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DAISY HERSELF
By
WILL E. INGERSOLL
_Author of "The Road that led Home", "The Centenarian" etc._
[Illustration: Logo]
TORONTO
THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY
LIMITED
Copyright, Canada, 1920
THE MUSSON BOOK CO., LIMITED
PUBLISHERS TORONTO
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A Two Hundred Mile Dash 1
II The City Swallows Daisy 6
III The Maid and the Clerk 19
IV A "Steer" 29
V A Job 35
VI The Plebeian 50
VII A Human Horticulturist 62
VIII A Knight in the Kitchen 86
IX A Dance and an Invitation 96
X The Boxing Match and Afterward 116
XI The Face Behind the Mask 152
XII Sawn Off the Old Block 156
XIII A Plot that Miscarried 161
XIV The Golden Stair 175
XV The Lady of the House 187
XVI Taking a Rest 198
XVII A Raincloud 206
XVIII The Bleak Two 216
XIX The Choice of the Dray 221
XX John Nixon's Invitation 229
XXI In the Blizzard 236
XXII In the Drifted Sleigh 257
XXIII Daisy's Home Coming 261
XXIV A Western Wild Man 270
XXV Why? 275
XXVI A New Settler 281
XXVII The Sewing Machine Lovemaker 292
XXVIII The Coming of the Mother 307
XXIX The Bud 313
DAISY HERSELF
CHAPTER I.
A TWO HUNDRED MILE DASH.
Daisy had run away from her home on the farm outside Toddburn village
with this young store clerk, Beatty, who now sat holding her hand in the
moonlight "flyer" of the M. & N. Beatty, who came originally from the
city, was a bad young rascal; and Daisy--who, neglected and exposed to
temptation since her earliest girlhood, had developed an innate
awareness of "fellows"--knew it. None of her several reasons for this
escapade had been the usual one--love. It suited her, however, to let
Beatty think that she had come prepared to follow him to the world's
end--a lengthy journey, upon which the railway ticket Beatty had bought
for her was only good for the first two hundred miles.
Daisy was proceeding daringly, easily, without pause or regret, toward
whatever lay in store for her along the path she had taken. Her
locomotion was that of a thing which is both propelled and drawn. The
propulsive force was her hatred of the farm where she had drudged for
all the workable years of her seventeen under that plebeian taskmaster,
stolid, selfish John Nixon, her stepfather, and that unmaternal mother
whose forename, by some perpetuated sarcasm, was Lovina. The drawing
force was Daisy's own eager, vigorous, intrepid spirit of
adventure--green maidenhood's hunger for the sensational new.
The car in which the two sat was not a "sleeper," but an ordinary
red-upholstered day coach. The two had boarded the train at Oak Lake,
the first station east of Toddburn (where neither of them were known by
the new station agent) at a little after midnight. They were due to
reach the city between six and seven o'clock in the morning.
Even if the car had been a berth coach, and there had been opportunity
for retirement, Daisy could not have slept. The hour, the situation, the
novelty of the rushing, lamplit train (she had never been on a train
before), kept every faculty ablaze and awake in a pleasant intoxication
of excitement. Elbow on window-sill and chin in palm, the girl sat,
glancing now out at the flying moonlit telegraph posts, now about the
interior of the dingy branch-line passenger coach. All seemed fairylike
to her eyes habituated only to prairie fallow and lea.
Young Beatty, holding her hand and thrilling in a delightful though less
spiritual than fleshly way, at the occasional glances with which Daisy
baited him, looked out of the corner of his eye at her and felt very
much pleased, indeed, with himself. First, she had a glorious color, the
like of which one could not buy for money, nor yet for love--a color
that resided comely and rich in her cheeks, even at feeling's lowest
tide, but which now, in the high tide of her adventure, overflowed down
in a bonny estuary toward the milk-warm curve of her chin. Then, there
were the features, each with its peculiar likability or lure--lips made
and eager for enjoyment, yet with something in their set and pose that
was constant and fine--a nose humorous and short, tiltable to every
gradation of coquetry--eyes with dancing irises, soft baffling shadows,
and brows that trended downward at the outer ends. Lastly, the
hair--brown, with a wave that made it comely in any coiffure; coiled
carelessly under a hasty pin or two at temple, crown, and white nape of
neck where a curl caressed--had a piquancy even in its disarray. Beatty
cuddled his head back against the red upholstery of the seat in
luxurious contemplation, and again expressively squeezed the fingers he
held.
Beatty himself was a slim, white-handed youth whose abundant blond hair
and smooth "way" had made the world, for him, a kind of garden of the
Hesperides--the fault with this simile being that he was no Hercules,
except in his vanity. In this, his strength was as the strength of ten,
though not because his heart was pure. If you had taxed him with that
characteristic in which Beatty was eminently taxable--his attitude
toward girls--he would have regarded you indulgently a moment, and would
then have explained that it was not his fault if "Janes fell for him"
and "fooled with the band-wagon" to their own undoing. Surely it was a
"free country."
In spite, however, of the fact that the country was a free one, the
special thing which had sent Beatty out of the city "for his health" was
the quest after him by a two-hundred-pound brother of a sister some
ninety pounds lighter. The brother, who carried a professional "haymaker
in either mitt" for even those of his own gender who could use their
fists with fair ability, was as sincere in his desire to interview
Beatty as Beatty was considerate in his desire to save the brother the
embarrassment of such an interview. A recently-received picture postcard
from a friend of Beatty's had, however, intimated that the family of
which the brother and sister in question were members had since "gone to
the coast," and that Beatty's home city had therefore become again for
Beatty a consistent metropolis of a free country, if he wished to return
to it.
Beatty did wish to return to it; and, returning with round and pretty
Daisy Nixon as a travelling companion--made, Beatty felt assured, wholly
and dependently his by the manner of her home-leaving--he felt that the
several months of his exile had not been wasted.
"The boys", so Beatty reflected complacently, as he leaned back on the
car-cushion, "will cert'n'ee set up an 'take notice w'en they see this
w'at I got here. They cert'n'ee will."