Penny of Top Hill Trail

by Maniates, Belle Kanaris

  “I wish I might see you again, Larry, but I don’t know how I can manage it. If anyone knew I were in town to-day, it might lead to—developments. Send me your address at the port you are to sail from, and I’ll have things there for you.”

  “Good-bye, Pen. You’re the best little scout I ever knew.”

  He kissed her and got out of the car. There were tears in her eyes as she motored on up through the hills land. The air grew cold and brisk; she felt the sense of silence and strength. She recalled her first ride up these hills in the early morning, and that turned her thoughts to Kurt. She wondered if he were of the stuff that bird men are made of. How much more sphinx-like he was, and how different from the keen, alert, business-like flier Larry had shown himself to be! They were types as remote as the eagle and the lark. Larry, of course, was the lark. She had a feeling of loneliness in her knowledge of his going so far away. He knew more about her than any one else. She never had to play a part with him.

  Soon, all too soon, she found herself at the ranch. Dinner was over and the children had gone upstairs with Mrs. Merlin.

  Kurt returned a few moments later and came into the library where she sat alone by the open fire, pensive and distrait, still thinking of Larry and of his going into service.

  He looked at her oddly. This was not the pert, saucy, little girl he had taken from Bender, nor the little playmate of the children, nor yet the quiet, domestic woman who had served him that night in the kitchen.

  There was an indefinable charm about her that defied definition or analysis—a rapt, exquisite look that lifted her up—up to his primitive ideal.

  “Pen!”

  He started toward her, seemed to remember, hesitated and then asked lamely:

  “What have you been doing all day?”

  Her former little air of raillery crept back momentarily at his change of tone.

  “A narrow escape,” she thought, as she said aloud, reckless of consequences: “I motored into town by myself; bought some new clothes; had dinner with an old friend; saw an aeroplane go up and—”

  He smiled in a bored way and asked her some irrelevant question.

  “The easiest way to deceive, as Hebby always said, is to tell the truth,” she thought.

  “Pen!” He spoke with a return of his first manner. “I—”

  “I am very tired,” she quickly interrupted, “I think I will say good-night, now.”

  “Don’t go yet,” he urged, “I—”

  “I want to be alone,” she replied wearily.

  “There is something I want to say to you. Jo Gary comes to-morrow!”

  “Yes,” she answered indifferently. “Mr. Westcott found another manager, did he?”

  “You knew Jo was at Westcott’s?” he gasped.

  “Certainly. I’ve seen Jo a number of times.”

  “When, where?” he demanded in displeased tone.

  “Let me think. Why, he came back from Westcott’s the day after my arrival. Their manager postponed departure. So Jo was here for the dance, and on field day—and—I think he went back to Westcott’s the day you came back. Wasn’t it all right to see him?” she asked guilelessly. “Mrs. Kingdon didn’t object.”

  “What other times did you see him?”

  “I heard him whistle one night, and I slid down the big tree near my window. Then he came one morning to bring me flowers. I am glad he is coming for keeps. He livens things up, Jo does.”

  “Why did neither you nor he speak of your having met?”

  “I begged him not to, because I felt that you wouldn’t approve.”

  An intense silence followed.

  “Do you think,” he asked bitterly, “that you are fair to Jo—”

  “To Jo?” she asked in surprise. “I don’t understand.”

  “You do understand. Jo told me what he asked you in Chicago and how you left him—to reform—to be worthy of his love.”

  “I haven’t deceived Jo,” she replied slowly. “I told him where you found me and why. He doesn’t care. He understands. Jo loves—”

  The pause that followed was so prolonged that she stole another side-glance. She had a sudden, swift insight into the power and vigor of the man—the inner man.

  “That the girl he loves,” she continued softly, “is a thief, makes no difference to Jo.”

  “Remember, Jo is only a boy—younger than you in all but years.”

  “Only a boy, it is true, but with the faith and love of a man.”

  He started from his chair and came up close to her.

  “Answer me,” he said, his eyes narrowing to slits. “Do you love Jo Gary?”

  A sort of paralysis seemed to grip her, and she felt helpless to move her eyes from his. Her lips were slightly parted and he could feel the pull of her nerves. For a moment she looked like a startled deer, quivering at the approach of man, with no place to run.

  Then she recovered.

  “Ask Jo,” she said defiantly, and sped from the room.

  “Jo didn’t tell me how much he had confided in Kurt,” she thought. “What a wee world it is! I can’t see how, with all the shuffling billions of people, the same two, once parted, should ever meet. I believe I was wrong about Kurt. For a moment I was almost afraid of him.”

  Kurt gazed into the fire, his gray eyes alert and a soft smile on his lips. He had not been misled. He had clearly read an answer in the young eyes looking into his own.

  “She doesn’t love Jo,” he thought, and the knowledge was quickly darkened by the remembrance of what it would mean to the boy-lover.

  * * *

  CHAPTER X

  “Jo!” called Pen, running down the road as she spied him driving away in a lightweight mountain wagon.

  Quickly he reined in the pair of prancing horses.

  “What ’tis, Miss Penny Ante? Isn’t it great that I am back to stay?”

  “Indeed it is. Where are you going and may I go, too?”

  “Over to Westcott’s, and I’d love to have you go with me.”

  “I’ll have to get a furlough and a hat. Just wait a moment.”

  She found Kurt and asked his permission with all the pretty pleading of a child in her voice. Her face was singularly young; her eyes like a mirror.

  “I’ve never ridden in a wagon,” she said breathlessly, seeing that his expression wasn’t as forbidding as usual. “And I’ll come back. Can’t you see I want to come back?”

  Something sweet dawned in his eyes.

  “Yes;” he said, a note of exultation sounding in his voice with the knowledge that his last stand of resistance to long-held theories was giving away before some new force, powerful and overwhelming. “You may go. I wish I were driving instead of Jo, but—”

  He stood watching her as she sped back to where Jo was waiting, and his gaze still followed as the horses tore over the road to Westcott’s. There was a far-away look in his eye and a faint smile about the curves of his mouth. Subconsciously, as though he were the one beside her, he followed in fancy after the wagon was lost to sight around the hills. He could see the point where the road would disappear into a plain, covered with soft grass over which the sleek horses would bound. He knew Jo’s irresistible bubbling gaiety, and the sparkle she would add to it. He wondered why he had never thought to take her for a drive. There had been no chance to talk to her in their rides. She always put spurs to her horse when he tried to talk to her.

  All sense of time left him. The symphony of the hill winds from the south was in his ears; the beauty of the day in all his being. Vividly he recalled their ride in the early dawn and the brief moment she had lain unconscious in his arms. Ever since that moment he had barricaded himself against her appeal and charm. He felt himself yielding and knew that the yielding was bringing him happiness.

  “I am in a Fool’s Paradise,” he thought, “but still a Paradise. She doesn’t care for me any more than she cares for Jo. I wonder does he know it, or is she deceiving him? I fear so, for he seems absurdly happy.”
>
  He was still lost in the dreams of the lotus-eater when he heard something that resembled the rattling of his own noisy car. Looking down the hill road from town, he saw a vehicle approaching which he recognized as the “town taxi.” It turned into the ranch grounds and he quickly went to the front of the house, supposing that Kingdon or his wife must have returned.

  A strange young girl was alighting. As he went wonderingly to meet her, he saw that she was city-bred. She seemed to be dazed by the illimitable spaces and was blinking from the sunshine. His observant eye noted the smart suitcase and the wardrobe trunk the man was depositing on the porch. There was city shrewdness in having had the amount of the fare fixed before leaving town.

  She was a little slip of a girl with a small-featured face and a certain pale prettiness. There was an appealing tinge of melancholy in her eyes notwithstanding they were eager and alert. Her dress was plain, but natty and citified.

  “Is this Top Hill—where Mrs. Kingdon lives?” she asked in a low, softly-pitched voice.

  “Yes;” he replied, “but Mrs. Kingdon is away—”

  “I know—but she wrote me to come here; that she would be home very soon.”

  “I am glad to hear that. Come in,” he urged hospitably, as he picked up her suitcase. “The housekeeper will make you comfortable.”

  She hesitated.

  “Is Miss Lamont in?”

  “Miss Lamont—Miss Pen Lamont?” he asked in surprise. “She is a friend of yours?”

  “Yes,” she replied composedly.

  “She has gone for a drive, but she will be back soon.”

  She followed him within and stood gazing at the pleasant interior,—books, pictures, piano and fireplace, while he went to summon the housekeeper.

  “Mrs. Merlin, this is a friend of Mrs. Kingdon’s,” he said on his return. “Will you show her to one of the guest rooms?”

  “Oh!” exclaimed the girl in expostulary tone, “I am not a guest. My name is—Bobbie Burr. Mrs. Kingdon hired me to do plain sewing for the children and to care for the linen.”

  There was no trace of a seamstress in the plain but elegant garb and appointments of the young girl, and Mrs. Merlin was at a loss as to the proper establishment of the newcomer.

  “Maybe,” she said to Kurt hesitatingly, “the room the last nursery governess had—”

  “Any room will do,” said the girl hurriedly, as she followed Mrs. Merlin.

  Kurt went down the road which Jo and Pen had taken. He felt the need of a pipe and solitude to help him figure out this puzzling problem, and soon he was sending a jet of smoke up to the branches of the tree which he had selected for a resting place.

  Who was this girl whose belongings betokened money, and yet who said she had come to do plain sewing? Enlightenment came with the recollection that she had been sent by Mrs. Kingdon and was doubtless one of her protégées. The name she had given sounded demimondish, and she was a friend of Pen’s! The thought made him wince. She had seemed to him some way isolated from her kind, with naught in common with them save her profession. To find he was mistaken brought him an unpleasant shock.

  A sound of wheels around the curve; the clatter of hoofs. In a moment they came into his vision—the prancing team, the merry driver and—the thief. Delicate as a drop of dew, as lovely as a forest blossom, her voice, bird-like and rippling, wafted to him from the clear aromatic air, she inverted again all his theories and resolutions.

  He walked toward them, his hand raised.

  Jo reined in.

  “Will you get out and walk up to the house with me?” Kurt asked her, the question given in the form and tone of command.

  “A friend of yours is at the house,” he said abruptly, when Jo had driven on and was outside of hearing.

  “A friend of mine!” she repeated, losing a little of the wild rose tint in her fear that Hebler might have arrived.

  “So she says. Mrs. Kingdon sent her here to sew for the children.”

  “How you relieve me! I was fearing it might be a man.”

  “Her name,” he said, “is Bobbie Burr.”

  “What!” Her voice had a startled note. “Bobbie Burr! Oh, yes; I remember her.”

  “Is she a particular friend of yours?”

  “I am more attracted by her than by any girl I ever knew. Let’s sit down in the shade of one of the few-and-far-between trees you have up here. You were interested in my welfare when you took me from Bender, but you will be doubly interested in Bobbie when you hear her story. She is a convert far more worthy of your efforts and those of Mrs. Kingdon than I have proved to be.

  “She is the type you thought I was before you snatched me from the burning—I mean from Bender. Let me see if I can quote you correctly: ‘One of the many young city girls who go wrong because they have no chance; bred in slums, ill-treated, ill-fed.’ Poor Bobbie had no chance until—you’ll be skeptical when I tell you how she first received her moral uplift—she had some nice clothes. Stealing was her only vice! At that, she only took enough to meet her needs; but one day she found some money; quite a lot, it seemed to her. Down in her little fluttering fancy she had always had longings for a white dress—a nice white dress. She had the inherent instinct for judging rightly ‘what she should wear.’ So, for the first time in her life she was able to be correctly and elegantly clad. The white dress she bought was simple, one of the plain but effective and expensive kind. With the wearing of this new gown there naturally came the feminine desire to be seen and admired. She didn’t know where to go. She had never been a frequenter of dance halls. She knew, of course, there were few open sesames for her. She went to one where no questions are asked before admittance. Things didn’t look good to her at this Hurricane Hall, and she thought her doll was filled with sawdust until the inevitable man appeared and changed her angle of vision. He was that most unusual apparition, a nice, honest man. He saw her; she saw him; after that there were no others visible in their little world.

  “Within twenty-four hours he had told her of his love and asked her to marry him. Then—I tried to convince you thieves could be honest—she was brave enough to tell him what she was. He was a true knight and lover. Her confession didn’t alter his feelings or his intentions; in fact, his determination to marry her was strengthened. Because she loved him very much, she ran away from him, leaving him in a strange city without even her name for a clue. But now she had a hope, a real incentive—the biggest one there is. She pawned all the coveted clothes she had bought and went to a place far away where she could begin a new life—the life of an honest working-girl.

  “In her little game with destiny, she lost out, and was apprehended for a theft of which she was entirely innocent, but her past record barred acquittal. A man was instrumental in gaining a reprieve for her, however, and she was sent away to new environment where she found friends, health and, best of all, a job.

  “So the desire was born in her to turn the proverbial new leaf, not for the sake of winning her ‘man,’ but from the simple wish to be ‘good.’ I interested Mrs. Kingdon in her and told her where she was, but did not dream of such good luck for—Bobbie as to be sent up here. I know she will find happiness up here in these hills. You’ll be kind to the little girl, won’t you?” she pleaded. “You know you haven’t much mercy for sinners, but you will see she is serious about reforming; not flippant like me. She will never yield to temptation again.”

  “How do you know?” he asked, looking at her keenly.

  “Because,” she answered softly. “She loves, and—the man she loves is worthy of her.”

  “And you think love is powerful enough to cure?”

  “I think so.”

  “Would it cure—you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said ingenuously. “You see I have never loved.”

  A fervid light smouldered in his eyes.

  “Aunty Pen!”

  Francis came running around the curve.

  “There is a nice girl at the house. Mother sent
her. She’s got a boy’s name—Bobbie. I like her. She does anything I tell her to.”

  “That’s the masculine measure,” she said, taking his hand and running on with him.

  “Come back!” was the strident summons from Kurt.

  “Stay here a moment,” Pen hurriedly bade Francis.

  “I want to ask you how this girl is able to have such expensive looking things—if she has only a job?”

  “They were given to her.”

  “By the man who was instrumental in getting her reprieved? You said she was virtuous.”

  “Don’t do the man an injustice, even if you doubt poor little Bobbie. He acted from charitable motives. He has never seen her, or tried to see her.”

  “Look at me, Pen!”

  “I’m looking. You have the true Western eye—the eye of a sharpshooter and a—sheriff.”

  “The story you just told me is the story of Marta Sills. Is that her name or yours?”

  “It belongs to us both. Being ‘particular pals,’ we shared alike. Interchange of names often comes handy with us.”

  “Was it you or Bobbie Burr—the girl who just came—whom Jo met in a dance hall, and took to St.—some place on Lake Michigan?”

  “Dear me! You cattlemen are such gay birds when you come to a city! How can I tell how many girls Jo Gary took to a dance hall? If that St. Something was St. Joe, he must have gone there to get married. It’s what most people go there for, and probably he’s no more saintly than the place is. Maybe it was named after him.”

  “Tell me! Was it Bobbie Burr?”

  “She never mentioned Jo Gary’s name to me, so how do I know. Yes, Francis; coming.”

  She ran fleetly on to join the boy who was impatiently calling to her.

  “Marta! How the plot does thicken!” she thought as she ran a race with Francis to the house. “Now we’re all here but Hebby. What next? Curtain soon, I expect. No need longer for understudies. I must start things before Kurt succumbs to her charms. That little subdued, clinging-vine air she has is most appealing to his type. He’ll come to forgive her anything.”

  “Marta,” she said quickly, as she met the young girl, “come upstairs with me.”