The Sagebrusher, Emerson Hough [best love novels of all time txt] 📗

her hand shading her eyes to see who was coming.

As she stood she made a splendid picture of young womanhood, ruddy and brown, clear of skin and eye, very fair indeed to look upon. The droop of the corners of her mouth was gone. Her gaze was direct and free. She walked easily, strong and straight and deep of bosom, erect of head, flat of back, as fit for love as any woman of ancient Greece. Such had been the ministrations of the sagebrush land for Mary Gage, that once was the weakling, Mary Warren.

She saw two figures coming slowly along the well-worn track from the gate. She could not hear the comment the one made to the other as they both advanced slowly, leaning together as gossiping women will, like two tired oxen returning from the field.

"Is that her?" asked one of the newcomers, a ponderous sort of woman, whose feet turned out alarmingly as she walked.

"Sure it's her," said Karen Jensen. "Who's it going to be if it ain't her? Ain't she nice-looking, sort of, after all? And to think she can see now as good as anybody! Yes, that's her.

"How do you do, Mis' Gage?"

She spoke now aloud as Mary came toward them smiling. The dimples in her cheek, resurrected of late, gave a girlishness and tenderness to her face that it once had lacked in her illness.

"I'm well, thank you, Mrs. Jensen. It's a glorious day, isn't it? I've got some fish for you. I was going to tell Minna to take them down to you when she went home. She's a dear, your Minna."

"Well, it's right fine you should catch fish for us now," said Mrs. Jensen. "I'll be obliged for some—my man don't seem to get time to go fishing."

"Make you acquainted with Mis' Davidson, Mis' Gage," she continued. "This is the school teacher. She comes every fall to teach up above, when she's done living on her Idaho homestead, summers."

"How do you do, Miss—Mrs. Davidson," began Mary, offering her hand. "If you know Mrs. Jensen I ought to know you—she's been very good to me. Come in, won't you? Sit down on the gallery."

"Yes, this new porch is about as good as anywheres right now," commented Mrs. Jensen. "It's a little hot, ain't it?" They found seats of boxes and ends of logs.

Mrs. Davidson cast a glance into the open door. It included the spectacle of a neat, white-covered bed, a table with a clean white oil-cloth cover, a series of covered and screened receptacles such as the place might best afford out of its resources. She saw a floor immaculately clean. She spoke after a time ending a silence which was unusual with her.

"The latter title that you gave me, Mrs. Gage, is correct," said she. "I am a widow, having never encountered the oppor-r-r-tunity but once." It was worth going miles out of one's way to hear her say "opportunity"—or to see her wide-mouthed smile.

"As a widow," she resumed with orotundity not lessened by her absence from her own accustomed dais, "as a widow yourself, you are arranged here with a fair degree of comfort, as I am disposed to believe, Mrs. Gage."

"I cannot complain," said Mary Gage simply.

"A great trait in life, my dear madam; resignation! I endeavor to inculcate in my pupils the virtue of stoicism. I tell them of the Spartan boy, Mrs. Gage. Perhaps you have heard of the Spartan boy?"

"Yes," said Mary. "I know something about stoicism, I hope. But now I'm going to get you some berries—I picked some, up beyond, on the meadows." She rose now and passed into that part of her cabin which constituted the kitchen.

"An extr-r-r-aordinary young woman!" said Mrs. Davidson to Karen Jensen. "An extraordinary person to be here. Why, she is a person of culture, like myself. And once married—married to that man!"

Mrs. Davidson's lips were tight pursed now.

"I don't reckon she ever was, real," said Karen Jensen, simply. "I don't hardly believe they was."

Mrs. Davidson showed herself disposed to regard all the proprieties, hence she but coughed ponderously and shook her head ponderously, turning from side to side two or three times in her chair ponderously also.

"For what has happened here," said she at last, "I thank God. If things had happened worse it would have been my fault. Never again shall I address myself to the task of writing advertisements for men in search of wives. Great Providence! An extraordinary woman like this! To-night I shall pray on my two knees for forgiveness for what I did, and what it might have meant. When I consider how near I came to—to——"

"To raising hell?" inquired Karen Jensen sympathetically, seeing that her companion lacked the proper word at the time.

The other woman nodded in emphatic though unconscious assent. Always there was present before her mind her own part in the little drama of this place. It was she who had helped to bring this woman here—who had helped to deceive her. She thanked Providence that perhaps fate itself sometimes saves us from the full fruit of our follies, after all.

"Just a little sugar, thank you, Mrs. Gage," said she as Mary offered her some of the fresh whortle berries. "And these little cakes—you made them?"

"Oh, yes—I do most of my cooking, when I can keep Annie away. You know about Annie, of course. And Minna, Mrs. Jensen's little, girl, who is my companion here most of the time—as I said, she's a dear. I've been teaching her to read all summer—spoiling your work, Mrs. Davidson!"

"I wish more and more that I might have aid in that undertaking in this valley," said Sarah Davidson, herself a great soul in her way, and Covenanter when it came to duty. "It is perhaps primitive here, more so than elsewhere, but the people—the people—they need so much, and they—they——"

"They are so much," said Mary Gage gently. "They are so much. I never knew before what real people were. I'm so glad."

Mrs. Davidson's face worked strangely, very strangely, Mary thought, so that she believed her to be afflicted with some nervous disease of the facial muscles. But in truth Sarah Davidson was only endeavoring to get under control her own emotions, which, like all else about her, were ponderous and slow.

"Then, my dear—you will let me say 'my dear,' won't you? It's becoming such a habit with me at my time of life—you will permit me to inquire if that is an actual expression of your attitude toward the people here? You say you are glad? Do you mean that, or is it a mere conventionality with you?"

Mary turned toward her with that gravity which quite commonly marked her face when all her features were at rest.

"I quite mean it all, Mrs. Davidson," said she. "I'm thankful with all my heart that I came out here. It's a great place to fight things out. I'd never have been happy in all my life if I had not come here. I'm really glad, and you may believe that, because I do—now."

"You would forgive—you would cherish no malice against any who acted as the ah—instigators—of your original journey here?"

A sudden question arose in Mrs. Davidson's mind as to whether or not any of Mary Gage's associates and neighbors ever had told her all the story of that original endeavor, whose object was matrimony. Whereupon she concluded now to let sleeping dogs lie, and not to urge the matter. Nor was Mary herself the more disposed at the moment to speak of the past. She only looked out across the valley, as was her custom.

They passed on to some talk of the peace news, and demobilization plans for the men still abroad, for the visitors had brought the latest paper with them.

"Our men!" exclaimed Mary Gage as she read the headlines. "They're fine. They are always fine, everywhere, all of them. I'd have liked to see them in the great parades, in the cities."

"'Twould be a gr-r-r-and sight," said Mrs. Davidson, "for women who have had no oppor-r-r-tunity!"

"Ah? Women who haven't had what women wish?" said Mary Gage, a strange confidence in her own tones. "Don't you suppose God knows the way? Why be trying to change——" The word did not come at first.

"The plan?" suggested Mrs. Davidson.

"The plan!" said Mary.

"I must be going before long," said Karen Jensen, having finished her saucer of berries, and caring little for philosophizing. "I've got to milk seven cows yet."

"I will come often, if I may, Mrs. Gage, now that I am again located in this valley," said her companion, rising also.

"Oh, won't you, please!" said Mary Gage. "And—won't you do me a little favor now? I have a letter—I was just going up to the corner to put it in the box. If you're going that way, will you drop it in for me?"

Karen Jensen hesitated, looking across at the shortcut across the fields, but Mrs. Davidson, not being well organized for barbed wire entanglements, offered for the errand, which would take her around by the road.

"Surely, I shall be most happy," said she. "I will walk around by the box and drop your letter very gladly. No, no, don't mind coming. It's nothing—I always go home that way."

But Sarah Davidson after all was the school teacher when she had passed beyond the gate in the willow lane. She felt that in her were represented all the privileges of what priesthood might be claimed in this valley. She felt that her judgment was large enough to be infallible, since she so long had been arbiter here in all mooted matters. It was, therefore, surely her right to have intelligence as to the plans, the emotions, the mental process of all these people, including all newcomers. Were they not indeed in her charge?

Her right? Indeed, was it not her duty to know what there was in this letter from the woman whom she herself had brought out here not so long ago? It caused her vast perturbation, for she had a conscience which dated back to ages of Scottish blood, but she was not one to deviate from her duty once she had established it! This letter—to Major Allen Barnes, in yonder city—what was in it?

It was a letter going to that outer world, from the very person whom she, Sarah Davidson, had brought into this sagebrush world and had set down among these neighbors. Just now she had confessed herself to be happy here. Why? Could it be a violation of confidence—an eavesdropping—opening this letter? Not in the least! It was only oppor-r-r-tunity! As to that, who did not know that for years every letter to a soldier was opened and censored? Obviously it was her duty as social censor of Two Forks also to open and read this letter.

Therefore, looking behind her cautiously to see she was not observed, she stepped behind the cover of the willows and ran the point of her pencil along the edge of the sealed envelope—it had been sealed thoroughly. Still, she tore it but very little in the process.

There came out into her hand a single sheet of paper. It bore no address and no signature. It showed a handwriting evidently that of a lady of culture, of education. There was nothing to show that it was an answer—an answer long deferred but not now to be changed, a woman's answer to the great question.

Mrs. Davidson was standing in a sort of consternation, the two parts of the letter in her two hands, when she nearly sprang into the wire fence at the sudden voice she heard, the voice of a man speaking close at hand.

"Good Lord, Mr. Gardner!" said she, "you gave me a turn. I wasn't thinking of you."

"What was you thinking of, Mis' Davidson?" asked Wid, smiling. "You was all in a trance. Something on your mind, huh? I bet I know. You're sending out a ad on your own account—'object, matrimony!'"

"Sir-r-r!" said Sarah Davidson, flushing red for the