Kitabı oku: «The Reclaimers», sayfa 16
While the other two members of the board were shamefacedly shaking hands and offering Jerry half of New Eden as a recompense, old Fishin' Teddy slipped out of the side door through the dining-room and on to where Ponk's best livery car waited to take him to his rude shack beside the deep hole in the Sage Brush.
As Jerry passed into the hall she found a crowd waiting for her – the three ministers from the churches, the mayor of New Eden, the friends of the Macphersons, York himself, and many more of the town's best, who had gathered to congratulate Jerry and to assure her of their pride in her ability and appreciation of her as a citizen of New Eden.
With the Commencement that night the school fuss and town split disappeared at one breath and passed into history.
When they reached the doorway of "Castle Cluny," after the Commencement exercises, York handed Jerry a letter. It was a long and affectionately worded message from Eugene Wellington, telling of the passing of Jerusha Darby, of his inheritance, and of his intention to come at once to Kansas and take her back to the "Eden" she had neglected so long.
And Jerry, worn with the events of the last few weeks, feeling the strain suddenly lifted, welcomed the letter and shed a tear upon it, saying, softly:
"Oh, I'm so tired of everything now! If he comes for me, he'll find me ready to meet him. The flesh-pots of the Winnowoc are better to me than this weary desert."
Came an evening three days before the date for the lease on the Swaim land to expire. Jerry sat alone on the Macpherson porch. It had been an extremely hot day for June, with the dead, tasteless air that presages the coming of a storm, and to-night the moon seemed to struggle up toward the zenith against choking gray clouds that threatened to smother out its light.
Jerry was not happy to-night. She wanted Joe Thomson to come this evening. It had been such a long while since he had had time to leave the ranch for an evening with her.
And with the wishing Joe came. With firm step and the face of a victor he came. From his dark eyes hope and tenderness were looking out.
"I haven't seen you for ages, and ages are awfully long, you know," Jerry declared.
"I've been very busy," Joe replied. "You know you can't break the laws of the ranch and expect a harvest, any more than you can break the laws of geometry and depend on results. I would have been up sooner, though, but for one thing: a fellow on the ranch above mine who got hurt once with a mowing-machine had another accident and I've been helping the owner, that stout-hearted little Norwegian girl, Thelma Ekblad, to take care of their crops, too. Thelma is a courageous soul who has worked her way through the university, and she is a mighty capable girl, too. She would be a splendid success as a teacher, she is so well trained, but her family need her, and all of us down there need her."
Jerry caught her breath. It was the first time in three years that Joe had ever mentioned any girl with interest. But now this was all right and just as things should be. A neighbor, a capable Western girl – women see far, after all, and Jerry's romance had not been a foolish one.
"That's all right, Joe, but I have been wanting to see you" – the old "I want" as imperative again to-night as in the days when all of this girl's wants had been met by the mere expression of them.
"And I'm always wanting to see you, and never so much as to-night," Joe began, earnestly.
"Let me tell you first why I have wanted to see you once more," Jerry broke in, hastily.
In the dull light her dreamy dark-blue eyes and her golden hair falling away from her white brow left an imprint that Joe Thomson's mind kept henceforth; at the same time that "once more" cut a deeper wound than Jerry could know.
"My aunt Jerry Darby is dead." The girl's voice was very low. "I can't grieve for her, for she was old and tired of life and unhappy. You remember I told you about her one night here three years ago."
Joe did remember.
"She left all her fortune to Cousin Gene Wellington."
"The artist who turned out to be a bank clerk?" Joe asked. "I really always doubted that story."
"Yes, but, you know, he did it to please Aunt Jerry. Think of a sacrifice like that! Giving up one's dearest life-work!"
"I'm thinking of it. Excuse me. Go on," Joe said.
Jerry lifted her big dreamy eyes. The sparkle was gone and only the soft light of romance illumined them now.
"Gene is coming out to see me soon. I look for him any day. Everything is all settled about the property, and everything is going to be all right, after all, I am sure. And I'm so tired of teaching." Jerry broke off suddenly.
"But, oh, Joe," she began presently, "you will never, never know how much your comradeship has helped me through these three trying years of hard work and hopelessness. We have been only friends, of course, and you are such a good, helpful kind of a friend. I never could have gotten through without you."
"Thank you, the pleasure is mine. I – I think I must go now."
Joe rose suddenly and started to leave the porch. In an instant the very earth had slidden out from under his feet. The memory of York Macpherson's warning swept across his mind as the blowout sands sweep over the green prairie. And he had come to say such different words to-night. He had reached the end of a long, heart-breaking warfare with nature and he had won. And now a new warfare broke forth in his soul.
At that moment a sudden boom of thunder crashed out of the horizon and all the lightnings of the heavens were unleashed, while a swirling dust-deluge filled the darkening air. Jerry sprang forward, clutching Joe's arm with her slender fingers.
"The storm will be here in a minute," she cried, "You must not leave now. You mustn't face this wind. Look at that awful black cloud and see how fast it is coming on. I don't want you to go away. Where can you go?"
But Joe only shook off her grip, saying, hoarsely:
"I'm going down the Sage Brush. If you ever want me again, you'll find me beyond the blowout."
The word struck like a blow. For three years Jerry had not heard it spoken. It was the one term forever dropped from her vocabulary. All who loved her must forget its very existence.
There was a sudden dead calm in the hot yellow air; a moment of gathering forces before the storm would burst upon the town.
"If you ever see me beyond that blowout, you'll know that I do want you," Jerry said, slowly.
In the blue lightning glare that followed, her white face and big dark eyes recalled to Joe Thomson's mind the moment, so long ago now, it seemed, when Jerry had first looked out at the desert from under the bough of the oak-grove.
During the prolonged, terrific burst of thunder that followed, the young ranchman strode away and the darkness swallowed his stalwart form as the worst storm the Sage Brush country had ever known broke furiously upon the whole valley.
And out on the porch steps stood a girl conscious, not of the storm-wind, nor the beating rain, nor cleaving lightning; conscious only that something had suddenly gone out of her life into the blackness whither Joe Thomson had gone; and with the heartache of the loss of the moment was a strange resentment toward a brave-hearted little Norwegian girl – a harvest-hand with a crippled brother, an adopted baby, and a university education.
XVIII
THE LORD HATH HIS WAY IN THE STORM
Laura Macpherson sat on the porch, watching her brother coming slowly up the street, seemingly as oblivious to the splendor of the sunset to-night as he had been on a June evening three summers ago.
"That was the worst cloudburst I ever heard of out here," he declared, when he reached the porch. "Every man in town who could carry a shovel has been out all day, up-stream or down-stream, helping to dig out the bottomland farms. I've been clear to the upper Sage Brush, doing a stunt or two myself. I left my muddy boots and overalls at the office so that I wouldn't be smearing up your old Castle here."
Even in the smallest things York's thoughts were for his crippled sister.
"There's a lot of wild stories out about buildings being swept away and lives being lost, here and there in the valley. You needn't believe all of them until your trustworthy brother confirms them for you, little sister. Such events have their tragedies, but the first estimate is always oversize."
"Even if your Big Dipper tells me, shall I wait for your confirmation?" Laura inquired, blandly.
"Oh, Laura, I'm going to cut out all that astronomical business now, even if I always did know that the right way to pronounce the name Bahrr is plain Bear, however much you have to stutter to spell it. Stellar has been, as the Methodists say, 'redeemed and washed in the blood of the Lamb.' I'm taking her in on probation, myself, and if she sticks it out for six months I'll take her into full membership."
"What do you mean, York?" Laura inquired.
"I mean that since they settled the school row in secret session, Mrs. Bahrr has been as different a woman as one can be who has let the habit of evil thinking become a taskmaster. I've never told you that her husband is still living, a shabby old fellow who gives me money for her support as fast as he can earn it, but he won't live with her. She flies from hat-trimming to sewing and baking and nursing and back to sewing, and she never earns much anywhere, and works up trouble just for pure cussedness. But to-day she went to the upper Sage Brush to help old Mrs. Poser. The Posers were nearly washed away, and the old lady is sick and lonely and almost helpless. She needs somebody to stay with her. Yes, Stellar is really becoming a star – a plain, homely planet, doing a good-angel line where she's most useful. We'll let the past stay where it belongs, and count her reclaimed to better things now."
"Amen! And what about the valley down-stream? It must be worse, because the storm came up from that way," Laura declared.
"There are plenty of rumors, but I haven't heard anything definite yet, for I just got here, you know, and, as I telephoned you, found Mr. Wellington had registered at Ponk's inn. The traveling-men who were on the branch line have brought the first word to town to-day. The train is stuck somewhere down the valley, and the tracks, for the most part, are at the bottom of the Sage Brush. There are washouts all along the road-bed, and the passengers have been hauled up the stream, across fields, and every other way, except by the regular route. No automobile can travel the trail now, so our Philadelphia gentleman arrives a good bit disgusted with this bloomin' Western country, don't you know; and sore from miles of jolting; and hungry; and sort of mussy-looking for a banker; but cocksure of a welcome and of the power to bring salvation to one of us at least."
York dropped down on the porch step with a frown, flinging aside his hat and thrusting his fingers savagely into his heavy hair.
"Oh, well!" he exclaimed, dejectedly. "There's been a three years' running fight between Jim Swaim's determined chin and Lesa's tender eyes. I had hoped to the Lord that Jim would win the day, but that whirlwind campaign of pleading and luxury-tempting letters came just at the end of a hard year's work in the high school, with all that infernal fuss in the Senior class, splitting the town open for a month and being forgotten in an hour, and the jealousy toward the best teacher we've ever had here, etcetera. So the 'eyes' seem to have it. If there were no ladies present," York added, with a half-smile, "I'd feel free to express my lordly judgment of the whole damned sex."
"Don't hesitate, Yorick; a little cussing might ease your liver," Laura declared, surprised and amused at her brother's unexpected vehemence of feeling.
"There's nothing in the English language, as she is cussed, to do the subject justice, but I might practise a few minutes at least," York began.
"Hush, York! That is Mr. Eugene Wellington coming yonder. I'll call Jerry. Poor Joe!" Laura added, pityingly. "I have a feeling he is the real sufferer here."
"Yes, poor Joe!" York echoed, sadly. "Ponk will just soar above his hurt, but men of Joe's dogged make-up die a thousand deaths when they do die."
Lesa Swaim's daughter was gloriously beautiful to Eugene Wellington's artistic eyes as he sat beside her on the porch on this beautiful evening. And Eugene himself held a charm in his very presence. All the memories of the young years of culture and ease; all the daintiness of perfect dress and perfect manners; all the assurance that a vague, sweet dream was becoming real; all the sense of a struggle for a livelihood now ended; all the breaking of the grip of stern duty, and an unbending pride in a clear conscience, although their rewards had been inspiringly sweet – all these seemed to Jerry Swaim to lift her suddenly and completely into the real life from which these three busy, strange years had taken her. Oh, she had been only waiting, after all. Nothing mattered any more. Eugene and she had looked at duty differently. That was all. He was here now, here for her sake. Henceforth his people were to be her people – his God her God. Uncle Cornie was wise when he said of Eugene: "He comes nearer to what you've been dreaming about." He seemed not so much a lover as a fulfilment of a craving for love.
The first sweet moment of meeting was over. Her future, their future, shrouded only by a rose-hued mist, beyond which lay light and ease, was waiting now for them to enter upon. In this idyllic hour Geraldine, daughter of Lesa Swaim, had come to the very zenith of life's romance.
"It has been a cruel three years, Jerry," Eugene was saying, as, their first greetings over, he lighted a cigarette and adjusted himself picturesquely and easefully in York Macpherson's big porch chair – a handsome, perfectly groomed, artistic fellow, he appeared fitted as never before to adorn life's ornamental places.
"But they are past now. You won't have to teach any more, little cousin o' mine. York Macpherson says your land lease expires to-day. So your business transactions here are over, and we'll just throw that ground in the river and forget it."
He might have taken the girl's hand in his as they sat together, but instead he clasped his own hands gracefully and studied their fine outlines.
"I have all the Darby estate in my own name now, you know, and I didn't have to work a stroke at earning it. God! I wonder how a fellow can stand it to work for every dollar he gets until he is comfortably fixed. I simply filled in my banking-hours in a perfunctory way, and I didn't kill myself at it, either. See what I have saved by it for myself and you, and how much better my course was than yours, after all. Just three years of waiting, and dodging all the drudgery I possibly could. And you can just bet I'm a good dodger, Jerry."
Something like a chill went quivering through Jerry Swaim's whole being, but the smile in her eyes seemed fixed there, as Eugene went on:
"Now if I had stuck to art, where would I have been and where would you be right now? I've always wanted to paint the prairies. If I can stand this blasted, crude country long enough, and if I'm not too lazy, we'll play around here a little while, till I have smeared up a few canvases, and then we'll go home, never to return, dear. Art is going to be my pastime hereafter, you know, as it was once my – my – "
"Oh, never mind what it once was." Jerry helped to end the sentence.
The sunset on the Sage Brush was never more radiantly beautiful than it was on this evening, and the long midsummer twilight gave promise of its rarest grandeur of coloring. But a dull veil seemed to be slowly dropping down upon Jerry's world.
Eugene Wellington looked at her keenly.
"Why, Jerry, aren't you happy to see me – glad for us to be together again?" he asked, with just a tinge of sharpness edging his tones.
"I have looked forward to this meeting as a dream, an impossible joy. I hardly realize yet that it isn't a dream any more," Jerry answered him.
"Say, cousin girl," Eugene Wellington exclaimed, suddenly, "I have been trying all this time to find out what it is that is changed in your face. Now I know. You have grown to look so much more like your father than you did three years ago. Better looking, of course, but his face, and I never noticed it before. Only you will always have your mother's beautiful eyes."
"Thank you, Gene. They were, each in his and her way, good to me. I hope I shall never put a stain upon their good names," Jerry murmured, wondering strangely whether the feeling that gripped her at the moment could be joy or sorrow.
"They didn't leave you much of an inheritance. That's the only thing that could be said against them. My father was partly to blame for that, I guess, but I never had the courage to tell you so till now. You know courage and Eugene Wellington never got on well together." Somehow his words seemed to rattle harshly against Jerry's ears. "You know, my dad, John Wellington, came out here to this very forsaken Sage Brush Valley somewhere and started in to be a millionaire himself on short notice, by the short-cut plan of finance. When the thing began to look like work he threw up the whole blamed concern, just as I would have done. Work never was a strong element in the Wellington blood, any more than courage, you know." Gene stopped to light another cigarette. Then he went on: "Well, after that, dad clung close to Jim Swaim and Uncle Darby till he died. I guess, if the truth were told, he helped most to tear your father down financially. He could do that kind of thing, I know. Jim Swaim spent thousands stopping the cracks after dad, to save the good name of Wellington for his daughter to wear – as your mother always hoped you would, because I was an artist then. You see, Mrs. Swaim loved art – and, as Aunt Darby always insisted (that was before you ran away from her), because it would keep her money and Uncle Darby's all in the family. That's why I'm so glad to bring all this fortune that I do to you now. I'm just making up to you what your father lost through mine, you see, and it came to me so easily, without my having to grub for it. Just pleasing Aunt Darby and taking a soft snap of clerical work, with short hours and good pay, instead of toiling at painting, even if I do love the old palette and brush. And I used to think I'd rather do that sort of thing than anything else in the world."
Jerry's eyes were fixed on the young artist's face with a gaze that troubled him.
"Don't stare at me that way, Jerry. That isn't the picture I want you to pose for when I paint your portrait, Saint Geraldine. Now listen," Eugene continued. "Your York Macpherson was East this spring, and he told me that that wild-goose chase of dad's out here had left a desert behind him. He said a poor devil of a fellow had fought for years against the sand that dad sowed (I don't know how he did the sowing), till it ate up about all this poor wretch had ever had. The unfortunate cuss! York tried to tell Aunt Darby (but I headed him off successfully) that dad started a thing that became what they call a 'blowout' here. York Macpherson wanted to put up a big spiel to her about justice to you and some other folks – this poor critter who got sanded over, maybe. But it didn't move me one mite, and I didn't let it get by to Aunt Jerry's ears, although I half-way promised York I would, to get rid of the thing the easiest way, for that's my way, you know. Did you ever see such a precious thing as a 'blowout' here, Jerry?"
Jerry's face was white and her eyes burned blue-black now with a steady glow. "Never, till to-night," she said, slowly. "I never dreamed till now how barren a thing a lust for property can create."
Gene Wellington dropped his cigarette stub and stared a moment. He did not grasp her meaning at all, but her voice was not so pleasant, now, as her merry laugh and soft words had been three years ago.
"By the way, coming up to-day, I heard of a dramatic situation. I think I'll hunt up the local color for a canvas for it," Eugene began, by way of changing the theme. "You know you had a horribly rotten storm of thunder and lightning and wind, and a cloudburst down the river valley where our train was stuck in the mud, and the tracks were all lost in the sand-drift and other vile debris. Well, coming up here from the derailed train, some one said that the young fellow who had leased that land, or owned the land, that is just above the sand-line, the poor devil who had such a struggle, you know – well, he was lost when the river overflowed its banks. But somebody else said he might be marooned, half starved, on an island of sand out in the river, waiting for the flood to go down. The roads are just impassable around there, so they can't get in to see what has become of him. His house was washed away, it seems – I saw a part of it in the river – but nobody knows where he is. Hard luck, wasn't it? I know you'll be glad to leave this God-forsaken country, won't you, dearie? How you ever stood it for three whole years I can't comprehend. Only you always were the bravest girl I ever knew. Just as soon as I paint a few of its drearinesses we'll be leaving it forever. What's the matter?"
Jerry Swaim had sprung to her feet and was standing, white and silent, staring at her companion with wide-open, burning eyes. Against all the culture and idle ease of her trivial, purposeless years were matched these three times twelve months of industry and purpose that came at a price, with the comradeship of one who had met life's foes and vanquished them, who earned his increase, and served and sacrificed.
"What's the matter, Jerry?" Gene repeated. "Did I shock you? It is a tragical sort of story, I know, but you used to love the romantic and adventurous. Every big storm, and every flood, has such incidents. I never remember them a minute, except the storm that took Uncle Cornie and left me a fortune. They are so unpleasant. But there is a touch of romance in this for you. They told me that a young Norwegian girl down there was moving heaven and earth to find this poor lost devil, because he had been so good to her always and had helped her when her brother was badly hurt. I guess her brother went down-stream, bottom side up, too. See the drift of it all? The time, the place, and the girl – there's your romance, Cousin Jerry, only the actors are terribly common, you know."
Who can forecast the trend of the human heart? Three days ago Jerry had thought complacently of the convenience of this stout little Thelma for Joe's future comfort. Now the thought that Thelma had seen him last, had caught the last word, the last brave look, smote her heart with anguish.
"Doesn't anybody know where Joe is?" she cried, wringing her hands.
"I don't know if his name is Joe. I don't know if anybody knows where he is. I really don't care a sou about it all, Jerry." Gene drawled his words intentionally. "The roads are awful down that way. They nearly bumped me to pieces coming up, hours and hours, it seemed, in a wagon, where a decent highway and an automobile would have brought me in such a short time. It would be hard to find this Joe creature, dead or alive. Let's talk about something more artistic."
"Gene, I can't talk now. I can't stay here a minute longer. I must go and find this man. I must! I must!"
In the frenzy of that moment, the strength of character in Jerry's face made it wonderful to see.
"Jerry!" Eugene Wellington exclaimed, emphatically. "You perfectly shock me! This horrid country has almost destroyed your culture. Go and find this man – "
But Jerry was already hurrying up the street toward Ponk's Commercial Hotel and Garage.
"Miss Swaim, you can't never get by in a car down there," Ponk was urging, five minutes later. "I know you can drive like – like you can work algebra, logyruthms, and never slip a cog. But you'll never get down the Sage Brush that far to-night. If them Norwegians on beyond the ranch yon side of the big bend 'ain't done nothing, you just can't. The Ekblads and the other neighbors will do all a body can, especially Thelmy. The river's clear changed its channel an' you could run a car up to the top of Bunker Hill Monument, back in New Hampshire, easier than you could cut the gullies an' hit the levels of the lower Sage Brush trail after this flood."
"Get the car ready quick. I want to go," Jerry commanded, and Ponk obeyed. A minute later a gray streak whizzed by the Macpherson home, where Eugene Wellington stood on the porch staring in speechless amazement.
"Bless her heart!" he ejaculated, at length. "She is self-willed like her dad. Aunt Darby always told me I'd have to manage her with gloves on, but not to forget to manage her, anyhow."
He strolled back to the Commercial Hotel, where the best-natured man in Kansas lay in wait for him.
"You're in early. Have a real cigar – a regular Havany-de-Cuby – off of me. An' take a smoke out here where it's cool."
Eugene took the proffered cigar and the seat on the side porch of the hotel that commanded a view of the street clear to "Castle Cluny."
"Town's pretty quiet this evenin'. All the men are gone up-stream or down, to see if they can help in the storm region. Every store shut up tight as wax. Three preachers, station-agent, the three movie men – gone with the rest. We are a sympathetic bunch out here, an' rather quick to get the S O S signal and respond noble."
"So it seems," Eugene replied, wondering the while how he should be able to kill the time till Jerry's return, resolving not to tarry here to paint a single canvas. The sooner Geraldine Swaim was out of Kansas the better for her perverted sense of the esthetic, and the safer for her happiness – and his own.
"Yes," Ponk was going on to say, "everybody helps. Why, I just now let out the pride of the gurrage to a young lady. She's just heard that a man she knows well is lost or marooned on a island in the floods of the Sage Brush. And if anybody'll ever save him, she will. She's been doin' impossible things here for three years, and the town just worships her."
"I should think it would," Eugene Wellington said, with a sarcasm in his tone.
"It does," Ponk assured him. "She's the real stuff – even mother, out yonder, loves her."
The little man's face was turned momentarily toward the hill-slope cemetery beyond the town. "And when a girl like that comes to me for my fastest-powered car to go where no car can't go, for the sake of as good a man as ever lived on earth, a man she's been comrading with for three years, and with that look in her fine eyes, they's no mistakin' to any sensible man on God's earth why she's doin' it."
"If my room is ready I'll go to it," Eugene broke in, curtly.
"Yes, Georgette, call George to take the gentleman to number seven, an' put him to bed."
Then the little keeper of the Commercial Hotel and Garage turned toward the street again, and his full-moon face went into a total eclipse. But what lay back of that shadow of the earth upon it no man but Junius Brutus Ponk could know.
