Poor White: A Novel Page 8

  CHAPTER VIII

  When Clara Butterworth, the daughter of Tom Butterworth, was eighteenyears old she graduated from the town high school. Until the summer ofher seventeenth year, she was a tall, strong, hard-muscled girl, shy inthe presence of strangers and bold with people she knew well. Her eyeswere extraordinarily gentle.

  The Butterworth house on Medina Road stood back of an apple orchard andthere was a second orchard beside the house. The Medina Road ran southfrom Bidwell and climbed gradually upward toward a country of lowhills, and from the side porch of the Butterworth house the view wasmagnificent. The house itself was a large brick affair with a cupola ontop and was considered at that time the most pretentious place in thecounty.

  Behind the house were several great barns for the horses and cattle.Most of Tom Butterworth's farm land lay north of Bidwell, and some ofhis fields were five miles from his home; but as he did not himself workthe land it did not matter. The farms were rented to men who worked themon shares. Beside the business of farming Tom carried on other affairs.He owned two hundred acres of hillside land near his house and, with theexception of a few fields and a strip of forest land, it was devotedto the grazing of sheep and cattle. Milk and cream were delivered eachmorning to the householders of Bidwell by two wagons driven by hisemployees. A half mile to the west of his residence there was aslaughter house on a side road and at the edge of a field where cattlewere killed for the Bidwell market. Tom owned it and employed the menwho did the killing. A creek that came down out of the hills throughone of the fields past his house had been dammed, and south of thepond there was an ice house. He also supplied the town with ice. In hisorchards beneath the trees stood more than a hundred beehives and everyyear he shipped honey to Cleveland. The farmer himself was a man whoappeared to do nothing, but his shrewd mind was always at work. In thesummer throughout the long sleepy afternoons, he drove about over thecounty buying sheep and cattle, stopping to trade horses with somefarmer, dickering for new pieces of land, everlastingly busy. He had onepassion. He loved fast trotting horses, but would not humor himself byowning one. "It's a game that only gets you into trouble and debt," hesaid to his friend John Clark, the banker. "Let other men own the horsesand go broke racing them. I'll go to the races. Every fall I can go toCleveland to the grand circuit. If I go crazy about a horse I can betten dollars he'll win. If he doesn't I'm out ten dollars. If I owned himI would maybe be out hundreds for the expense of training and all that."The farmer was a tall man with a white beard, broad shoulders, andrather small slender white hands. He chewed tobacco, but in spite of thehabit kept both himself and his white beard scrupulously clean. His wifehad died while he was yet in the full vigor of life, but he had noeye for women. His mind, he once told one of his friends, was too muchoccupied with his own affairs and with thoughts of the fine horses hehad seen to concern itself with any such nonsense.

  For many years the farmer did not appear to pay much attention to hisdaughter Clara, who was his only child. Throughout her childhood she wasunder the care of one of his five sisters, all of whom except the onewho lived with him and managed his household being comfortably married.His own wife had been a somewhat frail woman, but his daughter hadinherited his own physical strength.

  When Clara was seventeen, she and her father had a quarrel thateventually destroyed their relationship. The quarrel began late inJuly. It was a busy summer on the farms and more than a dozen men wereemployed about the barns, in the delivery of ice and milk to the town,and at the slaughtering pens a half mile away. During that summersomething happened to the girl. For hours she sat in her own room in thehouse reading books, or lay in a hammock in the orchard and looked upthrough the fluttering leaves of the apple trees at the summer sky. Alight, strangely soft and enticing, sometimes came into her eyes. Herfigure that had been boyish and strong began to change. As she wentabout the house she sometimes smiled at nothing. Her aunt hardly noticedwhat was happening to her, but her father, who all her life had seemedhardly to take account of her existence, was interested. In her presencehe began to feel like a young man. As in the days of his courtshipof her mother and before the possessive passion in him destroyed hisability to love, he began to feel vaguely that life about him was fullof significance. Sometimes in the afternoon when he went for one of hislong drives through the country he asked his daughter to accompany him,and although he had little to say a kind of gallantry crept into hisattitude toward the awakening girl. While she was in the buggy with him,he did not chew tobacco, and after one or two attempts to indulge in thehabit without having the smoke blow in her face, he gave up smoking hispipe during the drives.

  Always before that summer Clara had spent the months when there was noschool in the company of the farm hands. She rode on wagons, visited thebarns, and when she grew weary of the company of older people, went intotown to spend an afternoon with one of her friends among the town girls.

  In the summer of her seventeenth year she did none of these things. Atthe table she ate in silence. The Butterworth household was at that timerun on the old-fashioned American plan, and the farm hands, the men whodrove the ice and milk wagons and even the men who killed and dressedcattle and sheep, ate at the same table with Tom Butterworth, hissister, who was the housekeeper, and his daughter. Three hired girlswere employed in the house and after all had been served they alsocame and took their places at table. The older men among the farmer'semployees, many of whom had known her from childhood, had got intothe habit of teasing the daughter of the house. They made commentsconcerning town boys, young fellows who clerked in stores or who wereapprenticed to some tradesman and one of whom had perhaps brought thegirl home at night from a school party or from one of the affairs called"socials" that were held at the town churches. After they had eaten inthe peculiar silent intent way common to hungry laborers, the farm handsleaned back in their chairs and winked at each other. Two of them beganan elaborate conversation touching on some incident in the girl's life.One of the older men, who had been on the farm for many years and whohad a reputation among the others of being something of a wit, chuckledsoftly. He began to talk, addressing no one in particular. The man'sname was Jim Priest, and although the Civil War had come upon thecountry when he was past forty, he had been a soldier. In Bidwell he waslooked upon as something of a rascal, but his employer was very fond ofhim. The two men often talked together for hours concerning the meritsof well known trotting horses. In the war Jim had been what was calleda bounty man, and it was whispered about town that he had also been adeserter and a bounty jumper. He did not go to town with the other menon Saturday afternoons, and had never attempted to get into the Bidwellchapter of the G. A. R. On Saturdays when the other farm hands washed,shaved and dressed themselves in their Sunday clothes preparatory to theweekly flight to town, he called one of them into the barn, slipped aquarter into his hand, and said, "Bring me a half pint and don't youforget it." On Sunday afternoons he crawled into the hayloft of one ofthe barns, drank his weekly portion of whisky, got drunk, and sometimesdid not appear again until time to go to work on Monday morning. In thefall Jim took his savings and went to spend a week at the grand circuittrotting meeting at Cleveland, where he bought a costly present for hisemployer's daughter and then bet the rest of his money on the races.When he was lucky he stayed on in Cleveland, drinking and carousinguntil his winnings were gone.

  It was Jim Priest who always led the attacks of teasing at the table,and in the summer of her seventeenth year, when she was no longer in themood for such horse-play, it was Jim who brought the practice to anend. At the table Jim leaned back in his chair, stroked his red bristlybeard, now rapidly graying, looked out of a window over Clara's head,and told a tale concerning an attempt at suicide on the part of a youngman in love with Clara. He said the young man, a clerk in a Bidwellstore, had taken a pair of trousers from a shelf, tied one leg abouthis neck and the other to a bracket in the wall. Then he jumped off acounter and had only been saved from death because a town girl, passingthe store, had seen
him and had rushed in and cut him down. "Now whatdo you think of that?" he cried. "He was in love with our Clara, I tellyou."

  After the telling of the tale, Clara got up from the table and ran outof the room. The farm hands joined by her father laughed heartily. Heraunt shook her finger at Jim Priest, the hero of the occasion. "Whydon't you let her alone?" she asked.

  "She'll never get married if she stays here where you make fun of everyyoung man who pays her any attention." At the door Clara stopped and,turning, put out her tongue at Jim Priest. Another roar of laughterarose. Chairs were scraped along the floor and the men filed out of thehouse to go back to the work in the barns and about the farm.

  In the summer when the change came over her Clara sat at the table anddid not hear the tales told by Jim Priest. She thought the farm handswho ate so greedily were vulgar, a notion she had never had before, andwished she did not have to eat with them. One afternoon as she lay inthe hammock in the orchard, she heard several of the men in a nearbybarn discussing the change that had come over her. Jim Priest wasexplaining what had happened. "Our fun's over with Clara," he said. "Nowwe'll have to treat her in a new way. She's no longer a kid. We'll haveto let her alone or pretty soon she won't speak to any of us. It's athing that happens when a girl begins to think about being a woman. Thesap has begun to run up the tree."

  The puzzled girl lay in the hammock and looked up at the sky. Shethought about Jim Priest's words and tried to understand what he meant.Sadness crept over her and tears came into her eyes. Although she didnot know what the old man meant by the words about the sap and the tree,she did, in a detached subconscious way, understand something of theimport of the words, and she was grateful for the thoughtfulness thathad led to his telling the others to stop trying to tease her at thetable. The half worn-out old farm hand, with the bristly beard and thestrong old body, became a figure full of significance to her mind. Sheremembered with gratitude that, in spite of all of his teasing, JimPriest had never said anything that had in any way hurt her. In thenew mood that had come upon her that meant much. A greater hunger forunderstanding, love, and friendliness took possession of her. She didnot think of turning to her father or to her aunt, with whom she hadnever talked of anything intimate or close to herself, but turnedinstead to the crude old man. A hundred minor points in the character ofJim Priest she had never thought of before came sharply into her mind.In the barns he had never mistreated the animals as the other farmhands sometimes did. When on Sunday afternoons he was drunk and wentstaggering through the barns, he did not strike the horses or swearat them. She wondered if it would be possible for her to talk to JimPriest, to ask him questions about life and people and what he meantby his words regarding the sap and the tree. The farm hand was old andunmarried. She wondered if in his youth he had ever loved a woman. Shedecided he had. His words about the sap were, she was sure, in some wayconnected with the idea of love. How strong his hands were. They weregnarled and rough, but there was something beautifully powerful aboutthem. She half wished the old man had been her father. In his youth,in the darkness at night or when he was alone with a girl, perhaps in aquiet wood in the late afternoon when the sun was going down, he had puthis hands on her shoulders. He had drawn the girl to him. He had kissedher.

  Clara jumped quickly out of the hammock and walked about under the treesin the orchard. Her thoughts of Jim Priest's youth startled her. It wasas though she had walked suddenly into a room where a man and woman weremaking love. Her cheeks burned and her hands trembled. As she walkedslowly through the clumps of grass and weeds that grew between the treeswhere the sunlight struggled through, bees coming home to the hivesheavily laden with honey flew in droves about her head. There wassomething heady and purposeful about the song of labor that arose out ofthe beehives. It got into her blood and her step quickened. The words ofJim Priest that kept running through her mind seemed a part of the samesong the bees were singing. "The sap has begun to run up the tree," sherepeated aloud. How significant and strange the words seemed! They werethe kind of words a lover might use in speaking to his beloved. She hadread many novels, but they contained no such words. It was better so.It was better to hear them from human lips. Again she thought of JimPriest's youth and boldly wished he were still young. She told herselfthat she would like to see him young and married to a beautiful youngwoman. She stopped by a fence that looked out upon a hillside meadow.The sun seemed extraordinarily bright, the grass in the meadow greenerthan she had ever seen it before. Two birds in a tree nearby made loveto each other. The female flew madly about and was pursued by the malebird. In his eagerness he was so intent that he flew directly before thegirl's face, his wing nearly touching her cheek. She went back throughthe orchard to the barns and through one of them to the open door ofa long shed that was used for housing wagons and buggies, her mindoccupied with the idea of finding Jim Priest, of standing perhaps nearhim. He was not about, but in the open space before the shed, John May,a young man of twenty-two who had just come to work on the farm, wasoiling the wheels of a wagon. His back was turned and as he handled theheavy wagon wheels the muscles could be seen playing beneath his thincotton shirt. "It is so Jim Priest must have looked in his youth," thegirl thought.

  The farm girl wanted to approach the young man, to speak to him, toask him questions concerning many strange things in life she did notunderstand. She knew that under no circumstances would she be able to dosuch a thing, that it was but a meaningless dream that had come intoher head, but the dream was sweet. She did not, however, want to talk toJohn May. At the moment she was in a girlish period of being disgustedat what she thought of as the vulgarity of the men who worked on theplace. At the table they ate noisily and greedily like hungry animals.She wanted youth that was like her own youth, crude and uncertainperhaps, but reaching eagerly out into the unknown. She wanted to drawvery near to something young, strong, gentle, insistent, beautiful. Whenthe farm hand looked up and saw her standing and looking intently athim, she was embarrassed. For a moment the two young animals, sounlike each other, stood staring at each other and then, to relieve herembarrassment, Clara began to play a game. Among the men employed on thefarm she had always passed for something of a tomboy. In the hayfieldsand in the barns she had wrestled and fought playfully with both the oldand the young men. To them she had always been a privileged person. Theyliked her and she was the boss's daughter. One did not get rough withher or say or do rough things. A basket of corn stood just within thedoor of the shed, and running to it Clara took an ear of the yellow cornand threw it at the farm hand. It struck a post of the barn just abovehis head. Laughing shrilly Clara ran into the shed among the wagons, andthe farm hand pursued her.

  John May was a very determined man. He was the son of a laborer inBidwell and for two or three years had been employed about the stable ofa doctor, something had happened between him and the doctor's wifeand he had left the place because he had a notion that the doctor wasbecoming suspicious. The experience had taught him the value of boldnessin dealing with women. Ever since he had come to work on the Butterworthfarm, he had been having thoughts regarding the girl who had now, heimagined, given him direct challenge. He was a little amazed by herboldness but did not stop to ask himself questions, she had openlyinvited him to pursue her. That was enough. His accustomed awkwardnessand clumsiness went away and he leaped lightly over the extended tonguesof wagons and buggies. He caught Clara in dark corner of the shed.Without a word he took her tightly into his arms and kissed her, firstupon the neck and then on the mouth. She lay trembling and weak in hisarms and he took hold of the collar of her dress and tore it open. Herbrown neck and one of her hard, round breasts were exposed. Clara's eyesgrew big with fright. Strength came back into her body. With her sharphard little fist she struck John May in the face; and when he steppedback she ran quickly out of the shed. John May did not understand. Hethought she had sought him out once and would return. "She's a littlegreen. I was too fast. I scared her. Next time I'll go a little easy,"he thought.

>   Clara ran through the barn and then walked slowly to the house and wentupstairs to her own room. A farm dog followed her up the stairs andstood at her door wagging his tail. She shut the door in his face. Forthe moment everything that lived and breathed seemed to her gross andugly. Her cheeks were pale and she pulled shut the blinds to the windowand sat down on the bed, overcome with the strange new fear of life. Shedid not want even the sunlight to come into her presence. John May hadfollowed her through the barn and now stood in the barnyard staring atthe house. She could see him through the cracks of the blinds and wishedit were possible to kill him with a gesture of her hand.

  The farm hand, full of male confidence, waited for her to come to thewindow and look down at him. He wondered if there were any one else inthe house. Perhaps she would beckon to him. Something of the kind hadhappened between him and the doctor's wife and it had turned out thatway. When after five or ten minutes he did not see her, he went back tothe work of oiling the wagon wheels. "It's going to be a slower thing.She's shy, a green girl," he told himself.

  One evening a week later Clara sat on the side porch of the house withher father when John May came into the barnyard. It was a Wednesdayevening and the farm hands were not in the habit of going into townuntil Saturday, but he was dressed in his Sunday clothes and had shavedand oiled his hair. On the occasion of a wedding or a funeral thelaborers put oil in their hair. It was indicative of something veryimportant about to happen. Clara looked at him, and in spite of thefeeling of repugnance that swept over her, her eyes glistened. Eversince the affair in the barn she had managed to avoid meeting him butshe was not afraid. He had in fact taught her something. There was apower within her with which she could conquer men. The touch of herfather's shrewdness, that was a part of her nature, had come to herrescue. She wanted to laugh at the silly pretensions of the man, tomake a fool of him. Her cheeks flushed with pride in her mastery of thesituation.

  John May walked almost to the house and then turned along the paththat led to the road. He made a gesture with his hand and by chance TomButterworth, who had been looking off across the open country towardBidwell, turned and saw both the movement and the leering confidentsmile on the farm hand's face. He arose and followed John May into theroad, astonishment and anger fighting for possession of him. The two menstood talking for three minutes in the road before the house and thenreturned. The farm hand went to the barn and then came back along thepath to the road carrying under his arm a grain bag containing his workclothes. He did not look up as he went past. The farmer returned to theporch.

  The misunderstanding that was to wreck the tender relationship that hadbegun to grow up between father and daughter began on that evening. TomButterworth was furious. He muttered and clinched his fists. Clara'sheart beat heavily. For some reason she felt guilty, as though she hadbeen caught in an intrigue with the man. For a long time her fatherremained silent and then he, like the farm hand, made a furious andbrutal attack on her. "Where have you been with that fellow? What youbeen up to?" he asked harshly.

  For a time Clara did not answer her father's question. She wanted toscream, to strike him in the face with her fist as she had struckthe man in the shed. Then her mind struggled to take hold of the newsituation. The fact that her father had accused her of seeking the thingthat had happened made her hate John May less heartily. She had some oneelse to hate.

  Clara did not think the matter out clearly on that first evening but,after denying that she had ever been anywhere with John May, burst intotears and ran into the house. In the darkness of her own room shebegan to think of her father's words. For some reason she could notunderstand, the attack made on her spirit seemed more terrible andunforgivable than the attack upon her body made by the farm hand inthe shed. She began to understand vaguely that the young man had beenconfused by her presence on that warm sunshiny afternoon as she had beenconfused by the words uttered by Jim Priest, by the song of the bees inthe orchard, by the love-making of the birds, and by her own uncertainthoughts. He had been confused and he was stupid and young. There hadbeen an excuse for his confusion. It was understandable and could bedealt with. She had now no doubt of her own ability to deal with JohnMay. As for her father--it was all right for him to be suspiciousregarding the farm hand, but why had he been suspicious of her?

  The perplexed girl sat down in the darkness on the edge of the bed,and a hard look came into her eyes. After a time her father came upthe stairs and knocked at her door. He did not come in but stood in thehallway outside and talked. She remained calm while the conversationlasted, and that confused the man who had expected to find her in tears.That she was not seemed to him an evidence of guilt.

  Tom Butterworth, in many ways a shrewd, observing man, never understoodthe quality of his own daughter. He was an intensely possessive man andonce, when he was newly married, there had been a suspicion in his mindthat there was something between his wife and a young man who had workedon the farm where he then lived. The suspicion was unfounded, but hedischarged the man and one evening, when his wife had gone into town todo some shopping and did not return at the accustomed time, he followed,and when he saw her on the street stepped into a store to avoid ameeting. She was in trouble. Her horse had become suddenly lame and shehad to walk home. Without letting her see him the husband followed alongthe road. It was dark and she heard the footsteps in the road behindher and becoming frightened ran the last half mile to her own house. Hewaited until she had entered and then followed her in, pretending he hadjust come from the barns. When he heard her story of the accident to thehorse and of her fright in the road he was ashamed; but as the horse,that had been left in a livery stable, seemed all right when he went forit the next day he became suspicious again.

  As he stood outside the door of his daughter's room, the farmer felt ashe had felt that evening long before when he followed his wife alongthe road. When on the porch downstairs he had looked up suddenly and hadseen the gesture made by the farm hand, he had also looked quickly athis daughter. She looked confused and, he thought, guilty. "Well, itis the same thing over again," he thought bitterly, "like mother, likedaughter--they are both of the same stripe." Getting quickly out of hischair he had followed the young man into the road and had dischargedhim. "Go, to-night. I don't want to see you on the place again," hesaid. In the darkness before the girl's room he thought of many bitterthings he wanted to say. He forgot she was a girl and talked to heras he might have talked to a mature, sophisticated, and guilty woman."Come," he said, "I want to know the truth. If you have been with thatfarm hand you are starting young. Has anything happened between you?"

  Clara walked to the door and confronted her father. The hatred of him,born in that hour and that never left her, gave her strength. She didnot know what he was talking about, but had a keen sense of the factthat he, like the stupid, young man in the shed, was trying to violatesomething very precious in her nature. "I don't know what you aretalking about," she said calmly, "but I know this. I am no longer achild. Within the last week I've become a woman. If you don't want me inyour house, if you don't like me any more, say so and I'll go away."

  The two people stood in the darkness and tried to look at each other.Clara was amazed by her own strength and by the words that had cometo her. The words had clarified something. She felt that if her fatherwould but take her into his arms or say some kindly understanding word,all could be forgotten. Life could be started over again. In the futureshe would understand much that she had not understood. She and herfather could draw close to each other. Tears came into her eyes and asob trembled in her throat. As her father, however, did not answer herwords and turned to go silently away, she shut the door with a loudbang and afterward lay awake all night, white and furious with anger anddisappointment.

  Clara left home to become a college student that fall, but before sheleft had another passage at arms with her father. In August a young manwho was to teach in the town schools came to Bidwell, and she met himat a supper given in the basement of the church.
He walked home with herand came on the following Sunday afternoon to call. She introduced theyoung man, a slender fellow with black hair, brown eyes, and a seriousface, to her father who answered by nodding his head and walking away.She and the young man walked along a country road and went into a wood.He was five years older than herself and had been to college, but shefelt much the older and wiser. The thing that happens to so many womenhad happened to her. She felt older and wiser than all the men she hadever seen. She had decided, as most women finally decide, that thereare two kinds of men in the world, those who are kindly, gentle,well-intentioned children, and those who, while they remain children,are obsessed with stupid, male vanity and imagine themselves born to bemasters of life. Clara's thoughts on the matter were not very clear.She was young and her thoughts were indefinite. She had, however, beenshocked into an acceptance of life and she was made of the kind of stuffthat survives the blows life gives.

  In the wood with the young school teacher, Clara began an experiment.Evening came on and it grew dark. She knew her father would be furiousthat she did not come home but she did not care. She led the schoolteacher to talk of love and the relationships of men and women. Shepretended an innocence that was not hers. School girls know many thingsthat they do not apply to themselves until something happens to themsuch as had happened to Clara. The farmer's daughter became conscious.She knew a thousand things she had not known a month before and began totake her revenge upon men for their betrayal of her. In the darkness asthey walked home together, she tempted the young man into kissing her,and later lay in his arms for two hours, entirely sure of herself,striving to find out, without risk to herself, the things she wanted toknow about life.

  That night she again quarreled with her father. He tried to scold herfor remaining out late with a man, and she shut the door in his face.On another evening she walked boldly out of the house with the schoolteacher. The two walked along a road to where a bridge went over a smallstream. John May, who was still determined that the farmer's daughterwas in love with him, had on that evening followed the school teacher tothe Butterworth house and had been waiting outside intending to frightenhis rival with his fists. On the bridge something happened that drovethe school teacher away. John May came up to the two people and beganto make threats. The bridge had just been repaired and a pile of small,sharp-edged stones lay close at hand. Clara picked one of them up andhanded it to the school teacher. "Hit him," she said. "Don't be afraid.He's only a coward. Hit him on the head with the stone."

  The three people stood in silence waiting for something to happen. JohnMay was disconcerted by Clara's words. He had thought she wanted him topursue her. He stepped toward the school teacher, who dropped the stonethat had been put into his hand and ran away. Clara went back along theroad toward her own house followed by the muttering farm hand who, afterher speech at the bridge, did not dare approach. "Maybe she was makinga bluff. Maybe she didn't want that young fellow to get on to what isbetween us," he muttered, as he stumbled along in the darkness.

  In the house Clara sat for a half hour at a table in the lighted livingroom beside her father, pretending to read a book. She half hoped hewould say something that would permit her to attack him. When nothinghappened she went upstairs and to bed, only again to spend the nightawake and white with anger at the thought of the cruel and unexplainablethings life seemed trying to do to her.

  In September Clara left the farm to attend the State University atColumbus. She was sent there because Tom Butterworth had a sister whowas married to a manufacturer of plows and lived at the State Capital.After the incident with the farm hand and the misunderstanding that hadsprung up between himself and his daughter, he was uncomfortable withher in the house and was glad to have her away. He did not want tofrighten his sister by telling of what had happened, and when he wrote,tried to be diplomatic. "Clara has been too much among the rough men whowork on my farms and had become a little rough," he wrote. "Take her inhand. I want her to become more of a lady. Get her acquainted with theright kind of people." In secret he hoped she would meet and marry someyoung man while she was away. Two of his sisters had gone away to schooland it had turned out that way.

  During the month before his daughter left home the farmer tried to besomewhat more human and gentle in his attitude toward her, but did notsucceed in dispelling the dislike of himself that had taken deep rootin her nature. At table he made jokes at which the farm hands laughedboisterously. Then he looked at his daughter who did not appear to havebeen listening. Clara ate quickly and hurried out of the room. She didnot go to visit her girl friends in town and the young school teachercame no more to see her. During the long summer afternoons she walkedin the orchard among the beehives or climbed over fences and went intoa wood, where she sat for hours on a fallen log staring at the trees andthe sky. Tom Butterworth also hurried out of his house. He pretended tobe busy and every day drove far and wide over the country. Sometimes hethought he had been brutal and crude in his treatment of his daughter,and decided he would speak to her regarding the matter and ask her toforgive him. Then his suspicion returned. He struck the horse withthe whip and drove furiously along the lonely roads. "Well, there'ssomething wrong," he muttered aloud. "Men don't just look at women andapproach them boldly, as that young fellow did with Clara. He didit before my very eyes. He's been given some encouragement." An oldsuspicion awoke in him. "There was something wrong with her mother, andthere's something wrong with her. I'll be glad when the time comes forher to marry and settle down, so I can get her off my hands," he thoughtbitterly.

  On the evening when Clara left the farm to go to the train that was totake her away, her father said he had a headache, a thing he had neverbeen known to complain of before, and told Jim Priest to drive her tothe station. Jim took the girl to the station, saw to the checking ofher baggage, and waited about until her train came in. Then he boldlykissed her on the cheek. "Good-by, little girl," he said gruffly. Clarawas so grateful she could not reply. On the train she spent an hourweeping softly. The rough gentleness of the old farm hand had done muchto take the growing bitterness out of her heart. She felt that she wasready to begin life anew, and wished she had not left the farm withoutcoming to a better understanding with her father.