Robert Barr

“ As a place grew, and enervating luxury set in, the grocery store slowly supplanted the blacksmith’s shop, because people found a nail keg, or a box of crackers, more comfortable to sit on than the limited seats at their disposal in a smithy; moreover, in winter the store, with its red-hot box stove, was a place of warmth and joy, but the reveling in such an atmosphere of comfort meant that the members of the club had to live close at hand, for no man would brave the storms of a Canadian winter night, and journey a mile or two through the snow, to enjoy even the pleasures of the store. ”

“ I am the sort of man that a woman can make or mar. Do not, I beg of you, ruin the life of the man who loves you.”
“I am not a missionary,” cried Margaret with sudden anger. “If your life is to be wrecked, it will be through your own foolishness, and not from any act of mine. I think it cowardly of you to say that I am to be held responsible. I have no wish to influence your future one way or another.”
“Not for good, Margaret?” asked Yates with tender reproach.
“No. A man whose good or bad conduct depends on anyone but himself is not my ideal of a man.” ”

“ With his right hand he held a hot horseshoe, attached to an iron punch that had been driven into one of the nail holes, and this he pressed against the upraised hoof, as though sealing a document with a gigantic seal. Smoke and flame rose from the contact of the hot iron with the hoof, and the air was filled with the not unpleasant odor of burning horn. The smith’s tool box, with hammer, pinchers, and nails, lay on the earthern floor within easy reach. The sweat poured from his grimy brow; for it was a hot job, and Macdonald was in the habit of making the most of his work. ”

“ I’ll be city-sick the first thing I know, and then I’ll make a break for the metropolis. This will never do. The air here is enchanting, it fills a man with new life. This is the spot for me, and I’ll stick to it till I’m right again. Hang New York! But I mustn’t think of Broadway or I’m done for.”
He came to the spot in the road where he could see the white side of the tent under the dark trees, and climbed up on the rail fence, sitting there for a few moments. The occasional call of a quail from a neighboring field was the only sound that broke the intense stillness. ”

“ The enchantment of the hour threw its spell over the young man, and he resolved to live a better life, and be worthy of the girl he had chosen, or, rather, that fate had chosen for him. He paused a moment, leaning over the fence near the Howard homestead, for he had not yet settled in his own mind the details of the meeting. He would not go in, for in that case he knew he would have to talk, perhaps for hours, with everyone but the person he wished to meet. If he announced himself and asked to see Margaret alone, his doing so would embarrass her at the very beginning. ”

“ Yates walked merrily down the road, whistling “Gayly the troubadour.” Perhaps there is no moment in a man’s life when he feels the joy of being alive more keenly than when he goes to propose to a girl of whose favorable answer he is reasonably sure—unless it be the moment he walks away an accepted lover. There is a magic about a June night, with its soft, velvety darkness and its sweet, mild air laden with the perfumes of wood and field. ”

“ Another illusion had gone.
“I have surely enough self-control,” said Renmark to himself, as he walked on, “to stand his shallow flippancy for another week, and not let him see what I think of him.”
Yates at the same time was thoroughly enjoying the peaceful silence of the camp. “That man is an exaggerated schoolmaster, with all the faults of the species abnormally developed. If I once open out on him, he will learn more truth about himself in ten minutes than he ever heard in his life before. What an unbearable prig he has grown to be.” ”

“ Well, Renny, congratulate me, my boy. She’s mine, and I’m hers—which are two ways of stating the same delightful fact. I’m up in a balloon, Renny. I’m engaged to the prettiest, sweetest, and most delightful girl there is from the Atlantic to the Pacific. What d’ye think of that? Say, Renmark, there’s nothing on earth like it. You ought to reform and go in for being in love. It would make a man of you. Champagne isn’t to be compared to it. Get up here and dance, and don’t sit there like a bear nursing a sore paw. Do you comprehend that I am to be married to the darlingest girl that lives? ”

“ Yates realized that the way to success lay in keeping the conversation in his own hands and not depending on any response. In this way a man may best display the store of knowledge he possesses, to the admiration and bewilderment of his audience, even though his store consists merely of samples like the outfit of a commercial traveler; yet a commercial traveler who knows his business can so arrange his samples on the table of his room in a hotel that they give the onlooker an idea of the vastness and wealth of the warehouses from which they are drawn. ”

“ As the congregation sang the preacher in stentorian tones urged sinners to seek the Lord while he was yet to be found.
Yates felt the electric thrill in the air, and he tugged at his collar, as if he were choking. He could not understand the strange exaltation that had come over him. It seemed as if he must cry aloud. All those around him were much moved. There were now no scoffers at the back of the room. Most of them seemed frightened, and sat looking one at the other. It only needed a beginning, and the penitent bench would be crowded. Many eyes were turned on Macdonald. ”

“ And the frivolous Yates poked the professor in the ribs.
“Richard,” said the latter, “I can stand only a certain amount of this sort of thing. I don’t wish to call any man a fool, but you act remarkably like one.”
“Don’t be mealy-mouthed, Renny; call a spade a spade. By George! young Hiram has gone off and forgotten his—And the ax, too! Perhaps they’re left for us. He’s a good fellow, is young Hiram. A fool? Of course I’m a fool. That’s what I came for, and that’s what I’m going to be for the next two weeks. ‘A fool—a fool, I met a fool i’ the forest’—just the spot for him. ”

“ As to Margaret, who can plummet the depth of a young girl’s regard until she herself gives some indication? All that one is able to record is that she was kinder to Yates than she had been at the beginning.
Miss Kitty Bartlett probably would not have denied that she had a sincere liking for the conceited young man from New York. Renmark fell into the error of thinking Miss Kitty a frivolous young person, whereas she was merely a girl who had an inexhaustible fund of high spirits, and one who took a most deplorable pleasure in shocking a serious man. ”

“ Even the carpenter and blacksmith usually have to work under a boss; and if not, they have to depend on the men who employ them. The farmer has to please nobody but himself. That adds to his independence. That’s why old Hiram is ready to fight the first comer on the slightest provocation. He doesn’t care whom he offends, so long as it isn’t his wife. These people know how to make what they want, and what they can’t make they do without. That’s the way to form a great nation. You raise, in this way, a self-sustaining, resolute, unconquerable people. ”

“ She flatters herself she makes a new man of him, and thinks she owns that new man by right of manufacture. We owe it to the sex, Renny, to give ‘em a chance at reforming us. I have known men who hated tobacco take to smoking merely to give it up joyfully for the sake of the women they loved. Now, if a man is perfect to begin with, what is a dear, ministering angel of a woman to do with him? Manifestly nothing. The trouble with you, Renny, is that you are too evidently ruled by a good and well-trained conscience, and naturally all women you meet intuitively see this, and have no use for you. ”

“ It was a lovely afternoon in the latter part of May, 1866, and Yates was swinging idly in the hammock, with his hands clasped under his head, gazing dreamily up at the patches of blue sky seen through the green branches of the trees overhead, while his industrious friend was unromantically peeling potatoes near the door of the tent.
“The human heart, Renny,” said the man in the hammock reflectively, “is a remarkable organ, when you come to think of it. ”

“ Stoliker, how supremely lovely and quiet and restful are the silent, scented, spreading fields! How soothing to a spirit tired of the city’s din is this solitude, broken only by the singing of the birds and the drowsy droning of the bee, erroneously termed ‘bumble’! The green fields, the shady trees, the sweet freshness of the summer air, untainted by city smoke, and over all the eternal serenity of the blue unclouded sky—how can human spite and human passion exist in such a paradise? ”

“ One difference between a fool and a wise man is that the wise man always accepts the inevitable. The constable was wise. The two crossed the rail fence into the fields, and walked along peaceably together—Stoliker silent, as usual, with the grim confidence of a man who is certain of ultimate success, who has the nation behind him, with all its machinery working in his favor; Yates talkative, argumentative, and instructive by turns, occasionally breaking forth into song when the unresponsiveness of the other rendered conversation difficult. ”

“ Strange to say, her wishes have been amply fulfilled, and few wives are as happy or as proud of their husbands as Kitty Yates. The one woman who might have put the drop of bitterness in her cup of life merely kissed her tenderly when Kitty told her of the great joy that had come to her, and said she was sure she would be happy; and thus for the second time Margaret told the thing that was not, but for once Margaret was wrong in her fears.
Yates walked to the tent a glorified man, leaving his loaf on the gatepost behind him. Few realize that it is quite as pleasant to be loved as to love. ”

“ You a reporter from ‘way back? You up to snuff? Yates, I’m ashamed to be seen in your company! Go back to New York, and let the youngest reporter in from a country newspaper scoop the daylight out of you. To think that this thing has been going on right under your well-developed nose, and you never saw it—worse, never had the faintest suspicion of it; that it was thrust at you twenty times a day—nearly got your stupid head smashed on account of it; yet you bleated away like the innocent little lamb that you are, and never even suspected! Dick, you’re a three-sheet-poster fool in colored ink. ”

“ Renmark threw himself down on the soft sand at the foot of a dune. The point of light gradually worked its way to the west, following, doubtless unconsciously, the star of empire, and disappeared around the headland, taking with it a certain vague sense of companionship. But the world is very small, and a man is never quite as much alone as he thinks he is. Renmark heard the low hoot of an owl among the trees, which cry he was astonished to hear answered from the water. ”

“ A man who is too good gets conceited about himself.”
“I half believe you are right, Mr. Yates,” said the professor, rising. “I will act on your advice, and, as you put it, see how it feels. My conscience tells me that I should congratulate you, and wish you a long and happy life with the girl you have—I won’t say chosen, but tossed up for. The natural man in me, on the other hand, urges me to break every bone in your worthless body. Throw off your coat, Yates.”
“Oh, I say, Renmark, you’re crazy.” ”

“ But I don’t say it quite in that tone, Renmark. What’s the matter with you? One would think you were in love with the girl yourself, if such a thing were possible.”
“Why is it not possible?”
“If that is a conundrum, I can answer it the first time. Because you are a fossil. You are too good, Renny; therefore dull and uninteresting. Now, there is nothing a woman likes so much as to reclaim a man. It always annoys a woman to know that the man she is interested in has a past with which she has had nothing to do. ”

“ I shall go to the Howards by way of the Bartlett homestead, but I warn you that if there is a meal on, at either place, you will not have me here to test your first efforts at cooking. So you may have to wait until breakfast for my opinion.”
Yates extricated himself slowly and reluctantly from the hammock, and looked regretfully at it when he stood once more on the ground.
“This mad struggle for bread, professor, is the curse of life here below. It is what we are all after. If it were not for the necessity of bread and clothing, what a good time a fellow might have. ”

“ A cold and critical man like the professor froze the spring of narration at its source. Besides, Renmark had an objectionable habit of tracing the recital to its origin; it annoyed Yates to tell a modern yarn, and then discover that Aristophanes, or some other prehistoric poacher on the good things men were to say, had forestalled him by a thousand years or so. When a man is quick to see the point of your stories, and laughs heartily at them, you are apt to form a high opinion of his good sense, and to value his companionship. ”

“ Stoliker disappeared quietly among the trees, and Yates, after a moment’s thought, began energetically to pack up his belongings. It was dark before he had finished, and Renmark returned.
“Stilly,” cried the reporter cheerily, “there’s a warrant out for my arrest. I shall have to go to-morrow at the latest!”
“What! to jail?” cried his horrified friend, his conscience now troubling him, as the parting came, for his lack of kindness to an old comrade. ”

“ He found himself walking toward the tent, but, not wishing to meet Renmark in his present frame of mind, he turned and came out on the Ridge Road. He was tired and broken, and resolved to stay in camp until they arrested him. Then perhaps she might have some pity on him. Who was the other man she loved? or had she merely said that to give finality to her refusal? In his present mood he pictured the worst, and imagined her the wife of some neighboring farmer—perhaps even of Stoliker. These country girls, he said to himself, never believed a man was worth looking at unless he owned a farm. ”

“ Professor Renmark is a man so worthy that I was rather astonished to learn that you knew of him. I am glad for his sake that it is so, for no man more thoroughly deserves fame than he.”
“I know nothing of him,” said Margaret, “except what my brother has written. My brother is a student at the university.”
“Is he really? And what is he going in for?”
“A good education.”
Yates laughed.
“Well, that is an all-round handy thing for a person to have about him. I often wish I had had a university training. Still, it is not valued in an American newspaper office as much as might be. ”

“ I’ll do anything but wash dishes.”
“Then why didn’t you say so?”
“Because any sane man would have said ‘no’ when I suggested cooking, merely because I suggested it. There is no diplomacy about you, Renmark. A man doesn’t know where to find you when you act like that. When you refused to do the cooking, I would have said: ‘Very well, then, I’ll do it,’ and everything would have been lovely; but now——”
Yates lay down again in disgust. There are moments in life when language fails a man.
“Then it’s settled that you do the cooking and I wash the dishes?” said the professor. ”

“ Bartlett, you will sympathize with me when I tell you that the torture I am suffering from at this moment is the remembrance of the good things to eat which I have had in your house. I am simply starved to death, Mrs. Bartlett, and this hard-hearted constable refuses to allow me to ask you for anything.”
Mrs. Bartlett came out through the gate to the road in a visible state of indignation.
“Stoliker,” she exclaimed, “I’m ashamed of you! You may hang a man if you like, but you have no right to starve him. Come straight in with me,” she said to the prisoners. ”