Dorian

CHAPTER EIGHT.

“Hel­lo, Car­lia”, greet­ed Do­ri­an as he stopped at the yard and stood lean­ing against the fence.

Car­lia was just fin­ish­ing milk­ing a cow. As she straight­ened, with a three-​legged stool in one hand and a foam­ing milk pail in the oth­er, she looked to­ward Do­ri­an. “O, is that you? You scared me.”

“Why?”

“A stranger com­ing so sud­den­ly.”

The young man laughed. “Near­ly through?” he asked.

“Just one more--Brindle, the kick­ey one.”

“Aren't you afraid of her?”

Car­lia laughed scorn­ful­ly. The girl had beau­ti­ful white teeth. Her red cheeks were red­der than ev­er. Her dark hair coiled close­ly about her shape­ly head. And she had grown tall, too, the young man no­ticed, though she was still plump and round-​limbed.

“My buck­ets are full, and I'll have to take them to the house be­fore I can fin­ish,” she said. “You stay here un­til I come back--if you want to.”

“I don't want to--here, let me car­ry them.” He took the pails from her hand, and they went to the house to­geth­er.

The milk was car­ried in­to the kitchen where Mrs. Duke was busy with pots and pans. Mr. Duke was be­fore the mir­ror, giv­ing the fin­ish­ing touch­es to his hair. He was dressed for meet­ing. As he heard rather than saw his daugh­ter en­ter, he asked:

“Car­lia, have you swilled the pigs?”

“Not yet,” she replied.

“Well, don't for­get--and say, you'd bet­ter give a lit­tle new milk to the calf. It's not get­ting along as well as it should--and, if you have time be­fore meetin', throw a lit­tle hay to the hors­es.”

“All right, fa­ther, I'll see to all of it. As I'm not go­ing to meet­ing, I'll have plen­ty of time.”

“Not goin'?” He turned, hair brush in hand, and saw Do­ri­an. “Hel­lo, Do­ri­an,” he greet­ed, “you're quite a stranger. You'll come along to meetin' with Car­lia, I sup­pose. We will be late if we don't hur­ry.”

“Fa­ther, I told you I'm not go­ing. I--” she hes­itat­ed as if not quite cer­tain of her words--“I had to chase all over the hills for the cows, and I'm not through milk­ing yet. Then there are the pigs and the calves and the hors­es to feed. But I'll not keep Do­ri­an. You had bet­ter go with fa­ther”--this to the young man who still stood by the kitchen door.

“Leave the rest of the chores un­til af­ter meetin',” sug­gest­ed the fa­ther, some­what re­luc­tant­ly, to be sure, but in con­ces­sion to Do­ri­an's pres­ence.

“I can't go to meet­ing ei­ther,” said Do­ri­an. “I'm not dressed for it, so I'll keep Car­lia com­pa­ny, if you or she have no ob­jec­tions.”

“Well, I've no ob­jec­tions, but I don't like you to miss your meetin's.”

“We'll be good,” laughed Do­ri­an.

“But--”

“Come, fa­ther,” the moth­er prompt­ed, “you know I can't walk fast in this hot weath­er.”

Car­lia got an­oth­er pail, and she and Do­ri­an went back to the cor­ral.

“Let me milk,” of­fered Do­ri­an.

“No; you're strange, and she'd kick you over the fence.”

“O, I guess not,” he re­marked; but he let the girl fin­ish her milk­ing. He again car­ried the milk back; he al­so took the “slop” to the pigs and threw the hay to the hors­es, while the girl gave the new milk to the butting calf; then back to the house where they strained the milk. Then the young man was sent in­to the front room while the girl changed from work to Sun­day at­tire.

The front room was very hot and un­com­fort­able. The young man looked about on the fa­mil­iar scene. There were the same straight-​backed chairs, the same home­made car­pet, more fad­ed and thread­bare than ev­er, the same ug­ly en­larged pho­tographs with­in their mas­sive frames which the en­ter­pris­ing agent had sold to Mrs. Duke. There was the same lack of books or mu­sic or any­thing pret­ty or re­fined; and as Do­ri­an stood and looked about, there came to him more forcibly than ev­er the bar­ren­ness of the room and of the house in gen­er­al. True, his own home was very hum­ble, and yet there was an air of com­fort and re­fine­ment about it. The Duke home had al­ways im­pressed him as be­ing cold and cheer­less and ug­ly. There were no pro­tect­ing porch­es, no lawn, no flow­ers, and the barn yard had crept close up to the house. It was a place to work. The eat­ing and the sleep­ing were pro­vid­ed, so that work could be done, farm and kitchen work with their dirt and lit­ter. The fa­ther and the moth­er and the daugh­ter were slaves to work. On­ly in work did the par­ents com­pan­ion with the daugh­ter. The vis­itors to the house were most­ly those who came to talk about cat­tle and crops and ir­ri­ga­tion.

As a child, Car­lia was nat­ural­ly cheer­ful and lov­ing; but her sor­did en­vi­ron­ment seemed to be crush­ing her. At times she strug­gled to get out from un­der; but there seemed no way, so she grad­ual­ly gave in to the in­evitable. She be­came re­sent­ful and sar­cas­tic. Her black eyes fre­quent­ly flashed in scorn and anger. As she grew in phys­ical strength and beau­ty, these un­for­tu­nate traits of char­ac­ter be­came more pro­nounced. The bud­ding wom­an­hood which should have been care­ful­ly nur­tured by the right kind of home and neigh­bor­hood was of­ten left to de­vel­op in wild and undi­rect­ed ways. Do­ri­an Trent as he stood in that front room await­ing her had on­ly a dim con­cep­tion of all this.

Car­lia came in while he was yet stand­ing. She had on a white dress and had placed a red rose in her hair.

“O, say, Car­lia!” ex­claimed Do­ri­an at sight of her.

“What's the mat­ter?” she asked.

“Here you go dolling up, and look at me.”

“You're all right. Open the door, it's ter­ri­bly stuffy in here.”

Do­ri­an opened the tight­ly stuck door. Then he turned and stood look­ing at the girl be­fore him. It seemed to him that he had nev­er seen her so grown-​up and so beau­ti­ful.

“Say, Car­lia, when did you grow up?” he asked.

“While you have been away grow­ing up too.”

“It's the long dress, isn't it?”

“And milk­ing cows and feed­ing pigs and pitch­ing hay.” She gave a toss to her head and held out her rough­ened red hands as proof of her as­ser­tion. He stepped clos­er to her as if to ex­am­ine them more care­ful­ly, but she swift­ly hid them be­hind her back. The rose, loos­ened from the toss­ing head, fell to the floor, and Do­ri­an picked it up. He sniffed at it then hand­ed it to her.

“Where did you get it?” he asked.

She red­dened. “None of your--Say, sit down, can't you.”

Do­ri­an seat­ed him­self on the so­fa and in­vit­ed her to sit by him, but she took a chair by the ta­ble.

“You're not very neigh­bor­ly,” he said.

“As neigh­bor­ly as you are,” she re­tort­ed.

“What's the mat­ter with you, Car­lia?”

“Noth­ing the mat­ter with me. I'm the same; on­ly I must have grown up, as you say.”

A sound as of some­one driv­ing up the road came to them through the open door. Car­lia ner­vous­ly arose and lis­tened. She ap­peared to be fright­ened, as she looked out to the road with­out want­ing to be seen. A light wag­on rat­tled by, and the girl, some­what re­lieved, went back to her chair.

“Isn't it warm in here?” she asked.

“It's warm ev­ery­where.”

“I can't stay here. Let's go out--for a walk.”

“All right--come on.”

They closed the door, and went out at the rear. He led the way around to the front, but Car­lia ob­ject­ed.

“Let's go down by the field,” she said. “The road is dusty.”

The day was clos­ing with a clear sky. A Sun­day calm rest­ed over mead­ow and field, as the two strolled down by the ripen­ing wheat. The girl seemed un­easy un­til the house was well out of sight. Then she seat­ed her­self on a grassy bank by the wil­lows.

“I'm tired,” she said with a sigh of re­lief.

Do­ri­an looked at her with cu­ri­ous eyes. Car­lia, grown up, was more of a puz­zle than ev­er.

“You are work­ing too hard,” he ven­tured.

“Hard work won't kill any­body--but it's the oth­er things.”

“What oth­er things?”

“The grind, the eter­nal grind--the drea­ry same­ness of ev­ery day.”

“You did not fin­ish the high school. Why did you quit?”

“I had to, to save moth­er. Moth­er was not on­ly do­ing her usu­al house work, but near­ly all the out­side chor­ing be­sides. Fa­ther was away most of the time on his dry farm too, and he's blind to the work at home. He seems to think that the on­ly re­al work is the plow­ing and the wa­ter­ing and the har­vest­ing, and he would have let moth­er go on killing her­self. Gee, these men!” The girl vi­cious­ly dug the heel of her shoe in­to the sod.

“I'm sor­ry you had to quit school, Car­lia.”

“Sor­ry? I want­ed to keep on more than I ev­er want­ed any­thing in my life; but--”

“But I ad­mire you for com­ing to the res­cue of your moth­er. That was fine of you.”

“I'm glad I can do some fine thing.”

Do­ri­an had been stand­ing. He now seat­ed him­self on the bank be­side her. The world about them was very still as they sat for a few mo­ments with­out speak­ing.

“Lis­ten,” said he, "I be­lieve Un­cle Zed is preach­ing. The meet­ing house win­dows are wide open, for a won­der.

“He can preach,” she re­marked.

“He told me you vis­it him fre­quent­ly.”

“I do. He's the grand­est man, and I like to talk to him.”

“So do I. I had quite a vis­it with him this af­ter­noon. I rather fooled him, I guess.”

“How?”

“He told me to go home and change my clothes, and then go to meet­ing; but I came here in­stead.”

“Why did you do that?”

“To see you, of course.”

“Pooh, as if I was any­thing to look at.”

“Well, you are, Car­lia,” and his eyes rest­ed steadi­ly on her to prove his con­tention. “Why didn't you want to go to meet­ing this evening?”

“You heard me tell fa­ther.”

“That wasn't the whole truth. I was not the rea­son be­cause you had de­cid­ed not to go be­fore I came.”

“Well--how do you know that? but, any­way, it's none of your busi­ness, where I go, is it?” She made an ef­fort to stare him out of coun­te­nance, but it end­ed in low­ered head and eyes.

“Car­lia! No, of course, it isn't. Ex­cuse me for ask­ing.”

There was an­oth­er pe­ri­od of si­lence where­in Do­ri­an again won­dered at the girl's strange be­hav­ior. Was he an­noy­ing her? Per­haps she did not care to have him pay­ing his crude at­ten­tions to her; and yet--

“Tell me about your dry farm,” she said.

“I've al­ready plowed eighty acres,” he in­formed her. “The land is rich, and I ex­pect to raise a big crop next year. I've quite a cosy house, up there, not far from the creek. The sum­mer evenings are love­ly and cool. I can't get moth­er to stay over night. I wish you would come and go with her, and stay a few days.”

“How could I stay away from home that long? The heav­ens would fall.”

“Well, that might help some. But, hon­est­ly, Car­lia, you ought to get away from this grind a lit­tle. It's telling on you. Don't you ev­er get in­to the city?”

“Some­times Sat­ur­day af­ter­noons to de­liv­er but­ter and eggs.”

“Well, some Sat­ur­day we'll go to see that mov­ing pic­ture show that's re­cent­ly start­ed in town. They say it's won­der­ful. I've nev­er been. We'll go to­geth­er. What do you say?”

“I would like to.”

“Let's move on. Meet­ing is out, and the folks are com­ing home.”

They walked slow­ly back to the house. Mr. and Mrs. Duke soon ar­rived and told of the splen­did meet­ing they had had.

“Un­cle Zed spoke,” said Mr. Duke, “and he did well, as usu­al. He's a reg­ular Or­son Pratt.”

“The peo­ple do not know it,” added Do­ri­an; “per­haps their chil­dren or their chil­dren's chil­dren will.”

“Well, what have you two been do­ing?” en­quired the fa­ther of Car­lia.

“We've just been tak­ing a walk,” an­swered Do­ri­an. “Will it be al­right if Car­lia and I go to the new mov­ing pic­ture the­atre in town some Sat­ur­day?”

Nei­ther par­ent made any ob­jec­tion. They were, in fact, glad to have this neigh­bor boy show some in­ter­est in their daugh­ter.

“Your moth­er was at meet­ing,” said Mrs. Duke; “and she was ask­ing about you.”

“Yes; I've ne­glect­ed her all af­ter­noon; so I must be off. Good night folks.”

Car­lia went with him to the gate, slip­ping her arm in­to his and snug­gling close­ly as if to get the pro­tec­tion of good com­rad­ship. The move­ment was not lost on Do­ri­an, but he lin­gered on­ly for a mo­ment.

“Good­night, Car­lia; re­mem­ber, some Sat­ur­day.”

“I'll not for­get. Good­night” she looked furtive­ly up and down the road, then sped back in­to the house.

Do­ri­an walked on in the dark­en­ing evening. A block or so down the road he came on to an au­to­mo­bile. No one in Green­street owned one of these ma­chines as yet, and there were but few in the city. As Do­ri­an ap­proached, he saw a young man work­ing with the ma­chin­ery un­der the lift­ed hood.

“Hel­lo,” greet­ed Do­ri­an, “what's the trou­ble?”

“Damned if I know. Been stalled here for an hour.” The speak­er straight­ened from his work. His hands were grimy, and the sweat was run­ning down his red and an­gry face. He held tight­ly the stump of a cigarette be­tween his lips.

“I'm sor­ry I can't help you,” said Do­ri­an, “but I don't know the first thing about an au­to­mo­bile.”

“Well, I thought I knew a lot, but this gets me.” He swore again, as if to im­press Do­ri­an with the true con­di­tion of his feel­ings. Then he went at the ma­chin­ery again with pli­ers and wrench­es, af­ter which he vig­or­ous­ly turned the crank. The en­gine start­ed with a wheeze and then a roar. The driv­er leaped in­to the car and brought the rac­ing en­gine to a smoother run­ning. “The cursed thing” he re­marked, “why couldn't it have done that an hour ago. O, say, ex­cuse me, have you just been at the house up the road?”

“The Duke house? yes.”

“Is the old man--is Mr. Duke at home?”

“Yes; he's at home.”

“Thank you.” The car moved slow­ly up the road un­til it reached the Duke gate where it stopped; but on­ly for a mo­ment, for it turned and sped with in­creas­ing hur­ry along the road lead­ing to the city.

Do­ri­an stood and watched it un­til its red light dis­ap­peared. He won­dered why the stranger want­ed to know why Mr. Duke was at home, then on learn­ing that he was, why he turned about as if he had no busi­ness with him.

Lat­er, Do­ri­an learned the rea­son.