THE GREAT WORLD.
The next morning he went to the Springs.
"I'll go an' settle up and bring ye your trunk an' things," he said. "Mebbe I mayn't git back till to-morrer, so don't ye be oneasy. Ef I feel tired when I git thar, I'll stay overnight."
She did not think it likely he would stay. She had never known him to remain away from home during a night unless he had been compelled to do so by business. He had always been too childishly fond of his home to be happy away from it. He liked the routine he had been used to through forty years, the rising at daylight, the regular common duties he assumed as his share, his own seat on the hearth or porch and at table.
"Folks may be clever enough," he used to say. "They air clever, as a rule—but it don't come nat'ral to be away. Thar aint nothin' like home an' home ways."
But he did not return that night, or even the next morning. It was dusk the next evening before Louisiana heard the buggy wheels on the road.
She had been sitting on the porch and rose to greet him when he drove up and descended from his conveyence rather stiffly.
"Ye wasn't oneasy, was ye?" he asked.
"No," she answered; "only it seemed strange to know you were away."
"I haint done it but three times since me an' Ianthy was married," he said. "Two o' them times was Conference to Barnsville, an' one was when Marcelly died."
When he mounted the porch steps he looked up at her with a smile on his weather-beaten face.
"Was ye lonesome?" he asked. "I bet ye was."
"A little," she replied. "Not very."
She gave him his chair against the wooden pillar, and watched him as he tilted back and balanced himself on its back legs. She saw something new and disturbed in his face and manner. It was as if the bit of outside life he had seen had left temporary traces upon him. She wondered very much how it had impressed him and what he was thinking about.
And after a short time he told her.
"Ye must be lonesome," he said, "arter stayin' down thar. It's nat'ral. A body don't know until they see it theirselves. It's gay thar. Lord, yes! it's gay, an' what suits young folks is to be gay."
"Some of the people who were there did not think it was gay," Louisiana said, a little listlessly. "They were used to gayer places and they often called it dull, but it seemed very gay to me."
"I shouldn't want it no gayer, myself," he returned, seriously. "Not if I was young folks. Thar must hev bin three hundred on 'em in thet thar dinin'-room. The names o' the vittles writ down on paper to pick an' choose from, an' fifty or sixty waiters flyin' round. An' the dressin'! I sot an' watched 'em as they come in. I sot an' watched 'em all day. Thar was a heap o' cur'osities in the way of dressin' I never seen before. I went into the dancin'-room at night, too, an' sot thar a spell an' watched 'em. They played a play. Some on 'em put little caps an' aperns on, an' rosettes an' fixin's. They sorter danced in it, an' they hed music while they was doin' it. It was purty, too, if a body could hev follered it out."
"It is a dance they call the German," said Louisiana, remembering with a pang the first night she had seen it, as she sat at her new friend's side.
"German, is it?" he said, with evident satisfaction at making the discovery. "Waal now, I ain't surprised. It hed a kinder Dutch look to me—kinder Dutch an' furrin."
Just then Nancy announced that his supper was ready, and he went in, but on the threshold he stopped and spoke again:
"Them folks as was here," he said, "they'd gone. They started the next mornin' arter they was here. They live up North somewhars, an' they've went thar."
After he had gone in, Louisiana sat still for a little while. The moon was rising and she watched it until it climbed above the tree-tops and shone bright and clear. Then one desperate little sob broke from her—only one, for she choked the next in its birth, and got up and turned toward the house and the room in which the kerosene lamp burned on the supper table.
"I'll go an' talk to him," she said. "He likes to have me with him, and it will be better than sitting here."
She went in and sat near him, resting her elbows upon the table and her chin on her hands, and tried to begin to talk. But it was not very easy. She found that she had a tendency to fall back in long silent pauses, in which she simply looked at him with sad, tender eyes.
"I stopped at Casey's as I came on," he said, at last. "Thet thar was one thing as made me late. Thar's—thar's somethin' I hed on my mind fur him to do fur me."
"For Casey to do?" she said.
He poured his coffee into his saucer and answered with a heavy effort at speaking unconcernedly.
"I'm agoin' to hev him fix the house," he said.
She was going to ask him what he meant to have done, but he did not give her time.
"Ianthy an' me," he said, "we'd useder say we'd do it sometime, an' I'm agoin' to do it now. The rooms, now, they're low—whar they're not to say small, they're low an'—an' old-timey. Thar aint no style to 'em. Them rooms to the Springs, now, they've got style to 'em. An' rooms kin be altered easy enough."
He drank his coffee slowly, set his saucer down and went on with the same serious air of having broached an ordinary subject.
"Goin' to the Springs has sorter started me off," he said. "Seein' things diff'rent does start a man off. Casey an' his men'll be here Monday."
"It seems so—sudden," Louisiana said. She gave a slow, wondering glance at the old smoke-stained room. "I can hardly fancy it looking any other way than this. It wont be the same place at all."
He glanced around, too, with a start. His glance was hurried and nervous.
"Why, no," he said, "it wont, but—it'll be stylisher. It'll be kinder onfamil'ar at first, but I dessay we shall get used to it—an' it'll be stylisher. An' style—whar thar's young folks, thet's what's wanted—style."
She was so puzzled by his manner that she sat regarding him with wonder. But he went on talking steadily about his plans until the meal was over. He talked of them when they went back to the porch together and sat in the moonlight. He scarcely gave her an opportunity to speak. Once or twice the idea vaguely occurred to her that for some reason he did not want her to talk. It was a relief to her only to be called upon to listen, but still she was puzzled.
"When we git fixed up," he said, "ye kin hev your friends yere. Thar's them folks, now, as was yere the other day from the Springs—when we're fixed up ye mought invite 'em—next summer, fur instants. Like as not I shall be away myself an'—ye'd hev room a plenty. Ye wouldn't need me, ye see. An', Lord! how it'd serprise 'em to come an' find ye all fixed."
"I should never ask them," she cried, impetuously. "And—they wouldn't come if I did."
"Mebbe they would," he responded, gravely, "if ye was fixed up."
"I don't want them," she said, passionately. "Let them keep their place. I don't want them."
"Don't ye," he said, in his quiet voice. "Don't ye, Louisianny?"
And he seemed to sink into a reverie and did not speak again for quite a long time.