maliciousness of good-nature
quite devilish, and August's fist involuntarily doubled itself to strike
him, if only to make him cease smiling in that villainous rectangular
way. But he checked himself.

"You are a puppy. Tell _that_ to Jule, if you choose. I shall send her a
release from all obligations, but not by the hand of a rascal!"

Like all desperadoes, Humphreys was a coward. He could shoot, but he
could not fight, and just now he was affecting the pious or at least the
high moral role, and had left his pistols, brandy-flasks, and the other
necessary appurtenances of a gentleman, locked in his trunk. Besides it
would not at all have suited his purpose to shoot. So in lieu of
shooting he only smiled, as August rode off, that same old geometric
smile, the elements of which were all calculated. He seemed incapable of
any other facial contortion. It expressed one emotion, indeed, about as
well as another, and was therefore as convenient as those pocket-knives
which affect to contain a chest of tools in one.

[Illustration: "TELL THAT TO JULE."]

Julia was already stung to jealousy by Betsey Malcolm's
mischief-making, and it did not require much more to put her into a
frenzy. As they walked home from meeting the next night--they had
meeting all nights now, the world would soon end and there was so much
to be done--as they walked home Humphreys contrived to separate Julia
from the rest, and to tell her that he had had a conversation with
young Wehle.

"It was painful, very painful," he said, "I think I had better not say
any more about it."

"Why?" asked Julia in terror.

"Well, I feel that your grief is mine. I have never felt so much
interest in any one before, and I must say that I was grievously
disappointed. This young man is not at all worthy of you."

"What do you mean?" And there was a trace of indignation in her tone.

"It does seem to me that the man who has your love should be the
happiest in the world; but he refused to send you any message, and says
that he will soon send you an entire release from all engagement to him.
He showed no tenderness and made no inquiry."

The weakest woman and the strongest can faint. It is a woman's last
resort. When all else is gone, that remains. Julia drew a sharp quick
breath, and was just about to become unconscious. Humphreys stretched
his arms to catch her, but the sudden recollection that in case she
fainted he would carry her into the house, produced a reaction. She
released herself from his grasp, and hurried in alone, locking her door,
and refusing admittance to her mother. From Humphreys, who had put
himself into a delicate minor key, Mrs. Anderson got such an account of
the conversation as he thought best to give. She then opened and read a
note placed into her hand by a neighbor as she came out from meeting. It
was addressed to Julia, and ran:

"If all they say is true, you have quickly changed. I do not hold you by
any promises you wish to break.

"AUGUST WEHLE."

Mrs. Anderson had no pity. She hesitated not an instant. Julia's door
was fast. But she went out upon the front upper porch, and pushing up
the window of her daughter's room as remorselessly as she had committed
the burglary on her private letter, she looked at her a moment, sobbing
on the bed, and then threw the letter into the room, saying: "It's good
for you. Read that, and see what a fellow your Dutchman is."

Then Mrs. Anderson sought her couch, and slept with a serene sense, of
having done _her_ duty as a mother, whatever might be the result.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SPIDER SPINS.

Julia got up from her bed the moment that her mother had gone. Her first
feeling was that her privacy had been shamefully outraged. A true mother
should honorably respect the reserve of the little child. But Julia was
now a woman, grown, with a woman's spirit. She rose from her bed, and
shut her window with a bang that was meant to be a protest. She then put
the tenpenny nail sometimes used to fasten the window down, in its
place, as if to say, "Come in, if you can." Then she pulled out the
folds of the chintz curtain, hanging on its draw-string half-way up the
window. If there had been any other precaution possible, she would have
taken it. But there was not.

She took up the note, and read it. Julia was not a girl of keen
penetration. Her training was that of a country life. She did not read
between the lines of August's note, and could only understand that she
was dismissed. Outraged by her mother's tyranny, spurned by her lover,
she stood like a hunted creature, brought to bay, looking for the last
desperate chance for escape.

Crushed? No. If she had been weaker, if she had been of the quieter,
frailer sort, instead of being, as she was, elastic, impulsive,
recuperative, she might have been crushed. She was wounded in her heart
of hearts, but all her pride and hardihood, of which she had not a
little, had now taken up arms against outrageous fortune. She was stung
at every thought of August and his letter, of Betsey Malcolm and her
victory, of the fact that her mother had read the letter and knew of her
humiliation. And she paced the floor of her room, and resolved to resist
and to be revenged. She would marry anybody, that she might show Betsey
and August they had not broken he heart and that her love did not
go begging.

O Julia! take care. Many another woman has jumped off that precipice!

And she would escape from her mother. The indications of affection
adroitly given by Humphreys were all remembered now. She could have him,
and she would. He would take her to Cincinnati. She would have her
revenge all around. I am sorry to show you my heroine in this mood. But
the fairest climes are sometimes subject to the fiercest hurricanes, the
frightfulest earthquakes!

After an hour the room seemed hot. She pulled back the chintz curtain
and pushed up the window. The blue-grass in the pasture looked cool as
it drank the heavy dews. She climbed through the window on to the long,
old-fashioned upper porch. She sat down upon an old-fashioned settee
with rockers, and began to rock. The motion relieved her nervousness and
fanned her hot cheeks. Yes, she would accept the first respectable lover
that offered. She would go to the city with Humphreys, if he asked her.
It is only fair to say that Julia did not at all consider--she was not
in a temper to consider--what a marriage with Humphreys implied. She
only thought of it on two sides--the revenge upon August and Betsey,
and the escape from a thralldom now grown more bitter than death. True,
her conscience was beginning to awaken, and to take up arms against her
resolve. But nothing could be plainer. In marrying Mr. Humphreys she
should marry a friend, the only friend she had. In marrying him she
would satisfy her mother, and was it not her duty to sacrifice something
to her mother's happiness, perhaps her mother's life?

[Illustration: TEMPTED.]

Yes, yes, Julia, a false spirit of self-sacrifice is another path over
the cliff! In such a mood as this all paths lead into the abyss.

Her mind was made up. She braced her will against all the relentings of
her heart. She wished that Humphreys, who had indirectly declared his
love so often, were there to offer at once. She would accept him
immediately, and then the whole neighborhood should not say that she had
been deserted by a Dutchman. For in her anger she found her mother's
epithets expressive.

He was there! Was it the devil that planned it? Does he plan all those
opportunities for wrong that are so sure to offer themselves? Humphreys,
having led a life that turned night into day, sat at the farther end of
the long upper porch, smoking his cigar, waiting a bed-time nearer to
the one to which he was accustomed.

Did he suspect the struggle in the heart of Julia Anderson? Did he guess
that her pride and defiance had by this time reached high-water mark?
Did he divine this from seeing her there? He rose and started in through
the door of the upper hall, the only opening to the porch, except the
window. But this was a feint. He turned back and sat himself down upon
the farther end of the settee from Julia. He understood human nature
perfectly, and had had long practice in making gradual approaches. He
begged her pardon for the bungling manner in which he had communicated
intelligence that must be so terrible to a heart so sensitive! Julia was
just going to declare that she did not care anything for what August
said or thought, but her natural truthfulness checked the transparent
falsehood. She had not gone far enough astray to lie consciously; she
was, as yet, only telling lies to herself. Very gradually and cautiously
did he proceed so as not to "flush the bird." Even as I saw, an hour
ago, a cat creep upon a sparrow with fascinating eyes, and a waving,
snake-like motion of the tail, and a treacherous feline smile upon her
face, even so, cautiously and by degrees, Humphreys felt his way with
velvet paws toward his prey. He knew the opportunity, that once gone
might not come again; he soon guessed that this was the hour and power
of darkness in the soul of Julia, the hour in which she would seek to
flee from her own pride and mortification. And if Humphreys knew how to
approach with a soft tread, very slowly and cautiously, he also
knew--men of his "profession" always know--when to spring. He saw the
moment, he made the spring, he seized the prey.

"Will you trust your destiny to me, Miss Anderson? You seem beset by
troubles. I have means. I could not but he wholly devoted to your
welfare. Let me help you to flee away from--from all this mortification,
and this--this domestic tyranny. Will you intrust yourself to me?"

He did not say anything about love. He had an instinctive feeling that
it would not be best. She felt herself environed with insurmountable
difficulties, threatened with agonies worse than death--so they seemed
to her. He simply, coolly opened the door, and bade her easily and
triumphantly escape. Had he said one word of tenderness the reaction
must have set in.

She was silent.

"I did hope, by sacrificing all my own hopes, to effect a
reconciliation. But when that young man spoke insulting words about you,
I determined at once to offer you my devoted protection. I ask no more
than you are able to give, your respect Will you accept my life-long
protection as your husband?"

"Yes!" said the passionate girl in an agony of despair

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SPIDER'S WEB.

Now that Humphreys had his prey he did not know just what to do with it.
Not knowing what to say, he said nothing, in which he showed his wisdom.
But he felt that saying nothing was almost as bad as saying something.
And he was right. For with people of impulsive temperament reactions are
sudden, and in one minute after Julia had said yes, there came to her
memory the vision of August standing in the barn and looking into her
eyes so purely and truly and loyally, and vowing such sweet vows of
love, and she looked back upon that perfect hour with some such fooling
perhaps as Dives felt looking out of torment across the great gulf into
paradise. Only that Dives had never known paradise, while she had. For
the man or woman that knows a pure, self-sacrificing love, returned in
kind, knows that which, of all things in this world, lies nearest to God
and heaven. There be those who have ears to hear this, and for them is
it written. Julia thought of August's love with a sinking into despair.
But then returned the memory of his faithlessness, of all she had been
compelled to believe and suffer. Then her agony came back, and she was
glad that she had taken a decided step. Any escape was a relief. I
suppose it is under some such impulse that people kill themselves. Julia
felt as though she had committed suicide and escaped.

Humphreys on his part was not satisfied. I used the wrong figure of
speech awhile ago. He was not a cat with paw upon the prey. He was only
an angler, and had but hooked his fish. He had not landed it yet. He
felt how slender was the thread of committal by which he held Julia.
August had her heart. He had only a word. The slender vantage that he
had, he meant to use adroitly, craftily. And he knew that the first
thing was to close this interview without losing any ground. The longer
she remained bound, the better for him. And with his craft against the
country girl's simplicity it would have fared badly with Julia had it
not been for one defect which always inheres, in a bad man's plots in
such a case. A man like Humphreys never really understands a pure woman.
Certain detached facts he may know, but he can not "put himself in
her place."

Humphreys remarked with tenderness that Julia must not stay in the night
air. She was too precious to be exposed. This flattery was comforting to
her wounded pride, and she found his words pleasant to her. Had he
stopped here he might have left the field victorious. But it was very
hard for an affianced lover to stop here. He must part from her in some
other way than this if he would leave on her mind the impression that
she was irrevocably bound to him. He stooped quickly with a
well-affected devotion and lifted her hand to kiss it. That act
awakened Julia Anderson. She must have awaked anyhow, sooner or later.
But when one is in the toils of such a man, sooner is better. The touch
of Humphreys's hand and lips sent a shudder through her frame that
Humphreys felt. Instantly there came to her a perception of all that
marriage with a repulsive man signifies.

Not suicide, but perdition.

She jerked her hand from his as though he were a snake.

"Mr. Humphreys, what did I say? I can't have you. I don't love you. I'm
crazy to-night. I must take back what I said."

"No, Julia. Let me call you _my_ Julia. You must not break my heart."
Humphreys had lost his cue, and every word of tenderness he spoke made
his case more hopeless.

"I never can marry you--let me go in," she said, brushing past him. Then
she remembered that her door was fast on the inside. She had climbed out
the window. She turned back, and he saw his advantage.

"I can not release you. Take time to think before you ask it. Go to
sleep now and do not act hastily." He stood between her and the window,
wishing to get some word to which he could hold.

Julia's two black eyes grew brighter. "I see. You took advantage of my
trouble, and you want to hold me to my words, and you are bad, and
now--_now_ I hate you!" Then Julia felt better. Hate is the only
wholesome thing in such a case. She pushed him aside vigorously, stepped
upon the settee, slipped in at the window, and closed it. She drew the
curtain, but it seemed thin, and with characteristic impulsiveness she
put out her light that she might have the friendly drapery of
darkness about her. She heard the soft--for the first time it seemed
to her stealthy--tread of Humphreys, as he returned to his room. Whether
she swooned or whether she slept after that she never knew. It was
morning without any time intervening, she had a headache and could
scarcely walk, and there was August's note lying on the floor. She read
it again--if not with more intelligence, at least with more suspicion.
She wondered at her own hastiness. She tried to go about the house, but
the excitement of the previous night, added to all she had suffered
beside, had given her a headache, blinding and paralyzing, that sent her
back to bed.

[Illustration: "NOW I HATE YOU!"]

And there she lay in that half-asleep, half-awake mood, which a nervous
headache produces. She seemed to be a fly in a web, and the spider was
trying to fasten her. A very polite spider, with that smile which went
half-way up his face but which never seemed able to reach his eyes. He
had straps to his pantaloons, and a reddish mustache, and she shuddered
as he wound his fine webs about her. She tried to shake off the
illusion. But the more absurd an illusion, the more it will not be
shaken off. For see! the spider was kissing her hand! Then she seemed to
have made a great effort and to have broken the web. But her wings were
torn, and her feet were shackled by the fine strands that still adhered.
She could not get them off. Wouldn't somebody help her, even as she had
many a time picked off the webs from a fly's feet out of sheer pity? And
all day she would perpetually return into these half-conscious states
and feel the spider's web about her feet, and ask over and over again if
somebody wouldn't help her to get out of the meshes.

Toward evening her mother brought her a cup of tea and a piece of
toast, and for the first time in the remembered life of the daughter
made an endeavor to show a little tenderness for her. It was a clumsy
endeavor, for when the great gulf is once fixed between mother and child
it is with difficulty bridged. And finding herself awkward in the new
role, Mrs. Anderson dropped it and resumed her old gait, remarking, as
she closed the door, that she was glad to know that Julia was coming to
her senses, and "had took the right road." For Mrs. Abigail was more
vigorous than grammatical.

Julia did not see anything significant in this remark at first. But
after a while it came to her that Humphreys must have told her mother of
something that had passed during the preceding night, something on which
this commendation was founded. Then she fell into the same torpor and
was in the same old spider's web, and there was the same spider with the
limited smile and the mustache and the watch-seals and the straps! And
he was trying to fasten her, and she said "yes." And she could see the
little word. The spider caught it and spun it into a web and fastened
her with it. And she could break all the other webs but those woven out
of that one little word from her own lips. That clung to her, and she
could neither fly nor walk. August could not help her--he would not
come. Her mother was helping the spider. Just then Cynthy Ann came along
with her broom. Would she see her and sweep her free? She tried to call
her, but alas! she was a fly. She tried to buzz, but her wings were fast
bound with the webs. She was being smothered. The spider had seized her.
She could not move. He was smiling at her!

Then she woke shuddering. It was after midnight.

CHAPTER XV.

THE WEB BROKEN.

"Poverty," says Béranger, "is always superstitious." So indeed is human
extremity of any sort. Julia's healthy constitution had resisted the
threatened illness, the feverishness had gone with the headache. She
felt now only one thing: she must have a friend. But the hard piousness
of Cynthy Ann's face had never attracted her sympathy. It had always
seemed to her that Cynthy disapproved of her affection quite as much as
her mother did. Cynthy's face had indeed a chronic air of disapproval. A
nervous young minister said that he never had any "liberty" when sister
Cynthy Ann was in his congregation. She seemed averse to all he said.

But now Julia felt that there was just one chance of getting advice and
help. Had she not in her dream seen Cynthy Ann with a broom? She would
ask help from Cynthy Ann. There must be a heart under her rind.

But to get to her. Her mother's affectionate vigilance never left her
alone with Cynthy. Perhaps it was this very precaution that had
suggested Cynthy Ann to her as a possible ally. She must contrive to
have a talk with her somehow. But how? There was one way. Black-eyed
people do not delay. Bight or wrong, Julia acted with sharp decision.
Before she had any very definite view of her plan, she had arisen and
slipped on a calico dress. But there was one obstacle. Mr. Humphreys
kept late hours, and he might be on the front-porch. She might meet him
in the hall, and this seemed worse to her than would the chance of
meeting a tribe of Indians. She listened and looked out of her window;
but she could not be sure; she would run the risk. With silent feet and
loud-beating heart she went down the hall to the back upper porch, for
in that day porches were built at the back and front of houses, above
and below. Once on the back-porch she turned to the right and stood by
Cynthy Ann's door. But a new fear took possession of her. If Cynthy Ann
should be frightened and scream!

[Illustration: AT CYNTHY'S DOOR.]

"Cynthy! Cynthy Ann!" she said, standing by the bed in the little bare
room which Cynthy Ann had occupied, for five years, but into which she
had made no endeavor to bring one ray of sentiment or one trace
of beauty.

"Cynthy! Cynthy Ann!"

Had Cynthy Ann slept anywhere but in the L of the house, her
shriek--what woman could have helped shrieking a little when
startled?--her shriek must have alarmed the family. But it did not.
"Why, child! what are you doing here? You are out of your head, and you
must go back to your room at once." And Cynthy had arisen and was
already tugging at Julia's arm.

"I a'n't out of my head, Cynthy Ann, and I _won't_ go back to my
room--not until I have had a talk with you."

"What _is_ the matter, Jule?" said Cynthy, sitting on the bed and
preparing to begin again her old fight between duty and inclination.
Cynthy always expected temptation. She had often said in class-meeting
that temptations abounded on every hand, and as soon as Julia told her
she had a communication to make, Cynthy Ann was sure that she would find
in it some temptation of the devil to do something she "hadn't orter
do," according to the Bible or the Dis_cip_line, strictly construed.
And Cynthy was a "strict constructionist."

Julia did not find it so easy to say anything now that she had announced
herself as determined to have a conversation and now that her auditor
was waiting. It is the worst beginning in the world for a conversation,
saying that you intend to converse. When an Indian has announced his
intention of having a "big talk," he immediately lights his pipe and
relapses into silence until the big talk shall break out accidentally
and naturally. But Julia, having neither the pipe nor the Indian's
stolidity, found herself under the necessity of beginning abruptly.
Every minute of delay made her position worse. For every minute
increased her doubt of Cynthy Ann's sympathy.

"O Cynthy Ann! I'm so miserable!"

"Yes, I told your ma this morning that you was looking mis'able, and
that you had orter have sassafras to purify the blood, but your ma is so
took up with steam-docterin' that she don't believe in nothin' but
corn-sweats and such like."

"Oh! but, Cynthy, it a'n't that. I'm miserable in my mind. I wish I knew
what to do."

"I thought you'd made up your mind. Your ma told me you was engaged to
Mr. Humphreys."

Julia was appalled. How fast the spider spins his web!

"I a'n't engaged to him, and I hate him. He got me to say yes when I was
crazy, and I believe he brought about the things that make me feel so
nigh crazy. Do you think he's a good man, Cynthy Ann?"

"Well, no, though I don't want to set in no jedgment on nobody; but I
don't see as how as he kin be good and wear all of them costly apparels
that's so forbid in the Bible, to say nothing of the Dis_cip_line. The
Bible says you must know a tree by its fruits, and I 'low his'n is
mostly watch-seals. I think a good sound conversion at the mourners'
bench would make him strip off some of them things, and put them into
the missionary collection. Though maybe he a'n't so bad arter all, fer
Jonas says that liker'n not the things a'n't gold, but pewter washed
over. But I'm afeard he's wor'ly-minded. But I don't want to be too hard
on a feller-creatur'."

[Illustration: CYNTHY ANN HAD OFTEN SAID IN CLASS-MEETING THAT
TEMPTATIONS ABOUNDED ON EVERY HAND.]

"Cynthy, I drempt just now I was a fly and he was a spider, and that he
had me all wrapped up in his web, and that just then you came along
with a broom."

"That must be a sign," said Cynthy Ann. "It's good you didn't dream
after daylight. Then 'twould a come true. But what about _him?_ I
thought you loved Gus Wehle, and though I'm afeard you're makin' a idol
out o' him, and though I'm afeard he's a onbeliever, and I don't noways
like marryin' with onbelievers, yet I did want to help you, and I
brought a note from him wunst and put it under the head of your bed. I
was afeard then I was doin' what Timothy forbids, when he says not to be
pertakers in other folks's sins, but, you see, how could I help doin'
it, when you was lookin' so woebegone like, and Jonas, he axed me to do
it. It's awful hard to say you won't to Jonas, you know. So I put the
letter there, and I don't doubt your ma mistrusted it, and got a holt
on it."

"Did he write to me? A'n't he going with that Betsey Malcolm?"

"Can't be, I 'low. On'y this evenin' Jonas said to me, says he, when I
tole him you was engaged to Mr. Humphreys, says he, in his way, 'The
hawk's lit, has he? That'll be the death of two,' says he, 'fer she'll
die on it, an' so'll poor Gus,' says he. And then he went on to tell as
how as Gus is all ready to leave, and had axed him to tell him of any
news; but he said he wouldn't tell him that. He'd leave him some hope.
Fer he says Gus was mighty nigh distracted to-day, that is yisterday,
fer its most mornin' I 'low."

Now this speech did Julia a world of good. It showed her that Gus was
not faithless, that she might count on Cynthy, and that Jonas was her
friend, and that he did not like Humphreys. Jonas called him a hawk.
That agreed with her dream. He was a hawk and a spider.

"But, Cynthy Ann, I got a letter night before last; ma threw it in the
window. In it Gus said he released me. I hadn't asked any release. What
did he mean?"

"Honey, I wish I could help you. It's that hawk, as Jonas calls him,
that's at the bottom of all this trouble. I don't believe but what he's
told some lies or 'nother. I don't believe but what he's a bad man. I
allers said I didn't 'low no good could come of a man that puts on
costly apparel and wears straps. I'm afeard you're making a idol of Gus
Wehle. Don't do it. Ef you do, God'll take him. Misses Pearsons made a
idol of her baby, a kissin' it and huggin' it every minute, and I said,
says I, Misses Pearsons, you hadn't better make a idol of a perishin'
creature. And sure enough, God tuck it. He's jealous of our idols. But I
can't help helpin' you. You're a onbeliever yet yourself, and I 'low
taint no sin fer you to marry Gus. It's yokin' like with like. I wish
you was both Christians. I'll speak to Jonas. I don't know what I ought
to do, but I'll speak to Jonas. He's mighty peart about sech things, is
Jonas, and got as _good_ a heart as you ever see. And--"

"Cynth-ee A-ann!" It was the energetic voice of Mrs. Anderson rousing
the house betimes. For the first time Julia and Cynthy Ann noticed the
early light creeping in at the window. They sat still, paralyzed.

"Cynth-ee!" The voice was now at the top of the stairs, for Mrs.
Anderson always carried the war into Africa if Cynthy did not wake
at once.

"Answer quick, Cynthy Ann, or she'll be in here!" said Julia, sliding
behind the bed.

"Ma'am!" said Cynthy Ann, starting toward the door, where she met Mrs.
Abigail. "I'm up," said Cynthy.

"Well, what makes you so long a-answerin' then? You make me climb the
steps, and you know I may drop down dead of heart-disease any day. I'll
go and wake Jule."

"Better let her lay awhile," said Cynthy, reproaching herself instantly
for the deception.

Mrs. Anderson hesitated at the top of the stairs.

"Jul-yee!" she called. Poor Jule shook from head to foot. "I guess I'll
let her lay awhile; but I'm afraid I've already spoiled the child by
indulgence," said the mother, descending the stairs. She relented only
because she believed Julia was conquered.

"I declare, child, it's a shame I should be helping you to disobey your
mother. I'm afeard the Lord'll bring some jedgment on us yet." For
Cynthy Ann had tied her conscience to her rather infirm logic. Better to
have married it to her generous heart. But before she had finished the
half-penitent lamentation, Jule was flying with swift and silent feet
down the hall. Arrived in her own room, she was so much relieved as to
be almost happy; and she was none too soon, for her industrious mother
had quickly repented her criminal leniency, and was again climbing the
stairs at the imminent risk of her precarious life, and calling
"Jul-yee!"

CHAPTER XVI.

JONAS EXPOUNDS THE SUBJECT.

"I 'lowed I'd ketch you here, my venerable and reliable feller-citizen!"
said Jonas as he entered the lower story of Andrew Anderson's castle and
greeted August, sitting by Andrew's loom. It was the next evening after
Julia's interview with Cynthy Ann. "When do you 'low to leave this
terry-firmy and climb a ash-saplin'? To-night, hey? Goin' to the Queen
City to take to steamboat life in hopes of havin' your sperrits raised
by bein' blowed up? Take my advice and don't make haste in the downward
road to destruction, nor the up-hill one nuther. A game a'n't never
through tell it's played out, an' the American eagle's a chicken with
steel spurs. That air sweet singer of Israel that is so hifalugeon he
has to anchor hisself to his boots, knows all the tricks, and is
intimately acquainted with the kyards, whether it's faro, poker, euchre,
or French monte. But blamed ef Providence a'n't dealed you a better
hand'n you think. Never desperandum, as the Congressmen say, fer while
the lamp holds out to burn you may beat the blackleg all to flinders
and sing and shout forever. Last night I went to bed thinkin' 'Umphreys
had the stakes all in his pocket. This mornin' I found he was in a far
way to be beat outen his boots ef you stood yer ground like a man and a
gineological descendant of Plymouth Rock!"

Andrew stopped his loom, and, looking at August, said: "Our friend Jonas
speaks somewhat periphrastically and euphuistically, and--he'll pardon
me--but he speaks a little ambiguously."

"My love, I gin it up, as the fish-hawk said to the bald eagle one day.
I kin rattle off odd sayings and big words picked up at Fourth-of-Julys
and barbecues and big meetins, but when you begin to fire off your
forty-pound bomb-shell book-words, I climb down as suddent as Davy
Crockett's coon. Maybe I do speak unbiguously, as you say, but I was
givin' you the biggest talkin' I had in the basket. And as fer my good
news, a feller don't like to eat up all his country sugar to wunst, I
'low. But I says to our young and promisin' friend of German extraction,
beloved, says I, hold onto that air limb a little longer and
you're saved."

"But, Jonas," said August, spinning Andrew's winding-blade round and
speaking slowly and bitterly, "a man don't like to be trifled with, if
he is a Dutchman!"

"But sposin' a man hain't been trifled with, Dutchman or no
Dutchman? Sposin' it's all a optical delusion of the yeers?
There's a word fer _you_, Andrew, that a'n't nuther unbiguous
nor peri-what-you-may-call-it."

"But," said August, "Betsey Malcolm--"

"_Betsey Malcolm!_" said Jonas. "Betsey Malcolm to thunder!" and then he
whistled. "Set a dog to mind a basket of meat when his chops is
a-waterin' fer it! Set a kingfisher to take keer of a fish-pond! Set a
cat to raisin' your orphan chickens on the bottle! Set a spider to nuss
a fly sick with dyspepsy from eatin' too much molasses! I'd ruther trust
a hen-hawk with a flock of patridges than to trust Betsey Malcolm with
your affairs. I ha'n't walked behind you from meetin' and seed her head
a bobbin' like a bluebird's and her eyes a blazin an' all that, fer
nothin'. Like as not, Betsey Malcolm's more nor half your trouble in
that quarter."

"But she said--"

"It don't matter three quarters of a rotten rye-straw what she said, my
inexper'enced friend. She don't keer what she says, so long as it's fur
enough away from the truth to sarve her turn. An' she's told pay-tent
double-back-action lies that worked both ways. What do you 'low Jule
Anderson tho't when she hearn tell of your courtin' Betsey, as Betsey
told it, with all her nods an' little crowin'? Now looky here, Gus, I'm
your friend, as the Irishman said to the bar that hugged him, an' I want
to say about all that air that Betsey told you, spit on the slate an'
wipe that all off. They's lie in her soap an.' right smart chance of
saft-soap in her lie, I 'low."

These rough words of Jonas brought a strange intelligence into the mind
of August. He saw so many things in a moment that had lain under his
eyes unnoticed.

"There is much rough wisdom in your speech, Jonas," said Andrew.

"That's a fact. You and me used to go to school to old Benefield
together when I was little and you was growed up. You allers beat
everybody all holler in books and spellin'-matches, Andy. But I 'low I
cut my eye-teeth 'bout as airly as some of you that's got more larnin'
under your skelp. Now, I say to our young friend and feller-citizen,