The Girl from Montana

by Grace Livingston Hill

  CHAPTER X

  PHILADELPHIA AT LAST

  "Open this door!" she commanded. "Let me out of here at once."

  The pale girl started to do so, but the pretty one held her back. "No,Nellie; Madam will be angry with us all if you open that door." Then sheturned to Elizabeth, and said:

  "Whoever enters that door never goes out again. You are nicely caught, mydear."

  There was a sting of bitterness and self-pity in the taunt at the end ofthe words. Elizabeth felt it, as she seized her pistol from her belt, andpointed it at the astonished group. They were not accustomed to girls withpistols. "Open that door, or I will shoot you all!" she cried.

  Then, as she heard some one descending the stairs, she rushed again intothe room where she remembered the windows were open. They were guarded bywire screens; but she caught up a chair, and dashed it through one,plunging out into the street in spite of detaining hands that reached forher, hands much hindered by the gleam of the pistol and the fear that itmight go off in their midst.

  It took but an instant to wrench the bridle from its fastening and mounther horse; then she rode forward through the city at a pace that onlymillionaires and automobiles are allowed to take. She met and passed herfirst automobile without a quiver. Her eyes were dilated, her lips set;angry, frightened tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she urged herpoor horse forward until a policeman here and there thought it his duty tomake a feeble effort to detain her. But nothing impeded her way. She fledthrough a maze of wagons, carriages, automobiles, and trolley-cars, untilshe passed the whirl of the great city, and at last was free again and outin the open country.

  She came toward evening to a little cottage on the edge of a prettysuburb. The cottage was covered with roses, and the front yard was full ofgreat old-fashioned flowers. On the porch sat a plain little old lady in arocking-chair, knitting. There was a little gate with a path leading up tothe door, and at the side another open gate with a road leading around tothe back of the cottage.

  Elizabeth saw, and murmuring, "O 'our Father,' please hide me!" she dashedinto the driveway, and tore up to the side of the piazza at a full gallop.She jumped from the horse; and, leaving him standing panting with his noseto the fence, and a tempting strip of clover in front of him where hecould graze when he should get his breath, she ran up the steps, and flungherself in a miserable little heap at the feet of the astonished old lady.

  "O, please, please, won't you let me stay here a few minutes, and tell mewhat to do? I am so tired, and I have had such a dreadful, awful time!"

  "Why, dearie me!" said the old lady. "Of course I will. Poor child; sitright down in this rocking-chair, and have a good cry. I'll get you aglass of water and something to eat, and then you shall tell me all aboutit."

  She brought the water, and a tray with nice broad slices of brown breadand butter, a generous piece of apple pie, some cheese, and a glasspitcher of creamy milk.

  Elizabeth drank the water, but before she could eat she told the terribletale of her last adventure. It seemed awful for her to believe, and shefelt she must have help somewhere. She had heard there were bad people inthe world. In fact, she had seen men who were bad, and once a woman hadpassed their ranch whose character was said to be questionable. She wore ahard face, and could drink and swear like the men. But that sin should bein this form, with pretty girls and pleasant, wheedling women for agents,she had never dreamed; and this in the great, civilized East! Almostbetter would it have been to remain in the desert alone, and risk thepursuit of that awful man, than to come all this way to find the worldgone wrong.

  The old lady was horrified, too. She had heard more than the girl oflicensed evil; but she had read it in the paper as she had read about theevils of the slave-traffic in Africa, and it had never really seemed trueto her. Now she lifted up her hands in horror, and looked at the beautifulgirl before her with something akin to awe that she had been in one ofthose dens of iniquity and escaped. Over and over she made the girl tellwhat was said, and how it looked, and how she pointed her pistol, and howshe got out; and then she exclaimed in wonder, and called her escape amiracle.

  They were both weary from excitement when the tale was told. Elizabeth ateher lunch; then the old lady showed her where to put the horse, and madeher go to bed. It was only a wee little room with a cot-bed white as snowwhere she put her; but the roses peeped in at the window, and the boxcovered with an old white curtain contained a large pitcher of freshwater and a bowl and soap and towels. The old lady brought her a cleanwhite nightgown, coarse and mended in many places, but smelling of roseleaves; and in the morning she tapped at the door quite early before thegirl was up, and came in with an armful of clothes.

  "I had some boarders last summer," she explained, "and, when they wentaway, they left these things and said I might put them into thehome-mission box. But I was sick when they sent it off this winter; and,if you ain't a home mission, then I never saw one. You put 'em on. I guessthey'll fit. They may be a mite large, but she was about your size. Iguess your clothes are about wore out; so you jest leave 'em here fer thenext one, and use these. There's a couple of extra shirt-waists you canput in a bundle for a change. I guess folks won't dare fool with you ifyou have some clean, nice clothes on."

  Elizabeth looked at her gratefully, and wrote her down in the list ofsaints with the woman who read the fourteenth chapter of John. The oldlady had neglected to mention that from her own meagre wardrobe she hadsupplied some under-garments, which were not included in those theboarders had left.

  Bathed and clothed in clean, sweet garments, with a white shirt-waist anda dark-blue serge skirt and coat, Elizabeth looked a different girl. Shesurveyed herself in the little glass over the box-washstand and wondered.All at once vanity was born within her, and an ambition to be always thusclothed, with a horrible remembrance of the woman of the day before, whohad promised to show her how to earn some pretty clothes. It flashedacross her mind that pretty clothes might be a snare. Perhaps they hadbeen to those girls she had seen in that house.

  With much good advice and kindly blessings from the old lady, Elizabethfared forth upon her journey once more, sadly wise in the wisdom of theworld, and less sweetly credulous than she had been, but better fitted tofight her way.

  The story of her journey from Chicago to Philadelphia would fill a volumeif it were written, but it might pall upon the reader from the veryvariety of its experiences. It was made slowly and painfully, with manyhaltings and much lessening of the scanty store of money that had seemedso much when she received it in the wilderness. The horse went lame, andhad to be watched over and petted, and finally, by the advice of a kindlyfarmer, taken to a veterinary surgeon, who doctored him for a week beforehe finally said it was safe to let him hobble on again. After that thegirl was more careful of the horse. If he should die, what would she do?

  One dismal morning, late in November, Elizabeth, wearing the old overcoatto keep her from freezing, rode into Philadelphia.

  Armed with instructions from the old lady in Chicago, she rode boldly upto a policeman, and showed him the address of the grandmother to whom shehad decided to go first, her mother's mother. He sent her on in the rightdirection, and in due time with the help of other policemen she reachedthe right number on Flora Street.

  It was a narrow street, banked on either side by small, narrow brickhouses of the older type. Here and there gleamed out a scrap of a whitemarble door-step, but most of the houses were approached by steps of dullstone or of painted wood. There was a dejected and dreary air about theplace. The street was swarming with children in various stages of thesoiled condition.

  Elizabeth timidly knocked at the door after being assured by theinterested urchins who surrounded her that Mrs. Brady really lived there,and had not moved away or anything. It did not seem wonderful to the girl,who had lived her life thus far in a mountain shack, to find hergrandmother still in the place from which she had written fifteen yearsbefore. She did not yet know what a floating population most citiesconta
in.

  Mrs. Brady was washing when the knock sounded through the house. She was abroad woman, with a face on which the cares and sorrows of the years hadleft a not too heavy impress. She still enjoyed life, oven though a goodpart of it was spent at the wash-tub, washing other people's fine clothes.She had some fine ones of her own up-stairs in her clothes-press; and,when she went out, it was in shiny satin, with a bonnet bobbing with jetand a red rose, though of late years, strictly speaking, the bonnet hadbecome a hat again, and Mrs. Brady was in style with the other old ladies.

  The perspiration was in little beads on her forehead and trickling downthe creases in her well-cushioned neck toward her ample bosom. Her grayhair was neatly combed, and her calico wrapper was open at the throat evenon this cold day. She wiped on her apron the soap-suds from her plump armssteaming pink from the hot suds, and went to the door.

  She looked with disfavor upon the peculiar person on the door-step attiredin a man's overcoat. She was prepared to refuse the demands of theSalvation Army for a nickel for Christmas dinners; or to silence thebanana-man, or the fish-man, or the man with shoe-strings and pins andpencils for sale; or to send the photograph-agent on his way; yes, eventhe man who sold albums for post-cards. She had no time to bother withanybody this morning.

  But the young person in the rusty overcoat, with the dark-blue serge Etonjacket under it, which might have come from Wanamaker's two years ago, whoyet wore a leather belt with gleaming pistols under the Eton jacket, was anew species. Mrs. Brady was taken off her guard; else Elizabeth might havefound entrance to her grandmother's home as difficult as she had foundentrance to the finishing school of Madame Janeway.

  "Are you Mrs. Brady?" asked the girl. She was searching the forbiddingface before her for some sign of likeness to her mother, but found none.The cares of Elizabeth Brady's daughter had outweighed those of themother, or else they sat upon a nature more sensitive.

  "I am," said Mrs. Brady, imposingly.

  "Grandmother, I am the baby you talked about in that letter," sheannounced, handing Mrs. Brady the letter she had written nearly eighteenyears before.

  The woman took the envelope gingerly in the wet thumb and finger thatstill grasped a bit of the gingham apron. She held it at arm's length, andsquinted up her eyes, trying to read it without her glasses. It was somenew kind of beggar, of course. She hated to touch these dirty envelopes,and this one looked old and worn. She stepped back to the parlor tablewhere her glasses were lying, and, adjusting them, began to read theletter.

  "For the land sakes! Where'd you find this?" she said, looking upsuspiciously. "It's against the law to open letters that ain't your own.Didn't me daughter ever get it? I wrote it to her meself. How come you byit?"

  "Mother read it to me long ago when I was little," answered the girl, theslow hope fading from her lips as she spoke. Was every one, was even hergrandmother, going to be cold and harsh with her? "Our Father, hide me!"her heart murmured, because it had become a habit; and her listeningthought caught the answer, "Let not your heart be troubled."

  "Well, who are you?" said the uncordial grandmother, still puzzled. "Youain't Bessie, me Bessie. Fer one thing, you're 'bout as young as she waswhen she went off 'n' got married, against me 'dvice, to that drunken,lazy dude." Her brow was lowering, and she proceeded to finish her letter.

  "I am Elizabeth," said the girl with a trembling voice, "the baby youtalked about in that letter. But please don't call father that. He wasn'tever bad to us. He was always good to mother, even when he was drunk. Ifyou talk like that about him, I shall have to go away."

  "Fer the land sakes! You don't say," said Mrs. Brady, sitting down hard inastonishment on the biscuit upholstery of her best parlor chair. "Now youain't Bessie's child! Well, I _am clear_ beat. And growed up so big! Youlook strong, but you're kind of thin. What makes your skin so black? Yourma never was dark, ner your pa, neither."

  "I've been riding a long way in the wind and sun and rain."

  "Fer the land sakes!" as she looked through the window to the street. "Noton a horse?"

  "Yes."

  "H'm! What was your ma thinkin' about to let you do that?"

  "My mother is dead. There was no one left to care what I did. I had tocome. There were dreadful people out there, and I was afraid."

  "Fer the land sakes!" That seemed the only remark that the capable Mrs.Brady could make. She looked at her new granddaughter in bewilderment, asif a strange sort of creature had suddenly laid claim to relationship.

  "Well, I'm right glad to see you," she said stiffly, wiping her hand againon her apron and putting it out formally for a greeting.

  Elizabeth accepted her reception gravely, and sat down. She sat downsuddenly, as if her strength had given way and a great strain was at anend. As she sat down, she drooped her head back against the wall; and agray look spread about her lips.

  "You're tired," said the grandmother, energetically. "Come far thismorning?"

  "No," said Elizabeth, weakly, "not many miles; but I hadn't any morebread. I used it all up yesterday, and there wasn't much money left. Ithought I could wait till I got here, but I guess I'm hungry."

  "Fer the land sakes!" ejaculated Mrs. Brady as she hustled out to thekitchen, and clattered the frying-pan onto the stove, shoving the boilerhastily aside. She came in presently with a steaming cup of tea, and madethe girl drink it hot and strong. Then she established her in the bigrocking-chair in the kitchen with a plate of appetizing things to eat, andwent on with her washing, punctuating every rub with a question.

  Elizabeth felt better after her meal, and offered to help, but thegrandmother would not hear to her lifting a finger.

  "You must rest first," she said. "It beats me how you ever got here. I'dsooner crawl on me hands and knees than ride a great, scary horse."

  Elizabeth sprang to her feet.

  "The horse!" she said. "Poor fellow! He needs something to eat worse thanI did. He hasn't had a bite of grass all this morning. There was nothingbut hard roads and pavements. The grass is all brown, anyway, now. I foundsome cornstalks by the road, and once a man dropped a big bundle of hayout of his load. If it hadn't been for Robin, I'd never have got here; andhere I've sat enjoying my breakfast, and Robin out there hungry!"

  "Fer the land sakes!" said the grandmother, taking her arms out of thesuds and looked troubled. "Poor fellow! What would he like? I haven't gotany hay, but there's some mashed potatoes left, and what is there? Why,there's some excelsior the lamp-shade come packed in. You don't supposehe'd think it was hay, do you? No, I guess it wouldn't taste very good."

  "Where can I put him, grandmother?"

  "Fer the land sakes! I don't know," said the grandmother, looking aroundthe room in alarm. "We haven't any place fer horses. Perhaps you might gethim into the back yard fer a while till we think what to do. There's astable, but they charge high to board horses. Lizzie knows one of thefellers that works there. Mebbe he'll tell us what to do. Anyway, you leadhim round to the alleyway, and we'll see if we can't get him in the littleash-gate. You don't suppose he'd try to get in the house, do you? Ishouldn't like him to come in the kitchen when I was getting supper."

  "O no!" said Elizabeth. "He's very good. Where is the back yard?"

  This arrangement was finally made, and the two women stood in the kitchendoor, watching Robin drink a bucketful of water and eat heartily of thevarious viands that Mrs. Brady set forth for him, with the exception ofthe excelsior, which he snuffed at in disgust.

  "Now, ain't he smart?" said Mrs. Brady, watching fearfully from thedoor-step, where she might retreat if the animal showed any tendency tostep nearer to the kitchen. "But don't you think he's cold? Wouldn't helike a--a--shawl or something?"

  The girl drew the old coat from her shoulders, and threw it over him, hergrandmother watching her fearless handling of the horse with pride andawe.

  "We're used to sharing this together," said the girl simply.

  "Nan sews in an up-town dressmaker's place," explained Mrs. Brady by andby,
when the wash was hung out in fearsome proximity to the weary horse'sheels, and the two had returned to the warm kitchen to clean up and getsupper. "Nan's your ma's sister, you know, older'n her by two year; andLizzie, that's her girl, she's about 's old 's you. She's got a good placein the ten-cent store. Nan's husband died four years ago, and her andme've been livin' together ever since. It'll be nice fer you and Lizzie tobe together. She'll make it lively fer you right away. Prob'ly she can getyou a place at the same store. She'll be here at half past six to-night.This is her week to get out early."

  The aunt came in first. She was a tall, thin woman with faded brown hairand a faint resemblance to Elizabeth's mother. Her shoulders stoopedslightly, and her voice was nasal. Her mouth looked as if it was used toholding pins in one corner and gossiping out of the other. She was one ofthe kind who always get into a rocking-chair to sew if they can, and rockas they sew. Nevertheless, she was skilful in her way, and commanded goodwages. She welcomed the new niece reluctantly, more excited over herremarkable appearance among her relatives after so long a silence thanpleased, Elizabeth felt. But after she had satisfied her curiosity she waskind, beginning to talk about Lizzie, and mentally compared this thin,brown girl with rough hair and dowdy clothes to her own stylish daughter.Then Lizzie burst in. They could hear her calling to a young man who hadwalked home with her, even before she entered the house.

  "It's just fierce out, ma!" she exclaimed. "Grandma, ain't supper readyyet? I never was so hungry in all my life. I could eat a house afire."

  She stopped short at sight of Elizabeth. She had been chewing gum--Lizziewas always chewing gum--but her jaws ceased action in sheer astonishment.

  "This is your cousin Bessie, come all the way from Montana on horseback,Lizzie. She's your aunt Bessie's child. Her folks is dead now, and she'scome to live with us. You must see ef you can't get her a place in theten-cent store 'long with you," said the grandmother.

  Lizzie came airily forward, and grasped her cousin's hand in mid-air,giving it a lateral shake that bewildered Elizabeth.

  "Pleased to meet you," she chattered glibly, and set her jaws to workagain. One could not embarrass Lizzie long. But she kept her eyes on thestranger, and let them wander disapprovingly over her apparel in a pointedway as she took out the long hat-pins from the cumbersome hat she wore andadjusted her ponderous pompadour.

  "Lizzie'll have to help fix you up," said the aunt noting Lizzie's glance."You're all out of style. I suppose they get behind times out in Montana.Lizzie, can't you show her how to fix her hair pompadour?"

  Lizzie brightened. If there was a prospect of changing things, she was notaverse to a cousin of her own age; but she never could take such adowdy-looking girl into society, not the society of the ten-cent store.

  "O, cert!" answered Lizzie affably. "I'll fix you fine. Don't you worry.How'd you get so awful tanned? I s'pose riding. You look like you'd beento the seashore, and lay out on the beach in the sun. But 'tain't theright time o' year quite. It must be great to ride horseback!"

  "I'll teach you how if you want to learn," said Elizabeth, endeavoring toshow a return of the kindly offer.

  "Me? What would I ride? Have to ride a counter, I guess. I guess you won'tfind much to ride here in the city, 'cept trolley-cars."

  "Bessie's got a horse. He's out in the yard now," said the grandmotherwith pride.

  "A horse! All your own? Gee whiz! Won't the girls stare when I tell them?Say, we can borrow a rig at the livery some night, and take a ride. Dan'llgo with us, and get the rig for us. Won't that be great?"

  Elizabeth smiled. She felt the glow of at last contributing something tothe family pleasure. She did not wish her coming to be so entirely a wetblanket as it had seemed at first; for, to tell the truth, she had seenblank dismay on the face of each separate relative as her identity hadbeen made known. Her heart was lonely, and she hungered for some one who"belonged" and loved her.

  Supper was put on the table, and the two girls began to get a littleacquainted, chattering over clothes and the arrangement of hair.

  "Do you know whether there is anything in Philadelphia called 'ChristianEndeavor'?" asked Elizabeth after the supper-table was cleared off.

  "O, Chrishun'deavor! Yes, I used t' b'long," answered Lizzie. She hadremoved the gum from her mouth while she ate her supper, but now it wasbusy again between sentences. "Yes, we have one down to our church. It wasreal interesting, too; but I got mad at one of the members, and quit. Shewas a stuck-up old maid, anyway. She was always turning round and scowlingat us girls if we just whispered the least little bit, or smiled; and onenight she was leading the meeting, and Jim Forbes got in a corner behind apost, and made mouths at her behind his book. He looked awful funny. Itwas something fierce the way she always screwed her face up when she sang,and he looked just like her. We girls, Hetty and Em'line and I, got tolaughing, and we just couldn't stop; and didn't that old thing stop thesinging after one verse, and look right at us, and say she thoughtChristian Endeavor members should remember whose house they were in, andthat the owner was there, and all that rot. I nearly died, I was so mad.Everybody looked around, and we girls choked, and got up and went out. Ihaven't been down since. The lookout committee came to see us 'bout it;but I said I wouldn't go back where I'd been insulted, and I've never beeninside the doors since. But she's moved away now. I wouldn't mind goingback if you want to go."

  "Whose house did she mean it was? Was it her house?"

  "O, no, it wasn't her house," laughed Lizzie. "It was the church. Shemeant it was God's house, I s'pose, but she needn't have been sopernickety. We weren't doing any harm."

  "Does God have a house?"

  "Why, yes; didn't you know that? Why, you talk like a heathen, Bessie.Didn't you have churches in Montana?"

  "Yes, there was a church fifty miles away. I heard about it once, but Inever saw it," answered Elizabeth. "But what did the woman mean? Who didshe say was there? God? Was God in the church? Did you see Him, and knowHe was there when you laughed?"

  "O, you silly!" giggled Lizzie. "Wouldn't the girls laugh at you, though,if they could hear you talk? Why, of course God was there. He'severywhere, you know," with superior knowledge; "but I didn't see Him. Youcan't see God."

  "Why not?"

  "Why, because you can't!" answered her cousin with final logic. "Say,haven't you got any other clothes with you at all? I'd take you down withme in the morning if you was fixed up."