Every day Nettie arose at six and went about
her dull duties. There was the cream to separate,
the pails and separator to clean and scald;
there was the butter to make; the chickens to feed,
washing, ironing and cleaning. The canning season
was at hand and the Indians rode in with wild cranberries,
gooseberries, raspberries and saskatoons.
From day to day she picked over and washed the fruit,
packed it in syrup in jars, and set them in the wash
boiler on the range.
Time accustoms us even to suffering, and one of the
penalties of youth and health is that one thrives and
lives and pursues one's way, even though the heart
within one be dead. Vaguely Nettie groped for a solution
to her tragedy. She knew that it was not something
that could be pushed away into some recess of
the mind; it was something unforgettable, a scar upon
the soul rather than the body. Of Cyril she could think
only with the most intense anguish of mind, and knew
that she could never face the man she loved and tell him
what had befallen her. Already he had come to exist
in her mind only as a loved one dead. He was no longer
for her. She had lost Cyril through this act of Bull
Langdon.
Two weeks after the departure of the Bull for the
purebred camp, Nettie was startled at her work by
the insistent ringing of the telephone, which had been
unusually silent since then. Her first thought was that
the Bull was calling from Barstairs, and the thought
of his hated voice, even upon the wire, held her back.
The telephone repeated its ring, and with lagging feet
Nettie at last answered it.
"Hello!"
"Is that the Bar Q?"
It was a woman's voice, quavering and friendly.
Nettie's hand tightened in a vise about the receiver.
Her eyes closed. Pale as death, she leaned against the
wall.
"Is that Bar Q? Is that you, Nettie?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Is Mr. Langdon home?"
"No, ma'am."
"Any of the men about?"
"They're all in the fields."
"That's too bad. I'm here at the station. Came
down on the noon train. 'Twould take too long for
you to harness up and meet me, so I'll go over to the
Reserve, and maybe Mr. Barrons will bring me up.
Good-by, Nettie. Is everything all right?"
A pause, and then Nettie answered faintly:
"Yes, ma'am."
Nettie hung up the 'phone, and stood with her face
pressed to the wall. A great tide of fear and shame
swept over her. How was she to face her gentle mistress?
How speak to her? How find words to tell
her? She longed to escape from the kind and questioning
eyes that would look so trustingly and fondly
into her own.
It was but half an hour's run by automobile from
the station, and the grating noise of the car, valorously
trying to make the high grade to the house, brought
Nettie violently back to life. She dabbed at her eyes
with her apron, smoothed her hair and tried to compose
herself as best she could as the little car chugged to the
back door.
An appalling change had taken place in Mrs. Langdon.
Despite her feeble protest, the Indian agent, in
whose car she had come, insisted upon lifting the frail
little woman from the automobile, and carrying her
into the house. She tried to laugh, as Nettie placed
a chair for her, and when her breath would permit it,
she said bravely:
"Well, here I am, Nettie, back like a bad penny,
and feeling just fine!"
Fine! When there was scarcely anything left of her
but skin and bones. Fine! When she was so weak she
could scarcely stand without holding on to something.
Nettie knelt in a passion of mothering pity beside her,
and removed the little woman's coat and hat. Meanwhile,
the faint tinkle of her mistress's chiding laughter
hurt Nettie more than if she had struck her.
"Why, Nettie, one would think I was a baby the way
you are fussing over me. I really feel very well. I'm
in perfect health. We all are, dear, you know. Illness
is just an error of the imagination, just as sin and
everything that is ugly and cruel in the world is. We
are all perfect, made in God's image, and we can be
what we will. Why, Nettie, dear, what on earth----!"
Nettie's head had fallen upon her mistress's lap, great
sobs rending her.
"Nettie! Nettie! I'm real cross with you. This
won't do at all. Don't you see that by giving way
like this, we bring on our illnesses and troubles? We
really are manufacturers of our own ills, and the solutions
of all our problems are right within ourselves."
Nettie raised her head dumbly at that, and tried to
choke back the overwhelming sobs.
"Mrs. Langdon, I can't never leave you now."
"Never leave me! Were you thinking of going,
then?"
"Oh, yes, Mrs. Langdon. I thought I'd have to go.
There--were reasons why, and----"
"Nettie, if the reasons are--Cyril, why, I know all
about it. You can't possibly marry anyway until he
gets back. Bill wants him to go to the States with
the bulls."
"Mrs. Langdon, I can't never marry Cyril Stanley.
I'd die first. Oh, Mrs. Langdon, I wisht I was dead.
I wisht I had the nerve to drown myself in the Ghost
River."
"Nettie Day, that is downright wicked. Whatever's
come over you? Have you fallen out with Cyril?
You've been brooding here alone. Now I'm back,
things will right themselves. I want you to be the
cheerful girl I'm so fond of--so very fond of, Nettie."
Very slowly, but bravely waving back the help Nettie
proffered with outstretched hand, Mrs. Langdon moved
to the stairs, smiling and reiterating softly her health
formula:
"I am strong; in perfect health; in God's image; His
creation. All's well with me and God's good world."
Nettie watched her as slowly she climbed the stairs.
There was the sound of a closing door, and then a
hollow, wrenching, barking cough. Words of the Bull
flashed like lightning across Nettie's mind:
"My old woman ain't strong. She'll croak soon.
There'll be another Mrs. Langdon at Bar Q. You----"
Nettie's hand went to her strangling throat. Her
voice rang out through the room in wild despair:
"Oh, my God!" prayed Nettie Day. "Don't let Mrs.
Langdon die. Don't let her die. Please, please, please,
oh, God! let her live!"