The Gentleman From Indiana

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"'O bright, translucent, cerulean hue,
Let my wide wings drift on in you,'"

said Harkless, pointing them out to Helen.

"You seem to get a good deal of fun out of this kind of weather," observed
Lige, as he wiped his brow and shifted his chair out of the sun.

"I expect you don't get such skies as this up in Rouen," said the judge,
looking at the girl from between half-closed eyelids.

"It's the same Indiana sky, I think," she answered.

"I guess maybe in the city you don't see as much of it, or think as much
about it. Yes, they're the Indiana skies," the old man went on.

Skies as blue
As the eyes of children when they smile at you.'

"There aren't any others anywhere that ever seemed much like them to me.
They've been company for me all my life. I don't think there are any
others half as beautiful, and I know there aren't any as sociable. They
were always so." He sighed gently, and Miss Sherwood fancied his wife must
have found the Indiana skies as lovely as he had, in the days of long ago.
"Seems to me they _are_ the softest and bluest and kindest in the world."

"I think they are," said Helen, "and they are more beautiful than the
'Italian skies,' though I doubt if many of us Hoosiers realize it; and--
certainly no one else does."

The old man leaned over and patted her hand. Harkless gasped. "'Us
Hoosiers!'" chuckled the judge. "You're a great Hoosier, young lady! How
much of your life have you spent in the State? 'Us Hoosiers!'"

"But I'm going to be a good one," she answered, gaily, "and if I'm good
enough, when I grow up maybe I'll be a great one."

The buckboard had been brought around, and the four young people climbed
in, Harkless driving. Before they started, the judge, standing on the
horse-block in front of the gate, leaned over and patted Miss Sherwood's
hand again. Harkless gathered up the reins.

"You'll make a great Hoosier, all right," said the old man, beaming upon
the girl. "You needn't worry about that, I guess, my dear."

When he said "my dear," Harkless spoke to the horses.

"Wait," said the judge, still holding the girl's hand. "You'll make a
great Hoosier, some day; don't fret. You're already a very beautiful one."
Then he bent his white head and kissed her, gallantly. John said: "Good
afternoon, judge"; the whip cracked like a pistol-shot, and the buckboard
dashed off in a cloud of dust.

"Every once in a while, Harkless," the old fellow called after them, "you
must remember to look at the team."

The enormous white tent was filled with a hazy yellow light, the warm,
dusty, mellow light that thrills the rejoicing heart because it is found
nowhere in the world except in the tents of a circus--the canvas-filtered
sunshine and sawdust atmosphere of show day. Through the entrance the
crowd poured steadily, coming from the absorptions of the wild-animal tent
to feast upon greater wonders; passing around the sawdust ellipse that
contained two soul-cloying rings, to find seats whence they might behold
the splendors so soon to be unfolded. Every one who was not buying the
eternal lemonade was eating something; and the faces of children shone
with gourmand rapture; indeed, very often the eyes of them were all you
saw, half-closed in palate-gloating over a huge apple, or a bulky oblong
of popcorn, partly unwrapped from its blue tissue-paper cover; or else it
might be a luscious pink crescent of watermelon, that left its ravisher
stained and dripping to the brow.

Here, as in the morning, the hawkers raised their cries in unintermittent
shrillness, offering to the musically inclined the Happy Evenings Song-
book, alleged to contain those treasures, all the latest songs of the day,
or presented for the consideration of the humorous the Lawrence Lapearl
Joke-book, setting forth in full the art of comical entertainment and
repartee. (Schofields' Henry bought two of these--no doubt on the
principle that two were twice as instructive as one--intending to bury
himself in study and do battle with Tom Martin on his own ground.)

Here swayed the myriad palm-leaf fans; here paraded blushing youth and
rosy maiden, more relentlessly arm-in-arm than ever; here crept the
octogenarian, Mr. Bodeffer, shaking on cane and the shoulder of posterity;
here waddled Mr. Snoddy, who had hurried through the animal tent for fear
of meeting the elephant; here marched sturdy yeomen and stout wives; here
came William Todd and his Anna Belle, the good William hushed with the
embarrassments of love, but looking out warily with the white of his eye
for Mr. Martin, and determined not to sit within a hundred yards of him;
here rolled in the orbit of habit the bacchanal, Mr. Wilkerson, who
politely answered in kind all the uncouth roarings and guttural
ejaculations of jungle and fen that came from the animal tent; in brief,
here came with lightest hearts the population of Carlow and part of Amo.

Helen had found a true word: it was a big family. Jim Bardlock, broadly
smiling and rejuvenated, shorn of depression, paused in front of the
"reserve" seats, with Mrs. Bardlock on his arm, and called loudly to a
gentleman on a tier about the level of Jim's head: "How are ye? I reckon
we were a _little_ too smart fer 'em, this morning, huh?" Five or six
hundred people--every one within hearing--fumed to look at Jim; but the
gentleman addressed was engaged in conversation with a lady and did not
notice.

"Hi! Hi, there! _Say_! Mr. Harkless!" bellowed Jim, informally. The people
turned to look at Harkless. His attention was arrested and his cheek grew
red.

"_What is it_?" he asked, a little confused and a good deal annoyed.

"I don't hear what ye say," shouted Jim, putting his hand to his ear.

"_What is it_?" repeated the young man. "I'll kill that fellow to-night,"
he added to Lige Willetts. "Some one ought to have done it long ago."

"What?"

"I _say_, WHAT IS IT?"

"I only wanted to say me and you certainly did fool these here Hoosiers
this morning, huh? Hustled them two fellers through the court-house, and
nobody never thought to slip round to the other door and head us off. Ha,
ha! We were jest a _leetle_ too many fer 'em, huh?"

From an upper tier of seats the rusty length of Mr. Martin erected itself
joint by joint, like an extension ladder, and he peered down over the
gaping faces at the Town Marshal. "Excuse me," he said sadly to those
behind him, but his dry voice penetrated everywhere, "I got up to hear Jim
say 'We' again."

Mr. Bardlock joined in the laugh against himself, and proceeded with his
wife to some seats, forty or fifty feet distant. When he had settled
himself comfortably, he shouted over cheerfully to the unhappy editor:
"Them shell-men got it in fer you, Mr. Harkless."

"Ain't that fool shet up _yit_?" snarled the aged Mr. Bodeffer,
indignantly. He was sitting near the young couple, and the expression of
his sympathy was distinctly audible to them and many others. "Got no more
regards than a brazing calf-disturbin' a feller with his sweetheart!"

"The both of 'em says they're goin' to do fer you," bleated Mr. Bardlock.
"Swear they'll git their evens with ye."

Mr. Martin rose again. "Don't git scared and leave town, Mr. Harkless," he
called out; "Jim'll protect you."

Vastly to the young man's relief the band began to play, and the
equestrians and equestriennes capered out from the dressing-tent for the
"Grand Entrance," and the performance commenced. Through the long summer
afternoon it went on: wonders of horsemanship and horsewomanship; hair-
raising exploits on wires, tight and slack; giddy tricks on the high
trapeze; feats of leaping and tumbling in the rings; while the tireless
musicians blatted inspiringly through it all, only pausing long enough to
allow that uproarious jester, the clown, to ask the ring-master what he
would do if a young lady came up and kissed him on the street, and to
exploit his hilarities during the short intervals of rest for the
athletes.

When it was over, John and Helen found themselves in the midst of a
densely packed crowd, and separated from Miss Briscoe and Lige. People
were pushing and shoving, and he saw her face grow pale. He realized with
a pang of sympathy how helpless he would feel if he were as small as she,
and at his utmost height could only see big, suffocating backs and huge
shoulders pressing down from above. He was keeping them from crowding
heavily upon her with all his strength, and a royal feeling of
protectiveness came over him. She was so little. And yet, without the
remotest hint of hardness, she gave him such a distinct impression of
poise and equilibrium, she seemed so able to meet anything that might
come, to understand it--even to laugh at it--so Americanly capable and
sure of the event, that in spite of her pale cheek he could not feel quite
so protective as he wished to feel.

He managed to get her to one of the tent-poles, and placed her with her
back to it. Then he set one of his own hands against it over her head,
braced himself and stood, keeping a little space about her, ruggedly
letting the crowd surge against him as it would; no one should touch her
in rough carelessness.

"Thank you. It was rather trying in there," she said, and looked up into
his eyes with a divine gratitude.

"Please don't do that," he answered in a low voice.

"Do what?"

"Look like that."

She not only looked like that, but more so. "Young man, young man," she
said, "I fear you're wishful of turning a girl's head."

The throng was thick around them, garrulous and noisy, but they two were
more richly alone together, to his appreciation, than if they stood on
some far satellite of Mars. He was not to forget that moment, and he kept
the picture of her, as she leaned against the big blue tent-pole, there,
in his heart: the clear gray eyes lifted to his, the delicate face with
the color stealing back to her cheeks, and the brave little figure that
had run so straight to him out of the night shadows. There was
something about her, and in the moment, that suddenly touched him with a
saddening sweetness too keen to be borne; the forget-me-not finger of the
flying hour that could not come again was laid on his soul, and he felt
the tears start from his heart on their journey to his eyes. He knew that
he should always remember that moment. She knew it, too. She put her hand
to her cheek and turned away from him a little tremulously. Both were
silent.

They had been together since early morning. Plattville was proud of him.
Many a friendly glance from the folk who jostled about them favored his
suit and wished both of them well, and many lips, opening to speak to
Harkless in passing, closed when their owners (more tactful than Mr.
Bardlock) looked a second time.

Old Tom Martin, still perched alone On his high seat, saw them standing by
the tent-pole, and watched them from under his rusty hat brim. "I reckon
it's be'n three or four thousand years since I was young," he sighed to
himself; then, pushing his hat still further down over his eyes: "I don't
believe I'd ort to rightly look on at that." He sighed again as he rose,
and gently spoke the name of his dead wife: "Marjie,--it's be'n lonesome,
sometimes. I reckon you're mighty tired waitin' for me, ever since sixty-
four--yet maybe not; Ulysses S. Grant's over on your side now, and perhaps
you've got acquainted with him; you always thought a good deal more of him
than you did of me."

"Do you see that tall old man up there?" said Helen, nodding her head
toward Martin. "I think I should like to know him. I'm sure I like him."

"That is old Tom Martin."

"I know."

"I was sorry and ashamed about all that conspicuousness and shouting. It
must have been very unpleasant for you; it must have been so, for a
stranger. Please try to forgive me for letting you in for it."

"But I liked it. It was 'all in the family,' and it was so jolly and good-
natured, and that dear old man was so bright. Do you know," she said
softly, "I don't think I'm such a stranger--I--I think I love all these
people a great deal--in spite of having known them only two days."

At that a wild exhilaration possessed him. He wanted to shake hands with
everybody in the tent, to tell them all that he loved them with his whole
heart, but, what was vastly more important, _she_ loved them a great deal
--in spite of having known them only two days!

He made the horses prance on the homeward drive, and once, when she told
him that she had read a good many of his political columns in the
"Herald," he ran them into a fence. After this it occurred to him that
they were nearing their destination and had come at a perversely sharp
gait; so he held the roans down to a snail's pace (if it be true that a
snail's natural gait is not a trot) for the rest of the way, while they
talked of Tom Meredith and books and music, and discovered that they
differed widely about Ibsen.

They found Mr. Fisbee in the yard, talking to Judge Briscoe. As they drove
up, and before the horses had quite stopped, Helen leaped to the ground
and ran to the old scholar with both her hands outstretched to him. He
looked timidly at her, and took the hands she gave him; then he produced
from his pocket a yellow telegraph envelope, watching her anxiously as she
received it. However, she seemed to attach no particular importance to it,
and, instead of opening it, leaned toward him, still holding one of his
hands.

"These awful old men!" Harkless groaned inwardly as he handed the horses
over to the judge. "I dare say _he_'ll kiss her, too." But, when the
editor and Mr. Willetts had gone, it was Helen who kissed Fisbee.

"They're coming out to spend the evening, aren't they?" asked Briscoe,
nodding to the young men as they set off down the road.

"Lige has to come whether he wants to or not," Minnie laughed, rather
consciously; "It's his turn to-night to look after Mr. Harkless."

"I guess he won't mind coming," said the judge.

"Well," returned his daughter, glancing at Helen, who stood apart, reading
the telegram to Fisbee, "I know if he follows Mr. Harkless he'll get here
pretty soon after supper--as soon as the moon comes up, anyway."

The editor of the "Herald" was late to his supper that evening. It was
dusk when he reached the hotel, and, for the first time in history, a
gentleman sat down to meat in that house of entertainment in evening
dress. There was no one in the diningroom when he went in; the other
boarders had finished, and it was Cynthia's "evening out," but the
landlord came and attended to his guests' wants himself, and chatted with
him while he ate.

"There's a picture of Henry Clay," remarked Landis, in obvious relevancy
to his companion's attire, "there's a picture of Henry Clay somewheres
about the house in a swallow-tail coat. Governor Ray spoke here in one in
early times, Bodeffer says, except it was higher built up 'n yourn about
the collar, and had brass buttons, I think. Ole man Wimby was here
to-night," the landlord continued, changing the subject. "He waited around
fer ye a good while. He's be'n mighty wrought up sence the trouble this
morning, an' wanted to see ye bad. I don't know 'f you seen it, but that
feller 't knocked your hat off was mighty near tore to pieces in the crowd
before he got away. 'Seems some the boys re-_cog_-nized him as one the
Cross-Roads Skillets, and sicked the dogs on him, and he had a pretty mean
time of it. Wimby says the Cross-Roads folks'll be worse 'n ever, and,
says he, 'Tell him to stick close to town,' says he. 'They'll do anything
to git him now,' says he, 'and _resk_ anything.' I told him you wouldn't
take no stock in it, but, see here, don't you put nothin' too mean fer
them folks. I tell you, Mr. Harkless, plenty of us are scared fer ye."

The good fellow was so earnest that when the editor's meal was finished
and he would have departed, Landis detained him almost by force until the
arrival of Mr. Willetts, who, the landlord knew, was his allotted escort'
for the evening. When Lige came (wearing a new tie, a pink one he had
hastened to buy as soon as his engagements had allowed him the
opportunity), Mr. Landis hissed a savage word of reproach for his
tardiness in his ear, and whisperingly bade him not let the other out of
reach that night, to which Willetts replied with a nod implying his
trustworthiness; and the young men set off in the darkness.

Harkless wondered if his costume were not an injustice to his companion,
but he did not regret it; he would wear his best court suit, his laces and
velvets, for deference to that lady. It was a painful thing to remember
his dusty rustiness of the night before, the awful Carlow cut of his coat,
and his formless black cravat; the same felt hat he wore again to-night,
perforce, but it was brushed--brushed almost to holes in spots, and
somehow he had added a touch of shape to it. His dress-coat was an
antique; fashions had changed, no doubt; he did not know; possibly she
would recognize its vintage--but it was a dress-coat.

Lige walked along talking; Harkless answering "Yes" and "No" at random.
The woodland-spiced air was like champagne to him; the road under foot so
elastic and springy that he felt like a thoroughbred before a race; he
wanted to lift his foot knee-high at every step, he had so much energy to
spare. In the midst of a speech of Lige's about the look of the wheat he
suddenly gave out a sigh so deep, so heartfelt, so vibrant, so profound,
that Willetts turned with astonishment; but when his eye reached his
companion's face, Harkless was smiling. The editor extended his hand.

"Shake hands, Lige," he cried.

The moon peeped over the shoulder of an eastern wood, and the young men
suddenly descried their long shadows stretching in front of them. Harkless
turned to look at the silhouetted town, the tree-tops and roofs and the
Methodist church spire, silvered at the edges.

"Do you see that town, Willetts?" he asked, laying his fingers on his
companion's sleeve. "That's the best town in the United States!"

"I always kind of thought you didn't much like it," said the other,
puzzled. "Seemed to me you always sort of wished you hadn't settled here."

A little further on they passed Mr. Fisbee. He was walking into the
village with his head thrown back, a strange thing for him. They gave him
a friendly greeting and passed on.

"Well, it beats me!" observed Lige, when the old man was out of hearing.
"He's be'n there to supper again. He was there all day yesterday, and with
'em at the lecture, and at the deepo day before and he looks like another
man, and dressed up--for him--to beat thunder----What do you expect makes
him so thick out there all of a sudden?"

"I hadn't thought about it. The judge and he have been friends a good
while, haven't they?"

"Yes, three or four years; but not like this. It beats _me_! He's all
upset over Miss Sherwood, I think. Old enough to be her grandfather, too,
the old----"

His companion stopped him, dropping a hand on his shoulder.

"Listen!"

They were at the corner of the Briscoe picket fence, and a sound lilted
through the stillness--a touch on the keys that Harkless knew. "Listen,"
he whispered.

It was the "Moonlight Sonata" that Helen was playing. "It's a pretty
piece," observed Lige after a time. John could have choked him, but he
answered: "Yes, it is seraphic."

"Who made it up?" pursued Mr. Willetts.

"Beethoven."

"Foreigner, I expect. Yet in some way or another makes me think of fishing
down on the Wabash bend in Vigo, and camping out nights like this; it's a
mighty pretty country around there--especially at night."

The sonata was finished, and then she sang--sang the "Angel's Serenade."
As the soft soprano lifted and fell in the modulations of that song there
was in its timbre, apart from the pure, amber music of it, a questing,
seeking pathos, and Willetts felt the hand on his shoulder tighten and
then relax; and, as the song ended, he saw that his companion's eyes were
shining and moist.

CHAPTER IX

NIGHT: IT IS BAD LUCK TO SING BEFORE BREAKFAST

There was a lace of faint mists along the creek and beyond, when John and
Helen reached their bench (of course they went back there), and broken
roundelays were croaking from a bayou up the stream, where rakish frogs
held carnival in resentment of the lonesomeness. The air was still and
close. Hundreds of fire-flies coquetted with the darkness amongst the
trees across the water, glinting from unexpected spots, shading their
little lanterns for a second to glow again from other shadows. The sky was
a wonderful olive green; a lazy cloud drifted in it and lapped itself
athwart the moon.

"The dead painters design the skies for us each day and night, I think,"
Helen said, as she dropped a little scarf from her shoulders and leaned
back on the bench. "It must be the only way to keep them happy and busy
'up there.' They let them take turns, and those not on duty, probably
float around and criticise."

"They've given a good man his turn to-night," said John; "some quiet
colorist, a poetic, friendly soul, no Turner--though I think I've seen a
Turner sunset or two in Plattville."

"It was a sculptor's sunset this evening. Did you see it?--great massy
clouds piled heap on heap, almost with violence. I'm sure it was
Michelangelo. The judge didn't think it meant Michelangelo; he thought it
meant rain."

"Michelangelo gets a chance rather often, doesn't he, considering the
number of art people there must be over there? I believe I've seen a good
many sunsets of his, and a few dawns, too; the dawns not for a long time--
I used to see them more frequently toward the close of senior year, when
we sat up all night talking, knowing we'd lose one another soon, and
trying to hold on as long as we could."

She turned to him with a little frown. "Why have you never let Tom
Meredith know you were living so near him, less than a hundred miles, when
he has always liked and admired you above all the rest of mankind? I know
that he has tried time and again to hear of you, but the other men wrote
that they knew nothing--that it was thought you had gone abroad. I had
heard of you, and so must he have seen your name in the Rouen papers--
about the 'White-Caps,' and in politics--but he would never dream of
connecting the Plattville Mr. Harkless with _his_ Mr. Harkless, though _I_
did, just a little, and rather vaguely. I knew, of course, when you came
into the lecture. But why haven't you written to my cousin?"

"Rouen seems a long way from here," he answered quietly. "I've only been
there once--half a day on business. Except that, I've never been further
away than Amo or Gainesville, for a convention or to make a speech, since
I came here."

"Wicked!" she exclaimed, "To shut yourself up like this! I said it was
fine to drop out of the world; but why have you cut off your old friends
from you? Why haven't you had a relapse, now and then, and come over to
hear Ysaye play and Melba sing, or to see Mansfield or Henry Irving, when
we have had them? And do you think you've been quite fair to Tom? What
right had you to assume that he had forgotten you?"

"Oh, I didn't exactly mean forgotten," he said, pulling a blade of grass
to and fro between his fingers, staring at it absently. "It's only that I
have dropped out of the world, you know. I kept track of every one, saw
most of my friends, or corresponded, now and then, for a year or so after
I left college; but people don't miss you much after a while. They rather
expected me to do a lot of things, in a way, you know, and I wasn't doing
them. I was glad to get away. I always had an itch for newspaper work, and
I went on a New York paper. Maybe it was the wrong paper; at least, I
wasn't fit for it. There was something in the side of life I saw, too, not
only on the paper, that made me heart-sick; and then the rush and fight
and scramble to be first, to beat the other man. Probably I am too
squeamish. I saw classmates and college friends diving into it, bound to
come out ahead, dear old, honest, frank fellows, who had been so happy-go-
lucky and kind and gay, growing too busy to meet and be good to any man
who couldn't be good to them, asking (more delicately) the eternal
question, 'What does it get me?' You might think I bad-met with
unkindness; but it was not so; it was the other way more than I deserved.
But the cruel competition, the thousands fighting for places, the
multitude scrambling for each ginger-bread baton, the cold faces on the
streets--perhaps it's all right and good; of course it has to _be_--but I
wanted to get out of it, though I didn't want to come _here_. That was
chance. A new man bought the paper I was working for, and its policy
changed. Many of the same men still wrote for it, facing cheerfully about
and advocating a tricky theory, vehement champions of a set of personal
schemers and waxy images."

He spoke with feeling; but now, as though a trifle ashamed of too much
seriousness, and justifiably afraid of talking like one of his own
editorials, he took a lighter tone. "I had been taken on the paper through
a friend and not through merit, and by the same undeserved, kindly
influence, after a month or so I was set to writing short political
editorials, and was at it nearly two years. When the paper changed hands
the new proprietor indicated that he would be willing to have me stay and
write the other way. I refused; and it became somewhat plain to me that I
was beginning to be a failure.

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