Janet, opening her eyes upon daylight, sat up drowsily and looked
about. How long she had been sleeping she had not the least idea. Her
windowless chamber, all shot through with sunlight, presented a
surprising array of cracks, and the slanting beams told her that the
sun was well up. Her watch had stopped.
In the absence of toilet conveniences she arranged her hair as best she
could; and having adjusted her skirt-band and smoothed out the
wrinkles, she put her hand to the latch. Her attention was caught by
certain sunlit inscriptions on the pine siding--verses signed by the
pencil of Pete Harding, Paducah, Kentucky. Mr. Harding showed that he
had a large repertoire of ribald rhyme. And he had chosen this bright
spot whereon to immortalize his name. She opened the door and went out.
Mr. Brown was nowhere to be seen. The flock, all eyes, turned in a
body and stared at her. Presently she went to look for him. He was
not in the storm-shed, nor anywhere down the slope, nor in the gully.
She walked slowly round the shack and scanned the prairie in all
directions. The face of nature was quite innocent of his presence.
The dog, too, was gone.
As she came back to her starting place, the sheep again regarded her in
pale-eyed expectation. A ewe emitted her one doleful note; another
gave hers, sadly. The fire had been burning quite a while; it had made
a good bed of coals on which the kettle was steaming briskly. She put
on the coffee and prepared breakfast; and as he still continued to be
absent, she sat down and ate alone. Then she put up a lunch and stowed
it in the pocket of her slicker. Its weight had diminished
considerably from what it was the day before, and as it did not now
have to be done up in the form of a bundle it could be carried in a
more convenient way. She folded the slicker lengthwise and threw it
across her shoulder.
He had pointed out to her the direction in which the road lay at its
nearest point. She walked up and down restlessly. After much
indecision and aimless casting about, she turned suddenly toward her
own quarter of the horizon and set forth on her journey. But having
proceeded a fair distance she slackened her pace and came to a stop;
and again she strolled up and down, looking occasionally in the
direction of the knoll. Finally, she returned to it and resumed her
meditations, less impatient.
After a long time, or so it seemed to her, she looked up and saw him
coming. He carried a rope, the long noose of which he was making
smaller to fit the coil on his arm. As he reached the shack he threw
down the coil and lifted his hat.
"Good-morning, Miss Janet"--he used the Southern form of address--"are
you all ready to leave us?"
"Yes; I thought I ought to get as early a start as possible. I made
the coffee right away. I did not know but you might be back in a
little while."
"Oh, I had breakfast long ago. I went out to see if I could get your
horse for you. But I did n't catch sight of him. I hunted for him
longer than I realized. It is quite a distance for you to walk, and I
thought we might fix up some way for you to ride."
"That was very kind of you, Mr. Brown. I shall be quite able to walk.
It was only necessary for me to be shown the direction."
"The road is over that way," he said, indicating its position with his
arm. "Keep in that direction a while and you will strike a
wagon-trail. Then follow that and it will bring you right out on the
road. After you get to the road, you will find a house about a mile to
the right. That is, if you intend to go that way."
"I am from Merrill, Mr. Brown. I am on my way to the county-seat. For
the past week I have been teaching school a few miles from Merrill. It
is the little white schoolhouse near Crystal Spring."
"A teacher!" he exclaimed.
"I can hardly claim to be a teacher," she answered. "The girl who has
that school was called home by the death of her brother. I have only
been substituting. I am on my way to Belleview to take a teacher's
examination."
As Janet offered this conscientious information, Steve Brown looked in
vain for any allusion to her secretiveness of the night before. In her
bearing there was not the least vestige of arts and airs, nor any
little intimation of mutual understanding; she simply looked up with
wide-open eyes and told it to him. This honesty, quite as if she owed
it, gave Steve a new experience in life; and he gazed into eyes that
charmed him by the clarity of their look.
"You are going to the court-house to get a certificate!" he remarked.
"I do not belong here in Texas," she said, continuing her story. "I am
from Ohio. I am stopping with the Dwights, down at Merrill. But for
the past week I have been stopping at a farmer's in order to be nearer
the school."
"Will you be going back to Ohio, possibly?"
"It might be that I shall go back. But it all depends. I may get a
school if I pass."
She stepped forward to take leave of him. But just at that moment he
thrust both hands deep into his pockets and bent his gaze intently upon
the ground, his brows knit together. She waited.
"Miss Janet," he said, looking up suddenly, "I would be interested in
knowing whether you pass."
"Well," she said, "I suppose I might easily let you know."
"My address is Thornton, Box 20. I get my mail every day--excepting
the last few days, of course;--but I will get it again promptly as soon
as I am out of this fix I am in. I don't suppose--"
"Why, are you in some sort of trouble?" she asked, interrupting him.
"Not very serious. I need a herder. I really ought to have two or
three for a while now. I don't suppose, Miss Janet, there is any
_doubt_ that you will pass?"
"I think," she said, a playful light now touching her features, "it is
quite possible for me not to pass. I suppose I could have passed
easily enough four years ago. But after I got out of the Academy, I
went to live with my aunt; and women, you know, don't keep up their
interest in algebra and things. This winter when Aunt Mary died, in
Toledo, I came down here."
She stepped forward again and extended her hand.
He had been seeing more and more of beauty as he gazed into her eyes.
The Truth was in them deeper than words. They were large gray eyes,
gentle and quiet and soft as dawn; and they had that fulfilling
influence which spread peace upon the waters of his soul.
"Good-bye, Mr. Brown. I am very much obliged to you."
"Well--good-bye, Miss Janet. Be sure and let me know."
She turned at once and proceeded on her way.
With her attention straight ahead, but without any landmark to go by,
she went resolutely forward, and when finally she turned to look back
she saw him standing just as she had left him. He did not seem to have
moved. Again she put forward, widening the distance in imagination;
and the next time she turned to view her work, the shack was sinking
behind a billow of land. She stood now and gazed back at the flat,
flowered expanse; then she turned her back upon it for the last time.
One does not look long upon the gay curtain after it has closed upon
the scene.
"I would be interested in knowing whether you pass." The morning had
shed new light upon her situation; and this shed a light upon morning.
And now that she could view her adventure in the light of its outcome,
she went back to the moment of their meeting, and did so, recalling
what next he said or did. She lived it all over again; this time more
understandingly. Meantime the prairie accommodated her with its
silence. It was the same sameness as on the day before; but not to her.
With her eyes fixed upon infinity she went buoyantly forward; for this
time she was not lost. The sun, already high when she arose, was
blazing somewhere in the regions above, and the strong light, flaring
in her face and shining on the broad reaches ahead, was very trying to
her eyes. After peering against it ineffectually for a while she took
off the three-cornered hat and proceeded to undo her work of the day
before, removing the pins and letting down the rim.
The wearing of a man's hat was one of those things which she herself
would "never have thought of." But just at a time when she had been
having experience with the tribulations of a big leghorn on horseback,
she saw a woman with a man's hat turned up at the side; and the next
day she had procured one like it, which she turned up in the same
manner with a breastpin. And the leghorn, unsuited to trials of wind
and weather, was left at home.
The woman--Raymond her name was--was passing the school on horseback,
and she stopped in to get a drink. Janet noticed the hat more
particularly because of its contrast with the woman's hair, which was
light like her own; although, as she observed to herself, of quite a
different shade. As it was almost noon she stopped for lunch, and
Janet found her very good company if not quite to her fancy. She
smelled horribly of perfume.
With the brim shading her eyes, Janet could now look forward with a
degree of comfort. Presently she was brought to a stop by a small
stream. It was a mere brook--probably the water from a single spring
such as the one which issued from the knoll; but at this point it
spread out and took the form of a wide patch of marsh grass. Farther
down it gathered its laggard waters together and became a brook again.
Janet, keeping clear of the bog, went down here intending to jump
across. Finding it too wide for her, she followed it along, its
varying width promising to let her pass. She skirted round other
patches of marsh grass and black boggy places only to find it too wide
again. At last she removed her shoes and stockings and waded it.
For some time she had been ignoring the troubles of her left foot, the
instep of which felt as if some one had been heaping coals of fire on
it. It was such a relief to step out of the hot grip of leather into
the well-fitting water that she loitered a while in the current; then
it occurred to her that here was the place to stop for dinner. With
her slicker spread out on the bank she sat down and had lunch, holding
her feet in the water while she ate. Being done she sat a while
longer, and when the sun had dried her feet she put on the shoes again,
lacing them carefully with particular regard to the ailing instep.
Then she folded the slicker.
As she straightened up and turned to go, she beheld a Texas steer of
the longhorn variety only a short distance away. He had been grazing
toward her, and as she arose he threw up his head. At sight of him--he
seemed to be all horns--she turned and made straightway for the other
side of the stream. She splashed through it as fast as she could go;
and being back where she came from, she turned upstream and ran. She
kept on till she came to a particularly wide piece of marsh grass.
Here, with a good bog between herself and the appalling pair of horns,
she came to a stop. Her shoes were now heavy with mud and water.
Janet can hardly be called a coward for acting as she did. A Texas
longhorn of the old school was enough to move anybody,--better
calculated to do so than either the elk or deer.
Consider the stag raising his antlers in the forest aisle. Held to the
spot by this display of headgear you contemplate it in all its
branches,--main-beam, brow-tine, bes-tine, royal and surroyal,--they
are all beautifully named. To run is only second thought. No
particular horn seems aimed at you. Between so many there may be room
for escape.
But think of the Texas steer! To right and left of him is one long
tapering tine. Each of them, naked as a tusk, has a peculiar twist
which suggests that it is perfectly scientific. Immediately you are
impressed with the idea of running.
He is a pitchfork on four legs. And so is his wife. With other beasts
of horn and antler, it is only the male who is thus favored; he has
them to fight out his differences over the ladies; and also, no doubt,
to make a grand impression. But Mrs. Longhorn has them as well as he
and is quite able to take care of herself. And so, meeting either of
them in their native state, you are inclined to regard the horizon as
one vast bull-ring. Janet was not at all cowardly when she arose and
went.
Having reached a safer place, she turned her attention to the stream
again; and as she was now confronted by the bog, she had to find a
crossing somewhere else. Naturally she did not turn her steps
downstream again.
The steer had grown small in the distance by the time she came to a
place where the black bottom looked safe. She stepped in and got to
the other side without difficulty.
For quite a while now, Janet's journey might best be described by
saying that she walked. The scenery was grass. Evidently she had
missed the road. Still, though the fence was not yet in sight, she did
not give up hope; a wire fence does not become visible at a very great
distance. Her wet shoes were very annoying. The imprisoned water
inwardly sucked and squirted at every step, and made queer sounds.
Unable to endure it longer she sat down and took them off, and while
they were draining, upside down, she removed the stockings and wrung
them out. Although she did not get them thoroughly dry, the walking
was somewhat natural again at least.
Her shadow became long and stretched out indefinitely beside her. The
sun came down from above and appeared in its own form; then quickly it
sank. She kept steadily on. She knew it could not be far now to the
fence; and once she was on the road she would feel safer. But while
she walked the gray of evening came on; then somewhere in the distance
a coyote barked. Her courage began to depart, as the dusk deepened; it
seemed to her as if all the loneliness in the world had come home to
roost. It was no use to watch for the fence now; it would apprise her
of its presence when she came to it. Regardless of the possibility of
running into its iron barbs, she walked faster; at times she ran. A
star came out faintly. It was night.
The swish-swish of her feet in the grass, the rustle of her skirts,
became prominent sounds. She missed the company of her watch; she
wound it up and got it to ticking; anything to ward off the solitude.
The thought of camping out she did not like to entertain; but thoughts
are unavoidable. Once she stood quite still to make a little trial of
it, but her pause was not long; she soon got her feet to going again.
She missed the sound of trees, the breezes playing upon them. If there
had only been something,--she knew not what,--it would have seemed more
world-like. There was an absence of everything familiar.
To stop and rest was now out of the question. It were better to walk
and keep thinking of the road. That would be human ground. So she
thought of the road and tried to keep her mind flowing in its channel.
How far might it be now? How long?
In the midst of this suspense she sighted a light ahead--a camp-fire.
It was somewhat to the left of her present course. Steadily it drew
nearer, straight ahead--her footsteps had bent toward it. When she was
beginning to distinguish the play of the flames, it sank from sight;
but presently it appeared again, more plainly. Now a lantern was
moving about behind a pair of legs. She could see just the legs,
scissors-like, cutting off the light at each step. The lantern stopped
and burned steadily; then another appeared. Then another.
The open side of a shed became visible, a block of deeper darkness
which made the night seem lighter. Janet, scarce knowing her
intentions, kept going towards it. The lantern which first stopped now
turned red and began ascending. It was a coyote lantern. It was going
up to the top of its pole. A sheep _baaed_ with the suddenness of a
bagpipe.
Janet halted. She had now gone dangerously near. The fire invited her
to come; but many things warned her away. What to do she did not know.
To her dismay, the problem very quickly took itself out of her hands.
The dog, alive to his duty, came out at her with alarming threats. A
short distance from her he circled around her to make his attack from
the rear, as Scotch dogs wisely do. Janet screamed and ran forward,
though not so willingly as a sheep. As the dog desisted, in obedience
to a sharp command from his master, she halted again. One of the
lanterns was suddenly lifted, and being held up to give a wider light
it shone full on the face of the man. It was the countenance of Mr.
Stephen Brown.
"Goodness gracious!" said Janet.