CHAPTER I
A SEEKER OF NEW TRAILS
When the Ware family boarded the train in San Antonio that Septembermorning for their long journey back to Lone-Rock, every passenger on thePullman straightened up with an appearance of interest. Somehow theirarrival had the effect of a breath of fresh air blowing through thestuffy car. Even before their entrance some curiosity had been awakenedby remarks which floated in from the rear platform, where they werebidding farewell to some friends who had come to see them off.
"Do write and tell us what your next adventures are, Mary," exclaimedone clear voice. "Your family ought to be named Gulliver instead ofWare, for you are always travelling around to such queer,out-of-the-way places. I suppose you haven't the faintest idea whereyou'll be six months from now."
"No, nor where I'll be in even six weeks," came the answer, in alaughing girlish treble. "As I told the Mallory twins when we leftBauer, I'm like 'Gray Brother' now, snuffing at the dawn wind and askingwhere shall we lair to-day. From now I follow new trails. And, girls, Iwish you could have heard Brud's mournful little voice piping after medown the track, as the train pulled out, 'Good hunting, Miss Mayry! Goodhunting!'"
"Oh, you'll have that, no matter where you go," was the confidentanswer. "And don't forget to write and tell us about it."
A chorus of good-byes and farewell injunctions followed this seeker ofnew trails into the car, and the passengers glanced up to find that shewas a bright, happy-looking girl in her teens. She carried a sheaf ofroses on one arm, and some new magazines under the other. One noticedfirst the alertness of the face under the stylish hat with its bronzequills, and then the girlish simplicity of dress and manner which showedat a glance that she was a thorough little gentlewoman. Her mother, whofollowed, gave the same impression; gray-gowned, gray-gloved, bearing aparting gift of sweet violets, all that she could carry, in both hands.
One literal minded woman who had overheard Mary's remarks about lairsand new trails, and who had been on the watch for something wild allacross the state of Texas, looked up in disappointment. There wasnothing whatever in their appearance to suggest that they had lived inqueer places or that they were on their way to one now. The fifteen yearold boy who followed them was like any other big boy in short trousers,and the young man who brought up the rear and was undeniably good tolook at, gave not the slightest evidence of being on a quest foradventure. The only reason the woman could see for the name of Gulliverbeing applied to the family, was that they settled themselves with theease and dispatch of old travellers.
While Jack was hanging up his mother's coat, and Norman storing theirsuit-cases away in one section, Mary, in the seat across the aisle, waspressing her face against the window-pane, watching for a partingglimpse of the friends, when they should pass through the station gate.A sudden tapping on the glass outside startled her, and the nextinstant she was exclaiming excitedly to her elder brother, "Oh, quick,Jack! Put up the window, please. It's Gay and Roberta! They're stillwaiting out there!"
As the window flew up, and Mary's head was thrust out, passengers onthat side of the car saw two young girls standing on tiptoe to speak toher. The one with beautiful auburn hair called out breathlessly, "Oh,Mary! Bogey's coming! Pray that the train will stand one more minute!"And the other, the one with curly lashes and mischievous mouth, chimedin, "He's bringing an enormous box of candy! Mean thing, to come so latethat we can't have even a nibble!"
Then those looking out saw a young fellow in lieutenant's uniform sprintthrough the gate, down the long station and across half a dozen tracksto reach the place where Roberta and Gay stood like excited guide-posts,wildly pointing out the window, and beckoning him to hurry. Red-facedand panting, he brought up beside them with a hasty salute, just as thewheels began turning and the long train started to puff slowly out ofthe station. There was only time to thrust the box through the windowand hastily clasp the little gloved hand held out to him.
"THERE WAS ONLY TIME TO . . . HASTILY CLASP THE LITTLEGLOVED HAND HELD OUT TO HIM."]
"Say good-bye to the others for me," he called, trotting along besidethe moving train. "Sorry I was late. I had a lot of things to tell you.I'll have to write them."
"Do," called Mary, "and let me know--" But he was no longer in hearingdistance and the sentence was left unfinished.
When she drew in her head there was a deeper color in her face and suchshining pleasure in her eyes, that every fellow traveller who had seenthe little byplay, knew just what delight the lieutenant's partingattention had given her. More than one watched furtively with a sort ofinward smiling as she opened the box and passed it around for the familyto share and admire.
One person, especially, found entertainment in watching her. He was theelderly, spectacled gentleman in the section behind her. He was anillustrator for a well-known publishing house, and Mary would havecounted her adventures well begun, could she have known who was sittingbehind her, and that one of his famous cover designs was on the verymagazine which lay open on her lap. Well for her peace of mind that shedid not know what he proceeded to do soon after her arrival. Producing apencil and drawing pad from his satchel, he made a quick sketch of her,as she sat sideways in her seat, carrying on an animated conversationwith Jack.
The artist smiled as he sketched in the jaunty quills of the hat, perkedat just the right angle to make an effective picture. He was sure thatthey gave the key-note to her character.
"They have such an effect of alertness and 'go,'" was his inwardcomment. "It's sensible of her to know that this style gives herdistinction, while those big floppy affairs everybody wears nowadayswould have made just an ordinary looking girl of her."
He would have been still more positive that the hat gave the key-note ofher character, if he had seen the perseverance and ingenuity that hadgone towards its making. For she had been her own milliner. Two otherhats had been ripped to pieces to give her material for this, and thestylish brown quills which had first attracted his attention, had beensaved from the big bronze turkey which had been sent to them from theBarnaby ranch for their Christmas dinner.
Before he had made more than an outline, the porter came by with a paperbag, and Mary whisked her hat off her head and into the bag, serenelyunconscious that thereby she was arresting the development of a goodpicture.
Later, when Jack changed to the seat facing Mary, and with his elbow onthe window ledge and chin propped on his fist sat watching the flyinglandscape, the illustrator made a sketch of him also. This time he didnot stop with a bare outline. What had seemed just a boyish face atfirst glance, invited his careful study. Those mature lines about themouth, the firm set of the lips, the serious depths of the grave grayeyes, certainly belonged to one who had known responsibilities andstruggles, and, in some way, he felt, conquest. He wondered what therehad been in the young fellow's life to leave such a record. The longerhe studied the face the better he liked it.
The whole family seemed unusually well worth knowing, he concluded aftera critical survey of Norman and his mother, who sat in the oppositesection, entertaining each other with such evident interest that it madehim long for some one to talk to himself. Tired by his two days' journeyand bored by the monotony of his surroundings, he yawned, stretchedhimself, and rising, sauntered out to the rear platform of theobservation car. Here, some time later, Norman found him smoking andwas drawn into conversation with the stranger, who seemed to have a giftfor asking questions.
The conversation was confined principally to the different kinds of wildanimals and snakes to be found in the state of Texas, and to an amateur"zoo" which Norman had once owned in Lone-Rock, the mining camp inArizona that they were now going back to. But incidentally theinterested artist learned that Jack had been assistant manager of themines. That accounted for the mature lines of his face. They stood forresponsibilities bravely shouldered. He had been almost killed by anaccident which would have crushed several Mexican workmen had he notrisked his own life for theirs. He had been ordered to a milder climate,hen
ce their recent sojourn in Texas. They had supposed he would alwaysbe a helpless cripple, but, by an almost miraculous operation, he hadbeen restored, and was now going back to take his old position.
Norman himself intended to be a mining engineer, he told the strangerwhen questioned. He had already begun to take a practical course underthe chief at the office. Mathematics came easy to him. The otherstudies, which he thought unnecessary, but which his family insistedupon, he recited to the minister. He, and another boy, Billy Downs.There were only a few white boys of his age in Lone-Rock.
"What does your sister do for entertainment?" asked his questioner,recalling the vivacious little face under the hat with the saucy bronzequills. "Doesn't she find it rather lonely there?"
"Why, no!" answered Norman in a surprised tone. "A place just naturallyquits being lonesome when Mary gets into it, and she does so many thingsthat nobody can ever guess what she's going to think of doing next."
Probably it was because he had a daughter of his own, who, notpossessing Mary's rare gift, demanded constant amusement from herfamily, that he turned his spectacled gaze on her with deepened interestwhen he went back into the car, and many times during the rest of thetime that they journeyed together. She crossed the aisle to sit with hermother the greater part of the afternoon, so he heard nothing of theconversation which appeared to be of absorbing interest to them both.
But the woman who had been on the watch for something wild all the wayacross the state, deliberately arranged to hear as much of it as shecould. A scrap or two that reached her above the noise of the trainmade her prick up her ears. She changed her seat so that she sat back toback with Mrs. Ware and Mary. Eavesdropping on the train was perfectlyjustifiable, she told her uneasy conscience, because there was nopersonal element in it. Of course she couldn't do it at home, but it wasdifferent among strangers. All the world was a stage when one travelled,and the people one met on a journey were the actors one naturally lookedto to help pass the time. So she sat with her eyes closed, becauseriding backward always made her dizzy, and her head so close to the backof Mary's that the bronze quills would have touched her ear had Maryturned an inch or two farther around in her seat.
Presently she gathered that this interesting young girl was about to goout into the wide, wide world to make her fortune, and that she had alist of teachers' agencies and employment bureaus to which she intendedapplying as soon as she reached home. From various magazines given herto read on the way, she had cut a number of advertisements which shewanted to answer, but her mother objected to most of them. She did notwant her to take a place among strangers as governess, companion,social secretary, mother's helper, reader for a clipping bureau orshopping agent.
"You are too young, Mary," she insisted. "One never knows what one isgetting into in strange families. Now, that position in a Girls' WinterCamp in Florida does not seem so objectionable, because they giveteachers at Warwick Hall as reference. You can easily find out all aboutit. But there is no real reason why you should go away this winter. Nowthat Jack has his position again and we are all well and strong we canlive like lords at Lone-Rock on his salary. At least," she added,smiling, "it must seem like lords to some of the families in the camp.And he can save a little each month besides."
"But, mother dear," answered Mary, a distressed frown puckering hersmooth forehead. "I don't want to settle down for Jack to take care ofme. I want to live my own life--to see something of the world. You letJoyce go without objecting."
"Yes, to make an artist of herself. But somehow that was different. Shehad a definite career mapped out. Her work is the very breath of life toher, and it would have been wrong to hold her when she has suchundoubted talent. But you see, Mary, your goal is so vague. You haven'tany great object in view. You're willing to do almost anything for thesake of change. I verily believe you'd like to try each one of thosepositions in turn, just for the novelty of the experiences, and theopportunity of meeting all those different kinds of people."
Mary nodded emphatically. "Oh, I would! I'd love it!" Then she laughedat her mother's puzzled expression.
"You can't understand it, can you? Your whole brood is turning out to bethe kind that pines to be 'in the swim' for itself. Still, you didn'tcluck distractedly when Joyce went to New York and Holland into theNavy, and you followed Jack up here when he struck out for himself, andyou know Norman's chosen work is liable to take him anywhere on the faceof the globe. So I don't see why you should cluck at me when I edge offafter the others."
Mrs. Ware smiled into the merry eyes waiting for their answer. "I'm nottrying to stop you entirely," she replied. "I'm only warning you to goslowly and to be very careful. As long as there is nothing especial youhave set your heart on accomplishing, it seems unwise to snatch at thefirst chance that offers. You're very young yet, remember, onlyeighteen."
Mary made no answer for several minutes. Down in her heart was thefeeling that some day her life would mean far more to the world thanJoyce's career as an artist or Holland's as a naval officer. She hadfelt so ever since that first day at Warwick Hall, when she gazed up atthe great window of Edryn's tryst, where his coat of arms gleamed likejewels in its amber setting. As she had listened to the flood ofwonderful music rolling up from below, something out of it had beguncalling her. And it had gone on calling and calling with the compellingnote of a far-off yet insistent trumpet, into a world of namelesslongings and exalted ambitions, of burning desire to do great deeds. Andfinally she had begun to understand that somewhere, some day, some greatachievement awaited her. Like Edryn she had heard the King's call, andlike him she had whispered his answer softly and reverently as before analtar:
"Oh list! Oh heart and hand of mine, keep tryst-- Keep tryst or die!"
It was still all vague and shadowy. With what great duty to the universeshe was to keep tryst she did not yet know, and it was now two yearssince she had heard that call. But the vision still stayed. Inwardly sheknew she was some sort of a Joan of Arc, consecrated to some highdestiny. Yet when she thought of explaining anything so intangible, shebegan to smile at the thought of how ridiculous such an explanationwould sound, shouted out in broad daylight, above the roar of the train.Such confidences can be given only in twilight and cloisters, just asthe call itself can come only to those who "wake at dawn to listen inhigh places."
But feeling presently that she must give some definite reason to hermother for wanting to start out to seek her fortunes, she leaned acrossthe aisle and slipped a railroad folder from Jack's coat pocket. It hada map on one side of it, and spreading it across both her lap and hermother's, she laid her finger on a spot within the boundary lines ofKentucky.
"Don't you remember my little primary geography?" she asked. "The one Ibegan to study at Lee's ranch? I had a gilt paper star pasted rightthere over Lloydsboro Valley, and a red ink line running to it fromArizona. I remember the day I put them there, I told Hazel Lee thatthere was my 'Promised Land,' and that I'd vowed a vow to go there someday if the heavens fell. I'll never forget the horror on her littlefreckled face as she answered, 'Aw, ain't you wicked! I bet you neverget there now, just for saying that!'
"But I _did_ get there!" she continued with deep satisfaction. "And nowI've made up my mind to go back there to live some of these days. Yousee, mamma, my visit there was like the trial trip that Caleb and Joshuamade to 'spy out the land.' Don't you remember the picture inGrandmother Ware's Bible of the two men coming back with such anenormous bunch of grapes on a pole between them that they could hardlycarry it? It proved that the fruits of Canaan were better and biggerthan the fruits of any other country. That was what my visit did; provedthat I could be better and happier in Lloydsboro Valley than anywhereelse in the world."
There was a moment's silence, then she added wistfully, "Somehow, whenyou're there, it seems easier to keep 'the compass needle of your soultrue to the North-star of a great ambition.' There's so much to inspireone there. I have a feeling that if I could only go
back to live, I'd--Oh, I hardly know how to express it! But it would prove to be my 'highplace,' the place where I'll hear my call. So the great reason why Iwant to start right away to earn money is that I may have enough as soonas possible to buy a home back there. That's my dearest day-dream, andI'm bound to make it come true if I have to wander around in thewilderness of hard work as long as the old Israelites did in theirs.You're to come with me. That's one of the best parts of my dream, for Iknow how you've always loved the place and longed to go back. Now, don'tyou think that's an object good enough and big enough to let me go for?"
Mrs. Ware seized the little hand spread out over the map of Kentucky andgave it an impulsive squeeze.
"Yes," she answered. "If you're ever as homesick for the dear old placeas I used to be sometimes, I can understand your longing to go backthere to live."
"_Used_ to be!" echoed Mary blankly, staring at her in astonishment."Aren't you now? Wouldn't you be glad to go back there to spend the restof your days? I don't mean right now, of course, while Jack and Normanneed you so much here, but"--lowering her voice--"I'm just as sure as Ican be without having been told officially that Jack is going to marryBetty Lewis as soon as his finances are in better shape. She's such aperfect darling that they'd be happy ever after, and then I wouldn'thave any compunctions about taking you away from him. Now that's anotherreason I don't want to stay on here, just to be an added expense tohim."
The words poured out so impetuously, the face turned toward her was soeager, that Mrs. Ware could not dim its light by answering the first twoquestions as she felt impelled. She answered the last instead, sayingthat she felt as Mary did about Jack's marriage, and that it made herinexpressibly happy to think that the girl he might some day bring homeas his bride was the daughter of her dear old friend and schoolmate,Joyce Allen.
They lowered their voices over this confidence, so that the woman whowas sitting back to back with them shifted her position and leaned alittle nearer. Even then she could not hear what they were saying tillMary returned to her first question.
"But, mamma, you said '_used_ to be.' Do you really mean that you don'tcare for your Happy Valley as much as you used to? The place you'vetalked about to us since we were babies, till we've come to think of itas enchanted ground?"
Feeling as if she were pleading guilty to a charge of high treason, Mrs.Ware answered slowly, "No, I can't truthfully say that I do long for itas I used to. It's this way, little daughter," she added hastily, seeingthe disappointment that shadowed Mary's face. "I've been away such avery, very long time, that there are only a few of my girlhood friendsleft. Betty's mother has been dead many years. The Little Colonel'smother is really the only one I could expect to find unchanged. The oldseminary is burned down, strangers are in the homes I used to visit, andI'm afraid I'd find so many changes that it would be as sad as visitinga cemetery. And I've lived so long in the West, that I've taken roothere now. I think of it as home. I'm just as interested as Jack is inbuilding up the fortunes of our new state. I think he is going to be apower in it some day. If I should live long enough, it would notsurprise me in the least to see him Governor of it some time."
She folded one little gray-gloved hand over the other so complacently asshe calmly made this announcement, that Mary laughed and shook her headdespairingly.
"Oh, mamma! mamma! You vain woman! What fine swans all your ducklingsare going to turn out to be! Jack a Governor, Holland an Admiral,Norman a mighty man of valor (variety still undetermined), and Joyce acelebrity in the world of art! Must I be the only Simple Simon in thebunch? What would you really like to have me do? Now, own up, if youcould have your choice, what is your ambition for me?"
"Well," confessed Mrs. Ware, "you're such a born home-maker, that I'dlike to see you that before all else. I believe you could make a home somuch better than your neighbors, that like the creator of the proverbialmouse-trap, you would have the world making a beaten track to your door,even though you lived in the woods. As the old Colonel once said, youcan be an honor to your sex and one of the most interesting women ofyour generation."
Although she spoke jokingly there was such a note of belief in her voicethat Mary caught her by the arm and shook it, saying playfully,"Peacock! If _that's_ what you hope for me, then you must certainlyspeed my parting. It's only in the goodly land of Lloydsboro that I canmeasure up to all you expect of me. I'll try and fill the bill, butpromise me this much. When I've finally pitched my tent in Canaan andachieved that happy home, then you'll come and share it with me. Atleast," she added as Mrs. Ware nodded assent, "what time you are notstrutting through foreign salons or the Governor's mansion, or sailingthe high seas with the Admiral."
The woman behind them heard no more, for Jack called them across theaisle to look at something from his window, and when they returned totheir seats Mrs. Ware picked up a magazine and Mary began an absorbingstudy of the map. She retraced the line of her first railroad journey,the pilgrimage from the little village of Plainsville, Kansas, toPhoenix, Arizona. As she thought of it, she could almost feel the lumpin her throat that had risen when she looked back for the last time onthe little brown house they were leaving forever, and waved good-bye tothe lonesome little Christmas tree they had put out on the porch for thebirds.
It was on that trip that her tireless tongue had made life-long friendsof two strangers whom she talked to: Phil Tremont, and his sister Elsie.Her brothers had always teased her about her chatterbox ways, butsuppose she _hadn't_ talked to them that day. The endless chain ofhappenings that that friendship started never would have begun, and lifewould have been far different for all of them.
Then her finger traced the way to where Ware's Wigwam would have been onthe map if it had been a spot large enough to mark. There Phil had comeinto their life again, almost like one of the family. Her realacquaintance with the Princess Winsome of her dreams began there too,when Lloyd Sherman made her memorable visit, and Mary, with the adoringadmiration of a little girl for the older one whom she takes as herideal in all things, began to copy her in every way possible.
The next line followed the course of the red ink trail in her oldprimary geography, for that was the trail she had followed back to thegilt paper star which stood for Lloydsboro Valley. The land which shehad learned to love through song and story had been the dearest of allto her ever since, through the associations of that happy summer. Therewere several other trips to retrace as she sat with the map spread outbefore her. The long one she took to Warwick Hall, where surely no oneever had fuller, happier school-days. She did not stop to recall themnow, thinking with satisfaction that they were all recorded in her "GoodTimes Book," and that if ever "days of dole, those hoarfrost seasons ofthe soul," came into her life, every cell of that memory hive would bestored with the honey of their good cheer. So also were her Christmasand Easter vacations recorded, when she and Betty visited Joyce in herstudio apartment in New York.
The next line which she traced was a hasty dash back across the map toLone-Rock. She always tried to dash the thought of it out of mind justas quickly. The heart-breaking agony of it, when she was flying home tofind her brother a hopeless cripple, was too terrible to recall evennow, after a long time, when he was sitting beside her, strong and well.
Then her finger trailed down across the map, retracing their lastjourney the year before to San Antonio and the hill country above it. Inmany ways it had been a hard year, but, remembering its happy outcome,she said to herself that it should be marked by triple lines of red.They had gone down to the place, strangers in a strange land, they werecoming away with some of the warmest friendships of their lives bindingthem fast to it. Down there Jack had had his wonderful recovery, whichwas above and beyond all that their wildest hopes had pictured. And,too, it was the last place where she would have expected to meet PhilTremont again. Yet he had appeared suddenly one day as if it were themost natural thing in the world to be standing there by the huisachetree to help her over the fence of the blue-bonnet pasture.
"By what has been, learn what will be," she repeated, and then idlypricked that motto into the edge of the folder with a pin, as she wenton recalling various incidents. Judging by her past she had every reasonto believe that the future might be full of happy surprises; so, as shestudied the map now, it was to wonder which way the new trails wouldlead her.
"Any way at all!" she thought fervently. "I don't care which directionthey take, if they'll only come around to the Happy Valley. I'm bound toget there at any cost."
Presently she folded up the map and sat gazing dreamily out of thewindow. An old song that was often on her lips came to her mind, but,this time, she parodied it to suit her hopes:
"For if I go not by the road, and go not by the hill, And go not by the far sea way, yet go I surely will! Close all the roads of all the world--Love's road is open still."