THE young cowbird, perched tail to windward on a stone beside the road, raised his head, and uttered a hoarse cry of hunger and lonesomeness as a great black flock of his own kind, sweeping by on its way to the grazing herd in the gully, shadowed the ground about him for an instant.
"Look-see! look-see!" he called plaintively, rolling his eyes and ruffling his throat; "look-see! look-see!"
But the flock, dipping and rising in swift flight, sped on unheeding. The long summer day was drawing to a close over the prairie, and with early evening myriads of gnats and mosquitos swarmed up from the sloughs to drink their fill on the flanks of the stamping cows. The insects offered a fat supper to the birds as they clung to the twitching hides of the cattle. So the flock was hastening to reach the gully before milking-time.
The young cowbird called disconsolately again and again after the shadow of the flockwas far away, making a moving blot across the darkening plains. Then, discouraged, he tucked his head under his wing, clutched the stone more tightly with his claws, and rocked gently back and forth as the soft south breeze spread his tail, lifted his growing pinions, and blew his new feathers on end.
He was a tramp and the descendant of a long line of tramps, all as black and hoarse and homeless as himself. A vagabond of the blackbird world, he had, like many an unfeathered exile, only sleep to make him forget his empty craw, and only a wayside rock for his resting-place.
He had been an outcast from the beginning. One day in the spring his tramp mother, too shiftless to build a home for herself, had come peeping and spying about the fuzzy nest of some yellow warblers that had built in an elder-bush by the river; and finding the birds away, had laid a big white egg speckled with brown in the midst of four dainty pale-blue ones that were wreathed with tiny dots. Then she had slipped away as quickly as possible, abandoning her own to the more tender mercies of the little canary pair.
It was the warblers' first nesting, or they would have known, the moment they saw the large egg among their small ones, that they had been imposed upon, and would either havepushed the interloper out or built a second story to their home and left the cowbird's egg in the basement. But they were young and inexperienced, so they had only wondered a little at the size and color of their last lay, and let it remain.
The weeks had passed. Then, one day, there had been a great chattering about the warm cup of milkweed fiber and thistle-down in the elder-bush, husky cheeping from the nest mingling with the joyous chirps of the mother-bird as she tilted and danced on its edge or fluttered ecstatically above it; and from the end of a swaying twig close by had swelled the proud song of the male.
The big egg had hatched.
When the first nestling had freed himself from his shell and tried his long, wabbly legs, he opened a wide-gaping, clamorous red mouth above his naked little body; and this set the yellowbirds on such persistent and successful searches after worms, that by the time the young cowbird's foster brothers and sisters were out, he had grown big and strong. So the newer babies had been squeezed from the cozy center of their warm home to a place on its chilly rim.
Affairs in the nest had soon come to a sad pass. The little warblers' weak voices and short necks were not able to win the reward oftidbits claimed by the young cowbird, who ruthlessly stood upon them as he snatched his food from the bills of the yellowbirds. One by one they sickened and died, and were then pushed out into the wet grass below. After that the young cowbird had been fed faster and more fondly than ever.
One afternoon, when the warblers were away foraging for the nest, the cowbird, now well feathered, had tried his wings a little, and had flown to a clump of tall weeds not far off. Alighting safely, and emboldened by success, he had eluded a hungry snake that hunted him across the gopher knolls, and finally gone on to the top of the hill. When twilight came he had found a perch in a pile of tumbleweed, far from the sheltering bushes by the river. So the warblers, coming home late with two long wrigglers for him, had found the nest empty. They had darted anxiously about it for a while, then the male had settled upon a swinging elder-branch to sing a mournful song to his mute, grief-stricken mate.
Their last baby was gone.
Whenthe little girl came trudging along the road that evening on her way to the farm-house, she sat down for a moment opposite the stone on which the cowbird was perched. And after examining a sand cut that was giving her sometrouble under her little toe, she suddenly caught sight of the dumpy black ball that was moving back and forth with every gust. She leaned forward on her knees to see what it was, and crept slowly toward him until she was within reach. Then, before he had time to take his head from under his wing, she put out one hand and seized him.
He was terribly frightened and struggled to get free, pushing vigorously against her fingers with wings and claws. But she only tightened her grasp as he fought, and he was soon so closely held that he could not move. She forgot her sore toe in her happiness over catching him, and started homeward on the run. As she bounded along, he watched her with his small, scared eyes.
On reaching the farm-house the little girl put him into a rough slat cage that hung in her room; and while he stretched his cramped legs, and opened his crumpled wings, she hurried to the window, where she captured a handful of house-flies. She placed them in front of him, and he retreated to the farthest corner of the cage, to beat the bars in terror. But after she had hidden herself behind the headboard of the bed, he came forward and ate up the flies without stopping to take a breath between gulps. Then he snuggled down on a piece of her worn-out woolen dress, and went to sleep again.
Though the little girl was yet only five and a half years old, she had tried many times in her life, without success, to make the slat cage the home of some feathery pet. Snipes and plover, orioles and ovenbirds, bobolinks and meadow-larks, all had lived in it by turns for a few days. But the snipes and plover had gone into a decline, the orioles and ovenbirds had grown thin and unkempt, and the bobolinks and meadow-larks had eaten themselves to death. Sorrowful over so much misfortune, she had longed to secure a hardy bird that would not only live in captivity, but would repay her loving care with songs.
The young cowbird proved to be just what she had wanted. Every day he grew larger, plumper, and hungrier; and though he was not a song-bird, his attempts at melody, made with much choking and wheezing and many wry faces,—as if the countless flies he had swallowed were sticking in his throat,—pleased her more than carols. Within a week after his capture he was so tame that he would sit on her shoulder as she walked about her room and peck at her teeth. She was certain that he was giving her so many loving kisses; but her big brothers unsympathetically explained that he thought she had some kernels of corn between her lips.
It was not long before he was allowed the freedom of the sitting-room a little while everyafternoon, and the little girl always sat and watched him as he walked solemnly about it, taking long steps, calling happily in his husky voice, and pecking curiously at the bright rags in the crocheted rug.
This freedom worked wonders with his plumage. His dark brown head fairly shone, his sable breast and back grew glossy, and his wings took on faint, changing tints of purple and blue. His jet rudder, daily dressed to its iridescent tip by his ebony beak, was flicked jauntily as he strode around on his long black legs. And all this alert, engaging beauty won the friendship of the farm-house, including even that of the little girl's big brothers, who advised her to clip his wings if she wanted to keep him; for when he had once reached full size, they said, he would fly away to join the cowbird colonies up the river. But the little girl would never consent to any use of the scissors.
Throughout the remainder of the summer he went everywhere with her, perching on her shoulder when she drove the cattle to the meadows, riding with her on the pinto if she were sent on an errand, or walking beside her in the farm-yard. He never flew far from her, and could always be coaxed back if she whistled and showed her teeth. They spent many an afternoon together on the prairie while the littlegirl herded. And when the cows were headed away from the wheat and were grazing quietly, he would leave her and fly to the back of Liney, the muley, where he would walk up and down the broad, white mark that ran from her horns to her tail, and catch insects. Liney, who liked the sharp thrust of his bill where a mosquito had been stinging, was careful not to wiggle her hide and scare him away. At dinner-time he joined the little girl and shared her gingerbread.
One night, just before the cows started for the milking-pen, a big flock of cowbirds flew down and alighted in the midst of them, some of the birds perching upon the backs of the cattle to catch their supper. When the little girl saw the black company, she looked around for her bird, but could not tell him from the others. There were three perched upon Liney's back, and, hoping that one of them was he, she ran toward the cow, calling softly and showing her teeth. But as she came close, the three flew away to the roan heifer. Half weeping, she ran after them, calling still, and smiling to entice him. The birds rose into the air again, this time alighting around the farthest cow in the herd.
Overwhelmed with sorrow, the little girl turned back to where the cattle-gad lay, holding her apron up to her wet eyes as she stumbled miserably along. But just as she flung herselfdown beside the whip, there came a harsh call from behind her, where the lunch-pail stood. It was the cowbird.
"Look-see! look-see!" he cried, pecking at the brown paper that held the gingerbread. Jumping up, the little girl ran to him and caught him tenderly to her breast.
He was so inquisitive that he soon became unpopular at the farm-house, and on several occasions all but had his neck wrung for wrongdoing. One day he picked the eldest brother's fiddle-strings in two; another time he was discovered digging holes in the newly baked loaves of bread that had been set in a window to cool; and, again, he stole hot potatoes out of a kettle on the kitchen stove. But whenever danger threatened, the little girl championed him valiantly. So time after time he escaped merited punishment, which was to have been not less than death or exile; for he was too small to whip.
But one morning in the early fall he was confronted with a very grave charge—one that was, if proved true, to cost him his life or his home: the little girl's mother, on going into the kitchen at sunrise to prepare breakfast, discovered all her crocks of milk disturbed and the shelf behind the stove, on which they stood in a long, yellow row, spattered with milk from end to end. As she turned, very puzzled, from theshelf to the table, she saw the cowbird gravely walking about on the white oil-cloth.
"Look-see! look-see!" he cried to her, flirting his tail and blinking his eyes. "Look-see! look-see!"
She ran to the table and seized him angrily in her hands, certain that he had forsaken his own little pan of water to bathe in the milk. But when she had looked him over carefully, and found him dry and tidy from top to toe, she let him go again, forgetting to feel of the white oil-cloth upon which he had been promenading, and which was spattered with milk like the shelf.
Before the contents of the crocks were thrown out that morning, the little girl's mother called all of the big brothers in to view the mess; and by the time breakfast was over, the cowbird had been passed around, for every one wanted to see if any milk could be found on him. None was discovered, however, so the little girl was allowed to carry him away in triumph on her shoulder.
For two or three mornings after that the milk was not visited by the marauder. Then for several days in succession it was splashed about on shelf, stove, and floor, and the little girl's mother was more puzzled than ever. The cowbird was no longer under suspicion, for the big brothers had not been able to fasten the guiltupon him, since his feathers were always as sleek and shining as the coat of a curried horse.
It was decided to poison a part of the milk for several nights and put the rest carefully in the cupboard. This was done; but though morning after morning the shelf was sprinkled as badly as ever, no dead body of cat, bird, or wild animal was ever found in the kitchen to solve the mystery. So a new plan was adopted, and tin pans were put upside down over the crocks to keep the nightly visitor out.
This arrangement worked well for a week or more; then one morning there was a terrific rattling and banging in the kitchen, followed by deathly stillness. Certain that the disturber of the milk was at hand, the entire family rushed pell-mell through the sitting-room and down the entry to the kitchen door, which they flung wide open, and excitedly peered in. On the floor lay a tin pan that had been knocked from its place, and in one side of it was a large dent where it had struck the stove in falling. The milk in the uncovered vessel was not disturbed, and there was no sign of any living thing in the room.
Baffled and wondering, they returned to their beds. But the little girl, before going back to hers, remained behind a moment to look for the cowbird. At last she spied him, perched high up on the elbow of the stovepipe. He wastrembling violently, and his glossy, black feathers were standing out—straight on end.
The neighbor woman, who dropped in that noon, made a suggestion that the big brothers decided to act upon. She declared that the kitchen visitor was a milk-snake, and that one night spent on the watch without a light would prove her correct. So that very evening, the eldest brother, wrapped in a buffalo robe and a pair of blankets, sat on a bench behind the kitchen door, resolved to keep awake till morning in wait for the mysterious disturber. The rest of the family prepared for bed, after providing him with the musket, powder and buck-shot, and the clothes-stick; and on looking in upon him before retiring, found him sitting grimly in his corner, the musket leaning against one shoulder, while upon the other perched the cowbird.
The sun was just rising next day when the little girl's mother awoke. She was surprised at not having been aroused earlier by the noise of an encounter, and, accompanied by the little girl and the other big brothers, tiptoed quickly but softly down the entry to listen. All was quiet. She pushed the kitchen door open a little to look at the crocks. They had not been molested. Then she put her head in. As she did so, the husky cry of the cowbird came from the bench behind the door.
"Look-see! look-see!" he called, as he walked up and down the eldest brother from head to foot; "look-see! look-see!"
And the family, entering, beheld the eldest brother stretched upon the bench—fast asleep.
He was so provoked at having been found napping that, when he heard their laughter and awoke, he grabbed the cowbird and threw him across the kitchen. The cowbird lighted upon his feet unhurt, and started boldly back again. But the little girl was frightened over his bad treatment, and running to him, took him up tenderly, and carried him to her room. He was put into the slat cage for the rest of the day, and for several weeks after that slept in it every night.
It was now autumn. The husked corn filled the cribs to bursting, the wheat lay in yellow heaps on the granary floor, and the hay, stacked high, stood along the north side of the low, sod barn in a sheltering crescent. There was little left to do on the farm before the winter set in, and the cold mornings found the family astir very late. So one raw day, when the fields and prairie without lay white in a covering of thick frost, it was after sun-up before the little girl's mother entered the kitchen.
It had been so long since the milk had been disturbed that she had neglected for a week or more to cover the crocks, and did not even givethe shelf a glance as she hurriedly lighted a twist of hay; but as she stooped to poke it into the stove, a quavering, plaintive, raspy voice above her made her start back and stare upward.
There on the edge stood the cowbird, his head drooping and his wings half spread. But he was no longer black. From his crown to his legs he was covered with a coating of frozen milk that, hiding his glossy plumage, turned him into a woefully bedraggled white bird; while from the ends of his once glistening tail feathers hung little icicles that formed an icy fringe.
"Look-see! look-see!" he mourned, closing his eyes and lifting one stiff leg from his perch. "Look-see! look-see!"
A moment later, hearing the sound of loud laughter in the kitchen, the little girl got out of bed and ran to find out what was the matter. But when she caught sight of the cowbird on the shelf before the row of big brothers, she did not join in the merriment. Instead, she turned very white and crept back to bed again without a word, taking the cowbird with her, cuddled under her arm.
Whenthe sun stood over the farm-house and the frost was gone from the plains, the little girl climbed upon her pony's back and, with thecowbird perched on her shoulder, started northward up the river. Her face was whiter than it had been that morning, and she had no happy chatter with which to answer him as he chirruped to her gaily and leaned forward from time to time to peck at her teeth. Her ears were still ringing with her big brothers' laughter, and with the pitiless command that had driven the cowbird forth to the prairies again—a wing-clipped tramp and an outcast! Straight on she rode to the river meadows where the cowbird colonies lived.
Once there, she got down carefully from her horse and, after placing her pet gently upon a stone, took from her pockets a crust, part of a shriveled apple, a chunk of gingerbread, and a cold boiled potato. These she placed in front of him on the ground. Then she took him up, parted her lips to let him peck her teeth once more, held him against her breast for a long, bitterly sad moment, and mounting, rode away.
When she was only a rod or so from him, the cowbird tried to follow. But his maimed wings would not obey, and he fell back to the ground again and again. Then he walked a few steps after the retreating pony, and, finding that the little girl was getting farther and farther away every moment, hopped upon a big rock beside the road, and called after her pleadingly.
"Look-see! look-see!" he cried, rolling his eyes and swelling his shining throat; "look-see! look-see!"
But the little girl rode straight on, and never looked back to see.
IT was only a little way to the school-house in the winter-time because the big brothers could cross the chain of sloughs to it on their skates; but, in the autumn, before the ice was thick, the path led snake-like beside the eastern border of the water, just skirting the frill of green bulrushes and tall marsh-grass, and it was a long distance.
The school-house stood in a wide glade that was the favorite grazing-spot of a band of antelope. It was narrow and unpainted, with two windows on each side and a door in one end. And from its roof, which was not too high for a game of "anti-I-over," protruded a joint of rusty stovepipe. During spring and summer the building stood empty, with the whole sloping green place to itself and the pronghorns, and in every high wind it toppled over, with its pipe pointing to the east, until it was pried into place again. But, after school "took up" in the fall, the glade rang with the laughter and shouts of the scholars, and theantelope crossed the Vermillion and traveled to the rugged country farther west, where, when the snow fell and hid the dried grass, they could browse off the bushes; and the school-house did not topple any more, for its deep coal-bins, which were built against the wall by the door, were full to the brim.
Often on warm summer afternoons, the little girl rode down to the glade beyond the sloughs and, sitting her horse quietly, induced a tawny doe and her twin kids to approach by exciting their curiosity with her bright red flannel petticoat. But if she took the herd along, she did not dare display her skirt, for Napoleon did not like it and had, on one occasion, viciously gored the Indian pony in the ribs when the little girl was busy coaxing the deer. After a wind-storm she liked to climb from her pony to the overturned school-house and walk about on it. Once, she slipped on a window-pane, when she was peering in, and fell through; and would have had to remain there a long time (for the door was locked), if she had not thought to pull the joint of stovepipe out of the roof and crawl through the hole to freedom.
But she had never been near the building when the teacher was in charge. She did not want to go to school, because she meant to learn her lessons at home the way her mother had,—andher mother had been taught byhermother, and, after that, by a governess. The little girl had never talked the matter over at the farm-house, however, for she never doubted that the governess, whatever that was, would come all in good time.
So her surprise and grief were great when she heard one day that she was to learn her lessons from the lanky Yankton man who presided over the school, and along with the other little girls who lived near enough to attend. She held one tearful argument after another with the eldest brother, declaring that she could read and study at home. But he said that a young one nearly six years old ought to know something more than stories—something about the world and arithmetic.
Secretly the little girl did not think it was of any use going to school, for she believed the teacher did not know much. She had even heard the biggest brother say so. And she knew thatsheknew a great deal. As soon as she could eat with a spoon, she had begun to hold the almanac up in front of her; and she had spoken her first word at fourteen months. It was "Man," and her mother often related how it happened.
She was rocking the little girl to sleep, she said, and singing,
"There was a little man,And he had a little gun,"
when there sounded a small voice from the cradle. "Man," it said, and the little girl's mother, peeking over the side, saw two wide-open blue eyes. After that, when she was being rocked to sleep, the little girl always said, "Man." Three months later, she had begun to talk in whole sentences. At three years she had been able to make all her letters and read several words, having been taught secretly by the biggest brother. At four, she knew the youngest brother's reading lessons by heart, and could spell every word in the First Reader. At this stage of her education, she put aside such baby things as the "Mother Goose Rhymes," and was deeply interested in the doings of the "Swiss Family Robinson." Winter nights, she had listened to an ever increasing number of stories that were read aloud by her mother. And now she was occupied with "Gulliver." But she did not know one of her multiplication tables, and the neighbor woman, for one, was greatly disgusted with her, and declared that she did not know whatever would become of the child.
The morning the little girl started to school, with her Second Reader under one arm, it was so cold that her breath looked like puffs of white steam. Her mother thought she had better walk instead of ride, and bundled her up warmly in a big plaid shawl, her beaver cap, and her thick mittens. When she set off,she was accompanied by the youngest brother, who was going to be a visitor during the morning session. The dogs, with the exception of Luffree (who could not be found), had been chained up along the sunny side of the house to keep them from following her. And as they saw her disappearing across the reservation road, they jumped back and forth, pulling at their collars and howling dismally.
The little girl did not look around at them. Her heart was heavy. All the unhappiness that had been visited upon her that autumn weighed it down. Every day, before sunrise, she had had to get up and eat a raw carrot, because the neighbor woman had prescribed it as a cure for a certain livid spot that had made its appearance on the little girl's cheek, and was thought to be a cancer. The little girl knew that the carrot-eating was useless, since the spot was only the mark of an unsuccessful attempt at tattooing; but she did not care to explain. Then, the cowbird had been sent away; and, as a last blow, she had been told to go to school.
There was no doubt in her mind that her misfortunes were due wholly to the fact that she had precisely thirteen freckles on her pink nose. She had never been able to count them because, when she had covered ten of the tiny brown spots with as many fingers, so much of her nose was hidden that she could count nofurther. But the biggest brother had assured her that she had them, and that was enough.
She was very tired when they came in sight of the school-house, and the youngest brother had to tug her along by the hand. Luffree, who had come in sight over a hillock ahead of them when they were part way, trotted at her heels and looked up wistfully at her as she half walked, half ran, complaining at every step. Now and then he jumped up and tried to lick her face sympathetically. But she would not let him, for she knew he had warts on his muzzle that he had caught the summer before while teasing a toad.
The school-room was full of smoke and noise when they entered. The scholars were laughing and talking as they crowded about the tall, round stove; and it was sending black, sooty breath into their faces from every crevice of its loosely hung doors. But shortly afterward the noise was silenced by the teacher, who brought his hands together with a resounding clap.
All the pupils in the room, except the little girl, had been to school to him the year before and knew what the signal meant. So she suddenly found herself the only one left standing in the middle of the floor, the girls having preempted the row of benches on the right, and the boys that on the left. But she was notabashed, and her corkscrew curls danced on her shoulders as she looked about.
"Sit down, sit down!" came in whispers from both sides. She took no notice of them, and the teacher, busily preparing the roll-call at his table, did not hear. But soon a ripple of laughter from the school, and a voice from the stove, interrupted his work, and brought him scowling to his feet.
The little girl was standing with one arm extended and one small forefinger pointing past him at the globe, which, for want of a better, was but a fat pumpkin ingeniously impaled on a stick, and peeled over part of its surface in such a manner that the five oceans were represented, while the portion yet unpeeled showed the rude outlines of the six continents.
"We've got lots of pumpkins bigger 'n that at our house," she was saying, her face turned toward "Frenchy," an up-river trapper who studied geography and English spelling between his rounds of the sloughs. "Why, the cellar'sfullof 'em."
The teacher rapped briskly on the table with his pencil, to call her to order. "Look here," he said, a little crossly, "you mustn't talk out like that. Sit down."
"No seat," she faltered, lowering her voice.
He looked up and down the girls' row; there were only four seats in it, and they were full.The boys' benches were not; but, loath to lessen the terrors of a favorite punishment, he hesitated to put her there. "Come up to the rostrum, then," he said.
The little girl walked slowly forward, and a flush stole up her throat and mounted to her temples. But when she was once seated, her sailor-hat on one side and her Second Reader on the other, she felt less demeaned; for the rostrum commanded a view of the whole room, and from it she could see Luffree, fast asleep under the youngest brother's bench.
The teacher went back to the roll-call, and the pupils droned the time away till recess. Then the boys rummaged through their willow baskets for something to eat and went out to play "prisoner's base." But the girls—the neighbor woman's daughter, and the seven belonging to the Dutchman who lived at the Vermillion's forks—stayed in, gathered in a silent circle about the rostrum, fingered the big gold brooch that the little girl's mother had let her wear as a reward for attending, and looked her up and down, from the scarlet bow on her hair to her fringed leggings. And she, never having seen the Dutchman's children before, forgot to be polite, and stared back at their denim dresses, pigtails, and wooden shoes.
When school took up again, the Swede boy was told to put his sums on a bit of tar-paperedwall near him, and a mixed class in reading lined up in front of the teacher's table. Soon, however, the room was again quiet. The Swede boy and the class sat down, and the whole school, made sleepy by the warmth from the stove, lounged on their benches and drowsed on their books, and even the little girl, sitting idly on the rostrum, nodded wearily. But right in the midst of the silence, and just before the pupils were dismissed for noon, something so startling happened that the little girl's curls fairly stiffened in alarm.
The teacher clapped his hands, the children followed with a hurried banging of their books and slates, and, instantly, before the little girl had time to think what it all meant, the scholars, with one accord, began to roar at the top of their lungs.
"Scotland's burning! Scotland's burning!"
they cried, rapping their knuckles upon their desks in the rhythm of galloping horses,—
"More water! More water!Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!More water! More water!"
The little girl straightened herself and a gray light crept up to where the flush had been, so that every freckle of the hateful thirteen stood out clearly. Near her, the teacher wasstanding, with his feet planted wide apart and his eyes raised to the ceiling. And before him, shouting and pounding and staring with crimson faces into his, were the pupils.
"Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!"
they yelled. It brought back to the little girl that terrible moment when the farm-house, with a dripping-pan full of hog-fat flaming in the oven, was threatened with destruction.
"Scotland's burning! Scotland's burning!"
sounded the warning again. No one moved. But, not knowing just how near Scotland might be, and fearful for her safety with danger so imminent, she did not wait longer. Clutching her hat and book, with a bound she cleared the distance to the youngest brother, and, with a stifled cry, leaped into his arms.
But in her excitement she had forgotten Luffree, lying asleep under the bench, and had jumped squarely upon one soft, outstretched paw. The dog sprang up with a howl of pain, the school stopped its singing, and the angry teacher left the rostrum and advanced toward the little girl. The next moment he dragged the dog from under the bench by the scruff of the neck and hurled him out of the door; the next, he shook an admonishing finger in the very face of the thirteen unlucky freckles.
Latethat afternoon, the eldest brother paddled across the sloughs in the bull-boat, and had a talk with the teacher. The teacher lived in the Irishman's shack, which was made of cottonwood logs laid one upon another and covered with a roof of sticks and dirt, and "bached" by himself through the term, because the little girl's mother had refused to board him. So, when the eldest brother had finished his visit and rowed back, he recited such an ill-natured version of that day's happenings at the school-house, that the family, until then divided by the contradictory stories of the youngest brother and the little girl, united in heaping reproaches upon her.
Next morning she again traveled the winding path that skirted the marsh-grass and bulrushes, this time on the pinto. Luffree, who had been tied up at breakfast, but had mysteriously slipped his collar, followed, as before. When she arrived within a short distance of the school-house, she climbed down and, without taking any notice of the giggling, waiting crowd by the door, carefully picketed the mare out of reach of the other ponies. Then she pulled off the bridle, put it beside the picket-pin, and, after bidding Luffree watch beside it, went in quietly to take her seat. She had not unblanketed her horse because, underneath the soft sheepskin saddle and well outof sight, was tucked one of her mother's latest magazines that had pictures scattered through it.
When school was called, she was not allowed to keep the seat on the rostrum. One of the Dutchman's seven being absent, she was told to share the rear bench with the neighbor woman's daughter, and spent a happy hour in the seclusion of the high seat, watching "Frenchy," who had no slate, write his spelling on the smooth, round stove, and smiling at the Swede boy when he looked slyly across at her.
Then she heard some one call her name. It was the teacher. "Come forward to the chart," he said, and his voice seemed to shake the very floor.
She took up her Second Reader, edged herself off her seat, and stood beside it, her eyes fixed questioningly upon him.
"Come forward to the chart, I say," he said again. "Can't you hear!"
"Yes," answered the little girl, starting up the room. But she walked so slowly that, when she came near his table, he put out one lean hand, grabbed her by the arm, and hurried her. She resented his touch by twisting about until she was free. Then she took her place in front of the chart, feeling as if every eye in the room were looking up and down the rowof blue crockery buttons on the back of her apron.
The teacher began to turn forward sheet after sheet of the chart, until the first page was before him. It depicted a figure in silk hat, long coat, and light trousers, promenading with a cane in his hand and a dog at his heels. Underneath were two lines of simple words, and two inquiring sentences. The teacher picked up a long cottonwood stick and pointed it first at the man and then at the dog.
"What is that?" he said.
"A man," answered the little girl.
"And that?"
"A dog."
"Now read after me," he went on, indicating a word, "'M-a-n, man.'"
She paused a moment, her lips pressed tightly together.
"Read, read, read!" commanded the teacher, whacking the chart with a pointer.
"'M-a-n, man,'" repeated the little girl, her eyes on his face.
"Don't look at me," he scolded; "look at the chart."
"I don't haf' to," said the little girl, earnestly; "I—I—"
Something unpleasant would certainly have happened at that moment, had not "Frenchy," deep in his geography lesson, piped up at the teacher from the rear of the room.
"T-a-n-g-a-n-y-i-k-a," he spelled, snapping his fingers and waving his arm. "Wot eez dat?"
For a moment the teacher was silent, scowling down at the little girl. Then he came back to the chart with another whack of the pointer. "Call it Moses," he growled.
"Mozez," repeated "Frenchy," resignedly, but with a shake of his head over the intricacies of the English language.
The little girl had twisted half around to look at a Dutch child, and the teacher, angry because he had neglected to look over the geography lesson, jerked her into place again by her sleeve. "Now, you read," he said; "look at the end of my pointer and read."
"I can read them words 'thout looking at 'em," she protested, pointing at an inquiring line, "'cause I can read everyfing in this." And she held up the Second Reader.
"Huh!" grunted the teacher, taking the book from her and tossing it upon his table. "Have you ever been to school before?"
"No," answered the little girl.
"Then you'll start right in where everybody else does," he said. "Read this line. 'Do you see a man?'"
"'Doyouseeaman?'" she repeated, still watching him.
"Look at the chart and read it," he commanded furiously.
An unfriendly light suddenly shone in the little girl's eyes. She stepped back and summoned all her pride to resent the indignity that he was putting upon her before the whole school.
"Oh, I don't want to read that baby talk," she cried, "and—and—Iwon't, and I 'm going home to my mother."
The teacher swayed in his wrath like a tall cottonwood. "You don't, eh? You won't, eh?" he bellowed, and, stooping down, plucked the little girl by the ear.
This time it was the Swede boy who interrupted the course of events in front. He leaned forward and whispered something into the ear of the boy ahead, and then, with an inarticulate shout, threw himself upon the boy and began to maul him. Instantly the teacher, yearning to use his hands upon some one, descended upon them and wrested them apart. But they clinched again and, continuing to fight, managed so to misdirect their kicks that they reached, not each other, but his lanky, interfering person.
And, while the battle raged, the little girl fled out of the school-house toward the pinto and pulled up the picket-pin. The teacher did not see her go, but, in retreating from an unusually vicious blow of the Swede boy's fist, caught sight of her just as she was leading her horseto an ant-hill to mount. With a hoarse call for her to return, he started after her, bearing in his train the two boys, who, still struggling, impeded his progress.
He shook them off at the door-step and broke into a run. The little girl was vainly striving to climb to the pinto's back; but she was so frightened that each time she made a jump for the saddle she came short of it and fell back. And, seeing the teacher coming, her efforts were more ineffectual than ever. But when he was scarcely a rod away, and when escape seemed impossible, a new figure joined in the affair.
Luffree had been lying quietly beside the picket-pin until the little girl ran out, when he got up, ready to follow her, and joyfully leaped about the mare. Then he saw the teacher advancing, and remembered the rough handling of the day before. So, as the Yankton man came close, swinging his arms about like the fans of the Dutchman's windmill, the dog went forward to meet him, his hair on end, his eyes shifting treacherously, his teeth showing in an ugly white seam, all the wolf blood in him roused.
The teacher halted when he saw him and called back to the scholars, now crowding about the door. "Bring my pointer," he cried.
Not a pupil moved. The teacher, noting that no one was obeying his order, and not daringto go forward unarmed, ran back at the top of his speed for the stick. But he was too late; for, by the time he had gained the school-room and grabbed both the pointer and the stove poker, the little girl had scrambled upon her pinto and galloped off toward the farm-house.
The teacher did not give chase, but, sputtering revenge under his breath, called the school to order. Then, not forgetting what severity is due insubordination where the sons of salary-supplying fathers are concerned, he gave the boys who had fought, but who were now docile and smiling, a mighty tongue-lashing.
When the little girl was beyond hailing distance or possibility of capture, she brought the pinto to a standstill and looked back. Once she opened her lips as if to say something, but closed them again, and, after waiting until the scholars had all gone in, rode on. She did not go home; instead, when she came in sight of the reservation road, she turned east and cantered across the prairie until only the top of the farm-house was visible to her as she sat upon her horse. Then she dismounted, tethered the pinto, made Luffree lie down, and, having taken the magazine from under the saddle-blankets, cuddled against the dog. She was still trembling, her throat ached with unspoken anger, and, underneath her apron, her heart bounded so that the checks moved in regular time.
But soon she wiped her blurred eyes and turned to the pictures in the magazine. They began with a red-brown one of a storm-tossed ship on a rocky coast; and, following, were drawings of queer boxes and chairs and, yet more strange, of a herd of grazing cattlewith a board fence around it! There was also a funny picture of a ragged boy and a stylish little girl who wore a round hat and a polonaise. And, lastly, there was shown a beautiful young woman standing by a table in a long, loose robe, very much like the army chaplain's.
It was over this picture that the little girl bent longest, and she read, not without some tedious spelling, the words that were printed beneath it:
"Mary, in cap and gown, was so bright and dainty a vision that the professor wished that more young ladies of gentle birth might attend the college."
College! It was not a new word to the little girl, for she had heard the colonel tell her mother that he was going to send his son to college. But now she knew that girls as well as boys could go. And she saw by the picture that they wore beautiful flowing robes and square caps.
It was the cap that specially attracted her, for it rested becomingly upon a mass of wavy hair. She wished that her curls, which had to be coaxed into shape every morning with awarm stove-lifter and a wet brush, would hang in ripples like the young woman's, so that she could wear one.
"Oh,ain'tit sweet!" she said aloud, getting up on her knees beside Luffree and holding out the book at arm's length. And then, with the mortar-board as her inspiration, there flashed into her brain a wonderful thought that was to grow through the coming years; and her lips framed a splendid purpose—heard by no mortal ears, save those of the shivering hound and the cropping pony—that time was gloriously to fulfil.
"And maybe," she added happily, "I'll have 'monia, and my hair'll come in just as curly."
She sprang to her feet, fired with her new ambition, and undid the pony. And remembering that it would be as well to reach the farm-house before the family could hear the second tale of trouble at the school, she hastily coiled the picket-rope, mounted, hid the magazine under the saddle-blankets, and, with the dog running stiffly in her wake, rode homeward.
When she reached the barn, she did not even wait to fasten the pinto in her stall; but, taking the magazine, raced toward the kitchen. As she halted breathless in its open door, however, she was sorry that she had not come in quietly by way of her bedroom window and waiteduntil she was sure that her mother was alone. For she found herself in the presence not only of the big brothers, but of him whose authority she had so lately flouted!
The suddenness of the discovery drove the words she had meant to say in her own behalf from her brain. But five pairs of eyes were upon her and retreat was impossible; so she strove mutely to win any possible sympathy by covering, with one unsteady hand, the ear that had been pulled.
No one spoke for a moment. And in that brief space the little girl divined, as she sought each face, that but one of the group before her was eager to see her punished, and that one was the teacher. In the eyes of the eldest brother there was no disapproval, only a lurking smile; the biggest was openly beaming with satisfaction; the youngest had taken his attitude, as usual, from the eldest; and her mother's look was sadly kind. But the teacher was hostile from brow to boot.
It was the eldest brother who first broke the silence. He took his pipe from his mouth, knocked out the ashes against his bench, and addressed the little girl. "So you went on the war-path to-day?" he said.
She made no answer, but moved toward her mother.
"This youngster," he went on, wheelingaround on the teacher, "is well up in them chart pages and can read pretty good in most books. So I guess"—he drawled it out sneeringly—"as long as you ain't got any classes that exactly fit her, she'd better lie fallow for a while."
The little girl shot a proud glance at the Yankton man as she heard the eldest brother's praise, and, emboldened, spoke up for herself. "Icanread all the chart," she declared, "and I can read everyfing in the First Reader. And I could spell 'man'"—she put the hand that she had been holding over her ear on a level with her knee—"when I was so high."
The teacher snorted. "You know your own business," he said to the eldest brother.
"Guess we do," chimed in the biggest, grinning. "No use bothering her with a-b, ab, when she can read the things she does." The teacher stood up, ready to go. "And I was about to remark," continued the biggest, banteringly, "that she's got a lot of mighty nice stories that she's read and done with; and if you'd like to borrow one, once in a while, to pass an evenin' with, you'd find 'em mighty educatin'."
"Thank you," answered the teacher; "but like as not you'll need 'em all to finish uphereddication on. I guess maybe you'll be sending her to Sioux Falls in a year or so to kind o' polish her off."
The sarcasm in the voice stung the biggest brother. "Well," he said, "she could polish off right here on these plains and have a lot more in her noddle in a year or two thansomepeople I know."
This boast of her favorite again brought the little girl's courage up. "I don't want to go to a city school," she declared, "'cause they don't wear caps there."
The teacher was tramping out, with no backward look or good-by word, and he did not wait to hear more. So it was the eldest brother who answered her. "If you don't go here and you don't go to Sioux Falls," he said, "I'd like to know where you'll learn anything. Ma ain't got no time to be your governess."
"I don't want no governess, either," she replied. "I know what I'm going to do." She brought forward the magazine, which she had been holding behind her back with one hand, and, opening it at the drawing of the young woman in cap and gown, laid it on the biggest brother's knee. Then she went up to her mother, her face fairly shining through the dust and tear-marks on it. Her mother put out her arms and gently drew the little girl to her. Into her mind had come the picture of herself, in spotless pinafore, bending with her governess over her English books. And beside thatpicture, the little girl, sunburned, soiled, and poorly shod, made a sharp contrast.
"What are you going to do, pet lamb?" she asked.
"I'm going to cut 'nough carpet-rags this winter to last you a whole year," said the little girl, "'cause next summer you won't have me any more. I'm—I'm—going to college."
Theteacher, jogging out of the barn-yard to the ash-lane, heard a hearty roll of bassos from the kitchen, and did not doubt but that he was its target. He reined in his horse at the bare flower-beds and glowered back at the door. Then, with a mutter, ungrammatical but eloquent, he spurred on toward the lonely, supperless shack by the slough.