CHAPTER VIExperience
But Bettina was not conscious of how long a time had passed, or that she was causing anxiety.
An unusual experience had come to her, and a most unconventional one.
Standing there at the back of the observation car, she had forgotten Peggy’s suggestion that she return to the rest of the girls. But perhaps she would not have gone in any case, because Bettina was not enjoying their society. She was shy, or perhaps cold. It was difficult to tell which was the influence at work. Nevertheless, she was finding it as much of a trial to be friendly and at ease with her fellow-travelers as she had with her mother’s older and more conventional guests in Washington. But it is possible that Bettina had inherited some of her father’s reserve—the reserve which had made Anthony Graham work and study alone during those many hard years before reaching manhood.
However, to make up for her lack of interest and her uncongeniality with people—as is true with nearly all such persons—Bettina had an unusual fondness for nature.
Now, the landscape of Kansas had not appealed strongly to any one of the other girls. Usually the country was flat and covered with great fields of young corn or wheat, with prosperous farm-houses standing in the background. Yet Bettina saw color and grace in everything.
As the car rushed along, with its rattling and banging, she was trying to recall a line of Kipling’s poetry which described the sound the wind made through the corn.
After Peggy left her, Bettina had caught hold of the wide railing at the end of the car for safety. She was now occupying the entire rear platform of the observation train alone. She was swaying slightly with the movement, with her eyes wide open and her lips slightly parted. Having taken off her hat, the afternoon sunshine made amber lights in her hair as it flickered amid the brown and gold.
Then, suddenly, Bettina became conscious that some one else had come out onthe same end of the car with her and was standing near.
It was stupid and self-conscious to flush as she always did in the presence of strangers.
“I hope I do not disturb you,” she then heard a voice say courteously. And, turning her head to reply, Bettina beheld a young man of about twenty. He looked very dark—a Spaniard she believed him for the moment. His eyes were fine and clear, with a faraway look in them; his nose, aquiline; and he held his head back and his chin uplifted.
“You don’t trouble me in the least,” Bettina replied, feeling her shyness vanish. “Besides, I was just going back to my friends.”
Yet she did not go at once.
She was interested in the unusual appearance of her companion. He had folded his arms and was looking gravely back at the constantly receding landscape.
“And east is east and west is west,And never the twain shall meet.”
“And east is east and west is west,And never the twain shall meet.”
“And east is east and west is west,And never the twain shall meet.”
“And east is east and west is west,
And never the twain shall meet.”
He spoke apparently without regarding Bettina and softly under his breath.
Therefore it was Bettina who really began their conversation, their other speeches to each other having expressed only the ordinary conventionalities between fellow-travelers.
“It is curious—your repeating those lines,” Bettina returned, her eyes changing from gray to blue, as they often did in moments of friendliness. “I have just been standing here trying to recall another line of Kipling’s poetry. And it has come to me since you spoke: ‘The wind whimpers through the fields.’ Do you care for Kipling’s poetry?”
The young man turned more directly toward Bettina.
“I am an Indian,” he explained simply. “It is natural that I should think of those lines, for I have been for several years at a college in your eastern country and am now returning to my own people and my own land. I am a Hopi. My home is in the province of Tusayan, Arizona, in the town of Oraibi. We are Indians of the Pueblo.”
“But you—” Bettina hesitated.
The young fellow threw back his head and, then realizing that custom demandedit, lifted his hat. He was dressed as any other young college man might be, except that his clothes were simple and a little shabby.
“I am not entirely Indian,” he continued, still so serious that Bettina was unconscious of there being anything out of the way in his confidence. “My mother was a Spanish woman, I have been told; but she died at my birth and now my father is again married and has children by a woman of his own race. Yet I am glad to return to my own people, to wear again the moccasin of brown deer-skin and the head-band of scarlet.”
Instinctively the young man’s pose changed. Bettina could see that his shoulders lifted and that he breathed more deeply. He stood there on the platform of the most civilized and civilizing monster in the world—a great express train—gazing out on the fields as if he had been an Indian chief at the door of his own tepee, surveying his own domains.
Naturally Bettina was fascinated. What young girl could have failed to have been interested? And Bettina had lived more in books and dreams than in realities.
“We are also going to Arizona,” Bettina added quickly. “I have never been West before, though I have longed to always. We are to camp somewhere on a ranch not far from the Painted Desert. Do Indians live near there and would you mind telling me something of them? Are they still warlike? Sometimes I feel a little nervous, for we are to be only a party of girls and our Camp Fire guardian, except that we are to have a man and his wife for our cook and guide.”
For an instant the young fellow laughed as any other boy would have done, and showing white, fine teeth. Afterwards he relapsed into the conventional Indian gravity.
“My own people are peaceful and always have been, except when we have been attacked by other Indians. Hopi means ‘peaceful people,’ and we have lived in Arizona, the land of ‘few springs,’ since before the days when your written history begins. The Apaches have always been our bitterest enemies. But they will not harm you—the great hand of your United States Government is over us all,” he concluded.
And Bettina could not tell whether he spoke in admiration or in bitterness.
It was growing cooler and she shivered—not in reality from the cold half so much as from her interest in the conversation.
Nevertheless the Indian saw her slight movement.
“You are cold; you must be careful in the desert, as often the night turns suddenly cool after a scorching day. May I take you to your friends?”
Bettina was accustomed to having her own way. She was enjoying the talk with her unusual acquaintance far more than anything that had taken place since their journey began. Therefore it did not occur to her to consider that her absence might create uneasiness.
“Are you going to do anything else? If you are not I wonder if you would mind our finding a place somewhere and talking?” she suggested. “I know it is asking a great deal of you, but there are so many things I wish to know about the West.”
Bettina was like an eager child. But, then, ordinary conventionalities nevertroubled her, unless they were forced upon her consideration.
And what could the young man do except assent.
He found Bettina a camp chair at the rear end of the adjoining car and himself a small one beside it.
But the chairs were not outside; they stood in an enclosed space just inside the train and beside a great window.
When her companion sat down beside her, one could not get a full view of Bettina.
However, Peggy did not pass her by, for she did not go into this car to search. But the colored porter did. Yet he had been told to discover a young woman who was alone, dressed in a blue suit and wearing a blue hat.
And Bettina was not alone. She was deeply engaged in conversation, and without a hat, so, although the porter did hesitate beside her, he did not interrupt, deciding that she was not the young woman he sought.
But here Mrs. Burton and two of the girls found her a few moments later.
As soon as the man returned and declaringthat Bettina had vanished, Polly had become instantly terrified. For a woman who was to be chaperon to half a dozen or more girls, she had far too much imagination. At once she conceived the idea that Bettina had fallen off the train—and—what could she say to the child’s mother and father? It was too dreadful!
Indeed, Mrs. Burton would have had the train stopped immediately, except that Peggy and Ellen Deal, who at once rose to the occasion, insisted that Bettina be reconnoitered for again.
But when Bettina was finally traced and discovered in agreeable conversation with a strange young man, her chaperon was angry. Indeed, the natural Polly wished to assert herself and give the girl just such a scolding as she would have bestowed upon her mother in their younger days. Only, of course, the present, more elderly Polly was convinced that Betty would never have been so inconsiderate as her daughter.
However, remembering her own dignity as a newly-chosen Camp Fire guardian, after a few moments of reproach, she did manage to control her temper.
And Bettina, although making no defense, was sorry. She had not been intentionally selfish, only she did not see but one side of a situation until usually it was too late. She lived—as so many other people do—in her own visions and her own desires. Yet, at present, she deeply wished her mother’s old friend to care for her and exaggerated the failure she was making with her. Without appreciating it, Polly walked in a kind of halo of achievement and charm before Bettina’s eyes. Therefore, it was unfortunate Bettina did not realize that everything and everybody in the world Mrs. Polly Burton took more seriously than she did her own fame, and that the dearest desire of her heart at the present time was that her new Camp Fire girls should regard her as their friend.