THE DANCE AT DEER CREEK SCHOOLHOUSE
Deer Creek schoolhouse stood in a tiny, emerald valley half a dozen
miles from Hill's Corners, some fifteen miles from Thornton's cabin, its
handful of barefooted pupils coming from the families scattered through
the valley. It was a one roomed building with two low doors and six
square windows. And yet it offered ample enough floor space and bench
accommodations for the valley dances, its one room being twenty-four
feet long and twelve feet wide, certainly over large for the single
"school marm" and her small flock, having been constructed with an eye
to just such social gatherings as the one tonight.
The teacher's desk had been taken outdoors by willing hands; the pupils'
benches stood along the walls for the "women folk" during the
intermissions; upon the slightly raised platform at one end of the room
were the chairs for the musicians, fiddler and guitarist. And upon the
floor was much shaved candle. For light there were the four coal-oil
lamps with their foolish reflectors against the walls, and a full moon
shining in through door and windows.
Thornton came late, late that is, for a country dance. It was after
nine o'clock when, riding Comet, he saw the schoolhouse lamps winking at
him through the oaks and heard the merry music of fiddle and guitar in
the frolic of a heel-and-toe polka. Already he made out here and there
the saddle horses which had brought so many "stags" so many miles to the
dance, and which stood tied to tree and shrub. Also there were the usual
spring wagons that had brought their family loads of father, mother,
son, daughter, hired man and the baby; while the inevitable cart was in
evidence speaking unmistakably of mooning couples whose budding interest
in each other did not permit of the drive in the family carry-all.
Thornton noted the vehicles as he passed them, and turned to look at the
saddle horses, saying to himself, "So-and-so is here from Pine Ridge,
So-and-so from the Corners." For hereabouts a man knew another man's
horse and saddle, or wagon, as well as he knew the man himself. So when
Thornton saw the buckboard near the door with its two cream-coloured
mares, there was at once pleasure and speculation in his eyes, and he
told himself, "Somebody is here from Pollard's."
He loosened Comet's cinch, flung the tie rope over the low limb of the
big oak near Pollard's team, and leaving his horse in the shadows, went
on to the open door.
Already the polka had come to its giddy end. Men and women, boys and
girls, old folks with white hair and young folks in knee breeches and
short skirts, laughing and talking crisscrossed the floor this way and
that seeking seats. The girls and women sinking affectedly or plumping
in matter-of-fact style down into their places, with languishing upward
looks if they be young and in tune with the moon outside, with red faced
jollity and much frankness of chatter if they were married and perhaps
had a husband and children likewise disporting themselves, made long
rows about the walls of the schoolhouse, looking for the world like
orderly flocks of bright plumaged birds in their bravery of many hued
calicos and ginghams; a gay display of bold reds and shy blues, of
mellow yellows and soft pinks, with the fluttering of fans everywhere
like little restless wings.
The men had left their partners, as custom demanded, and had gone to the
doors, energetically mopping their brows with handkerchiefs as various
in colour as the women's dresses; red and yellow silk, blue and purple,
and the eternal gaudy bandana. Thornton paused at the door, losing
himself among the men who had come out to stand there smoking or to
wander a little away in the darkness where earlier in the evening each
had hidden his personal flask under his particular bush. There would be
a good deal of drinking tonight, but then that too was custom, and there
was no more danger here of drunkenness than in those more pretentious
balls in town where men and women partake together of heady punch.
Thornton passed words of greeting with many of these men, ranchers for
the most part whom he knew well. There was Bud King, his tie a vivid
scarlet, his store clothes a blue-bird-blue, the wide silk handkerchief
mopping his flushed face a rich yellow; there was Hank James from the
Deer Creek outfit speeding away with long strides to his own bottle
under his own bush where he might conceal the tremor of the new
happiness he had but come from and drink to the big-eyed girl in the
pink dress with the cascades of baby-ribbon; there was Ruf Ettinger with
his new overalls turned back the regulation six inches from the bottoms
in a cowboy cuff that permitted of the vision of six inches of grey
trouser leg below; there was Chase Harper of Tres Pinos in the smallest
boots man ever wore, with the highest heels, their newness a thing of
which in their pride they shrieked manfully as he walked; and there was
Ben Broderick, the miner, quietly dressed in black broadcloth, looking
almost the man of the city. To him Thornton merely nodded, briefly,
knowing the man but little, liking him less. But Broderick put out his
hand, saying cordially:
"Hello, Buck. Going to shake a leg a little?"
"I might." They were just outside the door, and the cowboy's eyes
running on past the miner sought up and down the lines of chatting women
for the girl who had tempted him to his first dance in many months. He
had seen Pollard's team, but he had not seen Pollard or his niece.
Broderick watched him, smiling a little. "Have a drink, Buck?" he asked,
seeming not to have noticed the other's curtness of word and manner.
"I've got something prime outside."
"Not thirsty right now, Broderick," Thornton returned coolly.
Then he heard a man's voice from the shadows at his back, and without
turning knew that Henry Pollard was out there, just behind him. At the
same instant his busy eyes found the girl he sought.
Winifred Waverly's days in Hill's Corners had had little enough of the
joy of life in them for her; she had felt that she breathed an
atmosphere charged with forces which she could not understand; upon her
spirit had rested a weight of uncertainty and uneasiness and suspicion;
the men she saw had hard, sinister faces and seemed cast for dark,
merciless things; even her uncle appeared a strange sort of stranger to
her and she shrank from following her natural train of surmise and
suspicion when now and then she surprised a certain look upon his face
or when she saw him with the type of man with whom he mixed.
Tonight it was as though after a long period of gloomy, overcast skies,
a storm had passed and the sun had broken through. About her were light
and music, the merry faces of children and girls with everywhere joyous,
full throated, light hearted laughter. And the spirit of her ran out to
meet the simple joy of the dance, glad just to be glad again.
Thornton knew that he had found her before she turned her face toward
him. He recognized the trim little figure although now the riding habit
was discarded for a pretty gown of white which he guessed her own quick
fingers had fashioned for the dance; he recognized the white neck with
the brown tendrils of hair rebelling from the ribbon-band about her
head. And then, when she turned a little, he stared at her from his
vantage in the outside darkness, wondering if she had grown prettier
than ever in the few weeks since he had seen her, or if it were the
dress and the way she wore her hair with a white flower in it, or if he
had been half blind that other time.
There was a warm, tender flush upon her cheeks telling of her happiness.
Her eyes shone, soft in their brightness, and her lips were red with the
leaping blood of youth. She had turned to speak with Mrs. Sturgis, the
stoutest, jolliest and altogether most motherly woman in the valley, and
Mrs. Sturgis, watching her eyes and lips and paying no attention to her
words, put out her plump hands suddenly, crying heartily:
"You pretty little mouse! If I had just one wish I'd wish I was a man,
an' I'd just grab you up in my arms an' I wouldn't stop goin' until I
set you down in front of a preacher. Come here an' let Mother Mary kiss
you."
"There's a woman with brains for you, Buck," chuckled Broderick.
Thornton, though he agreed very heartily just then, did so in silence.
"It's Winifred Waverly," went on Broderick carelessly. "She's Henry
Pollard's niece, you know. A little beauty, don't you think?"
Thornton nodded. Again he had agreed but he did not care to discuss her
with Ben Broderick. The miner laughed lightly, and added for Thornton's
further information,
"As keen a dancer as she is a looker. And a flirt from the drop of the
hat! Had the last dance with her. Which reminds me I better hurry and
down my booze and get back. I'm going to rope her for the next dance,
too."
Broderick went his way for his bottle. Thornton did not speak, did not
turn, did not move that a man might see. But the fingers of the hand at
his side twitched suddenly and for a moment were tense.
"Pollard can't help being mostly rattlesnake," he muttered angrily. "But
he ought to be man enough to keep his own blood kin away from Ben
Broderick's kind. Lord, Lordy, but it's sure enough hell folks can't
help having uncles like Ben Pollard. Poor little girl!" And then,
thoughtfully, his eyes filled with speculation as they rested upon
Winifred Waverly, "Mother Mary Sturgis was absolutely right!"
Now the fiddler was tuning with long drawn bow, and the patting of the
guitarist's foot told that he was ready. Thornton, tossing his hat to
the teacher's desk just outside the door, entered the building and
strode straight to the girl. Other men were hurrying across the floor
eager to be first to ask this or that demurely waiting maiden for the
dance, but Thornton was well in the lead. He nodded and smiled and spoke
to many of the women whom he knew, but he did not stop until he came to
Winifred Waverly and Mrs. Sturgis. There he was stopped by the older
woman who had not read his intentions, and who, thinking that he was
going by, took his arm in her two plump hands.
"Why, Buck Thornton, you rascal, you!" she cried heartily. "Where you
been all year? I ain't seen you since I c'n remember. An' where you
think you're goin', stampedin' along like a runaway horse?"
"Howdy, Mother Mary," he returned as they shook hands. "I was headed
right here to see you and Miss Waverly. Howdy, Miss Waverly."
The eyes which the girl turned upon him were wide with surprise. She had
had no thought that he would come here tonight. Surely he must know that
her uncle, the man whom he had robbed, was here! And Broderick,
too--another man whom he had robbed! And how many others? And yet he had
come, he seemed careless and without uneasiness, he dared to speak with
her quite as if that which had happened in Harte's cabin had never
occurred outside of his own imaginings. He even had the assurance to put
out his hand to her! As though she would touch him!...
"Take your pardners for a waltz!" cried Chase Harper of the Tres Pinos,
he of the small boots, coming in through the door, wiping his mouth and
resuming his duties as "caller" of the dances. "Shake a leg, boys!"
The hurried progress of men in search of "pardners" became a race, boots
clumped noisily against the floor, the cowboys swooped down upon the
line of women folks, often enough there was no spoken invitation to the
waltz as a strong arm ran about a lithe waist, the fiddle scraped, the
guitar thrummed into the tune, and with the first note they were
dancing.