THE BLONDE HEAVER
“ISN’T it remarkable,” asked Mrs. Bruce, “that we were just talking
about the Inferno?”
She, with her companions, had come down from the hotel into the
hissing, steaming tract of the Norris Basin.
Deep rumblings were in their ears. Narrow plank-walks formed a footing
amid innumerable tiny boiling springs, while the threatening roar of
larger ebullitions and the heavy sulphurous odors of the air gave
every indication that here indeed was the gateway to that region where
our forefathers believed that the unlucky majority paid the uttermost
farthing.
The Nixons had also elected to walk through the Basin, meeting the
stage at a point farther on.
“Say, Brute,” called Robert, “doesn’t this beat New Year’s for the
time, the place, and the good resolution?”
Mrs. Nixon’s nostrils dilated in disgust at the evil smells.
Irving caught a glimpse of her expression.
“Mrs. Nixon is making up her mind never again to do anything wrong,” he
remarked.
“I always said my Hades would be noise,” she replied, “but I begin to
think it will be odors.”
“I always said _mine_ would be dirt,” declared Mrs. Bruce, “but I
believe I’d prefer that to being boiled. Irving, don’t you let go of
me. This is the wickedest place I ever saw. Those little sizzling
springs are just hissing to catch my feet.”
The party stopped to watch the heavy plop-plop of a mud geyser.
“Now,” said Robert, “while we’re all thinking on our sins and properly
humble, is the time to get acquainted. Mrs. Bruce, this is my mother,
and my uncle Mr. Derwent, and Miss Maynard; and Mr. Bruce you all know
by reputation.”
Betsy had moved to a remote corner of the geyser.
“I never know just how to address that member of your party,” said
Robert to Irving.
The latter smiled. “She would tell you she was just Betsy. She’s such
a good soul that down East, in the village where she comes from, they
call her Clever Betsy; and she’s all that New England means by the
adjective, and all that Old England means, too.”
Meanwhile Rosalie Vincent was making her hasty preparations for another
move, and to her came Miss Hickey in a state of high satisfaction.
“I’m staying, Baby,” she cried, her eyes snapping. “I guess there must
be a lot of lay-overs. Anyway they need me, and there’s a Swattie ball
to-night. Hurray!” Miss Hickey executed a triumphant two-step and
knocked over a chair.
Rosalie seized her arm. “Can’t I stay too, then?” she asked anxiously.
“No, you can’t, Blue-eyes. You’re to go.”
“Oh, you go and let me stay!” begged Rosalie nervously.
“And lose the ball?” exclaimed Miss Hickey. “Well, believe _me_, you’ve
got nerve!”
Rosalie looked as if she were going to cry, and Miss Hickey’s
good-nature prompted a bit of comfort.
“Besides, if you’re afraid of the lock-up, this is your chance to
side-step those folks. More’n as like as not they’re among the
lay-overs.”
At this consideration Rosalie did brighten, and when the last stage
came around, Miss Hickey was present to speed the parting heaver whose
apprehensive glance about her saw no familiar figure.
“Oh, they _are_ staying, Miss Hickey!” she exclaimed, in hushed tones.
The sophisticated Miss Hickey did not respond, but nodded affably to
the driver.
Rosalie breathed a relieved farewell as she left the big-boned bulwark
of her friend and obeyed the agent’s signal to enter the back seat
of the stage. The vehicle was empty but for a stout man with a field
glass strapped across his shoulders who mounted to the seat beside the
driver, and they started.
The whole stage to herself! Rosalie could scarcely believe it.
She listened to the strange noises in the air and watched the steam
which, mounting high, would make one believe that the locality was
alive with factories. The girl’s curious gaze roamed about, and she
thought wistfully of such travelers as might visit at their leisure the
wonders about her.
There were great beauties, however, even for a heaver to enjoy. The
morning’s ride had been a keen pleasure in the intervals of her
embarrassment. The profusion of wild flowers; monk’s-hood, hare-bells,
and Indian paintbrush, had fed her eyes with their splashes of color;
and the behavior of the wild animals made one think of the millennium.
Sure of protection from being hunted and slain, the chipmunks sat
up on their hind legs close to the road, to watch the stage go by,
clasping their tiny hands beneath their chins, like children in ecstasy
at seeing a pretty show. Frequently one would be seen sitting up and
nibbling the seeds from a long stem of grass, which he held in such a
manner that he appeared to be playing a flute. A big marmot here and
there lay along a bough or rock, turning his head lazily to view the
tourists through his Eden. Boiling springs and boiling rivers, hill,
vale, mountain, and waterfall—all these had Rosalie enjoyed, even with
the fear that the Bruces would turn around; and now! Think of making
one stage of the picturesque journey with no companion but her own
thoughts! It seemed too good to be true; and she soon found that indeed
it was so.
The driver drew his horses to a walk, and Rosalie perceived that many
of the other stages were in sight, some of them stopping, and that
tourists were entering them from the roadside.
Soon it became the turn of the last stage, and Rosalie’s heart bounded
to recognize all the companions of the morning.
She saw Mrs. Bruce gaze sharply at the stout man in her seat by the
driver.
“Won’t your mother go up there, Nixie?” asked Irving.
Mrs. Nixon refusing, her son put Miss Maynard up, the young woman
climbing to the place with alacrity.
Rosalie turned her head to gaze fixedly at the other side of the road.
She grew warm as she felt some one climb into the seat beside her, but
did not turn her head back, even when the coach started.
Finding herself not addressed, presently she turned about and looked
squarely into the eyes of Betsy Foster.
“How do you do, Rosalie?” said the latter composedly.
“O Betsy!” exclaimed the girl softly, and seized the older woman’s hand
with an appealing grasp.
Betsy gave her one-sided smile, and Rosalie’s eyes filled.
“You don’t seem surprised!” she said unsteadily.
“I am, though,” returned Betsy. “I supposed we’d left you behind at
Norris.”
“You saw me there! Did the—did Mrs. Bruce?”
Betsy shook her head. “No; and she hasn’t yet; but I was thinkin’ about
you as we came up to the stage, and when all of a sudden I saw you, I
thought I’d get in here.”
The Nixon party were directly in front of them, and the Bruces in the
next seat, and all were conversing busily among themselves.
“I’m so glad to see you, Betsy, that I can hardly bear it;” and a
bright tear rolled swiftly down Rosalie’s cheek, as she leaned back in
her corner to regain her self-control.
“I’ve thought about you considerable,” returned Betsy, “and I haven’t
been any too easy.”
“I told Mrs. Pogram, I promised her, that if I were in any trouble I
would write. How kind of you!” with a sudden burst of gratitude and
a continued clinging to Betsy’s slender fingers. “How kind of you to
care!”
“Of course I cared, child,” returned the other.
“And you saw me being a waitress!”
“Yes. First-rate idea for college boys,” answered Betsy quietly.
“It’s quite the fashion for a lot of ’em to help themselves through
school that way. I don’t know about it exactly for girls in a strange
land,—little country girls that don’t know anything about the world; I
don’t know whether I like it or not.”
“It’s a good way to see the world,” said Rosalie, without enthusiasm.
“Yes; and ain’t it a beautiful one out here? Is that what you did it
for, Rosalie?”
“Partly—not exactly. I was getting away from Loomis.”
Betsy nodded. “I heard he pestered you.”
Rosalie looked off reminiscently. “I didn’t tell Auntie Pogram, because
I didn’t want to hurt her feelings; but the reason Loomis began being
so unkind to me was because I wouldn’t marry him.”
“I suspected as much,” said Betsy.
“So long as he was Auntie Pogram’s brother I knew there was no hope of
escaping him if I stayed there, and so—I ran away. It was selfish. My
conscience has never felt easy; but I couldn’t endure his insults.”
“I suppose not,” returned Betsy. Her tone was quiet, but there were
sparks in her usually inexpressive eyes, and had Loomis Brown suddenly
appeared it might have gone ill with his rapidly thinning hair.
“What did you do? How did you manage to get so far from home?”
continued Betsy.
“I first went to a boarding-house that I knew of in Portland, and there
I met a lady who had been taken ill and wanted to go back to her home
in Chicago; but she had a little child and didn’t feel able to travel
with him alone; so she agreed to pay my fare to Chicago if I would
help her home. I didn’t know how I would ever get back, but it was
getting away from Loomis, so I went. On the train I met a woman who
spoke of a place in Chicago where they took girls to wait on table in
the Yellowstone; so as soon as I could, I applied, and they took me and
sent me out here.”
“And do you like it?” asked Betsy, eyeing the mignonne face closely.
“No, of course I don’t like it, exactly, and I’ve been frightened ever
since I saw you all at the Mammoth Hot Springs, for I was sure Mrs.
Bruce would be disgusted with me. She expected me to make some use of
her kindness.”
“Don’t worry,” returned Betsy dryly. “She’s short-sighted, and ten to
one she won’t see you; and if she does, she probably won’t remember
you.”
“I may yet, you know,” said Rosalie eagerly, “I may yet reward her
kindness; but I had no money, so I couldn’t stop to see about any
school position; and besides, Loomis lives in Portland.”
“Oh, don’t bother about him,” said Betsy carelessly. “One donkey more
or less that you meet in the street isn’t goin’ to affect you. He’ll be
busy wavin’ his long ears at Mrs. Pogram’s new help; for she’ll have
to get somebody. I went to see her just before we left, and heard the
whole story.”
Rosalie laughed softly, and her eyes filled again. “O Betsy, it’s so
long since I laughed!” she said; and her tone was so earnest and sad
that Betsy averted her head and saw the scenery through a blur. “I
was in the stage all this morning. It’s a wonder you didn’t feel how
longingly I looked at the back of your head.”
“You were?” asked Betsy, surprised. “Are you goin’ with us all the way?”
“I don’t know. I may be left anywhere. I thought I had left you this
time and hoped so, Betsy, because I was afraid of Mrs. Bruce; but oh,
how glad I am now! for it’s such a comfort to see you, since you’re not
angry with me.”
“Not a bit,” replied Miss Foster, going to the length of patting the
hand that held hers. “I would be, though, if you’d gone off and didn’t
write me or let me know where you were; but you didn’t know that we
were home.”
“No. That’s why I was so startled to see you at the Hot Springs. I had
thought I was thousands of miles from any one who knew me.”
“I shan’t lose track of you again,” declared Betsy quietly.
“O Betsy, do you care?” The girl drew closer to her neighbor’s angular
shoulder. The expression in her lovely eyes disconcerted Betsy as she
met it. “There isn’t any one else in the world to care. I’ve had lots
of time since I left Chicago to think how alone I am, and I’ve been as
disappointed in myself as Mrs. Bruce could be because I’m not brave
about it. There have been moments at night when I was sorry, Loomis and
all, that I ever left Fairport.”
Betsy patted the hand again. “I do care, Rosalie. I won’t ask you to
promise me, because if you need to be bound by a promise you don’t want
me for a friend; but I tell you now that I expect you to keep in touch
with me. I wish I could stay by you or keep you near me, but I can’t. I
can, though, be some help to you perhaps, one way or another, and I’ll
be glad to have you feel that way, and never get into a tight place
without letting me know.”
“I do promise, Betsy, so gratefully,” began Rosalie; and then Mr.
Derwent turned around and met her eyes with a kind smile in his.
He indicated a point in the woods. Rosalie looked and descried the
spreading antlers of a deer, which stood bright-eyed and motionless in
the shadow and watched the stage go by. Mr. Derwent had been the first
to discover the animal, but soon everybody in the stage was alert.
“Oh, the deer! Look at the deer!” sped from mouth to mouth.
“What a sermon to men-folks!” exclaimed Betsy. “The way the critters
act in this Park is a wonder, just because men’s savage instincts are
restrained.”
“Yes,” said Rosalie. “I’ve been saying to myself over and over
Emerson’s poem,—
‘Who hath named the birds without a gun?’”
Betsy regarded her with the one-sided smile.
“Still speak poetry, do you, even though you do bring folks their soup?”
“Oh, yes.” Rosalie gave her head a sad little shake. “When I stop
thinking and feeling poetry, I shall have stopped breathing.”
Everybody was commenting on the curious action of the beautiful wild
creature in the forest, Robert declaring that he had buck fever.
When the excitement had subsided, he leaned forward to Irving’s ear.
“Your faithful retainer has found her tongue,” he said. “She and Uncle
Henry’s Hebe are talking thirteen to the dozen.”
“Has Mr. Derwent a Hebe on board?”
“Yes. A genius who has brought him good coffee for two meals. Watch him
head for her table this noon; and she’s unnecessarily pretty.”
Upon this Irving turned around and caught Betsy’s eye; then a glimpse
of the blond young girl who was her companion.
“Glad she’s having a good time,” he said, turning back. Then to Mrs.
Bruce, “Betsy has made friends with a pretty waitress back there.”
“Oh, we still have the domestics, the heavers, with us, have we?”
laughed Mrs. Bruce.
“Is that what they call them!” exclaimed Robert alertly, but continuing
to speak softly. “Didn’t you see the other one we had this morning? The
spearmint expert? Alas, she is no more; but if this one had stayed, I
can tell you Uncle Henry would have stayed too.”
“O Robert!” exclaimed Mrs. Nixon, anxious to make a diversion, “could
you get me some of that very peculiar red flower?”
The stage was climbing a gentle incline and Robert swung himself out
and gathered the blossoms.
“Want some?” asked Irving of his companion.
Mrs. Bruce certainly did, and Irving accordingly jumped out, also. She
turned to Mrs. Nixon, smiling.
“We’re pretty fortunate women,” she said.
Mrs. Nixon sighed. “Robert is such a scatterbrain,” she returned.
Mrs. Bruce continued her glance around, curious to see the waitress
who had been the subject of remark. She saw a fair young girl wearing a
veil; but her near-sighted glance awakened no memory.
“I’m glad,” she thought, “that Betsy has some one to talk to.”