AT MINT SPRING.
When those days at Prescott were over, and Mr. and Mrs. Manning had left
for their camp in Granite Basin, Kitty Reid returned to Williamson
Valley reluctantly. She felt that with Phil definitely out of her life
the last interest that bound her to the scenes of her girlhood was
broken. Before many weeks the ranch would be sold. A Prescott agent had
opened negotiations for an eastern client who would soon be out to look
over the property; and Mr. Reid felt, from all that the agent had said,
that the sale was assured. In the meantime Kitty would wait as patiently
as she could. To help her, there would be Helen's visit, and there was
her friendship with Professor Parkhill. It was not strange, considering
all the circumstances, that the young woman should give her time more
generously than ever to the only person in the neighborhood, except
Patches, perhaps, who she felt could understand and appreciate her
desires for that higher life of which even her own parents were
ignorant.
And the professor did understand her fully. He told her so many times
each day. Had he not given all the years of his little life to the study
of those refining and spiritualizing truths that are so far above the
comprehension of the base and ignoble common herd? Indeed, he understood
her language; he understood fully, why the sordid, brutal materialism of
her crude and uncultured environment so repulsed and disgusted her. He
understood, more fully than Kitty herself, in fact, and explained to her
clearly, that her desires for the higher intellectual and spiritual life
were born of her own rare gifts, and evidenced beyond all question the
fineness and delicacy of her nature. He rejoiced with her--with a pure
and holy joy--that she was so soon to be set free to live amid the
surroundings that would afford her those opportunities for the higher
development of her intellectual and spiritual powers which her soul
craved. All this he told her from day to day; and then, one afternoon,
he told her more.
It was the same afternoon that Patches had so unexpectedly found Helen
and Stanford in their Granite Basin camp. Kitty and the professor had
driven in the buckboard to Simmons for the mail, and were coming back by
the road to the Cross-Triangle, when the man asked, "Must we return to
the ranch so soon? It is so delightful out here where there is no one to
intrude with vulgar commonplaces, to mar our companionship."
"Why, no," returned Kitty. "There is no need for us to hurry home." She
glanced around. "We might sit over there, under those cedars on the
hill, where you found me with Mr. Patches that day--the day we saw
Yavapai Joe, you remember."
"If you think it quite safe to leave the vehicle," he said, "I should be
delighted."
Kitty tied the horses to a convenient bush at the foot of the low hill,
and soon they were in the welcome shade of the cedars.
"Miss Reid," the professor began, with portentous gravity, "I must
confess that I have been rather puzzled to account for your presence
here that day with such a man as that fellow Patches. You will pardon my
saying so, I am sure, but you must have observed my very deep interest
in you. I also chanced to see you with him one day in Prescott, in the
park. You don't mind my speaking of it?"
"Not at all, Professor Parkhill," Kitty returned, smiling as she thought
how ignorant the professor was of the cowboy's real character. "I like
Patches. He interests me very much; and there is really no reason why I
should not be friendly with him. Don't you think that I should be kind
to our cowboys?"
"I suppose so," the professor sighed. "But it hurts me to see you have
anything whatever in common with such a man. It shocks me to know that
you must, in any degree, come in touch with such fellows. I shall be
very glad, indeed, when you are free from any such kindly obligations,
and safe among those of your own class."
Kitty found it very hard to reply. She did not wish to be disloyal to
Patches and her many Williamson Valley friends; nor did she like to
explain how Patches had played a part for the professor's benefit, for
she felt that by not exposing the deception she had, in a way, been a
party to it. So she said nothing, but seemed to be silently weighing
the value of her learned companion's observations. At least, it so
appeared to the professor, and in her ready acceptance of his implied
criticism of her conduct he found the encouragement he needed for that
which followed.
"You must understand, Miss Reid, that I have become exceedingly zealous
for your welfare. In these months that we have been so much together
your companionship--your spiritual and intellectual companionship, I
should say--has come to be very dear to me. As our souls have communed,
I have felt myself uplifted and inspired. I have been strengthened and
encouraged, as never before, to climb on toward the mountain peaks of
pure intellectuality. If I am not mistaken, you, too, have felt a degree
of uplift as a result of our fellowship, have you not?"
"Yes, indeed, Professor Parkhill," Kitty answered sincerely. "Our talks
together have meant much more to me than I can tell. I shall never
forget this summer. Your friendship has been a wonderful influence in my
life."
The little man moved uneasily and glanced timidly around. "I am truly
glad to know that our companionship has not been altogether distasteful
to you; I felt sure that it was not, but I--ahem!--I am glad to hear
your confirmation of my opinion. It--ah--it enables me to say that which
for several weeks past has been weighing heavily on my mind."
Kitty looked at him with the manner of a trusting disciple waiting for
the gems of truth that were about to fall from the lips of a venerable
teacher.
"Miss Reid--ah--why need our beautiful and mutually profitable
companionship cease?"
"I fear that I do not understand, Professor Parkhill," she answered,
puzzled by his question.
He looked at her with just a shade of mild--very mild--rebuke, as he
returned, "Why, I think that I have stated my thought clearly. I mean
that I am very desirous that our relation--the relation which we both
have found so helpful--should continue. I am sure that we have, in these
months which we have spent together, sufficient evidence that our souls
vibrate in perfect harmony. I need you, dear friend; your understanding
of my soul's desires is so sympathetic; I feel that you so complement
and fill out, as it were, my spiritual self. I need you to encourage, to
inspire, to assist me in the noble work to which I am devoting all my
strength."
She looked at him, now, with an expression of amazement. "Do you mean--"
she faltered in confusion while the red blood colored her cheeks.
"Yes," he answered, confidently. "I am asking you to be my wife. Not,
however," he added hastily, "in the common, vulgar understanding of that
relation. I am offering you, dear friend, that which is vastly higher
than the union of the merely animal, which is based wholly upon the
purely physical and material attraction. I am proposing marriage of our
souls--a union, if you please, of our higher intellectual and spiritual
selves. I feel, indeed, that by those higher laws which the vulgar,
beastlike minds are incapable of recognizing, we are already one. I
sense, as it were, that oneness which can exist only when two souls are
mated by the great over-soul; I feel that you are already mine--that, I
am--that we are already united in a spiritual union that is--"
The young woman checked him with a gesture, which, had he interpreted it
rightly, was one of repulsion. "Please stop, Professor Parkhill," she
gasped in a tone of disgust.
He was surprised, and not a little chagrined. "Am I to understand that
you do not reciprocate my sentiment, Miss Reid? Is it possible that I
have been so mistaken?"
Kitty turned her head, as though she could not bear even to look at him.
"What you ask is so impossible," she said in a low tone. "Impossible!"
Strive as she might, the young woman could not altogether hide her
feeling of abhorrence. And yet, she asked herself, why should this man's
proposal arouse in her such antagonism and repugnance? He was a scholar,
famed for his attainments in the world of the highest culture. As his
wife, she would be admitted at once into the very inner circle of that
life to which she aspired, and for which she was leaving her old home
and friends. He had couched his proposal in the very terms of the
spiritually and intellectually elect; he had declared himself in that
language which she had so proudly thought she understood, and in which
she had so often talked with him; and yet she was humiliated and
ashamed. It was, to her, as though, in placing his offer of marriage
upon the high, pure ground of a spiritual union, he had insulted her
womanhood. Kitty realized wonderingly that she had not felt like this
when Phil had confessed his love for her. In her woman heart, she was
proud and glad to have won the love of such a man as Phil, even though
she could not accept the cowboy as her mate. On that very spot which the
professor had chosen for his declaration, Patches had told her that she
was leaving the glorious and enduring realities of life for vain and
foolish bubbles--that she was throwing aside the good grain and choosing
the husks. Was this what Patches meant? she wondered.
"I regret exceedingly, Miss Reid," the professor was saying, "that the
pure and lofty sentiments which I have voiced do not seem to find a like
response in your soul. I--"
Again she interrupted him with that gesture of repulsion. "Please do not
say any more, Professor Parkhill. I--I fear that I am very human, after
all. Come, it is time that we were returning to the house."
All through the remaining hours of that afternoon and evening Kitty was
disturbed and troubled. At times she wanted to laugh at the professor's
ridiculous proposal; and again, her cheeks burned with anger; and she
could have cried in her shame and humiliation. And with it all her mind
was distraught by the persistent question: Was not the professor's
conception of an ideal mating the legitimate and logical conclusion of
those very advanced ideas of culture which he represented, and which she
had so much admired? If she sincerely believed the life represented by
the professor and his kind so superior--so far above the life
represented by Phil Acton--why should she not feel honored instead of
being so humiliated and shamed by the professor's--she could not call it
love? If the life which Phil had asked her to share was so low in the
scale of civilization; if it were so far beneath the intellectual and
spiritual ideals which she had formed, why did she feel so honored by
the strong man's love? Why had she not felt humiliated and ashamed that
Phil should want her to mate with him? Could it be, she asked herself
again and again, that there was something, after all, superior to that
culture which she had so truly thought stood for the highest ideals of
the race? Could it be that, in the land of Granite Mountain, there was
something, after all, that was as superior to the things she had been
taught as Granite Mountain itself was superior in its primeval strength
and enduring grandeur to the man-made buildings of her school?
It was not strange that Kitty's troubled thoughts should turn to Helen
Manning. Clearly, Helen's education had led to no confusion. On the
contrary, she had found an ideal love, and a happiness such as every
true, womanly woman must, in her heart of hearts, desire.
It was far into the night when Kitty, wakeful and restless, heard the
sound of a horse's feet. She could not know that it was Honorable
Patches riding past on his way to the ranch on the other side of the
broad valley meadows.
Weary in body, and with mind and spirit exhausted by the trials through
which he had passed, Patches crept to his bed. In the morning, when he
delivered his message, the Dean, seeing the man's face, urged him to
stay for the day at the ranch. But Patches said no; Phil was expecting
him, and he must return to the outfit in Granite Basin. As soon as
breakfast was over he set out.
He had ridden as far as the head of Mint Wash, and had stopped to water
his horse, and to refresh himself with a cool drink and a brief rest
beside the fragrant mint-bordered spring, when he heard someone riding
rapidly up the wash the way he had come. A moment later, Kitty, riding
her favorite Midnight, rounded a jutting corner of the rocky wall of the
bluff.
As the girl caught sight of him, there beside the spring, she waved her
hand in greeting. And the man, as he waved his answer, and watched her
riding toward him, felt a thrill of gladness that she had come. The
strong, true friendship that began with their very first meeting, when
she had been so frankly interested in the tenderfoot, and so kindly
helpful, and which had developed so steadily through the year, gave him,
now, a feeling of comfort and relief. Wearied and worn by his
disappointment and by his struggle with himself, with the cherished hope
that had enabled him to choose and endure the hard life of the range
brought to a sudden end, with his life itself made so empty and futile,
he welcomed his woman friend with a warmth and gladness that brought a
flush of pleasure to Kitty's cheek.
For Kitty, too, had just passed through a humiliating and disappointing
experience. In her troubled frame of mind, and in her perplexed and
confused questioning, the young woman was as glad for the companionship
of Patches as he was glad to welcome her. She felt a curious sense of
relief and safety in his presence--somewhat as one, who, walking over
uncertain bogs or treacherous quicksands, finds, all at once, the solid
ground.
"I saw you go past the house," she said, when she reached the spring
where he stood awaiting her, "and I decided right then that I would go
along with you to Granite Basin and visit my friends the Mannings. They
told me that I might come this week, and I think they have had quite
enough honeymooning, anyway. You know where they are camped, do you?"
"Yes," he answered. "I saw them yesterday. But, come! Get down and cool
off a bit. You've been riding some, haven't you?"
"I wanted to catch you as soon as I could," she laughed, as she sprang
lightly to the ground. "And you see you gained a good start while I was
getting Midnight saddled. What a pretty spot! I must have a drink of
that water this minute."
"Sorry I have no cup," he said, and then he laughed with the pleasure of
good comradeship as she answered:
"You forget that I was born to the customs of this country." And,
throwing aside her broad hat, she went down on the ground to drink from
the spring, even as he had done.
As the man watched her, a sudden thought flashed into his mind--a
thought so startling, so unexpected, that he was for the moment
bewildered.
"Talk about the nectar of the gods!" cried Kitty with a deep breath of
satisfaction, as she lifted her smiling face from the bright water to
look up at him. And then she drank again.
"And now, if you please, sir, you may bring me some of that
water-cress; we'll sit over there in the shade, and who cares whether
Granite Basin, the Mannings, and your fellow cow-punchers, are fifteen
or fifty miles away?"
He brought a generous bunch of the water-cress, and stretched himself
full length beside her, as she sat on the ground under a tall sycamore.
"Selah!" he laughed contentedly. "We seem to lack only the book of
verses, the loaf and the jug; the wilderness is here, all right, and
that's a perfectly good bough up there, and, of course, you could
furnish the song; I might recite 'The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck,'
but, alas! we haven't even a flask and biscuit."
"What a pity that you should be so near and yet so far from paradise!"
she retorted quickly. Then she added, with a mischievous smile, "It just
happens that I have a sandwich in my saddle pocket."
"Won't you sing? Please do," he returned, with an eagerness that amused
her.
But she shook her head reprovingly. "We would still lack the jug of
wine, you know, and, really, I don't think that paradise is for
cow-punchers, anyway, do you?"
"Evidently not," he answered. And at her jesting words a queer feeling
of rebellion possessed him. Why should he be condemned to years of
loneliness? Why must he face a life without the companionship of a mate?
If the paradise he had sought so hard to attain were denied him, why
should he not still take what happiness he might?
He was lying flat on his back, his hands clasped beneath his head,
watching an eagle that wheeled, a tiny black speck, high under the blue
arch of the sky. He seemed to have forgotten his companion.
Kitty leaned toward him, and held a sprig of water-cress over his
upturned face. "I haven't a penny," she said, "but I'll give you this."
He sat up quickly. "Even at that price, my thoughts might cost you too
much. But you haven't told me what you have done with our dear friend
the professor? Haven't you a guilty conscience, deserting him like
this?"
Kitty held up both hands in a gesture of dismay. "Don't, Patches, please
don't. Ugh! if you only knew how good it is to be with a _man_ again!"
He laughed aloud in a spirit of reckless defiance. "And Phil is over in
Granite Basin. I neglected to tell you that he knows the location of the
Mannings' camp, as well as I."
Kitty was a little puzzled by the tone of his laughter, and by his
words. She spoke gravely. "Perhaps I should tell you, Patches--we have
been such good friends, you and I--Phil--"
"Yes!" he said.
"Phil is nothing to me, Patches. I mean--"
"You mean in the way he wanted to be?" He helped her with a touch of
eager readiness.
"Yes."
"And have you told him, Kitty?" Patches asked gently.
"Yes--I have told him," she replied.
Patches was silent for a moment. Then, "Poor Phil!" he said softly. "I
understand now; I thought that was it. He is a man among thousands,
Kitty."
"I know--I know," she returned, as though to dismiss the subject. "But
it simply couldn't be."
Patches was looking at her intently, with an expression in his dark eyes
that Kitty had never before seen. The man's mind was in a whirl of quick
excitement. As they had talked and laughed together, the thought that
had so startled him, when her manner of familiar comradeship had brought
such a feeling of comfort to his troubled spirit, had not left him. From
that first moment of their meeting a year before there had been that
feeling between them, of companionship, a feeling which had grown as
their acquaintance had developed into the intimate friendship that had
allowed him to speak to her as he had spoken that day under the cedars
on the ridge. What might that friendship not grow into! He thought of
her desire for the life that he knew so well, and how he could, while
granting every wish of her heart, yet protect her from the shams and
falseness. And with these thoughts was that feeling of rebellion against
the loneliness of his life.
Kitty's words regarding Phil removed the barrier, as it were, and the
man's nature, which prompted him so often to act without pausing to
consider, betrayed him into saying, "Would you be greatly shocked,
Kitty, if I were to tell you that I am glad? That, while I am sorry for
Phil, I am glad that you have said no to him?"
"You are glad?" she said wonderingly. "Why?"
"Because, now, _I_ am free to say what I could not have said had you not
told me what you have. I want you, Kitty. I want to fill your life with
beauty and happiness and contentment. I want you to go with me to see
and know the natural wonders of the world, and the wonders that men have
wrought. I want to surround you with the beauties of art and literature,
with everything that your heart craves. I want you to know the people
whose friendship would be a delight to you. Come with me, girl--be my
wife, and together we will find--if not paradise, at least a full and
useful and contented and happy life. Will you come, Kitty? Will you come
with me?"
As she listened her eyes grew big with wonder and delight. It was as
though some good genie had suddenly opened wide the way to an enchanted
laud. Then the gladness went swiftly from her face, and she said
doubtingly, "You are jesting with me, Patches."
As she spoke his cowboy name, the man laughed aloud. "I forgot that you
do not even know me--I mean, that you do not know my name."
"Are you some fairy prince in disguise, Sir Patches?"
"Not a fairy, dear, and certainly not a prince; just a man, that's all.
But a man, dear girl, who can offer you a clean life, an honored name,
and all of which I have spoken. But I must tell you--I always knew that
I would tell you some day, but I did not dream that it would be to-day.
My name is Lawrence Knight. My home is in Cleveland, Ohio. Your father
can easily satisfy himself as to my family and my own personal life and
standing. It is enough for me to assure you now, dear, that I am
abundantly able to give you all that I have promised."
At the mention of his name, Kitty's eyes grew bright again. Thanks to
her intimate friend and schoolmate, Helen Manning, she knew much more of
Lawrence Knight than that gentleman supposed.
"But, tell me," she asked curiously, trembling with suppressed
excitement, "why is Mr. Lawrence Knight masquerading here as the cowboy
Honorable Patches?"
He answered earnestly. "I know it must seem strange to you, dear, but
the simple truth is that I became ashamed of myself and my life of idle
uselessness. I determined to see if I could take my place among men,
simply as a man. I wanted to be accepted by men for myself, for my
manhood, if you like, and not because of my--" he hesitated, then said
frankly--"my money and social position. I wanted to depend upon
myself--to live as other men live, by my own strength and courage and
work. If I had given my real name, when I asked for work at the
Cross-Triangle--someone would have found me out before very long, and my
little experiment would have failed, don't you see?"
While he spoke, Kitty's excited mind had caught at many thoughts. She
believed sincerely that her girlhood love for Phil was dead. This man,
even as Patches the cowboy, with a questionable shadow on his life, had
compelled her respect and confidence, while in his evident education and
social culture he had won her deepest admiration. She felt that he was
all that Phil was, and more. There was in her feeling toward him, as he
offered himself to her now, no hint of that instinctive repulsion and
abhorrence with which she had received Professor Parkhill's declaration
of spiritual affinity. Her recent experience with the Master of
Aesthetics had so outraged her womanly instincts that the inevitable
reaction from her perplexed and troubled mind led her to feel more
deeply, and to be drawn more strongly, toward this man with whom any
woman might be proud to mate. At the same time, the attractions of the
life which she knew he could give her, and for which she longed so
passionately, with the relief of the thought that her parents would not
need to sacrifice themselves for her, were potent factors in the power
of Lawrence Knight's appeal.
"It would be wonderful," she said musingly. "I have dreamed and dreamed
about such things."
"You will come with me, dear? You will let me give you your heart's
wish--you will go with me into the life for which you are so fitted?"
"Do you really want me, Patches?" she asked timidly, as though in her
mind there was still a shadow of doubt.
"More than anything in the world," he urged. "Say yes. Kitty. Say that
you will be my wife."
The answer came softly, with a hint of questioning, still.
"Yes."
Kitty did not notice that the man had not spoken of his love for her.
There were so many other things for her to consider, so many other
things to distract her mind. Nor did the man notice that Kitty herself
had failed to speak in any way that little word, which, rightly
understood, holds in its fullest, deepest meaning, all of life's
happiness--of labor and accomplishment--of success and triumph--of
sacrifice and sorrow; holds, in its fullest, deepest meaning, indeed,
all of life itself.