The Short Line War | Page 2

before he outgrew it.
He was twenty-two years old when he fell in love with Ethel Harvey.
She was nineteen when she came home from the Eastern school where
she had spent the past five years, and she burst upon Jim in the first
glory of her womanhood. When she had grown an old woman the
young girls still envied her beauty, and wondered what it must have
been in its first bloom. Small wonder that Jim fell in love with her; it
was inevitable.
He first saw her, after her return, on a bright June morning as he was
strolling down the path from his grandfather's house to the street. She
was riding her big bay mare at a smart gallop, but she pulled up short at
sight of him, and drawing off a riding gauntlet held out her hand. From
that moment Jim loved her. The old man was coming down the path,
but seeing them there together, he paused, for they made a striking
picture. Her little silk hat sat daintily on her hair, which would be
rebellious and fluffy; the dark green riding habit with its tight sleeves
revealed the perfect lines of her lithe figure, which swayed gracefully
as the mare pawed and backed and plunged, impatient for the morning
gallop. She seemed quite indifferent to the protests of the big brute, and
talked merrily to Jim, who stood looking up at her in bewildered
admiration. At last she shook hands again and rode away, and Jonathan
Weeks walked back into the house with a satisfied smile. "They'll do,"
he said.

It looked as though they would. Through the short happy weeks that
followed, Ethel did not ride alone. Together they explored the country
lanes or left them for a dash straight across the fields, taking anything
that chanced to be in the way. In their impromptu races, which were
frequent, Ethel almost always won; for racer though he was, Jim's
sorrel found the two hundred and eight pounds he carried too much of a
handicap. So the days went by, and though nothing was said about it,
they talked to each other, and thought of each other, as lovers do.
But all the while there was growing in Ethel's mind an intuition that
something was wrong. She had not an analytical mind, but she became
convinced that though she might learn to understand Jim, he could
never understand her. It was not only that she was the first woman who
had come into his life, though that had much to do with it. But he was a
man without much instinct or imagination; he took everything seriously
and literally, he could not understand a whim. And when she saw how
her pretty feminine inconsistencies puzzled him, and how he failed to
understand the whimsical, butterfly fancies she confided to him, she
would cry with vexation, and think she hated him; but then the knightly
devotion of his big heart would win her back again, and her tears would
cease to burn her cheeks, and she would tell herself how unworthy she
was of the love of a man like that. But the trouble was still there; Ethel
grew sad, and Jim, more than ever, failed to understand. The old man
watched, but said nothing.
One evening Jim took her out on the river. It was the summer of '61,
when the North was learning how bitter was the task it had to
accomplish. Kentucky was disputed ground and feeling ran high there;
little else was thought of. Jim had been talking to her for some time on
this all-absorbing topic while she sat silent in the stern, her hand
trailing in the water. Finally he asked why she was so quiet.
"I think this war is very stupid," she said. "Let's talk about"--here she
paused and her eyes followed the big night boat which was churning its
way down the river--"about paddle-wheels, or port lights, or
something."
Jim said nothing; he had nothing to say. She went on:--

"Don't you think it is tiresome to always mean what you say? I hate to
tell the truth. Anybody can do that."
"I thought," said Jim, "that you believed in sincerity."
"Oh, of course I do," she exclaimed impatiently, and again Jim was
silent.
The next day he took her for a drive and it was then that the end came.
They had been having a glorious time, for the rapid motion and the
bright sunshine had driven away her mood of the night before and she
was perfectly happy; Jim was happy in her happiness. The half-broken
colts were fairly steady and he let her drive them and turned in his seat
so that he could watch her. As he looked at her there, her head erect,