Clover

"Hasn't he?" said Clover, feeling her voice tremble, and perfectly aware of the shaking of Phil's shoulders behind her.

"No; and I don't call just putting his ear to my chest, listening. Dr. Bangs, at home, would be ashamed to come to the house without his stethoscope. I mean to move this afternoon. I've given Mrs. Marsh notice."

So Mrs. Watson and her belongings went to the Shoshone, and Clover packed the trunks with a lighter heart for her departure.

The last day of July found Clover and Phil settled in the Ute Park. It was a wild and beautiful valley, some hundreds of feet higher than St. Helen's, and seemed the very home of peace. A Sunday-like quiet pervaded the place, whose stillness was never broken except by bird-songs and the rustle of the pine branches.

The sides of the valley near its opening were dotted here and there with huts and cabins belonging to parties who had fled from the heat of the plains for the summer. At the upper end stood the ranch house,—a large, rather rudely built structure,—and about it were a number of cabins and cottages, in which two, four, or six people could be accommodated. Clover and Phil were lodged in one of these. The tiny structure contained only a sitting and two sleeping rooms, and was very plain and bare. But there was a fireplace; wood was abundant, so that a cheerful blaze could be had for cool evenings; and the little piazza faced the south, and made a sheltered sitting place on windy days.

One pleasant feature of the spot was its nearness to the High Valley. Clarence and Geoff Templestowe thought nothing of riding four miles; and scarcely a day passed when one or both did not come over. They brought wild-flowers, or cream, or freshly-churned butter, as offerings from the ranch; and, what Clover valued as a greater kindness yet, they brought Phil's beloved broncho, Sorrel, and arranged with the owner of the Ute ranch that it should remain as long as Phil was there. This gave Phil hours of delightful exercise every day; and though sometimes he set out early in the morning for the High Valley, and stayed later in the afternoon than his sister thought prudent, she had not the heart to chide, so long as he was visibly getting better hour by hour.

Sundays the friends spent together, as a matter of course. Geoff waited till his little home service for the ranchmen was over, and then would gallop across with Clarence to pass the rest of the day. There was no lack of kind people at the main house and in the cottages to take an interest in the delicate boy and his sweet, motherly sister; so Clover had an abundance of volunteer matrons, and plenty of pleasant ways in which to spend those occasional days on which the High Valley attaches failed to appear.

It was a simple, healthful life, the happiest on the whole which they had led since leaving home. Once or twice Mr. Thurber Wade made his appearance, gallantly mounted, and freighted with flowers and kind messages from his mother to Miss Carr; but Clover was never sorry when he rode away again. Somehow he did not seem to belong to the Happy Valley, as in her heart she denominated the place.

There was a remarkable deal of full moon that month, as it seemed; at least, the fact served as an excuse for a good many late transits between the valley and the park. Now and then either Clarence or Geoff would lead over a saddle-horse and give Clover a good gallop up or down the valley, which she always enjoyed. The habit which she had extemporized for her visit to the High Valley answered very well, and Mrs. Hope had lent her a hat.

On one of these occasions she and Clarence had ridden farther than usual, quite down to the end of the pass, where the road dipped, and descended to the little watering-place of Canyon Creek,—a Swiss-like village of hotels and lodging-houses and shops for the sale of minerals and mineral waters, set along the steep sides of a narrow green valley. They were chatting gayly, and had just agreed that it was time to turn their horses' heads homeward, when a sudden darkening made them aware that one of the unexpected thunder-gusts peculiar to the region was upon them.

They were still a mile above the village; but as no nearer place of shelter presented itself, they decided to proceed. But the storm moved more rapidly than they; and long before the first houses came in sight the heavy drops began to pelt down. A brown young fellow, lying flat on his back under a thick bush, with his horse standing over him, shouted to them to "try the cave," waving his hand in its direction; and hurrying on, they saw in another moment a shelving brow of rock in the cliff, under which was a deep recess.

To this Clarence directed the horses. He lifted Clover down. She half sat, half leaned on the slope of the rock, well under cover, while he stretched himself at full length on a higher ledge, and held the bridles fast. The horses' heads and the saddles were fairly well protected, but the hindquarters of the animals were presently streaming with water.

"This isn't half-bad, is it?" Clarence said. His mouth was so close to Clover's ear that she could catch his words in spite of the noisy thunder and the roar of the descending rain.

"No; I call it fun."

"You look awfully pretty, do you know?" was the next and very unexpected remark.

"Nonsense."

"Not nonsense at all."

At that moment a carriage dashed rapidly by, the driver guiding the horses as well as he could between the points of an umbrella, which constantly menaced his eyes. Other travellers in the pass had evidently been surprised by the storm besides themselves. The lady who held the umbrella looked out, and caught the picture of the group under the cliff. It was a suggestive one. Clover's hat was a little pushed forward by the rock against which she leaned, which in its turn pushed forward the waving rings of hair which shaded her forehead, but did not hide her laughing eyes, or the dimples in her pink cheeks. The fair, slender girl, the dark, stalwart young fellow so close to her, the rain, the half-sheltered horses,—it was easy enough to construct a little romance.

The lady evidently did so. It was what photographers call an "instantaneous effect," caught in three seconds, as the carriage whirled past; but in that fraction of a minute the lady had nodded and flashed a brilliant, sympathetic smile in their direction, and Clover had nodded in return, and laughed back.

"A good many people seem to have been caught as we have," she said, as another streaming vehicle dashed by.

"I wish it would rain for a week," observed Clarence.

"My gracious, what a wish! What would become of us if it did?"

"We should stay here just where we are, and I should have you all to myself for once, and nobody could come in to interfere with me."

"Thank you extremely! How hungry we should be! How can you be so absurd, Clarence?"

"I'm not absurd at all. I'm perfectly in earnest."

"Do you mean that you really want to stay a week under this rock with nothing to eat?"

"Well, no; not exactly that perhaps,—though if you could, I would. But I mean that I would like to get you for a whole solid week to myself. There is such a gang of people about always, and they all want you. Clover," he went on, for, puzzled at his tone, she made no answer, "couldn't you like me a little?"

"I like you a great deal. You come next to Phil and Dorry with me."

"Hang Phil and Dorry! Who wants to come next to them? I want you to like me a great deal more than that. I want you to love me. Couldn't you, Clover?"

"How strangely you talk! I do love you, of course. You're my cousin."

"I don't care to be loved 'of course.' I want to be loved for myself. Clover, you know what I mean; you must know. I can afford to marry now; won't you stay in Colorado and be my wife?"

"I don't think you know what you are saying, Clarence. I'm older than you are. I thought you looked upon me as a sort of mother or older sister."

"Only fifteen months older," retorted Clarence. "I never heard of any one's being a mother at that age. I'm a man now, I would have you remember, though I am a little younger than you, and know my own mind as well as if I were fifty. Dear Clovy," coaxingly, "couldn't you? You liked the High Valley, didn't you? I'd do anything possible to make it nice and pleasant for you."

"I do like the High Valley very much," said Clover, still with the feeling that Clarence must be half in joke, or she half in dream. "But, my dear boy, it isn't my home. I couldn't leave papa and the children, and stay out here, even with you. It would seem so strange and far away."

"You could if you cared for me," replied Clarence, dejectedly; Clover's kind, argumentative, elder-sisterly tone was precisely that which is most discouraging to a lover.

"Oh, dear," cried poor Clover, not far from tears herself; "this is dreadful!"

"What?" moodily. "Having an offer? You must have had lots of them before now."

"Indeed I never did. People don't do such things in Burnet. Please don't say any more, Clarence. I'm very fond of you, just as I am of the boys; but—"

"But what? Go on."

"How can I?" Clover was fairly crying.

"You mean that you can't love me in the other way."

"Yes." The word came out half as a sob, but the sincerity of the accent was unmistakable.

"Well," said poor Clarence, after a long bitter pause; "it isn't your fault, I suppose. I'm not good enough for you. Still, I'd have done my best, if you would have taken me, Clover."

"I am sure you would," eagerly. "You've always been my favorite cousin, you know. People can't make themselves care for each other; it has to come in spite of them or not at all,—at least, that is what the novels say. But you're not angry with me, are you, dear? We will be good friends always, sha'n't we?" persuasively.

"I wonder if we can," said Clarence, in a hopeless tone. "It doesn't seem likely; but I don't know any more about it than you do. It's my first offer as well as yours." Then, after a silence and a struggle, he added in a more manful tone, "We'll try for it, at least. I can't afford to give you up. You're the sweetest girl in the world. I always said so, and I say so still. It will be hard at first, but perhaps it may grow easier with time."

"Oh, it will," cried Clover, hopefully. "It's only because you're so lonely out here, and see so few people, that makes you suppose I am better than the rest. One of these days you'll find a girl who is a great deal nicer than I am, and then you'll be glad that I didn't say yes. There! the rain is just stopping."

"It's easy enough to talk," remarked Clarence, gloomily, as he gathered up the bridles of the horses; "but I shall do nothing of the kind. I declare I won't!"

CHAPTER X

NO. 13 PIUTE STREET

Clover did not see Clarence again for several days after this conversation, the remembrance of which was uncomfortable to her. She feared he was feeling hurt or "huffy," and would show it in his manner; and she disliked very much the idea that Phil might suspect the reason, or, worse still, Mr. Templestowe.

But when he finally appeared he seemed much the same as usual. After all, she reflected, it has only been a boyish impulse; he has already got over it, or not meant all he said.

In this she did Clarence an injustice. He had been very much in earnest when he spoke; and it showed the good stuff which was in him and his real regard for Clover that he should be making so manly a struggle with his disappointment and pain. His life had been a lonely one in Colorado; he could not afford to quarrel with his favorite cousin, and with him, as with other lovers, there may have been, besides, some lurking hope that she might yet change her mind. But perhaps Clover in a measure was right in her conviction that Clarence was still too young and undeveloped to have things go very deep with him. He seemed to her in many ways as boyish and as undisciplined as Phil.

With early September the summering of the Ute Park came to a close. The cold begins early at that elevation, and light frosts and red leaves warned the dwellers in tents and cabins to flee.

Clover made her preparations for departure with real reluctance. She had grown very fond of the place; but Phil was perfectly himself again, and there seemed no reason for their staying longer.

So back to St. Helen's they went and to Mrs. Marsh, who, in reply to Clover's letter, had written that she must make room for them somehow, though for the life of her she couldn't say how. It proved to be in two small back rooms. An irruption of Eastern invalids had filled the house to overflowing, and new faces met them at every turn. Two or three of the last summer's inmates had died during their stay,—one of them the very sick man whose room Mrs. Watson had coveted. His death took place "as if on purpose," she told Clover, the very week after her removal to the Shoshone.

Mrs. Watson herself was preparing for return to the East. "I've seen the West now," she said,—"all I want to see; and I'm quite ready to go back to my own part of the country. Ellen writes that she thinks I'd better start for home so as to get settled before the cold—And it's so cold here that I can't realize that they're still in the middle of peaches at home. Ellen always spices a great—They're better than preserves; and as for the canned ones, why, peaches and water is what I call them. Well—my dear—" (Distance lends enchantment, and Clover had become "My dear" again.) "I'm glad I could come out and help you along; and now that you know so many people here, you won't need me so much as you did at first. I shall tell Mrs. Perkins to write to Mrs. Hall to tell your father how well your brother is looking, and I know he'll be—And here's a little handkerchief for a keepsake."

It was a pretty handkerchief, of pale yellow silk with embroidered corners, and Clover kissed the old lady as she thanked her, and they parted good friends. But their intercourse had led her to make certain firm resolutions.

"I will try to keep my mind clear and my talk clear; to learn what I want and what I have a right to want and what I mean to say, so as not to puzzle and worry people when I grow old, by being vague and helpless and fussy," she reflected. "I suppose if I don't form the habit now, I sha'n't be able to then, and it would be dreadful to end by being like poor Mrs. Watson."

Altogether, Mrs. Marsh's house had lost its homelike character; and it was not strange that under the circumstances Phil should flag a little. He was not ill, but he was out of sorts and dismal, and disposed to consider the presence of so many strangers as a personal wrong. Clover felt that it was not a good atmosphere for him, and anxiously revolved in her mind what was best to do. The Shoshone was much too expensive; good boarding-houses in St. Helen's were few and far between, and all of them shared in a still greater degree the disadvantages which had made themselves felt at Mrs. Marsh's.

The solution to her puzzle came—as solutions often do—unexpectedly. She was walking down Piute Street on her way to call on Alice Blanchard, when her attention was attracted to a small, shut-up house, on which was a sign: "No. 13. To Let, Furnished." The sign was not printed, but written on a half-sheet of foolscap, which was what led Clover to notice it.

She studied the house a while, then opened the gate, and went in. Two or three steps led to a little piazza. She seated herself on the top step, and tried to peep in at the closed blinds of the nearest window.

While she was doing so, a woman with a shawl over her head came hastily down a narrow side street or alley, and approached her.

"Oh, did you want the key?" she said.

"The key?" replied Clover, surprised; "of this house, do you mean?"

"Yes. Mis Starkey left it with me when she went away, because, she said, it was handy, and I could give it to anybody who wished to look at the place. You're the first that has come; so when I see you setting here, I just ran over. Did Mr. Beloit send you?"

"No; nobody sent me. Is it Mr. Beloit who has the letting of the house?"

"Yes; but I can let folks in. I told Mis Starkey I'd air and dust a little now and then, if it wasn't took. Poor soul! she was anxious enough about it; and it all had to be done on a sudden, and she in such a heap of trouble that she didn't know which way to turn. It was just lock-up and go!"

"Tell me about her," said Clover, making room on the step for the woman to sit down.

"Well, she come out last year with her man, who had lung trouble, and he wasn't no better at first, and then he seemed to pick up for a while; and they took this house and fixed themselves to stay for a year, at least. They made it real nice, too, and slicked up considerable. Mis Starkey said, said she, 'I don't want to spend no more money on it than I can help, but Mr. Starkey must be made comfortable,' says she, them was her very words. He used to set out on this stoop all day long in the summer, and she alongside him, except when she had to be indoors doing the work. She didn't keep no regular help. I did the washing for her, and come in now and then for a day to clean; so she managed very well.

"Then,—Wednesday before last, it was,—he had a bleeding, and sank away like all in a minute, and was gone before the doctor could be had. Mis Starkey was all stunned like with the shock of it; and before she had got her mind cleared up so's to order about anything, come a telegraph to say her son was down with diphtheria, and his wife with a young baby, and both was very low. And between one and the other she was pretty near out of her wits. We packed her up as quick as we could, and he was sent off by express; and she says to me, 'Mis Kenny, you see how 't is. I've got this house on my hands till May. There's no time to see to anything, and I've got no heart to care; but if any one'll take it for the winter, well and good; and I'll leave the sheets and table-cloths and everything in it, because it may make a difference, and I don't mind about them nohow. And if no one does take it, I'll just have to bear the loss,' says she. Poor soul! she was in a world of trouble, surely."

"Do you know what rent she asks for the house?" said Clover, in whose mind a vague plan was beginning to take shape.

"Twenty-five a month was what she paid; and she said she'd throw the furniture in for the rest of the time, just to get rid of the rent."

Clover reflected. Twenty-five dollars a week was what they were paying at Mrs. Marsh's. Could they take this house and live on the same sum, after deducting the rent, and perhaps get this good-natured-looking woman to come in for a certain number of hours and help do the work? She almost fancied that they could if they kept no regular servant.

"I think I would like to see the house," she said at last, after a silent calculation and a scrutinizing look at Mrs. Kenny, who was a faded, wiry, but withal kindly-looking person, shrewd and clean,—a North of Ireland Protestant, as she afterward told Clover. In fact, her accent was rather Scotch than Irish.

They went in. The front door opened into a minute hall, from which another door led into a back hall with a staircase. There was a tiny sitting-room, an equally tiny dining-room, a small kitchen, and above, two bedrooms and a sort of unplastered space, which would answer to put trunks in. That was all, save a little woodshed. Everything was bare and scanty and rather particularly ugly. The sitting-room had a frightful paper of mingled mustard and molasses tint, and a matted floor; but there was a good-sized open fireplace for the burning of wood, in which two bricks did duty for andirons, three or four splint and cane bottomed chairs, a lounge, and a table, while the pipe of the large "Morning-glory" stove in the dining-room expanded into a sort of drum in the chamber above. This secured a warm sleeping place for Phil. Clover began to think that they could make it do.

Mrs. Kenny, who evidently considered the house as a wonder of luxury and convenience, opened various cupboards, and pointed admiringly to the glass and china, the kitchen tins and utensils, and the cotton sheets and pillow-cases which they respectively held.

"There's water laid on," she said; "you don't have to pump any. Here's the washtubs in the shed. That's a real nice tin boiler for the clothes,—I never see a nicer. Mis Starkey had that heater in the dining-room set the very week before she went away. 'Winter's coming on,' she says, 'and I must see about keeping my husband warm;' never thinking, poor thing, how 't was to be."

"Does this chimney draw?" asked the practical Clover; "and does the kitchen stove bake well?"

"First-rate. I've seen Mis Starkey take her biscuits out many a time,—as nice a brown as ever you'd want; and the chimney don't smoke a mite. They kep' a wood fire here in May most all the time, so I know."

Clover thought the matter over for a day or two, consulted with Dr. Hope, and finally decided to try the experiment. No. 13 was taken, and Mrs. Kenny engaged for two days' work each week, with such other occasional assistance as Clover might require. She was a widow, it seemed, with one son, who, being employed on the railroad, only came home for the nights. She was glad of a regular engagement, and proved an excellent stand-by and a great help to Clover, to whom she had taken a fancy from the start; and many were the good turns which she did for love rather than hire for "my little Miss," as she called her.

To Phil the plan seemed altogether delightful. This was natural, as all the fun fell to his share and none of the trouble; a fact of which Mrs. Hope occasionally reminded him. Clover persisted, however, that it was all fair, and that she got lots of fun out of it too, and didn't mind the trouble. The house was so absurdly small that it seemed to strike every one as a good joke; and Clover's friends set themselves to help in the preparations, as if the establishment in Piute Street were a kind of baby-house about which they could amuse themselves at will.

It is a temptation always to make a house pretty, but Clover felt herself on honor to spend no more than was necessary. Papa had trusted her, and she was resolved to justify his trust. So she bravely withstood her desire for several things which would have been great improvements so far as looks went, and confined her purchases to articles of clear necessity,—extra blankets, a bedside carpet for Phil's room, and a chafing-dish over which she could prepare little impromptu dishes, and so save fuel and fatigue. She allowed herself some cheap Madras curtains for the parlor, and a few yards of deep-red flannel to cover sundry shelves and corner brackets which Geoffrey Templestowe, who had a turn for carpentry, put up for her. Various loans and gifts, too, appeared from friendly attics and store-rooms to help out. Mrs. Hope hunted up some old iron firedogs and a pair of bellows, Poppy contributed a pair of brass-knobbed tongs, and Mrs. Marsh lent her a lamp. No. 13 began to look attractive.

They were nearly ready, but not yet moved in, when one day as Clover stood in the queer little parlor, contemplating the effect of Geoff's last effort,—an extra pine shelf above the narrow mantel-shelf,—a pair of arms stole round her waist, and a cheek which had a sweet familiarity about it was pressed against hers. She turned, and gave a great shriek of amazement and joy, for it was her sister Katy's arms that held her. Beyond, in the doorway, were Mrs. Ashe and Amy, with Phil between them.

"Is it you; is it really you?" cried Clover, laughing and sobbing all at once in her happy excitement. "How did it happen? I never knew that you were coming."

"Neither did we; it all happened suddenly," explained Katy. "The ship was ordered to New York on three days' notice, and as soon as Ned sailed, Polly and I made haste to follow. There would have been just time to get a letter here if we had written at once, but I had the fancy to give you a surprise."

"Oh, it is such a nice surprise! But when did you come, and where are you?"

"At the Shoshone House,—at least our bags are there; but we only stayed a minute, we were in such a hurry to get to you. We went to Mrs. Marsh's and found Phil, who brought us here. Have you really taken this funny little house, as Phil tells us?"

"We really have. Oh, what a comfort it will be to tell you all about it, and have you say if I have done right! Dear, dear Katy, I feel as if home had just arrived by train. And Polly, too! You all look so well, and as if California had agreed with you. Amy has grown so that I should scarcely have known her."