CHAPTER THREE NEIGHBORHOOD GOSSIP
Josephine Bayley awakened, as all do in entirely new surroundings, withthe question, "Why, where am I?" Then, upon hearing a chattering ofanimal life without, she sat up in bed and saw a fir tree festooned withwebs that sparkled with quivering dewdrops, saw two bushy-tailedsquirrels gathering cones, and heard a meadow-lark singing its joyousmorning-song. The new teacher arose, surprised to find that all thatnight she had not awakened. She glanced in the corner where stood thesentinel gun. She was sure that she should never have need of itsservices.
Just as she was dressed she heard a rapping on her outer door. Skipping,with a heart as light as her feet, she opened it, and beheld Mrs.Enterprise Twiggly standing there with a tray. She looked exactly as shehad the night before, only more so, in the full light of all-revealingday.
"Good-mornin', Miss Bayley," the woman remarked, as she entered thesun-flooded living-room of the log cabin and placed the tray on therustic center-table.
"I didn't hear any firin' in the night, so I take it you slept through."
"I did, indeed," was the enthusiastic reply. "No longer shall I need apine pillow to woo slumber. I don't know when I have awakened sorefreshed."
Then the girl added with a happy laugh: "The truth is, I didn't knowwhat I was supposed to be afraid of, and so, of course, I couldn't beafraid of it."
This remark sounded a little unbalanced to the wife of the innkeeper.She had never heard that one had to know what to be afraid of before hecould be afraid. She drew herself up very straight as she enumerated:"Well, there's plenty that usually scares tenderfoot school-teachers.There's the coyotes howlin' at night, though they mostly never toucheshuman bein's; an' now and then there's a bear, but worst, I guess, isthe parcel of Indians over Tahoe way. They don't do much but thievin'. Iguess that's all, unless 'tis now and then a bandit passin' this way tohold up a train over beyond Reno."
Scandalized, indeed, was the wife of the innkeeper when she heard thenew school-teacher laugh. "Oh, Mrs. Twiggly," the girl exclaimedmerrily, "I do hope some one of those skeery things will happen soon.I'm just longing for adventure."
This time the sniff of her listener was entirely audible. "Well, Ireckon you'll get all the adventure you're wantin' before the term's up,Miss Bayley, if you're kept, and I sort o' feel it my duty to tell youthat the board of eddication hereabouts is particular and persnifity."
"Which means?" was what Miss Bayley thought. But aloud she demurelyasked, "Mrs. Twiggly, just what are the requirements that I shall haveto meet?"
The wife of the innkeeper bristled, as she always did when this subjectwas discussed. "If you mean what you ought to do to please the board, Imust say it seems like there's nothin' needed but just to flatter andpamper the board's only child, that forward little Jessica Archer."
Miss Bayley's dark eyes were wide. "Is there only _one_ man on the localboard of education?" she inquired.
Mrs. Twiggly nodded. "Ye-ah, and, for that matter, there's only _one_important man in these here parts, and that's Mr. Sethibald Archer. Heowns all the sheep-grazin' country round about, and if he don't own it_honest_, he's got it somehow."
"Sethibald?" Miss Bayley repeated. "I never heard such a Christian nameas that before."
Mrs. Twiggly was scornful.
"Well, 'twa'n't that in the beginnin'," she said. "It was jest plainSeth, but when they got so rich, his wife, who'd allus been Maria, wentto visit folks in the city, and when she came back she had her nameprinted on bits of pasteboard, visitin'-cards, she called 'em, thoughland knows who she's goin' to visit in these parts, and she said Mrs.Seth didn't look stylish enough, so she tacked on the endin'. Mrs.Sethibald Archer, that's what's on the card."
Again the new teacher had an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh, but,instead, she seated herself at the table and ate the really goodbreakfast, and found that she was unusually hungry. The mountain-airsurely was a tonic.
As her guest seemed in no hurry to depart, Miss Bayley said, "Won't yoube seated, Mrs. Twiggly, and tell me some more about my duties asschool-teacher?"
"Well, I dunno but I can set a spell," was the reply of the garrulouswoman, who had "talked herself thin," as Mrs. Sethibald Archer had beenknown to declare, and which may have been true.
"Please tell me about my other pupils," Miss Bayley continued.
There was a visible stiffening of the form of Mrs. Twiggly. "I'll tellyou first about the four children who live down in Woodford's Canyon,them as had a shiftless, do-nothin'-useful actress for a mother."
And so it was that Miss Josephine Bayley first heard of brave littleDixie Martin and her three young charges.
"'Twas the year of the big blizzard," Mrs. Twiggly began, sitting sostiff and straight that her listener found herself wondering if she hada poker for a backbone. "I declare to it, there never had been such awinter. Too, that was the year they struck silver over beyond the canyon.It got out that the mountains hereabouts were all chock-full of payin'ore, and over-night, it seemed like, a minin'-camp sprung up and grew ina fortnight to be a reg'lar town with houses and stores and even athe-_a_-ter built. You can see the ruins of it now when you're over thatway, and, havin' a the-_a_-ter brought play-actin' folks to Silver City,and mighty big money they took in.
"It came easy, and was spent easy, but all of a sudden there was no moresilver; the veins had petered out, and the gay life of that town blewout like the flame on a candle, and then it was that some littleone-horse show, havin' heard how rich other actors had struck it there,came trailin' along, but they was too late.
"They gave their show,--'Shakespeare,' they called it,--but they gave itto empty benches. They'd come over from Reno on the stage all dressed upin their hifalutin' costumes, so's not to have to fetch over theirtrunks, but they didn't have any money to pay their way back, and sothey started to walk.
"Well, one of 'em was a pretty, frail-lookin' young girl, with big roundeyes and soft curly hair. She wore a long, trailin' white dress.Ophelia, they called her, but she wa'n't strong, and them paper shoesshe had on got cut to pieces as soon as she began to walk along themountain roads. When they got to Woodford's Canyon the man dressed up asking saw as she couldn't walk any farther, so he said she'd have to stopat some ranch-house and rest till the stage-coach came along.
"The only house anywhere near belonged to Pine Tree Martin. Folkshereabouts called him that because he was always sayin', 'Neighbors,don't cut down the pine trees.' Queer, how that man did love pine trees.He had two of the finest ones you ever saw growin' in front of his logcabin, and they're still there. Well, Pine Tree Martin was nigh fortyyears old, and he'd been livin' alone since his ol' mother died. Theking and another fellow they called Hamlet went to the cabin and knockedon the door. Nobody was at home, so they pushed open the door and founda fire burning in the stove and supper set for one on the table. Theycarried Ophelia, who had fainted by that time, into the cabin and puther on the bed, then the rest of them made tracks for Reno."
The sniff was very audible now.
Then she went on: "That shows how much morals play-actin' folks have,but I can tell you Pine Tree Martin wa'n't made of no such ne'er-do-wellstuff. When he found that done-up girl with her big round eyes and softcurly hair in his house, and heerd how she didn't have a home that shecould go to, he up and loved her, as only the Pine Tree Martin kind ofpeople can love.
"He married her and took the tenderest sort o' care of her as long asshe lived. Nothin' he could get was too good for her, and she as uselessas a--well, a butterfly, I guess. An' what's more, she was allus talkin'about what blue-blooded folks her relations was. It seems their name wasHaddington-Allen, and they was rich and proud. They had disowned herbecause she wanted to go on the stage and be a star. When Dixie wasborn, she wrote letters to the aunt that had fetched her up in theSouth, but they allus came back, and on 'em was written, 'Unopened byMrs. Haddington-Allen.'
"This Mrs. Pine Tree Martin never took to
Western ways. Her heart wasallus in the South, an' as her children were born she named them Dixie,Carolina, and Kentucky, till the baby came, and she named him after theuncle that had fetched her up, James Haddington-Allen Martin.
"In one way it turned out good for Dixie to have such a shiftlessmother, for as soon as that girl could hold a saucepan she began to cookfor the family. The only thing the mother would do was sew, and she madefancy dresses for herself and for the other girl, Carolina, to wear. Shenever took much pride in the two older children. The boy, Ken, was thelivin' image of his homely, raw-boned pa, and Dixie was a greatdisappointment, for she was a Martin clear through, but Carolina was thepicture of her ma, and still is, and just like her.
"Well, when James Haddington-Allen Martin was three months old, themother died, and the father was left with four children, which was badenough, but two years later Pine Tree Martin was killed in a raid, andsince then Dixie, who's just come twelve, has kept house and been motherto the other three," Mrs. Twiggly concluded.
Then, before Josephine Bayley could comment on the sad story that shehad just heard, Mrs. Twiggly arose. "I declare to it," she exclaimed,"if 'tisn't eight o'clock and you'll want to be startin' to schoolearly. Follow the road right down toward the canyon, then turn toward themountains a bit, and there you are. You'd better not step off the roadto-day. There's adders and rattlers hereabouts. You'll get so you cantell a coiled snake from a stone arter you've been here a spell, butjust at first you'd better be keerful."
Then when she reached the door with the tray she turned to saycondescendingly: "I'm real glad you've come, Miss Bayley. It's mightynice to have folks as interesting as you are to talk to, an' I do hopethe board will like you."
She was out of the door when she stepped back to add: "Miss Bayley, ifit don't come too hard, I'd sort of let it seem like you think JessicaArcher is prettier than Carolina Martin and smarter than Dixie. It'll bestretchin' the truth mighty hard, but it's policy. Good mornin', MissBayley."
The new teacher, at last alone, put her hands to her head as though shefelt dizzy. How rasping was Mrs. Twiggly's voice! But a moment later shewas thinking of the poor little children of that stranded Ophelia, andlooked eagerly forward to her first meeting with them.