Judith of the Plains Part 11

"I 'low they wuz grudgin' him the mouthful they fed to him, that they ack so outdaciously plumb locoed as to tu'n a man out to get hisself hanged.

An' Jim never wuz a hearty eater. He never seemed to relish his food, even when he wuz a growin' kid."

A pale, twinkling point of light, faintly glimmering in the vast solitudes above the billowing peaks, suddenly burst into a dazzling constellation before the girl and her mother. "It's a warning!" shivered the old woman.

"Some'um's bound to happen." She began to rock herself slowly. The thing she dreaded had already come to pa.s.s in her imagination. Jim a free man was Jim a dead man. He was so dead that already his step-mother was going on with a full acceptance of the idea. She reviewed her relationship to him. No, she had nothing to blame herself for. He had been more troublesome than any of her own children and for that reason she had been more liberal with the rod. And yet-the face of the squaw rose before her, wraithlike, accusing! "Ai-yi!" she said; but this time her favorite expletive was hardly more than a sigh.

"I mind Jim when he first kem to us," she said, more to herself than to Eudora, who sat at her feet. The impending tragedy in the family had robbed her of all the joy in her suitors. They sat on a bench on the opposite side of the house, divided by the very nature of their interests yet companions in misery.

"He wuz scarce four, an' yet he had never been broke of the habit of sucking his thumb. Ef he'd ben my child, I'd a lammed it out'n him before he'd a seen two, but seem' he was aged for an infant havin' such practices, I tried to shame him out'n it. But, Lord a ma.s.sy, men folks is hard to shame even at four. I hissed at him like a gyander every time I seen him do it. Now I'd a knowed better-I'd a sewed it up in a pepper rag."

"What's suckin' his thumb as an infant got to do with his gettin' lynched now?" demanded Eudora, with the scepticism of the second generation.

"Wait till you-uns has children of your own," sniffed her mother, from the a.s.sured position of maternal experience, "an' see the infant that's allowed to suck its thumb has the makin's in him of a felon or a unfortunit." She rocked a slow accompaniment to her dismal, prophecy.

Eudora's eyes, big with wonder, were fixed on the crouching flank of a distant mountain. Her mother broke the silence. Not often did they speak thus intimately. Old Sally belonged to that cla.s.s of mothers who feel a pride in their reticent dealings with their daughters, and who consider the management of all affairs of the heart peculiarly the province of youth and inexperience.

But to-night she was prompted by a force beyond her ken to speak to the girl. "Eudory, in pickin' out one of them men," she jerked her thumb towards the opposite side of the house, "git one tha's clar o' the trick o' stampedin' round other wimming. It's bound to kem back to ye, same as counterfeit money."

Eudora giggled. She was of an age when the fascinations of curiosity as to the unknown male animal prompt lavish conjecture. "I 'lowed they all stampeded."

"Yes," leered the old woman-and she grinned the whole horrid length of her empty gums-"the most of 'em does. But you must shet your eyes to it. The moment they know you swallow it, they's wuthless, like horses that has run away once."

"Hark!" said Eudora. "Ain't that wheels?"

"It be," answered her mother. "It be that old Ma'am Yellett after her gov'ment."

IX

Mrs. Yellett And Her "Gov'ment"

The buckboard drew up to the back or open-faced entrance of the Rodney house with a splendid sweep, terminating in a brilliantly staccato halt, as if to convey to the residents the flattering implication that their house was reached via a gravelled driveway, rather than across lumpish inequalities of prairie overgrown with cactus stumps and clumps of sage-brush. From the buckboard stepped a figure whose agility was compatible with her driving.

No sketchy outline can do justice to Mrs. Yellett or her costume. Like the bee, the ant, and other wonders of the economy of nature, she was not to be disposed of with a glance. And yet there was no attempt at subtlety on her part; on the contrary, no one could have an appearance of greater candor than the lady whose children Mary Carmichael had come West to teach. Her costume was a thing apart, suggesting neither s.e.x, epoch, nor personal vanity, but what it lacked of these more usual sartorial characteristics, it more than made up in a pa.s.sionate individualism; an excessively short skirt, so innocent of "fit" or "hang" in its wavering, indeterminate outline as to suggest the possible workmanship of teeth rather than of scissors; and riding-boots coming well to the knee, displaying a well-shaped, ample foot, perched aloft on the usual high heel that cow-punchers affect as the expression of their chiefest vanity. But Mrs. Yellett was not wholly mannish in her tastes, and to offset the boots she wore a bodice of the type that a generation ago used to be known as a "basque." It fitted her ample form as a cover fits a pin-cushion, the row of jet b.u.t.tons down the front looking as if a deep breath might cause them to shoot into s.p.a.ce at any moment with the force of Mauser bullets.

Such a garb was not, after all, incongruous with this original lady's weather-beaten face. Her skin was tanned to a fine russet, showing tiny, radiating lines about the eyes when they twinkled with laughter, which was often. No individual feature was especially striking, but the general impression of her countenance was of animation and activity, mingled with geniality and with native shrewdness.

"Howdy, Miz Yellett," called out old Sally, hitching her rocker forward, in an excitement she could ill conceal. "You-uns' gov'ment come, an' she ain't much bigger'n a lettle green gourd. Don't seem to have drawed all the growth comin' to her yit."

"In roundin' up the p'ints of my gov'ment, Mis' Rodney, you don't want to forget that green gourds and green grapes is mighty apt to belong to the sour fambly, when they hangs beyant your reach."

"Ai-yi!" grimaced old Sally. "It's tol'able far to send East for green fruit. We can take our own pep'mint."

The prospective advent of a governess in the Yellett family, moreover, one from that mysterious centre of culture, the East, had not only rent the neighborhood with bitter factions, but had submitted the Yelletts to the reproach of ostentation. In those days there were no schools in that portion of the Wind River country where the Yelletts grazed their flocks and herds. Parents anxious to obtain "educational advantages"-that was the term, irrespective of the age of the student or the school he attended-sent them, often, with parental blindness as to the equivocal nature of the blessing thus conferred, to visit friends in the neighboring towns while they "got their education." Or they went uneducated, or they picked up such crumbs of knowledge as fell from the scant parental board.

But never, up to the present moment, had any one flown into the face of neighborly precedent except st.u.r.dy Sarah Yellett.

Old Sally, in her eagerness to convey that she was in no degree impressed with the pedagogical importation, like many another belligerent lost the first round of the battle through an excess of personal feeling. But though down, Sally was by no means out, and after a brief session with the snuff-brush she returned to the field prepared to maintain that the Yellett children, for all their pampering in the matter of having a governess imported for their benefit, were no better off than her own brood, who had taken the learning the G.o.ds provided.

"Too bad, Miz Yellett, that you-uns had to hire that gov'ment without lookin' over her p'ints. I've ben takin' her in durin' supper, and she'll never be able to thrash 'em past Clem. She mought be able to thrash Clem if she got plumb mad, these yere slim wimmin is tarrible wiry 'n' active at such times, but she'll never be able to thrash beyant her." And having injected the vitriolic drop in her neighbor's cup of happiness, Old Sally struck a gait on her chair which was the equivalent of a gallop.

But Mrs. Yellett was not the sort of antagonist to be left gaping on the road, awed to silence by the action of a rocking-chair, no matter how brilliant.

"I reckon I can thrash my own children when it's needed, without gettin'

in help from the East, or hereabouts either, for that matter. If other folks would only take out their public-spirited reformin' tendencies on their own famblies, there'd be a heap less lynchin' likely to happen round the country in the course of the next ten years."

Old Sally let the home-thrust pa.s.s. "Who ever hearn tell of a good teacher that wasn't a fine thrasher in the bargain?" She swung the chair about with a pivotal motion, as if she were addressing an a.s.semblage instead of a single listener, and then, bethinking herself of a clinching ill.u.s.tration, she called aloud to her daughter to bear witness. "Eudory!

Eu-do-ry! You-do-ry!"

"Ye-'s ma'am," drawled the daughter, coming most unwillingly from the open-faced room opposite, where she had been inciting all four of the suitors to battle.

"What was it they called that teacher down to Caspar that larruped the hide off'n the boys?"

"A fine dis-a-_ply_-narian, maw."

"Yes, that's it-a dis-a-_ply_-narian. What kin a lettle green gourd like her know 'bout dis-apply-in?"

"Your remarks sh.o.r.e remind me of a sayin' that 'the discomfort of havin'

to swallow other folks' dust causes a heap of anxiety over their reckless driving.'"

Mrs. Yellett flicked her riding-boot with her whip. Her voice dropped a couple of tones, her accent became one of honeyed sweetness.

"Your consumin' anxiety regardin' my gov'ment and my children sh.o.r.e reminds me of a narrative appertainin' to two dawgs. Them dawgs was neighbors, livin' in adj'inin' yards separated by a fence, and one day one of them got a good meaty bone and settled hisself down to the enj'yment thereof. And his intimate friend and neighbor on the other side of the fence, who had no bone to engage his faculties, he began to fret hisself 'bout the business of his friend. S'pose he was to choke hisself over that bone. S'pose the meat disagreed with him. And he begins to bark warnin's, but the dawg with the bone he keeps right on. But the other dawg he dashes hisself again the fence and he scratches with his claws. He whines pitiful, he's that anxious about his friend. But the dawg with the bone he went right on till he gnawed it down to the last morsel, and, goin' to the hole in the fence whar his friend had kep' that anxious vigil, he says: 'Friend, the only thing that consoled me while having to endure the anguish of eatin' that bone was the thought of your watchful sympathy!'

Which bein' the case, I'd thank you to tell me whar I can find my gov'ment."

"Ai-yi!" said old Sally. "I ain't seein' no bone this deal. Just a lettle green gourd 's all I see with my strongest specs."

Mary Carmichael, in one of the inner rooms, was writing a home letter, which was chiefly remarkable for what it failed to relate. It gave long accounts of the scenery, it waxed didactic over the future of the country; but the adventures of the trip, with her incidental acquaintance with the Daxes and Chugg, were not recorded. Eudora announced the arrival of Mrs.

Yellett, and Mary, at the news, dropped the contents of her portfolio and started up with much the feeling a marooned sailor might have on hearing a sail has been sighted. At this particular stage of her career Miss Carmichael had not developed the philosophy that later in life was destined to become her most valuable a.s.set. Her sense of humor no longer responded to the vagaries of pioneer life. The comedy element was coming a little too thick and fast. She was getting a bit heart-sick for a glimpse of her own kind, a word with some one who spoke her language. And here, at last, was the woman who had written such a charming letter, who had so graciously intimated that there was room for her at the hearth-stone. Mary was, indeed, eager to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Yellett.

To the end of her life she never forgot that first meeting-the perfect confidence with which she followed Eudora to the open room, the ensuing blank amazement, the utter inability to reconcile the Mrs. Yellett of the letter with the Mrs. Yellett of fact. The lamp on the table, burning feebly, seemed to burst into a thousand shooting-stars as the girl struggled with her tears. Home was so far, and Mrs. Yellett was so different from what she had expected! And yet, as she felt her fingers crush in the grip of that hard but not unkindly hand, there was in the woman's rugged personality a sustaining quality; and, thinking again of Archie's prospects, Mary was not altogether sorry that she had come.

"You be a right smart young maverick not to get lost none on this long trail, and no one to p'int you right if you strayed," commented Mary's patroness, affably. "But we won't roominate here no longer than we can help. It's too hard on old Ma'am Rodney. She's just 'bout the color of withered cabbage now, 'long of me havin' you."

While she talked, Mrs. Yellett picked up Mary's trunk and bags and stowed them in the back of the buckboard with the ease with which another woman might handle pasteboard boxes. One or two of the male Rodneys offered to help, but she waved them aside and lashed the luggage to the buckboard, handling the ropes with the skill of an old sailor. The entire Rodney family and the suitors of Eudora a.s.sembled to witness the departure. "It's a heap friendly of you to fret so," was the parting stab of Sarah Yellett to Sally Rodney; and she swung the backboard about, cleared the cactus stumps in the Rodney door-yard, and gained the mountain-road.

"Ai-yi!" said old Sally. "What's this country comin' to?"

"A few more women, thank G.o.d!" remarked Ira. Eudora had just snubbed him, and he put a wealth of meaning into his look after the vanishing buckboard.

The night was magnificent. From horizon to horizon the sky was sown with quivering points of light. Each straggling clump of sage-brush, rocky ledge, and bowlder borrowed a beauty not its own from the yellow radiance of the stars.

They had gone a good two miles before Mary's patroness broke the silence with, "Nothing plumb stampedes my temper like that Rodney outfit-old Sally buckin' an' pitchin' in her rockin'-chair same as if she was breakin' a bronco, an' that Eudory always corallin', deceivin', and jiltin' one outfit of men after another. If she was a daughter of mine, I'd medjure her length across my knee, full growed and courted though she is. The only one of the outfit that's wuth while is Judith, an' she ain't old woman Rodney's girl, neither. You hyeard that already, did you? Well, this yere country may be lackin' in population, but it's handy as a sewin'-circle in distributin' news."

Mary mentioned Leander. "Yes," answered Mrs. Yellett, reflectively, "Leander's mouth do run about eight and a half octaves. Sometimes I don't blame his wife for bangin' down the lid."