It was high noon when York Macpherson and his fair companion returned from the far side of the big Macpherson ranch. Jerry"s hair was blown in ringlets about her forehead and neck. Her cheeks were blooming and her eyes were like stars. With the fresh morning breeze across the prairie, the exhilarating ride on horseback, and the novel interest in a ranch whose appointments were so unlike "Eden" and the other Winnowoc Valley farms, Jerry had the ecstasy of a new freedom to quicken her pulse-beat.
She had solved her problem; now she was free for her romantic nature to expand. It was such a freedom as she had never in her wilful life known before, because it had a purpose in it such as she had never known before, a purpose in which the subconscious knowledge of dependence on somebody else, the subjection to somebody else"s ultimate control, played no part.
To Laura Macpherson she seemed to have burst from the bud to the full-blown flower in one short forenoon.
York"s face, however, was wearing that impenetrable mask that even his sister"s keen and loving eyes could never pierce. He had been impenetrable often in the last few weeks. But of the York back of that unreadable face Laura was sure. Even in their mutual teasings the deep, brotherly affection was unwavering. As far as it lay in York"s power he would never fail to make up to his companionable sister for what circ.u.mstances had taken from her. And yet--the substratum of her disturbed consciousness would send an upheaval to the surface now and then. All normal minds are made alike and played upon by the same influences. The difference lies in the intensity of control to subdue or yield to the force of these influences. Things had happened in that morning ride that York had planned merely for the beneficence of the prairie breezes upon the bewildered purposes of the guest of the house.
On the far side of the "Kingussie" ranch the two riders had halted in the shade of a clump of wild plum-trees beside the trail that follows the course of the Sage Brush. Below them a little creek wound through a shelving outcrop of shale, bordered by soft, steep earth banks wherever the shale disappeared. This Kingussie Creek was sometimes a swift, dangerous stream, but oftener it was a mere runlet with deep water-holes carved here and there in the yielding shale. Just now, at the approach of July heat, there was only a tiny thread of water trickling clear over yellow rock, or deep pools lying in muddy thickness in the stagnant places.
"Not much like the Winnowoc," York suggested, as his companion sat staring down at the stream-bed below.
"Everything is different here," Jerry said, meditatively. "I"ve traveled quite a little before; been as far as the White Mountains and the beautiful woodsy country up in York State. There"s a lot of upness and downness to the scenery, but the people--except, of course--" Jerry smiled bewitchingly.
"Except Ponk, of course," York supplied, with a twinkle in his eyes.
"How well you comprehend!" Jerry a.s.sured him. "But, seriously, the world is so different out here--the--the people and their ways and all."
"No, Jerry, it isn"t that. The climate is different. The shapes of things differ. Instead of the churned-up ridged and rugged timber-decked lands of Pennsylvania and York State, the Creator of scenery chose to pour out this land mainly a smooth and level and treeless prairie--like chocolate on the top of a layer cake."
"Chocolate is good, with sand instead of sugar," Jerry interrupted.
"But as to the people--the real heart of the real folks of the Sage Brush--there"s no difference. They all have "eyes, hands, organs, senses, affections, pa.s.sions." They are all "fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed with the same means, warmed and cooled with the same summer and winter" as the cultured and uncultured folk of the Winnowoc Valley and the city of Philadelphia. The trouble with us is we don"t take time to read them--nor even first of all to read ourselves. Of course I might except old Fishing Teddy, that fellow you see away down there where the shade is deepest," York added, to relieve the preachment he didn"t want to seem to be giving, yet really wanted this girl to understand. "He"s a hermit-crab and seldom comes among us. Every community has its characters, you know."
"He was among us last night, and went home with Joe Thomson," Jerry replied, looking with curious interest at the motionless brown figure up-stream in the shadow of a tall earth bank.
York gave a start and stared at the girl in surprise. "How do you know?
Did the Big Dipper come calling on you? That sort of information is in the Great Bear"s line."
Jerry flushed hotly as she remembered her promise not to tell of Mrs.
Bahrr"s call. In a dim sort of way she felt herself entangled for the moment. Then she looked full at York, with deep, honest eyes, saying, simply:
"Joe Thomson was calling on me last night, and I saw this old fellow, Hans Theodore, Joe named him, waiting on the driveway, and the two went away together, a pair of aces."
"How do you know, fair lady, that this is the same creature? And how do you happen to know Joe Thomson?" York inquired, blandly, veiling his curious interest with indifference.
"I happened to meet both of these country gentlemen on a certain day. In fact, I dined _al fresco_ with one when I was riding in my chariot, incognito, alone, unattended by gallant outriders, about my blank blank rural estate in the heart of the Sage Brush country of Kansas. The "blank blank" stands for a term not profane at all, but one I never want to hear again--that awful word "_blowout_.""
Jerry"s humor was mixed with sarcasm and confusion, both of which troubled the mind of her companion. This girl had so many sides. She was so unused to the Western ways and he was trying to teach her a deeper understanding of human needs, and the human values regardless of geography, when she suddenly revealed a self-possession telling of sc.r.a.ps of her experience in a matter-of-fact way; and yet a confusion for some deeper reason possessed her at certain angles. Why? That mention of Joe Thomson was annoying to York. Why? Jerry"s a.s.sumed familiarity with such a hermit outcast as the old fisherman was puzzling. Why? York must get back to solid ground at once. This girl was throwing him off his feet. Clearly she was not going to chatter idly of all her experiences. She could know things and not tell them.
"Seriously, Jerry, there are no geographical limits for culture and strength of character. If you stay here long enough you will appreciate that," he began again where he had thrown himself off the trail to avoid a preachment.
"Yes," Jerry agreed, with the same degree of seriousness.
"See, coming yonder." York pointed up the trail to where a much-worn automobile came chuffing down the shaly road toward the ford of Kingussie Creek. "That is Thelma Ekblad and her crippled brother Paul.
If you look right you will see the same lines of courage and sweetness in his face that are in my sister"s. And yet, although their lives have been cast in widely different planes, their crosses are the same and they have lifted them in the same way."
Jerry hadn"t really seen the lines in Laura Macpherson"s face, because she had been too full of her own troubles. With York"s words she felt a sense of remorse. Finding fault with herself was new to her and it made her very uncomfortable. Also this girl coming, this Thelma Ekblad, was the one whom Mrs. Bahrr had said York had pretended to be interested in once. Jerry had remembered every word of Stellar Bahrr"s gossipy tongue, because her mind had been in that high-strung, tense condition last night to receive and hold impressions unconsciously, like a sensitized plate. The thought now made her peculiarly unhappy.
"Joe Thomson"s farm is next to hers. Some day I"ll tell you her story.
It is a story--a real-life drama--and his."
York"s words added another degree to Jerry"s disturbed mental frame.
"How do you do, Thelma? h.e.l.lo, Paul! Fine weather for cutting alfalfa.
My machines are at it this morning." York greeted the occupants of the car cordially.
"Good morning, York. We are rushing a piece of the mower up to the shop.
Had a breakdown an hour ago."
Thelma was tanned brown, but her fair braids gleamed about her uncovered head, and when she smiled a greeting her fine white teeth were worth seeing. Paul Ekblad waved a thin white hand as the car pa.s.sed the two on horseback, and the delicate lines of his pale, studious face justified York"s comparison of it with Laura Macpherson"s. Jerry saw her hostess at that moment in a new light. Burdened for the moment as she was under the discomfort of what seemed half-consciously to rebuke the frivolous girl that she dimly knew herself to be, the sudden memory of her resolve declared to Joe Thomson in the shadow-flecked porch the night before came as a balm and a stimulant in one, to give her purpose, self-respect, and peace.
Thus it was that Jerry came in to "Castle Cluny" at high noon the picture of health and high spirits, shaming Laura Macpherson"s doubt and sorrow which her morning had brought her. Laura was thoroughly well-bred, and she had, beyond that, a strong and virtuous heritage of Scotch blood that made for uprightness and sincerity. With one effort she swept out of her mind all that had hara.s.sed it since the cup episode at the breakfast-table, establishing anew within her understanding the force of her brother"s admonition concerning any affiliation with the Big Dipper, the town meddler and trouble-maker.
Late that afternoon, as Laura sat sewing in the shade of the honeysuckle-vines, Stellar Bahrr hurried across lots again and hitched cautiously up to the side door. Listening a moment, she heard the sound of Laura"s scissors falling on the cement floor of the porch, and Laura"s impatient exclamation, "There you go again!" as she reached to pick them up and examine the points of their blades.
Stellar hitched cautiously a little further along the wall, and stood in the shade of the house, outside the porch vines.
"Laury," she called, in a sibilant voice, "I jis" run in to say I won"t need that money at all. I"m goin" to go out sewin", an" I can git all I can do, now the wheat harves" promises so well. Ever"body"s spending money on clo"es an" a lot of summer an" fall sewin" goin" to rot, you might say. I"ll be jis" blind busy, an" I can sew better than I can bake or trim. But I"m same obliged."
"Won"t you come in?" Laura must not be rude, at any cost.
"No, I can"t. I must run back. My light bread"s raisin" and it"ll raise the ruff if I don"t work the meanness out of it."
Just then Jerry Swaim came bounding through the hall doorway. "Look here, Laura! See what I have found." She held up her beaded hand-bag and pulled the stuffed silken purse out of it. "Now how did it ever get in there? I"m a good many things, but I never knew I was a shoplifter,"
Jerry declared, laughingly, a bit of confused blush making her prettier than usual.
"Why--why--" Laura was embarra.s.sed, not for Jerry"s sake, but on account of those steel hooks thrusting themselves into her back through the honeysuckle-vines.
"Say, Laury, I jis" wanted to say I"m goin" to Mis" Lenwell"s first.
Good-by." Stellar Bahrr"s voice, sharp and thin, cut through the vines.
As Laura turned to reply Jerry saw her fair face redden, and her voice was almost harsh as she spoke clearly, to be well heard.
"I remember now. I must have put it in there by mistake when you were down-town yesterday afternoon. I guess I thought it was my bag."
Mrs. Bahrr, turning to go, had caught sight of Jerry"s hand-bag through the leaves, and remembered perfectly that Jerry had carried it with her down-town the day before, and how well it matched the beaded tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of her parasol, her wide-brimmed chiffon hat, and the sequins of her sash tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs against her silk walking-skirt.
Jerry recalled taking the bag with her, too, and she recalled just then what Mrs. Stellar Bahrr had hinted about Laura not wanting York to admire other women. Why did that thought come to the girl"s mind just now? Was the wish of the evil mind of the woman hitching away across lots and corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g down alleyways projecting itself so far as this?