IN "BLUE-BONNET" TIME
THE time of "blue-bonnets" had come. No matter where else in Texas the
lupin may grow, one thing is certain; there is enough of it in the
meadows around Bauer nearly every spring to justify its choice as the
State flower. This particular March, acres and acres of it, blue as the
Mediterranean, stretched away on either side of the high-roads. Viewed
from a distance when the wind, blowing across it, made waves of bloom,
it almost seemed as if a wide blue sea were rolling in across the land.
From his bed near the window Jack Ware could catch a glimpse of one of
these meadows, where the cattle stood buried up to their bodies in the
fragrant blossoms. Now and then the breeze, fluttering his curtains,
brought the odor to him almost as heavy and sweet as the smell of
locusts. He watched the picture with languid eyes which closed weakly at
intervals. They were shut when Mary tiptoed into the room, to see if
there was anything she could do for his comfort before starting out on
her usual afternoon excursion with her pupils, but they opened with an
expression of greater interest than they had held for some days as he
saw her standing there in a freshly laundered gingham. It was so blue
and white that she suggested a blooming blue-bonnet herself.
"Hullo, Finnigan," he said, with an attempt at his old-time pleasantry.
"'Off agin, gone agin,' are you? Which way this time?"
Touched almost to tears by this evidence of returning interest, Mary
explained eagerly that they were still studying about bees. She had
found a bee-tree in the Herdt pasture, and the lupin was all a-buzz with
specimens to illustrate the lesson. That was for the Wisdom part of it.
For the Strength there were some new exercises in climbing and hanging
from a low limb. The practical application of their Courtesy lesson
would be the gathering of a great basketful of blue-bonnets for the
ladies of the Guild, who wanted to decorate the parish house with them
for an entertainment to be given there.
"Oh, they're making long strides," she assured him. "Mrs. Mallory told
me that the time it rained so hard last week, and I couldn't get across
the foot-bridge at the ford to give them their usual lesson, Brud sat
down at bedtime and howled, because he said he'd have to 'count that day
lost.' The sun was down and he hadn't 'any worvey action done.' It took
the combined wits of the family to think of some worthy action he could
do at that late hour, and he finally went to bed happy. So you see my
labor hasn't been all in vain."
There was a faint gleam of amusement in Jack's eyes, but seeing that she
was about to leave him, he turned the subject by motioning toward the
table beside his bed, where Elsie Tremont's wedding invitations lay.
"Mary," he said, slowly, "would you be surprised if Phil were to come by
Bauer on his way to California?"
To her vehement avowal that such a happening would certainly surprise
her out of a year's growth, at least, he answered:
"Well, I am a good deal more than half-way looking for him. 'I feel it
in my bones' that he is coming, and coming very soon."
"Oh, Jack!" she cried in distress. "Don't look for him. Don't set your
heart on seeing him! I couldn't bear for you to be disappointed."
"Don't you worry about that," he answered, soothingly. "You run along
and pick your blue-bonnets, and if Phil _should_ happen to come walking
down the road towards you one of these days, remember the feeling in my
bones warned you. The poor old things have been so full of aches and
pains that you might allow them one pleasant sensation at least."
"But, Jack," she began again, a wrinkle of distress deepening between
her eyes. "If he shouldn't come you'd be so awfully disappointed!"
Jack's thin hand waved both her and her objections aside.
"Hike along," he insisted, cheerfully, "I merely said _if_!"
Considerably worried by what she thought was a groundless hope of
Jack's, Mary started out of the gate. His suggestion seemed to change
the entire landscape, and instead of seeing it as it had grown to look
to her accustomed eyes, she saw it as she imagined it would appear to
Phil; the cottage she was leaving behind her, the wide blue lupin
meadows ahead, the white of the wild plum blossoms mingled with the
glowing branches of the red-bud trees, in every lane and stretch of
woodland.
With her old childish propensity for day-dreaming unabated, she made
pictures for herself as she walked along towards the foot-bridge.
Suppose he really would come, and she, by some intuition of his
approach, could divine the day and hour. She would like to be all in
white when he met her, emerging from the edge of the woods with her arms
heaped up with snowy masses of wild plum blossoms, and a spray of
red-bud in her hair. Or, maybe, it would be more picturesque for her to
be standing in the boat, poling slowly towards the landing, a cargo of
wild flowers at her feet like a picture of the Spirit of Spring.
Here she broke off from her musings, saying, half aloud, "But as sure as
I posed to look like a Spring goddess I'd be looking like a young goose.
It doesn't pay for me to plan impressive entrances and meetings; they
always turn out with my looking perfectly ridiculous."
She had reached the first turn in the road by this time, and, stooping
to tie her shoe, suddenly became aware of the fact that her hands were
empty. She had started off without the alarm-clock and the magnifying
glass which she always carried on these trips. In addition she had
intended to bring a large market-basket to-day, in which to put the
flowers. The basket, with the clock and glass inside, was in her hand
before she started. She remembered she had set it down for a moment on
the front step while she went back into Jack's room, and it was what he
said about Phil's coming that made her go off without it. There was no
time to lose, so she started back, running all the way.
Snatching up the basket from the step where she found it still
undisturbed, she was starting off again, when a little bird-like cry
stopped her. It was like the softest notes of a mocking-bird.
"That provoking little wildcat is out of her cage again!" she exclaimed,
stopping to look all around. "Here, Matilda, kitty, kitty, where are
you?"
In response to her call, what seemed to be the gentlest of house-kittens
came bounding through the grass. Thinking it would be less trouble to
take it along than to carry it back to its cage in the woodshed when she
was in such a great hurry, Mary caught it up in her arms, and once more
started down the road, one hand slipped through the handle of the
basket. It snuggled down against her shoulder, purring loudly.
"You ridiculous little atom!" laughed Mary. "I wonder what the girls at
Warwick Hall would say if they could see me going along carrying a live
_wildcat_. That will be something wild and Texasy for me to put in my
next letters. I needn't say that it weighs only twenty ounces, and that
if it wasn't for its bow legs and funny little bobbed tail and spotted
stomach one would think it was just a tame, ordinary, domestic pussy.
But you'll be savage enough by and bye, won't you? When the tassels grow
on your ear-tips and your whiskers spread out wide and your spots get
big and tigery!"
Two soft paws reached up to tap her face, and she gave the furry ball in
her arms an affectionate squeeze. She had never cared especially for
kittens, but this little wild one with its coquettish ways had
wonderfully ingratiated itself into her affections in the week she had
owned it. Mrs. Barnaby had brought it in from the ranch. Cousin Sammy
had found eight of them in the woods after Pedro had killed the old
mother cat, caught in the act of carrying off one of the turkeys. This
was the only one that lived. Mrs. Barnaby could not keep it, because,
tiny as it was, it toddled around after the chickens and put even the
big Plymouth Rock hens to flight. So she brought it in to Mary, and
Mary, feeling particularly forlorn that day, welcomed the little
orphan, because its lonely state gave them a bond in common.
The day it came happened to be her eighteenth birthday, with nothing to
mark it as a gala occasion except a handkerchief from her mother and a
string of trout from Norman. He had gone out before daylight to catch
them for her breakfast. Joyce's present did not arrive until the next
day, and the round-robin letter from Warwick Hall was nearly a week
late. Not until after the sorority was seated at its annual St.
Patrick's Day dinner, did they recall the double celebration they had
had the year before. The letter was written then and there, passing
around the table with the bonbons, that each one present might add a
birthday greeting. Then Dorene, to whom it was entrusted, forgot to post
it for several days. It was a joy when it did come, but the anniversary
itself, before the letter reached her, was a disappointing day.
She had always looked forward to her eighteenth birthday as being one of
the most important milestones of her life; not so important, of course,
as one's graduation or début or wedding, but still a day that should be
made memorable by something unusually nice. Years ago Jack had promised
her a watch on her eighteenth birthday, a little chatelaine watch with
a mother-of-pearl case, like the one the old Colonel had given to Lloyd.
But when the time came Jack did not even know that it was her birthday.
He never looked at the calendar since their weary, monotonous days had
grown to be all alike. She did not show him the handkerchief or tell him
that the delicious fish which they had for breakfast was in honor of any
especial occasion. In no way did she refer to its being the seventeenth
of March.
She ironed all morning and took the children out in the afternoon, as
usual, and nothing made the day different from an ordinary one, only
that she felt very old and grown up, and thought now and then a little
pityingly of her early expectations and the way they had turned out. In
a vague sort of way she was sorry for herself, till Mrs. Barnaby came in
with the baby wildcat, which she jokingly offered as a St. Patrick's day
greeting.
Mary immediately named it Matilda, for Mrs. Barnaby, and for the
civilizing effect such a tame, gentle sort of name ought to have on a
wild creature. In watching it and laughing over its playful antics she
forgot to feel middle-aged and sorry for herself.
As long as someone could keep an eye on it to prevent its straying away
after any animal that passed the house, it could be allowed the liberty
of the place, but whenever Mary went off for a long time it had to be
fastened in its cage. This was the first time she had taken it with her
for an afternoon's outing, and as she hurried down the road with it in
her arms, the knowledge of what she was carrying gave her the first
feeling of adventure that she had had since coming to Texas. "It's all
been as tame as an old Tabby and a teapot," she thought. She had
pictured Texas as a land of cowboys and round-ups and thrilling frontier
experiences. She had found only the commonplace and conventional, so
that there was a source of satisfaction in the fact that, at last, she
had captured something untamed and savage.
As she reached the foot-bridge a party on horseback came down the
opposite bank to cross the ford. She recognized the young fellow in the
lead as a boy from the East who had been staying at the Williams House
several months. Evidently he also had expected to find Texas a land of
adventure. Soon after his arrival he appeared in the quiet streets of
Bauer attired like the cowboy of a Wild West show. That he was a
tenderfoot was amusingly apparent to the natives. Everything proclaimed
it, from his awkward seat in his creaking new saddle to the new rope
coiled around the horn of it. He could have no more use for a lariat
than for a tomahawk, but he never rode without it. He had his picture
taken in full paraphernalia, from his spurs to the rattlesnake skin band
on his rakish sombrero, to send back home to show what a sport he had
become; and his cup of satisfaction brimmed over when a still more
recent tenderfoot took a snapshot of him, evidently considering him the
"real thing."
He had three Eastern girls with him this morning, whom he was trying to
impress with stories of his recklessness and prowess, and of the dangers
one daily encountered in a new country. He had met Norman and he knew
Mary by sight, and had heard of her odd pet. As they approached her he
said, in a tone which she could not fail to hear, although he lowered
his voice:
"There's mighty little out here that is tame. Lots of people keep foxes
running around their premises instead of rat-terriers, and when they can
get a wildcat they always prefer them to tame mousers."
"Now, Dexter, stop stuffing us," one of the girls exclaimed. "I don't
believe a word of it!"
"It's the truth," he insisted. "That very young lady over yonder on the
foot-bridge could tell you so. That isn't a kitten she is carrying. It
is a young wildcat."
The next instant the girl was splashing through the water across to
Mary, calling, "Excuse me, but _is_ that a wildcat? I can't believe it!"
Mary had heard the conversation, and her face dimpled with amusement as
she held Matilda up to view, saying, "Certainly. See how beautifully she
is marked." She pointed out the various signs which proved her claim.
The girl gave a little shriek. "For mercy sakes!" she exclaimed.
"Suppose it should get loose! What a dreadful country! Aren't you
afraid?"
Assured that Mary was not in the least afraid, she dashed up the bank
after her laughing escort, who thereafter had no trouble in convincing
her that his most daring tales were true, since Matilda had proved the
truth of his first one.
Mary looked after them almost enviously. When she first came to Bauer
she had had faint hopes of sometime being able to join a riding party
like that. She had seen girls going by often from the hotel, and had
told herself that, before the winter was over, she intended to find some
way to earn enough to hire a horse one afternoon of every week. And that
time when she visited Gay, and Roberta talked of saddles while she
combed Mary's hair, Roberta had said that she would ride up to Bauer
sometime after Christmas; all her "crowd" would go, and they would stay
several days at the Williams House, and Mary was to show them the
country.
Gay had promised several visits, and Mary had looked forward to them
more eagerly than she knew, till word came soon after New Year that the
Bauer trips would have to be postponed indefinitely. Roberta had gone to
the coast for the rest of the winter, and Gay expected to spend several
months with her sister Lucy, Mrs. Jameson Harcourt, in Florida.
It seemed to Mary that there had been disappointment for her in her
Texas winter every way she turned. True, Gay was home now, and they had
had two pleasant days with her, once when she and Alex Shelby came up to
announce their engagement, and cheered Jack up so wonderfully. But Gay
wasn't interested in horseback riding with "the crowd" any longer.
Besides, the Ware fortunes had taken such a turn that the money she had
succeeded in earning had to go for more necessary things than saddles
and horse-hire and a pretty habit.
As Mary glanced after the departing cavalcade once more the sight of
them suggested a new picture that appealed to her as an interesting way
to meet Phil in case he should come. It would be so picturesque to be
galloping down the road on a mettlesome black horse in a pretty white
riding habit like those girls were wearing. White, with a scarlet
four-in-hand and a soft fold of scarlet silk around the crown of her
wide-brimmed white hat. Phil had been such a dashing horseman himself,
and had owned such a beautiful animal when they were out on the desert,
that maybe he would be more interested in an approach made that way,
than one in a boat with a cargo of wild flowers. She walked along
slowly, considering the question, till Brud and Sister hailed her.
Meanwhile Jack was saying to his mother that it wouldn't have been fair
to the kid to let her get away without some inkling of the truth.
"She'd have been terribly upset if I'd have told her that they are due
here this afternoon, and she'd have been equally upset if they had
walked in on her without any warning. But the hint I gave her will start
her to thinking about them, so she will not be altogether surprised when
she sees them."
He had waited until Mary left the house before breaking the news to his
mother that he expected Alex Shelby to come sometime during the
afternoon, bringing Doctor Tremont and Phil. But even then he did not
mention the faint hope which had buoyed him up night and day since
Alex's first visit. He had faith in the young physician's ability, but
not until the older one confirmed his opinion would he allow himself to
share that hope with any one else, lest it prove without foundation.
With his eyes on the clock he lay counting the minutes until their
arrival. He was deliberately forcing himself to be calm; to take slow,
even breaths, to think of everything under the sun save the one thing
which set his pulses to beating wildly and sent a thrill like fire
tingling through him. He lay there like a prisoner in his dungeon who
hears footsteps and new voices approaching. They might mean that
deliverance is at hand, or they might pass on, leaving him to the
blackness and despair of his dungeon for the rest of his life. In a
like agony of apprehension he watched the pendulum swing back and forth,
and listened to the slow tick! tock! till his suspense grew almost
unendurable.
One hand clasped and unclasped a corner of the counterpane in a paroxysm
of nervousness. He lay with his face turned away from his mother, and
she, busy with her endless sewing over by the side window, did not guess
what great effort he was making to retain his outward composure. She saw
his eyes fixed on the clock, however, when she rose to get a spool that
had rolled away, and feeling his restrained restlessness she tried to
think of something to talk about which would make him forget how slowly
time was passing. Subjects of that kind are rare, when two people have
been constantly shut in together for a year, and while she considered, a
long silence fell between them. It was broken by a demand, almost
querulous, from Jack; the same cry that had aroused her in the night,
when he was a little boy, suddenly awakening from a scary dream.
"_Sing to me, mother!_"
It had been years since she had heard that cry, and the long form
stretched out under the white covers bore small resemblance to the
little one that had summoned her then, but she answered in the same
soothing way:
"All right, little son, what shall I sing?"
She smiled as the same tremulous answer came now as it had then.
"Why, sing _my_ song! Of course!"
She did not rise as had been her custom, to go to his bedside and hold
his hand while she lulled him back to sleep with her low humming, and
the blessed consciousness of her nearness. He was a grown man now, and
it was broad daylight. But instinctively she felt his need was greater
than it had ever been, and her voice took on its tenderest soothing
quality as she began to croon the old hymn that had always been his
chosen lullaby, when he was tucked to sleep in a little crib bed.
"Pilgrims of the Night," she sang:
"'Hark, hark, my soul! Angelic songs are swelling,
O'er earth's green fields and ocean's wave-beat shore.'"
Glancing across, she saw his drawn face relax a trifle, and he snuggled
his thin cheek contentedly against the pillow. High and sweet her voice
rose tremulously:
"'Angels of light,
Singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night.'"
The song had many associations for them both. What he was thinking about
she could not guess, but when she began the third verse:
"'Far, far away like bells at evening pealing,'"
her own thoughts were back in that time when she rocked in her arms the
dearest little son that ever cuddled against a mother's shoulder. She
was recalling time after time when she had held him so, telling him
good-night stories, listening to his funny little questions and baby
confidences, and kissing the dimpled fingers clasped in her own when he
knelt to lisp his evening prayer.
He had always been a comfort to her, even in the boisterous outbreaking
days that are the most trying in a boy's growing-up time. There had
never been a noisier boy, or one who threw himself into his play with
more headlong vigor, but, in a flash, scene after scene passed through
her mind, showing him both at work and play as she had prayed he might
be, strong and manly and clean and absolutely fearless either of fists
or opinions. Then she thought of his touching consideration of her when
he tried "to take father's place behind the plow." He had been a tower
of strength to her from that day on. What a future she had dreamed for
him, and now in the high tide of his young manhood, when he should have
years of conquest and achievement ahead of him, here he was a helpless
cripple!
"Rest comes at last, though life be long and dreary,
The day must dawn, and darksome night be passed."
Her voice faltered almost to breaking now, as she sang on, rebelling at
the thought that his life which promised so fair, should have been made
long and dreary, changed so hopelessly and so suddenly into darksome
night. It seemed so cruel, she thought, with a tightening of the throat
which made it almost impossible to finish the song. But supposing from
the peaceful expression of Jack's face that he was falling asleep, she
sang bravely on to the end, although the tears were dropping down on the
seam in her now idle hands.
"Angels sing on, your faithful watches keeping,
Sing us sweet fragments of the song above,
Till morning's joy shall end the night of weeping,
And life's long shadows break in cloudless love.
Angels of Jesus,
Angels of light,
Singing to welcome
The pilgrims of the night."
Looking across as the last note died away, she thought he was asleep,
and rose to draw down the window-shade. But as she tiptoed past him he
opened his eyes and held out his hand to draw her to him.
"Little mother," he said with a wistful smile that made her bend hastily
over him and kiss his forehead to hide the trembling of her lips. "I'd
like you to know in case anything should happen--sooner than we
expect--that that's the way I think of death. It's a going out into the
dark--but it's only going as a 'Pilgrim of the night.' I don't mind it.
It'll not be lonesome. They'll be singing to welcome me."
In answer to her cry, "Oh, Jack! Don't!" he drew her cheek down against
his, and as he felt it wet with tears he said, lightly:
"Why, mother mine, that's nothing to cry about. I've always looked
forward in a way to that ever since I can remember. That song always
brings up the most comforting picture to me--a procession of friendly
white angels coming down the dark road to meet a frightened little boy
and lead him home!"
She held him close a moment, not finding words wherewith to answer him,
but feeling that he understood all that was left unspoken in her heart.
She wanted to hold him thus, always, so tightly that he could not slip
away on that pilgrimage he faced so confidently, that pilgrimage from
which he could never return to her.
While she clung to him thus, a noise outside brought them back to the
things of earth. An automobile, speeding up the road, had stopped at the
gate. Mrs. Ware glanced out hastily. As she saw the three men striding
up the path her first thought was one of housewifely dismay. She
wondered how she could stretch the simple supper she had planned for
that evening, into enough for these unexpected guests. If Jack had only
given her a little longer notice--
But that thought was immediately thrust aside in her pleasure at seeing
Phil again. It was the first time since the day she bade him good-bye in
the little wigwam sitting-room, and sent him out with her Godspeed to
make a man of himself. His waywardness had given her a motherly interest
in him, and now, her quick glance showed that he had not disappointed
her, that he had kept every promise. She welcomed him with a welcome
that made him feel that this was a real home-coming, so that he called
out to the distinguished-looking, gray-haired old doctor just behind
him, "Now, Daddy, you see for yourself how it was!"
Mrs. Ware ushered them at once into Jack's room. She knew he was
waiting impatiently to see them, but did not dream how much was at
stake. It was nearly half an hour later when Phil discovered that he was
thirsty, and asked the way to the well. Mrs. Ware led him out through
the kitchen, picking up a pitcher and tumbler as she went. The windmill
was in motion, and while the water was gushing from the pump spout into
the pitcher Phil said, meaningly, "Well, Aunt Emily, your prodigal has
come back."
"Yes," she responded. "It makes me glad and proud to see how my faith in
him has been justified. But, oh, boy, why didn't you give me a little
warning, so that we might have had time to make ready a 'fine, fatted
calf?' Jack never told me until a few minutes before you arrived that he
expected you."
"I'd rather have the pleasure of surprising you all than to share in a
fatted calf, any day. Besides, there won't be an occasion for trotting
out such a commodity. Alex will be going back to San Antonio in less
than an hour. You see he has only a few more days to spend with his lady
love, as he is due in Kentucky the last of this week. He can't afford to
miss even one of these gorgeous moonlight nights. Daddy is so tired with
his trip and thinking of the strain ahead of him that he is in no trim
for visiting. On the way here we stopped at the Williams House and
engaged rooms for to-night. I promised him that he needn't stay up for
supper, could take it in his room and turn in soon after we had made a
short call here. You see he didn't sleep at all coming out here, so he
is considerably worse for wear. He's very much interested in Jack's
case, and thinks something may be done to relieve his suffering, so
maybe it will be as well for us to stay out here a bit and give them a
chance to look him over."
From the quick lighting up of Mrs. Ware's face it was evident that such
a hope was a new one to her. Jack had not mentioned the prospect of an
operation, so Phil left the subject as quickly as possible, beginning to
tell her of his last visit to Joyce. As he had come directly from her
Mrs. Ware found so much to question him about, that she was surprised,
when Alex Shelby joined them, to find that they had been leaning against
the windmill tower for more than half an hour, too interested to think
of finding a seat.
Alex's face was glowing, and he looked across at Phil with a nod of
elation. "Your father confirms my opinion, Phil, so I'll be starting
back at once."
When Mrs. Ware found out Doctor Tremont's real purpose in coming, she
was thankful that Jack had spared her all those days of anxiety and
apprehension that would have been hers had she known of the operation
earlier. As it was there would be only one night in which to dread it.
Alex was coming back in the morning with a nurse and it would all be
over by noon of the next day. Now she understood their consideration in
going to a hotel. It was not so much that Doctor Tremont was in no
condition for visiting, as that they knew that any guests, no matter how
much desired, would be a burden on the eve of such an event.
Jack's room was already nearly as bare and clean as a hospital ward, but
there would still be much to do before the surgeons could begin their
delicate and vital task. So when Alex Shelby went away, Doctor Tremont
went with him as far as the hotel. Phil was to follow later after he had
seen Mary and had the pleasure of "surprising" her.