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diff --git a/1877-0.txt b/1877-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6872670 --- /dev/null +++ b/1877-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4959 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Mountain Woman and Others, by +(AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Mountain Woman and Others + +Author: (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie + +Posting Date: October 23, 2008 [EBook #1877] +Release Date: September, 1998 +Last Updated: March 10, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MOUNTAIN WOMAN AND OTHERS *** + + + + +Produced by Judy Boss + + + + + +A MOUNTAIN WOMAN + +By Elia Wilkinson Peattie + + + + To + + My best Friend, and kindest Critic, + + My Husband. + + +Transcriber's Note: I have omitted signature designations and have +closed abbreviations, e.g., “do n't” becoming “don't,” etc. In addition, +I have made the following changes to the text: + + PAGE LINE ORIGINAL CHANGED TO + 38 19 seem to seemed to + 47 9 beafsteak beefsteak + 56 4 divertisement divertissement + 91 19 divertisement divertissement + 155 17 scarfs. scarves. + 169 20 scarfs, scarves, + + + + +FOREWORD. + + +MOST of the tales in this little book have been printed before. “A +Mountain Woman” appeared in Harper's Weekly, as did “The Three Johns” + and “A Resuscitation.” “Jim Lancy's Waterloo” was printed in the +Cosmopolitan, “A Michigan Man” in Lippincott's, and “Up the Gulch” in +Two Tales. The courtesy of these periodicals in permitting the stories +to be republished is cordially acknowledged. + +E. W. P. + + + + +Contents + + + A MOUNTAIN WOMAN + + JIM LANCY'S WATERLOO + + THE THREE JOHNS + + A RESUSCITATION + + TWO PIONEERS + + UP THE GULCH + + A MICHIGAN MAN + + A LADY OF YESTERDAY + + + + +A Mountain Woman + +IF Leroy Brainard had not had such a respect for literature, he would +have written a book. + +As it was, he played at being an architect--and succeeded in being a +charming fellow. My sister Jessica never lost an opportunity of laughing +at his endeavors as an architect. + +“You can build an enchanting villa, but what would you do with a +cathedral?” + +“I shall never have a chance at a cathedral,” he would reply. “And, +besides, it always seems to me so material and so impertinent to build a +little structure of stone and wood in which to worship God!” + +You see what he was like? He was frivolous, yet one could never tell +when he would become eloquently earnest. + +Brainard went off suddenly Westward one day. I suspected that Jessica +was at the bottom of it, but I asked no questions; and I did not hear +from him for months. Then I got a letter from Colorado. + +“I have married a mountain woman,” he wrote. “None of your puny breed +of modern femininity, but a remnant left over from the heroic ages,--a +primitive woman, grand and vast of spirit, capable of true and steadfast +wifehood. No sophistry about her; no knowledge even that there is +sophistry. Heavens! man, do you remember the rondeaux and triolets I +used to write to those pretty creatures back East? It would take a Saga +man of the old Norseland to write for my mountain woman. If I were an +artist, I would paint her with the north star in her locks and her feet +on purple cloud. I suppose you are at the Pier. I know you usually are +at this season. At any rate, I shall direct this letter thither, and +will follow close after it. I want my wife to see something of life. And +I want her to meet your sister.” + +“Dear me!” cried Jessica, when I read the letter to her; “I don't know +that I care to meet anything quite so gigantic as that mountain woman. +I'm one of the puny breed of modern femininity, you know. I don't think +my nerves can stand the encounter.” + +“Why, Jessica!” I protested. She blushed a little. + +“Don't think bad of me, Victor. But, you see, I've a little scrap-book +of those triolets upstairs.” Then she burst into a peal of irresistible +laughter. “I'm not laughing because I am piqued,” she said frankly. +“Though any one will admit that it is rather irritating to have a man +who left you in a blasted condition recover with such extraordinary +promptness. As a philanthropist, one of course rejoices, but as a woman, +Victor, it must be admitted that one has a right to feel annoyed. But, +honestly, I am not ungenerous, and I am going to do him a favor. I shall +write, and urge him not to bring his wife here. A primitive woman, with +the north star in her hair, would look well down there in the Casino +eating a pineapple ice, wouldn't she? It's all very well to have a soul, +you know; but it won't keep you from looking like a guy among women who +have good dressmakers. I shudder at the thought of what the poor thing +will suffer if he brings her here.” + +Jessica wrote, as she said she would; but, for all that, a fortnight +later she was walking down the wharf with the “mountain woman,” and I +was sauntering beside Leroy. At dinner Jessica gave me no chance to talk +with our friend's wife, and I only caught the quiet contralto tones of +her voice now and then contrasting with Jessica's vivacious soprano. A +drizzling rain came up from the east with nightfall. Little groups of +shivering men and women sat about in the parlors at the card-tables, +and one blond woman sang love songs. The Brainards were tired with their +journey, and left us early. When they were gone, Jessica burst into +eulogy. + +“That is the first woman,” she declared, “I ever met who would make a +fit heroine for a book.” + +“Then you will not feel under obligations to educate her, as you +insinuated the other day?” + +“Educate her! I only hope she will help me to unlearn some of the things +I know. I never saw such simplicity. It is antique!” + +“You're sure it's not mere vacuity?” “Victor! How can you? But you +haven't talked with her. You must to-morrow. Good-night.” She gathered +up her trailing skirts and started down the corridor. Suddenly she +turned back. “For Heaven's sake!” she whispered, in an awed tone, “I +never even noticed what she had on!” + +The next morning early we made up a riding party, and I rode with +Mrs. Brainard. She was as tall as I, and sat in her saddle as if quite +unconscious of her animal. The road stretched hard and inviting under +our horses' feet. The wind smelled salt. The sky was ragged with gray +masses of cloud scudding across the blue. I was beginning to glow with +exhilaration, when suddenly my companion drew in her horse. + +“If you do not mind, we will go back,” she said. + +Her tone was dejected. I thought she was tired. + +“Oh, no!” she protested, when I apologized for my thoughtlessness in +bringing her so far. “I'm not tired. I can ride all day. Where I come +from, we have to ride if we want to go anywhere; but here there seems to +be no particular place to--to reach.” + +“Are you so utilitarian?” I asked, laughingly. “Must you always have +some reason for everything you do? I do so many things just for the mere +pleasure of doing them, I'm afraid you will have a very poor opinion of +me.” + +“That is not what I mean,” she said, flushing, and turning her large +gray eyes on me. “You must not think I have a reason for everything I +do.” She was very earnest, and it was evident that she was unacquainted +with the art of making conversation. “But what I mean,” she went on, +“is that there is no place--no end--to reach.” She looked back over her +shoulder toward the west, where the trees marked the sky line, and an +expression of loss and dissatisfaction came over her face. “You +see,” she said, apologetically, “I'm used to different things--to the +mountains. I have never been where I could not see them before in my +life.” + +“Ah, I see! I suppose it is odd to look up and find them not there.” + +“It's like being lost, this not having anything around you. At least, +I mean,” she continued slowly, as if her thought could not easily put +itself in words,--“I mean it seems as if a part of the world had been +taken down. It makes you feel lonesome, as if you were living after the +world had begun to die.” + +“You'll get used to it in a few days. It seems very beautiful to me +here. And then you will have so much life to divert you.” + +“Life? But there is always that everywhere.” + +“I mean men and women.” + +“Oh! Still, I am not used to them. I think I might be not--not very +happy with them. They might think me queer. I think I would like to show +your sister the mountains.” + +“She has seen them often.” + +“Oh, she told me. But I don't mean those pretty green hills such as we +saw coming here. They are not like my mountains. I like mountains that +go beyond the clouds, with terrible shadows in the hollows, and belts +of snow lying in the gorges where the sun cannot reach, and the snow is +blue in the sunshine, or shining till you think it is silver, and the +mist so wonderful all about it, changing each moment and drifting up and +down, that you cannot tell what name to give the colors. These mountains +of yours here in the East are so quiet; mine are shouting all the time, +with the pines and the rivers. The echoes are so loud in the valley that +sometimes, when the wind is rising, we can hardly hear a man talk unless +he raises his voice. There are four cataracts near where I live, and +they all have different voices, just as people do; and one of them +is happy--a little white cataract--and it falls where the sun shines +earliest, and till night it is shining. But the others only get the sun +now and then, and they are more noisy and cruel. One of them is always +in the shadow, and the water looks black. That is partly because the +rocks all underneath it are black. It falls down twenty great ledges in +a gorge with black sides, and a white mist dances all over it at every +leap. I tell father the mist is the ghost of the waters. No man ever +goes there; it is too cold. The chill strikes through one, and makes +your heart feel as if you were dying. But all down the side of the +mountain, toward the south and the west, the sun shines on the granite +and draws long points of light out of it. Father tells me soldiers +marching look that way when the sun strikes on their bayonets. Those are +the kind of mountains I mean, Mr. Grant.” + +She was looking at me with her face transfigured, as if it, like the +mountains she told me of, had been lying in shadow, and waiting for the +dazzling dawn. + +“I had a terrible dream once,” she went on; “the most terrible dream +ever I had. I dreamt that the mountains had all been taken down, and +that I stood on a plain to which there was no end. The sky was burning +up, and the grass scorched brown from the heat, and it was twisting as +if it were in pain. And animals, but no other person save myself, only +wild things, were crouching and looking up at that sky. They could not +run because there was no place to which to go.” + +“You were having a vision of the last man,” I said. “I wonder myself +sometimes whether this old globe of ours is going to collapse suddenly +and take us with her, or whether we will disappear through slow +disastrous ages of fighting and crushing, with hunger and blight to help +us to the end. And then, at the last, perhaps, some luckless fellow, +stronger than the rest, will stand amid the ribs of the rotting earth +and go mad.” + +The woman's eyes were fixed on me, large and luminous. “Yes,” she said; +“he would go mad from the lonesomeness of it. He would be afraid to be +left alone like that with God. No one would want to be taken into God's +secrets.” + +“And our last man,” I went on, “would have to stand there on that +swaying wreck till even the sound of the crumbling earth ceased. And +he would try to find a voice and would fail, because silence would have +come again. And then the light would go out--” + +The shudder that crept over her made me stop, ashamed of myself. + +“You talk like father,” she said, with a long-drawn breath. Then she +looked up suddenly at the sun shining through a rift in those reckless +gray clouds, and put out one hand as if to get it full of the headlong +rollicking breeze. “But the earth is not dying,” she cried. “It is +well and strong, and it likes to go round and round among all the other +worlds. It likes the sun and moon; they are all good friends; and it +likes the people who live on it. Maybe it is they instead of the fire +within who keep it warm; or maybe it is warm just from always going, as +we are when we run. We are young, you and I, Mr. Grant, and Leroy, and +your beautiful sister, and the world is young too!” Then she laughed a +strong splendid laugh, which had never had the joy taken out of it +with drawing-room restrictions; and I laughed too, and felt that we had +become very good companions indeed, and found myself warming to the joy +of companionship as I had not since I was a boy at school. + +That afternoon the four of us sat at a table in the Casino together. The +Casino, as every one knows, is a place to amuse yourself. If you have a +duty, a mission, or an aspiration, you do not take it there with you, +it would be so obviously out of place; if poverty is ahead of you, you +forget it; if you have brains, you hasten to conceal them; they would be +a serious encumbrance. + +There was a bubbling of conversation, a rustle and flutter such as there +always is where there are many women. All the place was gay with flowers +and with gowns as bright as the flowers. I remembered the apprehensions +of my sister, and studied Leroy's wife to see how she fitted into this +highly colored picture. She was the only woman in the room who seemed +to wear draperies. The jaunty slash and cut of fashionable attire were +missing in the long brown folds of cloth that enveloped her figure. I +felt certain that even from Jessica's standpoint she could not be called +a guy. Picturesque she might be, past the point of convention, but she +was not ridiculous. + +“Judith takes all this very seriously,” said Leroy, laughingly. “I +suppose she would take even Paris seriously.” + +His wife smiled over at him. “Leroy says I am melancholy,” she said, +softly; “but I am always telling him that I am happy. He thinks I am +melancholy because I do not laugh. I got out of the way of it by being +so much alone. You only laugh to let some one else know you are pleased. +When you are alone there is no use in laughing. It would be like +explaining something to yourself.” + +“You are a philosopher, Judith. Mr. Max Mueller would like to know +you.” + +“Is he a friend of yours, dear?” + +Leroy blushed, and I saw Jessica curl her lip as she noticed the blush. +She laid her hand on Mrs. Brainard's arm. + +“Have you always been very much alone?” she inquired. + +“I was born on the ranch, you know; and father was not fond of leaving +it. Indeed, now he says he will never again go out of sight of it. But +you can go a long journey without doing that; for it lies on a plateau +in the valley, and it can be seen from three different mountain passes. +Mother died there, and for that reason and others--father has had +a strange life--he never wanted to go away. He brought a lady from +Pennsylvania to teach me. She had wonderful learning, but she didn't +make very much use of it. I thought if I had learning I would not waste +it reading books. I would use it to--to live with. Father had a library, +but I never cared for it. He was forever at books too. Of course,” + she hastened to add, noticing the look of mortification deepen on her +husband's face, “I like books very well if there is nothing better at +hand. But I always said to Mrs. Windsor--it was she who taught me--why +read what other folk have been thinking when you can go out and think +yourself? Of course one prefers one's own thoughts, just as one prefers +one's own ranch, or one's own father.” + +“Then you are sure to like New York when you go there to live,” cried +Jessica; “for there you will find something to make life entertaining +all the time. No one need fall back on books there.” + +“I'm not sure. I'm afraid there must be such dreadful crowds of people. +Of course I should try to feel that they were all like me, with just the +same sort of fears, and that it was ridiculous for us to be afraid of +each other, when at heart we all meant to be kind.” + +Jessica fairly wrung her hands. “Heavens!” she cried. “I said you would +like New York. I am afraid, my dear, that it will break your heart!” + +“Oh,” said Mrs. Brainard, with what was meant to be a gentle jest, “no +one can break my heart except Leroy. I should not care enough about any +one else, you know.” + +The compliment was an exquisite one. I felt the blood creep to my own +brain in a sort of vicarious rapture, and I avoided looking at Leroy +lest he should dislike to have me see the happiness he must feel. The +simplicity of the woman seemed to invigorate me as the cool air of her +mountains might if it blew to me on some bright dawn, when I had come, +fevered and sick of soul, from the city. + +When we were alone, Jessica said to me: “That man has too much vanity, +and he thinks it is sensitiveness. He is going to imagine that his wife +makes him suffer. There's no one so brutally selfish as your sensitive +man. He wants every one to live according to his ideas, or he +immediately begins suffering. That friend of yours hasn't the courage +of his convictions. He is going to be ashamed of the very qualities that +made him love his wife.” + +There was a hop that night at the hotel, quite an unusual affair as to +elegance, given in honor of a woman from New York, who wrote a novel a +month. + +Mrs. Brainard looked so happy that night when she came in the parlor, +after the music had begun, that I felt a moisture gather in my eyes just +because of the beauty of her joy, and the forced vivacity of the women +about me seemed suddenly coarse and insincere. Some wonderful red +stones, brilliant as rubies, glittered in among the diaphanous black +driftings of her dress. She asked me if the stones were not very pretty, +and said she gathered them in one of her mountain river-beds. + +“But the gown?” I said. “Surely, you do not gather gowns like that in +river-beds, or pick them off mountain-pines?” + +“But you can get them in Denver. Father always sent to Denver for my +finery. He was very particular about how I looked. You see, I was all he +had--” She broke off, her voice faltering. + +“Come over by the window,” I said, to change her thought. “I have +something to repeat to you. It is a song of Sydney Lanier's. I think he +was the greatest poet that ever lived in America, though not many agree +with me. But he is my dear friend anyway, though he is dead, and I never +saw him; and I want you to hear some of his words.” + +I led her across to an open window. The dancers were whirling by us. +The waltz was one of those melancholy ones which speak the spirit of the +dance more eloquently than any merry melody can. The sound of the sea +booming beyond in the darkness came to us, and long paths of light, now +red, now green, stretched toward the distant light-house. These were the +lines I repeated:-- + + “What heartache--ne'er a hill! + Inexorable, vapid, vague, and chill + The drear sand levels drain my spirit low. + With one poor word they tell me all they know; + Whereat their stupid tongues, to tease my pain, + Do drawl it o'er and o'er again. + They hurt my heart with griefs I cannot name; + Always the same--the same.” + + +But I got no further. I felt myself moved with a sort of passion which +did not seem to come from within, but to be communicated to me from her. +A certain unfamiliar happiness pricked through with pain thrilled me, +and I heard her whispering,-- + +“Do not go on, do not go on! I cannot stand it to-night!” + +“Hush,” I whispered back; “come out for a moment!” We stole into the +dusk without, and stood there trembling. I swayed with her emotion. +There was a long silence. Then she said: “Father may be walking alone +now by the black cataract. That is where he goes when he is sad. I can +see how lonely he looks among those little twisted pines that grow from +the rock. And he will be remembering all the evenings we walked there +together, and all the things we said.” I did not answer. Her eyes were +still on the sea. + +“What was the name of the man who wrote that verse you just said to me?” + +I told her. + +“And he is dead? Did they bury him in the mountains? No? I wish I could +have put him where he could have heard those four voices calling down +the canyon.” + +“Come back in the house,” I said; “you must come, indeed,” I said, as +she shrank from re-entering. + +Jessica was dancing like a fairy with Leroy. They both saw us and smiled +as we came in, and a moment later they joined us. I made my excuses +and left my friends to Jessica's care. She was a sort of social +tyrant wherever she was, and I knew one word from her would insure the +popularity of our friends--not that they needed the intervention of any +one. Leroy had been a sort of drawing-room pet since before he stopped +wearing knickerbockers. + +“He is at his best in a drawing-room,” said Jessica, “because there +he deals with theory and not with action. And he has such beautiful +theories that the women, who are all idealists, adore him.” + +The next morning I awoke with a conviction that I had been idling too +long. I went back to the city and brushed the dust from my desk. Then +each morning, I, as Jessica put it, “formed public opinion” to the +extent of one column a day in the columns of a certain enterprising +morning journal. + +Brainard said I had treated him shabbily to leave upon the heels of his +coming. But a man who works for his bread and butter must put a limit to +his holiday. It is different when you only work to add to your general +picturesqueness. That is what I wrote Leroy, and it was the unkindest +thing I ever said to him; and why I did it I do not know to this day. I +was glad, though, when he failed to answer the letter. It gave me a more +reasonable excuse for feeling out of patience with him. + +The days that followed were very dull. It was hard to get back into the +way of working. I was glad when Jessica came home to set up our little +establishment and to join in the autumn gayeties. Brainard brought his +wife to the city soon after, and went to housekeeping in an odd sort of +a way. + +“I couldn't see anything in the place save curios,” Jessica reported, +after her first call on them. “I suppose there is a cookingstove +somewhere, and maybe even a pantry with pots in it. But all I saw was +Alaska totems and Navajo blankets. They have as many skins around on +the floor and couches as would have satisfied an ancient Briton. And +everybody was calling there. You know Mr. Brainard runs to curios in +selecting his friends as well as his furniture. The parlors were full +this afternoon of abnormal people, that is to say, with folks one reads +about. I was the only one there who hadn't done something. I guess it's +because I am too healthy.” + +“How did Mrs. Brainard like such a motley crew?” + +“She was wonderful--perfectly wonderful! Those insulting creatures were +all studying her, and she knew it. But her dignity was perfect, and she +looked as proud as a Sioux chief. She listened to every one, and they +all thought her so bright.” + +“Brainard must have been tremendously proud of her.” + +“Oh, he was--of her and his Chilcat portieres.” + +Jessica was there often, but--well, I was busy. At length, however, I +was forced to go. Jessica refused to make any further excuses for me. +The rooms were filled with small celebrities. + +“We are the only nonentities,” whispered Jessica, as she looked around; +“it will make us quite distinguished.” + +We went to speak to our hostess. She stood beside her husband, looking +taller than ever; and her face was white. Her long red gown of clinging +silk was so peculiar as to give one the impression that she was dressed +in character. It was easy to tell that it was one of Leroy's fancies. I +hardly heard what she said, but I know she reproached me gently for not +having been to see them. I had no further word with her till some one +led her to the piano, and she paused to say,-- + +“That poet you spoke of to me--the one you said was a friend of +yours--he is my friend now too, and I have learned to sing some of his +songs. I am going to sing one now.” She seemed to have no timidity at +all, but stood quietly, with a half smile, while a young man with a +Russian name played a strange minor prelude. Then she sang, her voice +a wonderful contralto, cold at times, and again lit up with gleams of +passion. The music itself was fitful, now full of joy, now tender, and +now sad: + + “Look off, dear love, across the sallow sands, + And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea, + How long they kiss in sight of all the lands, + Ah! longer, longer we.” + +“She has a genius for feeling, hasn't she?” Leroy whispered to me. + +“A genius for feeling!” I repeated, angrily. “Man, she has a heart and a +soul and a brain, if that is what you mean! I shouldn't think you would +be able to look at her from the standpoint of a critic.” + +Leroy shrugged his shoulders and went off. For a moment I almost hated +him for not feeling more resentful. I felt as if he owed it to his wife +to take offence at my foolish speech. + +It was evident that the “mountain woman” had become the fashion. I +read reports in the papers about her unique receptions. I saw her name +printed conspicuously among the list of those who attended all sorts +of dinners and musicales and evenings among the set that affected +intellectual pursuits. She joined a number of women's clubs of an +exclusive kind. + +“She is doing whatever her husband tells her to,” said Jessica. “Why, +the other day I heard her ruining her voice on 'Siegfried'!” + +But from day to day I noticed a difference in her. She developed a +terrible activity. She took personal charge of the affairs of her house; +she united with Leroy in keeping the house filled with guests; she got +on the board of a hospital for little children, and spent a part of +every day among the cots where the sufferers lay. Now and then when we +spent a quiet evening alone with her and Leroy, she sewed continually on +little white night-gowns for these poor babies. She used her carriage to +take the most extraordinary persons riding. + +“In the cause of health,” Leroy used to say, “I ought to have the +carriage fumigated after every ride Judith takes, for she is always +accompanied by some one who looks as if he or she should go into +quarantine.” + +One night, when he was chaffing her in this way, she flung her sewing +suddenly from her and sprang to her feet, as if she were going to give +way to a burst of girlish temper. Instead of that, a stream of tears +poured from her eyes, and she held out her trembling hands toward +Jessica. + +“He does not know,” she sobbed. “He cannot understand.” + +One memorable day Leroy hastened over to us while we were still at +breakfast to say that Judith was ill,--strangely ill. All night long +she had been muttering to herself as if in a delirium. Yet she answered +lucidly all questions that were put to her. + +“She begs for Miss Grant. She says over and over that she 'knows,' +whatever that may mean.” + +When Jessica came home she told me she did not know. She only felt that +a tumult of impatience was stirring in her friend. + +“There is something majestic about her,-something epic. I feel as if +she were making me live a part in some great drama, the end of which I +cannot tell. She is suffering, but I cannot tell why she suffers.” + +Weeks went on without an abatement in this strange illness. She did not +keep her bed. Indeed, she neglected few of her usual occupations. But +her hands were burning, and her eyes grew bright with that wild sort of +lustre one sees in the eyes of those who give themselves up to strange +drugs or manias. She grew whimsical, and formed capricious friendships, +only to drop them. + +And then one day she closed her house to all acquaintances, and sat +alone continually in her room, with her hands clasped in her lap, and +her eyes swimming with the emotions that never found their way to her +tongue. + +Brainard came to the office to talk with me about her one day. “I am a +very miserable man, Grant,” he said. “I am afraid I have lost my wife's +regard. Oh, don't tell me it is partly my fault. I know it well enough. +And I know you haven't had a very good opinion of me lately. But I am +remorseful enough now, God knows. And I would give my life to see her +as she was when I found her first among the mountains. Why, she used to +climb them like a strong man, and she was forever shouting and singing. +And she had peopled every spot with strange modern mythological +creatures. Her father is an old dreamer, and she got the trick from +him. They had a little telescope on a great knoll in the centre of the +valley, just where it commanded a long path of stars, and they used to +spend nights out there when the frost literally fell in flakes. When I +think how hardy and gay she was, how full of courage and life, and look +at her now, so feverish and broken, I feel as if I should go mad. You +know I never meant to do her any harm. Tell me that much, Grant.” + +“I think you were very egotistical for a while, Brainard, and that is a +fact. And you didn't appreciate how much her nature demanded. But I +do not think you are responsible for your wife's present condition. If +there is any comfort in that statement, you are welcome to it.” + +“But you don't mean--” he got no further. + +“I mean that your wife may have her reservations, just as we all have, +and I am paying her high praise when I say it. You are not so narrow, +Leroy, as to suppose for a moment that the only sort of passion a woman +is capable of is that which she entertains for a man. How do I know +what is going on in your wife's soul? But it is nothing which even an +idealist of women, such as I am, old fellow, need regret.” + +How glad I was afterward that I spoke those words. They exercised a +little restraint, perhaps, on Leroy when the day of his terrible trial +came. They made him wrestle with the demon of suspicion that strove to +possess him. I was sitting in my office, lagging dispiritedly over my +work one day, when the door burst open and Brainard stood beside me. +Brainard, I say, and yet in no sense the man I had known,--not a hint +in this pale creature, whose breath struggled through chattering teeth, +and whose hands worked in uncontrollable spasms, of the nonchalant +elegant I had known. Not a glimpse to be seen in those angry and +determined eyes of the gayly selfish spirit of my holiday friend. + +“She's gone!” he gasped. “Since yesterday. And I'm here to ask you what +you think now? And what you know.” + +A panorama of all shameful possibilities for one black moment floated +before me. I remember this gave place to a wave, cold as death, that +swept from head to foot; then Brainard's hands fell heavily on my +shoulders. + +“Thank God at least for this much,” he said, hoarsely; “I didn't know at +first but I had lost both friend and wife. But I see you know nothing. +And indeed in my heart I knew all the time that you did not. Yet I had +to come to you with my anger. And I remembered how you defended her. +What explanation can you offer now?” + +I got him to sit down after a while and tell me what little there was +to tell. He had been away for a day's shooting, and when he returned he +found only the perplexed servants at home. A note was left for him. He +showed it to me. + +“There are times,” it ran, “when we must do as we must, not as we would. +I am going to do something I have been driven to do since I left my +home. I do not leave any message of love for you, because you would not +care for it from a woman so weak as I. But it is so easy for you to be +happy that I hope in a little while you will forget the wife who yielded +to an influence past resisting. It may be madness, but I am not great +enough to give it up. I tried to make the sacrifice, but I could not. +I tried to be as gay as you, and to live your sort of life; but I could +not do it. Do not make the effort to forgive me. You will be happier if +you simply hold me in the contempt I deserve.” + +I read the letter over and over. I do not know that I believe that the +spirit of inanimate things can permeate to the intelligence of man. I +am sure I always laughed at such ideas. Yet holding that note with its +shameful seeming words, I felt a consciousness that it was written in +purity and love. And then before my eyes there came a scene so +vivid that for a moment the office with its familiar furniture was +obliterated. What I saw was a long firm road, green with midsummer +luxuriance. The leisurely thudding of my horse's feet sounded in my +ears. Beside me was a tall, black-robed figure. I saw her look back with +that expression of deprivation at the sky line. “It's like living after +the world has begun to die,” said the pensive minor voice. “It seems as +if part of the world had been taken down.” + +“Brainard,” I yelled, “come here! I have it. Here's your explanation. I +can show you a new meaning for every line of this letter. Man, she has +gone to the mountains. She has gone to worship her own gods!” + +Two weeks later I got a letter from Brainard, dated from Colorado. + +“Old man,” it said, “you're right. She is here. I found my mountain +woman here where the four voices of her cataracts had been calling to +her. I saw her the moment our mules rounded the road that commands the +valley. We had been riding all night and were drenched with cold dew, +hungry to desperation, and my spirits were of lead. Suddenly we got out +from behind the granite wall, and there she was, standing, where I had +seen her so often, beside the little waterfall that she calls the happy +one. She was looking straight up at the billowing mist that dipped down +the mountain, mammoth saffron rolls of it, plunging so madly from the +impetus of the wind that one marvelled how it could be noiseless. Ah, +you do not know Judith! That strange, unsophisticated, sometimes awkward +woman you saw bore no more resemblance to my mountain woman than I to +Hercules. How strong and beautiful she looked standing there wrapped in +an ecstasy! It was my primitive woman back in her primeval world. How +the blood leaped in me! All my old romance, so different from the common +love-histories of most men, was there again within my reach! All the +mystery, the poignant happiness were mine again. Do not hold me in +contempt because I show you my heart. You saw my misery. Why should +I grudge you a glimpse of my happiness? She saw me when I touched her +hand, not before, so wrapped was she. But she did not seem surprised. +Only in her splendid eyes there came a large content. She pointed to the +dancing little white fall. 'I thought something wonderful was going to +happen,' she whispered, 'for it has been laughing so.' + +“I shall not return to New York. I am going to stay here with my +mountain woman, and I think perhaps I shall find out what life means +here sooner than I would back there with you. I shall learn to see large +things large and small things small. Judith says to tell you and Miss +Grant that the four voices are calling for you every day in the valley. + +“Yours in fullest friendship, + +“LEROY BRAINARD.” + + + +Jim Lancy's Waterloo + + +“WE must get married before time to put in crops,” he wrote. “We must +make a success of the farm the first year, for luck. Could you manage +to be ready to come out West by the last of February? After March opens +there will be no let-up, and I do not see how I could get away. Make it +February, Annie dear. A few weeks more or less can make no difference to +you, but they make a good deal of difference to me.” + +The woman to whom this was written read it with something like anger. “I +don't believe he's so impatient for me!” she said to herself. “What he +wants is to get the crops in on time.” But she changed the date of their +wedding, and made it February. + +Their wedding journey was only from the Illinois village where she lived +to their Nebraska farm. They had never been much together, and they had +much to say to each other. + +“Farming won't come hard to you,” Jim assured her. “All one needs to +farm with is brains.” + +“What a success you'll make of it!” she cried saucily. + +“I wish I had my farm clear,” Jim went on; “but that's more than any one +has around me. I'm no worse off than the rest. We've got to pay off the +mortgage, Annie.” + +“Of course we must. We'll just do without till we get the mortgage +lifted. Hard work will do anything, I guess. And I'm not afraid to work, +Jim, though I've never had much experience.” + +Jim looked out of the window a long time, at the gentle undulations of +the brown Iowa prairie. His eyes seemed to pierce beneath the sod, +to the swelling buds of the yet invisible grass. He noticed how +disdainfully the rains of the new year beat down the grasses of the +year that was gone. It opened to his mind a vision of the season's +possibilities. For a moment, even amid the smoke of the car, he seemed +to scent clover, and hear the stiff swishing of the corn and the dull +burring of the bees. + +“I wish sometimes,” he said, leaning forward to look at his bride, “that +I had been born something else than a farmer. But I can no more help +farming, Annie, than a bird can help singing, or a bee making honey. I +didn't take to farming. I was simply born with a hoe in my hand.” + +“I don't know a blessed thing about it,” Annie confessed. “But I made up +my mind that a farm with you was better than a town without you. That's +all there is to it, as far as I am concerned.” + +Jim Lancy slid his arm softly about her waist, unseen by the other +passengers. Annie looked up apprehensively, to see if any one was +noticing. But they were eating their lunches. It was a common coach on +which they were riding. There was a Pullman attached to the train, and +Annie had secretly thought that, as it was their wedding journey, it +might be more becoming to take it. But Jim had made no suggestion about +it. What he said later explained the reason. + +“I would have liked to have brought you a fine present,” he said. “It +seemed shabby to come with nothing but that little ring. But I put +everything I had on our home, you know. And yet, I'm sure you'll think +it poor enough after what you've been used to. You'll forgive me for +only bringing the ring, my dear?” + +“But you brought me something better,” Annie whispered. She was a +foolish little girl. “You brought me love, you know.” Then they rode +in silence for a long time. Both of them were new to the phraseology of +love. Their simple compliments to each other were almost ludicrous. But +any one who might have chanced to overhear them would have been charmed, +for they betrayed an innocence as beautiful as an unclouded dawn. + +Annie tried hard not to be depressed by the treeless stretches of the +Nebraska plains. + +“This is different from Illinois,” she ventured once, gently; “it is +even different from Iowa.” + +“Yes, yes,” cried Jim, enthusiastically, “it is different! It is the +finest country in the world! You never feel shut in. You can always see +off. I feel at home after I get in Nebraska. I'd choke back where you +live, with all those little gullies and the trees everywhere. It's a +mystery to me how farmers have patience to work there.” + +Annie opened her eyes. There was evidently more than one way of looking +at a question. The farm-houses seemed very low and mean to her, as she +looked at them from the window. There were no fences, excepting now +and then the inhospitable barbed wire. The door-yards were bleak to her +eyes, without the ornamental shrubbery which every farmer in her part +of the country was used to tending. The cattle stood unshedded in their +corrals. The reapers and binders stood rusting in the dull drizzle. + +“How shiftless!” cried Annie, indignantly. “What do these men mean by +letting their machinery lie out that way? I should think one winter of +lying out would hurt it more than three summers of using.” + +“It does. But sheds are not easily had. Lumber is dear.” + +“But I should think it would be economy even then.” + +“Yes,” he said, “perhaps. But we all do that way out here. It takes +some money for a man to be economical with. Some of us haven't even that +much.” + +There was a six-mile ride from the station. The horses were waiting, +hitched up to a serviceable light wagon, and driven by the “help.” He +was a thin young man, with red hair, and he blushed vicariously for Jim +and Annie, who were really too entertained with each other, and at the +idea of the new life opening up before them, to think anything about +blushing. At the station, a number of men insisted on shaking hands +with Jim, and being introduced to his wife. They were all bearded, as +if shaving were an unnecessary labor, and their trousers were tucked in +dusty top-boots, none of which had ever seen blacking. Annie had a sense +of these men seeming unwashed, or as if they had slept in their clothes. +But they had kind voices, and their eyes were very friendly. So she +shook hands with them all with heartiness, and asked them to drive out +and bring their womenkind. + +“I am going to make up my mind not to be lonesome,” she declared; “but, +all the same, I shall want to see some women.” + +Annie had got safe on the high seat of the wagon, and was balancing her +little feet on the inclined foot-rest, when a woman came running across +the street, calling aloud,-- + +“Mr. Lancy! Mr. Lancy! You're not going to drive away without +introducing me to your wife!” + +She was a thin little woman, with movements as nervous and as graceless +as those of a grasshopper. Her dun-colored garments seemed to have all +the hue bleached out of them with wind and weather. Her face was brown +and wrinkled, and her bright eyes flashed restlessly, deep in their +sockets. Two front teeth were conspicuously missing; and her faded hair +was blown in wisps about her face. Jim performed the introduction, and +Annie held out her hand. It was a pretty hand, delicately gloved in dove +color. The woman took it in her own, and after she had shaken it, held +it for a silent moment, looking at it. Then she almost threw it from +her. The eyes which she lifted to scan the bright young face above +her had something like agony in them. Annie blushed under this fierce +scrutiny, and the woman, suddenly conscious of her demeanor, forced a +smile to her lips. + +“I'll come out an' see yeh,” she said, in cordial tones. “May be, as a +new housekeeper, you'll like a little advice. You've a nice place, an' I +wish yeh luck.” + +“Thank you. I'm sure I'll need advice,” cried Annie, as they drove off. +Then she said to Jim, “Who is that old woman?” + +“Old woman? Why, she ain't a day over thirty, Mis' Dundy ain't.” + +Annie looked at her husband blankly. But he was already talking of +something else, and she asked no more about the woman, though all the +way along the road the face seemed to follow her. It might have been +this that caused the tightening about her heart. For some way her +vivacity had gone; and the rest of the ride she asked no questions, but +sat looking straight before her at the northward stretching road, with +eyes that felt rather than saw the brown, bare undulations, rising +every now and then clean to the sky; at the side, little famished-looking +houses, unacquainted with paint, disorderly yards, and endless reaches +of furrowed ground, where in summer the corn had waved. + +The horses needed no indication of the line to make them turn up a +smooth bit of road that curved away neatly 'mid the ragged grasses. +At the end of it, in a clump of puny scrub oaks, stood a square little +house, in uncorniced simplicity, with blank, uncurtained windows staring +out at Annie, and for a moment her eyes, blurred with the cold, seemed +to see in one of them the despairing face of the woman with the wisps of +faded hair blowing about her face. + +“Well, what do you think of it?” Jim cried, heartily, swinging her down +from her high seat, and kissing her as he did so. “This is your home, +my girl, and you are as welcome to it as you would be to a palace, if I +could give it to you.” + +Annie put up her hands to hide the trembling of her lips; and she let +Jim see there were tears in her eyes as an apology for not replying. The +young man with the red hair took away the horses, and Jim, with his arm +around his wife's waist, ran toward the house and threw open the door +for her to enter. The intense heat of two great stoves struck in +their faces; and Annie saw the big burner, erected in all its black +hideousness in the middle of the front room, like a sort of household +hoodoo, to be constantly propitiated, like the gods of Greece; and in +the kitchen, the new range, with a distracted tea-kettle leaping on it, +as if it would like to loose its fetters and race away over the prairie +after its cousin, the locomotive. + +It was a house of four rooms, and a glance revealed the fact that it had +been provided with the necessaries. + +“I think we can be very comfortable here,” said Jim, rather doubtfully. + +Annie saw she must make some response. “I am sure we can be more than +comfortable, Jim,” she replied. “We can be happy. Show me, if you +please, where my room is. I must hang my cloak up in the right place so +that I shall feel as if I were getting settled.” + +It was enough. Jim had no longer any doubts. He felt sure they were +going to be happy ever afterward. + +It was Annie who got the first meal; she insisted on it, though both the +men wanted her to rest. And Jim hadn't the heart to tell her that, as +a general thing, it would not do to put two eggs in the corn-cake, and +that the beefsteak was a great luxury. When he saw her about to break an +egg for the coffee, however, he interfered. + +“The shells of the ones you used for the cake will settle the coffee +just as well,” he said. “You see we have to be very careful of eggs out +here at this season.” + +“Oh! Will the shells really settle it? This is what you must call +prairie lore. I suppose out here we find out what the real relations of +invention and necessity are--eh?” + +Jim laughed disproportionately. He thought her wonderfully witty. And +he and the help ate so much that Annie opened her eyes. She had thought +there would be enough left for supper. But there was nothing left. + +For the next two weeks Jim was able to be much with her; and they amused +themselves by decorating the house with the bright curtainings that +Annie had brought, and putting up shelves for a few pieces of china. She +had two or three pictures, also, which had come from her room in her old +home, and some of those useless dainty things with which some women like +to litter the room. + +“Most folks,” Jim explained, “have to be content with one fire, and sit +in the kitchen; but I thought, as this was our honeymoon, we would put +on some lugs.” + +Annie said nothing then; but a day or two after she ventured,-- + +“Perhaps it would be as well now, dear, if we kept in the kitchen. I'll +keep it as bright and pleasant as I can. And, anyway, you can be more +about with me when I'm working then. We'll lay a fire in the front-room +stove, so that we can light it if anybody comes. We can just as well +save that much.” + +Jim looked up brightly. “All right,” he said. “You're a sensible little +woman. You see, every cent makes a difference. And I want to be able to +pay off five hundred dollars of that mortgage this year.” + +So, after that, they sat in the kitchen; and the fire was laid in the +front room, against the coming of company. But no one came, and it +remained unlighted. + +Then the season began to show signs of opening,--bleak signs, hardly +recognizable to Annie; and after that Jim was not much in the house. +The weeks wore on, and spring came at last, dancing over the hills. The +ground-birds began building, and at four each morning awoke Annie with +their sylvan opera. The creek that ran just at the north of the house +worked itself into a fury and blustered along with much noise toward +the great Platte which, miles away, wallowed in its vast sandy bed. The +hills flushed from brown to yellow, and from mottled green to intensest +emerald, and in the superb air all the winds of heaven seemed to meet +and frolic with laughter and song. + +Sometimes the mornings were so beautiful that, the men being afield and +Annie all alone, she gave herself up to an ecstasy and kneeled by the +little wooden bench outside the door, to say, “Father, I thank Thee,” + and then went about her work with all the poem of nature rhyming itself +over and over in her heart. + +It was on such a day as this that Mrs. Dundy kept her promise and came +over to see if the young housekeeper needed any of the advice she +had promised her. She had walked, because none of the horses could be +spared. It had got so warm now that the fire in the kitchen heated +the whole house sufficiently, and Annie had the rooms clean to +exquisiteness. Mrs. Dundy looked about with envious eyes. + +“How lovely!” she said. + +“Do you think so?” cried Annie, in surprise. “I like it, of course, +because it is home, but I don't see how you could call anything here +lovely.” + +“Oh, you don't understand,” her visitor went on. “It's lovely because it +looks so happy. Some of us have--well, kind o' lost our grip.” + +“It's easy to do that if you don't feel well,” Annie remarked +sympathetically. “I haven't felt as well as usual myself, lately. And +I do get lonesome and wonder what good it does to fix up every day when +there is no one to see. But that is all nonsense, and I put it out of my +head.” + +She smoothed out the clean lawn apron with delicate touch. Mrs. Dundy +followed the movement with her eyes. + +“Oh, my dear,” she cried, “you don't know nothin' about it yet! But you +will know! You will!” and those restless, hot eyes of hers seemed to +grow more restless and more hot as they looked with infinite pity at the +young woman before her. + +Annie thought of these words often as the summer came on, and the heat +grew. Jim was seldom to be seen now. He was up at four each morning, +and the last chore was not completed till nine at night. Then he threw +himself in bed and lay there log-like till dawn. He was too weary to +talk much, and Annie, with her heart aching for his fatigue, forbore to +speak to him. She cooked the most strengthening things she could, and +tried always to look fresh and pleasant when he came in. But she often +thought her pains were in vain, for he hardly rested his sunburned +eyes on her. His skin got so brown that his face was strangely changed, +especially as he no longer had time to shave, and had let a rough beard +straggle over his cheeks and chin. On Sundays Annie would have liked to +go to church, but the horses were too tired to be taken out, and she did +not feel well enough to walk far; besides, Jim got no particular good +out of walking over the hills unless he had a plough in his hand. + +Harvest came at length, and the crop was good. There were any way from +three to twenty men at the house then, and Annie cooked for all of them. +Jim had tried to get some one to help her, but he had not succeeded. +Annie strove to be brave, remembering that farm-women all over the +country were working in similar fashion. But in spite of all she could +do, the days got to seem like nightmares, and sleep between was but a +brief pause in which she was always dreaming of water, and thinking that +she was stooping to put fevered lips to a running brook. Some of these +men were very disgusting to Annie. Their manners were as bad as they +could well be, and a coarse word came naturally to their lips. + +“To be master of the soil, that is one thing,” said she to herself in +sickness of spirit; “but to be the slave of it is another. These men +seem to have got their souls all covered with muck.” She noticed that +they had no idea of amusement. They had never played anything. They did +not even care for base-ball. Their idea of happiness appeared to be to +do nothing; and there was a good part of the year in which they were +happy,--for these were not for the most part men owning farms; they +were men who hired out to help the farmer. A good many of them had been +farmers at one time and another, but they had failed. They all talked +politics a great deal,--politics and railroads. Annie had not much +patience with it all. She had great confidence in the course of things. +She believed that in this country all men have a fair chance. So when it +came about that the corn and the wheat, which had been raised with such +incessant toil, brought them no money, but only a loss, Annie stood +aghast. + +“I said the rates were ruinous,” Jim said to her one night, after it was +all over, and he had found out that the year's slavish work had brought +him a loss of three hundred dollars; “it's been a conspiracy from the +first. The price of corn is all right. But by the time we set it down in +Chicago we are out eighteen cents a bushel. It means ruin. What are we +going to do? Here we had the best crop we've had for years--but what's +the use of talking! They have us in their grip.” + +“I don't see how it is,” Annie protested. “I should think it would be +for the interest of the roads to help the people to be as prosperous as +possible.” + +“Oh, we can't get out! And we're bound to stay and raise grain. And +they're bound to cart it. And that's all there is to it. They force +us to stand every loss, even to the shortage that is made in +transportation. The railroad companies own the elevators, and they have +the cinch on us. Our grain is at their mercy. God knows how I'm going to +raise that interest. As for the five hundred we were going to pay on the +mortgage this year, Annie, we're not in it.” + +Autumn was well set in by this time, and the brilliant cold sky hung +over the prairies as young and fresh as if the world were not old and +tired. Annie no longer could look as trim as when she first came to the +little house. Her pretty wedding garments were beginning to be worn and +there was no money for more. Jim would not play chess now of evenings. +He was forever writing articles for the weekly paper in the adjoining +town. They talked of running him for the state legislature, and he was +anxious for the nomination. + +“I think I might be able to stand it if I could fight 'em!” he declared; +“but to sit here idle, knowing that I have been cheated out of my year's +work, just as much as if I had been knocked down on the road and +the money taken from me, is enough to send me to the asylum with a +strait-jacket on!” + +Life grew to take on tragic aspects. Annie used to find herself +wondering if anywhere in the world there were people with light +hearts. For her there was no longer anticipation of joy, or present +companionship, or any divertissement in the whole world. Jim read books +which she did not understand, and with a few of his friends, who dropped +in now and then evenings or Sundays, talked about these books in an +excited manner. + +She would go to her room to rest, and lying there in the darkness on the +bed, would hear them speaking together, sometimes all at once, in those +sternly vindictive tones men use when there is revolt in their souls. + +“It is the government which is helping to impoverish us,” she would hear +Jim saying. “Work is money. That is to say, it is the active form of +money. The wealth of a country is estimated by its power of production. +And its power of production means work. It means there are so many men +with so much capacity. Now the government owes it to these men to have +money enough to pay them for their work; and if there is not enough +money in circulation to pay to each man for his honest and necessary +work, then I say that government is in league with crime. It is trying +to make defaulters of us. It has a hundred ways of cheating us. When I +bought this farm and put the mortgage on it, a day's work would bring +twice the results it will now. That is to say, the total at the end of +the year showed my profits to be twice what they would be now, even if +the railway did not stand in the way to rob us of more than we earn. +So that it will take just twice as many days' work now to pay off this +mortgage as it would have done at the time it was contracted. It's a +conspiracy, I tell you! Those Eastern capitalists make a science of +ruining us.” + +He got more eloquent as time went on, and Annie, who had known him +first as rather a careless talker, was astonished at the boldness of his +language. But conversation was a lost art with him. He no longer talked. +He harangued. + +In the early spring Annie's baby was born,--a little girl with a nervous +cry, who never slept long at a time, and who seemed to wail merely from +distaste at living. It was Mrs. Dundy who came over to look after the +house till Annie got able to do so. Her eyes had that fever in them, +as ever. She talked but little, but her touch on Annie's head was more +eloquent than words. One day Annie asked for the glass, and Mrs. Dundy +gave it to her. She looked in it a long time. The color was gone from +her cheeks, and about her mouth there was an ugly tightening. But her +eyes flashed and shone with that same--no, no, it could not be that in +her face also was coming the look of half-madness! She motioned Mrs. +Dundy to come to her. + +“You knew it was coming,” she said, brokenly, pointing to the reflection +in the glass. “That first day, you knew how it would be.” + +Mrs. Dundy took the glass away with a gentle hand. + +“How could I help knowing?” she said simply. She went into the next +room, and when she returned Annie noticed that the handkerchief stuck in +her belt was wet, as if it had been wept on. + +A woman cannot stay long away from her home on a farm at planting time, +even if it is a case of life and death. Mrs. Dundy had to go home, and +Annie crept about her work with the wailing baby in her arms. The house +was often disorderly now; but it could not be helped. The baby had to +be cared for. It fretted so much that Jim slept apart in the mow of +the barn, that his sleep might not be disturbed. It was a pleasant, dim +place, full of sweet scents, and he liked to be there alone. Though he +had always been an unusual worker, he worked now more like a man who was +fighting off fate, than a mere toiler for bread. + +The corn came up beautifully, and far as the eye could reach around +their home it tossed its broad green leaves with an oceanlike swelling +of sibilant sound. Jim loved it with a sort of passion. Annie loved +it, too. Sometimes, at night, when her fatigue was unbearable, and her +irritation wearing out both body and soul, she took her little one in +her arms and walked among the corn, letting its rustling soothe the baby +to sleep. + +The heat of the summer was terrible. The sun came up in that blue sky +like a curse, and hung there till night came to comfort the blistering +earth. And one morning a terrible thing happened. Annie was standing +out of doors in the shade of those miserable little oaks, ironing, when +suddenly a blast of air struck her in the face, which made her look up +startled. For a moment she thought, perhaps, there was a fire near in +the grass. But there was none. Another blast came, hotter this time, and +fifteen minutes later that wind was sweeping straight across the plain, +burning and blasting. Annie went in the house to finish her ironing, and +was working there, when she heard Jim's footstep on the door-sill. He +could not pale because of the tan, but there was a look of agony and of +anger-almost brutish anger--in his eyes. Then he looked, for a moment, +at Annie standing there working patiently, and rocking the little crib +with one foot, and he sat down on the door-step and buried his face in +his brown arms. + +The wind blew for three days. At the end of that time every ear was +withered in the stalk. The corn crop was ruined. + +But there were the other crops which must be attended to, and Jim +watched those with the alertness of a despairing man; and so harvest +came again, and again the house was filled with men who talked their +careless talk, and who were not ashamed to gorge while this one woman +cooked for them. The baby lay on a quilt on the floor in the coolest +part of the kitchen. Annie fed it irregularly. Sometimes she almost +forgot it. As for its wailing, she had grown so used to it that she +hardly heard it, any more than she did the ticking of the clock. And +yet, tighter than anything else in life, was the hold that little thing +had on her heart-strings. At night, after the interminable work had been +finished--though in slovenly fashion--she would take it up and caress it +with fierceness, and worn as she was, would bathe it and soothe it, and +give it warm milk from the big tin pail. + +“Lay the child down,” Jim would say impatiently, while the men would +tell how their wives always put the babies on the bed and let them cry +if they wanted to. Annie said nothing, but she hushed the little one +with tender songs. + +One day, as usual, it lay on its quilt while Annie worked. It was a +terribly busy morning. She had risen at four to get the washing out of +the way before the men got on hand, and there were a dozen loaves of +bread to bake, and the meals to get, and the milk to attend to, and the +chickens and pigs to feed. So occupied was she that she never was able +to tell how long she was gone from the baby. She only knew that the heat +of her own body was so great that the blood seemed to be pounding at her +ears, and she staggered as she crossed the yard. But when she went at +last with a cup of milk to feed the little one, it lay with clenched +fists and fixed eyes, and as she lifted it, a last convulsion laid it +back breathless, and its heart had ceased to beat. + +Annie ran with it to her room, and tried such remedies as she had. +But nothing could keep the chill from creeping over the wasted little +form,--not even the heat of the day, not even the mother's agonized +embrace. Then, suddenly, Annie looked at the clock. It was time to get +the dinner. She laid the piteous tiny shape straight on the bed, threw a +sheet over it, and went back to the weltering kitchen to cook for those +men, who came at noon and who must be fed--who must be fed. + +When they were all seated at the table, Jim among them, and she had +served them, she said, standing at the head of the table, with her hands +on her hips:-- + +“I don't suppose any of you have time to do anything about it; but I +thought you might like to know that the baby is dead. I wouldn't think +of asking you to spare the horses, for I know they have to rest. But I +thought, if you could make out on a cold supper, that I would go to the +town for a coffin.” + +There was satire in the voice that stung even through the dull +perceptions of these men, and Jim arose with a cry and went to the room +where his dead baby lay. + +About two months after this Annie insisted that she must go home to +Illinois. Jim protested in a way. + +“You know, I'd like to send you,” he said; “but I don't see where the +money is to come from. And since I've got this nomination, I want to run +as well as I can. My friends expect me to do my best for them. It's a +duty, you know, and nothing less, for a few men, like me, to get in the +legislature. We're going to get a railroad bill through this session +that will straighten out a good many things. Be patient a little longer, +Annie.” + +“I want to go home,” was the only reply he got. “You must get the money, +some way, for me to go home with.” + +“I haven't paid a cent of interest yet,” he cried angrily. “I don't see +what you mean by being so unreasonable!” + +“You must get the money, some way,” she reiterated. + +He did not speak to her for a week, except when he was obliged to. But +she did not seem to mind; and he gave her the money. He took her to the +train in the little wagon that had met her when she first came. At the +station, some women were gossiping excitedly, and Annie asked what they +were saying. + +“It's Mis' Dundy,” they said. “She's been sent to th' insane asylum at +Lincoln. She's gone stark mad. All she said on the way out was, +'Th' butter won't come! Th' butter won't come!'” Then they laughed a +little--a strange laugh; and Annie thought of a drinking-song she had +once heard, “Here's to the next who dies.” + +Ten days after this Jim got a letter from her. “I am never coming back, +Jim,” it said. “It is hopeless. I don't think I would mind standing +still to be shot down if there was any good in it. But I'm not going +back there to work harder than any slave for those money-loaners and the +railroads. I guess they can all get along without me. And I am sure I +can get along without them. I do not think this will make you feel very +bad. You haven't seemed to notice me very much lately when I've been +around, and I do not think you will notice very much when I am gone. I +know what this means. I know I am breaking my word when I leave you. But +remember, it is not you I leave, but the soil, Jim! I will not be its +slave any longer. If you care to come for me here, and live another +life--but no, there would be no use. Our love, like our toil, has been +eaten up by those rapacious acres. Let us say goodby.” + +Jim sat all night with this letter in his hand. Sometimes he dozed +heavily in his chair. But he did not go to bed; and the next morning he +hitched up his horses and rode to town. He went to the bank which held +his notes. + +“I'll confess judgment as soon as you like,” he said. “It's all up with +me.” + +It was done as quickly as the law would allow. And the things in the +house were sold by auction. All the farmers were there with their wives. +It made quite an outing for them. Jim moved around impassively, and +chatted, now and then, with some of the men about what the horses ought +to bring. + +The auctioneer was a clever fellow. Between the putting up of the +articles, he sang comic songs, and the funnier the song, the livelier +the bidding that followed. The horses brought a decent price, and the +machinery a disappointing one; and then, after a delicious snatch about +Nell who rode the sway-backed mare at the county fair, he got down to +the furniture,--the furniture which Jim had bought when he was expecting +Annie. + +Jim was walking around with his hands in his pockets, looking +unconcerned, and, as the furniture began to go off, he came and sat down +in the midst of it. Every one noticed his indifference. Some of them +said that after all he couldn't have been very ambitious. He didn't seem +to take his failure much to heart. Every one was concentrating attention +on the cookingstove, when Jim leaned forward, quickly, over a little +wicker work-stand. + +There was a bit of unfinished sewing there, and it fell out as he lifted +the cover. It was a baby's linen shirt. Jim let it lie, and then lifted +from its receptacle a silver thimble. He put it in his vest-pocket. + +The campaign came on shortly after this, and Jim Lancy was defeated. +“I'm going to Omaha,” said he to the station-master, “and I've got just +enough to buy a ticket with. There's a kind of satisfaction in giving +the last cent I have to the railroads.” + +Two months later, a “plain drunk” was registered at the station in +Nebraska's metropolis. When they searched him they found nothing in +his pockets but a silver thimble, and Joe Benson, the policeman who had +brought in the “drunk,” gave it to the matron, with his compliments. But +she, when no one noticed, went softly to where the man was sleeping, and +slipped it back into his pocket, with a sigh. For she knew somehow--as +women do know things--that he had not stolen that thimble. + + + +THE equinoctial line itself is not more imaginary than the line which +divided the estates of the three Johns. The herds of the three Johns +roamed at will, and nibbled the short grass far and near without let or +hindrance; and the three Johns themselves were utterly indifferent as to +boundary lines. Each of them had filed his application at the office +of the government land-agent; each was engaged in the tedious task of +“proving up;” and each owned one-third of the L-shaped cabin which stood +at the point where the three ranches touched. The hundred and sixty +acres which would have completed this quadrangle had not yet been “taken +up.” + +The three Johns were not anxious to have a neighbor. Indeed, they had +made up their minds that if one appeared on that adjoining “hun'erd an' +sixty,” it would go hard with him. For they did not deal in justice very +much--the three Johns. They considered it effete. It belonged in the +East along with other outgrown superstitions. And they had given it +out widely that it would be healthier for land applicants to give them +elbow-room. It took a good many miles of sunburnt prairie to afford +elbow-room for the three Johns. + +They met by accident in Hamilton at the land-office. John Henderson, +fresh from Cincinnati, manifestly unused to the ways of the country, +looked at John Gillispie with a lurking smile. Gillispie wore a +sombrero, fresh, white, and expansive. His boots had high heels, and +were of elegant leather and finely arched at the instep. His corduroys +disappeared in them half-way up the thigh. About his waist a sash of +blue held a laced shirt of the same color in place. Henderson puffed at +his cigarette, and continued to look a trifle quizzical. + +Suddenly Gillispie walked up to him and said, in a voice of complete +suavity, “Damn yeh, smoke a pipe!” + +“Eh?” said Henderson, stupidly. + +“Smoke a pipe,” said the other. “That thing you have is bad for your +complexion.” + +“I can take care of my complexion,” said Henderson, firmly. + +The two looked each other straight in the eye. + +“You don't go on smoking that thing till you have apologized for that +grin you had on your phiz a moment ago.” + +“I laugh when I please, and I smoke what I please,” said Henderson, +hotly, his face flaming as he realized that he was in for his first +“row.” + +That was how it began. How it would have ended is not known--probably +there would have been only one John--if it had not been for the almost +miraculous appearance at this moment of the third John. For just then +the two belligerents found themselves prostrate, their pistols only +half-cocked, and between them stood a man all gnarled and squat, like +one of those wind-torn oaks which grow on the arid heights. He was no +older than the others, but the lines in his face were deep, and his +large mouth twitched as he said:-- + +“Hold on here, yeh fools! There's too much blood in you to spill. You'll +spile th' floor, and waste good stuff. We need blood out here!” + +Gillispie bounced to his feet. Henderson arose suspiciously, keeping his +eyes on his assailants. + +“Oh, get up!” cried the intercessor. “We don't shoot men hereabouts till +they git on their feet in fightin' trim.” + +“What do you know about what we do here?” interrupted Gillispie. “This +is the first time I ever saw you around.” + +“That's so,” the other admitted. “I'm just down from Montana. Came to +take up a quarter section. Where I come from we give men a show, an' I +thought perhaps yeh did th' same here.” + +“Why, yes,” admitted Gillispie, “we do. But I don't want folks to laugh +too much--not when I'm around--unless they tell me what the joke is. I +was just mentioning it to the gentleman,” he added, dryly. + +“So I saw,” said the other; “you're kind a emphatic in yer remarks. +Yeh ought to give the gentleman a chance to git used to the ways of +th' country. He'll be as tough as th' rest of us if you'll give him a +chance. I kin see it in him.” + +“Thank you,” said Henderson. “I'm glad you do me justice. I wish you +wouldn't let daylight through me till I've had a chance to get my +quarter section. I'm going to be one of you, either as a live man or a +corpse. But I prefer a hundred and sixty acres of land to six feet of +it.” + +“There, now!” triumphantly cried the squat man. “Didn't I tell yeh? Give +him a show! 'Tain't no fault of his that he's a tenderfoot. He'll get +over that.” + +Gillispie shook hands with first one and then the other of the men. +“It's a square deal from this on,” he said. “Come and have a drink.” + +That's how they met--John Henderson, John Gillispie, and John Waite. +And a week later they were putting up a shanty together for common use, +which overlapped each of their reservations, and satisfied the law with +its sociable subterfuge. + +The life wasn't bad, Henderson decided; and he adopted all the ways of +the country in an astonishingly short space of time. There was a freedom +about it all which was certainly complete. The three alternated in the +night watch. Once a week one of them went to town for provisions. They +were not good at the making of bread, so they contented themselves with +hot cakes. Then there was salt pork for a staple, and prunes. They slept +in straw-lined bunks, with warm blankets for a covering. They made a +point of bringing reading-matter back from town every week, and there +were always cards to fall back on, and Waite sang songs for them with +natural dramatic talent. + +Nevertheless, in spite of their contentment, none of them was sorry when +the opportunity offered for going to town. There was always a bit of +stirring gossip to be picked up, and now and then there was a “show” at +the “opera-house,” in which, it is almost unnecessary to say, no opera +had ever been sung. Then there was the hotel, at which one not only +got good fare, but a chat with the three daughters of Jim O'Neal, the +proprietor--girls with the accident of two Irish parents, who were, +notwithstanding, as typically American as they well could be. A +half-hour's talk with these cheerful young women was all the more to be +desired for the reason that within riding distance of the three Johns' +ranch there were only two other women. One was Minerva Fitch, who had +gone out from Michigan accompanied by an oil-stove and a knowledge of +the English grammar, with the intention of teaching school, but who had +been unable to carry these good intentions into execution for the reason +that there were no children to teach,--at least, none but Bow-legged +Joe. He was a sad little fellow, who looked like a prairie-dog, and who +had very much the same sort of an outlook on life. The other woman was +the brisk and efficient wife of Mr. Bill Deems, of “Missourah.” Mr. +Deems had never in his life done anything, not even so much as bring in +a basket of buffalo chips to supply the scanty fire. That is to say, he +had done nothing strictly utilitarian. Yet he filled his place. He +was the most accomplished story-teller in the whole valley, and this +accomplishment of his was held in as high esteem as the improvisations +of a Welsh minstrel were among his reverencing people. His wife alone +deprecated his skill, and interrupted his spirited narratives with +sarcastic allusions concerning the empty cupboard, and the “state of her +back,” to which, as she confided to any who would listen, “there was not +a rag fit to wear.” + +These two ladies had not, as may be surmised, any particular attraction +for John Henderson. Truth to tell, Henderson had not come West with the +intention of liking women, but rather with a determination to see +and think as little of them as possible. Yet even the most confirmed +misogynist must admit that it is a good thing to see a woman now and +then, and for this reason Henderson found it amusing to converse with +the amiable Misses O'Neal. At twenty-five one cannot be unyielding in +one's avoidance of the sex. + +Henderson, with his pony at a fine lope, was on his way to town one day, +in that comfortable frame of mind adduced by an absence of any ideas +whatever, when he suddenly became conscious of a shiver that seemed +to run from his legs to the pony, and back again. The animal gave a +startled leap, and lifted his ears. There was a stirring in the coarse +grasses; the sky, which a moment before had been like sapphire, dulled +with an indescribable grayness. + +Then came a little singing afar off, as if from a distant convocation +of cicadae, and before Henderson could guess what it meant, a cloud +of dust was upon him, blinding and bewildering, pricking with sharp +particles at eyes and nostrils. The pony was an ugly fellow, and when +Henderson felt him put his forefeet together, he knew what that meant, +and braced himself for the struggle. But it was useless; he had not yet +acquired the knack of staying on the back of a bucking bronco, and the +next moment he was on the ground, and around him whirled that saffron +chaos of dust. The temperature lowered every moment. Henderson +instinctively felt that this was but the beginning of the storm. He +picked himself up without useless regrets for his pony, and made his way +on. + +The saffron hue turned to blackness, and then out of the murk shot a +living green ball of fire, and ploughed into the earth. Then sheets of +water, that seemed to come simultaneously from earth and sky, swept the +prairie, and in the midst of it struggled Henderson, weak as a little +child, half bereft of sense by the strange numbness of head and dullness +of eye. Another of those green balls fell and burst, as it actually +appeared to him, before his horrified eyes, and the bellow and blare of +the explosion made him cry out in a madness of fright and physical pain. +In the illumination he had seen a cabin only a few feet in front of him, +and toward it he made frantically, with an animal's instinctive desire +for shelter. + +The door did not yield at once to his pressure, and in the panic of +his fear he threw his weight against it. There was a cry from within, a +fall, and Henderson flung himself in the cabin and closed the door. + +In the dusk of the storm he saw a woman half prostrate. It was she +whom he had pushed from the door. He caught the hook in its staple, +and turned to raise her. She was not trembling as much as he, but, like +himself, she was dizzy with the shock of the lightning. In the midst of +all the clamor Henderson heard a shrill crying, and looking toward the +side of the room, he dimly perceived three tiny forms crouched in one of +the bunks. The woman took the smallest of the children in her arms, and +kissed and soothed it; and Henderson, after he had thrown a blanket at +the bottom of the door to keep out the drifting rain, sat with his back +to it, bracing it against the wind, lest the frail staple should give +way. He managed some way to reach out and lay hold of the other little +ones, and got them in his arms,--a boy, so tiny he seemed hardly human, +and a girl somewhat sturdier. They cuddled in his arms, and clutched his +clothes with their frantic little hands, and the three sat so while the +earth and the heavens seemed to be meeting in angry combat. + +And back and forth, back and forth, in the dimness swayed the body of +the woman, hushing her babe. + +Almost as suddenly as the darkness had fallen, it lifted. The lightning +ceased to threaten, and almost frolicked,--little wayward flashes of +white and yellow dancing in mid-air. The wind wailed less frequently, +like a child who sobs in its sleep. And at last Henderson could make his +voice heard. + +“Is there anything to build a fire with?” he shouted. “The children are +shivering so.” + +The woman pointed to a basket of buffalo chips in the corner, and he +wrapped his little companions up in a blanket while he made a fire in +the cooking-stove. The baby was sleeping by this time, and the woman +began tidying the cabin, and when the fire was burning brightly, she put +some coffee on. + +“I wish I had some clothes to offer you,” she said, when the wind had +subsided sufficiently to make talking possible. “I'm afraid you'll have +to let them get dry on you.” + +“Oh, that's of no consequence at all! We're lucky to get off with our +lives. I never saw anything so terrible. Fancy! half an hour ago it was +summer; now it is winter!” + +“It seems rather sudden when you're not used to it,” the woman admitted. +“I've lived in the West six years now; you can't frighten me any more. +We never die out here before our time comes.” + +“You seem to know that I haven't been here long,” said Henderson, with +some chagrin. + +“Yes,” admitted the woman; “you have the ear-marks of a man from the +East.” + +She was a tall woman, with large blue eyes, and a remarkable quantity of +yellow hair braided on top of her head. Her gown was of calico, of such +a pattern as a widow might wear. + +“I haven't been out of town a week yet,” she said. “We're not half +settled. Not having any one to help makes it harder; and the baby is +rather fretful.” + +“But you're not alone with all these little codgers?” cried Henderson, +in dismay. + +The woman turned toward him with a sort of defiance. “Yes, I am,” she +said; “and I'm as strong as a horse, and I mean to get through all +right. Here were the three children in my arms, you may say, and no way +to get in a cent. I wasn't going to stand it just to please other folk. +I said, let them talk if they want to, but I'm going to hold down a +claim, and be accumulating something while the children are getting up a +bit. Oh, I'm not afraid!” + +In spite of this bold assertion of bravery, there was a sort of break in +her voice. She was putting dishes on the table as she talked, and turned +some ham in the skillet, and got the children up before the fire, +and dropped some eggs in water,--all with a rapidity that bewildered +Henderson. + +“How long have you been alone?” he asked, softly. + +“Three months before baby was born, and he's five months old now. +I--I--you think I can get on here, don't you? There was nothing else to +do.” + +She was folding another blanket over the sleeping baby now, and the +action brought to her guest the recollection of a thousand tender +moments of his dimly remembered youth. + +“You'll get on if we have anything to do with it,” he cried, suppressing +an oath with difficulty, just from pure emotion. + +And he told her about the three Johns' ranch, and found it was only +three miles distant, and that both were on the same road; only her +cabin, having been put up during the past week, had of course been +unknown to him. So it ended in a sort of compact that they were to help +each other in such ways as they could. Meanwhile the fire got genial, +and the coffee filled the cabin with its comfortable scent, and all of +them ate together quite merrily, Henderson cutting up the ham for the +youngsters; and he told how he chanced to come out; and she entertained +him with stories of what she thought at first when she was brought a +bride to Hamilton, the adjacent village, and convulsed him with stories +of the people, whom she saw with humorous eyes. + +Henderson marvelled how she could in those few minutes have rescued the +cabin from the desolation in which the storm had plunged it. Out of the +window he could see the stricken grasses dripping cold moisture, and the +sky still angrily plunging forward like a disturbed sea. Not a tree or +a house broke the view. The desolation of it swept over him as it never +had before. But within the little ones were chattering to themselves in +odd baby dialect, and the mother was laughing with them. + +“Women aren't always useless,” she said, at parting; “and you tell your +chums that when they get hungry for a slice of homemade bread they can +get it here. And the next time they go by, I want them to stop in and +look at the children. It'll do them good. They may think they won't +enjoy themselves, but they will.” + +“Oh, I'll answer for that!” cried he, shaking hands with her. “I'll tell +them we have just the right sort of a neighbor.” + +“Thank you,” said she, heartily. “And you may tell them that her name is +Catherine Ford.” + +Once at home, he told his story. + +“H'm!” said Gillispie, “I guess I'll have to go to town myself +to-morrow.” + +Henderson looked at him blackly. “She's a woman alone, Gillispie,” said +he, severely, “trying to make her way with handicaps--” + +“Shet up, can't ye, ye darned fool?” roared Gillispie. “What do yeh take +me fur?” + +Waite was putting on his rubber coat preparatory to going out for his +night with the cattle. “Guess you're makin' a mistake, my boy,” he said, +gently. “There ain't no danger of any woman bein' treated rude in these +parts.” + +“I know it, by Jove!” cried Henderson, in quick contriteness. + +“All right,” grunted Gillispie, in tacit acceptance of this apology. “I +guess you thought you was in civilized parts.” + +Two days after this Waite came in late to his supper. “Well, I seen +her,” he announced. + +“Oh! did you?” cried Henderson, knowing perfectly well whom he meant. +“What was she doing?” + +“Killin' snakes, b'gosh! She says th' baby's crazy fur um, an' so she +takes aroun' a hoe on her shoulder wherever she goes, an' when she sees +a snake, she has it out with 'im then an' there. I says to 'er, 'Yer +don't expec' t' git all th' snakes outen this here country, d' yeh?' +'Well,' she says, 'I'm as good a man as St. Patrick any day.' She is a +jolly one, Henderson. She tuk me in an' showed me th' kids, and give me +a loaf of gingerbread to bring home. Here it is; see?” + +“Hu!” said Gillispie. “I'm not in it.” But for all of his scorn he was +not above eating the gingerbread. + +It was gardening time, and the three Johns were putting in every spare +moment in the little paling made of willow twigs behind the house. It +was little enough time they had, though, for the cattle were new to each +other and to the country, and they were hard to manage. It was generally +conceded that Waite had a genius for herding, and he could take the +“mad” out of a fractious animal in a way that the others looked on as +little less than superhuman. Thus it was that one day, when the clay had +been well turned, and the seeds arranged on the kitchen table, and +all things prepared for an afternoon of busy planting, that Waite +and Henderson, who were needed out with the cattle, felt no little +irritation at the inexplicable absence of Gillispie, who was to look +after the garden. It was quite nightfall when he at last returned. +Supper was ready, although it had been Gillispie's turn to prepare it. + +Henderson was sore from his saddle, and cross at having to do more than +his share of the work. “Damn yeh!” he cried, as Gillispie appeared. +“Where yeh been?” + +“Making garden,” responded Gillispie, slowly. + +“Making garden!” Henderson indulged in some more harmless oaths. + +Just then Gillispie drew from under his coat a large and friendly +looking apple-pie. “Yes,” he said, with emphasis; “I've bin a-makin' +garden fur Mis' Ford.” + +And so it came about that the three Johns knew her and served her, and +that she never had a need that they were not ready to supply if they +could. Not one of them would have thought of going to town without +stopping to inquire what was needed at the village. As for Catherine +Ford, she was fighting her way with native pluck and maternal +unselfishness. If she had feared solitude she did not suffer from it. +The activity of her life stifled her fresh sorrow. She was pleasantly +excited by the rumors that a railroad was soon to be built near the +place, which would raise the value of the claim she was “holding down” + many thousand dollars. + +It is marvellous how sorrow shrinks when one is very healthy and very +much occupied. Although poverty was her close companion, Catherine had +no thought of it in this primitive manner of living. She had come out +there, with the independence and determination of a Western woman, for +the purpose of living at the least possible expense, and making the most +she could while the baby was “getting out of her arms.” That process +has its pleasures, which every mother feels in spite of burdens, and +the mind is happily dulled by nature's merciful provision. With a little +child tugging at the breast, care and fret vanish, not because of the +happiness so much as because of a certain mammal complacency, which +is not at all intellectual, but serves its purpose better than the +profoundest method of reasoning. + +So without any very unbearable misery at her recent widowhood, this +healthy young woman worked in field and house, cared for her little +ones, milked the two cows out in the corral, sewed, sang, rode, baked, +and was happy for very wholesomeness. Sometimes she reproached herself +that she was not more miserable, remembering that long grave back in +the unkempt little prairie cemetery, and she sat down to coax her sorrow +into proper prominence. But the baby cooing at her from its bunk, the +low of the cattle from the corral begging her to relieve their heavy +bags, the familiar call of one of her neighbors from without, even +the burning sky of the summer dawns, broke the spell of this conjured +sorrow, and in spite of herself she was again a very hearty and happy +young woman. Besides, if one has a liking for comedy, it is +impossible to be dull on a Nebraska prairie. The people are a merrier +divertissement than the theatre with its hackneyed stories. Catherine +Ford laughed a good deal, and she took the three Johns into her +confidence, and they laughed with her. There was Minerva Fitch, who +insisted on coming over to tell Catherine how to raise her children, and +who was almost offended that the children wouldn't die of sunstroke +when she predicted. And there was Bob Ackerman, who had inflammatory +rheumatism and a Past, and who confided the latter to Mrs. Ford while +she doctored the former with homoeopathic medicines. And there were all +the strange visionaries who came out prospecting, and quite naturally +drifted to Mrs. Ford's cabin for a meal, and paid her in compliments of +a peculiarly Western type. And there were the three Johns themselves. +Catherine considered it no treason to laugh at them a little. + +Yet at Waite she did not laugh much. There had come to be something +pathetic in the constant service he rendered her. The beginning of his +more particular devotion had started in a particular way. Malaria was +very bad in the country. It had carried off some of the most vigorous +on the prairie, and twice that summer Catherine herself had laid out the +cold forms of her neighbors on ironing-boards, and, with the assistance +of Bill Deems of Missourah, had read the burial service over them. She +had averted several other fatal runs of fever by the contents of her +little medicine-case. These remedies she dealt out with an intelligence +that astonished her patients, until it was learned that she was studying +medicine at the time that she met her late husband, and was persuaded to +assume the responsibilities of matrimony instead of those of the medical +profession. + +One day in midsummer, when the sun was focussing itself on the raw pine +boards of her shanty, and Catherine had the shades drawn for coolness +and the water-pitcher swathed in wet rags, East Indian fashion, she +heard the familiar halloo of Waite down the road. This greeting, which +was usually sent to her from the point where the dipping road lifted +itself into the first view of the house, did not contain its usual note +of cheerfulness. Catherine, wiping her hands on her checked apron, ran +out to wave a welcome; and Waite, his squat body looking more distorted +than ever, his huge shoulders lurching as he walked, came fairly +plunging down the hill. + +“It's all up with Henderson!” he cried, as Catherine approached. “He's +got the malery, an' he says he's dyin'.” + +“That's no sign he's dying, because he says so,” retorted Catherine. + +“He wants to see yeh,” panted Waite, mopping his big ugly head. “I think +he's got somethin' particular to say.” + +“How long has he been down?” + +“Three days; an' yeh wouldn't know 'im.” + +The children were playing on the floor at that side of the house where +it was least hot. Catherine poured out three bowls of milk, and cut some +bread, meanwhile telling Kitty how to feed the baby. + +“She's a sensible thing, is the little daughter,” said Catherine, as she +tied on her sunbonnet and packed a little basket with things from the +cupboard. She kissed the babies tenderly, flung her hoe--her only weapon +of defence--over her shoulder, and the two started off. + +They did not speak, for their throats were soon too parched. The prairie +was burned brown with the sun; the grasses curled as if they had been on +a gridiron. A strong wind was blowing; but it brought no comfort, for +it was heavy with a scorching heat. The skin smarted and blistered under +it, and the eyes felt as if they were filled with sand. The sun seemed +to swing but a little way above the earth, and though the sky was +intensest blue, around about this burning ball there was a halo of +copper, as if the very ether were being consumed in yellow fire. + +Waite put some big burdock-leaves on Catherine's head under her bonnet, +and now and then he took a bottle of water from his pocket and made her +swallow a mouthful. She staggered often as she walked, and the road was +black before her. Still, it was not very long before the oddly shaped +shack of the three Johns came in sight; and as he caught a glimpse of +it, Waite quickened his footsteps. + +“What if he should be gone?” he said, under his breath. + +“Oh, come off!” said Catherine, angrily. “He's not gone. You make me +tired!” + +But she was trembling when she stopped just before the door to compose +herself for a moment. Indeed, she trembled so very much that Waite +put out his sprawling hand to steady her. She gently felt the pressure +tightening, and Waite whispered in her ear: + +“I guess I'd stand by him as well as anybody, excep' you, Mis' Ford. +He's been my bes' friend. But I guess you like him better, eh?” + +Catherine raised her finger. She could hear Henderson's voice within; +it was pitiably querulous. He was half sitting up in his bunk, and +Gillispie had just handed him a plate on which two cakes were swimming +in black molasses and pork gravy. Henderson looked at it a moment; then +over his face came a look of utter despair. He dropped his head in his +arms and broke into uncontrolled crying. + +“Oh, my God, Gillispie,” he sobbed, “I shall die out here in this +wretched hole! I want my mother. Great God, Gillispie, am I going to die +without ever seeing my mother?” + +Gillispie, maddened at this anguish, which he could in no way alleviate, +sought comfort by first lighting his pipe and then taking his revolver +out of his hip-pocket and playing with it. Henderson continued to shake +with sobs, and Catherine, who had never before in her life heard a man +cry, leaned against the door for a moment to gather courage. Then she +ran into the house quickly, laughing as she came. She took Henderson's +arms away from his face and laid him back on the pillow, and she stooped +over him and kissed his forehead in the most matter-of-fact way. + +“That's what your mother would do if she were here,” she cried, merrily. +“Where's the water?” + +She washed his face and hands a long time, till they were cool and his +convulsive sobs had ceased. Then she took a slice of thin bread from her +basket and a spoonful of amber jelly. She beat an egg into some milk and +dropped a little liquor within it, and served them together on the first +clean napkin that had been in the cabin of the three Johns since it was +built. + +At this the great fool on the bed cried again, only quietly, tears +of weak happiness running from his feverish eyes. And Catherine +straightened the disorderly cabin. She came every day for two weeks, and +by that time Henderson, very uncertain as to the strength of his legs, +but once more accoutred in his native pluck, sat up in a chair, for +which she had made clean soft cushions, writing a letter to his mother. +The floor was scrubbed; the cabin had taken to itself cupboards made +of packing-boxes; it had clothes-presses and shelves; curtains at the +windows; boxes for all sort of necessaries, from flour to tobacco; and +a cook-book on the wall, with an inscription within which was more +appropriate than respectful. + +The day that she announced that she would have no further call to come +back, Waite, who was looking after the house while Gillispie was afield, +made a little speech. + +“After this here,” he said, “we four stands er falls together. Now +look here, there's lots of things can happen to a person on this cussed +praira, and no one be none th' wiser. So see here, Mis' Ford, every +night one of us is a-goin' to th' roof of this shack. From there we can +see your place. If anything is th' matter--it don't signify how little +er how big--you hang a lantern on th' stick that I'll put alongside th' +house to-morrow. Yeh can h'ist th' light up with a string, and every +mornin' before we go out we'll look too, and a white rag'll bring us +quick as we can git there. We don't say nothin' about what we owe yeh, +fur that ain't our way, but we sticks to each other from this on.” + +Catherine's eyes were moist. She looked at Henderson. His face had no +expression in it at all. He did not even say good-by to her, and she +turned, with the tears suddenly dried under her lids, and walked down +the road in the twilight. + +Weeks went by, and though Gillispie and Waite were often at Catherine's, +Henderson never came. Gillispie gave it out as his opinion that +Henderson was an ungrateful puppy; but Waite said nothing. This strange +man, who seemed like a mere untoward accident of nature, had changed +during the summer. His big ill-shaped body had grown more gaunt; +his deep-set gray eyes had sunk deeper; the gentleness which had +distinguished him even on the wild ranges of Montana became more marked. +Late in August he volunteered to take on himself the entire charge of +the night watch. + +“It's nicer to be out at night,” he said to Catherine. “Then you don't +keep looking off at things; you can look inside;” and he struck his +breast with his splay hand. + +Cattle are timorous under the stars. The vastness of the plains, the +sweep of the wind under the unbroken arch, frighten them; they are +made for the close comforts of the barn-yard; and the apprehension is +contagious, as every ranchman knows. Waite realized the need of becoming +good friends with his animals. Night after night, riding up and down +in the twilight of the stars, or dozing, rolled in his blanket, in the +shelter of a knoll, he would hear a low roar; it was the cry of the +alarmist. Then from every direction the cattle would rise with trembling +awkwardness on their knees, and answer, giving out sullen bellowings. +Some of them would begin to move from place to place, spreading the +baseless alarm, and then came the time for action, else over the plain +in mere fruitless frenzy would go the whole frantic band, lashed to +madness by their own fears, trampling each other, heedless of any +obstacle, in pitiable, deadly rout. Waite knew the premonitory signs +well, and at the first warning bellow he was on his feet, alert +and determined, his energy nerved for a struggle in which he always +conquered. + +Waite had a secret which he told to none, knowing, in his unanalytical +fashion, that it would not be believed in. But soon as ever the dark +heads of the cattle began to lift themselves, he sent a resonant voice +out into the stillness. The songs he sang were hymns, and he made them +into a sort of imperative lullaby. Waite let his lungs and soul fill +with the breath of the night; he gave himself up to the exaltation of +mastering those trembling brutes. Mounting, melodious, with even and +powerful swing he let his full notes fall on the air in the confidence +of power, and one by one the reassured cattle would lie down again, +lowing in soft contentment, and so fall asleep with noses stretched out +in mute attention, till their presence could hardly be guessed except +for the sweet aroma of their cuds. + +One night in the early dusk, he saw Catherine Ford hastening across the +prairie with Bill Deems. He sent a halloo out to them, which they both +answered as they ran on. Waite knew on what errand of mercy Catherine +was bent, and he thought of the children over at the cabin alone. The +cattle were quiet, the night beautiful, and he concluded that it was +safe enough, since he was on his pony, to ride down there about midnight +and see that the little ones were safe. + +The dark sky, pricked with points of intensest light, hung over him +so beneficently that in his heart there leaped a joy which even his +ever-present sorrow could not disturb. This sorrow Waite openly admitted +not only to himself, but to others. He had said to Catherine: “You see, +I'll always hev to love yeh. An' yeh'll not git cross with me; I'm not +goin' to be in th' way.” And Catherine had told him, with tears in her +eyes, that his love could never be but a comfort to any woman. And these +words, which the poor fellow had in no sense mistaken, comforted him +always, became part of his joy as he rode there, under those piercing +stars, to look after her little ones. He found them sleeping in their +bunks, the baby tight in Kitty's arms, the little boy above them in the +upper bunk, with his hand in the long hair of his brown spaniel. Waite +softly kissed each of them, so Kitty, who was half waking, told her +mother afterwards, and then, bethinking him that Catherine might not be +able to return in time for their breakfast, found the milk and bread, +and set it for them on the table. Catherine had been writing, and her +unfinished letter lay open beside the ink. He took up the pen and wrote, + +“The childdren was all asleep at twelv. + +“J. W.” + + +He had not more than got on his pony again before he heard an ominous +sound that made his heart leap. It was a frantic dull pounding of +hoofs. He knew in a second what it meant. There was a stampede among +the cattle. If the animals had all been his, he would not have lost +his sense of judgment. But the realization that he had voluntarily +undertaken the care of them, and that the larger part of them belonged +to his friends, put him in a passion of apprehension that, as a +ranchman, was almost inexplicable. He did the very thing of all others +that no cattle-man in his right senses would think of doing. Gillispie +and Henderson, talking it over afterward, were never able to understand +it. It is possible--just barely possible--that Waite, still drunk on his +solitary dreams, knew what he was doing, and chose to bring his little +chapter to an end while the lines were pleasant. At any rate, he rode +straight forward, shouting and waving his arms in an insane endeavor to +head off that frantic mob. The noise woke the children, and they peered +from the window as the pawing and bellowing herd plunged by, trampling +the young steers under their feet. + +In the early morning, Catherine Ford, spent both in mind and body, came +walking slowly home. In her heart was a prayer of thanksgiving. Mary +Deems lay sleeping back in her comfortless shack, with her little son by +her side. + +“The wonder of God is in it,” said Catherine to herself as she walked +home. “All the ministers of all the world could not have preached me +such a sermon as I've had to-night.” + +So dim had been the light and so perturbed her mind that she had not +noticed how torn and trampled was the road. But suddenly a bulk in her +pathway startled her. It was the dead and mangled body of a steer. She +stooped over it to read the brand on its flank. “It's one of the three +Johns',” she cried out, looking anxiously about her. “How could that +have happened?” + +The direction which the cattle had taken was toward her house, and she +hastened homeward. And not a quarter of a mile from her door she found +the body of Waite beside that of his pony, crushed out of its familiar +form into something unspeakably shapeless. In her excitement she half +dragged, half carried that mutilated body home, and then ran up her +signal of alarm on the stick that Waite himself had erected for her +convenience. She thought it would be a long time before any one reached +her, but she had hardly had time to bathe the disfigured face and +straighten the disfigured body before Henderson was pounding at her +door. Outside stood his pony panting from its terrific exertions. +Henderson had not seen her before for six weeks. Now he stared at her +with frightened eyes. + +“What is it? What is it?” he cried. “What has happened to you, my--my +love?” + +At least afterward, thinking it over as she worked by day or tossed in +her narrow bunk at night, it seemed to Catherine that those were the +words he spoke. Yet she could never feel sure; nothing in his manner +after that justified the impassioned anxiety of his manner in those +first few uncertain moments; for a second later he saw the body of his +friend and learned the little that Catherine knew. They buried him +the next day in a little hollow where there was a spring and some wild +aspens. + +“He never liked the prairie,” Catherine said, when she selected the +spot. “And I want him to lie as sheltered as possible.” + +After he had been laid at rest, and she was back, busy with tidying her +neglected shack, she fell to crying so that the children were scared. + +“There's no one left to care what becomes of us,” she told them, +bitterly. “We might starve out here for all that any one cares.” + +And all through the night her tears fell, and she told herself that they +were all for the man whose last thought was for her and her babies; she +told herself over and over again that her tears were all for him. After +this the autumn began to hurry on, and the snow fell capriciously, days +of biting cold giving place to retrospective glances at summer. The last +of the vegetables were taken out of the garden and buried in the cellar; +and a few tons of coal--dear almost as diamonds--were brought out to +provide against the severest weather. Ordinarily buffalo chips were +the fuel. Catherine was alarmed at the way her wretched little store of +money began to vanish. The baby was fretful with its teething, and was +really more care than when she nursed it. The days shortened, and it +seemed to her that she was forever working by lamp-light The prairies +were brown and forbidding, the sky often a mere gray pall. The monotony +of the life began to seem terrible. Sometimes her ears ached for a +sound. For a time in the summer so many had seemed to need her that +she had been happy in spite of her poverty and her loneliness. Now, +suddenly, no one wanted her. She could find no source of inspiration. +She wondered how she was going to live through the winter, and keep her +patience and her good-nature. + +“You'll love me,” she said, almost fiercely, one night to the +children--“you'll love mamma, no matter how cross and homely she gets, +won't you?” + +The cold grew day by day. A strong winter was setting in. Catherine took +up her study of medicine again, and sat over her books till midnight. +It occurred to her that she might fit herself for nursing by spring, and +that the children could be put with some one--she did not dare to think +with whom. But this was the only solution she could find to her problem +of existence. + +November settled down drearily. Few passed the shack. Catherine, who +had no one to speak with excepting the children, continually devised +amusements for them. They got to living in a world of fantasy, and +were never themselves, but always wild Indians, or arctic explorers, +or Robinson Crusoes. Kitty and Roderick, young as they were, found a +never-ending source of amusement in these little grotesque dreams and +dramas. The fund of money was getting so low that Catherine was obliged +to economize even in the necessities. If it had not been for her two +cows, she would hardly have known how to find food for her little ones. +But she had a wonderful way of making things with eggs and milk, and she +kept her little table always inviting. The day before Thanksgiving she +determined that they should all have a frolic. + +“By Christmas,” she said to Kitty, “the snow may be so bad that I cannot +get to town. We'll have our high old time now.” + +There is no denying that Catherine used slang even in talking to the +children. The little pony had been sold long ago, and going to town +meant a walk of twelve miles. But Catherine started out early in the +morning, and was back by nightfall, not so very much the worse, and +carrying in her arms bundles which might have fatigued a bronco. + +The next morning she was up early, and was as happy and ridiculously +excited over the prospect of the day's merrymaking as if she had been +Kitty. Busy as she was, she noticed a peculiar oppression in the air, +which intensified as the day went on. The sky seemed to hang but a +little way above the rolling stretch of frost-bitten grass. But Kitty +laughing over her new doll, Roderick startling the sullen silence +with his drum, the smell of the chicken, slaughtered to make a prairie +holiday, browning in the oven, drove all apprehensions from Catherine's +mind. She was a common creature. Such very little things could make her +happy. She sang as she worked; and what with the drumming of her boy, +and the little exulting shrieks of her baby, the shack was filled with a +deafening and exhilarating din. + +It was a little past noon, when she became conscious that there was +sweeping down on her a gray sheet of snow and ice, and not till then did +she realize what those lowering clouds had signified. For one moment she +stood half paralyzed. She thought of everything,--of the cattle, of the +chance for being buried in this drift, of the stock of provisions, of +the power of endurance of the children. While she was still thinking, +the first ice-needles of the blizzard came peppering the windows. The +cattle ran bellowing to the lee side of the house and crouched there, +and the chickens scurried for the coop. Catherine seized such blankets +and bits of carpet as she could find, and crammed them at windows and +doors. Then she piled coal on the fire, and clothed the children in all +they had that was warmest, their out-door garments included; and with +them close about her, she sat and waited. The wind seemed to push +steadily at the walls of the house. The howling became horrible. She +could see that the children were crying with fright, but she could +not hear them. The air was dusky; the cold, in spite of the fire, +intolerable. In every crevice of the wretched structure the ice and snow +made their way. It came through the roof, and began piling up in little +pointed strips under the crevices. Catherine put the children all +together in one bunk, covered them with all the bedclothes she had, and +then stood before them defiantly, facing the west, from whence the +wind was driving. Not suddenly, but by steady pressure, at length the +window-sash yielded, and the next moment that whirlwind was in the +house,--a maddening tumult of ice and wind, leaving no room for +resistance; a killing cold, against which it was futile to fight. +Catherine threw the bedclothes over the heads of the children, and then +threw herself across the bunk, gasping and choking for breath. Her +body would not have yielded to the suffering yet, so strongly made and +sustained was it; but her dismay stifled her. She saw in one horrified +moment the frozen forms of her babies, now so pink and pleasant to the +sense; and oblivion came to save her from further misery. + +She was alive--just barely alive--when Gillispie and Henderson got +there, three hours later, the very balls of their eyes almost frozen +into blindness. But for an instinct stronger than reason they would +never have been able to have found their way across that trackless +stretch. The children lying unconscious under their coverings were +neither dead nor actually frozen, although the men putting their hands +on their little hearts could not at first discover the beating. Stiff +and suffering as these young fellows were, it was no easy matter to get +the window back into place and re-light the fire. They had tied flasks +of liquor about their waists; and this beneficent fluid they used with +that sense of appreciation which only a pioneer can feel toward +whiskey. It was hours before Catherine rewarded them with a gleam +of consciousness. Her body had been frozen in many places. Her arms, +outstretched over her children and holding the clothes down about +them, were rigid. But consciousness came at length, dimly struggling up +through her brain; and over her she saw her friends rubbing and rubbing +those strong firm arms of hers with snow. + +She half raised her head, with a horror of comprehension in her eyes, +and listened. A cry answered her,--a cry of dull pain from the baby. +Henderson dropped on his knees beside her. + +“They are all safe,” he said. “And we will never leave you again. I have +been afraid to tell you how I love you. I thought I might offend you. I +thought I ought to wait--you know why. But I will never let you run the +risks of this awful life alone again. You must rename the baby. From +this day his name is John. And we will have the three Johns again +back at the old ranch. It doesn't matter whether you love me or not, +Catherine, I am going to take care of you just the same. Gillispie +agrees with me.” + +“Damme, yes,” muttered Gillispie, feeling of his hip-pocket for +consolation in his old manner. + +Catherine struggled to find her voice, but it would not come. + +“Do not speak,” whispered John. “Tell me with your eyes whether you will +come as my wife or only as our sister.” + +Catherine told him. + +“This is Thanksgiving day,” said he. “And we don't know much about +praying, but I guess we all have something in our hearts that does just +as well.” + +“Damme, yes,” said Gillispie, again, as he pensively cocked and uncocked +his revolver. + + + + +A Resuscitation + +AFTER being dead twenty years, he walked out into the sunshine. + +It was as if the bones of a bleached skeleton should join themselves on +some forgotten plain, and look about them for the vanished flesh. + +To be dead it is not necessary to be in the grave. There are places +where the worms creep about the heart instead of the body. + +The penitentiary is one of these. David Culross had been in the +penitentiary twenty years. Now, with that worm-eaten heart, he came out +into liberty and looked about him for the habiliments with which he had +formerly clothed himself,--for hope, self-respect, courage, pugnacity, +and industry. + +But they had vanished and left no trace, like the flesh of the dead men +on the plains, and so, morally unapparelled, in the hideous skeleton of +his manhood, he walked on down the street under the mid-June sunshine. + +You can understand, can you not, how a skeleton might wish to get back +into its comfortable grave? David Culross had not walked two blocks +before he was seized with an almost uncontrollable desire to beg to be +shielded once more in that safe and shameful retreat from which he had +just been released. A horrible perception of the largeness of the world +swept over him. Space and eternity could seem no larger to the usual man +than earth--that snug and insignificant planet--looked to David Culross. + +“If I go back,” he cried, despairingly, looking up to the great building +that arose above the stony hills, “they will not take me in.” He was +absolutely without a refuge, utterly without a destination; he did not +have a hope. There was nothing he desired except the surrounding of +those four narrow walls between which he had lain at night and dreamed +those ever-recurring dreams,-dreams which were never prophecies or +promises, but always the hackneyed history of what he had sacrificed by +his crime, and relinquished by his pride. + +The men who passed him looked at him with mingled amusement and pity. +They knew the “prison look,” and they knew the prison clothes. For +though the State gives to its discharged convicts clothes which are +like those of other men, it makes a hundred suits from the same sort of +cloth. The police know the fabric, and even the citizens recognize +it. But, then, were each man dressed in different garb he could not be +disguised. Every one knows in what dull school that sidelong glance is +learned, that aimless drooping of the shoulders, that rhythmic lifting +of the heavy foot. + +David Culross wondered if his will were dead. He put it to the test. +He lifted up his head to a position which it had not held for many +miserable years. He put his hands in his pockets in a pitiful attempt at +nonchalance, and walked down the street with a step which was meant to +be brisk, but which was in fact only uncertain. In his pocket were ten +dollars. This much the State equips a man with when it sends him out of +its penal halls. It gives him also transportation to any point within +reasonable distance that he may desire to reach. Culross had requested a +ticket to Chicago. He naturally said Chicago. In the long colorless days +it had been in Chicago that all those endlessly repeated scenes had been +laid. Walking up the street now with that wavering ineffectual gait, +these scenes came back to surge in his brain like waters ceaselessly +tossed in a wind-swept basin. + +There was the office, bare and clean, where the young stoop-shouldered +clerks sat writing. In their faces was a strange resemblance, just as +there was in the backs of the ledgers, and in the endless bills on +the spindles. If one of them laughed, it was not with gayety, but with +gratification at the discomfiture of another. None of them ate well. +None of them were rested after sleep. All of them rode on the stuffy +one-horse cars to and from their work. Sundays they lay in bed very +late, and ate more dinner than they could digest. There was a certain +fellowship among them,--such fellowship as a band of captives among +cannibals might feel, each of them waiting with vital curiosity to +see who was the next to be eaten. But of that fellowship that plans +in unison, suffers in sympathy, enjoys vicariously, strengthens into +friendship and communion of soul they knew nothing. Indeed, such +camaraderie would have been disapproved of by the Head Clerk. He would +have looked on an emotion with exactly the same displeasure that he +would on an error in the footing of the year's accounts. It was tacitly +understood that one reached the proud position of Head Clerk by having +no emotions whatever. + +Culross did not remember having been born with a pen in his hand, or +even with one behind his ear; but certainly from the day he had been +let out of knickerbockers his constant companion had been that greatly +overestimated article. His father dying at a time that cut short David's +school-days, he went out armed with his new knowledge of double-entry, +determined to make a fortune and a commercial name. Meantime, he lived +in a suite of three rooms on West Madison Street with his mother, who +was a good woman, and lived where she did that she might be near her +favorite meeting-house. She prayed, and cooked bad dinners, principally +composed of dispiriting pastry. Her idea of house-keeping was to keep +the shades down, whatever happened; and when David left home in the +evening for any purpose of pleasure, she wept. David persuaded himself +that he despised amusement, and went to bed each night at half-past nine +in a folding bedstead in the front room, and, by becoming absolutely +stolid from mere vegetation, imagined that he was almost fit to be a +Head Clerk. + +Walking down the street now after the twenty years, thinking of these +dead but innocent days, this was the picture he saw; and as he reflected +upon it, even the despoiled and desolate years just passed seemed richer +by contrast. + +He reached the station thus dreaming, and found, as he had been told +when the warden bade him good-by, that a train was to be at hand +directly bound to the city. A few moments later he was on that train. +Well back in the shadow, and out of sight of the other passengers, he +gave himself up to the enjoyment of the comfortable cushion. He would +willingly have looked from the window,--green fields were new and +wonderful; drifting clouds a marvel; men, houses, horses, farms, all a +revelation,--but those haunting visions were at him again, and would not +leave brain or eye free for other things. + +But the next scene had warmer tints. It was the interior of a rich +room,--crimson and amber fabrics, flowers, the gleam of a statue beyond +the drapings; the sound of a tender piano unflinging a familiar melody, +and a woman. She was just a part of all the luxury. + +He himself, very timid and conscious of his awkwardness, sat near, +trying barrenly to get some of his thoughts out of his brain on to his +tongue. + +“Strange, isn't it,” the woman broke in on her own music, “that we +have seen each other so very often and never spoken? I've often thought +introductions were ridiculous. Fancy seeing a person year in and year +out, and really knowing all about him, and being perfectly acquainted +with his name--at least his or her name, you know--and then never +speaking! Some one comes along, and says, 'Miss Le Baron, this is Mr. +Culross,' just as if one didn't know that all the time! And there you +are! You cease to be dumb folks, and fall to talking, and say a lot of +things neither of you care about, and after five or six weeks of time +and sundry meetings, get down to honestly saying what you mean. I'm so +glad we've got through with that first stage, and can say what we think +and tell what we really like.” + +Then the playing began again,--a harplike intermingling of soft sounds. +Zoe Le Baron's hands were very girlish. Everything about her was +unformed. Even her mind was so. But all promised a full completion. +The voice, the shoulders, the smile, the words, the lips, the arms, the +whole mind and body, were rounding to maturity. + +“Why do you never come to church in the morning?” asks Miss Le Baron, +wheeling around on her piano-stool suddenly. “You are only there at +night, with your mother.” + +“I go only on her account,” replies David, truthfully. “In the morning +I am so tired with the week's work that I rest at home. I ought to go, I +know.” + +“Yes, you ought,” returns the young woman, gravely. “It doesn't really +rest one to lie in bed like that. I've tried it at boarding-school. It +was no good whatever.” + +“Should you advise me,” asks David, in a confiding tone, “to arise early +on Sunday?” + +The girl blushes a little. “By all means!” she cries, her eyes +twinkling, “and--and come to church. Our morning sermons are really very +much better than those in the evening.” And she plays a waltz, and what +with the music and the warmth of the room and the perfume of the roses, +a something nameless and mystical steals over the poor clerk, and +swathes him about like the fumes of opium. They are alone. The silence +is made deeper by that rhythmic unswelling of sound. As the painter +flushes the bare wall into splendor, these emotions illuminated his +soul, and gave to it that high courage that comes when men or women +suddenly realize that each life has its significance,-their own lives no +less than the lives of others. + +The man sitting there in the shadow in that noisy train saw in his +vision how the lad arose and moved, like one under a spell, toward the +piano. He felt again the enchantment of the music-ridden quiet, of the +perfume, and the presence of the woman. + +“Knowing you and speaking with you have not made much difference with +me,” he whispers, drunk on the new wine of passion, “for I have loved +you since I saw you first. And though it is so sweet to hear you speak, +your voice is no more beautiful than I thought it would be. I have loved +you a long time, and I want to know--” + +The broken man in the shadow remembered how the lad stopped, astonished +at his boldness and his fluency, overcome suddenly at the thought of +what he was saying. The music stopped with a discord. The girl arose, +trembling and scarlet. + +“I would not have believed it of you,” she cries, “to take advantage of +me like this, when I am alone--and--everything. You know very well that +nothing but trouble could come to either of us from your telling me a +thing like that.” + +He puts his hands up to his face to keep off her anger. He is trembling +with confusion. + +Then she broke in penitently, trying to pull his hands away from his +hot face: “Never mind! I know you didn't mean anything. Be good, do, and +don't spoil the lovely times we have together. You know very well +father and mother wouldn't let us see each other at all if they--if they +thought you were saying anything such as you said just now.” + +“Oh, but I can't help it!” cries the boy, despairingly. “I have never +loved anybody at all till now. I don't mean not another girl, you know. +But you are the first being I ever cared for. I sometimes think mother +cares for me because I pay the rent. And the office--you can't imagine +what that is like. The men in it are moving corpses. They're proud to be +that way, and so was I till I knew you and learned what life was like. +All the happy moments I have had have been here. Now, if you tell me +that we are not to care for each other--” + +There was some one coming down the hall. The curtain lifted. A +middle-aged man stood there looking at him. + +“Culross,” said he, “I'm disappointed in you. I didn't mean to listen, +but I couldn't help hearing what you said just now. I don't blame you +particularly. Young men will be fools. And I do not in any way mean to +insult you when I tell you to stop your coming here. I don't want to see +you inside this door again, and after a while you will thank me for +it. You have taken a very unfair advantage of my invitation. I make +allowances for your youth.” + +He held back the curtain for the lad to pass out. David threw a +miserable glance at the girl. She was standing looking at her father +with an expression that David could not fathom. He went into the hall, +picked up his hat, and walked out in silence. + +David wondered that night, walking the chilly streets after he +quitted the house, and often, often afterward, if that comfortable and +prosperous gentleman, safe beyond the perturbations of youth, had +any idea of what he had done. How COULD he know anything of the black +monotony of the life of the man he turned from his door? The “desk's +dead wood” and all its hateful slavery, the dull darkened rooms where +his mother prosed through endless evenings, the bookless, joyless, +hopeless existence that had cramped him all his days rose up before +him, as a stretch of unbroken plain may rise before a lost man till it +maddens him. + +The bowed man in the car-seat remembered with a flush of reminiscent +misery how the lad turned suddenly in his walk and entered the door of +a drinking-room that stood open. It was very comfortable within. The +screens kept out the chill of the autumn night, the sawdust-sprinkled +floor was clean, the tables placed near together, the bar glittering, +the attendants white-aproned and brisk. + +David liked the place, and he liked better still the laughter that came +from a room within. It had a note in it a little different from anything +he had ever heard before in his life, and one that echoed his mood. He +ventured to ask if he might go into the farther room. + +It does not mean much when most young men go to a place like this. They +take their bit of unwholesome dissipation quietly enough, and are a +little coarser and more careless each time they indulge in it, perhaps. +But certainly their acts, whatever gradual deterioration they may +indicate, bespeak no sudden moral revolution. With this young clerk it +was different. He was a worse man from the moment he entered the door, +for he did violence to his principles; he killed his self-respect. + +He had been paid at the office that night, and he had the money--a +week's miserable pittance--in his pocket. His every action revealed the +fact that he was a novice in recklessness. His innocent face piqued the +men within. They gave him a welcome that amazed him. Of course the rest +of the evening was a chaos to him. The throat down which he poured the +liquor was as tender as a child's. The men turned his head with +their ironical compliments. Their boisterous good-fellowship was as +intoxicating to this poor young recluse as the liquor. + +It was the revulsion from this feeling, when he came to a consciousness +that the men were laughing at him and not with him, that wrecked his +life. He had gone from beer to whiskey, and from whiskey to brandy, by +this time, at the suggestion of the men, and was making awkward lunges +with a billiard cue, spurred on by the mocking applause of the others. +One young fellow was particularly hilarious at his expense. His jokes +became insults, or so they seemed to David. + +A quarrel followed, half a jest on the part of the other, all serious +as far as David was concerned. And then--Well, who could tell how it +happened? The billiard cue was in David's hand, and the skull of the +jester was split, a horrible gaping thing, revoltingly animal. + +David never saw his home again. His mother gave it out in church that +her heart was broken, and she wrote a letter to David begging him to +reform. She said she would never cease to pray for him, that he might +return to grace. He had an attorney, an impecunious and very aged +gentleman, whose life was a venerable failure, and who talked so much +about his personal inconveniences from indigestion that he forgot to +take a very keen interest in the concerns of his client. David's trial +made no sensation. He did not even have the cheap sympathy of the +morbid. The court-room was almost empty the dull spring day when the +east wind beat against the window, jangling the loose panes all through +the reading of the verdict. + +Twenty years! + +Twenty years in the penitentiary! + +David looked up at the judge and smiled. Men have been known to smile +that way when the car-wheel crashes over their legs, or a bullet lets +the air through their lungs. + +All that followed would have seemed more terrible if it had not appeared +to be so remote. David had to assure himself over and over that it was +really he who was put in that disgraceful dress, and locked in that +shameful walk from corridor to workroom, from work-room to chapel. +The work was not much more monotonous than that to which he had been +accustomed in the office. Here, as there, one was reproved for not doing +the required amount, but never praised for extraordinary efforts. Here, +as there, the workers regarded each other with dislike and suspicion. +Here, as there, work was a penalty and not a pleasure. + +It is the nights that are to be dreaded in a penitentiary. Speech eases +the brain of free men; but the man condemned to eternal silence is +bound to endure torments. Thought, which might be a diversion, becomes +a curse; it is a painful disease which becomes chronic. It does not take +long to forget the days of the week and the months of the year when +time brings no variance. David drugged himself on dreams. He knew it was +weakness, but it was the wine of forgetfulness, and he indulged in it. +He went over and over, in endless repetition, every scene in which Zoe +Le Baron had figured. + +He learned by a paper that she had gone to Europe. He was glad of that. +For there were hours in which he imagined that his fate might have +caused her distress--not much, of course, but perhaps an occasional hour +of sympathetic regret. But it was pleasanter not to think of that. He +preferred to remember the hours they had spent together while she was +teaching him the joy of life. + +How lovely her gray eyes were! Deep, yet bright, and full of silent +little speeches. The rooms in which he imagined her as moving were +always splendid; the gowns she wore were of rustling silk. He never in +any dream, waking or sleeping, associated her with poverty or sorrow or +pain. Gay and beautiful, she moved from city to city, in these visions +of David's, looking always at wonderful things, and finding laughter in +every happening. + +It was six months after his entrance into his silent abode that a letter +came for him. + +“By rights, Culross,” said the warden, “I should not give this letter +to you. It isn't the sort we approve of. But you're in for a good spell, +and if there is anything that can make life seem more tolerable, I don't +know but you're entitled to it. At least, I'm not the man to deny it to +you.” + +This was the letter:-- + +“MY DEAR FRIEND,--I hope you do not think that all these months, when +you have been suffering so terribly, I have been thinking of other +things! But I am sure you know the truth. You know that I could not send +you word or come to see you, or I would have done it. When I first heard +of what you had done, I saw it all as it happened,--that dreadful scene, +I mean, in the saloon. I am sure I have imagined everything just as it +was. I begged papa to help you, but he was very angry. You see, papa was +so peculiar. He thought more of the appearances of things, perhaps, than +of facts. It infuriated him to think of me as being concerned about you +or with you. I did not know he could be so angry, and his anger did not +die, but for days it cast such a shadow over me that I used to wish I +was dead. Only I would not disobey him, and now I am glad of that. We +were in France three months, and then, coming home, papa died. It was +on the voyage. I wish he had asked me to forgive him, for then I think +I could have remembered him with more tenderness. But he did nothing of +the kind. He did not seem to think he had done wrong in any way, though +I feel that some way we might have saved you. I am back here in Chicago +in the old home. But I shall not stay in this house. It is so large +and lonesome, and I always see you and father facing each other angrily +there in the parlor when I enter it. So I am going to get me some cosey +rooms in another part of the city, and take my aunt, who is a sweet old +lady, to live with me; and I am going to devote my time--all of it--and +all of my brains to getting you out of that terrible place. What is the +use of telling me that you are a murderer? Do I not know you could not +be brought to hurt anything? I suppose you must have killed that poor +man, but then it was not you, it was that dreadful drink--it was Me! +That is what continually haunts me. If I had been a braver girl, and +spoken the words that were in my heart, you would not have gone into +that place. You would be innocent to-day. It was I who was responsible +for it all. I let father kill your heart right there before me, and +never said a word. Yet I knew how it was with you, and--this is what +I ought to have said then, and what I must say now--and all the time I +felt just as you did. I thought I should die when I saw you go away, and +knew you would never come back again. Only I was so selfish, I was so +wicked, I would say nothing. + +“I have no right to be comfortable and hopeful, and to have friends, +with you shut up from liberty and happiness. I will not have those +comfortable rooms, after all. I will live as you do. I will live alone +in a bare room. For it is I who am guilty! And then I will feel that I +also am being punished. + +“Do you hate me? Perhaps my telling you now all these things, and that I +felt toward you just as you did toward me, will not make you happy. For +it may be that you despise me. + +“Anyway, I have told you the truth now. I will go as soon as I hear from +you to a lawyer, and try to find out how you may be liberated. I am sure +it can be done when the facts are known. + +“Poor boy! How I do hope you have known in your heart that I was not +forgetting you. Indeed, day or night, I have thought of nothing else. +Now I am free to help you. And be sure, whatever happens, that I am +working for you. + +“ZOE LE BARON.” + + +That was all. Just a girlish, constrained letter, hardly hinting at the +hot tears that had been shed for many weary nights, coyly telling of the +impatient young love and all the maidenly shame. + +David permitted himself to read it only once. Then a sudden resolution +was born-a heroic one. Before he got the letter he was a crushed +and unsophisticated boy; when he had read it, and absorbed its full +significance, he became suddenly a man, capable of a great sacrifice. + +“I return your letter,” he wrote, without superscription, “and thank you +for your anxiety about me. But the truth is, I had forgotten all about +you in my trouble. You were not in the least to blame for what happened. +I might have known I would come to such an end. You thought I was good, +of course; but it is not easy to find out the life of a young man. It is +rather mortifying to have a private letter sent here, because the warden +reads them all. I hope you will enjoy yourself this winter, and hasten +to forget one who had certainly forgotten you till reminded by your +letter, which I return. + +“Respectfully, + +“DAVID CULROSS.” + + +That night some deep lines came into his face which never left it, and +which made him look like a man of middle age. + +He never doubted that his plan would succeed; that, piqued and indignant +at his ingratitude, she would hate him, and in a little time forget +he ever lived, or remember him only to blush with shame at her past +association with him. He saw her happy, loved, living the usual life of +women, with all those things that make life rich. + +For there in the solitude an understanding of deep things came to him. +He who thought never to have a wife grew to know what the joy of it must +be. He perceived all the subtle rapture of wedded souls. He learned what +the love of children was, the pride of home, the unselfish ambition +for success that spurs men on. All the emotions passed in procession at +night before him, tricked out in palpable forms. + +A burst of girlish tears would dissipate whatever lingering pity Zoe +felt for him. How often he said that! With her sensitiveness she would +be sure to hate a man who had mortified her. + +So he fell to dreaming of her again as moving among happy and luxurious +scenes, exquisitely clothed, with flowers on her bosom and jewels on +her neck; and he saw men loving her, and was glad, and saw her at last +loving the best of them, and told himself in the silence of the night +that it was as he wished. + +Yet always, always, from weary week to weary week, he rehearsed the +scenes. They were his theatre, his opera, his library, his lecture hall. + +He rehearsed them again there on the cars. He never wearied of them. To +be sure, other thoughts had come to him at night. Much that to most men +seems complex and puzzling had grown to appear simple to him. In a way +his brain had quickened and deepened through the years of solitude. He +had thought out a great many things. He had read a few good books and +digested them, and the visions in his heart had kept him from being +bitter. + +Yet, suddenly confronted with liberty, turned loose like a pastured +colt, without master or rein, he felt only confusion and dismay. He +might be expected to feel exultation. He experienced only fright. It is +precisely the same with the liberated colt. + +The train pulled into a bustling station, in which the multitudinous +noises were thrown back again from the arched iron roof. The relentless +haste of all the people was inexpressibly cruel to the man who looked +from the window wondering whither he would go, and if, among all the +thousands that made up that vast and throbbing city, he would ever find +a friend. + +For a moment David longed even for that unmaternal mother who had +forgotten him in the hour of his distress; but she had been dead for +many years. + +The train stopped. Every one got out. David forced himself to his feet +and followed. He had been driven back into the world. It would have +seemed less terrible to have been driven into a desert. He walked +toward the great iron gates, seeing the people and hearing the noises +confusedly. + +As he entered the space beyond the grating some one caught him by the +arm. It was a little middle-aged woman in plain clothes, and with sad +gray eyes. + +“Is this David?” said she. + +He did not speak, but his face answered her. + +“I knew you were coming to-day. I've waited all these years, David. You +didn't think I believed what you said in that letter did you? This way, +David,--this is the way home.” + + + + +Two Pioneers + +IT was the year of the small-pox. The Pawnees had died in their cold +tepees by the fifties, the soldiers lay dead in the trenches without the +fort, and many a gay French voyageur, who had thought to go singing down +the Missouri on his fur-laden raft in the springtime, would never again +see the lights of St. Louis, or the coin of the mighty Choteau company. + +It had been a winter of tragedies. The rigors of the weather and the +scourge of the disease had been fought with Indian charm and with +Catholic prayer. Both were equally unavailing. If a man was taken sick +at the fort they put him in a warm room, brought him a jug of water +once a day, and left him to find out what his constitution was worth. +Generally he recovered; for the surgeon's supplies had been exhausted +early in the year. But the Indians, in their torment, rushed into the +river through the ice, and returned to roll themselves in their blankets +and die in ungroaning stoicism. + +Every one had grown bitter and hard. The knives of the trappers were +sharp, and not one whit sharper than their tempers. Some one said that +the friendly Pawnees were conspiring with the Sioux, who were always +treacherous, to sack the settlement. The trappers doubted this. They and +the Pawnees had been friends many years, and they had together killed +the Sioux in four famous battles on the Platte. Yet--who knows? There +was pestilence in the air, and it had somehow got into men's souls as +well as their bodies. + +So, at least, Father de Smet said. He alone did not despair. He +alone tried neither charm nor curse. He dressed him an altar in the +wilderness, and he prayed at it--but not for impossible things. When in +a day's journey you come across two lodges of Indians, sixty souls in +each, lying dead and distorted from the plague in their desolate tepees, +you do not pray, if you are a man like Father de Smet. You go on to the +next lodge where the living yet are, and teach them how to avoid death. + +Besides, when you are young, it is much easier to act than to pray. When +the children cried for food, Father de Smet took down the rifle from +the wall and went out with it, coming back only when he could feed the +hungry. There were places where the prairie was black with buffalo, and +the shy deer showed their delicate heads among the leafless willows +of the Papillion. When they--the children--were cold, this young man +brought in baskets of buffalo chips from the prairie and built them +a fire, or he hung more skins up at the entrance to the tepees. If he +wanted to cross a river and had no boat at hand, he leaped the uncertain +ice, or, in clear current, swam, with his clothes on his head in a +bundle. + +A wonderful traveller for the time was Father de Smet. Twice he had gone +as far as the land of the Flathead nation, and he could climb mountain +passes as well as any guide of the Rockies. He had built a dozen +missions, lying all the way from the Columbia to the Kaw. He had always +a jest at his tongue's end, and served it out with as much readiness as +a prayer; and he had, withal, an arm trained to do execution. Every +man on the plains understood the art of self-preservation. Even in +Cainsville, over by the council ground of the western tribes, which was +quite the most civilized place for hundreds of miles, life was uncertain +when the boats came from St. Louis with bad whiskey in their holds. But +no one dared take liberties with the holy father. The thrust from his +shoulder was straight and sure, and his fist was hard. + +Yet it was not the sinner that Father de Smet meant to crush. He always +supplemented his acts of physical prowess with that explanation. It +was the sin that he struck at from the shoulder--and may not even an +anointed one strike at sin? + +Father de Smet could draw a fine line, too, between the things which +were bad in themselves, and the things which were only extrinsically +bad. For example, there were the soups of Mademoiselle Ninon. Mam'selle +herself was not above reproach, but her soups were. Mademoiselle Ninon +was the only Parisian thing in the settlement. And she was certainly to +be avoided--which was perhaps the reason that no one avoided her. It +was four years since she had seen Paris. She was sixteen then, and she +followed the fortunes of a certain adventurer who found it advisable to +sail for Montreal. Ninon had been bored back in Paris, it being dull +in the mantua-making shop of Madame Guittar. If she had been a man she +would have taken to navigation, and might have made herself famous by +sailing to some unknown part of the New World. Being a woman, she took +a lover who was going to New France, and forgot to weep when he found an +early and violent death. And there were others at hand, and Ninon sailed +around the cold blue lakes, past Sault St. Marie, and made her way +across the portages to the Mississippi, and so down to the sacred rock +of St. Louis. That was a merry place. Ninon had fault to find neither +with the wine nor the dances. They were all that one could have desired, +and there was no limit to either of them. But still, after a time, even +this grew tiresome to one of Ninon's spirit, and she took the first +opportunity to sail up the Missouri with a certain young trapper +connected with the great fur company, and so found herself at +Cainsville, with the blue bluffs rising to the east of her, and the low +white stretches of the river flats undulating down to where the sluggish +stream wound its way southward capriciously. + +Ninon soon tired of her trapper. For one thing she found out that he +was a coward. She saw him run once in a buffalo fight. That was when the +Pawnee stood still with a blanket stretched wide in a gaudy square, +and caught the head of the mad animal fairly in the tough fabric; his +mustang's legs trembled under him, but he did not move,--for a mustang +is the soul of an Indian, and obeys each thought; the Indian himself +felt his heart pounding at his ribs; but once with that garment fast +over the baffled eyes of the struggling brute, the rest was only a +matter of judicious knife-thrusts. Ninon saw this. She rode past her +lover, and snatched the twisted bullion cord from his hat that she had +braided and put there, and that night she tied it on the hat of the +Pawnee who had killed the buffalo. + +The Pawnees were rather proud of the episode, and as for the Frenchmen, +they did not mind. The French have always been very adaptable in +America. Ninon was universally popular. + +And so were her soups. + +Every man has his price. Father de Smet's was the soups of Mademoiselle +Ninon. Fancy! If you have an educated palate and are obliged to eat +the strong distillation of buffalo meat, cooked in a pot which has been +wiped out with the greasy petticoat of a squaw! When Ninon came down +from St. Louis she brought with her a great box containing neither +clothes, furniture, nor trinkets, but something much more wonderful! +It was a marvellous compounding of spices and seasonings. The aromatic +liquids she set before the enchanted men of the settlement bore no more +relation to ordinary buffalo soup than Chateaubriand's Indian maidens +did to one of the Pawnee girls, who slouched about the settlement with +noxious tresses and sullen slavish coquetries. + +Father de Smet would not at any time have called Ninon a scarlet woman. +But when he ate the dish of soup or tasted the hot corn-cakes that she +invariably invited him to partake of as he passed her little house, he +refrained with all the charity of a true Christian and an accomplished +epicure from even thinking her such. And he remembered the words of the +Saviour, “Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone.” + +To Father de Smet's healthy nature nothing seemed more superfluous than +sin. And he was averse to thinking that any committed deeds of which he +need be ashamed. So it was his habit, especially if the day was pleasant +and his own thoughts happy, to say to himself when he saw one of the +wild young trappers leaving the cabin of Mademoiselle Ninon: “He has +been for some of the good woman's hot cakes,” till he grew quite to +believe that the only attractions that the adroit Frenchwoman possessed +were of a gastronomic nature. + +To tell the truth, the attractions of Mademoiselle Ninon were varied. To +begin with, she was the only thing in that wilderness to suggest home. +Ninon had a genius for home-making. Her cabin, in which she cooked, +slept, ate, lived, had become a boudoir. + +The walls were hung with rare and beautiful skins; the very floor made +rich with huge bear robes, their permeating odors subdued by heavy +perfumes brought, like the spices, from St. Louis. The bed, in daytime, +was a couch of beaver-skins; the fireplace had branching antlers +above it, on which were hung some of the evidences of the fair Ninon's +coquetry, such as silken scarves, of the sort the voyageurs from the far +north wore; and necklaces made by the Indians of the Pacific coast and +brought to Ninon by--but it is not polite to inquire into these matters. +There were little moccasins also, much decorated with porcupine-quills, +one pair of which Father de Smet had brought from the Flathead nation, +and presented to Ninon that time when she nursed him through a frightful +run of fever. She would take no money for her patient services. + +“Father,” said she, gravely, when he offered it to her, “I am not +myself virtuous. But I have the distinction of having preserved the only +virtuous creature in the settlement for further usefulness. Sometimes, +perhaps, you will pray for Ninon.” + +Father de Smet never forgot those prayers. + +These were wild times, mind you. No use to keep your skirts coldly clean +if you wished to be of help. These men were subduing a continent. Their +primitive qualities came out. Courage, endurance, sacrifice, suffering +without complaint, friendship to the death, indomitable hatred, +unfaltering hope, deep-seated greed, splendid gayety--it takes these +things to subdue a continent. Vice is also an incidental,--that is to +say, what one calls vice. This is because it is the custom to measure +these men as if they were governed by the laws of civilization, where +there is neither law nor civilization. + +This much is certain: gentlemen cannot conquer a country. They +tried gentlemen back in Virginia, and they died, partly from lack of +intellect, but mostly from lack of energy. After the yeomen have fought +the conquering fight, it is well enough to bring in gentlemen, who +are sometimes clever lawmakers, and who look well on thrones or in +presidential chairs. + +But to return to the winter of the smallpox. It was then that the priest +and Ninon grew to know each other well. They became acquainted first +in the cabin where four of the trappers lay tossing in delirium. The +horrible smell of disease weighted the air. Outside wet snow fell +continuously and the clouds seemed to rest only a few feet above the +sullen bluffs. The room was bare of comforts, and very dirty. Ninon +looked about with disgust. + +“You pray,” said she to the priest, “and I will clean the room.” + +“Not so,” returned the broad-shouldered father, smilingly, “we will both +clean the room.” Thus it came that they scrubbed the floor together, and +made the chimney so that it would not smoke, and washed the blankets on +the beds, and kept the woodpile high. They also devised ventilators, and +let in fresh air without exposing the patients. They had no medicine, +but they continually rubbed the suffering men with bear's grease. + +“It's better than medicine,” said Ninon, after the tenth day, as, wan +with watching, she held the cool hand of one of the recovering men in +her own. “If we had had medicines we should have killed these men.” + +“You are a woman of remarkable sense,” said the holy father, who was +eating a dish of corn-meal and milk that Ninon had just prepared, “and a +woman also of Christian courage.” + +“Christian courage?” echoed Ninon; “do you think that is what you call +it? I am not afraid, no, not I; but it is not Christian courage. You +mistake in calling it that.” There were tears in her eyes. The priest +saw them. + +“God lead you at last into peaceful ways,” said he, softly, lifting one +hand in blessing. “Your vigil is ended. Go to your home and sleep. You +know the value of the temporal life that God has given to man. In the +hours of the night, Ninon, think of the value of eternal life, which it +is also His to give.” + +Ninon stared at him a moment with a dawning horror in her eyes. + +Then she pointed to the table. + +“Whatever you do,” said she, “don't forget the bear's grease.” And she +went out laughing. The priest did not pause to recommend her soul to +further blessing. He obeyed her directions. + +March was wearing away tediously. The river was not yet open, and the +belated boats with needed supplies were moored far down the river. Many +of the reduced settlers were dependent on the meat the Indians brought +them for sustenance. The mud made the roads almost impassable; for the +frost lay in a solid bed six inches below the surface, and all above +that was semiliquid muck. Snow and rain alternated, and the frightful +disease did not cease its ravages. + +The priest got little sleep. Now he was at the bed of a little +half-breed child, smoothing the straight black locks from the narrow +brow; now at the cot of some hulking trapper, who wept at the pain, but +died finally with a grin of bravado on his lips; now in a foul tepee, +where some grave Pawnee wrapped his mantle about him, and gazed with +prophetic and unflinching eyes into the land of the hereafter. + +The little school that the priest started had been long since abandoned. +It was only the preservation of life that one thought of in these days. +And recklessness had made the men desperate. To the ravages of disease +were added horrible murders. Moral health is always low when physical +health is so. + +Give a nation two winters of grippe, and it will have an epidemic of +suicide. Give it starvation and small-pox, and it will have a contagion +of murders. There are subtle laws underlying these things,--laws which +the physicians think they can explain; but they are mistaken. The reason +is not so material as it seems. + +But spring was near in spite of falling snow and the dirty ice in the +river. There was not even a flushing of the willow twigs to tell it by, +nor a clearing of the leaden sky,--only the almanac. Yet all men +were looking forward to it. The trappers put in the feeble days of +convalescence, making long rafts on which to pile the skins dried over +winter,--a fine variety, worth all but their weight in gold. Money was +easily got in those days; but there are circumstances under which money +is valueless. + +Father de Smet thought of this the day before Easter, as he plunged +through the mud of the winding street in his bearskin gaiters. Stout +were his legs, firm his lungs, as he turned to breathe in the west wind; +clear his sharp and humorous eyes. He was going to the little chapel +where the mission school had previously been held. Here was a rude +pulpit, and back of it a much-disfigured virgin, dressed in turkey-red +calico. Two cheap candles in their tin sticks guarded this figure, and +beneath, on the floor, was spread an otter-skin of perfect beauty. The +seats were of pine, without backs, and the wind whistled through the +chinks between the logs. Moreover, the place was dirty. Lenten service +had been out of the question. The living had neither time nor strength +to come to worship; and the dead were not given the honor of a burial +from church in these times of terror. The priest looked about him in +dismay, the place was so utterly forsaken; yet to let Easter go by +without recognition was not to his liking. He had been the night +before to every house in the settlement, bidding the people to come to +devotions on Sunday morning. He knew that not one of them would +refuse his invitation. There was no hero larger in the eyes of these +unfortunates than the simple priest who walked among them with his +unpretentious piety. The promises were given with whispered blessings, +and there were voices that broke in making them, and hands that shook +with honest gratitude. The priest, remembering these things, and all the +awful suffering of the winter, determined to make the service symbolic, +indeed, of the resurrection and the life,--the annual resurrection and +life that comes each year, a palpable miracle, to teach the dullest that +God reigns. + +“How are you going to trim the altar?” cried a voice behind him. + +He turned, startled, and in the doorway stood Mademoiselle Ninon, +her short skirt belted with a red silk scarf,--the token of some +trapper,--her ankles protected with fringed leggins, her head covered +with a beribboned hat of felt, such as the voyageurs wore. + +“Our devotions will be the only decorations we can hang on it. But +gratitude is better than blossoms, and humanity more beautiful than +green wreaths,” said the father, gently. + +It was a curious thing, and one that he had often noticed himself; he +gave this woman--unworthy as she was--the best of his simple thoughts. + +Ninon tiptoed toward the priest with one finger coquettishly raised to +insure secrecy. + +“You will never believe it,” she whispered, “no one would believe it! +But the fact is, father, I have two lilies.” + +“Lilies,” cried the priest, incredulously, “two lilies?” + +“That's what I say, father--two marvellously fair lilies with little +sceptres of gold in them, and leaves as white as snow. The bulbs were +brought me last autumn by--; that is to say, they were brought from St. +Louis. Only now have they blossomed. Heavens, how I have watched the +buds! I have said to myself every morning for a fortnight: 'Will they +open in time for the good father's Easter morning service?' Then I said: +'They will open too soon. Buds,' I have cried to them, 'do not dare +to open yet, or you will be horribly passee by Easter. Have the +kindness, will you, to save yourselves for a great event.' And they did +it; yes, father, you may not believe, but no later than this morning +these sensible flowers opened up their leaves boldly, quite conscious +that they were doing the right thing, and to-morrow, if you please, they +will be here. And they will perfume the whole place; yes.” + +She stopped suddenly, and relaxed her vivacious expression for one of +pain. + +“You are certainly ill,” cried the priest. “Rest yourself.” He tried to +push her on to one of the seats; but a sort of convulsive rigidity came +over her, very alarming to look at. + +“You are worn out,” her companion said gravely. “And you are chilled.” + +“Yes, I'm cold,” confessed Ninon. “But I had to come to tell you about +the lilies. But, do you see, I never could bring myself to put them in +this room as it is now. It would be too absurd to place them among this +dirt. We must clean the place.” + +“The place will be cleaned. I will see to it. But as for you, go home +and care for yourself.” Ninon started toward the door with an uncertain +step. Suddenly she came back. + +“It is too funny,” she said, “that red calico there on the Virgin. +Father, I have some laces which were my mother's, who was a good woman, +and which have never been worn by me. They are all I have to remember +France by and the days when I was--different. If I might be permitted--” + she hesitated and looked timidly at the priest. + +“'She hath done what she could,'” murmured Father de Smet, softly. +“Bring your laces, Ninon.” He would have added: “Thy sins be forgiven +thee.” But unfortunately, at this moment, Pierre came lounging down the +street, through the mud, fresh from Fort Laramie. His rifle was slung +across his back, and a full game-bag revealed the fact that he had +amused himself on his way. His curly and wind-bleached hair blew out +in time-torn banners from the edge of his wide hat. His piercing, black +eyes were those of a man who drinks deep, fights hard, and lives +always in the open air. Wild animals have such eyes, only there is this +difference: the viciousness of an animal is natural; at least one-half +of the viciousness of man is artificial and devised. + +When Ninon saw the frost-reddened face of this gallant of the plains, +she gave a little cry of delight, and the color rushed back into her +face. The trapper saw her, and gave a rude shout of welcome. The next +moment, he had swung her clear of the chapel steps; and then the two +went down the street together, Pierre pausing only long enough to doff +his hat to the priest. + +“The Virgin will wear no fresh laces,” said the priest, with some +bitterness; but he was mistaken. An hour later, Ninon was back, not only +with a box of laces, but also with a collection of cosmetics, with which +she proceeded to make startling the scratched and faded face of the +wooden Virgin, who wore, after the completion of Ninon's labors, a +decidedly piquant and saucy expression. The very manner in which the +laces were draped had a suggestion of Ninon's still unforgotten art as +a maker of millinery, and was really a very good presentment of Paris +fashions four years past. Pierre, meantime, amused himself by filling up +the chinks in the logs with fresh mud,--a commodity of which there was +no lack,--and others of the neighbors, incited by these extraordinary +efforts, washed the dirt from seats, floor, and windows, and brought +furs with which to make presentable the floor about the pulpit. + +Father de Smet worked harder than any of them. In his happy enthusiasm +he chose to think this energy on the part of the others was prompted by +piety, though well he knew it was only a refuge from the insufferable +ennui that pervaded the place. Ninon suddenly came up to him with a +white face. + +“I am not well,” she said. Her teeth were chattering, and her eyes had +a little blue glaze over them. “I am going home. In the morning I will +send the lilies.” + +The priest caught her by the hand. + +“Ninon,” he whispered, “it is on my soul not to let you go to-night. +Something tells me that the hour of your salvation is come. Women worse +than you, Ninon, have come to lead holy lives. Pray, Ninon, pray to the +Mother of Sorrows, who knows the sufferings and sins of the heart.” + He pointed to the befrilled and highly fashionable Virgin with her +rouge-stained cheeks. + +Ninon shrank from him, and the same convulsive rigidity he had noticed +before, held her immovable. A moment later, she was on the street again, +and the priest, watching her down the street, saw her enter her cabin +with Pierre. + +....... + + +It was past midnight when the priest was awakened from his sleep by +a knock on the door. He wrapped his great buffalo-coat about him, and +answered the summons. Without in the damp darkness stood Pierre. + +“Father,” he cried, “Ninon has sent for you. Since she left you, she has +been very ill. I have done what I could; but now she hardly speaks, but +I make out that she wants you.” Ten minutes later, they were in Ninon's +cabin. When Father de Smet looked at her he knew she was dying. He had +seen the Indians like that many times during the winter. It was the +plague, but driven in to prey upon the system by the exposure. The +Parisienne's teeth were set, but she managed to smile upon her visitor +as he threw off his coat and bent over her. He poured some whiskey for +her; but she could not get the liquid over her throat. + +“Do not,” she said fiercely between those set white teeth, “do not +forget the lilies.” She sank back and fixed her glazing eyes on the +antlers, and kept them there watching those dangling silken scarves, +while the priest, in haste, spoke the words for the departing soul. + +The next morning she lay dead among those half barbaric relics of her +coquetry, and two white lilies with hearts of gold shed perfume from an +altar in a wilderness. + + + +Up the Gulch + +“GO West?” sighed Kate. “Why, yes! I'd like to go West.” + +She looked at the babies, who were playing on the floor with their +father, and sighed again. + +“You've got to go somewhere, you know, Kate. It might as well be west as +in any other direction. And this is such a chance! We can't have mamma +lying around on sofas without any roses in her cheeks, can we?” He put +this last to the children, who, being yet at the age when they talked +in “Early English,” as their father called it, made a clamorous but +inarticulate reply. + +Major Shelly, the grandfather of these very young persons, stroked his +mustache and looked indulgent. + +“Show almost human intelligence, don't they?” said their father, as he +lay flat on his back and permitted the babies to climb over him. + +“Ya-as,” drawled the major. “They do. Don't see how you account for it, +Jack.” + +Jack roared, and the lips of the babies trembled with fear. + +Their mother said nothing. She was on the sofa, her hands lying +inert, her eyes fixed on her rosy babies with an expression which her +father-in-law and her husband tried hard not to notice. + +It was not easy to tell why Kate was ailing. Of course, the babies were +young, but there were other reasons. + +“I believe you're too happy,” Jack sometimes said to her. “Try not to +be quite so happy, Kate. At least, try not to take your happiness so +seriously. Please don't adore me so; I'm only a commonplace fellow. And +the babies--they're not going to blow away.” + +But Kate continued to look with intense eyes at her little world, and +to draw into it with loving and generous hands all who were willing to +come. + +“Kate is just like a kite,” Jack explained to his father, the major; +“she can't keep afloat without just so many bobs.” + +Kate's “bobs” were the unfortunates she collected around her. These +absorbed her strength. She felt their misery with sympathies that were +abnormal. The very laborer in the streets felt his toil less keenly than +she, as she watched the drops gather on his brow. + +“Is life worth keeping at the cost of a lot like that?” she would ask. +She felt ashamed of her own ease. She apologized for her own serene and +perfect happiness. She even felt sorry for those mothers who had not +children as radiantly beautiful as her own. + +“Kate must have a change,” the major had given out. He was going West on +business and insisted on taking her with him. Jack looked doubtful. +He wasn't sure how he would get along without Kate to look after +everything. Secretly, he had an idea that servants were a kind of wild +animal that had to be fed by an experienced keeper. But when the time +came, he kissed her good-by in as jocular a manner as he could summon, +and refused to see the tears that gathered in her eyes. + +Until Chicago was reached, there was nothing very different from that +which Kate had been in the habit of seeing. After that, she set herself +to watch for Western characteristics. She felt that she would know them +as soon as she saw them. + +“I expected to be stirred up and shocked,” she explained to the major. +But somehow, the Western type did not appear. Commonplace women with +worn faces--browned and seamed, though not aged--were at the stations, +waiting for something or some one. Men with a hurried, nervous air were +everywhere. Kate looked in vain for the gayety and heartiness which she +had always associated with the West. + +After they got beyond the timber country and rode hour after hour on a +tract smooth as a becalmed ocean, she gave herself up to the feeling of +immeasurable vastness which took possession of her. The sun rolled +out of the sky into oblivion with a frantic, headlong haste. Nothing +softened the aspect of its wrath. Near, red, familiar, it seemed to +visibly bowl along the heavens. In the morning it rose as baldly as it +had set. And back and forth over the awful plain blew the winds,--blew +from east to west and back again, strong as if fresh from the chambers +of their birth, full of elemental scents and of mighty murmurings. + +“This is the West!” Kate cried, again and again. + +The major listened to her unsmilingly. It always seemed to him a waste +of muscular energy to smile. He did not talk much. Conversation had +never appealed to him in the light of an art. He spoke when there was a +direction or a command to be given, or an inquiry to be made. The major, +if the truth must be known, was material. Things that he could taste, +touch, see, appealed to him. He had been a volunteer in the civil +war,--a volunteer with a good record,--which he never mentioned; and, +having acquitted himself decently, let the matter go without asking +reprisal or payment for what he had freely given. He went into business +and sold cereal foods. + +“I believe in useful things,” the major expressed himself. “Oatmeal, +wheat,-men have to have them. God intended they should. There's Jack--my +son-Jack Shelly--lawyer. What's the use of litigation? God didn't design +litigation. It doesn't do anybody any good. It isn't justice you get. +It's something entirely different,--a verdict according to law. They say +Jack's clever. But I'm mighty glad I sell wheat.” + +He didn't sell it as a speculator, however. That wasn't his way. + +“I earn what I make,” he often said; and he had grown rich in the +selling of his wholesome foods. + +. . . . . . . + +Helena lies among round, brown hills. Above it is a sky of deep and +illimitable blue. In the streets are crumbs of gold, but it no longer +pays to mine for these; because, as real estate, the property is more +valuable. It is a place of fictitious values. There is excitement in the +air. Men have the faces of speculators. Every laborer is patient at +his task because he cherishes a hope that some day he will be a +millionnaire. There is hospitality, and cordiality and good fellowship, +and an undeniable democracy. There is wealth and luxurious living. There +is even culture,--but it is obtruded as a sort of novelty; it is not +accepted as a matter of course. + +Kate and the major were driven over two or three miles of dusty, hard +road to a distant hotel, which stands in the midst of greenness,--in +an oasis. Immediately above the green sward that surrounds it the brown +hills rise, the grass scorched by the sun. + +Kate yielded herself to the almost absurd luxury of the place with ease +and complacency. She took kindly to the great verandas. She adapted +herself to the elaborate and ill-assorted meals. She bathed in the +marvellous pool, warm with the heat of eternal fires in mid-earth. This +pool was covered with a picturesque Moorish structure, and at one end +a cascade tumbled, over which the sun, coming through colored windows, +made a mimic prism in the white spray. The life was not unendurable. The +major was seldom with her, being obliged to go about his business; +and Kate amused herself by driving over the hills, by watching the +inhabitants, by wondering about the lives in the great, pretentious, +unhomelike houses with their treeless yards and their closed shutters. +The sunlight, white as the glare on Arabian sands, penetrated +everywhere. It seemed to fairly scorch the eye-balls. + +“Oh, we're West, now,” Kate said, exultantly. “I've seen a thousand +types. But yet--not quite THE type--not the impersonation of simplicity +and daring that I was looking for.” + +The major didn't know quite what she was talking about. But he +acquiesced. All he cared about was to see her grow stronger; and that +she was doing every day. She was growing amazingly lovely, too,-at least +the major thought so. Every one looked at her; but that was, perhaps, +because she was such a sylph of a woman. Beside the stalwart major, she +looked like a fairy princess. + +One day she suddenly realized the fact that she had had a companion on +the veranda for several mornings. Of course, there were a great many +persons--invalids, largely--sitting about, but one of them had been +obtruding himself persistently into her consciousness. It was not that +he was rude; it was only that he was thinking about her. A person with +a temperament like Kate's could not long be oblivious to a thing like +that; and she furtively observed the offender with that genius for +psychological perception which was at once her greatest danger and her +charm. + +The man was dressed with a childish attempt at display. His shirt-front +was decorated with a diamond, and his cuff-buttons were of onyx with +diamond settings. His clothes were expensive and perceptibly new, and +he often changed his costumes, but with a noticeable disregard for +propriety. He was very conscious of his silk hat, and frequently wiped +it with a handkerchief on which his monogram was worked in blue. + +When the 'busses brought up their loads, he was always on hand to watch +the newcomers. He took a long time at his dinners, and appeared to +order a great deal and eat very little. There were card-rooms and a +billiard-hall, not to mention a bowling-alley and a tennis-court, where +the other guests of the hotel spent much time. But this man never +visited them. He sat often with one of the late reviews in his hand, +looking as if he intended giving his attention to it at any moment. +But after he had scrupulously cut the leaves with a little carved ivory +paper-cutter, he sat staring straight before him with the book open, but +unread, in his hand. + +Kate took more interest in this melancholy, middle-aged man than she +would have done if she had not been on the outlook for her Western +type,--the man who was to combine all the qualities of chivalry, daring, +bombast, and generosity, seasoned with piquant grammar, which she firmly +believed to be the real thing. But notwithstanding this kindly and +somewhat curious interest, she might never have made his acquaintance if +it had not been for a rather unpleasant adventure. + +The major was “closing up a deal” and had hurried away after breakfast, +and Kate, in the luxury of convalescence, half-reclined in a great chair +on the veranda and watched the dusky blue mist twining itself around the +brown hills. She was not thinking of the babies; she was not worrying +about home; she was not longing for anything, or even indulging in +a dream. That vacuous content which engrosses the body after long +indisposition, held her imperatively. Suddenly she was aroused from this +happy condition of nothingness by the spectacle of an enormous bull-dog +approaching her with threatening teeth. She had noticed the monster +often in his kennel near the stables, and it was well understood that he +was never to be permitted his freedom. Now he walked toward her with a +solid step and an alarming deliberateness. Kate sat still and tried to +assure herself that he meant no mischief, but by the time the great body +had made itself felt on the skirt of her gown she could restrain her +fear no longer, and gave a nervous cry of alarm. The brute answered with +a growl. If he had lacked provocation before, he considered that he had +it now. He showed his teeth and flung his detestable body upon her; +and Kate felt herself growing dizzy with fear. But just then an arm was +interposed and the dog was flung back. There was a momentary struggle. +Some gentlemen came hurrying out of the office; and as they beat the +dog back to its retreat, Kate summoned words from her parched throat to +thank her benefactor. + +It was the melancholy man with the new clothes. This morning he +was dressed in a suit of the lightest gray, with a white marseilles +waistcoat, over which his glittering chain shone ostentatiously. White +tennis-shoes, a white rose in his buttonhole, and a white straw hat +in his hand completed a toilet over which much time had evidently been +spent. Kate noted these details as she held out her hand. + +“I may have been alarmed without cause,” she said; “but I was horribly +frightened. Thank you so much for coming to my rescue. And I think, if +you would add to your kindness by getting me a glass of water--” + +When he came back, his hand was trembling a little; and as Kate looked +up to learn the cause, she saw that his face was flushed. He was +embarrassed. She decided that he was not accustomed to the society of +ladies. “Brutes like that dog ain't no place in th' world--that's my +opinion. There are some bad things we can't help havin' aroun'; but a +bull-dog ain't one of 'em.” + +“I quite agree with you,” Kate acquiesced, as she drank the water. “But +as this is the first unpleasant experience of any kind that I have had +since I came here, I don't feel that I have any right to complain.” + +“You're here fur yur health?” + +“Yes. And I am getting it. You're not an invalid, I imagine?” + +“No--no-op. I'm here be--well, I've thought fur a long time I'd like t' +stay at this here hotel.” + +“Indeed!” + +“Yes. I've been up th' gulch these fifteen years. Bin livin' on a shelf +of black rock. Th' sun got 'round 'bout ten. Couldn't make a thing +grow.” The man was looking off toward the hills, with an expression of +deep sadness in his eyes. “Didn't never live in a place where nothin' +'d grow, did you? I took geraniums up thar time an' time agin. Red +ones. Made me think of mother; she's in Germany. Watered 'em mornin' an' +night. Th' damned things died.” + +The oath slipped out with an artless unconsciousness, and there was +a little moisture in his eyes. Kate felt she ought to bring the +conversation to a close. She wondered what Jack would say if he saw her +talking with a perfect stranger who used oaths! She would have gone into +the house but for something that caught her eye. It was the hand of the +man; that hand was a bludgeon. All grace and flexibility had gone out +of it, and it had become a mere instrument of toil. It was seamed and +misshapen; yet it had been carefully manicured, and the pointed nails +looked fantastic and animal-like. A great seal-ring bore an elaborate +monogram, while the little finger displayed a collection of diamonds and +emeralds truly dazzling to behold. An impulse of humanity and a sort +of artistic curiosity, much stronger than her discretion, urged Kate to +continue her conversation. + +“What were you doing up the gulch?” she said. + +The man leaned back in his chair and regarded her a moment before +answering. He realized the significance of her question. He took it as +a sign that she was willing to be friendly. A look of gratitude, +almost tender, sprang into his eyes,--dull gray eyes, they were, with a +kindliness for their only recommendation. + +“Makin' my pile,” he replied. “I've been in these parts twenty years. +When I come here, I thought I was goin' to make a fortune right off. I +had all th' money that mother could give me, and I lost everything I had +in three months. I went up th' gulch.” He paused, and wiped his forehead +with his handkerchief. + +There was something in his remark and the intonation which made Kate say +softly: + +“I suppose you've had a hard time of it.” + +“Thar you were!” he cried. “Thar was th' rock--risin', risin', black! At +th' bottom wus th' creek, howlin' day an' night! Lonesome! Gee! No one +t' talk to. Of course, th' men. Had some with me always. They didn't +talk. It's too-too quiet t' talk much. They played cards. Curious, but I +never played cards. Don't think I'd find it amusin'. No, I worked. Came +down here once in six months or three months. Had t' come--grub-staked +th' men, you know. Did you ever eat salt pork?” He turned to Kate +suddenly with this question. + +“Why, yes; a few times. Did you have it?” + +“Nothin' else, much. I used t' think of th' things mother cooked. Mother +understood cookin', if ever a woman did. I'll never forget th' dinner +she gave me th' day I came away. A woman ought t' cook. I hear American +women don't go in much for cookin'.” + +“Oh, I think that's a mistake,” Kate hastened to interrupt. “All that I +know understand how to serve excellent dinners. Of course, they may not +cook them themselves, but I think they could if it were necessary.” + +“Hum!” He picked up a long glove that had fallen from Kate's lap and +fingered it before returning it. + +“I s'pose you cook?” + +“I make a specialty of salads and sorbets,” smiled Kate. “I guess +I could roast meat and make bread; but circumstances have not yet +compelled me to do it. But I've a theory that an American woman can do +anything she puts her mind to.” + +The man laughed out loud,--a laugh quite out of proportion to the mild +good humor of the remark; but it was evident that he could no longer +conceal his delight at this companionship. + +“How about raisin' flowers?” he asked. “Are you strong on that?” + +“I've only to look at a plant to make it grow,” Kate cried, with +enthusiasm. “When my friends are in despair over a plant, they bring it +to me, and I just pet it a little, and it brightens up. I've the most +wonderful fernery you ever saw. It's green, summer and winter. Hundreds +of people stop and look up at it, it is so green and enticing, there +above the city streets.” + +“What city?” + +“Philadelphia.” + +“Mother's jest that way. She has a garden of roses. And the +mignonette--” + +But he broke off suddenly, and sat once more staring before him. + +“But not a damned thing,” he added, with poetic pensiveness, “would grow +in that gulch.” + +“Why did you stay there so long?” asked Kate, after a little pause in +which she managed to regain her waning courage. + +“Bad luck. You never see a place with so many false leads. To-day you'd +get a streak that looked big. To-morrow you'd find it a pocket. One +night I'd go t' bed with my heart goin' like a race-horse. Next night +it would be ploddin' along like a winded burro. Don't know what made +me stick t' it. It was hot there, too! And cold! Always roastin' ur +freezin'. It'd been different if I'd had any one t' help me stand it. +But th' men were always findin' fault. They blamed me fur everythin'. +I used t' lie awake at night an' hear 'em talkin' me over. It made me +lonesome, I tell you! Thar wasn't no one! Mother used t' write. But +I never told her th' truth. She ain't a suspicion of what I've been +a-goin' through.” + +Kate sat and looked at him in silence. His face was seamed, though +far from old. His body was awkward, but impressed her with a sense of +magnificent strength. + +“I couldn't ask no woman t' share my hard times,” he resumed after a +time. “I always said when I got a woman, it was goin' t' be t' make her +happy. It wer'n't t' be t' ask her t' drudge.” + +There was another silence. This man out of the solitude seemed to +be elated past expression at his new companionship. He looked with +appreciation at the little pointed toes of Kate's slippers, as they +glanced from below the skirt of her dainty organdie. He noted the band +of pearls on her finger. His eyes rested long on the daisies at her +waist. The wind tossed up little curls of her warm brown hair. Her eyes +suffused with interest, her tender mouth seemed ready to lend itself to +any emotion, and withal she was so small, so compact, so exquisite. The +man wiped his forehead again, in mere exuberance. + +“Here's my card,” he said, very solemnly, as he drew an engraved bit of +pasteboard from its leather case. Kate bowed and took it. + +“Mr. Peter Roeder,” she read. “I've no card,” she said. “My name is +Shelly. I'm here for my health, as I told you.” She rose at this point, +and held out her hand. “I must thank you once more for your kindness,” + she said. + +His eyes fastened on hers with an appeal for a less formal word. There +was something almost terrible in their silent eloquence. + +“I hope we may meet again,” she said. + +Mr. Peter Roeder made a very low and awkward bow, and opened the door +into the corridor for her. + +That evening the major announced that he was obliged to go to Seattle. +The journey was not an inviting one; Kate was well placed where she was, +and he decided to leave her. + +She was well enough now to take longer drives; and she found strange, +lonely canyons, wild and beautiful, where yellow waters burst through +rocky barriers with roar and fury,--tortuous, terrible places, such as +she had never dreamed of. Coming back from one of these drives, two +days after her conversation on the piazza with Peter Roeder, she met +him riding a massive roan. He sat the animal with that air of perfect +unconsciousness which is the attribute of the Western man, and his +attire, even to his English stock, was faultless,--faultily faultless. + +“I hope you won't object to havin' me ride beside you,” he said, +wheeling his horse. To tell the truth, Kate did not object. She was a +little dull, and had been conscious all the morning of that peculiar +physical depression which marks the beginning of a fit of homesickness. + +“The wind gits a fine sweep,” said Roeder, after having obtained +the permission he desired. “Now in the gulch we either had a dead +stagnation, or else the wind was tearin' up and down like a wild beast.” + +Kate did not reply, and they went on together, facing the riotous wind. + +“You can't guess how queer it seems t' be here,” he said, +confidentially. “It seems t' me as if I had come from some other planet. +Thar don't rightly seem t' be no place fur me. I tell you what it's +like. It's as if I'd come down t' enlist in th' ranks, an' found 'em +full,--every man marchin' along in his place, an' no place left fur me.” + +Kate could not find a reply. + +“I ain't a friend,--not a friend! I ain't complainin'. It ain't th' +fault of any one--but myself. You don' know what a durned fool I've +bin. Someway, up thar in th' gulch I got t' seemin' so sort of important +t' myself, and my makin' my stake seemed such a big thing, that I +thought I had only t' come down here t' Helena t' have folks want t' +know me. I didn't particular want th' money because it wus money. But +out here you work fur it, jest as you work fur other things in other +places,--jest because every one is workin' fur it, and it's the man who +gets th' most that beats. It ain't that they are any more greedy than +men anywhere else. My pile's a pretty good-sized one. An' it's likely to +be bigger; but no one else seems t' care. Th' paper printed some pieces +about it. Some of th' men came round t' see me; but I saw their game. I +said I guessed I'd look further fur my acquaintances. I ain't spoken to +a lady,--not a real lady, you know,--t' talk with, friendly like, but +you, fur--years.” + +His face flushed in that sudden way again. They were passing some of +those pretentious houses which rise in the midst of Helena's ragged +streets with such an extraneous air, and Kate leaned forward to look at +them. The driver, seeing her interest, drew up the horses for a moment. + +“Fine, fine!” ejaculated Roeder. “But they ain't got no garden. A house +don't seem anythin' t' me without a garden. Do you know what I think +would be th' most beautiful thing in th' world? A baby in a rose-garden! +Do you know, I ain't had a baby in my hands, excep' Ned Ramsey's little +kid, once, for ten year!” + +Kate's face shone with sympathy. + +“How dreadful!” she cried. “I couldn't live without a baby about.” + +“Like babies, do you? Well, well. Boys? Like boys?” + +“Not a bit better than girls,” said Kate, stoutly. + +“I like boys,” responded Roeder, with conviction. “My mother liked boys. +She had three girls, but she liked me a damned sight the best.” + +Kate laughed outright. + +“Why do you swear?” she said. “I never heard a man swear before,--at +least, not one with whom I was talking. That's one of your gulch habits. +You must get over it.” + +Roeder's blond face turned scarlet. + +“You must excuse me,” he pleaded. “I'll cure myself of it! Jest give me +a chance.” + +This was a little more personal than Kate approved of, and she raised +her parasol to conceal her annoyance. It was a brilliant little fluff +of a thing which looked as if it were made of butterflies' wings. Roeder +touched it with awe. + +“You have sech beautiful things,” he said. “I didn't know women wore +sech nice things. Now that dress--it's like--I don't know what it's +like.” It was a simple little taffeta, with warp and woof of azure and +of cream, and gay knots of ribbon about it. + +“We have the advantage of men,” she said. “I often think one of the +greatest drawbacks to being a man would be the sombre clothes. I like to +wear the prettiest things that can be found.” + +“Lace?” queried Roeder. “Do you like lace?” + +“I should say so! Did you ever see a woman who didn't?” + +“Hu--um! These women I've known don't know lace,--these wives of th' men +out here. They're th' only kind I've seen this long time.” + +“Oh, of course, but I mean--” + +“I know what you mean. My mother has a chest full of linen an' lace. She +showed it t' me th' day I left. 'Peter,' she said, 'some day you bring a +wife home with you, an' I'll give you that lace an' that linen.' An' I'm +goin' t' do it, too,” he said quietly. + +“I hope so,” said Kate, with her eyes moist. “I hope you will, and that +your mother will be very happy.” + +. . . . . . . + +There was a hop at the hotel that night, and it was almost a matter of +courtesy for Kate to go. Ladies were in demand, for there were not very +many of them at the hotel. Every one was expected to do his best to make +it a success; and Kate, not at all averse to a waltz or two, dressed +herself for the occasion with her habitual striving after artistic +effect. She was one of those women who make a picture of themselves as +naturally as a bird sings. She had an opal necklace which Jack had given +her because, he said, she had as many moods as an opal had colors; and +she wore this with a crepe gown, the tint of the green lights in +her necklace. A box of flowers came for her as she was dressing; they +were Puritan roses, and Peter Roeder's card was in the midst of +them. She was used to having flowers given her. It would have seemed +remarkable if some one had not sent her a bouquet when she was going to +a ball. + +“I shall dance but twice,” she said to those who sought her for a +partner. “Neither more nor less.” + +“Ain't you goin' t' dance with me at all?” Roeder managed to say to her +in the midst of her laughing altercation with the gentlemen. + +“Dance with you!” cried Kate. “How do men learn to dance when they are +up a gulch?” + +“I ken dance,” he said stubbornly. He was mortified at her chaffing. + +“Then you may have the second waltz,” she said, in quick contrition. +“Now you other gentlemen have been dancing any number of times these +last fifteen years. But Mr. Roeder is just back from a hard campaign,--a +campaign against fate. My second waltz is his. And I shall dance my +best.” + +It happened to be just the right sort of speech. The women tried +good-naturedly to make Roeder's evening a pleasant one. They were filled +with compassion for a man who had not enjoyed the society of their sex +for fifteen years. They found much amusement in leading him through the +square dances, the forms of which were utterly unknown to him. But he +waltzed with a sort of serious alertness that was not so bad as it might +have been. + +Kate danced well. Her slight body seemed as full of the spirit of the +waltz as a thrush's body is of song. Peter Roeder moved along with +her in a maze, only half-answering her questions, his gray eyes full of +mystery. + +Once they stopped for a moment, and he looked down at her, as with +flushed face she stood smiling and waving her gossamer fan, each motion +stirring the frail leaves of the roses he had sent her. + +“It's cur'ous,” he said softly, “but I keep thinkin' about that black +gulch.” + +“Forget it,” she said. “Why do you think of a gulch when--” She stopped +with a sudden recollection that he was not used to persiflage. But he +anticipated what she was about to say. + +“Why think of the gulch when you are here?” he said. “Why, because it +is only th' gulch that seems real. All this,--these pleasant, polite +people, this beautiful room, th' flowers everywhere, and you, and me as +I am, seem as if I was dreamin'. Thar ain't anything in it all that is +like what I thought it would be.” + +“Not as you thought it would be?” + +“No. Different. I thought it would be--well, I thought th' people would +not be quite so high-toned. I hope you don't mind that word.” + +“Not in the least,” she said. “It's a musical term. It applies very well +to people.” + +They took up the dance again and waltzed breathlessly till the close. +Kate was tired; the exertion had been a little more than she had +bargained for. She sat very still on the veranda under the white glare +of an electric ball, and let Roeder do the talking. Her thoughts, +in spite of the entertainment she was deriving from her present +experiences, would go back to the babies. She saw them tucked well in +bed, each in a little iron crib, with the muslin curtains shielding +their rosy faces from the light. She wondered if Jack were reading alone +in the library or was at the club, or perhaps at the summer concert, +with the swell of the violins in his ears. Jack did so love music. +As she thought how delicate his perceptions were, how he responded to +everything most subtle in nature and in art, of how life itself was a +fine art with him, and joy a thing to be cultivated, she turned with a +sense of deep compassion to the simple man by her side. His rough face +looked a little more unattractive than usual. His evening clothes were +almost grotesque. His face wore a look of solitude, of hunger. + +“What were you saying?” she said, dreamily. “I beg your pardon.” + +“I was sayin' how I used t' dream of sittin' on the steps of a hotel +like this, and not havin' a thing t' do. When I used t' come down here +out of the gulch, and see men who had had good dinners, an' good baths, +sittin' around smokin', with money t' go over there t' th' bookstan' an' +get anythin' they'd want, it used t' seem t' me about all a single man +could wish fur.” + +“Well, you've got it all now.” + +“But I didn't any of th' time suppose that would satisfy a man long. +Only I was so darned tired I couldn't help wantin' t' rest. But I'm not +so selfish ur s' narrow as to be satisfied with THAT. No, I'm not goin' +t' spend m' pile that way--quite!” + +He laughed out loud, and then sat in silence watching Kate as she lay +back wearily in her chair. + +“I've got t' have that there garden,” he said, laughingly. “Got t' get +them roses. An' I'll have a big bath-house,--plenty of springs in this +country. You ken have a bath here that won't freeze summer NOR winter. +An' a baby! I've got t' have a baby. He'll go with th' roses an' th' +bath.” He laughed again heartily. + +“It's a queer joke, isn't it?” Roeder asked. “Talkin' about my baby, an' +I haven't even a wife.” His face flushed and he turned his eyes away. + +“Have I shown you the pictures of my babies?” Kate inquired. “You'd like +my boy, I know. And my girl is just like me,--in miniature.” + +There was a silence. She looked up after a moment. Roeder appeared to be +examining the monogram on his ring as if he had never seen it before. + +“I didn't understand that you were married,” he said gently. + +“Didn't you? I don't think you ever called me by any name at all, or I +should have noticed your mistake and set you right. Yes, I'm married. I +came out here to get strong for the babies.” + +“Got a boy an' a girl, eh?” + +“Yes.” + +“How old's th' boy?” + +“Five.” + +“An' th' girl?” + +“She'll soon be four.” + +“An' yer husband--he's livin'?” + +“I should say so! I'm a very happy woman, Mr. Roeder. If only I were +stronger!” + +“Yer lookin' much better,” he said, gravely, “than when you come. You'll +be all right.” + +The moon began to come up scarlet beyond the eastern hills. The two +watched it in silence. Kate had a feeling of guilt, as if she had been +hurting some helpless thing. + +“I was in hopes,” he said, suddenly, in a voice that seemed abrupt and +shrill, “thet you'd see fit t' stay here.” + +“Here in Helena? Oh, no!” + +“I was thinkin' I'd offer you that two hundred thousand dollars, if +you'd stay.” + +“Mr. Roeder! You don't mean-surely--” + +“Why, yes. Why not?” He spoke rather doggedly. “I'll never see no other +woman like you. You're different from others. How good you've been t' +me!” + +“Good! I'm afraid I've been very bad--at least, very stupid.” + +“I say, now--your husband's good t' you, ain't he?” + +“He is the kindest man that ever lived.” + +“Oh, well, I didn't know.” + +A rather awkward pause followed which was broken by Roeder. + +“I don't see jest what I'm goin' t' do with that thar two hundred +thousand dollars,” he said, mournfully. + +“Do with it? Why, live with it! Send some to your mother.” + +“Oh, I've done that. Five thousand dollars. It don't seem much here; but +it'll seem a lot t' her. I'd send her more, only it would've bothered +her.” + +“Then there is your house,--the house with the bath-room. But I suppose +you'll have other rooms?” + +Peter laughed a little in spite of himself. + +“I guess I won't have a house,” he said. “An' I couldn't make a garden +alone.” + +“Hire a man to help you.” Kate was trembling, but she kept talking +gayly. She was praying that nothing very serious would happen. There was +an undercurrent of sombreness in the man's manner that frightened her. + +“I guess I'll jest have t' keep on dreamin' of that boy playin' with th' +roses.” + +“No, no,” cried Kate; “he will come true some day! I know he'll come +true.” + +Peter got up and stood by her chair. + +“You don't know nothin' about it,” he said. “You don't know, an' you +can't know what it's bin t' me t' talk with you. Here I come out of a +place where there ain't no sound but the water and the pines. Years come +an' go. Still no sound. Only thinkin', thinkin', thinkin'! Missin' all +th' things men care fur! Dreamin' of a time when I sh'd strike th' pile. +Then I seed home, wife, a boy, flowers, everythin'. You're so beautiful, +an' you're so good. You've a way of pickin' a man's heart right out of +him. First time I set my eyes on you I thought you were th' nicest +thing I ever see! And how little you are! That hand of yours,--look at +it,--it's like a leaf! An' how easy you smile. Up th' gulch we didn't +smile; we laughed, but gen'ly because some one got in a fix. Then your +voice! Ah, I've thought fur years that some day I might hear a voice +like that! Don't you go! Sit still! I'm not blamin' you fur anythin'; +but I may never, 's long's I live, find any one who will understand +things th' way you understand 'em. Here! I tell you about that gulch +an' you see that gulch. You know how th' rain sounded thar, an' how th' +shack looked, an' th' life I led, an' all th' thoughts I had, an' th' +long nights, an' th' times when--but never mind. I know you know it all. +I saw it in yer eyes. I tell you of mother, an' you see 'er. You know +'er old German face, an' 'er proud ways, an' her pride in me, an' how +she would think I wuz awfully rich. An' you see how she would give out +them linens, all marked fur my wife, an' how I would sit an' watch her +doin' it, an'--you see everything. I know you do. I could feel you doin' +it. Then I say to myself: 'Here is th' one woman in th' world made fur +me. Whatever I have, she shall have. I'll spend my life waitin' on her. +She'll tell me all th' things I ought t' know, an' hev missed knowin'; +she'll read t' me; she'll be patient when she finds how dull I've grown. +And thar'll be th' boy--'” + +He seized her hand and wrung it, and was gone. Kate saw him no more that +night. + +The next morning the major returned. Kate threw her arms around his neck +and wept. + +“I want the babies,” she explained when the major showed his +consternation. “Don't mind my crying. You ought to be used to seeing me +cry by this time. I must get home, that's all. I must see Jack.” + +So that night they started. + +At the door of the carriage stood Peter Roeder, waiting. + +“I'm going t' ride down with you,” he said. The major looked nonplussed. + +Kate got in and the major followed. + +“Come,” she said to Roeder. He sat opposite and looked at her as if he +would fasten her image on his mind. + +“You remember,” he said after a time, “that I told you I used t' dream +of sittin' on the veranda of th' hotel and havin' nothin' t' do?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, I don't think I care fur it. I've had a month of it. I'm goin' +back up th' gulch.” + +“No!” cried Kate, instinctively reaching out her hands toward him. + +“Why not? I guess you don't know me. I knew that somewhere I'd find a +friend. I found that friend; an' now I'm alone again. It's pretty quiet +up thar in the gulch; but I'll try it.” + +“No, no. Go to Europe; go to see your mother.” + +“I thought about that a good deal, a while ago. But I don't seem t' have +no heart fur it now. I feel as if I'd be safer in th' gulch.” + +“Safer?” + +“The world looks pretty big. It's safe and close in th' gulch.” + +At the station the major went to look after the trunks, and Roeder put +Kate in her seat. + +“I wanted t' give you something,” he said, seating himself beside her, +“but I didn't dare.” + +“Oh, my dear friend,” she cried, laying her little gloved hand on his +red and knotted one, “don't go back into the shadow. Do not return to +that terrible silence. Wait. Have patience. Fate has brought you wealth. +It will bring you love.” + +“I've somethin' to ask,” he said, paying no attention to her appeal. +“You must answer it. If we 'a' met long ago, an' you hadn't a husband +or--anythin'--do you think you'd've loved me then?” + +She felt herself turning white. + +“No,” she said softly. “I could never have loved you, my dear friend. We +are not the same. Believe me, there is a woman somewhere who will love +you; but I am not that woman--nor could I have ever been.” + +The train was starting. The major came bustling in. + +“Well, good-by,” said Roeder, holding out his hand to Kate. + +“Good-by,” she cried. “Don't go back up the gulch.” + +“Oh,” he said, reassuringly, “don't you worry about me, my--don't worry. +The gulch is a nice, quiet place. An' you know what I told you about th' +ranks all bein' full. Good-by.” The train was well under way. He sprang +off, and stood on the platform waving his handkerchief. + +“Well, Kate,” said the major, seating himself down comfortably and +adjusting his travelling cap, “did you find the Western type?” + +“I don't quite know,” said she, slowly. “But I have made the discovery +that a human soul is much the same wherever you meet it.” + +“Dear me! You haven't been meeting a soul, have you?” the major said, +facetiously, unbuckling his travelling-bag. “I'll tell Jack.” + +“No, I'll tell Jack. And he'll feel quite as badly as I do to think that +I could do nothing for its proper adjustment.” + +The major's face took on a look of comprehension. + +“Was that the soul,” he asked, “that just came down in the carriage with +us?” + +“That was it,” assented Kate. “It was born; it has had its mortal day; +and it has gone back up the gulch.” + + + + +A Michigan Man + +A PINE forest is nature's expression of solemnity and solitude. +Sunlight, rivers, cascades, people, music, laughter, or dancing could +not make it gay. With its unceasing reverberations and its eternal +shadows, it is as awful and as holy as a cathedral. + +Thirty good fellows working together by day and drinking together by +night can keep up but a moody imitation of jollity. Spend twenty-five +of your forty years, as Luther Dallas did, in this perennial gloom, and +your soul--that which enjoys, aspires, competes--will be drugged as deep +as if you had quaffed the cup of oblivion. Luther Dallas was counted one +of the most experienced axe-men in the northern camps. He could fell +a tree with the swift surety of an executioner, and in revenge for his +many arboral murders the woodland had taken captive his mind, captured +and chained it as Prospero did Ariel. The resounding footsteps of +Progress driven on so mercilessly in this mad age could not reach his +fastness. It did not concern him that men were thinking, investigating, +inventing. His senses responded only to the sonorous music of the woods; +a steadfast wind ringing metallic melody from the pine-tops contented +him as the sound of the sea does the sailor; and dear as the odors of +the ocean to the mariner were the resinous scents of the forest to him. +Like a sailor, too, he had his superstitions. He had a presentiment that +he was to die by one of these trees,-that some day, in chopping, the +tree would fall upon and crush him as it did his father the day they +brought him back to the camp on a litter of pine boughs. + +One day the gang-boss noticed a tree that Dallas had left standing in a +most unwoodmanlike manner in the section which was allotted to him. + +“What in thunder is that standing there for?” he asked. + +Dallas raised his eyes to the pine, towering in stern dignity a hundred +feet above them. + +“Well,” he said feebly, “I noticed it, but kind-a left it t' the last.” + +“Cut it down to-morrow,” was the response. + +The wind was rising, and the tree muttered savagely. Luther thought it +sounded like a menace, and turned pale. No trouble has yet been found +that will keep a man awake in the keen air of the pineries after he +has been swinging his axe all day, but the sleep of the chopper was so +broken with disturbing dreams that night that the beads gathered on +his brow, and twice he cried aloud. He ate his coarse flap-jacks in the +morning and escaped from the smoky shanty as soon as he could. + +“It'll bring bad luck, I'm afraid,” he muttered as he went to get his +axe from the rack. He was as fond of his axe as a soldier of his musket, +but to-day he shouldered it with reluctance. He felt like a man with his +destiny before him. The tree stood like a sentinel. He raised his axe, +once, twice, a dozen times, but could not bring himself to make a cut +in the bark. He walked backwards a few steps and looked up. The funereal +green seemed to grow darker and darker till it became black. It was the +embodiment of sorrow. Was it not shaking giant arms at him? Did it not +cry out in angry challenge? Luther did not try to laugh at his fears; +he had never seen any humor in life. A gust of wind had someway crept +through the dense barricade of foliage that flanked the clearing, +and struck him with an icy chill. He looked at the sky; the day was +advancing rapidly. He went at his work with an energy as determined as +despair. The axe in his practised hand made clean straight cuts in the +trunk, now on this side, now on that. His task was not an easy one, +but he finished it with wonderful expedition. After the chopping was +finished, the tree stood firm a moment; then, as the tensely-strained +fibres began a weird moaning, he sprang aside, and stood waiting. In the +distance he saw two men hewing a log. The axe-man sent them a shout +and threw up his arms for them to look. The tree stood out clear and +beautiful against the gray sky; the men ceased their work and watched +it. The vibrations became more violent, and the sounds they produced +grew louder and louder till they reached a shrill wild cry. There came a +pause, then a deep shuddering groan. The topmost branches began to move +slowly, the whole stately bulk swayed, and then shot towards the ground. +The gigantic trunk bounded from the stump, recoiled like a cannon, +crashed down, and lay conquered, with a roar as of an earthquake, in a +cloud of flying twigs and chips. + +When the dust had cleared away, the men at the log on the outside of the +clearing could not see Luther. They ran to the spot, and found him +lying on the ground with his chest crushed in. His fearful eyes had not +rightly calculated the distance from the stump to the top of the pine, +nor rightly weighed the power of the massed branches, and so, standing +spell-bound, watching the descending trunk as one might watch his +Nemesis, the rebound came and left him lying worse than dead. + +Three months later, when the logs, lopped of their branches, drifted +down the streams, the woodman, a human log lopped of his strength, +drifted to a great city. A change, the doctor said, might prolong +his life. The lumbermen made up a purse, and he started out, not very +definitely knowing his destination. He had a sister, much younger than +himself, who at the age of sixteen had married and gone, he believed, to +Chicago. That was years ago, but he had an idea that he might find her. +He was not troubled by his lack of resources; he did not believe that +any man would want for a meal unless he were “shiftless.” He had always +been able to turn his hand to something. + +He felt too ill from the jostling of the cars to notice much of anything +on the journey. The dizzy scenes whirling past made him faint, and he +was glad to lie with closed eyes. He imagined that his little sister in +her pink calico frock and bare feet (as he remembered her) would be +at the station to meet him. “Oh, Lu!” she would call from some +hiding-place, and he would go and find her. + +The conductor stopped by Luther's seat and said that they were in the +city at last; but it seemed to the sick man as if they went miles after +that, with a multitude of twinkling lights on one side and a blank +darkness, that they told him was the lake, on the other. The conductor +again stopped by his seat. + +“Well, my man,” said he, “how are you feeling?” + +Luther, the possessor of the toughest muscles in the gang, felt a sick +man's irritation at the tone of pity. + +“Oh, I'm all right!” he said, gruffly, and shook off the assistance the +conductor tried to offer with his overcoat. “I'm going to my sister's,” + he explained, in answer to the inquiry as to where he was going. The +man, somewhat piqued at the spirit in which his overtures were met, left +him, and Luther stepped on to the platform. There was a long vista of +semi-light, down which crowds of people walked and baggage-men rushed. +The building, if it deserved the name, seemed a ruin, and through the +arched doors Luther could see men--hackmen-dancing and howling like +dervishes. Trains were coming and going, and the whistles and bells +kept up a ceaseless clangor. Luther, with his small satchel and uncouth +dress, slouched by the crowd unnoticed, and reached the street. He +walked amid such an illumination as he had never dreamed of, and paused +half blinded in the glare of a broad sheet of electric light that filled +a pillared entrance into which many people passed. He looked about him. +Above on every side rose great, many-windowed buildings; on the street +the cars and carriages thronged, and jostling crowds dashed headlong +among the vehicles. After a time he turned down a street that seemed to +him a pandemonium filled with madmen. It went to his head like wine, and +hardly left him the presence of mind to sustain a quiet exterior. The +wind was laden with a penetrating moisture that chilled him as the dry +icy breezes from Huron never had done, and the pain in his lungs made +him faint and dizzy. He wondered if his red-cheeked little sister could +live in one of those vast, impregnable buildings. He thought of stopping +some of those serious-looking men and asking them if they knew her; +but he could not muster up the courage. The distressing experience that +comes to almost every one some time in life, of losing all identity in +the universal humanity, was becoming his. The tears began to roll down +his wasted face from loneliness and exhaustion. He grew hungry with +longing for the dirty but familiar cabins of the camp, and staggered +along with eyes half closed, conjuring visions of the warm interiors, +the leaping fires, the groups of laughing men seen dimly through clouds +of tobacco-smoke. + +A delicious scent of coffee met his hungry sense and made him really +think he was taking the savory black draught from his familiar tin cup; +but the muddy streets, the blinding lights, the cruel, rushing people, +were still there. The buildings, however, now became different. They +were lower and meaner, with dirty windows. Women laughing loudly crowded +about the doors, and the establishments seemed to be equally divided +between saloon-keepers, pawnbrokers, and dealers in second-hand clothes. +Luther wondered where they all drew their support from. Upon one +signboard he read, “Lodgings 10 cents to 50 cents. A Square Meal for 15 +cents,” and, thankful for some haven, entered. Here he spent his first +night and other nights, while his purse dwindled and his strength waned. +At last he got a man in a drug-store to search the directory for +his sister's residence. They found a name he took to be his +brother-in-law's. It was two days later when he found the address,--a +great, many-storied mansion on one of the southern boulevards,--and found +also that his search had been in vain. Sore and faint, he staggered back +to his miserable shelter, only to arise feverish and ill in the morning. +He frequented the great shop doors, thronged with brilliantly-dressed +ladies, and watched to see if his little sister might not dash up in +one of those satin-lined coaches and take him where he would be warm and +safe and would sleep undisturbed by drunken, ribald songs and loathsome +surroundings. There were days when he almost forgot his name, and, +striving to remember, would lose his senses for a moment and drift back +to the harmonious solitudes of the North and breathe the resin-scented +frosty atmosphere. He grew terrified at the blood he coughed from his +lacerated lungs, and wondered bitterly why the boys did not come to take +him home. + +One day, as he painfully dragged himself down a residence street, he +tried to collect his thoughts and form some plan for the future. He had +no trade, understood no handiwork; he could fell trees. He looked at +the gaunt, scrawny, transplanted specimens that met his eye, and gave +himself up to the homesickness that filled his soul. He slept that night +in the shelter of a stable, and spent his last money in the morning for +a biscuit. + +He travelled many miles that afternoon looking for something to which he +might turn his hand. Once he got permission to carry a hod for half an +hour. At the end of that time he fainted. When he recovered, the foreman +paid him twenty-five cents. “For God's sake, man, go home,” he said. +Luther stared at him with a white face and went on. + +There came days when he so forgot his native dignity as to beg. +He seldom received anything; he was referred to various charitable +institutions the existence of which he had never heard. + +One morning, when a pall of smoke enveloped the city and the odors of +coal-gas refused to lift their nauseating poison through the heavy air, +Luther, chilled with dew and famished, awoke to a happier life. The +loneliness at his heart was gone. The feeling of hopeless imprisonment +that the miles and miles of streets had terrified him with gave place +to one of freedom and exaltation. Above him he heard the rasping of +pine boughs; his feet trod on a rebounding mat of decay; the sky was as +coldly blue as the bosom of Huron. He walked as if on ether, singing a +senseless jargon the woodmen had aroused the echoes with,-- + + “Hi yi halloo! + The owl sees you! + Look what you do! + Hi yi halloo!” + +Swung over his shoulder was a stick he had used to assist his limping +gait, but now transformed into the beloved axe. He would reach the +clearing soon, he thought, and strode on like a giant, while people +hurried from his path. Suddenly a smooth trunk, stripped of its bark and +bleached by weather, arose before him. + +“Hi yi halloo!” High went the wasted arm--crash!--a broken staff, a +jingle of wires, a maddened, shouting man the centre of a group of +amused spectators! A few moments later, four broad-shouldered men in +blue had him in their grasp, pinioned and guarded, clattering over the +noisy streets behind two spirited horses. They drew after them a troop +of noisy, jeering boys, who danced about the wagon like a swirl of +autumn leaves. Then came a halt, and Luther was dragged up the steps of +a square brick building with a belfry on the top. They entered a large +bare room with benches ranged about the walls, and brought him before a +man at a desk. + +“What is your name?” asked the man at the desk. + +“Hi yi halloo!” said Luther. + +“He's drunk, sergeant,” said one of the men in blue, and the axe-man was +led into the basement. He was conscious of an involuntary resistance, a +short struggle, and a final shock of pain,--then oblivion. + +The chopper awoke to the realization of three stone walls and an iron +grating in front. Through this he looked out upon a stone flooring +across which was a row of similar apartments. He neither knew nor cared +where he was. The feeling of imprisonment was no greater than he had +felt on the endless, cheerless streets. He laid himself on the bench +that ran along a side wall, and, closing his eyes, listened to the +babble of the clear stream and the thunder of the “drive” on its +journey. How the logs hurried and jostled! crushing, whirling, ducking, +with the merry lads leaping about them with shouts and laughter. +Suddenly he was recalled by a voice. Some one handed a narrow tin cup +full of coffee and a thick slice of bread through the grating. Across +the way he dimly saw a man eating a similar slice of bread. Men in other +compartments were swearing and singing. He knew these now for the voices +he had heard in his dreams. He tried to force some of the bread down his +parched and swollen throat, but failed; the coffee strangled him, and he +threw himself upon the bench. + +The forest again, the night-wind, the whistle of the axe through the +air. Once when he opened his eyes he found it dark. It would soon be +time to go to work. He fancied there would be hoar-frost on the trees +in the morning. How close the cabin seemed! Ha!--here came his little +sister. Her voice sounded like the wind on a spring morning. How loud it +swelled now! “Lu! Lu!” she cried. + +The next morning the lock-up keeper opened the cell door. Luther lay +with his head in a pool of blood. His soul had escaped from the thrall +of the forest. + +“Well, well!” said the little fat police-justice, when he was told of it. +“We ought to have a doctor around to look after such cases.” + + + + +A Lady of Yesterday + +“A LIGHT wind blew from the gates of the sun,” the morning she first +walked down the street of the little Iowa town. Not a cloud flecked the +blue; there was a humming of happy insects; a smell of rich and moist +loam perfumed the air, and in the dusk of beeches and of oaks stood the +quiet homes. She paused now and then, looking in the gardens, or at a +group of children, then passed on, smiling in content. + +Her accent was so strange, that the agent for real estate, whom she +visited, asked her, twice and once again, what it was she said. + +“I want,” she had repeated smilingly, “an upland meadow, where clover +will grow, and mignonette.” + +At the tea-tables that night, there was a mighty chattering. The brisk +village made a mystery of this lady with the slow step, the foreign +trick of speech, the long black gown, and the gentle voice. The men, +concealing their curiosity in presence of the women, gratified it +secretly, by sauntering to the tavern in the evening. There the keeper +and his wife stood ready to convey any neighborly intelligence. + +“Elizabeth Astrado” was written in the register,--a name conveying +little, unaccompanied by title or by place of residence. + +“She eats alone,” the tavern-keeper's wife confided to their eager +ears, “and asks for no service. Oh, she's a curiosity! She's got her +story,--you'll see!” + +In a town where every man knew every other man, and whether or not he +paid his taxes on time, and what his standing was in church, and all the +skeletons of his home, a stranger alien to their ways disturbed their +peace of mind. + +“An upland meadow where clover and mignonette will grow,” she had said, +and such an one she found, and planted thick with fine white clover +and with mignonette. Then, while the carpenters raised her cabin at the +border of the meadow, near the street, she passed among the villagers, +mingling with them gently, winning their good-will, in spite of +themselves. + +The cabin was of unbarked maple logs, with four rooms and a rustic +portico. Then all the villagers stared in very truth. They, living +in their trim and ugly little homes, accounted houses of logs as the +misfortune of their pioneer parents. A shed for wood, a barn for the +Jersey cow, a rustic fence, tall, with a high swinging gate, completed +the domain. In the front room of the cabin was a fireplace of rude +brick. In the bedrooms, cots as bare and hard as a nun's, and in the +kitchen the domestic necessaries; that was all. The poorest house-holder +in the town would not have confessed to such scant furnishing. Yet the +richest man might well have hesitated before he sent to France for hives +and hives of bees, as she did, setting them up along the southern border +of her meadow. + +Later there came strong boxes, marked with many marks of foreign +transportation lines, and the neighbor-gossips, seeing them, imagined +wealth of curious furniture; but the man who carted them told his wife, +who told her friend, who told her friend, that every box to the last one +was placed in the dry cemented cellar, and left there in the dark. + +“An' a mighty ridic'lous expense a cellar like that is, t' put under a +house of that char'cter,” said the man to his wife--who repeated it to +her friend. + +“But that ain't all,” the carpenter's wife had said when she heard about +it all, “Hank says there is one little room, not fit for buttery nor +yet fur closit, with a window high up--well, you ken see yourself-an' a +strong door. Jus' in passin' th' other day, when he was there, hangin' +some shelves, he tried it, an' it was locked!” + +“Well!” said the women who listened. + +However, they were not unfriendly, these brisk gossips. Two of them, +plucking up tardy courage, did call one afternoon. Their hostess was out +among her bees, crooning to them, as it seemed, while they lighted all +about her, lit on the flower in her dark hair, buzzed vivaciously about +her snow-white linen gown, lighted on her long, dark hands. She came +in brightly when she saw her guests, and placed chairs for them, +courteously, steeped them a cup of pale and fragrant tea, and served +them with little cakes. Though her manner was so quiet and so kind, the +women were shy before her. She, turning to one and then the other, asked +questions in her quaint way. + +“You have children, have you not?” + +Both of them had. + +“Ah,” she cried, clasping those slender hands, “but you are very +fortunate! Your little ones,--what are their ages?” + +They told her, she listening smilingly. + +“And you nurse your little babes--you nurse them at the breast?” + +The modest women blushed. They were not used to speaking with such +freedom. But they confessed they did, not liking artificial means. + +“No,” said the lady, looking at them with a soft light in her eyes, “as +you say, there is nothing like the good mother Nature. The little ones +God sends should lie at the breast. 'Tis not the milk alone that +they imbibe; it is the breath of life,-it is the human magnetism, the +power,-how shall I say? Happy the mother who has a little babe to hold!” + +They wanted to ask a question, but they dared not--wanted to ask a +hundred questions. But back of the gentleness was a hauteur, and they +were still. + +“Tell me,” she said, breaking her reverie, “of what your husbands do. +Are they carpenters? Do they build houses for men, like the blessed +Jesus? Or are they tillers of the soil? Do they bring fruits out of this +bountiful valley?” + +They answered, with a reservation of approval. “The blessed Jesus!” It +sounded like popery. + +She had gone from these brief personal matters to other things. + +“How very strong you people seem,” she had remarked. “Both your men +and your women are large and strong. You should be, being appointed to +subdue a continent. Men think they choose their destinies, but indeed, +good neighbors, I think not so. Men are driven by the winds of God's +will. They are as much bidden to build up this valley, this storehouse +for the nations, as coral insects are bidden to make the reefs with +their own little bodies, dying as they build. Is it not so?” + +“We are the creatures of God's will, I suppose,” said one of her +visitors, piously. + +She had given them little confidences in return. + +“I make my bread,” she said, with childish pride, “pray see if you +do not think it excellent!” And she cut a flaky loaf to display its +whiteness. One guest summoned the bravado to inquire,-- + +“Then you are not used to doing housework?” + +“I?” she said, with a slow smile, “I have never got used to +anything,--not even living.” And so she baffled them all, yet won them. + +The weeks went by. Elizabeth Astrado attended to her bees, milked her +cow, fed her fowls, baked, washed, and cleaned, like the simple women +about her, saving that as she did it a look of ineffable content lighted +up her face, and she sang for happiness. Sometimes, amid the ballads +that she hummed, a strain slipped in of some great melody, which +she, singing unaware, as it were, corrected, shaking her finger in +self-reproval, and returning again to the ballads and the hymns. Nor +was she remiss in neighborly offices; but if any were ailing, or had a +festivity, she was at hand to assist, condole, or congratulate, carrying +always some simple gift in her hand, appropriate to the occasion. + +She had her wider charities too, for all she kept close to her home. +When, one day, a story came to her of a laborer struck down with heat in +putting in a culvert on the railroad, and gossip said he could not +speak English, she hastened to him, caught dying words from his lips, +whispered a reply, and then what seemed to be a prayer, while he +held fast her hand, and sank to coma with wistful eyes upon her face. +Moreover 'twas she who buried him, raising a cross above his grave, and +she who planted rose-bushes about the mound. + +“He spoke like an Italian,” said the physician to her warily. + +“And so he was,” she had replied. + +“A fellow-countryman of yours, no doubt?” + +“Are not all men our countrymen, my friend?” she said, gently. “What are +little lines drawn in the imagination of men, dividing territory, that +they should divide our sympathies? The world is my country--and yours, +I hope. Is it not so?” + +Then there had also been a hapless pair of lovers, shamed before their +community, who, desperate, impoverished, and bewildered at the war +between nature and society, had been helped by her into a new part of +the world. There had been a widow with many children, who had found +baskets of cooked food and bundles of well-made clothing on her step. +And as the days passed, with these pleasant offices, the face of the +strange woman glowed with an ever-increasing content, and her dark, +delicate beauty grew. + +John Hartington spent his vacation at Des Moines, having a laudable +desire to see something of the world before returning to his native +town, with his college honors fresh upon him. Swiftest of the college +runners was John Hartington, famed for his leaping too, and measuring +widest at the chest and waist of all the hearty fellows at the +university. His blond curls clustered above a brow almost as innocent +as a child's; his frank and brave blue eyes, his free step, his mellow +laugh, bespoke the perfect animal, unharmed by civilization, unperplexed +by the closing century's fallacies and passions. The wholesome oak that +spreads its roots deep in the generous soil, could not be more a part +of nature than he. Conscientious, unimaginative, direct, sincere, +industrious, he was the ideal man of his kind, and his return to town +caused a flutter among the maidens which they did not even attempt to +conceal. They told him all the chat, of course, and, among other things, +mentioned the great sensation of the year,--the coming of the woman +with her mystery, the purchase of the sunny upland, the planting it +with clover and with mignonette, the building of the house of logs, +the keeping of the bees, the barren rooms, the busy, silent life, the +charities, the never-ending wonder of it all. And then the woman--kind, +yet different from the rest, with the foreign trick of tongue, the slow, +proud walk, the delicate, slight hands, the beautiful, beautiful smile, +the air as of a creature from another world. + +Hartington, strolling beyond the village streets, up where the sunset +died in daffodil above the upland, saw the little cot of logs, and out +before it, among blood-red poppies, the woman of whom he had heard. Her +gown of white gleamed in that eerie radiance, glorified, her sad great +eyes bent on him in magnetic scrutiny. A peace and plenitude of power +came radiating from her, and reached him where he stood, suddenly, and +for the first time in his careless life, struck dumb and awed. She, too, +seemed suddenly abashed at this great bulk of youthful manhood, innocent +and strong. She gazed on him, and he on her, both chained with +some mysterious enchantment. Yet neither spoke, and he, turning in +bewilderment at last, went back to town, while she placed one hand on +her lips to keep from calling him. And neither slept that night, and in +the morning when she went with milking pail and stool out to the grassy +field, there he stood at the bars, waiting. Again they gazed, like +creatures held in thrall by some magician, till she held out her hand +and said,-- + +“We must be friends, although we have not met. Perhaps we ARE old +friends. They say there have been worlds before this one. I have not +seen you in these habiliments of flesh and blood, and yet--we may be +friends?” + +John Hartington, used to the thin jests of the village girls, and all +their simple talk, rose, nevertheless, enlightened as he was with some +strange sympathy with her, to understand and answer what she said. + +“I think perhaps it may be so. May I come in beside you in the field? +Give me the pail. I'll milk the cow for you.” + +She threw her head back and laughed like a girl from school, and he +laughed too, and they shook hands. Then she sat near him while he +milked, both keeping silence, save for the p-rring noise he made with +his lips to the patient beast. Being through, she served him with a +cupful of the fragrant milk; but he bade her drink first, then drank +himself, and then they laughed again, as if they both had found +something new and good in life. + +Then she,-- + +“Come see how well my bees are doing.” And they went. She served him +with the lucent syrup of the bees, perfumed with the mignonette,--such +honey as there never was before. He sat on the broad doorstep, near +the scarlet poppies, she on the grass, and then they talked--was it one +golden hour--or two? Ah, well, 'twas long enough for her to learn all of +his simple life, long enough for her to know that he was victor at the +races at the school, that he could play the pipe, like any shepherd of +the ancient days, and when he went he asked her if he might return. + +“Well,” laughed she, “sometimes I am lonely. Come see me--in a week.” + +Yet he was there that day at twilight, and he brought his silver pipe, +and piped to her under the stars, and she sung ballads to him,--songs +of Strephon and times when the hills were young, and flocks were fairer +than they ever be these days. + +“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,” and still the intercourse, +still her dark loveliness waxing, still the weaving of the mystic spell, +still happiness as primitive and as sweet as ever Eden knew. + +Then came a twilight when the sweet rain fell, and on the heavy air the +perfumes of the fields floated. The woman stood by the window of the +cot, looking out. Tall, graceful, full of that subtle power which drew +his soul; clothed in white linen, fragrant from her fields, with breath +freighted with fresh milk, with eyes of flame, she was there to be +adored. And he, being man of manliest type, forgot all that might have +checked the words, and poured his soul out at her feet. She drew herself +up like a queen, but only that she might look queenlier for his sake, +and, bending, kissed his brow, and whispered back his vows. + +And they were married. + +The villagers pitied Hartington. + +“She's more than a match for him in years--an' in some other ways, as +like as not,” they said. “Besides, she ain't much inclined to mention +anything about her past. 'Twon't bear the tellin' probably.” + +As for the lovers, they laughed as they went about their honest tasks, +or sat together arms encircling each at evening, now under the stars, +and now before their fire of wood. They talked together of their farm, +added a field for winter wheat, bought other cattle, and some horses, +which they rode out over the rolling prairies side by side. He never +stopped to chat about the town; she never ventured on the street without +him by her side. Truth to tell, their neighbors envied them, marvelling +how one could extract a heaven out of earth, and what such perfect joy +could mean. + +Yet, for all their prosperity, not one addition did they make to that +most simple home. It stood there, with its bare necessities, made +beautiful only with their love. But when the winter was most gone, he +made a little cradle of hard wood, in which she placed pillows of down, +and over which she hung linen curtains embroidered by her hand. + +In the long evenings, by the flicker of the fire, they sat together, +cheek to cheek, and looked at this little bed, singing low songs +together. + +“This happiness is terrible, my John,” she said to him one night,--a +wondrous night, when the eastern wind had flung the tassels out on all +the budding trees of spring, and the air was throbbing with awakening +life, and balmy puffs of breeze, and odors of the earth. “And we are +growing young. Do you not think that we are very young and strong?” + +He kissed her on the lips. “I know that you are beautiful,” he said. + +“Oh, we have lived at Nature's heart, you see, my love. The cattle and +the fowls, the honey and the wheat, the cot-the cradle, John, and you +and me! These things make happiness. They are nature. But then, you +cannot understand. You have never known the artificial--” + +“And you, Elizabeth?” + +“John, if you wish, you shall hear all I have to tell. 'Tis a long, +long, weary tale. Will you hear it now? Believe me, it will make us +sad.” + +She grasped his arm till he shrank with pain. + +“Tell what you will and when you will, Elizabeth. Perhaps, some +day--when--” he pointed to the little crib. + +“As you say.” And so it dropped. + +There came a day when Hartington, sitting upon the portico, where +perfumes of the budding clover came to him, hated the humming of the +happy bees, hated the rustling of the trees, hated the sight of earth. + +“The child is dead,” the nurse had said, “as for your wife, perhaps--” + but that was all. Finally he heard the nurse's step upon the floor. + +“Come,” she said, motioning him. And he had gone, laid cheek against +that dying cheek, whispered his love once more, saw it returned even +then, in those deep eyes, and laid her back upon her pillow, dead. + +He buried her among the mignonette, levelled the earth, sowed thick the +seed again. + +“'Tis as she wished,” he said. + +With his strong hands he wrenched the little crib, laid it piece by +piece upon their hearth, and scattered then the sacred ashes on the +wind. Then, with hard-coming breath, broke open the locked door of that +room which he had never entered, thinking to find there, perhaps, some +sign of that unguessable life of hers, but found there only an altar, +with votive lamps before the Blessed Virgin, and lilies faded and fallen +from their stems. + +Then down into the cellar went he, to those boxes, with the foreign +marks. And then, indeed, he found a hint of that dead life. Gowns of +velvet and of silk, such as princesses might wear, wonders of lace, +yellowed with time, great cloaks of snowy fur, lustrous robes, jewels +of worth,--a vast array of brilliant trumpery. Then there were books in +many tongues, with rich old bindings and illuminated page, and in them +written the dead woman's name,--a name of many parts, with titles of +impress, and in the midst of all the name, “Elizabeth Astrado,” as she +said. + +And that was all, or if there were more he might have learned, following +trails that fell within his way, he never learned it, being content, and +thankful that he had held her for a time within his arms, and looked +in her great soul, which, wearying of life's sad complexities, had +simplified itself, and made his love its best adornment. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Mountain Woman and Others, by +(AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. 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