Winning the Wilderness Part 37

"What's on it now?" Thaine asked.

"Just weeds and a million sunflowers. Enough to send Prince Quippi such a message he'd have to write back a real love letter to me," Leigh replied.

"Leighlie, you can't do it. You might pay interest maybe, year in and year out, the gnawing, wearing interest. That's all you'd do even with your hens and b.u.t.ter. Don't undertake the burden."

"I've already done it," Leigh declared.

"Throw it up. You can't make it," Thaine urged.

"I know I can," Leigh maintained stoutly.

"You can't."

"I can."

"How?" Thaine queried hopelessly.

"If I can get the loan--"

"Which you can't," Thaine broke in. "Any man on Gra.s.s River will tell you the same, if you don't want to believe the word of a nineteen-year-old boy."

"Thaine, I must do something. Even our home is mortgaged. Everything is slipping out from under us. You don't know what that means."

"My father and mother knew it over and over." Thaine's face was full of sympathy.

"And they won out. I'm not so foolish after all. When they came out here, they took the prairies as Nature had left them, gra.s.s-covered and waiting.

I'm taking them as the boom left them, weed-covered and waiting. I'll earn the interest myself and make the land pay the princ.i.p.al and I know exactly how it will do it, too."

"Tell me how," Thaine demanded.

"It's no dream. I got the idea out of a Coburn book last winter," Leigh replied.

"You mean the State Agricultural Report of Secretary Coburn? Funny place to hunt for inspiration; queer gospel, I'd say," Thaine declared. "Why didn't you go to the census report of 1890, or Radway's Ready Relief Almanac, or the Unabridged Dictionary?"

"All right, you despiser of small things. It was just an agricultural report full of tables and statistics and comparative values and things that I happened on one day when things were looking blackest, and right in the middle I found a page that Foster Dwight Coburn must have put in just for me, I guess. There was a little sketch of an alfalfa plant with its long good roots, and just one paragraph beside it with the t.i.tle, 'The Silent Subsoiler.'"

"That sounds well," Thaine observed. He was listening eagerly in spite of his joking, and his mind was alert to the girl's project.

"Mr. Coburn said," Leigh went on, "that there are some silent subsoilers that do their work with ease and as effectually as any plow ever hitched, and the great one of these is alfalfa; that it is a reservoir of wealth that takes away the fear of protest and over-draft."

"Well, and what if Coburn is right?" Thaine queried.

"Listen, now. I planned how I'd get back that old claim of Uncle Jim's; how I'd pay some money down and borrow the rest, and begin seeding it to alfalfa. Then I'll churn and feed chickens and make little sketches of water lilies, maybe, and pay the interest and let the alfalfa pay off the princ.i.p.al. I haven't any father or mother, Thaine; Uncle Jim is all I have. He hasn't always been successful in business ventures, but he's always been honest. He has nothing to blush for, nothing to keep hidden. I know we'll win now, for that writing of Foster Dwight Coburn's is true.

Don't try to discourage me, Thaine," she looked up with shining eyes.

"You are a silent little subsoiler yourself, Leigh, doing your work effectually. Of course you'll win, you brave girl. I wish it was a different kind of work, though."

A low peal of thunder rolled up from the darkening horizon, and the sun disappeared behind the advancing clouds.

"That's our notice to quit the premises. I shouldn't want to ford Little Wolf in a storm. It is ugly enough any time and was bank full when I took Rosie Posie over this morning. And say, her mother's got a face like a bra.s.s bedstead."

Thaine was lifting the buggy top as he spoke. Suddenly he exclaimed:

"Oh, Leigh, look down yonder."

He pointed down the little rift toward the water.

"Where?" Leigh asked, looking in the direction of his hand.

"Across the creek, around by the side of that hill. That's the Gimpke home stuck in there where you'd never think of looking for a house from up here. They can see anybody that goes up this lonely hill and n.o.body can see them. If I was gunning for Gimpkes, I'd lie in wait right here,"

Thaine declared.

"Maybe, if the Gimpkes were gunning for you, they could pick you off as you went innocently up this Kyber Pa.s.s and you'd never know what hit you nor live to tell the tale; and they so snugly out of sight n.o.body but you would ever have sighted them," Leigh replied. "But let's hurry on. It will be cooler on the open prairie than down there along the creek trail. And if we are storm-stayed, we are storm-stayed, that's all."

"You are the comfortablest girl a fellow could have, Leighlie. You aren't a bit scared of storms like--"

"Yes, like Jo. I can't help it. I never was much of a 'fraid cat, but I don't mind admitting I am fonder of water in lakes and rivers and water-color drawings than thumping down on my head from the little end of a cyclone funnel."

The air grew cooler in their homeward ride, while they followed the same old Sunflower Trail that Asher and Virginia Aydelot had followed one September day a quarter of a century before. And, for some reason, they did not stop to question, neither was eager to reach the end of the trail today.

As they came to a crest of the prairie looking down a long verdant slope toward what was now a woodsy draw, Thaine said, "Leigh, my mother was lost here somewhere once and Doctor Carey found her. Maybe Doctor Carey is the man to help you now."

"Oh, Thaine, I believe I could ask Doctor Carey for anything. You are so good to think of him," Leigh exclaimed. "I knew you'd help me out."

"Yes, I'm good. That's my trade," Thaine replied. "And I'm pretty brave to offer advice, too. But if you want to talk any about courage, mine's a different brand from yours. I may be a soldier myself some day. Brother Aydelot of the Sunflower Ranch, trustee of the Gra.s.s River M. E. Church, fit, bled, and died in the Civil War and was not quite my age now when he came out all battle-scoured and gory. I always said I'd be a soldier like my popper. But I'd fall in a dead faint before that alfalfa and mortgage business you face like a hero. It's getting cooler. See, the storm didn't get this side of the purple notches; it stayed over there with Pryor Gaines and Prince Quippi."

They rode awhile in silence, then Thaine said: "Leigh, I will go up to Careyville and send Doctor Carey down to Cloverdale to see you. It will save you some time at least, and I'll tell him you want to see him particularly and alone. You can tell me the result Sunday if you want to."

Leigh did not reply, but grat.i.tude in the violet eyes made words unnecessary.

On the Sabbath after the party, Thaine Aydelot waited at the church door for Jo Bennington, who loitered out slowly, chatting the while with Todd Stewart.

"Let me take you home, Jo. I see your carriage will be full with the company you will have today," Thaine said.

Jo looked with a pretty pout at the invited guests gathered about her mother and father waiting for her at the family carriage.

"Thank you, yes. I am glad to get away from those tiresome goody-goodies.

It looks like the Benningtons are taking the whole official board and the 'amen corner' home for dinner."

"Then come to the Sunflower Inn and dine with me. Rosie Gimpke came back last night and she promised me shortcake and sauerkraut and pretzels and schooners of Gra.s.s River water. Do come."

Indeed, Thaine had been most uncomfortable since the day at Wykerton, and he wanted to be especially good to Jo now. He didn't know exactly why, nor had he felt any jealousy at the bright looks and the leisure preference she had just given to Todd Stewart.

"Oh, you are too good. Yes, I'll go, of course," Jo exclaimed. "Can't we go down to the grove and see the lilies this afternoon, too?"

"Yes, we can go to China if we want to," Thaine declared. "Wait here in the shade until I drive up."

Teams were being backed away from the hitching-rack, and much chatting of neighbors was everywhere. Jim Shirley was not at church today, and Jo saw Leigh Shirley going alone toward the farther end of the rack where her buggy stood, while three or four young men were rushing to untie her horse. Jo, turning to speak to some neighbors, did not notice who had outdistanced the others in this country church courtesy until she realized that the crowd was going, and down the deserted hitching line Leigh Shirley sat in her buggy talking with Thaine, who was standing beside it with his foot on the step, looking up earnestly into her face.