Chapter XXX

A RAILROAD WEDDING.

There was a sudden outbreak of wild enthusiasm as the verdict was given, quickly checked by the court's gavel, then all craned their necks while in a few kind words, the judge congratulated and dismissed the prisoner. Then counsel and friends gathered about Nate with outstretched hands, till his arm ached with the constant pumping, and his tongue was tied with the excitement and confusion. To steady himself he kept his eyes mostly on a little black figure, some distance away. It was close by the side of Miss Lavillotte, but its face never turned from watching him; and he knew that, from the hour the young girl had stood bravely in court and exonerated him from all blame, she had put the sad past behind her and accepted a brighter, happier future. He was only longing, now, to reach her side, but even with Dalton's efforts it was almost impossible to make their way through the press. Somehow, Nate's friends seemed to spring up from everywhere, to-day. Each official, from jailer to judge, had learned to like him, the newspaper men were his staunch allies, and the jurors had a fellow-feeling for him.

He had clung to the clean, unvarnished truth in dogged fashion, and had so impressed all by his simple story, in which he seemed only trying to tell facts, no matter how they bore upon himself, that even the prosecutor was out of conceit with his side of the case.

So the gratulatory crowd gathered thickly about him, and the little group of home-friends had to wait long before he could reach them, near the private door by the clerk's desk.

Lucy, trembling all over, caught his hand as soon as she could reach it, and fairly pulled him from the court-room. "Let's get out of this!" she whispered excitedly. "I can't breathe here. Oh, Nate, to think you are safe and it's all over. Thank God! Thank God!"

"Come," said Dalton to Joyce, who stood hesitantly, not sure there was no more to attend to, "the carriage is below and we've just time to make our train. We can say all our says in there."

He took Joyce's arm with an odd mixture of tenderness, deference, and authority, while the others followed their rapid pace. Once inside the closed vehicle, Nate seemed less excited than any of them, speaking in the same slow, even tones he always used. When Lucy, clinging to his hand, would break out, "Oh, isn't it good—isn't it too good, Nate?" he would only smile and look down at her with a tender,

"Why, yes, Lucy, it's good, but not too good, as I see. It's right, that's all. I didn't need shutting up, and I'm glad I didn't get sentenced that way. 'Twould 'a' come tough on you and the youngsters."

"I expect there'll be something of a demonstration, Nate," said the manager. "I had West 'phone the verdict to Littleton, and tell the boys to lay off the rest of the day. They'll be crazy, I presume! I know you don't care for such things, but you'll have to put up with being a hero just this once."

"Hope they won't do nothin' rash 'round them railroad tracks," said Nate, a bit anxiously. "The boys sometimes forgits theirselves when they gets to celebratin'. They don't mean nothin', but they forgits. Who'd you leave the babbies with, Lucy?"

"They're all going to be in school till three, for the teacher said Rufie might bring even the little baby to the kindergarten. Then Marry's out of the office, and she'll keep 'em till we get there at half-past four. She won't let nothing happen."

"Well, I'd 'a' been satisfied just to go home and set down and eat my supper, but never mind," sighed Nate in wistful fashion. "Folks is cur'ous about such things. Just because a man don't git sent up for what he didn't do can't make a hero outen him, as I see. But it's nice of you all to care." He looked at Joyce, sitting opposite with Dalton, he and Lucy having been given the back seat together, and a smile played about his lips and eyes, crinkling the kindly muscles into radiating lines of sunshine. "I've had lots o' thoughts, Miss Lav'lotte, since I've been shut up, and I guess I've worked out something. It's a master place for workin' out things in your mind—a jail is."

"Is it, Nate? And what have you worked out, now?"

"Well, just this. First, it did seem queer that a handsome young lady just livin' on in our town, and no blood relation to nobody, should take such an int'rust in Lucy and me, to say nothin' of other folks. Ev'ry time 't you'd come, or send other folks to me, I kept askin' inside o' me, 'Now, what does that mean? What is it to her, anyhow?' Then, kinder sudden like, it come to me once that ev'ry single one o' the good things what's been the makin' o' Littleton begun to come along just about when you fetched up there. And when I'd figured on that a while, and remembered how you and the boss here was allays consultin' together, and how you seemed to feel jest 's if you'd got stock in us, somehow, it come to me all of a heap."

"What came to you?" asked Joyce, her brilliant eyes flashing a laughing glance towards her seat-mate.

"Why, that they mightn't be any young Early after all, and that 'twas jest possible—mind, I don't say as I've got all the twists and turns of it—but that you might, somehow or other, stand fer him. You couldn't be him, bein' a girl, of course, but stand fer him. Don't they have proxers, or sponsors, or some such things in law, Mr. Dalton?"

That gentleman laughed heartily, and Joyce joined in with a merry peal. Even Lucy and Nate helped the chorus, though somewhat perfunctorily, not knowing just what they were laughing at.

"How is it, Miss Lavillotte, are you standing sponsor for any one?" queried Dalton, as soon as he could get his voice.

"I hope not!" she laughed in return.

"Well," put in Nate, looking from one to the other, "it seems funny to you, I see; but if I ain't much mistooken I've heered the boss, here, talk about young Early more'n once. So they must be something to it, of course."

"There!" said Joyce. "You are convicted, Mr. Dalton. Can you set yourself right?"

"I can, if I may."

"Well, do by all means, then."

"Well, Nate, I began by first being deceived myself; then, being fairly launched in deception, I went on cheating others. There never was a young Early! No man is living by that name, that we know."

Nate looked dazed, and Lucy craned forward anxiously. "Who does own the Works, then?" she cried. "Can't we go on living in our pretty houses, and having the nice new ways? Who built the school, and the church, and the Social-house?"

"Do you like the new, so much better than the old, way, Lucy? You have had great sorrows since these changes, child."

Joyce leaned forward to the girl, kindly.

"I know, but if it had come before! How dreadful hungry and wretched we'd have been! And how would it have gone with Nate? Do you s'pose they'd ever 'a' cleared him, if they hadn't knowed he had rich friends? Oh, I can't bear to think of it before! It's like the diff'runce between being out in the cold and wet, with nobody to care, and being inside by the fire, with ev'rybody good-natured. It's easier with the work, and with the children, and with ev'rybody. There's lots of times, now, when I couldn't help singin', only I'm ashamed to. And 'tisn't me only, but Marry, and Rache, and the youngsters, and all. It's like summer, come to stay."

"Dear Lucy!" said Joyce. "You put it very pleasantly, I'm sure. But here we are at the station—explanations later!" and the bustle of making a train just about to start drew their attention elsewhere.

Once within it, they could not find seats together, and perhaps neither couple was disturbed because thus separated. George Dalton bent towards Joyce, and said:

"So you are going to give it all away?"

"No, George, I expect you to do that. Just tell them plainly and simply who I am, and what are our plans for the future. It is better not to keep it longer when the—it—is so near."

"How you shy at the word, Joyce! There are two or three with the same meaning to select from, you know—wedding, nup——"

"Sh-h! George. Some one will hear you."

"And suppose they do. Are you ashamed of it? I am not. I can't even hear one of those words without a thrill of happiness. And it isn't all for ourselves, either, dearest. There is a great work before us, and many are interested. To spend our lives together, doing for those who have been my friends ever since I was a poor, hard-working, lonely little fellow—Ah! Joyce, it is a pleasant outlook!"

He turned to the window with softened eyes, and Joyce, through some strange entangling of the thought threads, suddenly remembered her last interview with Leon before he returned to the "Terror," nearly a month ago. His ardent, dominant nature had struck her as never before, while he talked glowingly of his life, his work, his ambitions. "He will make a magnificent man!" she had thought then. "Brave, resolute, a born ruler of men. But there is one idea he has not caught, by which my life is now controlled—that the one who really ministers must have something of the servant in his make-up. We 'stoop to conquer' in humanitarianism, as well as in other love. And Leon could not stoop. We are both masterful in a way, but his mastery would overpower mine, and crush it out. I could not be free to live as I have chosen, if he had any control over me, and yet, strangely enough, I once believed I owed all my ideas of helpfulness to him. I know, now, it was the dear mother who informed my mind, while Leon controlled my fancy."

She was lost in her musings as the train shrieked out its on-coming call to the little one-room station-house, at Littleton. From the window they could see that the whole town seemed to be gathered about its doors. The platform, tracks, and surrounding buildings were black with people. As the brakes were put on, lessening their speed and the roar of the train, cheer after cheer reached them from without. The air was full of waving caps, handkerchiefs, and aprons. Now they could begin to distinguish separate groups and faces. Mrs. Hemphill, in the midst of her little brood, shook the gingham skirts of the baby in her arms, and old Mother Flaherty waggled her wide Irish border and waved her cane, in utter abandon. Dan and Rachel, standing together, looked fairly radiant; even Marie was there on her tricycle, with Babette and Gus keeping guard over her, while Lucy's children, crowding near, were shouting themselves hoarse. Every one was on hand. Close by, the cobbler, having somewhere picked up a shoe to mend, waved it frantically by its leather string. Joyce's own carriage, with Gilbert proudly controlling the restive horses, was drawn up beside the platform, and on its seat, reckless of danger, stood Camille waving the dust-cloth in utter forgetfulness of what she had in her hand. In close proximity stood Dorette, and by Dr. Browne's side, in his shambling old buggy, sat Madame Bonnivel, directing the demonstrations of Dodo, on her lap. Nate looked at Lucy an instant.

"Say, child," he said in a hesitant tone, "it's a shame to think I'm nobody but just Nate, when they've made such a fuss! Be we goin' to git married, or ain't we? I s'pose we ought to, if I'm goin' to look after you and the babbies, and it seems as if 'twould sorter pay 'em for their trouble if we'd let 'em know it, or something. Folks allays likes to hear about weddin's. Say, why don't we just go along and git married right now? Might as well, and then they'd sure be satisfied. I see the preacher a-standin' there, clost to thet ole maid of Miss Lav'lotte's, and if you say so—"

"But, Nate, I ain't dressed up! That is, not bridy, you know."

He looked down at her—such a mite in her black swathings!—and smiled.

"You ain't nothin' but a child, Lucy, and I'll have to be husband and father, both. But I'll look after you close, dear, and be good to the babbies. Come, I guess we'd better. Your clo'es is all right."

Waves of cheers greeted Nate as he stepped outside, with Lucy in tow. The crowd surged forward toward the platform, but he waved them back.

"Hello, boys!" he cried, raising his voice. "This is nice of you, but jest hold up a minute, please. We're goin' to have a weddin'—Lucy and me—'fore we all go home. Come, Lucy!"

He caught her hand in a firmer grip, and struggled toward the minister, his countenance strong in its intensity of purpose. Lucy's blossom face, that had been growing rounder and rosier every day, shone out like a vision of hope against the long black veil, which streamed behind her like a background of cloud floating away into the past. The crowd, eagerly watching, was silent with astonishment, and the young divinity student, taken thus unaware, looked really pale under his excitement. But he was a man of strong calibre and spirituality, with quickened sympathies, and that insight into human nature which some people name magnetism. He knew Lucy's story and Nate's. He felt this marriage was, under all the circumstances, right and best. Baring his head reverently, he stepped forward and raised his right hand. A solemn hush fell upon all. After a short invocation, which steadied his own nerves, and attuned all to the solemnity of the occasion, he put the momentous questions in his most impressive manner, and Nate and Lucy made their vows, the whole population of Littleton serving as witnesses. The instant the blessing was pronounced upon the wedded pair, Nate spoke up in a firm, loud voice—

"Now, friends, let's all go home and git our suppers. If you're so tired as I be you'll need 'em. Come, Lucy, the babbies are fretting, and there's Tilly tryin' to git to us. Come on!"

The crowd, laughing and crying, parted to let them through, Joyce and George, still quite dazed, staring with the rest. Camille's voice aroused them.

"Did you ever see anything so matter-of-fact! How he did take the wind out of our sails! Well, let's go home, as he says. Dr. Browne has run off with mother, but she wants you both—George and Joyce—to come home with me to dinner."

"Wait!" cried Joyce, suddenly finding her tongue. She beckoned to Dalton, spoke a hurried word or two, and in a trice Nate, Lucy, and the Hapgood children, down to the little baby, were packed into the carriage, and Gilbert bidden to drive them home for the wedding journey.

Then she waved them adieu, and turned to her friend and betrothed—

"Come, Camille; come, George, we three can walk!"

THE END.