CHAPTER XI.
HEROES AND HEROINES.
"Oh for a knight like Bayard, Without reproach or fear!"
"How to support life on such a day as this?" demanded Rita, coming out of her room, and confronting her cousins as they came upstairs. She had been asleep, and her dark eyes were still misty and vague. The others, on the contrary, had been running in the rain, and they were all a-tingle with life and fresh air, and a-twinkle with rain-drops. The moment was not a good one, and Rita"s straight brows drew together ominously.
"You have been--amusing yourselves, it appears," she said, in the old withering tone that they were learning to forget. "Of course, here nothing matters; one may as well be a savage as an _elegante_ in the wilderness; but I should be sorry to meet you in Havana, my cousins!"
Peggy hung her head, and tried to keep her muddy feet out of sight.
Margaret only laughed, and held up her petticoats higher.
"You ought to have been with us, Rita!" she said. "We have had great fun. The garden is one great shower-bath, and the brook is roaring like a baby lion. I am really beginning to learn how to walk in wet feet, am I not, Peggy? I used to think I should die if my feet were wet. It is really delightful to feel the water go "plop!" in and out of one"s boots. Now, my dear," she added, "I really cannot let you be cross, because Peggy and I are in the most delightful good humour, and we came in on purpose, because we thought you would be awake, and would want to be amused. If you frown, Rita, I shall kiss you, all dripping wet, and you know you could not bear that."
She advanced, holding up her rosy, shining face, down which the drops were still streaming. Rita uttered a shriek and vanished.
"I don"t see how you can talk to her that way," said Peggy admiringly.
"When she opens her eyes at me, and pulls her eyebrows together, I feel about two inches high and three years old. You are brave in your own way, Margaret, if you can"t pull people out of bogs."
Margaret laughed again. "My dear, I found it was the only way," she said. "If I let her ride over me--" Here she stopped suddenly, and with a change of tone bade Peggy hasten to change her wet clothes. "It is all very fine to get wet," she said, "and I am grateful for the lesson, Peggy; but I know that one _must_ change when she comes in."
Peggy made a grimace, and said that at home she was often wet through from morning till night, and n.o.body cared; but Margaret resolutely pushed her into her room and shut the door, before going on to her own.
In a few minutes both girls, dry and freshly clad, knocked at Rita"s door; and though her "Come in" still sounded rather sullen, it was yet a distinct invitation, and they entered. Rita had made this room over in her own way, much to Elizabeth"s inconvenience. The chintz curtains were almost covered with little flags, emblems, feathery gra.s.ses, and the like, pinned here and there in picturesque confusion. A large Cuban flag draped the mantelpiece, and portraits of the Cuban leaders adorned the walls. Over the dressing-table was the great scarlet fan which had played such a conspicuous part in the drama of "_Cuba Libre_," and it was pinned to the wall with a dagger of splendid and alarming appearance. The mirror was completely framed in photographs, mostly of dark-eyed senoritas in somewhat exaggerated toilets. Inscriptions in every variety of sprawling hand testified to the undying love of Conchita, Dolores, Manuela, and a dozen others, for their all-beautiful Margarita, to part from whom was death.
If this were literally true, the youthful population of Cuba must have been sensibly diminished by Rita"s departure. There were black-browed youths, too, some gazing tenderly, some scowling fiercely, all wearing the Cuban ribbon with all possible ostentation. One of these youths was manifestly Carlos Montfort, Rita"s brother, for they were like enough to have been twins; another had been pointed out to Margaret, in a whisper charged with dramatic meaning, as "Fernando," the cousin on her mother"s side, the handsomest man in Havana, and the most fascinating. Margaret looked coolly enough at this devastator of hearts, and thought that her own cousin Carlos was far handsomer. Peggy thought so, too; indeed, her susceptible sixteen-year-old heart was deeply impressed by Cousin Carlos"s appearance, and she would often steal into the room during Rita"s absence, to peep and sigh at the delicate, high-bred face, with its flashing dark eyes, and the hair that grew low on the forehead, with just the same tendril curls that made Rita"s hair so lovely. Oh! Peggy would think, if her own hair were only dark, or even brown,--anything but this disgusting, wishy-washy flaxen. She had longed for dark eyes and hair ever since she could remember. Poor Peggy! But she kept her little romance to herself, and indeed it was a very harmless one, and helped her a good deal about keeping her hair neat and her shoe-strings tied.
When the girls went in now, they found Rita curled up on her sofa, with the robe and pillow of chinchilla fur that had come with her from Cuba.
It was a bad sign, Margaret had learned, when the furs came out in warm weather. It meant a headache generally, and at any rate a chilly state of body, which was apt to be accompanied by a peevish state of mind.
Still, she looked so pretty, peeping out of the soft gray nest! She was such a child, after all, in spite of her seventeen years,--decidedly, she must be amused.
"Well," said Rita, half dolefully, half crossly, "I cannot command solitude, it appears. I am desolated; I desire to die, while this frightful rain pours down, but I cannot die alone; that is not suffered me."
"Certainly not," replied Margaret cheerfully. "Don"t die yet, please, dear, but when you feel that you must, we will be at hand to take your last wishes, won"t we, Peggy?"
But Peggy thought Margaret cruel, and could only look at Rita remorsefully, feeling that she had sinned, she knew not how.
"And how are we to amuse ourselves?" added Margaret, seating herself on the couch at Rita"s feet. "I think we must tell stories; it is a perfect day for stories. Oh, Peggy, don"t you want to get my knitting, like the dear good child you are? I cannot listen well unless I have my knitting."
Peggy brought the great pink and gray blanket which had been Margaret"s friend and companion for several months, and with it her own diminutive piece of work, a doily that she was supposed to be embroidering. Rita lay watching them with bright eyes, her eyebrows still nearer together than was desirable. At last, "Well," she said again. There was impatience and irritation in the tone, but there was interest, too.
"Well," replied Margaret, "I was only thinking what would be pleasantest to do; there are so many things. How would it do for each of us to tell a story,--a heroic story, such as will stand the rain, and not be afraid of a wetting?"
"Of our own deeds?" inquired Rita.
"Oh, perhaps hardly that. If I waited to find a heroic deed of my own performance, you might get tired, my dear. Somehow heroics do not come every day, as they used in story times. But I can tell you one of my father. Will you hear it?"
Rita nodded languidly; Peggy looked up eagerly.
"It was in the great Blankton fire," said Margaret. "I don"t suppose you know about it, Rita, but Peggy may have heard. No? Well, the country is very big, after all. It seems as if all the world must have heard of that fire. I was hardly more than a baby at the time, but I remember seeing the red glare, and thinking that we were not going to have any night that time, as the sun was getting up again as soon as he had gone to bed. We were living in Blankton that winter, for papa had some work that made it necessary for him to be near the Blankton libraries; Historical Society work, you know, as so much of his work was." She paused for some appreciative word, but none came. Apparently neither of her cousins had heard of the Historical Society, which had played so large a part in her father"s life and her own.
"The whole sky was like blood!" she went on; "and when the smoke-clouds that hung low over the city blew aside, we could see the flames darting up, high, high, like pillars and spires. Oh! it was a beautiful, dreadful sight! I watched it, baby as I was, with delight. I never thought that my own father was in all that terrible glow and furnace, and that he came near losing his precious life to save another"s."
"How?" cried Peggy, roused at the mention of saving life. "Did he start another fire to meet it?"
"Oh, no, no!" cried Margaret, in her turn failing to appreciate the Western point of view. "He tried to help put it out at first in the building where he was, and when he saw that was impossible, he went to work getting out his books and papers. They were very, very valuable; no money could have bought some of them, he said, for they were original doc.u.ments, and in some cases there were no duplicates. They were Papa"s treasures,--more to him than twenty fortunes. So he began taking them out, slowly and carefully, thinking he had plenty of time. But after he had taken out the first load, he heard cries and groans in a room near his own office, and going in, he found an old man, a wretched old miser that lived there all alone, in dirt and misery, though every one knew he was immensely rich. He seemed to have gone out of his mind with fright, and there he sat, his hands full of notes and bonds and things, screaming and crying, and saying that he could not go out, for he would be robbed, and he must stay there and burn to death. Papa tried to reason with him, but he would not listen, only screamed louder, and called Papa a robber when he tried to take the papers from him. Then Papa called to the men who were pa.s.sing by to help him, but they were all so busy saving their own things, they could not stop, I suppose, or at any rate, they did not; and all the time the fire was coming nearer, and the smoke was getting thicker and thicker. Somebody who knew Papa called to him that the fire had reached his entry, and that in five minutes his office would be in flames. He started to run, thinking he could get out a few precious books, and let the others go while he got the old man out; but this time the poor old soul clung to him, and begged not to be left to burn, and looking out into the hall, Papa saw the smoke-cloud all shot with flame, and bright tongues licking along the walls toward him. So he took the old man by the arm and tried to lead him out, but he screamed that his box must go too, his precious box, or he should die of grief. That was his strong-box, and it was too heavy for him to lift, so he sat down beside it, hugging it, and saying that he would never leave it. Poor Papa was at his wit"s end, for at any moment they might be surrounded and cut off from the stairs. So he heaved up the box and threw it out of the window, and then he took the old miser on his back and ran for his life. Oh, girls, there was only just time! He had to run through the fire, and his hair and beard were singed, and his clothes; but he got through, half blinded and choked, and almost strangled, too, for the old miser was clutching his throat all the time, and screaming out that he had murdered him."
"Why did he not drop him?" inquired Rita. "My faith, why should he be saved, the old vegetable?"
"Oh, Rita, you don"t know what you are saying. It was a human life, and of course he _had_ to save it; but it did seem cruel that the precious books and papers had to be sacrificed for just wretched money. That was the heroic part of it,--Papa"s leaving the things that meant more to him than anything in the world, except me and his friends, and saving the old miser"s money."
"If he could have saved him and the books, and let the money go to Jericho!" said Peggy; "but I suppose he couldn"t."
"That was just it! The man was really out of his mind, you see, and if Papa had left him he might have run into the fire, or jumped out of the window, or done any other crazy thing. Well, that is my story, girls.
Who shall come next,--you, Rita?"
Rita had been only partly roused by the story of the fire. An uncle saving a dirty old man and his money did not specially appeal to her; the hero should have been young and ardent, and should have saved a lady from the burning house. Peggy wanted to be responsive, but it seemed a great fuss to make over musty old books and papers; probably they were like those that Margaret made such a time about in the library here; Peggy had looked at some of them, and they were as dry as dry could be.
If he had saved a dog, now, or a child,--and at the thought her eyes brightened.
"Do heroines count," she asked; "or must it be a man?"
"Of course they count!" cried Margaret, bending over her work to hide the tears that came to her eyes. She felt the glow checked in her heart,--knew that her story, her beloved story, had not struck the note that always thrilled her when she saw in thought her father, slender, gray-haired, carrying out the strange man, and leaving behind him, without a word, the fruits of years of toil.
"Of course heroines count, my dear! Have you one for us?"
"Ma did something nice once," said Peggy shyly; "she saved my life when I was a baby."
"Tell us!" cried both girls, and Rita"s eyes brightened, for this seemed to promise better.
"It was when Pa first took up the claim," said Peggy. "The country was pretty wild then,--Indians about, and a good many big beasts: panthers, and mountain lions, and so on. I was the only girl, and I was two years old. Pa used to be out on the claim all day, and the boys with him, all except Hugh, and he was in bed at that time; and Ma used to work in the garden, and keep me by her so that I wouldn"t get into mischief.
"One day she was picking currants, and I had been sitting by her, playing with some hollyhock flowers she had given me. She did not notice when I crawled away, but suddenly she heard me give a queer sort of scream. She turned round, and there was a big panther dragging me off down the garden path by my dress. Ma felt as if she was dead for a minute; but then she ran back to the seed-house--it was only a few steps off--and got a hoe that she knew was there, and tore off after the panther. It wasn"t going very fast, for I was a pretty heavy baby, and it didn"t know at first that any one was after it. When it heard Ma coming it started off quicker, and had almost got to the woods when she caught up. Ma raised that hoe and brought it down on the beast"s head as hard as she knew how. It dropped me, and turned on her, grinning and snarling, and curling its claws all ready for a spring. She never stopped to draw breath; she raised the hoe again, and that time, she says, she prayed to the swing of it; and she brought it down, and heard the creature"s skull go crash under it, and felt the hoe sink in. The panther gave a scream and rolled over, and then Ma rolled over too; and when Pa came home to dinner, a few minutes later, they were both lying there still, and I was trying to pick up my hollyhock flowers. We have never had hollyhocks since then; Ma can"t bear "em."
There was no doubt about the effect of Peggy"s story. Before it was finished Rita was sitting bolt upright, her chinchilla robe thrown back, her hands clasped over her knee, her eyes alight with interest; and Margaret cried, "Oh, Peggy, Peggy, what a splendid story!"
"Well, it"s true!" said Peggy.
"Of course it is; that"s the splendid part. Oh, I am so proud to have an aunt so brave and strong. Aunt--why, Peggy, you have never told me your mother"s name!"
"You never asked," said Peggy. "Her name is Susan."
Margaret blushed, and mentally applied the scourge to herself. It was true; she never had asked. Peggy had said that her mother had no education, and had got along very well without it; this was all that Margaret wanted to know. A shallow, ignorant woman, who had let her child grow up in such ignorance as Peggy"s; and now she learned, all in a moment, of a strong, brave woman, helping her husband to clear the waste where their home was to be, making that home, bringing up her great family in love and rude plenty, and killing wild beasts with her own hard, honest hand. Margaret was learning a good deal this summer, and this was one of the most salutary lessons. She bowed her head and accepted it, but she only said aloud:
"Aunt Susan! I hope I shall know her some day. I shall put her in my heroine book, Peggy, from this minute." And the tone was so warm and hearty that Peggy"s eyes filled with tears, and she felt dimly that she, too, had been neglectful of "Ma" of late, and resolved to write a good long letter that very afternoon.