Sandy written by Alice Hegan Rice

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"I'm sorry, sir," said Sandy, without looking up.

"Then there's Carter Nelson encouraging him in his feeling against
me. It seems that Nelson wants the fellow to drive for him at the fall
trots, and he has given me no end of trouble about getting him off.
What an insolent fellow Nelson is! He talked very ugly in my office
yesterday, and made various threats about making me regret any
interference. I wouldn't have stood it from any one else; but Carter
is hardly responsible. I have watched him from the time he was born.
He came into the world with a mortal illness, and I doubt if he ever
had a well day in his life. He's a degenerate, Sandy; he's bearing the
sins of a long line of dissolute ancestors. We have to be patient with
men like that; we have to look on them as we do on the insane."

He waited for some response, but, getting none, pulled his chair in
confidential proximity and laid his hand on Sandy's knee. "However,
that's neither here nor there," he said. "I have a surprise for you. I
couldn't let you go to bed without telling you about it. It's about
your future, Sandy. I've been talking it over with Mr. Moseley, and he
is confident--"

Suddenly Sandy rose and stood by the table.

"Don't be making any more plans for me," he said desperately; "I've
made up me mind to enlist."

"Enlist! In the army?"

"Yes; I've got to get away. I must go so far that I can't come back;
and, judge--I want to go to-morrow!"

"Is it money matters?"

A long silence followed--of the kind that ripens confidence. Presently
Sandy lifted his haggard eyes: "It's nothing I'm ashamed of, judge; ye
must take me word for that. It's like taking the heart out of me body
to go, but I've made up me mind. Nothing on earth can change me
purpose; I enlist on the morrow."

The judge looked at him long and earnestly over his glasses, then he
asked in calm, judicial tones: "Is her answer final?"

Sandy started from his chair. How finite intelligence could have
discovered the innermost secret of his soul seemed little short of
miraculous. But the relief of being able to pour out his feelings
mastered all other considerations.

"Oh, sir, there was never a question. Like the angel she is, she let
me be near her so long as I held my peace; but, fool that I am, I
break me promise again and again. I can't keep silent when I see her.
The truth would burst from me lips if I was dumb."

"And you think you would be better if you were out of her sight?"

"Is a starving man better when he is away from food?" asked Sandy,
fiercely. "Heaven knows it's not of meself I'm thinking. It's breaking
her tender heart to see me misery staring her in the face, and I'll
put it out of her sight."

"Is it Ruth?" asked the judge.

Sandy assented with bowed head.

The judge got up and stood before the fire.

"Didn't you know," he began as kindly as he could put it, "that you
were not in her--that is, that she was not of your--"

Sandy lifted blazing eyes, hot with the passion of youth.

"If she'd been in heaven and I'd been in hell, I'd have stretched out
my arms to her still!"

Something in his eyes, in his voice, in his intensity, brought the
judge to his side.

"How long has this thing been going on?" he asked seriously.

"Four years!"

"Before you came here?"

"Yes."

"You followed her here?"

"Yes."

Whereupon the judge gave vent to the one profane word in his
vocabulary.

Then Sandy, having confided so far, made a clean breast of it,
breaking down at the end when he tried to describe Ruth's goodness
and the sorrow his misery had caused her.

When it was over the judge had hold of his hand and was bestowing
large, indiscriminate pats upon his head and shoulders.

"It's hard luck, Sandy; hard luck. But you must brace up, boy.
Everybody wants something in the world he can't get. We all go under,
sooner or later, with some wish ungratified. Now I've always wanted--"
he pressed his fingers on his lips for a moment, then went on--"the
one thing I've wanted was a son. It seemed to me there was nothing
else in the world would make up to me for that lack. I had money more
than enough, and health and friends; but I wanted a boy. When you came
I said to Sue: 'Let's keep him a while just to see how it would feel.'
It's been worth while, Sandy; you have done me credit. It almost
seemed as if the Lord didn't mean me to be disappointed, after all.
And to-day, when Mr. Moseley said you ought to have a year or two at
the big university, I said: 'Why not? He's just like my own. I'll send
him this year and next, and then he can come home and be a comfort to
me all the rest of my days.' That's what I was sitting up to tell you,
Sandy; but now--"

"And ye sha'n't be disappointed!" cried Sandy. "I'll go anywhere you
say, do anything you wish. Only you wouldn't be asking me to stay
here?"

"Not now, Sandy; not for a while."

"Never!--so long as she's here. I'll never bring me sorrow between her
and the sun again-so help me, Heaven! And if the Lord gives me
strength, I'll never see her face again, so long as I live!"

"Go to bed, boy; go to bed. You are tired out. We will ship you off to
the university next week."

"Can't I be going to-morrow? Friday, then? I'd never dare trust meself
over the week."

"Friday, then. But mind, no more prancing to-night; we must both go to
bed."

Neither of them did so, however. Sandy went to his room and sat in
his window, watching a tiny light that flickered, far across the
valley, in the last bend of the river before it left the town. His
muscles were tense, his nerves a-tingle, as he strained his eyes in
the darkness to keep watch of the beacon. It was the last glimpse of
home to a sailor who expected never to return.

Down in the sitting-room the judge was lost in the pages of a worn old
copy of Tom Moore. He fingered the pages with a tenderness of other
days, and lingered over the forgotten lines with a half-quizzical,
half-sad smile on his lips. For he had been a lover once, and Sandy's
romance stirred dead leaves in his heart that sent up a faint perfume
of memory.

"Yes," he mused half aloud; "I marked that one too:

"Be it bliss to remember that thou wert the star
That arose on his darkness and guided him home."

CHAPTER XIX

THE TRIALS OF AN ASSISTANT POSTMASTER

By all laws of mercy the post-master in a small town should be old and
mentally near-sighted. Jimmy Reed was young and curious. He had even
yielded to temptation once in removing a stamp on a letter from
Annette Fenton to a strange suitor. Not that he wanted to delay the
letter. He only wanted to know if she put tender messages under the
stamp when she wrote to other people.

During the two years Sandy remained at the university, Jimmy handed
his letters out of the post-office window to the judge once a week,
following them half-way with his body to pick up the verbal crumbs of
interest the judge might let fall while perusing them. The supremacy
which Sandy had established in the base-ball days had lent him a
permanent halo in the eyes of the younger boys of Clayton. "Letter
from Sandy this morning," Jimmy would announce, adding somewhat
anxiously, "Ain't he on the team yet?"

The judge was obliging and easy-going, and he frequently gratified
Jimmy's curiosity.

"No; he's studying pretty hard these days. He says he is through with
athletics."

"Does he like it up there?"

"Oh, yes, yes; I guess he likes it well enough," the judge would
answer tentatively; "but I am afraid he's working too hard."

"Looks like a pity to spoil such a good pitcher," said Jimmy,
thoughtfully. "I never saw him lose but one game, and that nearly
killed him."

"Disappointment goes hard with him," said the judge, and he sighed.

Jimmy's chronic interest developed into acute curiosity the second
winter--about the time the Nelsons returned to Clayton after a long
absence.

On Thanksgiving morning he found two letters bearing his hero's
handwriting. One was to Judge Hollis and one to Miss Ruth Nelson. The
next week there were also two, both of which went to Miss Nelson.
After that it became a regular occurrence.

Jimmy recognized two letters a week from one person to one person as a
danger-signal. His curiosity promptly rose to fever-heat. He even went
so far as to weigh the letters, and roughly to calculate the number of
pages in each. Once or twice he felt something hard inside, and upon
submitting the envelop to his nose, he distinguished the faint
fragrance of pressed flowers. It was perhaps a blessing in disguise
that the duty of sorting the outgoing mail did not fall to his lot.
One added bit of information would have resulted in spontaneous
combustion.

By and by letters came daily, their weight increasing until they
culminated, about Christmas-time, in a special-delivery letter which
bristled under the importance of its extra stamp.

The same morning the telegraph operator stopped in to ask if the
Nelsons had been in for their mail. "I have a message for Miss Nelson,
but I thought they started for California this morning."

"It's to-morrow morning they go," said Jimmy. "I'll send the message
out. I've got a special letter for her, and they can both go out by
the same boy."

When the operator had gone, Jimmy promptly unfolded the yellow slip,
which was innocent of envelop.

Do not read special-delivery letter. Will explain.

S.K.

For some time he sat with the letter in one hand and the message in
the other. Why had Sandy written that huge letter if he did not want
her to read it? Why didn't he want her to read it? Questions buzzed
about him like bees.

Large ears are said to be indicative of an inquisitive nature. Jimmy's
stood out like the handles on a loving-cup. With all this explosive
material bottled up in him, he felt like a torpedo-boat deprived of
action.

After a while he got up and went into the drug-store next door. When
he came back he made sure he was alone in the office. Then he propped
up the lid of his desk with the top of his head, in a manner acquired
at school, and hiding behind this improvised screen, he carefully took
from his pocket a small bottle of gasolene. Pouring a little on his
handkerchief, he applied it to the envelop of the special-delivery
letter.

As if by magic, the words within showed through; and by frequent
applications of the liquid the engrossed Jimmy deciphered the
following:

--like the moan of the sea in my heart, and it will not be still.
Heart, body, and soul will call to you, Ruth, so long as the
breath is in my body. I have not the courage to be your friend.
I swear, with all the strength I have left, never to see you nor
write you again. God bless you, my--

A noise at the window brought Jimmy to the surface. It was Annette
Fenton, and she seemed nervous and excited.

"Mercy, Jimmy! What's the m-matter? You looked like you were caught
eating doughnuts in study hour. What a funny smell! Say, Jimmy; don't
you want to do something for me?"

Jimmy had spent his entire youth in urging her to accept everything
that was his, and he hailed this as a good omen.

"I have a l-letter here for dad," she went on, fidgeting about
uneasily and watching the door. "I don't want him to g-get it until
after the last train goes to-night. Will you see that he d-doesn't get
it before nine o'clock?"

Jimmy took the letter and looked blankly from it to Annette.

"Why, it's from you!"

"What if it is, you b-booby?" she cried sharply; then she changed her
tactics and looked up appealingly through the little square window.

"Oh, Jimmy, do help me out! That's a d-dear! I'm in no end of a
scrape. You'll do as I ask, now w-w-won't you?"

Jimmy surrendered on the spot.

"Now," said Annette, greatly relieved, "find out what time the d-down
train starts, and if it's on time."

"It ought to start at three," reported Jimmy after consulting the
telegraph operator. "It's an hour late on account of the snow.
Expecting somebody?"

She shook her head.

"Going to the city yourself?"

"Of course not. Whatever made you think that?" she cried with
unnecessary vehemence. Then, changing the subject abruptly, she added:
"G-guess who has come home?"

"Who?" cried Jimmy, with palpitating ears.

"Sandy Kilday. You never saw anybody look so g-grand. He's gotten to
be a regular swell, and he walks like this."

Annette held her umbrella horizontally, squared her shoulders, and
swung bravely across the room.

"Sandy Kilday?" gasped Jimmy, with a clutch at the letter in his
pocket. "Where's he at?"

"He's trying to get up from the d-depot. He has been an hour coming
two squares. Everybody has stopped him, from Mr. Moseley on down to
the b-blacksmith's twins."

"Is he coming this way?" asked Jimmy, wild-eyed and anxious.

Annette stepped to the window.

"Yes; they are crossing the street now." She opened the sash and,
snatching a handful of snow, rolled it into a ball, which she sailed
out of the window. It was promptly answered by one from below, which
whirled past her and shattered itself against the wall.

"Dare, dare, double dare!" she called as she flung handfuls of loose
snow from the window-ledge. A quick volley of balls followed, then
the door burst open. Sandy and Ruth Nelson stood laughing on the
threshold.

"Hello, partner!" sang out Sandy to Jimmy. "Still at the old work, I
see! Do you mind how you taught me to count the change when I first
sold stamps?"

Jimmy tried to smile, but his effort was a failure. The interesting
tangle of facts and circumstances faded from his mind, and he resorted
instinctively to nature's first law. With an agitated countenance, he
sought self-preservation by waving Sandy's letter behind him in a
frantic effort to banish, if possible, the odor of his guilt.

Sandy stayed at the door with Annette, but Ruth came to the window and
asked for her mail. When she smiled at the contrite Jimmy she
scattered the few remaining ideas that lingered in his brain. With
crimson face and averted eyes, he handed her the letter, forgetting
that telegrams existed.

He saw her send a quick, puzzled glance from the letter to Sandy; he
saw her turn away from the door and tear open the envelop; then, to
his everlasting credit, he saw no more.

When he ventured forth from behind his desk the office was empty. He
made a cautious survey of the premises; then, opening a back window,
he seized a small bottle by the neck and hurled it savagely against
the brick wall opposite.

CHAPTER XX

THE IRONY OF CHANCE

The snow, which had begun as an insignificant flurry in the morning,
developed into a storm by afternoon.

Four miles from town, in a dreary stretch of country, a
dejected-looking object tramped along the railroad-track. His hat was
pulled over his eyes and his hands were thrust in his pockets. Now and
again he stopped, listened, and looked at his watch.

It was Sandy Kilday, and he was waiting for the freight-train with the
fixed intention of committing suicide.

The complications arising from Jimmy Reed's indiscretion had resulted
disastrously. When Sandy found that Ruth had read his letter, his
common sense took flight. Instead of a supplicant, he became an
invader, and stormed the citadel with such hot-headed passion and
fervor that Ruth fled in affright to the innermost chamber of her
maidenhood, and there, barred and barricaded, withstood the siege.

His one desire in life now was to quit it. He felt as if he had read
his death-warrant, and it was useless ever again to open his eyes on
this gray, impossible world.

He did not know how far he had come. Everything about him was strange
and unfriendly: the woods had turned to gaunt and gloomy skeletons
that shivered and moaned in the wind; the sunny fields of ragweed were
covered with a pall; and the river--his dancing, singing river--was a
black and sullen stream that closed remorselessly over the dying
snowflakes. His woods, his fields, his river,--they knew him not; he
stared at them blankly and they stared back at him.

A rabbit, frightened at his approach, jumped out of the bushes and
went bounding down the track ahead of him. The sight of the round
little cottontail leaping from tie to tie brought a momentary
diversion; but he did not want to be diverted.

With an effort he came back to his stern purpose. He forced himself to
face the facts and the future. What did it matter if he was only
twenty-one, with his life before him? What satisfaction was it to have
won first honors at the university? There was but one thing in the
world that made life worth living, and that was denied him. Perhaps
after he was gone she would love him.

This thought brought remarkable consolation. He pictured to himself
her remorse when she heard the tragic news. He attended in spirit his
own funeral, and even saw her tears fall upon his still face.
Meanwhile he listened impatiently for the train.

Instead of the distant rumble of the cars, he heard on the road below
the sound of a horse's hoofs, quickly followed by voices. Slipping
behind the embankment, he waited for the vehicle to pass. The horse
was evidently walking, and the voices came to him distinctly.

"I'm not a coward--any s-such thing! We oughtn't to have c-come, in
the first place. I can't go with you. Please turn round,
C-Carter,--please!"

There was no mistaking that high, childlike voice, with its faltering
speech.

Sandy's gloomy frown narrowed to a scowl. What business had Annette
out there in the storm? Where was she going with Carter Nelson?

He quickened his steps to keep within sight of the slow-moving buggy.

"There's nothing out this road but the Junction," he thought, trying
to collect his wits. "Could they be taking the train there? He goes to
California in the morning, but where's he taking Nettie to-day? And
she didn't want to be going, either; didn't I hear her say it with her
own lips?"

He moved cautiously forward, now running a few paces to keep up, now
crouching behind the bushes. Every sense was keenly alert; his eyes
never left the buggy for a moment.

When the freight thundered up the grade, he stepped mechanically to
one side, keeping a vigilant eye on the couple ahead, and begrudging
the time he lost while the train went by. It was not until an hour
later that he remembered he had forgotten to commit suicide.

Stepping back on the ties, he hurried forward. He was convinced now
that they meant to take the down train which would pass the Clayton
train at the Junction in half an hour. Something must be done to save
Annette. The thought of her in the city, at the mercy of the
irresponsible Carter, sent him running down the track. He waited until
he was slightly in advance before he descended abruptly upon them.

Annette was sitting very straight, talking excitedly, and Carter was
evidently trying to reassure her.

As Sandy plunged down the embankment, they started apart, and Carter
reached for the whip. Before he could urge the horse forward, Sandy
had swung himself lightly to the step of the buggy, and was leaning
back against the dash-board. He looked past Carter to Annette. She was
making a heroic effort to look unconcerned and indifferent, but her
eyelids were red, and her handkerchief was twisted into a damp little
string about her fingers. Sandy wasted no time in diplomacy; he struck
straight out from the shoulder.

"If it's doing something you don't want to, you don't have to, Nettie.
I'm here."

Carter stopped his horse.

"Will you get down?" he demanded angrily.

"After you," said Sandy.

Carter measured his man, then stepped to the ground. Sandy promptly
followed.

"And now," said Carter, "you'll perhaps be good enough to explain what
you mean."

Sandy still kept his hand on the buggy and his eyes on Annette; when
he spoke it was to her.

"If it's your wish to go on, say the word."

The tearful young person in the buggy looked very limp and miserable,
but declined to make any remarks.

"Miss Fenton and I expect to be married this evening," said Carter,
striving for dignity, though his breath came short with excitement.
"We take the train in twenty minutes. Your interference is not only
impudent--it's useless. I know perfectly well who sent you: it was
Judge Hollis. He was the only man we met after we left town. Just
return to him, with my compliments, and tell him I say he is a meddler
and a fool!"

"Annette," said Sandy, softly, coming toward her, "the doctor'll be
wanting his coffee by now."

"Let me pass," cried Carter, "you common hound! Take your foot off
that step or I'll--" He made a quick motion toward his hip, and Sandy
caught his hand as it closed on a pearl-handled revolver.

"None of that, man! I'll be going when I have her word. Is it good-by,
Annette? Must I be taking the word to your father that you've left him
now and for always? Yes? Then a shake of the hand for old times'
sake."

Annette slipped a cold little hand into his free one, and feeling the
solid grasp of his broad palm, she clung to it as a drowning man
clings to a spar.

"I can't go!" she cried, in a burst of tears. "I can't leave dad this
way! Make him take me b-back, Sandy! I want to go home!"

Carter stood very still and white. His thin body was trembling from
head to foot, and the veins stood out on his forehead like whip-cord.
He clenched his hands in an effort to control himself. At Annette's
words he stepped aside with elaborate courtesy.

"You are at perfect liberty to go with Mr. Kilday. All I ask is that
he will meet me as soon as we get back to town."

"I can't go b-back on the train!" cried Annette, with a glance at her
bags and boxes. "Every one would suspect something if I did. Oh, why
d-did I come?"

"My buggy is at your disposal," said Carter; "perhaps your
disinterested friend, Mr. Kilday, could be persuaded to drive you
back."

"But, Carter," cried Annette, in quick dismay, "you must come, too.
I'll bring dad r-round; I always do. Then we can be married at home,
and I can have a veil and a r-ring and presents."

She smiled at him coaxingly, but he folded his arms and scowled.

"You go with me to the city, or you go back to Clayton with him. You
have just three minutes to make up your mind."

[Illustration: "Sandy saw her waver"]

Sandy saw her waver. The first minute she looked at him, the second at
Carter. He took no chances on the third. With a quick bound, he was
in the buggy and turning the horse homeward.

"But I've decided to go with Carter!" cried Annette, hysterically.
"Turn b-back, Sandy! I've changed my mind."

"Change it again," advised Sandy as he laid the whip gently across the
horse's back.

Carter Nelson flung furiously off to catch the train for town, while
the would-be bride shed bitter tears on the shoulder of the would-be
suicide.

The snow fell faster and faster, and the gray day deepened to dusk.
For a long time they drove along in silence, both busy with their own
thoughts.

Suddenly they were lurched violently forward as the horse shied at
something in the bushes. Sandy leaned forward in time to see a figure
on all fours plunging back into the shrubbery.

"Annette," he whispered excitedly, "did you see that man's face?"

"Yes," she said, clinging to his arm; "don't leave me, Sandy!"

"What did he look like? Tell me, quick!"

"He had little eyes like shoe-buttons, and his teeth stuck out. Do you
suppose he was hiding?"

"It was Ricks Wilson, or I am a blind man!" cried Sandy, standing up
in the buggy and straining his eyes in the darkness.

"Why, he's in jail!"

"May I never trust me two eyes to speak the truth again if that wasn't
Ricks!"

When they started they found that the harness was broken, and all
efforts to fix it were in vain.

"It's half-past five now," cried Annette. "If I don't get home
b-before dad, he'll have out the fire department."

"There's a farm-house a good way back," said Sandy; "but it's too far
for you to walk. Will you be waiting here in the buggy until I go for
help?"

"Well, I guess not!" said Annette, indignantly.

Sandy looked at the round baby face beside him and laughed. "It's not
one of meself that blames you," he said; "but how are we ever to get
home?"

Annette was not without resources.

"What's the matter with riding the horse b-back to the farm?"

"And you?" asked Sandy.

"I'll ride behind."

They became hilarious over the mounting, for the horse bitterly
resented a double burden.

When he found he could not dispose of it he made a dash for freedom,
and raced over the frozen road at such a pace that they were soon at
their destination.

"He won the handicap," laughed Sandy as he lifted his disheveled
companion to the ground.

"It was glorious!" cried Annette, gathering up her flying locks. "I
lost every hair-pin but one."

At the farm-house they met with a warm reception.

"Jes step right in the kitchen," said the farmer. "Mommer'll take
care of you while I go out to the stable for some rope and another
hoss."

The kitchen was a big, cheerful room, full of homely comfort. Bright
red window-curtains were drawn against the cold white world outside,
and the fire crackled merrily in the stove.

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