Lydia of the Pines Part 45

"Billy," cried Levine, "could you run the car and the two women down the road while Amos and I help the Agent get order here? The worst seems to be over, for some reason."

"Billy got Charlie Jackson to call the Indians in," said Lydia.

"Good work!" exclaimed Amos. "Are you both all right?"

"Yes," answered Lydia. "Go on! Billy'll take care of us."

"I'll wait for you at the willows, a mile below Last Chance," said Billy.

"Land," said Lizzie, as the car swung through the hurrying whites, to the road. "About one picnic a lifetime like this, would do me!"

Billy was an indifferent chauffeur but he reached the willows without mishap.

"Now," he said, "come out in front of the lamps, Lydia, till I see what happened to you."

"For heaven's sake, did Lydia get hurt?" screamed Lizzie.

"Don't fuss about me," said Lydia crossly, not offering to follow the other two out of the car.

Billy turned, lifted her down bodily and led her around to the lamps, while he told Lizzie what had happened.

The cut on the scalp was slight. Billy washed it out with water from the brook back of the willows and Lizzie produced a clean pocket handkerchief with which to bind it. Then they went back to the car and ate their belated supper. After a time, Lizzie, who had the back seat to herself, began to snore comfortably.

Little by little, the stars were blotted out by a thin film of clouds.

Sitting under the willows with the murmur of the brook and the fragrance of marsh gra.s.s enveloping them, the two young people did not talk much.

"Billy, were you scared?" asked Lydia.

"I don't know. I only know I went crazy when I saw you were hurt.

G.o.d, Lydia--I couldn't stand that!"

"Billy," whispered Lydia, "you're so good to me and I was so horrid to you once."

Billy felt her fingers on his knee and instantly the thin little hand was enveloped in his warm fist. "Do you take it all back, Lydia?"

"Well, the horrid part of it, I do," she hedged.

"That's all right," returned the young man. "I'm willing to fight for the rest of it. Don't try to pull your hand away, because I intend to hold it till the folks come. You can't help yourself, so you have no responsibility in the matter."

So for an hour longer they sat, watching the summer night and waiting.

And sometimes it seemed to Lydia that they were a pioneer man and woman sitting in their prairie schooner watching for the Indians. And sometimes it seemed to her that they were the last white man and woman, that civilization had died and the hordes were coming down upon them.

Finally two dim figures approached. "All right, Lydia?" asked Amos.

"Oh, yes! Yes!" she cried. "Are either of you hurt?"

"No," replied Levine, "but we stayed till I'd got my half-breeds distributed about to watch that none of the full bloods got out of the meadow."

"Was any one hurt?" asked Billy.

"Oh, two or three broken heads among both Indians and whites. We got hold of Charlie Jackson about eleven and locked him up, then we felt secure."

"You aren't going to hurt Charlie!" cried Lydia.

"No, but we'll shut him up for a week or so," said Amos. "Move over, Lizzie."

"Goodness," exclaimed Lizzie, "I must have dozed off for a minute!"

In the laughter that followed, Levine started the car homeward.

During the trip, the story was told of Lydia's mishap, Billy and Lydia interpolating each other in the telling. Amos shook hands with Billy silently when they had finished and Levine turned round from the wheel to say,

"I'll not forget this night's work, Bill."

They reached home at daylight. The Celebration made table talk and newspaper s.p.a.ce for several days. No real attempt was made to punish the Indians. For once, the whites, moved by a sense of tardy and inadequate justice, withheld their hands.

Kent never ceased to mourn that he had missed the affair. He confided the fact to Lydia one Sunday that he had told Levine of their eavesdropping on him in the woods.

"What did he say?" asked Lydia, flushing.

"Gave me this nice fat job," replied Kent.

Lydia stared, then she sighed. "Well, I don't understand men at all!"

And Kent laughed.

Lydia saw a good deal of Billy during the summer. He never spoke of the accident to her at the Celebration, except to inquire about her bruises which troubled her for a week or so. Lydia wondered if he was ashamed of his wild flame of anger and his tears. She herself never thought of the episode without a thrill, as if she had been close for once to the primal impulses of life.

Margery Marshall and Elviry went to Atlantic City and Newport this summer. John Levine was sure to take supper at the cottage once or twice a week, but he was very busy with his political work and with the enormous sales of mixed-breed lands to the whites.

It was just before college opened that Amos announced that he was going to buy the one hundred and twenty acres John had set aside for him.

"How are you going to pay for it?" Lydia asked.

"Don't you worry, I'll tend to that," replied Amos.

Levine was taking supper with them. "Better tell her all about it, Amos," he said. "You know Lydia is our partner."

"Well, she'll just worry," warned Amos. "John's going to hold it for me, till I can get the pine cut off. That'll pay for the land."

"How much did you pay for it, Mr. Levine?" asked Lydia.

Levine grinned. "I forget!"

Lydia's gaze was still the round, pellucid gaze of her childhood. She sat now with her chin cupped in her palm, her blue eyes on Levine. To the surprise of both the men, however, she said nothing.

After the supper dishes were washed, and Amos was attending to the chickens, Lydia came slowly out to the front steps where Levine was sitting. He reached up and catching her hand pulled her down beside him on the topmost step. She leaned her head against his arm and they sat in silence, Lydia with her eyes on the dim outline of the pine by the gate.