Hooking Watermelons by Edward Bellamy (urban books to read txt) 📖

dear," said Lina, stroking her cheek. "This is only from my brother Charley."

"The one at Watertown 'Sem.'?"

"Yes," said Lina; "and oh, girls," she went on, with gloomy energy, "we don't have any good times at all compared with those boys. They do really wicked things, hook apples, and carry off people's gates and signs, and screw up tutors' doors in the night, and have fights with what he calls 'townies,'--I don't know exactly what they are,--and everything. I thought before that we were doing some things too, but we 're not, compared with all that, and I shall be so ashamed when I meet him at home not to have anything to tell except little bits of things."

A depressing pause followed. Lina's disparaging view of achievements in the way of defying the proprieties, of which all the girls had been very proud, cast a profound gloom over the circle. The blonde seemed to voice the common sentiment when she said, resting her chin on Lina's knee, and gazing pensively at the wall:--

"Oh, dear! that comes of being girls. We might as well be good and done with it. We can't be bad so as to amount to anything."

"Good or bad, we must eat," said Nell Barber. "I must go and get the spread ready. I forgot all about it, Lina; but we came in just to invite you. Eleven sharp, remember. Three knocks, a pause, and another, you know. Come, girls."

The brunette followed her, but Lina's little sweetheart remained.

"What have they got?" demanded the former listlessly.

"Oh, Nell has a jar of preserves from home, and I smuggled up a plate of dried beef from tea, and cook let us have some crackers and plates. We tried hard to get a watermelon there was in the pantry, but cook said she did n't dare let us have it. It's for dinner to-morrow."

Lina's eyes suddenly became introspective; then after a moment she rose slowly and stood in her tracks with an expression of deep thought, absent-mindedly took one step, then another, and after a pause a third, finally pulling up before the mirror, into which she stared vacantly for a moment, and then muttered defiantly as she turned away:--

"We 'll see, Master Charley."

"Lina Maynard, what's the matter with you?" cried the blonde, who had watched the pantomime with open mouth and growing eyes.

Lina turned and looked at her thoughtfully a moment, and then said with decisiveness:--

"You just go to Nell's, my dear, and say I 'm coming pretty soon; and if you say anything else, I 'll--I 'll never marry you."

The girls were in the habit of doing as Lina wanted them to, and the blonde went, pouting with unappeased curiosity.

To gain exit from the Seminary was a simple matter in these lax days, and five minutes later Lina was walking rapidly along the highway, her lips firm set, but her eyes apprehensively reconnoitring the road ahead, with frequent glances to each side and behind. Once she got over the stone wall at the roadside in a considerable panic and crouched in the dewy grass while a belated villager passed, but it was without further adventure that she finally turned into the road leading behind Mr. Steele's lot, and after a brief search identified the garden where she remembered seeing some particularly fine melons, when out walking a day or two previous. There they lay, just the other side the fence, faintly visible in the dim light She could not help congratulating herself, by the way, on the excellent behavior of her nerves, whose tense, fine-strung condition was a positive luxury, and she then and there understood how men might delight in desperate risks for the mere sake of the exalted and supreme sense of perfect self-possession that danger brings to some natures. Not, indeed, that she stopped to indulge any psychological speculations. The coast was clear; not a footfall or hoof-stroke sounded from the road, and without delay she began to look about for a wide place between the rails where she might get through. Just as she found it, she was startled by an unmistakable human snore, which seemed to come from a patch of high corn close to the melons, and she was fairly puzzled until she observed, about ten rods distant in the same line, an open attic window. That explained its origin, and with a passing self-congratulation that she had made up her mind not to marry a man that snored, she began to crawl through the fence. When halfway through the thought struck her,--wasn't it like any other stealing, after all? This crawling between rails seemed dreadfully so. Her attitude, squeezed between two rails and half across the lower one, was neither graceful nor comfortable, and perhaps that fact shortened her scruples.

"It can't be really stealing, for I don't feel like a thief," was the logic that settled it, and the next moment she had the novel sensation of having both feet surreptitiously and feloniously on another person's land. She decidedly did n't relish it, but she would go ahead now and think of it afterward. She was pretty sure she never would do it again, anyhow, experiencing that common sort of repentance beforehand for the thing she was about to do, the precise moral value of which it would be interesting to inquire. It ought to count for something, for, if it does n't hinder the act, at least it spoils the fun of it. Here was a melon at her feet; should she take it? That was a bigger one further on, and her imperious conscientiousness compelled her to go ten steps further into the enemy's country to get it, for now that she was committed to the undertaking, she was bound to do the best she could.

To stoop, to break the vine, and to secure the melon were an instant's work; but as she bent, the high corn before her waved violently and a big farmer-looking man in a slouch hat and shocking old coat sprang out and seized her by the arm, with a grip not painful but sickeningly firm, exclaiming as he did so:--

"Wal, I swan ter gosh, if 't ain't a gal!"

Lina dropped the melon, and, barely recalling the peculiar circumstances in time to suppress a scream, made a silent, desperate effort to break away. But her captor's hold was not even shaken, and he laughed at the impotence of her attempt. In all her petted life she had never been held a moment against her will, and it needed not the added considerations that this man was a coarse, unknown boor, the place retired, the time midnight, and herself in the position of a criminal, to give her a feeling of abject terror so great as to amount to positive nausea, as she realized her utter powerlessness in his hands.

"So you've been a-stealin' my melons, hey?" he demanded gruffly.

The slight shake with which the question was enforced deprived her of the last vestige of dignity and self-assertion. She relapsed into the mental condition of a juvenile culprit undergoing correction. Now that she was caught, she no longer thought of her offense as venial. The grasp of her captor seemed to put an end to all possible hairsplitting on that point, and prove that it was nothing more nor less than stealing, and a sense of guilt left her without any moral support against her fright. She was only conscious of utter humiliation, and an abject desire to beg off on any terms.

"What do you go round stealin' folks's melons for, young woman? Don't yer folks bring yer up better 'n that? It's a dodrotted shame to 'em, ef they don't. What did ye want with the melons? Don't they give yer enough to eat ter home, hey?"

"We were going to have some supper, sir," she replied, in a scared, breathless tone, with a little hope of propitiating him by being extremely civil and explicit in her replies.

"Who was havin' supper to this time er night?" he snorted incredulously.

"We girls," was the faint reply.

"What gals?"

Had she got to tell where she came from and be identified? She couldn't, she wouldn't. But again came that dreadful shake, and the words faltered out:--

"Over at the Seminary, sir."

"Whew! so ye 're one er them, are ye? What's yer name?"

Cold dew stood on the poor girl's forehead. She was silent. He might kill her, but she would n't disgrace her father's name.

"What's yer name?" he repeated, with another shake.

She was still silent, though limp as a rag in his grasp.

"Wal," said he sharply, after waiting a half minute to see if she would answer, "I guess ye'll be more confidin' like to the jedge when he inquiries in the mornin'. A night in the lock-up makes folks wonderful civil. Now I'll jest trouble ye to come along to the police office," and he walked her along by the arm toward the house.

As the horrible degradation to which she was exposed flashed upon Lina, the last remnant of her self-control gave way, and, hanging back with all her might against his hand, she burst into sobs.

"Oh, don't, don't! It will kill me. I'll tell you my name. It's Lina Maynard. My father is a rich merchant in New York, Broadway, No. 743. He will give you anything, if you let me go. Anything you want. Oh, please don't! Oh, don't! I could n't! I could n't!"

In this terror-stricken, wild-eyed girl, her face streaming with tears, and every lineament convulsed with abject dread, there was little enough to remind Arthur Steele of the queenly maiden who had favored him with a glance of negligent curiosity that afternoon. He stopped marching her along and said reflectively:--

"Lina Maynard, hey! Then you must be the gal that's down on Amy Steele and would n't ask her to the party to-morrow. Say, ain't yer the one?"

Lina was too much bewildered by the sudden change of tack to do more than stammer inarticulately. I am afraid that in her terror she would have been capable of denying it, if she had thought that would help her. Her captor reflected more deeply, scratched his head, and finally, assuming a diplomatic attitude by thrusting his hands in his pocket, remarked:--

"I s'pose ye 'd like it dummed well ef I was to let yer go and say nothin' more about it. I reelly don't s'pose I 'd orter do it; but it riles me to see Amy comin' home cryin' every day, and I 'll tell ye what I 'll do. Ef you 'll ask her to yer fandango to-morrer, and be friends with her arterward so she 'll come home happy and cheerful like, I 'll let ye go, and if ye don't, I 'll put ye in jug overnight, sure's taxes. Say Yes or No now, quick!"

"Yes, yes!" Lina cried, with frantic eagerness.

There was scarcely any possible ransom he could have asked that she would not have instantly given. She dared not credit her ears, and stood gazing at him in intense, appealing suspense, as if he might be about to revoke his offer. But instead of that, he turned down the huge collar of the old overcoat, took it off, threw it on the ground, and, turning up the slouch of his hat, stood before her a very good-looking and well-dressed young gentleman, whom she at once recognized and at length identified in her mind as the one walking with Amy that afternoon, which now seemed weeks ago. He