CHAPTER XIII.
A CHANGE OF FORTUNE
IT was nearly two o'clock next day when the thirtieth programme wasfinished and placed in the last row of dainty cards, laid out for thefamily's farewell inspection. While Lloyd cut the squares oftissue-paper which were to lie between them, Joyce brought the box inwhich they were to be packed and the white ribbons to tie them.
Jack, having saddled Washington, was blacking his shoes and making otherpreparations for his ride to town. A special trip had to be made, inorder to get the package to the Phoenix post-office in time.
"They might wait until morning, I suppose," said Joyce, as she beganplacing them carefully in piles of ten. "But it is best to allow all thetime possible for delays. Then the programmes have to be written on themafter they get to Plainsville. Oh, I _hope_ Mrs. Link will like them!"
"I don't see how she can help it!" exclaimed Lloyd. "They're lovely, andI think you'd be so proud of them you wouldn't know what to do."
"I am pleased with them," admitted Joyce, stopping to take one last peepat the pretty rose-garlanded Cupids ringing the bride-bells, which Philhad suggested. It was the best design in the lot, she thought.
"Oh, I forgot!" she exclaimed, suddenly, looking up in dismay. "Whatshall I do? I promised Mr. Armond that I'd let him see these cardsbefore I sent them away."
"You won't have time now," suggested Lloyd.
"I suppose Jack could wait a few minutes, but I thought we'd start overto Shaw's ranch just as soon as the cards were off. I didn't want tolose a minute in getting my hive of bees, after I'd earned them. It'ssuch a long walk over there and back, that I don't feel like going tothe ranch first."
"Let Jack stop and show them to Mr. Armond," suggested her mother. "He'salways so careful that he can be trusted to tie the box up safelyafterward."
"Oh, he's _safe_ enough," answered Joyce, "but he'd make such a mess ofit, tying and untying the white ribbons on the inside of the package.He can't make a decent bow to save his life. He'd have them all inknots and strings, and after all the care I've taken I want Mrs. Link tofind them just as they leave me."
For a moment Joyce stood undecided, regretting her promise to Mr.Armond, and sorely tempted to break it.
"He won't really care," she thought, but his own words came back to herplaintively: "There is so little to interest one here,--if you don'tmind humouring an invalid's whims."
She couldn't forget the hopeless melancholy of his face, and what Mr.Ellestad had said to her about him: "He's just where Shapur was when thecaravan went on without him." And she remembered that in the storyShapur had cursed the day he was born, and laid his head in the dust.
"I'll go," she exclaimed. "Jack can follow as soon as he is ready, andI'll hand the package to him as he passes. I'll be back as soon as Ican, Lloyd, and then we'll start right over to Mr. Shaw's. You explainto Jack, please, mamma, and give him the money to pay the postage."
Stopping only long enough to write the address on the wrapper, shehurried down the road, bareheaded, toward the ranch. Lloyd sat down onthe front door-step to wait for her return. Opening a book, in which shehad become interested, she was soon so deep in the story that shescarcely noticed when Jack rode away, a quarter of an hour later,glancing up for just an instant as she waved her hand mechanically inanswer to his call.
The kitchen clock struck half-past two, then three. With the last strokecame a vague consciousness that it was growing late, and that Joyce waslong in coming, but the absorbing interest of the story made herimmediately forgetful again of her surroundings.
It was nearly four when Mrs. Ware, coming out beside her on the step,stood shading her eyes with her hand to peer down the road.
"I can't imagine what keeps Joyce so long," she said, anxiously. "Itwill soon be too late for you to go to the Shaws."
But even as she spoke, Joyce came in sight, running as Lloyd had neverseen her run before. She had left the dusty road, and was bobbing alongon the edge of the desert, where the hard, dry sand, baked into a crust,made travelling easier.
"Oh, you'll never, never guess what kept me!" she called, as she hurriedup to the door, eager and breathless. Seizing her mother around thewaist, she gave her a great squeeze.
"Oh, I'm so happy! So happy and excited that I don't know whether I'm onmy head or my heels. I feel like a cyclone caught in a jubilee, or ajubilee caught in a cyclone, I don't know which. There never was suchglorious good fortune in the world for anybody!"
"Do stop yoah prancing and dancing and tell us," demanded Lloyd, "orwe'll think that you've lost yoah mind."
Joyce sank down beside her on the door-step. Her face was shining with agreat gladness, and she could hardly find breath to begin.
"Oh, there aren't words good enough to tell it in!" she gasped.
"Mr. Armond is an artist, mother, a really great one, who has hadpictures hung in the Salon and the Academy. Mr. Ellestad walked part ofthe way home with me, and told me about him. He studied for years inParis, and lived in the Latin Quarter, and had a studio there, just likeCousin Kate's friend, Mr. Harvey. And _that's_ the man Mr. Armond lookslike," she added, triumphantly. "I've been trying to think ever since Ifirst met him, who I had seen before with a short Vandyke beard likehis, and long, alive-looking fingers, that seem to have brains of theirown."
"And that's what makes you so glad," laughed Lloyd, "to think you'vediscovered the resemblance? Do get to the point. I'm wild to know."
"Well, he liked my work, thought it showed originality and promise, and,if mamma is willing, he wants to give me lessons. Think of that, LloydSherman,--lessons from an artist, a really great artist like that! Why,it would mean more for me than years of class instruction in the ArtLeague, or anywhere else. He seemed pleased when I told him that Iwanted to do illustrating, because he said that that was somethingpractical, and work that would find a ready market. He told me so manyinteresting things about famous illustrators that he has known, that Ihave come away all on fire to begin. My fingers fairly tingle. Oh,mamma!" she cried, two great happy tears welling up into her eyes."Isn't it splendid? The story of Shapur is true! For me the desert holdsa greater opportunity than kings' houses could offer!"
"But the price, my dear little girl--"
"And that's the best of it," interrupted Joyce. "He asked to be allowedto do it for nothing. Time hangs so heavily on his hands that he said itwould be a charity to give him something to do, and Mr. Ellestad toldme afterward, as we walked home, that I ought to let him, because it'sthe first thing that he has taken any interest in for months; that withsomething to occupy his mind and make him contented, he would get bettermuch faster.
"When I tried to thank him, and told him that he had showed me a betterway to the City of my Desire than the one I had planned for myself, hesaid, with the brightest kind of a smile, 'I expect to get far more outof this arrangement than you, my little girl. _You_ are the alchemistwhose courage and hope shall help me distil some drop of Contentment outof this dreary existence.'
"He is going to drive up here to-morrow, to ask you about it, and to seethe work I have already done. I'm glad now that I saved all thosecharcoal sketches of block hands and ears and things. And I'm going toget out all those still life studies I did with Miss Brown, and pin themup on the wall, so he'll know just how far I've gone, and where to startin with me."
"Get them out now," said Lloyd. "You never did show them to me."
There was some very creditable work hidden away in the old portfolio,and, while they talked and looked and arranged the studies on the wall,time slipped by unnoticed.
"Aren't you mighty proud, Aunt Emily?" asked Lloyd, stepping back for afinal view, when the exhibit was duly arranged.
"Proud and glad," answered Mrs. Ware, with a happy light in her eyes."It was always my dream to be an artist myself, and now to see myunfulfilled ambitions realized in Joyce more than compensates for all mydisappointments."
"Phil's coming," called Norman, from the yard.
"And we haven't
started for the bees!" exclaimed Joyce. "It's so late,we'll have to put it off until to-morrow."
But all plans for the morrow were laid aside when Phil told his errand.He would not dismount, but paused just a moment to invite them to thepromised picnic at Hole-in-the-rock.
"Everybody on the ranch is going," he explained. "Even Jo, to make thecoffee and unpack the lunch. There'll be a carriage here for you, AuntEmily, at three o'clock, and you must let Mary and Holland stay homefrom school to go. No, don't bother to take any picnic baskets," heinterrupted, hastily, as Mrs. Ware started to say something about lunch."This is my affair. Jo is equal to anything, even cherry tarts andcustard pies, and I must make the atonement I promised to Lloyd, forspilling hers."
Waiting only long enough to hear their pleased acceptance, he dashed offdown the road again. Ever since her arrival in Arizona Lloyd had wantedto see the famous hole in the rock. It lay several miles across thedesert, in a great red butte. There was a picture of it in the ranchparlour, and nearly every tourist who passed through Phoenix made apilgrimage to the spot, and took snap shots of this curious freak ofnature.
Climbing up the butte toward it, one seemed to be going into a mightycave, but when he had passed up into the opening, and down over a ledgeof rock, he saw that the cave led straight through the butte, like anenormous tunnel, and at the farther end opened out on the other side ofthe mountain, giving a wide outlook over the surrounding desert. It wasa favourite spot for picnic parties, but of all ever gathered there,none had had so many preparations made for the comfort of the guests.Phil rode over several times; once to be sure that the wood he hadordered for the camp-fire had been delivered, and again to take a loadof canvas chairs, rubber blankets, rugs, and cushions, so that even theinvalids on the ranch could enjoy the outing.
It was the first of March. Where the irrigating ditches ran, almond andpeach orchards were pink with bloom. California poppies, golden as thesunshine, nodded on the edges of the waving green wheat. Even the dry,hard desert was sweet in its miracle of blossoming. A carpet of bloomcovered it. Stems so short that they could scarcely raise the buds theybore above the sand bravely pierced the hard-baked crust. Great massesof yellow and blue, white, lavender, and scarlet transformed the bleaksolitary places for a little while into a glory of colour and perfume.An odour, sweet as if blown across acres of narcissus, made Mrs. Wareturn her head with a little cry of pleasure as they drove along towardthe butte the afternoon of the picnic.
"It's the desert mistletoe," explained Phil, who was following onhorseback with Lloyd and Joyce the surrey which Jack was driving.
"It is in blossom now, hanging in bunches from all those high bushesover yonder. Mrs. Lee says it isn't like ours. The berries, instead ofbeing little white wax ones like pearls, shade from a deep red to thepalest rose-pink."
"How lovely!" exclaimed Lloyd. "I hope I'll see some of the berriesbefoah I go home. Oh, deah! the days are slipping by so fast. The monthwill be gone befoah I know it."
Phil, seeing the wistful expression in the eyes raised to his for amoment, laid a detaining hand on her bridle-rein. "Let's walk thehorses, then," he said, laughingly, "and make the minutes last just aslong as possible. We'll have to fill the few days left to us so full ofpleasant things that you'll never forget them. I don't want you toforget this day anyhow, because it's in your especial honour that thispicnic is given--because you're such an accomplished Queen of Hearts."
"Tahts you mean," she answered, correcting him.
"Maybe I mean both," he replied, with an admiring glance that sent aquick blush to her face, and made her spur her pony on ahead.
There were more things than that fragrant, breezy ride across the desertto make her remember the day. There was the delicious supper that Jospread out under the sheltering ledge of rock at the entrance to thegreat hole. There were the jokes and conundrums that passed around asthey ate, the witty repartee of the boy from Belfast that kept them alllaughing, and the stories gathered, like the guests, from all parts ofthe world.
"This is the first picnic I have been to since the one at the old mill,when you had your house-party," said Joyce, snuggling up beside Lloydagainst a pile of cushions, after supper, as the blazing camp-firedispelled the gathering shadows of the twilight.
"There is as much difference between the two picnics as there is betweena cat and a tigah," said Lloyd, tingling with the horror of an Indianstory that the cowboy had just told. "Mine was so tame and this is soexciting. I'm glad that I didn't live out West in the times they aretelling about. Just listen!"
Phil had asked for an Indian story from each one, and Mrs. Lee had begunto tell her experiences during her first years on the ranch. No actualharm had come to her, but several terrible frights during a dreadfulApache uprising. She had been alone on the ranch, with only George, whowas a baby then, and a neighbour's daughter for company. They had seenthe smoke and flames shoot up from a distant ranch, where the Indiansfired all the buildings and haystacks; and they had waited in terrorthrough the long hours, not knowing what moment an arrow might comehurtling through the window of the little adobe house, where theycowered in darkness.
In frightened whispers they discussed what they should do if theApaches should come, and the only means of escape left to them was totake the baby and climb down the jagged rocks that lined the walls ofthe well. The water was about shoulder deep. Even that was a dangerousproceeding, for there was the fear that the baby might cry and callattention to their hiding-place, or that some thirsty Indian, coming forwater, might discover them.
Mrs. Lee told it in such a realistic way that Lloyd almost held herbreath, feeling in part the same fear that had seized the helpless womenas they waited for the dreaded war-whoop, and watched the flames oftheir neighbours' dwellings. She shuddered when she heard of the scenethat was discovered at the desolated ranch next morning. An entirefamily had been massacred and scalped, and left beside the charred ruinsof their home. Even the little blue-eyed baby had not escaped.
As the twilight deepened, the stories passing around the camp-fireseemed to grow more dreadful. Mary was afraid to look behind her, andpresently, hiding her face in her mother's lap, stuck her fingers in herears. It was a relief to more than Mary when Jo, who had been packingthe dishes back into the baskets behind the scenes, came rushing intothe circle around the fire so excited that, in his wild mixture ofJapanese and broken English, he could hardly make himself understood. Hewas holding out both forefingers, from each of which trickled a littlestream of blood. Each bore the gash of a carving-knife, which hadslipped through his fingers in his careless handling of it, as he kepthis ears strained to hear the Indian stories.
"HE WAS HOLDING OUT BOTH FOREFINGERS"]
He laughed and jabbered excitedly, with a broad grin on his face.Finally he succeeded in making Mrs. Lee understand that the cutting ofboth forefingers at the same moment was the sign that there was someextraordinary good fortune in store for him. It was the luckiest thingthat could have befallen him, and he declared that he must go at once tothe Chinese lottery in Phoenix.
"If I toucha ticket with these," he cried, holding up his bleedingfingers, "I geta heap much money; fo', five double times so much as Iputa in. I be back fo' geta breakfus'," he called, suddenly dartingaway. Before Mrs. Lee could protest, he was on his wheel, tearing acrossthe desert trail toward Phoenix like some uncanny wild thing of thenight.
"The superstitious little heathen!" exclaimed Mrs. Lee. "If he shouldwin, I may never lay eyes on him again. He's not the first good cookthat I've lost in that way. I have found that, if one once gets thegambling fever, I may as well begin to look immediately for a new one."
"Chris says that he has seen men lose ten thousand dollars at a time,"broke in Holland, his eyes big with interest. "Prospectors used to comein from the mines with their gold-dust and nuggets, and they'd spreaddown a blanket right on the street corner and play sometimes till they'dlose everything they had."
"It's the curse of the West," sighed Mrs. Lee. "I coul
d tell somepitiful tales of the young men and boys I have known, who came out herefor their health, got infatuated with the different games of chance, andlost everything. One man I knew was such a nervous wreck from the shockof finding himself a pauper as well as an invalid that he lost his mindand committed suicide. Another had to be taken care of in his last daysand be buried by a charitable society, and another had to write to hissister that he was penniless. She sewed for a living, and she sewed thento support him, till she worked herself ill and died before he did. Hespent his last days in the almshouse."
"We should have showed Jo Alaka's eyes, and told him the Indian legend,"said Mr. Ellestad, pointing up to the stars. "Do you see those twobright ones just over Camelback Mountain? Look up in a straight linefrom the head, and you will see two stars unusually brilliant andtwinkling. Those are the eyes of the god Alaka. He lost them ingambling. An old settler told me the story. He got it from an Indian,and, as I read something like it in a Chicago paper this winter, I thinkwe may be justified in believing it. At least it is as plausible as theold myths the ancients told of the stars,--Cassiopeia's chair, forinstance, and Leo's sickle."
"Tell it," begged Lloyd. "I'd rathah heah them than those blood andthundah Apache stories. I'll not be able to close my eyes to-night."
Every voice in the circle joined in the chorus of assents that went up,except Phil's, and no one noticed his silence but Lloyd.
It seemed to her that he had looked uncomfortable ever since Mrs. Leehad spoken so feelingly of the curse of the West; but she told herselfthat it must be just her imagination,--that it was the flickeringshadows of the camp-fire that gave his face its peculiar expression. Hemoved back into the darkness against the rock, with his hat over hiseyes, as Mr. Ellestad began the story:
"Once there was a young god named Alaka sent by the Great Spirit to liveawhile among the cliff-dwellers of the Southwest. Now in that countrythere is a fever that lays hold of the children of the sun. It comes youknow not how, and you cannot stop it. And this fever that runs hot inthe veins of men began to course through the blood of Alaka, a fiercefever to gamble.
"At first, when men challenged him to pit his skill against theirs, herefused, knowing that the Great Spirit had forbidden it; but they jeeredhim, saying: 'Ah, ha! He is afraid that he will lose. This can be nogod, or he would not fear us.' So when they had made a mock of him untilhe could no longer endure it, he cried: 'Come! I will show you that I ama god! that I fear nothing!'
"Forgetting all that the Great Spirit had enjoined upon him, he plungedmadly into the game. Now the most precious thing known to that people isthe turquoise, for it is the stone that stole its colour from the sky.Around the neck of the young god hung a string of these turquoises, andone by one he lost them, till the morning found him with only an emptystring in his hand.
"Still the fever was upon him, and he could not assuage it, so he put uphis shells from the Great Water in the west. These people had heard ofa great water many days' journey toward the setting sun, but to thedwellers in the Land of Thirst it seemed incredible to them that therecould be so much water in the world as Alaka told them of. But theylooked upon the exquisite colour of the shells he brought, which heldthe murmur of the sea in their hearts, and counted them wonderfultreasures. And they gambled all day with Alaka to gain possession ofthem.
"Still the fever waxed hotter than ever within him, and, when he hadlost his shells, he put up his measure of sacred meal. When he lostthat, they made a mock of him again, saying not that he was afraid tolose, but that he had no skill, that he was not a god. He was less thana man,--he was only a papoose, and that he should play no more until hehad learned wisdom.
"Then Alaka was beside himself with rage. 'I will show you,' he cried.'I will venture such mighty stakes that I must win.' He plucked out hisright eye and laid it where the turquoises, the shells, and the sacredmeal had lain. But the eye was lost also, and after that the left eye,so that, when morning dawned, he staggered into the sunrise, blind andruined.
"Then he called upon the Great Spirit to give him back his sight, butthe Great Spirit was angry with him, and drove him away into the Land ofShadows. And He caught up the eyes and said: 'I will hang them up amongthe stars to be a warning for ever to the children of men not togamble.'
"So they hang there to this day, and the wise look up, and, seeing them,pray to the Great Spirit to keep them from the fever; but the unheedinggo on, till, like Alaka, they lose their all, and are lost themselves inthe Land of Shadow."
That was the last story told that evening around the camp-fire. The moonwas coming up, and Phil brought out Mrs. Ware's old guitar, which he hadrestrung for the occasion. Striking a few rattling chords, he startedoff on an old familiar song, calling on all the company to join. Hisvoice was a surprise to every one, a full, sweet tenor, strong andclear, that soared out above all the others, except Mrs. Lee's full,high soprano. The Scotchman rumbled along with a heavy bass. One by onethe others caught up the song, even little Norman joining in the chorus.Lloyd was the only one who sat silent.
"Sing," whispered Joyce, giving her a commanding nudge. Lloyd shook herhead. "It's so heavenly sweet I want to listen," she replied, undercover of the song. The music and the mountains and the moonlight, withthe wide, white desert stretching away on every side, seemed to castsome sort of witchery over her, and she sat with hands clasped and lipsparted, almost afraid to breathe, for fear that what seemed to be abeautiful dream would come to end.
A tremulous little sigh escaped her when it did come to an end. "It'stime to strike the trail again," called Mrs. Lee. "That is the worst ofthese outings. We can't stay singing on the mountains. We have to getdown to earth again. My return to valley life will take me into thedeepest depths if Jo doesn't come back in the morning to get breakfast."
"Oh, it was so beautiful!" sighed Lloyd, later, when the party finallystarted homeward across the moon-whitened desert. It had taken some timeto collect all the chairs, hampers, and cushions which George andHolland took home in the ranch wagon. The moon was directly overhead.
Lloyd was riding beside Phil a little in advance of the others. "It wasthe very nicest picnic I evah went to, Phil," she said, "and it's theloveliest memory that I'll have to take home with me of this visit toArizona."
"I'm glad you enjoyed it," he answered, taking off his hat, and ridingalong beside her bareheaded in the moonlight. How big and handsome helooked, she thought, sitting up so erect in his saddle, with his eyessmiling down into hers.
"I don't want you ever to forget--" he hesitated an instant, then addedin a lower tone, "Arizona."
The sweet odours of the night came blowing up from every direction, theethereal fragrance of the mistletoe bloom, the heavy perfume of theorange-blossoms hanging white in distant orchards. Behind them thepicnickers began to sing again, "Roll along, silver moon, guide thetraveller on his way."
Lloyd looked around for Joyce. She was riding far in the rear of thecaravan, beside the carriage where Mrs. Lee led the chorus. Presentlythe old tune changed, and some one started the Bedouin love-song, "Fromthe desert I come to thee."
Looking down at her again with smiling eyes, Phil took up the words,sending them rolling out on the night in a voice that thrilled her withits sweetness, as they rode on side by side across moonlighted desert:
"_Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!_"