DRIFTING
“Now Autumn’s fire burns slowly along the woods,
And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt,
And night by night the monitor blast
Wails in the keyhole, telling how it passed
O’er empty fields, or upland solitudes,
Or grim wide nave; and now the power is felt
Of melancholy, tenderer in its moods
Than any joy indulgent Summer dealt.”
—Allingham.
The autumnal days were nearly gone, and occasionally was felt the sharp
tooth of the biting wind as it swept over the open prairie and drove the
Westerner into his cabin, with a tingling warning in his ears that
winter was soon to come. Then again the sun would shine brightly and the
soft graces and tints of Indian summer would brighten the landscape.
The weeks had brought a degree of calmness and resignation to Elinor
Wylie, and to Tibby varied experiences. For some reason, though Donald
Bartram spent most of his spare time with her, she preferred not to be
recognized as the object of his affections. Poor Esther McCleary’s
disappearance was too recent, and although nothing definite had been
known as to Donald’s interest in her, the gossips of the neighborhood
had been pleased to couple their names together.
It was not certain that Esther was dead. She might purposely have hidden
herself from Professor Russell, and if so might return at any time, now
that the man came no more to the community.
It ill became Donald to give so much time to this fair enchantress who
deserved so little consideration from him. Of all the provoking,
undisciplined minxes, Tibby appeared the worst. Alice and Nellie
wondered daily at his forbearance, and commented on Tibby’s behavior.
As for Donald himself, he was drifting with the tide of events, and the
pastime pleased him too well to care to interrupt it by very serious
thoughts or determinations. Tibby was interesting. He enjoyed her
society. That was sufficient.
To-day he had claimed Tibby for a ride to the post, and as they came
cantering slowly along the soft gray turf, Tibby with her riding-hat
tipped back from her wide, smooth forehead, her feline eyes half closed
from the sun’s bright rays, her dark hair partly escaped from comb and
pin, and fluttering in curled rings about her face, her red lips half
parted above the white teeth, she looked to the man a disheveled Hebe,
too adorable, too incomprehensible to withstand.
His eyes flashed with a new resolution as he rode up close by her side.
“Miss Tibby, were you never serious in your life,” he asked, bending
toward her.
The girl slackened her horse’s pace and looked over and past him
reflectively.
“Yes, once,” she said at last, as if she had taken time to review her
life from the beginning.
“I should like to know when it was.”
“Well, I will tell you, though it is a very impertinent question for you
to ask, and I feel under no obligation to answer it. It was when I lived
in the country and had an attack of quinsy. I couldn’t speak for three
whole days, and the village doctor diagnosed my case as diphtheria. I
expected to die, of course, and I really felt quite serious and anxious,
I must confess.”
“You had reason to, if you could not talk,” Donald replied in a dry
tone.
“So I thought. When one can neither talk nor breathe, one has time for
serious reflection. Now, please, Mr. Bartram, don’t say anything about
the delight of my friends under the circumstances, for I think I have
heard something of the kind before. I wrote notes to them.”
“That must have been delightful.”
“For them or me?”
“Both. Miss Waring, why are you so unlike other girls?”
Tibby opened her eyes to their widest extent.
“You alarm me, Mr. Bartram,” she said. “How am I different? I’ll wager
two bits that I know. It’s these freckles on the side of my nose.” She
turned her head toward him with a bewitching air of candor. “I don’t
mind them, indeed I don’t. Besides, they are not there all the time,
only since I came here and rode about in the sun and wind so much.”
“I am afraid you are incorrigible. You know very well that’s not what I
mean.”
“O, isn’t it?” ruefully. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me how I am
at fault. I don’t want to be told. I—am very sensitive, as sensitive as
a—a nettle, so please do let me down easy, that’s a good fellow,” she
said in a wheedling tone.
“You are not sensitive. You don’t care what any one says or thinks of
you.”
“Don’t I? Then I must be desperately wicked. My mother used to say that
Don’t Care represented total depravity.”
“It is evident you do not care what I think of you,” Donald said,
looking straight before him.
“Mr. Bartram, your discernment is wonderful; or is it intuition?
Whichever it is, you arrive at correct conclusions. What did you kill
when you went hunting last week? Lovely little birds, whose song has
been wantonly stilled forever?”
“Indeed, no. I am not so wicked as to kill song birds, not even though
heartless women delight to decorate their hats with their dead bodies.”
“Ugh, I do not,” said Tibby, with a shudder. “I don’t even like women
who are thoughtless enough to wear them. They are as bad as the Indians
who love to dangle scalp-locks from their belts.”
“Granted it is thoughtlessness rather than carelessness, why do you not
make it your business to do missionary work among your fashionable
sisters and help save the birds.”
The girl shook her head slowly.
“I haven’t enough influence. I do use what I have. But it does no good.
Woman’s vanity is such that she will sacrifice even the lives of
innocent little birds for the sake of adding to her finery. O, I am
really disgusted with my sex when I think of it.”
“Why not use the other power you have and make women see this as you
do?”
Tibby looked at Donald thoughtfully.
“I’ll do it. When I get back to—”
“Civilization, you mean. Why not say it? I shall not be offended.”
“The first service I attend in church I’ll make every woman feel the
weight of the poor bird upon her hat, if possible. It shall be the
heaviest sin upon her conscience. She shall feel the ‘Thou shalt not
kill.’ But you have not told me what you did kill.”
“Nothing except prairie chickens and a gray wolf.”
“Are there wolves here?”
“Not right here, perhaps, but not many miles away. You may see them in
the gray of the morning standing on the top of the sandhills, apparently
taking a survey of the country.”
“‘The gray wolf like a sentinel stands,’” quoted Tibby. “Do you know I
don’t like to think of hunting or killing anything and I think the
reason so many accidents happen to hunters is because the spirits of the
victims come back to play mischief with the guns.”
“If you really believe that, you are a spiritist, are you not?” Donald
asked absently as he looked at the glowing face before him. “It is a
fact there are a great many accidents among hunters.”
“Yes, guns are discharged unaccountably. If we may believe the Eastern
religions that our souls are reclothed in the form of animals, why may
not one of these freed spirits avenge itself; that is, if it be
permitted to drift about in ether and overlook us?”
“Or if there is an animal’s heaven. You know Professor Russell saw the
spirit of my cat.”
“So I heard. It must have been a spirituelle cat.”
“You look very pretty with your hat tilted in that way,” Donald said
irrelevantly.
“Thank you, but such a remark is entirely foreign to the subject under
discussion and in very bad taste,” replied Tibby, with a pout of her red
lips. “To punish you, I shall not speak to you for a long time.”
“Won’t you,” he answered dreamily, his eyes partly closed against the
half-veiled sun.
“Most assuredly not,” she answered with a finality that should have been
convincing. Then as she did not speak they rode on for some time,
silently gazing, as their horses walked slowly, at the beauty of the
wonderful farm-lit expanse before them, the gray fields, the dotted
river wold, the sand hills in the distance, the adobe dwellings and the
adjacent stacks, all silently touched by the golden glory of the setting
sun.
“I like this gray landscape,” Tibby said, breaking the harmony of
silence. “Its very monotony is restful. A symphony in gray and gold. A
light gray sky, a darker ground, and a girdle of gray hills against the
horizon. The whole sun-tipped. Even the river is hidden to-day, usually
shining in evidence.
“‘The day was dying and with feeble hands
Caressed the mountain tops. The vales between
Darkened. The river in the meadow lands
Sheathed itself as a sword and was not seen,’”
quoted Donald.
“Say rather, ‘Twilight gray had in her sober livery all things clad,’”
responded Tibby. “See, the sun has disappeared.”
“I have an idea,” began Donald.
“All your own,” asked Tibby gravely, while she whipped the tall weeds by
the roadside with her riding-whip.
“No,” Donald replied pleasantly; “it is borrowed.”
“You don’t care then to pass it on.”
“No.”
Again they rode for several rods in silence, while Tibby, with wicked
insistence, punished the balsam-weeds and kept her face turned from her
companion.
“Miss Tibby.”
“Tabitha, if you please.”
“Miss Waring.”
“Ah, you are improving.”
“Is this our last ride?”
“I hope not,” she replied, looking about her in feigned alarm. “You are
not expecting the day of judgment?”
“Why not? We know not the day nor the hour—”
“O dear! What have I done now, that you should talk like judge, jury,
and executioner all in one?”
“I am a pretty good judge.”
“Of what? Live-stock?” Tibby replied pertly.
“I should not presume to judge the dead.”
“Indeed!”
“Have you enjoyed your wild sojourn here, Miss Waring?”
“Extravagantly! There are some marplots, of course,” she added, looking
at Donald and smiling wickedly. “But I really have enjoyed the summer.”
“It’s a pity this fine weather cannot always last.”
“I never did enjoy a croaker!”
“I am a weather prophet. This fine day is the herald of a storm. We
shall have few such before the winter will be upon us.”
“I am sorry. Tempest and I have been such good comrades, have we not,
old boy?” Tibby patted the horse’s neck with her gauntleted hand.
“You have kind words for everything except me,” Donald said accusingly.
Tibby laughed a ringing, merry laugh, and turned toward Donald with
shining, challenging eyes.
“The poor little man, was I unkind to him? I really didn’t know it. What
shall I say that is kind?”
“That you love me and will become my wife.” It was an unsuitable time
and place for such a demand, and Donald realized it when the words had
escaped his tongue. He had not intended to say as much at this time, and
he execrated himself for his folly.
Again Tibby’s large eyes opened to their widest extent, rebellion and
reproach in their depths.
“O, you foolish, wicked man! How you have disappointed me! Where is
Esther McCleary? O, you shifting weather-vane!”
“Don’t, Miss Tibby. Why should you ask me of Esther? You surely do not
think me responsible for her abduction. Esther was to me as to you, a
friend. I never professed to love her, or any other woman save you.”
“You are mad! You don’t know your own mind!”
“I’m afraid you do not, Tibby. Listen to me.”
“Hush! I command you!” Then, with a laugh, she touched her horse with
her riding-whip. “Race for me then!” And she was off like a rocket.
Donald accepted the challenge. Madly they flew along over the gray
sward, Tibby several yards in advance, her mellow laugh ringing back to
him as the two mustangs, evidently enjoying the fun, settled down to
their fastest paces, needing no urging. But urge as he might, Donald
could not gain the advantage Tibby had taken at the outset, and for four
miles they rode thus, until flushed, panting and defiant, Tibby drew
rein at Mark’s doorway, and reached her hands to Mark himself to take
her down from the horse.
“Why, what foolishness now? I’m afraid you’ve been racing,” he said,
noticing the heaving flanks of the horses.
“Yes,” Tibby explained, with a note of contempt in her voice, “that
presumptuous young man thought he could catch me. I hope he realizes his
folly.” And she shot a triumphant glance at Donald, who had dismounted
and stood by his horse’s head. He smiled serenely.
“Yes, when you are carried on the back of a Tempest,” he replied.
“Besides, we didn’t start fair.”
“Ah, the beaten ones always complain of a poor start, don’t they, Mr.
Cramer? I shall always ride Tempest. I can never give him up, never!—for
anything but a cyclone,” she added, with another swift glance at Donald.
Mark laughed.
“You’ll have to take him with you when you go, I reckon,” he said.
“You dear man! And you dear horse, not to stumble and betray me! What
more can I ask for in this life?”
Donald stood looking thoughtfully at Tibby for a moment while she
stroked and patted her pony, then, reaching out his hand for the bridle,
he led the horses to the stable, while Tibby, provoked at Donald’s calm
acceptance of defeat, went slowly into the house.
“I do wish I could make him angry just once,” she said to herself. “He
is so exasperatingly cool and self-controlled, I can do nothing with
him. He must think me the most undisciplined girl extant. But I beat him
in the race. What should I have done if I had not?”
Meanwhile, Donald called himself unflattering names for so far
forgetting time and place in his wooing, but smiled as he thought, “She
has challenged me to race for her, and I shall win at last. The race is
to the one with the best staying qualities, and I shall not know when I
am beaten. She is worth racing for.”