The Way of a Man | Page 2

from Satan Miss Grace was but a pace or so away.
I put out a hand on either side of her as she stood in the shade, and so
prisoned her against the pillar. She flushed at this, and caught at my
arm with both hands, which made me smile, for few men in that
country could have put away my arms from the stone until I liked. Then
I bent and kissed her fair, and took what revenge was due our girls for
her Philadelphia manners.
When she boxed my ears I kissed her once more. Had she not at that
smiled at me a little, I should have been a boor, I admit. As she
did--and as I in my innocence supposed all girls did--I presume I may
be called but a man as men go. Miss Grace grew very rosy for a
Sheraton, but her eyes were bright. So I threw my hat on the grass by
the side of the gate and bowed her to be seated. We sat and looked up
the lane which wound on to the big Sheraton house, and up the red road

which led from their farm over toward our lands, the John Cowles farm,
which had been three generations in our family as against four on the
part of the Sheratons' holdings; a fact which I think always ranked us in
the Sheraton soul a trifle lower than themselves.
We were neighbors, Miss Grace and I, and as I lazily looked out over
the red road unoccupied at the time by even the wobbling wheel of
some negro's cart, I said to her some word of our being neighbors, and
of its being no sin for neighbors to exchange the courtesy of a greeting
when they met upon such a morning. This seemed not to please her;
indeed I opine that the best way of a man with a maid is to make no
manner of speech whatever before or after any such incident as this.
"I was just wandering down the lane," she said, "to see if Jerry had
found my horse, Fanny."
"Old Jerry's a mile back up the road," said I, "fast asleep under the
hedge."
"The black rascal!"
"He is my friend," said I, smiling.
"You do indeed take me for some common person," said she; "as
though I had been looking for--"
"No, I take you only for the sweetest Sheraton that ever came to meet a
Cowles from the farm yonder." Which was coming rather close home,
for our families, though neighbors, had once had trouble over some
such meeting as this two generations back; though of that I do not now
speak.
"Cannot a girl walk down her own carriage road of a morning, after
hollyhocks for the windows, without--"
"She cannot!" I answered. I would have put out an arm for further
mistreatment, but all at once I pulled up. What was I coming to, I, John
Cowles, this morning when the bees droned fat and the flowers made

fragrant all the air? I was no boy, but a man grown; and ruthless as I
was, I had all the breeding the land could give me, full Virginia training
as to what a gentleman should be. And a gentleman, unless he may
travel all a road, does not set foot too far into it when he sees that he is
taken at what seems his wish. So now I said how glad I was that she
had come back from school, though a fine lady now, and no doubt
forgetful of her friends, of myself, who once caught young rabbits and
birds for her, and made pens for the little pink pigs at the orchard edge,
and all of that. But she had no mind, it seemed to me, to talk of these
old days; and though now some sort of wall seemed to me to arise
between us as we sat there on the bank blowing at dandelions and
pulling loose grass blades, and humming a bit of tune now and then as
young persons will, still, thickheaded as I was, it was in some way
made apparent to me that I was quite as willing the wall should be there
as she herself was willing.
My mother had mentioned Miss Grace Sheraton to me before. My
father had never opposed my riding over now and then to the Sheraton
gates. There were no better families in our county than these two. There
was no reason why I should feel troubled. Yet as I looked out into the
haze of the hilltops where the red road appeared to leap off sheer to
meet the distant rim of the Blue Ridge, I seemed to hear some
whispered warning. I was young, and wild as