break the outfit to pay out a few more dollars, now we've started.
We're outlaws, anyway--might as well add one more crime to the list.
Only, it don't go to the Douglas shack--it goes into the schoolhouse.
Lance, you go ahead and pick out some books and ship 'em on to the
ranch, and I'll see they get over there. Long as we've started fixin'
up a school, we may as well finish the job up right. By Henry, I'll
show the Black Rim that there ain't anything small about the
Lorrigans, anyway!"
"Dad, I think you're showin' yourself a real sport," Lance laughed.
"We-ell, if you're game to buy a piano, I'm game to buy books. We
staked Black Rim to a school, so we'll do the job right. And by the
way, Belle, if you're going to get me to Jumpoff in time for that
evening train, don't you think it's about time you started?"
That is how it happened that Mary Hope walked into the schoolhouse one
Monday and found a very shiny new piano standing across one corner of
the room where the light was best. On the top was a pile of music. In
another corner of the room stood a bookcase and fifty volumes; she
counted them in her prim, frugal way that she had learned from her
mother. They were books evidently approved by some Board of Education
for school libraries, and did not interest her very much. Not when a
piano stood in the other corner.
She was early, so she opened it and ran her fingers over the keys. She
knew well enough who had brought it there, and her mouth was pressed
into a straight line, her eyes were troubled.
The Lorrigans--always the Lorrigans! Why did they do these things when
no one expected goodness or generosity from them? Why had they built
the schoolhouse--and then given a dance where every one got drunk and
the whole thing ended in a fight? Every one said it was the Lorrigans
who had brought the whisky. Some one told her they had a five-gallon
keg of it in the shed behind the schoolhouse, and she thought it must
be true, the way all the men had acted. And why had they burned the
Whipple shack and all the school books, so that she could not have
school until more books were bought?--an expense which the Swedes, at
least, could ill afford.
Why had Lance taken her to Jumpoff, away from the fighting, and then
gone straight to the saloon and gotten so drunk that he fought every
one in town before he left in the morning? Why had he never come near
her again? And now that he was back in California, why did he ignore
her completely, and never send so much as a picture postal to show
that he gave her a thought now and then?
Mary Hope would not play the piano that day. She was more stern than
usual with her pupils, and would not so much as answer them when they
asked her where the piano and all the books had come from. Which was a
foolish thing to do, since the four Boyle children were keen enough to
guess, and sure to carry the news home, and to embellish the truth in
true range-gossip style.
Mary Hope fully decided that she would have the piano hauled back to
the Lorrigans. Later, she was distressed because she could think of no
one who would take the time or the trouble to perform the duty, and a
piano she had to admit is not a thing you can tie behind the cantle of
your saddle, or carry under your arm. The books were a different
matter. They were for the school. But the piano--well, the piano was
for Mary Hope Douglas, and Mary Hope Douglas did not mean to be
patronized in this manner by Lance Lorrigan or any of his kin.
But she was a music-hungry little soul, and that night after she was
sure that the children had ridden up over the basin's brim and were
out of hearing, Mary Hope sat down and began to play. When she began
to play she began to cry, though she was hardly conscious of her
tears. She seemed to hear Lance Lorrigan again, saying, "Don't be
lonely, you girl. Take the little pleasant things that come--" She
wondered, in a whispery, heart-achey way, if he had meant the piano
when he said that. If he had meant--just a piano, and a lot of books
for school!
The next thing that she realized was that the light was growing dim,
and that her throat was aching, and that she was playing over and over
a lovesong that had the refrain:
"Come back to me, sweetheart, and love me as before--
Come back to me, sweetheart, and leave me nevermore!"
Which was perfectly imbecile, a song she had always hated because of
its sickly sentimentality. She had no sweetheart, and having none, she
certainly did not want him back. But she admitted that there was a
certain melodious swing to the tune, and that her fingers had probably
strayed into the rhythm of it while she was thinking of something
totally different.
The next day she played a little at noontime for the children, and
when school was over she played for two hours. And the next day after
that slipped away--she really had meant to ride over to the AJ, or
send a note by the children, asking Jim Boyle if he could please
remove the piano and saying that she felt it was too expensive a gift
for the school to accept from the Lorrigans.
On the third day she really did send a prim little note to Jim Boyle,
and she received a laconic reply, wholly characteristic of the Black
Rim's attitude toward the Devil's Tooth outfit.
"Take all you can git and git all you can without going to jale.
That's what the Lorrigans are doing, Yrs truly,
"J. A. Boyle."
It was useless to ask her father. She had known that all along. When
Alexander Douglas slipped the collars up on the necks of his horses,
he must see where money would be gained from the labor. And there was
no money for the Douglas pocket in hauling a piano down the Devil's
Tooth Ridge.
But the whole Black Rim was talking about it. Mary Hope felt sure that
they were saying ill-natured things behind her back. Never did she
meet man or woman but the piano was mentioned. Sometimes she was
asked, with meaning smiles, how she had come to stand in so well with
the Devil's Tooth. She knew that they were all gossiping of how Lance
Lorrigan had taken her home from the dance, with Belle Lorrigan's
bronco team. She had been obliged to return a torn coat to Mrs.
Miller, and to receive her own and a long lecture on the wisdom of
choosing one's company with some care. She had been obliged to beg
Mrs. Miller not to mention the matter to her parents, and the word had
gone round, and had reached Mother Douglas--and you can imagine how
pleasant that made home for Mary Hope.
Because she was lonely, and no one seemed willing to take it away, she
kept the piano. She played it, and while she played she wept because
the Rim folk simply would not understand how little she wanted the
Lorrigans to do things for her. And then, one day, she hit upon a plan
of redeeming herself, for regaining the self-respect she felt was
slipping from her with every day that the piano stood in the
schoolhouse.
She would give a series of dances--they would be orderly, well-behaved
dances, with no refreshments stronger than coffee and lemonade!--and
she would sell tickets, and invite every one she knew, and beg them to
come and help to pay for the school piano.
Even her mother approved that plan, though she did not approve dances.
"But the folk are that sinfu' they canna bide wi' any pleasure save
the hoppin' aboot wi' their arms around the waist of a woman," she
sighed. "A church social wad be far more tae my liking, Hope--if we
had only a church!"
"Well, since there isn't any church, and people won't go to anything
but a dance, I shall have to get the money with dances," Mary Hope
replied with some asperity. The subject was beginning to wear her
nerves. "Pay for it I shall, if it takes all my teacher's salary for
five years! I wish the Lorrigans had minded their own business. I've
heard nothing but piano ever since it came there. I hate the
Lorrigans! Sometimes I almost hate the piano."
"Ye shud hae thought on all that before ye accepit a ride home wi'
young Lance, wi' a coat ye didna own on your back, and disobedience in
your heart. 'Tis the worst of them a' ye chose to escort ye, Hope, and
if he thought he could safely presume to gi' ye a present like yon
piano, ye hae but yersel' tae blame for it."
"He didn't give it!" cried Mary Hope, her eyes ablaze with resentment.
"He wasna here when it came. I havena heard from him and I dinna want
to hear from him. It was Belle Lorrigan gave the piano, as I've said a
million times. And I shall pay for it--"
"Not from your ain pocket will ye pay. Ye can give the dance--and if
ye make it the Fourth of July, with a picnic in the grove, and a dance
in the schoolhouse afterwards, 'tis possible Jeanie may come up from
Pocatello wi' friends--and twa dollars wad no be too much to ask for a
day and a night of entertainment."
"Well, mother! When you do--" Mary Hope bit her tongue upon the
remainder of the sentence. She had very nearly told her mother that
when she did choose to be human she had a great head for business.
It was a fine, practical idea, and Mary Hope went energetically about
its development. She consulted Mrs. Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy also had
friends in Pocatello, and she obligingly gave the names of them all.
She strongly advised written invitations, with a ticket enclosed and
the price marked plainly. She said it was a crying shame the way the
Lorrigans had conducted their dance, and that Mary Hope ought to be
very careful and not include any of that rough bunch in this dance.
"Look how that young devil, Lance Lorrigan, abused my Bill, right
before everybody!" she cited, shifting her youngest child, who was
teething, to her hip that she might gesticulate more freely. "And look
how they all piled into our crowd and beat 'em up! Great way to
do--give a dance and then beat up the folks that come to it! And look
at what Lance done right here in town--as if it wasn't enough, what
they done out there! Bill's got a crick in his back yet, where Lance
knocked him over the edge of a card table. You pay 'em for the piano,
Hope; I'll help yuh scare up a crowd. But don't you have none of the
Lorrigans, or there'll be trouble sure!"
Mary Hope flushed. "I could hardly ask the Lorrigans to come and help
pay for their own present," she pointed out in her prim tone. "I had
never intended to ask the Lorrigans."
"Well, maybe not. But if you did ask them, I know lots of folks that
wouldn't go a step--and my Bill's one," said Mrs. Kennedy.
So much depends upon one's point of view. Black Rim gossip, which
persisted in linking Mary Hope's name with Lance Lorrigan, grinned
among themselves while they mentioned the piano, the schoolhouse, and
the library as evidence of Lance's being "stuck on her." The Boyle
children had frequently tattled to Mary Hope what they heard at home.
Lance had done it all because he was in love with her.
Denial did not mend matters, even if Mary Hope's pride had not
rebelled against protesting that the gossip was not true. Lance
Lorrigan was not in love with her. Over and over she told herself so,
fiercely and with much attention to evidence which she considered
convincing. Only twice she had seen him in the two weeks of his visit.
Once he had come to mend the lock his father had broken, and he had
taken her home from the dance because of the fighting. Never had he
made love to her.... Here she would draw a long breath and wonder a
little, and afterwards shake her head and say to herself that he
thought no more of her than of Jennie Miller. He--he just had a way
with him.
Mary Hope's point of view was, I think, justifiable. Leaving out the
intolerable implication that Lance had showered benefits upon her, she
felt that the Lorrigans had been over-generous. The schoolhouse and
the books might be accepted as a public-spirited effort to do their
part. But the piano, since it had not been returned, must be paid for.
And it seemed to Mary Hope that the Lorrigans themselves would deeply
resent being invited to a dance openly given for the purpose of
raising money to repay them. It would never do; she could not ask them
to come.
Moreover, if the Lorrigans came there would be trouble, whether there
was whisky or not. At the house-warming dance the Lorrigans had
practically cleaned out the crowd and sent them home long before
daylight. There had been no serious shooting--the Lorrigans had fought
with their fists and had somehow held the crowd back from the
danger-line of gun-play. But Mary Hope feared there would be a killing
the next time that the Jumpoff crowd and the Lorrigans came together.
She tried to be just, but she had heard only one side of the
affair,--which was not the Lorrigan side. Whispers had long been going
round among the Black Rim folk; sinister whispers that had to do with
cattle and horses that had disappeared mysteriously from the Rim
range. Mary Hope could not help hearing the whispers, could not help
wondering if underneath them there was a basis of truth. Her father
still believed, in spite of Tom's exoneration, that his spotty
yearling had gone down the gullets of Devil's Tooth men. She did not
know, but it seemed to her that where every one hinted at the same
thing, there must be some truth in their hints.
All of which proves, I think, that Mary Hope's point of view was the
only one that she could logically hold, living as she did in the camp
of the enemy; having, as she had, a delicate sense of propriety, and
wanting above all things to do nothing crude and common. As she saw
it, she simply could _not_ ask any of the Lorrigans to her picnic and
dance on the Fourth of July.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE LORRIGAN VIEWPOINT
I have said that much depends upon one's point of view. Mary Hope's
viewpoint was not shared by the Devil's Tooth. They had one of their
own, and to them it seemed perfectly logical, absolutely justifiable.
They heard all about the Fourth of July picnic and dance, to be held
at Cottonwood Spring and in the schoolhouse of their own building.
Immediately they remembered that Cottonwood Spring was on Lorrigan
land, that Lorrigan money had paid for the material that went into the
schoolhouse, that Lorrigan labor had built it, Lorrigan generosity had
given it over to the public as represented by Mary Hope Douglas and
the children who came to her to be taught. In their minds loomed the
fact that Lorrigan money had bought books for the school, and that Tom
Lorrigan himself had paid close to four hundred dollars for the
piano.
They heard that invitations were being sent broadcast, that a crowd
was coming from Pocatello, from Lava, from Jumpoff--invited to come
and spend a day and night in merry-making. Yet no invitation came to
the Devil's Tooth ranch, not a word was said to them by Mary Hope, not
a hint that they were expected, or would be welcome.
Belle met Mary Hope in the trail one day, just a week before the
Fourth. Mary Hope was riding home from school; Belle was driving out
from Jumpoff. It is the custom of the outland places for acquaintances
to stop for a bit of friendly conversation when they meet, since
meetings are so far between. But, though Belle slowed the pintos to a
walk, Mary Hope only nodded, said, "How do you do," and rode on.
"She looked guilty," Belle reported wrathfully to Tom and the boys at
the supper table. "Guilty as sin. She seemed to be afraid I was going
to ask her if I couldn't come to her dance. The little fool! Does she
think for a minute I'd _go?_ She hasn't so much as thanked you for
that piano, Tom. She hasn't said one word."
"Well, I didn't put my name and _ad_-dress on it," Tom palliated the
ingratitude while he buttered a hot biscuit generously. "And there
wasn't any name on the books to show who bought 'em. Maybe she
thinks--"
"I don't care what she thinks! It's the way she acts that counts.
Everybody in Jumpoff has got invitations to her picnic and dance. They
say it's to pay us for the piano--and they think she's doing some
wonderful stunt. And we're left out in the cold!"
"We never was in where it was right warm, since I can remember," said
Al. "Except when we made it warm ourselves."
"Sam Pretty Cow was saying yesterday--" and Duke repeated a bit of
gossip that had a gibe at the Lorrigans for its point. "He got it over
to Hitchcocks. It come from the Douglases. I guess Mary Hope don't
want nothing of us--except what she can get out of us. We been a good
thing, all right--easy marks."
Duke had done the least for her and therefore felt qualified to say
the most. His last sentence did its work. Tom pulled his eyebrows
together, drew his lip between his teeth and leaned back in his chair,
thinking deeply, his eyes glittering between his half-closed lids.
"Easy marks, ay?" he snorted. "The Lorrigans have been called plenty
of things, fur back as I can remember, but by the humpin' hyenas, they
never was called easy marks before!"
That was Tom's last comment on the subject. Belle, not liking the look
on his face, because she knew quite well what it portended, passed him
two kinds of preserves and changed the subject. Al and Duke presently
left for the bunk house. Mary Hope's party and her evident intention
to slight the Lorrigans was not mentioned again for days.
But Tom's wrath was smoldering. He was not hasty. He waited. He
himself met Mary Hope in the trail one day, lifted his hat to her
without a word and rode on. Mary Hope let him go with a chilly nod and
a murmured greeting which was no more than an empty form. Certainly
she did not read Tom's mind, did not dream that he was thinking of the
piano,--and from an angle that had never once presented itself to
her.
So, now that you see how both were justified in their opinions, as
formed from different points of view, let me tell you what happened.
Mary Hope had her picnic, with never a thunderstorm to mar the day.
Which is unusual, since a picnic nearly always gets itself rained
upon. She had sent out more than a hundred invitations--tickets two
dollars, please--and there were more who invited themselves and had to
be supplied with tickets cut hastily out of pasteboard boxes that had
held sandwiches.
Mary Hope was jubilant. Mother Douglas, as official hostess, moved
here and there among the women who fussed over the baskets and
placated with broken pieces of cake their persistent offspring. Mother
Douglas actually smiled, though her face plainly showed that it was
quite unaccustomed to the expression, and tilted the smile downward at
the corners. Mother Douglas was a good woman, but she had had little
in her life to bring smiles, and her habitual expression was one of
mournful endurance.
It was sultry, and toward evening the mosquitoes swarmed out of the
lush grass around the spring and set the horses stamping and moving
about uneasily. But it was a very successful picnic, with all the
chatter, all the gourmandizing, all the gossip, all the childish
romping in starched white frocks, all the innocuous pastimes that one
expects to find at picnics.
Mary Hope wondered how in the world they were all going to find room
inside the schoolhouse to dance. She had been frugal in the matter of
music, dreading to spend any money in hiring professional musicians,
lest she might not have enough people to justify the expense. Now she
wished nervously that she had done as Lance Lorrigan had done, and
brought musicians from Lava. Of course, there had been no piano when
Lance gave his party, which was different. She herself meant to play,
and Art Miller had brought his fiddle, and Jennie had volunteered to
"chord" with him. But, Mary Hope felt much nervous apprehension lest
these Pocatello and Lava people should think it was just Scotch
stinginess on her part.
Late in the afternoon a few of the ranchers rode hastily homeward to
"do the chores," but the Lava and Pocatello crowd remained, and began
to drift up to the schoolhouse and drum on the piano that was actually
going to pay for itself and free Mary Hope's pride from its burden.
By sundown a dozen energetic couples were waltzing while a
Pocatello dentist with a stiff, sandy pompadour chewed gum and played
loudly, with much arm movement and very little rhythm; so very
little rhythm that the shuffling feet frequently ceased shuffling,
and expostulations rose high above his thunderous chords.
By dusk the overworked ranch women had fed the last hungry mouth and
put away the fragments of home-baked cakes and thick sandwiches, and
were forming a solid line of light shirtwaists and dark skirts along
the wall. The dance was really beginning.
As before, groups of men stood around outside and smoked and slapped
at mosquitoes--except that at Lance's party there had been no
mosquitoes to slap--and talked in undertones the gossip of the ranges.
If now and then the name of Lorrigan was mentioned, there was no
Lorrigan present to hear. At intervals the "floor manager" would come
to the door and call out numbers: "Number one, and up to and including
sixteen, git your pardners fer a two-step!" Whereupon certain men
would pinch out the glow of their cigarettes and grind the stubs into
the sod under their heels, and go in to find partners. With that
crowd, not all could dance at once; Mary Hope remembered pridefully
that there had been no dancing by numbers at the party Lance Lorrigan
gave.
What a terrible dance that had been! A regular rowdy affair. And this
crowd, big as it was, had as yet shown no disposition to rowdyism. It
surely did make a difference, thought Mary Hope, what kind of people
sponsored an entertainment. With the Devil's Tooth outfit as the
leaders, who could expect anything but trouble?
Then she caught herself thinking, with a vague heaviness in her heart,
how Lance had taken her away from that other dance; of that long,
wonderful, silent ride through the starlight; how careful he had been
of her--how tender! But it was only the way he had with him, she later
reminded herself impatiently, and smiled over her shoulder at the
whirling couples who danced to the music she made; and thought of the
money that made her purse heavy as lead, the money that would wipe out
her debt to the Lorrigans,--to Lance, if it really were Lance who had
bought the piano.
A faint sound came to her through the open window, the rattle of a
wagon coming down the hill in the dark. More people were coming to the
dance, which meant more money to give to the Lorrigans. Mary Hope
smiled again and played faster; so fast that more than one young man
shook his head at her as he circled past, and puffed ostentatiously,
laughing at the pace she set. She had a wild vision of other dances
which she would give--Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New
Year's--and pay the Lorrigans for everything they had done; for the
books, for the schoolhouse, everything. She felt that then, and then
only, could she face Lance Lorrigan level-eyed, cool, calm, feeling
herself a match for him.
The rattle of the wagon sounded nearer, circled the yard, came in at
the gate. Mary Hope was giving the dancers the fastest two-step she
could play, and she laughed aloud. More people were coming to the
dance, and there might not be coffee and sandwiches enough at
midnight,--she had over three hundred dollars already.
The dancers whirled past, parted to right and left, stopped all at
once. Mary Hope, still playing, looked over her shoulder--into the
dark, impenetrable gaze of Tom Lorrigan, standing there in his working
clothes, with his big, black Stetson on his head and his six-shooter
in its holster on his hip. Behind him Mary Hope saw Al and Duke and
Belle, and behind them other Devil's Tooth men, cowboys whom she only
knew slightly from meeting them sometimes in the trail as she rode to
and from school. The cowboys seemed to be facing the other way,
holding back the crowd near the door.
Mary Hope looked again into Tom's face, looked at Belle. Her fingers
strayed uncertainly over the keys, making discords. She half rose,
then sat down again. The room, all at once, seemed very still.
"I'm sorry to disturb yuh," Tom said, touching his hat brim and
lifting his eyebrows at her, half smiling with his lips pulled to one
side, like Lance--oh, maddeningly like Lance!--"but I've come after
the piano."
Mary Hope gasped. Her arms went out instinctively across the keyboard,
as if she would protect the instrument from his defaming touch.
"I'll have to ask yuh to move," said Tom. "Sorry to disturb yuh."
"I--I'm going to pay for it," said Mary Hope, finding her voice faint
and husky. She had an odd sensation that this was a nightmare. She had
dreamed so often of the dance and of the Lorrigans.
"I paid for it long ago. I bought the piano--I've come after it."