by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER IV. THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL
Phoebe watched the two unhappily, sighed when they disappeared aroundthe corner of the house, and set her bowl of butter upon the broad, flatrock which just missed being overflowed with water, and sighed again.
"I'm afraid it isn't going to work," she murmured aloud; for Phoebe,having lived much of her life in the loneliness which the West meansto women, frequently talked to herself. "She's such a nice littlething--but the boys don't take to her like I thought they would. I don'tsee as she's having a mite of influence on their manners, unless it's tomake them act worse, just to shock her. Clark USED to take off his hatwhen he come into the house most every time. And great grief! Now he'dwear it and his chaps and spurs to the table, if I didn't make him takethem off. She's nice--she's most too nice. I've got to give that girl agood talking to."
She mounted the steps to the back porch, tried the kitchen door, andfound it locked. She went around to the door on the west side, oppositethe gate, found that also secured upon the inside, and passed grimly tothe next.
"My grief! I didn't know any of these doors COULD be locked!" shemuttered angrily. "They never have been before that I ever heard of."She stopped before Evadna's window, and saw, through a slit in the greenblind, that the old-fashioned bureau had been pulled close before it."My grief!" she whispered disgustedly, and retraced her steps tothe east side, which, being next to the pond, was more secluded.She surveyed dryly a window left wide open there, gathered herbrown-and-white calico dress close about her plump person, and crawledgrimly through into the sitting-room, where, to the distress of Phoebe'sorder-loving soul, the carpet was daily well-sanded with the tread ofboys' boots fresh from outdoors, and where cigarette stubs decoratedevery window-sill, and the stale odor of Peaceful's pipe was never longabsent.
She went first to all the outer rooms, and unlocked every one of theoutraged doors which, unless in the uproar and excitement of racing,laughing boys pursuing one another all over the place with much slammingand good-natured threats of various sorts, had never before barred theway of any man, be he red or white, came he at noon or at midnight.
Evadna's door was barricaded, as Phoebe discovered when she turned theknob and attempted to walk in. She gave the door an indignant push, andheard a muffled shriek within, as if Evadna's head was buried under herpillow.
"My grief! A body'd think you expected to be killed and eaten," shecalled out unsympathetically. "You open this door! Vadnie Ramsey.This is a nice way to act with my own boys, in my own house! A body'dthink--"
There was the sound of something heavy being dragged laboriously awayfrom the barricaded door; and in a minute a vividly blue eye appeared ata narrow crack.
"Oh, I don't see how you dare to L-LIVE in such a place, Aunt Phoebe!"she cried tearfully, opening the door a bit wider. "Those Indians--andthat awful man--"
"That was only Grant, honey. Let me in. There's a few things I wantto say to you, Vadnie. You promised to help me teach my boys to begentle--it's all they lack, and it takes gentle women, honey--"
"I am gentle," Evadna protested grievedly. "I've never once forgottento be gentle and quiet, and I haven't done a thing to them--but they'rehorrid and rough, anyway--"
"Let me in, honey, and we'll talk it over. Something's got to be done.If you wouldn't be so timid, and would make friends with them, insteadof looking at them as if you expected them to murder you--I must say,Vadnie, you're a real temptation; they can't help scaring you when yougo around acting as if you expected to be scared. You--you're TOO--" Thedoor opened still wider, and she went in. "Now, the idea of a great girllike you hiding her head under a pillow just because Grant asked oldHagar to apologize!"
Evadna sat down upon the edge of the bed and stared unwinkingly at heraunt. "They don't apologize like that in New Jersey," she observed, withsome resentment in her voice, and dabbed at her unbelievably blue eyeswith a moist ball of handkerchief.
"I know they don't, honey." Phoebe patted her hand reassuringly. "That'swhat I want you to help me teach my boys--to be real gentlemen. They'repure gold, every one of them; but I can't deny they're pretty rough onthe outside sometimes. And I hope you will be--"
"Oh, I know. I understand perfectly. You just got me out here as a--asort of sandpaper for your boys' manners!" Evadna choked over a littlesob of self-pity. "I can just tell you one thing, Aunt Phoebe, thatfellow you call Grant ought to be smoothed with one of those funny axesthey hew logs with."
Phoebe bit her lips because she wanted to treat the subject veryseriously. "I want you to promise me, honey, that you will beparticularly nice to Grant; PARTICULARLY nice. He's so alone, andhe's very proud and sensitive, because he feels his loneliness. No oneunderstands him as I do--"
"I hate him!" gritted Evadna, in an emphatic whisper which her AuntPhoebe thought it wise not to seem to hear.
Phoebe settled herself comfortably for a long talk. The murmur of hervoice as she explained and comforted and advised came soothingly fromthe room, with now and then an interruption while she waited for a tardyanswer to some question. Finally she rose and stood in the doorway,looking back at a huddled figure on the bed.
"Now dry your eyes and be a good girl, and remember what you'vepromised," she admonished kindly. "Aunt Phoebe didn't mean to scold you,honey; she only wants you to feel that you belong here, and she wantsyou to like her boys and have them like you. They've always wanted asister to pet; and Aunt Phoebe is hoping you'll not disappoint her.You'll try; won't you, Vadnie?"
"Y--yes," murmured Vadnie meekly from the pillow. "I know you will."Phoebe looked at her for a moment longer rather wistfully, and turnedaway. "I do wish she had some spunk," she muttered complainingly, notthinking that Evadna might hear her. "She don't take after the Ramseysnone--there wasn't anything mushy about them that I ever heard of."
"Mushy! MUSHY!" Evadna sat up and stared at nothing at all while sherepeated the word under her breath. "She wants me to be gentle--shepreached gentleness in her letters, and told how her boys need it, andthen--she calls it being MUSHY!"
She reached mechanically for her hair-brush, and fumbled in a tumbledmass of shining, yellow hair quite as unbelievable in its way as wereher eyes--Grant had shown a faculty for observing keenly when he calledher a Christmas angel--and drew out a half-dozen hairpins, letting themslide from her lap to the floor. "MUSHY!" she repeated, and shook downher hair so that it framed her face and those eyes of hers. "I supposethat's what they all say behind my back. And how can a girl be niceWITHOUT being mushy?" She drew the brush meditatively through herhair. "I am scared to death of Indians," she admitted, with analyticalfrankness, "and tarantulas and snakes--but--MUSHY!"
Grant stood smoking in the doorway of the sitting-room, where he couldlook out upon the smooth waters of the pond darkening under the shade ofthe poplars and the bluff behind, when Evadna came out of her room. Heglanced across at her, saw her hesitate, as if she were meditating aretreat, and gave his shoulders a twitch of tolerant amusement that sheshould be afraid of him. Then he stared out over the pond again. Evadnawalked straight over to him.
"So you're that other savage whose manners I'm supposed to smooth, areyou?" she asked abruptly, coming to a stop within three feet of him, andregarding him carefully, her hands clasped behind her.
"Please don't tease the animals," Grant returned, in the same impersonaltone which she had seen fit to employ--but his eyes turned for asidelong glance at her, although he appeared to be watching the troutrise lazily to the insects skimming over the surface of the water.
"I'm supposed to be nice to you--par-TIC-ularly nice--because you needit most. I dare say you do, judging from what I've seen of you. At anyrate, I've promised. But I just want you to understand that I'm notgoing to mean one single bit of it. I don't like you--I can't endureyou!--and if I'm nice, it will just be because I've promised AuntPhoebe. You're not to take my politeness at its face value, for back ofit I shall dislike you all the time."
Grant's lips twitched, and there was a covert
twinkle in his eyes,though he looked around him with elaborate surprise.
"It's early in the day for mosquitoes," he drawled; "but I was sure Iheard one buzzing somewhere close."
"Aunt Phoebe ought to get a street roller to smooth your manners,"Evadna observed pointedly.
"Instead it's as if she hung her picture of a Christmas angel up beforethe wolf's den, eh?" he suggested calmly, betraying his Indian bloodin the unconsciously symbolic form of expression. "No doubt the wolf'snature will be greatly benefited--his teeth will be dulled for hisprey, his voice softened for the nightcry--if he should ever, by chance,discover that the Christmas angel is there."
"I don't think he'll be long in making the discovery." The blue ofEvadna's eyes darkened and darkened until they were almost black."Christmas angel,--well, I like that! Much you know about angels."
Grant turned his head indolently and regarded her.
"If it isn't a Christmas angel--they're always very blue and verygolden, and pinky-whitey--if it isn't a Christmas angel, for the Lord'ssake what is it?" He gave his head a slight shake, as if the problem wasbeyond his solving, and flicked the ashes from his cigarette.
"Oh, I could pinch you!" She gritted her teeth to prove she meant whatshe said.
"It says it could pinch me." Grant lazily addressed the trout. "I wonderwhy it didn't, then, when it was being squashed?"
"I just wish to goodness I had! Only I suppose Aunt Phoebe--"
"I do believe it's got a temper. I wonder, now, if it could be a LIVEangel?" Grant spoke to the softly swaying poplars.
"Oh, you--there now!" She made a swift little rush at him, nipped hisbiceps between a very small thumb and two fingers, and stood back,breathing quickly and regarding him in a shamed defiance. "I'll show youwhether I'm alive!" she panted vindictively.
"It's alive, and it's a humming-bird. Angels don't pinch." Grant laid afinger upon his arm and drawled his solution of a trivial mystery."It mistook me for a honeysuckle, and gave me a peck to make sure."He smiled indulgently, and exhaled a long wreath of smoke from hisnostrils. "Dear little humming-birds--so simple and so harmless!"
"And I've promised to be nice to--THAT!" cried Evadna, in bitterness,and rushed past him to the porch.
Being a house built to shelter a family of boys, and steps being asuperfluity scorned by their agile legs, there was a sheer drop of threefeet to the ground upon that side. Evadna made it in a jump, just as theboys did, and landed lightly upon her slippered feet.
"I hate you--hate you--HATE YOU!" she cried, her eyes blazing up at hisamused face before she ran off among the trees.
"It sings a sweet little song," he taunted, and his laughter followedher mockingly as she fled from him into the shadows.
"What's the joke, Good Injun? Tell us, so we can laugh too." Wallyand Jack hurried in from the kitchen and made for the doorway where hestood.
From under his straight, black brows Grant sent a keen glance into theshade of the grove, where, an instant before, had flickered the whiteof Evadna's dress. The shadows lay there quietly now, undisturbed by somuch as a sleepy bird's fluttering wings.
"I was just thinking of the way I yanked that dog down into oldWolfbelly's camp," he said, though there was no tangible reason forlying to them. "Mister!" he added, his eyes still searching the shadowsout there in the grove, "we certainly did go some!"