Her cheeks were flushed, and her wet hair streamed down her back. She was barefooted, a fact which she tried to conceal by leaning forward a little.
"It was very good of you to come over," she went on, more soberly, in the pause which followed. "We were scared; no use denying that, but we were too busy to dwell upon it. The wind took the tarred paper off the roof and let the rain through everywhere. It was the most exciting experience of our lives."
She was more breathless and girlish than she had ever been in his presence, and he grew correspondingly secure. A subtle charm came from her streaming hair and her uncorseted and graceful figure. He offered a.s.sistance, but she st.u.r.dily replied:
"Oh no, thank you. There"s nothing to do till morning, anyway. We kept the bed dry, and so we can sleep." She smiled on him with something happy hidden in the tones of her voice. She was embarra.s.sed, but not afraid. She trusted him perfectly, and he was exalted by that trust.
"Well, I"ll be over in the morning and see how badly damaged you are. I couldn"t go to bed till I knew you were all right."
"Thank you. You"re very kind."
He went out with a feeling that Carrie was trying hard not to laugh at him. He was sure he heard a smothered giggle as he went down the slope.
He glowed with admiration for Estelle, so frank, so womanly. They seemed to have drawn closer to each other in that fifteen minutes" talk than in all the preceding months. In the joy of this deepening friendship he splashed contentedly back to the store, unheeding the pools beneath his feet.
V
NOVEMBER
September and October pa.s.sed before the surveyors, long looked for, came through, and three months dragged out their slow length before the pre-emptors could file and escape from their claims.
By the first of November the wonder had gone out of the life of the settlers. One by one the novelties and beauties of the plain had pa.s.sed away or grown familiar. The plover and blackbird fell silent. The prairie-chicken"s piping cry ceased as the flocks grew toward maturity, and the lark and cricket alone possessed the russet plain, which seemed to snap and crackle in the midnight frost, and to wither away in the bright midday sun.
Many of the squatters by this time had spent their last dollar, and there was little work for them to do. Each man, like his neighbor, was waiting to "prove up." They had all lived on canned beans and crackers since March, and they now faced three months more of this fare. Some of them had no fuel, and winter was rapidly approaching.
The vast, treeless level, so alluring in May and June, had become an oppressive weight to those most sensitive to the weather, and as the air grew chill and the skies overcast, the women turned with apprehensive faces to the untracked northwest, out of which the winds swept pitilessly cold and keen. The land of the straddle-bug was gray and sad.
One day a cold rain mixed with sleet came on, and when the sun set, partly clear, the Coteaux to the west rose like a marble wall, crenelated and shadowed in violet, radiant as the bulwarks of some celestial city; but it made the thoughtful husband look keenly at the thin walls of his cabin and wonder where his fuel was to come from. In this unsheltered land, where coal was high and doctors far away, winter was a dreaded enemy.
The depopulation of the newly claimed land began. Some of the girls went back never to return; others settled in Boomtown, with intent to visit their claims once a month through the winter; but a few, like the Burkes, remained in their little shanties, which looked still more like dens when sodded to the eaves. The Clayton girls flitted away to Wheatland, leaving the plain desolately lonely to Bailey. One by one the huts grew smokeless and silent, until at last the only English-speaking woman within three miles was old Mrs. Bussy, who swore and smoked a pipe, and talked like a man with bronchitis. She was not an attractive personality, and Mrs. Burke derived little comfort from her presence.
Willard was away a great deal teaming, working desperately to get something laid up for the winter. The summer excursion, with its laughter, its careless irresponsibility, had become a deadly grapple with the implacable forces of winter. The land of the straddle-bug had become a menacing desert, hard as iron, pitiless as ice.
Now the wind had dominion over the lonely women, wearing out their souls with its melancholy moanings and its vast and wordless sighs. Its voices seemed to enter Blanche Burke"s soul, filling it with hunger never felt before. Day after day it moaned in her ears and wailed about the little cabin, rousing within her formless desires and bitter despairs. Obscure emotions, unused powers of reason and recollection came to her. She developed swiftly in sombre womanhood.
Sometimes Mrs. Bussy came across the prairie, sometimes a load of land-seekers asked for dinner, but mainly she was alone all the long, long days. She spent hours by the window watching, waiting, gazing at the moveless sod, listening to the wind-voices, companioned only by her memories. She began to perceive that their emigration had been a bitter mistake, but her husband had not yet acknowledged it, and she honestly tried not to reproach him for it. Nevertheless, she had moments of bitterness when she raged fiercely against him.
Little things gave her opportunity. He came home late one day. She greeted him sullenly. He began to apologize:
"I didn"t intend to stay to supper, but Mrs. Bradley--"
"Mrs. Bradley! Yes, you can go and have a good time with Mrs. Bradley, and leave me here all alone to rot. It"d serve you right if I left you to enjoy this fine home alone."
He trembled with agony and weakness.
"Oh, you don"t mean that, Blanche--"
"For Heaven"s sake, don"t call me pet names. I"m not a child. If I"d had any sense I"d never have come out here. There"s nothing left for us but just freeze or starve. What did we ever leave Illinois for, anyway?"
He sank back into a corner in gentle, sorrowful patience, waiting for her anger to wear itself out.
While they sat there in silence they heard the sound of hoofs on the frozen ground, and a moment later Bailey"s pleasant voice arose: "Hullo, the house!" Burke went to the door, and Blanche rose to meet the visitor with a smile, the knot in her forehead smoothed out. There was no alloy in her pure respect and friendship for Bailey.
He came in cheerily, his hearty voice ringing with health and good-will.
He took her hand in his with a quick, strong grip, and the light of his brown eyes brought a glow to her heart.
"I"ve come over to see if you don"t want to go to the city to-morrow?
I"ve got Joe Pease to stay in the store, and so I thought I"d take an outing."
Burke looked at his wife; she replied, eagerly:
"I should like to go, Mr. Bailey, very much. Our old team is so feeble we daren"t drive so far. I"m afraid every time old d.i.c.k stumbles he"ll fall down on the road."
"We"ll have to get back to-morrow night," Burke said.
"Oh, we"ll do that all right," replied Bailey.
As she planned the trip with tremulous eagerness, Bailey studied her.
She was paler than he had ever seen her, and more refined and thoughtful, scarcely recognizable as the high-colored, powerful woman for whom he had helped build the shanty in March. There were times now when it seemed as if she were appealing to him, and his heart ached with undefined sorrow as he looked about her prison-like home.
For half an hour she chatted with something of her old-time vivacity, but when he went out her face resumed its gloomy lines, and she silenced her husband with a glance when he attempted to keep up the cheerful conversation.
The next morning, as she was dressing, she turned sick and faint for a moment. Her breath seemed to fail her, and she sat down, dizzy and weak.
She was alone, but the red blood came swelling back into her face as she waited.
She grew better soon, and rose and went about her work. Then the excitement and pleasure of her trip, the expectation of meeting Rivers, helped her to put her weakness away.
Bailey called for the Clayton girls, who were making their monthly visit to their claim, and Mrs. Burke, seeing the shine of a lover"s joy in Bailey"s face, and the clear, unwavering trust of a pure, good girl in Estelle"s gray eyes, fell silent, and the shadow of her own sorrow came back upon her face.
The ride seemed short, and the town at the end wondrously exciting.
Rivers met them at the hotel, and insisted on their being his guests during their stay. They had a jolly supper together, after which they all went to the little town-hall to see a play. Blanche sat beside Rivers, and as she laughed at Si Peasley and his misadventures in the city she was girlishly happy. It was not very much of an entertainment, but in contrast with life in a sod shanty it was all very exciting for her.
"Oh, I wish we could live in town this winter!" she sighed in Rivers"
ear.
"You can," he answered, with significant inflection.
Altogether, the evening was one of deep pleasure for Blanche. She enjoyed the companionship of the Clayton girls, who had never been so friendly and sympathetic with her before. They invited her to spend the night with them, which pleased her very much, and they all sat up till one o"clock, talking upon all sorts of tremendously interesting feminine subjects.
Next morning Estelle went with her while she did a little shopping--pitifully little, for she only had a dollar or two to spend--while Bailey loaded up his team. At last, and all too soon, her outing ended, and she faced the west with heavy heart.
Poor Willard also felt the menace of the desolate, wild prairie, but he had no conception of the tumult of regret and despair which filled his wife"s mind as she climbed into the wagon for their return journey. She was like a prisoner whose parole had ended.
The Clayton girls said good-bye with pity in their voices, and Rivers sought opportunity to say, privately: "I hate to see you back out there on the border. If you need anything, let me know."