darkness of the warm summer night disclosed its twinkling stars, and
wished that she could suddenly die out there in the field in some
mysterious way, so that there might be much self-condemning woe at the
farm-house when they found her, cold and still. And she could not
refrain from weeping with sheer pity for herself. After pondering for a
while on the sad picture of her untimely death, she changed to one of
great deeds and happiness, wealth and renown, in some far-off land
toward which she was half determined to set out. But this delightful
dream was rudely broken into.
A long blast from the cow-horn sounded through the quiet night and
echoed itself against the bluff. The little girl sat up and looked
toward the house through the dark aisles of the corn.
"I'm not coming," she said, speaking out loud in a voice that broke as
she ended, "I'm going to stay here and _starve_ to death!"
Once more the cow-horn blew, and this time the call was more prolonged
and commanding in tone. It brought the little girl to her feet, and she
hunted up her hat and put it on. Then, as two short, peremptory blasts
rang out, she started toward home.
* * * * *
NEXT morning she dressed hurriedly and got to the sitting-room as
quickly as she could. But there was no bright red wagon standing bravely
in wait for her as she entered; there was nothing under her breakfast
plate, even, when she turned it over. She ate her grits and milk in
silence, choking a little when she swallowed, and, as soon as she could,
rushed away to the corn-crib to see if the brown-paper package were
still there.
It was gone!
Then she knew that her big brothers had sent it away.
She crept back to the house and climbed the ladder to the attic, where
she meant to hide and mourn alone. But no sooner had she gained her feet
beneath the peaked roof, than she saw what she had been seeking.
It hung by its scarlet tongue from a beam, flanked on one side by the
paper of sage that was being saved to season the holiday turkeys, and on
the other by the bag that held the trimmings of the Yule-tree. And the
little girl, sitting tearfully beneath it, tried to count on her fingers
the days that must pass before Christmas.
VII
TWICE IN JEOPARDY
COOL and sparkling after its morning rain-bath, and showing along its
green ridges those first, faint signs of yellow that foretell a coming
ripeness, the grass-mantled prairie lay beneath the warm noon sun. The
little girl, cantering over it toward the sod shanty on the farther
river bluffs, frightened the trilling meadow-larks, as she passed, from
their perch on the dripping sunflowers, and scattered the drops on the
wild wheat-blades with the hoofs of her blind black pony.
The storm had wept so copiously upon the fading plains that the furrows,
turned along the edge of the broad wheat-field to check fires, ran full
and swift down the gentle slope that the little girl was crossing and
almost kept pace with her pony. Every hollow in her path was filled to
the brim, and the chain of sloughs to the south, now resounding with the
joyous quacks of bluewings and mallards, were swelling their waters with
the feeding of countless streams. And the drenched ground, where the
flowers bent their clean faces as if worn with the heavy downpour, sent
up that grateful essence that follows in the wake of a shower.
The blind, black pony felt the new life in the springy turf and the
fresh air and flirted his unshod heels dangerously near to a tracking
wolf-dog as he splashed through runlet and pool. _Pluff-et-y-pluff,
pluff-et-y-pluff, pluff-et-y-pluff_, he drummed softly, and the panting
hound, muzzle down, followed with a soft _swish, swish_. But to the
little girl, thinking of the bounty for gopher brushes that her big
brothers had offered her the day before, the galloping echoed a different
song: _A-cent-for-a-tail, a-cent-for-a-tail, a-cent-for-a-tail_, it sang
in her ears, till she struck the pony a welt on the flanks with the ends
of her long rope reins, and jerked his head impatiently toward the
shallow ford that led to the home of the Swede boy.
* * * * *
THE morning before, the little girl's mother and the three big brothers
had held an indignation meeting in the timothy meadow, which, once the
choicest bit of hay land on the farm, was now so thickly strewn with
wide, brown gopher-mounds, that the little girl, with a good running
start down the barren corn strip, could cross it without touching a
spear of grass, by bopping from one hillock to another. But while this
amused her very much, for she pretended that the knolls were muskrat
houses in a deep, deep slough, it only enraged her mother and the big
brothers. For the gray gophers had intrenched themselves so well in the
timothy, and had thrown up such damaging earthworks, that only a scythe
could save what little hay remained; and they had not only taken into
their burrows--as had been discovered the week before--all the freshly
dropped seed from the barren corn strip, but had dug up kernels all over
the field when they were sprouting into stalks.
The meadow had lain fallow the summer before, and had served no further
use than the grazing of some picketed cows. Then, one parching July day
it had been cut, to kill the thistles and pigweed that overran it, and
in the following May had been plowed, dragged, and sown to wild timothy.
The few mounds dotting it had been turned under with the belief that,
between the fallow and the new plowing, the gophers would be driven out.
Instead, they had kept to their burrows and, all in good time, had
tripled their number.
So, as the little girl's mother and the big brothers stood on the edge
of the timothy and viewed the concave stretch that should have showed
green and waving from its rim to the boggy center, they planned the
destruction of the rodents, and declared that if any escaped death by
poison, the little girl should snare them and receive a cent for each
tail.
When her mother's calico slat-sunbonnet and the big hats of her big
brothers had bobbed out of sight across the corn, the little girl sat
down upon a hillock and counted gophers. But there were so many and they
ran about so much that she could not keep track of them; so she gave it
up soon and began to think over all the things she would buy from the
thick catalogue with the money she would get when she had snared a great
number.
And she was still sitting there, watching the gophers covetously, when
she saw the eldest brother returning. He had a salmon-can full of
poisoned wheat in one hand, and when he reached the meadow he made a
circuit and left a pinch of grain at the mouths of a score of burrows,
where the greedy animals could find it and cram it into their
cheek-pouches, and then crawl into their holes to die. When he had
distributed all the grain, he threw the salmon-can away, wiped his
fingers on his overalls, and started for the watermelon patch.
The little girl had silently withdrawn into the corn-field at his
approach, but now she came out and, after satisfying herself that he was
out of sight, picked up the can and also made a circuit of the meadow.
Strangely enough, she stopped at the very burrows he had visited. When
she was done, she went to the boggy center, found a deep cow track that
was half full of water, and carefully emptied the can into it. Then she
took it back to where the eldest brother had thrown it, and, with a look
toward the watermelon patch, went home.
On his way back to the farm-house, the eldest brother paused in the
timothy to see if the gophers had eaten of the poisoned grain. He was
delighted to find, on going from hill to hill, that not a single kernel
was visible! He imparted the good news to the family at the
dinner-table, and it was received with rejoicing. The little girl alone
was silent. But, doubtless, she had not heard what he said, for she was
intent upon a huge piece of dried-prune cobbler.
That afternoon she went out to the barn to get some hair for a
slipping-noose. Kate, the raw-boned cultivator horse, standing idle in
her stall, turned her head and nickered when she heard the door creak
open, expecting a nibble of sugar-bread. But the little girl had nothing
for her. Instead, she rolled a dry-goods box into an adjoining stall,
climbed upon it, and, reaching over the rough board side, got hold of
Kate's long black tail.
The mare flattened her ears back, stamped crossly, and swayed her hind
quarters against the opposite partition. But the little girl only clung
the tighter and, unmindful in her security, chose and pulled out a dozen
of the longest hairs she could find. Then, jumping down, she arranged
them, ends together, hooked them over a nail at their center, and
plaited them. And when she had tied a piece of stout, dark string to the
end of the braid, she slipped it through the hair loop. The next moment,
with a stick in one hand and the snare in the other, she started happily
for the meadow.
When she reached it, saucy _chur-r-rs_ from all over the timothy
announced her. And as she paused on its edge to decide which burrow she
would attack first, a dozen gophers sat up on their haunches to look at
her, or frisked gaily from mound to mound.
She caught sight of a gray back at a near-by hole, and, running forward,
chased the animal out of sight, stooped and carefully arranged the noose
around the opening, and, after covering it with dirt, straightened the
string to its full length. Then she crept back noiselessly to the hole
to take a last peep before she threw herself down flat upon her stomach,
grasped the end of the string, and lay very still.
For a moment there was no movement at the burrow. But soon the tip end
of a gopher's nose appeared, the whiskers moving inquiringly, and
disappeared. When it came again, the little girl whistled a note softly,
and the nose came out so far that two sharp black eyes showed. The eyes
saw her, too, and the gopher, growing bolder and more inquisitive,
raised himself higher on his fore paws to take a better look. Presently
all of his white throat was visible, and the little girl knew that it
was time to act. With one quick, vigorous jerk of her extended right
arm, she tightened the loop around him. And, amid a whirl of dirt, gray
tail, and tawny back, the gopher was pulled out into the timothy.
The little girl sat upon her knees and looked at him. Her heart was
beating wildly, and she was almost as scared as the panting creature at
the end of her string. He held the snare taut as he crouched in a bunch
of grass and watched her. Finally, she pulled at it a little. It brought
him toward her, reluctantly sliding along on his feet, which he braced
stiffly. Then, as she pulled again, he began to tug madly, and clattered
in alarm.
"_Seek--seek!_" he cried, twisting and turning his lithe body;
"_seek--seek--seek!_" The next instant he took the string into his mouth
and bit it ferociously.
The little girl paled at the sight, and arose trembling to her feet.
This shortened the snare, and the gopher came nearer, tumbling over and
over through the grass. Remembering her stick, the little girl backed
slowly toward it, not taking her eyes off him for an instant. But, as
she retreated, the string tightened again, and the gopher advanced as
before. The little girl, still too far from the stick, trembled more
than ever at his wild cries, and her hand shook so that she could hardly
hold the snare. He was attacking it with all his might, bounding into
the air and, blindly fearless in his danger, coming toward her faster
than she could step backward.
A moment she paused, shaking her apron to try to scare him. But as,
hissing and fighting, he rolled against her bare feet, she dropped the
string, turned her face from the meadow--and fled!
* * * * *
EVERY Sunday afternoon the Swede boy came to the farm-house and,
squatting opposite the little girl as she sat enthroned upon the lounge
in all the glory of a stiff Turkey-red dress, eyed her furtively while
her mother read aloud the story of Mazeppa. His pale eyes, under their
heavy white brows, never wavered from her face, even during the most
stirring danger to the Cossack chief. Upon these occasions the little
girl's mind wandered, too; for the tale of bravery recalled the
colonel's son at the army post, the pride of the troop, who, in campaign
hat, yellow-striped trousers, and snug, bright-buttoned coat, was a
sturdy military figure. And had the Swede boy known it, he was less to
her than a cockle-bur in her blind black pony's tail.
But youth is fickle and the reservation was far. So, when the rain was
over next morning, she ran to the barn, bridled her horse, climbed from
the manger to his back, and, lying flat to escape the top casing of the
door, went out of the stable toward the Swede shanty at a run. Down deep
in the long, narrow, jack-knife pocket of her apron lay a new gopher
snare, culled, as before, from the tail of the cultivator mare.
As she scoured across the prairie, her hair whipping her shoulders and
her skirts fluttering gaily, the last few clouds in the sky, white and
almost empty, dispersed tearfully above the distant forks of the
Vermillion. And when the river was reached and forded, and the steep
bank climbed on the other side, a drying wind that had sprung up
promised, with the sun, to prepare the timothy for that afternoon's
snaring.
The Swede boy listened silently while the little girl unfolded her plan,
and, after she had finished, waited a long time before speaking. His
pale eyes looked thoughtfully at the ground, and the little girl, still
mounted on her pony, could not see whether or not they approved of the
scheme.
"Who gates th' mownay?" he asked at last. The little girl hesitated
before answering, struggling with greed.
"Bofe of us?" she faltered.
The Swede boy grunted.
"You catch 'em and kill 'em," said the little girl, "and I'll snip off
their tails. 'Cause my biggest brother says gray gophers don't worry no
more 'bout losin' their tails than tadpoles do."
He grunted again, and the little girl, eager and impatient, turned the
blind black pony about in circles.
"Ay catch 'em, ay kill 'em," the Swede boy said finally. There was a
significant tone in his voice, and a gleam in the pale eyes under the
tow hair. "An' yo' gate th' mownay," he added.
They were on the edge of the timothy meadow as soon as the pony, with
his double load, could cover the distance. And while the little girl
tied the horse to a big stone on the slope of the carnelian bluff, the
Swede boy hastened to a gopher-hole and fixed the noose about it. A
moment later, when she came stealthily running up behind him, he was
already flat upon the ground and waiting.
It was not long before the gopher poked his nose out to see if his
pursuer was near, and, catching sight of a ragged felt hat just above a
clump of pigweed, stood up to investigate. The next instant the Swede
boy had him and, springing to his feet, cast a triumphant look behind.
But what was his amazement to see the little girl, bareheaded, fast
disappearing through the corn!
When she came slowly back, the Swede boy was again stretched upon his
stomach, and watching a hole nearer the center of the meadow. The little
girl did not follow him, but stayed on the rim and pityingly viewed the
limp gopher that lay, with eyes half closed, breast still, and tail thin
and lifeless.
"Poor fing!" she said sympathetically, "it's 'cause you stealed the
corn."
Then she opened his mouth with the butt end of her willow riding-switch,
to find out what he had in his cheek-pouches. An onion and a few
marrowfat peas rolled out, and the little girl, kneeling beside him,
eyed him sternly.
"And so," she said, waving her hand toward the barren strip, "after
pickin' up all that corn, you gophers have to go a-snoopin' round the
veg'table patch!"
She left him and went on to the corn-marker, his tail, taken in
righteous wrath, bearing her jack-knife company in the long, narrow
pocket of her apron. But when she had sat down musingly, her chin in her
hands, a strange thing happened to the dead gopher on the meadow rim. He
moved a little, slowly unclosed his eyes, raised his head, and looked
about; and, unseen by the Swede boy and the little girl, crawled away,
through the clods that had only stunned him, to the corn-field, where,
with many a cross _seek_, he nursed the hairy stump that henceforth was
to serve him for a tail.
Dinnerless, but forgetful of hunger in the sport of capture, the little
girl and the Swede boy stayed on. Once, during the afternoon, a gopher
stopped their work by getting away with the snare and leaving them only
half of the string. But the blind black pony good-naturedly furnished
enough wiry strands for another slipping-noose, and the hunt went on.
On their way to the farm-house at sundown, they passed the spot where
the Swede boy had left his first capture, but failed to find him
anywhere.
"Why, he's runned away!" exclaimed the little girl.
The Swede boy shook his head. "Noa; ay keel hame weeth a clode," he
said, "an' a bole-snake gote hame."
They had many a stout noose stolen during the days that followed. But
the Swede boy snared plenty of gray gophers, and they all shared the
fate of the first one,--lost their tails and were left to lie on the
edge of the ruined meadow. When the spot was visited afterward, it was
generally found that they had disappeared. But this did not trouble the
little girl, for she wisely concluded that the bull-snakes were having a
fat time of it.
The night before the three big brothers left with the thrashers, the
string of gopher-tails was so long that she brought it into the kitchen
and gave it proudly to the eldest brother to count. Then it was put into
a twist of hay and shoved into the cook-stove.
"Goin' to give some of them pennies to th' Swede?" asked the youngest
brother as the little girl sat down at the table and began to add up her
earnings.
She flushed, but did not answer.
"Naw," said the eldest brother. "Why, th' Swede's not catchin' gophers
for money; he's doin' it for love."
The little girl gathered up her pennies angrily and went to her room.
But, next morning, when the Swede boy's whistle sounded from the meadow,
she mounted her pony and went down. For the biggest brother had
whispered to her this word of philosophy: "Might jus' as well get th'
game with th' name."
For several nights after the departure of the big brothers, the little
girl came home radiant, brushes dangling from her apron ruffle like
scalps. Then, one evening, when four catches should have made her happy,
she ate her supper with a sad and puzzled face, and afterward added
only _two_ tails to her string. Her mother, seeing that something was
troubling her, inquired what it was; but, on hearing the story, went
into such a hearty fit of laughter that the little girl's feelings were
hurt very much, and she went to bed on the instant. She did not broach
the subject again. But while the two weeks of her big brothers' absence
were passing, she was often dejected.
After supper, the first night of their return, when the benches were
still drawn up around the table, and the big brothers, tired with their
long ride, were pulling at their corn-cob pipes, the little girl went up
to the eldest and touched him timidly on the arm.
"Well, youngster," he said, "how many gophers have you snared since
we've been gone?"
The little girl got red suddenly, and hesitated before she spoke.
"Sixty," she answered, half under her breath.
The biggest brother took his pipe out of his mouth in mock astonishment.
"Sixty!" he exclaimed. "Why, geewhitaker! you'll break the bank if you
don't look out!"
The eldest brother put his hand into his pocket and took out some
change. "Get the string," he said, "and here's your money."
The little girl looked at the coins mournfully, and then around the
circle, and stepped back a few paces. "You won't b'lieve me when you
see it," she said. She went out and came back presently, holding up the
tails.
The eldest brother took them out of her hand, and she stood silently by
while he counted them. When he had finished, he looked at her crossly.
"Sixty!" he sneered. "You haven't caught no such thing! Here's only
twenty." He waved the brushes in the air, and the little girl trembled
visibly. "Did you think I'd pay you for sixty," he continued, "when you
ain't got the tails to show for 'em?"
The little girl trembled more than ever. "Honest," she said; "honest! We
caught sixty--we did, truly--"
"Where are their tails, then? where are their tails?" asked the eldest
brother, impatiently, shaking the string so violently that some of the
brushes fell off. "You _say_ you did--_but what have you got to show for
'em_?"
The little girl came closer, her eyes wide and earnest. She was
breathing hard and she lowered her voice as she answered.
"True as cross my heart to die," she said, "we caught sixty; but this
was all the string I could get. 'Cause--'cause--there's a new kind of
gophers in the timothy meadow,--_and they ain't got tails!_"
VIII
A HARVEST WEDDING
THE wedding of one of the Dutchman's seven stout daughters to a young
farmer who lived in a dugout on the West Fork was an event in the little
girl's life only second in importance to the christening. Two trips to
Yankton on the wheat-wagon with the biggest brother shrank into
insignificance before it, and she looked forward to its celebration so
anxiously that time dragged as slowly as a week before Christmas.
The morning of the notable day she was unable to eat anything through
sheer excitement. She passed the hours after breakfast in restless
riding over the barley stubble, where the sheep, led by a black
bell-wether who sought the fields because they were forbidden ground,
were mincing and picking their way. At eleven she happily welcomed a
gallop to the farthest end of the farm to carry doughnuts and
ginger-beer to the big brothers. At dinner-time her appetite was again
poor, but later, after making enough hay-twists for her mother's
baking, she scraped the cake-batter dish clean and partook freely of
several yards of red apple peelings.
The big brothers came in early from the fields to rest and get ready,
and, one by one, spent half an hour in the kitchen, where the big wooden
wash-tub held the center of the room. When it came time for the little
girl to take a bath, the kitchen floor looked like a duck pond, for the
tub was almost floating, and the well outside was noticeably low. At
sunset the family sat down to a supper suggestive of the wedding feast
to come. But though there were toothsome sandwiches on the table and
cream popovers, not to speak of a heaping dish of watermelon
sweet-pickles, the little girl again did not feel like eating, and only
nibbled at a piece of raisin-pie when her mother, not realizing how
satisfying the batter and peelings had been, threatened her with staying
at home. After supper the big brothers hitched the gray team to the
light wagon, fastened up the chicken-coops, latched the barn door and
chained the dogs; and, having finished the chores, blacked each other's
boots, brushed their hair slick with water, changed their clothes and
resigned themselves to their mother, who put the last touches to their
collars and ties. Then, just as a faint bugle-call, sounding the
advance, was heard from across the prairie to the west, the family
climbed into the wagon.
On the trip down, the eldest and youngest brothers sat in front and
drove. Their mother and the biggest brother occupied the hind seat and
looked after the piccalilli and pies, which they held on their laps. So
the little girl had to content herself with staying in the back of the
wagon on an armful of hay and letting her feet dangle out behind. As the
team trotted south over the rough path that, at the school-house, joined
another leading to the Dutchman's, she clung to the side boards in
impatient silence, her eyes turned across the sloughs toward the
Vermilion, where, through the starlight, were coming the chaplain, some
troopers, and the colonel's son.
It was a still night, and the family could hear other wagons approaching
from various directions, the distant whinnying of ponies traveling
singly, the barking of the Dutchman's dogs, and the thudding gallop of
the nearing cavalry mounts; and when they arrived the same shouts that
greeted them welcomed a score of their neighbors and the dusty army men.