CHAPTER VII.WILLETTE.
Willette, the only child of the Wright and Winkle pair, was a young person of considerable character, which had undergone little of the attempted modification which we call education. At the time of Olive’s arrival at Perfection City this child was about eleven years old, and was as wild a specimen of a girl as could be easily found even on the prairie. Her mother had endeavoured to clothe her in garments known as the “reform-dress,” and had made her a suit of lilac calico, consisting of short tunic, and full-gathered trousers of the prescribed pattern. Willette had put on these things and had promptly complained of “scratchiness” around the neck and arm-holes, owing probably to deficiency of skill on the part of her mother in the making of the said garments. Shortly afterwards, being called upon to do some cattle-hunting, Willette had set out in all the pride of her new clothes to ride down some young steers who were proving refractory. The steers took shelter in the bottom-land along Little Cotton Wood Creek, and skilfullyhid themselves in the brushwood there, among the trailing wild vines and the spiky wilder plums which formed a very good barrier against pursuing man. Willette plunged bravely into the brush, and after a fierce struggle returned with one steer and half her dress. The other half remained in the brush along with the rest of the steers. Repeated onslaughts reduced her almost to nakedness, but she brought home the full complement of steers and an abundant assortment of scratches on her legs. After that Willette had enough of her mother’s system of dress, and accordingly she evolved one of her own.
“I ain’t agoin’ to cattle-hunt in no more o’ your cobwebs, Ma,” explained this young person. “I reckon I’ll go a-ridin’ like a boy next time.”
Willette appropriated one of her father’s pants made of the material known as hickory, which is supposed to resist any tear or strain. The current legend attached to real out-and-out hickory is as follows. A farmer arrayed in hickory was one day rooting out old stumps from a newly-cleared field with a new patent plough. He came to a regular stunner which jerked the plough clean out of the land. He backed up, took a good hold of the plough-handles, gave a mighty yell to the horses, and drove the plough clean through the stump, which split open in the middle. The plough and the man passed through, but the stump closed up again and caught his hickory trousers. The horses strained at the collar, but the manwould not let go of the plough, nor would the stump relinquish its grasp of the hickory trousers. So he rested his horses a spell, took a big breath, and said “Hallelujah!” whereupon the horses went forward with a bound and brought plough, man, trousers, and stump along with them!
It was a garment of this incomparable material that Willette appropriated to her use. She cut off the legs until the length suited her stature, regardless of the fit of the waist, clothed the upper part of her body in a pink check shirt, put a boy’s cap upon her head, and announced her intention of henceforth dressing like that. She was a chip off the old block with a vengeance, and Mary Winkle, after one affrighted gasp, was obliged to admit that her own principles, as put into practice by her daughter, were too much for her. Wright laughed immensely, and said she was a boy now and would do first-rate.
Willette was totally uneducated, could not write her name and could scarcely read, but she did not lack for intelligence. She knew the hour of the day, by looking at the sun, as well as a negro, and she could distinguish a horse from a cow at four miles distance. She knew every beast for miles around, and to whom it belonged, and could remember for a month every cow she had come across on the prairie and which way it was heading. She understood the moods and intentions of all kinds of animals almost as if she was one of the speciesherself, and she never was at fault on a cattle-trail.
Olive found immense amusement in talking to Willette, who expressed herself with the utmost freedom upon all subjects in language which would have done credit to a nigger. The child, on the other hand, had a supreme contempt for Olive’s abilities and attainments, which seemed ludicrously deficient, but felt a kindly patronising sort of regard for her, and liked to look at her pretty face and touch her smooth round cheeks. The pair were therefore often together, and Willette undertook to teach her friend to ride, provided she would get some sensible clothes and ride in the only way that Willette imagined it possible for a two-legged human being to bestride a quadruped. Olive therefore made herself a bewitching riding-habit with Turkish trousers, and rode a high-peaked Mexican saddle, out of which even a sack of meal could not tumble if it tried. As soon as Olive began to feel confidence in herself and her horse, she enjoyed the riding immensely. She claimed the refusal of a horse on every possible opportunity when one could be spared from the farm work. Ezra, delighted to see her so pleased with a healthy exercise, encouraged her to go cattle-hunting with Willette, and enjoyed the spirited reports which she used to bring home from these exhilarating expeditions.
“I do wish I had a pony of my very own which I could take out whenever I wanted a ride, and whichwould be always there for me,” said Olive one day to Ezra after she had been riding by herself on Rebel. Ezra was hoeing up the newly sprouted sweet-corn, and the horses were not at work on the land. In his inmost heart he re-echoed the wish, and would at that moment have given anything to be an individualist and be able to say: “Darling, I’ll buy you a pony with the first load of corn I sell.” He looked at his pretty wife’s glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, and thought with a groan that he was tied by his principles and prevented by them and the public opinion of the Community from giving his wife this enjoyment. It was the first time that his heart had come into conflict with the perfect theories of Perfection City, and he was amazed and disturbed to find how very much he was vexed by them. Fortunately Olive dismissed the idea of a pony of her own as an unattainable bliss, and contented herself with chance rides on Rebel and Queen Katherine, the two horses which inhabited Ezra’s stable and were generally used by him on his side of the community-land.
Olive’s courage and spirit of independence, fostered by a very mild-tempered horse, grew apace. She soon felt able to dispense with the escort and instruction of Willette and go cattle-hunting alone. She learned quickly enough to know the sixty head of cattle belonging to the Community, and where to look for them. The cattle, which consisted of the usual mixture of milch cows, steers, yearlings, and calves, hadbeen bought at different times and were apportioned to the different families in rough division, chiefly because each woman liked to have the cows she was to milk, driven up to her own fence near to her own house to save trouble. The cattle, consequently, seemed to have become intensely individualistic in their tendencies, and absolutely refused to graze in common. Each bell-cow led off her own herd of steers and yearlings where she thought best on the prairie, and it was seldom that any two of those “leading ladies” chose to go to the same spot. If they did they generally quarrelled and fought a bit. Cattle-hunting, therefore, became a sufficiently diversified occupation in which the unexpected frequently occurred.
One day it happened that Olive and Diana, now old enough to run with her on her expeditions, had been to the head of Little Cotton Wood Creek to look for a cow that had hidden away her calf there, after the manner of prairie cows. Olive found the truant and the “little stranger,” along with half a dozen young cattle, and was driving them slowly homewards, when she became convinced from Rebel’s demonstrations that something was annoying him under the flap of his saddle. In fact he was constantly trying to bite Olive’s leg in a way which agitated her not a little. Accordingly she resolved to take off the saddle and make an inspection. She dismounted, undid the girths, and lifted off the heavy Mexican saddle. Rebel, who had always hitherto regarded this proceeding as indicatingimmediate liberty, no sooner felt the saddle removed than he took a base advantage of Olive, and kicking up his heels bounded away from her. She set the saddle in the grass and walked pacifically after Rebel, held out a deceitful hand and called him endearing names. Rebel listened to her honeyed words with his ears flat on his neck, and as soon as she came near, again kicked up his heels and bounded off.
Diana considering all this a joke in which a puppy might lend valuable assistance, now pranced forward with energetic barks, and the cows and calves deeming themselves to be driven with fierceness, set up a lumbering trot across the prairie, the new-made mother every now and then diving ineffectually after Diana with a plunge and a snort. A stampede had set in among the animals, and Olive sat down and cried with vexation and alarm. Her home showed clear and distinct against the horizon just four miles in a bee-line from where she sat shedding her ineffectual tears. Now Diana, although a feminine creature and also a puppy, and therefore endowed with a double dose of original foolishness, was likewise a dog, and consequently amenable to the highest inspirations of a noble nature. Having therefore in her character of puppy worried and distracted the animals to her heart’s content, she suddenly felt bound to exhibit some of the better sides of her nature, among which remains forever pre-eminent fidelity to the master. Seeing that Olive was not in the scrimmage, Dianaturned her back resolutely upon the delights of snapping at calves’ heels, and putting her nose to the ground raced straight back to Olive weeping in the grass. After an apologetic wriggle Diana sat down and looked at Olive. Now no philosopher or other mortal has ever succeeded in being as wise as a tired puppy can look. Therefore when Olive in spite of her woe caught sight of Diana’s face and attitude, she burst into a laugh in the midst of her tears, whereupon the latter sprang merrily up and licked her face. Thus comforted, Olive arose, and then became aware that she didn’t know where the saddle was. She had neglected to mark its position in any way when going on that deceitful embassy to Rebel, but indeed it would not have been easy to mark the position of the saddle. The grass was in its greatest summer height, and there was neither bush nor tree anywhere for miles around. There was not even a hillock or knoll of ground to give individuality to one spot more than another, all was the relentless rolling prairie—a vast grassy sea where one billow was exactly like a hundred others.
Olive was in dismay. Here was a fresh cause for tribulation, for the saddle was new and expensive, and moreover it belonged to the Community. She would not have minded facing Ezra with a tale of any sort of disaster or loss, for she knew he would kiss her and pet her and say, “Never mind, darling, don’t grieve, it doesn’t matter two jack-straws.” But a community-saddle was quite another matter, and Oliveshrank from the ordeal of community-anger at the loss of its saddle, and community-contempt for her carelessness in unsaddling on the prairie without putting the reins over her arm. She perceived now that anyone but a fool would have taken that simple precaution against disaster. “I’m not fit to live on the prairie,” sobbed Olive to herself. “My education is no use to me, and I have not got the wits of that boy-girl Willette. Diana, you idiot, why don’t you help me?”
This reproach was addressed to the puppy, who was wallowing blissfully in the grass and thus refreshing herself after her scamper. Olive began to walk aimlessly up and down in the hope of stumbling on the saddle, and Diana began to do likewise, but with far more system. Diana’s researches were speedily crowned with success, and she soon sat down to an uninterrupted gnaw at the flap of the big Mexican saddle. Becoming at length aware of the disappearance of Diana, Olive called to her, and the puppy reared a mischievous face over the grass some twenty yards away. Going to the spot, Olive perceived the saddle and also the depredations of Diana’s sharp teeth upon the flap. She whipped the dog with a stirrup leather most ineffectually and then said:
“What’s to be done now?” but Diana, feeling that her efforts had been badly rewarded, made no suggestions.
Indeed Olive’s plight after finding the saddle wasconsiderably worse than before. The thing was very heavy. Mexican saddles are built on wood, large, strong and ponderous, and weigh heavier and heavier in proportion to the distance one carries them. Olive put it on her shoulders and began to see stars, she then tried her head and found that position still worse. She dragged it along by a stirrup-leather and found she was ruining it. Then she sat down and cried, which was the most useless effort she had made. What was she to do? If she were to leave the saddle and walk home she would never be able to find it again. There was absolutely nothing to mark the spot. By this time the cattle were distant specks moving solemnly homewards, with Rebel decorously following in the rear. Olive decided to remain where she was until Rebel and the cattle, by their arrival without her, should have given the alarm, which would bring Ezra and the rest of the Community to the rescue, somewhere about the middle of the night, she supposed. It would be humiliating, but she thought it would be better than abandoning the saddle which she could not possibly carry. She sat down to wait with what patience she could for rescue and humiliation. There was nothing to expect along that weary stretch of grassy sea, and yet Olive kept looking and looking away to the north, east, south, and west. By and by she beheld a horseman coming up from the distant west and holding a slanting course which would carry him past Perfection City some mile or so to the north.She resolved to intercept this man and ask his aid, so she stood up and signalled wildly with her hat. Of course he saw her instantly, although he was a couple of miles away, and equally of course he at once turned his horse towards her and set off at a gallop. People on the prairie ask and give help freely, and Olive had not the slightest hesitation in calling this unknown horseman up to her aid, although she had not the remotest idea who he might be. Probably he was a cattle-hunter like herself, at any rate a man and a horse would be able to give her and her saddle effectual assistance. The man galloped steadily on and soon took the ordinary appearance: big hat, red shirt, riding boots, belt with probably a revolver somewhere in it. He slowed up a little as he came near and seemed to be very intently looking at Olive.
“I am very sorry to have troubled you,” began Olive.
“Don’t mention it. I shall be delighted if I can be of use,” said the man, taking off his big hat.
They both stopped short and looked hard at each other, for their speech had mutually revealed the fact that they were a lady and a gentleman, a most uncommon encounter on the Kansas prairie beyond the last bit of cultivated land.
“Have you had an accident? Are you hurt?” asked the man, jumping off his horse and mechanically slinging the bridle-rein over his left arm, as Olive noted with some self-reproach. She told him whathad happened, and she saw a smile creep round his mouth and light up his blue eyes.
“That is easily remedied. I feared you must have been thrown,” said he. “Just mount my horse. He’s quiet. I’ll take you home.”
“But the saddle,” said Olive looking very anxiously at that burden.
“Oh! that’s nothing,” said the stranger. “I’ll carry it on my arm.”
“You must not dream of such a thing. I could not think of allowing it. You are very kind, I am sure, but if you would take up the saddle in front of you that is all I want. The saddle is the only difficulty. I can walk quite well. I live in that house over there on the brow of the bluff. It is not far, but I could not carry that terrible saddle.”
“Why, that’s Perfection City, where the Communists live,” said he, looking at her curiously.
“Yes, I live there,” replied Olive with a slight blush, noting the look.
“And are you a communist, if I may presume to ask the question?” queried the stranger.
“My husband was one of the founders of the—the—of Perfection City,” said Olive, valiantly determined to defend the absent.
“But you are not one of the original members. You are surely a new-comer. I know most of them, by sight at all events.”
“I am Mrs. Weston,” replied Olive with dignity.
The stranger again took off his hat, as if this were an introduction.
“I have seen your husband then, a magnificent specimen of manhood, to judge from the only example I had of his physical strength.”
Olive felt at once mollified. Meanwhile, the stranger had shortened the stirrup-leathers of his horse, and turning to Olive he said,
“And now, Mrs. Weston, allow me to give you a hand up to mount you on my big horse. He is quite gentle and I will hold the bridle.”
Olive hesitated. “I don’t like to take your horse,” she said. “If you would be so kind as to leave the saddle——”
“No, no, you must not deprive me of the pleasure of your company,” interposed the stranger. “We will manage the saddle all right. Just spring up. Your riding-habit is admirably adapted for prairie life, and the prettiest I ever saw. Pardon my bluntness, but I am so little used to society, I fear I am very rough.”
“You don’t fear anything of the sort,” replied Olive quickly. “You are perfectly aware that your manners are infinitely superior to the article in general use hereabouts.”
The man laughed pleasantly at this sally. “Well, let me amend my pleading,” said he, “and say, it is so long since I met a lady in these wilds, and that is true enough, Heaven knows!”
Olive mounted the big horse with the dextrous help of his hand and signed to him to give her the saddle.
“I couldn’t think of it,” said he, thrusting his arm under the saddle and hoisting it on to his shoulder. “It would be unspeakably uncomfortable for you to hold, with the stirrups whacking you at every step.”
“Then you shall put it on the horse’s neck in front of me, or I’ll hop down this instant. It’s bad enough to appropriate your horse without making you carry my saddle as well.”
Seeing her so determined, he, with a slight show of reluctance, placed the saddle on the neck of his horse, who after a shake or two submitted to the burden, and so they eventually turned homewards.
“I suppose you are not surprised that we settlers out here take considerable interest in your experiment in communism,” remarked the man as they walked along.
“No doubt anything out of the common excites comment,” said Olive guardedly, “but I should not have thought you could be classed as a settler out here. I have seen a good many, and know the type.”
She felt interested in the man and curious to know who he was, he seemed so utterly different from all those she had hitherto met.
“I have lived here, nevertheless, for some years now. I have a farm on the north side of Big CottonWood Creek. My name is Cotterell. Have you ever heard it?”
“No, I never heard the name, but then I’ve only been here a very short time, only two months. I—that is, we came in May,” said Olive blushing somewhat.
The stranger smiled a winning smile and looked up at her face as he answered,
“I see you have only just come, and come as a bride to Perfection City. It has a very suitable sound in that connection.”
He again lifted his hat, and Olive blushed more vividly still.
“The prairie does not seem a very hopeful place for experiments in perfection,” continued the stranger. “To my eyes it looks a most God-forsaken place, but under certain circumstances I should be disposed to modify that view.”
“I think any place will do to try and live a good life in, and that is what is aimed at in our little Community,” said Olive, standing bravely to her defence.
He was silent for a time and then spoke again.
“Any place can be made better by the presence of a good woman, I think.”
“We want to show how it is possible to banish some of the evil out of life,” said Olive, marshalling the expressions she had heard at the Academy with what skill she could.
“With some it is only necessary to be what Godmade them in order to banish evil from their presence,” said he.
“And we have a very noble woman as leader,” said Olive not quite sure of his meaning.
“Ah, indeed! You praise her, that should count for much. There are very mixed reports about her character on the prairie. Many seem to dislike and distrust her.”
“As for that I suppose there are mixed reports about us all,” observed Olive impartially.
“Indeed there are. For instance, it is most confusing what people say concerning the extent to which you carry your communistic theories. Some assert that there is no limit and that you are logical.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Olive, knitting her brows.
“I presume now that the land is held in common?”
“Yes, certainly, and the farm implements and the horses and cows,” answered Olive.
“All those don’t really touch the question. You live in separate houses, I believe.”
“Of course we do. I should hate not having my own little house. It would be like a hotel or a penitentiary for all to live under one roof. I wouldn’t do it for worlds. We have our home-life just like other people, but I should like to have a pony of my own, only I suppose my husband would not thinkit right to have a horse that was not a community-horse.”
“What a confounded shame! I beg your pardon. You see I am rough. I mean, I think your husband ought to get you a pony, a nice well-trained lady’s pony, for you to ride, and not a big farm-horse.”
“I should like one,” observed Olive simply, and then suddenly remembering that she was speaking to a stranger, she added hastily, “I mean it would be nice to have a horse always at hand, one not liable to be wanted for farm work.”
“I just happen to know of an excellent animal that would suit you down to the ground. It belongs to Tom Mills, and he wants to sell it. It will go cheap too. If you would speak to your husband about it, I would bring it over for you to look at. Mills lives close to my house.”
“No, pray don’t,” said Olive anxiously. “I am ever so much obliged to you, but I really ought not to have spoken about it.”
“Very well,” said he, seeing she was distressed, “we’ll not pursue the subject further.” But in his own mind he reflected that were he in Weston’s place, he would have got that pony for his wife, principles or no principles, and it is highly probable that he would have done so.
He left Olive and her saddle at her own door, refusing her invitation to enter, saying that he wouldavail himself of her permission to come some other day to see her. And she cordially invited him to do so, for was not hospitality one of the commonest virtues of the prairie, and surely Perfection City must not be behindhand in the practice thereof?