Produced by Peter Vachuska, Chuck Greif, Emmy and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A PRAIRIE GIRL
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A PRAIRIE GIRL
BY ELEANOR GATES
[Illustration]
PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO.
NEW YORK MCMIX
Copyright, 1902, by
The Century Co.
_Published October, 1902_
THE DEVINNE PRESS.
TO
MRS. PHOEBE A. HEARST
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE COMING OF THE STORK 3
II A FRONTIER CHRISTENING 11
III "LITTLE BOY BLUE" 30
IV A PARIAH OF THE PRAIRIES 48
V THE MISFIT SCHOLAR 64
VI THE STORY OF A PLANTING 87
VII TWICE IN JEOPARDY 103
VIII A HARVEST WEDDING 118
IX THE PRICE OF CONVALESCENCE 134
X "BADGY" 152
XI A TRADE AND A TRICK 170
XII THE PROFESSOR'S "FIND" 187
XIII A RACE AND A RESCUE 206
XIV HARD TIMES 224
XV THE FATE OF A CROWING HEN 242
XVI THE RESERVATION TRIP 257
XVII ANOTHER MOUND ON THE BLUFF 276
XVIII THE LITTLE TEACHER 292
XIX TOWARD THE RISING SUN 311
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A PRAIRIE GIRL
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A PRAIRIE GIRL
I
THE COMING OF THE STORK
IT was always a puzzle to the little girl how the stork that brought her
ever reached the lonely Dakota farm-house on a December afternoon
without her being frozen; and it was another mystery, just as deep, how
the strange bird, which her mother said was no larger than a blue crane,
was able, on leaving, to carry her father away with him to some family,
a long, long distance off, that needed a grown-up man as badly as her
three big brothers needed a little sister.
She often tried to remember the stork, his broad nest of pussy-willows
on the chin of the new moon, and the long trip down through the wind and
snow to the open window of the farm-house. But though she never forgot
her christening, and could even remember things that happened before
that, her wonderful journey, she found, had slipped entirely from her
mind. But her mother and the three big brothers, ever reminded by the
stone-piled mound on the carnelian bluff, never forgot that day:
An icy blizzard, carrying in its teeth the blinding sleet that neither
man nor animal could breast, was driving fiercely across the wide
plains; and the red, frame dwelling and its near-lying buildings of sod,
which only the previous morning had stood out bravely against the
dreary, white waste, were wrapped and almost hidden in great banks that
had been caught up from the river heights and hurled with piercing roars
against them.
The storm had begun the day before, blowing first in fitful gusts that
whistled under the eaves, sent the hay from the stacks flying through
the yard, and lifted the ends of the roof shingles threateningly. It had
gradually strengthened to a gale toward midday, and the steady downfall
of flakes had been turned into a biting scourge that whipped up the soft
cloak from the face of the open, treeless prairie and sent it lashing
through the frigid air. Long before night had begun to settle down, no
eye could penetrate the scudding snow a foot beyond the window ledges,
except when a sudden stilling of the tempest disclosed the writhing
cottonwood break to the north, and the double row of ash saplings
leading south to the blotted, printless highway.
With darkness, the fury of the blizzard had redoubled, and the house had
rocked fearfully as each fresh blast struck it, so that the nails in the
sheathing had snapped from time to time, and rung in the tense atmosphere
like pistol shots. Momentary lulls--ominous breathing-spells--had
interrupted the blizzard; but they had served only to intensify it when
it broke again. As it rose from threatening silence to rending shrieks,
the bellowing of the frightened cattle, tied in their narrow stalls, had
mingled with it, and added to its terrors.
But, when another wild, sunless day had come in, the drift-piled home
had ceased to shiver and creak or admit any sounds from without. Hour by
hour it had settled deeper and deeper into the snow that weighted its
roof and shuttered its windows, until, shrouded and almost effaced, it
lay, at last, secure from the tempest that swept over it and deaf to the
calls from the buried stables.
Down-stairs in the big, dim sitting-room, the neighbor woman was keeping
the lonely vigil of the stork. Early the previous day, before the storm
began, and when the plains still stretched away on all sides, a
foam-covered sea, the huge swells of which had been gripped and frozen
into quiet, the anxious husband had mounted and started westward across
the prairie. The horse had not carried him far, however, for the drifts
would not bear its weight; so, when the three big brothers, hearing his
halloo, had taken him a pair of rude skees made of barrel staves, he had
helped them free the floundering animal, and had then gone on afoot.
His destination was the army post at the reservation, and he had made
swift progress toward it. The ice-bound Vermilion did not check him, and
the sealed sloughs shortened his path. Onward he had sped, tirelessly.
In half an hour his scarlet nubia had blended into the black of his
fur-lined coat; in an hour he was only a speck, now in sight upon the
top of a swell, now lost in its trough. And then he had disappeared
altogether over the long, unbroken line of the horizon.
That day had passed, and the night; and, when a second day was half
gone, he had not yet returned. The farm-house, as hopeful as a sailor's
home, felt little worry, believing that he was too good a plainsman to
brave such a blizzard foolishly, and pictured him fretting his time away
at the post, or in some hospitable shanty nearer by.
But the neighbor woman was full of fear for his safety. And, as she
waited alone, she walked to and fro, watching first the canopied bed in
the corner, and then the shaking sash that, if Providence were merciful,
might at any moment frame an eager face. Every little while she paused
at the stove, where, the hay twists having long since given out, she fed
the fire from a heaping basket of yellow, husked corn.
The three big brothers were in the attic overhead, huddled close about
the warm stovepipe that came up through the floor, with the dogs at
their backs. It was dusk there, too, for the western gable window,
broken the evening before by the force of the storm, was nailed tight
from within and piled high from without; while the window in the
opposite end of the house was intact, but veiled with frost and hung
with icicles. The week's washing, swinging under the peaked roof on a
long, sagging clothes-line, added further to the gloom. Stiff and
specter-like, it moved gently in the currents of air that blew down from
the bare, slanting rafters, each garment taking on a fantastic shape of
its own. Near the pipe hung the stockings of the family, limp and
steaming in the twilight.
The biggest brother had been reading aloud to the other two; but, as the
light grew less, he threw the paper-bound book aside, and they began to
talk in subdued tones. Below them, they could hear the neighbor woman
walking back and forth, and the popping of the kernels in the stove;
behind them, the dogs slept; and from above came faint sounds of the
storm.
Outside, night was coming on fast--the early night of a stormy day. The
neighbor woman, noting the increasing darkness in the sitting-room,
lighted a tall kerosene lamp and set it on the clock-shelf near a south
window. The lower windows to the west were closed and sightless, so no
beacon could shine from them; but she hoped that the lamp's feeble rays,
piercing the unscreened top panes of the south window, might by chance
catch the eye of the husband were he striving to return.
With increasing darkness, the blizzard grew in strength and fury. It
loosened a clapboard below the east gable, and shrieked through the
partial opening. It rattled the window, and tore at the heavy planks on
the roof that supported the stovepipe. It blew the snow from the cracks
and whistled through them shrilly. It caught the house in its drifts and
shook it.
The dogs, awakened by the screeching and clash of things, crouched in
fright against their masters. Shepherd, pointer, and Indian dogs
trembled when the wind moaned, and answered every whine from without
with another. The St. Bernard, separating himself from the pack, sprang
at a bound to the boarded-up window and, raising his head, uttered long,
dismal howls. The big brothers hastened to quiet him, and spared neither
foot nor fist; but the dog, eluding them, returned again and again to
the window, and mourned with his muzzle to the west.
It was while the hurricane was thus raging over the farm-house, and when
nothing but a bit of south roof and the tops of the cottonwoods showed
that a habitation was there, that the stork alighted.
The big brothers were drowsing in the dark about the pipe, with the pack
whimpering beside them, and did not know of his coming until, in a
sudden lull, there came up through the open trap-door that led to the
sitting-room stairs a small, clear, hailing cry.
It sounded but for an instant. Then the storm broke again, the windows
rattled, the dogs whined, the sleet-charged air boomed and thundered and
sucked at the quivering house, and darkness, ever blacker and more
terrible, settled down.
* * * * *
WHEN the neighbor woman came softly up and put her head above the
trap-door, she had to call again and again into the gloom, through which
the lines of frozen clothes waved faint and ghost-like, before the big
brothers awoke and, rising from their cramped positions, groped their
way sleepily to the stairs and followed her down. As they reached the
sitting-room and stood in a silent, waiting row by the stove, the dogs
about them, the neighbor woman tiptoed to the canopied bed in the corner
and took up a tiny bundle, which she brought back and laid in the arms
of the biggest brother.
Then she leaned back, all fat and smiling, as the big brothers bent over
the bundle and looked into a wee, puckered, pink face. It was the little
girl.
II
A FRONTIER CHRISTENING
THE christening of the little girl began the very morning after the
stork flew down through the blizzard and left her. For the three big
brothers, rejoicing that they were still only three, got out the
almanac, the world's atlas, and the dictionary, went carefully through
the first two, read a long list in the back of the last, and wrote down
all the names they liked. Then they set about trying to decide upon one.
It was difficult, for their selections were numerous. The world's atlas
had yielded Morena, Lansing, and Virginia; the back of the dictionary, a
generous line beginning with Abigail and ending with Zoraida; and the
almanac, May and June from the months, Maria and Geraldine from the
scattered jokes, and Louisa, Fanny, and Rose from the testimonials of
ladies who had been cured of influenza, hay-fever, and chilblains. So
not only that day, but a whole week passed away in lively discussion,
and they were no nearer a choice than ever.
Their mother gave no thought to the subject Instead, from morning till
night, through the lower western windows, now tunneled free, she scanned
the snow-sheeted, glistening prairie. It stretched away silent,
pathless, and treacherous, smiling up so brightly that it blinded those
who crossed it; and hiding, as smilingly, those who lay beneath the
drifts that covered it.
But discussion over the naming never flagged among the big brothers, for
they did not yet share her anxiety. The chores were their only
interruption; still, while they made twists for the stove, melted snow
for the thirsty stock, or pitched hay out of the shaft that had been
sunk to the half-used stack and piled it into the covered barn through a
hole in the roof, they kept up the debate. But with all the time and
talk given the matter, no agreement seemed possible, until one day when
the biggest brother made a suggestion.
He proposed that each write a name upon a piece of paper and place it in
a hat, and that the little girl's hand be put in among the pieces, so
that she could take hold of one. The name on the slip she seized should
be hers. So the ballots were prepared, the neighbor woman brought the
little girl, and one tiny clinging fist was guided into the crown. But
though the pink palm would close on a finger, it refused to grasp a
ballot; and, to show her disapproval of the scheme, the little girl
held her breath until she was purple, screwed up her face, and began to
cry lustily.
The big brothers, when they found that she would not choose for herself,
repaired in disgust to the attic. But as they gathered gloomily about
the stovepipe, a second plan offered itself to them in the shape of the
dominoes, and they began to play, with the understanding that whoever
came out winner in the end might name the little girl.
The contests were exciting and raged from dinner-time till dusk, the
dogs looking on from an outer circle and joining their barks to the
shouts of the boys. When the last game came to a close under the
swinging, smoky lantern that lighted the room from its nail on a rafter,
the eldest brother, victorious, arose and led the way to the
sitting-room, the other two following with the pack, and proudly
proclaimed the little girl Edith Maud.
But he had not counted on his mother's wishes. For when she heard the
result of the dominoes, she overturned the whole project, much to the
delight of the vanquished, by declaring that she did not like Edith Maud
at all; and added that the selection would be made from the Bible when
their father returned. So the big brothers carefully hunted out every
feminine name between Genesis and Revelations.
But at the end of a fortnight they too grew anxious, and the christening
was forgotten. No news had come from the army post, and so, one morning,
they set forth toward it with the St. Bernard, when the warm sun was
melting the white caps of the ridges. They did not have to go far. The
dog led them unerringly to a near-by bluff, from which they returned a
sad procession. And next day a mound rose on the southern slope of the
carnelian bluff and was covered high with stones, to keep away the
hungry prowlers of the plains. The storm that had ushered in the new
life had robbed the farm-house of the old.
* * * * *
SPRING had opened, and the thawing prairie lay in splotches of black and
white like the hide of a calico pony, before the family again thought of
the naming of the little girl. Then her mother despatched the youngest
brother to the post-office, a day's ride to the east, to mail an order
to a store in a far-away city. Though there seemed no possibility that
it would soon be decided what to call the little girl, preparations had
begun for the baptism at the sod church on the reservation, and the
order asked for five yards of fine linen and a pair of white kid shoes.
During the busy days of plowing and planting that followed, interest in
the christening was almost lost. And when the arrival of the linen and
the shoes revived it one afternoon in early summer, it was lost sight of
again in a rush of hoeing and herding. So it was not until late fall,
when all the crops were harvested and the threshers had come and gone,
that the family began once more to consider it.
It was time that the little girl had a name of her own, for she could
trot the length of the sitting-room, if she held on to the biggest
brother's finger, and walk, all by herself, from the lounge to the
table. Besides, she was learning to eat with a spoon, which she pounded
crossly on the oil-cloth when she could not find her mouth, and was
teething, without any worry to her mother, on an old soft
cartridge-belt.
The subject reopened the night the little girl's mother cut out the
baptismal robe. And while she tucked it in one succession of narrow rows
and began to embroider it in lacy patterns that she had learned to do
when she was a little girl in England, the big brothers hunted up the
lists from the dictionary, atlas, almanac, and Bible, and reviewed them.
But when the autumn days had been stitched and discussed away and winter
had come in, the family was still undecided. What pleased one big
brother did not please another; and if two agreed, the third opposed
them. The little girl's mother was even harder to suit than they.
The afternoon of the first birthday anniversary two important things
happened: the baptismal robe was finished and the christening
controversy took a new turn. The big brothers, arguing hotly, urged that
if a name could be found for every new calf and colt on the place, the
only baby in the house ought to have one. Now, the little girl's mother
always named the animals, so, when she heard their reproof, she promptly
declared that she would christen the little girl at once--and after an
English queen.
The big brothers were astounded, recalling how their American father had
objected to their having been named after English kings. But their
mother, unheeding their exclamations, wrote down a new list, which
started at Mary Beatrice and included all the consorts she could
remember. But when the queens had been considered from first to last,
and the little girl's mother had made up her mind fully and finally, the
house was again torn with dissension. The eldest brother favored
Elizabeth; the biggest, Mary; and the youngest, Anne. The little girl,
happy over a big, blue glass ball with a white sheep in the center,
alone was indifferent to the dispute, and crooned to herself contentedly
from the top of the pile of hay twists.
But, in spite of the wishes of the big brothers, the christening would
have been decided that day and forever if it had not been for one
circumstance. The eldest brother, protesting vigorously against every
name but Elizabeth, demanded of the little girl's mother what she had
selected.
"Caroline Matilda," she said firmly.
The eldest brother sprang to his feet like a flash, knocking over a
bench in his excitement.
"Caroline Matilda!" he roared, waving his arms--"Caroline Matilda!"
And the little girl, frightened at his shouting, dropped the blue glass
ball, and scurried under the bed.
It was plain, therefore, that she did not like the name her mother had
chosen. So the christening continued to disturb the farm-house. By
spring the eldest and the youngest brothers were calling the little girl
Anne, while the mother and the biggest brother were saluting her as
Victoria.
Matters were still in this unsettled condition when the army chaplain
rode in from the reservation one night late in the summer. He was on his
way to a big Sioux tepee camp, and carried in the saddle-bags flung
across his pommel a well-worn Bible and a brace of pistols. As he
entered the sitting-room, the little girl eyed him tremblingly, for his
spurs jingled loudly as he strode, and the leather fringe on his
riding-breeches snapped against his high boot-legs.
He was grieved to find the farm-house in such a state, and counseled
the little girl's mother to delay the christening no longer, suggesting
a private baptism, such as the big brothers had had. But to no effect.
She declared that a private baptism might do very well for boys, but
that the only daughter in the family should be named with more ceremony.
The chaplain, finding that he could not settle the question, made it the
subject of his evening prayer in the home circle.
The fame of the baptismal robe and the white kid shoes had gone far and
wide over the prairie, and they were talked of from the valley of the
Missouri to Devil's Lake, and from the pipestone country to the
reservations. So every week of that summer the family welcomed
squatters' wives from the scattered claims round about, and women from
the northern forts, whose eyes, strange to dainty things or long starved
of them, fed greedily on the smooth skin of the ivory boots and the soft
folds of the dress. Shortly after the chaplain's stay, a swarthy Polish
woman, shod in buckskin, came on a pilgrimage to the farm-house, and the
little girl's mother, eager to show her handiwork, lifted the dress
tenderly, but with a flourish, from the pasteboard box where it lay upon
wild-rose leaves and a fragrant red apple, and held it against the
little girl with one hand, while with the other she displayed the
pretty boots. The big brothers, hurrying from the barn-yard, crowded one
another to share in the triumph.
But suddenly their delight was changed to dismay. For the little girl's
mother, eager to win more praise from the Polish woman, had started to
deck the little girl in the dress and shoes, and had discovered that the
beautiful robe was too short and too narrow for its plump wearer, while
its sleeves left her fat wrists bare to the elbow. And the white kid
shoes would not even go on!
The youngest brother started for the post-office that afternoon to mail
the shoes back to the store in the far-away city, together with a
drawing on paper of the little girl's left foot, showing just how large
the new pair should be. The very same day the little girl's mother began
to rip out tucks.
When the chaplain stopped on his return trip, he found that the
christening was still agitating the farm-house, the big brothers having
formed a triple alliance in favor of Elizabeth, while the little girl's
mother was adhering more warmly than ever to Victoria. So he spent the
evening in renewed argument and prayer, and offered Catherine as a
compromise. But the little girl's mother attached no importance to his
suggestion, knowing that Catherine was the name of his wife.
Before starting for the reservation in the morning, as he sat upon his
pony with the family in a circle about him, he communicated a notable
piece of news. Some time during June of the coming year the good bishop,
who was greatly beloved by the Indians, would visit the post to marry
the general's daughter to the major. The wedding would take place in the
sod church, and would be followed by a sermon.
"And then," added the chaplain, "could come the baptism."
The little girl's mother was delighted with the idea, and decided on the
spot to delay the baptism until June. The administering of the rite by
the good bishop would give it a certain pomp, while his presence would
insure the attendance of every woman on the plains, and the robe and the
shoes would receive due parade and admiration.
The chaplain, satisfied at having accomplished even so little for peace,
cantered off, the family looking after him. But when he reached the
reservation road he came to a sudden halt, wheeled sharply, and raised
his hands to his face to make a funnel of them. All fell into silence
and listened for his parting admonition.
"Make it Catherine!" he shouted, and cantered on.
When the little girl's mother thought of the months that must pass
before the baptism, she felt sorry that she had been so hasty about
sending for the second pair of kid shoes; for by June of the coming year
the little girl's feet would be too big for them. So the youngest
brother was again sent to the post-office, this time with a letter that
asked the store in a far-away city to send two sizes larger than the
drawing.
While summer was fading into autumn, and autumn was merging into winter
again, the naming of the little girl was not forgotten. The subject came
up every time her mother brought out the new pair of sleeves which she
was embroidering. But it was talked over amicably, the big brothers
having relinquished all right to a share in the selection because their
mother had at last taken an irrevocable stand in favor of her own
choice, and had intrenched her position by a promise that they could
have that year's muskrat money. So when Christmas morning dawned and the
little girl temporarily received her long, dignified name, together with
a beaver pelt for a cap, the big brothers, whittling shingles into shape
for the stretching of their winter's catch, silently accepted the
decision.
The long, dignified name suited the little girl. She had grown so tall
that she could look over the St. Bernard's back, and so agile that she
had walked out six pairs of moccasins in as many months. And when the
new shoes arrived and the sleeves were finished, she grew so proud that
she wanted to wear her gobelin blue apron every day.
As spring opened, and the last tuck was taken out of the robe, the big
brothers put their guns and traps away in the attic, and once more
turned to the plowing and planting of the fields. But, in spite of the
farm work, they found time to make preparations for the approaching
baptism. They painted the light wagon, giving the box a glossy black
surface and the wheels a coat of green, while the little girl's mother
began three suits for them, and a brand-new dress for herself out of one
she had brought with her when the family came to the plains. The
evenings were no less busy. The mother sewed steadily, the big brothers
fixed up the light harness, and the little girl, scorning sleep,
alternately hindered and helped them, and held on to the ends of tugs
and reins with her pudgy hands while the big brothers greased and rubbed
and polished.
When the trip to the reservation was less than a week off, the
preparations for it were redoubled, and the farm was for a time
neglected. The little girl's mother put the last stitches on the new
clothes; the big brothers, each having firmly refused to let either of
the others try a hand at clipping him, made a journey to the
post-office to get their hair cut by the hardware man; and the little
girl wore a despised sunbonnet, had her yellow locks put up on rags, and
went to bed every night with clabbered milk on her face.
At last the great day arrived. Early in the morning, before the rising
sun flamed against the eastern windows, an ambitious young rooster,
perched on the cultivator outside, gave such a loud, croupy call to the
farm-yard that he awakened the little girl. She, in turn, awakened her
mother. So it was in good time that the family, after eating a quick
breakfast and hitching the gray colts to the newly painted wagon,
climbed in and started off.
The little girl, sitting on the front seat between her mother and the
eldest brother, her christening robe and the kid shoes wrapped up
carefully and clasped in her arms, swelled with importance as the colts,
resplendent in their new harness, trotted briskly down the rows of ash
saplings in front of the house and turned the corner into the main road.
Speechless and happy, she sat with her lips pressed tightly together
beneath the big sunbonnet that hid the rag-wound corkscrews on her sore
little head; and when the team crossed the Vermilion and passed the sod
shanty on the bluffs, she did not even turn her eyes from the long,
straight road that stretched westward to glance at the Swede boy who
had come out to see her go by.
But before the ride was half over she grew very tired. So, after she had
sleepily dropped the shoes and the robe into the hay in the wagon-box
several times, she munched a cooky, drank some buttermilk, and was
lifted to the hind seat, where the biggest brother held her in his arms.
When she next opened her eyes, the team was standing in front of
Officers' Row, and the colonel and his wife were beside the wagon
helping her mother down.
As soon as dinner was over, the little girl was carried off to be
dressed, though she wanted to stay in the parlor and play with the
colonel's son; and when she was ready for the baptism, the big brothers
came in to see her as she stood proudly upon the snowy counterpane of
the wide feather-bed, the embroidered robe sticking out saucily over her
stiff petticoats and upheld by two sturdy, white-stockinged legs. On her
shining curls perched a big white satin bow, while incasing each foot,
and completing the whole, was a dainty, soft kid shoe.
"My, you're a blossom!" gasped the biggest brother, walking around and
around her; "an' not any of your skimpy flowers, neither; just a
whacking big white rose with a yellow center!"
The white rose made no reply, for she had upset on the fat feathers in
trying to walk, had broken the string that held the pillow-shams, and
had mussed her stiff petals. So the colonel's wife put her on a paper
spread over a leather trunk.
When the two families started for the sod church, she was carried by the
admiring biggest brother, and on each side of her walked her mother and
the colonel's wife, the others following. She kept turning around to
look at the colonel's son as they went along, and so did not see the
church until she was close to it.
It made a quaint picture in the warm June sunlight as the little
procession neared it. The rude cross surmounting the gable above its
entrance was twined with morning-glory vines that had found their way to
it after hiding the low, thick, black walls beneath; and surrounding the
building was a fence of scantlings--built every spring by the chaplain
to keep the troop horses and the commissary's cows from grazing off its
sides, and stolen every fall by the half-breeds when the first frosts
came--that served as a hitching-post for raw-boned army mounts and
scraggy Indian ponies. Beyond this circle were wagons and big, clumsy,
box-topped carts from far-lying farms, with oxen tied to their wheels
and swaying their weary necks under heavy yokes.
The church still wore its wedding decorations of cat-tails and
willow-boughs when the door swung open to admit the christening party,
and over the step that led up to the altar hung a golden bell of
heart-leaved buttercups. As the little girl crossed the threshold, she
looked on the crowded, waiting congregation with eager, half-frightened
eyes. On each side of the aisle, filling the rear benches, were Indians
and half-breeds, the gay government blankets of the men and the bright
calico dresses, striped shawls, and gayer blankets of the women setting
off their wide, stolid faces; here and there among them, in greasy
breeches and flannel shirts, were rough cattlemen and trappers; and the
troop's famous scout, the half-breed Eagle Eye, sat in the midst of
them, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of her. Instead of the red
handkerchief that he wore about his forehead to keep his black hair out
of his eyes, he had tied, in honor of the occasion, a strip of bleached
muslin, and under it his eyes sparkled and his teeth gleamed as he
smiled at the white papoose.
When the biggest brother started toward the altar, the little girl
hurriedly smoothed the christening robe and put out the white kid shoes
so that everybody might see them. And when they passed the frontier
families and came in line with the aristocratic army benches, her cheeks
were flushed a vivid pink, and she was sitting proudly erect.
Then she beheld the chaplain standing at the step in a long, white
dress. Scarcely had she gotten over her surprise at his strange
appearance, when she saw a man join him who was garbed even more
wonderfully. His dark hair was combed back and rested, like Eagle Eye's,
on his shoulders, and the sleeves of his robe were wide and ruffled at
the wrist. It was the good bishop.
The next moment they were standing before him, the little girl and the
biggest brother at the middle of the line and the others on each side.
The chaplain raised his hand, and the white people stood up. And after
he had waved both arms commandingly and scowled, the Indians and the
half-breeds got up, too, and slouched against the benches while the good
bishop said a long prayer and followed it with a longer reading. The
biggest brother waited very quietly through it all, but he shifted the
little girl from one arm to the other two or three times.
When the reading was over, the little girl's mother answered a few
questions in a low voice. As the good bishop began to pray again, the
chaplain lifted a silver vessel in his hands and held it up solemnly.
The little girl saw that it was the colonel's fruit-dish, and that it
was full of water.
She looked about inquiringly, but all who were near her had their heads
bent; and at the close of the prayer, before she had time to question,
the good bishop took her into his arms.
She was frightened and wriggled to get down, not seeing the warning in
her mother's eyes. The good bishop paid no attention to her, however,
but leaned forward and spoke to the colonel and his wife.
"Name this child," he said.
The little girl did not hear their answer, for she was watching his
hand. It was poised just above the fruit-dish, as if he meant to plunge
it into the water.
She caught her breath and raised herself suddenly in his arms. The whole
church was bending and stretching to see her, but she forgot the staring
people, and was thinking only of her beautiful robe, the kid shoes, and
the threatening water.
A brief, solemn silence pervaded the waiting church. It was broken by
the good bishop's voice; and, at the same time, his ruffled hand sank
into the fruit-dish, held lightly between the chaplain's finger-tips,
and came to the surface wet and brimming. As she saw this, the little
girl's face turned from pink to white, and she caught her breath again.
Then, just as he bent his eyes upon her and lifted his slender fingers
toward her head, the little girl, giving a sudden scared, angry squirm,
struck the silver dish a resentful, upward blow with one vigorous, white
kid shoe.
The vessel bounded out of the hands of the horrified army chaplain,
overturned upon his immaculate robe, and, empty, fell clattering to the
step at his feet. And while it spun there, top-like, for one terrible
moment, the baptismal party, standing in front of the good bishop, gazed
in agonized, reproachful silence at the little girl, who was looking
back at them defiantly from the shelter of the pulpit.
* * * * *
LATER when the good bishop laid damp fingers upon her hair, she was
christened. But the family at the farm-house always declared that she
did not deserve the long, dignified name chosen for her; and the biggest
brother as often added that, because the amount of water has everything
to do with a baptism, the honor rightfully belonged to the dripping army
chaplain.
III
"LITTLE BOY BLUE"
UP and down the oxen toiled before the plow, licking out their tongues,
as they went along, for wisps of the sweet, new grass which the
mold-board was turning under. After them came the biggest brother,
striving with all his might to keep the beam level and the handles from
dancing as the steel share cut the sod into wide, thick ribbons, damp
and black on one side, on the other green and decked with flowers. And,
following the biggest brother, trotted the little girl, who from time to
time left the cool furrow to run ahead and give the steers a lash of the
gad she carried, or hopped to one side to keep from stepping with her
bare feet upon the fat earthworms that were rolled out into the
sunlight, where they were pounced upon by rivaling blackbirds circling
in the rear.
It was a cloudy morning near the end of May. The spring work on the farm
was long past, and already the fields rippled with corn and wheat,
barley and oats, and blue-flowered flax. But it was not yet time to
begin the yearly onslaught against intruding weeds, so the big brothers
were busying themselves with the erection of a sod smoke-house, which,
at hog-killing time, would receive fresh hams and sides for the winter's
curing.
A strip of prairie land bordering the northern edge of the grain had
been chosen to furnish the building material because its fertile top
layer was tenaciously root-bound and free from boulders. And while the
biggest brother plowed it up, the other two came slowly along with the
Studebaker, chopped the sods into pieces twice as long as they were
wide, and laid them carefully on the bed of the wagon.
The little girl let the biggest brother hang the gad about his neck and
helped for a while with the sod-carrying. But every time she put her
chubby arms around a slab, it broke in two; so her brothers told her to
stop. Then she climbed to the wagon-seat and drove the horses beside the
furrows, and, later, went to the farm-yard with a load.
The smoke-house was being built beside the corn-cribs. Before any sod
had been laid, the eldest brother had marked out on the ground with a
stick a nine-foot square, and in one side of it had left a narrow
door-space where two scantlings were driven in upright to serve as sides
of the casing. Then, with the dirt lines as a guide, he had begun the
walls, giving them the thickness of two sods. When the little girl rode
up they were already above her head. But she did not wait to see the
load she had accompanied bring them up to the eldest brother's waist,
for it was close upon noon and it occurred to her that there would soon
be a table to set in the kitchen, so she hurried out of call up the
weedy path between the wheat and the corn, to where the oxen were still
lazily drawing the plow.
She picked up the gad again and sent it whisking about the black flanks
of the steers. But when she had gone up and down till three long sods
lay lapping each other like heavy ruffles, she grew tired of following
the biggest brother and went up the carnelian bluff to the stone pile
and sat down.
Her mother, standing at the kitchen door, shading her eyes with her
hand, saw the fluttering blue calico on the hillside and smiled at it
through tears. Nearly four years and a half had passed since the
rock-covered mound had risen among the snow-drifts, yet during all this
time the little girl had never been told its sad secret, for the family
wished her to go about the farm without fear.
She had often wondered, however, why, when her mother wanted to have a
good cry, she always sat at the kitchen window that looked out across
the row of stunted apple-trees, the sorghum patch, and finally the
corn, to where the carnelian bluff lifted its pebbly head; and why,
whenever the big brothers saw their mother weeping there, if it were
winter, they always coaxed her into the sitting-room, where a pile of
magazines and books, bought to divert her, lay beside the lounge; or, if
it were summer, out into the front garden, where a low bench stood
against the house, under the lilac-bush, facing the round and
diamond-shaped beds of scarlet verbenas, yellow marguerites,
bachelor's-buttons and pansies.
But, though the little girl was ignorant of what the stone pile hid, she
was, nevertheless, thinking of mournful things as she sat there. The
Christmas before, Santa Claus had stingily dropped but one present down
the long stovepipe that carried up the smoke from the sitting-room
stove--one present to serve as both a holiday and a birthday
remembrance; and that had been a big, ugly crockery doll's head with
bumpy brown hair, staring blue eyes, fat, pink cheeks, and flinty
shoulders. The gift, aided by the confidences of the Swede boy, had
almost shaken her belief in Santa Claus, whom she had asked in a letter
to give her a bought riding-whip and a book that told more about
Robinson Crusoe. Instead, the homely head had been left, and she felt
sure (and the Swede boy assured her) that it could only have been
picked out for her by the eldest brother. And when, after gazing down
upon her stupidly for two or three months from the clock-shelf, it was
finally fastened, by thread run through the holes in its shoulders, to a
clumsy, jointless, sawdust body, it had only served to remind her more
bitterly than ever of the ill fortune that could make two great events
in one small life fall upon the selfsame day.
The little girl had often complained of the stork's bringing her at
Christmas-time, and had been promised by the biggest brother that, when
they should all agree that she was very good and deserving--because she
had cheerfully done everything she had been told--_she should have her
birthday changed to June_! But so far the promise had never been
fulfilled, for the little girl did not hold, as they did, that the
compact included the washing of potatoes or the scraping of the
mush-kettle. Now, June was almost at hand again, and, as she waited on
the bluff for the cow-horn to sound the call for dinner, she wondered if
the treasured change in dates would ever be made.
While she was still perched upon the topmost rock, she heard a faint
shout from the farm-yard, and looking that way, saw the eldest brother
standing on the seat of the Studebaker, frantically waving his arms. She
got down, ran around to the western side of the hill, and called to the
biggest brother on the level prairie below her. He stopped the ox-team
and tried to understand what the eldest was saying. But it was not made
clear until the youngest unhitched a horse from the wagon and mounting
it, still harnessed, started across the wheat-field with the dogs in
full cry before him.
The herd, which before breakfast had been driven north to the river
meadows, was returning to feed upon the young crops, and was dangerously
near the river edge of the wheat. The cattle were grazing as they
advanced, the cows leading and the beef cattle bringing up the rear. And
when the foremost animals saw the youngest brother cantering toward them
with the pack, they only hurried forward the faster so as to get a taste
of the forbidden grain before they were compelled to turn tail.
Snapping and yelping, the dogs came down upon them, and the herd, two
hundred strong, fled before them, with futile reaches after mouthfuls of
the wheat as they ran. But, scarcely an hour later, when the little girl
was sauntering home behind the biggest brother and the oxen, the cattle
faced about and started slowly back again; and, when the family was just
gathering about the dinner-table, they swarmed across the prairie and
into the fields. This time the youngest brother not only rode out and
drove them back to the meadows, but remained between them and the farm
till the biggest finished his meal and relieved him.
It was plain that some one would have to stay with the cattle throughout
the rest of the day; for, having gotten a taste of the grain, they would
return as often as they were driven away and trample down what they did
not steal. But not one of the big brothers felt that he could be spared
from the work on the smoke-house.
"Say, ma," said the eldest brother, looking at the little girl as he got
up from the dinner-table and took his hat from the elk antlers in the
hall, "I've thought the whole thing out, and I don't see why this
youngster can't herd. She learned to ride; now she can keep them cattle
in the meadows as well as not."
"Oh, you know she's too little," answered her mother; "she'd fall off
her pony if the cattle crowded, and get stepped on."
"Ah, too little," he said superciliously. "All she'd have to do is stay
behind the cattle and sick the dogs every little while."
The little girl's mother shook her head.
"Well, we could put her on the pinto and fasten her feet so's she
couldn't fall off," he persisted.
The mother looked down at the little girl, still busy over her plate of
bacon and eggs.
"Well, maybe she could do that," she said thoughtfully.
"Oh, I'm too little," expostulated the little girl, between two bites.
"Little! You great big thing!" scolded the eldest brother as he went
out. "What are you good for, anyway? Not worth your salt."
When he was gone around the corner of the kitchen, the little girl left
her high bench and sat down crossly upon the door-step. "He's always
'busing me," she complained. "When _I_ want to do anyfing, he says I'm
too little; but when _he_ wants me to do anyfing he finks I'm big
enough."
"Now, pet lamb," said her mother, "you don't have to herd if you don't
want to. But I think you'd be safe on the pinto, and, perhaps, if you
went the boys would all remember their promise about your birthday."
The little girl, understanding what was meant, looked up at her mother
for a moment. Then she whipped through the sitting-room to her bed,
pulled on a pair of beaded moccasins, took her sailor hat off a nail,
and started for the smoke-house.
* * * * *
THE eldest brother went across the reservation road to where the pinto
was picketed in the grassy swale, and brought her in, with her blind
black colt trotting at her heels. And when he had bridled her and
girthed on the soft, woolly pelt of a sheep, he lifted the little girl
to her back and fastened both bare ankles to the cinch with hame-straps.
Then he put the short reins into the little girl's hands, gave the mare
a good slap on the flanks, and watched horse, rider, and colt depart
northward toward the cattle. For it had been settled, when the biggest
brother came in, that if she would try her best to keep the cattle in
the meadows so that the smoke-house could be finished, that very day her
birthday would be changed from December to June.
As soon as the little girl reached the open prairie, the big brothers
returned to their work on the smoke-house. And by the time that the
herd, with the pinto and the dogs behind it, was but a collection of
white and brown specks against the green of the plains, they were so
busy that they had forgotten her. The youngest brother lifted the sods
from the wagon and handed them to the biggest, who helped the eldest lay
them, one layer lengthwise, the next crosswise, and always in such a way
that the middle of a slab came directly above the ends of the ones
beneath.
In the early afternoon, as they worked steadily, the clouds began to
mass darker across the gray sky; and the air, warm throughout the
morning, became chill. A rain-storm seemed on the way, and the big
brothers hurried so as to get the house covered before a shower came to
wash the walls. Two were left to lay the sods, and the other set about
sawing scantlings into lengths for the framework of the hip-roof, while
their mother came out and bound straw into flat bunches for the thatch.
Up in the river meadows, the little girl, secure in her seat on the
pinto, rode to and fro along the southern edge of the herd, in front of
the lowered foreheads and tossing horns of the cattle. Behind her came
the blind black colt, switching his tail and whinnying fretfully; but,
despite his pleading, the little girl, eager to win the reward she had
been promised, never paused in her sentry duty. The pinto fretted, too,
for she also was hungry. But the little girl held the short bridle-reins
tight and did not let the mare get her nose to the ground lest they slip
over her head and out of reach.
The dogs were stretched lazily on some soft badger mounds not far away.
The St. Bernard was not with them, for the big brothers were afraid that
Napoleon, the white bull, would gore him, and had chained him up at
home; and the collie was watching the sheep around the sloughs to the
south. So only the wolf-dogs, with Luffree at their head, helped the
little girl turn an animal back when it broke from the rest and started
toward the grain.
The little girl rode faithfully before the herd, not even stopping to
join the dogs in their chase after a kit-fox that was boldly passing
among the cattle. And when the hunt was over and the cows went down the
runway to the river, she followed in their train, with the pinto still
tugging hard at the reins. But at the bank she forgot how tired her arms
were, for the pack had returned and were amusing themselves by barking
and biting at the snakes that were lying along the strip of sand, and by
pursuing them as they scattered to the water or to the shelter of the
willows at its edge. When the herd had drunk their fill, she slowly rode
eastward, watching them carefully as they spread out across the meadow.
It was then that the clouds came up and the air turned cool. And it was
then that, accidentally, and in one unhappy moment, the little girl
brought all her faithful work to naught, imperiled her birthday hopes,
and cast herself adrift upon the prairie like a voyager in a rudderless
boat. For, in stooping to pull the sheepskin saddle-blanket over her
bare legs, she unthinkingly let go of the bridle, and, the pinto putting
her head down to graze, the short reins slipped along her mane until
they rested just behind her ears--far out of reach.
The little girl slapped her as hard as she could with her hands; but,
even when the mare raised her head and walked about, the little girl
could not get at the reins because she was tightly fastened to the
girth. So the pinto went where she pleased, paying no attention to angry
commands, or to the pounding inflicted upon her flanks by the fists of
the irate little girl.