Viola Gwyn. George Barr McCutcheon
ate largely with his knife, and smacked his lips resoundingly; swigged coffee from his saucer through an overlapping moustache and afterwards hissingly strained the aforesaid obstruction with his nether lip; talked and laughed with his mouth full,—but all with such magnificent zest that his guests overlooked the shocking exhibition. Indeed, the girl seemed quite accustomed to Mr. Striker's table-habits, a circumstance which created in Kenneth's questing mind the conviction that she was not new to these parts, despite the garments and airs of the fastidious East.
They were vastly interested in the account of his journey through the wilderness.
"Nowadays," said Striker, "most people come up the river, 'cept them as hail from Ohio. You must ha' come by way of Wayne an' Madison Counties."
"I did," said his guest. "We found it fairly comfortable travelling through Wayne County. The roads are decent enough and the settlers are numerous. It was after we left Madison County that we encountered hardships. We travelled for a while with a party of emigrants who were heading for the settlement at Strawtown. There were three families of them, including a dozen children. Our progress was slow, as they travelled by wagon. Rumours that the Indians were threatening to go on the warpath caused me to stay close by this slow-moving caravan for many miles, not only for my own safety but for the help I might be able to render them in case of an attack. At Strawtown we learned that the Indians were peaceable and that there was no truth in the stories. So Zachariah and I crossed the White River at that point and struck off alone. We followed the wilderness road,—the old Indian trace, you know,—and we travelled nearly thirty miles without seeing a house. At Brown's Wonder we met a party of men who had been out in this country looking things over. They were so full of enthusiasm about the prairies around here,—the Wea, the Wild Cat and Shawnee prairies,—that I was quite thrilled over the prospect ahead, and no longer regretted the journey which had been so full of privations and hardships and which I had been so loath to undertake in the beginning. Have you been at Thorntown recently?"
"Nope. Not sence I came through there some years ago. It was purty well deserted in those days. Nothin' there but Injin wigwams an' they was mostly run to seed. At that time, Crawfordsville was the only town to speak of between Terry Hut an' Fort Wayne, 'way up above here."
"Well, there are signs of a white settlement there now. Some of the old French settlers are still there and other whites are coming in. I had heard a great deal about the big Indian village at Thorntown, and was vastly disappointed in what I found. I am quite romantic, Miss—ahem!—quite romantic by nature, having read and listened to tales of thrilling adventures among the redskins, as we call them down my way, until I could scarce contain myself. I have always longed for the chance to rescue a beautiful white captive from the clutches of the cruel redskins. My valour—"
"And I suppose you always dreamed of marrying her as they always do in stories?" said she, smiling.
"Invariably," said he. "Alas, if I had rescued all the fair maidens my dreams have placed in jeopardy, I should by this time have as many wives as Solomon. Only, I must say in defence of my ambitions, I should not have had as great a variety. Strange as it may seem, I remained through all my adventures singularly constant to a certain idealistic captive. She looked, I may say, precisely alike in each and every case. Poor old Solomon could not say as much for his thousand wives. Mine, if I had them, would be so much alike in face and form that I could not tell one from the other,—and, now that I am older and wiser,—though not as wise as Solomon,—I am thankful that not one of these daring rescues was ever consummated, for I should be very much distressed now if I found myself married to even the most beautiful of the ladies my feeble imagination conceived."
This subtle touch of gallantry was over the heads of Mr. and Mrs. Striker. As for the girl, she looked momentarily startled, and then as the dimples deepened, a faint flush rose to her cheeks. An instant later, the colour faded, and into her lovely eyes came a cold, unfriendly light. Realizing that he had offended her with this gay compliment,—although he had never before experienced rebuff in like circumstances,—he hastened to resume his narrative.
"We finally came to Sugar River and followed the road along the southern bank. You may know some of the settlers we found along the river. Wisehart and Kinworthy and Dewey? They were among the first to come to this part of the country, I am informed. Fine, brave men, all of them. In Crawfordsville I stopped at the tavern conducted by Major Ristine. While there I consulted with Mr. Elston and Mr. Wilson and others about the advisability of selling my land up here and my building lots in Lafayette. They earnestly advised me not to sell. In their opinion Lafayette is the most promising town on the Wabash, while the farming land in this section is not equalled anywhere else in the world. Of course, I realize that they are financially interested in the town of Lafayette, owning quite a lot of property there, so perhaps I should not be guided solely by their enthusiasm."
"They are the men who bought most of Sam Sargeant's lots some years back," said Striker, "when there wasn't much of anything in the way of a town,—them and Jonathan Powers, I think it was. They paid somethin' like a hundred an' fifty dollars for more'n half of the lots he owned, an' then they started right in to crow about the place. I was workin' down at Crawfordsville at the time. They had plenty of chance to talk, 'cause that town was full of emigrants, land-grabbers, travellers an' setch like. That was before the new county was laid out, you see. Up to that time all the land north of Montgomery County was what was called Wabash County. It run up as fer as Lake Michigan, with the jedges an' courts an' land offices fer the whole district all located in Crawfordsville. Maybe you don't know it, but Tippecanoe County is only about six years old. She was organized by the legislature in 1826. To show you how smart Elston and them other fellers was, they donated a lot of their property up in Lafayette to the county on condition that the commissioners located the county seat there. That's how she come to be the county seat, spite of the claims of Americus up on the east bank of the Wabash.
"Maybe you've heard of Bill Digby. He's the feller that started the town o' Lafayette. Well, a couple o' days after he laid out the town o' Lafayette,—named after a Frenchman you've most likely heerd about,—he up an' sold the whole place to Sam Sargeant fer a couple o' hundred dollars, they say. He kept enough ground fer a ferry landin' an' a twenty-acre piece up above the town fer specolatin' purposes, I understand. He afterwards sold this twenty-acre piece to Sam fer sixty dollars, an' thought he done mighty well. When I first come to the Wea, Lafayette didn't have more'n half a dozen cabins. I went through her once on my way up to the tradin' house at Longlois, couple a mile above. You wouldn't believe a town could grow as fast as Lafayette has in the last couple o' years. If she keeps on she'll be as big as all get-out, an' Crawfordsville won't be nowhere. Tim Horran laid out Fairfield two-three years back, over east o' here. Been a heap o' new towns laid out this summer, all around here. But I guess they won't amount to much. Josiah Halstead and Henry Ristine have jest laid out the town o' Columbia, down near the Montgomery line. Over on Lauramie Crick is a town called Cleveland, an' near that is Monroe, jest laid out by a feller named Major. There's another town called Concord over east o' Columbia. There may be more of 'em, but I ain't heerd of 'em yet. They come up like mushrooms, an' 'fore you know it, why, there they are.
"This land o' yours, Mr. Gwynne, lays 'tween here an' this new settlement o' Columbia, an' I c'n tell you that it ain't to be beat anywheres in the country. I'd say it is the best land your fa—er—ahem!" The speaker was seized with a violent and obviously unnecessary spell of coughing. "Somethin' must ha' gone the wrong way," he explained, lamely. "Feller ort to have more sense'n to try to swaller when he's talkin'."
"Comes of eatin' like a pig," remarked his wife, glaring at him as she poured coffee into Gwynne's empty cup. "Mr. Gwynne'll think you don't know any better. He never eats like this on Sunday," she explained to their male guest.
"I got a week-day style of eatin' an' one strickly held back fer Sunday," said Phineas. "Same as clothes er havin' my boots greased."
Kenneth was watching the face of the girl opposite. She was looking down at her plate. He observed a little frown on her brow. When she raised her eyes to meet his, he saw that they were sullen, almost unpleasantly so. She did not turn away instantly, but continued to regard him with a rather disconcerting intensity. Suddenly she smiled. The cloud vanished from her brow, her eyes sparkled.