The Bee Hunter (serial)/Part 2
PART II
“YOU LOUT—YOU BRUTE—YOU WILD-BEE HUNTER!” RAVED LUCY, AND AGAIN SHE ATTEMPTED TO BREAK HIS HOLD
YOU will cause something of a stir among the young men at Cedar Ridge. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them married you.”
That was the provoking yet complimentary remark from a member of the state board when Lucy Watson started out to do welfare work in a remote mountain section of the Far West. Lucy shrugged her shoulders and went—not expecting to marry. She had been warned that her venture was an untried one; that the people, simple, wholesome and ignorant of luxuries and conveniences, might resent her efforts. Her first home was with the Denmeades, where she met Edd, the bee hunter—the quiet, unaffected yet dominant son. The Denmeades wholeheartedly fell in with the welfare scheme—all except Edd. There was one family, Edd told her, that she could not live with—they were not fit for such as she. Lucy insisted she could and would live and work with all the families of the community, and so challenged Edd Denmeade's dominance at the start.
VI
LUCY stared after the tall figure as it stalked, with a flapping of chaps keeping time with a clinking of spurs. Edd Denmeade was six feet tall, slender, yet not lean like his brothers. He was built like a narrow wedge, only his body and limbs were rounded, with small waist, small hips, all giving an impression of extraordinary suppleness and strength. Lucy had seen riders of the range whose form resembled this young bee hunter's. They, however, had been awkward on their feet, showing to best advantage when mounted on horse-back. This Denmeade had a long, quick, springy stride.
When he had passed out of sight down the lane, Lucy let the children play alone while she pondered over his thought-provoking words; she realized that he was right in a way, and that it might be possible to do these children more harm than good; but never if she could only impress them lastingly. The facts of the case were as plain as printed words to her. These backwoods people were many generations behind city people in their development.
In a fairly intelligent and broad way Lucy had grasped at the fundamentals of the question of the evolution of the human race. Not so many thousand years back all the human family, scattered widely over the globe, had lived nomad lives in the forests, governed by conditions of food and water. Farther back their progenitors had been barbarians, and still more remotely they had been cave men, fighting the cave bear and the saber-toothed tiger. Lucy had seen pictures in a scientific book of the bones of these men and beasts. In ages back all the wandering tribes of men had to hunt to live, and their problems were few—meat to eat, skins to wear, protection from beasts and ravaging bands of their own species. Yet, even so, through the long ages these savages had progressed mentally and spiritually. Lucy saw that as a law of life.
These backwoods people were simply a little closer to the old order of primitive things than their more fortunate brethren of civilization. Even if they so willed with implacable tenacity, they could not forever hold on to their crude and elemental lives. They could never evade the line of progress. Edd Denmeade's father was a backwoodsman; Edd himself was a bee hunter; his son would most likely be a forest ranger or lumberman, and his grandson perhaps become a farmer or a worker in the city.
Naturally this giant boy of the woods understood nothing of all this. Yet he had a quaint philosophy which Lucy felt she understood: In a sense the unthinking savage and the primitive white child were happier than any children of civilized peoples. In a way it might be a pity to rob them of their instincts, educate them out of a purely natural existence. But from the very dawn of life on the planet, the advance of mind had been inevitable. Lucy was familiar with many writers who ascribed this fact to Nature. Her personal conviction was that beyond and above Nature was God.
If Edd Denmeade was not stupid and stubborn, she believed that she could enlighten him. It might be interesting to teach him; yet on the other hand it might require more patience and kindliness than she possessed. Evidently he was the strongest factor among the young Denmeades, and perhaps among all these young people. Despite the unflattering hints which had fostered her first impression, she found that after talking seriously with him she had a better opinion of him than of any of the other young men she had met.
All the rest of the day and evening Lucy found the thoughts Edd had roused running in her mind, not wholly unsatisfying. Somehow he roused her combativeness; yet, viewed just as one of the Denmeades, she warmed to the problem of helping him. Moreover, the success of her venture with this family no doubt hinged mostly upon converting the elder son to her support. Perhaps she could find an avenue open to her through his love of Mertie and devotion to the children.
NEXT morning found Lucy more energetic and active mentally than she had been so far. She had rested; the problem she confronted had shifted to a matter of her own powers. Nevertheless, neither the children, nor helping Mrs. Denmeade, nor reading over some half-forgotten treatises relative to her work interested her to the point of dismissing Edd Denmeade from mind.
She was in her room just before the noon hour when she heard Uncle Bill stamp up on the porch and drawl out, “Say, Lee, hyar comes Edd drivin' the pack burros.”
Denmeade strode out to exclaim, “So soon! Wal, it do beat all how that boy can rustle along with a pack outfit.”
“Heavy load too. Jennie looks like a camel,” replied Uncle Bill. “Reckon I'll lend a hand onpackin'.”
Lucy quite unnecessarily wanted to run out to see the burros, a desire that she stifled. She heard the tinkle of their bells and the patter of their little hoofs as they came up to the porch.
“Wal, son, you must been ararin' to git home,” drawled Denmeade.
“Nope. I just eased them along,” replied Edd. “But I packed before sunup.”
“Fetch all Miss Lucy's outfit?”
“Some of it had to be ordered—sewin' machine an' a lot of dry goods. It'll be on the stage next week, an' I'll pack it then. Reckon I had about all I could pack today anyhow.”
“Say, Edd,” called Allie's lusty voice from the kitchen, “who'd you go an' storm for the dance?”
“Reckon I haven't asked nobody yet,” replied Edd laconically.
“You goin' to stay home?” rejoined Allie, her large frame appearing in the kitchen doorway. Her round face expressed surprise and regret.
“Never stayed home yet, Allie, did I?”
“No. But, Edd, you mustn't go to any more dances alone,” said his sister solicitously. “It makes the boys mad, an' you've had fights enough.”
“Wal, you didn't notice I got licked bad, did you?” he drawled.
Allie went back into the kitchen, where she talked volubly to her mother.
“Edd, reckon we'd better carry this stuff in where Miss Lucy can keep the kids out of it, huh?” queried Denmeade.
“I shore say so. It cost a lot of money. I hope to goodness she makes out with it.”
LUCY heard his quick step on the porch, then saw him burdened with bundles and boxes, approaching her door. She rose to meet him.
“Howdy. I got back pronto,” he said. “Pa thinks you'd better have this stuff under your eye. Where'll we stack it? Reckon it'll all make a pile.”
“Just set light things on the beds, heavy ones on the floor. I'll look after them,” replied Lucy. “Indeed you made splendid time. I'm very grateful. Now I shall be busy.”
Sometime during the afternoon, when the curious members of the household had satisfied themselves with an exhaustive scrutiny of the many articles Lucy had in her room, and had gone about their work and play, Edd Denmeade presented himself at the door.
“Reckon I'd like to ask you somethin',” he said rather breathlessly and low.
“Come in,” replied Lucy, looking up from where she knelt among a disarray of articles she had bought.
“Will you go to the dance with me?” he asked.
Lucy hesitated. His shyness and anxiety manifestly clashed. But tremendous as must have been this issue for him, he had come out frankly with it.
“Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you, Edd, but I must decline,” she replied. “You see what a mess I'm in here with all this stuff. I must straighten it out. Tomorrow work begins.”
HE EYED her with something of a change in his expression or feeling, she could not tell what. “Reckon I savvied you'd say no. But I'm askin' if you mean that no for good. There's a dance every week, an' you can't help bein' asked. I'm givin' you a hunch. If any schoolmarm stayed away from dances, folks up here would believe she thought she was too good for us.”
“Thank you. I understand,” replied Lucy, impressed by his sincerity. “Most assuredly I don't think I'm too good to go to a dance here, and enjoy myself too.”
“Maybe then—it's just me you reckon you'd not like to go with,” he returned, with just a tinge of bitterness.
“Not at all,” Lucy hastened to reply. “I'd go with you the same as with anyone. Why not?”
“Reckon I don't know any reason. But Sadie Purdue was pretty shore she did. You wouldn't really be ashamed of me then.”
“Of course not,” replied Lucy, at her wits' end to meet this situation. “I heard you spoken of very highly by Mrs. Lynn, at Cedar Ridge. And I can see how your parents regard you. At my home, in Felix, it was not the custom for a girl to go to a dance upon such slight acquaintance as ours. But I do not expect city customs up here in the woods.”
“Reckon I like the way you talk,” he said, his face lighting. “Shore it doesn't rile me all up. But that's no matter now. Won't you please go with me?”
“No,” answered Lucy decidedly, a little nettled at his persistence when she had been kind enough to explain.
“Shore I didn't ask any girl before you,” he appealed.
“That doesn't make a particle of difference.”
“But it means an awful lot to me,” he went on doggedly.
“It would never do to change her mind after refusing him, so there seemed nothing left but to shake her head smilingly and say she was sorry. Then without a word he strode out and clanked off the porch. Lucy went on with the work at hand, becoming so interested that she forgot about him.
Sometime later he again presented himself at her door. He was clean shaven; he had brushed his hair while wet, plastering it smooth and glossy to his fine-shaped head; he wore a light colored flannel shirt and a red tie and new blue jean trousers. Lucy could not help seeing what a great improvement this made.
“Reckon you haven't thought it over?” he queried hopefully.
“What?” returned Lucy,
“About goin' to the dance.”
“IVE been very busy with all this stuff, and haven't had time to think of anything else.”
“Shore I never wanted any girl to go with me like I do you,” he said. “Most because Sadie made fun of the idea.”
“Edd, it's not very nice of you to want me just to revenge yourself on Sadie,” rejoined Lucy severely.
“Reckon it's not all that,” he replied hurriedly. “Sadie an' Sam an' most of them rake me over. It's got to be a sore point with me. An' here you bob up, the prettiest an' stylishest girl who ever came to Cedar Ridge. Think what a beat I'd have on them, if I could take you. An' shore that's not sayin' a word about my own feelin's.”
“Well, Edd, I must say you've made amends for your other speech. Still, I said no, and I meant no.”
“Miss Lucy, I swear I'd never asked you again if you'd said that for good. But you said as much as you'd go sometime. Shore if you're ever goin' to our dances, why not this one, an' let me be the first to take you?”
He was earnest; he was pathetic; he was somehow most difficult to resist. Lucy felt that she had not been desired in this way before. To take her would be the great event in his life. For a moment she labored with vacillation. Then she reflected that if she yielded here, it would surely lead to other obligations and very likely to sentiment. Thereupon she hardened her heart, and this time gave him a less kindly refusal. Edd dropped his head and went away.
Lucy spent another hour unpacking and arranging the numerous working materials that had been brought from Cedar Ridge. She heard Mrs. Denmeade and Allie preparing an early supper, so they could ride off to the dance before sunset. Lucy had finished her task for the afternoon and was waiting to be called to supper when again Edd appeared at the door.
“Will you go to the dance with me?” he asked, precisely as he had the first time. Yet there seemed some subtle change in both tone and look.
“Well, indeed you are persevering, if not some other things,” she replied, really annoyed. “Can't you understand plain English? I said no.”
“Shore I heard you the first time,” he retorted. “But I reckoned, seein' it's so little for you to do, an' means so much to me, maybe you'd”
“Why does it mean so much to you?” she interrupted.
“'Cause if I can take you, I'll show them this once, an' then I'll never go again,” he replied.
It cost Lucy an effort to turn away from his appealing face and again deny him, which she did curtly. He disappeared. Then Mrs. Denmeade called her to supper. Edd did not show himself during the meal.
WHEN THAT DANCE ENDED, LUCY WAS BESIEGED BY THE YOUNG MEN, AND GRADUALLY SHE GAVE HERSELF UP TO THE NOVELTY OF THE OCCASION
“Edd's all het up over this dance,” observed Mrs. Denmeade. “It's on account of Sadie's sharp tongue. Edd doesn't care a rap for her now an' never did care much. But she's mean.”
“Laws, I hope Edd doesn't fetch that Sally Sprall,” interposed Allie at this juncture. “I heard him say, though, that he was dog-goned minded to do it.”
“That hussy!” ejaculated Mrs. Denmeade. “Edd wouldn't take her.”
“Ma, he's awful set on havin' a girl this dance,” responded Allie.
“I'll bet some day Edd gets a better girl than Sadie Purdue or any of her clan,” declared the mother.
A little while later Lucy watched Mrs. Denmeade and Allie, with the children and Uncle Bill, ride off down the lane to disappear in the woods. Edd had not returned. Lucy concluded he had ridden off as had his brothers and their father. She really regretted that she had been obdurate. Coming to think about it, she did not like the idea of being alone in the cabin all night. Still she could bar herself in and feel perfectly safe.
SHE walked on the porch, listening to the murmur of the stream and the barking of the squirrels. Then she watched the sun set in golden glory over the yellow and black cape of wall that jutted out toward the west. The day had been pleasantly warm and was now growing cool. She drew a deep breath of the pine-laden air. This wild country was drawing her. A sense of gladness filled her at the thought that she could stay here indefinitely.
Her reflections were interrupted by the crack of iron-shod hoofs on rock. Lucy gave a start. She did not want to be caught there alone. Peering through the foliage she espied Edd striding up the lane, leading two saddled horses. She was immensely relieved, almost glad at sight of him, and then began to wonder what this meant.
“If he's not going to ask me again!” she soliloquized, and the paradox of her feeling on the moment was that she was both pleased and irritated at his persistence. “The nerve of him!”
Edd let the two horses into the yard and up to the porch.
“Wal, you're goin' to the dance,” he drawled coolly and easily, with a note in his voice she had never heard before.
“I am not,” flashed Lucy.
With a lunge he reached out and lifted her off the porch as easily as if she had been an empty sack. Lucy was so astounded that for an instant she could not move hand or foot.
“You ruffian!” burst out Lucy, suddenly beside herself with rage. “You ruffian!”
Frantically she struggled to free herself. This fierce energy only augmented her emotions. She tore at him, wrestled and writhed, and then in a desperation fraught with sudden fear she began to beat him with her fists. At that he changed his hold on her until she seemed strung in iron bands. She could not move. It was a terrible moment, in which her head reeled. What did he mean to do with her?
“Let—me—go!” gasped Lucy hoarsely. “Are—you—crazy?”
“Nope. Not even riled. But shore my patience is wearin' out.”
“Patience! Why, you lout—you brute—you wild-bee hunter!” raved Lucy, and again she attempted to break his hold. How utterly powerless she was! He had the strength of a giant.
A SUDDEN panic assailed her fury. “My heavens! You don't mean—to hurt me—harm me?” she panted.
“I mean nothin' 'cept you're goin' to that dance,” he declared ruthlessly. “An' you're goin', if I have to hawg-tie you. Savvy?”
Whereupon he lifted her and set her in the saddle of one of the horses, and threw her left foot over so that she was astride.
“No kickin' now! Baldy is watchin' out of the corner of his eye,” said this bee hunter.
The indignity of her position, astride a horse with her dress caught above her knees, was the last Lucy could endure.
“Please let—me—down,” she whispered. “I'll—go—with you.”
“Wal, I'm shore glad you're goin' to show sense,” he drawled, and with action markedly in contrast to his former ones he helped her dismount.
Lucy staggered back against the porch, so weak she could hardly stand.
“Is there any place down there to change, where a girl can dress?” she asked huskily. “I can't ride horseback in this.”
“Shore is,” he said gayly.
“Very well,” returned Lucy. “I'll get a dress, and go with you.”
She went to her room, and opening the closet she selected the prettiest of the several dresses she had brought. This, with slippers, comb and brush and mirror, she packed in a small grip. Then hurriedly slipping into her riding clothes Lucy took the bag and returned to the porch.
“Wal, now, that's fine,” said Edd, as he reached for the grip. He helped her mount and shortened the stirrups without speaking. Then he put a big hand on the pommel of her saddle and looked up at her.
“Shore now, if it'd been Sadie or any girl I know, she'd have gone in an' barred the door,” he said. “I just been thinkin' that over. Shore I didn't think you'd lie. Wal, reckon I'll let you off,” he finished, “just because you wasn't tricky.”
“No, you won't let me off,” asserted Lucy positively. “I'm going to this dance. And you'll take the consequences.”
VII
AFTER a long ride through the forest, they rode into a clearing dominated by a large low building, half logs and half rough boards.
Edd halted at the rear of the building and, dismounting, set Lucy's grip on the ground and turned to help her off. But Lucy ignored him and slipped quickly down.
“Wal, we're shore here,” drawled Edd happily, no doubt keenly alive to the shouts of the young people round the fire. “You can dress in there.”
He led her to a door at the back of the schoolhouse. Lucy mounted the high log steps to enter. The room was bare, a small addition built against the building. There was no one in it, a fact that relieved Lucy. A lighted lamp stood on a table. On one side was a built-in couch, covered with dried pine boughs. Besides these articles of furniture there was a box to serve as a chair. Lucy closed the door and hurriedly set about the business of dressing.
As she stepped down to the ground the bright blaze from the fire blinded her, yet she saw a tall dark form detach itself from the circle there and approach her.
“You shore dressed pronto,” drawled Edd.
LUCY put her hand on his arm and walked beside him, perfectly aware of his long stare. He led her round the schoolhouse to a front entrance, where another crowd of boys and girls whispered and gaped. “Our old fiddler's late,” said her escort, “an' I reckon the gang is rarin' to dance.”
Edd had to push himself through a crowd just inside the door, and he did it in a rather imperious way. Once through this line Lucy saw a large, bare, board floor, then a large room lighted by many lamps, and many people sitting and standing around the walls. Mrs. Denmeade and Allie came to meet them; and if Lucy had wanted any evidence of creating a sensation she had it now.
“Wal, ma, here we are,” drawled Edd, as coolly as if there were no strained situation. Perhaps for him there was none.
Lucy was at once the cynosure of all eyes, and was surrounded by old and young alike. She met Claypools, Millers, Johnsons, and numberless others whose names she could not remember.
Edd brought young men, all lean, rangy giants whom she could not have distinguished one from another. It dawned on Lucy that he wanted most of the boys there to meet her and dance with her. Indeed he showed no selfish interest.
But Lucy did not really look at Edd until Mrs. Denmeade, during an opportune moment, whispered to her: “Lucy, I reckon Edd's the proudest boy in the whole world. Pa said the same. We never seen him this way before. He was never happy at our dances. But you've done him good by comin'. An' I'm thankin' you.”
Lucy found the situation different from what she had anticipated. To revenge herself upon Edd Denmeade she had determined to be frigid to him and as sweet as sh« could make herself to every other boy there, particularly Sam Johnson. Not yet did she repudiate that unworthy resolve, though something was working on her—the warmth of her welcome, the pleasure she was giving, the honor she had unwittingly conferred upon this crude woodsman, the simplicity with which he took his triumph.
COMMOTION and stamping of feet and merry voices rose from the front of the schoolhouse. Lucy saw an old man proudly waving a violin, and forging his way to the tiny platform. When he began to play the couples moved out upon the floor.
Edd said no word, but he reached for Lucy. As he took hold of her, it was not possible to keep from stiffening somewhat and to hold back. Still she was to ascertain that Edd showed no thought of holding her close. How serious he was about this dancing! He was surprisingly easy on his feet. At first Lucy could not fall in with his way of dancing; gradually, however, she caught it, and after several rounds of the room she was keeping time with him.
Manifestly Edd Denmeade did not talk while he danced. In fact none of the dancers talked. They were deadly serious about it.
It developed that the time between dances was long, and given over to much hilarity. Lucy soon was surrounded again, so that she could not see very much of what was going on. Sam Johnson claimed her for the next dance, and he was a surprisingly good dancer. But it was not this that prompted her to be prodigal of her smiles, and to approach audacity, if not actual flirtation to captivate Sam. She did not stop to question her motive. He and his girl Sadie had been largely responsible for Edd Denmeade's affront to her.
Once in the whirling maze of flushed faces Lucy found herself looking right into Sadie Purdue's eyes. Lucy nodded smilingly. Her greeting was returned, but Sadie failed to hide her jealousy and resentment.
WHEN that dance ended, Lucy was besieged by the young men, and gradually she gave herself up to the novelty of the occasion.
Dance after dance followed, stealing the hours away. By midnight, when the intermission and supper were announced by Mr. Denmeade, it seemed to Lucy that she had allowed her impulsiveness and resentment to carry her away. Sam Johnson had more than lived up to the reputation Edd had given him. Only Lucy's tact saved him from utterly neglecting Sadie; and as it was, he made a fool of himself. Mr. Jenks, the teacher, did not dance, and devoted himself to the elder people. He had not found much opportunity for more than a few words with Lucy, but several times she had caught him intently watching her, especially while she was with Sam. She suffered a moment of regret; then when at the intermission Edd presented himself before her, cool and nonchalant, she could not help being rebellious.
“Wal, reckon I'll have to lick somebody before this night's over,” he drawled as he led her across the room.
“Indeed! How interesting!” replied Lucy.
“Shore will, unless somebody backs down on what he said. Ma wants you to set with her at supper. Teacher Jenks has somethin' to say to you. Shore tickles me. Why, Lucy Watson, you've made this night the wonderfulest of my life. I've had enough dancin' an' gettin' even an' crawlin' of these here corn-huskers to last forever.”
Lucy was afraid that for her, too, something wonderful lurked under the commonplaces of this experience, but she could not confess that Edd Denmeade had created it. She felt how little she was to regret that he had surprised her by not living up to the status of boor and ruffian. Instead of this, he had turned out to be something approaching a gentleman.
“RECKON I'll help feed this outfit,” he said, leaving her in a seat between his other and Mr. Jenks.
“Well, I'd hardly have known you,” said the school-teacher, with a smile and cordial greeting.
“Wal, I said the same,” averred Mrs. Denmeade. “Shore she just looks lovely.”
Lucy had the grace to blush her pleasure.
Presently Mr. Jenks found opportunity to say, “You have created havoc, Miss Lucy.”
“Have I? Well, Mr. Jenks, I'm surely afraid that I wanted to,” she confessed.
“I am not joking,” he continued more earnestly. “If looks could kill, Sadie Purdue would have had you dead hours ago. They all say, 'Sam is gone!' It would be funny—it were anywhere else but up in this backwoods.”
In self-defense Lucy related briefly and vividly how Edd Denmeade had brutally seized her and held her powerless, threatening to tie her, until in her shame and fear he had consented to come to the dance.
“I'm not surprised,” said Mr. Jenks gravely. “These fellows are built that way. But you must not mistake Edd and do him injustice. It never dawned on him that violence would be a profanation to a girl such as you. Could you honestly accuse him of the least boldness—you know what I mean?”
“No; I'm bound to confess that he handled me as if I were a boy or an old sack,” replied Lucy honestly.
“Well, then, try to understand him. It will not be easy. He's a savage. But savages are closer to nature than other men, and somehow the better for it. What surprises me is that Edd has not made any fuss yet over Bud Sprall's attentions to you.”
“Bud Sprall!” exclaimed Lucy, with a start of amaze. “Have I met him?”
“'Wal, I reckon,' as Edd would say,” rejoined the teacher, amused at Lucy's consternation. “You have danced twice with Bud, and showed that you liked it.”
“Oh, but I didn't know,” wailed Lucy. “I didn't catch half the names. Show him to me.”
The school-teacher managed presently in an unobtrusive manner to indicate which one of Lucy's partners had been the disreputable Bud Sprall.
“That handsome young fellow!” she burst out incredulously. “I took him for one of the relations—there are so many. I'm sure I promised him another dance.”
“Get out of it, then. But Bud will be sore and make trouble, unless you are very clever.”
Lucy, seeing Mrs. Denmeade approaching with friends, was unable to continue discussing the situation with Mr. Jenks. Before she realized the fleeting by of the supper hour the fiddler started one of his several tunes, and there followed a rush of dancers to the floor.
EDD did not exhibit any considerable alacrity in approaching her for this first number after the intermission.
“Want to dance this with me?” he queried coolly.
“Isn't it customary?”
“Shore. But you can have this dance with anyone you want.”
“But you brought me here. Won't it look strange if you don't dance with me?” she queried with concern.
“Wal, the strangest thing that ever happened in this schoolhouse was for a Denmeade's girl to dance with a Sprall,” he returned bitterly.
“Oh! I am not your girl, and I had not the remotest idea I was dancing with Bud Sprall. I only just found out. Mr. Jenks told me.”
“Say, you didn't know it was Bud Sprall you danced with twice?” he demanded, with piercing eyes of doubt.
“Absolutely no. I never caught his name,” confessed Lucy. “Edd, I'm afraid I promised him another dance—after supper,” went on Lucy nervously. She realized there was an undercurrent here, a force of antagonism quite beyond her.
When his face turned white, she was nearer the truth. Abruptly he wheeled to leave her, but Lucy was quick to catch his sleeve and draw him back.
“Do not leave me alone,” she said swiftly. “Remember that I am a stranger here. You brought me against my will. I can hardly be blamed for dancing with Bud Sprall when I did not know who he was.”
“Reckon that's all right,” he replied, gazing down on her. “But you'd better let me take care of you.”
“I—I'll do what you want me to,” replied Lucy faintly.
“WAL, dance this with me. Then I'll hang around an' keep an eye on you. Keep out of that Ring Around dance where they change partners all the time. When Bud or Sam comes up, you give me a look an' I'll be there pronto. Shore all your dances are mine, an' I don't have to give any more to Bud or Sam.”
“Thank you. I—I hope it turns out all right,” replied Lucy.
While she danced, her mind was active. She regretted her rash determination to make this crude backwoods youth jealous. He had certainly disappointed her in that regard. Yet what provocation! Her nerves tingled at the thought.
When the dance ended Edd relinquished her to one of his cousins, and gradually Lucy lost her worry for the time being. The next dance was the Ring Around, which Lucy refused to enter, remaining beside Mrs. Denmeade. Here she had opportunity to watch, and enjoyed it immensely. The dancing grew fast and furious. When the dancers formed in a ring and wheeled madly round the room, shrieking and laughing, they shook the schoolhouse till it rattled.
It developed that Edd Denmeade was more than a match for Bud Sprall when he presented himself for the dance Lucy had promised. But the interchange of cool speech struck Lucy keenly with its note of menace. Sprall's dark, handsome face expressed a raw, sinister hate. Denmeade wore a laconic mask, transparent to any observer. The advantage was his.
Finally Sprall turned to Lucy. “I ain't blamin' you, for I know you want to dance with me,” he said. “Reckon I'll not forget. Good night.”
Sam Johnson, too, was finally disposed of. Manifestly he and Edd were friends, which fact made the clash devoid of rancor.
Lucy almost fell out of the saddle when she arrived at home at sunrise. Edd was there beside her, quick to lend a hand. She limped to her room, and, barring the door, she struggled to remove her boots. They might as well have been full of thorns, considering the pangs they gave her.
“Oh! Oh! What a terrible night!” she gasped, falling on the bed, fully dressed. “Yet—I know I wouldn't—have missed it—for worlds. Oh, I'm dead. I'll never wake up.”
VIII
IT WAS midsummer. The mornings were pleasant, the days hot and still, the evenings sultry and purple, with massed clouds in the west. The July rains had left the ridges and open patches and the edges of the clearings colorful and fragrant with flowers. Corn and cane and beans were green and wavy on the fields. A steady line of bees flew by the cabin porch, to and fro, from hives to woods. And a drowsy, murmuring hum made music down by the shady stream.
One Saturday Lucy sat meditating in the tent that had long been her abode. It was situated out under the pines on the edge of the gully. The boys had built a platform of roughhewn boards, and a framework of poles, over which the canvas had been stretched. By day she heard the tiny patter of pine needles on the tent; at night the cool winds blew through, and in the moonlight shadows of swaying branches moved above her.
Lucy had problems on her mind. As far as the Denmeades were concerned, her welfare work had been successful beyond her dreams, The time was approaching when in all fairness she must go to another family. She would keenly regret leaving this place she had learned to love, yet she wanted to do well by others as she had done by the Denmeades. When to go—that was part of problem.
Another disturbing factor came in the shape of a letter from her sister Clara. It had shocked her, and induced a regurgitation of almost forgotten emotions. The letter lay open in her lap. It must be reread and considered and decided upon—matters Lucy was deferring,
THE last and perhaps most perplexing question concerned Edd Denmeade. Lucy had to go back in retrospect. The trouble between Edd and her dated back to the dance in May, the one which he had forced her to attend. Lucy had gone to other dances since then, but Edd had never attended another.
She might in time have forgiven him for that exhibition of his primitiveness, but shortly afterward he had precipitated something which resulted in their utter estrangement. Edd had come up to her where she sat on the corral fence watching the boys roping and shoeing a horse.
“I reckon I'm goin' to ask you a question,” he announced. Almost his tone was the cool drawling one habitual with him; here, however, there seemed something deep, inevitable behind his words.
“Goodness! Don't ask me to go to another dance,” laughed Lucy.
“Reckon I'll never dance again, unless” he broke off. “An' what I'm goin' to ask you I've asked other girls. Will you marry me?”
Notwithstanding the fact that she was startled, Lucy burst into mirth. “I—I beg pardon, Edd,” she made haste to say. “Really I didn't mean to laugh at you. But you—you surprised me so! You can't be serious.”
“Reckon I don't know just what I am,” he replied grimly. “But I'm asking you to marry me.”
“Because you want a home and a woman? I heard your father say that.”
“Shore. That's the way I've felt. Reckon this is more. I've told my folks an' relations I was askin' you. Wanted them to know.”
“Edd, I cannot marry you,” she replied gravely.
“RECKON you're too good for a backwoodsman, a wild-bee hunter who's been jilted by other girls,” he asserted with a strange, deep utterance.
“No, you're wrong,” declared Lucy, both touched and angered by his speech. “I don't think I'm too good. That dance you dragged me to cured me of my vanity.”
“Wal, then, what's the reason?” he went on. “Ma says you're goin' to stay among us people for years. If that's so, you'll have to marry one of us. I'm askin' you first.”
“Edd, an honest girl could not marry a man she didn't love,” replied Lucy. “Nor can a man be honest asking a girl whom he does not love.”
“Shore I am honest. I'm no liar,” he retorted. “I'm just plain man. I always felt a man should keep his hands an' lips to himself until he had a wife.”
“Edd, I respect you for that,” replied Lucy earnestly. “And understand you better. But love is not kisses and all that.”
“Wal, what is it then?”
“It is something beautiful, spiritual as well as physical. It is a longing for the welfare, the happiness, the good of someone as well as the sweetness of desire. For a woman love means what Ruth said in the Bible, 'Whither thou goest, I will go: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.' A man who loves a woman will do anything for her—sacrifice himself. The greater his sacrifice, the greater his love. And last he ought to feel that he could not live without the object of his affections.”
“Wal, I reckon I don't love you,” replied Edd ponderingly.
“Of course you don't. You're only thinking of yourself,” rejoined Lucy.
“Reckon I can't help what I think. Who put all this in my head?”
“EDD, you haven't got anything in your head,” retorted Lucy, unable to restrain her pique and scorn. “That's the trouble. You need education. All your people hereabouts need education more than anything else.”
“Wal, why don't you teach me same as you do Liz an' Lize?” he complained.
“You're a grown man!” ejaculated Lucy. “You want to marry me! And you talk like a child.”
“Shore I could make you marry me—same as I made you go to the dance,” he said ruthlessly.
Lucy's amaze and wrath knew no bounds. “You—you” she choked, almost unable to express herself. “You savage! You couldn't even love yourself. You're” She was utterly at a loss to find words. “Why, you're a fool—that's what you are. If you mention marriage again, I'll give up my work here and leave.”
Then and then only did it seem to dawn upon him that there was something wrong with his mind. He gave Lucy a blank, dead stare, as if he saw something through her. The vitality and intensity withered out of his face. He dropped his head and left her.
That scene had been long weeks past. For days Edd had remained out in the woods, and when he returned there was a difference in him. None of the family, however, apparently attributed it to Lucy. But she knew. At first, such was her antagonism, she did not care what he did or what became of him, but gradually, as the weeks wore on and she had such wonderful success with her work while he grew wilder and stranger, she began to pity rather than despise him. Rumor credited him with fights and brawls, and visits to the old moonshiner who distilled the liquor called white mule. His mother worried incessantly. His father passed from concern to grief. “Dog-gone me!” he ejaculated. “Edd's headed like them Sprall boys. An' who'd ever think it!”
Likewise Lucy passed from pity to worry, and from that to a conscience-stricken accusation. If for no other reason she was to blame because she had come to Cedar Ridge. This fall of Edd's was taking the sweetness out of her success. Could the teaching of a few children balance the ruin of their brother? How impossible not to accuse herself of the change in him! She felt it every time she saw him.
AT LAST Lucy saw clearly that her duty consisted in a choice between giving up her welfare work there and winning Edd Denmeade back to what he had been before she came. Thought of abandoning that work would scarcely stay before her consciousness, yet she forced herself to think of it.
“I must stay,” she soliloquized, at last seeing clearly. “If I quit now, all my life I'd be bitter because I failed of the opportunity I prayed for. Then, if I stay I must save Edd Denmeade. It would be welfare work of the noblest kind. What it costs me must not matter.”
That thought brought her back to Clara and the letter which lay open in her lap. With a wrench of her spirit she took it up and reread it:
- Dearest Lucy: I came back from Mendino to find you gone. I deserved my disappointment, because I've never written you. But, Lucy, it wasn't because I'd forgotten. I was ashamed. I eloped with Jim, as you know, because father had no use for him. Well, if I had listened to you I'd not be miserable and alone now. Jim turned out worse than anyone thought. He didn't even marry me. I'm as much to blame for the whole business as he. The most shameful thing for me, however, was to discover I didn't love him. I was just crazy.
- Father shut the door in my face. I've been staying with an old schoolmate, Mamie Blaize, who has been kind. But, Lucy, I can't stay here. Felix will be no place for me after they find out.
- I went to the State Department who employ you. From them I got your address. The woman there was very nice. She spoke of your success, and that you had paved the way for extensive welfare work in other parts of the state. Lucy, I'm proud of you. It was always in you—to do good.
- I'm not very well or very strong. Won't you please let me come out there and stay with you? I'll get well, and I'll work my fingers to the bone for you. Let me show you I've had my bitter lesson. I need you, Lucy dear, for sometimes I grow reckless. I have horrible spells of blues. I'm afraid. And if you fail me, I don't know what in the world I'll do. But you won't fail me. I seem to feel that deep inside me. It makes me realize what I lacked.
- Send me money at once to come and tell me what to do—how to get there. Please, Lucy, I beg you. I'm in the dust. To think after scorning your love and advice, I'd come crawling on my knees to you! Judge what has happened to me by that. Hurry and write. Love,
THIS letter saddened Lucy more because of its revival of memory of the beloved little sister than the news it contained. Lucy had never expected anything except catastrophe for Clara. It had come, and speedily. Clara had been away from Felix a year and a half. She was now nearly nineteen. This frank letter revealed a different girl.
Lucy would not fail the erring Clara. Inclosing a money order on her office, she sealed the letter and stamped it with an air of finality and a feeling of relief and happiness.
As she stepped out of her tent, she espied Edd stalking up the lane toward the cabin. He had not been home for days, and his ragged apparel showed contact with the woods. As Lucy halted by the gate to wait for him, she felt her heart beat faster. Whatever sensations this wild-bee hunter roused, not one of them was commonplace.
“Good morning, Edd,” said Lucy cheerfully, as if that greeting had always been her way with him. “You're just the person I want to see. Where have you been so long?”
“Howdy,” he replied, as he stopped before her.
HE GAVE her one of his piercing looks, but showed no surprise. He appeared thin, hard, hungry and strained. He had not shaved for days, and his dark, downy beard enhanced the strange, wild atmosphere that seemed to cling round him.
“I've been linin' new bees. Reckon it was high time I set to work. It's shore a fine year for bees. You see there wasn't much rain. A rainy spring makes lots of yellow jackets, an' them darn insects kill the wild bees an' steal their honey. This dry season keeps down the yellow jackets. Reckon ['ll have my best year findin' honey. Lined two trees today.”
“Will you take me some day when you line bees and also when you get the honey?” asked Lucy, plunging headlong into her chosen task. She wanted to burn her bridges behind her. If she listened to caution and selfish doubts, she could never keep to her decision.
“Shore will. Any time you say,” he drawled, as he dragged his trailing rope to him and coiled it.
“I've news for you. I'm having my sister Clara come out to live with me.”
“Shore that'll be good,” he replied with interest. “When'll your sister come?”
“If all goes well, she'll arrive in Cedar Ridge on the stage Wednesday week. But someone must ride in tomorrow so my letter can catch Monday's stage.”
“Give it to me. I'm ridin' to Cedar Ridge this afternoon.”
“Edd, did you intend to go anyway?”
“Wal, reckon I didn't,” he declared honestly. “I've had about enough of town.”
“You've been drinking and fighting?”
“Shore,” he answered simply, as if there were no disgrace attached to that.
“I don't want you to go to town with my letter unless you promise me you'll neither drink nor fight,” she said earnestly.
Edd laughed. “Say, you're takin' interest in me mighty late. What for?”
“Better late than never. I refuse to discuss my reasons. But will you promise?”
“WAL, yes, about the white mule. Sorry I can't promise about fightin'; I've too many enemies I've licked, an' if I happened to run into one of them, drunk or no drunk, they'd be a-rarin' to get at me.”
“Then I'd rather you stayed away from Cedar Ridge.”
“Wal, so would I. Honest, Lucy, I'm sort of sick. Don't know what it is. But to-day in the woods I began to feel a little like my old self. It's bee huntin' I need—to get away from people.”
“People will never hurt you, Edd. It's only that you will not like them. Tell me, have you had trouble with Bud Sprall?”
“Nope. Funny too. For Bud's been lookin' powerful hard for me. He never goes to town an' I never go to dances, so we haven't bucked into each other.”
“What's this trouble between you and Bud? Doesn't it date back to that dance you took me to?”
“Wal, it's part because of somethin' he said about you at that dance. I'd have beat him half to death right there, only I didn't want to spoil your good time.” He seemed apologizing to her for a softness that he regretted.
“About me?” exclaimed Lucy in surprise. “What was it?”
“Reckon I'm not hankerin' to tell,” he replied reluctantly. “Shore I always blamed myself for lettin' it happen. But that night I was plumb locoed.”
“Edd, if it is something you can tell me, do so at once,” demanded Lucy.
“Wal, I can tell it easy enough,” returned Edd, with a smile breaking the hardness of his grimy face. “Bud just bragged about peepin' through the cracks of the shed back of the schoolhouse. Swore he watched you undress.”
“Oh, the sneak!” burst out Lucy, suddenly flaming.
“Wal, don't let the idea upset you,” drawled Edd. “For Bud was a liar. He never saw you. He just hatched that up after you wouldn't give him the other dance.”
“How do you know?” queried Lucy in swift relief.
“Reckon I didn't know that night. But shore I found out afterward. I rode down to the schoolhouse an' looked. There wasn't a crack in that shed anywheres. Not a darn one! You can bet I was careful to make shore. Bud just lied, that's all. He's always been a liar. But I reckon I hold it as much against him as if he had seen you. An' now there's more I'm sore about.”
LUCY did not delve into her mind to ascertain why she had no impulse to nullify Edd's anger against Bud Sprall. The subject seemed natural to Edd, but it was embarrassing for her. “How about my letter?” she asked, ignoring his last speech.
“Gerd's ridin' in today, an' he'll go by here. Fetch me the letter, an' I'll see he gets it.”
Lucy ran back to her tent, and securing it she returned to hand it to Edd, with a word as to its importance.
“And now I want to show you what I have done during this last absence of yours,” she continued.
She led him across the open clearing, and along a new-cut path into the woods. It ended abruptly on the edge of the gully. A board walk had been erected on poles, extending some yards out over the gully, to a point just above the spring. By means of a pulley and rope a bucket could be lowered into the spring and hauled up full of water, at very little expenditure of energy. Lucy demonstrated it with ease, showing the great saving of time and effort. Mrs. Denmeade and Allie had been compelled to make many trips a day to this spring, going down the steep trail and climbing back.
“Now, what do you say to me? I thought that out, and had your father and Uncle Bill put it up,” declared Lucy with pride.
“Simple as A B C,” Edd ejaculated. “Why didn't Pa—or me—or somebody think of that long ago? I reckon Ma an' Allie are ashamed of us.”
His torn black sombrero fell to the ground, and as he wiped his moist face with a soiled scarf his head dropped. How tremendously he seemed to be struggling with a stolid mind! He resembled a man learning to think. Finally he looked squarely at her.
“RECKON I'm about licked,” he declared. “I've been dyin' hard, Miss Lucy Watson from Felix. But thick as I am, I'm shore no darned fool. This here job to make fetchin' water easy for Ma an' Allie is shore enough to make me kick myself. It makes me understand what you mean. I was against you. Every time I came home Ma showed me somethin' new. Shore that livin' room, as they call it now, seemed no place for my boots an' spurs an' chaps—for me. But I couldn't help seein' a difference in Ma an' Allie an' the kids. They began to look like that room, with its furniture an' curtains an' pictures an' rugs an' bright both day an' night. Reckon I can't tell you just how, but it felt so to me. Clean clothes, pretty things must mean a lot to women an' kids. It's hard for me to knuckle, but I do. I'm not blind. You've been a blessin' to us,” he ended with emotion.
“But, Edd,” she began hurriedly, “I—I haven't helped you.”
“Me! Wal, some fellows are beyond helpin'. I'm a savage—a big boob—only a wild-bee hunter!”
As his head drooped after this bitter reply Lucy divined the havoc that had been wrought by those hard words of hers, uttered long weeks before, in an anger she could not brook. He had taken them to heart.
“Edd, judged by my standard for men you were—what I called you,” she said. “But I was unjust. I should have made allowance for you. I was hot-tempered. You insulted me. I should have slapped you good and hard.”
“Wal, reckon I could have stood that,” he replied. “You must have heard what Sadie an' other girls called me. An' you said it too. Shore that was too much for me.”
“If you'll promise not to—to talk the way you did then—never again, I'll forgive you,” said Lucy hesitatingly after a moment.
“Wal, don't worry; I'll shore never do it again. But I'm not askin' you to forgive me,” he returned bluntly, and rising he stalked away toward the cabin.
Lucy realized that somehow she had been too impulsive, too hasty in her approach toward friendliness. Perhaps the old, lofty superiority had unwittingly cropped out again. Nevertheless something had been gained, if only her deeper insight into this wild-bee hunter. As far as he was concerned she had been a poor judge of humanity, a poor teacher. She divined that she could learn more about him through his love of bees and the forest where he roamed, and this strengthened her resolve to go out with him some day.
MARY DENMEADE espied Lucy sitting by the path to the spring and, as always, she ran to her. The children could not get enough of Lucy's companionship. Through her their little world had widened wonderfully. Games and books, work and play had already made incalculable differences. These backwoods children were as keen mentally as any children Lucy had been associated with in the city, and vastly easier to interest.
“Here you are,” cried Mary excitedly, her eyes wide. “Edd is scolding Mertie. She's awful mad. So's Ma. But Ma is mad at Mertie, and Mertie's mad at Edd.”
“Oh, I'm sorry, Mary. Perhaps I had better not go in yet,” returned Lucy. “What's the trouble?”
“It was in the kitchen. I peeped in and heard Edd say, 'Mert, you've been ridin' with Bud Sprall again.' An' Mertie said, 'I've no such thing. But it'd be no business of yours if I had!' An' Edd said, 'Don't lie to me. Someone saw you.' Then Mertie had one of her bad spells. She raved an' cried. Ma took her part. Edd got hold of Mertie an' said he'd choke the truth out of her. He looked awful! Ma made him let Mertie go. An' Edd said, 'Wal, you stayed last night at Claypool's. Now what time did you get there after school?' Mertie said she couldn't remember. She had the reddest spots in her cheeks an' she couldn't look at Edd.”
This was not the first time Lucy had been cognizant of an upset among the Denmeades, owing to Mertie's peculiar ways of being happy. On her way back to her tent she heard the gate chain clank violently and, upon turning, she espied Edd stalking away black as a thundercloud. Should she let him go or halt him? Inspirations were not altogether rare with Lucy, but she had one now that thrilled her. This was her opportunity.
SHE called Edd. As he did not appear to hear, she raised her voice. Then he wheeled to approach her. “My, but you were tramping away fast and furiously,” said Lucy amiably. “Are you in any great hurry?”
“No, I can't say I am. Fact is, I don't know where I'm goin'. But I'm rarin' to go, just the same.” His voice was strained with spent passion, and his lean face seemed working back to its intent, still expression.
“Come over in the shade and talk with me,” said Lucy, and led him into the pines to a nook overlooking the gully, where she often sat.
“Don't go away angry,” she began, and, seating herself on the clean, brown pine mats, she clasped her knees and leaned back to look up at him. “I know what's wrong. Mary heard you quarreling with Mertie. She told me. Now, Edd, I wouldn't for worlds meddle in your affairs. But if I can be good for Mertie, you want me to, don't you?”
“Wal, I shore do,” he declared forcibly. “More'n once I had a hunch to ask you. But I—I just couldn't.”
“You should have. I'm sorry I've been so—so offish. It's settled then. Now tell me what you think is wrong with Mertie.”
“Reckon I don't think. I know,” he replied heavily. “Mertie is just plain no good. All she thinks of is her face an' of somethin' to deck herself in, so she'll attract the boys. Any boy will do, though she sticks up her nose at most of them, just the same. She's got one beau, Bert Hall, who lives in Cedar Ridge. Bert is sweet on Mertie, an' I know she likes him best of all the fellows who run after her. Bert owns a ranch, an' he's got a share in his father's sawmill. Course he wants to marry Mertie an' Mertie wants to run wild—dance an' ride. I reckon Sadie Purdue hasn't helped her none.”
“Well?” queried Lucy, as he ended haltingly. “I understand. What about this Bud Sprall?”
“MERTIE always liked that black-faced pup. She's been meetin' him on the sly. Not alone yet, but with Sadie, who's got the same kind of interest in Bud's pard, a hoss-wrangler who lives over Winbrook way. Mertie lied about it. Wal, if I can't break it up one way I can another.”
“You mean you'll go to Bud Sprall?” queried Lucy instantly.
“I shore do,” he said tersely.
“You two will fight, perhaps spill blood,” went on Lucy intensely. “That might be worse than Mertie's affair with Bud, whatever it is. Edd, surely it is just a flirtation.”
“Reckon I fooled myself with ideas like that,” returned Edd bluntly. “Boys an' girls up here do their flirtin' at dances. Straight out, Miss Lucy, this here sneakin' has a bad look. Mertie is thick with Sadie—an' they're meetin' these boys. Bert's an easy-goin' boy. But Mertie could go too far. You see, Miss Lucy, you haven't guessed yet just how—how thick many of us backwoods boys an' girls get. Not me! That's one reason why I'm a big boob. An' I always hoped an' prayed I could keep Mertie different. Shore it yoes kind of hard to see I'm failin'.”
“Edd, you must come back to your old self.”
“Yes, I reckon I'll have to,” he agreed, “if only it's not too late—for Mertie.”
“Let us hope and pray it is not,” rejoined Lucy earnestly. “I'm shocked at what you say, but yet I feel absolutely sure Mertie is still good. She's vain; she's wild. I know her kind. And, Edd, I promise to devote myself to Mertie. I must go to Felix for a week this fall. I'll talk about that to Mertie, hold it out to her. I'll take her with me. Oh, I know how to manage her. We'll marry her to Bert before she knows it.”
“Wal, what ma said about you is shore true,” he said, lifting his dark face stained with tears. “An' I'll make you a promise.”
“Yes?” queried Lucy encouragingly.
“I'll go back to my wild-bee huntin'.”
Lucy divined the import of that strange promise and she rejoiced over it, happily proud for him and the Denmeades.
IX
THE news that Lucy's sister was coming spread all over the immediate country. Lucy asked Joe Denmeade to go with her to meet Clara at Cedar Ridge.
“Now, teacher, how'd you come to pick on me?” he asked plaintively.
“Pick on you! Joe, you don't mean”
“Reckon I mean pick me out as the lucky boy,” he interrupted. “I'm just curious aboot it.”
Lucy liked his face. It was so young and clean and brown, square-jawed, fine-lipped, with eyes of gray fire. “Joe, I chose you because I think you will give my sister a better impression than any other boy here,” replied Lucy with deliberation. “Joe, I ask you to keep what I tell you to yourself. Will you?”
“Why, shore.”
“My sister is not well, and she's not happy. It would give her a bad impression to meet first thing a fellow like Sam or Gerd or Hal, who would get mushy on sight. Edd, now, would be too cold and strange. I ask you because I know you'll be just the same to Clara as you are to me. Won't you?”
“An' how's that, teacher?” he queried, with his frank smile.
“Why, Joe, you're just yourself,” answered Lucy, somewhat taken at a disadvantage.
“Never thought aboot bein' just like myself. But I'll try. I reckon you're not savvyin' what a big job you're givin' me.”
LUCY had imagined the ensuing days might drag; she had reckoned falsely, for they were singularly full of interest and work and thought. Edd had taken to coming home early in the afternoons, serious and moody, yet intent on making up for his indifference toward Lucy's activities with his family. He veered to the opposite extreme. He would spend hours listening to Lucy with the children. He was not above learning to cut animals and birds and figures out of paper; and his clumsy attempts roused delight. Lucy had, in a way vastly puzzling to the Denmeades, succeeded in winning Mertie to a great interest in manual training, which she now shared with Mary. Edd wanted to know the why and wherefore of everything. He lent Dick a hand in the carpentry work, of which Lucy invented no end. And he showed a strange absorption at odd moments in the children's fairy story books. He was a child himself.
At night when all was dark and still, when she lay wide-eyed and thoughtful under the shadowy canvas, she would be confronted by an appalling realization. Her sympathy, her friendliness, her smiles and charms, of which she had been deliberately prodigal, her love for the children and her good influence on Mertie—all these had begun to win back Edd Denmeade from the sordid path that had threatened to lead to his ruin. He did not know how much of this was owing to personal contact with her, but she knew. Edd was unconsciously drawn toward a girl in a way he had never before experienced. Lucy felt he had no thought of sentiment, of desire, of the old obsession that he “must find himself a woman.” Edd had been stung to his soul by his realization of ignorance. She had pitied him. She had begun to like him. Something of pride, something elevating attended her changing attitude toward him. What would it all lead to? But there could be no turning back. Strangest of all was for her to feel the dawn of a real happiness in this service.
SATURDAY morning arrived earlier for Lucy than any other she remembered. It came in the dark hour before dawn, when Joe called her to get up and make ready for the great ride to Cedar Ridge—to meet Clara. Lucy dressed by lamplight, and had her breakfast in the dim, pale obscurity of daybreak.
It was daylight when Lucy arrived at the corrals, where the boys had the horses saddled.
“I'd like to ride Baldy as far as we go horseback,” said Lucy.
“Shore,” replied Edd. “An' I reckon you'd better ride him back. For he knows you, an' he might not like your sister. Horses have likes an' dislikes, same as people.”
“Oh, I want Clara to have the pleasure of riding him.”
“Shore she'll take a shine to him, an' then you'll be out of luck,” drawled Edd as he held the corral gate open.
“Indeed I hope she takes a shine to Baldy and everything here,” declared Lucy earnestly.
“Me an' Joe too?” he grinned.
“Yes, both of you.”
“Wal, I reckon it'll be Joe. Good-by. We'll be lookin' for you-all about sundown.”
Joe rode into the trail, leading an extra horse, which would be needed upon the return; and he set off at a gait calculated to make time. Lucy followed, not forgetting to wave a gloved hand back at Edd; then she gave herself up to the compelling sensations of the hour and the thoughts of the day.
Joe did not take the schoolhouse trail, but the wilder and less traveled one toward Cedar Ridge. The woodland was dark, gray, cool. Birds and squirrels had awakened noisily to the business of the day. Deer and wild turkeys ran across the trail ahead of the horses. The freshness and fragrance of the forest struck upon Lucy as something new and sweet. Yet the wildness of it seemed an old, familiar delight. There were parts of the trail where she had to ride her best, for Joe was making fast time, and others where she could look about her and breathe freely and try to realize that she had grown to love this wilderness solitude. How would her sister react to this lonely land of trees and rocks? There was a healing strength in this country. If only Clara had developed mind and soul enough to appreciate it!
EARLY as was the hour the Johnsons were up when Joe and Lucy reached their clearing. Mr. Jenks, too, was stirring, and soon espying Lucy, he hastened to come out to the fence.
“Mawnin', folks,” he drawled, imitating the prevailing mode of speech. “Miss Lucy, I shore forgot this was your great day. Reckon I'm out of luck, for I'll not be here when you drive back. I'm going to visit Spralls, to see why their children are absent so much from school.”
“Mr. Jenks, will you please take note of these Spralls, so you can tell me all about them?” asked Lucy eagerly. “I feel that I must go there, in spite of all I hear.”
“Yes, I'll get a fresh line on them,” he replied. “And if that isn't enough to keep you away, I'll find other means.”
“Oh, you are all conspiring against me,” cried Lucy reproachfully.
“Yes, indeed. But listen, I've news for you,” he went on, as Joe led the unsaddled horses inside the fence. “Your sister's coming has given me a wonderful idea. When she gets well, which of course she will do here very quickly, why not let her take my school? Affairs at my home are such that I must return there—at least for a time; and this would provide me with a most welcome opportunity.”
“I don't know,” replied Lucy doubtfully. “Clara had a good education. But whether she could or would undertake such a work, I can't say. Still it's not a bad idea. I'll think it over, and wait a while before I speak to her.”
Mr. Jenks made light of Lucy's doubts, and argued so insistently that she began to wonder if there were not other reasons why he wanted a vacation. She had an intuitive feeling that he wanted to give up teaching, at least there, for good. They conversed a few moments longer, until Joe drove up in the buckboard. Then Mr. Jenks helped Lucy to mount the high seat beside Joe, and bade them a merry good-by.
WHATEVER the trail had been, the road was jarringly new to Lucy. There developed ample reason for Joe's advice to “hang on to the pommel,” by which he must have meant anything to hold on to, including himself. The big team of horses went like the wind, bowling over rocks, ruts and roots as if they were not there at all. Lucy was hard put to it to remain in her seat; in fact she succeeded only part of the time.
“Say—Joe, Joe!” cried Lucy, after a particularly sharp turn, which the buckboard rounded on two wheels, and Lucy frantically clung to Joe, “are you a real—a regular—driver?”
“Me? Say, I'm reckoned the best driver in this heah country,” he declared.
“Heaven preserve me—from the—worst!” murmured Lucy.
“You picked me out, Miss Lucy, an' I shore mean to beat that outfit of boys in to Cedar Ridge,” said Joe. “The whole darned caboodle of them will be there. Gerd an' Hal slept heah all night with Sam. An' they're already gone. Suppose the stage beats us to Cedar Ridge! Say, Sam is up to anythin'.”
“Drive as fast as you want. Only don't upset me—or something awful,” returned Lucy desperately.
ON THE long descent of the cedared ridge Joe held the big team to a trot. Lucy regained her breath and her composure. When at last they turned out of the brush into the main road of the little town, Lucy was both thrilled and relieved.
“Wal, heah we are, an' we beat the stage,” drawled Joe.
“You must be a wonderful driver, Joe, since we actually got here,” averred Lucy. “But there'll be no need to drive that way going back, will there?”
“Reckon we want Clara to know she's had a ride, don't we?” he queried coolly.
“Joe!”
“What'd you pick me out for? Reckon I've got to be different from that outfit. Look at the hosses—whole string of them.”
“You mean the boys will waylay us?” queried Lucy anxiously.
“Like as not they'd bust this heah buckboard, if I left it long enough. Shore they'll expect to meet Clara an' have a chance to show off. But we'll fool them. When the stage comes, you grab her. Go in to Mrs. Lynn's an' get some grub to pack with us. Don't eat in there. Sam'll be layin' for that. Hurry out, an' we'll leave pronto, before the gang get their breath.”
“But, Joe, why all this—this fear of the boys, and the rush?” queried Lucy.
“Reckon you know the boys. They'll be up to tricks. An' on my side, since you picked me, I want to have Clara first.”
“Oh, I see,” ejaculated Lucy. “Very well, Joe. I trust you, and we'll do your way.”
They reached the post office, where Joe reined in the team. Lucy espied a porchful of long-legged, big-sombreroed, clean-shaven young men, whose faces flashed in the sun.
“Miss Lucy, I'll feed an' water the hosses,” said Joe. “Reckon you need a little stretch after that nice easy ride.”
“It'll be welcome,” declared Lucy, getting down. “You keep an eye open for the stage while I run in to see Mrs. Lynn and get the lunch.”
BY GOING into the hotel entrance Lucy avoided the boys slowly gravitating toward her. Mrs. Lynn greeted her cordially, and was equally curious and informative. Lucy took advantage of the moment while she was chatting to peep out of the window. The cavaliers of Cedar Ridge lounged on the porch, and stalked to and fro. One group in particular roused Lucy's amused suspicions. Sam Johnson was conferring most earnestly with several of his cronies, two of whom were Hal Miller and Gerd Claypool. They were not particularly amiable, to judge from their faces. A gesture of Sam's attracted Lucy's gaze toward two picturesque riders, lean and striking. She recognized the handsome face and figure of one of them. Bud Sprall! The other was a taller, lither man, with flashing red face and flaming hair of gold. Young, bold, sinister, dissipated as he appeared, the virility and physical beauty o! him charmed Lucy's eye.
“Who is that man—there, with Bud Sprall?” queried Lucy, trying to appear casual.
Mrs. Lynn peeped out. “I was askin' my husband that very question. He didn't know the fellow's name. Pard of Bud's, he said. Two of a kind! Some of the boys told him Bud was thick with cowboys of the Rim outfit. This one is new in Cedar Ridge.”
Presently, as Joe appeared driving the buckboard to a shady place under a cotton wood, some rode from the front of the post office. Through the window, which was open, Lucy caught amusing and significant remarks.
“Howdy, boys,” drawled Joe, in answer to a unit of greetings.
“What you-all doin' here with them work clothes on?” queried one.
“Joe, yore shore kinda young to tackle this hyar city proposition,” said another.
“Wal, Joe, I reckon you can't drive that big team with your left hand,” asserted a third banteringly.
THESE remarks and others in similar vein attested to the dominant idea in the minds of these young countrymen—that a new girl was soon to appear upon the scene, and that only one attitude was possible. She was to be seen, fought over humorously and otherwise, and to be won.
She went out and climbed to a seat beside Joe, careful to appear very vivacious and smiling. The effect was to silence the bantering boys and to cause, on the part of Sam and several others, a gradual edging toward the buckboard. Lucy appeared not to notice the attention she was receiving and she quite bewildered Joe with a flood of rather irrelevant talk. Then suddenly the stage wheeled round the corner.
Lucy leaped down and ran. There were four or five passengers, and a great store of bags, boxes and bundles, all of which she saw rather indistinctly.
“Hello, Lucy!” cried a girl's excited, rather broken voice.
Lucy almost screamed her reply. Behind a heavy old woman, laboriously descending the stage steps, Lucy espied a slim, tall, veiled girl clad in an ultra-fashionable gown and hat, the like of which had not been seen at Cedar Ridge. As the girl stepped down to the ground she threw back her veil, disclosing a pale face, with big, haunting blue eyes that seemed to strain at Lucy with hunger and sadness. Indeed it was Clara, vastly changed!
“Sister!” cried Lucy, with a sudden rush of tenderness.
This meeting had proved to be unexpectedly poignant. Lucy had prepared herself for a few moments of stress, but nothing like this.
Clara seemed utterly changed—a stranger, a beautiful, frail, haunted-eyed young woman. Lucy was deeply shocked at the havoc in that face. It told her story. But strange as Clara seemed, she yet radiated something Lucy had never felt in the old days, and it was love of a sister. That quite overpowered Lucy's heart. It had come late, but not too late.
“Clara, I hope you're strong enough to go on today—to my home,” said Lucy gently.
“IM NOT so weak as that,” replied Clara, lifting her face from Lucy's shoulder. It was tear-stained and convulsive. “I was overcome. I—I never was sure till I saw you.”
“Sure of what?” asked Lucy.
“That you'd take me back.”
“You can be sure of me forever. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to know you want to come.” Clara dropped her veil over her white face again as they walked slowly to the buckboard.
“Clara, this is Joe Denmeade,” said Lucy, as she stepped in beside Clara.
Joe quaintly doffed his huge sombrero and spoke rather bashfully. Lucy was pleased to see his fine, brown, frank face smile in the sunlight.
“Miss Lucy, did you fetch the lunch?” asked Joe, with his eye on the boys who had nonchalantly sauntered closer to the buckboard.
“I have it, Joe. Drive away before” whispered Lucy.
Sam Johnson, the foremost of the group, stepped forward to put a foot on the wheel of the buckboard. His manner was supremely casual. No actor could have done it better.
“Howdy, Joe. Good afternoon, Miss Lucy,” he drawled blandly.
Lucy replied pleasantly, and introduced him to Clara, and after they had exchanged greetings she added, “Sorry we've no time to chat. We must hurry home.”
Sam made rather obtrusive efforts to pierce Clara's veil. Then he addressed Joe. “My hoss went lame comin' in. An' I reckon I'll ride out with you.”
“Awful sorry, Sam,” drawled Joe, “but I've got a load. Heah's Miss Clara's five valises, an' a pack of truck for ma.”
“I won't mind ridin' in the back seat with the girls,” rejoined Sam in the most accommodating voice.
“Shore reckon you wouldn't,” returned Joe dryly. “But this heah's Mr. Jenks' buckboard, an' he asked me particular not to load heavy. So long, Sam.”
JOE whipped the reins smartly, and the team started so suddenly that Sam, who had been leaning from the porch with one foot on the wheel, was upset in a most ridiculous manner. The boys on the porch let out a howl of mirth. Lucy could not repress a smile.
“Serves him right,” said Joe. “Sam's shore got a nerve—all the time with Sadie in town!”
“Joe! Did you see her?”
“I shore did. She was across the road, peepin' out of Bell's door when Sam got that spill.”
Lucy, relieved as well as amused at the quick start, turned to find Clara removing the veil. Her face was lightened by a smile. Slight as it was, it thrilled Lucy.
“Young men are—funny,” she said with a tinge of bitterness.
“Indeed they are,” vouchsafed Lucy heartily. “Well, we're free of that crowd. Joe, are they apt to ride after us?”
“Like as not,” drawled Joe. “But the road is narrow. They shore can't pass us, an' all they'll get will be our dust.”
“Suppose we eat lunch while we don't have to hold on,” suggested Lucy. “Presently the road will be rough and, to say the least, Joe drives.”
“Let him drive as fast as he can,” replied Clara tensely. “Oh, the breeze feels so good. The air seems different.”
“Clara, you'll find everything different up here. But I'm not going to say a word till you ask me. Now, let's eat. We'll not get supper till dark or later. Biscuits with jam—chicken—and pie. Joe, I overheard one of those boys speak of you driving with one hand. So, surely you can drive and eat at the same time.”
“I RECKON,” rejoined Joe. “But see heah, Miss Lucy. Gerd Claypool said that, an' he shore didn't mean I'd be usin' my free hand to eat.”
“Joe, do you think me so dense? Don't those boys ever think sense about girls?”
“Never that I reckoned. Edd used to be worse than any of them. But he's over it, I guess—since you came, Miss Lucy.”
Clara's quick glance caught Lucy blushing, though she laughed merrily.
“Joe Denmeade! That is a doubtful compliment. Come, you'd better begin to eat—this and this and this. Clara, I get ravenously hungry up here. It's the wonderful air, and I certainly hope it will affect you that way.”
Whereupon they fell to eating the ample lunch.
(Continued in the April Home Journal)