Sandy written by Alice Hegan Rice

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"And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't
ever speak to a girl like that!"

Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the
circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day.

"It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open
early in the morning."

Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions.
His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember
whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by
the road.

"Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'."

"What you goin' to do?"

"I'm goin' to school."

If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and
being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more
astonished.

"What?" he asked in genuine doubt.

"'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately.
"This ain't the way you get to be the right sort."

Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along
of me or not?"

"I can't," said Sandy, weakly.

Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward
look he left his business partner of three months lying by the
roadside, and tramped away in the darkness.

Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no
strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there
was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about
microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he
couldn't ever speak to a girl like that.

After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have
gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black
witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass
for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He
found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in
terror.

"Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly
voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him,
her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders.

"Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously.

Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and
microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was
talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought.

"Where'd you come from, boy?"

"Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy.

"'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast.
"I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt
Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's
right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't
fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls
it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of
puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old
cunjers outen you."

Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up
a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny
log cabin, where he dropped exhausted.

Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room,
and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer
and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the
real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to
the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on
the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall
with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in
his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed
into a soothing murmur:

"Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She
gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll
git dem old cunjers out."

CHAPTER VI

HOLLIS FARM

Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the
enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north,
but growing indolent with age, had decided instead to go around.

Main street, broad and shady under an unbroken arch of maple boughs,
was flanked on each side by "Back street," the generic term applied to
all the parallel streets. The short cross-streets were designated by
the most direct method: "the street by the Baptist church," "the
street by Dr. Fenton's," "the street going out to Judge Hollis's," or
"the street where Mr. Moseley used to live." In the heart of the town
was the square, with the gray, weather-beaten court-house, the new and
formidable jail, the post-office and church.

For twenty years Dr. Fenton's old high-seated buggy had jogged over
the same daily course. It started at nine o'clock and passed with
never-varying regularity up one street and down another. When any one
was ill a sentinel was placed at the gate to hail the doctor, who was
as sure to pass as the passenger-train. It was a familiar joke in
Clayton that the buggy had a regular track, and that the wheels always
ran in the same rut. Once, when Carter Nelson had taken too much
egg-nog and his aunt thought he had spinal meningitis, the usual route
had been reversed, and again when the blacksmith's triplets were born.
But these were especial occasions. It was a matter for investigation
when the doctor's buggy went over the bridge before noon.

"Anybody sick out this way?" asked the miller.

The doctor stopped the buggy to explain.

He was a short, fat man dressed in a suit of Confederate gray. The
hand that held the reins was minus two fingers, his willing
contribution to the Lost Cause, which was still to him the great
catastrophe of all history. His whole personality was a bristling
arsenal of prejudices. When he spoke it was in quick, short volleys,
in a voice that seemed to come from the depths of a megaphone.

"Strange boy sick at Judge Hollis's. How's trade?"

"Fair to middlin'," answered the miller. "Do you reckon that there boy
has got anything ketchin'?"

"Catching?" repeated the doctor savagely. "What if he has?" he
demanded. "Two epidemics of typhoid, two of yellow fever, and one of
smallpox--that's my record, sir!"

"Looks like my children will ketch a fly-bite," said the miller,
apologetically.

A little farther on the doctor was stopped again--this time by a
maiden in a pink-and-white gingham, with a mass of light curls
bobbing about her face.

"Dad!" she called as she scrambled over the fence. "Where you g-going,
dad?"

The doctor flapped the lines nervously and tried to escape, but she
pursued him madly. Catching up with the buggy, she pulled herself up
on the springs and thrust an impudent, laughing face through the
window at the back.

"Annette," scolded her father, "aren't you ashamed? Fourteen years
old, and a tomboy! Get down!"

"Where you g-going, dad?" she stammered, unabashed.

"To Judge Hollis's. Get down this minute!"

"What for?"

"Somebody's sick. Get down, I say!"

Instead of getting down, she got in, coming straight through the small
window, and arriving in a tangle of pink and white at his side.

The doctor heaved a prodigious sigh. As a colonel of the Confederacy
he had exacted strict discipline and unquestioning obedience, but he
now found himself ignominiously reduced to the ranks, and another
Fenton in command.

At Hollis Farm the judge met them at the gate. He was large and
loose-jointed, with the frame of a Titan and the smile of a child. He
wore a long, loose dressing-gown and a pair of slippers elaborately
embroidered in green roses. His big, irregular features were softened
by an expression of indulgent interest toward the world at large.

"Good morning, doctor. Howdy, Nettie. How are you all this morning?"

"Who's sick?" growled the doctor as he hitched his horse to the fence.

"It's a stray lad, doctor; my old cook, Melvy, played the good
Samaritan and picked him up off the road last night. She brought him
to me this morning. He's out of his head with a fever."

"Where'd he come from?" asked the doctor.

"Mrs. Hollis says he was peddling goods up at Main street and the
bridge last night."

"Which one is he?" demanded Annette, eagerly, as she emerged from the
buggy. "Is he g-good-looking, with blue eyes and light hair? Or is he
b-black and ugly and sort of cross-eyed?"

The judge peered over his glasses quizzically. "Thinking about the
boys, as usual! Now I want to know what business you have noticing the
color of a peddler's eyes?"

Annette blushed, but she stood her ground. "All the g-girls noticed
him. He wasn't an ordinary peddler. He was just as smart and f-funny
as could be."

"Well, he isn't smart and funny now," said the judge, with a grim
laugh.

The two men passed up the long avenue and into the house. At the door
they were met by Mrs. Hollis, whose small angular person breathed
protest. Her black hair was arranged in symmetrical bands which were
drawn tightly back from a straight part. When she talked, a
gold-capped tooth was disclosed on each side of her mouth, giving rise
to the judge's joke that one was capped to keep the other company,
since Mrs. Hollis's sense of order and regularity rebelled against one
eye-tooth of one color and the other of another.

"Good morning, doctor," she said shortly; "there's the door-mat. No,
don't put your hat there; I'll take it. Isn't this a pretty business
for Melvy to come bringing a sick tramp up here--on general
cleaning-day, too?"

"Aren't all days cleaning-days to you, Sue?" asked the judge,
playfully.

"When you are in the house," she answered sharply. Then she turned to
the doctor, who was starting up the stairs:

"If this boy is in for a long spell, I want him moved somewhere. I
can't have my carpets run over and my whole house smelling like a
hospital."

"Now, Susan," remonstrated the judge, gently, "we can't turn the lad
out. We've got room and to spare. If he's got the fever, he'll have
to stay."

"We'll see, we'll see," said the doctor.

But when he tiptoed down from the room above there was no question
about it.

"Very sick boy," he said, rubbing his hand over his bald head. "If he
gets better, I might take him over to Mrs. Meech's; he can't be moved
now."

"Mrs. Meech!" cried Mrs. Hollis, in fine scorn. "Do you think I would
let him go to that dirty house--and with this fever, too? Why, Mrs.
Meech's front curtains haven't been washed since Christmas! She and
the preacher and Martha all sit around with their noses in books, and
never even know that the water-spout is leaking and the porch needs
mopping! You can't tell me anything about the Meeches!"

Neither of the men tried to do so; they stood silent in the doorway,
looking very grave.

"For mercy sake! what is that in the front lot?" exclaimed Mrs.
Hollis.

The doctor had an uncomfortable premonition, which was promptly
verified. One of the judge's friskiest colts was circling madly about
the driveway, while astride of it, in triumph, sat Annette, her dress
ripped at the belt, her hair flying.

"If she don't need a woman's hand!" exclaimed Mrs. Hollis. "I could
manage her all right."

The doctor looked from Mrs. Hollis, with her firm, close-shut mouth,
to the flying figure on the lawn.

"Perhaps," he said, lifting his brows; but he put the odds on Annette.

That night, when Aunt Melvy brought the lamp into the sitting-room,
she waited nervously near Mrs. Hollis's chair.

"Miss Sue," she ventured presently, "is de cunjers comin' out?"

"The what?"

"De cunjers what dat pore chile's got. I done tried all de spells I
knowed, but look lak dey didn't do no good."

"He has the fever," said Mrs. Hollis; "and it means a long spell of
nursing and bother for me."

The judge stirred uncomfortably. "Now, Sue," he remonstrated, "you
needn't take a bit of bother. Melvy will see to him by day, and I will
look after him at night."

Mrs. Hollis bit her lip and heroically refrained from expressing her
mind.

"He's a mighty purty chile," said Aunt Melvy, tentatively.

"He's a common tramp," said Mrs. Hollis.

After supper, arranging a tray with a snowy napkin and a steaming bowl
of broth, Mrs. Hollis went up to the sick-room. Her first step had
been to have the patient bathed and combed and made presentable for
the occupancy of the guest-chamber. It had been with rebellion of
spirit that she placed him there, but the judge had taken one of those
infrequent stands which she knew it was useless to resist. She put the
tray on a table near the big four-poster bed, and leaned over to look
at the sleeper.

Sandy lay quiet among the pillows, his fair hair tumbled, his lips
parted. As the light fell on his flushed face he stirred.

"Here's your supper," said Mrs. Hollis, her voice softening in spite
of herself. He was younger than she had thought. She slipped her arm
under the pillow and raised his head.

"You must eat," she said kindly.

He looked at her vacantly, then a momentary consciousness flitted over
his face, a vague realization that he was being cared for. He put up a
hot hand and gently touched her cheek; then, rallying all his
strength, he smiled away his debt of gratitude. It was over in a
moment, and he sank back unconscious.

[Illustration: "He smiled away his debt of gratitude"]

Through the dreary hours of the night Mrs. Hollis sat by the bed,
nursing him with the aching tenderness that only a childless woman can
know. Below, in the depths of a big feather-bed, the judge slept in
peaceful unconcern, disturbing the silence by a series of long, loud,
and unmelodious snores.

CHAPTER VII

CONVALESCENCE

"Is that the Nelson phaeton going out the road?" asked Mrs. Hollis as
she peered out through the dining-room window one morning. "I
shouldn't be a bit surprised if it was Mrs. Nelson making her yearly
visits, and here my bricks haven't been reddened."

Sandy's heart turned a somersault. He was sitting up for the first
time, wrapped in blankets and wearing a cap to cover his close-cropped
head. All through his illness he had been tortured by the thought that
he had talked of Ruth, though now wild horses could not have dragged
forth a question concerning her.

"Melvy," continued Mrs. Hollis, as she briskly rubbed the sideboard
with some unsavory furniture-polish, "if Mrs. Nelson does come here,
you be sure to put on your white apron before you open the door; and
for pity sake don't forget the card-tray! You ought to know better
than to stick out your hand for a lady's calling-card. I told you
about that last week."

Aunt Melvy paused in her dusting and chuckled: "Lor', honey, dat's
right! You orter put on airs all de time, wid all de money de judge is
got. He says to me yisterday, says he, 'Can't you 'suade yer Miss Sue
not to be cleanin' up so much, an' not to go out in de front yard wid
dat ole sunbonnet on?'"

"Well, I'd like to know how things would get done if I didn't do
them," exclaimed Mrs. Hollis, hotly. "I suppose he would like me to
let things go like the Meeches! The only time I ever saw Mrs. Meech
work was when she swept the front pavement, and then she made Martha
walk around behind her and read out loud while she was doing it."

"It's Mr. Meech that's in the yard now," announced Sandy from the
side window. "He's raking the leaves with one hand and a-reading a
book with the other."

"I knew it!" cried Mrs. Hollis. "I never saw such doings. They say she
even leaves the dishes overnight. And yet she can sit on her porch and
smile at people going by, just like her house was cleaned up. I hate a
hypocrite."

Sandy had had ample time to watch the Meeches during his long
convalescence. He had been moved from the spare room to a snug little
room over the kitchen, which commanded a fine view of the neighbors.
When the green book got too heavy to hold, or his eyes grew too tired
to look at the many magazines with which the judge supplied him, he
would lie still and watch the little drama going on next door.

Mrs. Meech was a large, untidy woman who always gave the impression of
needing to be tucked up. The end of her gray braid hung out behind one
ear, her waist hung out of her belt, and even the buttons on her
shoes hung out of the buttonholes in shameless laziness.

Mr. Meech did not need tucking in; he needed letting out. He seemed to
have shrunk in the wash of life. In spite of the fact that he was
three sizes too small for his wife, to begin with, he emphasized it by
wearing trousers that cleared his shoe-tops and sleeves half-way to
his elbows. But this was only on week-days, for on Sunday Sandy would
see him emerge, expand, and flutter forth in an ample suit of shiny
broadcloth. For Mr. Meech was the pastor of the Hard-Shell Baptist
Church in Clayton, and if his domestic economy was a matter of open
gossip, there was no question concerning the fact of his learning. It
had been the boast of the congregation for years that Judge Hollis was
the only man in town who was smart enough to understand his sermons.
When Mr. Meech started out in the morning with a book under his arm
and one sticking out of each pocket, Sandy would pull up on his elbow
to watch proceedings. He loved to see fat Mrs. Meech pat the little
man lovingly on the head and kiss him good-by; he loved to see Martha
walk with him to the gate and throw kisses after him until he turned
the curve in the road.

Martha was a pale, thin girl with two long, straight plaits and a
long, straight dress. She went to school in the morning, and when she
came home at noon her mother always hurried to meet her and kissed her
on both cheeks. Sandy had got quite in the habit of watching for her
at the side window where she came to study. He leaned forward now to
see if she were there.

"I thought so!" cried Mrs. Hollis, looking over his shoulder. "There
comes the Nelson phaeton this minute! Melvy, get on your white apron.
I'll wind up the cuckoo-clock and unlock the parlor door."

"Who is it?" ventured Sandy, with internal tremors.

"Hit's Mrs. Nelson an' her niece, Miss Rufe," said Aunt Melvy,
nervously trying to reverse her apron after tying the bow in the
front. "Dey's big bugs, dey is. Dey is quality, an' no mistake. I
b'longed to Miss Rufe's grandpaw; he done lef' her all his money, she
an' Mr. Carter. Poor Mr. Carter! Dey say he ain't got no lungs to
speak of. Ain't no wonder he's sorter wild like. He takes after his
grandpaw, my ole mars'. Lor', honey, de mint-juleps jus' nachelly ooze
outen de pores ob his grandpaw's skin! But Miss Rufe she ain't like
none ob dem Nelsons; she favors her maw. She's quality inside an'
out."

A peal of the bell cut short further interesting revelations. Aunt
Melvy hurried through the hall, leaving doors open behind her. At the
front door she paused in dismay. Before her stood the Nelsons in
calling attire, presenting two immaculate cards for her acceptance.
Too late she remembered her instructions.

"'Fore de Lawd!" she cried in consternation, "ef I ain't done fergit
dat pan ag'in!"

Sandy, left alone in the dining-room, was listening with every nerve
a-quiver for the sound of Ruth's voice. The thought that she was here
under the same roof with him sent the blood bounding through his
veins. He pulled himself up, and trailing the blanket behind him, made
his way somewhat unsteadily across the room and up the back stairs.

Behind the door of his room hung the pride of his soul, a new suit of
clothes, whole, patchless, clean, which the judge had bought him two
days before. He had sat before it in speechless admiration; he had
hung it in every possible light to get the full benefit of its beauty;
he had even in the night placed it on a chair beside the bed, so that
he could put out his hand in the dark and make sure it was there. For
it was the first new suit of clothes that he remembered ever to have
possessed. He had not intended to wear it until Sunday, but the
psychological moment had arrived.

With trembling fingers and many pauses for rest, he made his toilet.
He looked in the mirror, and his heart nearly burst with pride. The
suit, to be sure, hung limp on his gaunt frame, and his shaven head
gave him the appearance of a shorn lamb, but to Sandy the reflection
was eminently satisfying. One thing only seemed to be lacking. He
meditated a moment, then, with some misgiving, picked up a small linen
doily from the dresser, and carefully folding it, placed it in his
breast-pocket, with one corner just visible.

Triumphant in mind, if weak in body, he slipped down the back steps,
skirted Aunt Melvy's domain, and turned the corner of the house just
as the Nelson phaeton rolled out of the yard. Before he had time to
give way to utter despair a glimmer of hope appeared on the horizon,
for the phaeton stopped, and there was evidently something the matter.
Sandy did not wait for it to be remedied. He ran down the road with
all the speed he could muster.

Near the gate where the little branch crossed the turnpike was a
slight embankment, and two wheels of the phaeton had slipped over the
edge and were buried deep in the soft earth. Beside it, sitting
indignantly in the water, was an irate lady who had evidently
attempted to get out backward and had taken a sudden and unexpected
seat. Her countenance was a pure specimen of Gothic architecture; a
massive pompadour reared itself above two Gothic eyebrows which
flanked a nose of unquestioned Gothic tendencies. Her mouth, with its
drooping corners, completed the series of arches, and the whole
expression was one of aspiring melancholy and injured majesty.

Kneeling at her side, reassuring her and wiping the water from her
hands, was Ruth Nelson.

"God send you ain't hurt, ma'am!" cried Sandy, arriving breathless.

The girl looked up and shook her head in smiling protest, but the
Gothic lady promptly suffered a relapse.

"I am--I know I am! Just look at my dress covered with mud, and my
glove is split. Get my smelling-salts, Ruth!"

Ruth, upon whom the lady was leaning, turned to Sandy.

"Will you hand it to me? It is in the little bag there on the seat."

Sandy rushed to do her bidding. He was rather hazy as to the object of
his search; but when his fingers touched a round, soft ball he drew it
forth and hastily presented it to the lady's Roman nose.

She, with closed eyes, was taking deep whiffs when a laugh startled
her.

"Oh, Aunt Clara, it's your powder-puff!" cried Ruth, unable to
restrain her mirth.

Mrs. Nelson rose with as much dignity as her draggled condition would
permit. "You'd better get me home," she said solemnly. "I may be
internally injured." She turned to Sandy. "Boy, can't you get that
phaeton back on the road?"

Sandy, whose chagrin over his blunder had sent him to the background,
came promptly forward. Seizing the wheel, he made several ineffectual
efforts to lift it back to the road.

"It is not moving an inch!" announced the mournful voice from above.
"Can't you take hold of it nearer the back, and exert a little more
strength?"

Sandy bit his lip and shot a swift glance at Ruth. She was still
smiling. With savage determination he fell upon the wheel as if it had
been a mortal foe; he pushed and shoved and pulled, and finally, with
a rally of all his strength, he went on his knees in the mud and
lifted the phaeton back on the road.

Then came a collapse, and he leaned against the nearest tree and
struggled with the deadly faintness that was stealing over him.

"Why--why, you are the boy who was sick!" cried Ruth, in dismay.

Sandy, white and trembling, shook his head protestingly. "It's me
bellows that's rocky," he explained between gasps.

Mrs. Nelson rustled back into the phaeton, and taking a piece of money
from her purse, held it out to him.

"That will amply repay you," she said.

Sandy flushed to the roots of his close-cropped hair. A tip,
heretofore a gift of the gods, had suddenly become an insult. Angry,
impetuous words rushed to his lips, and he took a step forward. Then
he was aware of a sudden change in the girl, who had just stepped into
the phaeton. She shot a quick, indignant look at her aunt, then turned
around and smiled a good-by to him.

He lifted his cap and said, "I thank ye." But it was not to Mrs.
Nelson, who still held the money as they drove out of the avenue.

Sandy went wearily back to the house. He had made his first trial in
behalf of his lady fair, but his soul knew no elation. His beautiful
new armor had sustained irreparable injury, and his vanity had
received a mortal wound.

CHAPTER VIII

AUNT MELVY AS A SOOTHSAYER

It was a crisp afternoon in late October. The road leading west from
Clayton ran the gantlet of fiery maples and sumac until it reached the
barren hillside below "Who'd 'a' Thought It." The little cabin clung
to the side of the steep slope like a bit of fungus to the trunk of a
tree.

In the doorway sat three girls, one tall and dark, one plump and fair,
and the third straight and thin. They were anxiously awaiting the
revelation of the future as disclosed by Aunt Melvy's far-famed
tea-leaves. The prophetess kept them company while waiting for the
water to boil.

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