A WILD RIDE
It was truly a gay summer for the grown-ups. There were rowing parties
on the lake, and picnics came quite in vogue. Dan Hayne was doing a
little of everything, buying and selling lots, interested in lead, in
cattle, taking short journeys here and there to view coming prospects.
Withal he found time for girls, went to dances, drove them out, and just
when some one thought him caught, he was off with the old fancy.
Miss Garnier seemed to like him very much, or was it the spirit
of coquetry? For in August a young Kentuckian of one of the first
families suddenly appeared on the scene, and then it was said they
had been lovers and quarrelled, and now made up again. A date was set
for a speedy marriage in St. James' Church, to the great surprise of
everybody.
How would Dan Hayne take it?
He took it with a jaunty indifference, and not only went to the wedding,
but led the procession that saw the bride start on her journey to her
new home.
"She was an awful flirt," declared Polly Morrison, "but I knew he didn't
mean to marry her."
Even Polly held her head quite high in those days, and seemed to take
pleasure in parading her numerous admirers.
The school girls were playing under a group of cottonwood trees one
afternoon, when Polly and two or three of the older ones paused and
joined the merriment. Sophie Piaget was telling charms. They should have
gone out on St. John's night and walked three times around the church.
On the way home you would hear a name called, and that would be the
name of your future husband. Then you counted nine stars nine nights
in succession, and you were sure to marry the first man you shook hands
with.
"But what if you didn't like him, or if he was married," suggested some
one.
"Then you mustn't shake hands with him," laughed Polly. "Save your shake
for some one you do like."
"Oh, let's go out and get Shubenca to tell our fortunes."
They all rose in eagerness. Shubenca was an old Indian woman who did
predict remarkable events, and they sometimes came true.
It was not far to the tepee, though two or three girls suggested it
might be better to go home and help get supper.
"Will you have _your_ fortune told?" Several of the girls were hanging
on Polly.
"Yes, first of all, I've a silver shilling to cross her hand, so it's
sure to come true."
"Oh, dear, but will we have to pay?" exclaimed a chorus in vexation of
spirit.
"I'll make her tell a lot for the shilling." Polly was in high spirits
and a generous mood.
We found Shubenca sitting by the side of the tepee, thumbing a pack of
cards. She gave a careless nod and went on. Polly stated the purport
of the visit and displayed the shilling. The black eyes snapped with
desire.
"How many?" in her guttural tone.
"Let me see—Sophy and you, Letty, and Caroline—well, say six."
The woman shook her head. "Too little, too little," she said with a
frown.
"Oh, very well. I can tell the fortunes myself for nothing," and Polly
turned with a toss of the head.
The woman caught her skirt.
"Three," she said—"three," in an eager voice.
"No, six," in a decisive tone.
"Too much for the money."
Polly threw it from hand to hand, catching it in a tempting manner.
"Well, well," with a reluctant grunt. "You first?" giving her a piercing
glance.
"Yes, so the others can take courage."
She looked at her hand and nodded curiously.
"You get your heart's desire after a long while," she said in her broken
English. "You want it very much, but you go past it and then sorrow.
A fair girl picks up what you have thrown away, and you hate her." How
the eyes gleamed! It made me shudder.
I had gone past the old woman to where a younger one sat doing some bead
work. Little ones played about in their noiseless fashion. I caught
sentences at intervals. She would have two husbands and journeys, go
away and come back, and meet the man she loved and be happy with him.
"He throw away the fair one for you—she too pale, too thin, she not love
enough."
"Well, so that I get him at last."
"You be wild for very joy."
"Yes, that is good. That is what I like."
Sophie Piaget came next. A husband of course. First she thinks she
cannot have him, for he love another, then "it is not love, no, no!"
shaking her head.
Some one came galloping over the stubble, and we all knew the horse and
rider. He reined up suddenly. Polly nodded indifferently.
"You promised me a ride on Chita," began Nannie Piaget, patting the
beautiful creature, who tossed her head gayly.
"Did I? Well, now is a good time. Can you jump up? And you won't squeal
for fright? If you do I shall let you drop."
"Oh, are you in earnest?" in a delighted tone.
"To be sure. Now—step on my foot and spring."
That was successfully achieved. He settled her in front of him, put
one arm around her, and off they sped. What a beautiful sight she was,
and her rider sat her proudly. They appeared smaller and smaller as
we watched them. I had lost interest in the fortune telling. Then the
moving speck grew larger, and they came in sight again until Chita
trotted up to the throng with what seemed a laugh in her eye.
"Oh, that's splendid! It's like going on the wings of the wind."
Surely it was. I had watched them until it stirred every pulse within
me. Chita seemed human in her enjoyment.
Old Shubenca's inspiration seemed to give out, though she eyed Polly
suspiciously. The last two fortunes might have pleased little girls.
They were of new frocks and surprises, and a great pleasure coming this
way, and some one who cared for you, listened to with girlish giggles.
Dan set down Letty Dole, who was profuse in her expressions of delight.
I don't know whether I looked wistful. I wanted to hug Chita and she
turned and put her nose in my hand. What mystery was there in her eyes?
"We must all go home," began Polly, peremptorily, turning the girls in
a kind of squad.
"Here's one who has not ridden Chita, nor any other creature, I
think—this little Gaynor girl."
"It's too late, Dan. And then she's such a timid little thing. No, let
her alone."
"It's time she had some courage put in her then," and he laughed gayly.
I was not a coward. I often ran over the wretched bridges when the logs
tilted so that you were in danger of falling in. And I really was not
afraid of ghosts nor cows, not even mice.
"No, no. Let her alone. Come, children. Come, Ruth."
Dan Hayne was fond of having his own way, and crossing other people's
wills. There was an imperious note in Polly's tone. How it happened in
an instant no one perhaps could have told. I turned, Chita backed a step
or two, and then a strong arm caught me just above the waist line, and
I was whirled up on Chita's back in front of Dan.
"Oh, don't, don't!" I cried.
"Dan, put her down!" commanded Polly.
The only reply was a gay laugh as we bounded away. Dan slackened a
moment and settled me, holding one arm tight about me, and then we went
on that loping gait that seems like the motion of long swells. It almost
took my breath away.
The sun had set in vague levels of dun, purple clouds, now making a
gradual darkening of the atmosphere, though it did not betoken any
coming storm. All about was softened, not like a fog, but a tenuous
veil. The stubble stretched out like a sea, and seemed to light the
path, but presently we came to the coarse prairie grass, at which Chita
gave a snort of disdain. On and on we flew. It was unlike anything
in my narrow experience. I had no thought, no care, no fear, it was
exhilarating, fascinating. Were we riding into the night and the
unknown? For the pale yellow edges of the level bars had vanished, it
was all smooth darkness over to the westward. And then a narrow golden
crescent hung out in the sky. All the eastward was growing bluer with
the suggestion of infinite space.
It was afterward, many a time, that I recalled this wild ride, the weird
loneliness, the penetrating silence in which one feels what bated breath
means.
"So, girlie, so," said a soft voice that recalled Norman, and Chita
slackened her pace, came to a standstill.
"Are you afraid?" He almost pressed the breath out of me.
There was a cry of some wild animal. It seemed to smite the night like
blows, growing fainter at the end, but I shivered.
Dan drew me up closer. I could feel his heart beat against my back.
"No, I am not afraid." Somehow I was not with him.
"Well, you _are_ plucky," with an oath. "And you don't even want to
scream?"
"Why—no," yet I was confused and bewildered.
"Suppose I dropped you down here and rode off?"
"But you wouldn't," I returned confidently.
He gave me still a tighter squeeze. "No, I might murder the man I hated
in hot blood, but I couldn't be cruel to a kitten if it was entrusted
to my care."
"Oh, Dan, you could do a worse thing than leave me there on the lonely
prairie to perish. But I like to think that you did not dream of it
then."
"Now, Chita, take it easy. This little girl isn't any more afraid of
the dark than you."
Chita gave an answering whinny. We turned toward the east, where the
stars were faintly stealing through the space that seemed tintless at
first and then grew bluer. How curiously timid they seemed, how they
blossomed out in amber and opal and chrysoprase. Afterward I came to
know their names, their path to the summit of glory and their decline,
to wander for years, perhaps, and then reign again in new effulgence.
I was almost sorry to come back to sordid civilization, crooked streets
and mean houses and dark ways. Taverns and hotels hung out lights; the
rest of the town was buried in darkness. Here and there some one had
raised a sidewalk; you went up two or three steps and then went down
again. But there was often a candle burning in a window.
Father was pacing up and down the path. We had a front fence now to keep
out strays, though we could drive them to the pen.
"I began to think you were never coming back. Nanny Piaget came and told
me. Dan Hayne, you must have been struck in a new spot, gallivantin' a
lot of young ones round; and you so choice of that mare you hardly let
a stray hand touch her. She's splendid, but my advice to you is to give
up racing and all that and settle down, marry and have young ones of
your own; but I'll venture a five months' shoot you won't be careering
round prairies half the night with them. Ruth, ain't you going to light
and let Dan go home?"
I held out my arms to father. Dan bent over and kissed me on the mouth,
then handed me down.
"Gaynor, I think you're long headed buying all prairie land," he said.
"It'll be a fortune for the Little Girl some day."
"Meanwhile it'll raise corn and feed hogs," father said with a chuckle.
"Ruth, ain't you going to give a word of thanks for your safe return?
Why Dan might have broken both your necks."
"Dan ain't that kind," laughed the young fellow in his proud strength.
"Good-night, little one. John, I wish you'd go down to the Wabash with
me and look at some cattle—say, in about ten days."
"I'll see," returned father.
I felt stiff and strange, as if I must walk on a sort of gallop and had
no strength to do it. M'liss was all curiosity and insisted that we must
have gone to the end of the world, and the supper was cold and not fit
to eat because she had "het it over and over."
I did not want much and went to bed very soon. I still felt bewitched.
We all talked of our rides the next day at school, and thought Chita
the most splendid horse in Chicago.
After Sunday School Polly Morrison came over with a curious glitter in
her eyes and snatched at my hand.
"That was a pretty caper you cut up with Dan Hayne!" she said in a
sharp, angry tone. "If you begin this way you'll be the talk of the town
in a year or two."
"I didn't want to go at first," I answered rather resentfully. "But then
it was splendid."
"My advice to you is to keep out of Dan Hayne's way. Still, you're
nothing but a chit! Set your cap for Homer or Ben."
"I don't want to set it for anybody," I returned, jerking my arm away.
One confessed to liking boys, and boys and girls played together, but
lovers were quite different, not to be expected until you were grown
up, and most of the courtships were very pronounced and rather brief.
It was a sort of settled matter that Dan and Polly, who were unlike
the average, would make a match some day. They sparred, and, like the
smaller children, "made up," danced, went out riding—she had a saddle
horse—and then for weeks tossed their heads loftily at each other. He
went off down the Wabash and then to Cahokia, but Polly did not lack
for attendants.
How busy the town seemed. Now the canal started afresh. Some of the old
indebtedness was wiped out. The land along the border was sold in plots,
and men set to work on a new basis. To hear them talk, it sounded as if
values increased daily.
Sophie Piaget and I became very dear friends. I am not sure but I ought
to include Homer. If he came to our house first we walked down to the
Piagets; if Sophie came up we spent the evening in some simple games.
Neither she nor Homer cared much for books. But she was very industrious
and handy, with a certain French ingenuity, I suppose I ought to
call it. She and her mother did fine dyeing and they made over gowns,
or indeed concocted new ones. Sophie could tie a bow to perfection,
straighten out crumpled artificial flowers, and give them a touch of
fresh color that made them blossom anew. She really had the beautiful
side of an artist without the intellectuality. But new countries have
little demand for this. The fine arts came later.
There was a long pleasant fall. Business was thriving. Father built
two new rooms on the house. We were beginning to have parlors, though
the old-fashioned keeping room, where you sit and work and talk to
your friends, the spinning wheel in one corner, the dresser with its
drawers holding table linen, the shelves above for the best dishes, the
commodious settle and the Boston rocker, hold a charm that modern rooms
cannot give, for they had the heart of family life.
The winter brought great changes to me, set my life in a different key,
the octave above childhood, girlhood, before the woman begins to unfold.
I had been undersized, a truly little girl. Now I suddenly shot up like
a sapling, not particularly thin, but slim, and outgrew all my skirts.
I felt very, very sorry. I did not want to be grown up.
Sophie was delighted. Nanette kept pace with me. So did Letty Dole and
Bessy Hale. We were not going to school. Fourteen was considered old
enough to begin the real work of life. I was not quite that, but the
house seemed to demand me. For M'liss, with all her sorrow of widowhood,
had consoled herself and was to give her boy the strong hand to guide
him through perilous ways. On the other side, she was to undertake two
girls, six and eight. Mr. Weaver had a farm down south branch, kept cows
and supplied people with milk.
I was very sorry to have her go. I had grown fond of the baby, who was
a great chatterbox and extremely funny little chap, and M'liss was an
excellent cook, good and strong, and housework was hard for girls and
women in those days.
There was all the new part to clean and set to rights. We had a fine
whitewashed wall and a thick soft rag carpet. My chamber opened on this
room as well as father's. Then there was a big room upstairs that we
did not need at present.
M'liss was married in the morning and went to her new home at once. We
both cried at the parting, for we were to be nearly two miles apart.
"I don't mind anything so much as that," she said. "If I could run
in every day or two and cook a meal for you. I don't believe that old
Jolette will be worth her salt, and you've studied books so much that
I am afraid your poor father'll starve."
Jolette was not so very old, perhaps forty, of rather mixed Indian and
negro extraction, quite tattooed by the Indians. She had come up from
Vincennes some years before, and had three children, who were bound out
in various families.
"She'll do for the present," said father. "But I'd like to have some
nice kind of white woman who could be motherly, and know what was
fitting for a girl."
Father kept a boy now, a rather loutish young lad, just the kind to do
the rough work, chop wood and feed the stock. Andy always came for me
with a lantern if I was out in the evening where the Hayne boys could
not see me home.
All the fall I had one happy thought in my mind—Norman would be home
when the winter broke up. They had gone to New York, and were to visit
Washington. Mr. Le Moyne was deeply interested in some trade relations
that he expected to lay before the governing powers at Washington.
Norman was delighted. To see the President and both houses of Congress
was beyond his wildest dream.
There was quite a merry making at Christmas. March or before, Norman had
said. And now what with railroads coming to the fore and stage coaches,
journeys were more readily made, and letters reached one oftener.
Then came the heart-breaking tidings. A long letter beginning so
bravely. New York had proved very interesting with its landmarks of
earlier times and its peculiar location. Washington had still many
signs of newness. It had not grown by accretion, but been planned at
once, and all the plans had not been executed as yet. But the capital
and the White House were superb. And the great squares that were to
be embellished in the future, the historic points, the adornments
progressing slowly, the Senate Chamber and House of Representatives,
and the great men of that day were vividly described.
And then the change in all Norman's plans, the parting for years instead
of the happy meeting.
Mr. Le Moyne was going to France, charged with some quite important and
extensive trade matters that he understood thoroughly, and that might
lead to advantageous relations. That was sort of _sub rosa_ not to
be generally announced. An intelligent secretary might perhaps do the
work, but Mr. Le Moyne needed more than this. His eyesight was failing
fast with some obscure trouble that did not in the least affect their
appearance. He had written to an eminent surgeon at Paris, who held out
some hope of help. At New York the leading doctors had said there was
no possibility of arresting total blindness. Mr. Le Moyne was still in
the prime of middle life, and this verdict was appalling.
And now he really could not do without Norman. They were like father and
son. He was an excellent French scholar, and had also taken up Latin. He
read to Mr. Le Moyne, wrote his letters, accompanied him everywhere. "I
watch all that goes on as well as read the papers daily, and am really
eyes to him. He is sensitive on the point and scarcely acknowledges his
misfortune, but you can see how very dependent he must be on some one.
And he has trained me to his habits and methods. He has the loveliest
and most sincere nature, his friendship is the greatest boon a young
fellow can have. I should be an ingrate to leave him now when he has
pleaded for me to stay. It is not altogether for the advantages, though
they are many, but my sympathies go out to him in the strongest manner.
I could not refuse, although I longed to fly back to you all. And it is
the uncertainty that pains me most. It may be a year—it may be—I dare
not think. But he likes America, and expects to return even if the worst
happens. I have had a delightful time—it would take weeks to recount
the pleasures and satisfactions. If I could only see you for an hour.
Are you still a little girl? I cannot think of you as being large, as
ever being what people call grown up. Oh, keep little until I come back,
which must be in another year or two."
I could not talk it over at first. I was glad when father came in
that he was in a great hurry to go to some meeting, where they were
considering measures to be put into execution for the benefit of the
city as soon as spring opened, of broadening the river to give it a
better current, of building new wharves and bridges. Improvement seemed
to be the watchword everywhere. I listened with a thankful heart. I
was so glad not to have him ask about a letter as he had several times
of late. So I brushed his coat and pulled his stock around straight,
and found him a clean handkerchief. Then I went to bed with my sorrow,
telling Jolette I had a headache, and could see no one. Homer came
over—I heard his voice.
I re-read my letter the next morning. It was dull and gray, with now
and then little spits of snow, too cold to snow, pedestrians said one
to another. Jolette's great comfort was smoking a pipe in the chimney
corner. Sometimes I quite longed for M'liss's inconsequent talk, but I
was glad to be alone to-day.
About mid-afternoon Mrs. Hayne came over.
"You poor child!" she cried. "Are you ill?"
The tears rushed to my eyes.
"Oh, Ruth, dear, don't take it so hard. I was afeared you would. The
people who go away are always more to us than we are to them in their
new lives. But this is such a splendid thing that we oughtn't grudge
him the chance. It's a thousand pities for Mr. Le Moyne, of course, and
dreadful to be blind, but just think of all the advantages. Seeing the
President, and actually going to a levee—did he tell you?—and wearing
a tail coat—the old fashions coming round. I wonder if they have brass
buttons! My gran'ther had. Why, I never s'posed a son of mine would be
there or go to Paris! And you can't tell but what one of the boys will
be President!"
She laughed gayly at the conceit.
"Then the salary! Of course people are making money here, but seems to
me property's up one day and down the next. Chris got out his map, and
we looked up Paris. It's hundreds of years old, but my! France can't
begin with the United States, though we're not half settled. And it's
a great thing! They'll go to England, too, and he will see kings and
queens and high dukes. Why, I think it's just grand. Only I hope he
won't forget us all or get up to such a degree he will never want to
come back."
"Oh, he can't do that! He can't forget us!" I cried with a rending pang
at my heart.
"Well, not exactly that, but don't you see, Ruth, that his life is going
to be altogether different from ours? Of course you can't understand
how a mother feels. She is glad to have her sons prosper, improve, even
if it does take them away from her. She gets old and dies, and they
have their new lives to live, so it is all right. Betty Collins's son
married a girl whose father owned miles and miles of live oak timber,
and they've made a fortune somewhere in the Carolinas. She's a great
lady and wears velvet gowns and some kind of lace that was forty dollars
a yard—think of it! And how she'd look setting foot in this muddy old
Chicago. It's good enough for us who live here right straight along,
but for ladies!"
She threw back her head and laughed. She was not at all dismayed, rather
elated.
Well, it was a fine opportunity. And then to be held in such high esteem!
"How are you getting along with your black woman? And your new rooms!
Husband's talking of building, our house is old, and we're crowded, and
no mistake. I do wish Dan would see some nice girl out there," nodding
her head, "and marry her. Homer's counting on getting married when
he's twenty-one, but I tell him to get his cage first. Birds are easily
captured. Homer's nice and steady, and he's saving, too. He will make
a first-class husband. I have my eye on a girl for Ben," and her smile
brought a warm color to my cheek.
"I hear your father's taking great interest in all the goings on.
They talked high in '37. Why, you'd think the earth would be so full
of people there'd hardly be standing room, and there's all to the
Mississippi River. Not but what the town wants clearing up bad, but we
don't want another panic."
She had been knitting as she talked. I liked to hear the rattle of her
needles, they kept such exact time.
"Would you mind reading your letter? You're doing nothing, I observe."
I went in the other room and laid out the page that had the most
tenderness and longing in it.
"Yes, yes," she subjoined in a pause. "It's pretty much the same as
mine, only those things about books and his learning Latin, I don't
sense that," was her comment.
"'Twould be awful if that nice man should go blind. Then I s'pose Norman
would think to stay with him as long as he lived. Well, he will have a
good time, no doubt, and we mustn't murmur s'long as he's prosperous.
And he may pick up some nice girl. Goodness me! Look at that snow! I
must trot off home. Come over, we miss you so much. And don't feel too
disappointed about Norman. I'd counted on seeing him sure."
She put up her knitting and bustled about, tied her ears up with
her woollen hood, and set off cheerily. Yes, we were in for a storm,
the flakes were like a great army sweeping over the land. But it was
splendid! There was no wind to hurry them, they could take their time
and be beautiful.