CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR DIXIE'S LESSON IN DRESSMAKING
Miss Josephine Bayley was anticipating with real pleasure the coming ofthe little girl who was to have her first lesson in dressmaking.
The door of the small cabin stood welcomingly open, for it was one ofthose wonderful, balmy days known as Indian summer, and in Nevada theyseem lovelier than elsewhere.
"See these beautiful ruddy leaves that I found this morning, Dixie,dear," said the young teacher, who stood at the center-table arrangingthem, as the small girl appeared in the doorway. "I climbed a littlelost trail, or, it was almost lost, it was so overgrown with tangledvines and scraggly dwarf pines."
The great bowl of flaming-leaved branches was placed in one corner ofthe room, the table swept clear of books and magazines, and then thepaper pattern was opened while Josephine Bayley continued, smilingacross at her little visitor: "Dixie, how I wish that trails could talk.I'd love to know whose feet trod it so many times that a path was beatenthere. Perhaps you have heard, have you, dear?"
Dixie shook her red-gold head. "Not 'zactly heard, Miss Bayley," shereplied, "but most likely 'twas the year of the big strike over atSilver City. My dad said that over-night, almost, these lonely, silentmountains were swarmed with men from everywhere, and they climbed allabout with their pickaxes, hunting for other veins, but they didn't findthem. Maybe it's selfish, but I'm glad, glad they didn't."
"So am I, Dixie," the girl-teacher agreed, "for they would have dug uglyholes in these mountains and cut down the wonderful old pines. I wouldrather have nature at its wildest for my home than a castle ofglistening white marble surrounded with artificial parks, howeverbeautiful."
"Oh, teacher, so would I." The small girl had drawn close to the table,and her gold-brown eyes looked as though they were seeing a vision."Miss Bayley," she said, "I keep remembering. I can't forget it. Thatviolin music, I mean. And this morning, early, when I was up before theothers, out under the pines, getting ready to do the washing, the suncame up over old Piney Peak, and it was just like a fairy shower ofgold. Then a lark sang, and a little breeze stirred in the pine trees.Teacher, Miss Bayley, I think I could play it on a violin, if I hadone."
"Little Dixie Martin, you shall have one! You shall have a violin!" theyoung woman said, deeply touched. Then she added: "I only wish that Iknew how to give you lessons, but where there's a will, there's a way.That is a true saying, dear, and you and I will keep watching for theway. Now, little ladykins, if you will stand up very straight and tall,I'd like to see if this pattern hangs well. I'm going to pin it on you,if you don't mind, to get an idea of what kind of dress it will make."
Miss Bayley did not tell that her real reason for wishing to pin on thepattern was to discover how much larger she would have to cut one beforemaking a certain piece of shimmery green silk into a dress for Dixie.
When the pattern was on, the girl-teacher made many penciled notes on abit of brown paper. "There, now," she exclaimed, "we'll cut out thematerial."
Dixie, watching, suddenly put one hand on her heart, as though to stillits too-rapid beating. "Oh, teacher," she said in a little awed voice,"this is a wonderful minute, when we're really going to begin to make ablue-silk dress for Carol." Then she added almost wistfully: "How I dohope that dear old Grandmother Piggins knows that you are helping us.Before she died she sent for me and she said, 'Dixie, dear, I'm glad togo, but I'm praying that somebody will be sent to take my place withyou.'"
Then impulsively the child cuddled close to the girl-teacher and lookedup with love shining in her eyes. "Miss Bayley, you are the answer toGrandmother Piggins's prayer."
Kneeling, the young woman held the little girl in a close embrace, asshe said in a voice that trembled: "Dixie, I have wandered far, and havelost the simple faith, but, oh, what it means to me to know that I, evenI, have been found worthy to be used as an answer to prayer!"
Then rising, she merrily added, "Now thread a needle, little MissSeamstress, and sew these two edges together."
Sitting in a low rocker, by a sunny open window, Dixie took painstakinglittle stitches, almost measuring each one, but when her girl-teachernoticed that, she laughingly said: "You needn't be so careful, dear. Thebig thing in basting is to have the notches match and keep the edgestogether."
For a moment the machine, which had been borrowed from the inn, hummed amerry song, then teacher looked up to see Dixie sitting very still, hersewing in her lap, while her eyes were gazing between fluttering whitecurtains and out toward the mountains.
"A penny for your dreams," Miss Bayley called gayly, as she paused tosnap a thread.
Dixie turned, smiling radiantly. "Oh," she laughed, "I was 'maginingahead, I guess. I was wondering what lovely things would happen to Carolin this pretty blue silk dress." Then, a little anxiously, she added,"There'd ought to be a party, shouldn't you think, Miss Bayley?"
"Of course there should be a party, and, what is more, there shall beone, too. When is Carol to have a birthday?"
"November sixth, and that comes on Saturday," the little girl replied."I was meaning to make a cake, and there'd ought to be one more candle.Grandma Piggins gave Carol eight little candles last year, but now weneed nine."
Miss Bayley was again treading the machine and making it hum. Then, whenshe paused to adjust the ruffler, she glanced up brightly to find thatthe gold-brown eyes were still watching, apparently waiting. "We'll havethat party, dear," the girl-teacher declared, "and the one more candle,I'll promise that, but I'm going to keep it for a surprise for all ofyou little Martins."
"Oh, Miss Bayley," said the small girl, clapping her hands gleefully,"won't that be the nicest? It'll be a 'sprise for Baby Jim and for Kenand me, too, as well as for Carol."
Teacher nodded, though at that particular moment she had not the vaguestidea what the surprise-party was to be. Then she added "When is _your_birthday, Dixie, dear?"
"Mine? Oh, I came in February, on the snowiest, coldest, blustriest day,dad said. Brother Ken was born in April, but Baby Jim," the girl's voicesoftened to a tone of infinite tenderness when she spoke that name, "ourlittle treasure-baby was born on Christmas day." Then she added withthat far-away expression which was so often in her eyes, "GrandmotherPiggins said when little souls are sent to our earth on Christ'sbirthday, they have been specially chosen to be His disciples."
"It may be true, dear." Miss Bayley had thought so little of thesethings. She had been brought up in boarding-schools without loved onesto guide. Then she added, as she adjusted a long, straight piece of bluesilk that was soon to be a ruffle. "Of one thing I am sure, and that isthat the influence of a beautiful life lives here on earth long afterthe form of the loved one has passed from our sight. Grandmother Pigginsmust have been a dear, dear old lady."
"She was," the child said simply. "Everybody loved her."
"What epitaph could one more desire?" was what the girl-teacher thought.Then the machine began to hum, and Dixie bent over to watch the spindlefly, and to see the strip of silk that was straight on one side come outin the prettiest ruffle on the other.
"I'm glad it's near the end of October now," the small girl said with alittle sigh, "for I just couldn't wait more'n two weeks to give thatdress to Carol."
Then, as there was no more basting that she could do, Dixie wanderedabout the pleasant, home-like room, reading the titles on the books thatwere everywhere in evidence. Suddenly she paused before a photograph."Why, Miss Bayley," she exclaimed, "the boy in this picture looks almost'zactly like you."
"He is my brother, dear, two years younger than I am," the girl-teacherreplied, looking up with a smile.
"Oh, I remember now, you did tell me you had a brother Tim. Is he comingWest some time to see you, Miss Bayley?"
There was a sudden shadow on the lovely face that bent over the bluesilk. "I'm afraid Tim doesn't care to find me," she said. "I haven'theard from him in over a year. I don't even know where he is. Brotherand I were left orphans when I was ei
ght and he six. That was justtwelve years ago. Although he is but eighteen, he is a giant of a chap,and would pass for twenty-one. Our guardian put me in a fashionableboarding-school in New York, and placed Tim in a military academy in theSouth. After that we saw very little of each other, but we did write,that is, I wrote every week and my brother replied now and then, butover a year ago his letters ceased coming, and so, when I graduated andwas ready to do what I liked, I went South and visited the academy, onlyto find that my brother was not there. He had found military disciplinetoo severe, his room-mate told me, and had disappeared. No one knewwhere he went, but his pal believed that he had gone to sea. Tim hadsaid to him, 'Tell Sis that I'll turn up in three years, if not sooner.'With Tim gone, I had no one in all the world, Dixie, for whom I reallycared, and no one cared for me. I was so weary of the noise andartificial life of New York City, and I didn't want to open up ourfather's home on Riverside Drive without Tim, so I left it all and cameWest to seek--to seek-- Oh, Dixie, dear, I don't know what I came toseek, but I do know what I found." With a little half-sob, thegirl-teacher held out both arms, and Dixie went to her.
"I found some one to love, and some one to love me." Then, hastilywiping her eyes, Miss Bayley smilingly declared, "It never would do toget a little salty spot on this lovely blue silk." Then, springing up,she added gayly, "Come now, Miss Midget, you and I are going to havefour-o'clock chocolate."
During the next hour Dixie thought she had never known her belovedteacher to be so light-hearted and merry, but when the small girl hadgone down the canyon trail Josephine Bayley went to her screened-in porchbedroom, and, stretching out her arms toward the sky that was such adeep blue over the mountains, she said, "O Thou who holdest the landsand the seas, take care of my brother, Tim." Then, remembering thechild's faith in prayer, she added, "And bring him to me soon."
There was peace in the heart of the girl-teacher as she turned back intothe little log cabin, for, once again, she had faith in prayer.
"And a little child shall lead them," she thought as she prepared herevening meal.