Main-Travelled Roads | Page 9

stop it."

The wolf rose in Young. He moved forward, his ferocious soul flaming
from his eyes.
"W'y, you damned seminary dude, I can break you in two!"
An answering glare came into Will's eyes. He grasped and slightly
shook his fork, which he had brought with him unconsciously.
"If you make one motion at me, I'll smash your head like an eggshell!"
His voice was low but terrific. There was a tone m it that made his own
blood stop in his veins. "If you think I'm going to roll around on this
ground with a hyena like you, you've mistaken your man. I'll kill you,
but I won't fight with such men as you are."
Bill quailed and slunk away, muttering some epithet like "coward."
"I don't care what you call me, but just remember what I say: you keep
your tongue off that girl's affairs."
"That's the talk!" said David. "Stand up for your girl always, but don't
use a fork. You can handle him without that:'
"I don't propose to try," said Will, as he turned away. As be did so, he
caught a glimpse of Ed Kinney at the well, pumping a pail of water for
Agnes, who stood beside him, the sun on her beautiful yellow hair. She
was laughing at something Ed was saying as he slowly moved the
handle up and down.
Instantly, like a foaming, turbid flood, his rage swept out toward her.
"It's all her fault," he thought, grinding his teeth. "She's a fool. If she'd
hold herself in like other girls! But no; she must smile and smile at
everybody." It was a beautiful picture, but it sent a shiver through him.
He worked on with teeth set, white with rage. He had an impulse that
would ?have made him assault her with words as with a knife. He was
possessed with a terrible passion which was hitherto latent in him, and
which he now felt to be his worst self. But he was powerless to
exorcise it. His set teeth ached with the stress of his muscular tension,

and his eyes smarted with the strain.
He had always prided himself on being cool, calm, above these absurd
quarrels that his companions had so often indulged in. He didn't
suppose he could be so moved. As he worked on, his rage settled down
into a sort of stubborn bitterness-stubborn bitterness of conflict
between this evil nature and his usual self. It was the instinct of
possession, the organic feeling of proprietor-ship of a woman, which
rose to the surface and mastered him. He was not a self-analyst, of
course, being young, though he was more introspective than the
ordinary farmer.
He had a great deal of time to think it over as he worked on there,
pitching the heavy bundles, but still he did not get rid of the miserable
desire to punish Agnes; and when she came out, looking very pretty in
her straw hat, and came around near his stack, he knew she came to see
him, to have an explanation, a smile; and yet he worked away with his
hat pulled over his eyes, hardly noticing her.
Ed went over to the edge of the stack and chatted with her; and
she-poor girl!-feeling Will's neglect, could only put a good face on the
matter, and show that she didn't mind it, by laughing back at Ed.
All this Will saw, though he didn't appear to be looking. And when Jim
Wheelock-Dirty Jim-with his whip in his hand, came up and playfully
pretended to pour oil on her hair, and she laughingly struck at him with
a handful of straw, Will wouldn't have looked at her if she had called
him by name.
She looked so bright and charming in her snowy apron and her boy's
straw hat tipped jauntily over one pink ear that David and Steve and
Bill, and even Shep, found a way to get a word with her, and the poor
fellows in the high straw pile looked their disappoimment and shook
their forks in mock rage at the lucky dogs on the ground. But Will
worked on like a fiend, while the dapples of light and shade fell on the
bright face of the merry girl.
To save his soul from hell flames he couldn't have gone over there and

smiled at her. It was impossible. A wall of bronze seemed to have
arisen between them. Yesterday, last night, seemed a dream. The clasp
of her hands at his neck, the touch of her lips, were like the caresses of
an ideal in some dim reverie.
As night drew on, the men worked with a steadier, more mechanical
action. No one spoke now. Each man was intent on his work. No one
had any strength