In the Way (8 page)

             
“Wal! she don't look any diffrunt from other folks as I see,” said Eliza with admiring eyes as she watched the lithe, graceful figure disappear up the road. “I've heard say they dress just awful for riding, but her dress looks all nice and proper and she sets up as straight as a needle. I mus' say I think it would be fun,” and Eliza went back to the greasy kettle she was washing with a sigh of envy. Eliza was always on the lookout for fun, and precious little of it ever came in her way.

             
“H'm!” ejaculated Mrs. Chatterton severely, looking over her glasses at the preserving kettle on the stove. “It's lucky for you you've got a mother then. Look out that apple butter don't burn. It seems to me you've got a pretty much of a fire on,” and she shut the door and went back to her darning.               Meanwhile, all unconscious of the impression her first appearance was making upon the villagers, Ruth rode on. She was almost in feverish haste to get somewhere and get home again. She seemed to feel that she was riding straight to Joseph, and who shall say she was not being guided? On and on she went and coming to a turn to the right and still another she whirled around them hardly knowing that she did so. She passed a handsome farmhouse after this second turn, where some men were working near the fence, and one called out to her something she could not hear. But the tone had been unmistakable and she felt sure that the words were such as she would not wish to hear. She was frightened; her cheeks burned; and her heart beat so fast she could scarcely breathe. For the first time since she started it occurred to her that perhaps it was not safe to ride alone in the country, that bicycles might not be so common here as at her former home. She had been so accustomed to riding when and where she pleased that it had not even occurred to her to ask David whether girls rode here or not, and if it had, the question would have had very little weight with her, her wheel had become so much a part of her by constant use. Now to her confusion, her cheeks flamed crimson. Her nerves were in a quiver before she started and her hard, strained ride with the one purpose in view had not served to calm them. She did not wish to hasten her speed or to take notice of the presence of the men in the least, but they, thinking perhaps to have a little fun, added to her nervousness by sending with a low-spoken word a great fierce-looking dog after her. He came with long, low bounds like some wild animal after its prey and burst upon her with a portentous growl farther down the road from behind a hedge. She had to give a quick turn here to avoid running into him and her frightened heart beat wildly. She was terribly afraid of dogs.

             
She could scarcely manage her wheel. It was just at the brow of a hill and she put on all speed and fairly shot down that hill, the sound of the dog's deep growl seeming to follow her even after that had become impossible by the distance between them. But now she kept on faster and faster, feeling certain that she was pursued. She heard the sound of the ringing of an axe in a wood she had to pass, but that only added to her fear. Here was a new danger to be encountered. She would put on all speed possible and drive past, and it might be the user of the axe would not perceive her till she was beyond reach; but just as she came to the center of the very space whence had come the sound of the axe something happened. What it was she never quite knew. A great boulder was in the road. The wheel struck it.

The handle bars which she herself had fastened on turned in her hand at this sudden wrench, and the saddle which she had supposed securely fastened turned under her. In vain she threw all her weight upon the pedals. It was too late. She had attained a fearful speed. She suddenly felt herself helpless. She seemed blind with fright and could give but a little gasping cry for help, as she was flung violently in the dust of the road.

              It was very strange. She had never fallen before in all her riding, except a little tumble or two when she was learning. And now to fall in disgrace before some country loafers who only wanted to laugh and jeer at her at best—to fall when there was real peril, when she was far from home and—oh, that dog! Her mind seemed in a whirl. Then she lay there as if stunned in the dust of the road, her eyes shut. She could faintly hear footsteps crackling over dried twigs and some one jumping the fence by the road. She knew that he was coming and perhaps that terrible dog was almost upon her. Perhaps his hot breath would burn her already hot cheek, and that awful growl would freeze her very blood she was sure, if she should hear it in her ear. She could not help herself now. She would not open her eyes, let come what might. She remembered that God was guiding her and she sent up a cry to him for help in her dire need. Then she felt a touch, a gentle, almost reverent touch, upon her forehead. She opened her eyes and looked up. It was her brother Joseph.

             
Now Joseph had worked hard that morning. He had perhaps accomplished more in a given time than he had ever done in the whole of his life before. It is marvelous how well and rapidly one can work when he feels that he is acting the part of a martyr. He was considering himself very ill-used indeed. Self-pity, when it is left to work, getteth to itself thousands more like unto itself, and Joseph had been having a real nice gloomy time all alone out there in the wood lot. He was cutting a tree quite near to the road. Not a soul had passed since his work began, to interrupt his meditations. He was growing very hungry—no supper and no breakfast. He straightened up and felt his back. It was stiff and ached. Something must be done, for he did not feel that he was willing to longer undergo this state of discomfort. He was certainly not called upon to do so under the circumstances. He would go away at once, somewhere—anywhere. Where? He paused and leaned on his axe, looking up the road. Then had come that flying vision: wheels, a dark blue dress, soft hair, the waving of a great dog's yellow tail as he wheeled and gave up pursuit, and then the almost immediate catastrophe right before him. He did not know who or scarcely what it was, but he went to the rescue.

“OH, Joseph!” said Ruth, her pale face lighting up. “I have found you. You'll forgive me, won't you? It was all my fault; David only helped. You won't be angry any mote. I really thought it would please you to have your room fixed in that way. We wanted to surprise you; that was why we didn't ask you first; but I see now it was very wrong of us, for of course you were attached to the old room as it was. Say you'll forgive me, do! I wanted so to have you love me!” She was lying in the dry grass at the side of the road, whither her brother had swiftly and tenderly borne her. She was dimly conscious of intense agony in her ankle, but she could think of nothing until she had Joseph's full forgiveness.

              There were real tears in her eyes now, Joseph stood staring down at her in amazement, hardly able to take in the meaning of her words. That his sister would suddenly drop down before the wood lot in this unexpected manner was astonishing enough, but that after such a ride and such a fall she should be able to speak was incredible. Her tears melted him at once. He was not used to women's tears. His heart went out to her. Her peril had been so great that it overshadowed everything else, and he did not yet know how badly she was hurt. She made no attempt to rise, but only pleaded with him about the room.

             
“Bother the room!” he said gruffly, trying vainly to get the huskiness out of his voice. “There ain't anything to forgive. You may have all the rooms in the house, if you want them, and welcome. Are you hurt?” and he stooped anxiously to lift her again.

             
But she looked eagerly up at him.

             
“Have all the rooms! What do you mean, Joseph? Was that what you thought? That I had taken your room for myself without asking you? Was that it? Tell me! Oh, you poor boy! I don't wonder you were angry. But Joseph, listen. I never dreamed of such a thing. We were fixing the room up for you. Did you think I would want to take your room away? But I don't blame you; you and I are not acquainted yet I only wanted to make it just as pretty and pleasant as I could for you, and I had the things and didn't know what else to do with them, and David said they might as well come on and be used; but I'll take them all out and fix it back the way it was if you prefer it that way. I won't take long, and I'm so sorry.”

             
Her nerves had been completely shaken by her excitement and fall. Indeed the poor child had been working beyond her strength for two weeks, in her eagerness to get things done just right, and there had been no one to restrain her. As she talked she could not keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks, she who never cried before people. She remembered it afterward, and rebuked herself for her weakness.

             
Joseph straightened up and looked at her.

             
“You fixed that room for me?” he said, such utter amazement in his voice that his sister almost laughed afterward with joy to think of it. She had the pleasure of her surprise after all in thinking of the expression on his face then.

             
“You never fixed that all up for me,” he said stupidly, looking down at her as if she must be a little out of her head. “Why I'm just a—just a—Nobody ever does things for me.”

             
“Yes, they do, Joseph! David and I do,” she laughed, her tears shining like a mist before the sun, and she caught one of her brother's great rough, red hands and kissed it.

             
He felt a queer kind of a sensation in his own eyes then, and to cover it he stooped once more and said:

             
“We must get you home. Where are you hurt?” She took his help then and tried to rise, but now the terrific pain in her ankle asserted itself, and she turned quite white and sank back again. “Where—what is it?” questioned Joseph anxiously.

             
“Oh, it's my ankle, and I suppose it might be a sprain. I have always thought it was so silly for people to get their ankles sprained, and now I've done it. Oh, it hurts dreadfully, and we're a long way from home, aren't we?”

             
“Well, not so far but what I could carry you, I guess, only I'm afraid it'll be hard on you; and what'll we do with this concern?” pointing to the down-fallen bicycle. “It ain't very safe to leave it here if you ever care to see it again. I guess I'd better leave you long enough to borrow a wagon.”

             
“Oh, don't!” said Ruth, rising again with sudden energy, which sent the pain shooting through her ankle. “I'm afraid that awful dog would come again,” and she shuddered at the thought. “If you think you can screw those handle bars on tight, perhaps I could get on and manage with your help to ride it home. I suppose it was very reckless of me to start out when I had screwed things up myself. I never put it together before.”

             
Joseph stooped and raised the fallen machine. It was almost as mysterious a thing to have to do with as a young woman. He had never seen one save at a distance before. There was but one in the village, and that was owned by a youth who spent his time away from home, at college, almost entirely. He was not a young man of Joseph's immediate social circle either.

             
With Ruth's directions he was able to make all the repairs necessary, and finally, with much care and not a little pain, Ruth was placed on the saddle, her lame foot held in as comfortable a position as possible, while with her brother's help and her one well foot she was able slowly to propel the machine. It was a slow and painful ride. They took down the bars of the woodlot fence, and went by a little, winding, unused road, which led among the trees, but straight across lots to their home. Ruth was at least shielded from the eyes of the village gossips, and thus her downfall and untriumphal return were not proclaimed from the village house-tops. Mrs. Chatterton missed a moral for her sermon on bicycles, and Eliza Barnes watched in vain for the spinning figure down the road.

             
David was just driving into the gateway as they reached the barnyard entrance, and he could scarcely believe his eyes to see the prodigal brother steering the despised sister on a machine, which to David's eyes was a very strange sight indeed.

             
“You turn right around and go for the doctor,” called Joseph peremptorily, as soon as he was within hailing distance. “She's had a fall and hurt her ankle. No; I'll carry her up,” as David jumped from the wagon in dismay and ran to help. “I've brought her this far and I guess I can do the rest. You go quick.”

             
The command was given so decidedly that David turned meekly and obeyed. He hurried the horse as much as possible, hut he turned his head once for the astonishing sight of Joseph with Ruth gathered tenderly in his arms striding across the dooryard. Ruth waved her hand to him and tried to smile as she called, “It's all right, he just didn't understand”; but the pain was so bad she had to close her eyes and keep still.

             
A mother could not have been more tender than those two brothers were during the days that followed. The doctor came and fixed up the poor swollen ankle, encouraging them by saying it might not be so bad as it looked. Then they hovered near her and could not do enough for her, and even neglected their work to stay with her. It would seem as if they were just awakened to the fact that there was something else than work in the world worth living for; for love, the love of a brother for a sister, was growing in their hearts that had been empty so long.

             
Early that evening Joseph went to the village on an errand. The doctor had called again and recommended some lotion for bathing the hurt ankle, and Joseph offered to go for it. Ever since morning he had seemed to take David's place in ordering about things and in doing all he could to make his sister comfortable. He had a feeling as if he had been the cause of her suffering and he must take the responsibility of caring for her. David was quite astonished at him, and sat down now beside Ruth's couch to talk things over with her. The large, easy, leather-covered library sofa had been hastily unpacked by David and pushed into the kitchen for the benefit of the invalid, because she utterly refused to be sent off upstairs away from everything. She was quite happy in spite of her hurt. She was rather glad than not that she had fallen, now that there was such a change in Joseph. It was worth a ride and a fall any day to gain a brother like her younger one, for when Joseph's heart was once touched there was a great well of good there, and he bestowed freely where he chose to do so.

             
While they talked and arranged some little matters, going on with their plans where they had been left the day before, Joseph went with long, free steps to the village. It was a very different walk from the one he had taken the night before. Indeed it never occurred to him to mark the contrast between himself to-night and twenty-four hours before. His mind was busy over his sister, who, as far as he was concerned, might have just come into his range of vision. Heretofore she had been an imaginary being whom he hated, because he fancied she was in his way and perhaps disliked him. There in the dark on this lonely country road he remembered her words, looks, tones, and her tears. These were things he would not have dared even think about in the daylight or in the presence of others, for he was very much afraid of any sentiment. Indeed the least tendency in that direction was something so new to him that he scarcely believed in it at all. He decided that he had been a fool the night before and metaphorically kicked himself all the way to town for his bearishness and boorishness about that room. It suddenly occurred to him that though he had been about the house nearly all day, he had not yet revisited his room, nor seen it enough to tell what it was like. He tried to recall what he had seen at his first glimpse, but the veil of anger was between and he could tell nothing, except that there had been a green glow and a look like a glimpse of paradise to it. An eager desire to sec it at once took possession of him and he hastened his steps. His errand at the drug store completed, he went to the post office to see if there was any mail. He and David had not been used to getting letters nor going often to the office, but since their sister had arrived there had been something for the Benedicts almost every mail. They were growing accustomed to going to the post office every day as a matter of course.

             
The grocery, in the front of which the post office was located, was ill lighted by smoky kerosene lamps. At the back end, beyond the counter and a little hidden by the dusty post boxes and the little stamp and letter window, there was a sprawling box stove and around it at all seasons of the year, no matter whether there was a fire or not, was usually gathered at this hour of the evening a number of loafers, young and old, spitting, smoking, and talking, with loud guffaws of laughter interspersed. They were all there tonight. Joseph recognized one or two voices and he drew his brows in a heavy frown. Ruth had told him of the men who had called to her as she rode and frightened her so terribly. He knew at once who they were and that two of them were at that moment at the back of the store.

             
They were talking loudly and laughing as usual. One of these two seemed to be telling a story of something he had seen that day. Joseph, as he waited for the tardy postmaster, who was interested in the story and came unwillingly with his head turned to hear the rest, could not help but catch some of the sentences. There was something being said about a bicycle and a girl—and—could he believe his senses? He straightened up like a spirited horse that has been angered. Amid the loud laughter that followed the close of the story, there came like a sudden thunderclap a swift, stinging, stunning blow across the grinning mouth of the teller, which caused him to suddenly fall backward into one of the store chairs and made his head ring and his eyes sec many constellations. There was startled, utter silence in the room. Joseph, in part by his strange moods, his alternate deep silence and witty, sometimes cutting, sarcasms, and in part by his unusual physical strength, had gained a supremacy over the rest which made them almost afraid now as he stood tall and strong and straight before them, with folded arms and lowering brows looking down at the dazed man before him, waiting until he should come to his senses sufficiently to hear what he had to say. Joseph was conspicuously without his pipe that night. The fact gave him an added dignity.

             
The young man in the chair was Bill Brower. His brother Ed stood on the other side of the stove. They were two of those who had made remarks to Ruth as she rode by their place that morning. The Browers were rich farmers, and took a good many airs on themselves, though it was whispered about that the father was very “near.” The three young men, sons, were rapidly going to the bad. Their mother, poor soul, had never had much control over them, and their father did not care so long as they worked and did not spend too much of his money. Fie was not over-good himself.

             
Joseph had never liked these two young men. His sarcasms had oftenest been directed against them, and well he knew they dreaded his tongue; for they were dull in a way, and not able to make quick reply or get the better of him before others. They hated ridicule as only coarse, weak natures can. Now Joseph stood above Bill Brower and looked down in scorn as the other tried to recover from his blow and show some fight. Joseph placed a firm hand on his shoulder, with menace in his face, and said: