The Man Thou Gavest. Harriet T. Comstock

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ came into the clearing, passed White’s shack, and approached his own with a fixed determination. Then he stopped short. He was positive that he had closed windows and doors—the caution of the city still clung to him—but now both doors and windows were set wide to the brilliant autumn day and a curl of smoke from a lately replenished fire cheerfully rose in the clear, dry air.

      “Well, I’ll be—!” and then Truedale quietly slipped to the rear of the cabin and to a low, sliding window through which he could peer, unobserved. One glance transfixed him.

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

      The furnishing of the room was bare and plain—a deal table, a couple of wooden chairs, a broad comfortable couch, a cupboard with some nondescript crockery, and a good-sized mirror in the space between the front door and the window. Before this glass a strange figure was walking to and fro, enjoying hugely its own remarkable reflection. Truedale’s bedraggled bath robe hung like a mantle from the shoulders of the intruder—they were very straight, slim young shoulders; an old ridiculous fez—an abomination of his freshman year, kept for sentimental reasons—adorned the head of the small stranger and only partly held in check the mass of shadowy hair that rippled from it and around a mischievous face.

      Surprise, then wonder, swayed Truedale. When he reached the wonder stage, thought deserted him. He simply looked and kept on wondering. Through this confusion, words presently reached him. The masquerader within was bowing and scraping comically, and in a low, musical voice said:

      “How-de, Mister Outlander, sir! How-de? I saw your smoke a-curling way back from home, sir, and I’ve come a-visiting ’long o’ you, Mister Outlander.”

      Another sweeping curtsey reduced Truedale to helpless mirth and he fairly shouted, doubling up as he did so.

      The effect of his outburst upon the young person within was tremendous. She seemed turned to stone. She stared at the face in the window; she turned red and white—the absurd fez dangling over her left ear. Then she emitted what seemed to be one word, so lingeringly sweet was the drawl.

      “Godda’mighty!”

      Seeing that there was going to be no other concession, Truedale pulled himself together, went around to the front door and knocked, ceremoniously. The girl turned, as if on a pivot, but spoke no word.

      She had the most wonderful eyes—innocent and pleading; she was a mere child and, although she looked awed now, was evidently a forward young native who deserved a good lesson. Truedale determined to give her one!

      “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll come in and sit down.”

      This he did while the big, solemn eyes followed him alertly.

      “And now will you be kind enough to tell me what you mean by—wearing my clothes?”

      Still the silence and the blank stare.

      “You must answer my questions!” Truedale’s voice sounded stern. “I suppose you didn’t expect me back so soon?”

      The deep eyes confirmed this by the drooping of the lids.

      “And you broke in—what for?”

      No answer.

      “Who are you?”

      Really the situation was becoming unbearable, so Truedale changed his tactics. He would play with the poor little thing and reassure her.

      “Now that I look at you I see what you are. You’re not a human at all. You’re a spirit of something or other—probably of one of those perky mountains over yonder. The White Maid, I bet! You had to don my clothes in order to materialize before my eyes and you had to use that word of the hills—so that I could understand you. It’s quite plain now and you are welcome to my—my bath robe; I dare say that, underneath it, you are decked out in filmy clouds and vapours and mists. Oh! come now—” The strange eyes were filling—but not overflowing!

      “I was only joking. Forgive me. Why—”

      The wretched fez fell from the soft hair—the bedraggled robe from the rigid shoulders—and there, garbed in a rough home-spun gown, a little plaid shawl and a checked apron, stood—

      “It’s the no-count,” thought Truedale. Aloud he said, “Nella-Rose!”

      With the dropping of the disguise years and dignity were added to the girl and Truedale, who was always at his worst in the presence of strange young women, gazed dazedly at the one before him now.

      “Perhaps”—he began awkwardly—“you’ll sit down. Please do!” He drew a chair toward her. Nella-Rose sank into it and leaned her bowed head upon her arms, which she folded on the table. Her shoulders rose and fell convulsively, and Truedale, looking at her, became hopelessly wretched.

      “I’m a beast and nothing less!” he admitted by way of apology and excuse. “I—I wish you could forgive me.”

      Then slowly the head was raised and to Truedale’s further consternation he saw that mirth, not anguish, had caused the shaking of those deceiving little shoulders.

      “Oh! I see—you are laughing!” He tried to be indignant.

      “Yes.”

      “At what?”

      “Everything—you!”

      “Thank you!” Then, like a response, something heretofore unknown and unsuspected in Truedale rose and overpowered him. His shyness and awkwardness melted before the warmth and glow of the conquering emotion. He got up and sat on the corner of the table nearest his shabby little guest, and looking straight into her bewitching eyes he joined her in a long, resounding laugh.

      It was surrender, pure and simple.

      “And now,” he said at last, “you must stay and have a bite. I am about starved. And you?”

      The girl grew sober.

      “I’m—I’m always hungry,” she admitted softly.

      They drew the table close to the roaring fire, leaving doors and windows open to the crisp, sweet; morning air.

      “We’ll have a party!” Truedale announced. “I’ll step over to Jim’s cabin and bring the best he’s got.”

      When he returned Nella-Rose had placed cups, saucers, and plates on the table.

      “Do you—often have parties?” she asked.

      “I never had one before. I’ll have them, though, from now on if—if you will come!”

      Truedale paused with his arms full of pitchers and platters of food, and held the girl with his admiring eyes.

      “And you will let me come and see you—you and your sister and your father? I know all about you. White has explained—everything. He—”

      Nella-Rose СКАЧАТЬ