The Sun Maid Part 26

Foreseeing difficulties, the girl guided her guest into the kitchen, where Wahneenah was preparing dinner, and where the Indian woman greeted her old acquaintance with no surprise and, certainly, without any of the effusiveness that, for once, rather marked Mercy's manner toward her former "hired girl."

"Well, it's a real likely house, now, ain't it? I'd admire to see the minister. It's years since I saw one. Is he about?"

Kitty answered:

"Yes. He is studying. I rather hate to disturb him; but at dinner you will meet him."

"Studying! Studying what? Why, I thought he was an old man."

"He is. So old, I sometimes fear we will not have him with us long."

"What's the use learnin' anything more, then?"

"One can never know too much, I fancy. Just at present he is writing a dictionary of the Indian dialects, so far as he has been able to obtain them."

"The--Indian--language! He wouldn't be so silly, now come!"

"He is just so wise. It is a splendid work. I am proud to be his helper, even by just merely copying his papers."

"Well! You could knock me down with a feather! One thing--I sha'n't never set under his preachin'. I wouldn't demean myself. The idee!"

"Mercy, do you remember the red-covered Bible? Have you it still?"

"Course. I wouldn't let anything happen to that. It was a reward of merit. It's wrote in the front: 'To Mercy Balch, for being a Good Girl.' That was me afore I was married. It's in my carpet-bag. I mean to have it buried with me. I wouldn't never spile it by handlin'."

"I hope you'll use it now, for it's so easy to get another. The Doctor will give you one at any time. The Bible Society in the East furnishes all he needs."

Dinner was promptly ready, and, after it was over, the Sun Maid carried her old friend away with her to the government building, which was not only hospital, but schoolhouse and land-office all in one.

Everything here was so new and interesting to Mercy that surprise kept her silent; until, happening to glance through the window, she beheld a rough-looking man approaching on horseback.

"Pshaw! there's Abel! Wait an' see him stick where I stuck!" she chuckled. "Well, he sold out sudden, didn't he? He'd better come in the wagon, but he 'lowed he'd enjoy a ride all by himself. I reckon he's had it. See him stare and splash! There he goes! See that old nag flounder!"

Kitty sprang up and ran to welcome him, the heartiest of love in her clear tones.

"Why, bless my soul! If I thought it could be, I should say it was my own lost little Kit!"

As he gazed his rugged face grew beautiful in its wondering joy.

"Oh, Abel! That's the way Chicago receives her new citizens! She plants them so deep in the mud that they can't get away! But wait.

I'll help you out the same way I did Mercy, and then I'll get my arms about your neck, you dear old Abel!"

"Help me out? Not much! Not when there's such a pretty girl a few feet away waitin' to kiss my homely face!" and, with a spring that was marvellous to see, the woodsman leaped from his horse and landed on the higher sod beside his "Kit."

"Well, well! To think it! Just to think it once! Well, well, well! How big you are, Kit! My, my, my; and as sweet to look at as a locust tree in bloom, with your white frock, an' all. I've got here at last! I can't scarce believe it. And, la.s.sie, are you as close-mouthed as you used to be when you made a promise? Then--don't tell Mercy; but--_I done it a-purpose_!"

"Did what? Let us get the poor horse out of the mud before we talk."

"Shucks! He ain't worth pullin' out. If he ain't horse enough to help himself, let him stay there a spell, an' think it over. He'll flounder round----"

"You don't know our mud, Abel."

"He's all right. He's helpin' himself. He's makin' a genu_ine_ effort.

A man--or horse--that does that is sure to win. That's how I put it to myself. After I'd wrastled with the subject up hill an' down dale, till I couldn't see nothin' else in the face of natur', I done it. Out in the East, where I come from, they'd 'a' had me up for it; an' I don't know but they will here. But I had to, Kit, I had to. I was dead sick an' starvin' for a sight of you an' the boy, an' mis'able with blamin' myself that I hadn't treated you different when I had you, so you wouldn't have run away. You was a master hand at that business, wasn't you, girl? I hope you've quit now, though."

"I think so. Here I was born, and here I hope to stay. All my runnings have begun and ended here. But what did you do, Father Abel?"

"Oh, Sis! that name does me good. Promise you'll never tell,--not till your dyin' day."

"I can't promise that; but I'll not tell if I can help it."

"Well, you always had a tender conscience. Yet I can trust your love better 'n ary promise. Well--_I--burnt--it!_"

"Burned it? Your house? Your home? Yours and Mercy's? Why--Abel!"

The pioneer squared his mighty shoulders, and faced her as a defiant child might an offended mother.

"Yes, I did. The house, the bed-quilts, the antiquated bedstead, the whole endurin' business. It was the only way. Year after year she'd keep naggin' for me to move on further into the wilderness. _Me_, that was starvin' for folks, an' knew she was! It was just plumb lonesomeness made her what she is: a nagger. So, at last--you've heard about worms turnin', hain't you? I watched, an' when she'd gone trudgin' off on a four-mile tramp, pretendin' somebody's baby was sick, but really meanin' she was that druv to hear the sound of another woman's voice, I took pity on her--an' myself--an' set fire to that hateful old heirloom of a bedstead; an' whilst it was burnin' I just whipped out the old fiddle, an' I played--my! how I played! Every time a post fell into the middle, I just danced.

'So much nearer folks!' I thought. And the rag-carpet an' the nineteen-hunderd-million-patch-bedspread--Kit, I've set there, day after day, an' seen Mercy cuttin' up whole an' decent rags, an' sewin'

'em together again, till I've near gone stark mad. Fact. I used to wonder if it wasn't a sort of craziness possessed her to do that foolishness. Now, it's all over. She lays the fire to an Indian feller that I've spoke fair to, now an' again, an' that had been round our way huntin' not long before. I don't know where he come from, an' I never asked him. He never told. Pretended he couldn't talk Yankee.

Don't know as he could, but he could talk chicken or little pig fast enough. Leastways, I missed such after he'd been there. Well, it wasn't him. _It was--me!_ I burnt the bedstead, an' now we're free folks!"

"But, Abel, why not have brought the bedstead with you, if she loved it so? Why destroy----"

"Sissy, you don't know Mercy--not as I do. It was that furniture kept her. So long as she had it, so long as she could kind of boast it over her neighbors, there she'd set. We couldn't have moved it. She near worried herself into her grave gettin' it into the wilderness, first off, an' she ain't so young now as she was then. She'd ruther lost a leg than had it scratched. I saved that load of feed, an' the ox team, an' the old horse. Yes, an' my fiddle. Mercy's got money. She had it hid. I'm goin' to settle here an' keep tavern, if I can. If not here, then somewheres else. Anywhere where there's folks. Trees are nice; prairies are nice; a clearin' of your own is nice; but human natur' is nicer. Don't tell Mercy, though, or there'll be trouble! Now, Kit, where's Gaspar?"

"_Oh, Abel! Only the dear Lord knows!_"

CHAPTER XVII.

A DAY OF HAPPENINGS.

"Abel! Abel Smith! Here I am. Right here, in our little Kitty's own house. How'd you get along? Did the man buy?"

"Shucks!" groaned the pioneer, as these words reached him where he stood beside the Sun Maid, eager to hear what she could tell him of the lad Gaspar. "Shucks! I've had a right peaceful sort of day, me and old Dobbin, and I'd most forgot it couldn't last. Say, Kit, you look like a girl could do a'most ary thing she tried to. Just put your shoulder to the wheel, won't you, and shut the power off Mercy's tongue. Tell her 'tain't the fashion for women to talk much or loud, not in big settlements like this. She's death on the fashion, Mercy is. Why, that last gown of hers, cut out a piece of calico a neighbor brought from the East--you'd ought to see it. She got hold a picture-book, land knows when or where, and copied one the pictures.

Waist clean up to her neck, it's so short, and sleeves big enough to make me a suit of clothes. Fact! Wait till you see it. She's a sight, I tell you. But so long 's she thinks it's a touch beyond, why she's happy. But don't let her talk so much. 'Tain't proper; not in settlements."

The Sun Maid set her head on one side and regarded her old friend critically; then frankly, if laughingly, remarked:

"Abel, you dear, you can beat Mercy talking, by a great length. It's funny to hear you blaming her for the very thing you do. But I like it. You can't guess how I like it, and how it brings back my childish days in the forest. Now come in and get something to eat. Then we can have another talk."

"I ain't hungry. I had some doughnuts in my saddle-bags, and I munched them along the road. Say, Kit. Don't tell Mercy; but I didn't try to sell. Just put the question once, so to satisfy her when she asked. We hain't no need. She's got a lot of money in a buckskin bag tied round her waist. The land's all right. It's a good investment. I'll let it stand. This country is bound to grow. Some day it will be worth a power, and then I'll sell out, if I'm livin'; and if I ain't, you can.

One of the reasons I came was to fix things up for you. I always meant to make you my legatee. We've no kith nor kin nigh enough to worry about, Mercy an' me; an' I 'low she'd be agreeable. So we'll let the land lie. Oh, bosh! There she is, calling again. May as well go in for she won't stop till we do."

After all, there was real pleasure in the faces of both husband and wife at their reunion, short though their separation had been, and bitter though their words sounded to a stranger; and, already, there was a personal pride in Mercy's tones as she exhibited the house over which the Sun Maid presided, and explained the details--supplied by her own imagination--of its purposes.