"Well, then, everything"s all fixed."
He turned up about three o"clock, seated on the spring seat of a lumber wagon beside a woman, who drove the powerful team. Whether she was young or old could not be told through her wraps. She wore a cap and a thick, faded cloak.
Mrs. Mills hurried to the door. "Why, Mattie Allen! What you doin" out such a day as this? Come in here instanter!"
"Can"t stop," called a clear, boyish voice. "Too late."
"Well, land o" stars!--you"ll freeze."
When Wallace reached the wagon side, Herman said, "My sister, Stacey."
The girl slipped her strong brown hand out of her huge glove and gave him a friendly grip. "Get right in," she said. "Herman, you"re going to stand up behind."
Herman appealed to Mrs. Mills for sympathy. "This is what comes of having plebeian connections."
"Oh, dry up," laughed the girl, "or I"ll make you drive."
Stacey scrambled in awkwardly beside her. She was not at all embarra.s.sed, apparently.
"Tuck yourself in tight. It"s mighty cold on the prairie."
"Why didn"t you come down with the baroosh?" grumbled Herman.
"Well, the corn was contracted for, and father wasn"t able to come--he had another attack of neuralgia last night after he got the corn loaded--so I had to come."
"Sha"n"t I drive for you?" asked Wallace.
"No, thank you. You"ll have all you can do to keep from freezing." She looked at his thin coat and worn gloves with keen eyes. He could see only her pink cheeks, strong nose, and dark, smiling eyes.
It was one of those terrible Illinois days when the temperature drops suddenly to zero, and the churned mud of the highways hardens into a sort of scoriac rock, which cripples the horses and sends the heavy wagons booming and thundering along like mad things. The wind was keen and terrible as a saw-bladed sword, and smote incessantly. The desolate sky was one thick, impenetrable ma.s.s of swiftly flying clouds. When they swung out upon the long pike leading due north, Wallace drew his breath with a gasp, and bent his head to the wind.
"Pretty strong, isn"t it?" shouted Mattie.
"Oh, the farmer"s life is the life for me, tra-la!" sang Herman, from his shelter behind the seat.
Mattie turned. "What do you think of _Penelope_ this month?"
"She"s a-gitten there," said Herman, pounding his shoe heels.
"She"s too smart for young Corey. She ought to marry a man like Bromfield. My! wouldn"t they talk?"
"Did y" get the second bundle of magazines last Sat.u.r.day?"
"Yes; and dad found something in the _Popular Science_ that made him mad, and he burned it."
"Did "e? Tum-la-la! Oh, the farmer"s life for me!"
"Are you cold?" she asked Wallace.
He turned a purple face upon her. "No--not much."
"I guess you better slip right down under the blankets," she advised.
The wind blew gray out of the north--a wild blast which stopped the young student"s blood in his veins. He hated to give up, but he could no longer hold the blankets up over his knees, so he slipped down into the corner of the box, with his back to the wind, with the blankets drawn over his head.
The powerful girl slapped the reins down on the backs of the snorting horses, and encouraged them with shouts like a man: "Get out o" this, Dan! Hup there, Nellie!"
The wagon boomed and rattled. The floor of the box seemed beaten with a maul. The glimpses Wallace had of the land appalled him, it was so flat and gray and bare. The houses seemed poor, and drain-pipe scattered about told how wet it all was.
Herman sang at the top of his voice, and danced, and pounded his feet against the wagon box. "This ends it! If I can"t come home without freezing to death, I don"t come. I should have hired a rig, irrespective of you----"
The girl laughed. "Oh, you"re getting thin-blooded, Herman. Life in the city has taken the starch all out of you."
"Better grow limp in a great city than freeze stiff in the country," he replied.
An hour"s ride brought them into a yard before a large gray-white frame house.
Herman sprang out to meet a tall old man with head m.u.f.fled up. "h.e.l.lo, dad! Take the team. We"re just naturally froze solid--at least I am.
This is Mr. Stacey, the new teacher."
"How de do? Run in; I"ll take the horses."
Herman and Wallace stumbled toward the house, stiff and bent.
Herman flung his arms about a tall woman in the kitchen door. "h.e.l.lo, muz!" he said. "This is Mr. Stacey, the new teacher."
"Draw up to the fire, sir. Herman, take his hat and coat."
Mattie came in soon with a boyish rush. She was gleeful as a happy babe.
She unwound the scarf from her head and neck, and hung up her cap and cloak like a man, but she gave her hair a little touch of feminine care, and came forward with both palms pressed to her burning cheeks.
"Did you suffer, child?" asked Mrs. Allen.
"No; I enjoyed it."
Herman looked at Stacey. "I believe on my life she did."
"Oh, it"s fun. I don"t get a chance to do anything so exciting very often."
Herman clicked his tongue. "Exciting? Well, well!"
"You must remember things are slower here," Mattie explained.
She came to light much younger than Stacey thought her. She was not eighteen, but her supple and splendid figure was fully matured. Her hair hung down her back in a braid, which gave a subtle touch of childishness to her.
"Sis, you"re still a-growin"," Herman said, as he put his arm around her waist and looked up at her.
She seemed to realize for the first time that Stacey was a young man, and her eyes fell.