Читать книгу The Sherrods - George Barr McCutcheon - Страница 6

The next night they were married. In the little cottage there were lights and the revelry known only in country nuptials. The doors and windows were open, and scores of young people in their best clothes flitted in and out, their merry voices ringing with excitement, their faces glowing with pleasure, their eyes sparkling with the mischief peculiar to occasions of the kind. There were the congratulations and the teasings; the timid jests and the coarse ones; the cynical bits of advice from lofty experts; the blushes of prospective brides; the red-faced denials of guilty beaux; the smiles, the winks, and the songs; the feasting and the farewells.

"That boy," Jud Sherrod, and "Cap" Van's daughter, Justine, were to be married. The community would have liked to be glad. Everybody had "allowed" they would be married some day. Now that the day had come, amid the rejoicing there were doubts, such as this:

"They's a mighty nice-appearin' couple, but dinged 'f I see how they're goin' to git along. Jud ain't got no more bizness workin' on a farm than a hog hez in a telegraft office. Course, his pap was a farmer, but Jud's been off to seminary. He don't give a dodgast fer the farm, nohow, an' I perdict that she'll haf to keep on teachin' school fer a livin'. Course, that little land o' hern might keep 'em goin', but I bet a barrel o' cider 'at Jud won't be wuth a bushel o' corn-husks at runnin' it. He's a dern nice boy, though, an' I'd hate like Sam Patch to see a morgidge put on the place. What she'd orter done wuz to married some big cuss like Link Overshine er Luther Hitchcock. They'd 'a' made somethin' out'n that little eighty up yander, an' she'd never need to worry. Dinged if she ain't put' nigh the purtiest girl I ever see. Looks jest like her ma. 'Member her? Don't see what she ever could see in Jud Sherrod. He cain't do a dasted thing but draw picters. His pap had orter walloped him good an' made him chop wood er somethin', 'stead o' lettin' him go on the way he did. They do say he kin sketch things powerful fine. He tuck off a picter uv Sim Brookses' sucklin' calves that was a daisy, I've hearn. But that ain't farmin' by a dern sight."

Even Jud and Justine had looked forward to the great day with anxious minds. Both realized the importance of the step they were to take, for they were possessed of a judgment and a keenness uncommon in young and ardent lovers. Justine, little more than a girl in years, knew that Jud was not and never could be a farmer; it was not in him. He knew it as well as she, though he was not indolent; he was far from that. He was ambitious and he was an indefatigable toiler—in art, not of the soil. He was a born artist. By force of circumstances he was a farmer. The tan on his hands and face, the hardness in his palms had not been acquired unwillingly, for he was not a sluggard, nor a grumbler. He plowed, though his thoughts were not of the plowing; he reaped, though his thoughts were not of the harvest.

They had been sweethearts from childhood. They had played together, read together, studied together, and suffered together. It seemed to them that they just grew up to their wedding day, a perfectly natural growth. Had this marriage come five years earlier everything would have been different. Instead of the little cottage, clean, cozy, and poor, there would have been the big white house on the hill, surrounded by maples and oaks; instead of the simple gown of white lawn there would have been a magnificent silk or satin; instead of the sympathy and the somber head-shakings of wedding guests there would have been rejoicing; and approval.

To-night, as the little clock on Justine's bureau struck eight, she left her room and met Jud in the narrow hall upstairs. Downstairs could be heard the muffled voices of an expectant crowd, an occasional giggle breaking through the buzz. He kissed her and both were silent, thinking of other homes. One remembered the big white house on the hill, the other the old yellow farmhouse, large and rambling, "over on the pike." To-night they faced the minister in the parlor of one of the lowliest dwellings in the neighborhood. The boy had not an acre of all his father's lands; the girl was poor, at the gates of the famous Van homestead. They were married not in his house, but in hers. The cottage stood in the corner of a thirty-acre farm that had come to her through her grandmother. This was all except memories that the child had to connect her present life with the comfortable days of the past.

Old Mrs. Crane, who lived with Justine in the little cot, met them at the foot of the creaking stairway and threw open the door to the parlor. Before the boy and girl gleamed the faces of a score or more of eager, excited friends. There was hardly a girl in the crowd who was not dressed more expensively than the bride. Justine was proudly aware of the critical, simpering gaze that swept over her simple gown; she could almost read the exultant thoughts of her guests, as they compared her plain lawn to the ridiculous finery that hid their sunburnt necks, scrawny arms, and perspiring bodies.

Her face was fresh and flushed with happiness, pride—perhaps disdain; their faces had, at least, been washed and lavishly powdered. Most of them wore absurd white gloves over their red arms. Yet they were the élite of the county. There were red dresses, blue dresses, yellow dresses, and there were other dresses in which the colors of the rainbow shone, all made to fit women other than those who wore them. The men, old and young, bearded and beardless, were the most uncouth aristocrats that ever lorded it over a countryside. True, they had put on their store clothes and had blackened their boots and shoes; they had shaved, and they had plastered their hair faultlessly; they had cast aside their quids of tobacco and they were as circumspect as if they were at church.

Justine and Jud stood with clasped hands before the young minister, listening to his lengthy and timely discourse on the blessedness of matrimony. Then came the vows. Their eyes met. The answers! They breathed them—the yes and the yes and the yes—almost unconsciously. Then the last words—"Whom God hath joined together let not man put asunder!"

For the next two or three hours they were in a whirl of emotions; everything was hazy, uncertain, misty to them. They had taken up each other's burdens, each other's joys for life; they had begun a new existence. She was no longer Justine Van, he was no longer the thoughtless boy. They were husband and wife. The laughter, the jests, the quips, and the taunts of their merry friends were a jangle of discordant sounds, unpleasant and untimely, and kindly as they were meant, unkind. There were aimless hand-shakings, palsied kisses, inane responses to crude congratulations, and it was all over. The guests departed, singing, shouting, and laughing. The last to leave was old Mrs. Crane, Justine's companion for four long years. She was going to live with her brother up near the village. Jud and Justine were to live alone.

Down at the toll-gate, nearly a mile from Justine's home in the direction of the village, a small and select company of loungers spent that evening. The toll-gate, kept by Jim Hardesty and his wife, Matilda, was at the junction of the big gravel pike which led to the county seat and the slim, shady lane that passed Justine's cottage. Here of evenings the "hired hands" of the neighborhood gathered to gossip, tell lies, and "talk ugly" about the farmers by whom they were employed. On the night of the wedding there were five or six slouchy, sweat-smelling rustics lounging on the porch. The wedding formed the only topic of conversation.

They talked of Justine's good looks and how "they'd liked to be in Jud's boots"; and of the days when old "Cap" Van lived and the bride of the night had not had to teach school; of the days when she rode horses of her own, and went to the city to make purchases instead of to the humble village as now; they talked of her kindly in their rough way. They discussed Jud with enthusiasm. Everybody liked him. His two years at college had not "swelled his head." He was "jest the feller fer Justine Van, an' she got him, too, 'g'inst ever' girl in the township—an' ever' one of 'em had set their caps fer him, too, you bet." The loungers agreed it was "too bad that Jud and Justine was so derned pore, but mebbe they'd make out somehow er 'nother."

They laughed about 'Gene Crawley's affection for Justine Van.

'Gene Crawley! A "hand" over at Martin Grimes' place—a plain, every-day hired man, working for eighteen dollars a month for the meanest, stingiest farmer in Clay Township! He was not any better than the rest of the hands on the place, "'s fer as learnin' an' manners wuz concerned. Hadn't no more license to be skylarkin' 'round after Justine Van 'n he had after Queen Willimeny. 'S if she'd notice sech a derned cuss as him; allus cussin' an' drinkin' an' fightin'. No 'spectabull girl would want to be saw with him."

About nine o'clock a dark figure approached the toll-gate afoot. It was a man, and he came from the night somewhere to the east, probably from the village of Glenville. There was no mistaking his identity. The heavy, swift tread told the watchers that it was 'Gene Crawley long before he came within the radius of light that shot through the open doorway. Someone in the crowd called out:

"H' are ye, 'Gene! Thought you'd be up to the weddin'."

'Gene did not reply. He strode up to the porch and threw himself into a vacant chair near the window. The light from within shone fairly upon his dark, sullen face, his scowling brow, and his flushed, unshaven cheeks. An ugly gleam was in his black eyes. He had been drinking, but he was not intoxicated. His hickory shirt, dirty and almost buttonless, was open at the throat as if it had been torn that its wearer might save himself from choking. He wore no coat, and his faded, patched blue overalls were pushed into the tops of his heavy boots. An old straw hat lay where he had cast it behind his chair. The black, coarse hair, rumpled and unkempt, grew low on his scowling forehead. His face was hard and deeply marked, not unlike that of an Indian. The jaw was firm, the chin square and defiant, the mouth broad and cruel, the nose large and straight, the eyes coal-black and set far apart, beneath heavy brows. The arm which rested on the sill was bare to the elbow; it was rugged, with cords of muscle that looked like ropes interlaced. A glimpse of the arm revealed, as if he stood stark naked, the strength of this young Samson. He was a huge, unwieldy man, a little above medium height; he might have weighed one hundred and seventy pounds; but with his square shoulders, broad chest, and an unusually erect carriage for an overworked farm-boy, he looked larger than he really was.

"You ain't got your Sunday-go-to-meetin' close on, 'Gene," commented Jim Hardesty, tilting back in his chair and spitting tobacco juice half way across the road.

"Didn' y' git a bid to the weddin'?" asked Harve Crose, with mock sympathy.

A flush of anger and humiliation reddened the face of Grimes' hired man, but it was gone in a second.

"No; I didn' git no bid," he answered, a trifle hoarsely. "Guess they didn' want me. I ain't good 'nough, 'pears like."

"Seems to me she'd orter ast you, 'Gene. You be'n kinder hangin' 'round an' teasin' her to have you, an' seems no more'n right fer her to have give you a bid to the weddin'," said Doc Ramsey, meaningly. "She'd orter done that, jest to show you why she wouldn' have you, don't y' see?"

Crawley's only reply was a baleful glare.

"How does it feel to be cut out by another feller, 'Gene?" asked Crose tauntingly.

"I'd never let a feller like Jud Sherrod beat my time," added Joe Perkins.

"Course, Jud's been to college and learned how to spoon with the girls, so I guess it's no wonder he ketched Justine. She's jest like all girls, I reckon. Smooth cuss kin ketch 'em all, b'gosh. Never seed it fail yit. Trouble with you, 'Gene, is 'at you—"

'Gene sprang to his feet with an oath so ugly that the jesters shrank back. For several minutes he tramped up and down the porch like a caged animal, cursing hoarsely to himself, his broad shoulders hunched forward as if he were bent on crushing everything before them. Finally he came to a standstill in front of the expectant crowd. The devil was in his face.

"Don't none o' you fellers ever say anything more to me about this. Ef you do I'll break somebody's neck. It's none o' your business how I feel, an' I won't have no more of it. Do y' hear me?" he snarled.

"I on'y ast fer information—" began Crose, apologetically.

"Well, I'll give you some, dang ye! You say I'm cut out, eh! Mebbe I am—mebbe I am! But you'll see—you'll see! I'll make him sorry fer it! He's whupped me this time, but I'll win yet! D' y' hear? I'll win yet!"

His face was almost white under the coat of tan, his eyes glowed, his voice was low and intense. The loungers waited in suspense.

"He thinks he's won! But I'll show him—I'll show him! She's like all women! She kin be won ag'in—she kin love more'n once! You say he's cut me out! Mebbe he has—mebbe he has! But this ain't a marker to the way I'll cut him out. I'll take her away from him, I will, so he'p me God! D' y' hear that? She'll shake him fer me some day, sure 's there's a hell, an' then! Then where'll he be? She'll be mine! Fair 'r foul, I'll have her! I won't give up tell I take her 'way from him! An' she'll come, too; she'll come! She'll leave him, jest like other women have done, an' then who'll be cut out? Answer, damn ye! Who'll be cut out?"

He was facing them and his lips were almost as white as the gleaming teeth beneath them. For a moment no one dared to reply. At last Doc Ramsey scrambled to his feet.

"Consarn ye, 'Gene Crawley!" he exclaimed. "You cain't stan' up there an' say that 'bout Justine Van! She's a good girl, an' you're a dern hound fer talkin' like thet! They ain't a bad drop o' blood in her body—they ain't a wrong thought in her head, an' you know it. You kin lick me, I know, but dern ef you kin say them things to me. She won't look at you no more'n she'd look at that dog o' Jim's over yander."

'Gene Crawley's arm struck out and Doc Ramsey crashed to the floor of the porch. He lay motionless for a long time. The dealer of the blow stood over him like a wild beast waiting for its prey to move. Not another man in the group lifted a hand against him.

At last he stooped and picked up his hat.

"That's what you'll all git ef you open your heads," he grated. "What I said about her goes!"

He fixed his hat roughly on his head and swung away in the darkness.

In the open door of the cottage down the lane Jud and Justine stood side by side, her hand in his, long after the last guest had departed. It was near midnight and behind them the lamps flickered and sputtered with the last gasps of waning life. Silhouetted in the long, bright frame of the doorway, the silent lovers presented a picture of a new life begun, youth on the threshold of a new world.

His arm drew her to his breast and her fluttering hands went slowly, gently to his cheeks. He bent and kissed the upturned lips.

Then the door closed and the picture was gone.

Across the road, beside the great oak that sent its branches almost to the little gateway, a man fell away from the fence, upon which, with murder in his heart, he had been leaning. His hands were clasped to his eyes, his strong figure writhed convulsively in the damp grass; his breath came almost in sobs. At last, taking his hands from his hot eyes, he raised his head and looked again toward the cottage. One by one the bright windows, grew dark, until at last the house was as black as the night about it. Then he sprang to his feet, clutching blindly at the darkness, uttering inarticulate moans and curses. For the first time in his life he knew a sense of loneliness and despair.

He turned his back to the cottage and fled across the meadow.