Mrs. Pantin’s eyes had all the warm friendliness of two blue china knobs and her thin lips were closed until her mouth looked merely a vivid scratch. Yet, somehow, the boy managed to say with his manner of deferential courtesy:
“Mrs. Pantin, do you know Miss Prentice?”
Ordinarily, a part of Mrs. Pantin’s society manner was a vivacious chirp, but now she said coldly between her teeth:
“I haven’t that pleasure.” She gave Kate her extreme finger tips with such obvious reluctance that the action was an affront.
Disston glanced at Mrs. Sudds in the hope of finding friendliness. That lady had drawn herself up like an outraged tragedy queen. No one would have dreamed, seeing Mrs. Sudds at the moment with her air of royal hauteur, that in bygone days she had had her own troubles making twelve dollars a week as a stenographer.
His glance passed on to Mrs. Neifkins, who was picking at a French knot in a spasm of nervousness lest Kate betray the fact that they had met.
Disston was aware that Mrs. Neifkins knew Kate and his lip curled at her cowardice. He raised his head haughtily; he would not subject his partner to further rebuffs.
“Come on, Katie,” he said, curtly, and they passed into the dining room.
The girl’s cheeks were flaming as they sat down on the chairs ranged against the wall.
“Hughie,” her fingers were like ice as she clasped them together in her lap. “What’s the matter? Do I look—queer?”
He answered shortly:
“You’re all right.”
They sat watching the crowd file in. Suddenly Hughie exclaimed in obvious relief:
“There’s Teeters, and Maggie Taylor and her mother! Wait here—I’ll bring them over.”
He went up to them with assurance, for their friendliness and hospitality had been marked upon the several occasions that he had accompanied Teeters, who always had some transparent excuse for stopping at their ranch.
Mrs. Taylor, with her backwoods’ conceit and large patronizing manner, had been especially amusing to Hughie, but now in this uncomfortable situation she looked like a haven in a storm as he saw her towering by nearly half a head above the tallest in the crowd.
It was Mrs. Taylor’s proud boast that she came of a race of giants. Even upon ordinary occasions she bore a rather remarkable resemblance to a mountain sheep, but to-night the likeness was further increased by a grizzled bunch of frizzled hair that stood out on either temple like embryo horns. Mrs. Taylor looked, as it were, “in the velvet.” She wore a brown sateen basque secured at the throat by a brooch consisting of a lock of hair under glass. It was observed, also, that for the evening she had removed the string which she commonly wore around her two large and widely separated front teeth, and which were being drawn together by this means at about the rate the earth is cooling off.
Mrs. Taylor dated events from the time “Mr. Taylor was taken,” though there was always room for doubt as to whether Mr. Taylor was “taken” or quite deliberately went.
Miss Maggie was tall and sallow and was anticipating matrimony with an ardor that had made the maiden one of the country’s stock jokes, since the sharer of it seemed to be of secondary importance to the fact. All her spare change and waking hours were spent buying and embroidering linen for the “hope chest” that spoke of her determined confidence in the realization of her ambition.
The three greeted Hughie warmly. Miss Maggie flashed her dazzling teeth; Teeters reached out and smote him with his fist between the shoulder blades; Mrs. Taylor laid her hand upon his arm with her large smug air of patronizing friendliness, and, stooping, beamed into his face.
“We were not looking for you here. Did Mr. and Mrs. Toomey come? Are you alone?”
“I brought Katie Prentice—she’s sitting over there.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Taylor’s expression changed.
The boy looked at her pleadingly as he added:
“She has so few pleasures, and she would so like to have acquaintances—to make friends.”
“I dare say,” dryly.
“She—she doesn’t know any one. Won’t you—all come and join us?” There was entreaty in the boy’s voice.
Mrs. Taylor rose out of her hips until she looked all of seven feet tall to Hughie.
“You must excuse me, Mr. Disston.” She hesitated, then added in explanation: “When we came West I told myself that I must not allow myself to deteriorate in rough surroundings, and I have made it a rule never to mingle with any but the best, Mr. Disston. My father,” impressively, “was a prominent undertaker in Philadelphia, and as organist in a large Methodist church in that city I came in contact with the best people, so you understand,” blandly, “don’t you, why I cannot—”
The boy was red to the rim of his ears as he bowed formally to mother and daughter.
“I don’t in the least,” he replied, coldly.
The pain in Kate’s eyes hurt him when he returned to his seat and she asked.
“They wouldn’t come?”
He hesitated, then answered bluntly:
“No.”
“H-had we better stay?”
“Yes,” he replied, doggedly, “we’ll stay.”
Their efforts at conversation were not a success, and it was a relief to them both when Hiram Butefish, as Floor Manager, commanded everybody to take partners for a waltz.
Hughie arose and held out his hands to Kate.
“Hughie, I can’t,” she protested, shrinking back. “I’m—afraid.”
“Yes, you can,” determinedly. “Don’t let these people think they can frighten you.”
“I’ll try because you want me to,” she answered, “but it’s all gone out of my head, and I know I can’t.”
“You’ll get it directly,” as he took her hand. “Just remember and count. One, two, three—now!”
The bystanders tittered as she stumbled. The sound stung the boy like a whip, his black eyes flashed, but he said calmly enough:
“You make too much of it, Katie. Put your mind on the time and count.”
She tried once more with no better result. She merely hopped, regardless of the music.
“I tell you I can’t, Hughie,” she said, despairingly. “Let’s sit down.”
“Never mind,” soothingly as he acquiesced, “we’ll try it again after a while. The next will very likely be a square dance and I can pilot you through that.”
“You’re so good!”
He looked away to avoid her grateful eyes. What would she say if she knew the reason he had brought her there? On a bet! He had seen only what appeared to be the humorous side. Hughie’s own pride enabled him to realize how deep were the hurts she was trying so pluckily to hide. But why did they treat her so? Even her dreadful get-up seemed scarcely to account for it.
The next number, as he surmised, was a square dance.
“Take your pardners fer a quadrille!”
There was a scrambling and a sliding over the floor, accompanied by much laughter, to the quickly formed “sets.”
“There’s a place, Kate—on the side, too, so you have only to watch what the others do.”
She hesitated, but he could see the longing in her eyes.
He taunted boyishly, “Don’t be a 'fraidy cat,'” at which for the first time they both laughed with something of naturalness.
Mr. Scales of the Emporium and his plump bookkeeper were there, and the willowy barber with the stylish operator of the new telephone exchange, while Mr. and Mrs. Neifkins made the third couple, and Hugh and Kate completed the set.
There was an exchange of looks as the pair came up. The stylish operator lifted an eyebrow and drew down the corners of her mouth. The bookkeeper said, “Well!” with much significance,—but it remained for Mrs. Neifkins to give the real offense. The expression on her vapid face implied that she was aghast at their impudence. Gathering the fullness of her skirt as though to withdraw it from contamination she laid the other hand on her husband’s arm:
“There’s
a place over there, Myron, where we can get in.”
“It’s nearer the music,” said Neifkins with an apologetic grin to the others.
Those who stayed had something of the air of brazening it out. In vain Mr. Butefish called sternly for, “One more couple this way!”
It was Scales of the Emporium who said, finally:
“Looks like we don’t dance—might as well sit down.”
Every one acted on the suggestion with alacrity save Kate and Hughie. When he turned to her, he saw that she was swallowing hard at the lump that was choking her.
“It’s on account of me that they act so, Hughie! You stay if you want to; I’m going.”
“Stay here?” he cried in boyish passion. “You’re the only lady in the room so far as I can see! What would I stay for?”
The citizens of Prouty were still deeply impressed by each other’s pretensions, as the reputations the majority had left in their “home towns” had not yet caught up with them. Therefore, being greatly concerned about what his neighbor thought of him, no one would have dared be friendly to the ostracized couple even if he had the disposition.
Kate and Hughie walked out, very erect and looking straight ahead, followed by a feeling of satisfaction that this opportunity had presented itself for the new order to show where it stood in the matter of accepting doubtful characters on an equal social footing. It had properly vindicated itself of the charge that western society was lax in such matters. That they had hurt—terribly hurt—another, was of small importance.
* * *
CHAPTER V
FOR ALWAYS
In the little room upstairs, where less than an hour before she had dressed in happy excitement, Kate tore off the paper flowers and wild rose pods. She threw them in a heap on the floor—the cherished mitts, the bunting dress—while she sobbed in a child’s abandonment, with the tears running unchecked down her cheeks. The music floating up the stairway and through the transom, the scuffling sound of sliding feet, added to her grief. She had wanted, oh, how she had wanted to dance!
The thought that Hughie had suffered humiliation because of her was little short of torture. But he had not deserted her—he had stuck—even in her misery she gloried in that—and how handsome he had looked! Why, there was not a man in the room that could compare with him! His clothes, the way he had borne himself, the something different about him which she could not analyze. It was a woman’s pride that shone in her swollen red-lidded eyes as she told herself this, while she pinned on her shabby Stetson in trembling haste, buckled the spurs on her boots and snatched up her ugly mackinaw.
Hugh was waiting for her in the office below.
The horses were tied to the hitching rack. Kate gulped down the lump that rose in her throat as she swung into the saddle. The orchestra was playing the “Blue Danube,” and she especially loved that waltz. The strains followed them up the street, and tears she could not keep back fell on the horse’s mane as she drooped a little over the saddlehorn.
She looked down through dimmed eyes upon the lights streaming from the windows of the Prouty House, as they climbed the steep pitch to the bench above town, and the alluring brightness increased the aching heaviness of her heart, for she felt that she was leaving all they represented behind her forever. She knew she never could find the courage to risk going through such an ordeal again.
A childhood without playmates had created a longing for companionship that was pathetic in its eagerness, and the yearning had not been modified by the isolation and monotony of her present life. To dance, to be merry, to have the opportunity to please, seemed the most important thing in the world to the girl and now she seemed to realize, in mutinous despair, that through no fault of her own she was going to be cheated of that which was her right—of that which was every girl’s right—to have the pleasures which belonged to her years.
Kate’s standards were the standards of the old west and of the mountains and plains, which take only personal worth into account, so she did not yet comprehend clearly what it was all about. She herself had done nothing to merit such treatment from people whose names she did not even know. She rode for a long time without speaking, trying, in her tragic bewilderment, to puzzle it out.
The silence was in painful contrast to the high spirits in which they had ridden into town. Then, they had found so much to talk about, so much to anticipate—and it had all turned out to be so different, so far removed from anything they had dreamed. Each shrank from being the first to broach the subject of their humiliating retreat.
The moon came up after a while, full and mellow, and the night air cooled Kate’s flaming cheeks. The familiar stars, too, soothed her like the presence of old friends, but, more than anything, the accustomed motion of her horse, as it took its running walk, helped to restore her mental poise.
At the top of a hill both drew rein automatically. Walking down steep descents to save their horses and themselves was an understood thing between them. At the bottom they still trudged on, leading their horses and exchanging only an occasional word upon some subject far removed from their real thoughts. It was Kate who finally said with seeming irrelevance:
“Uncle Joe brought home two collie puppies once—fat, roly-poly little things that didn’t do anything but play and eat, and they were—oh, so innocent! They were into everything, and always under foot, afraid of nothing or nobody, because they never had been hurt.
“One night a storm came up—a cold rain that was almost snow. They ran into my tent and settled themselves on my pillow all shivering and wet. In squirming around to make a nest for themselves they pulled my hair. It made me cross. I was half asleep and I slapped them.
“They paid no attention to it at first—they couldn’t believe I meant it, so they kept on trying to cuddle up to me to get warm. I slapped them harder. They whimpered, but still they couldn’t realize that I meant to hurt them. Finally, I struck them—hard—again and again—until they howled with pain. They understood finally that they were not wanted—and they went crying and whimpering out into the rain.
“It awakened me, thinking what I had done, how they had come to me so innocent—taking kindness as a matter of course because they never had known anything else, and I had been the first to hurt them. I was the first to spoil their confidence in others—and themselves. I couldn’t sleep for thinking of it, and finally I got up, and, to punish myself, went out barefooted into the storm and brought them back. They forgave me and soon settled down, but they never were quite the same, for they had learned what pain was and what it meant to be afraid.
“When I went there to-night I was like those puppies, just as green and confident—just as sure of everybody’s kindness.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Katie,” he replied in a low tone.
“I don’t mean to whine,” she went on, “but you see I wasn’t expecting it, and, like the puppies, it took me a long time to understand. I thought at first it was my dress—that I looked—funny, somehow; but you said it wasn’t that, so I thought maybe it was because we were 'in sheep,' but so is Neifkins, and nobody treated them as they did me.”
“The upstarts!” savagely. “I’ll never forgive myself for taking you there!”
She protested quickly:
“You’re not to blame. How could you know? You meant to do something nice for me, Hughie.”
He winced at that. It would have required more courage than he had to have told her at the moment the exact truth.
He held the horses back and stopped suddenly.
“Katie,” turning to her, “I’d do anything in the world to make amends for what happened to-night. Isn’t there some way—something I can do for you? Anything at all,” he pleaded. “Just tell me—no matter what it is—you’ve only to let me know.”
She looked at him with grateful eyes, but shook her head.
“No, Hughie, there’s nothing you can do for me.” She caught her breath sharply and added, “Ex—except to go on liking me. It would break
my heart if you went back on me, too.”
“Kate!”
“If you didn’t like me any more—” She choked and the swift tears filled her eyes.
“Like you!” impetuously. “I’d do more than like you if I never had seen you before to-night!” He dropped the bridle reins and laid a hand on either shoulder, holding her at arms’ length. “Your eyes are like stars! And your mouth looks so—sweet! And your hair is so soft and pretty when the wind blows it across your forehead and face like that! I wish you could see yourself. You’re beautiful in the moonlight, Kate!”
“Beautiful?” incredulously. Then she laughed happily, “Why, I’m not even pretty, Hughie.”
“And what’s more,” he declared, “you’re a wonderful girl—different—a fellow never gets tired of being with you.”
“You are making up to me for what happened to-night! I nearly forget it when you tell me things like that.”
“I didn’t know how much I did care until they hurt you. I could have killed somebody if it wouldn’t have made things worse for you.”
“As much as that?” She looked at him wistfully. “You care as much as that? You see,” she added slowly, “nobody’s ever taken my part except Uncle Joe—not even my mother; and it seems—queer to think that anybody else likes me well enough to fight for me.”
The unconscious pathos went straight to the boy’s chivalrous heart.
“Oh, Honey!” he cried impulsively, and taking her hand in both of his he held it tight against his breast.
Her eyes grew luminous at the word and the caress.
“Honey!” she repeated in a wondering whisper. “I like that.”
Her lids lowered before the new and strange expression in his face.
“You’ve always seemed so independent and self-reliant, like another fellow, somehow. I didn’t know you were so sweet. I’m just finding you out.”
She looked at him before replying, but he trembled before the soft light shining in her eyes.
The Fighting Shepherdess Page 5