Lydia of the Pines Part 35

"Doesn't care about the spooning bee," replied Kent.

"Proper is Lydia's middle name," commented Gustus.

"Lydia is absolutely O. K.," said Charlie.

"Bet your life," agreed Kent. "Get your big head over, Gustus, and give me a piece of Margery's knee."

"Darn it," said Charlie, "Lydia's left the tent flap up. We might as well go to bed."

Which, after another song or two, they did.

CHAPTER XI

LYDIA GIGGLES

"Nature is neither cruel nor sad. She is only purposeful, tending to an end we cannot see."--_The Murmuring Pine_.

The days flew lightly by, lightly for Lydia, too, in spite of the heavy secret she carried of Levine's plotting. Lightly, in spite of the fact that Lydia was undergoing some soul-changing experiences in this short holiday, experiences that were to direct her life's course.

The day before they broke camp, Lydia's old squaw appeared and asked for Charlie Jackson.

Charlie and Kent were cooking dinner.

"Dear me," said Miss Towne, "tell him to take the poor thing away, Lydia."

"He must feed her, first," exclaimed Lydia, leading the old Indian over to the cooking shelter.

Kent and Lydia exchanged glances as Charlie led the squaw--Susie, he called her--into the woods, after Lydia had heaped her old arms with food. Kent and Gustus had put the dinner on the table and they all were seated at the meal when Charlie returned.

"What did she want, Charlie?" asked Olga.

"You wouldn't care if I told you," replied Charlie, grimly. "But," he burst forth suddenly, "some day you whites will pay. Some day the j.a.ps or the Jews will do to you Americans what you've done to us."

"Who cares!" cried Olga, pertly. "Have a pickle, Charlie, and cheer up." She pushed the pickle dish toward him.

"Or some catsup," suggested Gustus, depositing the bottle by Charlie's plate.

"Or a sardine," added Margery.

Charlie's lips twitched and he smiled and Miss Towne sighed in a relieved way. The meal progressed without a further crisis.

After the dishes were done, Kent followed Lydia, who was strolling off for a last walk in the woods.

"Do you suppose she told Charlie about Levine?" he asked, as he overtook her.

"Look out, Charlie's coming," said Lydia and in a moment the Indian had joined them.

"Look here, Lydia," he began, "Levine is up to some new cussedness.

Old Susie came on him in council the other night with six of the worst half breeds in the reservation. She lost her head and began to jaw him so she didn't find out what it was about. And he's getting the last of my timber now. Lydia, you've _got_ to help me. When you get home, talk to Levine."

"Getting the last of your timber!" exclaimed Kent.

"Yes, the law lets 'em get the 'dead and down' stuff and who's going to swear it's fresh stuff that he cut this summer and will get out next winter?"

"Do you mean he's up cutting your pines now?" cried Lydia, aghast.

"No! No!" impatiently. "His half breeds do that."

"But how does he come to be taking your wood? Why don't you go to see him yourself?" asked Kent.

"I can't answer either of those questions," replied Charlie, sullenly.

The two young whites thought of the attack on Levine, and looked at each other apprehensively.

"Won't the Indian Agent stop him?" asked Lydia.

"He! Why, he's deep in the mire himself with Dave Marshall. My G.o.d, Margery Marshall went to New York on a blind Indian boy's pines!

Lydia, save my pines for me! They belong to my tribe. My father kept them and so did his father for his people. As long as they had those miles of pines, they had a place for the tribe to live. Father was going to Washington three years ago to tell the president about the graft when they shot him from ambush. If I put up a fight, they'll shoot me. My father wanted me to learn white ways so I could protect the tribe. And the more I learn of white ways the more I realize I'm helpless. Lydia, won't you help us?"

Neither Kent nor Lydia ever had seen Charlie thus before. He was neither arrogant nor sullen. He was pleading with a tragic hopelessness that moved his two hearers profoundly.

"Oh, Charlie! I _will_ try," cried Lydia. "I truly will."

"I knew you would," said Charlie, huskily, and he turned back abruptly to the camp.

"Gee!" exclaimed Kent. "Chapter number two!"

Lydia stamped her foot. "How can you speak so, Kent! It's a frightful thing!"

"Sure it's frightful, but it can't be helped. The whites have got to have this land. Might's right."

"What makes the whites so crazy for it?" asked Lydia.

"Money," returned Kent.

Lydia stared about her. Supposing, she thought, that she owned a hundred acres of this pine land. She forgot Kent and concentrated every force of her mind on sensing what land ownership would mean. And suddenly there woke in her, her racial hunger for land. Suddenly there stirred within her a desire for acreage, for trees, soil, stream and shrub, a wide demesne that should be hers and her children's forever.

She was still too young to trace the hunger back to its primal source, the desire for permanency, the yearning to possess that which is the first and the last of existence, which neither moth nor dust can corrupt nor thieves break through and steal. But somewhere back in her still childish mind a l.u.s.t for a wide domain of pine land bestirred itself to begin battle with the sense of right and justice that her heart of hearts told her Levine was outraging.

"Are you really going to talk to Levine?" Kent roused her from her reverie.

"Yes! Didn't I promise to?"

"Lots of good it'll do," grunted Kent. "And if you tell him we overheard him in the woods, I'll be sore."