The Tinder-Box Read online

  CHAPTER III

  A FLINT SPARK

  The greatest upheavals of nature are those that arrive suddenly, withoutnotifying the world days beforehand of their intentions of splitting thecrust of the Universe wide open. One is coming to Glendale by degrees,but the town hasn't found out about it yet. I'm the only one who seesit, and I'm afraid to tell.

  When Old Harpeth, who has been looking down on a nice, peaceful, manordained, built, and protected world, woke Glendale up the morning aftermy arrival and found me defiantly alone in the home of my fathers--alsoof each of my foremothers, by the courtesy of dower--he muttered anddrew a veil of mist across his face. Slight showers ensued, but he hadto come out in less than an hour from pure curiosity. I found the oldgarden heavenly in its riot of neglected buds, shoots, and blooms, wetand welcoming with the soft odors of Heaven itself.

  It was well I was out early to enjoy it, for that was to be the day ofmy temptation and sore trial. I am glad I have recorded it all, for Imight have forgotten some day how wonderfully my very pliant, feminineattitude rubbed in my masculine intentions as to my life on the blindside of all the forces brought to bear on me to put me back into mypredestined place in the scheme of the existence.

  "Your Cousin James's home is the place for you, Evelina, and until heexplained to me how you felt last night I was deeply hurt that youhadn't come straight, with Sallie, to me and to him," said CousinMartha, in as severe a voice as was possible for such a placidindividual to produce. Cousin Martha is completely lovely, and theMossback gets his beauty from her. She is also such a perfect dear thather influence is something terrific, even if negatively expressed.

  "I have come to help you get your things together, so you can move overbefore dinner," she continued with gentle force. "Now, what shall we putin the portmanteau first? I see you have unpacked very little, and I amglad that it confirms me in my feeling that your coming over here forthe night was just a dutiful sentiment for your lost loved ones, and notany unmaidenly sense of independence in the matter of choice where it isbest for you to live. Of course, such a question as that must be left toyour guardian, and of course James will put you under my care."

  "I--I really thought that perhaps Cousin James did not have room for me,Cousin Martha," I answered meekly. "How many families has he with himnow?" I asked with a still further meekness that was the depths ofwiliness.

  "There are three of us widows, whom he sustains and comforts for theloss of our husbands, and also the three Norton girls, cousins on hisfather's side of the house, you remember. It is impossible for them tolook after their plantation since their father's death robbed them of aprotector, at least, even though he had been paralyzed since Gettysburg.James is a most wonderful man, my dear--a most wonderful man. Though ashe is my son I ought to think it in silence."

  "Indeed he is," I answered from the heart. "But--but wouldn't it be alittle crowded for him to have another--another vine--that is, exactlywhat would he do with me? I know Widegables is wide, but that is ahouseful, isn't it?"

  "Well, all of us did feel that it made the house uncomfortably full whenSallie came with the three children, but you know Henry Carruthers leftJames his executor and guardian of the children, and Sallie of coursecouldn't live alone, so Mrs. Hargrove and I moved into the south roomtogether, and gave Sallie and the children my room. It is a large room,and it would be such a comfort to Sallie to have you stay with her andhelp her at night with the children. She doesn't really feel able to getup with them at all. Then Dilsie could sleep in the cabin, as she oughtto on account of the jimsonweed in her phthisic pipe. It would be such abeautiful influence in your lonely life, Evelina, to have the childrento care for."

  I wondered if Cousin Martha had ever heard that galatea bunch indulge insuch heartfelt oaths as had followed that train down the track lastnight!

  "It would be lovely," I answered--and the reply was not all insincerity,as I thought of the darkness of that long night, and the Bunch's offerof a place at her sturdy little back "next the wall."

  "But I will be so busy with my own work, Cousin Martha, that I am afraidI couldn't do justice to the situation and repay the children and Salliefor crowding them."

  "Why, you couldn't crowd us, Evelina, honey," came in Sallie's richvoice, as she sailed into the room, trailing the Pup and the Kit at herskirts and flying lavender ribbons at loose ends. "We've come to helpyou move over right away."

  "Well, not while I have a voice in the affairs of my own husband'sniece! How are you, Evelina, and are you crazy, Sallie Carruthers?" camein a deep raven croak of a voice that sounded as if it had harked partlyfrom the tomb, as Aunt Augusta Shelby stood in the doorway, with reproofon her lips and sternness on her brow. "Peter and I will have Evelinamove down immediately with us. James Hardin has as much in the way of afamily as he can very well stand up under now."

  And as she spoke, Aunt Augusta glared at Sallie with such ferocity thateven Sallie's sunshiny presence was slightly dimmed.

  "Are you ready, Evelina? Peter will send the surrey for your baggage,"she continued, and for a moment I quailed, for Aunt Augusta'sdetermination of mind is always formidable, but I summoned my woman'swit and man's courage, and answered quickly before she fairly snatchedme from under my own roof-tree.

  "That would be lovely, Aunt Augusta, and how are you?" I answered andasked in the same breath, as I drew near enough to her to receive abusiness-like peck on my cheek. "I expect to have you and Uncle Peter tolook after me a lot, but somehow I feel that Father would haveliked--liked for me to live here and keep my home--his home--open. Someway will arrange itself. I haven't talked with Cousin James yet," Ifelt white feathers sprouting all over me, as I thus invoked themasculine dominance I had come to lay.

  "You'll have to settle that matter with your Uncle Peter, then, for,following his dictates of which I did not approve, I have done our dutyby the orphan. Now, Evelina, let me say in my own person, that Ithoroughly approve of your doing just as you plan." And as she utteredthis heresy, she looked so straight and militant and altogethercommanding, that both Cousin Martha and Sallie quailed. I felt elated,as if my soul were about to get sight of a kindred personality. Orrather a soul-relative of yours, Jane.

  "Oh, she would be so lonely, Mrs. Shelby, and she--" Sallie wasventuring to say with trepidation, when Aunt Augusta cut her shortwithout ceremony.

  "Lonely, nonsense! Such a busy woman as I now feel sure Evelina is goingto be, will not have time to be lonely. I wish I could stay and talkwith you further about your plans, but I must hurry back and straightenout Peter's mind on that question of the town water-supply that is tocome up in the meeting of the City Council to-day. He let it bepresented all wrong last time, and they got things so muddled that itwas voted on incorrectly. I will have to write it out for him so he canexplain it to them. I will need you in many ways to help me help Peterbe Mayor of Glendale, Evelina. I am wearied after ten years of thestrain of his office. I shall call on you for assistance often in themost important matters," with which promise, that sounded like a threat,she proceeded to march down the front path, almost stepping onHenrietta, who was coming up the same path, with almost the sameemphasis. There was some sort of an explosion, and I hope the kind ofwords I heard hurled after the train were not used.

  "That old black crow is a-going to git in trouble with me some day,Marfy," Henrietta remarked, as she settled herself on the arm of CousinMartha's chair, after bestowing a smudgy kiss on the little white curlthat wrapped around one of the dear old lady's pink little ears. I hadfelt that way about Cousin Martha myself at the Bunch's age, and weexchanged a sympathetic smile on the subject.

  "Well, what _are_ you going to do, Evelina?" asked Sallie, and sheturned such a young, helpless, wondering face up to me from the centerof her cluster of babies, that my heart almost failed me at the idea ofpouring what seemed to me at that moment the poison of modernity intothe calm waters of her and Cousin Martha's primitive placidity.

  "You'll have to live some place where there is a
man," she continued,with worried conviction.

  My time had come, and the fight was on. Oh, Jane!

  "I don't believe I really feel that way about it," I began in thegentlest of manners, and slowly, so as to feel my way. "You see, Salliedear, and dearest Cousin Martha, I have had to be out in the world somuch--alone, that I am--used to it. I--I haven't had a man's protectionfor so long that I don't need it, as I would if I were like you twoblessed sheltered women."

  "I know it has been hard, dear," said Cousin Martha gently looking hersympathy at my lorn state, over her glasses.

  "I don't see how you have stood it at all," said Sallie, about todissolve in tears. "The love and protection and sympathy of a man arethe only things in life worth anything to a woman. Since my loss I don'tknow what I would have done without Cousin James. You must come into hiskind care, Evelina."

  "I must learn to endure loneliness," I answered sadly, about to begin togulp from force of example, and the pressure of long hereditaryinfluence.

  I'm glad that I did not dissolve, however, before what followedhappened, for in the twinkling of two bare feet I was smothered in theembrace of Henrietta, who in her rush brought either the Pup or the Kit,I can't tell which yet, along to help her enfold me.

  "I'll come stay with you forever, and we don't need no men! Don'tlike 'em no-how!" she was exclaiming down my back, when a drawl from thedoorway made us all turn in that direction.

  "Why, Henrietta, my own, can it be you who utter such cruel sentimentsin my absence?" and Polk Hayes lounged into the room, with the samedaring listlessness that he had used in trying to hold me in his armsout on the porch the night I had said good-by to him and Glendale, fouryears ago.

  Henrietta's chubby little body gave a wriggle of delight, and muchsentiment beamed in her rugged, small face, as she answered him withenthusiasm, though not stopping to couch her reply in exactlycomplimentary terms.

  "You don't count, Pokie," she exclaimed, as she made a good-natured faceat him.

  "That's what Evelina said four years ago--and she has proved it," heanswered her, looking at me just exactly as if he had never left offdoing it since that last dance.

  "How lovely to find you in the same exuberant spirits in which I leftyou, Polk, dear," I exclaimed, as I got up to go and shake hands withhim, as he had sunk into the most comfortable chair in the room, withouttroubling to bestow that attention upon me.

  Some men's hearts beat with such a strong rhythm that every feminineheart which comes within hearing distance immediately catches step, andgoes to waltzing. It has been four years since mine swung aroundagainst his, at that dance, but I'm glad Cousin Martha was there, andinterrupted, us enough to make me drag my eyes from his, as he looked upand I looked down.

  "Please help us to persuade Evelina to come and live with James and me,Polk, dear," she said, glancing at him with the deepest confidence andaffection in her eyes. There is no age-limit to Polk's victims, andCousin Martha had always adored him.

  "All women do, Evelina, why not you--live with James?" he asked, and Ithought I detected a mocking flicker in his big, hazel, dangerous eyes.

  "If I ever need protection it will be James--and Cousin Martha I willrun to for it--but I never will," I answered him, very simply, with nota trace of the defiance I was fairly flinging at him in either my voiceor manner.

  Paris and London and New York are nice safe places to live in, incomparison with Glendale, Tennessee, in some respects. I wonder why Ihadn't been more scared than I was last night, as the train whirled medown into proximity to Polk Hayes. But then I had had four years offorgetting him stored up as a bulwark.

  "But what _are_ you going to do, Evelina?" Sallie again began toquestion, with positive alarm in her voice, and I saw that it was timefor me to produce some sort of a protector then and there--orcapitulate.

  And I record the fact that I wanted to go home with Sallie and CousinMartha and the babies and--and live under the roof of the Mossbackforever. All that citizenship-feeling I had got poured into me from Janeand had tried on Dickie, good old Dickie, had spilled out of me at thefirst encounter with Polk.

  There is a great big hunt going on in this world, and women are the onesonly a short lap ahead. Can we turn and make good the fight--or won'twe be torn to death? It has come to this it seems: women must either beweak, and cling so close to man that she can't be struck, keep entirelyout of the range of his fists and arms,--or develop biceps equal to his.Jane ought to have had me in training longer, for I'm discovering thatI'm weak--of biceps.

  "Are you coming--are you coming to live with us, Evelina? Are youcoming? Answer!" questioned the small Henrietta, as she stoodcommandingly in front of me.

  "Please, Evelina," came in a coax from Sallie, while the Kit crawledover and caught at my skirt as Cousin Martha raised her eyes to mine,with a gentle echo of the combined wooings.

  Then suddenly into Polk's eyes flamed still another demand, thatsomething told me I would have to answer later. I had capitulated andclosed this book forever when the deliverance came.

  Jasper, a little older, but as black and pompous as ever, stood in thedoorway, and a portly figure, with yellow, shining face, on the stepbehind him.

  "Why, Uncle Jasper, how did you know I was here?" I exclaimed, as Ifairly ran to hold out my hand to him.

  "Mas' James sont me word last night, and I woulder been here bydaybreak, Missie, 'cept I had to hunt dis yere suitable woman to bringalong with me. Make your 'beesence to Miss Evelina, Lucy Petunia," hecommanded.

  "You needn't to bother to show her anything, child," he continuedcalmly, "I'll learn her all she needs to know to suit us. Then, if in aweek she have shown suitable ability to please us both, my word is outto marry her next Sunday night. Ain't that the understanding, Tuny?" hethis time demanded.

  "Yes, sir," answered the Petunia with radiant but modest hope shiningfrom her comely yellow face.

  "I've kept everything ready for you child, since Old Mas' died, and Iain't never stayed offen the place a week at a time--I was just visitingout Petunia's way when I heard you'd come, and gittin' a wife to tend tous and back to you quick was the only thing that concerned me. Now, wecan all settle down comf'table, while I has Tuny knock up some dinner, acompany one I hopes, if Miss Martha and the rest will stay with us."Jasper's manner is an exact copy of my Father's courtly grace, done insepia, and my eyes misted for a second, as I reciprocated hisinvitation, taking acceptance for granted.

  "Of course they will stay, Uncle Jasper."

  "Well," remarked Sallie with a gasp, "you've gone to housekeeping in twominutes, Evelina."

  "Jasper has always been a very forceful personality," said CousinMartha. "He managed everything for your Father at the last, Evelina,and I don't know how the whole town would have been easy about theColonel unless they had trusted Jasper."

  "I like the terms on which he takes unto himself a wife," drawled Polk,as he lighted a cigarette without looking at me. "Good for Jasper!"

  "However, it does take a 'forceful personality' to capture a 'suitablewoman' in that manner," I answered with just as much unconcern, and thenwe both roared, while even Sallie in all her anxiety joined in.

  The commanding, black old man, and the happy-faced, plump, little yellowwoman, had saved one situation--and forced another, perhaps?

  Jasper's home-coming dinner party was a large and successful one. Two ofthe dear little old Horton lady-cousins got so impatient at CousinMartha's not bringing me back to Widegables that they came teeteringover to see about it, heavily accompanied by Mrs. Hargrove, whose sonhad been Cousin James's best friend at the University of Virginia, anddied and left her to him since I had been at college. The ponderosity ofher mind was only equaled by that of her body. I must say Petunia made ahit with the dear old soul, by the seasoning of her chicken gravy.

  Sallie wanted to send the children home, but Jasper wouldn't let her,and altogether we had eleven at the table.

  Polk maneuvered for a seat at the head of my festive board, with a sp
arkof the devil in his eyes, but Jasper's sense of the proprieties did notfail me, and he seated Cousin Martha in Father's chair, with greatceremony.

  And as I looked down the long table, bright with all the old silverJasper had had time to polish, gay with roses from my garden, that hehad coaxed Henrietta into gathering for him, which nodded back andforth with the bubbling babies, suddenly my heart filled to the verybrim with love of it all--and for mine own people.

  But, just as suddenly, a vision came into my mind of the long tableacross the road at Widegables, with the Mossback seated at one end withonly two or three of his charges stretched along the empty sides to keephim company.

  I wanted him to be here with us! I wanted him badly, and I went to gethim. I excused myself suddenly, telling them all just why. I didn't lookat Polk, but Cousin Martha's face was lovely, as she told me to runquickly.

  I found him on the front porch, smoking his pipe alone, while the twolittle relics, whom he had had left to dine with him, were taking theirtwo respective naps. Our dinner was late on account of the initiation ofPetunia, and he had finished before we began.

  "I stole most of your family to-day," I plunged headlong into myerrand, "but I want you, too, most of all."

  "You've got me, even if you do prefer to keep me across the road fromyou," he answered, with the most solemn expression on his face, but witha crinkle of a smile in the corners of his deep eyes.

  I can't remember when I didn't look with eagerness for that crinkle inhis eyes, even when I was a child and he what I at that time considereda most glorious grownup individual, though he must have been the mosthelpless hobbledehoy that ever existed.

  "You don't need another vine," I answered mutinously.

  "You know I want you, but Jasper's is the privilege of looking afteryou," he answered calmly. "I want you to be happy, Evelina," and I knewas I raised my eyes to his that I could consider myself settled in myown home.

  "Well, then, come and have dinner number two with me," I answered witha laugh that covered a little happy sigh that rose from my heart at thelook in the kind eyes bent on mine.

  I felt, Jane, you would have approved of that look! It was so human tohuman.

  He came over with me, and that was one jolly party in the olddining-room. They all stayed until almost sunset, and almost everybodyin town dropped in during the afternoon to welcome me home, and ask mewhere I was going to live. Jasper and Petunia hovering in thebackground, the tea-tray out on the porch set with the silver and damaskall of them knew of old, and the appearance of having been installedwith the full approval of Cousin Martha and James and the rest of thefamily, stopped the questions on their lips, and they spent theafternoon much enlivened but slightly puzzled.

  Time doesn't do much to people in a place like the Harpeth Valley, thatis out of the stream of modern progress; and most of my friends seem tohave just been sitting still, rocking their lives along in the greatestease and comfort.

  Still, Mamie Hall has three more kiddies, which, added to the four shehad when I left, makes a slightly high, if charming, set of stair-steps.Mamie also looks decidedly worn, though pathetically sweet. Ned was withher, and as fresh as any one of the buds. Maternity often wilts women,but paternity is apt to make men bloom with the importance of it. Nedshowed off the bunch as if he had produced them all, while Mamie onlysmiled like an angel in the background.

  A slight bit of temper rose in a flush to my cheeks, as I watchedCaroline Lellyett sit on the steps and feed cake to one twin and twostair-steps with as much hunger in her eyes for them as there was intheirs for the cake. Lee Greenfield is the responsible party in thiscase, and she has been loving him hopelessly for fifteen years. Lots ofother folks wanted to marry her, but Lee has pinned her in the psychicspot and is watching her flutter.

  Polk departed in the trail of Nell Kirkland's fluffy muslin skirts,smoldering dangerously, I felt. Nell has grown up into a most lovelyindividual, and I felt uneasy about her under Folk's ministrations. Hereyes follow him rather persistently. On the whole, I am glad Janecommitted me to this woman's cause. I'll have to begin to exercise thebiceps of Nell's heart--as soon as I get some strength into my own.

  And after they had all gone, I sat for an hour out on the front steps ofmy big, empty old house, and enjoyed my own loneliness, if it could becalled enjoying. I could hear the Petunia's happy giggle, answeringJasper's guttural pleasantries, out on the cabin porch behind the row oflilac bushes. I do hope that Petunia gets much and the right sort ofcourting during this week that Jasper has allowed her!

  With the last rays of the sun, I had found time to read a long, dearletter from Richard Hall, and though I had transferred it from my pocketto my desk, while I dressed for the afternoon, its crackle was still inmy mind. I wondered what it all meant, this dissatisfied longing thathuman beings send out across time and distance, one to and for another.

  If a woman's heart were really like a great big golden chalice, full tothe brim with the kind of love she is taught God wants her to have in itfor all mankind, both men and women, why shouldn't she offer drafts ofit to every one who is thirsty, brothers as well as sisters? I wonderhow that would solve Jane's problem of emotional equality! I do loveDicky--and--and I do love Polk--with an inclination to dodge. Now, ifthere were enough of the right sort of love in me, I ought to be able toget them to see it, and drink it for their comforting, and have notrouble at all with them about their wanting to seize the cup, drainall the love there is in it, shut it away from the rest of theworld--and then neglect it.

  Yes, why can't I love Polk as I love you, Jane, and have him enjoy it?Yes, why?

  I think if I had Dicky off to myself for a long time, and very gentlyled him up to the question of loving him hard in this new way, he mightbe induced to sip out of the cup just to see if he liked it--and itmight be just what he craved, for the time being; but I doubt it. Hewould storm and bluster at the idea.

  Of course the Crag would let a woman love him in any old kind of new orexperimental way she wanted to, if it made her happy. He would take hercup of tenderness and drink it as if it were sacramental wine, on hisknees. But he doesn't count. He has to be man to so many people thatthere is danger of his becoming a kind of superman. Think of the oldMossback being a progressive thing like that! I laughed out loud at theidea--but the echo was dismal.

  I wonder if Sallie will marry him.

  And as I sat and thought and puzzled, the moonlight got richer and moreglowing, and it wooed open the throats of the thousand littlehoneysuckle blossoms, clinging to the vine on the trellis, until theypoured out a perfect symphony of perfume to mingle in a hallelujah fromthe lilacs and roses that ascended to the very stars themselves.

  I had dropped my head on my arms, and let my eyes go roaming out to thedim hills that banked against the radiant sky, when somebody seatedhimself beside me, and a whiff of tobacco blew across my face, sweetwith having joined in the honeysuckle chorus. Nobody said a word for along time, and then I looked up and laughed into the deep, gray eyeslooking tenderly down into mine. With a thrill I realized that therewas one man in the world I could offer the chalice to and _trust_ him todrink--moderately.

  "Jamie," I said in a voice as young as it used to be when I trailed athis heels, "thank you for letting me be contrary and independent andpuzzling. I have been busy adventuring with life, in queer places andwith people not like--like us. Now I want a little of real living and tothink--and feel. May I?"

  "You may, dear," the Crag answered in a big comfortable voice, that wasa benediction in itself. "I understood last night when you told me thatyou wanted to come home alone. I can trust Jasper with you, and I amgoing to sleep down at the lodge room, right across the road here, so Ican hear you if you even think out loud. No one shall worry you about itany more. Now will you promise to be happy?"

  I could not answer him, I was so full of a deepness of peace. I justlaid my cheek against the sleeve of his queer old gray coat, to showhim what I could not say.

  He let me do it, and w
ent on smoking without noticing me.

  Then, after a little while, he began to tell me all about Father and hisdeath, that had come so suddenly while he seemed as well as ever, andhow he had worried about my probably not wanting to be left to him, andthat he wanted me to feel independent, but to please let him do all thatI would to help me, and not to feel that I was alone with nobody to loveme. That he was always there, and would be forever and ever.

  And he did stay so late that Jasper had to send him home!

  There is such a thing as a man's being a father and mother and grownsister and brother and a college-chum and a preacher of the Gospel and afamily physician to a woman--with no possibility of being her husbandeither. She wouldn't so drag such a man from his high estate as to thinkof such a worldly relation in connection with him.

  I have certainly collected some phenomena in the reaction of a woman'sheart this day. Did you choose me wisely for these experiments, Jane?

  It takes a woman of nerve to go to housekeeping in a tinder-box, whenshe isn't sure she even knows what flint is when she sees it, and mightstrike out a spark without intending it at all.