300

FLENTON HANDS.

LANCE CLEAVERAGE'S wife had been many weeks in the home of her grandfather when it was noticed that Flenton Hands made occasion to come very frequently to the Gentry place. Ajax was well off, for the mountains, and they had always been hospitable; there was much coming and going about the farm; yet the presence of this visitor could not but be noted.

"I reckon you'll have to speak to him. Pappy," Octavia said finally. "I had it on the end of my tongue to name it to him the other day that hit don't look well for him to come back here a-hangin' around the wife of a man that has threatened him. I know in my soul that Lance Cleaverage would not want more than a fair excuse to—Well, an' I couldn't blame him, neither."

It was evident to all that Octavia Gentry, though now as ever she loved her daughter above everything, could not find it in her soft heart to censure Lance. Indeed that heart bled for him and the sufferings she felt sure were his.

It chanced that Ajax spoke to his frequent guest the next day and in the presence of his daughter-in-law. Flenton had come on 301 one of his aimless visits; he was sitting on the porch edge, and Callista had gathered up her baby and retreated to the weaving room, whence the steady "thump-a-chug! thump-a-chug!" of the loom came across to them. Flenton's slaty gray eyes began to wander in the direction of the sounds, and Ajax, prompted by anxious looks from Octavia, finally addressed him.

"Flenton," he began, removing his pipe from his lips, and examining its filling as he spoke, "you've come here right smart of late."

The visitor looked doubtfully from one to the other.

"Y-yes, Mr. Gentry," he allowed uneasily, "I have."

"Uh-huh," Ajax pursued in deep, even tones. "Yo're welcome in this house, like any other neighbor, and they ain't a man on top o' the Turkey Track mountings that can say I ever shut my door in the face of a friend. But—I'll ax you fa'r and open—do you think hit's wise?"

Again Flenton's eyes went rapidly, almost stealthily, from one face to the other.

"Do I think what's wise?" he finally managed to inquire, with fair composure.

"Well," said the elder man slowly, "in the first place we'll say that Lance Cleaverage ain't a feller to fool with. We'll say that, and we'll lay it by and not name him again.".

He paused a moment, then went on:

"Like some several other o' the boys hereabouts, you used to 302 think a heap o' Sis before she was wedded. She's quit her man; and do you think hit's wise to visit so much at the house where she's stayin'? This matter consarns me and the girl's mother, too. I take notice all the rest o' the boys lets Sis alone. How about you?"

This time Flent did not turn his head. He stared out over the hills and made no answer for so long that Octavia spoke up, a tremor of impatience, or of resentment, in her voice.

"Now, Flent, they's no use o' talkin'; of all of Sis's lovyers, you hung on the longest. Look like you wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. Why, the very night her and Lance was married, you done yo' best to step betwixt 'em. And worst is, you don't quit it now that they air wedded."

"Octavy," demurred old Ajax, chafed at seeing a man so bearded by one of the weaker sex, "Flenton may have something to say—let him speak for hisself."

Thus encouraged, Hands faced about toward them.

"No, I ain't never give up Callisty," he said doggedly, "and I ain't never a-goin' to. She's quit her husband." Even in his eagerness he did not find it possible to take Lance's name on his lips. "She's left that thar feller that never done her right, and never was fit for her, to consarn himself with his own evil works and ways; and she's come home here to you-all; 303 and I don't see what should interfere now between her an' me."

Octavia's comely face crimsoned angrily.

"A married woman—a wife—" she broke out with vehemence. But her father-in-law checked her by a motion of the hand.

"Yes, Callisty's quit Lance Cleaverage," agreed Ajax dryly. "An' she's come home. But I reckon she'll behave herself. Leastways, she will while she's in my house."

At the seeming implication, Octavia's fingers trembled in her lap, and she turned a wounded look upon Ajax.

"Well, Pappy! You' no call—" she was beginning, when Flenton, with a manner almost fawning, interrupted her.

"You don't rightly git my meaning, Mr. Gentry—nor you, neither, Miz. Gentry," he said humbly. "I've lived considerable in the Settlement. Down thar, when married people cain't git along, and quits each other, there's—there's ways—Down in the Settlement—"

He broke off under the disconcerting fire of Ajax's eye.

"Oh—one o' them thar di-vo'ces, you mean?" the old man said, strong distaste giving an edge to his deep voice.

"Well, they ain't a-goin' to be none sech between Lance and Callisty," Octavia protested indignantly. "If that's what you' hangin' around for, you'll have yo' trouble for yo' pains, 304 Flenton Hands." She got up sharply, went into the house, and shut the door, leaving the two men together.

Yet when she reviewed her daughter's conduct, her mind, ever alert to the interests of the erring Lance, misgave her. Callista seemed hard enough and cold enough for anything. Octavia heard the two masculine voices, questioning, replying, arguing. She had put herself beyond understanding the words they uttered, but presently feminine curiosity overcame her, and she was stealing back to listen, when, through the small window, she saw Flenton Hands get heavily to his feet. A moment he stood so, looking down, then, her head close to the sash, she heard him ask,

"I've got yo' permission, have I, Mr. Gentry, to go over thar and name this all out to Callisty?"

"I don't know as you've got my permission, and I don't forbid ye," Ajax Gentry said haughtily. "I hold with lettin' every feller go to destruction his own way. He gits thar sooner; and that's whar most of 'em ort to be."

"Well, you don't say I shain't go and speak to her of it," Hands persisted. "I'm a honest man, a perfesser and a church member, and what I do is did open and above-boards. I thank ye kindly for yo' good word."

Old Ajax, who certainly had given no good word, merely grunted as Hands made his way swiftly across the grass to the cabin where the loom stood.

"Don't werry, Octavy," he said, not unkindly, as his daughter-in-law's distressed face showed at the window. "Shorely Sis has 305 got the sense to settle him."

Callista, hard at work, was aware of her visitor by the darkening of the doorway. She looked up and frowned slightly, but gave no other sign of noting his coming. The baby sat on the floor, playing gravely with a feather which stuck first to one plump little finger end and then another. Had Flenton Hands possessed tact, he might have made an oblique opening toward the mother through the child. As it was, he began in a choked, husky voice,

"Callisty, honey—"

He broke off. The concluding word was said so low that Callista could pretend not to have heard it, and she did so.

"Callisty," he repeated, coming in and leaning tremulously forward on the loom, "I want to have speech with you."

"I'm not saying anything against your speakin', am I?" inquired Callista. "But I'm right busy now, Flenton. It isn't likely that you could have anything important to say to me, and I reckon it'll keep."

"You know mighty well and good that what I have to say to you is plenty important," Flenton told her, shaken out of his usual half-cringing caution. "Callisty, yo' husband has quit ye; he's 306 down in the Settlement, and is givin' it out to each and every that he's aimin' to sell to the Company and go to Texas."

He would have continued, but a glance at her face showed him such white rage that he was startled.

"I didn't aim to make you mad," he pleaded. "I know you quit Lance first—good for nothin' as he was, he'd never have given you up, I reckon, till you shook him."

Callista set a hand against her bosom as though she forcibly stilled some emotion that forbade speech. Finally she managed to say with tolerable composure,

"Flenton Hands, you've named a name to me that I won't hear from anybody's lips if I can help it—least of all from yours. If that's the speech you came to have with me, you better go—you cain't take yourself off too soon."

"No," Hands clung to his point, "no, Callisty, that ain't all I come to say. I want to speak for myse'f."

He studied her covertly. He did not dare to mention the divorce which he had assured her grandfather he was ready and anxious to secure for her.

"I,"—he was breathing short, and he moistened his lips before he could go on—"I just wanted to say to you, Callisty, that thar's them that loves you, and respects and admires you, and 307 thinks the sun rises and sets in you."

Lance's wife looked down with bitten lip. Her full glance studied the cooing child playing on the floor near her feet.

"Well—and if that's all you came to say, you might have been in better business," she told him coldly. "I reckon I've got a few friends."

She chose to ignore the attitude of lover which he had assumed. After a moment's silence Flenton began desperately,

"Yo' grandfather named to me that I ought not to visit at the house like I do without my intentions towards and concerning you was made clear," twisting Grandfather Gentry's words to a significance that would certainly have amazed the original speaker. "I told him that I was a honest man and a member in good standin' of Brush Arbor church, and that what I wanted of you was—"

He caught the eye of the girl at the loom and broke off. The red was rising in her pale face till she looked like the Callista of old.

"Don't you never say it!" she choked. "Don't you come here to me, a wedded wife, doin' for my child, and talk like I was a girl lookin' for a husband. I've got one man. Him and me will settle our affairs without help from you. I may not let you nor nobody else, name him to me—but I'll take no such words as this from your mouth."

"An' you won't let me come about any more—you won't speak to me?" demanded Hands, in alarm.

"What is it to me where you come or where you stay?" Callista 308 flung back scornfully. "This ain't house of mine—I'm not the one to bid you go or come."

And with this very unsatisfactory permission, Flenton was obliged to content himself. Thereafter he went to the Gentry's as often as he dared. He sent Little Liza when he was afraid to go; and if Callista put her foot off the place, she found herself dogged and followed by her unwelcome suitor.