[Illustration: “A GIRL WHO SAT--ON A LOW STOOL.”]
A FRONTIER KNIGHT
_A STORY OF EARLY TEXAN
BORDER-LIFE_
BY
AMY E. BLANCHARD
ILLUSTRATED BY
WILLIAM F. STECHER
[Illustration]
W. A. WILDE COMPANY
BOSTON AND CHICAGO
_Copyrighted 1905_
BY W. A. WILDE COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
A FRONTIER KNIGHT
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE OLD KENTUCKY HOME 9
II. FIDGETTY LOU 24
III. THE CHASE 40
IV. OFF TO THE WAR 56
V. IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT 71
VI. FIDGETTY LOU MAKES A DISCOVERY 87
VII. WHEN IRA WAS “SKEERED” 106
VIII. ANOTHER ADVENTURE FOR ALISON 125
IX. WITH HANNAH MARIA 144
X. A RAFFLE 163
XI. LOU’S WEDDING 183
XII. A CLUE 200
XIII. NEAL’S LETTER 217
XIV. WHY BLYTHE WAS LATE 232
XV. SIR KNIGHT 246
XVI. A NORTHER 262
XVII. ALISON AWAKES 279
XVIII. LOLITA 294
XIX. THE RETURN OF SIR ARTEGALL 310
XX. NEW HOMES 327
A FRONTIER KNIGHT
CHAPTER I
THE OLD KENTUCKY HOME
The sun was shining gloriously across level sweeps of blue-grass
meadow-land, and sending its beams through the windows of a plain,
substantial, country house, where it made squares of brightness on the
whitewashed walls, sharply outlining the shadows, and touching to gold
the fair hair of a girl who sat motionless on a low stool near the
window. She was thinking intently and did not heed the entrance of an
older girl who glanced at her with a smile and began to busy herself
about the room.
Finally the girl at the window gave a deep sigh and stretched her hands
above her head. “Oh, is it dinner time, Christine?” she said.
“Very near,” was the reply. “What a brown study you were in, Alison;
you must have been miles away.”
“And so I was. I must decide, you know.”
“Yes, I do know.” There was a serious note in Christine’s voice. “And
have you decided?” she asked after a pause.
“Yes.” The girl arose and came to where her sister stood. She laid her
hands on the shoulders of the other and looked steadfastly into the
clear eyes. “I am going with you and John,” she said. “There are just
the three of us, and I cannot be separated from you, even though I have
this home for always, mine at Aunt Miranda’s death and all its comforts
while I live here. I have thought it over. I have thought of the days
which will go by all alike; everything just so, all cut and dried; up
at such an hour every morning; hot rolls for breakfast on Wednesdays
and Saturdays, cold bread on Mondays. Every chair set at exactly such
an angle, Aunt Miranda always with her hair parted precisely, Uncle
Brown with his whiskers curled in just such a fashion, never a hair out
of place; never any excitement; once a month the minister and his wife
to dinner; once a year a day in town; twice a year house-cleaning; no
adventure, no fun, nothing but dull monotony and commonplace comfort.”
“But Aunt Miranda is good and kind in her way, and Uncle Brown is just,
if he is particular and a trifle near.” Christine felt it her duty to
plead their cause.
“Then don’t you want me?” said Alison wistfully.
“Want you?” Christine’s arms went around her. “Think how I shall want
you when we are away off there amidst strangers; when John must leave
me alone in our little cabin and I am homesick and yearning for just
one glimpse of my little sister. Think how I shall want you.”
“Then there is nothing more to be said.” Alison moved away and began to
set the dishes on the table.
“Yes, there is. I can’t be selfish about it, and I must show you the
advantages offered you here: a comfortable home where the larder never
fails, where the flour barrel is never empty; where the potatoes and
turnips and apples are plentifully stored away every year; where the
hogs are killed in due season and the preserves put up; where all is
orderly and exact. Uncle Brown is a good provider if his wife does not
have much ready money to spend on fripperies. I may not be able to have
more than one frock of blue jeans a year.”
“We shall be as well dressed as our neighbors, no doubt,” replied
Alison.
“And though you may have to help Aunt Miranda as a daughter should,
you will have one more year of schooling, and you will have neighbors,
young people, who are not such a very great distance away,” Christine
continued her argument. “Our settlement may be miles from any other and
there may be only married couples there.”
“But you will be there, and so will John, and--Fidgetty Lou.”
“Why, what do you mean, Alison?” said Christine in surprise.
“Fidgetty Lou declares she is going if you do.”
“But we can’t take her.”
“She says she is going,” repeated Alison. “I think that is a great
inducement. No one makes better biscuits and flapjacks. She will be a
great addition to our household, I think.”
“But if we do not take her how will she ever get there?”
“She says she can find a way, and she says furthermore that she has
worked all these years for nothing but her board and clothes, so she
doesn’t see why she cannot do it a while longer, if she chooses to.”
“John will never consent to taking all three of us; he will be
delighted if you go, but Fidgetty Lou----” She shook her head, and
Alison laughed.
“Settle it between you,” she said. “I am going, anyhow, for if Fidgetty
Lou has the courage to face the uncertainty of pioneer life, why
should not I? Especially since my nearest and dearest will be with me.
Fidgetty Lou has no such tugging at her heart-strings.”
“It will be a blow to Aunt Miranda to lose you both.”
“She has never had me to lose, for I am here only on a visit; it was so
understood from the first, and at the end of the three months I was to
decide whether I would accept the offer of a home here, an offer which
I am made to understand is of great advantage. I am very sure that
Uncle Brown will not omit every morning to pray openly for the ‘young
pensioner upon our bounty.’ I shall never be allowed to forget, even
on Sundays, that I am a pensioner, and it will be a great strain upon
me to beam gratitude when my heart is pining for you. As for Fidgetty
Lou, she has always declared that when her time was out she meant to
leave. She has never said anything else, and now that she has fallen
in love with my big sister she is determined to follow her fortunes.
You may be four years older than I, Tina, but you cannot persuade me
that my lot here will be a happier one than with you and John. It is
all clear enough in my mind and I shall tell Aunt Miranda to-night. It
will not break her heart to part with me, and so far as Fidgetty Lou is
concerned she will get another orphan to train up the way she should
go, and will rather enjoy the process.”
“Fidgetty Lou could get good wages somewhere,” said Christine
thoughtfully.
“She would rather see the world at present. Here she comes.”
Fidgetty Lou entered, arrayed in a spotless blue frock and gingham
apron. Her red hair was drawn tightly back into a hard knot; her
freckled face beamed with good-nature. A little nervous twitch of the
head alone remained as the result of an attack of St. Vitus’s dance
which had obtained for her, when a child, the nickname of Fidgetty
Lou. Behind her came Aunt Miranda, as scrupulously neat. Her black
alpaca apron covered a black stuff gown; her hair, plastered down each
side her face and tucked behind her ears, showed not a stray lock.
She looked the table over comprehensively, then replaced some of the
knives and forks, remarking that they were not laid quite straight.
“Set that dish a little more to the left, Louisa,” she ordered. “Bring
in the rest of the dinner, and then call Mr. Brown.” She looked at her
nieces critically. “I wish you would try to smooth your hair a little,
Alison,” she said. “Your uncle dislikes to see a frowsy head.”
Alison cast an amused glance at her sister as she hastily tucked
under a few stray, curling tendrils which had escaped from the
confines of her neat braids. “A frowsy head!” she whispered as she
passed Christine. “I must go and wet it into sleekness or I shall be
disgraced.” The thought that she would soon escape from the lectures of
an over-particular uncle and the reproving words of a particular aunt
made her sing a little song of joy as she ran down-stairs again.
Her uncle was just coming in. “A little too noisy, Alison,” he said.
“Remember that ‘the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.’”
“Yes,” she returned brightly, “but the wise man also says, ‘A merry
heart doeth good like a medicine.’ You read that this morning, I
remember.” Alison was usually too ready to meet her uncle’s quotations
with counter-texts exactly to meet his approval, for he preferred to
adapt the Scriptures to point his own opinions. But on this occasion he
said nothing and the two passed on to the dinner-table.
Nevertheless this small passage at arms had its effect in producing
less opposition when the moment came for Alison to declare her
decision. This she did that same evening, after supper, when all were
gathered in the living-room. Save for the ticking of the big clock all
was very still. Uncle Brown was poring over his weekly paper, while
Aunt Miranda neatly patched a hole in some table linen, and Christine’s
fingers were flying along the hem of a sheet.
“Have you nothing to do, Alison?” asked her aunt disapprovingly. “Where
is your knitting?”
“I have it here,” responded Alison, producing her knitting-bag and
drawing forth a half finished sock. “I want to tell you,” she said,
speaking hurriedly, “that I have decided to go with John and Christine.”
Mr. Brown lowered his paper. “And quite rightly, Miranda,” he observed.
“Christine will need the companionship of another woman, and, if ill,
her ministrations. I am glad Alison has seen where her duty lies and
that she has chosen the rough path of industry and privation rather
than the smooth one of sleek and untroubled ease.”
Mrs. Brown looked a little surprised and was ready with her protest.
“But for a young girl like you, Alison, to go to such a place as that,
haunted by cut-throat Mexicans and lawless Indians, seems unnecessary.
Of course if one of you must go, Christine is the older and therefore
the proper one, though I must say it would be better if she could
remain in a more civilized community. As your father’s elder sister
I must object, and I am surprised that you should countenance this
decision, Ephraim.” She turned to her husband.
“I quite appreciate your sisterly concern for your brother’s offspring,
Miranda,” returned Mr. Brown, “yet viewing it from a disinterested
standpoint, I think Alison is right.” Mr. Brown had studied for the
ministry in his youth, but owing to ill health had never completed his
course. However, he had never lost a certain ministerial manner, and a
strong tendency to give opinions upon moral questions.
The farm belonged to Mrs. Brown, but was successfully managed by her
husband.
“We do not grudge you a home. I hope you understand that,” Mrs. Brown
remarked. “I should be deficient in respect to my brother, as well as
in doing my duty, if I did not offer you freely a home with me. I have
already said that having no children of my own I shall make a will in
your favor if you remain with me, though I do not wish you to think I
desire to buy your presence by favors.”
“I understand it all, dear aunt,” said Alison, quite willing to show
responsiveness to any affection which Mrs. Brown might feel for her,
“but there are only the three of us, and, as Uncle Brown says, if
Christine were to fall ill, I should be miserable if I knew I had
failed her when she needed me. I thank you very heartily, but I believe
my place is with my sister and brother.”
“We will say no more about it, then,” said Mrs. Brown, “except that if
you change your mind any time within the next two years you will find
my home open to you. I will not stand in the way of what you believe to
be your duty at the present moment, but time may work changes. When do
you expect John, Christine?”
“He thought he would be able to make all arrangements so as to be here
at the end of the week,” Christine told her.
“And we shall be ready to start next week,” Alison added.
No further reference was made to the subject that evening, but the next
day Mrs. Brown came to her nieces in a fine passion. “Which of you has
been trying to lure Louisa away?” she asked angrily.
“Neither of us,” spoke up Alison. “She told me yesterday that she was
free now, and meant either to go with us or to go to a place where she
could earn wages; then, later, she said she had decided to go wherever
we did.”
“I am sure I don’t know what John will say,” Christine put in. “He
surely cannot tote three women down to Texas, and I, for one, am very
sorry Lou has any such notion.”
Mrs. Brown was somewhat mollified. “Well, I am glad to know you have
no hand in it,” she said. “Of course I’ve known for some time that I
couldn’t expect to keep her much longer. Old Maria needs some one to
save her steps, and cannot do much out of the kitchen. I suppose I can
get another orphan bound out to me, but it is ungrateful of Louisa, I
must say, after all I have taught her. I have given her a home, too,
all these years.”
“But she has earned her board and clothes, hasn’t she?” said Alison,
ready to champion Louisa.
“Well, yes, I suppose some would say so. I should be willing to keep
her if Mr. Brown would agree to give her wages, but he will not. Maria
belongs to us, and he says we can get plenty of help without paying
wages. She is eighteen and over, and I suppose I ought not to expect to
keep her much longer.” This ended the controversy over Louisa so far
as Christine and Alison were concerned, and soon they were too busy in
preparing for their own long journey to be greatly interested in what
Fidgetty Lou meant to do.
In due time John Ross appeared. He had been steadily occupied in
arranging for the emigration to the new state of Texas, and had left
his young sisters with their relatives until he should complete his
preparations. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, keen-eyed young fellow,
rather quiet in manner but with a fund of humor much appreciated by his
comrades. He was always called Texas John in the old neighborhood, to
distinguish him from his cousin John Ross, who was about his own age,
and who, lately married, had no desire to leave Kentucky. Texas John,
at the death of his parents, had found little left for the support
of himself and sisters, so he started for Texas to look up a grant
which he thought promised a living for the three. The elder Ross had
been something of a rover, and had been killed in a struggle with the
Mexicans while serving in the effort to maintain the independence of
the young republic of Texas. Perhaps his spirit of adventure was his
son’s by inheritance, for the latter was enthusiastic in his belief
in the wild country, where, he was satisfied, were better prospects
for him than nearer home. Having placed his young sisters at school
he started off to look up his claim and after a two years’ absence
returned home, settled up affairs and was now ready to emigrate for
good.
He strode into the living-room one bright day in early October. “Ready,
girls?” he cried. “We can be off in a few days.”
Christine sprang to his arms. “Is it all settled then?” she asked
eagerly.
“All settled.”
“And do you know Alison has decided to go with us?”
He gave the younger girl a bright look. “I knew we could count on her,”
he said. “I didn’t think she would desert her brother for any old----”
“Sh! Sh!” whispered Christine, putting her hand over his mouth as Uncle
Brown entered.
“So you are really on the road to that cut-throat country,” he said to
young Ross as they shook hands.
“It’s a pretty good country from what I have seen of it,” returned
John. “It has had its little scuffles, I admit, but it’s in the Union
now and I reckon it’s in for good.”
“It may be in for bad, so far as some of us are concerned,” was the
reply. “Mexico will probably think she has a word to say on that
subject. She hasn’t acknowledged yet that Texas is anything but one of
her provinces. What will you do if she wars over it?”
“I’ll go and fight. You can’t scare me that way,” said John. “We’ve the
whole United States to back us now, and I reckon we can teach Mexico
where Texas belongs.”
Uncle Brown shook his head. “It doesn’t strike me that I’d like to live
in such an unsettled country. Just a few years ago it was a Spanish
colony, then it was an independent republic, and now it is a state.”
John looked reflectively out of the window where yellowed fields spoke
of gathered harvests. “It has had its baptism of blood,” he said. “It
has arisen from its ashes. Brave patriots have made it what it is.
My father died for its sake. He would be glad to know that his son
means to carry out what he began. When he left his family he meant to
come back for us all; it was his dream to build up a home in Texas,
and to have us grow up with it. Because he died in the struggle for
independence is the very reason that I am the more anxious to carry out
his wishes.”
The young man’s face became stern and determined. Christine crept
closer to him. Her memory went back to the time when the news came of
her father’s death at Goliad, and when her brother, pale and full of
set purpose, registered a vow to avenge his death. Seven years later
Christine had wept bitter tears at the departure of this brother to the
new republic of Texas. Returning when the young state had become a part
of the Union, he found Christine a fair, sweet young woman, and Alison
almost as tall. The recollection of all these events, during which the
elder of the two sisters had grown from girlhood to womanhood, flashed
across her memory as she leaned against her brother. She understood
and appreciated his desire to follow out his father’s plans. She was
willing to share joy or sorrow with him, and now that Alison had cast
in her lot with theirs she had not a regret.
There was another reason, too, which Christine acknowledged to no one
but herself, but which carried more weight than any other when she came
to think of going to Texas, and this was that her brother’s companion
and partner was no other than her playmate Steve Hayward, who had been
her neighbor and comrade ever since she could remember. It was he who
had carried her books to school, who had helped her with her lessons,
who had made her a ring carved from a peach stone, when she was but
eight years old, and who had promised to marry her when they two should
be grown. In later years he had not repeated the promise, but when he
went away with John he had said: “I am coming back here to get my wife,
Christine,” and she understood, without more words. Now it was she who
was going to him, and there was not a fear in her heart, even though
Uncle Brown spoke discouragingly. So she smiled up at her brother,
saying: “Tell uncle all about the arrangements, John.”
“We go from here down the river to the Red,” he began, “and when we
have landed at the nearest point, we can take wagons about twenty miles
further on where our grant lies. It isn’t as if it were an entirely
strange place, for I’ve plenty of friends there, and we have a stout
new house waiting for us. Steve has another a few rods away, and after
a while I shall be able to put up a good frame house and be as fine as
any one. We shall not be uncomfortable as it is, for we are taking all
that is necessary, and I have even such luxuries as I thought could be
easily transported, for I didn’t want the girls to feel as if they had
no part of their old home. The soil is rich, and the climate can’t be
beat. I don’t believe I am taking the girls to such a miserable place
as you would have us believe. When you hear how well we are getting
along you will be wanting to move down there yourself, sir.”
“Don’t you think it,” returned Mr. Brown. “Kentucky will never see me
desert her. Well, John, I wish you luck, though I must say I should
have more faith in your getting on if you were going to stay in the old
blue-grass country. It is good enough for me.”
John shook his head and smiled. His was adventurous youth and Uncle
Brown’s was the conservative spirit of middle age.