SHORT STORY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2762, 20 February 1907, Page 82

SHORT STORY.

tlxi. Ei4hts Resisted. J

YOUNG MR HOPPER.

By. G. B. Burgin, Author of "The Shutters of Silence," etc.

I. "Marry!" said old TolWvents Thompson, as he rocked lazily upon the verandah of his snug, but ill-shaped, w^-nden cottage on the outskirts of Four Corner/^, "You've got me. What do you want to for? Ain't your home unlike .'rerybody else's?" "That's true enough, Dad," said Sars'prilla, the eldest of Tollevents' ten daughters. "If you'd been a thoughtful man you'd have built it at once-, 'stead of doing it by inches as we came along." "How on airth" — Tollevents stopped whittling in almost speechless wrath, as he glared at his eldest giri — "how on airth was I to know you was all comin'?" "Don't seem to me wuth while talkin' about that," volunteered Semanda, the next girl. "We're here; and it looks' 'sif we're here to stay, unless we git married." "Wai, git married," said Tollevents, in desperation. "How?" chorussed seven more daughters, whilst dark-eyed, black-browed Selina, the tenth, sang merrily in the back kitchen. During the course of his married happiness; every two or three years as the house filled up with additional babies— all of them girls — Tollevents had added more xoom by the simple expedient of building on a fresh ehack to the others. Lest the lend one should tumble down, he* had built fen earthwork against it. Thcx leading the others up against the outside, and •ecurely roofing them, he considered that the architectural effect thus produced was (Worthy of unlimited admiration. That no one else in Four Corners imitated this gambling building he considered due to the habitual lack of enterprise shown by his neighbours. "There's only one young man in Four Corner* worth ropin' in," said Sars'prilla, turning her sweet blue eyes upon her sire. Every night he comes hoppin' down jthe road like a skeared hen, gits a look at ns, and clucks back agin." "S'lina!" called Tollevents. The .merry voice of the girl in the kitchen suddenly ceased. She put out tier gipsy face (Selina was the only d*rk one of the ten ; all the others were "Blueeyed as is the morn") and looked round composedly. "What's the fuss, Dad?" "Bring me a bowl of water," said Tollevents determinedly; "and gome soft jsoap." Selina affected to be thunderstruck. "Don't be rash at yeur time of life, Dad. •'Taint Sunday." » The innuendo that he never washed save on Sunday roused Tollevents to his full height. "AnH a biled shirt," he added sternly, disdaining to bandy words with hi* youngest offspring. Selina hastily returned with » bowjl of water and some soap, put the bowl on the top of a stump, and threw her father a towel as rough as Esau's hand. "You did orter see Doc. Higginson, Dad," she said mirthfully. "What are you goin' to do?" For some minutes Tollevents disdained to answer Selina. Sars'prilla sUd into his chair and rocked herself to and fro, sway- i ing her lissom body to an old camp meeting tune. The eight other girls — Selina had retired to the kitchen again — 6at in a row on the long bench and giggled. They were all blue-eyed, all fair-haired, all beautiful, and all exactly alike, with the exception that Sars'prilla was a little stouter than' her sisters. Decorum prescribed the sudden retirement of Tollevents into that part of the shack which was by courtesy called a' jbedroom (when the weather was fine, lie Usually had a shakedown on the verandah) in order that he might don his Sunday clothes. Meantime, the girls waited, wondered, and giggled" every few moments at (his eudden accession of energy ->n the part pf their sire. "Looks though Be is a deacon, 'sif he granted to git religion again," audibly suggested Semanda. "Looks to me 'sif you'll git something you ain't bargainin' for," said Tollevents grimly, thrusting his head round' the corner. "Thar ain't no buttons on this yer biled rag." Selina, ever prompt, was on the spot in a moment with, shirt buttons. "You ain't worn this white shirt since Christmas, Dad, else I'd have put 'em on before. That long prayer of yours in aneeiin' made all your buttons fly. O'd Deacon Harbro bnst only one of his." Cheered by Selina's tribute k> his gifts »S an exhoTter, Tollevents tied a black handkerchief loosely round his collar, and took down his gun, which he loaded with unusual care, the girls watching him apprehensively the while. When he put in. •a extra allowance of buckshot, Selina •remonstrated with iiim. "Thar'6 only one young man wuth. marryin' in Four Corners just now, dad. Don't yaste him." "This yer alleged marryin' man," 6aid carefully resting the gun Against the verandah, "comes down, this Ver road 'sif it belonged to him. It o'longs to me; and I'm goin' to drive the Iruth into him." ""-"Not with buckshot," implored Selina, jnrning a little pale. Tollevents Tested his gun in a fork of the lilacs which grew greenly around the rerandah, brought out his Bible, turned to his favourite chapter whe/eln many Amalekites were slaughtered, and read it With gusto. "Does seem to me," be mused, keeping Mve eye on the road — "Does seem to me '•if thar's more real wholcso neuess in

gitfcin' a. man under the fifth rib 'stead of fillin' him up with buckshot ; but we can't be choosers in what is set afore us. We must do the work in the way as comes handiest. I reckon young Hopper '11 be along in an hour. If he ain't, I'll go and fetch him."

n.

Selina, noting that her sisters, obeying a hint from Tollevents, were all attired, in their Sunday best, laughed mirthfully. "Dad '11 scare the life out of him," she said gaily. "That Hopper can't say bo to a goose." She slipped round the back of the shanty, her dark face framed in a becoming sunbonnet, dived down to the Ottawa shore, then up again through the pines, some quarter of a mile from her father's house. Presently, young Mr Hopper, pictui\2sque yet shy, also blue-eyed, and with a fierce moustache which belied his youth, sauntered irresolutely down the road. As he did so he was aware of Selina coming toward him, the one person in the word whom he had hoped to see. "Snakes !" he murmured to himself. "My heart's pumpin'. I can't run now." Selina affected to pass him, then stopped suddenly. "Goin' down the road?" she asked ; and took him with veiled eyelids. "I've bin' down: this yer blamed old road all the winter, and all the spring, arid all the summer," declared Mr Hopper fiercely ; "an' thar's nine of you allers sittin' on the verandah and you never show up." "Thinkin' of turnin' Mormon, Mr Hopper? Ain't nine of us enuff for you?" "N-no," declared Mr Hopper irresolutely. "Not by no manner of means. Me bein' a shy sort of man, I git lost in the crowd. It — it makes my head swim," he added feebly. "Then if you tumble in the river, you won't drown. But I did orter be git tin' on." "What's your hurry?" implored Mr Hopper, then blushed crimson. There was a twitch of Selina's pretty lips as she looked down the road. "Nothin' ! Nothin' ! Only, you don't know what you're lettin' yourself in for if you go down that road to-night." "Nothin' can b© worsen goin' on Uke this," declared the pessimistic Mr Hopper. "Old Man on the war-path? Tlrnks he owns this road, don't he*" Selina nodded. "He's gob his best clothes on, the old gun's filled up to the brim with — buckshot!" "I'd like to fill him up to the brim with — with whisky : then turn, him loose in mcetin'," said Mr Hopper vindictively. "What's he want to take a hand in this j'er game for?" "He thinks it's time some of us got settled. If you go down there, you'll find out what he means. Better go home." "See here." Mr Hopper looked into her charming face until she blushed most becomingly. "See here. I'm the man who's doin' the marryin', ain't I?" "Ye-es." "Then blamed if I don't go and tell him so." "But you've no gun," declared Selina, in terror. "He'll make you marry Sars'prilla 'cause she's the eldest." "If," said Mr Hopper, with dark meaning — "if I git out of this alive, I'm qoin' to marry the gal I darn please, if — if she'll have me." Selina held him back a moment, her radiant eyes flashing into his. Something he saw there filled Mr Hopper with sudden courage. Blushing fiercely the while, he took her in his arms, kissed her fervently, and marched valiantly down the road, leaving Selina gazing after him. "And they call him shy!" she mused. "Shy! With a moustache like that!" Her cheeks flamed as she dived into the mysterious recesses of the pines, whiih stood in serried ranks upon the ri\er shore.

111.

"You, Hopper! Stop!" cried Tolle\ents, as young Mr* Hopper came rapidly abreast of the house. Mr Hopper caught the glint of a gun barrel. The sun set fair behirfd the gloomy hills. Ranged in a row on the verandah were nine fair girls. At the end of the verandah stood Tollevents — tall, gaunt, thin, clad in his Sunday best, leaning carelessly on the shot gun. "Wishful to speak to me'!" jauntily inquired young Mr Hopper. "You ain't turned road agent, Deacon?" The Deacon cleared his throat. "It'e a sin and disgrace you ain't married. You're the oldest young man in Four Corners, and all the others is waitin' for you to give 'em a lead. Yet you come sailin' along this yer road night arter night, and shuffles by like a ground-hog 'ithout raisin' your eyes to all these yer — these yer fair young flowers," he added, with a touch of parental poesy. "Which one is it?" "Aren't you takin' it too much for settled?" asked young Mr Hopper. "I'm a man ot few words." Tollevents raised his gun carelessly to the level. "Here's nine gals all of a row. Which is it?" Mr Hopper bowed gracefully to the young ladies on the verandah. "Any one of 'em? I aip't worthy of it, Deacon." "Any one of 'em. You ain't worthy; but it's the best I can do for 'em," said the Deacon firmly. "Which?" They were girls whose beauty would have gladdened the heart of an anchorite. Young Mr Hopper surveyed them carefully, then turned to Tollevents. "See here," he said, severely. "Ain't you 'shamed of yourself, Deacon, to go puttin' such a slight on 'em? If I married one, what would the eight others do?" "You leave that to me. Which?" ominously repeated the Deacon. " 'Taint no business of yours." Young Mr Hopper walked down the verandali, feeling that Tollevents's gun covered his manly back. "Can't Igo home and think it over?" he asked, when he had come to the end of the row. "You can go home; and take a load of

' buckshot with you, if that 'ill help you to think," sa;d Tollevents. Young Mr Hopper came back to the top of the row, then shook his head. "They're all too much alike. I'd git mixed up and never know t'other from which. Taint fair, Deacon." "I don't want to shoot you in a hurry," said the Deacon. "No one can't say I ain't a juet, reasonable, tender-hearted, God-fearing, help-my-neighbour kind of man. Taint my fault they're all alike j but you've got to take one of 'em." Y«ung Mr Hopper shook his head. "Can't be done. I don't mind marryin', but I can't git mixed up like this. It's wuss'n bigamy." Tollevents took deliberate aim at him. "I'm sorry to have to do it," he said gently, "and your mother, bein' a widder, 'ill curse me for removing my neighbour's landmark, so to speak ; but I've got to make an example of you." Ther? was a wild shriek as Selina threw herself between them. "Guess you'll have to hit me first," ©he cried, choking with laughter and tears. "You — you can't go wastin' young men like this, Dad." "Stop a minute," said Mr Hopper, with affected deliberation. "How dare you try such a put-up job on me?" "I-J don't understand," faltered Tollevents, confused by this sudden attack. "Why you might ha' known that a shy man like me couldn't make up his mind with nine gals all 'zackly alike. This settles it. Here's a dark one. I'll take her." There was a chorus of "Oh!" from the verandah. Tollevents looked irresolute, for Selina was his favourite. "It's beginnin' at the wrong end," he said doubtfully. "Don't you worry about that. Anyway, it's a beginnin'," urged young Mr Hopper. "That's all you've got to do, 'cept put dawn that gun. It might go off ; and the coroner's a friend o' mine. He'd say things. Now, you can take off your store clothes and make yourself comfortable, father-in-law that is to be." To'.levents put down the gun, and young Mr Hopper, linking Selina's arm. in his, strolled along with her to the pines. A bend of the road hid them from the house. Selina could feel him trembling as they wandered along in the odorous dusk. "You — you do mean it, Selina?" he quavered. " 'Cause if you don't, he can shoot all he wants to ; and I'll be glad of it. I ain't afraid of him ; but I am of you." Selina hesitated. Young Mr Hopper turned back. "Stop," she called after him in alarm. "Well?" queried! Mr Hopper. "I knew how it 'ud be. Let him. fill me tip ■with " "Won't I do instead?" queried Seliua. "What! With buckshot?" "N-ko. K-kisses!" And in the blissful .silence which ensued a man might have heard his microbes gnaw, so sweet, so pure the heavenly night, with the great stars shining out, the silent river flowing to the sea, their young hearts Beating together.