The Price of the Prairie Part 47

"Well, by hen!" Cam declared, "I'm just goin' to ask herself myself."

"No, you ain't, Cam Gentry," Dollie said decisively.

"Now, Dollie, don't you dictate to your lord and master no more. I won't stand it." Cam squinted up at her from his chair in a ludicrous attempt to frown. "Worst hen-pecked man in town, by golly."

"I ain't goin' to dictate to no fool, Cam. If you want to be one, I can't help it. I must go and set bread now." And Dollie pattered off singing "Come Thou Fount," in a soft little old-fashioned tune.

"Marjie, girl, I knowed you when you was in bib aperns, and I knowed your father long ago. Best man ever went out to fight and never got back. They's as good a one comin' back, though, some day," he added softly, and smiled as the pink bloom on Marjie's cheeks deepened.

"Marjie, don't git mad at an old man like your Uncle Cam. I mean no harm."

It was the morning after the party. Marjie, who had been helping Mary Gentry "straighten up," was resting now by the cosy fireplace, while Dollie and Mary prepared lunch.

"Go ahead, Uncle Cam," the girl said, smiling. "I couldn't get mad at you, because you never would do anything unkind."

"Well, little sweetheart, honest now, and I won't tell, and it's none of my doggoned business neither; but be you goin' to marry Amos Judson?"

There was no resentment in the girl's face when she heard his halting question, but the pink color left it, and her white cheeks and big brown eyes gave her a stateliness Cam had never seen in her before.

"No, Uncle Cam. It makes no difference what comes to me, I could not marry such a man. I never will."

"Oh, Lord bless you, Marjie!" Cam closed his eyes a moment. "They's a long happy road ahead of you. I can see it with my good inside eyes that sees further'n these things I use to run the Cambridge House with.

'Tain't my business, I'm a gossipin' inquisitive old pokeyer-nose, but I've always been so proud of you, little blossom. Yes, we're comin', Dollie, if you've got a thing a dyspeptic can eat."

He held the door for Marjie to pa.s.s before him to the dining-room. Cam was not one of the too-familiar men. There was a gentleman's heart under the old spotted velvet "weskit," as he called his vest, and with all his bad grammar, a quaint dignity and purity of manner and speech to women.

But for all this declaration of Marjie's, Judson was planning each day for the great event with an a.s.surance that was remarkable.

"She'll be so tangled up in this, she'll have to come to terms. There ain't no way out, if she wants to save old Whately's name from dishonor and keep herself out of the hired-girl cla.s.s," he said to Tell Mapleson.

"And besides, there's the durned Baronet tribe that all the Whatelys have been so devoted to. That's it, just devoted to 'em. Now they'll come in for a full share of disgrace, too."

The little man had made a G.o.d of money so long he could not understand how poverty and freedom may bring infinitely more of blessing than wealth and bonds. So many years, too, he had won his way by trickery and deception, he felt himself a man of Destiny in all he under-took.

But one thing he never could know--I wonder if men ever do know--a woman's heart. He had not counted on having to reckon with Marjie, having made sure of her mother. It was not in his character to understand an abiding love.

There was another type of woman whom he misjudged--that of Lettie Conlow. In his dictatorial little spirit, he did not give a second thought beyond the use he could make of her in his greedy swooping in of money.

"O'mie knows too much," Judson informed his friend. "He's better out of this town. And Lettie, now, I can just do anything with Lettie. You know, Mapleson, a widower's really more attractive to a girl than a young man; and as for me, well, it's just in me, that's all. Lettie likes me."

Whatever Tell thought, he counselled care.

"You can't be too careful, Judson. Girls are the unsafest cattle on this green earth. My boy fancied Conlow's girl once. I sent him away. He's married now, and doing well. Runs on a steamboat from St. Louis to New Orleans. I'd go a little slow about gettin' a girl like Lettie in here."

"Oh, I can manage any girl on earth. Old maids and young things'll come flockin' round a man with money. Beats all."

This much O'mie had overheard as the two talked together in tones none too low, in Judson's little cage of an office, forgetting the clerk arranging the goods for the night.

[Ill.u.s.tration: They came slowly toward us, the two captive women for whom we waited]

When Judson had found out how Mrs. Whately had tried to help his cause by appealing to my father, his anger was a fury. Poor Mrs. Whately, who had meant only for the best, beset with the terror of disgrace to Marjie through the dishonorable acts of her father, tried helplessly to pacify him. Between her daughter and herself a great gulf opened whenever Judson's name was mentioned; but in everything else the bond between them was stronger than ever.

"She is such a loving, kind daughter, Amos," Mrs. Whately said to the anxious suitor. "She fills the house with sunshine, and she is so strong and self-reliant. When I spoke to her about our coming poverty, she only laughed and held up her little hands, and said, 'They 're equal to it.'

The very day I spoke to her she began to do something. She found three music pupils right away. She's been giving lessons all this Fall, and has all she can give the time to. And when I hinted about her father's name being disgraced, she kissed his picture and put it on the Bible and said, 'He was true as truth. I won't disgrace myself by ever thinking anything else.' And last of all, because she did so love Phil once"

(poor Mrs. Whately was the worst of strategists here), "when I tried to put his case she said indifferently, 'If he did wrong, let him right it.

But he didn't.' Now, Amos, you must talk to her yourself. I don't know what John Baronet advised her to do."

Talking to Marjie was the thing Amos could not do, and the mention of John Baronet was worse than the recollection of that callow stripling, Phil. The widower stormed and scolded and threatened, until Mrs. Whately turned to him at last and said quietly:

"Amos, I think we will drop the matter now. Go home and think it over."

He knew he had gone too far, and angry as he was, he had the prudence to hold his tongue. But his purpose was undaunted. His temper was not settled, however, when Mapleson called on him later in the day. Lettie was busy marking down prices on a counter full of small articles and the two men did not know how easily they could be overheard. Judson had no reason to control himself with Tell, and his wrath exploded then and there. Neither did Mapleson have need for temperance, and their angry tones rose to a pitch they did not note at the time.

"I tell you, Amos," Lettie heard Tell saying, "you've got to get rid of this Conlow girl, or you're done for. Phil's lost that Melrose case entirely; and he's out where a certain Kiowa brave we know is creepin'

on his trail night and day. He'll never come back. If his disappearance is ever checked up to Jean, I'll clear the Injun. You can't do a thing to the Baronets. If this thing gets up to Judge John, you're done for.

I'll never stand by it a minute. You can't depend on me. Now, let her go."

"I tell you I'm going to marry Marjie, Lettie or no Lettie. Good Lord, man! I 've got to, or be ruined. It's too late now. I can get rid of this girl when I want to, but I'll keep her a while."

Lettie dropped her pencil and crept nearer to the gla.s.s part.i.tion over the top of which the angry words were coming to her ears. Her black eyes dilated and her heart beat fast, as she listened to the two men in angry wrangle.

"He's going to marry Marjie. He'll be ruined if he doesn't. And he says that after all he has promised me all this Fall and Winter! Oh!" She wrung her hands in bitterness of soul. Judson had not counted on having to reckon with Lettie, any more than with Marjie.

That night at prayer meeting, a few more prominent people were quietly let into the secret of the coming event, and the a.s.surance with which the matter was put left little room for doubt.

John Baronet sat in his office looking out on the leafless trees of the courthouse yard and down the street to where the Neosho was glittering coldly. It was a gray day, and the sharp chill in the air gave hint of coming rough weather.

Down the street came Cris Mead on his way to the bank, silent Cris, whose business sense and moral worth helped to make Springvale. He saw my father at the window, and each waved the other a military salute.

Presently Father Le Claire, almost a stranger to Springvale now, came up the street with Dr. Hemingway, but neither of them looked toward the courthouse. Other folks went up and down unnoted, until Marjie pa.s.sed by with her music roll under her arm. Her dark blue coat and scarlet cap made a rich bit of color on the gray street, and her fair face with the bloom of health on her cheek, her springing step, and her quiet grace, made her a picture good to see. John Baronet rose and stood at the window watching her. She lifted her eyes and smiled a pleasant good-morning greeting and went on her way. Some one entered the room, and with the picture of Marjie still in his eyes, he turned to see Lettie Conlow. She was flashily dressed, and a handsome new fur cape was clasped about her shoulders. Self-possession, the lifetime habit of the lawyer and judge, kept his countenance impa.s.sive. He bade her a courteous good-morning and gave her a chair, but the story he had already read in her face made him sick at heart. He knew the ways of the world, of civil courts, of men, and of some women; so he waited to see what turn affairs would take. His manner, however, had that habitual dignified kindliness that bound people to him, and made them trust him even when he was pitted with all his strength against their cause.

Lettie had boasted much of what she could do. She had refused all of O'mie's well-meant counsel, and she had been friends with envy and hatred so long that they had become her masters.

It must have been a strange combination of events that could take her now to the man upon whom she would so willingly have brought sorrow and disgrace. But a pa.s.sionate, wilful nature such as hers knows little of consistency or control.

"Judge Baronet," Lettie began in a voice not like the bold belligerent Lettie of other days, "I've come to you for help."

He sat down opposite her, with his back to the window.

"What can I do for you, Lettie?"

"I don't know," the girl answered confusedly. "I don't know--how much to tell you."

John Baronet looked steadily at her a moment. Then he drew a deep breath of relief. He was a shrewd student of human nature, and he could sometimes read the minds of men and women better than they read themselves. "She has not come to accuse, but to get my help," was his conclusion.

"Tell me the truth, Lettie, and as much of it as I need to know," he said kindly. "Otherwise, I cannot help you at all."

Lettie sat silent a little while. A struggle was going on within her, the strife of ill-will against submission and penitent humiliation. Some men might not have been able to turn the struggle, but my father understood. The girl looked up at length with a pleading glance. She had helped to put misery in two lives dear to the man before her. She had even tried to drag down to disgrace the son on whom his being centred.