WASH-DAY AND WASHINGTON
IT was wash-day at Ware's Wigwam; the first that Joyce and Jack had
personally conducted, as it was the first Monday after moving from Lee's
ranch.
[Illustration: "'WE ALLEE SAMEE LAK CHINAMEN,' HE SAID"]
Out in the back yard a big tin wash-boiler sat propped up on stones,
above a glowing camp-fire. From time to time Jack stooped to poke
another stick of mesquite into the blaze, or give the clothes in the
boiler a stir with an old broom-handle. Then tucking up his
shirt-sleeves more firmly above his elbows, he went back to the tub by
the kitchen door, and, plunging his arms into the suds, began the
monotonous swash and rub-a-dub of clothes and knuckles on the
wash-board.
"We allee samee lak Chinamen," he said to Joyce, who was bending over
another tub, rinsing and wringing. "Blimeby, when we do heap more
washee, a cue will glow on my head. You'll be no mo' Clistian lady.
You'll be lil'l heathen gel."
"I believe you're right," laughed Joyce. "I certainly felt like a
heathen by the time I had finished rubbing the first basket full of
clothes through the suds. The skin was off two knuckles, and my back was
so tired I could scarcely straighten up again. But it won't be so bad
next week. Mamma says that we may draw enough out of bank to buy a
washing-machine and a wringer, and that will make the work lots easier."
A long, shrill whistle out in the road made them both stop to listen.
"It's Phil," said Jack. "He said he would ride past this morning to show
us the new horse he is going to buy. My! It's a beauty bright!" he
exclaimed, peering around the corner of the kitchen, "Come out and look
at it."
Hastily wiping the suds from his arms, and giving a hitch to the
suspenders of his old overalls, he disappeared around the house. Joyce
started after him, then drew back, remembering her old shoes and wet,
faded gingham, as she caught sight of Phil, sitting erect as a
cavalryman on the spirited black horse. From the wide brim of his soft,
gray hat to the spurs on his riding-boots, he was faultlessly dressed. A
new lariat hung on the horn of his saddle, the Mexican quirt he carried
had mountings of silver on the handle, and the holster that held his
rifle was of handsomely carved leather. While he talked to Jack, the
horse stepped and pranced and tossed its head, impatient to be off.
"Come on out, Joyce, and look at it," called Phil.
"I can't," she answered, peeping around the corner of the kitchen. "I'm
running a Chinese laundry back here. Jack says I'm no longer a 'Clistian
lady.'"
"Do you want any help?" he called, but there was no answer. She had
disappeared. Phil was disappointed. It was for her admiration more than
Jack's that he had ridden by on the new horse. He was conscious that he
made a good appearance in the saddle, and he had expected her to show
some interest in his purchase. Usually she was so enthusiastic over
everything new. The work might have waited a few minutes, he thought.
But it was not the urgency of the work that sent Joyce back to the tubs
in such a hurry. It was the rebellious feeling that swept over her at
the sight of his holiday appearance. She was tired and hot and
bedraggled, having splashed water all over herself, and the contrast
between them irritated her.
"If I have to be a Polly-put-the-kettle-on all the days of my life, I'll
just _be_ one," she said, in a half-whisper, giving the towel she was
wringing a vicious twist. "I'm not going out there to have him feel
sorry for me. He's used to seeing girls who are always dainty and fresh,
like his sister Elsie, and I'm not going to let him see me looking like
a poor, bedraggled Cinderella. It isn't fair that some people should
have all the good things in life, and others nothing but the drudgery.
"Jack doesn't seem to mind it. There he stands out in the road in his
old faded, paint-smeared overalls, and his sleeves rolled up, never
caring how awkward and lanky he looks. He's taking as eager an interest
in that horse's good points as if he were to have the pleasure of riding
it. But then Jack hasn't the artistic temperament. He likes this wild
country out here, and he never can understand what a daily sacrifice it
is for me to live in such a place. My whole life is just a sacrifice to
mamma and the children."
By the time the basket was full of clothes, ready to be hung on the
line, Joyce had worked herself up to such a pitch of self-pity that she
felt like a martyr going to the stake. She carried the basket to the
sunny space behind the tents, where the line had been stretched. Here,
with her sunbonnet pulled over her eyes, she could see without being
seen. Phil was just riding away whistling. She watched him out of sight.
The desert seemed lonelier than ever when the sound of hoof-beats and
the cheery tune had passed. Her gaze wandered back to old Camelback
Mountain. "We'll never get away, you and I," she whispered. "All the
bright, pleasant things in life will ride by and leave us. Only the work
and the waiting and the loneliness will stay."
When she went back to the house with her empty basket, Jack was rubbing
away with a vigour that was putting holes in one of Holland's shirts.
"Why didn't you come out and see Phil's new horse?" he cried,
enthusiastically. "He let me try him, and he goes like a bird. And say,
Joyce, he knows where I could get the best kind of an Indian pony for
almost nothing, at a camp near Scottsdale. It is good size, and it's
broke either to the saddle or buggy, and the people will sell it for
only ten dollars. Just think of that. It's almost giving it away. The
man who had it died, and his wife couldn't take it back East with her,
and she told them to sell it for anything they could get. Don't you
think we could manage in some way to get it, Joyce?"
"Why, Jack Ware! What can you be thinking of!" she cried. "For us to
spend ten dollars on a horse that we don't need would be just as great
an extravagance as for some people to spend ten hundred. Don't you know
that we can only buy things that we absolutely have to eat or to wear?
You've surely heard it dinned into your ears long enough to get some
such idea into your head."
"We don't absolutely have to have a washing-machine and wringer," he
declared, nettled by Joyce's unusual tone. "A horse would be lots more
use. We could have it to bring wood up with from the desert when we've
burned all that's close by. And we can't go on all year borrowing a
horse from Mrs. Lee every time we want to go to town, or have to have a
new supply of groceries."
"But you know well enough that mamma's teaching Hazel, after awhile when
she gets well enough, will more than make up for the borrowing we will
do," answered Joyce. "Besides it would only be the beginning of a lot of
expense. There'd be feed and a saddle to start with."
"No, there wouldn't! There's all that alfalfa pasture going to waste
behind the house, and Mrs. Lee has a saddle hanging up in her attic
that somebody left on a board bill. She said I might use it as often as
I pleased."
"Well, we can't afford to spend ten dollars on any such foolishness,"
said Joyce, shortly. "So that is the end of it."
"No, it isn't the end of it," was the spirited answer. "I've set my
heart on having that pony, and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll take the
place of the washing-machine and wringer. You give me the five dollars
they would cost, and I'll do every bit of the rubbing and wringing every
Monday morning. I'll borrow the other five dollars, and give a mortgage
on the pony. I'll find some way to earn enough to pay it off before the
summer is over."
Joyce shook her head. "No, a mortgage makes a slave of anybody foolish
enough to chain himself up with one, Grandpa Ware always used to say.
I'm running the finances now, and I won't give my consent. I think it is
best to get the machine, and I don't intend to change my mind. You may
get a position next fall, and then I'd be left to do the work without
any machine to help. Besides, you sha'n't run in debt to get something
that nobody really needs."
"I do need it," insisted Jack, "and I don't see why, when you are only a
year older than I am, that you should have the say-so about the way all
the money is to be spent."
"Because mamma wishes me to. Don't you see that the very fact of your
wanting to be extravagant in this case, and go in debt and load yourself
down with a mortgage shows that I have better judgment than you?"
"Oh, you've got a great head for business!" sneered Jack. "Don't you see
that it wouldn't be the same as buying something to eat up or wear out?
It's an investment. You put the money into the pony instead of the bank,
and any time you want to get it out, you just sell the beast. I might be
able to get twice as much for him next fall when the tourists begin to
come into Phoenix for the winter."
"Yes, you might, but it would be more like Ware luck for it to cut
itself all to pieces on the barb-wire fences before then, or break its
legs stumbling into a gopher hole, or founder itself by getting into a
neighbour's oat-bin. Something would be sure to happen. The money is
safe where it is, and I believe in letting well enough alone."
"Banks bust sometimes, too," said Jack, moodily, "and _I_ believe that
'nothing venture, nothing have.'"
It was the first quarrel they had had in months. Each, feeling firmly
convinced of being in the right, grew indignant with the other, and they
passed from teasing banter to angry words, and then to an angrier
silence. "It won't be any harder for him to give up what he had set his
heart on than it is for me," thought Joyce, as she hung up the last
garment. "I have to do without things I want all the time. And I'm not
going to let him think that I'll give in if he teases long enough. I
wouldn't have any authority at all over the children if I wasn't firm
with them."
As Jack emptied the last tubful of water, and stood the wash-board up to
dry, he broke the angry silence that had lasted fully ten minutes.
"Holland has a dollar in his savings-bank, and Mary has seventy-five
cents. We could all chip in with what we have, and then go without
butter or something for awhile till we'd saved enough."
Joyce only gave an impatient shrug as she replied: "Much comfort we'd
get out of a horse that everybody had a share in. If Holland felt that
he'd sunk a dollar and several pounds of butter in that pony, he'd feel
privileged to ride it any hour of the day or night, no matter who
wanted it, and he'd do it, too. You might as well give it up, Jack. It
is selfish of you to insist on spending so much on just your own
pleasure."
"Selfish!" blazed Jack. "It's _you_ that's selfish, wanting to be so
bossy and have everything just your way. I haven't asked _you_ to do
without anything, have I, or to put in any of _your_ money? And if I do
the work of the washing-machine and wringer, I don't see why I shouldn't
have what they would cost, to do what I please with. _You're_ the
selfish one!"
He banged the tub up against the tree and walked off toward his tent,
buttoning his shirt-sleeves, and muttering to himself as he went.
"Now, he'll go and tell mamma, I suppose, and worry her," thought Joyce,
as she went into the kitchen. "But I'm too tired to care. If I hadn't
been so tired, I probably wouldn't have snapped him off so short, but it
just goes to prove that we can't do without a machine. The washing is
too hard for me without one. I can't afford to get so worn out every
week. It is all right for him to offer to take the place of one. He
might keep it up for weeks, and even months, but next fall, if he should
get a position in Phoenix, the money would be spent and I'd be left
with the bag to hold. I don't think that, under the circumstances, he
has any right to call me selfish. I'm _not_!"
The word stuck in her memory, and hurt, as she dragged herself wearily
into the sitting-room, and lay down on the couch. After she had pulled
the afghan over her shoulders and buried her face in one of the pillows,
a few hot tears trickled down through her closed eyelids, and made them
smart. The kitchen clock struck eleven.
"Oh, dear!" she said to herself, "I must get up in a few minutes and see
about dinner." But the next thing she knew, Norman was ringing the
dinner-bell in her ears, shouting that it was one o'clock, and that Jack
had dinner ready, and to come before it got cold.
"Oh, Jack, why didn't you call me?" she cried. "I didn't mean to fall
asleep. I only stretched out to rest for a few minutes."
He made no answer, busying himself in carrying a hot dish of poached
eggs and toast to the table, and bringing his mother's tea. He was
carrying on a lively conversation with her.
"Still mad, I suppose," thought Joyce, when he ignored her repeated
question. "But evidently he hasn't said anything to mamma about it."
The meal seemed an unusually cheerful one, for although Jack and Joyce
had nothing to say to each other, they kept up such a chatter with their
mother, that she ate her dinner serenely unconscious of their coolness
toward each other. Afterward she insisted upon washing the dishes, so
that Joyce could take a well-earned rest, and Jack go down to the ranch
to see Mr. Ellestad's new microscope, which had just come. Joyce would
not listen to her appeal that she was perfectly able to do that much
work, and that she needed the exercise, but finally consented to her
helping wipe the dishes, while she cleared the table and washed them.
But Jack, after a little urging, started down the road toward the ranch,
to spend a long, interesting afternoon there. As he went whistling out
of sight Mrs. Ware looked after him fondly.
"I know he's the best boy in the world," she said. "I wish I could
afford to give him some of the pleasures that other boys have."
"Seems to me he has about as much as the rest of us," said Joyce,
rattling the cups and saucers in the dish-pan. But a picture rose in her
mind as she spoke, that made her wish that she had not been so cross and
so positive. It was Phil Tremont, on his horse, as he had looked that
morning, handsome, fun-loving, and free to do as he pleased, and then
in sharp contrast, Jack, standing in the road beside him, in his old
outgrown, paint-smeared overalls, his fingers red and wrinkled from the
suds, called from his work to see a pleasure in which he could not
share. Now that she was rested and refreshed by her dinner, matters
looked different. She could even see the force of Jack's argument about
the pony being an investment, and she wished again that she had not been
so positive in her refusal.
But having once said no, Joyce felt that it would not be dignified to
yield. If she changed her mind this time, Jack would think that she was
inconsistent; and such is the unyielding policy of fifteen, that she
felt that she would rather be called selfish than to admit that she was
in the wrong or had been mistaken.
It was a long afternoon. The fact that she and Jack had quarrelled kept
recurring to her constantly, and made her uncomfortable and unhappy. He
came back from the ranch at supper-time as if nothing had happened,
however, and when she asked him some question about the new microscope,
he answered with a full description that made her feel he had forgotten
their morning disagreement.
"I don't believe that he cares so much about that pony after all," she
thought. After supper, when Holland and Mary had disposed of the dishes,
she drew out the kitchen-table, and began sprinkling clothes ready for
the next day's ironing. The boys had gone to their tent. The door was
open between the kitchen and the sitting-room so that the heat might
pass in to where Mrs. Ware sat knitting by the lamp. Mary was there
also, and her voice came out to Joyce shrilly, as if she were in the
room with her.
"It seems a waste of time for me to be learning new pieces to say at
school when I know at least a dozen old ones that I recited in
Plainsville that would be new out here. But teacher picked this out for
me. She's going to keep us in at recess if we don't know our pieces
Friday. This has forty-eight lines in it, and I've only four nights to
learn it in."
"That is not bad," said Mrs. Ware, consolingly. "Only twelve lines an
evening. Read it all to me, then I'll help you with the first quarter."
Joyce stopped her humming as Mary began dramatically:
"'A Boy of Seventy-six.' That's the name of it." She read unusually well
for a child of her age, and the verses were new to Joyce:
"You have heard the story, time and again,
Of those brave old heroes, the 'Minute Men,'
Who left their homes to fight or fall,
As soon as they heard their country's call.
Let me tell you of one, unnamed, unknown,
A brave boy-hero, who fought alone.
When the breathless messenger drew rein
He had started whistling, down the lane
With his rod and line, to the brook for trout,
But he paused as he heard the warning shout,
And his father called to him, 'Ben, my son,
I must be off to Lexington!
There is little time for fishing now,
You must take father's place behind the plough.'
One quick good-bye! The boy stood still,
Watching him climb the homeward hill--
In and out of the house again,
With his musket, to join the 'Minute Men.'
Then he turned the furrows, straight and true,
Just as he'd seen his father do.
He dropped the corn in the narrow rows,
And fought for its life with the weeds and crows.
Oh, it was hard, as the days wore on,
To take the place of that father, gone.
The boyish shoulders could hardly bear
All their burden of work and care.
But he thought, 'It is for my country's sake
That father's place at the plough I take.
When the war is over, and peace is won,
How proud he'll be of his little son!'
But they brought him home to a soldier's grave,
Wrapped in the flag he had died to save.
And Ben took up his burden again,
With its added weight of grief and pain,
Saying bravely, 'In all things now
I must take father's place behind the plough.'
Seed-time and harvest came and went,
Steadily still to the work he bent,
For the family needed bread, and then,
So did the half-starved fighting men.
Only a boy! Not a hero bold,
Whose deeds in the histories are told.
Still, there fell under British fire,
No braver son of a patriot sire
Than this young lad, who for duty's sake
Said, 'This is the task I'll undertake.
I cannot fight for my country now,
But I'll take father's place behind the plough.'"
"I wonder why it is," said Mary, thoughtfully, as she came to the end,
"that all the heroes live so far away that nobody knows them except the
people who write the books and poetry about them. I wish I knew a boy
like that."
"You do," said her mother, quietly. "One who has been just as faithful
to duty, just as much of a hero in his small way as Ben. Who said the
same thing, 'In all things now, I must take father's place behind the
plough,' and who has done it, too, so faithfully and well that he has
lifted a great burden from his mother's heart, and made living easier
for all the family."
"Why, mamma, do I know him? Was it somebody in Plainsville? What was his
name?"
"John Alwyn Ware," said her mother, with a smile, although her lips
trembled.
"John Alwyn Ware," repeated Mary, with a puzzled expression. "Why, that
was papa's name, and you said that he was a boy that I knew."
"Isn't it Jack's name, too?" asked her mother.
"Yes, so it is! But how could _he_ take his father's place behind the
plough? Papa was a lawyer, and never had any plough."
"Whatever is a man's life-work may be called his plough," explained Mrs.
Ware, gently, "and papa's duties were not all in his law-office. They
were at home, too, and there is where Jack tried to take his place. He
was such a little fellow. My first thought was, 'Oh, how am I ever going
to bring up my three boys without their father's help and noble
example!' and he came to me, his little face all streaked with tears,
and put his arms around me, and said, 'Don't cry, mother, I'll take
papa's place now, and help take care of the family. If I can't do
anything for awhile but just be a good boy, I'll do that much, and set
them a good example.' And from that day to this he has never given me an
anxious moment. He is a high-strung boy, fond of having his own way, and
it has often been a struggle for him to resist the temptation of doing
as his chums did, when they were inclined to be a little wild. But he
has always been true to his promise, and Holland and Norman have both
been easier to manage, because of the example of obedience he has always
set them. So you see the heroes don't always live so far away after all.
You've been living in the same house with one, and didn't know it."
Norman came clamouring into the kitchen for something that Holland had
sent for, and Joyce lost the rest of the conversation, but what she had
heard stayed with her. Little scenes that she had almost forgotten came
up in her mind. Now she understood why Jack had so often refused to join
in the larks of the other boys. It was not because he was lazy and
indifferent, as she had sometimes thought, when he had settled down with
a book at home, instead of going with them in the evenings. She
understood, too, why he never "answered back" or asked why. Not because
he had any less spirit than Holland, or cared less for his own way. It
was because of the promise he had made beside his father's coffin. He
was setting the highest example he knew of obedience and faithfulness to
duty.
"How could I have called him selfish?" she asked herself, "when this is
the first time he has asked for anything for his own pleasure since we
have been here. He has stayed at home and dug and delved like an old man
instead of a boy of fourteen, and of course it must be as dull for him
as it is for me. I suppose I didn't realize it, because he never
complains as I do. I've had so many more good times than he has," she
went on in her self-communing. "My trip to Europe, and the Little
Colonel's house-party,--and he was never even out of Plainsville until
we came here."
As she thought of the house-party, she caught the gleam of the little
ring, the lover's knot of gold on her finger that Eugenia had given her
to remind her of the Road of the Loving Heart, and she stood quite still
for a moment, looking at it.
"I believe I'll do it," she decided, finally, and fell to work so
energetically that the last damp roll of clothes was soon tucked away in
the basket. Then taking the candle from the shelf, and shading it
carefully with her hand, she hurried out to her tent. Dropping on her
knees beside her trunk, she began turning over its contents till she
reached a pink bonbon-box at the very bottom.
Inside the box was a letter, and inside the letter was a gold coin, the
five dollars that Cousin Kate had sent her Christmas. She had put it
sacredly away as a nest-egg, intending to add to it as she could, until
there was enough to pay for a course of instruction in illustrating, by
correspondence. The address of an art school which advertised to give
such lessons, was copied on the envelope.
As she turned the letter irresolutely in her hands, she heard Jack's
voice in the next tent, talking to Holland:
"I wonder who'll take my place in the high school nine this year?
Wouldn't I give my eyes to pitch for them when they play the Plainsville
'Invincibles'! Wish I could see old Charlie Scudder's red head behind
the bat again! And don't I wish I could hear him giving his call for me
out by the alley gate! I'd walk from here to Phoenix just to hear it
again."
"I don't miss the fellows much as I thought I would," said Holland, who
was hunting for a certain hook he wanted in what looked to be a hopeless
snarl of fishing-tackle. "There's some first-rate kids go to this
school, and I see about as much fun out here as I did at home."
"I suppose it would be different with me if I went to school," said
Jack. "But it gets mighty monotonous poking around the desert by
yourself, even if you have got a gun. Now that Phil Tremont has his
horse, that will cut me out from going with him, for I'll have to foot
it wherever I go."
"Oh, I know where there's a dandy Indian pony for sale over by
Scottsdale," began Holland. "George Lee told me about it. They're going
to put it up at auction Saturday, if they don't sell it before. Don't
you wish you had it?"
"You can bet your only dollar I do! I tried to talk Joyce into thinking
we could afford it, but she wouldn't be convinced."
"I don't see why she should always have the say-so," said Holland.
"She's only a year older than you are, anyhow. She sits down on
everything we want to do, as if she was our grandmother. She's too
bossy."
"No, she isn't," answered Jack, loyally. "She knows what she is talking
about. She's had a mighty tough time trying to make one dollar do the
work of two since we've been out here. And she's worked like a squaw,
and it's powerful hard on her having so much responsibility. What she
says in this wigwam _goes_, even if it doesn't suit our tastes!"
A warm little glow came into Joyce's heart as she knelt there beside the
trunk, unconsciously playing eavesdropper. How good it was of Jack to
uphold her that way with Holland, who was always resenting her
authority, and inclined to be rebellious. Hesitating no longer, she
reached into the tray of her trunk for the purse which held the monthly
housekeeping allowance. Taking out a crisp five-dollar bill, she folded
the coin in it, and ran out toward the boys' tent.
The candle-light, streaming through the canvas, made a transparency on
which the green-eyed gods of the Dacotahs stood out in startling
distinctness. Holland's shadow, bending over the fishing-tackle beside
the candle, reached to the top of the tent. Jack's waved its heels over
the foot-board of the bed on which he had thrown himself.
"Jack," she said, putting her head through the opening of the tent where
the flap was pinned back, "I've changed my mind about that investment.
I've decided to go in with you. I'll put in Cousin Kate's Christmas
money, and if you still want to take the place of the washing-machine
and wringer, we'll use the five dollars they would cost, to buy the
pony. Then I think the most appropriate name we could give it would be
_Washing_-ton!"