Lydia of the Pines Part 48

Lydia rose with alacrity. "I'm--I'm glad you like the mahogany," she said awkwardly.

"Er--yes. So am I," returned Willis, making for the door as Amos groaned again. "Good night, Miss Dudley."

"Good night," said Lydia, and closing the door with a gasp of relief she dashed for the dining-room.

"Just when I'm trying to be refined and lady-like!" she wailed. Then she stopped.

"Lydia," roared Amos, "if you ever touch my chair again! Look at my shirt and pants!"

Lydia looked and from these to the chair, denuded of the two coats of varnish. "But you knew it wasn't dry," she protested.

"How could I remember?" cried Amos. "I just sat down a minute to put on my slippers you'd hid."

"I don't see why you couldn't have been quiet about it," Lydia half sobbed. "We were having such a nice time and all of a sudden it sounded like an Irish wake out here. It embarra.s.sed Professor Willis so he went right home and I know he'll never come back."

"I should hope he wouldn't," retorted Amos. "Of course, what a college professor thinks is more important than my comfort. Why, that varnish went through my shirt to my skin. Liz, what are you laughing at?"

Lizzie had suppressed her laughter till she was weak. "At you, Amos!

Till my dying day, I'll never forget how you looked prancing round the room with that chair glued to your back!"

"Oh, Daddy! It must have been funny!" cried Lydia, beginning to giggle.

Amos looked uncertainly at his two women folk, and then his lips twisted and he laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

"Lydia! Lydia!" he cried, "don't try to be elegant with any more of your callers! It's too hard on your poor old father!"

"I won't," replied Lydia. "He likes the mahogany, anyway. But he'll never come again," she added, with sudden gloom. "Not that I care, stiff old Harvard thing," and she patted Adam and went soberly to bed.

But Professor Willis did come again. Not so frequently, of course, as to compromise his dignity. An instructor who called on freshman girls was always laughed at. But several times during the winter and spring he appeared at the cottage, and talked with Lydia earnestly and intellectually. Nor did he always confine his calls to the evening.

One Sunday afternoon in March Amos was in town with John Levine, who was on one of his hurried visits home, when Billy Norton came over to the cottage.

Lydia, who was poring over "The Ring and the Book," saw at once that something was wrong.

"What's worrying you, Billy?" she asked.

"Lydia," he said, dropping into Amos' chair and folding his big arms, "you know my tract of land--the one I was going to buy from an Indian?

I paid young Lone Wolf a ten dollar option on it while I looked round to see how I could raise enough to pay him a fair price. He's only a kid of seventeen and stone blind from trachoma. Well, yesterday I found that Marshall had bought it in. Of course, I didn't really think Lone Wolf knew what an option was, but Marshall and the Indian Agent and Levine and all the rest knew what I was trying to do, so I thought they'd keep their hands off."

"What a shame!" exclaimed Lydia.

"Yes," said Billy grimly, a certain tensity in his tones that made Lydia look at him more closely, "Yes, a shame. The way Marshall did it was this. He looked young Lone Wolf up and gave him a bag of candy.

The Indians are crazy for candy. Then he told him to make his cross on a piece of paper. That that was a receipt that he was to keep and if he'd show it at the store whenever he wanted candy, he'd have all he wanted, for nothing. And he had two half-breeds witness it. What Marshall had done was to get Lone Wolf to sign a warranty deed, giving Marshall his pine land. The poor devil of an Indian didn't know it till yesterday when he showed me his 'receipt' in great glee. Of course, they'll swear he's a mixed blood."

Lydia was speechless with disgust for a moment, then she burst out, "Oh, I wish that reservation had never been heard of! It demoralizes every one who comes in contact with it."

"Lydia," said Billy, slowly, "I'm going to expose Marshall."

"What do you mean?" Lydia looked a little frightened.

"I mean that I'm going to show up his crooked deals with the Indians.

I'm going to rip this reservation graft wide open. I'm not going to touch an acre of the land myself so I can go in with clean hands and I'm not going to forget that I came pretty close to being a skunk, myself."

"Oh, but, Billy!" cried Lydia. "There's John Levine and all our friends--oh, you can't do it!"

"Look here, Lydia," Billy's voice was stern, "are you for or against Indian graft?"

Lydia drew a long breath but was spared an immediate answer for there was a knock on the door and Kent came in, followed shortly by Professor Willis.

"Well," said Kent, after Lydia had settled them all comfortably, "I just left Charlie Jackson--poor old prune!"

"Oh, how is he?" asked Lydia eagerly, "and what is he doing?"

"He's pretty seedy," answered Kent. "He's been trying to keep the whites off the reservation by organizing the full bloods to stand against the half-breeds. But after a year of trying he's given up hope. The full bloods are fatalists, you know, and Charlie has gone back to it himself."

"Charlie Jackson is an old schoolmate of ours." Lydia turned to Willis and gave him a rapid sketch of Charlie's life. The Harvard man was deeply interested.

"Can't you get him back to his work with the doctor?" he asked Kent.

Kent shook his head. "The only way to keep an Indian from reverting is to put him where he never can see his people or the reservation.

Charlie's given up. He's drinking a little."

"And still you folks will keep on, stealing the reservation!" exclaimed Billy.

Kent gave Billy a grin, half irritated, half whimsical. "I know it's Sunday, old man, but don't let's have a sermon. You're a farmer, Bill, anyhow, no matter what else you try to be."

"Thank G.o.d for that," laughed Billy.

"My word!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Willis. "What a country! You spout the cla.s.sics on week days and on holidays you steal from the aborigines!"

"Oh, here, draw it mild, Professor!" growled Kent.

"Well, but it's true," exclaimed Lydia. "Where's our old New England sense of fairness?"

"That's good too," said Kent. "Who was brisker than our forefathers at killing redskins?"

"Altogether a different case," returned the Harvard man. "Our forefathers killed in self-defense. You folks are killing out of wanton greed."

"That's the point, exactly," said Billy.

Kent gave his cheerful grin. "Call it what you please," he laughed.

"As long as the whites _will_ have the land, I'm going to get my share."

n.o.body spoke for a moment. Lydia looked from Billy to Kent, and back again. Kent was by far the handsomer of the two. He had kept the brilliant color and the charming glow in his eyes that had belonged to his boyhood. He dressed well, and sat now, knees crossed, hands clasped behind his head, with easy grace. Billy was a six-footer, larger than Kent and inclined to be raw-boned. His mouth was humorous and sensitive, his gray eyes were searching.

"Let's not talk about it," Lydia said. "Let's go out in the kitchen and pop corn and make candy." This with a little questioning glance at the professor of Shakespeare. He, however, rose with alacrity, and the rest of the afternoon pa.s.sed without friction. Willis developed a positive pa.s.sion for making popcorn b.a.l.l.s and he left with Kent at dusk proudly bearing off a bag of the results of his labors.

Billy stayed after the rest and helped Lydia to clean up the dishes.