Sandy written by Alice Hegan Rice

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Here he ostensibly held office hours, but in reality he was doing
sentry duty. His real business in life was keeping up with Annette,
and his diversion was in the constant perusal of a slim sheet known as
"The Confederate Veteran."

It was Sandy's privilege to pass the lines unchallenged. In fact, the
doctor's strict surveillance diminished, and he was occasionally
guilty of napping at the post when Sandy was with Annette.

"Come in, come in," he said one day. "Just looking over the 'Veteran.'
Ever hear of Sam Davis? Greatest hero South ever knew! That's his
picture. Wasn't afraid of any damned Yankee that ever pulled a
trigger."

"Was he a rebel?" asked the unfortunate Sandy.

The doctor swelled with indignation. "He was a Confederate, sir! I
never knew a rebel."

"It was the Confederates that wore the gray?" asked Sandy, trying to
cover his blunder.

"They did," said the doctor. "I put it on at nineteen, and I'll be
buried in it. Yes, sir; and my hat. Wouldn't wear blue for a farm.
Hate the sight of it so, that I might shoot myself by mistake. Ever
look over these maps? This was the battle of--"

A door opened and a light head was thrust out.

"Now, d-dad, you hush this minute! You've told him that over and over.
Sandy's my company. Come in here, Sandy."

A few moments later there was a moving of chairs, and Annette's voice
was counting, "One, two, three; one, two, three," while Sandy went
through violent contortions in his efforts to waltz. He had his
tongue firmly between his teeth and his eyes fixed on vacancy as he
revolved in furniture--destroying circles about the small parlor.

"That isn't right," cried Annette. "You've lost the time. You d-dance
with the chair, Sandy, and I'll p-play the p-piano."

"No, you don't!" he cried. "I'll dance with you and put the chair at
the piano, but I'll dance with no chair."

Annette sank, laughing and exhausted, upon the sofa and looked up at
him hopelessly. Her hair had tumbled down, making her look more like a
child than ever.

"You are so b-big," she said; "and you've got so m-many feet!"

"The more of me to love ye."

"I wonder if you d-do?" She put her chin on her palms, looking at him
sidewise.

"Don't ye do that again!" he cried. "Haven't I passed ye the warning
never to look at me when you fix your mouth like that?"

She tried to call him a goose, though she knew that _g_'s were fatal.

A moment later she sat at one end of the sofa in pretended dudgeon,
while Sandy tried to make his peace from the other.

"May the lightning strike me dead if I ever do it again without the
asking! I'll be good now--honest to goodness, Nettie. I'll shut me
eyes when you take the hurdles, and be blind to temptation. Won't ye
be putting me on about the hop now, and what I must do?"

Annette counted her fraternity pins and tried to look severe. She used
them in lieu of scalps, and they encircled her neck, fastened her
belt, and on state occasions even adorned her shoe-buckles.

"Well," she at last said, "to b-begin with, you must be nice to
everyb-body. You mustn't sit out more than one d-dance with one
g-girl, and you must b-break in on every dance I'm not sitting out."

"Break in? Sit out?" repeated Sandy, realizing that the intricacies
of society are manifold.

"Of course," said his mentor. "Whenever you see the g-girl you like
dancing with any one else, you just p-put your hand on the man's
shoulder, and then she d-dances with you."

"And will they all stop for me?" cried Sandy, not understanding at all
why he should have the preference.

"Surely," said Annette. "And sitting out is when you like a girl so
m-much that you would rather take her away to some quiet little corner
and talk to her than to d-dance with her."

"That'll never be me," cried Sandy--"not while the band plays."

"Shall we try it again?" she asked; and with much scoffing and
scolding on her part, and eloquent apologies and violent exertion on
his, they struggled onward toward success.

In the midst of the lesson there was a low whistle at the side
window. Annette dropped Sandy's hands and put her finger to her lips.

"It's Carter," she whispered. "D-dad doesn't allow him to come here."

"Little's the wonder," grumbled Sandy.

Annette's eyes were sparkling at the prospect of forbidden fruit. She
tiptoed to the window and opened the shutter a few inches.

At the opening Carter's face appeared. It was a pale, delicate face,
over-sensitive, over-refined, with the stamp of weakness on every
feature. His restless, nervous eyes were slightly bloodshot, and there
was a constant twitching about his lips. But as he pushed back the
shutter and leaned carelessly against the sill, there was an easy
grace in his figure and a devil-may-care light in his eyes that would
have stirred the heart of a maiden less susceptible than the one who
smiled upon him from between the muslin curtains.

He laughed lightly as he caught at a flying lock of her hair.

"You little coward! Why didn't you meet me?"

She frowned significantly and made warning gestures toward the
interior of the room.

At the far window, standing with his back to them, was Mr. Sandy
Kilday. He was engaged in a fierce encounter with an unnamed monster
whose eyes were green. During his pauses for breath he composed a few
comprehensive and scathing remarks which he intended to bestow upon
Miss Fenton at his earliest convenience. Fickleness was a thing not to
be tolerated. She had confessed her preference for him over all
others; she must and should prove it. Just when his indignation had
reached the exploding-point, he heard his name called.

"Sandy," cried Annette, "what do you think? Ruth is coming home!
Carter is on his way to the d-depot to meet her now. She's been gone
nearly a year. I never was so crazy to see anyb-body in all my life."

Sandy wheeled about. "Which depot?" he cried excitedly; and without
apologies or farewell he dashed out of the house and down the street.

When the Pullman train came into the Clayton station, he was leaning
against a truck in a pose of studied indifference. Out of the tail of
his eye he watched the passengers alight.

There were the usual fat women and thin men, tired women with
children, and old women with baskets, but no sign of a small girl with
curls hanging down her back and dresses to her shoe-tops.

Suddenly he caught his breath. Standing in the car door, like a saint
in a niche, was a radiant figure in a blue traveling-suit, with a bit
of blue veil floating airily from her hat brim. She was not the little
girl he was looking for, but he transferred his devotion at a bound;
for long skirts and tucked-up curls rendered her tenfold more
worshipful than before.

He watched her descend from her pedestal, bestow an affectionate kiss
upon her brother, then look eagerly around for other familiar faces.
In one heart-suspending instant her eyes met his, she hesitated in
confusion, then blushed and bowed.

Sandy reeled home in utter intoxication of spirit. Even the town pump
wore a halo of glorified rosy mist.

At the gate he met Mrs. Hollis returning from a funeral. With a sudden
descent from his ethereal mood he pounced upon her and, in spite of
violent protestations, danced her madly down the walk and deposited
her breathless upon the milk-bench.

"He's getting worse all the time," she complained to Aunt Melvy, who
had watched the performance with great glee.

"Yas,'m," said Aunt Melvy, with a fond look at his retreating figure.
"He's jus' like a' Irish potato: when he ain't powerful cold, he's
powerful hot."

CHAPTER XII

ANTICIPATION

The day before the fair Sandy employed a substitute at the
post-office, in order to give the entire day to preparation for the
festivities to come.

Early in the morning he went to town, where, after much consultation
and many changes of mind, he purchased a suit of clothes. Then he
rented the town dress-suit, to the chagrin of three other boys who had
each counted upon it for the coming hop.

With the precious burden under his arm, Sandy hastened home. He spread
the two coats on the bed, placing a white shirt inside each, and a
necktie about each collar. Then he stood back and admired.

"It's meself I can see in them both this minute!" he exclaimed with
delight.

His shoes were polished until they were resplendent, but they lost
much of their glory during subsequent practising of steps before the
mirror. He even brushed and cleaned his old clothes, for he foresaw
the pain of laying aside the raiment of Solomon for dingy every-day
garments.

Toward noon he went down-stairs to continue his zealous efforts in the
kitchen. This met with Aunt Melvy's instant disapproval.

"For mercy sake, git out ob my way!" she cried, as she squeezed past
the ironing-board to get to the stove. "I'll press yer pants, ef
you'll jus' take yourself outen de kitchen. Be sure don't burn 'em?
Look a-heah, chile; I was pressin' pants 'fore yer paw was wearin'
'em!"

Aunt Melvy's temper was a thing not to be trifled with when a
"protracted meeting" was in session. For years she had been the black
sheep in the spiritual fold. Her earnest desire to get religion and
the untiring efforts of the exhorters had alike proved futile. Year
after year she sat on the mourners' bench, seeking the light and
failing each time to "come th'u'."

This discouraging condition of affairs sorely afflicted her, and
produced a kind of equinoctial agitation in the Hollis kitchen.

Sandy went on into the dining-room, but he found no welcome there.
Mrs. Hollis was submerged in pastry. The county fair was her one
dissipation, and her highest ambition was to take premiums. Every year
she sent forth battalions of cakes, pies, sweet pickles, beaten
biscuit, crocheted doilies, and crazy-quilts to capture the blue
ribbon.

"Don't put the window up!" she warned Sandy. "I know it's stifling,
but I can't have the dust coming in. Why don't you go on in the
house?"

Mrs. Hollis always spoke of the kitchen and dining-room as if they
were not a part of the house.

"Can't ye tell me something that's good for the sunburn?" asked
Sandy, anxiously. "It's a dressed-up shooting-cracker I'll be
resembling the morrow, in spite of me fine clothes."

"Buttermilk and lemon-juice," recommended Mrs. Hollis, as she placed
the last marshmallow on the roof of a four-story cake.

Sandy would have endured any discomfort that day in order to add one
charm to his personal appearance. He used so many lemons there were
none left for the judge's lemonade when he came home for dinner.

"Just home from the post-office?" he asked when he saw Sandy enter the
dining-room with his hat on.

"Jimmy Reed's doing my work to-day," Sandy said apologetically. "And
if you please, sir, I'll be keeping my hat on. I have just washed my
hair, and I want it to dry straight."

The judge looked at the suspicious turn of the thick locks around the
brim of the stiff hat and smiled.

"Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas," he quoted. "How many pages of
Blackstone to-day?"

Sandy made a wry face and winked at Mrs. Hollis, but she betrayed him.

"He has been primping since sun-up," she said. "Anybody would think he
was going to get married."

"Sweet good luck if I was!" cried Sandy, gaily.

The judge put down his fork and laid his hand on Sandy's arm. "You
mustn't neglect the learning, Sandy. You've made fine progress, and
I'm proud of you. You've worked your way this far; I'll help you to
the top if you'll keep a steady head."

"That I'll do," cried Sandy, grasping his hand. "It's old Moseley's
promise I have for steady work at the academy. If I can't climb the
ladder, with you at one end and success at the other, then I'm not
much of a chicken--I mean I'm not much."

"Well, you better begin by leaving the girls alone," said Mrs. Hollis
as she moved the sugar out of his reach. "Just let one drive by the
gate, and we don't have any peace until you know who it is."

"By the way," said the judge, as he helped himself to a corn-dodger
and two kinds of preserves, "I'm sorry to see the friendship that's
sprung up between Annette Fenton and young Nelson. I don't know what
the doctor's thinking about to let it go on. Nelson is hitting a
pretty lively pace for a youngster. He'll never live to reap his wild
oats, though. He came into the world with consumption, and I don't
think he will be long getting out of it. He's always getting into
difficulty. I have had to fine him twice in the past month for
gambling. Do you see anything of him, Sandy?"

"No," said Sandy, biting his lip. His pride had suffered more than
once at Carter's condescension.

"Martha Meech must be worse," said Mrs. Hollis. "The up-stairs blinds
have been closed all day."

Sandy pushed back the apple-dumpling which Aunt Melvy had made at his
special request.

"Perhaps I can be helping them," he said as he rose from the table.

When he came back he sat for a long time with his head on his hand.

"Is she much worse?" asked Mrs. Hollis.

"Yes," said Sandy; "and it's little that I can do, though she's
coughing her life away. It's a shame--and a shame!" he cried in hot
rebellion.

All his vanity of the morning was dispelled by the tragedy taking
place next door. He paced back and forth between the two houses,
begging to be allowed to help, and proposing all sorts of impossible
things.

When inaction became intolerable, he plunged into his law books, at
first not comprehending a line, but gradually becoming more and more
interested, until at last the whole universe seemed to revolve about a
case that was decided in a previous century.

When he rose it was almost dusk, and he came back to the present
world with a start. His first thought was of Ruth and the rapturous
prospect of seeing her on the morrow; a swift doubt followed as to
whether a white tie or a black one was proper; then a sudden fear that
he had forgotten how to dance. He jumped to his feet, took a couple of
steps--when he remembered Martha.

The house seemed suddenly quiet and lonesome. He went from the
sitting-room to the kitchen, but neither Mrs. Hollis nor Aunt Melvy
was to be found. Returning through the front hall, he opened the door
to the parlor.

The sight that met him was somewhat gruesome. Everything was carefully
wrapped in newspapers. Pictures enveloped in newspapers hung on the
walls, newspaper chairs stood primly around a newspaper table. In the
dim twilight it looked like the very ghost of a room.

Sandy threw open the window, and going over to the newspaper piano,
untied the wrappings. He softly touched the keys and began to sing in
an undertone. Old Irish love-songs, asleep in his heart since they
were first dropped there by the merry mother lips, stirred and awoke.
The accompaniment limped along lamely enough; but the singer, with hat
over his eyes and lemon-juice on his nose, sang on as only a poet and
lover can. His rich, full voice lingered on the soft Celtic syllables,
dwelt tenderly on the diminutive endearments, while his heart,
overcharged with sorrow and joy and romance and dreams, spilled over
in an ecstasy of song.

Next door, in an upper bedroom, a tired soul paused in its final
flight. Martha Meech, stretching forth her thin arms in the twilight,
listened as one might listen to the strains of an angel choir.

"It's Sandy," she said, and the color came to her cheeks, the light to
her eyes. For, like Sandy, she had youth and she had love, and life
itself could give no more.

CHAPTER XIII

THE COUNTY FAIR

The big amphitheater at the fair grounds was filled as completely and
evenly as a new paper of pins. Through the air floated that sweetest
of all music to the childish ear--the unceasing wail of expiring
balloons; and childish souls were held together in one sticky ecstasy
of molasses candy and pop-corn balls.

Behind the highest row of seats was a promenade, and in front of the
lowest was another. Around these circled a procession which, though
constantly varying, held certain recurring figures like the charging
steeds on a merry-go-round. There was Dr. Fenton, in his tight
Confederate suit; he had been circling in that same procession at
every fair for twenty years. There was the judge, lank of limb and
loose of joint, who stopped to shake hands with all the strangers and
invite them to take dinner in his booth, where Mrs. Hollis reveled in
a riot of pastry. A little behind him strutted Mr. Moseley, sending
search-lights of scrutiny over the crowd in order to discover the
academy boys who might be wasting their time upon unlettered
femininity.

At one side of the amphitheater, raised to a place of honor, was the
courting-box. Here the aristocratic youth of the country-side met to
measure hearts, laugh at the rustics, and enjoy the races.

In previous years Sandy had watched the courting-box from below, but
this year he was in the center of it. Jests and greetings from the
boys, and cordial glances from maidens both known and unknown, bade
him welcome. But, in spite of his reception, and in spite of his
irreproachable toilet, he was not having a good time. With hands in
pockets and a scowl on his face, he stared gloomily over the crowd.
Twice a kernel of pop-corn struck his ear, but he did not turn.

Above him, Annette Fenton was fathoms deep in a flirtation with Carter
Nelson; while below him, Ruth, in the daintiest of gowns and the
largest of hats, was wasting her sweetness on the desert countenance
of Sid Gray.

Sandy refused to seek consolation elsewhere; he sat like a Spartan
hero, and calmly watched his heart being consumed in the flames.

This hour, for which he had been living, this longed-for opportunity
of being near Ruth and possibly of speaking to her, was slipping away,
and she did not even know he was there.

He became fiercely critical of Sid Gray. He rejoiced in his stoutness
and took grim pleasure in the fact that his necktie had slipped up at
the back. He looked at his hand as it rested on the back of the seat;
it was plump and white. Sandy held out his own broad, muscular palm,
hardened and roughened by work. Then he put it in his pocket again and
sighed.

The afternoon wore gaily on. Louder grew the chorus of balloons and
stickier grew the pop-corn balls. The courting-box was humming with
laughter and jest. The Spartan hero began to rebel. Why should he
allow himself to be tortured thus when there might be a way of escape?
He recklessly resolved to put his fate to the test. Rising abruptly,
he went down to the promenade and passed slowly along the
courting-box, scanning the occupants as if in search of some one. It
was on his fourth round that she saw him, and the electric shock
almost lost him his opportunity. He looked twice to make sure she had
spoken; then, with a bit of his heart in his throat and the rest in
his eyes, he went up the steps and awkwardly held out his hand.

The world made several convulsive circuits in its orbit and the bass
drum performed a solo inside his head during the moment that
followed. When the tumult subsided he found a pair of bright brown
eyes smiling up at him and a small hand clasped in his.

This idyllic condition was interrupted by a disturbance on the
promenade, which caused them both to look in that direction. Some one
was pushing roughly through the crowd.

"Hi, there, Kilday! Sandy Kilday!"

A heavy-set fellow was making his way noisily toward them. His suit of
broad checks, his tan shoes, and his large diamond stud were
strangers, but his little close-set eyes, protruding teeth, and bushy
hair were hatefully familiar.

Sandy started forward, and those nearest laughed when the stranger
looked at him and said:

"My guns! Git on to his togs! Ain't he a duke!"

Sandy got Ricks out of the firing-line, around the corner of the
courting-box. His face was crimson with mortification, but it never
occurred to him to be angry.

"What brought you back?" he asked huskily.

"Hosses."

"Are you going to drive this afternoon?"

"Yep. One of young Nelson's colts in the last ring. Say," he added,
"he's game, all right. Me and him have done biz before. Know him?"

"Carter Nelson? Oh, yes; I know him," said Sandy, impatient to be rid
of his companion.

"Me and him are a winnin' couple," said Ricks. "We plays the races
straight along. He puts up the dough, and I puts up the tips. Say,
he's one of these here tony toughs; he won't let on he knows me when
he's puttin' on dog. What about you, Sandy? Makin' good these days?"

"I guess so," said Sandy, indifferently.

"You ain't goin' to school yet?"

"That I am," said Sandy; "and next year, too, if the money holds out."

"Golly gosh!" said Ricks, incredulously. "Well, I got to be hikin'
back. The next is my entry. I'll look you up after while. So-long!"

He shambled off, and Sandy watched his broad-checked back until it was
lost in the crowd.

That Ricks should have turned up at that critical moment seemed a
wilful prank on the part of fate. Sandy bit his lip and raged
inwardly. He had a wild impulse to rush back to Ruth, seize her hand,
and begin where he had left off. He might have done it, too, had not
the promenade happened to land Dr. Fenton before him at that moment.

The doctor was behaving in a most extraordinary and unmilitary way. He
had stepped out of the ranks, and was performing strange manoeuvers
about a knothole that looked into the courting-box. When he saw Sandy
he opened fire.

"Look at her! Look at her!" he whispered. "Whenever I pass she talks
to Jimmy Reed on this side; but the moment she thinks I'm not looking,
sir, she talks to Nelson on the other! Kilday," he went on, shaking
his finger impressively, "that little girl is as slick as--a blame
Yankee! But she'll not outwit me. I'm going right up there and take
her home."

Sandy laughingly held his arm. It was not the first time the doctor
had confided in him. "No, no, doctor," he said; "I'll be the watch-dog
for ye. Let me go and stay with Annette, and if Carter Nelson gets a
word in her ear, it'll be because I've forgotten how to talk."

"Will you?" asked the doctor, anxiously. "Nelson's a drunkard. I'd
rather see my little girl dead than married to him. But she's wilful,
Kilday; when she was just a baby she'd sit with her little pink toes
curled up for an hour to keep me from putting on her shoes when she
wanted to go barefoot! She's a fighter," he added, with a gruff
chuckle that ended in a sigh, "but she's all I've got."

Sandy gripped him by the hand, then turned the corner into the
courting-box. Instantly his eager eyes sought Ruth, but she did not
look up as he passed.

He unceremoniously took his seat beside Annette, to the indignation of
little Jimmy Reed. It was hard to accept Carter's patronizing
tolerance, but a certain curve to his eyebrows and the turn of his
head served as perpetual reminders of Ruth.

Annette greeted Sandy effusively. She had found Jimmy entirely too
limber a foil to use with any degree of skill, and she knew from past
experience that Sandy and Carter were much better matched. If Sid Gray
had been there also, she would have been quite happy. In Annette's
estimation it was all a mistake about love being a game for two.

"Who was your stylish friend?" she asked Sandy.

"Ricks Wilson," said Sandy, shortly.

Carter smiled condescendingly. "Your old business partner, I believe?"

"Before he was yours," said Sandy.

This was not at all to Annette's taste. They were not even thinking
about her.

"How m-many dances do you want for to-night?" she asked Sandy.

"The first four."

She wrote them on the corner of her fan. "Yes?"

"The last four."

"Yes?"

"And the four in between. What's that on your fan?"

"Nothing."

"But it is. Let me see."

"Will you look at it easy and not tell?" she whispered, taking
advantage of Carter's sudden interest in the judges' stand.

"Sure and I will. Just a peep. Come!"

She opened the fan half-way, and disclosed a tiny picture of himself
sewed on one of the slats.

"And it's meself that you care for, Annette!" he whispered. "I knew
it, you rascal, you rogue!"

"Let g-go my hand," she whispered, half laughing, half scolding.
"Look, Carter, what I have on my fan!" and, to Sandy's chagrin, she
opened the fan on the reverse side and disclosed a picture of Nelson.

But Carter had neither eyes nor ears for her now. His whole attention
was centered on the ring, where the most important event of the day
was about to take place.

It was a trial of two-year-olds for speed and durability. There were
four entries--two bays, a sorrel, and Carter's own little thoroughbred
"Nettie." He watched her as she pranced around the ring under Ricks's
skilful handling; she had nothing to fear from the bays, but the
sorrel was a close competitor.

"Oh, this is your race, isn't it?" cried Annette as the band struck up
"Dixie." "Where's my namesake? The pretty one just c-coming, with the
ugly driver? Why, he's Sandy's friend, isn't he?"

Sandy winced under her teasing, but he held his peace.

The first heat Nettie won; the second, the sorrel; the third brought
the grand stand to its feet. Even the revolving procession halted
breathless.

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