Winning the Wilderness Part 23

From the open window he looked out upon the magnificence of the autumn forests and saw the white pike road leading down to Clover Creek and the church spires and courthouse tower above the trees.

"The heir to all this comfort and beauty gave it up because he didn't want to be a tavern-keeper here, and because he did want a girl--Virginia!"

Horace Carey said the name softly. "I know what her jessamine-draped window looked out upon. I hardly realized when I was here before what Asher's early home had been. Yet those two for love of each other are building their lives into the life of their chosen State. It is the tiller of the soil who must make the West. But how many times in the lonely days in that little sod cabin must they have remembered their childhood homes!

How many times when the hot fall winds swept across the dead brown prairie have their memories turned to the beauty of the October days here in the East! Oh, well, the heroes weren't all killed at Lexington and Bunker Hill, nor at Bull Run and Gettysburg. Some of them got away, and with heroic wives went out to conquer the plains from the harsh rule of Nature there."

When the doctor went downstairs again, a little girl met him, saying, "Miss Jane says you may sit in the parlor, or out on the meranda, till supper is ready."

"How pleasant! Won't you come and sit with me?" Doctor Carey replied.

"I must put the--the lap-robes on the tables to everybody's plate, and the knives and forks and poons. Nen I'll come," she answered.

Carey sat on the veranda enjoying the minutes and waiting for the little girl.

"What is your name?" he asked when she appeared, and climbed into Miss Jane's vacant chair.

"Leigh Shirley. What's yours?"

"Horace Carey."

The doctor could not keep from smiling as he looked at her. She was so little and pretty, with yellow hair, big blue eyes, china-doll cheeks, and with all the repose of manner that only childhood and innocence can bestow.

"I think I like you, Horace," Leigh said frankly, after carefully looking Carey over.

"Then, we'll be friends," he declared.

"Not for so mery long." Leigh could not master the V of the alphabet yet.

"'Cause I'm going away pretty soon, Miss Jane say. You know my mamma's dead." The little face was very grave now. "And my Uncle Jim out in Kansas wants me. I'm going to him."

Even in her innocence, Doctor Carey noted the very definite tone and clear trend of the young mind.

"Miss Jane loves me and I love her," Leigh explained further. "Don't you love Miss Jane, Horace?"

"Certainly," Carey said, with some hesitancy.

"I'll tell her so. She will love you, too. She is mery sweet," Leigh a.s.sured him. "Where are you going to?"

"I'm going back to Kansas soon."

"Wim me?"

"I should like to. Let's go together."

Leigh slid quickly from the chair and ran inside, where Doctor Carey heard her clear childish voice saying, "He is going to Kansas, too, Miss Jane.

He says he loves you. His name is Horace, and he's mery nice. He's not mery pretty, though, but you love him, too, don't you, Miss Jane?"

Evidently the child was close to Miss Jane, for the doctor heard something like a kiss and low words that seemed to send her away on some errand.

Presently he caught sight of a sunny head and two big blue eyes and a little hand beckoning to him, as Leigh peeped around the corner of the house.

"Miss Jane says I mustn't talk too much and mustn't call you Horace, but just Doctor Carey. Won't you come with me to get flowers for supper?"

The two strolled together into the old flower garden where verbenas and phlox and late asters and early chrysanthemums and a few monthly roses under Miss Jane's careful covering had weathered the first frosts. Leigh knew each plant and shrub, and gave out information freely.

"Would you rather stay with Miss Jane?"

Doctor Carey knew he should not ask the question, but it came anyhow.

"Oh, no, I want to go to my Uncle Jim." Leigh settled the matter once for all.

That night Leigh fell asleep early, for Miss Jane was methodical with children. Then she and Doctor Carey sat until late by the open wood fire and talked of many things, but first of Leigh and her future.

"You will miss her, I'm sure," the doctor said.

"More than anyone will know," Miss Jane replied. "But I could not be happy without fulfilling my promise. I wrote you to come soon because each day makes the giving up a little harder for me. But I must know the truth about this Uncle Jim. I cannot send Leigh out of my house to be neglected and unloved. She demands love above all things."

The pink color deepened in Miss Jane's fair cheek as she recalled what Leigh had said to Doctor Carey about loving her. The doctor remembered also, and knew why she blushed. Yet blushes, he thought, were becoming to her.

"I'll tell you all I know of Mr. Shirley. We have been friends for many years," he said.

Then as truthfully as possible he told her of the life and mind of the lonely loving plainsman. When he had finished, Miss Jane sat awhile in silent thought.

"It is right that you should know something of conditions here, Doctor,"

she said at last. "The older Shirleys are dead. Tank's life hastened the end for them, the Cloverdale gossips say. And as I have owned the Shirley House for several years, I came to know them well, and I do not think the gossips were far out of the way."

"What of Tank's life?" Doctor Carey asked. "I have some personal reasons for asking."

Miss Jane looked up quickly. She was a pretty woman, and a keenly intelligent one as well. To Horace Carey, she seemed most charming at that moment.

"Let me tell you of Alice first," she said. "You know, of course, that she loved Jim. They were just suited to each other. But her mother and Tank's mother planned otherwise. Alice was submissive. Tank was greedy. He wanted the old Leigh farm. And envious, for he seemed to hate Jim always. It grew to be the pa.s.sion of his life to want to take whatever Jim had. His mother hated Jim before he was born. It was his pre-natal heritage, combined with a selfish nature. There was misrepresentation and deception enough to make a plot for a novel; a misunderstanding and brief estrangement, separating Jim and Alice forever--all managed by Tank and his mother, for the farm first, and the downfall of Jim second. They took no account of Alice, who must be the greatest loser. And after they were married, both mothers-in-law were disappointed, for the Leigh farm was heavily inc.u.mbered and sold by the sheriff the same fall, and the Shirley House fell into Uncle Francis Aydelot's hands in about the same way. Love of property can be the root of much misery." Miss Jane paused, for the story brought bitterness to her kindly soul.

"It is ended now," Horace Carey said gently. "It is well that it is, I am sure."

"Yes, Alice rests now beside her two little ones who went before her. She had no sorrow in going, except for Leigh. And"--

"And you lifted that, I know." Doctor Carey finished the sentence.

"I tried to," Miss Jane said, struggling between timidity and truthfulness. "I made her last hours peaceful, for she knew Leigh would be cared for and safe. I saw to that. Tank Shirley is bound to a surrender of all legal claim to her. It was left to Jim to take her, if he chose. If not, she belongs to me. She is a strange child, wise beyond her years, with a sort of power already for not telling all she knows. You can rely on her in almost anything. She will make a strong woman some day."

Doctor Carey read the loving sacrifice back of the words, and his heart warmed toward this sweet-spirited, childless woman.

"Jim wants her, else I could not have come," he said gently, "but you can come to Gra.s.s River to see her sometimes."

"Oh, no, it is so far," Jane Aydelot said, and Carey realized in how small an orbit her life revolved.

"But she does good in it. What does distance count, against that?" he thought to himself. Aloud he said:

"Tell me of Tank, Miss Aydelot."