The dairy business continued to prove profitable to Gus, the cow
remaining contented, loving and giving. One night, however, there came
the inevitable reaction, and the gentle creature in the cow-shed felt
the same stifling she had rebelled against on the night of the stampede
when she had made her wild dash for liberty. Moved by these
recollections, the sedate, orderly cow became imbued with a feeling of
unrest, and demolishing the frail door was once more at large. In a
frenzy of freedom she dashed about the yard. Her progress was somewhat
impeded by contact with the surplice which, pinned to the clothes-line,
was flapping in the breezes. Maddened by this obstruction which hung,
veil-like, over her bovine lineaments, she gave a twist of her Texas
horns, a tug, and the surplice was released, but from the line only; it
twined itself like a white wraith about the horns.
Then the sportive animal frisked over the low back fence and across the
hill, occasionally stepping on a released end of the surplice and
angrily tearing her way through the garment. She made her road to the
railroad track. That sight, awakening bitter memories of a packed
cattle-car, caused her to slacken her Mazeppa-like speed. While she
paused, the night express backed onto the side track to await the coming
of the eastbound train. The cow, still in meditation, was silhouetted in
the light of a harvest moon.
"This 'ere," a home-bound cattleman was saying to a friend on the
platform, "is nigh onto whar we dropped a cow. I swar if thar ain't that
blasted cow now, what? Know her from hoof to horn, though what kind of a
Christmas tree she's got on fer a bunnit, gits me! Ki, yi! Ki, yi!"
At the sound of the shrill, weird cry, the animal stood at bay. Again
came the well-known strident halloo. A maelstrom of memories was
awakened by the call. Instinctively obeying the old summons she started
toward the train, when from over the hill behind her she heard another
command.
"Co, boss! Co, boss!"
The childish anxious treble rose in an imploring wail.
The cow paused irresolute, hesitating between the lure of the old life
on the plains and the recent domestic existence.
"Co, boss!"
There was a note of entreaty, of affection, in the cry.
After all, domesticity was her birthright. With an answering low of
encouragement the black cow turned and trotted amiably back to meet the
little dairyman.
"Well, I'll be jiggered," said the cattleman, as the train pulled out.
"I'd a swore it was old Jetblack. Maybe 'twas. She was only a milker
anyway, and I guess she's found a home somewhere."
Gus with arm lovingly about the cow's neck walked home.
"Bossy," he said in gently reproaching tones, "how could you give me
such a skeer? I thought I'd lost you, and I'd hev sure missed you--you,
yerself--more'n I would the money your milk brings us."
Then for the first time, the lad's eyes noted the decorated horns.
"What in thunder--"
He began to unwind the ribbons of white cloth, the stringed remnants of
the surplice.
"Gracious Peter! It's the surplus! What will Amarilly say--and Lily
Rose? It's only fit fer carpet rags now. Well, if this ain't the end of
the surplus after all it has went through! I wonder what bossy wanted of
it? Thought jest cause she was a cow, she must be a cow ketcher, I
suppose."
Great was the joy of the Jenkinses at the restoration of the cow, but
there was grievous lament from Amarilly for the fate of the precious
garment.
"It was our friend--our friend in need!" she mourned.
"I'm so glad we hev a picter of it," said Lily Rose, gazing fondly at
the photograph of the Boarder in the saintly robes.
"I'll go and tell Miss King," said Amarilly the next morning. "She said
she felt that the surplice would come to some tragic end."
"It was a fitting fate for so mysterious a garment," commented Colette.
"You couldn't expect any ordinary, common-place ending for the surplice.
After officiating at funerals, weddings, shop-windows, theatres,
pawnshops, and bishops' dwellings, it could never have simply worn out,
or died of old age."
"I don't see," meditated Amarilly, "what possessed the cow. She's been
so gentle always, and then to fly to pieces that way, and riddle the
surplice to bits! It was lucky there was nothing else on the line."
"It's very simple," said Colette. "I suppose she wanted to go to the
train. Maybe she expected to meet a friend. And as nearly everyone else
had worn the surplice on special occasions, she thought she could do the
same; only, you see, never having been to church she didn't quite know
how to put it on, and I suppose got mad at it because it didn't fit her
and gave vent to her anger by trampling on it."
Amarilly's doleful little face showed no appreciation of this conceit.
"Don't look so glum, Amarilly. I have something to show you that will
please you."
She opened a desk and took a thick, white square envelope from it, and
handed it to the little girl.
Wonderingly Amarilly opened it and took out a folded, engraved sheet of
thick paper. She read eagerly, and two little spots of pink came into
her cheeks.
"Oh, oh!" she cried, looking up with shining eyes, which in another
moment glistened through tears.
"Why, Amarilly, aren't you glad that I am going to be--"
"Mrs. St. John?" smiled Amarilly. "I think it's beautiful. And,"
anxiously, "you will surely be good to--him?"
"Yes," replied Colette softly "I will be good--very good--to St. John.
Don't fear, Amarilly."
A card had fallen from the envelope. Amarilly picked it up and read:
"To be presented at the church."
"What's that?" she asked curiously.
"You have to show that at the church door. If you didn't have it, you
couldn't get in to see us married. It's the same as a ticket to a
theatre. And St. John doesn't like it; but if we didn't have them there
would be a mob of curious people who don't know us. I shall give all of
you tickets to come to the church, the Boarder and Lily Rose, too."
"Oh," cried Amarilly, "that will be lovely, and we shall all come."
"Of course you will all come. Your friend, the bishop, is to marry us,
and Bud is going to sing a solo. The choirmaster told me his voice was
developing wonderfully."
"I must go home and tell them all about it," said Amarilly excitedly.
"Wait! There's more to hear. I am going to invite you to the reception
here at the house, and I am going to have a lovely white dress made for
you to wear, and you shall have white silk stockings and slippers and
white gloves."
"Oh!" gasped Amarilly, shutting her eyes. "I can't believe it."
The next morning at the studio she announced the wonderful news to
Derry.
"I just received an invitation, myself," he replied. "We will go
together, Amarilly. I'll send you flowers and call for you with a
taxicab."
"Things must stop happening to me," said Amarilly solemnly. "I can't
stand much more."
Derry laughed.
"When things once begin to happen, Amarilly, they never stop. You are to
go from here now every day after luncheon to this address," handing her
a card.
"'Miss Varley,'" Amarilly read. "'1227, Winter Street.' Will she have
work for me, too?"
"Yes; work in schoolbooks. She takes a few private pupils, and I have
engaged her to teach you. I really think you should have instruction in
other branches than English and art and arithmetic."
Amarilly turned pale but said nothing for a moment. Then she held out
her hand.
"I will study hard--to pay you," she said simply.
"And can you stand another piece of exciting news, Amarilly? Sunset,
which I have dawdled over for so long, drew first prize."
"Oh, Mr. Derry, that is best of all!"
"And do you know what I am going to give Mrs. St. John for a wedding
present from you and me? The picture of The Little Scrub-girl."