Will N. Harben

“ A spiritual force of some sort seemed to radiate from the bent old man that for the time almost regenerated his companion. John had discovered that Cavanaugh loved him as a son and regarded him with an ardent mixture of pride and ecstasy, as a son restored from death to life. Sometimes, in their ascent of an incline in their strolls, the old man would quite unconsciously catch hold of the arm of the younger, and in speaking he often held John's hand in one of his and gently stroked it, as if unconscious of what he was doing. ”

“ The eyes of the two met in a steady stare of infinite curiosity. The eyes of the woman of the world seemed to cling to the eyes of youth and purity. The former sank first. Lizzie Trott's wavered and fell to the dainty handkerchief in her lap.
"She is like John about the mouth and eyes," Tilly thought. "Poor woman! I could love her. For John's sake I could love her. Yes, I could love her. In spite of what she is, I could love her. Poor woman! Poor woman! And she is John's mother—actually his mother! She is not wholly bad. I see that in her face. Something is wrong. ”

“ Cavanaugh said to him as he was tying John's cravat in John's room before the ceremony, "you've just got to stand up straighter. Here lately, when you are with Tilly, you hump yourself over, or sag down with one leg crooked like you was ashamed of being tall. If there is a time in a fellow's life when he ought to stand straight and look folks square in the eyes it is when he's having the cheek to take to himself a sweet young bride. Stand up, throw your shoulders back, and let them all know that you've got a job before you and that you are going to do your level best to put it through." ”

“ The truth is I don't want to leave Tilly and Joel and the children. I've got used to them, I reckon. I think they want me, too, I really do; at least I hope so. I've found this out, John; people either like one sort of life or the other. When I was living like—like I used to live, I wanted that and nothing else, but now I want this and nothing else. I wish you could live here, but you know best about that. It would be wrong in some ways, for, considering the way you and Tilly feel about each other, and her duty to Joel and the children, it wouldn't be best for you to be close together. ”

“ A wail of despair rang out from the shore; men, women, and children ran to and fro, screaming. John was soon over the spot where the girl and dog had disappeared, and, exhausting the air from his lungs, he dived down as far as he could. He kept his eyes open, and moving from him in the murky depths he could not quite reach for lack of breath he saw the blue dress of the girl. That Binks was in her dying clutch he well knew. The buoyancy of John's body raised him to the top sooner than he wished, and when he appeared with nothing in his grasp the screams from the shore were louder than ever. ”

“ Night after night I've lived with you in our little cottage, only to wake and find it a damnable mockery, with nothing but the dull grind of life before me."
"What I say I would say to Joel's face if I could do so without killing him." Tilly smiled wistfully. "John, I don't believe a true woman can love but once in the way I loved you. She can many; she can have children when she thinks it can bring no harm to her dead lover, but, if she is a genuine woman, she will exult when that lover rises from the grave and stands before her again. ”

“ John stared, still angry. "I've got no use for him," he sniffed. "He looks like a jack-leg preacher or a mountain singing-teacher, bowing and scraping and holding his hat in his hand before two men. He has no backbone. He is as yellow as a pumpkin, and ought to have that long hair of his parted in the middle and tied in a knot behind his head."
"I know, but he looks honest and straight, and he is dead in love. That's one reason he's so timid, even with us. It works that way with some men. You are different. It makes a wild man of you, especially when the fair one is looked at by somebody else. ”

“ Dear John, I could take your suffering face between my hands and kiss your lips as no woman ever kissed a man's lips before. Yes, I could do it, and I'd die to be able to do it again, but it is not to be. My body may not love, but my soul may, and it is an eternal thing, John, and so is your soul. Those children have a right to the care of a mother who is untainted in the sight of the world. ”

“ When he returned she was standing before the wide mirror of the new-fashioned bureau. She had taken off her hat and the elevated gas-jet on the wall threw a blaze of light into her beautiful hair. He put down the bags and stood gazing at her with eyes full of timid reverence and worship.
"Poor, dear little Tilly!" he said, almost huskily. "You look so lonely, here just with me like this, away from your home and friends. I am not worthy of you, little girl—no man is. I feel that. I know it down deep inside of me. Until I met you I never knew what a good, pure girl was like. ”

“ Tilly seemed to Joel, as she spoke, quite another woman from the one who had been his wife all those years, and Joel simply sat, bent forward, his every nerve and muscle drawn taut by vast swirling forces within him.
"Then you don't think that he would—would forgive her?" asked Tilly, with obvious anxiety which she was striving to minimize.
Joel's prompt reply surprised her. "I know he would," said Joel, "if he knew all the circumstances. I have never known a nobler man. I don't believe a nobler man ever lived. ”

“ John Trott acted for your good in leaving, and I should not have saddled on you myself, the greatest failure among men that ever lived. I feel to-night as if the blight of an avenging God is on me for my presumption. I have put two little children on your hands and feel as incapable of protecting you and them as a crawling infant." [Pg 378]
"I won't listen to you!" Tilly stood up. "You shall not abuse yourself in this way. You acted exactly as you should. No one could blame you. You are one of the noblest men living. ”

“ She gave them to John Trott. She has never blamed him for any step he took. She thought that he left here for her sake, and died for her sake. Do you think I don't know that when she hears that he himself has never married in all these years—do you think that she will then love him less than she did? She always looked on him as the most wronged man alive. Do you suppose that she herself will turn against him now? In the name of God, what excuse would she have, and him still loving her as Mr. Cavanaugh thinks he does? ”

“ As for me, myself, as I look back on what I went through among those haughty, hidebound people at Ridgeville, before Sam Cavanaugh held out a helping hand— Well, never mind about that, but I know I've been my own God, and I never run across any other except in the dreams of persons who get the best things of life and don't care whether anybody else gets them or not."
"You will think otherwise some day—you will have to," was Tilly's regretful ultimatum. "Someday you will need God so badly that you will turn to Him. ”

“ The whole world in its new aspect seemed to meet him with fangs and claws exposed. He wanted to fight something physically, to express by oaths and blows the resentment packed within his primitive breast. He felt his gnarled and hardened fingers at Joel Eperson's thin neck. He saw the long hair sway back and forth as he shook the love-smitten man. His clutch tightened till Joel's eyes bulged from their sockets, and then, in gloating fancy, John dashed him to the ground, where he lay exposed to Tilly's view. ”

“ But neither did the contractor help Tilly to solve the brooding enigma. On the contrary, his very reticence seemed to deepen it, for he had the disturbed air of a man avoiding some disagreeable fact. How could it be, Tilly began to ask herself, that a man so genial as John should have absolutely no women friends in the town of his birth, and why was it that even his men friends should so persistently shun his residence and show so little interest in his bride? ”

“ Cavanaugh went on. "I don't know what step you want to take."
"I'll take none," John answered, grimly. "You don't think I want to kill anybody, do you? She is his daughter, and he had her before I got her. I tell you there is no fight in me, Sam. I can fight, as you know, when it has to be done, but there is no call for it in this case. Knowing Tilly as I know her, and now knowing my own plight as it has been made plain to me since I brought her here, I would think any man a damned idiot that would allow his daughter to marry me. God! God! ”

“ A moment later there was a shriek from the locomotive, a violent jerking of the cars, a distant crashing and grinding of timbers, and a thunderous sound of heavy bodies falling. The coupling was broken and the chair-car lurched forward, left the track, shot its front end against an embankment about twenty feet high and remained poised there. Dora was thrown against a window, the thick glass of which fortunately did not break, and John fell between the chairs to the floor. Everywhere in the car the passengers lay over one another, squirming and screaming in pain and terror. ”

“ He sprang from his bed and stood before the window of his boxlike room.
"It is my yellow streak again," he muttered, wiping his eyes and grinding his teeth. "It can't down me awake, and so it coils about me in dreams. Be a man, John Trott! Life was never made for happiness. It was for pain, struggle, and conquest."
He heard a sound in Dora's room. ”

“ They all said the clean must be kept away from the unclean—that you couldn't handle manure without smelling of it, and that goats stink and cows don't. But one night, while I was lying in my hot bed, unable to doze off, and thinking—thinking whether I ought to tell that hard-faced old hypocrite, Whaley, the thing that I was sure would kill poor John's chances to get his first happiness in his own little cottage—I was lying there, I say, when the thought come to me, as sudden as a streak of lightning, that an all-wise God created Liz Trott and Jane Holder and permitted temptation to meet them. ”

“ His new trowel tinkled softly as he worked in the dead silence on all sides. When it was finished the band played. There was much applause, and then the choir sang. During this part of the program John had a chance to look at Tilly without being seen by her. She sat very erectly at the organ, unabashed, unperturbed. John, even from where he stood at one side, saw the red welt on her hand. He told himself, sentimentally, that those were the same little hands which churned daily, washed dishes, made fires in the range, washed, hung out, and ironed clothes, and he marveled. ”

“ John sneered. He loved Tilly with his whole being, but he despised her belief. "I can tell you why I don't believe," he said, a billow of feeling behind his words. "I believe if there were a God, that God would have to be a God of love, power, and pity, and with my own eyes I've seen— I have told you about that little orphan girl at home, Dora Boyles. She is a little, helpless, overworked rat without father or mother, in the care of an aunt who is no earthly good—and is crazy about men—crazy about clothes, cards, liquor, and dancing. ”

“ Dick Whaley is the biggest fool and the wildest man when he is mad that ever lived, and, while you haven't thought of it, this thing may bring about bloodshed. He has already brought one man to death's door, and this will be the worst thing for Brother Whaley to stand of anything that ever crossed his path. He might have stood the talk about his son-in-law being an atheist, but he'll never put up with what is being said about selling his own child to a life of infamy, and the likelihood of his being the grandfather of stock of that sort. ”

“ And they said he and Dora were on the way to New York when that awful thing happened. Mr. Cavanaugh, you are a good man. You've always been considered a good man by everybody that knows you. I understand that you never had any children, but you may know the human heart well enough to know that no regret ever heard of can be deeper than that which is brought on by the sort of thing that happened to me. I don't talk this way to Tilly and Joel, because I owe them too much to let them dream that I am not thoroughly happy. ”

“ John was always tired when night came, but a new expectation at the end of each day had come into his hitherto uneventful life. It was not often that he saw Tilly alone, but he had come to look forward eagerly even for the mere sight of her in the evening, at the supper-table, on the veranda, or in the yard with the others. Both he and Cavanaugh immediately changed their clothing when the day's work was over, and this formality was a new and pleasant thing for the young mason. The change always made him feel more respectable. ”