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THE GIRL FROM ARIZONA
* * * * *
BOOKS BY NINA RHOADES
MARION'S VACATION. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth. $1.25
DOROTHY BROWN. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50
VICTORINE'S BOOK. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth. $1.25
FOR YOUNGER READERS
"THE BRICK HOUSE BOOKS"
The sight of the brick house on the cover makes girl readers happy at
once.--_Indianapolis News._
Illustrated. Large 12mo. Cloth. $1.00 each
ONLY DOLLIE
THE LITTLE GIRL NEXT DOOR
WINIFRED'S NEIGHBORS
THE CHILDREN ON THE TOP FLOOR
HOW BARBARA KEPT HER PROMISE
LITTLE MISS ROSAMOND
PRISCILLA OF THE DOLL SHOP
BRAVE LITTLE PEGGY
THE OTHER SYLVIA
MAISIE'S MERRY CHRISTMAS
LITTLE QUEEN ESTHER
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
BOSTON
* * * * *
[Illustration: "AREN'T YOU GOING TO BE FRIENDS WITH ME?"--_Page 225._]
THE GIRL FROM ARIZONA
by
NINA RHOADES
Author of The "Brick House Books," "Marion's Vacation,"
"Dorothy Brown," Etc.
Illustrated by Elizabeth Withington
[Illustration]
Boston
Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
Published, August, 1913
Copyright, 1913, by
Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
All Rights Reserved
THE GIRL FROM ARIZONA
Norwood Press
Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass.
U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I MAKING THE BEST OF THINGS 1
II THE COMING OF UNDINE 13
III TRYING TO REMEMBER 29
IV A VISITOR FROM THE EAST 43
V UNCLE HENRY'S PROPOSITION 58
VI THE LAST EVENING 70
VII MARJORIE WRITES LETTERS 81
VIII AUNT JULIA AND ELSIE 91
IX MARJORIE TAKES A MORNING WALK 110
X NEW FRIENDS AND NEW FASHIONS 127
XI MARJORIE ENGAGES IN BATTLE 137
XII A MOTOR RIDE AND A FOOTBALL GAME 155
XIII MARJORIE SURPRISES HER RELATIVES 170
XIV THE POETRY CLUB 182
XV ELSIE TRIUMPHS 197
XVI THE THINGS THAT HURT 216
XVII BEVERLY SINGS "MANDALAY" 236
XVIII IN THE SUNNY SOUTH 254
XIX A VIRGINIA CHRISTMAS 266
XX MARJORIE SEES A PHOTOGRAPH 275
XXI UNDINE REMEMBERS 290
XXII UNDINE TELLS HER STORY 306
XXIII BREAKING THE NEWS 317
XXIV MARJORIE HAS HER WISH 331
XXV ELSIE REDEEMS HERSELF 341
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Aren't you going to be friends with me?" (Page 225) _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
"Where in the world did you come from?" 20
With one quick movement she seized the whip handle 146
"Oh, Mother dear, I'm so sorry!" 244
"Land sakes, Missy! What is it?" 284
"It takes a lot of pluck to get up and say a thing like that" 354
THE GIRL FROM ARIZONA
CHAPTER I
MAKING THE BEST OF THINGS
"MARJORIE."
The clear call rang out, breaking the afternoon stillness of the ranch,
but there was no response, and after waiting a moment Miss Graham gave
her wheeled chair a gentle push, which sent it rolling smoothly across
the porch of the ranch house, down the inclined plane, which served the
purpose of steps, to the lawn. It was very hot, the sun was blazing down
as only an Arizona sun can blaze, and not a breath of air was stirring.
But Miss Graham was accustomed to the heat and the glare. She paused for
a moment, gazing off over the vast prairie to the California mountains,
nearly a hundred miles away. She generally paused on that same spot for
one look, although the landscape was the only one she had seen in twelve
years. Then she moved on again, across the lawn, now parched and dry
from the long summer's heat, toward the stables and out-buildings. It
was before the smallest of these out-buildings, a tiny log cabin, that
she finally brought the chair to a standstill.
"Marjorie, are you there?"
There was a sound of some one moving inside, and a girl of fourteen,
with a book in her hand, appeared in the doorway. She was a pretty girl,
with soft light hair that curled over her temples, and bright, merry
blue eyes, but just now the eyes were red and swollen, and there were
unmistakable tear-marks on the girl's cheeks. At sight of the lady in
the wheeled chair, however, Marjorie's face brightened, and she hurried
forward, exclaiming remorsefully:
"Oh, Aunt Jessie dear, did you come all this way by yourself? I'm so
sorry. Do you want me to do something for you?"
"You needn't be sorry," said her aunt, smiling. "The exercise will do me
good, and I am quite proud of being able to manage this chair so easily.
I called you from the porch, but you didn't hear. Your mother and
Juanita are busy in the kitchen making jam, and I wasn't of any use
there, so I thought I would come and see what you were about. I felt
pretty sure of finding you in the old playhouse."
"Come in," said Marjorie, eagerly. "You haven't been in the playhouse in
ages; not since I grew too big to invite you to 'make-believe' tea, but
the door is just wide enough for the chair; don't you remember? Let me
help you in?" And springing to Miss Graham's side, Marjorie seized the
handle of the chair, and carefully guided it through the narrow
entrance, into the little house her father had built for her own special
use, and which had always been known as the playhouse. It might still
have been regarded as a playhouse, although its owner had grown too old
to play there. A couple of battered dolls reposed upon a toy bedstead in
one corner, and an array of china dishes, all more or less the worse for
wear, adorned the shelves. Marjorie loved her few possessions dearly,
and in a place where one's nearest neighbor lives five miles away, there
are not many people on whom to bestow things which have ceased to be
useful to one's self, and they are therefore likely to be preserved.
"Now we're all nice and cosy," remarked Marjorie, seating herself
comfortably on the floor at her aunt's feet. "There wouldn't be room for
another person in here, even if there were anybody to come. What good
times we used to have here when I was little, didn't we, Aunt Jessie?"
Marjorie spoke fast and nervously, but there were pink spots in her
cheeks, and Miss Graham was not easily deceived.
"What's the matter, Marjorie?" she asked simply. She and her niece had
no secrets from each other.
Marjorie tried to laugh, but her lip quivered, and the tears started to
her eyes.
"There isn't anything the matter," she said, frankly. "I've been a
goose, that's all. It was all the fault of the book I was reading."
"What book was it?" Miss Graham inquired curiously, glancing at the
volume Marjorie was still holding in her hand.
"It's called 'The Friendship of Anne,' and it's one of those in that box
Father had sent from Albuquerque. It's all about a big boarding-school
full of girls, and the good times they had there, but somehow it set me
thinking, and--and, I don't know why, perhaps because it's been so hot
and still all day, but I began to feel as if I wanted to cry, and so I
came out here to have it out." Suddenly Marjorie dropped her head in her
aunt's lap, with a sob.
For a moment Miss Graham was silent. She stroked the soft, fluffy hair
with her thin fingers, and a look of comprehension came into her face.
When she spoke her voice was very gentle.
"I understand, little girl," she said tenderly. "You haven't said much
about it, but I know it was a big disappointment that Father couldn't
afford to send you to school at Albuquerque this winter. It was a
disappointment to all of us, much as we should have missed you, but it
is one of those things everybody has to bear sometimes."
"I know it," said Marjorie, checking her tears, and making a great
effort to speak cheerfully. "It wasn't poor Father's fault that so many
of the cattle died this year, or that the drought spoiled the alfalfa
crop. I try to think that perhaps it's all for the best, and that if I
really left you all, and went away to school, I might have died of
homesickness. But when I read that story, and thought of all the people
and things there are in the world that I've never seen, it was just a
little bit hard to feel cheerful. Mother teaches me all she can, and so
do you and Father, but I'm fourteen and a half, and I hate to think of
growing up without any real education. If I were well educated, I might
teach, and be a real help to you all, but there isn't anything I can do
now but just sit still and make the best of things."
"Making the best of things is what we all have to do," said Miss Graham,
smiling rather sadly. "You do it very well, too, Marjorie dear. Your
father and I were talking last evening of how bravely you have borne
this disappointment. We all realize what it has meant to you, but we are
not a family who are much given to talking about our troubles."
"I know we're not," said Marjorie, "and I'm glad of it. How
uncomfortable it would be if you and Mother were always saying you were
sorry for each other, and if Father looked solemn every time a cow died.
I should hate to be condoled with, and treated as if I needed pity, but
still I can't help wishing sometimes that I could do some of the things
other girls do. Why, just think, Aunt Jessie, I've never had a friend of
my own age in my life. I've never been on a train, or seen a city since
I can remember."
Miss Graham continued to stroke the fluffy hair, and a troubled look
came into her eyes.
"I understand, dear," she said, "and I don't blame you in the least. I
know the feelings of loneliness and longing too well for that."
"Do you really, Aunt Jessie?" questioned Marjorie, looking up in
surprise. "I didn't suppose you ever longed for anything; you're such
an angel of patience. I suppose it's wrong, but I can't help being glad
you do, though, because it makes it so much easier to explain things to
you. I can't bear to have Father and Mother think I'm not perfectly
happy and contented; it makes Father look so sad, and I know Mother
worries about my education. I never thought of it before, but you were a
girl, too, when you first came here, weren't you?"
Miss Graham smiled. She was only twenty-eight, and girlhood did not seem
so much a thing of the past, but Marjorie was fourteen, and to her
twenty-eight seemed an age quite removed from all youthful aspirations.
"I was just sixteen when we came out here," she said, "and it seemed
very strange at first to be away from all my friends, but girl-like I
enjoyed the change, and it was not for a year or two that I began to
realize what life on an Arizona ranch really meant. Your father and
mother were very good to me, but they were absorbed in each other, and
in their work, and you were too little to be any real company to me.
There was plenty of work to be done, and I tried to do my share, but
there were many lonely times when I rebelled bitterly against fate. I
used to think of those times later on, after the accident, and then it
seemed strange that I should ever have fretted over such foolish
trifles, but they were very real to me once."
Marjorie took her aunt's hand and kissed it. Demonstrations of affection
were rather rare in the Graham family, but the girl could never think of
that accident without a lump rising in her throat. She had heard the
story dozens of times. She had even a dim recollection of the day it had
happened--the day on which her pretty, merry young aunt had started for
a canter over the prairie, on a wild young bronco, and had been carried
home white and unconscious, never to ride, or even walk again. Just how
it had all happened nobody ever knew. An Indian boy, coming suddenly out
of a cabin, had shouted and waved his hands to a companion. The noise
had frightened the bronco, and he had dashed off at full speed, and
Jessie Graham, experienced horsewoman though she was, had lost her
balance, and been thrown violently to the ground, striking her back
against a sharp stone. That was eight years ago, and during all that
time her life had been passed, first in bed, and then in a wheeled
chair.
Marjorie rose suddenly. There were some things it wasn't possible to
make the best of, and it was wisest not to talk about them.
"It's getting a little cooler," she said irrelevantly; "I think I'll
saddle Roland, and go for a ride before supper. You're an angel, Aunt
Jessie, and I'm glad you told me how you used to feel. I'm ashamed of
myself, but it makes the disappointment easier to bear because you
understand. Shall I wheel you back to the house, or is there anything
else I can do for you before I go?"
Fifteen minutes later, Marjorie mounted astride her bay pony, was
trotting briskly out over the prairie. Her aunt watched her from the
porch of the ranch house.
"Poor little girl," she said, with a sigh, as horse and rider
disappeared from view in a cloud of dust, "she bears her disappointment
bravely, but it's hard--hard for her, and for us all."
A footstep was heard, and her sister-in-law, Marjorie's mother, came out
on the porch. Mrs. Graham had once been very pretty, but twelve years of
hard work, and constant anxiety as to ways and means, had brought a
careworn expression into the eyes that were so like Marjorie's, and the
hand she laid on the back of Miss Graham's chair was rough and hardened
from housework.
"It's been a hot day, hasn't it?" she said, "but it's cooler now," and
she smiled the brave, cheerful smile she had never lost through all
their troubles and anxieties. "Juanita and I have put up six dozen jars
of blackberries to-day; not a bad day's record, is it? Have you heard
the whistle of the East Bound?"
"I am not sure; I thought I heard a whistle about half an hour ago, but
I have been with Marjorie in the playhouse. We have been having a talk."
"Has she said anything about her disappointment?"
"Yes, a little. She is bearing it splendidly, but it is a real grief to
her, notwithstanding."
Mrs. Graham sighed.
"I was afraid it would be," she said. "It would almost have broken my
heart to part from her, but Donald and I had made up our minds to let
her go. It seemed the only way of giving the child a chance in life, and
now this disease among the cattle has put an end to everything. Donald
says we may be able to send her next year, but she will be nearly
sixteen then, and time is precious. I wish I knew more myself, so that I
could help my little girl, but, like so many other girls, I wasted my
time at school. O dear! if children only realized what an education
might mean to them some day, they wouldn't fritter away their time, as
half of them do."
"Susie," said Miss Graham, impulsively, "have you ever thought of
writing to your brother Henry about Marjorie?"
The sensitive color rose in Mrs. Graham's cheeks, and for a moment she
looked almost as pretty as in the days when Jessie, in the rapturous
devotion of her teens, had considered her "the loveliest sister-in-law
in the world."
"Yes, I have thought of it," she said, "but--but somehow I haven't been
able to make up my mind to do it. You know my family never approved of
Donald's coming out here. My brother offered him a position in his
office in New York, but Donald said he had no head for business, and he
loves this wild life, hard as it has been. I have never let my people
know of our difficulties; they would have been kind, I daresay, but one
hates to ask favors."
"I know," said Miss Graham, comprehendingly; "still, for Marjorie's
sake--"
Mrs. Graham looked troubled.
"Donald and I were talking about it only last night," she said. "It
isn't right to deprive the child of advantages she might have, but think
of sending her all the way to New York, even if Henry and his wife were
willing to take her. Albuquerque would have been different; she could at
least have come home for the holidays, but New York--why, think of it,
Jessie, she has never been away from us for a night in her life!"
Mrs. Graham paused abruptly, her face contracted with pain. The tears
started to Miss Jessie's eyes, but her voice was still quite firm when
she spoke again.
"It would be very hard," she said, "harder for us perhaps than for
Marjorie herself, and yet if it were the best thing to do--"
Here the conversation was interrupted by Juanita, the Mexican maid of
all work, who appeared with the startling announcement that the jam was
boiling over on the stove, and Mrs. Graham hurried away to the kitchen,
leaving her sister-in-law to her own reflections.