"I'll tell you what I'd do 'bout it, if I was you," said Shorty Smith to
the twins, several days later, as he handed back a folded sheet of
paper. "I'd git your teacher to read that there letter. There's
something in it she ought to know 'bout. Better not tell her first where
you got it. Let on you don't know where it come from. There's somethin'
there she'll like to hear 'bout, that you kids ain't old enough to
understand."
"Oh, is that so!" interposed Dan.
"I ain't a-goin' to tell you nothin' about it, but like enough she will,
an'll thank you fer givin' it to her," said Shorty.
"If that writin' wasn't so funny I'd make it out myself," replied the
soft-voiced twin, "fer I think you're jobbin' us, Shorty."
"No, I ain't," he replied. "An' I'll back up my friendship fer you by
givin' you this!" He took from his pocket a silver dollar and handed it
to the boy, who pocketed it, and, followed by his brother, walked away
without another word.
Shorty Smith also walked away, in the opposite direction, without a
word, but he chuckled to himself, and his mood was exceedingly jubilant.
"She done us all right, an' may play the devil yet, but I'll git in a
little work, er my name ain't Shorty Smith!" Such was the substance of
his thoughts during the next few days.
That afternoon Hope stood in the doorway of the school-house, watching
her little brood of pupils straggling down the hill.
Louisa, who came daily to be with her beloved friend, had started home
with the two eldest Harris girls, for Hope, in her capacity of teacher,
occasionally found work to detain her for a short time after the others
had gone. This teaching school was not exactly play, after all.
The twins lingered behind, seemingly engaged in a quiet discussion.
Finally they came back to the door.
"Here's somethin' for you to read," said the soft-voiced boy, handing
her a folded paper, while Dave leaned against the building with an ugly
scowl on his face.
"To read," asked Hope, turning it over in her hand. "Who wrote it, and
where did you get it?" She stepped out of the doorway onto the green
grass beside them.
"Read it," said the breed boy. "It's somethin' you ought to know."
"Something I ought to know? But who wrote it?" insisted the girl.
"A woman, I reckon," replied the boy. "You just read it, an' then you'll
know all about it."
Hope laughed, and slowly opened the much soiled, creased missive. "Why
didn't you tell me at once that it was for me?" she asked.
The writing was in a bold, feminine back-hand, and held her attention
for a moment. The thought occurred to her that Clarice might have
written from the ranch, but there was something unfamiliar about it.
She looked first at the signature. "Your repentant Helene," it was
signed. Helene,--who was Helene, she wondered; then turned the paper
over. "My darling Boy," it started. In her surprise she said the words
aloud.
"Why, that's not for me! Where did you boys get this letter? Now tell
me!" She was very much provoked with them.
The soft-voiced twin smiled.
"I thought you'd like to know what was in it," he remarked, in evident
earnestness.
"That doesn't answer my question," she said with some impatience.
"_Where_ did you get it?"
"We found it," replied Dave gruffly, still scowling.
"And you boys bring a letter to _me_ that was intended for someone else,
and _expect_ me to _read_ it!" She folded it up and handed it back to
the boy. "Go and give that to whom it belongs, and remember it's very
wrong to read another person's letter. Tell me where you got it. I
insist upon knowing."
"Oh, we just found it up on the hill last night," replied the
soft-voiced twin evasively.
"Why don't you tell her the whole shootin' match!" roared the blunt
Dave. "You're a dandy! We found it up in the spring coulee last night
near where Mr. Livingston's sheep're camped. He was up there before
dark, cuttin' 'em out. This here letter dropped out of his pocket when
he threw his coat on a rock up there, an' so Dan an' me an' Shorty Smith
came along an' picked it up."
"Mr. Livingston's," said Hope, suddenly feeling oddly alarmed. "Not
_his_--you must be mistaken! Why, it began--it was too--_informal_--even
for a sister, and he has no sister, he told me so!"
"It's for him all right, for here's the envelope." Dan took it from his
pocket and handed it to her. It left no room for doubt. It was directed
to him, and bore an English postmark. He had no sister. Then it must be
from his sweetheart--and he told her he had no sweetheart. A sudden pain
consumed her.
"I reckon it's from his wife," said the soft-voiced twin.
"He has no wife," said Hope quietly.
"Oh, yes, he has! That's what they say," declared the boy.
"They lie," she replied softly. "I _know_ he has no wife."
"I'll bet you he left her in England," said the boy. "That's what the
men say."
"Your repentant Helene," repeated the girl over and over to herself.
Suddenly suspicion, jealousy, rage, entered her heart, setting her brain
on fire. She turned to the boy like a fury. "Give me that letter!"
Frightened beyond speech by the storm in her black eyes, he handed it to
her and watched her as with a set face and strangely brilliant eyes she
began to read. Every word branded itself upon her heart indelibly.
* * * * *
MY DARLING BOY: Can it be that you actually refuse to allow me to come
there? Admitting I have wronged you in the past, can you not in your
greatness of heart find forgiveness for a weak woman--a pleading
woman----
* * * * *
There at the foot of the first page the girl stopped, a sudden terror
coming over her.
"_What have I done!_" she cried, crushing the letter in her hand. "_What
have I done!_" Hysterically she began tearing it into small pieces,
throwing them upon the ground.
"Now we can't give it back to him," deplored the twin, recovering from
his fright.
"What have I done?" repeated the girl again, softly. Then in an agony of
remorse she went down upon her knees in the cool grass and picked up
each tiny scrap of paper, putting it all back into the envelope. She
stood for a moment looking down the long green slope below, shamed,
disgusted--a world of misery showing in her dark eyes. "You're a mighty
fine specimen of womanhood!" she exclaimed aloud; then turning about
suddenly became aware that her small audience was watching her with some
interest.
"You boys get on your ponies and go right straight home!" she exclaimed
in a burst of temper. "You're very bad, both of you, and I've a good
notion to punish you!" She went into the school-house and slammed the
door, while the twins lost no time in leaving the premises. Not far away
they met old Jim McCullen.
"Where's your teacher?" he asked, stopping his horse in the road.
"She's back there," said the soft-voiced twin, pointing toward the
school-house. "But you'd better stay away, for she's got blood in her
eye to-day!"
"No wonder, you young devils!" laughed Jim, riding on.
He knocked at the school-house door and, receiving no answer, walked in.
"Oh, Jim!" exclaimed the girl, rising from the small table at the end of
the room. "I thought it was some of the children returning. I'm awfully
glad to see you! You've been gone an age. Come, sit down here in this
chair, I'm afraid those seats aren't large enough for you."
"I'll just sit on this here recitation bench," replied Jim, "that's what
you call it, ain't it? I want to see how it feels to be in school again.
I reckon it'll hold me all right."
He seated himself with some care, while the teacher sank back at her
table.
"You don't seem very pert-lookin', Hopie," he continued, noticing her
more carefully. "What's the matter?"
She looked down at her papers, then up at him with something of a smile.
"I'm twenty years old," she replied, "and I don't know as much as I did
ten years ago."
"You know too much," replied McCullen. "You know too much to be happy,
an' you think too much. You wasn't happy at home, so you come up here,
an' now your gittin' the same way here. You'll have to git married,
Hopie, an' settle down; there ain't no other way."
"Mercy!" exclaimed the girl, "that would settle me sure enough! What a
horrible proposition to consider! Just look at my mother--beset with
nervousness and unrest; look at that poor Mrs. Cresmond and a dozen
others--perfect slaves to their husbands. Look at Clarice--she never
knew a moment's happiness until Henry Van Rensselaer died! Yes, I think
marriage _settles_ a girl all right! What terrible mismated failures on
every hand! It's simply appalling, Jim! I've never yet known one
perfectly happy couple, and how any girl who sees this condition about
her, everywhere, can dream her own ideal love dream, picture her ideal
man, and plan and believe in an ideal life, while she herself is
surrounded by such pitiful object-lessons, is a wonder!"
"I ain't much of a philosopher," said old Jim, "but it's always been my
notion that most wimmen _don't_ see what's goin' on around 'em. They
think their own troubles is worse'n anybody's an' 're so taken up
whinin' over 'em that their view is somewhat obstructed. Take the
clear-headed person that _can_ see, an' they ain't a-goin' to run into
any matrimonial fire, no more'n I'm goin' to head my horse over a
cut-bank. They're goin' straight after the happiness they know exists,
an' they ain't goin' to make no mistake about it neither, if they've got
any judgment, whatever."
"What made my mother marry my father?" asked the girl, lifting up her
head and facing old Jim squarely. "That's the worst specimen of
ill-assorted marriages I know of."
Jim McCullen looked perplexed for an instant.
"I don't think that was in the beginning," he replied thoughtfully, "but
your mother got to hankerin' after her city life, her balls an' theaters
an' the like o' that. After she got a fall from her horse an' couldn't
ride no more she didn't seem to take interest in anything at the ranch,
an' kept gettin' more nervous all the time. I reckon her health had
something to do with it, an' then she got weaned from the ranch, bein'
away so much. It wasn't her life any more."
"And now even her visits there are torture to her," said Hope bitterly.
"She is drunk with the deadly wine of frivolous uselessness--society!"
Then sadly, "What a wealth of happiness she might have possessed had
she chosen wisely!"
"But she was like a ship without a rudder; she didn't have no one to
guide her, an' now she thinks she's happy, I reckon," remarked McCullen,
adding, after a pause, "If she thinks at all!"
"And poor Clarice was a baby when _she_ married," mused the girl.
"And that Cresmond woman always was a blame fool," concluded Jim. "So
there's hope for you yet, don't you reckon there is? That reminds me,
here's a letter from O'Hara. There's a nice fellow for you, Hopie."
"Yes, he's a good boy, Larry is," she remarked absently, taking the
letter he handed to her.
"Why, he says he is coming over here to stay awhile with Sydney, and he
hopes I won't be----" She smiled a little and tucked the letter in her
belt. "That'll keep," she said. "Come on, I'm going over to camp with
you, Jim."