198CHAPTER XIIION THE MESA
“Pedro,” said Virginia, “do you realize for one little minute what’s happened?”
Pedro looked back and whinnied. He realized at least that something was agitating his mistress. But half an hour since she had run out of the house to where he was feeding beneath the cottonwoods, and hurried him to the corral where she had saddled and bridled him herself. She had been crying then. Quick little sobs were shaking her shoulders. Then she had sprung upon his back and ridden like mad across the prairie to Elk Creek Valley. Had MacDuff been along, he would not have minded; but it was too warm at mid-day to gallop all alone. Once during that wild ride she had laughed, and once she had leaned forward and put her arms around his neck. It was all a very strange proceeding. Now she had mercifully halted199him on the brow of the mesa, and was allowing him to rest and feed while she sat in silence and looked across the sagebrush stretches to the mountains.
A long silence. The air throbbed with a hidden insect chorus. Little waves of heat shimmered above the mesa. Jean MacDonald’s three cows, searching for better feeding-grounds, passed by and gazed with grave, inquisitive eyes at Pedro and Virginia. Pedro fed on where he was. At last the girl upon his back spoke again.
“Pedro,” she began, and again Pedro raised his head, “Pedro, I’ve decided that Life isn’t such a strange thing after all! I’ve always thought it was until to-day, but I guess it isn’t. I guess it just means loving people—and things! If you love the wrong kind of people and the things that don’t count, why, then—why, then Life’s a sad, gray thing. But if you love the right kind of people, the kind who’ve learned that a primrose isn’t just a primrose, and things like the mountain and the mesa andyou, Pedro—why, then, Life’s a golden thing like to-day. And it’s the loving that makes all the200difference. I discovered that this morning when Aunt Nan told me about Malcolm. When I was in Vermont I thought that Grandmother and Aunt Nan were about the happiest people I’d seen; but this morning, when I saw the light in Aunt Nan’s eyes, I understood. I guess it’s a home that makes all the difference, Pedro—a home you andsomebody elsemake together!”
Pedro fed on, glad to be talked to, confident that his mistress’ world had righted itself again. A passing cloud obscured the sun for a brief moment.
“That’s the way it was with me this morning,” confided Virginia. “For just an instant I felt sorry. ’Twas the selfish part of me coming out. I didn’t want any one to take a bigger piece of Aunt Nan’s heart than mine. I didn’t want to move over and make room for any one else—even Malcolm. But that mean, drab feeling lasted only a moment. It went right away, and now I’m glad,glad—glad!If Grandmother Webster’s only glad, too, there couldn’t be any greater happiness in the world, could there, Pedro?”
Pedro stopped feeding to look back at his201mistress, and to shake his head. Virginia laughed.
“You’re the only friend I want to-day, Pedro,” she said, her arms around his neck, “you and a big Something in my heart. I wanted to come away off up here alone with you. That’s why I hurried you so, poor dear! I wanted to hear the stillness all around, and to look at the mountains. I wanted to think about it, and to wonder if, some day, after I’ve learned more things, it will come to me, too!”
Impulsively she turned in her saddle and looked down the foot-hills. Some one was fording the creek. She knew it even before she heard the splash of water. As she watched, two riders left the ford, and turned north up the canyon trail. They were Malcolm and Aunt Nan. Virginia turned back toward the mountains, and sat very still.
“Pedro,” she said at last, her voice breaking, “I guess perhaps we’d better go home, don’t you? Aunt Nan and Malcolm have found their trail, you see. They don’t need us just now. No, I’m not sorry! I’m glad! I justknowit’s the most wonderful thing in all the world!”
202CHAPTER XIVTHE NEW SCHOOL-TEACHER IN BEAR CANYON
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Samuel Wilson, stretching his boot-clad legs to their fullest extent, and twirling his thumbs thoughtfully, “yes, sir, we’ve got to have a teacher up in Bear Canyon. There ain’t a bit o’ use in waitin’ a week for that teacher from Sheridan. Come December, there’ll be snow, and school not out. Accordin’ to my judgment, and I’m the chief trustee o’ this district, it’s best to get some one to teach a week until the one we’ve hired gets here. I stopped at Ben Jarvis’ place on my way down here, and he agreed with me. Says he, ‘Sam, there’d ought to be one out o’ that crowd o’ ladies over to Hunter’s who could keep school a week. They’re all raised around Boston, folks tell me. Now you go along over, and see.’ And I said I would. What do you think, John? Ain’t there a likely one among ’em? If Virginia didn’t know the203children so well, I’d be for choosin’ her. But a stranger’s what we want. That school seems to need a stranger ’bout every term.”
“That’s just the difficulty,” said Mr. Hunter. “It is a hard school, and these girls aren’t used to schools out here. The girl I am thinking of is Mary Williams, but she’s young—only eighteen. I shouldn’t even consider her if she hadn’t said the other day that she’d like to try teaching in that little school-house up the canyon. Of course ’twould be only for a week. They’re going back East in a little more than two.”
“Her age ain’t nothin’ against her,” reassured Mr. Wilson. “Remember Eben Judd’s girl who kept the school last spring? She was only seventeen, and she could thrash the biggest boy there! Supposin’ you let me talk with this girl if she’s around. Seems to me twenty dollars a week is mighty easy money for just keepin’ school and givin’ out things you’ve got in your head a’ready!”
Mr. Hunter, half-sorry that he had even considered the matter, went in search of Mary, while Mr. Samuel Wilson stretched his legs even farther204across the floor, re-lit his old corn-cob pipe, and settled himself more comfortably in his chair. He did not rise when Mary, forewarned but very eager, came into the room a few minutes later, but he did remove his pipe. Then he stated his errand, while Mary, feeling very professional, listened with the deference due Mr. Wilson’s position as chief trustee of the Bear Canyon District.
“What we want,” concluded the chief trustee, with a wave of his hand, after he had explained all the difficulties and expatiated on all the joys of the Bear Canyon school, “what we want is a teacher who can start things right. A heap depends on the startin’ things have in this world, I’ve noticed. Now you look like a spunky young lady. Ain’t afraid o’ big boys, are you?”
Mary, with the memory of Eben Judd’s daughter and the biggest boy fresh in her mind, hesitated. Bear Canyon might offer problems too big for her inexperienced hands. Then she summoned an extra amount of dignity.
“It surely isn’t necessary to thrash them, Mr. Wilson, if you can get along with them some other205way. No, I’m not at all afraid of them. Are there many big ones?”
Mr. Wilson considered for a moment. No, there were not many. Ben Jarvis’ big boy Allan was the worst, and even he wasn’t bad if he had enough to do. The trouble was he led all the others, and if he once got “contrary,” trouble arose. Mary inwardly resolved that he should not get “contrary.”
“Now up here in Bear Canyon,” Mr. Wilson further remarked, “we’re strong on figurin’. How are you on arithmetic?”
Mary’s heart fell. Dismal visions of cube root and compound proportion came to torment her. Her ship, sailing smoothly but a moment since, had apparently struck a reef. Then a never-failing imagination came to her rescue. She saw Priscilla solving her problems in the evening at the table.
“Arithmetic isn’t exactly my specialty, Mr. Wilson,” she said brightly. “That is, I don’t love it as I do other studies; but I assure you I shall be quite able to teach it.”
The chief trustee rose from his seat, knocked the206ashes from his pipe into the fire-place, and took his hat.
“I guess you’re hired for the week, then,” said he, “at twenty dollars. I’ll stop in at Ben Jarvis’ on my way home and tell him. School begins Monday morning at nine. I may drop in myself durin’ the week to see how things is goin’. Good-mornin’.”
Mary stood in the middle of the room, paying no heed to the curious voices which called her from the porch. She saw the chief trustee ride past the window on his way to tell Ben Jarvis that she was elected. She pictured the incorrigible Allan Jarvis spending the Sabbath in the invention of mischief. It had come too suddenly. She could not realize that she was actually a Wyoming school-teacher. Now the time which she had thought to be four years’ distant had come—the time to begin to realize the ideals she had shaped for herself upon the teaching and the personality of her adored Miss Wallace.
The voices on the porch became more curious, and Mary, at last coming to herself, hurried out207to tell the wonderful news. She found the Vigilantes and Aunt Nan as interested as she herself, and willing to sacrifice her company for five days for the sake of Bear Canyon’s rising generation. Priscilla offered all the proficiency in arithmetic she possessed; Aunt Nan hurried indoors to cut and make two aprons for the teacher; and Vivian and Virginia went in search of pencils and paper. This was Saturday and there was no time to lose.
On Monday morning at eight they all stood beneath the cottonwoods to watch a wide-eyed and much excited school-teacher start for Bear Canyon. In a bag which she hung on the saddle-horn were her pencils, papers, and new apron; in a package strapped to the saddle was her lunch, packed by Hannah’s interested hands; and in her heart were excitement, misgivings, and eagerness. She preferred to go alone, she said, as she mounted into the saddle. They might ride up at four, and come home with her if they liked, but she must go alone.
They did go up that afternoon at four—Vivian, Priscilla, and Virginia. As they swung around a208bend in the road, and came upon the little school-house, they were surprised at the stillness. Where was everybody? The children had not gone home—that was certain—for half a dozen horses were picketed round about. Had the school adjourned and gone for a picnic in the woods? That would not be unlike the new teacher, but it would be very unlike the former traditions of the Bear Canyon school. No sound came from within and it was long past four. Had the big Jarvis boy triumphed after all, and made Mary a prisoner?
After five minutes of patient, puzzled waiting they added their horses to those already grazing among the sagebrush, and stole quietly to the open window. The new teacher sat in the middle of the battered, scarred, ugly little room. She held her two youngest children upon her lap much to the detriment of her new apron. A dirty eager face was raised to hers from either side of her chair. The others of her twenty charges sat as near as the seats would permit. The big Jarvis boy had not deigned to move toward the front—that was too much of a concession for the first day—but209he was leaning forward in his seat, his big, shaggy, unkempt head resting in his folded arms, his eyes never leaving Mary’s face. She was telling them the story of theDog of Flanders. The Vigilantes, crouching beneath the window, heard her as she finished.
“The next day,” she said, “they came to the great cathedral, and found Nello and Patrasche dead upon the stone floor. People were sorry then. Alois’ father was one who came. He realized how cruel he had been to Nello, and was ready now to help him. But it was too late. Little Alois came also. She begged Nello to wake and come home for the Christmas festivities, and cried when she saw that he could not. Then a great artist came. He had seen Nello’s picture of the old man on the fallen tree, and he knew that some day Nello might become a wonderful painter, even though another had won the Antwerp prize. He wanted to take Nello away with him, he said, and teach him art. But he, also, was too late, for Nello and Patrasche had gone away together to a Kinder Country. All their lives they had not been separated, and so210the people of their little village, sorry and ashamed, made them one grave and laid them to rest together.”
There was a silence in the Bear Canyon school-house until a little girl in a pink apron sobbed. Sobs were at a discount in Bear Canyon, and yet strangely enough no one laughed. Allan Jarvis, in the back seat, was intent upon his finger-nails. The others were gazing admiringly at their new teacher.
“It’s such a sad story,” said the little girl, using her pink apron for a handkerchief, “but I like it all the same.”
“Deary me!” cried the new teacher, depositing the two littlest ones on the floor, “it’s half-past four! We must close school at once!”
At that the big Jarvis boy left his seat and came down the aisle, for the first time in his life abstaining from pulling the hair of the girls nearest him.
“Shan’t I get your horse ready for you, ma’am?” he asked.
The new teacher smiled gratefully upon him.211
“If you please, Allan,” she said. “I’ll be ever so much obliged.” And Allan Jarvis departed for the horse sheds—a conquered hero!
Mary, tired but enthusiastic, told them all about it as they rode home together, followed at a respectful distance by a dinner-pail laden throng. How she had arrived that morning to find Allan Jarvis the center of a mischief-bent circle; how she had begun the day by the most exciting shipwreck story she knew; and how the promise of another story before four o’clock had worked a miracle. They were starved for stories, she said. She thought they needed them more than arithmetic.
“Besides,” she added, “probably the Sheridan person knows all about figures. I’m going to put all the arithmetic classes the last thing in the afternoon, and if we don’t get around to them, why all right. It’s unfortunate, of course, but it can’t be helped.”
One day was quite sufficient to establish the name and the fame of the Bear Canyon school-teacher. Around every supper-table circled tales of her wisdom, her beauty, her strange way of speaking, and212her general superiority over any teacher Bear Canyon had ever hired. Her ability to tell stories was lauded to the skies, and her genius at making six hitherto mercilessly long hours seem like three marvelously short ones was freely advertised. History under this new teacher had become something more than a dog-eared text-book; geography more than stained and torn wall-maps; reading more than a torturesome process of making sounds. They proudly told their parents what the Constitution of the United States had looked like when their teacher had last seen it; the size and shape of Plymouth Rock as recorded by her during her last visit there. They re-told her stories one by one to the children at home, too young for school. Allan Jarvis did his part. He told his father he would go to school without a word, if the new teacher could be persuaded to stay in Bear Canyon.
Because of this Mr. Benjamin Jarvis left his work the third day, put on a clean shirt, and visited the school himself. Mr. Samuel Wilson joined him, as did the third trustee from farther up the canyon. When these three gentlemen entered, the213oldest History class was engaged in reproducing the trial of Nathan Hale, the leading man in the cast being the big Jarvis boy. It was a novel method of teaching history, the trustees said to themselves, remembering the barren instruction they had received, but it seemed effectual. That night they offered the new teacher a permanent job in Bear Canyon. The teacher in Sheridan was not over-anxious to come, they said, and the position was Mary’s if she cared to accept it.
But Mary was going to college, she explained to the disappointed trustees. Perhaps, some day, she would come back—some day when she had learned more about teaching. As it was, Friday night must end her labors, grateful as she was, and happy as she felt over the reception Bear Canyon had given her.
It came all too soon—Friday night. The children stood in a disconsolate little group to bid her good-by. They knew Bear Canyon teachers of old. There would be no more stories, no more circuses at recess, no more flower hunts in the woods, no more plays. School now would become just a weary214succession of days—all pointing toward Saturday. Figures would take the place of reading, and the Rhine would again be just a crooked, black line, not a river surmounted by frowning castles and golden with legends.
The little girl in the pink apron again used it as a handkerchief as Mary rode down the trail.
“I—I’d go to school all my life—with her!” she said loyally.
The school-teacher halted at the residence of Mr. Benjamin Jarvis, second trustee. He it was who was to sign the check for her services, give to her the very first money she had ever earned. He was waiting for her, the check in his hand.
“I—I think I ought to tell you, Mr. Jarvis,” said Mary, “especially since you’re strong on figures in Bear Canyon, that I haven’t taught many this week. I’m afraid I’m very weak on system. That will be one of the things I’ll have to learn in college, I guess. The days have gone so fast I just haven’t seemed to have time to get them in. And—and to tell the truth, Mr. Jarvis, I’m not very strong on figures myself.”215
“Figures!” said Mr. Benjamin Jarvis as he shook hands with her. “I guess you’ve given that boy o’ mine somethin’ better’n figures, God bless you!”
The boy himself came around the house just as Mary was mounting her horse to ride away. He had left school before the others, and had said no good-by. Now he came up to her, a brown paper parcel in his hand.
“It’s a rattlesnake skin I fixed for you,” he said shyly. “You said you liked ’em once. And the heavy thing in the end’s my jack-knife. I carved your letters on the handle. I thought it might come in handy when you went to college.”
216CHAPTER XVMR. BENJAMIN JARVIS ENTERTAINS
Bear Canyon did not forget Mary. A score of heart-broken children was proof against such oblivion. Moreover, hope began to dawn in the hearts beneath pink gingham and outing flannel when the teacher from Sheridan, discouraged perhaps by a total lack of cordiality in her students, resigned after two lugubrious days of service. Then Mr. Samuel Wilson, accompanied by Mr. Benjamin Jarvis and the third trustee rode in a body to the Hunter ranch, and offered Mary a substantial “raise” if she would only stay on until December, and finish the fall term so triumphantly begun.
The memories of the little girl in the pink apron, together with the pleas of Mr. Benjamin Jarvis on behalf of Allan, and the assurance of Mr. Samuel Wilson that his children had cried “five nights runnin’” was almost too much for Mary. In one mad217wave of sympathy she determined to give up college and to wire her mother that the Path of Duty for her led unmistakably to the Bear Canyon school. But the more mature judgment of Mr. Hunter and Aunt Nan prevailed, and an hour later three very reluctant trustees rode away, leaving behind them a sad, but much relieved, school-teacher, who lay long awake that night and pondered over the desperate state of affairs in Bear Canyon.
But her worry, like most that encumbers the world, was needless, for the County Superintendent over at Elk Creek lent a helping hand, and sent Miss Martha Bumps to Bear Canyon. Now Miss Bumps was not Mary, but she was assuredly Miss Martha Bumps, and the three trustees, disappointed as they were not to have Mary, held their heads a trifle higher as they drove to town. For the aforesaid Miss Bumps was a character of renown throughout the county, and it was only because of the whooping-cough in the consolidated rural schools of Willow Creek that she was prompted to forsake her larger field and hurry to the aid of Bear Canyon.
For twenty-five years Miss Martha Bumps had218dedicated her energies to the teaching of Wyoming country schools. Some who knew her well affirmed that she had made money thereby; and this statement will doubtless be given credence by all who are not themselves school-teachers. After relinquishing the dreams in which most women of thirty indulge, and deciding once and for all that she would give the best of her life to teaching, she had spent much thought and ingenuity in scheming how such a vocation could be a distinctly pleasurable one. Ten years of boarding in homesteaders’ cabins, of sleeping with the youngest child, and eating salt pork three times a day, of drinking condensed milk on ranches devoted solely to cattle, and of riding miles to her place of business in all kinds of weather—these experiences had been fruitful in the extreme. Now she boarded nowhere. Instead, she lived in her own two-room house, which, clapboarded, shingled, windowed and doored after the manner of all houses, was mounted upon four stout cart-wheels, and driven by an obliging trustee of one district to the next chosen field whenever Miss Bumps decided that the time had come to make a change.219Arriving at her destination, the house was drawn to the best site near the school, the horses were unhitched, and the trustee, riding and leading, started homeward, leaving Miss Bumps to begin her double labors in her new situation.
Now, although this rather unusual mode of living on wheels had attracted much attention and comment, it must be conceded (and will by all country school-teachers) that it was decidedly superior to boarding. In her small but spotless kitchen, Miss Bumps cooked the food which no homesteader’s cabin afforded, and at night slept luxuriously in her own comfortable bed which nearly filled her other room. All day she gave herself untiringly to her profession. In the evenings she sat by her small air-tight stove, read, and tatted!
To this last-named accomplishment Miss Bumps had dedicated fifteen years of practice until expert proficiency had made eyes unnecessary. She tatted while she read, tatted while she taught, tatted while she watched the potatoes boiling for dinner. Some even asserted that they had seen her tat on horseback220with all the diligence attributed to Bertha the beautiful queen of old Helvetia, who spun from a distaff fastened to the saddle of her betasseled palfrey.
But even such a curiosity as Miss Bumps may have been in the early days of her portable residence and ever-present tatting grows ordinary when besieged by Time, and Wyoming no longer regarded her as a phenomenon. She was just plain Martha Bumps, to whom many a rural community owed much. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that her singular customs of living were considered most eccentric by strangers who often laughed long and uproariously at the portable house. Three amused Vigilantes found in her the best theme material imaginable, and on the day when Mr. Crusoe reported having passed her house and her on the road from Elk Creek, they hastened with their hostess to the mail-box, ostensibly to await the postman, but really to see Miss Martha Bumps pass by.
They did not have long to wait. The Willow Creek trustee had used his best team of horses in the transportation, and Miss Bumps’ entry into Bear221Canyon was a triumphal one. At a brisk trot and in a cloud of dust, the equipage came down the easy grade toward the mail-box and the four interested Vigilantes, who, throwing aside all ostentation, sprang to their feet and stared. They saw a little, blue-ginghamed woman under a huge peanut-straw hat, who sat in her own front doorway beside a substantial trustee and tatted while her interested eyes scanned her chosen country. Spying the four wayside spectators and doubtless mistaking them for members of her future flock, she smiled from behind a pair of gold-bowed spectacles, and waved a welcoming tatting-shuttle.
“She thinks I’m one of the children,” said the former Bear Canyon school-mistress. “She doesn’t recognize me as a professional friend. But I’m going to call upon her to-morrow if it’s the last thing I do while I’m in Wyoming. Maybe, since I know the Bear Canyon school, I’ll even dare give her some suggestions. I’m so anxious she should understand Allan.”
But Mary’s call was never made, for an hour later Mr. Benjamin Jarvis rode in to announce with an222air of mystery a barn-warming in his new building for that very evening.
“It’s short notice,” he explained to those who had met his invitation with instantaneous and delighted acceptance, “it’s short notice, but, when you come to think of it, there ain’t much time left. You ladies go back East in less than a week, and the threshers may come any day, so I says to Allan this mornin’ that seein’ the floor was laid we hadn’t better wait to get the windows in nor any finishin’ touches. It will be a farewell party from Bear Canyon to you, Miss Mary, and a welcomin’ one to the new teacher. I just rode past the school-house to see how she felt about to-night before invitin’ the others. She’s all set up an’ settled in the pine grove next the school, ain’t tired a mite, and says there’s nothing like a neighborhood party to get a person acquainted.”
Mary repeated her appreciation as the second trustee, having announced the time of assembling and probable other guests, turned his horse’s head homeward. Nor were the others slow to voice their own. Virginia was radiant. A real Wyoming223barn-warming, she told Mr. Jarvis, seemed the final joy in their collection of summer treasures, and she could not be grateful enough for his hospitality toward her guests.
Everybody for miles around would be there, she announced that evening as they hurried from supper to dress. All the people in the Canyon and the Valley, and even the forest rangers from Sagebrush Point and Cinnamon Creek. It would not be much like a Gordon dance or one at St. Helen’s, but she knew they would enjoy it. Yes, she said in response to Priscilla’s questions, it might really be quite like the one inThe Virginianwhere they had swapped the babies.
Vivian, who had been burrowing in her closet for a stray blue satin slipper to match the gown spread upon her bed, was surprised a few moments later to see Virginia’s dismayed face.
“Oh, Vivian, dear,” she cried, “I thought you’d understand about dressing. You really can’t wear that, you know. Why, nobody will be dressed up like that! It’s for everybody, you see—Dick and Mr. Crusoe and William and the men at Keiths’.224They’ll all come in flannel shirts and chaps, and they’d all feel so queer and awkward if we dressed as we would at school. A clean middy is what you want. I’m going to wear that. You see, it’s so different out here, Vivian.”
It certainly was different out there, Vivian said to herself a little petulantly as she hung up the blue dress, and selected a fresh middy and some lighter shoes. Would she be expected to dance with the Bear Canyon forest ranger and his brethren from Cinnamon Creek and Sagebrush Point—with Dick and William and Mr. Crusoe? They were picturesque, and she would enjoy describing them as characteristic of the West when she returned home, but as for dancing with them, that—she was careful not to admit to the others—was quite another matter.
By seven they were off, Mr. Crusoe being the proud driver of the large rig, and the other men following on horseback. The Keith family with Carver and Jack joined them at the main road, and all together they journeyed up Bear Canyon which was populated beyond its wont with pedestrians225and equestrians, all bound for the barn-warming of Mr. Benjamin Jarvis.
Virginia’s prophecy was fulfilled.Everybody was there!Not a family in the Valley or Canyon had missed this opportunity. Babies, securely bundled against the night air, slumbered on fresh hay in the unused bins, and allowed their tired parents a few moments to greet their neighbors. Love for their old teacher, and interest in their new, divided the hearts of every child but two in the Bear Canyon school, those of the little girl in the pink apron and Allan Jarvis being immovably anchored. The rangers from Bear Canyon and Sagebrush, together with a bran-new man from Cinnamon Creek, were among the guests, and two cow boys from the great Biering ranch westward had, at the invitation of Mr. Benjamin Jarvis, driven their bunch of cattle into his corral, made camp on the nearby hillside, and stayed for the celebration.
The two guests of honor were escorted to seats on the center platform, expressly built for Mr. Samuel Wilson’s phonograph, which by elevation, it was believed, would furnish sufficient volume for dancing.226In the few intervals between the quickly succeeding introductions, Bear Canyon’s two school-mistresses began their acquaintanceship, and Mary found herself strangely fascinated by plain Miss Martha Bumps. A critical analysis failed to warrant the fascination. Certainly Miss Bumps’ appearance was not engrossing. To her, clothes were an economical and a social necessity. She wore her traveling gown of faded blue gingham, which of itself was inconspicuous, had it not been for two pockets of newer material on either side of the front. These proofs of unheeded Scriptural warning, being far different in size, gave the entire garment a sinister, cross-eyed effect, which did not fail to catch the eye of the most casual observer. After a surreptitious examination of the aforesaid pockets, Mary discovered that one was occupied by Miss Bumps’ ample handkerchief, and the other by her tatting.
Nor was there anything extraordinary in the features of her successor. Ordinary gray hair was parted most punctiliously upon a most ordinary forehead. Her eyes were the usual blue, and her227nose a trifle better shaped than the average. In vain Mary searched for the hiding-place of the fascination which years afterward she was to understand—that fascination which is born of noblest enthusiasm and a passion for service, and which can transform all the Valleys of Baca in the wide world.
Priscilla stood with Virginia and Donald, and with eyes full of eagerness watched the gathering of Mr. Benjamin Jarvis’ guests. She longed for Miss King and Miss Wallace and Dorothy and the Blackmore Twins—yes, she even longed for her mother, in spite of her apprehension lest her Bostonian mother might not strictly appreciate this Wyoming barn-warming and the cosmopolitan society attendant thereupon. She wanted them all to feel as six weeks ago she had felt that indescribablefirstthrill at the sight of chaps and lariats and fully-equipped cowboys. She wanted them all to realize that here in Mr. Benjamin Jarvis’ new barn was a true democracy of comradeship—a comradeship freed from the obnoxious fetters of ball-room etiquette.228
It was the interest sparkling in her brown eyes which made the Cinnamon Creek forest ranger outdistance Carver Standish III in his haste to ask her for the grand march. Carver, in white trousers and an air a little too pronounced to be termed self-possession, was leisurely crossing the floor toward her when his chap-clad rival of Cinnamon Creek slid past him unceremoniously and reached Priscilla first. Even then Carver could not believe she would choose a forest ranger in place of him; and his anger was by no means cooled when he heard her say as though in answer to an apology:
“Oh, but you see I can dance with Carver any day, and I’ve never danced with a forest ranger in my life. I was just hoping you’d ask me when you came!”
Baffled, Carver sought Vivian in the corner whence he had come. Weak as Vivian was at times, he said to himself, in the matter of associates she showed better judgment than some other girls he might name. Vivian did not turn him down. Secretly she was devoutly thankful he had rescued her from a persistent Biering cow boy to229whom she had not been introduced, and with whom, had an introduction been procured, she did not care to dance. Before Carver had come, she had watched Mary talking with that freakish Miss Bumps, Priscilla chatting with a dozen different ranchmen, cow boys, and Bear Canyon children, and Virginia attending to the needs of a fretful baby while its mother went cookie-hunting to the family rig.
In her heart of hearts Vivian envied them all. Inwardly she longed to be one with whom all others felt at ease; but outwardly it was far easier to echo Carver’s vindictive mood, and agree with him, as they went to take their places in the ever-lengthening line, that never in her life had she seen such people.
Mr. Samuel Wilson with Miss Bumps as a partner and Mr. Benjamin Jarvis with Mary led the march, which three times made the circle of the new barn before breaking into an hilarious two-step. Mr. Samuel Wilson’s phonograph groaned and wheezed bravely from its platform; three great bon-fires outside made the great barn glow with230light; the babies in the straw-filled bins slumbered on while their fathers and mothers grew young again.
Carver, scorning a two-step, was teaching Vivian a new dance introduced at Gordon the winter before. Pretty as it was, it was strangely inappropriate in Mr. Benjamin Jarvis’ barn, and served to separate Carver and Vivian still farther from their fellow guests. The Cinnamon Creek forest ranger watched them until the straight line between his eyebrows grew deeper and deeper. Then he left Miss Martha Bumps with the excuse of bringing her a glass of cider, and started across the floor. It was too bad, he was thinking to himself, for a likeable chap like that young Standish to get in bad. A good-natured word might give him a hint, and no one be the wiser.
Carver and Vivian did not notice his approach. They were resting from their dance, and talking together in tones low yet perfectly audible to one who might be passing by.
“Did you ever see such queer people in your life?” the tall ranger heard Vivian say, and Carver’s rejoinder made the straight line between his brows231even deeper than before. Apparently there was double need for his friendly hint.
“Some five hundred,believe me!” said the third Carver Standish.
The scorn in his voice was born of petulance rather than of snobbishness, but no such kindly discrimination would be made by any sharp-eared guest of Mr. Benjamin Jarvis, and the Cinnamon Creek forest ranger lost no time.
“If I were you,” he said frankly but pleasantly to the amazed Carver Standish, “I’d be a bit more careful about what I said. You see, here in Wyoming it’s not considered good form to talk about your host and his guests. If they heard you, it mightn’t be comfortable. And, besides, it seems to me it would be better to dance with other folks. That’s why I came to ask you if you’d dance the next dance with me, Miss Winters.”
Carver and Vivian were too discomfited to be gracious. Like many persons more mature than they, they sought to cover embarrassment and to gain control of the situation by bad manners.
“I hardly think,” said Carver Standish III stiffly,232“that I need any coaching on behavior from you!”
And before the ranger had time to reply, had he contemplated such action, Vivian was ready with her self-defense.
“I rather guess New Englanders have about as good manners as Wyoming people,” she said scathingly, “at least judging from those I’ve seen!”
The reply of the Cinnamon Creek forest ranger was brief and to the point.
“I always thought so myself until to-night,” he said.
Then he bowed politely, procured a glass of cider for the waiting Miss Bumps, who was tatting during the interval, and quietly took his leave. But his words, angrily received though they had been, bore fruit, for Carver Standish III danced not only with Miss Martha Bumps but also with Mrs. Samuel Wilson who was twice his size; and Vivian, heartily ashamed of herself and seeking redemption in her own eyes, accepted the Biering cow boy without a show of an introduction, and danced with him three times during the evening, not to mention her hearty acceptance of Dick and Alec and Joe.233
It was late when Mr. Benjamin Jarvis’ barn-warming broke up, and later when the guests rode and drove away down the canyon. In Mr. Crusoe’s rig, save from one occupant, conversation and laughter never ceased until they turned down the avenue of cottonwoods. The Cinnamon Creek forest ranger came in for his share of the observations from all but Vivian—his general superiority over the other rangers, his good English, the interesting line between his eyes, and his air of having seen the world. Miss Bumps was admired and complimented. The stature of the biggest Biering cow boy brought forth exclamations. The capacity of Mr. Benjamin Jarvis as a host received loud praise. In short, no one was omitted, even to the youngest Wilson baby, who had looked so adorable as he lay asleep in the bin.
It had been a memorable evening, Aunt Nan said, as they gathered around the big fire which Hannah had kept for them, for a last half hour before bed-time. She thought they all needed just such an occasion, so that they might carry back home with them a knowledge of real Wyoming234hospitality which knew no strangers. Of course, they had seen it all summer long, she added, smiling at Virginia, but the courtesy of Mr. Benjamin Jarvis had made them one with all Elk Creek Valley and Bear Canyon.
“I’ve been thinking all the evening of the little poem we learned last Christmas, Virginia,” she said. “You know, the one about the fire. I guess the big bon-fires at Mr. Jarvis’ made me think of it, and now this one at home brings it back again. You remember it, don’t you?”
Virginia did remember. She repeated it softly while they watched the flames and listened. Vivian, in her corner, was glad no one could see the red which crept into her cheeks.
“‘I watched a log in the fire-place burning,
Wrapped in flame like a winding sheet,
Giving again with splendid largess
The sun’s long gift of treasured heat—
“‘Giving again in the fire’s low music
The sound of wind on an autumn night,
And the gold of many a summer sunrise
Garnered and given out in light.
235
“‘I watched a log in the fire-place burning—
Oh, if I, too, could only be
Sure to give back the love and laughter
That Life so freely gave to me!’”
“That’s what the people out here do,” said Aunt Nan after a little when Virginia had finished. “They’re not afraid to give back the ‘love and laughter’ which Life has given them. I think we reserved New Englanders can learn a lesson from Mr. Jarvis and the Cinnamon Creek forest ranger and all the other people we met and be more willing to give back what we’ve had given to us.”
For a long hour after she had gone to bed Vivian remembered the lesson she might have learned from the Cinnamon Creek forest ranger and would not; the love and laughter she might have given the guests of Mr. Benjamin Jarvis and did not. Thoroughly disgusted with herself, she lay looking through the tent opening at the mountains—great, silent souls beneath the stars. They gave back—justeverything, she thought.
“Can’t you sleep, Vivian?” Virginia whispered236from her bed across the tent. “What’s the matter?”
Vivian told half the truth.
“It’s that poem,” she said petulantly. “Of course it’s lovely, but I can’t get it out of my mind, and I hate to have things run through my head like that!”
237CHAPTER XVITHE CINNAMON CREEK FOREST RANGER
“No, Vivian,” assured Virginia for at least the tenth time, “there aren’t any cattle on those hills. You just turn up the Bear Canyon road where we went after the bear, and go till you reach the creek. It’s only a mile from here. Then if you feel a bit nervous about riding Siwash up the mountain, why tie him to a tree and walk. Perhaps ’twill be easier anyway, for you’ll find the kinnikinnick just after you leave the creek. It will be redder in the open places, so hunt for those. You’ll love it for Christmas boxes. If it weren’t for Cæsar, I’d go with you, but I want to finish the third book before Mary goes. Is it at the creek Carver’s going to meet you?”
“There or at the crossroads,” explained Vivian, as she mounted Siwash. “He went to town this morning with Donald, but he said he’d be back in238plenty of time. I tried to ’phone, but I guess there must be something wrong. I couldn’t get any one, and it didn’t buzz at all. But I know he’ll be there, and I’m not a bit afraid of Siwash. Good-by.”
Virginia stood on the porch and watched Vivian ride down the lane before returning to Cæsar. She was wondering if anything could be the matter, if, perhaps, something had happened at the barn-warming the evening before to displease Vivian. She had seemed so unlike herself all the morning.
But, she concluded wisely, few days were cloudless, and even an almost perfect house-party had its ups and downs. She and Donald had both discovered that. So many different personalities were bound to collide occasionally, and one couldn’t be happy always. An afternoon on the mountain was sure to make Vivian’s world bright again.
Meanwhile Vivian neared the crossroads. Carver was not there. A scanning of the prairie showed him nowhere in sight. She would ride up the canyon to the ford and wait there, she said to herself. When she rode, her thoughts were less239troublesome, and it was far easier to stick to her resolve.
Last evening, just as Mr. Benjamin Jarvis’ guests were dispersing, she had made a hasty engagement with Carver to meet her the following afternoon and go for kinnikinnick up Cinnamon Creek. The search for kinnikinnick was not, however, her real reason for wishing to see Carver. If her courage did not fail her, and if her sudden resolve did not wane in the light of day, as resolves so often do, she was going to ask Carver to ride with her up Cinnamon Creek to the ranger’s cabin, and there help her to apologize for their rudeness. To admit her regret to Carver would be even more difficult than to apologize to the ranger, and she was not at all sure that she should wish to do so in severely practical daylight.
Yet daylight had come—it was early afternoon of the next day—and she was still ready if Carver would only come. She allowed Siwash to sink his warm nose in the amber waters of the ford while she waited. It was very still up there. In fact, only Virginia’s repeated assurances that there240were no cattle on the hills and her own knowledge that a homesteader’s cabin was just out of sight beyond the quaking-asps on her left, made Vivian endure that stillness, broken only by the hurrying creek waters and the lazy humming of tiny, hidden insects.
To her right rose the mountain wall, dark with pine and spruce, though here and there a flaming service-berry or a hawthorn broke through the evergreens like sudden fire. The tangle of trees and shrubs seemed impenetrable, and yet Virginia had told of a trail which led from the creek not three rods from the ford—led up, up, up for five miles until it reached the Cinnamon Creek Station.
Why did not Carver come? She wished she could be as patient as Siwash who stood knee deep in the ford, hung his shaggy, homely head, and stole a nap gratefully. For the twentieth time Vivian rehearsed her speeches, the one to Carver and the other to the insulted ranger. That is, he had every cause to be insulted, though her memory of the smile with which he had received her thrust would seem to dispute his justifiable indignation. Perhaps241here in the mountains people were not so easily insulted. They, the mountains, were so big and generous that they made one ashamed of littleness.
Being sure of the speeches, she grew more and more impatient. Carver, waiting in Elk Creek for a stock train to load up with its living freight, was even more uneasy than she. He could not leave Donald and there was no way of letting Vivian know that he could not meet her at the ford. At last, having convinced himself that he could not help matters, he sat down on the station platform, disturbed in spirit and conscience, and hoped that Vivian had already turned back home.
But Vivian did not turn back. It grew hot by the ford, and she decided to tie Siwash in the shadow of some quaking-asps across the creek, and go up the trail herself to a shady place. Carver would see Siwash and call to her if she did not hear him come.
It was cool and shady beneath the trees that bordered the rocky trail. She would willingly have rested had not her eyes spied the red berries of242some kinnikinnick growing on either side of the path. Farther away in an open space she saw more and larger. They were far prettier than holly for Christmas boxes, and would be so different to her friends back East. She loved the tiny leaves and graceful trailing of the vines, which seemed hardly sturdy enough to hold the big, round, jolly-looking berries.
Virginia was right. They did grow more luxuriantly in the infrequent open places, and she climbed farther and farther up the mountain side, seeking like Hansel and Gretel for bigger berries than she had found. Sometimes she stood still and listened. The silence made a queer catch in her throat. Had it not been for her eagerness to find more and better kinnikinnick, and her knowledge that the homesteader’s cabin was very near, she would have been frightened. But Carver must be there very soon, and though she often left the trail, the sound of the creek was proof against her being lost. Her own woodsman instinct was not strong, but Virginia had told her always to trust the creek, which would ever lead one down whence she had come.243
Once her heart almost stopped beating. Away in the top of a great spruce she heard a hammering sound. It echoed through the silent woods like great blows of an ax, and some long moments passed before Vivian could assure her frightened heart that it was only a flicker searching for his dinner.
Her box was filled with kinnikinnick and she would go back. If Carver were not at the ford, they must make the trip up the trail the next day in spite of Virginia’s plan for a ride to Lone Mountain. If necessary, she would be brave enough to explain matters, and then they would understand.
She turned to go down the mountain, when suddenly from above her came a sound of breaking underbrush as though some creature were bursting from its covert. Vivian stood motionless, too terrified to move or to scream. It was not Carver—that was certain. He would never be upon the mountain. It was far more likely to be a bear. Why not one here as well as farther up the canyon where they had caught that monster from the sight of which she had not yet recovered? Thoughts passed like flashes through her brain while that244awful sound of breaking twigs continued. Hundreds and hundreds of them came, crowding one another for space—thoughts of St. Helen’s, snatches of poems she had learned, memories of things which had frightened her as a child. And last of all, perhaps because without knowing it she had reached a great tree and sunk in a little heap at its foot, came the picture of a sallow youth in eye-glasses and a linen duster, who had once, ages ago, crashed through some underbrush somewhere else!
The crashing ceased. Some one stepped into the trail above her. The thought of a bear had somehow given place to her old knight-errant of the soda-fountain. And yet when she looked up, expecting to see his pale, sickly countenance, she saw instead the khaki-clad form and the surprised blue eyes of the Cinnamon Creek forest ranger!
He was the very person she had wished to see. She could make her speech now, and be spared her long ride, and yet she found herself studying the line between his eyes and wondering why other people did not have a line there, too. It was the Cinnamon Creek forest ranger who spoke first.245
“If that were an oak tree,” he said, “I’d think you were consulting an oracle; but since it isn’t, maybe you’re just a Dryad who’s fallen out of the branches. What are you doing away up here anyway? I guess you startled me almost as much as I seem to have startled you. I’m mighty sorry I scared you though!”
His apology made Vivian remember her own, and though she quite forgot her speech and just stammered out how sorry she was, the ranger liked it quite as well and assured her he should never think of it again.
“And now,” he said, “since you’ve come away off up here, I’m not going to let you go home until you’ve seen my garden.”
“Your garden?” queried Vivian. “Why, your cabin isn’t here! It’s——”
“I know,” he interrupted, “but my garden is. Follow me. I’ll show you. I promise there aren’t any bears.”
She followed him for half a mile up the trail. They wound around great bowlders and along the edges of steep, forbidding places. Then the ranger246paused before a thicket of yellow quaking-asps.
“This is the entrance,” he explained. “Now prepare, for you’re going to see something more wonderful than the hanging gardens of Nineveh.”
Pushing aside the quaking-asps, he made a path for Vivian, who followed, mystified. A few moments more and they had passed the portals, and stood in the ranger’s garden.
Vivian caught her breath. Never in her life had she seen such grandeur of color. They stood in an open place—a tiny valley surrounded by brown foot-hills. Beyond, the higher pine-clad mountains shut off the valley from the eyes of all who did not seek it. Some great, gray, over-hanging rocks guarded the farther entrance. Within the inclosure, carpeting the valley and clothing the foot-hills, great masses of color glowed in the gold of the sunlight. The ranger’s garden was a flaming pageant of yellow and bronze and orange, crimson and scarlet and purple between a cloudless, turquoise sky.
“Oh!” cried Vivian. “It’s just like a secret, isn’t247it, hidden away up here? I never saw such color in all my life, except in Thaïs, you know, where the women in Alexandria wore such beautiful gowns.” Somehow she knew that the Cinnamon Creek forest rangerdidknow.
“Yes,” he said understandingly, “I remember, only this is better than grand opera, because it’s real. You see, I spotted this place last spring. I saw all the different shrubs—quaking-asp and buck-brush and Oregon grape and service-berry and hawthorn and wild currant—and I thought to myself that this would be some garden in September. It’s cold nights up here in these hills, the frosts are early, and the sun strikes this valley all day. It’s going to be even more gorgeous in two weeks more. It isn’t exactly on my beat, but it’s near enough so I can make it. Come on. I’ll show you all the different things.”
So he led her from golden quaking-asp to crimson hawthorn, and taught her the names of everything that grew in his wonderful garden. Before they had made the circle, Vivian mustered courage, and, seeing the jeweled pin upon the pocket of his248rough shirt, which his coat had covered the evening before, asked him about himself, and if Wyoming were his home.
No, he said, glad to tell her. He was from Maine, and the pin he wore was his fraternity pin. He had studied forestry in the university there, and then, becoming ill, had been sent West to get rid of a nasty cough which didn’t want to go away. But the mountains had proven the best doctors in the world, and he was only staying on a year in the cabin at Cinnamon Creek to learn the mountain trees, and to add a few more pounds before going back home again.
Vivian grew more and more confused as she listened. Here he was a New Englander like herself, and she had been so rude. What would Carver say when he knew?
“It just shows,” she said, “that we never can tell about persons on first acquaintance. I’m doubly sorry I was rude last night. I thought you didn’t talk like a Westerner, but I didn’t dream you were from New England!”
He smiled.249
“I’ve learned since I’ve been out here,” he said, “that it doesn’t make any difference where we’re from. Wyoming hearts are just like New England ones, and the only safe way is never to be rude or unkind at all.”
Vivian agreed with him. She never would be again, she said to herself, as they left the garden and went back down the trail to Siwash and the ford. Carver was not there, and the ranger insisted upon walking home with her. He would not have stayed for supper had not Virginia and Aunt Nan, meeting them at the mail-box, persuaded him.
So it was a very merry party that ate supper beneath the cottonwoods—a party saddened only by the early good-night of the Cinnamon Creek ranger, who wanted to make his mountain cabin before darkness quite obliterated the trail. As he swung into the main road after some cordial handshakes which warmed his heart, he met Carver Standish III.
It was too nearly dark for Carver to see the fraternity pin, and no one had yet told him that250the ranger was from New England. Nevertheless, he straightened his shoulders, and held out his hand.
“I’ve wanted to see you, sir,” he said, “to tell you that I was an awful cad last night, and that I’m dead ashamed of it!”