Lydia of the Pines Part 62

"It isn't courage. It's being afraid of my conscience. I--I feel as if I were finishing out John Levine's life for him--doing what he ought to have done."

"I wonder if you have any idea what you mean to me!" Willis suddenly burst forth. "You embody for me all the things my puritan grandmothers stood for. By Jove, if the New England men have failed, perhaps the Western women will renew their spirit."

Lydia flushed. "I--I wish you wouldn't talk that way," she protested.

"I'm not really wise nor very good. I just feel my way along--and there's no one to advise me."

"That's the penalty of growing up, my dear," said Willis. "We no longer have any one to tell us what to do. Here comes your car. I'm afraid I let the umbrella drip on your cap."

"It doesn't matter," said Lydia, valiantly.

"Miss Dudley--" as he signaled the car, "I'm coming to see you, just as often as you'll let me, this winter," and he walked off before Lydia could reply. She sank into a car seat, her cheeks burning, her heart thudding.

Early in December, the settlement of the Levine estate was completed.

John's method of "shoestringing" his property was disastrous as far as the size of Lydia's heritage went. Her father tried to make her understand the statement of the Second National Bank, which was acting as executor. And as nearly as Lydia could understand, one portion of the estate was used to pay up the indebtedness of another portion, until all that was left was the cottage, with a mortgage on it, and three hundred and twenty acres of land on the reservation.

The three hundred and twenty acres on the reservation was under a cloud. Part of it was land he had gotten from Charlie's sister. All of it he had obtained from alleged full bloods.

"Then," said Lydia, in a relieved manner, "I really haven't any Indian lands at all!"

"Oh, yes, you have," replied Amos. "The court will take the oath of a number of people that the land was obtained from mixed bloods. Dave Marshall has fixed that up."

"Dave Marshall!" gasped Lydia.

Amos nodded. "He's strong with the Whiskey Trust. And the Whiskey Trust is extra strong wherever there's a reservation."

"Oh, Daddy!" cried Lydia, "we can't take it? Don't you see we can't?"

It was just after supper and they were in the familiar old living-room.

Adam was snoring with his head under the base burner, and Lizzie was clattering the dishes in the kitchen. Amos stood by the table, filling his pipe, and Lydia with her pile of text books had prepared for her evening of study. Amos' work-blunted fingers trembled as he tamped the tobacco into the bowl and Lydia knew that the long dreaded battle was on.

"I can't understand why you act so like a fool," began Amos, querulously. "And I can't see why you set your judgment up as better than mine. I swan--even your Mother never did that, except on borrowing money."

"It isn't judgment. It's conviction, Daddy. And John Levine told me to stand by my own convictions, even when they were against his. Oh, how can you be willing to take land stolen in the first place and then the theft legalized by the Whiskey Trust! Why, you don't want me even to speak to Dave Marshall now, yet you're willing to take this dirty favor from him."

"We won't keep the land. We'll sell it and have the money to clear up the mortgage on the cottage. I'd take a favor from the devil in h.e.l.l to get this place clear," replied Amos slowly. He took a turn up and down the room. "I can't see what's happened to children nowadays. In my day we obeyed. Lydia, I'm not going to discuss this any longer.

_You've got to take that land_."

Lydia sat with her thin hands clasped before her on the table, her clear eyes fastened on her father's face.

"I'm not a child, Daddy," she said in a low voice, "I'm a woman, grown.

And if you'd wanted me to grow up without any convictions, you should have given me different ancestors and then you shouldn't have brought me up in a town like Lake City."

Amos looked down at his daughter grimly. The Daniel Webster picture in its black carved frame was just behind him and the somber vision in the living and the pictured eyes was identical.

"Can't you see what a fool you are!" he shouted. "The land can never go back to the Indians. John took good care of that. If you don't take it, somebody else will. Can't you see!"

Lydia's lips tightened. "That's not the point. It's the way we're getting it and the way John Levine got it."

"And yet you pretended that you loved and admired Levine!" sneered Amos.

Lydia sprang to her feet. She was white to her lips. "Don't repeat that remark," she said in a choked voice. "What do you know about the feeling John Levine and I had for each other? He was the one friend of my life."

"Nice way you have of showing it, now he's gone," roared Amos. "Just about the way you show your affection for me. Will nothing satisfy you? Norton and I never squealed when you and Billy got our claims taken away from us. Doesn't it occur to you it's about time you sacrificed something to me!"

Lydia had never seen her father so angry before. He had often worked himself into a tantrum on the subject of money but there was an aspect to his anger now that was new to her. She was trembling but cool.

"I'll do anything you want but this, Dad," she said.

"But this is all I want. It's what I've wanted for years, this little bit of land. And you haven't any idea what that feeling is."

Like a flash Lydia saw again long aisles of pines, smelled again the odor of the needles, heard again the murmuring call of the wind.

"Good G.o.d!" cried Amos, tossing his pipe on the table, "poverty's hounded me all my life--poverty and death. The only two people who cared about me, Patience and Levine're gone. Yet here's the chance for me to be independent. Here's a chance for me to make up for the failure I've made of life. A man with a little piece of property like this and a little bank account is somebody in the community. What do I care how I get it, as long's I can hold it? What's a lot of dirty Indians to stand between me and my future? But what do you care?"

"O Daddy! O Daddy! How can you talk so to me!" groaned Lydia. She put her hands over her eyes for a moment, swallowed a sob and then started for the outer door. She caught her coat from the nail and closed the door behind her.

An irresistible impulse had carried her from the house. She wanted to see Billy. It was still early and a lantern flickered in the Norton barnyard. She ran along the snowy road and down the drive of the Norton yard, pausing beside a lilac bush to see whether it was Billy or his father just entering the cowshed. It was Billy and she ran across the barnyard to the shed door. Billy was whistling to himself as he began to bed down the cattle for the night. Lydia looked at him eagerly in the dim light. How big and strong he was!

"Billy!" she said, softly.

The young man dropped his pitchfork and came toward her. "What's the matter, Lydia!" he exclaimed.

"Dad and I've been having an awful quarrel."

"About the land?" asked Billy quickly.

Lydia nodded. "Oh, I don't know what to do!" And then, not having meant to do so at all, she suddenly began to cry.

"Why can't they let you alone, d.a.m.n 'em!" exclaimed Billy, furiously.

"Come away from that cold doorway, dear." And he led her into the warm stable and over to a harness box. "There," pulling her down beside him on the box, and putting his arm about her, "don't cry, Lydia. I can't stand it. I'm liable to go over and say things to your father and Kent."

There was an edge to his voice as he said this that vaguely alarmed Lydia. She wiped her eyes.

"Kent wasn't there," she said.

"No, but he's behind your father in this. I'll tell 'em both, sometime, what I think of their bullying you this way."

"Kent hasn't bullied me," insisted Lydia.

"No? Well, give him time! Poor little girl! Don't tremble so. You don't have to talk any more about it to any one. Just send 'em to me."

Lydia smiled through her tears. "I can't send my own father to you.

And you and Kent would come to blows."

"We probably would," replied Billy. "Want my hanky or haven't you wept yours full yet?"

"I'm not going to cry any more," said Lydia, raising her head. Billy still held her warmly in the circle of his arm. The stable was dim and quiet and fragrant with clover. "You're such a comfort, Billy. Now that John Levine's gone, there's no one understands me as you do. How can I reconcile Dad to giving up the land?"

"You can't, Lydia. You'll just have to reconcile yourself to a misunderstanding with him."