The Price of the Prairie Part 17

"It was to save a woman, Phil," O'mie said simply. "He could only kill me. He wouldn't have been that good to her. You'd done the same yoursilf to save anny woman, aven a stranger to you. Wait an' see."

How easily forgotten things come back when we least expect them. There came to me, as O'mie spoke, the memory of my dream the night after Jean had sought Marjie's life out on the Red Range prairie. The night after I talked with my father of love and of my mother. That night two women whom I had never seen before were in my dreams, and I had struggled to save them from peril as though they were of my own flesh and blood.

"You will do it," O'mie went on. "You were doing more. Who was it wint down along the creek side av town where the very worst pro-slavery fellows is always coiled and ready to spring, wint in the dark to wake up folks that lived betwixt them on either side, who was ready to light on 'em at a minute's notice? Who wint upstairs above thim as was gettin'

ready to burn 'em in their beds, an' walked quiet and cool where one wrong step meant to be throttled in the dark? Don't talk to me av courage."

"But, O'mie, it was all chance with us. You went where danger was certain."

"It was my part, Phil, an' I ain't no shirker just because I'm not tin feet tall an' don't have to be weighed on Judson's stock scales." O'mie rested awhile on the pillows. Then he continued his story.

"They was more or less border raidin' betwixt Jean an' me till we got beyont the high cliff above the Hermit's Cave. When I came to after one of his fists had b.u.mped me head he was urgin' his pony to what it didn't want. The river was roarin' below somewhere an' it was black as the grave's insides. It was way up there that in a minute's lull in the hostilities, I caught the faint refrain:

'Does the star-spangled banner yit wave, O'er the land av the free and the home av the brave?'

"I didn't see your lights. They was tin thousand star-spangled banners wavin' before me eyes ivery second. But that strain av song put new courage into me soul though I had no notion what it really meant. I was half dead an' wantin' to go the other half quick, an' it was like a drame, till that song sent a sort of life-givin' pulse through me. The next minute we were goin' over an' over an' over, betwane rocks, an'

hanging to trees, down, down, down, wid that murderous river roarin'

hungry below us. Jean jumpin' from place to place an' me clingin' to him an' hittin' iverything that could be hit at ivery jump. An' then come darkness over me again. There was a light somewhere when I come to. I was free an' I made a quick spring. I got that knife, an' like a flash I slid the blade down a crack somewhere. An'

then he tied me solid, an' standin' over me he says slow an'

cruel: 'You--may--stay--here--till--you--starve--to--death.

n.o.body--can--get--to--you--but--me--an'--I'm--niver--comin'--back. I hate you.' An' his eyes were just loike that noight whin I found him with thim faded pink flowers out on the prairie."

"O'mie, dear, you are the greatest hero I ever heard of. You poor, beaten, tortured sacrifice."

I put my arm around his shoulder and my tears fell on his red hair.

"I didn't do no more than ivery true American will do--fight an' die to protect his home; or if not his'n, some other man's. Whin the day av choosin' comes we can't do no more 'n to take our places. We all do it.

Whin Jean put it on me to lay there helpless an' die o' thirst, I know'd I could do it. Same as you know'd you'd outwit that gang ready to burn an' kill, that I'd run from. I just looked straight up at Jean--the light was gettin' dim--an' I says, 'You--may--go--plum--to--the--divil, --but--you--can't--hurt--that--part--av--me--that's--never--hungry--nor --thirsty.' When you git face to face wid a thing like that," O'mie spoke reverently, "somehow the everlastin' arms, Dr. Hemingway's preaches of, is strong underneath you. The light wint out, an' Jean in his still way had slid off, an' I was alone. Alone wid me achin' and me bonds, an' wid a burnin' longin' fur water, wid a wish to go quick if I must go; but most av all--don't never furgit it, Phil, whin the thing overtakes you aven in your strength--most av all, above all sufferin' and natural longin' to live--there comes the reality av the words your Aunt Candace taught us years ago in the little school:

"'Though I walk through the valley av the shadow av death, I will fear no evil.'

"I called for you, Phil, in my misery, as' I know'd somehow you'd hear me. An' you did come."

His thin hand closed over mine, and we sat long in silence--two boys whom the hand of Providence was leading into strange, hard lines, shaping us each for the work the years of our manhood were waiting to bring to us.

CHAPTER XI

GOLDEN DAYS

There are days that are kind As a mother to man, showing pathways that wind Out and in, like a dream, by some stream of delight; Never hinting of aught that they hold to affright; Only luring us on, since the way must be trod, Over meadows of green with their velvety sod, To the steeps, that are harder to climb, far before.

There are nights so enchanting, they seem to restore The original beauty of Eden; so tender, They woo every soul to a willing surrender Of feverish longing; so holy withal, That a broad benediction seems sweetly to fall On the world.

We were a busy folk in those years that followed the close of the war.

The prairies were boundless, and the constant line of movers' wagons reaching out endlessly on the old trail, with fathers and mothers and children, children, children, like the ghosts of Banquo's lineal issue to King Macbeth, seemed numerous enough to people the world and put to the plough every foot of the virgin soil of the beautiful Plains. With the downfall of slavery the strife for commercial supremacy began in earnest here, and there are no idle days in Kansas.

When I returned home after two years' schooling in Ma.s.sachusetts, I found many changes. I had beaten my bars like a caged thing all those two years. Rockport, where I made my home and spent much of my time, was so unlike Springvale, so wofully and pridefully ignorant of all Kansas, so unable to get any notion of my beautiful prairies and of the free-spirited, cultured folk I knew there, that I suffered out my time there and was let off a little early for good behavior. Only one person did I know who had any real interest in my West, a tall, dark-eyed, haughty young lady, to whom I talked of Kansas by the hour. Her mother, who was officiously courteous to me, didn't approve of that subject, but the daughter listened eagerly.

When I left Rockport, Rachel--that was her name, Rachel Melrose--asked me when I was coming back. I a.s.sured her, never, and then courteously added if she would come to Kansas.

"Well, I may go," she replied, "not to your Springvale, but to my aunt in Topeka for a visit next Fall. Will you come up to Topeka?"

Of course, I would go to Topeka, but might she not come to Springvale?

There were the best people on earth in Springvale. I could introduce her to boys who were gentlemen to the core. I'd lived and laughed and suffered with them, and I knew.

"But I shouldn't care for any of them except you." Rachel's voice trembled and I couldn't help seeing the tears in her proud dark eyes.

"Oh, I've a girl of my own there," I said impulsively, for I was always longing for Marjie, "but Clayton Anderson and Dave Mead are both college men now." And then I saw how needlessly rude I had been.

"Of course I want you to come to Springvale. Come to our house. Aunt Candace will make you royally welcome. The Baronets and Melroses have been friends for generations. I only wanted the boys to know you; I should be proud to present my friend to them. I would take care of you.

You have been so kind to me this year, I should be glad to do much for you." I had taken her hand to say good-bye.

"And you would let that other girl take care of herself, wouldn't you, while I was there? Promise me that when I go to Kansas you will come up to Topeka to see me, and when I go to your town, if I do, you will not neglect me but will let that Springvale girl entirely alone."

I did not know much of women then--nor now--although I thought then I knew everything. I might have read behind that fine aristocratic face a supremely selfish nature, a nature whose pleasure increased only as her neighbor's pleasure decreased. There are such minds in the world.

I turned to her, and taking both of her willing hands in mine, I said frankly: "When you visit your aunt, I'll be glad to see you there. If you visit my aunt I would be proud to show you every courtesy. As for that little girl, well, when you see her you will understand. She has a place all her own with me." I looked straight into her eyes as I said this.

She smiled coquettishly. "Oh, I'm not afraid of her," she said indifferently; "I can hold my own with any Kansas, girl, I'm sure."

She was dangerously handsome, with a responsive face, a winning smile and gracious manners. She seemed never to accept anything as a gift, but to take what was her inherent right of admiration and devotion. When I bade her good-bye a look of sadness was in her eyes. It rebuked my spirit somehow, although Heaven knows I had given her no cause to miss me. But my carriage was waiting and I hurried away. For a moment only her image lingered with me, and then I forgot her entirely; for every turn of the wheel was bringing me to Kansas, to the prairies, to the beautiful Neosho Valley, to the boys again, to my father and home, but most of all to Marjie.

It was twenty months since I had seen her. She had spent a year in Ohio in the Girls' College at Glendale, and had written me she would reach Springvale a month before I did. After that I had not heard from her except through a marked copy of the _Springvale Weekly Press_, telling of her return. She had not marked that item, but had pencilled the news that "Philip Baronet would return in three weeks from Ma.s.sachusetts, where he had been enjoying the past two years in school."

Enjoying! Under this Marjie had written in girlish hand, "Hurry up, Phil."

On the last stage of my journey I was wild with delight. It was springtime on the prairies, and a verdure clothed them with its richest garments. I did not note the growing crops, and the many little freeholds now, where there had been only open unclaimed land two years before. I was longing for the Plains again, for one more ride, reckless and free, across their broad stretches, for one more gorgeous sunset out on Red Range, one more soft, iridescent twilight purpling down to the evening darkness as I had seen it on "Rockport" all those years. How the real Rockport, the Ma.s.sachusetts town, faded from me, and the sea, and the college halls, and city buildings. The steam and steel and brick and marble of an older civilization, all gave place to Nature's broad handiwork and the generous-hearted, capable, unprejudiced people of this new West. However crude and plain Springvale might have seemed to an Eastern boy suddenly transplanted here, it was fair and full of delight for me.

The stage driver, Dever, by name, was a stranger to me, but he knew all about my coming. Also he was proud to be the first to give me the freshest town gossip. That's the stage-driver's right divine always. I was eager to hear of everybody and in this forty miles' ride I was completely informed. The story rambled somewhat aimlessly from topic to topic, but it never lagged.

"Did I know Judson? He'd got a controlling interest now in Whately's store. He was great after money, Judson was. They do say he's been a little off the square getting hold of the store. The widder Whately kept only about one-third, or maybe one-fourth of the stock. Mrs. Whately, she wa'n't no manager. Marjie'd do better, but Marjie wa'n't twenty yet.

And yet if all they say's true she wouldn't need to manage. Judson is about the sprucest widower in town, though he did seem to take it so hard when poor Mis' Judson was taken." She never overcame the loss of her baby, and the next Summer they put her out in the prairie graveyard beside it. "But Judson now, he's shyin' round Marjie real coltish.

"It'd be fine fur her, of course," my driver went on, "an' she was old a-plenty to marry. Marjie was a mighty purty girl. The boys was nigh crazy about her. Did I know her?"

I did; oh, yes, I remembered her.

"They's another chap hangin' round her, too; his name's--lemme see, uh--common enough name when I was a boy back in Kentucky--uh--Tillhurst, Richard Tillhurst. Tall, peaked, thin-visaged feller. Come out from Virginny to Illinois. Got near dead with consumption 'nd come on to Kansas to die. Saw Springvale 'nd thought better of it right away. Was teachin' school and payin' plenty of attention to the girls, especially Marjie. They was an old man Tillhurst when I was a boy. He was from Virginny, too--" but I pa.s.s that story.

"Tell Mapleson's pickin' up sence he's got the post-office up in the 'Last Chance'; put that doggery out'n his sullar, had in wall paper now, an' drugs an' seeds, an' n.o.body was right sure where he got his funds to stock up, so--they was some sort of story goin' about a half-breed named Pahusky when I first come here, bein' 'sociated with Mapleson--Cam Gentry's same old Cam, squintin' round an' jolly as ever. O'mie? Oh, he's leadin' the band now. By jinks, that band of his'n will just take the cake when it goes up to Topeky this Fall to the big political speak-in's." On and on the driver went, world without end, until we caught the first faint line along the west that marked the treetops of the Neosho Valley. We were on the Santa Fe Trail now, and we were coming to the east bluff where I had first seen the little Whately girl climb out of the big wagon and stretch the stiffness out of her fat little legs. The stage horses were bracing for the triumphal entry into town, when a gang of young outlaws rushed up over the crest of the east slope.

They turned our team square across the way and in mock stage-robbery style called a halt. The driver threw up his hands in mock terror and begged for mercy, which was granted if he would deliver up one Philip Baronet, student and tenderfoot. But I was already down from the stage and O'mie was hugging me hard until Bud Anderson pulled him away and all the boys and girls were around me. Oh, it was good to see them all again, but best of all was it to see Marjie. She had been a pretty picture of a young girl. She was beautiful now. No wonder she had many admirers. She was last among the girls to greet me. I took her hand and our eyes met. Oh, I had no fear of widower nor of school-teacher, as I helped her to a seat beside me in the stage.

"I'm so glad to see you again, Phil," she looked up into my face. "You are bigger than ever."

"And you are just the same Marjie."

The crowd piled promiscuously about us and we b.u.mped down the slope and into the gurgling Neosho, laughing and happy.