The Little Colonel in Arizona

by Annie F. Johnston

  CHAPTER XVI.

  BACK TO DIXIE

  THERE was another mark on the kitchen calendar now; not a red star,betokening some happy event to come, but a deep black border, drawn allaround the date on which Lloyd's visit was to end. The heavy black linesmarked the time as only a few days distant.

  It was Saturday again, a week after the excursion to the Indian school.Joyce had gone down to the ranch, for Mr. Armond to criticize thedrawings which she had made since the last lesson, and Lloyd, on theseat under the willows, was waiting for Phil. He was to come at four,and ride over to one of the neighbouring orange groves with her.

  She had a book in her hand, but she was not reading. She was listeningto the water gurgle through the little water-gate into the lateral, andthinking of all that had happened during her visit, especially sincethe night she was lost on the desert, and Phil had found her.

  Monday he had spent the entire day at the Wigwam, and, since Joyce hadforbidden him to come near the spot where the washing was in progress,he and Lloyd had brought a jar of paste and the little wicker table downto this very seat under the willows, and had mounted all her photographsin the book she had bought for the purpose. There were over a hundred,beginning with a view of the Wigwam and ending with the four laughingfaces around the table on the balcony of Coffee Al's restaurant. Therewas Lloyd on her pony, coming back from the duck hunt, and again in theact of dropping her cherry tart. There was Mary in the hammock watchingthe bees, Jack in his irrigating boots, and Holland on a burro. Therewere a dozen different pictures of Joyce, and family groups, and picnicgroups, in which was represented every acquaintance Lloyd had made inArizona. Turning the pages was like living over the pleasant days again,for they brought the scenes vividly before her.

  When the last picture was mounted, Phil proposed that they write anappropriate quotation under each one. So they spent another hour overthat, Phil suggesting most of them, and at Lloyd's request writing theinscriptions himself in his strong, dashing hand. Some of his aptphrases and clever parodies seemed really brilliant to Lloyd, and theyhad laughed and joked over them in a way that had ripened theirfriendship as weeks of ordinary intercourse would not have done.

  "Do you know," he said, when the last inscription was written, "I'vekept count, and I'm in twenty-five of these pictures. You won't havemuch chance to forget me, will you? I haven't put my collection in abook, but I have a better reminder of this last month than all these puttogether."

  Opening the little locket that hung from his watch-fob, he held ittoward her, just long enough for her to catch a glimpse of her own facewithin it. Then, closing the locket with a snap, he put the fob back inits place. It was a picture he had taken of her one day as she sat onthis same seat under the willows, watching Aunt Emily braid an Indianbasket. He had cut out a tiny circle containing her head, from the restof the group, just the size to fit in the locket.

  Lloyd, leaning forward unsuspectingly to look at it, was so surprised atseeing her own picture that a deep blush stole slowly over her face,and she drew back in confusion, not knowing what to say. If he hadasked her permission to put her picture in his locket, she would haverefused as decidedly as she had refused Malcolm the tip of a curl tocarry in his watch.

  But Phil had not asked for anything; had not said a word to which shecould reply as she had replied to Malcolm. He had showed her the locketin the same matter-of-course way that Rob had showed her the four-leafedclover which he carried. Yet deep down in her heart she knew that therewas a difference. She knew that her father would not like Phil to haveher picture in his locket, but she didn't know how to tell him so.

  It was only an instant that she sat in shy, embarrassed silence, withher heart in a flutter, and her eyes fastened on the book of photographswhich she was fingering nervously. Then Jack came out with a pitcher oflemonade, and the opportunity to speak passed. She hadn't the courage tobring up the subject afterward.

  "Phil might think that I think that it means moah than it does," shetold herself. "He weahs the pictuah just as he would Elsie's, and if Itell him that I don't want him to, he'll think that I think that hecares for me the way that Malcolm does. I don't suppose that it reallymakes any difference whethah he has it in his locket or not."

  He did not mention it again, but it did make a difference. Theconsciousness of it embarrassed her whenever she met his eyes. Shewondered if Joyce noticed.

  Tuesday he came again, and read aloud all morning while they ironed.Wednesday he spent the day without bringing anything as an excuse.Thursday he rode with them over to the Indian reservation. Her pony hadbeen brought back to her the day after it ran away. When he left them atthe Wigwam that evening he said that he would not be back the next dayas he had to go to Phoenix, but that he would be up Saturday afternoonto ride with Lloyd to the orange grove while Joyce took herdrawing-lesson.

  It was of all this that Lloyd was thinking now, as she sat under thewillows. And she was thinking, too, of the tale Mrs. Walton told her ofThe Three Weavers; the tale that had been the cause of the Shadow Clubturning itself into the Order of Hildegarde.

  Mrs. Walton had spoken truly when she said that "Little girls begin veryearly sometimes to dream about that far-away land of Romance." Lloyd'sdreams might not have begun so soon, perhaps, had it not been for themeetings of the Shadow Club at boarding-school, when Ida Shane firedtheir imaginations with the stories of "Daisy Dale" and "The Heiress ofDorn," and made Lloyd the bearer of her letters to her "Edwardo." Theunhappy ending of Ida's romance had been a grave warning to Lloyd, andthe story of Hildegarde in the Three Weavers was often in her thoughts.Part of it floated through her memory now, as she realized, with astart, how large a place Phil had occupied in her thoughts the lastweek.

  "Hildegarde worked on, true to her promise, but there came a time when aface shone across her mirror, so noble and fair that she started back ina flutter. 'Oh, surely, 'tis he!' she whispered to her father. 'His eyesare so blue they fill all my dreams!' But old Hildgardmar answered her,'Does he measure up to the standard set by the sterling yardstick for aprince to be?'"

  "That is just what Papa Jack would ask," mused Lloyd. "And he'd say thatlittle girls outgrow their ideals as they do their dresses, and that ifI'm not careful that I'll make the same mistake that Hertha and Hubertadid. Besides, there's my New Yeah's promise!"

  For a moment she ceased to hear the gurgle of the water, and heardinstead the ticking of the clock in the long drawing-room at Locust, asshe and Papa Jack kept watch beside the embers, waiting for the old yearto die and the new one to dawn. And in the solemn hush she heard her ownvoice repeating Hildegarde's promise:

  "_You may trust me, fathah, I will not cut the golden warp from out theloom until I, a woman grown, have woven such a web as thou thyself shaltsay is worthy of a prince's wearing!_"

  A woman grown! And she was not yet quite fourteen!

  "I'll not be the only one of all the Lloyds that can't be trusted tokeep a promise," she said, aloud, with a proud lifting of the head.Resolutely shaking herself free from the day-dreaming that had been sopleasant, she picked up her book and started to the house.

  Listening to Aunt Emily's conversation over her stocking darning, aboutthe commonplace happenings of the household, was not half soentertaining as letting her thoughts stray back to the moonlight ride,to the smile in Phil's eyes as he showed her the locket, or the sound ofhis voice as he sang, "From the desert I come to thee." There were adozen such memories, so pleasant to dwell upon that a girl of lesswill-power would not have pushed them aside. Even Lloyd found itdifficult to do.

  "It's like trying to drive away a flock of cherry birds," she thought."They keep coming back no matter how often you say _shoo_! But I won'tlet them stay."

  Such a resolution was easier to make than to keep, especially as she wasexpecting to see Phil ride up to the door at any moment. But the timeset for his coming passed, and when a step on the bridge made her glanceup, it was Joyce she saw, walking along slowly. Usually she danced inafter her lesson
-hour with Mr. Armond in the gayest of spirits. To-dayit was apparent that she was the bearer of bad news.

  "Oh, mamma!" she began, dropping her sketches on the table, and fumblingto find her hat-pin. "They're all so worried down at the ranch, overPhil! Mrs. Lee says he went to town yesterday morning, expecting to beback in time for dinner, but he hasn't come yet. Jo went in on hiswheel, last night, and he saw him at one of those places where they playfaro, and all those games, and he was so excited over his winnings thathe didn't even see Jo, although he stood and watched him ever so long.This morning Mr. Ellestad went in, and he came across him, wanderingabout the streets. He had lost not only every cent he had deposited inthe bank, but he put up his horse, and lost that, too. He didn't haveany way to get out to the ranch.

  "He wouldn't drive out with Mr. Ellestad. He was so mortified anddisgusted with himself that he said he couldn't face them all. He saidhis father would never trust him again, and that he had lost not onlyhis father's confidence, but our respect and friendship. He said he wasgoing to look for work of some kind, he didn't care what, and it didn'tmake any difference what became of him now.

  "Mr. Ellestad left him at a hotel, and he felt so sorry for him that,tired as he was, he rode over to Tempe, after he got home, to see afriend of his who is a civil engineer. This friend is going to start onan expedition next week, surveying for some canals. Mr. Ellestadpersuaded him to take Phil in his party, and give him some work. Philsaid he didn't intend to touch a cent of his usual monthly allowanceuntil he had earned back all he lost. Mr. Ellestad telephoned to himfrom Tempe, and he is to start in a few days. Mrs. Lee says that losingeverything is the best thing that could have happened to Phil. It'staught him a lesson he'll never forget; and this surveyor is just thesort of a man he ought to be with,--clean, and honourable, and strong."

  As Joyce finished her excited telling with these familiar words, thecolour that had faded completely out of Lloyd's face rushed back again."Clean, and honourable, and strong!" These were the standards of theyardstick that Papa Jack had given her. How far Phil had failed tomeasure up to the last two notches, and yet--

  Mrs. Ware finished the unspoken sentence for her.

  "He is so young that I can't help feeling that, with something to keephim busy and some one to take a helpful interest in him, he will turnout all right. He has so many fine traits, I am sure they will prevailin the end, and that he will make a manly man, after all."

  Joyce openly wiped away the tears that came at the thought of thisending to their happy comradeship, but Lloyd stole away to the tent tohide her face in her pillow, and sob out the disappointment of her sorelittle heart. She would never see him again, she told herself, and theyhad had _such_ good times together, and she was so sorry that he hadproved so weak.

  Presently, as she lay there, she heard Holland come clattering up onthe pony, inquiring for her. He had killed a snake, she could hear himtelling his mother, and had brought it home to skin for Lloyd. It was abeautifully marked diamond-back with ten rattles, and now she could havea purse and a hat-band, like some she had admired in Phoenix.

  Lloyd listened, languidly. "An hour ago," she thought, "I would havebeen out there the instant I heard him call. I would have been admiringthe snake and thanking him for it and asking a hundred questions abouthow he got it. But now--somehow--everything seems so different."

  She started up as he began calling her. "I wish he'd let me alone," sheexclaimed, impatiently. "Aunt Emily will think it strange if I don'tanswer, for she knows I'm out heah, but I don't feel like talking toanybody or taking an interest in anything, and I don't want to go outthere!"

  The call came again. She drew back the tent-flap and looked out. "I'llbe there in a minute, Holland," she answered, trying to keep theimpatience out of her voice. As she went over to the wash-stand to batheher eyes, she brushed a magazine from the table in passing. It was theone Phil had brought up several days before to read aloud. She replacedit carefully, almost as one touches the belongings of some one who isdead.

  There were so many things around the tent to remind her of him, it wouldbe almost impossible to keep him out of her thoughts. She confessed toherself that it was growing very hard to keep her Hildegarde promise.She started to whisper it as one might repeat some strengthening charm:"You may trust me, fathah--" She stopped with a sob. This sudden endingof their happy companionship was going to shadow all the rest of hervisit.

  As her eyes met her reflection in the little mirror hanging against theside of the tent, she lifted her head with determination, and looked atit squarely.

  "I _will_ stop thinking about it all the time!" she said, defiantly, tothe answering eyes. "It will spoil all my visit if I don't. I'll do theway the bees do when things get into the hive that have no right there.I'll seal it up tight as I can, and go on filling the other cells withhoney,--doing things that will be pleasant to remember by and by. I'll_make_ myself take an interest in something else!"

  The same spirit that looked from the eyes of the proud old portraits athome looked back at her now from the eyes in the mirror--that strong,indomitable spirit of her ancestors, that could rise even to theconquering of that hardest of all enemies, self, when occasion demandedit.

  Running out to the wood-pile, where Holland impatiently awaited her, shethrew herself into the interests of the hour so resolutely that she wassoon absorbed in its happenings. By the time the snake was skinned, andthe skin tacked to the side of the house to dry, she had gained avictory that left her stronger for all her life to come. She hadcompelled herself to take an interest in the affairs of others, when shewanted to mope and dream. Instead of an hour of selfish musing in hertent, she had had an hour of wholesome laughter and chatter outside. Itwould be a pleasant time to look back upon, too, she thought,complacently, remembering Mary's amusing efforts to help skin the snake,and all the funny things that had been said.

  "Well, that hour's memory-cell is filled all right," Lloyd thought."I'll see how much moah honey I can store away befoah I leave."

  There was not much more time, for Mr. Sherman came soon, with theannouncement that they would leave in two days. Numerous letters hadpassed between the Wigwam and the mines, so Lloyd knew what was goingto happen when her father arranged for her and Joyce to spend part ofone of those days in town. She knew that when they came back they wouldfind a long rustic arbour built in the rear of the tents--a rough shackof cottonwood poles supporting a thatch of bamboo and palm-leaves.Underneath would be a dozen or more hives, humming with thousands ofgolden-banded bees. And for all the rest of their little lives thesebees would spend their "shining hours" in helping Joyce on toward easiertimes and the City of her Desire.

  Something else happened that day while they were in town. Phil made hislast visit before starting away with the surveying party. Nobody knewwhat passed between him and Aunt Emily in the old Wigwam sitting-room,but he came out from the interview smiling, so full of hope and purposethat her whispered _Godspeed_ seemed already to have found an answer.

  She told the girls afterward a little of their conversation. Hisambition was aroused at last, she said. He was going to work hard allsummer, and in the fall go back to school. Not the military academy, buta college where he could take the technical course this friend of Mr.Ellestad recommended. Phil admired this man immensely, and she was surethat his influence would be exceedingly helpful. She was sure, too, thathe would be all right now, and he had promised to write to her everyweek.

  As Phil came out of the Wigwam he heard Mary's voice, in a sort of happylittle chant, as she watched the settling of the bees in their new home.She had heard nothing of Phil's troubles, and did not know that he wasgoing away until he told her.

  "I want you to tell Lloyd and Joyce something for me," he said.

  "Try to remember just these words, please. Tell them that I said: 'Alakahas lost his precious turquoises, but _he will win them back again, someday_!' Can you remember to say just that?"

  Mary nodded, gravely. "Yes," she said, "I'll tell the
m." Then her liptrembled. "But I don't want you to go away!" she exclaimed, the tearsbeginning to come. "Aren't you ever coming back?"

  "Not for a long time," he answered, looking away toward old Camelback."Not till I've learned the lesson that you told me about, the first timeI saw you, that day on the train, to be inflexible. When I'm strongenough to keep stiff in the face of any temptation, then I'll come back.Good-bye, little Vicar!"

  Stooping, he kissed her gently on each plump cheek, and turned hastilyaway. She watched him go off down the road through a blur of tears. Thenshe rubbed her sleeve across her eyes. He had turned to look back, and,seeing the disconsolate little figure gazing after him, waved his hat.There was something so cheery and hopeful in the swing he gave it, thatMary smiled through her tears, and answered with an energetic flutteringof her white sunbonnet, swung high by its one string.

  * * * * *

  Joyce's delight on her return, when she found the long row of hives, wassomething good to see. She could hardly speak at first, and walked fromone hive to another, touching each as she passed, as if to assureherself that it was really there, and really hers.

  "Joyce is so bee-wildered by her good fortune that she is almostbee-side herself," said Holland, when he had watched her start on herthird round of inspection.

  "That's the truth," laughed Joyce, turning to face Lloyd and her father."I'm so happy that I don't know what I'm doing, and I can't begin tothank you properly till I've settled down a little."

  There was no need of spoken thanks when her face was so eloquent. Eventhe mistakes she made in setting the supper-table spoke for her. In herexcitement she gave Mr. Sherman two forks and no knife, and Lloyd threespoons and no fork. She made the coffee in the teapot, and put thebutter in a pickle-dish. Only Mary's warning cry saved her from skimmingthe cream into the syrup-pitcher, and she sugared everything she cookedinstead of salting it.

  "Oh, I'm sorry," she cried, when her mistakes were discovered, "but ifyou were as happy as I am you'd go around with your head in the cloudstoo."

  After supper she said to Mr. Sherman, as they walked out to the hivesagain, "You see, I'd been thinking all day how much I am going to missLloyd, and what a Road of the Loving Heart she's left behind her on thisvisit. We've enjoyed every minute of it, and we'll talk of the thingsshe's said and done for months. Then I came home to find that she's leftnot only a road behind her, but one that will reach through all theyears ahead, a road that will lead straight through to what I have setmy heart on doing. I'm going into bee culture with all my might andmain, now, and make a fortune out of it. There'll be time enough afterthat to carry out my other plans.

  "To think," she added, as Lloyd joined them, "when I first came to theWigwam I was so lonesome and discontented that I wanted to die. Now Iwouldn't change places with any other girl in the universe."

  "Not even with me?" cried Lloyd, in surprise, thinking of all she hadand all that she had done.

  "No, not even with you," answered Joyce, quoting, softly, "For me thedesert holds more than kings' houses could offer."

  The last two days of Lloyd's visit went by in a whirl. As she drove awaywith her father, in the open carriage that had been sent out of town forthem, she stood up to look back and wave her handkerchief to the littlegroup under the pepper-trees, as long as the Wigwam was in sight. Thenshe kept turning to look back at old Camelback Mountain, until it, too,faded from sight in the fading day. Then she settled down beside herfather, and looked up at him with a satisfied smile.

  "Somehow I feel as if my visit is ending like the good oldfairy-tales--'They all lived happily evah aftah.' Joyce is _so_ happyovah the bees and Mr. Armond's lessons. Aunt Emily is lots bettah, theboys have so much to hope for since you promised to help Holland getinto the Navy, and make a place for Jack at the mines. As for Mary, sheis so blissful ovah the prospect of a visit to Locust next yeah, thatshe can't talk of anything else."

  "And what about my little Hildegarde?" asked Mr. Sherman. "Did the visitdo anything for her?"

  "Yes," said Lloyd, growing grave as the name Hildegarde recalled thepromise that had been so hard to keep, and the victory she had won overherself the day she turned away from her day-dreams and herdisappointment to interest herself in other things. She felt that thebees had shown her a road to happiness that would lead her out of many atrouble in the years to come. She had only to follow their example, sealup whatever had no right in her life's hive, or whatever was spoilingher happiness, and fill the days with other interests.

  "Oh, I'm lots wiseah than when I came," she said, aloud. "I've learnedto make pies and coffee, and to i'on, and to weave Indian baskets."

  "Is that the height of your ambition?" was the teasing reply. "You don'tsoar as high as Joyce and Betty."

  "Oh, Papa Jack, I know you'll be disappointed in me, but, honestly, Ican't help it! I haven't any big ambitions. Seems to me I'd be contentedalways, just to be you'ah deah little daughtah, and not do any moah thanjust gathah up each day's honey as it comes and lay up a hive full ofsweet memories for myself and othah people."

  "That suits me exactly," he answered, with an approving nod. "Contentedpeople are the most comfortable sort to live with, and such an ambitionas yours will do more good in your little corner of the world than allthe books you could write or pictures you could paint."

  The engine was steaming on the track when they drove up to the station.Waffles, the coloured man whom Mr. Robeson had brought with him as cook,hung over the railing of the rear platform, whistling "Going Back toDixie."

  "How good that sounds!" exclaimed Lloyd, as her father helped her up thesteps. "Now that we are really headed for home, I can hardly wait to getback to the Valley and tell mothah and Betty about my visit. I don'tbelieve anybody in the whole world has as many good times to remembah asI have. Or as many good times to look forward to," she added, later,when, with a mighty snorting and puffing, the engine steamed slowly outof the station, and started on its long homeward journey.

  As they rumbled on, she began picturing her arrival, the welcome at thestation, and her meeting with her mother and Betty and the Walton girls.How much she had to tell them all, and how many delightful meetings shewould have with the club! Her birthday was only two months away. Thenthe locusts would be white with bloom, and after that vacation. With thecoming of summer-time to the Valley would come Rob to measure with herat the measuring-tree, to play tennis, and to share whatever the longsummer days held in store.

  With a vague sense that all sorts of pleasantness awaited her there, herthoughts turned eagerly toward Kentucky. Even the car-wheels seemed tocreak in pleased anticipation, and keep time to the tune she hummed halfunder her breath:

  "My heart turns back to Dixie, And I--must--go!"

  THE END.