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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/33959-8.txt b/33959-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..86bb716 --- /dev/null +++ b/33959-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9567 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Reclaimers, by Margaret Hill McCarter + +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: The Reclaimers + +Author: Margaret Hill McCarter + +Release Date: September 30, 2010 [EBook #33959] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RECLAIMERS *** + + + + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Roger Frank, Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + THE RECLAIMERS + + BY MARGARET HILL McCARTER + + _Author of_ "VANGUARDS OF THE PLAINS" + + + HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS + NEW YORK AND LONDON + + The Reclaimers + + Copyright, 1918, by Harper & Brothers + + Printed in the United States of America + + Published October, 1918 + + + TO + MAY BELLEVILLE BROWN + CRITIC, COUNSELLOR, COMFORTER + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PART I + +JERRY + +I. THE HEIR APPARENT + +II. UNCLE CORNIE'S THROW + +III. HITCHING THE WAGON TO A STAR + +IV. BETWEEN EDENS + +V. NEW EDEN'S PROBLEM + +VI. PARADISE LOST + + +PART II + +JERRY AND JOE + +VII. UNHITCHING THE WAGON FROM A STAR + +VIII. IF A MAN WENT RIGHT WITH HIMSELF + +IX. IF A WOMAN WENT RIGHT WITH HERSELF + +X. THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER + +XI. AN INTERLUDE IN "EDEN" + +XII. THIS SIDE OF THE RUBICON + + +PART III + +JERRY AND EUGENE--AND JOE + +XIII. HOW A GOOD MOTHER LIVES ON + +XIV. JIM SWAIM'S WISH + +XV. DRAWING OUT LEVIATHAN WITH A HOOK + +XVI. A POSTLUDE IN "EDEN" + +XVII. THE FLESH-POTS OF THE WINNWOC + +XVIII. THE LORD HATH HIS WAY IN THE STORM + +XIX. RECLAIMED + + + + +THE RECLAIMERS + + + + +I + +JERRY + + + + +I + +THE HEIR APPARENT + + +Only the good little snakes were permitted to enter the "Eden" that +belonged to Aunt Jerry and Uncle Cornie Darby. "Eden," it should be +explained, was the country estate of Mrs. Jerusha Darby--a wealthy +Philadelphian--and her husband, Cornelius Darby, a relative by marriage, +so to speak, whose sole business on earth was to guard his wife's wealth +for six hours of the day in the city, and to practise discus-throwing +out at "Eden" for two hours every evening. + +Of course these two were never familiarly "Aunt" and "Uncle" to this +country neighborhood, nor to any other community. Far, oh, far from +that! They were Aunt and Uncle only to Jerry Swaim, the orphaned and +only child of Mrs. Darby's brother Jim, whose charming girlish presence +made the whole community, wherever she might chance to be. They were +cousin, however, to Eugene Wellington, a young artist of more than +ordinary merit, also orphaned and alone, except for a sort of cousinship +with Uncle Cornelius. + +"Eden" was a beautifully located and handsomely appointed estate of two +hundred acres, offering large facilities to any photographer seeking +magazine illustrations of country life in America. Indeed, the place +was, as Aunt Jerry Darby declared, "summer and winter, all shot up by +camera-toters and dabbed over with canvas-stretchers' paints," much to +the owner's disgust, to whom all camera-toters and artists, except +Cousin Eugene Wellington, were useless idlers. The rustic little railway +station, hidden by maple-trees, was only three or four good +discus-throws from the house. But the railroad itself very properly +dropped from view into a wooded valley on either side of the station. +There was nothing of cindery ugliness to mar the spot where the dwellers +in "Eden" could take the early morning train for the city, or drop off +in the cool of the afternoon into a delightful pastoral retreat. Beyond +the lawns and buildings, gardens and orchards, the land billowed away +into meadow and pasture and grain-field, with an insert of leafy grove +where song-birds builded an Eden all their own. The entire freehold of +Aunt Jerry Darby and Uncle Cornie, set down in the middle of a Western +ranch, would have been a day's journey from its borders. And yet in it +country life was done into poetry, combining city luxuries and +conveniences with the dehorned, dethorned comfort and freedom of idyllic +nature. What more need be said for this "Eden" into which only the good +little snakes were permitted to enter? + +In the late afternoon Aunt Jerry sat in the rose-arbor with her Japanese +work-basket beside her, and a pearl tatting-shuttle between her thumb +and fingers. One could read in a thoughtful glance all there was to know +of Mrs. Darby. Her alert air and busy hands bespoke the habit of +everlasting industry fastened down upon her, no doubt, in a far-off +childhood. She was luxurious in her tastes. The satin gown, the diamond +fastening the little cap to her gray hair, the elegant lace at her +throat and wrists, the flashing jewels on her thin fingers, all +proclaimed a desire for display and the means wherewith to pamper it. +The rest of her story was written on her wrinkled face, where the strong +traits of a self-willed youth were deeply graven. Something in the +narrow, restless eyes suggested the discontented lover of wealth. The +lines of the mouth hinted at selfishness and prejudice. The square chin +told of a stubborn will, and the stern cast of features indicated no +sense of humor whereby the hardest face is softened. That Jerusha Darby +was rich, intolerant, determined, unimaginative, self-centered, +unforgiving, and unhappy the student of character might gather at a +glance. Where these traits abide a second glance is unnecessary. + +Outside, the arbor was aglow with early June roses; within, the +cushioned willow seats invite to restful enjoyment. But Jerusha Darby +was not there for pleasure. While her pearl shuttle darted in and out +among her fingers like a tiny, iridescent bird, her mind and tongue were +busy with important matters. + +Opposite to her was her husband, Cornelius. It was only important +matters that called him away from his business in the city at so early +an hour in the afternoon. And it was only on business matters that he +and his wife ever really conferred, either in the rose-arbor or +elsewhere. The appealing beauty of the place indirectly meant nothing to +these two owners of all this beauty. + +The most to be said of Cornelius Darby was that he was born the son of a +rich man and he died the husband of a rich woman. His life, like his +face, was colorless. He fitted into the landscape and his presence was +never detected. He had no opinions of his own. His father had given him +all that he needed to think about until he was married. "Was married" is +well said. He never courted nor married anybody. He was never courted, +but he was married by Jerusha Swaim. But that is all dried stuff now. +Let it be said, however, that not all the mummies are in Egyptian tombs +and Smithsonian Institutions. Some of them sit in banking-houses all day +long, and go discus-throwing in lovely "Edens" on soft June evenings. +And one of them once, just once, broke the ancient linen wrappings from +his glazed jaws and spoke. For half an hour his voice was heard; and +then the bandages slipped back, and the mummy was all mummy again. It +was Jerry Swaim who wrought that miracle. But then there is little in +the earth, or the waters under the earth, that a pretty girl cannot work +upon. + +"You say you have the report on the Swaim estate that the Macpherson +Mortgage Company of New Eden, Kansas, is taking care of for us?" Mrs. +Darby asked. + +"The complete report. York Macpherson hasn't left out a detail. Shall I +read you his description?" her husband replied. + +"No, no; don't tell me a thing about it, not a thing. I don't want to +know any more about Kansas than I know already. I hate the very name of +Kansas. You can understand why, when you remember my brother. I've known +York Macpherson all his life, him and his sister Laura, too. And I never +could understand why he went so far West, nor why he dragged that lame +sister of his out with him to that Sage Brush country." + +"That's because you won't let me tell you anything about the West. But +as a matter of business you ought to understand the conditions +connected with this estate." + +"I tell you again I won't listen to it, not one word. He is employed to +look after the property, not to write about it. None of my family ever +expects to see it. When we get ready to study its value we will give due +notice. Now let the matter of description, location, big puffing up of +its value--I know all that Kansas talk--let all that drop here." Jerusha +Darby unconsciously stamped her foot on the cement floor of the arbor +and struck her thin palm flat upon the broad arm of her chair. + +"Very well, Jerusha. If Jerry ever wants to know anything about its +extent, agricultural value, water-supply, crop returns, etc., she will +find them on file in my office. The document says that the land in the +Sage Brush Valley in Kansas is now, with title clear, the property of +the estate of the late Jeremiah Swaim and his heirs and assigns forever; +that York Macpherson will, for a very small consideration, be the Kansas +representative of the Swaim heirs. That is all I have to say about it." + +"Then listen to me," Mrs. Darby commanded. And her listener--listened. +"Jerry Swaim is Brother Jim and Sister Lesa's only child. She's been +brought up in luxury; never wanted a thing she didn't get, and never +earned a penny in her life. She couldn't do it to save her life. If I +outlive you she will be my heir if I choose to make my will in her +favor. She can be taken care of without that Kansas property of hers. +That's enough about the matter. We will drop it right here for other +things. There's your cousin Eugene Wellington coming home again. He's a +real artist and hasn't any property at all." + +A ghost of a smile flitted across Mr. Darby's blank face, but Mrs. Darby +never saw ghosts. + +"Of course Jerry and Gene, who have been playmates in the same game all +their lives, will--will--" Mrs. Darby hesitated. + +"Will keep on playing the same game," Cornelius suggested. "If that's +all about this business, I'll go and look after the lily-ponds over +yonder, and then take a little exercise before dinner. I'm sorry I +missed Jerry in the city. She doesn't know I am out here." + +"What difference if you did? She and Eugene will be coming out on the +train pretty soon," Mrs. Darby declared. + +"She doesn't know he's there, maybe. They may miss each other," her +husband replied. + +Then he left the arbor and effaced himself, as was his custom, from his +wife's presence, and busied himself with matters concerning the +lily-ponds on the far side of the grounds where pink lotuses were +blooming. + +Meantime Jerusha Darby's fingers fairly writhed about her tatting-work, +as she waited impatiently for the sound of the afternoon train from the +city. + +"It's time the four-forty was whistling round the curve," she murmured. +"My girl will soon be here, unless the train is delayed by that bridge +down yonder. Plague on these June rains!" + +Mrs. Darby said "my girl" exactly as she would have said "my bank +stock," or "my farm." Hers was the tone of complete possession. + +"She could have come out in the auto in half the time, the four-forty +creeps so, but the roads are dreadfully skiddy after these abominable +rains," Mrs. Darby continued. + +The habit of speaking her thoughts aloud had grown on her, as it often +does on those advanced in years who live much alone. The little vista of +rain-washed meadows and growing grain that lay between tall lilac-trees +was lost to her eyes in the impatience of the moment's delay. What +Jerusha Darby wanted for Jerusha Darby was vastly more important to her +at any moment than the abstract value of a general good or a common +charm. + +As she leaned forward, listening intently for the rumble of the train +down in the valley, a great automobile swung through the open gateway of +"Eden" and rounded the curves of the maple-guarded avenue, bearing down +with a birdlike sweep upon the rose-arbor. + +"Here I am, Aunt Jerry," the driver's girlish voice called. "Uncle +Cornie is coming out on the train. I beat him to it. I saw the old +engine huffing and puffing at the hill beyond the third crossing of the +Winnowoc. It is bank-full now from the rains. I stopped on that high +fill and watched the train down below me creeping out on the trestle +above the creek. When it got across and went crawling into the cut on +this side I came on, too. I had my hands full then making this big gun +of a car climb that muddy, slippery hill that the railroad cuts through. +But I'd rather climb than creep any old day." + +"Jerry Swaim," Mrs. Darby cried, staring up at her niece in amazement, +"do you mean to say you drove out alone over that sideling, slippery +bluff road? But you wouldn't be Lesa Swaim's daughter if you weren't +taking chances. You are your mother's own child, if there ever was one." + +"Well, I should hope I am, since I've got to be classified somewhere. I +came because I wanted to," Jerry declared, with the finality of complete +excuse in her tone. All her life what Jerry Swaim had wanted was +abundant reason for her having. "It was dreadfully hot and sticky in the +city, and I knew it would be the bottom deep of mugginess on that +crowded Winnowoc train. The last time I came out here on it I had to sit +beside a dreadful big Dutchman who had an old hen and chickens in a +basket under his feet. He had had Limburger cheese for his dinner and +had used his whiskers for a napkin to catch the crumbs. Ugh!" Jerry gave +a shiver of disgust at the recollection. "An old lady behind us had +'_sky_-atick rheumatiz' and wouldn't let the windows be opened. I'd +rather have any kind of 'rheumatiz' than Limburger for the same length +of time. The Winnowoc special ought to carry a parlor coach from the +city and set it off at 'Eden' like it used to do. The agent let me play +in it whenever I wanted to when I was a youngster. I'm never going to +ride on any train again unless I go in a Pullman." + +The girl struck her small gloved fist, like a spoiled child, against the +steering-wheel of her luxuriously appointed car, but her winsome smile +was all-redeeming as she looked down at her aunt standing in the doorway +of the rose-arbor. + +"Come in here, Geraldine Swaim. I want to talk to you." Mrs. Darby's +affectionate tones carried also a note of command. + +"Means business when she 'Geraldine Swaims' me," Jerry commented, +mentally, as she gave the car to the "Eden" man-of-all-work and followed +her aunt to a seat inside the blossom-covered retreat, where the pearl +shuttle began to grow tatting again beneath the thin, busy fingers. + +It always pleased Jerusha Darby to be told that there was a resemblance +between these two. But, although the older woman's countenance was an +open book holding the story of inherited ideas, limited and intensified, +and the young face unmistakably perpetuated the family likeness, yet +Jerry Swaim was a type of her own, not easy to forejudge. In the shadows +of the rose-arbor her hair rippled back from her forehead in dull-gold +waves. One could picture what the sunshine would do for it. Her big, +dark-blue eyes were sometimes dreamy under their long lashes, and +sometimes full of sparkling light. Her whole atmosphere was that of +easeful, dependent, city life; yet there was something contrastingly +definite in her low voice, her firm mouth and square-cut chin. And +beyond appearances and manner, there was something which nobody ever +quite defined, that made it her way to walk straight into the hearts of +those who knew her. + +"Where were you in the city to-day?" Mrs. Darby asked, abruptly, looking +keenly at the fair-faced girl much as she would have looked at any other +of her goodly possessions. + +"Let me see," Jerry Swaim began, meditatively. "I was shopping quite a +while. The stores are gorgeous this June." + +"Yes, and what else?" queried the older woman. + +"Oh, some more shopping. Then I lunched at _La Seņorita_, that beautiful +new tea-house. Every room represents some nationality in its decoration. +I was in the Delft room--Holland Dutch--whiskers and Limburger"--there +was a gleam of fun in the dark-blue eyes--"but it is restful and +charming. And the service is perfect. Then I strolled off to the Art +Gallery and lost myself in the latest exhibit. Cousin Gene would like +that, I'm sure. It was so cool and quiet there that I stayed a long +time. The exhibit is mostly of landscapes, all of them as beautiful as +'Eden' except one." + +There was just a shade of something different in the girl's tone when +she spoke her cousin's name. + +"And that one?" Mrs. Darby inquired. She did not object to shopping and +more shopping, but art was getting outside of her dominion. + +"It was a desert-like scene; just yellow-gray plains, with no trees at +all. And in the farther distance the richest purples and reds of a +sunset sky into which the land sort of diffused. No landscape on this +earth was ever so yellow-gray, or any sunset ever so like the Book of +Revelation, nor any horizon-line so wide and far away. It was the +hyperbole of a freakish imagination. And yet, Aunt Jerry, there was a +romantic lure in the thing, somehow." + +Jerry Swaim's face was grave as she gazed with wide, unseeing eyes at +the vista of fresh June meadows from which the odor of red clover, +pulsing in on the cool west breeze of the late afternoon, mingled with +the odor of white honeysuckle that twined among the climbing rose-vines +above her. + +"Humph! What else?" Aunt Jerry sniffed a disapproval of unpleasant +landscapes in general and alluring romances in particular. Love of +romance was not in her mental make-up, any more than love of art. + +"I went over to Uncle Cornie's bank to tell him to take care of my +shopping-bills. He wasn't in just then and I didn't wait for him. By +the way"--Jerry Swaim was not dreamy now--"since all the legal +litigations and things are over, oughtn't I begin to manage my own +affairs and live on my own income?" + +Sitting there in the shelter of blossoming vines, the girl seemed far +too dainty a creature, too lacking in experience, initiative, or +ability, to manage anything more trying than a big allowance of +pin-money. And yet, something in her small, firm hands, something in the +lines of her well-formed chin, put the doubt into any forecast of what +Geraldine Swaim might do when she chose to act. + +Aunt Jerry wrapped the lacy tatting stuff she had been making around the +pearl shuttle and, putting both away in the Japanese work-basket, +carefully snapped down the lid. + +"When Jerusha Darby quits work to talk it's time for me to put on my +skid-chains," Jerry said to herself as she watched the procedure. + +"Jerry, do you know why I called you your mother's own child just now?" +Mrs. Darby asked, gravely. + +"From habit, maybe, you have said it so often." Jerry's smile took away +any suggestion of pertness. "I know I am like her in some ways." + +"Yes, but not altogether," the older woman continued. "Lesa Swaim was a +strange combination. She was made to spend money, with no idea of how to +get money. And she brought you up the same way. And now you are grown, +boarding-school finished, and of age, you can't alter your bringing up +any more than you can change your big eyes that are just like Lesa's, +nor your chin that you inherited from Brother Jim. I might as well try +to give you little black eyes and a receding chin as to try to reshape +your ways now. You are as the Lord made you, and Providence molded you, +and your mother spoiled you." + +"Well, I don't want to be anything different. I'm happy as I am." + +"You won't need to be, unless you choose. But being twenty-one doesn't +make you too old to listen to me--and your uncle Cornie." + +In all her life Jerry had never before heard her uncle's name brought in +as co-partner of Jerusha Darby's in any opinion, authority, or advice. +It was an unfortunate slip of the tongue for Uncle Cornie's wife, one of +those simple phrases that, dropped at the right spot, take root and grow +and bear big fruit, whether of sweet or bitter taste. + +"Your mother was a dreamer, a lover of romance, and all sorts of +adventures, although she never had a chance to get into any of them. +That's why you went skidding on that sideling bluff road to-day; that +and the fact that she brought you up to have your own way about +everything. But, as I say, we can't change that now, and there's no need +to if we could. Lesa was a pretty woman, but you look like the Swaims, +except right across here." + +Aunt Jerry drew her bony finger across the girl's brows, unwilling to +concede any of the family likeness that could possibly be retained. She +could not see the gleam of mischief lurking under the downcast eyelashes +of Lesa Swaim's own child. + +"Your father was a good business man, level-headed, shrewd, and +honest"--Mrs. Darby spoke rapidly now--"but things happened in the last +years of his life. Your mother took pneumonia and died, and you went +away to boarding-school. Jim's business was considerably involved. I +needn't bother to tell you about that. It doesn't matter now, anyhow. +And then one night he didn't come home, and the next morning your uncle +found him sitting in his office, just as he had left him the evening +before. He had been dead several hours. Heart failure was what the +doctor said, but I reckon everybody goes of heart failure sooner or +later." + +A bright, hard glow came into Jerry Swaim's eyes and the red lips were +grimly pressed together. In the two years since the loss of her parents +the girl had never tried to pray. As time went on the light spirit of +youth had come back, but something went out of her life on the day of +her father's death, leaving a loss against which she stubbornly +rebelled. + +"To be plain, Jerry," Mrs. Darby hurried on, "you have your inheritance +all cleared up at last, after two whole years of legal trouble." + +"Oh, it hasn't really bothered me," Jerry declared, with seeming +flippancy. "Just signing my name where somebody pointed to a blank line, +and holding up my right hand to be sworn--that's all. I've written my +full name and promised that the writing was mine, 's'welp me Gawd,' as +the court-house man used to say, till I could do either one under the +influence of ether. Nothing really bothersome about it, but I'm glad +it's over. Business is so tiresome." + +"It's not so large a fortune, by a good deal, as it would have been if +your father had listened to me." Mrs. Darby spoke vaguely. "But you will +be amply provided for, anyhow, unless you yourself choose to trifle with +your best interest. You and I are the only Swaims living now. Some day, +if I choose, I can will all my property to you." + +The square-cut chin and the deep lines around the stern mouth told +plainly that obedience to this woman's wishes alone could make a +beneficiary to that will. + +"You may be a dreamer, and love to go romancing around into new scrapes +like your mother would have done if she could. But she was as +soft-hearted as could be, with all that. That's why she never denied you +anything you wanted. She couldn't do a thing with money, though, as I +said, except spend it. You are a good deal like your father, too, Jerry, +and you'll value property some day as the only thing on earth that can +make life anything but a hard grind. If you don't want to be like that +bunch of everlasting grubs that ride on the Winnowoc train every +afternoon, or the poor country folks around here that never ride in +anything but a rickety old farm-wagon, you'll appreciate what I--and +Uncle Cornie--can do for you." + +Uncle Cornie again, and he never had shared in any equal consideration +before. It was a mistake. + +"There's the four-forty whistling for the curve at last. It's time it +was coming. I must go in and see that dinner is just right. You run down +and meet it. Cousin Eugene is coming out on it. Your uncle Cornie is +here on the place somewhere. He came out after lunch on some business we +had to fix up. No wonder you missed him. But, Jerry"--the stern-faced +woman put a hand on the girl's shoulder with more of command than caress +in the gesture--"Eugene is a real artist with genius, you know." + +"Yes, I know," Jerry replied, a sudden change coming into her tone. +"What of that?" + +"You've always known him. You like him very much?" Jerusha Darby was as +awkward in sentiment as she was shrewd in a bargain. + +The bloom on the girl's cheek deepened as she looked away toward the +brilliantly green meadows across which the low sun was sending rays of +golden light. + +"Oh, I like him as much as he likes me, no doubt. I'll go down to the +station and look him over, if you say so." + +Beneath the words lay something deeper than speech--something new even +to the girl herself. + +As Jerry left the arbor Mrs. Darby said, with something half playful, +half final, in her tone: "You won't forget what I've said about +property, you little spendthrift. You will be sensible, like my sensible +brother's child, even if you are as idealizing as your sentimental +mother." + +"I'll not forget. I couldn't and be Jerry Darby's niece," the last added +after the girl was safely out of her aunt's hearing. "My father and +mother both had lots of good traits, it seems, and a few poor ones. I +seem to be really heir to all the faulty bents of theirs, and to have +lost out on all the good ones. But I can't help that now. Not till after +the train gets in, anyhow." + +Her aunt watched her till the shrubbery hid her at a turn in the walk. +Young, full of life, dainty as the June blossoms that showered her +pathway with petals, a spoiled, luxury-loving child, with an adventurous +spirit and a blunted and undeveloped notion of human service and divine +heritage, but with a latent capacity and an untrained power for doing +things, that was Jerry Swaim--whom the winds of heaven must not visit +too roughly without being accountable to Mrs. Jerusha Darby, owner and +manager of the universe for her niece. + + + + +II + +UNCLE CORNIE'S THROW + + +Jerry was waiting at the cool end of the rustic station when the train +came in. How hot and stuffy it seemed to her as it puffed out of the +valley, and how tired and cross all the bunch of grubs who stared out of +the window at her. It made them ten times more tired and cross and hot +to see that girl looking so cool and rested and exquisitely gowned and +crowned and shod. The blue linen with white embroidered cuffs, the +rippling, glinting masses of hair, the small shoes, immaculately white +against the green sod--little wonder that, while the heir apparent to +the Darby wealth felt comfortably indifferent toward this uninteresting +line of nobodies in particular, the bunch of grubs should feel only envy +and resentment of their own sweaty, muscle-worn lot in life. + +Jerry and Eugene Wellington were far up the shrubbery walk by the time +the Winnowoc train was on its way again, unconscious that the passengers +were looking after them, or that the talk, as the train slowly got under +way, was all of "that rich old codger of a Darby and his selfish old +wife"; of "that young dude artist, old Wellington's kid, too lazy to +work"; of "that pretty, frivolous girl who didn't know how to comb her +own hair, Jim Swaim's girl--poor Jim!" "Old Corn Darby was looking +yellow and thin, too. He would dry up and blow away some day if his +money wasn't weighting him down so he couldn't." + +At the bend in the walk, the two young people saw Uncle Cornie crossing +the lawn. + +"Going to get his discus. He'll have no appetite for dinner unless he +gets in a few dozen slings," the young man declared. "Let's turn in here +at the sign of the roses, Jerry. I'm too lazy to take another step." + +"You should have come out with me in the car," Jerry replied as they sat +down in the cool arbor made for youth and June-time. "I didn't know you +were in the city." + +"Well, little cousin girl, I'll confess I didn't dare," the young man +declared, boldly. "I've been studying awfully hard this year, and, now +I'm needed to paint The Great American Canvas, I can't end my useful +career under a big touring-car at the bottom of an embankment out on the +Winnowoc bluff road. So when I saw you coming into Uncle Cornie's office +in the bank I slipped away." + +"And as to my own risk?" Jerry asked. + +"Oh, Jerry Swaim, you would never have an accident in a hundred years. +There's nobody like you, little cousin mine, nobody at all." + +Eugene Wellington put one well-formed hand lightly on the small white +hand lying on the wicker chair-arm, and, leaning forward, he looked down +into the face of the girl beside him. A handsome, well-set up, artistic +young fellow he was, fitted to adorn life's ornamental places. And if a +faint line of possible indecision of character might have suggested +itself to the keen-eyed reader of faces, other traits outweighed its +possibility. For his was a fine face, with a sort of gracious gentleness +in it that grows with the artist's growth. A hint of deeper +spirituality, too, that marks nobility of character, added to a winning +personality, put Eugene Wellington above the common class. He fitted the +rose-arbor, in "Eden" and the comradeship of good breeding. When a man +finds his element, all the rest of the world moves more smoothly +therefor. + +"Nobody like me," Jerry repeated. "It's a good thing I'm the only one of +the kind. You'd say so if you knew what Aunt Jerry thinks of me. She has +been analyzing me and filing me away in sections this afternoon." + +"What's on her mind now?" Eugene Wellington asked, as he leaned +easefully back in his chair. + +"She says I am heir--" Jerry always wondered what made her pause there. +Years afterward, when this June evening came back in memory, she could +not account for it. + +"Heir to what?" the young artist inquired, a faint, shadowy something +sweeping his countenance fleetly. + + "To all the sphere, + To the seven stars and the solar year; + +also to my father's entire estate that's left after some two years of +litigation. I hate litigations." + +"So do I, Jerry. Let's forget them. Isn't 'Eden' beautiful? I'm so glad +to be back here again." Eugene Wellington looked out at the idyllic +loveliness of the place which the rose-arbor was built especially to +command. "Nobody could sin here, for there are no serpents busy-bodying +around in such a dream of a landscape as this. I'm glad I'm an artist, +if I never become famous. There's such a joy in being able to see, even +if your brush fails miserably in trying to make others see." + +Again the man's shapely hand fell gently on the girl's hand, and this +time it stayed there. + +"You love it all as much as I do, don't you, Jerry?" The voice was deep +with emotion. "And you feel as I do, how this lifts one nearer to God. +Or is it because you are here with me that 'Eden' is so fair to-night? +May I tell you something, Jerry? Something I've waited for the summer +and 'Eden' to give me the hour and the place to say? We've always known +each other. We thought we did before, but a new knowing came to me the +day your father left us. Look up, little cousin. I want to say +something to you." + +June-time, and youth, and roses, and soft, sweet air, and nobody there +but blossoms, and whispering breezes, and these two. And they had known +each other always. Oh, always! But now--something was different now, +something that was grander, more beautiful in this place, in this day, +in each other, than had ever been before--the old, old miracle of a man +and a maid. + +Suddenly something whizzed through the air and a snakelike streak of +shadow cut the light of the doorway. Out in the open, Uncle Cornie came +slowly stepping off the space to where his discus lay beside the +rose-arbor--one of the good little snakes. Every Eden has them, and some +are much better than others. + +The discus-ground was out on a lovely stretch of shorn clover sod. Why +the discus should wander from the thrower's hand through the air toward +the rose-arbor no wind of heaven could tell. Nor could it tell why Uncle +Cornie should choose to follow it and stand in the doorway of the arbor +until the "Eden" dinner-hour called all three of the dwellers, Adam and +Eve and this good little snake, to the cool dining-room and what goes +with it. + +Twilight and moonlight were melting into one, and all the sweet odors +of dew-kissed blossoms, the good-night twitter of homing birds, the +mists rising above the Winnowoc Valley, the shadows of shrubbery on the +lawn, and the darkling outline of the tall maples made "Eden" as +beautiful now as in the full sunlight. + +Jerry Swaim sat in the doorway of the rose-arbor, watching Uncle Cornie +throwing his discus again along the smooth white clover sod. Aunt Jerry +had trailed off with Eugene to the far side of the spacious grounds to +see the lily-ponds where the pink lotuses were blooming. + +"Young folks mustn't be together too much. They'll get tired of each +other too quickly. I used to get bored to death having Cornelius forever +around." Aunt Jerry philosophized, considering herself as wise in the +affairs of the heart as she was shrewd in affairs of the pocketbook. She +would make Jerry and Gene want to be together before they had the chance +again. + +So Jerry Swaim sat alone, watching the lights and shadows on the lawn, +only half conscious of Uncle Cornie's presence out there, until he +suddenly followed his discus as it rolled toward the arbor and lay flat +at her feet. Instead of picking it up, he dropped down on the stone step +beside his niece and sat without speaking until Jerry forgot his +presence entirely. It was his custom to sit without speaking, and to be +forgotten. + +Jerry's mind was full of many things. Life had opened a new door to her +that afternoon, and something strange and sweet had suddenly come +through it. Life had always opened pleasant doors to her, save that one +through which her father and mother had slipped away--a door that closed +and shut her from them and God, whose Providence had robbed her so +cruelly of what was her own. But no door ever showed her as fair a vista +as the one now opening before her dreamy gaze. + +She glanced unseeingly at the old man sitting beside her. Then across +her memory Aunt Jerry's words came drifting, "Being twenty-one doesn't +make you too old to listen to me--and your uncle Cornie," and, "You'll +appreciate what I--and Uncle Cornie--can do for you." + +Uncle Cornie was looking at her with a face as expressionless as if he +were about to say, "The bank doesn't make loans on any such security," +yet something in his eyes drew her comfortably to him and she +mechanically put her shapely little hand on his thin yellow one. + +"I want to talk to you before anything happens, Jerry," he began, and +then paused, in a confused uncertainty that threatened to end his +wanting here. + +And Jerry, being a woman, divined in an instant that it was to talk to +her before anything happened that he had thrown that discus out of its +way when she and Gene had thought themselves alone in the arbor before +dinner. It was to talk to her that the thing had been rolled purposely +to her feet now. Queer Uncle Cornie! + +"I'm not too old to listen to you. I appreciate what you can do for me." +Jerry was quoting her aunt's admonitions exactly, which showed how +deeply they had unconsciously impressed themselves on her mind. Her +words broke the linen bands about Uncle Cornie's glazed jaws, and he +spoke. + +"Your estate is all settled now. What's left to you after that rascally +John--I mean after two years of pulling and hauling through the courts, +is a 'claim,' as they call it, in the Sage Brush Valley in Kansas. It +has never been managed well, somehow. There's not been a cent of income +from it since Jim Swaim got hold of it, but that's no fault of the man +who is looking after it--a York Macpherson. He's a gentleman you can +trust anywhere. That's all there is of your own from your father's +estate." + +Jerry Swaim's dark-blue eyes opened wide and her face was lily white +under the shadow of dull-gold hair above it. + +"You are dependent on your aunt for everything. Well, she's glad of +that. So am I, in a way. Only, if you go against her will you won't be +her heir any more. You mightn't be, anyhow, if she--went first. The +Darby estate isn't really Jerusha Swaim's; it's mine. But she thinks +it's hers and it's all right that way, because, in the end, I do control +it." Uncle Cornie paused. + +Jerry sat motionless, and, although it was June-time, the little white +hand on the speaker's thin yellow one was very cold. + +"If you are satisfied, I'm glad, but I won't let Jim Swaim's child think +she's got a fortune of her own when she hasn't got a cent and must +depend on the good-will of her relatives for everything she wants. Jim +would haunt me to my grave if I did." + +Jerry stared at her uncle's face in the darkening twilight. In all her +life she had never known him to seem to have any mind before except what +grooved in with Aunt Jerry's commanding mind. Yet, surprised as she was, +she involuntarily drew nearer to him as to one whom she could trust. + +"We agreed long ago, Jim and I did, when Jim was a rich man, that some +day you must be shown that you were his child as well as Lesa's--I mean +that you mustn't always be a dependent spender. You must get some Swaim +notions of living, too. Not that either of us ever criticized your +mother's sweet spirit and her ideal-building and love of adventure. +Romance belongs to some lives and keeps them young and sweet if they +live to be a million. I'm not down on it like your Aunt Jerry is." + +Romance had steered wide away from Cornelius Darby's colorless days. And +possibly only this once in the sweet stillness of the June twilight at +"Eden" did that hungering note ever sound in his voice, and then only +for a brief space. + +"Jim would have told you all this himself if he had got his affairs +untangled in time. And he'd have done that, for he had a big brain and a +big heart, but God went and took him. He did. Don't rebel always, Jerry. +God was good to him--you'll see it some day and quit your ugly +doubting." + +Who ever called anything ugly about Jerry Swaim before? That a creature +like Cornelius Darby should do it now was one of the strange, +unbelievable things of this world. + +"I just wanted to say again," Uncle Cornie continued, "if I go first +you'd be Jerusha's heir. We agreed to that long ago. That is, if you +don't cross her wishes and start her to make a will against you, as +she'd do if you didn't obey her to the last letter in the alphabet. If I +go after she does, the property all goes by law to distant relatives of +mine. That was fixed before I ever got hold of it--heirs of some +spendthrifts who would have wasted it long ago if they'd lived and had +it themselves." + +The sound of voices and Eugene Wellington's light laughter came faintly +from the lily-pond. + +"Eugene is a good fellow," Uncle Cornie said, meditatively. "He's got +real talent and he'll make a name for himself some day that will be +stronger, and do more good, and last longer than the man's name that's +just rated gilt-edged security on a note, and nowhere else. Gene will +make a decent living, too, independent of any aunts and uncles. But he's +no stronger-willed, nor smarter, nor better than you are, Jerry, even if +he is a bit more religious-minded, as you might say. You try awfully +hard to think you don't believe in anything because just once in your +life Providence didn't work your way. You can't fool with your own +opinions against God Almighty and not lose in the deal. You'll have to +learn that some time. All of us do, sooner or later." + +"But to take my father--all I had--after I had given up mother, I can't +see any justice nor any mercy in it," Jerry broke out. + +Uncle Cornie was no comforter with words. He had had no chance to +practise giving sympathy either before or after marriage. Mummies are +limited, whether they be in sealed sarcophagi or sit behind roller-top +desks and cut coupons. Something in his quiet presence, however, soothed +the girl's rebellious spirit more than words could have done. Cornelius +Darby did not know that he could come nearer to the true measurement of +Jerry's mind than any one else had ever done. People had pitied her when +her mother passed away and her father died a bankrupt--which last fact +she must not be told--but nobody understood her except Uncle Cornie, and +he had never said a word until now. He seemed to know now just how her +mind was running. The wisdom of the serpent--even the good little +snakes, of this "Eden"--is not to be misjudged. + +"Jerry"--the old man's voice had a strange gentleness in that hour, +however flat and dry it was before and afterward--"Jerry, you understand +about things here." + +He waved his hand as if to take in "Eden," Aunt Jerry and Cousin Eugene +strolling leisurely away from the lily-pond, himself, the Darby +heritage, and the unprofitable Swaim estate in the Sage Brush Valley in +far-away Kansas. + +"You've never been crossed in your life except when death took Jim. You +don't know a thing about business, nor what it means to earn the money +you spend, and to feel the independence that comes from being so strong +in yourself you don't have to submit to anybody's will." Cornelius Darby +spoke as one who had dreamed of these things, but had never known the +strength of their reality. "And last of all," he concluded, "you think +you are in love with Eugene Wellington." + +Jerry gave a start. Uncle Cornie and love! Anybody and love! Only in her +day-dreams, her wild flights of adventure, up to castles builded high in +air, had she really thought of love for herself--until to-day. And +now--Aunt Jerry had hinted awkwardly enough here in the late afternoon +of what was on her mind. Cousin Gene had held her hand and said, "I want +to say something to you." How full of light his eyes had been as he +looked at her then! Jerry felt them on her still, and a tingle of joy +went pulsing through her whole being. Then the discus had hurtled across +the doorway and Uncle Cornie had come, not knowing that these two would +rather be alone. At least he didn't look as if he knew. And now it was +Uncle Cornie himself who was talking of love. + +"You think you are in love with Eugene Wellington," Uncle Cornie +repeated, "but you're not, Jerry. You're only in love with Love. Some +day it may be with Gene, but it's not now. He just comes nearer to what +you've been dreaming about, and so you think you are in love with him. +Jerry, I don't want you to make any mistakes. I've lived a sort of +colorless life"--the man's face was ashy gray as he spoke--"but once in +a while I've thought of what might be in a man's days if things went +right with him and if he went right with himself." + +How often the last words came back to Jerry Swaim when she recalled the +events of this evening--"if he went right himself." + +"And I don't want any mistakes made that I can help." + +Uncle Cornie's other hand closed gently about the little hand that lay +on one of his. How firm and white and shapely it was, and how determined +and fearless the grip it could put on the steering-wheel when the big +Darby car skidded dangerously! And how flat and flabby and yellow and +characterless was the hand that held it close! + +"Come on, folks, we are going to the house to have some music," Aunt +Jerry called, as she and Eugene Wellington came across the lawn from the +lily-pond. + +Mrs. Darby, sure of the fruition of her plans now, was really becoming +pettishly jealous to-night. A little longer she wanted to hold these two +young people under her absolute dominion. Of course she would always +control them, but when they were promised to each other there would +arise a kingdom within a kingdom which she could never enter. The angry +voice of a warped, misused, and withered youth was in her soul, and the +jealousy of loveless old age was no little fox among her vines to-night. +Let them wait on her a little while. One evening more wouldn't matter. + +As the two approached the rose-arbor Jerry's hand touched Uncle Cornie's +cheek in a loving caress--the first she had ever given him. + +"I won't forget what you have said, Uncle Cornie," she murmured, softly, +as she rose to join her aunt and Eugene. + +The moonlight flooding the lawn touched Jerry's golden hair, and the +bloom of love and youth beautified her cheeks, as she walked away beside +the handsome young artist into the beauty of the June night. + +"Come on, Cornelius." Mrs. Darby's voice put the one harsh note into the +harmony of the moment. + +"As soon as I put away my discus. That last throw was an awkward one, +and a lot out of line for me," he answered, in his dry, flat voice, +stooping to pick up the implement of his daily pastime. + +Up in the big parlor, Eugene and Jerry played the old duets they had +learned together in their childhood, and sang the old songs that Jerusha +Darby had heard when she was a girl, before the lust for wealth had +hardened her arteries and dimmed her eyes to visions that come only to +bless. But the two young people forgot her presence and seemed to live +the hours of the beautiful June night only for each other. + +It was nearly midnight when a peal of thunder boomed up the Winnowoc +Valley and the end of a perfect day was brilliant in the grandeur of a +June shower, with skies of midnight blackness cloven through with long +shafts of lightning or swept across by billows of flame, while the storm +wind's strong arms beat the earth with flails of crystal rain. + +"Where is Uncle Cornie? I hadn't missed him before," Jerry asked as the +three in the parlor watched the storm pouring out all its wrath upon the +Winnowoc Valley. + +"Oh, he went to put up his old discus, and then he went off to bed I +suppose," Aunt Jerry replied, indifferently. + +Nothing was ever farther from his wife's thought than the presence of +Cornelius Darby. The two had never lived for each other; they had lived +for the accumulation of property that together they might gather in. + +It was long after midnight before the family retired. The moon came out +of hiding as the storm-cloud swept eastward. The night breezes were cool +and sweet, scattering the flower petals, that the shower had beaten off, +in little perfumy cloudlets about the rose-arbor and upon its stone +door-step. + +It was long after Jerry Swaim had gone to her room before she slept. +Over and over the events of the day passed in review before her mind: +the city shopping; the dainty lunch in the Delft room at _La Seņorita_; +the art exhibit and that one level gray landscape with the flaming, +gorgeous sunset so unlike the green-and-gold sunset landscape of "Eden"; +the homeward ride with all its dangerous thrills; the talk with Aunt +Jerry; Eugene, Eugene, Eugene; Uncle Cornie with his discus, at the door +of the rose-arbor, and all that he had said to her; the old, old songs, +and the thunder-storm's tremendous beauty, and Uncle Cornie again--and +dreams at last, and Jim Swaim, big, strong, shrewd; and Lesa, +sweet-faced, visionary; and then sound slumber bringing complete +oblivion. + +Last to sleep and first to waken in the early morning was Jerry. Happy +Jerry! Nobody as happy as she was could sleep--and yet--Uncle Cornie's +last discus-throw had brought new thoughts that would not slip away as +the storm had slipped up the Winnowoc into nowhere. A rift in the lute, +a cloud speck in a blue June sky, was the memory of what Uncle Cornie +had told her when he let his discus roll up to her very feet by the door +of the rose-arbor. Jerry Swaim must not be troubled with lute rifts and +cloud specks. The call of the early morning was in the air, the dewy, +misty, rose-hued dawning of a beautiful day in a beautiful "Eden" where +only beautiful things belong. And loveliest among them all was Jerry +Swaim in her pink morning dress, her glorious crown of hair agleam in +the sun's early rays, her blue eye full of light. + +The sweetest spot to her in all "Eden" on this morning was the +rose-arbor. It belonged to her now by right of Eugene and--Uncle Cornie. +The snatches of an old love-ballad, one of the songs she had sung with +Eugene the night before, were on her lips as she left the veranda and +passed with light step down the lilac walk toward the arbor. The very +grass blades seemed to sing with her, and all the rain-washed world +glowed with green and gold and creamy white, pink and heliotrope and +rose. + +At the turn of the walk toward the arbor Jerry paused to drink in the +richness of all this colorful scene. And then, for no reason at all, she +remembered what Uncle Cornie had said about his colorless life. Strange +that she had never, in her own frivolous existence, thought of him in +that way before. But with the alchemy of love in her veins she began to +see things in a new light. His had been a dull existence. If Aunt Jerry +ever really loved him she must have forgotten it long ago. And he made +so little noise in the world, anyhow, it was easy to forget that he was +in it. She had forgotten him last night even after all that he had said. +He had had no part in their music, nor the beauty of the storm. + +But here he was up early and sitting at the doorway of the rose-arbor +just as she had left him last night. He was leaning back in the angle of +the slightly splintered trellis, his colorless face gray, save where a +blue line ran down his cheek from a blue-black burn on his temple, his +colorless eyes looking straight before him; the discus he had stooped to +pick up in the twilight last night clasped in his colorless hands; his +colorless life race run. His clothing, soaked by the midnight storm, +clung wet and sagging about his shrunken form. But the rain-beaten +rose-vines had showered his gray head with a halo of pink petals, and +about his feet were drifts of fallen blossoms flowing out upon the rich +green sod. Nature in loving pity had gently decked him with her +daintiest hues, as if a world of lavish color would wipe away in a sweep +of June-time beauty the memory of the lost drab years. + + + + +III + +HITCHING THE WAGON TO A STAR + + +Behind the most expensive mourner's crape to be had in Philadelphia +Jerusha Darby hid the least mournful of faces. Not that she had not been +shocked that one bolt out of all that summer storm-cloud, barely +splintering the rose-arbor, should strike the head leaning against it +with a blow so faint and yet so fatal; nor that she would not miss +Cornelius and find it very inconvenient to fill his place in her +business management. Every business needs some one to fetch and carry +and play the watch-dog. And in these days of expensive labor watch-dogs +come high and are not always well trained. But everybody must go +sometime. That is, everybody else. To Mrs. Darby's cast of mind the +scheme of death and final reckoning as belonging to a general experience +was never intended for her individually. After all, things work out all +right under Providential guidance. Eugene Wellington was a fortunate +provision of an all-wise Providence. Eugene had some of his late +cousin's ability. He would come in time to fill the vacant chair by the +roll-top desk in the city banking and business house. Moreover, to the +eyes of age he was a thousandfold more interesting and resourceful than +the colorless quiet one whose loss would be felt of course, of course. + +The reddest roses of "Eden" bloomed the next June on Cornelius Darby's +grave, the brightest leaves of autumn covered him warmly from the +winter's snows, and the places that had never felt his living presence +missed him no more forever. + +There was a steady downpour of summer rain on the day following the +funeral at "Eden." Mrs. Darby was very busy with post-mortem details and +Eugene Wellington's services were in constant demand by her, while Jerry +Swaim wandered aimlessly about the house with a sense of the uselessness +of her existence forcing itself upon her for the first time. Late in the +afternoon, when the big rooms with all their luxurious appointments +seemed unbearable, she slipped down the sodden way to the rose-arbor. +There was a shower of new buds showing now under the beneficence of the +warm rain, and all the withered petals of fallen blossoms were swept +from sight. + +As Jerry dropped into an easy willow rocker her eye fell on the +splintered angle of the trellis by the doorway where Uncle Cornie had +sat when the last summons came to him. A folded paper lay under the +seat, inside the door, as if it had been blown from his pocket by a +whirl of wind in that midnight thunder-storm. + +Jerry stared at the paper a long time before it occurred to her to pick +it up. At last, in a mechanical way, she took it from under the seat and +spread it out on the broad arm of her chair. As she read its contents +her listlessness fell away, the dreamy blue eyes glowed with a new +light, the firm mouth took on a bit more of firmness, and the strong +little hands holding the paper did not tremble. + +"A claim in the Sage Brush Valley in Kansas." Jerry spoke slowly. "It +lies in Range--Township--Oh, that's all Greek to me! They must number +land out there like lots in the potter's-field corner of the cemetery +that we drove by yesterday. Maybe they may all be dead ones, paupers at +that, in Kansas. It is controlled, or something, by York Macpherson of +the Macpherson Mortgage Company of New Eden--_New Eden_--Kansas. Uncle +Cornie told me it hadn't brought any income, but that wasn't York +Macpherson's fault. Strange that I remember all that Uncle Cornie said +here the other night." + +The girl read the document spread out before her a second time. When she +lifted her face again it was another Jerry Swaim who looked out through +the dark-blue eyes. The rain had ceased falling. A cool breeze was +playing up the Winnowoc Valley, and low in the west shafts of sunlight +were piercing the thinning gray clouds. + +"Twelve hundred acres! A prince's holdings! Why 'Eden' has only two +hundred! And that is at _New_ Eden. It 'hasn't been well managed.' I +know who's going to manage it now. I'm the daughter of Jim Swaim. He was +a good business man. And Aunt Darby--" A smile broke the set line about +the red lips. "I'd never dare to say she didn't understand how to manage +things, Chief of Staff to the General who runs the Universe, she is." + +Then the serious mood came back as the girl stared out at the meadows +and growing grain of the "Eden" farmland. A sudden resolve had formed in +her mind--Jerry Swaim the type all her own, not possible to forecast. + +"Father wanted me to know what it means to be independent. I'll find +out. If this 'Eden' can be so beautiful and profitable, what can I not +make out of twelve hundred acres, in a New Eden? And it will be such a +splendid lark, just the kind of thing I have always dreamed of doing. +Aunt Jerry will say that I'm crazy, or that I'm Lesa Swaim's own child. +Well, I am, but there's a big purpose back of it all, too, the purpose +my father would have approved. He was all business--all money-making--in +his purposes, it seemed to some folks, but I think mother knew how to +keep him sweet. Maybe her adventurous spirit, and all that, kept her +interesting to him, and her romancing kept him her lover, instead of +their growing to be like Uncle Cornie and Aunt Jerry. There's something +else in the world besides just getting property--'if a man went right +with himself,' Uncle Cornie said. There was a good sermon in those seven +words. Uncle Cornie preached more to me than the man who officiated at +the funeral yesterday could ever do. 'If a man went right with himself.' +And Eugene." A quick change swept Jerry Swaim's countenance. "He said he +wanted to say something to me. I think I know what he wanted to say. +Maybe he will say it some day, but not yet, not yet. Here he comes now." + +There was a something new, unguessable, and very sweet in Jerry Swaim's +face as Eugene Wellington came striding down the walk to the rose-arbor. + +"I'm through at last, little cousin," he declared, dropping into a seat +beside her. "Really, Aunt Jerry is a wonderful woman. She seems to know +most of the details of Uncle Cornie's business since he began in +business. But now and then she runs against something that takes her +breath away. Evidently Uncle Cornie knew a lot of things he didn't tell +her or anybody else. She doesn't like to meet these things. It makes her +cross. She sent me away just now in a huff because she was opening up a +new line that I think she didn't want me to know anything about. +Something that took her breath away at first glance. But she didn't have +to coax me off the place. I ran out here when the chance came." + +How handsome and well-groomed he was sitting there in the easy willow +seat! And how good he had been to Mrs. Darby in these trying days! A +dozen little services that her niece had overlooked had come naturally +to his hand and mind. + +The words of Uncle Cornie came into Jerry Swaim's mind as she looked at +him: "He's a good fellow, with real talent, and he'll make a name for +himself some day. He'll make a decent living, too, independent of +anybody's aunts and uncles, but he's no stronger-willed nor smarter nor +better than you are." A thrill of pleasure quickened her pulse at the +recollection, making this new decision of hers the more firm. + +"It has seemed like a month since we sat here the evening before Uncle +Cornie passed away," Eugene began. "He made a bad discus-throw and came +over here just as I began to tell you something, Jerry. Do you remember +what we were saying when he appeared on the scene?" + +"Yes, I remember." Jerry's voice was low, but there was no quaver in it. + +Her face, as she lifted it, seemed to his eyes the one face he could +never paint. For him it was the fulfilment of a man's best dream. + +"There's only one grief in my heart at this minute--that I can never put +your face as it is now on any canvas. But let me tell you some things +that Aunt Jerry has been telling me. She seems so fond of you, and she +says that after all the claims against your father's estate are settled +there is really no income left for you. But she assures me that it makes +no difference, because you can go on living with her exactly as you have +always done. She told me she had never failed in the fruition of a +single plan of hers, and she is too old to fail now. She has some plan +for you--" The young artist hesitated. + +Jerry had never thought much about his good looks until in these June +days in "Eden" when Love had come noiselessly down the way to her. And +yet--a little faint, irresolute line in the man's face--a mere shadow, a +ghost of nothing at all, fixed itself in her image of his countenance. A +quick intuition flashed into her mind with the last words. + +"Aunt Jerry is too old for lots of things besides the failure of her +plans. I know what she said, Gene, because I know what she thinks. She +isn't exactly fond of me; she wants to control me. I believe there are +only two planes of existence with her--one of absolute rule, and the +other of absolute submission. She couldn't conceive of me in the first +plane, of course, so I must be in the second." + +"Why, Geraldine Swaim, I never heard you speak so of your aunt before!" +Eugene Wellington exclaimed. He had caught a new and very real line in +the girl's face as she spoke. + +"Maybe not. But don't go Geraldine-ing me. It's too Aunt Jerry-ish. I'm +coming to understand her better because I'm doing my own thinking now," +Jerry replied. + +"As if you hadn't always done that, you little tyrant! I bear the scars +of your teeth on my arms now--or I would bear them if I hadn't given up +to you a thousand times years ago," Eugene declared, laughingly. + +"That's just it," Jerry replied. "I've been let to have my own way until +Aunt Jerry thinks I must go on having just what she thinks I want, and +to do that I must be dependent on her. And--Wait a minute, Gene--you +will be dependent on her, too. You have only your gift. So both of us +are to be pensioners of hers. That's her plan." + +"I won't be," Eugene Wellington declared, stoutly. And then, in loving +thought of Jerry, he added: "I don't want to, Jerry. I want to do great +things, the best that God has given me to do, not merely for myself, but +for your sake--and for all the world. That seems to me to be what +artists are for." + +"And I won't be, either," Jerry insisted. "I won't. You needn't look so +incredulous. Let me tell you something. The evening before Uncle Cornie +died--" Jerry broke off suddenly. + +It seemed unfair to betray the one burst of confidence that the +colorless old man had given up to on the last evening of his earthly +life. Jerry knew that it was to her, and for her alone, that he had +spoken. + +"This is what I want to tell you. I have no income now. Aunt Jerry is +right, although she never told me that herself. But I have a plan to +make a living for myself." + +Eugene Wellington leaned back and laughed aloud. "You, Miss Geraldine +Swaim, who never earned a dollar in your precious life! I always knew +you were a dreamer, but you are going wrong now, Jerry. You must look +out for belfry bats under that golden thatch of yours. Only artists dare +those wild flights so far--and they do it only on canvas and then get +rejected by the hanging committee." + +Jerry paid no heed to his bantering words as she went on with serious +earnestness: "My estate--from my father--is a claim out at New Eden, +Kansas. Twelve hundred acres. It has never been managed well, +consequently it has never paid well. Look at 'Eden' here"--Jerry lifted +a hand for silence as Eugene was about to speak--"it has only two +hundred acres. Now multiply it by six and you'll have New Eden out in +Kansas. And I own it. And I am going to manage it. And I am not going to +be dependent on anybody. Won't it be one big lark for me to go clear to +the Sage Brush Valley? If it is as beautiful as the Winnowoc, just think +of its possibilities. It will be perfectly grand to feel oneself so free +and self-reliant. And when we have won out, you by your brush and I by +my Kansas farm, then, oh, Gene, how splendid life will be!" + +The big, dreamy eyes were full of light. The level beams of the sun +stretched far across green meadows and shaven lawns, between tall +lilac-trees, to the rose-arbor, just to glorify that rippling mass of +brown-shadowed golden hair. + +"Jerry"--Eugene Wellington's voice trembled--"you are the most wonderful +girl in the world. I am so proud of you. But, dear girl, it is an old, +threadbare fancy, this going to Kansas to get rich. My father tried it +years ago. He had a vision of great things, too. He failed. Not only +that, he ruined everybody connected with him. That's why I'm poor +to-day. Truly, little cousin mine, I don't believe the good Lord, who +makes Edens like this in the Winnowoc Valley, ever intended for +well-bred people to leave them and go New-Eden-hunting in the Sage Brush +Valley. We belong here where all the beauty of nature is about us and +the care of a loving God is over us. Why do you want to go to Kansas? I +wouldn't know how to pray out there where my father made such a botch of +living. I really wouldn't." + +"I don't know how to pray here, Gene," Jerry said, softly, with no trace +of flippant irreverence in her tone. "I forgot how to do that when God +took my father away. But listen to me." The imperious power of the +uncontrolled will was Jerry's always. "You don't _live_ here; you _stay_ +here. And you take a piece of canvas and go to the ends of the earth on +it, or down to the deeps, or into the heavens. You make what never did +and never will be, with your free brush. And folks call it good and you +earn a living by it. You are an artist. I am a foolish dreamer, but I am +going out to Kansas and work my dreams into reality and beauty--and +money--in a New Eden. If the Lord isn't there, I shall not mind any more +than I do here. I am going to Kansas, though, because I _want_ to." + +"Look, Jerry, at the sunset yonder," Eugene said, gently, knowing of old +what "I want" meant. "They couldn't have such pictures of green and gold +out West as we see framed in here by the lilacs. You always have been a +determined little girl, so you will have your own way now, I suppose. We +can try it, anyhow, for a while. And if you find your way a rocky road +you must come back to 'Eden.' When your new playthings fail, you can +play with the old ones. But I really love your spirit of self-reliance. +I don't want you ever to be dependent. I don't want any other Jerry than +I have always known. And I want to work hard and make my little talent +pay me big, and make you proud of me." + +"We are living a real romance, Gene. And we'll be true to our word to +make the best of ourselves and not let Aunt Jerry frighten us into +changing our plans, will we, Gene? My father's wish for me was that I +should not always be a spender of other folks's incomes, but that I +would find out what it means to live my own life. I never knew that +until last week. Everything seems changed for me since Uncle Cornie +died. Isn't it strange how suddenly we drop off one life and take up +another?" Jerry's eyes were on the deepening gold of the sunset sky. + +"Yes, we have been two idlers. I'm glad to quit the job. But, somehow, +for you I could wish that you would stay here, if you were only +satisfied to do it," Eugene replied. + +"I don't wish it." Jerry spoke decisively. "I couldn't be happy, now +I've this splendid Kansas thing to think about. Let's go and tell Aunt +Jerry and have it out with her." + +"And if she says no?" the young man queried. + +Jerry Swaim paused in the doorway and looked straight into Eugene +Wellington's face, without saying a word. + +"Geraldine Swaim, there was a big mistake made in your baptismal +ceremony. You should have been christened 'The Sphinx.' Some day I'll +make a canvas of the Egyptian product and put your face on it. After +all, _are_ you really in earnest about this Sage Brush Valley New Eden? +It is so lovely here, I want you to stay here." + +Again Jerry looked at him without speaking, and that faint line of +indecision that scarcely hinted at its own existence fixed itself in the +substratum of her memory. + +Mrs. Darby met the young people in the parlor, where only a few nights +ago the three had watched the summer storm, not knowing that it was +beating down on the unconscious form of Cornelius Darby. Mrs. Darby felt +sure that the young people would be coming to her to-night. Well--the +end of her plan was in sight now. Really, it may have been better for +Cornelius to have gone when he did, since we must all go sometime. +Indeed, it would have been better--only Jerusha Darby never knew +that--if Cornelius had gone before that discus-throw. Everything might +have been different if he had gone earlier. But he lost the opportunity +of his life to serve his wife by staying over and making one awkward +fling too many. + +The June evening was cool after the long rains. Aunt Jerry had a tiny +wood fire burning in the parlor grate, and the tall lamps with the +rose-colored shades lighted to add a touch of twilight charm to the +place, when the young lovers came in. + +"Aunt Jerry, we want to tell you what we have been talking about," +Eugene began, when the three were seated together. "Jerry and I have +decided that we must look on life differently now since--" Eugene +hesitated. + +"Yes, I know." Mrs. Darby spoke briskly. "We must face the truth now and +speak of Cornelius freely. He was fond of both of you. Poor Cornelius!" + +"Poor Cornelius," Jerry Swaim repeated, under her breath. + +"Of course I know it is difficult for a girl reared as Jerry has been--" +Eugene began again. + +"She can go on living just as she has been. This will be her home +always," Mrs. Darby broke in, abruptly. + +"And I know that I have nothing but the prospect of earning a living and +winning to a successful career in my line--" the young man went on. + +"Hasn't Jerry the prospect of enough for herself? I'll need you to help +me for several months. You know, Eugene, that I must have some one who +understands Cornelius's way of doing things." There was more of command +than request in the older woman's voice. + +"I'll be glad to help you as long as I am needed, but I am speaking now +of my life-work. When I cannot serve you any longer I must begin on my +own career. I have some hopes and plans for the future." + +"Humph! What's the use of talking about it? I tell you Jerry will have +enough for all her needs, and I want you here. I shall not consider any +more such notions, Eugene. You are both going to stay right here as you +have done. Let's talk of something else." + +"We can't yet, Aunt Jerry, because I have not enough for myself, even if +Gene would accept a living from you," Jerry Swaim declared. + +Jerusha Darby opened her narrow eyes and stared at her niece. If the +older woman had made one plea of loneliness, if she had even hinted at +sorrow for the loss of the companion of her business transactions, Jerry +Swaim would have felt uncomfortable, even though she knew her aunt too +well to be deceived by any such demonstration. + +"Geraldine Swaim, what are you saying?" Mrs. Darby demanded, in a hard, +even voice. Something in her manner and face could always hold even the +brave-spirited in frightened awe of her. + +Eugene Wellington lost courage to go on, and the same thing came again +that Jerry Swaim had twice seen on his face in the rose-arbor this +evening. The two were looking straight at the girl now. The firelight +played with the golden glory of her hair and deepened the rose hue of +her round cheeks. The dark-blue eyes seemed almost black, with a gleam +in their depths that meant trouble, and there was a strength in the low +voice as Jerry went on: + +"I'm talking about what I know, Aunt Jerry. All there is of my heritage +from my father is a 'claim,' they call it, at New Eden, in the Sage +Brush Valley in Kansas; twelve hundred acres. I'm going out there to +manage it myself and support myself on an income of my own." + +For a long minute Jerusha Darby looked steadily at her niece, her own +face as hard and impenetrable as if it were carven out of flint. Then +she said, sharply: + +"Where did you find out all this?" + +"It is all in a document here that I found in the rose-arbor this +afternoon," the girl replied. "Aunt Jerry, I must use what is mine. I +wouldn't be a Swaim if I didn't." + +"You won't stay there two weeks." Mrs. Darby fairly clicked out the +words. Her face was very pale and something like real fright looked +through her eyes as she took the paper from her niece's hand. + +"And then?" Jerry inquired, demurely. + +"And then you will come back here where you belong and live as you +always have lived, in comfort." + +"And if I do not come?" + +Jerusha Darby's face was not pleasant to see just then. The firelight +that made the girl more winsomely pretty seemed to throw into relief all +the hard lines of a countenance which selfishness and stubbornness and a +dictatorial will had graven there. + +"Jerry Swaim, you are building up a wild, adventurous dream. You are +Lesa Swaim over and over. You want a lark, that's what you want. And +it's you who have put Eugene up to his notions of a career and all that. +Listen to me. Nothing talks in this world like money. That you have to +have for your way of living, and that he's got to have if he wants to be +what he should be. Well, go on out to Kansas. You know more of that +prosperous property out there than I do. I'll let you find it out to the +last limit. But when you come back you must promise me never to take +another such notion. I won't stand this foolishness forever. I'll give +you plenty of money to get there. You can write me when you need funds +to come back. It won't take long to get that letter here." + +"And if I shouldn't come?" Jerry asked, calmly. + +"Look what you are giving up. All this beautiful home, to say nothing of +the town house--and Eugene--and other property." + +"No, no; you don't count him as your property, do you?" Jerry cried, +turning to the young artist, whose face was very pale. + +"Jerry, must you make this sacrifice?" he asked, in a voice of +tenderness. + +"It isn't a sacrifice; it's just what I want to do," Jerry declared, +lightly. + +Jerusha Darby's face darkened. The effect of a long and absolute +exercise of will, coupled with ample means, can make the same kind of a +tyrant out of a Kaiser and a rich aunt. The determination to have her +own way in this matter, as she had had in all other matters, became at +once an unbreakable purpose in her. She wanted to keep fast hold of +these young people for her own sake, not for theirs. For a little while +she sat measuring the two with her narrow, searching eyes. + +"I can manage him best," she concluded to herself. At last she asked, +plaintively, "With all you have here, Jerry, why do you go hunting +opportunities in Kansas?" + +"Because I want to," Jerry replied, and her aunt knew that, so far as +Jerry was concerned, everything was settled. + +"Then we'll drop the matter here. I can wait for you to come to your +senses. Eugene, if you can give her up, when you've always been chums, I +certainly can." + +With these words Mrs. Darby rose and passed out, leaving the two alone +under the rose-colored lights of the richly furnished parlor. + +It was not like Jerusha Darby to make such a concession, and Jerry Swaim +knew it, but Eugene Wellington, who was of alien blood, did not know it. + +The room was much more beautiful without her presence; and her sordid +hinting at the Darby wealth which Jerry must count on, and Eugene must +meekly help to guard for future gain, rasped harshly against their +souls, for they were young and more sentimental than practical. Left +alone to their youth, and strength, and nobler ideals, they vowed that +night to hold to better things. Together they builded a dream of a +rainbow-tinted world which they were going bravely forth to create. Of +what should follow that they did not speak, yet each one guessed what +was in the other's mind, as men and maidens have always guessed since +love began. And on this night there were no serpents at all in their +Eden. + + + + +IV + +BETWEEN EDENS + + +The sun of a mid-June day glared down pitilessly on the little station +at the junction of the Sage Brush branch with the main line. There was +not a tree in sight. The south wind was raving across the prairie, +swirling showers of fine sand before it. Its breath came hot against +Jerry Swaim's cheek as she stood in the doorway of the station or +wandered grimly down between the shining rails that stretched toward a +boundless nowhere whither the "through" train had vanished nearly two +hours ago. As Jerry watched it leaving, a sudden heaviness weighed down +upon her. And when the Pullman porter's white coat on the rear platform +of the last coach melted into the dull, diminishing splotch on the +western distance, she felt as if she were shipwrecked in a pathless +land, with the little red station house, reefed about by cinders, as the +only resting-place for the soles of her feet. When her eyes grew weary +of the monotonous landscape, Jerry rested them with what she called "A +Kansas Interior." The rustic station under the maples at "Eden" was +always clean and comfortably appointed. Big flower-beds outside, Uncle +Cornie's gift, belonged to the station and its guests, with the spacious +grounds of "Eden," at which the travelers might gaze without cost, lying +just beyond it. + +This "Kansas Interior" seemed only a degree less inviting than the whole +monotonous universe outside. The dust of ages dimmed the windows that +were propped and nailed and otherwise secured against the entrance of +cool summer breezes, or the outlet of bad, overheated air in winter. +Iron-partitioned seats, invention of the Evil One himself, stalled off +three sides of the room, intending to prove the principle that no one +body can occupy two spaces at the same time. In the center of the room a +"plain, unvarnished" stove, bare and bald, stood on a low pedestal +yellowed with time and tobacco juice. A dingy, fly-specked map of the +entire railway system hung askew on the wall--very fat and foreshortened +as to its own extent, very attenuated and ill-proportioned as to other +insignificant systems cutting spidery lines across it. + +Behind a sealed tomb of a ticket-window Jerry could hear the "tick-tick, +tick-a-tick-tick, tick-tick" of a telegraph-wire. Somebody must be in +there who at set times, like a Saint Serapion from his hermit cell, +might open this blank wall and speak in almost human tones. Just now the +solitude of the grave prevailed, save for that everlasting "tick-a-tick" +behind the wall. + +When Jerry Swaim gripped her hands on the plow handles, there would be +no looking back. She persuaded herself that she wasn't going to die of +the jiggermaroos in the empty nothingness here. It would be very +different at New Eden, she was sure of that. And this York Macpherson +must be a nice old man, honest and easy-going, because he had never +realized any income from her big Kansas estate. She pictured York +easily--a short, bald-headed old gentleman with gray burnsides and +benevolent pale-blue eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses, driving a fat +sorrel nag to an easy-going old Rockaway buggy, carrying a gold-headed +cane given him by the Sunday-school. Jerry had seen his type all her +life in the business circles of Philadelphia and among the better-to-do +country-dwellers around "Eden." + +At last it was only fifteen minutes till the Sage Brush train would be +due; then she could find comfort in her Pullman berth. She wondered what +Aunt Jerry and Eugene were doing now. She had slipped away from "Eden" +on her wild adventure in the early dawn. She had taken leave of Aunt +Jerry the night before. Old women need their beauty sleep in the +morning, even if foolish young things are breaking all the laws by +launching out to hunt their fortunes. Eugene had been hurriedly sent +away on Darby estate matters without the opportunity of a leave-taking, +two days before Jerry was ready to start for Kansas. Everything was +prearranged, evidently, to make this going a difficult one. So, without +a single good-by to speed her on her quest, the young girl had gone out +from a sheltering Eden of beauty and idleness. But the tears that had +dimmed her eyes came only when she left the lilac walk to the station to +slip around by Uncle Cornie's grave beside the green-coverleted +resting-places of Jim and Lesa Swaim. + +"Maybe mother would glory in what I am doing, and father might say I had +the right stuff in me. And Uncle Cornie--'If a man went right with +himself'--Uncle Cornie might have said 'if a woman went right with +herself,' too. I'm going to put that meaning into his words, even if he +never seemed to think much of women. Oh, father! Oh, mother! You _lived_ +before you died, anyhow, and I'm going to do the same. Uncle Cornie died +before he ever really lived." + +Jerry stretched out her hands to the one good-by in "Eden" coming to her +from these silent ripples of dewy green sod. Then youth and the June +morning and the lure of adventure into new lands came with their triple +strength to buoy her up to do and dare. Behind her were her lover to +be--for Eugene must love her--her home ties, luxury, dependent +inactivity. Before her lay the very ends of the earth, the Kansas end +especially. The spirit of Sir Galahad, of Robinson Crusoe, of Don +Quixote, combined with the spirit of a self-willed, inexperienced girl, +but dimly conscious yet of what lay back of her determination to go +forth--_because she wanted to go_. + +Chicago and Kansas City offered easy ports for clearing. And the Kaw +Valley, unrolling its broad acres along the way, gave larger promise +than Jerry had yet dared to dream of for the New Eden farther west. The +train service, after the manner of a Pacific Coast limited, had been +perfect in every appointment. And then--this junction episode. + +Two eternity-long hours before the Sage Brush branch could take her to +New Eden were almost ended. + +"It's not so terrifying, after all." Jerry was beginning to "see things +again." "It's all in the game--and I am going to be as 'game' as the +thing I am playing. Things always come round all right for me. _They +must._" + +The square white chin was very much a family feature just now. And the +shapely hands had no hint of weakness in their grip on the iron arms of +the station seat. + +The door which the wind had slammed shut was slammed open again as three +prospective passengers for the Sage Brush train slammed through it laden +with luggage. At the same time the sealed-up ticket-window flew open, +showing the red, grinning face of the tick-tick man behind its iron +bars. If Jerry had never paid the slightest heed to the bunch of grubs +on the Winnowoc branch, except as they kept down the ventilation, or +crowded their odors of Limburger on her offended senses, the Sage Brush +grubs were a thousandfold less worthy of her consideration. As the +three crowded to the ticket-window, laughing among themselves, she +stared through the doorway, unconsciously reading the names on the cars +of a freight-train slowly heaving down alongside the station. Who +invented freight-cars, anyhow? The most uninteresting and inartistic +thing ever put on wheels by the master mechanic of the unbeautiful, +created mainly to shut off the view of mankind from what is really worth +looking at. Jerry read the dulled lettering mechanically: "Santa Fé" +with its symbol of a fat cross in a circle, "Iron Mountain," "Great +Northern," "Rock Island," "Frisco," "Union Pacific," "Grand Trunk," came +creeping by. "New York Central," "Lehigh Valley," "Pennsylvania Line." +These took her back to "Eden" and the Winnowoc country. The station +building shook; the ugly old cars slam-banged a bit faster back and +forth; the engine, with the breath almost knocked out of it, was puffing +down by the switch, and the whole body behind it quivered to a +standstill. But Jerry Swaim's tear-blurred eyes were seeing only the +green fields of the Darby country-place and the rose-arbor and Eugene +Wellington. A voice loud, but not unpleasant, and a laugh, a merry, +catching, giggling guffaw, drove the picture of "Eden" and all that +belonged to it into "viewless air" that went flapping and flaring across +the Kansas landscape. + +"You don't mean it! He, he! Haw!" Everybody must smile now. "The old +Sage Brush local is locoed 'way up toward S'liny. Engine shortage, car +shortage, common sense shortage. He, he! And we must ride in that +sunflower de luxe limited standing out there. Come on, Thelmy. You can +take lower nothin', car one-half. We'll soar in now while the soarin's +good." + +Jerry looked at the bunch of grubs for the first time. One had to see +where that big gloom-chasing giggle came from. Thelma was a spotlessly +clean, well-made country product, wherein the girl had easily given +place to the woman, erect, full-bosomed, strong of frame. The hazel eyes +were arched over by heavy brown brows. There was no rosebud curve to the +rather wide mouth that showed a set of magnificent white teeth. The +brown hair wound braid on braid about the head was proof of the glory of +Saint Paul's scriptural decree. Not that Jerry Swaim really noted any of +these features. She merely saw a country girl--a not offensive native. +The native's comrade, he with the big-laugh fixtures, was short and +stout, with a round face on the front side of a round head, set on top +of a tight-built body. Grub though he was, Jerry involuntarily smiled +with him. That far the fat little man controlled everybody. But the +funny little strut in his gait as he walked was irresistible. The third +passenger, the grubbiest of the three grubs, was a nondescript of whose +presence Jerry was not even aware until she heard his voice. It was a +thin, high, unused voice, and its pitch wabbled up and down. + +"Be you goin' on the Sage Bresh train, lady?" + +The questioner had turned back after the country girl and the fat man +had passed out. + +Jerry looked at him without taking his question to herself. His shoes, +draped with wrinkled-down hose, were very much worn. His overalls +flapping around his legs, his shirt and neck and face and hair and hat, +were all of one complexion, a fuzzy, yellow brown. + +"Be you goin' on this train, too?" + +It was a humble, kindly voice, and the scaly old hand holding the door +open against the high prairie wind was only a fisherman's hand. The +deep-set eyes in the yellow-brown old face were trained to read the +river; the patient mouth set to wait for the catch of lines and nets. + +Jerry had never in her life spoken to such a creature. So far as she was +concerned, he did not exist. + +"This is the only train on the Sage Bresh to-day, lady. The reg'lar +train's busted through a culbert out yander," the high, quavering voice +persisted. + +A sharp tooting from the engine down the line emphasized the statement, +and Jerry saw the grinning red-faced tick-tick man hastily wheeling +mail-sacks and sundry other parcels by the door. In a bewildered way she +rose and passed out, giving no recognition to the shabby old man who had +been thoughtful of her ignorance. + +"We gotta go to the last car down yander, lady," the old man squeaked +out, as he started down the cinder-paved way with a bearlike, shuffling, +sidewise sort of gait. + +Jerry followed him slowly to "the last car down yander." + +A plain day coach, the sixtieth and last vertebra in this long +mechanical spine, was already crowded with a bunch of grubs, none of +whom could belong to Jerry Swaim's sphere. Moreover, they were all +tightly packed in and wedged down so that it was impossible to detect +the leaving off of the full-fare passenger and the beginning of +suit-cases, old-style telescopes, baskets, bundles, boxes, half-fare +children, bags of fruit, lunch-crates, pieces of farming tools, babes in +arms, groceries--everything to cabbages and kings. Jerry wondered where +all these _things_ came from. Every object in that car, human being or +salt pork, crying baby or kingbolt, was a _thing_ to Jerry Swaim. And +all of them were very warm and nervously tense, as if the hot June wind +had blown them all inside, that the hot June sun, through the closed +windows, might stew them stinkily; or, through the open windows, grime +their sweaty faces with hot dust off the hot prairie. There was only one +vacant seat left. It was on the shady side, facing the rear of the car, +and was half occupied already by the humble grub of the squeaky voice. +The girl, Thelma, and the fat little man had taken the seat opposite +him. As Jerry entered the car the little man was on his feet, bowing and +strutting and insisting that a woman with a babe in arms should exchange +seats with him, putting her on the cool side, while he took her place in +the sun across the aisle from Thelma. In the transfer he did not see +Jerry, who was looking in vain for an opening in that mass of "human +various." It was the humble grub who saw her standing there. Evidently +his little yellow-green eyes took her measure at a glance, but he did +not spread out his effects and stare out of the window as some other men +were doing, nor gather himself and his into his own half of the seat to +make room for her beside him. He rose, and in a shrill little quaver he +bade her take his place. It did not occur to Jerry to tell him that +there was room for two, as she saw him shuffle down the aisle with a +queer, limping hitch. In the same impersonal way she watched him through +the open door, sitting on the rear platform during the long afternoon, +humpbacked against the cinders and dust that beat upon him, swaying with +the rocking car, jerked along over a sun-baked, treeless prairie at the +tail of a long jerky freight-train. He meant nothing to this dainty city +product; his kind had never entered her world; no more had the +red-faced, tow-headed young mother, with white eyebrows and hat knocked +rakishly aslant, with her big, restless, bald-headed baby rolling over +her in waves, sprawling about Thelma, and threatening to bump its head +off as it overflowed all the narrow space, aimlessly and persistently. + +But if Jerry Swaim felt out of her element in this company, her +fellow-passengers felt much more embarrassed by her presence. Thelma's +neat gingham dress became limp and mussy and common. The tired mother's +yellow lawn was rumpled into a dish-rag. And with every jerk of the +train she lost a hair-pin from her tow hair that was already stringing +down in long wisps on her neck. The baby, really a happy, white, +blue-veined infant, became a fussy flushed impossibility. + +All this, it seemed, just because of the presence of a faultlessly +dressed, fair-faced stranger who awed everybody by not seeing them, but +whose very daintiness and beauty drew them hungrily to her. Nobody could +be in Jerry Swaim's presence and not feel the spell of her inherent +magnetism. + +The laughter and complaints of the passengers dulled down to endurance. +Only the face of the short man wore a smile. But his mouth was made with +that kind of a curve, and he couldn't help it. Breathing deeply and +perspiring healthfully, he sat against the heat streaming into his side +of the car, and forgot his troubles in his unbreakable good nature. For +a long time he and Thelma had talked across the aisle above and through +the train's noises. Their talk was all of Paul and Joe's place, and the +crops; of how glad Thelma was to be at home again on Paul's account; and +how long it would take her yet if the alfalfa and wheat turned out well. + +Jerry heard it all without knowing it, as she looked at the monotonous +landscape without knowing it. And then the dry prairies began to deepen +to a richer hue. Yellow wheat-fields and low-growing corn and stretches +of alfalfa broke into the high plains where cattle grazed. And then came +the gleam of a river, sometimes shallow along sandy levels, sometimes +deep, with low overhanging brush on either side. And there were +cottonwood-trees and low twisted elms and scrubby locust and oak +saplings, and the faint, fresh scent of moisture livening the air. + +The train jerked itself to a standstill, thought better of it, and +hunched along again for a rod or two, then jostled itself quiet again. + +Jerry was very drowsy now, but she was conscious of hearing the fat man +calling out, cheerfully: + +"Home at last, Thelmy. There's Paul waiting for you. Well, good-by." + +And of Thelma's "Good-by" in a louder tone than was necessary. Of more +strutting and bowing and no end of luggage clearing itself away. + +Through the window Jerry caught sight of a tall, fair-haired boy, who +looked like Thelma, except that in his white face was the pathos of the +life-cripple. She saw Thelma kiss him, and then the two started down the +sunny, cindery side-track together. In the distance, close to the river, +there was a small plain house under a big cottonwood-tree. The glimpse +of red about a little porch meant that the crimson ramblers were in +bloom there. Oh, the roses of "Eden," and the cool rose-arbor! Jerry +must have dreamed then, for "Eden" was about her again. Through it the +limping grub came humbly to claim his sundry own from behind and under +the seat. Even in "Eden" she thought how much like a clumsy bear his +gait was. And when the little man called him "Teddy" she knew he was not +a fisherman sort of creature, but a real bear in yellow-brown overalls, +and that the general fuzziness of his make-up was fur, and that his +stubby, scaly hands were claws. He dropped off somewhere when the +freight took a siding very near the river. It was the Sage Brush, but it +ran through the "Eden" grounds and Uncle Cornie was throwing his discus +beside it. The rose-arbor was just across the aisle. The little fat man +was sitting in its doorway, with a new moon of a smile on the smooth +side of his round head where his face was, a half-quizzical, +half-sympathetic smile with no guile in it. Jerry really liked him for +that kind of a smile. It belonged to him. The rose-arbor was very warm, +for the man was sweating more copiously than ever.... Uncle Cornie was +gone. The limping Teddy Bear was gone.... It was very, very hot and +sunny in "Eden." The big maples and cool lilacs were gone.... "Eden" was +gone. In its stead came the art exhibit in the cool gallery in the city. +And that yellow-gray desert landscape with the flaming afterglow and +purple mists. The flames seemed almost real, and the yellow gray almost +real, and the art-gallery was getting warmer as "Eden" had done. It was +positively hot.... And then the Sage Brush freight was laboring slowly +and painfully through a desert with clack and roar and cloud of cindery +dust.... Jerry sat up, wide awake, and looked up at the fat stranger who +was looking at her, the smile on the inside of his face, as it were, +showing only in the eyes. + +Outside, the river was gone, taking with it all the cool-breathing +alfalfa, and elm and cottonwood shade, and leaving in their stead only +bare earth-ridges and low dunes. As far as Jerry could see, there was +nothing but a hot yellow plain, wrinkled here and there in great barren +folds, with wave and crest and hollow of wind-shifted sand crawling +endlessly back and forth along the face of the landscape. A few spiny +green shrubs struggled through at intervals, but their presence only +intensified the barrenness about them. + +The train was entering a deep wrinkle not unlike that cut beyond the +third crossing of the Winnowoc. Jerry remembered the day she had watched +that other train from the bluff road, and her exultation in pounding her +big car up the steep way instead of crawling through, as Eugene was +doing. Later she had found out that Eugene really preferred that to the +more daring climb. Jerry involuntarily gripped the car seat with a +subconscious longing to get out and drive over the whole thing. Across +the aisle, the smile on the fat man's face was coming outside as he +watched the stranger passenger. + +They were deep in now--a valley-like thing that was hotter than any +other inch of the whole way they had come. On either side tall slabs of +timber, planted upright, closed in the right of way. They were barely +moving through this narrow lane. The engine was gasping for breath, and +the cars dragged themselves after it by inches. Then all came to a dead +stop. + +"Everybody turn out and help," somebody in uniformed authority called +through the car door, and all the men passengers stirred to action. + +"_The_ dickens!" the short fat man exclaimed to everybody. "Stuck in a +sand-drift in that danged blowout. That's what comes of letting this +wind go all day. I told 'em up at the junction to stop it, but they +wouldn't listen to me. Now we've got to soar out of here and shovel for +our lives." + +When he laughed everybody else had to laugh, too, and it was a really +good-natured company of men that piled down from the train to help the +cause of railway transportation. + +The fat man had been last to leave the car. + +"Let me close all these windows," he urged, strutting from seat to seat. +"It'll be hot with 'em shut, but you'll be buried in sand in here if we +leave 'em open, and we men don't want to dig you and the engine all out +in one day. We mightn't find all the children, you know, and leave some +of 'em in here covered up. He, he! Haw!" He struggled with the last +windows until they were sealed down, then turned away to lend his aid in +a good cause. + +The tow-headed woman and her little perpetual-motion baby, who had been +sleeping wearily for a few miles, roused at the jolly man's loud laugh. + +"It's the blowout," the mother said, as Jerry looked at her for the +first time. "Them timbers is driv in to keep out all that sand. See how +it's heaped up ag'in' 'em on the outside. On awfully windy days it blows +over and fills the tracks and stops the train, and then the men all get +out and help to shovel it off. Gee whiz! but it's hot in here! We'd be +just smothered in sand if we left the windows open, though. There! +There!" + +The last to the big baby, stirring uneasily, whom the mother patted off +to slumber again. + +Jerry walked to the rear door and looked out at the narrow space walled +in by palisades, and at glimpses of sand waves on either side of the +road beyond them; at the little hot-looking green shrubs clinging for +life to their shifting depths, and the heat-quivering air visible above +them. In all her life she had never felt so uncomfortable as now; never +realized what it means to _endure_ physical misery. She had seen the +habitable globe features--lake-shore, and seaside, and mountain resorts; +big navigable rivers; big forests; narrow little valleys; sheer cliffs +and wonderful waterfalls. She didn't know that the world held such a +place as this that anybody but a Hottentot was supposed to inhabit. +Through a long hour and a half the train was held back by the sand of +what Jerry heard was a "blowout." She did not know nor care what the +term meant. _She wanted to get_ out of it and go on, and what Jerry +Swaim _wanted_ she had always had the right to have. + +The sun was getting low in the west when the local freight labored up +the Sage Brush Valley to its terminal in the yards at New Eden. All of +the passengers except Jerry tumbled out, much as tired boys rush from +the church door after a long doctrinal sermon. The car was stopped at +the freight-station, some distance down the line from the +passenger-station, which was itself a long way out from New Eden, after +the manner of Western small towns. The middle '80's, when railroad +branch lines were building, found road directors and town councils +falling out over technicalities, with the result that the railroad +seldom secured the ground it wanted and the town was seldom given a +convenient station site. + +The buses filled rapidly, and the mail and express wagons were rattling +off ahead of buses and foot passengers, and still the young stranger sat +in the car. A sudden sense of loneliness had enveloped her like a cloud. +She was not a novice abroad. She had gone to strange towns alone before. +She knew all the regulations of hotel service. She knew why she had come +here and what she had to do, and she had abundant means for all her +needs. But with all these points in her favor a helplessness swept over +her, and the "what next" for the moment perplexed her. The engine was +getting restless again. However long it may require a local freight to +get from one given point to another, the engine, like an ill-broken +colt, will keep stepping up or pulling back through every halt of the +train. Jerry sat inside, watching the last bus, loaded and hung-on-to, +swinging off down the dusty road toward the town, a full half-mile +across the prairie from the station. Life was getting a trifle too +interesting in this foreign clime, and when the short man appeared in +the doorway, even the full-moon face and half-moon smile, the profound +bow and comical strut, could not out-weigh the genuine comfort his +presence seemed to bring. + +"Pardon me, Miss--Miss--" + +"Miss Swaim," Jerry informed him, sure of herself and unafraid again. + +"Oh, Miss Swaim! My name is Ponk--Junius Brutus Ponk. Pardon again if I +seem to intrude. This is the Sage Brush terminal. Excuse me if I say +thank the Lord for the end of _this_ day's journey! The buses are all +gone. May I take you to your destination here in my little gadabout? You +want to stop somewhere in New Eden overnight, anyhow." + +"Thank you very much." + +Jerry looked at him gratefully, even if he was only one of the bunch of +grubs she had been forced to ride with all this long afternoon, she who +had once repudiated the Winnowoc train and all trains without Pullman +accommodations. "The smile on her face was mightily winsome," Ponk +declared afterward, "and just took all my ramparts and citadels and +moats and drawbridges at one fell swoop." + +He gathered up her bags and helped her off the car pompously, saying: + +"Here she is, Miss Swaim. Step right in." And then with a flourish of +arms he had Jerry and her belongings stored inside a shiny gray runabout +and was off down the grassy road with a dash. + +"Where shall I take you to, Miss Swaim?" he inquired, when the little +car had glided gracefully around the lumbering buses and rattling +wagons. + +"To the best hotel, please," Jerry replied. "Do you know which one that +is?" + +"Yes'm. There isn't but one. The Commercial Hotel and Gurrage. I'm the +proprietor, so I know." The smile that broke around the face of the +speaker was too good-natured to make his words seem presumptuous. + +Jerry smiled, too, finding herself in the grasp of a strange and +complete confidence in the pompous little unknown chauffeur. + +"Do you know an old gentleman here named York Macpherson, a Mortgage +Company man?" she asked, looking at him directly for the first time. + +Ponk seemed to gulp down a smile before he replied: "Ye-es, I do know +York very well. He's prob'bly older than he looks. His office is right +across the street from the Commercial Hotel and Gurrage." + +Afterward he declared: "From the minute that girl turned her eyes full +on me and I saw how blue them orbs were, I begun to wish I had a gold +button instead of a bone one in the back of my collar. I knew she could +see that cheap bone thing right through my neck and I was willing right +then to lay down and play dead if she wanted me to, and I'm never going +to recover, never." + +"Would you do--me a favor?" Jerry asked, hesitatingly. + +Asking favors was a new line for her and she followed it prettily. + +"Wouldn't I!" Mr. Ponk exclaimed. "Try me." + +"Even his voice has a strut in it," Jerry thought. Aloud she said: "I +have business with this old gentleman and I would be much obliged if you +would tell him that Miss Geraldine Swaim is in the city and would like +to meet him." + +"Why, I'll soar right over there as soon as we get to the hotel and +gurrage." + +Junius Brutus Ponk looked slyly at the face of his companion as he +spoke. What he was thinking just then it would have been hard to guess. +With a flourish and curve that were wholly Ponkish the fat little man +swung the gray car up to the brick-paved porch of the "Commercial Hotel +and Gurrage." + +"Why, there's York now, reading his mail! I'll go right over and tell +him," Mr. Ponk declared. "Here, George, tell Georgette to give Miss +Swaim number seven." + +George assisted Miss Swaim to the hotel register and Georgette led her +to room No. 7. Georgette wanted to linger a minute, for this guest was +so unlike the usual commercial-traveler kind of ladies who sold books, +or canvassed for extracts, or took orders for crayon portraits enlarged +from little photographs; but Miss Swaim's manner gave no excuse for +lingering. Alone, Jerry closed her door and turned, with a smile on her +lips, to face her surroundings. The room was clean and cool, with a big +window overhanging the street. Jerry sat down before it, realizing how +weary the long journey had made her. Across the street, the sign of the +Macpherson Mortgage Company in big gold letters hung above a plate-glass +window. Mr. + +Ponk, who had just "soared" across, was sitting in his car before it. +Jerry saw a man inside at a desk very much like Uncle Cornie's in the +Philadelphia banking-house where Eugene Wellington was busy now helping +Aunt Jerry to settle things. This man was reading letters when the Ponk +car tooted before the big window. He waved a hand to the tooter, then +put his letters away and came leisurely outside. Jerry saw a tall, +finely proportioned man, the set of whose clothes had a city air, and +there was something in his whole manner that would have distinguished +him from every other man in New Eden. + +The fat little man talked earnestly, with a flourish of the hand now and +then toward the room where Jerry sat watching the two. York Macpherson +rested one foot on the running-board, and leaned his arms on the side of +the car, listening intently to what Mr. Ponk was saying. + +"So that is this York Macpherson who was never responsible for my estate +not making any returns. And I called him an old man. The hotel +proprietor must be telling him that now." Jerry laughed as she saw the +two men chuckling together. "Well, I hope the pompous little fellow +tells him I'm an old woman. It would even things up wonderfully." + +Ten minutes later Jerry was shaking hands with York Macpherson and +promising him to go to his home and meet his sister as soon as she had +cleared her eyes of dust sufficiently to see anybody. + +It must have been the dust in her eyes, Jerry thought, that made York +Macpherson appear so unlike the benevolent, inefficient old gentleman +she had pictured to herself. The hotel parlor was in twilight shadows, +which helped a little to conceal the surprise of these two when they met +there. Jerry knew what she had been anticipating. Whether York +Macpherson knew or not, he was clearly not expecting what he found in +the hotel parlor. + +"I'll soar down to your shack with the lady as soon as she has had her +supper and got herself rightly in hand," Ponk declared to York when he +came into the hotel office. "You see, we got stuck in that danged, +infernal blowout, and it was as hard on the womenkind who had to sit +inside and swelter as on us men who nobly dug. 'Specially this Miss +Swaim. She must have 'wept to see such quantities of sand,' same as them +oysters and walruses and carpenters. We'll be along by and by, though. +Have a cigar. What do you make of her, anyhow, York?" + +"I don't make anything. I leave that job to you," York replied, with a +smile, as he turned abruptly and left the hotel. + +"Unless you see eight per cent. interest coming your way, I see. There +might be a bigger interest in this investment than any you ever made in +your life," Ponk called after him. + +But York only waved off the words without looking back. Outside, the +sunset's splendor was filling the western sky--the same old prairie +sunset that he had seen many a time in his years in Kansas. And yet, on +this evening it did not seem quite the same; nor were the sunsets, New +Eden, and the Sage Brush Valley from this evening ever quite as they had +been before, to York Macpherson. + + + + +V + +NEW EDEN'S PROBLEM + + +Because of a broken "culbert" out toward "S'liny" the afternoon train on +the Sage Brush branch was annulled for the day. Because of this +annulment the mail for the Sage Brush Valley was brought up on the local +freight, which is always behind time when it reaches its terminal, which +accounted for the late delivery of the mail at the New Eden post-office, +which made York Macpherson's dinner late because of a big batch of +letters to be read, and an important business call at the Commercial +Hotel following the reading and the delivery of Mr. Ponk's message. + +Purple shadows were beginning to fold down upon the landscape, while +overhead the sky was still heliotrope and gold, but York Macpherson, +walking slowly homeward, saw neither the shadows nor the glory that +overhung them. It was evident to his sister Laura, who was waiting for +him in the honeysuckle corner of the big front porch, that his mind was +burdened with something unusual to-night. + +York Macpherson was a "leading citizen" type of the Middle West. +Wholesome, ruggedly handsome, prosperous, shrewd to read men's minds, +quick to meet their needs, full of faith in the promise of the Western +prairies, with the sort of culture no hardship of the plains could ever +overcome--that was York. Although he was on the front edge of middle +life in years, with a few gray streaks in his wavy brown hair, he had +the young-looking face, the alert action, and vigorous atmosphere of a +young-hearted man just entered into his full heritage of manhood. + +"The train was delayed down the river on account of sand drifted over +the track by the south wind, and that made the mail late," York +explained, when he reached the porch. "I'll bet you have had the house +shut up tight as wax and have gone about all day with a dust-cloth in +your hand. Given a south wind and Laura Macpherson, and you have a home +industry in no time. Let's hurry up the dinner" (it was always dinner to +the Macphersons and supper to the remainder of New Eden) "and get +outside again as soon as possible. I can't think in shut-up rooms." + +"When there is a south wind it makes little difference whether or not +one does any thinking. I postpone that job to the cool of the evening," +Laura Macpherson declared, as she led the way to the dining-room. + +When the two came outside again the air off the prairie was delicious, +and there was promise of restfulness later in the black silence of the +June night that made them forget the nervous strain of the windy day. +The Macphersons had no problems that they could not talk over in the +shadowy stillness of that roomy porch on summer evenings. + +York had been a bachelor boarder at the "Commercial Hotel and Garage" +for some years before the coming of his sister Laura, who was at once +his housekeeper, companion, and counselor. When he first went to the +hotel New Eden was in its infancy, and the raw beginnings of things were +especially underdone in this two-dollars-a-day, one-towel-a-week +establishment. It was through York that Junius Brutus Ponk had given up +an unprofitable real-estate business to become proprietor of the +Commercial Hotel--"and Gurrage" was added later with the advent of +automobiles, the "Gurrage" part being a really creditably equipped +livery for public service. By this change of occupation for Ponk, the +Macpherson Mortgage Company accomplished several things. It got rid of +an inefficient competitor whose very inefficiency would have made him a +more disagreeable enemy than a successful man would have been. Further, +it placed the ambitious little man where his talents could flourish +(flourish is the right word for J. B. Ponk), and it put into the growing +little town of New Eden a hotel with city comforts that brought business +to the town and added mightily to its reputation and respectability. + +York Macpherson's business had grown with the town he had helped to +build. Long before other towns in this part of Kansas had dreamed it +possible for them, New Eden was lighted with electricity. Water-works +and a sewer system fore-ran cement sidewalks and a mile of paving, not +including the square around the court-house. And before any of these had +come the big stone school-house on the high ridge overlooking the Sage +Brush Valley for miles. That also was York Macpherson's task, which he +had carried out almost single-handed, and had the satisfaction of +bringing desirable taxpaying residents to live in New Eden who would +never have come but for the school advantages. Then Junius Brutus Ponk, +who had learned to couple with York, got himself elected to the board of +education and began to pay higher salaries to teachers than was paid by +any other town in the whole Sage Brush Valley; to the end that better +schools were housed in that fine school-building, and a finer class of +young citizens began to put the good name of New Eden above everything +else. The hoodlum element was there, of course, but it was not the +leading element. Boys stuck to the high-school faithfully and followed +it up with a college course, even though a large per cent. of them +worked for every dollar that the course cost them. Girls went to +college, too, until it became a rare thing to find a teacher in the +whole valley who had not a diploma from some institution of higher +learning. + +It was only recently that Laura Macpherson had come to New Eden to make +her home with her brother. An accident a few years before had shortened +one limb, making her limp as she walked. She was some years older than +York, with a face as young and very much like her brother's; a comely, +companionable sort of woman, popular alike with men and women, young +folks and children. + +Some time before her coming York had bought the best building-site in +New Eden, a wooded knoll inside the corporation limits, the only natural +woodland in the vicinity, that stood directly across the far end of +Broad Avenue, the main business street, whose mile of paving ended in +York's driveway. In one direction, this site commanded a view far down +Sage Brush Valley; in the other, it overlooked the best residence and +business portion of New Eden. Here York had, as he put it, "built a +porch, at the rear of which a few rooms were attached." The main glory +of the place, however, was the big porch. + +York had named their home "Castle Cluny," and his big farm joining it +just outside the town limits "Kingussie," after some old Macpherson-clan +memories. There were no millionaires in the Sage Brush Valley, and this +home was far and away the finest, as well as the most popular, home in a +community where thrift and neatness abounded in the homes, and elegance +was very much lacking, as was to be expected in a young town on the far +edge of the Middle West. + +"Joe Thomson came in to-day to see me about putting a mortgage on his +claim this side of the big blowout. Looks like a losing game for Joe. +His land is about one-third sand now," York commented, thoughtfully, as +he settled himself comfortably in his big porch chair. + +"Well, why not let the sand have its own third, while he uses the other +two-thirds himself? They ought to keep him busy," Laura suggested. + +The country around New Eden was still new to her. Although she +overflowed the town with her sunny presence, her lameness had kept her +nearer to "Castle Cluny" than her brother had comprehended. She did not +understand the laws, nor lawlessness, of what her brother called the +"blowout," nor had she ever seen the desolation that marked its +broadening path. + +"A blowout is never satisfied until it has swallowed all the land in the +landscape," York explained. "I remember a few years ago there was just a +sandy outcrop along a little draw below Joe's claim, the line of some +prehistoric river-bed, I suppose. That was the beginning of the thing +Joe is fighting to-day. Something started the sand to drifting. It +increased as the wind blew away the soil; the more wind, the more sand; +the more sand, the more wind. They worked together until what had been a +narrow belt spread enormously, gradually overlapping Joe's claim, making +acres of waste ground. I hate to see Joe shoulder a mortgage to try to +drive back that monstrous thing. But Joe is one of those big, +self-contained fellows who takes the bit in his teeth and goes his own +gait in spite of all the danger signals you wigwag at him." + +"Why do you loan him money if you know he can't succeed?" Laura +inquired. + +"Making farm loans is the business of the Macpherson Mortgage Company. +That's how we maintain our meager existence," York replied, teasingly. +"Joe wants to fight back the blowout creeping over his south border +farther and farther each year. Our company gets its commission while he +fights. See?" + +"Oh, you grasping loan shark! If I didn't know how easy it is for you to +lie I'd disown you," Laura declared, flinging a chair pillow at her +brother, who was chuckling at her earnestness. + +But York was serious himself in the next minute. + +"Our company doesn't want the prairie; it wants prosperity. A foreclosed +mortgage is bad business. It brings us responsibility and ill-will. What +we want is good-will and interest money. I have put the thing up to Joe +just as it is. Man is a free agent to choose or let alone. I have a +bigger problem than Joe to handle now. I had a letter this evening from +Miss Geraldine Swaim, of Philadelphia. Do you remember her, Laura? She +used to come up to Winnowoc when she was a little girl." + +"I remember little Jerry Swaim, Jim and Lesa's only child," York's +sister declared. "She was considerably younger than I. I pushed her in +her baby-cab when I wasn't very big myself. When I went away to college +she was a little roly-poly beauty of ten or eleven, maybe. Wasn't she +named for her father's rich sister, Mrs. Darby? I never knew that Mrs. +Darby's name was Geraldine." + +"It wasn't; it was Jerusha; and Jim's name was Jeremiah; and Lesa's was +plain Melissa," York explained. "But Lesa changed all of their names to +make them sound more romantic. Romance was Lesa's strong suit. She +called her daughter 'Jerry,' to please Mrs. Darby, but the child was +christened Geraldine--never Jerusha. Lesa wouldn't stand for that." + +"And now what does this Geraldine want from my respected brother?" Laura +inquired, leaning back on the cushions of her chair to listen. + +York's face was hidden by the darker shadows of the porch, but his +sister knew by his grave tone, when he spoke again, that something +deeper than a business transaction lay back of this message from +Philadelphia. + +"It's an old story, Laura. The story of parents rearing a child in +luxury and then dying poor and leaving this child unprovided for and +unfitted to provide for herself. Jim Swaim was as clear-headed as his +wife was soft-hearted and idealizing. Every angle of his was a right +angle, even if he did grow a bit tight-fisted sometimes for his family's +sake. But a leech of a fellow, a sort of relative by marriage, got his +claws into Jim some way, and in the end got him, root and branch. Then +Lesa contracted pneumonia and died after a short illness. And just when +Jim was most needed to hold up his business interests and tide things +over, as well as look after his daughter, they found him dead in his +office one morning. Heart failure, the doctors said, the kind that gets +a brain-fagged business man. The estate has been in litigation for two +years. Now it is settled, and all that is left for Geraldine is a claim +her father held out here in the Sage Brush Valley. She thinks she is +going to live on that. She came in on the afternoon train and is +stopping at the Commercial Hotel. I called to see her a minute on my way +home. That was why I ate a cold dinner this evening. I asked her to come +here at once, but she refused. Some one from the hotel will bring her +over later. That means Ponk, of course. He's the whole Commercial Hotel +'and Gurrage.' We must have her here to stay with us awhile, of course." + +"York Macpherson!" his sister fairly gasped. "Coming to call this +evening! Will stay with us awhile, of course. All right. I'm willing +she should stay with us awhile, but how can _she_ live on a Sage Brush +claim? Why doesn't her rich aunt Darby provide for her? What does she +look like?" + +"I don't know," York drawled, provokingly. Then he added: "Mrs. Darby +also writes, saying that she hopes we will look after Jerry while she is +here, but that she herself can do nothing for her niece, because a +relative of her dear deceased husband, an artist of merit but no means, +is dependent on her, and she owes it to her dear deceased's memory to +look after this young man. I've a notion that there is something back of +both letters, but I haven't had time to read behind the lines yet." + +"Turns out her own flesh and blood, a girl, too, to shift for herself, +and coddles this man, this artist thing, for her dear deceased's sake. +What _do_ you think of that?" Laura burst out. + +"I don't think of that," York replied. "Not really knowing any woman but +my sister, I can't judge them by the sample. Besides, this 'girl thing' +may have elected to come to the Sage Brush herself; that would be like +Jim Swaim. Or she may be making a lark of the trip; that's her mother's +child. And, anyhow, she has property in her own name, you see." + +"Property, bosh! Where is this precious claim that is to sustain this +luxuriously reared child?" Laura Macpherson insisted. + +"It is an undeveloped claim down the Sage Brush, in a part of the +country you haven't seen yet. That is what this child of luxury has come +out for to live upon," York said, with a minor chord of anxiety in his +voice. + +Then a silence fell, for Laura Macpherson felt that something tragical +must be bound up in the course of coming events. + +It was the poet's hour of "nearly dark." The "high lights" were +beginning to gleam from the cupola of the court-house and high-school, +and station tower out across the open stretch that lay between it and +the town. New Eden was unusually well lighted for its size. York +Macpherson had forced that provision into the electric company's +franchise. But New-Edenites were still rural in their ways, and never +burned up the long summer twilight with bug-alluring street lights. +Homes, too, were mostly shadowy places, with the dwellers resting in +porch swings or lawn chairs. Moreover, although there was a little +leakage somewhere through which things disappeared occasionally, nobody +in town except bankers, postmasters, and mortgage companies locked their +doors. The jail was usually empty on the Saturday night, and the +churches were full on Sunday, as is the normal condition of Middle West +towns in a prohibition state. + +"The wind is in the east. It will rain to-morrow," York said, after a +pause. "I had planned to go to the upper Sage Brush country for a +couple of days. I'll wait till after Sunday now." + +Laura Macpherson did not know whether the last meant relief or anxiety. +York was not readable to-night. + +"What are you staring at?" York asked, presently, from his +vine-sheltered angle, as he saw his sister looking intently down into +the street. + +"Humans," Laura replied, composedly. + +"Not the Big Dipper, I hope. Isn't the town big enough without her +ranging all over 'Kingussie'?" + +"Oh, York, you will call Mrs. Bahrr 'the Big Dipper' to her face some +day, if you don't quit your private practice," Laura declared. + +"Well, her name is Stella Bahrr. 'Stellar,' she calls it, and she +pronounces her surname just plain 'Bear.' If that isn't starry enough I +don't know my astronomy. And she is always dipping into other folks's +business and stirring up trouble with a high hand. Laura, once and for +all, never tie up with that little old hat-trimmer. She'll trim you if +you do." + +"Don't be uneasy about our getting chummy. I'm positively rude to her +most of the time. She isn't coming here. She has veered off toward the +Lenwells'. But look who is coming, York." + +York shifted his chair into line with the street. + +"It's the fair Philadelphian and her pompous gentleman in waiting," York +declared. + +"Look at little Brother Ponk strut, would you? 'A charge to keep I +have.' But, York, Miss Swaim appears a bit too Philadelphian for our New +Eden scenery!" Laura exclaimed. + +"She is a type all her own, I would say. Jim Swaim's determined chin and +Lesa's dreamy eyes. She will be an interesting study, at least. I wonder +which parent will win in her final development," York replied, as the +two approached the house. + +"I have brought the young lady to call on you," Mr. Ponk said, +presenting his companion with a flourish, as if she were a trophy cup or +a statue just unveiled. "Sorry I can't stay to visit with you, but my +clerk is out to-night. They'll take care of you beautiful, Miss Swaim. +No, thank you, no. I'll just soar back to the hotel." + +He waved off the seat York had proffered him, and bowed himself away as +gracefully as a short, round man can bow. + +Laura Macpherson had an inborn gift of hospitality, but she realized at +once that this guest brought an unusual and compelling interest. She was +conscious, too, in a vague way, of the portent of some permanent change +pending. What she saw clearly was a very pretty girl with a soft voice +and a definite, forceful personality. + +"Miss Swaim, you must be tired after your long journey," Laura began, +courteously. + +"Please don't call me that. I am so far from home I'll be 'Miss Swaimed' +enough, anyhow." + +The appeal in the blue eyes broke down all reserve. + +"Then I'll call you 'Jerry,' as I did when you were a little girl and I +was beginning to think about getting grown up," Laura exclaimed. + +"And since you are far from home, we hope you may find a home welcome in +our house, and that you will come at once and be our guest +indefinitely," York added, with his winning smile that ought to have +sent him to Congress years ago. + +Something about Jerry Swaim had caught Laura Macpherson in a moment. She +hoped that York had the same feeling. But York was one of the +impenetrable kind when he chose. And he certainly chose that evening to +prove his impenetrability. + +"You are very kind," Jerry said, looking at York with earnest eyes, void +of all coquettishness. Then, turning to York's sister, she went on: + +"I am not tired now. But the last part of my journey was frightful. The +afternoon was hot, and the wind blew terrifically. They had to close the +windows to keep out the dust. Then we were delayed in what they told me +was called a 'blowout.'" Her eyes were sparkling now, but her emphasis +on the term seemed to cut against York Macpherson's senses like burning +sand-filled wind as he sat studying her face. + +"All the 'blowouts' I ever heard of were in the tires of our limousine +car," she continued, musingly. "And my cousin, Gene Wellington, of +Philadelphia, didn't know what to do about them at all. He is an artist, +and artists never do take to practical things. Gene was more helpless +when anything went wrong with the car than ever I was, and awfully +afraid of taking a risk or anything." + +And that, it seemed to the Macphersons, must have been helpless indeed. +For as she sat there at ease in the shadowy dimness of the summer +evening, York Macpherson thought of Carlyle's phrasing, "Her feet to +fall on softness; her eyes to light on splendor," a creature fitted only +to adorn the upholstered places of life. + +"Did you ever see that dreadful 'blowout' thing?" Jerry asked, coming +back from the recollection of limousine cars and Cousin Gene of +Philadelphia. + +"No, I have only been here a short time myself, and the country is +almost as new to me as it is to you," Laura Macpherson replied. + +"Oh, it is _such_ an awful place!" Jerry continued. "Everywhere and +everywhere one can see nothing but great sand-waves all over the land. +They have almost buried the palisades that protect the railroad. It just +seemed like the Red Sea dividing to let the Israelites go through, only +this was red-hot sand held back to let the train pass through a deep +rift. And to-day the wind had filled up the tracks so it couldn't go +through until the sand was cleaned out. There is only one kind of shrub, +a spiny looking thing, growing anywhere on all those useless acres. It +is a perfectly horrid country! Why was such land ever made?" Jerry +turned to York with the question. + +"I can't tell you," York said, "but there are some good things here." + +"Yes, there is my claim," Jerry broke in. "It's all I have left, you +know. Cousin Gene tried to persuade me it would be better off without +me, but I'm sure it must need the owner's oversight to make it really +profitable. There was no record, in settling up the estate, of its +having produced any income at all. I certainly need the income now. +Taking care of myself is a new experience for me." + +All the vivacity and hopefulness of youth was in her words. But the +dreamy expression on her face that came and went with her moods soon +returned. + +"Cousin Gene Wellington is not my real cousin, you know. He is Uncle +Darby's relative, not Aunt Jerry's. He is an artist, but without any +income right now, like myself. Both of us have to learn how to go alone, +you see, but I'm not going back to Philadelphia now, no matter what Aunt +Jerry Darby may say." + +This was no appeal for sympathy. Taking care of oneself seemed easy +enough to Lesa Swaim's child, to whom the West promised only one grand +romantic adventure. There was something, too, in the tone in which she +pronounced the name of Gene Wellington that seemed to set it off from +every other name. And she pronounced it often enough to trouble York +Macpherson. No other name came so easily and so frequently and frankly +to her lips. + +"We hope you will like the West. The Sage Brush isn't so bad when you +get acclimated to its moods," York assured her. "But don't expect too +much at first, nor too definite a way of securing an income." + +Only Laura Macpherson caught the same minor chord of anxiety in her +brother's voice that she recalled had been in it when he told her of +Jerry's claim. It seemed impossible, however, that anything could refuse +to be profitable for this charming, blossomy kind of a girl who must +thrive on easy success or perish, like a flower. + +"Oh, land always means an income, my father used to say. Aunt Jerry has +only two hundred acres, but it is a fortune to her," the girl declared. +"I'm not uneasy. As soon as I get a real hold on my property here I'll +be all right. It is getting late. I must go now. No, I am going by +myself," she declared, prettily, as York prepared to accompany her back +to the hotel. "It is straight up this light street and I am going to try +it alone from the very beginning. That's why I didn't go to your office +as soon as I got here to-day. I told Cousin Gene I could take care of +myself and make my own way out here, just as he is making his own way in +the East, working in his studio. No, you shall not go with me. Thank +you so much. No. Good-by." This to York Macpherson, who was wise enough +to catch the finality of her words. + +The twilight was almost gone, but a young moon in the west made the +street still light as the two on the porch watched the girl going +firm-footed and unafraid, unconscious of their anxiety for what lay in +the days before her. + +"Is it courage, or contempt for the West, that makes her fearless where +one would expect her to be timid? She seems a combination of ignorance +and assertiveness and a plea for sympathy all in one," Laura Macpherson +declared. + +"She is the child of two different temperaments--Jim one, and Lesa +another; a type all her own, but taking on something of each parent," +York asserted, as he watched until the girl had disappeared at the door +of the Commercial Hotel, far up the street. + +The next day was an unusual one for four people in New Eden. The wind +came from the east, driving an all-day rain before it, and York +Macpherson did not go to the upper Sage Brush country. Instead, he +worked steadily in his office all day. Some files he had not opened for +months were carefully gone over, and township maps were much in +evidence. Every now and then he glanced toward the upper windows of the +Commercial Hotel. Mr. Ponk had said that Jerry had No. 7, the room he +had occupied for several years. He wondered if this rain was making her +homesick for the Winnowoc Valley and "Eden" and that wonderful Cousin +Gene, blast him! There was a smile in York's eyes whenever he looked +across the street. When he turned to his work again his face was stern. +What he thought was a determination not to be bothered by rainy-day +loafers coming into his office, what made him set his teeth and grip to +his work, was really the fight with a temptation to go over to the hotel +and look after a homesick girl. + +Meantime Jerry Swaim, snug in a filmy gray kimona with pink facings and +soft gray slippers, was enjoying the day to the full limit. Secure from +strangers, relaxed from the weariness of travel, she slept dreamlessly, +and wakened, pink and rested, to watch the cool, life-giving rains and +dream her wonderful day-dreams wherein new adventure, victory over +obstacles, and Eugene each played a part. Jerry was in love with life. +Sunshine and rain, wind and calm, every season, were made to serve her, +all things in nature to bring her interest and pleasure--all except +_sand_. That hot hour and a half between sand-leaguered palisades seared +her memory. But that was all down-stream now, with the junction station, +and the country Thelma, and the tow-headed woman and flabby flopping +baby, and the little old Teddy Bear humping his yellow-brown fuzziness +against the swirl of cinders and prairie dust. The recollection of it +all was like the touch of a live coal on the cool surface of her +tranquil soul, a thing abhorred that yet would not be uncreated nor +forgotten. + +"To-morrow will be Sunday." The little pagan would have one more idle +day. "I'll get a letter from Eugene on Monday. On Monday," dreamily, +"I'll beg into live here, not stay here. What charming folks the +Macphersons are! and--so different." + +There was a difference. Jerry did not know, nor care to analyze it, nor +explain to herself, why these two people had in themselves alone begun +to make New Eden worth while for her. She for whom things, human and +otherwise, had heretofore been created--all except _sand_. + +The third New-Edenite who had some special interests on this rainy day +was Junius Brutus Ponk. Often an idler in the Macpherson Company's +office, he was always interesting to York. There were never created two +of his kind. That in itself made him worth while to the big, strong man +of many affairs. And, much as York wanted to be alone to-day, he +welcomed the coming of Ponk. In the long, serious conversation that +followed, their usual bantering had no place. And when the little man +went slowly out, and slowly crossed the street to the hotel, indifferent +to the steady fall of rain, York Macpherson's eyes followed him +earnestly. + +"He'll almost forget to strut if that girl stays here--but she won't +stay. And he will strut. He's made that way. But down under it all he's +a man, God bless him--a man any woman could trust." + +Up at "Castle Cluny" the rainy day brought one caller whom "chilling +winds nor poisonous breath" could never halt--Mrs. Stellar Bahrr, +otherwise--"the Big Dipper"--the town gossip. + +Mrs. Stellar Bahrr was a married, widowed-by-divorce, old-maid type, +built like a sky-scraper, of the lean, uncertain age just around sixty, +with the roundness of youth all gone, and the plump beauty of +matronliness all lacking, wrinkled with envy and small malice, living on +repeating what New Eden wanted kept untold. Hiding what New Eden should +have known of her, she maintained herself on a pension from some one, +known only to York Macpherson, and the small income derived just now +from trimming over last year's hats "to make them look like +four-year-olds," York declared. + +The real milliner of the town was a brisk, bright business woman who had +Stellar Bahrr on her trail in season and out of season. Mrs. Bahrr +herself could not have kept up a business of any kind for a week, for +she changed callings almost with the moon's phases. + +No more unwelcome caller could have intruded on the homey, delicious, +rainy-day seclusion of "Castle Cluny." + +"I jis' run in to see the hat again you're goin' to wear to-morrow, Miss +Laury. I 'ain't got more 'n a minute. Ye ain't alone this dreary day, +are ye? The Lenwells was sayin' last night your brother was goin' to the +upper Sage Brush on some business with the Posers. But they're in town, +rainy as it is, an' all. Did he go?" + +"No, he put it off till Monday," Laura replied, wondering what interest +York's going or coming could be to Stellar Bahrr. + +"As I was sayin', the Posers is in town. Come to meet Nell and her baby. +They come in on the freight yesterday. The biggest, bald-headest young +un you ever see. Nell wants her hat fixed over, and nothin' on the +livin' earth to fix it with, ner money to pay for it. I'll make ol' +Poser do that, though. Lemme see your hat, so's I can get an idy or two. +You've got some 'commodation, if that blamed millinery-store hain't. +Thank ye for the favor." + +Stellar had a way of pinning her eyes through one until her victim could +not squirm. She also had a way of talking so much she gave the +impression of running down and the promise of a speedy leave-taking, +which she never took until she had gained all the information she +wanted. Her talent in a good cause would have been invaluable, for she +was shrewd, patient, and everlastingly persistent. + +Laura Macpherson reluctantly left the room to get her hat, wondering, +since it had not been out of the box before, how in the world Stellar +Bahrr knew anything about it. Mrs. Bahrr was standing by the dining-room +window when she returned. + +"I jis' come out here to see if the Sage Brush is raisin' down yonder. +Who is that strange girl Ponk's running around with last night?" The +gossip turned the question suddenly. "I seen 'em comin' up here myself. +Folks down-town don't know yet." The sharp, steel-pointed eyes caught +into Laura like hooks. + +"I don't--believe you'll like this hat." Laura had meant to say, "I +don't intend to tell you," but she was hooked too quickly. + +"Who'd you say she is?" + +There was no courteous way out now. + +"She is a Miss Swaim." + +"Say, this hat's a jew'l. Looks younger 'n the girls' hats does on 'em. +Where's she from?" + +"East. This color is a bit trying for me, I think." + +"Oh, no 'tain't! What's she here for?" + +"I--You'll have to ask York." Laura rolled her burdens on her brother's +shoulders, as did likewise the remainder of New Eden, when crowded to +the wall. + +"York! She ain't after him, I hope. Don't blush so. That's a good one +on York. An' he never met her at the station, even. Ponk--little fiend" +(Ponk always turned game-cock when Stellar approached him), "little +devil he is--he telephoned in from down at the sidin', by the deep +fishin'-hole." + +Mrs. Bahrr caught her breath and bit her lips as she eyed her hostess +slyly. Laura Macpherson was white with disgust and anger. Of all the +long-tongues, here was the queen. + +"Where's the deep fishing-hole?" she asked, innocently, to get her +unpleasant caller on another tack. + +For a moment Mrs. Bahrr did not reply, busying herself with examining +the new hat's lining and brim-curves. If Laura had known what York +Macpherson knew she would have realized that here was the place to score +by dwelling on the deep fishing-hole. But Laura was new to Sage Brush +traditions. + +"Ponk calls in to have his spanky new runabout all ready at the station. +George nearly busted hisself gettin' there. Then Ponk, the miserable +brute, he hangs around and keeps Miss Swine--" + +"Swaim, Geraldine Swaim," Laura cried, in disgust. + +"Yes, Geraldine Swim--keeps her inside, so's nobody gets a good look at +her. I was there myself, a-watchin' him. I'd gone to see if my fish 'd +been sent up, an' when they'd all cleared out he trots her out, big as +Cuffey, and races to the hotel with her. Maybe, though, York didn't +know she was comin', or had Ponk put up to lookin' after her for him. +You never can tell about these men. I noticed York never walked home +with her last night, neither. 'Course it was light as day. Well, well, +it's interestin' as can be. An' she come here purpose to see your +brother, too." + +"If you are through with my hat"--Laura was fairly gray with anger and +her eyes flashed as she tried to control herself. + +Nobody was wiser than Stellar Bahrr in situations like this. + +"In jest a minute. Them's the daintiest roses yet. Thank you, Miss +Laury. You ain't above helping a person like me. There's them that is +here in New Eden. But I know 'em--I know 'em. They talk to your back and +never say a word to your face, not a blamed word. But you're not like +'em. Everybody says you're just like your brother, an' that's enough for +anybody to know in the Sage Brush country. He's been the best friend I +ever had, I know that. I hope that pink-'n'-white city girl 'll find out +that much pretty quick. Somebody ought to tell her, too. Well, good day, +Miss Laury. My umberel's right outside in the umberel-stand." + +Poor Laura! She was no fighter from choice, no imputer of evil motives, +but her love for her brother amounted almost to idolatry. + +"I'm her one weakness," York often said. "Her strength is in her sense +of humor, her kind heart, her love of beautiful things, and the power of +the old scrapping blood of the Macphersons that will stand so much--and +then Joan of Arc is a tennis-player alongside of my blessed sister in +her righteous wrath." + +That rainy day ended with a problem in the minds of at least three New +Eden dwellers: York Macpherson, who carried a bigger load now than Joe +Thomson's unwise but determined mortgage matter; Junius Brutus Ponk, who +was sharing York's problem to a degree, and Laura Macpherson, who +realized that a malicious under-current was already started whose +undermining influence might sooner or later grow into a menacing power. + +And Jerry Swaim, unconscious cause of all this problem element, ate and +slept and laughed and dreamed her pretty day-dreams in utter content. It +was well that the next day was Sunday. The rain-washed prairie and the +June sunshine did so much to lift the tension in this New Eden where +even the good little snakes are not always so very good. + + + + +VI + +PARADISE LOST + + +Laura Macpherson came through the dining-room on Monday morning with her +hands full of wild flowers. + +"Wherefore?" York asked, seeing the breakfast-table already decorated +with a vase of sweet-peas. + +"Just a minute, York. I got these with the dew on them--all prairie +flowers. I thought Jerry might be up to see me to-day. I went out after +them for her," Laura explained, as she arranged the showy blossoms in +vases about the rooms. + +York dropped behind his day-old paper, calling after her, indifferently: +"I doubt if they are worth it. You must have gone to the far side of +'Kingussie' for them. I doubt, too, if she comes here to-day, but I +haven't any doubt that I am hungry and likely to get hungrier before you +get ready for breakfast." + +"Coming, coming." Laura came hastily to the table. "I forgot you in my +interest in Jerry." + +"A prevalent disease in New Eden right now," York said, behind his +paper. "Ponk nearly fell down on getting me a chauffeur for to-day; the +superintendent didn't get the quarterlies to our Sunday-school class on +time yesterday morning; the Big Dipper took the wrong pew and kept it, +and now my breakfast must wait--all on account of this Jerry girl." + +"Mournful, mournful!" Laura declared. "Such a little girl, too! I'd like +to tell you what your Big Dipper said about Jerry Saturday, but I +mustn't." + +"Saturday was a rainy day," York commented, knowing Laura would answer +no questions if he should ask them now. + +"All the more reason why the Big Dipper should come over to copy my new +hat for one of the Poser girls up the Sage Brush, and then fall to +questions and conclusions," Laura insisted. + +"I thought yesterday was the grand opening for that lid of yours. Where +did the B. D. see it?" York would not ask for what he wanted most to +know. + +"It had positively never been out of the box since it came here," Laura +declared. "But pshaw, York, it is the gossip you want to know, and I'm +really concerned about that." + +"I'm not. I am really concerned about where Stellar Bahrr saw your hat." +York was very serious and his sister was puzzled for the minute. He +never looked that way when he joked--never. + +"I don't know anything about Mrs. Bahrr's gift of second sight, York; +I'm simply telling what I do know. That hat-box was not opened. Let's +talk of better things. Mr. Ponk told me at church yesterday that when +Jerry first came she asked for 'an old gentleman named York +Macpherson.'" Laura's eyes were twinkling with mischief. "From what she +said to me yesterday she is going to depend on you for direction, just +like everybody else who comes to New Eden. I'm dead in love with her +already. Aren't you?" + +"Desperately," York returned. "But seriously, Laura, she is 'most too +big a responsibility to joke about. There are a lot of things tied up +for her in this coming West. I have to go to the upper Sage Brush this +morning to be gone for a couple of days. I wish she would come here and +stay with you, so that she might be with the best woman in the world." +York beamed affectionately upon the sweet-faced woman opposite him. "I +wish I didn't have to leave this morning, but I'll be back by to-morrow +night or early Wednesday morning. It is going to be our job to map out +her immediate future. After that, things will take their course without +us, and New Eden, I imagine, will have to get along without her. When I +get back I'll take her down to see her claim. Ponk is the only man +besides myself who knows where it is, and I've fixed him. He can't run a +hotel and garage and play escort all at once. I want to prepare her in a +way, anyhow, for she won't find exactly what she is expecting--another +'Eden' six times enlarged. Meantime turn her gently, if you can, toward +our woolly Western life. I won't say lead. Geraldine Swaim, late of +Philadelphia, will never be led." + +"York she's a lamb. Look at her big, pleading eyes," his sister +insisted. + +"Laura, she's a rock. Look at her square chin. I'm going now, and I will +and bequeath her to your care. Good-by." + +As he left the house his sister heard him whistling the air to the old +song, "I'll paddle my own canoe." + +Evidently the fair Philadelphian was still on his mind. + +"I wish," he said to himself, as he cleared the north limits of the New +Eden settlement and struck out toward the upper Sage Brush country--"I +wish to goodness I had pressed Laura to tell me more about what that +infernal Big Dipper said to her Saturday. I'll get that creature yet. I +believe she knows that as well as I do. I wish, too, I was sure things +would just stay put until I get back." + +Half an hour after York had left town Jerry Swaim, dressed for a drive, +appeared at the door of Ponk's garage. + +"Have you a good little runabout that I could hire this morning? I want +to go out into the country," she said to the proprietor. + +"Why, yes, Miss Swaim, but I 'ain't got no shofer this morning. York +Macpherson, he took my last man and soared up the country, and they +won't be back for a couple of days. I'm sorry, but could you wait till, +say, about a-Thursday, or mebby a-Friday?" + +Ponk's cheerful grin always threatened to eclipse his eyes, but this +morning there was something anxious back of his cheerfulness. Nature had +made him in a joking mood, round eyed, round headed, round bodied, +talkative, and pompous in an inverse ratio to his size. But there was +something always good and reliable about Ponk, and with all his +superficiality, too, there was a real depth to the man, and a keener +insight than anybody in New Eden, except York Macpherson, ever gave him +credit for having. + +"I'm sorry I've got no shofer. There was a run on the livery business +this morning for some reason. That's why I'm office-boy here now, 'stead +of runnin' the office next door," Ponk explained, as blandly and +conclusively as possible. + +"I don't want a chauffeur at all. I drive myself," Jerry declared. + +"You say you do?" Ponk stared at her little hands in their close-fitting +white gauntlets. + +"Now I'd never thought that. Yes," weakly, "I've got a dandy car for +them that can use it, which is mostly me. It's the little gray gadabout +we come up from the station in the other evening. There ain't another +one like it this side of the Mississippi River--S'liny, Kansas, anyhow. +You see, I have to be awful particular. I don't want it smashed against +a stone wall or run off of some bridge." + +"I've never done that with a car yet. And I used to drive our big +eight-cylinder machine over all kinds of Pennsylvania roads." + +The blue eyes were full of pathos as the memory of her home and all its +luxuries swept over Jerry. And Ponk understood. + +"We don't have no stone walls out here, and there ain't no bridges, +either, except across the Sage Brush in a few places, because there +ain't never water enough out here to bridge over. Yes, you may take the +gadabout. I just know you'll be careful. That little car's just like a +colt, and noways bridle-wise under a woman's hand." + +"Thank you. I'll take no risks." + +When Jerry was seated in the shining gray car, with her hand on the +wheel, she turned to Mr. Ponk. + +"By the way, do you know who owns any of the claims, as you call them, +in this valley?" she asked. "I was going to speak to Mr. Macpherson, but +you say he has gone out of town." + +"Yes'm." Ponk fairly swelled with importance. "I know every claim, and +who owns it, from the hills up yonder clear to the mouth of that stream. +My hotel an' livery business together keeps me as well posted as the +Macpherson Mortgage Company that holds a mortgage on most of them." + +"Can you tell me where to find the one belonging to the estate of the +late Jeremiah Swaim, of Philadelphia?" Jerry asked, in a low voice. + +The short little man beside the car looked away in pity and surprise as +he said: + +"Yes'm, I can. You follow this street south and keep on till you come to +where the Sage Brush makes a sharp bend to the east, right at a +ranch-house. From there you leave the trail (we still call that +down-stream road 'the trail') and strike across to three big +cottonwood-trees on a kind of a knoll, considerable distance away. You +can't miss 'em, for you can see 'em for miles. And then"--Ponk hesitated +as if trying to remember--"seems to me you turn, bias'n' like, southeast +a bit, and head for a little bunch of low oaks. From there you run your +eye around and figger how many acres you can see. An', it's all Jeremiah +Swaim's, or his heirs an' assignees. But, say, _you_ ain't any kin to +the late Mr. Swaim, who never seen that land of hisn, I reckon? I hadn't +thought about your names being the same. Odd I didn't." + +There was something wistful in the query which Jerry set down merely as +plebeian curiosity, but she answered, courteously: + +"Yes, he was my father. The land belongs to me." + +"Say, hadn't you better wait and let York Macpherson soar down with +you?" Ponk suggested. "It might be better, after all, mebby, not to go +alone to spy out the land, even if you can drive yourself. Seems to me +York said he'd be goin' down that way the last of the week. I do wish +you'd wait for York to go with you first." + +"I want to go alone," Jerry replied, and with a deft hand she made the +difficult curve to the street, leaving the proprietor of the garage +staring after her. + +"Well, by heck! she can run a car anyhow!" he exclaimed, as he watched +her speeding away. "Smart as her dad, I reckon. Mebby a little smarter." + +All of Lesa Swaim's love of romantic adventure was shining on Jerry +Swaim's bright face as she came upon Laura Macpherson on the cool side +porch a few minutes later. + +"I'm going out to inspect my royal demesne," she cried, gaily. + +"Not to-day. I want you to spend the day with me, and you don't know the +road. You haven't any way to go. York will be home soon. He wants to +take you there himself. He understands land values, and, anyhow, you +oughtn't go alone," Laura Macpherson said, emphatically. + +"That is just what Mr. Ponk said at the garage, but I want to go alone." + +That "I want" settled everything with Jerry Swaim in the Kansas New Eden +as in the old "Eden" in the green valley of the Winnowoc. + +"I have hired a runabout of Mr. Ponk. He gave me directions so I can't +miss the way. Good-by." + +The trail down the Sage Brush was full of delight this morning for the +young Eastern girl who sent her car swiftly along the level road, almost +forgetting the landmarks of the way in the exhilaration of youth and +June-time. And, however out of place she might seem on the Western +prairie, no one could doubt her ability to handle a car. + +"'Where the stream bends sharp to the east away from a ranch-house,'" +Jerry was quoting Ponk. "I'm sure I can't miss it if I follow his +directions and the stream and bend and house and cottonwood-trees and +oak-grove are really there. I love oaks and I hope my woodland is full +of them. There must be a woodland on my farm, even if the trees are few +and small and scattered here, so far as I have seen. But there was +really something pitiful in the little man's eyes when he was talking to +me. Maybe he is a wee bit envious of my possessions. Some men are +jealous of women who have property. No doubt my workmen will need +managing, and some adjusting to a new head of affairs. I'll be very +considerate with them, but they must respect my authority. I wish Gene +was with me this morning." + +Then she fell to musing. + +"I wonder what message Gene will send me, and whether he will write it +himself, or, as he suggested, will send it through Aunt Jerry's letters +to York. It was his original way of doing to say I'd find things out +through Aunt Jerry, when she probably won't write me a line for a long +time. I know Gene will choose nobly, and I know everything will turn out +all right at last.... I wonder if my place is as beautiful as this. How +I wish Gene could see it with his artist eyes." + +Jerry brought her engine down to slow speed as she passed a thrifty +ranch-house where barns and clustering silos, and fields of grain and +cattle-dotted prairies outlying all, betokened the possibilities of the +Sage Brush Valley. The blue eyes of Lesa Swaim's daughter were full of +dreamy light as she paused to picture here the possibilities of her own +possessions. + +At the crest of a low ridge the road forked, one branch wandering in and +out among the small willow-trees along the river, and the other cutting +clean and broad across the rougher open land swelling away from the +narrowed valley. + +"Here's something Mr. Junius Brutus Ponk left out of his map. I'll take +the rim road; it looks the more inviting," Jerry decided, because the +way of least resistance had been her life-road always. + +This one grew narrow and clung close to the water's side. Its sandy bed +was damp and firm, and the slender trees on either side here and there +almost touched branches overhead. Mile after mile it seemed to stretch +without another given landmark to show Jerry her destination. Beyond +where the road curved sharply around a thicket of small trees and +underbrush Jerry halted her car. Before her the waters of the river +rippled into foam against a rocky ledge that helped to form a deep hole +above it. Below, the stream was shallow, and in dry midsummer here +offered rough stepping-stones across it. It was a lonely spot, with the +river on one side and a tangle of bushes and tall weeds on the other, +and the curves along the roadway, filled with underbrush and low timber +shutting off the view up-stream and down-stream. + +At the coming of Jerry's car a man who had been kneeling over some +fishing-lines at the river's edge rose up beside the road, brushing the +wet sand from his clothes, and staring at her. He was small and old and +stooped and fuzzy, and thoroughly unpretty to see. + +"It's the Teddy Bear who 'sat in the sand and the sun' coming up from +that horrid railroad junction. Who's afraid of bears? I'll ask him how +to find my lost empire." + +Jerry did not reflect that it was the unconscious effect of this humble +creature's thoughtfulness for her that made her unafraid of him in this +lonely spot. Reflection was not yet one of her active psychological +processes. + +"I want to find a ranch-house by a big bend in the river where it turns +east," Jerry said, looking at the man much as she would look at the bend +in the river--merely for the information to be furnished. He pushed his +brown cap back from his forehead and rubbed his fingers thoughtfully +through his thin sunburnt hair. + +"It's Joe's place, eh?" the high, quavering voice squeaking like an +unused machine afraid of itself. "You'd ought to took the t'other fork +of the road back yander. It's a goodish mile on down this way now to +where you das to turn your cyar round. When you get where you kin turn, +then go back and take the t'other fork. It'll take you right to Joe's +door about." + +The words came hesitatingly, as if the speaker had little use for +sounding them in his solitary, silent life. Fishermen don't catch fish +by talking to them. + +"A mile! I think I'll turn right here," Jerry declared. + +Then, as the meek unknown watched her in open-mouthed wonder, she swung +her car deftly about, the outer wheels barely keeping a toe-hold on the +edge of the river-bank, with hardly more than an inch of space between +them and the crumbling sand above the water. As she faced the way over +which she had come she reached out to drop a piece of silver into the +man's hand. He let it fall to the ground, then picked it up and laid it +on the top of the car door. + +"I ain't workin' for the gov'mint," he quavered. "I thankee, but I don't +have no knowin's to sell. Ye're welcome to my ketch of information any +day ye're on the river." + +He made an odd half-military salute toward his old yellow-brown cap and +shuffled across the road toward a narrow path running back through the +bushes. + +At the bend in the river Jerry found herself. + +"That must be the ranch-house that Mr. Ponk gave me for a landmark, for +there goes the river bending east, all right. What a quaint, picturesque +thing that is, and built of stone, too, with ivy all over it! It must +have been here a long time. And how well kept everything is! The old +Teddy Bear said it was 'Joe's place.' Well, Joe keeps it looking as +different from some of the places I've passed as 'Eden' differs from +other country-places back in Pennsylvania." + +The long, low, stone ranch-house, nestling under its sheltering vines, +had an old and familiarly homey look to Jerry. + +"That wide porch is a dream. I'll have one just like it on my place. I +wonder if this farm has any name. I suppose not. What shall I call mine? +'New Eden' wouldn't do, of course. I might call it 'Paradise Prairie.' +That's pretty and smooth. Gene would like that, and talk a lot about +going 'from Nature up to Nature's God.' I don't care a whiff about all +his religious talk, somehow. That's just one thing wherein we will never +agree. If I can go from nature to the finished produce I'll be +satisfied. Oh, yonder are my three trees." + +At the bend of the Sage Brush Jerry left the stream road and sped +across a long level swell toward three cottonwood-trees standing +sentinel on a small rise of the prairie. From there she was to see the +oak-grove, the center of her own rich holdings. Oh, Jerry! + +<tb> + +Down under the spreading oaks a young man in rough ranchman's dress +stood leaning against a low bough, absorbed in thought. He was tall, +symmetrically built, and strong of muscle, without a pound of +superfluous fat to suggest anything of ease and idleness in his day's +run. Some of the lines that mark the stubborn will were graven in his +brown face, but the eyes were all-redeeming. Even as he stared out with +unseeing gaze, lost in his own thoughts, the smile that lighted them +hovered ready to illuminate what might otherwise have been a severe +countenance. + +In all the wide reach of level land there was no other living creature +in sight. The breeze pulsing gently through the oak boughs poured the +sunlight noiselessly down on the shadow-cooled grass about the +tree-trunks. The freshness of the morning lingered in the air of the +grove. + +Suddenly the young man caught the sound of an automobile coasting down +the long slide from the three cottonwoods, and turned to see a young +girl in a shining gray car gliding down into the edge of the shade. A +soft hat of Delft-blue, ornamented, valkyrie-wise, with two white wings; +golden-gleaming hair overshadowing a face full of charm; blue eyes; +cheeks of peach-blossom pink; firm, red lips; a well-defined chin and +white throat; a soft gown, Delft-blue in color; and white gauntlet +gloves--all these were in the blurred picture of that confused moment. + +As for Jerry Swaim, all farmer folk looked alike to her. It was not the +sudden appearance of a stranger, but the landscape beyond him, that held +her speechless, until the shrill whistle of a train broke the silence. + +"Is that the Sage Brush Railroad so near?" she asked, at last, with no +effort at formal greeting. + +"Yes, ma'am. It is just behind the palisades over there. You can't see +it from here because the sand-drifts are so high. That's the morning +freight now." + +The light died out of Jerry Swaim's eyes, the pink bloom faded to ivory +in her cheeks, even the red lips grew pale, as she stared at the scene +before her. For the oak-grove stood a lone outpost of greenness +defending a more or less fertile countryside from a formless, senseless +monster beyond it. Jerry had pictured herself standing in the very +center of her heritage, where she might "run her eyes around," as Ponk +had said, "and figure how many acres she could see, and they were all +hers." And now she was here. + +Wide away before her eyes rippled acre on acre, all hers, and all of +billowing sand, pointed only by a few straggling green shrubs. The glare +of the sunlight on it was intolerable, and the north wind, sweeping cool +and sweet under the oak-trees, brought no comfort to this glaring +desert. + +Suddenly she recalled the pitying look in Ponk's eyes when he had begged +her to wait for York Macpherson to come with her to this place, and she +had thought he might be envious of her good fortune. And then she +remembered that Laura Macpherson had put up the same plea for York. He +was the shield and buckler for all New Eden, it would seem. And the +three, Laura and York and Ponk, all knew and were pitying her, Jerry +Swaim, who had been envied many a time, but never, never pitied. Even in +the loss of the Swaim estate in Philadelphia, Mrs. Jerusha Darby had +made it clear to every one that her pretty niece was still to be envied +as a child of good fortune. + +Flinging aside her hat and gloves, unconscious of the stray sunbeams +sifting down through the oak boughs on her golden hair, Jerry Swaim +gazed toward the railroad with wide-open, burning eyes, and her white +face was pitiful to see. At length she turned to the young man who still +stood leaning against the oak bough beyond her car, waiting for her to +speak. + +"Can I be of any service to you?" he asked, courteously. + +"Who are you?" Jerry questioned, with unconscious bluntness. + +"My name is Joe Thomson." The smile in his eyes lighted his face as he +spoke. + +"Tell me all about this place, won't you?" Jerry demanded, pointing +toward the gleaming sands. "Was it always like this, here? I thought +when the Lord finished the earth He looked on His work and found it +good. Did He overlook this spot?" + +Surprise and sarcasm and bitter disappointment were all in her tone as +she asked these questions. + +Joe Thomson frowned as he replied: + +"It wasn't an oversight at all. There was a fine piece of prairie here +until a few years ago, with only one little sandy strip zigzagging +across it. Ages back, there may have been a stream along that low place +yonder that dried up and blew away some time, when the forest fires +changed the prehistoric woodlands into prairies. I can't be accurate +about geology and such things if history and the Scriptures are silent +on these fine points." + +Joe Thomson still stood leaning against the oak limb. The confusion of +meeting this handsome stranger had passed. He was in his own territory +now, talking of things of which he knew. He knew, too, how to put his +thoughts into good, expressive English. + +"There are beautiful farms up the river--ranches, I mean. What has +changed this prairie to such an awful place?" Jerry questioned, +eagerly. + +"Eastern capital and lack of brains and energy," Joe answered her. "It +is just a blowout, that's all. It began in that sandy strip in that low +place along over there by the railroad, where, as I say, some old +river-bed, maybe the Sage Brush, might have been long ago before it made +that big bend in its course up by my buildings. A crazy, money-mad fool +from back East came out here and plowed up all this ground one dry +season, a visionary fellow who dreamed of getting a fortune from the +land without any labor. And when the thing began to look like real work +he cut the whole game, just like a lot of other fools have done, and +went back East, leaving all these torn, unsodded acres a plaything for +the winds. There were three or four dry seasons right after that, and +the soil all went to dust and blew away. But the sand grew, and +multiplied, and surged over the face of this particular spot of the +Lord's earth until it has come to be a tyrant of power, covering all +this space and spreading slowly northward up over the next claim. That's +mine." + +"What is it doing to your land?" Jerry asked. + +"Ruining it," Joe replied, calmly. + +"And you don't go mad?" the girl cried, impulsively. + +"We don't go mad on the Sage Brush till the last resort, and we don't +often come to that. When we can't do one thing, out West, we do another. +That's all there is to it." The smile was in his eyes again as Joe said +this. + +"Do you know who owns this ground now?" Jerry tried to ask as carelessly +as possible. + +"An estate back in Pennsylvania, I believe," Joe replied. + +"What is it worth?" Jerry's voice was hardly audible. + +"Look at it. What do _you_ think it is worth, as a whole, or cut up into +town lots for a summer resort?" Joe demanded. + +In spite of his calmness there was a harshness in his voice, and his +eyes were stern. + +Jerry twisted her white hands helplessly. "I don't know--anything worth +knowing," she said, faintly, looking full into the young man's face for +the first time. + +Afterward she remembered that he was powerfully built, that his eyes +were dark, and that his teeth showed white and even, as he repeated, +with a smile: + +"You don't know anything worth knowing. You don't quite look the part." + +"Why don't you answer my question?" + +Back of the light in Jerry's eyes Joe saw that the tears were waiting, +and something in her face hurt him strangely. + +"I think this claim is not worth--an effort," he declared, frankly, +looking out at the wind-heaved ridges of sand. + +"What brought you here to look at it, then?" Jerry demanded. + +"Partly to despise the fool who owned it and let it become a curse." + +"Do you know him?" the girl inquired. + +"No. But if I did I should despise him just the same," Joe Thomson +declared. + +"What if he were dead?" Jerry asked. + +"Pardon me, but may I ask what brought you down here to look at such a +place?" Joe interrupted her. + +"I came down here to find out its value. It belongs to me. My only +inheritance. I have always lived in a big city until now, and I know +little of country life except its beauty and comfort, and nothing at all +of the West. But I can understand you when you say that this claim is +not worth an effort. I hope I shall never, never see it again. Good-by." + +The firm, red lips quivered and the blue eyes looked up through real +tears as Jerry Swaim drew on her gloves and fitted the soft blue hat +down on the golden glory of her hair. Then without another word she +turned her car about and sped away. + + + + +II + +JERRY AND JOE + + + + +VII + +UNHITCHING THE WAGON FROM A STAR + + +How long is a mid-June day? Ticked off by the almanac, it is so much +time as lies between the day-dawn and the dark of evening. But Jerry +Swaim lived a lifetime in that June day in which she went out to enter +upon her heritage. From the moment she had turned away from the young +farmer under the oak-trees until she reached the forks of the road again +she did not take cognizance of a single object. The three big cottonwood +sentinels, the vine-covered ranch-home, the deep bend of the Sage Brush +to the eastward, were passed unnoted. Ponk's gray gadabout seemed to +know the way home like a faithful horse. + +There was no apparent reason why the junction of the two highways should +have momentarily called the bewildered disappointed girl to her calmer +self. No more was there anything logical in her choosing to turn again +down the narrow river road. The lone old fisherman was the farthest down +in the scale from Geraldine Swaim of any human being who had ever shown +her a favor. He could not have had any interest for her.... But York +Macpherson was correct in his estimate of Jerry. She was a type in +herself alone. She drove far beyond the narrow place by the deep hole +where, with accurate eye and clear skill, she had played a game of +chance with the river and fate and guardian angels. Her tires had cut a +wide, curving gash across the sand of the road. + +"My gracious alive! that was a close turn!" she exclaimed, as she caught +sight of her wheel-marks. "No wonder the old Teddy Bear looked scared. +One inch or less! Well, there was that inch. But what for? To enter on +my vast landed--vast sanded--estate in the kingdom of Kansas!" + +Jerry smiled grimly in ridicule of her foolish, defrauded self. Then in +a desperate effort to blot out of mind what she had seen she hurled the +gray car madly forward. With the bewildered gropings of a shipwrecked +landsman she was struggling to get her bearings, she for whom the earth +had been especially designed. As the hours passed the road became dry +and sunny, with the north breeze tempering the air to the coolness of a +rare Kansas June day, entirely unlike the hot and windy one on which +Jerry had first come up this valley. She did not, in reality, cover many +miles now, because she made long stops in sheltered places and at times +let the gray machine merely creep on the sunny stretches, but in her +mind she had girdled the universe. + +In the late afternoon she turned about wearily, as one who has yet many +leagues of ground to cover before nightfall. The sunlight glistened +along the surface of the river and a richer green gleamed in what had +been the shadowy places earlier in the day; but the driver in the car +paid little heed to the lights and shadows of the way. + +"If a man went right with himself." Cornelius Darby's words came +drifting across the girl's mind. "Poor Uncle Cornie! He didn't begin to +live, to me, until he was gone. Maybe he knew what it meant for a man +_not_ to go right with himself. And if a woman went right with herself!" + +Jerry halted her car again by the deep hole and looked at nothing where +the Sage Brush waters were rippling over the rough ledge in its bed. For +the first time since she had sat under the oak-trees and looked at the +acres that were hers, Jerry Swaim really found herself on solid ground +again. The bloom came slowly back to the ashy cheeks, and the light into +the dark-blue eyes. + +"If I can only go right with myself, I shall not fail. I need time, +that's all. There will be a letter from Eugene waiting when I get back +to town, and that will make up for a lot. There must be some way out of +all the mistakes, too. It wasn't my land that I saw. Mr. Ponk must have +directed me wrongly. That country fellow may not know the facts. I'll go +back and ask York Macpherson right away. Only, he's gone out of town for +two days. Oh dear!" + +She wrung her hands as the picture of that oak-grove and all that lay +beyond it came vividly before her. She tried to forget it and for a +moment she smiled to herself deceivingly, and then--the smile was gone +and by the determined set of her lips Jerry was her father's own +resolute child again. + +"I don't exactly know what next, except that I'm hungry. Why, it is five +o'clock! Where has this day gone, and where am I, anyhow?" + +Her eyes fell on the broad ruts across the road. Then back in the bushes +she caught a glimpse of a low roof. + +"I smell fish frying. I'll starve to death if I wait to get back to the +Commercial Hotel!" Jerry exclaimed. "Here's the wayside inn where I find +comfort for man and beast." + +She called sharply with her horn. In a minute the fuzzy brown fisherman +came shuffling along the narrow path through the bushes. + +"I'm dreadfully hungry," Jerry said, bluntly. + +It did not occur to her to explain to this creature why she happened to +be here and hungry at this time. She wanted something; that was +sufficient. + +"Can't you let me have some of your fish? I am desperate," she went on, +smiling at the surprised face of the man who stared up at her in +silence. + +"Yes'm, I can give you what I eat. Just a minute," he squeaked out, at +last. Then he shuffled back to where the bit of roof showed through the +leaves. + +While the girl waited a tall, slender woman came around the brushy bend +ahead. She halted in the middle of the road and stared a moment at +Jerry; then she came forward rapidly and passed the car without looking +up. She wore a plain, grayish-green dress, with a sunbonnet of the same +hue covering her face--all very much like the bushes out of which she +seemed to have come and into which she seemed to melt again. In her hand +she carried a big parcel lightly, as if its weight was slight. As Jerry +turned and looked after her with a passing curiosity, she saw that the +woman was looking back also. The young city-bred girl had felt no fear +of the strange country fellow in the far-away oak-grove; she had no fear +of this uncouth fisherman in this lonely hidden place; but when she +caught a mere glimpse of this woman's eyes staring at her from under the +shadows of the deep sunbonnet a tremor of real fright shook her hands +grasping the steering-wheel. It passed quickly, however, with the +reappearance of the host of the wayside inn. + +"This is delicious," Jerry exclaimed, as the hard scaly hands lifted a +smooth board bearing her meal up to her. + +Fried fish, hot corn-bread, baked in husks in the ashes, wild +strawberries with coarse brown sugar sprinkled on them, and a cup of +fresh buttermilk. + +The girl ate with the healthy appetite that youth, a long fast, a day in +the open, and a well-cooked meal can create. When she had finished she +laid a silver half-dollar on the board beside the cracked plate. + +"'Tain't nuthin'; no, 'tain't nuthin'. I jis' divided with ye," the +fisherman insisted, shrilly. + +"Oh, it is worth a dollar to drink this good buttermilk!" + +Jerry lifted the cup, a shining silver mug, and turned it in the light. +It was of an old pattern, with a quaint monogram on one side. + +"This looks like an heirloom," she thought. "Why should a bear with +cracked plates and iron knives and forks offer me a drink in a silver +cup? There must be a story back of it. Maybe he's a nobleman in +disguise. Well, the disguise is perfect. After all, it's as good as a +novel to live in Kansas." + +Jerry slowly sipped the drink as these thoughts ran through her mind. +The meal was helping wonderfully to take the edge off of the tragedy of +the morning. It would overwhelm her again later, but in this shady, +restful solitude it slipped away. + +She smiled down at the old man at the thought of him in a story. _Him!_ +But the smile went straight to his heart; that was Jerry's gift, making +him drop his board tray and break the cracked plate in his confusion. + +"Here's another quarter. That was my fault," Jerry insisted. + +"Oh no'm, no'm! 'Tain't nobody's fault." The voice quavered as the +scaly brown hand thrust back the proffered coin. + +Jerry could not understand why this creature should refuse her money. +Tipping, to her mind, covered all the obligations her class owed to the +lower strata of the earth's formation. + +<tb> + +At sunset York Macpherson drove into Ponk's garage. + +"Hello, fellow-townsman! You look like a sick man!" he exclaimed, as the +owner met him in the doorway. + +"I'd 'a' been a dead man if you hadn't come this minute," Ponk growled +back. + +"Congratulations! The good die young," York returned. "I failed to get +through to the place I wanted to see. That Saturday rain filled the dry +upper channels where a bridge would rot in the tall weeds, but an +all-day rain puts a dangerous flood in every ford, so I came back in +time to save your life. What's your grievance?" + +Ponk's face was agonizing between smiles and tears. "Well, spite of all +I, or _anybody_ could do, Miss Swaim takes my little gadabout this +morning and makes off with it." + +"And broke the wind-shield? I told you to keep her at home." + +York still refused to be serious. + +"I don't know what's broke, except my feelin's. You tried yet to _keep_ +her anywhere? She would go off to that danged infernal blowout section +of the country, _and she ain't back yet_." + +York Macpherson grasped the little man by the arm. "Not back yet! Where +is she, then?" + +"She ain't; that's all I know," Ponk responded, flatly. "Yes, yes, +yonder she is just soarin' into the avenue up by 'Castle Cluny' this +minute. Thank the Lord an' that Quaker-colored gadabout!" + +"Tell her I'll see her at the hotel as soon as I get my mail," York +said, and he hurried to his office. + +A few minutes later Jerry Swaim brought the gray runabout up to the +doorway of the garage. + +Ponk assisted her from it and took the livery hire mechanically. + +"Thank you, Miss Swaim. Hope you had a safe day. No'm, that's too much," +handing back a coin of the change. "That's regular. Yes'm." Then, as an +afterthought, he added, with a bow, "York Macpherson he's in town again, +an' he's waitin' to see you in the hotel 'parlor.'" + +"Oh!" a gasp of surprise and relief. "Thank you, Mr. Ponk. Yes, I have +had a safe day." And Jerry was gone. + +The little man stared after her for a full minute. Then he gave a long +whistle. + +"She's a Spartan, an' she's goin' to die game. I'll gamble on that with +Rockefeller. This is the rummiest, bummiest world I ever lived in," he +declared to himself. "Why _the_ dickens does the blowouts have to fall +on the just as well as the unjust 's what I respectfully rise to ask of +the Speaker of all good an' perfect gifts. An' I'm goin' to keep the +floor till I get the recognition of Chair." + +York Macpherson was standing with his back to the window, so that his +face was in the shadow, when Jerry Swaim came into the little parlor. +Her eyes were shining, and the pink bloom on her cheek betokened the +tenseness of feeling held in check under a calm demeanor. + +"Pardon me for keeping you waiting, Mr. Macpherson. I've been away from +town all day and I wanted to get my mail before I came in. I'm a long +way from everybody, you know." + +There may have been a hint of tears in the voice, but the blue eyes were +very brave. + +"And you got it?" + +That was not what York meant to say. It was well that his face was in +the shadow while Jerry's was in the light. There are times when a man's +heart may be cut to the quick, and because he is a man he must not cry +out. + +"No, not to-day. I don't know why," Jerry replied, slowly, with a +determined set of her red lips, while the fire in her blue-black eyes +burned steadily and the small hands gripped themselves together. + +"I haven't had a word since I left home, and I had hoped that I might +find a letter waiting for me here." + +"Letters are delayed, and letter-writers, too, sometimes. Maybe they are +all busy with Mrs. Darby's affairs. I remember when I was a boy up on +the Winnowoc she could keep me busier than anybody else ever did," York +offered. + +"It must be that. Of course it must. Aunt Jerry is as industrious as I +am idle." Jerry gave a sigh of relief. + +After the strain of this day, it was vastly comforting to her to stop +thinking _forward_, and just remember how beautiful it must be at "Eden" +now; and Eugene was there, and it was twilight. But like a hot blast the +memory of the hot sand-heaps of her landed estate came back. + +"Did you want to see me about something?" she asked, suddenly. "Mr. Ponk +said you did." + +"Yes, Jerry. I came here to see you because my sister and I want you to +come out to our house at once, and I have orders from Laura not to come +home without you." + +"You are very kind. You know where I have been to-day?" + +York smiled. Even in her abstraction Jerry felt the genial force of that +smile. How big and strong he was, and there was such a sense of +protection in his presence. + +"Yes. You denied me the privilege of escorting you on this journey. I +had written a full description of your property to Cornelius Darby, in +reply to some questions of his, but his death must have come before the +letter reached Philadelphia. In the mass of business matters Mrs. Darby +may have missed my report." + +"She may have," Jerry echoed, faintly. "I cannot say. Then it is my +estate that is all covered with sand, barren and worthless as a desert? +I thought I might have been mistaken." + +The hope died out of Jerry's face with the query. + +"I wish I could have saved you this surprise," York said, earnestly. +"Come home with me now. 'Castle Cluny' must be your castle, too, as long +as you can put up with us. And you can take plenty of time to catch your +breath. The earth is a big place, and, while most of it is covered with +water, very little of it is covered entirely with sand." + +How kind his tones were! Jerry remembered again that both his sister and +Mr. Ponk had urged her to wait for his coming. But she was not +accustomed to waiting for anybody. A faint but persistent self-blame +gripped her. + +"May I stay with you until I find where I really am? Just now I'm all +smothered in bewildering sand-dunes." She smiled up at the tall man +before her with a confiding, appealing earnestness. + +Many women smiled upon York Macpherson. Many women confided in him. He +was accustomed to it. + +"Laura will consider it a boon, for you must know that she sometimes +gets a trifle lonely in New Eden. We'll call the compact finished." Only +a gracious intuition could have turned the favor so graciously back to +the recipient. But that was York's gift. + +In the dining-room at "Castle Cluny" that evening Jerry noticed a silver +cup with a quaintly designed monogram on one side. + +"That's an old heirloom," Laura said, as she saw her guest's eyes fixed +on it. "Like everything else in this house, it is coupled up with some +old Macpherson clan tradition, as befitting an old bachelor and old maid +of that ilk." + +"We used to have two of them," York said. + +"We have yet somewhere," Laura replied. "I hadn't missed one from the +sideboard before. It must be back in the silver-closet, with other old +silver and old memories." + +Jerry's day had been full of changes, up and down, from hope to bitter +disappointment, from reality to forgetfulness, from clear conception to +bewildered confusion, her mind had run since she had left the oak-grove +in the forenoon. When she had occasion to remember that silver cup +again, she wondered how she could have passed it over so lightly at this +time. + +Although Jerry's problem was very real, and she brought to its solution +neither experience nor discipline, unselfish breadth nor spiritual +trust, there was something in the homey atmosphere of "Castle Cluny" +that seemed to smooth away the long day's wrinkles for her. Out in the +broad porch in the twilight she nestled down like a tired child among +the cushions, and gazed dreamily out at the evening landscape. York had +been called away by a neighbor and Laura and her guest were alone. + +"How beautiful it is here!" Jerry murmured, as the afterglow of a +prairie sunset flooded the sky with a splendor of rose and opal and +amethyst. "I saw a sunset like that not long ago in an art exhibit in +Philadelphia. I thought then there couldn't be such a real sunset. It +was in a landscape all yellow-gray and desert-like. I thought that was +impossible, too. I've seen both--land and sky--to-day, and both are +greater than the artist painted them." + +"The artist never equals the thing he is trying to copy, neither can he +create anything utterly unreal. I missed the exhibits very much when I +first came West, but this is some compensation," Laura said, +meditatively. + +"Do you ever get lonely here? I suppose not, for you didn't come to find +a great disappointment when you came to New Eden," Jerry declared, +watching the tranquil face of her hostess. + +"No, Jerry, I brought my disappointment with me," Laura said, with a +smile that made her look very much like her brother. And Jerry realized +that Laura Macpherson's maimed limb had not broken her heart. Laura was +a very new type to her guest. + +"Oh, I get lonely sometimes and resentful sometimes," Laura went on, +"but we get over a good many little things in the day's run. And then I +have York, you know, and now and then a guest who means a great deal to +me. I have so many interests here, too. You'll like New Eden when you +really know us. And up here this porch has become my holy of holies. +There is something soothing and healing in the breezes that sweep up the +Sage Brush on summer evenings. There is something restful in the stretch +of silent prairie out there, and the wide starlit sky above it. Kansas +sooner or later always has a message for the sons and daughters of men." + +"And something always interesting in our neighbors. See who approaches." +York, who had just come up the side steps, supplemented his sister's +remark. + +"Oh, that is Mrs. Stella Bahrr, the Daily Evening News. Jerry, York can +always unhitch your wagon from its star. She really is his black beast, +though; but you can't expect mere men to take an interest in milliners, +make-overs, at that, however much interest they take in millinery and +what is under it." + +"And millinery bills, with or without interest," York interfered again. + +"Mrs. Bahrr will want a full report of Jerry, with the blank spaces for +remarks filled out," Laura went on. "Why, she has changed her course and +is tacking away with the wind." + +"Going over to the Lenwells', I suppose. They are in some way sort of +distantly related to her. Just near enough, anyhow, to listen to all her +stories, and then say: 'For goodness sake don't say I told it; I got it +from Stellar, you know.' She will put into any port right now. I'm her +lighthouse warning," York declared. "She never approaches when I'm +present." + +York had risen and was standing in the doorway, where the growing moon +revealed him clearly. Mrs. Bahrr, coming up the walk toward the +Macpherson drive, suddenly turned about and hurried away, her tall, +angular form in relief against the sky-line in the open space that lay +between the Macpherson home and the nearest buildings down the slope +toward the heart of the town. + +"Coming back to common things," York continued, dropping into his +favorite chair. "My sister scandalizes me on every occasion. Whether or +not you hitch your wagon to a star, Jerry, is not so important, after +all. The real test is in just what kind of a star you hitch to. That +will tell whether you are going to ride to glory or cut such a figure as +the cow did that jumped over the moon." + +"It is not always that lawyers give counsel for nothing, Jerry," Laura +began, but the line of talk was again interrupted. + +The coming of callers led to many lines of discussion during the long +summer evening, in which Jerry took little part. In this new hemisphere +in which she was trying to find herself, where east seemed south and her +right hand her left, there was so much of the old hemisphere against +which she had partly burnt her bridges. The friendly familiarity of New +Eden neighbors was very different from the caste exclusiveness of the +Darby-Swaim set in Philadelphia. With the Winnowoc Valley people the +rich landholders had no social traffic. But the broad range of +conversation to-night, token of general information, called up home +memories in Jerry's mind and the long evenings when Jim Swaim's friends +gathered there to discuss world topics with her father, while she +listened with delight to all that was said. Her mother didn't care for +these things and wondered why her artistic daughter could be so +interested in them. But when the Macphersons and their guests spoke of +the latest magazines and the popular fiction and the recent drama it +brought up Lesa Swaim in her element to the listening young stranger. It +seemed so easy for the Macphersons to entertain gracefully, to make +everybody at home in the shadowy comfort of that big porch, to bring in +limeade and nut-cakes in cut-glass and fine china service, to forget +none of the things due to real courtesy, and yet to envelop all in the +genuine, open-hearted informality of the genial, open-hearted West. + +Long after the remainder of the Macpherson household was asleep Jerry +Swaim lay wide awake, her mind threshed upon with the situation in which +she had suddenly found herself. And over and over in the aisles of her +thoughts what York Macpherson had said about unhitching from a star ran +side by side with Uncle Cornie's words, "If a man went right with +himself." + + + + +VIII + +IF A MAN WENT RIGHT WITH HIMSELF + + +There were two of a kind of the Swaim blood, Geraldine Swaim, who had +always had her own way, and Jerusha Swaim Darby, who had always had her +own way. When the wills and the ways of these two clashed--well, Jerusha +had lived many years and knew a thing or two by experience that niece +Geraldine had yet to learn. + +On the very day that Jerry Swaim left "Eden" Mrs. Darby had gone into +the city for a conference with her late husband's business associates. +Sloth in action never deprived her of any opportunities; and quick +action now meant everything in the accomplishment of the purpose she had +before her. + +"Cornelius was such a quiet man, he was never very much company. He +really did not care for people, like most men," Mrs. Darby said to her +business partners, who had known her husband intimately. "Eugene +Wellington has already surpassed him in getting hold of some things he +never quite reached to, being an older man. And now that Eugene is +proving such splendid help in taking up the less important details in my +affairs he ought to do fine clerical work in the House here. There is no +telling how much ability he may have for being useful to all of us along +the lines that Cornelius has developed. He has proved that he is equal +to a lot of things besides painting. People of little brain power and +financial skill ought to paint the pictures and not rob our big affairs +of business ability." + +Mrs. Darby held a controlling interest in the House, so the outcome of +the conference was that an easy berth on more than moderate pay, with +possible prospects--just possible, of course--was what Mrs. Darby had to +take back to "Eden" to serve up to Eugene Wellington when he should +return from his brief errand up in the Winnowoc country. And as that was +what Mrs. Darby wished to accomplish, her day's journey to the city was +a success. + +Only, that Winnowoc local was uncomfortably hot and crowded. Her trusty +chauffeur had resigned his position on the day after Cornelius was +buried, and Mrs. Darby was timid about the bluff road, anyhow. If only +Jerry had been here to drive for her! With all Jerry's dash and slash, +she was a fearless driver and always put the car exactly where she +wanted it to be. There was some satisfaction in having a hand like +Jerry's on the steering-wheel. So, pleased as to one horn of her +dilemma, but tired and perspiring, Mrs. Darby came home determined more +than ever to bring about her other purpose--to have Jerry Swaim in her +home, because she, Jerusha Darby, wanted her there. + +Jerry always filled the place with interest. And Jerry was gone, +actually gone, bag and baggage. She had cleared out that morning early +on a fool's errand to Kansas. What right had Jerry to go off to earn a +living when a living was here ready-made merely for her subjection to a +selfish old woman's wishes? Mrs. Darby did not think it in such words, +because she no more understood her own mind than that pretty girl with +her dark-blue eyes and wavy, gold-tinged hair understood her own mind. +One thing she did understand--Jerry must come back. + +A week later Eugene Wellington dropped off the morning train running +down from Winnowoc. It was too early for the household to be astir, save +the early feeder of stock and milker of kine, the early +man-of-all-odd-jobs who looked after the fowls, and the early +maid-of-all-good-things-to-eat who would have big puffy biscuit for +breakfast, with tender fried chicken and gravy that would stand alone. +All the homey sounds of the early summer morning flitted out from the +"Eden" kitchen and barn-yard. But the misty stillness of dawn rested on +the "Eden" lawns, whose owner, with the others of the household, was not +yet awake. + +At the rose-arbor the young artist paused to let the refreshing morning +zephyrs sweep across his face. He wondered if Jerry was awake yet. Ever +since he had left "Eden" the hope had been growing in him that she would +change her mind. After all, Aunt Jerry might be right about it. This was +too beautiful a house to throw aside for a whim--an ideal, however +fine, of self-support and all that. Women were made to be cared for, not +to support themselves--least of all a pretty, wilful, but winsomely +magnetic creature like Jerry Swaim, with her appealing, beautiful eyes, +her brown hair all glinted with gold, her strong little white hands, and +her daring spirit, exhilarating as wine in its exuberant influence. No, +Jerry mustn't go. She belonged to the soft and lovely settings of life. + +Eugene leaned against the door of the rose-arbor as these things filled +his mind, and a love of the luxuries that surrounded him here drove back +for the moment the high purpose of his own life. + +In the woodwork of the arbor, where the lightning had left its imprint, +he saw a little white envelop wedged in a splintered rift. The rose-vine +had hid it from every angle except the one he had chanced to take. He +slipped it out and read this inscription: + +"To Mr. Eugene Wellington, Artist." + +Inside, on Jerry's visiting-card, in her own hand-writing, was the +message: "Write me at New Eden, Kansas, Care of Mr. York Macpherson. +Don't forget what we are going to do, and when we have done, and won, +we'll meet again. Good-by. Jerry." + +The young artist dropped the card and stared down the lilac-bordered +avenue toward the shadowy gray-blue west whither Jerry Swaim was gone. +And all the world seemed gray-blue, a great void, where there was +neither top nor bottom. Then he picked up the card again and put it into +his pocket, and went into the house to get ready for breakfast. + +Mrs. Darby greeted his return as warmly as it was in her repressed +nature to do, conveying to him, not by any word, the feeling that he +meant more to her now than he had ever meant before. + +"Didn't Jerry leave suddenly? I didn't know she was going so soon. I--I +was hoping--to find her here," was what he was going on to say. + +"That she would be willing to stay here; to give up this scheme of +hers." Mrs. Darby finished the sentence for him. "Yes, I hoped so, too. +That was the only right thing to do. She chose her own time for leaving, +but she will be back soon if we manage right. Don't be a bit +discouraged, Eugene, and don't give up to her too much. She loves a +resisting force. She always did." + +Eugene looked anything but encouraged just then. All "Eden" was but an +echo of Jerry Swaim, and the droop of his well-formed lips suggested +only a feeble resisting force against her smallest wish. + +"She is my own flesh and blood. I know her best, of course," Mrs. Darby +went on. "The only way to meet her is to let her meet you. But we will +drop that now. After breakfast I want you to look up the men. I have +told them to report to you on the crop values, and harvest plans, and +fall seeding later. Look over the place well, won't you? Then meet me in +the rose-arbor at ten o'clock for a cup of tea and we will counsel +together." + +Mrs. Darby would have told the late Cornelius to "come in for +instructions later." But Eugene Wellington wasn't a sure result. He was +only in the process of solution. And Eugene, being very human, was +unconsciously flattered by this deference to a penniless young man. It +made him pleased with himself and gave him a vague sense of +proprietorship which Cornelius Darby, the real-in-law owner of this fine +country estate, never dreamed of enjoying. + +"I wonder what Jerry is doing this morning," he thought as he rode +Cornelius Darby's high-school-gaited horse to the far side of the place. + +"The more I see of this farm the finer it looks to me. Not a foot of +waste ground, not a nesting-place for weeds, not a broken fence; grove +and stream, and tilled fields, and gardens, and lawns, and well-kept +buildings. Not an unpainted board nor broken hinge--everything in +perfect repair except that splintered framework at the rose-arbor." He +paused on a little ridge above the Winnowoc from which the whole farm +lay in full view. His artistic eye noted the peaceful beauty of the +scene, the growing crops, the yellowing wheat, the black-green corn, the +fertile meadows swathed in June sunshine, the graceful shrubbery and big +forest trees through which the red-tiled roofs of the buildings glowed, +the pigeons circling about the cupolas of the barn. And not the least +attractive feature of the picture, although he was unconscious of it, +was the young artist himself, astride a graceful black horse, in relief +against a background of wooded border of the bluff above the clear +gurgling Winnowoc. Eugene looked well on horseback, although he was no +lover of horses, and preferred the steady, sure mounts to the spirited +ones. + +"I wonder if Jerry's big estate can be as well appointed as this. I wish +she were here with me now." The rider fell to dreaming of Jerry, trying +to put her in a picture of this "Eden" six times enlarged. + +<tb> + +At this same hour Jerry Swaim was sitting in Junius Brutus Ponk's gray +runabout under the shade of the low oak-grove, gazing with burning eyes +at her own kingdom built out of Kansas sand. + +<tb> + +Mrs. Darby had hot coffee and cold chicken and cherry preserves and cake +with blackberry wine all daintily served for a hungry man to enjoy after +a long three hours on horseback in the sunshine. The rose-arbor was +odorous with perfume from the sweet-peas, clinging to the trellis that +ran between the side lawn and the grape-arbor. + +What took place in that council had its results in the letter that +Eugene Wellington wrote that night to Jerry Swaim. He did not mail it +for several days, and when he went to his tasks on the morning after his +fingers had let go of it at the lip of the iron mail-box, the artist in +him said things to him that to the day of his death he would never quite +forget. + +<tb> + +Late one afternoon, a fortnight after the day of Jerry's visit to her +claim, Ponk, of the Commercial Hotel and Garage, slipped into the office +of the Macpherson Mortgage Company. + +"York, what happens to folks that tends to other folks's affairs?" he +asked, as he spread his short proportions over a chair beside York's +desk. + +"Sometimes they get the gratitude of posterity. More generally their +portion is present contempt and future obscurity. Are you in line for +promotion on that, Ponk?" York replied. + +"I'm 'bout ready to take chances," Ponk said, with a good-natured grin. + +"All right. Am I involved in your scheme of things?" York inquired. + +"You bet you are," Ponk assured him. "And, to be brief, knowin' how +valuable your time is for gougin' mortgages out of unsuspectin' +victims--" + +"Well, we haven't foreclosed on the Commercial Hotel and Garage yet," +York interrupted. + +"No, but you're likely to the minute my back's turned. That's why I have +to go facin' south all the time. But to get to real business now, +York--" + +"I wish you would," York declared. + +His caller paid no heed to the thrust, and continued, seriously, "I +can't get some things off my mind, and I've got to unload, that's all." + +"Go ahead. I'm your dumping-ground," York said, with a smile. + +"That's what you are, you son of a horse-thief. I mean the tool of a +grasping bunch of loan sharks known as the Macpherson Mortgage Company. +Well, it's that young lady at your house." + +"I see. We robbed you of a boarder," York suggested. + +"Aw, shut up an' listen, now, will you? You know I'm a man of affairs +here. Owner and proprietor and man-of-all-work at the Commercial Hotel +an' Gurrage, bass soloist in the Baptist choir, and--by the removal of +the late deceased incumbent--also treasurer of the board of education of +the New Eden schools--" + +"All of which has what to do with the young lady from Philadelphia?" +York inquired, blandly. + +"Well, listen. Here's where tendin' to other folks's business comes in. +A good-lookin' but inexperienced young lady comes out here from +Philadelphia to find a claim left her by her deceased father. Out she +goes to see said claim, payin' me good money for my best car--to ride in +state over her grand province--of sand. And there wasn't much change but +a pearl-handle knife an' a button-hook in her purse when she pays for +the use of the car, even when I cut down half a buck on the regular +hire. Her kind don't know rightly how to save money till they 'ain't +none to save. But the look in her eyes when she come steamin' in from +that jaunt was more 'n I could stand. York, she ain't the first +Easterner to be fooled by the promise of the West. Not the real West, +you understand, but the sham face o' things put up back East. An' here +she be in our midst. Every day she goes by after the mail gets in, +looking like one of them blue pigeons with all the colors of a opal on +their necks, and every day she goes back with her face white around the +mouth. She's walkin' on red-hot plowshares and never squealin'." Ponk +paused, while York sat combing his fingers through his hair in silence. + +"You know I'm some force on the school board, if I don't know much. I +ain't there to teach anybody anything, but to see that such ignoramuses +as me ain't put up to teach children. Now we are shy one teacher in the +high-school by the sudden resignation of the mathematics professor to +take on underwritin' of life insurance in the city. Do you suppose she'd +do it? Would it help any if we offered the place to Miss Swaim? It might +help to keep her in this town." + +"Ponk, your heart's all right," York said, warmly. "It would help, I'm +sure, if the lady is to stay here, for she is without means. She might +or might not be willing to consider this opening. I can't forecast +women. But, Ponk, could she teach mathematics? You know she was probably +fashionably finished--never educated--in some higher school. If it were +embroidery, or something like that, it might be all right." + +"Oh, you trust me to judge a few things, even if I'm not up on the +gentle art of foreclosin' mortgages and such. I know that girl could +teach mathematics. Anybody who can run a car like she can with as true a +eye for curves an' distances, and a head for bossin' a machine that runs +by engine power, couldn't help but teach algebry and geometry just true +as a right angle. But mebby," and Ponk's countenance fell--"mebby she'd +not want to, nor thank me noways, nor you, neither, for interfering in +the matter. But I just thought I'd offer you the chance to mebby help +her get on her feet. I don't know, though. I'd hate to lose her +good-will. I just couldn't stand it." + +"Ponk, I appreciate your motive," York said, feelingly. "I will take +this up as soon as I can with Miss Swaim. You see, she's our guest and I +can't very gracefully suggest that she seek employment. And, to be frank +with you, my sister has become very fond of her--Laura misses a good +many good things on account of her lameness--and we would like to keep +her our guest indefinitely; but we can't do that, of course." + +"I don't wonder your sister wants her. Of course, you don't care nothin' +about it yourself. An' I'll have the board hold the place awhile to see +what 'll happen. I must soar back home now." And the little man left the +office. + +"Sound to the core, if he does strut when strangers come to town. +Especially ladies. That's the only way some little men have of +attracting attention to themselves. A kind-hearted man as ever came up +the Sage Brush," York commented, as he watched his caller crossing the +street to the hotel. + +That evening Jerry Swaim sat alone on the porch of the Macpherson home, +where shafts of silvery moonlight fell through the honeysuckle vines. +What York Macpherson would have called a fight between Jim Swaim's chin +and Lesa's eyes was going on in Jerry's soul this evening. Since her +visit to her claim life had suddenly become a maze of perplexities. She +had never before known a care that could not have been lifted from her +by others, except the one problem of leaving Philadelphia, and the +solution of that might have been the prank of a headstrong child, +prompted by self-will and love of adventure, rather than by the grave +decision of well-poised judgment. Heretofore in all her ventures a safe +harbor had been near to shelter her. Now she was among the breakers and +the storm was on. + +For the first time in her memory her purse was light and there was no +visible source from which to refill it. She was too well-bred to tax the +hospitality of the Macpherson home, where she was made to feel herself +so welcome. To return to Philadelphia meant to write and ask for the +expenses of transportation. She had burned too many bridges behind her +to meet the humility of such a request just yet; for that meant the +subjection of her whole future to Jerusha Darby's will, and against such +subjection Jerry's spirit rebelled mightily. + +Every day for two weeks the girl had gone to the post-office with an +eager, expectant face. Every evening she had asked York Macpherson if he +had heard anything from Philadelphia since her coming, the pretended +indifference in her tone hardly concealing the longing behind the query. +But not a line from the East had come to New Eden for her. + +On the afternoon of this day the postmaster had hurried through the +letters because he, too, had caught the meaning of the hunger in the +earnest eyes watching him through the little window among the +letter-boxes. The mail was heavy to-day, but the distributer paused with +one letter, long enough to look at it carefully, and then, leaving his +work half finished, he hurried to the window. + +"Here's something for you. Aren't you Miss Swaim?" he inquired, +courteously, as he pushed the letter toward Jerry's waiting hand. + +He had lived in Kansas since the passage of the homestead law. He knew +the mark of homesickness on the face of a late arrival. Something in the +cultivation of a new land puts a gentler culture into the soul. Out of +the common heartache, the common sacrifice, the common need, have grown +the open-hearted, keen-sighted, fine-fibered folk of the big and +generous Middle West, the very heart of which, to the Kansan, is Kansas. + +The postmaster turned quickly back to his task. He did not see the +girl's face; he only felt that she walked away on air. + +At York Macpherson's office she hesitated a moment, then hurried inside. +York was in his private room, but the door to it stood open, and Jerry +caught sight of a woman within. + +"I beg your pardon." She blushed confusedly. "I don't want to intrude; I +only wanted to stop long enough to read a letter from home." + +Jerry's genuine embarrassment was very pretty and appealing, but York +was shrewd enough to know that it came from the letter in her hand, not +from any connection with his office or its occupants. Mrs. Stellar +Bahrr, however, who happened to be the woman in the inner room, did not +see the incident with York's eyes. + +"Just come in here, Miss Swaim, and make yourself at home," York +insisted. "Come, Mrs. Bahrr, we can finish our talk for to-day in one +place as well as another. My sister and I are going across the river to +spend the evening, so it will be late to-morrow before I can get those +papers ready for you." + +Mrs. Bahrr rose reluctantly, hooking her sharp eyes into the girl as she +passed out. What she noted was a very white face where the color of the +cheeks seemed burned in, and big, shining eyes. Of course the +broad-brimmed chiffon hat with beaded medallions, the beaded parasol to +match, and the beaded hand-bag of the same hues did not escape her eyes, +especially the pretty hand-bag. + +York closed the door behind the two, leaving Jerry in quiet possession +of the inner room, while he seated Mrs. Bahrr in the outer office and +engaged in the business that had brought her to him. He knew that she +would be torn between two desires: one to hurry through and leave the +office, and so be able to start a story of leaving Jerry and himself in +a questionable situation; the other to stay and see the fair caller as +she came out, and to learn, if possible, why she had come, and to enjoy +her confusion in finding a woman still engaging York's time. Either +thing would be worth while to Mrs. Bahrr, and while she hesitated York +decided for her. + +"I'll keep her with me, the old Long Tongue. Yea, she shall roost here +in my coop till the little girl gets clear to 'Castle Cluny.' She +sha'n't run off and overtake her prey and then cackle over it later. +Jerry has committed the unpardonable sin of being young and pretty and +good; the Big Dipper will make her pay for the personal insult." + +In the midst of their business conversation Jerry Swaim came from the +inner room, and with a half-audible word of thanks left the office. Mrs. +Bahrr's back was toward the door, and, although she turned with a +catlike quickness, she failed to see anything worth while except to get +another good look at the hand-bag. Something told York Macpherson that +the message in her letter held a tragical meaning for the fair-faced +girl who had waited so eagerly for its coming. + +At dinner that evening York was at his best. + +"I must make our girl keep an appetite," he argued. "Nothing matters if +a dinner still carries an appeal. By George! I've got to do my best, or +I'll lose my own taste for what Laura can set up if I don't look out. We +are all getting thin except Laura. Even Ponk is losing his strut a bit. +And why? Oh, confound it! there is plenty of time to ask questions in +July and August when the town has its dull season." + +So York came to dinner in one of his rarest moods, a host to make one's +worries flee away. + +Jerry had reread her letter in the seclusion of her room at "Castle +Cluny." It did not need a third reading, for every word seemed graven on +the reader's brain. In carefully typewritten form, with only the +signature in the writer's own hand, it ran: + + MY ALWAYS DEAR JERRY,--I should have written you days ago, but + I did not get back to "Eden" until you had been gone a week. We + are all so eager to hear how you are, and to know about the + Swaim estate which you went to find. But we are a hundred times + more eager to see your face here again. I wish you were here + to-night, for I have been in the depths of doubt and + indecision, from which your presence would have lifted me. I + hope I have done the right thing, now it is done, and I'll wait + to hear from you more eagerly than I ever waited for a letter + before. Yet I feel sure you will approve of my course after you + get over your surprise and have taken time to think carefully. + + I had a long heart-to-heart talk with Aunt Jerry to-day. Don't + smile and say a purse-to-purse talk. Full purses don't talk to + empty ones. They speak a different language. But this to-day + was a real confidence game as you might say. I received the + confidence if I didn't die as game as you would wish me to. + + To be plain, little cousin mine, I want you dreadfully to come + back, so much so that I have decided to give up painting for + the present and take a clerkship in the bank with Uncle + Cornie's partners. I can see your eyes open wide with surprise + and disappointment when I tell you that Aunt Jerry has really + converted me to her way of thinking. My hours are easy and the + pay is good. Not so much as I had hoped to have some day from + my brush and may have yet, if this work doesn't make me fat and + lazy, for there is really very little responsibility about it, + just a decent accuracy. This makes so many things possible, you + see, and then I have the satisfaction of knowing I am doing a + service for Aunt Jerry--and, to be explicit--to put myself + where I shall not have to worry over things when you come home. + So I'm happy now. And when you get here I shall begin to live + again. I seem to be staying here now. Staying and waiting for + something. Nobody really lives at "Eden" without little Jerry + to keep us all alive and keyed up. Nobody to take the big car + over the bluff road, beautiful as it is--for you know I'm too + big a coward to drive it and to do a hundred things I'd do if + you were here to brace me up. + + Write me at once, little cousin, and say you will come home + just as soon as you have seen all of that God-forsaken country + you care to look at. And meantime I'll write as often as you + want me to. I think of you every day and remember you in my + prayers every night. You remember I told you I couldn't pray + out in Kansas. May the Lord be good to you and make you love + Him more than you think you do now, and bring you safe and soon + to our beautiful "Eden." + + Yours, + + EUGENE. + +The sands of the blowout on Jerry's claim seared not more hotly her +fresh young hopes of prosperity, through her own effort and control, +than this sudden change from the artist, with his dreams of beauty and +power, to the man of easy clerical duty with a good salary and small +responsibility. Of course Aunt Jerry had been back of it all, but so +would Aunt Jerry have been back of her--if she had given up. + +Jerry sat for a long time staring at the missive where it had fallen on +the floor, the typewritten neatness of the blue lettering only a blur to +her eyes. For she was back at "Eden," on the steep but beautiful bluff +road, with Eugene afraid to drive the big Darby car. She was in the +rose-arbor looking up to see that faint line of indecision in the dear, +handsome face. She was in the "Eden" parlor under the soft light of +rose-tinted lamps, facing Aunt Jerry and sure of herself, but catching +again that wavering line of uncertainty on Eugene Wellington's +countenance, and her own vague fear--unguessed then--that he might not +resist in the supreme test. + +But idols die hard. Eugene was her idol. He couldn't die at once. He was +so handsome, so true, so gracious, so filled with a love of beautiful +things. How could she understand the temptation to the soul of an artist +in such lovely settings as "Eden" offered? It was all Aunt Jerry's +fault, and he would overcome it. He must. + +It was so easy to blame Aunt Jerry. It made everything clear. He had +yielded to her cleverness and never known he was being ruled. With all +her flippant, careless youth, inexperience, and selfishness, Jerry was a +keener reader of human nature than her lack of training could account +for. She knew just the lines Aunt Jerry had laid, the net spread for +Eugene's feet. But--Oh, things must come out all right. He would change. + +This one thought rang up and down her scale of thinking, as if repeating +would make true what Jerry knew was false. + +"'If a man went right with himself.' Oh, Eugene, Eugene!" she murmured, +half aloud. "You hitched your wagon to a star, but to what kind of a +star--to what kind of a star?" + +Then came a greater query: "Shall I go back to 'Eden,' to Aunt Jerry's +rule, to Eugene, to love, to easy, dependent, purposeless living? Shall +I?" + +A blank wall seemed suddenly to be flung across her way. Should she +climb over it, hammer an opening through it, or turn back and run from +it? + +With these questions stalking before her she had come out to dinner and +York Macpherson's genial, entertaining conversation, and to Laura +Macpherson's gracious intuition and soothing sympathy. + +Early in the evening, as the Macphersons with their guest sat watching +the splendor of the sunset sky, Jerry said, suddenly: + +"It has been two weeks to-day since I came here. Quite long enough for a +stranger's first visit." + +"A 'stranger,'" Laura Macpherson repeated. "A 'stranger' who asked to be +called 'Jerry' the first thing. We are all so well acquainted with this +'stranger' that we wouldn't want to give her up now." + +"But I must give you up pretty soon." Jerry spoke earnestly. + +"Why 'must'? Has the East too strong a hold for the West to break?" +York asked. + +"I came out here because I believed my land would support me, and I had +all sorts of foolish dreams of what I might find here that would be new +and romantic." Jerry's eyes had a far-away look in them as she recalled +the unrealized picture of her prairie domain. + +"You haven't answered my question yet," York reminded her. + +Jerry dropped her eyes, the bloom deepened on her fair cheek, and she +clasped her small hands together. For a long time no word was spoken. + +"I didn't answer your question. I am not going back to Philadelphia. +There must be something else besides land in the West," Jerry said, at +last. + +"Yes, _we_ are here. Do stay right here with us," Laura Macpherson +urged, warmly. + +Every day the companionship of this girl had grown upon her, for that +was Jerry's gift. But to the eager invitation of her hostess the girl +only shook her head. + +York Macpherson sat combing his fingers through the heavy brown waves of +his hair, a habit of his when he was thinking deeply. But if a vision of +what might be came to him unbidden now, a vision that had come unbidden +many times in the last two weeks, making sweeter the smile that won men +to him, he put it resolutely away from him for the time. He must help +this girl to help herself. Romance belonged to other men. He was not of +the right mold for that--not now, at least. + +"I heard to-day that there is need of a mathematics teacher in our +high-school for next year. It pays eighty dollars a month," he said. + +"Oh, York," Laura protested, earnestly. "You know Jerry never thought of +such a thing as teaching. And I really must have her here. You are away +so much, you know you are." + +But her brother only smiled. When York Macpherson frowned he might be +giving in, but his sister knew that his smile meant absolute resistance. + +"Ponk was talking to me to-day. He is the treasurer of the school board +now, and he mentioned the vacancy. He was casting about for some one +fitted to teach mathematics. Even though his mind runs more on his +garage than on education, he has a deep interest in the schools. He +admires your ability to manage a car so much it occurred to him that you +might consider this position. Fine course of reasoning, but he is sure +of his ground." + +"Let me think it over," Jerry said, slowly. + +"And then forget it," Laura suggested. "York and I are invited out this +evening. Won't you come with us? It is just a little informal doings +across the river." + +"I would rather be alone to-night," her guest replied. + +So the Macphersons let her have her way. + + + + +IX + +IF A WOMAN WENT RIGHT WITH HERSELF + + +And thus it happened that Jerry Swaim was alone this evening behind the +honeysuckle-vines, with leaf shadow and moonbeams falling caressingly on +her filmy white gown and golden hair. For a long time she sat still. +Once she said, half aloud, unconscious that she was speaking at all: + +"So Eugene Wellington has given up his art for an easy berth in the +Darby bank. He hadn't the courage to resist the temptation, though it +made him a tool instead of a master of tools. And we promised each other +we would each make our own way, independent of Aunt Jerry's money. Maybe +if I had been there things would have been different." + +She gripped her hands in her quick, nervous way, as a homesick longing +swept her soul. She was searching a way out for Eugene, a cause for +putting all the blame on Aunt Jerry. + +"I wish I had gone with the Macphersons. I could have forgotten, for a +while at least." + +A light step inside the house caught her ear. + +"Maybe Laura has come home," she thought, too absorbed in herself to +ask why Laura should have chosen the side door when she knew that Jerry +was alone on the front porch. + +Again she heard a movement just inside the open door; then a step on the +threshold; and then a tall, thin woman walked out of the house and +half-way across the wide porch before she caught sight of Jerry in an +easy-chair behind the honeysuckle-vines. The intruder paused a second, +staring at the corner where the girl sat motionless. From her childhood +Jerry had possessed unusual physical courage. To-night it was curiosity, +rather than fright, that prompted her to keep still while the strange +woman's eyes were upon her. Evidently the intruder was more surprised +than herself, and Jerry let her make the first move in the game. The +woman was angular, with swift but ungraceful motion. For a long time, as +such seconds go, she stared at the white figure hidden by the shadows of +the vines. Then with a quick stride she thrust herself before the girl +and dropped into a chair. + +"Well, well! This is Miss Swim, ain't it?" + +"As well that as anything. I can't land anywhere," Jerry thought. + +"I'm Mrs. Stellar Bahrr, a good friend of Laury Macpherson as she's got +in this town, unless it's you. I seen you in York's office this +afternoon. I was sorry I intruded on you two when you come purpose to +see him in his private office. When girls wants to see him that way they +don't want nobody, 'specially women, around." + +Mrs. Bahrr paused to giggle and to give Jerry time to parry her thrust, +meanwhile pinning her through with the sharp points of her eyes that +fairly gleamed in the shadow-checkered moonlight of the porch. Jerry was +not accustomed to being accountable to anybody for what she chose to do, +nor did she know that every man in New Eden, except York Macpherson and +Junius Brutus Ponk--and every woman, without exception--really feared +Stella Bahrr, knowing that she would hesitate at no kind of warfare to +accomplish her purpose. It is generally easier to be decent than to be +courageous, and peace at any price may be more desired than nasty word +battles. Not knowing Stella for the woman she was, Jerry had no mind to +consider her at all, so she waited for her caller to proceed or to leave +her. + +"You must excuse me if I seem to be interfering in your affairs. You are +a stranger here except to York and that man Ponk--" Stella began, +thrusting her hooks more viciously into her catch. + +"Oh, you didn't interfere," Jerry interrupted her indifferently, and +then paused. + +Mrs. Bahrr caught her breath. The girl was sinfully pretty and +attractive, her beauty and grace in themselves alone railing out at the +older woman's ugly spirit of envy. And she should be tender, with +feeling to be lacerated for these gifts of nature. Instead, she was firm +and hard, with no vulnerable spot for a poisoned shaft. + +"I'm sure you had a right to go into a man's private office. It's +everybody's right, of course," she began, with that faint sneering tone +of hers that carried a threat of what might follow. + +"Yes, but a little discourteous in me to drive you out. That was Mr. +Macpherson's fault, not mine," Jerry broke in, easily. + +"Maybe that's her grievance. I'll be decent about it," the girl was +thinking. + +"I'm awfully bored right now." The wind shifted quickly. "I run up to +see Laury a minute. Just slipped in the side-stoop way to save troublin' +you an' York out here. I knowed Laury wouldn't be here, an', would you +believe it? I clar forgot they was gone out, an' I seen you all leavin', +too--I mean them, of course." + +The threatening tone could not be reproduced. It carried, however, a +most uncomfortable force like a cruel undertow beneath the seemingly +safe crest of a wave. + +"It's a joke on me bein' so stupid, but you won't give me away to 'em, +will you?" + +"I'm awfully bored, too," Jerry thought. + +"You say you won't tell 'em at all that I come?" Mrs. Bahrr insisted. + +"Not if you say so," Jerry replied, with a smile. + +"I'm an awfully good friend of Laury's. She's a poor cripple, dependent +on her brother for everything, an' if he marries, as he's bound to do, +I'd hate to see her turned out of here. This house is just Laury +through and through. Don't you think so? 'Course, though, if York +marries again--" Stellar Bahrr stopped meditatively. "All the women in +the Sage Brush Valley's just crazy about York. He's some flirt, but +everybody thought he'd settled his mind once sure. But I guess he flared +up again, from what they say. She's too fur away from town a'most. Them +that's furtherest away don't have a chance like them that's nearest him. +But it may be all just gossip. There was a lot of talk about him an' a +girl down the river that's got a crippled brother--Paul Ekblad's his +name; hers is Thelmy--an' some considerable about one of the Poser girls +where he was up the Sage Brush to this week. The married one now, I +think, an' a bouncin' big baby, but what do you care for all that?" + +"Nothing," Jerry replied, innocently. + +The steel hooks turned slowly to lacerate deeper. + +"Well, I must be goin'. You give me your word you wouldn't cheep about +my forgettin' an' runnin' in here. York's such a torment, I'd never hear +the last of it. I know you are a honorable one with your promises, an' I +like that kind. I'm glad I met you. An' I'll not say a word, neither, +'bout your goin' to see York in his private office. It's a bargain +'tween us two. Laury's an awfully good friend of yours an' she'll keep +you here a good long while, she's that hos_pit_able." + +The steel hooks tore their way out, and the woman rose and strode +quickly away. In a minute she had literally dropped from view in the +shaded slope beyond the driveway. + +"I might as well punch a stick in water or stick a pin in old Granddad +Poser's tombstone out in the cimetery, an' expect to find a hole left, +as to do anything with that pink-an'-white-an'-gold critter!" she +exclaimed, viciously, as she disappeared in the shadows. "I'm afraider +of her than I would be of a real mad-cat, but she can't scare me!" + +Out on the lawn the moon just then seemed to cast a weird gleam of +light, and to veil rather than reveal the long street beyond it. For a +minute after the passing of her uninvited caller Jerry Swaim was filled +with an unaccountable fright. Then her pulse beat calmly again and she +smiled at herself. + +"I don't seem to fear these Kansas men--Mr. Ponk, for example, nor that +Teddy-bear creature down by the deep hole in the Sage Brush. But these +Kansas women, except Laura--anybody would except Laura--are so +impossible. That dairy-maid type of a Thelma, and that woman-and-baby +combination, for example; and some of the women really scare me. That +aborigine down in the brush by the river, in her shabby clothes and +sunbonnet eclipse; and now this 'Stellar' comes catfooting out of the +house and lands over yonder in the shadows. She needn't have been bored +because she didn't find the folks at home, and she needn't frighten me +so. I never was afraid of Aunt Jerry. I ought to be proof against +anybody else. And yet maybe I am in the way here, even if they drive the +very idea away from me. Laura is good to me and her friendliness is +genuine. Little as I know, I _know_ that much. And York--oh, that was a +village gossip's tale! And she gets me scared--I, whom even Jerusha +Darby never cowed." + +The poison was working, after all, and Stellar Bahrr's sting had not +been against marble, nor into water. With the memory of Jerusha Darby, +too, the burden came again to her niece's mind, only to be lifted again, +however, in a few minutes. Her memory had run back to her day down the +river and the oak-grove and the sand, and the young man whose name was +Joe Thomson--Jerry did not remember the name--and the crushing weight of +surprise and disappointment. The struggle to decide on a course for +herself immediately was rising again within her, when she saw a young +man turn from the street and come up the walk toward the porch. + +"I can't have leisure to settle anything by myself, it seems, even with +the lord and lady of the castle leaving me in full seclusion here. One +caller goes and another comes. I wonder what excuse this one has for +intruding. He is another type--one I haven't met before." + +In the time required for this caller to reach the porch there flashed +through Jerry's mind all the types she had seen in the West. Ponk and +Thelma and fuzzy Teddy, the woman-and-baby, Laura and York, and that +pin-eyed gossip--and the young country fellow whose land lay next to +hers. None of them concerned her, really, except these hospitable +friends who were sheltering her, and, in a way, in an upright, legal, +Jim Swaim kind of way, the young man down the Sage Brush, losing in the +game like herself and helpless like herself. + +It was no wonder that Jerry did not recognize in this caller the +ranchman of the blowout. There was nothing of the clodhopper in this +well-dressed young fellow, although he was not exactly a model for +advertising high-grade tailoring. + +"Is this Miss Swaim?" he asked, lifting his hat. "I am Joe Thomson. You +may remember that we met down in the blowout two weeks ago." + +"I could hardly forget meeting you. Will you sit down?" Jerry offered +Joe a chair with a courtesy very unlike the blunt manner of her first +words to him a fortnight before. + +But in the far recesses of her consciousness all the while the haunting, +ever-recurring picture of a handsome face and a faultlessly clad form, +even the face and form of a Philadelphia bank clerk, _né_ artist, made +the reality of Joe Thomson's presence very commonplace and uninteresting +at that moment, and her courtesy was of a perfunctory sort. + +"I hope I don't intrude. Were you busy?" Joe asked, something of the +embarrassment of the first meeting coming back with the question. + +"Yes, I was very busy," Jerry replied, with a smile. "Pick-up work, +though. I was just thinking. Lost in thought, maybe." + +The moonlight can do so much for a pretty woman, but with Jerry Swaim +one could not say whether sunlight, moonlight, starlight, or dull gray +clouds did the most. For two weeks the memory of her fair face, as he +recalled it in the oak shade down beside the blowout, had not been +absent from the young ranchman's mind. And to-night this dainty girl out +of the East seemed entrancing. + +"You were lost in thought when I saw you before. I had an idea that city +girls didn't do much thinking. Is it your settled occupation?" Joe +inquired, with a smile in his eyes. + +"It is my only visible means of support right now; about as profitable, +too, as farming a blowout," Jerry returned. + +"Which reminds me of my purpose in thrusting this call upon you," Joe +declared. "I didn't realize the situation the other day--and--well, to +be plain, I came to beg your pardon for my rudeness in what I said about +your claim. I had no idea who you were, you know, but that hardly +excuses me for what I said." + +"It is very rude to speak so slightingly of land that behaves as +beautifully as mine does," Jerry said, with a smile that atoned for the +trace of sarcasm in her voice. + +"It is very rude to speak as slightingly as I did of the former owner. +But you see I have watched that brainless blowout thing creep along, +season after season, eating up my acres--my sole inheritance, too." + +"And you said you didn't go mad," Jerry interposed. + +"Yes, but I didn't say I didn't get mad. I have worn out enough +profanity on that blowout to stock the whole Sage Brush Valley." + +"But you aren't to the last resort, for you do go mad here then, you +told me. I wonder you aren't all madmen and women when I think of this +country and remember how different I had imagined it would be." + +"When we come to the very last ditch, we really have two +alternatives--to go mad and to go back East. Most folks prefer the +former. But I say again, it's always a long way to the last ditch out on +the Sage Brush, so we seldom do either." + +"What should I do now? Won't you tell me? I'm really near my last +ditch." + +Jerry sat with clasped hands, looking earnestly into Joe's face, as she +said this. Oh, fair was she, this exquisite white-blossom style of girl, +facing her first life-problem, the big problem of living. Joe Thomson +made no reply to her question. What could this dainty, untrained +creature do with the best of claims? The frank sincerity of his silence +made an appeal to her that the wisest advice could not have made just +then. + +York Macpherson was right when he said that Jim Swaim's child was a type +of her own. If Jerry, through her mother's nature, was impulsive and +imaginative, from her father she had inherited balance and clear vision. +Her young years had heretofore made no call upon her to exercise these +qualities. What might have been turned to the frivolous and romantic in +one parent, and the hard-headed and grasping in the other, now became +saving qualities for the child of these two. In an instant Jerry read +the young ranchman's character clearly and foresaw in him a friend and +helper. But there was neither romance nor selfishness in that vision. + +"Mr. Thomson," the girl began, seriously, "you need not apologize for +what you could not help feeling about the condition of my estate and the +wrong that has been done to you. I know you do not hold me responsible +for it. Let's forget that you thought you had said anything unpleasant +to me, for I want to ask your advice." + +"Mine!" Joe Thomson exclaimed. + +This sweet-faced, soft-voiced girl was walking straight into another +heart in the Sage Brush Valley. Nature had given her that heritage, +wherever she might go. + +"Yes, your advice, please." Jerry went on. "You have watched that sand +spreading northward over your claim. You have had days, months, years, +maybe, to see the blowout doing its work. I awakened suddenly one +morning from a beautiful day-dream. My only heritage left of all the +fortune I had been brought to expect to be mine, the inheritance I had +idealized with all the romantic beauty and prosperity possible to rural +life, in a minute all this turned to a desert before my eyes. You belong +to the West. Tell me, won't you, what is next for me?" + +"What could I tell you, Miss Swaim?" Joe asked. + +"Tell me what to do, I mean," Jerry exclaimed. "Tell me quickly, for I +am right against the bread-line now." + +For a moment Joe stared at the girl in amazement. Her earnestness left +no room to misunderstand her. But his senses came back quickly, as one +whose life habit it had been to meet and answer hard questions suddenly. + +"Why not go back East?" he asked. + +"One of your two last resorts; the other one is madness. I won't do it," +Jerry said, stubbornly. "Shall I tell you why?" + +It was a delicious surprise to the young ranchman to be taken into the +confidence of this charming, gracious girl. The honeysuckle leaves, +stirred by the soft night breeze that came purring across the open +plain, gave the moonbeams leave to play with the rippling gold of her +hair, and to flutter ever so faintly the soft white draperies of her +gown. Her big dark eyes, her fair white throat and shoulders, the faint +pink hue of her cheeks, the shapely white arms below the elbow-frilled +sleeves, her soft voice, her frank trust in his judgment and integrity, +made that appeal that rarely comes to a young man's heart oftener than +once in a lifetime. + +"My father lived a rich man and died a poor man, leaving me--for mother +went first--to the care of his wealthy sister. A half-forgotten claim on +the Sage Brush is my only possession after two years of litigation and +all that sort of thing." Jerry paused. + +"Well?" Joe queried. + +"I was offered one of two alternatives: I might be dependent on my +aunt's bounty or I could come out West and live on my claim. I chose the +West. Now what can I do?" + +The pathos of the young face was touching. The question of maintenance +is hard enough for the resourceful and experienced to meet; how doubly +hard it must be to the young, untried, and untrained! + +Joe Thomson looked out to where the open prairie, swathed in silvery +mist, seemed to flow up to the indefinite bounds of the town. All the +earth was beautiful in the stillness of the June night. + +"I don't know how to advise you," he said, at length. "If you were one +of us--a real Western girl--it would be different." + +To Jerry this sincerity outweighed any suggestion he could have offered. +From the point of romance this young man was impossible to Lesa Swaim's +child. Yet truly nobody before, not even York Macpherson, had ever +seemed like such a real friend to her, and the chance acquaintance was +reaching by leaps and bounds toward a genuine comradeship. + +"Why do you stay here? You weren't born here, were you? Tell me about +yourself," Jerry demanded. + +"There's a big difference between our cases," Joe replied, wondering how +this girl could care anything for his life-story. "I was the oldest +child of our family. My father came out here on account of his health, +but he came too late, and died, leaving me the claim on the Sage Brush +and my pledge on his death-bed never to leave the West, for fear I, too, +would become an invalid as he had been. There seems to be little danger +of that, and I like the West too well to leave it now. And then, +besides, I'm like a lot of other fellows who claim to love the Sage +Brush. I haven't the means to get away and start life anywhere else, +anyhow. You see, we are as frank out here about our conditions as you +Philadelphians are." + +He smiled and looked down at his strong hands and sturdy arms. It would +be difficult to think of Joe Thomson as an invalid. + +"I inherited, besides my claim and my promise, the provision for two +younger sisters, housed with relatives in the East, but supported by +contributions from this same Sage Brush claim on which I have had to +wrestle with the heat and drought that sear the prairies. And now, when +both my sisters, who married young, are provided for and settled in +homes of their own, and I can begin to live my own life a little, comes +my enemy, the blowout--" + +"Oh, I never want to think of that awful thing!" Jerry cried. "I shall +give the Macpherson Mortgage Company control of the entire sand-pile. +I'll never play there again, never!" + +In the silence that followed something in the beauty of the midsummer +night seemed to fall like a benediction on this man and this woman, each +facing big realities. And, however different their equipment for their +struggles had been in previous years, they were not so far apart now as +their differing circumstances of life would indicate. + +"I must be going now. I did not mean to take so much of your time. I +came only to assure you that I am not always so rude as the mood you +found me in the other day would indicate." Joe rose to go with the +words. + +Jerry's mind had run back again, dreamily, to Gene Wellington, of +Philadelphia, the Gene as she knew and remembered him. It was not until +afterward that she recalled her surprise that this ranchman of the +Western prairies should have such a simple and easy manner whose home +life had evidently been so unlike her own. + +"You haven't stayed too long," she said, frankly. "And you haven't yet +suggested what an undertrained Philadelphia girl can do to keep the +coyote from her dugout portal." + +If only she had been a little less bewitchingly pretty, a little less +sure that the distance of planet from planet lay between them, a strange +sense of sorrow, and a strange new purpose would not have found a place +in Joe Thomson's heart then. With a perception much keener than her own, +he read Jerry's mind that night as she had never tried to read it +herself. + +"I'm better up on soils and farm products than on civic problems and +social economy and such. Dry farming, clerking, sewing, household +economics in somebody's cook-shack, teaching school, giving music +lessons, canvassing for magazines--the Sage Brush girls do things like +these. I wish I could name a calling more suitable for you, but this is +the only line I can offer," Joe said, thinking how impossible it would +be for the girl beside him to fit into the workaday world of the Sage +Brush Valley. On the next ranch to his own up the river a fair-haired, +sun-browned girl was working in the harvest-field this season to save +the price of a hired hand, toward going to college that fall. Jolly, +strong-handed, strong-hearted Thelma Ekblad, whose name was yet to +adorn an alumni record of the big university proud to call her its +product. Jerry Swaim would never thrive in the same soil with this stout +Norwegian. + +They were standing on the porch steps now, and the white moonbeams +glorified Jerry's beauty, for the young ranchman, as she looked up at +him with a smile on her lips and eyes full of light, a sudden decision +giving new character to her countenance. The suddenness of it, that was +her mother's child. The purpose, that was the reflection of Jim Swaim's +mind. + +"I'm on the other side of my Rubicon. I'm going to teach mathematics in +the New Eden high-school. Will you help me to keep across the river? +There's an inspiration for me in the things that you can do?" + +"You! Teach mathematics! They always have a man to teach that!" Joe +exclaimed, wondering behind his words if he only dreamed that she had +asked him to help to keep her across her Rubicon, or if she had really +said such a beautiful thing to him, Joe Thomson, sand-fighter and +general loser, who wouldn't be downed. + +"Oh, I don't wonder you are surprised! I always jump quickly when I do +move. You think I couldn't teach A, B, C, the known quantities, let +alone x, y, z, the unknown quantities, don't you?" Jerry said, gaily. +"When I went to school I was a flunker in languages and sciences. I was +weak in boarding-school embroidery, too, because I never cared for those +things, nor was I ever made to study anything unless I chose to do it. +But I was sure in trigonometry and calculus, which I might have dodged +and didn't. I reveled in them. My mother was scandalized, and Gene +Wellington, an artist, who, by the way, has just given up his career for +a good bank clerkship in Philadelphia, a sort of cousin of mine, was +positively shocked. It seemed so unrefined and strong-minded. But my +father said I was just his own flesh and blood in that line. Yes, I'll +teach school. Mr. Ponk is going to offer me the position, and it's a +whole lot better than the poor-house, or madness, or the East, maybe," +she added, softly, with a luminous glow in her beautiful eyes. + +The old Sage Brush world seemed to slip out from under Joe Thomson's +feet just then. + +"Is your friend related to John Wellington, who once lived in +Philadelphia?" he asked, after a pause, his mind far away from his +query. + +"Why, he's John Wellington's son! John Wellington was a sort of partner +of my father's once," Jerry said. Even in the soft light Joe saw the +pink flush deepen on the girl's cheek. "Good night." She offered him her +hand. "I hope I may see you often. Oh, I hate that blowout, and you +ought to hate me on account of it." + +"It is a brainless, hateful thing," Joe Thomson declared, as he took her +proffered hand. "All my streams seem to be Rubicons, even to the crooked +old Sage Brush. I can't be an inspiration to anybody. It is you who can +give me courage. If you can teach mathematics in New Eden, _I believe I +can kill that blowout_." + +The strength of a new-born purpose was in the man's voice. + +"Oh, no, you can't, for it's mostly on my land yet!" Jerry replied. + +"Well, what of it? You say you won't play in that old sand-pile any +more. What do you care who else plays there? Good night." + +"Good night, Mr. Thomson. Why, what is that?" Jerry's eyes were on a +short, squat figure standing in the middle of the gateway to the +Macpherson grounds. + +"That's 'Fishing Teddy,' an old character who lives a hermit kind of +life down the Sage Brush. He comes to town about four times a year; +usually walks both ways; but I promised to take him out with me +to-night. He's harmless and gentle. Everybody likes him--I mean of our +sort. You wouldn't be interested in him. His real name is Hans Theodore, +but, of course, nobody calls him Mr. Theodore. Everybody calls him +'Fishing Teddy.' Good night, Miss Swaim." + +Joe Thomson lifted his hat and walked away. + +Jerry saw the old man shuffle out and join him, and the two went down +the street together, one, big and muscular, with head erect and an easy, +fearless stride; the other, humped down, frowsy, shambling, a sort of +half-product of humanity, whose companion was the river, whose days were +solitary, who had no part in the moonlight, the perfume of honeysuckle +blossoms, the pleasure of companionship, the easy comfort that wealth +can bring. His to bear the heat and the cinders on the rear platforms of +jerky freight-trains, his to serve his best food to imperious young city +girls lost in an impetuous passion of disappointment in a new and +bewildering land. And yet his mind was serene. Knowing the river would +bring him his food in the morning and his commodity of commerce for his +needs, he was vastly more contented with his lot to-night than was the +stalwart young man who stalked beside him, grimly resolving to go out +and do things. + +Jerry watched the two until they turned into a side-street and +disappeared. The moonlight was wondrously bright and the air was like +crystal. A faint, sweet odor from hay-fields came up the valley now and +then, and all the world was serenely silent under the spell of night. +The net seemed torn away from about the girl's feet, the cloud lifted +from her brain, the blinding, blurring mists from before her eyes. + +"I have crossed my Rubicon," she murmured, standing still in the +doorway of the porch trellis, breathing deeply of the pure evening air. +"I'm glad he came. I am free again, and I'm really happy. I suppose I am +queer. If anybody should put me in a novel, the critics would say 'such +a girl never came to Kansas.' But then if Gene should paint that +blowout, the critics would say 'there never was such a landscape in +Kansas.' These critics know so much. Only Gene will never paint any more +pictures--not masterpieces, anyhow. But I'm going to live my life my own +way. I won't go back to idleness and a life of sand at 'Eden.' I'll win +out here--I will, I will! 'If a woman goes right with herself.' Oh, +Uncle Cornie, I am starting. Whether I hold out depends on the way--and +myself." + +When Laura Macpherson peeped into Jerry's room late that night she saw +her guest sleeping as serenely as if her mind had never a puzzling +question, her sunny day never a storm-cloud. So far Jerry had gone right +with herself. + + + + +X + +THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER + + +The big dramas of life are enacted in the big centers of human +population. Great cities foster great commercial institutions; they +father great constructive enterprises; they endow great educational +systems; they build up great welfare centers; and they reach out and +touch and shape great national and international conditions. In them the +big tragedies and comedies of life--political, religious, social, +domestic--have their settings. And under the power of their combined +units empires appear and disappear. But, set in smaller font, all the +great dramas of life are printed, without a missing part, in the humbler +communities of the commonwealth. All the types appear; all conditions, +aspirations, cunning seditions, and crowning successes have their +scenery and _persona_ so true to form that sometimes the act itself +takes on the dignity of the big world drama. And the actor who produces +it becomes a star, for villainy or virtue, as powerful in his sphere as +the great star-courted suns of larger systems. Booth Tarkington makes +one of his fiction characters say, "There are as many different kinds of +folks in Kokomo as there are in Pekin." + +New Eden in the Sage Brush Valley, on the far side of Kansas, might +never inspire the pen of a world genius, and yet in the small-town +chronicle runs the same drama of life that is enacted on the great stage +with all its brilliant settings. Only these smaller actors play with the +simplicity of innocence, never dreaming that what they play so well are +really world-sized parts fitted down to the compass of their settings. + +Something like this philosophy was in York Macpherson's mind the next +morning as he listened to his sister and her guest loitering comfortably +over their breakfast. A cool wind was playing through the south windows +that might mean hot, sand-filled air later on. Just now life was worth +all the cost to York, who was enjoying it to the limit as he sat +studying the two women before him. + +"For a frivolous, spoiled girl, Jerry can surely be companionable," he +thought, as he noted how congenial the two women were and how easily at +home Jerry was even on matters of national interest. "I never saw a type +of mind like hers before--such a potentiality for doing things coupled +with such dwarfed results." + +York's mind was so absorbed, as he sat unconsciously staring at the +fair-faced girl opposite him, that he did not heed his sister's voice +until she had spoken a second time. + +"York, oh York! wake up. It's daylight!" + +York gave a start and he felt his face flush with embarrassment. + +"As I was saying half an hour ago, brother, have you seen my little silk +purse anywhere? There was too much of my scant income in it to have it +disappear entirely." + +"Yes, I took it. I 'specially needed the money for a purpose of my own. +I meant to tell you, but I forgot it. I'll bring back the purse later," +York replied. + +Of course Laura understood that this was York's return for catching him +at a disadvantage, but she meant to pursue the quest in spite of her +brother's teasing, for she was really concerned. + +Only a few days before, the New Eden leak had opened again and some +really valuable things, far scattered and hardly enough to be considered +separately, had disappeared. Laura by chance had heard that week of two +instances on the town side of the river, and on the evening previous of +one across the river. + +Before she spoke again she saw that Jerry's eyes were fixed on the +buffet, where two silver cups, exactly alike, sat side by side. There +was a queer expression about the girl's mouth as she caught her +hostess's eye. + +"Is there any more silver of that pattern in this part of the country?" +she asked, with seeming carelessness, wrestling the while with a little +problem of her own. + +"Not a pennyweight this side of old 'Castle Cluny' in Scotland, so far +as I know," York replied. "There's your other cup, after all, Laura. By +the way, Miss Jerry, how would you like to take a horseback ride over +'Kingussie'? I must go to the far side of the ranch this morning, and I +would like a companion--even yourself." + +"Do go, Jerry. I don't ride any more," Laura urged, with that cheerful +smile that told how heroically she bore her affliction. "I used to ride +miles with York back in the Winnowoc country." + +"And York always misses you whenever he rides," her brother replied, +beaming affectionately upon his brave, sweet sister. "Maybe, though, +Jerry doesn't ride on horseback," he added. + +At Laura's words Jerry's mind was flooded with memories of the Winnowoc +country where from childhood she had taken long, exhilarating rides with +her father and her cousin Gene Wellington. + +"I've always ridden on horseback," she said, dreamily, without looking +up. + +"She's going to ride with me, not with ghosts of Eastern lovers, if she +rides to-day," York resolved, a sudden tenseness catching at his throat. + +"What kind of mounts are you afraid of? I can have Ponk send up +something easy," he said, in a quiet, fatherly way. + +Jerry's eyes darkened. "I can ride anything your Sage Brush grows that +you call a saddle-horse," she declared, with pretty daring. "Why, 'I was +the pride of the countryside' back in a country where fine horses grew. +Really and seriously, it was Cousin Gene who was afraid of spirited +horses, and he looked so splendid on them, too. But he couldn't manage +them any more than he could run an automobile over the bluff road above +the big cut this side of the third crossing of the Winnowoc. He +preferred to crawl through that cut in the slow old local train while I +climbed over the bluffs in our big car. You hadn't figured on my +boasting qualities, had you?" she added, with a smile at her own +vaunting words. + +"Oh, go on," Laura urged. "I heard your father telling us once that your +cousin, on the Darby side, would ride out with you bravely enough, but +that you traded horses when you got off the place and you always came +back home on the one they were afraid for you to take out and your +cousin was afraid to ride back." + +"She _climbed_ while Cousin Gene _crawled_. I believe she said something +there, but she doesn't know it yet; and it's not my business to tell her +till she asks me." York shut his lips grimly at the unspoken words. +"We'll be back, appetite and sundries, for the best meal the +scullery-maid can loot from the village," he said, as they rose from the +table. + +When Jerry came out of the side door, where York was waiting for her, +she suggested at once a model for a cover illustration of an outing +magazine, an artistic advertisement for well-tailored results, and a +type of young American beauty. As they rode back toward the barns and +cattle-sheds that belonged to the ranch edging the corporation limits of +New Eden, neither one noticed the tall, angular form of Mrs. Stellar +Bahrr as she came striding across lots toward the driveway. + +Stellar lived in a side street. Her back yard bordered a vacant lot on +the next side street above her. Crossing this, she could slip over the +lawn of a vacant house and down the alley half a block, and on by the +United Brethren minister's parsonage. That let her sidle between a +little carpenter-shop and a shoe-shop to the rear gateway into an alley +that led out to the open ground at the foot of the Macpherson knoll. +Stellar preferred this corkscrew route to the "Castle." It gave her +several back and side views, with "listening-posts" at certain points. + +"Oh, good morning, Laury! I'm so glad to find you alone. I'm in a little +trouble, an' mebby you can help me out. You are everybody's friend, just +like your brother, exactly. Only his bein' that way's bound to get him +into trouble sooner or before that. Eh! What's that you're lookin' at?" + +Laura had gone to the buffet after the riders had started away. She had +a singular feeling about that cup appearing so suddenly. She remembered +now that Jerry had asked twice about those cups, and had looked at them +with such a peculiar expression on each occasion. Laura had not remarked +upon it to herself the first time, but the trifling incident at the +table just now stayed in her mind. Yet why? The housekeeper often +rearranged the dining-room features in her endeavor to keep things free +from dust. That would not satisfy the query. That cup and Jerry Swaim +were dodging about most singularly in Laura's consciousness, and she +could not know that the reason for it lay in the projecting power of the +mind of the woman coming across lots at that moment to call on her. + +Yet when Mrs. Bahrr thrust herself into the dining-room unannounced, as +was her habit, with her insistent greeting, and her query, "What's that +you're lookin' at?" the mistress of "Castle Cluny" had a feeling of +having been caught holding a guilty suspicion; and when Stellar Bahrr +ran her through with steely eyes she felt herself blushing with surprise +and chagrin. + +"How can I help you, Mrs. Bahrr?" she asked, recovering herself in a +moment. + +It was, however, the loss of the moment that always gave the woman +before her the clue she wanted. + +"I'm needin' just a little money--only a few dollars. I'm quittin' +hat-trimmin' since them smarties down-town got so busy makin' over, an' +trimmin' over, an' everything. I'm goin' to makin' bread. I've got six +customers already, an' I'm needin' a gasoliner the worst way. I lack +jist five--mebby I could squeeze out with four dollars if I had it right +away. You never knowed what it means to be hard up, I reckon; never had +no trouble at all; no husband to up an' leave you and not a soul to +lean on. You've always had York to lean on. I 'ain't got nobody." + +The drooping figure and wrinkled face were pitiful enough to keep Laura +Macpherson from reminding her that she was older than her brother and +once the leaning had been the other way. Here was a needy, lonely, +friendless woman. What matter that her greatest enemy was herself? All +of us are in that boat. + +"Of course I'll help you, Mrs. Bahrr. I'll get the money right away." + +She rose to leave the room, then sat down again hastily. + +"I'm afraid I can't help you right now, either. I have mislaid my purse. +But when I find it I'll let you have the money. When York comes back +maybe I can get it of him. Could you come over this afternoon?" + +"Mebby York won't let you have it to loan where there ain't no big +interest comin'. I'd ruther he didn't know it if you wasn't sure." + +Laura recalled what her brother had said about not becoming entangled +with Stellar Bahrr, and she knew he would oppose the loan. She knew, +too, that in the end he would consent to it, because he himself was +continually befriending the poor, no matter how shiftless they might be. + +"I think I can bring York round, all right," Laura assured her caller. +"He's not unreasonable." + +"I'd ruther he didn't know. Men are so different from women, you know. +You say you lost your purse. Ain't that funny? Where?" + +"The funny thing is I don't know where," Laura replied. + +Mrs. Bahrr had settled down, and, having accomplished her open purpose, +began to train her batteries for her hidden motive. + +"Things gits lost funny ways, queer ways, and sometimes ornery ways. +Ever' now an' then things is simply missin' here in this burg--just +missin'. But again there's such queer folks even in what you call the +best s'ciety. Now ain't that so?" + +Laura agreed amiably. In truth, she wanted to get her mind away from its +substratum of unpleasant and unusual thought for which she could not +account. Nothing could take her farther from it than Mrs. Bahrr's small +talk about people and things. She knew better than to accept the gossip +for facts, but there was no courteous way of stopping Stellar now, +anyhow. One had to meet her on the threshold for that. + +"'Tain't always the little, petty thievin' sneak gits the things, even +if they do git the blame of it. No, 'tain't." Mrs. Bahrr rambled on, +fixing her hook eyes square into her hostess at just the right moment +for emphasis. "I knowed the same thing happen twice. Once back in +Indiany, where I come from--jist a little town on White River. There was +a girl come to that town from"--hesitatingly--"from Californy; said to +be rich, an' dressed it all right; had every man there crazy about her, +an' her spendin' money like water pours over a mill-wheel in March. Tell +you who she looked like--jist a mite like this Miss Swim stayin' at your +house now--big eyes an' innocent-lookin' like her, but this Californy +girl was a lot the best-lookin' of the two--a lot. An' she was rich--or +so everybody thought. This un ain't. I got that out of Ponk 'fore he +knowed it. An'--well, to make a story end somewhere this side of +eternity, I never could bear them ramblin' kind of folks--first thing +folks knowed a rich old bachelor got animated with her, just clear +_animated_, an' literally swore by her. An'--well, things got to missin' +a little an' a little more, an', sir--well"--slowly and +impressively--"it turned out at last that this girl who they said was so +rich was a _thief_, takin' whatever she could get, 'cause she was hard +up an' too proud to go back to Oregon to tell her folks. An' that rich +bachelor jist defended her ever' way--'d say he took things accidental, +an' then help her to git 'em back, or git away with them--it was like a +real drammy jist like they acted out in the picture show t'other night +down-town. There was lots of talk, an' it nearly broke his sister's--I +mean his mother's--heart. But, pshaw! that all happened years ago down +in Indiany on the White River. It's all forgot long 'go. Guess I'd +never thought of it again if this Swim girl hadn't come here with her +big eyes, remindin' me of that old forgot eppisode, an' your losin' +your purse mysterious. How things happen, year in an' year out, +place after place, the same kind of things; good folks everywhere, +though--everywhere. I was in York's office late yistyday afternoon, an' +this girl comes in. Too bad she's so poor an' so pretty." + +There was a venomous twist of the hooks at that word "pretty." + +"But she's in trouble some way, all right, I know, an' York 'll help her +out. _I_ wouldn't ask him. Men take more int'rist naturally in young an' +pretty women. But it's different with older women. I hope York never +gits caught sometime like that man I knowed back in Indiany. He's too +smart for that. Miss Swim must have told York about her money shortage +yistyday. The postmaster said she'd been waitin' for a check +considerable. I couldn't get nothin' out of _him_, whether it had come +yet or not. But I guess not. But la! la! she's your guest; you wouldn't +let her suffer; an' I ain't tellin' a soul what I know about things. I +do know what they say, of course. York won't let her suffer. But I'm so +much obliged to you. Four dollars will be all I need, an' I'll pay you +with the first bakin's. I guess I'll set some folks thinkin' when they +see I can make my own way--" + +Laura Macpherson was on her feet and it was her eyes now that were +holding the woman of the steel hooks. + +"Miss Swaim is our guest, the daughter of an old friend of the +Macphersons. Of course we--" + +Oh what was the use? Laura's anger fell away. It was too ridiculous to +engage in a quarrel with the town long-tongue. York was right. The only +way to get along with Stellar Bahrr was not to traffic with her. Mrs. +Bahrr rose also, gripping at the chance for escape uninjured. + +"I'll see you this afternoon if you still feel like helpin' me, an' York +is willin'. I clear forgot to put out my ice-card. Good day. Good day." + +The woman shuffled away, leaving the mistress of "Cluny Castle" in the +grip of many evil spirits. The demon of anger, of doubt, of contempt, of +incipient distrust, of self-accusation for even listening--these and +others contended with the angel of the sense of humor and the natural +courtesy of a well-bred woman. + +And then the lost purse came up again. + +"I may have left it in Jerry's room when I went to that closet after my +wrap last evening. I'll never learn to keep my clothes out of our +guest-room, I suppose," Laura said to herself, going at once to Jerry's +room. + +As she pushed aside some dresses suspended by hoops to a pole in the +closet, Jerry's beaded hand-bag fell from a shelf above the hangings, +and the fastening, loosened by the fall, let the contents roll out and +lay exposed on the floor. + +As Laura began to gather them up and put them back in their place, she +saw her own silk purse stuffed tightly into the bottom of her guest's +hand-bag. And then and there the poison tips of Stellar Bahrr's shafts +began a festering sore deep and difficult to reach. + +<tb> + +It was high noon when York Macpherson and his fair companion returned +from the far side of the big Macpherson ranch. Jerry's hair was blown in +ringlets about her forehead and neck. Her cheeks were blooming and her +eyes were like stars. With the fresh morning breeze across the prairie, +the exhilarating ride on horseback, and the novel interest in a ranch +whose appointments were so unlike "Eden" and the other Winnowoc Valley +farms, Jerry had the ecstasy of a new freedom to quicken her pulse-beat. +She had solved her problem; now she was free for her romantic nature to +expand. It was such a freedom as she had never in her wilful life known +before, because it had a purpose in it such as she had never known +before, a purpose in which the subconscious knowledge of dependence on +somebody else, the subjection to somebody else's ultimate control, +played no part. + +To Laura Macpherson she seemed to have burst from the bud to the +full-blown flower in one short forenoon. + +York's face, however, was wearing that impenetrable mask that even his +sister's keen and loving eyes could never pierce. He had been +impenetrable often in the last few weeks. But of the York back of that +unreadable face Laura was sure. Even in their mutual teasings the deep, +brotherly affection was unwavering. As far as it lay in York's power he +would never fail to make up to his companionable sister for what +circumstances had taken from her. And yet--the substratum of her +disturbed consciousness would send an upheaval to the surface now and +then. All normal minds are made alike and played upon by the same +influences. The difference lies in the intensity of control to subdue or +yield to the force of these influences. Things had happened in that +morning ride that York had planned merely for the beneficence of the +prairie breezes upon the bewildered purposes of the guest of the house. + +On the far side of the "Kingussie" ranch the two riders had halted in +the shade of a clump of wild plum-trees beside the trail that follows +the course of the Sage Brush. Below them a little creek wound through a +shelving outcrop of shale, bordered by soft, steep earth banks wherever +the shale disappeared. This Kingussie Creek was sometimes a swift, +dangerous stream, but oftener it was a mere runlet with deep water-holes +carved here and there in the yielding shale. Just now, at the approach +of July heat, there was only a tiny thread of water trickling clear +over yellow rock, or deep pools lying in muddy thickness in the stagnant +places. + +"Not much like the Winnowoc," York suggested, as his companion sat +staring down at the stream-bed below. + +"Everything is different here," Jerry said, meditatively. "I've traveled +quite a little before; been as far as the White Mountains and the +beautiful woodsy country up in York State. There's a lot of upness and +downness to the scenery, but the people--except, of course--" Jerry +smiled bewitchingly. + +"Except Ponk, of course," York supplied, with a twinkle in his eyes. + +"How well you comprehend!" Jerry assured him. "But, seriously, the world +is so different out here--the--the people and their ways and all." + +"No, Jerry, it isn't that. The climate is different. The shapes of +things differ. Instead of the churned-up ridged and rugged timber-decked +lands of Pennsylvania and York State, the Creator of scenery chose to +pour out this land mainly a smooth and level and treeless prairie--like +chocolate on the top of a layer cake." + +"Chocolate is good, with sand instead of sugar," Jerry interrupted. + +"But as to the people--the real heart of the real folks of the Sage +Brush--there's no difference. They all have 'eyes, hands, organs, +senses, affections, passions.' They are all 'fed with the same food, +hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed with +the same means, warmed and cooled with the same summer and winter' as +the cultured and uncultured folk of the Winnowoc Valley and the city of +Philadelphia. The trouble with us is we don't take time to read +them--nor even first of all to read ourselves. Of course I might except +old Fishing Teddy, that fellow you see away down there where the shade +is deepest," York added, to relieve the preachment he didn't want to +seem to be giving, yet really wanted this girl to understand. "He's a +hermit-crab and seldom comes among us. Every community has its +characters, you know." + +"He was among us last night, and went home with Joe Thomson," Jerry +replied, looking with curious interest at the motionless brown figure +up-stream in the shadow of a tall earth bank. + +York gave a start and stared at the girl in surprise. "How do you know? +Did the Big Dipper come calling on you? That sort of information is in +the Great Bear's line." + +Jerry flushed hotly as she remembered her promise not to tell of Mrs. +Bahrr's call. In a dim sort of way she felt herself entangled for the +moment. Then she looked full at York, with deep, honest eyes, saying, +simply: + +"Joe Thomson was calling on me last night, and I saw this old fellow, +Hans Theodore, Joe named him, waiting on the driveway, and the two went +away together, a pair of aces." + +"How do you know, fair lady, that this is the same creature? And how do +you happen to know Joe Thomson?" York inquired, blandly, veiling his +curious interest with indifference. + +"I happened to meet both of these country gentlemen on a certain day. In +fact, I dined _al fresco_ with one when I was riding in my chariot, +incognito, alone, unattended by gallant outriders, about my blank blank +rural estate in the heart of the Sage Brush country of Kansas. The +'blank blank' stands for a term not profane at all, but one I never want +to hear again--that awful word '_blowout_.'" + +Jerry's humor was mixed with sarcasm and confusion, both of which +troubled the mind of her companion. This girl had so many sides. She was +so unused to the Western ways and he was trying to teach her a deeper +understanding of human needs, and the human values regardless of +geography, when she suddenly revealed a self-possession telling of +scraps of her experience in a matter-of-fact way; and yet a confusion +for some deeper reason possessed her at certain angles. Why? That +mention of Joe Thomson was annoying to York. Why? Jerry's assumed +familiarity with such a hermit outcast as the old fisherman was +puzzling. Why? York must get back to solid ground at once. This girl was +throwing him off his feet. Clearly she was not going to chatter idly of +all her experiences. She could know things and not tell them. + +"Seriously, Jerry, there are no geographical limits for culture and +strength of character. If you stay here long enough you will appreciate +that," he began again where he had thrown himself off the trail to avoid +a preachment. + +"Yes," Jerry agreed, with the same degree of seriousness. + +"See, coming yonder." York pointed up the trail to where a much-worn +automobile came chuffing down the shaly road toward the ford of +Kingussie Creek. "That is Thelma Ekblad and her crippled brother Paul. +If you look right you will see the same lines of courage and sweetness +in his face that are in my sister's. And yet, although their lives have +been cast in widely different planes, their crosses are the same and +they have lifted them in the same way." + +Jerry hadn't really seen the lines in Laura Macpherson's face, because +she had been too full of her own troubles. With York's words she felt a +sense of remorse. Finding fault with herself was new to her and it made +her very uncomfortable. Also this girl coming, this Thelma Ekblad, was +the one whom Mrs. Bahrr had said York had pretended to be interested in +once. Jerry had remembered every word of Stellar Bahrr's gossipy tongue, +because her mind had been in that high-strung, tense condition last +night to receive and hold impressions unconsciously, like a sensitized +plate. The thought now made her peculiarly unhappy. + +"Joe Thomson's farm is next to hers. Some day I'll tell you her story. +It is a story--a real-life drama--and his." + +York's words added another degree to Jerry's disturbed mental frame. + +"How do you do, Thelma? Hello, Paul! Fine weather for cutting alfalfa. +My machines are at it this morning." York greeted the occupants of the +car cordially. + +"Good morning, York. We are rushing a piece of the mower up to the shop. +Had a breakdown an hour ago." + +Thelma was tanned brown, but her fair braids gleamed about her uncovered +head, and when she smiled a greeting her fine white teeth were worth +seeing. Paul Ekblad waved a thin white hand as the car passed the two on +horseback, and the delicate lines of his pale, studious face justified +York's comparison of it with Laura Macpherson's. Jerry saw her hostess +at that moment in a new light. Burdened for the moment as she was under +the discomfort of what seemed half-consciously to rebuke the frivolous +girl that she dimly knew herself to be, the sudden memory of her resolve +declared to Joe Thomson in the shadow-flecked porch the night before +came as a balm and a stimulant in one, to give her purpose, +self-respect, and peace. + +Thus it was that Jerry came in to "Castle Cluny" at high noon the +picture of health and high spirits, shaming Laura Macpherson's doubt and +sorrow which her morning had brought her. Laura was thoroughly +well-bred, and she had, beyond that, a strong and virtuous heritage of +Scotch blood that made for uprightness and sincerity. With one effort +she swept out of her mind all that had harassed it since the cup episode +at the breakfast-table, establishing anew within her understanding the +force of her brother's admonition concerning any affiliation with the +Big Dipper, the town meddler and trouble-maker. + +Late that afternoon, as Laura sat sewing in the shade of the +honeysuckle-vines, Stellar Bahrr hurried across lots again and hitched +cautiously up to the side door. Listening a moment, she heard the sound +of Laura's scissors falling on the cement floor of the porch, and +Laura's impatient exclamation, "There you go again!" as she reached to +pick them up and examine the points of their blades. + +Stellar hitched cautiously a little further along the wall, and stood in +the shade of the house, outside the porch vines. + +"Laury," she called, in a sibilant voice, "I jis' run in to say I won't +need that money at all. I'm goin' to go out sewin', an' I can git all I +can do, now the wheat harves' promises so well. Ever'body's spending +money on clo'es an' a lot of summer an' fall sewin' goin' to rot, you +might say. I'll be jis' blind busy, an' I can sew better than I can bake +or trim. But I'm same obliged." + +"Won't you come in?" Laura must not be rude, at any cost. + +"No, I can't. I must run back. My light bread's raisin' and it'll raise +the ruff if I don't work the meanness out of it." + +Just then Jerry Swaim came bounding through the hall doorway. "Look +here, Laura! See what I have found." She held up her beaded hand-bag and +pulled the stuffed silken purse out of it. "Now how did it ever get in +there? I'm a good many things, but I never knew I was a shoplifter," +Jerry declared, laughingly, a bit of confused blush making her prettier +than usual. + +"Why--why--" Laura was embarrassed, not for Jerry's sake, but on account +of those steel hooks thrusting themselves into her back through the +honeysuckle-vines. + +"Say, Laury, I jis' wanted to say I'm goin' to Mis' Lenwell's first. +Good-by." Stellar Bahrr's voice, sharp and thin, cut through the vines. + +As Laura turned to reply Jerry saw her fair face redden, and her voice +was almost harsh as she spoke clearly, to be well heard. + +"I remember now. I must have put it in there by mistake when you were +down-town yesterday afternoon. I guess I thought it was my bag." + +Mrs. Bahrr, turning to go, had caught sight of Jerry's hand-bag through +the leaves, and remembered perfectly that Jerry had carried it with her +down-town the day before, and how well it matched the beaded trimming of +her parasol, her wide-brimmed chiffon hat, and the sequins of her sash +trimmings against her silk walking-skirt. + +Jerry recalled taking the bag with her, too, and she recalled just then +what Mrs. Stellar Bahrr had hinted about Laura not wanting York to +admire other women. Why did that thought come to the girl's mind just +now? Was the wish of the evil mind of the woman hitching away across +lots and corkscrewing down alleyways projecting itself so far as this? + + + + +XI + +AN INTERLUDE IN "EDEN" + + +An interlude should be brief. This one ran through a few midsummer days +with amazing rapidity, considering that in its duration the current of a +life was changed from one channel, whither it had been tending for +almost a quarter of a century, to another and widely different course +that ran away from the very goal-mark of all its years of inspiring +ambition. + +It was late afternoon of a July day. Jerusha Darby sat in the +rose-arbor, fanning and rocking in rhythmic motion. The rose-vines had +ceased to bloom. Their thinning foliage was augmented now by the heavier +shade of thrifty moon-vines. + +Midsummer found "Eden" no less restful and luxuriant in its July setting +than it was in the freshness of June. + +The afternoon train had crawled lazily up the Winnowoc Valley on +schedule time, permitting Eugene Wellington, in white flannels, white +oxfords, and pink-pin-striped white silk shirt, fresh from shave and +shower-bath, to come on schedule time to the rose-arbor for a conference +with Mrs. Darby. + +The swift flow of events had not outwardly affected the handsome young +man. The time of the early June roses had found him poor in worldly +goods, but rich in a trained mind, a developed genius, a yearning after +all things beautiful, a faith in divine Providence, abounding confidence +in his own power to win to the mastery in his beloved art, and glorying +in his freedom to do the thing he chose to do. It found him in love, and +the almost accepted lover of a beautiful, wilful, magnetic girl--a girl +with a sturdy courage in things wherein he was lacking; a frivolous, +untrained girl, yet with surprising dependableness in any crisis. It +found him the favorite nephew of a quiet, uninteresting, rich old +money-grubbing uncle and his dominant, but highly approving wife, whose +elegant home was always open to him the while he felt himself a +pensioner on its hospitality. + +Mid-July found him, in effect, the master where he had been the poor +relation; the rich uncle gone forever from earthly affairs; a dominant +aunt still ruling--so she fancied--as she had always ruled, but with the +consciousness of her first defeated purpose rankling bitterly within +her. It found Eugene still in love with the same beautiful, wilful girl, +but far from any assurance of being a really accepted lover. It found +him insensibly forgetting the aspirations of a lifetime and beginning, +little by little, to grasp after the Egyptian flesh-pots. Life was fast +becoming a round of easy days, whose routine duties were more than +compensated by its charming domestic settings. The one unsatisfied +desire was for the presence of the bright, inspiring girl who had left a +void when she went away, for whose return all "Eden" was waiting. + +The swift course of events had created other changes. Some growths are +slow, and some amazingly swift, depending upon the nature of the +life-germ in the seed and the soil of the planting. In Eugene Wellington +the love of beauty found its comfort in his present planting. It was +easier to stay where beauty was ready-made than to go out and create it +in some less lovely surroundings. Combine with this artistic temperament +an inherent lack of initiative and courage, a less resistant force, and +the product is sure. Moreover, this very falling away from the incentive +to artistic endeavor exacted its penalty in a dulled spirituality. +Whoever denies the allegiance due, in however small a measure, to the +call of art within him pays always the same price--a pound of tender +bleeding flesh nearest his heart. For Eugene Wellington the Shylock +knife was sharpening itself. + +This July afternoon there were no misgivings in his soul, however--no +black shadows of failure ahead. All the serpents of "Eden" were very +good little snakes indeed. After a while he would paint again, +leisurely, exquisitely; especially would he paint when Jerry came home. + +As he lighted a cigarette, a recent custom of his, and strolled down the +shady way to the rose-arbor to meet Mrs. Darby, he drew deep draughts +of satisfaction. It had been an unusually good day for him. Unusually +good. Business had made it necessary to open some closed records in the +late Cornelius Darby's affairs, records that Mrs. Jerusha Darby herself +had not yet examined. They put a new light on the whole Darby situation. +They went further and threw some side-lights on the late Jim Swaim's +transactions. Altogether they were worth knowing. And Eugene, wielding a +high hand with himself, had, once for all, stilled his finer sense of +fitness in his right to know these things. He had also made rapid +strides in this brief time toward comprehending business ethics as +differing from church ethics and artistic ethics. Face to face in a +conflict with Jerry Swaim, with Aunt Jerry Darby, with his conscience, +his God, he was never sure of himself. But as to managing things, once +he had shut his doors and barred them, he was confident. It was a truly +confident Gene who stepped promptly into the rose-arbor on the moment +expected. To the old woman waiting for him there he was good to look +upon. + +"I'm glad you are on time, Gene," Mrs. Darby began, rocking and fanning +more deliberately. "I'm ready now to settle matters once for all." + +"Yes, Aunt Jerry," Eugene responded, fitting himself gracefully into the +settings of this summer retreat, with a look of steady penetration +coming into his eyes as he took in the face before him. + +"Any news from the Argonaut to-day?" he asked, at length, as Mrs. Darby +sat silently rocking. + +"Not a line. I guess Jerry is waiting for me to ask her to come back. +She must be through with her romantic fling by this time, and about out +of money, too. So now's the time to act and settle matters, as I say, +once for all. Jerry _must come home_." + +"Amen, and amen," Eugene agreed, fervently. + +"And if she won't come home herself, she must be brought--to see things +as we do. _Must_, I say, Eugene." + +"I'm glad she didn't say 'brought home' if she's going to send me after +her," the young man thought. The memory of having been sent after Jerry +in years gone by, and of coming back empty-handed, but full-hearted and +sore-headed, were still strong within him. "How shall we make her see?" +he inquired. + +Mrs. Darby rocked vigorously for a few minutes. Then she brought her +chair to a dead stop and laid down the law without further shifting of +anchors. + +"All my property, my real estate, country and city, my bank stocks, my +government bonds, my business investments--everything--is mine to keep +for my lifetime, and to pass by will to whomsoever I choose. Of course +it's only natural I should choose the only member of my family now +living to succeed to my possessions." + +How the "my" sounded out as the woman talked of her god, to whose +service she was bound, but of whose blessings she understood so little! + +Eugene sat waiting and thinking. + +"Of course, whoever marries Jerry with my approval will come into a +fortune worth having." + +"He certainly will," Eugene declared, fervently. + +A clear vision of Jerry and June roses swept his soul with refreshing +sweetness, followed by the no less clear imagery of Uncle Cornie +stepping slowly but persistently at the wrong moment after his wabbling +discus. He looked away down the lilac-walk, unconsciously expecting the +familiar, silent, uninteresting face and figure to come again to view. +To the artist spirit in him the old man was there as real to vision as +he had been on that last--lost--June day. + +"You are thinking of Jerry herself. I am thinking of her inheritance, +which is a deal more sensible, although Jerry is an unusually +interesting and surprising girl," the old woman was saying. + +"Unusually," Eugene echoed. "And in case you do not make a will?" + +The young man was still looking down the lilac-walk as he asked the +question, seemingly oblivious to the narrow eyes of Mrs. Darby +scrutinizing his face. + +"I have already made it. If things do not please me I shall change it. I +may do that half a dozen times if I choose before I'm through with it. +Now listen to me." The woman spoke sharply. + +Eugene listened, wondering the while what sort of lightning-rod she +carried, to speak with such assurance of all she meant to do before she +was through with the transactions of this life. Uncle Cornie had not +been so well defended. + +"I want you to write to Jerry to come home. You can pay her expenses. +She will take the money quicker from you than from me. She's as proud as +Lucifer in some things, once she's set. But she's in love with you, and +where a girl's in love she listens." + +Eugene looked up quickly. "Are you sure?" he asked, eagerly. + +"Of course I am! Why shouldn't I know love when I see it?" Mrs. Darby +inquired. + +Yes, why? + +"But you mustn't give in, nor plead with her. Just tell her how well +fixed you are, and how much she is missing here, and that you will wait +her time, only she must come back, and promise to stay here, or I'll cut +my will to bits, I certainly shall. I'll write myself to York +Macpherson. He's level-headed and honorable as truth. If he was dead in +love with Jerry himself--as he no doubt is by this time--he'd just put +it all away if he found out he was denying me my rights. I'll put it up +to his honor. And so with him at that end of the line, and you here, and +me really moving the chessmen, it can't be a losing game, Eugene. It +simply can't. Jerry may not get tired of her new playthings right away, +but she will after a while. It isn't natural for her to take to a life +so awfully different from her bringing up. When the new wears off she'll +come home, even if necessity didn't drive her, as it's bound to sooner +or later. She's nearly out of money right now, and she can't sponge off +the Macphersons forever and be Jim Swaim's child. Is everything clear to +you now?" + +Eugene threw away his cigarette and lighted a fresh one, his face the +while as expressionless as ever the dry, dull face of Cornelius Darby +had been. At last he answered: + +"Mrs. Darby has made a will, presumably in favor of her niece, Geraldine +Swaim--a will subject to replacement by any number of wills creating +other beneficiaries. In any event, Mrs. Darby proposes to have a voice +in the final disposition of her property." + +Mrs. Darby nodded emphatically. "I certainly do." + +Eugene smiled approval of such good judgment. "You are right, Mrs. +Darby. What is your own you should control, always. But, frankly, Aunt +Jerry, it is Geraldine Swaim herself who is my fortune--if I can ever +acquire it." + +"You don't object to her prospects, I hope," Mrs. Darby interrupted, +with a twinkle in her eye. + +"I couldn't, for her sake. And I am artistic enough to love the charm of +an estate like this; and sensible enough, maybe, to appreciate the +influence and opportunity that are afforded by the other financial +assets of the Darby possessions. I'll do all in my power to bring Jerry +back to a life of ease and absence of all anxiety and responsibility. +Shall I go out to Kansas after her?" + +An uncomfortable feeling about that York Macpherson had begun now to +pull hard upon Eugene's complacent assurance, although he had rebelled a +few minutes ago at the thought of going anywhere after Jerry. + +"Never," Mrs. Darby responded. "It would just give her another chance +for adventure and seem to acknowledge that we couldn't do without her." + +In truth, Mrs. Darby was shrewd enough to know that with Eugene on the +ground she could not count on York Macpherson as her ally. York would +naturally champion Jerry's cause, and she knew that Eugene Wellington +would be no match for the diplomatic man of affairs whom she had known +intimately from his childhood. + +"Aunt Jerry, how much do you know of the value of this Swaim estate?" +Eugene asked, suddenly. + +"Very little. Cornelius told me that he had a full account of it. That +was on the very day he was--he passed away. The papers, except the one +Jerry found here the day after the funeral, have all been mislaid." + +"Then I'd advise you to write to this Macpherson person and find out +exactly what we have to fight against," the young man suggested. +"Meantime I'll write to Jerry. I'm sure she should be ready to listen +now. All I claim to know of that beastly region out West I learned from +my father, but that is enough for me. If there were really a bit of +landscape worth the cost of the canvas I might go out there and paint +it. But who cares to paint in only two colors, blue one half--that's +sky, unclouded, monotonous; and chrome yellow, the other half--that's +land. I could paint the side of the cattle-barn over yonder half yellow, +half blue, and put as much expression into it." + +Mrs. Darby listened approvingly. "I'm very thankful that you see things +so sensibly. The sooner you replace what isn't worth while with what is +the sooner you will know you are a success in your business. We will +write those letters to-night. I'm having your favorite dishes for dinner +now, and we'll be served here. It is so pleasant here at this time of +day. I'll go and see to things right away, and we'll have everything +brought out pretty soon." + +The owner of all this dainty comfort and restfulness and beauty hurried +away, leaving Eugene Wellington alone in the rose-arbor--alone with +memories of Jerry Swaim, and Uncle Cornie, and life, and love, and hope +and high ambition, and himself--the self that a man must go right with, +if he goes with him at all. + +For a long half-hour he sat there in the rose-arbor, the appealing call +of his divine gift filling his artist soul. Then his judgment prevailed. +What he most wanted to have was here, ready to have now--and to hold +later with only a little patient waiting. A few weeks, or months, or +maybe even a year, a run of four swift seasons, and the girl of his +heart's heart would come back into her own, and find him ready for her +coming. That impossible York was not to be considered. Jerry was no +fool, if she was sometimes a bit foolish in her pranks. And he, Eugene +Wellington, had only this day learned of the whole Swaim situation, what +was vastly valuable to know. Meantime, his the task to keep that +precious Jerusha Darby will intact; or, failing in that, came the more +difficult and delicate task of controlling or holding back the pen that +would write another will. And in the end Jerry would love him forever +for what he would save for her--for her-- + +The memory of what he had learned that day in the business house in the +city came with its testimony that he was shaping his life course well. +Only one little foxy fear dodged about in his mind--the fear that +Jerry--the Jerry he knew, lovable in spite of all her little failings, +beautiful, picturesque, and surprising--that this Jerry, whom he +thought he knew so well, might prove to be an unknowable, unguessable +Jerry whose course would baffle all his plans, his efforts, his heart +longings. It must not be. He would prevent that. But could he? + +The coming of dainty viands with exquisite appointments gave nourishment +to his ready appetite, and dulled for a time the thing within him that +sometime must cry out to power or be sleeked down into fat and unfeeling +subjection. + +That night two letters were written to New Eden, Kansas, but neither +writer really knew the reader to whom the letter was written, nor +measured life purposes by the same gauge, so setting anew the world-old +stage for a drama in human affairs whose crowning act shapes human +destinies. + + + + +XII + +THIS SIDE OF THE RUBICON + + +In the late afternoon of a July Sabbath Jerry Swaim had gone for a +stroll along the quiet outskirts of New Eden. Laura was napping in the +porch swing, and York had gone to his office in answer to a telephone +call. Jerry was rarely lonely with herself and she was a good walker. +She was learning, too, the need for being alone with herself, for there +were many things crowding into her mind that demanded recognition. + +Jerry attended church with the Macphersons every Sunday, but it was a +mere perfunctory act on her part. To-day the minister was away. He had +gone to the upper Sage Brush to officiate at the funeral of Mrs. Nell +Belkap that had been Nell Poser, she of the tow hair and big-lunging +baby. She had died of congestion, following over-heating in cooking for +threshing-hands for her mother, her father being the kind of man that +objected to hired help for "wimmin folks." All that was nothing to +Jerry, who found herself wondering, in a vague sort of way, just where +that baby would sprawl itself, unattached to its mother's anchorage. +Babies were not in Jerry's scheme of things at all. + +The substitute minister was more interesting to think about. He had a +three-piece country charge over which to spread the Gospel, "Summit +School-House," "Slack Crick Church," and "Locust Grove Grange." He said +"have went" and he called the members of one of Saint Paul's churches +"The Thessalonnykins." And he really didn't know the Lord's Prayer +correctly, for he said "forgive us our trespasses," instead of "our +debts," as dear accurate Saint Matthew has written it. + +Jerry's mind was on him as an aside, on him, and that Paul Ekblad whom +she caught sight of in the Ekblad car with Thelma. They had stopped a +minute to speak with York Macpherson as they were on their way to that +up-country Poser funeral. Why should Paul Ekblad go so far to a funeral? + +Jerry strolled aimlessly along the smooth road leading out to the New +Eden cemetery, her bead-trimmed parasol shading her bare head, and her +pale-green organdie gown making her appear very summery. Jerry had the +trick of fitting all weather except the heated, sand-filled days of +mid-June on a freight-train, which condition Junius Brutus Ponk declared +"was enough to muss a angel's wings an' make them divine partial-eclipse +angel draperies look dingier than dish-rags." + +There were half a dozen well-grown cottonwood-trees in the cemetery, +with rows of promising little elms, catalpas, and box-elders all +symmetrically set. The grass was brown, but free from weeds; the walks +were only smooth paths. But the shade of the cottonwood group, and the +quiet of the place, seemed inviting. Every foot of the wind-swept +elevation was visible to the whole town, but the distance was guarantee +for undisturbed meditation. Jerry had no interest in cemeteries. She had +rarely visited the corner of "Eden" where the few elect by family ties +had their last resting-place. She walked down the grassy paths toward +the largest cottonwoods, now, indifferent alike to the humble headstone +and the expensive and sometimes grotesque granite memorial. By the +tallest shaft in the place, designated by Stellar Bahrr as "Granddad +Poser's monniment," she sat down in the shade of the biggest trees, and +looked out at New Eden in its Sabbath-afternoon nap; at the winding Sage +Brush and the green and yellow fields, and black hedgerows, and rolling +prairies, with purple-shadowed draws and pale-brown swells, and groves +about distant farmhouses. She sat still for a long time, and she was so +lost in this view that she did not hear steps approaching until Mr. Ponk +was almost beside her. + +"Good afternoon, Miss Swaim. Takin' a constitutional? They ain't no +Swaims laid away out here I reckon." + +"Oh no," Jerry replied. "I shouldn't come here for that if there were." + +Something about Ponk always made her good-natured. He was so grotesquely +impossible to her--a caricature cut from some comic magazine, rounded +out and animated. + +"Say you wouldn't? Now that's real queer." The short man opened his +little eyes wide with surprise. "Now I soar down here regular every +Sunday evenin' of the world, summer and winter." + +"What for?" Jerry asked, looking up at the speaker with curiosity. + +New Eden was still in that stage when a funeral was a public event. And +the belief was still maintained that the dead out in the cemetery must +be conscious of every attention or lack of it shown to their memory by +visits and flowers, and the price of tombstones. In a word, to the New +Eden living, the New Eden dead were not really in the Great Hereafter, +but here, demanding consideration in the social economy of the +community. + +Ponk was more shocked at Jerry's query than she could begin to +comprehend, and his interest in her and pity for her took a still +stronger grip on life. + +"Why, Miss Swaim, I come out here to see my mother. I 'ain't never +failed to bring her a flower in summer, or a green leaf in winter, one +single Sunday since she was laid out there on the south slope one Easter +day eight Aprils ago." + +"But she isn't there." Jerry spoke gently now, realizing that she had +hurt him unintentionally. + +"She is to me, an' I'd ruther think it thataway an' feel like I was +callin' every Sunday, never forgettin'," Ponk said, sadly. + +"Where's your dead to you, Miss Swaim?" he asked, after a pause. + +Jerry, who was gazing down the Sage Brush Valley, turned slowly at his +words, her big eyes luminous with tears. + +"They are not." She waved a hand against viewless air. + +"Oh yes, they are, walkin' beside you every day, lovin' you and proud of +you! A good mother just lives on an' keeps doin' good, and so does a +father, if you let 'em." Ponk hesitated, and his moon-round face was +flushed. "I ain't tryin' to preach," he added, hastily. "They's some +things, though, we all got to cling to or else get hustled off our feet +into a big black void where we just sink and die. It ain't just +Sage-Brushers, but it's all Christians--Baptists and Cammylites and High +Church and everybody. It's safer to stand in the light than sink in the +bottomless night. But, say, look who's comin' an' see what's trailin' +him. I guess I'll be soarin' back to the hotel now. Pleased to meet +you--always am pleased." Ponk lifted his hat and bowed uncovered, and +uncovered walked away. + +What he had said in the sincerity of his spiritual belief fell on +fertile soil in the mind of his listener. He had preached a sermon to +her that was good for her to hear. + +Jerry looked out in the direction he had indicated and saw York +Macpherson, walking a bit briskly for him and the place and the +afternoon. + +It was no wonder that Jerusha Darby should expect York to be caught by +the charms of his guest. As she sat there in the shade of the +cottonwoods, where, in all the cemetery, the blue grass grew rankest, +with her pale-green gown, her smooth pink cheeks, and the wavy masses of +golden-brown hair coiled low at the back of her head, York wondered if +the spirit of the wild rose in bloom and the spirit of some Greek nymph +had not combined in the personification before him. + +At the gateway he met Ponk. + +"Why do you run away? I have a special-delivery letter for Miss Swaim. I +thought I'd better come and find her, but that needn't interfere with +you." + +"Oh, you smooth-bore! But I have to go, anyhow. I'm headin' off what's +trailin' you. Don't look back. It's Stellar Bahrr, comin' out to see +who's been to see their folks to-day and who's neglectin' 'em, +'specially late arrivals. She's seen my game, though, now, an' she's +shabbin' off to the side gate, knowin' I'd head her back to town. Say, +York, she's after Miss Swaim now. You watch out. Them that's the +worthlessest and has the least influence in a community can start the +biggest fires burnin'. Everybody in New Eden's been buffaloed by +her--just scared blue--except maybe us two. You ain't, I know, and I'm +right sure I ain't." + +"Ponk, you are as good as you are good-looking," York said, heartily. +"The Big Dipper could start a tale of our guest meeting gentlemen +friends in the cemetery. And yet for privacy it's about like meeting +them on the sidewalk before the Commercial Hotel. However, she's started +scandal with less material. I have business with Miss Swaim, so I'll +walk home with her." + +Jerry waited for her host under the flickering, murmuring leaves of the +cottonwood. She had seen some woman wandering diagonally from the +cemetery road toward the corner of the inclosure, but she had no +interest in strangers and might never have thought of her again but for +a word of York's that day. + +He had seen the girl looking after Stellar as she made a wide flank +movement. A sense of duty coupled with a strange interest in Jerry, for +which he had as yet given no account to himself, was urging him to tell +her, as he had told his sister, to have no traffic with the town's +greatest liability, but with all of Ponk's warning he could not bring +himself to speak now. + +"May I sit here with you awhile?" he asked, lifting his hat as he spoke. + +"Certainly. It is so quiet and peaceful out here, and, as I have no +associations with this place, I can sit here without being unhappy or +irreverent," Jerry replied. + +"I came out to find you. There are callers at home now, so I'll give you +my message here, unless you want to follow Mr. Ponk's example and +'soar' off home." + +"That man interests me," Jerry declared. "He said some good things about +his mother just now. And yet he's so--so funny." + +"Oh, Ponk's outside is against him. If he could be husked out of himself +and let the community get down to the kernel of him he is really fine +wheat," York said, conscious the while that he had not meant, for some +reason, to praise the strutting fellow. Yet he had never felt so toward +the little man before. + +"I have a special-delivery letter for you which came this afternoon. +While you read it I'll go out to the gate and speak to the Ekblads, +coming yonder." + +Jerry read her letter--the one Eugene had written after his conference +with Jerusha Darby in the rose-arbor. In it he had been faithful to the +old woman's smallest demands, but the message itself was a masterpiece. +It was gracefully written, for Eugene Wellington's penmanship was art +itself; and gracefully worded, and it breathed the perfumes of that +lovely "Eden" on every page. + +Jerry closed her eyes for a moment in the midst of the reading, and the +wind-swept cemetery and all the summer-seared valley of the Sage Brush +vanished. The Macphersons; Ponk; Thelma Ekblad in the automobile by the +cemetery gate, holding something in her arms, and her fair-haired +brother, Paul; Joe Thomson (why Joe?)--all were nothing. Before her eyes +all was Eugene--Eugene and "Eden." Then she read on to the end. One +reading was enough. When York came back she was sitting with the letter +neatly folded into its envelope again, lying in her lap. + +York had a shrewd notion of what that letter contained, but there was +nothing in Jerry's face by which to judge of its effect on her. Two +things he was learning about her--one, that she didn't tell all she +knew, after the manner of most frivolous-minded girls; the other, that +she didn't tell anything until she was fully ready to do so. He admired +both traits, even though they baffled him. In his own pocket was Jerusha +Darby's letter, also specially delivered. He sat down by Jerry and +waited for her to speak. + +"Were those the people we saw on the south border of 'Kingussie'?" she +asked. + +"Yes," York replied. + +"Do they interest you?" she questioned. + +"Very much." + +"Why?" Jerry was killing something--time, or thought. + +"Because, as I told you the other day, the same life problems come to +all grades. And life problems are always interesting," York declared. + +"Has Thelma Ekblad a blowout farm, too?" Jerry's face was serious, but +her eyes betrayed her mood. + +"Better a blowout farm than a blowout soul," York thought. "No. I wonder +what she would do with it if she had," he said, aloud. + +"Just what I am doing, no doubt, since all of us, 'Colonel's lady and +Judy O'Grady,' are alike. Tell me more about her," Jerry demanded. + +"She's talking against time now, I know, but I'll tell her a few +things," York concluded. + +"Jerry, there are not many women like this Norwegian farmer girl who is +working her way through the State University down at Lawrence. A few +years ago her brother Paul was in love with a girl up the Sage Brush, +the daughter of a prosperous, stupid, stingy old ranchman. Paul was +chewed up in a mowing-machine one day when the horses got scared and ran +away, but his girl was true to him in spite of her father's objections +to him. Then came a woman--a sharp-tongued gossip (she's over yonder now +by the side gate)--who managed to stir up trouble purely for the +infernal joy of gossip, I suppose, between this girl and Thelma. I +needn't go into detail; you probably do not care much for the general +outline." + +"Go on," Jerry commanded. + +"Well, it was the rough course of true love over again. Between the +father and the sister the match was broken off, and before things could +be reconciled the girl's father forced the marriage of his daughter to a +worthless scamp who posed as a rich man, or an heir expectant to riches. +The Ekblads are hard-working farmer folk. When it was too late the +misunderstanding was cleared up. The rich fellow soon proved a fraud +and a rascal and a wife-deserter. And the girl came home with her baby. +Her father, as I said, was too stingy to hire help. So this girl-mother +overworked in threshing-time, and--was buried this afternoon up the Sage +Brush--old man Poser's daughter, Nell Belkap. The Ekblads have just come +from the funeral. Old Poser has refused to care for Nell's baby and +intended to put it in an orphan asylum. Thelma Ekblad brought it home +with her. It was in her arms just now, and she's going to keep it and +adopt it. When she's away at school--she has a year yet before she +graduates--that crippled brother, Paul, will take care of it. All of +which is out of your line, Jerry, but interesting to us in the valley +here." + +As York paused and looked at Jerry, all that Stellar Bahrr had said of +him and the Poser girl swept through her mind. Not the least meanness of +a lie is in its infectious poisoning power. + +"It is very interesting. I wonder how she can take care of that baby. +Babies are so impossible," Jerry said, musingly. + +"We were all impossibles once. Some of us are still improbables," York +replied. + +Jerry looked up at him quickly. "Not altogether hopeless, maybe. Thelma +is doing this for her brother's sake, I can see that. And the story has +a sweeter side than if she were doing it just for herself. It makes it +more worth while." + +It was the first time that York had caught the note of anything outside +of self in Jerry's views of life. + +He involuntarily pressed his hand against the specially delivered letter +he himself had received that afternoon, and his lips were set grimly. +The plea of the old woman, and the soul of the young woman, which called +loudest now? + +"Will this young Ekblad go up to his sweetheart's grave every Sunday, +like Mr. Ponk comes here?" Jerry asked, after a pause. + +"No, he will probably never go near it," York replied. + +"Why not? I thought that was the customary way of doing here," Jerry +declared. + +"Because it isn't his grave. It belongs to Bill Belkap, who doesn't care +for it. Paul Ekblad will find his solace in caring for Nell Poser's +child and in knowing it was her wish that he is fulfilling. That is the +real solace for the loss of loved ones." + +Jerry remembered Uncle Cornie and his withered yellow hand under her +plump white one as he told her of Jim Swaim's wish for his child. + +"If I carry out that wish I will be true to my father--and--he will be +happier," she thought, and a great load seemed lifting itself from her +soul. + +"Oh, father, father! You are not in the 'Eden' burial-plot. You are here +with me. I shall never lose you." The girl's face was tenderly sweet +with silent emotion as she turned to the man beside her. + +"I'm glad you told me that story. May I come down to your office in the +morning for a little conference? I can come at ten." + +"Certainly. Come any time," York assured her, wishing the while that the +plea of Jerusha Darby's that lay in his pocket was in the bottom of +Fishing Teddy's deep hole down the Sage Brush. + +The next morning Jerry Swaim came into the office of the Macpherson +Mortgage Company promptly at the stroke of ten by the town clock. + +"If I were only a younger man," York Macpherson thought, feeling how the +presence of this girl transformed the room she entered--"if I were only +younger I would fall at her shrine, without a question. Now I keep +asking myself how a woman can be so charming, on the one hand, and so +characterless maybe, shallow anyhow, on the other. But the test is on +for sure now." + +No hint of this thought, however, was in his face as he laid aside his +pen and asked, in his kindly, stereotyped way: + +"What can I do for you?" + +"You can be my father-confessor for a minute or two, and then make out +my last will and testament for me," Jerry replied, with a demure smile. + +"So serious as all that?" York inquired, gravely, picking up a blank +lease form as if to write. + +"So, and worse," Jerry assured him. But in an instant her face was +grave. "You know my present situation," she began, "and that I must +decide at once what to do, and then _do_ it. I'm so grateful that you +understand and do not try to offer me friendship for service." + +York looked at her earnest face and glowing dark-blue eyes wonderingly. +This girl was forever surprising him, either by flippant indifference or +by unexpected insight. + +"You know a lot about my affairs, of course," Jerry went on, hurriedly. +"Aunt Darby offered both of us--me, I mean, a home with her, a life of +independent dependence on her--charity--for that, at bottom, was all +that it was. And when I refused her offer she simply cut me until such +time as I shall repent and go back. Then the same thing would be waiting +for me. I know now that it was really wilfulness and love of adventure +that most influenced me to break away from Philadelphia and--and its +flesh-pots. But, York, I don't want to go back--not yet awhile, anyhow." + +It was the first time she had ever called him by that name, and it sent +a thrill through her listener. + +"Is it wilfulness and love of adventure still, or something else, that +holds you here 'yet awhile'?" York asked, with kindly seriousness. + +"Oh, wait and see!" Jerry returned. + +"She is not going to be _led_, whichever way she goes. I told Laura +so," was York's mental comment. + +"Does this finish your 'confession'?" he asked. + +"I may as well tell you the other side of the story." Jerry's voice +trembled a little. "Cousin Gene Wellington was in the same boat with me, +a dependent like myself. But now that he has given up to Aunt Jerry's +wishes, I suppose he will be her heir some day, unless I go back and get +forgiven." + +"This artist's father was in business with your father once, wasn't he?" +York asked. + +"Yes, and there was something I never could understand, and Aunt Jerry +never mentioned, about that; but she did say often that Cousin Gene +would make up for what John Wellington lacked, if things went her way. +They haven't all gone her way--only half of them, so far." + +"Do you fully understand what you are giving up, Jerry?" York asked, +earnestly. "That life might be a much pleasanter story back East, even +if it were a bit less romantic than the story on the Sage Brush. Might +not your good judgment take you back, in spite of a little pride and the +newness of a different life here?" + +As York spoke, Jerry Swaim sat looking earnestly into his face, but when +he had finished she said, lightly: + +"I thought before I saw you that you were an old man. You seem more like +a brother now. I never had a brother, nor a sister--nothing but myself, +which makes too big a houseful anywhere." She grew serious again as she +continued: "I do understand what I'm giving up. It was tabulated in a +letter to me yesterday, and I do not give up lightly nor for a girl's +whim now. I have my time extended. There seems to be indefinite patience +at the other end of the line, if I'll only be sure to agree at last." + +"Pardon me, Jerry, if I ask you if it is a question of mere funds." York +spoke carefully. "I know that Mrs. Darby may be drawn on at any time for +that purpose." + +"Did she tell you so?" Jerry asked, bluntly. + +"She did--when you first came here," York replied, as bluntly. + +Jerry did not dream of the struggle that was on in the mind of the man +before her, but her own strife had made her more thoughtful. + +For a little while neither spoke. Then York Macpherson's face cleared, +as one who has reached the top of a difficult height and sees all the +open country on the other side. Jerusha Darby's plea had won. + +"Jerry, you do not understand what is before you. Whoever takes up the +business of self-support, depending solely on the earnings that must be +won, has a sure battle with uncertainty, failure, sacrifice, and +slow-wearing labor. Of course it is a glorious old warfare--but it has +that other side. In the face of the fact that I am your fortunate host, +and that my sister is happier now than she has ever been before in New +Eden, and hopes to keep you here, I urge you, Jerry, to consider well +before you refuse to go back to your father's sister and your artist +cousin." + +The "father's sister" was a master-stroke. It caught Jerry at an angle +she had not expected. But that "artist cousin"! If Gene had been truly +the artist, Jerry Swaim had yielded then. The failure to be true to +oneself has long tentacles that reach far and grip back many things that +else had come in blessing to him who lies to his own soul. + +"I won't go back. That is settled. Now as to my last will and testament, +please," Jerry said, prettily. + +"Imprimis," York began, with his pen on the lease form before him. + +"Oh, drop the Latin," Jerry urged. "Say, 'I, Geraldine Darby Swaim, +being of sound mind and in full possession of all my faculties, and of +nothing else worth mentioning, being about to pass into the final estate +and existence of an old-maid school-teacher, a high-school teacher of +mathematics'--Please set that down." + +"So you are going to teach. I congratulate you." York rose and took the +girl's hand. + +"Thank you. Yes, I just 'soared' over to the hotel and signed my +contract with Mr. Ponk and the other two members in good standing, or +whatever they are." Jerry would not be serious now. "And the remainder +of my will: 'I hereby give and bequeath all my worldly goods, excepting +my gear, to wit: one claim of twelve hundred acres, containing three +cottonwood-trees, three times three acres of oak timber, and three times +three times three million billion grains of golden sand, to the +Macpherson Mortgage Company to have and to hold, free of all expense to +me, and to lease or give away to any lunatic, or lunatics, at the +company's good-will and pleasure, for a term not to exceed three million +years. All of which duly signed and sworn to.'" + +As Jerry ran on, York wrote busily on the lease form before him. + +"Please sign here," he said, gravely pointing to a blank space when he +had finished. "It is a three years' lease to your property herein +legally described. The Macpherson Mortgage Company will pay you +twenty-five cents per acre, per year, with the exclusive right to all +the profits accruing on the land, and to sublease the same at will." + +"That is about half of what Aunt Jerry spent on my wardrobe just before +I came West," Jerry exclaimed. "But I couldn't take twenty-five cents a +year. I've seen the property, you know, and I don't want charity here +any more than I did in Philadelphia." + +"Then sign up the lease. This is business. Our company is organized on a +strictly financial basis for strictly financial transactions. It is a +matter of 'value received' both ways with us." + +York Macpherson never trifled in business matters, even in the smallest +details, and there was always something commanding about him. It pleased +him now to note that Jerry read every word of the document before +accepting it, and he wondered how much a girl of such inherent business +qualities in the small details of affairs would waver in steadfastness +of purpose in the larger interests of life. + +"Will you let me give a receipt for the cash instead of taking a check?" +Jerry asked, as York reached for his check-book. + +"Why do you prefer that?" York asked, with business frankness. + +"Because I do not care to have the transaction known to any one besides +your company," Jerry replied. + +"But suppose I should sublease this land?" York suggested. + +"That would be different, of course, even if the lessee was a lunatic. +Otherwise I don't care to have it known to any one that I draw an income +from what is not worth an effort," Jerry declared, quoting Joe Thomson's +words regarding her possessions. + +"If I give my word to exclude every one else from knowing of this +transaction it means every one--even my sister Laura." York looked at +Jerry questioningly. + +"Even your sister Laura," Jerry repeated, conclusively. + +York was too well-bred to ask her why, and, while he voluntarily +refrained from telling his sister many things, she was his counselor in +so many affairs that he wondered not a little at Jerry's request, while +he chafed a little under his promise. He was so accustomed to being +master of himself in all affairs that it surprised him to find how +easily he had put himself where he would rather not have been placed. + +Half an hour later Joe Thomson came into the office. + +"What can I do for you to-day, Joe?" York inquired. + +"Do you control the sections south of mine?" Joe asked. "I want to lease +them, but I shouldn't care to have the owner know anything about it." + +"That old blowout! What's your idea, Joe?" + +"I want to try an experiment," Joe replied. + +York Macpherson had the faculty of reading some men like open books. + +"You must have been hanging around eavesdropping this morning. I just +got a three years' lease on Miss Swaim's land at twenty-five cents an +acre, and here you come for it. I took it on a venture, of course, +hoping to sell sand to the new cement-works up the river, sand being +scarce in these parts." There was a twinkle in York's eyes as he said +this. "I can sublease it, of course, and at the same price, but you +know, Joe, that the land is worthless." + +"I don't know it," Joe said, stubbornly. "You seem to have been willing +enough to get the lease secured this morning." + +York ignored the thrust. "You know I leased that land merely to help +Miss Swaim, but you don't know yet whether or not you can tame your own +share of that infernal old sand-pile that you want to put a mortgage on +your claim to fight," York reminded him. + +"I'll take a part of that loan to pay for the lease, and the rest I'll +use on the Swaim land, not on mine. I'm going to go beyond the blowout +to begin, and work north the same way it goes," Joe explained. + +"All of which sounds pretty crazy to me. You are shouldering a big load, +young man--a regular wildcat venture. There's one of you to myriads of +sand-heaps. You'll have to take the Lord Almighty into partnership to +work a miracle before you win out. I've known the Sage Brush since the +first settler stuck in a plow, and I've never known one single miracle +yet," York admonished him. + +"As to miracles," Joe replied, "they are an every-day occurrence on the +Sage Brush, if you can only look far enough above money-loaning to see +them, you Shylock." + +Calling York Macpherson a Shylock was standard humor on the Sage Brush, +he was so notoriously everybody's friend and helper. + +"And I've had to take the Lord in for a partner all my life," Joe added, +seriously. + +York looked at the stern face and stalwart form of the big, sturdy +fellow before him, recalling, as he did so, the young ranchman's years +of struggle through his boyhood and young manhood. + +"Of course you can win," he assured Joe. "Your kind doesn't know what +failure means. It isn't the _work_, it is the stake that makes me +uneasy." + +Joe looked up quickly and York knew that he understood. + +"I read your page clearly enough, my boy," he said, earnestly. "You are +taking a hand in a big game, and the other fellow keeps his cards under +the table. Blowouts are not as uncertain as women, Joe. Let me tell you +something. You will find it out, anyhow. I can ease the thing up now. +Back in Philadelphia a rich old widow has given two young lovers the +opportunity to earn their living or depend on her bounty--a generous +one, too. Being childless and selfish, she secretly wanted to hold them +dependent on her, that she may demand their love and esteem. It is an +old mistake that childless wealth and selfishness often make. The girl, +being temperamentally romantic and inherently stubborn, voted to go +alone. These things, rather than any particularly noble motive--I hate +to disillusion you, Joe, but I must hold to facts--have landed her +practically penniless in our midst; and she is not acquainted yet with +either lack of means or the labor of earning. The young man, gifted in +himself, which his sweet-heart is not, son of a visionary spendthrift, +has chosen the easier way, a small clerkship and a luxurious home +seeming softer to his artistic nature than the struggling up-climb with +his real gift. This old lady won't last forever. Her disinherited niece +won't want to work at teaching forever. The waiting clerk will come +after the heir apparent just when she is most tired of the Sage Brush +and the things thereof, and--they will live tamely ever after on the +aunt's money. Do you see what you are up against, Joe? Don't waste +energy on a dream--with nothing to show for your labor at last but debt +and possible failure, and the beautiful Sage Brush Valley turned to a +Sodom before your eyes." + +"Whenever you are ready I'll sign up the lease," was Joe's only reply. + +So the transaction was completed in silence. + + + + +III + +JERRY AND EUGENE--AND JOE + + + + +XIII + +HOW A GOOD MOTHER LIVES ON + + +New Eden never saw a more beautiful autumn, even in this land of +exquisite autumn days, than the first one that Jerry Swaim passed in the +Middle West. And Jerry reveled in it. For, while she missed the splendid +colorings of the Eastern woodlands, she never ceased to marvel at the +clear, bright days, the sweet, bracing air, the wondrous sweeps of +landscapes overhung by crystal skies, the mist-wreathed horizons holding +all the softer hues, from jasper red to purest amethyst, that range the +foundation stones of heaven's walls as Saint John saw them in his dream +exquisite. + +It had never occurred to Jerry that a beauty impossible to a wooded +broken country might be found on the October prairies. Her dream of a +Kansas "Eden" exactly like the Pennsylvania "Eden," six times enlarged, +had been shattered with one glimpse of her possession--a possession +henceforth to be a thing forgotten. But life had opened new pages for +her and she was learning to read them rapidly and well. + +One thought of the past remained, however. The memory of a romance begun +in her Eastern home would not die with the telling. And while Jerry +Swaim persuaded herself that what Eugene Wellington called success to +her was failure, and while every day widened the breach between the two, +time and distance softened her harsher judgment, and she remembered her +would-be lover with a tender sadness that made her heart cold to the +thought of any other love. + +This did not make her the less charming, however--this pretty girl +without any trace of coquetry, who knew how to win hearts to her. Sure +of the wideness that separated her life from the life of the Sage Brush +Valley, she took full measure of interest in living, unconsciously +postponing for herself the future's need for the solace of love. The +small income from her lease to the Macpherson Mortgage Company filled +her purse temporarily, and she began at once upon a course of economic +estimates worthy of Jim Swaim's child, however seemingly impossible in +Lesa Swaim's pretty, dueless daughter. Another trait, undeveloped +heretofore, began to be emphasized--namely, that while she could chatter +glibly on embroideries and styles, and prettily on art, and seriously +and intelligently on affairs of national interest, as any all-round +American girl should do--she was discreet and uncommunicative regarding +her business affairs. Not that she meant to be secretive; she was simply +following the inherited business ability of an upright, well-balanced +man, her father. Coupled with this was a pride in her determination to +win--to prove to Aunt Jerry Darby and Eugene Wellington that she had +made no mistake; and until victory was hers she would be silent about +her endeavors. + +The Macphersons had insisted that Jerry should remain their guest at +least until the opening of the school in September. And if the girl +imagined that she found a faint hint of fervor gone from Laura +Macpherson's urging, her hostess made up for it in the abundant kindness +of little acts of hospitality. Jerry was frankly troubled, and yet she +could not say why, for it was all the impressions of a mind sensitized +to comprehend unspoken things. Jerry's memory would call up that +incident of the lost purse found in her hand-bag, and of Laura's excuse +for it, which she, Jerry, knew was impossible. And yet the girl felt +that it was a contemptible thing to impute a distrust to Laura that, +placed in the same position, she herself would scorn to harbor. + +"I see no way but the everlasting run of events. I wish they would run +fast and clear it up," Jerry said to herself, dismissing the matter +entirely, only to have it bobbing up for consideration again on the +first occasion. + +At the close of a hot summer day Jerry was in her room, finishing a +letter to Jerusha Darby, to whom she wrote faithfully, but from whom she +had rarely received a line. York and Laura were on the porch, as usual. +The hammock that day had been swung to a shadier position, on account of +the slipping southward of the late summer sun; and Laura forgot that +Jerry's window opened almost against it now, so that she could hear all +that was said at that corner of the porch. As Jerry finished her letter +she caught a sentence outside that interested her. She was innocent of +any intention of eavesdropping afterward, but what she heard held her +motionless. + +"The leak has opened again, York," Laura was saying. "Things are +beginning to disappear, especially money." + +York's face took on a sort of bulldog grimness, but he made no reply. + +Inside, Jerry glanced at her beaded hand-bag lying on the top of the +little desk, saying to herself: + +"I'll open a bank-account to-morrow. I've been foolish to leave that +roll of bills lying around; all I have, too, between me and the last +resort in Kansas--'to go mad or go back East.' I'm certainly a brilliant +business woman--I am." + +And then, unconscious at first that she was listening, her ear caught +what followed outside: + +"York, the queer thing is that it's just at 'Castle Cluny' that things +are disappearing right now. Mrs. Bahrr was over to-day and told me the +Lenwells had even gone to Kansas City and forgot to lock their back +door, and not a thing was missing, although Clare Lenwell left five +silver dollars stacked up on the dresser in plain view." + +"If anybody would know the particulars it would be the Big Dipper," York +declared. + +"Oh, now don't begin on that tune, York, for I'm really uneasy," Laura +began. + +"For why?" York inquired. + +And then Laura told him the story of her lost purse, omitting Stellar +Bahrr's part in the day's events, and adding: + +"Of course, I hate myself for even daring to carry a hint of suspicion +for a minute, but Jerry knew as well as I did that I hadn't put my purse +in her hand-bag by mistake, for she carried it with her up-town that +day. But I could forget the whole thing if it had ended there. I know +that the dear girl was dreadfully short of money until just recently. +Now her purse is full of bills. I couldn't help seeing that when she +displays it so indifferently. She says she will have no funds from +Philadelphia. Where does she get money when I can't keep a bill around +the house?" + +"Then I would quit the stocking-toe banking system that mother and all +the other women and most of the men back in Winnowoc used to employ. You +might try the First National Bank of New Eden. I'm one of the directors, +and a comparatively safe man for all that," York advised, gravely. + +"The loss of the money is nothing to the possible loss of confidence," +Laura went on, ignoring her brother's thrust. "Could such a thing be +possible that this dear girl is discouraged and tempted to hide her +necessities?" The woman's voice was full of kindly sorrow. "York, +couldn't you tell her?" + +"I see myself doing that," York fairly exploded. "Laura, there may be a +big leak in this house where valuables seep through. I'm not saying +otherwise. But as for Jerry Swaim, it's simply preposterous--impossible. +Never let such a thing cross your mind, let alone your lips again, you +dear best of sisters. You know you don't believe a word of it." + +"I know I don't, too, York; of course I don't; but I must have needed +you to assure me of it. It all began in circumstance and an ugly +suspicion that a story of Stellar Bahrr's suggested. And when I missed +my own money and saw that great roll of bills--Oh, I must be crazy or +just a plain human creature full of evil--" + +"Or both," York added. "We are all more or less human and more than less +crazy, especially if we will listen to old wives' tales against the +expressed command of our wise brothers. As for Jerry having money"--York +suddenly recalled his promise to Jerry not to discuss her affairs--"it's +hardly likely she would display carelessly what was acquired by extreme +care. Let's call her out here and think of better things." + +As Laura looked up she realized for the first time the nearness of the +hammock to Jerry's open window. The grief of being overheard by one whom +she would not wound for worlds, with the self-rebuke for giving ear to +Stellar Bahrr's gossip, almost overcame her. + +"You go after Jerry, please," she said, faintly. + +York went into the hall, calling at Jerry's open door, but she was not +there. He looked in the living-room, but it was empty. Through the +dining-room he passed to the side porch, where a dejected, lonely little +figure was half hidden by the vines that covered it. At sight of her +York stopped to get a grip on himself. + +At her host's explosive declaration, "I see myself doing it," Jerry had +come to herself. Surprised and wounded, but realizing the justice of the +ground for suspicion against her--her--Jerry Swaim, who had always had +first concern in those about her--she left her room hastily and passed +out of the house by the side door. In the little vine-covered entry she +sat down and stared out at the lawn, where the fireflies were beginning +to twinkle against the shrubbery bordering the driveway. She had thought +the disposition of her estate, and the choice of occupation, and the +putting away of Eugene Wellington, had settled things for her future. +Here was the fulfilling of a sense of something wrong that had recently +possessed her, hardly letting itself be more than a sense till now. What +did life mean, anyhow? "To go mad or go back East?" Why should she do +either one, who had not offended anybody? + +As Jerry gazed out at the shadowy side lawn the sound of a step caught +her ear--a shuffling of feet across the grass, and the noise of a hard +sole on the cement driveway. Jerry's eyes mechanically followed a +short, shambling figure, suggesting a bear almost as much as a human +being, as it passed forward a step or two; then, dividing the +spirea-bushes on the farther edge, it disappeared into the deeper shadow +of the slope toward the town below "Kingussie." + +It was Fishing Teddy--old Hans Theodore; Jerry recognized him at a +glance, and in the midst of her confused struggle to find herself she +paused to wonder about him. Intense mental states often experience such +pauses, when the mind grappling in an internal combat rests for a moment +on an impression coming through the senses. + +"What's the old Teddy Bear doing here?" Jerry asked herself, and then +she remembered his coming once before almost to this very spot. That was +the night Joe Thomson had called--the big farmer whose property her own +was helping to destroy. There was something strong and unbreakable about +this Joe. A million leagues from her his lot was cast, of course, and +yet she hoped somehow that Joe might be near and that the Teddy Bear was +waiting for him. + +"Jerry! Jerry!" York called through the hall, and then he came out to +where she sat on the side porch. + +"I was hunting for you. You have a caller, my lady, a gentleman who +wants to take you for a ride up the river. It will be gloriously cool +on the ridges up-stream. He will give you a splendid hour before the +curfew rings--the lucky dog!" + +Jerry looked up expectantly. "It must be Joe Thomson," she thought, and +she was glad to have him come again. + +On the front porch little Junius Brutus Ponk was strutting back and +forth, chatting with Laura. + +"Good evening, Miss Swaim. I just soared down to invite you to take a +little drive in my gadabout. I hope it will suit you to go." + +"Nothing would please me more," Jerry said, lightly. "Let me get my +wrap." As she returned to her room her eye fell on her hand-bag, lying +on her desk. A sense of grief swept over her, for one moment, followed +by a strange lightness of heart as if her latest problem had solved +itself suddenly. + +As they passed down the walk to the little gray car York Macpherson +looked after them, conscious of the impossible thing in Ponk's mind, and +wondering wherein lay the charm of this pink-and-white inefficient girl +to grip with so strong a hold on the heart of a sensible man like Ponk. + +"It is her power to be what she has never been, but what she will +become," he said to himself. "She's the biggest contradiction to all +rules that I ever knew, but she's a dead-sure proposition." + +The coming of callers found York in his best mood, and when his sister +bade him good night he put his arms around her, saying, gently: + +"You are the best woman in the world, Laura, and you mustn't carry a +single hidden worry." + +"Neither must you, York," Laura replied, and each knew that the other +understood. + +Meantime, out on the upper Sage Brush road Jerry was letting the beauty +of the evening lift the weight from her mind. She was just beginning to +understand that, while she had imagined herself to be doing her own +thinking heretofore, she had been merely willing that her thinking +should be done for her. She was now at the place where her will meant +little and her judgment everything in shaping her acts. The recognition +brought a sense of freedom she had never known before. What she had +overheard from the porch seemed far away, and her wounded spirit grew +whole again as she began to find herself standing on her own feet, not +commanding that somebody else should hold her up. Jerry's mind worked +rapidly, and before the gray car had been turned at the northern end of +the evening's ride it was not the Jerry Swaim of an hour ago, but a +young warrior, clad in armor, with shining weapons in her hand, who sat +beside the adoring little hotel-keeper of the faulty grammar and the +kindly heart. + +Ponk halted the car at the far end of the drive up-stream, to take in a +moonlight view of the Sage Brush Valley. + +"Them three lights down yonder's the court-house an' the school-house +an' the station. The other town glims are all hid by trees an' bushes +and sundry in the wrinkles of the praira." Ponk always said "praira." +"But it's a beautiful country when you douse the sunshine and turn on +the starlight, or a half-size moon like that young pullet in the west +sky yonder. Ever see the blowout by moonlight? Sorta reclaims its cussed +ugliness, you might say, an' the dimmer glow softens down an' subdues +the infernal old beast considerable." + +Jerry turned quickly toward her companion. "Blowout is a word taboo in +my presence," she said, gravely. "Anybody who wants to be listed as a +friend of mine will never mention it to me, for to me there is no such +thing. I have no real estate in Kansas, nor anywhere else, for that +matter. I'm just a poor orphan child." The girl smiled brightly. "All +the world is mine, even though none of it really belongs to me. If you +want my good-will, even my speaking acquaintance, you'll remember the +road to it is _never_ to _mention_ that _horrid thing_ to me again." + +"I never won't," Ponk declared, seriously. "If that's the only +restriction, I'm in the middle of your good-will so far I'll never find +the outside gate again." + +"I hope you won't," Jerry said, lightly. + +"I'm seriouser than you are, Miss Swaim, and I asked you to take this +ride for three reasons," Ponk returned. + +"Name them," Jerry demanded, in the dim light noting the flush on his +round cheeks. + +"Firstly, and mainly, just selfish pleasure. Secondly, because I wanted +to do you a favor if I might presume, and thirdly, to tell you why I +wanted to do it." + +"You are very kind," Jerry said, sincerely. + +"What I want to say in that favor business is the same I told York to +say that Sunday we met you in the cemetery, where I'd been callin' on +mother, and you come to get away from New Eden and all that in it is, +for a little while. You remember York came trailing after you with some +excuse or other, an' right behind him comes another trailer, a +womankind?" + +"I remember York, that's all," Jerry replied, trying to recall the +woman, whom she had forgotten. + +"Well, she didn't forget you. It's that Stellar Bahrr, and she made +capital, principal, and compound interest out of the innocent event, as +she does out of every move everybody in that burg makes. But don't let +it disturb you a mite." + +"I won't," Jerry replied, indifferently. "But tell me why she should +make capital out of me?" + +"'Cause she hates you," Ponk said, calmly. + +"Me? Why?" Jerry's eyes were black now, and the faintly gleaming ripples +above her white forehead and her faintly pink cheeks in the light of the +moon made a delicious picture. + +"Just because you are you, young, admired. I don't dare to say no more, +no matter what I feel. It's a snaky jealousy, and she'll trail you +constant. It's got to be the habit of her life, and it's ruined her as +it will any person." + +"Well, let her trail." Jerry's voice had a clear defiance now. "I'm here +to earn an honest living by my own efforts. I shall pay my bills and +take care of my own business. I have not intentionally injured anybody." + +She paused and remembered Laura Macpherson, her shapely hands gripped +together, emphasizing her unbreakable determination. + +"And you are goin' to win. Don't never be afraid of the end and finis. +But, knowin' Sage Brush, an' how scared it is of Mrs. Bahrr, yet +listenin' constant to every word she says, I felt it my duty to warn you +of breakers ahead. I've known more 'n one, bein' innocent, to fall for +her tricks. And I'm telling you out of pure kindness. There's only two +ways to handle her--keep still and try to live above her, or stand +straight up an' tell her to go to the devil. Excuse me, Miss Swaim, I'm +not really a profane man, but I mean well by you, and I'm not just +settin' here to gossip about a fellow-citizenness." + +"I know you mean well, Mr. Ponk. You have been more than kind to me ever +since the night I reached New Eden, and I do appreciate your friendship +and good-will," Jerry said, earnestly. "Now as to Mrs. Bahrr, which +course do you advise me to follow?" + +Junius Brutus Ponk was hanging on every word of Jerry's, and his face +was a full moon of pleasure, for he was frankly and madly in love with +her, and he knew it. + +"I can't advise at all; it just ain't for me to do that. You are +honorin' us by stoppin' in our midst. What I want you to do is to be on +the lookout, an' if things start wrong, anywhere--school or church or +with your friends, the Macphersons, for instance, as they might--just +run down old Stellar before you go to guessin', or misunderstandin', and +if you can't do it alone"--Ponk smote his broad bosom dramatically--"I'm +here to help. That leads me to the thirdly of my triplet purpose in +askin' the pleasure of your company." + +Jerry looked up with a smile. The little man was so thoroughly good, and +yet so impossible. York Macpherson seemed head and shoulders above any +other man she had ever known in her life--except her father. In fact, he +seemed like a sort of father to her--and Joe Thomson. That was just a +shadow across her consciousness, for all these men belonged here and at +heart were not of her world. + +"Miss Swaim, will you let me, without no recompense, be a friend at +court whenever you need my help? You seem to me like a sort of female +Robinson Crusoe cast away on the desert island of the Sage Brush country +in Kansas. Let me be your Man Friday. I'd like to be your Saturday and +Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. York Macpherson would come +lopin' in to claim Thursday, I reckon." + +The sincerity of the fat little man offset the pompous ridiculousness of +his speech. + +"If I seem cuttin' into the Macpherson melon-patch it's because I got on +to some of Stellar Bahrr's gossip that set me thinkin'. She's up to +turnin' Miss Laury against you because of York's admiring you so much." + +Jerry grasped the situation now. The hotel-keeper was not only wishing +to befriend and shield her--he thought he was in love with her. And he +thought that York Macpherson was also in love. Was he? The girl's mind +worked rapidly. Little as she cared for the opinion of New-Edenites, +outside of these three good friends, she realized that these same +New-Edenites were interested in her and dared to discuss her affairs; +and that if she stayed here, as she meant to do, she must meet them and +be, in a way, of them. How much of this newly discovered admiration +which her companion evidently felt, and which he felt sure York +Macpherson possessed, might be really the outgrowth of pity for her in +the new position in which she found herself? And there was Laura. +Stellar Bahrr had hinted about her being neglected by her brother for +other women. Whatever might be the real motive, Jerry and love had +parted company on the day that Eugene Wellington's letter had come +telling of his renunciation of his art for an easy clerkship. But Laura +didn't know that, and she might have heard the town-meddler--Oh, bother +Stellar and all her works! Jerry Swaim would have none of them. And +Laura was such a sweet, companionable, refined friend. This thing must +be overcome in some way. + +"Tell me, Mr. Ponk, why do the New Eden people listen to a sharp-tongued +trouble-maker, since they know her power?" Jerry asked, after a pause. + +"Why? 'Cause they enjoy it when 'tain't about them--all of us do that, +bein' human. Are you right sure you wouldn't believe her yourself, much +as you despised any story of hers you'd be forced to listen to? Well as +I know her, I have to keep pinchin' my right arm to see if it's got +nerve enough to strike back if I'm hit, you might say." + +On Jerry's cheeks the bloom deepened. She had let a word of Mrs. Bahrr's +set her to wondering about both her host and hostess. + +"They's one more thing I want to say, the third reason for askin' you +out this evenin'," Ponk went on, and the pompous manner fell from him +somewhat in his earnestness. "I don't want you to leave Macpherson's +home for anything, right now. They want you and--well, I hope you won't. +Even at the loss of a boarder for myself at the hotel and gurrage I +hope you won't. But if some time--if it was ever possible you'd find a +need for me more 'n what we spoke of--I ain't no show. I'm clear below +your society back East, but, if you ever needed a real, devoted, honest +man who tried to be a Christian--" + +Jerry caught his full meaning now. "You are a Christian, Mr. Ponk. I'm +not. You are kind to me in my need, and I shall rely on your sincerity +and your friendship, and if there is any way in which I could return it, +even in a small measure, I would be so happy. We will be the best of +friends." + +Jerry's smile was winsome as she frankly put out her hand to seal the +bond in a clasp of good-fellowship. And Junius Brutus Ponk understood. + +"It's no use," he said to himself, sadly. "I wish it might have been, +but it ain't. I ain't such a fool I can't see a door when it's shut +right before me. I'm blessed to be her friend, and I'll be it if the +heavens drop. I'm in my Waterloo an' must just wade across an' shake +myself. That's all." + +His sunny nature always overcame his disappointments, but from that hour +in an upper niche of his heart's shrine he placed Jerry's image, one of +the beautiful things of life he might do homage to but could never +possess. + +"They's just one favor I want to ask of you," he said, aloud, "an' that +is that you'll go with me to call on mother out to the cemetery +sometimes. I'd like her to know you, too. She was good, and a good +mother just lives on." + +Jerry's cheek paled a shade, but she said, graciously: "I'll be glad to +do that, Mr. Ponk. Maybe it will make me a little less rebellious, and +you will be doing me the favor." + +Ponk's face beamed with pleasure at her words the while a real tear +rolled unnoticed down his cheek. That night marked the beginning of a +new spiritual life for Jerry Swaim. + + + + +XIV + +JIM SWAIM'S WISH + + +The next morning, when Jerry Swaim was ready to go to the bank, her +pretty beaded bag seemed light as she lifted it, and when she opened her +purse she found it empty. Then she sat down and stared at herself in the +mirror opposite her. + +"Well, what next? Go mad or go back East? This must be the last ditch," +she murmured. "Joe Thomson said he didn't _go_ mad, but he did _get_ +mad. I'm mad clear to my Swaim toes, and I'm not going to take another +bump. It's been nothing but bumps ever since I reached the junction of +the main line with the Sage Brush branch back in June, and I'm tired of +it. Gene Wellington said the West got the better of his father. The East +seems to have gotten the best of his father's son." + +Across her mind swept the thought of how easy Gene's way was being made +for him in the East, and how the way of the West for her had to be +fought over inch by inch. + +"Neither East nor West shall get me." She tossed her head imperiously, +for Jim Swaim's chin, York Macpherson would have said, was in command, +and the dreamy eyes were flashing fire. + +An hour later Ponk's gray runabout was spinning off the miles of the +trail down the Sage Brush, with Jerry Swaim's hands gripping the wheel +firmly, though her cheeks were pink with excitement. Where a road from +the west crossed the trail, the stream cut through a ledge of shale, +leaving a little bluffy bank on either side, with a bridge standing high +above the water. + +Joe Thomson, in a big farm wagon, had just met his neighbor, Thelma +Ekblad, in her plain car, at the end of the bridge, when Jerry's horn +called her approach. Before they had time to shift aside the gray car +swept by with graceful curve, missing the edge of the bridge abutment by +an eyelash. + +"Great Scott! Thelma, I didn't notice that this big gun of mine was +filling up all the road," Joe exclaimed. "That was the neatest curve I +ever saw. That's Ponk's car from New Eden, but only a civil engineer's +eye could have kept out of the river right there." + +"The pretty girl who is visiting the Macphersons was the driver," Thelma +said. + +"No! Was it, sure?" Joe queried, looking with keen eyes down the trail, +whither the gray runabout was gliding like a bird on the wing. + +"Why, of course it was!" Thelma assured him, feeling suddenly how shabby +her own machine became in comparison. "I must go now. Come over and see +Paul when you can." + +"I will. How is the baby?" Joe asked. + +"Oh, splendid, and so much company for Paul!" Thelma declared. + +"Yes, a baby is the preacher and the whole congregation sometimes. Let +me know if you need any help. Good-by." + +So in neighborly good-will they separated, Joe to follow the gray car +down the trail, and Thelma to wonder briefly at the easy life of the +beautiful Eastern girl whose lot was so unlike her own. Only briefly, +however, for Thelma was of too happy a temperament, of too calm and +philosophical a mentality, to grieve vainly. It always put a song in her +day, too, to meet Joe upon the way. Not only on common farm topics were +she and Joe congenial companions, but in politics, the latest books, the +issues of foreign affairs, the new in science, they found a common +ground. + +Joe's thoughts were of the Eastern girl, too, as he thundered down the +trail in his noisy wagon. + +"I wish I could overtake her before she gets to the forks of the road," +he said to himself. "I know she's not going to go my way farther than +that. But why is she here at all? There's nobody living down the river +road for miles, except old Fishing Teddy. She did dine at his expense +the day she came out to her sand-pile. He told me all about it the night +when we rode down from town together. Funny old squeak he is. But he +can't interest her. Hello! Yonder we are." + +In three minutes he was beside the gray car, that was standing at the +point where the river road branched from the main trail. + +"Good morning, Mr. Thomson. I knew you were coming this way, so I waited +for you here. I don't go down that road. You know why." + +Jerry pointed toward the way down which her own land lay. + +Joe lifted his hat in greeting, his cheeks flushing through the tan, for +his heart would jump furiously whenever he came into this girl's +presence. + +"Good morning, Miss Swaim. I am glad you waited," he managed to say. +"You certainly know how to guide a car. I didn't know I was filling the +whole highway up at the bridge." + +"Oh, there was plenty of room," Jerry said, indifferently. + +"Yes, plenty if you know how to stick to it. That's the secret of a lot +of things, I guess--not finding a wider trail, but knowing how to drive +straight through on the one you have found." + +Joe was talking to gain time with himself, for he was inwardly angry at +being upset every time he met this pretty girl. + +This morning she seemed prettier than ever to his eyes. She was wearing +a cool gray-green hat above her golden-gleaming hair, and her sheer +gingham gown was stylishly summery. Exquisite taste in dress, as well as +love of romance, was a heritage from Lesa Swaim. + +"You are a real philosopher and a poet," Jerry exclaimed, looking up +with wide-open eyes. + +"A sort of Homer in homespun," Joe suggested. + +"Probably; but I have a prose purpose in detaining you and I am in great +luck to have found you," Jerry replied. + +"Thank you. The luck will be mine if I can serve you." + +The bronze young farmer's gallantry was as gracious as ever the +well-groomed Philadelphia artist's had been. + +"Kansas seems determined to get rid of me, if hard knocks mean anything. +I've had nothing but bumps and knotty problems since I landed on these +sand-shifting prairies. It makes me mad and I'm not going to be run off +by it." Jerry's eyes were darkly defiant and her lifted hand seemed +strong to strike for herself. + +"You have the real pioneer spirit," Joe declared. "It was that very +determination not to be gotten rid of by a sturdy bunch of forefathers +and mothers that has subdued a state, sometimes boisterous and +belligerent, and sometimes snarling and catty, and made it willing to +eat out of their hands." + +"Oh, it's not all subdued yet. It never will be." Jerry pointed down the +trail toward the far distance where her twelve hundred blowout-cursed +acres lay. + +Joe Thomson's mouth was set with a bulldog squareness. "Are we less able +than our forefathers?" he asked. + +"As to sand--yes," Jerry replied, "but to myself, as a first +consideration, I'm dreadfully in trouble." + +"Again?" + +"Oh, always--in Kansas," Jerry declared. "First my whole inheritance is +smothered in plain sand--and dies--hard but quickly. Then I fight out a +battle for existence and win a schoolmarm's crown of--" + +"Of service," Joe suggested, seriously. + +"I hope so. I really do," Jerry assured him. "Next I lease my--dukedom +for a small but vital sum of money on which to exist till--till--" + +"Yes, till wheat harvest, figuratively speaking," Joe declared. + +"And this morning my purse is empty, robbed of every cent, and my +pearl-handled knife and a button-hook." + +Joe had left his wagon and was standing beside Jerry's car, with one +foot on the running-board. + +"Stolen! Why, why, where's York?" he asked, in amazement. + +"I don't know. I don't think he took it," Jerry replied. + +"Oh, but I mean what's he doing about it?" Joe questioned, anxiously. + +"Nothing. He doesn't know it. I came to find you first, to get you to +help me." + +"Me!" Joe could think of nothing more to say. + +"You won't scold, and I'm afraid York would. I don't want to be +scolded," Jerry declared. "He would wonder why I hadn't put it in the +bank. And, besides, there have some queer things been happening in New +Eden--I can't explain them, for you might not understand, but I do +really need a friend right now. Did you ever need one?" + +To the girl alone and under suspicion, however kind the friends who were +puzzled over her situation, conscious that too many favors were not to +be asked of the good-souled Junius Brutus Ponk, the young farmer seemed +the only one to whom she could turn. And she had the more readily halted +her car to wait for him because she had already begun to weave a romance +in homespun about this splendid young agriculturist and the good-hearted +country girl, Thelma Ekblad. He, himself, was impersonal to her. + +"I'm always needing friends--and I'm more glad than you could know to +have you even think of me in your needs. But everybody turns to York +Macpherson. He's the lodestar for every Sage Brush compass," Joe said, +looking earnestly at Jerry. + +"I'm on my way to the old Teddy Bear's house, your Fishing Teddy," Jerry +declared, "and I thought you would go with me. I don't want to go +alone." + +"Let me take this machinery to the men--they are waiting for it to start +to work--and I'll be glad to go," Joe answered her. + +The gray car followed the big wagon down the trail to the deep bend of +the Sage Brush in the angle of which Joe's ranch-house stood; and the +load of machinery was quickly given over to the workmen. As Joe seated +himself in the little gray car Jerry said: + +"You are wondering why, and too polite to ask why, I go to Hans +Theodore's. Let me tell you." Then she told him of her dazed wanderings +down the river road two months before, and of her meal near old Teddy's +shack. + +"He brought me fried fish on a cracked plate, and buttermilk in a silver +drinking-cup--a queer pattern with a monogram on the side. The next +morning I saw another cup exactly like that on the buffet in the +Macpherson dining-room. They told me there should be two of them. One +they found was suddenly missing. Later it suddenly was not missing. York +said their like was not to be had this side of old 'Castle Cluny' on the +ancient Kingussie holding of the invincible Clan Macpherson's forebears. +So this must have been the same cup. It was on the morning after you +called and took the old Teddy Bear home with you that the missing cup +reappeared. You remember he was shambling around the grounds the night +before, waiting for you?" + +"Yes, I remember," Joe responded, gravely. + +"Meantime Laura Macpherson lost her purse. It was found in my hand-bag. +I believe now that the one that took it became frightened or something, +and tried to put it on me. Maybe somebody knew how dreadfully near the +wall I was. Then York paid me lease money, as I told you--three hundred +dollars. It was in my purse last evening when I went out for a ride. As +I sat in the side porch alone, earlier in the evening, I saw the old +Teddy Bear shamble and shuffle about the shrubbery and disappear down +the slope in the shadows on the town side of the place. This morning my +money is all gone. I am going down here after it." + +"And you didn't ask York to help you?" Joe queried, anxiously. + +"Why, no. I wanted you to help me. Will you do it?" Jerry asked, looking +up into the earnest face of the big farmer beside her. + +Was it selfishness, or thoughtlessness, or love of startling adventure, +or insight, or fate bringing her this way? Joe Thomson asked himself the +question in vain. + +"I'll do whatever I can do. This is such a strange thing. I knew things +were missing by spells up in town, but we never lose anything down our +way, and you'd think we would come nearer having what old Fishing Teddy +would want if he is really a thief," Joe declared. + +"I am going down to old Teddy's shack and ask him to give me my money, +anyhow," Jerry repeated. + +"And if he has it and refuses, I'll pitch him into the river and hold +him under till he comes across. But if he really hasn't it?" Joe asked. + +"Then he can't give it, that's all," Jerry replied. + +"But how will you know?" Joe insisted. + +"I don't know how I'll know, but when the time comes I'll probably find +a way to find out," Jerry declared. "Anyhow, I must do something, for +I'm clear penniless and it's this or go mad or go back East. I'm not +going to do either. I'm just going to get mad and stay mad till I get +what's mine." + +"I'll be your faithful sleuth, but I can't believe you'll find your bag +of gold at the end of this rainbow. The old man is gentle, though, and +you couldn't have any fear, I suppose," Joe suggested. + +"Not with you along I couldn't," Jerry replied. + +She was watching the road, and did not see how his eyes filled with a +wonderful light at her words. She was not thinking of Joe Thomson, nor +of York Macpherson, nor yet of Junius Brutus Ponk. She was thinking far +back in her mind of how Eugene Wellington would admire her some day for +really not giving in. That faint line of indecision in his face as she +recalled it in the rose-arbor--oh, so long ago--that was only emphasized +by his real admiration for those who could stand fast by a +determination. She had always dared. He had always adored, but never +risked a danger. + +Down by the deep fishing-hole the willows were beginning to droop their +long yellow leaves on the diminishing stream, and the stepping-stones +stood out bare and bleaching above the thin current that slipped away +between them. A little blue smoke was filtering out from the stove-pipe +behind the shack hidden among the bushes. Everything lay still under the +sunshine of late summer. + +"You keep the car. I'm going in," Jerry declared, halting in the thin +shade by the deep hole. + +"I think I'd better go, too," Joe insisted. + +"I think not," Jerry said, with a finality in her tone there was no +refuting. + +York Macpherson had well said that there was no duplicate for Jerry, no +forecasting just what she would do next. + +As Jerry's form cast a shadow across his doorway old Fishing Teddy +turned with a start from a bowl of corn-meal dough that he was stirring. +The little structure was a rude domicile, fitted to the master of it in +all its features. On a plain unpainted table Jerry saw a roll of bills +weighted down by an old cob pipe. A few coins were neatly stacked beside +them, with a pearl-handled knife and button-hook lying farther away. + +"I came for my money," Jerry said, quietly. "It's all I have until I can +earn some myself." + +The old man's fuzzy brown cheeks seemed to grow darker, as if his blush +was of a color with the rest of his make-up. He shuffled quickly to the +table, gathered up all the money, and, coming nearer, silently laid it +in Jerry's hands. + +The girl looked at him curiously. It was as if he were handing her a +handkerchief she had dropped, and she caught herself saying: + +"Thank you. But what made you take it? Don't you know it is all I have, +and I must earn my living, too, just like anybody else?" + +Old Fishing Teddy opened his mouth twice before his voice would act. "I +didn't take it. I was goin' to fetch it up to you soon as I could git up +there again," he squeaked out at last. + +Jerry sat down on a broken chair and stared at him, as he seated himself +on the table, gripping the edge on either side with his scaly brown +hands, and gazed down at the floor of the cabin. + +"If you didn't take it, why did you have it here? I saw you last night +on Macpherson's driveway," Jerry said, wondering, meanwhile, why she +should argue with an old thieving fellow like Fishing Teddy--Jerusha +Darby's niece and heir some fine day, if she only chose, to all of the +Darby dollars. + +"I can't never explain to you, lady. They's troubles in everybody's +lots, I reckon. Mine ain't nothin' but a humble one, but it ain't so +much different from big folks's in trouble ways. An' we all have to do +the best we can with what comes to us to put up with. I 'ain't never +harmed nobody, nor kep' a thing 'at wa'n't mine longer 'n I could git it +back. You ask York Macpherson, an' he'll tell ye the truth. He never +sent ye down here, York didn't." + +The old man ceased squeaking and looked down at his stubby legs and old +shoes. Was he lying and whining for mercy, being caught with the spoils +of his thieving? + +Jerry's big eyes were fixed on him as she tried to fathom the real +situation. The bunch of grubs on the Winnowoc local--common country and +village folk--had been far below her range of interest, to say nothing +of sympathy. Yet here she sat in the miserable shack of a hermit +fisherman, an all-but-acknowledged thief, with his loot discovered, +studying him with a mind where pity and credulity were playing havoc +with her better judgment and her aristocratic breeding. Had she fallen +so low as this, or had she risen to a newer height of character than she +had ever known before? + +Suddenly the old grub hunched down on the table before her looked up. +Jerry remembered afterward how clear and honest the gaze of those faded +yellow eyes set in a multitude of yellow wrinkles. His hands let go of +the table's edge and fitted knuckle into palm as he asked, in a +quavering voice: + +"Be you really Jim Swaim's girl who used to live up in that there +Winnowoc country back yander in Pennsylvany?" + +Jerry's heart thumped violently. It was the last word she had expected +from this creature. "Yes, I'm Jim's only child." The same winsome smile +that made the artistic Eugene Wellington of Philadelphia adore her +beamed now on this poor old outcast down by the deep hole of the Sage +Brush. + +"An' be you hard up, an' earnin' your own livin' by yourself, did ye +say? 'Ain't ye got a rich kin back East to help ye none?" The voice +quavered up and down unsteadily. + +"Yes, I have a rich aunt, but I'm taking care of myself. It makes me +freer, but I have to be particular not to--to--lose any money right +now," Jerry said, frankly. + +"Then ye air doin' mighty well, an' it's the thing that 'u'd make your +daddy awful glad ef he only could know. It 'u'd be fulfillin' his own +wish. I know it would. I heered him say so onct." + +Jerry Swaim's eyes were full of unshed tears. Keenly she remembered when +Uncle Cornie had told her the same thing at the doorway of the +rose-arbor in beautiful "Eden" in the beautiful June-time. How strange +that the same message should come to her again here in the shadow of New +Eden inside the doorway of a fisherman's hut. And how strange a thing is +life at any time! + +"Please don't be unhappy about this." Jerry lifted the money which lay +in her lap. "It shall never trouble you." + +And then for a brief ten minutes the two talked together, Geraldine +Swaim of Philadelphia, and old Fishing Teddy, the Sage Brush hermit. + +Joe Thomson, sitting in the gray car, saw Jerry coming through the +bushes, her hat in her hand, the summer sunshine on her glorious crown +of hair, her face wearing a strange new expression, as if in Fishing +Teddy's old shack a revelation of life's realities had come to her and +she had found them worthy and beautiful. + +Little was said between the two young people until they reached the +Thomson ranch-house again and Jerry had halted her car under the shade +of an elm growing before the door. Then, turning to Joe, she said: + +"You are right about the old Teddy Bear. He isn't a thief. I don't know +what he is, but I do know what he isn't. Since you know so much about my +coming here already, may I tell you a few more things? I want to talk to +somebody who will understand me." + +Jerry did not ask herself why she should choose Joe Thomson for such a +confidence. She went no deeper than to feel that something about Joe was +satisfying, and that was sufficient. Henceforth with York and the +hotel-keeper she must be on her guard. Joe was different. + +In the half-hour that followed the two became fast friends. And when the +little gray runabout sped up the long trail toward New Eden Joe Thomson +watched it until it was only a dust-spot on the divide that tops the +slopes down to Kingussie Creek. He knew now the whole story of Laura's +purse and her suspicions, of Ponk's offer of help, and he shrewdly +guessed that the pompous little man had met a firm check to anything +more than mere friendship. For Jerry's comfort, he refuted the +possibility of the Macphersons' harboring a doubt regarding her honesty. + + +"A mere remark of the moment. We all make them," he assured her. + +Lastly, he was made acquainted with the events inside of Hans Theodore's +shack. + +"Something is wrong there, but it is deeper than we can reach now," +Jerry said. "Maybe we can help the old fellow if he is tempted, and +shield him if he is wronged." + +How fair the face, and soft and clear the voice! It made Joe Thomson's +own face harden to hide a feeling he would not let reveal itself. + +As he watched the girl's receding car he resolved anew to conquer that +formless enemy of sand and to reclaim for her her lost kingdom in +Kansas. His reward? That must come in its own time. Ponk was out of the +running. York was still a proposition. As for all that stuff of York's +about some Eastern fellow, Joe would not believe it. + +And the girl driving swiftly homeward thought only of the romance of Joe +and Thelma, if she thought of them at all--for she was Lesa Swaim's +child still--and mainly and absorbedly she thought of her father's wish +to be fulfilled in her. + +So the glorious Kansas autumn brought to Jerry Swaim all of its beauty, +in its soft air, its opal skies, its gold-and-brown-and-lavender +landscapes, its calm serenity. And under its benediction this girl of +luxurious, idle, purposeless days in sunny "Eden" on the Winnowoc was +beginning a larger existence in New Eden by the Sage Brush, and through +the warp and woof of that existence one name was all unconsciously woven +large--JOE. + + + + +XV + +DRAWING OUT LEVIATHAN WITH A HOOK + + +For three years the seasons sped by, soft-footed and swift, and the +third June-time came smiling up the Sage Brush Valley. Many changes had +marked the passing of these seasons. Ranches had extended their +cultivated acres; trees spread a wider shade; a newly settled addition +had extended the boundaries of New Eden; and a new factory and a +high-school building for vocational training marked the progress of the +town. Budding youth had blossomed into manhood and womanhood and the +cemetery had gathered in its toll. Three years, however, had marked +little outward change in the young Eastern girl who stayed by her choice +of the Sage Brush country for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. +She had flung all of her young energy into the dull routine of teaching +mathematics; romance had given place to reality; idleness and careless +dependence to regulated effort and carefully computed expenditures; gay +social interests to the companionship of lesser opportunities, but +broader vision. However, these things came at a sacrifice. When the +newness wore away from her work, Jerry's hours were not all easeful, +happy ones. Slowly, with the passing of the days, she began to learn the +hard lesson of overcoming, a lesson doubly hard for one whose life +hitherto had been given no preparation for duty. Yet, as her days +gathered surer purpose her dark-blue eyes were less often dreamy, her +fair cheeks took on a richer bloom, while her crown of glorious hair +lost no glint of its gold. + +Her gift of winning friends, the old imperious power to make herself the +center of the universe, was in no wise disturbed by being a citizen and +a school-teacher instead of an Eastern lady of leisure sojourning +temporarily in the Sage Brush country. The young men of the valley tried +eagerly to win a greater place than that of mere friendship with her, +but she gave no serious consideration to any of them, least of all--so +she persuaded herself--to the young ranchman whom she had met so early +after her arrival in Kansas. Further, she had persuaded herself that the +pretty rural romance she had woven about him and his Norwegian neighbor, +Thelma Ekblad, must be a reality. Thelma had finished her university +course and was making a success of farming and of caring for her +crippled brother Paul and that roly-poly Belkap baby, now a +white-haired, blue-eyed, red-lipped chunk of innocence, responsibility, +and delight. Gossip, beginning at Stellar Bahrr's door, said that +interest in her neighbor, the big ranchman down the river, was +responsible for Thelma's staying on the Ekblad farm, now that she had +her university degree, because she could make a career for herself as a +botany specialist in any college in the West. Jerry knew that love for a +crippled brother and the care of a worse than orphaned child of the +woman that brother had loved were real factors in the life of this +country girl, but her air castles must be built for somebody, and they +seemed to cluster around the young Norwegian and the ranchman. Of +course, then, the ranchman, Joe Thomson, could interest Jerry only in a +general genial comradeship kind of way. Beginning in a common bond, the +presence of a common enemy--the blowout--chance meetings grew into +regular and helpful association. That was all that it meant to Jerry +Swaim. + +Three stanch friends watched her closely. Ponk, of the Commercial Hotel +and Garage, believed blindly and wholly in her ability, laying all blame +for her defective work in the school upon other shoulders, standing +manfully by her in every crisis. Laura Macpherson, although never +blinded to the truth about Jerry in her impetuous, self-willed, +unsympathetic, undeveloped nature, loved her too well to doubt her +ultimate triumph over all fortune. Only York, who studied her closest of +all three, because he was the keenest reader of human nature, still held +that the final outcome for Jerry Swaim was a matter of uncertainty. + +"I tell you, Laura," York said, one evening in the early spring of the +third year, when Jerry had gone with Joe Thomson for a long horseback +ride up the Sage Brush--"I tell you that girl is still a type of her +own, which means that sometimes she is soft-hearted, and romantic, and +frivolous, and impulsive, and affectionate, like Lesa Swaim, and +sometimes clear-eyed, hard-headed, close-fisted, with a keen judgment +for values, practical, and clever, like old Jim." + +"And which parent, Sir Oracle, would you have her be most like?" Laura +inquired. + +"Lord knows," York replied. "As He alone knows how much of the good of +each she may reject and how much of the weak and objectionable she may +appropriate." + +"Being a free moral agent to just dissect her fond parents and choose +and refuse at will when she makes up her life and being for herself! +It's a way we all have of doing, you know," Laura said, sarcastically. +"Remember, York, when you elected to look like papa, only you chose +mother's wavy brown hair instead of her husband's straight black locks; +and you voted you'd have her clear judgment in business matters, which +our father never had." + +"And gave to you the same which he never possessed. Yes, I remember," +York retorted. "But how is all this psychological analysis going to help +matters here?" + +"How's it going to help Joe Thomson, or keep him from being helped, you +mean?" Laura suggested. + +A faint flush crept into York Macpherson's brown cheek. + +"It's dead sure Jerry has little enough thought of Joe now," York said, +gravely. "She's living a day at a time, and underneath the three years' +veneer of genuine service the real Philadelphia Geraldine Swaim is still +a sojourner in the Sage Brush Valley, not a fixture here." + +And York was right so far as Jerry Swaim's thought of Joe Thomson was +concerned. + +After signing the lease with York Macpherson she rarely spoke of her +property to any one until it came to be forgotten to the few who knew of +it at all. + +Once she had said to Joe: + +"That heritage of mine is like the grave of an enemy. I couldn't look at +it forgivingly; so I would never, never want to see it again, and I +never want to hear the awful word 'blowout' spoken." + +"Then forget it," Joe advised. + +And Jerry forgot it. + +But for Joe Thomson the seasons held another story. Down the Sage Brush, +fall and spring, great steam tractors furrowed the shifting sands of the +blowout, until slowly broom-corn and other coarse plants were coaxing a +thin soil deposit that spread northward from the south edge of the +sand-line. Little attention was paid to these efforts by the few farmer +folk who supposed that Joe was backing it, for they were all a busy +people, and the movement was too futile to be considered, anyhow. + +Late in the summer of her first season in New Eden, affairs came to a +head suddenly. Three years before, Junius Brutus Ponk's well-meant +warning to Jerry to be on her guard against Stellar Bahrr's +mischief-making had not been without cause or results. Before the +opening of the school year, beginning with the Lenwells as a go-between, +percolating up through families where fall sewing was in progress, on to +the Macphersons and their closest friends, the impression grew toward +fact that Jerry was a sort of adventuress who had foisted herself upon +the Macphersons and had befuddled the brain of the vain little +hotel-keeper, who had overruled the other members of the school board +and forced her into a good place in the high school, although she was +without experience or knowledge of the branch to which she was elected. +And then she met young men in the cemetery and rode in Ponk's car over +the country alone. + +One of the easy acts of the average, and super-average, mortal is to +respect a criticism made upon a fellow-mortal--doing it most generally +with no conscious malevolence, prompted largely by the common human +desire to be the bearer of new discoveries. + +New Eden was no worse than the average little town at any point of the +compass. It took Stellar Bahrr at her par value, listened, laughed, and +declared it disbelieved her stories--and mainly in that spirit repeated +them, but in any spirit always repeated them. When the reports of Jerry +had gone to the farthest corners of town they came at last to the office +of York Macpherson. And it was Ponk himself who brought them, with some +unprintable language and violent denunciations of certain females who +were deadlier, he declared, than any males, even blackmails. York +forgave the atrocious pun because of the righteous wrath back of it. He +knew that Ponk's suit with Jerry failed temporarily, and he admired the +little man for his loyal devotion in spite of it. + +The Macphersons had completely convinced Jerry of their faith in her, +and in that congenial association she had almost forgotten the incident +of the porch conversation about her. To Ponk's anxious query, "What will +you do?" (nobody ever said "can" to York Macpherson; he always could), +York had replied: + +"I shall go straight to Jerry. She will hear it, anyhow, and she has +displayed such a deal of courage so far she'll not wither under this." + +"You bet she won't, York, but what will stop it? I mean Stellar Bahrr's +mischief-makin'. She's subtler than the devil himself." + +"We'll leave that to Jerry. She may have a way of her own. You never can +tell about Jerry." As he spoke York was turning his papers over in +search of something which he did not find, and he did not look up for a +minute. + +"I'll leave the matter to you now," Ponk said. "I have other affairs of +state to engross my attention," and he left the office, muttering as he +strutted across to the garage door. + +"Thinks he can pull the wool over my eyes by not lookin' at me. Well, +York wouldn't be the best man on the Sage Brush if he didn't fall in +love with Miss Jerry. She's not only the queen of hearts; she's got the +whole deck, includin' the joker, clear buffaloed." + +York was true to his word as to telling Jerry, when the three were on +the porch that evening, what was in the air and on the lips of the "town +tattlers," as he called them. Jerry listened gravely. She was getting +used to things, now, that three months ago would have overwhelmed +her--if she hadn't been Jim Swaim's child. When he had finished and +Laura was about to pour out vials of indignation, Jerry looked up +without a line on her smooth brow, saying: + +"Will you go over to Mrs. Bahrr's with me now, York?" + +York rose promptly, questioning, nevertheless, the outcome of such an +interview. + +Mrs. Bahrr had just followed her corkscrew way up to the side gate of +the Macpherson home as the two left the porch, when she heard Jerry call +back to Laura: + +"If we find Mrs. Bahrr at home we won't be gone long." + +"And if you don't?" Laura asked. + +The answer was lost, for Mrs. Bahrr turned and fled across lots, by +alley gate and side walk-way and vacant yard, to her own rear door. One +of Mrs. Bahrr's strong points was that of being more ready than her +antagonist and her habit of thought had made her world an antagonistic +one. + +York was curious to see how Jerry would meet her Waterloo, for that was +what this encounter would become, and he was glad that she had asked him +to go with her instead of running off alone, as she had done when she +wanted to see her estate. + +Seated in the little front parlor, Jerry took her time to survey the +place before she came to her errand. It was a very humble home, with a +rag carpet, windows without draperies, but with heavy blinds; chairs +that became unsettled if one rocked in them; cheap, unframed chromos +tacked up on the walls; an old parlor organ; and a stand with a +crazy-quilt style of cover on which rested a dusty Bible. York saw a +look of pity in Jerry's eyes where three months before he felt sure +there would have been only disdain. + +Very simply and frankly the girl told the purpose of her call, ending +with what might have been a command, but it was spoken in the clear, +soft voice that had always won her point in any argument. + +"Whether these stories came from you or not you will be sure not to +repeat them." + +Stella Bahrr bristled with anger. Whatever might have been said behind +her back, nobody except York Macpherson and Junius Brutus Ponk had ever +spoken so plainly to her face before. And they had never spoken in the +presence of a third party. And here comes a pretty, silly young thing +with a child's Sunday-school talk to her, right in York's presence, in +her own house. Jerry Swaim would pay well for her rudeness. + +"I don't know as it's up to me to keep still when everybody's talkin'. I +won't promise nothin'. An' I 'ain't got nothin' to be afraid of." Mrs. +Bahrr hooked her eyes viciously into her caller. + +"I'm afraid of a good many things, but I'm not so very much afraid of +people. I was a little afraid of you the first time I saw you. You +remember where that was, of course." + +Jerry looked straight at Mrs. Bahrr with wide-open eyes. Something in +her face recalled Jim Swaim's face to York Macpherson, and he forgot the +girl's words as he stared at her. + +"When I was a child," Jerry continued, "they used to say to me, 'The +goblins 'll git you ef you don't watch out.' Now I know it is the Teddy +Bear that gits you ef you don't watch out." + +Mrs. Bahrr's lips seemed to snap together and her eyes tore their way +out of Jerry and turned to the window. Jerry stepped softly across to +her chair and, laying a hand on her shoulder, said, with a smile: + +"Hereafter it will be all right between us." + +And it was--apparently. + +As they walked slowly homeward York and Jerry said little. The girl's +mind was busy with thoughts of her new work--the only work she had ever +attempted in her life; and York's thoughts were busy with--Jerry. + +That night York sat alone on the porch of "Castle Cluny" until far +toward morning, beginning at last to fight out with himself the great +battle of his life. The big, kindly, practical man of affairs, +arrow-proof, bullet-proof, bomb-proof to all the munitions of Cupid, +courted and flattered and admired and looked up to by a whole community, +seemed hopelessly enmeshed now in the ripples of golden-brown hair, held +fast by the beautiful dark-blue eyes of a young lady whose strength to +withstand what lay before her he very much doubted. + +"If I speak to her now, she'll run away from us and leave Laura lonely. +She can't go to the hotel, because I know Ponk has tried and failed. I'm +one degree behind him in that. Where would she go? And how would the Big +Dipper act? I've no faith in her keeping still if Jerry did use some +magic on her to-night. Nobody will ever Rumpelstilskin her out of +herself. I'll be a man, and wait and befriend my little girl whenever I +can, although I'm forced every day to see how she is growing to take +care of herself. When nothing else can decide events, time is sure to +settle them." + +All this happened at the beginning of the three years whose ending came +in a June-time on the Kansas plains. Summer and winter, many a Sabbath +afternoon saw the hotel-keeper and the pretty mathematics-teacher +strolling out to the cemetery "to call on mother." The quaint, firm +faith of the pompous little man that "mother knew" had no place in Jerry +Swaim's code and creed. But she never treated his belief lightly, and +its homely sincerity at length began to bear fruit. + +Not without its lasting effect, too, was the silent influence of Laura +Macpherson upon her guest. The bright, happy life in spite of a hopeless +lameness, the cheerful giving up of what that lameness denied the +having, all unconsciously wrought its beauty into the new Jerry whom the +"Eden" of an earlier day had never known. Nobody remembered when the +guest and friend of the Macphersons began to be a factor in the New Eden +church life, but everybody knew at the close of the third year that the +churches couldn't do without her. And neither the Baptist minister, +holding tenaciously to salvation by immersion, nor the Presbyterian, +clinging to the doctrine of infant damnation, nor the Methodist, +demanding instantaneous revival-meeting conversion from sin, asked once +that the fair Philadelphian should "become united with the church." That +would necessitate the query, "Which church?" And that would mean a loss +to two and a gain to only one. As far as the blowout sand differed from +"Eden" on the Winnowoc, so far Jerry's religious faith now differed from +the disbelief that followed the death of her father. In Kansas where the +artistic Eugene Wellington had declared his own faith would perish, she +had learned for the first time how to pray. + +Letters had long since ceased to come from Aunt Jerry Darby to her +niece, although in a friendly and patiently expectant form Eugene +Wellington wrote beautiful missives breathing more and more of +commercialized ideals and less and less of esthetic dreams, and not at +all of the faith that had marked the spiritual refinement of his young +manhood. + +The third spring brought busy, trying days. A sick teacher made it +necessary for the well ones to do double work. The youngest Lenwell boy, +leader of the Senior class, started the annual and eternally trivial and +annoying Senior-class fuss that seems fated to precede most high-school +commencements. For two years it had been Jerry Swaim, whose mathematical +mind seemed gifted with a wonderful generalship, who had managed to +bring the class to harmony with an ease never known in the New Eden High +School before. This year Clare Lenwell was perfectly irreconcilable, and +Jerry, overworked, as willing teachers always are, was too busy to bring +the belligerents to time before the bitterness of a town-split was upon +the community. When she did come to the rescue of the superintendent, +his own inefficiency to cope with the case became so evident that he at +once turned against the young woman who "tried to run things," as he +characterized her to the school board. + +That caused an explosion of heavy artillery from the "Commercial Hotel +and Garage," which made one member of the board, an uncle of young +Lenwell, to rise in arms, and thus and so the fires of dissension +crisscrossed the town, threatening to fulmine over the whole Sage Brush +Valley. To make the matter more difficult, the town trouble-maker, +Stellar Bahrr, for once seemed to have been innocently drawn into the +thing, and everybody knew it was better to have Stellar Bahrr's +good-will than to start her tongue. + +York Macpherson and Junius Brutus Ponk both felt sure that Stellar had +really stirred up the Lenwells, for whom she was constantly sewing; and, +besides, a distant relative of theirs had married into the Bahrr family +back where Stellar came from, "which must have been the Ark," Ponk +declared, "and the other one of the pair died of seasickness." Anyhow, +the local school row became the local town row, and it was a very real +and bitter row. + +In these days of little foxes that were threatening the whole vineyard, +Jerry turned more and more to Joe Thomson. All of New Eden was tied up +in the fuss, took sides, and talked it, except the Macphersons and a few +of their friends, and they talked it without taking sides because the +thing was in the air constantly. Jerry could not find even in "Castle +Cluny" a refuge from what was uninteresting to her and thoroughly +distasteful in itself. Ponk, being by nature a rabid little game-cock, +was full of the thing, and was no more companionable than the +Macphersons. But when the quiet ranchman came up from the lower Sage +Brush country, his dark eyes glowing with pleasure and his poised mind +unbiased by neighborhood failings, he brought the breath of sweet clover +with his coming. When Jerry came home from their long rides +up-stream--they never rode toward the blowout region--she felt as if she +had a new grip on life and energy and ambition for her work. Joe was +becoming, moreover, the best of entertainers, and the comradeship was +the one thing Jerry had learned to prize most in her new life in the +Middle West. + +When the spring had slipped into early May Joe's visits grew less +frequent, on account of his spring work. And once or twice he came to +town and hurried away without even seeing Jerry. It comforted her +greatly--she did not ask herself why--that he did drop a note into the +post-office for her, telling her he was in town and regretting that he +must hurry out without calling. + +It was during this time that Thelma Ekblad came up to New Eden to do +some extensive shopping and spend a week with the Macphersons. There +were other guests at "Castle Cluny," and Thelma and Jerry shared the +same room. + +Back in "Eden" the heir apparent would never have dreamed of sharing +anything with a Winnowoc grub. How times change us! Or do we change +them? + +Thelma was sunny-natured, spotlessly neat in her dress, and altogether +vastly more companionable to Jerry than the Lenwell girls, who would +persist in pleading their little high-school Senior brother's cause; or +even the associate teachers, who were troubled and tired and overworked +like herself. + +Jerry had met Thelma often, and thought of her oftener, in the three +years since they had come upon the Sage Brush branch of the local +freight together one hot, sand-blown June day, three summers before. She +had woven a romance about Thelma. Romances seemed now to belong to other +people. They never came to her. She was glad, however, when Thelma's +shopping was done and she went back to the farm down the Sage Brush, and +her brother Paul, and the growing, joyous Belkap child who filled the +plain farm-house with interest. + +Stellar Bahrr, in Jerry's presence, had spoken ill of no one since the +memorable call three years ago. On the evening after Thelma left town +she cork-screwed over to "Castle Cluny" for a friendly chat with Laura. + +"I run in to see Thelmy Ekblad. She 'ain't gone home, is she? Got her +shopping all done a'ready? Some girls can buy their weddin' finery +quicker 'n scat. Did she say who was to make that new white dress she +was buyin' yesterday at the Palace Emporium?" This straight at Jerry, +who was resting lazily in the porch swing after an unusually annoying +day. + +"Not to me," Jerry replied, sliding another pillow behind her shoulders +and leaning back comfortably. + +"Well, well! I s'posed girls always told them things to each other. +'Specially if they slep' together. She's gettin' a mighty fine man, +though--Thelmy is--at least, folks says she's gettin' him. He's there a +lot, 'specially 'long this spring. His farm's right near her and Paul's. +And she's one prince of a girl. Don't you say so, Miss Swaim?" + +Jerry smiled in spite of herself, saying: "Yes, she's a prince of a +girl. I like her." And then, because she was tired that night, both of +Stellar and her topic, and the whole Sage Brush Valley, she turned away +that neither Laura nor Stellar might see how much she wanted to cry. + +But turning was futile. Mrs. Bahrr's eyes went right through the girl +and she knew her shaft had hit home. + +Joe had not been to town for weeks. It didn't matter to Jerry. Yet the +next day after Stellar's call lacked something--and the next and the +next. Not a definite lack, for Jerry's future was settled forever. + +Down on the Sage Brush ranches Joe Thomson was trying to believe that +things wouldn't matter, too, if they failed to go his way. These were +lonely days for the young ranchman, who saw little of Jerry Swaim +because every possible minute of his time was given to wrestling with +the blowout. + +There were many more lonely days, also, for Jerry, who now began to miss +Joe more than she thought it could be possible to miss anybody except +Gene Wellington, idealized into a sad and beautiful memory that kept +alive an unconscious hope. And, with all her energy and her +determination, many things combined to make her school-room duty a hard +task to one whose training had been so unfitting for serious labor. The +flesh-pots of the Winnowoc came temptingly to her memory, and there were +weary hours when the struggle to be sure and satisfied was greater than +her friends could have dreamed. + +The third winter of her stay had seen an unusual snowfall for the Sage +Brush, and this spring following was an unusually rainy one. Everywhere +rank vegetation flourished, prairies reveled in luxurious growths, and +cultivated fields were burdened with the promise of record-breaking +harvests. + +York Macpherson's business had begun to call him to the East for +prolonged trips, and he had less knowledge than formerly of the details +of the affairs of New Eden and its community. + +One day not long after Thelma's shopping trip Joe Thomson dropped into +the office of the Macpherson Mortgage Company. + +"How's the blowout?" This had become York's customary greeting. + +"Never gentler." Joe's face was triumphant and his dark eyes were +shining with hope. "This rainy season and the good old steam-plows are +doing their perfect work. You haven't had any sand-storms lately, maybe +you have noticed. Well, wheat is growing green and strong over more than +half of that land now. There's not so much sand to spare as there used +to be." + +"You don't mean it!" York exclaimed, incredulously. + +"Go and look at it yourself, you doubting old Missourian who must be +shown," Joe retorted. "There's a stretch on the northeast toward the +bend in the Sage Brush that is low and baked hard after the rains, and +shifty and infernally stubborn in the dry weather." + +York meditated awhile, combing his heavy hair with his fingers. "The +river runs by your place?" he asked, at length. + +"Yes, my house is right at the bend, and there is no sand across the +Sage Brush," Joe replied. + +"Well, the blowout will never stop till it gets up to the south bank of +the bend. As I've told you already, you'll have to take the Lord +Almighty into partnership to work a miracle. Otherwise this creeping up +from behind and beyond the thing will be a never-ending job of time and +money and labor. You'll never catch up with it. It's just too +everlastingly big, that's all. You'll be gray-bearded, and bald-headed, +and deaf, and dim-sighted before you are through." + +"I will not," Joe declared, doggedly. "And I've already told you that +I've always taken the Lord Almighty into partnership, or I'd have been a +derelict on a sea of sand lang syne." + +"Joe, your faith in the Lord and faith in the prairies might move +mountains, but they haven't yet moved the desert." + +"Not entirely," Joe replied, "but if I do my part, who knows what +Providence may do?" + +As he sat there in the hope and strength of his youth, something in Joe +Thomson's expectant face brought a pang to the man beside him. + +"Joe, your lease will soon expire. I said to you three years ago that +women are shiftier than blowouts. You didn't believe me, but it's the +truth." + +"Naturally the Macpherson Mortgage Company must acquire much knowledge +of such things in the development of their business," Joe responded, +jokingly. "Little Thelma Ekblad on the claim above mine has helped to +pay off the mortgage your company held, and sent herself to the +university, working in the harvest-fields and at the hay-baler to do it. +Thelma never seemed shifty to me. She's a solid little rock of a woman +who never flinches." + +"I'll except Thelma. You ought--" But York went no further, for he knew +Joe's spirit would not respond to his thought, and he had no business +to be thinking, anyhow. He had known Joe Thomson from childhood. He +admired Jerry Swaim greatly for what she had been doing, but he knew +much of the Philadelphia end of the game, and his heart ached for the +young Westerner, who, he believed, had shouldered a stupendous, tragical +burden for the sake of a heart-longing only a strong nature like Joe's +could know. + +"By the way, Jerry Swaim's aunt, back East, is in a bad way and may die +at any time, but she will never forgive Jerry to the point of +inheritance. I happen to be in the old lady's confidence that far." + +"You are a social Atlas, York," Joe declared. "You hold the world on +your shoulders. But what you say doesn't interest me at all. So don't +prejudge any of us, maid or man." + +"And don't you let your bloomin' self-confidence and ability to work +half-miracles be your undoing. A house builded on the sand may fall, +where one built on gold dust may stand firm," York retorted. + +"Do you believe your own words?" Joe asked, rising to his feet. + +"The point is for you to believe them, whether I do or not," York +answered, as Joe disappeared through the doorway. + +"Why, in the name of fitness, can't that fellow fall in love with that +little Thelma Ekblad, a girl who knows what sacrifice on the Sage Brush +means and who has a grip on the real values of life? Oh, well, just to +watch the crowd run awry ought to be entertainment enough for a bachelor +like myself," York thought, as he sat staring after Joe. "I've lived to +see a few half-miracles myself in the last decade. Anybody whose lot is +cast in western Kansas can see as many of them as the old Santa Fé Trail +bull-whackers saw of mirages in the awful 'fifties. There's a lot of +reclaiming being done on the Sage Brush, even if that struggle of Joe's +with the blowout is a failure. Thelma Ekblad in her splendid victory +over ignorance, carrying a university degree; Stellar Bahrr"--York +smiled, "Ponk, who would put a flourish after his name if he were +signing his own death-warrant, the little hero of a hundred knocks, +living above everything but his funny little strut, and he's getting +over that a bit; old Fishing Teddy, brave old soul, down in his old +shack alone; Jerry, with her luxurious laziness and doubt in God and a +hereafter--all winning slowly to better things, maybe; but as to sand +and Joe-- + +"'Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?' You'll never do it, Joe, +never, and you'll never win the goal you've set your heart on. Poor +fellow!" + +That night, on the silent porch alone, York finished the battle he had +begun on the evening after he and Jerry had called on Stella Bahrr. + +"It's the artist bank clerk against the field, and we'll none of us bat +above his average. Good night, old moon, and good night, York, to what +can't be." + +He waved a hand at the dying light in the west, and a dying hope, and +went inside. + + + + +XVI + +A POSTLUDE IN "EDEN" + + +Cornelius Darby had lain in his beautifully decorated grave for three +years, and a graceful white shaft pointing heavenward amid the +shrubbery had become a landmark for the bunch of grubs who rode the +Winnowoc local. + +"Must be getting close to the deppo. Yonder is old Corn Darby's +gravestone over on the bluff," they would say, as the train chuffed up +out of the valley on either side of the station. That was all the memory +of him that remained, save as now and then a girl in a far-away Kansas +town remembered a June evening when a discus shied out from its course +and rolled to the door of a rose-arbor. + +But "Eden," as a country estate, lost nothing by the passing of the +husband of its lady and mistress, who spared none of the Darby dollars +to make both the town and country home delightful in all appointments, +hoping and believing that in her policy of stubbornness and force she +could have her way, and bring back to the East the girl whom she would +never invite to return, the girl whose future she had determined to +control. The three years had found Jerusha Darby's will to have Jerry +Swaim become her heir under her own terms--mistaking dependence for +appreciation, and idleness for happiness--had ceased to be will and +become a mania, the ruling passion of her years of old age. She never +dreamed that she was being adroitly managed by her husband's relative, +Eugene Wellington, but she did recognize, and, strangely enough, resent, +the fact that the Darby strain in his blood was proving itself in his +ability, not to earn dollars, but to make dollars earn dollars once they +were put plentifully into his hands. + +Since Mrs. Darby had only one life-purpose--to leave her property to +Jerry Swaim under her own terms--it galled her to think of it passing to +the hands of the relatives of the late Cornelius. She believed that love +of Eugene would bring Jerry back, for she was Lesa's own romance-loving +child--even if the luxuries that wealth can offer should fail; and she +had coddled Eugene Wellington for this very purpose. But after three +years he had failed to satisfy her. She was becoming slowly but +everlastingly set on one thing. She would put her property elsewhere by +will--when she was through with it. She could not do without Eugene as +long as she lived--which would be indefinitely, of course. But she would +have her say--and (in a whisper) it would _not_ be a Darby nor _kin_ of +a Darby who might be sitting around now, waiting for her to pass to her +fathers, who would possess it. + +In this intense state of mind she called Eugene out to "Eden" in the +late May of the third year of Jerry Swaim's stay in Kansas. The +rose-arbor was aglow with the same blossoming beauty as of old, and all +the grounds were a dream of May-time verdure. + +Eugene Wellington, driving out from the city in a big limousine car, +found them more to his taste than ever before, and he took in the +premises leisurely before going to the arbor to meet Mrs. Darby. + +"If I could only persuade Jerry to come now, all would be well," he +meditated. "And I have hopes. The last news of her tells me a few +things. She hasn't fallen in love with York Macpherson. He'd hate me +less if she had, and he detests me. I saw that, all right, when he was +here last month. And she's pretty tired of the life of the wilderness. I +know that. If she would come right now it would settle things forever. +I'd go after her if the old lady would permit it. I'd go, anyhow, if I +dared. But I must keep an eye on Uncle Cornie's widow day and night, +and, hungry as I am for one glimpse of Jerry's sweet face, I couldn't +meet Jerusha D. in her wrath if I disobeyed her." + +Eugene had the chauffeur pause while he surveyed the lilac-walk and the +big maples and the lotus-pond. + +"If Jerry would come _now_," he began again, with himself, "she would be +heir to all this. If she doesn't come soon, there's trouble ahead for +Eugene of the soft snaps. To the rose-arbor, Henderson." + +So Henderson whirled the splendid young product to the doorway of the +pretty retreat. + +Mrs. Darby met her nephew with a sterner face even than she was +accustomed to wear. + +"I want to see you at once," she said, as the young man loitered a +moment outside. + +"Yes, Aunt Jerry," he responded, dutifully enough--as to form. + +"What have you heard from Jerry recently?" she demanded. + +"What York Macpherson told us--that she has had a hard year's work in a +school-room," Eugene replied. + +"Humph! I knew that. What are you doing to bring her back to me?" Mrs. +Darby snapped off the words. + +"Nothing now!" the young man answered her. + +"'Nothing now!' Why not?" Mrs. Darby was in her worst of humors. + +"Because there is positively nothing to do but to wait," Eugene said, +calmly. "She is not in love anywhere else. She is getting tired and +disgusted with her plebeian surroundings, and as to her estate--" + +"What of her estate? I refused to let York Macpherson say a word, +although he tried to over-rule me. I told him two things: I'd never +forgive Jerry if she didn't come back uninvited by me; and I'd never +listen to him blow a big Kansas story of her wonderful possessions. What +do you know? You'd be unprejudiced." The old woman had never seemed +quite so imperious before. + +"I have here a paper describing it. York Macpherson sent it to Uncle +Cornelius the very week he died. I found it among some other papers +shortly after his death and after Jerry left. When York was here he +confirmed the report at my insistent request. Read it." + +Jerusha Darby read, realizing, as she did so, that neither her husband +nor York Macpherson had succeeded in doing what Eugene Wellington had +done easily. Each had tried in vain to have her read that paper. + +"You knew the condition of this estate for three years, and never told +me. Why?" The old woman's face was very pale. + +"I did not dare to do so," Eugene replied, that line of weakness in his +face which Jerry had noted three years before revealing itself for the +first time to her aunt. + +"This is sufficient," she said, in a quiet sort of way. "To-morrow I +make my will--just to be sure. I shall probably outlive many younger +people than myself. Write and tell Jerry I have done it. This time +to-morrow night will see my estate settled so far as the next generation +is concerned. If I do not do it, Eugene, some distant and improvident +relatives of Cornelius will claim it. Send the lawyer out in the +morning." + +"All right, Aunt Jerry. I must go now. I have a club meeting in the city +and I can make it easily. The car runs like the wind with Henderson at +the wheel. Good-by." + +And Eugene Wellington was gone. + +"Three years ago I'd have left everything to him if I had been ready to +make a will then. I'm ready now, and any time in the next ten years I +can change it if I want to. But this will bring things my way, after +all. I told York I'd never forgive Jerry!" + +Mrs. Darby paused, and a smile lighted her wrinkled face. + +"To think of that girl just shouldering her burden and walking off with +it. If she isn't Brother Jim over again! Never writing a word of +complaint. Oh, Jerry! Jerry! I'll make it up to you to-morrow." + +To Jerusha Darby money made up for everything. She sat long in the +rose-arbor, thinking, maybe, of the years when Jerry's children and her +children's children would dominate the Winnowoc countryside as they of +the Swaim blood had always done. And then, because she was tired, and +the afternoon sunshine was warm, and her willow rocking-chair was very +comfortable--she fell asleep. + +<tb> + +"Went just like her brother, the late Jeremiah Swaim," the papers said, +the next evening. + +Instead of the lawyer, it was the undertaker who came to officiate. And +the last will and testament, and the too-late evidence of a forgiving +good-will, all were impossible henceforth and forever. + +The estate of the late Jerusha Darby, relict of the late Cornelius +Darby, no will of hers having been found, passed, by agreement under +law, to a distant relative of the late Cornelius, which relative being +Eugene Wellington, whose knowledge of the said possible conditions of +inheritance he had held in his possession for three years, since the day +he accidentally found them among the private papers of his late uncle, +knowing the while that any sudden notion of the late Jerusha might +result in putting her possessions, by her own signature, where neither +Jerry, as her favorite and heir apparent, nor himself, as heir-in-law +without a will, could inherit anything. Truly Gene had had a bothersome +time of it for three years, and he congratulated himself on having done +well--excellently well, indeed. Truly only the good little snakes ever +entered that "Eden" in the Winnowoc Valley in Pennsylvania. + + + + +XVII + +THE FLESH-POTS OF THE WINNOWOC + + +The glory of that third springtime was on the Kansas prairies and in the +heart of a man and a maid, the best of good fellows each to the other, +who rode together far along their blossomy trails. The eyes of the man +were on the future and in his heart there was only one wish--that the +good-fellowship would soon end in the realization of his heart's desire. +The eyes of the maid were closed to the future. For her, too, there was +only one wish--that this kind of comradeship might go on unchanged +indefinitely. To Jerry no trouble seemed quite so big when Joe was with +her, and little foxes sought their holes when he came near. If the +spring work had not grown so heavy late in May, and Joe could have come +to town oftener, and one teacher had not fallen sick, and Clare Lenwell +hadn't been so stubborn, and if Stellar Bahrr had held her tongue--But +why go on with ifs? All these conditions did exist. What might have been +without them no man knoweth. + +One of the humanest traits of human beings is to believe what is +pleasant to believe, and to doubt and question what would be an +undesirable fact. Jerry Swaim, clinging ever to a memory of what might +have been, building a pretty love dream, it is true, to be acted out +some far-away time by a young farmer and his neighbor in the Sage Brush +Valley, listened to Stellar Bahrr's version of Thelma Ekblad's shopping +mission, held back the tears that burned her eyeballs for a moment, and +then, being human, voted the whole thing as impossible, if not as +malicious as any of Stellar Bahrr's stories. Indeed, Thelma Ekblad was +now, as she had always been, the very least of Jerry's troubles. + +The school row, that had become the community fuss, culminated in the +superintendent putting upon his teachers the responsibility of +settlement. + +If they were willing to concede to the foolish demands of the class, led +by Clare Lenwell, and grant full credits in their branches of study, he +would abide by their decision. The easiest way, after all, to quiet the +thing, he said, might be to let the young folks have their way this +time, and do better with the class next year. They could begin in time +with them. As if Solomon himself could ever foresee what trivial demand +and stubborn claim will be the author and finisher of the disturbance +from year to year in the town's pride and glory--the high-school Senior +class, and its Commencement affairs. The final vote to break the tie and +make the verdict was purposely put on Jerry Swaim, who had more +influence in the high school than the superintendent himself. Jerry +protested, and asked for a more just agreement, finally spending a whole +afternoon with Clare Lenwell in an effort to induce him to be a +gentleman, offering, in return, all fairness and courtesy. + +Young Lenwell's head was now too large for his body. He was the hero of +the hour. Rule or ruin rested on this young Napoleon of the Sage Brush, +divinely ordained to free the downtrodden youths of America from the +iron heel and galling chains with which the faculty of the average +American high school enthralls and degrades--and so forth, world without +end. + +This at least was Clare Lenwell's attitude from one o'clock P.M. to five +o'clock P.M. of an unusually hot June day. At the stroke of five Jerry +rose, with calm face, but a dangerously square chin, saying, in an +untroubled tone: + +"You may as well go. Good afternoon." + +Young Lenwell walked out, the cock of the hour--until the next morning. +Then all of the Seniors were recorded as having received full credits +for graduation from all of the faculty--except one pupil, who lacked one +teacher's signature. Clare Lenwell was held back by Miss Swaim, teacher +of the mathematics department. + +The earthquake followed. + +In the session of the school board on the afternoon of Commencement Day +Junius Brutus Ponk, who presided over the meeting, sat "as firm as Mount +Olympus, or Montpelier, Vermont," he said, afterward; "the uncle Lenwell +suffered eruption, Vesuviously; and the third man of us just cowed down, +and shriveled up, and tried to slip out in the hole where the +electric-light wire comes through the wall. But I fetched him back with +a button-hook, knowin' he'd get lost in that wide passageway and his +remains never be recovered to his family." + +It was not, however, just a family matter now among the Lenwells. In the +presence of the superintendent and Mrs. Bahrr, Miss Swaim was called to +trial by her peers--the board of education. In this executive session, +whose proceedings were not ever to be breathed--for York Macpherson +would have the last man of them put in jail, he was that +influential--_Other Things Were Made Known_--Things that, after the +final settlement, became in time common property, and so forgotten. + +Herein Stellar Bahrr's three years of pent-up anger at last found vent. +She had been preparing for this event. She had adroitly set the trap for +the first difficulty, that had its start in the Lenwell family, while +she was doing their spring sewing. Incessantly and insidiously she laid +her mines and strung her wires and stored her munitions, determined to +settle once for all with the pretty, stuck-up girl who had held a whip +over her for three whole years. + +Charges were to be brought against Miss Swaim of a _serious_ character, +and she was to be tried and condemned in _secret session_ and allowed to +_leave_ the town _quietly_. _Nothing_ would be said _aloud_ until she +was _gone_. + +In despair, Ponk sought York Macpherson two hours before the trial +began. + +"There's two against me. And no matter what I _say_, they'll outvote me. +It's the durned infernal ballot-box that's a curse to a free +government. If it wasn't for that, republics would flourish. Bein' an +uncrowned king don't keep a man from bein' a plain short-eared +jackass--and they's three of us of the same breed--two against one." + +York's face was gray with anger, and he clutched his fingers in his wavy +hair as if to get back the hold on himself. + +"You will have your trial, of course. Demand two things--that the +accused and the accusers meet face to face. It will be hard on Jerry." + +"Has she flinched or fell down once in three years, York Macpherson? +Ain't she stronger and handsomer to-day than she was the day I had the +honor to bring her up from the depot in that new gadabout of mine? If I +could I'd have had it framed and hung on the wall and kept, for what it +done for her." + +The two men looked into each other's eyes, and what each read there made +a sacred, unbreakable bond between them for all the years to come. + +The trial was held in the hotel parlor, behind closed doors. The charges +were vague and poorly supported by evidence, but the venom back of them +was definite. Plainly stated, a pretty, incompetent girl had come West +_for some reason_ never made clear to New Eden. Come as an heiress in +"style and stuckuppitude of manner" (that was Stellar Bahrr's phrasing); +had suddenly become poor and dependent on the good-will of J. B. Ponk, +who had fought to the bitter end to give her "a place on the town +pay-roll and keep her there" (that was the jealous superintendent's +phrasing); and on the patronage of York Macpherson, who had really took +her in, he and his honorable sister, even if they really were the worse +"took in" of the two. At this point Ponk rapped for a better expression +of terms. The young person had tried to "run things" in the church and +schools and society. Even the superintendent himself had to be sure of +her approval before he dared to start any movement in the high school. +And no one of the preachers would invite her to unite with his church. + +But to the charges now: + +First: She had refused to let Clare Lenwell graduate who wasn't any +worse than the rest of the class. + +Secondly: She had a way of riding around over the country with young men +on moonlight nights on horseback. Of going, the Lord knows where, with +young men, _joy-riding_ in cars, or of going alone wherever she pleased +in hired livery cars. And _some_ thought she met strange men and was +acquainted with rough characters, and the moral influence of that was +awfully bad; and there was something _even worse_, if that were +possible, WORSE! + +Things had disappeared around town often, but in _the last three years_ +especially. If folks were poor, they needed money. + +Then Stellar Bahrr came into the ring. + +Jerry had sat and listened to the proceedings as an indifferent +spectator to what could in no wise concern her. With the entrance of +Mrs. Bahrr to the witness-stand, the girl's big, dreamy eyes grew +brighter and her firm mouth was set, but no mark of anxiety showed +itself in her face or manner. + +Mrs. Bahrr whined a bit as to wishing only to do the right thing, but +her steel-pointed eyes, as she fixed them in Jerry, wrote as with a +stylus across the girl's understanding: + +"You are hopelessly in the minority. Now I can say what I please." + +What Mrs. Bahrr really knew, of course, she couldn't swear to in any +court, because of Laura and York Macpherson. She wouldn't shame them, +because they had befriended a fraud, all with good intentions. She only +came now because she'd been promised protection by the board from what +folks would say, and she was speaking what must _never_ be repeated. + +"Most of us need that kind of protection when you are around," Ponk +declared, vehemently, knowing that, while the school board would keep +her words sacred, nothing said or done in that trial would be held +sacred by her as soon as the decision she wished for was reached. + +Stellar, feeling herself safe, paid no heed to Ponk. What she really +knew was that a certain young lady had been known to take money from her +hostess and, being caught, had been forced to give it up. Stellar +herself saw and heard the whole thing when it happened. Laura had told +her about the matter, and then, when she was just leaving, Jerry had +returned the money. She was right outside of the vines on the porch, and +she knew. Stellar knew that dollars and dollars, jewelry, silverware, +and other valuables had been taken, and some of them never restored; but +some was sneaked back when the pressure got too strong. In a word, +through much talk and little sense, Miss Geraldine Swaim was branded a +high-toned thief. And worse than that. For three years strange men had +slipped to the Macpherson home when the folks were away, and been let +out by the side door. Real low-down-looking fellows. Stellar had seen +them herself. She had a way of running 'cross lots up to Laury's +evenings, and _she knew_ what she was talking about. Stellar dropped her +eyes now, not caring to look at Jerry. Her blow had hit home and she was +exultant. + +"Has the young lady anything to say?" Lenwell of the school board asked, +feeling a twinge of pity, after all, because the case was even stronger +than he had hoped it could be made. + +Jerry looked over at Stellar Bahrr until she was forced to lift her eyes +to the girl's face. + +"I cannot understand the degree of hate that can be developed in a human +mind," she said, calmly. "That is all I have to say." + +Junius Brutus Ponk's round face seemed to blacken like a Kansas sky +before the coming of a hail-storm. Lenwell gave a snort of triumph, and +the third member of the board grinned. + +At that moment the door of the hotel parlor opened. Jerry, who sat +opposite to it, caught sight of York Macpherson in the hall. And York +saw her, calm and brave, in what he read, in the instant, was defeat for +her. Before her were dismissal, failure, and homelessness. But neither +he nor any one else dreamed how far the influence of those Sunday +afternoons of "calling on mother," with the fat little hotel-keeper, had +led this girl into a "trust in every time of trouble," and she faced her +future bravely. + +It was not York Macpherson, but the little, fuzzy, shabby figure of old +Fishin' Teddy who shuffled inside and closed the door, demanding in a +quavering squeak to be heard. + +Ponk gave a start of surprise; Lenwell was annoyed; the third man was +indifferent now, being safe, anyhow. Stellar Bahrr and the +superintendent stared in amazement, but Jerry's face was wonderful to +see. + +"'Ain't I got a right to say a word here, gentlemen?" old Teddy asked, +looking at Ponk. + +"If it's on the subject of this meeting, yes. If it's anything about +fish, either in the Sage Brush or in Kingussie Creek, no. This really +ain't no place for fish stories. We're overstocked with 'em right now, +till this hotel and gurrage will have a 'ancient and a fishlike smell' +as the Good Book says, for a generation." + +"I just got wind of what was on up here. A man from your town come down +to see me on business, an' he bringed me up." + +"York Macpherson's the only man I ever knew had business with old Teddy. +Lord be praised!" Ponk thought. + +"I got a little testimony myself to offer here, for the one that's bein' +blackmailed. I'll tell it fast as I can," Teddy declared. + +"Take your time an' get it straight. None of us is in a hurry now," Ponk +assured him. + +Then the Teddy Bear, without looking at Jerry, gave testimony: + +"Back in Pennsylvany, where I come from, in the Winnowoc country, I +knowed Jim Swaim, this young lady's father. I wasn't no fisherman then. +I was a hard-workin', well-meanin', honest man. My name was Hans +Theodore--and somethin' else I have no use for since I come to the Sage +Brush in Kansas." + +He hesitated and looked down at his scaly brown paws and shabby clothes. + +"I ain't telling this 'cause I want to, but 'cause I want to do justice +to Jim Swaim's girl. Jim was my friend an' helped me a lot of ways. He +was a hard-fisted business man, but awfully human with human bein's; an' +his daughter's jes' like him, seems to me." + +Jerry's cheeks were swept with the bloom of "Eden" roses as she sat with +her eyes fixed on the old man. To her in that moment came a vision of +Uncle Cornie in the rose-arbor when the colorless old man had pleaded +with her to become as her father had been. + +"I got into trouble back there. This is a secret session, hain't it?" +The old man hesitated again. + +"Yes, dead secret," Ponk assured him. "Nothin' told outside of here +before it's first told inside, which is unusual in such secret +proceedings, so you are among friends. Go on." + +Stellar Bahrr sat with her eyes piercing the old man like daggers, while +his own faded yellow-brown eyes drooped with a sorrowful expression. + +"I won't say how it happened, but I got mixed up in some stealin' +scrape--that's why I changed my name or, ruther, left off the last of +it. I'd gone to the Pen--though ever' scrap I ever stole, or its money +value, was actually returned to them that had lost it. Jim Swaim stood +by me, helpin' me through, an' I paid him as I earnt it. Then he give me +money to get started here, an' befriended me every way, just 'cause it +was in him. I've lived out here on the Sage Brush alone 'cause I ain't +fit to live with folks. But when the old _mainy_, as you say of crazy +folk, comes, why, things is missin' up in town. They land in my shack +sometimes, an' sometimes I'm honest enough to bring 'em back when I can +do it. I'm the one that hangs around in the shadders, an' if you ketch +sight of strange men at side doors, Mrs. Bahrr, it's me. An' when this +Jerry Swaim (I knowed her when she was a baby; I carried her in my arms +'cross the Winnowoc once, time of a big flood up in Pennsylvany)--when +her purseful of money was stole, three years ago, an' she comes down to +my shack and finds it all there, why, she done by me then jus' like her +own daddy 'd 'a' done, she never told on me at all. An' she hain't told +all these years, and wa'n't goin' to tell on me now. I don't know what +you mean 'bout these stories on her. She never done nothin' to be +ashamed of in her life. 'Tain't in her family to be ashamed. They dunno +how. If they's blame for stealin' in New Eden, though, jus' lay it on +old Fishin' Teddy. You 'quit her now." + +The old man's voice quavered as he squeaked out his words, and he +shuffled aside, to be less in evidence in the parlor, where he had for +the one time in his life been briefly the central figure. + +The silence that followed his words was broken by Jerry's clear, low +voice. Her face was beautiful in the soft light there. To Ponk she had +never seemed so adorable before, not even on still Sabbath afternoons in +the quiet corner of the cemetery where they talked as friends of +mother-love and God, and Life after life. + +"Friends, this old hermit fisherman is telling you a falsehood to try to +shield me because of some favor my father showed him in the years gone +by. If he is not willing to say more, to tell you the real truth, he +will force me to say to you that I am the guilty one after all. I cannot +let him make such a sacrifice for me." + +She spoke as though she were explaining the necessity for changing cars +in Chicago in order to reach Montreal. Old Fishin' Teddy lifted his +clubby brown hands in protest. + +"'Tain't so, an' 'tain't right," he managed to make the words come +out--thin and trembling words, shaking like palsied things. + +"No, it isn't so, and it isn't right, and he must not bear a disgrace he +doesn't deserve. I'll do it for him," Jerry said, smiling upon the +shabby old man--a common grub of the Sage Brush Valley. + +There is nothing grander in human history, nothing which can more deeply +touch the common human heart of us all, than the lesson of +self-sacrifice taught on Mount Calvary. From the thief on the cross, +down through all the centuries, has the blessed power of that Spirit +softened the hearts of evil-doers, great or small. Jerry had not once +turned toward Stellar Bahrr since the entrance of Fishin' Teddy. When +she had ceased speaking, the silence of the room was broken by the town +busybody's whining tone: + +"They ain't neither one of 'em a thief, Mr. Ponk. It's me. They sha'n't +do no such sacrificing thing." + +The silence of the moment before was a shout compared to the dead +silence now. + +"Yes, it's me. I was born that way, an' it just seems I can't help it. +I've done all the liftin', I guess, that's been done in this town +a'most--'tain't so much, of course; but I ain't mean clear through, an' +I jus' wouldn't ever rest in my grave if I don't speak now. I thought +I'd always hide it, but I know I never will." + +Old Teddy shrank back in a heap on his chair, while all of the rest +except Jerry Swaim sat as if thunderstruck. + +"I'm goin' clear through with it, now I've begun. Maybe I'll be a better +woman if I am disgraced forever by it." Mrs. Bahrr's voice grew steadier +and her eyes were fixed on the ground. + +"Hans Theodore--the last part of his name is Bahrr--he's my husband. It +was for my sins that he left Pennsylvany. Jim Swaim saved us from a lot +of disgrace, and persuaded us to come West an' start over, an' helped us +a lot. I couldn't break myself of wrong-doing just by changing climate, +though. We tried Indiany first an' failed, then we come to S'liny, +Kansas, next an' then we come on here. An' at last Theodore give me up +an' went off alone an' changed his name. Mr. Lenwell's folks here is +distant relatives, but they never would 'a' knowed Theodore. Didn't know +he'd never got a divorce, and never stop supportin' me; like he'd said +when we was married, he'd 'keep me unto death,' you know; and he'd come +to see me once in a while, to be sure I wasn't needin' nothin'. I jus' +worked along at one thing or another, an' Teddy earnt money an' paid it +in to York Macpherson, like a pension, an' he paid me, York did. But +Teddy wouldn't never live with me, though he never told York why. An' +when I took things--" + +Mrs. Bahrr paused and looked at Jerry deprecatingly. + +"Like that silver cup I saw down at the deep hole?" Jerry asked, +encouragingly. + +"Yes, like that. I seen you down there that day. I was the woman that +passed your car--" + +"I know it," Jerry said, "I remember your sunbonnet and gray-green +dress. I've often seen both since." + +"Yes, an' you remember, too, the time I come out on the porch sudden when +you first come here, an' made you promise not to tell." Mrs. Bahrr's +voice quavered now. + +"An' 'cause I knowed Teddy'd bring that right back to Macpherson's and +you'd remember it, an' 'cause you were Jim Swaim's child that knowed my +fault an' made me do what I didn't want to do, even if I was in the +wrong, I hated you an' vowed to myself I'd fix you. It was me slipped +into your room an' stuck Laury's purse into your beaded hand-bag, an' it +was me took your roll of money from your own purse. Teddy took it away, +though, that very night. Teddy he'd take whatever I picked up an' +pretend he'd sell it, but he'd git it back to 'em some way if he could; +an' he's saved an' sold fish an' lived a hermit life an' never told on +me. He's slipped up to town to git me to put back or let him put back +what I was tempted to pilfer, 'cause it seemed I just couldn't help it. +York's been awful patient with me, too. But I can't set here an' be a +woman and see Teddy shieldin' me, a hypocrite, an' her shieldin' him, +an' not tellin' on me, like wimmen does on wimmen generally, an' not +make a clean breast of it. An' if you'll not tell on me, an' all help +me, I'll jus' try once more--" + +"Won't anything go out of this room except what you tell yourself, +Stellar Bahrr," Ponk said, gravely. "Now you go home an' begin to act +better and think better, an' this'll be a heap cleaner town forever +after. An' if you live right the rest of your days you 'll keep on +livin' after you're dead, like mother does. The charges of this case is +all settled. I congratulate you, Miss Fair Defendant. You are a Joan of +Arc, an' a Hannah Dustin, an Boaz's Ruth, an' Barbara Fritchie, all in +one." + +While the other two members of the board were shamefacedly shaking hands +and offering Jerry half of New Eden as a recompense, old Fishin' Teddy +slipped out of the side door through the dining-room and on to where +Ponk's best livery car waited to take him to his rude shack beside the +deep hole in the Sage Brush. + +As Jerry passed into the hall she found a crowd waiting for her--the +three ministers from the churches, the mayor of New Eden, the friends of +the Macphersons, York himself, and many more of the town's best, who had +gathered to congratulate Jerry and to assure her of their pride in her +ability and appreciation of her as a citizen of New Eden. + +With the Commencement that night the school fuss and town split +disappeared at one breath and passed into history. + +When they reached the doorway of "Castle Cluny," after the Commencement +exercises, York handed Jerry a letter. It was a long and affectionately +worded message from Eugene Wellington, telling of the passing of Jerusha +Darby, of his inheritance, and of his intention to come at once to +Kansas and take her back to the "Eden" she had neglected so long. + +And Jerry, worn with the events of the last few weeks, feeling the +strain suddenly lifted, welcomed the letter and shed a tear upon it, +saying, softly: + +"Oh, I'm so tired of everything now! If he comes for me, he'll find me +ready to meet him. The flesh-pots of the Winnowoc are better to me than +this weary desert." + +<tb> + +Came an evening three days before the date for the lease on the Swaim +land to expire. Jerry sat alone on the Macpherson porch. It had been an +extremely hot day for June, with the dead, tasteless air that presages +the coming of a storm, and to-night the moon seemed to struggle up +toward the zenith against choking gray clouds that threatened to smother +out its light. + +Jerry was not happy to-night. She wanted Joe Thomson to come this +evening. It had been such a long while since he had had time to leave +the ranch for an evening with her. + +And with the wishing Joe came. With firm step and the face of a victor +he came. From his dark eyes hope and tenderness were looking out. + +"I haven't seen you for ages, and ages are awfully long, you know," +Jerry declared. + +"I've been very busy," Joe replied. "You know you can't break the laws +of the ranch and expect a harvest, any more than you can break the laws +of geometry and depend on results. I would have been up sooner, though, +but for one thing: a fellow on the ranch above mine who got hurt once +with a mowing-machine had another accident and I've been helping the +owner, that stout-hearted little Norwegian girl, Thelma Ekblad, to take +care of their crops, too. Thelma is a courageous soul who has worked her +way through the university, and she is a mighty capable girl, too. She +would be a splendid success as a teacher, she is so well trained, but +her family need her, and all of us down there need her." + +Jerry caught her breath. It was the first time in three years that Joe +had ever mentioned any girl with interest. But now this was all right +and just as things should be. A neighbor, a capable Western girl--women +see far, after all, and Jerry's romance had not been a foolish one. + +"That's all right, Joe, but I have been wanting to see you"--the old "I +want" as imperative again to-night as in the days when all of this +girl's wants had been met by the mere expression of them. + +"And I'm always wanting to see you, and never so much as to-night," Joe +began, earnestly. + +"Let me tell you first why I have wanted to see you once more," Jerry +broke in, hastily. + +In the dull light her dreamy dark-blue eyes and her golden hair falling +away from her white brow left an imprint that Joe Thomson's mind kept +henceforth; at the same time that "once more" cut a deeper wound than +Jerry could know. + +"My aunt Jerry Darby is dead." The girl's voice was very low. "I can't +grieve for her, for she was old and tired of life and unhappy. You +remember I told you about her one night here three years ago." + +Joe did remember. + +"She left all her fortune to Cousin Gene Wellington." + +"The artist who turned out to be a bank clerk?" Joe asked. "I really +always doubted that story." + +"Yes, but, you know, he did it to please Aunt Jerry. Think of a +sacrifice like that! Giving up one's dearest life-work!" + +"I'm thinking of it. Excuse me. Go on," Joe said. + +Jerry lifted her big dreamy eyes. The sparkle was gone and only the soft +light of romance illumined them now. + +"Gene is coming out to see me soon. I look for him any day. Everything +is all settled about the property, and everything is going to be all +right, after all, I am sure. And I'm so tired of teaching." Jerry broke +off suddenly. + +"But, oh, Joe," she began presently, "you will never, never know how +much your comradeship has helped me through these three trying years of +hard work and hopelessness. We have been only friends, of course, and +you are such a good, helpful kind of a friend. I never could have gotten +through without you." + +"Thank you, the pleasure is mine. I--I think I must go now." + +Joe rose suddenly and started to leave the porch. In an instant the very +earth had slidden out from under his feet. The memory of York +Macpherson's warning swept across his mind as the blowout sands sweep +over the green prairie. And he had come to say such different words +to-night. He had reached the end of a long, heart-breaking warfare with +nature and he had won. And now a new warfare broke forth in his soul. + +At that moment a sudden boom of thunder crashed out of the horizon and +all the lightnings of the heavens were unleashed, while a swirling +dust-deluge filled the darkening air. Jerry sprang forward, clutching +Joe's arm with her slender fingers. + +"The storm will be here in a minute," she cried, "You must not leave +now. You mustn't face this wind. Look at that awful black cloud and see +how fast it is coming on. I don't want you to go away. Where can you +go?" + +But Joe only shook off her grip, saying, hoarsely: + +"I'm going down the Sage Brush. If you ever want me again, you'll find +me beyond the blowout." + +The word struck like a blow. For three years Jerry had not heard it +spoken. It was the one term forever dropped from her vocabulary. All who +loved her must forget its very existence. + +There was a sudden dead calm in the hot yellow air; a moment of +gathering forces before the storm would burst upon the town. + +"If you ever see me beyond that blowout, you'll know that I do want +you," Jerry said, slowly. + +In the blue lightning glare that followed, her white face and big dark +eyes recalled to Joe Thomson's mind the moment, so long ago now, it +seemed, when Jerry had first looked out at the desert from under the +bough of the oak-grove. + +During the prolonged, terrific burst of thunder that followed, the young +ranchman strode away and the darkness swallowed his stalwart form as the +worst storm the Sage Brush country had ever known broke furiously upon +the whole valley. + +And out on the porch steps stood a girl conscious, not of the +storm-wind, nor the beating rain, nor cleaving lightning; conscious only +that something had suddenly gone out of her life into the blackness +whither Joe Thomson had gone; and with the heartache of the loss of the +moment was a strange resentment toward a brave-hearted little Norwegian +girl--a harvest-hand with a crippled brother, an adopted baby, and a +university education. + + + + +XVIII + +THE LORD HATH HIS WAY IN THE STORM + + +Laura Macpherson sat on the porch, watching her brother coming slowly up +the street, seemingly as oblivious to the splendor of the sunset +to-night as he had been on a June evening three summers ago. + +"That was the worst cloudburst I ever heard of out here," he declared, +when he reached the porch. "Every man in town who could carry a shovel +has been out all day, up-stream or down-stream, helping to dig out the +bottomland farms. I've been clear to the upper Sage Brush, doing a stunt +or two myself. I left my muddy boots and overalls at the office so that +I wouldn't be smearing up your old Castle here." + +Even in the smallest things York's thoughts were for his crippled +sister. + +"There's a lot of wild stories out about buildings being swept away and +lives being lost, here and there in the valley. You needn't believe all +of them until your trustworthy brother confirms them for you, little +sister. Such events have their tragedies, but the first estimate is +always oversize." + +"Even if your Big Dipper tells me, shall I wait for your confirmation?" +Laura inquired, blandly. + +"Oh, Laura, I'm going to cut out all that astronomical business now, +even if I always did know that the right way to pronounce the name Bahrr +is plain Bear, however much you have to stutter to spell it. Stellar has +been, as the Methodists say, 'redeemed and washed in the blood of the +Lamb.' I'm taking her in on probation, myself, and if she sticks it out +for six months I'll take her into full membership." + +"What do you mean, York?" Laura inquired. + +"I mean that since they settled the school row in secret session, Mrs. +Bahrr has been as different a woman as one can be who has let the habit +of evil thinking become a taskmaster. I've never told you that her +husband is still living, a shabby old fellow who gives me money for her +support as fast as he can earn it, but he won't live with her. She flies +from hat-trimming to sewing and baking and nursing and back to sewing, +and she never earns much anywhere, and works up trouble just for pure +cussedness. But to-day she went to the upper Sage Brush to help old Mrs. +Poser. The Posers were nearly washed away, and the old lady is sick and +lonely and almost helpless. She needs somebody to stay with her. Yes, +Stellar is really becoming a star--a plain, homely planet, doing a +good-angel line where she's most useful. We'll let the past stay where +it belongs, and count her reclaimed to better things now." + +"Amen! And what about the valley down-stream? It must be worse, because +the storm came up from that way," Laura declared. + +"There are plenty of rumors, but I haven't heard anything definite yet, +for I just got here, you know, and, as I telephoned you, found Mr. +Wellington had registered at Ponk's inn. The traveling-men who were on +the branch line have brought the first word to town to-day. The train is +stuck somewhere down the valley, and the tracks, for the most part, are +at the bottom of the Sage Brush. There are washouts all along the +road-bed, and the passengers have been hauled up the stream, across +fields, and every other way, except by the regular route. No automobile +can travel the trail now, so our Philadelphia gentleman arrives a good +bit disgusted with this bloomin' Western country, don't you know; and +sore from miles of jolting; and hungry; and sort of mussy-looking for a +banker; but cocksure of a welcome and of the power to bring salvation to +one of us at least." + +York dropped down on the porch step with a frown, flinging aside his hat +and thrusting his fingers savagely into his heavy hair. + +"Oh, well!" he exclaimed, dejectedly. "There's been a three years' +running fight between Jim Swaim's determined chin and Lesa's tender +eyes. I had hoped to the Lord that Jim would win the day, but that +whirlwind campaign of pleading and luxury-tempting letters came just at +the end of a hard year's work in the high school, with all that infernal +fuss in the Senior class, splitting the town open for a month and being +forgotten in an hour, and the jealousy toward the best teacher we've +ever had here, etcetera. So the '_eyes_' seem to have it. If there were +no ladies present," York added, with a half-smile, "I'd feel free to +express my lordly judgment of the whole damned sex." + +"Don't hesitate, Yorick; a little cussing might ease your liver," Laura +declared, surprised and amused at her brother's unexpected vehemence of +feeling. + +"There's nothing in the English language, as she is cussed, to do the +subject justice, but I might practise a few minutes at least," York +began. + +"Hush, York! That is Mr. Eugene Wellington coming yonder. I'll call +Jerry. Poor Joe!" Laura added, pityingly. "I have a feeling he is the +real sufferer here." + +"Yes, poor Joe!" York echoed, sadly. "Ponk will just soar above his +hurt, but men of Joe's dogged make-up die a thousand deaths when they do +die." + +Lesa Swaim's daughter was gloriously beautiful to Eugene Wellington's +artistic eyes as he sat beside her on the porch on this beautiful +evening. And Eugene himself held a charm in his very presence. All the +memories of the young years of culture and ease; all the daintiness of +perfect dress and perfect manners; all the assurance that a vague, sweet +dream was becoming real; all the sense of a struggle for a livelihood +now ended; all the breaking of the grip of stern duty, and an unbending +pride in a clear conscience, although their rewards had been inspiringly +sweet--all these seemed to Jerry Swaim to lift her suddenly and +completely into the real life from which these three busy, strange years +had taken her. Oh, she had been only waiting, after all. Nothing +mattered any more. Eugene and she had looked at duty differently. That +was all. He was here now, here for her sake. Henceforth his people were +to be her people--his God her God. Uncle Cornie was wise when he said of +Eugene: "He comes nearer to what you've been dreaming about." He seemed +not so much a lover as a fulfilment of a craving for love. + +The first sweet moment of meeting was over. Her future, their future, +shrouded only by a rose-hued mist, beyond which lay light and ease, was +waiting now for them to enter upon. In this idyllic hour Geraldine, +daughter of Lesa Swaim, had come to the very zenith of life's romance. + +"It has been a cruel three years, Jerry," Eugene was saying, as, their +first greetings over, he lighted a cigarette and adjusted himself +picturesquely and easefully in York Macpherson's big porch chair--a +handsome, perfectly groomed, artistic fellow, he appeared fitted as +never before to adorn life's ornamental places. + +"But they are past now. You won't have to teach any more, little cousin +o' mine. York Macpherson says your land lease expires to-day. So your +business transactions here are over, and we'll just throw that ground in +the river and forget it." + +He might have taken the girl's hand in his as they sat together, but +instead he clasped his own hands gracefully and studied their fine +outlines. + +"I have all the Darby estate in my own name now, you know, and I didn't +have to work a stroke at earning it. God! I wonder how a fellow can +stand it to work for every dollar he gets until he is comfortably fixed. +I simply filled in my banking-hours in a perfunctory way, and I didn't +kill myself at it, either. See what I have saved by it for myself and +you, and how much better my course was than yours, after all. Just three +years of waiting, and dodging all the drudgery I possibly could. And you +can just bet I'm a good dodger, Jerry." + +Something like a chill went quivering through Jerry Swaim's whole being, +but the smile in her eyes seemed fixed there, as Eugene went on: + +"Now if I had stuck to art, where would I have been and where would you +be right now? I've always wanted to paint the prairies. If I can stand +this blasted, crude country long enough, and if I'm not too lazy, we'll +play around here a little while, till I have smeared up a few canvases, +and then we'll go home, never to return, dear. Art is going to be my +pastime hereafter, you know, as it was once my--my--" + +"Oh, never mind what it once was." Jerry helped to end the sentence. + +The sunset on the Sage Brush was never more radiantly beautiful than it +was on this evening, and the long midsummer twilight gave promise of its +rarest grandeur of coloring. But a dull veil seemed to be slowly +dropping down upon Jerry's world. + +Eugene Wellington looked at her keenly. + +"Why, Jerry, aren't you happy to see me--glad for us to be together +again?" he asked, with just a tinge of sharpness edging his tones. + +"I have looked forward to this meeting as a dream, an impossible joy. I +hardly realize yet that it isn't a dream any more," Jerry answered him. + +"Say, cousin girl," Eugene Wellington exclaimed, suddenly, "I have been +trying all this time to find out what it is that is changed in your +face. Now I know. You have grown to look so much more like your father +than you did three years ago. Better looking, of course, but his face, +and I never noticed it before. Only you will always have your mother's +beautiful eyes." + +"Thank you, Gene. They were, each in his and her way, good to me. I hope +I shall never put a stain upon their good names," Jerry murmured, +wondering strangely whether the feeling that gripped her at the moment +could be joy or sorrow. + +"They didn't leave you much of an inheritance. That's the only thing +that could be said against them. My father was partly to blame for that, +I guess, but I never had the courage to tell you so till now. You know +courage and Eugene Wellington never got on well together." Somehow his +words seemed to rattle harshly against Jerry's ears. "You know, my dad, +John Wellington, came out here to this very forsaken Sage Brush Valley +somewhere and started in to be a millionaire himself on short notice, +by the short-cut plan of finance. When the thing began to look like work +he threw up the whole blamed concern, just as I would have done. Work +never was a strong element in the Wellington blood, any more than +courage, you know." Gene stopped to light another cigarette. Then he +went on: "Well, after that, dad clung close to Jim Swaim and Uncle Darby +till he died. I guess, if the truth were told, he helped most to tear +your father down financially. He could do that kind of thing, I know. +Jim Swaim spent thousands stopping the cracks after dad, to save the +good name of Wellington for his daughter to wear--as your mother always +hoped you would, because I was an artist then. You see, Mrs. Swaim loved +art--and, as Aunt Darby always insisted (that was before you ran away +from her), because it would keep her money and Uncle Darby's all in the +family. That's why I'm so glad to bring all this fortune that I do to +you now. I'm just making up to you what your father lost through mine, +you see, and it came to me so easily, without my having to grub for it. +Just pleasing Aunt Darby and taking a soft snap of clerical work, with +short hours and good pay, instead of toiling at painting, even if I do +love the old palette and brush. And I used to think I'd rather do that +sort of thing than anything else in the world." + +Jerry's eyes were fixed on the young artist's face with a gaze that +troubled him. + +"Don't stare at me that way, Jerry. That isn't the picture I want you to +pose for when I paint your portrait, Saint Geraldine. Now listen," +Eugene continued. "Your York Macpherson was East this spring, and he +told me that that wild-goose chase of dad's out here had left a desert +behind him. He said a poor devil of a fellow had fought for years +against the sand that dad sowed (I don't know how he did the sowing), +till it ate up about all this poor wretch had ever had. The unfortunate +cuss! York tried to tell Aunt Darby (but I headed him off successfully) +that dad started a thing that became what they call a 'blowout' here. +York Macpherson wanted to put up a big spiel to her about justice to you +and some other folks--this poor critter who got sanded over, maybe. But +it didn't move me one mite, and I didn't let it get by to Aunt Jerry's +ears, although I half-way promised York I would, to get rid of the thing +the easiest way, for that's my way, you know. Did you ever see such a +precious thing as a 'blowout' here, Jerry?" + +Jerry's face was white and her eyes burned blue-black now with a steady +glow. "Never, till to-night," she said, slowly. "I never dreamed till +now how barren a thing a lust for property can create." + +Gene Wellington dropped his cigarette stub and stared a moment. He did +not grasp her meaning at all, but her voice was not so pleasant, now, as +her merry laugh and soft words had been three years ago. + +"By the way, coming up to-day, I heard of a dramatic situation. I think +I'll hunt up the local color for a canvas for it," Eugene began, by way +of changing the theme. "You know you had a horribly rotten storm of +thunder and lightning and wind, and a cloudburst down the river valley +where our train was stuck in the mud, and the tracks were all lost in +the sand-drift and other vile debris. Well, coming up here from the +derailed train, some one said that the young fellow who had leased that +land, or owned the land, that is just above the sand-line, the poor +devil who had such a struggle, you know--well, he was lost when the +river overflowed its banks. But somebody else said he might be marooned, +half starved, on an island of sand out in the river, waiting for the +flood to go down. The roads are just impassable around there, so they +can't get in to see what has become of him. His house was washed away, +it seems--I saw a part of it in the river--but nobody knows where he is. +Hard luck, wasn't it? I know you'll be glad to leave this God-forsaken +country, won't you, dearie? How you ever stood it for three whole years +I can't comprehend. Only you always were the bravest girl I ever knew. +Just as soon as I paint a few of its drearinesses we'll be leaving it +forever. What's the matter?" + +Jerry Swaim had sprung to her feet and was standing, white and silent, +staring at her companion with wide-open, burning eyes. Against all the +culture and idle ease of her trivial, purposeless years were matched +these three times twelve months of industry and purpose that came at a +price, with the comradeship of one who had met life's foes and +vanquished them, who earned his increase, and served and sacrificed. + +"What's the matter, Jerry?" Gene repeated. "Did I shock you? It is a +tragical sort of story, I know, but you used to love the romantic and +adventurous. Every big storm, and every flood, has such incidents. I +never remember them a minute, except the storm that took Uncle Cornie +and left me a fortune. They are so unpleasant. But there is a touch of +romance in this for you. They told me that a young Norwegian girl down +there was moving heaven and earth to find this poor lost devil, because +he had been so good to her always and had helped her when her brother +was badly hurt. I guess her brother went down-stream, bottom side up, +too. See the drift of it all? The time, the place, and the girl--there's +your romance, Cousin Jerry, only the actors are terribly common, you +know." + +Who can forecast the trend of the human heart? Three days ago Jerry had +thought complacently of the convenience of this stout little Thelma for +Joe's future comfort. Now the thought that Thelma had seen him last, had +caught the last word, the last brave look, smote her heart with +anguish. + +"Doesn't anybody know where Joe is?" she cried, wringing her hands. + +"I don't know if his name is Joe. I don't know if anybody knows where he +is. I really don't care a sou about it all, Jerry." Gene drawled his +words intentionally. "The roads are awful down that way. They nearly +bumped me to pieces coming up, hours and hours, it seemed, in a wagon, +where a decent highway and an automobile would have brought me in such a +short time. It would be hard to find this Joe creature, dead or alive. +Let's talk about something more artistic." + +"Gene, I can't talk now. I can't stay here a minute longer. I _must_ go +and find this man. I must! I must!" + +In the frenzy of that moment, the strength of character in Jerry's face +made it wonderful to see. + +"Jerry!" Eugene Wellington exclaimed, emphatically. "You perfectly shock +me! This horrid country has almost destroyed your culture. Go and find +this man--" + +But Jerry was already hurrying up the street toward Ponk's Commercial +Hotel and Garage. + +<tb> + +"Miss Swaim, you can't never get by in a car down there," Ponk was +urging, five minutes later. "I know you can drive like--like you can +work algebra, logyruthms, and never slip a cog. But you'll never get +down the Sage Brush that far to-night. If them Norwegians on beyond the +ranch yon side of the big bend 'ain't done nothing, you just can't. The +Ekblads and the other neighbors will do all a body can, especially +Thelmy. The river's clear changed its channel an' you could run a car up +to the top of Bunker Hill Monument, back in New Hampshire, easier than +you could cut the gullies an' hit the levels of the lower Sage Brush +trail after this flood." + +"Get the car ready quick. _I want to go_," Jerry commanded, and Ponk +obeyed. A minute later a gray streak whizzed by the Macpherson home, +where Eugene Wellington stood on the porch staring in speechless +amazement. + +"Bless her heart!" he ejaculated, at length. "She is self-willed like +her dad. Aunt Darby always told me I'd have to manage her with gloves +on, but not to forget to manage her, anyhow." + +He strolled back to the Commercial Hotel, where the best-natured man in +Kansas lay in wait for him. + +"You're in early. Have a real cigar--a regular Havany-de-Cuby--off of +me. An' take a smoke out here where it's cool." + +Eugene took the proffered cigar and the seat on the side porch of the +hotel that commanded a view of the street clear to "Castle Cluny." + +"Town's pretty quiet this evenin'. All the men are gone up-stream or +down, to see if they can help in the storm region. Every store shut up +tight as wax. Three preachers, station-agent, the three movie men--gone +with the rest. We are a sympathetic bunch out here, an' rather quick to +get the S O S signal and respond noble." + +"So it seems," Eugene replied, wondering the while how he should be able +to kill the time till Jerry's return, resolving not to tarry here to +paint a single canvas. The sooner Geraldine Swaim was out of Kansas the +better for her perverted sense of the esthetic, and the safer for her +happiness--and his own. + +"Yes," Ponk was going on to say, "everybody helps. Why, I just now let +out the pride of the gurrage to a young lady. She's just heard that a +man she knows well is lost or marooned on a island in the floods of the +Sage Brush. And if anybody'll ever save him, she will. She's been doin' +impossible things here for three years, and the town just worships her." + +"I should think it would," Eugene Wellington said, with a sarcasm in his +tone. + +"It does," Ponk assured him. "She's the real stuff--even mother, out +yonder, loves her." + +The little man's face was turned momentarily toward the hill-slope +cemetery beyond the town. "And when a girl like that comes to me for my +fastest-powered car to go where no car can't go, for the sake of as good +a man as ever lived on earth, a man she's been _comrading_ with for +three years, and with that look in her fine eyes, they's no mistakin' to +any sensible man on God's earth why she's doin' it." + +"If my room is ready I'll go to it," Eugene broke in, curtly. + +"Yes, Georgette, call George to take the gentleman to number seven, an' +put him to bed." + +Then the little keeper of the Commercial Hotel and Garage turned toward +the street again, and his full-moon face went into a total eclipse. But +what lay back of that shadow of the earth upon it no man but Junius +Brutus Ponk could know. + + + + +XIX + +RECLAIMED + + +Down the Sage Brush trail Jerry Swaim's car swept on in spite of ruts +and gullies and narrow roadways and obstructing debris, flood-washed +across the land. But though the machine leaped and climbed and skidded +most perilously, nothing daunted the girl with a grip on the +steering-wheel. The storm-center of destruction had been at the big bend +of the river, and no hand less skilful, nor will less determined, would +have dared to drive a car as Jerry Swaim drove hers into the heart of +the Sage Brush flood-lands in the twilight of this June evening. + +Where the forks of the trail should have been the girl paused and looked +down the road she had followed three years before; once when she had +lost her way in her drive toward the Swaim estate; again, when she +herself was lost in the overwhelming surprise and disappointment of her +ruined acres; and lastly when she had come with Joe Thomson to recover +her stolen money from the old grub whose shack was close beside the deep +fishing-hole. The road now was all a part of the mad, overwhelming Sage +Brush hurrying its flood waters to the southeast with all its might. +Where was the flimsy little shack now, and where was the old Teddy Bear +himself? Did his shabby form lie under the swirling current of that +angry river, his heroic old heart stilled forever? + +A group of rescuers, muddy and tired, came around a growth of low bushes +on the higher ground toward her. All day they had been locating homeless +flood victims, rescuing stock, and dragging farm implements above the +water-line. The sight of Ponk's best car, mud-smeared and panting, +amazed them. This wasn't a place for cars. But the face of the driver +amazed them more. + +"Why, it's Miss Swaim, that teacher up at New Eden!" one man exclaimed. + +At the word, a boy, unrecognizable for the mud caking him over, leaped +forward toward Jerry's car. + +"What are you doing, Miss Swaim?" he cried. "You mustn't go any farther! +The river's undermined everything! Please don't go! Please don't!" he +pleaded. + +"Why, Clare Lenwell!" Jerry exclaimed, in surprise. + +"Yes. This isn't my full-dress I wore at Commencement the other night, +but I've been saving lives to-day, and feeding the hungry, too," the boy +declared, forgetting his besmeared clothing in the thought of his +service. + +"Tell me, Clare, where is Joe Thomson--I mean the young man whose ranch +is just below here." + +Clare's face couldn't go white under that mud, but Jerry saw his hand +tremble as it caught the edge of her wind-shield. + +"He's gone down-stream, I'm afraid. They say his home is clean gone. We +have been across the river and came over on that high bridge. I don't +know much about this side. They said Thelma Ekblad tried to save him and +nearly got lost herself. Her brother, the cripple, you know, couldn't +get away. Their house is gone now. He and the Belkap baby were given up +for lost when old Fishin' Teddy got to them some way. He knew the high +stepping-stones below the deep hole and hit them true every step. They +said he went nearly neck deep holding Paul and striking solid rock every +time. He'd lived by the river so long he knew the crossing, deep as the +flood was over it. Paul made him take the baby first, and he got out +with it, all right, and would have been safe, but he was bound to go +back for Paul, too; and he got him safe to land, where the baby was; but +I guess the effort was too much for the old fellow, and he loosed his +hold and fell back into the river before they could catch him. He saved +two lives, though, and he wasn't any use to the community, anyhow. A man +that lives alone like that never is, so it isn't much loss, after all. +But that big Joe Thomson's another matter. And he was so strong, he +could swim like a whale; but the Sage Brush got him--I'm afraid." + +Jerry's engine gave a great thump as she flung on all the power and +dashed away on the upper road toward Joe Thomson's ranch. + +"At the bend of the river you turn toward the three cottonwoods." Jerry +recalled the directions given her on her first and only journey down +this valley three years before. + +"Why, why, there is no bend any more!" she cried as she halted her car +and gazed in amazement and horror at the river valley where a broad, +full stream poured down a new-cut channel straight to the south. + +"Joe's home isn't gone at all! Yonder it stands, safe and high above the +flood-line. Oh, where did the river take Joe?" She twisted her hands in +her old quick, nervous way, and stiffened every muscle as if to keep off +a dead weight that was crushing down upon her. + +"He said if I wanted him he would be down beyond the blowout. I'm going +to look for him there. I don't know where else to go, and I want him." + +The white, determined face and firm lips bespoke Jim Swaim's own child +now. And if the speed of her car was increased, no one would ever know +that the thought of reaching her goal ahead of any possible Thelma might +be the impetus that gave the increase. + +"Yonder are the three cotton woods. From there I can see the oak-grove +and all of my rare old acres of sand. What beautiful wheat everywhere! +The storm seems to have hit the other side of the river as it runs now, +and left all this fine crop to Joe. But what for, if it took him?" + +Her quick imagination pictured possibilities too dreadful for words. + +<tb> + +Down in the oak-grove, Joe Thomson stood leaning against a low bough, +staring out at the river valley, with the shimmering glow of the +twilight sky above it. At the soft whirring sound of an automobile he +turned, to see a gray runabout coasting down the long slope from the +three cottonwoods. + +"Jerry!" The glad cry broke from his lips involuntarily. + +Jerry did not speak. After the first instant of assurance that Joe was +alive, her eyes were not on the young ranchman, but on the landscape +beyond him. There, billow on billow of waving young wheat breaking +against the oak-wood outpost swept in from far away, where once she had +looked out on nothing but burning, restless sand, spiked here and there +by a struggling green shrub. + +"What has done all this?" she cried, at last. + +"I'm partly 'what,'" Joe Thomson replied. The shadows were on his face +again, and his loss, after that moment of glad surprise, seemed to be +doubly heavy. + +"But how? I don't understand. I'm dreaming. You really are here, and not +dead, are you?" + +"No, you are not dreaming. I only wish you were," Joe responded, +gloomily. "But no matter. Yes, I'm here. 'Part of me lived, but most of +me died,'" he muttered Kipling's line half audibly. "I subleased your +land from the Macpherson Mortgage Company three years ago. The lease +expires to-day. You remember what it was worth when you saw it before. I +shall hand it over to you now, worth thirty dollars an acre. Thirty +thousand dollars, at the very least, besides the value of the crop. I +got beyond the blowout and followed it up. I plowed and planted. Lord! +how I plowed and planted! And as with old Paul and Apollos, it was God +who gave the increase." + +"Joe! Oh, Joe! You are a miracle-worker!" Jerry cried. + +"A worker, all right, maybe. And all life is a miracle," Joe declared, +gravely. + +"But your own land, Joe. They told me that your house was gone and that +maybe you had gone with it, and that these roads down here were +impassable and nobody could find you." + +Joe came to the side of the little gray car where Jerry sat with her +white hands crossed on the steering-wheel. Her soft white gown, fitted +for a summer afternoon on the Macpherson porch, seemed far more lovely +in the evening light down by the oak-trees. Her golden hair was blown in +little ringlets about her forehead, and her dark-blue eyes--Joe wondered +if Nature ever gave such eyes to another human being! + +"No, Jerry, my house isn't gone. My father built it up pretty high above +the river, and I saved almost everything loose before the flood reached +my place. It was the Ekblad house that went down the river. I went over +there to help Thelma get her brother and the baby to safety on the high +ground. She had started out to warn old Fishin' Teddy, thinking her own +family was secure, and afraid he would get caught. She could not get +back to them, nor anywhere else. I saved her, all right, but when I went +back after Paul and the baby, the home and those in it were gone +down-stream. Thelma thought we were all lost. That's how the story got +started. Old Teddy is gone, but I heard later that the others are saved. +Their home wasn't worth so very much. They got most of the real +valuable things--photographs of their dead father and mother, and the +family Bible, and deeds, and a few trinkets. Other things don't count. +Money will replace them. Anyhow, York Macpherson is buying their land at +a good figure. It will give Thelma the chance she's wanted--to go to a +college town and teach botany. She will make her way and carry a name +among educators yet, and support Paul and the baby, all right, too. Did +the folks miss me and say I had gone down the river? Well, I didn't. I'm +here. And as to all this"--he waved his hand toward the wheat--"I can +net a right good bank-account for myself and I can pay off the mortgage +I put on my claim to pay the lease on yours, and for steam-plows and +such things. It has been a bumper year for wheat down here. I have +reclaimed the land from the desert. It will revert to you now--you and +your artist cousin jointly, I suppose. The river helped to finish the +work for me--found its old bed in that low sandy streak where years ago +the blowout began. It has straightened its bend for itself and got away +from that ledge below the deep hole, and left the rest of the ground, +all the upper portion of the blowout, yours and mine, covered with a +fine silt, splendid for cultivation. The blowout is dead. It took hard +work and patience and a big risk, of course, and the Lord Almighty at +last for a partner in the firm to kill it off. Your own comes back to +you now. Can I be of any further service to you?" + +As he stood there with folded arms beside the car, tall and rugged, with +the triumph of overcoming deep written on his sad face, the width of the +earth seemed suddenly to yawn between him and the lucky artist who had +inherited a fortune without labor. + +"You have done more than to reclaim this ground, Joe," Jerry exclaimed. +"Miraculous as it all is, there is a bigger desert than this, the waste +and useless desert in the human heart. You have helped to reclaim to a +better life a foolish, romancing, daring girl, with no true conception +of what makes life worth while. All the Sage Brush Valley has been good +to me. York and Laura Macpherson in their well-bred, wholesome +friendship; little Mr. Ponk in his deep love for his mother and faith in +God; even old Teddy Bear, poor lost creature, in his sublime devotion to +duty, protecting the woman he had vowed once at the marriage altar that +he would protect; and, most of all"--Jerry's voice was soft and low--"a +sturdy, brave young farmer has helped me by his respect for honest labor +and his willingness to sacrifice for others. + +"Joe"--Jerry spoke more softly still--"when you said good-by the other +night in the storm, you told me that if I ever wanted you I'd find you +down beyond the blowout. The word was like a blow in the face then. But +to-night I left Cousin Gene up at New Eden and came here to find you, +because _I want you_." + +With all of Jim Swaim's power to estimate values written in her firm +mouth and chin, but with Lesa Swaim's love of romance shining in her +dark eyes, Jerry looked up shyly at Joe. And Joe understood. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Reclaimers, by Margaret Hill McCarter + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RECLAIMERS *** + +***** This file should be named 33959-8.txt or 33959-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/9/5/33959/ + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Roger Frank, Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: The Reclaimers + +Author: Margaret Hill McCarter + +Release Date: September 30, 2010 [EBook #33959] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RECLAIMERS *** + + + + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Roger Frank, Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h1>THE RECLAIMERS</h1> + +<h2>BY MARGARET HILL McCARTER</h2> + +<h3><i>Author of</i> "VANGUARDS OF THE PLAINS"</h3> + + +<h3>HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br /> +NEW YORK AND LONDON</h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Reclaimers</span></h3> + +<h3>Copyright, 1918, by Harper & Brothers</h3> + +<h3>Printed in the United States of America</h3> + +<h3>Published October, 1918</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>TO<br /> +MAY BELLEVILLE BROWN<br /> +CRITIC, COUNSELLOR, COMFORTER</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/front.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#PI">PART I. JERRY</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#I">I. <span class="smcap">The Heir Apparent</span></a><br /> +<a href="#II">II. <span class="smcap">Uncle Cornie's Throw</span></a><br /> +<a href="#III">III. <span class="smcap">Hitching the Wagon to a Star</span></a><br /> +<a href="#IV">IV. <span class="smcap">Between Edens</span></a><br /> +<a href="#V">V. <span class="smcap">New Eden's Problem</span></a><br /> +<a href="#VI">VI. <span class="smcap">Paradise Lost</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#PII">PART II. JERRY AND JOE</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#VII">VII. <span class="smcap">Unhitching the Wagon from a Star</span></a><br /> +<a href="#VIII">VIII. <span class="smcap">If a Man Went Right with Himself</span></a><br /> +<a href="#IX">IX. <span class="smcap">If a Woman Went Right with Herself</span></a><br /> +<a href="#X">X. <span class="smcap">The Snare of the Fowler</span></a><br /> +<a href="#XI">XI. <span class="smcap">An Interlude in "Eden"</span></a><br /> +<a href="#XII">XII. <span class="smcap">This Side of the Rubicon</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#PIII">PART III. JERRY AND EUGENE—AND JOE</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#XIII">XIII. <span class="smcap">How a Good Mother Lives On</span></a><br /> +<a href="#XIV">XIV. <span class="smcap">Jim Swaim's Wish</span></a><br /> +<a href="#XV">XV. <span class="smcap">Drawing Out Leviathan with a Hook</span></a><br /> +<a href="#XVI">XVI. <span class="smcap">A Postlude in "Eden"</span></a><br /> +<a href="#XVII">XVII. <span class="smcap">The Flesh-pots of the Winnwoc</span></a><br /> +<a href="#XVIII">XVIII. <span class="smcap">The Lord Hath His Way in the Storm</span></a><br /> +<a href="#XIX">XIX. <span class="smcap">Reclaimed</span></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE RECLAIMERS</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PI" id="PI"></a>I</h2> + +<h3>JERRY</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + +<h3>THE HEIR APPARENT</h3> + + +<p>Only the good little snakes were permitted to enter the "Eden" that +belonged to Aunt Jerry and Uncle Cornie Darby. "Eden," it should be +explained, was the country estate of Mrs. Jerusha Darby—a wealthy +Philadelphian—and her husband, Cornelius Darby, a relative by marriage, +so to speak, whose sole business on earth was to guard his wife's wealth +for six hours of the day in the city, and to practise discus-throwing +out at "Eden" for two hours every evening.</p> + +<p>Of course these two were never familiarly "Aunt" and "Uncle" to this +country neighborhood, nor to any other community. Far, oh, far from +that! They were Aunt and Uncle only to Jerry Swaim, the orphaned and +only child of Mrs. Darby's brother Jim, whose charming girlish presence +made the whole community, wherever she might chance to be. They were +cousin, however, to Eugene Wellington, a young artist of more than +ordinary merit, also orphaned and alone, except for a sort of cousinship +with Uncle Cornelius.</p> + +<p>"Eden" was a beautifully located and handsomely appointed estate of two +hundred acres, offering large facilities to any photographer seeking +magazine illustrations of country life in America. Indeed, the place +was, as Aunt Jerry Darby declared, "summer and winter, all shot up by +camera-toters and dabbed over with canvas-stretchers' paints," much to +the owner's disgust, to whom all camera-toters and artists, except +Cousin Eugene Wellington, were useless idlers. The rustic little railway +station, hidden by maple-trees, was only three or four good +discus-throws from the house. But the railroad itself very properly +dropped from view into a wooded valley on either side of the station. +There was nothing of cindery ugliness to mar the spot where the dwellers +in "Eden" could take the early morning train for the city, or drop off +in the cool of the afternoon into a delightful pastoral retreat. Beyond +the lawns and buildings, gardens and orchards, the land billowed away +into meadow and pasture and grain-field, with an insert of leafy grove +where song-birds builded an Eden all their own. The entire freehold of +Aunt Jerry Darby and Uncle Cornie, set down in the middle of a Western +ranch, would have been a day's journey from its borders. And yet in it +country life was done into poetry, combining city luxuries and +conveniences with the dehorned, dethorned comfort and freedom of idyllic +nature. What more need be said for this "Eden" into which only the good +little snakes were permitted to enter?</p> + +<p>In the late afternoon Aunt Jerry sat in the rose-arbor with her Japanese +work-basket beside her, and a pearl tatting-shuttle between her thumb +and fingers. One could read in a thoughtful glance all there was to know +of Mrs. Darby. Her alert air and busy hands bespoke the habit of +everlasting industry fastened down upon her, no doubt, in a far-off +childhood. She was luxurious in her tastes. The satin gown, the diamond +fastening the little cap to her gray hair, the elegant lace at her +throat and wrists, the flashing jewels on her thin fingers, all +proclaimed a desire for display and the means wherewith to pamper it. +The rest of her story was written on her wrinkled face, where the strong +traits of a self-willed youth were deeply graven. Something in the +narrow, restless eyes suggested the discontented lover of wealth. The +lines of the mouth hinted at selfishness and prejudice. The square chin +told of a stubborn will, and the stern cast of features indicated no +sense of humor whereby the hardest face is softened. That Jerusha Darby +was rich, intolerant, determined, unimaginative, self-centered, +unforgiving, and unhappy the student of character might gather at a +glance. Where these traits abide a second glance is unnecessary.</p> + +<p>Outside, the arbor was aglow with early June roses; within, the +cushioned willow seats invite to restful enjoyment. But Jerusha Darby +was not there for pleasure. While her pearl shuttle darted in and out +among her fingers like a tiny, iridescent bird, her mind and tongue were +busy with important matters.</p> + +<p>Opposite to her was her husband, Cornelius. It was only important +matters that called him away from his business in the city at so early +an hour in the afternoon. And it was only on business matters that he +and his wife ever really conferred, either in the rose-arbor or +elsewhere. The appealing beauty of the place indirectly meant nothing to +these two owners of all this beauty.</p> + +<p>The most to be said of Cornelius Darby was that he was born the son of a +rich man and he died the husband of a rich woman. His life, like his +face, was colorless. He fitted into the landscape and his presence was +never detected. He had no opinions of his own. His father had given him +all that he needed to think about until he was married. "Was married" is +well said. He never courted nor married anybody. He was never courted, +but he was married by Jerusha Swaim. But that is all dried stuff now. +Let it be said, however, that not all the mummies are in Egyptian tombs +and Smithsonian Institutions. Some of them sit in banking-houses all day +long, and go discus-throwing in lovely "Edens" on soft June evenings. +And one of them once, just once, broke the ancient linen wrappings from +his glazed jaws and spoke. For half an hour his voice was heard; and +then the bandages slipped back, and the mummy was all mummy again. It +was Jerry Swaim who wrought that miracle. But then there is little in +the earth, or the waters under the earth, that a pretty girl cannot work +upon.</p> + +<p>"You say you have the report on the Swaim estate that the Macpherson +Mortgage Company of New Eden, Kansas, is taking care of for us?" Mrs. +Darby asked.</p> + +<p>"The complete report. York Macpherson hasn't left out a detail. Shall I +read you his description?" her husband replied.</p> + +<p>"No, no; don't tell me a thing about it, not a thing. I don't want to +know any more about Kansas than I know already. I hate the very name of +Kansas. You can understand why, when you remember my brother. I've known +York Macpherson all his life, him and his sister Laura, too. And I never +could understand why he went so far West, nor why he dragged that lame +sister of his out with him to that Sage Brush country."</p> + +<p>"That's because you won't let me tell you anything about the West. But +as a matter of business you ought to understand the conditions +connected with this estate."</p> + +<p>"I tell you again I won't listen to it, not one word. He is employed to +look after the property, not to write about it. None of my family ever +expects to see it. When we get ready to study its value we will give due +notice. Now let the matter of description, location, big puffing up of +its value—I know all that Kansas talk—let all that drop here." Jerusha +Darby unconsciously stamped her foot on the cement floor of the arbor +and struck her thin palm flat upon the broad arm of her chair.</p> + +<p>"Very well, Jerusha. If Jerry ever wants to know anything about its +extent, agricultural value, water-supply, crop returns, etc., she will +find them on file in my office. The document says that the land in the +Sage Brush Valley in Kansas is now, with title clear, the property of +the estate of the late Jeremiah Swaim and his heirs and assigns forever; +that York Macpherson will, for a very small consideration, be the Kansas +representative of the Swaim heirs. That is all I have to say about it."</p> + +<p>"Then listen to me," Mrs. Darby commanded. And her listener—listened. +"Jerry Swaim is Brother Jim and Sister Lesa's only child. She's been +brought up in luxury; never wanted a thing she didn't get, and never +earned a penny in her life. She couldn't do it to save her life. If I +outlive you she will be my heir if I choose to make my will in her +favor. She can be taken care of without that Kansas property of hers. +That's enough about the matter. We will drop it right here for other +things. There's your cousin Eugene Wellington coming home again. He's a +real artist and hasn't any property at all."</p> + +<p>A ghost of a smile flitted across Mr. Darby's blank face, but Mrs. Darby +never saw ghosts.</p> + +<p>"Of course Jerry and Gene, who have been playmates in the same game all +their lives, will—will—" Mrs. Darby hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Will keep on playing the same game," Cornelius suggested. "If that's +all about this business, I'll go and look after the lily-ponds over +yonder, and then take a little exercise before dinner. I'm sorry I +missed Jerry in the city. She doesn't know I am out here."</p> + +<p>"What difference if you did? She and Eugene will be coming out on the +train pretty soon," Mrs. Darby declared.</p> + +<p>"She doesn't know he's there, maybe. They may miss each other," her +husband replied.</p> + +<p>Then he left the arbor and effaced himself, as was his custom, from his +wife's presence, and busied himself with matters concerning the +lily-ponds on the far side of the grounds where pink lotuses were +blooming.</p> + +<p>Meantime Jerusha Darby's fingers fairly writhed about her tatting-work, +as she waited impatiently for the sound of the afternoon train from the +city.</p> + +<p>"It's time the four-forty was whistling round the curve," she murmured. +"My girl will soon be here, unless the train is delayed by that bridge +down yonder. Plague on these June rains!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Darby said "my girl" exactly as she would have said "my bank +stock," or "my farm." Hers was the tone of complete possession.</p> + +<p>"She could have come out in the auto in half the time, the four-forty +creeps so, but the roads are dreadfully skiddy after these abominable +rains," Mrs. Darby continued.</p> + +<p>The habit of speaking her thoughts aloud had grown on her, as it often +does on those advanced in years who live much alone. The little vista of +rain-washed meadows and growing grain that lay between tall lilac-trees +was lost to her eyes in the impatience of the moment's delay. What +Jerusha Darby wanted for Jerusha Darby was vastly more important to her +at any moment than the abstract value of a general good or a common +charm.</p> + +<p>As she leaned forward, listening intently for the rumble of the train +down in the valley, a great automobile swung through the open gateway of +"Eden" and rounded the curves of the maple-guarded avenue, bearing down +with a birdlike sweep upon the rose-arbor.</p> + +<p>"Here I am, Aunt Jerry," the driver's girlish voice called. "Uncle +Cornie is coming out on the train. I beat him to it. I saw the old +engine huffing and puffing at the hill beyond the third crossing of the +Winnowoc. It is bank-full now from the rains. I stopped on that high +fill and watched the train down below me creeping out on the trestle +above the creek. When it got across and went crawling into the cut on +this side I came on, too. I had my hands full then making this big gun +of a car climb that muddy, slippery hill that the railroad cuts through. +But I'd rather climb than creep any old day."</p> + +<p>"Jerry Swaim," Mrs. Darby cried, staring up at her niece in amazement, +"do you mean to say you drove out alone over that sideling, slippery +bluff road? But you wouldn't be Lesa Swaim's daughter if you weren't +taking chances. You are your mother's own child, if there ever was one."</p> + +<p>"Well, I should hope I am, since I've got to be classified somewhere. I +came because I wanted to," Jerry declared, with the finality of complete +excuse in her tone. All her life what Jerry Swaim had wanted was +abundant reason for her having. "It was dreadfully hot and sticky in the +city, and I knew it would be the bottom deep of mugginess on that +crowded Winnowoc train. The last time I came out here on it I had to sit +beside a dreadful big Dutchman who had an old hen and chickens in a +basket under his feet. He had had Limburger cheese for his dinner and +had used his whiskers for a napkin to catch the crumbs. Ugh!" Jerry gave +a shiver of disgust at the recollection. "An old lady behind us had +'<i>sky</i>-atick rheumatiz' and wouldn't let the windows be opened. I'd +rather have any kind of 'rheumatiz' than Limburger for the same length +of time. The Winnowoc special ought to carry a parlor coach from the +city and set it off at 'Eden' like it used to do. The agent let me play +in it whenever I wanted to when I was a youngster. I'm never going to +ride on any train again unless I go in a Pullman."</p> + +<p>The girl struck her small gloved fist, like a spoiled child, against the +steering-wheel of her luxuriously appointed car, but her winsome smile +was all-redeeming as she looked down at her aunt standing in the doorway +of the rose-arbor.</p> + +<p>"Come in here, Geraldine Swaim. I want to talk to you." Mrs. Darby's +affectionate tones carried also a note of command.</p> + +<p>"Means business when she 'Geraldine Swaims' me," Jerry commented, +mentally, as she gave the car to the "Eden" man-of-all-work and followed +her aunt to a seat inside the blossom-covered retreat, where the pearl +shuttle began to grow tatting again beneath the thin, busy fingers.</p> + +<p>It always pleased Jerusha Darby to be told that there was a resemblance +between these two. But, although the older woman's countenance was an +open book holding the story of inherited ideas, limited and intensified, +and the young face unmistakably perpetuated the family likeness, yet +Jerry Swaim was a type of her own, not easy to forejudge. In the shadows +of the rose-arbor her hair rippled back from her forehead in dull-gold +waves. One could picture what the sunshine would do for it. Her big, +dark-blue eyes were sometimes dreamy under their long lashes, and +sometimes full of sparkling light. Her whole atmosphere was that of +easeful, dependent, city life; yet there was something contrastingly +definite in her low voice, her firm mouth and square-cut chin. And +beyond appearances and manner, there was something which nobody ever +quite defined, that made it her way to walk straight into the hearts of +those who knew her.</p> + +<p>"Where were you in the city to-day?" Mrs. Darby asked, abruptly, looking +keenly at the fair-faced girl much as she would have looked at any other +of her goodly possessions.</p> + +<p>"Let me see," Jerry Swaim began, meditatively. "I was shopping quite a +while. The stores are gorgeous this June."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and what else?" queried the older woman.</p> + +<p>"Oh, some more shopping. Then I lunched at <i>La Seņorita</i>, that beautiful +new tea-house. Every room represents some nationality in its decoration. +I was in the Delft room—Holland Dutch—whiskers and Limburger"—there +was a gleam of fun in the dark-blue eyes—"but it is restful and +charming. And the service is perfect. Then I strolled off to the Art +Gallery and lost myself in the latest exhibit. Cousin Gene would like +that, I'm sure. It was so cool and quiet there that I stayed a long +time. The exhibit is mostly of landscapes, all of them as beautiful as +'Eden' except one."</p> + +<p>There was just a shade of something different in the girl's tone when +she spoke her cousin's name.</p> + +<p>"And that one?" Mrs. Darby inquired. She did not object to shopping and +more shopping, but art was getting outside of her dominion.</p> + +<p>"It was a desert-like scene; just yellow-gray plains, with no trees at +all. And in the farther distance the richest purples and reds of a +sunset sky into which the land sort of diffused. No landscape on this +earth was ever so yellow-gray, or any sunset ever so like the Book of +Revelation, nor any horizon-line so wide and far away. It was the +hyperbole of a freakish imagination. And yet, Aunt Jerry, there was a +romantic lure in the thing, somehow."</p> + +<p>Jerry Swaim's face was grave as she gazed with wide, unseeing eyes at +the vista of fresh June meadows from which the odor of red clover, +pulsing in on the cool west breeze of the late afternoon, mingled with +the odor of white honeysuckle that twined among the climbing rose-vines +above her.</p> + +<p>"Humph! What else?" Aunt Jerry sniffed a disapproval of unpleasant +landscapes in general and alluring romances in particular. Love of +romance was not in her mental make-up, any more than love of art.</p> + +<p>"I went over to Uncle Cornie's bank to tell him to take care of my +shopping-bills. He wasn't in just then and I didn't wait for him. By +the way"—Jerry Swaim was not dreamy now—"since all the legal +litigations and things are over, oughtn't I begin to manage my own +affairs and live on my own income?"</p> + +<p>Sitting there in the shelter of blossoming vines, the girl seemed far +too dainty a creature, too lacking in experience, initiative, or +ability, to manage anything more trying than a big allowance of +pin-money. And yet, something in her small, firm hands, something in the +lines of her well-formed chin, put the doubt into any forecast of what +Geraldine Swaim might do when she chose to act.</p> + +<p>Aunt Jerry wrapped the lacy tatting stuff she had been making around the +pearl shuttle and, putting both away in the Japanese work-basket, +carefully snapped down the lid.</p> + +<p>"When Jerusha Darby quits work to talk it's time for me to put on my +skid-chains," Jerry said to herself as she watched the procedure.</p> + +<p>"Jerry, do you know why I called you your mother's own child just now?" +Mrs. Darby asked, gravely.</p> + +<p>"From habit, maybe, you have said it so often." Jerry's smile took away +any suggestion of pertness. "I know I am like her in some ways."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but not altogether," the older woman continued. "Lesa Swaim was a +strange combination. She was made to spend money, with no idea of how to +get money. And she brought you up the same way. And now you are grown, +boarding-school finished, and of age, you can't alter your bringing up +any more than you can change your big eyes that are just like Lesa's, +nor your chin that you inherited from Brother Jim. I might as well try +to give you little black eyes and a receding chin as to try to reshape +your ways now. You are as the Lord made you, and Providence molded you, +and your mother spoiled you."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't want to be anything different. I'm happy as I am."</p> + +<p>"You won't need to be, unless you choose. But being twenty-one doesn't +make you too old to listen to me—and your uncle Cornie."</p> + +<p>In all her life Jerry had never before heard her uncle's name brought in +as co-partner of Jerusha Darby's in any opinion, authority, or advice. +It was an unfortunate slip of the tongue for Uncle Cornie's wife, one of +those simple phrases that, dropped at the right spot, take root and grow +and bear big fruit, whether of sweet or bitter taste.</p> + +<p>"Your mother was a dreamer, a lover of romance, and all sorts of +adventures, although she never had a chance to get into any of them. +That's why you went skidding on that sideling bluff road to-day; that +and the fact that she brought you up to have your own way about +everything. But, as I say, we can't change that now, and there's no need +to if we could. Lesa was a pretty woman, but you look like the Swaims, +except right across here."</p> + +<p>Aunt Jerry drew her bony finger across the girl's brows, unwilling to +concede any of the family likeness that could possibly be retained. She +could not see the gleam of mischief lurking under the downcast eyelashes +of Lesa Swaim's own child.</p> + +<p>"Your father was a good business man, level-headed, shrewd, and +honest"—Mrs. Darby spoke rapidly now—"but things happened in the last +years of his life. Your mother took pneumonia and died, and you went +away to boarding-school. Jim's business was considerably involved. I +needn't bother to tell you about that. It doesn't matter now, anyhow. +And then one night he didn't come home, and the next morning your uncle +found him sitting in his office, just as he had left him the evening +before. He had been dead several hours. Heart failure was what the +doctor said, but I reckon everybody goes of heart failure sooner or +later."</p> + +<p>A bright, hard glow came into Jerry Swaim's eyes and the red lips were +grimly pressed together. In the two years since the loss of her parents +the girl had never tried to pray. As time went on the light spirit of +youth had come back, but something went out of her life on the day of +her father's death, leaving a loss against which she stubbornly +rebelled.</p> + +<p>"To be plain, Jerry," Mrs. Darby hurried on, "you have your inheritance +all cleared up at last, after two whole years of legal trouble."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it hasn't really bothered me," Jerry declared, with seeming +flippancy. "Just signing my name where somebody pointed to a blank line, +and holding up my right hand to be sworn—that's all. I've written my +full name and promised that the writing was mine, 's'welp me Gawd,' as +the court-house man used to say, till I could do either one under the +influence of ether. Nothing really bothersome about it, but I'm glad +it's over. Business is so tiresome."</p> + +<p>"It's not so large a fortune, by a good deal, as it would have been if +your father had listened to me." Mrs. Darby spoke vaguely. "But you will +be amply provided for, anyhow, unless you yourself choose to trifle with +your best interest. You and I are the only Swaims living now. Some day, +if I choose, I can will all my property to you."</p> + +<p>The square-cut chin and the deep lines around the stern mouth told +plainly that obedience to this woman's wishes alone could make a +beneficiary to that will.</p> + +<p>"You may be a dreamer, and love to go romancing around into new scrapes +like your mother would have done if she could. But she was as +soft-hearted as could be, with all that. That's why she never denied you +anything you wanted. She couldn't do a thing with money, though, as I +said, except spend it. You are a good deal like your father, too, Jerry, +and you'll value property some day as the only thing on earth that can +make life anything but a hard grind. If you don't want to be like that +bunch of everlasting grubs that ride on the Winnowoc train every +afternoon, or the poor country folks around here that never ride in +anything but a rickety old farm-wagon, you'll appreciate what I—and +Uncle Cornie—can do for you."</p> + +<p>Uncle Cornie again, and he never had shared in any equal consideration +before. It was a mistake.</p> + +<p>"There's the four-forty whistling for the curve at last. It's time it +was coming. I must go in and see that dinner is just right. You run down +and meet it. Cousin Eugene is coming out on it. Your uncle Cornie is +here on the place somewhere. He came out after lunch on some business we +had to fix up. No wonder you missed him. But, Jerry"—the stern-faced +woman put a hand on the girl's shoulder with more of command than caress +in the gesture—"Eugene is a real artist with genius, you know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," Jerry replied, a sudden change coming into her tone. +"What of that?"</p> + +<p>"You've always known him. You like him very much?" Jerusha Darby was as +awkward in sentiment as she was shrewd in a bargain.</p> + +<p>The bloom on the girl's cheek deepened as she looked away toward the +brilliantly green meadows across which the low sun was sending rays of +golden light.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I like him as much as he likes me, no doubt. I'll go down to the +station and look him over, if you say so."</p> + +<p>Beneath the words lay something deeper than speech—something new even +to the girl herself.</p> + +<p>As Jerry left the arbor Mrs. Darby said, with something half playful, +half final, in her tone: "You won't forget what I've said about +property, you little spendthrift. You will be sensible, like my sensible +brother's child, even if you are as idealizing as your sentimental +mother."</p> + +<p>"I'll not forget. I couldn't and be Jerry Darby's niece," the last added +after the girl was safely out of her aunt's hearing. "My father and +mother both had lots of good traits, it seems, and a few poor ones. I +seem to be really heir to all the faulty bents of theirs, and to have +lost out on all the good ones. But I can't help that now. Not till after +the train gets in, anyhow."</p> + +<p>Her aunt watched her till the shrubbery hid her at a turn in the walk. +Young, full of life, dainty as the June blossoms that showered her +pathway with petals, a spoiled, luxury-loving child, with an adventurous +spirit and a blunted and undeveloped notion of human service and divine +heritage, but with a latent capacity and an untrained power for doing +things, that was Jerry Swaim—whom the winds of heaven must not visit +too roughly without being accountable to Mrs. Jerusha Darby, owner and +manager of the universe for her niece.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + +<h3>UNCLE CORNIE'S THROW</h3> + + +<p>Jerry was waiting at the cool end of the rustic station when the train +came in. How hot and stuffy it seemed to her as it puffed out of the +valley, and how tired and cross all the bunch of grubs who stared out of +the window at her. It made them ten times more tired and cross and hot +to see that girl looking so cool and rested and exquisitely gowned and +crowned and shod. The blue linen with white embroidered cuffs, the +rippling, glinting masses of hair, the small shoes, immaculately white +against the green sod—little wonder that, while the heir apparent to +the Darby wealth felt comfortably indifferent toward this uninteresting +line of nobodies in particular, the bunch of grubs should feel only envy +and resentment of their own sweaty, muscle-worn lot in life.</p> + +<p>Jerry and Eugene Wellington were far up the shrubbery walk by the time +the Winnowoc train was on its way again, unconscious that the passengers +were looking after them, or that the talk, as the train slowly got under +way, was all of "that rich old codger of a Darby and his selfish old +wife"; of "that young dude artist, old Wellington's kid, too lazy to +work"; of "that pretty, frivolous girl who didn't know how to comb her +own hair, Jim Swaim's girl—poor Jim!" "Old Corn Darby was looking +yellow and thin, too. He would dry up and blow away some day if his +money wasn't weighting him down so he couldn't."</p> + +<p>At the bend in the walk, the two young people saw Uncle Cornie crossing +the lawn.</p> + +<p>"Going to get his discus. He'll have no appetite for dinner unless he +gets in a few dozen slings," the young man declared. "Let's turn in here +at the sign of the roses, Jerry. I'm too lazy to take another step."</p> + +<p>"You should have come out with me in the car," Jerry replied as they sat +down in the cool arbor made for youth and June-time. "I didn't know you +were in the city."</p> + +<p>"Well, little cousin girl, I'll confess I didn't dare," the young man +declared, boldly. "I've been studying awfully hard this year, and, now +I'm needed to paint The Great American Canvas, I can't end my useful +career under a big touring-car at the bottom of an embankment out on the +Winnowoc bluff road. So when I saw you coming into Uncle Cornie's office +in the bank I slipped away."</p> + +<p>"And as to my own risk?" Jerry asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jerry Swaim, you would never have an accident in a hundred years. +There's nobody like you, little cousin mine, nobody at all."</p> + +<p>Eugene Wellington put one well-formed hand lightly on the small white +hand lying on the wicker chair-arm, and, leaning forward, he looked down +into the face of the girl beside him. A handsome, well-set up, artistic +young fellow he was, fitted to adorn life's ornamental places. And if a +faint line of possible indecision of character might have suggested +itself to the keen-eyed reader of faces, other traits outweighed its +possibility. For his was a fine face, with a sort of gracious gentleness +in it that grows with the artist's growth. A hint of deeper +spirituality, too, that marks nobility of character, added to a winning +personality, put Eugene Wellington above the common class. He fitted the +rose-arbor, in "Eden" and the comradeship of good breeding. When a man +finds his element, all the rest of the world moves more smoothly +therefor.</p> + +<p>"Nobody like me," Jerry repeated. "It's a good thing I'm the only one of +the kind. You'd say so if you knew what Aunt Jerry thinks of me. She has +been analyzing me and filing me away in sections this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"What's on her mind now?" Eugene Wellington asked, as he leaned +easefully back in his chair.</p> + +<p>"She says I am heir—" Jerry always wondered what made her pause there. +Years afterward, when this June evening came back in memory, she could +not account for it.</p> + +<p>"Heir to what?" the young artist inquired, a faint, shadowy something +sweeping his countenance fleetly.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"To all the sphere,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To the seven stars and the solar year;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>also to my father's entire estate that's left after some two years of +litigation. I hate litigations."</p> + +<p>"So do I, Jerry. Let's forget them. Isn't 'Eden' beautiful? I'm so glad +to be back here again." Eugene Wellington looked out at the idyllic +loveliness of the place which the rose-arbor was built especially to +command. "Nobody could sin here, for there are no serpents busy-bodying +around in such a dream of a landscape as this. I'm glad I'm an artist, +if I never become famous. There's such a joy in being able to see, even +if your brush fails miserably in trying to make others see."</p> + +<p>Again the man's shapely hand fell gently on the girl's hand, and this +time it stayed there.</p> + +<p>"You love it all as much as I do, don't you, Jerry?" The voice was deep +with emotion. "And you feel as I do, how this lifts one nearer to God. +Or is it because you are here with me that 'Eden' is so fair to-night? +May I tell you something, Jerry? Something I've waited for the summer +and 'Eden' to give me the hour and the place to say? We've always known +each other. We thought we did before, but a new knowing came to me the +day your father left us. Look up, little cousin. I want to say +something to you."</p> + +<p>June-time, and youth, and roses, and soft, sweet air, and nobody there +but blossoms, and whispering breezes, and these two. And they had known +each other always. Oh, always! But now—something was different now, +something that was grander, more beautiful in this place, in this day, +in each other, than had ever been before—the old, old miracle of a man +and a maid.</p> + +<p>Suddenly something whizzed through the air and a snakelike streak of +shadow cut the light of the doorway. Out in the open, Uncle Cornie came +slowly stepping off the space to where his discus lay beside the +rose-arbor—one of the good little snakes. Every Eden has them, and some +are much better than others.</p> + +<p>The discus-ground was out on a lovely stretch of shorn clover sod. Why +the discus should wander from the thrower's hand through the air toward +the rose-arbor no wind of heaven could tell. Nor could it tell why Uncle +Cornie should choose to follow it and stand in the doorway of the arbor +until the "Eden" dinner-hour called all three of the dwellers, Adam and +Eve and this good little snake, to the cool dining-room and what goes +with it.</p> + +<p>Twilight and moonlight were melting into one, and all the sweet odors +of dew-kissed blossoms, the good-night twitter of homing birds, the +mists rising above the Winnowoc Valley, the shadows of shrubbery on the +lawn, and the darkling outline of the tall maples made "Eden" as +beautiful now as in the full sunlight.</p> + +<p>Jerry Swaim sat in the doorway of the rose-arbor, watching Uncle Cornie +throwing his discus again along the smooth white clover sod. Aunt Jerry +had trailed off with Eugene to the far side of the spacious grounds to +see the lily-ponds where the pink lotuses were blooming.</p> + +<p>"Young folks mustn't be together too much. They'll get tired of each +other too quickly. I used to get bored to death having Cornelius forever +around." Aunt Jerry philosophized, considering herself as wise in the +affairs of the heart as she was shrewd in affairs of the pocketbook. She +would make Jerry and Gene want to be together before they had the chance +again.</p> + +<p>So Jerry Swaim sat alone, watching the lights and shadows on the lawn, +only half conscious of Uncle Cornie's presence out there, until he +suddenly followed his discus as it rolled toward the arbor and lay flat +at her feet. Instead of picking it up, he dropped down on the stone step +beside his niece and sat without speaking until Jerry forgot his +presence entirely. It was his custom to sit without speaking, and to be +forgotten.</p> + +<p>Jerry's mind was full of many things. Life had opened a new door to her +that afternoon, and something strange and sweet had suddenly come +through it. Life had always opened pleasant doors to her, save that one +through which her father and mother had slipped away—a door that closed +and shut her from them and God, whose Providence had robbed her so +cruelly of what was her own. But no door ever showed her as fair a vista +as the one now opening before her dreamy gaze.</p> + +<p>She glanced unseeingly at the old man sitting beside her. Then across +her memory Aunt Jerry's words came drifting, "Being twenty-one doesn't +make you too old to listen to me—and your uncle Cornie," and, "You'll +appreciate what I—and Uncle Cornie—can do for you."</p> + +<p>Uncle Cornie was looking at her with a face as expressionless as if he +were about to say, "The bank doesn't make loans on any such security," +yet something in his eyes drew her comfortably to him and she +mechanically put her shapely little hand on his thin yellow one.</p> + +<p>"I want to talk to you before anything happens, Jerry," he began, and +then paused, in a confused uncertainty that threatened to end his +wanting here.</p> + +<p>And Jerry, being a woman, divined in an instant that it was to talk to +her before anything happened that he had thrown that discus out of its +way when she and Gene had thought themselves alone in the arbor before +dinner. It was to talk to her that the thing had been rolled purposely +to her feet now. Queer Uncle Cornie!</p> + +<p>"I'm not too old to listen to you. I appreciate what you can do for me." +Jerry was quoting her aunt's admonitions exactly, which showed how +deeply they had unconsciously impressed themselves on her mind. Her +words broke the linen bands about Uncle Cornie's glazed jaws, and he +spoke.</p> + +<p>"Your estate is all settled now. What's left to you after that rascally +John—I mean after two years of pulling and hauling through the courts, +is a 'claim,' as they call it, in the Sage Brush Valley in Kansas. It +has never been managed well, somehow. There's not been a cent of income +from it since Jim Swaim got hold of it, but that's no fault of the man +who is looking after it—a York Macpherson. He's a gentleman you can +trust anywhere. That's all there is of your own from your father's +estate."</p> + +<p>Jerry Swaim's dark-blue eyes opened wide and her face was lily white +under the shadow of dull-gold hair above it.</p> + +<p>"You are dependent on your aunt for everything. Well, she's glad of +that. So am I, in a way. Only, if you go against her will you won't be +her heir any more. You mightn't be, anyhow, if she—went first. The +Darby estate isn't really Jerusha Swaim's; it's mine. But she thinks +it's hers and it's all right that way, because, in the end, I do control +it." Uncle Cornie paused.</p> + +<p>Jerry sat motionless, and, although it was June-time, the little white +hand on the speaker's thin yellow one was very cold.</p> + +<p>"If you are satisfied, I'm glad, but I won't let Jim Swaim's child think +she's got a fortune of her own when she hasn't got a cent and must +depend on the good-will of her relatives for everything she wants. Jim +would haunt me to my grave if I did."</p> + +<p>Jerry stared at her uncle's face in the darkening twilight. In all her +life she had never known him to seem to have any mind before except what +grooved in with Aunt Jerry's commanding mind. Yet, surprised as she was, +she involuntarily drew nearer to him as to one whom she could trust.</p> + +<p>"We agreed long ago, Jim and I did, when Jim was a rich man, that some +day you must be shown that you were his child as well as Lesa's—I mean +that you mustn't always be a dependent spender. You must get some Swaim +notions of living, too. Not that either of us ever criticized your +mother's sweet spirit and her ideal-building and love of adventure. +Romance belongs to some lives and keeps them young and sweet if they +live to be a million. I'm not down on it like your Aunt Jerry is."</p> + +<p>Romance had steered wide away from Cornelius Darby's colorless days. And +possibly only this once in the sweet stillness of the June twilight at +"Eden" did that hungering note ever sound in his voice, and then only +for a brief space.</p> + +<p>"Jim would have told you all this himself if he had got his affairs +untangled in time. And he'd have done that, for he had a big brain and a +big heart, but God went and took him. He did. Don't rebel always, Jerry. +God was good to him—you'll see it some day and quit your ugly +doubting."</p> + +<p>Who ever called anything ugly about Jerry Swaim before? That a creature +like Cornelius Darby should do it now was one of the strange, +unbelievable things of this world.</p> + +<p>"I just wanted to say again," Uncle Cornie continued, "if I go first +you'd be Jerusha's heir. We agreed to that long ago. That is, if you +don't cross her wishes and start her to make a will against you, as +she'd do if you didn't obey her to the last letter in the alphabet. If I +go after she does, the property all goes by law to distant relatives of +mine. That was fixed before I ever got hold of it—heirs of some +spendthrifts who would have wasted it long ago if they'd lived and had +it themselves."</p> + +<p>The sound of voices and Eugene Wellington's light laughter came faintly +from the lily-pond.</p> + +<p>"Eugene is a good fellow," Uncle Cornie said, meditatively. "He's got +real talent and he'll make a name for himself some day that will be +stronger, and do more good, and last longer than the man's name that's +just rated gilt-edged security on a note, and nowhere else. Gene will +make a decent living, too, independent of any aunts and uncles. But he's +no stronger-willed, nor smarter, nor better than you are, Jerry, even if +he is a bit more religious-minded, as you might say. You try awfully +hard to think you don't believe in anything because just once in your +life Providence didn't work your way. You can't fool with your own +opinions against God Almighty and not lose in the deal. You'll have to +learn that some time. All of us do, sooner or later."</p> + +<p>"But to take my father—all I had—after I had given up mother, I can't +see any justice nor any mercy in it," Jerry broke out.</p> + +<p>Uncle Cornie was no comforter with words. He had had no chance to +practise giving sympathy either before or after marriage. Mummies are +limited, whether they be in sealed sarcophagi or sit behind roller-top +desks and cut coupons. Something in his quiet presence, however, soothed +the girl's rebellious spirit more than words could have done. Cornelius +Darby did not know that he could come nearer to the true measurement of +Jerry's mind than any one else had ever done. People had pitied her when +her mother passed away and her father died a bankrupt—which last fact +she must not be told—but nobody understood her except Uncle Cornie, and +he had never said a word until now. He seemed to know now just how her +mind was running. The wisdom of the serpent—even the good little +snakes, of this "Eden"—is not to be misjudged.</p> + +<p>"Jerry"—the old man's voice had a strange gentleness in that hour, +however flat and dry it was before and afterward—"Jerry, you understand +about things here."</p> + +<p>He waved his hand as if to take in "Eden," Aunt Jerry and Cousin Eugene +strolling leisurely away from the lily-pond, himself, the Darby +heritage, and the unprofitable Swaim estate in the Sage Brush Valley in +far-away Kansas.</p> + +<p>"You've never been crossed in your life except when death took Jim. You +don't know a thing about business, nor what it means to earn the money +you spend, and to feel the independence that comes from being so strong +in yourself you don't have to submit to anybody's will." Cornelius Darby +spoke as one who had dreamed of these things, but had never known the +strength of their reality. "And last of all," he concluded, "you think +you are in love with Eugene Wellington."</p> + +<p>Jerry gave a start. Uncle Cornie and love! Anybody and love! Only in her +day-dreams, her wild flights of adventure, up to castles builded high in +air, had she really thought of love for herself—until to-day. And +now—Aunt Jerry had hinted awkwardly enough here in the late afternoon +of what was on her mind. Cousin Gene had held her hand and said, "I want +to say something to you." How full of light his eyes had been as he +looked at her then! Jerry felt them on her still, and a tingle of joy +went pulsing through her whole being. Then the discus had hurtled across +the doorway and Uncle Cornie had come, not knowing that these two would +rather be alone. At least he didn't look as if he knew. And now it was +Uncle Cornie himself who was talking of love.</p> + +<p>"You think you are in love with Eugene Wellington," Uncle Cornie +repeated, "but you're not, Jerry. You're only in love with Love. Some +day it may be with Gene, but it's not now. He just comes nearer to what +you've been dreaming about, and so you think you are in love with him. +Jerry, I don't want you to make any mistakes. I've lived a sort of +colorless life"—the man's face was ashy gray as he spoke—"but once in +a while I've thought of what might be in a man's days if things went +right with him and if he went right with himself."</p> + +<p>How often the last words came back to Jerry Swaim when she recalled the +events of this evening—"if he went right himself."</p> + +<p>"And I don't want any mistakes made that I can help."</p> + +<p>Uncle Cornie's other hand closed gently about the little hand that lay +on one of his. How firm and white and shapely it was, and how determined +and fearless the grip it could put on the steering-wheel when the big +Darby car skidded dangerously! And how flat and flabby and yellow and +characterless was the hand that held it close!</p> + +<p>"Come on, folks, we are going to the house to have some music," Aunt +Jerry called, as she and Eugene Wellington came across the lawn from the +lily-pond.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Darby, sure of the fruition of her plans now, was really becoming +pettishly jealous to-night. A little longer she wanted to hold these two +young people under her absolute dominion. Of course she would always +control them, but when they were promised to each other there would +arise a kingdom within a kingdom which she could never enter. The angry +voice of a warped, misused, and withered youth was in her soul, and the +jealousy of loveless old age was no little fox among her vines to-night. +Let them wait on her a little while. One evening more wouldn't matter.</p> + +<p>As the two approached the rose-arbor Jerry's hand touched Uncle Cornie's +cheek in a loving caress—the first she had ever given him.</p> + +<p>"I won't forget what you have said, Uncle Cornie," she murmured, softly, +as she rose to join her aunt and Eugene.</p> + +<p>The moonlight flooding the lawn touched Jerry's golden hair, and the +bloom of love and youth beautified her cheeks, as she walked away beside +the handsome young artist into the beauty of the June night.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Cornelius." Mrs. Darby's voice put the one harsh note into the +harmony of the moment.</p> + +<p>"As soon as I put away my discus. That last throw was an awkward one, +and a lot out of line for me," he answered, in his dry, flat voice, +stooping to pick up the implement of his daily pastime.</p> + +<p>Up in the big parlor, Eugene and Jerry played the old duets they had +learned together in their childhood, and sang the old songs that Jerusha +Darby had heard when she was a girl, before the lust for wealth had +hardened her arteries and dimmed her eyes to visions that come only to +bless. But the two young people forgot her presence and seemed to live +the hours of the beautiful June night only for each other.</p> + +<p>It was nearly midnight when a peal of thunder boomed up the Winnowoc +Valley and the end of a perfect day was brilliant in the grandeur of a +June shower, with skies of midnight blackness cloven through with long +shafts of lightning or swept across by billows of flame, while the storm +wind's strong arms beat the earth with flails of crystal rain.</p> + +<p>"Where is Uncle Cornie? I hadn't missed him before," Jerry asked as the +three in the parlor watched the storm pouring out all its wrath upon the +Winnowoc Valley.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he went to put up his old discus, and then he went off to bed I +suppose," Aunt Jerry replied, indifferently.</p> + +<p>Nothing was ever farther from his wife's thought than the presence of +Cornelius Darby. The two had never lived for each other; they had lived +for the accumulation of property that together they might gather in.</p> + +<p>It was long after midnight before the family retired. The moon came out +of hiding as the storm-cloud swept eastward. The night breezes were cool +and sweet, scattering the flower petals, that the shower had beaten off, +in little perfumy cloudlets about the rose-arbor and upon its stone +door-step.</p> + +<p>It was long after Jerry Swaim had gone to her room before she slept. +Over and over the events of the day passed in review before her mind: +the city shopping; the dainty lunch in the Delft room at <i>La Seņorita</i>; +the art exhibit and that one level gray landscape with the flaming, +gorgeous sunset so unlike the green-and-gold sunset landscape of "Eden"; +the homeward ride with all its dangerous thrills; the talk with Aunt +Jerry; Eugene, Eugene, Eugene; Uncle Cornie with his discus, at the door +of the rose-arbor, and all that he had said to her; the old, old songs, +and the thunder-storm's tremendous beauty, and Uncle Cornie again—and +dreams at last, and Jim Swaim, big, strong, shrewd; and Lesa, +sweet-faced, visionary; and then sound slumber bringing complete +oblivion.</p> + +<p>Last to sleep and first to waken in the early morning was Jerry. Happy +Jerry! Nobody as happy as she was could sleep—and yet—Uncle Cornie's +last discus-throw had brought new thoughts that would not slip away as +the storm had slipped up the Winnowoc into nowhere. A rift in the lute, +a cloud speck in a blue June sky, was the memory of what Uncle Cornie +had told her when he let his discus roll up to her very feet by the door +of the rose-arbor. Jerry Swaim must not be troubled with lute rifts and +cloud specks. The call of the early morning was in the air, the dewy, +misty, rose-hued dawning of a beautiful day in a beautiful "Eden" where +only beautiful things belong. And loveliest among them all was Jerry +Swaim in her pink morning dress, her glorious crown of hair agleam in +the sun's early rays, her blue eye full of light.</p> + +<p>The sweetest spot to her in all "Eden" on this morning was the +rose-arbor. It belonged to her now by right of Eugene and—Uncle Cornie. +The snatches of an old love-ballad, one of the songs she had sung with +Eugene the night before, were on her lips as she left the veranda and +passed with light step down the lilac walk toward the arbor. The very +grass blades seemed to sing with her, and all the rain-washed world +glowed with green and gold and creamy white, pink and heliotrope and +rose.</p> + +<p>At the turn of the walk toward the arbor Jerry paused to drink in the +richness of all this colorful scene. And then, for no reason at all, she +remembered what Uncle Cornie had said about his colorless life. Strange +that she had never, in her own frivolous existence, thought of him in +that way before. But with the alchemy of love in her veins she began to +see things in a new light. His had been a dull existence. If Aunt Jerry +ever really loved him she must have forgotten it long ago. And he made +so little noise in the world, anyhow, it was easy to forget that he was +in it. She had forgotten him last night even after all that he had said. +He had had no part in their music, nor the beauty of the storm.</p> + +<p>But here he was up early and sitting at the doorway of the rose-arbor +just as she had left him last night. He was leaning back in the angle of +the slightly splintered trellis, his colorless face gray, save where a +blue line ran down his cheek from a blue-black burn on his temple, his +colorless eyes looking straight before him; the discus he had stooped to +pick up in the twilight last night clasped in his colorless hands; his +colorless life race run. His clothing, soaked by the midnight storm, +clung wet and sagging about his shrunken form. But the rain-beaten +rose-vines had showered his gray head with a halo of pink petals, and +about his feet were drifts of fallen blossoms flowing out upon the rich +green sod. Nature in loving pity had gently decked him with her +daintiest hues, as if a world of lavish color would wipe away in a sweep +of June-time beauty the memory of the lost drab years.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + +<h3>HITCHING THE WAGON TO A STAR</h3> + + +<p>Behind the most expensive mourner's crape to be had in Philadelphia +Jerusha Darby hid the least mournful of faces. Not that she had not been +shocked that one bolt out of all that summer storm-cloud, barely +splintering the rose-arbor, should strike the head leaning against it +with a blow so faint and yet so fatal; nor that she would not miss +Cornelius and find it very inconvenient to fill his place in her +business management. Every business needs some one to fetch and carry +and play the watch-dog. And in these days of expensive labor watch-dogs +come high and are not always well trained. But everybody must go +sometime. That is, everybody else. To Mrs. Darby's cast of mind the +scheme of death and final reckoning as belonging to a general experience +was never intended for her individually. After all, things work out all +right under Providential guidance. Eugene Wellington was a fortunate +provision of an all-wise Providence. Eugene had some of his late +cousin's ability. He would come in time to fill the vacant chair by the +roll-top desk in the city banking and business house. Moreover, to the +eyes of age he was a thousandfold more interesting and resourceful than +the colorless quiet one whose loss would be felt of course, of course.</p> + +<p>The reddest roses of "Eden" bloomed the next June on Cornelius Darby's +grave, the brightest leaves of autumn covered him warmly from the +winter's snows, and the places that had never felt his living presence +missed him no more forever.</p> + +<p>There was a steady downpour of summer rain on the day following the +funeral at "Eden." Mrs. Darby was very busy with post-mortem details and +Eugene Wellington's services were in constant demand by her, while Jerry +Swaim wandered aimlessly about the house with a sense of the uselessness +of her existence forcing itself upon her for the first time. Late in the +afternoon, when the big rooms with all their luxurious appointments +seemed unbearable, she slipped down the sodden way to the rose-arbor. +There was a shower of new buds showing now under the beneficence of the +warm rain, and all the withered petals of fallen blossoms were swept +from sight.</p> + +<p>As Jerry dropped into an easy willow rocker her eye fell on the +splintered angle of the trellis by the doorway where Uncle Cornie had +sat when the last summons came to him. A folded paper lay under the +seat, inside the door, as if it had been blown from his pocket by a +whirl of wind in that midnight thunder-storm.</p> + +<p>Jerry stared at the paper a long time before it occurred to her to pick +it up. At last, in a mechanical way, she took it from under the seat and +spread it out on the broad arm of her chair. As she read its contents +her listlessness fell away, the dreamy blue eyes glowed with a new +light, the firm mouth took on a bit more of firmness, and the strong +little hands holding the paper did not tremble.</p> + +<p>"A claim in the Sage Brush Valley in Kansas." Jerry spoke slowly. "It +lies in Range—Township—Oh, that's all Greek to me! They must number +land out there like lots in the potter's-field corner of the cemetery +that we drove by yesterday. Maybe they may all be dead ones, paupers at +that, in Kansas. It is controlled, or something, by York Macpherson of +the Macpherson Mortgage Company of New Eden—<i>New Eden</i>—Kansas. Uncle +Cornie told me it hadn't brought any income, but that wasn't York +Macpherson's fault. Strange that I remember all that Uncle Cornie said +here the other night."</p> + +<p>The girl read the document spread out before her a second time. When she +lifted her face again it was another Jerry Swaim who looked out through +the dark-blue eyes. The rain had ceased falling. A cool breeze was +playing up the Winnowoc Valley, and low in the west shafts of sunlight +were piercing the thinning gray clouds.</p> + +<p>"Twelve hundred acres! A prince's holdings! Why 'Eden' has only two +hundred! And that is at <i>New</i> Eden. It 'hasn't been well managed.' I +know who's going to manage it now. I'm the daughter of Jim Swaim. He was +a good business man. And Aunt Darby—" A smile broke the set line about +the red lips. "I'd never dare to say she didn't understand how to manage +things, Chief of Staff to the General who runs the Universe, she is."</p> + +<p>Then the serious mood came back as the girl stared out at the meadows +and growing grain of the "Eden" farmland. A sudden resolve had formed in +her mind—Jerry Swaim the type all her own, not possible to forecast.</p> + +<p>"Father wanted me to know what it means to be independent. I'll find +out. If this 'Eden' can be so beautiful and profitable, what can I not +make out of twelve hundred acres, in a New Eden? And it will be such a +splendid lark, just the kind of thing I have always dreamed of doing. +Aunt Jerry will say that I'm crazy, or that I'm Lesa Swaim's own child. +Well, I am, but there's a big purpose back of it all, too, the purpose +my father would have approved. He was all business—all money-making—in +his purposes, it seemed to some folks, but I think mother knew how to +keep him sweet. Maybe her adventurous spirit, and all that, kept her +interesting to him, and her romancing kept him her lover, instead of +their growing to be like Uncle Cornie and Aunt Jerry. There's something +else in the world besides just getting property—'if a man went right +with himself,' Uncle Cornie said. There was a good sermon in those seven +words. Uncle Cornie preached more to me than the man who officiated at +the funeral yesterday could ever do. 'If a man went right with himself.' +And Eugene." A quick change swept Jerry Swaim's countenance. "He said he +wanted to say something to me. I think I know what he wanted to say. +Maybe he will say it some day, but not yet, not yet. Here he comes now."</p> + +<p>There was a something new, unguessable, and very sweet in Jerry Swaim's +face as Eugene Wellington came striding down the walk to the rose-arbor.</p> + +<p>"I'm through at last, little cousin," he declared, dropping into a seat +beside her. "Really, Aunt Jerry is a wonderful woman. She seems to know +most of the details of Uncle Cornie's business since he began in +business. But now and then she runs against something that takes her +breath away. Evidently Uncle Cornie knew a lot of things he didn't tell +her or anybody else. She doesn't like to meet these things. It makes her +cross. She sent me away just now in a huff because she was opening up a +new line that I think she didn't want me to know anything about. +Something that took her breath away at first glance. But she didn't have +to coax me off the place. I ran out here when the chance came."</p> + +<p>How handsome and well-groomed he was sitting there in the easy willow +seat! And how good he had been to Mrs. Darby in these trying days! A +dozen little services that her niece had overlooked had come naturally +to his hand and mind.</p> + +<p>The words of Uncle Cornie came into Jerry Swaim's mind as she looked at +him: "He's a good fellow, with real talent, and he'll make a name for +himself some day. He'll make a decent living, too, independent of +anybody's aunts and uncles, but he's no stronger-willed nor smarter nor +better than you are." A thrill of pleasure quickened her pulse at the +recollection, making this new decision of hers the more firm.</p> + +<p>"It has seemed like a month since we sat here the evening before Uncle +Cornie passed away," Eugene began. "He made a bad discus-throw and came +over here just as I began to tell you something, Jerry. Do you remember +what we were saying when he appeared on the scene?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I remember." Jerry's voice was low, but there was no quaver in it.</p> + +<p>Her face, as she lifted it, seemed to his eyes the one face he could +never paint. For him it was the fulfilment of a man's best dream.</p> + +<p>"There's only one grief in my heart at this minute—that I can never put +your face as it is now on any canvas. But let me tell you some things +that Aunt Jerry has been telling me. She seems so fond of you, and she +says that after all the claims against your father's estate are settled +there is really no income left for you. But she assures me that it makes +no difference, because you can go on living with her exactly as you have +always done. She told me she had never failed in the fruition of a +single plan of hers, and she is too old to fail now. She has some plan +for you—" The young artist hesitated.</p> + +<p>Jerry had never thought much about his good looks until in these June +days in "Eden" when Love had come noiselessly down the way to her. And +yet—a little faint, irresolute line in the man's face—a mere shadow, a +ghost of nothing at all, fixed itself in her image of his countenance. A +quick intuition flashed into her mind with the last words.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Jerry is too old for lots of things besides the failure of her +plans. I know what she said, Gene, because I know what she thinks. She +isn't exactly fond of me; she wants to control me. I believe there are +only two planes of existence with her—one of absolute rule, and the +other of absolute submission. She couldn't conceive of me in the first +plane, of course, so I must be in the second."</p> + +<p>"Why, Geraldine Swaim, I never heard you speak so of your aunt before!" +Eugene Wellington exclaimed. He had caught a new and very real line in +the girl's face as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Maybe not. But don't go Geraldine-ing me. It's too Aunt Jerry-ish. I'm +coming to understand her better because I'm doing my own thinking now," +Jerry replied.</p> + +<p>"As if you hadn't always done that, you little tyrant! I bear the scars +of your teeth on my arms now—or I would bear them if I hadn't given up +to you a thousand times years ago," Eugene declared, laughingly.</p> + +<p>"That's just it," Jerry replied. "I've been let to have my own way until +Aunt Jerry thinks I must go on having just what she thinks I want, and +to do that I must be dependent on her. And—Wait a minute, Gene—you +will be dependent on her, too. You have only your gift. So both of us +are to be pensioners of hers. That's her plan."</p> + +<p>"I won't be," Eugene Wellington declared, stoutly. And then, in loving +thought of Jerry, he added: "I don't want to, Jerry. I want to do great +things, the best that God has given me to do, not merely for myself, but +for your sake—and for all the world. That seems to me to be what +artists are for."</p> + +<p>"And I won't be, either," Jerry insisted. "I won't. You needn't look so +incredulous. Let me tell you something. The evening before Uncle Cornie +died—" Jerry broke off suddenly.</p> + +<p>It seemed unfair to betray the one burst of confidence that the +colorless old man had given up to on the last evening of his earthly +life. Jerry knew that it was to her, and for her alone, that he had +spoken.</p> + +<p>"This is what I want to tell you. I have no income now. Aunt Jerry is +right, although she never told me that herself. But I have a plan to +make a living for myself."</p> + +<p>Eugene Wellington leaned back and laughed aloud. "You, Miss Geraldine +Swaim, who never earned a dollar in your precious life! I always knew +you were a dreamer, but you are going wrong now, Jerry. You must look +out for belfry bats under that golden thatch of yours. Only artists dare +those wild flights so far—and they do it only on canvas and then get +rejected by the hanging committee."</p> + +<p>Jerry paid no heed to his bantering words as she went on with serious +earnestness: "My estate—from my father—is a claim out at New Eden, +Kansas. Twelve hundred acres. It has never been managed well, +consequently it has never paid well. Look at 'Eden' here"—Jerry lifted +a hand for silence as Eugene was about to speak—"it has only two +hundred acres. Now multiply it by six and you'll have New Eden out in +Kansas. And I own it. And I am going to manage it. And I am not going to +be dependent on anybody. Won't it be one big lark for me to go clear to +the Sage Brush Valley? If it is as beautiful as the Winnowoc, just think +of its possibilities. It will be perfectly grand to feel oneself so free +and self-reliant. And when we have won out, you by your brush and I by +my Kansas farm, then, oh, Gene, how splendid life will be!"</p> + +<p>The big, dreamy eyes were full of light. The level beams of the sun +stretched far across green meadows and shaven lawns, between tall +lilac-trees, to the rose-arbor, just to glorify that rippling mass of +brown-shadowed golden hair.</p> + +<p>"Jerry"—Eugene Wellington's voice trembled—"you are the most wonderful +girl in the world. I am so proud of you. But, dear girl, it is an old, +threadbare fancy, this going to Kansas to get rich. My father tried it +years ago. He had a vision of great things, too. He failed. Not only +that, he ruined everybody connected with him. That's why I'm poor +to-day. Truly, little cousin mine, I don't believe the good Lord, who +makes Edens like this in the Winnowoc Valley, ever intended for +well-bred people to leave them and go New-Eden-hunting in the Sage Brush +Valley. We belong here where all the beauty of nature is about us and +the care of a loving God is over us. Why do you want to go to Kansas? I +wouldn't know how to pray out there where my father made such a botch of +living. I really wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"I don't know how to pray here, Gene," Jerry said, softly, with no trace +of flippant irreverence in her tone. "I forgot how to do that when God +took my father away. But listen to me." The imperious power of the +uncontrolled will was Jerry's always. "You don't <i>live</i> here; you <i>stay</i> +here. And you take a piece of canvas and go to the ends of the earth on +it, or down to the deeps, or into the heavens. You make what never did +and never will be, with your free brush. And folks call it good and you +earn a living by it. You are an artist. I am a foolish dreamer, but I am +going out to Kansas and work my dreams into reality and beauty—and +money—in a New Eden. If the Lord isn't there, I shall not mind any more +than I do here. I am going to Kansas, though, because I <i>want</i> to."</p> + +<p>"Look, Jerry, at the sunset yonder," Eugene said, gently, knowing of old +what "I want" meant. "They couldn't have such pictures of green and gold +out West as we see framed in here by the lilacs. You always have been a +determined little girl, so you will have your own way now, I suppose. We +can try it, anyhow, for a while. And if you find your way a rocky road +you must come back to 'Eden.' When your new playthings fail, you can +play with the old ones. But I really love your spirit of self-reliance. +I don't want you ever to be dependent. I don't want any other Jerry than +I have always known. And I want to work hard and make my little talent +pay me big, and make you proud of me."</p> + +<p>"We are living a real romance, Gene. And we'll be true to our word to +make the best of ourselves and not let Aunt Jerry frighten us into +changing our plans, will we, Gene? My father's wish for me was that I +should not always be a spender of other folks's incomes, but that I +would find out what it means to live my own life. I never knew that +until last week. Everything seems changed for me since Uncle Cornie +died. Isn't it strange how suddenly we drop off one life and take up +another?" Jerry's eyes were on the deepening gold of the sunset sky.</p> + +<p>"Yes, we have been two idlers. I'm glad to quit the job. But, somehow, +for you I could wish that you would stay here, if you were only +satisfied to do it," Eugene replied.</p> + +<p>"I don't wish it." Jerry spoke decisively. "I couldn't be happy, now +I've this splendid Kansas thing to think about. Let's go and tell Aunt +Jerry and have it out with her."</p> + +<p>"And if she says no?" the young man queried.</p> + +<p>Jerry Swaim paused in the doorway and looked straight into Eugene +Wellington's face, without saying a word.</p> + +<p>"Geraldine Swaim, there was a big mistake made in your baptismal +ceremony. You should have been christened 'The Sphinx.' Some day I'll +make a canvas of the Egyptian product and put your face on it. After +all, <i>are</i> you really in earnest about this Sage Brush Valley New Eden? +It is so lovely here, I want you to stay here."</p> + +<p>Again Jerry looked at him without speaking, and that faint line of +indecision that scarcely hinted at its own existence fixed itself in the +substratum of her memory.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Darby met the young people in the parlor, where only a few nights +ago the three had watched the summer storm, not knowing that it was +beating down on the unconscious form of Cornelius Darby. Mrs. Darby felt +sure that the young people would be coming to her to-night. Well—the +end of her plan was in sight now. Really, it may have been better for +Cornelius to have gone when he did, since we must all go sometime. +Indeed, it would have been better—only Jerusha Darby never knew +that—if Cornelius had gone before that discus-throw. Everything might +have been different if he had gone earlier. But he lost the opportunity +of his life to serve his wife by staying over and making one awkward +fling too many.</p> + +<p>The June evening was cool after the long rains. Aunt Jerry had a tiny +wood fire burning in the parlor grate, and the tall lamps with the +rose-colored shades lighted to add a touch of twilight charm to the +place, when the young lovers came in.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Jerry, we want to tell you what we have been talking about," +Eugene began, when the three were seated together. "Jerry and I have +decided that we must look on life differently now since—" Eugene +hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know." Mrs. Darby spoke briskly. "We must face the truth now and +speak of Cornelius freely. He was fond of both of you. Poor Cornelius!"</p> + +<p>"Poor Cornelius," Jerry Swaim repeated, under her breath.</p> + +<p>"Of course I know it is difficult for a girl reared as Jerry has been—" +Eugene began again.</p> + +<p>"She can go on living just as she has been. This will be her home +always," Mrs. Darby broke in, abruptly.</p> + +<p>"And I know that I have nothing but the prospect of earning a living and +winning to a successful career in my line—" the young man went on.</p> + +<p>"Hasn't Jerry the prospect of enough for herself? I'll need you to help +me for several months. You know, Eugene, that I must have some one who +understands Cornelius's way of doing things." There was more of command +than request in the older woman's voice.</p> + +<p>"I'll be glad to help you as long as I am needed, but I am speaking now +of my life-work. When I cannot serve you any longer I must begin on my +own career. I have some hopes and plans for the future."</p> + +<p>"Humph! What's the use of talking about it? I tell you Jerry will have +enough for all her needs, and I want you here. I shall not consider any +more such notions, Eugene. You are both going to stay right here as you +have done. Let's talk of something else."</p> + +<p>"We can't yet, Aunt Jerry, because I have not enough for myself, even if +Gene would accept a living from you," Jerry Swaim declared.</p> + +<p>Jerusha Darby opened her narrow eyes and stared at her niece. If the +older woman had made one plea of loneliness, if she had even hinted at +sorrow for the loss of the companion of her business transactions, Jerry +Swaim would have felt uncomfortable, even though she knew her aunt too +well to be deceived by any such demonstration.</p> + +<p>"Geraldine Swaim, what are you saying?" Mrs. Darby demanded, in a hard, +even voice. Something in her manner and face could always hold even the +brave-spirited in frightened awe of her.</p> + +<p>Eugene Wellington lost courage to go on, and the same thing came again +that Jerry Swaim had twice seen on his face in the rose-arbor this +evening. The two were looking straight at the girl now. The firelight +played with the golden glory of her hair and deepened the rose hue of +her round cheeks. The dark-blue eyes seemed almost black, with a gleam +in their depths that meant trouble, and there was a strength in the low +voice as Jerry went on:</p> + +<p>"I'm talking about what I know, Aunt Jerry. All there is of my heritage +from my father is a 'claim,' they call it, at New Eden, in the Sage +Brush Valley in Kansas; twelve hundred acres. I'm going out there to +manage it myself and support myself on an income of my own."</p> + +<p>For a long minute Jerusha Darby looked steadily at her niece, her own +face as hard and impenetrable as if it were carven out of flint. Then +she said, sharply:</p> + +<p>"Where did you find out all this?"</p> + +<p>"It is all in a document here that I found in the rose-arbor this +afternoon," the girl replied. "Aunt Jerry, I must use what is mine. I +wouldn't be a Swaim if I didn't."</p> + +<p>"You won't stay there two weeks." Mrs. Darby fairly clicked out the +words. Her face was very pale and something like real fright looked +through her eyes as she took the paper from her niece's hand.</p> + +<p>"And then?" Jerry inquired, demurely.</p> + +<p>"And then you will come back here where you belong and live as you +always have lived, in comfort."</p> + +<p>"And if I do not come?"</p> + +<p>Jerusha Darby's face was not pleasant to see just then. The firelight +that made the girl more winsomely pretty seemed to throw into relief all +the hard lines of a countenance which selfishness and stubbornness and a +dictatorial will had graven there.</p> + +<p>"Jerry Swaim, you are building up a wild, adventurous dream. You are +Lesa Swaim over and over. You want a lark, that's what you want. And +it's you who have put Eugene up to his notions of a career and all that. +Listen to me. Nothing talks in this world like money. That you have to +have for your way of living, and that he's got to have if he wants to be +what he should be. Well, go on out to Kansas. You know more of that +prosperous property out there than I do. I'll let you find it out to the +last limit. But when you come back you must promise me never to take +another such notion. I won't stand this foolishness forever. I'll give +you plenty of money to get there. You can write me when you need funds +to come back. It won't take long to get that letter here."</p> + +<p>"And if I shouldn't come?" Jerry asked, calmly.</p> + +<p>"Look what you are giving up. All this beautiful home, to say nothing of +the town house—and Eugene—and other property."</p> + +<p>"No, no; you don't count him as your property, do you?" Jerry cried, +turning to the young artist, whose face was very pale.</p> + +<p>"Jerry, must you make this sacrifice?" he asked, in a voice of +tenderness.</p> + +<p>"It isn't a sacrifice; it's just what I want to do," Jerry declared, +lightly.</p> + +<p>Jerusha Darby's face darkened. The effect of a long and absolute +exercise of will, coupled with ample means, can make the same kind of a +tyrant out of a Kaiser and a rich aunt. The determination to have her +own way in this matter, as she had had in all other matters, became at +once an unbreakable purpose in her. She wanted to keep fast hold of +these young people for her own sake, not for theirs. For a little while +she sat measuring the two with her narrow, searching eyes.</p> + +<p>"I can manage him best," she concluded to herself. At last she asked, +plaintively, "With all you have here, Jerry, why do you go hunting +opportunities in Kansas?"</p> + +<p>"Because I want to," Jerry replied, and her aunt knew that, so far as +Jerry was concerned, everything was settled.</p> + +<p>"Then we'll drop the matter here. I can wait for you to come to your +senses. Eugene, if you can give her up, when you've always been chums, I +certainly can."</p> + +<p>With these words Mrs. Darby rose and passed out, leaving the two alone +under the rose-colored lights of the richly furnished parlor.</p> + +<p>It was not like Jerusha Darby to make such a concession, and Jerry Swaim +knew it, but Eugene Wellington, who was of alien blood, did not know it.</p> + +<p>The room was much more beautiful without her presence; and her sordid +hinting at the Darby wealth which Jerry must count on, and Eugene must +meekly help to guard for future gain, rasped harshly against their +souls, for they were young and more sentimental than practical. Left +alone to their youth, and strength, and nobler ideals, they vowed that +night to hold to better things. Together they builded a dream of a +rainbow-tinted world which they were going bravely forth to create. Of +what should follow that they did not speak, yet each one guessed what +was in the other's mind, as men and maidens have always guessed since +love began. And on this night there were no serpents at all in their +Eden.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + +<h3>BETWEEN EDENS</h3> + + +<p>The sun of a mid-June day glared down pitilessly on the little station +at the junction of the Sage Brush branch with the main line. There was +not a tree in sight. The south wind was raving across the prairie, +swirling showers of fine sand before it. Its breath came hot against +Jerry Swaim's cheek as she stood in the doorway of the station or +wandered grimly down between the shining rails that stretched toward a +boundless nowhere whither the "through" train had vanished nearly two +hours ago. As Jerry watched it leaving, a sudden heaviness weighed down +upon her. And when the Pullman porter's white coat on the rear platform +of the last coach melted into the dull, diminishing splotch on the +western distance, she felt as if she were shipwrecked in a pathless +land, with the little red station house, reefed about by cinders, as the +only resting-place for the soles of her feet. When her eyes grew weary +of the monotonous landscape, Jerry rested them with what she called "A +Kansas Interior." The rustic station under the maples at "Eden" was +always clean and comfortably appointed. Big flower-beds outside, Uncle +Cornie's gift, belonged to the station and its guests, with the spacious +grounds of "Eden," at which the travelers might gaze without cost, lying +just beyond it.</p> + +<p>This "Kansas Interior" seemed only a degree less inviting than the whole +monotonous universe outside. The dust of ages dimmed the windows that +were propped and nailed and otherwise secured against the entrance of +cool summer breezes, or the outlet of bad, overheated air in winter. +Iron-partitioned seats, invention of the Evil One himself, stalled off +three sides of the room, intending to prove the principle that no one +body can occupy two spaces at the same time. In the center of the room a +"plain, unvarnished" stove, bare and bald, stood on a low pedestal +yellowed with time and tobacco juice. A dingy, fly-specked map of the +entire railway system hung askew on the wall—very fat and foreshortened +as to its own extent, very attenuated and ill-proportioned as to other +insignificant systems cutting spidery lines across it.</p> + +<p>Behind a sealed tomb of a ticket-window Jerry could hear the "tick-tick, +tick-a-tick-tick, tick-tick" of a telegraph-wire. Somebody must be in +there who at set times, like a Saint Serapion from his hermit cell, +might open this blank wall and speak in almost human tones. Just now the +solitude of the grave prevailed, save for that everlasting "tick-a-tick" +behind the wall.</p> + +<p>When Jerry Swaim gripped her hands on the plow handles, there would be +no looking back. She persuaded herself that she wasn't going to die of +the jiggermaroos in the empty nothingness here. It would be very +different at New Eden, she was sure of that. And this York Macpherson +must be a nice old man, honest and easy-going, because he had never +realized any income from her big Kansas estate. She pictured York +easily—a short, bald-headed old gentleman with gray burnsides and +benevolent pale-blue eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses, driving a fat +sorrel nag to an easy-going old Rockaway buggy, carrying a gold-headed +cane given him by the Sunday-school. Jerry had seen his type all her +life in the business circles of Philadelphia and among the better-to-do +country-dwellers around "Eden."</p> + +<p>At last it was only fifteen minutes till the Sage Brush train would be +due; then she could find comfort in her Pullman berth. She wondered what +Aunt Jerry and Eugene were doing now. She had slipped away from "Eden" +on her wild adventure in the early dawn. She had taken leave of Aunt +Jerry the night before. Old women need their beauty sleep in the +morning, even if foolish young things are breaking all the laws by +launching out to hunt their fortunes. Eugene had been hurriedly sent +away on Darby estate matters without the opportunity of a leave-taking, +two days before Jerry was ready to start for Kansas. Everything was +prearranged, evidently, to make this going a difficult one. So, without +a single good-by to speed her on her quest, the young girl had gone out +from a sheltering Eden of beauty and idleness. But the tears that had +dimmed her eyes came only when she left the lilac walk to the station to +slip around by Uncle Cornie's grave beside the green-coverleted +resting-places of Jim and Lesa Swaim.</p> + +<p>"Maybe mother would glory in what I am doing, and father might say I had +the right stuff in me. And Uncle Cornie—'If a man went right with +himself'—Uncle Cornie might have said 'if a woman went right with +herself,' too. I'm going to put that meaning into his words, even if he +never seemed to think much of women. Oh, father! Oh, mother! You <i>lived</i> +before you died, anyhow, and I'm going to do the same. Uncle Cornie died +before he ever really lived."</p> + +<p>Jerry stretched out her hands to the one good-by in "Eden" coming to her +from these silent ripples of dewy green sod. Then youth and the June +morning and the lure of adventure into new lands came with their triple +strength to buoy her up to do and dare. Behind her were her lover to +be—for Eugene must love her—her home ties, luxury, dependent +inactivity. Before her lay the very ends of the earth, the Kansas end +especially. The spirit of Sir Galahad, of Robinson Crusoe, of Don +Quixote, combined with the spirit of a self-willed, inexperienced girl, +but dimly conscious yet of what lay back of her determination to go +forth—<i>because she wanted to go</i>.</p> + +<p>Chicago and Kansas City offered easy ports for clearing. And the Kaw +Valley, unrolling its broad acres along the way, gave larger promise +than Jerry had yet dared to dream of for the New Eden farther west. The +train service, after the manner of a Pacific Coast limited, had been +perfect in every appointment. And then—this junction episode.</p> + +<p>Two eternity-long hours before the Sage Brush branch could take her to +New Eden were almost ended.</p> + +<p>"It's not so terrifying, after all." Jerry was beginning to "see things +again." "It's all in the game—and I am going to be as 'game' as the +thing I am playing. Things always come round all right for me. <i>They +must.</i>"</p> + +<p>The square white chin was very much a family feature just now. And the +shapely hands had no hint of weakness in their grip on the iron arms of +the station seat.</p> + +<p>The door which the wind had slammed shut was slammed open again as three +prospective passengers for the Sage Brush train slammed through it laden +with luggage. At the same time the sealed-up ticket-window flew open, +showing the red, grinning face of the tick-tick man behind its iron +bars. If Jerry had never paid the slightest heed to the bunch of grubs +on the Winnowoc branch, except as they kept down the ventilation, or +crowded their odors of Limburger on her offended senses, the Sage Brush +grubs were a thousandfold less worthy of her consideration. As the +three crowded to the ticket-window, laughing among themselves, she +stared through the doorway, unconsciously reading the names on the cars +of a freight-train slowly heaving down alongside the station. Who +invented freight-cars, anyhow? The most uninteresting and inartistic +thing ever put on wheels by the master mechanic of the unbeautiful, +created mainly to shut off the view of mankind from what is really worth +looking at. Jerry read the dulled lettering mechanically: "Santa Fé" +with its symbol of a fat cross in a circle, "Iron Mountain," "Great +Northern," "Rock Island," "Frisco," "Union Pacific," "Grand Trunk," came +creeping by. "New York Central," "Lehigh Valley," "Pennsylvania Line." +These took her back to "Eden" and the Winnowoc country. The station +building shook; the ugly old cars slam-banged a bit faster back and +forth; the engine, with the breath almost knocked out of it, was puffing +down by the switch, and the whole body behind it quivered to a +standstill. But Jerry Swaim's tear-blurred eyes were seeing only the +green fields of the Darby country-place and the rose-arbor and Eugene +Wellington. A voice loud, but not unpleasant, and a laugh, a merry, +catching, giggling guffaw, drove the picture of "Eden" and all that +belonged to it into "viewless air" that went flapping and flaring across +the Kansas landscape.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean it! He, he! Haw!" Everybody must smile now. "The old +Sage Brush local is locoed 'way up toward S'liny. Engine shortage, car +shortage, common sense shortage. He, he! And we must ride in that +sunflower de luxe limited standing out there. Come on, Thelmy. You can +take lower nothin', car one-half. We'll soar in now while the soarin's +good."</p> + +<p>Jerry looked at the bunch of grubs for the first time. One had to see +where that big gloom-chasing giggle came from. Thelma was a spotlessly +clean, well-made country product, wherein the girl had easily given +place to the woman, erect, full-bosomed, strong of frame. The hazel eyes +were arched over by heavy brown brows. There was no rosebud curve to the +rather wide mouth that showed a set of magnificent white teeth. The +brown hair wound braid on braid about the head was proof of the glory of +Saint Paul's scriptural decree. Not that Jerry Swaim really noted any of +these features. She merely saw a country girl—a not offensive native. +The native's comrade, he with the big-laugh fixtures, was short and +stout, with a round face on the front side of a round head, set on top +of a tight-built body. Grub though he was, Jerry involuntarily smiled +with him. That far the fat little man controlled everybody. But the +funny little strut in his gait as he walked was irresistible. The third +passenger, the grubbiest of the three grubs, was a nondescript of whose +presence Jerry was not even aware until she heard his voice. It was a +thin, high, unused voice, and its pitch wabbled up and down.</p> + +<p>"Be you goin' on the Sage Bresh train, lady?"</p> + +<p>The questioner had turned back after the country girl and the fat man +had passed out.</p> + +<p>Jerry looked at him without taking his question to herself. His shoes, +draped with wrinkled-down hose, were very much worn. His overalls +flapping around his legs, his shirt and neck and face and hair and hat, +were all of one complexion, a fuzzy, yellow brown.</p> + +<p>"Be you goin' on this train, too?"</p> + +<p>It was a humble, kindly voice, and the scaly old hand holding the door +open against the high prairie wind was only a fisherman's hand. The +deep-set eyes in the yellow-brown old face were trained to read the +river; the patient mouth set to wait for the catch of lines and nets.</p> + +<p>Jerry had never in her life spoken to such a creature. So far as she was +concerned, he did not exist.</p> + +<p>"This is the only train on the Sage Bresh to-day, lady. The reg'lar +train's busted through a culbert out yander," the high, quavering voice +persisted.</p> + +<p>A sharp tooting from the engine down the line emphasized the statement, +and Jerry saw the grinning red-faced tick-tick man hastily wheeling +mail-sacks and sundry other parcels by the door. In a bewildered way she +rose and passed out, giving no recognition to the shabby old man who had +been thoughtful of her ignorance.</p> + +<p>"We gotta go to the last car down yander, lady," the old man squeaked +out, as he started down the cinder-paved way with a bearlike, shuffling, +sidewise sort of gait.</p> + +<p>Jerry followed him slowly to "the last car down yander."</p> + +<p>A plain day coach, the sixtieth and last vertebra in this long +mechanical spine, was already crowded with a bunch of grubs, none of +whom could belong to Jerry Swaim's sphere. Moreover, they were all +tightly packed in and wedged down so that it was impossible to detect +the leaving off of the full-fare passenger and the beginning of +suit-cases, old-style telescopes, baskets, bundles, boxes, half-fare +children, bags of fruit, lunch-crates, pieces of farming tools, babes in +arms, groceries—everything to cabbages and kings. Jerry wondered where +all these <i>things</i> came from. Every object in that car, human being or +salt pork, crying baby or kingbolt, was a <i>thing</i> to Jerry Swaim. And +all of them were very warm and nervously tense, as if the hot June wind +had blown them all inside, that the hot June sun, through the closed +windows, might stew them stinkily; or, through the open windows, grime +their sweaty faces with hot dust off the hot prairie. There was only one +vacant seat left. It was on the shady side, facing the rear of the car, +and was half occupied already by the humble grub of the squeaky voice. +The girl, Thelma, and the fat little man had taken the seat opposite +him. As Jerry entered the car the little man was on his feet, bowing and +strutting and insisting that a woman with a babe in arms should exchange +seats with him, putting her on the cool side, while he took her place in +the sun across the aisle from Thelma. In the transfer he did not see +Jerry, who was looking in vain for an opening in that mass of "human +various." It was the humble grub who saw her standing there. Evidently +his little yellow-green eyes took her measure at a glance, but he did +not spread out his effects and stare out of the window as some other men +were doing, nor gather himself and his into his own half of the seat to +make room for her beside him. He rose, and in a shrill little quaver he +bade her take his place. It did not occur to Jerry to tell him that +there was room for two, as she saw him shuffle down the aisle with a +queer, limping hitch. In the same impersonal way she watched him through +the open door, sitting on the rear platform during the long afternoon, +humpbacked against the cinders and dust that beat upon him, swaying with +the rocking car, jerked along over a sun-baked, treeless prairie at the +tail of a long jerky freight-train. He meant nothing to this dainty city +product; his kind had never entered her world; no more had the +red-faced, tow-headed young mother, with white eyebrows and hat knocked +rakishly aslant, with her big, restless, bald-headed baby rolling over +her in waves, sprawling about Thelma, and threatening to bump its head +off as it overflowed all the narrow space, aimlessly and persistently.</p> + +<p>But if Jerry Swaim felt out of her element in this company, her +fellow-passengers felt much more embarrassed by her presence. Thelma's +neat gingham dress became limp and mussy and common. The tired mother's +yellow lawn was rumpled into a dish-rag. And with every jerk of the +train she lost a hair-pin from her tow hair that was already stringing +down in long wisps on her neck. The baby, really a happy, white, +blue-veined infant, became a fussy flushed impossibility.</p> + +<p>All this, it seemed, just because of the presence of a faultlessly +dressed, fair-faced stranger who awed everybody by not seeing them, but +whose very daintiness and beauty drew them hungrily to her. Nobody could +be in Jerry Swaim's presence and not feel the spell of her inherent +magnetism.</p> + +<p>The laughter and complaints of the passengers dulled down to endurance. +Only the face of the short man wore a smile. But his mouth was made with +that kind of a curve, and he couldn't help it. Breathing deeply and +perspiring healthfully, he sat against the heat streaming into his side +of the car, and forgot his troubles in his unbreakable good nature. For +a long time he and Thelma had talked across the aisle above and through +the train's noises. Their talk was all of Paul and Joe's place, and the +crops; of how glad Thelma was to be at home again on Paul's account; and +how long it would take her yet if the alfalfa and wheat turned out well.</p> + +<p>Jerry heard it all without knowing it, as she looked at the monotonous +landscape without knowing it. And then the dry prairies began to deepen +to a richer hue. Yellow wheat-fields and low-growing corn and stretches +of alfalfa broke into the high plains where cattle grazed. And then came +the gleam of a river, sometimes shallow along sandy levels, sometimes +deep, with low overhanging brush on either side. And there were +cottonwood-trees and low twisted elms and scrubby locust and oak +saplings, and the faint, fresh scent of moisture livening the air.</p> + +<p>The train jerked itself to a standstill, thought better of it, and +hunched along again for a rod or two, then jostled itself quiet again.</p> + +<p>Jerry was very drowsy now, but she was conscious of hearing the fat man +calling out, cheerfully:</p> + +<p>"Home at last, Thelmy. There's Paul waiting for you. Well, good-by."</p> + +<p>And of Thelma's "Good-by" in a louder tone than was necessary. Of more +strutting and bowing and no end of luggage clearing itself away.</p> + +<p>Through the window Jerry caught sight of a tall, fair-haired boy, who +looked like Thelma, except that in his white face was the pathos of the +life-cripple. She saw Thelma kiss him, and then the two started down the +sunny, cindery side-track together. In the distance, close to the river, +there was a small plain house under a big cottonwood-tree. The glimpse +of red about a little porch meant that the crimson ramblers were in +bloom there. Oh, the roses of "Eden," and the cool rose-arbor! Jerry +must have dreamed then, for "Eden" was about her again. Through it the +limping grub came humbly to claim his sundry own from behind and under +the seat. Even in "Eden" she thought how much like a clumsy bear his +gait was. And when the little man called him "Teddy" she knew he was not +a fisherman sort of creature, but a real bear in yellow-brown overalls, +and that the general fuzziness of his make-up was fur, and that his +stubby, scaly hands were claws. He dropped off somewhere when the +freight took a siding very near the river. It was the Sage Brush, but it +ran through the "Eden" grounds and Uncle Cornie was throwing his discus +beside it. The rose-arbor was just across the aisle. The little fat man +was sitting in its doorway, with a new moon of a smile on the smooth +side of his round head where his face was, a half-quizzical, +half-sympathetic smile with no guile in it. Jerry really liked him for +that kind of a smile. It belonged to him. The rose-arbor was very warm, +for the man was sweating more copiously than ever.... Uncle Cornie was +gone. The limping Teddy Bear was gone.... It was very, very hot and +sunny in "Eden." The big maples and cool lilacs were gone.... "Eden" was +gone. In its stead came the art exhibit in the cool gallery in the city. +And that yellow-gray desert landscape with the flaming afterglow and +purple mists. The flames seemed almost real, and the yellow gray almost +real, and the art-gallery was getting warmer as "Eden" had done. It was +positively hot.... And then the Sage Brush freight was laboring slowly +and painfully through a desert with clack and roar and cloud of cindery +dust.... Jerry sat up, wide awake, and looked up at the fat stranger who +was looking at her, the smile on the inside of his face, as it were, +showing only in the eyes.</p> + +<p>Outside, the river was gone, taking with it all the cool-breathing +alfalfa, and elm and cottonwood shade, and leaving in their stead only +bare earth-ridges and low dunes. As far as Jerry could see, there was +nothing but a hot yellow plain, wrinkled here and there in great barren +folds, with wave and crest and hollow of wind-shifted sand crawling +endlessly back and forth along the face of the landscape. A few spiny +green shrubs struggled through at intervals, but their presence only +intensified the barrenness about them.</p> + +<p>The train was entering a deep wrinkle not unlike that cut beyond the +third crossing of the Winnowoc. Jerry remembered the day she had watched +that other train from the bluff road, and her exultation in pounding her +big car up the steep way instead of crawling through, as Eugene was +doing. Later she had found out that Eugene really preferred that to the +more daring climb. Jerry involuntarily gripped the car seat with a +subconscious longing to get out and drive over the whole thing. Across +the aisle, the smile on the fat man's face was coming outside as he +watched the stranger passenger.</p> + +<p>They were deep in now—a valley-like thing that was hotter than any +other inch of the whole way they had come. On either side tall slabs of +timber, planted upright, closed in the right of way. They were barely +moving through this narrow lane. The engine was gasping for breath, and +the cars dragged themselves after it by inches. Then all came to a dead +stop.</p> + +<p>"Everybody turn out and help," somebody in uniformed authority called +through the car door, and all the men passengers stirred to action.</p> + +<p>"<i>The</i> dickens!" the short fat man exclaimed to everybody. "Stuck in a +sand-drift in that danged blowout. That's what comes of letting this +wind go all day. I told 'em up at the junction to stop it, but they +wouldn't listen to me. Now we've got to soar out of here and shovel for +our lives."</p> + +<p>When he laughed everybody else had to laugh, too, and it was a really +good-natured company of men that piled down from the train to help the +cause of railway transportation.</p> + +<p>The fat man had been last to leave the car.</p> + +<p>"Let me close all these windows," he urged, strutting from seat to seat. +"It'll be hot with 'em shut, but you'll be buried in sand in here if we +leave 'em open, and we men don't want to dig you and the engine all out +in one day. We mightn't find all the children, you know, and leave some +of 'em in here covered up. He, he! Haw!" He struggled with the last +windows until they were sealed down, then turned away to lend his aid in +a good cause.</p> + +<p>The tow-headed woman and her little perpetual-motion baby, who had been +sleeping wearily for a few miles, roused at the jolly man's loud laugh.</p> + +<p>"It's the blowout," the mother said, as Jerry looked at her for the +first time. "Them timbers is driv in to keep out all that sand. See how +it's heaped up ag'in' 'em on the outside. On awfully windy days it blows +over and fills the tracks and stops the train, and then the men all get +out and help to shovel it off. Gee whiz! but it's hot in here! We'd be +just smothered in sand if we left the windows open, though. There! +There!"</p> + +<p>The last to the big baby, stirring uneasily, whom the mother patted off +to slumber again.</p> + +<p>Jerry walked to the rear door and looked out at the narrow space walled +in by palisades, and at glimpses of sand waves on either side of the +road beyond them; at the little hot-looking green shrubs clinging for +life to their shifting depths, and the heat-quivering air visible above +them. In all her life she had never felt so uncomfortable as now; never +realized what it means to <i>endure</i> physical misery. She had seen the +habitable globe features—lake-shore, and seaside, and mountain resorts; +big navigable rivers; big forests; narrow little valleys; sheer cliffs +and wonderful waterfalls. She didn't know that the world held such a +place as this that anybody but a Hottentot was supposed to inhabit. +Through a long hour and a half the train was held back by the sand of +what Jerry heard was a "blowout." She did not know nor care what the +term meant. <i>She wanted to get</i> out of it and go on, and what Jerry +Swaim <i>wanted</i> she had always had the right to have.</p> + +<p>The sun was getting low in the west when the local freight labored up +the Sage Brush Valley to its terminal in the yards at New Eden. All of +the passengers except Jerry tumbled out, much as tired boys rush from +the church door after a long doctrinal sermon. The car was stopped at +the freight-station, some distance down the line from the +passenger-station, which was itself a long way out from New Eden, after +the manner of Western small towns. The middle '80's, when railroad +branch lines were building, found road directors and town councils +falling out over technicalities, with the result that the railroad +seldom secured the ground it wanted and the town was seldom given a +convenient station site.</p> + +<p>The buses filled rapidly, and the mail and express wagons were rattling +off ahead of buses and foot passengers, and still the young stranger sat +in the car. A sudden sense of loneliness had enveloped her like a cloud. +She was not a novice abroad. She had gone to strange towns alone before. +She knew all the regulations of hotel service. She knew why she had come +here and what she had to do, and she had abundant means for all her +needs. But with all these points in her favor a helplessness swept over +her, and the "what next" for the moment perplexed her. The engine was +getting restless again. However long it may require a local freight to +get from one given point to another, the engine, like an ill-broken +colt, will keep stepping up or pulling back through every halt of the +train. Jerry sat inside, watching the last bus, loaded and hung-on-to, +swinging off down the dusty road toward the town, a full half-mile +across the prairie from the station. Life was getting a trifle too +interesting in this foreign clime, and when the short man appeared in +the doorway, even the full-moon face and half-moon smile, the profound +bow and comical strut, could not out-weigh the genuine comfort his +presence seemed to bring.</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, Miss—Miss—"</p> + +<p>"Miss Swaim," Jerry informed him, sure of herself and unafraid again.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Miss Swaim! My name is Ponk—Junius Brutus Ponk. Pardon again if I +seem to intrude. This is the Sage Brush terminal. Excuse me if I say +thank the Lord for the end of <i>this</i> day's journey! The buses are all +gone. May I take you to your destination here in my little gadabout? You +want to stop somewhere in New Eden overnight, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much."</p> + +<p>Jerry looked at him gratefully, even if he was only one of the bunch of +grubs she had been forced to ride with all this long afternoon, she who +had once repudiated the Winnowoc train and all trains without Pullman +accommodations. "The smile on her face was mightily winsome," Ponk +declared afterward, "and just took all my ramparts and citadels and +moats and drawbridges at one fell swoop."</p> + +<p>He gathered up her bags and helped her off the car pompously, saying:</p> + +<p>"Here she is, Miss Swaim. Step right in." And then with a flourish of +arms he had Jerry and her belongings stored inside a shiny gray runabout +and was off down the grassy road with a dash.</p> + +<p>"Where shall I take you to, Miss Swaim?" he inquired, when the little +car had glided gracefully around the lumbering buses and rattling +wagons.</p> + +<p>"To the best hotel, please," Jerry replied. "Do you know which one that +is?"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm. There isn't but one. The Commercial Hotel and Gurrage. I'm the +proprietor, so I know." The smile that broke around the face of the +speaker was too good-natured to make his words seem presumptuous.</p> + +<p>Jerry smiled, too, finding herself in the grasp of a strange and +complete confidence in the pompous little unknown chauffeur.</p> + +<p>"Do you know an old gentleman here named York Macpherson, a Mortgage +Company man?" she asked, looking at him directly for the first time.</p> + +<p>Ponk seemed to gulp down a smile before he replied: "Ye-es, I do know +York very well. He's prob'bly older than he looks. His office is right +across the street from the Commercial Hotel and Gurrage."</p> + +<p>Afterward he declared: "From the minute that girl turned her eyes full +on me and I saw how blue them orbs were, I begun to wish I had a gold +button instead of a bone one in the back of my collar. I knew she could +see that cheap bone thing right through my neck and I was willing right +then to lay down and play dead if she wanted me to, and I'm never going +to recover, never."</p> + +<p>"Would you do—me a favor?" Jerry asked, hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>Asking favors was a new line for her and she followed it prettily.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't I!" Mr. Ponk exclaimed. "Try me."</p> + +<p>"Even his voice has a strut in it," Jerry thought. Aloud she said: "I +have business with this old gentleman and I would be much obliged if you +would tell him that Miss Geraldine Swaim is in the city and would like +to meet him."</p> + +<p>"Why, I'll soar right over there as soon as we get to the hotel and +gurrage."</p> + +<p>Junius Brutus Ponk looked slyly at the face of his companion as he +spoke. What he was thinking just then it would have been hard to guess. +With a flourish and curve that were wholly Ponkish the fat little man +swung the gray car up to the brick-paved porch of the "Commercial Hotel +and Gurrage."</p> + +<p>"Why, there's York now, reading his mail! I'll go right over and tell +him," Mr. Ponk declared. "Here, George, tell Georgette to give Miss +Swaim number seven."</p> + +<p>George assisted Miss Swaim to the hotel register and Georgette led her +to room No. 7. Georgette wanted to linger a minute, for this guest was +so unlike the usual commercial-traveler kind of ladies who sold books, +or canvassed for extracts, or took orders for crayon portraits enlarged +from little photographs; but Miss Swaim's manner gave no excuse for +lingering. Alone, Jerry closed her door and turned, with a smile on her +lips, to face her surroundings. The room was clean and cool, with a big +window overhanging the street. Jerry sat down before it, realizing how +weary the long journey had made her. Across the street, the sign of the +Macpherson Mortgage Company in big gold letters hung above a plate-glass +window. Mr.</p> + +<p>Ponk, who had just "soared" across, was sitting in his car before it. +Jerry saw a man inside at a desk very much like Uncle Cornie's in the +Philadelphia banking-house where Eugene Wellington was busy now helping +Aunt Jerry to settle things. This man was reading letters when the Ponk +car tooted before the big window. He waved a hand to the tooter, then +put his letters away and came leisurely outside. Jerry saw a tall, +finely proportioned man, the set of whose clothes had a city air, and +there was something in his whole manner that would have distinguished +him from every other man in New Eden.</p> + +<p>The fat little man talked earnestly, with a flourish of the hand now and +then toward the room where Jerry sat watching the two. York Macpherson +rested one foot on the running-board, and leaned his arms on the side of +the car, listening intently to what Mr. Ponk was saying.</p> + +<p>"So that is this York Macpherson who was never responsible for my estate +not making any returns. And I called him an old man. The hotel +proprietor must be telling him that now." Jerry laughed as she saw the +two men chuckling together. "Well, I hope the pompous little fellow +tells him I'm an old woman. It would even things up wonderfully."</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later Jerry was shaking hands with York Macpherson and +promising him to go to his home and meet his sister as soon as she had +cleared her eyes of dust sufficiently to see anybody.</p> + +<p>It must have been the dust in her eyes, Jerry thought, that made York +Macpherson appear so unlike the benevolent, inefficient old gentleman +she had pictured to herself. The hotel parlor was in twilight shadows, +which helped a little to conceal the surprise of these two when they met +there. Jerry knew what she had been anticipating. Whether York +Macpherson knew or not, he was clearly not expecting what he found in +the hotel parlor.</p> + +<p>"I'll soar down to your shack with the lady as soon as she has had her +supper and got herself rightly in hand," Ponk declared to York when he +came into the hotel office. "You see, we got stuck in that danged, +infernal blowout, and it was as hard on the womenkind who had to sit +inside and swelter as on us men who nobly dug. 'Specially this Miss +Swaim. She must have 'wept to see such quantities of sand,' same as them +oysters and walruses and carpenters. We'll be along by and by, though. +Have a cigar. What do you make of her, anyhow, York?"</p> + +<p>"I don't make anything. I leave that job to you," York replied, with a +smile, as he turned abruptly and left the hotel.</p> + +<p>"Unless you see eight per cent. interest coming your way, I see. There +might be a bigger interest in this investment than any you ever made in +your life," Ponk called after him.</p> + +<p>But York only waved off the words without looking back. Outside, the +sunset's splendor was filling the western sky—the same old prairie +sunset that he had seen many a time in his years in Kansas. And yet, on +this evening it did not seem quite the same; nor were the sunsets, New +Eden, and the Sage Brush Valley from this evening ever quite as they had +been before, to York Macpherson.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + +<h3>NEW EDEN'S PROBLEM</h3> + + +<p>Because of a broken "culbert" out toward "S'liny" the afternoon train on +the Sage Brush branch was annulled for the day. Because of this +annulment the mail for the Sage Brush Valley was brought up on the local +freight, which is always behind time when it reaches its terminal, which +accounted for the late delivery of the mail at the New Eden post-office, +which made York Macpherson's dinner late because of a big batch of +letters to be read, and an important business call at the Commercial +Hotel following the reading and the delivery of Mr. Ponk's message.</p> + +<p>Purple shadows were beginning to fold down upon the landscape, while +overhead the sky was still heliotrope and gold, but York Macpherson, +walking slowly homeward, saw neither the shadows nor the glory that +overhung them. It was evident to his sister Laura, who was waiting for +him in the honeysuckle corner of the big front porch, that his mind was +burdened with something unusual to-night.</p> + +<p>York Macpherson was a "leading citizen" type of the Middle West. +Wholesome, ruggedly handsome, prosperous, shrewd to read men's minds, +quick to meet their needs, full of faith in the promise of the Western +prairies, with the sort of culture no hardship of the plains could ever +overcome—that was York. Although he was on the front edge of middle +life in years, with a few gray streaks in his wavy brown hair, he had +the young-looking face, the alert action, and vigorous atmosphere of a +young-hearted man just entered into his full heritage of manhood.</p> + +<p>"The train was delayed down the river on account of sand drifted over +the track by the south wind, and that made the mail late," York +explained, when he reached the porch. "I'll bet you have had the house +shut up tight as wax and have gone about all day with a dust-cloth in +your hand. Given a south wind and Laura Macpherson, and you have a home +industry in no time. Let's hurry up the dinner" (it was always dinner to +the Macphersons and supper to the remainder of New Eden) "and get +outside again as soon as possible. I can't think in shut-up rooms."</p> + +<p>"When there is a south wind it makes little difference whether or not +one does any thinking. I postpone that job to the cool of the evening," +Laura Macpherson declared, as she led the way to the dining-room.</p> + +<p>When the two came outside again the air off the prairie was delicious, +and there was promise of restfulness later in the black silence of the +June night that made them forget the nervous strain of the windy day. +The Macphersons had no problems that they could not talk over in the +shadowy stillness of that roomy porch on summer evenings.</p> + +<p>York had been a bachelor boarder at the "Commercial Hotel and Garage" +for some years before the coming of his sister Laura, who was at once +his housekeeper, companion, and counselor. When he first went to the +hotel New Eden was in its infancy, and the raw beginnings of things were +especially underdone in this two-dollars-a-day, one-towel-a-week +establishment. It was through York that Junius Brutus Ponk had given up +an unprofitable real-estate business to become proprietor of the +Commercial Hotel—"and Gurrage" was added later with the advent of +automobiles, the "Gurrage" part being a really creditably equipped +livery for public service. By this change of occupation for Ponk, the +Macpherson Mortgage Company accomplished several things. It got rid of +an inefficient competitor whose very inefficiency would have made him a +more disagreeable enemy than a successful man would have been. Further, +it placed the ambitious little man where his talents could flourish +(flourish is the right word for J. B. Ponk), and it put into the growing +little town of New Eden a hotel with city comforts that brought business +to the town and added mightily to its reputation and respectability.</p> + +<p>York Macpherson's business had grown with the town he had helped to +build. Long before other towns in this part of Kansas had dreamed it +possible for them, New Eden was lighted with electricity. Water-works +and a sewer system fore-ran cement sidewalks and a mile of paving, not +including the square around the court-house. And before any of these had +come the big stone school-house on the high ridge overlooking the Sage +Brush Valley for miles. That also was York Macpherson's task, which he +had carried out almost single-handed, and had the satisfaction of +bringing desirable taxpaying residents to live in New Eden who would +never have come but for the school advantages. Then Junius Brutus Ponk, +who had learned to couple with York, got himself elected to the board of +education and began to pay higher salaries to teachers than was paid by +any other town in the whole Sage Brush Valley; to the end that better +schools were housed in that fine school-building, and a finer class of +young citizens began to put the good name of New Eden above everything +else. The hoodlum element was there, of course, but it was not the +leading element. Boys stuck to the high-school faithfully and followed +it up with a college course, even though a large per cent. of them +worked for every dollar that the course cost them. Girls went to +college, too, until it became a rare thing to find a teacher in the +whole valley who had not a diploma from some institution of higher +learning.</p> + +<p>It was only recently that Laura Macpherson had come to New Eden to make +her home with her brother. An accident a few years before had shortened +one limb, making her limp as she walked. She was some years older than +York, with a face as young and very much like her brother's; a comely, +companionable sort of woman, popular alike with men and women, young +folks and children.</p> + +<p>Some time before her coming York had bought the best building-site in +New Eden, a wooded knoll inside the corporation limits, the only natural +woodland in the vicinity, that stood directly across the far end of +Broad Avenue, the main business street, whose mile of paving ended in +York's driveway. In one direction, this site commanded a view far down +Sage Brush Valley; in the other, it overlooked the best residence and +business portion of New Eden. Here York had, as he put it, "built a +porch, at the rear of which a few rooms were attached." The main glory +of the place, however, was the big porch.</p> + +<p>York had named their home "Castle Cluny," and his big farm joining it +just outside the town limits "Kingussie," after some old Macpherson-clan +memories. There were no millionaires in the Sage Brush Valley, and this +home was far and away the finest, as well as the most popular, home in a +community where thrift and neatness abounded in the homes, and elegance +was very much lacking, as was to be expected in a young town on the far +edge of the Middle West.</p> + +<p>"Joe Thomson came in to-day to see me about putting a mortgage on his +claim this side of the big blowout. Looks like a losing game for Joe. +His land is about one-third sand now," York commented, thoughtfully, as +he settled himself comfortably in his big porch chair.</p> + +<p>"Well, why not let the sand have its own third, while he uses the other +two-thirds himself? They ought to keep him busy," Laura suggested.</p> + +<p>The country around New Eden was still new to her. Although she +overflowed the town with her sunny presence, her lameness had kept her +nearer to "Castle Cluny" than her brother had comprehended. She did not +understand the laws, nor lawlessness, of what her brother called the +"blowout," nor had she ever seen the desolation that marked its +broadening path.</p> + +<p>"A blowout is never satisfied until it has swallowed all the land in the +landscape," York explained. "I remember a few years ago there was just a +sandy outcrop along a little draw below Joe's claim, the line of some +prehistoric river-bed, I suppose. That was the beginning of the thing +Joe is fighting to-day. Something started the sand to drifting. It +increased as the wind blew away the soil; the more wind, the more sand; +the more sand, the more wind. They worked together until what had been a +narrow belt spread enormously, gradually overlapping Joe's claim, making +acres of waste ground. I hate to see Joe shoulder a mortgage to try to +drive back that monstrous thing. But Joe is one of those big, +self-contained fellows who takes the bit in his teeth and goes his own +gait in spite of all the danger signals you wigwag at him."</p> + +<p>"Why do you loan him money if you know he can't succeed?" Laura +inquired.</p> + +<p>"Making farm loans is the business of the Macpherson Mortgage Company. +That's how we maintain our meager existence," York replied, teasingly. +"Joe wants to fight back the blowout creeping over his south border +farther and farther each year. Our company gets its commission while he +fights. See?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you grasping loan shark! If I didn't know how easy it is for you to +lie I'd disown you," Laura declared, flinging a chair pillow at her +brother, who was chuckling at her earnestness.</p> + +<p>But York was serious himself in the next minute.</p> + +<p>"Our company doesn't want the prairie; it wants prosperity. A foreclosed +mortgage is bad business. It brings us responsibility and ill-will. What +we want is good-will and interest money. I have put the thing up to Joe +just as it is. Man is a free agent to choose or let alone. I have a +bigger problem than Joe to handle now. I had a letter this evening from +Miss Geraldine Swaim, of Philadelphia. Do you remember her, Laura? She +used to come up to Winnowoc when she was a little girl."</p> + +<p>"I remember little Jerry Swaim, Jim and Lesa's only child," York's +sister declared. "She was considerably younger than I. I pushed her in +her baby-cab when I wasn't very big myself. When I went away to college +she was a little roly-poly beauty of ten or eleven, maybe. Wasn't she +named for her father's rich sister, Mrs. Darby? I never knew that Mrs. +Darby's name was Geraldine."</p> + +<p>"It wasn't; it was Jerusha; and Jim's name was Jeremiah; and Lesa's was +plain Melissa," York explained. "But Lesa changed all of their names to +make them sound more romantic. Romance was Lesa's strong suit. She +called her daughter 'Jerry,' to please Mrs. Darby, but the child was +christened Geraldine—never Jerusha. Lesa wouldn't stand for that."</p> + +<p>"And now what does this Geraldine want from my respected brother?" Laura +inquired, leaning back on the cushions of her chair to listen.</p> + +<p>York's face was hidden by the darker shadows of the porch, but his +sister knew by his grave tone, when he spoke again, that something +deeper than a business transaction lay back of this message from +Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>"It's an old story, Laura. The story of parents rearing a child in +luxury and then dying poor and leaving this child unprovided for and +unfitted to provide for herself. Jim Swaim was as clear-headed as his +wife was soft-hearted and idealizing. Every angle of his was a right +angle, even if he did grow a bit tight-fisted sometimes for his family's +sake. But a leech of a fellow, a sort of relative by marriage, got his +claws into Jim some way, and in the end got him, root and branch. Then +Lesa contracted pneumonia and died after a short illness. And just when +Jim was most needed to hold up his business interests and tide things +over, as well as look after his daughter, they found him dead in his +office one morning. Heart failure, the doctors said, the kind that gets +a brain-fagged business man. The estate has been in litigation for two +years. Now it is settled, and all that is left for Geraldine is a claim +her father held out here in the Sage Brush Valley. She thinks she is +going to live on that. She came in on the afternoon train and is +stopping at the Commercial Hotel. I called to see her a minute on my way +home. That was why I ate a cold dinner this evening. I asked her to come +here at once, but she refused. Some one from the hotel will bring her +over later. That means Ponk, of course. He's the whole Commercial Hotel +'and Gurrage.' We must have her here to stay with us awhile, of course."</p> + +<p>"York Macpherson!" his sister fairly gasped. "Coming to call this +evening! Will stay with us awhile, of course. All right. I'm willing +she should stay with us awhile, but how can <i>she</i> live on a Sage Brush +claim? Why doesn't her rich aunt Darby provide for her? What does she +look like?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," York drawled, provokingly. Then he added: "Mrs. Darby +also writes, saying that she hopes we will look after Jerry while she is +here, but that she herself can do nothing for her niece, because a +relative of her dear deceased husband, an artist of merit but no means, +is dependent on her, and she owes it to her dear deceased's memory to +look after this young man. I've a notion that there is something back of +both letters, but I haven't had time to read behind the lines yet."</p> + +<p>"Turns out her own flesh and blood, a girl, too, to shift for herself, +and coddles this man, this artist thing, for her dear deceased's sake. +What <i>do</i> you think of that?" Laura burst out.</p> + +<p>"I don't think of that," York replied. "Not really knowing any woman but +my sister, I can't judge them by the sample. Besides, this 'girl thing' +may have elected to come to the Sage Brush herself; that would be like +Jim Swaim. Or she may be making a lark of the trip; that's her mother's +child. And, anyhow, she has property in her own name, you see."</p> + +<p>"Property, bosh! Where is this precious claim that is to sustain this +luxuriously reared child?" Laura Macpherson insisted.</p> + +<p>"It is an undeveloped claim down the Sage Brush, in a part of the +country you haven't seen yet. That is what this child of luxury has come +out for to live upon," York said, with a minor chord of anxiety in his +voice.</p> + +<p>Then a silence fell, for Laura Macpherson felt that something tragical +must be bound up in the course of coming events.</p> + +<p>It was the poet's hour of "nearly dark." The "high lights" were +beginning to gleam from the cupola of the court-house and high-school, +and station tower out across the open stretch that lay between it and +the town. New Eden was unusually well lighted for its size. York +Macpherson had forced that provision into the electric company's +franchise. But New-Edenites were still rural in their ways, and never +burned up the long summer twilight with bug-alluring street lights. +Homes, too, were mostly shadowy places, with the dwellers resting in +porch swings or lawn chairs. Moreover, although there was a little +leakage somewhere through which things disappeared occasionally, nobody +in town except bankers, postmasters, and mortgage companies locked their +doors. The jail was usually empty on the Saturday night, and the +churches were full on Sunday, as is the normal condition of Middle West +towns in a prohibition state.</p> + +<p>"The wind is in the east. It will rain to-morrow," York said, after a +pause. "I had planned to go to the upper Sage Brush country for a +couple of days. I'll wait till after Sunday now."</p> + +<p>Laura Macpherson did not know whether the last meant relief or anxiety. +York was not readable to-night.</p> + +<p>"What are you staring at?" York asked, presently, from his +vine-sheltered angle, as he saw his sister looking intently down into +the street.</p> + +<p>"Humans," Laura replied, composedly.</p> + +<p>"Not the Big Dipper, I hope. Isn't the town big enough without her +ranging all over 'Kingussie'?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, York, you will call Mrs. Bahrr 'the Big Dipper' to her face some +day, if you don't quit your private practice," Laura declared.</p> + +<p>"Well, her name is Stella Bahrr. 'Stellar,' she calls it, and she +pronounces her surname just plain 'Bear.' If that isn't starry enough I +don't know my astronomy. And she is always dipping into other folks's +business and stirring up trouble with a high hand. Laura, once and for +all, never tie up with that little old hat-trimmer. She'll trim you if +you do."</p> + +<p>"Don't be uneasy about our getting chummy. I'm positively rude to her +most of the time. She isn't coming here. She has veered off toward the +Lenwells'. But look who is coming, York."</p> + +<p>York shifted his chair into line with the street.</p> + +<p>"It's the fair Philadelphian and her pompous gentleman in waiting," York +declared.</p> + +<p>"Look at little Brother Ponk strut, would you? 'A charge to keep I +have.' But, York, Miss Swaim appears a bit too Philadelphian for our New +Eden scenery!" Laura exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"She is a type all her own, I would say. Jim Swaim's determined chin and +Lesa's dreamy eyes. She will be an interesting study, at least. I wonder +which parent will win in her final development," York replied, as the +two approached the house.</p> + +<p>"I have brought the young lady to call on you," Mr. Ponk said, +presenting his companion with a flourish, as if she were a trophy cup or +a statue just unveiled. "Sorry I can't stay to visit with you, but my +clerk is out to-night. They'll take care of you beautiful, Miss Swaim. +No, thank you, no. I'll just soar back to the hotel."</p> + +<p>He waved off the seat York had proffered him, and bowed himself away as +gracefully as a short, round man can bow.</p> + +<p>Laura Macpherson had an inborn gift of hospitality, but she realized at +once that this guest brought an unusual and compelling interest. She was +conscious, too, in a vague way, of the portent of some permanent change +pending. What she saw clearly was a very pretty girl with a soft voice +and a definite, forceful personality.</p> + +<p>"Miss Swaim, you must be tired after your long journey," Laura began, +courteously.</p> + +<p>"Please don't call me that. I am so far from home I'll be 'Miss Swaimed' +enough, anyhow."</p> + +<p>The appeal in the blue eyes broke down all reserve.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll call you 'Jerry,' as I did when you were a little girl and I +was beginning to think about getting grown up," Laura exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"And since you are far from home, we hope you may find a home welcome in +our house, and that you will come at once and be our guest +indefinitely," York added, with his winning smile that ought to have +sent him to Congress years ago.</p> + +<p>Something about Jerry Swaim had caught Laura Macpherson in a moment. She +hoped that York had the same feeling. But York was one of the +impenetrable kind when he chose. And he certainly chose that evening to +prove his impenetrability.</p> + +<p>"You are very kind," Jerry said, looking at York with earnest eyes, void +of all coquettishness. Then, turning to York's sister, she went on:</p> + +<p>"I am not tired now. But the last part of my journey was frightful. The +afternoon was hot, and the wind blew terrifically. They had to close the +windows to keep out the dust. Then we were delayed in what they told me +was called a 'blowout.'" Her eyes were sparkling now, but her emphasis +on the term seemed to cut against York Macpherson's senses like burning +sand-filled wind as he sat studying her face.</p> + +<p>"All the 'blowouts' I ever heard of were in the tires of our limousine +car," she continued, musingly. "And my cousin, Gene Wellington, of +Philadelphia, didn't know what to do about them at all. He is an artist, +and artists never do take to practical things. Gene was more helpless +when anything went wrong with the car than ever I was, and awfully +afraid of taking a risk or anything."</p> + +<p>And that, it seemed to the Macphersons, must have been helpless indeed. +For as she sat there at ease in the shadowy dimness of the summer +evening, York Macpherson thought of Carlyle's phrasing, "Her feet to +fall on softness; her eyes to light on splendor," a creature fitted only +to adorn the upholstered places of life.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever see that dreadful 'blowout' thing?" Jerry asked, coming +back from the recollection of limousine cars and Cousin Gene of +Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>"No, I have only been here a short time myself, and the country is +almost as new to me as it is to you," Laura Macpherson replied.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is <i>such</i> an awful place!" Jerry continued. "Everywhere and +everywhere one can see nothing but great sand-waves all over the land. +They have almost buried the palisades that protect the railroad. It just +seemed like the Red Sea dividing to let the Israelites go through, only +this was red-hot sand held back to let the train pass through a deep +rift. And to-day the wind had filled up the tracks so it couldn't go +through until the sand was cleaned out. There is only one kind of shrub, +a spiny looking thing, growing anywhere on all those useless acres. It +is a perfectly horrid country! Why was such land ever made?" Jerry +turned to York with the question.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you," York said, "but there are some good things here."</p> + +<p>"Yes, there is my claim," Jerry broke in. "It's all I have left, you +know. Cousin Gene tried to persuade me it would be better off without +me, but I'm sure it must need the owner's oversight to make it really +profitable. There was no record, in settling up the estate, of its +having produced any income at all. I certainly need the income now. +Taking care of myself is a new experience for me."</p> + +<p>All the vivacity and hopefulness of youth was in her words. But the +dreamy expression on her face that came and went with her moods soon +returned.</p> + +<p>"Cousin Gene Wellington is not my real cousin, you know. He is Uncle +Darby's relative, not Aunt Jerry's. He is an artist, but without any +income right now, like myself. Both of us have to learn how to go alone, +you see, but I'm not going back to Philadelphia now, no matter what Aunt +Jerry Darby may say."</p> + +<p>This was no appeal for sympathy. Taking care of oneself seemed easy +enough to Lesa Swaim's child, to whom the West promised only one grand +romantic adventure. There was something, too, in the tone in which she +pronounced the name of Gene Wellington that seemed to set it off from +every other name. And she pronounced it often enough to trouble York +Macpherson. No other name came so easily and so frequently and frankly +to her lips.</p> + +<p>"We hope you will like the West. The Sage Brush isn't so bad when you +get acclimated to its moods," York assured her. "But don't expect too +much at first, nor too definite a way of securing an income."</p> + +<p>Only Laura Macpherson caught the same minor chord of anxiety in her +brother's voice that she recalled had been in it when he told her of +Jerry's claim. It seemed impossible, however, that anything could refuse +to be profitable for this charming, blossomy kind of a girl who must +thrive on easy success or perish, like a flower.</p> + +<p>"Oh, land always means an income, my father used to say. Aunt Jerry has +only two hundred acres, but it is a fortune to her," the girl declared. +"I'm not uneasy. As soon as I get a real hold on my property here I'll +be all right. It is getting late. I must go now. No, I am going by +myself," she declared, prettily, as York prepared to accompany her back +to the hotel. "It is straight up this light street and I am going to try +it alone from the very beginning. That's why I didn't go to your office +as soon as I got here to-day. I told Cousin Gene I could take care of +myself and make my own way out here, just as he is making his own way in +the East, working in his studio. No, you shall not go with me. Thank +you so much. No. Good-by." This to York Macpherson, who was wise enough +to catch the finality of her words.</p> + +<p>The twilight was almost gone, but a young moon in the west made the +street still light as the two on the porch watched the girl going +firm-footed and unafraid, unconscious of their anxiety for what lay in +the days before her.</p> + +<p>"Is it courage, or contempt for the West, that makes her fearless where +one would expect her to be timid? She seems a combination of ignorance +and assertiveness and a plea for sympathy all in one," Laura Macpherson +declared.</p> + +<p>"She is the child of two different temperaments—Jim one, and Lesa +another; a type all her own, but taking on something of each parent," +York asserted, as he watched until the girl had disappeared at the door +of the Commercial Hotel, far up the street.</p> + +<p>The next day was an unusual one for four people in New Eden. The wind +came from the east, driving an all-day rain before it, and York +Macpherson did not go to the upper Sage Brush country. Instead, he +worked steadily in his office all day. Some files he had not opened for +months were carefully gone over, and township maps were much in +evidence. Every now and then he glanced toward the upper windows of the +Commercial Hotel. Mr. Ponk had said that Jerry had No. 7, the room he +had occupied for several years. He wondered if this rain was making her +homesick for the Winnowoc Valley and "Eden" and that wonderful Cousin +Gene, blast him! There was a smile in York's eyes whenever he looked +across the street. When he turned to his work again his face was stern. +What he thought was a determination not to be bothered by rainy-day +loafers coming into his office, what made him set his teeth and grip to +his work, was really the fight with a temptation to go over to the hotel +and look after a homesick girl.</p> + +<p>Meantime Jerry Swaim, snug in a filmy gray kimona with pink facings and +soft gray slippers, was enjoying the day to the full limit. Secure from +strangers, relaxed from the weariness of travel, she slept dreamlessly, +and wakened, pink and rested, to watch the cool, life-giving rains and +dream her wonderful day-dreams wherein new adventure, victory over +obstacles, and Eugene each played a part. Jerry was in love with life. +Sunshine and rain, wind and calm, every season, were made to serve her, +all things in nature to bring her interest and pleasure—all except +<i>sand</i>. That hot hour and a half between sand-leaguered palisades seared +her memory. But that was all down-stream now, with the junction station, +and the country Thelma, and the tow-headed woman and flabby flopping +baby, and the little old Teddy Bear humping his yellow-brown fuzziness +against the swirl of cinders and prairie dust. The recollection of it +all was like the touch of a live coal on the cool surface of her +tranquil soul, a thing abhorred that yet would not be uncreated nor +forgotten.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow will be Sunday." The little pagan would have one more idle +day. "I'll get a letter from Eugene on Monday. On Monday," dreamily, +"I'll beg into live here, not stay here. What charming folks the +Macphersons are! and—so different."</p> + +<p>There was a difference. Jerry did not know, nor care to analyze it, nor +explain to herself, why these two people had in themselves alone begun +to make New Eden worth while for her. She for whom things, human and +otherwise, had heretofore been created—all except <i>sand</i>.</p> + +<p>The third New-Edenite who had some special interests on this rainy day +was Junius Brutus Ponk. Often an idler in the Macpherson Company's +office, he was always interesting to York. There were never created two +of his kind. That in itself made him worth while to the big, strong man +of many affairs. And, much as York wanted to be alone to-day, he +welcomed the coming of Ponk. In the long, serious conversation that +followed, their usual bantering had no place. And when the little man +went slowly out, and slowly crossed the street to the hotel, indifferent +to the steady fall of rain, York Macpherson's eyes followed him +earnestly.</p> + +<p>"He'll almost forget to strut if that girl stays here—but she won't +stay. And he will strut. He's made that way. But down under it all he's +a man, God bless him—a man any woman could trust."</p> + +<p>Up at "Castle Cluny" the rainy day brought one caller whom "chilling +winds nor poisonous breath" could never halt—Mrs. Stellar Bahrr, +otherwise—"the Big Dipper"—the town gossip.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stellar Bahrr was a married, widowed-by-divorce, old-maid type, +built like a sky-scraper, of the lean, uncertain age just around sixty, +with the roundness of youth all gone, and the plump beauty of +matronliness all lacking, wrinkled with envy and small malice, living on +repeating what New Eden wanted kept untold. Hiding what New Eden should +have known of her, she maintained herself on a pension from some one, +known only to York Macpherson, and the small income derived just now +from trimming over last year's hats "to make them look like +four-year-olds," York declared.</p> + +<p>The real milliner of the town was a brisk, bright business woman who had +Stellar Bahrr on her trail in season and out of season. Mrs. Bahrr +herself could not have kept up a business of any kind for a week, for +she changed callings almost with the moon's phases.</p> + +<p>No more unwelcome caller could have intruded on the homey, delicious, +rainy-day seclusion of "Castle Cluny."</p> + +<p>"I jis' run in to see the hat again you're goin' to wear to-morrow, Miss +Laury. I 'ain't got more 'n a minute. Ye ain't alone this dreary day, +are ye? The Lenwells was sayin' last night your brother was goin' to the +upper Sage Brush on some business with the Posers. But they're in town, +rainy as it is, an' all. Did he go?"</p> + +<p>"No, he put it off till Monday," Laura replied, wondering what interest +York's going or coming could be to Stellar Bahrr.</p> + +<p>"As I was sayin', the Posers is in town. Come to meet Nell and her baby. +They come in on the freight yesterday. The biggest, bald-headest young +un you ever see. Nell wants her hat fixed over, and nothin' on the +livin' earth to fix it with, ner money to pay for it. I'll make ol' +Poser do that, though. Lemme see your hat, so's I can get an idy or two. +You've got some 'commodation, if that blamed millinery-store hain't. +Thank ye for the favor."</p> + +<p>Stellar had a way of pinning her eyes through one until her victim could +not squirm. She also had a way of talking so much she gave the +impression of running down and the promise of a speedy leave-taking, +which she never took until she had gained all the information she +wanted. Her talent in a good cause would have been invaluable, for she +was shrewd, patient, and everlastingly persistent.</p> + +<p>Laura Macpherson reluctantly left the room to get her hat, wondering, +since it had not been out of the box before, how in the world Stellar +Bahrr knew anything about it. Mrs. Bahrr was standing by the dining-room +window when she returned.</p> + +<p>"I jis' come out here to see if the Sage Brush is raisin' down yonder. +Who is that strange girl Ponk's running around with last night?" The +gossip turned the question suddenly. "I seen 'em comin' up here myself. +Folks down-town don't know yet." The sharp, steel-pointed eyes caught +into Laura like hooks.</p> + +<p>"I don't—believe you'll like this hat." Laura had meant to say, "I +don't intend to tell you," but she was hooked too quickly.</p> + +<p>"Who'd you say she is?"</p> + +<p>There was no courteous way out now.</p> + +<p>"She is a Miss Swaim."</p> + +<p>"Say, this hat's a jew'l. Looks younger 'n the girls' hats does on 'em. +Where's she from?"</p> + +<p>"East. This color is a bit trying for me, I think."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no 'tain't! What's she here for?"</p> + +<p>"I—You'll have to ask York." Laura rolled her burdens on her brother's +shoulders, as did likewise the remainder of New Eden, when crowded to +the wall.</p> + +<p>"York! She ain't after him, I hope. Don't blush so. That's a good one +on York. An' he never met her at the station, even. Ponk—little fiend" +(Ponk always turned game-cock when Stellar approached him), "little +devil he is—he telephoned in from down at the sidin', by the deep +fishin'-hole."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bahrr caught her breath and bit her lips as she eyed her hostess +slyly. Laura Macpherson was white with disgust and anger. Of all the +long-tongues, here was the queen.</p> + +<p>"Where's the deep fishing-hole?" she asked, innocently, to get her +unpleasant caller on another tack.</p> + +<p>For a moment Mrs. Bahrr did not reply, busying herself with examining +the new hat's lining and brim-curves. If Laura had known what York +Macpherson knew she would have realized that here was the place to score +by dwelling on the deep fishing-hole. But Laura was new to Sage Brush +traditions.</p> + +<p>"Ponk calls in to have his spanky new runabout all ready at the station. +George nearly busted hisself gettin' there. Then Ponk, the miserable +brute, he hangs around and keeps Miss Swine—"</p> + +<p>"Swaim, Geraldine Swaim," Laura cried, in disgust.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Geraldine Swim—keeps her inside, so's nobody gets a good look at +her. I was there myself, a-watchin' him. I'd gone to see if my fish 'd +been sent up, an' when they'd all cleared out he trots her out, big as +Cuffey, and races to the hotel with her. Maybe, though, York didn't +know she was comin', or had Ponk put up to lookin' after her for him. +You never can tell about these men. I noticed York never walked home +with her last night, neither. 'Course it was light as day. Well, well, +it's interestin' as can be. An' she come here purpose to see your +brother, too."</p> + +<p>"If you are through with my hat"—Laura was fairly gray with anger and +her eyes flashed as she tried to control herself.</p> + +<p>Nobody was wiser than Stellar Bahrr in situations like this.</p> + +<p>"In jest a minute. Them's the daintiest roses yet. Thank you, Miss +Laury. You ain't above helping a person like me. There's them that is +here in New Eden. But I know 'em—I know 'em. They talk to your back and +never say a word to your face, not a blamed word. But you're not like +'em. Everybody says you're just like your brother, an' that's enough for +anybody to know in the Sage Brush country. He's been the best friend I +ever had, I know that. I hope that pink-'n'-white city girl 'll find out +that much pretty quick. Somebody ought to tell her, too. Well, good day, +Miss Laury. My umberel's right outside in the umberel-stand."</p> + +<p>Poor Laura! She was no fighter from choice, no imputer of evil motives, +but her love for her brother amounted almost to idolatry.</p> + +<p>"I'm her one weakness," York often said. "Her strength is in her sense +of humor, her kind heart, her love of beautiful things, and the power of +the old scrapping blood of the Macphersons that will stand so much—and +then Joan of Arc is a tennis-player alongside of my blessed sister in +her righteous wrath."</p> + +<p>That rainy day ended with a problem in the minds of at least three New +Eden dwellers: York Macpherson, who carried a bigger load now than Joe +Thomson's unwise but determined mortgage matter; Junius Brutus Ponk, who +was sharing York's problem to a degree, and Laura Macpherson, who +realized that a malicious under-current was already started whose +undermining influence might sooner or later grow into a menacing power.</p> + +<p>And Jerry Swaim, unconscious cause of all this problem element, ate and +slept and laughed and dreamed her pretty day-dreams in utter content. It +was well that the next day was Sunday. The rain-washed prairie and the +June sunshine did so much to lift the tension in this New Eden where +even the good little snakes are not always so very good.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> + +<h3>PARADISE LOST</h3> + + +<p>Laura Macpherson came through the dining-room on Monday morning with her +hands full of wild flowers.</p> + +<p>"Wherefore?" York asked, seeing the breakfast-table already decorated +with a vase of sweet-peas.</p> + +<p>"Just a minute, York. I got these with the dew on them—all prairie +flowers. I thought Jerry might be up to see me to-day. I went out after +them for her," Laura explained, as she arranged the showy blossoms in +vases about the rooms.</p> + +<p>York dropped behind his day-old paper, calling after her, indifferently: +"I doubt if they are worth it. You must have gone to the far side of +'Kingussie' for them. I doubt, too, if she comes here to-day, but I +haven't any doubt that I am hungry and likely to get hungrier before you +get ready for breakfast."</p> + +<p>"Coming, coming." Laura came hastily to the table. "I forgot you in my +interest in Jerry."</p> + +<p>"A prevalent disease in New Eden right now," York said, behind his +paper. "Ponk nearly fell down on getting me a chauffeur for to-day; the +superintendent didn't get the quarterlies to our Sunday-school class on +time yesterday morning; the Big Dipper took the wrong pew and kept it, +and now my breakfast must wait—all on account of this Jerry girl."</p> + +<p>"Mournful, mournful!" Laura declared. "Such a little girl, too! I'd like +to tell you what your Big Dipper said about Jerry Saturday, but I +mustn't."</p> + +<p>"Saturday was a rainy day," York commented, knowing Laura would answer +no questions if he should ask them now.</p> + +<p>"All the more reason why the Big Dipper should come over to copy my new +hat for one of the Poser girls up the Sage Brush, and then fall to +questions and conclusions," Laura insisted.</p> + +<p>"I thought yesterday was the grand opening for that lid of yours. Where +did the B. D. see it?" York would not ask for what he wanted most to +know.</p> + +<p>"It had positively never been out of the box since it came here," Laura +declared. "But pshaw, York, it is the gossip you want to know, and I'm +really concerned about that."</p> + +<p>"I'm not. I am really concerned about where Stellar Bahrr saw your hat." +York was very serious and his sister was puzzled for the minute. He +never looked that way when he joked—never.</p> + +<p>"I don't know anything about Mrs. Bahrr's gift of second sight, York; +I'm simply telling what I do know. That hat-box was not opened. Let's +talk of better things. Mr. Ponk told me at church yesterday that when +Jerry first came she asked for 'an old gentleman named York +Macpherson.'" Laura's eyes were twinkling with mischief. "From what she +said to me yesterday she is going to depend on you for direction, just +like everybody else who comes to New Eden. I'm dead in love with her +already. Aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Desperately," York returned. "But seriously, Laura, she is 'most too +big a responsibility to joke about. There are a lot of things tied up +for her in this coming West. I have to go to the upper Sage Brush this +morning to be gone for a couple of days. I wish she would come here and +stay with you, so that she might be with the best woman in the world." +York beamed affectionately upon the sweet-faced woman opposite him. "I +wish I didn't have to leave this morning, but I'll be back by to-morrow +night or early Wednesday morning. It is going to be our job to map out +her immediate future. After that, things will take their course without +us, and New Eden, I imagine, will have to get along without her. When I +get back I'll take her down to see her claim. Ponk is the only man +besides myself who knows where it is, and I've fixed him. He can't run a +hotel and garage and play escort all at once. I want to prepare her in a +way, anyhow, for she won't find exactly what she is expecting—another +'Eden' six times enlarged. Meantime turn her gently, if you can, toward +our woolly Western life. I won't say lead. Geraldine Swaim, late of +Philadelphia, will never be led."</p> + +<p>"York she's a lamb. Look at her big, pleading eyes," his sister +insisted.</p> + +<p>"Laura, she's a rock. Look at her square chin. I'm going now, and I will +and bequeath her to your care. Good-by."</p> + +<p>As he left the house his sister heard him whistling the air to the old +song, "I'll paddle my own canoe."</p> + +<p>Evidently the fair Philadelphian was still on his mind.</p> + +<p>"I wish," he said to himself, as he cleared the north limits of the New +Eden settlement and struck out toward the upper Sage Brush country—"I +wish to goodness I had pressed Laura to tell me more about what that +infernal Big Dipper said to her Saturday. I'll get that creature yet. I +believe she knows that as well as I do. I wish, too, I was sure things +would just stay put until I get back."</p> + +<p>Half an hour after York had left town Jerry Swaim, dressed for a drive, +appeared at the door of Ponk's garage.</p> + +<p>"Have you a good little runabout that I could hire this morning? I want +to go out into the country," she said to the proprietor.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, Miss Swaim, but I 'ain't got no shofer this morning. York +Macpherson, he took my last man and soared up the country, and they +won't be back for a couple of days. I'm sorry, but could you wait till, +say, about a-Thursday, or mebby a-Friday?"</p> + +<p>Ponk's cheerful grin always threatened to eclipse his eyes, but this +morning there was something anxious back of his cheerfulness. Nature had +made him in a joking mood, round eyed, round headed, round bodied, +talkative, and pompous in an inverse ratio to his size. But there was +something always good and reliable about Ponk, and with all his +superficiality, too, there was a real depth to the man, and a keener +insight than anybody in New Eden, except York Macpherson, ever gave him +credit for having.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry I've got no shofer. There was a run on the livery business +this morning for some reason. That's why I'm office-boy here now, 'stead +of runnin' the office next door," Ponk explained, as blandly and +conclusively as possible.</p> + +<p>"I don't want a chauffeur at all. I drive myself," Jerry declared.</p> + +<p>"You say you do?" Ponk stared at her little hands in their close-fitting +white gauntlets.</p> + +<p>"Now I'd never thought that. Yes," weakly, "I've got a dandy car for +them that can use it, which is mostly me. It's the little gray gadabout +we come up from the station in the other evening. There ain't another +one like it this side of the Mississippi River—S'liny, Kansas, anyhow. +You see, I have to be awful particular. I don't want it smashed against +a stone wall or run off of some bridge."</p> + +<p>"I've never done that with a car yet. And I used to drive our big +eight-cylinder machine over all kinds of Pennsylvania roads."</p> + +<p>The blue eyes were full of pathos as the memory of her home and all its +luxuries swept over Jerry. And Ponk understood.</p> + +<p>"We don't have no stone walls out here, and there ain't no bridges, +either, except across the Sage Brush in a few places, because there +ain't never water enough out here to bridge over. Yes, you may take the +gadabout. I just know you'll be careful. That little car's just like a +colt, and noways bridle-wise under a woman's hand."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I'll take no risks."</p> + +<p>When Jerry was seated in the shining gray car, with her hand on the +wheel, she turned to Mr. Ponk.</p> + +<p>"By the way, do you know who owns any of the claims, as you call them, +in this valley?" she asked. "I was going to speak to Mr. Macpherson, but +you say he has gone out of town."</p> + +<p>"Yes'm." Ponk fairly swelled with importance. "I know every claim, and +who owns it, from the hills up yonder clear to the mouth of that stream. +My hotel an' livery business together keeps me as well posted as the +Macpherson Mortgage Company that holds a mortgage on most of them."</p> + +<p>"Can you tell me where to find the one belonging to the estate of the +late Jeremiah Swaim, of Philadelphia?" Jerry asked, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>The short little man beside the car looked away in pity and surprise as +he said:</p> + +<p>"Yes'm, I can. You follow this street south and keep on till you come to +where the Sage Brush makes a sharp bend to the east, right at a +ranch-house. From there you leave the trail (we still call that +down-stream road 'the trail') and strike across to three big +cottonwood-trees on a kind of a knoll, considerable distance away. You +can't miss 'em, for you can see 'em for miles. And then"—Ponk hesitated +as if trying to remember—"seems to me you turn, bias'n' like, southeast +a bit, and head for a little bunch of low oaks. From there you run your +eye around and figger how many acres you can see. An', it's all Jeremiah +Swaim's, or his heirs an' assignees. But, say, <i>you</i> ain't any kin to +the late Mr. Swaim, who never seen that land of hisn, I reckon? I hadn't +thought about your names being the same. Odd I didn't."</p> + +<p>There was something wistful in the query which Jerry set down merely as +plebeian curiosity, but she answered, courteously:</p> + +<p>"Yes, he was my father. The land belongs to me."</p> + +<p>"Say, hadn't you better wait and let York Macpherson soar down with +you?" Ponk suggested. "It might be better, after all, mebby, not to go +alone to spy out the land, even if you can drive yourself. Seems to me +York said he'd be goin' down that way the last of the week. I do wish +you'd wait for York to go with you first."</p> + +<p>"I want to go alone," Jerry replied, and with a deft hand she made the +difficult curve to the street, leaving the proprietor of the garage +staring after her.</p> + +<p>"Well, by heck! she can run a car anyhow!" he exclaimed, as he watched +her speeding away. "Smart as her dad, I reckon. Mebby a little smarter."</p> + +<p>All of Lesa Swaim's love of romantic adventure was shining on Jerry +Swaim's bright face as she came upon Laura Macpherson on the cool side +porch a few minutes later.</p> + +<p>"I'm going out to inspect my royal demesne," she cried, gaily.</p> + +<p>"Not to-day. I want you to spend the day with me, and you don't know the +road. You haven't any way to go. York will be home soon. He wants to +take you there himself. He understands land values, and, anyhow, you +oughtn't go alone," Laura Macpherson said, emphatically.</p> + +<p>"That is just what Mr. Ponk said at the garage, but I want to go alone."</p> + +<p>That "I want" settled everything with Jerry Swaim in the Kansas New Eden +as in the old "Eden" in the green valley of the Winnowoc.</p> + +<p>"I have hired a runabout of Mr. Ponk. He gave me directions so I can't +miss the way. Good-by."</p> + +<p>The trail down the Sage Brush was full of delight this morning for the +young Eastern girl who sent her car swiftly along the level road, almost +forgetting the landmarks of the way in the exhilaration of youth and +June-time. And, however out of place she might seem on the Western +prairie, no one could doubt her ability to handle a car.</p> + +<p>"'Where the stream bends sharp to the east away from a ranch-house,'" +Jerry was quoting Ponk. "I'm sure I can't miss it if I follow his +directions and the stream and bend and house and cottonwood-trees and +oak-grove are really there. I love oaks and I hope my woodland is full +of them. There must be a woodland on my farm, even if the trees are few +and small and scattered here, so far as I have seen. But there was +really something pitiful in the little man's eyes when he was talking to +me. Maybe he is a wee bit envious of my possessions. Some men are +jealous of women who have property. No doubt my workmen will need +managing, and some adjusting to a new head of affairs. I'll be very +considerate with them, but they must respect my authority. I wish Gene +was with me this morning."</p> + +<p>Then she fell to musing.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what message Gene will send me, and whether he will write it +himself, or, as he suggested, will send it through Aunt Jerry's letters +to York. It was his original way of doing to say I'd find things out +through Aunt Jerry, when she probably won't write me a line for a long +time. I know Gene will choose nobly, and I know everything will turn out +all right at last.... I wonder if my place is as beautiful as this. How +I wish Gene could see it with his artist eyes."</p> + +<p>Jerry brought her engine down to slow speed as she passed a thrifty +ranch-house where barns and clustering silos, and fields of grain and +cattle-dotted prairies outlying all, betokened the possibilities of the +Sage Brush Valley. The blue eyes of Lesa Swaim's daughter were full of +dreamy light as she paused to picture here the possibilities of her own +possessions.</p> + +<p>At the crest of a low ridge the road forked, one branch wandering in and +out among the small willow-trees along the river, and the other cutting +clean and broad across the rougher open land swelling away from the +narrowed valley.</p> + +<p>"Here's something Mr. Junius Brutus Ponk left out of his map. I'll take +the rim road; it looks the more inviting," Jerry decided, because the +way of least resistance had been her life-road always.</p> + +<p>This one grew narrow and clung close to the water's side. Its sandy bed +was damp and firm, and the slender trees on either side here and there +almost touched branches overhead. Mile after mile it seemed to stretch +without another given landmark to show Jerry her destination. Beyond +where the road curved sharply around a thicket of small trees and +underbrush Jerry halted her car. Before her the waters of the river +rippled into foam against a rocky ledge that helped to form a deep hole +above it. Below, the stream was shallow, and in dry midsummer here +offered rough stepping-stones across it. It was a lonely spot, with the +river on one side and a tangle of bushes and tall weeds on the other, +and the curves along the roadway, filled with underbrush and low timber +shutting off the view up-stream and down-stream.</p> + +<p>At the coming of Jerry's car a man who had been kneeling over some +fishing-lines at the river's edge rose up beside the road, brushing the +wet sand from his clothes, and staring at her. He was small and old and +stooped and fuzzy, and thoroughly unpretty to see.</p> + +<p>"It's the Teddy Bear who 'sat in the sand and the sun' coming up from +that horrid railroad junction. Who's afraid of bears? I'll ask him how +to find my lost empire."</p> + +<p>Jerry did not reflect that it was the unconscious effect of this humble +creature's thoughtfulness for her that made her unafraid of him in this +lonely spot. Reflection was not yet one of her active psychological +processes.</p> + +<p>"I want to find a ranch-house by a big bend in the river where it turns +east," Jerry said, looking at the man much as she would look at the bend +in the river—merely for the information to be furnished. He pushed his +brown cap back from his forehead and rubbed his fingers thoughtfully +through his thin sunburnt hair.</p> + +<p>"It's Joe's place, eh?" the high, quavering voice squeaking like an +unused machine afraid of itself. "You'd ought to took the t'other fork +of the road back yander. It's a goodish mile on down this way now to +where you das to turn your cyar round. When you get where you kin turn, +then go back and take the t'other fork. It'll take you right to Joe's +door about."</p> + +<p>The words came hesitatingly, as if the speaker had little use for +sounding them in his solitary, silent life. Fishermen don't catch fish +by talking to them.</p> + +<p>"A mile! I think I'll turn right here," Jerry declared.</p> + +<p>Then, as the meek unknown watched her in open-mouthed wonder, she swung +her car deftly about, the outer wheels barely keeping a toe-hold on the +edge of the river-bank, with hardly more than an inch of space between +them and the crumbling sand above the water. As she faced the way over +which she had come she reached out to drop a piece of silver into the +man's hand. He let it fall to the ground, then picked it up and laid it +on the top of the car door.</p> + +<p>"I ain't workin' for the gov'mint," he quavered. "I thankee, but I don't +have no knowin's to sell. Ye're welcome to my ketch of information any +day ye're on the river."</p> + +<p>He made an odd half-military salute toward his old yellow-brown cap and +shuffled across the road toward a narrow path running back through the +bushes.</p> + +<p>At the bend in the river Jerry found herself.</p> + +<p>"That must be the ranch-house that Mr. Ponk gave me for a landmark, for +there goes the river bending east, all right. What a quaint, picturesque +thing that is, and built of stone, too, with ivy all over it! It must +have been here a long time. And how well kept everything is! The old +Teddy Bear said it was 'Joe's place.' Well, Joe keeps it looking as +different from some of the places I've passed as 'Eden' differs from +other country-places back in Pennsylvania."</p> + +<p>The long, low, stone ranch-house, nestling under its sheltering vines, +had an old and familiarly homey look to Jerry.</p> + +<p>"That wide porch is a dream. I'll have one just like it on my place. I +wonder if this farm has any name. I suppose not. What shall I call mine? +'New Eden' wouldn't do, of course. I might call it 'Paradise Prairie.' +That's pretty and smooth. Gene would like that, and talk a lot about +going 'from Nature up to Nature's God.' I don't care a whiff about all +his religious talk, somehow. That's just one thing wherein we will never +agree. If I can go from nature to the finished produce I'll be +satisfied. Oh, yonder are my three trees."</p> + +<p>At the bend of the Sage Brush Jerry left the stream road and sped +across a long level swell toward three cottonwood-trees standing +sentinel on a small rise of the prairie. From there she was to see the +oak-grove, the center of her own rich holdings. Oh, Jerry!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Down under the spreading oaks a young man in rough ranchman's dress +stood leaning against a low bough, absorbed in thought. He was tall, +symmetrically built, and strong of muscle, without a pound of +superfluous fat to suggest anything of ease and idleness in his day's +run. Some of the lines that mark the stubborn will were graven in his +brown face, but the eyes were all-redeeming. Even as he stared out with +unseeing gaze, lost in his own thoughts, the smile that lighted them +hovered ready to illuminate what might otherwise have been a severe +countenance.</p> + +<p>In all the wide reach of level land there was no other living creature +in sight. The breeze pulsing gently through the oak boughs poured the +sunlight noiselessly down on the shadow-cooled grass about the +tree-trunks. The freshness of the morning lingered in the air of the +grove.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the young man caught the sound of an automobile coasting down +the long slide from the three cottonwoods, and turned to see a young +girl in a shining gray car gliding down into the edge of the shade. A +soft hat of Delft-blue, ornamented, valkyrie-wise, with two white wings; +golden-gleaming hair overshadowing a face full of charm; blue eyes; +cheeks of peach-blossom pink; firm, red lips; a well-defined chin and +white throat; a soft gown, Delft-blue in color; and white gauntlet +gloves—all these were in the blurred picture of that confused moment.</p> + +<p>As for Jerry Swaim, all farmer folk looked alike to her. It was not the +sudden appearance of a stranger, but the landscape beyond him, that held +her speechless, until the shrill whistle of a train broke the silence.</p> + +<p>"Is that the Sage Brush Railroad so near?" she asked, at last, with no +effort at formal greeting.</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am. It is just behind the palisades over there. You can't see +it from here because the sand-drifts are so high. That's the morning +freight now."</p> + +<p>The light died out of Jerry Swaim's eyes, the pink bloom faded to ivory +in her cheeks, even the red lips grew pale, as she stared at the scene +before her. For the oak-grove stood a lone outpost of greenness +defending a more or less fertile countryside from a formless, senseless +monster beyond it. Jerry had pictured herself standing in the very +center of her heritage, where she might "run her eyes around," as Ponk +had said, "and figure how many acres she could see, and they were all +hers." And now she was here.</p> + +<p>Wide away before her eyes rippled acre on acre, all hers, and all of +billowing sand, pointed only by a few straggling green shrubs. The glare +of the sunlight on it was intolerable, and the north wind, sweeping cool +and sweet under the oak-trees, brought no comfort to this glaring +desert.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she recalled the pitying look in Ponk's eyes when he had begged +her to wait for York Macpherson to come with her to this place, and she +had thought he might be envious of her good fortune. And then she +remembered that Laura Macpherson had put up the same plea for York. He +was the shield and buckler for all New Eden, it would seem. And the +three, Laura and York and Ponk, all knew and were pitying her, Jerry +Swaim, who had been envied many a time, but never, never pitied. Even in +the loss of the Swaim estate in Philadelphia, Mrs. Jerusha Darby had +made it clear to every one that her pretty niece was still to be envied +as a child of good fortune.</p> + +<p>Flinging aside her hat and gloves, unconscious of the stray sunbeams +sifting down through the oak boughs on her golden hair, Jerry Swaim +gazed toward the railroad with wide-open, burning eyes, and her white +face was pitiful to see. At length she turned to the young man who still +stood leaning against the oak bough beyond her car, waiting for her to +speak.</p> + +<p>"Can I be of any service to you?" he asked, courteously.</p> + +<p>"Who are you?" Jerry questioned, with unconscious bluntness.</p> + +<p>"My name is Joe Thomson." The smile in his eyes lighted his face as he +spoke.</p> + +<p>"Tell me all about this place, won't you?" Jerry demanded, pointing +toward the gleaming sands. "Was it always like this, here? I thought +when the Lord finished the earth He looked on His work and found it +good. Did He overlook this spot?"</p> + +<p>Surprise and sarcasm and bitter disappointment were all in her tone as +she asked these questions.</p> + +<p>Joe Thomson frowned as he replied:</p> + +<p>"It wasn't an oversight at all. There was a fine piece of prairie here +until a few years ago, with only one little sandy strip zigzagging +across it. Ages back, there may have been a stream along that low place +yonder that dried up and blew away some time, when the forest fires +changed the prehistoric woodlands into prairies. I can't be accurate +about geology and such things if history and the Scriptures are silent +on these fine points."</p> + +<p>Joe Thomson still stood leaning against the oak limb. The confusion of +meeting this handsome stranger had passed. He was in his own territory +now, talking of things of which he knew. He knew, too, how to put his +thoughts into good, expressive English.</p> + +<p>"There are beautiful farms up the river—ranches, I mean. What has +changed this prairie to such an awful place?" Jerry questioned, +eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Eastern capital and lack of brains and energy," Joe answered her. "It +is just a blowout, that's all. It began in that sandy strip in that low +place along over there by the railroad, where, as I say, some old +river-bed, maybe the Sage Brush, might have been long ago before it made +that big bend in its course up by my buildings. A crazy, money-mad fool +from back East came out here and plowed up all this ground one dry +season, a visionary fellow who dreamed of getting a fortune from the +land without any labor. And when the thing began to look like real work +he cut the whole game, just like a lot of other fools have done, and +went back East, leaving all these torn, unsodded acres a plaything for +the winds. There were three or four dry seasons right after that, and +the soil all went to dust and blew away. But the sand grew, and +multiplied, and surged over the face of this particular spot of the +Lord's earth until it has come to be a tyrant of power, covering all +this space and spreading slowly northward up over the next claim. That's +mine."</p> + +<p>"What is it doing to your land?" Jerry asked.</p> + +<p>"Ruining it," Joe replied, calmly.</p> + +<p>"And you don't go mad?" the girl cried, impulsively.</p> + +<p>"We don't go mad on the Sage Brush till the last resort, and we don't +often come to that. When we can't do one thing, out West, we do another. +That's all there is to it." The smile was in his eyes again as Joe said +this.</p> + +<p>"Do you know who owns this ground now?" Jerry tried to ask as carelessly +as possible.</p> + +<p>"An estate back in Pennsylvania, I believe," Joe replied.</p> + +<p>"What is it worth?" Jerry's voice was hardly audible.</p> + +<p>"Look at it. What do <i>you</i> think it is worth, as a whole, or cut up into +town lots for a summer resort?" Joe demanded.</p> + +<p>In spite of his calmness there was a harshness in his voice, and his +eyes were stern.</p> + +<p>Jerry twisted her white hands helplessly. "I don't know—anything worth +knowing," she said, faintly, looking full into the young man's face for +the first time.</p> + +<p>Afterward she remembered that he was powerfully built, that his eyes +were dark, and that his teeth showed white and even, as he repeated, +with a smile:</p> + +<p>"You don't know anything worth knowing. You don't quite look the part."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you answer my question?"</p> + +<p>Back of the light in Jerry's eyes Joe saw that the tears were waiting, +and something in her face hurt him strangely.</p> + +<p>"I think this claim is not worth—an effort," he declared, frankly, +looking out at the wind-heaved ridges of sand.</p> + +<p>"What brought you here to look at it, then?" Jerry demanded.</p> + +<p>"Partly to despise the fool who owned it and let it become a curse."</p> + +<p>"Do you know him?" the girl inquired.</p> + +<p>"No. But if I did I should despise him just the same," Joe Thomson +declared.</p> + +<p>"What if he were dead?" Jerry asked.</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, but may I ask what brought you down here to look at such a +place?" Joe interrupted her.</p> + +<p>"I came down here to find out its value. It belongs to me. My only +inheritance. I have always lived in a big city until now, and I know +little of country life except its beauty and comfort, and nothing at all +of the West. But I can understand you when you say that this claim is +not worth an effort. I hope I shall never, never see it again. Good-by."</p> + +<p>The firm, red lips quivered and the blue eyes looked up through real +tears as Jerry Swaim drew on her gloves and fitted the soft blue hat +down on the golden glory of her hair. Then without another word she +turned her car about and sped away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PII" id="PII"></a>II</h2> + +<h3>JERRY AND JOE</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> + +<h3>UNHITCHING THE WAGON FROM A STAR</h3> + + +<p>How long is a mid-June day? Ticked off by the almanac, it is so much +time as lies between the day-dawn and the dark of evening. But Jerry +Swaim lived a lifetime in that June day in which she went out to enter +upon her heritage. From the moment she had turned away from the young +farmer under the oak-trees until she reached the forks of the road again +she did not take cognizance of a single object. The three big cottonwood +sentinels, the vine-covered ranch-home, the deep bend of the Sage Brush +to the eastward, were passed unnoted. Ponk's gray gadabout seemed to +know the way home like a faithful horse.</p> + +<p>There was no apparent reason why the junction of the two highways should +have momentarily called the bewildered disappointed girl to her calmer +self. No more was there anything logical in her choosing to turn again +down the narrow river road. The lone old fisherman was the farthest down +in the scale from Geraldine Swaim of any human being who had ever shown +her a favor. He could not have had any interest for her.... But York +Macpherson was correct in his estimate of Jerry. She was a type in +herself alone. She drove far beyond the narrow place by the deep hole +where, with accurate eye and clear skill, she had played a game of +chance with the river and fate and guardian angels. Her tires had cut a +wide, curving gash across the sand of the road.</p> + +<p>"My gracious alive! that was a close turn!" she exclaimed, as she caught +sight of her wheel-marks. "No wonder the old Teddy Bear looked scared. +One inch or less! Well, there was that inch. But what for? To enter on +my vast landed—vast sanded—estate in the kingdom of Kansas!"</p> + +<p>Jerry smiled grimly in ridicule of her foolish, defrauded self. Then in +a desperate effort to blot out of mind what she had seen she hurled the +gray car madly forward. With the bewildered gropings of a shipwrecked +landsman she was struggling to get her bearings, she for whom the earth +had been especially designed. As the hours passed the road became dry +and sunny, with the north breeze tempering the air to the coolness of a +rare Kansas June day, entirely unlike the hot and windy one on which +Jerry had first come up this valley. She did not, in reality, cover many +miles now, because she made long stops in sheltered places and at times +let the gray machine merely creep on the sunny stretches, but in her +mind she had girdled the universe.</p> + +<p>In the late afternoon she turned about wearily, as one who has yet many +leagues of ground to cover before nightfall. The sunlight glistened +along the surface of the river and a richer green gleamed in what had +been the shadowy places earlier in the day; but the driver in the car +paid little heed to the lights and shadows of the way.</p> + +<p>"If a man went right with himself." Cornelius Darby's words came +drifting across the girl's mind. "Poor Uncle Cornie! He didn't begin to +live, to me, until he was gone. Maybe he knew what it meant for a man +<i>not</i> to go right with himself. And if a woman went right with herself!"</p> + +<p>Jerry halted her car again by the deep hole and looked at nothing where +the Sage Brush waters were rippling over the rough ledge in its bed. For +the first time since she had sat under the oak-trees and looked at the +acres that were hers, Jerry Swaim really found herself on solid ground +again. The bloom came slowly back to the ashy cheeks, and the light into +the dark-blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"If I can only go right with myself, I shall not fail. I need time, +that's all. There will be a letter from Eugene waiting when I get back +to town, and that will make up for a lot. There must be some way out of +all the mistakes, too. It wasn't my land that I saw. Mr. Ponk must have +directed me wrongly. That country fellow may not know the facts. I'll go +back and ask York Macpherson right away. Only, he's gone out of town for +two days. Oh dear!"</p> + +<p>She wrung her hands as the picture of that oak-grove and all that lay +beyond it came vividly before her. She tried to forget it and for a +moment she smiled to herself deceivingly, and then—the smile was gone +and by the determined set of her lips Jerry was her father's own +resolute child again.</p> + +<p>"I don't exactly know what next, except that I'm hungry. Why, it is five +o'clock! Where has this day gone, and where am I, anyhow?"</p> + +<p>Her eyes fell on the broad ruts across the road. Then back in the bushes +she caught a glimpse of a low roof.</p> + +<p>"I smell fish frying. I'll starve to death if I wait to get back to the +Commercial Hotel!" Jerry exclaimed. "Here's the wayside inn where I find +comfort for man and beast."</p> + +<p>She called sharply with her horn. In a minute the fuzzy brown fisherman +came shuffling along the narrow path through the bushes.</p> + +<p>"I'm dreadfully hungry," Jerry said, bluntly.</p> + +<p>It did not occur to her to explain to this creature why she happened to +be here and hungry at this time. She wanted something; that was +sufficient.</p> + +<p>"Can't you let me have some of your fish? I am desperate," she went on, +smiling at the surprised face of the man who stared up at her in +silence.</p> + +<p>"Yes'm, I can give you what I eat. Just a minute," he squeaked out, at +last. Then he shuffled back to where the bit of roof showed through the +leaves.</p> + +<p>While the girl waited a tall, slender woman came around the brushy bend +ahead. She halted in the middle of the road and stared a moment at +Jerry; then she came forward rapidly and passed the car without looking +up. She wore a plain, grayish-green dress, with a sunbonnet of the same +hue covering her face—all very much like the bushes out of which she +seemed to have come and into which she seemed to melt again. In her hand +she carried a big parcel lightly, as if its weight was slight. As Jerry +turned and looked after her with a passing curiosity, she saw that the +woman was looking back also. The young city-bred girl had felt no fear +of the strange country fellow in the far-away oak-grove; she had no fear +of this uncouth fisherman in this lonely hidden place; but when she +caught a mere glimpse of this woman's eyes staring at her from under the +shadows of the deep sunbonnet a tremor of real fright shook her hands +grasping the steering-wheel. It passed quickly, however, with the +reappearance of the host of the wayside inn.</p> + +<p>"This is delicious," Jerry exclaimed, as the hard scaly hands lifted a +smooth board bearing her meal up to her.</p> + +<p>Fried fish, hot corn-bread, baked in husks in the ashes, wild +strawberries with coarse brown sugar sprinkled on them, and a cup of +fresh buttermilk.</p> + +<p>The girl ate with the healthy appetite that youth, a long fast, a day in +the open, and a well-cooked meal can create. When she had finished she +laid a silver half-dollar on the board beside the cracked plate.</p> + +<p>"'Tain't nuthin'; no, 'tain't nuthin'. I jis' divided with ye," the +fisherman insisted, shrilly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is worth a dollar to drink this good buttermilk!"</p> + +<p>Jerry lifted the cup, a shining silver mug, and turned it in the light. +It was of an old pattern, with a quaint monogram on one side.</p> + +<p>"This looks like an heirloom," she thought. "Why should a bear with +cracked plates and iron knives and forks offer me a drink in a silver +cup? There must be a story back of it. Maybe he's a nobleman in +disguise. Well, the disguise is perfect. After all, it's as good as a +novel to live in Kansas."</p> + +<p>Jerry slowly sipped the drink as these thoughts ran through her mind. +The meal was helping wonderfully to take the edge off of the tragedy of +the morning. It would overwhelm her again later, but in this shady, +restful solitude it slipped away.</p> + +<p>She smiled down at the old man at the thought of him in a story. <i>Him!</i> +But the smile went straight to his heart; that was Jerry's gift, making +him drop his board tray and break the cracked plate in his confusion.</p> + +<p>"Here's another quarter. That was my fault," Jerry insisted.</p> + +<p>"Oh no'm, no'm! 'Tain't nobody's fault." The voice quavered as the +scaly brown hand thrust back the proffered coin.</p> + +<p>Jerry could not understand why this creature should refuse her money. +Tipping, to her mind, covered all the obligations her class owed to the +lower strata of the earth's formation.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>At sunset York Macpherson drove into Ponk's garage.</p> + +<p>"Hello, fellow-townsman! You look like a sick man!" he exclaimed, as the +owner met him in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"I'd 'a' been a dead man if you hadn't come this minute," Ponk growled +back.</p> + +<p>"Congratulations! The good die young," York returned. "I failed to get +through to the place I wanted to see. That Saturday rain filled the dry +upper channels where a bridge would rot in the tall weeds, but an +all-day rain puts a dangerous flood in every ford, so I came back in +time to save your life. What's your grievance?"</p> + +<p>Ponk's face was agonizing between smiles and tears. "Well, spite of all +I, or <i>anybody</i> could do, Miss Swaim takes my little gadabout this +morning and makes off with it."</p> + +<p>"And broke the wind-shield? I told you to keep her at home."</p> + +<p>York still refused to be serious.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what's broke, except my feelin's. You tried yet to <i>keep</i> +her anywhere? She would go off to that danged infernal blowout section +of the country, <i>and she ain't back yet</i>."</p> + +<p>York Macpherson grasped the little man by the arm. "Not back yet! Where +is she, then?"</p> + +<p>"She ain't; that's all I know," Ponk responded, flatly. "Yes, yes, +yonder she is just soarin' into the avenue up by 'Castle Cluny' this +minute. Thank the Lord an' that Quaker-colored gadabout!"</p> + +<p>"Tell her I'll see her at the hotel as soon as I get my mail," York +said, and he hurried to his office.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later Jerry Swaim brought the gray runabout up to the +doorway of the garage.</p> + +<p>Ponk assisted her from it and took the livery hire mechanically.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Miss Swaim. Hope you had a safe day. No'm, that's too much," +handing back a coin of the change. "That's regular. Yes'm." Then, as an +afterthought, he added, with a bow, "York Macpherson he's in town again, +an' he's waitin' to see you in the hotel 'parlor.'"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" a gasp of surprise and relief. "Thank you, Mr. Ponk. Yes, I have +had a safe day." And Jerry was gone.</p> + +<p>The little man stared after her for a full minute. Then he gave a long +whistle.</p> + +<p>"She's a Spartan, an' she's goin' to die game. I'll gamble on that with +Rockefeller. This is the rummiest, bummiest world I ever lived in," he +declared to himself. "Why <i>the</i> dickens does the blowouts have to fall +on the just as well as the unjust 's what I respectfully rise to ask of +the Speaker of all good an' perfect gifts. An' I'm goin' to keep the +floor till I get the recognition of Chair."</p> + +<p>York Macpherson was standing with his back to the window, so that his +face was in the shadow, when Jerry Swaim came into the little parlor. +Her eyes were shining, and the pink bloom on her cheek betokened the +tenseness of feeling held in check under a calm demeanor.</p> + +<p>"Pardon me for keeping you waiting, Mr. Macpherson. I've been away from +town all day and I wanted to get my mail before I came in. I'm a long +way from everybody, you know."</p> + +<p>There may have been a hint of tears in the voice, but the blue eyes were +very brave.</p> + +<p>"And you got it?"</p> + +<p>That was not what York meant to say. It was well that his face was in +the shadow while Jerry's was in the light. There are times when a man's +heart may be cut to the quick, and because he is a man he must not cry +out.</p> + +<p>"No, not to-day. I don't know why," Jerry replied, slowly, with a +determined set of her red lips, while the fire in her blue-black eyes +burned steadily and the small hands gripped themselves together.</p> + +<p>"I haven't had a word since I left home, and I had hoped that I might +find a letter waiting for me here."</p> + +<p>"Letters are delayed, and letter-writers, too, sometimes. Maybe they are +all busy with Mrs. Darby's affairs. I remember when I was a boy up on +the Winnowoc she could keep me busier than anybody else ever did," York +offered.</p> + +<p>"It must be that. Of course it must. Aunt Jerry is as industrious as I +am idle." Jerry gave a sigh of relief.</p> + +<p>After the strain of this day, it was vastly comforting to her to stop +thinking <i>forward</i>, and just remember how beautiful it must be at "Eden" +now; and Eugene was there, and it was twilight. But like a hot blast the +memory of the hot sand-heaps of her landed estate came back.</p> + +<p>"Did you want to see me about something?" she asked, suddenly. "Mr. Ponk +said you did."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Jerry. I came here to see you because my sister and I want you to +come out to our house at once, and I have orders from Laura not to come +home without you."</p> + +<p>"You are very kind. You know where I have been to-day?"</p> + +<p>York smiled. Even in her abstraction Jerry felt the genial force of that +smile. How big and strong he was, and there was such a sense of +protection in his presence.</p> + +<p>"Yes. You denied me the privilege of escorting you on this journey. I +had written a full description of your property to Cornelius Darby, in +reply to some questions of his, but his death must have come before the +letter reached Philadelphia. In the mass of business matters Mrs. Darby +may have missed my report."</p> + +<p>"She may have," Jerry echoed, faintly. "I cannot say. Then it is my +estate that is all covered with sand, barren and worthless as a desert? +I thought I might have been mistaken."</p> + +<p>The hope died out of Jerry's face with the query.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could have saved you this surprise," York said, earnestly. +"Come home with me now. 'Castle Cluny' must be your castle, too, as long +as you can put up with us. And you can take plenty of time to catch your +breath. The earth is a big place, and, while most of it is covered with +water, very little of it is covered entirely with sand."</p> + +<p>How kind his tones were! Jerry remembered again that both his sister and +Mr. Ponk had urged her to wait for his coming. But she was not +accustomed to waiting for anybody. A faint but persistent self-blame +gripped her.</p> + +<p>"May I stay with you until I find where I really am? Just now I'm all +smothered in bewildering sand-dunes." She smiled up at the tall man +before her with a confiding, appealing earnestness.</p> + +<p>Many women smiled upon York Macpherson. Many women confided in him. He +was accustomed to it.</p> + +<p>"Laura will consider it a boon, for you must know that she sometimes +gets a trifle lonely in New Eden. We'll call the compact finished." Only +a gracious intuition could have turned the favor so graciously back to +the recipient. But that was York's gift.</p> + +<p>In the dining-room at "Castle Cluny" that evening Jerry noticed a silver +cup with a quaintly designed monogram on one side.</p> + +<p>"That's an old heirloom," Laura said, as she saw her guest's eyes fixed +on it. "Like everything else in this house, it is coupled up with some +old Macpherson clan tradition, as befitting an old bachelor and old maid +of that ilk."</p> + +<p>"We used to have two of them," York said.</p> + +<p>"We have yet somewhere," Laura replied. "I hadn't missed one from the +sideboard before. It must be back in the silver-closet, with other old +silver and old memories."</p> + +<p>Jerry's day had been full of changes, up and down, from hope to bitter +disappointment, from reality to forgetfulness, from clear conception to +bewildered confusion, her mind had run since she had left the oak-grove +in the forenoon. When she had occasion to remember that silver cup +again, she wondered how she could have passed it over so lightly at this +time.</p> + +<p>Although Jerry's problem was very real, and she brought to its solution +neither experience nor discipline, unselfish breadth nor spiritual +trust, there was something in the homey atmosphere of "Castle Cluny" +that seemed to smooth away the long day's wrinkles for her. Out in the +broad porch in the twilight she nestled down like a tired child among +the cushions, and gazed dreamily out at the evening landscape. York had +been called away by a neighbor and Laura and her guest were alone.</p> + +<p>"How beautiful it is here!" Jerry murmured, as the afterglow of a +prairie sunset flooded the sky with a splendor of rose and opal and +amethyst. "I saw a sunset like that not long ago in an art exhibit in +Philadelphia. I thought then there couldn't be such a real sunset. It +was in a landscape all yellow-gray and desert-like. I thought that was +impossible, too. I've seen both—land and sky—to-day, and both are +greater than the artist painted them."</p> + +<p>"The artist never equals the thing he is trying to copy, neither can he +create anything utterly unreal. I missed the exhibits very much when I +first came West, but this is some compensation," Laura said, +meditatively.</p> + +<p>"Do you ever get lonely here? I suppose not, for you didn't come to find +a great disappointment when you came to New Eden," Jerry declared, +watching the tranquil face of her hostess.</p> + +<p>"No, Jerry, I brought my disappointment with me," Laura said, with a +smile that made her look very much like her brother. And Jerry realized +that Laura Macpherson's maimed limb had not broken her heart. Laura was +a very new type to her guest.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I get lonely sometimes and resentful sometimes," Laura went on, +"but we get over a good many little things in the day's run. And then I +have York, you know, and now and then a guest who means a great deal to +me. I have so many interests here, too. You'll like New Eden when you +really know us. And up here this porch has become my holy of holies. +There is something soothing and healing in the breezes that sweep up the +Sage Brush on summer evenings. There is something restful in the stretch +of silent prairie out there, and the wide starlit sky above it. Kansas +sooner or later always has a message for the sons and daughters of men."</p> + +<p>"And something always interesting in our neighbors. See who approaches." +York, who had just come up the side steps, supplemented his sister's +remark.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that is Mrs. Stella Bahrr, the Daily Evening News. Jerry, York can +always unhitch your wagon from its star. She really is his black beast, +though; but you can't expect mere men to take an interest in milliners, +make-overs, at that, however much interest they take in millinery and +what is under it."</p> + +<p>"And millinery bills, with or without interest," York interfered again.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Bahrr will want a full report of Jerry, with the blank spaces for +remarks filled out," Laura went on. "Why, she has changed her course and +is tacking away with the wind."</p> + +<p>"Going over to the Lenwells', I suppose. They are in some way sort of +distantly related to her. Just near enough, anyhow, to listen to all her +stories, and then say: 'For goodness sake don't say I told it; I got it +from Stellar, you know.' She will put into any port right now. I'm her +lighthouse warning," York declared. "She never approaches when I'm +present."</p> + +<p>York had risen and was standing in the doorway, where the growing moon +revealed him clearly. Mrs. Bahrr, coming up the walk toward the +Macpherson drive, suddenly turned about and hurried away, her tall, +angular form in relief against the sky-line in the open space that lay +between the Macpherson home and the nearest buildings down the slope +toward the heart of the town.</p> + +<p>"Coming back to common things," York continued, dropping into his +favorite chair. "My sister scandalizes me on every occasion. Whether or +not you hitch your wagon to a star, Jerry, is not so important, after +all. The real test is in just what kind of a star you hitch to. That +will tell whether you are going to ride to glory or cut such a figure as +the cow did that jumped over the moon."</p> + +<p>"It is not always that lawyers give counsel for nothing, Jerry," Laura +began, but the line of talk was again interrupted.</p> + +<p>The coming of callers led to many lines of discussion during the long +summer evening, in which Jerry took little part. In this new hemisphere +in which she was trying to find herself, where east seemed south and her +right hand her left, there was so much of the old hemisphere against +which she had partly burnt her bridges. The friendly familiarity of New +Eden neighbors was very different from the caste exclusiveness of the +Darby-Swaim set in Philadelphia. With the Winnowoc Valley people the +rich landholders had no social traffic. But the broad range of +conversation to-night, token of general information, called up home +memories in Jerry's mind and the long evenings when Jim Swaim's friends +gathered there to discuss world topics with her father, while she +listened with delight to all that was said. Her mother didn't care for +these things and wondered why her artistic daughter could be so +interested in them. But when the Macphersons and their guests spoke of +the latest magazines and the popular fiction and the recent drama it +brought up Lesa Swaim in her element to the listening young stranger. It +seemed so easy for the Macphersons to entertain gracefully, to make +everybody at home in the shadowy comfort of that big porch, to bring in +limeade and nut-cakes in cut-glass and fine china service, to forget +none of the things due to real courtesy, and yet to envelop all in the +genuine, open-hearted informality of the genial, open-hearted West.</p> + +<p>Long after the remainder of the Macpherson household was asleep Jerry +Swaim lay wide awake, her mind threshed upon with the situation in which +she had suddenly found herself. And over and over in the aisles of her +thoughts what York Macpherson had said about unhitching from a star ran +side by side with Uncle Cornie's words, "If a man went right with +himself."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> + +<h3>IF A MAN WENT RIGHT WITH HIMSELF</h3> + + +<p>There were two of a kind of the Swaim blood, Geraldine Swaim, who had +always had her own way, and Jerusha Swaim Darby, who had always had her +own way. When the wills and the ways of these two clashed—well, Jerusha +had lived many years and knew a thing or two by experience that niece +Geraldine had yet to learn.</p> + +<p>On the very day that Jerry Swaim left "Eden" Mrs. Darby had gone into +the city for a conference with her late husband's business associates. +Sloth in action never deprived her of any opportunities; and quick +action now meant everything in the accomplishment of the purpose she had +before her.</p> + +<p>"Cornelius was such a quiet man, he was never very much company. He +really did not care for people, like most men," Mrs. Darby said to her +business partners, who had known her husband intimately. "Eugene +Wellington has already surpassed him in getting hold of some things he +never quite reached to, being an older man. And now that Eugene is +proving such splendid help in taking up the less important details in my +affairs he ought to do fine clerical work in the House here. There is no +telling how much ability he may have for being useful to all of us along +the lines that Cornelius has developed. He has proved that he is equal +to a lot of things besides painting. People of little brain power and +financial skill ought to paint the pictures and not rob our big affairs +of business ability."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Darby held a controlling interest in the House, so the outcome of +the conference was that an easy berth on more than moderate pay, with +possible prospects—just possible, of course—was what Mrs. Darby had to +take back to "Eden" to serve up to Eugene Wellington when he should +return from his brief errand up in the Winnowoc country. And as that was +what Mrs. Darby wished to accomplish, her day's journey to the city was +a success.</p> + +<p>Only, that Winnowoc local was uncomfortably hot and crowded. Her trusty +chauffeur had resigned his position on the day after Cornelius was +buried, and Mrs. Darby was timid about the bluff road, anyhow. If only +Jerry had been here to drive for her! With all Jerry's dash and slash, +she was a fearless driver and always put the car exactly where she +wanted it to be. There was some satisfaction in having a hand like +Jerry's on the steering-wheel. So, pleased as to one horn of her +dilemma, but tired and perspiring, Mrs. Darby came home determined more +than ever to bring about her other purpose—to have Jerry Swaim in her +home, because she, Jerusha Darby, wanted her there.</p> + +<p>Jerry always filled the place with interest. And Jerry was gone, +actually gone, bag and baggage. She had cleared out that morning early +on a fool's errand to Kansas. What right had Jerry to go off to earn a +living when a living was here ready-made merely for her subjection to a +selfish old woman's wishes? Mrs. Darby did not think it in such words, +because she no more understood her own mind than that pretty girl with +her dark-blue eyes and wavy, gold-tinged hair understood her own mind. +One thing she did understand—Jerry must come back.</p> + +<p>A week later Eugene Wellington dropped off the morning train running +down from Winnowoc. It was too early for the household to be astir, save +the early feeder of stock and milker of kine, the early +man-of-all-odd-jobs who looked after the fowls, and the early +maid-of-all-good-things-to-eat who would have big puffy biscuit for +breakfast, with tender fried chicken and gravy that would stand alone. +All the homey sounds of the early summer morning flitted out from the +"Eden" kitchen and barn-yard. But the misty stillness of dawn rested on +the "Eden" lawns, whose owner, with the others of the household, was not +yet awake.</p> + +<p>At the rose-arbor the young artist paused to let the refreshing morning +zephyrs sweep across his face. He wondered if Jerry was awake yet. Ever +since he had left "Eden" the hope had been growing in him that she would +change her mind. After all, Aunt Jerry might be right about it. This was +too beautiful a house to throw aside for a whim—an ideal, however +fine, of self-support and all that. Women were made to be cared for, not +to support themselves—least of all a pretty, wilful, but winsomely +magnetic creature like Jerry Swaim, with her appealing, beautiful eyes, +her brown hair all glinted with gold, her strong little white hands, and +her daring spirit, exhilarating as wine in its exuberant influence. No, +Jerry mustn't go. She belonged to the soft and lovely settings of life.</p> + +<p>Eugene leaned against the door of the rose-arbor as these things filled +his mind, and a love of the luxuries that surrounded him here drove back +for the moment the high purpose of his own life.</p> + +<p>In the woodwork of the arbor, where the lightning had left its imprint, +he saw a little white envelop wedged in a splintered rift. The rose-vine +had hid it from every angle except the one he had chanced to take. He +slipped it out and read this inscription:</p> + +<p>"To Mr. Eugene Wellington, Artist."</p> + +<p>Inside, on Jerry's visiting-card, in her own hand-writing, was the +message: "Write me at New Eden, Kansas, Care of Mr. York Macpherson. +Don't forget what we are going to do, and when we have done, and won, +we'll meet again. Good-by. Jerry."</p> + +<p>The young artist dropped the card and stared down the lilac-bordered +avenue toward the shadowy gray-blue west whither Jerry Swaim was gone. +And all the world seemed gray-blue, a great void, where there was +neither top nor bottom. Then he picked up the card again and put it into +his pocket, and went into the house to get ready for breakfast.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Darby greeted his return as warmly as it was in her repressed +nature to do, conveying to him, not by any word, the feeling that he +meant more to her now than he had ever meant before.</p> + +<p>"Didn't Jerry leave suddenly? I didn't know she was going so soon. I—I +was hoping—to find her here," was what he was going on to say.</p> + +<p>"That she would be willing to stay here; to give up this scheme of +hers." Mrs. Darby finished the sentence for him. "Yes, I hoped so, too. +That was the only right thing to do. She chose her own time for leaving, +but she will be back soon if we manage right. Don't be a bit +discouraged, Eugene, and don't give up to her too much. She loves a +resisting force. She always did."</p> + +<p>Eugene looked anything but encouraged just then. All "Eden" was but an +echo of Jerry Swaim, and the droop of his well-formed lips suggested +only a feeble resisting force against her smallest wish.</p> + +<p>"She is my own flesh and blood. I know her best, of course," Mrs. Darby +went on. "The only way to meet her is to let her meet you. But we will +drop that now. After breakfast I want you to look up the men. I have +told them to report to you on the crop values, and harvest plans, and +fall seeding later. Look over the place well, won't you? Then meet me in +the rose-arbor at ten o'clock for a cup of tea and we will counsel +together."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Darby would have told the late Cornelius to "come in for +instructions later." But Eugene Wellington wasn't a sure result. He was +only in the process of solution. And Eugene, being very human, was +unconsciously flattered by this deference to a penniless young man. It +made him pleased with himself and gave him a vague sense of +proprietorship which Cornelius Darby, the real-in-law owner of this fine +country estate, never dreamed of enjoying.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what Jerry is doing this morning," he thought as he rode +Cornelius Darby's high-school-gaited horse to the far side of the place.</p> + +<p>"The more I see of this farm the finer it looks to me. Not a foot of +waste ground, not a nesting-place for weeds, not a broken fence; grove +and stream, and tilled fields, and gardens, and lawns, and well-kept +buildings. Not an unpainted board nor broken hinge—everything in +perfect repair except that splintered framework at the rose-arbor." He +paused on a little ridge above the Winnowoc from which the whole farm +lay in full view. His artistic eye noted the peaceful beauty of the +scene, the growing crops, the yellowing wheat, the black-green corn, the +fertile meadows swathed in June sunshine, the graceful shrubbery and big +forest trees through which the red-tiled roofs of the buildings glowed, +the pigeons circling about the cupolas of the barn. And not the least +attractive feature of the picture, although he was unconscious of it, +was the young artist himself, astride a graceful black horse, in relief +against a background of wooded border of the bluff above the clear +gurgling Winnowoc. Eugene looked well on horseback, although he was no +lover of horses, and preferred the steady, sure mounts to the spirited +ones.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if Jerry's big estate can be as well appointed as this. I wish +she were here with me now." The rider fell to dreaming of Jerry, trying +to put her in a picture of this "Eden" six times enlarged.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>At this same hour Jerry Swaim was sitting in Junius Brutus Ponk's gray runabout under the shade of the low oak-grove, +gazing with burning eyes at her own kingdom built out of Kansas sand.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Mrs. Darby had hot coffee and cold chicken and cherry preserves and cake +with blackberry wine all daintily served for a hungry man to enjoy after +a long three hours on horseback in the sunshine. The rose-arbor was +odorous with perfume from the sweet-peas, clinging to the trellis that +ran between the side lawn and the grape-arbor.</p> + +<p>What took place in that council had its results in the letter that +Eugene Wellington wrote that night to Jerry Swaim. He did not mail it +for several days, and when he went to his tasks on the morning after his +fingers had let go of it at the lip of the iron mail-box, the artist in +him said things to him that to the day of his death he would never quite +forget.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Late one afternoon, a fortnight after the day of Jerry's visit to her +claim, Ponk, of the Commercial Hotel and Garage, slipped into the office +of the Macpherson Mortgage Company.</p> + +<p>"York, what happens to folks that tends to other folks's affairs?" he +asked, as he spread his short proportions over a chair beside York's +desk.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes they get the gratitude of posterity. More generally their +portion is present contempt and future obscurity. Are you in line for +promotion on that, Ponk?" York replied.</p> + +<p>"I'm 'bout ready to take chances," Ponk said, with a good-natured grin.</p> + +<p>"All right. Am I involved in your scheme of things?" York inquired.</p> + +<p>"You bet you are," Ponk assured him. "And, to be brief, knowin' how +valuable your time is for gougin' mortgages out of unsuspectin' +victims—"</p> + +<p>"Well, we haven't foreclosed on the Commercial Hotel and Garage yet," +York interrupted.</p> + +<p>"No, but you're likely to the minute my back's turned. That's why I have +to go facin' south all the time. But to get to real business now, +York—"</p> + +<p>"I wish you would," York declared.</p> + +<p>His caller paid no heed to the thrust, and continued, seriously, "I +can't get some things off my mind, and I've got to unload, that's all."</p> + +<p>"Go ahead. I'm your dumping-ground," York said, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"That's what you are, you son of a horse-thief. I mean the tool of a +grasping bunch of loan sharks known as the Macpherson Mortgage Company. +Well, it's that young lady at your house."</p> + +<p>"I see. We robbed you of a boarder," York suggested.</p> + +<p>"Aw, shut up an' listen, now, will you? You know I'm a man of affairs +here. Owner and proprietor and man-of-all-work at the Commercial Hotel +an' Gurrage, bass soloist in the Baptist choir, and—by the removal of +the late deceased incumbent—also treasurer of the board of education of +the New Eden schools—"</p> + +<p>"All of which has what to do with the young lady from Philadelphia?" +York inquired, blandly.</p> + +<p>"Well, listen. Here's where tendin' to other folks's business comes in. +A good-lookin' but inexperienced young lady comes out here from +Philadelphia to find a claim left her by her deceased father. Out she +goes to see said claim, payin' me good money for my best car—to ride in +state over her grand province—of sand. And there wasn't much change but +a pearl-handle knife an' a button-hook in her purse when she pays for +the use of the car, even when I cut down half a buck on the regular +hire. Her kind don't know rightly how to save money till they 'ain't +none to save. But the look in her eyes when she come steamin' in from +that jaunt was more 'n I could stand. York, she ain't the first +Easterner to be fooled by the promise of the West. Not the real West, +you understand, but the sham face o' things put up back East. An' here +she be in our midst. Every day she goes by after the mail gets in, +looking like one of them blue pigeons with all the colors of a opal on +their necks, and every day she goes back with her face white around the +mouth. She's walkin' on red-hot plowshares and never squealin'." Ponk +paused, while York sat combing his fingers through his hair in silence.</p> + +<p>"You know I'm some force on the school board, if I don't know much. I +ain't there to teach anybody anything, but to see that such ignoramuses +as me ain't put up to teach children. Now we are shy one teacher in the +high-school by the sudden resignation of the mathematics professor to +take on underwritin' of life insurance in the city. Do you suppose she'd +do it? Would it help any if we offered the place to Miss Swaim? It might +help to keep her in this town."</p> + +<p>"Ponk, your heart's all right," York said, warmly. "It would help, I'm +sure, if the lady is to stay here, for she is without means. She might +or might not be willing to consider this opening. I can't forecast +women. But, Ponk, could she teach mathematics? You know she was probably +fashionably finished—never educated—in some higher school. If it were +embroidery, or something like that, it might be all right."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you trust me to judge a few things, even if I'm not up on the +gentle art of foreclosin' mortgages and such. I know that girl could +teach mathematics. Anybody who can run a car like she can with as true a +eye for curves an' distances, and a head for bossin' a machine that runs +by engine power, couldn't help but teach algebry and geometry just true +as a right angle. But mebby," and Ponk's countenance fell—"mebby she'd +not want to, nor thank me noways, nor you, neither, for interfering in +the matter. But I just thought I'd offer you the chance to mebby help +her get on her feet. I don't know, though. I'd hate to lose her +good-will. I just couldn't stand it."</p> + +<p>"Ponk, I appreciate your motive," York said, feelingly. "I will take +this up as soon as I can with Miss Swaim. You see, she's our guest and I +can't very gracefully suggest that she seek employment. And, to be frank +with you, my sister has become very fond of her—Laura misses a good +many good things on account of her lameness—and we would like to keep +her our guest indefinitely; but we can't do that, of course."</p> + +<p>"I don't wonder your sister wants her. Of course, you don't care nothin' +about it yourself. An' I'll have the board hold the place awhile to see +what 'll happen. I must soar back home now." And the little man left the +office.</p> + +<p>"Sound to the core, if he does strut when strangers come to town. +Especially ladies. That's the only way some little men have of +attracting attention to themselves. A kind-hearted man as ever came up +the Sage Brush," York commented, as he watched his caller crossing the +street to the hotel.</p> + +<p>That evening Jerry Swaim sat alone on the porch of the Macpherson home, +where shafts of silvery moonlight fell through the honeysuckle vines. +What York Macpherson would have called a fight between Jim Swaim's chin +and Lesa's eyes was going on in Jerry's soul this evening. Since her +visit to her claim life had suddenly become a maze of perplexities. She +had never before known a care that could not have been lifted from her +by others, except the one problem of leaving Philadelphia, and the +solution of that might have been the prank of a headstrong child, +prompted by self-will and love of adventure, rather than by the grave +decision of well-poised judgment. Heretofore in all her ventures a safe +harbor had been near to shelter her. Now she was among the breakers and +the storm was on.</p> + +<p>For the first time in her memory her purse was light and there was no +visible source from which to refill it. She was too well-bred to tax the +hospitality of the Macpherson home, where she was made to feel herself +so welcome. To return to Philadelphia meant to write and ask for the +expenses of transportation. She had burned too many bridges behind her +to meet the humility of such a request just yet; for that meant the +subjection of her whole future to Jerusha Darby's will, and against such +subjection Jerry's spirit rebelled mightily.</p> + +<p>Every day for two weeks the girl had gone to the post-office with an +eager, expectant face. Every evening she had asked York Macpherson if he +had heard anything from Philadelphia since her coming, the pretended +indifference in her tone hardly concealing the longing behind the query. +But not a line from the East had come to New Eden for her.</p> + +<p>On the afternoon of this day the postmaster had hurried through the +letters because he, too, had caught the meaning of the hunger in the +earnest eyes watching him through the little window among the +letter-boxes. The mail was heavy to-day, but the distributer paused with +one letter, long enough to look at it carefully, and then, leaving his +work half finished, he hurried to the window.</p> + +<p>"Here's something for you. Aren't you Miss Swaim?" he inquired, +courteously, as he pushed the letter toward Jerry's waiting hand.</p> + +<p>He had lived in Kansas since the passage of the homestead law. He knew +the mark of homesickness on the face of a late arrival. Something in the +cultivation of a new land puts a gentler culture into the soul. Out of +the common heartache, the common sacrifice, the common need, have grown +the open-hearted, keen-sighted, fine-fibered folk of the big and +generous Middle West, the very heart of which, to the Kansan, is Kansas.</p> + +<p>The postmaster turned quickly back to his task. He did not see the +girl's face; he only felt that she walked away on air.</p> + +<p>At York Macpherson's office she hesitated a moment, then hurried inside. +York was in his private room, but the door to it stood open, and Jerry +caught sight of a woman within.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon." She blushed confusedly. "I don't want to intrude; I +only wanted to stop long enough to read a letter from home."</p> + +<p>Jerry's genuine embarrassment was very pretty and appealing, but York +was shrewd enough to know that it came from the letter in her hand, not +from any connection with his office or its occupants. Mrs. Stellar +Bahrr, however, who happened to be the woman in the inner room, did not +see the incident with York's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Just come in here, Miss Swaim, and make yourself at home," York +insisted. "Come, Mrs. Bahrr, we can finish our talk for to-day in one +place as well as another. My sister and I are going across the river to +spend the evening, so it will be late to-morrow before I can get those +papers ready for you."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bahrr rose reluctantly, hooking her sharp eyes into the girl as she +passed out. What she noted was a very white face where the color of the +cheeks seemed burned in, and big, shining eyes. Of course the +broad-brimmed chiffon hat with beaded medallions, the beaded parasol to +match, and the beaded hand-bag of the same hues did not escape her eyes, +especially the pretty hand-bag.</p> + +<p>York closed the door behind the two, leaving Jerry in quiet possession +of the inner room, while he seated Mrs. Bahrr in the outer office and +engaged in the business that had brought her to him. He knew that she +would be torn between two desires: one to hurry through and leave the +office, and so be able to start a story of leaving Jerry and himself in +a questionable situation; the other to stay and see the fair caller as +she came out, and to learn, if possible, why she had come, and to enjoy +her confusion in finding a woman still engaging York's time. Either +thing would be worth while to Mrs. Bahrr, and while she hesitated York +decided for her.</p> + +<p>"I'll keep her with me, the old Long Tongue. Yea, she shall roost here +in my coop till the little girl gets clear to 'Castle Cluny.' She +sha'n't run off and overtake her prey and then cackle over it later. +Jerry has committed the unpardonable sin of being young and pretty and +good; the Big Dipper will make her pay for the personal insult."</p> + +<p>In the midst of their business conversation Jerry Swaim came from the +inner room, and with a half-audible word of thanks left the office. Mrs. +Bahrr's back was toward the door, and, although she turned with a +catlike quickness, she failed to see anything worth while except to get +another good look at the hand-bag. Something told York Macpherson that +the message in her letter held a tragical meaning for the fair-faced +girl who had waited so eagerly for its coming.</p> + +<p>At dinner that evening York was at his best.</p> + +<p>"I must make our girl keep an appetite," he argued. "Nothing matters if +a dinner still carries an appeal. By George! I've got to do my best, or +I'll lose my own taste for what Laura can set up if I don't look out. We +are all getting thin except Laura. Even Ponk is losing his strut a bit. +And why? Oh, confound it! there is plenty of time to ask questions in +July and August when the town has its dull season."</p> + +<p>So York came to dinner in one of his rarest moods, a host to make one's +worries flee away.</p> + +<p>Jerry had reread her letter in the seclusion of her room at "Castle +Cluny." It did not need a third reading, for every word seemed graven on +the reader's brain. In carefully typewritten form, with only the +signature in the writer's own hand, it ran:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">My always dear Jerry</span>,—I should have written you days ago, but +I did not get back to "Eden" until you had been gone a week. We +are all so eager to hear how you are, and to know about the +Swaim estate which you went to find. But we are a hundred times +more eager to see your face here again. I wish you were here +to-night, for I have been in the depths of doubt and +indecision, from which your presence would have lifted me. I +hope I have done the right thing, now it is done, and I'll wait +to hear from you more eagerly than I ever waited for a letter +before. Yet I feel sure you will approve of my course after you +get over your surprise and have taken time to think carefully.</p> + +<p>I had a long heart-to-heart talk with Aunt Jerry to-day. Don't +smile and say a purse-to-purse talk. Full purses don't talk to +empty ones. They speak a different language. But this to-day +was a real confidence game as you might say. I received the +confidence if I didn't die as game as you would wish me to.</p> + +<p>To be plain, little cousin mine, I want you dreadfully to come +back, so much so that I have decided to give up painting for +the present and take a clerkship in the bank with Uncle +Cornie's partners. I can see your eyes open wide with surprise +and disappointment when I tell you that Aunt Jerry has really +converted me to her way of thinking. My hours are easy and the +pay is good. Not so much as I had hoped to have some day from +my brush and may have yet, if this work doesn't make me fat and +lazy, for there is really very little responsibility about it, +just a decent accuracy. This makes so many things possible, you +see, and then I have the satisfaction of knowing I am doing a +service for Aunt Jerry—and, to be explicit—to put myself +where I shall not have to worry over things when you come home. +So I'm happy now. And when you get here I shall begin to live +again. I seem to be staying here now. Staying and waiting for +something. Nobody really lives at "Eden" without little Jerry +to keep us all alive and keyed up. Nobody to take the big car +over the bluff road, beautiful as it is—for you know I'm too +big a coward to drive it and to do a hundred things I'd do if +you were here to brace me up.</p> + +<p>Write me at once, little cousin, and say you will come home +just as soon as you have seen all of that God-forsaken country +you care to look at. And meantime I'll write as often as you +want me to. I think of you every day and remember you in my +prayers every night. You remember I told you I couldn't pray +out in Kansas. May the Lord be good to you and make you love +Him more than you think you do now, and bring you safe and soon +to our beautiful "Eden."</p> + +<p>Yours,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Eugene</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The sands of the blowout on Jerry's claim seared not more hotly her +fresh young hopes of prosperity, through her own effort and control, +than this sudden change from the artist, with his dreams of beauty and +power, to the man of easy clerical duty with a good salary and small +responsibility. Of course Aunt Jerry had been back of it all, but so +would Aunt Jerry have been back of her—if she had given up.</p> + +<p>Jerry sat for a long time staring at the missive where it had fallen on +the floor, the typewritten neatness of the blue lettering only a blur to +her eyes. For she was back at "Eden," on the steep but beautiful bluff +road, with Eugene afraid to drive the big Darby car. She was in the +rose-arbor looking up to see that faint line of indecision in the dear, +handsome face. She was in the "Eden" parlor under the soft light of +rose-tinted lamps, facing Aunt Jerry and sure of herself, but catching +again that wavering line of uncertainty on Eugene Wellington's +countenance, and her own vague fear—unguessed then—that he might not +resist in the supreme test.</p> + +<p>But idols die hard. Eugene was her idol. He couldn't die at once. He was +so handsome, so true, so gracious, so filled with a love of beautiful +things. How could she understand the temptation to the soul of an artist +in such lovely settings as "Eden" offered? It was all Aunt Jerry's +fault, and he would overcome it. He must.</p> + +<p>It was so easy to blame Aunt Jerry. It made everything clear. He had +yielded to her cleverness and never known he was being ruled. With all +her flippant, careless youth, inexperience, and selfishness, Jerry was a +keener reader of human nature than her lack of training could account +for. She knew just the lines Aunt Jerry had laid, the net spread for +Eugene's feet. But—Oh, things must come out all right. He would change.</p> + +<p>This one thought rang up and down her scale of thinking, as if repeating +would make true what Jerry knew was false.</p> + +<p>"'If a man went right with himself.' Oh, Eugene, Eugene!" she murmured, +half aloud. "You hitched your wagon to a star, but to what kind of a +star—to what kind of a star?"</p> + +<p>Then came a greater query: "Shall I go back to 'Eden,' to Aunt Jerry's +rule, to Eugene, to love, to easy, dependent, purposeless living? Shall +I?"</p> + +<p>A blank wall seemed suddenly to be flung across her way. Should she +climb over it, hammer an opening through it, or turn back and run from +it?</p> + +<p>With these questions stalking before her she had come out to dinner and +York Macpherson's genial, entertaining conversation, and to Laura +Macpherson's gracious intuition and soothing sympathy.</p> + +<p>Early in the evening, as the Macphersons with their guest sat watching +the splendor of the sunset sky, Jerry said, suddenly:</p> + +<p>"It has been two weeks to-day since I came here. Quite long enough for a +stranger's first visit."</p> + +<p>"A 'stranger,'" Laura Macpherson repeated. "A 'stranger' who asked to be +called 'Jerry' the first thing. We are all so well acquainted with this +'stranger' that we wouldn't want to give her up now."</p> + +<p>"But I must give you up pretty soon." Jerry spoke earnestly.</p> + +<p>"Why 'must'? Has the East too strong a hold for the West to break?" +York asked.</p> + +<p>"I came out here because I believed my land would support me, and I had +all sorts of foolish dreams of what I might find here that would be new +and romantic." Jerry's eyes had a far-away look in them as she recalled +the unrealized picture of her prairie domain.</p> + +<p>"You haven't answered my question yet," York reminded her.</p> + +<p>Jerry dropped her eyes, the bloom deepened on her fair cheek, and she +clasped her small hands together. For a long time no word was spoken.</p> + +<p>"I didn't answer your question. I am not going back to Philadelphia. +There must be something else besides land in the West," Jerry said, at +last.</p> + +<p>"Yes, <i>we</i> are here. Do stay right here with us," Laura Macpherson +urged, warmly.</p> + +<p>Every day the companionship of this girl had grown upon her, for that +was Jerry's gift. But to the eager invitation of her hostess the girl +only shook her head.</p> + +<p>York Macpherson sat combing his fingers through the heavy brown waves of +his hair, a habit of his when he was thinking deeply. But if a vision of +what might be came to him unbidden now, a vision that had come unbidden +many times in the last two weeks, making sweeter the smile that won men +to him, he put it resolutely away from him for the time. He must help +this girl to help herself. Romance belonged to other men. He was not of +the right mold for that—not now, at least.</p> + +<p>"I heard to-day that there is need of a mathematics teacher in our +high-school for next year. It pays eighty dollars a month," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, York," Laura protested, earnestly. "You know Jerry never thought of +such a thing as teaching. And I really must have her here. You are away +so much, you know you are."</p> + +<p>But her brother only smiled. When York Macpherson frowned he might be +giving in, but his sister knew that his smile meant absolute resistance.</p> + +<p>"Ponk was talking to me to-day. He is the treasurer of the school board +now, and he mentioned the vacancy. He was casting about for some one +fitted to teach mathematics. Even though his mind runs more on his +garage than on education, he has a deep interest in the schools. He +admires your ability to manage a car so much it occurred to him that you +might consider this position. Fine course of reasoning, but he is sure +of his ground."</p> + +<p>"Let me think it over," Jerry said, slowly.</p> + +<p>"And then forget it," Laura suggested. "York and I are invited out this +evening. Won't you come with us? It is just a little informal doings +across the river."</p> + +<p>"I would rather be alone to-night," her guest replied.</p> + +<p>So the Macphersons let her have her way.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2> + +<h3>IF A WOMAN WENT RIGHT WITH HERSELF</h3> + + +<p>And thus it happened that Jerry Swaim was alone this evening behind the +honeysuckle-vines, with leaf shadow and moonbeams falling caressingly on +her filmy white gown and golden hair. For a long time she sat still. +Once she said, half aloud, unconscious that she was speaking at all:</p> + +<p>"So Eugene Wellington has given up his art for an easy berth in the +Darby bank. He hadn't the courage to resist the temptation, though it +made him a tool instead of a master of tools. And we promised each other +we would each make our own way, independent of Aunt Jerry's money. Maybe +if I had been there things would have been different."</p> + +<p>She gripped her hands in her quick, nervous way, as a homesick longing +swept her soul. She was searching a way out for Eugene, a cause for +putting all the blame on Aunt Jerry.</p> + +<p>"I wish I had gone with the Macphersons. I could have forgotten, for a +while at least."</p> + +<p>A light step inside the house caught her ear.</p> + +<p>"Maybe Laura has come home," she thought, too absorbed in herself to +ask why Laura should have chosen the side door when she knew that Jerry +was alone on the front porch.</p> + +<p>Again she heard a movement just inside the open door; then a step on the +threshold; and then a tall, thin woman walked out of the house and +half-way across the wide porch before she caught sight of Jerry in an +easy-chair behind the honeysuckle-vines. The intruder paused a second, +staring at the corner where the girl sat motionless. From her childhood +Jerry had possessed unusual physical courage. To-night it was curiosity, +rather than fright, that prompted her to keep still while the strange +woman's eyes were upon her. Evidently the intruder was more surprised +than herself, and Jerry let her make the first move in the game. The +woman was angular, with swift but ungraceful motion. For a long time, as +such seconds go, she stared at the white figure hidden by the shadows of +the vines. Then with a quick stride she thrust herself before the girl +and dropped into a chair.</p> + +<p>"Well, well! This is Miss Swim, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"As well that as anything. I can't land anywhere," Jerry thought.</p> + +<p>"I'm Mrs. Stellar Bahrr, a good friend of Laury Macpherson as she's got +in this town, unless it's you. I seen you in York's office this +afternoon. I was sorry I intruded on you two when you come purpose to +see him in his private office. When girls wants to see him that way they +don't want nobody, 'specially women, around."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bahrr paused to giggle and to give Jerry time to parry her thrust, +meanwhile pinning her through with the sharp points of her eyes that +fairly gleamed in the shadow-checkered moonlight of the porch. Jerry was +not accustomed to being accountable to anybody for what she chose to do, +nor did she know that every man in New Eden, except York Macpherson and +Junius Brutus Ponk—and every woman, without exception—really feared +Stella Bahrr, knowing that she would hesitate at no kind of warfare to +accomplish her purpose. It is generally easier to be decent than to be +courageous, and peace at any price may be more desired than nasty word +battles. Not knowing Stella for the woman she was, Jerry had no mind to +consider her at all, so she waited for her caller to proceed or to leave +her.</p> + +<p>"You must excuse me if I seem to be interfering in your affairs. You are +a stranger here except to York and that man Ponk—" Stella began, +thrusting her hooks more viciously into her catch.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you didn't interfere," Jerry interrupted her indifferently, and +then paused.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bahrr caught her breath. The girl was sinfully pretty and +attractive, her beauty and grace in themselves alone railing out at the +older woman's ugly spirit of envy. And she should be tender, with +feeling to be lacerated for these gifts of nature. Instead, she was firm +and hard, with no vulnerable spot for a poisoned shaft.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure you had a right to go into a man's private office. It's +everybody's right, of course," she began, with that faint sneering tone +of hers that carried a threat of what might follow.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but a little discourteous in me to drive you out. That was Mr. +Macpherson's fault, not mine," Jerry broke in, easily.</p> + +<p>"Maybe that's her grievance. I'll be decent about it," the girl was +thinking.</p> + +<p>"I'm awfully bored right now." The wind shifted quickly. "I run up to +see Laury a minute. Just slipped in the side-stoop way to save troublin' +you an' York out here. I knowed Laury wouldn't be here, an', would you +believe it? I clar forgot they was gone out, an' I seen you all leavin', +too—I mean them, of course."</p> + +<p>The threatening tone could not be reproduced. It carried, however, a +most uncomfortable force like a cruel undertow beneath the seemingly +safe crest of a wave.</p> + +<p>"It's a joke on me bein' so stupid, but you won't give me away to 'em, +will you?"</p> + +<p>"I'm awfully bored, too," Jerry thought.</p> + +<p>"You say you won't tell 'em at all that I come?" Mrs. Bahrr insisted.</p> + +<p>"Not if you say so," Jerry replied, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"I'm an awfully good friend of Laury's. She's a poor cripple, dependent +on her brother for everything, an' if he marries, as he's bound to do, +I'd hate to see her turned out of here. This house is just Laury +through and through. Don't you think so? 'Course, though, if York +marries again—" Stellar Bahrr stopped meditatively. "All the women in +the Sage Brush Valley's just crazy about York. He's some flirt, but +everybody thought he'd settled his mind once sure. But I guess he flared +up again, from what they say. She's too fur away from town a'most. Them +that's furtherest away don't have a chance like them that's nearest him. +But it may be all just gossip. There was a lot of talk about him an' a +girl down the river that's got a crippled brother—Paul Ekblad's his +name; hers is Thelmy—an' some considerable about one of the Poser girls +where he was up the Sage Brush to this week. The married one now, I +think, an' a bouncin' big baby, but what do you care for all that?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," Jerry replied, innocently.</p> + +<p>The steel hooks turned slowly to lacerate deeper.</p> + +<p>"Well, I must be goin'. You give me your word you wouldn't cheep about +my forgettin' an' runnin' in here. York's such a torment, I'd never hear +the last of it. I know you are a honorable one with your promises, an' I +like that kind. I'm glad I met you. An' I'll not say a word, neither, +'bout your goin' to see York in his private office. It's a bargain +'tween us two. Laury's an awfully good friend of yours an' she'll keep +you here a good long while, she's that hos<i>pit</i>able."</p> + +<p>The steel hooks tore their way out, and the woman rose and strode +quickly away. In a minute she had literally dropped from view in the +shaded slope beyond the driveway.</p> + +<p>"I might as well punch a stick in water or stick a pin in old Granddad +Poser's tombstone out in the cimetery, an' expect to find a hole left, +as to do anything with that pink-an'-white-an'-gold critter!" she +exclaimed, viciously, as she disappeared in the shadows. "I'm afraider +of her than I would be of a real mad-cat, but she can't scare me!"</p> + +<p>Out on the lawn the moon just then seemed to cast a weird gleam of +light, and to veil rather than reveal the long street beyond it. For a +minute after the passing of her uninvited caller Jerry Swaim was filled +with an unaccountable fright. Then her pulse beat calmly again and she +smiled at herself.</p> + +<p>"I don't seem to fear these Kansas men—Mr. Ponk, for example, nor that +Teddy-bear creature down by the deep hole in the Sage Brush. But these +Kansas women, except Laura—anybody would except Laura—are so +impossible. That dairy-maid type of a Thelma, and that woman-and-baby +combination, for example; and some of the women really scare me. That +aborigine down in the brush by the river, in her shabby clothes and +sunbonnet eclipse; and now this 'Stellar' comes catfooting out of the +house and lands over yonder in the shadows. She needn't have been bored +because she didn't find the folks at home, and she needn't frighten me +so. I never was afraid of Aunt Jerry. I ought to be proof against +anybody else. And yet maybe I am in the way here, even if they drive the +very idea away from me. Laura is good to me and her friendliness is +genuine. Little as I know, I <i>know</i> that much. And York—oh, that was a +village gossip's tale! And she gets me scared—I, whom even Jerusha +Darby never cowed."</p> + +<p>The poison was working, after all, and Stellar Bahrr's sting had not +been against marble, nor into water. With the memory of Jerusha Darby, +too, the burden came again to her niece's mind, only to be lifted again, +however, in a few minutes. Her memory had run back to her day down the +river and the oak-grove and the sand, and the young man whose name was +Joe Thomson—Jerry did not remember the name—and the crushing weight of +surprise and disappointment. The struggle to decide on a course for +herself immediately was rising again within her, when she saw a young +man turn from the street and come up the walk toward the porch.</p> + +<p>"I can't have leisure to settle anything by myself, it seems, even with +the lord and lady of the castle leaving me in full seclusion here. One +caller goes and another comes. I wonder what excuse this one has for +intruding. He is another type—one I haven't met before."</p> + +<p>In the time required for this caller to reach the porch there flashed +through Jerry's mind all the types she had seen in the West. Ponk and +Thelma and fuzzy Teddy, the woman-and-baby, Laura and York, and that +pin-eyed gossip—and the young country fellow whose land lay next to +hers. None of them concerned her, really, except these hospitable +friends who were sheltering her, and, in a way, in an upright, legal, +Jim Swaim kind of way, the young man down the Sage Brush, losing in the +game like herself and helpless like herself.</p> + +<p>It was no wonder that Jerry did not recognize in this caller the +ranchman of the blowout. There was nothing of the clodhopper in this +well-dressed young fellow, although he was not exactly a model for +advertising high-grade tailoring.</p> + +<p>"Is this Miss Swaim?" he asked, lifting his hat. "I am Joe Thomson. You +may remember that we met down in the blowout two weeks ago."</p> + +<p>"I could hardly forget meeting you. Will you sit down?" Jerry offered +Joe a chair with a courtesy very unlike the blunt manner of her first +words to him a fortnight before.</p> + +<p>But in the far recesses of her consciousness all the while the haunting, +ever-recurring picture of a handsome face and a faultlessly clad form, +even the face and form of a Philadelphia bank clerk, <i>né</i> artist, made +the reality of Joe Thomson's presence very commonplace and uninteresting +at that moment, and her courtesy was of a perfunctory sort.</p> + +<p>"I hope I don't intrude. Were you busy?" Joe asked, something of the +embarrassment of the first meeting coming back with the question.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was very busy," Jerry replied, with a smile. "Pick-up work, +though. I was just thinking. Lost in thought, maybe."</p> + +<p>The moonlight can do so much for a pretty woman, but with Jerry Swaim +one could not say whether sunlight, moonlight, starlight, or dull gray +clouds did the most. For two weeks the memory of her fair face, as he +recalled it in the oak shade down beside the blowout, had not been +absent from the young ranchman's mind. And to-night this dainty girl out +of the East seemed entrancing.</p> + +<p>"You were lost in thought when I saw you before. I had an idea that city +girls didn't do much thinking. Is it your settled occupation?" Joe +inquired, with a smile in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"It is my only visible means of support right now; about as profitable, +too, as farming a blowout," Jerry returned.</p> + +<p>"Which reminds me of my purpose in thrusting this call upon you," Joe +declared. "I didn't realize the situation the other day—and—well, to +be plain, I came to beg your pardon for my rudeness in what I said about +your claim. I had no idea who you were, you know, but that hardly +excuses me for what I said."</p> + +<p>"It is very rude to speak so slightingly of land that behaves as +beautifully as mine does," Jerry said, with a smile that atoned for the +trace of sarcasm in her voice.</p> + +<p>"It is very rude to speak as slightingly as I did of the former owner. +But you see I have watched that brainless blowout thing creep along, +season after season, eating up my acres—my sole inheritance, too."</p> + +<p>"And you said you didn't go mad," Jerry interposed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I didn't say I didn't get mad. I have worn out enough +profanity on that blowout to stock the whole Sage Brush Valley."</p> + +<p>"But you aren't to the last resort, for you do go mad here then, you +told me. I wonder you aren't all madmen and women when I think of this +country and remember how different I had imagined it would be."</p> + +<p>"When we come to the very last ditch, we really have two +alternatives—to go mad and to go back East. Most folks prefer the +former. But I say again, it's always a long way to the last ditch out on +the Sage Brush, so we seldom do either."</p> + +<p>"What should I do now? Won't you tell me? I'm really near my last +ditch."</p> + +<p>Jerry sat with clasped hands, looking earnestly into Joe's face, as she +said this. Oh, fair was she, this exquisite white-blossom style of girl, +facing her first life-problem, the big problem of living. Joe Thomson +made no reply to her question. What could this dainty, untrained +creature do with the best of claims? The frank sincerity of his silence +made an appeal to her that the wisest advice could not have made just +then.</p> + +<p>York Macpherson was right when he said that Jim Swaim's child was a type +of her own. If Jerry, through her mother's nature, was impulsive and +imaginative, from her father she had inherited balance and clear vision. +Her young years had heretofore made no call upon her to exercise these +qualities. What might have been turned to the frivolous and romantic in +one parent, and the hard-headed and grasping in the other, now became +saving qualities for the child of these two. In an instant Jerry read +the young ranchman's character clearly and foresaw in him a friend and +helper. But there was neither romance nor selfishness in that vision.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Thomson," the girl began, seriously, "you need not apologize for +what you could not help feeling about the condition of my estate and the +wrong that has been done to you. I know you do not hold me responsible +for it. Let's forget that you thought you had said anything unpleasant +to me, for I want to ask your advice."</p> + +<p>"Mine!" Joe Thomson exclaimed.</p> + +<p>This sweet-faced, soft-voiced girl was walking straight into another +heart in the Sage Brush Valley. Nature had given her that heritage, +wherever she might go.</p> + +<p>"Yes, your advice, please." Jerry went on. "You have watched that sand +spreading northward over your claim. You have had days, months, years, +maybe, to see the blowout doing its work. I awakened suddenly one +morning from a beautiful day-dream. My only heritage left of all the +fortune I had been brought to expect to be mine, the inheritance I had +idealized with all the romantic beauty and prosperity possible to rural +life, in a minute all this turned to a desert before my eyes. You belong +to the West. Tell me, won't you, what is next for me?"</p> + +<p>"What could I tell you, Miss Swaim?" Joe asked.</p> + +<p>"Tell me what to do, I mean," Jerry exclaimed. "Tell me quickly, for I +am right against the bread-line now."</p> + +<p>For a moment Joe stared at the girl in amazement. Her earnestness left +no room to misunderstand her. But his senses came back quickly, as one +whose life habit it had been to meet and answer hard questions suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Why not go back East?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"One of your two last resorts; the other one is madness. I won't do it," +Jerry said, stubbornly. "Shall I tell you why?"</p> + +<p>It was a delicious surprise to the young ranchman to be taken into the +confidence of this charming, gracious girl. The honeysuckle leaves, +stirred by the soft night breeze that came purring across the open +plain, gave the moonbeams leave to play with the rippling gold of her +hair, and to flutter ever so faintly the soft white draperies of her +gown. Her big dark eyes, her fair white throat and shoulders, the faint +pink hue of her cheeks, the shapely white arms below the elbow-frilled +sleeves, her soft voice, her frank trust in his judgment and integrity, +made that appeal that rarely comes to a young man's heart oftener than +once in a lifetime.</p> + +<p>"My father lived a rich man and died a poor man, leaving me—for mother +went first—to the care of his wealthy sister. A half-forgotten claim on +the Sage Brush is my only possession after two years of litigation and +all that sort of thing." Jerry paused.</p> + +<p>"Well?" Joe queried.</p> + +<p>"I was offered one of two alternatives: I might be dependent on my +aunt's bounty or I could come out West and live on my claim. I chose the +West. Now what can I do?"</p> + +<p>The pathos of the young face was touching. The question of maintenance +is hard enough for the resourceful and experienced to meet; how doubly +hard it must be to the young, untried, and untrained!</p> + +<p>Joe Thomson looked out to where the open prairie, swathed in silvery +mist, seemed to flow up to the indefinite bounds of the town. All the +earth was beautiful in the stillness of the June night.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how to advise you," he said, at length. "If you were one +of us—a real Western girl—it would be different."</p> + +<p>To Jerry this sincerity outweighed any suggestion he could have offered. +From the point of romance this young man was impossible to Lesa Swaim's +child. Yet truly nobody before, not even York Macpherson, had ever +seemed like such a real friend to her, and the chance acquaintance was +reaching by leaps and bounds toward a genuine comradeship.</p> + +<p>"Why do you stay here? You weren't born here, were you? Tell me about +yourself," Jerry demanded.</p> + +<p>"There's a big difference between our cases," Joe replied, wondering how +this girl could care anything for his life-story. "I was the oldest +child of our family. My father came out here on account of his health, +but he came too late, and died, leaving me the claim on the Sage Brush +and my pledge on his death-bed never to leave the West, for fear I, too, +would become an invalid as he had been. There seems to be little danger +of that, and I like the West too well to leave it now. And then, +besides, I'm like a lot of other fellows who claim to love the Sage +Brush. I haven't the means to get away and start life anywhere else, +anyhow. You see, we are as frank out here about our conditions as you +Philadelphians are."</p> + +<p>He smiled and looked down at his strong hands and sturdy arms. It would +be difficult to think of Joe Thomson as an invalid.</p> + +<p>"I inherited, besides my claim and my promise, the provision for two +younger sisters, housed with relatives in the East, but supported by +contributions from this same Sage Brush claim on which I have had to +wrestle with the heat and drought that sear the prairies. And now, when +both my sisters, who married young, are provided for and settled in +homes of their own, and I can begin to live my own life a little, comes +my enemy, the blowout—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I never want to think of that awful thing!" Jerry cried. "I shall +give the Macpherson Mortgage Company control of the entire sand-pile. +I'll never play there again, never!"</p> + +<p>In the silence that followed something in the beauty of the midsummer +night seemed to fall like a benediction on this man and this woman, each +facing big realities. And, however different their equipment for their +struggles had been in previous years, they were not so far apart now as +their differing circumstances of life would indicate.</p> + +<p>"I must be going now. I did not mean to take so much of your time. I +came only to assure you that I am not always so rude as the mood you +found me in the other day would indicate." Joe rose to go with the +words.</p> + +<p>Jerry's mind had run back again, dreamily, to Gene Wellington, of +Philadelphia, the Gene as she knew and remembered him. It was not until +afterward that she recalled her surprise that this ranchman of the +Western prairies should have such a simple and easy manner whose home +life had evidently been so unlike her own.</p> + +<p>"You haven't stayed too long," she said, frankly. "And you haven't yet +suggested what an undertrained Philadelphia girl can do to keep the +coyote from her dugout portal."</p> + +<p>If only she had been a little less bewitchingly pretty, a little less +sure that the distance of planet from planet lay between them, a strange +sense of sorrow, and a strange new purpose would not have found a place +in Joe Thomson's heart then. With a perception much keener than her own, +he read Jerry's mind that night as she had never tried to read it +herself.</p> + +<p>"I'm better up on soils and farm products than on civic problems and +social economy and such. Dry farming, clerking, sewing, household +economics in somebody's cook-shack, teaching school, giving music +lessons, canvassing for magazines—the Sage Brush girls do things like +these. I wish I could name a calling more suitable for you, but this is +the only line I can offer," Joe said, thinking how impossible it would +be for the girl beside him to fit into the workaday world of the Sage +Brush Valley. On the next ranch to his own up the river a fair-haired, +sun-browned girl was working in the harvest-field this season to save +the price of a hired hand, toward going to college that fall. Jolly, +strong-handed, strong-hearted Thelma Ekblad, whose name was yet to +adorn an alumni record of the big university proud to call her its +product. Jerry Swaim would never thrive in the same soil with this stout +Norwegian.</p> + +<p>They were standing on the porch steps now, and the white moonbeams +glorified Jerry's beauty, for the young ranchman, as she looked up at +him with a smile on her lips and eyes full of light, a sudden decision +giving new character to her countenance. The suddenness of it, that was +her mother's child. The purpose, that was the reflection of Jim Swaim's +mind.</p> + +<p>"I'm on the other side of my Rubicon. I'm going to teach mathematics in +the New Eden high-school. Will you help me to keep across the river? +There's an inspiration for me in the things that you can do?"</p> + +<p>"You! Teach mathematics! They always have a man to teach that!" Joe +exclaimed, wondering behind his words if he only dreamed that she had +asked him to help to keep her across her Rubicon, or if she had really +said such a beautiful thing to him, Joe Thomson, sand-fighter and +general loser, who wouldn't be downed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't wonder you are surprised! I always jump quickly when I do +move. You think I couldn't teach A, B, C, the known quantities, let +alone x, y, z, the unknown quantities, don't you?" Jerry said, gaily. +"When I went to school I was a flunker in languages and sciences. I was +weak in boarding-school embroidery, too, because I never cared for those +things, nor was I ever made to study anything unless I chose to do it. +But I was sure in trigonometry and calculus, which I might have dodged +and didn't. I reveled in them. My mother was scandalized, and Gene +Wellington, an artist, who, by the way, has just given up his career for +a good bank clerkship in Philadelphia, a sort of cousin of mine, was +positively shocked. It seemed so unrefined and strong-minded. But my +father said I was just his own flesh and blood in that line. Yes, I'll +teach school. Mr. Ponk is going to offer me the position, and it's a +whole lot better than the poor-house, or madness, or the East, maybe," +she added, softly, with a luminous glow in her beautiful eyes.</p> + +<p>The old Sage Brush world seemed to slip out from under Joe Thomson's +feet just then.</p> + +<p>"Is your friend related to John Wellington, who once lived in +Philadelphia?" he asked, after a pause, his mind far away from his +query.</p> + +<p>"Why, he's John Wellington's son! John Wellington was a sort of partner +of my father's once," Jerry said. Even in the soft light Joe saw the +pink flush deepen on the girl's cheek. "Good night." She offered him her +hand. "I hope I may see you often. Oh, I hate that blowout, and you +ought to hate me on account of it."</p> + +<p>"It is a brainless, hateful thing," Joe Thomson declared, as he took her +proffered hand. "All my streams seem to be Rubicons, even to the crooked +old Sage Brush. I can't be an inspiration to anybody. It is you who can +give me courage. If you can teach mathematics in New Eden, <i>I believe I +can kill that blowout</i>."</p> + +<p>The strength of a new-born purpose was in the man's voice.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, you can't, for it's mostly on my land yet!" Jerry replied.</p> + +<p>"Well, what of it? You say you won't play in that old sand-pile any +more. What do you care who else plays there? Good night."</p> + +<p>"Good night, Mr. Thomson. Why, what is that?" Jerry's eyes were on a +short, squat figure standing in the middle of the gateway to the +Macpherson grounds.</p> + +<p>"That's 'Fishing Teddy,' an old character who lives a hermit kind of +life down the Sage Brush. He comes to town about four times a year; +usually walks both ways; but I promised to take him out with me +to-night. He's harmless and gentle. Everybody likes him—I mean of our +sort. You wouldn't be interested in him. His real name is Hans Theodore, +but, of course, nobody calls him Mr. Theodore. Everybody calls him +'Fishing Teddy.' Good night, Miss Swaim."</p> + +<p>Joe Thomson lifted his hat and walked away.</p> + +<p>Jerry saw the old man shuffle out and join him, and the two went down +the street together, one, big and muscular, with head erect and an easy, +fearless stride; the other, humped down, frowsy, shambling, a sort of +half-product of humanity, whose companion was the river, whose days were +solitary, who had no part in the moonlight, the perfume of honeysuckle +blossoms, the pleasure of companionship, the easy comfort that wealth +can bring. His to bear the heat and the cinders on the rear platforms of +jerky freight-trains, his to serve his best food to imperious young city +girls lost in an impetuous passion of disappointment in a new and +bewildering land. And yet his mind was serene. Knowing the river would +bring him his food in the morning and his commodity of commerce for his +needs, he was vastly more contented with his lot to-night than was the +stalwart young man who stalked beside him, grimly resolving to go out +and do things.</p> + +<p>Jerry watched the two until they turned into a side-street and +disappeared. The moonlight was wondrously bright and the air was like +crystal. A faint, sweet odor from hay-fields came up the valley now and +then, and all the world was serenely silent under the spell of night. +The net seemed torn away from about the girl's feet, the cloud lifted +from her brain, the blinding, blurring mists from before her eyes.</p> + +<p>"I have crossed my Rubicon," she murmured, standing still in the +doorway of the porch trellis, breathing deeply of the pure evening air. +"I'm glad he came. I am free again, and I'm really happy. I suppose I am +queer. If anybody should put me in a novel, the critics would say 'such +a girl never came to Kansas.' But then if Gene should paint that +blowout, the critics would say 'there never was such a landscape in +Kansas.' These critics know so much. Only Gene will never paint any more +pictures—not masterpieces, anyhow. But I'm going to live my life my own +way. I won't go back to idleness and a life of sand at 'Eden.' I'll win +out here—I will, I will! 'If a woman goes right with herself.' Oh, +Uncle Cornie, I am starting. Whether I hold out depends on the way—and +myself."</p> + +<p>When Laura Macpherson peeped into Jerry's room late that night she saw +her guest sleeping as serenely as if her mind had never a puzzling +question, her sunny day never a storm-cloud. So far Jerry had gone right +with herself.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2> + +<h3>THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER</h3> + + +<p>The big dramas of life are enacted in the big centers of human +population. Great cities foster great commercial institutions; they +father great constructive enterprises; they endow great educational +systems; they build up great welfare centers; and they reach out and +touch and shape great national and international conditions. In them the +big tragedies and comedies of life—political, religious, social, +domestic—have their settings. And under the power of their combined +units empires appear and disappear. But, set in smaller font, all the +great dramas of life are printed, without a missing part, in the humbler +communities of the commonwealth. All the types appear; all conditions, +aspirations, cunning seditions, and crowning successes have their +scenery and <i>persona</i> so true to form that sometimes the act itself +takes on the dignity of the big world drama. And the actor who produces +it becomes a star, for villainy or virtue, as powerful in his sphere as +the great star-courted suns of larger systems. Booth Tarkington makes +one of his fiction characters say, "There are as many different kinds of +folks in Kokomo as there are in Pekin."</p> + +<p>New Eden in the Sage Brush Valley, on the far side of Kansas, might +never inspire the pen of a world genius, and yet in the small-town +chronicle runs the same drama of life that is enacted on the great stage +with all its brilliant settings. Only these smaller actors play with the +simplicity of innocence, never dreaming that what they play so well are +really world-sized parts fitted down to the compass of their settings.</p> + +<p>Something like this philosophy was in York Macpherson's mind the next +morning as he listened to his sister and her guest loitering comfortably +over their breakfast. A cool wind was playing through the south windows +that might mean hot, sand-filled air later on. Just now life was worth +all the cost to York, who was enjoying it to the limit as he sat +studying the two women before him.</p> + +<p>"For a frivolous, spoiled girl, Jerry can surely be companionable," he +thought, as he noted how congenial the two women were and how easily at +home Jerry was even on matters of national interest. "I never saw a type +of mind like hers before—such a potentiality for doing things coupled +with such dwarfed results."</p> + +<p>York's mind was so absorbed, as he sat unconsciously staring at the +fair-faced girl opposite him, that he did not heed his sister's voice +until she had spoken a second time.</p> + +<p>"York, oh York! wake up. It's daylight!"</p> + +<p>York gave a start and he felt his face flush with embarrassment.</p> + +<p>"As I was saying half an hour ago, brother, have you seen my little silk +purse anywhere? There was too much of my scant income in it to have it +disappear entirely."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I took it. I 'specially needed the money for a purpose of my own. +I meant to tell you, but I forgot it. I'll bring back the purse later," +York replied.</p> + +<p>Of course Laura understood that this was York's return for catching him +at a disadvantage, but she meant to pursue the quest in spite of her +brother's teasing, for she was really concerned.</p> + +<p>Only a few days before, the New Eden leak had opened again and some +really valuable things, far scattered and hardly enough to be considered +separately, had disappeared. Laura by chance had heard that week of two +instances on the town side of the river, and on the evening previous of +one across the river.</p> + +<p>Before she spoke again she saw that Jerry's eyes were fixed on the +buffet, where two silver cups, exactly alike, sat side by side. There +was a queer expression about the girl's mouth as she caught her +hostess's eye.</p> + +<p>"Is there any more silver of that pattern in this part of the country?" +she asked, with seeming carelessness, wrestling the while with a little +problem of her own.</p> + +<p>"Not a pennyweight this side of old 'Castle Cluny' in Scotland, so far +as I know," York replied. "There's your other cup, after all, Laura. By +the way, Miss Jerry, how would you like to take a horseback ride over +'Kingussie'? I must go to the far side of the ranch this morning, and I +would like a companion—even yourself."</p> + +<p>"Do go, Jerry. I don't ride any more," Laura urged, with that cheerful +smile that told how heroically she bore her affliction. "I used to ride +miles with York back in the Winnowoc country."</p> + +<p>"And York always misses you whenever he rides," her brother replied, +beaming affectionately upon his brave, sweet sister. "Maybe, though, +Jerry doesn't ride on horseback," he added.</p> + +<p>At Laura's words Jerry's mind was flooded with memories of the Winnowoc +country where from childhood she had taken long, exhilarating rides with +her father and her cousin Gene Wellington.</p> + +<p>"I've always ridden on horseback," she said, dreamily, without looking +up.</p> + +<p>"She's going to ride with me, not with ghosts of Eastern lovers, if she +rides to-day," York resolved, a sudden tenseness catching at his throat.</p> + +<p>"What kind of mounts are you afraid of? I can have Ponk send up +something easy," he said, in a quiet, fatherly way.</p> + +<p>Jerry's eyes darkened. "I can ride anything your Sage Brush grows that +you call a saddle-horse," she declared, with pretty daring. "Why, 'I was +the pride of the countryside' back in a country where fine horses grew. +Really and seriously, it was Cousin Gene who was afraid of spirited +horses, and he looked so splendid on them, too. But he couldn't manage +them any more than he could run an automobile over the bluff road above +the big cut this side of the third crossing of the Winnowoc. He +preferred to crawl through that cut in the slow old local train while I +climbed over the bluffs in our big car. You hadn't figured on my +boasting qualities, had you?" she added, with a smile at her own +vaunting words.</p> + +<p>"Oh, go on," Laura urged. "I heard your father telling us once that your +cousin, on the Darby side, would ride out with you bravely enough, but +that you traded horses when you got off the place and you always came +back home on the one they were afraid for you to take out and your +cousin was afraid to ride back."</p> + +<p>"She <i>climbed</i> while Cousin Gene <i>crawled</i>. I believe she said something +there, but she doesn't know it yet; and it's not my business to tell her +till she asks me." York shut his lips grimly at the unspoken words. +"We'll be back, appetite and sundries, for the best meal the +scullery-maid can loot from the village," he said, as they rose from the +table.</p> + +<p>When Jerry came out of the side door, where York was waiting for her, +she suggested at once a model for a cover illustration of an outing +magazine, an artistic advertisement for well-tailored results, and a +type of young American beauty. As they rode back toward the barns and +cattle-sheds that belonged to the ranch edging the corporation limits of +New Eden, neither one noticed the tall, angular form of Mrs. Stellar +Bahrr as she came striding across lots toward the driveway.</p> + +<p>Stellar lived in a side street. Her back yard bordered a vacant lot on +the next side street above her. Crossing this, she could slip over the +lawn of a vacant house and down the alley half a block, and on by the +United Brethren minister's parsonage. That let her sidle between a +little carpenter-shop and a shoe-shop to the rear gateway into an alley +that led out to the open ground at the foot of the Macpherson knoll. +Stellar preferred this corkscrew route to the "Castle." It gave her +several back and side views, with "listening-posts" at certain points.</p> + +<p>"Oh, good morning, Laury! I'm so glad to find you alone. I'm in a little +trouble, an' mebby you can help me out. You are everybody's friend, just +like your brother, exactly. Only his bein' that way's bound to get him +into trouble sooner or before that. Eh! What's that you're lookin' at?"</p> + +<p>Laura had gone to the buffet after the riders had started away. She had +a singular feeling about that cup appearing so suddenly. She remembered +now that Jerry had asked twice about those cups, and had looked at them +with such a peculiar expression on each occasion. Laura had not remarked +upon it to herself the first time, but the trifling incident at the +table just now stayed in her mind. Yet why? The housekeeper often +rearranged the dining-room features in her endeavor to keep things free +from dust. That would not satisfy the query. That cup and Jerry Swaim +were dodging about most singularly in Laura's consciousness, and she +could not know that the reason for it lay in the projecting power of the +mind of the woman coming across lots at that moment to call on her.</p> + +<p>Yet when Mrs. Bahrr thrust herself into the dining-room unannounced, as +was her habit, with her insistent greeting, and her query, "What's that +you're lookin' at?" the mistress of "Castle Cluny" had a feeling of +having been caught holding a guilty suspicion; and when Stellar Bahrr +ran her through with steely eyes she felt herself blushing with surprise +and chagrin.</p> + +<p>"How can I help you, Mrs. Bahrr?" she asked, recovering herself in a +moment.</p> + +<p>It was, however, the loss of the moment that always gave the woman +before her the clue she wanted.</p> + +<p>"I'm needin' just a little money—only a few dollars. I'm quittin' +hat-trimmin' since them smarties down-town got so busy makin' over, an' +trimmin' over, an' everything. I'm goin' to makin' bread. I've got six +customers already, an' I'm needin' a gasoliner the worst way. I lack +jist five—mebby I could squeeze out with four dollars if I had it right +away. You never knowed what it means to be hard up, I reckon; never had +no trouble at all; no husband to up an' leave you and not a soul to +lean on. You've always had York to lean on. I 'ain't got nobody."</p> + +<p>The drooping figure and wrinkled face were pitiful enough to keep Laura +Macpherson from reminding her that she was older than her brother and +once the leaning had been the other way. Here was a needy, lonely, +friendless woman. What matter that her greatest enemy was herself? All +of us are in that boat.</p> + +<p>"Of course I'll help you, Mrs. Bahrr. I'll get the money right away."</p> + +<p>She rose to leave the room, then sat down again hastily.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I can't help you right now, either. I have mislaid my purse. +But when I find it I'll let you have the money. When York comes back +maybe I can get it of him. Could you come over this afternoon?"</p> + +<p>"Mebby York won't let you have it to loan where there ain't no big +interest comin'. I'd ruther he didn't know it if you wasn't sure."</p> + +<p>Laura recalled what her brother had said about not becoming entangled +with Stellar Bahrr, and she knew he would oppose the loan. She knew, +too, that in the end he would consent to it, because he himself was +continually befriending the poor, no matter how shiftless they might be.</p> + +<p>"I think I can bring York round, all right," Laura assured her caller. +"He's not unreasonable."</p> + +<p>"I'd ruther he didn't know. Men are so different from women, you know. +You say you lost your purse. Ain't that funny? Where?"</p> + +<p>"The funny thing is I don't know where," Laura replied.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bahrr had settled down, and, having accomplished her open purpose, +began to train her batteries for her hidden motive.</p> + +<p>"Things gits lost funny ways, queer ways, and sometimes ornery ways. +Ever' now an' then things is simply missin' here in this burg—just +missin'. But again there's such queer folks even in what you call the +best s'ciety. Now ain't that so?"</p> + +<p>Laura agreed amiably. In truth, she wanted to get her mind away from its +substratum of unpleasant and unusual thought for which she could not +account. Nothing could take her farther from it than Mrs. Bahrr's small +talk about people and things. She knew better than to accept the gossip +for facts, but there was no courteous way of stopping Stellar now, +anyhow. One had to meet her on the threshold for that.</p> + +<p>"'Tain't always the little, petty thievin' sneak gits the things, even +if they do git the blame of it. No, 'tain't." Mrs. Bahrr rambled on, +fixing her hook eyes square into her hostess at just the right moment +for emphasis. "I knowed the same thing happen twice. Once back in +Indiany, where I come from—jist a little town on White River. There was +a girl come to that town from"—hesitatingly—"from Californy; said to +be rich, an' dressed it all right; had every man there crazy about her, +an' her spendin' money like water pours over a mill-wheel in March. Tell +you who she looked like—jist a mite like this Miss Swim stayin' at your +house now—big eyes an' innocent-lookin' like her, but this Californy +girl was a lot the best-lookin' of the two—a lot. An' she was rich—or +so everybody thought. This un ain't. I got that out of Ponk 'fore he +knowed it. An'—well, to make a story end somewhere this side of +eternity, I never could bear them ramblin' kind of folks—first thing +folks knowed a rich old bachelor got animated with her, just clear +<i>animated</i>, an' literally swore by her. An'—well, things got to missin' +a little an' a little more, an', sir—well"—slowly and +impressively—"it turned out at last that this girl who they said was so +rich was a <i>thief</i>, takin' whatever she could get, 'cause she was hard +up an' too proud to go back to Oregon to tell her folks. An' that rich +bachelor jist defended her ever' way—'d say he took things accidental, +an' then help her to git 'em back, or git away with them—it was like a +real drammy jist like they acted out in the picture show t'other night +down-town. There was lots of talk, an' it nearly broke his sister's—I +mean his mother's—heart. But, pshaw! that all happened years ago down +in Indiany on the White River. It's all forgot long 'go. Guess I'd +never thought of it again if this Swim girl hadn't come here with her +big eyes, remindin' me of that old forgot eppisode, an' your losin' +your purse mysterious. How things happen, year in an' year out, +place after place, the same kind of things; good folks everywhere, +though—everywhere. I was in York's office late yistyday afternoon, an' +this girl comes in. Too bad she's so poor an' so pretty."</p> + +<p>There was a venomous twist of the hooks at that word "pretty."</p> + +<p>"But she's in trouble some way, all right, I know, an' York 'll help her +out. <i>I</i> wouldn't ask him. Men take more int'rist naturally in young an' +pretty women. But it's different with older women. I hope York never +gits caught sometime like that man I knowed back in Indiany. He's too +smart for that. Miss Swim must have told York about her money shortage +yistyday. The postmaster said she'd been waitin' for a check +considerable. I couldn't get nothin' out of <i>him</i>, whether it had come +yet or not. But I guess not. But la! la! she's your guest; you wouldn't +let her suffer; an' I ain't tellin' a soul what I know about things. I +do know what they say, of course. York won't let her suffer. But I'm so +much obliged to you. Four dollars will be all I need, an' I'll pay you +with the first bakin's. I guess I'll set some folks thinkin' when they +see I can make my own way—"</p> + +<p>Laura Macpherson was on her feet and it was her eyes now that were +holding the woman of the steel hooks.</p> + +<p>"Miss Swaim is our guest, the daughter of an old friend of the +Macphersons. Of course we—"</p> + +<p>Oh what was the use? Laura's anger fell away. It was too ridiculous to +engage in a quarrel with the town long-tongue. York was right. The only +way to get along with Stellar Bahrr was not to traffic with her. Mrs. +Bahrr rose also, gripping at the chance for escape uninjured.</p> + +<p>"I'll see you this afternoon if you still feel like helpin' me, an' York +is willin'. I clear forgot to put out my ice-card. Good day. Good day."</p> + +<p>The woman shuffled away, leaving the mistress of "Cluny Castle" in the +grip of many evil spirits. The demon of anger, of doubt, of contempt, of +incipient distrust, of self-accusation for even listening—these and +others contended with the angel of the sense of humor and the natural +courtesy of a well-bred woman.</p> + +<p>And then the lost purse came up again.</p> + +<p>"I may have left it in Jerry's room when I went to that closet after my +wrap last evening. I'll never learn to keep my clothes out of our +guest-room, I suppose," Laura said to herself, going at once to Jerry's +room.</p> + +<p>As she pushed aside some dresses suspended by hoops to a pole in the +closet, Jerry's beaded hand-bag fell from a shelf above the hangings, +and the fastening, loosened by the fall, let the contents roll out and +lay exposed on the floor.</p> + +<p>As Laura began to gather them up and put them back in their place, she +saw her own silk purse stuffed tightly into the bottom of her guest's +hand-bag. And then and there the poison tips of Stellar Bahrr's shafts +began a festering sore deep and difficult to reach.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was high noon when York Macpherson and his fair companion returned +from the far side of the big Macpherson ranch. Jerry's hair was blown in +ringlets about her forehead and neck. Her cheeks were blooming and her +eyes were like stars. With the fresh morning breeze across the prairie, +the exhilarating ride on horseback, and the novel interest in a ranch +whose appointments were so unlike "Eden" and the other Winnowoc Valley +farms, Jerry had the ecstasy of a new freedom to quicken her pulse-beat. +She had solved her problem; now she was free for her romantic nature to +expand. It was such a freedom as she had never in her wilful life known +before, because it had a purpose in it such as she had never known +before, a purpose in which the subconscious knowledge of dependence on +somebody else, the subjection to somebody else's ultimate control, +played no part.</p> + +<p>To Laura Macpherson she seemed to have burst from the bud to the +full-blown flower in one short forenoon.</p> + +<p>York's face, however, was wearing that impenetrable mask that even his +sister's keen and loving eyes could never pierce. He had been +impenetrable often in the last few weeks. But of the York back of that +unreadable face Laura was sure. Even in their mutual teasings the deep, +brotherly affection was unwavering. As far as it lay in York's power he +would never fail to make up to his companionable sister for what +circumstances had taken from her. And yet—the substratum of her +disturbed consciousness would send an upheaval to the surface now and +then. All normal minds are made alike and played upon by the same +influences. The difference lies in the intensity of control to subdue or +yield to the force of these influences. Things had happened in that +morning ride that York had planned merely for the beneficence of the +prairie breezes upon the bewildered purposes of the guest of the house.</p> + +<p>On the far side of the "Kingussie" ranch the two riders had halted in +the shade of a clump of wild plum-trees beside the trail that follows +the course of the Sage Brush. Below them a little creek wound through a +shelving outcrop of shale, bordered by soft, steep earth banks wherever +the shale disappeared. This Kingussie Creek was sometimes a swift, +dangerous stream, but oftener it was a mere runlet with deep water-holes +carved here and there in the yielding shale. Just now, at the approach +of July heat, there was only a tiny thread of water trickling clear +over yellow rock, or deep pools lying in muddy thickness in the stagnant +places.</p> + +<p>"Not much like the Winnowoc," York suggested, as his companion sat +staring down at the stream-bed below.</p> + +<p>"Everything is different here," Jerry said, meditatively. "I've traveled +quite a little before; been as far as the White Mountains and the +beautiful woodsy country up in York State. There's a lot of upness and +downness to the scenery, but the people—except, of course—" Jerry +smiled bewitchingly.</p> + +<p>"Except Ponk, of course," York supplied, with a twinkle in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"How well you comprehend!" Jerry assured him. "But, seriously, the world +is so different out here—the—the people and their ways and all."</p> + +<p>"No, Jerry, it isn't that. The climate is different. The shapes of +things differ. Instead of the churned-up ridged and rugged timber-decked +lands of Pennsylvania and York State, the Creator of scenery chose to +pour out this land mainly a smooth and level and treeless prairie—like +chocolate on the top of a layer cake."</p> + +<p>"Chocolate is good, with sand instead of sugar," Jerry interrupted.</p> + +<p>"But as to the people—the real heart of the real folks of the Sage +Brush—there's no difference. They all have 'eyes, hands, organs, +senses, affections, passions.' They are all 'fed with the same food, +hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed with +the same means, warmed and cooled with the same summer and winter' as +the cultured and uncultured folk of the Winnowoc Valley and the city of +Philadelphia. The trouble with us is we don't take time to read +them—nor even first of all to read ourselves. Of course I might except +old Fishing Teddy, that fellow you see away down there where the shade +is deepest," York added, to relieve the preachment he didn't want to +seem to be giving, yet really wanted this girl to understand. "He's a +hermit-crab and seldom comes among us. Every community has its +characters, you know."</p> + +<p>"He was among us last night, and went home with Joe Thomson," Jerry +replied, looking with curious interest at the motionless brown figure +up-stream in the shadow of a tall earth bank.</p> + +<p>York gave a start and stared at the girl in surprise. "How do you know? +Did the Big Dipper come calling on you? That sort of information is in +the Great Bear's line."</p> + +<p>Jerry flushed hotly as she remembered her promise not to tell of Mrs. +Bahrr's call. In a dim sort of way she felt herself entangled for the +moment. Then she looked full at York, with deep, honest eyes, saying, +simply:</p> + +<p>"Joe Thomson was calling on me last night, and I saw this old fellow, +Hans Theodore, Joe named him, waiting on the driveway, and the two went +away together, a pair of aces."</p> + +<p>"How do you know, fair lady, that this is the same creature? And how do +you happen to know Joe Thomson?" York inquired, blandly, veiling his +curious interest with indifference.</p> + +<p>"I happened to meet both of these country gentlemen on a certain day. In +fact, I dined <i>al fresco</i> with one when I was riding in my chariot, +incognito, alone, unattended by gallant outriders, about my blank blank +rural estate in the heart of the Sage Brush country of Kansas. The +'blank blank' stands for a term not profane at all, but one I never want +to hear again—that awful word '<i>blowout</i>.'"</p> + +<p>Jerry's humor was mixed with sarcasm and confusion, both of which +troubled the mind of her companion. This girl had so many sides. She was +so unused to the Western ways and he was trying to teach her a deeper +understanding of human needs, and the human values regardless of +geography, when she suddenly revealed a self-possession telling of +scraps of her experience in a matter-of-fact way; and yet a confusion +for some deeper reason possessed her at certain angles. Why? That +mention of Joe Thomson was annoying to York. Why? Jerry's assumed +familiarity with such a hermit outcast as the old fisherman was +puzzling. Why? York must get back to solid ground at once. This girl was +throwing him off his feet. Clearly she was not going to chatter idly of +all her experiences. She could know things and not tell them.</p> + +<p>"Seriously, Jerry, there are no geographical limits for culture and +strength of character. If you stay here long enough you will appreciate +that," he began again where he had thrown himself off the trail to avoid +a preachment.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Jerry agreed, with the same degree of seriousness.</p> + +<p>"See, coming yonder." York pointed up the trail to where a much-worn +automobile came chuffing down the shaly road toward the ford of +Kingussie Creek. "That is Thelma Ekblad and her crippled brother Paul. +If you look right you will see the same lines of courage and sweetness +in his face that are in my sister's. And yet, although their lives have +been cast in widely different planes, their crosses are the same and +they have lifted them in the same way."</p> + +<p>Jerry hadn't really seen the lines in Laura Macpherson's face, because +she had been too full of her own troubles. With York's words she felt a +sense of remorse. Finding fault with herself was new to her and it made +her very uncomfortable. Also this girl coming, this Thelma Ekblad, was +the one whom Mrs. Bahrr had said York had pretended to be interested in +once. Jerry had remembered every word of Stellar Bahrr's gossipy tongue, +because her mind had been in that high-strung, tense condition last +night to receive and hold impressions unconsciously, like a sensitized +plate. The thought now made her peculiarly unhappy.</p> + +<p>"Joe Thomson's farm is next to hers. Some day I'll tell you her story. +It is a story—a real-life drama—and his."</p> + +<p>York's words added another degree to Jerry's disturbed mental frame.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Thelma? Hello, Paul! Fine weather for cutting alfalfa. +My machines are at it this morning." York greeted the occupants of the +car cordially.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, York. We are rushing a piece of the mower up to the shop. +Had a breakdown an hour ago."</p> + +<p>Thelma was tanned brown, but her fair braids gleamed about her uncovered +head, and when she smiled a greeting her fine white teeth were worth +seeing. Paul Ekblad waved a thin white hand as the car passed the two on +horseback, and the delicate lines of his pale, studious face justified +York's comparison of it with Laura Macpherson's. Jerry saw her hostess +at that moment in a new light. Burdened for the moment as she was under +the discomfort of what seemed half-consciously to rebuke the frivolous +girl that she dimly knew herself to be, the sudden memory of her resolve +declared to Joe Thomson in the shadow-flecked porch the night before +came as a balm and a stimulant in one, to give her purpose, +self-respect, and peace.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that Jerry came in to "Castle Cluny" at high noon the +picture of health and high spirits, shaming Laura Macpherson's doubt and +sorrow which her morning had brought her. Laura was thoroughly +well-bred, and she had, beyond that, a strong and virtuous heritage of +Scotch blood that made for uprightness and sincerity. With one effort +she swept out of her mind all that had harassed it since the cup episode +at the breakfast-table, establishing anew within her understanding the +force of her brother's admonition concerning any affiliation with the +Big Dipper, the town meddler and trouble-maker.</p> + +<p>Late that afternoon, as Laura sat sewing in the shade of the +honeysuckle-vines, Stellar Bahrr hurried across lots again and hitched +cautiously up to the side door. Listening a moment, she heard the sound +of Laura's scissors falling on the cement floor of the porch, and +Laura's impatient exclamation, "There you go again!" as she reached to +pick them up and examine the points of their blades.</p> + +<p>Stellar hitched cautiously a little further along the wall, and stood in +the shade of the house, outside the porch vines.</p> + +<p>"Laury," she called, in a sibilant voice, "I jis' run in to say I won't +need that money at all. I'm goin' to go out sewin', an' I can git all I +can do, now the wheat harves' promises so well. Ever'body's spending +money on clo'es an' a lot of summer an' fall sewin' goin' to rot, you +might say. I'll be jis' blind busy, an' I can sew better than I can bake +or trim. But I'm same obliged."</p> + +<p>"Won't you come in?" Laura must not be rude, at any cost.</p> + +<p>"No, I can't. I must run back. My light bread's raisin' and it'll raise +the ruff if I don't work the meanness out of it."</p> + +<p>Just then Jerry Swaim came bounding through the hall doorway. "Look +here, Laura! See what I have found." She held up her beaded hand-bag and +pulled the stuffed silken purse out of it. "Now how did it ever get in +there? I'm a good many things, but I never knew I was a shoplifter," +Jerry declared, laughingly, a bit of confused blush making her prettier +than usual.</p> + +<p>"Why—why—" Laura was embarrassed, not for Jerry's sake, but on account +of those steel hooks thrusting themselves into her back through the +honeysuckle-vines.</p> + +<p>"Say, Laury, I jis' wanted to say I'm goin' to Mis' Lenwell's first. +Good-by." Stellar Bahrr's voice, sharp and thin, cut through the vines.</p> + +<p>As Laura turned to reply Jerry saw her fair face redden, and her voice +was almost harsh as she spoke clearly, to be well heard.</p> + +<p>"I remember now. I must have put it in there by mistake when you were +down-town yesterday afternoon. I guess I thought it was my bag."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bahrr, turning to go, had caught sight of Jerry's hand-bag through +the leaves, and remembered perfectly that Jerry had carried it with her +down-town the day before, and how well it matched the beaded trimming of +her parasol, her wide-brimmed chiffon hat, and the sequins of her sash +trimmings against her silk walking-skirt.</p> + +<p>Jerry recalled taking the bag with her, too, and she recalled just then +what Mrs. Stellar Bahrr had hinted about Laura not wanting York to +admire other women. Why did that thought come to the girl's mind just +now? Was the wish of the evil mind of the woman hitching away across +lots and corkscrewing down alleyways projecting itself so far as this?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2> + +<h3>AN INTERLUDE IN "EDEN"</h3> + + +<p>An interlude should be brief. This one ran through a few midsummer days +with amazing rapidity, considering that in its duration the current of a +life was changed from one channel, whither it had been tending for +almost a quarter of a century, to another and widely different course +that ran away from the very goal-mark of all its years of inspiring +ambition.</p> + +<p>It was late afternoon of a July day. Jerusha Darby sat in the +rose-arbor, fanning and rocking in rhythmic motion. The rose-vines had +ceased to bloom. Their thinning foliage was augmented now by the heavier +shade of thrifty moon-vines.</p> + +<p>Midsummer found "Eden" no less restful and luxuriant in its July setting +than it was in the freshness of June.</p> + +<p>The afternoon train had crawled lazily up the Winnowoc Valley on +schedule time, permitting Eugene Wellington, in white flannels, white +oxfords, and pink-pin-striped white silk shirt, fresh from shave and +shower-bath, to come on schedule time to the rose-arbor for a conference +with Mrs. Darby.</p> + +<p>The swift flow of events had not outwardly affected the handsome young +man. The time of the early June roses had found him poor in worldly +goods, but rich in a trained mind, a developed genius, a yearning after +all things beautiful, a faith in divine Providence, abounding confidence +in his own power to win to the mastery in his beloved art, and glorying +in his freedom to do the thing he chose to do. It found him in love, and +the almost accepted lover of a beautiful, wilful, magnetic girl—a girl +with a sturdy courage in things wherein he was lacking; a frivolous, +untrained girl, yet with surprising dependableness in any crisis. It +found him the favorite nephew of a quiet, uninteresting, rich old +money-grubbing uncle and his dominant, but highly approving wife, whose +elegant home was always open to him the while he felt himself a +pensioner on its hospitality.</p> + +<p>Mid-July found him, in effect, the master where he had been the poor +relation; the rich uncle gone forever from earthly affairs; a dominant +aunt still ruling—so she fancied—as she had always ruled, but with the +consciousness of her first defeated purpose rankling bitterly within +her. It found Eugene still in love with the same beautiful, wilful girl, +but far from any assurance of being a really accepted lover. It found +him insensibly forgetting the aspirations of a lifetime and beginning, +little by little, to grasp after the Egyptian flesh-pots. Life was fast +becoming a round of easy days, whose routine duties were more than +compensated by its charming domestic settings. The one unsatisfied +desire was for the presence of the bright, inspiring girl who had left a +void when she went away, for whose return all "Eden" was waiting.</p> + +<p>The swift course of events had created other changes. Some growths are +slow, and some amazingly swift, depending upon the nature of the +life-germ in the seed and the soil of the planting. In Eugene Wellington +the love of beauty found its comfort in his present planting. It was +easier to stay where beauty was ready-made than to go out and create it +in some less lovely surroundings. Combine with this artistic temperament +an inherent lack of initiative and courage, a less resistant force, and +the product is sure. Moreover, this very falling away from the incentive +to artistic endeavor exacted its penalty in a dulled spirituality. +Whoever denies the allegiance due, in however small a measure, to the +call of art within him pays always the same price—a pound of tender +bleeding flesh nearest his heart. For Eugene Wellington the Shylock +knife was sharpening itself.</p> + +<p>This July afternoon there were no misgivings in his soul, however—no +black shadows of failure ahead. All the serpents of "Eden" were very +good little snakes indeed. After a while he would paint again, +leisurely, exquisitely; especially would he paint when Jerry came home.</p> + +<p>As he lighted a cigarette, a recent custom of his, and strolled down the +shady way to the rose-arbor to meet Mrs. Darby, he drew deep draughts +of satisfaction. It had been an unusually good day for him. Unusually +good. Business had made it necessary to open some closed records in the +late Cornelius Darby's affairs, records that Mrs. Jerusha Darby herself +had not yet examined. They put a new light on the whole Darby situation. +They went further and threw some side-lights on the late Jim Swaim's +transactions. Altogether they were worth knowing. And Eugene, wielding a +high hand with himself, had, once for all, stilled his finer sense of +fitness in his right to know these things. He had also made rapid +strides in this brief time toward comprehending business ethics as +differing from church ethics and artistic ethics. Face to face in a +conflict with Jerry Swaim, with Aunt Jerry Darby, with his conscience, +his God, he was never sure of himself. But as to managing things, once +he had shut his doors and barred them, he was confident. It was a truly +confident Gene who stepped promptly into the rose-arbor on the moment +expected. To the old woman waiting for him there he was good to look +upon.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you are on time, Gene," Mrs. Darby began, rocking and fanning +more deliberately. "I'm ready now to settle matters once for all."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Aunt Jerry," Eugene responded, fitting himself gracefully into the +settings of this summer retreat, with a look of steady penetration +coming into his eyes as he took in the face before him.</p> + +<p>"Any news from the Argonaut to-day?" he asked, at length, as Mrs. Darby +sat silently rocking.</p> + +<p>"Not a line. I guess Jerry is waiting for me to ask her to come back. +She must be through with her romantic fling by this time, and about out +of money, too. So now's the time to act and settle matters, as I say, +once for all. Jerry <i>must come home</i>."</p> + +<p>"Amen, and amen," Eugene agreed, fervently.</p> + +<p>"And if she won't come home herself, she must be brought—to see things +as we do. <i>Must</i>, I say, Eugene."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad she didn't say 'brought home' if she's going to send me after +her," the young man thought. The memory of having been sent after Jerry +in years gone by, and of coming back empty-handed, but full-hearted and +sore-headed, were still strong within him. "How shall we make her see?" +he inquired.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Darby rocked vigorously for a few minutes. Then she brought her +chair to a dead stop and laid down the law without further shifting of +anchors.</p> + +<p>"All my property, my real estate, country and city, my bank stocks, my +government bonds, my business investments—everything—is mine to keep +for my lifetime, and to pass by will to whomsoever I choose. Of course +it's only natural I should choose the only member of my family now +living to succeed to my possessions."</p> + +<p>How the "my" sounded out as the woman talked of her god, to whose +service she was bound, but of whose blessings she understood so little!</p> + +<p>Eugene sat waiting and thinking.</p> + +<p>"Of course, whoever marries Jerry with my approval will come into a +fortune worth having."</p> + +<p>"He certainly will," Eugene declared, fervently.</p> + +<p>A clear vision of Jerry and June roses swept his soul with refreshing +sweetness, followed by the no less clear imagery of Uncle Cornie +stepping slowly but persistently at the wrong moment after his wabbling +discus. He looked away down the lilac-walk, unconsciously expecting the +familiar, silent, uninteresting face and figure to come again to view. +To the artist spirit in him the old man was there as real to vision as +he had been on that last—lost—June day.</p> + +<p>"You are thinking of Jerry herself. I am thinking of her inheritance, +which is a deal more sensible, although Jerry is an unusually +interesting and surprising girl," the old woman was saying.</p> + +<p>"Unusually," Eugene echoed. "And in case you do not make a will?"</p> + +<p>The young man was still looking down the lilac-walk as he asked the +question, seemingly oblivious to the narrow eyes of Mrs. Darby +scrutinizing his face.</p> + +<p>"I have already made it. If things do not please me I shall change it. I +may do that half a dozen times if I choose before I'm through with it. +Now listen to me." The woman spoke sharply.</p> + +<p>Eugene listened, wondering the while what sort of lightning-rod she +carried, to speak with such assurance of all she meant to do before she +was through with the transactions of this life. Uncle Cornie had not +been so well defended.</p> + +<p>"I want you to write to Jerry to come home. You can pay her expenses. +She will take the money quicker from you than from me. She's as proud as +Lucifer in some things, once she's set. But she's in love with you, and +where a girl's in love she listens."</p> + +<p>Eugene looked up quickly. "Are you sure?" he asked, eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Of course I am! Why shouldn't I know love when I see it?" Mrs. Darby +inquired.</p> + +<p>Yes, why?</p> + +<p>"But you mustn't give in, nor plead with her. Just tell her how well +fixed you are, and how much she is missing here, and that you will wait +her time, only she must come back, and promise to stay here, or I'll cut +my will to bits, I certainly shall. I'll write myself to York +Macpherson. He's level-headed and honorable as truth. If he was dead in +love with Jerry himself—as he no doubt is by this time—he'd just put +it all away if he found out he was denying me my rights. I'll put it up +to his honor. And so with him at that end of the line, and you here, and +me really moving the chessmen, it can't be a losing game, Eugene. It +simply can't. Jerry may not get tired of her new playthings right away, +but she will after a while. It isn't natural for her to take to a life +so awfully different from her bringing up. When the new wears off she'll +come home, even if necessity didn't drive her, as it's bound to sooner +or later. She's nearly out of money right now, and she can't sponge off +the Macphersons forever and be Jim Swaim's child. Is everything clear to +you now?"</p> + +<p>Eugene threw away his cigarette and lighted a fresh one, his face the +while as expressionless as ever the dry, dull face of Cornelius Darby +had been. At last he answered:</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Darby has made a will, presumably in favor of her niece, Geraldine +Swaim—a will subject to replacement by any number of wills creating +other beneficiaries. In any event, Mrs. Darby proposes to have a voice +in the final disposition of her property."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Darby nodded emphatically. "I certainly do."</p> + +<p>Eugene smiled approval of such good judgment. "You are right, Mrs. +Darby. What is your own you should control, always. But, frankly, Aunt +Jerry, it is Geraldine Swaim herself who is my fortune—if I can ever +acquire it."</p> + +<p>"You don't object to her prospects, I hope," Mrs. Darby interrupted, +with a twinkle in her eye.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't, for her sake. And I am artistic enough to love the charm of +an estate like this; and sensible enough, maybe, to appreciate the +influence and opportunity that are afforded by the other financial +assets of the Darby possessions. I'll do all in my power to bring Jerry +back to a life of ease and absence of all anxiety and responsibility. +Shall I go out to Kansas after her?"</p> + +<p>An uncomfortable feeling about that York Macpherson had begun now to +pull hard upon Eugene's complacent assurance, although he had rebelled a +few minutes ago at the thought of going anywhere after Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Never," Mrs. Darby responded. "It would just give her another chance +for adventure and seem to acknowledge that we couldn't do without her."</p> + +<p>In truth, Mrs. Darby was shrewd enough to know that with Eugene on the +ground she could not count on York Macpherson as her ally. York would +naturally champion Jerry's cause, and she knew that Eugene Wellington +would be no match for the diplomatic man of affairs whom she had known +intimately from his childhood.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Jerry, how much do you know of the value of this Swaim estate?" +Eugene asked, suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Very little. Cornelius told me that he had a full account of it. That +was on the very day he was—he passed away. The papers, except the one +Jerry found here the day after the funeral, have all been mislaid."</p> + +<p>"Then I'd advise you to write to this Macpherson person and find out +exactly what we have to fight against," the young man suggested. +"Meantime I'll write to Jerry. I'm sure she should be ready to listen +now. All I claim to know of that beastly region out West I learned from +my father, but that is enough for me. If there were really a bit of +landscape worth the cost of the canvas I might go out there and paint +it. But who cares to paint in only two colors, blue one half—that's +sky, unclouded, monotonous; and chrome yellow, the other half—that's +land. I could paint the side of the cattle-barn over yonder half yellow, +half blue, and put as much expression into it."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Darby listened approvingly. "I'm very thankful that you see things +so sensibly. The sooner you replace what isn't worth while with what is +the sooner you will know you are a success in your business. We will +write those letters to-night. I'm having your favorite dishes for dinner +now, and we'll be served here. It is so pleasant here at this time of +day. I'll go and see to things right away, and we'll have everything +brought out pretty soon."</p> + +<p>The owner of all this dainty comfort and restfulness and beauty hurried +away, leaving Eugene Wellington alone in the rose-arbor—alone with +memories of Jerry Swaim, and Uncle Cornie, and life, and love, and hope +and high ambition, and himself—the self that a man must go right with, +if he goes with him at all.</p> + +<p>For a long half-hour he sat there in the rose-arbor, the appealing call +of his divine gift filling his artist soul. Then his judgment prevailed. +What he most wanted to have was here, ready to have now—and to hold +later with only a little patient waiting. A few weeks, or months, or +maybe even a year, a run of four swift seasons, and the girl of his +heart's heart would come back into her own, and find him ready for her +coming. That impossible York was not to be considered. Jerry was no +fool, if she was sometimes a bit foolish in her pranks. And he, Eugene +Wellington, had only this day learned of the whole Swaim situation, what +was vastly valuable to know. Meantime, his the task to keep that +precious Jerusha Darby will intact; or, failing in that, came the more +difficult and delicate task of controlling or holding back the pen that +would write another will. And in the end Jerry would love him forever +for what he would save for her—for her—</p> + +<p>The memory of what he had learned that day in the business house in the +city came with its testimony that he was shaping his life course well. +Only one little foxy fear dodged about in his mind—the fear that +Jerry—the Jerry he knew, lovable in spite of all her little failings, +beautiful, picturesque, and surprising—that this Jerry, whom he +thought he knew so well, might prove to be an unknowable, unguessable +Jerry whose course would baffle all his plans, his efforts, his heart +longings. It must not be. He would prevent that. But could he?</p> + +<p>The coming of dainty viands with exquisite appointments gave nourishment +to his ready appetite, and dulled for a time the thing within him that +sometime must cry out to power or be sleeked down into fat and unfeeling +subjection.</p> + +<p>That night two letters were written to New Eden, Kansas, but neither +writer really knew the reader to whom the letter was written, nor +measured life purposes by the same gauge, so setting anew the world-old +stage for a drama in human affairs whose crowning act shapes human +destinies.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2> + +<h3>THIS SIDE OF THE RUBICON</h3> + + +<p>In the late afternoon of a July Sabbath Jerry Swaim had gone for a +stroll along the quiet outskirts of New Eden. Laura was napping in the +porch swing, and York had gone to his office in answer to a telephone +call. Jerry was rarely lonely with herself and she was a good walker. +She was learning, too, the need for being alone with herself, for there +were many things crowding into her mind that demanded recognition.</p> + +<p>Jerry attended church with the Macphersons every Sunday, but it was a +mere perfunctory act on her part. To-day the minister was away. He had +gone to the upper Sage Brush to officiate at the funeral of Mrs. Nell +Belkap that had been Nell Poser, she of the tow hair and big-lunging +baby. She had died of congestion, following over-heating in cooking for +threshing-hands for her mother, her father being the kind of man that +objected to hired help for "wimmin folks." All that was nothing to +Jerry, who found herself wondering, in a vague sort of way, just where +that baby would sprawl itself, unattached to its mother's anchorage. +Babies were not in Jerry's scheme of things at all.</p> + +<p>The substitute minister was more interesting to think about. He had a +three-piece country charge over which to spread the Gospel, "Summit +School-House," "Slack Crick Church," and "Locust Grove Grange." He said +"have went" and he called the members of one of Saint Paul's churches +"The Thessalonnykins." And he really didn't know the Lord's Prayer +correctly, for he said "forgive us our trespasses," instead of "our +debts," as dear accurate Saint Matthew has written it.</p> + +<p>Jerry's mind was on him as an aside, on him, and that Paul Ekblad whom +she caught sight of in the Ekblad car with Thelma. They had stopped a +minute to speak with York Macpherson as they were on their way to that +up-country Poser funeral. Why should Paul Ekblad go so far to a funeral?</p> + +<p>Jerry strolled aimlessly along the smooth road leading out to the New +Eden cemetery, her bead-trimmed parasol shading her bare head, and her +pale-green organdie gown making her appear very summery. Jerry had the +trick of fitting all weather except the heated, sand-filled days of +mid-June on a freight-train, which condition Junius Brutus Ponk declared +"was enough to muss a angel's wings an' make them divine partial-eclipse +angel draperies look dingier than dish-rags."</p> + +<p>There were half a dozen well-grown cottonwood-trees in the cemetery, +with rows of promising little elms, catalpas, and box-elders all +symmetrically set. The grass was brown, but free from weeds; the walks +were only smooth paths. But the shade of the cottonwood group, and the +quiet of the place, seemed inviting. Every foot of the wind-swept +elevation was visible to the whole town, but the distance was guarantee +for undisturbed meditation. Jerry had no interest in cemeteries. She had +rarely visited the corner of "Eden" where the few elect by family ties +had their last resting-place. She walked down the grassy paths toward +the largest cottonwoods, now, indifferent alike to the humble headstone +and the expensive and sometimes grotesque granite memorial. By the +tallest shaft in the place, designated by Stellar Bahrr as "Granddad +Poser's monniment," she sat down in the shade of the biggest trees, and +looked out at New Eden in its Sabbath-afternoon nap; at the winding Sage +Brush and the green and yellow fields, and black hedgerows, and rolling +prairies, with purple-shadowed draws and pale-brown swells, and groves +about distant farmhouses. She sat still for a long time, and she was so +lost in this view that she did not hear steps approaching until Mr. Ponk +was almost beside her.</p> + +<p>"Good afternoon, Miss Swaim. Takin' a constitutional? They ain't no +Swaims laid away out here I reckon."</p> + +<p>"Oh no," Jerry replied. "I shouldn't come here for that if there were."</p> + +<p>Something about Ponk always made her good-natured. He was so grotesquely +impossible to her—a caricature cut from some comic magazine, rounded +out and animated.</p> + +<p>"Say you wouldn't? Now that's real queer." The short man opened his +little eyes wide with surprise. "Now I soar down here regular every +Sunday evenin' of the world, summer and winter."</p> + +<p>"What for?" Jerry asked, looking up at the speaker with curiosity.</p> + +<p>New Eden was still in that stage when a funeral was a public event. And +the belief was still maintained that the dead out in the cemetery must +be conscious of every attention or lack of it shown to their memory by +visits and flowers, and the price of tombstones. In a word, to the New +Eden living, the New Eden dead were not really in the Great Hereafter, +but here, demanding consideration in the social economy of the +community.</p> + +<p>Ponk was more shocked at Jerry's query than she could begin to +comprehend, and his interest in her and pity for her took a still +stronger grip on life.</p> + +<p>"Why, Miss Swaim, I come out here to see my mother. I 'ain't never +failed to bring her a flower in summer, or a green leaf in winter, one +single Sunday since she was laid out there on the south slope one Easter +day eight Aprils ago."</p> + +<p>"But she isn't there." Jerry spoke gently now, realizing that she had +hurt him unintentionally.</p> + +<p>"She is to me, an' I'd ruther think it thataway an' feel like I was +callin' every Sunday, never forgettin'," Ponk said, sadly.</p> + +<p>"Where's your dead to you, Miss Swaim?" he asked, after a pause.</p> + +<p>Jerry, who was gazing down the Sage Brush Valley, turned slowly at his +words, her big eyes luminous with tears.</p> + +<p>"They are not." She waved a hand against viewless air.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, they are, walkin' beside you every day, lovin' you and proud of +you! A good mother just lives on an' keeps doin' good, and so does a +father, if you let 'em." Ponk hesitated, and his moon-round face was +flushed. "I ain't tryin' to preach," he added, hastily. "They's some +things, though, we all got to cling to or else get hustled off our feet +into a big black void where we just sink and die. It ain't just +Sage-Brushers, but it's all Christians—Baptists and Cammylites and High +Church and everybody. It's safer to stand in the light than sink in the +bottomless night. But, say, look who's comin' an' see what's trailin' +him. I guess I'll be soarin' back to the hotel now. Pleased to meet +you—always am pleased." Ponk lifted his hat and bowed uncovered, and +uncovered walked away.</p> + +<p>What he had said in the sincerity of his spiritual belief fell on +fertile soil in the mind of his listener. He had preached a sermon to +her that was good for her to hear.</p> + +<p>Jerry looked out in the direction he had indicated and saw York +Macpherson, walking a bit briskly for him and the place and the +afternoon.</p> + +<p>It was no wonder that Jerusha Darby should expect York to be caught by +the charms of his guest. As she sat there in the shade of the +cottonwoods, where, in all the cemetery, the blue grass grew rankest, +with her pale-green gown, her smooth pink cheeks, and the wavy masses of +golden-brown hair coiled low at the back of her head, York wondered if +the spirit of the wild rose in bloom and the spirit of some Greek nymph +had not combined in the personification before him.</p> + +<p>At the gateway he met Ponk.</p> + +<p>"Why do you run away? I have a special-delivery letter for Miss Swaim. I +thought I'd better come and find her, but that needn't interfere with +you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you smooth-bore! But I have to go, anyhow. I'm headin' off what's +trailin' you. Don't look back. It's Stellar Bahrr, comin' out to see +who's been to see their folks to-day and who's neglectin' 'em, +'specially late arrivals. She's seen my game, though, now, an' she's +shabbin' off to the side gate, knowin' I'd head her back to town. Say, +York, she's after Miss Swaim now. You watch out. Them that's the +worthlessest and has the least influence in a community can start the +biggest fires burnin'. Everybody in New Eden's been buffaloed by +her—just scared blue—except maybe us two. You ain't, I know, and I'm +right sure I ain't."</p> + +<p>"Ponk, you are as good as you are good-looking," York said, heartily. +"The Big Dipper could start a tale of our guest meeting gentlemen +friends in the cemetery. And yet for privacy it's about like meeting +them on the sidewalk before the Commercial Hotel. However, she's started +scandal with less material. I have business with Miss Swaim, so I'll +walk home with her."</p> + +<p>Jerry waited for her host under the flickering, murmuring leaves of the +cottonwood. She had seen some woman wandering diagonally from the +cemetery road toward the corner of the inclosure, but she had no +interest in strangers and might never have thought of her again but for +a word of York's that day.</p> + +<p>He had seen the girl looking after Stellar as she made a wide flank +movement. A sense of duty coupled with a strange interest in Jerry, for +which he had as yet given no account to himself, was urging him to tell +her, as he had told his sister, to have no traffic with the town's +greatest liability, but with all of Ponk's warning he could not bring +himself to speak now.</p> + +<p>"May I sit here with you awhile?" he asked, lifting his hat as he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Certainly. It is so quiet and peaceful out here, and, as I have no +associations with this place, I can sit here without being unhappy or +irreverent," Jerry replied.</p> + +<p>"I came out to find you. There are callers at home now, so I'll give you +my message here, unless you want to follow Mr. Ponk's example and +'soar' off home."</p> + +<p>"That man interests me," Jerry declared. "He said some good things about +his mother just now. And yet he's so—so funny."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ponk's outside is against him. If he could be husked out of himself +and let the community get down to the kernel of him he is really fine +wheat," York said, conscious the while that he had not meant, for some +reason, to praise the strutting fellow. Yet he had never felt so toward +the little man before.</p> + +<p>"I have a special-delivery letter for you which came this afternoon. +While you read it I'll go out to the gate and speak to the Ekblads, +coming yonder."</p> + +<p>Jerry read her letter—the one Eugene had written after his conference +with Jerusha Darby in the rose-arbor. In it he had been faithful to the +old woman's smallest demands, but the message itself was a masterpiece. +It was gracefully written, for Eugene Wellington's penmanship was art +itself; and gracefully worded, and it breathed the perfumes of that +lovely "Eden" on every page.</p> + +<p>Jerry closed her eyes for a moment in the midst of the reading, and the +wind-swept cemetery and all the summer-seared valley of the Sage Brush +vanished. The Macphersons; Ponk; Thelma Ekblad in the automobile by the +cemetery gate, holding something in her arms, and her fair-haired +brother, Paul; Joe Thomson (why Joe?)—all were nothing. Before her eyes +all was Eugene—Eugene and "Eden." Then she read on to the end. One +reading was enough. When York came back she was sitting with the letter +neatly folded into its envelope again, lying in her lap.</p> + +<p>York had a shrewd notion of what that letter contained, but there was +nothing in Jerry's face by which to judge of its effect on her. Two +things he was learning about her—one, that she didn't tell all she +knew, after the manner of most frivolous-minded girls; the other, that +she didn't tell anything until she was fully ready to do so. He admired +both traits, even though they baffled him. In his own pocket was Jerusha +Darby's letter, also specially delivered. He sat down by Jerry and +waited for her to speak.</p> + +<p>"Were those the people we saw on the south border of 'Kingussie'?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes," York replied.</p> + +<p>"Do they interest you?" she questioned.</p> + +<p>"Very much."</p> + +<p>"Why?" Jerry was killing something—time, or thought.</p> + +<p>"Because, as I told you the other day, the same life problems come to +all grades. And life problems are always interesting," York declared.</p> + +<p>"Has Thelma Ekblad a blowout farm, too?" Jerry's face was serious, but +her eyes betrayed her mood.</p> + +<p>"Better a blowout farm than a blowout soul," York thought. "No. I wonder +what she would do with it if she had," he said, aloud.</p> + +<p>"Just what I am doing, no doubt, since all of us, 'Colonel's lady and +Judy O'Grady,' are alike. Tell me more about her," Jerry demanded.</p> + +<p>"She's talking against time now, I know, but I'll tell her a few +things," York concluded.</p> + +<p>"Jerry, there are not many women like this Norwegian farmer girl who is +working her way through the State University down at Lawrence. A few +years ago her brother Paul was in love with a girl up the Sage Brush, +the daughter of a prosperous, stupid, stingy old ranchman. Paul was +chewed up in a mowing-machine one day when the horses got scared and ran +away, but his girl was true to him in spite of her father's objections +to him. Then came a woman—a sharp-tongued gossip (she's over yonder now +by the side gate)—who managed to stir up trouble purely for the +infernal joy of gossip, I suppose, between this girl and Thelma. I +needn't go into detail; you probably do not care much for the general +outline."</p> + +<p>"Go on," Jerry commanded.</p> + +<p>"Well, it was the rough course of true love over again. Between the +father and the sister the match was broken off, and before things could +be reconciled the girl's father forced the marriage of his daughter to a +worthless scamp who posed as a rich man, or an heir expectant to riches. +The Ekblads are hard-working farmer folk. When it was too late the +misunderstanding was cleared up. The rich fellow soon proved a fraud +and a rascal and a wife-deserter. And the girl came home with her baby. +Her father, as I said, was too stingy to hire help. So this girl-mother +overworked in threshing-time, and—was buried this afternoon up the Sage +Brush—old man Poser's daughter, Nell Belkap. The Ekblads have just come +from the funeral. Old Poser has refused to care for Nell's baby and +intended to put it in an orphan asylum. Thelma Ekblad brought it home +with her. It was in her arms just now, and she's going to keep it and +adopt it. When she's away at school—she has a year yet before she +graduates—that crippled brother, Paul, will take care of it. All of +which is out of your line, Jerry, but interesting to us in the valley +here."</p> + +<p>As York paused and looked at Jerry, all that Stellar Bahrr had said of +him and the Poser girl swept through her mind. Not the least meanness of +a lie is in its infectious poisoning power.</p> + +<p>"It is very interesting. I wonder how she can take care of that baby. +Babies are so impossible," Jerry said, musingly.</p> + +<p>"We were all impossibles once. Some of us are still improbables," York +replied.</p> + +<p>Jerry looked up at him quickly. "Not altogether hopeless, maybe. Thelma +is doing this for her brother's sake, I can see that. And the story has +a sweeter side than if she were doing it just for herself. It makes it +more worth while."</p> + +<p>It was the first time that York had caught the note of anything outside +of self in Jerry's views of life.</p> + +<p>He involuntarily pressed his hand against the specially delivered letter +he himself had received that afternoon, and his lips were set grimly. +The plea of the old woman, and the soul of the young woman, which called +loudest now?</p> + +<p>"Will this young Ekblad go up to his sweetheart's grave every Sunday, +like Mr. Ponk comes here?" Jerry asked, after a pause.</p> + +<p>"No, he will probably never go near it," York replied.</p> + +<p>"Why not? I thought that was the customary way of doing here," Jerry +declared.</p> + +<p>"Because it isn't his grave. It belongs to Bill Belkap, who doesn't care +for it. Paul Ekblad will find his solace in caring for Nell Poser's +child and in knowing it was her wish that he is fulfilling. That is the +real solace for the loss of loved ones."</p> + +<p>Jerry remembered Uncle Cornie and his withered yellow hand under her +plump white one as he told her of Jim Swaim's wish for his child.</p> + +<p>"If I carry out that wish I will be true to my father—and—he will be +happier," she thought, and a great load seemed lifting itself from her +soul.</p> + +<p>"Oh, father, father! You are not in the 'Eden' burial-plot. You are here +with me. I shall never lose you." The girl's face was tenderly sweet +with silent emotion as she turned to the man beside her.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you told me that story. May I come down to your office in the +morning for a little conference? I can come at ten."</p> + +<p>"Certainly. Come any time," York assured her, wishing the while that the +plea of Jerusha Darby's that lay in his pocket was in the bottom of +Fishing Teddy's deep hole down the Sage Brush.</p> + +<p>The next morning Jerry Swaim came into the office of the Macpherson +Mortgage Company promptly at the stroke of ten by the town clock.</p> + +<p>"If I were only a younger man," York Macpherson thought, feeling how the +presence of this girl transformed the room she entered—"if I were only +younger I would fall at her shrine, without a question. Now I keep +asking myself how a woman can be so charming, on the one hand, and so +characterless maybe, shallow anyhow, on the other. But the test is on +for sure now."</p> + +<p>No hint of this thought, however, was in his face as he laid aside his +pen and asked, in his kindly, stereotyped way:</p> + +<p>"What can I do for you?"</p> + +<p>"You can be my father-confessor for a minute or two, and then make out +my last will and testament for me," Jerry replied, with a demure smile.</p> + +<p>"So serious as all that?" York inquired, gravely, picking up a blank +lease form as if to write.</p> + +<p>"So, and worse," Jerry assured him. But in an instant her face was +grave. "You know my present situation," she began, "and that I must +decide at once what to do, and then <i>do</i> it. I'm so grateful that you +understand and do not try to offer me friendship for service."</p> + +<p>York looked at her earnest face and glowing dark-blue eyes wonderingly. +This girl was forever surprising him, either by flippant indifference or +by unexpected insight.</p> + +<p>"You know a lot about my affairs, of course," Jerry went on, hurriedly. +"Aunt Darby offered both of us—me, I mean, a home with her, a life of +independent dependence on her—charity—for that, at bottom, was all +that it was. And when I refused her offer she simply cut me until such +time as I shall repent and go back. Then the same thing would be waiting +for me. I know now that it was really wilfulness and love of adventure +that most influenced me to break away from Philadelphia and—and its +flesh-pots. But, York, I don't want to go back—not yet awhile, anyhow."</p> + +<p>It was the first time she had ever called him by that name, and it sent +a thrill through her listener.</p> + +<p>"Is it wilfulness and love of adventure still, or something else, that +holds you here 'yet awhile'?" York asked, with kindly seriousness.</p> + +<p>"Oh, wait and see!" Jerry returned.</p> + +<p>"She is not going to be <i>led</i>, whichever way she goes. I told Laura +so," was York's mental comment.</p> + +<p>"Does this finish your 'confession'?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I may as well tell you the other side of the story." Jerry's voice +trembled a little. "Cousin Gene Wellington was in the same boat with me, +a dependent like myself. But now that he has given up to Aunt Jerry's +wishes, I suppose he will be her heir some day, unless I go back and get +forgiven."</p> + +<p>"This artist's father was in business with your father once, wasn't he?" +York asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and there was something I never could understand, and Aunt Jerry +never mentioned, about that; but she did say often that Cousin Gene +would make up for what John Wellington lacked, if things went her way. +They haven't all gone her way—only half of them, so far."</p> + +<p>"Do you fully understand what you are giving up, Jerry?" York asked, +earnestly. "That life might be a much pleasanter story back East, even +if it were a bit less romantic than the story on the Sage Brush. Might +not your good judgment take you back, in spite of a little pride and the +newness of a different life here?"</p> + +<p>As York spoke, Jerry Swaim sat looking earnestly into his face, but when +he had finished she said, lightly:</p> + +<p>"I thought before I saw you that you were an old man. You seem more like +a brother now. I never had a brother, nor a sister—nothing but myself, +which makes too big a houseful anywhere." She grew serious again as she +continued: "I do understand what I'm giving up. It was tabulated in a +letter to me yesterday, and I do not give up lightly nor for a girl's +whim now. I have my time extended. There seems to be indefinite patience +at the other end of the line, if I'll only be sure to agree at last."</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, Jerry, if I ask you if it is a question of mere funds." York +spoke carefully. "I know that Mrs. Darby may be drawn on at any time for +that purpose."</p> + +<p>"Did she tell you so?" Jerry asked, bluntly.</p> + +<p>"She did—when you first came here," York replied, as bluntly.</p> + +<p>Jerry did not dream of the struggle that was on in the mind of the man +before her, but her own strife had made her more thoughtful.</p> + +<p>For a little while neither spoke. Then York Macpherson's face cleared, +as one who has reached the top of a difficult height and sees all the +open country on the other side. Jerusha Darby's plea had won.</p> + +<p>"Jerry, you do not understand what is before you. Whoever takes up the +business of self-support, depending solely on the earnings that must be +won, has a sure battle with uncertainty, failure, sacrifice, and +slow-wearing labor. Of course it is a glorious old warfare—but it has +that other side. In the face of the fact that I am your fortunate host, +and that my sister is happier now than she has ever been before in New +Eden, and hopes to keep you here, I urge you, Jerry, to consider well +before you refuse to go back to your father's sister and your artist +cousin."</p> + +<p>The "father's sister" was a master-stroke. It caught Jerry at an angle +she had not expected. But that "artist cousin"! If Gene had been truly +the artist, Jerry Swaim had yielded then. The failure to be true to +oneself has long tentacles that reach far and grip back many things that +else had come in blessing to him who lies to his own soul.</p> + +<p>"I won't go back. That is settled. Now as to my last will and testament, +please," Jerry said, prettily.</p> + +<p>"Imprimis," York began, with his pen on the lease form before him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, drop the Latin," Jerry urged. "Say, 'I, Geraldine Darby Swaim, +being of sound mind and in full possession of all my faculties, and of +nothing else worth mentioning, being about to pass into the final estate +and existence of an old-maid school-teacher, a high-school teacher of +mathematics'—Please set that down."</p> + +<p>"So you are going to teach. I congratulate you." York rose and took the +girl's hand.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. Yes, I just 'soared' over to the hotel and signed my +contract with Mr. Ponk and the other two members in good standing, or +whatever they are." Jerry would not be serious now. "And the remainder +of my will: 'I hereby give and bequeath all my worldly goods, excepting +my gear, to wit: one claim of twelve hundred acres, containing three +cottonwood-trees, three times three acres of oak timber, and three times +three times three million billion grains of golden sand, to the +Macpherson Mortgage Company to have and to hold, free of all expense to +me, and to lease or give away to any lunatic, or lunatics, at the +company's good-will and pleasure, for a term not to exceed three million +years. All of which duly signed and sworn to.'"</p> + +<p>As Jerry ran on, York wrote busily on the lease form before him.</p> + +<p>"Please sign here," he said, gravely pointing to a blank space when he +had finished. "It is a three years' lease to your property herein +legally described. The Macpherson Mortgage Company will pay you +twenty-five cents per acre, per year, with the exclusive right to all +the profits accruing on the land, and to sublease the same at will."</p> + +<p>"That is about half of what Aunt Jerry spent on my wardrobe just before +I came West," Jerry exclaimed. "But I couldn't take twenty-five cents a +year. I've seen the property, you know, and I don't want charity here +any more than I did in Philadelphia."</p> + +<p>"Then sign up the lease. This is business. Our company is organized on a +strictly financial basis for strictly financial transactions. It is a +matter of 'value received' both ways with us."</p> + +<p>York Macpherson never trifled in business matters, even in the smallest +details, and there was always something commanding about him. It pleased +him now to note that Jerry read every word of the document before +accepting it, and he wondered how much a girl of such inherent business +qualities in the small details of affairs would waver in steadfastness +of purpose in the larger interests of life.</p> + +<p>"Will you let me give a receipt for the cash instead of taking a check?" +Jerry asked, as York reached for his check-book.</p> + +<p>"Why do you prefer that?" York asked, with business frankness.</p> + +<p>"Because I do not care to have the transaction known to any one besides +your company," Jerry replied.</p> + +<p>"But suppose I should sublease this land?" York suggested.</p> + +<p>"That would be different, of course, even if the lessee was a lunatic. +Otherwise I don't care to have it known to any one that I draw an income +from what is not worth an effort," Jerry declared, quoting Joe Thomson's +words regarding her possessions.</p> + +<p>"If I give my word to exclude every one else from knowing of this +transaction it means every one—even my sister Laura." York looked at +Jerry questioningly.</p> + +<p>"Even your sister Laura," Jerry repeated, conclusively.</p> + +<p>York was too well-bred to ask her why, and, while he voluntarily +refrained from telling his sister many things, she was his counselor in +so many affairs that he wondered not a little at Jerry's request, while +he chafed a little under his promise. He was so accustomed to being +master of himself in all affairs that it surprised him to find how +easily he had put himself where he would rather not have been placed.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later Joe Thomson came into the office.</p> + +<p>"What can I do for you to-day, Joe?" York inquired.</p> + +<p>"Do you control the sections south of mine?" Joe asked. "I want to lease +them, but I shouldn't care to have the owner know anything about it."</p> + +<p>"That old blowout! What's your idea, Joe?"</p> + +<p>"I want to try an experiment," Joe replied.</p> + +<p>York Macpherson had the faculty of reading some men like open books.</p> + +<p>"You must have been hanging around eavesdropping this morning. I just +got a three years' lease on Miss Swaim's land at twenty-five cents an +acre, and here you come for it. I took it on a venture, of course, +hoping to sell sand to the new cement-works up the river, sand being +scarce in these parts." There was a twinkle in York's eyes as he said +this. "I can sublease it, of course, and at the same price, but you +know, Joe, that the land is worthless."</p> + +<p>"I don't know it," Joe said, stubbornly. "You seem to have been willing +enough to get the lease secured this morning."</p> + +<p>York ignored the thrust. "You know I leased that land merely to help +Miss Swaim, but you don't know yet whether or not you can tame your own +share of that infernal old sand-pile that you want to put a mortgage on +your claim to fight," York reminded him.</p> + +<p>"I'll take a part of that loan to pay for the lease, and the rest I'll +use on the Swaim land, not on mine. I'm going to go beyond the blowout +to begin, and work north the same way it goes," Joe explained.</p> + +<p>"All of which sounds pretty crazy to me. You are shouldering a big load, +young man—a regular wildcat venture. There's one of you to myriads of +sand-heaps. You'll have to take the Lord Almighty into partnership to +work a miracle before you win out. I've known the Sage Brush since the +first settler stuck in a plow, and I've never known one single miracle +yet," York admonished him.</p> + +<p>"As to miracles," Joe replied, "they are an every-day occurrence on the +Sage Brush, if you can only look far enough above money-loaning to see +them, you Shylock."</p> + +<p>Calling York Macpherson a Shylock was standard humor on the Sage Brush, +he was so notoriously everybody's friend and helper.</p> + +<p>"And I've had to take the Lord in for a partner all my life," Joe added, +seriously.</p> + +<p>York looked at the stern face and stalwart form of the big, sturdy +fellow before him, recalling, as he did so, the young ranchman's years +of struggle through his boyhood and young manhood.</p> + +<p>"Of course you can win," he assured Joe. "Your kind doesn't know what +failure means. It isn't the <i>work</i>, it is the stake that makes me +uneasy."</p> + +<p>Joe looked up quickly and York knew that he understood.</p> + +<p>"I read your page clearly enough, my boy," he said, earnestly. "You are +taking a hand in a big game, and the other fellow keeps his cards under +the table. Blowouts are not as uncertain as women, Joe. Let me tell you +something. You will find it out, anyhow. I can ease the thing up now. +Back in Philadelphia a rich old widow has given two young lovers the +opportunity to earn their living or depend on her bounty—a generous +one, too. Being childless and selfish, she secretly wanted to hold them +dependent on her, that she may demand their love and esteem. It is an +old mistake that childless wealth and selfishness often make. The girl, +being temperamentally romantic and inherently stubborn, voted to go +alone. These things, rather than any particularly noble motive—I hate +to disillusion you, Joe, but I must hold to facts—have landed her +practically penniless in our midst; and she is not acquainted yet with +either lack of means or the labor of earning. The young man, gifted in +himself, which his sweet-heart is not, son of a visionary spendthrift, +has chosen the easier way, a small clerkship and a luxurious home +seeming softer to his artistic nature than the struggling up-climb with +his real gift. This old lady won't last forever. Her disinherited niece +won't want to work at teaching forever. The waiting clerk will come +after the heir apparent just when she is most tired of the Sage Brush +and the things thereof, and—they will live tamely ever after on the +aunt's money. Do you see what you are up against, Joe? Don't waste +energy on a dream—with nothing to show for your labor at last but debt +and possible failure, and the beautiful Sage Brush Valley turned to a +Sodom before your eyes."</p> + +<p>"Whenever you are ready I'll sign up the lease," was Joe's only reply.</p> + +<p>So the transaction was completed in silence.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PIII" id="PIII"></a>III</h2> + +<h3>JERRY AND EUGENE—AND JOE</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2> + +<h3>HOW A GOOD MOTHER LIVES ON</h3> + + +<p>New Eden never saw a more beautiful autumn, even in this land of +exquisite autumn days, than the first one that Jerry Swaim passed in the +Middle West. And Jerry reveled in it. For, while she missed the splendid +colorings of the Eastern woodlands, she never ceased to marvel at the +clear, bright days, the sweet, bracing air, the wondrous sweeps of +landscapes overhung by crystal skies, the mist-wreathed horizons holding +all the softer hues, from jasper red to purest amethyst, that range the +foundation stones of heaven's walls as Saint John saw them in his dream +exquisite.</p> + +<p>It had never occurred to Jerry that a beauty impossible to a wooded +broken country might be found on the October prairies. Her dream of a +Kansas "Eden" exactly like the Pennsylvania "Eden," six times enlarged, +had been shattered with one glimpse of her possession—a possession +henceforth to be a thing forgotten. But life had opened new pages for +her and she was learning to read them rapidly and well.</p> + +<p>One thought of the past remained, however. The memory of a romance begun +in her Eastern home would not die with the telling. And while Jerry +Swaim persuaded herself that what Eugene Wellington called success to +her was failure, and while every day widened the breach between the two, +time and distance softened her harsher judgment, and she remembered her +would-be lover with a tender sadness that made her heart cold to the +thought of any other love.</p> + +<p>This did not make her the less charming, however—this pretty girl +without any trace of coquetry, who knew how to win hearts to her. Sure +of the wideness that separated her life from the life of the Sage Brush +Valley, she took full measure of interest in living, unconsciously +postponing for herself the future's need for the solace of love. The +small income from her lease to the Macpherson Mortgage Company filled +her purse temporarily, and she began at once upon a course of economic +estimates worthy of Jim Swaim's child, however seemingly impossible in +Lesa Swaim's pretty, dueless daughter. Another trait, undeveloped +heretofore, began to be emphasized—namely, that while she could chatter +glibly on embroideries and styles, and prettily on art, and seriously +and intelligently on affairs of national interest, as any all-round +American girl should do—she was discreet and uncommunicative regarding +her business affairs. Not that she meant to be secretive; she was simply +following the inherited business ability of an upright, well-balanced +man, her father. Coupled with this was a pride in her determination to +win—to prove to Aunt Jerry Darby and Eugene Wellington that she had +made no mistake; and until victory was hers she would be silent about +her endeavors.</p> + +<p>The Macphersons had insisted that Jerry should remain their guest at +least until the opening of the school in September. And if the girl +imagined that she found a faint hint of fervor gone from Laura +Macpherson's urging, her hostess made up for it in the abundant kindness +of little acts of hospitality. Jerry was frankly troubled, and yet she +could not say why, for it was all the impressions of a mind sensitized +to comprehend unspoken things. Jerry's memory would call up that +incident of the lost purse found in her hand-bag, and of Laura's excuse +for it, which she, Jerry, knew was impossible. And yet the girl felt +that it was a contemptible thing to impute a distrust to Laura that, +placed in the same position, she herself would scorn to harbor.</p> + +<p>"I see no way but the everlasting run of events. I wish they would run +fast and clear it up," Jerry said to herself, dismissing the matter +entirely, only to have it bobbing up for consideration again on the +first occasion.</p> + +<p>At the close of a hot summer day Jerry was in her room, finishing a +letter to Jerusha Darby, to whom she wrote faithfully, but from whom she +had rarely received a line. York and Laura were on the porch, as usual. +The hammock that day had been swung to a shadier position, on account of +the slipping southward of the late summer sun; and Laura forgot that +Jerry's window opened almost against it now, so that she could hear all +that was said at that corner of the porch. As Jerry finished her letter +she caught a sentence outside that interested her. She was innocent of +any intention of eavesdropping afterward, but what she heard held her +motionless.</p> + +<p>"The leak has opened again, York," Laura was saying. "Things are +beginning to disappear, especially money."</p> + +<p>York's face took on a sort of bulldog grimness, but he made no reply.</p> + +<p>Inside, Jerry glanced at her beaded hand-bag lying on the top of the +little desk, saying to herself:</p> + +<p>"I'll open a bank-account to-morrow. I've been foolish to leave that +roll of bills lying around; all I have, too, between me and the last +resort in Kansas—'to go mad or go back East.' I'm certainly a brilliant +business woman—I am."</p> + +<p>And then, unconscious at first that she was listening, her ear caught +what followed outside:</p> + +<p>"York, the queer thing is that it's just at 'Castle Cluny' that things +are disappearing right now. Mrs. Bahrr was over to-day and told me the +Lenwells had even gone to Kansas City and forgot to lock their back +door, and not a thing was missing, although Clare Lenwell left five +silver dollars stacked up on the dresser in plain view."</p> + +<p>"If anybody would know the particulars it would be the Big Dipper," York +declared.</p> + +<p>"Oh, now don't begin on that tune, York, for I'm really uneasy," Laura +began.</p> + +<p>"For why?" York inquired.</p> + +<p>And then Laura told him the story of her lost purse, omitting Stellar +Bahrr's part in the day's events, and adding:</p> + +<p>"Of course, I hate myself for even daring to carry a hint of suspicion +for a minute, but Jerry knew as well as I did that I hadn't put my purse +in her hand-bag by mistake, for she carried it with her up-town that +day. But I could forget the whole thing if it had ended there. I know +that the dear girl was dreadfully short of money until just recently. +Now her purse is full of bills. I couldn't help seeing that when she +displays it so indifferently. She says she will have no funds from +Philadelphia. Where does she get money when I can't keep a bill around +the house?"</p> + +<p>"Then I would quit the stocking-toe banking system that mother and all +the other women and most of the men back in Winnowoc used to employ. You +might try the First National Bank of New Eden. I'm one of the directors, +and a comparatively safe man for all that," York advised, gravely.</p> + +<p>"The loss of the money is nothing to the possible loss of confidence," +Laura went on, ignoring her brother's thrust. "Could such a thing be +possible that this dear girl is discouraged and tempted to hide her +necessities?" The woman's voice was full of kindly sorrow. "York, +couldn't you tell her?"</p> + +<p>"I see myself doing that," York fairly exploded. "Laura, there may be a +big leak in this house where valuables seep through. I'm not saying +otherwise. But as for Jerry Swaim, it's simply preposterous—impossible. +Never let such a thing cross your mind, let alone your lips again, you +dear best of sisters. You know you don't believe a word of it."</p> + +<p>"I know I don't, too, York; of course I don't; but I must have needed +you to assure me of it. It all began in circumstance and an ugly +suspicion that a story of Stellar Bahrr's suggested. And when I missed +my own money and saw that great roll of bills—Oh, I must be crazy or +just a plain human creature full of evil—"</p> + +<p>"Or both," York added. "We are all more or less human and more than less +crazy, especially if we will listen to old wives' tales against the +expressed command of our wise brothers. As for Jerry having money"—York +suddenly recalled his promise to Jerry not to discuss her affairs—"it's +hardly likely she would display carelessly what was acquired by extreme +care. Let's call her out here and think of better things."</p> + +<p>As Laura looked up she realized for the first time the nearness of the +hammock to Jerry's open window. The grief of being overheard by one whom +she would not wound for worlds, with the self-rebuke for giving ear to +Stellar Bahrr's gossip, almost overcame her.</p> + +<p>"You go after Jerry, please," she said, faintly.</p> + +<p>York went into the hall, calling at Jerry's open door, but she was not +there. He looked in the living-room, but it was empty. Through the +dining-room he passed to the side porch, where a dejected, lonely little +figure was half hidden by the vines that covered it. At sight of her +York stopped to get a grip on himself.</p> + +<p>At her host's explosive declaration, "I see myself doing it," Jerry had +come to herself. Surprised and wounded, but realizing the justice of the +ground for suspicion against her—her—Jerry Swaim, who had always had +first concern in those about her—she left her room hastily and passed +out of the house by the side door. In the little vine-covered entry she +sat down and stared out at the lawn, where the fireflies were beginning +to twinkle against the shrubbery bordering the driveway. She had thought +the disposition of her estate, and the choice of occupation, and the +putting away of Eugene Wellington, had settled things for her future. +Here was the fulfilling of a sense of something wrong that had recently +possessed her, hardly letting itself be more than a sense till now. What +did life mean, anyhow? "To go mad or go back East?" Why should she do +either one, who had not offended anybody?</p> + +<p>As Jerry gazed out at the shadowy side lawn the sound of a step caught +her ear—a shuffling of feet across the grass, and the noise of a hard +sole on the cement driveway. Jerry's eyes mechanically followed a +short, shambling figure, suggesting a bear almost as much as a human +being, as it passed forward a step or two; then, dividing the +spirea-bushes on the farther edge, it disappeared into the deeper shadow +of the slope toward the town below "Kingussie."</p> + +<p>It was Fishing Teddy—old Hans Theodore; Jerry recognized him at a +glance, and in the midst of her confused struggle to find herself she +paused to wonder about him. Intense mental states often experience such +pauses, when the mind grappling in an internal combat rests for a moment +on an impression coming through the senses.</p> + +<p>"What's the old Teddy Bear doing here?" Jerry asked herself, and then +she remembered his coming once before almost to this very spot. That was +the night Joe Thomson had called—the big farmer whose property her own +was helping to destroy. There was something strong and unbreakable about +this Joe. A million leagues from her his lot was cast, of course, and +yet she hoped somehow that Joe might be near and that the Teddy Bear was +waiting for him.</p> + +<p>"Jerry! Jerry!" York called through the hall, and then he came out to +where she sat on the side porch.</p> + +<p>"I was hunting for you. You have a caller, my lady, a gentleman who +wants to take you for a ride up the river. It will be gloriously cool +on the ridges up-stream. He will give you a splendid hour before the +curfew rings—the lucky dog!"</p> + +<p>Jerry looked up expectantly. "It must be Joe Thomson," she thought, and +she was glad to have him come again.</p> + +<p>On the front porch little Junius Brutus Ponk was strutting back and +forth, chatting with Laura.</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Miss Swaim. I just soared down to invite you to take a +little drive in my gadabout. I hope it will suit you to go."</p> + +<p>"Nothing would please me more," Jerry said, lightly. "Let me get my +wrap." As she returned to her room her eye fell on her hand-bag, lying +on her desk. A sense of grief swept over her, for one moment, followed +by a strange lightness of heart as if her latest problem had solved +itself suddenly.</p> + +<p>As they passed down the walk to the little gray car York Macpherson +looked after them, conscious of the impossible thing in Ponk's mind, and +wondering wherein lay the charm of this pink-and-white inefficient girl +to grip with so strong a hold on the heart of a sensible man like Ponk.</p> + +<p>"It is her power to be what she has never been, but what she will +become," he said to himself. "She's the biggest contradiction to all +rules that I ever knew, but she's a dead-sure proposition."</p> + +<p>The coming of callers found York in his best mood, and when his sister +bade him good night he put his arms around her, saying, gently:</p> + +<p>"You are the best woman in the world, Laura, and you mustn't carry a +single hidden worry."</p> + +<p>"Neither must you, York," Laura replied, and each knew that the other +understood.</p> + +<p>Meantime, out on the upper Sage Brush road Jerry was letting the beauty +of the evening lift the weight from her mind. She was just beginning to +understand that, while she had imagined herself to be doing her own +thinking heretofore, she had been merely willing that her thinking +should be done for her. She was now at the place where her will meant +little and her judgment everything in shaping her acts. The recognition +brought a sense of freedom she had never known before. What she had +overheard from the porch seemed far away, and her wounded spirit grew +whole again as she began to find herself standing on her own feet, not +commanding that somebody else should hold her up. Jerry's mind worked +rapidly, and before the gray car had been turned at the northern end of +the evening's ride it was not the Jerry Swaim of an hour ago, but a +young warrior, clad in armor, with shining weapons in her hand, who sat +beside the adoring little hotel-keeper of the faulty grammar and the +kindly heart.</p> + +<p>Ponk halted the car at the far end of the drive up-stream, to take in a +moonlight view of the Sage Brush Valley.</p> + +<p>"Them three lights down yonder's the court-house an' the school-house +an' the station. The other town glims are all hid by trees an' bushes +and sundry in the wrinkles of the praira." Ponk always said "praira." +"But it's a beautiful country when you douse the sunshine and turn on +the starlight, or a half-size moon like that young pullet in the west +sky yonder. Ever see the blowout by moonlight? Sorta reclaims its cussed +ugliness, you might say, an' the dimmer glow softens down an' subdues +the infernal old beast considerable."</p> + +<p>Jerry turned quickly toward her companion. "Blowout is a word taboo in +my presence," she said, gravely. "Anybody who wants to be listed as a +friend of mine will never mention it to me, for to me there is no such +thing. I have no real estate in Kansas, nor anywhere else, for that +matter. I'm just a poor orphan child." The girl smiled brightly. "All +the world is mine, even though none of it really belongs to me. If you +want my good-will, even my speaking acquaintance, you'll remember the +road to it is <i>never</i> to <i>mention</i> that <i>horrid thing</i> to me again."</p> + +<p>"I never won't," Ponk declared, seriously. "If that's the only +restriction, I'm in the middle of your good-will so far I'll never find +the outside gate again."</p> + +<p>"I hope you won't," Jerry said, lightly.</p> + +<p>"I'm seriouser than you are, Miss Swaim, and I asked you to take this +ride for three reasons," Ponk returned.</p> + +<p>"Name them," Jerry demanded, in the dim light noting the flush on his +round cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Firstly, and mainly, just selfish pleasure. Secondly, because I wanted +to do you a favor if I might presume, and thirdly, to tell you why I +wanted to do it."</p> + +<p>"You are very kind," Jerry said, sincerely.</p> + +<p>"What I want to say in that favor business is the same I told York to +say that Sunday we met you in the cemetery, where I'd been callin' on +mother, and you come to get away from New Eden and all that in it is, +for a little while. You remember York came trailing after you with some +excuse or other, an' right behind him comes another trailer, a +womankind?"</p> + +<p>"I remember York, that's all," Jerry replied, trying to recall the +woman, whom she had forgotten.</p> + +<p>"Well, she didn't forget you. It's that Stellar Bahrr, and she made +capital, principal, and compound interest out of the innocent event, as +she does out of every move everybody in that burg makes. But don't let +it disturb you a mite."</p> + +<p>"I won't," Jerry replied, indifferently. "But tell me why she should +make capital out of me?"</p> + +<p>"'Cause she hates you," Ponk said, calmly.</p> + +<p>"Me? Why?" Jerry's eyes were black now, and the faintly gleaming ripples +above her white forehead and her faintly pink cheeks in the light of the +moon made a delicious picture.</p> + +<p>"Just because you are you, young, admired. I don't dare to say no more, +no matter what I feel. It's a snaky jealousy, and she'll trail you +constant. It's got to be the habit of her life, and it's ruined her as +it will any person."</p> + +<p>"Well, let her trail." Jerry's voice had a clear defiance now. "I'm here +to earn an honest living by my own efforts. I shall pay my bills and +take care of my own business. I have not intentionally injured anybody."</p> + +<p>She paused and remembered Laura Macpherson, her shapely hands gripped +together, emphasizing her unbreakable determination.</p> + +<p>"And you are goin' to win. Don't never be afraid of the end and finis. +But, knowin' Sage Brush, an' how scared it is of Mrs. Bahrr, yet +listenin' constant to every word she says, I felt it my duty to warn you +of breakers ahead. I've known more 'n one, bein' innocent, to fall for +her tricks. And I'm telling you out of pure kindness. There's only two +ways to handle her—keep still and try to live above her, or stand +straight up an' tell her to go to the devil. Excuse me, Miss Swaim, I'm +not really a profane man, but I mean well by you, and I'm not just +settin' here to gossip about a fellow-citizenness."</p> + +<p>"I know you mean well, Mr. Ponk. You have been more than kind to me ever +since the night I reached New Eden, and I do appreciate your friendship +and good-will," Jerry said, earnestly. "Now as to Mrs. Bahrr, which +course do you advise me to follow?"</p> + +<p>Junius Brutus Ponk was hanging on every word of Jerry's, and his face +was a full moon of pleasure, for he was frankly and madly in love with +her, and he knew it.</p> + +<p>"I can't advise at all; it just ain't for me to do that. You are +honorin' us by stoppin' in our midst. What I want you to do is to be on +the lookout, an' if things start wrong, anywhere—school or church or +with your friends, the Macphersons, for instance, as they might—just +run down old Stellar before you go to guessin', or misunderstandin', and +if you can't do it alone"—Ponk smote his broad bosom dramatically—"I'm +here to help. That leads me to the thirdly of my triplet purpose in +askin' the pleasure of your company."</p> + +<p>Jerry looked up with a smile. The little man was so thoroughly good, and +yet so impossible. York Macpherson seemed head and shoulders above any +other man she had ever known in her life—except her father. In fact, he +seemed like a sort of father to her—and Joe Thomson. That was just a +shadow across her consciousness, for all these men belonged here and at +heart were not of her world.</p> + +<p>"Miss Swaim, will you let me, without no recompense, be a friend at +court whenever you need my help? You seem to me like a sort of female +Robinson Crusoe cast away on the desert island of the Sage Brush country +in Kansas. Let me be your Man Friday. I'd like to be your Saturday and +Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. York Macpherson would come +lopin' in to claim Thursday, I reckon."</p> + +<p>The sincerity of the fat little man offset the pompous ridiculousness of +his speech.</p> + +<p>"If I seem cuttin' into the Macpherson melon-patch it's because I got on +to some of Stellar Bahrr's gossip that set me thinkin'. She's up to +turnin' Miss Laury against you because of York's admiring you so much."</p> + +<p>Jerry grasped the situation now. The hotel-keeper was not only wishing +to befriend and shield her—he thought he was in love with her. And he +thought that York Macpherson was also in love. Was he? The girl's mind +worked rapidly. Little as she cared for the opinion of New-Edenites, +outside of these three good friends, she realized that these same +New-Edenites were interested in her and dared to discuss her affairs; +and that if she stayed here, as she meant to do, she must meet them and +be, in a way, of them. How much of this newly discovered admiration +which her companion evidently felt, and which he felt sure York +Macpherson possessed, might be really the outgrowth of pity for her in +the new position in which she found herself? And there was Laura. +Stellar Bahrr had hinted about her being neglected by her brother for +other women. Whatever might be the real motive, Jerry and love had +parted company on the day that Eugene Wellington's letter had come +telling of his renunciation of his art for an easy clerkship. But Laura +didn't know that, and she might have heard the town-meddler—Oh, bother +Stellar and all her works! Jerry Swaim would have none of them. And +Laura was such a sweet, companionable, refined friend. This thing must +be overcome in some way.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, Mr. Ponk, why do the New Eden people listen to a sharp-tongued +trouble-maker, since they know her power?" Jerry asked, after a pause.</p> + +<p>"Why? 'Cause they enjoy it when 'tain't about them—all of us do that, +bein' human. Are you right sure you wouldn't believe her yourself, much +as you despised any story of hers you'd be forced to listen to? Well as +I know her, I have to keep pinchin' my right arm to see if it's got +nerve enough to strike back if I'm hit, you might say."</p> + +<p>On Jerry's cheeks the bloom deepened. She had let a word of Mrs. Bahrr's +set her to wondering about both her host and hostess.</p> + +<p>"They's one more thing I want to say, the third reason for askin' you +out this evenin'," Ponk went on, and the pompous manner fell from him +somewhat in his earnestness. "I don't want you to leave Macpherson's +home for anything, right now. They want you and—well, I hope you won't. +Even at the loss of a boarder for myself at the hotel and gurrage I +hope you won't. But if some time—if it was ever possible you'd find a +need for me more 'n what we spoke of—I ain't no show. I'm clear below +your society back East, but, if you ever needed a real, devoted, honest +man who tried to be a Christian—"</p> + +<p>Jerry caught his full meaning now. "You are a Christian, Mr. Ponk. I'm +not. You are kind to me in my need, and I shall rely on your sincerity +and your friendship, and if there is any way in which I could return it, +even in a small measure, I would be so happy. We will be the best of +friends."</p> + +<p>Jerry's smile was winsome as she frankly put out her hand to seal the +bond in a clasp of good-fellowship. And Junius Brutus Ponk understood.</p> + +<p>"It's no use," he said to himself, sadly. "I wish it might have been, +but it ain't. I ain't such a fool I can't see a door when it's shut +right before me. I'm blessed to be her friend, and I'll be it if the +heavens drop. I'm in my Waterloo an' must just wade across an' shake +myself. That's all."</p> + +<p>His sunny nature always overcame his disappointments, but from that hour +in an upper niche of his heart's shrine he placed Jerry's image, one of +the beautiful things of life he might do homage to but could never +possess.</p> + +<p>"They's just one favor I want to ask of you," he said, aloud, "an' that +is that you'll go with me to call on mother out to the cemetery +sometimes. I'd like her to know you, too. She was good, and a good +mother just lives on."</p> + +<p>Jerry's cheek paled a shade, but she said, graciously: "I'll be glad to +do that, Mr. Ponk. Maybe it will make me a little less rebellious, and +you will be doing me the favor."</p> + +<p>Ponk's face beamed with pleasure at her words the while a real tear +rolled unnoticed down his cheek. That night marked the beginning of a +new spiritual life for Jerry Swaim.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV</h2> + +<h3>JIM SWAIM'S WISH</h3> + + +<p>The next morning, when Jerry Swaim was ready to go to the bank, her +pretty beaded bag seemed light as she lifted it, and when she opened her +purse she found it empty. Then she sat down and stared at herself in the +mirror opposite her.</p> + +<p>"Well, what next? Go mad or go back East? This must be the last ditch," +she murmured. "Joe Thomson said he didn't <i>go</i> mad, but he did <i>get</i> +mad. I'm mad clear to my Swaim toes, and I'm not going to take another +bump. It's been nothing but bumps ever since I reached the junction of +the main line with the Sage Brush branch back in June, and I'm tired of +it. Gene Wellington said the West got the better of his father. The East +seems to have gotten the best of his father's son."</p> + +<p>Across her mind swept the thought of how easy Gene's way was being made +for him in the East, and how the way of the West for her had to be +fought over inch by inch.</p> + +<p>"Neither East nor West shall get me." She tossed her head imperiously, +for Jim Swaim's chin, York Macpherson would have said, was in command, +and the dreamy eyes were flashing fire.</p> + +<p>An hour later Ponk's gray runabout was spinning off the miles of the +trail down the Sage Brush, with Jerry Swaim's hands gripping the wheel +firmly, though her cheeks were pink with excitement. Where a road from +the west crossed the trail, the stream cut through a ledge of shale, +leaving a little bluffy bank on either side, with a bridge standing high +above the water.</p> + +<p>Joe Thomson, in a big farm wagon, had just met his neighbor, Thelma +Ekblad, in her plain car, at the end of the bridge, when Jerry's horn +called her approach. Before they had time to shift aside the gray car +swept by with graceful curve, missing the edge of the bridge abutment by +an eyelash.</p> + +<p>"Great Scott! Thelma, I didn't notice that this big gun of mine was +filling up all the road," Joe exclaimed. "That was the neatest curve I +ever saw. That's Ponk's car from New Eden, but only a civil engineer's +eye could have kept out of the river right there."</p> + +<p>"The pretty girl who is visiting the Macphersons was the driver," Thelma +said.</p> + +<p>"No! Was it, sure?" Joe queried, looking with keen eyes down the trail, +whither the gray runabout was gliding like a bird on the wing.</p> + +<p>"Why, of course it was!" Thelma assured him, feeling suddenly how shabby +her own machine became in comparison. "I must go now. Come over and see +Paul when you can."</p> + +<p>"I will. How is the baby?" Joe asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, splendid, and so much company for Paul!" Thelma declared.</p> + +<p>"Yes, a baby is the preacher and the whole congregation sometimes. Let +me know if you need any help. Good-by."</p> + +<p>So in neighborly good-will they separated, Joe to follow the gray car +down the trail, and Thelma to wonder briefly at the easy life of the +beautiful Eastern girl whose lot was so unlike her own. Only briefly, +however, for Thelma was of too happy a temperament, of too calm and +philosophical a mentality, to grieve vainly. It always put a song in her +day, too, to meet Joe upon the way. Not only on common farm topics were +she and Joe congenial companions, but in politics, the latest books, the +issues of foreign affairs, the new in science, they found a common +ground.</p> + +<p>Joe's thoughts were of the Eastern girl, too, as he thundered down the +trail in his noisy wagon.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could overtake her before she gets to the forks of the road," +he said to himself. "I know she's not going to go my way farther than +that. But why is she here at all? There's nobody living down the river +road for miles, except old Fishing Teddy. She did dine at his expense +the day she came out to her sand-pile. He told me all about it the night +when we rode down from town together. Funny old squeak he is. But he +can't interest her. Hello! Yonder we are."</p> + +<p>In three minutes he was beside the gray car, that was standing at the +point where the river road branched from the main trail.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Mr. Thomson. I knew you were coming this way, so I waited +for you here. I don't go down that road. You know why."</p> + +<p>Jerry pointed toward the way down which her own land lay.</p> + +<p>Joe lifted his hat in greeting, his cheeks flushing through the tan, for +his heart would jump furiously whenever he came into this girl's +presence.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Miss Swaim. I am glad you waited," he managed to say. +"You certainly know how to guide a car. I didn't know I was filling the +whole highway up at the bridge."</p> + +<p>"Oh, there was plenty of room," Jerry said, indifferently.</p> + +<p>"Yes, plenty if you know how to stick to it. That's the secret of a lot +of things, I guess—not finding a wider trail, but knowing how to drive +straight through on the one you have found."</p> + +<p>Joe was talking to gain time with himself, for he was inwardly angry at +being upset every time he met this pretty girl.</p> + +<p>This morning she seemed prettier than ever to his eyes. She was wearing +a cool gray-green hat above her golden-gleaming hair, and her sheer +gingham gown was stylishly summery. Exquisite taste in dress, as well as +love of romance, was a heritage from Lesa Swaim.</p> + +<p>"You are a real philosopher and a poet," Jerry exclaimed, looking up +with wide-open eyes.</p> + +<p>"A sort of Homer in homespun," Joe suggested.</p> + +<p>"Probably; but I have a prose purpose in detaining you and I am in great +luck to have found you," Jerry replied.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. The luck will be mine if I can serve you."</p> + +<p>The bronze young farmer's gallantry was as gracious as ever the +well-groomed Philadelphia artist's had been.</p> + +<p>"Kansas seems determined to get rid of me, if hard knocks mean anything. +I've had nothing but bumps and knotty problems since I landed on these +sand-shifting prairies. It makes me mad and I'm not going to be run off +by it." Jerry's eyes were darkly defiant and her lifted hand seemed +strong to strike for herself.</p> + +<p>"You have the real pioneer spirit," Joe declared. "It was that very +determination not to be gotten rid of by a sturdy bunch of forefathers +and mothers that has subdued a state, sometimes boisterous and +belligerent, and sometimes snarling and catty, and made it willing to +eat out of their hands."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's not all subdued yet. It never will be." Jerry pointed down the +trail toward the far distance where her twelve hundred blowout-cursed +acres lay.</p> + +<p>Joe Thomson's mouth was set with a bulldog squareness. "Are we less able +than our forefathers?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"As to sand—yes," Jerry replied, "but to myself, as a first +consideration, I'm dreadfully in trouble."</p> + +<p>"Again?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, always—in Kansas," Jerry declared. "First my whole inheritance is +smothered in plain sand—and dies—hard but quickly. Then I fight out a +battle for existence and win a schoolmarm's crown of—"</p> + +<p>"Of service," Joe suggested, seriously.</p> + +<p>"I hope so. I really do," Jerry assured him. "Next I lease my—dukedom +for a small but vital sum of money on which to exist till—till—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, till wheat harvest, figuratively speaking," Joe declared.</p> + +<p>"And this morning my purse is empty, robbed of every cent, and my +pearl-handled knife and a button-hook."</p> + +<p>Joe had left his wagon and was standing beside Jerry's car, with one +foot on the running-board.</p> + +<p>"Stolen! Why, why, where's York?" he asked, in amazement.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I don't think he took it," Jerry replied.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I mean what's he doing about it?" Joe questioned, anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Nothing. He doesn't know it. I came to find you first, to get you to +help me."</p> + +<p>"Me!" Joe could think of nothing more to say.</p> + +<p>"You won't scold, and I'm afraid York would. I don't want to be +scolded," Jerry declared. "He would wonder why I hadn't put it in the +bank. And, besides, there have some queer things been happening in New +Eden—I can't explain them, for you might not understand, but I do +really need a friend right now. Did you ever need one?"</p> + +<p>To the girl alone and under suspicion, however kind the friends who were +puzzled over her situation, conscious that too many favors were not to +be asked of the good-souled Junius Brutus Ponk, the young farmer seemed +the only one to whom she could turn. And she had the more readily halted +her car to wait for him because she had already begun to weave a romance +in homespun about this splendid young agriculturist and the good-hearted +country girl, Thelma Ekblad. He, himself, was impersonal to her.</p> + +<p>"I'm always needing friends—and I'm more glad than you could know to +have you even think of me in your needs. But everybody turns to York +Macpherson. He's the lodestar for every Sage Brush compass," Joe said, +looking earnestly at Jerry.</p> + +<p>"I'm on my way to the old Teddy Bear's house, your Fishing Teddy," Jerry +declared, "and I thought you would go with me. I don't want to go +alone."</p> + +<p>"Let me take this machinery to the men—they are waiting for it to start +to work—and I'll be glad to go," Joe answered her.</p> + +<p>The gray car followed the big wagon down the trail to the deep bend of +the Sage Brush in the angle of which Joe's ranch-house stood; and the +load of machinery was quickly given over to the workmen. As Joe seated +himself in the little gray car Jerry said:</p> + +<p>"You are wondering why, and too polite to ask why, I go to Hans +Theodore's. Let me tell you." Then she told him of her dazed wanderings +down the river road two months before, and of her meal near old Teddy's +shack.</p> + +<p>"He brought me fried fish on a cracked plate, and buttermilk in a silver +drinking-cup—a queer pattern with a monogram on the side. The next +morning I saw another cup exactly like that on the buffet in the +Macpherson dining-room. They told me there should be two of them. One +they found was suddenly missing. Later it suddenly was not missing. York +said their like was not to be had this side of old 'Castle Cluny' on the +ancient Kingussie holding of the invincible Clan Macpherson's forebears. +So this must have been the same cup. It was on the morning after you +called and took the old Teddy Bear home with you that the missing cup +reappeared. You remember he was shambling around the grounds the night +before, waiting for you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I remember," Joe responded, gravely.</p> + +<p>"Meantime Laura Macpherson lost her purse. It was found in my hand-bag. +I believe now that the one that took it became frightened or something, +and tried to put it on me. Maybe somebody knew how dreadfully near the +wall I was. Then York paid me lease money, as I told you—three hundred +dollars. It was in my purse last evening when I went out for a ride. As +I sat in the side porch alone, earlier in the evening, I saw the old +Teddy Bear shamble and shuffle about the shrubbery and disappear down +the slope in the shadows on the town side of the place. This morning my +money is all gone. I am going down here after it."</p> + +<p>"And you didn't ask York to help you?" Joe queried, anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Why, no. I wanted you to help me. Will you do it?" Jerry asked, looking +up into the earnest face of the big farmer beside her.</p> + +<p>Was it selfishness, or thoughtlessness, or love of startling adventure, +or insight, or fate bringing her this way? Joe Thomson asked himself the +question in vain.</p> + +<p>"I'll do whatever I can do. This is such a strange thing. I knew things +were missing by spells up in town, but we never lose anything down our +way, and you'd think we would come nearer having what old Fishing Teddy +would want if he is really a thief," Joe declared.</p> + +<p>"I am going down to old Teddy's shack and ask him to give me my money, +anyhow," Jerry repeated.</p> + +<p>"And if he has it and refuses, I'll pitch him into the river and hold +him under till he comes across. But if he really hasn't it?" Joe asked.</p> + +<p>"Then he can't give it, that's all," Jerry replied.</p> + +<p>"But how will you know?" Joe insisted.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how I'll know, but when the time comes I'll probably find +a way to find out," Jerry declared. "Anyhow, I must do something, for +I'm clear penniless and it's this or go mad or go back East. I'm not +going to do either. I'm just going to get mad and stay mad till I get +what's mine."</p> + +<p>"I'll be your faithful sleuth, but I can't believe you'll find your bag +of gold at the end of this rainbow. The old man is gentle, though, and +you couldn't have any fear, I suppose," Joe suggested.</p> + +<p>"Not with you along I couldn't," Jerry replied.</p> + +<p>She was watching the road, and did not see how his eyes filled with a +wonderful light at her words. She was not thinking of Joe Thomson, nor +of York Macpherson, nor yet of Junius Brutus Ponk. She was thinking far +back in her mind of how Eugene Wellington would admire her some day for +really not giving in. That faint line of indecision in his face as she +recalled it in the rose-arbor—oh, so long ago—that was only emphasized +by his real admiration for those who could stand fast by a +determination. She had always dared. He had always adored, but never +risked a danger.</p> + +<p>Down by the deep fishing-hole the willows were beginning to droop their +long yellow leaves on the diminishing stream, and the stepping-stones +stood out bare and bleaching above the thin current that slipped away +between them. A little blue smoke was filtering out from the stove-pipe +behind the shack hidden among the bushes. Everything lay still under the +sunshine of late summer.</p> + +<p>"You keep the car. I'm going in," Jerry declared, halting in the thin +shade by the deep hole.</p> + +<p>"I think I'd better go, too," Joe insisted.</p> + +<p>"I think not," Jerry said, with a finality in her tone there was no +refuting.</p> + +<p>York Macpherson had well said that there was no duplicate for Jerry, no +forecasting just what she would do next.</p> + +<p>As Jerry's form cast a shadow across his doorway old Fishing Teddy +turned with a start from a bowl of corn-meal dough that he was stirring. +The little structure was a rude domicile, fitted to the master of it in +all its features. On a plain unpainted table Jerry saw a roll of bills +weighted down by an old cob pipe. A few coins were neatly stacked beside +them, with a pearl-handled knife and button-hook lying farther away.</p> + +<p>"I came for my money," Jerry said, quietly. "It's all I have until I can +earn some myself."</p> + +<p>The old man's fuzzy brown cheeks seemed to grow darker, as if his blush +was of a color with the rest of his make-up. He shuffled quickly to the +table, gathered up all the money, and, coming nearer, silently laid it +in Jerry's hands.</p> + +<p>The girl looked at him curiously. It was as if he were handing her a +handkerchief she had dropped, and she caught herself saying:</p> + +<p>"Thank you. But what made you take it? Don't you know it is all I have, +and I must earn my living, too, just like anybody else?"</p> + +<p>Old Fishing Teddy opened his mouth twice before his voice would act. "I +didn't take it. I was goin' to fetch it up to you soon as I could git up +there again," he squeaked out at last.</p> + +<p>Jerry sat down on a broken chair and stared at him, as he seated himself +on the table, gripping the edge on either side with his scaly brown +hands, and gazed down at the floor of the cabin.</p> + +<p>"If you didn't take it, why did you have it here? I saw you last night +on Macpherson's driveway," Jerry said, wondering, meanwhile, why she +should argue with an old thieving fellow like Fishing Teddy—Jerusha +Darby's niece and heir some fine day, if she only chose, to all of the +Darby dollars.</p> + +<p>"I can't never explain to you, lady. They's troubles in everybody's +lots, I reckon. Mine ain't nothin' but a humble one, but it ain't so +much different from big folks's in trouble ways. An' we all have to do +the best we can with what comes to us to put up with. I 'ain't never +harmed nobody, nor kep' a thing 'at wa'n't mine longer 'n I could git it +back. You ask York Macpherson, an' he'll tell ye the truth. He never +sent ye down here, York didn't."</p> + +<p>The old man ceased squeaking and looked down at his stubby legs and old +shoes. Was he lying and whining for mercy, being caught with the spoils +of his thieving?</p> + +<p>Jerry's big eyes were fixed on him as she tried to fathom the real +situation. The bunch of grubs on the Winnowoc local—common country and +village folk—had been far below her range of interest, to say nothing +of sympathy. Yet here she sat in the miserable shack of a hermit +fisherman, an all-but-acknowledged thief, with his loot discovered, +studying him with a mind where pity and credulity were playing havoc +with her better judgment and her aristocratic breeding. Had she fallen +so low as this, or had she risen to a newer height of character than she +had ever known before?</p> + +<p>Suddenly the old grub hunched down on the table before her looked up. +Jerry remembered afterward how clear and honest the gaze of those faded +yellow eyes set in a multitude of yellow wrinkles. His hands let go of +the table's edge and fitted knuckle into palm as he asked, in a +quavering voice:</p> + +<p>"Be you really Jim Swaim's girl who used to live up in that there +Winnowoc country back yander in Pennsylvany?"</p> + +<p>Jerry's heart thumped violently. It was the last word she had expected +from this creature. "Yes, I'm Jim's only child." The same winsome smile +that made the artistic Eugene Wellington of Philadelphia adore her +beamed now on this poor old outcast down by the deep hole of the Sage +Brush.</p> + +<p>"An' be you hard up, an' earnin' your own livin' by yourself, did ye +say? 'Ain't ye got a rich kin back East to help ye none?" The voice +quavered up and down unsteadily.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have a rich aunt, but I'm taking care of myself. It makes me +freer, but I have to be particular not to—to—lose any money right +now," Jerry said, frankly.</p> + +<p>"Then ye air doin' mighty well, an' it's the thing that 'u'd make your +daddy awful glad ef he only could know. It 'u'd be fulfillin' his own +wish. I know it would. I heered him say so onct."</p> + +<p>Jerry Swaim's eyes were full of unshed tears. Keenly she remembered when +Uncle Cornie had told her the same thing at the doorway of the +rose-arbor in beautiful "Eden" in the beautiful June-time. How strange +that the same message should come to her again here in the shadow of New +Eden inside the doorway of a fisherman's hut. And how strange a thing is +life at any time!</p> + +<p>"Please don't be unhappy about this." Jerry lifted the money which lay +in her lap. "It shall never trouble you."</p> + +<p>And then for a brief ten minutes the two talked together, Geraldine +Swaim of Philadelphia, and old Fishing Teddy, the Sage Brush hermit.</p> + +<p>Joe Thomson, sitting in the gray car, saw Jerry coming through the +bushes, her hat in her hand, the summer sunshine on her glorious crown +of hair, her face wearing a strange new expression, as if in Fishing +Teddy's old shack a revelation of life's realities had come to her and +she had found them worthy and beautiful.</p> + +<p>Little was said between the two young people until they reached the +Thomson ranch-house again and Jerry had halted her car under the shade +of an elm growing before the door. Then, turning to Joe, she said:</p> + +<p>"You are right about the old Teddy Bear. He isn't a thief. I don't know +what he is, but I do know what he isn't. Since you know so much about my +coming here already, may I tell you a few more things? I want to talk to +somebody who will understand me."</p> + +<p>Jerry did not ask herself why she should choose Joe Thomson for such a +confidence. She went no deeper than to feel that something about Joe was +satisfying, and that was sufficient. Henceforth with York and the +hotel-keeper she must be on her guard. Joe was different.</p> + +<p>In the half-hour that followed the two became fast friends. And when the +little gray runabout sped up the long trail toward New Eden Joe Thomson +watched it until it was only a dust-spot on the divide that tops the +slopes down to Kingussie Creek. He knew now the whole story of Laura's +purse and her suspicions, of Ponk's offer of help, and he shrewdly +guessed that the pompous little man had met a firm check to anything +more than mere friendship. For Jerry's comfort, he refuted the +possibility of the Macphersons' harboring a doubt regarding her honesty.</p> + + +<p>"A mere remark of the moment. We all make them," he assured her.</p> + +<p>Lastly, he was made acquainted with the events inside of Hans Theodore's +shack.</p> + +<p>"Something is wrong there, but it is deeper than we can reach now," +Jerry said. "Maybe we can help the old fellow if he is tempted, and +shield him if he is wronged."</p> + +<p>How fair the face, and soft and clear the voice! It made Joe Thomson's +own face harden to hide a feeling he would not let reveal itself.</p> + +<p>As he watched the girl's receding car he resolved anew to conquer that +formless enemy of sand and to reclaim for her her lost kingdom in +Kansas. His reward? That must come in its own time. Ponk was out of the +running. York was still a proposition. As for all that stuff of York's +about some Eastern fellow, Joe would not believe it.</p> + +<p>And the girl driving swiftly homeward thought only of the romance of Joe +and Thelma, if she thought of them at all—for she was Lesa Swaim's +child still—and mainly and absorbedly she thought of her father's wish +to be fulfilled in her.</p> + +<p>So the glorious Kansas autumn brought to Jerry Swaim all of its beauty, +in its soft air, its opal skies, its gold-and-brown-and-lavender +landscapes, its calm serenity. And under its benediction this girl of +luxurious, idle, purposeless days in sunny "Eden" on the Winnowoc was +beginning a larger existence in New Eden by the Sage Brush, and through +the warp and woof of that existence one name was all unconsciously woven +large—<span class="smcap">Joe</span>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV</h2> + +<h3>DRAWING OUT LEVIATHAN WITH A HOOK</h3> + + +<p>For three years the seasons sped by, soft-footed and swift, and the +third June-time came smiling up the Sage Brush Valley. Many changes had +marked the passing of these seasons. Ranches had extended their +cultivated acres; trees spread a wider shade; a newly settled addition +had extended the boundaries of New Eden; and a new factory and a +high-school building for vocational training marked the progress of the +town. Budding youth had blossomed into manhood and womanhood and the +cemetery had gathered in its toll. Three years, however, had marked +little outward change in the young Eastern girl who stayed by her choice +of the Sage Brush country for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. +She had flung all of her young energy into the dull routine of teaching +mathematics; romance had given place to reality; idleness and careless +dependence to regulated effort and carefully computed expenditures; gay +social interests to the companionship of lesser opportunities, but +broader vision. However, these things came at a sacrifice. When the +newness wore away from her work, Jerry's hours were not all easeful, +happy ones. Slowly, with the passing of the days, she began to learn the +hard lesson of overcoming, a lesson doubly hard for one whose life +hitherto had been given no preparation for duty. Yet, as her days +gathered surer purpose her dark-blue eyes were less often dreamy, her +fair cheeks took on a richer bloom, while her crown of glorious hair +lost no glint of its gold.</p> + +<p>Her gift of winning friends, the old imperious power to make herself the +center of the universe, was in no wise disturbed by being a citizen and +a school-teacher instead of an Eastern lady of leisure sojourning +temporarily in the Sage Brush country. The young men of the valley tried +eagerly to win a greater place than that of mere friendship with her, +but she gave no serious consideration to any of them, least of all—so +she persuaded herself—to the young ranchman whom she had met so early +after her arrival in Kansas. Further, she had persuaded herself that the +pretty rural romance she had woven about him and his Norwegian neighbor, +Thelma Ekblad, must be a reality. Thelma had finished her university +course and was making a success of farming and of caring for her +crippled brother Paul and that roly-poly Belkap baby, now a +white-haired, blue-eyed, red-lipped chunk of innocence, responsibility, +and delight. Gossip, beginning at Stellar Bahrr's door, said that +interest in her neighbor, the big ranchman down the river, was +responsible for Thelma's staying on the Ekblad farm, now that she had +her university degree, because she could make a career for herself as a +botany specialist in any college in the West. Jerry knew that love for a +crippled brother and the care of a worse than orphaned child of the +woman that brother had loved were real factors in the life of this +country girl, but her air castles must be built for somebody, and they +seemed to cluster around the young Norwegian and the ranchman. Of +course, then, the ranchman, Joe Thomson, could interest Jerry only in a +general genial comradeship kind of way. Beginning in a common bond, the +presence of a common enemy—the blowout—chance meetings grew into +regular and helpful association. That was all that it meant to Jerry +Swaim.</p> + +<p>Three stanch friends watched her closely. Ponk, of the Commercial Hotel +and Garage, believed blindly and wholly in her ability, laying all blame +for her defective work in the school upon other shoulders, standing +manfully by her in every crisis. Laura Macpherson, although never +blinded to the truth about Jerry in her impetuous, self-willed, +unsympathetic, undeveloped nature, loved her too well to doubt her +ultimate triumph over all fortune. Only York, who studied her closest of +all three, because he was the keenest reader of human nature, still held +that the final outcome for Jerry Swaim was a matter of uncertainty.</p> + +<p>"I tell you, Laura," York said, one evening in the early spring of the +third year, when Jerry had gone with Joe Thomson for a long horseback +ride up the Sage Brush—"I tell you that girl is still a type of her +own, which means that sometimes she is soft-hearted, and romantic, and +frivolous, and impulsive, and affectionate, like Lesa Swaim, and +sometimes clear-eyed, hard-headed, close-fisted, with a keen judgment +for values, practical, and clever, like old Jim."</p> + +<p>"And which parent, Sir Oracle, would you have her be most like?" Laura +inquired.</p> + +<p>"Lord knows," York replied. "As He alone knows how much of the good of +each she may reject and how much of the weak and objectionable she may +appropriate."</p> + +<p>"Being a free moral agent to just dissect her fond parents and choose +and refuse at will when she makes up her life and being for herself! +It's a way we all have of doing, you know," Laura said, sarcastically. +"Remember, York, when you elected to look like papa, only you chose +mother's wavy brown hair instead of her husband's straight black locks; +and you voted you'd have her clear judgment in business matters, which +our father never had."</p> + +<p>"And gave to you the same which he never possessed. Yes, I remember," +York retorted. "But how is all this psychological analysis going to help +matters here?"</p> + +<p>"How's it going to help Joe Thomson, or keep him from being helped, you +mean?" Laura suggested.</p> + +<p>A faint flush crept into York Macpherson's brown cheek.</p> + +<p>"It's dead sure Jerry has little enough thought of Joe now," York said, +gravely. "She's living a day at a time, and underneath the three years' +veneer of genuine service the real Philadelphia Geraldine Swaim is still +a sojourner in the Sage Brush Valley, not a fixture here."</p> + +<p>And York was right so far as Jerry Swaim's thought of Joe Thomson was +concerned.</p> + +<p>After signing the lease with York Macpherson she rarely spoke of her +property to any one until it came to be forgotten to the few who knew of +it at all.</p> + +<p>Once she had said to Joe:</p> + +<p>"That heritage of mine is like the grave of an enemy. I couldn't look at +it forgivingly; so I would never, never want to see it again, and I +never want to hear the awful word 'blowout' spoken."</p> + +<p>"Then forget it," Joe advised.</p> + +<p>And Jerry forgot it.</p> + +<p>But for Joe Thomson the seasons held another story. Down the Sage Brush, +fall and spring, great steam tractors furrowed the shifting sands of the +blowout, until slowly broom-corn and other coarse plants were coaxing a +thin soil deposit that spread northward from the south edge of the +sand-line. Little attention was paid to these efforts by the few farmer +folk who supposed that Joe was backing it, for they were all a busy +people, and the movement was too futile to be considered, anyhow.</p> + +<p>Late in the summer of her first season in New Eden, affairs came to a +head suddenly. Three years before, Junius Brutus Ponk's well-meant +warning to Jerry to be on her guard against Stellar Bahrr's +mischief-making had not been without cause or results. Before the +opening of the school year, beginning with the Lenwells as a go-between, +percolating up through families where fall sewing was in progress, on to +the Macphersons and their closest friends, the impression grew toward +fact that Jerry was a sort of adventuress who had foisted herself upon +the Macphersons and had befuddled the brain of the vain little +hotel-keeper, who had overruled the other members of the school board +and forced her into a good place in the high school, although she was +without experience or knowledge of the branch to which she was elected. +And then she met young men in the cemetery and rode in Ponk's car over +the country alone.</p> + +<p>One of the easy acts of the average, and super-average, mortal is to +respect a criticism made upon a fellow-mortal—doing it most generally +with no conscious malevolence, prompted largely by the common human +desire to be the bearer of new discoveries.</p> + +<p>New Eden was no worse than the average little town at any point of the +compass. It took Stellar Bahrr at her par value, listened, laughed, and +declared it disbelieved her stories—and mainly in that spirit repeated +them, but in any spirit always repeated them. When the reports of Jerry +had gone to the farthest corners of town they came at last to the office +of York Macpherson. And it was Ponk himself who brought them, with some +unprintable language and violent denunciations of certain females who +were deadlier, he declared, than any males, even blackmails. York +forgave the atrocious pun because of the righteous wrath back of it. He +knew that Ponk's suit with Jerry failed temporarily, and he admired the +little man for his loyal devotion in spite of it.</p> + +<p>The Macphersons had completely convinced Jerry of their faith in her, +and in that congenial association she had almost forgotten the incident +of the porch conversation about her. To Ponk's anxious query, "What will +you do?" (nobody ever said "can" to York Macpherson; he always could), +York had replied:</p> + +<p>"I shall go straight to Jerry. She will hear it, anyhow, and she has +displayed such a deal of courage so far she'll not wither under this."</p> + +<p>"You bet she won't, York, but what will stop it? I mean Stellar Bahrr's +mischief-makin'. She's subtler than the devil himself."</p> + +<p>"We'll leave that to Jerry. She may have a way of her own. You never can +tell about Jerry." As he spoke York was turning his papers over in +search of something which he did not find, and he did not look up for a +minute.</p> + +<p>"I'll leave the matter to you now," Ponk said. "I have other affairs of +state to engross my attention," and he left the office, muttering as he +strutted across to the garage door.</p> + +<p>"Thinks he can pull the wool over my eyes by not lookin' at me. Well, +York wouldn't be the best man on the Sage Brush if he didn't fall in +love with Miss Jerry. She's not only the queen of hearts; she's got the +whole deck, includin' the joker, clear buffaloed."</p> + +<p>York was true to his word as to telling Jerry, when the three were on +the porch that evening, what was in the air and on the lips of the "town +tattlers," as he called them. Jerry listened gravely. She was getting +used to things, now, that three months ago would have overwhelmed +her—if she hadn't been Jim Swaim's child. When he had finished and +Laura was about to pour out vials of indignation, Jerry looked up +without a line on her smooth brow, saying:</p> + +<p>"Will you go over to Mrs. Bahrr's with me now, York?"</p> + +<p>York rose promptly, questioning, nevertheless, the outcome of such an +interview.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bahrr had just followed her corkscrew way up to the side gate of +the Macpherson home as the two left the porch, when she heard Jerry call +back to Laura:</p> + +<p>"If we find Mrs. Bahrr at home we won't be gone long."</p> + +<p>"And if you don't?" Laura asked.</p> + +<p>The answer was lost, for Mrs. Bahrr turned and fled across lots, by +alley gate and side walk-way and vacant yard, to her own rear door. One +of Mrs. Bahrr's strong points was that of being more ready than her +antagonist and her habit of thought had made her world an antagonistic +one.</p> + +<p>York was curious to see how Jerry would meet her Waterloo, for that was +what this encounter would become, and he was glad that she had asked him +to go with her instead of running off alone, as she had done when she +wanted to see her estate.</p> + +<p>Seated in the little front parlor, Jerry took her time to survey the +place before she came to her errand. It was a very humble home, with a +rag carpet, windows without draperies, but with heavy blinds; chairs +that became unsettled if one rocked in them; cheap, unframed chromos +tacked up on the walls; an old parlor organ; and a stand with a +crazy-quilt style of cover on which rested a dusty Bible. York saw a +look of pity in Jerry's eyes where three months before he felt sure +there would have been only disdain.</p> + +<p>Very simply and frankly the girl told the purpose of her call, ending +with what might have been a command, but it was spoken in the clear, +soft voice that had always won her point in any argument.</p> + +<p>"Whether these stories came from you or not you will be sure not to +repeat them."</p> + +<p>Stella Bahrr bristled with anger. Whatever might have been said behind +her back, nobody except York Macpherson and Junius Brutus Ponk had ever +spoken so plainly to her face before. And they had never spoken in the +presence of a third party. And here comes a pretty, silly young thing +with a child's Sunday-school talk to her, right in York's presence, in +her own house. Jerry Swaim would pay well for her rudeness.</p> + +<p>"I don't know as it's up to me to keep still when everybody's talkin'. I +won't promise nothin'. An' I 'ain't got nothin' to be afraid of." Mrs. +Bahrr hooked her eyes viciously into her caller.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid of a good many things, but I'm not so very much afraid of +people. I was a little afraid of you the first time I saw you. You +remember where that was, of course."</p> + +<p>Jerry looked straight at Mrs. Bahrr with wide-open eyes. Something in +her face recalled Jim Swaim's face to York Macpherson, and he forgot the +girl's words as he stared at her.</p> + +<p>"When I was a child," Jerry continued, "they used to say to me, 'The +goblins 'll git you ef you don't watch out.' Now I know it is the Teddy +Bear that gits you ef you don't watch out."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bahrr's lips seemed to snap together and her eyes tore their way +out of Jerry and turned to the window. Jerry stepped softly across to +her chair and, laying a hand on her shoulder, said, with a smile:</p> + +<p>"Hereafter it will be all right between us."</p> + +<p>And it was—apparently.</p> + +<p>As they walked slowly homeward York and Jerry said little. The girl's +mind was busy with thoughts of her new work—the only work she had ever +attempted in her life; and York's thoughts were busy with—Jerry.</p> + +<p>That night York sat alone on the porch of "Castle Cluny" until far +toward morning, beginning at last to fight out with himself the great +battle of his life. The big, kindly, practical man of affairs, +arrow-proof, bullet-proof, bomb-proof to all the munitions of Cupid, +courted and flattered and admired and looked up to by a whole community, +seemed hopelessly enmeshed now in the ripples of golden-brown hair, held +fast by the beautiful dark-blue eyes of a young lady whose strength to +withstand what lay before her he very much doubted.</p> + +<p>"If I speak to her now, she'll run away from us and leave Laura lonely. +She can't go to the hotel, because I know Ponk has tried and failed. I'm +one degree behind him in that. Where would she go? And how would the Big +Dipper act? I've no faith in her keeping still if Jerry did use some +magic on her to-night. Nobody will ever Rumpelstilskin her out of +herself. I'll be a man, and wait and befriend my little girl whenever I +can, although I'm forced every day to see how she is growing to take +care of herself. When nothing else can decide events, time is sure to +settle them."</p> + +<p>All this happened at the beginning of the three years whose ending came +in a June-time on the Kansas plains. Summer and winter, many a Sabbath +afternoon saw the hotel-keeper and the pretty mathematics-teacher +strolling out to the cemetery "to call on mother." The quaint, firm +faith of the pompous little man that "mother knew" had no place in Jerry +Swaim's code and creed. But she never treated his belief lightly, and +its homely sincerity at length began to bear fruit.</p> + +<p>Not without its lasting effect, too, was the silent influence of Laura +Macpherson upon her guest. The bright, happy life in spite of a hopeless +lameness, the cheerful giving up of what that lameness denied the +having, all unconsciously wrought its beauty into the new Jerry whom the +"Eden" of an earlier day had never known. Nobody remembered when the +guest and friend of the Macphersons began to be a factor in the New Eden +church life, but everybody knew at the close of the third year that the +churches couldn't do without her. And neither the Baptist minister, +holding tenaciously to salvation by immersion, nor the Presbyterian, +clinging to the doctrine of infant damnation, nor the Methodist, +demanding instantaneous revival-meeting conversion from sin, asked once +that the fair Philadelphian should "become united with the church." That +would necessitate the query, "Which church?" And that would mean a loss +to two and a gain to only one. As far as the blowout sand differed from +"Eden" on the Winnowoc, so far Jerry's religious faith now differed from +the disbelief that followed the death of her father. In Kansas where the +artistic Eugene Wellington had declared his own faith would perish, she +had learned for the first time how to pray.</p> + +<p>Letters had long since ceased to come from Aunt Jerry Darby to her +niece, although in a friendly and patiently expectant form Eugene +Wellington wrote beautiful missives breathing more and more of +commercialized ideals and less and less of esthetic dreams, and not at +all of the faith that had marked the spiritual refinement of his young +manhood.</p> + +<p>The third spring brought busy, trying days. A sick teacher made it +necessary for the well ones to do double work. The youngest Lenwell boy, +leader of the Senior class, started the annual and eternally trivial and +annoying Senior-class fuss that seems fated to precede most high-school +commencements. For two years it had been Jerry Swaim, whose mathematical +mind seemed gifted with a wonderful generalship, who had managed to +bring the class to harmony with an ease never known in the New Eden High +School before. This year Clare Lenwell was perfectly irreconcilable, and +Jerry, overworked, as willing teachers always are, was too busy to bring +the belligerents to time before the bitterness of a town-split was upon +the community. When she did come to the rescue of the superintendent, +his own inefficiency to cope with the case became so evident that he at +once turned against the young woman who "tried to run things," as he +characterized her to the school board.</p> + +<p>That caused an explosion of heavy artillery from the "Commercial Hotel +and Garage," which made one member of the board, an uncle of young +Lenwell, to rise in arms, and thus and so the fires of dissension +crisscrossed the town, threatening to fulmine over the whole Sage Brush +Valley. To make the matter more difficult, the town trouble-maker, +Stellar Bahrr, for once seemed to have been innocently drawn into the +thing, and everybody knew it was better to have Stellar Bahrr's +good-will than to start her tongue.</p> + +<p>York Macpherson and Junius Brutus Ponk both felt sure that Stellar had +really stirred up the Lenwells, for whom she was constantly sewing; and, +besides, a distant relative of theirs had married into the Bahrr family +back where Stellar came from, "which must have been the Ark," Ponk +declared, "and the other one of the pair died of seasickness." Anyhow, +the local school row became the local town row, and it was a very real +and bitter row.</p> + +<p>In these days of little foxes that were threatening the whole vineyard, +Jerry turned more and more to Joe Thomson. All of New Eden was tied up +in the fuss, took sides, and talked it, except the Macphersons and a few +of their friends, and they talked it without taking sides because the +thing was in the air constantly. Jerry could not find even in "Castle +Cluny" a refuge from what was uninteresting to her and thoroughly +distasteful in itself. Ponk, being by nature a rabid little game-cock, +was full of the thing, and was no more companionable than the +Macphersons. But when the quiet ranchman came up from the lower Sage +Brush country, his dark eyes glowing with pleasure and his poised mind +unbiased by neighborhood failings, he brought the breath of sweet clover +with his coming. When Jerry came home from their long rides +up-stream—they never rode toward the blowout region—she felt as if she +had a new grip on life and energy and ambition for her work. Joe was +becoming, moreover, the best of entertainers, and the comradeship was +the one thing Jerry had learned to prize most in her new life in the +Middle West.</p> + +<p>When the spring had slipped into early May Joe's visits grew less +frequent, on account of his spring work. And once or twice he came to +town and hurried away without even seeing Jerry. It comforted her +greatly—she did not ask herself why—that he did drop a note into the +post-office for her, telling her he was in town and regretting that he +must hurry out without calling.</p> + +<p>It was during this time that Thelma Ekblad came up to New Eden to do +some extensive shopping and spend a week with the Macphersons. There +were other guests at "Castle Cluny," and Thelma and Jerry shared the +same room.</p> + +<p>Back in "Eden" the heir apparent would never have dreamed of sharing +anything with a Winnowoc grub. How times change us! Or do we change +them?</p> + +<p>Thelma was sunny-natured, spotlessly neat in her dress, and altogether +vastly more companionable to Jerry than the Lenwell girls, who would +persist in pleading their little high-school Senior brother's cause; or +even the associate teachers, who were troubled and tired and overworked +like herself.</p> + +<p>Jerry had met Thelma often, and thought of her oftener, in the three +years since they had come upon the Sage Brush branch of the local +freight together one hot, sand-blown June day, three summers before. She +had woven a romance about Thelma. Romances seemed now to belong to other +people. They never came to her. She was glad, however, when Thelma's +shopping was done and she went back to the farm down the Sage Brush, and +her brother Paul, and the growing, joyous Belkap child who filled the +plain farm-house with interest.</p> + +<p>Stellar Bahrr, in Jerry's presence, had spoken ill of no one since the +memorable call three years ago. On the evening after Thelma left town +she cork-screwed over to "Castle Cluny" for a friendly chat with Laura.</p> + +<p>"I run in to see Thelmy Ekblad. She 'ain't gone home, is she? Got her +shopping all done a'ready? Some girls can buy their weddin' finery +quicker 'n scat. Did she say who was to make that new white dress she +was buyin' yesterday at the Palace Emporium?" This straight at Jerry, +who was resting lazily in the porch swing after an unusually annoying +day.</p> + +<p>"Not to me," Jerry replied, sliding another pillow behind her shoulders +and leaning back comfortably.</p> + +<p>"Well, well! I s'posed girls always told them things to each other. +'Specially if they slep' together. She's gettin' a mighty fine man, +though—Thelmy is—at least, folks says she's gettin' him. He's there a +lot, 'specially 'long this spring. His farm's right near her and Paul's. +And she's one prince of a girl. Don't you say so, Miss Swaim?"</p> + +<p>Jerry smiled in spite of herself, saying: "Yes, she's a prince of a +girl. I like her." And then, because she was tired that night, both of +Stellar and her topic, and the whole Sage Brush Valley, she turned away +that neither Laura nor Stellar might see how much she wanted to cry.</p> + +<p>But turning was futile. Mrs. Bahrr's eyes went right through the girl +and she knew her shaft had hit home.</p> + +<p>Joe had not been to town for weeks. It didn't matter to Jerry. Yet the +next day after Stellar's call lacked something—and the next and the +next. Not a definite lack, for Jerry's future was settled forever.</p> + +<p>Down on the Sage Brush ranches Joe Thomson was trying to believe that +things wouldn't matter, too, if they failed to go his way. These were +lonely days for the young ranchman, who saw little of Jerry Swaim +because every possible minute of his time was given to wrestling with +the blowout.</p> + +<p>There were many more lonely days, also, for Jerry, who now began to miss +Joe more than she thought it could be possible to miss anybody except +Gene Wellington, idealized into a sad and beautiful memory that kept +alive an unconscious hope. And, with all her energy and her +determination, many things combined to make her school-room duty a hard +task to one whose training had been so unfitting for serious labor. The +flesh-pots of the Winnowoc came temptingly to her memory, and there were +weary hours when the struggle to be sure and satisfied was greater than +her friends could have dreamed.</p> + +<p>The third winter of her stay had seen an unusual snowfall for the Sage +Brush, and this spring following was an unusually rainy one. Everywhere +rank vegetation flourished, prairies reveled in luxurious growths, and +cultivated fields were burdened with the promise of record-breaking +harvests.</p> + +<p>York Macpherson's business had begun to call him to the East for +prolonged trips, and he had less knowledge than formerly of the details +of the affairs of New Eden and its community.</p> + +<p>One day not long after Thelma's shopping trip Joe Thomson dropped into +the office of the Macpherson Mortgage Company.</p> + +<p>"How's the blowout?" This had become York's customary greeting.</p> + +<p>"Never gentler." Joe's face was triumphant and his dark eyes were +shining with hope. "This rainy season and the good old steam-plows are +doing their perfect work. You haven't had any sand-storms lately, maybe +you have noticed. Well, wheat is growing green and strong over more than +half of that land now. There's not so much sand to spare as there used +to be."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean it!" York exclaimed, incredulously.</p> + +<p>"Go and look at it yourself, you doubting old Missourian who must be +shown," Joe retorted. "There's a stretch on the northeast toward the +bend in the Sage Brush that is low and baked hard after the rains, and +shifty and infernally stubborn in the dry weather."</p> + +<p>York meditated awhile, combing his heavy hair with his fingers. "The +river runs by your place?" he asked, at length.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my house is right at the bend, and there is no sand across the +Sage Brush," Joe replied.</p> + +<p>"Well, the blowout will never stop till it gets up to the south bank of +the bend. As I've told you already, you'll have to take the Lord +Almighty into partnership to work a miracle. Otherwise this creeping up +from behind and beyond the thing will be a never-ending job of time and +money and labor. You'll never catch up with it. It's just too +everlastingly big, that's all. You'll be gray-bearded, and bald-headed, +and deaf, and dim-sighted before you are through."</p> + +<p>"I will not," Joe declared, doggedly. "And I've already told you that +I've always taken the Lord Almighty into partnership, or I'd have been a +derelict on a sea of sand lang syne."</p> + +<p>"Joe, your faith in the Lord and faith in the prairies might move +mountains, but they haven't yet moved the desert."</p> + +<p>"Not entirely," Joe replied, "but if I do my part, who knows what +Providence may do?"</p> + +<p>As he sat there in the hope and strength of his youth, something in Joe +Thomson's expectant face brought a pang to the man beside him.</p> + +<p>"Joe, your lease will soon expire. I said to you three years ago that +women are shiftier than blowouts. You didn't believe me, but it's the +truth."</p> + +<p>"Naturally the Macpherson Mortgage Company must acquire much knowledge +of such things in the development of their business," Joe responded, +jokingly. "Little Thelma Ekblad on the claim above mine has helped to +pay off the mortgage your company held, and sent herself to the +university, working in the harvest-fields and at the hay-baler to do it. +Thelma never seemed shifty to me. She's a solid little rock of a woman +who never flinches."</p> + +<p>"I'll except Thelma. You ought—" But York went no further, for he knew +Joe's spirit would not respond to his thought, and he had no business +to be thinking, anyhow. He had known Joe Thomson from childhood. He +admired Jerry Swaim greatly for what she had been doing, but he knew +much of the Philadelphia end of the game, and his heart ached for the +young Westerner, who, he believed, had shouldered a stupendous, tragical +burden for the sake of a heart-longing only a strong nature like Joe's +could know.</p> + +<p>"By the way, Jerry Swaim's aunt, back East, is in a bad way and may die +at any time, but she will never forgive Jerry to the point of +inheritance. I happen to be in the old lady's confidence that far."</p> + +<p>"You are a social Atlas, York," Joe declared. "You hold the world on +your shoulders. But what you say doesn't interest me at all. So don't +prejudge any of us, maid or man."</p> + +<p>"And don't you let your bloomin' self-confidence and ability to work +half-miracles be your undoing. A house builded on the sand may fall, +where one built on gold dust may stand firm," York retorted.</p> + +<p>"Do you believe your own words?" Joe asked, rising to his feet.</p> + +<p>"The point is for you to believe them, whether I do or not," York +answered, as Joe disappeared through the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Why, in the name of fitness, can't that fellow fall in love with that +little Thelma Ekblad, a girl who knows what sacrifice on the Sage Brush +means and who has a grip on the real values of life? Oh, well, just to +watch the crowd run awry ought to be entertainment enough for a bachelor +like myself," York thought, as he sat staring after Joe. "I've lived to +see a few half-miracles myself in the last decade. Anybody whose lot is +cast in western Kansas can see as many of them as the old Santa Fé Trail +bull-whackers saw of mirages in the awful 'fifties. There's a lot of +reclaiming being done on the Sage Brush, even if that struggle of Joe's +with the blowout is a failure. Thelma Ekblad in her splendid victory +over ignorance, carrying a university degree; Stellar Bahrr"—York +smiled, "Ponk, who would put a flourish after his name if he were +signing his own death-warrant, the little hero of a hundred knocks, +living above everything but his funny little strut, and he's getting +over that a bit; old Fishing Teddy, brave old soul, down in his old +shack alone; Jerry, with her luxurious laziness and doubt in God and a +hereafter—all winning slowly to better things, maybe; but as to sand +and Joe—</p> + +<p>"'Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?' You'll never do it, Joe, +never, and you'll never win the goal you've set your heart on. Poor +fellow!"</p> + +<p>That night, on the silent porch alone, York finished the battle he had +begun on the evening after he and Jerry had called on Stella Bahrr.</p> + +<p>"It's the artist bank clerk against the field, and we'll none of us bat +above his average. Good night, old moon, and good night, York, to what +can't be."</p> + +<p>He waved a hand at the dying light in the west, and a dying hope, and +went inside.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI</h2> + +<h3>A POSTLUDE IN "EDEN"</h3> + + +<p>Cornelius Darby had lain in his beautifully decorated grave for three +years, and a graceful white shaft pointing heavenward amid the +shrubbery had become a landmark for the bunch of grubs who rode the +Winnowoc local.</p> + +<p>"Must be getting close to the deppo. Yonder is old Corn Darby's +gravestone over on the bluff," they would say, as the train chuffed up +out of the valley on either side of the station. That was all the memory +of him that remained, save as now and then a girl in a far-away Kansas +town remembered a June evening when a discus shied out from its course +and rolled to the door of a rose-arbor.</p> + +<p>But "Eden," as a country estate, lost nothing by the passing of the +husband of its lady and mistress, who spared none of the Darby dollars +to make both the town and country home delightful in all appointments, +hoping and believing that in her policy of stubbornness and force she +could have her way, and bring back to the East the girl whom she would +never invite to return, the girl whose future she had determined to +control. The three years had found Jerusha Darby's will to have Jerry +Swaim become her heir under her own terms—mistaking dependence for +appreciation, and idleness for happiness—had ceased to be will and +become a mania, the ruling passion of her years of old age. She never +dreamed that she was being adroitly managed by her husband's relative, +Eugene Wellington, but she did recognize, and, strangely enough, resent, +the fact that the Darby strain in his blood was proving itself in his +ability, not to earn dollars, but to make dollars earn dollars once they +were put plentifully into his hands.</p> + +<p>Since Mrs. Darby had only one life-purpose—to leave her property to +Jerry Swaim under her own terms—it galled her to think of it passing to +the hands of the relatives of the late Cornelius. She believed that love +of Eugene would bring Jerry back, for she was Lesa's own romance-loving +child—even if the luxuries that wealth can offer should fail; and she +had coddled Eugene Wellington for this very purpose. But after three +years he had failed to satisfy her. She was becoming slowly but +everlastingly set on one thing. She would put her property elsewhere by +will—when she was through with it. She could not do without Eugene as +long as she lived—which would be indefinitely, of course. But she would +have her say—and (in a whisper) it would <i>not</i> be a Darby nor <i>kin</i> of +a Darby who might be sitting around now, waiting for her to pass to her +fathers, who would possess it.</p> + +<p>In this intense state of mind she called Eugene out to "Eden" in the +late May of the third year of Jerry Swaim's stay in Kansas. The +rose-arbor was aglow with the same blossoming beauty as of old, and all +the grounds were a dream of May-time verdure.</p> + +<p>Eugene Wellington, driving out from the city in a big limousine car, +found them more to his taste than ever before, and he took in the +premises leisurely before going to the arbor to meet Mrs. Darby.</p> + +<p>"If I could only persuade Jerry to come now, all would be well," he +meditated. "And I have hopes. The last news of her tells me a few +things. She hasn't fallen in love with York Macpherson. He'd hate me +less if she had, and he detests me. I saw that, all right, when he was +here last month. And she's pretty tired of the life of the wilderness. I +know that. If she would come right now it would settle things forever. +I'd go after her if the old lady would permit it. I'd go, anyhow, if I +dared. But I must keep an eye on Uncle Cornie's widow day and night, +and, hungry as I am for one glimpse of Jerry's sweet face, I couldn't +meet Jerusha D. in her wrath if I disobeyed her."</p> + +<p>Eugene had the chauffeur pause while he surveyed the lilac-walk and the +big maples and the lotus-pond.</p> + +<p>"If Jerry would come <i>now</i>," he began again, with himself, "she would be +heir to all this. If she doesn't come soon, there's trouble ahead for +Eugene of the soft snaps. To the rose-arbor, Henderson."</p> + +<p>So Henderson whirled the splendid young product to the doorway of the +pretty retreat.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Darby met her nephew with a sterner face even than she was +accustomed to wear.</p> + +<p>"I want to see you at once," she said, as the young man loitered a +moment outside.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Aunt Jerry," he responded, dutifully enough—as to form.</p> + +<p>"What have you heard from Jerry recently?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"What York Macpherson told us—that she has had a hard year's work in a +school-room," Eugene replied.</p> + +<p>"Humph! I knew that. What are you doing to bring her back to me?" Mrs. +Darby snapped off the words.</p> + +<p>"Nothing now!" the young man answered her.</p> + +<p>"'Nothing now!' Why not?" Mrs. Darby was in her worst of humors.</p> + +<p>"Because there is positively nothing to do but to wait," Eugene said, +calmly. "She is not in love anywhere else. She is getting tired and +disgusted with her plebeian surroundings, and as to her estate—"</p> + +<p>"What of her estate? I refused to let York Macpherson say a word, +although he tried to over-rule me. I told him two things: I'd never +forgive Jerry if she didn't come back uninvited by me; and I'd never +listen to him blow a big Kansas story of her wonderful possessions. What +do you know? You'd be unprejudiced." The old woman had never seemed +quite so imperious before.</p> + +<p>"I have here a paper describing it. York Macpherson sent it to Uncle +Cornelius the very week he died. I found it among some other papers +shortly after his death and after Jerry left. When York was here he +confirmed the report at my insistent request. Read it."</p> + +<p>Jerusha Darby read, realizing, as she did so, that neither her husband +nor York Macpherson had succeeded in doing what Eugene Wellington had +done easily. Each had tried in vain to have her read that paper.</p> + +<p>"You knew the condition of this estate for three years, and never told +me. Why?" The old woman's face was very pale.</p> + +<p>"I did not dare to do so," Eugene replied, that line of weakness in his +face which Jerry had noted three years before revealing itself for the +first time to her aunt.</p> + +<p>"This is sufficient," she said, in a quiet sort of way. "To-morrow I +make my will—just to be sure. I shall probably outlive many younger +people than myself. Write and tell Jerry I have done it. This time +to-morrow night will see my estate settled so far as the next generation +is concerned. If I do not do it, Eugene, some distant and improvident +relatives of Cornelius will claim it. Send the lawyer out in the +morning."</p> + +<p>"All right, Aunt Jerry. I must go now. I have a club meeting in the city +and I can make it easily. The car runs like the wind with Henderson at +the wheel. Good-by."</p> + +<p>And Eugene Wellington was gone.</p> + +<p>"Three years ago I'd have left everything to him if I had been ready to +make a will then. I'm ready now, and any time in the next ten years I +can change it if I want to. But this will bring things my way, after +all. I told York I'd never forgive Jerry!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Darby paused, and a smile lighted her wrinkled face.</p> + +<p>"To think of that girl just shouldering her burden and walking off with +it. If she isn't Brother Jim over again! Never writing a word of +complaint. Oh, Jerry! Jerry! I'll make it up to you to-morrow."</p> + +<p>To Jerusha Darby money made up for everything. She sat long in the +rose-arbor, thinking, maybe, of the years when Jerry's children and her +children's children would dominate the Winnowoc countryside as they of +the Swaim blood had always done. And then, because she was tired, and +the afternoon sunshine was warm, and her willow rocking-chair was very +comfortable—she fell asleep.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Went just like her brother, the late Jeremiah Swaim," the papers said, +the next evening.</p> + +<p>Instead of the lawyer, it was the undertaker who came to officiate. And +the last will and testament, and the too-late evidence of a forgiving +good-will, all were impossible henceforth and forever.</p> + +<p>The estate of the late Jerusha Darby, relict of the late Cornelius +Darby, no will of hers having been found, passed, by agreement under +law, to a distant relative of the late Cornelius, which relative being +Eugene Wellington, whose knowledge of the said possible conditions of +inheritance he had held in his possession for three years, since the day +he accidentally found them among the private papers of his late uncle, +knowing the while that any sudden notion of the late Jerusha might +result in putting her possessions, by her own signature, where neither +Jerry, as her favorite and heir apparent, nor himself, as heir-in-law +without a will, could inherit anything. Truly Gene had had a bothersome +time of it for three years, and he congratulated himself on having done +well—excellently well, indeed. Truly only the good little snakes ever +entered that "Eden" in the Winnowoc Valley in Pennsylvania.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII</h2> + +<h3>THE FLESH-POTS OF THE WINNOWOC</h3> + + +<p>The glory of that third springtime was on the Kansas prairies and in the +heart of a man and a maid, the best of good fellows each to the other, +who rode together far along their blossomy trails. The eyes of the man +were on the future and in his heart there was only one wish—that the +good-fellowship would soon end in the realization of his heart's desire. +The eyes of the maid were closed to the future. For her, too, there was +only one wish—that this kind of comradeship might go on unchanged +indefinitely. To Jerry no trouble seemed quite so big when Joe was with +her, and little foxes sought their holes when he came near. If the +spring work had not grown so heavy late in May, and Joe could have come +to town oftener, and one teacher had not fallen sick, and Clare Lenwell +hadn't been so stubborn, and if Stellar Bahrr had held her tongue—But +why go on with ifs? All these conditions did exist. What might have been +without them no man knoweth.</p> + +<p>One of the humanest traits of human beings is to believe what is +pleasant to believe, and to doubt and question what would be an +undesirable fact. Jerry Swaim, clinging ever to a memory of what might +have been, building a pretty love dream, it is true, to be acted out +some far-away time by a young farmer and his neighbor in the Sage Brush +Valley, listened to Stellar Bahrr's version of Thelma Ekblad's shopping +mission, held back the tears that burned her eyeballs for a moment, and +then, being human, voted the whole thing as impossible, if not as +malicious as any of Stellar Bahrr's stories. Indeed, Thelma Ekblad was +now, as she had always been, the very least of Jerry's troubles.</p> + +<p>The school row, that had become the community fuss, culminated in the +superintendent putting upon his teachers the responsibility of +settlement.</p> + +<p>If they were willing to concede to the foolish demands of the class, led +by Clare Lenwell, and grant full credits in their branches of study, he +would abide by their decision. The easiest way, after all, to quiet the +thing, he said, might be to let the young folks have their way this +time, and do better with the class next year. They could begin in time +with them. As if Solomon himself could ever foresee what trivial demand +and stubborn claim will be the author and finisher of the disturbance +from year to year in the town's pride and glory—the high-school Senior +class, and its Commencement affairs. The final vote to break the tie and +make the verdict was purposely put on Jerry Swaim, who had more +influence in the high school than the superintendent himself. Jerry +protested, and asked for a more just agreement, finally spending a whole +afternoon with Clare Lenwell in an effort to induce him to be a +gentleman, offering, in return, all fairness and courtesy.</p> + +<p>Young Lenwell's head was now too large for his body. He was the hero of +the hour. Rule or ruin rested on this young Napoleon of the Sage Brush, +divinely ordained to free the downtrodden youths of America from the +iron heel and galling chains with which the faculty of the average +American high school enthralls and degrades—and so forth, world without +end.</p> + +<p>This at least was Clare Lenwell's attitude from one o'clock <span class="smcap">P.M.</span> to five +o'clock <span class="smcap">P.M.</span> of an unusually hot June day. At the stroke of five Jerry +rose, with calm face, but a dangerously square chin, saying, in an +untroubled tone:</p> + +<p>"You may as well go. Good afternoon."</p> + +<p>Young Lenwell walked out, the cock of the hour—until the next morning. +Then all of the Seniors were recorded as having received full credits +for graduation from all of the faculty—except one pupil, who lacked one +teacher's signature. Clare Lenwell was held back by Miss Swaim, teacher +of the mathematics department.</p> + +<p>The earthquake followed.</p> + +<p>In the session of the school board on the afternoon of Commencement Day +Junius Brutus Ponk, who presided over the meeting, sat "as firm as Mount +Olympus, or Montpelier, Vermont," he said, afterward; "the uncle Lenwell +suffered eruption, Vesuviously; and the third man of us just cowed down, +and shriveled up, and tried to slip out in the hole where the +electric-light wire comes through the wall. But I fetched him back with +a button-hook, knowin' he'd get lost in that wide passageway and his +remains never be recovered to his family."</p> + +<p>It was not, however, just a family matter now among the Lenwells. In the +presence of the superintendent and Mrs. Bahrr, Miss Swaim was called to +trial by her peers—the board of education. In this executive session, +whose proceedings were not ever to be breathed—for York Macpherson +would have the last man of them put in jail, he was that +influential—<i>Other Things Were Made Known</i>—Things that, after the +final settlement, became in time common property, and so forgotten.</p> + +<p>Herein Stellar Bahrr's three years of pent-up anger at last found vent. +She had been preparing for this event. She had adroitly set the trap for +the first difficulty, that had its start in the Lenwell family, while +she was doing their spring sewing. Incessantly and insidiously she laid +her mines and strung her wires and stored her munitions, determined to +settle once for all with the pretty, stuck-up girl who had held a whip +over her for three whole years.</p> + +<p>Charges were to be brought against Miss Swaim of a <i>serious</i> character, +and she was to be tried and condemned in <i>secret session</i> and allowed to +<i>leave</i> the town <i>quietly</i>. <i>Nothing</i> would be said <i>aloud</i> until she +was <i>gone</i>.</p> + +<p>In despair, Ponk sought York Macpherson two hours before the trial +began.</p> + +<p>"There's two against me. And no matter what I <i>say</i>, they'll outvote me. +It's the durned infernal ballot-box that's a curse to a free +government. If it wasn't for that, republics would flourish. Bein' an +uncrowned king don't keep a man from bein' a plain short-eared +jackass—and they's three of us of the same breed—two against one."</p> + +<p>York's face was gray with anger, and he clutched his fingers in his wavy +hair as if to get back the hold on himself.</p> + +<p>"You will have your trial, of course. Demand two things—that the +accused and the accusers meet face to face. It will be hard on Jerry."</p> + +<p>"Has she flinched or fell down once in three years, York Macpherson? +Ain't she stronger and handsomer to-day than she was the day I had the +honor to bring her up from the depot in that new gadabout of mine? If I +could I'd have had it framed and hung on the wall and kept, for what it +done for her."</p> + +<p>The two men looked into each other's eyes, and what each read there made +a sacred, unbreakable bond between them for all the years to come.</p> + +<p>The trial was held in the hotel parlor, behind closed doors. The charges +were vague and poorly supported by evidence, but the venom back of them +was definite. Plainly stated, a pretty, incompetent girl had come West +<i>for some reason</i> never made clear to New Eden. Come as an heiress in +"style and stuckuppitude of manner" (that was Stellar Bahrr's phrasing); +had suddenly become poor and dependent on the good-will of J. B. Ponk, +who had fought to the bitter end to give her "a place on the town +pay-roll and keep her there" (that was the jealous superintendent's +phrasing); and on the patronage of York Macpherson, who had really took +her in, he and his honorable sister, even if they really were the worse +"took in" of the two. At this point Ponk rapped for a better expression +of terms. The young person had tried to "run things" in the church and +schools and society. Even the superintendent himself had to be sure of +her approval before he dared to start any movement in the high school. +And no one of the preachers would invite her to unite with his church.</p> + +<p>But to the charges now:</p> + +<p>First: She had refused to let Clare Lenwell graduate who wasn't any +worse than the rest of the class.</p> + +<p>Secondly: She had a way of riding around over the country with young men +on moonlight nights on horseback. Of going, the Lord knows where, with +young men, <i>joy-riding</i> in cars, or of going alone wherever she pleased +in hired livery cars. And <i>some</i> thought she met strange men and was +acquainted with rough characters, and the moral influence of that was +awfully bad; and there was something <i>even worse</i>, if that were +possible, WORSE!</p> + +<p>Things had disappeared around town often, but in <i>the last three years</i> +especially. If folks were poor, they needed money.</p> + +<p>Then Stellar Bahrr came into the ring.</p> + +<p>Jerry had sat and listened to the proceedings as an indifferent +spectator to what could in no wise concern her. With the entrance of +Mrs. Bahrr to the witness-stand, the girl's big, dreamy eyes grew +brighter and her firm mouth was set, but no mark of anxiety showed +itself in her face or manner.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bahrr whined a bit as to wishing only to do the right thing, but +her steel-pointed eyes, as she fixed them in Jerry, wrote as with a +stylus across the girl's understanding:</p> + +<p>"You are hopelessly in the minority. Now I can say what I please."</p> + +<p>What Mrs. Bahrr really knew, of course, she couldn't swear to in any +court, because of Laura and York Macpherson. She wouldn't shame them, +because they had befriended a fraud, all with good intentions. She only +came now because she'd been promised protection by the board from what +folks would say, and she was speaking what must <i>never</i> be repeated.</p> + +<p>"Most of us need that kind of protection when you are around," Ponk +declared, vehemently, knowing that, while the school board would keep +her words sacred, nothing said or done in that trial would be held +sacred by her as soon as the decision she wished for was reached.</p> + +<p>Stellar, feeling herself safe, paid no heed to Ponk. What she really +knew was that a certain young lady had been known to take money from her +hostess and, being caught, had been forced to give it up. Stellar +herself saw and heard the whole thing when it happened. Laura had told +her about the matter, and then, when she was just leaving, Jerry had +returned the money. She was right outside of the vines on the porch, and +she knew. Stellar knew that dollars and dollars, jewelry, silverware, +and other valuables had been taken, and some of them never restored; but +some was sneaked back when the pressure got too strong. In a word, +through much talk and little sense, Miss Geraldine Swaim was branded a +high-toned thief. And worse than that. For three years strange men had +slipped to the Macpherson home when the folks were away, and been let +out by the side door. Real low-down-looking fellows. Stellar had seen +them herself. She had a way of running 'cross lots up to Laury's +evenings, and <i>she knew</i> what she was talking about. Stellar dropped her +eyes now, not caring to look at Jerry. Her blow had hit home and she was +exultant.</p> + +<p>"Has the young lady anything to say?" Lenwell of the school board asked, +feeling a twinge of pity, after all, because the case was even stronger +than he had hoped it could be made.</p> + +<p>Jerry looked over at Stellar Bahrr until she was forced to lift her eyes +to the girl's face.</p> + +<p>"I cannot understand the degree of hate that can be developed in a human +mind," she said, calmly. "That is all I have to say."</p> + +<p>Junius Brutus Ponk's round face seemed to blacken like a Kansas sky +before the coming of a hail-storm. Lenwell gave a snort of triumph, and +the third member of the board grinned.</p> + +<p>At that moment the door of the hotel parlor opened. Jerry, who sat +opposite to it, caught sight of York Macpherson in the hall. And York +saw her, calm and brave, in what he read, in the instant, was defeat for +her. Before her were dismissal, failure, and homelessness. But neither +he nor any one else dreamed how far the influence of those Sunday +afternoons of "calling on mother," with the fat little hotel-keeper, had +led this girl into a "trust in every time of trouble," and she faced her +future bravely.</p> + +<p>It was not York Macpherson, but the little, fuzzy, shabby figure of old +Fishin' Teddy who shuffled inside and closed the door, demanding in a +quavering squeak to be heard.</p> + +<p>Ponk gave a start of surprise; Lenwell was annoyed; the third man was +indifferent now, being safe, anyhow. Stellar Bahrr and the +superintendent stared in amazement, but Jerry's face was wonderful to +see.</p> + +<p>"'Ain't I got a right to say a word here, gentlemen?" old Teddy asked, +looking at Ponk.</p> + +<p>"If it's on the subject of this meeting, yes. If it's anything about +fish, either in the Sage Brush or in Kingussie Creek, no. This really +ain't no place for fish stories. We're overstocked with 'em right now, +till this hotel and gurrage will have a 'ancient and a fishlike smell' +as the Good Book says, for a generation."</p> + +<p>"I just got wind of what was on up here. A man from your town come down +to see me on business, an' he bringed me up."</p> + +<p>"York Macpherson's the only man I ever knew had business with old Teddy. +Lord be praised!" Ponk thought.</p> + +<p>"I got a little testimony myself to offer here, for the one that's bein' +blackmailed. I'll tell it fast as I can," Teddy declared.</p> + +<p>"Take your time an' get it straight. None of us is in a hurry now," Ponk +assured him.</p> + +<p>Then the Teddy Bear, without looking at Jerry, gave testimony:</p> + +<p>"Back in Pennsylvany, where I come from, in the Winnowoc country, I +knowed Jim Swaim, this young lady's father. I wasn't no fisherman then. +I was a hard-workin', well-meanin', honest man. My name was Hans +Theodore—and somethin' else I have no use for since I come to the Sage +Brush in Kansas."</p> + +<p>He hesitated and looked down at his scaly brown paws and shabby clothes.</p> + +<p>"I ain't telling this 'cause I want to, but 'cause I want to do justice +to Jim Swaim's girl. Jim was my friend an' helped me a lot of ways. He +was a hard-fisted business man, but awfully human with human bein's; an' +his daughter's jes' like him, seems to me."</p> + +<p>Jerry's cheeks were swept with the bloom of "Eden" roses as she sat with +her eyes fixed on the old man. To her in that moment came a vision of +Uncle Cornie in the rose-arbor when the colorless old man had pleaded +with her to become as her father had been.</p> + +<p>"I got into trouble back there. This is a secret session, hain't it?" +The old man hesitated again.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dead secret," Ponk assured him. "Nothin' told outside of here +before it's first told inside, which is unusual in such secret +proceedings, so you are among friends. Go on."</p> + +<p>Stellar Bahrr sat with her eyes piercing the old man like daggers, while +his own faded yellow-brown eyes drooped with a sorrowful expression.</p> + +<p>"I won't say how it happened, but I got mixed up in some stealin' +scrape—that's why I changed my name or, ruther, left off the last of +it. I'd gone to the Pen—though ever' scrap I ever stole, or its money +value, was actually returned to them that had lost it. Jim Swaim stood +by me, helpin' me through, an' I paid him as I earnt it. Then he give me +money to get started here, an' befriended me every way, just 'cause it +was in him. I've lived out here on the Sage Brush alone 'cause I ain't +fit to live with folks. But when the old <i>mainy</i>, as you say of crazy +folk, comes, why, things is missin' up in town. They land in my shack +sometimes, an' sometimes I'm honest enough to bring 'em back when I can +do it. I'm the one that hangs around in the shadders, an' if you ketch +sight of strange men at side doors, Mrs. Bahrr, it's me. An' when this +Jerry Swaim (I knowed her when she was a baby; I carried her in my arms +'cross the Winnowoc once, time of a big flood up in Pennsylvany)—when +her purseful of money was stole, three years ago, an' she comes down to +my shack and finds it all there, why, she done by me then jus' like her +own daddy 'd 'a' done, she never told on me at all. An' she hain't told +all these years, and wa'n't goin' to tell on me now. I don't know what +you mean 'bout these stories on her. She never done nothin' to be +ashamed of in her life. 'Tain't in her family to be ashamed. They dunno +how. If they's blame for stealin' in New Eden, though, jus' lay it on +old Fishin' Teddy. You 'quit her now."</p> + +<p>The old man's voice quavered as he squeaked out his words, and he +shuffled aside, to be less in evidence in the parlor, where he had for +the one time in his life been briefly the central figure.</p> + +<p>The silence that followed his words was broken by Jerry's clear, low +voice. Her face was beautiful in the soft light there. To Ponk she had +never seemed so adorable before, not even on still Sabbath afternoons in +the quiet corner of the cemetery where they talked as friends of +mother-love and God, and Life after life.</p> + +<p>"Friends, this old hermit fisherman is telling you a falsehood to try to +shield me because of some favor my father showed him in the years gone +by. If he is not willing to say more, to tell you the real truth, he +will force me to say to you that I am the guilty one after all. I cannot +let him make such a sacrifice for me."</p> + +<p>She spoke as though she were explaining the necessity for changing cars +in Chicago in order to reach Montreal. Old Fishin' Teddy lifted his +clubby brown hands in protest.</p> + +<p>"'Tain't so, an' 'tain't right," he managed to make the words come +out—thin and trembling words, shaking like palsied things.</p> + +<p>"No, it isn't so, and it isn't right, and he must not bear a disgrace he +doesn't deserve. I'll do it for him," Jerry said, smiling upon the +shabby old man—a common grub of the Sage Brush Valley.</p> + +<p>There is nothing grander in human history, nothing which can more deeply +touch the common human heart of us all, than the lesson of +self-sacrifice taught on Mount Calvary. From the thief on the cross, +down through all the centuries, has the blessed power of that Spirit +softened the hearts of evil-doers, great or small. Jerry had not once +turned toward Stellar Bahrr since the entrance of Fishin' Teddy. When +she had ceased speaking, the silence of the room was broken by the town +busybody's whining tone:</p> + +<p>"They ain't neither one of 'em a thief, Mr. Ponk. It's me. They sha'n't +do no such sacrificing thing."</p> + +<p>The silence of the moment before was a shout compared to the dead +silence now.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's me. I was born that way, an' it just seems I can't help it. +I've done all the liftin', I guess, that's been done in this town +a'most—'tain't so much, of course; but I ain't mean clear through, an' +I jus' wouldn't ever rest in my grave if I don't speak now. I thought +I'd always hide it, but I know I never will."</p> + +<p>Old Teddy shrank back in a heap on his chair, while all of the rest +except Jerry Swaim sat as if thunderstruck.</p> + +<p>"I'm goin' clear through with it, now I've begun. Maybe I'll be a better +woman if I am disgraced forever by it." Mrs. Bahrr's voice grew steadier +and her eyes were fixed on the ground.</p> + +<p>"Hans Theodore—the last part of his name is Bahrr—he's my husband. It +was for my sins that he left Pennsylvany. Jim Swaim saved us from a lot +of disgrace, and persuaded us to come West an' start over, an' helped us +a lot. I couldn't break myself of wrong-doing just by changing climate, +though. We tried Indiany first an' failed, then we come to S'liny, +Kansas, next an' then we come on here. An' at last Theodore give me up +an' went off alone an' changed his name. Mr. Lenwell's folks here is +distant relatives, but they never would 'a' knowed Theodore. Didn't know +he'd never got a divorce, and never stop supportin' me; like he'd said +when we was married, he'd 'keep me unto death,' you know; and he'd come +to see me once in a while, to be sure I wasn't needin' nothin'. I jus' +worked along at one thing or another, an' Teddy earnt money an' paid it +in to York Macpherson, like a pension, an' he paid me, York did. But +Teddy wouldn't never live with me, though he never told York why. An' +when I took things—"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bahrr paused and looked at Jerry deprecatingly.</p> + +<p>"Like that silver cup I saw down at the deep hole?" Jerry asked, +encouragingly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, like that. I seen you down there that day. I was the woman that +passed your car—"</p> + +<p>"I know it," Jerry said, "I remember your sunbonnet and gray-green +dress. I've often seen both since."</p> + +<p>"Yes, an' you remember, too, the time I come out on the porch sudden when +you first come here, an' made you promise not to tell." Mrs. Bahrr's +voice quavered now.</p> + +<p>"An' 'cause I knowed Teddy'd bring that right back to Macpherson's and +you'd remember it, an' 'cause you were Jim Swaim's child that knowed my +fault an' made me do what I didn't want to do, even if I was in the +wrong, I hated you an' vowed to myself I'd fix you. It was me slipped +into your room an' stuck Laury's purse into your beaded hand-bag, an' it +was me took your roll of money from your own purse. Teddy took it away, +though, that very night. Teddy he'd take whatever I picked up an' +pretend he'd sell it, but he'd git it back to 'em some way if he could; +an' he's saved an' sold fish an' lived a hermit life an' never told on +me. He's slipped up to town to git me to put back or let him put back +what I was tempted to pilfer, 'cause it seemed I just couldn't help it. +York's been awful patient with me, too. But I can't set here an' be a +woman and see Teddy shieldin' me, a hypocrite, an' her shieldin' him, +an' not tellin' on me, like wimmen does on wimmen generally, an' not +make a clean breast of it. An' if you'll not tell on me, an' all help +me, I'll jus' try once more—"</p> + +<p>"Won't anything go out of this room except what you tell yourself, +Stellar Bahrr," Ponk said, gravely. "Now you go home an' begin to act +better and think better, an' this'll be a heap cleaner town forever +after. An' if you live right the rest of your days you 'll keep on +livin' after you're dead, like mother does. The charges of this case is +all settled. I congratulate you, Miss Fair Defendant. You are a Joan of +Arc, an' a Hannah Dustin, an Boaz's Ruth, an' Barbara Fritchie, all in +one."</p> + +<p>While the other two members of the board were shamefacedly shaking hands +and offering Jerry half of New Eden as a recompense, old Fishin' Teddy +slipped out of the side door through the dining-room and on to where +Ponk's best livery car waited to take him to his rude shack beside the +deep hole in the Sage Brush.</p> + +<p>As Jerry passed into the hall she found a crowd waiting for her—the +three ministers from the churches, the mayor of New Eden, the friends of +the Macphersons, York himself, and many more of the town's best, who had +gathered to congratulate Jerry and to assure her of their pride in her +ability and appreciation of her as a citizen of New Eden.</p> + +<p>With the Commencement that night the school fuss and town split +disappeared at one breath and passed into history.</p> + +<p>When they reached the doorway of "Castle Cluny," after the Commencement +exercises, York handed Jerry a letter. It was a long and affectionately +worded message from Eugene Wellington, telling of the passing of Jerusha +Darby, of his inheritance, and of his intention to come at once to +Kansas and take her back to the "Eden" she had neglected so long.</p> + +<p>And Jerry, worn with the events of the last few weeks, feeling the +strain suddenly lifted, welcomed the letter and shed a tear upon it, +saying, softly:</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so tired of everything now! If he comes for me, he'll find me +ready to meet him. The flesh-pots of the Winnowoc are better to me than +this weary desert."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Came an evening three days before the date for the lease on the Swaim +land to expire. Jerry sat alone on the Macpherson porch. It had been an +extremely hot day for June, with the dead, tasteless air that presages +the coming of a storm, and to-night the moon seemed to struggle up +toward the zenith against choking gray clouds that threatened to smother +out its light.</p> + +<p>Jerry was not happy to-night. She wanted Joe Thomson to come this +evening. It had been such a long while since he had had time to leave +the ranch for an evening with her.</p> + +<p>And with the wishing Joe came. With firm step and the face of a victor +he came. From his dark eyes hope and tenderness were looking out.</p> + +<p>"I haven't seen you for ages, and ages are awfully long, you know," +Jerry declared.</p> + +<p>"I've been very busy," Joe replied. "You know you can't break the laws +of the ranch and expect a harvest, any more than you can break the laws +of geometry and depend on results. I would have been up sooner, though, +but for one thing: a fellow on the ranch above mine who got hurt once +with a mowing-machine had another accident and I've been helping the +owner, that stout-hearted little Norwegian girl, Thelma Ekblad, to take +care of their crops, too. Thelma is a courageous soul who has worked her +way through the university, and she is a mighty capable girl, too. She +would be a splendid success as a teacher, she is so well trained, but +her family need her, and all of us down there need her."</p> + +<p>Jerry caught her breath. It was the first time in three years that Joe +had ever mentioned any girl with interest. But now this was all right +and just as things should be. A neighbor, a capable Western girl—women +see far, after all, and Jerry's romance had not been a foolish one.</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Joe, but I have been wanting to see you"—the old "I +want" as imperative again to-night as in the days when all of this +girl's wants had been met by the mere expression of them.</p> + +<p>"And I'm always wanting to see you, and never so much as to-night," Joe +began, earnestly.</p> + +<p>"Let me tell you first why I have wanted to see you once more," Jerry +broke in, hastily.</p> + +<p>In the dull light her dreamy dark-blue eyes and her golden hair falling +away from her white brow left an imprint that Joe Thomson's mind kept +henceforth; at the same time that "once more" cut a deeper wound than +Jerry could know.</p> + +<p>"My aunt Jerry Darby is dead." The girl's voice was very low. "I can't +grieve for her, for she was old and tired of life and unhappy. You +remember I told you about her one night here three years ago."</p> + +<p>Joe did remember.</p> + +<p>"She left all her fortune to Cousin Gene Wellington."</p> + +<p>"The artist who turned out to be a bank clerk?" Joe asked. "I really +always doubted that story."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but, you know, he did it to please Aunt Jerry. Think of a +sacrifice like that! Giving up one's dearest life-work!"</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking of it. Excuse me. Go on," Joe said.</p> + +<p>Jerry lifted her big dreamy eyes. The sparkle was gone and only the soft +light of romance illumined them now.</p> + +<p>"Gene is coming out to see me soon. I look for him any day. Everything +is all settled about the property, and everything is going to be all +right, after all, I am sure. And I'm so tired of teaching." Jerry broke +off suddenly.</p> + +<p>"But, oh, Joe," she began presently, "you will never, never know how +much your comradeship has helped me through these three trying years of +hard work and hopelessness. We have been only friends, of course, and +you are such a good, helpful kind of a friend. I never could have gotten +through without you."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, the pleasure is mine. I—I think I must go now."</p> + +<p>Joe rose suddenly and started to leave the porch. In an instant the very +earth had slidden out from under his feet. The memory of York +Macpherson's warning swept across his mind as the blowout sands sweep +over the green prairie. And he had come to say such different words +to-night. He had reached the end of a long, heart-breaking warfare with +nature and he had won. And now a new warfare broke forth in his soul.</p> + +<p>At that moment a sudden boom of thunder crashed out of the horizon and +all the lightnings of the heavens were unleashed, while a swirling +dust-deluge filled the darkening air. Jerry sprang forward, clutching +Joe's arm with her slender fingers.</p> + +<p>"The storm will be here in a minute," she cried, "You must not leave +now. You mustn't face this wind. Look at that awful black cloud and see +how fast it is coming on. I don't want you to go away. Where can you +go?"</p> + +<p>But Joe only shook off her grip, saying, hoarsely:</p> + +<p>"I'm going down the Sage Brush. If you ever want me again, you'll find +me beyond the blowout."</p> + +<p>The word struck like a blow. For three years Jerry had not heard it +spoken. It was the one term forever dropped from her vocabulary. All who +loved her must forget its very existence.</p> + +<p>There was a sudden dead calm in the hot yellow air; a moment of +gathering forces before the storm would burst upon the town.</p> + +<p>"If you ever see me beyond that blowout, you'll know that I do want +you," Jerry said, slowly.</p> + +<p>In the blue lightning glare that followed, her white face and big dark +eyes recalled to Joe Thomson's mind the moment, so long ago now, it +seemed, when Jerry had first looked out at the desert from under the +bough of the oak-grove.</p> + +<p>During the prolonged, terrific burst of thunder that followed, the young +ranchman strode away and the darkness swallowed his stalwart form as the +worst storm the Sage Brush country had ever known broke furiously upon +the whole valley.</p> + +<p>And out on the porch steps stood a girl conscious, not of the +storm-wind, nor the beating rain, nor cleaving lightning; conscious only +that something had suddenly gone out of her life into the blackness +whither Joe Thomson had gone; and with the heartache of the loss of the +moment was a strange resentment toward a brave-hearted little Norwegian +girl—a harvest-hand with a crippled brother, an adopted baby, and a +university education.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII</h2> + +<h3>THE LORD HATH HIS WAY IN THE STORM</h3> + + +<p>Laura Macpherson sat on the porch, watching her brother coming slowly up +the street, seemingly as oblivious to the splendor of the sunset +to-night as he had been on a June evening three summers ago.</p> + +<p>"That was the worst cloudburst I ever heard of out here," he declared, +when he reached the porch. "Every man in town who could carry a shovel +has been out all day, up-stream or down-stream, helping to dig out the +bottomland farms. I've been clear to the upper Sage Brush, doing a stunt +or two myself. I left my muddy boots and overalls at the office so that +I wouldn't be smearing up your old Castle here."</p> + +<p>Even in the smallest things York's thoughts were for his crippled +sister.</p> + +<p>"There's a lot of wild stories out about buildings being swept away and +lives being lost, here and there in the valley. You needn't believe all +of them until your trustworthy brother confirms them for you, little +sister. Such events have their tragedies, but the first estimate is +always oversize."</p> + +<p>"Even if your Big Dipper tells me, shall I wait for your confirmation?" +Laura inquired, blandly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Laura, I'm going to cut out all that astronomical business now, +even if I always did know that the right way to pronounce the name Bahrr +is plain Bear, however much you have to stutter to spell it. Stellar has +been, as the Methodists say, 'redeemed and washed in the blood of the +Lamb.' I'm taking her in on probation, myself, and if she sticks it out +for six months I'll take her into full membership."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, York?" Laura inquired.</p> + +<p>"I mean that since they settled the school row in secret session, Mrs. +Bahrr has been as different a woman as one can be who has let the habit +of evil thinking become a taskmaster. I've never told you that her +husband is still living, a shabby old fellow who gives me money for her +support as fast as he can earn it, but he won't live with her. She flies +from hat-trimming to sewing and baking and nursing and back to sewing, +and she never earns much anywhere, and works up trouble just for pure +cussedness. But to-day she went to the upper Sage Brush to help old Mrs. +Poser. The Posers were nearly washed away, and the old lady is sick and +lonely and almost helpless. She needs somebody to stay with her. Yes, +Stellar is really becoming a star—a plain, homely planet, doing a +good-angel line where she's most useful. We'll let the past stay where +it belongs, and count her reclaimed to better things now."</p> + +<p>"Amen! And what about the valley down-stream? It must be worse, because +the storm came up from that way," Laura declared.</p> + +<p>"There are plenty of rumors, but I haven't heard anything definite yet, +for I just got here, you know, and, as I telephoned you, found Mr. +Wellington had registered at Ponk's inn. The traveling-men who were on +the branch line have brought the first word to town to-day. The train is +stuck somewhere down the valley, and the tracks, for the most part, are +at the bottom of the Sage Brush. There are washouts all along the +road-bed, and the passengers have been hauled up the stream, across +fields, and every other way, except by the regular route. No automobile +can travel the trail now, so our Philadelphia gentleman arrives a good +bit disgusted with this bloomin' Western country, don't you know; and +sore from miles of jolting; and hungry; and sort of mussy-looking for a +banker; but cocksure of a welcome and of the power to bring salvation to +one of us at least."</p> + +<p>York dropped down on the porch step with a frown, flinging aside his hat +and thrusting his fingers savagely into his heavy hair.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well!" he exclaimed, dejectedly. "There's been a three years' +running fight between Jim Swaim's determined chin and Lesa's tender +eyes. I had hoped to the Lord that Jim would win the day, but that +whirlwind campaign of pleading and luxury-tempting letters came just at +the end of a hard year's work in the high school, with all that infernal +fuss in the Senior class, splitting the town open for a month and being +forgotten in an hour, and the jealousy toward the best teacher we've +ever had here, etcetera. So the '<i>eyes</i>' seem to have it. If there were +no ladies present," York added, with a half-smile, "I'd feel free to +express my lordly judgment of the whole damned sex."</p> + +<p>"Don't hesitate, Yorick; a little cussing might ease your liver," Laura +declared, surprised and amused at her brother's unexpected vehemence of +feeling.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing in the English language, as she is cussed, to do the +subject justice, but I might practise a few minutes at least," York +began.</p> + +<p>"Hush, York! That is Mr. Eugene Wellington coming yonder. I'll call +Jerry. Poor Joe!" Laura added, pityingly. "I have a feeling he is the +real sufferer here."</p> + +<p>"Yes, poor Joe!" York echoed, sadly. "Ponk will just soar above his +hurt, but men of Joe's dogged make-up die a thousand deaths when they do +die."</p> + +<p>Lesa Swaim's daughter was gloriously beautiful to Eugene Wellington's +artistic eyes as he sat beside her on the porch on this beautiful +evening. And Eugene himself held a charm in his very presence. All the +memories of the young years of culture and ease; all the daintiness of +perfect dress and perfect manners; all the assurance that a vague, sweet +dream was becoming real; all the sense of a struggle for a livelihood +now ended; all the breaking of the grip of stern duty, and an unbending +pride in a clear conscience, although their rewards had been inspiringly +sweet—all these seemed to Jerry Swaim to lift her suddenly and +completely into the real life from which these three busy, strange years +had taken her. Oh, she had been only waiting, after all. Nothing +mattered any more. Eugene and she had looked at duty differently. That +was all. He was here now, here for her sake. Henceforth his people were +to be her people—his God her God. Uncle Cornie was wise when he said of +Eugene: "He comes nearer to what you've been dreaming about." He seemed +not so much a lover as a fulfilment of a craving for love.</p> + +<p>The first sweet moment of meeting was over. Her future, their future, +shrouded only by a rose-hued mist, beyond which lay light and ease, was +waiting now for them to enter upon. In this idyllic hour Geraldine, +daughter of Lesa Swaim, had come to the very zenith of life's romance.</p> + +<p>"It has been a cruel three years, Jerry," Eugene was saying, as, their +first greetings over, he lighted a cigarette and adjusted himself +picturesquely and easefully in York Macpherson's big porch chair—a +handsome, perfectly groomed, artistic fellow, he appeared fitted as +never before to adorn life's ornamental places.</p> + +<p>"But they are past now. You won't have to teach any more, little cousin +o' mine. York Macpherson says your land lease expires to-day. So your +business transactions here are over, and we'll just throw that ground in +the river and forget it."</p> + +<p>He might have taken the girl's hand in his as they sat together, but +instead he clasped his own hands gracefully and studied their fine +outlines.</p> + +<p>"I have all the Darby estate in my own name now, you know, and I didn't +have to work a stroke at earning it. God! I wonder how a fellow can +stand it to work for every dollar he gets until he is comfortably fixed. +I simply filled in my banking-hours in a perfunctory way, and I didn't +kill myself at it, either. See what I have saved by it for myself and +you, and how much better my course was than yours, after all. Just three +years of waiting, and dodging all the drudgery I possibly could. And you +can just bet I'm a good dodger, Jerry."</p> + +<p>Something like a chill went quivering through Jerry Swaim's whole being, +but the smile in her eyes seemed fixed there, as Eugene went on:</p> + +<p>"Now if I had stuck to art, where would I have been and where would you +be right now? I've always wanted to paint the prairies. If I can stand +this blasted, crude country long enough, and if I'm not too lazy, we'll +play around here a little while, till I have smeared up a few canvases, +and then we'll go home, never to return, dear. Art is going to be my +pastime hereafter, you know, as it was once my—my—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind what it once was." Jerry helped to end the sentence.</p> + +<p>The sunset on the Sage Brush was never more radiantly beautiful than it +was on this evening, and the long midsummer twilight gave promise of its +rarest grandeur of coloring. But a dull veil seemed to be slowly +dropping down upon Jerry's world.</p> + +<p>Eugene Wellington looked at her keenly.</p> + +<p>"Why, Jerry, aren't you happy to see me—glad for us to be together +again?" he asked, with just a tinge of sharpness edging his tones.</p> + +<p>"I have looked forward to this meeting as a dream, an impossible joy. I +hardly realize yet that it isn't a dream any more," Jerry answered him.</p> + +<p>"Say, cousin girl," Eugene Wellington exclaimed, suddenly, "I have been +trying all this time to find out what it is that is changed in your +face. Now I know. You have grown to look so much more like your father +than you did three years ago. Better looking, of course, but his face, +and I never noticed it before. Only you will always have your mother's +beautiful eyes."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Gene. They were, each in his and her way, good to me. I hope +I shall never put a stain upon their good names," Jerry murmured, +wondering strangely whether the feeling that gripped her at the moment +could be joy or sorrow.</p> + +<p>"They didn't leave you much of an inheritance. That's the only thing +that could be said against them. My father was partly to blame for that, +I guess, but I never had the courage to tell you so till now. You know +courage and Eugene Wellington never got on well together." Somehow his +words seemed to rattle harshly against Jerry's ears. "You know, my dad, +John Wellington, came out here to this very forsaken Sage Brush Valley +somewhere and started in to be a millionaire himself on short notice, +by the short-cut plan of finance. When the thing began to look like work +he threw up the whole blamed concern, just as I would have done. Work +never was a strong element in the Wellington blood, any more than +courage, you know." Gene stopped to light another cigarette. Then he +went on: "Well, after that, dad clung close to Jim Swaim and Uncle Darby +till he died. I guess, if the truth were told, he helped most to tear +your father down financially. He could do that kind of thing, I know. +Jim Swaim spent thousands stopping the cracks after dad, to save the +good name of Wellington for his daughter to wear—as your mother always +hoped you would, because I was an artist then. You see, Mrs. Swaim loved +art—and, as Aunt Darby always insisted (that was before you ran away +from her), because it would keep her money and Uncle Darby's all in the +family. That's why I'm so glad to bring all this fortune that I do to +you now. I'm just making up to you what your father lost through mine, +you see, and it came to me so easily, without my having to grub for it. +Just pleasing Aunt Darby and taking a soft snap of clerical work, with +short hours and good pay, instead of toiling at painting, even if I do +love the old palette and brush. And I used to think I'd rather do that +sort of thing than anything else in the world."</p> + +<p>Jerry's eyes were fixed on the young artist's face with a gaze that +troubled him.</p> + +<p>"Don't stare at me that way, Jerry. That isn't the picture I want you to +pose for when I paint your portrait, Saint Geraldine. Now listen," +Eugene continued. "Your York Macpherson was East this spring, and he +told me that that wild-goose chase of dad's out here had left a desert +behind him. He said a poor devil of a fellow had fought for years +against the sand that dad sowed (I don't know how he did the sowing), +till it ate up about all this poor wretch had ever had. The unfortunate +cuss! York tried to tell Aunt Darby (but I headed him off successfully) +that dad started a thing that became what they call a 'blowout' here. +York Macpherson wanted to put up a big spiel to her about justice to you +and some other folks—this poor critter who got sanded over, maybe. But +it didn't move me one mite, and I didn't let it get by to Aunt Jerry's +ears, although I half-way promised York I would, to get rid of the thing +the easiest way, for that's my way, you know. Did you ever see such a +precious thing as a 'blowout' here, Jerry?"</p> + +<p>Jerry's face was white and her eyes burned blue-black now with a steady +glow. "Never, till to-night," she said, slowly. "I never dreamed till +now how barren a thing a lust for property can create."</p> + +<p>Gene Wellington dropped his cigarette stub and stared a moment. He did +not grasp her meaning at all, but her voice was not so pleasant, now, as +her merry laugh and soft words had been three years ago.</p> + +<p>"By the way, coming up to-day, I heard of a dramatic situation. I think +I'll hunt up the local color for a canvas for it," Eugene began, by way +of changing the theme. "You know you had a horribly rotten storm of +thunder and lightning and wind, and a cloudburst down the river valley +where our train was stuck in the mud, and the tracks were all lost in +the sand-drift and other vile debris. Well, coming up here from the +derailed train, some one said that the young fellow who had leased that +land, or owned the land, that is just above the sand-line, the poor +devil who had such a struggle, you know—well, he was lost when the +river overflowed its banks. But somebody else said he might be marooned, +half starved, on an island of sand out in the river, waiting for the +flood to go down. The roads are just impassable around there, so they +can't get in to see what has become of him. His house was washed away, +it seems—I saw a part of it in the river—but nobody knows where he is. +Hard luck, wasn't it? I know you'll be glad to leave this God-forsaken +country, won't you, dearie? How you ever stood it for three whole years +I can't comprehend. Only you always were the bravest girl I ever knew. +Just as soon as I paint a few of its drearinesses we'll be leaving it +forever. What's the matter?"</p> + +<p>Jerry Swaim had sprung to her feet and was standing, white and silent, +staring at her companion with wide-open, burning eyes. Against all the +culture and idle ease of her trivial, purposeless years were matched +these three times twelve months of industry and purpose that came at a +price, with the comradeship of one who had met life's foes and +vanquished them, who earned his increase, and served and sacrificed.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Jerry?" Gene repeated. "Did I shock you? It is a +tragical sort of story, I know, but you used to love the romantic and +adventurous. Every big storm, and every flood, has such incidents. I +never remember them a minute, except the storm that took Uncle Cornie +and left me a fortune. They are so unpleasant. But there is a touch of +romance in this for you. They told me that a young Norwegian girl down +there was moving heaven and earth to find this poor lost devil, because +he had been so good to her always and had helped her when her brother +was badly hurt. I guess her brother went down-stream, bottom side up, +too. See the drift of it all? The time, the place, and the girl—there's +your romance, Cousin Jerry, only the actors are terribly common, you +know."</p> + +<p>Who can forecast the trend of the human heart? Three days ago Jerry had +thought complacently of the convenience of this stout little Thelma for +Joe's future comfort. Now the thought that Thelma had seen him last, had +caught the last word, the last brave look, smote her heart with +anguish.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't anybody know where Joe is?" she cried, wringing her hands.</p> + +<p>"I don't know if his name is Joe. I don't know if anybody knows where he +is. I really don't care a sou about it all, Jerry." Gene drawled his +words intentionally. "The roads are awful down that way. They nearly +bumped me to pieces coming up, hours and hours, it seemed, in a wagon, +where a decent highway and an automobile would have brought me in such a +short time. It would be hard to find this Joe creature, dead or alive. +Let's talk about something more artistic."</p> + +<p>"Gene, I can't talk now. I can't stay here a minute longer. I <i>must</i> go +and find this man. I must! I must!"</p> + +<p>In the frenzy of that moment, the strength of character in Jerry's face +made it wonderful to see.</p> + +<p>"Jerry!" Eugene Wellington exclaimed, emphatically. "You perfectly shock +me! This horrid country has almost destroyed your culture. Go and find +this man—"</p> + +<p>But Jerry was already hurrying up the street toward Ponk's Commercial +Hotel and Garage.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Miss Swaim, you can't never get by in a car down there," Ponk was +urging, five minutes later. "I know you can drive like—like you can +work algebra, logyruthms, and never slip a cog. But you'll never get +down the Sage Brush that far to-night. If them Norwegians on beyond the +ranch yon side of the big bend 'ain't done nothing, you just can't. The +Ekblads and the other neighbors will do all a body can, especially +Thelmy. The river's clear changed its channel an' you could run a car up +to the top of Bunker Hill Monument, back in New Hampshire, easier than +you could cut the gullies an' hit the levels of the lower Sage Brush +trail after this flood."</p> + +<p>"Get the car ready quick. <i>I want to go</i>," Jerry commanded, and Ponk +obeyed. A minute later a gray streak whizzed by the Macpherson home, +where Eugene Wellington stood on the porch staring in speechless +amazement.</p> + +<p>"Bless her heart!" he ejaculated, at length. "She is self-willed like +her dad. Aunt Darby always told me I'd have to manage her with gloves +on, but not to forget to manage her, anyhow."</p> + +<p>He strolled back to the Commercial Hotel, where the best-natured man in +Kansas lay in wait for him.</p> + +<p>"You're in early. Have a real cigar—a regular Havany-de-Cuby—off of +me. An' take a smoke out here where it's cool."</p> + +<p>Eugene took the proffered cigar and the seat on the side porch of the +hotel that commanded a view of the street clear to "Castle Cluny."</p> + +<p>"Town's pretty quiet this evenin'. All the men are gone up-stream or +down, to see if they can help in the storm region. Every store shut up +tight as wax. Three preachers, station-agent, the three movie men—gone +with the rest. We are a sympathetic bunch out here, an' rather quick to +get the S O S signal and respond noble."</p> + +<p>"So it seems," Eugene replied, wondering the while how he should be able +to kill the time till Jerry's return, resolving not to tarry here to +paint a single canvas. The sooner Geraldine Swaim was out of Kansas the +better for her perverted sense of the esthetic, and the safer for her +happiness—and his own.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Ponk was going on to say, "everybody helps. Why, I just now let +out the pride of the gurrage to a young lady. She's just heard that a +man she knows well is lost or marooned on a island in the floods of the +Sage Brush. And if anybody'll ever save him, she will. She's been doin' +impossible things here for three years, and the town just worships her."</p> + +<p>"I should think it would," Eugene Wellington said, with a sarcasm in his +tone.</p> + +<p>"It does," Ponk assured him. "She's the real stuff—even mother, out +yonder, loves her."</p> + +<p>The little man's face was turned momentarily toward the hill-slope +cemetery beyond the town. "And when a girl like that comes to me for my +fastest-powered car to go where no car can't go, for the sake of as good +a man as ever lived on earth, a man she's been <i>comrading</i> with for +three years, and with that look in her fine eyes, they's no mistakin' to +any sensible man on God's earth why she's doin' it."</p> + +<p>"If my room is ready I'll go to it," Eugene broke in, curtly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Georgette, call George to take the gentleman to number seven, an' +put him to bed."</p> + +<p>Then the little keeper of the Commercial Hotel and Garage turned toward +the street again, and his full-moon face went into a total eclipse. But +what lay back of that shadow of the earth upon it no man but Junius +Brutus Ponk could know.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX</h2> + +<h3>RECLAIMED</h3> + + +<p>Down the Sage Brush trail Jerry Swaim's car swept on in spite of ruts +and gullies and narrow roadways and obstructing debris, flood-washed +across the land. But though the machine leaped and climbed and skidded +most perilously, nothing daunted the girl with a grip on the +steering-wheel. The storm-center of destruction had been at the big bend +of the river, and no hand less skilful, nor will less determined, would +have dared to drive a car as Jerry Swaim drove hers into the heart of +the Sage Brush flood-lands in the twilight of this June evening.</p> + +<p>Where the forks of the trail should have been the girl paused and looked +down the road she had followed three years before; once when she had +lost her way in her drive toward the Swaim estate; again, when she +herself was lost in the overwhelming surprise and disappointment of her +ruined acres; and lastly when she had come with Joe Thomson to recover +her stolen money from the old grub whose shack was close beside the deep +fishing-hole. The road now was all a part of the mad, overwhelming Sage +Brush hurrying its flood waters to the southeast with all its might. +Where was the flimsy little shack now, and where was the old Teddy Bear +himself? Did his shabby form lie under the swirling current of that +angry river, his heroic old heart stilled forever?</p> + +<p>A group of rescuers, muddy and tired, came around a growth of low bushes +on the higher ground toward her. All day they had been locating homeless +flood victims, rescuing stock, and dragging farm implements above the +water-line. The sight of Ponk's best car, mud-smeared and panting, +amazed them. This wasn't a place for cars. But the face of the driver +amazed them more.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's Miss Swaim, that teacher up at New Eden!" one man exclaimed.</p> + +<p>At the word, a boy, unrecognizable for the mud caking him over, leaped +forward toward Jerry's car.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing, Miss Swaim?" he cried. "You mustn't go any farther! +The river's undermined everything! Please don't go! Please don't!" he +pleaded.</p> + +<p>"Why, Clare Lenwell!" Jerry exclaimed, in surprise.</p> + +<p>"Yes. This isn't my full-dress I wore at Commencement the other night, +but I've been saving lives to-day, and feeding the hungry, too," the boy +declared, forgetting his besmeared clothing in the thought of his +service.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, Clare, where is Joe Thomson—I mean the young man whose ranch +is just below here."</p> + +<p>Clare's face couldn't go white under that mud, but Jerry saw his hand +tremble as it caught the edge of her wind-shield.</p> + +<p>"He's gone down-stream, I'm afraid. They say his home is clean gone. We +have been across the river and came over on that high bridge. I don't +know much about this side. They said Thelma Ekblad tried to save him and +nearly got lost herself. Her brother, the cripple, you know, couldn't +get away. Their house is gone now. He and the Belkap baby were given up +for lost when old Fishin' Teddy got to them some way. He knew the high +stepping-stones below the deep hole and hit them true every step. They +said he went nearly neck deep holding Paul and striking solid rock every +time. He'd lived by the river so long he knew the crossing, deep as the +flood was over it. Paul made him take the baby first, and he got out +with it, all right, and would have been safe, but he was bound to go +back for Paul, too; and he got him safe to land, where the baby was; but +I guess the effort was too much for the old fellow, and he loosed his +hold and fell back into the river before they could catch him. He saved +two lives, though, and he wasn't any use to the community, anyhow. A man +that lives alone like that never is, so it isn't much loss, after all. +But that big Joe Thomson's another matter. And he was so strong, he +could swim like a whale; but the Sage Brush got him—I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>Jerry's engine gave a great thump as she flung on all the power and +dashed away on the upper road toward Joe Thomson's ranch.</p> + +<p>"At the bend of the river you turn toward the three cottonwoods." Jerry +recalled the directions given her on her first and only journey down +this valley three years before.</p> + +<p>"Why, why, there is no bend any more!" she cried as she halted her car +and gazed in amazement and horror at the river valley where a broad, +full stream poured down a new-cut channel straight to the south.</p> + +<p>"Joe's home isn't gone at all! Yonder it stands, safe and high above the +flood-line. Oh, where did the river take Joe?" She twisted her hands in +her old quick, nervous way, and stiffened every muscle as if to keep off +a dead weight that was crushing down upon her.</p> + +<p>"He said if I wanted him he would be down beyond the blowout. I'm going +to look for him there. I don't know where else to go, and I want him."</p> + +<p>The white, determined face and firm lips bespoke Jim Swaim's own child +now. And if the speed of her car was increased, no one would ever know +that the thought of reaching her goal ahead of any possible Thelma might +be the impetus that gave the increase.</p> + +<p>"Yonder are the three cotton woods. From there I can see the oak-grove +and all of my rare old acres of sand. What beautiful wheat everywhere! +The storm seems to have hit the other side of the river as it runs now, +and left all this fine crop to Joe. But what for, if it took him?"</p> + +<p>Her quick imagination pictured possibilities too dreadful for words.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Down in the oak-grove, Joe Thomson stood leaning against a low bough, +staring out at the river valley, with the shimmering glow of the +twilight sky above it. At the soft whirring sound of an automobile he +turned, to see a gray runabout coasting down the long slope from the +three cottonwoods.</p> + +<p>"Jerry!" The glad cry broke from his lips involuntarily.</p> + +<p>Jerry did not speak. After the first instant of assurance that Joe was +alive, her eyes were not on the young ranchman, but on the landscape +beyond him. There, billow on billow of waving young wheat breaking +against the oak-wood outpost swept in from far away, where once she had +looked out on nothing but burning, restless sand, spiked here and there +by a struggling green shrub.</p> + +<p>"What has done all this?" she cried, at last.</p> + +<p>"I'm partly 'what,'" Joe Thomson replied. The shadows were on his face +again, and his loss, after that moment of glad surprise, seemed to be +doubly heavy.</p> + +<p>"But how? I don't understand. I'm dreaming. You really are here, and not +dead, are you?"</p> + +<p>"No, you are not dreaming. I only wish you were," Joe responded, +gloomily. "But no matter. Yes, I'm here. 'Part of me lived, but most of +me died,'" he muttered Kipling's line half audibly. "I subleased your +land from the Macpherson Mortgage Company three years ago. The lease +expires to-day. You remember what it was worth when you saw it before. I +shall hand it over to you now, worth thirty dollars an acre. Thirty +thousand dollars, at the very least, besides the value of the crop. I +got beyond the blowout and followed it up. I plowed and planted. Lord! +how I plowed and planted! And as with old Paul and Apollos, it was God +who gave the increase."</p> + +<p>"Joe! Oh, Joe! You are a miracle-worker!" Jerry cried.</p> + +<p>"A worker, all right, maybe. And all life is a miracle," Joe declared, +gravely.</p> + +<p>"But your own land, Joe. They told me that your house was gone and that +maybe you had gone with it, and that these roads down here were +impassable and nobody could find you."</p> + +<p>Joe came to the side of the little gray car where Jerry sat with her +white hands crossed on the steering-wheel. Her soft white gown, fitted +for a summer afternoon on the Macpherson porch, seemed far more lovely +in the evening light down by the oak-trees. Her golden hair was blown in +little ringlets about her forehead, and her dark-blue eyes—Joe wondered +if Nature ever gave such eyes to another human being!</p> + +<p>"No, Jerry, my house isn't gone. My father built it up pretty high above +the river, and I saved almost everything loose before the flood reached +my place. It was the Ekblad house that went down the river. I went over +there to help Thelma get her brother and the baby to safety on the high +ground. She had started out to warn old Fishin' Teddy, thinking her own +family was secure, and afraid he would get caught. She could not get +back to them, nor anywhere else. I saved her, all right, but when I went +back after Paul and the baby, the home and those in it were gone +down-stream. Thelma thought we were all lost. That's how the story got +started. Old Teddy is gone, but I heard later that the others are saved. +Their home wasn't worth so very much. They got most of the real +valuable things—photographs of their dead father and mother, and the +family Bible, and deeds, and a few trinkets. Other things don't count. +Money will replace them. Anyhow, York Macpherson is buying their land at +a good figure. It will give Thelma the chance she's wanted—to go to a +college town and teach botany. She will make her way and carry a name +among educators yet, and support Paul and the baby, all right, too. Did +the folks miss me and say I had gone down the river? Well, I didn't. I'm +here. And as to all this"—he waved his hand toward the wheat—"I can +net a right good bank-account for myself and I can pay off the mortgage +I put on my claim to pay the lease on yours, and for steam-plows and +such things. It has been a bumper year for wheat down here. I have +reclaimed the land from the desert. It will revert to you now—you and +your artist cousin jointly, I suppose. The river helped to finish the +work for me—found its old bed in that low sandy streak where years ago +the blowout began. It has straightened its bend for itself and got away +from that ledge below the deep hole, and left the rest of the ground, +all the upper portion of the blowout, yours and mine, covered with a +fine silt, splendid for cultivation. The blowout is dead. It took hard +work and patience and a big risk, of course, and the Lord Almighty at +last for a partner in the firm to kill it off. Your own comes back to +you now. Can I be of any further service to you?"</p> + +<p>As he stood there with folded arms beside the car, tall and rugged, with +the triumph of overcoming deep written on his sad face, the width of the +earth seemed suddenly to yawn between him and the lucky artist who had +inherited a fortune without labor.</p> + +<p>"You have done more than to reclaim this ground, Joe," Jerry exclaimed. +"Miraculous as it all is, there is a bigger desert than this, the waste +and useless desert in the human heart. You have helped to reclaim to a +better life a foolish, romancing, daring girl, with no true conception +of what makes life worth while. All the Sage Brush Valley has been good +to me. York and Laura Macpherson in their well-bred, wholesome +friendship; little Mr. Ponk in his deep love for his mother and faith in +God; even old Teddy Bear, poor lost creature, in his sublime devotion to +duty, protecting the woman he had vowed once at the marriage altar that +he would protect; and, most of all"—Jerry's voice was soft and low—"a +sturdy, brave young farmer has helped me by his respect for honest labor +and his willingness to sacrifice for others.</p> + +<p>"Joe"—Jerry spoke more softly still—"when you said good-by the other +night in the storm, you told me that if I ever wanted you I'd find you +down beyond the blowout. The word was like a blow in the face then. But +to-night I left Cousin Gene up at New Eden and came here to find you, +because <i>I want you</i>."</p> + +<p>With all of Jim Swaim's power to estimate values written in her firm +mouth and chin, but with Lesa Swaim's love of romance shining in her +dark eyes, Jerry looked up shyly at Joe. And Joe understood.</p> + + +<h3>THE END</h3> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Reclaimers, by Margaret Hill McCarter + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RECLAIMERS *** + +***** This file should be named 33959-h.htm or 33959-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/9/5/33959/ + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Roger Frank, Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: The Reclaimers + +Author: Margaret Hill McCarter + +Release Date: September 30, 2010 [EBook #33959] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RECLAIMERS *** + + + + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Roger Frank, Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + THE RECLAIMERS + + BY MARGARET HILL McCARTER + + _Author of_ "VANGUARDS OF THE PLAINS" + + + HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS + NEW YORK AND LONDON + + The Reclaimers + + Copyright, 1918, by Harper & Brothers + + Printed in the United States of America + + Published October, 1918 + + + TO + MAY BELLEVILLE BROWN + CRITIC, COUNSELLOR, COMFORTER + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PART I + +JERRY + +I. THE HEIR APPARENT + +II. UNCLE CORNIE'S THROW + +III. HITCHING THE WAGON TO A STAR + +IV. BETWEEN EDENS + +V. NEW EDEN'S PROBLEM + +VI. PARADISE LOST + + +PART II + +JERRY AND JOE + +VII. UNHITCHING THE WAGON FROM A STAR + +VIII. IF A MAN WENT RIGHT WITH HIMSELF + +IX. IF A WOMAN WENT RIGHT WITH HERSELF + +X. THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER + +XI. AN INTERLUDE IN "EDEN" + +XII. THIS SIDE OF THE RUBICON + + +PART III + +JERRY AND EUGENE--AND JOE + +XIII. HOW A GOOD MOTHER LIVES ON + +XIV. JIM SWAIM'S WISH + +XV. DRAWING OUT LEVIATHAN WITH A HOOK + +XVI. A POSTLUDE IN "EDEN" + +XVII. THE FLESH-POTS OF THE WINNWOC + +XVIII. THE LORD HATH HIS WAY IN THE STORM + +XIX. RECLAIMED + + + + +THE RECLAIMERS + + + + +I + +JERRY + + + + +I + +THE HEIR APPARENT + + +Only the good little snakes were permitted to enter the "Eden" that +belonged to Aunt Jerry and Uncle Cornie Darby. "Eden," it should be +explained, was the country estate of Mrs. Jerusha Darby--a wealthy +Philadelphian--and her husband, Cornelius Darby, a relative by marriage, +so to speak, whose sole business on earth was to guard his wife's wealth +for six hours of the day in the city, and to practise discus-throwing +out at "Eden" for two hours every evening. + +Of course these two were never familiarly "Aunt" and "Uncle" to this +country neighborhood, nor to any other community. Far, oh, far from +that! They were Aunt and Uncle only to Jerry Swaim, the orphaned and +only child of Mrs. Darby's brother Jim, whose charming girlish presence +made the whole community, wherever she might chance to be. They were +cousin, however, to Eugene Wellington, a young artist of more than +ordinary merit, also orphaned and alone, except for a sort of cousinship +with Uncle Cornelius. + +"Eden" was a beautifully located and handsomely appointed estate of two +hundred acres, offering large facilities to any photographer seeking +magazine illustrations of country life in America. Indeed, the place +was, as Aunt Jerry Darby declared, "summer and winter, all shot up by +camera-toters and dabbed over with canvas-stretchers' paints," much to +the owner's disgust, to whom all camera-toters and artists, except +Cousin Eugene Wellington, were useless idlers. The rustic little railway +station, hidden by maple-trees, was only three or four good +discus-throws from the house. But the railroad itself very properly +dropped from view into a wooded valley on either side of the station. +There was nothing of cindery ugliness to mar the spot where the dwellers +in "Eden" could take the early morning train for the city, or drop off +in the cool of the afternoon into a delightful pastoral retreat. Beyond +the lawns and buildings, gardens and orchards, the land billowed away +into meadow and pasture and grain-field, with an insert of leafy grove +where song-birds builded an Eden all their own. The entire freehold of +Aunt Jerry Darby and Uncle Cornie, set down in the middle of a Western +ranch, would have been a day's journey from its borders. And yet in it +country life was done into poetry, combining city luxuries and +conveniences with the dehorned, dethorned comfort and freedom of idyllic +nature. What more need be said for this "Eden" into which only the good +little snakes were permitted to enter? + +In the late afternoon Aunt Jerry sat in the rose-arbor with her Japanese +work-basket beside her, and a pearl tatting-shuttle between her thumb +and fingers. One could read in a thoughtful glance all there was to know +of Mrs. Darby. Her alert air and busy hands bespoke the habit of +everlasting industry fastened down upon her, no doubt, in a far-off +childhood. She was luxurious in her tastes. The satin gown, the diamond +fastening the little cap to her gray hair, the elegant lace at her +throat and wrists, the flashing jewels on her thin fingers, all +proclaimed a desire for display and the means wherewith to pamper it. +The rest of her story was written on her wrinkled face, where the strong +traits of a self-willed youth were deeply graven. Something in the +narrow, restless eyes suggested the discontented lover of wealth. The +lines of the mouth hinted at selfishness and prejudice. The square chin +told of a stubborn will, and the stern cast of features indicated no +sense of humor whereby the hardest face is softened. That Jerusha Darby +was rich, intolerant, determined, unimaginative, self-centered, +unforgiving, and unhappy the student of character might gather at a +glance. Where these traits abide a second glance is unnecessary. + +Outside, the arbor was aglow with early June roses; within, the +cushioned willow seats invite to restful enjoyment. But Jerusha Darby +was not there for pleasure. While her pearl shuttle darted in and out +among her fingers like a tiny, iridescent bird, her mind and tongue were +busy with important matters. + +Opposite to her was her husband, Cornelius. It was only important +matters that called him away from his business in the city at so early +an hour in the afternoon. And it was only on business matters that he +and his wife ever really conferred, either in the rose-arbor or +elsewhere. The appealing beauty of the place indirectly meant nothing to +these two owners of all this beauty. + +The most to be said of Cornelius Darby was that he was born the son of a +rich man and he died the husband of a rich woman. His life, like his +face, was colorless. He fitted into the landscape and his presence was +never detected. He had no opinions of his own. His father had given him +all that he needed to think about until he was married. "Was married" is +well said. He never courted nor married anybody. He was never courted, +but he was married by Jerusha Swaim. But that is all dried stuff now. +Let it be said, however, that not all the mummies are in Egyptian tombs +and Smithsonian Institutions. Some of them sit in banking-houses all day +long, and go discus-throwing in lovely "Edens" on soft June evenings. +And one of them once, just once, broke the ancient linen wrappings from +his glazed jaws and spoke. For half an hour his voice was heard; and +then the bandages slipped back, and the mummy was all mummy again. It +was Jerry Swaim who wrought that miracle. But then there is little in +the earth, or the waters under the earth, that a pretty girl cannot work +upon. + +"You say you have the report on the Swaim estate that the Macpherson +Mortgage Company of New Eden, Kansas, is taking care of for us?" Mrs. +Darby asked. + +"The complete report. York Macpherson hasn't left out a detail. Shall I +read you his description?" her husband replied. + +"No, no; don't tell me a thing about it, not a thing. I don't want to +know any more about Kansas than I know already. I hate the very name of +Kansas. You can understand why, when you remember my brother. I've known +York Macpherson all his life, him and his sister Laura, too. And I never +could understand why he went so far West, nor why he dragged that lame +sister of his out with him to that Sage Brush country." + +"That's because you won't let me tell you anything about the West. But +as a matter of business you ought to understand the conditions +connected with this estate." + +"I tell you again I won't listen to it, not one word. He is employed to +look after the property, not to write about it. None of my family ever +expects to see it. When we get ready to study its value we will give due +notice. Now let the matter of description, location, big puffing up of +its value--I know all that Kansas talk--let all that drop here." Jerusha +Darby unconsciously stamped her foot on the cement floor of the arbor +and struck her thin palm flat upon the broad arm of her chair. + +"Very well, Jerusha. If Jerry ever wants to know anything about its +extent, agricultural value, water-supply, crop returns, etc., she will +find them on file in my office. The document says that the land in the +Sage Brush Valley in Kansas is now, with title clear, the property of +the estate of the late Jeremiah Swaim and his heirs and assigns forever; +that York Macpherson will, for a very small consideration, be the Kansas +representative of the Swaim heirs. That is all I have to say about it." + +"Then listen to me," Mrs. Darby commanded. And her listener--listened. +"Jerry Swaim is Brother Jim and Sister Lesa's only child. She's been +brought up in luxury; never wanted a thing she didn't get, and never +earned a penny in her life. She couldn't do it to save her life. If I +outlive you she will be my heir if I choose to make my will in her +favor. She can be taken care of without that Kansas property of hers. +That's enough about the matter. We will drop it right here for other +things. There's your cousin Eugene Wellington coming home again. He's a +real artist and hasn't any property at all." + +A ghost of a smile flitted across Mr. Darby's blank face, but Mrs. Darby +never saw ghosts. + +"Of course Jerry and Gene, who have been playmates in the same game all +their lives, will--will--" Mrs. Darby hesitated. + +"Will keep on playing the same game," Cornelius suggested. "If that's +all about this business, I'll go and look after the lily-ponds over +yonder, and then take a little exercise before dinner. I'm sorry I +missed Jerry in the city. She doesn't know I am out here." + +"What difference if you did? She and Eugene will be coming out on the +train pretty soon," Mrs. Darby declared. + +"She doesn't know he's there, maybe. They may miss each other," her +husband replied. + +Then he left the arbor and effaced himself, as was his custom, from his +wife's presence, and busied himself with matters concerning the +lily-ponds on the far side of the grounds where pink lotuses were +blooming. + +Meantime Jerusha Darby's fingers fairly writhed about her tatting-work, +as she waited impatiently for the sound of the afternoon train from the +city. + +"It's time the four-forty was whistling round the curve," she murmured. +"My girl will soon be here, unless the train is delayed by that bridge +down yonder. Plague on these June rains!" + +Mrs. Darby said "my girl" exactly as she would have said "my bank +stock," or "my farm." Hers was the tone of complete possession. + +"She could have come out in the auto in half the time, the four-forty +creeps so, but the roads are dreadfully skiddy after these abominable +rains," Mrs. Darby continued. + +The habit of speaking her thoughts aloud had grown on her, as it often +does on those advanced in years who live much alone. The little vista of +rain-washed meadows and growing grain that lay between tall lilac-trees +was lost to her eyes in the impatience of the moment's delay. What +Jerusha Darby wanted for Jerusha Darby was vastly more important to her +at any moment than the abstract value of a general good or a common +charm. + +As she leaned forward, listening intently for the rumble of the train +down in the valley, a great automobile swung through the open gateway of +"Eden" and rounded the curves of the maple-guarded avenue, bearing down +with a birdlike sweep upon the rose-arbor. + +"Here I am, Aunt Jerry," the driver's girlish voice called. "Uncle +Cornie is coming out on the train. I beat him to it. I saw the old +engine huffing and puffing at the hill beyond the third crossing of the +Winnowoc. It is bank-full now from the rains. I stopped on that high +fill and watched the train down below me creeping out on the trestle +above the creek. When it got across and went crawling into the cut on +this side I came on, too. I had my hands full then making this big gun +of a car climb that muddy, slippery hill that the railroad cuts through. +But I'd rather climb than creep any old day." + +"Jerry Swaim," Mrs. Darby cried, staring up at her niece in amazement, +"do you mean to say you drove out alone over that sideling, slippery +bluff road? But you wouldn't be Lesa Swaim's daughter if you weren't +taking chances. You are your mother's own child, if there ever was one." + +"Well, I should hope I am, since I've got to be classified somewhere. I +came because I wanted to," Jerry declared, with the finality of complete +excuse in her tone. All her life what Jerry Swaim had wanted was +abundant reason for her having. "It was dreadfully hot and sticky in the +city, and I knew it would be the bottom deep of mugginess on that +crowded Winnowoc train. The last time I came out here on it I had to sit +beside a dreadful big Dutchman who had an old hen and chickens in a +basket under his feet. He had had Limburger cheese for his dinner and +had used his whiskers for a napkin to catch the crumbs. Ugh!" Jerry gave +a shiver of disgust at the recollection. "An old lady behind us had +'_sky_-atick rheumatiz' and wouldn't let the windows be opened. I'd +rather have any kind of 'rheumatiz' than Limburger for the same length +of time. The Winnowoc special ought to carry a parlor coach from the +city and set it off at 'Eden' like it used to do. The agent let me play +in it whenever I wanted to when I was a youngster. I'm never going to +ride on any train again unless I go in a Pullman." + +The girl struck her small gloved fist, like a spoiled child, against the +steering-wheel of her luxuriously appointed car, but her winsome smile +was all-redeeming as she looked down at her aunt standing in the doorway +of the rose-arbor. + +"Come in here, Geraldine Swaim. I want to talk to you." Mrs. Darby's +affectionate tones carried also a note of command. + +"Means business when she 'Geraldine Swaims' me," Jerry commented, +mentally, as she gave the car to the "Eden" man-of-all-work and followed +her aunt to a seat inside the blossom-covered retreat, where the pearl +shuttle began to grow tatting again beneath the thin, busy fingers. + +It always pleased Jerusha Darby to be told that there was a resemblance +between these two. But, although the older woman's countenance was an +open book holding the story of inherited ideas, limited and intensified, +and the young face unmistakably perpetuated the family likeness, yet +Jerry Swaim was a type of her own, not easy to forejudge. In the shadows +of the rose-arbor her hair rippled back from her forehead in dull-gold +waves. One could picture what the sunshine would do for it. Her big, +dark-blue eyes were sometimes dreamy under their long lashes, and +sometimes full of sparkling light. Her whole atmosphere was that of +easeful, dependent, city life; yet there was something contrastingly +definite in her low voice, her firm mouth and square-cut chin. And +beyond appearances and manner, there was something which nobody ever +quite defined, that made it her way to walk straight into the hearts of +those who knew her. + +"Where were you in the city to-day?" Mrs. Darby asked, abruptly, looking +keenly at the fair-faced girl much as she would have looked at any other +of her goodly possessions. + +"Let me see," Jerry Swaim began, meditatively. "I was shopping quite a +while. The stores are gorgeous this June." + +"Yes, and what else?" queried the older woman. + +"Oh, some more shopping. Then I lunched at _La Senorita_, that beautiful +new tea-house. Every room represents some nationality in its decoration. +I was in the Delft room--Holland Dutch--whiskers and Limburger"--there +was a gleam of fun in the dark-blue eyes--"but it is restful and +charming. And the service is perfect. Then I strolled off to the Art +Gallery and lost myself in the latest exhibit. Cousin Gene would like +that, I'm sure. It was so cool and quiet there that I stayed a long +time. The exhibit is mostly of landscapes, all of them as beautiful as +'Eden' except one." + +There was just a shade of something different in the girl's tone when +she spoke her cousin's name. + +"And that one?" Mrs. Darby inquired. She did not object to shopping and +more shopping, but art was getting outside of her dominion. + +"It was a desert-like scene; just yellow-gray plains, with no trees at +all. And in the farther distance the richest purples and reds of a +sunset sky into which the land sort of diffused. No landscape on this +earth was ever so yellow-gray, or any sunset ever so like the Book of +Revelation, nor any horizon-line so wide and far away. It was the +hyperbole of a freakish imagination. And yet, Aunt Jerry, there was a +romantic lure in the thing, somehow." + +Jerry Swaim's face was grave as she gazed with wide, unseeing eyes at +the vista of fresh June meadows from which the odor of red clover, +pulsing in on the cool west breeze of the late afternoon, mingled with +the odor of white honeysuckle that twined among the climbing rose-vines +above her. + +"Humph! What else?" Aunt Jerry sniffed a disapproval of unpleasant +landscapes in general and alluring romances in particular. Love of +romance was not in her mental make-up, any more than love of art. + +"I went over to Uncle Cornie's bank to tell him to take care of my +shopping-bills. He wasn't in just then and I didn't wait for him. By +the way"--Jerry Swaim was not dreamy now--"since all the legal +litigations and things are over, oughtn't I begin to manage my own +affairs and live on my own income?" + +Sitting there in the shelter of blossoming vines, the girl seemed far +too dainty a creature, too lacking in experience, initiative, or +ability, to manage anything more trying than a big allowance of +pin-money. And yet, something in her small, firm hands, something in the +lines of her well-formed chin, put the doubt into any forecast of what +Geraldine Swaim might do when she chose to act. + +Aunt Jerry wrapped the lacy tatting stuff she had been making around the +pearl shuttle and, putting both away in the Japanese work-basket, +carefully snapped down the lid. + +"When Jerusha Darby quits work to talk it's time for me to put on my +skid-chains," Jerry said to herself as she watched the procedure. + +"Jerry, do you know why I called you your mother's own child just now?" +Mrs. Darby asked, gravely. + +"From habit, maybe, you have said it so often." Jerry's smile took away +any suggestion of pertness. "I know I am like her in some ways." + +"Yes, but not altogether," the older woman continued. "Lesa Swaim was a +strange combination. She was made to spend money, with no idea of how to +get money. And she brought you up the same way. And now you are grown, +boarding-school finished, and of age, you can't alter your bringing up +any more than you can change your big eyes that are just like Lesa's, +nor your chin that you inherited from Brother Jim. I might as well try +to give you little black eyes and a receding chin as to try to reshape +your ways now. You are as the Lord made you, and Providence molded you, +and your mother spoiled you." + +"Well, I don't want to be anything different. I'm happy as I am." + +"You won't need to be, unless you choose. But being twenty-one doesn't +make you too old to listen to me--and your uncle Cornie." + +In all her life Jerry had never before heard her uncle's name brought in +as co-partner of Jerusha Darby's in any opinion, authority, or advice. +It was an unfortunate slip of the tongue for Uncle Cornie's wife, one of +those simple phrases that, dropped at the right spot, take root and grow +and bear big fruit, whether of sweet or bitter taste. + +"Your mother was a dreamer, a lover of romance, and all sorts of +adventures, although she never had a chance to get into any of them. +That's why you went skidding on that sideling bluff road to-day; that +and the fact that she brought you up to have your own way about +everything. But, as I say, we can't change that now, and there's no need +to if we could. Lesa was a pretty woman, but you look like the Swaims, +except right across here." + +Aunt Jerry drew her bony finger across the girl's brows, unwilling to +concede any of the family likeness that could possibly be retained. She +could not see the gleam of mischief lurking under the downcast eyelashes +of Lesa Swaim's own child. + +"Your father was a good business man, level-headed, shrewd, and +honest"--Mrs. Darby spoke rapidly now--"but things happened in the last +years of his life. Your mother took pneumonia and died, and you went +away to boarding-school. Jim's business was considerably involved. I +needn't bother to tell you about that. It doesn't matter now, anyhow. +And then one night he didn't come home, and the next morning your uncle +found him sitting in his office, just as he had left him the evening +before. He had been dead several hours. Heart failure was what the +doctor said, but I reckon everybody goes of heart failure sooner or +later." + +A bright, hard glow came into Jerry Swaim's eyes and the red lips were +grimly pressed together. In the two years since the loss of her parents +the girl had never tried to pray. As time went on the light spirit of +youth had come back, but something went out of her life on the day of +her father's death, leaving a loss against which she stubbornly +rebelled. + +"To be plain, Jerry," Mrs. Darby hurried on, "you have your inheritance +all cleared up at last, after two whole years of legal trouble." + +"Oh, it hasn't really bothered me," Jerry declared, with seeming +flippancy. "Just signing my name where somebody pointed to a blank line, +and holding up my right hand to be sworn--that's all. I've written my +full name and promised that the writing was mine, 's'welp me Gawd,' as +the court-house man used to say, till I could do either one under the +influence of ether. Nothing really bothersome about it, but I'm glad +it's over. Business is so tiresome." + +"It's not so large a fortune, by a good deal, as it would have been if +your father had listened to me." Mrs. Darby spoke vaguely. "But you will +be amply provided for, anyhow, unless you yourself choose to trifle with +your best interest. You and I are the only Swaims living now. Some day, +if I choose, I can will all my property to you." + +The square-cut chin and the deep lines around the stern mouth told +plainly that obedience to this woman's wishes alone could make a +beneficiary to that will. + +"You may be a dreamer, and love to go romancing around into new scrapes +like your mother would have done if she could. But she was as +soft-hearted as could be, with all that. That's why she never denied you +anything you wanted. She couldn't do a thing with money, though, as I +said, except spend it. You are a good deal like your father, too, Jerry, +and you'll value property some day as the only thing on earth that can +make life anything but a hard grind. If you don't want to be like that +bunch of everlasting grubs that ride on the Winnowoc train every +afternoon, or the poor country folks around here that never ride in +anything but a rickety old farm-wagon, you'll appreciate what I--and +Uncle Cornie--can do for you." + +Uncle Cornie again, and he never had shared in any equal consideration +before. It was a mistake. + +"There's the four-forty whistling for the curve at last. It's time it +was coming. I must go in and see that dinner is just right. You run down +and meet it. Cousin Eugene is coming out on it. Your uncle Cornie is +here on the place somewhere. He came out after lunch on some business we +had to fix up. No wonder you missed him. But, Jerry"--the stern-faced +woman put a hand on the girl's shoulder with more of command than caress +in the gesture--"Eugene is a real artist with genius, you know." + +"Yes, I know," Jerry replied, a sudden change coming into her tone. +"What of that?" + +"You've always known him. You like him very much?" Jerusha Darby was as +awkward in sentiment as she was shrewd in a bargain. + +The bloom on the girl's cheek deepened as she looked away toward the +brilliantly green meadows across which the low sun was sending rays of +golden light. + +"Oh, I like him as much as he likes me, no doubt. I'll go down to the +station and look him over, if you say so." + +Beneath the words lay something deeper than speech--something new even +to the girl herself. + +As Jerry left the arbor Mrs. Darby said, with something half playful, +half final, in her tone: "You won't forget what I've said about +property, you little spendthrift. You will be sensible, like my sensible +brother's child, even if you are as idealizing as your sentimental +mother." + +"I'll not forget. I couldn't and be Jerry Darby's niece," the last added +after the girl was safely out of her aunt's hearing. "My father and +mother both had lots of good traits, it seems, and a few poor ones. I +seem to be really heir to all the faulty bents of theirs, and to have +lost out on all the good ones. But I can't help that now. Not till after +the train gets in, anyhow." + +Her aunt watched her till the shrubbery hid her at a turn in the walk. +Young, full of life, dainty as the June blossoms that showered her +pathway with petals, a spoiled, luxury-loving child, with an adventurous +spirit and a blunted and undeveloped notion of human service and divine +heritage, but with a latent capacity and an untrained power for doing +things, that was Jerry Swaim--whom the winds of heaven must not visit +too roughly without being accountable to Mrs. Jerusha Darby, owner and +manager of the universe for her niece. + + + + +II + +UNCLE CORNIE'S THROW + + +Jerry was waiting at the cool end of the rustic station when the train +came in. How hot and stuffy it seemed to her as it puffed out of the +valley, and how tired and cross all the bunch of grubs who stared out of +the window at her. It made them ten times more tired and cross and hot +to see that girl looking so cool and rested and exquisitely gowned and +crowned and shod. The blue linen with white embroidered cuffs, the +rippling, glinting masses of hair, the small shoes, immaculately white +against the green sod--little wonder that, while the heir apparent to +the Darby wealth felt comfortably indifferent toward this uninteresting +line of nobodies in particular, the bunch of grubs should feel only envy +and resentment of their own sweaty, muscle-worn lot in life. + +Jerry and Eugene Wellington were far up the shrubbery walk by the time +the Winnowoc train was on its way again, unconscious that the passengers +were looking after them, or that the talk, as the train slowly got under +way, was all of "that rich old codger of a Darby and his selfish old +wife"; of "that young dude artist, old Wellington's kid, too lazy to +work"; of "that pretty, frivolous girl who didn't know how to comb her +own hair, Jim Swaim's girl--poor Jim!" "Old Corn Darby was looking +yellow and thin, too. He would dry up and blow away some day if his +money wasn't weighting him down so he couldn't." + +At the bend in the walk, the two young people saw Uncle Cornie crossing +the lawn. + +"Going to get his discus. He'll have no appetite for dinner unless he +gets in a few dozen slings," the young man declared. "Let's turn in here +at the sign of the roses, Jerry. I'm too lazy to take another step." + +"You should have come out with me in the car," Jerry replied as they sat +down in the cool arbor made for youth and June-time. "I didn't know you +were in the city." + +"Well, little cousin girl, I'll confess I didn't dare," the young man +declared, boldly. "I've been studying awfully hard this year, and, now +I'm needed to paint The Great American Canvas, I can't end my useful +career under a big touring-car at the bottom of an embankment out on the +Winnowoc bluff road. So when I saw you coming into Uncle Cornie's office +in the bank I slipped away." + +"And as to my own risk?" Jerry asked. + +"Oh, Jerry Swaim, you would never have an accident in a hundred years. +There's nobody like you, little cousin mine, nobody at all." + +Eugene Wellington put one well-formed hand lightly on the small white +hand lying on the wicker chair-arm, and, leaning forward, he looked down +into the face of the girl beside him. A handsome, well-set up, artistic +young fellow he was, fitted to adorn life's ornamental places. And if a +faint line of possible indecision of character might have suggested +itself to the keen-eyed reader of faces, other traits outweighed its +possibility. For his was a fine face, with a sort of gracious gentleness +in it that grows with the artist's growth. A hint of deeper +spirituality, too, that marks nobility of character, added to a winning +personality, put Eugene Wellington above the common class. He fitted the +rose-arbor, in "Eden" and the comradeship of good breeding. When a man +finds his element, all the rest of the world moves more smoothly +therefor. + +"Nobody like me," Jerry repeated. "It's a good thing I'm the only one of +the kind. You'd say so if you knew what Aunt Jerry thinks of me. She has +been analyzing me and filing me away in sections this afternoon." + +"What's on her mind now?" Eugene Wellington asked, as he leaned +easefully back in his chair. + +"She says I am heir--" Jerry always wondered what made her pause there. +Years afterward, when this June evening came back in memory, she could +not account for it. + +"Heir to what?" the young artist inquired, a faint, shadowy something +sweeping his countenance fleetly. + + "To all the sphere, + To the seven stars and the solar year; + +also to my father's entire estate that's left after some two years of +litigation. I hate litigations." + +"So do I, Jerry. Let's forget them. Isn't 'Eden' beautiful? I'm so glad +to be back here again." Eugene Wellington looked out at the idyllic +loveliness of the place which the rose-arbor was built especially to +command. "Nobody could sin here, for there are no serpents busy-bodying +around in such a dream of a landscape as this. I'm glad I'm an artist, +if I never become famous. There's such a joy in being able to see, even +if your brush fails miserably in trying to make others see." + +Again the man's shapely hand fell gently on the girl's hand, and this +time it stayed there. + +"You love it all as much as I do, don't you, Jerry?" The voice was deep +with emotion. "And you feel as I do, how this lifts one nearer to God. +Or is it because you are here with me that 'Eden' is so fair to-night? +May I tell you something, Jerry? Something I've waited for the summer +and 'Eden' to give me the hour and the place to say? We've always known +each other. We thought we did before, but a new knowing came to me the +day your father left us. Look up, little cousin. I want to say +something to you." + +June-time, and youth, and roses, and soft, sweet air, and nobody there +but blossoms, and whispering breezes, and these two. And they had known +each other always. Oh, always! But now--something was different now, +something that was grander, more beautiful in this place, in this day, +in each other, than had ever been before--the old, old miracle of a man +and a maid. + +Suddenly something whizzed through the air and a snakelike streak of +shadow cut the light of the doorway. Out in the open, Uncle Cornie came +slowly stepping off the space to where his discus lay beside the +rose-arbor--one of the good little snakes. Every Eden has them, and some +are much better than others. + +The discus-ground was out on a lovely stretch of shorn clover sod. Why +the discus should wander from the thrower's hand through the air toward +the rose-arbor no wind of heaven could tell. Nor could it tell why Uncle +Cornie should choose to follow it and stand in the doorway of the arbor +until the "Eden" dinner-hour called all three of the dwellers, Adam and +Eve and this good little snake, to the cool dining-room and what goes +with it. + +Twilight and moonlight were melting into one, and all the sweet odors +of dew-kissed blossoms, the good-night twitter of homing birds, the +mists rising above the Winnowoc Valley, the shadows of shrubbery on the +lawn, and the darkling outline of the tall maples made "Eden" as +beautiful now as in the full sunlight. + +Jerry Swaim sat in the doorway of the rose-arbor, watching Uncle Cornie +throwing his discus again along the smooth white clover sod. Aunt Jerry +had trailed off with Eugene to the far side of the spacious grounds to +see the lily-ponds where the pink lotuses were blooming. + +"Young folks mustn't be together too much. They'll get tired of each +other too quickly. I used to get bored to death having Cornelius forever +around." Aunt Jerry philosophized, considering herself as wise in the +affairs of the heart as she was shrewd in affairs of the pocketbook. She +would make Jerry and Gene want to be together before they had the chance +again. + +So Jerry Swaim sat alone, watching the lights and shadows on the lawn, +only half conscious of Uncle Cornie's presence out there, until he +suddenly followed his discus as it rolled toward the arbor and lay flat +at her feet. Instead of picking it up, he dropped down on the stone step +beside his niece and sat without speaking until Jerry forgot his +presence entirely. It was his custom to sit without speaking, and to be +forgotten. + +Jerry's mind was full of many things. Life had opened a new door to her +that afternoon, and something strange and sweet had suddenly come +through it. Life had always opened pleasant doors to her, save that one +through which her father and mother had slipped away--a door that closed +and shut her from them and God, whose Providence had robbed her so +cruelly of what was her own. But no door ever showed her as fair a vista +as the one now opening before her dreamy gaze. + +She glanced unseeingly at the old man sitting beside her. Then across +her memory Aunt Jerry's words came drifting, "Being twenty-one doesn't +make you too old to listen to me--and your uncle Cornie," and, "You'll +appreciate what I--and Uncle Cornie--can do for you." + +Uncle Cornie was looking at her with a face as expressionless as if he +were about to say, "The bank doesn't make loans on any such security," +yet something in his eyes drew her comfortably to him and she +mechanically put her shapely little hand on his thin yellow one. + +"I want to talk to you before anything happens, Jerry," he began, and +then paused, in a confused uncertainty that threatened to end his +wanting here. + +And Jerry, being a woman, divined in an instant that it was to talk to +her before anything happened that he had thrown that discus out of its +way when she and Gene had thought themselves alone in the arbor before +dinner. It was to talk to her that the thing had been rolled purposely +to her feet now. Queer Uncle Cornie! + +"I'm not too old to listen to you. I appreciate what you can do for me." +Jerry was quoting her aunt's admonitions exactly, which showed how +deeply they had unconsciously impressed themselves on her mind. Her +words broke the linen bands about Uncle Cornie's glazed jaws, and he +spoke. + +"Your estate is all settled now. What's left to you after that rascally +John--I mean after two years of pulling and hauling through the courts, +is a 'claim,' as they call it, in the Sage Brush Valley in Kansas. It +has never been managed well, somehow. There's not been a cent of income +from it since Jim Swaim got hold of it, but that's no fault of the man +who is looking after it--a York Macpherson. He's a gentleman you can +trust anywhere. That's all there is of your own from your father's +estate." + +Jerry Swaim's dark-blue eyes opened wide and her face was lily white +under the shadow of dull-gold hair above it. + +"You are dependent on your aunt for everything. Well, she's glad of +that. So am I, in a way. Only, if you go against her will you won't be +her heir any more. You mightn't be, anyhow, if she--went first. The +Darby estate isn't really Jerusha Swaim's; it's mine. But she thinks +it's hers and it's all right that way, because, in the end, I do control +it." Uncle Cornie paused. + +Jerry sat motionless, and, although it was June-time, the little white +hand on the speaker's thin yellow one was very cold. + +"If you are satisfied, I'm glad, but I won't let Jim Swaim's child think +she's got a fortune of her own when she hasn't got a cent and must +depend on the good-will of her relatives for everything she wants. Jim +would haunt me to my grave if I did." + +Jerry stared at her uncle's face in the darkening twilight. In all her +life she had never known him to seem to have any mind before except what +grooved in with Aunt Jerry's commanding mind. Yet, surprised as she was, +she involuntarily drew nearer to him as to one whom she could trust. + +"We agreed long ago, Jim and I did, when Jim was a rich man, that some +day you must be shown that you were his child as well as Lesa's--I mean +that you mustn't always be a dependent spender. You must get some Swaim +notions of living, too. Not that either of us ever criticized your +mother's sweet spirit and her ideal-building and love of adventure. +Romance belongs to some lives and keeps them young and sweet if they +live to be a million. I'm not down on it like your Aunt Jerry is." + +Romance had steered wide away from Cornelius Darby's colorless days. And +possibly only this once in the sweet stillness of the June twilight at +"Eden" did that hungering note ever sound in his voice, and then only +for a brief space. + +"Jim would have told you all this himself if he had got his affairs +untangled in time. And he'd have done that, for he had a big brain and a +big heart, but God went and took him. He did. Don't rebel always, Jerry. +God was good to him--you'll see it some day and quit your ugly +doubting." + +Who ever called anything ugly about Jerry Swaim before? That a creature +like Cornelius Darby should do it now was one of the strange, +unbelievable things of this world. + +"I just wanted to say again," Uncle Cornie continued, "if I go first +you'd be Jerusha's heir. We agreed to that long ago. That is, if you +don't cross her wishes and start her to make a will against you, as +she'd do if you didn't obey her to the last letter in the alphabet. If I +go after she does, the property all goes by law to distant relatives of +mine. That was fixed before I ever got hold of it--heirs of some +spendthrifts who would have wasted it long ago if they'd lived and had +it themselves." + +The sound of voices and Eugene Wellington's light laughter came faintly +from the lily-pond. + +"Eugene is a good fellow," Uncle Cornie said, meditatively. "He's got +real talent and he'll make a name for himself some day that will be +stronger, and do more good, and last longer than the man's name that's +just rated gilt-edged security on a note, and nowhere else. Gene will +make a decent living, too, independent of any aunts and uncles. But he's +no stronger-willed, nor smarter, nor better than you are, Jerry, even if +he is a bit more religious-minded, as you might say. You try awfully +hard to think you don't believe in anything because just once in your +life Providence didn't work your way. You can't fool with your own +opinions against God Almighty and not lose in the deal. You'll have to +learn that some time. All of us do, sooner or later." + +"But to take my father--all I had--after I had given up mother, I can't +see any justice nor any mercy in it," Jerry broke out. + +Uncle Cornie was no comforter with words. He had had no chance to +practise giving sympathy either before or after marriage. Mummies are +limited, whether they be in sealed sarcophagi or sit behind roller-top +desks and cut coupons. Something in his quiet presence, however, soothed +the girl's rebellious spirit more than words could have done. Cornelius +Darby did not know that he could come nearer to the true measurement of +Jerry's mind than any one else had ever done. People had pitied her when +her mother passed away and her father died a bankrupt--which last fact +she must not be told--but nobody understood her except Uncle Cornie, and +he had never said a word until now. He seemed to know now just how her +mind was running. The wisdom of the serpent--even the good little +snakes, of this "Eden"--is not to be misjudged. + +"Jerry"--the old man's voice had a strange gentleness in that hour, +however flat and dry it was before and afterward--"Jerry, you understand +about things here." + +He waved his hand as if to take in "Eden," Aunt Jerry and Cousin Eugene +strolling leisurely away from the lily-pond, himself, the Darby +heritage, and the unprofitable Swaim estate in the Sage Brush Valley in +far-away Kansas. + +"You've never been crossed in your life except when death took Jim. You +don't know a thing about business, nor what it means to earn the money +you spend, and to feel the independence that comes from being so strong +in yourself you don't have to submit to anybody's will." Cornelius Darby +spoke as one who had dreamed of these things, but had never known the +strength of their reality. "And last of all," he concluded, "you think +you are in love with Eugene Wellington." + +Jerry gave a start. Uncle Cornie and love! Anybody and love! Only in her +day-dreams, her wild flights of adventure, up to castles builded high in +air, had she really thought of love for herself--until to-day. And +now--Aunt Jerry had hinted awkwardly enough here in the late afternoon +of what was on her mind. Cousin Gene had held her hand and said, "I want +to say something to you." How full of light his eyes had been as he +looked at her then! Jerry felt them on her still, and a tingle of joy +went pulsing through her whole being. Then the discus had hurtled across +the doorway and Uncle Cornie had come, not knowing that these two would +rather be alone. At least he didn't look as if he knew. And now it was +Uncle Cornie himself who was talking of love. + +"You think you are in love with Eugene Wellington," Uncle Cornie +repeated, "but you're not, Jerry. You're only in love with Love. Some +day it may be with Gene, but it's not now. He just comes nearer to what +you've been dreaming about, and so you think you are in love with him. +Jerry, I don't want you to make any mistakes. I've lived a sort of +colorless life"--the man's face was ashy gray as he spoke--"but once in +a while I've thought of what might be in a man's days if things went +right with him and if he went right with himself." + +How often the last words came back to Jerry Swaim when she recalled the +events of this evening--"if he went right himself." + +"And I don't want any mistakes made that I can help." + +Uncle Cornie's other hand closed gently about the little hand that lay +on one of his. How firm and white and shapely it was, and how determined +and fearless the grip it could put on the steering-wheel when the big +Darby car skidded dangerously! And how flat and flabby and yellow and +characterless was the hand that held it close! + +"Come on, folks, we are going to the house to have some music," Aunt +Jerry called, as she and Eugene Wellington came across the lawn from the +lily-pond. + +Mrs. Darby, sure of the fruition of her plans now, was really becoming +pettishly jealous to-night. A little longer she wanted to hold these two +young people under her absolute dominion. Of course she would always +control them, but when they were promised to each other there would +arise a kingdom within a kingdom which she could never enter. The angry +voice of a warped, misused, and withered youth was in her soul, and the +jealousy of loveless old age was no little fox among her vines to-night. +Let them wait on her a little while. One evening more wouldn't matter. + +As the two approached the rose-arbor Jerry's hand touched Uncle Cornie's +cheek in a loving caress--the first she had ever given him. + +"I won't forget what you have said, Uncle Cornie," she murmured, softly, +as she rose to join her aunt and Eugene. + +The moonlight flooding the lawn touched Jerry's golden hair, and the +bloom of love and youth beautified her cheeks, as she walked away beside +the handsome young artist into the beauty of the June night. + +"Come on, Cornelius." Mrs. Darby's voice put the one harsh note into the +harmony of the moment. + +"As soon as I put away my discus. That last throw was an awkward one, +and a lot out of line for me," he answered, in his dry, flat voice, +stooping to pick up the implement of his daily pastime. + +Up in the big parlor, Eugene and Jerry played the old duets they had +learned together in their childhood, and sang the old songs that Jerusha +Darby had heard when she was a girl, before the lust for wealth had +hardened her arteries and dimmed her eyes to visions that come only to +bless. But the two young people forgot her presence and seemed to live +the hours of the beautiful June night only for each other. + +It was nearly midnight when a peal of thunder boomed up the Winnowoc +Valley and the end of a perfect day was brilliant in the grandeur of a +June shower, with skies of midnight blackness cloven through with long +shafts of lightning or swept across by billows of flame, while the storm +wind's strong arms beat the earth with flails of crystal rain. + +"Where is Uncle Cornie? I hadn't missed him before," Jerry asked as the +three in the parlor watched the storm pouring out all its wrath upon the +Winnowoc Valley. + +"Oh, he went to put up his old discus, and then he went off to bed I +suppose," Aunt Jerry replied, indifferently. + +Nothing was ever farther from his wife's thought than the presence of +Cornelius Darby. The two had never lived for each other; they had lived +for the accumulation of property that together they might gather in. + +It was long after midnight before the family retired. The moon came out +of hiding as the storm-cloud swept eastward. The night breezes were cool +and sweet, scattering the flower petals, that the shower had beaten off, +in little perfumy cloudlets about the rose-arbor and upon its stone +door-step. + +It was long after Jerry Swaim had gone to her room before she slept. +Over and over the events of the day passed in review before her mind: +the city shopping; the dainty lunch in the Delft room at _La Senorita_; +the art exhibit and that one level gray landscape with the flaming, +gorgeous sunset so unlike the green-and-gold sunset landscape of "Eden"; +the homeward ride with all its dangerous thrills; the talk with Aunt +Jerry; Eugene, Eugene, Eugene; Uncle Cornie with his discus, at the door +of the rose-arbor, and all that he had said to her; the old, old songs, +and the thunder-storm's tremendous beauty, and Uncle Cornie again--and +dreams at last, and Jim Swaim, big, strong, shrewd; and Lesa, +sweet-faced, visionary; and then sound slumber bringing complete +oblivion. + +Last to sleep and first to waken in the early morning was Jerry. Happy +Jerry! Nobody as happy as she was could sleep--and yet--Uncle Cornie's +last discus-throw had brought new thoughts that would not slip away as +the storm had slipped up the Winnowoc into nowhere. A rift in the lute, +a cloud speck in a blue June sky, was the memory of what Uncle Cornie +had told her when he let his discus roll up to her very feet by the door +of the rose-arbor. Jerry Swaim must not be troubled with lute rifts and +cloud specks. The call of the early morning was in the air, the dewy, +misty, rose-hued dawning of a beautiful day in a beautiful "Eden" where +only beautiful things belong. And loveliest among them all was Jerry +Swaim in her pink morning dress, her glorious crown of hair agleam in +the sun's early rays, her blue eye full of light. + +The sweetest spot to her in all "Eden" on this morning was the +rose-arbor. It belonged to her now by right of Eugene and--Uncle Cornie. +The snatches of an old love-ballad, one of the songs she had sung with +Eugene the night before, were on her lips as she left the veranda and +passed with light step down the lilac walk toward the arbor. The very +grass blades seemed to sing with her, and all the rain-washed world +glowed with green and gold and creamy white, pink and heliotrope and +rose. + +At the turn of the walk toward the arbor Jerry paused to drink in the +richness of all this colorful scene. And then, for no reason at all, she +remembered what Uncle Cornie had said about his colorless life. Strange +that she had never, in her own frivolous existence, thought of him in +that way before. But with the alchemy of love in her veins she began to +see things in a new light. His had been a dull existence. If Aunt Jerry +ever really loved him she must have forgotten it long ago. And he made +so little noise in the world, anyhow, it was easy to forget that he was +in it. She had forgotten him last night even after all that he had said. +He had had no part in their music, nor the beauty of the storm. + +But here he was up early and sitting at the doorway of the rose-arbor +just as she had left him last night. He was leaning back in the angle of +the slightly splintered trellis, his colorless face gray, save where a +blue line ran down his cheek from a blue-black burn on his temple, his +colorless eyes looking straight before him; the discus he had stooped to +pick up in the twilight last night clasped in his colorless hands; his +colorless life race run. His clothing, soaked by the midnight storm, +clung wet and sagging about his shrunken form. But the rain-beaten +rose-vines had showered his gray head with a halo of pink petals, and +about his feet were drifts of fallen blossoms flowing out upon the rich +green sod. Nature in loving pity had gently decked him with her +daintiest hues, as if a world of lavish color would wipe away in a sweep +of June-time beauty the memory of the lost drab years. + + + + +III + +HITCHING THE WAGON TO A STAR + + +Behind the most expensive mourner's crape to be had in Philadelphia +Jerusha Darby hid the least mournful of faces. Not that she had not been +shocked that one bolt out of all that summer storm-cloud, barely +splintering the rose-arbor, should strike the head leaning against it +with a blow so faint and yet so fatal; nor that she would not miss +Cornelius and find it very inconvenient to fill his place in her +business management. Every business needs some one to fetch and carry +and play the watch-dog. And in these days of expensive labor watch-dogs +come high and are not always well trained. But everybody must go +sometime. That is, everybody else. To Mrs. Darby's cast of mind the +scheme of death and final reckoning as belonging to a general experience +was never intended for her individually. After all, things work out all +right under Providential guidance. Eugene Wellington was a fortunate +provision of an all-wise Providence. Eugene had some of his late +cousin's ability. He would come in time to fill the vacant chair by the +roll-top desk in the city banking and business house. Moreover, to the +eyes of age he was a thousandfold more interesting and resourceful than +the colorless quiet one whose loss would be felt of course, of course. + +The reddest roses of "Eden" bloomed the next June on Cornelius Darby's +grave, the brightest leaves of autumn covered him warmly from the +winter's snows, and the places that had never felt his living presence +missed him no more forever. + +There was a steady downpour of summer rain on the day following the +funeral at "Eden." Mrs. Darby was very busy with post-mortem details and +Eugene Wellington's services were in constant demand by her, while Jerry +Swaim wandered aimlessly about the house with a sense of the uselessness +of her existence forcing itself upon her for the first time. Late in the +afternoon, when the big rooms with all their luxurious appointments +seemed unbearable, she slipped down the sodden way to the rose-arbor. +There was a shower of new buds showing now under the beneficence of the +warm rain, and all the withered petals of fallen blossoms were swept +from sight. + +As Jerry dropped into an easy willow rocker her eye fell on the +splintered angle of the trellis by the doorway where Uncle Cornie had +sat when the last summons came to him. A folded paper lay under the +seat, inside the door, as if it had been blown from his pocket by a +whirl of wind in that midnight thunder-storm. + +Jerry stared at the paper a long time before it occurred to her to pick +it up. At last, in a mechanical way, she took it from under the seat and +spread it out on the broad arm of her chair. As she read its contents +her listlessness fell away, the dreamy blue eyes glowed with a new +light, the firm mouth took on a bit more of firmness, and the strong +little hands holding the paper did not tremble. + +"A claim in the Sage Brush Valley in Kansas." Jerry spoke slowly. "It +lies in Range--Township--Oh, that's all Greek to me! They must number +land out there like lots in the potter's-field corner of the cemetery +that we drove by yesterday. Maybe they may all be dead ones, paupers at +that, in Kansas. It is controlled, or something, by York Macpherson of +the Macpherson Mortgage Company of New Eden--_New Eden_--Kansas. Uncle +Cornie told me it hadn't brought any income, but that wasn't York +Macpherson's fault. Strange that I remember all that Uncle Cornie said +here the other night." + +The girl read the document spread out before her a second time. When she +lifted her face again it was another Jerry Swaim who looked out through +the dark-blue eyes. The rain had ceased falling. A cool breeze was +playing up the Winnowoc Valley, and low in the west shafts of sunlight +were piercing the thinning gray clouds. + +"Twelve hundred acres! A prince's holdings! Why 'Eden' has only two +hundred! And that is at _New_ Eden. It 'hasn't been well managed.' I +know who's going to manage it now. I'm the daughter of Jim Swaim. He was +a good business man. And Aunt Darby--" A smile broke the set line about +the red lips. "I'd never dare to say she didn't understand how to manage +things, Chief of Staff to the General who runs the Universe, she is." + +Then the serious mood came back as the girl stared out at the meadows +and growing grain of the "Eden" farmland. A sudden resolve had formed in +her mind--Jerry Swaim the type all her own, not possible to forecast. + +"Father wanted me to know what it means to be independent. I'll find +out. If this 'Eden' can be so beautiful and profitable, what can I not +make out of twelve hundred acres, in a New Eden? And it will be such a +splendid lark, just the kind of thing I have always dreamed of doing. +Aunt Jerry will say that I'm crazy, or that I'm Lesa Swaim's own child. +Well, I am, but there's a big purpose back of it all, too, the purpose +my father would have approved. He was all business--all money-making--in +his purposes, it seemed to some folks, but I think mother knew how to +keep him sweet. Maybe her adventurous spirit, and all that, kept her +interesting to him, and her romancing kept him her lover, instead of +their growing to be like Uncle Cornie and Aunt Jerry. There's something +else in the world besides just getting property--'if a man went right +with himself,' Uncle Cornie said. There was a good sermon in those seven +words. Uncle Cornie preached more to me than the man who officiated at +the funeral yesterday could ever do. 'If a man went right with himself.' +And Eugene." A quick change swept Jerry Swaim's countenance. "He said he +wanted to say something to me. I think I know what he wanted to say. +Maybe he will say it some day, but not yet, not yet. Here he comes now." + +There was a something new, unguessable, and very sweet in Jerry Swaim's +face as Eugene Wellington came striding down the walk to the rose-arbor. + +"I'm through at last, little cousin," he declared, dropping into a seat +beside her. "Really, Aunt Jerry is a wonderful woman. She seems to know +most of the details of Uncle Cornie's business since he began in +business. But now and then she runs against something that takes her +breath away. Evidently Uncle Cornie knew a lot of things he didn't tell +her or anybody else. She doesn't like to meet these things. It makes her +cross. She sent me away just now in a huff because she was opening up a +new line that I think she didn't want me to know anything about. +Something that took her breath away at first glance. But she didn't have +to coax me off the place. I ran out here when the chance came." + +How handsome and well-groomed he was sitting there in the easy willow +seat! And how good he had been to Mrs. Darby in these trying days! A +dozen little services that her niece had overlooked had come naturally +to his hand and mind. + +The words of Uncle Cornie came into Jerry Swaim's mind as she looked at +him: "He's a good fellow, with real talent, and he'll make a name for +himself some day. He'll make a decent living, too, independent of +anybody's aunts and uncles, but he's no stronger-willed nor smarter nor +better than you are." A thrill of pleasure quickened her pulse at the +recollection, making this new decision of hers the more firm. + +"It has seemed like a month since we sat here the evening before Uncle +Cornie passed away," Eugene began. "He made a bad discus-throw and came +over here just as I began to tell you something, Jerry. Do you remember +what we were saying when he appeared on the scene?" + +"Yes, I remember." Jerry's voice was low, but there was no quaver in it. + +Her face, as she lifted it, seemed to his eyes the one face he could +never paint. For him it was the fulfilment of a man's best dream. + +"There's only one grief in my heart at this minute--that I can never put +your face as it is now on any canvas. But let me tell you some things +that Aunt Jerry has been telling me. She seems so fond of you, and she +says that after all the claims against your father's estate are settled +there is really no income left for you. But she assures me that it makes +no difference, because you can go on living with her exactly as you have +always done. She told me she had never failed in the fruition of a +single plan of hers, and she is too old to fail now. She has some plan +for you--" The young artist hesitated. + +Jerry had never thought much about his good looks until in these June +days in "Eden" when Love had come noiselessly down the way to her. And +yet--a little faint, irresolute line in the man's face--a mere shadow, a +ghost of nothing at all, fixed itself in her image of his countenance. A +quick intuition flashed into her mind with the last words. + +"Aunt Jerry is too old for lots of things besides the failure of her +plans. I know what she said, Gene, because I know what she thinks. She +isn't exactly fond of me; she wants to control me. I believe there are +only two planes of existence with her--one of absolute rule, and the +other of absolute submission. She couldn't conceive of me in the first +plane, of course, so I must be in the second." + +"Why, Geraldine Swaim, I never heard you speak so of your aunt before!" +Eugene Wellington exclaimed. He had caught a new and very real line in +the girl's face as she spoke. + +"Maybe not. But don't go Geraldine-ing me. It's too Aunt Jerry-ish. I'm +coming to understand her better because I'm doing my own thinking now," +Jerry replied. + +"As if you hadn't always done that, you little tyrant! I bear the scars +of your teeth on my arms now--or I would bear them if I hadn't given up +to you a thousand times years ago," Eugene declared, laughingly. + +"That's just it," Jerry replied. "I've been let to have my own way until +Aunt Jerry thinks I must go on having just what she thinks I want, and +to do that I must be dependent on her. And--Wait a minute, Gene--you +will be dependent on her, too. You have only your gift. So both of us +are to be pensioners of hers. That's her plan." + +"I won't be," Eugene Wellington declared, stoutly. And then, in loving +thought of Jerry, he added: "I don't want to, Jerry. I want to do great +things, the best that God has given me to do, not merely for myself, but +for your sake--and for all the world. That seems to me to be what +artists are for." + +"And I won't be, either," Jerry insisted. "I won't. You needn't look so +incredulous. Let me tell you something. The evening before Uncle Cornie +died--" Jerry broke off suddenly. + +It seemed unfair to betray the one burst of confidence that the +colorless old man had given up to on the last evening of his earthly +life. Jerry knew that it was to her, and for her alone, that he had +spoken. + +"This is what I want to tell you. I have no income now. Aunt Jerry is +right, although she never told me that herself. But I have a plan to +make a living for myself." + +Eugene Wellington leaned back and laughed aloud. "You, Miss Geraldine +Swaim, who never earned a dollar in your precious life! I always knew +you were a dreamer, but you are going wrong now, Jerry. You must look +out for belfry bats under that golden thatch of yours. Only artists dare +those wild flights so far--and they do it only on canvas and then get +rejected by the hanging committee." + +Jerry paid no heed to his bantering words as she went on with serious +earnestness: "My estate--from my father--is a claim out at New Eden, +Kansas. Twelve hundred acres. It has never been managed well, +consequently it has never paid well. Look at 'Eden' here"--Jerry lifted +a hand for silence as Eugene was about to speak--"it has only two +hundred acres. Now multiply it by six and you'll have New Eden out in +Kansas. And I own it. And I am going to manage it. And I am not going to +be dependent on anybody. Won't it be one big lark for me to go clear to +the Sage Brush Valley? If it is as beautiful as the Winnowoc, just think +of its possibilities. It will be perfectly grand to feel oneself so free +and self-reliant. And when we have won out, you by your brush and I by +my Kansas farm, then, oh, Gene, how splendid life will be!" + +The big, dreamy eyes were full of light. The level beams of the sun +stretched far across green meadows and shaven lawns, between tall +lilac-trees, to the rose-arbor, just to glorify that rippling mass of +brown-shadowed golden hair. + +"Jerry"--Eugene Wellington's voice trembled--"you are the most wonderful +girl in the world. I am so proud of you. But, dear girl, it is an old, +threadbare fancy, this going to Kansas to get rich. My father tried it +years ago. He had a vision of great things, too. He failed. Not only +that, he ruined everybody connected with him. That's why I'm poor +to-day. Truly, little cousin mine, I don't believe the good Lord, who +makes Edens like this in the Winnowoc Valley, ever intended for +well-bred people to leave them and go New-Eden-hunting in the Sage Brush +Valley. We belong here where all the beauty of nature is about us and +the care of a loving God is over us. Why do you want to go to Kansas? I +wouldn't know how to pray out there where my father made such a botch of +living. I really wouldn't." + +"I don't know how to pray here, Gene," Jerry said, softly, with no trace +of flippant irreverence in her tone. "I forgot how to do that when God +took my father away. But listen to me." The imperious power of the +uncontrolled will was Jerry's always. "You don't _live_ here; you _stay_ +here. And you take a piece of canvas and go to the ends of the earth on +it, or down to the deeps, or into the heavens. You make what never did +and never will be, with your free brush. And folks call it good and you +earn a living by it. You are an artist. I am a foolish dreamer, but I am +going out to Kansas and work my dreams into reality and beauty--and +money--in a New Eden. If the Lord isn't there, I shall not mind any more +than I do here. I am going to Kansas, though, because I _want_ to." + +"Look, Jerry, at the sunset yonder," Eugene said, gently, knowing of old +what "I want" meant. "They couldn't have such pictures of green and gold +out West as we see framed in here by the lilacs. You always have been a +determined little girl, so you will have your own way now, I suppose. We +can try it, anyhow, for a while. And if you find your way a rocky road +you must come back to 'Eden.' When your new playthings fail, you can +play with the old ones. But I really love your spirit of self-reliance. +I don't want you ever to be dependent. I don't want any other Jerry than +I have always known. And I want to work hard and make my little talent +pay me big, and make you proud of me." + +"We are living a real romance, Gene. And we'll be true to our word to +make the best of ourselves and not let Aunt Jerry frighten us into +changing our plans, will we, Gene? My father's wish for me was that I +should not always be a spender of other folks's incomes, but that I +would find out what it means to live my own life. I never knew that +until last week. Everything seems changed for me since Uncle Cornie +died. Isn't it strange how suddenly we drop off one life and take up +another?" Jerry's eyes were on the deepening gold of the sunset sky. + +"Yes, we have been two idlers. I'm glad to quit the job. But, somehow, +for you I could wish that you would stay here, if you were only +satisfied to do it," Eugene replied. + +"I don't wish it." Jerry spoke decisively. "I couldn't be happy, now +I've this splendid Kansas thing to think about. Let's go and tell Aunt +Jerry and have it out with her." + +"And if she says no?" the young man queried. + +Jerry Swaim paused in the doorway and looked straight into Eugene +Wellington's face, without saying a word. + +"Geraldine Swaim, there was a big mistake made in your baptismal +ceremony. You should have been christened 'The Sphinx.' Some day I'll +make a canvas of the Egyptian product and put your face on it. After +all, _are_ you really in earnest about this Sage Brush Valley New Eden? +It is so lovely here, I want you to stay here." + +Again Jerry looked at him without speaking, and that faint line of +indecision that scarcely hinted at its own existence fixed itself in the +substratum of her memory. + +Mrs. Darby met the young people in the parlor, where only a few nights +ago the three had watched the summer storm, not knowing that it was +beating down on the unconscious form of Cornelius Darby. Mrs. Darby felt +sure that the young people would be coming to her to-night. Well--the +end of her plan was in sight now. Really, it may have been better for +Cornelius to have gone when he did, since we must all go sometime. +Indeed, it would have been better--only Jerusha Darby never knew +that--if Cornelius had gone before that discus-throw. Everything might +have been different if he had gone earlier. But he lost the opportunity +of his life to serve his wife by staying over and making one awkward +fling too many. + +The June evening was cool after the long rains. Aunt Jerry had a tiny +wood fire burning in the parlor grate, and the tall lamps with the +rose-colored shades lighted to add a touch of twilight charm to the +place, when the young lovers came in. + +"Aunt Jerry, we want to tell you what we have been talking about," +Eugene began, when the three were seated together. "Jerry and I have +decided that we must look on life differently now since--" Eugene +hesitated. + +"Yes, I know." Mrs. Darby spoke briskly. "We must face the truth now and +speak of Cornelius freely. He was fond of both of you. Poor Cornelius!" + +"Poor Cornelius," Jerry Swaim repeated, under her breath. + +"Of course I know it is difficult for a girl reared as Jerry has been--" +Eugene began again. + +"She can go on living just as she has been. This will be her home +always," Mrs. Darby broke in, abruptly. + +"And I know that I have nothing but the prospect of earning a living and +winning to a successful career in my line--" the young man went on. + +"Hasn't Jerry the prospect of enough for herself? I'll need you to help +me for several months. You know, Eugene, that I must have some one who +understands Cornelius's way of doing things." There was more of command +than request in the older woman's voice. + +"I'll be glad to help you as long as I am needed, but I am speaking now +of my life-work. When I cannot serve you any longer I must begin on my +own career. I have some hopes and plans for the future." + +"Humph! What's the use of talking about it? I tell you Jerry will have +enough for all her needs, and I want you here. I shall not consider any +more such notions, Eugene. You are both going to stay right here as you +have done. Let's talk of something else." + +"We can't yet, Aunt Jerry, because I have not enough for myself, even if +Gene would accept a living from you," Jerry Swaim declared. + +Jerusha Darby opened her narrow eyes and stared at her niece. If the +older woman had made one plea of loneliness, if she had even hinted at +sorrow for the loss of the companion of her business transactions, Jerry +Swaim would have felt uncomfortable, even though she knew her aunt too +well to be deceived by any such demonstration. + +"Geraldine Swaim, what are you saying?" Mrs. Darby demanded, in a hard, +even voice. Something in her manner and face could always hold even the +brave-spirited in frightened awe of her. + +Eugene Wellington lost courage to go on, and the same thing came again +that Jerry Swaim had twice seen on his face in the rose-arbor this +evening. The two were looking straight at the girl now. The firelight +played with the golden glory of her hair and deepened the rose hue of +her round cheeks. The dark-blue eyes seemed almost black, with a gleam +in their depths that meant trouble, and there was a strength in the low +voice as Jerry went on: + +"I'm talking about what I know, Aunt Jerry. All there is of my heritage +from my father is a 'claim,' they call it, at New Eden, in the Sage +Brush Valley in Kansas; twelve hundred acres. I'm going out there to +manage it myself and support myself on an income of my own." + +For a long minute Jerusha Darby looked steadily at her niece, her own +face as hard and impenetrable as if it were carven out of flint. Then +she said, sharply: + +"Where did you find out all this?" + +"It is all in a document here that I found in the rose-arbor this +afternoon," the girl replied. "Aunt Jerry, I must use what is mine. I +wouldn't be a Swaim if I didn't." + +"You won't stay there two weeks." Mrs. Darby fairly clicked out the +words. Her face was very pale and something like real fright looked +through her eyes as she took the paper from her niece's hand. + +"And then?" Jerry inquired, demurely. + +"And then you will come back here where you belong and live as you +always have lived, in comfort." + +"And if I do not come?" + +Jerusha Darby's face was not pleasant to see just then. The firelight +that made the girl more winsomely pretty seemed to throw into relief all +the hard lines of a countenance which selfishness and stubbornness and a +dictatorial will had graven there. + +"Jerry Swaim, you are building up a wild, adventurous dream. You are +Lesa Swaim over and over. You want a lark, that's what you want. And +it's you who have put Eugene up to his notions of a career and all that. +Listen to me. Nothing talks in this world like money. That you have to +have for your way of living, and that he's got to have if he wants to be +what he should be. Well, go on out to Kansas. You know more of that +prosperous property out there than I do. I'll let you find it out to the +last limit. But when you come back you must promise me never to take +another such notion. I won't stand this foolishness forever. I'll give +you plenty of money to get there. You can write me when you need funds +to come back. It won't take long to get that letter here." + +"And if I shouldn't come?" Jerry asked, calmly. + +"Look what you are giving up. All this beautiful home, to say nothing of +the town house--and Eugene--and other property." + +"No, no; you don't count him as your property, do you?" Jerry cried, +turning to the young artist, whose face was very pale. + +"Jerry, must you make this sacrifice?" he asked, in a voice of +tenderness. + +"It isn't a sacrifice; it's just what I want to do," Jerry declared, +lightly. + +Jerusha Darby's face darkened. The effect of a long and absolute +exercise of will, coupled with ample means, can make the same kind of a +tyrant out of a Kaiser and a rich aunt. The determination to have her +own way in this matter, as she had had in all other matters, became at +once an unbreakable purpose in her. She wanted to keep fast hold of +these young people for her own sake, not for theirs. For a little while +she sat measuring the two with her narrow, searching eyes. + +"I can manage him best," she concluded to herself. At last she asked, +plaintively, "With all you have here, Jerry, why do you go hunting +opportunities in Kansas?" + +"Because I want to," Jerry replied, and her aunt knew that, so far as +Jerry was concerned, everything was settled. + +"Then we'll drop the matter here. I can wait for you to come to your +senses. Eugene, if you can give her up, when you've always been chums, I +certainly can." + +With these words Mrs. Darby rose and passed out, leaving the two alone +under the rose-colored lights of the richly furnished parlor. + +It was not like Jerusha Darby to make such a concession, and Jerry Swaim +knew it, but Eugene Wellington, who was of alien blood, did not know it. + +The room was much more beautiful without her presence; and her sordid +hinting at the Darby wealth which Jerry must count on, and Eugene must +meekly help to guard for future gain, rasped harshly against their +souls, for they were young and more sentimental than practical. Left +alone to their youth, and strength, and nobler ideals, they vowed that +night to hold to better things. Together they builded a dream of a +rainbow-tinted world which they were going bravely forth to create. Of +what should follow that they did not speak, yet each one guessed what +was in the other's mind, as men and maidens have always guessed since +love began. And on this night there were no serpents at all in their +Eden. + + + + +IV + +BETWEEN EDENS + + +The sun of a mid-June day glared down pitilessly on the little station +at the junction of the Sage Brush branch with the main line. There was +not a tree in sight. The south wind was raving across the prairie, +swirling showers of fine sand before it. Its breath came hot against +Jerry Swaim's cheek as she stood in the doorway of the station or +wandered grimly down between the shining rails that stretched toward a +boundless nowhere whither the "through" train had vanished nearly two +hours ago. As Jerry watched it leaving, a sudden heaviness weighed down +upon her. And when the Pullman porter's white coat on the rear platform +of the last coach melted into the dull, diminishing splotch on the +western distance, she felt as if she were shipwrecked in a pathless +land, with the little red station house, reefed about by cinders, as the +only resting-place for the soles of her feet. When her eyes grew weary +of the monotonous landscape, Jerry rested them with what she called "A +Kansas Interior." The rustic station under the maples at "Eden" was +always clean and comfortably appointed. Big flower-beds outside, Uncle +Cornie's gift, belonged to the station and its guests, with the spacious +grounds of "Eden," at which the travelers might gaze without cost, lying +just beyond it. + +This "Kansas Interior" seemed only a degree less inviting than the whole +monotonous universe outside. The dust of ages dimmed the windows that +were propped and nailed and otherwise secured against the entrance of +cool summer breezes, or the outlet of bad, overheated air in winter. +Iron-partitioned seats, invention of the Evil One himself, stalled off +three sides of the room, intending to prove the principle that no one +body can occupy two spaces at the same time. In the center of the room a +"plain, unvarnished" stove, bare and bald, stood on a low pedestal +yellowed with time and tobacco juice. A dingy, fly-specked map of the +entire railway system hung askew on the wall--very fat and foreshortened +as to its own extent, very attenuated and ill-proportioned as to other +insignificant systems cutting spidery lines across it. + +Behind a sealed tomb of a ticket-window Jerry could hear the "tick-tick, +tick-a-tick-tick, tick-tick" of a telegraph-wire. Somebody must be in +there who at set times, like a Saint Serapion from his hermit cell, +might open this blank wall and speak in almost human tones. Just now the +solitude of the grave prevailed, save for that everlasting "tick-a-tick" +behind the wall. + +When Jerry Swaim gripped her hands on the plow handles, there would be +no looking back. She persuaded herself that she wasn't going to die of +the jiggermaroos in the empty nothingness here. It would be very +different at New Eden, she was sure of that. And this York Macpherson +must be a nice old man, honest and easy-going, because he had never +realized any income from her big Kansas estate. She pictured York +easily--a short, bald-headed old gentleman with gray burnsides and +benevolent pale-blue eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses, driving a fat +sorrel nag to an easy-going old Rockaway buggy, carrying a gold-headed +cane given him by the Sunday-school. Jerry had seen his type all her +life in the business circles of Philadelphia and among the better-to-do +country-dwellers around "Eden." + +At last it was only fifteen minutes till the Sage Brush train would be +due; then she could find comfort in her Pullman berth. She wondered what +Aunt Jerry and Eugene were doing now. She had slipped away from "Eden" +on her wild adventure in the early dawn. She had taken leave of Aunt +Jerry the night before. Old women need their beauty sleep in the +morning, even if foolish young things are breaking all the laws by +launching out to hunt their fortunes. Eugene had been hurriedly sent +away on Darby estate matters without the opportunity of a leave-taking, +two days before Jerry was ready to start for Kansas. Everything was +prearranged, evidently, to make this going a difficult one. So, without +a single good-by to speed her on her quest, the young girl had gone out +from a sheltering Eden of beauty and idleness. But the tears that had +dimmed her eyes came only when she left the lilac walk to the station to +slip around by Uncle Cornie's grave beside the green-coverleted +resting-places of Jim and Lesa Swaim. + +"Maybe mother would glory in what I am doing, and father might say I had +the right stuff in me. And Uncle Cornie--'If a man went right with +himself'--Uncle Cornie might have said 'if a woman went right with +herself,' too. I'm going to put that meaning into his words, even if he +never seemed to think much of women. Oh, father! Oh, mother! You _lived_ +before you died, anyhow, and I'm going to do the same. Uncle Cornie died +before he ever really lived." + +Jerry stretched out her hands to the one good-by in "Eden" coming to her +from these silent ripples of dewy green sod. Then youth and the June +morning and the lure of adventure into new lands came with their triple +strength to buoy her up to do and dare. Behind her were her lover to +be--for Eugene must love her--her home ties, luxury, dependent +inactivity. Before her lay the very ends of the earth, the Kansas end +especially. The spirit of Sir Galahad, of Robinson Crusoe, of Don +Quixote, combined with the spirit of a self-willed, inexperienced girl, +but dimly conscious yet of what lay back of her determination to go +forth--_because she wanted to go_. + +Chicago and Kansas City offered easy ports for clearing. And the Kaw +Valley, unrolling its broad acres along the way, gave larger promise +than Jerry had yet dared to dream of for the New Eden farther west. The +train service, after the manner of a Pacific Coast limited, had been +perfect in every appointment. And then--this junction episode. + +Two eternity-long hours before the Sage Brush branch could take her to +New Eden were almost ended. + +"It's not so terrifying, after all." Jerry was beginning to "see things +again." "It's all in the game--and I am going to be as 'game' as the +thing I am playing. Things always come round all right for me. _They +must._" + +The square white chin was very much a family feature just now. And the +shapely hands had no hint of weakness in their grip on the iron arms of +the station seat. + +The door which the wind had slammed shut was slammed open again as three +prospective passengers for the Sage Brush train slammed through it laden +with luggage. At the same time the sealed-up ticket-window flew open, +showing the red, grinning face of the tick-tick man behind its iron +bars. If Jerry had never paid the slightest heed to the bunch of grubs +on the Winnowoc branch, except as they kept down the ventilation, or +crowded their odors of Limburger on her offended senses, the Sage Brush +grubs were a thousandfold less worthy of her consideration. As the +three crowded to the ticket-window, laughing among themselves, she +stared through the doorway, unconsciously reading the names on the cars +of a freight-train slowly heaving down alongside the station. Who +invented freight-cars, anyhow? The most uninteresting and inartistic +thing ever put on wheels by the master mechanic of the unbeautiful, +created mainly to shut off the view of mankind from what is really worth +looking at. Jerry read the dulled lettering mechanically: "Santa Fe" +with its symbol of a fat cross in a circle, "Iron Mountain," "Great +Northern," "Rock Island," "Frisco," "Union Pacific," "Grand Trunk," came +creeping by. "New York Central," "Lehigh Valley," "Pennsylvania Line." +These took her back to "Eden" and the Winnowoc country. The station +building shook; the ugly old cars slam-banged a bit faster back and +forth; the engine, with the breath almost knocked out of it, was puffing +down by the switch, and the whole body behind it quivered to a +standstill. But Jerry Swaim's tear-blurred eyes were seeing only the +green fields of the Darby country-place and the rose-arbor and Eugene +Wellington. A voice loud, but not unpleasant, and a laugh, a merry, +catching, giggling guffaw, drove the picture of "Eden" and all that +belonged to it into "viewless air" that went flapping and flaring across +the Kansas landscape. + +"You don't mean it! He, he! Haw!" Everybody must smile now. "The old +Sage Brush local is locoed 'way up toward S'liny. Engine shortage, car +shortage, common sense shortage. He, he! And we must ride in that +sunflower de luxe limited standing out there. Come on, Thelmy. You can +take lower nothin', car one-half. We'll soar in now while the soarin's +good." + +Jerry looked at the bunch of grubs for the first time. One had to see +where that big gloom-chasing giggle came from. Thelma was a spotlessly +clean, well-made country product, wherein the girl had easily given +place to the woman, erect, full-bosomed, strong of frame. The hazel eyes +were arched over by heavy brown brows. There was no rosebud curve to the +rather wide mouth that showed a set of magnificent white teeth. The +brown hair wound braid on braid about the head was proof of the glory of +Saint Paul's scriptural decree. Not that Jerry Swaim really noted any of +these features. She merely saw a country girl--a not offensive native. +The native's comrade, he with the big-laugh fixtures, was short and +stout, with a round face on the front side of a round head, set on top +of a tight-built body. Grub though he was, Jerry involuntarily smiled +with him. That far the fat little man controlled everybody. But the +funny little strut in his gait as he walked was irresistible. The third +passenger, the grubbiest of the three grubs, was a nondescript of whose +presence Jerry was not even aware until she heard his voice. It was a +thin, high, unused voice, and its pitch wabbled up and down. + +"Be you goin' on the Sage Bresh train, lady?" + +The questioner had turned back after the country girl and the fat man +had passed out. + +Jerry looked at him without taking his question to herself. His shoes, +draped with wrinkled-down hose, were very much worn. His overalls +flapping around his legs, his shirt and neck and face and hair and hat, +were all of one complexion, a fuzzy, yellow brown. + +"Be you goin' on this train, too?" + +It was a humble, kindly voice, and the scaly old hand holding the door +open against the high prairie wind was only a fisherman's hand. The +deep-set eyes in the yellow-brown old face were trained to read the +river; the patient mouth set to wait for the catch of lines and nets. + +Jerry had never in her life spoken to such a creature. So far as she was +concerned, he did not exist. + +"This is the only train on the Sage Bresh to-day, lady. The reg'lar +train's busted through a culbert out yander," the high, quavering voice +persisted. + +A sharp tooting from the engine down the line emphasized the statement, +and Jerry saw the grinning red-faced tick-tick man hastily wheeling +mail-sacks and sundry other parcels by the door. In a bewildered way she +rose and passed out, giving no recognition to the shabby old man who had +been thoughtful of her ignorance. + +"We gotta go to the last car down yander, lady," the old man squeaked +out, as he started down the cinder-paved way with a bearlike, shuffling, +sidewise sort of gait. + +Jerry followed him slowly to "the last car down yander." + +A plain day coach, the sixtieth and last vertebra in this long +mechanical spine, was already crowded with a bunch of grubs, none of +whom could belong to Jerry Swaim's sphere. Moreover, they were all +tightly packed in and wedged down so that it was impossible to detect +the leaving off of the full-fare passenger and the beginning of +suit-cases, old-style telescopes, baskets, bundles, boxes, half-fare +children, bags of fruit, lunch-crates, pieces of farming tools, babes in +arms, groceries--everything to cabbages and kings. Jerry wondered where +all these _things_ came from. Every object in that car, human being or +salt pork, crying baby or kingbolt, was a _thing_ to Jerry Swaim. And +all of them were very warm and nervously tense, as if the hot June wind +had blown them all inside, that the hot June sun, through the closed +windows, might stew them stinkily; or, through the open windows, grime +their sweaty faces with hot dust off the hot prairie. There was only one +vacant seat left. It was on the shady side, facing the rear of the car, +and was half occupied already by the humble grub of the squeaky voice. +The girl, Thelma, and the fat little man had taken the seat opposite +him. As Jerry entered the car the little man was on his feet, bowing and +strutting and insisting that a woman with a babe in arms should exchange +seats with him, putting her on the cool side, while he took her place in +the sun across the aisle from Thelma. In the transfer he did not see +Jerry, who was looking in vain for an opening in that mass of "human +various." It was the humble grub who saw her standing there. Evidently +his little yellow-green eyes took her measure at a glance, but he did +not spread out his effects and stare out of the window as some other men +were doing, nor gather himself and his into his own half of the seat to +make room for her beside him. He rose, and in a shrill little quaver he +bade her take his place. It did not occur to Jerry to tell him that +there was room for two, as she saw him shuffle down the aisle with a +queer, limping hitch. In the same impersonal way she watched him through +the open door, sitting on the rear platform during the long afternoon, +humpbacked against the cinders and dust that beat upon him, swaying with +the rocking car, jerked along over a sun-baked, treeless prairie at the +tail of a long jerky freight-train. He meant nothing to this dainty city +product; his kind had never entered her world; no more had the +red-faced, tow-headed young mother, with white eyebrows and hat knocked +rakishly aslant, with her big, restless, bald-headed baby rolling over +her in waves, sprawling about Thelma, and threatening to bump its head +off as it overflowed all the narrow space, aimlessly and persistently. + +But if Jerry Swaim felt out of her element in this company, her +fellow-passengers felt much more embarrassed by her presence. Thelma's +neat gingham dress became limp and mussy and common. The tired mother's +yellow lawn was rumpled into a dish-rag. And with every jerk of the +train she lost a hair-pin from her tow hair that was already stringing +down in long wisps on her neck. The baby, really a happy, white, +blue-veined infant, became a fussy flushed impossibility. + +All this, it seemed, just because of the presence of a faultlessly +dressed, fair-faced stranger who awed everybody by not seeing them, but +whose very daintiness and beauty drew them hungrily to her. Nobody could +be in Jerry Swaim's presence and not feel the spell of her inherent +magnetism. + +The laughter and complaints of the passengers dulled down to endurance. +Only the face of the short man wore a smile. But his mouth was made with +that kind of a curve, and he couldn't help it. Breathing deeply and +perspiring healthfully, he sat against the heat streaming into his side +of the car, and forgot his troubles in his unbreakable good nature. For +a long time he and Thelma had talked across the aisle above and through +the train's noises. Their talk was all of Paul and Joe's place, and the +crops; of how glad Thelma was to be at home again on Paul's account; and +how long it would take her yet if the alfalfa and wheat turned out well. + +Jerry heard it all without knowing it, as she looked at the monotonous +landscape without knowing it. And then the dry prairies began to deepen +to a richer hue. Yellow wheat-fields and low-growing corn and stretches +of alfalfa broke into the high plains where cattle grazed. And then came +the gleam of a river, sometimes shallow along sandy levels, sometimes +deep, with low overhanging brush on either side. And there were +cottonwood-trees and low twisted elms and scrubby locust and oak +saplings, and the faint, fresh scent of moisture livening the air. + +The train jerked itself to a standstill, thought better of it, and +hunched along again for a rod or two, then jostled itself quiet again. + +Jerry was very drowsy now, but she was conscious of hearing the fat man +calling out, cheerfully: + +"Home at last, Thelmy. There's Paul waiting for you. Well, good-by." + +And of Thelma's "Good-by" in a louder tone than was necessary. Of more +strutting and bowing and no end of luggage clearing itself away. + +Through the window Jerry caught sight of a tall, fair-haired boy, who +looked like Thelma, except that in his white face was the pathos of the +life-cripple. She saw Thelma kiss him, and then the two started down the +sunny, cindery side-track together. In the distance, close to the river, +there was a small plain house under a big cottonwood-tree. The glimpse +of red about a little porch meant that the crimson ramblers were in +bloom there. Oh, the roses of "Eden," and the cool rose-arbor! Jerry +must have dreamed then, for "Eden" was about her again. Through it the +limping grub came humbly to claim his sundry own from behind and under +the seat. Even in "Eden" she thought how much like a clumsy bear his +gait was. And when the little man called him "Teddy" she knew he was not +a fisherman sort of creature, but a real bear in yellow-brown overalls, +and that the general fuzziness of his make-up was fur, and that his +stubby, scaly hands were claws. He dropped off somewhere when the +freight took a siding very near the river. It was the Sage Brush, but it +ran through the "Eden" grounds and Uncle Cornie was throwing his discus +beside it. The rose-arbor was just across the aisle. The little fat man +was sitting in its doorway, with a new moon of a smile on the smooth +side of his round head where his face was, a half-quizzical, +half-sympathetic smile with no guile in it. Jerry really liked him for +that kind of a smile. It belonged to him. The rose-arbor was very warm, +for the man was sweating more copiously than ever.... Uncle Cornie was +gone. The limping Teddy Bear was gone.... It was very, very hot and +sunny in "Eden." The big maples and cool lilacs were gone.... "Eden" was +gone. In its stead came the art exhibit in the cool gallery in the city. +And that yellow-gray desert landscape with the flaming afterglow and +purple mists. The flames seemed almost real, and the yellow gray almost +real, and the art-gallery was getting warmer as "Eden" had done. It was +positively hot.... And then the Sage Brush freight was laboring slowly +and painfully through a desert with clack and roar and cloud of cindery +dust.... Jerry sat up, wide awake, and looked up at the fat stranger who +was looking at her, the smile on the inside of his face, as it were, +showing only in the eyes. + +Outside, the river was gone, taking with it all the cool-breathing +alfalfa, and elm and cottonwood shade, and leaving in their stead only +bare earth-ridges and low dunes. As far as Jerry could see, there was +nothing but a hot yellow plain, wrinkled here and there in great barren +folds, with wave and crest and hollow of wind-shifted sand crawling +endlessly back and forth along the face of the landscape. A few spiny +green shrubs struggled through at intervals, but their presence only +intensified the barrenness about them. + +The train was entering a deep wrinkle not unlike that cut beyond the +third crossing of the Winnowoc. Jerry remembered the day she had watched +that other train from the bluff road, and her exultation in pounding her +big car up the steep way instead of crawling through, as Eugene was +doing. Later she had found out that Eugene really preferred that to the +more daring climb. Jerry involuntarily gripped the car seat with a +subconscious longing to get out and drive over the whole thing. Across +the aisle, the smile on the fat man's face was coming outside as he +watched the stranger passenger. + +They were deep in now--a valley-like thing that was hotter than any +other inch of the whole way they had come. On either side tall slabs of +timber, planted upright, closed in the right of way. They were barely +moving through this narrow lane. The engine was gasping for breath, and +the cars dragged themselves after it by inches. Then all came to a dead +stop. + +"Everybody turn out and help," somebody in uniformed authority called +through the car door, and all the men passengers stirred to action. + +"_The_ dickens!" the short fat man exclaimed to everybody. "Stuck in a +sand-drift in that danged blowout. That's what comes of letting this +wind go all day. I told 'em up at the junction to stop it, but they +wouldn't listen to me. Now we've got to soar out of here and shovel for +our lives." + +When he laughed everybody else had to laugh, too, and it was a really +good-natured company of men that piled down from the train to help the +cause of railway transportation. + +The fat man had been last to leave the car. + +"Let me close all these windows," he urged, strutting from seat to seat. +"It'll be hot with 'em shut, but you'll be buried in sand in here if we +leave 'em open, and we men don't want to dig you and the engine all out +in one day. We mightn't find all the children, you know, and leave some +of 'em in here covered up. He, he! Haw!" He struggled with the last +windows until they were sealed down, then turned away to lend his aid in +a good cause. + +The tow-headed woman and her little perpetual-motion baby, who had been +sleeping wearily for a few miles, roused at the jolly man's loud laugh. + +"It's the blowout," the mother said, as Jerry looked at her for the +first time. "Them timbers is driv in to keep out all that sand. See how +it's heaped up ag'in' 'em on the outside. On awfully windy days it blows +over and fills the tracks and stops the train, and then the men all get +out and help to shovel it off. Gee whiz! but it's hot in here! We'd be +just smothered in sand if we left the windows open, though. There! +There!" + +The last to the big baby, stirring uneasily, whom the mother patted off +to slumber again. + +Jerry walked to the rear door and looked out at the narrow space walled +in by palisades, and at glimpses of sand waves on either side of the +road beyond them; at the little hot-looking green shrubs clinging for +life to their shifting depths, and the heat-quivering air visible above +them. In all her life she had never felt so uncomfortable as now; never +realized what it means to _endure_ physical misery. She had seen the +habitable globe features--lake-shore, and seaside, and mountain resorts; +big navigable rivers; big forests; narrow little valleys; sheer cliffs +and wonderful waterfalls. She didn't know that the world held such a +place as this that anybody but a Hottentot was supposed to inhabit. +Through a long hour and a half the train was held back by the sand of +what Jerry heard was a "blowout." She did not know nor care what the +term meant. _She wanted to get_ out of it and go on, and what Jerry +Swaim _wanted_ she had always had the right to have. + +The sun was getting low in the west when the local freight labored up +the Sage Brush Valley to its terminal in the yards at New Eden. All of +the passengers except Jerry tumbled out, much as tired boys rush from +the church door after a long doctrinal sermon. The car was stopped at +the freight-station, some distance down the line from the +passenger-station, which was itself a long way out from New Eden, after +the manner of Western small towns. The middle '80's, when railroad +branch lines were building, found road directors and town councils +falling out over technicalities, with the result that the railroad +seldom secured the ground it wanted and the town was seldom given a +convenient station site. + +The buses filled rapidly, and the mail and express wagons were rattling +off ahead of buses and foot passengers, and still the young stranger sat +in the car. A sudden sense of loneliness had enveloped her like a cloud. +She was not a novice abroad. She had gone to strange towns alone before. +She knew all the regulations of hotel service. She knew why she had come +here and what she had to do, and she had abundant means for all her +needs. But with all these points in her favor a helplessness swept over +her, and the "what next" for the moment perplexed her. The engine was +getting restless again. However long it may require a local freight to +get from one given point to another, the engine, like an ill-broken +colt, will keep stepping up or pulling back through every halt of the +train. Jerry sat inside, watching the last bus, loaded and hung-on-to, +swinging off down the dusty road toward the town, a full half-mile +across the prairie from the station. Life was getting a trifle too +interesting in this foreign clime, and when the short man appeared in +the doorway, even the full-moon face and half-moon smile, the profound +bow and comical strut, could not out-weigh the genuine comfort his +presence seemed to bring. + +"Pardon me, Miss--Miss--" + +"Miss Swaim," Jerry informed him, sure of herself and unafraid again. + +"Oh, Miss Swaim! My name is Ponk--Junius Brutus Ponk. Pardon again if I +seem to intrude. This is the Sage Brush terminal. Excuse me if I say +thank the Lord for the end of _this_ day's journey! The buses are all +gone. May I take you to your destination here in my little gadabout? You +want to stop somewhere in New Eden overnight, anyhow." + +"Thank you very much." + +Jerry looked at him gratefully, even if he was only one of the bunch of +grubs she had been forced to ride with all this long afternoon, she who +had once repudiated the Winnowoc train and all trains without Pullman +accommodations. "The smile on her face was mightily winsome," Ponk +declared afterward, "and just took all my ramparts and citadels and +moats and drawbridges at one fell swoop." + +He gathered up her bags and helped her off the car pompously, saying: + +"Here she is, Miss Swaim. Step right in." And then with a flourish of +arms he had Jerry and her belongings stored inside a shiny gray runabout +and was off down the grassy road with a dash. + +"Where shall I take you to, Miss Swaim?" he inquired, when the little +car had glided gracefully around the lumbering buses and rattling +wagons. + +"To the best hotel, please," Jerry replied. "Do you know which one that +is?" + +"Yes'm. There isn't but one. The Commercial Hotel and Gurrage. I'm the +proprietor, so I know." The smile that broke around the face of the +speaker was too good-natured to make his words seem presumptuous. + +Jerry smiled, too, finding herself in the grasp of a strange and +complete confidence in the pompous little unknown chauffeur. + +"Do you know an old gentleman here named York Macpherson, a Mortgage +Company man?" she asked, looking at him directly for the first time. + +Ponk seemed to gulp down a smile before he replied: "Ye-es, I do know +York very well. He's prob'bly older than he looks. His office is right +across the street from the Commercial Hotel and Gurrage." + +Afterward he declared: "From the minute that girl turned her eyes full +on me and I saw how blue them orbs were, I begun to wish I had a gold +button instead of a bone one in the back of my collar. I knew she could +see that cheap bone thing right through my neck and I was willing right +then to lay down and play dead if she wanted me to, and I'm never going +to recover, never." + +"Would you do--me a favor?" Jerry asked, hesitatingly. + +Asking favors was a new line for her and she followed it prettily. + +"Wouldn't I!" Mr. Ponk exclaimed. "Try me." + +"Even his voice has a strut in it," Jerry thought. Aloud she said: "I +have business with this old gentleman and I would be much obliged if you +would tell him that Miss Geraldine Swaim is in the city and would like +to meet him." + +"Why, I'll soar right over there as soon as we get to the hotel and +gurrage." + +Junius Brutus Ponk looked slyly at the face of his companion as he +spoke. What he was thinking just then it would have been hard to guess. +With a flourish and curve that were wholly Ponkish the fat little man +swung the gray car up to the brick-paved porch of the "Commercial Hotel +and Gurrage." + +"Why, there's York now, reading his mail! I'll go right over and tell +him," Mr. Ponk declared. "Here, George, tell Georgette to give Miss +Swaim number seven." + +George assisted Miss Swaim to the hotel register and Georgette led her +to room No. 7. Georgette wanted to linger a minute, for this guest was +so unlike the usual commercial-traveler kind of ladies who sold books, +or canvassed for extracts, or took orders for crayon portraits enlarged +from little photographs; but Miss Swaim's manner gave no excuse for +lingering. Alone, Jerry closed her door and turned, with a smile on her +lips, to face her surroundings. The room was clean and cool, with a big +window overhanging the street. Jerry sat down before it, realizing how +weary the long journey had made her. Across the street, the sign of the +Macpherson Mortgage Company in big gold letters hung above a plate-glass +window. Mr. + +Ponk, who had just "soared" across, was sitting in his car before it. +Jerry saw a man inside at a desk very much like Uncle Cornie's in the +Philadelphia banking-house where Eugene Wellington was busy now helping +Aunt Jerry to settle things. This man was reading letters when the Ponk +car tooted before the big window. He waved a hand to the tooter, then +put his letters away and came leisurely outside. Jerry saw a tall, +finely proportioned man, the set of whose clothes had a city air, and +there was something in his whole manner that would have distinguished +him from every other man in New Eden. + +The fat little man talked earnestly, with a flourish of the hand now and +then toward the room where Jerry sat watching the two. York Macpherson +rested one foot on the running-board, and leaned his arms on the side of +the car, listening intently to what Mr. Ponk was saying. + +"So that is this York Macpherson who was never responsible for my estate +not making any returns. And I called him an old man. The hotel +proprietor must be telling him that now." Jerry laughed as she saw the +two men chuckling together. "Well, I hope the pompous little fellow +tells him I'm an old woman. It would even things up wonderfully." + +Ten minutes later Jerry was shaking hands with York Macpherson and +promising him to go to his home and meet his sister as soon as she had +cleared her eyes of dust sufficiently to see anybody. + +It must have been the dust in her eyes, Jerry thought, that made York +Macpherson appear so unlike the benevolent, inefficient old gentleman +she had pictured to herself. The hotel parlor was in twilight shadows, +which helped a little to conceal the surprise of these two when they met +there. Jerry knew what she had been anticipating. Whether York +Macpherson knew or not, he was clearly not expecting what he found in +the hotel parlor. + +"I'll soar down to your shack with the lady as soon as she has had her +supper and got herself rightly in hand," Ponk declared to York when he +came into the hotel office. "You see, we got stuck in that danged, +infernal blowout, and it was as hard on the womenkind who had to sit +inside and swelter as on us men who nobly dug. 'Specially this Miss +Swaim. She must have 'wept to see such quantities of sand,' same as them +oysters and walruses and carpenters. We'll be along by and by, though. +Have a cigar. What do you make of her, anyhow, York?" + +"I don't make anything. I leave that job to you," York replied, with a +smile, as he turned abruptly and left the hotel. + +"Unless you see eight per cent. interest coming your way, I see. There +might be a bigger interest in this investment than any you ever made in +your life," Ponk called after him. + +But York only waved off the words without looking back. Outside, the +sunset's splendor was filling the western sky--the same old prairie +sunset that he had seen many a time in his years in Kansas. And yet, on +this evening it did not seem quite the same; nor were the sunsets, New +Eden, and the Sage Brush Valley from this evening ever quite as they had +been before, to York Macpherson. + + + + +V + +NEW EDEN'S PROBLEM + + +Because of a broken "culbert" out toward "S'liny" the afternoon train on +the Sage Brush branch was annulled for the day. Because of this +annulment the mail for the Sage Brush Valley was brought up on the local +freight, which is always behind time when it reaches its terminal, which +accounted for the late delivery of the mail at the New Eden post-office, +which made York Macpherson's dinner late because of a big batch of +letters to be read, and an important business call at the Commercial +Hotel following the reading and the delivery of Mr. Ponk's message. + +Purple shadows were beginning to fold down upon the landscape, while +overhead the sky was still heliotrope and gold, but York Macpherson, +walking slowly homeward, saw neither the shadows nor the glory that +overhung them. It was evident to his sister Laura, who was waiting for +him in the honeysuckle corner of the big front porch, that his mind was +burdened with something unusual to-night. + +York Macpherson was a "leading citizen" type of the Middle West. +Wholesome, ruggedly handsome, prosperous, shrewd to read men's minds, +quick to meet their needs, full of faith in the promise of the Western +prairies, with the sort of culture no hardship of the plains could ever +overcome--that was York. Although he was on the front edge of middle +life in years, with a few gray streaks in his wavy brown hair, he had +the young-looking face, the alert action, and vigorous atmosphere of a +young-hearted man just entered into his full heritage of manhood. + +"The train was delayed down the river on account of sand drifted over +the track by the south wind, and that made the mail late," York +explained, when he reached the porch. "I'll bet you have had the house +shut up tight as wax and have gone about all day with a dust-cloth in +your hand. Given a south wind and Laura Macpherson, and you have a home +industry in no time. Let's hurry up the dinner" (it was always dinner to +the Macphersons and supper to the remainder of New Eden) "and get +outside again as soon as possible. I can't think in shut-up rooms." + +"When there is a south wind it makes little difference whether or not +one does any thinking. I postpone that job to the cool of the evening," +Laura Macpherson declared, as she led the way to the dining-room. + +When the two came outside again the air off the prairie was delicious, +and there was promise of restfulness later in the black silence of the +June night that made them forget the nervous strain of the windy day. +The Macphersons had no problems that they could not talk over in the +shadowy stillness of that roomy porch on summer evenings. + +York had been a bachelor boarder at the "Commercial Hotel and Garage" +for some years before the coming of his sister Laura, who was at once +his housekeeper, companion, and counselor. When he first went to the +hotel New Eden was in its infancy, and the raw beginnings of things were +especially underdone in this two-dollars-a-day, one-towel-a-week +establishment. It was through York that Junius Brutus Ponk had given up +an unprofitable real-estate business to become proprietor of the +Commercial Hotel--"and Gurrage" was added later with the advent of +automobiles, the "Gurrage" part being a really creditably equipped +livery for public service. By this change of occupation for Ponk, the +Macpherson Mortgage Company accomplished several things. It got rid of +an inefficient competitor whose very inefficiency would have made him a +more disagreeable enemy than a successful man would have been. Further, +it placed the ambitious little man where his talents could flourish +(flourish is the right word for J. B. Ponk), and it put into the growing +little town of New Eden a hotel with city comforts that brought business +to the town and added mightily to its reputation and respectability. + +York Macpherson's business had grown with the town he had helped to +build. Long before other towns in this part of Kansas had dreamed it +possible for them, New Eden was lighted with electricity. Water-works +and a sewer system fore-ran cement sidewalks and a mile of paving, not +including the square around the court-house. And before any of these had +come the big stone school-house on the high ridge overlooking the Sage +Brush Valley for miles. That also was York Macpherson's task, which he +had carried out almost single-handed, and had the satisfaction of +bringing desirable taxpaying residents to live in New Eden who would +never have come but for the school advantages. Then Junius Brutus Ponk, +who had learned to couple with York, got himself elected to the board of +education and began to pay higher salaries to teachers than was paid by +any other town in the whole Sage Brush Valley; to the end that better +schools were housed in that fine school-building, and a finer class of +young citizens began to put the good name of New Eden above everything +else. The hoodlum element was there, of course, but it was not the +leading element. Boys stuck to the high-school faithfully and followed +it up with a college course, even though a large per cent. of them +worked for every dollar that the course cost them. Girls went to +college, too, until it became a rare thing to find a teacher in the +whole valley who had not a diploma from some institution of higher +learning. + +It was only recently that Laura Macpherson had come to New Eden to make +her home with her brother. An accident a few years before had shortened +one limb, making her limp as she walked. She was some years older than +York, with a face as young and very much like her brother's; a comely, +companionable sort of woman, popular alike with men and women, young +folks and children. + +Some time before her coming York had bought the best building-site in +New Eden, a wooded knoll inside the corporation limits, the only natural +woodland in the vicinity, that stood directly across the far end of +Broad Avenue, the main business street, whose mile of paving ended in +York's driveway. In one direction, this site commanded a view far down +Sage Brush Valley; in the other, it overlooked the best residence and +business portion of New Eden. Here York had, as he put it, "built a +porch, at the rear of which a few rooms were attached." The main glory +of the place, however, was the big porch. + +York had named their home "Castle Cluny," and his big farm joining it +just outside the town limits "Kingussie," after some old Macpherson-clan +memories. There were no millionaires in the Sage Brush Valley, and this +home was far and away the finest, as well as the most popular, home in a +community where thrift and neatness abounded in the homes, and elegance +was very much lacking, as was to be expected in a young town on the far +edge of the Middle West. + +"Joe Thomson came in to-day to see me about putting a mortgage on his +claim this side of the big blowout. Looks like a losing game for Joe. +His land is about one-third sand now," York commented, thoughtfully, as +he settled himself comfortably in his big porch chair. + +"Well, why not let the sand have its own third, while he uses the other +two-thirds himself? They ought to keep him busy," Laura suggested. + +The country around New Eden was still new to her. Although she +overflowed the town with her sunny presence, her lameness had kept her +nearer to "Castle Cluny" than her brother had comprehended. She did not +understand the laws, nor lawlessness, of what her brother called the +"blowout," nor had she ever seen the desolation that marked its +broadening path. + +"A blowout is never satisfied until it has swallowed all the land in the +landscape," York explained. "I remember a few years ago there was just a +sandy outcrop along a little draw below Joe's claim, the line of some +prehistoric river-bed, I suppose. That was the beginning of the thing +Joe is fighting to-day. Something started the sand to drifting. It +increased as the wind blew away the soil; the more wind, the more sand; +the more sand, the more wind. They worked together until what had been a +narrow belt spread enormously, gradually overlapping Joe's claim, making +acres of waste ground. I hate to see Joe shoulder a mortgage to try to +drive back that monstrous thing. But Joe is one of those big, +self-contained fellows who takes the bit in his teeth and goes his own +gait in spite of all the danger signals you wigwag at him." + +"Why do you loan him money if you know he can't succeed?" Laura +inquired. + +"Making farm loans is the business of the Macpherson Mortgage Company. +That's how we maintain our meager existence," York replied, teasingly. +"Joe wants to fight back the blowout creeping over his south border +farther and farther each year. Our company gets its commission while he +fights. See?" + +"Oh, you grasping loan shark! If I didn't know how easy it is for you to +lie I'd disown you," Laura declared, flinging a chair pillow at her +brother, who was chuckling at her earnestness. + +But York was serious himself in the next minute. + +"Our company doesn't want the prairie; it wants prosperity. A foreclosed +mortgage is bad business. It brings us responsibility and ill-will. What +we want is good-will and interest money. I have put the thing up to Joe +just as it is. Man is a free agent to choose or let alone. I have a +bigger problem than Joe to handle now. I had a letter this evening from +Miss Geraldine Swaim, of Philadelphia. Do you remember her, Laura? She +used to come up to Winnowoc when she was a little girl." + +"I remember little Jerry Swaim, Jim and Lesa's only child," York's +sister declared. "She was considerably younger than I. I pushed her in +her baby-cab when I wasn't very big myself. When I went away to college +she was a little roly-poly beauty of ten or eleven, maybe. Wasn't she +named for her father's rich sister, Mrs. Darby? I never knew that Mrs. +Darby's name was Geraldine." + +"It wasn't; it was Jerusha; and Jim's name was Jeremiah; and Lesa's was +plain Melissa," York explained. "But Lesa changed all of their names to +make them sound more romantic. Romance was Lesa's strong suit. She +called her daughter 'Jerry,' to please Mrs. Darby, but the child was +christened Geraldine--never Jerusha. Lesa wouldn't stand for that." + +"And now what does this Geraldine want from my respected brother?" Laura +inquired, leaning back on the cushions of her chair to listen. + +York's face was hidden by the darker shadows of the porch, but his +sister knew by his grave tone, when he spoke again, that something +deeper than a business transaction lay back of this message from +Philadelphia. + +"It's an old story, Laura. The story of parents rearing a child in +luxury and then dying poor and leaving this child unprovided for and +unfitted to provide for herself. Jim Swaim was as clear-headed as his +wife was soft-hearted and idealizing. Every angle of his was a right +angle, even if he did grow a bit tight-fisted sometimes for his family's +sake. But a leech of a fellow, a sort of relative by marriage, got his +claws into Jim some way, and in the end got him, root and branch. Then +Lesa contracted pneumonia and died after a short illness. And just when +Jim was most needed to hold up his business interests and tide things +over, as well as look after his daughter, they found him dead in his +office one morning. Heart failure, the doctors said, the kind that gets +a brain-fagged business man. The estate has been in litigation for two +years. Now it is settled, and all that is left for Geraldine is a claim +her father held out here in the Sage Brush Valley. She thinks she is +going to live on that. She came in on the afternoon train and is +stopping at the Commercial Hotel. I called to see her a minute on my way +home. That was why I ate a cold dinner this evening. I asked her to come +here at once, but she refused. Some one from the hotel will bring her +over later. That means Ponk, of course. He's the whole Commercial Hotel +'and Gurrage.' We must have her here to stay with us awhile, of course." + +"York Macpherson!" his sister fairly gasped. "Coming to call this +evening! Will stay with us awhile, of course. All right. I'm willing +she should stay with us awhile, but how can _she_ live on a Sage Brush +claim? Why doesn't her rich aunt Darby provide for her? What does she +look like?" + +"I don't know," York drawled, provokingly. Then he added: "Mrs. Darby +also writes, saying that she hopes we will look after Jerry while she is +here, but that she herself can do nothing for her niece, because a +relative of her dear deceased husband, an artist of merit but no means, +is dependent on her, and she owes it to her dear deceased's memory to +look after this young man. I've a notion that there is something back of +both letters, but I haven't had time to read behind the lines yet." + +"Turns out her own flesh and blood, a girl, too, to shift for herself, +and coddles this man, this artist thing, for her dear deceased's sake. +What _do_ you think of that?" Laura burst out. + +"I don't think of that," York replied. "Not really knowing any woman but +my sister, I can't judge them by the sample. Besides, this 'girl thing' +may have elected to come to the Sage Brush herself; that would be like +Jim Swaim. Or she may be making a lark of the trip; that's her mother's +child. And, anyhow, she has property in her own name, you see." + +"Property, bosh! Where is this precious claim that is to sustain this +luxuriously reared child?" Laura Macpherson insisted. + +"It is an undeveloped claim down the Sage Brush, in a part of the +country you haven't seen yet. That is what this child of luxury has come +out for to live upon," York said, with a minor chord of anxiety in his +voice. + +Then a silence fell, for Laura Macpherson felt that something tragical +must be bound up in the course of coming events. + +It was the poet's hour of "nearly dark." The "high lights" were +beginning to gleam from the cupola of the court-house and high-school, +and station tower out across the open stretch that lay between it and +the town. New Eden was unusually well lighted for its size. York +Macpherson had forced that provision into the electric company's +franchise. But New-Edenites were still rural in their ways, and never +burned up the long summer twilight with bug-alluring street lights. +Homes, too, were mostly shadowy places, with the dwellers resting in +porch swings or lawn chairs. Moreover, although there was a little +leakage somewhere through which things disappeared occasionally, nobody +in town except bankers, postmasters, and mortgage companies locked their +doors. The jail was usually empty on the Saturday night, and the +churches were full on Sunday, as is the normal condition of Middle West +towns in a prohibition state. + +"The wind is in the east. It will rain to-morrow," York said, after a +pause. "I had planned to go to the upper Sage Brush country for a +couple of days. I'll wait till after Sunday now." + +Laura Macpherson did not know whether the last meant relief or anxiety. +York was not readable to-night. + +"What are you staring at?" York asked, presently, from his +vine-sheltered angle, as he saw his sister looking intently down into +the street. + +"Humans," Laura replied, composedly. + +"Not the Big Dipper, I hope. Isn't the town big enough without her +ranging all over 'Kingussie'?" + +"Oh, York, you will call Mrs. Bahrr 'the Big Dipper' to her face some +day, if you don't quit your private practice," Laura declared. + +"Well, her name is Stella Bahrr. 'Stellar,' she calls it, and she +pronounces her surname just plain 'Bear.' If that isn't starry enough I +don't know my astronomy. And she is always dipping into other folks's +business and stirring up trouble with a high hand. Laura, once and for +all, never tie up with that little old hat-trimmer. She'll trim you if +you do." + +"Don't be uneasy about our getting chummy. I'm positively rude to her +most of the time. She isn't coming here. She has veered off toward the +Lenwells'. But look who is coming, York." + +York shifted his chair into line with the street. + +"It's the fair Philadelphian and her pompous gentleman in waiting," York +declared. + +"Look at little Brother Ponk strut, would you? 'A charge to keep I +have.' But, York, Miss Swaim appears a bit too Philadelphian for our New +Eden scenery!" Laura exclaimed. + +"She is a type all her own, I would say. Jim Swaim's determined chin and +Lesa's dreamy eyes. She will be an interesting study, at least. I wonder +which parent will win in her final development," York replied, as the +two approached the house. + +"I have brought the young lady to call on you," Mr. Ponk said, +presenting his companion with a flourish, as if she were a trophy cup or +a statue just unveiled. "Sorry I can't stay to visit with you, but my +clerk is out to-night. They'll take care of you beautiful, Miss Swaim. +No, thank you, no. I'll just soar back to the hotel." + +He waved off the seat York had proffered him, and bowed himself away as +gracefully as a short, round man can bow. + +Laura Macpherson had an inborn gift of hospitality, but she realized at +once that this guest brought an unusual and compelling interest. She was +conscious, too, in a vague way, of the portent of some permanent change +pending. What she saw clearly was a very pretty girl with a soft voice +and a definite, forceful personality. + +"Miss Swaim, you must be tired after your long journey," Laura began, +courteously. + +"Please don't call me that. I am so far from home I'll be 'Miss Swaimed' +enough, anyhow." + +The appeal in the blue eyes broke down all reserve. + +"Then I'll call you 'Jerry,' as I did when you were a little girl and I +was beginning to think about getting grown up," Laura exclaimed. + +"And since you are far from home, we hope you may find a home welcome in +our house, and that you will come at once and be our guest +indefinitely," York added, with his winning smile that ought to have +sent him to Congress years ago. + +Something about Jerry Swaim had caught Laura Macpherson in a moment. She +hoped that York had the same feeling. But York was one of the +impenetrable kind when he chose. And he certainly chose that evening to +prove his impenetrability. + +"You are very kind," Jerry said, looking at York with earnest eyes, void +of all coquettishness. Then, turning to York's sister, she went on: + +"I am not tired now. But the last part of my journey was frightful. The +afternoon was hot, and the wind blew terrifically. They had to close the +windows to keep out the dust. Then we were delayed in what they told me +was called a 'blowout.'" Her eyes were sparkling now, but her emphasis +on the term seemed to cut against York Macpherson's senses like burning +sand-filled wind as he sat studying her face. + +"All the 'blowouts' I ever heard of were in the tires of our limousine +car," she continued, musingly. "And my cousin, Gene Wellington, of +Philadelphia, didn't know what to do about them at all. He is an artist, +and artists never do take to practical things. Gene was more helpless +when anything went wrong with the car than ever I was, and awfully +afraid of taking a risk or anything." + +And that, it seemed to the Macphersons, must have been helpless indeed. +For as she sat there at ease in the shadowy dimness of the summer +evening, York Macpherson thought of Carlyle's phrasing, "Her feet to +fall on softness; her eyes to light on splendor," a creature fitted only +to adorn the upholstered places of life. + +"Did you ever see that dreadful 'blowout' thing?" Jerry asked, coming +back from the recollection of limousine cars and Cousin Gene of +Philadelphia. + +"No, I have only been here a short time myself, and the country is +almost as new to me as it is to you," Laura Macpherson replied. + +"Oh, it is _such_ an awful place!" Jerry continued. "Everywhere and +everywhere one can see nothing but great sand-waves all over the land. +They have almost buried the palisades that protect the railroad. It just +seemed like the Red Sea dividing to let the Israelites go through, only +this was red-hot sand held back to let the train pass through a deep +rift. And to-day the wind had filled up the tracks so it couldn't go +through until the sand was cleaned out. There is only one kind of shrub, +a spiny looking thing, growing anywhere on all those useless acres. It +is a perfectly horrid country! Why was such land ever made?" Jerry +turned to York with the question. + +"I can't tell you," York said, "but there are some good things here." + +"Yes, there is my claim," Jerry broke in. "It's all I have left, you +know. Cousin Gene tried to persuade me it would be better off without +me, but I'm sure it must need the owner's oversight to make it really +profitable. There was no record, in settling up the estate, of its +having produced any income at all. I certainly need the income now. +Taking care of myself is a new experience for me." + +All the vivacity and hopefulness of youth was in her words. But the +dreamy expression on her face that came and went with her moods soon +returned. + +"Cousin Gene Wellington is not my real cousin, you know. He is Uncle +Darby's relative, not Aunt Jerry's. He is an artist, but without any +income right now, like myself. Both of us have to learn how to go alone, +you see, but I'm not going back to Philadelphia now, no matter what Aunt +Jerry Darby may say." + +This was no appeal for sympathy. Taking care of oneself seemed easy +enough to Lesa Swaim's child, to whom the West promised only one grand +romantic adventure. There was something, too, in the tone in which she +pronounced the name of Gene Wellington that seemed to set it off from +every other name. And she pronounced it often enough to trouble York +Macpherson. No other name came so easily and so frequently and frankly +to her lips. + +"We hope you will like the West. The Sage Brush isn't so bad when you +get acclimated to its moods," York assured her. "But don't expect too +much at first, nor too definite a way of securing an income." + +Only Laura Macpherson caught the same minor chord of anxiety in her +brother's voice that she recalled had been in it when he told her of +Jerry's claim. It seemed impossible, however, that anything could refuse +to be profitable for this charming, blossomy kind of a girl who must +thrive on easy success or perish, like a flower. + +"Oh, land always means an income, my father used to say. Aunt Jerry has +only two hundred acres, but it is a fortune to her," the girl declared. +"I'm not uneasy. As soon as I get a real hold on my property here I'll +be all right. It is getting late. I must go now. No, I am going by +myself," she declared, prettily, as York prepared to accompany her back +to the hotel. "It is straight up this light street and I am going to try +it alone from the very beginning. That's why I didn't go to your office +as soon as I got here to-day. I told Cousin Gene I could take care of +myself and make my own way out here, just as he is making his own way in +the East, working in his studio. No, you shall not go with me. Thank +you so much. No. Good-by." This to York Macpherson, who was wise enough +to catch the finality of her words. + +The twilight was almost gone, but a young moon in the west made the +street still light as the two on the porch watched the girl going +firm-footed and unafraid, unconscious of their anxiety for what lay in +the days before her. + +"Is it courage, or contempt for the West, that makes her fearless where +one would expect her to be timid? She seems a combination of ignorance +and assertiveness and a plea for sympathy all in one," Laura Macpherson +declared. + +"She is the child of two different temperaments--Jim one, and Lesa +another; a type all her own, but taking on something of each parent," +York asserted, as he watched until the girl had disappeared at the door +of the Commercial Hotel, far up the street. + +The next day was an unusual one for four people in New Eden. The wind +came from the east, driving an all-day rain before it, and York +Macpherson did not go to the upper Sage Brush country. Instead, he +worked steadily in his office all day. Some files he had not opened for +months were carefully gone over, and township maps were much in +evidence. Every now and then he glanced toward the upper windows of the +Commercial Hotel. Mr. Ponk had said that Jerry had No. 7, the room he +had occupied for several years. He wondered if this rain was making her +homesick for the Winnowoc Valley and "Eden" and that wonderful Cousin +Gene, blast him! There was a smile in York's eyes whenever he looked +across the street. When he turned to his work again his face was stern. +What he thought was a determination not to be bothered by rainy-day +loafers coming into his office, what made him set his teeth and grip to +his work, was really the fight with a temptation to go over to the hotel +and look after a homesick girl. + +Meantime Jerry Swaim, snug in a filmy gray kimona with pink facings and +soft gray slippers, was enjoying the day to the full limit. Secure from +strangers, relaxed from the weariness of travel, she slept dreamlessly, +and wakened, pink and rested, to watch the cool, life-giving rains and +dream her wonderful day-dreams wherein new adventure, victory over +obstacles, and Eugene each played a part. Jerry was in love with life. +Sunshine and rain, wind and calm, every season, were made to serve her, +all things in nature to bring her interest and pleasure--all except +_sand_. That hot hour and a half between sand-leaguered palisades seared +her memory. But that was all down-stream now, with the junction station, +and the country Thelma, and the tow-headed woman and flabby flopping +baby, and the little old Teddy Bear humping his yellow-brown fuzziness +against the swirl of cinders and prairie dust. The recollection of it +all was like the touch of a live coal on the cool surface of her +tranquil soul, a thing abhorred that yet would not be uncreated nor +forgotten. + +"To-morrow will be Sunday." The little pagan would have one more idle +day. "I'll get a letter from Eugene on Monday. On Monday," dreamily, +"I'll beg into live here, not stay here. What charming folks the +Macphersons are! and--so different." + +There was a difference. Jerry did not know, nor care to analyze it, nor +explain to herself, why these two people had in themselves alone begun +to make New Eden worth while for her. She for whom things, human and +otherwise, had heretofore been created--all except _sand_. + +The third New-Edenite who had some special interests on this rainy day +was Junius Brutus Ponk. Often an idler in the Macpherson Company's +office, he was always interesting to York. There were never created two +of his kind. That in itself made him worth while to the big, strong man +of many affairs. And, much as York wanted to be alone to-day, he +welcomed the coming of Ponk. In the long, serious conversation that +followed, their usual bantering had no place. And when the little man +went slowly out, and slowly crossed the street to the hotel, indifferent +to the steady fall of rain, York Macpherson's eyes followed him +earnestly. + +"He'll almost forget to strut if that girl stays here--but she won't +stay. And he will strut. He's made that way. But down under it all he's +a man, God bless him--a man any woman could trust." + +Up at "Castle Cluny" the rainy day brought one caller whom "chilling +winds nor poisonous breath" could never halt--Mrs. Stellar Bahrr, +otherwise--"the Big Dipper"--the town gossip. + +Mrs. Stellar Bahrr was a married, widowed-by-divorce, old-maid type, +built like a sky-scraper, of the lean, uncertain age just around sixty, +with the roundness of youth all gone, and the plump beauty of +matronliness all lacking, wrinkled with envy and small malice, living on +repeating what New Eden wanted kept untold. Hiding what New Eden should +have known of her, she maintained herself on a pension from some one, +known only to York Macpherson, and the small income derived just now +from trimming over last year's hats "to make them look like +four-year-olds," York declared. + +The real milliner of the town was a brisk, bright business woman who had +Stellar Bahrr on her trail in season and out of season. Mrs. Bahrr +herself could not have kept up a business of any kind for a week, for +she changed callings almost with the moon's phases. + +No more unwelcome caller could have intruded on the homey, delicious, +rainy-day seclusion of "Castle Cluny." + +"I jis' run in to see the hat again you're goin' to wear to-morrow, Miss +Laury. I 'ain't got more 'n a minute. Ye ain't alone this dreary day, +are ye? The Lenwells was sayin' last night your brother was goin' to the +upper Sage Brush on some business with the Posers. But they're in town, +rainy as it is, an' all. Did he go?" + +"No, he put it off till Monday," Laura replied, wondering what interest +York's going or coming could be to Stellar Bahrr. + +"As I was sayin', the Posers is in town. Come to meet Nell and her baby. +They come in on the freight yesterday. The biggest, bald-headest young +un you ever see. Nell wants her hat fixed over, and nothin' on the +livin' earth to fix it with, ner money to pay for it. I'll make ol' +Poser do that, though. Lemme see your hat, so's I can get an idy or two. +You've got some 'commodation, if that blamed millinery-store hain't. +Thank ye for the favor." + +Stellar had a way of pinning her eyes through one until her victim could +not squirm. She also had a way of talking so much she gave the +impression of running down and the promise of a speedy leave-taking, +which she never took until she had gained all the information she +wanted. Her talent in a good cause would have been invaluable, for she +was shrewd, patient, and everlastingly persistent. + +Laura Macpherson reluctantly left the room to get her hat, wondering, +since it had not been out of the box before, how in the world Stellar +Bahrr knew anything about it. Mrs. Bahrr was standing by the dining-room +window when she returned. + +"I jis' come out here to see if the Sage Brush is raisin' down yonder. +Who is that strange girl Ponk's running around with last night?" The +gossip turned the question suddenly. "I seen 'em comin' up here myself. +Folks down-town don't know yet." The sharp, steel-pointed eyes caught +into Laura like hooks. + +"I don't--believe you'll like this hat." Laura had meant to say, "I +don't intend to tell you," but she was hooked too quickly. + +"Who'd you say she is?" + +There was no courteous way out now. + +"She is a Miss Swaim." + +"Say, this hat's a jew'l. Looks younger 'n the girls' hats does on 'em. +Where's she from?" + +"East. This color is a bit trying for me, I think." + +"Oh, no 'tain't! What's she here for?" + +"I--You'll have to ask York." Laura rolled her burdens on her brother's +shoulders, as did likewise the remainder of New Eden, when crowded to +the wall. + +"York! She ain't after him, I hope. Don't blush so. That's a good one +on York. An' he never met her at the station, even. Ponk--little fiend" +(Ponk always turned game-cock when Stellar approached him), "little +devil he is--he telephoned in from down at the sidin', by the deep +fishin'-hole." + +Mrs. Bahrr caught her breath and bit her lips as she eyed her hostess +slyly. Laura Macpherson was white with disgust and anger. Of all the +long-tongues, here was the queen. + +"Where's the deep fishing-hole?" she asked, innocently, to get her +unpleasant caller on another tack. + +For a moment Mrs. Bahrr did not reply, busying herself with examining +the new hat's lining and brim-curves. If Laura had known what York +Macpherson knew she would have realized that here was the place to score +by dwelling on the deep fishing-hole. But Laura was new to Sage Brush +traditions. + +"Ponk calls in to have his spanky new runabout all ready at the station. +George nearly busted hisself gettin' there. Then Ponk, the miserable +brute, he hangs around and keeps Miss Swine--" + +"Swaim, Geraldine Swaim," Laura cried, in disgust. + +"Yes, Geraldine Swim--keeps her inside, so's nobody gets a good look at +her. I was there myself, a-watchin' him. I'd gone to see if my fish 'd +been sent up, an' when they'd all cleared out he trots her out, big as +Cuffey, and races to the hotel with her. Maybe, though, York didn't +know she was comin', or had Ponk put up to lookin' after her for him. +You never can tell about these men. I noticed York never walked home +with her last night, neither. 'Course it was light as day. Well, well, +it's interestin' as can be. An' she come here purpose to see your +brother, too." + +"If you are through with my hat"--Laura was fairly gray with anger and +her eyes flashed as she tried to control herself. + +Nobody was wiser than Stellar Bahrr in situations like this. + +"In jest a minute. Them's the daintiest roses yet. Thank you, Miss +Laury. You ain't above helping a person like me. There's them that is +here in New Eden. But I know 'em--I know 'em. They talk to your back and +never say a word to your face, not a blamed word. But you're not like +'em. Everybody says you're just like your brother, an' that's enough for +anybody to know in the Sage Brush country. He's been the best friend I +ever had, I know that. I hope that pink-'n'-white city girl 'll find out +that much pretty quick. Somebody ought to tell her, too. Well, good day, +Miss Laury. My umberel's right outside in the umberel-stand." + +Poor Laura! She was no fighter from choice, no imputer of evil motives, +but her love for her brother amounted almost to idolatry. + +"I'm her one weakness," York often said. "Her strength is in her sense +of humor, her kind heart, her love of beautiful things, and the power of +the old scrapping blood of the Macphersons that will stand so much--and +then Joan of Arc is a tennis-player alongside of my blessed sister in +her righteous wrath." + +That rainy day ended with a problem in the minds of at least three New +Eden dwellers: York Macpherson, who carried a bigger load now than Joe +Thomson's unwise but determined mortgage matter; Junius Brutus Ponk, who +was sharing York's problem to a degree, and Laura Macpherson, who +realized that a malicious under-current was already started whose +undermining influence might sooner or later grow into a menacing power. + +And Jerry Swaim, unconscious cause of all this problem element, ate and +slept and laughed and dreamed her pretty day-dreams in utter content. It +was well that the next day was Sunday. The rain-washed prairie and the +June sunshine did so much to lift the tension in this New Eden where +even the good little snakes are not always so very good. + + + + +VI + +PARADISE LOST + + +Laura Macpherson came through the dining-room on Monday morning with her +hands full of wild flowers. + +"Wherefore?" York asked, seeing the breakfast-table already decorated +with a vase of sweet-peas. + +"Just a minute, York. I got these with the dew on them--all prairie +flowers. I thought Jerry might be up to see me to-day. I went out after +them for her," Laura explained, as she arranged the showy blossoms in +vases about the rooms. + +York dropped behind his day-old paper, calling after her, indifferently: +"I doubt if they are worth it. You must have gone to the far side of +'Kingussie' for them. I doubt, too, if she comes here to-day, but I +haven't any doubt that I am hungry and likely to get hungrier before you +get ready for breakfast." + +"Coming, coming." Laura came hastily to the table. "I forgot you in my +interest in Jerry." + +"A prevalent disease in New Eden right now," York said, behind his +paper. "Ponk nearly fell down on getting me a chauffeur for to-day; the +superintendent didn't get the quarterlies to our Sunday-school class on +time yesterday morning; the Big Dipper took the wrong pew and kept it, +and now my breakfast must wait--all on account of this Jerry girl." + +"Mournful, mournful!" Laura declared. "Such a little girl, too! I'd like +to tell you what your Big Dipper said about Jerry Saturday, but I +mustn't." + +"Saturday was a rainy day," York commented, knowing Laura would answer +no questions if he should ask them now. + +"All the more reason why the Big Dipper should come over to copy my new +hat for one of the Poser girls up the Sage Brush, and then fall to +questions and conclusions," Laura insisted. + +"I thought yesterday was the grand opening for that lid of yours. Where +did the B. D. see it?" York would not ask for what he wanted most to +know. + +"It had positively never been out of the box since it came here," Laura +declared. "But pshaw, York, it is the gossip you want to know, and I'm +really concerned about that." + +"I'm not. I am really concerned about where Stellar Bahrr saw your hat." +York was very serious and his sister was puzzled for the minute. He +never looked that way when he joked--never. + +"I don't know anything about Mrs. Bahrr's gift of second sight, York; +I'm simply telling what I do know. That hat-box was not opened. Let's +talk of better things. Mr. Ponk told me at church yesterday that when +Jerry first came she asked for 'an old gentleman named York +Macpherson.'" Laura's eyes were twinkling with mischief. "From what she +said to me yesterday she is going to depend on you for direction, just +like everybody else who comes to New Eden. I'm dead in love with her +already. Aren't you?" + +"Desperately," York returned. "But seriously, Laura, she is 'most too +big a responsibility to joke about. There are a lot of things tied up +for her in this coming West. I have to go to the upper Sage Brush this +morning to be gone for a couple of days. I wish she would come here and +stay with you, so that she might be with the best woman in the world." +York beamed affectionately upon the sweet-faced woman opposite him. "I +wish I didn't have to leave this morning, but I'll be back by to-morrow +night or early Wednesday morning. It is going to be our job to map out +her immediate future. After that, things will take their course without +us, and New Eden, I imagine, will have to get along without her. When I +get back I'll take her down to see her claim. Ponk is the only man +besides myself who knows where it is, and I've fixed him. He can't run a +hotel and garage and play escort all at once. I want to prepare her in a +way, anyhow, for she won't find exactly what she is expecting--another +'Eden' six times enlarged. Meantime turn her gently, if you can, toward +our woolly Western life. I won't say lead. Geraldine Swaim, late of +Philadelphia, will never be led." + +"York she's a lamb. Look at her big, pleading eyes," his sister +insisted. + +"Laura, she's a rock. Look at her square chin. I'm going now, and I will +and bequeath her to your care. Good-by." + +As he left the house his sister heard him whistling the air to the old +song, "I'll paddle my own canoe." + +Evidently the fair Philadelphian was still on his mind. + +"I wish," he said to himself, as he cleared the north limits of the New +Eden settlement and struck out toward the upper Sage Brush country--"I +wish to goodness I had pressed Laura to tell me more about what that +infernal Big Dipper said to her Saturday. I'll get that creature yet. I +believe she knows that as well as I do. I wish, too, I was sure things +would just stay put until I get back." + +Half an hour after York had left town Jerry Swaim, dressed for a drive, +appeared at the door of Ponk's garage. + +"Have you a good little runabout that I could hire this morning? I want +to go out into the country," she said to the proprietor. + +"Why, yes, Miss Swaim, but I 'ain't got no shofer this morning. York +Macpherson, he took my last man and soared up the country, and they +won't be back for a couple of days. I'm sorry, but could you wait till, +say, about a-Thursday, or mebby a-Friday?" + +Ponk's cheerful grin always threatened to eclipse his eyes, but this +morning there was something anxious back of his cheerfulness. Nature had +made him in a joking mood, round eyed, round headed, round bodied, +talkative, and pompous in an inverse ratio to his size. But there was +something always good and reliable about Ponk, and with all his +superficiality, too, there was a real depth to the man, and a keener +insight than anybody in New Eden, except York Macpherson, ever gave him +credit for having. + +"I'm sorry I've got no shofer. There was a run on the livery business +this morning for some reason. That's why I'm office-boy here now, 'stead +of runnin' the office next door," Ponk explained, as blandly and +conclusively as possible. + +"I don't want a chauffeur at all. I drive myself," Jerry declared. + +"You say you do?" Ponk stared at her little hands in their close-fitting +white gauntlets. + +"Now I'd never thought that. Yes," weakly, "I've got a dandy car for +them that can use it, which is mostly me. It's the little gray gadabout +we come up from the station in the other evening. There ain't another +one like it this side of the Mississippi River--S'liny, Kansas, anyhow. +You see, I have to be awful particular. I don't want it smashed against +a stone wall or run off of some bridge." + +"I've never done that with a car yet. And I used to drive our big +eight-cylinder machine over all kinds of Pennsylvania roads." + +The blue eyes were full of pathos as the memory of her home and all its +luxuries swept over Jerry. And Ponk understood. + +"We don't have no stone walls out here, and there ain't no bridges, +either, except across the Sage Brush in a few places, because there +ain't never water enough out here to bridge over. Yes, you may take the +gadabout. I just know you'll be careful. That little car's just like a +colt, and noways bridle-wise under a woman's hand." + +"Thank you. I'll take no risks." + +When Jerry was seated in the shining gray car, with her hand on the +wheel, she turned to Mr. Ponk. + +"By the way, do you know who owns any of the claims, as you call them, +in this valley?" she asked. "I was going to speak to Mr. Macpherson, but +you say he has gone out of town." + +"Yes'm." Ponk fairly swelled with importance. "I know every claim, and +who owns it, from the hills up yonder clear to the mouth of that stream. +My hotel an' livery business together keeps me as well posted as the +Macpherson Mortgage Company that holds a mortgage on most of them." + +"Can you tell me where to find the one belonging to the estate of the +late Jeremiah Swaim, of Philadelphia?" Jerry asked, in a low voice. + +The short little man beside the car looked away in pity and surprise as +he said: + +"Yes'm, I can. You follow this street south and keep on till you come to +where the Sage Brush makes a sharp bend to the east, right at a +ranch-house. From there you leave the trail (we still call that +down-stream road 'the trail') and strike across to three big +cottonwood-trees on a kind of a knoll, considerable distance away. You +can't miss 'em, for you can see 'em for miles. And then"--Ponk hesitated +as if trying to remember--"seems to me you turn, bias'n' like, southeast +a bit, and head for a little bunch of low oaks. From there you run your +eye around and figger how many acres you can see. An', it's all Jeremiah +Swaim's, or his heirs an' assignees. But, say, _you_ ain't any kin to +the late Mr. Swaim, who never seen that land of hisn, I reckon? I hadn't +thought about your names being the same. Odd I didn't." + +There was something wistful in the query which Jerry set down merely as +plebeian curiosity, but she answered, courteously: + +"Yes, he was my father. The land belongs to me." + +"Say, hadn't you better wait and let York Macpherson soar down with +you?" Ponk suggested. "It might be better, after all, mebby, not to go +alone to spy out the land, even if you can drive yourself. Seems to me +York said he'd be goin' down that way the last of the week. I do wish +you'd wait for York to go with you first." + +"I want to go alone," Jerry replied, and with a deft hand she made the +difficult curve to the street, leaving the proprietor of the garage +staring after her. + +"Well, by heck! she can run a car anyhow!" he exclaimed, as he watched +her speeding away. "Smart as her dad, I reckon. Mebby a little smarter." + +All of Lesa Swaim's love of romantic adventure was shining on Jerry +Swaim's bright face as she came upon Laura Macpherson on the cool side +porch a few minutes later. + +"I'm going out to inspect my royal demesne," she cried, gaily. + +"Not to-day. I want you to spend the day with me, and you don't know the +road. You haven't any way to go. York will be home soon. He wants to +take you there himself. He understands land values, and, anyhow, you +oughtn't go alone," Laura Macpherson said, emphatically. + +"That is just what Mr. Ponk said at the garage, but I want to go alone." + +That "I want" settled everything with Jerry Swaim in the Kansas New Eden +as in the old "Eden" in the green valley of the Winnowoc. + +"I have hired a runabout of Mr. Ponk. He gave me directions so I can't +miss the way. Good-by." + +The trail down the Sage Brush was full of delight this morning for the +young Eastern girl who sent her car swiftly along the level road, almost +forgetting the landmarks of the way in the exhilaration of youth and +June-time. And, however out of place she might seem on the Western +prairie, no one could doubt her ability to handle a car. + +"'Where the stream bends sharp to the east away from a ranch-house,'" +Jerry was quoting Ponk. "I'm sure I can't miss it if I follow his +directions and the stream and bend and house and cottonwood-trees and +oak-grove are really there. I love oaks and I hope my woodland is full +of them. There must be a woodland on my farm, even if the trees are few +and small and scattered here, so far as I have seen. But there was +really something pitiful in the little man's eyes when he was talking to +me. Maybe he is a wee bit envious of my possessions. Some men are +jealous of women who have property. No doubt my workmen will need +managing, and some adjusting to a new head of affairs. I'll be very +considerate with them, but they must respect my authority. I wish Gene +was with me this morning." + +Then she fell to musing. + +"I wonder what message Gene will send me, and whether he will write it +himself, or, as he suggested, will send it through Aunt Jerry's letters +to York. It was his original way of doing to say I'd find things out +through Aunt Jerry, when she probably won't write me a line for a long +time. I know Gene will choose nobly, and I know everything will turn out +all right at last.... I wonder if my place is as beautiful as this. How +I wish Gene could see it with his artist eyes." + +Jerry brought her engine down to slow speed as she passed a thrifty +ranch-house where barns and clustering silos, and fields of grain and +cattle-dotted prairies outlying all, betokened the possibilities of the +Sage Brush Valley. The blue eyes of Lesa Swaim's daughter were full of +dreamy light as she paused to picture here the possibilities of her own +possessions. + +At the crest of a low ridge the road forked, one branch wandering in and +out among the small willow-trees along the river, and the other cutting +clean and broad across the rougher open land swelling away from the +narrowed valley. + +"Here's something Mr. Junius Brutus Ponk left out of his map. I'll take +the rim road; it looks the more inviting," Jerry decided, because the +way of least resistance had been her life-road always. + +This one grew narrow and clung close to the water's side. Its sandy bed +was damp and firm, and the slender trees on either side here and there +almost touched branches overhead. Mile after mile it seemed to stretch +without another given landmark to show Jerry her destination. Beyond +where the road curved sharply around a thicket of small trees and +underbrush Jerry halted her car. Before her the waters of the river +rippled into foam against a rocky ledge that helped to form a deep hole +above it. Below, the stream was shallow, and in dry midsummer here +offered rough stepping-stones across it. It was a lonely spot, with the +river on one side and a tangle of bushes and tall weeds on the other, +and the curves along the roadway, filled with underbrush and low timber +shutting off the view up-stream and down-stream. + +At the coming of Jerry's car a man who had been kneeling over some +fishing-lines at the river's edge rose up beside the road, brushing the +wet sand from his clothes, and staring at her. He was small and old and +stooped and fuzzy, and thoroughly unpretty to see. + +"It's the Teddy Bear who 'sat in the sand and the sun' coming up from +that horrid railroad junction. Who's afraid of bears? I'll ask him how +to find my lost empire." + +Jerry did not reflect that it was the unconscious effect of this humble +creature's thoughtfulness for her that made her unafraid of him in this +lonely spot. Reflection was not yet one of her active psychological +processes. + +"I want to find a ranch-house by a big bend in the river where it turns +east," Jerry said, looking at the man much as she would look at the bend +in the river--merely for the information to be furnished. He pushed his +brown cap back from his forehead and rubbed his fingers thoughtfully +through his thin sunburnt hair. + +"It's Joe's place, eh?" the high, quavering voice squeaking like an +unused machine afraid of itself. "You'd ought to took the t'other fork +of the road back yander. It's a goodish mile on down this way now to +where you das to turn your cyar round. When you get where you kin turn, +then go back and take the t'other fork. It'll take you right to Joe's +door about." + +The words came hesitatingly, as if the speaker had little use for +sounding them in his solitary, silent life. Fishermen don't catch fish +by talking to them. + +"A mile! I think I'll turn right here," Jerry declared. + +Then, as the meek unknown watched her in open-mouthed wonder, she swung +her car deftly about, the outer wheels barely keeping a toe-hold on the +edge of the river-bank, with hardly more than an inch of space between +them and the crumbling sand above the water. As she faced the way over +which she had come she reached out to drop a piece of silver into the +man's hand. He let it fall to the ground, then picked it up and laid it +on the top of the car door. + +"I ain't workin' for the gov'mint," he quavered. "I thankee, but I don't +have no knowin's to sell. Ye're welcome to my ketch of information any +day ye're on the river." + +He made an odd half-military salute toward his old yellow-brown cap and +shuffled across the road toward a narrow path running back through the +bushes. + +At the bend in the river Jerry found herself. + +"That must be the ranch-house that Mr. Ponk gave me for a landmark, for +there goes the river bending east, all right. What a quaint, picturesque +thing that is, and built of stone, too, with ivy all over it! It must +have been here a long time. And how well kept everything is! The old +Teddy Bear said it was 'Joe's place.' Well, Joe keeps it looking as +different from some of the places I've passed as 'Eden' differs from +other country-places back in Pennsylvania." + +The long, low, stone ranch-house, nestling under its sheltering vines, +had an old and familiarly homey look to Jerry. + +"That wide porch is a dream. I'll have one just like it on my place. I +wonder if this farm has any name. I suppose not. What shall I call mine? +'New Eden' wouldn't do, of course. I might call it 'Paradise Prairie.' +That's pretty and smooth. Gene would like that, and talk a lot about +going 'from Nature up to Nature's God.' I don't care a whiff about all +his religious talk, somehow. That's just one thing wherein we will never +agree. If I can go from nature to the finished produce I'll be +satisfied. Oh, yonder are my three trees." + +At the bend of the Sage Brush Jerry left the stream road and sped +across a long level swell toward three cottonwood-trees standing +sentinel on a small rise of the prairie. From there she was to see the +oak-grove, the center of her own rich holdings. Oh, Jerry! + +<tb> + +Down under the spreading oaks a young man in rough ranchman's dress +stood leaning against a low bough, absorbed in thought. He was tall, +symmetrically built, and strong of muscle, without a pound of +superfluous fat to suggest anything of ease and idleness in his day's +run. Some of the lines that mark the stubborn will were graven in his +brown face, but the eyes were all-redeeming. Even as he stared out with +unseeing gaze, lost in his own thoughts, the smile that lighted them +hovered ready to illuminate what might otherwise have been a severe +countenance. + +In all the wide reach of level land there was no other living creature +in sight. The breeze pulsing gently through the oak boughs poured the +sunlight noiselessly down on the shadow-cooled grass about the +tree-trunks. The freshness of the morning lingered in the air of the +grove. + +Suddenly the young man caught the sound of an automobile coasting down +the long slide from the three cottonwoods, and turned to see a young +girl in a shining gray car gliding down into the edge of the shade. A +soft hat of Delft-blue, ornamented, valkyrie-wise, with two white wings; +golden-gleaming hair overshadowing a face full of charm; blue eyes; +cheeks of peach-blossom pink; firm, red lips; a well-defined chin and +white throat; a soft gown, Delft-blue in color; and white gauntlet +gloves--all these were in the blurred picture of that confused moment. + +As for Jerry Swaim, all farmer folk looked alike to her. It was not the +sudden appearance of a stranger, but the landscape beyond him, that held +her speechless, until the shrill whistle of a train broke the silence. + +"Is that the Sage Brush Railroad so near?" she asked, at last, with no +effort at formal greeting. + +"Yes, ma'am. It is just behind the palisades over there. You can't see +it from here because the sand-drifts are so high. That's the morning +freight now." + +The light died out of Jerry Swaim's eyes, the pink bloom faded to ivory +in her cheeks, even the red lips grew pale, as she stared at the scene +before her. For the oak-grove stood a lone outpost of greenness +defending a more or less fertile countryside from a formless, senseless +monster beyond it. Jerry had pictured herself standing in the very +center of her heritage, where she might "run her eyes around," as Ponk +had said, "and figure how many acres she could see, and they were all +hers." And now she was here. + +Wide away before her eyes rippled acre on acre, all hers, and all of +billowing sand, pointed only by a few straggling green shrubs. The glare +of the sunlight on it was intolerable, and the north wind, sweeping cool +and sweet under the oak-trees, brought no comfort to this glaring +desert. + +Suddenly she recalled the pitying look in Ponk's eyes when he had begged +her to wait for York Macpherson to come with her to this place, and she +had thought he might be envious of her good fortune. And then she +remembered that Laura Macpherson had put up the same plea for York. He +was the shield and buckler for all New Eden, it would seem. And the +three, Laura and York and Ponk, all knew and were pitying her, Jerry +Swaim, who had been envied many a time, but never, never pitied. Even in +the loss of the Swaim estate in Philadelphia, Mrs. Jerusha Darby had +made it clear to every one that her pretty niece was still to be envied +as a child of good fortune. + +Flinging aside her hat and gloves, unconscious of the stray sunbeams +sifting down through the oak boughs on her golden hair, Jerry Swaim +gazed toward the railroad with wide-open, burning eyes, and her white +face was pitiful to see. At length she turned to the young man who still +stood leaning against the oak bough beyond her car, waiting for her to +speak. + +"Can I be of any service to you?" he asked, courteously. + +"Who are you?" Jerry questioned, with unconscious bluntness. + +"My name is Joe Thomson." The smile in his eyes lighted his face as he +spoke. + +"Tell me all about this place, won't you?" Jerry demanded, pointing +toward the gleaming sands. "Was it always like this, here? I thought +when the Lord finished the earth He looked on His work and found it +good. Did He overlook this spot?" + +Surprise and sarcasm and bitter disappointment were all in her tone as +she asked these questions. + +Joe Thomson frowned as he replied: + +"It wasn't an oversight at all. There was a fine piece of prairie here +until a few years ago, with only one little sandy strip zigzagging +across it. Ages back, there may have been a stream along that low place +yonder that dried up and blew away some time, when the forest fires +changed the prehistoric woodlands into prairies. I can't be accurate +about geology and such things if history and the Scriptures are silent +on these fine points." + +Joe Thomson still stood leaning against the oak limb. The confusion of +meeting this handsome stranger had passed. He was in his own territory +now, talking of things of which he knew. He knew, too, how to put his +thoughts into good, expressive English. + +"There are beautiful farms up the river--ranches, I mean. What has +changed this prairie to such an awful place?" Jerry questioned, +eagerly. + +"Eastern capital and lack of brains and energy," Joe answered her. "It +is just a blowout, that's all. It began in that sandy strip in that low +place along over there by the railroad, where, as I say, some old +river-bed, maybe the Sage Brush, might have been long ago before it made +that big bend in its course up by my buildings. A crazy, money-mad fool +from back East came out here and plowed up all this ground one dry +season, a visionary fellow who dreamed of getting a fortune from the +land without any labor. And when the thing began to look like real work +he cut the whole game, just like a lot of other fools have done, and +went back East, leaving all these torn, unsodded acres a plaything for +the winds. There were three or four dry seasons right after that, and +the soil all went to dust and blew away. But the sand grew, and +multiplied, and surged over the face of this particular spot of the +Lord's earth until it has come to be a tyrant of power, covering all +this space and spreading slowly northward up over the next claim. That's +mine." + +"What is it doing to your land?" Jerry asked. + +"Ruining it," Joe replied, calmly. + +"And you don't go mad?" the girl cried, impulsively. + +"We don't go mad on the Sage Brush till the last resort, and we don't +often come to that. When we can't do one thing, out West, we do another. +That's all there is to it." The smile was in his eyes again as Joe said +this. + +"Do you know who owns this ground now?" Jerry tried to ask as carelessly +as possible. + +"An estate back in Pennsylvania, I believe," Joe replied. + +"What is it worth?" Jerry's voice was hardly audible. + +"Look at it. What do _you_ think it is worth, as a whole, or cut up into +town lots for a summer resort?" Joe demanded. + +In spite of his calmness there was a harshness in his voice, and his +eyes were stern. + +Jerry twisted her white hands helplessly. "I don't know--anything worth +knowing," she said, faintly, looking full into the young man's face for +the first time. + +Afterward she remembered that he was powerfully built, that his eyes +were dark, and that his teeth showed white and even, as he repeated, +with a smile: + +"You don't know anything worth knowing. You don't quite look the part." + +"Why don't you answer my question?" + +Back of the light in Jerry's eyes Joe saw that the tears were waiting, +and something in her face hurt him strangely. + +"I think this claim is not worth--an effort," he declared, frankly, +looking out at the wind-heaved ridges of sand. + +"What brought you here to look at it, then?" Jerry demanded. + +"Partly to despise the fool who owned it and let it become a curse." + +"Do you know him?" the girl inquired. + +"No. But if I did I should despise him just the same," Joe Thomson +declared. + +"What if he were dead?" Jerry asked. + +"Pardon me, but may I ask what brought you down here to look at such a +place?" Joe interrupted her. + +"I came down here to find out its value. It belongs to me. My only +inheritance. I have always lived in a big city until now, and I know +little of country life except its beauty and comfort, and nothing at all +of the West. But I can understand you when you say that this claim is +not worth an effort. I hope I shall never, never see it again. Good-by." + +The firm, red lips quivered and the blue eyes looked up through real +tears as Jerry Swaim drew on her gloves and fitted the soft blue hat +down on the golden glory of her hair. Then without another word she +turned her car about and sped away. + + + + +II + +JERRY AND JOE + + + + +VII + +UNHITCHING THE WAGON FROM A STAR + + +How long is a mid-June day? Ticked off by the almanac, it is so much +time as lies between the day-dawn and the dark of evening. But Jerry +Swaim lived a lifetime in that June day in which she went out to enter +upon her heritage. From the moment she had turned away from the young +farmer under the oak-trees until she reached the forks of the road again +she did not take cognizance of a single object. The three big cottonwood +sentinels, the vine-covered ranch-home, the deep bend of the Sage Brush +to the eastward, were passed unnoted. Ponk's gray gadabout seemed to +know the way home like a faithful horse. + +There was no apparent reason why the junction of the two highways should +have momentarily called the bewildered disappointed girl to her calmer +self. No more was there anything logical in her choosing to turn again +down the narrow river road. The lone old fisherman was the farthest down +in the scale from Geraldine Swaim of any human being who had ever shown +her a favor. He could not have had any interest for her.... But York +Macpherson was correct in his estimate of Jerry. She was a type in +herself alone. She drove far beyond the narrow place by the deep hole +where, with accurate eye and clear skill, she had played a game of +chance with the river and fate and guardian angels. Her tires had cut a +wide, curving gash across the sand of the road. + +"My gracious alive! that was a close turn!" she exclaimed, as she caught +sight of her wheel-marks. "No wonder the old Teddy Bear looked scared. +One inch or less! Well, there was that inch. But what for? To enter on +my vast landed--vast sanded--estate in the kingdom of Kansas!" + +Jerry smiled grimly in ridicule of her foolish, defrauded self. Then in +a desperate effort to blot out of mind what she had seen she hurled the +gray car madly forward. With the bewildered gropings of a shipwrecked +landsman she was struggling to get her bearings, she for whom the earth +had been especially designed. As the hours passed the road became dry +and sunny, with the north breeze tempering the air to the coolness of a +rare Kansas June day, entirely unlike the hot and windy one on which +Jerry had first come up this valley. She did not, in reality, cover many +miles now, because she made long stops in sheltered places and at times +let the gray machine merely creep on the sunny stretches, but in her +mind she had girdled the universe. + +In the late afternoon she turned about wearily, as one who has yet many +leagues of ground to cover before nightfall. The sunlight glistened +along the surface of the river and a richer green gleamed in what had +been the shadowy places earlier in the day; but the driver in the car +paid little heed to the lights and shadows of the way. + +"If a man went right with himself." Cornelius Darby's words came +drifting across the girl's mind. "Poor Uncle Cornie! He didn't begin to +live, to me, until he was gone. Maybe he knew what it meant for a man +_not_ to go right with himself. And if a woman went right with herself!" + +Jerry halted her car again by the deep hole and looked at nothing where +the Sage Brush waters were rippling over the rough ledge in its bed. For +the first time since she had sat under the oak-trees and looked at the +acres that were hers, Jerry Swaim really found herself on solid ground +again. The bloom came slowly back to the ashy cheeks, and the light into +the dark-blue eyes. + +"If I can only go right with myself, I shall not fail. I need time, +that's all. There will be a letter from Eugene waiting when I get back +to town, and that will make up for a lot. There must be some way out of +all the mistakes, too. It wasn't my land that I saw. Mr. Ponk must have +directed me wrongly. That country fellow may not know the facts. I'll go +back and ask York Macpherson right away. Only, he's gone out of town for +two days. Oh dear!" + +She wrung her hands as the picture of that oak-grove and all that lay +beyond it came vividly before her. She tried to forget it and for a +moment she smiled to herself deceivingly, and then--the smile was gone +and by the determined set of her lips Jerry was her father's own +resolute child again. + +"I don't exactly know what next, except that I'm hungry. Why, it is five +o'clock! Where has this day gone, and where am I, anyhow?" + +Her eyes fell on the broad ruts across the road. Then back in the bushes +she caught a glimpse of a low roof. + +"I smell fish frying. I'll starve to death if I wait to get back to the +Commercial Hotel!" Jerry exclaimed. "Here's the wayside inn where I find +comfort for man and beast." + +She called sharply with her horn. In a minute the fuzzy brown fisherman +came shuffling along the narrow path through the bushes. + +"I'm dreadfully hungry," Jerry said, bluntly. + +It did not occur to her to explain to this creature why she happened to +be here and hungry at this time. She wanted something; that was +sufficient. + +"Can't you let me have some of your fish? I am desperate," she went on, +smiling at the surprised face of the man who stared up at her in +silence. + +"Yes'm, I can give you what I eat. Just a minute," he squeaked out, at +last. Then he shuffled back to where the bit of roof showed through the +leaves. + +While the girl waited a tall, slender woman came around the brushy bend +ahead. She halted in the middle of the road and stared a moment at +Jerry; then she came forward rapidly and passed the car without looking +up. She wore a plain, grayish-green dress, with a sunbonnet of the same +hue covering her face--all very much like the bushes out of which she +seemed to have come and into which she seemed to melt again. In her hand +she carried a big parcel lightly, as if its weight was slight. As Jerry +turned and looked after her with a passing curiosity, she saw that the +woman was looking back also. The young city-bred girl had felt no fear +of the strange country fellow in the far-away oak-grove; she had no fear +of this uncouth fisherman in this lonely hidden place; but when she +caught a mere glimpse of this woman's eyes staring at her from under the +shadows of the deep sunbonnet a tremor of real fright shook her hands +grasping the steering-wheel. It passed quickly, however, with the +reappearance of the host of the wayside inn. + +"This is delicious," Jerry exclaimed, as the hard scaly hands lifted a +smooth board bearing her meal up to her. + +Fried fish, hot corn-bread, baked in husks in the ashes, wild +strawberries with coarse brown sugar sprinkled on them, and a cup of +fresh buttermilk. + +The girl ate with the healthy appetite that youth, a long fast, a day in +the open, and a well-cooked meal can create. When she had finished she +laid a silver half-dollar on the board beside the cracked plate. + +"'Tain't nuthin'; no, 'tain't nuthin'. I jis' divided with ye," the +fisherman insisted, shrilly. + +"Oh, it is worth a dollar to drink this good buttermilk!" + +Jerry lifted the cup, a shining silver mug, and turned it in the light. +It was of an old pattern, with a quaint monogram on one side. + +"This looks like an heirloom," she thought. "Why should a bear with +cracked plates and iron knives and forks offer me a drink in a silver +cup? There must be a story back of it. Maybe he's a nobleman in +disguise. Well, the disguise is perfect. After all, it's as good as a +novel to live in Kansas." + +Jerry slowly sipped the drink as these thoughts ran through her mind. +The meal was helping wonderfully to take the edge off of the tragedy of +the morning. It would overwhelm her again later, but in this shady, +restful solitude it slipped away. + +She smiled down at the old man at the thought of him in a story. _Him!_ +But the smile went straight to his heart; that was Jerry's gift, making +him drop his board tray and break the cracked plate in his confusion. + +"Here's another quarter. That was my fault," Jerry insisted. + +"Oh no'm, no'm! 'Tain't nobody's fault." The voice quavered as the +scaly brown hand thrust back the proffered coin. + +Jerry could not understand why this creature should refuse her money. +Tipping, to her mind, covered all the obligations her class owed to the +lower strata of the earth's formation. + +<tb> + +At sunset York Macpherson drove into Ponk's garage. + +"Hello, fellow-townsman! You look like a sick man!" he exclaimed, as the +owner met him in the doorway. + +"I'd 'a' been a dead man if you hadn't come this minute," Ponk growled +back. + +"Congratulations! The good die young," York returned. "I failed to get +through to the place I wanted to see. That Saturday rain filled the dry +upper channels where a bridge would rot in the tall weeds, but an +all-day rain puts a dangerous flood in every ford, so I came back in +time to save your life. What's your grievance?" + +Ponk's face was agonizing between smiles and tears. "Well, spite of all +I, or _anybody_ could do, Miss Swaim takes my little gadabout this +morning and makes off with it." + +"And broke the wind-shield? I told you to keep her at home." + +York still refused to be serious. + +"I don't know what's broke, except my feelin's. You tried yet to _keep_ +her anywhere? She would go off to that danged infernal blowout section +of the country, _and she ain't back yet_." + +York Macpherson grasped the little man by the arm. "Not back yet! Where +is she, then?" + +"She ain't; that's all I know," Ponk responded, flatly. "Yes, yes, +yonder she is just soarin' into the avenue up by 'Castle Cluny' this +minute. Thank the Lord an' that Quaker-colored gadabout!" + +"Tell her I'll see her at the hotel as soon as I get my mail," York +said, and he hurried to his office. + +A few minutes later Jerry Swaim brought the gray runabout up to the +doorway of the garage. + +Ponk assisted her from it and took the livery hire mechanically. + +"Thank you, Miss Swaim. Hope you had a safe day. No'm, that's too much," +handing back a coin of the change. "That's regular. Yes'm." Then, as an +afterthought, he added, with a bow, "York Macpherson he's in town again, +an' he's waitin' to see you in the hotel 'parlor.'" + +"Oh!" a gasp of surprise and relief. "Thank you, Mr. Ponk. Yes, I have +had a safe day." And Jerry was gone. + +The little man stared after her for a full minute. Then he gave a long +whistle. + +"She's a Spartan, an' she's goin' to die game. I'll gamble on that with +Rockefeller. This is the rummiest, bummiest world I ever lived in," he +declared to himself. "Why _the_ dickens does the blowouts have to fall +on the just as well as the unjust 's what I respectfully rise to ask of +the Speaker of all good an' perfect gifts. An' I'm goin' to keep the +floor till I get the recognition of Chair." + +York Macpherson was standing with his back to the window, so that his +face was in the shadow, when Jerry Swaim came into the little parlor. +Her eyes were shining, and the pink bloom on her cheek betokened the +tenseness of feeling held in check under a calm demeanor. + +"Pardon me for keeping you waiting, Mr. Macpherson. I've been away from +town all day and I wanted to get my mail before I came in. I'm a long +way from everybody, you know." + +There may have been a hint of tears in the voice, but the blue eyes were +very brave. + +"And you got it?" + +That was not what York meant to say. It was well that his face was in +the shadow while Jerry's was in the light. There are times when a man's +heart may be cut to the quick, and because he is a man he must not cry +out. + +"No, not to-day. I don't know why," Jerry replied, slowly, with a +determined set of her red lips, while the fire in her blue-black eyes +burned steadily and the small hands gripped themselves together. + +"I haven't had a word since I left home, and I had hoped that I might +find a letter waiting for me here." + +"Letters are delayed, and letter-writers, too, sometimes. Maybe they are +all busy with Mrs. Darby's affairs. I remember when I was a boy up on +the Winnowoc she could keep me busier than anybody else ever did," York +offered. + +"It must be that. Of course it must. Aunt Jerry is as industrious as I +am idle." Jerry gave a sigh of relief. + +After the strain of this day, it was vastly comforting to her to stop +thinking _forward_, and just remember how beautiful it must be at "Eden" +now; and Eugene was there, and it was twilight. But like a hot blast the +memory of the hot sand-heaps of her landed estate came back. + +"Did you want to see me about something?" she asked, suddenly. "Mr. Ponk +said you did." + +"Yes, Jerry. I came here to see you because my sister and I want you to +come out to our house at once, and I have orders from Laura not to come +home without you." + +"You are very kind. You know where I have been to-day?" + +York smiled. Even in her abstraction Jerry felt the genial force of that +smile. How big and strong he was, and there was such a sense of +protection in his presence. + +"Yes. You denied me the privilege of escorting you on this journey. I +had written a full description of your property to Cornelius Darby, in +reply to some questions of his, but his death must have come before the +letter reached Philadelphia. In the mass of business matters Mrs. Darby +may have missed my report." + +"She may have," Jerry echoed, faintly. "I cannot say. Then it is my +estate that is all covered with sand, barren and worthless as a desert? +I thought I might have been mistaken." + +The hope died out of Jerry's face with the query. + +"I wish I could have saved you this surprise," York said, earnestly. +"Come home with me now. 'Castle Cluny' must be your castle, too, as long +as you can put up with us. And you can take plenty of time to catch your +breath. The earth is a big place, and, while most of it is covered with +water, very little of it is covered entirely with sand." + +How kind his tones were! Jerry remembered again that both his sister and +Mr. Ponk had urged her to wait for his coming. But she was not +accustomed to waiting for anybody. A faint but persistent self-blame +gripped her. + +"May I stay with you until I find where I really am? Just now I'm all +smothered in bewildering sand-dunes." She smiled up at the tall man +before her with a confiding, appealing earnestness. + +Many women smiled upon York Macpherson. Many women confided in him. He +was accustomed to it. + +"Laura will consider it a boon, for you must know that she sometimes +gets a trifle lonely in New Eden. We'll call the compact finished." Only +a gracious intuition could have turned the favor so graciously back to +the recipient. But that was York's gift. + +In the dining-room at "Castle Cluny" that evening Jerry noticed a silver +cup with a quaintly designed monogram on one side. + +"That's an old heirloom," Laura said, as she saw her guest's eyes fixed +on it. "Like everything else in this house, it is coupled up with some +old Macpherson clan tradition, as befitting an old bachelor and old maid +of that ilk." + +"We used to have two of them," York said. + +"We have yet somewhere," Laura replied. "I hadn't missed one from the +sideboard before. It must be back in the silver-closet, with other old +silver and old memories." + +Jerry's day had been full of changes, up and down, from hope to bitter +disappointment, from reality to forgetfulness, from clear conception to +bewildered confusion, her mind had run since she had left the oak-grove +in the forenoon. When she had occasion to remember that silver cup +again, she wondered how she could have passed it over so lightly at this +time. + +Although Jerry's problem was very real, and she brought to its solution +neither experience nor discipline, unselfish breadth nor spiritual +trust, there was something in the homey atmosphere of "Castle Cluny" +that seemed to smooth away the long day's wrinkles for her. Out in the +broad porch in the twilight she nestled down like a tired child among +the cushions, and gazed dreamily out at the evening landscape. York had +been called away by a neighbor and Laura and her guest were alone. + +"How beautiful it is here!" Jerry murmured, as the afterglow of a +prairie sunset flooded the sky with a splendor of rose and opal and +amethyst. "I saw a sunset like that not long ago in an art exhibit in +Philadelphia. I thought then there couldn't be such a real sunset. It +was in a landscape all yellow-gray and desert-like. I thought that was +impossible, too. I've seen both--land and sky--to-day, and both are +greater than the artist painted them." + +"The artist never equals the thing he is trying to copy, neither can he +create anything utterly unreal. I missed the exhibits very much when I +first came West, but this is some compensation," Laura said, +meditatively. + +"Do you ever get lonely here? I suppose not, for you didn't come to find +a great disappointment when you came to New Eden," Jerry declared, +watching the tranquil face of her hostess. + +"No, Jerry, I brought my disappointment with me," Laura said, with a +smile that made her look very much like her brother. And Jerry realized +that Laura Macpherson's maimed limb had not broken her heart. Laura was +a very new type to her guest. + +"Oh, I get lonely sometimes and resentful sometimes," Laura went on, +"but we get over a good many little things in the day's run. And then I +have York, you know, and now and then a guest who means a great deal to +me. I have so many interests here, too. You'll like New Eden when you +really know us. And up here this porch has become my holy of holies. +There is something soothing and healing in the breezes that sweep up the +Sage Brush on summer evenings. There is something restful in the stretch +of silent prairie out there, and the wide starlit sky above it. Kansas +sooner or later always has a message for the sons and daughters of men." + +"And something always interesting in our neighbors. See who approaches." +York, who had just come up the side steps, supplemented his sister's +remark. + +"Oh, that is Mrs. Stella Bahrr, the Daily Evening News. Jerry, York can +always unhitch your wagon from its star. She really is his black beast, +though; but you can't expect mere men to take an interest in milliners, +make-overs, at that, however much interest they take in millinery and +what is under it." + +"And millinery bills, with or without interest," York interfered again. + +"Mrs. Bahrr will want a full report of Jerry, with the blank spaces for +remarks filled out," Laura went on. "Why, she has changed her course and +is tacking away with the wind." + +"Going over to the Lenwells', I suppose. They are in some way sort of +distantly related to her. Just near enough, anyhow, to listen to all her +stories, and then say: 'For goodness sake don't say I told it; I got it +from Stellar, you know.' She will put into any port right now. I'm her +lighthouse warning," York declared. "She never approaches when I'm +present." + +York had risen and was standing in the doorway, where the growing moon +revealed him clearly. Mrs. Bahrr, coming up the walk toward the +Macpherson drive, suddenly turned about and hurried away, her tall, +angular form in relief against the sky-line in the open space that lay +between the Macpherson home and the nearest buildings down the slope +toward the heart of the town. + +"Coming back to common things," York continued, dropping into his +favorite chair. "My sister scandalizes me on every occasion. Whether or +not you hitch your wagon to a star, Jerry, is not so important, after +all. The real test is in just what kind of a star you hitch to. That +will tell whether you are going to ride to glory or cut such a figure as +the cow did that jumped over the moon." + +"It is not always that lawyers give counsel for nothing, Jerry," Laura +began, but the line of talk was again interrupted. + +The coming of callers led to many lines of discussion during the long +summer evening, in which Jerry took little part. In this new hemisphere +in which she was trying to find herself, where east seemed south and her +right hand her left, there was so much of the old hemisphere against +which she had partly burnt her bridges. The friendly familiarity of New +Eden neighbors was very different from the caste exclusiveness of the +Darby-Swaim set in Philadelphia. With the Winnowoc Valley people the +rich landholders had no social traffic. But the broad range of +conversation to-night, token of general information, called up home +memories in Jerry's mind and the long evenings when Jim Swaim's friends +gathered there to discuss world topics with her father, while she +listened with delight to all that was said. Her mother didn't care for +these things and wondered why her artistic daughter could be so +interested in them. But when the Macphersons and their guests spoke of +the latest magazines and the popular fiction and the recent drama it +brought up Lesa Swaim in her element to the listening young stranger. It +seemed so easy for the Macphersons to entertain gracefully, to make +everybody at home in the shadowy comfort of that big porch, to bring in +limeade and nut-cakes in cut-glass and fine china service, to forget +none of the things due to real courtesy, and yet to envelop all in the +genuine, open-hearted informality of the genial, open-hearted West. + +Long after the remainder of the Macpherson household was asleep Jerry +Swaim lay wide awake, her mind threshed upon with the situation in which +she had suddenly found herself. And over and over in the aisles of her +thoughts what York Macpherson had said about unhitching from a star ran +side by side with Uncle Cornie's words, "If a man went right with +himself." + + + + +VIII + +IF A MAN WENT RIGHT WITH HIMSELF + + +There were two of a kind of the Swaim blood, Geraldine Swaim, who had +always had her own way, and Jerusha Swaim Darby, who had always had her +own way. When the wills and the ways of these two clashed--well, Jerusha +had lived many years and knew a thing or two by experience that niece +Geraldine had yet to learn. + +On the very day that Jerry Swaim left "Eden" Mrs. Darby had gone into +the city for a conference with her late husband's business associates. +Sloth in action never deprived her of any opportunities; and quick +action now meant everything in the accomplishment of the purpose she had +before her. + +"Cornelius was such a quiet man, he was never very much company. He +really did not care for people, like most men," Mrs. Darby said to her +business partners, who had known her husband intimately. "Eugene +Wellington has already surpassed him in getting hold of some things he +never quite reached to, being an older man. And now that Eugene is +proving such splendid help in taking up the less important details in my +affairs he ought to do fine clerical work in the House here. There is no +telling how much ability he may have for being useful to all of us along +the lines that Cornelius has developed. He has proved that he is equal +to a lot of things besides painting. People of little brain power and +financial skill ought to paint the pictures and not rob our big affairs +of business ability." + +Mrs. Darby held a controlling interest in the House, so the outcome of +the conference was that an easy berth on more than moderate pay, with +possible prospects--just possible, of course--was what Mrs. Darby had to +take back to "Eden" to serve up to Eugene Wellington when he should +return from his brief errand up in the Winnowoc country. And as that was +what Mrs. Darby wished to accomplish, her day's journey to the city was +a success. + +Only, that Winnowoc local was uncomfortably hot and crowded. Her trusty +chauffeur had resigned his position on the day after Cornelius was +buried, and Mrs. Darby was timid about the bluff road, anyhow. If only +Jerry had been here to drive for her! With all Jerry's dash and slash, +she was a fearless driver and always put the car exactly where she +wanted it to be. There was some satisfaction in having a hand like +Jerry's on the steering-wheel. So, pleased as to one horn of her +dilemma, but tired and perspiring, Mrs. Darby came home determined more +than ever to bring about her other purpose--to have Jerry Swaim in her +home, because she, Jerusha Darby, wanted her there. + +Jerry always filled the place with interest. And Jerry was gone, +actually gone, bag and baggage. She had cleared out that morning early +on a fool's errand to Kansas. What right had Jerry to go off to earn a +living when a living was here ready-made merely for her subjection to a +selfish old woman's wishes? Mrs. Darby did not think it in such words, +because she no more understood her own mind than that pretty girl with +her dark-blue eyes and wavy, gold-tinged hair understood her own mind. +One thing she did understand--Jerry must come back. + +A week later Eugene Wellington dropped off the morning train running +down from Winnowoc. It was too early for the household to be astir, save +the early feeder of stock and milker of kine, the early +man-of-all-odd-jobs who looked after the fowls, and the early +maid-of-all-good-things-to-eat who would have big puffy biscuit for +breakfast, with tender fried chicken and gravy that would stand alone. +All the homey sounds of the early summer morning flitted out from the +"Eden" kitchen and barn-yard. But the misty stillness of dawn rested on +the "Eden" lawns, whose owner, with the others of the household, was not +yet awake. + +At the rose-arbor the young artist paused to let the refreshing morning +zephyrs sweep across his face. He wondered if Jerry was awake yet. Ever +since he had left "Eden" the hope had been growing in him that she would +change her mind. After all, Aunt Jerry might be right about it. This was +too beautiful a house to throw aside for a whim--an ideal, however +fine, of self-support and all that. Women were made to be cared for, not +to support themselves--least of all a pretty, wilful, but winsomely +magnetic creature like Jerry Swaim, with her appealing, beautiful eyes, +her brown hair all glinted with gold, her strong little white hands, and +her daring spirit, exhilarating as wine in its exuberant influence. No, +Jerry mustn't go. She belonged to the soft and lovely settings of life. + +Eugene leaned against the door of the rose-arbor as these things filled +his mind, and a love of the luxuries that surrounded him here drove back +for the moment the high purpose of his own life. + +In the woodwork of the arbor, where the lightning had left its imprint, +he saw a little white envelop wedged in a splintered rift. The rose-vine +had hid it from every angle except the one he had chanced to take. He +slipped it out and read this inscription: + +"To Mr. Eugene Wellington, Artist." + +Inside, on Jerry's visiting-card, in her own hand-writing, was the +message: "Write me at New Eden, Kansas, Care of Mr. York Macpherson. +Don't forget what we are going to do, and when we have done, and won, +we'll meet again. Good-by. Jerry." + +The young artist dropped the card and stared down the lilac-bordered +avenue toward the shadowy gray-blue west whither Jerry Swaim was gone. +And all the world seemed gray-blue, a great void, where there was +neither top nor bottom. Then he picked up the card again and put it into +his pocket, and went into the house to get ready for breakfast. + +Mrs. Darby greeted his return as warmly as it was in her repressed +nature to do, conveying to him, not by any word, the feeling that he +meant more to her now than he had ever meant before. + +"Didn't Jerry leave suddenly? I didn't know she was going so soon. I--I +was hoping--to find her here," was what he was going on to say. + +"That she would be willing to stay here; to give up this scheme of +hers." Mrs. Darby finished the sentence for him. "Yes, I hoped so, too. +That was the only right thing to do. She chose her own time for leaving, +but she will be back soon if we manage right. Don't be a bit +discouraged, Eugene, and don't give up to her too much. She loves a +resisting force. She always did." + +Eugene looked anything but encouraged just then. All "Eden" was but an +echo of Jerry Swaim, and the droop of his well-formed lips suggested +only a feeble resisting force against her smallest wish. + +"She is my own flesh and blood. I know her best, of course," Mrs. Darby +went on. "The only way to meet her is to let her meet you. But we will +drop that now. After breakfast I want you to look up the men. I have +told them to report to you on the crop values, and harvest plans, and +fall seeding later. Look over the place well, won't you? Then meet me in +the rose-arbor at ten o'clock for a cup of tea and we will counsel +together." + +Mrs. Darby would have told the late Cornelius to "come in for +instructions later." But Eugene Wellington wasn't a sure result. He was +only in the process of solution. And Eugene, being very human, was +unconsciously flattered by this deference to a penniless young man. It +made him pleased with himself and gave him a vague sense of +proprietorship which Cornelius Darby, the real-in-law owner of this fine +country estate, never dreamed of enjoying. + +"I wonder what Jerry is doing this morning," he thought as he rode +Cornelius Darby's high-school-gaited horse to the far side of the place. + +"The more I see of this farm the finer it looks to me. Not a foot of +waste ground, not a nesting-place for weeds, not a broken fence; grove +and stream, and tilled fields, and gardens, and lawns, and well-kept +buildings. Not an unpainted board nor broken hinge--everything in +perfect repair except that splintered framework at the rose-arbor." He +paused on a little ridge above the Winnowoc from which the whole farm +lay in full view. His artistic eye noted the peaceful beauty of the +scene, the growing crops, the yellowing wheat, the black-green corn, the +fertile meadows swathed in June sunshine, the graceful shrubbery and big +forest trees through which the red-tiled roofs of the buildings glowed, +the pigeons circling about the cupolas of the barn. And not the least +attractive feature of the picture, although he was unconscious of it, +was the young artist himself, astride a graceful black horse, in relief +against a background of wooded border of the bluff above the clear +gurgling Winnowoc. Eugene looked well on horseback, although he was no +lover of horses, and preferred the steady, sure mounts to the spirited +ones. + +"I wonder if Jerry's big estate can be as well appointed as this. I wish +she were here with me now." The rider fell to dreaming of Jerry, trying +to put her in a picture of this "Eden" six times enlarged. + +<tb> + +At this same hour Jerry Swaim was sitting in Junius Brutus Ponk's gray +runabout under the shade of the low oak-grove, gazing with burning eyes +at her own kingdom built out of Kansas sand. + +<tb> + +Mrs. Darby had hot coffee and cold chicken and cherry preserves and cake +with blackberry wine all daintily served for a hungry man to enjoy after +a long three hours on horseback in the sunshine. The rose-arbor was +odorous with perfume from the sweet-peas, clinging to the trellis that +ran between the side lawn and the grape-arbor. + +What took place in that council had its results in the letter that +Eugene Wellington wrote that night to Jerry Swaim. He did not mail it +for several days, and when he went to his tasks on the morning after his +fingers had let go of it at the lip of the iron mail-box, the artist in +him said things to him that to the day of his death he would never quite +forget. + +<tb> + +Late one afternoon, a fortnight after the day of Jerry's visit to her +claim, Ponk, of the Commercial Hotel and Garage, slipped into the office +of the Macpherson Mortgage Company. + +"York, what happens to folks that tends to other folks's affairs?" he +asked, as he spread his short proportions over a chair beside York's +desk. + +"Sometimes they get the gratitude of posterity. More generally their +portion is present contempt and future obscurity. Are you in line for +promotion on that, Ponk?" York replied. + +"I'm 'bout ready to take chances," Ponk said, with a good-natured grin. + +"All right. Am I involved in your scheme of things?" York inquired. + +"You bet you are," Ponk assured him. "And, to be brief, knowin' how +valuable your time is for gougin' mortgages out of unsuspectin' +victims--" + +"Well, we haven't foreclosed on the Commercial Hotel and Garage yet," +York interrupted. + +"No, but you're likely to the minute my back's turned. That's why I have +to go facin' south all the time. But to get to real business now, +York--" + +"I wish you would," York declared. + +His caller paid no heed to the thrust, and continued, seriously, "I +can't get some things off my mind, and I've got to unload, that's all." + +"Go ahead. I'm your dumping-ground," York said, with a smile. + +"That's what you are, you son of a horse-thief. I mean the tool of a +grasping bunch of loan sharks known as the Macpherson Mortgage Company. +Well, it's that young lady at your house." + +"I see. We robbed you of a boarder," York suggested. + +"Aw, shut up an' listen, now, will you? You know I'm a man of affairs +here. Owner and proprietor and man-of-all-work at the Commercial Hotel +an' Gurrage, bass soloist in the Baptist choir, and--by the removal of +the late deceased incumbent--also treasurer of the board of education of +the New Eden schools--" + +"All of which has what to do with the young lady from Philadelphia?" +York inquired, blandly. + +"Well, listen. Here's where tendin' to other folks's business comes in. +A good-lookin' but inexperienced young lady comes out here from +Philadelphia to find a claim left her by her deceased father. Out she +goes to see said claim, payin' me good money for my best car--to ride in +state over her grand province--of sand. And there wasn't much change but +a pearl-handle knife an' a button-hook in her purse when she pays for +the use of the car, even when I cut down half a buck on the regular +hire. Her kind don't know rightly how to save money till they 'ain't +none to save. But the look in her eyes when she come steamin' in from +that jaunt was more 'n I could stand. York, she ain't the first +Easterner to be fooled by the promise of the West. Not the real West, +you understand, but the sham face o' things put up back East. An' here +she be in our midst. Every day she goes by after the mail gets in, +looking like one of them blue pigeons with all the colors of a opal on +their necks, and every day she goes back with her face white around the +mouth. She's walkin' on red-hot plowshares and never squealin'." Ponk +paused, while York sat combing his fingers through his hair in silence. + +"You know I'm some force on the school board, if I don't know much. I +ain't there to teach anybody anything, but to see that such ignoramuses +as me ain't put up to teach children. Now we are shy one teacher in the +high-school by the sudden resignation of the mathematics professor to +take on underwritin' of life insurance in the city. Do you suppose she'd +do it? Would it help any if we offered the place to Miss Swaim? It might +help to keep her in this town." + +"Ponk, your heart's all right," York said, warmly. "It would help, I'm +sure, if the lady is to stay here, for she is without means. She might +or might not be willing to consider this opening. I can't forecast +women. But, Ponk, could she teach mathematics? You know she was probably +fashionably finished--never educated--in some higher school. If it were +embroidery, or something like that, it might be all right." + +"Oh, you trust me to judge a few things, even if I'm not up on the +gentle art of foreclosin' mortgages and such. I know that girl could +teach mathematics. Anybody who can run a car like she can with as true a +eye for curves an' distances, and a head for bossin' a machine that runs +by engine power, couldn't help but teach algebry and geometry just true +as a right angle. But mebby," and Ponk's countenance fell--"mebby she'd +not want to, nor thank me noways, nor you, neither, for interfering in +the matter. But I just thought I'd offer you the chance to mebby help +her get on her feet. I don't know, though. I'd hate to lose her +good-will. I just couldn't stand it." + +"Ponk, I appreciate your motive," York said, feelingly. "I will take +this up as soon as I can with Miss Swaim. You see, she's our guest and I +can't very gracefully suggest that she seek employment. And, to be frank +with you, my sister has become very fond of her--Laura misses a good +many good things on account of her lameness--and we would like to keep +her our guest indefinitely; but we can't do that, of course." + +"I don't wonder your sister wants her. Of course, you don't care nothin' +about it yourself. An' I'll have the board hold the place awhile to see +what 'll happen. I must soar back home now." And the little man left the +office. + +"Sound to the core, if he does strut when strangers come to town. +Especially ladies. That's the only way some little men have of +attracting attention to themselves. A kind-hearted man as ever came up +the Sage Brush," York commented, as he watched his caller crossing the +street to the hotel. + +That evening Jerry Swaim sat alone on the porch of the Macpherson home, +where shafts of silvery moonlight fell through the honeysuckle vines. +What York Macpherson would have called a fight between Jim Swaim's chin +and Lesa's eyes was going on in Jerry's soul this evening. Since her +visit to her claim life had suddenly become a maze of perplexities. She +had never before known a care that could not have been lifted from her +by others, except the one problem of leaving Philadelphia, and the +solution of that might have been the prank of a headstrong child, +prompted by self-will and love of adventure, rather than by the grave +decision of well-poised judgment. Heretofore in all her ventures a safe +harbor had been near to shelter her. Now she was among the breakers and +the storm was on. + +For the first time in her memory her purse was light and there was no +visible source from which to refill it. She was too well-bred to tax the +hospitality of the Macpherson home, where she was made to feel herself +so welcome. To return to Philadelphia meant to write and ask for the +expenses of transportation. She had burned too many bridges behind her +to meet the humility of such a request just yet; for that meant the +subjection of her whole future to Jerusha Darby's will, and against such +subjection Jerry's spirit rebelled mightily. + +Every day for two weeks the girl had gone to the post-office with an +eager, expectant face. Every evening she had asked York Macpherson if he +had heard anything from Philadelphia since her coming, the pretended +indifference in her tone hardly concealing the longing behind the query. +But not a line from the East had come to New Eden for her. + +On the afternoon of this day the postmaster had hurried through the +letters because he, too, had caught the meaning of the hunger in the +earnest eyes watching him through the little window among the +letter-boxes. The mail was heavy to-day, but the distributer paused with +one letter, long enough to look at it carefully, and then, leaving his +work half finished, he hurried to the window. + +"Here's something for you. Aren't you Miss Swaim?" he inquired, +courteously, as he pushed the letter toward Jerry's waiting hand. + +He had lived in Kansas since the passage of the homestead law. He knew +the mark of homesickness on the face of a late arrival. Something in the +cultivation of a new land puts a gentler culture into the soul. Out of +the common heartache, the common sacrifice, the common need, have grown +the open-hearted, keen-sighted, fine-fibered folk of the big and +generous Middle West, the very heart of which, to the Kansan, is Kansas. + +The postmaster turned quickly back to his task. He did not see the +girl's face; he only felt that she walked away on air. + +At York Macpherson's office she hesitated a moment, then hurried inside. +York was in his private room, but the door to it stood open, and Jerry +caught sight of a woman within. + +"I beg your pardon." She blushed confusedly. "I don't want to intrude; I +only wanted to stop long enough to read a letter from home." + +Jerry's genuine embarrassment was very pretty and appealing, but York +was shrewd enough to know that it came from the letter in her hand, not +from any connection with his office or its occupants. Mrs. Stellar +Bahrr, however, who happened to be the woman in the inner room, did not +see the incident with York's eyes. + +"Just come in here, Miss Swaim, and make yourself at home," York +insisted. "Come, Mrs. Bahrr, we can finish our talk for to-day in one +place as well as another. My sister and I are going across the river to +spend the evening, so it will be late to-morrow before I can get those +papers ready for you." + +Mrs. Bahrr rose reluctantly, hooking her sharp eyes into the girl as she +passed out. What she noted was a very white face where the color of the +cheeks seemed burned in, and big, shining eyes. Of course the +broad-brimmed chiffon hat with beaded medallions, the beaded parasol to +match, and the beaded hand-bag of the same hues did not escape her eyes, +especially the pretty hand-bag. + +York closed the door behind the two, leaving Jerry in quiet possession +of the inner room, while he seated Mrs. Bahrr in the outer office and +engaged in the business that had brought her to him. He knew that she +would be torn between two desires: one to hurry through and leave the +office, and so be able to start a story of leaving Jerry and himself in +a questionable situation; the other to stay and see the fair caller as +she came out, and to learn, if possible, why she had come, and to enjoy +her confusion in finding a woman still engaging York's time. Either +thing would be worth while to Mrs. Bahrr, and while she hesitated York +decided for her. + +"I'll keep her with me, the old Long Tongue. Yea, she shall roost here +in my coop till the little girl gets clear to 'Castle Cluny.' She +sha'n't run off and overtake her prey and then cackle over it later. +Jerry has committed the unpardonable sin of being young and pretty and +good; the Big Dipper will make her pay for the personal insult." + +In the midst of their business conversation Jerry Swaim came from the +inner room, and with a half-audible word of thanks left the office. Mrs. +Bahrr's back was toward the door, and, although she turned with a +catlike quickness, she failed to see anything worth while except to get +another good look at the hand-bag. Something told York Macpherson that +the message in her letter held a tragical meaning for the fair-faced +girl who had waited so eagerly for its coming. + +At dinner that evening York was at his best. + +"I must make our girl keep an appetite," he argued. "Nothing matters if +a dinner still carries an appeal. By George! I've got to do my best, or +I'll lose my own taste for what Laura can set up if I don't look out. We +are all getting thin except Laura. Even Ponk is losing his strut a bit. +And why? Oh, confound it! there is plenty of time to ask questions in +July and August when the town has its dull season." + +So York came to dinner in one of his rarest moods, a host to make one's +worries flee away. + +Jerry had reread her letter in the seclusion of her room at "Castle +Cluny." It did not need a third reading, for every word seemed graven on +the reader's brain. In carefully typewritten form, with only the +signature in the writer's own hand, it ran: + + MY ALWAYS DEAR JERRY,--I should have written you days ago, but + I did not get back to "Eden" until you had been gone a week. We + are all so eager to hear how you are, and to know about the + Swaim estate which you went to find. But we are a hundred times + more eager to see your face here again. I wish you were here + to-night, for I have been in the depths of doubt and + indecision, from which your presence would have lifted me. I + hope I have done the right thing, now it is done, and I'll wait + to hear from you more eagerly than I ever waited for a letter + before. Yet I feel sure you will approve of my course after you + get over your surprise and have taken time to think carefully. + + I had a long heart-to-heart talk with Aunt Jerry to-day. Don't + smile and say a purse-to-purse talk. Full purses don't talk to + empty ones. They speak a different language. But this to-day + was a real confidence game as you might say. I received the + confidence if I didn't die as game as you would wish me to. + + To be plain, little cousin mine, I want you dreadfully to come + back, so much so that I have decided to give up painting for + the present and take a clerkship in the bank with Uncle + Cornie's partners. I can see your eyes open wide with surprise + and disappointment when I tell you that Aunt Jerry has really + converted me to her way of thinking. My hours are easy and the + pay is good. Not so much as I had hoped to have some day from + my brush and may have yet, if this work doesn't make me fat and + lazy, for there is really very little responsibility about it, + just a decent accuracy. This makes so many things possible, you + see, and then I have the satisfaction of knowing I am doing a + service for Aunt Jerry--and, to be explicit--to put myself + where I shall not have to worry over things when you come home. + So I'm happy now. And when you get here I shall begin to live + again. I seem to be staying here now. Staying and waiting for + something. Nobody really lives at "Eden" without little Jerry + to keep us all alive and keyed up. Nobody to take the big car + over the bluff road, beautiful as it is--for you know I'm too + big a coward to drive it and to do a hundred things I'd do if + you were here to brace me up. + + Write me at once, little cousin, and say you will come home + just as soon as you have seen all of that God-forsaken country + you care to look at. And meantime I'll write as often as you + want me to. I think of you every day and remember you in my + prayers every night. You remember I told you I couldn't pray + out in Kansas. May the Lord be good to you and make you love + Him more than you think you do now, and bring you safe and soon + to our beautiful "Eden." + + Yours, + + EUGENE. + +The sands of the blowout on Jerry's claim seared not more hotly her +fresh young hopes of prosperity, through her own effort and control, +than this sudden change from the artist, with his dreams of beauty and +power, to the man of easy clerical duty with a good salary and small +responsibility. Of course Aunt Jerry had been back of it all, but so +would Aunt Jerry have been back of her--if she had given up. + +Jerry sat for a long time staring at the missive where it had fallen on +the floor, the typewritten neatness of the blue lettering only a blur to +her eyes. For she was back at "Eden," on the steep but beautiful bluff +road, with Eugene afraid to drive the big Darby car. She was in the +rose-arbor looking up to see that faint line of indecision in the dear, +handsome face. She was in the "Eden" parlor under the soft light of +rose-tinted lamps, facing Aunt Jerry and sure of herself, but catching +again that wavering line of uncertainty on Eugene Wellington's +countenance, and her own vague fear--unguessed then--that he might not +resist in the supreme test. + +But idols die hard. Eugene was her idol. He couldn't die at once. He was +so handsome, so true, so gracious, so filled with a love of beautiful +things. How could she understand the temptation to the soul of an artist +in such lovely settings as "Eden" offered? It was all Aunt Jerry's +fault, and he would overcome it. He must. + +It was so easy to blame Aunt Jerry. It made everything clear. He had +yielded to her cleverness and never known he was being ruled. With all +her flippant, careless youth, inexperience, and selfishness, Jerry was a +keener reader of human nature than her lack of training could account +for. She knew just the lines Aunt Jerry had laid, the net spread for +Eugene's feet. But--Oh, things must come out all right. He would change. + +This one thought rang up and down her scale of thinking, as if repeating +would make true what Jerry knew was false. + +"'If a man went right with himself.' Oh, Eugene, Eugene!" she murmured, +half aloud. "You hitched your wagon to a star, but to what kind of a +star--to what kind of a star?" + +Then came a greater query: "Shall I go back to 'Eden,' to Aunt Jerry's +rule, to Eugene, to love, to easy, dependent, purposeless living? Shall +I?" + +A blank wall seemed suddenly to be flung across her way. Should she +climb over it, hammer an opening through it, or turn back and run from +it? + +With these questions stalking before her she had come out to dinner and +York Macpherson's genial, entertaining conversation, and to Laura +Macpherson's gracious intuition and soothing sympathy. + +Early in the evening, as the Macphersons with their guest sat watching +the splendor of the sunset sky, Jerry said, suddenly: + +"It has been two weeks to-day since I came here. Quite long enough for a +stranger's first visit." + +"A 'stranger,'" Laura Macpherson repeated. "A 'stranger' who asked to be +called 'Jerry' the first thing. We are all so well acquainted with this +'stranger' that we wouldn't want to give her up now." + +"But I must give you up pretty soon." Jerry spoke earnestly. + +"Why 'must'? Has the East too strong a hold for the West to break?" +York asked. + +"I came out here because I believed my land would support me, and I had +all sorts of foolish dreams of what I might find here that would be new +and romantic." Jerry's eyes had a far-away look in them as she recalled +the unrealized picture of her prairie domain. + +"You haven't answered my question yet," York reminded her. + +Jerry dropped her eyes, the bloom deepened on her fair cheek, and she +clasped her small hands together. For a long time no word was spoken. + +"I didn't answer your question. I am not going back to Philadelphia. +There must be something else besides land in the West," Jerry said, at +last. + +"Yes, _we_ are here. Do stay right here with us," Laura Macpherson +urged, warmly. + +Every day the companionship of this girl had grown upon her, for that +was Jerry's gift. But to the eager invitation of her hostess the girl +only shook her head. + +York Macpherson sat combing his fingers through the heavy brown waves of +his hair, a habit of his when he was thinking deeply. But if a vision of +what might be came to him unbidden now, a vision that had come unbidden +many times in the last two weeks, making sweeter the smile that won men +to him, he put it resolutely away from him for the time. He must help +this girl to help herself. Romance belonged to other men. He was not of +the right mold for that--not now, at least. + +"I heard to-day that there is need of a mathematics teacher in our +high-school for next year. It pays eighty dollars a month," he said. + +"Oh, York," Laura protested, earnestly. "You know Jerry never thought of +such a thing as teaching. And I really must have her here. You are away +so much, you know you are." + +But her brother only smiled. When York Macpherson frowned he might be +giving in, but his sister knew that his smile meant absolute resistance. + +"Ponk was talking to me to-day. He is the treasurer of the school board +now, and he mentioned the vacancy. He was casting about for some one +fitted to teach mathematics. Even though his mind runs more on his +garage than on education, he has a deep interest in the schools. He +admires your ability to manage a car so much it occurred to him that you +might consider this position. Fine course of reasoning, but he is sure +of his ground." + +"Let me think it over," Jerry said, slowly. + +"And then forget it," Laura suggested. "York and I are invited out this +evening. Won't you come with us? It is just a little informal doings +across the river." + +"I would rather be alone to-night," her guest replied. + +So the Macphersons let her have her way. + + + + +IX + +IF A WOMAN WENT RIGHT WITH HERSELF + + +And thus it happened that Jerry Swaim was alone this evening behind the +honeysuckle-vines, with leaf shadow and moonbeams falling caressingly on +her filmy white gown and golden hair. For a long time she sat still. +Once she said, half aloud, unconscious that she was speaking at all: + +"So Eugene Wellington has given up his art for an easy berth in the +Darby bank. He hadn't the courage to resist the temptation, though it +made him a tool instead of a master of tools. And we promised each other +we would each make our own way, independent of Aunt Jerry's money. Maybe +if I had been there things would have been different." + +She gripped her hands in her quick, nervous way, as a homesick longing +swept her soul. She was searching a way out for Eugene, a cause for +putting all the blame on Aunt Jerry. + +"I wish I had gone with the Macphersons. I could have forgotten, for a +while at least." + +A light step inside the house caught her ear. + +"Maybe Laura has come home," she thought, too absorbed in herself to +ask why Laura should have chosen the side door when she knew that Jerry +was alone on the front porch. + +Again she heard a movement just inside the open door; then a step on the +threshold; and then a tall, thin woman walked out of the house and +half-way across the wide porch before she caught sight of Jerry in an +easy-chair behind the honeysuckle-vines. The intruder paused a second, +staring at the corner where the girl sat motionless. From her childhood +Jerry had possessed unusual physical courage. To-night it was curiosity, +rather than fright, that prompted her to keep still while the strange +woman's eyes were upon her. Evidently the intruder was more surprised +than herself, and Jerry let her make the first move in the game. The +woman was angular, with swift but ungraceful motion. For a long time, as +such seconds go, she stared at the white figure hidden by the shadows of +the vines. Then with a quick stride she thrust herself before the girl +and dropped into a chair. + +"Well, well! This is Miss Swim, ain't it?" + +"As well that as anything. I can't land anywhere," Jerry thought. + +"I'm Mrs. Stellar Bahrr, a good friend of Laury Macpherson as she's got +in this town, unless it's you. I seen you in York's office this +afternoon. I was sorry I intruded on you two when you come purpose to +see him in his private office. When girls wants to see him that way they +don't want nobody, 'specially women, around." + +Mrs. Bahrr paused to giggle and to give Jerry time to parry her thrust, +meanwhile pinning her through with the sharp points of her eyes that +fairly gleamed in the shadow-checkered moonlight of the porch. Jerry was +not accustomed to being accountable to anybody for what she chose to do, +nor did she know that every man in New Eden, except York Macpherson and +Junius Brutus Ponk--and every woman, without exception--really feared +Stella Bahrr, knowing that she would hesitate at no kind of warfare to +accomplish her purpose. It is generally easier to be decent than to be +courageous, and peace at any price may be more desired than nasty word +battles. Not knowing Stella for the woman she was, Jerry had no mind to +consider her at all, so she waited for her caller to proceed or to leave +her. + +"You must excuse me if I seem to be interfering in your affairs. You are +a stranger here except to York and that man Ponk--" Stella began, +thrusting her hooks more viciously into her catch. + +"Oh, you didn't interfere," Jerry interrupted her indifferently, and +then paused. + +Mrs. Bahrr caught her breath. The girl was sinfully pretty and +attractive, her beauty and grace in themselves alone railing out at the +older woman's ugly spirit of envy. And she should be tender, with +feeling to be lacerated for these gifts of nature. Instead, she was firm +and hard, with no vulnerable spot for a poisoned shaft. + +"I'm sure you had a right to go into a man's private office. It's +everybody's right, of course," she began, with that faint sneering tone +of hers that carried a threat of what might follow. + +"Yes, but a little discourteous in me to drive you out. That was Mr. +Macpherson's fault, not mine," Jerry broke in, easily. + +"Maybe that's her grievance. I'll be decent about it," the girl was +thinking. + +"I'm awfully bored right now." The wind shifted quickly. "I run up to +see Laury a minute. Just slipped in the side-stoop way to save troublin' +you an' York out here. I knowed Laury wouldn't be here, an', would you +believe it? I clar forgot they was gone out, an' I seen you all leavin', +too--I mean them, of course." + +The threatening tone could not be reproduced. It carried, however, a +most uncomfortable force like a cruel undertow beneath the seemingly +safe crest of a wave. + +"It's a joke on me bein' so stupid, but you won't give me away to 'em, +will you?" + +"I'm awfully bored, too," Jerry thought. + +"You say you won't tell 'em at all that I come?" Mrs. Bahrr insisted. + +"Not if you say so," Jerry replied, with a smile. + +"I'm an awfully good friend of Laury's. She's a poor cripple, dependent +on her brother for everything, an' if he marries, as he's bound to do, +I'd hate to see her turned out of here. This house is just Laury +through and through. Don't you think so? 'Course, though, if York +marries again--" Stellar Bahrr stopped meditatively. "All the women in +the Sage Brush Valley's just crazy about York. He's some flirt, but +everybody thought he'd settled his mind once sure. But I guess he flared +up again, from what they say. She's too fur away from town a'most. Them +that's furtherest away don't have a chance like them that's nearest him. +But it may be all just gossip. There was a lot of talk about him an' a +girl down the river that's got a crippled brother--Paul Ekblad's his +name; hers is Thelmy--an' some considerable about one of the Poser girls +where he was up the Sage Brush to this week. The married one now, I +think, an' a bouncin' big baby, but what do you care for all that?" + +"Nothing," Jerry replied, innocently. + +The steel hooks turned slowly to lacerate deeper. + +"Well, I must be goin'. You give me your word you wouldn't cheep about +my forgettin' an' runnin' in here. York's such a torment, I'd never hear +the last of it. I know you are a honorable one with your promises, an' I +like that kind. I'm glad I met you. An' I'll not say a word, neither, +'bout your goin' to see York in his private office. It's a bargain +'tween us two. Laury's an awfully good friend of yours an' she'll keep +you here a good long while, she's that hos_pit_able." + +The steel hooks tore their way out, and the woman rose and strode +quickly away. In a minute she had literally dropped from view in the +shaded slope beyond the driveway. + +"I might as well punch a stick in water or stick a pin in old Granddad +Poser's tombstone out in the cimetery, an' expect to find a hole left, +as to do anything with that pink-an'-white-an'-gold critter!" she +exclaimed, viciously, as she disappeared in the shadows. "I'm afraider +of her than I would be of a real mad-cat, but she can't scare me!" + +Out on the lawn the moon just then seemed to cast a weird gleam of +light, and to veil rather than reveal the long street beyond it. For a +minute after the passing of her uninvited caller Jerry Swaim was filled +with an unaccountable fright. Then her pulse beat calmly again and she +smiled at herself. + +"I don't seem to fear these Kansas men--Mr. Ponk, for example, nor that +Teddy-bear creature down by the deep hole in the Sage Brush. But these +Kansas women, except Laura--anybody would except Laura--are so +impossible. That dairy-maid type of a Thelma, and that woman-and-baby +combination, for example; and some of the women really scare me. That +aborigine down in the brush by the river, in her shabby clothes and +sunbonnet eclipse; and now this 'Stellar' comes catfooting out of the +house and lands over yonder in the shadows. She needn't have been bored +because she didn't find the folks at home, and she needn't frighten me +so. I never was afraid of Aunt Jerry. I ought to be proof against +anybody else. And yet maybe I am in the way here, even if they drive the +very idea away from me. Laura is good to me and her friendliness is +genuine. Little as I know, I _know_ that much. And York--oh, that was a +village gossip's tale! And she gets me scared--I, whom even Jerusha +Darby never cowed." + +The poison was working, after all, and Stellar Bahrr's sting had not +been against marble, nor into water. With the memory of Jerusha Darby, +too, the burden came again to her niece's mind, only to be lifted again, +however, in a few minutes. Her memory had run back to her day down the +river and the oak-grove and the sand, and the young man whose name was +Joe Thomson--Jerry did not remember the name--and the crushing weight of +surprise and disappointment. The struggle to decide on a course for +herself immediately was rising again within her, when she saw a young +man turn from the street and come up the walk toward the porch. + +"I can't have leisure to settle anything by myself, it seems, even with +the lord and lady of the castle leaving me in full seclusion here. One +caller goes and another comes. I wonder what excuse this one has for +intruding. He is another type--one I haven't met before." + +In the time required for this caller to reach the porch there flashed +through Jerry's mind all the types she had seen in the West. Ponk and +Thelma and fuzzy Teddy, the woman-and-baby, Laura and York, and that +pin-eyed gossip--and the young country fellow whose land lay next to +hers. None of them concerned her, really, except these hospitable +friends who were sheltering her, and, in a way, in an upright, legal, +Jim Swaim kind of way, the young man down the Sage Brush, losing in the +game like herself and helpless like herself. + +It was no wonder that Jerry did not recognize in this caller the +ranchman of the blowout. There was nothing of the clodhopper in this +well-dressed young fellow, although he was not exactly a model for +advertising high-grade tailoring. + +"Is this Miss Swaim?" he asked, lifting his hat. "I am Joe Thomson. You +may remember that we met down in the blowout two weeks ago." + +"I could hardly forget meeting you. Will you sit down?" Jerry offered +Joe a chair with a courtesy very unlike the blunt manner of her first +words to him a fortnight before. + +But in the far recesses of her consciousness all the while the haunting, +ever-recurring picture of a handsome face and a faultlessly clad form, +even the face and form of a Philadelphia bank clerk, _ne_ artist, made +the reality of Joe Thomson's presence very commonplace and uninteresting +at that moment, and her courtesy was of a perfunctory sort. + +"I hope I don't intrude. Were you busy?" Joe asked, something of the +embarrassment of the first meeting coming back with the question. + +"Yes, I was very busy," Jerry replied, with a smile. "Pick-up work, +though. I was just thinking. Lost in thought, maybe." + +The moonlight can do so much for a pretty woman, but with Jerry Swaim +one could not say whether sunlight, moonlight, starlight, or dull gray +clouds did the most. For two weeks the memory of her fair face, as he +recalled it in the oak shade down beside the blowout, had not been +absent from the young ranchman's mind. And to-night this dainty girl out +of the East seemed entrancing. + +"You were lost in thought when I saw you before. I had an idea that city +girls didn't do much thinking. Is it your settled occupation?" Joe +inquired, with a smile in his eyes. + +"It is my only visible means of support right now; about as profitable, +too, as farming a blowout," Jerry returned. + +"Which reminds me of my purpose in thrusting this call upon you," Joe +declared. "I didn't realize the situation the other day--and--well, to +be plain, I came to beg your pardon for my rudeness in what I said about +your claim. I had no idea who you were, you know, but that hardly +excuses me for what I said." + +"It is very rude to speak so slightingly of land that behaves as +beautifully as mine does," Jerry said, with a smile that atoned for the +trace of sarcasm in her voice. + +"It is very rude to speak as slightingly as I did of the former owner. +But you see I have watched that brainless blowout thing creep along, +season after season, eating up my acres--my sole inheritance, too." + +"And you said you didn't go mad," Jerry interposed. + +"Yes, but I didn't say I didn't get mad. I have worn out enough +profanity on that blowout to stock the whole Sage Brush Valley." + +"But you aren't to the last resort, for you do go mad here then, you +told me. I wonder you aren't all madmen and women when I think of this +country and remember how different I had imagined it would be." + +"When we come to the very last ditch, we really have two +alternatives--to go mad and to go back East. Most folks prefer the +former. But I say again, it's always a long way to the last ditch out on +the Sage Brush, so we seldom do either." + +"What should I do now? Won't you tell me? I'm really near my last +ditch." + +Jerry sat with clasped hands, looking earnestly into Joe's face, as she +said this. Oh, fair was she, this exquisite white-blossom style of girl, +facing her first life-problem, the big problem of living. Joe Thomson +made no reply to her question. What could this dainty, untrained +creature do with the best of claims? The frank sincerity of his silence +made an appeal to her that the wisest advice could not have made just +then. + +York Macpherson was right when he said that Jim Swaim's child was a type +of her own. If Jerry, through her mother's nature, was impulsive and +imaginative, from her father she had inherited balance and clear vision. +Her young years had heretofore made no call upon her to exercise these +qualities. What might have been turned to the frivolous and romantic in +one parent, and the hard-headed and grasping in the other, now became +saving qualities for the child of these two. In an instant Jerry read +the young ranchman's character clearly and foresaw in him a friend and +helper. But there was neither romance nor selfishness in that vision. + +"Mr. Thomson," the girl began, seriously, "you need not apologize for +what you could not help feeling about the condition of my estate and the +wrong that has been done to you. I know you do not hold me responsible +for it. Let's forget that you thought you had said anything unpleasant +to me, for I want to ask your advice." + +"Mine!" Joe Thomson exclaimed. + +This sweet-faced, soft-voiced girl was walking straight into another +heart in the Sage Brush Valley. Nature had given her that heritage, +wherever she might go. + +"Yes, your advice, please." Jerry went on. "You have watched that sand +spreading northward over your claim. You have had days, months, years, +maybe, to see the blowout doing its work. I awakened suddenly one +morning from a beautiful day-dream. My only heritage left of all the +fortune I had been brought to expect to be mine, the inheritance I had +idealized with all the romantic beauty and prosperity possible to rural +life, in a minute all this turned to a desert before my eyes. You belong +to the West. Tell me, won't you, what is next for me?" + +"What could I tell you, Miss Swaim?" Joe asked. + +"Tell me what to do, I mean," Jerry exclaimed. "Tell me quickly, for I +am right against the bread-line now." + +For a moment Joe stared at the girl in amazement. Her earnestness left +no room to misunderstand her. But his senses came back quickly, as one +whose life habit it had been to meet and answer hard questions suddenly. + +"Why not go back East?" he asked. + +"One of your two last resorts; the other one is madness. I won't do it," +Jerry said, stubbornly. "Shall I tell you why?" + +It was a delicious surprise to the young ranchman to be taken into the +confidence of this charming, gracious girl. The honeysuckle leaves, +stirred by the soft night breeze that came purring across the open +plain, gave the moonbeams leave to play with the rippling gold of her +hair, and to flutter ever so faintly the soft white draperies of her +gown. Her big dark eyes, her fair white throat and shoulders, the faint +pink hue of her cheeks, the shapely white arms below the elbow-frilled +sleeves, her soft voice, her frank trust in his judgment and integrity, +made that appeal that rarely comes to a young man's heart oftener than +once in a lifetime. + +"My father lived a rich man and died a poor man, leaving me--for mother +went first--to the care of his wealthy sister. A half-forgotten claim on +the Sage Brush is my only possession after two years of litigation and +all that sort of thing." Jerry paused. + +"Well?" Joe queried. + +"I was offered one of two alternatives: I might be dependent on my +aunt's bounty or I could come out West and live on my claim. I chose the +West. Now what can I do?" + +The pathos of the young face was touching. The question of maintenance +is hard enough for the resourceful and experienced to meet; how doubly +hard it must be to the young, untried, and untrained! + +Joe Thomson looked out to where the open prairie, swathed in silvery +mist, seemed to flow up to the indefinite bounds of the town. All the +earth was beautiful in the stillness of the June night. + +"I don't know how to advise you," he said, at length. "If you were one +of us--a real Western girl--it would be different." + +To Jerry this sincerity outweighed any suggestion he could have offered. +From the point of romance this young man was impossible to Lesa Swaim's +child. Yet truly nobody before, not even York Macpherson, had ever +seemed like such a real friend to her, and the chance acquaintance was +reaching by leaps and bounds toward a genuine comradeship. + +"Why do you stay here? You weren't born here, were you? Tell me about +yourself," Jerry demanded. + +"There's a big difference between our cases," Joe replied, wondering how +this girl could care anything for his life-story. "I was the oldest +child of our family. My father came out here on account of his health, +but he came too late, and died, leaving me the claim on the Sage Brush +and my pledge on his death-bed never to leave the West, for fear I, too, +would become an invalid as he had been. There seems to be little danger +of that, and I like the West too well to leave it now. And then, +besides, I'm like a lot of other fellows who claim to love the Sage +Brush. I haven't the means to get away and start life anywhere else, +anyhow. You see, we are as frank out here about our conditions as you +Philadelphians are." + +He smiled and looked down at his strong hands and sturdy arms. It would +be difficult to think of Joe Thomson as an invalid. + +"I inherited, besides my claim and my promise, the provision for two +younger sisters, housed with relatives in the East, but supported by +contributions from this same Sage Brush claim on which I have had to +wrestle with the heat and drought that sear the prairies. And now, when +both my sisters, who married young, are provided for and settled in +homes of their own, and I can begin to live my own life a little, comes +my enemy, the blowout--" + +"Oh, I never want to think of that awful thing!" Jerry cried. "I shall +give the Macpherson Mortgage Company control of the entire sand-pile. +I'll never play there again, never!" + +In the silence that followed something in the beauty of the midsummer +night seemed to fall like a benediction on this man and this woman, each +facing big realities. And, however different their equipment for their +struggles had been in previous years, they were not so far apart now as +their differing circumstances of life would indicate. + +"I must be going now. I did not mean to take so much of your time. I +came only to assure you that I am not always so rude as the mood you +found me in the other day would indicate." Joe rose to go with the +words. + +Jerry's mind had run back again, dreamily, to Gene Wellington, of +Philadelphia, the Gene as she knew and remembered him. It was not until +afterward that she recalled her surprise that this ranchman of the +Western prairies should have such a simple and easy manner whose home +life had evidently been so unlike her own. + +"You haven't stayed too long," she said, frankly. "And you haven't yet +suggested what an undertrained Philadelphia girl can do to keep the +coyote from her dugout portal." + +If only she had been a little less bewitchingly pretty, a little less +sure that the distance of planet from planet lay between them, a strange +sense of sorrow, and a strange new purpose would not have found a place +in Joe Thomson's heart then. With a perception much keener than her own, +he read Jerry's mind that night as she had never tried to read it +herself. + +"I'm better up on soils and farm products than on civic problems and +social economy and such. Dry farming, clerking, sewing, household +economics in somebody's cook-shack, teaching school, giving music +lessons, canvassing for magazines--the Sage Brush girls do things like +these. I wish I could name a calling more suitable for you, but this is +the only line I can offer," Joe said, thinking how impossible it would +be for the girl beside him to fit into the workaday world of the Sage +Brush Valley. On the next ranch to his own up the river a fair-haired, +sun-browned girl was working in the harvest-field this season to save +the price of a hired hand, toward going to college that fall. Jolly, +strong-handed, strong-hearted Thelma Ekblad, whose name was yet to +adorn an alumni record of the big university proud to call her its +product. Jerry Swaim would never thrive in the same soil with this stout +Norwegian. + +They were standing on the porch steps now, and the white moonbeams +glorified Jerry's beauty, for the young ranchman, as she looked up at +him with a smile on her lips and eyes full of light, a sudden decision +giving new character to her countenance. The suddenness of it, that was +her mother's child. The purpose, that was the reflection of Jim Swaim's +mind. + +"I'm on the other side of my Rubicon. I'm going to teach mathematics in +the New Eden high-school. Will you help me to keep across the river? +There's an inspiration for me in the things that you can do?" + +"You! Teach mathematics! They always have a man to teach that!" Joe +exclaimed, wondering behind his words if he only dreamed that she had +asked him to help to keep her across her Rubicon, or if she had really +said such a beautiful thing to him, Joe Thomson, sand-fighter and +general loser, who wouldn't be downed. + +"Oh, I don't wonder you are surprised! I always jump quickly when I do +move. You think I couldn't teach A, B, C, the known quantities, let +alone x, y, z, the unknown quantities, don't you?" Jerry said, gaily. +"When I went to school I was a flunker in languages and sciences. I was +weak in boarding-school embroidery, too, because I never cared for those +things, nor was I ever made to study anything unless I chose to do it. +But I was sure in trigonometry and calculus, which I might have dodged +and didn't. I reveled in them. My mother was scandalized, and Gene +Wellington, an artist, who, by the way, has just given up his career for +a good bank clerkship in Philadelphia, a sort of cousin of mine, was +positively shocked. It seemed so unrefined and strong-minded. But my +father said I was just his own flesh and blood in that line. Yes, I'll +teach school. Mr. Ponk is going to offer me the position, and it's a +whole lot better than the poor-house, or madness, or the East, maybe," +she added, softly, with a luminous glow in her beautiful eyes. + +The old Sage Brush world seemed to slip out from under Joe Thomson's +feet just then. + +"Is your friend related to John Wellington, who once lived in +Philadelphia?" he asked, after a pause, his mind far away from his +query. + +"Why, he's John Wellington's son! John Wellington was a sort of partner +of my father's once," Jerry said. Even in the soft light Joe saw the +pink flush deepen on the girl's cheek. "Good night." She offered him her +hand. "I hope I may see you often. Oh, I hate that blowout, and you +ought to hate me on account of it." + +"It is a brainless, hateful thing," Joe Thomson declared, as he took her +proffered hand. "All my streams seem to be Rubicons, even to the crooked +old Sage Brush. I can't be an inspiration to anybody. It is you who can +give me courage. If you can teach mathematics in New Eden, _I believe I +can kill that blowout_." + +The strength of a new-born purpose was in the man's voice. + +"Oh, no, you can't, for it's mostly on my land yet!" Jerry replied. + +"Well, what of it? You say you won't play in that old sand-pile any +more. What do you care who else plays there? Good night." + +"Good night, Mr. Thomson. Why, what is that?" Jerry's eyes were on a +short, squat figure standing in the middle of the gateway to the +Macpherson grounds. + +"That's 'Fishing Teddy,' an old character who lives a hermit kind of +life down the Sage Brush. He comes to town about four times a year; +usually walks both ways; but I promised to take him out with me +to-night. He's harmless and gentle. Everybody likes him--I mean of our +sort. You wouldn't be interested in him. His real name is Hans Theodore, +but, of course, nobody calls him Mr. Theodore. Everybody calls him +'Fishing Teddy.' Good night, Miss Swaim." + +Joe Thomson lifted his hat and walked away. + +Jerry saw the old man shuffle out and join him, and the two went down +the street together, one, big and muscular, with head erect and an easy, +fearless stride; the other, humped down, frowsy, shambling, a sort of +half-product of humanity, whose companion was the river, whose days were +solitary, who had no part in the moonlight, the perfume of honeysuckle +blossoms, the pleasure of companionship, the easy comfort that wealth +can bring. His to bear the heat and the cinders on the rear platforms of +jerky freight-trains, his to serve his best food to imperious young city +girls lost in an impetuous passion of disappointment in a new and +bewildering land. And yet his mind was serene. Knowing the river would +bring him his food in the morning and his commodity of commerce for his +needs, he was vastly more contented with his lot to-night than was the +stalwart young man who stalked beside him, grimly resolving to go out +and do things. + +Jerry watched the two until they turned into a side-street and +disappeared. The moonlight was wondrously bright and the air was like +crystal. A faint, sweet odor from hay-fields came up the valley now and +then, and all the world was serenely silent under the spell of night. +The net seemed torn away from about the girl's feet, the cloud lifted +from her brain, the blinding, blurring mists from before her eyes. + +"I have crossed my Rubicon," she murmured, standing still in the +doorway of the porch trellis, breathing deeply of the pure evening air. +"I'm glad he came. I am free again, and I'm really happy. I suppose I am +queer. If anybody should put me in a novel, the critics would say 'such +a girl never came to Kansas.' But then if Gene should paint that +blowout, the critics would say 'there never was such a landscape in +Kansas.' These critics know so much. Only Gene will never paint any more +pictures--not masterpieces, anyhow. But I'm going to live my life my own +way. I won't go back to idleness and a life of sand at 'Eden.' I'll win +out here--I will, I will! 'If a woman goes right with herself.' Oh, +Uncle Cornie, I am starting. Whether I hold out depends on the way--and +myself." + +When Laura Macpherson peeped into Jerry's room late that night she saw +her guest sleeping as serenely as if her mind had never a puzzling +question, her sunny day never a storm-cloud. So far Jerry had gone right +with herself. + + + + +X + +THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER + + +The big dramas of life are enacted in the big centers of human +population. Great cities foster great commercial institutions; they +father great constructive enterprises; they endow great educational +systems; they build up great welfare centers; and they reach out and +touch and shape great national and international conditions. In them the +big tragedies and comedies of life--political, religious, social, +domestic--have their settings. And under the power of their combined +units empires appear and disappear. But, set in smaller font, all the +great dramas of life are printed, without a missing part, in the humbler +communities of the commonwealth. All the types appear; all conditions, +aspirations, cunning seditions, and crowning successes have their +scenery and _persona_ so true to form that sometimes the act itself +takes on the dignity of the big world drama. And the actor who produces +it becomes a star, for villainy or virtue, as powerful in his sphere as +the great star-courted suns of larger systems. Booth Tarkington makes +one of his fiction characters say, "There are as many different kinds of +folks in Kokomo as there are in Pekin." + +New Eden in the Sage Brush Valley, on the far side of Kansas, might +never inspire the pen of a world genius, and yet in the small-town +chronicle runs the same drama of life that is enacted on the great stage +with all its brilliant settings. Only these smaller actors play with the +simplicity of innocence, never dreaming that what they play so well are +really world-sized parts fitted down to the compass of their settings. + +Something like this philosophy was in York Macpherson's mind the next +morning as he listened to his sister and her guest loitering comfortably +over their breakfast. A cool wind was playing through the south windows +that might mean hot, sand-filled air later on. Just now life was worth +all the cost to York, who was enjoying it to the limit as he sat +studying the two women before him. + +"For a frivolous, spoiled girl, Jerry can surely be companionable," he +thought, as he noted how congenial the two women were and how easily at +home Jerry was even on matters of national interest. "I never saw a type +of mind like hers before--such a potentiality for doing things coupled +with such dwarfed results." + +York's mind was so absorbed, as he sat unconsciously staring at the +fair-faced girl opposite him, that he did not heed his sister's voice +until she had spoken a second time. + +"York, oh York! wake up. It's daylight!" + +York gave a start and he felt his face flush with embarrassment. + +"As I was saying half an hour ago, brother, have you seen my little silk +purse anywhere? There was too much of my scant income in it to have it +disappear entirely." + +"Yes, I took it. I 'specially needed the money for a purpose of my own. +I meant to tell you, but I forgot it. I'll bring back the purse later," +York replied. + +Of course Laura understood that this was York's return for catching him +at a disadvantage, but she meant to pursue the quest in spite of her +brother's teasing, for she was really concerned. + +Only a few days before, the New Eden leak had opened again and some +really valuable things, far scattered and hardly enough to be considered +separately, had disappeared. Laura by chance had heard that week of two +instances on the town side of the river, and on the evening previous of +one across the river. + +Before she spoke again she saw that Jerry's eyes were fixed on the +buffet, where two silver cups, exactly alike, sat side by side. There +was a queer expression about the girl's mouth as she caught her +hostess's eye. + +"Is there any more silver of that pattern in this part of the country?" +she asked, with seeming carelessness, wrestling the while with a little +problem of her own. + +"Not a pennyweight this side of old 'Castle Cluny' in Scotland, so far +as I know," York replied. "There's your other cup, after all, Laura. By +the way, Miss Jerry, how would you like to take a horseback ride over +'Kingussie'? I must go to the far side of the ranch this morning, and I +would like a companion--even yourself." + +"Do go, Jerry. I don't ride any more," Laura urged, with that cheerful +smile that told how heroically she bore her affliction. "I used to ride +miles with York back in the Winnowoc country." + +"And York always misses you whenever he rides," her brother replied, +beaming affectionately upon his brave, sweet sister. "Maybe, though, +Jerry doesn't ride on horseback," he added. + +At Laura's words Jerry's mind was flooded with memories of the Winnowoc +country where from childhood she had taken long, exhilarating rides with +her father and her cousin Gene Wellington. + +"I've always ridden on horseback," she said, dreamily, without looking +up. + +"She's going to ride with me, not with ghosts of Eastern lovers, if she +rides to-day," York resolved, a sudden tenseness catching at his throat. + +"What kind of mounts are you afraid of? I can have Ponk send up +something easy," he said, in a quiet, fatherly way. + +Jerry's eyes darkened. "I can ride anything your Sage Brush grows that +you call a saddle-horse," she declared, with pretty daring. "Why, 'I was +the pride of the countryside' back in a country where fine horses grew. +Really and seriously, it was Cousin Gene who was afraid of spirited +horses, and he looked so splendid on them, too. But he couldn't manage +them any more than he could run an automobile over the bluff road above +the big cut this side of the third crossing of the Winnowoc. He +preferred to crawl through that cut in the slow old local train while I +climbed over the bluffs in our big car. You hadn't figured on my +boasting qualities, had you?" she added, with a smile at her own +vaunting words. + +"Oh, go on," Laura urged. "I heard your father telling us once that your +cousin, on the Darby side, would ride out with you bravely enough, but +that you traded horses when you got off the place and you always came +back home on the one they were afraid for you to take out and your +cousin was afraid to ride back." + +"She _climbed_ while Cousin Gene _crawled_. I believe she said something +there, but she doesn't know it yet; and it's not my business to tell her +till she asks me." York shut his lips grimly at the unspoken words. +"We'll be back, appetite and sundries, for the best meal the +scullery-maid can loot from the village," he said, as they rose from the +table. + +When Jerry came out of the side door, where York was waiting for her, +she suggested at once a model for a cover illustration of an outing +magazine, an artistic advertisement for well-tailored results, and a +type of young American beauty. As they rode back toward the barns and +cattle-sheds that belonged to the ranch edging the corporation limits of +New Eden, neither one noticed the tall, angular form of Mrs. Stellar +Bahrr as she came striding across lots toward the driveway. + +Stellar lived in a side street. Her back yard bordered a vacant lot on +the next side street above her. Crossing this, she could slip over the +lawn of a vacant house and down the alley half a block, and on by the +United Brethren minister's parsonage. That let her sidle between a +little carpenter-shop and a shoe-shop to the rear gateway into an alley +that led out to the open ground at the foot of the Macpherson knoll. +Stellar preferred this corkscrew route to the "Castle." It gave her +several back and side views, with "listening-posts" at certain points. + +"Oh, good morning, Laury! I'm so glad to find you alone. I'm in a little +trouble, an' mebby you can help me out. You are everybody's friend, just +like your brother, exactly. Only his bein' that way's bound to get him +into trouble sooner or before that. Eh! What's that you're lookin' at?" + +Laura had gone to the buffet after the riders had started away. She had +a singular feeling about that cup appearing so suddenly. She remembered +now that Jerry had asked twice about those cups, and had looked at them +with such a peculiar expression on each occasion. Laura had not remarked +upon it to herself the first time, but the trifling incident at the +table just now stayed in her mind. Yet why? The housekeeper often +rearranged the dining-room features in her endeavor to keep things free +from dust. That would not satisfy the query. That cup and Jerry Swaim +were dodging about most singularly in Laura's consciousness, and she +could not know that the reason for it lay in the projecting power of the +mind of the woman coming across lots at that moment to call on her. + +Yet when Mrs. Bahrr thrust herself into the dining-room unannounced, as +was her habit, with her insistent greeting, and her query, "What's that +you're lookin' at?" the mistress of "Castle Cluny" had a feeling of +having been caught holding a guilty suspicion; and when Stellar Bahrr +ran her through with steely eyes she felt herself blushing with surprise +and chagrin. + +"How can I help you, Mrs. Bahrr?" she asked, recovering herself in a +moment. + +It was, however, the loss of the moment that always gave the woman +before her the clue she wanted. + +"I'm needin' just a little money--only a few dollars. I'm quittin' +hat-trimmin' since them smarties down-town got so busy makin' over, an' +trimmin' over, an' everything. I'm goin' to makin' bread. I've got six +customers already, an' I'm needin' a gasoliner the worst way. I lack +jist five--mebby I could squeeze out with four dollars if I had it right +away. You never knowed what it means to be hard up, I reckon; never had +no trouble at all; no husband to up an' leave you and not a soul to +lean on. You've always had York to lean on. I 'ain't got nobody." + +The drooping figure and wrinkled face were pitiful enough to keep Laura +Macpherson from reminding her that she was older than her brother and +once the leaning had been the other way. Here was a needy, lonely, +friendless woman. What matter that her greatest enemy was herself? All +of us are in that boat. + +"Of course I'll help you, Mrs. Bahrr. I'll get the money right away." + +She rose to leave the room, then sat down again hastily. + +"I'm afraid I can't help you right now, either. I have mislaid my purse. +But when I find it I'll let you have the money. When York comes back +maybe I can get it of him. Could you come over this afternoon?" + +"Mebby York won't let you have it to loan where there ain't no big +interest comin'. I'd ruther he didn't know it if you wasn't sure." + +Laura recalled what her brother had said about not becoming entangled +with Stellar Bahrr, and she knew he would oppose the loan. She knew, +too, that in the end he would consent to it, because he himself was +continually befriending the poor, no matter how shiftless they might be. + +"I think I can bring York round, all right," Laura assured her caller. +"He's not unreasonable." + +"I'd ruther he didn't know. Men are so different from women, you know. +You say you lost your purse. Ain't that funny? Where?" + +"The funny thing is I don't know where," Laura replied. + +Mrs. Bahrr had settled down, and, having accomplished her open purpose, +began to train her batteries for her hidden motive. + +"Things gits lost funny ways, queer ways, and sometimes ornery ways. +Ever' now an' then things is simply missin' here in this burg--just +missin'. But again there's such queer folks even in what you call the +best s'ciety. Now ain't that so?" + +Laura agreed amiably. In truth, she wanted to get her mind away from its +substratum of unpleasant and unusual thought for which she could not +account. Nothing could take her farther from it than Mrs. Bahrr's small +talk about people and things. She knew better than to accept the gossip +for facts, but there was no courteous way of stopping Stellar now, +anyhow. One had to meet her on the threshold for that. + +"'Tain't always the little, petty thievin' sneak gits the things, even +if they do git the blame of it. No, 'tain't." Mrs. Bahrr rambled on, +fixing her hook eyes square into her hostess at just the right moment +for emphasis. "I knowed the same thing happen twice. Once back in +Indiany, where I come from--jist a little town on White River. There was +a girl come to that town from"--hesitatingly--"from Californy; said to +be rich, an' dressed it all right; had every man there crazy about her, +an' her spendin' money like water pours over a mill-wheel in March. Tell +you who she looked like--jist a mite like this Miss Swim stayin' at your +house now--big eyes an' innocent-lookin' like her, but this Californy +girl was a lot the best-lookin' of the two--a lot. An' she was rich--or +so everybody thought. This un ain't. I got that out of Ponk 'fore he +knowed it. An'--well, to make a story end somewhere this side of +eternity, I never could bear them ramblin' kind of folks--first thing +folks knowed a rich old bachelor got animated with her, just clear +_animated_, an' literally swore by her. An'--well, things got to missin' +a little an' a little more, an', sir--well"--slowly and +impressively--"it turned out at last that this girl who they said was so +rich was a _thief_, takin' whatever she could get, 'cause she was hard +up an' too proud to go back to Oregon to tell her folks. An' that rich +bachelor jist defended her ever' way--'d say he took things accidental, +an' then help her to git 'em back, or git away with them--it was like a +real drammy jist like they acted out in the picture show t'other night +down-town. There was lots of talk, an' it nearly broke his sister's--I +mean his mother's--heart. But, pshaw! that all happened years ago down +in Indiany on the White River. It's all forgot long 'go. Guess I'd +never thought of it again if this Swim girl hadn't come here with her +big eyes, remindin' me of that old forgot eppisode, an' your losin' +your purse mysterious. How things happen, year in an' year out, +place after place, the same kind of things; good folks everywhere, +though--everywhere. I was in York's office late yistyday afternoon, an' +this girl comes in. Too bad she's so poor an' so pretty." + +There was a venomous twist of the hooks at that word "pretty." + +"But she's in trouble some way, all right, I know, an' York 'll help her +out. _I_ wouldn't ask him. Men take more int'rist naturally in young an' +pretty women. But it's different with older women. I hope York never +gits caught sometime like that man I knowed back in Indiany. He's too +smart for that. Miss Swim must have told York about her money shortage +yistyday. The postmaster said she'd been waitin' for a check +considerable. I couldn't get nothin' out of _him_, whether it had come +yet or not. But I guess not. But la! la! she's your guest; you wouldn't +let her suffer; an' I ain't tellin' a soul what I know about things. I +do know what they say, of course. York won't let her suffer. But I'm so +much obliged to you. Four dollars will be all I need, an' I'll pay you +with the first bakin's. I guess I'll set some folks thinkin' when they +see I can make my own way--" + +Laura Macpherson was on her feet and it was her eyes now that were +holding the woman of the steel hooks. + +"Miss Swaim is our guest, the daughter of an old friend of the +Macphersons. Of course we--" + +Oh what was the use? Laura's anger fell away. It was too ridiculous to +engage in a quarrel with the town long-tongue. York was right. The only +way to get along with Stellar Bahrr was not to traffic with her. Mrs. +Bahrr rose also, gripping at the chance for escape uninjured. + +"I'll see you this afternoon if you still feel like helpin' me, an' York +is willin'. I clear forgot to put out my ice-card. Good day. Good day." + +The woman shuffled away, leaving the mistress of "Cluny Castle" in the +grip of many evil spirits. The demon of anger, of doubt, of contempt, of +incipient distrust, of self-accusation for even listening--these and +others contended with the angel of the sense of humor and the natural +courtesy of a well-bred woman. + +And then the lost purse came up again. + +"I may have left it in Jerry's room when I went to that closet after my +wrap last evening. I'll never learn to keep my clothes out of our +guest-room, I suppose," Laura said to herself, going at once to Jerry's +room. + +As she pushed aside some dresses suspended by hoops to a pole in the +closet, Jerry's beaded hand-bag fell from a shelf above the hangings, +and the fastening, loosened by the fall, let the contents roll out and +lay exposed on the floor. + +As Laura began to gather them up and put them back in their place, she +saw her own silk purse stuffed tightly into the bottom of her guest's +hand-bag. And then and there the poison tips of Stellar Bahrr's shafts +began a festering sore deep and difficult to reach. + +<tb> + +It was high noon when York Macpherson and his fair companion returned +from the far side of the big Macpherson ranch. Jerry's hair was blown in +ringlets about her forehead and neck. Her cheeks were blooming and her +eyes were like stars. With the fresh morning breeze across the prairie, +the exhilarating ride on horseback, and the novel interest in a ranch +whose appointments were so unlike "Eden" and the other Winnowoc Valley +farms, Jerry had the ecstasy of a new freedom to quicken her pulse-beat. +She had solved her problem; now she was free for her romantic nature to +expand. It was such a freedom as she had never in her wilful life known +before, because it had a purpose in it such as she had never known +before, a purpose in which the subconscious knowledge of dependence on +somebody else, the subjection to somebody else's ultimate control, +played no part. + +To Laura Macpherson she seemed to have burst from the bud to the +full-blown flower in one short forenoon. + +York's face, however, was wearing that impenetrable mask that even his +sister's keen and loving eyes could never pierce. He had been +impenetrable often in the last few weeks. But of the York back of that +unreadable face Laura was sure. Even in their mutual teasings the deep, +brotherly affection was unwavering. As far as it lay in York's power he +would never fail to make up to his companionable sister for what +circumstances had taken from her. And yet--the substratum of her +disturbed consciousness would send an upheaval to the surface now and +then. All normal minds are made alike and played upon by the same +influences. The difference lies in the intensity of control to subdue or +yield to the force of these influences. Things had happened in that +morning ride that York had planned merely for the beneficence of the +prairie breezes upon the bewildered purposes of the guest of the house. + +On the far side of the "Kingussie" ranch the two riders had halted in +the shade of a clump of wild plum-trees beside the trail that follows +the course of the Sage Brush. Below them a little creek wound through a +shelving outcrop of shale, bordered by soft, steep earth banks wherever +the shale disappeared. This Kingussie Creek was sometimes a swift, +dangerous stream, but oftener it was a mere runlet with deep water-holes +carved here and there in the yielding shale. Just now, at the approach +of July heat, there was only a tiny thread of water trickling clear +over yellow rock, or deep pools lying in muddy thickness in the stagnant +places. + +"Not much like the Winnowoc," York suggested, as his companion sat +staring down at the stream-bed below. + +"Everything is different here," Jerry said, meditatively. "I've traveled +quite a little before; been as far as the White Mountains and the +beautiful woodsy country up in York State. There's a lot of upness and +downness to the scenery, but the people--except, of course--" Jerry +smiled bewitchingly. + +"Except Ponk, of course," York supplied, with a twinkle in his eyes. + +"How well you comprehend!" Jerry assured him. "But, seriously, the world +is so different out here--the--the people and their ways and all." + +"No, Jerry, it isn't that. The climate is different. The shapes of +things differ. Instead of the churned-up ridged and rugged timber-decked +lands of Pennsylvania and York State, the Creator of scenery chose to +pour out this land mainly a smooth and level and treeless prairie--like +chocolate on the top of a layer cake." + +"Chocolate is good, with sand instead of sugar," Jerry interrupted. + +"But as to the people--the real heart of the real folks of the Sage +Brush--there's no difference. They all have 'eyes, hands, organs, +senses, affections, passions.' They are all 'fed with the same food, +hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed with +the same means, warmed and cooled with the same summer and winter' as +the cultured and uncultured folk of the Winnowoc Valley and the city of +Philadelphia. The trouble with us is we don't take time to read +them--nor even first of all to read ourselves. Of course I might except +old Fishing Teddy, that fellow you see away down there where the shade +is deepest," York added, to relieve the preachment he didn't want to +seem to be giving, yet really wanted this girl to understand. "He's a +hermit-crab and seldom comes among us. Every community has its +characters, you know." + +"He was among us last night, and went home with Joe Thomson," Jerry +replied, looking with curious interest at the motionless brown figure +up-stream in the shadow of a tall earth bank. + +York gave a start and stared at the girl in surprise. "How do you know? +Did the Big Dipper come calling on you? That sort of information is in +the Great Bear's line." + +Jerry flushed hotly as she remembered her promise not to tell of Mrs. +Bahrr's call. In a dim sort of way she felt herself entangled for the +moment. Then she looked full at York, with deep, honest eyes, saying, +simply: + +"Joe Thomson was calling on me last night, and I saw this old fellow, +Hans Theodore, Joe named him, waiting on the driveway, and the two went +away together, a pair of aces." + +"How do you know, fair lady, that this is the same creature? And how do +you happen to know Joe Thomson?" York inquired, blandly, veiling his +curious interest with indifference. + +"I happened to meet both of these country gentlemen on a certain day. In +fact, I dined _al fresco_ with one when I was riding in my chariot, +incognito, alone, unattended by gallant outriders, about my blank blank +rural estate in the heart of the Sage Brush country of Kansas. The +'blank blank' stands for a term not profane at all, but one I never want +to hear again--that awful word '_blowout_.'" + +Jerry's humor was mixed with sarcasm and confusion, both of which +troubled the mind of her companion. This girl had so many sides. She was +so unused to the Western ways and he was trying to teach her a deeper +understanding of human needs, and the human values regardless of +geography, when she suddenly revealed a self-possession telling of +scraps of her experience in a matter-of-fact way; and yet a confusion +for some deeper reason possessed her at certain angles. Why? That +mention of Joe Thomson was annoying to York. Why? Jerry's assumed +familiarity with such a hermit outcast as the old fisherman was +puzzling. Why? York must get back to solid ground at once. This girl was +throwing him off his feet. Clearly she was not going to chatter idly of +all her experiences. She could know things and not tell them. + +"Seriously, Jerry, there are no geographical limits for culture and +strength of character. If you stay here long enough you will appreciate +that," he began again where he had thrown himself off the trail to avoid +a preachment. + +"Yes," Jerry agreed, with the same degree of seriousness. + +"See, coming yonder." York pointed up the trail to where a much-worn +automobile came chuffing down the shaly road toward the ford of +Kingussie Creek. "That is Thelma Ekblad and her crippled brother Paul. +If you look right you will see the same lines of courage and sweetness +in his face that are in my sister's. And yet, although their lives have +been cast in widely different planes, their crosses are the same and +they have lifted them in the same way." + +Jerry hadn't really seen the lines in Laura Macpherson's face, because +she had been too full of her own troubles. With York's words she felt a +sense of remorse. Finding fault with herself was new to her and it made +her very uncomfortable. Also this girl coming, this Thelma Ekblad, was +the one whom Mrs. Bahrr had said York had pretended to be interested in +once. Jerry had remembered every word of Stellar Bahrr's gossipy tongue, +because her mind had been in that high-strung, tense condition last +night to receive and hold impressions unconsciously, like a sensitized +plate. The thought now made her peculiarly unhappy. + +"Joe Thomson's farm is next to hers. Some day I'll tell you her story. +It is a story--a real-life drama--and his." + +York's words added another degree to Jerry's disturbed mental frame. + +"How do you do, Thelma? Hello, Paul! Fine weather for cutting alfalfa. +My machines are at it this morning." York greeted the occupants of the +car cordially. + +"Good morning, York. We are rushing a piece of the mower up to the shop. +Had a breakdown an hour ago." + +Thelma was tanned brown, but her fair braids gleamed about her uncovered +head, and when she smiled a greeting her fine white teeth were worth +seeing. Paul Ekblad waved a thin white hand as the car passed the two on +horseback, and the delicate lines of his pale, studious face justified +York's comparison of it with Laura Macpherson's. Jerry saw her hostess +at that moment in a new light. Burdened for the moment as she was under +the discomfort of what seemed half-consciously to rebuke the frivolous +girl that she dimly knew herself to be, the sudden memory of her resolve +declared to Joe Thomson in the shadow-flecked porch the night before +came as a balm and a stimulant in one, to give her purpose, +self-respect, and peace. + +Thus it was that Jerry came in to "Castle Cluny" at high noon the +picture of health and high spirits, shaming Laura Macpherson's doubt and +sorrow which her morning had brought her. Laura was thoroughly +well-bred, and she had, beyond that, a strong and virtuous heritage of +Scotch blood that made for uprightness and sincerity. With one effort +she swept out of her mind all that had harassed it since the cup episode +at the breakfast-table, establishing anew within her understanding the +force of her brother's admonition concerning any affiliation with the +Big Dipper, the town meddler and trouble-maker. + +Late that afternoon, as Laura sat sewing in the shade of the +honeysuckle-vines, Stellar Bahrr hurried across lots again and hitched +cautiously up to the side door. Listening a moment, she heard the sound +of Laura's scissors falling on the cement floor of the porch, and +Laura's impatient exclamation, "There you go again!" as she reached to +pick them up and examine the points of their blades. + +Stellar hitched cautiously a little further along the wall, and stood in +the shade of the house, outside the porch vines. + +"Laury," she called, in a sibilant voice, "I jis' run in to say I won't +need that money at all. I'm goin' to go out sewin', an' I can git all I +can do, now the wheat harves' promises so well. Ever'body's spending +money on clo'es an' a lot of summer an' fall sewin' goin' to rot, you +might say. I'll be jis' blind busy, an' I can sew better than I can bake +or trim. But I'm same obliged." + +"Won't you come in?" Laura must not be rude, at any cost. + +"No, I can't. I must run back. My light bread's raisin' and it'll raise +the ruff if I don't work the meanness out of it." + +Just then Jerry Swaim came bounding through the hall doorway. "Look +here, Laura! See what I have found." She held up her beaded hand-bag and +pulled the stuffed silken purse out of it. "Now how did it ever get in +there? I'm a good many things, but I never knew I was a shoplifter," +Jerry declared, laughingly, a bit of confused blush making her prettier +than usual. + +"Why--why--" Laura was embarrassed, not for Jerry's sake, but on account +of those steel hooks thrusting themselves into her back through the +honeysuckle-vines. + +"Say, Laury, I jis' wanted to say I'm goin' to Mis' Lenwell's first. +Good-by." Stellar Bahrr's voice, sharp and thin, cut through the vines. + +As Laura turned to reply Jerry saw her fair face redden, and her voice +was almost harsh as she spoke clearly, to be well heard. + +"I remember now. I must have put it in there by mistake when you were +down-town yesterday afternoon. I guess I thought it was my bag." + +Mrs. Bahrr, turning to go, had caught sight of Jerry's hand-bag through +the leaves, and remembered perfectly that Jerry had carried it with her +down-town the day before, and how well it matched the beaded trimming of +her parasol, her wide-brimmed chiffon hat, and the sequins of her sash +trimmings against her silk walking-skirt. + +Jerry recalled taking the bag with her, too, and she recalled just then +what Mrs. Stellar Bahrr had hinted about Laura not wanting York to +admire other women. Why did that thought come to the girl's mind just +now? Was the wish of the evil mind of the woman hitching away across +lots and corkscrewing down alleyways projecting itself so far as this? + + + + +XI + +AN INTERLUDE IN "EDEN" + + +An interlude should be brief. This one ran through a few midsummer days +with amazing rapidity, considering that in its duration the current of a +life was changed from one channel, whither it had been tending for +almost a quarter of a century, to another and widely different course +that ran away from the very goal-mark of all its years of inspiring +ambition. + +It was late afternoon of a July day. Jerusha Darby sat in the +rose-arbor, fanning and rocking in rhythmic motion. The rose-vines had +ceased to bloom. Their thinning foliage was augmented now by the heavier +shade of thrifty moon-vines. + +Midsummer found "Eden" no less restful and luxuriant in its July setting +than it was in the freshness of June. + +The afternoon train had crawled lazily up the Winnowoc Valley on +schedule time, permitting Eugene Wellington, in white flannels, white +oxfords, and pink-pin-striped white silk shirt, fresh from shave and +shower-bath, to come on schedule time to the rose-arbor for a conference +with Mrs. Darby. + +The swift flow of events had not outwardly affected the handsome young +man. The time of the early June roses had found him poor in worldly +goods, but rich in a trained mind, a developed genius, a yearning after +all things beautiful, a faith in divine Providence, abounding confidence +in his own power to win to the mastery in his beloved art, and glorying +in his freedom to do the thing he chose to do. It found him in love, and +the almost accepted lover of a beautiful, wilful, magnetic girl--a girl +with a sturdy courage in things wherein he was lacking; a frivolous, +untrained girl, yet with surprising dependableness in any crisis. It +found him the favorite nephew of a quiet, uninteresting, rich old +money-grubbing uncle and his dominant, but highly approving wife, whose +elegant home was always open to him the while he felt himself a +pensioner on its hospitality. + +Mid-July found him, in effect, the master where he had been the poor +relation; the rich uncle gone forever from earthly affairs; a dominant +aunt still ruling--so she fancied--as she had always ruled, but with the +consciousness of her first defeated purpose rankling bitterly within +her. It found Eugene still in love with the same beautiful, wilful girl, +but far from any assurance of being a really accepted lover. It found +him insensibly forgetting the aspirations of a lifetime and beginning, +little by little, to grasp after the Egyptian flesh-pots. Life was fast +becoming a round of easy days, whose routine duties were more than +compensated by its charming domestic settings. The one unsatisfied +desire was for the presence of the bright, inspiring girl who had left a +void when she went away, for whose return all "Eden" was waiting. + +The swift course of events had created other changes. Some growths are +slow, and some amazingly swift, depending upon the nature of the +life-germ in the seed and the soil of the planting. In Eugene Wellington +the love of beauty found its comfort in his present planting. It was +easier to stay where beauty was ready-made than to go out and create it +in some less lovely surroundings. Combine with this artistic temperament +an inherent lack of initiative and courage, a less resistant force, and +the product is sure. Moreover, this very falling away from the incentive +to artistic endeavor exacted its penalty in a dulled spirituality. +Whoever denies the allegiance due, in however small a measure, to the +call of art within him pays always the same price--a pound of tender +bleeding flesh nearest his heart. For Eugene Wellington the Shylock +knife was sharpening itself. + +This July afternoon there were no misgivings in his soul, however--no +black shadows of failure ahead. All the serpents of "Eden" were very +good little snakes indeed. After a while he would paint again, +leisurely, exquisitely; especially would he paint when Jerry came home. + +As he lighted a cigarette, a recent custom of his, and strolled down the +shady way to the rose-arbor to meet Mrs. Darby, he drew deep draughts +of satisfaction. It had been an unusually good day for him. Unusually +good. Business had made it necessary to open some closed records in the +late Cornelius Darby's affairs, records that Mrs. Jerusha Darby herself +had not yet examined. They put a new light on the whole Darby situation. +They went further and threw some side-lights on the late Jim Swaim's +transactions. Altogether they were worth knowing. And Eugene, wielding a +high hand with himself, had, once for all, stilled his finer sense of +fitness in his right to know these things. He had also made rapid +strides in this brief time toward comprehending business ethics as +differing from church ethics and artistic ethics. Face to face in a +conflict with Jerry Swaim, with Aunt Jerry Darby, with his conscience, +his God, he was never sure of himself. But as to managing things, once +he had shut his doors and barred them, he was confident. It was a truly +confident Gene who stepped promptly into the rose-arbor on the moment +expected. To the old woman waiting for him there he was good to look +upon. + +"I'm glad you are on time, Gene," Mrs. Darby began, rocking and fanning +more deliberately. "I'm ready now to settle matters once for all." + +"Yes, Aunt Jerry," Eugene responded, fitting himself gracefully into the +settings of this summer retreat, with a look of steady penetration +coming into his eyes as he took in the face before him. + +"Any news from the Argonaut to-day?" he asked, at length, as Mrs. Darby +sat silently rocking. + +"Not a line. I guess Jerry is waiting for me to ask her to come back. +She must be through with her romantic fling by this time, and about out +of money, too. So now's the time to act and settle matters, as I say, +once for all. Jerry _must come home_." + +"Amen, and amen," Eugene agreed, fervently. + +"And if she won't come home herself, she must be brought--to see things +as we do. _Must_, I say, Eugene." + +"I'm glad she didn't say 'brought home' if she's going to send me after +her," the young man thought. The memory of having been sent after Jerry +in years gone by, and of coming back empty-handed, but full-hearted and +sore-headed, were still strong within him. "How shall we make her see?" +he inquired. + +Mrs. Darby rocked vigorously for a few minutes. Then she brought her +chair to a dead stop and laid down the law without further shifting of +anchors. + +"All my property, my real estate, country and city, my bank stocks, my +government bonds, my business investments--everything--is mine to keep +for my lifetime, and to pass by will to whomsoever I choose. Of course +it's only natural I should choose the only member of my family now +living to succeed to my possessions." + +How the "my" sounded out as the woman talked of her god, to whose +service she was bound, but of whose blessings she understood so little! + +Eugene sat waiting and thinking. + +"Of course, whoever marries Jerry with my approval will come into a +fortune worth having." + +"He certainly will," Eugene declared, fervently. + +A clear vision of Jerry and June roses swept his soul with refreshing +sweetness, followed by the no less clear imagery of Uncle Cornie +stepping slowly but persistently at the wrong moment after his wabbling +discus. He looked away down the lilac-walk, unconsciously expecting the +familiar, silent, uninteresting face and figure to come again to view. +To the artist spirit in him the old man was there as real to vision as +he had been on that last--lost--June day. + +"You are thinking of Jerry herself. I am thinking of her inheritance, +which is a deal more sensible, although Jerry is an unusually +interesting and surprising girl," the old woman was saying. + +"Unusually," Eugene echoed. "And in case you do not make a will?" + +The young man was still looking down the lilac-walk as he asked the +question, seemingly oblivious to the narrow eyes of Mrs. Darby +scrutinizing his face. + +"I have already made it. If things do not please me I shall change it. I +may do that half a dozen times if I choose before I'm through with it. +Now listen to me." The woman spoke sharply. + +Eugene listened, wondering the while what sort of lightning-rod she +carried, to speak with such assurance of all she meant to do before she +was through with the transactions of this life. Uncle Cornie had not +been so well defended. + +"I want you to write to Jerry to come home. You can pay her expenses. +She will take the money quicker from you than from me. She's as proud as +Lucifer in some things, once she's set. But she's in love with you, and +where a girl's in love she listens." + +Eugene looked up quickly. "Are you sure?" he asked, eagerly. + +"Of course I am! Why shouldn't I know love when I see it?" Mrs. Darby +inquired. + +Yes, why? + +"But you mustn't give in, nor plead with her. Just tell her how well +fixed you are, and how much she is missing here, and that you will wait +her time, only she must come back, and promise to stay here, or I'll cut +my will to bits, I certainly shall. I'll write myself to York +Macpherson. He's level-headed and honorable as truth. If he was dead in +love with Jerry himself--as he no doubt is by this time--he'd just put +it all away if he found out he was denying me my rights. I'll put it up +to his honor. And so with him at that end of the line, and you here, and +me really moving the chessmen, it can't be a losing game, Eugene. It +simply can't. Jerry may not get tired of her new playthings right away, +but she will after a while. It isn't natural for her to take to a life +so awfully different from her bringing up. When the new wears off she'll +come home, even if necessity didn't drive her, as it's bound to sooner +or later. She's nearly out of money right now, and she can't sponge off +the Macphersons forever and be Jim Swaim's child. Is everything clear to +you now?" + +Eugene threw away his cigarette and lighted a fresh one, his face the +while as expressionless as ever the dry, dull face of Cornelius Darby +had been. At last he answered: + +"Mrs. Darby has made a will, presumably in favor of her niece, Geraldine +Swaim--a will subject to replacement by any number of wills creating +other beneficiaries. In any event, Mrs. Darby proposes to have a voice +in the final disposition of her property." + +Mrs. Darby nodded emphatically. "I certainly do." + +Eugene smiled approval of such good judgment. "You are right, Mrs. +Darby. What is your own you should control, always. But, frankly, Aunt +Jerry, it is Geraldine Swaim herself who is my fortune--if I can ever +acquire it." + +"You don't object to her prospects, I hope," Mrs. Darby interrupted, +with a twinkle in her eye. + +"I couldn't, for her sake. And I am artistic enough to love the charm of +an estate like this; and sensible enough, maybe, to appreciate the +influence and opportunity that are afforded by the other financial +assets of the Darby possessions. I'll do all in my power to bring Jerry +back to a life of ease and absence of all anxiety and responsibility. +Shall I go out to Kansas after her?" + +An uncomfortable feeling about that York Macpherson had begun now to +pull hard upon Eugene's complacent assurance, although he had rebelled a +few minutes ago at the thought of going anywhere after Jerry. + +"Never," Mrs. Darby responded. "It would just give her another chance +for adventure and seem to acknowledge that we couldn't do without her." + +In truth, Mrs. Darby was shrewd enough to know that with Eugene on the +ground she could not count on York Macpherson as her ally. York would +naturally champion Jerry's cause, and she knew that Eugene Wellington +would be no match for the diplomatic man of affairs whom she had known +intimately from his childhood. + +"Aunt Jerry, how much do you know of the value of this Swaim estate?" +Eugene asked, suddenly. + +"Very little. Cornelius told me that he had a full account of it. That +was on the very day he was--he passed away. The papers, except the one +Jerry found here the day after the funeral, have all been mislaid." + +"Then I'd advise you to write to this Macpherson person and find out +exactly what we have to fight against," the young man suggested. +"Meantime I'll write to Jerry. I'm sure she should be ready to listen +now. All I claim to know of that beastly region out West I learned from +my father, but that is enough for me. If there were really a bit of +landscape worth the cost of the canvas I might go out there and paint +it. But who cares to paint in only two colors, blue one half--that's +sky, unclouded, monotonous; and chrome yellow, the other half--that's +land. I could paint the side of the cattle-barn over yonder half yellow, +half blue, and put as much expression into it." + +Mrs. Darby listened approvingly. "I'm very thankful that you see things +so sensibly. The sooner you replace what isn't worth while with what is +the sooner you will know you are a success in your business. We will +write those letters to-night. I'm having your favorite dishes for dinner +now, and we'll be served here. It is so pleasant here at this time of +day. I'll go and see to things right away, and we'll have everything +brought out pretty soon." + +The owner of all this dainty comfort and restfulness and beauty hurried +away, leaving Eugene Wellington alone in the rose-arbor--alone with +memories of Jerry Swaim, and Uncle Cornie, and life, and love, and hope +and high ambition, and himself--the self that a man must go right with, +if he goes with him at all. + +For a long half-hour he sat there in the rose-arbor, the appealing call +of his divine gift filling his artist soul. Then his judgment prevailed. +What he most wanted to have was here, ready to have now--and to hold +later with only a little patient waiting. A few weeks, or months, or +maybe even a year, a run of four swift seasons, and the girl of his +heart's heart would come back into her own, and find him ready for her +coming. That impossible York was not to be considered. Jerry was no +fool, if she was sometimes a bit foolish in her pranks. And he, Eugene +Wellington, had only this day learned of the whole Swaim situation, what +was vastly valuable to know. Meantime, his the task to keep that +precious Jerusha Darby will intact; or, failing in that, came the more +difficult and delicate task of controlling or holding back the pen that +would write another will. And in the end Jerry would love him forever +for what he would save for her--for her-- + +The memory of what he had learned that day in the business house in the +city came with its testimony that he was shaping his life course well. +Only one little foxy fear dodged about in his mind--the fear that +Jerry--the Jerry he knew, lovable in spite of all her little failings, +beautiful, picturesque, and surprising--that this Jerry, whom he +thought he knew so well, might prove to be an unknowable, unguessable +Jerry whose course would baffle all his plans, his efforts, his heart +longings. It must not be. He would prevent that. But could he? + +The coming of dainty viands with exquisite appointments gave nourishment +to his ready appetite, and dulled for a time the thing within him that +sometime must cry out to power or be sleeked down into fat and unfeeling +subjection. + +That night two letters were written to New Eden, Kansas, but neither +writer really knew the reader to whom the letter was written, nor +measured life purposes by the same gauge, so setting anew the world-old +stage for a drama in human affairs whose crowning act shapes human +destinies. + + + + +XII + +THIS SIDE OF THE RUBICON + + +In the late afternoon of a July Sabbath Jerry Swaim had gone for a +stroll along the quiet outskirts of New Eden. Laura was napping in the +porch swing, and York had gone to his office in answer to a telephone +call. Jerry was rarely lonely with herself and she was a good walker. +She was learning, too, the need for being alone with herself, for there +were many things crowding into her mind that demanded recognition. + +Jerry attended church with the Macphersons every Sunday, but it was a +mere perfunctory act on her part. To-day the minister was away. He had +gone to the upper Sage Brush to officiate at the funeral of Mrs. Nell +Belkap that had been Nell Poser, she of the tow hair and big-lunging +baby. She had died of congestion, following over-heating in cooking for +threshing-hands for her mother, her father being the kind of man that +objected to hired help for "wimmin folks." All that was nothing to +Jerry, who found herself wondering, in a vague sort of way, just where +that baby would sprawl itself, unattached to its mother's anchorage. +Babies were not in Jerry's scheme of things at all. + +The substitute minister was more interesting to think about. He had a +three-piece country charge over which to spread the Gospel, "Summit +School-House," "Slack Crick Church," and "Locust Grove Grange." He said +"have went" and he called the members of one of Saint Paul's churches +"The Thessalonnykins." And he really didn't know the Lord's Prayer +correctly, for he said "forgive us our trespasses," instead of "our +debts," as dear accurate Saint Matthew has written it. + +Jerry's mind was on him as an aside, on him, and that Paul Ekblad whom +she caught sight of in the Ekblad car with Thelma. They had stopped a +minute to speak with York Macpherson as they were on their way to that +up-country Poser funeral. Why should Paul Ekblad go so far to a funeral? + +Jerry strolled aimlessly along the smooth road leading out to the New +Eden cemetery, her bead-trimmed parasol shading her bare head, and her +pale-green organdie gown making her appear very summery. Jerry had the +trick of fitting all weather except the heated, sand-filled days of +mid-June on a freight-train, which condition Junius Brutus Ponk declared +"was enough to muss a angel's wings an' make them divine partial-eclipse +angel draperies look dingier than dish-rags." + +There were half a dozen well-grown cottonwood-trees in the cemetery, +with rows of promising little elms, catalpas, and box-elders all +symmetrically set. The grass was brown, but free from weeds; the walks +were only smooth paths. But the shade of the cottonwood group, and the +quiet of the place, seemed inviting. Every foot of the wind-swept +elevation was visible to the whole town, but the distance was guarantee +for undisturbed meditation. Jerry had no interest in cemeteries. She had +rarely visited the corner of "Eden" where the few elect by family ties +had their last resting-place. She walked down the grassy paths toward +the largest cottonwoods, now, indifferent alike to the humble headstone +and the expensive and sometimes grotesque granite memorial. By the +tallest shaft in the place, designated by Stellar Bahrr as "Granddad +Poser's monniment," she sat down in the shade of the biggest trees, and +looked out at New Eden in its Sabbath-afternoon nap; at the winding Sage +Brush and the green and yellow fields, and black hedgerows, and rolling +prairies, with purple-shadowed draws and pale-brown swells, and groves +about distant farmhouses. She sat still for a long time, and she was so +lost in this view that she did not hear steps approaching until Mr. Ponk +was almost beside her. + +"Good afternoon, Miss Swaim. Takin' a constitutional? They ain't no +Swaims laid away out here I reckon." + +"Oh no," Jerry replied. "I shouldn't come here for that if there were." + +Something about Ponk always made her good-natured. He was so grotesquely +impossible to her--a caricature cut from some comic magazine, rounded +out and animated. + +"Say you wouldn't? Now that's real queer." The short man opened his +little eyes wide with surprise. "Now I soar down here regular every +Sunday evenin' of the world, summer and winter." + +"What for?" Jerry asked, looking up at the speaker with curiosity. + +New Eden was still in that stage when a funeral was a public event. And +the belief was still maintained that the dead out in the cemetery must +be conscious of every attention or lack of it shown to their memory by +visits and flowers, and the price of tombstones. In a word, to the New +Eden living, the New Eden dead were not really in the Great Hereafter, +but here, demanding consideration in the social economy of the +community. + +Ponk was more shocked at Jerry's query than she could begin to +comprehend, and his interest in her and pity for her took a still +stronger grip on life. + +"Why, Miss Swaim, I come out here to see my mother. I 'ain't never +failed to bring her a flower in summer, or a green leaf in winter, one +single Sunday since she was laid out there on the south slope one Easter +day eight Aprils ago." + +"But she isn't there." Jerry spoke gently now, realizing that she had +hurt him unintentionally. + +"She is to me, an' I'd ruther think it thataway an' feel like I was +callin' every Sunday, never forgettin'," Ponk said, sadly. + +"Where's your dead to you, Miss Swaim?" he asked, after a pause. + +Jerry, who was gazing down the Sage Brush Valley, turned slowly at his +words, her big eyes luminous with tears. + +"They are not." She waved a hand against viewless air. + +"Oh yes, they are, walkin' beside you every day, lovin' you and proud of +you! A good mother just lives on an' keeps doin' good, and so does a +father, if you let 'em." Ponk hesitated, and his moon-round face was +flushed. "I ain't tryin' to preach," he added, hastily. "They's some +things, though, we all got to cling to or else get hustled off our feet +into a big black void where we just sink and die. It ain't just +Sage-Brushers, but it's all Christians--Baptists and Cammylites and High +Church and everybody. It's safer to stand in the light than sink in the +bottomless night. But, say, look who's comin' an' see what's trailin' +him. I guess I'll be soarin' back to the hotel now. Pleased to meet +you--always am pleased." Ponk lifted his hat and bowed uncovered, and +uncovered walked away. + +What he had said in the sincerity of his spiritual belief fell on +fertile soil in the mind of his listener. He had preached a sermon to +her that was good for her to hear. + +Jerry looked out in the direction he had indicated and saw York +Macpherson, walking a bit briskly for him and the place and the +afternoon. + +It was no wonder that Jerusha Darby should expect York to be caught by +the charms of his guest. As she sat there in the shade of the +cottonwoods, where, in all the cemetery, the blue grass grew rankest, +with her pale-green gown, her smooth pink cheeks, and the wavy masses of +golden-brown hair coiled low at the back of her head, York wondered if +the spirit of the wild rose in bloom and the spirit of some Greek nymph +had not combined in the personification before him. + +At the gateway he met Ponk. + +"Why do you run away? I have a special-delivery letter for Miss Swaim. I +thought I'd better come and find her, but that needn't interfere with +you." + +"Oh, you smooth-bore! But I have to go, anyhow. I'm headin' off what's +trailin' you. Don't look back. It's Stellar Bahrr, comin' out to see +who's been to see their folks to-day and who's neglectin' 'em, +'specially late arrivals. She's seen my game, though, now, an' she's +shabbin' off to the side gate, knowin' I'd head her back to town. Say, +York, she's after Miss Swaim now. You watch out. Them that's the +worthlessest and has the least influence in a community can start the +biggest fires burnin'. Everybody in New Eden's been buffaloed by +her--just scared blue--except maybe us two. You ain't, I know, and I'm +right sure I ain't." + +"Ponk, you are as good as you are good-looking," York said, heartily. +"The Big Dipper could start a tale of our guest meeting gentlemen +friends in the cemetery. And yet for privacy it's about like meeting +them on the sidewalk before the Commercial Hotel. However, she's started +scandal with less material. I have business with Miss Swaim, so I'll +walk home with her." + +Jerry waited for her host under the flickering, murmuring leaves of the +cottonwood. She had seen some woman wandering diagonally from the +cemetery road toward the corner of the inclosure, but she had no +interest in strangers and might never have thought of her again but for +a word of York's that day. + +He had seen the girl looking after Stellar as she made a wide flank +movement. A sense of duty coupled with a strange interest in Jerry, for +which he had as yet given no account to himself, was urging him to tell +her, as he had told his sister, to have no traffic with the town's +greatest liability, but with all of Ponk's warning he could not bring +himself to speak now. + +"May I sit here with you awhile?" he asked, lifting his hat as he spoke. + +"Certainly. It is so quiet and peaceful out here, and, as I have no +associations with this place, I can sit here without being unhappy or +irreverent," Jerry replied. + +"I came out to find you. There are callers at home now, so I'll give you +my message here, unless you want to follow Mr. Ponk's example and +'soar' off home." + +"That man interests me," Jerry declared. "He said some good things about +his mother just now. And yet he's so--so funny." + +"Oh, Ponk's outside is against him. If he could be husked out of himself +and let the community get down to the kernel of him he is really fine +wheat," York said, conscious the while that he had not meant, for some +reason, to praise the strutting fellow. Yet he had never felt so toward +the little man before. + +"I have a special-delivery letter for you which came this afternoon. +While you read it I'll go out to the gate and speak to the Ekblads, +coming yonder." + +Jerry read her letter--the one Eugene had written after his conference +with Jerusha Darby in the rose-arbor. In it he had been faithful to the +old woman's smallest demands, but the message itself was a masterpiece. +It was gracefully written, for Eugene Wellington's penmanship was art +itself; and gracefully worded, and it breathed the perfumes of that +lovely "Eden" on every page. + +Jerry closed her eyes for a moment in the midst of the reading, and the +wind-swept cemetery and all the summer-seared valley of the Sage Brush +vanished. The Macphersons; Ponk; Thelma Ekblad in the automobile by the +cemetery gate, holding something in her arms, and her fair-haired +brother, Paul; Joe Thomson (why Joe?)--all were nothing. Before her eyes +all was Eugene--Eugene and "Eden." Then she read on to the end. One +reading was enough. When York came back she was sitting with the letter +neatly folded into its envelope again, lying in her lap. + +York had a shrewd notion of what that letter contained, but there was +nothing in Jerry's face by which to judge of its effect on her. Two +things he was learning about her--one, that she didn't tell all she +knew, after the manner of most frivolous-minded girls; the other, that +she didn't tell anything until she was fully ready to do so. He admired +both traits, even though they baffled him. In his own pocket was Jerusha +Darby's letter, also specially delivered. He sat down by Jerry and +waited for her to speak. + +"Were those the people we saw on the south border of 'Kingussie'?" she +asked. + +"Yes," York replied. + +"Do they interest you?" she questioned. + +"Very much." + +"Why?" Jerry was killing something--time, or thought. + +"Because, as I told you the other day, the same life problems come to +all grades. And life problems are always interesting," York declared. + +"Has Thelma Ekblad a blowout farm, too?" Jerry's face was serious, but +her eyes betrayed her mood. + +"Better a blowout farm than a blowout soul," York thought. "No. I wonder +what she would do with it if she had," he said, aloud. + +"Just what I am doing, no doubt, since all of us, 'Colonel's lady and +Judy O'Grady,' are alike. Tell me more about her," Jerry demanded. + +"She's talking against time now, I know, but I'll tell her a few +things," York concluded. + +"Jerry, there are not many women like this Norwegian farmer girl who is +working her way through the State University down at Lawrence. A few +years ago her brother Paul was in love with a girl up the Sage Brush, +the daughter of a prosperous, stupid, stingy old ranchman. Paul was +chewed up in a mowing-machine one day when the horses got scared and ran +away, but his girl was true to him in spite of her father's objections +to him. Then came a woman--a sharp-tongued gossip (she's over yonder now +by the side gate)--who managed to stir up trouble purely for the +infernal joy of gossip, I suppose, between this girl and Thelma. I +needn't go into detail; you probably do not care much for the general +outline." + +"Go on," Jerry commanded. + +"Well, it was the rough course of true love over again. Between the +father and the sister the match was broken off, and before things could +be reconciled the girl's father forced the marriage of his daughter to a +worthless scamp who posed as a rich man, or an heir expectant to riches. +The Ekblads are hard-working farmer folk. When it was too late the +misunderstanding was cleared up. The rich fellow soon proved a fraud +and a rascal and a wife-deserter. And the girl came home with her baby. +Her father, as I said, was too stingy to hire help. So this girl-mother +overworked in threshing-time, and--was buried this afternoon up the Sage +Brush--old man Poser's daughter, Nell Belkap. The Ekblads have just come +from the funeral. Old Poser has refused to care for Nell's baby and +intended to put it in an orphan asylum. Thelma Ekblad brought it home +with her. It was in her arms just now, and she's going to keep it and +adopt it. When she's away at school--she has a year yet before she +graduates--that crippled brother, Paul, will take care of it. All of +which is out of your line, Jerry, but interesting to us in the valley +here." + +As York paused and looked at Jerry, all that Stellar Bahrr had said of +him and the Poser girl swept through her mind. Not the least meanness of +a lie is in its infectious poisoning power. + +"It is very interesting. I wonder how she can take care of that baby. +Babies are so impossible," Jerry said, musingly. + +"We were all impossibles once. Some of us are still improbables," York +replied. + +Jerry looked up at him quickly. "Not altogether hopeless, maybe. Thelma +is doing this for her brother's sake, I can see that. And the story has +a sweeter side than if she were doing it just for herself. It makes it +more worth while." + +It was the first time that York had caught the note of anything outside +of self in Jerry's views of life. + +He involuntarily pressed his hand against the specially delivered letter +he himself had received that afternoon, and his lips were set grimly. +The plea of the old woman, and the soul of the young woman, which called +loudest now? + +"Will this young Ekblad go up to his sweetheart's grave every Sunday, +like Mr. Ponk comes here?" Jerry asked, after a pause. + +"No, he will probably never go near it," York replied. + +"Why not? I thought that was the customary way of doing here," Jerry +declared. + +"Because it isn't his grave. It belongs to Bill Belkap, who doesn't care +for it. Paul Ekblad will find his solace in caring for Nell Poser's +child and in knowing it was her wish that he is fulfilling. That is the +real solace for the loss of loved ones." + +Jerry remembered Uncle Cornie and his withered yellow hand under her +plump white one as he told her of Jim Swaim's wish for his child. + +"If I carry out that wish I will be true to my father--and--he will be +happier," she thought, and a great load seemed lifting itself from her +soul. + +"Oh, father, father! You are not in the 'Eden' burial-plot. You are here +with me. I shall never lose you." The girl's face was tenderly sweet +with silent emotion as she turned to the man beside her. + +"I'm glad you told me that story. May I come down to your office in the +morning for a little conference? I can come at ten." + +"Certainly. Come any time," York assured her, wishing the while that the +plea of Jerusha Darby's that lay in his pocket was in the bottom of +Fishing Teddy's deep hole down the Sage Brush. + +The next morning Jerry Swaim came into the office of the Macpherson +Mortgage Company promptly at the stroke of ten by the town clock. + +"If I were only a younger man," York Macpherson thought, feeling how the +presence of this girl transformed the room she entered--"if I were only +younger I would fall at her shrine, without a question. Now I keep +asking myself how a woman can be so charming, on the one hand, and so +characterless maybe, shallow anyhow, on the other. But the test is on +for sure now." + +No hint of this thought, however, was in his face as he laid aside his +pen and asked, in his kindly, stereotyped way: + +"What can I do for you?" + +"You can be my father-confessor for a minute or two, and then make out +my last will and testament for me," Jerry replied, with a demure smile. + +"So serious as all that?" York inquired, gravely, picking up a blank +lease form as if to write. + +"So, and worse," Jerry assured him. But in an instant her face was +grave. "You know my present situation," she began, "and that I must +decide at once what to do, and then _do_ it. I'm so grateful that you +understand and do not try to offer me friendship for service." + +York looked at her earnest face and glowing dark-blue eyes wonderingly. +This girl was forever surprising him, either by flippant indifference or +by unexpected insight. + +"You know a lot about my affairs, of course," Jerry went on, hurriedly. +"Aunt Darby offered both of us--me, I mean, a home with her, a life of +independent dependence on her--charity--for that, at bottom, was all +that it was. And when I refused her offer she simply cut me until such +time as I shall repent and go back. Then the same thing would be waiting +for me. I know now that it was really wilfulness and love of adventure +that most influenced me to break away from Philadelphia and--and its +flesh-pots. But, York, I don't want to go back--not yet awhile, anyhow." + +It was the first time she had ever called him by that name, and it sent +a thrill through her listener. + +"Is it wilfulness and love of adventure still, or something else, that +holds you here 'yet awhile'?" York asked, with kindly seriousness. + +"Oh, wait and see!" Jerry returned. + +"She is not going to be _led_, whichever way she goes. I told Laura +so," was York's mental comment. + +"Does this finish your 'confession'?" he asked. + +"I may as well tell you the other side of the story." Jerry's voice +trembled a little. "Cousin Gene Wellington was in the same boat with me, +a dependent like myself. But now that he has given up to Aunt Jerry's +wishes, I suppose he will be her heir some day, unless I go back and get +forgiven." + +"This artist's father was in business with your father once, wasn't he?" +York asked. + +"Yes, and there was something I never could understand, and Aunt Jerry +never mentioned, about that; but she did say often that Cousin Gene +would make up for what John Wellington lacked, if things went her way. +They haven't all gone her way--only half of them, so far." + +"Do you fully understand what you are giving up, Jerry?" York asked, +earnestly. "That life might be a much pleasanter story back East, even +if it were a bit less romantic than the story on the Sage Brush. Might +not your good judgment take you back, in spite of a little pride and the +newness of a different life here?" + +As York spoke, Jerry Swaim sat looking earnestly into his face, but when +he had finished she said, lightly: + +"I thought before I saw you that you were an old man. You seem more like +a brother now. I never had a brother, nor a sister--nothing but myself, +which makes too big a houseful anywhere." She grew serious again as she +continued: "I do understand what I'm giving up. It was tabulated in a +letter to me yesterday, and I do not give up lightly nor for a girl's +whim now. I have my time extended. There seems to be indefinite patience +at the other end of the line, if I'll only be sure to agree at last." + +"Pardon me, Jerry, if I ask you if it is a question of mere funds." York +spoke carefully. "I know that Mrs. Darby may be drawn on at any time for +that purpose." + +"Did she tell you so?" Jerry asked, bluntly. + +"She did--when you first came here," York replied, as bluntly. + +Jerry did not dream of the struggle that was on in the mind of the man +before her, but her own strife had made her more thoughtful. + +For a little while neither spoke. Then York Macpherson's face cleared, +as one who has reached the top of a difficult height and sees all the +open country on the other side. Jerusha Darby's plea had won. + +"Jerry, you do not understand what is before you. Whoever takes up the +business of self-support, depending solely on the earnings that must be +won, has a sure battle with uncertainty, failure, sacrifice, and +slow-wearing labor. Of course it is a glorious old warfare--but it has +that other side. In the face of the fact that I am your fortunate host, +and that my sister is happier now than she has ever been before in New +Eden, and hopes to keep you here, I urge you, Jerry, to consider well +before you refuse to go back to your father's sister and your artist +cousin." + +The "father's sister" was a master-stroke. It caught Jerry at an angle +she had not expected. But that "artist cousin"! If Gene had been truly +the artist, Jerry Swaim had yielded then. The failure to be true to +oneself has long tentacles that reach far and grip back many things that +else had come in blessing to him who lies to his own soul. + +"I won't go back. That is settled. Now as to my last will and testament, +please," Jerry said, prettily. + +"Imprimis," York began, with his pen on the lease form before him. + +"Oh, drop the Latin," Jerry urged. "Say, 'I, Geraldine Darby Swaim, +being of sound mind and in full possession of all my faculties, and of +nothing else worth mentioning, being about to pass into the final estate +and existence of an old-maid school-teacher, a high-school teacher of +mathematics'--Please set that down." + +"So you are going to teach. I congratulate you." York rose and took the +girl's hand. + +"Thank you. Yes, I just 'soared' over to the hotel and signed my +contract with Mr. Ponk and the other two members in good standing, or +whatever they are." Jerry would not be serious now. "And the remainder +of my will: 'I hereby give and bequeath all my worldly goods, excepting +my gear, to wit: one claim of twelve hundred acres, containing three +cottonwood-trees, three times three acres of oak timber, and three times +three times three million billion grains of golden sand, to the +Macpherson Mortgage Company to have and to hold, free of all expense to +me, and to lease or give away to any lunatic, or lunatics, at the +company's good-will and pleasure, for a term not to exceed three million +years. All of which duly signed and sworn to.'" + +As Jerry ran on, York wrote busily on the lease form before him. + +"Please sign here," he said, gravely pointing to a blank space when he +had finished. "It is a three years' lease to your property herein +legally described. The Macpherson Mortgage Company will pay you +twenty-five cents per acre, per year, with the exclusive right to all +the profits accruing on the land, and to sublease the same at will." + +"That is about half of what Aunt Jerry spent on my wardrobe just before +I came West," Jerry exclaimed. "But I couldn't take twenty-five cents a +year. I've seen the property, you know, and I don't want charity here +any more than I did in Philadelphia." + +"Then sign up the lease. This is business. Our company is organized on a +strictly financial basis for strictly financial transactions. It is a +matter of 'value received' both ways with us." + +York Macpherson never trifled in business matters, even in the smallest +details, and there was always something commanding about him. It pleased +him now to note that Jerry read every word of the document before +accepting it, and he wondered how much a girl of such inherent business +qualities in the small details of affairs would waver in steadfastness +of purpose in the larger interests of life. + +"Will you let me give a receipt for the cash instead of taking a check?" +Jerry asked, as York reached for his check-book. + +"Why do you prefer that?" York asked, with business frankness. + +"Because I do not care to have the transaction known to any one besides +your company," Jerry replied. + +"But suppose I should sublease this land?" York suggested. + +"That would be different, of course, even if the lessee was a lunatic. +Otherwise I don't care to have it known to any one that I draw an income +from what is not worth an effort," Jerry declared, quoting Joe Thomson's +words regarding her possessions. + +"If I give my word to exclude every one else from knowing of this +transaction it means every one--even my sister Laura." York looked at +Jerry questioningly. + +"Even your sister Laura," Jerry repeated, conclusively. + +York was too well-bred to ask her why, and, while he voluntarily +refrained from telling his sister many things, she was his counselor in +so many affairs that he wondered not a little at Jerry's request, while +he chafed a little under his promise. He was so accustomed to being +master of himself in all affairs that it surprised him to find how +easily he had put himself where he would rather not have been placed. + +Half an hour later Joe Thomson came into the office. + +"What can I do for you to-day, Joe?" York inquired. + +"Do you control the sections south of mine?" Joe asked. "I want to lease +them, but I shouldn't care to have the owner know anything about it." + +"That old blowout! What's your idea, Joe?" + +"I want to try an experiment," Joe replied. + +York Macpherson had the faculty of reading some men like open books. + +"You must have been hanging around eavesdropping this morning. I just +got a three years' lease on Miss Swaim's land at twenty-five cents an +acre, and here you come for it. I took it on a venture, of course, +hoping to sell sand to the new cement-works up the river, sand being +scarce in these parts." There was a twinkle in York's eyes as he said +this. "I can sublease it, of course, and at the same price, but you +know, Joe, that the land is worthless." + +"I don't know it," Joe said, stubbornly. "You seem to have been willing +enough to get the lease secured this morning." + +York ignored the thrust. "You know I leased that land merely to help +Miss Swaim, but you don't know yet whether or not you can tame your own +share of that infernal old sand-pile that you want to put a mortgage on +your claim to fight," York reminded him. + +"I'll take a part of that loan to pay for the lease, and the rest I'll +use on the Swaim land, not on mine. I'm going to go beyond the blowout +to begin, and work north the same way it goes," Joe explained. + +"All of which sounds pretty crazy to me. You are shouldering a big load, +young man--a regular wildcat venture. There's one of you to myriads of +sand-heaps. You'll have to take the Lord Almighty into partnership to +work a miracle before you win out. I've known the Sage Brush since the +first settler stuck in a plow, and I've never known one single miracle +yet," York admonished him. + +"As to miracles," Joe replied, "they are an every-day occurrence on the +Sage Brush, if you can only look far enough above money-loaning to see +them, you Shylock." + +Calling York Macpherson a Shylock was standard humor on the Sage Brush, +he was so notoriously everybody's friend and helper. + +"And I've had to take the Lord in for a partner all my life," Joe added, +seriously. + +York looked at the stern face and stalwart form of the big, sturdy +fellow before him, recalling, as he did so, the young ranchman's years +of struggle through his boyhood and young manhood. + +"Of course you can win," he assured Joe. "Your kind doesn't know what +failure means. It isn't the _work_, it is the stake that makes me +uneasy." + +Joe looked up quickly and York knew that he understood. + +"I read your page clearly enough, my boy," he said, earnestly. "You are +taking a hand in a big game, and the other fellow keeps his cards under +the table. Blowouts are not as uncertain as women, Joe. Let me tell you +something. You will find it out, anyhow. I can ease the thing up now. +Back in Philadelphia a rich old widow has given two young lovers the +opportunity to earn their living or depend on her bounty--a generous +one, too. Being childless and selfish, she secretly wanted to hold them +dependent on her, that she may demand their love and esteem. It is an +old mistake that childless wealth and selfishness often make. The girl, +being temperamentally romantic and inherently stubborn, voted to go +alone. These things, rather than any particularly noble motive--I hate +to disillusion you, Joe, but I must hold to facts--have landed her +practically penniless in our midst; and she is not acquainted yet with +either lack of means or the labor of earning. The young man, gifted in +himself, which his sweet-heart is not, son of a visionary spendthrift, +has chosen the easier way, a small clerkship and a luxurious home +seeming softer to his artistic nature than the struggling up-climb with +his real gift. This old lady won't last forever. Her disinherited niece +won't want to work at teaching forever. The waiting clerk will come +after the heir apparent just when she is most tired of the Sage Brush +and the things thereof, and--they will live tamely ever after on the +aunt's money. Do you see what you are up against, Joe? Don't waste +energy on a dream--with nothing to show for your labor at last but debt +and possible failure, and the beautiful Sage Brush Valley turned to a +Sodom before your eyes." + +"Whenever you are ready I'll sign up the lease," was Joe's only reply. + +So the transaction was completed in silence. + + + + +III + +JERRY AND EUGENE--AND JOE + + + + +XIII + +HOW A GOOD MOTHER LIVES ON + + +New Eden never saw a more beautiful autumn, even in this land of +exquisite autumn days, than the first one that Jerry Swaim passed in the +Middle West. And Jerry reveled in it. For, while she missed the splendid +colorings of the Eastern woodlands, she never ceased to marvel at the +clear, bright days, the sweet, bracing air, the wondrous sweeps of +landscapes overhung by crystal skies, the mist-wreathed horizons holding +all the softer hues, from jasper red to purest amethyst, that range the +foundation stones of heaven's walls as Saint John saw them in his dream +exquisite. + +It had never occurred to Jerry that a beauty impossible to a wooded +broken country might be found on the October prairies. Her dream of a +Kansas "Eden" exactly like the Pennsylvania "Eden," six times enlarged, +had been shattered with one glimpse of her possession--a possession +henceforth to be a thing forgotten. But life had opened new pages for +her and she was learning to read them rapidly and well. + +One thought of the past remained, however. The memory of a romance begun +in her Eastern home would not die with the telling. And while Jerry +Swaim persuaded herself that what Eugene Wellington called success to +her was failure, and while every day widened the breach between the two, +time and distance softened her harsher judgment, and she remembered her +would-be lover with a tender sadness that made her heart cold to the +thought of any other love. + +This did not make her the less charming, however--this pretty girl +without any trace of coquetry, who knew how to win hearts to her. Sure +of the wideness that separated her life from the life of the Sage Brush +Valley, she took full measure of interest in living, unconsciously +postponing for herself the future's need for the solace of love. The +small income from her lease to the Macpherson Mortgage Company filled +her purse temporarily, and she began at once upon a course of economic +estimates worthy of Jim Swaim's child, however seemingly impossible in +Lesa Swaim's pretty, dueless daughter. Another trait, undeveloped +heretofore, began to be emphasized--namely, that while she could chatter +glibly on embroideries and styles, and prettily on art, and seriously +and intelligently on affairs of national interest, as any all-round +American girl should do--she was discreet and uncommunicative regarding +her business affairs. Not that she meant to be secretive; she was simply +following the inherited business ability of an upright, well-balanced +man, her father. Coupled with this was a pride in her determination to +win--to prove to Aunt Jerry Darby and Eugene Wellington that she had +made no mistake; and until victory was hers she would be silent about +her endeavors. + +The Macphersons had insisted that Jerry should remain their guest at +least until the opening of the school in September. And if the girl +imagined that she found a faint hint of fervor gone from Laura +Macpherson's urging, her hostess made up for it in the abundant kindness +of little acts of hospitality. Jerry was frankly troubled, and yet she +could not say why, for it was all the impressions of a mind sensitized +to comprehend unspoken things. Jerry's memory would call up that +incident of the lost purse found in her hand-bag, and of Laura's excuse +for it, which she, Jerry, knew was impossible. And yet the girl felt +that it was a contemptible thing to impute a distrust to Laura that, +placed in the same position, she herself would scorn to harbor. + +"I see no way but the everlasting run of events. I wish they would run +fast and clear it up," Jerry said to herself, dismissing the matter +entirely, only to have it bobbing up for consideration again on the +first occasion. + +At the close of a hot summer day Jerry was in her room, finishing a +letter to Jerusha Darby, to whom she wrote faithfully, but from whom she +had rarely received a line. York and Laura were on the porch, as usual. +The hammock that day had been swung to a shadier position, on account of +the slipping southward of the late summer sun; and Laura forgot that +Jerry's window opened almost against it now, so that she could hear all +that was said at that corner of the porch. As Jerry finished her letter +she caught a sentence outside that interested her. She was innocent of +any intention of eavesdropping afterward, but what she heard held her +motionless. + +"The leak has opened again, York," Laura was saying. "Things are +beginning to disappear, especially money." + +York's face took on a sort of bulldog grimness, but he made no reply. + +Inside, Jerry glanced at her beaded hand-bag lying on the top of the +little desk, saying to herself: + +"I'll open a bank-account to-morrow. I've been foolish to leave that +roll of bills lying around; all I have, too, between me and the last +resort in Kansas--'to go mad or go back East.' I'm certainly a brilliant +business woman--I am." + +And then, unconscious at first that she was listening, her ear caught +what followed outside: + +"York, the queer thing is that it's just at 'Castle Cluny' that things +are disappearing right now. Mrs. Bahrr was over to-day and told me the +Lenwells had even gone to Kansas City and forgot to lock their back +door, and not a thing was missing, although Clare Lenwell left five +silver dollars stacked up on the dresser in plain view." + +"If anybody would know the particulars it would be the Big Dipper," York +declared. + +"Oh, now don't begin on that tune, York, for I'm really uneasy," Laura +began. + +"For why?" York inquired. + +And then Laura told him the story of her lost purse, omitting Stellar +Bahrr's part in the day's events, and adding: + +"Of course, I hate myself for even daring to carry a hint of suspicion +for a minute, but Jerry knew as well as I did that I hadn't put my purse +in her hand-bag by mistake, for she carried it with her up-town that +day. But I could forget the whole thing if it had ended there. I know +that the dear girl was dreadfully short of money until just recently. +Now her purse is full of bills. I couldn't help seeing that when she +displays it so indifferently. She says she will have no funds from +Philadelphia. Where does she get money when I can't keep a bill around +the house?" + +"Then I would quit the stocking-toe banking system that mother and all +the other women and most of the men back in Winnowoc used to employ. You +might try the First National Bank of New Eden. I'm one of the directors, +and a comparatively safe man for all that," York advised, gravely. + +"The loss of the money is nothing to the possible loss of confidence," +Laura went on, ignoring her brother's thrust. "Could such a thing be +possible that this dear girl is discouraged and tempted to hide her +necessities?" The woman's voice was full of kindly sorrow. "York, +couldn't you tell her?" + +"I see myself doing that," York fairly exploded. "Laura, there may be a +big leak in this house where valuables seep through. I'm not saying +otherwise. But as for Jerry Swaim, it's simply preposterous--impossible. +Never let such a thing cross your mind, let alone your lips again, you +dear best of sisters. You know you don't believe a word of it." + +"I know I don't, too, York; of course I don't; but I must have needed +you to assure me of it. It all began in circumstance and an ugly +suspicion that a story of Stellar Bahrr's suggested. And when I missed +my own money and saw that great roll of bills--Oh, I must be crazy or +just a plain human creature full of evil--" + +"Or both," York added. "We are all more or less human and more than less +crazy, especially if we will listen to old wives' tales against the +expressed command of our wise brothers. As for Jerry having money"--York +suddenly recalled his promise to Jerry not to discuss her affairs--"it's +hardly likely she would display carelessly what was acquired by extreme +care. Let's call her out here and think of better things." + +As Laura looked up she realized for the first time the nearness of the +hammock to Jerry's open window. The grief of being overheard by one whom +she would not wound for worlds, with the self-rebuke for giving ear to +Stellar Bahrr's gossip, almost overcame her. + +"You go after Jerry, please," she said, faintly. + +York went into the hall, calling at Jerry's open door, but she was not +there. He looked in the living-room, but it was empty. Through the +dining-room he passed to the side porch, where a dejected, lonely little +figure was half hidden by the vines that covered it. At sight of her +York stopped to get a grip on himself. + +At her host's explosive declaration, "I see myself doing it," Jerry had +come to herself. Surprised and wounded, but realizing the justice of the +ground for suspicion against her--her--Jerry Swaim, who had always had +first concern in those about her--she left her room hastily and passed +out of the house by the side door. In the little vine-covered entry she +sat down and stared out at the lawn, where the fireflies were beginning +to twinkle against the shrubbery bordering the driveway. She had thought +the disposition of her estate, and the choice of occupation, and the +putting away of Eugene Wellington, had settled things for her future. +Here was the fulfilling of a sense of something wrong that had recently +possessed her, hardly letting itself be more than a sense till now. What +did life mean, anyhow? "To go mad or go back East?" Why should she do +either one, who had not offended anybody? + +As Jerry gazed out at the shadowy side lawn the sound of a step caught +her ear--a shuffling of feet across the grass, and the noise of a hard +sole on the cement driveway. Jerry's eyes mechanically followed a +short, shambling figure, suggesting a bear almost as much as a human +being, as it passed forward a step or two; then, dividing the +spirea-bushes on the farther edge, it disappeared into the deeper shadow +of the slope toward the town below "Kingussie." + +It was Fishing Teddy--old Hans Theodore; Jerry recognized him at a +glance, and in the midst of her confused struggle to find herself she +paused to wonder about him. Intense mental states often experience such +pauses, when the mind grappling in an internal combat rests for a moment +on an impression coming through the senses. + +"What's the old Teddy Bear doing here?" Jerry asked herself, and then +she remembered his coming once before almost to this very spot. That was +the night Joe Thomson had called--the big farmer whose property her own +was helping to destroy. There was something strong and unbreakable about +this Joe. A million leagues from her his lot was cast, of course, and +yet she hoped somehow that Joe might be near and that the Teddy Bear was +waiting for him. + +"Jerry! Jerry!" York called through the hall, and then he came out to +where she sat on the side porch. + +"I was hunting for you. You have a caller, my lady, a gentleman who +wants to take you for a ride up the river. It will be gloriously cool +on the ridges up-stream. He will give you a splendid hour before the +curfew rings--the lucky dog!" + +Jerry looked up expectantly. "It must be Joe Thomson," she thought, and +she was glad to have him come again. + +On the front porch little Junius Brutus Ponk was strutting back and +forth, chatting with Laura. + +"Good evening, Miss Swaim. I just soared down to invite you to take a +little drive in my gadabout. I hope it will suit you to go." + +"Nothing would please me more," Jerry said, lightly. "Let me get my +wrap." As she returned to her room her eye fell on her hand-bag, lying +on her desk. A sense of grief swept over her, for one moment, followed +by a strange lightness of heart as if her latest problem had solved +itself suddenly. + +As they passed down the walk to the little gray car York Macpherson +looked after them, conscious of the impossible thing in Ponk's mind, and +wondering wherein lay the charm of this pink-and-white inefficient girl +to grip with so strong a hold on the heart of a sensible man like Ponk. + +"It is her power to be what she has never been, but what she will +become," he said to himself. "She's the biggest contradiction to all +rules that I ever knew, but she's a dead-sure proposition." + +The coming of callers found York in his best mood, and when his sister +bade him good night he put his arms around her, saying, gently: + +"You are the best woman in the world, Laura, and you mustn't carry a +single hidden worry." + +"Neither must you, York," Laura replied, and each knew that the other +understood. + +Meantime, out on the upper Sage Brush road Jerry was letting the beauty +of the evening lift the weight from her mind. She was just beginning to +understand that, while she had imagined herself to be doing her own +thinking heretofore, she had been merely willing that her thinking +should be done for her. She was now at the place where her will meant +little and her judgment everything in shaping her acts. The recognition +brought a sense of freedom she had never known before. What she had +overheard from the porch seemed far away, and her wounded spirit grew +whole again as she began to find herself standing on her own feet, not +commanding that somebody else should hold her up. Jerry's mind worked +rapidly, and before the gray car had been turned at the northern end of +the evening's ride it was not the Jerry Swaim of an hour ago, but a +young warrior, clad in armor, with shining weapons in her hand, who sat +beside the adoring little hotel-keeper of the faulty grammar and the +kindly heart. + +Ponk halted the car at the far end of the drive up-stream, to take in a +moonlight view of the Sage Brush Valley. + +"Them three lights down yonder's the court-house an' the school-house +an' the station. The other town glims are all hid by trees an' bushes +and sundry in the wrinkles of the praira." Ponk always said "praira." +"But it's a beautiful country when you douse the sunshine and turn on +the starlight, or a half-size moon like that young pullet in the west +sky yonder. Ever see the blowout by moonlight? Sorta reclaims its cussed +ugliness, you might say, an' the dimmer glow softens down an' subdues +the infernal old beast considerable." + +Jerry turned quickly toward her companion. "Blowout is a word taboo in +my presence," she said, gravely. "Anybody who wants to be listed as a +friend of mine will never mention it to me, for to me there is no such +thing. I have no real estate in Kansas, nor anywhere else, for that +matter. I'm just a poor orphan child." The girl smiled brightly. "All +the world is mine, even though none of it really belongs to me. If you +want my good-will, even my speaking acquaintance, you'll remember the +road to it is _never_ to _mention_ that _horrid thing_ to me again." + +"I never won't," Ponk declared, seriously. "If that's the only +restriction, I'm in the middle of your good-will so far I'll never find +the outside gate again." + +"I hope you won't," Jerry said, lightly. + +"I'm seriouser than you are, Miss Swaim, and I asked you to take this +ride for three reasons," Ponk returned. + +"Name them," Jerry demanded, in the dim light noting the flush on his +round cheeks. + +"Firstly, and mainly, just selfish pleasure. Secondly, because I wanted +to do you a favor if I might presume, and thirdly, to tell you why I +wanted to do it." + +"You are very kind," Jerry said, sincerely. + +"What I want to say in that favor business is the same I told York to +say that Sunday we met you in the cemetery, where I'd been callin' on +mother, and you come to get away from New Eden and all that in it is, +for a little while. You remember York came trailing after you with some +excuse or other, an' right behind him comes another trailer, a +womankind?" + +"I remember York, that's all," Jerry replied, trying to recall the +woman, whom she had forgotten. + +"Well, she didn't forget you. It's that Stellar Bahrr, and she made +capital, principal, and compound interest out of the innocent event, as +she does out of every move everybody in that burg makes. But don't let +it disturb you a mite." + +"I won't," Jerry replied, indifferently. "But tell me why she should +make capital out of me?" + +"'Cause she hates you," Ponk said, calmly. + +"Me? Why?" Jerry's eyes were black now, and the faintly gleaming ripples +above her white forehead and her faintly pink cheeks in the light of the +moon made a delicious picture. + +"Just because you are you, young, admired. I don't dare to say no more, +no matter what I feel. It's a snaky jealousy, and she'll trail you +constant. It's got to be the habit of her life, and it's ruined her as +it will any person." + +"Well, let her trail." Jerry's voice had a clear defiance now. "I'm here +to earn an honest living by my own efforts. I shall pay my bills and +take care of my own business. I have not intentionally injured anybody." + +She paused and remembered Laura Macpherson, her shapely hands gripped +together, emphasizing her unbreakable determination. + +"And you are goin' to win. Don't never be afraid of the end and finis. +But, knowin' Sage Brush, an' how scared it is of Mrs. Bahrr, yet +listenin' constant to every word she says, I felt it my duty to warn you +of breakers ahead. I've known more 'n one, bein' innocent, to fall for +her tricks. And I'm telling you out of pure kindness. There's only two +ways to handle her--keep still and try to live above her, or stand +straight up an' tell her to go to the devil. Excuse me, Miss Swaim, I'm +not really a profane man, but I mean well by you, and I'm not just +settin' here to gossip about a fellow-citizenness." + +"I know you mean well, Mr. Ponk. You have been more than kind to me ever +since the night I reached New Eden, and I do appreciate your friendship +and good-will," Jerry said, earnestly. "Now as to Mrs. Bahrr, which +course do you advise me to follow?" + +Junius Brutus Ponk was hanging on every word of Jerry's, and his face +was a full moon of pleasure, for he was frankly and madly in love with +her, and he knew it. + +"I can't advise at all; it just ain't for me to do that. You are +honorin' us by stoppin' in our midst. What I want you to do is to be on +the lookout, an' if things start wrong, anywhere--school or church or +with your friends, the Macphersons, for instance, as they might--just +run down old Stellar before you go to guessin', or misunderstandin', and +if you can't do it alone"--Ponk smote his broad bosom dramatically--"I'm +here to help. That leads me to the thirdly of my triplet purpose in +askin' the pleasure of your company." + +Jerry looked up with a smile. The little man was so thoroughly good, and +yet so impossible. York Macpherson seemed head and shoulders above any +other man she had ever known in her life--except her father. In fact, he +seemed like a sort of father to her--and Joe Thomson. That was just a +shadow across her consciousness, for all these men belonged here and at +heart were not of her world. + +"Miss Swaim, will you let me, without no recompense, be a friend at +court whenever you need my help? You seem to me like a sort of female +Robinson Crusoe cast away on the desert island of the Sage Brush country +in Kansas. Let me be your Man Friday. I'd like to be your Saturday and +Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. York Macpherson would come +lopin' in to claim Thursday, I reckon." + +The sincerity of the fat little man offset the pompous ridiculousness of +his speech. + +"If I seem cuttin' into the Macpherson melon-patch it's because I got on +to some of Stellar Bahrr's gossip that set me thinkin'. She's up to +turnin' Miss Laury against you because of York's admiring you so much." + +Jerry grasped the situation now. The hotel-keeper was not only wishing +to befriend and shield her--he thought he was in love with her. And he +thought that York Macpherson was also in love. Was he? The girl's mind +worked rapidly. Little as she cared for the opinion of New-Edenites, +outside of these three good friends, she realized that these same +New-Edenites were interested in her and dared to discuss her affairs; +and that if she stayed here, as she meant to do, she must meet them and +be, in a way, of them. How much of this newly discovered admiration +which her companion evidently felt, and which he felt sure York +Macpherson possessed, might be really the outgrowth of pity for her in +the new position in which she found herself? And there was Laura. +Stellar Bahrr had hinted about her being neglected by her brother for +other women. Whatever might be the real motive, Jerry and love had +parted company on the day that Eugene Wellington's letter had come +telling of his renunciation of his art for an easy clerkship. But Laura +didn't know that, and she might have heard the town-meddler--Oh, bother +Stellar and all her works! Jerry Swaim would have none of them. And +Laura was such a sweet, companionable, refined friend. This thing must +be overcome in some way. + +"Tell me, Mr. Ponk, why do the New Eden people listen to a sharp-tongued +trouble-maker, since they know her power?" Jerry asked, after a pause. + +"Why? 'Cause they enjoy it when 'tain't about them--all of us do that, +bein' human. Are you right sure you wouldn't believe her yourself, much +as you despised any story of hers you'd be forced to listen to? Well as +I know her, I have to keep pinchin' my right arm to see if it's got +nerve enough to strike back if I'm hit, you might say." + +On Jerry's cheeks the bloom deepened. She had let a word of Mrs. Bahrr's +set her to wondering about both her host and hostess. + +"They's one more thing I want to say, the third reason for askin' you +out this evenin'," Ponk went on, and the pompous manner fell from him +somewhat in his earnestness. "I don't want you to leave Macpherson's +home for anything, right now. They want you and--well, I hope you won't. +Even at the loss of a boarder for myself at the hotel and gurrage I +hope you won't. But if some time--if it was ever possible you'd find a +need for me more 'n what we spoke of--I ain't no show. I'm clear below +your society back East, but, if you ever needed a real, devoted, honest +man who tried to be a Christian--" + +Jerry caught his full meaning now. "You are a Christian, Mr. Ponk. I'm +not. You are kind to me in my need, and I shall rely on your sincerity +and your friendship, and if there is any way in which I could return it, +even in a small measure, I would be so happy. We will be the best of +friends." + +Jerry's smile was winsome as she frankly put out her hand to seal the +bond in a clasp of good-fellowship. And Junius Brutus Ponk understood. + +"It's no use," he said to himself, sadly. "I wish it might have been, +but it ain't. I ain't such a fool I can't see a door when it's shut +right before me. I'm blessed to be her friend, and I'll be it if the +heavens drop. I'm in my Waterloo an' must just wade across an' shake +myself. That's all." + +His sunny nature always overcame his disappointments, but from that hour +in an upper niche of his heart's shrine he placed Jerry's image, one of +the beautiful things of life he might do homage to but could never +possess. + +"They's just one favor I want to ask of you," he said, aloud, "an' that +is that you'll go with me to call on mother out to the cemetery +sometimes. I'd like her to know you, too. She was good, and a good +mother just lives on." + +Jerry's cheek paled a shade, but she said, graciously: "I'll be glad to +do that, Mr. Ponk. Maybe it will make me a little less rebellious, and +you will be doing me the favor." + +Ponk's face beamed with pleasure at her words the while a real tear +rolled unnoticed down his cheek. That night marked the beginning of a +new spiritual life for Jerry Swaim. + + + + +XIV + +JIM SWAIM'S WISH + + +The next morning, when Jerry Swaim was ready to go to the bank, her +pretty beaded bag seemed light as she lifted it, and when she opened her +purse she found it empty. Then she sat down and stared at herself in the +mirror opposite her. + +"Well, what next? Go mad or go back East? This must be the last ditch," +she murmured. "Joe Thomson said he didn't _go_ mad, but he did _get_ +mad. I'm mad clear to my Swaim toes, and I'm not going to take another +bump. It's been nothing but bumps ever since I reached the junction of +the main line with the Sage Brush branch back in June, and I'm tired of +it. Gene Wellington said the West got the better of his father. The East +seems to have gotten the best of his father's son." + +Across her mind swept the thought of how easy Gene's way was being made +for him in the East, and how the way of the West for her had to be +fought over inch by inch. + +"Neither East nor West shall get me." She tossed her head imperiously, +for Jim Swaim's chin, York Macpherson would have said, was in command, +and the dreamy eyes were flashing fire. + +An hour later Ponk's gray runabout was spinning off the miles of the +trail down the Sage Brush, with Jerry Swaim's hands gripping the wheel +firmly, though her cheeks were pink with excitement. Where a road from +the west crossed the trail, the stream cut through a ledge of shale, +leaving a little bluffy bank on either side, with a bridge standing high +above the water. + +Joe Thomson, in a big farm wagon, had just met his neighbor, Thelma +Ekblad, in her plain car, at the end of the bridge, when Jerry's horn +called her approach. Before they had time to shift aside the gray car +swept by with graceful curve, missing the edge of the bridge abutment by +an eyelash. + +"Great Scott! Thelma, I didn't notice that this big gun of mine was +filling up all the road," Joe exclaimed. "That was the neatest curve I +ever saw. That's Ponk's car from New Eden, but only a civil engineer's +eye could have kept out of the river right there." + +"The pretty girl who is visiting the Macphersons was the driver," Thelma +said. + +"No! Was it, sure?" Joe queried, looking with keen eyes down the trail, +whither the gray runabout was gliding like a bird on the wing. + +"Why, of course it was!" Thelma assured him, feeling suddenly how shabby +her own machine became in comparison. "I must go now. Come over and see +Paul when you can." + +"I will. How is the baby?" Joe asked. + +"Oh, splendid, and so much company for Paul!" Thelma declared. + +"Yes, a baby is the preacher and the whole congregation sometimes. Let +me know if you need any help. Good-by." + +So in neighborly good-will they separated, Joe to follow the gray car +down the trail, and Thelma to wonder briefly at the easy life of the +beautiful Eastern girl whose lot was so unlike her own. Only briefly, +however, for Thelma was of too happy a temperament, of too calm and +philosophical a mentality, to grieve vainly. It always put a song in her +day, too, to meet Joe upon the way. Not only on common farm topics were +she and Joe congenial companions, but in politics, the latest books, the +issues of foreign affairs, the new in science, they found a common +ground. + +Joe's thoughts were of the Eastern girl, too, as he thundered down the +trail in his noisy wagon. + +"I wish I could overtake her before she gets to the forks of the road," +he said to himself. "I know she's not going to go my way farther than +that. But why is she here at all? There's nobody living down the river +road for miles, except old Fishing Teddy. She did dine at his expense +the day she came out to her sand-pile. He told me all about it the night +when we rode down from town together. Funny old squeak he is. But he +can't interest her. Hello! Yonder we are." + +In three minutes he was beside the gray car, that was standing at the +point where the river road branched from the main trail. + +"Good morning, Mr. Thomson. I knew you were coming this way, so I waited +for you here. I don't go down that road. You know why." + +Jerry pointed toward the way down which her own land lay. + +Joe lifted his hat in greeting, his cheeks flushing through the tan, for +his heart would jump furiously whenever he came into this girl's +presence. + +"Good morning, Miss Swaim. I am glad you waited," he managed to say. +"You certainly know how to guide a car. I didn't know I was filling the +whole highway up at the bridge." + +"Oh, there was plenty of room," Jerry said, indifferently. + +"Yes, plenty if you know how to stick to it. That's the secret of a lot +of things, I guess--not finding a wider trail, but knowing how to drive +straight through on the one you have found." + +Joe was talking to gain time with himself, for he was inwardly angry at +being upset every time he met this pretty girl. + +This morning she seemed prettier than ever to his eyes. She was wearing +a cool gray-green hat above her golden-gleaming hair, and her sheer +gingham gown was stylishly summery. Exquisite taste in dress, as well as +love of romance, was a heritage from Lesa Swaim. + +"You are a real philosopher and a poet," Jerry exclaimed, looking up +with wide-open eyes. + +"A sort of Homer in homespun," Joe suggested. + +"Probably; but I have a prose purpose in detaining you and I am in great +luck to have found you," Jerry replied. + +"Thank you. The luck will be mine if I can serve you." + +The bronze young farmer's gallantry was as gracious as ever the +well-groomed Philadelphia artist's had been. + +"Kansas seems determined to get rid of me, if hard knocks mean anything. +I've had nothing but bumps and knotty problems since I landed on these +sand-shifting prairies. It makes me mad and I'm not going to be run off +by it." Jerry's eyes were darkly defiant and her lifted hand seemed +strong to strike for herself. + +"You have the real pioneer spirit," Joe declared. "It was that very +determination not to be gotten rid of by a sturdy bunch of forefathers +and mothers that has subdued a state, sometimes boisterous and +belligerent, and sometimes snarling and catty, and made it willing to +eat out of their hands." + +"Oh, it's not all subdued yet. It never will be." Jerry pointed down the +trail toward the far distance where her twelve hundred blowout-cursed +acres lay. + +Joe Thomson's mouth was set with a bulldog squareness. "Are we less able +than our forefathers?" he asked. + +"As to sand--yes," Jerry replied, "but to myself, as a first +consideration, I'm dreadfully in trouble." + +"Again?" + +"Oh, always--in Kansas," Jerry declared. "First my whole inheritance is +smothered in plain sand--and dies--hard but quickly. Then I fight out a +battle for existence and win a schoolmarm's crown of--" + +"Of service," Joe suggested, seriously. + +"I hope so. I really do," Jerry assured him. "Next I lease my--dukedom +for a small but vital sum of money on which to exist till--till--" + +"Yes, till wheat harvest, figuratively speaking," Joe declared. + +"And this morning my purse is empty, robbed of every cent, and my +pearl-handled knife and a button-hook." + +Joe had left his wagon and was standing beside Jerry's car, with one +foot on the running-board. + +"Stolen! Why, why, where's York?" he asked, in amazement. + +"I don't know. I don't think he took it," Jerry replied. + +"Oh, but I mean what's he doing about it?" Joe questioned, anxiously. + +"Nothing. He doesn't know it. I came to find you first, to get you to +help me." + +"Me!" Joe could think of nothing more to say. + +"You won't scold, and I'm afraid York would. I don't want to be +scolded," Jerry declared. "He would wonder why I hadn't put it in the +bank. And, besides, there have some queer things been happening in New +Eden--I can't explain them, for you might not understand, but I do +really need a friend right now. Did you ever need one?" + +To the girl alone and under suspicion, however kind the friends who were +puzzled over her situation, conscious that too many favors were not to +be asked of the good-souled Junius Brutus Ponk, the young farmer seemed +the only one to whom she could turn. And she had the more readily halted +her car to wait for him because she had already begun to weave a romance +in homespun about this splendid young agriculturist and the good-hearted +country girl, Thelma Ekblad. He, himself, was impersonal to her. + +"I'm always needing friends--and I'm more glad than you could know to +have you even think of me in your needs. But everybody turns to York +Macpherson. He's the lodestar for every Sage Brush compass," Joe said, +looking earnestly at Jerry. + +"I'm on my way to the old Teddy Bear's house, your Fishing Teddy," Jerry +declared, "and I thought you would go with me. I don't want to go +alone." + +"Let me take this machinery to the men--they are waiting for it to start +to work--and I'll be glad to go," Joe answered her. + +The gray car followed the big wagon down the trail to the deep bend of +the Sage Brush in the angle of which Joe's ranch-house stood; and the +load of machinery was quickly given over to the workmen. As Joe seated +himself in the little gray car Jerry said: + +"You are wondering why, and too polite to ask why, I go to Hans +Theodore's. Let me tell you." Then she told him of her dazed wanderings +down the river road two months before, and of her meal near old Teddy's +shack. + +"He brought me fried fish on a cracked plate, and buttermilk in a silver +drinking-cup--a queer pattern with a monogram on the side. The next +morning I saw another cup exactly like that on the buffet in the +Macpherson dining-room. They told me there should be two of them. One +they found was suddenly missing. Later it suddenly was not missing. York +said their like was not to be had this side of old 'Castle Cluny' on the +ancient Kingussie holding of the invincible Clan Macpherson's forebears. +So this must have been the same cup. It was on the morning after you +called and took the old Teddy Bear home with you that the missing cup +reappeared. You remember he was shambling around the grounds the night +before, waiting for you?" + +"Yes, I remember," Joe responded, gravely. + +"Meantime Laura Macpherson lost her purse. It was found in my hand-bag. +I believe now that the one that took it became frightened or something, +and tried to put it on me. Maybe somebody knew how dreadfully near the +wall I was. Then York paid me lease money, as I told you--three hundred +dollars. It was in my purse last evening when I went out for a ride. As +I sat in the side porch alone, earlier in the evening, I saw the old +Teddy Bear shamble and shuffle about the shrubbery and disappear down +the slope in the shadows on the town side of the place. This morning my +money is all gone. I am going down here after it." + +"And you didn't ask York to help you?" Joe queried, anxiously. + +"Why, no. I wanted you to help me. Will you do it?" Jerry asked, looking +up into the earnest face of the big farmer beside her. + +Was it selfishness, or thoughtlessness, or love of startling adventure, +or insight, or fate bringing her this way? Joe Thomson asked himself the +question in vain. + +"I'll do whatever I can do. This is such a strange thing. I knew things +were missing by spells up in town, but we never lose anything down our +way, and you'd think we would come nearer having what old Fishing Teddy +would want if he is really a thief," Joe declared. + +"I am going down to old Teddy's shack and ask him to give me my money, +anyhow," Jerry repeated. + +"And if he has it and refuses, I'll pitch him into the river and hold +him under till he comes across. But if he really hasn't it?" Joe asked. + +"Then he can't give it, that's all," Jerry replied. + +"But how will you know?" Joe insisted. + +"I don't know how I'll know, but when the time comes I'll probably find +a way to find out," Jerry declared. "Anyhow, I must do something, for +I'm clear penniless and it's this or go mad or go back East. I'm not +going to do either. I'm just going to get mad and stay mad till I get +what's mine." + +"I'll be your faithful sleuth, but I can't believe you'll find your bag +of gold at the end of this rainbow. The old man is gentle, though, and +you couldn't have any fear, I suppose," Joe suggested. + +"Not with you along I couldn't," Jerry replied. + +She was watching the road, and did not see how his eyes filled with a +wonderful light at her words. She was not thinking of Joe Thomson, nor +of York Macpherson, nor yet of Junius Brutus Ponk. She was thinking far +back in her mind of how Eugene Wellington would admire her some day for +really not giving in. That faint line of indecision in his face as she +recalled it in the rose-arbor--oh, so long ago--that was only emphasized +by his real admiration for those who could stand fast by a +determination. She had always dared. He had always adored, but never +risked a danger. + +Down by the deep fishing-hole the willows were beginning to droop their +long yellow leaves on the diminishing stream, and the stepping-stones +stood out bare and bleaching above the thin current that slipped away +between them. A little blue smoke was filtering out from the stove-pipe +behind the shack hidden among the bushes. Everything lay still under the +sunshine of late summer. + +"You keep the car. I'm going in," Jerry declared, halting in the thin +shade by the deep hole. + +"I think I'd better go, too," Joe insisted. + +"I think not," Jerry said, with a finality in her tone there was no +refuting. + +York Macpherson had well said that there was no duplicate for Jerry, no +forecasting just what she would do next. + +As Jerry's form cast a shadow across his doorway old Fishing Teddy +turned with a start from a bowl of corn-meal dough that he was stirring. +The little structure was a rude domicile, fitted to the master of it in +all its features. On a plain unpainted table Jerry saw a roll of bills +weighted down by an old cob pipe. A few coins were neatly stacked beside +them, with a pearl-handled knife and button-hook lying farther away. + +"I came for my money," Jerry said, quietly. "It's all I have until I can +earn some myself." + +The old man's fuzzy brown cheeks seemed to grow darker, as if his blush +was of a color with the rest of his make-up. He shuffled quickly to the +table, gathered up all the money, and, coming nearer, silently laid it +in Jerry's hands. + +The girl looked at him curiously. It was as if he were handing her a +handkerchief she had dropped, and she caught herself saying: + +"Thank you. But what made you take it? Don't you know it is all I have, +and I must earn my living, too, just like anybody else?" + +Old Fishing Teddy opened his mouth twice before his voice would act. "I +didn't take it. I was goin' to fetch it up to you soon as I could git up +there again," he squeaked out at last. + +Jerry sat down on a broken chair and stared at him, as he seated himself +on the table, gripping the edge on either side with his scaly brown +hands, and gazed down at the floor of the cabin. + +"If you didn't take it, why did you have it here? I saw you last night +on Macpherson's driveway," Jerry said, wondering, meanwhile, why she +should argue with an old thieving fellow like Fishing Teddy--Jerusha +Darby's niece and heir some fine day, if she only chose, to all of the +Darby dollars. + +"I can't never explain to you, lady. They's troubles in everybody's +lots, I reckon. Mine ain't nothin' but a humble one, but it ain't so +much different from big folks's in trouble ways. An' we all have to do +the best we can with what comes to us to put up with. I 'ain't never +harmed nobody, nor kep' a thing 'at wa'n't mine longer 'n I could git it +back. You ask York Macpherson, an' he'll tell ye the truth. He never +sent ye down here, York didn't." + +The old man ceased squeaking and looked down at his stubby legs and old +shoes. Was he lying and whining for mercy, being caught with the spoils +of his thieving? + +Jerry's big eyes were fixed on him as she tried to fathom the real +situation. The bunch of grubs on the Winnowoc local--common country and +village folk--had been far below her range of interest, to say nothing +of sympathy. Yet here she sat in the miserable shack of a hermit +fisherman, an all-but-acknowledged thief, with his loot discovered, +studying him with a mind where pity and credulity were playing havoc +with her better judgment and her aristocratic breeding. Had she fallen +so low as this, or had she risen to a newer height of character than she +had ever known before? + +Suddenly the old grub hunched down on the table before her looked up. +Jerry remembered afterward how clear and honest the gaze of those faded +yellow eyes set in a multitude of yellow wrinkles. His hands let go of +the table's edge and fitted knuckle into palm as he asked, in a +quavering voice: + +"Be you really Jim Swaim's girl who used to live up in that there +Winnowoc country back yander in Pennsylvany?" + +Jerry's heart thumped violently. It was the last word she had expected +from this creature. "Yes, I'm Jim's only child." The same winsome smile +that made the artistic Eugene Wellington of Philadelphia adore her +beamed now on this poor old outcast down by the deep hole of the Sage +Brush. + +"An' be you hard up, an' earnin' your own livin' by yourself, did ye +say? 'Ain't ye got a rich kin back East to help ye none?" The voice +quavered up and down unsteadily. + +"Yes, I have a rich aunt, but I'm taking care of myself. It makes me +freer, but I have to be particular not to--to--lose any money right +now," Jerry said, frankly. + +"Then ye air doin' mighty well, an' it's the thing that 'u'd make your +daddy awful glad ef he only could know. It 'u'd be fulfillin' his own +wish. I know it would. I heered him say so onct." + +Jerry Swaim's eyes were full of unshed tears. Keenly she remembered when +Uncle Cornie had told her the same thing at the doorway of the +rose-arbor in beautiful "Eden" in the beautiful June-time. How strange +that the same message should come to her again here in the shadow of New +Eden inside the doorway of a fisherman's hut. And how strange a thing is +life at any time! + +"Please don't be unhappy about this." Jerry lifted the money which lay +in her lap. "It shall never trouble you." + +And then for a brief ten minutes the two talked together, Geraldine +Swaim of Philadelphia, and old Fishing Teddy, the Sage Brush hermit. + +Joe Thomson, sitting in the gray car, saw Jerry coming through the +bushes, her hat in her hand, the summer sunshine on her glorious crown +of hair, her face wearing a strange new expression, as if in Fishing +Teddy's old shack a revelation of life's realities had come to her and +she had found them worthy and beautiful. + +Little was said between the two young people until they reached the +Thomson ranch-house again and Jerry had halted her car under the shade +of an elm growing before the door. Then, turning to Joe, she said: + +"You are right about the old Teddy Bear. He isn't a thief. I don't know +what he is, but I do know what he isn't. Since you know so much about my +coming here already, may I tell you a few more things? I want to talk to +somebody who will understand me." + +Jerry did not ask herself why she should choose Joe Thomson for such a +confidence. She went no deeper than to feel that something about Joe was +satisfying, and that was sufficient. Henceforth with York and the +hotel-keeper she must be on her guard. Joe was different. + +In the half-hour that followed the two became fast friends. And when the +little gray runabout sped up the long trail toward New Eden Joe Thomson +watched it until it was only a dust-spot on the divide that tops the +slopes down to Kingussie Creek. He knew now the whole story of Laura's +purse and her suspicions, of Ponk's offer of help, and he shrewdly +guessed that the pompous little man had met a firm check to anything +more than mere friendship. For Jerry's comfort, he refuted the +possibility of the Macphersons' harboring a doubt regarding her honesty. + + +"A mere remark of the moment. We all make them," he assured her. + +Lastly, he was made acquainted with the events inside of Hans Theodore's +shack. + +"Something is wrong there, but it is deeper than we can reach now," +Jerry said. "Maybe we can help the old fellow if he is tempted, and +shield him if he is wronged." + +How fair the face, and soft and clear the voice! It made Joe Thomson's +own face harden to hide a feeling he would not let reveal itself. + +As he watched the girl's receding car he resolved anew to conquer that +formless enemy of sand and to reclaim for her her lost kingdom in +Kansas. His reward? That must come in its own time. Ponk was out of the +running. York was still a proposition. As for all that stuff of York's +about some Eastern fellow, Joe would not believe it. + +And the girl driving swiftly homeward thought only of the romance of Joe +and Thelma, if she thought of them at all--for she was Lesa Swaim's +child still--and mainly and absorbedly she thought of her father's wish +to be fulfilled in her. + +So the glorious Kansas autumn brought to Jerry Swaim all of its beauty, +in its soft air, its opal skies, its gold-and-brown-and-lavender +landscapes, its calm serenity. And under its benediction this girl of +luxurious, idle, purposeless days in sunny "Eden" on the Winnowoc was +beginning a larger existence in New Eden by the Sage Brush, and through +the warp and woof of that existence one name was all unconsciously woven +large--JOE. + + + + +XV + +DRAWING OUT LEVIATHAN WITH A HOOK + + +For three years the seasons sped by, soft-footed and swift, and the +third June-time came smiling up the Sage Brush Valley. Many changes had +marked the passing of these seasons. Ranches had extended their +cultivated acres; trees spread a wider shade; a newly settled addition +had extended the boundaries of New Eden; and a new factory and a +high-school building for vocational training marked the progress of the +town. Budding youth had blossomed into manhood and womanhood and the +cemetery had gathered in its toll. Three years, however, had marked +little outward change in the young Eastern girl who stayed by her choice +of the Sage Brush country for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. +She had flung all of her young energy into the dull routine of teaching +mathematics; romance had given place to reality; idleness and careless +dependence to regulated effort and carefully computed expenditures; gay +social interests to the companionship of lesser opportunities, but +broader vision. However, these things came at a sacrifice. When the +newness wore away from her work, Jerry's hours were not all easeful, +happy ones. Slowly, with the passing of the days, she began to learn the +hard lesson of overcoming, a lesson doubly hard for one whose life +hitherto had been given no preparation for duty. Yet, as her days +gathered surer purpose her dark-blue eyes were less often dreamy, her +fair cheeks took on a richer bloom, while her crown of glorious hair +lost no glint of its gold. + +Her gift of winning friends, the old imperious power to make herself the +center of the universe, was in no wise disturbed by being a citizen and +a school-teacher instead of an Eastern lady of leisure sojourning +temporarily in the Sage Brush country. The young men of the valley tried +eagerly to win a greater place than that of mere friendship with her, +but she gave no serious consideration to any of them, least of all--so +she persuaded herself--to the young ranchman whom she had met so early +after her arrival in Kansas. Further, she had persuaded herself that the +pretty rural romance she had woven about him and his Norwegian neighbor, +Thelma Ekblad, must be a reality. Thelma had finished her university +course and was making a success of farming and of caring for her +crippled brother Paul and that roly-poly Belkap baby, now a +white-haired, blue-eyed, red-lipped chunk of innocence, responsibility, +and delight. Gossip, beginning at Stellar Bahrr's door, said that +interest in her neighbor, the big ranchman down the river, was +responsible for Thelma's staying on the Ekblad farm, now that she had +her university degree, because she could make a career for herself as a +botany specialist in any college in the West. Jerry knew that love for a +crippled brother and the care of a worse than orphaned child of the +woman that brother had loved were real factors in the life of this +country girl, but her air castles must be built for somebody, and they +seemed to cluster around the young Norwegian and the ranchman. Of +course, then, the ranchman, Joe Thomson, could interest Jerry only in a +general genial comradeship kind of way. Beginning in a common bond, the +presence of a common enemy--the blowout--chance meetings grew into +regular and helpful association. That was all that it meant to Jerry +Swaim. + +Three stanch friends watched her closely. Ponk, of the Commercial Hotel +and Garage, believed blindly and wholly in her ability, laying all blame +for her defective work in the school upon other shoulders, standing +manfully by her in every crisis. Laura Macpherson, although never +blinded to the truth about Jerry in her impetuous, self-willed, +unsympathetic, undeveloped nature, loved her too well to doubt her +ultimate triumph over all fortune. Only York, who studied her closest of +all three, because he was the keenest reader of human nature, still held +that the final outcome for Jerry Swaim was a matter of uncertainty. + +"I tell you, Laura," York said, one evening in the early spring of the +third year, when Jerry had gone with Joe Thomson for a long horseback +ride up the Sage Brush--"I tell you that girl is still a type of her +own, which means that sometimes she is soft-hearted, and romantic, and +frivolous, and impulsive, and affectionate, like Lesa Swaim, and +sometimes clear-eyed, hard-headed, close-fisted, with a keen judgment +for values, practical, and clever, like old Jim." + +"And which parent, Sir Oracle, would you have her be most like?" Laura +inquired. + +"Lord knows," York replied. "As He alone knows how much of the good of +each she may reject and how much of the weak and objectionable she may +appropriate." + +"Being a free moral agent to just dissect her fond parents and choose +and refuse at will when she makes up her life and being for herself! +It's a way we all have of doing, you know," Laura said, sarcastically. +"Remember, York, when you elected to look like papa, only you chose +mother's wavy brown hair instead of her husband's straight black locks; +and you voted you'd have her clear judgment in business matters, which +our father never had." + +"And gave to you the same which he never possessed. Yes, I remember," +York retorted. "But how is all this psychological analysis going to help +matters here?" + +"How's it going to help Joe Thomson, or keep him from being helped, you +mean?" Laura suggested. + +A faint flush crept into York Macpherson's brown cheek. + +"It's dead sure Jerry has little enough thought of Joe now," York said, +gravely. "She's living a day at a time, and underneath the three years' +veneer of genuine service the real Philadelphia Geraldine Swaim is still +a sojourner in the Sage Brush Valley, not a fixture here." + +And York was right so far as Jerry Swaim's thought of Joe Thomson was +concerned. + +After signing the lease with York Macpherson she rarely spoke of her +property to any one until it came to be forgotten to the few who knew of +it at all. + +Once she had said to Joe: + +"That heritage of mine is like the grave of an enemy. I couldn't look at +it forgivingly; so I would never, never want to see it again, and I +never want to hear the awful word 'blowout' spoken." + +"Then forget it," Joe advised. + +And Jerry forgot it. + +But for Joe Thomson the seasons held another story. Down the Sage Brush, +fall and spring, great steam tractors furrowed the shifting sands of the +blowout, until slowly broom-corn and other coarse plants were coaxing a +thin soil deposit that spread northward from the south edge of the +sand-line. Little attention was paid to these efforts by the few farmer +folk who supposed that Joe was backing it, for they were all a busy +people, and the movement was too futile to be considered, anyhow. + +Late in the summer of her first season in New Eden, affairs came to a +head suddenly. Three years before, Junius Brutus Ponk's well-meant +warning to Jerry to be on her guard against Stellar Bahrr's +mischief-making had not been without cause or results. Before the +opening of the school year, beginning with the Lenwells as a go-between, +percolating up through families where fall sewing was in progress, on to +the Macphersons and their closest friends, the impression grew toward +fact that Jerry was a sort of adventuress who had foisted herself upon +the Macphersons and had befuddled the brain of the vain little +hotel-keeper, who had overruled the other members of the school board +and forced her into a good place in the high school, although she was +without experience or knowledge of the branch to which she was elected. +And then she met young men in the cemetery and rode in Ponk's car over +the country alone. + +One of the easy acts of the average, and super-average, mortal is to +respect a criticism made upon a fellow-mortal--doing it most generally +with no conscious malevolence, prompted largely by the common human +desire to be the bearer of new discoveries. + +New Eden was no worse than the average little town at any point of the +compass. It took Stellar Bahrr at her par value, listened, laughed, and +declared it disbelieved her stories--and mainly in that spirit repeated +them, but in any spirit always repeated them. When the reports of Jerry +had gone to the farthest corners of town they came at last to the office +of York Macpherson. And it was Ponk himself who brought them, with some +unprintable language and violent denunciations of certain females who +were deadlier, he declared, than any males, even blackmails. York +forgave the atrocious pun because of the righteous wrath back of it. He +knew that Ponk's suit with Jerry failed temporarily, and he admired the +little man for his loyal devotion in spite of it. + +The Macphersons had completely convinced Jerry of their faith in her, +and in that congenial association she had almost forgotten the incident +of the porch conversation about her. To Ponk's anxious query, "What will +you do?" (nobody ever said "can" to York Macpherson; he always could), +York had replied: + +"I shall go straight to Jerry. She will hear it, anyhow, and she has +displayed such a deal of courage so far she'll not wither under this." + +"You bet she won't, York, but what will stop it? I mean Stellar Bahrr's +mischief-makin'. She's subtler than the devil himself." + +"We'll leave that to Jerry. She may have a way of her own. You never can +tell about Jerry." As he spoke York was turning his papers over in +search of something which he did not find, and he did not look up for a +minute. + +"I'll leave the matter to you now," Ponk said. "I have other affairs of +state to engross my attention," and he left the office, muttering as he +strutted across to the garage door. + +"Thinks he can pull the wool over my eyes by not lookin' at me. Well, +York wouldn't be the best man on the Sage Brush if he didn't fall in +love with Miss Jerry. She's not only the queen of hearts; she's got the +whole deck, includin' the joker, clear buffaloed." + +York was true to his word as to telling Jerry, when the three were on +the porch that evening, what was in the air and on the lips of the "town +tattlers," as he called them. Jerry listened gravely. She was getting +used to things, now, that three months ago would have overwhelmed +her--if she hadn't been Jim Swaim's child. When he had finished and +Laura was about to pour out vials of indignation, Jerry looked up +without a line on her smooth brow, saying: + +"Will you go over to Mrs. Bahrr's with me now, York?" + +York rose promptly, questioning, nevertheless, the outcome of such an +interview. + +Mrs. Bahrr had just followed her corkscrew way up to the side gate of +the Macpherson home as the two left the porch, when she heard Jerry call +back to Laura: + +"If we find Mrs. Bahrr at home we won't be gone long." + +"And if you don't?" Laura asked. + +The answer was lost, for Mrs. Bahrr turned and fled across lots, by +alley gate and side walk-way and vacant yard, to her own rear door. One +of Mrs. Bahrr's strong points was that of being more ready than her +antagonist and her habit of thought had made her world an antagonistic +one. + +York was curious to see how Jerry would meet her Waterloo, for that was +what this encounter would become, and he was glad that she had asked him +to go with her instead of running off alone, as she had done when she +wanted to see her estate. + +Seated in the little front parlor, Jerry took her time to survey the +place before she came to her errand. It was a very humble home, with a +rag carpet, windows without draperies, but with heavy blinds; chairs +that became unsettled if one rocked in them; cheap, unframed chromos +tacked up on the walls; an old parlor organ; and a stand with a +crazy-quilt style of cover on which rested a dusty Bible. York saw a +look of pity in Jerry's eyes where three months before he felt sure +there would have been only disdain. + +Very simply and frankly the girl told the purpose of her call, ending +with what might have been a command, but it was spoken in the clear, +soft voice that had always won her point in any argument. + +"Whether these stories came from you or not you will be sure not to +repeat them." + +Stella Bahrr bristled with anger. Whatever might have been said behind +her back, nobody except York Macpherson and Junius Brutus Ponk had ever +spoken so plainly to her face before. And they had never spoken in the +presence of a third party. And here comes a pretty, silly young thing +with a child's Sunday-school talk to her, right in York's presence, in +her own house. Jerry Swaim would pay well for her rudeness. + +"I don't know as it's up to me to keep still when everybody's talkin'. I +won't promise nothin'. An' I 'ain't got nothin' to be afraid of." Mrs. +Bahrr hooked her eyes viciously into her caller. + +"I'm afraid of a good many things, but I'm not so very much afraid of +people. I was a little afraid of you the first time I saw you. You +remember where that was, of course." + +Jerry looked straight at Mrs. Bahrr with wide-open eyes. Something in +her face recalled Jim Swaim's face to York Macpherson, and he forgot the +girl's words as he stared at her. + +"When I was a child," Jerry continued, "they used to say to me, 'The +goblins 'll git you ef you don't watch out.' Now I know it is the Teddy +Bear that gits you ef you don't watch out." + +Mrs. Bahrr's lips seemed to snap together and her eyes tore their way +out of Jerry and turned to the window. Jerry stepped softly across to +her chair and, laying a hand on her shoulder, said, with a smile: + +"Hereafter it will be all right between us." + +And it was--apparently. + +As they walked slowly homeward York and Jerry said little. The girl's +mind was busy with thoughts of her new work--the only work she had ever +attempted in her life; and York's thoughts were busy with--Jerry. + +That night York sat alone on the porch of "Castle Cluny" until far +toward morning, beginning at last to fight out with himself the great +battle of his life. The big, kindly, practical man of affairs, +arrow-proof, bullet-proof, bomb-proof to all the munitions of Cupid, +courted and flattered and admired and looked up to by a whole community, +seemed hopelessly enmeshed now in the ripples of golden-brown hair, held +fast by the beautiful dark-blue eyes of a young lady whose strength to +withstand what lay before her he very much doubted. + +"If I speak to her now, she'll run away from us and leave Laura lonely. +She can't go to the hotel, because I know Ponk has tried and failed. I'm +one degree behind him in that. Where would she go? And how would the Big +Dipper act? I've no faith in her keeping still if Jerry did use some +magic on her to-night. Nobody will ever Rumpelstilskin her out of +herself. I'll be a man, and wait and befriend my little girl whenever I +can, although I'm forced every day to see how she is growing to take +care of herself. When nothing else can decide events, time is sure to +settle them." + +All this happened at the beginning of the three years whose ending came +in a June-time on the Kansas plains. Summer and winter, many a Sabbath +afternoon saw the hotel-keeper and the pretty mathematics-teacher +strolling out to the cemetery "to call on mother." The quaint, firm +faith of the pompous little man that "mother knew" had no place in Jerry +Swaim's code and creed. But she never treated his belief lightly, and +its homely sincerity at length began to bear fruit. + +Not without its lasting effect, too, was the silent influence of Laura +Macpherson upon her guest. The bright, happy life in spite of a hopeless +lameness, the cheerful giving up of what that lameness denied the +having, all unconsciously wrought its beauty into the new Jerry whom the +"Eden" of an earlier day had never known. Nobody remembered when the +guest and friend of the Macphersons began to be a factor in the New Eden +church life, but everybody knew at the close of the third year that the +churches couldn't do without her. And neither the Baptist minister, +holding tenaciously to salvation by immersion, nor the Presbyterian, +clinging to the doctrine of infant damnation, nor the Methodist, +demanding instantaneous revival-meeting conversion from sin, asked once +that the fair Philadelphian should "become united with the church." That +would necessitate the query, "Which church?" And that would mean a loss +to two and a gain to only one. As far as the blowout sand differed from +"Eden" on the Winnowoc, so far Jerry's religious faith now differed from +the disbelief that followed the death of her father. In Kansas where the +artistic Eugene Wellington had declared his own faith would perish, she +had learned for the first time how to pray. + +Letters had long since ceased to come from Aunt Jerry Darby to her +niece, although in a friendly and patiently expectant form Eugene +Wellington wrote beautiful missives breathing more and more of +commercialized ideals and less and less of esthetic dreams, and not at +all of the faith that had marked the spiritual refinement of his young +manhood. + +The third spring brought busy, trying days. A sick teacher made it +necessary for the well ones to do double work. The youngest Lenwell boy, +leader of the Senior class, started the annual and eternally trivial and +annoying Senior-class fuss that seems fated to precede most high-school +commencements. For two years it had been Jerry Swaim, whose mathematical +mind seemed gifted with a wonderful generalship, who had managed to +bring the class to harmony with an ease never known in the New Eden High +School before. This year Clare Lenwell was perfectly irreconcilable, and +Jerry, overworked, as willing teachers always are, was too busy to bring +the belligerents to time before the bitterness of a town-split was upon +the community. When she did come to the rescue of the superintendent, +his own inefficiency to cope with the case became so evident that he at +once turned against the young woman who "tried to run things," as he +characterized her to the school board. + +That caused an explosion of heavy artillery from the "Commercial Hotel +and Garage," which made one member of the board, an uncle of young +Lenwell, to rise in arms, and thus and so the fires of dissension +crisscrossed the town, threatening to fulmine over the whole Sage Brush +Valley. To make the matter more difficult, the town trouble-maker, +Stellar Bahrr, for once seemed to have been innocently drawn into the +thing, and everybody knew it was better to have Stellar Bahrr's +good-will than to start her tongue. + +York Macpherson and Junius Brutus Ponk both felt sure that Stellar had +really stirred up the Lenwells, for whom she was constantly sewing; and, +besides, a distant relative of theirs had married into the Bahrr family +back where Stellar came from, "which must have been the Ark," Ponk +declared, "and the other one of the pair died of seasickness." Anyhow, +the local school row became the local town row, and it was a very real +and bitter row. + +In these days of little foxes that were threatening the whole vineyard, +Jerry turned more and more to Joe Thomson. All of New Eden was tied up +in the fuss, took sides, and talked it, except the Macphersons and a few +of their friends, and they talked it without taking sides because the +thing was in the air constantly. Jerry could not find even in "Castle +Cluny" a refuge from what was uninteresting to her and thoroughly +distasteful in itself. Ponk, being by nature a rabid little game-cock, +was full of the thing, and was no more companionable than the +Macphersons. But when the quiet ranchman came up from the lower Sage +Brush country, his dark eyes glowing with pleasure and his poised mind +unbiased by neighborhood failings, he brought the breath of sweet clover +with his coming. When Jerry came home from their long rides +up-stream--they never rode toward the blowout region--she felt as if she +had a new grip on life and energy and ambition for her work. Joe was +becoming, moreover, the best of entertainers, and the comradeship was +the one thing Jerry had learned to prize most in her new life in the +Middle West. + +When the spring had slipped into early May Joe's visits grew less +frequent, on account of his spring work. And once or twice he came to +town and hurried away without even seeing Jerry. It comforted her +greatly--she did not ask herself why--that he did drop a note into the +post-office for her, telling her he was in town and regretting that he +must hurry out without calling. + +It was during this time that Thelma Ekblad came up to New Eden to do +some extensive shopping and spend a week with the Macphersons. There +were other guests at "Castle Cluny," and Thelma and Jerry shared the +same room. + +Back in "Eden" the heir apparent would never have dreamed of sharing +anything with a Winnowoc grub. How times change us! Or do we change +them? + +Thelma was sunny-natured, spotlessly neat in her dress, and altogether +vastly more companionable to Jerry than the Lenwell girls, who would +persist in pleading their little high-school Senior brother's cause; or +even the associate teachers, who were troubled and tired and overworked +like herself. + +Jerry had met Thelma often, and thought of her oftener, in the three +years since they had come upon the Sage Brush branch of the local +freight together one hot, sand-blown June day, three summers before. She +had woven a romance about Thelma. Romances seemed now to belong to other +people. They never came to her. She was glad, however, when Thelma's +shopping was done and she went back to the farm down the Sage Brush, and +her brother Paul, and the growing, joyous Belkap child who filled the +plain farm-house with interest. + +Stellar Bahrr, in Jerry's presence, had spoken ill of no one since the +memorable call three years ago. On the evening after Thelma left town +she cork-screwed over to "Castle Cluny" for a friendly chat with Laura. + +"I run in to see Thelmy Ekblad. She 'ain't gone home, is she? Got her +shopping all done a'ready? Some girls can buy their weddin' finery +quicker 'n scat. Did she say who was to make that new white dress she +was buyin' yesterday at the Palace Emporium?" This straight at Jerry, +who was resting lazily in the porch swing after an unusually annoying +day. + +"Not to me," Jerry replied, sliding another pillow behind her shoulders +and leaning back comfortably. + +"Well, well! I s'posed girls always told them things to each other. +'Specially if they slep' together. She's gettin' a mighty fine man, +though--Thelmy is--at least, folks says she's gettin' him. He's there a +lot, 'specially 'long this spring. His farm's right near her and Paul's. +And she's one prince of a girl. Don't you say so, Miss Swaim?" + +Jerry smiled in spite of herself, saying: "Yes, she's a prince of a +girl. I like her." And then, because she was tired that night, both of +Stellar and her topic, and the whole Sage Brush Valley, she turned away +that neither Laura nor Stellar might see how much she wanted to cry. + +But turning was futile. Mrs. Bahrr's eyes went right through the girl +and she knew her shaft had hit home. + +Joe had not been to town for weeks. It didn't matter to Jerry. Yet the +next day after Stellar's call lacked something--and the next and the +next. Not a definite lack, for Jerry's future was settled forever. + +Down on the Sage Brush ranches Joe Thomson was trying to believe that +things wouldn't matter, too, if they failed to go his way. These were +lonely days for the young ranchman, who saw little of Jerry Swaim +because every possible minute of his time was given to wrestling with +the blowout. + +There were many more lonely days, also, for Jerry, who now began to miss +Joe more than she thought it could be possible to miss anybody except +Gene Wellington, idealized into a sad and beautiful memory that kept +alive an unconscious hope. And, with all her energy and her +determination, many things combined to make her school-room duty a hard +task to one whose training had been so unfitting for serious labor. The +flesh-pots of the Winnowoc came temptingly to her memory, and there were +weary hours when the struggle to be sure and satisfied was greater than +her friends could have dreamed. + +The third winter of her stay had seen an unusual snowfall for the Sage +Brush, and this spring following was an unusually rainy one. Everywhere +rank vegetation flourished, prairies reveled in luxurious growths, and +cultivated fields were burdened with the promise of record-breaking +harvests. + +York Macpherson's business had begun to call him to the East for +prolonged trips, and he had less knowledge than formerly of the details +of the affairs of New Eden and its community. + +One day not long after Thelma's shopping trip Joe Thomson dropped into +the office of the Macpherson Mortgage Company. + +"How's the blowout?" This had become York's customary greeting. + +"Never gentler." Joe's face was triumphant and his dark eyes were +shining with hope. "This rainy season and the good old steam-plows are +doing their perfect work. You haven't had any sand-storms lately, maybe +you have noticed. Well, wheat is growing green and strong over more than +half of that land now. There's not so much sand to spare as there used +to be." + +"You don't mean it!" York exclaimed, incredulously. + +"Go and look at it yourself, you doubting old Missourian who must be +shown," Joe retorted. "There's a stretch on the northeast toward the +bend in the Sage Brush that is low and baked hard after the rains, and +shifty and infernally stubborn in the dry weather." + +York meditated awhile, combing his heavy hair with his fingers. "The +river runs by your place?" he asked, at length. + +"Yes, my house is right at the bend, and there is no sand across the +Sage Brush," Joe replied. + +"Well, the blowout will never stop till it gets up to the south bank of +the bend. As I've told you already, you'll have to take the Lord +Almighty into partnership to work a miracle. Otherwise this creeping up +from behind and beyond the thing will be a never-ending job of time and +money and labor. You'll never catch up with it. It's just too +everlastingly big, that's all. You'll be gray-bearded, and bald-headed, +and deaf, and dim-sighted before you are through." + +"I will not," Joe declared, doggedly. "And I've already told you that +I've always taken the Lord Almighty into partnership, or I'd have been a +derelict on a sea of sand lang syne." + +"Joe, your faith in the Lord and faith in the prairies might move +mountains, but they haven't yet moved the desert." + +"Not entirely," Joe replied, "but if I do my part, who knows what +Providence may do?" + +As he sat there in the hope and strength of his youth, something in Joe +Thomson's expectant face brought a pang to the man beside him. + +"Joe, your lease will soon expire. I said to you three years ago that +women are shiftier than blowouts. You didn't believe me, but it's the +truth." + +"Naturally the Macpherson Mortgage Company must acquire much knowledge +of such things in the development of their business," Joe responded, +jokingly. "Little Thelma Ekblad on the claim above mine has helped to +pay off the mortgage your company held, and sent herself to the +university, working in the harvest-fields and at the hay-baler to do it. +Thelma never seemed shifty to me. She's a solid little rock of a woman +who never flinches." + +"I'll except Thelma. You ought--" But York went no further, for he knew +Joe's spirit would not respond to his thought, and he had no business +to be thinking, anyhow. He had known Joe Thomson from childhood. He +admired Jerry Swaim greatly for what she had been doing, but he knew +much of the Philadelphia end of the game, and his heart ached for the +young Westerner, who, he believed, had shouldered a stupendous, tragical +burden for the sake of a heart-longing only a strong nature like Joe's +could know. + +"By the way, Jerry Swaim's aunt, back East, is in a bad way and may die +at any time, but she will never forgive Jerry to the point of +inheritance. I happen to be in the old lady's confidence that far." + +"You are a social Atlas, York," Joe declared. "You hold the world on +your shoulders. But what you say doesn't interest me at all. So don't +prejudge any of us, maid or man." + +"And don't you let your bloomin' self-confidence and ability to work +half-miracles be your undoing. A house builded on the sand may fall, +where one built on gold dust may stand firm," York retorted. + +"Do you believe your own words?" Joe asked, rising to his feet. + +"The point is for you to believe them, whether I do or not," York +answered, as Joe disappeared through the doorway. + +"Why, in the name of fitness, can't that fellow fall in love with that +little Thelma Ekblad, a girl who knows what sacrifice on the Sage Brush +means and who has a grip on the real values of life? Oh, well, just to +watch the crowd run awry ought to be entertainment enough for a bachelor +like myself," York thought, as he sat staring after Joe. "I've lived to +see a few half-miracles myself in the last decade. Anybody whose lot is +cast in western Kansas can see as many of them as the old Santa Fe Trail +bull-whackers saw of mirages in the awful 'fifties. There's a lot of +reclaiming being done on the Sage Brush, even if that struggle of Joe's +with the blowout is a failure. Thelma Ekblad in her splendid victory +over ignorance, carrying a university degree; Stellar Bahrr"--York +smiled, "Ponk, who would put a flourish after his name if he were +signing his own death-warrant, the little hero of a hundred knocks, +living above everything but his funny little strut, and he's getting +over that a bit; old Fishing Teddy, brave old soul, down in his old +shack alone; Jerry, with her luxurious laziness and doubt in God and a +hereafter--all winning slowly to better things, maybe; but as to sand +and Joe-- + +"'Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?' You'll never do it, Joe, +never, and you'll never win the goal you've set your heart on. Poor +fellow!" + +That night, on the silent porch alone, York finished the battle he had +begun on the evening after he and Jerry had called on Stella Bahrr. + +"It's the artist bank clerk against the field, and we'll none of us bat +above his average. Good night, old moon, and good night, York, to what +can't be." + +He waved a hand at the dying light in the west, and a dying hope, and +went inside. + + + + +XVI + +A POSTLUDE IN "EDEN" + + +Cornelius Darby had lain in his beautifully decorated grave for three +years, and a graceful white shaft pointing heavenward amid the +shrubbery had become a landmark for the bunch of grubs who rode the +Winnowoc local. + +"Must be getting close to the deppo. Yonder is old Corn Darby's +gravestone over on the bluff," they would say, as the train chuffed up +out of the valley on either side of the station. That was all the memory +of him that remained, save as now and then a girl in a far-away Kansas +town remembered a June evening when a discus shied out from its course +and rolled to the door of a rose-arbor. + +But "Eden," as a country estate, lost nothing by the passing of the +husband of its lady and mistress, who spared none of the Darby dollars +to make both the town and country home delightful in all appointments, +hoping and believing that in her policy of stubbornness and force she +could have her way, and bring back to the East the girl whom she would +never invite to return, the girl whose future she had determined to +control. The three years had found Jerusha Darby's will to have Jerry +Swaim become her heir under her own terms--mistaking dependence for +appreciation, and idleness for happiness--had ceased to be will and +become a mania, the ruling passion of her years of old age. She never +dreamed that she was being adroitly managed by her husband's relative, +Eugene Wellington, but she did recognize, and, strangely enough, resent, +the fact that the Darby strain in his blood was proving itself in his +ability, not to earn dollars, but to make dollars earn dollars once they +were put plentifully into his hands. + +Since Mrs. Darby had only one life-purpose--to leave her property to +Jerry Swaim under her own terms--it galled her to think of it passing to +the hands of the relatives of the late Cornelius. She believed that love +of Eugene would bring Jerry back, for she was Lesa's own romance-loving +child--even if the luxuries that wealth can offer should fail; and she +had coddled Eugene Wellington for this very purpose. But after three +years he had failed to satisfy her. She was becoming slowly but +everlastingly set on one thing. She would put her property elsewhere by +will--when she was through with it. She could not do without Eugene as +long as she lived--which would be indefinitely, of course. But she would +have her say--and (in a whisper) it would _not_ be a Darby nor _kin_ of +a Darby who might be sitting around now, waiting for her to pass to her +fathers, who would possess it. + +In this intense state of mind she called Eugene out to "Eden" in the +late May of the third year of Jerry Swaim's stay in Kansas. The +rose-arbor was aglow with the same blossoming beauty as of old, and all +the grounds were a dream of May-time verdure. + +Eugene Wellington, driving out from the city in a big limousine car, +found them more to his taste than ever before, and he took in the +premises leisurely before going to the arbor to meet Mrs. Darby. + +"If I could only persuade Jerry to come now, all would be well," he +meditated. "And I have hopes. The last news of her tells me a few +things. She hasn't fallen in love with York Macpherson. He'd hate me +less if she had, and he detests me. I saw that, all right, when he was +here last month. And she's pretty tired of the life of the wilderness. I +know that. If she would come right now it would settle things forever. +I'd go after her if the old lady would permit it. I'd go, anyhow, if I +dared. But I must keep an eye on Uncle Cornie's widow day and night, +and, hungry as I am for one glimpse of Jerry's sweet face, I couldn't +meet Jerusha D. in her wrath if I disobeyed her." + +Eugene had the chauffeur pause while he surveyed the lilac-walk and the +big maples and the lotus-pond. + +"If Jerry would come _now_," he began again, with himself, "she would be +heir to all this. If she doesn't come soon, there's trouble ahead for +Eugene of the soft snaps. To the rose-arbor, Henderson." + +So Henderson whirled the splendid young product to the doorway of the +pretty retreat. + +Mrs. Darby met her nephew with a sterner face even than she was +accustomed to wear. + +"I want to see you at once," she said, as the young man loitered a +moment outside. + +"Yes, Aunt Jerry," he responded, dutifully enough--as to form. + +"What have you heard from Jerry recently?" she demanded. + +"What York Macpherson told us--that she has had a hard year's work in a +school-room," Eugene replied. + +"Humph! I knew that. What are you doing to bring her back to me?" Mrs. +Darby snapped off the words. + +"Nothing now!" the young man answered her. + +"'Nothing now!' Why not?" Mrs. Darby was in her worst of humors. + +"Because there is positively nothing to do but to wait," Eugene said, +calmly. "She is not in love anywhere else. She is getting tired and +disgusted with her plebeian surroundings, and as to her estate--" + +"What of her estate? I refused to let York Macpherson say a word, +although he tried to over-rule me. I told him two things: I'd never +forgive Jerry if she didn't come back uninvited by me; and I'd never +listen to him blow a big Kansas story of her wonderful possessions. What +do you know? You'd be unprejudiced." The old woman had never seemed +quite so imperious before. + +"I have here a paper describing it. York Macpherson sent it to Uncle +Cornelius the very week he died. I found it among some other papers +shortly after his death and after Jerry left. When York was here he +confirmed the report at my insistent request. Read it." + +Jerusha Darby read, realizing, as she did so, that neither her husband +nor York Macpherson had succeeded in doing what Eugene Wellington had +done easily. Each had tried in vain to have her read that paper. + +"You knew the condition of this estate for three years, and never told +me. Why?" The old woman's face was very pale. + +"I did not dare to do so," Eugene replied, that line of weakness in his +face which Jerry had noted three years before revealing itself for the +first time to her aunt. + +"This is sufficient," she said, in a quiet sort of way. "To-morrow I +make my will--just to be sure. I shall probably outlive many younger +people than myself. Write and tell Jerry I have done it. This time +to-morrow night will see my estate settled so far as the next generation +is concerned. If I do not do it, Eugene, some distant and improvident +relatives of Cornelius will claim it. Send the lawyer out in the +morning." + +"All right, Aunt Jerry. I must go now. I have a club meeting in the city +and I can make it easily. The car runs like the wind with Henderson at +the wheel. Good-by." + +And Eugene Wellington was gone. + +"Three years ago I'd have left everything to him if I had been ready to +make a will then. I'm ready now, and any time in the next ten years I +can change it if I want to. But this will bring things my way, after +all. I told York I'd never forgive Jerry!" + +Mrs. Darby paused, and a smile lighted her wrinkled face. + +"To think of that girl just shouldering her burden and walking off with +it. If she isn't Brother Jim over again! Never writing a word of +complaint. Oh, Jerry! Jerry! I'll make it up to you to-morrow." + +To Jerusha Darby money made up for everything. She sat long in the +rose-arbor, thinking, maybe, of the years when Jerry's children and her +children's children would dominate the Winnowoc countryside as they of +the Swaim blood had always done. And then, because she was tired, and +the afternoon sunshine was warm, and her willow rocking-chair was very +comfortable--she fell asleep. + +<tb> + +"Went just like her brother, the late Jeremiah Swaim," the papers said, +the next evening. + +Instead of the lawyer, it was the undertaker who came to officiate. And +the last will and testament, and the too-late evidence of a forgiving +good-will, all were impossible henceforth and forever. + +The estate of the late Jerusha Darby, relict of the late Cornelius +Darby, no will of hers having been found, passed, by agreement under +law, to a distant relative of the late Cornelius, which relative being +Eugene Wellington, whose knowledge of the said possible conditions of +inheritance he had held in his possession for three years, since the day +he accidentally found them among the private papers of his late uncle, +knowing the while that any sudden notion of the late Jerusha might +result in putting her possessions, by her own signature, where neither +Jerry, as her favorite and heir apparent, nor himself, as heir-in-law +without a will, could inherit anything. Truly Gene had had a bothersome +time of it for three years, and he congratulated himself on having done +well--excellently well, indeed. Truly only the good little snakes ever +entered that "Eden" in the Winnowoc Valley in Pennsylvania. + + + + +XVII + +THE FLESH-POTS OF THE WINNOWOC + + +The glory of that third springtime was on the Kansas prairies and in the +heart of a man and a maid, the best of good fellows each to the other, +who rode together far along their blossomy trails. The eyes of the man +were on the future and in his heart there was only one wish--that the +good-fellowship would soon end in the realization of his heart's desire. +The eyes of the maid were closed to the future. For her, too, there was +only one wish--that this kind of comradeship might go on unchanged +indefinitely. To Jerry no trouble seemed quite so big when Joe was with +her, and little foxes sought their holes when he came near. If the +spring work had not grown so heavy late in May, and Joe could have come +to town oftener, and one teacher had not fallen sick, and Clare Lenwell +hadn't been so stubborn, and if Stellar Bahrr had held her tongue--But +why go on with ifs? All these conditions did exist. What might have been +without them no man knoweth. + +One of the humanest traits of human beings is to believe what is +pleasant to believe, and to doubt and question what would be an +undesirable fact. Jerry Swaim, clinging ever to a memory of what might +have been, building a pretty love dream, it is true, to be acted out +some far-away time by a young farmer and his neighbor in the Sage Brush +Valley, listened to Stellar Bahrr's version of Thelma Ekblad's shopping +mission, held back the tears that burned her eyeballs for a moment, and +then, being human, voted the whole thing as impossible, if not as +malicious as any of Stellar Bahrr's stories. Indeed, Thelma Ekblad was +now, as she had always been, the very least of Jerry's troubles. + +The school row, that had become the community fuss, culminated in the +superintendent putting upon his teachers the responsibility of +settlement. + +If they were willing to concede to the foolish demands of the class, led +by Clare Lenwell, and grant full credits in their branches of study, he +would abide by their decision. The easiest way, after all, to quiet the +thing, he said, might be to let the young folks have their way this +time, and do better with the class next year. They could begin in time +with them. As if Solomon himself could ever foresee what trivial demand +and stubborn claim will be the author and finisher of the disturbance +from year to year in the town's pride and glory--the high-school Senior +class, and its Commencement affairs. The final vote to break the tie and +make the verdict was purposely put on Jerry Swaim, who had more +influence in the high school than the superintendent himself. Jerry +protested, and asked for a more just agreement, finally spending a whole +afternoon with Clare Lenwell in an effort to induce him to be a +gentleman, offering, in return, all fairness and courtesy. + +Young Lenwell's head was now too large for his body. He was the hero of +the hour. Rule or ruin rested on this young Napoleon of the Sage Brush, +divinely ordained to free the downtrodden youths of America from the +iron heel and galling chains with which the faculty of the average +American high school enthralls and degrades--and so forth, world without +end. + +This at least was Clare Lenwell's attitude from one o'clock P.M. to five +o'clock P.M. of an unusually hot June day. At the stroke of five Jerry +rose, with calm face, but a dangerously square chin, saying, in an +untroubled tone: + +"You may as well go. Good afternoon." + +Young Lenwell walked out, the cock of the hour--until the next morning. +Then all of the Seniors were recorded as having received full credits +for graduation from all of the faculty--except one pupil, who lacked one +teacher's signature. Clare Lenwell was held back by Miss Swaim, teacher +of the mathematics department. + +The earthquake followed. + +In the session of the school board on the afternoon of Commencement Day +Junius Brutus Ponk, who presided over the meeting, sat "as firm as Mount +Olympus, or Montpelier, Vermont," he said, afterward; "the uncle Lenwell +suffered eruption, Vesuviously; and the third man of us just cowed down, +and shriveled up, and tried to slip out in the hole where the +electric-light wire comes through the wall. But I fetched him back with +a button-hook, knowin' he'd get lost in that wide passageway and his +remains never be recovered to his family." + +It was not, however, just a family matter now among the Lenwells. In the +presence of the superintendent and Mrs. Bahrr, Miss Swaim was called to +trial by her peers--the board of education. In this executive session, +whose proceedings were not ever to be breathed--for York Macpherson +would have the last man of them put in jail, he was that +influential--_Other Things Were Made Known_--Things that, after the +final settlement, became in time common property, and so forgotten. + +Herein Stellar Bahrr's three years of pent-up anger at last found vent. +She had been preparing for this event. She had adroitly set the trap for +the first difficulty, that had its start in the Lenwell family, while +she was doing their spring sewing. Incessantly and insidiously she laid +her mines and strung her wires and stored her munitions, determined to +settle once for all with the pretty, stuck-up girl who had held a whip +over her for three whole years. + +Charges were to be brought against Miss Swaim of a _serious_ character, +and she was to be tried and condemned in _secret session_ and allowed to +_leave_ the town _quietly_. _Nothing_ would be said _aloud_ until she +was _gone_. + +In despair, Ponk sought York Macpherson two hours before the trial +began. + +"There's two against me. And no matter what I _say_, they'll outvote me. +It's the durned infernal ballot-box that's a curse to a free +government. If it wasn't for that, republics would flourish. Bein' an +uncrowned king don't keep a man from bein' a plain short-eared +jackass--and they's three of us of the same breed--two against one." + +York's face was gray with anger, and he clutched his fingers in his wavy +hair as if to get back the hold on himself. + +"You will have your trial, of course. Demand two things--that the +accused and the accusers meet face to face. It will be hard on Jerry." + +"Has she flinched or fell down once in three years, York Macpherson? +Ain't she stronger and handsomer to-day than she was the day I had the +honor to bring her up from the depot in that new gadabout of mine? If I +could I'd have had it framed and hung on the wall and kept, for what it +done for her." + +The two men looked into each other's eyes, and what each read there made +a sacred, unbreakable bond between them for all the years to come. + +The trial was held in the hotel parlor, behind closed doors. The charges +were vague and poorly supported by evidence, but the venom back of them +was definite. Plainly stated, a pretty, incompetent girl had come West +_for some reason_ never made clear to New Eden. Come as an heiress in +"style and stuckuppitude of manner" (that was Stellar Bahrr's phrasing); +had suddenly become poor and dependent on the good-will of J. B. Ponk, +who had fought to the bitter end to give her "a place on the town +pay-roll and keep her there" (that was the jealous superintendent's +phrasing); and on the patronage of York Macpherson, who had really took +her in, he and his honorable sister, even if they really were the worse +"took in" of the two. At this point Ponk rapped for a better expression +of terms. The young person had tried to "run things" in the church and +schools and society. Even the superintendent himself had to be sure of +her approval before he dared to start any movement in the high school. +And no one of the preachers would invite her to unite with his church. + +But to the charges now: + +First: She had refused to let Clare Lenwell graduate who wasn't any +worse than the rest of the class. + +Secondly: She had a way of riding around over the country with young men +on moonlight nights on horseback. Of going, the Lord knows where, with +young men, _joy-riding_ in cars, or of going alone wherever she pleased +in hired livery cars. And _some_ thought she met strange men and was +acquainted with rough characters, and the moral influence of that was +awfully bad; and there was something _even worse_, if that were +possible, WORSE! + +Things had disappeared around town often, but in _the last three years_ +especially. If folks were poor, they needed money. + +Then Stellar Bahrr came into the ring. + +Jerry had sat and listened to the proceedings as an indifferent +spectator to what could in no wise concern her. With the entrance of +Mrs. Bahrr to the witness-stand, the girl's big, dreamy eyes grew +brighter and her firm mouth was set, but no mark of anxiety showed +itself in her face or manner. + +Mrs. Bahrr whined a bit as to wishing only to do the right thing, but +her steel-pointed eyes, as she fixed them in Jerry, wrote as with a +stylus across the girl's understanding: + +"You are hopelessly in the minority. Now I can say what I please." + +What Mrs. Bahrr really knew, of course, she couldn't swear to in any +court, because of Laura and York Macpherson. She wouldn't shame them, +because they had befriended a fraud, all with good intentions. She only +came now because she'd been promised protection by the board from what +folks would say, and she was speaking what must _never_ be repeated. + +"Most of us need that kind of protection when you are around," Ponk +declared, vehemently, knowing that, while the school board would keep +her words sacred, nothing said or done in that trial would be held +sacred by her as soon as the decision she wished for was reached. + +Stellar, feeling herself safe, paid no heed to Ponk. What she really +knew was that a certain young lady had been known to take money from her +hostess and, being caught, had been forced to give it up. Stellar +herself saw and heard the whole thing when it happened. Laura had told +her about the matter, and then, when she was just leaving, Jerry had +returned the money. She was right outside of the vines on the porch, and +she knew. Stellar knew that dollars and dollars, jewelry, silverware, +and other valuables had been taken, and some of them never restored; but +some was sneaked back when the pressure got too strong. In a word, +through much talk and little sense, Miss Geraldine Swaim was branded a +high-toned thief. And worse than that. For three years strange men had +slipped to the Macpherson home when the folks were away, and been let +out by the side door. Real low-down-looking fellows. Stellar had seen +them herself. She had a way of running 'cross lots up to Laury's +evenings, and _she knew_ what she was talking about. Stellar dropped her +eyes now, not caring to look at Jerry. Her blow had hit home and she was +exultant. + +"Has the young lady anything to say?" Lenwell of the school board asked, +feeling a twinge of pity, after all, because the case was even stronger +than he had hoped it could be made. + +Jerry looked over at Stellar Bahrr until she was forced to lift her eyes +to the girl's face. + +"I cannot understand the degree of hate that can be developed in a human +mind," she said, calmly. "That is all I have to say." + +Junius Brutus Ponk's round face seemed to blacken like a Kansas sky +before the coming of a hail-storm. Lenwell gave a snort of triumph, and +the third member of the board grinned. + +At that moment the door of the hotel parlor opened. Jerry, who sat +opposite to it, caught sight of York Macpherson in the hall. And York +saw her, calm and brave, in what he read, in the instant, was defeat for +her. Before her were dismissal, failure, and homelessness. But neither +he nor any one else dreamed how far the influence of those Sunday +afternoons of "calling on mother," with the fat little hotel-keeper, had +led this girl into a "trust in every time of trouble," and she faced her +future bravely. + +It was not York Macpherson, but the little, fuzzy, shabby figure of old +Fishin' Teddy who shuffled inside and closed the door, demanding in a +quavering squeak to be heard. + +Ponk gave a start of surprise; Lenwell was annoyed; the third man was +indifferent now, being safe, anyhow. Stellar Bahrr and the +superintendent stared in amazement, but Jerry's face was wonderful to +see. + +"'Ain't I got a right to say a word here, gentlemen?" old Teddy asked, +looking at Ponk. + +"If it's on the subject of this meeting, yes. If it's anything about +fish, either in the Sage Brush or in Kingussie Creek, no. This really +ain't no place for fish stories. We're overstocked with 'em right now, +till this hotel and gurrage will have a 'ancient and a fishlike smell' +as the Good Book says, for a generation." + +"I just got wind of what was on up here. A man from your town come down +to see me on business, an' he bringed me up." + +"York Macpherson's the only man I ever knew had business with old Teddy. +Lord be praised!" Ponk thought. + +"I got a little testimony myself to offer here, for the one that's bein' +blackmailed. I'll tell it fast as I can," Teddy declared. + +"Take your time an' get it straight. None of us is in a hurry now," Ponk +assured him. + +Then the Teddy Bear, without looking at Jerry, gave testimony: + +"Back in Pennsylvany, where I come from, in the Winnowoc country, I +knowed Jim Swaim, this young lady's father. I wasn't no fisherman then. +I was a hard-workin', well-meanin', honest man. My name was Hans +Theodore--and somethin' else I have no use for since I come to the Sage +Brush in Kansas." + +He hesitated and looked down at his scaly brown paws and shabby clothes. + +"I ain't telling this 'cause I want to, but 'cause I want to do justice +to Jim Swaim's girl. Jim was my friend an' helped me a lot of ways. He +was a hard-fisted business man, but awfully human with human bein's; an' +his daughter's jes' like him, seems to me." + +Jerry's cheeks were swept with the bloom of "Eden" roses as she sat with +her eyes fixed on the old man. To her in that moment came a vision of +Uncle Cornie in the rose-arbor when the colorless old man had pleaded +with her to become as her father had been. + +"I got into trouble back there. This is a secret session, hain't it?" +The old man hesitated again. + +"Yes, dead secret," Ponk assured him. "Nothin' told outside of here +before it's first told inside, which is unusual in such secret +proceedings, so you are among friends. Go on." + +Stellar Bahrr sat with her eyes piercing the old man like daggers, while +his own faded yellow-brown eyes drooped with a sorrowful expression. + +"I won't say how it happened, but I got mixed up in some stealin' +scrape--that's why I changed my name or, ruther, left off the last of +it. I'd gone to the Pen--though ever' scrap I ever stole, or its money +value, was actually returned to them that had lost it. Jim Swaim stood +by me, helpin' me through, an' I paid him as I earnt it. Then he give me +money to get started here, an' befriended me every way, just 'cause it +was in him. I've lived out here on the Sage Brush alone 'cause I ain't +fit to live with folks. But when the old _mainy_, as you say of crazy +folk, comes, why, things is missin' up in town. They land in my shack +sometimes, an' sometimes I'm honest enough to bring 'em back when I can +do it. I'm the one that hangs around in the shadders, an' if you ketch +sight of strange men at side doors, Mrs. Bahrr, it's me. An' when this +Jerry Swaim (I knowed her when she was a baby; I carried her in my arms +'cross the Winnowoc once, time of a big flood up in Pennsylvany)--when +her purseful of money was stole, three years ago, an' she comes down to +my shack and finds it all there, why, she done by me then jus' like her +own daddy 'd 'a' done, she never told on me at all. An' she hain't told +all these years, and wa'n't goin' to tell on me now. I don't know what +you mean 'bout these stories on her. She never done nothin' to be +ashamed of in her life. 'Tain't in her family to be ashamed. They dunno +how. If they's blame for stealin' in New Eden, though, jus' lay it on +old Fishin' Teddy. You 'quit her now." + +The old man's voice quavered as he squeaked out his words, and he +shuffled aside, to be less in evidence in the parlor, where he had for +the one time in his life been briefly the central figure. + +The silence that followed his words was broken by Jerry's clear, low +voice. Her face was beautiful in the soft light there. To Ponk she had +never seemed so adorable before, not even on still Sabbath afternoons in +the quiet corner of the cemetery where they talked as friends of +mother-love and God, and Life after life. + +"Friends, this old hermit fisherman is telling you a falsehood to try to +shield me because of some favor my father showed him in the years gone +by. If he is not willing to say more, to tell you the real truth, he +will force me to say to you that I am the guilty one after all. I cannot +let him make such a sacrifice for me." + +She spoke as though she were explaining the necessity for changing cars +in Chicago in order to reach Montreal. Old Fishin' Teddy lifted his +clubby brown hands in protest. + +"'Tain't so, an' 'tain't right," he managed to make the words come +out--thin and trembling words, shaking like palsied things. + +"No, it isn't so, and it isn't right, and he must not bear a disgrace he +doesn't deserve. I'll do it for him," Jerry said, smiling upon the +shabby old man--a common grub of the Sage Brush Valley. + +There is nothing grander in human history, nothing which can more deeply +touch the common human heart of us all, than the lesson of +self-sacrifice taught on Mount Calvary. From the thief on the cross, +down through all the centuries, has the blessed power of that Spirit +softened the hearts of evil-doers, great or small. Jerry had not once +turned toward Stellar Bahrr since the entrance of Fishin' Teddy. When +she had ceased speaking, the silence of the room was broken by the town +busybody's whining tone: + +"They ain't neither one of 'em a thief, Mr. Ponk. It's me. They sha'n't +do no such sacrificing thing." + +The silence of the moment before was a shout compared to the dead +silence now. + +"Yes, it's me. I was born that way, an' it just seems I can't help it. +I've done all the liftin', I guess, that's been done in this town +a'most--'tain't so much, of course; but I ain't mean clear through, an' +I jus' wouldn't ever rest in my grave if I don't speak now. I thought +I'd always hide it, but I know I never will." + +Old Teddy shrank back in a heap on his chair, while all of the rest +except Jerry Swaim sat as if thunderstruck. + +"I'm goin' clear through with it, now I've begun. Maybe I'll be a better +woman if I am disgraced forever by it." Mrs. Bahrr's voice grew steadier +and her eyes were fixed on the ground. + +"Hans Theodore--the last part of his name is Bahrr--he's my husband. It +was for my sins that he left Pennsylvany. Jim Swaim saved us from a lot +of disgrace, and persuaded us to come West an' start over, an' helped us +a lot. I couldn't break myself of wrong-doing just by changing climate, +though. We tried Indiany first an' failed, then we come to S'liny, +Kansas, next an' then we come on here. An' at last Theodore give me up +an' went off alone an' changed his name. Mr. Lenwell's folks here is +distant relatives, but they never would 'a' knowed Theodore. Didn't know +he'd never got a divorce, and never stop supportin' me; like he'd said +when we was married, he'd 'keep me unto death,' you know; and he'd come +to see me once in a while, to be sure I wasn't needin' nothin'. I jus' +worked along at one thing or another, an' Teddy earnt money an' paid it +in to York Macpherson, like a pension, an' he paid me, York did. But +Teddy wouldn't never live with me, though he never told York why. An' +when I took things--" + +Mrs. Bahrr paused and looked at Jerry deprecatingly. + +"Like that silver cup I saw down at the deep hole?" Jerry asked, +encouragingly. + +"Yes, like that. I seen you down there that day. I was the woman that +passed your car--" + +"I know it," Jerry said, "I remember your sunbonnet and gray-green +dress. I've often seen both since." + +"Yes, an' you remember, too, the time I come out on the porch sudden when +you first come here, an' made you promise not to tell." Mrs. Bahrr's +voice quavered now. + +"An' 'cause I knowed Teddy'd bring that right back to Macpherson's and +you'd remember it, an' 'cause you were Jim Swaim's child that knowed my +fault an' made me do what I didn't want to do, even if I was in the +wrong, I hated you an' vowed to myself I'd fix you. It was me slipped +into your room an' stuck Laury's purse into your beaded hand-bag, an' it +was me took your roll of money from your own purse. Teddy took it away, +though, that very night. Teddy he'd take whatever I picked up an' +pretend he'd sell it, but he'd git it back to 'em some way if he could; +an' he's saved an' sold fish an' lived a hermit life an' never told on +me. He's slipped up to town to git me to put back or let him put back +what I was tempted to pilfer, 'cause it seemed I just couldn't help it. +York's been awful patient with me, too. But I can't set here an' be a +woman and see Teddy shieldin' me, a hypocrite, an' her shieldin' him, +an' not tellin' on me, like wimmen does on wimmen generally, an' not +make a clean breast of it. An' if you'll not tell on me, an' all help +me, I'll jus' try once more--" + +"Won't anything go out of this room except what you tell yourself, +Stellar Bahrr," Ponk said, gravely. "Now you go home an' begin to act +better and think better, an' this'll be a heap cleaner town forever +after. An' if you live right the rest of your days you 'll keep on +livin' after you're dead, like mother does. The charges of this case is +all settled. I congratulate you, Miss Fair Defendant. You are a Joan of +Arc, an' a Hannah Dustin, an Boaz's Ruth, an' Barbara Fritchie, all in +one." + +While the other two members of the board were shamefacedly shaking hands +and offering Jerry half of New Eden as a recompense, old Fishin' Teddy +slipped out of the side door through the dining-room and on to where +Ponk's best livery car waited to take him to his rude shack beside the +deep hole in the Sage Brush. + +As Jerry passed into the hall she found a crowd waiting for her--the +three ministers from the churches, the mayor of New Eden, the friends of +the Macphersons, York himself, and many more of the town's best, who had +gathered to congratulate Jerry and to assure her of their pride in her +ability and appreciation of her as a citizen of New Eden. + +With the Commencement that night the school fuss and town split +disappeared at one breath and passed into history. + +When they reached the doorway of "Castle Cluny," after the Commencement +exercises, York handed Jerry a letter. It was a long and affectionately +worded message from Eugene Wellington, telling of the passing of Jerusha +Darby, of his inheritance, and of his intention to come at once to +Kansas and take her back to the "Eden" she had neglected so long. + +And Jerry, worn with the events of the last few weeks, feeling the +strain suddenly lifted, welcomed the letter and shed a tear upon it, +saying, softly: + +"Oh, I'm so tired of everything now! If he comes for me, he'll find me +ready to meet him. The flesh-pots of the Winnowoc are better to me than +this weary desert." + +<tb> + +Came an evening three days before the date for the lease on the Swaim +land to expire. Jerry sat alone on the Macpherson porch. It had been an +extremely hot day for June, with the dead, tasteless air that presages +the coming of a storm, and to-night the moon seemed to struggle up +toward the zenith against choking gray clouds that threatened to smother +out its light. + +Jerry was not happy to-night. She wanted Joe Thomson to come this +evening. It had been such a long while since he had had time to leave +the ranch for an evening with her. + +And with the wishing Joe came. With firm step and the face of a victor +he came. From his dark eyes hope and tenderness were looking out. + +"I haven't seen you for ages, and ages are awfully long, you know," +Jerry declared. + +"I've been very busy," Joe replied. "You know you can't break the laws +of the ranch and expect a harvest, any more than you can break the laws +of geometry and depend on results. I would have been up sooner, though, +but for one thing: a fellow on the ranch above mine who got hurt once +with a mowing-machine had another accident and I've been helping the +owner, that stout-hearted little Norwegian girl, Thelma Ekblad, to take +care of their crops, too. Thelma is a courageous soul who has worked her +way through the university, and she is a mighty capable girl, too. She +would be a splendid success as a teacher, she is so well trained, but +her family need her, and all of us down there need her." + +Jerry caught her breath. It was the first time in three years that Joe +had ever mentioned any girl with interest. But now this was all right +and just as things should be. A neighbor, a capable Western girl--women +see far, after all, and Jerry's romance had not been a foolish one. + +"That's all right, Joe, but I have been wanting to see you"--the old "I +want" as imperative again to-night as in the days when all of this +girl's wants had been met by the mere expression of them. + +"And I'm always wanting to see you, and never so much as to-night," Joe +began, earnestly. + +"Let me tell you first why I have wanted to see you once more," Jerry +broke in, hastily. + +In the dull light her dreamy dark-blue eyes and her golden hair falling +away from her white brow left an imprint that Joe Thomson's mind kept +henceforth; at the same time that "once more" cut a deeper wound than +Jerry could know. + +"My aunt Jerry Darby is dead." The girl's voice was very low. "I can't +grieve for her, for she was old and tired of life and unhappy. You +remember I told you about her one night here three years ago." + +Joe did remember. + +"She left all her fortune to Cousin Gene Wellington." + +"The artist who turned out to be a bank clerk?" Joe asked. "I really +always doubted that story." + +"Yes, but, you know, he did it to please Aunt Jerry. Think of a +sacrifice like that! Giving up one's dearest life-work!" + +"I'm thinking of it. Excuse me. Go on," Joe said. + +Jerry lifted her big dreamy eyes. The sparkle was gone and only the soft +light of romance illumined them now. + +"Gene is coming out to see me soon. I look for him any day. Everything +is all settled about the property, and everything is going to be all +right, after all, I am sure. And I'm so tired of teaching." Jerry broke +off suddenly. + +"But, oh, Joe," she began presently, "you will never, never know how +much your comradeship has helped me through these three trying years of +hard work and hopelessness. We have been only friends, of course, and +you are such a good, helpful kind of a friend. I never could have gotten +through without you." + +"Thank you, the pleasure is mine. I--I think I must go now." + +Joe rose suddenly and started to leave the porch. In an instant the very +earth had slidden out from under his feet. The memory of York +Macpherson's warning swept across his mind as the blowout sands sweep +over the green prairie. And he had come to say such different words +to-night. He had reached the end of a long, heart-breaking warfare with +nature and he had won. And now a new warfare broke forth in his soul. + +At that moment a sudden boom of thunder crashed out of the horizon and +all the lightnings of the heavens were unleashed, while a swirling +dust-deluge filled the darkening air. Jerry sprang forward, clutching +Joe's arm with her slender fingers. + +"The storm will be here in a minute," she cried, "You must not leave +now. You mustn't face this wind. Look at that awful black cloud and see +how fast it is coming on. I don't want you to go away. Where can you +go?" + +But Joe only shook off her grip, saying, hoarsely: + +"I'm going down the Sage Brush. If you ever want me again, you'll find +me beyond the blowout." + +The word struck like a blow. For three years Jerry had not heard it +spoken. It was the one term forever dropped from her vocabulary. All who +loved her must forget its very existence. + +There was a sudden dead calm in the hot yellow air; a moment of +gathering forces before the storm would burst upon the town. + +"If you ever see me beyond that blowout, you'll know that I do want +you," Jerry said, slowly. + +In the blue lightning glare that followed, her white face and big dark +eyes recalled to Joe Thomson's mind the moment, so long ago now, it +seemed, when Jerry had first looked out at the desert from under the +bough of the oak-grove. + +During the prolonged, terrific burst of thunder that followed, the young +ranchman strode away and the darkness swallowed his stalwart form as the +worst storm the Sage Brush country had ever known broke furiously upon +the whole valley. + +And out on the porch steps stood a girl conscious, not of the +storm-wind, nor the beating rain, nor cleaving lightning; conscious only +that something had suddenly gone out of her life into the blackness +whither Joe Thomson had gone; and with the heartache of the loss of the +moment was a strange resentment toward a brave-hearted little Norwegian +girl--a harvest-hand with a crippled brother, an adopted baby, and a +university education. + + + + +XVIII + +THE LORD HATH HIS WAY IN THE STORM + + +Laura Macpherson sat on the porch, watching her brother coming slowly up +the street, seemingly as oblivious to the splendor of the sunset +to-night as he had been on a June evening three summers ago. + +"That was the worst cloudburst I ever heard of out here," he declared, +when he reached the porch. "Every man in town who could carry a shovel +has been out all day, up-stream or down-stream, helping to dig out the +bottomland farms. I've been clear to the upper Sage Brush, doing a stunt +or two myself. I left my muddy boots and overalls at the office so that +I wouldn't be smearing up your old Castle here." + +Even in the smallest things York's thoughts were for his crippled +sister. + +"There's a lot of wild stories out about buildings being swept away and +lives being lost, here and there in the valley. You needn't believe all +of them until your trustworthy brother confirms them for you, little +sister. Such events have their tragedies, but the first estimate is +always oversize." + +"Even if your Big Dipper tells me, shall I wait for your confirmation?" +Laura inquired, blandly. + +"Oh, Laura, I'm going to cut out all that astronomical business now, +even if I always did know that the right way to pronounce the name Bahrr +is plain Bear, however much you have to stutter to spell it. Stellar has +been, as the Methodists say, 'redeemed and washed in the blood of the +Lamb.' I'm taking her in on probation, myself, and if she sticks it out +for six months I'll take her into full membership." + +"What do you mean, York?" Laura inquired. + +"I mean that since they settled the school row in secret session, Mrs. +Bahrr has been as different a woman as one can be who has let the habit +of evil thinking become a taskmaster. I've never told you that her +husband is still living, a shabby old fellow who gives me money for her +support as fast as he can earn it, but he won't live with her. She flies +from hat-trimming to sewing and baking and nursing and back to sewing, +and she never earns much anywhere, and works up trouble just for pure +cussedness. But to-day she went to the upper Sage Brush to help old Mrs. +Poser. The Posers were nearly washed away, and the old lady is sick and +lonely and almost helpless. She needs somebody to stay with her. Yes, +Stellar is really becoming a star--a plain, homely planet, doing a +good-angel line where she's most useful. We'll let the past stay where +it belongs, and count her reclaimed to better things now." + +"Amen! And what about the valley down-stream? It must be worse, because +the storm came up from that way," Laura declared. + +"There are plenty of rumors, but I haven't heard anything definite yet, +for I just got here, you know, and, as I telephoned you, found Mr. +Wellington had registered at Ponk's inn. The traveling-men who were on +the branch line have brought the first word to town to-day. The train is +stuck somewhere down the valley, and the tracks, for the most part, are +at the bottom of the Sage Brush. There are washouts all along the +road-bed, and the passengers have been hauled up the stream, across +fields, and every other way, except by the regular route. No automobile +can travel the trail now, so our Philadelphia gentleman arrives a good +bit disgusted with this bloomin' Western country, don't you know; and +sore from miles of jolting; and hungry; and sort of mussy-looking for a +banker; but cocksure of a welcome and of the power to bring salvation to +one of us at least." + +York dropped down on the porch step with a frown, flinging aside his hat +and thrusting his fingers savagely into his heavy hair. + +"Oh, well!" he exclaimed, dejectedly. "There's been a three years' +running fight between Jim Swaim's determined chin and Lesa's tender +eyes. I had hoped to the Lord that Jim would win the day, but that +whirlwind campaign of pleading and luxury-tempting letters came just at +the end of a hard year's work in the high school, with all that infernal +fuss in the Senior class, splitting the town open for a month and being +forgotten in an hour, and the jealousy toward the best teacher we've +ever had here, etcetera. So the '_eyes_' seem to have it. If there were +no ladies present," York added, with a half-smile, "I'd feel free to +express my lordly judgment of the whole damned sex." + +"Don't hesitate, Yorick; a little cussing might ease your liver," Laura +declared, surprised and amused at her brother's unexpected vehemence of +feeling. + +"There's nothing in the English language, as she is cussed, to do the +subject justice, but I might practise a few minutes at least," York +began. + +"Hush, York! That is Mr. Eugene Wellington coming yonder. I'll call +Jerry. Poor Joe!" Laura added, pityingly. "I have a feeling he is the +real sufferer here." + +"Yes, poor Joe!" York echoed, sadly. "Ponk will just soar above his +hurt, but men of Joe's dogged make-up die a thousand deaths when they do +die." + +Lesa Swaim's daughter was gloriously beautiful to Eugene Wellington's +artistic eyes as he sat beside her on the porch on this beautiful +evening. And Eugene himself held a charm in his very presence. All the +memories of the young years of culture and ease; all the daintiness of +perfect dress and perfect manners; all the assurance that a vague, sweet +dream was becoming real; all the sense of a struggle for a livelihood +now ended; all the breaking of the grip of stern duty, and an unbending +pride in a clear conscience, although their rewards had been inspiringly +sweet--all these seemed to Jerry Swaim to lift her suddenly and +completely into the real life from which these three busy, strange years +had taken her. Oh, she had been only waiting, after all. Nothing +mattered any more. Eugene and she had looked at duty differently. That +was all. He was here now, here for her sake. Henceforth his people were +to be her people--his God her God. Uncle Cornie was wise when he said of +Eugene: "He comes nearer to what you've been dreaming about." He seemed +not so much a lover as a fulfilment of a craving for love. + +The first sweet moment of meeting was over. Her future, their future, +shrouded only by a rose-hued mist, beyond which lay light and ease, was +waiting now for them to enter upon. In this idyllic hour Geraldine, +daughter of Lesa Swaim, had come to the very zenith of life's romance. + +"It has been a cruel three years, Jerry," Eugene was saying, as, their +first greetings over, he lighted a cigarette and adjusted himself +picturesquely and easefully in York Macpherson's big porch chair--a +handsome, perfectly groomed, artistic fellow, he appeared fitted as +never before to adorn life's ornamental places. + +"But they are past now. You won't have to teach any more, little cousin +o' mine. York Macpherson says your land lease expires to-day. So your +business transactions here are over, and we'll just throw that ground in +the river and forget it." + +He might have taken the girl's hand in his as they sat together, but +instead he clasped his own hands gracefully and studied their fine +outlines. + +"I have all the Darby estate in my own name now, you know, and I didn't +have to work a stroke at earning it. God! I wonder how a fellow can +stand it to work for every dollar he gets until he is comfortably fixed. +I simply filled in my banking-hours in a perfunctory way, and I didn't +kill myself at it, either. See what I have saved by it for myself and +you, and how much better my course was than yours, after all. Just three +years of waiting, and dodging all the drudgery I possibly could. And you +can just bet I'm a good dodger, Jerry." + +Something like a chill went quivering through Jerry Swaim's whole being, +but the smile in her eyes seemed fixed there, as Eugene went on: + +"Now if I had stuck to art, where would I have been and where would you +be right now? I've always wanted to paint the prairies. If I can stand +this blasted, crude country long enough, and if I'm not too lazy, we'll +play around here a little while, till I have smeared up a few canvases, +and then we'll go home, never to return, dear. Art is going to be my +pastime hereafter, you know, as it was once my--my--" + +"Oh, never mind what it once was." Jerry helped to end the sentence. + +The sunset on the Sage Brush was never more radiantly beautiful than it +was on this evening, and the long midsummer twilight gave promise of its +rarest grandeur of coloring. But a dull veil seemed to be slowly +dropping down upon Jerry's world. + +Eugene Wellington looked at her keenly. + +"Why, Jerry, aren't you happy to see me--glad for us to be together +again?" he asked, with just a tinge of sharpness edging his tones. + +"I have looked forward to this meeting as a dream, an impossible joy. I +hardly realize yet that it isn't a dream any more," Jerry answered him. + +"Say, cousin girl," Eugene Wellington exclaimed, suddenly, "I have been +trying all this time to find out what it is that is changed in your +face. Now I know. You have grown to look so much more like your father +than you did three years ago. Better looking, of course, but his face, +and I never noticed it before. Only you will always have your mother's +beautiful eyes." + +"Thank you, Gene. They were, each in his and her way, good to me. I hope +I shall never put a stain upon their good names," Jerry murmured, +wondering strangely whether the feeling that gripped her at the moment +could be joy or sorrow. + +"They didn't leave you much of an inheritance. That's the only thing +that could be said against them. My father was partly to blame for that, +I guess, but I never had the courage to tell you so till now. You know +courage and Eugene Wellington never got on well together." Somehow his +words seemed to rattle harshly against Jerry's ears. "You know, my dad, +John Wellington, came out here to this very forsaken Sage Brush Valley +somewhere and started in to be a millionaire himself on short notice, +by the short-cut plan of finance. When the thing began to look like work +he threw up the whole blamed concern, just as I would have done. Work +never was a strong element in the Wellington blood, any more than +courage, you know." Gene stopped to light another cigarette. Then he +went on: "Well, after that, dad clung close to Jim Swaim and Uncle Darby +till he died. I guess, if the truth were told, he helped most to tear +your father down financially. He could do that kind of thing, I know. +Jim Swaim spent thousands stopping the cracks after dad, to save the +good name of Wellington for his daughter to wear--as your mother always +hoped you would, because I was an artist then. You see, Mrs. Swaim loved +art--and, as Aunt Darby always insisted (that was before you ran away +from her), because it would keep her money and Uncle Darby's all in the +family. That's why I'm so glad to bring all this fortune that I do to +you now. I'm just making up to you what your father lost through mine, +you see, and it came to me so easily, without my having to grub for it. +Just pleasing Aunt Darby and taking a soft snap of clerical work, with +short hours and good pay, instead of toiling at painting, even if I do +love the old palette and brush. And I used to think I'd rather do that +sort of thing than anything else in the world." + +Jerry's eyes were fixed on the young artist's face with a gaze that +troubled him. + +"Don't stare at me that way, Jerry. That isn't the picture I want you to +pose for when I paint your portrait, Saint Geraldine. Now listen," +Eugene continued. "Your York Macpherson was East this spring, and he +told me that that wild-goose chase of dad's out here had left a desert +behind him. He said a poor devil of a fellow had fought for years +against the sand that dad sowed (I don't know how he did the sowing), +till it ate up about all this poor wretch had ever had. The unfortunate +cuss! York tried to tell Aunt Darby (but I headed him off successfully) +that dad started a thing that became what they call a 'blowout' here. +York Macpherson wanted to put up a big spiel to her about justice to you +and some other folks--this poor critter who got sanded over, maybe. But +it didn't move me one mite, and I didn't let it get by to Aunt Jerry's +ears, although I half-way promised York I would, to get rid of the thing +the easiest way, for that's my way, you know. Did you ever see such a +precious thing as a 'blowout' here, Jerry?" + +Jerry's face was white and her eyes burned blue-black now with a steady +glow. "Never, till to-night," she said, slowly. "I never dreamed till +now how barren a thing a lust for property can create." + +Gene Wellington dropped his cigarette stub and stared a moment. He did +not grasp her meaning at all, but her voice was not so pleasant, now, as +her merry laugh and soft words had been three years ago. + +"By the way, coming up to-day, I heard of a dramatic situation. I think +I'll hunt up the local color for a canvas for it," Eugene began, by way +of changing the theme. "You know you had a horribly rotten storm of +thunder and lightning and wind, and a cloudburst down the river valley +where our train was stuck in the mud, and the tracks were all lost in +the sand-drift and other vile debris. Well, coming up here from the +derailed train, some one said that the young fellow who had leased that +land, or owned the land, that is just above the sand-line, the poor +devil who had such a struggle, you know--well, he was lost when the +river overflowed its banks. But somebody else said he might be marooned, +half starved, on an island of sand out in the river, waiting for the +flood to go down. The roads are just impassable around there, so they +can't get in to see what has become of him. His house was washed away, +it seems--I saw a part of it in the river--but nobody knows where he is. +Hard luck, wasn't it? I know you'll be glad to leave this God-forsaken +country, won't you, dearie? How you ever stood it for three whole years +I can't comprehend. Only you always were the bravest girl I ever knew. +Just as soon as I paint a few of its drearinesses we'll be leaving it +forever. What's the matter?" + +Jerry Swaim had sprung to her feet and was standing, white and silent, +staring at her companion with wide-open, burning eyes. Against all the +culture and idle ease of her trivial, purposeless years were matched +these three times twelve months of industry and purpose that came at a +price, with the comradeship of one who had met life's foes and +vanquished them, who earned his increase, and served and sacrificed. + +"What's the matter, Jerry?" Gene repeated. "Did I shock you? It is a +tragical sort of story, I know, but you used to love the romantic and +adventurous. Every big storm, and every flood, has such incidents. I +never remember them a minute, except the storm that took Uncle Cornie +and left me a fortune. They are so unpleasant. But there is a touch of +romance in this for you. They told me that a young Norwegian girl down +there was moving heaven and earth to find this poor lost devil, because +he had been so good to her always and had helped her when her brother +was badly hurt. I guess her brother went down-stream, bottom side up, +too. See the drift of it all? The time, the place, and the girl--there's +your romance, Cousin Jerry, only the actors are terribly common, you +know." + +Who can forecast the trend of the human heart? Three days ago Jerry had +thought complacently of the convenience of this stout little Thelma for +Joe's future comfort. Now the thought that Thelma had seen him last, had +caught the last word, the last brave look, smote her heart with +anguish. + +"Doesn't anybody know where Joe is?" she cried, wringing her hands. + +"I don't know if his name is Joe. I don't know if anybody knows where he +is. I really don't care a sou about it all, Jerry." Gene drawled his +words intentionally. "The roads are awful down that way. They nearly +bumped me to pieces coming up, hours and hours, it seemed, in a wagon, +where a decent highway and an automobile would have brought me in such a +short time. It would be hard to find this Joe creature, dead or alive. +Let's talk about something more artistic." + +"Gene, I can't talk now. I can't stay here a minute longer. I _must_ go +and find this man. I must! I must!" + +In the frenzy of that moment, the strength of character in Jerry's face +made it wonderful to see. + +"Jerry!" Eugene Wellington exclaimed, emphatically. "You perfectly shock +me! This horrid country has almost destroyed your culture. Go and find +this man--" + +But Jerry was already hurrying up the street toward Ponk's Commercial +Hotel and Garage. + +<tb> + +"Miss Swaim, you can't never get by in a car down there," Ponk was +urging, five minutes later. "I know you can drive like--like you can +work algebra, logyruthms, and never slip a cog. But you'll never get +down the Sage Brush that far to-night. If them Norwegians on beyond the +ranch yon side of the big bend 'ain't done nothing, you just can't. The +Ekblads and the other neighbors will do all a body can, especially +Thelmy. The river's clear changed its channel an' you could run a car up +to the top of Bunker Hill Monument, back in New Hampshire, easier than +you could cut the gullies an' hit the levels of the lower Sage Brush +trail after this flood." + +"Get the car ready quick. _I want to go_," Jerry commanded, and Ponk +obeyed. A minute later a gray streak whizzed by the Macpherson home, +where Eugene Wellington stood on the porch staring in speechless +amazement. + +"Bless her heart!" he ejaculated, at length. "She is self-willed like +her dad. Aunt Darby always told me I'd have to manage her with gloves +on, but not to forget to manage her, anyhow." + +He strolled back to the Commercial Hotel, where the best-natured man in +Kansas lay in wait for him. + +"You're in early. Have a real cigar--a regular Havany-de-Cuby--off of +me. An' take a smoke out here where it's cool." + +Eugene took the proffered cigar and the seat on the side porch of the +hotel that commanded a view of the street clear to "Castle Cluny." + +"Town's pretty quiet this evenin'. All the men are gone up-stream or +down, to see if they can help in the storm region. Every store shut up +tight as wax. Three preachers, station-agent, the three movie men--gone +with the rest. We are a sympathetic bunch out here, an' rather quick to +get the S O S signal and respond noble." + +"So it seems," Eugene replied, wondering the while how he should be able +to kill the time till Jerry's return, resolving not to tarry here to +paint a single canvas. The sooner Geraldine Swaim was out of Kansas the +better for her perverted sense of the esthetic, and the safer for her +happiness--and his own. + +"Yes," Ponk was going on to say, "everybody helps. Why, I just now let +out the pride of the gurrage to a young lady. She's just heard that a +man she knows well is lost or marooned on a island in the floods of the +Sage Brush. And if anybody'll ever save him, she will. She's been doin' +impossible things here for three years, and the town just worships her." + +"I should think it would," Eugene Wellington said, with a sarcasm in his +tone. + +"It does," Ponk assured him. "She's the real stuff--even mother, out +yonder, loves her." + +The little man's face was turned momentarily toward the hill-slope +cemetery beyond the town. "And when a girl like that comes to me for my +fastest-powered car to go where no car can't go, for the sake of as good +a man as ever lived on earth, a man she's been _comrading_ with for +three years, and with that look in her fine eyes, they's no mistakin' to +any sensible man on God's earth why she's doin' it." + +"If my room is ready I'll go to it," Eugene broke in, curtly. + +"Yes, Georgette, call George to take the gentleman to number seven, an' +put him to bed." + +Then the little keeper of the Commercial Hotel and Garage turned toward +the street again, and his full-moon face went into a total eclipse. But +what lay back of that shadow of the earth upon it no man but Junius +Brutus Ponk could know. + + + + +XIX + +RECLAIMED + + +Down the Sage Brush trail Jerry Swaim's car swept on in spite of ruts +and gullies and narrow roadways and obstructing debris, flood-washed +across the land. But though the machine leaped and climbed and skidded +most perilously, nothing daunted the girl with a grip on the +steering-wheel. The storm-center of destruction had been at the big bend +of the river, and no hand less skilful, nor will less determined, would +have dared to drive a car as Jerry Swaim drove hers into the heart of +the Sage Brush flood-lands in the twilight of this June evening. + +Where the forks of the trail should have been the girl paused and looked +down the road she had followed three years before; once when she had +lost her way in her drive toward the Swaim estate; again, when she +herself was lost in the overwhelming surprise and disappointment of her +ruined acres; and lastly when she had come with Joe Thomson to recover +her stolen money from the old grub whose shack was close beside the deep +fishing-hole. The road now was all a part of the mad, overwhelming Sage +Brush hurrying its flood waters to the southeast with all its might. +Where was the flimsy little shack now, and where was the old Teddy Bear +himself? Did his shabby form lie under the swirling current of that +angry river, his heroic old heart stilled forever? + +A group of rescuers, muddy and tired, came around a growth of low bushes +on the higher ground toward her. All day they had been locating homeless +flood victims, rescuing stock, and dragging farm implements above the +water-line. The sight of Ponk's best car, mud-smeared and panting, +amazed them. This wasn't a place for cars. But the face of the driver +amazed them more. + +"Why, it's Miss Swaim, that teacher up at New Eden!" one man exclaimed. + +At the word, a boy, unrecognizable for the mud caking him over, leaped +forward toward Jerry's car. + +"What are you doing, Miss Swaim?" he cried. "You mustn't go any farther! +The river's undermined everything! Please don't go! Please don't!" he +pleaded. + +"Why, Clare Lenwell!" Jerry exclaimed, in surprise. + +"Yes. This isn't my full-dress I wore at Commencement the other night, +but I've been saving lives to-day, and feeding the hungry, too," the boy +declared, forgetting his besmeared clothing in the thought of his +service. + +"Tell me, Clare, where is Joe Thomson--I mean the young man whose ranch +is just below here." + +Clare's face couldn't go white under that mud, but Jerry saw his hand +tremble as it caught the edge of her wind-shield. + +"He's gone down-stream, I'm afraid. They say his home is clean gone. We +have been across the river and came over on that high bridge. I don't +know much about this side. They said Thelma Ekblad tried to save him and +nearly got lost herself. Her brother, the cripple, you know, couldn't +get away. Their house is gone now. He and the Belkap baby were given up +for lost when old Fishin' Teddy got to them some way. He knew the high +stepping-stones below the deep hole and hit them true every step. They +said he went nearly neck deep holding Paul and striking solid rock every +time. He'd lived by the river so long he knew the crossing, deep as the +flood was over it. Paul made him take the baby first, and he got out +with it, all right, and would have been safe, but he was bound to go +back for Paul, too; and he got him safe to land, where the baby was; but +I guess the effort was too much for the old fellow, and he loosed his +hold and fell back into the river before they could catch him. He saved +two lives, though, and he wasn't any use to the community, anyhow. A man +that lives alone like that never is, so it isn't much loss, after all. +But that big Joe Thomson's another matter. And he was so strong, he +could swim like a whale; but the Sage Brush got him--I'm afraid." + +Jerry's engine gave a great thump as she flung on all the power and +dashed away on the upper road toward Joe Thomson's ranch. + +"At the bend of the river you turn toward the three cottonwoods." Jerry +recalled the directions given her on her first and only journey down +this valley three years before. + +"Why, why, there is no bend any more!" she cried as she halted her car +and gazed in amazement and horror at the river valley where a broad, +full stream poured down a new-cut channel straight to the south. + +"Joe's home isn't gone at all! Yonder it stands, safe and high above the +flood-line. Oh, where did the river take Joe?" She twisted her hands in +her old quick, nervous way, and stiffened every muscle as if to keep off +a dead weight that was crushing down upon her. + +"He said if I wanted him he would be down beyond the blowout. I'm going +to look for him there. I don't know where else to go, and I want him." + +The white, determined face and firm lips bespoke Jim Swaim's own child +now. And if the speed of her car was increased, no one would ever know +that the thought of reaching her goal ahead of any possible Thelma might +be the impetus that gave the increase. + +"Yonder are the three cotton woods. From there I can see the oak-grove +and all of my rare old acres of sand. What beautiful wheat everywhere! +The storm seems to have hit the other side of the river as it runs now, +and left all this fine crop to Joe. But what for, if it took him?" + +Her quick imagination pictured possibilities too dreadful for words. + +<tb> + +Down in the oak-grove, Joe Thomson stood leaning against a low bough, +staring out at the river valley, with the shimmering glow of the +twilight sky above it. At the soft whirring sound of an automobile he +turned, to see a gray runabout coasting down the long slope from the +three cottonwoods. + +"Jerry!" The glad cry broke from his lips involuntarily. + +Jerry did not speak. After the first instant of assurance that Joe was +alive, her eyes were not on the young ranchman, but on the landscape +beyond him. There, billow on billow of waving young wheat breaking +against the oak-wood outpost swept in from far away, where once she had +looked out on nothing but burning, restless sand, spiked here and there +by a struggling green shrub. + +"What has done all this?" she cried, at last. + +"I'm partly 'what,'" Joe Thomson replied. The shadows were on his face +again, and his loss, after that moment of glad surprise, seemed to be +doubly heavy. + +"But how? I don't understand. I'm dreaming. You really are here, and not +dead, are you?" + +"No, you are not dreaming. I only wish you were," Joe responded, +gloomily. "But no matter. Yes, I'm here. 'Part of me lived, but most of +me died,'" he muttered Kipling's line half audibly. "I subleased your +land from the Macpherson Mortgage Company three years ago. The lease +expires to-day. You remember what it was worth when you saw it before. I +shall hand it over to you now, worth thirty dollars an acre. Thirty +thousand dollars, at the very least, besides the value of the crop. I +got beyond the blowout and followed it up. I plowed and planted. Lord! +how I plowed and planted! And as with old Paul and Apollos, it was God +who gave the increase." + +"Joe! Oh, Joe! You are a miracle-worker!" Jerry cried. + +"A worker, all right, maybe. And all life is a miracle," Joe declared, +gravely. + +"But your own land, Joe. They told me that your house was gone and that +maybe you had gone with it, and that these roads down here were +impassable and nobody could find you." + +Joe came to the side of the little gray car where Jerry sat with her +white hands crossed on the steering-wheel. Her soft white gown, fitted +for a summer afternoon on the Macpherson porch, seemed far more lovely +in the evening light down by the oak-trees. Her golden hair was blown in +little ringlets about her forehead, and her dark-blue eyes--Joe wondered +if Nature ever gave such eyes to another human being! + +"No, Jerry, my house isn't gone. My father built it up pretty high above +the river, and I saved almost everything loose before the flood reached +my place. It was the Ekblad house that went down the river. I went over +there to help Thelma get her brother and the baby to safety on the high +ground. She had started out to warn old Fishin' Teddy, thinking her own +family was secure, and afraid he would get caught. She could not get +back to them, nor anywhere else. I saved her, all right, but when I went +back after Paul and the baby, the home and those in it were gone +down-stream. Thelma thought we were all lost. That's how the story got +started. Old Teddy is gone, but I heard later that the others are saved. +Their home wasn't worth so very much. They got most of the real +valuable things--photographs of their dead father and mother, and the +family Bible, and deeds, and a few trinkets. Other things don't count. +Money will replace them. Anyhow, York Macpherson is buying their land at +a good figure. It will give Thelma the chance she's wanted--to go to a +college town and teach botany. She will make her way and carry a name +among educators yet, and support Paul and the baby, all right, too. Did +the folks miss me and say I had gone down the river? Well, I didn't. I'm +here. And as to all this"--he waved his hand toward the wheat--"I can +net a right good bank-account for myself and I can pay off the mortgage +I put on my claim to pay the lease on yours, and for steam-plows and +such things. It has been a bumper year for wheat down here. I have +reclaimed the land from the desert. It will revert to you now--you and +your artist cousin jointly, I suppose. The river helped to finish the +work for me--found its old bed in that low sandy streak where years ago +the blowout began. It has straightened its bend for itself and got away +from that ledge below the deep hole, and left the rest of the ground, +all the upper portion of the blowout, yours and mine, covered with a +fine silt, splendid for cultivation. The blowout is dead. It took hard +work and patience and a big risk, of course, and the Lord Almighty at +last for a partner in the firm to kill it off. Your own comes back to +you now. Can I be of any further service to you?" + +As he stood there with folded arms beside the car, tall and rugged, with +the triumph of overcoming deep written on his sad face, the width of the +earth seemed suddenly to yawn between him and the lucky artist who had +inherited a fortune without labor. + +"You have done more than to reclaim this ground, Joe," Jerry exclaimed. +"Miraculous as it all is, there is a bigger desert than this, the waste +and useless desert in the human heart. You have helped to reclaim to a +better life a foolish, romancing, daring girl, with no true conception +of what makes life worth while. All the Sage Brush Valley has been good +to me. York and Laura Macpherson in their well-bred, wholesome +friendship; little Mr. Ponk in his deep love for his mother and faith in +God; even old Teddy Bear, poor lost creature, in his sublime devotion to +duty, protecting the woman he had vowed once at the marriage altar that +he would protect; and, most of all"--Jerry's voice was soft and low--"a +sturdy, brave young farmer has helped me by his respect for honest labor +and his willingness to sacrifice for others. + +"Joe"--Jerry spoke more softly still--"when you said good-by the other +night in the storm, you told me that if I ever wanted you I'd find you +down beyond the blowout. The word was like a blow in the face then. But +to-night I left Cousin Gene up at New Eden and came here to find you, +because _I want you_." + +With all of Jim Swaim's power to estimate values written in her firm +mouth and chin, but with Lesa Swaim's love of romance shining in her +dark eyes, Jerry looked up shyly at Joe. And Joe understood. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Reclaimers, by Margaret Hill McCarter + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RECLAIMERS *** + +***** This file should be named 33959.txt or 33959.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/9/5/33959/ + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Roger Frank, Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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