CHAPTER XI.
THE NEW BOARDER AT LEE'S RANCH
Mary could hardly wait to tell the news to Phil and Mrs. Lee. She rannearly all the way from the Wigwam to the ranch, her hat in her hand,and the lid of her lunch-basket flapping.
Long before she came within calling distance, she saw Phil mount hishorse out by the pasture bars, and ride slowly along the driveway whichled past the tents to the public road. With the hope of interceptinghim, she dashed on still more wildly, but her shoe-strings tripped her,and she was obliged to stop to tie them. Glancing up as she jerked theminto hard knots, she breathed a sigh of relief, for he had drawn rein tospeak to Mr. Ellestad and the new boarder, who were sitting in the sunnear the bamboo-arbour. Then, just as he was about to start on again,Mrs. Lee came singing out to the tents with an armful of clean towels,and he called to her some question, which brought her, laughing, to jointhe group.
Thankful for these two delays, Mary went dashing on toward them sobreathlessly that Phil gave a whistle of surprise as she turned in atthe ranch.
"What's the matter, Mary?" he called. "Indians after you again?"
"No," she panted, throwing herself down on the dry Bermuda grass, andwiping her flushed face on her sleeve. "I'm on my way to school. I juststopped by with a message, and I thought you'd like to hear the news."
"Well, that depends," began Phil, teasingly. "We hear so little out onthis lonely desert, that our systems may not be able to stand the shockof anything exciting. If it's good news, maybe we can bear it, if youbreak it to us gently. If it's bad, you'd better not run any risks.'Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise,' you know."
"Oh, come now, Tremont, that's too bad," laughed Mr. Ellestad. "Don'thead her off that way when she's in such a hurry to tell it."
"Then go on, Mary," said Phil, gravely. "Mr. Ellestad's curiosity isgreater than his caution, and Mr. Armond hasn't been in the desert longenough to be affected by its dearth of news, so anything sudden can'thurt him. Go on."
Mary stole a glance at the new boarder. The long, slender fingers,smoothing his closely clipped, pointed beard, hid the half-smile thatlurked around his mouth. He was leaning back in his camp-chair,apparently so little interested in his surroundings, that Mary felt thathis presence need not be taken into account any more than thebamboo-arbour's.
"Well," she said, as if announcing something of national importance,"_Joyce has an order_."
"An order," repeated Phil, "what under the canopy is that? Is itcatching?"
"Don't pay any attention to him, Mary," Mr. Ellestad hastened to say,seeing a little distressed pucker between her eyes. "Phil is a trifleslow to understand, but he wants to hear just as much as we do."
"Well, it's an order to paint some cards," explained Mary, speaking veryslowly and distinctly in her effort to make the matter clear to him."You know the Links, back in Plainsville, Mrs. Lee. You've heard me talkabout Grace Link ever so many times. Her cousin Cecelia is to be marriedsoon, and her bridesmaids are all to be girls that she studied musicwith at the Boston Conservatory. So her Aunt Sue, that's Mrs. Link, isgoing to give her a bridal musicale. It's to be the finest entertainmentthat ever was in Plainsville, and they want Joyce to decorate thesouvenir programmes. Once she painted some place cards for a Valentinedinner that Mrs. Link gave. She did that for nothing, but Mrs. Link hassent her ten dollars in advance for making only thirty programmes.That's thirty cents apiece.
"They're to have Cupids and garlands of roses and strings of hearts on'em, no two alike, and bars of music from the wedding-marches and bridalchorus. Joyce is the happiest thing! She's nearly wild over it, she's sopleased. She's going to buy a hive of bees with the money."
Phil groaned, but Mary paid no attention to the interruption.
"The letter and the package of blank cards for the programmes came thismorning while she was sweeping, and she just left the dirt and the broomright in the middle of the floor, and sat down on the door-step andbegan sketching little designs on the back of the envelope, as theypopped into her head. Lloyd and Jack and mamma are going to do all thecooking and housework and everything, so Joyce can spend all her time onthe cards. They want them right away. Isn't that splendid?"
"Whoop-la!" exclaimed Phil, as Mary stopped, out of breath. "Fortune hasat last changed in your favour. I'll ride straight up to the Wigwam tocongratulate her."
"Oh, I almost forgot what I stopped by for," exclaimed Mary. "Lloyd toldme to tell you that you needn't come to-day to take her riding, forshe'll be too busy helping Joyce to go."
Phil scowled. "The turn in _my_ fortune isn't so favourable, it seems.Well, if I'm not wanted at the Wigwam I'll go to town to-day. There'salways something doing in Phoenix. Climb up behind me, Mary, and I'llgive you a lift as far as the schoolhouse."
As they galloped gaily down the road, Mrs. Lee looked after them with atroubled expression in her eyes. "There's too much doing in Phoenix fora nice boy like that," she thought. "I wish he wouldn't go so often. Imust tell him the experience some of my other boys have had when theywent in with idle hands and full purses like his."
Her boarders were always her boys to Mrs. Lee, and she watched over themwith motherly interest, not only nursing them in illness and cheeringthem in homesickness, but many a time whispering a warning against thetemptations which beset all exiles from home who have nothing to do butkill time. Now with the hope of interesting the new boarder insomething beside himself, she dropped down into the rustic seat nearhim, hanging the towels over the arm of it while she talked.
"You must make the acquaintance of the Wares, Mr. Armond," she began."They stayed at the ranch three weeks, and this little Mary and herbrothers kept things humming, the whole time."
"They'd give me nervous prostration in half a day, if they're all likethat little chatterbox," he answered, listlessly.
"Not Joyce," interrupted Mr. Ellestad. "She's the most interesting childof her age I ever knew, and being an artist yourself you couldn't failto be interested in her unbounded ambition. She really has talent, Ithink. For a girl of fifteen her clever little water-colours and herpen-and-ink work show unusual promise."
"Then I'm sorry for her," said Mr. Armond. "If she has ambition andthinks she has talent, life will be twice as hard for her, always astruggle, always an unsatisfied groping after something she can neverreach."
"But I believe that she will reach what she wants, some day," was thereply. "She has youth and health and unbounded hope. The other day Iquoted an old Norwegian proverb, '_He waits not long who waits for afeast_.' She wrote it on the kitchen door, saying, 'I'll have to waittill I can earn enough money to buy one hive of bees, and then I'll waitfor that hive to swarm and make another, and for the two to grow into ahundred, and that into two hundred maybe, before I'll have enough to goaway and study. It'll be years and years before I reach the mark I'veset for myself, but when I'm really an artist, doing the things I'vedreamed of doing, that will be a feast worth any amount of waiting.' Nowin less than a week she has found her way to the first step, the firsthive of bees, and I'm truly glad for her."
"But the happier such beginnings, the more tragic the end, oftentimes,"Mr. Armond answered. "I've known such cases,--scores of them, when I wasan art student myself in Paris. Girls and young fellows who thought theywere budding geniuses. Who left home and country and everything else forart's sake. They lived in garrets, and slaved and struggled and starvedon for years, only to find in the end that they were not geniuses, onlyto face failure. I never encourage beginners any more. For what is morecruel than to say to some hungry soul, 'Go on, wait, you'll reach thefeast, your longing shall be satisfied,' when you know full well thatin only one case in ten thousand, perhaps, can there be a feast for oneof them. That when they stretch out their hands for bread there will beonly a stone."
"But you reached it yourself, Armond, you know you did," answered Mr.Ellestad, who had known the new boarder well in his younger days. "Tohave had pictures hung in the Salon and Academy, to be recognized as asucce
ss in both hemispheres, isn't that enough of a feast to satisfymost men?"
The face turned to him in reply wore the look of one who has fought thebitterest of fights and fallen vanquished.
"No. To have a sweet snatched away just as it is placed to one's lips isworse than never to have tasted it. What good does it do me now? Look atme, a hopeless invalid, doomed to a year or two of unendurable idleness.How much easier it would be for me now to fold my hands and wait, if Ihad no baffled ambitions to torment me hourly, no higher desires in lifethan Chris there."
He pointed to the swarthy Mexican, digging a ditch across the alfalfapasture. "No," he repeated. "I'd never encourage any one, now, to starton such an unsatisfactory quest."
"I'm sorry," said Mr. Ellestad. "When I heard that you were coming, Ihoped that you would take an interest in Joyce Ware. You could be thegreatest inspiration and help to her, if you only would."
"There she is now," exclaimed Mrs. Lee, who sat facing the road. "Itdoes me good to see any one swing along as she does, with so much energyand purpose in every movement."
Mr. Armond turned his head slightly for a view of the girlish figuremoving rapidly toward them.
"Don't tell her that I am an artist, Ellestad," he said, hurriedly, asshe drew near, "or that I've ever lived in the Latin Quarter or--oranything like that. I know how schoolgirls gush over such things, andI'm in no mood for callow enthusiasms."
Joyce's errand was to borrow some music, the wedding-marches, if Mrs.Lee had them, from Lohengrin and Tannhauser. She remembered seeingseveral old music-books on the organ in the adobe parlour, and shethought maybe the selections she wanted might be in them.
Mr. Armond sat listening to the conversation with as little interest,apparently, as he had done to Mary's. After acknowledging hisintroduction to Joyce by a grave bow, he leaned back in his chair, andseemed to withdraw himself from notice.
At first glance Joyce had been a trifle embarrassed by the presence ofthis distinguished-looking stranger. Something about him--the cut ofthe short, pointed beard, the nervous movement of his long, sensitivefingers, the eyes that seemed to see so much and so deeply in theirbrief glances, recalled some memory, vague and disturbing. She tried toremember where it was she had seen some man who looked like this one.
"Is it very necessary that you should have the wedding-marches?" askedMrs. Lee, coming back from a fruitless search in the parlour. "Wouldn'ta few bars from any other music do just as well? So long as you havesome notes, I should think any other march would carry out the idea justas well."
"No," said Joyce. "All the guests will be musicians. They'd see at aglance if it wasn't appropriate, and ordinary music would not meananything in such a place."
"I know where you can get what you want," said Mrs. Lee, "but you'd haveto go to Phoenix for it. I have a friend there who is a music-teacherand an organist. I'll give you a note to her, if you care enough to gosix miles."
"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Lee," cried Joyce. "I'll be glad to take it, if itisn't too much trouble for you to write it. I'd go twenty miles ratherthan not have the right notes on the programmes."
Mr. Armond darted a quick glance at her through half-closed eyelids.Evidently she was more in earnest than he had supposed.
As Mrs. Lee went to the house to write the note, Mr. Ellestad said,smilingly, "Mary told us that this piece of good fortune will bring youyour first hive of bees, give you your first step toward the City ofyour Desire. It seems appropriate that this bridal musicale should giveyou your hives. Did you ever hear that the bow of the Hindu love-god issupposed to be strung with wild bees?"
"No," she answered, slowly, "but it's a pretty idea, isn't it?" Then herface lighted up so brightly that Mr. Armond looked at her with awakeninginterest.
"Oh, I'm so glad you told me that! It suggests such a pretty design.See! I can make one card like this." Taking a pencil from her hair,where she had thrust it when she started on her errand, and catching upthe old music-book Mrs. Lee had brought out, she began sketching rapidlyon a fly-leaf.
"I'll have a little Cupid in this corner, his bow strung with tiny bees,shooting across this staff of music, suspended from two hearts. Andinstead of notes I'll make bees, flying up and down between the lines.Won't that be fine?"
Mr. Armond nodded favourably when the sketch was passed to him. "Verygood," he said, looking at it critically. Slipping a pencil from hispocket, he held it an instant over the little fat Cupid, as if to makesome correction or suggestion, but apparently changing his mind, hepassed the sketch back to Joyce without a word.
Again she was baffled by that vague half-memory. The gesture with whichhe had taken the pencil from his pocket and replaced it seemed familiar.The critical turn of his head, as he looked at the sketch, was certainlylike some one's she knew. She liked him in spite of his indifference.Something in his refined, melancholy face made her feel sorry for him;sorrier than she had been for any of the other people at the ranch. Helooked white and ill, and the spells of coughing that seized him now andthen seemed to leave him exhausted.
When Mrs. Lee came out with the note, Joyce rose to go. She had learnedin the short conversation with Mr. Ellestad that this stranger was anold acquaintance of his, so she said, hospitably, "We are your nearestneighbours, Mr. Armond. I know from experience how monotonous the desertis till one gets used to it. Whenever you feel in need of a changewe'll be glad to see you at the Wigwam. It's always lively there, now."
He thanked her gravely, and Mr. Ellestad added, with a laugh, "He isjust at the point now where Shapur was when the caravan went on withouthim. He doesn't think that these arid sands can hold anything worthwhile."
"Oh, I know!" exclaimed Joyce, with an understanding note in her voice."It's dreadful until you follow the bee, and find your Omar. You musttell him about it, Mr. Ellestad."
Then she hurried away. Half an hour later she galloped by on the pony,toward Phoenix. Lloyd was riding beside her. As they passed the ranchshe waved a greeting with the note which Mrs. Lee had given her.
"What do you think of her work?" asked Mr. Ellestad of his friend.
"One couldn't judge from a crude outline like that," was the answer."She's so young that it is bound to be amateurish. Still she certainlyshows originality, and she has a capacity for hard work. Her willingnessto go all the way to Phoenix for a few bars of music shows that she hasthe right stuff in her. But I wouldn't encourage her if I were in yourplace."
When Mr. Ellestad called at the Wigwam that afternoon, he found Joycehard at work. A row of finished programmes was already stretched out onthe table before her. Through the door that opened into the kitchen, hecould see Lloyd at the ironing-board. Her face was flushed, and therewas an anxious little frown between her eyes, because the wrinkleswouldn't come out of the sheets, and the hot irons had scorched twotowels in succession. But she rubbed away with dogged persistence,determined to finish all that was left in the basket, despite Joyce'spleading that she should stop.
"Those things can wait till the last of the week just as well as not,"she insisted. But Lloyd was unyielding.
"No, suh," she declared. "I nevah had a chance to i'on even apocket-handkerchief befoah, and I'm bound I'll do it, now I've begun."
There was a blister on one pink little palm, and a long red burn on theback of her hand, but she kept cheerfully on until the basket was empty.
"Tell me about Mr. Armond," said Joyce, as she worked. "He reminds me ofsome one I've seen. I've been trying all afternoon to think. You'veknown him a long time, haven't you?"
"Yes, I met him abroad when he was a mere boy," answered Mr. Ellestad,wishing that he had not been asked to say nothing about his friend'scareer as an artist. The tale of his experiences and successes wouldhave been of absorbing interest to Joyce.
"Armond doesn't like to have his past discussed," he said, after apause. "He made a brilliant success of it until his health failedseveral years ago. Since then he has grown so morose that he is not likethe same creature. He has lost faith in everything. I
tell him that ifhe would rouse himself to take some interest in people and things abouthim,--if he'd even read, and get his mind off of himself, then he'd quitcursing the day he was born, and pick up a little appetite. Then hewould live longer. If he were at some sanitarium they'd make him eat;but here he won't go to the table half the time. Jo fixes up all sortsof tempting extras for him, but he just looks at them, and shoves themaside without tasting. The only thing I have heard him express a wishfor since he has been at the ranch is quail."
"Oh, we're going to have some for supper to-night," cried Joyce. "Jackshot seven yesterday. He gets some nearly every day. I'll send Mr.Armond one if you think he'd like it. That is, if they turn out allright. My cooking isn't always a success, especially when my mind is onsomething like this work."
"SHE LEANED OVER TO OFFER HIM THE LITTLE BASKET"]
Everybody in the family helped to get supper that night, even Norman, sothat Joyce might work on undisturbed till the last moment. The only partthat she took in the preparations was to superintend the cooking of thequail, and to call out directions to the others, as she painted garlandsof roses and sprays of orange-blossoms on one programme after another.
"Spread one of the white fringed napkins out in the little brown coveredbasket, Mary, please, and put in a knife and fork. And Lloyd, I wishyou'd set a saucer on the stove hearth where it'll get almost red-hot.Jack, if you'll have the pony ready at the door I'll fly down to Mr.Armond with a quail the minute they are done, so that he'll get itpiping hot. No, I'll take it myself, thank you. You boys are as hungryas bears, and I've painted so hard all afternoon that I haven't a bit ofappetite. I'll feel more like eating if I have the ride first."
The ranch supper-bell was ringing as she started down the road on agallop, holding the basket carefully in one hand, and guiding the ponywith the other. Everybody had gone in to the dining-room but Mr. Armond.Wrapped in a steamer-rug and overcoat, he sat just outside the door ofhis tent, his hat pulled down over his eyes. Turning from the drivewayshe rode directly across the lawn toward him. She was bareheaded, andher face was glowing, not only from the rapid ride, but the kindlyimpulse that prompted her coming.
He looked up in astonishment as she leaned over to offer him the littlebasket.
"I've brought you a quail, Mr. Armond," she said, breathlessly. "Youmust eat it quick, while it's blazing hot, and eat it every bit but thebones, for it was cooked on purpose for you. It'll do you good."
Without an instant's pause she started off again, but he called her."Wait a moment, child. I haven't thanked you. Ellestad said you wereworking at your programmes like a Trojan, and wouldn't stop long enoughto draw a full breath. You surely haven't finished them."
"No, it will take nearly two days longer," she said, gathering up thereins again.
"And you stopped in the middle of it to do this for me!" he exclaimed."I certainly appreciate your taking so much time and trouble for me--anentire stranger."
"Oh, no! You're not a stranger," she protested. "You're Mr. Ellestad'sfriend."
"Then may I ask one more favour at your hands? I'd like to see yourprogrammes when they're finished,--before you send them away. There isso little to interest one out here," he continued, apologetically, "thatif you don't mind humouring an invalid's whims----"
"Oh, I'd be glad to," cried Joyce, flushing. "I'll bring them down justas soon as they're done. That is," she added, with a mischievous smiledimpling her face, which made her seem even younger than she was, "ifyou'll be good, and eat every bit of the quail."
"I'll promise," he replied, an answering smile lighting his face for aninstant. An easy promise to keep, he thought, as he lifted the lid, andtook out the hot covered dish. The quail on the delicately browned toastwas the most tempting thing he had seen in weeks.
"What a kind little soul she is," he said to himself, as he tasted thefirst appetizing morsel, "fairly brimming over with consideration forother people. As Ellestad says, I could do a lot for her, if it seemedthe right thing to encourage her."
Whether it was the quail, which he ate slowly, enjoying it to the lastmouthful, or whether it was the remembrance of a pair of honest,friendly eyes, beaming down on him with neighbourly good-will andsympathy, he could not tell, but as he went into his tent afterward andlighted the lamp, somehow the desert seemed a little less lonely, theoutlook a trifle less hopeless.