Produced by Audrey Longhurst, D Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) KING SPRUCE A NOVEL BY HOLMAN DAY AUTHOR OF "SQUIRE PHIN" "UP IN MAINE" "KIN O' KTAADN" ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY E. ROSCOE SHRADER NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1908, by HARPER & BROTHERS. _All rights reserved._ Published April, 1908. [Illustration: "'I KNOW YOUR HEART'" [_See p. 289_] TO A. B. D. MY COMRADE OF TRAIL AND CAMP CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. UP IN "CASTLE CUT 'EM" 1 II. THE HEIRESS OF "OAKLANDS" 17 III. THE MAKING OF A "CHANEY MAN" 27 IV. THE BOSS OF THE "BUSTERS" 35 V. DURING THE PUGWASH HANG-UP 55 VI. AS FOUGHT BEFORE THE "IT-'LL-GIT-YE CLUB" 62 VII. ON MISERY GORE 78 VIII. THE TORCH, AND THE LIGHTING OF IT 92 IX. BY ORDER OF PULASKI D. BRITT 104 X. "LADDER" LANE'S SOIRÉE 114 XI. IN THE BARONY OF "STUMPAGE JOHN" 127 XII. THE CODE OF LARRIGAN-LAND 142 XIII. THE RED THROAT OF POGEY 153 XIV. THE MESSAGE OF "PROPHET ELI" 164 XV. BETWEEN TWO ON JERUSALEM 174 XVI. IN THE PATH OF THE BIG WIND 181 XVII. THE AFFAIR AT DURFY'S CAMP 198 XVIII. THE OLD SOUBUNGO TRAIL 217 XIX. THE HOME-MAKERS OF ENCHANTED 230 XX. THE HA'NT OF THE UMCOLCUS 241 XXI. THE MAN WHO CAME FROM NOWHERE 256 XXII. THE HOSTAGE OF THE GREAT WHITE SILENCE 270 XXIII. IN THE MATTER OF JOHN BARRETT'S DAUGHTER 278 XXIV. THE CHEESE RIND THAT NEEDED SHARP TEETH 293 XXV. SHARPENING TEETH ON PULASKI BRITT'S WHETSTONE 303 XXVI. THE DEVIL OF THE HEMPEN STRANDS 312 XXVII. THE "CANNED THUNDER" OF CASTONIA 324 XXVIII. "'TWAS DONE BY TOMMY THUNDER" 341 XXIX. THE PARADE PAST RODBURD IDE'S PLATFORM 352 XXX. THE PACT WITH KING SPRUCE 361 ILLUSTRATIONS "'I KNOW YOUR HEART'" _Frontispiece_ "WADE STOOD ABOVE THE FALLEN FOE" _Facing p._ 70 "WRITHING AT HIS BONDS, HIS CONTORTED FACE TOWARDS THE RED FLAMES GALLOPING UP THE VALLEY" " 172 "'WHAT I SAY ON THIS RIVER GOES!'" " 334 NOTE When the trees have been cut and trimmed in the winter's work in the woods the logs are hauled in great loads to be piled at "landing-places" on the frozen streams, so that the spring floods will move them. Most of the streams have a succession of dams. On the spring drive the logs are floated to the dams, and then the gates are raised and the logs are "sluiced" through with a head of water behind them to carry them down-stream. Thus the drive is lifted along in sections from one dam to another. It will be seen that Pulaski D. Britt's series of dams on Jerusalem constituted a valuable holding, and enabled him to control the water and leave the logs of rivals stranded if he wished. The collection of water and quick work in "sluicing" are most important, for the streams give down only about so much water in the spring. When a load of logs is suddenly set free from the cable holding it back on a steep descent, as in Chapter XXVI., it is said to be "sluiced." When there is a jam of entangled logs as they are swept down-stream, if it is impossible to find and pry loose the "key-log," it is sometimes necessary to blow up the restraining logs with dynamite. When the floating logs are caught upon rocks, and the men are prying them loose, they are said to be "carding" the ledges. A "jill-poke," a pet aversion of drivers, is a log with one end lodged on the bank and the other thrust out into the stream. The "cant-dog" is illustrated on the cover of the book. The "peavy" is the Maine name for a slightly different variety of "cant-dog," which takes its title from its maker in Old Town. The "pick-pole" is an ashen pole ten to twelve feet long, shod with an iron point with a screw-tip, which enables a driver to pull a log towards him or to push it away. KING SPRUCE CHAPTER I UP IN "CASTLE CUT 'EM" "Oh, the road to 'Castle Cut 'Em' is mostly all uphill. You can dance along all cheerful to the sing-song of a mill; King Cole he wanted fiddles, and so does old King Spruce, But it's only gashin'-fiddles that he finds of any use. "Oh, come along, good lumbermen, oh, come along I say! Come up to 'Castle Cut 'Em,' and pull your wads and pay. King Cole he liked his bitters, and so does old King Spruce, But the only kind he hankers for is old spondulix-juice." --From song by Larry Gorman, "Woods Poet." The young man on his way to "Castle Cut 'Em" was a clean-cut picture of self-reliant youth. But he was not walking as one who goes to a welcome task. He saw two men ahead of him who walked with as little display of eagerness; men whose shoulders were stooped and whose hands swung listlessly as do hands that are astonished at finding themselves idle. A row of mills that squatted along the bank of the canal sent after them a medley of howls from band-saws and circulars. The young man, with the memory of his college classics sufficiently fresh to make him fanciful, found suggestion of chained monsters in the aspect of those shrieking mills, with slip-openings like huge mouths. That same imagery invested the big building on the hill with attributes that were not reassuring. But he went on up the street in the sunshine, his eyes on the broad backs of the plodders ahead. King Spruce was in official session. Men who were big, men who were brawny, yet meek and apologetic, were daily climbing the hill or waiting in the big building to have word with the Honorable John Davis Barrett, who was King Spruce's high chamberlain. Dwight Wade found half a dozen ahead of him when he came into the general office. They sat, balancing their hats on their knees, and each face wore the anxious expectancy that characterized those who waited to see John Barrett. Wade had lived long enough in Stillwater to know the type of men who came to the throne-room of King Spruce in midsummer. These were stumpage buyers from the north woods, down to make another season's contract with the lord of a million acres of timber land. Their faces were brown, their hands were knotted, and when one, in his turn, went into the inner office he moved awkwardly across the level tiles, as though he missed the familiar inequalities of the forest's floor. The others droned on with their subdued mumble about saw-logs, sleeper contracts, and "popple" peeling. The young man who had just entered was so plainly not of themselves or their interests that they paid no attention to him. This was the first time Wade had been inside the doors of "Castle Cut 'Em," the name the humorists of Stillwater had given the dominating block on the main street of the little city. The up-country men, with the bitterness of experience, and moved by somewhat fantastic imaginings, said it was "King Spruce's castle." In the north woods one heard men talk of King Spruce as though this potentate were a real and vital personality. To be sure, his power was real, and power is the principal manifestation of the tyrant who is incarnate. Invisibility usually makes the tyranny more potent. King Spruce, vast association of timber interests, was visible only through the affairs of his court administered by his officers to whom power had been delegated. And, viewed by what he exacted and performed, King Spruce lived and reigned--still lives and reigns. Wade, not wholly at ease in the presence, for he had come with a petition like the others, gazed about the reception-room of the Umcolcus Lumbering and Log-driving Association, the incorporators' more decorous title for King Spruce. It occurred to him that the wall-adornments were not reassuring. A brightly polished circular-saw hung between two windows. It was crossed by two axes, and a double-handled saw was the base for this suggestive coat of arms. The framed photographs displayed loaded log-sleds and piles of logs heaped at landings and similar portraiture of destruction in the woods. Everything seemed to accentuate the dominion of the edge of steel. The other wall-decorations were the heads of moose and deer, further suggestion of slaughter in the forest. A stuffed porcupine on the mantel above the great fireplace mutely suggested that the timber-owners would brook no rivalry in their campaign against the forest; they had asked the State to offer a bounty for the slaughter of this tree-girdler, and a card propped against the "quill-pig" instructed the reader that the State had already spent more than fifty thousand dollars in bounties. The deification of the cutting-edge appealed to Wade's abundant fancy. He had noticed, when he came past the windows of the lumber company's outfitting store on the first floor of the building, that the window displays consisted mostly of cutting tools. When the door of the inner office opened and one of those big and awkward giants came out, Wade discovered that King Spruce had evidently placed in the hands of the Honorable John Davis Barrett something sharp with which to slash human feelings, also. The man's face was flushed and his teeth were set down over his lower lip with manifest effort to dam back language. "Didn't he renew?" inquired one of the waiting group, solicitously. "He turned me down!" muttered the other, scarcely releasing the clutch on his lip. "I've wondered sometimes why 'Stumpage John' hasn't been over his own timber lands in all these years. If he has backed many out of that office feelin' like I do, I reckon there's a good reason why he doesn't trust himself up in the woods." He struck his soft hat across his palm. He did not raise his voice. But the venom in his tone was convincing. "By God, I'd relish bein' the man that mistook him for a bear!" "Give any good reason for not renewin'?" asked a man whose face showed his anxiety for himself. "Any one who has been over my operation on Lunksoos," declared the lumberman, answering the question in his own way--"any fair man knows I haven't devilled: I've left short stumps and I 'ain't topped off under eight inches, though you all know that their damnable scale-system puts a man to the bad when he's square on tops. But I 'ain't left tops to rot on the ground. I've been square!" Wade did not understand clearly, but the sincerity of the man's distress appealed to him. One of the little group darted an uneasy look towards the door of the inner office. It was closed tightly. But for all that he spoke in a husky whisper. "It must be that you didn't fix with What's-his-name last spring--I heard you and he had trouble." The angry operator dared to speak now. He looked towards the door as though he hoped his voice would penetrate to King Spruce's throne-room. "Trouble!" he cried. "Who wouldn't have trouble? I made up my mind I had divided my profits with John Barrett's blackmailin' thieves of agents for the last time. I lumbered square. And the agent was mad because I wasn't crooked and didn't have hush-money for him. And he spiked me with John Barrett; but you fellows, and all the rest that are willin' to whack up and steal in company, will get your contracts all right. And I'm froze out, with camps all built and five thousand dollars' worth of supplies in my depot-camp." "Hold on!" protested several of the men, in chorus, crowding close to this dangerous tale-teller. "You ain't tryin' to sluice the rest of us, are you, just because you've gone to work and got your own load busted on the ramdown?" "I'd like to see the whole infernal game of graft, gamble, and woods-gashin' showed up. Let John Barrett go up and look at his woods and he'll see what you are doin' to 'em--you and his agents! And the man that lumbers square, and remembers that there are folks comin' after us that will need trees, gets what I've just got!" He shook his crumpled hat in their faces. "And I'm just good and ripe for trouble, and a lot of it." "Here, you let me talk with you," interposed a man who had said nothing before, and he took the recalcitrant by the arm, led him away to a corner, and they entered into earnest conference. At the end of it the destructionist drove his hat on with a smack of his big palm and strode out, sullen but plainly convinced. The other man returned to the group and spoke cautiously low, but in that big, bare room with its resonant emptiness even whispers travelled far. "I'll take a double contract and sublet to him," he explained. "Barrett won't know, and after this Dave will come back into line and handle the agent. I reckon he's got well converted from honesty in a lumberin' deal. It's what we're up against, gents, in this business; the patterns are handed to us and we've got to cut our conduct accordin' to other men's measurements. Barrett gets _his_ first; the agent gets _his_; we get what we can squeeze out of a narrow margin--and the woods get hell." A man came out of the inner office stroking the folds of a stumpage permit preparatory to stuffing it into his wallet, and the peacemaker departed promptly, for it was now his turn to pay his respects to King Spruce. In what he had seen and what he had heard, Dwight Wade found food for thought. The men so manifestly had accepted the stranger as some one utterly removed from comprehension of their affairs or interest in their talk that they had not been discreet. It occurred to him that his own present business with John Barrett would be decidedly furthered were he to utilize that indiscretion. This thought occurred to him not because he intended for one instant to use his information, but because he saw now that his business with John Barrett was more to John Barrett's personal advantage than that gentleman realized. This knowledge gave him more confidence. He was proposing something to the Honorable John Barrett that the latter, for his own good, ought to be pressed into accepting. The earlier reflection which had made him uneasy, that a millionaire timber baron would not listen patiently to suggestions about his own business offered by the principal of the Stillwater high-school, had now been modified by circumstances. Even that lurking fear, that awe of John Barrett which he had his peculiar and private reason for feeling and hiding, was not quite so nerve-racking. Barrett left it to his clients to manage the order of precedence in the outer office. It was only necessary for the awaiting suppliant to note his place between those already there and those who came in after him; and Wade was prompt to accept his turn. He knew the Honorable John Barrett. As mayor that gentleman had distributed the diplomas at the June graduation. And Mr. Barrett, after one first, sharp, scowling glance over his nose-glasses, hooking his chin to one side as he gazed, rose and greeted the young man cordially. Then he wheeled his chair away from his desk to the window and sat down where he could feel the breeze. Looking past him Wade saw the Stillwater saw-mills. There were five of them in a row along the canal. Each had a slip-opening in the end and it yawned wide like a mouth that stretched for prey. The two windows pinched together in each gable gave to the end of the building likeness to a hideous face. From his seat Wade heard the screech of the band-saws. The sounds came out of those open mouths. The dripping logs went up the slips and into those mouths, like morsels sliding along a slavering tongue. Mingled with the fierce scream of the band-saws there were the wailings of the lath and clapboard saws. In that medley of sound the imagination heard monster and victims mingling howl of triumph and despairing cry. The breeze that ruffled the awnings stirred the thin, gray hair of John Barrett, brought fresh scents of sawdust and sweeter fragrance of seasoning lumber. And fainter yet came the whiff of resinous balsam from the vast fields of logs that crowded the booms. With that picture backing him in the frame of the open window--mutilated trees, and mills yowling in chorus, and with the scent of the riven logs bathing him--the timber baron politely waited for the young man to speak. He had put off the brusqueness of his business demeanor, for it had not occurred to him that the principal of the Stillwater high school could have any financial errand. He played a little tattoo with his eye-glasses' rim upon the second button of his frock-coat. One touch of sunshine on Barrett's cheek showed up striated markings and the faint purpling that indulgence paints upon the skin. The way in which the shoulders were set back under the tightly buttoned frock-coat, the flashing of the keen eyes, and even the cock of the bristly gray mustache that crossed the face in a straight line showed that John Barrett had enjoyed the best that life had to offer him. "I'll make my errand a short one, Mr. Barrett," began Wade, "for I see that others are waiting." "They're only men who want to buy something," said the baron, reassuringly--"men who have come, the whole of them, with the same growl and whine. It's a relief to be rid of them for a few moments." Frankly showing that he welcomed the respite, and serenely indifferent to those who waited, he brought a box of cigars from the desk, and the young man accepted one nervously. "I think I have noticed you about the city since your school closed," Mr. Barrett proceeded. And without special interest he asked, whirling his chair and gazing out of the window at the mills: "How do you happen to be staying here in Stillwater this summer? I supposed pedagogues in vacation-time ran away from their schools as fast as they could." If John Barrett had not been staring at the mills he would have seen the flush that blazed on the young man's cheeks at this sudden, blunt demand for the reasons why he stayed in town. "If I had a home I should probably go there," answered Wade; "but my parents died while I was in college--and--and high-school principals do not usually find summer resorts and European trips agreeing with the size of their purses." "Probably not," assented the millionaire, calmly. A sudden recollection seemed to strike him. "Say, speaking of college--you're the Burton centre, aren't you--or you were? I was there a year ago when Burton clinched the championship. I liked your game! I meant to have said as much to you, but I didn't get a chance, for you know what the push is on a ball-ground. I'm a Burton man, you know. I never miss a game. I'm glad to have such a chap as you at the head of our school. These pale fellows with specs aren't my style!" He turned and ran an approving gaze over Wade's six feet of sturdy young manhood. With his keen eye for lines that revealed breeding and training, Barrett usually turned once to look after a handsome woman and twice to stare at a blooded horse. Men interested him, too--men who appealed to his sportsman sense. This young man, with the glamour of the football victories still upon him, was a particularly attractive object at that moment. He stared into Wade's flushed face, evidently accepting the color as the signal that gratified pride had set upon the cheeks. "You'll weigh in at about one hundred and eighty-five," commented the millionaire. It seemed to Wade that his tone was that of a judge appraising the points of a race-horse, and for an instant he resented the fact that Barrett was sizing him less as a man than as a gladiator. "Old Dame Nature put you up solid, Mr. Wade, and gave you the face to go with the rest. I wish I were as young--and as free!" He gave another look at the mills and scowled when he heard the mumble of men's voices in the outer room. "When a man is past sixty, money doesn't buy the things for him that he really wants." It was the familiar cant of the man rich enough to affect disdain for money, and Wade was not impressed. "I'd like to take my daughter across the big pond this summer," the land baron grumbled, discontentedly, "but I never was tied down so in my life. I am directing-manager of the Umcolcus Association, and I've got all my own lands to handle besides, and with matters in the lumbering business as they are just now there are some things that you can't delegate to agents, Mr. Wade." This man, confiding his troubles, did not seem the ogre he had been painted. The young man had flushed still more deeply at mention of Barrett's daughter, but Barrett was again looking at his squalling mills. The pause seemed a fair opportunity for the errand. The mention of agents revived the recollection that he was proposing something to John Barrett's advantage. "Mr. Barrett, you know it is pretty hard for any one to live in Stillwater and not take an interest in the lumbering business. I'll confess that I've taken such interest myself. A few of my older boys have asked me to secure books on the science of forestry and help them study it." "A man would have pretty hard work to convince me that it is a science," broke in Barrett, with some contempt. "As near as I can find out, it's mostly guesswork, and poor guesswork at that." "Well, the fact remains," hastened Wade, a little nettled by the curtness that had succeeded the timber baron's rather sentimental courtesy, "my boys have been studying forestry, and I have been keeping a bit ahead of them and helping them as I could. Now they need a little practical experience. But they are boys who are working their way through school, and as I had to do the same thing I'm taking an especial interest in them. They have been in your mills two summers." "Why isn't it a good place for them to stay?" demanded Barrett. "They're learning a side of forestry there that amounts to something." "The side that they want to learn is the side of the standing trees," persisted Wade, patiently. "I thought I could talk it over with you a little better than they. I hoped that such a large owner of timber land had begun to take interest in forestry and would, for experiment's sake, put these young men upon a section of timber land this summer and let them work up a map and a report that you could use as a basis for later comparison, if nothing else." "What do you mean, that I'm going to hire them to do it--pay them money?" demanded the timber baron, fixing upon the young man that stare that always disconcerted petitioners. At that moment Wade realized why those men whom he had seen waiting in the outer office were gazing at the door of the inner room with such anxiety. "The young men will be performing a real service, for they will plot a square mile and--" "If there's any pay to it, I'd rather pay them to keep off my lands," broke in Barrett. "Forestry--" He in turn was interrupted. The man who came in entered with manifest belief in his right to interrupt. "Forestry!" he cried, taking the word off Barrett's lips--"forestry is getting your men into the woods, getting grub to 'em, hiring bosses that can whale spryness into human jill-pokes, and can get the logs down to Pea Cove sortin'-boom before the drought strikes. That's forestry! That's my kind. It's the kind I've made my money on. It's the kind John Barrett made his on. What are you doin', John--hirin' a perfesser?" The new arrival asked this in a tone and with a glance up and down Wade that left no doubt as to his opinion of "perfessers." "Are you one of these newfangled fellers that's been studyin' in a book how to make trees grow?" he demanded. Wade had only a limited acquaintance with the notables of the State, but he knew this man. He had seen him in Stillwater frequently, and his down-river office was in "Castle Cut 'Em." He was the Honorable Pulaski D. Britt. He had acquired that title--mostly for newspaper use--by serving many years in the State senate from Umcolcus County. Wade gazed at the puffy red face, the bristle of gray beard, the hard little eyes--pupils of dull gray set in yellow eyeballs--and remembered the stories he had heard about this man who yelped his words with canine abruptness of utterance, who waved his big, hairy hands about his head as he talked, and with every gesture, every glance, every word revealed himself as a driver of men, grown arrogant and cruel by possession of power. "Mr. Britt is executive officer for the lumber company in the north country," explained Barrett, dryly. "We are all associated more or less closely, though many of our holdings are separate. We think it is quite essential to confer together when undertaking any important step." His satiric dwelling on the word "important" was exasperating. "This young gentleman is the principal of our high-school, Pulaski, and he wants me to put a bunch of high-school boys in my woods as foresters--and pay 'em for it. You came in just as I was going to give him my opinion. But it may be more proper for you to do it, for you are the woods executive, and are better posted on conditions up there than I am." His drawled irony was biting. The Honorable John Barrett enjoyed sport of all kinds, including badger-baiting. Now he leaned back in his swivel-chair with the air of a man about to enjoy the spectacle of a lively affair. But Wade, glancing from Barrett to Britt, was in no humor to be the butt of the millionaire. "I don't think I care to listen to Mr. Britt's opinions," he said, rising hastily. "Why? Don't you think I know what I'm talking about?" demanded the lumberman. He had missed the point of Barrett's satire, being himself a man of the bludgeon instead of the rapier. "I'm quite sure you know, Mr. Britt," said the young man, bowing to Barrett and starting away. "I've hired more men than any ten operators on the Umcolcus, put 'em all together," declared Britt, following him, "and I'd ought to know something about whether a man is worth anything on a job or not. And rather than have any one of those squirt-gun foresters cuttin' and caliperin' over my lands, I'd--" Wade shut the door behind him, strode through the outer office, and hurried down-stairs, his face very red and his teeth shut very tight. He realized that he had left the presence of King Spruce in most discourteous haste, but the look in John Barrett's eyes when he had leaned back and "sicked on" that old railer of the rasping voice had been too much for Wade's nerves. To be made an object of ridicule by _her_ father was bitter, with the bitterness of banished hope that had sprung into blossom for just one encouraging moment. When he came out into the sunlight he threw down the fat cigar--plump with a suggestion of the rich man's opulence--and ground it under his heel. In the anxiety of his intimate hopes, in the first cordiality of their interview, it had seemed as though the millionaire had chosen to meet him upon that common level of gentle society where consideration of money is banished. Now, in the passion of his disappointment, Wade realized that he had served merely as a diversion, as a prize pup or a game-cock would have served, had either been brought to "Castle Cut 'Em" for inspection. Walking--seeking the open country and the comforting breath of the flowers--away from that sickly scent of the sawdust, his cheeks burned when he remembered that at first he had fearfully, yet hopefully, believed that John Barrett knew the secret that he and Elva Barrett were keeping. Hastening away from his humiliation, he confessed to himself that in his optimism of love he had been dreaming a beautiful but particularly foolish dream; but having realized the blessed hope that had once seemed so visionary--having won Elva Barrett's love--the winning of even John Barrett had not seemed an impossible task. The millionaire's frank greeting had held a warmth that Wade had grasped at as vague encouragement. But now the clairvoyancy of his sensitiveness enabled him to understand John Barrett's nature and his own pitiful position in that great affair of the heart; he had not dared to look at that affair too closely till now. So he hurried on, seeking the open country, obsessed by the strange fancy that there was something in his soul that he wanted to take out and scrutinize, alone, away from curious eyes. The Honorable Pulaski D. Britt had watched that hasty exit with sudden ire that promptly changed to amusement. He turned slowly and gazed at the timber baron with that amusement plainly showing--amusement spiced with a bit of malice. The reverse of Britt's hard character as bully and tyrant was an insatiate curiosity as to the little affairs of the people he knew and a desire to retail those matters in gossip when he could wound feelings or stir mischief. If one with a gift of prophecy had told him that his next words would mark the beginning of the crisis of his life, Pulaski Britt would have professed his profane incredulity in his own vigorous fashion. All that he said was, "Well, John, your girl has picked out quite a rugged-lookin' feller, even if he ain't much inclined to listen to good advice on forestry." Confirmed gossips are like connoisseurs of cheese: the stuff they relish must be stout. It gratified Britt to see that he had "jumped" his friend. "I didn't know but you had him in here to sign partnership papers," Britt continued, helping himself to a cigar. "I wouldn't blame you much for annexin' him. You need a chap of his size to go in on your lands and straighten out your bushwhackin' thieves with a club, seein' that you don't go yourself. As for me, I don't need to delegate clubbers; I can attend to it myself. It's the way I take exercise." "Look here, Pulaski," Barrett replied, angrily, "a joke is all right between friends, but hitching up my daughter Elva's name with a beggar of a school-master isn't humorous." Britt gnawed off the end of the cigar, and spat the fragment of tobacco into a far corner. "Then if you don't see any humor in it, why don't you stop the courtin'?" "There isn't any courting." "I say there is, and if the girl's mother was alive, or you 'tending out at home as sharp as you ought to, your family would have had a stir-up long ago. If you ain't quite ready for a son-in-law, and don't want that young man, you'd better grab in and issue a family bulletin to that effect." "Damn such foolishness! I don't believe it," stormed Barrett, pulling his chair back to the desk; "but if you knew it, why didn't you say something before?" "Oh, I'm no gossip," returned Britt, serenely. "I've got something to do besides watch courtin' scrapes. But I don't have to watch this one in _your_ family. I know it's on." Barrett hooked his glasses on his nose with an angry gesture, and began to fuss with the papers on his desk. But in spite of his professed scepticism and his suspicion of Pulaski Britt's ingenuousness, it was plain that his mind was not on the papers. He whirled away suddenly and faced Britt. That gentleman was pulling packets of other papers from his pocket. "Look here, Britt, about this lying scandal that seems to be snaking around, seeing that it has come to your ears, I--" "What I'm here for is to go over these drivin' tolls so that they can be passed on to the book-keepers," announced Mr. Britt, with a fine and brisk business air. He had shot his shaft of gossip, had "jumped" his man, and the affair of John Barrett's daughter had no further interest for him. "You go ahead and run your family affairs to suit yourself. As to these things you are runnin' with me, let's get at 'em." In this manner, unwittingly, did Pulaski D. Britt light the fuse that connected with his own magazine; in this fashion, too, did he turn his back upon it. CHAPTER II THE HEIRESS OF "OAKLANDS" "Pete Lebree had money and land, Paul of Olamon had none, Only his peavy and driving pole, his birch canoe and his gun. But to Paul Nicola, lithe and tall, son of a Tarratine, Had gone the heart of the governor's child, Molly the island's queen." --_Old Town Ballads._ The coachman usually drove into town from the "Oaklands" to bring John Barrett home from his office, for Barrett liked the spirited rush of his blooded horses. But when his daughter occasionally anticipated the coachman, he resigned himself to a ride in her phaeton with only a sleepy pony to draw them. Once more absorbed in his affairs, after the departure of Pulaski Britt, Barrett had forgotten the unpleasant morsel of gossip that Britt had brought to spice his interview. But a familiar trilling call that came up to him stirred that unpleasant thing in his mind. When Barrett walked to the window and signalled to her that he had heard and would come, his expression was not exactly that of the fond father who welcomes his only child. It was not the expression that the bright face peering from under the phaeton's parasol invited. And as he wore his look of uneasiness and discontent when he took his seat beside her, her face became grave also. "Is it the business or the politics, father?" she asked, solicitously. "I'm jealous of both if they take away the smiles and bring the tired lines. If it's business, let's make believe we've got money enough. Haven't we--for only us two? If it's politics--well, when I'm a governor's daughter I'll be only an unhappy slave to the women, and you a servant of the men." But he did not respond to her rallying. "I can't get away from work this summer, Elva," he said, with something of the curtness of his business tone. "I mean I can't get away to go with you." "But I don't want you to go anywhere, father," protested the girl. She was so earnest that he glanced sidewise at her. His air was that of one who is trying a subtle test. "I feel that I must go north for a visit to my timber lands," he went on; "I have not been over them for years. I've had pretty good proof that I am being robbed by men I trusted. I propose to go up there and make a few wholesome examples." He was accustomed to talk his business affairs with her. She always received them with a grave understanding that pleased him. Her dark eyes now met him frankly and interestedly. Looking at her as he did, with his strange thrill of suspicion that another man wanted her and that she loved the man, he saw that his daughter was beautiful, with the brilliancy of type that transcends prettiness. He realized that she had the wit and spirit which make beauty potent, and her eyes and bearing showed poise and self-reliance. Such was John Barrett's appraisal, and John Barrett's business was to appraise humankind. But perhaps he did not fully realize that she was a woman with a woman's heart. The pony was ambling along lazily under the elms, and the reflective lord of lands was silent awhile, glancing at his daughter occasionally from the corner of his eye. He noted, with fresh interest, that she had greeting for all she met--as gracious a word for the tattered man from the mill as for the youth who slowed his automobile to speak to her. "These gossips have misunderstood her graciousness," he mused, the thought giving him comfort. But he was still grimly intent upon his trial of her. "Because I cannot go with you, and because I shall be away in the woods, Elva," he said, after a time, "I am going to send you to the shore with the Dustins." There was sudden fire in her dark eyes. "I do not care to go anywhere with the Dustins," she said, with decision. "I do not care to go anywhere at all this summer. Father!" There was a volume of protest in the intonation of the word. She had the bluntness of his business air when she was aroused. "I would be blind and a fool not to understand why you are so determined to throw me in with the Dustins. You want me to marry that bland and blessed son and heir. But I'll not do any such thing." "You are jumping at conclusions, Elva," he returned, feeling that he himself had suddenly become the hunted. "I've got enough of your wit, father, to know what's in a barrel when there's a knot-hole for me to peep through." "Now that you have brought up the subject, what reason is there for your not wanting to marry Weston Dustin? He's--" "I know all about him," she interrupted. "There is no earthly need for you and me to get into a snarl of words about him, dadah! He isn't the man I want for a husband; and when John Barrett's only daughter tells him that with all her heart and soul, I don't believe John Barrett is going to argue the question or ask for further reasons or give any orders." He bridled in turn. "But I'm going to tell you, for my part, that I want you to marry Weston Dustin! It has been my wish for a long time, though I have not wanted to hurry you." She urged on the pony, as though anxious to end a _tête-à-tête_ that was becoming embarrassing. "It might be well to save our discussion of Mr. Dustin until that impetuous suitor has shown that he wants to marry me," she remarked, with a little acid in her tone. "He has come to me like a gentleman, told me what he wants, and asked my permission," stated Mr. Barrett. "Following a strictly business rule characteristic of Mr. Dustin--'Will you marry your timber lands to my saw-mill, Mr. John Barrett, one daughter thrown in?'" "At least he didn't come sneaking around by the back door!" cried her father, jarred out of his earlier determination to probe the matter craftily. "Intimating thereby that I have an affair of the heart with the iceman or the grocery boy?" she inquired, tartly. She was looking full at him now with all the Barrett resoluteness shining in her eyes. And he, with only the vague and malicious promptings of Pulaski Britt for his credentials, had not the courage to make the charge that was on his tongue, for his heart rejected it now that he was looking into her face. "In the old times stern parents married off daughters as they would dispose of farm stock," she said, whipping her pony with a little unnecessary vigor. "But I had never learned that the custom had obtained in the Barrett family. Therefore, father, we will talk about something more profitable than Mr. Dustin." Outside the city, in the valley where the road curved to enter the gates of "Oaklands," they met Dwight Wade returning, chastened by self-communion. Barrett did not look at the young man. He kept his eyes on his daughter's face as she returned Wade's bow. He saw what he feared. The fires of indignation quickly left the dark eyes. There was the softness of a caress in her gaze. Love displayed his crimson flag on her cheeks. She spoke in answer to Wade's salutation, and even cast one shy look after him when he had passed. When she took her eyes from him she found her father's hard gaze fronting her. "Do you know that fellow?" he demanded, brusquely. "Yes," she said, her composure not yet regained; "when he was a student at Burton and I was at the academy I met him often at receptions." "What is that academy, a sort of matrimonial bureau?" His tone was rough. "It is not a nunnery," she retorted, with spirit. "The ordinary rules of society govern there as they do here in Stillwater." "Elva," he said, emotion in his tones, "since your mother died you have been mistress of the house and of your own actions, mostly. Has that fellow there been calling on you?" "He has called on me, certainly. Many of my school friends have called. Since he has been principal of the high-school I have invited him to 'Oaklands.'" "You needn't invite him again. I do not want him to call on you." "For what reason, father?" She was looking straight ahead now, and her voice was even with the evenness of contemplated rebellion. "As your father, I am not obliged to give reasons for all my commands." "You are obliged to give me a reason when you deny a young gentleman of good standing in this city our house. An unreasonable order like that reflects on my character or my judgment. I am the mistress of our home, as well as your daughter." "It's making gossip," he floundered, dimly feeling the unwisdom of quoting Pulaski Britt. "Who is gossiping, and what is the gossip?" she insisted. "I don't care to go into the matter," he declared, desperately. "If the young man is nothing to you except an acquaintance, and I have reasons of my own for not wanting him to call at my house, I expect you to do as I say, seeing that his exclusion will not mean any sacrifice for you." He was dealing craftily. She knew it, and resented it. "I do not propose to sacrifice any of my friends for a whim, father. If your reasons have anything to do with my personal side of this matter, I must have them. If they are purely your own and do not concern me, I must consider them your whim, unless you convince me to the contrary, and I shall not be governed in my choice of friends. That may sound rebellious, but a father should not provoke a daughter to rebellion. You ought to know me too well for that." They were at the house, and he threw himself out of the phaeton and tramped in without reply. During their supper he preserved a resentful silence, and at the end went up-stairs to his den to think over the whole matter. It had suddenly assumed a seriousness that puzzled and frightened him. He had been routed in the first encounter. He resolved to make sure of his ground and his facts--and win. Usually he did not notice who came or who went at his house. The still waters of his confidence in his daughter had never been troubled until the Honorable Pulaski D. Britt had breathed upon them. This evening, when he heard a caller announced, he tiptoed to the head of the stairs and listened. It was Dwight Wade, and at sight of him his pride took alarm, his anger flared. After the afternoon's exasperating talk, this seemed like open and insulting contempt for his authority. It was as though the man were plotting with a disobedient daughter to flout him as a father. His purpose of calm thought was swept away by an unreasoning wrath. Muttering venomous oaths, he stamped down the stairs, whose carpet made his approach stealthy, though he did not intend it, and he came upon the two as Wade, his great love spurred by the day's opposition, despondent in the present, fearing for the future, reached out his longing arms and took her to his heart. They faced him as he stood and glowered upon them, a pathetic pair, clinging to each other. "You sneaking thief!" roared Barrett. The girl did not draw away. Wade felt her trembling hands seeking his, and he pressed them and kept her in the circle of his arm. "I don't care to advertise this," Barrett went on, choking with his rage, "but there's just one way to treat you, you thief, and that's to have you kicked out of the house. Elva, up-stairs with you!" She gently put away her lover's arm, but she remained beside him, strong in her woman's courage. "I have always been proud of my father as a gentleman," she said. "It hurts my faith to have you say such things under your own roof." "That pup has come under my roof to steal," raged the millionaire, "and he's got to take the consequences. Don't you read me my duty, girl!" Even Barrett in his wrath had to acknowledge that simple manliness has potency against pride of wealth. Wade took two steps towards him, the instinctive movement of the male that protects his mate. "Mr. Barrett," he said, gravely, "give me credit for honest intentions. If it is a fault to love your daughter with all my heart and soul, I have committed that fault. For me it's a privilege--an honor that you can't prevent." "What! I can't regulate my own daughter's marriage, you young hound?" "You misunderstand me, Mr. Barrett. You cannot prevent me from loving her, even though I may never see nor speak to her again." And Elva, blushing, tremulous, yet determined, looked straight in her father's eyes, saying, "And I love him." Barrett realized that his anger was making a sorry figure compared with this young man's resolute calmness. With an effort he held himself in check. "We won't argue the love side of this thing," he said, grimly. "I haven't any notion of doing that with a nineteen-year-old girl and a pauper. But I want to inform you, young man, that the marriage of John Barrett's only child and heir is a matter for my judgment to control. I'm taking it for granted that you are not sneak enough to run away with her, even if you have stolen her affections." The millionaire understood his man. He had calculated the effect of the sneer. He knew how New England pride may be spurred to conquer passion. "These are wicked insults, sir," said the young man, his face rigid and pale, "but I don't deserve them." "I tell you here before my daughter that I have plans for her future that you shall not interfere with. This is no country school-ma'am, down on your plane of life--this is Elva Barrett, of 'Oaklands,' a girl who has temporarily lost her good sense, but who is nevertheless my daughter and my heiress. She will remember that in a little while. Take yourself out of the way, young man!" The girl's eyes blazed. Her face was transfigured with grief and love. She was about to speak, but Wade hastened to her and took her hand. "Good-night, Elva." She understood him. His eyes and the quiver in his voice spoke to her heart. She clung to his hands when he would have withdrawn them. The look she gave her father checked that gentleman's contemptuous mutterings. "I am ashamed of my father, Mr. Wade," she said, passionately. "I offer you the apologies of our home." "Say, look here!" snarled Barrett, this scornful rebelliousness putting his wits to flight, "if that's the way you feel about me, put on your hat and go with him. I'll be d--d if I don't mean it! Go and starve." He realized the folly of his outburst as he returned their gaze. But he persisted in his puerile attack. "Oh, you don't want her that way, do you?" he sneered. "You want her to bring the dollars that go along with her!" Then Wade forgot himself. He wrested one hand from the gentle clasp that entreated him, and would have struck the mouth that uttered the wretched insult. The girl prevented an act that would have been an enormity. She caught
{'title': 'King Spruce, A Novel by Holman Day', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}