There was not a stone, it is safe to say, within half a day's walk of Claxton Road. Prairie country of the black-waxy variety is noticeably bereft of this usual feature of life, the lazy Southern ocean which formerly brooded over these parts having deposited black, rich muck till it covered everything post-hole deep. And so if a man had wanted a stone to throw he would have had to walk several miles to find one, by which time, of course, his anger would have cooled off. Originally there had been one here and there, but these solitary specimens, being such a novelty, and standing out so plainly on the flat scene, had been picked up by farmer or cowboy and taken home. Thus each of the several stones in those parts was engaged in holding open the barn door or the ranch gate, or was established in the back yard to crack pecan nuts on, much to the improvement of flatirons. If a man had stolen one and used it openly, he would sooner or later have been found out. But why do we speak of stones?
Shortly after supper, Mrs. Arthur Wright—Kitty they still called her—came out of the front gate whistling, and going to the middle of the road, there being no sidewalk that far out from town, she turned to the left and set out for the Chautauqua meeting at Captain Chase's. Claxton road, coming in from the county-seat, changed its name a mile or so out of Thornton and became Claxton Road. The Wright residence may be said to have been located just where the capital R began. At this point the barb wire of the prairie thoroughfare gave way, on the left-hand side, to the white fences of suburban estates with big front yards and windmills and stables; and on the right there came, at the same time, an unfenced vacancy, or "free grass," which, though it had a private owner somewhere, might be called a common. The estates along Claxton Road faced this big common, looking across it toward the cottages which marked the edge of town on the other side, and there was nothing to obstruct the view except a time-blackened frame house which, for some reason, had posted itself right in the middle of this spacious prospect. These places along Claxton Road were the homes of cattle and sheep-men who owned vast ranches in adjacent counties. They had thus herded themselves together, largely, if not entirely, on account of Woman and her institutions.
As the Wright place was the farthest out in this row of suburban estates, Mrs. Wright was frequently the first to start to a Chautauqua or other social affair; indeed, had it not been that she made a practice of hurrying up the others as she went along, she would usually have been the first to arrive. A short walk brought her to Harmon's, and here bringing to a hurried conclusion the Wedding March from "Lohengrin,"—an excellent tune to march by,—she changed her flutelike notes for a well-known piercing trill. At the second shrill summons Mrs. Harmon came to the door.
"Just a minute, Kitty—I 'm coming."
"Don't forget your specimen," called Mrs. Wright.
Mrs. Harmon, after a somewhat protracted minute, came out with nothing on her arm but a book.
"I 've just been too busy for anything," she explained. "You know I had the dressmaker two days—I thought I 'd take the opportunity while George was away at the ranch. And, besides," she added, after a short pause, "I did n't think of it."
"That's right, Statia. Always tell the truth, even as an afterthought."
"My! but you 're coming out bright this evening," responded Mrs. Harmon.
"I hope we can depend upon the others," mused Kitty.
Mrs. Dix and Mrs. Norton came out of their respective homes empty-handed except for books. So also Mrs. Plympton and her mother.
"Well, I just don't care," said Mrs. Norton. "How in the world could I get a stone? I have been having the awfulest time with our windmill. The thingumajig that is supposed to turn it off has got broken or something and it keeps pumping water all over where I don't want it to. If I had an artificial pond like the Harmons I would know what to do with so much water. I wonder when Jonas Hicks will get back?"
"I wonder!" echoed Mrs. Dix. "I was depending upon him. Mr. Dix said he expected him back in a day or two. If it had n't been for that he would n't have taken Fred along; for you know I can't put a saddle on Major myself. Jonas will probably be back to-day or to-morrow he said."
"I am su-u-u-ure," said little Grandma Plympton, in her sweet and feeble tremolo,—"I am su-u-u-ure that if we had all asked Mr. Hicks to get us a stone he would most willingly have done so. Mr. Hicks would do anything for a lady."
Grandma Plympton—what there was left of her after seventy-four years of time's attrition—had a way of speaking which made it easy enough to believe that she had, in her day, been a beautiful singer. As her message to the world was usually one of promise and reassurance, she had the gift of dwelling with songlike sweetness on those words in which the music lay. She was altogether lovable and quaint. On fine days she would still go forth alone, bearing her mother-of-pearl card-case, and she would leave her card here or there as naturally as a flower drops a petal; for despite her years she had by no means turned traitor to Society. Nor had Society so much as thought of leaving her out. In her, indeed, the fine flower of aristocracy was still in bloom, and delicately fragrant.
The party, suiting their pace to hers, went more slowly after passing Plymptons', whereupon Grandma, finding herself thus accommodated, gave over what efforts she had been making and went more slowly still; and so, when they came to the Brown place, which faced the middle of the common, they were moving at a most deliberate rate. As they arrived opposite the small gate, they all, as if by simultaneous thought, stopped at once.
The object of their sudden interest was a rockery in the front yard. This work, a pile of smooth boulders about three feet in height, and as yet only partially covered with young vines, was the only scenic rival to the artificial pond in the Harmons' front yard. Steve Brown built it to please his mother, picking up a boulder here and there in the course of his travels and getting it home by balancing it on the horn of his saddle. During the last weeks of her illness, when her wandering mind went back to the hills of her girlhood, her imagination played continually around this mimic mountain of Steve's, and as it seemed to be the one joy of her prairie-spent life, he would carry her out on the porch in good weather and prop her up so that she could sit and look at it. Jonas Hicks, becoming interested, took a hand in the work; he kept on making contributions as long as the resources of the country held out. Here was one reason that there was not a sole stone remaining to be discovered.
"If we only had a few of them!" suggested Mrs. Norton.
"Yes—but he might not like it," said the younger Mrs. Plympton.
"But we would just borrow them, you know," explained Mrs. Norton. "And anyway, how are we going to get along without them? Here we have arranged for the Professor to come and tell us about them; and we all promised to bring a specimen. It will seem strange for not one of us to have a rock."
"Oh, I don't think it would do any harm for us to borrow a few stones," said Kitty Wright. "I don't see anything so awful about it."
There came a pause of indecision. Mrs. Harmon—she was the dignified Daniel Webster of the circle, and just the opposite of the small and sprightly Mrs. Wright—was yet to be heard from.
"Really," she said, "we ought not to agree to do things and then not do them. We should have done it or else found somebody like Jonas Hicks to do it for us. What's everybody's business is nobody's business."
"And what's nobody's business is everybody's business," added Mrs. Wright.
"Good!" exclaimed Mrs. Norton. "Where did you hear that, Kitty?"
"I just heard myself say it. I did it with my little hatchet."
"Sort of a double-edged axiom," observed Mrs. Harmon.
"I am su-u-u-ure," chimed Grandma Plympton, "that if Mr. Brown were here, and knew the circumstances, he would most wi-i-i-llingly offer to assist us. Of course, we should never take—what does not belong to us, without the owner's permission, but I am qui-i-i-i-ite sure that if we were to take them and put them back just where we got them, Mr. Brown would quite approve of it."
"Mother has a very high opinion of Stephen Brown," said Mrs. Plympton.
"Mr. Brown is quite a gentleman, indeed," said Grandma.
This advice, coming from so white a priestess, and in words that lent so musical and sweet a sanction, removed the last mote of conjecture from the air. Mrs. Wright, as usual, was the first to take action. Every set of women, probably, has its recognized clown, she who is just too cute and killing. And those who do not like her say she is tiresome and "silly." Mrs. Wright, in keeping with the character, went through the gate with exaggerated show of dissolute abandon.
"Come on, girls," she said, breaking into the rockery. "I do hope I 'll get one with feldspar in it, or something nice and interesting."
Mrs. Norton, having been the one to make the suggestion, now followed her own advice; Mrs. Dix, taking example from Mrs. Norton, came next; thus the motion was carried. And pretty soon the caravan moved forward, heavily laden with food for thought.
The next two houses in the line of march were those of Mrs. Jephson, and Mrs. Osgood and her sister Hannah—she was quite usually spoken of as Mrs. Osgood's sister; but the two latter had already gone.
"What do you think?" said Mrs. Jephson. "I just got word that Oliver would n't be home to-night, and he is probably gone for several days. And Captain Chase, too. The Captain had to go to San Antonio on business, and Oliver went along."
"The Captain, too! Not a man left in the neighborhood!" said Mrs. Harmon.
"Except Uncle Israel," added Mrs. Wright.
Uncle Israel was the Captain's aged darky.
A shortage of men was nothing new to the ladies of this community. Rather, being a cattle-raising country, it was a thing to be expected at any time in spring or fall; and when Claxton Road did enumerate its full quota of husbands, fathers, and brothers, many of them were liable to be absent from Chautauqua. Always with good excuse, however. One would be getting ready for a trip to the ranch; another would have to stay at home to instruct his foreman; another would have to sit up with a costly bull that was going through the rigors of acclimation; and on more than one occasion it was the very man who was being depended upon to tell them all about civil war or civil government who would have to be excused by his wife for some such reason, upon which there would be a chatter of regret and the meeting would fall into a conference upon matters in general. While the gentlemen would "expatiate and confer" with one another as to what breeding would produce the most wrinkles on a sheep's back (thus giving the greatest wool-bearing surface), the ladies would devise new wrinkles to make use of it. And usually the ones who produced the raw material would be entirely through with their plans while yet the consumers were settling fine points with regard to the finished product. In this matter of higher culture, the true bent of masculine nature was likely to betray itself in absence. But the present scarcity of man may be said to have been somewhat above the average.
For some distance the ladies went forward without saying a word. A spell of utter silence had fallen upon the party. Then Mrs. Wright spoke.
"Statia."
"Yes."
"Do you remember what we studied about gravity?"
"Why, certainly. Every certain number of feet a thing falls it goes twice as fast."
"Well, I have made a discovery just as good as Sir Isaac Newton's. Every foot you carry a rock it gets twice as heavy."
Some one among them dropped her burden; instantly they all let go. The boulders struck the road with almost as simultaneous a thump as when the drill-sergeant calls out "Ground arms."
"Oh! I 'm nearly dead," said Mrs. Norton.
"So 'm I," gasped Mrs. Dix, sinking down on the roadside grass.
"O-h-h-h!" gasped Mrs. Plympton.
The next minute or two was devoted to breathing.
"Why did n't yousayyou were nearly dead?" demanded Mrs. Harmon, when she had somewhat recovered.
"Why did n'tyousay something?" replied Mrs. Dix.
"Why did n't we all say something?" inquired Mrs. Norton. "I did n't know the rest of you were as tired as me."
Mrs. Wright, despite she was the smallest of the number, was evidently the hardiest; she had calmly turned her stone over and sat down upon it.
"It's a wonder you don't all blame it on me," she said philosophically.
"Well, whatever I learn about this stone I 'll never forget," remarked Mrs. Dix. "Never as long as I live. Let's take them back."
"Yes; but it's farther to go back than it is to keep on," said Mrs. Harmon. "And we certainly can't leave them here. We are responsible for them."
A very evident state of affairs. Being begun it had to be done.
"Come on, stone, we're going," said Mrs. Wright, taking hers up again.
The others followed. Again the rock-laden ladies went manfully onward.
When next they reached the limit of endurance, Chase's big red gate was so near that they hung on with final determination, and when they were almost to it they rushed forward to get inside the goal before the rocks fell. They all succeeded except Mrs. Plympton, who lost hers in the middle of the road and then finished its journey by rolling it.
"I was never so glad in my life before that I am not a horse," she said.
Virginia Chase had come down the path to shut the gate, which some one among the earlier arrivals had not properly fastened, and she was the bearer of bad news. The Professor, after all, would not be able to be present. He had one of his sick headaches again.
"And who else do you think is sick?" added Virginia. "Aberdeen Boy. I wish Jonas Hicks was back, because Uncle Israel does not know very much, really, about stock. I am so worried. He held his head out so funny, I thought maybe it was something the matter with the ring in his nose. But it wasn't. He is just sick."
"I am su-u-u-ure," said Grandma Plympton, "that if Jonas Hicks were back he could give him something that would relieve him."
When the specimen-hunters had recovered from their labors they accompanied Virginia up the driveway, explaining, as they went, the whole case of the abducted rockery. In the Chase's big sitting-room the earlier contingent was drawn together in conversation as close as chairs would permit, and as the belated ones entered they were greeted with exclamations in which there was an extra touch of the joy of life, it being in the very nature of gossip to seek new openings and exploit itself in mystery and surprise.
"Hurry up, Statia; get your things off and come here—— Wait, Mrs. Osgood; don't tell anymore till Kitty is here—— Sh-h-h-h; be careful what you say before Grandma Plympton."
The newcomers, returning from the bedroom divested of their wraps, began at once to relate their own experiences in geology, but they had no more than stated the bare facts when they became aware that there was a more absorbing topic in the air. Somebody had told Mrs. Osgood's hired man, who had told his wife, who told Mrs. Osgood—but for that matter there was no great secret about it.
"Have n't you heard a thing about it, Mrs. Plympton—re-e-eally?"
This was asked by one who had herself heard of it only a few minutes before.
"Why, no; what is it?"
"You tell it, Mrs. Osgood. You can tell it best."
Then followed the story. In the course of its travels it had not suffered any loss of detail; it had rather prospered. Each person to whom it had been intrusted had sent it on its way richer and better; it became longer and truer. And so Mrs. Osgood told it, ably assisted by those who had just heard it and kept seeing new phases of it. Finally the case was rested.
"What do you think of it, Mrs. Plympton? You live nearest to him."
"I must say that I am surprised. But then, I don't know whether a person ought to be surprised at anything like that."
"And to think of it!" said Mrs. Dix. "Away out there where nobody is likely to come along once in two weeks. What an idea!"
"Well," remarked Mrs. Harmon, who had been taking time, and might therefore be supposed to have given the matter her weightier consideration, "it is, in fact, just what one might expect. He has always been so steady and sober-minded. It is n't as if he had had a greater variety of interests and more social inclination and—wilder, you know. He was entirely devoted to his mother; and he has n't the resources and flexibility to make so complete a change easily, and naturally."
"He has been acting quite strangely since his mother died," interpolated Mrs. Dix. "He cooks and eats and sleeps out on that kitchen porch, and does n't seem to take any pleasure in being invited out, or spending an evening at other people's houses."
"That's it," said Mrs. Harmon. "In his position, and especially hisdisposition, a man is just ripe for the first adventuress that comes along. In considering such things we ought to make allowances."
"I suppose so," remarked Mrs. Norton. "But to think of it beingher. The low calculating thing!"
Grandma Plympton was out in the dining-room with Virginia sipping a glass of wine, and having admired an embroidered sideboard scarf, a recent work of Virginia's, she was now engaged in examining other things as they came forth from a lower drawer, which creations interested her so much that Virginia went still deeper into the family treasury and finally brought forth a sampler and counterpane which her own grandmother had wrought. The examination of these things, together with reminiscence of her own early achievements, kept Grandma Plympton so long that by the time she reached the sitting-room the absorbing topic had subsided from its first exclamatory stage and was being treated in a more allusive and general way. Grandma soon gathered from the allusions that Stephen Brown had at last met the lady of his choice.
"Indeed!" she exclaimed. "Now I am sure he will settle down and make an excellent husband. Not that there was anything bad about him, not at all; but he was rather wild when he was a boy, and gave his mother a great deal of worriment—especially, I mean, when he took his cattle up into the Territory. And in those days she could hardly keep him from joining the Rangers. But now he is older and more sensible and has had responsibilities; and I am su-u-u-ure it will be a fine match for any young lady."
It is hardly in human nature to shatter such illusions. Thereafter, the subject of the evening was more guardedly treated, pending her departure. Grandma Plympton, valiant as she was in the social cause, could seldom stay up for more than the first few numbers of a dance, and she could never, of late, remain to the end of an evening party. Before a great while she signified her readiness to go, and after her usual courtly leave-taking she went away on the arm of her daughter-in-law.
"Do you know," said Mrs. Dix, "I hardly felt like saying anything before her. She is so old and innocent."
"Is n't she!" said Mrs. Osgood.
Virginia, much exercised over the health of Aberdeen Boy, had gone out to the barn to have a talk with Uncle Israel, who, with a peacock fly-fan moving majestically back and forth, was sitting up with eighteen hundred pounds of sick bull. Aberdeen Boy, a recent importation, and one of the noblest of those who were to refine the wild-eyed longhorns of Texas, was having no more trouble with acclimation than his predecessors; he manifested his illness simply by lying down and looking more innocent than usual, and heaving big sighs which wrung Virginia's heart.
In the sitting-room the study of Steve Brown went forward prosperously again, but especially now in regard to the woman in the case. If the one they named was anywhere within range of psychic influence, it is safe to say her left ear burned that evening. And when, finally, it was all over, the guests, departing, paused at the gate and turned their thoughts to the rocks there assembled.
"What will we do? I would n't carry mine for anything," said Mrs. Norton.
"Why, leave them here. We 'll have Jonas Hicks come and get them," said Mrs. Harmon.
Janet caught her breath and looked about her. It was the same shack on a hillock, the same gully and sheep-pen and dog, likewise the same Mr. Brown. Under the circumstances, it was natural for her to try to say something, and she did the best she could. When he had gathered, from her rather unexplanatory remarks, just what had happened, the first thought that crossed his mind was that he had eaten the last piece of fruit-cake which she left behind. If there is anything embarrassing to a man, it is to have company come unexpectedly when there is not a thing fit to eat in the house. He had finished up the cake a short while before, together with the remainder of crackers and a dill pickle.
"I have eaten up all the good stuff," he explained. "Do you like beans?"
"Yes, indeed," answered Janet, who was truly hungry.
He lifted the lid of the box and produced a small iron pot of boiled beans. They were beans of the Mexican variety, a kind which look nice and brown because they are that color before you cook them. When he had put some bacon into the frying-pan and given it time to heat, he scraped the beans in and stirred them up. He had made bread for supper by the usual method of baking soft dough in a skillet with the lid on; there was left of this a wedge big enough to split the stoutest appetite; and when he had placed this where it would warm up, he turned his attention to the coffee-pot.
"Oh, you do not need to do that. I can make my own coffee," offered Janet.
"You had better let me get supper," he answered. "You 're tired."
Several times during the day she had pondered upon his high-handed way of taking charge of her affairs. Submitting to this further dictation, she spread her slicker before her place at table, as indicated by the bare spot of ground, and sat down. Mr. Brown took a bucket and disappeared in the gully. Evidently he had gone to get fresh water. Janet now put her feet out farther toward the fire.
When he returned, he made some remarks upon the weather and put on the coffee; then he turned about and went into the shack. As on the previous evening, everything came tumbling pell-mell out of the door. Janet, having nothing else to do, looked up and gave her attention to a big sixteen-carat star.
Shep, the dog, came and planted himself at the very edge of the bare spot. Without giving her so much as a glance, he sat there primly and looked straight off the end of his nose at the sugar bowl in the middle. Not till this moment had Janet realized what a beautiful, intelligent-looking collie dog Mr. Brown had. His brown-buff coat, of just the right shade, seemed slightly veiled with black; his full out-arching front was pure white.
"Shep," said Janet.
His fine eyebrow rose as he gave her a look—a very short one, however. When she addressed him again she could see his interest rising a degree; finally he came and sat down beside her. Encouraged by this show of friendship, Janet put her hand on him.
When her host had got through with the more violent exercises of practical courtesy,—which sounded somewhat like trouble in a barroom,—he came out bearing a jug marked MOLASSES; this he set down before her, and then, finding the coffee done, he proceeded to serve up the viands.
"That is n't much of a supper," he remarked, sitting down opposite.
"It tastes very good," said Janet.
It hardly did seem the right thing to set before such a guest. But Janet, as good as her word, steadily made way with thefrijolebeans and did full justice to the hot bread; and soon, inspirited by his powerful coffee, she continued the story of how she was frightened by the steer and baffled by the brook, and how she was foolish enough to think she was going straight forward all the time.
He had a way, whenever she came to a pause, of enticing her to go on. Sometimes he primed the conversation by repeating the last thing she had said; again, an apt word or two summed up the whole spirit of the matter encouragingly; or there would be just a composed waiting for her to resume.
Not that he had any difficulty in finding something to say. He evidently liked to hear her talk, and so he rather deferred to her. Whether it was that she now had a feeling of this, or that there was something in the influence of his presence, his voice and manner, which removed all constraint, Janet had not the least difficulty in talking. She told him how the teacher at the school "boarded round," what an unnecessary number of classes Miss Porter had for so small a number of pupils,—although it was difficult to remedy the matter by "setting back" certain children, because their proud mothers would object to such a leveling,—and how the Blodgett children, four of them, all came to school on the back of one buckskin pony, the youngest having to hold on tight to keep from slipping off at the tail. "Buckskin,"; it seemed, had won quite a place in Janet's affections, although he was the worst behaved horse that came to school. He used to graze in the yard till school was out,—the other horses being staked out on the prairie,—and he had become so familiar that he would sometimes go so far as to put his head in at the window in hope of being fed. And Janet could not see, considering that Texas horses were used to being staked out, what reason there had been for building a fence around a school that stood out on open prairie, unless it was, perchance, that the Texans thought they ought to have a corral to herd the children in.
While she was thus going on, there came from the corral a bleat in the awe-inspiring tone ofFa, and this was followed by a succession of bleats which reminded her of nothing so much as a child getting its hands on the keyboard of an organ. Steve, as if suddenly admonished of something, rose to his feet, excused himself, and disappeared in the direction of the corral.
With the place before her temporarily vacant, and unable to see out of her circle of light except by looking upward, Janet instinctively lifted her eyes to the scene above. Thousands and thousands of stars made the night big and beautiful. They were so clear and so lively, as if they took joy in their shining. A mild southern breeze gave the night motion and perfume. Janet took a deep breath which was hardly a sigh; it was rather a big drink of air and the final suspiration of all her worries. As she took in more deeply the constellated heavens and the free fresh spirit of the roaming air, she began to feel that she would rather like to be a sheep-herder herself. From looking at so many, her mind turned back to her selected star, the "captain jewel" of them all, and her eye sought its whereabouts again. In others she could see tremulous tinges of red and blue; but this seemed to be the pure spirit of light. Unconsciously she had put her arm around the dog, as if to hold on to this earth, and Shep, whose affection had been steadily growing, nudged up closer and gave her a sense of warm companionship.
When Steve returned from his mysterious errand, he looked at her a moment and then fetched an armful of wood. The fire, to serve better the purposes of cooking, had been allowed to burn down to coals, and the smouldering embers now gave so little light that the face and figure of his guest were losing themselves in obscurity. As this state of affairs hardly suited him, he piled on the dry mesquite brush and fanned it with his hat into leaping flames. When Janet was lit up to his satisfaction, he put down the hat and resumed his earthen lounge.
As he stretched himself out before her, lithe-limbed and big-chested, the atmosphere of that firelit place seemed filled with a sense of safety. His deliberate manner of speech, quite different from the slowness of a drawl, was the natural voice of that big starry world so generous of time. Occasionally he made a remark which ought to have been flattery, but which, coming from him, was so quiet and true that one might float on it to topics of unknown depth. He was so evidently interested in everything she said, and his attention was so single-minded and sincere, that Janet was soon chatting again upon the subject of her recent circumnavigation of the prairie, which, as she now saw it in the light of the present, seemed more and more a sea of flowers—as the Past always does. Indeed, the whole recent course of her experience was such a novelty—the trip to Texas was her first real adventure in the world—that she saw things with the new vision of a traveler; and the present situation, turning out so happily, put the cap-sheaf on that dream which is truly Life. Janet, recently delivered from all danger, and yet sitting right in the middle of her adventures, had a double advantage; she was living in the present as well as the past, breathing the sweetness of the air, looking up at the big flock of stars and seeing in them all nothing less than the divine shepherding.
"But, of all the wonderful things I ever saw," she exclaimed. "Why, it was worth walking all day to see it."
"What was it?" he asked.
"Sensitive plants. And when I came they all lowered their branches to their sides like—well, slowly, like this—"
She held her right arm out straight and lowered it slowly and steadily to her side. And a most graceful and shapely arm it was.
"I would n't have been so much surprised," she continued, "to just see leaves fold together, like clover. You know clover leaves all shut up at night and go to sleep. But these plants were quite large and they actuallymoved. And of course the leaves shut together, too; they were long like little tender locust leaves, and each one folded itself right in the middle."
She placed her hands edge to edge and closed them together to show him.
"But, you know, while they were doing that, they were folding back against their long stems, and the stems were folding back against the branches, and the straight branches were all folding downwards against the main stalk. What I mean is that everything worked together, like this—"
Janet extended both arms with her fingers widely spread; then, as her arms gradually lowered, her fingers closed together.
"It was something like that," she added, "but not exactly; it was ten times as much—something like the ribs of an umbrella going down all around, with stems and rows of locust leaves all along them closing together. And every little leaf was like a rabbit laying back its ears."
"Yes; I know what you mean," said Steve. "They are a kind of mimosa. Some people call them that."
"Well," said Janet, "I sat and watched one. I just touched it with a hatpin and it did that. A person would almost think it had intelligence. And after a while—when it thought I was gone, I suppose—it began to open its leaves and stems and put its arms out again."
She raised her arms slowly, spreading her fingers. Steve was a most attentive listener and spectator. He rather wished there were other plants to imitate.
"But that wasn't really what I started to tell about," she went on. "As I was walking along I came to a—well, you might say a wholecrowdof them. There was quite a growth like a patch of ferns. I had n't got to them yet, or even taken particular notice of them,—I must have been ten or twelve feet away,—when they all began to close up. I stopped perfectly still; and pretty soon the green leaves were gone and the place was all changed. Now, how do you suppose those plants everknewI was coming? I would give anything to know how such things can be."
"How much would you give?" inquired Steve.
For a moment, the spirit of this question hung in the balance. He felt the spell of her inquiring eyes as her hand dropped idly on Shep's back.
"Why—do you know?" she asked doubtfully.
"I think I do," he answered. "You see, that kind of plants have very long roots; they run away out. You stepped on their toes."
"Well, I declare," said Janet, enthusiastic again. "And what a way of saying it."
"It looks simple enough, does n't it?" he remarked.
"And I never thought of it. Why, it was enough to make a person superstitious. Isn't nature wonderful!"
As she took up the coffee, too long neglected, Steve got an imaginary taste of it, and finding it neither hot nor cold, he arose and took her cup. Having refilled it and offered her more of the beans, which to his surprise and gratification she accepted, he made another trip to the corral. In a little while he returned and promptly took his place.
"You were saying this morning," he began, "that you were going to the county-seat. Were you sure that you could find your way all alone?"
"Oh, yes," answered Janet. "I was there before. You see, I took an examination a couple of months ago, when I first came."
"Oh; that's it. What sort of a certificate did that little—examiner—give you?"
There was something in the sound of this question which conveyed to her that he regarded her standing in an examination largely as a matter of luck. Janet felt an instant approval of this philosophy of the matter.
"Third-class," she answered.
"Well, that's better than fourth-class," he remarked.
"Oh—but thereisno fourth-class," exclaimed Janet.
Her eyes widened as she waited to hear what his reply to this might be.
He entirely ignored the matter.
"That examiner is a kind of a cocky little rooster, is n't he?" he commented.
"Did you ever have any trouble with him?" inquired Janet.
"Me!" He was evidently surprised that she should think so. "Why, no. I don't know him. I just saw him a few times. He is a sort of a dried-up little party. You know I get up to the court-house once in a while to have a brand registered or something like that."
"Heisrather important—for his size," mused Janet. "And very particular about his looks."
"They have a man teacher at a school near my house," remarked Steve, in no seeming connection.
"I suppose he has a first-class certificate," said Janet. "Until lately it was easy to get a school in Texas. But the country school boards rate you by your certificate more and more. This time I am going to get first-class, or at least second. If I don't I 'll have to go back North."
"What kind of questions does that fellow ask when he examines people?" Steve inquired.
"Well—for instance—'Give the source and course of the Orizaba.'"
"Huh!" remarked Steve.
"To tell the truth," said Janet, "I would n't have got even third-class if it had n't been for the way I pulled through in geography."
"Are you good in geography?"
"Hardly. I just passed. He asked a great many questions about climate, and every time he asked that I wrote that it was salubrious. You see," she explained, with a sly little air, "in the children's geographies the climate of a country is nearly always salubrious. So I took a chance on every country. That brought my average up."
"Good for you," exclaimed Steve. "Nothing like beating them at their own game. Won't you have some more coffee?"
"No, thank you," said Janet. "Two cups is really more than I ought to drink at night."
Having risen in expectation of getting the coffee, he gave the fire another armful of mesquite.
"You take a good deal of notice of flowers, don't you!" he said, sitting down again.
"A person could hardly help it in Texas. Lilies and trumpet-flowers and lobelias and asters and dahlias and wax-plants—they all grow wild here. And in spring it is just wonderful. There is scarcely room for grass."
"Texas won't be like that long, if it keeps on."
"No?"
"These plants all grow from seed. And when the land is heavily grazed they don't have a chance to plant themselves. They become—what do you call it—extinguished?"
"Extinct," prompted Janet.
"On my ranch, about twelve miles from here, it is n't what it used to be in springtime. We've got it pretty heavily stocked; we 're working it over into shorthorn. This place that we're on now has a fence all around it; the country is becoming crowded. And they are breaking farms all the time, too. It won't last long."
"Won't that be a shame!" said Janet. "People spoil everything, don't they? I am glad I came down here just to see the Texas prairie in spring. Even if I do have to go back again. Just look at that!"
She reached out, and, grasping a handful, she bent the still rooted bouquet so that the light shone full upon its countenance.
"How did you come to know the names of them all?" he asked.
"Why, we grow them in gardens up North. I know their names in that way. They are old acquaintances."
"Oh, that's it. Well, it is n't hard to grow them here. Us fellows out on the prairie make all our flower-beds round."
Janet paused.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "You mean thehorizon. Is n't that an idea! I am going to tell that to Ruth Ferguson the first time I write."
Steve made no reply. Janet gave her attention for a space to the beans. Then, suddenly reminded, she put down her fork.
"Mr. Brown! If you were teaching just ten or twelve children, would n't it strike you as rather foolish to call the roll every morning? You know there were only fourteen pupils in the school where I was substituting; so of course I got acquainted with them all right away. Well, one morning when the weather was bad there were only six present; so when the hour came I just began to teach. But a little boy who is in the first reader held up his hand and told me I had to call the roll first. I could hardly keep from smiling. As if I could n't see the six that were there. Then I made inquiry and I found that Miss Porter called the roll when there were only four there. Does n't it seem funny for a person to go through a formality like that just because—well, just because?"
"That's because you 've got sense," said Steve.
She dropped her eyes and ate. When this remark had had time to pass over, Janet's sociable spirit, never self-conscious for long, began to unfold its leaves and raise its stems and lift up its branches again.
In this juncture, the dog profited. Shep had been giving her such unremitting attention, his wistful brown eyes following each forkful as it went from plate to mouth, that Janet's consciousness of her selfish situation kept bearing in upon her till now every bean carried reproach with it. Thinking to convince him that it was only beans, and not desirable, she put him down a forkful from her own too generous allowance. She was surprised at the suddenness with which it disappeared. Beans were his staff of life also, a discovery which made her smile. And as one good turn deserves another—at least Shep seemed to think so—she was expected to do it again; thus supper, with his assistance, was soon over. And now Janet, with nothing whatever to do, sat face to face with her situation.
"Have you got a dishpan?" she inquired.
"Oh, you don't need to mind that. I have n't got anything you are used to. I just take them down to the stream and swab them off with a bunch of dry grass."
"Oh!" remarked Janet.
She felt, however, that it would be easier to be doing something. She gathered things together and made general unrest among the dishes. Mr. Brown, instead of being stirred by this operation of cleaning up, stretched himself out more contentedly, moved up a little closer, and took still fuller possession of her presence; and as he did so he poked up the fire and struck her a light on a new topic. But this time the train of conversation did not catch. Janet was thinking. And like most of us she could not talk well while thinking.
Mr. Brown seemed quite contented, then, with silence and peace. Evidently he too was thinking. After a little time he sat up and reached into an inside pocket. He drew forth a large leather wallet which, upon being opened, disclosed two compartments well filled with bank-notes and documentary-looking papers. There was another compartment with a flap on it and a separate fastening, opening which he took out an object wrapped in tissue paper. Having carefully unwrapped it, he folded the paper again and placed it where it would not blow away.
"That's my mother's picture," he said, handing it over formally to his guest.
Janet received it rather vaguely and sat looking at it, saying nothing.
"She died just last winter," he added, in his usual deliberate way.
"Oh, did she?"
What else to say, she hardly knew. Turning it to the light she studied it more closely and noted each resemblance to his own features, looking up at him in an impersonal sort of way and with a soberness of countenance which was a reflection of his own entirely serious mood.
"She had a very kind-looking face," she said.
To this there was no reply. Janet, about to hand it back, was momentarily in doubt as to how long a proper respect should prompt her to retain it; this, however, settled itself when she observed that he had ready to offer her a long newspaper clipping.
"I had the editor put some of that in myself," he said, reaching the long ribbon of paper over to her.
It was an obituary of Mrs. Stephen P. Brown, who passed to "the realms beyond" on the eighteenth of November. With this Janet found no difficulty.
"But," he added suddenly as it occurred to him, "I did n't have him print that part at the bottom. He just put that in himself. I mean that stuff about me."
Janet at once turned her attention to the bottom. He sat silently with the wallet in hand, his countenance a shade more solemn than usual. In the midst of this waiting there came a wail from the corral and he left suddenly upon one of his unexplained errands, this time without excusing himself. He got back while Janet was still engaged upon the article. When she looked up he was standing beside the fire looking down at her. There was something new in his face, a look half lugubrious, semi-humorous, apologetic.
"We've got another lamb," he announced.
"Oh!—another little lamb?" she exclaimed.
"There are only three so far. Three lambs and two mothers. It has n't really got started yet, but I 'm afraid it will. My herder ought to have got back yesterday and brought help along."
"Then you have a great deal to do?" queried Janet.
"Yes; after it once gets really started. Then it never rains but it pours. I have been hoping it would hold off a day or two longer; but you can't tell exactly."
He put more wood on the fire and took his place again.
"You mustn't let me interfere with your work," she suggested.
"Oh, that is n't it at all. I was just explaining. I'll get through somehow; it won't amount to anything."
With a characteristic sweep of his arm he waved the whole subject aside as if he did not want to have it interfere with her reading of the newspaper clipping. Janet had dropped it absent-mindedly in her lap; she now took it up again. Besides the tribute to Mrs. Brown's character, who was not a native of Texas but had come to the state in her girlhood from West Virginia, there was a considerable memoir of Stephen Brown, senior, relating his activities and adventures as a Texas patriot. He had "crossed the Great Divide" six years before. Finally, there was a paragraph of sympathy with the only son, "one of our most valued citizens."
"Your father knew Houston, did n't he?" remarked Janet.
"Oh, yes; he knew a lot about him."
"How interesting that must have been. Your father was a pioneer, was n't he?"
"Oh, no. You 've got to go back pretty far in history to be a Texas pioneer. He was just a Texan."
She gave another perusal to certain parts and offered it back.
"There is another piece on the other side," he said.
She turned it over and found a shorter clipping carefully pasted to the back. This also she read.