“HE RODE ALL UNARM’D, AND HE RODE ALL ALONE”
One day was very like another in the first two weeks of Janet’s new
school life. The teachers soon liked the sunny girl with the ready
dimples and readier wit, joined with honest industry and determination
to learn. The girls--the best girls--liked Jan at once, but the little
knot of companions whom Gwen had disrespectfully called “that gang”
disliked her every day a little more than the previous one, and chiefly
because of the liking of the better faction. Gladys--and this was
what made the attitude of these girls hard to bear--Gladys arrayed
herself with them, and showed positive dislike to “Miss Lochinvar,” who
certainly did not deserve it at her hands.
At home, after school, during the five hours between its dismissal
and dinner time, life was a trifle dreary, or would have been but
for Jack, Viva, and Jerry. Gwen thoughtlessly, in spite of her liking
for Jan, betook herself to her own pursuits. Sydney did not seem like
part of the family at all, but rather like some one who was fortunate
enough to have secured an unusually well-appointed lodging-house and
restaurant. He came and went unnoted, to Jan’s amazed distress. She had
heard so much said by her father and mother of the necessity of keeping
close to their boys and making home pleasant to them that motherly
little Jan quite yearned over the handsome lad who had no one to see
that he kept straight. She longed to make friends with him; a longing
intensified by her intimacy with her own elder brother, Fred, whom she
missed more than any of the children she had left behind her, unless it
was the baby, Poppet. But though Sydney was perfectly polite to Jan,
he made no recognition of her overtures of friendship, and, it seemed
to his cousin, grew more indifferent to his surroundings, and more
heavy-browed at each succeeding dinner.
Mrs. Graham soon got over her annoyance at Janet’s coming, and was
always pleasant, pretty, and kindly, but not less busy than at first.
As the autumn advanced into winter she was more deeply engulfed in
engagements than ever, and Jan shared her children’s lack of their
mother’s society. Unfortunately, with her aunt’s displeasure at her
coming had disappeared her uncle’s pleasure in receiving his favorite
sister’s child, and Jan quite longed for another of the evenings with
him, such as she had tasted on her arrival a month ago.
Every afternoon when she came home from school--except on the
afternoon of the dancing-class--Jan went into the nursery and sat
down with Hummie, Jack, Viva, and the baby--who would have resented
the title. Jack found the steep hill of learning which--to speak
metaphorically--had so winded him turned into “the primrose path of
dalliance” by this pretty cousin, who was so honest that she would not
do his tasks for him, yet so clear-headed that she turned them into
positive joys. Then she told the jolliest stories of the doings of
her brothers and sisters, whom Jack burned to know, considering them
more attractive than any youngsters he had had the luck to meet with,
either in or out of a book, and whose feats filled him with envious
admiration. Peals of laughter floated down the hall frequently during
these hours--laughter which reached Gwen in her shrine of genius, and
sometimes brought her out to share the fun. Gwen was surprised to find
herself half jealous of the children’s love which Jan had won in a
short month, and which she had missed because she had never thought
about them at all. She sometimes felt quite shut out and hurt when she
saw how the faces of the three youngest brightened at the sight of Jan
and heard the whoop of delight with which they welcomed her.
Quiet little Viva found that Jan knew ways of playing housekeeping
which her own naturally domestic little brain could not have devised,
and that she could dress dolls, and play with them, too, as no one--not
only her own sisters, but her friends--could begin to hope to do. And
she could tell stories, not only the funny stories of life in Crescendo
and the Howes’ frolics, but the fairy-tales which Viva preferred, in a
way that would make the lady who told stories in the Arabian Nights’
green with envy. Viva loved Jan with a sort of dumb adoration. She
was a sensitive little creature, and Jan had come into her solitude
like sunshine. As to Jerry, she adopted Jan--whom she called “Yan”
with a pure Norwegian pronunciation--as her own property, and loved
her with tumultuous affection. Jerry had grown so well-behaved in the
dining-room--never tipping over her oatmeal spoon, still less kicking
“Tsusan”--that her father and mother wondered at the reform. They did
not know that if “Yan” lifted her eyebrows in shocked surprise at the
dawn of naughtiness in the wilful tot, Miss Geraldine immediately
resumed the behavior which should make “Yan” show her dimples in
smiling at her, for “Yan’s” dimples had become Jerry’s barometer, and
she could not exist if their absence indicated disapproval.
It was fortunate for Janet that she was so sincerely fond of younger
children and that her little cousins did cling to her with such
devotion, for without their love she would have had many lonely hours
and would have found the atmosphere of the splendid home she had come
to too frigid for happiness.
Helen Watterson was to give a party, and the school was stirred by
the announcement. Not only did Helen live in a house so large that
her party was sure to be an event, but she had announced it as a
“fagot party,” and all the girls invited protested that they could
never, never fulfil its requirements. These requirements were for each
guest to bring a fagot of wood--and “fagot” could be interpreted very
liberally to mean anything from a few toothpicks bound together to a
large bundle of real sticks. These fagots were to be laid in turn on
the open fire, and while his fagot was burning each guest must tell a
story.
The Grahams, Gwen, Gladys, and Janet Howe, were invited, as well as
most of the girls of their age at “the Hydra.” Gwen felt no uneasiness
as to her powers in the story-telling line, nor did Jan, though she
was rather frightened at the thought of lifting up her voice in such
an august assembly, but Gladys was dismayed, and declared, without
meaning it, that she would not go if she had to tell a story, but would
plead some excuse at the last moment. As it happened, it was Gwen, who
longed to go, that pleaded the excuse at the last moment, a painfully
real excuse, for she had a bad sore throat, and could not leave her
room. Jan begged to be allowed to stay at home with her, partly through
kindness to the cousin whom she really loved, and partly from a strong
preference for doing so, for the prospect of going to a party without
Gwen and with Gladys was worse than going alone. But Gwen would not
hear of Jan’s staying behind.
“It will be the nicest party, I’m sure, Jan,” she said, “and I wouldn’t
have you miss it. Besides, it is really the first affair we’ve been
asked to since you came, so it will be your introduction to New York
society. And another ‘besides’ is that I shall want to hear all about
it, every story repeated, and everything, and Gladys never would tell
me one thing.”
“I don’t feel as though I could go with Gladys, Gwen,” Jan said
involuntarily. “She does dislike me so, and it makes me more awkward
and scared than ever.”
“Don’t pay the slightest attention to her,” said Gwen, looking
wrathfully at Jan over the red-flannel swathings of her throat--Hummie
always insisted on the efficacy of that color for such purposes. “After
you leave the dressing-room you keep with Dorothy Schuyler and Cena
North. They’ve got sense enough to appreciate you! And they’re my
friends. You’ll have a good time, because there’ll be plenty of good
times there to have, and when there are, you don’t miss them.”
Gwen, with mistaken zeal, made a few vigorous remarks to Gladys before
they set forth, telling her what she thought of her slighting Jan, and
bidding her be nice to her at the party, under threat of wrath to come.
The result of this well-meant interference was that Gladys sulked,
settling herself in her corner of the carriage without speaking to Jan
during the drive. After they arrived she compelled Susan to arrange
her hair and dress first, and she then left the dressing-room without
waiting for Jan, who had to find her way, frightened and hurt, to the
parlors alone.
“Isn’t Gwen coming?” asked Dorothy Schuyler, standing near their
hostess, when Gladys entered.
“Gwen has a sore throat. She’s dreadfully disappointed. She cared more
about coming than I did,” said Gladys.
“And Jan wouldn’t leave her, I suppose?” suggested Dorothy.
“Oh, Jan is here. She is coming right down,” said Gladys, trying to
speak easily.
Dorothy gave her one of the glances which Gwen had said “made you
curl up,” and went swiftly into the hall. Here she found Jan coming
hesitatingly down-stairs through the group of boys lounging part way
up, waiting for “the party to begin.” They all stared at Jan, glad
of something prettier to look at than one another, for, though some
of them were already young dandies, most of them despised the stiff
costume to which even the younger lord of creation is condemned at
festivities, and were wondering, each individually, if he “looked as
big a fool in his stiff collar as the other fellows did.”
Jan gave a sigh of relief as she caught sight of Dorothy. It seemed to
her that she could not enter that crowded room alone. Dorothy noticed
with pleasure that Jan looked very charming in soft, delicate green,
which gave her, with her brown eyes and hair, the effect of some
sylvan creature.
It was not so very bad after all to get to her hostess and make her
salutations now that kind Dorothy was at her elbow, and when the ordeal
was over Jan turned to enjoying herself with her tendency to make the
best of things.
There was to be dancing after supper, but first the young guests
grouped themselves around the open fire for the fagot burning and
story-telling. Dorothy began, and told a pretty legend of Brittany,
not long, but much longer than Daisy Hammond’s, who had brought a
tiny bundle of three lightest twigs, and related a tragic tale in two
stanzas of “nonsense rhymes.”
When it came Jan’s turn she found to her horror that the story which
she had so carefully learned and rehearsed with Gwen had slipped from
her as completely as if she had never heard it. “What shall I do?” she
whispered to Dorothy. “I have forgotten my story!”
[Illustration: The story-telling party.]
“Make up another. Tell us something you have seen or done in the West,”
said Dorothy. “It will probably be much more interesting, so don’t
worry.”
“I have forgotten the story I meant to tell,” Jan began in a faint
voice as she laid her fagot on the fire. “I think maybe I could
remember it if only I could get hold of the beginning. But Dorothy
Schuyler says I had better tell you something true that happened at
home, so I am going to tell you about a cyclone we had once, and I’ve
got to hurry, or my wood will be gone. There was a family living
outside of Crescendo, about a couple of miles out, and they had come
there from the frontier, and twenty-five years before the day of the
cyclone they had lost one of their children--the oldest boy--out in
the territory; he was stolen by Indians. They hunted everywhere and as
hard as they could for him, but they never found him, so they thought
he must be dead, and they moved into Kansas, and settled in Crescendo,
and had ever so many other children, and were quite happy, though they
never forgot that lost boy. They didn’t get on so very well--didn’t
make much money, I mean, so mamma and papa tried to help them. They
couldn’t very much, because we have such lots of children and not much
money. But one day there came up a storm, and papa ran around making
everything tight and getting all our children in, for he said it was
going to be a windstorm, and that scares us out there--we’ve seen them!”
Jan had forgotten her shyness, and was becoming dramatic as the
recollection of the fatal day came over her. She leaned forward, her
elbows on her knees, her eyes fastened on her burning fagot, with the
light playing over her earnest face.
“Well, it came. The sky got all over a dreadful yellow, and it was so
dark we lighted up like night. Mamma was baking and I was sweeping and
dusting--I know I thought it was lucky my head was tied up, for it
seemed as though it might blow off. The wind roared and rushed past us,
and branches of fruit-trees and heavy things came banging up against
the house--oh, it was awful! But we didn’t get the worst of it inside
the town. Outside, where this family lived, it was the very middle of
the cloud, and it took the roof off, and it blew down the barn, and
the neighbor’s house blew over and part of it struck theirs--and--oh,
dear, oh, dear! I can’t bear to think of it!” Jan hid her face in her
hands a moment, shuddering, and her audience sat silently waiting for
her to go on.
“The wall fell in and it buried all that family under it, for they
were all huddled together--they hadn’t any cyclone cellar. It was the
first time a cyclone had ever struck Crescendo. And when the storm
had passed--it was all over in fifteen minutes--they went out to that
house and they found them dead, all dead, except the baby, and he was
crying and pulling at his mother’s dress.” Jan’s voice quivered so that
she had to wait another moment, and no one noticed that her fagot was
burned out.
“And when they got there,” Jan went on, “there was a young man standing
among the ruins whom the people who came to help had never seen before.
Would you believe it? It was that oldest son whom they had lost! He
had found out who he was and had traced his parents, and had come to
Kansas after them, and had reached Crescendo just in time to find them
dead in the ruins of their home. And there was not one left but the
little crying baby and the oldest son--they were all gone! I took off
my sweeping dress, and mamma left her baking, and we went out there. We
brought the baby home with us--he was just Poppet’s age--until after
the funeral. Then the young man took him, and they went away together,
the oldest and the youngest, and we have never seen either of them in
Crescendo again.”
After a complete silence of a few minutes, more flattering than
applause, the applause for Jan’s tragic story burst forth from every
pair of hands. It was the success of the evening, but to Gladys it was
a success worse than failure. The confession that Jan and her mother
had been busied with housework at the time of the tragedy added the
story to the long list of disgraceful disclosures Jan was forever
making.
But the other guests at the party did not seem to consider Jan’s little
tale a blot upon her credit--_they_ could afford to admire it,
Gladys thought bitterly; she was not _their_ cousin! Girls and
boys crowded around Jan to congratulate her, till poor Jan hardly knew
where to look. She was already the heroine of the evening, but one
thing more raised her into a heroine indeed, though it ended the party
for her and Gladys.
The last fagot was on the fire, and Helen Watterson leaned forward with
the tongs to adjust it as it burned. She wore floating tarlatan over
her pink-silk skirt, and as she reached for the falling fagot the draft
from the chimney sucked her dress into the fireplace, and instantly the
gauzy stuff blazed up.
Her guests fell back screaming, but Jan sprang forward, gathered up
the overdress in her hands, crumpling it together, and extinguishing
the flames before there was the slightest danger of injury to Helen.
Probably there had not been very great danger, for the flimsy stuff
would very likely have been consumed before it could ignite the rest of
her garments, but none the less, Jan had done a brave deed, and at the
cost of painful burns on her own hands.
Mrs. Watterson took her away to be coddled and bandaged, amid a murmur
of admiration from the guests she left behind her. When the poor little
brown hands were thoroughly wrapped in oil and cotton a carriage was
called, and Susan put Jan into it, while Gladys followed, angry at
being obliged to miss the dancing, angry with herself for her bad
temper, angriest of all with Jan for proving her so wrong, yet swelling
with pride that her cousin had saved Helen’s life--for Gladys would not
regard the event as less than life-saving. The drive back was as silent
as had been the drive to the party. Jan was in too much pain, Gladys in
too perturbed a state of mind for speech.
As Susan helped Jan from the carriage, a forlorn, hungry, sick-looking
little tiger cat ran mewing toward her, and then scuttled away, as one
who had no reason to count on the human kindness it implored.
“Oh, that poor, poor, dear little cat!” cried Jan, who loved dumb
beasts tenderly. “Can’t I take it in, Gladys?”
“Oh, Miss Janet, it’s that forlorn and miserable, you don’t want it!”
protested Susan.
“Yes, I do; that’s why I want it!” cried Jan. “Do you think your mother
would care? I’ve missed my animals so dreadfully, Gladys!” she pleaded.
“You know mamma never cares what we do as long as we are satisfied,”
said Gladys ungraciously.
Jan waited for no further permission. With her bandaged hands, and with
the blandishments of a voice used to conversing with our little kindred
who can not reply--not in the same tongue at least--Jan contrived
to catch the frightened little waif who stood in such sore need of
kindness.
Clasping him to her breast, in spite of bandages, and disregarding
possible mud on the white paws, Jan returned, damaged, excited, but, on
the whole, happy, from her first party.