Part 17

The separation was a dreary affliction to the lovers, but it proved the busiest year of Benjamin Casey’s life, signalized by his preparations for the home-coming of the bride to be. All the country-side took a share in the “house-raising,” and the stanch log cabin went up like magic on the rocky bit of land on the bluff, thus utilized to reserve for the plow the arable spaces of the little farm. Every article of the rude furniture common to the region was in its appropriate place when Editha first stood on her own threshold and gazed into the glowing fire aflare upon her own hearth; and humble though it was, she confronted the very genius of home.

The guests who danced at the wedding and afterward at the infare felt that the lifelong romance was a sort of community interest, and for many a year its details were familiarized by repetition about the fire-side or to the casual stranger. But Time is ever the mocker. The generation which had known the pair in the bloom and freshness of their beauty had in great part passed away. Their idyl of devotion and constancy gradually became farcical as the years imposed their blight. “Them old moth-eaten lovyers” was a phrase so apt in derisive description that it commended itself for general use to a community of later date and newer ideals. What a zest of jovial ridicule would the iconoclasts have enjoyed had it been known that it was only when one was sixty-five years of age and the other sixty-three that there had occurred their first experience of a lovers’ quarrel! For Benjie and Editha now were seriously regarded only by themselves.

A steady, sober man was Benjamin Casey, of a peculiarly sane and reliable judgment, but it occasioned an outburst of unhallowed mirth in the vicinity when it was bruited abroad that he had been chosen on the venire for the petit jury at the next term of the court.

“I’ll bet Editha goes, too,” exclaimed a gossip at the cross-roads store, delighted with the incongruity of the idea.

“Sure,” acceded his interlocutor. “Benjie can’t serve on no panel ’thout Editha sets on the jury, too.”

And, in fact, when the great day came for the journey to the county town, the rickety little wagon with the old white mare stood harnessed before the porch for an hour while Editha, in the toils of perplexity, decided on the details of her toilet for the momentous occasion, and Benjie bent the whole capacity of his substantial mind in the effort to aid her. The finishing touch to her costume of staid, brown homespun had a suggestion of sacrilege in the estimation of each.

“I’d lament it ef it war ter git sp’iled anyways, Benjie,” she concluded at length, “but I dunno ez I will ever hev a more especial occasion ter wear this big silk neckerchief what that painter-man sent me in a letter from Glaston--I reckon fer hevin’ let him mark up my mantel-shelf so scandalous. Jus’ the color of the sky it is, an’ ez big ez a shoulder-shawl, an’ thick an’ glossy in the weave fer true. See! I hev honed ter view how I would look in it, but I hev never made bold ter put it on. Still, considerin’ I ain’t been in Shaftesvul sence the year I spent thar forty-six years ago, I don’t want ter look tacky in nowise; an’, then, I’ll he interjuced ter all them gentlemen of the jury, too.”

Benjie solemnly averred himself of like opinion, and this important question thus settled, the afternoon brought them to Shaftesville, where they spent the night with relatives of Editha.

The criminal court-room of the old brick court-house was a revelation of a new and awesome phase of life to the old couple when the jury was impaneled early the next morning. Editha, decorous, though flushed and breathless with excitement, sat among the spectators, who were ranged on each side of the elevated and railed space inclosing the bar, and Benjie, conspicuous among the jury, exercised the high privilege, which most of his colleagues had sought to shirk, of aiding in the administration of his country’s laws.

Although the taking of testimony occupied only two or three hours during the morning, the rest of the jury obviously wearied at times and grew inattentive, but Benjie continued alert, fresh, intent on a true understanding of the case. More than once he held up his hand for permission to speak, after the etiquette acquired as a boy at the little district school, and when the judge accorded the boon of a question, the point was so well taken and cut so trenchantly into the perplexities involved, that both the arguments of the lawyers and the charge from the bench were inadvertently addressed chiefly to this single juryman, whose native capacity discounted the value of the better-trained minds of the rest of the panel.

When the jury were about to retire to consider their verdict, the unsophisticated pair were surprised to discover that Editha was not to be allowed to sit with Benjie in the jury-room and aid the deliberations of the panel. She had stood up expectantly in her place as the jury began to file out toward an inner apartment, and had known by intuition the import of Benjie’s remark to the constable in charge, happily _sotto voce_, or it might have fractured the decorum of the court-room beyond the possibility of repair. At the reply, Benjie paused for a moment, looking dumfounded; then catching her eye, he slowly shook his white head. The constable, young, pert, and brisk, hastily circled about his “good and lawful men” with much the style of a small and officious dog rounding up a few recalcitrant head of cattle. The door closed inexorably behind them, and the old couple were separated on the most significant instance in their quiet and eventless lives.

For a few minutes Editha stood at a loss; then her interest in the judicial proceedings having ceased with the retirement of Benjie from the court-room, she drifted softly through the halls and thence to the street. There had been many changes in Shaftesville since the twelvemonth she had spent there forty-six years before, and she presently developed the ardor of a discoverer in touring the town with this large liberty of leisure while her husband was engrossed in the public service.

[Illustration: Drawn by George Wright. Half-tone plate engraved by G. M. Lewis.

“SHE HAD STOOD UP EXPECTANTLY IN HER PLACE AS THE JURY BEGAN TO FILE OUT”]

As he sat constrained to the deliberations of the jury, Benjie was beset with certain doubts and fears as to the dangers that might betide her. Through the window beside him once he saw her passing on the opposite side of the square, still safe, wavering to and fro before the display of a dry-goods store, evidently amazed at the glories of the fripperies of the fashion on view at the door.

Benjie sprang to his feet, then, realizing the exigencies of the situation, sank back in his chair.

“Thar,” he said suddenly to his colleagues, waving his hand pridefully toward the distant figure--“thar is Mis’ Casey, my wife, by Christian name Editha.”

The jury, despite the untimeliness of the interruption, had the good grace and the good manners to acknowledge this introduction, so to speak, in the spirit in which it was tendered.

“Taking in the town, I suppose,” said the foreman, a well-known grocer of the place.

“Jes so, jes so,” said the beaming Casey. “I war determinated that Mis’ Casey should visit Shaftesvul an’, ef so minded, take in the town.”

Editha vanished within the store, and Benjie’s mind was free to revert to the matter in hand. It was not altogether a usual experience even for one more habituated to jury service. The deliberations started with some unanimity of opinion, the first three ballots showing eleven to one, Benjie holding out in a stanch minority that bade fair to prevent agreement, and enabling the foreman to perpetrate the time-honored joke in the demand for supper.

“Constable,” he roared, “order a meal of victuals for eleven men and a bale of hay for a mule.”

Later, however, Benjie was all a-tingle with pride when the foreman, with a knitted brow at a crisis of the discussion observed, “There is something worth considering in _one_ point of Mr. Casey’s contention.”

This impression grew until the jury called in the constable from his station at the door to convey their request for instruction upon a matter of law. Although long after nightfall, the court was still in session, owing to the crowded state of the docket, and when the jury were led into the court-room to receive from the bench an explanation of the point in question, Benjie was elated to find that the information they had sought aided and elucidated his position. The first ballot taken after returning to the jury-room resulted in ten of the jurors supporting his insistence against only two, and of these the foreman was one. They balloted once more just before they started to go to the hotel to bed, still guarded by the constable, who kept them, in a compact body, from any communication with the public. On this ballot only the foreman was in the opposition.

When they were standing in the hallway of the upper story of the hotel, and the officer was assigning them to their rooms and explaining to the foreman that he would be within call if anything was needed, Benjie, now in high spirits, was moved to exclaim, “Never fear, sonny; a muel is always ekal ter a good loud bray.”

All the jury applauded this turning of the tables, and laughed at the foreman, and one demanded of Benjie what he fed on “up in the sticks to get so all-fired sharp.”

The next morning, to the old mountaineer’s great satisfaction, the foreman, having slept on his perplexities, awoke to Benjie’s way of thinking, and when they were once more in the court-room he pridefully stated that they had reached an agreement and found the prisoner “Not guilty.” The crowd in the court-room cheered; in one moment the prisoner looked like another man, and genially shook hands with each of the jury; the judge thanked them before discharging them from further duty; and as Benjie pushed out of the court-room in the crowd all this was on the tip of his tongue to narrate for the eager wonderment and interest of Editha.

An immediate start for home was essential in order not to tax old Whitey too severely, for the clay roads were heavy as the result of a recent rainfall, and they must reach the mountain before sunset, in view of the steep and dangerous ascent. Therefore he sent word to Editha to meet him at a certain corner, while he repaired to the livery-stable for his vehicle; for he had happened to encounter her hostess, a kinswoman, on his way from the court-room, and had taken ceremonious leave of her on the street.

“I don’t want no more hand-shakin’ an’ farewells,” he said to himself, flustered and eager for the start, so delighted was he to be homeward-bound with Editha and fairly launched on the recital of his wondrous experiences while serving on the jury.

His lips were vaguely moving, now with a word, now with a pleased smile, formulating the sequences of his story, as he jogged along in his little wagon and suddenly caught sight of his wife awaiting him at the appointed corner.

At the first glance he remarked the change. It was Editha in semblance, but not the Editha he knew or had ever known.

“Editha!” he murmured faintly, all his being resolved into eyes, as he checked old Whitey and drew up close to the curb.

No meager old woman this, wont to hold herself a trifle stoop-shouldered, to walk with a slow, shuffling gait. Her thin figure was braced alertly, like some slender girl’s. She stepped briskly, lightly, from the high curb, and with two motions, as the soldiers say, she put her foot on the hub of the wheel and was seated beside him in the wagon. Then he saw her face, through the tunnel of her dark-blue sunbonnet, suffused with a pink bloom as delicate as a peach-blossom. Her eyes were as blue and as lustrous as the silk muffler, which the artist had doubtless selected with a realization of the accord of these fine tints. A curl of her silky, white hair lay on her forehead, and another much longer hung down beneath the curtain of her bonnet, scarcely more suggestive of age than if it had been discreetly powdered. Her lips were red, and there was a vibration of joyous excitement in her voice.

“Waal, sir, Shaftesvul!” she exclaimed, turning to survey the vanishing town, for it had required scarcely a moment to whisk them beyond its limited precincts. “It’s the beauty-spot of the whole world, sure. But,” she added as she settled herself straight on the seat and turned her face toward the ranges in the distance, “we must try ter put up with the mountings. One good thing is that we air used ter them, else hevin’ ter go back arter this trip would be powerful’ hard on us, sure. Benjie, who do ye reckon I met up with in Shaftesvul? Now, _who_?”

“I dunno,” faltered Benjie, all ajee and out of his reckoning. Luckily old Whitey knew the way home, for the reins lay slack on her back. “War it yer Cousin Lucindy Jane?” Benjie ventured.

“Cousin Lucindy Jane!” Editha echoed with a tone closely resembling contempt. “Of course I met up with Cousin Lucindy Jane, an’ war interjuced ter her cow an’ all her chickens. Cousin Lucindy Jane!” she repeated slightingly. Then essaying no further to foster his lame guesswork, “Benjie,” she laid her hand impressively on his arm, “I met up with Leroy Tresmon’!”

She gazed at him with wide, bright eyes, challenging his outbreak of surprise. But Benjie only dully fumbled with the name. “Leroy Tresmon’?” he repeated blankly. “Who’s him?”

“Hesh, Benjie!” cried Editha in a girlish gush of laughter. “Don’t ye let on ez I hev never mentioned Leroy Tresmon’s name ter you-’uns. Gracious me! Keep that secret in the sole of yer shoe. He’d never git over it ef he war ter find that out, vain an’ perky ez he be.”

“But--but when did ye git acquainted with him?”

“Why, that year ’way back yander when I lived with Aunt Dor’thy in Shaftesvul. My! my! my! why, ’Roy war ez reg’lar ez the town clock in comin’ ter see me. But, lawsy! it be forty-six year’ ago now. I never would hev dreampt of the critter remembering me arter all these years.” She bridled into a graceful erectness, and threw her beautiful eyes upward in ridicule of the idea as she went on: “I war viewin’ the show-windows of that big dry-goods store. They call it ‘the palace’”--Benjie remembered that he had seen her at that very moment--“an’ it war all so enticin’ ter the eye that I went inside to look closer at some of the pretties; an’ ez I teetered up an’ down the aisle I noticed arter awhile a man old ez you-’uns, Benjie, but mighty fine an’ fixed up an’ scornful an’ perky, an’ jes gazin’ an’ _gazin’_ at me. But I passed on heedless, an’ presently, ez I war about ter turn ter leave, a clerk stepped up ter me--I hed noticed out of the corner of my eye the boss-man whisper ter him--an’ this whipper-snapper he say, ‘Excuse me, Lady, but did you give yer name ter hev any goods sent up?’ An’ I say, ‘I hev bought no goods; I be a stranger jes viewin’ the town.’ Then ez I started toward the door this boss-man suddint kem out from behind his desk an’ appeared before me. ‘Surely,’ he said, smiling--he hed the whitest teeth, Benjie, an’ a-many of ’em, ez reg’lar ez grains of corn--”

Benjie instinctively closed his lips quickly over his own dental vacancies and ruins as Editha resumed her recital:

“‘Surely,’ he said, smiling, ‘thar never war two sech pairs of eyes--made out of heaven’s own blue. Ain’t this Editha Bruce?’

“An’ I determinated ter skeer him a leetle, fer he war majorin’ round powerful’ brash; so I said ez cool ez a cucumber, ‘Mis’ Benjamin Casey.’

“But, shucks! the critter knowed my voice ez well ez my eyes. He jes snatched both my hands, an’ ef he said ‘Editha! Editha! Editha!’ once, he said it a dozen times, like he would bu’st out crying an’ sheddin’ tears in two minutes. He don’t call my name like you do, Benjie, short-like, ‘’Ditha.’ He says it ‘_E_editha,’ drawn out, saaft, an’ sweet. Oh, lawsy! I plumb felt like a fool or a gal seventeen year’ old--same thing. Fer it hed jes kem ter me who _he_ war, but I purtended ter hev knowed him all along. The conceits of the town ways of Shaftesvul hev made me plumb tricky an’ deceitful; I tell ye now, Benjie.” She gave a jocose little nudge of her elbow into his thin, old ribs, and so strangely forlorn had Benjie begun to feel that he was grateful even for this equivocal attention.

“Then ‘Roy Tresmon’ say--Now, Benjie, I dunno whether ye will think _I_ done the perlite thing, fer I didn’t rightly know _what_ ter do myself--he say, ‘Editha, fer old sake’s sake choose su’thin’ fer a gift o’ remembrance outen my stock.’

“I never seen no cattle, so I s’posed he war talkin’ sorter townified about his goods in the store. But I jes laffed an’ say, ‘My husband is a man with a free hand, though not a very fat purse, an’ I prefer ter spen’ a few dollars with ye, ez I expected ter do when I drifted in hyar a stranger.’ Ye notice them lies, Benjie. I reckon I kin explain them somehow at the las’ day, but they served my turn ez faithful ez the truth yestiddy. I say, ‘Ye kin take one penny out of the change an’ put a hole through it fer remembrance, an’ let old sake’s sake go at that.’” Once more her caroling, girlish laughter echoed along the lonely road.

“Though I really hedn’t expected ter spen’ a cent, I bought me some thread an’ buttons, an’ some checked gingham fer aperns, an’ a leetle woolen shoulder-shawl, an’ paid fer them, meanin’ of course ter tote ’em along with me under my arm; but ’Roy gin the clerk a look, an’ that spry limber-jack whisked them all away, an’ remarked, ‘The goods will be sent up immejetly ter Mrs. Jarney’s, whar ye say ye be stoppin’.’ An’, Benjie, whenst Cousin Sophy Jarney an’ me opened that parcel las’ night, what d’ ye s’pose we f’und?” She gave Benjie a clutch on the wrist of the hand that held the reins; and feeling them tighten, old Whitey mended her pace.

“Ye oughter been more keerful than ter hev lef’ the things at the store arter payin’ cash money fer ’em,” rejoined Benjie, sagely, not that he was suspicious of temperament, but unsophisticated of training.

“Shucks!” cried Editha, with a rallying laugh. “All them common things that I bought war thar, an’ more besides, wuth trible the money, Benjie. A fancy comb fer the hair--looks some similar ter a crown, though jet-black an’ shiny--an’ a necklace o’ beads ter match. O Benjie!” she gave his hand an ecstatic pressure. “I’ll show ’em ter ye when we gits home--every one. They air in my kyarpet-bag thar in the back of the wagon. An’ thar war besides a leetle lace cape with leetle black jet beads winkin’ at ye all over it, an’ a pair o’ silk gloves, not like mittens, but with separate fingers. Cousin Sophy Jarney she jes squealed. She say, ‘I wish I hed a beau like that!’ Ned Jarney, standin’ by, watchin’ me open the parcel, he say, ‘Ladies hev ter be ez beautisome ez Cousin Editha ter hev beaus at command at her time of life.’ Oh, my! Oh, my! Cousin Sophy she say, ‘Cousin Editha is yit, ez she always war, a tremenjious flirt. I think I’ll try ter practise a leetle bit ter git my hand in, ef ever _I_ should hev occasion ter try.’ Oh, my! I’ll never furgit this visit ter Shaftesvul, the beauty-spot of the nation.”

Editha’s admired eyes, alight with all the fervors of retrospection, were fixed unseeing upon the majestic range of mountains, now turning from blue to amethyst with a cast of the westering sun. The fences had failed along the roadside, and for miles it had run between shadowy stretches of forest that, save for now and again a break of fields or pasture-lands, cut off the alluring view. A lovely stream had given the wayfarers its company, flowing beside the highway, clear as crystal, and when once more it expanded into shallows the road ran down to the margin to essay a ford. Here, as old Whitey paused to drink from the lustrous depths, the reflection of the deep-green, overhanging boughs, the beetling, gray rocks, and the blue sky painted a picture on the surface too refreshingly vivid and sweet for the senses to discriminate at once all its keen sources of joy.

[Illustration: Drawn by George Wright. Half-tone plate engraved by R. Varley.

“‘AN’ WILL YE TELL ME WHAT’S THE REASON I COULDN’T HEV HED RICHES--OLD TOM FOOL!’“]

Old Whitey had seemed to drink her fill, but as Benjie was about to gather up the reins anew she bowed her pendulous lips once more to the shining surface.

“Fust off,” resumed Mrs. Casey, with a touch of gravity, “I felt plumb mortified about them presents. I knowed all that stuff had cost ’Roy an onpleasing price of money. But, then, I reminded myself I hed no accountability. He done it of his own accord, an’ he could well afford it. I remembered when I war fust acquainted with ’Roy, when I war jes a young gal an’ he nuthin’ but a peart cockerel, he hed _then_ the name of bein’ one of the richest men in Shaftesvul. His dad bein’ dead, ’Roy owned what he hed his own self. An’ jedgin’ by his ‘stock,’ ez he called it, an’ his ‘palace,’ he must hev been makin’ money hand over hand ever sence. So I made up my mind ter enjoy the treat whenst he invited me an’ Sophy an’ her husband, Ned Jarney, ter go ter the pictur’-show last night an’ eat supper arterward. An’, Benjie, I never seen sech fine men-folks’s clothes ez ’Roy Tresmon’ stepped out in. He hed on a b’iled shirt stiff ez a board; he mought hev leaned up ag’in’ it ef he felt tired. His white collar war ekally stiff, an’ ez high ez a staked-an’-ridered fence. Whenst he looked over it he ’peared some similar ter a jumpin’ muel in a high paddock. He hed leetle, tiny, shiny buttons in his shirt-front,--Sophy said they war pure gold,--an’ his weskit war cut down jes so--lem me show ye how.”

She had turned to take hold of Benjie’s humble jeans clothing to illustrate the fashion of the garb of the merchant prince of Shaftesville when her hand faltered on the lapel of his coat. “Why, Benjie,” she cried sharply, “what makes ye look so plumb pale an’ peaked? Air ye ailin’ anyways?”

“Naw, naw.” Benjie testily repudiated the suggestion. “Tell on yer tale.” Then by way of excuse or explanation he added, “I ain’t sick, but settin’ on a jury is a wearin’ business.”