The Strategy of Dave . . .

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 11, 15 September 1900, Page 14

The Strategy of Dave . . .

(By Julia Truitt Bishop).

HE stood among the group of men at the door of the little country church ; taller than any of them by a goodly number of inches. The men and boys had escaped from the building within one minute at farthest after the benediction was pronounced ; but it was the custom of the women to proceed in a more leisurely manner, talking with one another across the backs of the seats and exchanging news on poultry and measles down the length of the aisle. And the girls — ah, the girls, pink cheeked beneath the tan and pleasantly conscious of their Sunday evening finery — why was it that they always came out last, looking demurely straight ahead ? "I'll bet she gives Dave the go-by agin," whispered Jim Loggins to Bob Spore on the outskirts of the crowd. " Funny about Dave," murmured Bob, standing on tip-toe and craning his long neck to get a better view. " Great big fellow like him, that kin lick airy man in the county, an' has licked a good many of 'em, an' there he is afeerd to say his soul's his own when it comes to speakin' his mind to that little snip of a girl 1 " As they came out of the door, those women, the church light behind them made a clear outline for everyone, as though she were a cameo ; and the moonlight outside softened all the harsher outlines until every one of them was almost beautiful. It was the last one, the one in white with the red brown hair and the rose-leaf skin, that needed no adorning. " May I see you home, Nell ? " asked her playmate of the old days ; and the girl smiled up at him with a wicked light in her ej'es. " Fan an' Mamie an' me's together — they're goin' to stay all night with me," she said with the softest, cooing speech ; " but if you'd like to see us all home " He had seen Fan and Mamie decline the friendly offices of two gallants on the other side of the steps, and his face har dened. " I'll see ye all home," he said, grimly. 11 That is, I'll walk along behind an' see that no harm don't come toje — and that's as closte as ye want I should get, I reckin." Everybody had heard it, and there was a breathless silence. The silence would have ended in a subdued chuckle but for the look the young giant cast back over his shoulder as the party moved off up the road. " Well, by grab I " murmured Jim Loggins, stepping out from the crowd to get a better view. "If he ain't a drivin' 'em before 'im like a flock o' sheep ! I wisht I could f oiler 'em 1 " " Id-d o it," said Bob Spore, chewing a pine straw regretfully, " if it want that Dave's so quick with his fists." And with many a lingering glance up the road, where the moving figures could still be dimly seen, the crowd dispersed down the other ways. " The thing with Dave is, he dunno when he's beat," said old man Spore, filling and lighting his pipe' as he went. " They's a dozen gals in the country'd be glad to have Daye — oh, I know you wouldn't, Em'line 1 " — in response to his youngest daughter's too eager disclaimer — " but he's set his mind on that Frazer gal, an' it's her or nobody with him. Men's plumb funny that way. To a man up a tree she don't look so pesky diff rent from other gals ; an 1 yet it's her or none. An' the race she's been leadin' 'im I In the days when martyrin' was fash'nable, blest if I don't think the martyrin' machines was run by women 1 " The drover walked grimly and silently up the glimmering road, some yards in the rear of his flock of sheep. As for the flock themselves, there was some little giggling on the part of Fan and Mamie at first, but Nell walked swiftly and silently, her head up and her cheeks crimsoned. She had expected Dave to drop into the place she assigned him ; to walk meekly along with the group, and try humbly to get a word with her, and fail ; and to part from her in deep dejection, as lie had done many times before. But, somehow, Dave had altered the programme. •' There's the creek," Fan murmured at last, with a sigh of relief ; for just beyond the creek rose the slant of the long hill which was crowned by the Frazer place. Then the three of them stood on the wellworn bank and looked up and down the creek in bewilderment. " Why, where's the foot log ? " they all cried in a breath. Dave came strolling up behind them, and examined the place where the log had

been, and leaned forward to look critically across at the other side. " Somebody's cut the log at the other end and pushed it off from this end," he said briefly. " We'll have to find another log." He plunged into the heavy shadows; and the three stood there alone, listening to Dave tramping down the bank and breaking the underbrush. After a few moments he came back. " They's a log about fifty yards down," he announced coldly. " It's mighty little, but I can take ye acrost all right." The offer was not flattering in its eagerness, but they accepted it gratefully. Over on that hill the home lights were shining, and down here in the wooded valley it was very dark and lonely. Among the darkest shadows they found the " mighty little " log, and beneath it one of the deepest pools in the creek lay, smooth and silent, a few tiny gleams of moonlight picked out on its velvety blackness. " Come on, Fan— you're the heaviest. If it don't break with you, it'll stand the others," said the ungallant Dave ; and he took her hands firmly, and, walking backward, led her safely across. Mamie followed, screaming and wavering ; and then the tall, alert figure stepped back along the log, light footed as a panther, and waited at the end for Nell. " You'd best come an' get it over with," he said, coldly, as she shrank back ; but when she came silently up to him he did not offer to take her hands. He waited instead, until sbe had grasped the lapels of his coat with trembling fingers, and then he moved backward along the slender bridge until the two of them stood above the middle of the pool. At his pause she shuddered and looked down ; but he stood like a statue, and she clung to him. " Don't be skeered, Nell ; I ain't goin' to let ye fall," he said, deliberately. " But now that I've got ye where ye can't go forrard, nor back, nor sideways, I'll say what I've been tryin' to say to ye ever sence ye came home from your aunt's. If Fan and Mamie want to stay there an' hear it, they ean — an' I'll do as much for them when I get a chance." Two little screams and a swift scurrying of feet proclaimed that Fan and Mamie were protecting their own future ; and Nell cried, indignantly — " You may say what you please, Dave Lacy, but you know I hate you — I always have hated you — an' I'll never forgive you for tin's — never ! " " You'll never be asked to forgive me, Nell," he said, calmly. " But now you'll hear what I've been tryin 1 to tell ye, an' what you've kep' me from sayin'. I love you, an' I want ye to be my wife. I've loved ye from the time you was a little bit of a girl, and I was a big, awkward boy. Now I've said it, for the first time an' the last. You're not goin' to get a chance to make sport o' me any more. I'm a man, an' I'm givin' ye a man's talk — an' I'm not to be played with. If you don't answer yes by the time we reach your gate, I'll know that it's all over, an' I'll never go near ye agin, Nell." He moved quietly backward along the log, and she followed him. They walked silently back to the road, where Fan and Mamie made their way discreetly far ahead. He had not even offered his arm. When she stumbled once, he caught her arm to keep her from falling, but released it at once. Silently into the lane, and up the long slope of the hill. Silently to the corner of the great front yard, where the trees and the roses and one wakeful mockingbird had it all to themselves. Without turning her head very much, she stole a swift glance at his face. It was a very white face, with no look of wavering in it. Only a few steps more — Fan and Mamie had gone in. Her hand slipped shyly into his arm. '• Dave," she whispered, softly, " I'm glad somebody cut the foot log." His great hand closed over hers. " I cut it myself," he said.

Death-dealing and destructive Lyddite shell Forms part of modern soldiers' art. Not as of old when noble wariiois fell, Laid rudely low by spear or dart. Yet war's degrading to the human race, And will not make our lives secure, Though one can now all dirty weather face By taking Woods' Great Peppermint Cure. — Advt..