III
JUNE
The centre of the social life was Bailey's store. There stood thepost-office, which connected the settlers with the world they had leftbehind. There they assembled each day when the flag ran up the long polewhich stood before the door as a signal for the mail. On the treeless,shrubless prairie one could see the flag miles away, as it rose like afaint fleck of pink against the green of the prairie beyond or the bluesky above.
Twice a week Rivers drove out with supplies. These were the eventfuldays of the week, and it was significant to observe with what tastefulcare the young women thought it proper to dress on this day. Hats,dainty and fresh, cool muslins, spotless cuffs, ribbons. They came outof their cabins with all the little airs and graces of their Easternhomes. Bailey shared their good opinion, but he was always silent and alittle timid in their presence, and usually disappeared as soon asRivers came. "The social responsibilities belong to you, partner," hewas accustomed to say.
As the summer wore on, the number of those pathetically eager forletters increased. The sun-bright plain, the beautiful, almost cloudlesssky, and the ever-flooding light wore upon them. They began to recallwistfully the cool streams of New England, the wooded slopes ofWisconsin, the comfortable homesteads and meadows of Illinois, and theycame for their mail with shining eyes--and when forced to say "Nothingto-day," Bailey always suffered a keen pang of sympathetic pain.
He himself watched the eastern horizon, incessantly and unconsciously,hours before the wagon was due, and, when it came in sight at last, ranhis flag up along its mast joyously.
It was a great pleasure to him to sit and talk with his partner, and helooked forward to his visits eagerly. To Jim he could utter himselffreely. They had known each other so long, and he believed he understoodhis partner to the centre of his heart.
He usually had supper ready--often he had help from the girls or Mrs.Burke, and while a dozen hands volunteered at the team and with themail-bag, Rivers was free to hurry to his table, whereat he fared like apasha attended by the flower of his harem. The girls pretended it wasall on account of his office as mail-carrier, but they deceived no one,much less an experienced beau like Rivers. He accepted it all withshameless egotism.
To Bailey's mind Jim was too well attended. He seemed to see less andless of his partner as the season wore on. They seldom sat down to talkin the good old fashion, wearing out half the night smoking, listeningto the slumber-song of the night plain, for Rivers got into the habit ofwalking home with some of the girls after the mail was distributed,leaving his partner to do the trading. Sometimes he went away with Mrs.Burke, if she were alone; sometimes with Estelle Clayton, whom Baileythought the finest woman in the world. He secretly resented Rivers'attention to Estelle, for he had come to look upon her as under hisprotection. Her coming raised mail-days to the level of a nationalholiday.
She scared him, and yet he rejoiced to see her coming down over the sodso strong, so erect, so clear-eyed. She wore her hair like a matron, andthat pleased him, and she looked at him so frankly and unwaveringly. Shehad been a school-teacher in some middle Western State, and had beenswept into this movement by her desire to go to an Eastern college.
Bailey contrived to look very stern and very busy whenever she came in,but she was wise in ways of men, and treated him as if he were a goodcomrade, and so gradually he came to talk to her almost as freely aswith Blanche Burke.
He did not know that Jim almost invariably went over to Burke'sshanty--even when he walked home with Miss Clayton. Rivers did notimpress Estelle favorably. She was not one to be moved by flattery, norby dimples in male cheeks. She accepted his company pleasantly, butthere were well-defined bounds to her friendship, as Rivers discoveredone evening as they were walking over the plain toward her home.
On every side the vivid green stretched away, smooth as the roundedflesh of a woman, velvet in texture, glorified by the saffron and orangeof the sunset sky.
At the cabin they met Carrie, for whom Estelle was both sister andmother. The little shanty slanted on the side of a swell like a littleboat sliding up a monstrous mid-ocean wave. Around it lay a littlegarden inhabited by a colony of chicken-coops--"All my own making,"Estelle said. "Oh, of course, sister held the nails and bossed, but Idid it. I like it, too. It's more fun than working red poppies ontidies--that's about all they'll let you do back East."
"It doesn't matter much what you do out here," said Rivers, meaningly.
"Oh yes, it does. Some things are wrong anywhere; but there are otherthings which people _think_ are wrong that are only unusual," sheanswered, and he knew she knew what he meant.
The talk moved on to lighter themes, and then died away as the three satin the doorway and saw the light fade out of the sky.
Carrie's thin, eager face shone with angelic light. She seemed to holdher breath as flame after flame of the marvellous light was withdrawn.
"Oh, the sky is so big out here," she whispered. Estelle locked handswith her and sat in silence. Rivers, awkward and constrained, respectedtheir emotion. At last he rose.
"I'm going over to Burke's a little while, so I'll have to be moving."
"Mrs. Burke is very strange," said Estelle; "I can't seem to get on withher. She seems very lonely and restless. Her husband is away a greatdeal, but I can't get her to talk, when I call, and she never returns mycall."
"She never seemed that way to me," Rivers said, having nothing better inmind at the moment.
"I think she's homesick. I wish I knew how to help her, but I don't."
Rivers walked away with two thoughts in his mind. One was the girl'ssentence about things that were wrong and things which people thoughtwere wrong, and the other was the question about Blanche--was shehomesick? That puzzled him. Had he only seen her in her joyous moods? Itwas not pleasant to think of her growing sad--perhaps on his account.
Burke sat on a bench outside the door, smoking silently in the dusk.Blanche was stirring about inside.
"Hello, Rivers!" Burke called. "Take a seat." He pointed at avinegar-keg.
Blanche hurried to meet her visitor, a beautiful smile on her face."Come inside," she said. "I've got some work to do, and I want to hearyou men talk." They obediently complied, and she lighted a lamp. "I liketo see you when you talk," she added, flashing a smile at Rivers.
He saw the change in her for the first time. She certainly was paler,her face less boyish, and a deeper shadow hovered about her eyes.
"I came over to see if you wouldn't come down and help us get up ajollification at the store on the Fourth," he said.
"Why, of course. What shall I do?"
"Oh, stir up a cake--and make some ice-cream. Can you make ice-cream?"
"You bet I can--with ice. Bring on your ice."
"Ice is easy to get. Cook is what bothered me."
"That ought to be easy," said Burke. "Marry one."
"That's what I'm telling Bailey."
"Why don't you set the example. 'Stelle Clayton--now."
Rivers laughed, but his eyes, directed above Burke's head, met theunsmiling gaze of Blanche and sobered.
"Miss Clayton and I don't seem to get along first-rate," he said, andher face lighted again.
"Well, there are lots of others 'round here--lonesome girls. Blanche,can't you help Jim find a woman?"
Blanche did not answer lightly. She turned to her work. "I guess he canfind one if he tries hard."
She was alluring as she kneaded the bread at the table. The flex of herwaist and the swing of her skirts affected Rivers powerfully. He watchedher in silence. Once she looked around, and the penetrative glance ofhis eyes filled her face with a rush of blood, and her eyes misted. Afew minutes later he said "good-night" in an absent-minded way and wenthome.
Burke talked on, attempting to retain the cheery atmosphere which Rivershad brought in, but Blanche refused to answer, a sombre look on hersullen face. She seemed falling back into her old petulant, moody ways,and her husband suffered a corresponding dejection.
> The elation was passing out of his heart. Their picnic was at an end.
As the summer came on he was forced to go out ploughing for othersettlers, and she was left alone a great deal. This was hard to bear.There was so little to do in her little sun-smit cabin, and her trip tothe post-office to get the mail and to meet the other settlers came tobe a necessity. Like the other women, she put on her best hat and gownwhen she went to the store, and a low word of compliment from Rivers, ashe handed out the mail, put a color into her face and a joy in herheart which her husband had never been able to arouse--indeed, it wasafter these visits that she was most cruel to Willard.
Sometimes she went with him to visit the neighbors, but not often. Oneday he said:
"I'm goin' to work f'r Jim Bradley to-day--want 'o go 'long?"
"I can't this mornin'. Perhaps I'll come over after dinner and walk homewith you."
"I think you'll like Mrs. Bradley. She's got the purtiest little babyyou ever saw." He did not look at her as he slung his pick and shovel onhis shoulder. "Well, I'll tell her you'll be over about three o'clock."
"All right, tell her. Mebbe I'll come and mebbe I won't," she answered,ungraciously.
All that forenoon she went about her little cabin moodily, or satsilently by the open door watching the buffalo birds or larks as theycame up about the barn for food. The green plain was all a-shimmer withpleasant heat. The plover, nesting in the grass, were nearly ready tobring forth their young--and the mother fox had already begun to leadher litter out upon the sunny hillside; only this childless woman seemedunhappy--sad.
As she came to the cabin of the Bradleys, Willard, sunk to his topknotin the ground, was burrowing like a badger in the clay, quite obliviousto the world above him. Some one was singing in the cabin, and,approaching the door, Blanche saw a picture which thrilled her with astrange, hungry, envious passion.
A young woman was seated in the tiny room with her back to the door,her hand on a cradle, and as she rocked she sang softly. She was a plainlittle woman, the cradle was cheap and common, and her singing was onlya monotonous chant; but the scene had a sort of sublimity--it was soold, so typical, and so beautiful.
The woman without the threshold stood for a long time staring straightbefore her, then turned and walked away homeward--past the weary,patient, heroic man toiling deep in the earth for her sake--leaving himwithout a glance or a word.
"You didn't get over to Mrs. Bradley's this afternoon, then?" Burkesaid, at supper.
"No," she replied, shortly, "I had some sewin' to do."
"Wal, go to-morrow. That's an awfully cute little chap--that baby," hewent on, after a little. "Mrs. Bradley let him set on my knee to-day."Then he sighed. "I wisht we had one like 'im, Blanche." After a pause,he said, "Mebbe God will send one some day."
She didn't appear to hear, and her face was dark with passion.