Blanche Smith was not at all a clever girl--not like Norma. Norma had
always stood first in her classes, had borne off prizes and medals, but
with Blanche it was otherwise. No amount of coaching ever sufficed to
pull her through ah examination, or to remove her from the middle of
her class. Blanche was a dunce confessedly; she hated books, and the
acquisition of knowledge by labor. If people told her things and took
the trouble to explain them, she remembered them sometimes; sometimes
not. To accomplishments she took as a duck to water--danced
beautifully, was a fair musician, sang with taste and sweetness, and
chattered French with absolute self-confidence and a tolerable accent,
although her rudimentary knowledge of the tongue was of the vaguest.
At school she had been more popular than her cleverer sister; the girls
affirmed that she was sweeter tempered and more obliging. At home
also, she was the favorite. Her father idolized her, her brothers
domineered over, and petted her; even the mother made an unconscious
difference between the girls; she admired Norma more--was prouder of
her, but she depended upon Blanche. Norma saw the difference, and
sometimes it vexed her, but generally she was indifferent to it. Her
people did not understand her; she was not like them; when barn-door
fowls unwittingly hatched eaglets, it was natural that the phenomenon
should be beyond their comprehension, and that their ignorance should
prefer the tamer members of their brood. Not that Norma actually
instituted such comparison, and deliberately set herself above her
kindred; she simply acted upon the hypothesis unconsciously, and when
the warmest of the family affection settled around Blanche, felt sure
that it was due to natural difference, and could be no fault of hers.
Little Blanche, in her deep content with her new surroundings, wondered
how she could ever have been so besotted as to object to the move. The
place, the people, the mode of life were all delicious to her, and for
the family at Lanarth, her enthusiasm was touching. Mrs. Mason was
just her idea of "Mrs. Washington, or Cornelia, or Lady de
Bourgainville," she explained to Norma, mixing history and fiction, as
usual, and was laughed at for her pains.
Pocahontas never laughed at her--at least not offensively, or in a way
to make her feel her ignorance. She thought sometimes that her foolish
society was preferred by her new friend to that of her clever sister;
certainly the quaint old tales which Pocahontas poured unreservedly
into her delighted ears were never told to Norma. What impression lay
in the girl's mind of handsome Berkeley Mason, had best remain
uncanvassed. It is ill work, violating feminine sanctuaries unless the
need be urgent; an empty coat-sleeve, carelessly carried, is a powerful
agent for converting a man into a hero.
Christmas, the grand high festival of the year, was approaching, and
all the community was stirred with deep desire for its worthy
celebration. Sociability ceased, or at best was sustained in limp,
half-hearted fashion by the men. The ladies had other things to think
of; for on them rested the sole responsibility of the Christmas
preparations--the providing of copious lodging for expected guests, the
bedecking of rooms with evergreens and holly, the absorption of
store-room and kitchen, the never-ending consultations with the
cook--all the wonderful machinations, the deep mysteries and
incantations, which would result in glittering hospitality later on.
Realizing this, they suffered lesser matters to pass unheeded, caring
naught for social converse, intellectual pleasures, or intelligence of
church or state. Women might elope, men embezzle, dynasties fall,
ministries change, or public faith be broken, and they viewed the
result, if indeed they noted it, with absolute composure. But let eggs
be unattainable, jellies become murky, the fruit in cake or pudding
sink hopelessly to the bottom, and Rachel weeping for her children
could not have made more wild acclaim.
At Lanarth, the week of preparation (good old Virginia housekeepers
always allowed a week at least, and Mrs. Mason adhered to the
time-honored custom) passed busily. Every thing turned out unusually
well, and the store-room was a picture. Jellies, in slender glasses,
glittered in exquisite amber perfection, or glowed warmly crimson, with
points of brighter hue where the sun fell on them. Heaps of
old-fashioned "snowballs" hid golden hearts under a pure white
frosting, and cakes, baked in fantastic shapes, like Turks' heads and
fluted melons, were rich, warm, brown, or white and gleaming as
Christmas snow. The pastry showed all shades from palest buff to
tender delicate brown, and for depth of tone there were their rich
interiors of dark mincemeat and golden custards. Of the pleasures of
this beautiful world not the least is the sight of beautiful food.
And it was Christmas eve.
The shadows were gathering, and the sun sending in his resignation to
the night, when Pocahontas, tying on her pretty scarlet hood and
wrappings, armed herself with a small basket of corn, and proceeded to
the poultry yard to house her turkeys for the night. They usually
roosted in an old catalpa tree near the back gate, earlier in the
season; but as Christmas approached Pocahontas found it expedient to
turn the key upon them, since leaving them out caused weaker brothers
to offend. As she passed the kitchen door she called to little Sawney,
whose affection for his grandmother increased at Christmas, to come out
and help her.
The little fellow had that morning been invested by a doting parent
with a "pa'r o' sto' boots" purchased entirely with reference to the
requirements of the future. They were many sizes too large for him:
the legs adorned with flaming scarlet tops, reached nearly to his
middle; they flopped up and down at every step, and evinced an evil
propensity for wabbling, and bringing their owner with sorrow to the
ground. They were hard-natured, stiff-soled, uncompromising--but! they
were _boots_!--"sto' boots, whar cos' money!"--and Sawney's cup of
bliss was full.
Any one who has experience in the ways and wiles of the domestic
treasure, must be aware of the painful lack of consideration sometimes
evinced by turkeys in this apparently simple matter of allowing
themselves to be housed. Some evenings, they march straight into their
apartment with the directness and precision of soldiers filing into
barracks; on others the very Prince of Darkness, backed by the three
Fates and the three Furies, apparently takes possession of the
perverse, shallow-pated birds. They wander backward and forward, with
an air of vacancy as though they knew not what to do; they pass and
repass the yawning portal of the turkey house, with heads erect and
eyes fixed on futurity, not only as if they did not see the door, but
actually as if there were no door there to see. And when the maddened
driver, wrought to desperation, hurls into their midst a stick or
stone, hoping fervently and vengefully that it may break a neck or a
leg, they leap nimbly into the air with "put-putterings" of surprise
and rebuke, and then advance cautiously upon the missile and examine it.
The Lanarth turkeys were behaving in just this reprehensible manner,
and Pocahontas was working herself into a frenzy over them. Three
times she engineered the flock successfully up to the open door, and
three times the same old brown hen advanced, peered cautiously into the
house, started tragically aside as though she beheld some evil thing,
and produced a panic and a stampede.
"You miserable wretch!" exclaimed Pocahontas, hurling her empty basket
impotently at the dusky author of her woe, "I could kill you! Shoo!
shoo! Sawney, why don't you help me? Head them! Run round them!
Shoo! shoo! you abominable creatures!"
Sawney essayed to obey, grasping the straps of his boots, and lifting
his feet very high.
"Take them off and run," commanded Pocahontas. But Sawney would as
soon have parted with his skin. "I dwine ter run," he responded, and
gripped his boots valiantly. It was of no use. Sawney had gotten too
much boot for his money, and if walking in them was difficult, running
was impossible. He held on to them bravely, but that only impeded
progress further; the faithless cowhides wabbled, twisted, and finally
landed him sprawling on his back in the middle of the flock, which
promptly retired to distant parts of the poultry yard, "puttering" and
dodging.
"Sawney proves a broken reed, as usual," called a pleasant voice from
somewhere in the background; "here, let me help you," and Nesbit Thorne
leaped over the fence, and advanced, gun in hand, to the rescue.
"It's the fault of his 'sto' boots,'" Pocahontas explained, laughing,
as she extended her hand. "Sawney's intentions were honorable enough.
I shall be glad of your assistance--as usual," with a merry glance,
"for these aggravating birds are shattering my nerves, and ruining my
temper."
Then, together, the pair pursued the unruly fowls, and pressed upon
them and buffeted them, until the turkeys were right glad to defy the
vision of the old brown sensationalist, and take refuge in their house.
Pocahontas closed the door with a sharp bang almost upon the tail of
the hindmost one, locked it, and then turned cordially to her companion
and invited him to remain and take tea with them.
Thorne glanced down at his splashed boots and corduroys. "I'm scarcely
in trim for a lady's tea table," he said, smiling, "you must excuse me,
and let me come some other time. I met your brother on the low grounds
as I came up. I've been shooting over his land, and called to leave
your mother a few birds."
"Had you good sport?" inquired Pocahontas, with interest, watching him
empty the pockets of his shooting-coat on the top of an adjacent
chicken-coop, and admiring the soft shades, and exquisite markings of
the plumage of the dead birds.
"Here's old 'bur-rabbit,'" said Thorne, reaching his hand behind his
back, and drawing out the pretty brown beast by the legs. "I knocked
him over just below your garden fence in a little patch of briers. It
was a pretty shot; see, right through the head. I hate to mangle my
game. I'd pretty fair sport; the birds are a little wild, though, and
I had no dog. I lost a fine duck--a canvas-back, this afternoon, by
its falling into deep water. I must send North for a brace of good
dogs."
"That isn't necessary," said Pocahontas, touching the birds gently, and
stroking their soft feathers. "Berke and Royall both have good dogs,
trained retrievers, and used to the country. Strange dogs don't do so
well over unaccustomed ground. It's a shame that you had no dog, and
dreadfully neglectful of the boys not to have noticed. No, no!" as
Thorne moved away from the coop, "you must not leave all those; you
have none for yourself, and you'll be disgraced as a sportsman if you
go home empty-handed. They won't believe you've killed a thing. We
_never_ do, when our men come home with nothing to show. Jim Byrd
never dared face Nina, or me, without, at least, half a dozen birds."
"Who is Jim Byrd?" demanded Thorne quickly. "I never heard you mention
him before."
"Haven't you?" regarding him with great surprise. "Well that is
curious, for he is one of our oldest, dearest friends, Berke's and
mine. A year ago I couldn't have imagined life possible without Jim's
dear old face near us. He formerly lived at Shirley; it was the Byrd
patrimony for generations. His sisters were the closest girl-friends
Grace and I ever had, and for years the two families were as one.
There were financial troubles handed down from father to son, growing
always greater; the old place had finally to be sold, and your uncle
bought it. Jim is in Mexico now, engineering, and the girls are all
married. I wonder you have never heard me mention Jim. I think, and
speak of him frequently. We all do."
So perfectly unembarrassed was the girl's manner, that despite a faint
wistfulness discernible in her face, Thorne put aside the half-thought
formulated in his brain by the familiar mention of Jim Byrd's name. He
allowed himself to be persuaded to re-pocket part of the game,
particularly a brace of ducks, which the soul of the general loved. As
he rose from his seat on the chicken-coop, Pocahontas noticed the
handsome gun beside him, and leaning forward with a woman's instinctive
desire to handle dangerous things, she took it in her hands with an
exclamation of admiration.
"Is it loaded?" she inquired, raising it to her shoulder, and laying
her finger lightly on the trigger.
"Yes," Thorne answered, drawing nearer, "take care, Miss Mason. It
always makes me nervous to see a gun in a woman's hands. Don't pull
the trigger, please; the charge is heavy and the recoil will hurt you."
But the warning came too late; intentionally, or unintentionally, she
_did_ pull the trigger, and the gun carelessly held, recoiled sharply,
striking against her shoulder with such force that she staggered and
would have fallen, if Thorne had not caught her in his arms. The gun
slipped to the ground, but fortunately did not discharge the second
barrel.
Thorne regarded the white face upon his breast with trepidation, amazed
even amid his anxiety at the fierce pang that shot through his heart at
the sight of its pallor. Suppose she should be seriously hurt! Brute
that he had been, not to have taken better care of her. Fool! _fool_!
to have let her touch that accursed gun! His hand trembled as he
loosened her cloak, and passed it tenderly over her shoulder.
Dislocated? No; such cruel harm had not befallen her: a bruise, a
little stiffness was the worst in store. A passionate relief,
bewildering in its intensity, thrilled through him; his dark cheek
rivaled hers in pallor; his eyes glowed.
Then her lids quivered, the gray eyes unclosed, and the color flushed
back warmly, covering cheek and brow and neck with a mighty surge of
crimson. With a quick effort, Pocahontas disengaged herself from his
arms, and leaned against the fence, a few steps away from him.
Struggling for self-mastery, Thorne made his anxious inquiries,
striving by a fierce exercise of will to still his bounding pulses, and
banish from his eyes the expression he felt glowing within them. And
Pocahontas, with her paleness in force again, replied to his inquiries
with tremulous but determined lightness, putting aside his self
reproaches, and assuming the blame with eager incoherence. She made a
terrible mess of it, but Thorne was past all nicety of observation; his
only thought, now that he was assured of her safety, was to get himself
away without further betrayal of his feelings. His mind was in a
tumult, and his heart rose up and choked him. For a moment he held the
small, tremulous fingers in a strong, warm clasp, then with a quick
"good-night" relinquished them, sprang over the fence and walked
rapidly away in the direction of Shirley.