The Gentleman from Indiana - Page 16/212

When the rusty hands of the office clock marked half-past four, the

editor-in-chief of the "Carlow County Herald" took his hand out of his

hair, wiped his pen on his last notice from the White-Caps, put on his

coat, swept out the close little entry, and left the sanctum for the

bright June afternoon.

He chose the way to the west, strolling thoughtfully out of town by the

white, hot, deserted Main Street, and thence onward by the country road

into which its proud half-mile of old brick store buildings, tumbled-down

frame shops and thinly painted cottages degenerated. The sun was in his

face, where the road ran between the summer fields, lying waveless, low,

gracious in promise; but, coming to a wood of hickory and beech and walnut

that stood beyond, he might turn his down-bent-hat-brim up and hold his

head erect. Here the shade fell deep and cool on the green tangle of rag

and iron weed and long grass in the corners of the snake fence, although

the sun beat upon the road so dose beside. There was no movement in the

crisp young leaves overhead; high in the boughs there was a quick flirt of

crimson where two robins hopped noiselessly. No insect raised resentment

of the lonesomeness: the late afternoon, when the air is quite still, had

come; yet there rested--somewhere--on the quiet day, a faint, pleasant,

woody smell. It came to the editor of the "Herald" as he climbed to the

top rail of the fence for a seat, and he drew a long, deep breath to get

the elusive odor more luxuriously--and then it was gone altogether.

"A habit of delicacies," he said aloud, addressing the wide silence

complainingly. He drew a faded tobacco-bag and a brier pipe from his coat

pocket and filled and lit the pipe. "One taste--and they quit," he

finished, gazing solemnly upon the shining little town down the road. He

twirled the pouch mechanically about his finger, and then, suddenly

regarding it, patted it caressingly. It had been a giddy little bag, long

ago, satin, and gay with embroidery in the colors of the editor's

university; and although now it was frayed to the verge of tatters, it

still bore an air of pristine jauntiness, an air of which its owner in no

wise partook. He looked from it over the fields toward the town in the

clear distance and sighed softly as he put the pouch back in his pocket,

and, resting his arm on his knee and his chin in his hand, sat blowing

clouds of smoke out of the shade into the sunshine, absently watching the

ghostly shadows dance on the white dust of the road.

A little garter snake crept under the fence beneath him and disappeared in

the underbrush; a rabbit progressing timidly on his travels by a series of

brilliant dashes and terror-smitten halts, came within a few yards of him,

sat up with quivering nose and eyes alight with fearful imaginings--

vanished, a flash of fluffy brown and white. Shadows grew longer; the

brier pipe sputtered feebly in depletion and was refilled. A cricket

chirped and heard answer; there was a woodland stir of breezes; and the

pair of robins left the branches overhead in eager flight, vacating before

the arrival of a great flock of blackbirds hastening thither ere the

eventide should be upon them. The blackbirds came, chattered, gossiped,

quarrelled, and beat each other with their wings above the smoker sitting

on the top fence rail.