FullReads

“Your ‘magination don’t have to run a great ways to see men gettin’ drunk,” said Eben, with some relaxation of voice and manner. The absence of conviction which Parker’s logic displayed seemed a relief to him. His fanaticism was personal, not polemical.

“What’d ye raise back in Ioway?” asked Parker, with seeming irrelevance.

“Corn.”

“How’d ye reconcile that?”

“I didn’t reconcile it; I couldn’t. I sold out, an’ come away.”

Parker trimmed a ragged piece of leather from the sole of his boot, and whistled softly.

“Well, I try not to be an extremist,” he said, with moderation. “That Barden’s the brazenest liar on this coast. He’d ought to be kicked by a mule. I’d like to see Idy tackle ‘im.”

This suggestive combination of Barden’s deserts with his daughter’s energy seemed to give Eben no offense.

“Idy’s so mad with him she gets excited,” he said mildly. “I can’t make ‘er see it’s all fer the best. Sence I’ve found out about the vines, I’ve been glad I bought ’em.”

Parker stopped his amateur cobbling, and looked up.

“Ye don’t mean it!” he said, with rising curiosity.

“Yes; I’m glad o’ the chance to get red o’ them. It’s worth the money.”

He turned to pick up another twisted root, displaying the patches on his knees, and the hollowness of his sunken chest.

“The hell!” commented Parker, softly to himself, with a long, indrawn whistle.

“I guess I’ll go down to the house,” he said aloud, getting up by easy stages. “I see the cow’s pulled up her stake, an’ ‘s r’airn round tryin’ to get to the calf. Mebby Idy’ll need some help.”

“She was calc’latin’ to move ‘er at noon,” said Eben, shading his eyes, and looking toward the house. “It must be ‘long toward ‘leven now. If you’re goin’ down, you’d better stop an’ have a bite o’ dinner with us.”

“Well, I won’t kick if the women folks don’t,” answered Parker amiably; “bachin’ ‘s pretty slow. I’ve eat so much bacon an’ beans I dunno whether I’m a hog or a Boston schoolma’am.”

Arrived at the corral, where the cow stood with uplifted head snuffing the air, and gazing excitedly at her wild-eyed offspring, his composure suddenly vanished. Miss Starkweather was holding the stake in one hand, and winding the rope about her arm with the other.

“Hello!” she said, with a start, “where on earth ‘d you spring from?”

“I see the cow was loose,” ventured Parker, “an’ I thought you mightn’t be able to ketch ‘er.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be fer lack o’ practice,” responded the girl, with a wide, good-natured smile. “She’s yanked her stake out three times this mornin’, an’ come cavin’ around here as if she thought somebody wanted to run away with ‘er triflin’ little calf. I guess she likes to have me follerin’ ‘er ’round.”

“She’s got good taste,” said Parker gallantly.

The girl laughed, and struck at him with the iron stake.

“Oh, taffy!” she said, looking at him coquettishly from under her frizz. “Ain’t you ashamed?”

“No,” said Parker, waxing brave. “Gi’ me the stake; mebbe I c’n fasten ‘er so she’ll stay.”

“You’re welcome to try,”–the girl slipped her arm out of the coil of rope,–“but I don’t b’lieve you can, unless you drill a hole in a boulder, an’ wedge the stake in.”

Parker led away the cow, mooing with maternal solicitude, and Idy returned to the house. When she reached the kitchen door, she turned and called between the ringing blows of the axe,–

“Oh, Mr. Lowe, mother says won’t ye come to dinner?”

“You bet!” answered Parker warmly.

Mrs. Starkweather sat on the doorstep picking a chicken, which seemed to develop a prodigious accession of leg and neck in the process. She had the set, impervious face of a nervous invalid, and her whole attitude, the downward curve of her mouth, and the elevation of her brows, were eloquent of injustice. The clammy, half-plucked fowl in her hand seemed to share her expression of irreparable injury. She allowed her daughter to climb over her without moving, and when Parker appeared she wiped one long yellow hand on her apron, and gave it to him in a nerveless grasp.