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With natural feminine instinct that lady started back when she saw Hartsook, for she had just built a fire in the stove, and she now stood at the door with unwashed face and uncombed hair. "Why, Ralph Hartsook, where did you drop down from and what have you got?"
P.S. A copy of the Lewisburg Jeffersonian came into my hands to-day, and I see by its columns that Ralph Hartsook is principal of the Lewisburg Academy. It took me some time, however, to make out that the sheriff of the county, Mr. Israel W. Means, was none other than my old friend Bud, of the Church of the Best Licks.
When Ralph looked round on the faces of the scholars the little faces full of mischief and curiosity, the big faces full of an expression which was not further removed than second-cousin from contempt when when young Hartsook looked into these faces, his heart palpitated with stage-fright. There is no audience so hard to face as one of school-children, as many a man has found to his cost.
After adjusting the chunks so that the fire would burn, she turned her yellow face toward Ralph, and scanning him closely came out with the climax of her speech in the remark: "You see as how, Mr. Hartsook, the man what gits my Mirandy'll do well. Flat Crick land's wuth nigt upon a hundred a' acre." This gentle hint came near knocking Ralph down.
The dry forestick lying on the rude stone andirons burst into a blaze. The smoldering hope In the heart of Ralph Hartsook did the same. He could have Hannah If he could win her. But there came slowly back the recollection of his lost standing in Flat Creek. There was circumstantial evidence against him. It was evident that Hannah believed something of this.
He remembered that the colt had not yet had his oats, and so, in the very midst of Aunt Matilda's affecting allusion to his mother, like a stiff-necked reprobate that he was, Ralph Hartsook rose abruptly from the table, put on his hat, and went out toward the stable. "I declare," said Mrs.
A riot or a murder would have seemed amusing to her. School was dismissed, and Ralph, instead of returning to the Squire's, set out for the village of Clifty, a few miles away. No one knew what he went for, and some suggested that he had "sloped." But Bud said "he warn't that air kind. He was one of them air sort as died in their tracks, was Mr. Hartsook.
Hartsook offered any explanations? No, he hadn't. Had he ever paid her any attention afterward? No. Ralph declined to cross-question Hannah. To him she never seemed so fair as when telling the truth so sublimely.
"Is that you, Mr. Hartsook?" "Yes, and I want you to arrest me and try me here in Clifty." Brook is likewise absent. The illiterate Indiana countryman before the Civil War, let us say, had no pails, pared no apples, husked no corn, crossed no brooks. The same is true, I believe, of the South generally.
At any rate, the concentrated extract of the resentment of Pete Jones and his clique was now ready to empty itself upon the head of Hartsook. And Ralph found himself in his dire extremity without even the support of Bud, whose good resolutions seemed to give way all at once. There have been many men of culture and more favorable surroundings who have thrown themselves away with less provocation.
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