To the Highest Bidder. Florence Morse Kingsley

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СКАЧАТЬ other folks’ time an’ money; he’s meaner’n pusley an’ slyer’n—well, he’s s’ durned sly, Cap’n, that you gotta be on his track all the endurin’ while.”

      “Do you think I’ve got two folks in me, Peg?” asked Jimmy, laying his hand over the pit of his stomach with a worried look.

      “I’m reelly ’fraid ye have, Cap’n,” said Peg firmly. “I never see anybody ’at hadn’t. But ef you git th’ upper han’ o’ ol’ lazybones now’t you’re small, you won’t have much trouble with him.”

      “I’m not small, Peg,” Jimmy corrected him. “You said I was large an’—an’ hefty fer my age.”

      “Sure you be, Cap’n, but you ain’t reelly a man growed. That’s what I mean, an’ I want you should grow up into an A number one man, full o’ grit an’ gumption. An’ you can’t do it unless you start right. You see, Cap’n, I’m gittin’ ’long in life an’ I’ve figgered it out ’at ’bout six folks out o’ every ten kind o’ see-saws back an’ forth betwixt bein’ lazy an’ lyin’ an’ no ’count, an’ bein’ industrious an’ truthful. Folks like that gits ’long so-so; they don’t hev no partickler good luck—ol’ lazybones keeps ’em f’om that; but they don’t git nowheres neither, ’cause they don’t stick to biz. Then the’s ’bout three out o’ ev’y ten thet gives right up to ol’ lazybones f’om the start; an’ he runs ’em right into th’ ground ’s fas’ ’s possible. The tenth man, he stomps on ol’ lazybones ev’ry time he opens his head t’ speak, an’ bimeby he gits on the right track s’ stiddy an’ constant ’at nobody c’n stop ’im. An’ he’s the one thet gits thar! I want you should be that kind o’ a man, Cap’n. An’ that’s one reason I give you that book o’ Vallable Info’mation. It’ll help you to kind o’ think over differ’nt things that happens. Now I’ll bet you won’t lose another letter in a hurry.”

      “No, I won’t,” Jimmy said earnestly. “An’ I’m goin’ to try an’ stomp on ol’ lazybones.”

      “That’s right, Cap’n,” cried Peg. “You jes’ stomp on him hard an’ proper. You git th’ upper han’ o’ him b’fore he grows too big and hefty, an’ bimeby he won’t bother you.”

      “Peg,” said Jimmy, after a period devoted to reflection, “the Hon’rable Stephen Jarvis is in our house.”

      “Dear me! You don’t say so!” ejaculated Peg, with a frightened start.

      “He makes Barb’ra cry,” said Jimmy, scowling fiercely. “I wanted to stay an’ keep him f’om doin’ it; but Barb’ra said for me to come out here and see you. I’d like to stomp on him—hard!”

      The subject of these dubious comments and conjectures, more ill at ease than his worst enemy had ever hoped to see him, sat in the dull light of the rainy afternoon, looking at Barbara Preston with new eyes: to wit, the eyes of a man.

      “I suppose,” the girl said steadily, “you have come to tell me that you will foreclose the mortgage.” She gripped her hands close in her lap.

      “No,” said Stephen Jarvis, “that was not my intention. As I have already informed you, the mortgage will foreclose itself, when the time comes.”

      He stopped short and narrowed his lids frowningly.

      “I have been thinking about you,” he said harshly, “since you left me so abruptly yesterday. Why did you do it? And yet, I am glad, on the whole, that you did. I want to tell you that I stood in my library door and witnessed my housekeeper’s dismissal of you from my house. Her own followed without delay.”

      “I am sorry,” Barbara told him mechanically. She was noticing dazedly that Jarvis was dressed as she had occasionally seen him in church, and that his gloves and linen were quite fresh and immaculate.

      “Why should you be sorry?” he demanded with a straight look at her.

      “I—why, I think I should be sorry for any woman who had lost what she wanted to keep,” Barbara answered. “If you discharged her because I——”

      “You were not primarily the cause of her dismissal,” he said coolly. “I had already told you that I was tired of seeing the woman about.”

      He was silent for a long time, gazing frowningly at the floor.

      Suddenly he looked up and, meeting Barbara’s astonished and somewhat indignant eyes, held them steadily with his own.

      “You are wondering why I came here to-day. You are afraid of me, and you doubtless fancy with the rest of the world that you—dislike me exceedingly.”

      Barbara opened her lips to reply.

      “Don’t take the trouble to deny it,” he went on, with a faint sneer. “I know what most people think of me, perhaps with reason. But I am myself, not another; and so far, fear—dislike have seemed to me unavoidable.” Again his rigid lips relaxed into something like a smile, and he looked questioningly at the girl.

      “It ought to be easy,” she said uncertainly, “to make people like you. You might——”

      “I know what you are thinking of,” he interrupted rudely. “But it wouldn’t do. People fear and hate a hard man; they despise a fool. I refuse to be despised.”

      He rose and walked up and down the room impatiently as if his thoughts irked him. Finally he paused before the window where a scarlet geranium blossomed on the sill, and turned a singularly flushed face upon the girl. For a dazed instant she wondered with a thrill of painfully remembered fear if he had been drinking.

      “You will be startled at what I am about to say to you,” he said, in a changed voice. “I should have laughed at the idea if anyone had suggested it to me a week ago. But—I want you to marry me. I want you to be my wife. No! don’t answer; don’t refuse! You haven’t thought what it means. You cannot consider the matter so suddenly. But this much you can understand, I will give you this place on our wedding-day—to do with as you like, and I will attach no conditions to the gift.”

      Barbara had not removed her fascinated gaze from his face. She felt like one dreaming fantastically and struggling unavailingly to awake.

      “Perhaps you do not realize what you have asked of me,” she said at last. “But—I will not sell myself for this farm. That is what you have asked me to do.”

      Her eyes sparkled blue fire; her lips curled disdainfully.

      “Don’t be a fool,” he said roughly. “I want nothing of the sort. I want you—you! I need you. I am more sure of it now than ever.”

      He took three steps toward her, his rugged face alive with determination—the grim determination which had wrested all that he possessed from the grip of a hostile world.

      “When I want anything,” he said doggedly, “I always get it. Didn’t you know that? I want you.”

      “You’ll not get me—ever!” cried Barbara.

      She knew it must be war to the bitter end between them, and she flung the gage of battle full in his face with fine recklessness.

      “You СКАЧАТЬ