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“A rustic roughness”—Horace, Ep. Book I.

The story he had heard from his aunt, with its unexplained gaps, filled Mauney’s mind for days. He wondered most about what she had not told him. Her seemingly instinctive fear—or was it scorn?—of meeting his father roused torturing curiosity. Probably his mother’s letters had told her either plainly or in suggestive language of her great unhappiness.

The motor-car visit haunted him. It was so unnatural, as though, in a painful dream, he had beheld his own mother, whose features were to remain before him in waking hours. Spectre-like out of the unknown world she had come, to vanish immediately, leaving scant comfort, herself immune from his ardent desire to detain her.

The incident was characteristic of life, as he was learning to know it, for he gained cognizance of an enigmatical curse aimed at whatever promised happiness. One whom even a few moments had enshrined in his affections must tremble and disappear, as a delicate bird, hovering for an instant, is driven away by a sight or smell.

Every aspiration of his existence was leashed to his father’s stolid nature. He traced the deterring thongs, one by one, back to the paternal influence. Some hidden action or some unrevealed quality of his father’s had driven his aunt away in a dust-cloud. And the dust which rose up to obscure her loved face was symbolic, for dust of a kind was slowly settling upon the freshness of his own nature.

One evening his reverie of unhappiness was broken by a familiar voice when, turning about, he beheld David McBratney trudging along with a large, grey, telescope valise. In answer to his question, McBratney replied that he was starting on foot for Lockwood, where next morning he would take the train for Merlton to begin his ministerial studies. He was walking because his father, suffering from ill-humor, had refused him a horse. But evidently, there was no martyrdom about the situation.

“He’s an old man,” Dave said, putting down his burden and wiping his forehead with a big, red handkerchief, “and I didn’t like to start no row.”

“Are you going for good?” Mauney asked, rising from the grass and walking slowly to the edge of the road.

“Sure. I sold my three-year-old yesterday for a hundred, and that’ll keep me for a while up to Merlton. I guess Dad will come around after a while. But I reckon I’d just blow away, quiet like, without causin’ too much commotion.”

“You’re a cheerful cuss, Dave,” Mauney said.

“You bet,” he laughed, as he turned to look back toward his home. “I tell yuh, Maun, when a fellah gets sort o’ squared away with God Almighty, why, he can’t be no other way. Some o’ the neighbors says I’m makin’ a big mistake to leave the farm. But that farm ain’t nothin’ to me now. Maybe I won’t never have a bit o’ land to me name, but, I’m tellin’ yuh, I’ve got somethin’ as more’n makes up. Well, Maun, old boy,” he said, picking up his valise and sticking out his big, sun-burned hand. “I’ll be goin’ along. Good-bye. Best of luck to yuh!”

For minutes Mauney stood thoughtfully watching his retreating figure as, swinging into a long stride, he covered the first lap of his long walk to Lockwood. His big figure grew smaller and smaller and the valise dwindled to a little grey speck, but he never turned to look back and soon he was lost in a bend of the road.

Although Mauney disliked in McBratney, what he considered half-familiar references to the Creator, he distinctly admired his courage and did not hesitate to express his admiration next day at supper when the subject came up. Evidently Bard had called at the McBratney’s that afternoon on his way from Beulah.

“The old man’s all broke up,” he said. “Poor old chap. There he is right in the middle of the hayin’ with nobody to help him, and Dave walks right out an’ leaves him. He might ’a’ stayed till the first o’ August, anyway.”

“I guess Dave’s got it pretty bad, Dad,” William remarked as he spread a large chunk of butter over his bread. “Anybody that’ll start out an’ walk to Lockwood on a hot night, carrying a big grip, why, there’s somethin’ wrong with his brains. I never figured Dave’d be such a damned fool!”

Mauney looked up sharply at his brother.

“He isn’t a damned fool!” he said flushing. “I may not have any more use for religion than you have, Bill, but I admire any fellow who does what he thinks is right!”

“Is that so?” scoffed William, glaring across the table. “Well, now look here, freshie—”

Mauney, inflamed by the word, as well as by his brother’s sneering manner, jumped to his feet, and became the centre of attention.

“I refuse to be called ‘freshie’ by you,” he said with some effort at restraint, “and I have just enough sympathy with Dave McBratney that I’m not going to have you call him a damned fool, either!”

Bard pounded the table.

“Here, sit down, Maun,” he commanded and then turned with a faint smile toward his elder son. “Bill, eat your victuals and be quiet. O’ course,” he added presently, “there ain’t no doubt but what Dave is a damned fool, and he’s goin’ to wake up one o’ these days and find it out, too. But now he’s gone away I don’t see what the old man’s goin’ to do. I advised him to sell out the farm and go up to Beulah an’ take it easy. There ain’t no good o’ William Henry stayin’ down here no longer. He’ll have to get a hired man now, and with wages where they is he wouldn’t clean up nothin’.”

After a short silence, William chuckled softly as he raised his saucer of hot, clear tea to his lips.

“I was just thinkin’ about the Orange Walk down to Lockwood last year,” he explained. “There was Dave, with a few drinks in him, struttin’ around the park, darin’ everybody to a scrap. Gosh, it’s funny to think o’ him bein’ a preacher. I mind that night—we didn’t get home till seven o’clock the next mornin’ an’ I pitched in the harvest field all that day.”

“Sure,” nodded Bard. “I’ve done the same thing many a time when I was your age.”

“And the next night,” continued William proudly, “me and Dave was up to Ras Livermore’s harvest dance. That hoe-down lasted till five in the mornin’. I can see Dave yet, sweatin’ through the whole thing—never missed a dance.”

“Wonder if Ras is goin’ to put on a shin-dig this here harvest?” mused Bard.

“He ain’t never missed puttin’ one on since I can remember,” said the hired girl, who had been listening intently.

“The other day,” William remarked, “I saw Ras up in Abe Lavanagh’s barber shop. I ast him if he was goin’ to have a dance this year an’ he hit me an awful clout on the back an’ he says: ‘Better’n’ bigger’n ever, my boy. Come an’ bring yer fleusie. They’ll be plenty to eat, and Alec Dent is goin’ to fiddle again.’”

“And I guess Dave won’t hear the music, neither,” said Bard.

About ten days after his aunt’s visit Mauney received a letter from her, written in Merlton, and containing a crisp, five-dollar bill. “I really haven’t had time to choose a gift for you,” she wrote, “so please buy any little thing you fancy. Your Uncle Neville and I are leaving for New York to-night, and intend sailing the next day for Scotland. Neville is afraid England will be drawn into this terrible European mix-up, and of course, if that happens, he may have to leave his business as he holds a majority in the Scottish Borderers. I’m praying there won’t be a war, but it certainly does look dark.”

War! Mauney located the Beulah Weekly in the wood-box and searched its columns in vain for any mention of European politics. He wished that his father had consented to have a rural telephone installed, so that he could telephone now to some of the neighbors and find out what was transpiring. Next day in Beulah he asked the postmaster through the wicket if there seemed to be any danger of a war.

“War!” the man repeated, staring stupidly through his high-refractive spectacles. “Whereabouts?”

“In Europe.”

The postmaster reflectively poked his index finger into his mouth to free his molar teeth from remnants of his recent supper.

“I guess not,” he said lazily. “I ain’t heard nothin’ about it.”

“Do you know a good Merlton newspaper?” Mauney enquired.

“Oh, yes,” he replied, his face at once brightening to a patronizing smile. “The Merlton Globe is the best. It is the newsiest paper printed in the country, unexcelled for its editorials, has the largest unsolicited circulation, is unequalled for its want ad. columns, and reflects daily the current thought and events of both hemispheres. Yuh’d certainly get what yer huntin’ for in the Merlton Globe, Mr. Bard, ’cause if there’s any war on anywhere—don’t matter where—they’d most likely have it.”

“What does it cost?” Mauney asked.

“Only five dollars per year,” he replied politely, removing an eye-shade from his forehead, and staring anxiously at his customer. “Of course, I’m the local agent, you know,” he added.

“Oh! are you?”

“Oh, yes—yes,” he said, with a nervous little laugh, his hands together as if in the act of ablution.

For a moment Mauney hesitated, while his hand, deep in his pocket, felt the crisp treasury note with which he was so tempted to part. A number of considerations caused him to weigh well his present transaction, but he soon gave his initials to the eager postmaster and went home satisfied.

Seth Bard had, of course, always been able to find sufficient news in the Beulah Weekly. It is doubtful if he would have spent the annual dollar on it except for the long column advertising farm sales. He usually spent half an hour searching this portion of the paper, then a listless five minutes over the personal column, which, to his particular mind, provided an amusing satire, only to fall asleep, later, as he tried to read the fragmentary generalities that filled the stereotyped section. The hired girl religiously preserved the editions until she had found time to read the instalments of a continued love story. When the Merlton Globe began to arrive with the name of “Mr. Mauney Bard” upon it, a precedent seemed to have been established for introducing unwelcome new factors into the self-sufficient household.

“Where’d you get the money?” Bard demanded, in accordance with Mauney’s expectations.

“Found it,” he replied, just as he had planned to do.

There was no more questioning, although Mauney knew his father did not believe him. With queer pride, Bard scorned to read the big daily, although the woman found back numbers useful for lining pantry shelves.

“We don’t worry none about what’s goin’ on over in Europe, Bill,” remarked the father one evening while Mauney sat nearby reading the paper. “If they want to put on a war over there, why, let ’em sail to it. ’Taint none o’ our business.”

“Guess we got ’bout enough to do, running this here farm, Dad,” William agreed, “without wastin’ any time with that kind o’ truck.”

The annual harvest dance at Ras Livermore’s was a long-standing event of great local interest, for, since most people could remember, it had been as faithful in its appearance as the harvest itself. Men of fifty recalled gala nights spent there in their exuberant twenties. Livermore was benevolent and kindly, well over seventy, and had developed hospitality to a degree where he required it now as a social tonic. No invitations were sent out because rumour of the event invariably preceded the event itself, thus fixing the date, and, as to the personnel of the guests, Livermore’s slogan of “Everybody come” was sufficient, for he knew that the ultra-religious of Beulah would never appear and that the best recommendation for the qualities of a guest was the very spontaneity that impelled him or her to be present.

For the past three years it had been one of the bright spots in Mauney’s life and so, on the day of the dance, he brought downstairs his best suit of clothes for the hired girl to sponge and press. The men did not get in from the grain field until seven o’clock.

“Me and Annie’ll manage the milkin’ to-night,” Bard generously announced, as they ate supper. “Snowball’s goin’ too. Soon’s yuh get through eatin’, Maun, go bed the horses, and, Bill, you an’ Snowball pump the cows some water an’ draw the binder under the machine shed. Then hitch up old Charlie, jump into yer boiled shirts, and get up to Ras’s.”

“Ain’t you goin’, Dad?” William asked.

“No. I’m goin’ over to see William Henry an’ make him an offer on his farm. Annie’ll have to stay here an’ look after the house. I’m gettin’ too old fer this here dancin’ business anyway. I used to be able to stay with the best of ’em, Bill, but a plug o’ chewing tobacco is about as much dissipation as I can stand now.”

By nine o’clock Mauney, with his brother and Snowball, were driving up through Beulah and turning at the end of the village along the Stone Road. Three miles through the darkening landscape brought them nearer a cluster of pine trees behind which Livermore’s large frame house could be seen with every window alight. Between the trees were suspended yellow Japanese lanterns in long, bellying rows, beneath which could be seen the moving white gowns of women and the dark forms of men standing in groups. Buggy-loads of people were constantly arriving and being directed by Livermore who, dressed in an old-fashioned cut-away suit, was strutting about as actively as a man of thirty. A congestion of buggies at the lane entrance required William to pull up the horse, and wait his turn.

“Hello, Ras!” came the shout of greeting from one of the buggies. “How’s yer old heart?”

“She’s still a-pumpin’!” he replied, causing a general outburst of laughter, since Livermore was noted for an individualistic strain of wit, and anything he might say was to be thus rewarded.

“Hello, is that you, Bill?” he called as they passed him. “I see yer girl is here before you. Drive right in. There’s more people here to-night than yuh’d see at yer own funeral. Hurry up, Bill, ’cause there’s a mighty sight o’ fine women-folks here, and not a Methodist foot among ’em.”

Even a half-hour later, as Mauney strolled about the lawn chatting with acquaintances, load after load of laughing people continued to arrive, and he joined the crowd who were lined up watching Livermore greet his guests.

“Drive right into the yard, boys,” he called. “If they hain’t room under the cow-sheds, hitch ’em up to the wind-mill.”

“Quite a turn-out, Ras,” remarked Doctor Horne, as he suddenly reined his black horse into the lane.

“Hello, Doc! Well, well, well, if here ain’t Doc Horne!” exclaimed Livermore, advancing to shake the physician’s hand. “I tell yuh, doc, it’s a pretty frisky lot o’ people. You kin tie your horse to the fence, case you git a call an’ have to leave early. One o’ the boys’ll show you.”

“Is that scoundrel, Alec Dent, here to-night?” asked Horne in a mock-whisper, leaning over the side of his buggy.

“Yes, an’ dancin’ is goin’ to start directly, Doc. Alec has just had a pint o’ rye whiskey an’ there ain’t enough furniture left on the kitchen floor fer an Esquimo to start house-keepin’ with.”

“Whoop!” laughed Horne in a loud chuckle, as he touched his horse with the whip. “Erastus, you old reprobate, you old skunk!”

Women were busy preparing five long tables under the pine trees for the refreshments which would be served at midnight. Mauney was inveigled into carrying benches by Myrtle McGee, one of the acknowledged belles of the countryside, who came up to him in her usual direct way, carrying a pile of plates, and smiling seductively.

“D’yuh want to work?” she enquired, with a much more intimate address than the occasion demanded.

“That’s what I came up here to avoid,” Mauney laughed as he looked down into her sharp, black eyes.

“But you’d help me, wouldn’t you?” she pouted. “Go fetch some o’ them benches, like a good boy.”

After he had obeyed, and while the crowd of people were slowly moving back toward the kitchen, drawn by the lure of the violin music, she came up with him again, fanning her flushed face with her handkerchief. She was not more than twenty and wore a pleated, white silk gown that gave attractive exposure of her arms and bosom, smooth and firm like yellowed ivory, and contrasted markedly with her jet-black hair, decorated by a comb of brilliants.

“Well,” she said, tilting her head sidewise, and according him an angled glance, “I s’pose you’re goin’ to give me yer first dance, ain’t yuh, Maun?”

A subtle compliment was conveyed in this unconventional invitation, and Mauney, surprised at his own susceptibility, at once agreed. Together they strolled toward the kitchen verandah where already a crowd was assembled. The windows and doors of the kitchen were all removed, and Mauney, peering above the mass of eager heads, saw a broad strip of yellow floor, reflecting the light of several oil-lamps set in wall brackets. As yet no dancing had begun, but Alexander Dent, a corpulent man of sixty with a heavy, pasty face, was perched on top of the kitchen stove, where, seated on a chair, his body swung to the rhythm of his bow.

“Jest gettin’ warmed up!” he announced, with a sly glance from the corner of his black eyes toward the crowd at the doors.

This was the twenty-eighth annual harvest dance at which he had assumed responsibility for the music. In accordance with his ideal of never growing old he had undertaken, in late years, to dye his hair and moustache much blacker than they had ever been even in his youth. Only his chin, which receded weakly beneath his bushy moustache, gave any evidence of age, for his quick eyes, his animated movements, the tap-tap of his toe keeping time against the stove lid, suggested youth. He was to be accompanied by an organ set at the top of three steps leading to the dining room, at which Mrs. Livermore, second wife of the host, already presided in readiness. As Dent finished his first flourish and began tucking a large, white silk handkerchief under his chin Erastus Livermore appeared on the floor and initiated applause in which every one joined. In a moment the host raised his hand for order.

He was a big man, slightly bent at the shoulders, with a high, sloping forehead, a bald pate, a grey, tobacco-stained moustache and dim, grey eyes, full of quiet hospitality that sparkled brightly as he spoke.

“Folks,” he said, by way of opening the function, “I dunno why I allus have to get out here an’ say a few words. The woman told me I had to do it, so I guess that’s reason enough.”

A burst of laughter followed this remark.

“When I look around and see you folks all dressed up in yer Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes, makes me think of how much the styles is changed since the first dance we put on here. In them days, the women folks all had big hoop skirts, that ud hardly go through that there door. But now we see a change. They believe more in advertisin’ and showin’ off their ankles.”

“Ras—Ras!” came Mrs. Livermore’s disapproving voice.

Again the guests laughed, this time more heartily.

“Well—ain’t it true, folks?” he asked.

“Sure, Ras!”

“You bet.”

Just then the rural telephone, which was attached to the kitchen wall, rang five short rings.

“That’s our call,” Livermore said to his wife. “Tell ’em to come a jumpin’, we hain’t even started yet.”

When she had answered the telephone she whispered something to her husband.

“All right,” he said. “I’m sorry to have to call our old friend, Doctor Horne. He’s wanted at onct down the Graham road, at Bob Lombard’s. I guess maybe the baby has swallowed a carpet tack.”

“Thanks, Ras,” came Horne’s voice from outside. “Don’t let me interrupt your speech!”

“Come back if you can, Doc!”

“I think by the way you and Alexander Dent are starting in, you may need me before you get through,” replied Horne, already untying his horse from the fence nearby. When the laughter had again subsided, Livermore continued.

“An’ there’s only two o’ that old brigade left here to-night,” he said, “myself and Alec Dent.”

The musician’s name was greeted by a loud hand-clapping to which he responded by rising from his chair and executing a deep salaam.

“Mind the lids, Alec,” continued Livermore. “I bet Alec ain’t forgot them hoop skirts.”

“Why, no,” affirmed the musician in a clear, bass voice, as he seated himself. “Them was the fantastic days, Rastus. It was right on this floor I met the woman that’s been bossin’ me around ever since. Them was the days!”

“Now, folks,” said the host, “With these few openin’ words, I’ll call on our old friend to play a cotillion, an’ I want everybody to light right in an’ hoe ’er down till mornin’! Joe Hanson, the man on the right with the false teeth, is goin’ to call off, a-standin’ on the wood-box, an’ I want to see the young folks get well het up. Ready, Alec?”

The butt of his bow was poised over the strings of his violin, his head nestled down to the instrument, his toe lifted preparatory to the opening note. He nodded.

“Then let her go!”

The thrilling call of the violin immediately drew four sets to occupy their places on the kitchen floor—tall, sun-burned youths with coats cast aside, smiling at their partners who quivered with eagerness to be started. Mauney and Miss McGee were unable to gain entrance, but collided with Amos Blancher, a husky fellow to whom she had evidently promised the first dance. He demanded an explanation.

“Why, Ame,” she said, “you’re too slow to catch a cold. Mauney an’ I are goin’ to have the first dance together, ain’t we, Maun?”

Blancher scowled ill-temperedly at Mauney and backed away, muttering under his breath.

“It’s goin’ to be a corkin’ good set, too,” predicted Miss McGee, leaning against Mauney’s arm as they watched the progress of the dance.

“Address your partner; corners the same,” commanded Hanson from his position on the wood-box.

Everyone bowed, and immediately scuffled their feet in rhythm with the music.

Another bow, in a different figure, and again the prancing of eager feet.

“Right and left through and inside couple swing. Right and left back and the same old thing!”

Hanson entered into the spirit so thoroughly that his voice took on a barbarous rhythm, but he enunciated his directions very clearly considering the fact that his upper plate habitually fell away from the roof of his mouth on open syllables.

“Ladies turn out, with the bull in the ring; gents come out and give birdie a swing!”

The process of giving “birdie” a swing included a vigorous masculine lurch which brought the lady from the floor with much sailing of her skirts and exposure of her muscular, black-stockinged calves.

“Lady round lady and gents go slow; lady round gent and gents don’t go.”

Thus continued the strenuous dance, while the faces of the dancers began to flush with the warmth of their exercise, and the fiddler proceeded exuberantly and with growing animation from one movement to the next. When the first set was finished, another, made up of different dancers, commenced, leaving only time for Alexander Dent to reach for a proffered glass of spirits. By an unwritten law it was understood that whiskey was reserved only for the fiddler as an indulgent acknowledgment of his services, but the stealthy movement of the occasional youth to the back box of his buggy in the yard was forgiven if he exercised moderation.

Those not engaged in dancing played euchre in the dining room or sat on long benches on the verandah telling stories, exchanging gossip or discussing crops. By midnight, Mauney, weary of the music, and weary, too, of the monotonous jargon of his associates, stole a few moments by himself on the end of the front verandah farthest from the rest.

The great orb of the red, harvest moon was rising like a ball of molten, quivering fire from the deep purple scarf of smoky air that lay upon the horizon, while a warm breeze moved from the stubble field nearby. His thoughts drifted fancifully, trying to free themselves from the weird thralldom of the dance, imagining the moon the secret source of heat that supplied the dancers with energy, and the warm breeze an emanation from their impassioned enthusiasm. Past him, as he sat secluded behind a vine of Virginia creeper, a youth and a maiden, unsuspecting his presence, walked quietly side by side until they stood by the cedar edge at the border of the grove. He watched the moonlight reflected from the maiden’s face as she glanced quickly toward the house, and from her arms as they encircled her lover’s neck. The lover bent toward her and pressed his lips passionately upon her mouth. Then they returned, with a new rhythm in their gait, to join the crowd who sat at the other side of the house.

Mauney breathed with mild difficulty as if stifled by the glamor of the sultry night. Then in a mood of inexplicable detachment he wandered again through the groups of people, half unconscious of their presence. He stood watching the dancers once more and listening to the endless grind of the fiddle. A round dance was in progress and his eyes followed the two lovers now clasped in the dreamy movement of a waltz. He could not understand why the picture blurred as he watched it. He was thinking of the beauty of love—the tragedy of love—this closed, complete, unopening circle of passion that drifted to the beat of the music heedless of the universe. His eyes wandered from their graceful forms to dwell upon the yellow glow of the Japanese lanterns.

A stronger breeze came from the fields and moved the big lanterns till one of them caught fire and burned, attracting the attention of a score of people.

Then there were five, sudden, sharp rings!

The music ceased. The dancers paused. Livermore entered from the verandah, and going to the telephone put the receiver to his ear. Casual curiosity prompted a general quietness among the guests.

“Hello! Yes, this is Ras, speakin’. Who’s that? Hello, Frank, why ain’t you up to the dance? What?”

Turning about, Livermore waved to the guests. “Be quiet jest a minute. It’s kind o’ hard to hear him.”

For a moment he listened, while the changing expression on his face provoked greater curiosity and greater quietness.

“Ain’t that a caution?” he exclaimed, hanging up the receiver. “If England hain’t gone and declared war on Germany.”

“What’s that?” asked a voice on the verandah.

“War—the British is gone to war,” Livermore answered. “Frank Davidson just got back from Lockwood, an’ says the news just reached Lockwood afore he left.”

“War, eh?”

“Yep! So Frank says. Maybe it’s just talk.”

“Well, I guess it ain’t goin’ to do us no harm, Ras, anyhow,” said Alec Dent, waving with his fiddle-stick. “Get off the floor an’ give ’em a chance, Ras.”

Again the slow, measured music of the waltz floated out on the night air, and Mauney watched the lovers continue in their embrace.

His heart pounded with excitement. Vague sympathies, eager yearnings, and impatient impulses moved by turns in his breast. That which the newspapers had suspected had become fact. How could these people continue to dance in the face of such catastrophic news? He could not dance. He could only think and think, and wonder why, in the unexplorable depths of his heart, he was glad that war was come.