"WE BEEN SORRY FOR YOU"
Billy Louise, having arrived unexpectedly on the stage, pulled off her
fur-lined mittens and put her chilled hands before the snapping blaze
in the fireplace. Her eyes were tired and sunken, and her mouth
drooped pitifully at the corners, but aside from that she did not seem
much changed from the girl who had left the ranch two months and more
before.
"I'll take a cup of tea, Phoebe, but I'm not a bit hungry," she said.
"I ate just before I left town. How have you been, Phoebe?"
"We been fine. We been so sorry for you--"
"Never mind that now, Phoebe. I'd rather not talk about it.
Has--anybody been here lately?"
"Charlie Fox, he come las' week--mebby week before las'. Marthy, she
got rheumatis in her knee. Charlie, he say she been pretty bad one
night. I guess she's better now. I tol' I wash for her if he brings
me clo'es, but he says he wash them clo'es hisself. I guess Charlie
pretty good to that old lady. He's awful p'lite, that feller is."
"Yes, he is. I'll go up and see her when I get rested a little. I
feel tired to death, somehow; maybe it's the drive. The road is
terribly rough, and it was awful tiresome on the train. Has--Ward been
around lately?"
"Ward, he ain't been here for long time. I guess mebbe it's been six
weeks I ain't seen him. Las' time he was here he wrote that letter.
He ain't come no more. You let me drag this couch up to the fire, and
you lay down and rest yo'self. I'll put on more wood. Seems like this
is awful cold winter. We had six little pigs come, and four of 'em
froze. John, he brung 'em in by the fire, but it's no good; they die,
anyway."
Billy Louise dropped apathetically upon the couch after Phoebe had
helped her pull off her coat. She did not feel as though anything
mattered much, but she must go on with life, no matter how purposeless
it seemed. To live awhile and work and struggle and know the pain of
disappointment and weariness, and then to die: she did not see what use
there was in struggling. But one had to go on just the same. She had
borrowed money for mommie's sickness, and she would have to repay it;
and it was all so purposeless!
"How are the cattle wintering?" She forced herself to make some show
of interest in things.
"The cattle, they're doing all right. One heifer, she got blackleg and
die, but the rest they're all right. John, he couldn't find all; two
or three, they're gone. He says mebby them rustlers got 'em. He
looked good as he could."
"Are--has there been any more trouble about losing stock?" Billy
Louise shut her hand into a fist, but she spoke in the same tired tone
as before.
"I dunno. Seabeck, he told John they don't catch nobody yet. That
inspector, he come by long time ago. I guess he stopped with Seabeck.
He ain't come back yet. I dunno where he's gone. Seabeck, he didn't
say nothing to John about him, I guess. Maybe he went out the other
way."
"I--did you do what I told you, Phoebe, about--mommie's things?"
For once Phoebe did not answer garrulously. "Yes, I done it," she said
softly. "The boxes is in the shed when you want 'em."
"All right, Phoebe. Is the tea ready?"
While she sipped creamy tea from a solid-silver teaspoon which had been
a part of mommie's wedding-set, Billy Louise looked around the familiar
room for which she had hungered so in those deadly, monotonous weeks at
the hospital. The fire snapped in its stone recess, and the cheerful
warmth of it comforted her body and in a measure soothed her spirit.
She was chilled to the bones with facing that bitter east wind for
hours, and she had not seen a fireplace in all the time she had been
away.
But the place was empty, with no mommie fussing about, worrying over
little things, gently garrulous. If mommie had come back well, she
would have asked Phoebe about everything in the house and out of it.
There would have been a housewifely accounting going on at this minute.
Phoebe would be apologetic over those grimy windows, instead of merely
sympathetic over the sorrow in the house. Billy Louise wondered
wherein she lacked. For the life of her she could not feel that it
mattered whether the windows were clean or dirty; life was drab and
cheerless outside them, anyway.
Billy Louise in the last few months had tried to picture herself alone,
with mommie gone. Her imagination was too alive and saw too clearly
the possibilities for her never to have dwelt upon this very crisis in
her life. But whenever she had tried to think what it would be like,
she had always pictured Ward beside her, shielding her from dreary
details and lightening her burden with his whimsical gentleness. She
had felt sure that Ward would ride down every week for news of her, and
she had expected to find him there waiting for her, after that last
letter. Whatever could be the matter? Had he left the country?
Billy Louise's faith had compromised definitely with her doubts of him.
Guilty or innocent, she would be his friend always; that was the
condition her faith had laid down challengingly before her doubts. But
unless he were innocent and proved it to her, she would never marry
him, no matter how much she loved him. That was the concession her
faith had made to her doubts.
Billy Louise had a wise little brain, for all she idealized life and
her surroundings out of all proportion to reality. She told herself
that if she married Ward with her doubts alive, her misery would be far
greater than if she gave him up, except as a friend. Of course, her
ideals stepped in there with an impracticable compromise. She brought
back the Ward Warren of her "pretend" life. She dreamed of him as a
mutely adoring friend who stood and worshiped her from afar, and
because of his sins could not cross the line of friendship.
If he were a rustler, she would shield him and save him, if that were
possible. He would love her always--Billy Louise could not conceive of
Ward transferring his affections to another less exacting woman--and he
would be grateful for her friendship. She could build long, lovely
scenes where friendliness was put to the front bravely, while love hid
behind the mask and only peeped out through the eyes now and then. She
did not, of course, plan all this in sober reason; she just dreamed it
with her eyes open.
It had been in such a spirit that she had written to Ward; though he
would undoubtedly have read love into the lines and so have been
encouraged in the planning of that house with the wide porch in front!
She had dreamed all the way home of seeing Ward at the end of the
journey. Perhaps he would come out and help her down from the stage,
when it stopped at the gate, and call her Bill-Loo--never once had Ward
spoken her name as others spoke it, but always with a twist of his own
which made it different, stamped with his own individuality--and he
would walk beside her to the house and comfort her with his eyes, and
never mention mommie till she herself opened the way to her grief.
Then he would call her Wilhemina-mine in that kissing way he had--
Someone came upon the doorstep and stood there for a moment, stamping
snow off his feet. Billy Louise caught her breath and waited, her eyes
veiled with her lashes and shining expectantly. A little color came
into her cheeks. Ward had been delayed somehow, but he was coming now
because she needed him and he wanted her--
It was only John Pringle, heavy-bodied, heavy-minded, who came in and
squeaked the door shut behind him. Billy Louise gave him a glance and
dropped her head back on the red cushion. "Hello, John!" she greeted
tonelessly.
John grinned, embarrassed between his pleasure at seeing Billy Louise
and his pity for her trouble. His white teeth showed a little under
his scraggy, breath-frosted mustache.
"Hello! You got back, hey? She's purty cold again. Seems like it's
goin' storm some more." He pulled off his mittens and tugged at the
ice dangling at the corners of his lips. "You come on stage, hey? I
bet you freeze." He went over and stood with his back to the fire, his
leathery brown hands clasped behind him, his face still undecided as to
the most suitable emotion to reveal. "Well, how you like town, hey?
No good, I guess. You got plenty trouble now. Phoebe and me, we stick
by you long as you want us to."
"I know you will, John." Billy Louise bit her lips against a sudden
impulse to tears. It was not Ward, but the crude sympathy of this old
halfbreed was more to her than all the expensive flowers that had been
stacked upon mommie's coffin. She had felt terribly alone in Boise.
But her chilled soul was beginning to feel the warmth of friendship in
these two half-savage servants. Even without Ward, her home-coming was
not absolutely cheerless, after all.
"Well, we make out to keep things going," John announced pridefully.
"We got leetle bad luck, not much. One heifer, she die--blackleg.
Four pigs, they froze--leetle fellers. I save the rest, all right.
Ole Mooley, she goin' have a calf purty queeck now. I got her in
leetle shed by hog-pen. Looks like it storm, all right."
"Felt like it, too." Billy Louise made an effort to get back into the
old channels of thought. "We'll milk old Mooley, John; I feel as if I
could live on cream and milk for the next five years. You ought to see
the watery stuff they call milk in Boise! Star must be pretty near dry
now, isn't she?"
"Purty near." John's voice was beginning to ooze the comfort that
warmth was giving his big body. "She give two quart, mebby. Spot, she
give leetle more. I got that white hog fat. I kill him any time now
you say."
"If it doesn't storm, you might kill him to-morrow or next day, John.
I'll take a roast up to Marthy when I go. I'll go in a day or two."
She glanced toward the kitchen end of the long room. Phoebe was busy
in the pantry with the door shut. "Have you seen or heard anything of
Ward lately?" she asked carelessly.
"No. I ain't seen Ward for long time. I thought mebbe he be down long
time ago. He ain't come." John shifted a little farther from the
blaze and stood teetering comfortably upon the balls of his feet, like
a bear. "Mebbe he's gone out other way to work."
"Did he say anything?"
"No, he don't say nothin' las' time he come. That's--" John rolled his
black eyes seekingly at the farther wall while he counted mentally the
weeks. "I guess that mus' be fo' or five weeks now. Charlie Fox, he
come las' week."
"John, you better kill a chicken for Billy Louise. I bet she ain't had
no chicken since she's gone." Phoebe came from the pantry with her
hands all flour. "You go now. That young speckled rooster be good,
mebby. He's fat. He's fightin' all the chickens, anyway."
"All right. I kill him." John answered with remarkable docility.
Usually he growled at poor Phoebe and objected to everything she
suggested.
His ready compliance touched Billy Louise more than anything since her
return. She felt anew the warm comfort of their sympathy. If only
Ward had been there also! She got up from the couch and went to the
window where she could look across at the bleak hilltop. She stood
there for some minutes looking out wistfully, hoping that she would see
him ride into view at the top of the steep trail. After awhile she
went back and curled up on the wide old couch and stared abstractedly
into the fire.
John had gone out after the young speckled rooster that fought the
other chickens and must now do his part toward salving the hurt and
cheering the home-coming of Billy Louise. John returned, mumbled with
Phoebe at the far end of the room, and went out again. Phoebe worked
silently and briskly, rattling pans now and then and lifting the stove
lids to put in more wood. Billy Louise heard the sounds but dimly.
The fire was filled with pictures; her thoughts were wandering here and
there, bridging the gap between the past and the misty future. After
awhile the savory odor of the young speckled rooster, that had fought
all the other chickens but was now stewing in a mottled blue-and-white
granite pan, smote her nostrils and won her thoughts from dreaming.
She sat up and pushed back her hair like one just waking from sleep.
"I'll set the table, Phoebe, when you're ready," she said, and her
voice sounded less strained and tired. "That chicken sure does smell
good!" She rose and busied herself about the room, setting things in
order upon the reading-table and the shelves. Phoebe was good as gold,
but her housekeeping was a trifle sketchy.
"Ward, he borried some books las' time," Phoebe remarked, lifting the
lid of the stew kettle and letting out a cloud of delicious-smelling
steam. "I dunno what they was. He said he'd bring 'em back nex' time
he come."
"Oh, all right," said Billy Louise, and smiled a little. Even so
slight a thing as borrowed books made another link between them. For a
girl who means to be a mere friend to a man, Billy Louise harbored some
rather dangerous emotions.
She picked up the two letters she had written Ward, brushed off the
dust, and eyed them hesitatingly. It certainly was queer that Ward had
not ridden down for some word from her. She hesitated, then threw the
thin letter into the fire. Its message was no longer of urgent,
poignant need. Billy Louise drew a long breath when the grief-laden
lines crumbled quickly and went flying up the wide throat of the
chimney. The other letter she pinched between her thumbs and fingers.
She smiled a little to herself. Ward would like to get that. She had
a swift vision of him standing over there by the window and reading it
with those swift, shuttling glances, holding the handkerchief squeezed
up in his hand the while. She remembered how she had begun it--"Brave
Buckaroo"--and her cheeks turned pink. He should have it when he came.
Something had kept him away. He would come just as soon as he could.
She laid the letter back upon the mantel and set a china cow on it to
keep it safe there. Then she turned brightly and began to set the
table for Phoebe and John and herself, and came near setting a fourth
place for Ward, she was so sure he would come as soon as he could.
Mommie used to say that if you set a place for a person, that person
would come and eat with you, in spirit if not in reality.
Phoebe glanced at her pityingly when she saw her hesitating, with the
fourth plate in her hands. Phoebe thought that Billy Louise had
unconsciously brought it for mommie. Phoebe did not know that love is
stronger even than grief; for at that moment Billy Louise was not
thinking of mommie at all.