USA > California > Sonoma County > Casa Grande : a California pastoral > Part 12
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It became, then, simply a consideration of per- mitting the affair between the young people to go on with Eden-like joyousness now, to be followed by a lifetime of suffering; or of causing anguish now, deep and hopeless as it might be, but followed
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by lifelong thankfulness. She decided on the latter alternative, and said, in reply to Belle's last remark :
"We may love truly, but not wisely. We might love out of our class ; would that be a sign of loving worthily?"
Belle resented the suggestion of class, and quickly answered, "In the West one is as good as another."
Mrs. Payne saw the resentment, and gently re- plied : "No, dear; I don't mean that. You wouldn't have Mr. Miller marry a squaw, or a negress, or a woman all her life a drudge?"
The invalid turned away her face and dejectedly leaned back. Problems that already she had been conscious of but dimly this woman now put in the light of every-day experience. Perhaps birth does set limitations. Perhaps, after all, the ecstasy of loving must pass with youth, to be followed by the toleration or indifference of maturity and marriage. The thoughts pressed wearily, and she aimlessly gazed in the glass still in her hand. One hope was left, and she diffidently asked :
"How long did it take you to learn to be dainty- and-and -? "
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Mrs. Payne saw the purpose of the question, and hesitated to speak the truth. "I don't know. I can't remember."
"Have you always been so?"
"I suppose I must have passed through the hoy- denish period of girlhood."
"Didn't any one teach you, then ?"
"Yes. Father, mother, friends. It was in the atmosphere that surrounded me."
"Is it the only way to learn?"
"I know no other, dear."
Belle rose unsteadily and, in a weak voice, said : "I'm tired, Mrs. Payne. I'll lie down, please."
Mrs. Payne arranged the bed with maternal so- licitude. She had succeeded in creating doubt in Belle's mind, and the result was distressing to her as well as to the girl. She had aroused deep and tender feelings, betraying a soul that would suffer unflinchingly and grow strong from it. She con- soled herself, however, by reflecting that the disap- pointment of anticipation is easier borne than the disappointment of realisation.
When the shades were drawn and the invalid was
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covered with a bright-coloured blanket, the nurse tenderly bent to her patient, smoothed back the hair from her troubled brow and kissed her.
The girl flung her arms about the neck of the older woman and clung, sobbing. Her tears were christening a sentiment born the night of the forest fire, and nameless till to-day.
CHAPTER XX
A WELL OF LIVING WATERS
N the afternoon Miller took Mrs. Payne to ride. She was a skilled horsewoman, and on the day after her arrival had claimed Peggy for her mount. She sat her horse astride, as was Belle's custom, and thus avoided Miller's objections to a side-saddle on his favourite mare, and followed him with greater security over rough trails. I
Belle stood at a window and watched the couple pass down the slope to the west. They turned and caught sight of her and waved a salute. She could but admire the trim, erect carriage of Mrs. Payne, the ease and grace of her seat, nearly as secure as her own. With all the girl's dash and freedom, even picturesqueness, on horseback, she had to confess a something in the air of the older woman that gave superior charm to her less daring riding.
She sighed, and went slowly back to her place be-
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fore the fire. Her face, pressed against the bearskin rug across the back of the chair, looked white and old, but the lines of her mouth were firm; the femi- nine love of adornment was becoming conscious, and a resolution was forming to give more attention to personal appearance-why, it did not occur to her.
The riding companions enjoyed a pleasant com- radeship, for Mrs. Payne delighted in the exercise and admired her relative. Consequently, they were away in the saddle every pleasant afternoon until after sunset, and freshness was coming back to her.
They were going quietly side by side, and he took advantage of the pace to ask: "What are you trying to do with Belle?"
His companion looked quizzically at him, and an- swered : "To see what she'll look like if civilised."
"Well?"
Her face was turned away as she quietly replied : "She is hopeless. You must give her up."
He coloured a little at finding how ill he had cloaked his feelings, and asked why he should give her up.
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"Oh, John! After your mother and sisters-all your womankind !"
"Is she so very different ?"
"The difference between refinement and vulgar- ity," she replied, with sudden warmth.
Her show of resentment amused him. He sus- pected that she was influenced by feeling rather than judgment, and he lightly demanded: "How long have you known Belle?"
"Long enough to feel her vulgarity."
He remarked that roughness was a better word than vulgarity to describe Belle's nature, and asked if his companion had not yet detected an innate sweetness that might, under favourable circum- stances, develop into refinement.
Mrs. Payne admitted that there was a deep vein of womanliness in the girl, but, notwithstanding that, he must confess that she was content to be a sordid drudge.
"Your life, Mabel, has been so different from hers that you don't appreciate her resoluteness and am- bition."
"I know she's poor, but she's attractive, and in
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this land of few women she might easily marry a rich man of her own class, and be somebody, had she the spirit."
He softly laughed, and declared that because Belle determined to work up unaided was why he ap- proved of her. It implied energy, self-reliance and, above all, honesty. The Clark family had been pros- perous before he put them off his land. He told this with evident regret.
Here was another complication in the young peo- ple's lives, and his view of it must be reported to Mrs. Payne. After she had heard the story, she called Miller Belle's Nemesis, and insisted that his feeling was largely contrition-first for putting her off his land, then for the shooting of her.
"Contrition may have drawn me to her," he ad- mitted; "but I found her true, strong and tender."
"I'm afraid you're in love, John," she de- clared, without ridicule, "and, like all lovers, you idealise."
"What a romancer you are! Can't you see she possesses restlessness and energy that will hew a way to distinction ? Half your prosperous city men
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began life as obscure as Belle; half your society lead- ers were reared on the farm."
"Then breeding is of no consequence?"
"Not without selection."
She wanted to know what process of selection Miller would rely on to develop Belle.
"Environment."
It was now her turn to be amused, and she asked what evidence he had that Belle would be unusually susceptible to environment.
In his own mind, he had been over the proof more than once, and he quickly replied that, for one thing, she was superior to her backwoods associates, and, though illiterate, by no means ignorant.
"Idealising again," observed Mrs. Payne, to whom ignorance and illiteracy were nothing but synonymous.
"Try her yourself, Mabel. There isn't a bird fre- quenting these woods that she can't describe, even to the number and colour of its eggs and what it feeds its young. There isn't a tree she can't point out."
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The expression of amusement was brightening on his companion's face.
"There isn't a flower she doesn't know," he went on, "even to the week it should first bloom. They're all hers, since she has names for them-baby-blue eyes, black-eyed Susans, Johnny jump-ups ; here and there a Spanish name-copa de oro for poppy, tollon for your Christmas berries. And the shy beauties that grow in out-of-the-way places-tiger lilies, anemones, azaleas-she'll take you to all of them."
"She should write a book, John."
"Her knowledge of natural history would fill a book," he blandly declared, "and no mean contribu- tion to science, either."
Mrs. Payne smiled at his enthusiasm. She told him that all he had said only proved Belle still a child, with all a child's ardour.
"Yes," he sighed; "we were all children once, with a love of simple things. Most of us lose our artlessness long before we reach her age-the get- ting of many dollars or costly gowns ranking higher in our ambitions.
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Mrs. Payne had not heard all he said, and absently responded : "Yes; I suppose so. But I fear it is late to attempt the refining of her," she concluded, with a 1 touch of obstinacy.
"Perhaps, Mabel. You startled me to-day, how- ever, by the change you made in her appearance."
"It was only appearance. Underneath her adorn- ments was the rough Belle."
He suggested that if the girl were more frequently adorned the roughness might gradually disappear.
Mrs. Payne still insisted that Belle lacked native refinement, and was too old to acquire it.
He was disposed to change the topic, but it oc- curred to him that his companion had been discuss- ing the matter with the invalid, and, lest the more experienced woman's opinions prevail, he decided to attack them, and introduce, if possible, an element of doubt in her tradition-warped mind. In a tone of banter, he asked :
"What is refinement, Mabel ?"
She laughed, and replied: "As if you didn't know !"
"Perhaps our ideas differ," he solemnly rejoined.
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She said she did not believe it; that to both, refine- ment meant the graciousness resulting from good breeding.
"Isn't that polish?" he asked, the suspicion of a smile on his lips.
"All refined persons are polished."
"Are all the polished refined ?"
"You're trying to trap me," she declared, with an air of being too shrewd for that.
"I'm as serious as a meeting-house."
"Oh! If you're going to pin me down, I suppose there are comparatively few refined persons."
He removed his hat and ran his fingers through his thick, wavy hair, deep content in his face. "What makes the few refined ?"
She said she didn't know-hadn't thought. She threw a swift glance of admiration at him, and added : "You're refined, John. I suppose you'll claim it's soul."
He looked the amusement he felt, leaned over, and laid his hand on hers.
She deftly avoided him, and declared that she was not to be caressed into flying in the face of all her
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traditions. And even if Belle had a soul, he wouldn't claim she was refined !
"No. Not yet. But if she has a soul, she has something to refine. Perhaps she needs fire."
"Poor child! Is there no other way?" A catch was in Mrs. Payne's voice as she beseechingly turned to him. "You're not going to be the fire?"
"Not consciously."
"But think of the hold you are gaining on her affections !"
He calmly answered that, after all, affection is the test of fitness.
"But you want something besides that," persisted Mrs. Payne, more baffled than ever by his manner.
"What, for instance?"
"Why, style, wit, accomplishment-many things!" she irritably answered.
"Then, how is it that men desert such women for those your sex term doll-faces-the clinging, de- pendent characters ?"
"Because all men are fools !" she indignantly re- plied. She had never belonged to the doll-face class.
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"No, no! Liars is the word St. Paul used."
The crisp air, the swinging pace of the horses, the whistle of larks aslant the setting sun, the quail- calls-all lent joy to their outing; and she laughed with him, as she teasingly asked : "You tell me why your sex admires the simpletons in ours. You ap- pear to have given it much study.""
"Haven't you learned," he demanded, with as- sumed superiority, "that women with opinions are not near so charming as those that listen in rapt ad- miration to our pet theories, our marvellous discov- eries ?"
"Men are so vain !"
"And when we are ill," he continued, "the cling- ing women know what to do. They never make dis- agreeable remarks about where we were last night, or what we were about; they do things with the gen- tlest of touches, the softest of voices. And when we growl and scold, they don't answer back."
"Men are so selfish !"
"But the real explanation, Mabel," he more seri- ously went on, ignoring her thrusts, "is that clinging women are maternal. On such abstractions, men
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reason no more than horses. But they have in- stincts."
"You don't consider Belle a clinging woman?"
"No. Maternal."
"The everlasting maternal !" she acidly retorted. "I thought you had a higher ideal, John."
"Wait until you know Belle better," he drawlingly suggested, "before you pass final judgment. There she is at the window, looking for us."
"Us!" repeated Mrs. Payne, and softly laughed.
The girl at the window waved to them, her face giving back the glow of the western sky.
CHAPTER XXI
WHAT IS THY BELOVED?
N clinging vestments of mist, Christmas Day crept down from the eastern hills. The opaque sky pressed lightly on the olive-coloured earth, som- bre and silent as death, a grave-like chill in the air. I
At the big house the sunlight of a hundred years leaped soundingly from the dining-room fireplace and glowed cheerily from the hearth in Belle's room. Crimson tollon berries mingled with evergreens to decorate the walls, and the warmth was redolent of redwood boughs. What mattered weather when comradeship vibrated from a dozen throats?
The vaqueros, lounging about the crackling blaze, had been their morning rounds; the well-fed cattle in the corrals chewed the cud of brute content; the saddled ponies, with slack cinches and bridles dang- ling from pommels, stood comfortably stalled, each head in a manger bursting with meadow hay; even
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the dogs at their master's feet stretched blissfully round the penetrating warmth. And the man in whose heart was a place for every one of them sat apart and silent, peace and gladness lighting his face like an unspoken benediction.
Manuel was master of the hour. The costume worn the day Belle renewed health and hope had been donned, and Mrs. Payne proclaimed him "chef." She and Mrs. Clark were self-appointed aids to the chef, and the three kept busy about the big stove hidden by a multitude of utensils, the cheer to follow made evident by appetising odours floating upward in a cloud of vapours. The doctor, who had returned to complete his holiday, was ever ready with caution lest many cooks spoil the broth. Yet the browning joints, the steaming puddings, the but- ter-coloured pies, in spite of the caution, or because of it, promised an epicurean feast.
The sun was an hour above the hills when the more leisurely members of the family took the places at table of the sated vaqueros. Belle's brother Wash made the company six-a merry half-dozen. To three of them the meal seemed a primitive repast,
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but keen appetites and good-fellowship supplied missing garnishments. To the other three it seemed a feast the gods themselves might linger over.
Manuel proved as adept in the dispensing of good things as in the preparing of them. He glided swiftly about the table, attentive to all, but especially solicitous of Belle. He found time, however, to reply with gentle courtesy to the compliments lav- ished on the cooking, and felt generously repaid for his efforts.
Dr. Payne had taken a great liking to the old servitor, who, with a grace that barred familiarity, was as unspoiled as a child. The professional man delighted in the sweet humour, the quiet philosophy, of the Mexican's broken English, and to-day the cook was called upon to entertain as well as to feast, his humour in keeping with his impulses.
"I suppose you'll be glad when the women go away?" remarked the doctor, to test Manuel's gal- lantry.
"No, señor ; dam es-sorry. Old house be like Ari- zona in frost; hear man whistle one mile!"
"They must make lots of trouble?"
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"Oh, yes." The inflection was rising and non- committal. "Me been marry, meself."
"Domestic troubles may be borne, eh?" The ques- tioner smiled affably. "But you wouldn't have Mr. Miller fetch a wife here?"
"Me no know." A sudden depression clouded the old man's manner. "Been theenking-no like go 'way."
"What!" exclaimed the doctor, in feigned sur- prise; "he hasn't said anything ?"
"No. Meestah Jone no talk." Manuel sagely shook his head. "Pero me es-see heem lookeeng, lookeeng, all time lookeeng la señorita."
The speech was greeted with noisy merriment. It unfurled telltale banners in la señorita's cheeks and caused John to move uneasily.
"See here, Ned"-the host spoke protestingly- "don't you think-"
The tormentor ignored the discomfort he was causing two of the company, and interrupted the host by saying to Manuel: "Mr. Miller doesn't see what his looking has to do with it; neither do I. I, also, like to look at the señorita."
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"Oh, yes; you dam' cs-smart man." The cook stated a fact without attempting to compliment. "Pero me savey es-something-been marry three times !"
"Here! here!" called the doctor, choking with laughter; and Mrs. Payne, catching the oppor- tunity to divert the personality of the dialogue, hastened to inquire about Manuel's domestic ex- periences.
With the unconsciousness of a child, he deliber- ately began his story. "Me be es-soldier bery young ; nineteen-go Pueblo Villages, New Mexico. Next year me captain; old captain go back Mexico. Me es-stay three, four years-learn es-speak Pueblo. Leetle more puddeeng, señorita? No? Bery es-sweet. Pueblo chief have dam' fine girl-'bout es-sixteen. Me lookeeng heem-long time look- eeng."
He paused as if memory had run back again to the Pueblo Villages, with the Indian maiden; then his face suddenly lighted. "By-an'-by, es-she look- eeng, too. Me like es-speak; heem run 'way-all time run 'way. Pero one time no run fast 'nough.
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Es-she papa come queek, es-say, 'What for?' Me say, 'Me woman, me marry.' Pueblo girl three year me wife ; three year heaven."
He walked slowly to the stove, his shoulders bent, his head shaking. After he had replenished the fire, he gazed through the eastern windows, far beyond the hills, still sombre under the grey sky, toward the land of his lost wife. When he walked back to the table, he stood gravely aloof, his wrinkled fingers grasping his chin. The little party gossipped cheerfully, but he heard nothing; the mist of recol- lection was in his eyes.
"Manuel," gently called Mrs. Payne, " how about the others?"
"Next time me marry," he pleasantly continued, "me leeving in Mexico. Me wife reech girl, bery handsome; bery good es-singing, dancing, riding; good clothes. Es-she all time like talk men-plenty men. Be marry one year. Es-she cross; all time talking. 'You no make money ; no dance; no es-sing ; all time es-stay home.' Me-"
"Why did she marry you?" interrupted Mrs. Payne.
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"Me no know. Me dam' fine-lookeeng es-sol- dier."
He joined in the laugh he had raised, not know- ing it was the modesty of his assumption that they enjoyed.
"Well," he continued, returning to his muttons, "me dam' glad war come; me go fighting one year. Me dam' glad come back; like es-see wife. Pero no find heem ; es-she go 'way 'nother fallah. Me es-say, 'Go to devil.' Next day me es-saying, 'Keel heem.' Me find 'em; es-she cry, es-say, 'Keel me, no keel heem'; heem es-say nothing. Pah!" ex- claimed the old soldier, his voice full of disdain. "Me es-say, 'You two womans; no keel womans.' Me get out."
The expression on the speaker's face told that the recollection of those early days still could bring un- happiness, but the accustomed smile crept back again, and he continued his autobiography :
"Poco tiempo, me be quartermaster Mexico; no can es-stay. Es-sometimes me friends es-sorry for me, es-sometimes laughing. By-an'-by es-soldiers go to San Diego, California; me go, too. Two, three
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year more, me marry California girl-leave army. Es-she papa get beeg ranch; give heem plenty land, plenty cow, plenty horse. Me ranchero twenty year -can es-stand heem no more; go 'way. You es-see? me marry three times meself."
He walked away as if his tale were ended. Mrs. Payne's glance followed him questioningly. He made no sign of continuing the narrative. and she called to him :
"Is your last wife alive?"
"Me theenk es-so."
The doctor looked amused. He knew his wife would not be satisfied with this non-committal an- swer.
"But, Manuel," she persisted, "how long since you saw her?"
"Five, seex year." He walked to the window and watched the sun drop below the hills.
There was mischief in the doctor's expression. His wife saw it, and she determined to learn the par- ticulars of Manuel's last venture, even if she must be somewhat rude.
"Come here, Manuel !" she called.
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Her tone of command brought a smile to her vic- tim's face, as he obediently went back.
"Your story isn't complete. Why haven't you seen number three for so long?" The look of friend- liness that invites men's confidences was in her eyes.
"Oh, me wife dam' fine woman!" He was on the defensive; yet, gallant as he was, he felt that his questioner sooner or later would get at the truth. He determined to say only kind things of the absent one, and added: "Es-she bery reech, bery hard- working, bery, bery-es-sharp." He sighed his re- lief; he had found the fit word without compromis- ing the lady.
Mrs. Payne was satisfied, however. The word "sharp" explained to her, to the doctor, to Miller, why this husband "no more can es-stand heem." The guileless face of the old man stamped a charac- ter to submit for twenty years to be treated in his own household as little better than a hired man. Yet the lines about his lips told that when he turned in his tracks he would never face about again.
"I'll bet," declared Miller, breaking the silence, "that you loved the little Indian girl best ?"
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The much-married man shook his head, and mus- ingly answered : "Eef es-she leeving, me no cooking, now."
Belle looked shyly at Miller, then diffidently asked : "Why did you love her best, Manuel?"
He laughed with embarrassment at the close scru- tiny of his domestic relations, shrugged his shoul- ders, and answered simply: "Because es-she love me."
"Love thy neighbour as thyself," musingly ob- served the doctor, drumming on the table. "If, how- ever, thy neighbour is thy wife"-he smiled a little foolishly-"obedience to the first and great com- mandment wouldn't be highly creditable; would it? But if thy wife cherish also this same command"- he made a motion as if waving back some invisible thing-"Paradise! what need of it?"
Every one, to-day, appeared to have forgotten rank for love except Mrs. Payne. She had asserted twice since her arrival at Casa Grande that one should marry in his own class. This bit of the old soldier's experience cast some doubt on her theory, and she returned to the original argument.
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"But, Manuel, if the Indian wife had lived, wouldn't she have tired as the others did?"
Again he shrugged his shoulders, and answered : "Who knows?"
"What do you think?" The lady must have a de- cided answer.
"Me theenk no. Vaquero savey eef wild horse good for es-saddle first time, ride heem. Eef good first time, good all time. Man, woman-all es-same horse."
"I don't know about that," protested Mrs. Payne. In her experience the selection of husband or wife had been a matter of chance.
"Me know," confidently asserted Manuel. He would prove it by an example that even Mrs. Payne could understand. "Peggy dam' fine es-saddle-horse. Me theenk es-she good first time Meestah Jone ride heem ; good all time."
"Yes, Manuel," said Miller; "the first time I tried her I knew that every ounce of her was horse."
"Indian girl all es-same. Es-she love heem papa, heem mamma, love me-everybody. Es-she bery gentle, bery kind."
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The majority tacitly approved of Manuel's con- clusion, reached through personal experience, that his first wife's love would have borne the test of time.
The doctor rose from the table and stood observ- ing Belle. "We haven't had a toast," he remarked. "I offer this-drunk in water: 'The little Indian girl; God bless her memory for keeping in one man's regard a tender spot for all women.'"
They drank in silence, their glances following the doctor's, still fixed on Belle. She was far away with the Indian wife, a primitive, almost naked character, who had brought nothing to her husband but love. That she had given joyously, lavishly, and through all his varied existence it was the one thing that clung to him-was now the only thing his memory cherished.
When she looked up and found herself the centre of their regard, a sweet confusion flooded her cheeks with roses.
CHAPTER XXII
AND NONE WOULD DESPISE ME
N EW YEAR'S DAY at Casa Grande smiled on the same little group that had celebrated Christmas. Dr. Payne did not weary of their simple, unconventional life, every hour adding to his de- light, and he still lingered.
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