Читать книгу Sally Dows - Bret Harte - Страница 5

On the next Sunday he was early at church. But he had perhaps accented the occasion by driving there in a light buggy behind a fast thoroughbred, possibly selected more to the taste of a smart cavalry officer than an agricultural superintendent. He was already in a side pew, his eyes dreamily fixed on the prayer-book ledge before him, when there was a rustle at the church door, and a thrill of curiosity and admiration passed over the expectant congregation. It was the entrance of the Dows party, Miss Sally well to the fore. She was in her new clothes, the latest fashion in Louisville, the latest but two in Paris and New York.

It was over twenty years ago. I shall not imperil the effect of that lovely vision by recalling to the eye of to-day a fashion of yesterday. Enough, that it enabled her to set her sweet face and vapory golden hair in a horseshoe frame of delicate flowers, and to lift her oval chin out of a bewildering mist of tulle. Nor did a certain light polonaise conceal the outlines of her charming figure. Even those who were constrained to whisper to each other that “Miss Sally” must “be now going on twenty-five,” did so because she still carried the slender graces of seventeen. The organ swelled as if to welcome her; as she took her seat a ray of sunlight, that would have been cruel and searching to any other complexion, drifted across the faint pink of her cheeks, and nestling in her nebulous hair became itself transfigured. A few stained-glass Virtues on the windows did not come out of this effulgence as triumphantly, and it was small wonder that the devotional eyes of the worshipers wandered from them to the face of Sally Dows.

When the service was over, as the congregation filed slowly into the aisle, Courtland slipped mutely behind her. As she reached the porch he said in an undertone:

“I brought my horse and buggy. I thought you might possibly allow me to drive”—But he was stopped by a distressful knitting of her golden brows. “No,” she said quickly, but firmly, “you must not—it won’t do.” As Courtland hesitated in momentary perplexity, she smiled sweetly: “We’ll walk round by the cemetery, if you like; it will take about as long as a drive.” Courtland vanished, gave hurried instructions and a dollar to a lounging negro, and rejoined Miss Sally as the delighted and proud freedman drove out of the gate. Miss Sally heaved a slight sigh as the gallant equipage passed. “It was a mighty pooty turnout, co’nnle, and I’d have just admired to go, but it would have been rather hard on the other folks. There’s the Reeds and Maxwells and Robertsons that are too pooah to keep blood horses, and too proud to ride behind anything else. It wouldn’t be the right thing for us to go whirling by, scattering our dust over them.” There was something so subtly pleasant in this implied partnership of responsibility, that Courtland forgot the abrupt refusal and thought only of the tact that prompted it. Nevertheless, here a spell seemed to fall upon his usually ready speech. Now that they were together for the first time in a distinctly social fashion, he found himself vacantly, meaninglessly silent, content to walk beside this charming, summery presence, brushed by its delicate draperies, and inhaling its freshness. Presently it spoke.

“It would take more than a thousand feet of lumber to patch up the cowsheds beyond the Moseley pasture, and an entirely new building with an improved dairy would require only about two thousand more. All the old material would come in good for fencing, and could be used with the new post and rails. Don’t yo’ think it would be better to have an out-and-out new building?”

“Yes, certainly,” returned Courtland a little confusedly. He had not calculated upon this practical conversation, and was the more disconcerted as they were passing some of the other couples, who had purposely lingered to overhear them.

“And,” continued the young girl brightly, “the freight question is getting to be a pretty serious one. Aunt Miranda holds some shares in the Briggsville branch line, and thinks something could be done with the directors for a new tariff of charges if she put a pressure on them; Tyler says that there was some talk of their reducing it one sixteenth per cent. before we move this year’s crop.”

Courtland glanced quickly at his companion’s face. It was grave, but there was the faintest wrinkling of the corner of the eyelid nearest him. “Had we not better leave these serious questions until to-morrow?” he said, smiling.

Miss Sally opened her eyes demurely. “Why, yo’ seemed SO quiet, I reckoned yo’ must be full of business this morning; but if yo’ prefer company talk, we’ll change the subject. They say that yo’ and Miss Reed didn’t have much trouble to find one last Sunday. She don’t usually talk much, but she keeps up a power of thinking. I should reckon,” she added, suddenly eying him critically, “that yo’ and she might have a heap o’ things to say to each other. She’s a good deal in yo’ fashion, co’nnle, she don’t forget, but”—more slowly—“I don’t know that THAT’S altogether the best thing for YO’!”

Courtland lifted his eyes with affected consternation. “If this is in the light of another mysterious warning, Miss Dows, I warn you that my intellect is already tottering with them. Last Sunday Miss Reed thrilled me for an hour with superstition and Cassandra-like prophecy. Don’t things ever happen accidentally here, and without warning?”

“I mean,” returned the young lady with her usual practical directness, “that Tave Reed remembers a good many horrid things about the wah that she ought to forget, but don’t. But,” she continued, looking at him curiously, “she allows she was mighty cut up by her cousin’s manner to yo’.”

“I am afraid that Miss Reed was more annoyed than I was,” said Courtland. “I should be very sorry if she attached any importance to it,” he added earnestly.

“And YO’ don’t?” continued Miss Sally.

“No. Why should I?” She noticed, however, that he had slightly drawn himself up a little more erect, and she smiled as he continued, “I dare say I should feel as he does if I were in his place.”

“But YO’ wouldn’t do anything underhanded,” she said quietly. As he glanced at her quickly she added dryly: “Don’t trust too much to people always acting in yo’ fashion, co’nnle. And don’t think too much nor too little of what yo’ hear here. Yo’ ‘re just the kind of man to make a good many silly enemies, and as many foolish friends. And I don’t know which will give yo’ the most trouble. Only don’t yo’ underrate EITHER, or hold yo’ head so high, yo’ don’t see what’s crawlin’ around yo’. That’s why, in a copperhead swamp, a horse is bitten oftener than a hog.”

She smiled, yet with knitted brows and such a pretty affectation of concern for her companion that he suddenly took heart.

“I wish I had ONE friend I could call my own,” he said boldly, looking straight into her eyes. “I’d care little for other friends, and fear no enemies.”