The Tinder-Box Read online

  CHAPTER V

  DEEPER THAN SHOULDERS AND RIBS

  There are many fundamental differences between men and women whichstrike deeper than breadth of shoulders and number of ribs on the rightside.

  Men deliberately unearth matters of importance and women stumble on thesame things in the dark. It is then a question of the individual as tothe complications that result. One thing can be always counted on. Awoman likes to tangle life into a large mass and then straighten out thethreads at her leisure--and the man's leisure too.

  Glendale affairs interest me more every day.

  This has been a remarkable afternoon and I wish Jane had been inGlendale to witness it.

  "Say, Evelina, all the folks over at our house have gone crazy, and Iwish you would come over and help Cousin James with 'em," Henriettademanded, as I sat on my side porch, calmly hemming a ruffle on a dressfor the Kitten. Everybody sews for the twins and, as much as I hate it,I can't help doing it.

  "Why, Henrietta, what is the matter?" I demanded, as I hurried down thefront walk and across the road at her bare little heels. By the time Igot to the front gate I could hear sounds of lamentation.

  "A railroad train wants to run right through the middle of all theirdead people and Sallie started the crying. Dead's dead, and if CousinJames wants 'em run over. I wants 'em run over too." She answered overher shoulder as we hurried through the wide front hall.

  And a scene that beggars description met my eyes, as I stood in theliving-room door. I hope this account I am going to try and write willget petrified by some kind of new element they will suddenly discoversome day and the manuscript be dug up from the ruins of Glendale tointerest the natives of the Argon age about 2800 A. D.

  Sallie sat in the large armchair in the middle of the room weeping inthe slow, regular way a woman has of starting out with tears, when shemeans to let them flow for hours, maybe days, and there were just fiveechoes to her grief, all done in different keys and characters.

  Cousin Martha knelt beside the chair and held Sallie's head on her amplebosom, but I must say that the expression on her face was one ofbewilderment, as well as of grief.

  The three little Horton cousins sat close together in the middle of theold hair-cloth sofa by the window and were weeping as modestly andhelplessly as they did everything else in life, while Mrs. Hargrove, inher chair under her son's portrait, was just plainly out and outhowling.

  And on the hearth-rug, before the tiny fire of oak chips that the oldladies liked to keep burning all summer, stood the master of the houseand, for once in my life, I have seen the personification of masculinehelplessness. He was a tragedy and I flew straight to him with arms wideopen, which clasped both his shoulders as I gave him a good shake toarouse him from his paralyzation.

  "What's the matter?" I demanded, with the second shake.

  "I'm a brute, Evelina," he answered, and a sudden discouragement linedevery feature of his beautiful biblical face. I couldn't stand that andI hugged him tight to my breast for an instant and then administeredanother earthquake shake.

  "Tell me exactly what has happened," I demanded, looking straight intohis tragic eyes and letting my hands slip from his shoulders down hisarms until they held both of his hands tight and warm in mine.

  Jane, I was glad that I had offered the cup of my eyes to him full ofthis curious inter-sex elixir of life that you have induced me to seekso blindly, for he responded to the dose immediately and the color cameback into his face as he answered me just as sensibly as he wouldanother man.

  "The men who are surveying the new railroad from Cincinnati to the Gulfhave laid their experimental lines across the corner of GreenwoodCemetery and they say it will have to run that way or go across theriver and parallel the lines of the other road. If they come on thisside of the river they will force the other road to come across, too,and in that case we will get the shops. It just happens that such a linewill make necessary the removal of--of poor Henry's remains to anotherlot. Sallie's is the only lot in the cemetery that is that high on thebluff. Henry didn't like the situation when he bought it himself, and Ithought that, as there is another lot right next to her mother's forsale, she would not--but, of course, I was brutal to mention it to her.I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me, Sallie." And as hespoke he extracted himself from me and walked over and laid his hand onSallie's head.

  "It was such a shock to her--poor Henry," sobbed little Cousin Jasmine,and the other two little sisters sniffed in chorus.

  "To have railroad trains running by Greenwood at all will be disturbingto the peace of the dead," snorted Mrs. Hargrove. "We need no railroadin Glendale. We have never had one, and that is my last word--no!"

  "Four miles to the railroad station across the river is just a pleasantdrive in good weather," said Cousin Martha, plaintively, as she cuddledSallie's sobs more comfortably down on her shoulder.

  "I feel that Henry would doubt my faithfulness to his memory, if Iconsented to such a desecration," came in smothered tones from thepillowing shoulder.

  And not one of all those six women had stopped to think for one minutethat the minor fact of the disturbing of the ashes of Henry Carrutherswould be followed by the major one of the restoration of the widow'sfortune and the lifting of a huge financial burden off the strongshoulders they were all separately and collectively leaning upon.

  I exploded, but I am glad I drew the Crag out on the porch and did it tohim alone.

  "Evelina, you are refreshing if strenuous," he laughed, after I hadspent five minutes in stating my opinions of women in general and a fewin particular. "But I ought not to have hurt Sallie by telling herabout the lines until they are a certainty. It is so far only apossibility. They may go across the river anyway."

  "And as for seeing Sallie swaddled in your consideration, and fedyourself as a sacrifice from a spoon, I am tired of it," I flamed upagain. "It's not good for her. Feed and clothe her and her progeny,--menin general have brought just such burdens as that upon you in particularby their attitude towards us,--but do let her begin to exert just asmall area of her brain on the subject of the survival of the fit tolive. You don't swaddle or feed me!"

  "Eve," he said, softly under his breath as his wonderful gentle eyessank down way below the indignation and explosiveness to the quiet poolthat lies at the very bottom of my heart.

  Nobody ever found it before and I didn't know it was there myself, but Ifelt as if it were being drained up into Heaven.

  "Eve!" He said again, and it is a wonder that I didn't answer:

  "Adam!"

  I don't know just what would have happened if Uncle Peter hadn't brokenin on the interview with his crustiest chips on both shoulders and somuch excitement bottled up that he had to let it fly like a doublereporter.

  "Dodson is down at the Hotel looking for you, James," he began as hehurried up the steps. "Big scheme this--got him in a corner if the C. &G. comes along this side of Old Harpeth--make him squeal--hey?"

  "Who's Dodson?" I asked with the greatest excitement. I was for thefirst time getting a whiff of the schemes of the masculine mighty, but Iwas squelched promptly by Uncle Peter.

  "We've no time for questions, Evelina, now--go back to yourtatting--hey?" He answered me as he began to buttonhole the Crag andlead him down the steps.

  "Dodson is the man who is laying down and contracting for the lineacross the river, Evelina," answered Cousin James without taking anynotice whatever of Uncle Peter's squelching of me. "If this other linecan just be secured he will have to come to our terms--and the situationwill be saved." As he spoke he took my hand in his and led me at hisside, down the front walk to the gate, talking as he went, for UnclePeter was chuckling on ahead like a steam tug in a hurry.

  "And the shades of Henry will again assume the maintenance of hisfamily," I hazarded with lack of respect of the dead, impudence toCousin James about his own affairs, and unkindness by implication toSallie, who loves me better than almost anybody in the world does. And Igot my just punish
ment by seeing a lovely look of tender concern rise inCousin James's eyes as he stopped short in the middle of the walk.

  "I want to go back a minute to speak to Sallie before I go on downtown," he said, quickly, and before Uncle Peter's remonstrances hadexploded, he had taken the steps two at a bound and disappeared in thefront door.

  "Sooner he marries that lazy lollypop the better," fumed Uncle Peter, ashe waited at the gate. "The way for a man to quench his thirst forwoman-sweets is to marry a pot of honey like that, and then come righton back to the bread and butter game. Here's a letter Jasper gave me tobring along for you from town. Go on and read it and do not disturb theworkings of my brain while I wait for James--workings of a greatbrain--hey?"

  I took the letter and hurried across the street because I wanted anywayto get to some place by myself and think. There was no earthly reasonfor it but I felt like an animal that has been hurt and wants to go offand lick its wounds. A womanly woman that lives a lovely appealing liferight in a man's own home has a perfect right to gain his love,especially if she is beautifully unconscious of her appeal. Besides, whyshould a man want to take an independent, explosive, impudent firebrandwith all sorts of dreadful plots in her mind to his heart? He wouldn'tand doesn't!

  There is no better sedative for a woman's disturbed and wounded emotionsthan a little stiff brain work. Richard's letter braced my viny droopingof mind at once and from thinking into the Crag's affairs of sentiment,I turned with masculine vigor to begin to mix into his affairs offinance. However, I wish that the first big business letter I ever gotin my life hadn't had to have a strain of love interest running throughit! Still Dickie is a trump card in the man pack.

  It seems that as his father is one of the most influential directorsand largest stockholders in this new branch of the Cincinnati and Gulfrailroad he has got the commission for making the plans for all thestations along the road, and he wants to give me the commission fordrawing all the gardens for all the station-yards. It will be tremendousfor both of us so young in life, and I never dared hope for such athing. I had only hoped to get a few private gardens of some of myfriends to laze and pose over, but this is startling. My mind isbeginning to work on in terms of hedges and fountains already and Dickiemay be coming South any minute.

  And besides the hedges and gravel paths I have a feeling that Dickie'sfather and the Crag and Sallie's girl-babies are fomenting around in mymind getting ready to pop the cork of an idea soon. The combinationfeels like some kind of a hunch--I sat still for a long time and let itseethe, while I took stock of the situation.

  There is a strange, mysterious kind of peace that begins to creep acrossthe Harpeth Valley, just as soon as the sun sinks low enough to throwthe red glow over the head of Old Harpeth. I suppose it happens in otherhill-rimmed valleys in other parts of the Universe, but it does seem asif God himself is looking down to brood over us, and that the valley isthe hollow of His hand into which he is gathering us to rest in thedarkness of His night. I felt buffeted and in need of Him as I sank downunder the rose-vine over the porch and looked out across my garden tothe blue and rose hills beyond.

  I have been in Glendale a whole month now, and I can't see that myinfluence has revolutionized the town as yet. I don't seem to be of halfthe importance that I thought I was going to be. I have tried, and Ihave offered that bucket of love that I thought up to everybody, butwhether they have drunk of it to profit I am sure I can't say. In fact,my loneliness has liquefied my gaseous affection into what almost lookslike officiousness.

  Still, I know Uncle Peter is happier than he ever was before, because hehas got me to come to as a refuge from Aunt Augusta, a confidante forhis views of life that he is not allowed to express at home, and alsothe certainty of one of Jasper's juleps.

  Sallie has grown so dependent on me that my shoulders are assuming amasculine squareness to support her weight. I am understudying CousinJames to such an extent over at Widegables that I feel like the heir tohis house. Cousin Martha sends for me when the chimney smokes and thecows get sick. I have twice changed five dollars for little CousinJasmine, and sternly told the man from out on their farm on ProvidenceRoad that he must not root up the lavender bushes to plant turnip-greensin their places. I afterwards rented the patch from him to grow thelavender because he said he couldn't lose the price that the greenswould bring him "for crotchets."

  Mrs. Hargrove has given me her will to keep for her, and the sealedinstructions for her burial. I hope when the time comes the two behestswill strike a balance, but I doubt it.

  Her ideas of a proper funeral seem to coincide with those of QueenVictoria, whom she has admired through life and mourns sincerely.

  Henrietta has not been heard to indulge in profane language since I hada long talk with her last week out in the garden, that ended in stubbytears and the gift of a very lovely locket which I impressed upon herwas as chaste in design as I wished her speech to become.

  The twins have been provided with several very lovely pieces of wearingapparel from my rapidly skill-acquiring needle. That's on the creditside of my balance. But that is _all_--and it doesn't soundrevolutionary, does it, Jane?

  Petunia married Jasper according to his word of promise, and I havetaught her to cook about five French dishes that he couldn't concoct tosave his life, and which help her to keep him in his place. Hispomposity grows daily but he eyes me with suspicion when he sees me insecret conclave with Petunia.

  "We needs a man around this place," I heard him mutter the other day asI left the kitchen.

  I wonder!

  The garden has been weeded, replanted, trained, clipped and garnished,and my arms are as husky and strong as a boy's and my nose badlysunburned from my strenuosity with hoe and trimming scissors.

  All of which I have done and done well. But when I think of all thosefive girls that are waiting for me to solve the emotional formula bywhich they can work out and establish the fact that man equals woman, Iget weak in the knees.

  Jane's letters are just prods.

  * * * * *

  Your highly cultivated artistic nature ought to be a very beautifulrevelation to the spiritual character of the young Methodist divine youwrote me of in your last letter. Encourage him in every way withaffectionate interest in his work, especially in the Epworth League onhis country circuit. I am enclosing fifty dollars' subscription to thework and I hope you will give as much You have not mentioned Mr. Hayesfor several letters. I fear you are prejudiced against him. Seek to knowand weigh his character before you judge him as unfit for your love.

  * * * * *

  The highly spiritual Mr. Haley glared at Polk for an hour out here on myporch, when he interrupted us in one of our Epworth League talks, insuch an unspiritual manner that Polk said he felt as if he had beenintroduced to the Apostle Paul while he was still Saul of Tarsus. I hadto pet the Dominie decorously for a week before he regained his benignmanner. Of course, however, it was trying to even a highly spiritualnature like his to have Polk insist on pinning a rose in my hair rightbefore his eyes.

  About Polk I feel that I am in the midst of one of those great calm,oily stretches of ocean that a ship is rocked gently in for a few hoursbefore the storm tosses it first to Heaven and then to hell. He is sopsychic, and in a way attuned to me, that he partly understands mypurpose in declaring my love for him to put him at a disadvantage in hislove-making to me, and he hasn't let me do it yet, while his tacit suitgoes on. It is a drawn battle between us and is going to be fought tothe death. In the meantime Nell--

  And while I was on the porch sitting with Richard Hall's letter in myhand, still unread, Nell herself came down the front walk and sat downbeside me.

  "Why, I thought you had gone fishing with Polk," I said as I cuddled herup to me a second. She laid her head on my shoulder and heaved such asigh that it shook us both.

  "I didn't quite like to go with him alone and Henrietta wouldn't gobecause a bee had stung the red-headed twin, and she
wanted to stay toscold Sallie," she answered with both hesitation and depression in hervoice.

  "Polk is--is strenuous for a whole day's companionship," I answered,experimentally, for I saw the time had come to exercise some of thebiceps in Nell's femininity in preparation for just what I knew she wasto get from Polk. My heart ached for what I knew she was suffering. Ihad had exactly those growing pains for months following that experiencewith him on the front porch after the dance four years ago. And I hadhad change of scene and occupation to help.

  "I don't understand him at all," faltered Nell, and she raised her eyesas she bared her wound to me.

  "Nell," I said with trepidation, as I began on this my first disciple,"you aren't a bit ashamed or embarrassed or humiliated in showing methat you love me, are you?"

  "You know I've adored you ever since I could toddle at your heels,Evelina," she answered, and the love-message her great brown eyesflashed into mine was as sweet as anything that ever happened to me.

  "Then, why should you wonder and suffer and restrain and be humiliatedat your love for Polk?" I asked, firing point blank at all of Nell'straditions. "Why not tell him about it and ask him if he loves you?"

  The shot landed with such force that Nell gasped, but answered asstraight out from the shoulder as I had aimed.

  "I would rather die than have Polk Hayes know how he--he affects me,"she answered with her head held high.

  "Then, what you feel for him is not worthy love, but something entirelyunworthy," I answered loftily, with a very poor imitation of Jane'simpressiveness of speech.

  "I know it," she faltered into my shoulder, "if it were Mr. James HardinI loved, I wouldn't mind anybody's knowing it, but something must bewrong with Polk or me or the way I feel. What is it?"

  For a moment I got so stiff all over that Nell raised her head from myshoulder in surprise. Do all women feel about the Crag as I do?

  "I don't know," I answered weakly.

  And I don't know! Oh, Jane, your simple experiment proposition is aboutto become compound quadratics.

  Then I got a still further surprise.

  "I wouldn't in the least mind telling Mr. James how I like him--if youthink it is all right," Nell mused, looking pensively at the first palestar that was rising over Old Harpeth. "I would enjoy it, because Ihave always adored him, and it would be so interesting to see what he'dsay."

  "Nell," I said suddenly with determination, "do it! Tell any man youlike how much you like him--and see what happens."

  "I feel as if--as if"--Nell faltered and I don't blame her; I wouldn'thave said as much to her--"I feel that to tell Mr. James I love _him_would ease the pain, the--pain--that I feel about Polk. It would be sointeresting to tell a man a thing like that."

  "Do it!" I gasped, and went foot in the class in romantics.

  If any jungle explorer thinks he has mapped and charted a woman's hearthe had better pack up his instruments of warfare and recorders and comedown to Glendale, Tennessee.

  Nell and I must have talked further along the same lines, but I don'tremember what we said. I have recorded the high lights on theconversation, but long after I lost her I kept my whirlwind feeling ofamazement. It was like trying to balance calmly on the lid of thetinder-box when you didn't know whether or not you had touched off thefuse.

  Has honeysuckle-garbed Old Harpeth been seeing things like this go onfor centuries and not interrupted? I think I would have been sittingthere questioning him until now, if Lee and Caroline hadn't stopped atthe gate and called to me.

  I think Lee was giving Caroline this stroll home from the post-office inthe twilight as an extra treat in her week's allowance of him, and shewas so soft and glowing and sweet and pale that I wonder the Cherokeeroses on my hedge didn't droop their heads with humility before her.

  "What's a lovely lady doing sitting all by herself in the gloaming?" Leeasked in his rich, warm voice.

  I hate him!

  "Come take a walk with us, Evelina, dear," Caroline begged softly,though I knew what it would mean to her if I should intrude on thisprecious hour with her near-lover.

  Please, God--if I seem to be calling You into a profane situation Ican't help it; I must have help!--show me some way to assist Caroline tomake Lee into a real man and then get him for herself. She must have himand he needs her. And show me a way quick! Amen!

  Jane, I hope you will be able to pick the data out of this jumble, but Idoubt it. Anyway I'm grateful for the lock and key on this book.

  As I stood at the gate and watched Lee and Caroline saunter down themoon-flecked street a mocking bird in the tallest of the oak twins thatare my roof shelter called wooingly from one of the top boughs and gothis answer from about the same place on the same limb.

  If a woman starts out to be a trained nurse to an epidemic oflove-making, she is in great danger of doing something foolish her ownself. I am even glad it is prayer-meeting night for Mr. Haley; he issafe in performing his rituals. He might misunderstand this mood.

  I wonder if I ever was really over in sunny France being wooed andhappy!

  Of course, I decided the first night I was here that, as circumstancesover which I had no control had decreed that Cousin James should standin the position of enforced protector to me, decent, communisticfemino-masculine honor demands that I refrain from any manoeuvers in hisdirection to attract his thoughts and attention to the feminine me. Ican only meet him on the ordinary grounds of fellowship. And I supposethe glad-to-see him coming up the street was of the neuter gender, butit was very interesting.

  "What did Dodson have to say--is he coming across?" I demanded of himbefore he got quite to my gate.

  "Not if he can help it," he answered as he came close and leaned againstone of the tall stone posts, so that his grandly shaped head with itsante-bellum squirls of hair was silhouetted against the white-starredwistaria vine in a way that made me frantic for several buckets ofmonochrome water-colors and a couple of brushes as big as those used forwhite-washing. In about ten great splotches I could have done amasterpiece of him that would have drawn artistic fits from the publicof gay Paris. I never see him that I don't long for a box of pastels orget the ghost of the odor of oil-paint in my nose.

  "The whole thing will be settled in a month," he continued, with a sighthat had a hint of depression in it and an astral shape of Salliemanifested itself hanging on his shoulder. However, I controlled myselfand listened to him. "There is to be a meeting of the directors of bothroads over in Bolivar in a few weeks and they are to come to someunderstanding. The line across the river is unquestionably the cheapestand best grade and there is no chance of getting them to run along ourbluff--unless we can show them some advantage in doing so, and I can'tsee what that will be."

  "What makes it of advantage for a railroad to run through any givenpoint in a rural community like this, Cousin James?" I asked, with aglow of intellect mounting to my head, the like of which I hadn't feltsince I delivered my Junior thesis in Political Economy with Janelooking on, consumed with pride.

  "Towns that have good stock or grain districts around them with goodroads for hauling do what is called 'feeding' a railroad," he answered."Bolivar can feed both roads with the whole of the Harpeth Valley onthat side of the river. They'll get the roads, I'm thinking. Poor oldGlendale!"

  "Isn't there anything to feed the monsters this side of the river?" Idemanded, indignant at the barrenness of the south side of the valley ofOld Harpeth.

  "Very little unless it's the scenery along the bluff," he replied, withthe depression sounding still more clearly in his voice and hisshoulders drooped against the unsympathetic old stone post in a way thatsent a pang to my heart.

  "Jamie, is all you've got tied up in the venture?" I asked softly, usingthe name that a very small I had given him in a long ago when the worldwas young and not full of problems.

  "That's not the worst, Evelina," he answered in a voice that waspositively haggard. "But what belongs to the rest of the family is allin the same leaky craft. Carruthers pu
t Sallie's in himself, but Iinvested the mites belonging to the others. Of course, as far as theold folks are concerned, I can more than take care of them, and ifanything happens there's enough life insurance and to spare for them. Idon't feel exactly responsible for Sallie's situation, but I do feel theresponsibility of their helplessness. Sallie is not fitted to cope withthe world and she ought to be well provided for. I feel that more andmore every day. Her helplessness is very beautiful and tender, but in away tragic, don't you think?"

  I wish I had dared tell him for the second time that day what I didthink on the subject but I denied myself such frankness.

  Anyway, men are just stupid, faithful children--some of them faithful, Imean.

  I felt that if I stood there talking with the Crag any longer, I mightgrow pedagogical and teach him a few things so I sent him home acrossthe road. I knew all six women would stay awake until they heard himlock them in, come down to the lodge and lock his own door.

  It is very unworthy of me to enjoy his playing a watch-dog of traditionacross the road to an emancipated woman like myself. The situation bothkeeps me awake and puts me to sleep--and it is sweet, though I don'tknow why.

  God never made anything more wonderful than a good man,--even a stupidone. Lights out!