by Zane Grey
“Rosa, why do you always act as if I were your enemy?” she said, sadly.
“Because you are!” said Rosa, with a toss of her independent head.
“Indeed I’m not, dear child,” she said, putting out her hand to lay it on the girl’s shoulder kindly. “I want to be your friend.”
“I’m not a child!” snapped Rosa, jerking her shoulder angrily away; “and you can never be my friend, because I hate you!”
“Rosa, look here!” said Margaret, following the girl toward the door, the color rising in her cheeks and a desire growing in her heart to conquer this poor, passionate creature and win her for better things. “Rosa, I cannot have you say such things. Tell me why you hate me? What have I done that you should feel that way? I’m sure if we should talk it over we might come to some better understanding.”
Rosa stood defiant in the doorway. “We could never come to any better understanding, Miss Earle,” she declared in a cold, hard tone, “because I understand you now and I hate you. You tried your best to get my friend away from me, but you couldn’t do it; and you would like to keep me from having any boy friends at all, but you can’t do that, either. You think you are very popular, but you’ll find out I always do what I like, and you needn’t try to stop me. I don’t have to come to school unless I choose, and as long as I don’t break your rules you have no complaint coming; but you needn’t think you can pull the wool over my eyes the way you do the others by pretending to be friends. I won’t be friends! I hate you!” And Rosa turned grandly and marched out of the school-house.
Margaret stood gazing sadly after her and wondering if her failure here were her fault—if there was anything else she ought to have done—if she had let her personal dislike of the girl influence her conduct. She sat for some time at her desk, her chin in her hands, her eyes fixed on vacancy with a hopeless, discouraged expression in them, before she became aware of another presence in the room. Looking around quickly, she saw that Bud was sitting motionless at his desk, his forehead wrinkled in a fierce frown, his jaw set belligerently, and a look of such, unutterable pity and devotion in his eyes that her heart warmed to him at once and a smile of comradeship broke over her face.
“Oh, William! Were you here? Did you hear all that? What do you suppose is the matter? Where have I failed?”
“You ain’t failed anywhere! You should worry ’bout her! She’s a nut! If she was a boy I’d punch her head for her! But seeing she’s only a girl, you should worry! She always was the limit!”
Bud’s tone was forcible. He was the only one of all the boys who never yielded to Rosa’s charms, but sat in glowering silence when she exercised her powers on the school and created pandemonium for the teacher. Bud’s attitude was comforting. It had a touch of manliness and gentleness about it quite unwonted for him. It suggested beautiful possibilities for the future of his character, and Margaret smiled tenderly.
“Thank you, dear boy!” she said, gently. “You certainly are a comfort. If every one was as splendid as you are we should have a model school. But I do wish I could help Rosa. I can’t see why she should hate me so! I must have made some big mistake with her in the first place to antagonize her.”
“Naw!” said Bud, roughly. “No chance! She’s just a nut, that’s all. She’s got a case on that Forsythe guy, the worst kind, and she’s afraid somebody’ll get him away from her, the poor stew, as if anybody would get a case on a tough guy like that! Gee! You should worry! Come on, let’s take a ride over t’ camp!”
With a sigh and a smile Margaret accepted Bud’s consolations and went on her way, trying to find some manner of showing Rosa what a real friend she was willing to be. But Rosa continued obdurate and hateful, regarding her teacher with haughty indifference except when she was called upon to recite, which she did sometimes with scornful condescension, sometimes with pert perfection, and sometimes with saucy humor which convulsed the whole room. Margaret’s patience was almost ceasing to be a virtue, and she meditated often whether she ought not to request that the girl be withdrawn from the school. Yet she reflected that it was a very short time now until Commencement, and that Rosa had not openly defied any rules. It was merely a personal antagonism. Then, too, if Rosa were taken from the school there was really no other good influence in the girl’s life at present. Day by day Margaret prayed about the matter and hoped that something would develop to make plain her way.
After much thought in the matter she decided to go on with her plans, letting Rosa have her place in the Commencement program and her part in the class-day doings as if nothing were the matter. Certainly there was nothing laid down in the rules of a public school that proscribed a scholar who did not love her teacher. Why should the fact that one had incurred the hate of a pupil unfit that pupil for her place in her class so long as she did her duties? And Rosa did hers promptly and deftly, with a certain piquant originality that Margaret could not help but admire.
Sometimes, as the teacher cast a furtive look at the pretty girl working away at her desk, she wondered what was going on behind the lovely mask. But the look in Rosa’s eyes, when she raised them, was both deep and sly.
Rosa’s hatred was indeed deep rooted. Whatever heart she had not frivoled away in wilfulness had been caught and won by Forsythe, the first grown man who had ever dared to make real love to her. Her jealousy of Margaret was the most intense thing that had ever come into her life. To think of him looking at Margaret, talking to Margaret, smiling at Margaret, walking or riding with Margaret, was enough to send her writhing upon her bed in the darkness of a wakeful night. She would clench her pretty hands until the nails dug into the flesh and brought the blood. She would bite the pillow or the blankets with an almost fiendish clenching of her teeth upon them and mutter, as she did so: “I hate her! I hate her! I could kill her!”
The day her first letter came from Forsythe, Rosa held her head high and went about the school as if she were a princess royal and Margaret were the dust under her feet. Triumph sat upon her like a crown and looked forth regally from her eyes. She laid her hand upon her heart and felt the crackle of his letter inside her blouse. She dreamed with her eyes upon the distant mountain and thought of the tender names he had called her: “Little wild Rose of his heart,” “No rose in all the world until you came,” and a lot of other meaningful sentences. A real love-letter all her own! No sharing him with any hateful teachers! He had implied in her letter that she was the only one of all the people in that region to whom he cared to write. He had said he was coming back some day to get her. Her young, wild heart throbbed exultantly, and her eyes looked forth their triumph malignantly. When he did come she would take care that he stayed close by her. No conceited teacher from the East should lure him from her side. She would prepare her guiles and smile her sweetest. She would wear fine garments from abroad, and show him she could far outshine that quiet, common Miss Earle, with all her airs. Yet to this end she studied hard. It was no part of her plan to be left behind at graduating-time. She would please her father by taking a prominent part in things and outdoing all the others. Then he would give her what she liked—jewels and silk dresses, and all the things a girl should have who had won a lover like hers.
The last busy days before Commencement were especially trying for Margaret. It seemed as if the children were possessed with the very spirit of mischief, and she could not help but see that it was Rosa who, sitting demurely in her desk, was the center of it all. Only Bud’s steady, frowning countenance of all that rollicking, roistering crowd kept loyalty with the really beloved teacher. For, indeed, they loved her, every one but Rosa, and would have stood by her to a man and girl when it really came to the pinch, but in a matter like a little bit of fun in these last few days of school, and when challenged to it by the school beauty who did not usually condescend to any but a few of the older boys, where was the harm? They were so flattered by Rosa’s smiles that they failed to
see Margaret’s worn, weary wistfulness.
Bud, coming into the school-house late one afternoon in search of her after the other scholars had gone, found Margaret with her head down upon the desk and her shoulders shaken with soundless sobs. He stood for a second silent in the doorway, gazing helplessly at her grief, then with the delicacy of one boy for another he slipped back outside the door and stood in the shadow, grinding his teeth.
“Gee!” he said, under his breath. “Oh, gee! I’d like to punch her fool head. I don’t care if she is a girl! She needs it. Gee! if she was a boy wouldn’t I settle her, the little darned mean sneak!”
His remarks, it is needless to say, did not have reference to his beloved teacher.
It was in the atmosphere everywhere that something was bound to happen if this strain kept up. Margaret knew it and felt utterly inadequate to meet it. Rosa knew it and was awaiting her opportunity. Bud knew it and could only stand and watch where the blow was to strike first and be ready to ward it off. In these days he wished fervently for Gardley’s return. He did not know just what Gardley could do about “that little fool,” as he called Rosa, but it would be a relief to be able to tell some one all about it. If he only dared leave he would go over and tell Jasper Kemp about it, just to share his burden with somebody. But as it was he must stick to the job for the present and bear his great responsibility, and so the days hastened by to the last Sunday before Commencement, which was to be on Monday.
CHAPTER XXVII
Margaret had spent Saturday in rehearsals, so that there had been no rest for her. Sunday morning she slept late, and awoke from a troubled dream, unrested. She almost meditated whether she would not ask some one to read a sermon at the afternoon service and let her go on sleeping. Then a memory of the lonely old woman at the camp, and the men, who came so regularly to the service, roused her to effort once more, and she arose and tried to prepare a little something for them.
She came into the school-house at the hour, looking fagged, with dark circles under her eyes; and the loving eyes of Mom Wallis already in her front seat watched her keenly.
“It’s time for him to come back,” she said, in her heart. “She’s gettin’ peeked! I wisht he’d come!”
Margaret had hoped that Rosa would not come. The girl was not always there, but of late she had been quite regular, coming in late with her father just a little after the story had begun, and attracting attention by her smiles and bows and giggling whispers, which sometimes were so audible as to create quite a diversion from the speaker.
But Rosa came in early to-day and took a seat directly in front of Margaret, in about the middle of the house, fixing her eyes on her teacher with a kind of settled intention that made Margaret shrink as if from a danger she was not able to meet. There was something bright and hard and daring in Rosa’s eyes as she stared unwinkingly, as if she had come to search out a weak spot for her evil purposes, and Margaret was so tired she wanted to lay her head down on her desk and cry. She drew some comfort from the reflection that if she should do so childish a thing she would be at once surrounded by a strong battalion of friends from the camp, who would shield her with their lives if necessary.
It was silly, of course, and she must control this choking in her throat, only how was she ever going to talk, with Rosa looking at her that way? It was like a nightmare pursuing her. She turned to the piano and kept them all singing for a while, so that she might pray in her heart and grow calm; and when, after her brief, earnest prayer, she lifted her eyes to the audience, she saw with intense relief that the Brownleighs were in the audience.
She started a hymn that they all knew, and when they were well in the midst of the first verse she slipped from the piano-stool and walked swiftly down the aisle to Brownleigh’s side.
“Would you please talk to them a little while?” she pleaded, wistfully. “I am so tired I feel as if I just couldn’t, to-day.”
Instantly Brownleigh followed her back to the desk and took her place, pulling out his little, worn Bible and opening it with familiar fingers to a beloved passage:
“‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’”
The words fell on Margaret’s tired heart like balm, and she rested her head back against the wall and closed her eyes to listen. Sitting so away from Rosa’s stare, she could forget for a while the absurd burdens that had got on her nerves, and could rest down hard upon her Saviour. Every word that the man of God spoke seemed meant just for her, and brought strength, courage, and new trust to her heart. She forgot the little crowd of other listeners and took the message to herself, drinking it in eagerly as one who has been a long time ministering accepts a much-needed ministry. When she moved to the piano again for the closing hymn she felt new strength within her to bear the trials of the week that were before her. She turned, smiling and brave, to speak to those who always crowded around to shake hands and have a word before leaving.
Hazel, putting a loving arm around her as soon as she could get up to the front, began to speak soothingly: “You poor, tired child!” she said; “you are almost worn to a frazzle. You need a big change, and I’m going to plan it for you just as soon as I possibly can. How would you like to go with us on our trip among the Indians? Wouldn’t it be great? It’ll be several days, depending on how far we go, but John wants to visit the Hopi reservation, if possible, and it’ll be so interesting. They are a most strange people. We’ll have a delightful trip, sleeping out under the stars, you know. Don’t you just love it? I do. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I can’t be sure, for a few days yet, when we can go, for John has to make a journey in the other direction first, and he isn’t sure when he can return; but it might be this week. How soon can you come to us? How I wish we could take you right home with us to-night. You need to get away and rest. But your Commencement is to-morrow, isn’t it? I’m so sorry we can’t be here, but this other matter is important, and John has to go early in the morning. Some one very sick who wants to see him before he dies—an old Indian who didn’t know a thing about Jesus till John found him one day. I suppose you haven’t anybody who could bring you over to us after your work is done here to-morrow night or Tuesday, have you? Well, we’ll see if we can’t find some one to send for you soon. There’s an old Indian who often comes this way, but he’s away buying cattle. Maybe John can think of a way we could send for you early in the week. Then you would be ready to go with us on the trip. You would like to go, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, so much!” said Margaret, with a sigh of wistfulness. “I can’t think of anything pleasanter!”
Margaret turned suddenly, and there, just behind her, almost touching her, stood Rosa, that strange, baleful gleam in her eyes like a serpent who was biding her time, drawing nearer and nearer, knowing she had her victim where she could not move before she struck.
It was a strange fancy, of course, and one that was caused by sick nerves, but Margaret drew back and almost cried out, as if for some one to protect her. Then her strong common sense came to the rescue and she rallied and smiled at Rosa a faint little sorry smile. It was hard to smile at the bright, baleful face with the menace in the eyes.
Hazel was watching her. “You poor child! You’re quite worn out! I’m afraid you’re going to be sick.”
“Oh no,” said Margaret, trying to speak cheerfully; “things have just got on my nerves, that’s all. It’s been a particularly trying time. I shall be all right when to-morrow night is over.”
“Well, we’re going to send for you very soon, so be ready!” and Hazel followed her husband, waving her hand in gay parting.
Rosa was still standing just behind her when Margaret turned back to her desk, and the younger girl gave her one last dagger look, a glitter in her eyes so sinister and vindictive that Margaret felt a shudder run through her whole body, and was glad that just then Rosa’s father called to h
er that they must be starting home. Only one more day now of Rosa, and she would be done with her, perhaps forever. The girl was through the school course and was graduating. It was not likely she would return another year. Her opportunity was over to help her. She had failed. Why, she couldn’t tell, but she had strangely failed, and all she asked now was not to have to endure the hard, cold, young presence any longer.
“Sick nerves, Margaret!” she said to herself. “Go home and go to bed. You’ll be all right to-morrow!” And she locked the school-house door and walked quietly home with the faithful Bud.
The past month had been a trying time also for Rosa. Young, wild, and motherless, passionate, wilful and impetuous, she was finding life tremendously exciting just now. With no one to restrain her or warn her she was playing with forces that she did not understand.
She had subjugated easily all the boys in school, keeping them exactly where she wanted them for her purpose, and using methods that would have done credit to a woman of the world. But by far the greatest force in her life was her infatuation for Forsythe.
The letters had traveled back and forth many times between them since Forsythe wrote that first love-letter. He found a whimsical pleasure in her deep devotion and naïve readiness to follow as far as he cared to lead her. He realized that, young as she was, she was no innocent, which made the acquaintance all the more interesting. He, meantime, idled away a few months on the Pacific coast, making mild love to a rich California girl and considering whether or not he was ready yet to settle down.