THE COMING OF THE STORM
Winter was slow in claiming sovereignty over Nebraska in the year of
which we write, and coquetted with summer through all the weeks of
November and December. Such snows as had come were light and
short-lived, and the winds had been less furious and threatening than
usual at this season of the year.
Donald and Tibby had enjoyed many rides over the gray plains and river
wold, and were apparently the best of friends, notwithstanding Donald’s
premature declaration. But their camaraderie was far from sweethearting.
It looked as if Tibby had decided to put their acquaintance on the
I’ll-be-a-sister-to-you footing.
To a less determined man than Donald this might have been disheartening,
but he had firm faith in the efficacy of persistence, and though he
never annoyed Tibby with declarations of love, he made her ever
conscious of him as the considerate, attentive lover.
As for Tibby, she badgered, cajoled, teased, and tried his temper and
patience in the manner for which girls have been noted since the world
began. Why it is that the average girl delights in such actions has
never been satisfactorily explained, the parallel of such conduct being
found only in the cat playing with the live mouse.
With Tibby the feline nature seemed fully developed, and she toyed with
the victim in her claws most exasperatingly. Never consciously had she
given Donald reason to think, or flatter himself, that she cared for him
except as a good comrade with whom to pass the winter and summer of her
sojourn in this western land.
But when Tibby behaved worst there lurked a smile of conscious power in
the unrevealed depths of Donald’s gray eyes, much to the girl’s vexation
and discomfiture, while he remained outwardly unruffled. He had entered
the race to win, and his nature was buoyant and strong. Why need he be
discouraged? Physically strong, handsome, and athletic, he was possessed
of average ability, enjoyed a good income, and his future looked
promising. Why should he fail? Thus he reasoned.
A fortuitous chain of events had thrown Donald into Tibby’s society and
kept him in close communication with her until he felt that he knew her
better, appreciated more her real worth, of nature and character, than
any one else about her. She had challenged him to win her. He would make
it the business of his life to do so.
Mrs. Wylie’s change of plans had aided him in keeping Tibby in the
community, though had she gone away he doubtless would have followed
her. The bereaved woman shrank from meeting her society friends in
Forest City, and to go to the Pacific Slope was to put her in proximity
to her recreant husband, and—sadder to contemplate—his newly wedded
wife. And Elinor had listened to her brother’s persuasions to spend the
winter in their home. Thus, much to Donald’s satisfaction, Tibby had
remained to be his daily companion in this isolated region. The world,
with its modern pleasures, seemed far away from them. He need fear no
competitor while she remained here. For this reason Donald could bide
his time, free from anxious disquietude.
“How lovely the air is this morning,” cried Tibby one day in early
January as she stepped from the door of Mark’s home and looked across
the farm-lit plains to the brightening glory of the winter sun in a sky
of cloud-fleeced blue. The low-lying ridge of hills skirting the eastern
horizon gave the effect of a mural and fortress-crowned landscape, and
Tibby’s eyes glowed with pleasure as she gazed about her.
“You should not brave, bare-headed, even the winter’s mildness,” said
Donald, who had come over early to bring a message from Lissa.
“Since when were you called Dr. Bartram?” asked Tibby mockingly.
“I was only prescribing the ounce of prevention,” returned Donald.
“O, the cure comes later, I suspect.”
“I am afraid it will have to, for one so careless as you are inclined to
be.”
“This is a lovely day for a ride. I am going to ride Tempest over to
Anna Falkner’s,” Tibby continued, ignoring his remark.
“Better not go so far. This bright morning is a weather breeder. I can
feel snow in the air.”
“Mr. Bartram, the role of mentor does not become you.”
“Think not? How am I as a weather prophet?”
“Worse and worse! One could have no faith in your predictions.”
“Not until they have been proven correct, perhaps.”
“Tibby,” said Elinor Wylie, interrupting them, “hadn’t you better come
in and make an angel-food cake this morning? Alice is busy and the girl
doesn’t know how.”
“Certainly, there’s nothing I like to do so well,” responded Tibby
cheerfully, springing up the steps and starting toward the kitchen.
“Sha’n’t I come too?” asked Donald. “I want to learn to cook; besides,
you don’t know how useful I can make myself.”
“Do you hear that, Mrs. Wylie? The audacity of the man! As chief cook I
am queen of the kitchen and no intruder dare enter its precincts.”
“Without invitation, of course. But I expect to be invited.”
“O, you do? The conceit of some people is unbearable. Well, if you will
be upon your good behavior I’ll not be inhospitable. But see that you
don’t talk too much and make me spoil the cake. What do you expect to do
to help me?”
“O, stone raisins, and build fires, and—and—look at you.”
“Stone raisins? We don’t use them in this kind of cake, you ignorant
fellow.”
“Donald sat down by the stove and watched the girl as she broke the eggs
and separated the yolks from the white, and dexterously whipped the
latter to a snowy froth; then sifted the flour.
“Whew! What a lot of eggs you use!” he exclaimed.
“The whites of eleven only, and I’ll make a gold cake of the yolks.
That’s economy.”
“Ah, I understand.”
“As you do the magic of Hermann. You wouldn’t know how to make this if
you watched me make a dozen, I am sure.”
“The whites of eleven eggs,” began Donald.
“Yes, and one glass of flour sifted five times, with a teaspoonful of
cream of tartar.”
“But cream of tartar is sour, and cakes should be sweet, shouldn’t
they?” questioned Donald.
Tibby looked at him with an expression of pitying contempt.
“I told you, you couldn’t understand it. It’s beyond your
comprehension.”
“Try me and see! What else do you put in this wonderful compound? Sugar,
of course?”
“Yes, one and one-half cups of sugar and a teaspoonful of flavoring.
That’s all.”
“O, that’s easy to remember,” said Donald, repeating it glibly.
“Good boy! You’ll do with good tuition. Then you must _beat_, not
_stir_, the sugar and flour and beaten eggs together in this way. See?”
“Yes,” answered Donald, noting with admiring eyes the movements of the
rounded wrists as she exemplified her instructions.
“And now you must put the batter into a bright cake pan, perfectly dry,
and bake fifty minutes in a slow oven.”
“But how can I tell whether the oven is slow or quick?” he asked.
“That is something beyond your comprehension. One of the things out of
your reach, you know.”
“Ah, I see! I confess I have my limitations. But what is the name of
this snowy creation? Didn’t I hear Mrs. Wylie speak of angels?”
“Certainly! This is angel’s food.”
“Ah! Food for angels, or made by them? Which?”
“Neither. It is of the earth, earthy. Even you can safely eat it.”
But Donald was watching the graceful contour of the dimpled elbow
beneath the uprolled sleeve, and did not for a moment respond to her
retort.
“Yes—ah—what is it?” he asked, recalling himself.
Tibby’s pink chin was elevated. “Shakespeare never repeats,” she said
sententiously.
“But you are not Shakespeare.”
“Well, I’m nearly the same thing. I’m bakin’,” she said with a giggle.
“O, you’re too bad! Such a pun as that is atrocious! Bacon? Oh!” And
Donald sank back in his chair and made a feint of fanning himself. “I’m
struck all in a heap.”
“Well, when young men are so impolite one feels like throwing puns, or
any handy weapon, at their heads. I may take the rolling pin next,” said
Tibby.
“Really, Miss Tibby, I beg your pardon for my inattention, but the fact
is, I was following a train of thought which was—”
“Composed of empty cars,” put in Tibby.
“No, I assure you, heavily freighted.”
“Indeed!” with an exasperating lifting of the brows. “No doubt you were
reflecting upon your past misdeeds.”
“I was thinking of you.”
“Then your thoughts were not worth questioning. Your train was surely
overloaded. To punish you, I shall bid you adieu, and go to get ready
for my ride,” replied Tibby, with a severe tightening of her pretty
lips, as she went over to the sink and began to wash the dusting of
flour from her arms and hands.
“I suppose you do not intend to invite me to ride with you,” Donald
remarked tentatively.
“No, indeed. You might take cold. And besides you prophesied a storm.”
“If you should be caught out in a blizzard I might be of some help to
you.”
Tibby turned and faced him, her mischievous, glowing eyes holding his.
“You?” she said.
“Yes, even I.”
“But if I don’t want you along?”
“I shall meekly stay at home, of course. But it strikes me you are
extremely unkind.”
“Not to myself. Besides, I do not want you to run into danger. See?” She
gave him a sidelong glance from the corner of her eyes. “Mr. Bartram, I
am going to ride and meditate all by myself to-day.”
“If I withdrew to a safe distance couldn’t you meditate at home?”
Donald looked through half-closed lids at the mocking eyes and pouting
lips before him.
“There is nothing like a canter over the prairies to aid one’s
meditation.”
“I wish I could persuade you to stay at home to-day. You are certainly
taking a great risk in going, at least in going so far.”
“It is my risk. No one else need worry about it.”
“You are of too much value to your friends to expect their unconcern in
what affects you so seriously. Even I am anxious, you see,” continued
Donald, speaking quietly.
“Even you? Of all persons in the world least interested, or ought to be.
Since when have you become responsible for my actions?”
“Since I learned to care for you more than all others.”
“Mr. Bartram, you are melodramatic. I shall not listen to you any
longer,” said Tibby, a flush dyeing her cheeks as she gathered up the
discarded apron and hung it up.
“Will you not shorten your ride and come home before the storm?” Donald
asked persistently.
“I shall not measure the length of my rides by your tape measure,”
retorted Tibby, tossing her head, while the crimson spot on her cheek
deepened; “neither shall I let you accompany me, even if you rode behind
me. Your presence would mar all my pleasure.”
Tibby felt the tactless impertinence of her words, and her eyes fell
beneath the gray ones fixed questioningly upon her.
“That’s pretty severe, if you mean it,” Donald replied, speaking with
great deliberation. “Thank you for your frank manner of telling truths,
however. It is good of you. One would rather be hit straight in the
forehead than in the back. Is it George Eliot that says, ‘Truth has
rough flavors if we bite it through’?”
“Why don’t you get angry with me?” Tibby tapped the floor impatiently
with the toe of her boot.
“Because you are trying to make me so, and besides, it isn’t my year to
be angry,” he said with a drawl, his gray eyes still upon her.
“O, you insufferable prig!” exclaimed the girl desperately. “As if the
man ever lived who didn’t get angry. Tell me, were you never angry?”
“Yes, I think so—once,” he drawled. “Yes, now I reflect upon the matter,
I remember I was once, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I’d rather
not repeat it, even to please you, Miss Tibby.”
The girl turned from him petulantly.
“I think it would please me very much,” she said. “Such even tempers are
abominable. Good-by!” And Tibby backed out of the room, waving her hand
dramatically toward him. “Dryden tells us to ‘Beware the fury of a
patient man,’ and I will run before your wrath breaks forth.”
“Is Tibby more perverse than usual this morning?” Alice asked as Donald
buttoned up his coat preparatory to departure.
“Yes, in tempting Providence by riding to the fort this morning. If I am
not very much mistaken, we are to have a small blizzard before night.”
“O! I hope not,” sighed Mrs. Wylie. “I have never experienced one, but
Alice has been telling me of blizzards, and of people perishing in them
not far from their own doors. I cannot realize such a thing possible.”
“Wait until you’ve seen one,” said Donald soberly. He shook his head as
he stepped out of doors. “Tell that wilful girl to take no chances,” he
said, turning back. “There’s surely a storm coming. She will not listen
to me.”
“Don’t forget, Mrs. Cramer, to take my cake from the oven in fifteen
minutes,” Tibby said a little later, entering the room.
“Why do you go when there is a storm coming?” inquired Mrs. Wylie.
“Who says there is a storm coming? No one but Donald, and he is a
croaker. I’m not afraid. Tempest will be a match for any storm that ever
blew.” And a few moments afterwards Tibby tripped gaily down the path to
the horse’s stable, her riding-skirt thrown over her arm, and her whole
figure alert with joyous anticipation. As she emerged upon the back of
her favorite horse and swept past the pedestrian, Donald, she called out
saucily:
“Isn’t a Tempest more in evidence to-day than a blizzard, Mr. Bartram?”
Donald waved his hand at her, and she was gone, her low, rich laugh
coming back to him in the moist air.
Before Donald reached Nathan’s the sky had begun to be flecked with
clouds, light and fleecy, that seemed to speed swiftly high in the air.
Then he felt drops of rain that seemed to come out of the somewhere. At
intervals the sun would shine brightly and warm. As the hours wore away
Donald’s anxiety increased.
Lissa looked out at three o’clock, to see the sky overcast with clouds,
and large scattering flakes of snow floating about in the chill air. At
the same moment Donald rode up from the stables on the back of his
favorite horse, Duke, a large, powerful animal, of great intelligence
and endurance.
“I am going over to Mark’s, Lissa,” he cried, “to see if Tibby has
returned. Within a half hour it will be impossible to see a rod ahead of
one. If that wilful girl should attempt to start back in the face of the
storm, as she is almost sure to do, she can never get home alone. Don’t
go out of doors yourself. I’ve made all secure at the stables. If Tibby
has returned I shall be back in a few moments. If not, I shall go to
meet her.”
Lissa’s face paled.
“I know the danger, Donald. I hope, oh, I hope you’ll find her all right
at Mark’s!”
Donald was already far down the road, when the wind, suddenly veering,
swept the house with such a shock Lissa was glad to close the door and
draw up to the great stove for warmth.
A few moments later Donald was at Mark’s door, and the swift-falling
snowflakes were already obscuring the landscape when he rapped with his
riding-whip and met the startled face of Mrs. Cramer.
“Has Miss Waring returned?” he asked anxiously, searching Alice’s
countenance.
“No, and I am becoming worried about her. She would be sure to start
home when she saw the storm coming up.”
“Yes, I am going to try to find her. The wind is rising fast. Can you
lend me a couple of blankets?”
Alice flew to an adjoining room, and quickly returned with a bright
woolen parcel, which Donald strapped to his saddle securely, while a
wild gust of wind swept past him and struggled and tugged with him for
their possession.
“Why are you carrying your rifle?” Alice asked, noting his strange
accoutrement.
“I will tell you,” said Donald, again seating himself firmly in the
saddle. “Have you a gun here?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“And you know how to use it?”
“Most assuredly.”
“Then you must help me to find my way. I want you to fire it every time
you hear the report of my rifle. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Don. Do you think the danger is so great?”
“Yes, we are in for a furious storm. Now remember, answer all my
signals, and—if you should not hear from me for a time, keep firing
every few moments anyway.”
“Yes, Don. Heaven help you to find Tibby and bring her home safely to
us!”
A moment later Donald was lost to view in the whirling, swirling masses
of snow that filled the air, and Alice, taking down the heaviest gun
from the wall, examined it carefully, and loaded it with a charge of
powder.
“What are you doing with that gun, Alice?” asked Mrs. Wylie, who,
hearing the sound of voices, had risen from her couch and now came into
the room.
“I am going to answer Donald’s signals to guide him through the storm.”
Mrs. Wylie’s eyes opened wide with alarm.
“But why has Donald gone out in it?” she questioned, looking from the
window into the impenetrable, snow-filled air.
“To find Tibby, Elinor.”
Mrs. Wylie sank down in a chair and pressed her hands to her side, while
her lips grew white.
“Why—Alice, do you suppose Tibby can be out in this terrible storm? I
have been sleeping and did not realize it was upon us until the gusts
struck the house and I heard you talking with some one—Donald, was it?”
“I hope, Elinor, that Tibby has not started out in this, but if she has
she may lose her way and freeze if some one does not find her. I have
been very uneasy about her for some time.”
“Oh, how dreadful, dreadful!” And as Mrs. Wylie continued to gaze out
into the opaque snow-world about her she began to realize for the first
time what a western blizzard might mean. “Why did I not have sense
enough to keep that child at home?” she moaned. “I shall never forgive
myself if she is lost.”
“We should both of us have seconded Donald’s caution, I’m afraid,”
replied Alice. “I am not so weather-wise as he, yet I should have known
what such a morning in midwinter portended here. Tibby delights in
teasing Donald, and of course would not heed his warning; but she would
have listened to us had we been persistent.”
“I don’t know. I’m afraid I am the one who always listens to her. I
don’t see why she treats Don so,” Mrs. Wylie said.
“Don’t you? I think I do. It is because she cares for him, and will not
acknowledge it, even to herself. But do look at the storm, Elinor. Is it
not terrifying? Where does all this snow come from? The ground is
already heavily sheeted with it. And listen to the wind. How it wails
and shrieks, buffets and pounds. We are fortunate in being safely
housed, Elinor.”
“But if Tibby is out in it! Oh, I cannot bear the thought!”
“Hark! there is the report of Donald’s rifle. I must answer it.” And
Alice sprang to the window, and raising it a little way, put forth the
heavy gun and discharged it, its detonation bringing an answering shriek
from Mrs. Wylie.