Elder Conklin and Other Stories by Frank Harris

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His daughter drew herself out of his embrace. Recalled thus to the
matter in hand he asked: "Did he say how much money 'twould take?"

"Two or three thousand dollars"--and she scanned his face anxiously--
"for studyin' and gettin' an office and everythin' in New York. Things
are dearer there."

"Wall, I guess we kin about cover that with a squeeze. It'll be full all
I kin manage to onc't--that and the pianner. I've no one to think of but
you, Loo, only you. That's what I've bin workin' for, to give you a fair
start, and I'm glad I kin jess about do it. I'd sorter take it better if
he'd done the studyin' by himself before. No! wall, it don't make much
difference p'r'aps. Anyway he works, and Mr. Crew thinks him enough
eddicated even for the Ministry. He does, and that's a smart lot. I
guess he'll get along all right." Delighted with the expression of
intent happiness in his daughter's eyes, he continued: "He's young yet,
and couldn't be expected to hev done the studyin' and law and everythin'.
You kin be sartin that the old man'll do all he knows to help start
you fair. All I kin. If you're sot upon it! That's enough fer me,
I guess, ef you're rale sot on it, and you don't think 'twould be better
like to wait a little. He could study with Barkman fer a year anyway
without losin' time. No! wall, wall. I'm right thar when you want me.
I'll go to work to do what I kin....

"P'r'aps we might sell off and go East, too. The farm's worth money now
it's all settled up round hyar. The mother and me and Jake could get
along, I reckon, East or West. I know more'n I did when I came out in
'59.

"I'm glad you've told me. I think a heap more of him now. There must be
a pile of good in any one you like, Loo. Anyhow he's lucky." And he
stroked her crumpled dress awkwardly, but with an infinite tenderness.

"I've got to go now, father," she exclaimed, suddenly remembering the
time. "But there!"--and again she threw her arms round his neck and
kissed him. "You've made me very happy. I've got to go right off, and
you've all the chores to do, so I mustn't keep you any longer."

She hurried to the road along which Jake would have to come with the
news of the fight. When she reached the top of the bluff whence the road
fell rapidly to the creek, no one was in sight. She sat down and gave
herself up to joyous anticipations.

"What would George say to her news? Where should they be married?"----a
myriad questions agitated her. But a glance down the slope from time to
time checked her pleasure. At last she saw her brother running towards
her. He had taken off his boots and stockings; they were slung round his
neck, and his bare feet pattered along in the thick, white dust of the
prairie track. His haste made his sister's heart beat in gasps of fear.
Down the hill she sped, and met him on the bridge.

"Wall?" she asked quietly, but the colour had left her cheeks, and Jake
was not to be deceived so easily.

"Wall what?" he answered defiantly, trying to get breath. "I hain't said
nothin'."

"Oh, you mean boy!" she cried indignantly. "I'll never help you again
when father wants to whip you--never! Tell me this minute what happened.
Is _he_ hurt?"

"Is who hurt?" asked her brother, glorying in superiority of knowledge,
and the power to tease with impunity.

"Tell me right off," she said, taking him by the collar in her
exasperation, "or--"

"I'll tell you nothin' till you leave go of me," was the sullen reply.
But then the overmastering impulse ran away with him, and he broke out:

"Oh, Loo! I jest seed everythin'. 'Twar a high old fight! They wuz all
there, Seth Stevens, Richards, Monkey Bill--all of 'em, when
schoolmaster rode up. He was still--looked like he wanted to hear a
class recite. He hitched up Jack and come to 'em, liftin' his hat.
Oh, 'twas O.K., you bet! Then they took off their clo's. Seth Stevens
jerked hisn loose on the ground, but schoolmaster stood by himself, and
folded hisn up like ma makes me fold mine at night. Then they comed
together and Seth Stevens he jest drew off and tried to land him one,
but schoolmaster sorter moved aside and took him on the nose, an' Seth
he sot down, with the blood runnin' all over him. An'--an'--that's all.
Every time Seth Stevens hauled off to hit, schoolmaster was thar first.
It war bully!--That's all. An' I seed everythin'. You kin bet your life
on that! An' then Richards and the rest come to him an' said as how Seth
Stevens was faintin', an' schoolmaster he ran to the crick an' brought
water and put over him. An' then I runned to tell you--schoolmaster's
strong, I guess, stronger nor pappa. I seed him put on his vest, an'
Seth Stevens he was settin' up, all blood and water on his face, streaky
like; he did look bad. But, Loo----say, Loo! Why didn't schoolmaster
when he got him down the first time, jest stomp on his face with his
heels?--he had his boots on--an' that's how Seth Stevens broke Tom
Cooper's jaw when _they_ fit."

The girl was white, and trembling from head to foot as the boy ended his
narrative, and looked inquiringly into her face. She could not answer.
Indeed, she had hardly heard the question. The thought of what might
have happened to her lover appalled her, and terror and remorse held her
heart as in a vice. But oh!--and the hot tears came into her eyes--she'd
tell him when they met how sorry she was for it all, and how bad she had
been, and how she hated herself. She had acted foolish, very; but she
hadn't meant it. She'd be more careful in future, much more careful. How
brave he was and kind! How like him it was to get the water! Oh! if he'd
only come.

All this while Jake looked at her curiously; at length he said, "Say,
Loo, s'pose he'd had his eye plugged out."

"Go away--do!" she exclaimed angrily. "I believe you boys jest love
fightin' like dogs."

Jake disappeared to tell and retell the tale to any one who cared to
listen.

Half an hour later Loo, who had climbed the bluff to command the view,
heard the sound of Jack's feet on the wooden bridge. A moment or two
more and the buggy drew up beside her; the schoolmaster bent forward and
spoke, without a trace of emotion in his voice:

"Won't you get in and let me drive you home, Miss Loo?" His victory had
put him in a good humour, without, however, altering his critical
estimate of the girl. The quiet, controlled tone of his voice chilled
and pained her, but her emotions were too recent and too acute to be
restrained.

"Oh, George!" she said, leaning forward against the buggy, and scanning
his face intently. "How can you speak so? You ain't hurt, are you?"

"No!" he answered lightly. "You didn't expect I should be, did you?" The
tone was cold, a little sarcastic even.

Again she felt hurt; she scarcely knew why; the sneer was too far-
fetched for her to understand it.

"Go and put the horse up, and then come back. I'll wait right here for
you."

He did as he was told, and in ten minutes was by her side again. After a
long pause, she began, with quivering lips:

"George, I'm sorry--so sorry. 'Twas all my fault! But I didn't know"--
and she choked down a sob--"I didn't think.

"I want you to tell me how your sisters act and--an' what they wear and
do. I'll try to act like them. Then I'd be good, shouldn't I?

"They play the pianner, don't they?" He was forced to confess that one
of them did.

"An' they talk like you?"

"Yes."

"An' they're good always? Oh, George, I'm jest too sorry for anythin',
an' now--now I'm too glad!" and she burst into tears. He kissed and
consoled her as in duty bound. He understood this mood as little as he
had understood her challenge to love. He was not in sympathy with her;
she had no ideal of conduct, no notion of dignity. Some suspicion of
this estrangement must have dawned upon the girl, or else she was
irritated by his acquiescence in her various phases of self-humiliation.
All at once she dashed the tears from her eyes, and winding herself out
of his arms, exclaimed:

"See here, George Bancroft! I'll jest learn all they know--pianner and
all. I ken, and I will. I'll begin right now. You'll see!" And her blue
eyes flashed with the glitter of steel, while her chin was thrown up in
defiant vanity and self-assertion.

He watched her with indifferent curiosity; the abrupt changes of mood
repelled him. His depreciatory thoughts of her, his resolution not to be
led away again by her beauty influencing him, he noticed the keen
hardness of the look, and felt, perhaps out of a spirit of antagonism,
that he disliked it.

After a few quieting phrases, which, though they sprang rather from the
head than the heart, seemed to achieve their aim, he changed the
subject, by pointing across the creek and asking:

"Whose corn is that?"

"Father's, I guess!"

"I thought that was the Indian territory?"

"It is!"

"Is one allowed to sow corn there and to fence off the ground? Don't the
Indians object?"

"'Tain't healthy for Indians about here," she answered carelessly, "I
hain't ever seen one. I guess it's allowed; anyhow, the corn's there an'
father'll have it cut right soon."

It seemed to Bancroft that they had not a thought in common. Wrong done
by her own folk did not even interest her. At once he moved towards the
house, and the girl followed him, feeling acutely disappointed and
humiliated, which state of mind quickly became one of rebellious self-
esteem. She guessed that other men thought big shucks of her anyway. And
with this reflection she tried to comfort herself.

* * * * *

A week or ten days later, Bancroft came downstairs one morning early and
found the ground covered with hoar-frost, though the sun had already
warmed the air. Elder Conklin, in his shirt-sleeves, was cleaning his
boots by the wood pile. When he had finished with the brush, but not a
moment sooner, he put it down near his boarder. His greeting, a mere
nod, had not prepared the schoolmaster for the question:

"Kin you drive kyows?"

"I think so; I've done it as a boy."

"Wall, to-day's Saturday. There ain't no school, and I've some cattle to
drive to the scales in Eureka. They're in the brush yonder, ef you'd
help. That is, supposin' you've nothin' to do."

"No. I've nothing else to do, and shall be glad to help you if I can."

Miss Loo pouted when she heard that her lover would be away the greater
part of the day, but it pleased her to think that her father had asked
him for his help, and she resigned herself, stipulating only that he
should come right back from Eureka.

After breakfast the two started. Their way lay along the roll of ground
which looked down upon the creek. They rode together in silence, until
the Elder asked:

"You ain't a Member, air you?"

"No."

"That's bad. I kinder misdoubted it las' Sunday; but I wasn't sartin. Ef
your callin' and election ain't sure, I guess Mr. Crew oughter talk to
you."

These phrases were jerked out with long pauses separating them, and then
the Elder was ominously silent.

In various ways Bancroft attempted to draw him into conversation--in
vain. The Elder answered in monosyllables, or not at all. Presently he
entered the woods on the left, and soon halted before the shoot-entrance
to a roughly-built corral.

"The kyows is yonder," he remarked; "ef you'll drive them hyar, I'll
count them as they come in."

The schoolmaster turned his horse's head in the direction pointed out.
He rode for some minutes through the wood without seeing a single
animal. Under ordinary circumstances this would have surprised him; but
now he was absorbed in thinking of Conklin and his peculiarities,
wondering at his habit of silence and its cause:

"Has he nothing to say? Or does he think a great deal without being able
to find words to express his thoughts?"

A prolonged moan, a lowing of cattle in pain, came to his ears. He made
directly for the sound, and soon saw the herd huddled together by the
snake-fence which zigzagged along the bank of the creek. He went on till
he came to the boundary fence which ran at right angles to the water,
and then turning tried to drive the animals towards the corral. He met,
however, with unexpected difficulties. He had brought a stock-whip with
him, and used it with some skill, though without result. The bullocks
and cows swerved from the lash, but before they had gone ten yards they
wheeled and bolted back. At first this manoeuvre amused him. The Elder,
he thought, has brought me to do what he couldn't do himself; I'll show
him I can drive. But no! in spite of all his efforts, the cattle would
not be driven. He grew warm, and set himself to the work. In a quarter
of an hour his horse was in a lather, and his whip had flayed one or two
of the bullocks, but there they stood again with necks outstretched
towards the creek, lowing piteously. He could not understand it.
Reluctantly he made up his mind to acquaint the Elder with the
inexplicable fact. He had gone some two hundred yards when his tired
horse stumbled. Holding him up, Bancroft saw he had tripped over a mound
of white dust. A thought struck him. He threw himself off the horse, and
tasted the stuff; he was right; it was salt! No wonder he could not
drive the cattle; no wonder they lowed as if in pain--the ground had
been salted.

He remounted and hastened to the corral. He found the Elder sitting on
his horse by the shoot, the bars of which were down.

"I can't move those cattle!"

"You said you knew how to drive."

"I do, but they are mad with thirst; no one can do anything with them.
Besides, in this sun they might die on the road."

"Hum."

"Let them drink; they'll go on afterwards."

"Hum." And the Elder remained for some moments silent. Then he said, as
if thinking aloud: "It's eight miles to Eureka; they'll be thirsty again
before they get to the town."

Bancroft, too, had had his wits at work, and now answered the other's
thought. "I guess so; if they're allowed just a mouthful or two they can
be driven, and long before they reach Eureka they'll be as thirsty as
ever."

Without a word in reply the Elder turned his horse and started off at a
lope. In ten minutes the two men had taken down the snake fence for a
distance of some fifty yards, and the cattle had rushed through the gap
and were drinking greedily.

After they had had a deep draught or two, Bancroft urged his horse into
the stream and began to drive them up the bank. They went easily enough
now, and ahead of them rode the Elder, his long whitey-brown holland
coat fluttering behind him. In half an hour Bancroft had got the herd
into the corral. The Elder counted the three hundred and sixty-two
beasts with painstaking carefulness as they filed by.

The prairie-track to Eureka led along the creek, and in places ran close
to it without any intervening fence. In an hour under that hot October
sun the cattle had again become thirsty, and it needed all Bancroft's
energy and courage to keep them from dashing into the water. Once or
twice indeed it was a toss-up whether or not they would rush over him.
He was nearly exhausted when some four hours after the start they came
in sight of the little town. Here he let the herd into the creek. Glad
of the rest, he sat on his panting horse and wiped the perspiration from
his face. After the cattle had drunk their fill, he moved them quietly
along the road, while the water dripped from their mouths and bodies. At
the scales the Elder met the would-be purchaser, who as soon as he
caught sight of the stock burst into a laugh.

"Say, Conklin," he cried out, "I guess you've given them cattle enough
to drink, but I don't buy water for meat. No, sir; you bet, I don't."

"I didn't allow you would," replied the Elder gravely; "but the track
was long and hot; so they drank in the crik."

"Wall," resumed the dealer, half disarmed by this confession, which
served the Elder's purpose better than any denial could have done, "I
guess you'll take off fifty pound a head for that water."

"I guess not," was the answer. "Twenty pound of water's reckoned to be
about as much as a kyow kin drink."

The trading began and continued to Bancroft's annoyance for more than
half an hour. At last it was settled that thirty pounds' weight should
be allowed on each beast for the water it had drunk. When this
conclusion had been arrived at, it took but a few minutes to weigh the
animals and pay the price agreed upon.

The Elder now declared himself ready to go "to hum" and get somethin' to
eat. In sullen silence Bancroft remounted, and side by side they rode
slowly towards the farm. The schoolmaster's feelings may easily be
imagined. He had been disgusted by the cunning and hypocrisy of the
trick, and the complacent expression of the Elder's countenance
irritated him intensely. As he passed place after place where the cattle
had given him most trouble in the morning, anger took possession of him,
and at length forced itself to speech.

"See here, Elder Conklin!" he began abruptly, "I suppose you call
yourself a Christian. You look down on me because I'm not a Member. Yet,
first of all, you salt cattle for days till they're half mad with
thirst, then after torturing them by driving them for hours along this
road side by side with water, you act lies with the man you've sold them
to, and end up by cheating him. You know as well as I do that each of
those steers had drunk sixty-five pounds' weight of water at least; so
you got" (he couldn't use the word "stole" even in his anger, while the
Elder was looking at him) "more than a dollar a head too much. That's
the kind of Christianity you practise. I don't like such Christians, and
I'll leave your house as soon as I can. I am ashamed that I didn't tell
the dealer you were deceiving him. I feel as if I had been a party to
the cheat."

While the young man was speaking the Elder looked at him intently. At
certain parts of the accusation Conklin's face became rigid, but he said
nothing. A few minutes later, having skirted the orchard, they
dismounted at the stable-door.

After he had unsaddled his horse and thrown it some Indian corn,
Bancroft hastened to the house; he wanted to be alone. On the stoop he
met Loo and said to her hastily:

"I can't talk now, Loo; I'm tired out and half crazy. I must go to my
room and rest. After supper I'll tell you everything. Please don't keep
me now."

Supper that evening was a silent meal. The Elder did not speak once; the
two young people were absorbed in their own reflections, and Mrs.
Conklin's efforts to make talk were effectual only when she turned to
Jake. Mrs. Conklin, indeed, was seldom successful in anything she
attempted. She was a woman of fifty, or thereabouts, and her face still
showed traces of former good looks, but the light had long left her
round, dark eyes, and the colour her cheeks, and with years her figure
had grown painfully thin. She was one of the numerous class who delight
in taking strangers into their confidence. Unappreciated, as a rule, by
those who know them, they seek sympathy from polite indifference or
curiosity. Before he had been a day in the house Bancroft had heard from
Mrs. Conklin all about her early life. Her father had been a large
farmer in Amherst County, Massachusetts; her childhood had been
comfortable and happy: "We always kept one hired man right through the
winter, and in summer often had eight and ten; and, though you mightn't
think it now, I was the belle of all the parties." Dave (her husband)
had come to work for her father, and she had taken a likin' to him,
though he was such a "hard case." She told of Dave's gradual conversion
and of the Revivalist Minister, who was an Abolitionist as well, and had
proclaimed the duty of emigrating to Kansas to prevent it from becoming
a slave state. Dave, it appeared, had taken up the idea zealously, and
had persuaded her to go with him. Her story became pathetic in spite of
her self-pity as she related the hardships of that settlement in the
wilds, and described her loneliness, her shivering terror when her
husband was away hauling logs for their first home, and news came that
the slave-traders from Missouri had made another raid upon the scattered
Abolitionist farmers. The woman had evidently been unfit for such rude
transplanting. She dwelt upon the fact that her husband had never
understood her feelings. If he had, she wouldn't have minded so much.
Marriage was not what girls thought; she had not been happy since she
left her father's house, and so forth. The lament was based on an
unworthy and futile egoism, but her whining timidity appeared to
Bancroft inexplicable. He did not see that just as a shrub pales and
dies away under the branches of a great tree, so a weak nature is apt to
be further enfeebled by association with a strong and self-contained
character. In those early days of loneliness and danger the Elder's
steadfastness and reticence had prevented him from affording to his wife
the sympathy which might have enabled her to overcome her fears. "He
never talked anythin' over with me," was the burden of her complaint.
Solitude had killed every power in her save vanity, and the form her
vanity took was peculiarly irritating to her husband, and in a lesser
degree to her daughter, for neither the Elder nor Loo would have founded
self-esteem on adventitious advantages of upbringing. Accordingly, Mrs.
Conklin was never more than an uncomfortable shadow in her own house,
and this evening her repeated attempts to bring about a semblance of
conversation only made the silence and preoccupation of the others
painfully evident.

As soon as the supper things were cleared away, Loo signalled to
Bancroft to accompany her to the stoop, where she asked him what had
happened.

"I insulted the Elder," he said, "and I told him I should leave his
house as soon as I could."

"You don't mean that!" she exclaimed. "You must take that back, George.
I'll speak to pappa; he'll mind me."

"No," he replied firmly; "speaking won't do any good. I've made up my
mind. It's impossible for me to stay here."

"Then you don't care for me. But that's not so. Say it's not so, George.
Say you'll stay--and I'll come down this evening after the old folks
have gone to bed, and sit with you. There!"

Of course the man yielded to a certain extent, the pleading face
upturned to his was too seductive to be denied, but he would not promise
more than that he would tell her what had taken place, and consult with
her.

Shortly after nine o'clock, as usual, Mr. and Mrs. Conklin retired. Half
an hour later Bancroft and Loo were seated together in the corner of the
back stoop. They sat like lovers, his arm about her waist, while he told
his story. She expressed relief; she had feared it would be much worse;
he had only to say he didn't mean anythin', and she'd persuade her
father to forget and forgive. But the schoolmaster would not consent to
that. He had meant and did mean every word, and could take back nothing.
And when she appealed to his affection, he could only repeat that he'd
think it over. "You know I like you, Loo, but I can't do
impossibilities. It's unfortunate, perhaps, but it's done and can't be
undone." And then, annoyed at being pressed further, he thought they had
better go in: it was very cold; she'd catch a chill if she stayed
longer, and there was no sense in that. The girl, seeing that her
pleading was of no avail, grew angry; his love was good enough to talk
about, but it could not be worth much if he denied her so little a
thing; it didn't matter, though, she'd get along somehow, she guessed--
here they were startled by the sound of a door opening. Loo glided
quickly round the corner of the stoop, and entered the house. Bancroft
following her heard the back door shut, and some one go down the steps.
He could not help looking to see who was on foot at such an untimely
hour, and to his surprise perceived the Elder in a night-shirt, walking
with bare feet towards the stables through the long grass already stiff
with frost. Before the white figure had disappeared Bancroft assured
himself that Loo had gone up to bed the front way. Curiosity conquering
his first impulse, which had been to follow her example, he went after
the Elder, without, however, intending to play the spy. When he had
passed through the stables and got to the top of the slope overlooking
the creek, he caught sight of the Elder twenty yards away at the water's
edge. In mute surprise he watched the old man tie his night-shirt up
under his armpits, wade into the ice-cold water, kneel down, and begin
what was evidently meant to be a prayer. His first words were
conventional, but gradually his earnestness and excitement overcame his
sense of the becoming, and he talked of what lay near his heart in
disjointed phrases.

"That young man to-day jes' jumped on me! He told me I'd plagued them
cattle half to death, and I'd acted lies and cheated Ramsdell out of
three hundred dollars. 'Twas all true. I s'pose I did plague the cattle,
though I've often been as thirsty as they were--after eatin' salt pork
and workin' all day in the sun. I didn't think of hurtin' them when I
salted the floor. But I did act to deceive Ramsdell, and I reckon I made
nigh on three hundred dollars out of the deal. 'Twas wrong. But, O
God!"--and unconsciously the old man's voice rose--"You know all my
life. You know everythin'. You know I never lied or cheated any one fer
myself. I've worked hard and honest fer more'n forty years, and always
been poor. I never troubled about it, and I don't now, but fer Loo.

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