Belford's Magazine, Volume II, No. 8, January, 1889

“I’ll pray for him this very night,” thought Mell, and moistened the thought with a grateful tear.

But, long before the edibles were consumed, every vestige of a tear had disappeared from Mell’s eyes, and she was talking back to this pattern of a gentleman, as few girls of her age knew so well how to do. The blood rushed back to her pallid cheeks, witchery to her tongue, magic to her glance.

“Don’t be offended,” she remarked to him, with enchanting candor, after they had become the best of friends; “but I did not hear your name this morning, and I have not the slightest idea who you are.”

“Have you the slightest desire to know?”

“Indeed I have! You can’t imagine – the very greatest desire!”

“Then let me refresh your memory somewhat. Do you recall a pug-nosed, freckle-faced, bull-headed youngster, who used to pommel Jim Green into blue jelly, every time he wanted to lift you over the swollen creek or carry your school-bag, or – ”

“I do; I remember him well. But you – you are not Rube Rutland?”

“Then I wish you’d tell me who I am! I’ve been thinking I was Rube Rutland for a good many years now – for I am older than I look.”

“And to think I did not know you!” exclaimed Mell.

“And to think I did not know you!” exclaimed Rube. “That’s what gets me! I was asking everybody and in all directions who that stunning girl was, with – ”

“Well,” inquired Mell, laughing, “with what? I’d like to know what is stunning about me.”

“With the sweetest face I ever looked into.”

This reply caused Mell’s eyes, intently fixed upon the speaker, to drop with rare grace to meet the maiden’s blush upon her cheek. A perfectly natural action, it was for that reason and others, a very effective one.

“When I found out who you were,” pursued Rube, studying the face he had praised, seeing it glorified by his praises, “I fairly froze to Miss Josey, wanting so much to renew our acquaintance, and when you had no word of welcome for an old friend, and gave me the cold shoulder with such a vengeance, I was cut all to pieces over it. Fact! I couldn’t enjoy fishing, and I feel bad yet!”

“You might have known I did not recognize you,” said Mell, lifting her eyes. “I cannot tell you how glad I am, Mr. Rutland.”

“Mr. Rutland! It used to Rube.”

“And shall be Rube again, if you so desire! Rube, I am just delighted that you’ve come back home!”

CHAPTER IVEVEN

So far, she had dallied innocently enough with her old playfellow; neither seeking to please nor deceive, spreading no nets of enchantment, nicely baited, to entrap the fancy of this agreeable young man (rich too), who was as frank in nature and as transparent in purpose, as physically muscular and daring.

At three o’clock, Miss Josey came to sound the horn for the races, and the crowd came surging back. Old and young, big and little, the cream of the county and its yeomanry, a congregation of the mass, a segregation of the cliques, mounting high into the hundreds. The order of the Grange was then at the zenith of its fame and power.

The crowd, as we have said, came surging back. The best of the fun was yet to come. Mell roused herself and looked about her. Here were other girls with sweet faces, and many of them, as she was aware, possessed of those heavier charms of worldly substance which oftentimes outweigh the sweetest of faces. None of them must lure him from her. He should stick to her, now, come what would. The careless beauty, the ingenuous and undesigning woman, is immediately transformed into a greedy monopolist, a wily fox, a cunning serpent, a contriving, intriguing, manœuvring strategist, bent upon mischief, who will play a deep game and stoop to the tricks of the trade, and shift, and dodge, and shuffle, and aim to bring down, by fair means or foul, the noble quarry.

Eye, lip, tongue, mind, heart, soul, the graces of youth, the allurements of beauty, the treasures of a cultivated mind, and all those sweet mysteries of sense which float in the atmosphere between a young man and the maiden of his fancy, were put in motion to bear upon Rube’s case.

He did not move; no wonder; gorged on sweets, Rube had neither power nor inclination to be gone.

After a little, a group of young men stationed themselves at a given point, not far from where this couple sat. They had been into an adjacent farm-house and changed their clothes, and now appeared in knee pants, red stockings, and white jackets, a striking and interesting accessory to an already animated and glowing landscape. In this group of picturesque figures Jerome was conspicuous. Jerome looked well in anything, and generally well to everybody.

Not so, to-day.

To one pair of eyes, not distant, he now loomed up blacker in broad daylight than the blackest Mephistopheles in a howling Walpurgis night.

He saw Rube beside her, and she noted his start of surprise.

“Have a care!” cogitated Mell. “There may be surprises in store for you – greater than this and not so easily brooked.”

She turned her back upon him and gave her whole attention again to Rube. The first duty of a woman is to respect herself, the second duty of a woman is to enforce the respect of others. Some of these days Jerome Devonhough would be only too glad if she would deign to permit him to speak to her.

“Aren’t you going to take part?” she asked her companion.

“No; I’m not in trim, and it’s no use trying to beat Devonhough.”

“You could beat him,” said she. She spoke with confidence and seductively.

“You are awfully complimentary, I declare! Do you wish me to run, Melville?”

“I do. Yes, Rube, I wish it particularly. Why should this stranger carry off the palm over our own boys?”

“For the best of reasons. He deserves to carry it off. Devonhough can out-run, out-leap, out-ride, out-do anything in the county.”

“Except you,” again insinuated Mell.

“Say! what makes you believe so strong in me?”

“Nothing makes me, but – I cannot help it!”

At this point, dear reader, if you are a man, and happily neither blind, nor deaf, nor over eighty years of age, take Rube’s seat for a moment, at Mell’s feet. Let her tell you in the sweetest tones, that she cannot help believing in you strong – let her bend upon you a glance sweeter than the tones, stronger than the words, and then say, honestly, don’t you feel, as Rube did at this juncture, mighty queer?

Under the spell, her victim stirred – he lifted himself slowly toward her, inquiring in a low voice, but with intense energy:

“Melville, are you fooling me?”

“Fooling you!” she ejaculated, in soft reproach. “Would I fool you, Rube? Is that your opinion of me? You think, then – but tell me, Rube, why do you think so? – that those early days are less dear to me than to you – their memory less sweet?”

“I have thought so,” murmured he in great agitation, “because I have not dared to think otherwise —until now.”

And into his great soul there entered, then and there, the ineffable beatitude of the true believer.

Oh, wicked, wicked Mell! One little hour ago, and you had forgotten his very existence! Is the Recording Angel, who stands above your head up there, off duty, that you should dare to do it? Or, will it help your case in the day of reckoning, that deception foul as this, has been raised by clever women into the dignity of a fine art, and goes on among them all the while, as inexpugnable as an Act of Congress?

“Melville, I will run this race – run it to please you.”

“I knew you would! And believe me, Rube, nothing could please me more.”

“Suppose I should win,” said Rube, “what then?”

“You will be the hero of the day, and – ” Mell halted very prettily, but finally brought it out in sweet confusion, “and maybe I would wear a crown.”

“By my troth, you shall! But what of me? I take no stock in crowns like that. If I should win, Mell, may I name my own reward?”

“You may.”

“It will be a big one.”

“The man who runs and wins generally gets a big one.”

“But understand my meaning, Mell, understand it perfectly. I do not want the shadow of a doubt to rest upon this matter. Who shall decide when lovers disagree?”

He had been toying with a twig broken from a flowering bay; it was stripped of foliage, save a few green leaves at the end, and with this he lightly touched the dimpled hand reposing upon her lap.

“That is what I would ask. Will you give it to me, Mell, if I win the race?”

Mell trembled violently, but she said “yes.”

That was natural enough. When a woman says yes, it is time to tremble. Even Rube knew that.

“You mean it? It is a solemn promise! One of those promises you always keep!”

Again Mell trembled violently – worse than before, and again said “yes.”

That barely audible yes, had scarcely died upon her white lips when Rube sprang to his feet, and casting off his fawn colored flannel jacket and light waist-coat, tossed them in a careless heap upon the ground at her feet. Divested of those outer garments, the symmetrical curves of his young manhood, and the irregular curves of his honest face showed up to great advantage in white linen and a necktie – the latter a very chic article of its kind, consisting of blazoned monstrosities of art, in bright vermillion on a background of white – blood on snow.

“You must excuse my shirt-sleeves,” said Rube, during the process of disrobing. “I have no costume, so must do the best I can under the circumstances.”

He next made off with his suspenders, and began tugging at his shirt in an alarming fashion.

“What are you going to do?” interrogated Mell, with a horrified expression. “You are not going to – ”

“No,” said Rube, laughing, and coloring too. “I’m not going to take it off. I’m only going to – ” tugging all the while – “make myself into a sailor boy, or flowing Turk, or a loose Brave, or a something or other, to keep pace with those brocaded Templars, Hospitallers, and Knights of the Golden Fleece over there. Come, now, can’t you fix a fellow up?”

“Fix a fellow up?” echoed Mell, helplessly. She never had ‘fixed a fellow up,’ and she knew less about it than the sacred writings of Zoroaster.

“Yes,” said Rube. “Give me those ribbons you’ve got on – fix me up, put your colors on me, don’t you see?”

Mell did see at last, and greatly relieved, proceeded to do his bidding. The sash from her own supple waist was deftly transferred to his, and a knot of ribbons at her throat, after many trials, was finally disposed of to their mutual liking.

“Now, don’t I look as well as any of ’em?” inquired the improvised knight, quite carried away with the fixing-up process.

“As well, and better,” she assured him.

“Well, then,” he held out his hand to her, “let us seal the compact. If I win, Melville – ”

“Yes,” said Mell, hurriedly.

“But if I fail.”

“You cannot fail, not if you love me!” She spoke impatiently, and with flashing eyes. “A one-legged man could not, if he loved me! Love finds a way, and love which cannot find a way is not love.”

“Enough,” said Rube, below his breath. “You will know whether I love you or not.”

Their hands were still clasped together in bond, until, perceiving they had become a subject of curiosity to those about them, Rube at length allowed Mell to withdraw hers, whereupon he turned off with a light laugh; that proficuous little laugh, which amid life’s thick-coming anxieties, great and small, serves so many turns, and turns so many ways, and covers up within us so much that is no laughing matter.

Rube laughed and mingled with the crowd.

“Come out of that!” shouted an urchin. It was the signal for a regular broadside of raillery and chaff from the pestiferous small boy, a many-tongued volume out of print, and circulating in open space at the rate of a thousand editions to the minute.

Nothing abashed, amid groans and jeers, and gibes, and hoots, Rube took his place with the others, the only make-shift knight among them.

“For pity’s sake, look at Rube,” exclaimed Miss Rutland, “actually in his shirt sleeves? Rube, don’t! You are not in costume, and you spoil the artistic effect.”

“Look sharp,” came Rube’s laughing reply, “or I’ll spoil the artistic result, also.”

“Don’t get excited over the prospect,” commented Jerome, nodding his head reassuringly at Miss Rutland, “there’s not the remotest cause for alarm.”

Miss Rutland sat on a tub turned bottom side up, which had served its purposes in lemonade. Jerome took his ease on a wagon-body, also turned bottom side up, which had served its purposes as a table. Such are the phases of a picnic – and one picnic has more phases than all of Jupiter’s moons.

“The tortoise,” pursued Jerome, now turning his attention more particularly to Rube, “is a remarkable animal, but like thee, oh friend of my soul, ‘thou drone, thou snail, thou slug,’ not much on a run. How much is it I can beat thee, Rube, every time and without trying – three lengths?”

“Just you keep quiet,” retorted Rube. “The man so sure, let him look to himself; the man who blows, let him beware! In all our trials at speed there never was before anything to win, and I’m a fellow who can’t run to beat where there’s nothing to win.”

“A tremendous issue is involved on the present occasion,” announced Jerome in withering scorn. “A lot of paper flowers strung on a piece of wire to stick on a girl’s head, and when it’s all over and done, I don’t know who feels most idiotic or repentant, the girl who wears ’em or the fellow who won ’em. I’ve been there! I know. I hope a more enduring crown than this perishable travesty will fall to my lot!”

“So do I!” prayed Rube aloud, and with devoutness.

“Oh, Rutland, Rutland!” exclaimed his friend, going off into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. “There isn’t anything in this wide world half so deliciously transparent as your intentions, unless – unless,” subjoined Jerome, as soon as he could again command his voice, “unless it be Miss Josey’s juvenility.”

“Hush laughing,” said Rube, drawing near and speaking low. “See here, Devonhough, you don’t care the snap of your finger about this affair; you’ve said as much; so hold back, dear old fellow, won’t you? Give me a chance!”

“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Jerome, again going off. “‘Dear old fellow.’ That’s rich! Very dear old fellow, never so dear before!”

“Oh, go along with you,” responded Rube crossly. “Go to the devil until you can stop laughing!”

He was about to turn off in high dudgeon, when Jerome with an effort pulled himself together and soberly considered the subject. “Hold on, then! I’d like to oblige you Rutland, of course I would, but there’s Clara! She expects me to – ”

“Hang Clara!” said Rube, with the natural unfraternalness of a brother.

“That’s what I propose to do,” answered Jerome. “Hang her with a wreath!”

“Don’t!” again pleaded Rube. “Not this time. If you just won’t, I’ll – ”

“Rub-a-dub-dub!” beat the drum.

“Into place!” shouted a stentorian voice.

“Ready?”

“One – two – Boom!”

They were off in fine style, Jerome quickly showing the lead, and Rube gaining gradually upon him towards the middle of the course. To one spectator it was more interesting than the sword-dance, more exciting than a steeple-chase. But the eager spectators at the starting place could see very little beyond a certain point, owing to the crowd of boys and men which lined the sides of the track and closed up as the runners passed. They could hear vociferous yelling and screaming, sometimes the outcry, “Devonhough ahead!” and then, again, “Hurrah for Rutland!” and, at the last, a tremendous whooping and cheering and clapping of hands, in which no name was at first distinguishable. Then, amid the unbounded enthusiasm of the multitude, the victor was lifted above the heads of the crowd and brought back in triumph.

Mell had scarcely moved from the spot where Rube left her. She had had some time for reflection, and had profited by it, to such an extent, that she now felt quite miserable. That was the way with Mell, and continues to be the way with Mell’s kind. They make a practice of hitching together the cart of Unthought and the sure-footed beast Think-twice; the cart in front, the horse in the rear; and if, under such circumstances the poor brute, nine times out of ten, lands his living freight into very hot water, too hot for their tender feelings, who is to blame for it?

Some very strange thoughts coursed through the girl’s mind. Now, suppose it was Rube seated up there on the heads of an idolizing populace, and it became incumbent upon her to fulfill that promise so rashly and foolishly given, could she do it? No! No! She would rather live a thousand years and scratch an old maid’s head every hour in all those years, than marry Rube Rutland!

It made her sick to think about it; every nerve in her body recoiled; every good instinct within her lifted up a dissentient voice.

“Can’t you see who it is?” She inquired hoarsely of her nearest neighbor, a much be-banged girl, who peered above the crowd from the top of a dry-goods box, with the cute expression of a fluffy-faced puppy, “Can’t you see?”

“Not distinctly yet, but I think it is that young stranger, Rube Rutland’s friend; I’m pretty sure it is.”

“Thank God!” muttered Mell. She was ambitious, but she was not yet the hardened thing that ambition makes.

“My goodness!” suddenly exclaimed the girl on the box. “It isn’t that strange young man! It is Rube Rutland! I can see him distinctly now. Oh, how glad I am! It is Rube Rutland, boys.” “Rutland forever!” shouted back the boys.

In all that big crowd there was but one heart not glad. Rube was in the house of his friends, the other a stranger. County pride, State pride, local prejudice, all sided with Rube. Jerome was an alien. He had come there to beat “our boys,” and one of our boys had beaten him. Huzza! Huzza! Shout the victory!

They did shout it with a noise whose loudness was enough to bring down the roof of heaven. Never had there been such a victory at a Grange picnic before.

Deafened by the noise Mell slunk back into the wood. All color forsook her face once more. She had played for high stakes, this ambitious girl; she had won her game, and in the winning cursed her own folly and realized with a pang of unspeakable bitterness, that a victory for which one pays too dear a price is the worst kind of defeat.

Released from the well-meant persecutions of his many admirers, Rube asked for his coat and things, and a fan, and was next subjected to a statement from the master of ceremonies.

“With this wreath,” explained that individual, “you may crown the lady of your choice, crown her queen of Love and Beauty, and it will be her prerogative to award the other prizes won on this occasion. Who is the fortunate lady?”

Every woman in hearing distance held her breath, every man opened wide his ears.

“Miss Mellville Creecy.”

“Whom did he say?” queried Miss Josey, tremendously excited and not quite certain she had heard aright. Miss Josey was nibbling at a peach; she nibbled no more. Though blessed with an excellent appetite, Miss Josey in her hungriest moment was more eager to hear something new than eat something nice.

“Did you say Mell, Rube?”

“I did,” said Rube.

It struck the crowd speechless. What? Rube Rutland, the son of an ex-Governor, an ex-Judge, an ex-Senator, dead now, but dead with all his titles on him; Rube Rutland, the greatest catch in the State, going to crown Mellville Creecy, daughter of that old ignoramus who made “fritters” of the King’s English, and dug potatoes, and hoed corn, and ploughed in the fields with his own hands? The thing was preposterous! It was a thing, too, to be resented by his friends and equals.

Miss Rutland drew her brother aside.

“Rube, you cannot mean it! You surely have some sense! A little, if not much! You can’t crown that obscure girl with the cream of the county, your own personal friends, all around you.”

“Can’t I?” said Rube. “I can and will! The cream of the county may go to – anywhere.” Rube closed up blandly: “I will not limit them in their choice of locations. That would be not only ungenerous but ungentlemanly.”

“Rube,” persisted Miss Rutland, “do listen to reason. What will mother say? What will everybody say?”

“Say what they darned please!”

Rube was first of all a freeborn American – secondly, an aristocrat.

“What’s the use of being somebody if you’ve got to knuckle down to what people say?”

“But you are not obliged to crown anybody,” insinuated Clara. “Rather than crown this low-born girl, make some one your proxy. Jerome would – ”

“Oh, I have no doubt, with pleasure! You are a deep one, Clara, but you’ll wear no crown this day. Might as well give it up.”

So she perceived, and turned off in a rage, first informing him that he always had been, and always would be an unconscionable ass.

“You have fully decided, then?” questioned the master of ceremonies. “I have,” Rube told him, beginning to get put out. Pretty Mell might well have been a scare-crow, such consternation had she created amongst them all. “I decided some time ago. Will it be necessary for me to mount a tree-top and blow a clarion blast before I can make you all understand that I am going to crown Mellville Creecy, and nobody else?”

“Certainly not, certainly not,” hastily replied the master of ceremonies. He too was disappointed; he had a sister. Was there ever a man in power who didn’t have a sister? – who didn’t have a good many, all wanting crowns?

“Will you make a speech?”

“Nary speech,” declared Rube, laughing. “I’m not so swift in my tongue as my legs! See here, Cap’n, there’s no occasion for an unnecessary amount of tomfoolery about this thing. Some gentleman bring Miss Creecy forward. I’ll put this gewgaw on her in a jiffy, and that’ll be the end of it!”

Rube smiled softly to himself. That was very far from being the end of it.

“Mell! Mell!” screamed Miss Josie, running up to her protegé, the bearer of astonishing news, “you don’t know what’s going to happen! You’d never guess it! Rube is going to crown you, my pretty darling! You are to be queen of Love and Beauty.”

“But, I’d rather not,” said Mell, drawing back.

“Rather not?” screamed Miss Josey. “Did anybody ever before hear of a woman who would rather not be a queen – a queen in the hearts of men?”

“I don’t see how you can help it,” continued Miss Josey. Mell did not, either, alas! “But I don’t wonder you feel a little frightened about it. It is such a wonderful thing for Rube to do: but Rube has two eyes in his head, Rube has, and knows the prettiest girl in the county when he sees her! This thing is going to be the making of you, Mell (rather say the undoing, Miss Josey) so don’t be so frightened, but hold your head high, and bear your honors bravely, and remember all eyes are upon you. The rest of the girls are fairly dying with envy, don’t forget that!”

This last remark brought Mell to her senses. Not one of them but would gladly stand where she stood – gladly put themselves in her shoes if they could. Rube was not a mate, as mating goes, to be met with every day in the year. The sugared point of this timely suggestion served Miss Josey’s purpose effectually. It stilled the wild throbbing in the girl’s heart, brought the blood back to her face, and turned the purple of such wondrous hue in her eyes, to the softest black; with intensity of gratification, Jerome himself was forgotten for the nonce.

Miss Josey, still in a flutter of delight, now proceeded to put on her sash, to replace the knot of ribbons at her throat, to pass her hands assuagingly across Mell’s wilderness of frolicsome hair, and to put an extra touch or two to her simple toilette generally; whispering words of stimulation and encouragement all the while.

Thoroughly put to rights, Miss Josey placed the girl’s hand into that of a very grand personage – the president of the Grange, in fact – who led her gallantly to the spot selected for the coronation ceremonies. There stood the hero of the day. He advanced a step or two as she drew near, he bowed low, and then in a distinct voice with a somewhat heightened color, but in his usual simple, straightforward manner, said: “Miss Creecy, I beg you will do me the honor to accept this trophy of my victory.”

Miss Creecy silently bowed her head; he placed the wreath upon it, and lo! what has become of our rustic maiden? She is a Queen!