CHAPTER I.The Romance that Might have Been With July there came a long rain, and in the burst of sunshine which followed it the young tobacco shot up fine and straight and tall, clothing the landscape in a rich, tropical green.
>From morning till night the men worked now in the great fields, removing the numerous "suckers" from the growing plants, and pinching off the slender tops to prevent the first beginnings of a flower, except where, at long spaces, a huge pink cluster would be allowed to blossom and come to seed.
Christopher, toiling all day alone in his own field, felt the clear summer dawn break over him, the golden noon gather to full heat, and the coming night envelop him like a purple mist.
Living, as he did, so close to the earth, himself akin to the strong forces of the soil, he had grown gradually from his childhood into a rare physical expression of the large freedom of natural things.
It was an unusually hot day in mid-August--the time of the harvest moon and of the dreaded tobacco fly--that he came home at the dinner hour to find Cynthia standing, spent and pale, beside the well.
"The sun is awful, Christopher; I don't see how you bear it but it makes your hair the colour of ripe wheat.""Oh, I don't mind the sun," he answered, laughing as he wiped the sweat from his face and stooped for a drink from the tilted bucket."I'm too much taken up just now with fighting those confounded tobacco flies.They were as thick as thieves last night.""Uncle Boaz is going to send the little darkies out to hunt them at sundown," returned Cynthia."I've promised them an apple for every one they catch."Her gaze wandered over the broad fields, rich in promise, and she added after a moment, "Fletcher's crop has come on splendidly.""The more's the pity."
For a long breath she looked at him in silence; at the massive figure, the face burned to the colour of terra-cotta, the thick, wheaten-brown hair then, with an impulsive gesture, she spoke in her wonderful voice, which held so many possibilities of passion:
"I didn't tell you, Christopher, that I'd found out the name of the girl at the cross-roads.She went away the day afterward and just got back yesterday."Something in her tone made the young man look up quickly, his face paling beneath the sunburn.
All the boyish cheerfulness he had worn of late faded suddenly from his look.
"Who is she?" he asked.
"Jim Weatherby knew.He had seen her several times on horseback, and he says she's Maria Fletcher, that ugly little girl, grown up.She hates the life here, he says, and they think she is going to marry before the winter.Fletcher was talking down at the store about a rich man who is in love with her."Christopher stooped to finish his drink, and then rose slowly to his full height.
"Well, one Fletcher the less will be a good riddance," he said harshly, as he went into the house.
In the full white noon he returned to the field, working steadily on his crop until the sunset.Back and forth among the tall green plants, waist deep in their rank luxuriance, he passed with careful steps and attentive eyes, avoiding the huge "sand leaves"spreading upon the ground and already yellowing in the August weather.As he searched for the hidden "suckers" along the great juicy stalks, he removed his hat lest it should bruise the tender tops, and the golden sunshine shone full on his bared head.
