In the early eighties, when my brother Ajax and I were raising cattle
in the foothills of Southern California, our ranch-house was used as a
stopping-place by the teamsters hauling freight across the Coast
Range; and after the boom began, while the village of Paradise was
evolving itself out of rough timber, we were obliged to furnish all
comers with board and lodging. Hardly a day passed without some
"prairie schooner" (the canvas-covered wagon of the squatter) creaking
into our corral; and the quiet gulches and cañons where Ajax and I had
shot quail and deer began to re-echo to the shouts of the children of
the rough folk from the mid-West and Missouri. These "Pikers," so
called, settled thickly upon the sage-brush hills to the south and
east of us, and took up all the land they could claim from the
Government. Before spring was over, we were asked to lend an old
_adobe_ building to the village fathers, to be used as a
schoolhouse, until the schoolhouse proper was built. At that time a
New England family of the name of Spafford was working for us. Mrs.
Spafford, having two children of her own, tried to enlist our
sympathies.
"I'm kinder sick," she told us, "of cookin' an' teachin'; an' the hot
weather's comin' on, too. You'd oughter let 'em hev that old
_adobe_."
"But who will teach the children?" we asked.
"We've fixed that," said Mrs. Spafford. "'Tain't everyone as'd want to
come into this wilderness, but my auntie's cousin, Alethea-Belle
Buchanan, is willin' to take the job."
"Is she able?" we asked doubtfully.
"She's her father's daughter," Mrs. Spafford replied. "Abram Buchanan
was as fine an' brave a man as ever preached the Gospel. An' clever,
too. My sakes, he never done but one foolish thing, and that was when
he merried his wife."
"Tell us about her," said that inveterate gossip, Ajax.
Mrs. Spafford sniffed.
"I seen her once--that was once too much fer me. One o' them
lackadaisical, wear-a-wrapper-in-the-mornin', soft, pulpy Southerners.
Pretty--yes, in a spindlin', pink an' white soon-washed-out pattern,
but without backbone. I've no patience with sech."
"Her daughter won't be able to halter-break these wild colts."
"Didn't I say that Alethea-Belle took after her father? She must hev
consid'able snap an' nerve, fer she's put in the last year, sence
Abram died, sellin' books in this State."
"A book agent?"
"Yes, sir, a book agent."
If Mrs. Spafford had said road agent, which means highwayman in
California, we could not have been more surprised. A successful book
agent must have the hide of a rhinoceros, the guile of a serpent, the
obstinacy of a mule, and the persuasive notes of a nightingale.
"If Miss Buchanan has been a book agent, she'll do," said Ajax.
* * * * *
She arrived at Paradise on the ramshackle old stage-coach late one
Saturday afternoon. Ajax and I carried her small hair-trunk into the
ranch-house; Mrs. Spafford received her. We retreated to the corrals.
"She'll never, never do," said Ajax.
"Never," said I.
Alethea-Belle Buchanan looked about eighteen; and her face was white
as the dust that lay thick upon her grey linen cloak. Under the cloak
we had caught a glimpse of a thin, slab-chested figure. She wore
thread gloves, and said "I thank you" in a prim, New England accent.
"Depend upon it, she's had pie for breakfast ever since she was born,"
said Ajax, "and it's not agreed with her. She'll keep a foothill
school in order just about two minutes--and no longer!"
At supper, however, she surprised us. She was very plain-featured, but
the men--the rough teamsters, for instance--could not keep their eyes
off her. She was the most amazing mixture of boldness and timidity I
had ever met. We were about to plump ourselves down at table, for
instance, when Miss Buchanan, folding her hands and raising her eyes,
said grace; but to our first questions she replied, blushing, in timid
monosyllables.
After supper, Mrs. Spafford and she washed up. Later, they brought
their sewing into the sitting-room. While we were trying to thaw the
little schoolmarm's shyness, a mouse ran across the floor. In an
instant Miss Buchanan was on her chair. The mouse ran round the room
and vanished; the girl who had been sent to Paradise to keep in order
the turbulent children of the foothills stepped down from her chair.
"I'm scared to death of mice," she confessed. My brother Ajax scowled.
"Fancy sending that whey-faced little coward--here!" he whispered to
me.
"Have you taught school before?" I asked.
"Oh yes, indeed," she answered; "and I know something of your foothill
folks. I've been a book agent. Oh, indeed? You know that. Well, I did
first-rate, but that was the book, which sold itself--a beautiful
book. Maybe you know it--_The Milk of Human Kindness_? When we're
better acquainted, I'd like to read you," she looked hard at Ajax,
"some o' my favourite passages."
"Thanks," said Ajax stiffly.
Next day was Sunday. At breakfast the schoolmarm asked Ajax if there
was likely to be a prayer-meeting.
"A prayer-meeting, Miss Buchanan?"
"It's the Sabbath, you know."
"Yes--er--so it is. Well, you see," he smiled feebly, "the cathedral
isn't built yet."
"Why, what's the matter with the schoolhouse? I presume you're all
church-members?"
Her grey eyes examined each of us in turn, and each made confession.
One of the teamsters was a Baptist; another a Latter-Day Adventist;
the Spaffords were Presbyterians; we, of course, belonged to the
Church of England.
"We ought to have a prayer-meeting," said the little schoolmarm.
"Yes; we did oughter," assented Mrs. Spafford.
"I kin pray first-rate when I git started," said the Baptist teamster.