Breaking the news to Jack and Marjorie was no easy task, but we got
through it some way. Jack and his sister had an unhappy hour over it,
but Jean was adamant in her decision. There was to be no marriage, so
far as she was concerned. It was out of the question.
"You are passing up as decent a chap as ever lived," Jack told her, "on
a chance of Spoof, and you don't know that he even cares for you.
Perhaps Spoof's affections are already fixed. Have you thought of that?"
"Thought of it! I've lain awake nights, with burning eyes, and thought
of it. But what can I do? I can't ask him."
"You could marry Frank, like a sensible girl."
"I only wish I could. But it is out of the question."
And with that the matter had to stand. Jean doubled her energies in
helping Marjorie prepare for the great event, and while she tried always
to greet me with a smile I more than once surprised a tear stealing
unbidden down her cheek. I reflected that if I was suffering, Jean was
suffering, too, but there was no comfort in that. I didn't want Jean to
suffer. And why she should wring her heart over me, and yet refuse to
marry me, was a twist in her nature beyond my power of comprehension.
Spoof took the news with genuine or well-feigned surprise. We merely
explained that the wedding was not to be a double one after all; that
Jean and I had reconsidered matters, but Jack and Marjorie would be
married as arranged.
"I say, I'm sorry to hear that--I mean about you and Jean. I presume it
is only a postponement?" But we gave him no answer to that question, and
Spoof, of course, did not press it.
Christmas day dawned bright and cold, with a whip of north-west wind and
a skiff of loose snow sifting across the frozen prairies. I found myself
lying awake in the morning, thinking of Jean, and of all I had hoped
that day would mean to me. This was the dream that was gone; the picture
I had had to tear out of my heart, only it would not stay gone; it
plagued me in my sleep, it haunted me in every silent moment of the day.
That Jean should be so strong, so set, so immovable, and, as it seemed
to me, so unreasonable, in spite of all her delicate wistfulness and
strange uncommonness of spirit--that was a side of Jean's character
which all the years of our childhood and youth had not revealed to me. .
. I had not re-opened my suit. I had accepted her decision. But the old
picture would come back, and this Christmas morning as it swam before my
eyes it stirred within me an immeasurable poignancy of spirit.
"Merry Christmas!" shouted Marjorie, poking her head into my room.
Marjorie was going through a time of strangely mixed emotions. Her heart
was light on her own account and heavy on mine, and in these days she
found the bridge between laughter and tears an extremely narrow one.
Perhaps it was for that reason that her shout of "Merry Christmas!"
ended in something like a sob, and, with a little rush, she plunged on
to my bed and threw her arms about me; she wrapped them around my neck
and shoulders and drew my face to hers. And as her cheek lay against
mine a little warm trickle of moisture wended its way down, upon, and
across my lips, and I felt her frame tremble as it rested near me.
"Not crying, Marjorie; not crying, on this of all mornings!" I
exclaimed, although my own throat was full. "Not crying, dear--on my
account?"
To that question she snuggled closer, and after a little I heard her
whispering in my ear. "It will come all right in time, Brother mine,"
she said; "all right in time. I can't think--I can't believe--anything
else. Don't you feel--don't you _know_--that it will?" And so to soothe
her, and that her greatest day might not be spoiled, I said I knew it
would come all right in time, but there was a stone between my lungs and
a band of iron about my chest.
Marjorie kissed me on the lips, then raised her face and dried her eyes.
Suddenly she sprang to her feet, and I could not but admit how very good
she was to look upon. Her dark hair hung loose about her shoulders; she
allowed herself no curl-paper nonsense, and indeed no device could have
added to the beauty of her waving locks. She was still in her night
dress, although she had drawn on something warm about her feet, and,
like the good wife she was always to be, she had started the fire--a
duty which I admitted properly fell to the man of the house. Perhaps it
is because a man _should_ start the fire that he so greatly enjoys
having his wife do it. I could hear the poplar sticks crackling as I lay
watching her through moist and dreamy eyes. She was good to look upon;
so different from Jean, but still so good!
"Hustle up, Frank," she cried, with a sudden return to her normal
manner. "We have a lot to do to-day."
It was not until after our midday meal that I went over to Twenty-two.
Jean was in her room, but I mustered the spirit to chaff Jack with such
a mingling of good wishes and humorous sallies as my brain could
command, and we finished the whole with an impromptu sparring match in
the middle of the kitchen floor.
"Watch your beak, old Sitting Crow!" I commanded, "or I'll send you to
the minister with a busted mug," and I swung on him with enthusiasm. But
Jack was handy with his fists, and something thumped in my eye like a
piledriver.
"Aha!" said he. "The first of the wedding decorations. Let's make it a
pair."
But at that moment Jean came out, looking so radiantly sorrowful, if
one can look that way, that the glory of Marjorie seemed as the glory of
one of the lesser planets against the sun. She came to me with an
outstretched hand.
"Merry Christmas, Frank," she said, looking me squarely in the face.
"Why, what has happened to your eye?"
"I was just practising," said Jack, "and I want to exhibit this specimen
of my handiwork to Marjorie before we are married. It is as well that
she should understand----"
But Jean was gone in quest of butter, with which she rubbed my swelling
eye, and the caress of her fingers was worth the punch it had cost.
It was now time to hitch the oxen to the rough sleigh or jumper which
Jack and I had built. Into this the four of us could with some
difficulty be packed, and as we reckoned it would take at least an hour
for Buck and Bright to break trail to Spoof's, we loaded up and started
on our journey at a little before two. Spoof had insisted that the
ceremony should take place at his house, if for no other reason that
there might be a honeymoon trip as far as from Two to Fourteen, and the
minister was expected at three.
As the snow-clad prairie crept by to the leisurely plodding of Buck and
Bright the mound which marked Spoof's house and stable gradually defined
itself against the bright grey background of the December afternoon.
Spoof had been on the look-out, and while our oxen were still puffing
and blowing at a considerable distance from the shack we saw him coming
over the drifts with his great, rapid, English stride. He was beside us
in a few minutes, his wind-tanned face wreathed in smiles, his white
teeth gleaming under a short, sandy mustache to which of late he had
been giving some encouragement.
"Merry Christmas!" he cried. "The merriest ever--ever!" He held out both
arms, and we all shook hands at once, and I suspect that the bride-elect
pressed a chaste kiss upon his cheek. But Jack, as lawful owner, could
afford to be generous. Jean took no such liberty. That would have been
different.
The inside of Spoof's shack was always an example of orderly
overcrowding. It was full of useless furniture, inappropriate clothing,
fire-arms, saddles and bridles, cartridge belts, smoker's equipment,
tobacco tins, photographs, magazines, and an endless assortment of
miscellaneous knicknacks, all carefully placed and tended. Even when
Spoof occupied it alone it was something of a mystery where he found
space for himself in the midst of his possessions. But now Jean and
Marjorie and Jack and I were crowded in as well, only to find a number
of others already there.
Our eyes had not yet become accustomed to the semi-twilight of the
interior when a familiar voice saluted us. "Merry Christmas, Sittin'
Crow, an' ev'rybody," it said. "Didn't I warn you'se what 'ud happen?"
It was Jake. He was sitting perched like a toad on the wood-box where he
could expectorate with convenience into the ashpan of the stove. "We
dragged him into the centre of the floor and in the melee that followed
Jake lost his footing and at least three of us were precipitated with
him.
"Oh, save my husband, save my husband!" cried Bella Donna, in mock
alarm, while Spoof gravely remarked that perhaps the cogitation nut had
come loose.
"I am the minister," said a straight, clean-looking young man, when the
uproar over Jake had subsided. "My name is Locke. This is our good
friend Reddy; pardon me, by the way, Reddy, what--what is your real
name? I should know it for introduction purposes."
"I left it down East," said the individual addressed as Reddy, a slight,
boyish looking figure with a shock of carroty hair.
"Well, Reddy it is, then," said the minister, and we shook hands all
around. "Reddy is an important personage in our town," Mr. Locke
continued. "In a sense he is my chief competitor. He runs the village
pool room, and, I am afraid, draws bigger crowds that I do Wednesday
nights, and perhaps on Sundays, too--behind the blinds."
"Not guilty," pleaded Reddy. "There are no blinds on the shop."
You may not know that the chief social institution in the young prairie
town is the pool room. It is the club house of the village and the
community. It is usually a long, crude building of plain boards,
unpainted inside or out, and equipped in its central part with a huge
coal stove and three or four pool tables. The main entrance is in the
centre of one end, and on one side of the entrance is a barber's chair,
a tall mirror, and a shelf of razors, mugs, and clippers; on the
opposite side of the entrance is a show case filled with tobacco in its
various forms, with perhaps some boxes of candy and a slot machine where
those of a sporting temperament may endeavor to "beat the house" for
cigars. The fact that these attempts almost invariably end in failure
does not seem to diminish their popularity. Into these pool rooms come
the farmers to have their hair cut, or to enjoy the luxury of a bought
shave, or to while away an hour while the horses rest in the livery
barn, or because it is not late enough or too late to start for home.
Here come the townspeople; the blacksmith and the bank manager, the
storekeeper and the grain buyer, the cattle dealer and the machine
agent, to spend a lazy evening or a stormy afternoon and perhaps make
the acquaintance of a possible customer. Here the commercial and social
affairs of the community are discussed, and, to a large extent, settled.
Here, too, such tit-bits of scandal as even the smallest village can
afford are told and re-told, and lose nothing in the telling.
"I believe," said the minister, generously, "that Reddy's competition is
of a very honorable kind, and his presence here to-day is proof of his
bigness of heart. As it was not convenient for his customers to come to
him, he has come to his customers. He brings with him, I believe, a
small tray of plain gold bands and a blank marriage license or two. I
prevailed upon him to bring two or three extra licenses; it is always
well to be prepared for emergencies." . . . .
I looked at Spoof and found him looking at me, and then I looked at Jean
and found her looking at the floor, and a faint flush of color slowly
spread about her face. The flat reception of the minister's pleasantry
was relieved by Jake, who declared in favor of a total embargo on the
marriage license business.
"At least it should take as long to get married as to prove up on a
homestead," Jake remarked, "an' most fellows have a lucid interval once
in three years."
"Humph!" said Bella Donna. "I bet you haven't had one in thirty."
"Looks like it, I admit," her husband retorted slyly.
When the formalities about the license were completed the minister had
Jack and Marjorie stand together in the centre of the shack, and spoke
the few simple words that made them man and wife under the law. We paid
them the usual hackneyed compliments, and then stood around looking
rather sheepish and wondering what to do next, until Reddy produced a
box of chocolates and presented it to the bride. It was a simple thing,
but in some way it loosed our tongues, and presently we were all
laughing and wishing each other Merry Christmas.
By this time the sun had set on the short December day, and night was
drawing her grey curtains across the plains. I paid for the license on
Jack's behalf and gave the change to the minister, and we were about to
thank Spoof and say good-bye to the little company when they announced
in concert that they were coming over to Fourteen. In vain we protested
that the roads were bad, that the night was settling down, that the sky
looked like a storm. All these perfectly good reasons why they should
stay at home were converted into arguments why they should come. Spoof,
as host, yoked up the oxen and insisted that he would drive the bridal
party; our jumper would carry five as well as four. "It was built for
two," he argued, "so one more will make no difference."
Finding that there was nothing else for it we accepted the inevitable
and crowded in. Spoof provided rice, with which we all were liberally
pelted; Jake fired two shots from a gun, and with much shouting at Buck
and Bright and the world in general away we went at a pace of almost
three miles an hour, dragging behind a chain of Spoof's discarded boots
and overshoes.
When we were well under way our attention was suddenly arrested by a
commotion in the rear. It was Jake with the "flying ants", and with
Bella Donna and the minister and Reddy in his cutter. He was standing
up, waving the loose ends of the reins about his head, and imprecating
his horses into a gallop. In a moment he was upon us.
"Out o' the way, you old married people," he shouted. "I don' blame you
fer goin' slow, but don' hold up the percession."
But Spoof had no intention that the bride and groom should surrender the
place of honor. With many strange adjectives he goaded the oxen, and
presently noted a slight acceleration in their movements. "We're making
nearly four knots an hour," he shouted.
"That's nothing," the minister shouted back. "I made a knot in less than
ten minutes."
But for all of Spoof's urging our oxen plodded stolidly along the wintry
trail, now barely distinguishable from the grey whiteness of the plains.
Flakes of snow were falling, and on every side the pall of night
surrounded us, drawing its circle closer and closer. The trail was firm,
but the surrounding snow was loose and deep, and to pass us Jake would
have to plunge his horses through it, at considerable risk of upsetting
his cutter. The old land guide, however, hesitated not a moment for such
a consideration as that. Swinging his horses from the trail he cut out
at them with his whip, and they rushed by us, throwing a snowy spray
like a torpedo boat passing a liner.
But as it is so often the occasion that makes the man, so now was it the
occasion that proved Spoof's resourcefulness. Climbing over the
dashboard of the jumper he ran along the tongue and threw himself upon
Buck's ample back, which immediately began to heave and gyrate with an
entirely new motion. Whether it was as a protest against the liberty
which Spoof had taken, or whether it was that the legs about his sides
brought back memories of youthful days when some bare-legged urchin on
a Manitoba farm rode him in wild triumph through the pasture field of
the parental herd, matters not; the fact is that Buck presently broke
into a most unprecedented gallop, and his mate, willy-nilly, followed
suit. They were just in time to prevent Jake's party getting on the
trail ahead of us, and in great glee we careered by them.
"Forced draught!" shouted Spoof. "Fourteen knots!"
But our triumph was short lived. Unaccustomed to such speed, the oxen
presently began to wobble in their course and suddenly floundered off
the trail.
"Hard a-port, hard a-port!" Spoof shouted. But he was too late, or his
directions were misunderstood. Over went the jumper, flinging its
freshly married and other contents into the snow. The speed of the oxen
wrenched the tongue from the wreck, and they continued homeward in
greater haste than before.
Spoof jumped free and barely escaped a defiant flourish of Buck's heels
as they flipped by him. Ruefully he gazed upon the wreckage.
"I told the bally bullocks to swing hard a-port," he explained, "and
instead of that they slithered off to starboard."
By this time Jake and his party were again beside us. "I hope no one is
hurt," said the minister, as he took Jean's free arm to help her out of
a drift. It seems that in some way I had become entangled in the other.
"A rather rough start on the sea of matrimony, Mrs. Lane, I am afraid,"
he added to Marjorie, who was shaking the snow out of her hair.
No one was hurt, as snow is very useful for falling into, but Jake had
to give up his cutter. We piled into it, taking Mrs. Jake along, with me
driving and Spoof and Jake and Reddy and the minister following on foot
as a sort of bodyguard, albeit a most undisciplined one if we could
judge by the recriminations that were hurled about the unfortunate
Englishman's head. On various occasions, looking back, I could see a
flourish of arms and blows exchanged and someone down in the snow, and
roars of laughter rolled up after us through the wintry night.
At last the shack on Fourteen came into view, and, to our great
surprise, a light shone from the window. When we came up close we saw a
number of jumpers and bob-sleighs about, and the tracks of many feet in
the snow.