第75章 PART THIRD(6)

"They haven't touched that part.But I reckon we got to have 'em moved to the cemetery.I bought a lot."The old woman began softly to weep."It does seem too hard that they can't be let to rest in peace,pore little things.I wanted you and me to lay there,too,when our time come,Jacob.Just there,back o'the beehives and under them shoomakes--my,I can see the very place!And Idon't believe I'll ever feel at home anywheres else.I woon't know where I am when the trumpet sounds.I have to think before I can tell where the east is in New York;and what if I should git faced the wrong way when I raise?Jacob,I wonder you could sell it!"Her head shook,and the firelight shone on her tears as she searched the folds of her dress for her pocket.

A peal of laughter came from the drawing-room,and then the sound of chords struck on the piano.

"Hush!Don't you cry,'Liz'beth!"said Dryfoos."Here;take my handkerchief.I've got a nice lot in the cemetery,and I'm goin'to have a monument,with two lambs on it--like the one you always liked so much.

It ain't the fashion,any more,to have family buryin'grounds;they're collectin''em into the cemeteries,all round.""I reckon I got to bear it,"said his wife,muffling her face in his handkerchief."And I suppose the Lord kin find me,wherever I am.But Ialways did want to lay just there.You mind how we used to go out and set there,after milkin',and watch the sun go down,and talk about where their angels was,and try to figger it out?""I remember,'Liz'beth."

The man's voice in the drawing-room sang a snatch of French song,insolent,mocking,salient;and then Christine's attempted the same strain,and another cry of laughter from Mela followed.

"Well,I always did expect to lay there.But I reckon it's all right.

It won't be a great while,now,anyway.Jacob,I don't believe I'm a-goin'to live very long.I know it don't agree with me here.""Oh,I guess it does,'Liz'beth.You're just a little pulled down with the weather.It's coming spring,and you feel it;but the doctor says you're all right.I stopped in,on the way up,and he says so.""I reckon he don't know everything,"the old woman persisted:"I've been runnin'down ever since we left Moffitt,and I didn't feel any too well there,even.It's a very strange thing,Jacob,that the richer you git,the less you ain't able to stay where you want to,dead or alive.""It's for the children we do it,"said Dryfoos."We got to give them their chance in the world.""Oh,the world!They ought to bear the yoke in their youth,like we done.I know it's what Coonrod would like to do."Dryfoos got upon his feet."If Coonrod 'll mind his own business,and do what I want him to,he'll have yoke enough to bear."He moved from his wife,without further effort to comfort her,and pottered heavily out into the dining -room.Beyond its obscurity stretched the glitter of the deep drawing-room.His feet,in their broad;flat slippers,made no sound on the dense carpet,and he came unseen upon the little group there near the piano.Mela perched upon the stool with her back to the keys,and Beaton bent over Christine,who sat with a banjo in her lap,letting him take her hands and put them in the right place on the instrument.

Her face was radiant with happiness,and Mela was watching her with foolish,unselfish pleasure in her bliss.

There was nothing wrong in the affair to a man of Dryfoos's traditions and perceptions,and if it had been at home in the farm sitting-room,or even in his parlor at Moffitt,he would not have minded a young man's placing his daughter's hands on a banjo,or even holding them there;it would have seemed a proper,attention from him if he was courting her.

But here,in such a house as this,with the daughter of a man who had made as much money as he had,he did not know but it was a liberty.

He felt the angry doubt of it which beset him in regard to so many experiences of his changed life;he wanted to show his sense of it,if it was a liberty,but he did not know how,and he did not know that it was so.Besides,he could not help a touch of the pleasure in Christine's happiness which Mela showed;and he would have gone back to the library,if he could,without being discovered.

But Beaton had seen him,and Dryfoos,with a nonchalant nod to the young man,came forward."What you got there,Christine?""A banjo,"said the girl,blushing in her father's presence.

Mela gurgled."Mr.Beaton is learnun'her the first position."Beaton was not embarrassed.He was in evening dress,and his face,pointed with its brown beard,showed extremely handsome above the expanse of his broad,white shirt-front.He gave back as nonchalant a nod as he had got,and,without further greeting to Dryfoos,he said to Christine:

"No,no.You must keep your hand and arm so."He held them in position.

"There!Now strike with your right hand.See?""I don't believe I can ever learn,"said the girl,with a fond upward look at him.

"Oh yes,you can,"said Beaton.

They both ignored Dryfoos in the little play of protests which followed,and he said,half jocosely,half suspiciously,"And is the banjo the fashion,now?"He remembered it as the emblem of low-down show business,and associated it with end-men and blackened faces and grotesque shirt-collars.

"It's all the rage,"Mela shouted,in answer for all."Everybody plays it.Mr.Beaton borrowed this from a lady friend of his.""Humph!Pity I got you a piano,then,"said Dryfoos."A banjo would have been cheaper."Beaton so far admitted him to the conversation as to seem reminded of the piano by his mentioning it.He said to Mela,"Oh,won't you just strike those chords?"and as Mela wheeled about and beat the keys he took the banjo from Christine and sat down with it."This way!"He strummed it,and murmured the tune Dryfoos had heard him singing from the library,while he kept his beautiful eyes floating on Christine's."You try that,now;it's very simple.""Where is Mrs.Mandel?"Dryfoos demanded,trying to assert himself.