The Way of the Strong Part 34

"He needs coaxing," she said. "The pore feller's pretty old, and we've surely come some way."

"Not this morning," Monica protested, studying the girl's face with genuine admiration.

She was not disappointed. The girl was a striking-looking creature. Her dark hair and brows threw up into strong relief the beautiful eyes which looked fearlessly up into her face as she made her reply.

"Oh yes, mam," she said calmly. "You see, we started from Toogoods' at four o'clock. I want to be home by noon. Guess we'll make it tho'. Old Pete and I have made some long journeys together."

"He looks a good horse," Monica hazarded. She knew little enough of horse flesh, but she liked the look of this girl and wanted to be agreeable. "How far have you to go now?"

"Guess it's most twenty-two or thereabouts. Mamma'll be worried some if I don't make home by noon. I don't like worrying mamma, she's so good, and--and she's dreadfully nervous."

"An invalid?" suggested Monica.

"Oh, no." The girl's eyes were still absorbed in the details of Monica's dress. She had never seen anything quite like it before, and her shrewd mind was speculating as to this stranger's ident.i.ty.

"Say, where you from?" she asked suddenly, in a quick, decided manner.

"Guess you belong to Deep Willows. Maybe you're Mrs. Hendrie?"

"Quite-right--how did you know?"

The girl reddened slightly as she smiled.

"Why--your clothes. You see, we've all heard you're at Deep Willows."

Monica laughed, and the girl joined in.

"My clothes--folks don't wear riding habits much about here, I s'pose?"

"No, mam."

Monica nodded.

"Now, I may ask who you are. I didn't like to before, but----"

The girl smiled frankly.

"You guessed it would be rude," she said quickly, "so you let me be rude--instead."

Monica laughed a denial.

"Oh no," she said. "I just didn't think about it."

"But it doesn't matter, mam," the girl went on. "Nothing's rude that isn't meant rude. I never mean to be rude. I don't like rudeness. I'm Phyllis Raysun, mam. We're farmers--mamma an' me. Just a bit of a farm, if you can call it 'farm'--not like Deep Willows."

The girl's unmistakable awe when she spoke of Deep Willows amused Monica.

But now she scrutinized her with an added and more serious interest. So this was the Phyllis who had caught her boy's fancy. This was the girl he described as "bully"--and she was frankly in agreement with him. She longed there and then to speak of Frank and learn something of Phyllis'

feelings toward him, but she knew she must deny herself.

"I dare say it's a very happy little place for all that, Phyllis," she said, deliberately using the girl's first name. She meant to begin the intimacy she had suddenly determined to establish at once. "Who works it for you? Your father--brother?"

As she watched the changing expression of the girl's face Monica thought her the prettiest creature she had seen for years.

"Neither, mam." There was a slight hesitation over the use of the respectful "mam." Monica's use of her own name had slightly embarra.s.sed her. "There's just mamma and me, and we work it together. We've got a ch.o.r.eman, but that's all. It's--it's only a quarter section."

"You two never do all the work yourselves--plowing?" Monica cried incredulously.

The girl nodded. She liked this stranger. She was so handsome, so good.

"Mamma an' me--mam."

Monica's eyes grew very soft. It seemed wonderful to her this courage in two lonely women.

Suddenly she leaned forward in her saddle, and spoke very gently.

"Would you like to oblige me--very much?" She smiled into the girl's earnest face.

Phyllis flushed with pleasure.

"Why, surely--mam."

"Then don't call me 'mam,'" Monica said, in a tone calculated to leave the girl with no feeling of shame at her respectful att.i.tude. Then she laughed in the way Phyllis liked to hear. "You see, I am just the same as you, Phyllis--if I do wear a tailored riding habit. We're both farmers--in our way."

Phyllis blushed, but shook her head with a simple yet definite decision.

"I won't call you 'mam' if you don't like it," she said readily. "But I can't help thinking there's a big--big difference, if you don't mind me speaking so plainly."

Monica's interest was sincere.

"Go on, child," she said. "I like to hear you talk. It--it reminds me of some one I'm--interested in."

The girl's luminous eyes brightened.

"I wasn't going to say much--only----" she hesitated doubtfully, "only I hear so many folk say there's no difference. Most of them say it sort of spitefully, and you can see they don't say it because--because they really believe it. They sort of want to make out they're as good as anybody else, and all the time most of 'em can't even think right. It's just conceit, and spite, and envy. And, oh, there's such a big difference all the time. Take two men. Take our ch.o.r.eman, and your--your husband. Our man can plow a furrow--but not so straight and true as I can. I'd say he can clean a barn out right. Maybe he could drive a team down a straight trail without hurting anything. But that's all he can do. Say, he hasn't got brains enough to wash himself wholesome and clean. Then look at Mr. Hendrie. Was there ever such a great man? He doesn't sit down and shout he's better than other folk.

Maybe he don't think he is. But he gets right up and does things that come near making the world stare. And it's done out of his own head. He thinks, and--and does. And if other folks were as good as him they'd be doing just the same, and there'd be nothing to wonder at in--in anybody. I wouldn't be rude to you--indeed I wouldn't, but--but there's a heap of difference between folk, it shows in the result of their lives."

Monica was startled. She was filled with an intense wonder at this youthful, humble prairie flower. Where did she get such thoughts, such ideas from at her age?

She answered her very carefully. She felt that it was necessary--it was imperative. Somehow she felt that this child's brain, albeit immature, was perhaps superior to her own.

"Well, Phyllis," she said, "there's a great deal in what you say, but perhaps we are looking at things from different points of view. I was thinking of the moral aspect. I maintain a good woman's a good woman, whatever her station. No clothes, no education can alter that. Every good man or good woman is ent.i.tled to the same consideration, whatever the condition of--of their lives."

Phyllis watched her new friend eagerly while she spoke. She drank in her words, and sorted them out in her own quaint fashion. The moment she ceased speaking she was ready with her answer.

"Sometimes I think I'd like to see it that way," she said, with simple candor. "Then sometimes, most generally, I think I wouldn't. To me that sort of makes the good G.o.d kind of helpless. And He isn't. Not really.

You've just got to look around and see what He's done to understand that. Look at the trees, the prairie, the hills, the water. See how He's provided everything for us all. Well, the way you think makes out that He's just created us and all this. He's made us all in the same pattern, and dumped us right down here just for amus.e.m.e.nt, and sort of said: 'There you are; I've done my best; just get right to it and see how you can make out.' Well, when I look around and see all He's done I kind o' feel we're all working out just as He wants us to. We're not so much His children as we're His servants, and like all servants we've got our places, some high, some low. And according to our places we ought to say 'sir' and 'mam' to those above us, just as we feel all of us ought to say it to Him. Guess maybe I can't make it all clear--maybe you'll think me a sort of fool child, but if I live to be a hundred I'll feel I want to say 'mam' to you, and 'sir' to Mr. Hendrie. And that's because any one must see I'm not your equal, and never will be."

Monica was left with no answer. She might have answered, but she was afraid to. She was afraid that any further contradiction of such obviously wholesome ideas might affect this simple nature adversely.

Therefore she permitted herself only to marvel.