The Price of the Prairie: A Story of Kansas

"Phil, do ye remimber that May mornin' when ye broke through the vines av the Hermit's Cave? I know now how the pityin' face av the Christ looked to the man who had been blind. I know how the touch av his hands felt to them as had been lepers. They was made free and safe. Wake as I was that sorry mornin' I had one thought before me brain wint dark, the thought that I might some day help you aven a little. I felt that way in me wakeness thin. To-day in me strength I feel it a hundred times more. Ye may not nade me, but whin ye do, I'm here. Whin I was a poor lost orphan boy, worth nothin' to nobody, you risked life an' limb to drag me back from the agony av a death by inches. And now, while I'm only a rid-headed Irishman, I can do a dale more thinkin' and I know a blamed lot more 'n this blessed little burg iver drames of. They ain't no bloodhound on your track, but a ugly octopus of a devilfish is gittin' its arms out after you. They's several av 'em. Don't forgit, Phil; I know I'd die for your sake."

"O'mie, I believe you, but don't be uneasy about me. You know me as well as anybody in this town. What have I to fear?"

"Begorra, there was niver a purer-hearted boy than you iver walked out of a fun-lovin', rollickin' boyhood into a clane, honest manhood. You can't be touched."

Just then the evening stage swung by and swept up the hill.

"Look at the ould man, now, would ye? Phil, he's makin' fur Bar'net's. Bet some av your rich kin's comin' from the East, bringing you their out-av-style clothes, an' a few good little books and Sunday-school tracts to improve ye."

There was only one passenger in the stage, a woman whose face I could not see.

That evening O'mie went to Judson at closing time.

"Mr. Judson, I want a lave of absence fur a week or tin days," he said.

"What for?" Judson was the kind of man who could never be pleasant to his employees, for fear of losing his authority over them.

"I want to go out av town on business," O'mie replied.

"Whose business?" snapped Judson.

"Me own," responded O'mie calmly.

"I can't have it. That's it. I just can't have my clerks and underlings running around over the country taking my time."

"Then I'll lave your time here whin I go," O'mie spoke coolly. He had always been respectful toward his employer, but he had no servile fear of him.

"I just can't allow it," Judson went on. "I need you here." O'mie was the life of the business, the best asset in the store. "It may be a slack time, but I can't have it; that's it, I just can't put up with it. Besides," he simpered a little, in spite of himself, "besides, I'm likely to be off a few days myself, just any time, I can get ready for a step I have in mind, an important step, just any minute, but it's different with some others, and we have to regard some others, you know; have to let some others have their way once in a while. We'll consider it settled now. You are to stay right here."

"Ye'll consider it settled that I'm nadin' a tin days' vacation right away, an' must have it."

"I can't do it, O'Meara; that's it. I would not give you your place again, and I won't pay you a cent of this quarter's salary."

Judson's foolish temper was always his undoing.

"You say you won't?" O'mie asked with a smile.

"No, I won't. Hereafter you may beg your way or starve!" Judson fairly shouted.

"Excuse me, Mr. Amos Judson, but I'm not to thim straits yit. Not yit. I've a little bank account an' a good name at Cris Mead's bank. Most as good as yours."

The shot went home. Judson had but recently failed to get the bank's backing in a business dealing he had hoped to carry through on loans, and it had cut his vanity deeply.

"Good-bye, Amos, I'll be back, but not any sooner than ye nade me," and he was gone.

The next day Dever the stage driver told us O'mie was going up to Wyandotte on business.

"Whose business?" I asked. "He doesn't know a soul in Wyandotte, except Tell and Jim, who were working up there the last I knew. Tell may be in Fort Scott now. Whose business was it?"

"That's what I asked him," Dever answered with a grin, "and he said, his own."

Whatever it was, O'mie was back again before the end of the week. But he idled about for the full ten days, until Judson grew frantic. The store could not be managed without him, and it was gratifying to O'mie's mischievous spirit to be solicited with pledge and courtesy to take his place again.

After O'mie had left me in the courthouse yard, the evening after the party, I stopped on my way home to see Marjie a moment. She had gone with the Meads out to Red Range, her mother said, and might not be back till late, possibly not till to-morrow. Judson was sitting in the room when I came to the door. I had no especial reason to think Mrs. Whately was confused by my coming. She was always kind to everybody. But somehow the gray shadows of the clouded moon of the night before were chilling me still, and I was bitterly disappointed at missing my loved one's face in her home. It seemed ages since I had had her to myself; not since the night before my trip to Topeka. I stopped long enough to visit the "Rockport" letter-box for the answer to my letter I knew she would leave before she went out of town. There was no letter there. My heart grew heavy with a weight that was not to lift again for many a long day. Up on the street I met Dr. Hemingway. His kind eyes seemed to penetrate to my very soul.

"Good-evening, Philip," he said pleasantly, grasping my hand with a firm pressure. "Your face isn't often clouded."

I tried to look cheerful. "Oh, it's just the weather and some loss of sleep. Kansas Augusts are pretty trying."

"They should not be to a young man," he replied. "All weathers suit us if we are at peace within. That's where the storm really begins."

"Maybe so," I said. "But I'm all right, inside and out."

"You look it, Philip." He took my hand affectionately. "You are the very image of clean, strong manhood. Let not your heart be troubled."

I returned his hand-clasp and went my way. However much courage it may take to push forward to victory or death on the battle field, not the least of heroism does it sometimes require to walk bravely toward the deepening gloom of an impending ill. I have followed both paths and I know what each one demands.

At our doorway, waiting to welcome me, stood Rachel Melrose, smiling, sure, and effusively demonstrative in her friendship. She must have followed me on the next stage out of Topeka. Behind her stood Candace Baronet, the only woman I have ever known who never in all my life doubted me nor misunderstood me. Somehow the sunset was colorless to me that night, and all the rippling waves of wide West Prairie were shorn of their glory.

CHAPTER XV

ROCKPORT AND "ROCKPORT"

Glitters the dew, and shines the river,Up comes the lily and dries her bell;But two are walking apart forever,And wave their hands in a mute farewell.– JEAN INGELOW.

The Melrose family was of old time on terms of intimacy with the house of Baronet. It was a family with a proud lineage, wealth, and culture to its credit. Rachel had an inherited sense of superiority. Too much staying between the White Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean is narrowing to the mental scope. The West to her was but a wilderness whereto the best things of life never found their way. She took everything in Massachusetts as hers by due right, much more did it seem that Kansas should give its best to her; and withal she was a woman who delighted in conquest.

Her arrival in Springvale made a topic that was soon on everybody's tongue. In the afternoon of the day following her coming, when I went to my father's office before starting out to the stone cabin, I found Marjie there. I had not seen her since the party, and I went straight to her chair.

"Well, little girl, it's ten thousand years since I saw you last," I spoke in a low voice. My father was searching for some papers in his cabinet, and his back was toward us. "Why didn't I get a letter, dearie?"

She looked up with eyes whose brown depths were full of pain and sorrow, but with an expression I had never seen on her face before, a kind of impenetrable coldness. It cut me like a sword-thrust, and I bent over her.

"Oh, Marjie, my Marjie, what is wrong?"

"Here is that paper at last," my father said before he turned around. Even as he spoke, Rachel Melrose swept into the room.

"Why, Philip, I missed you after all. I didn't mean to keep you waiting, but I can never get accustomed to your Western hurry."

She was very handsome and graceful, and always at ease with me, save in our interviews alone.

"I didn't know you were coming," I said frankly; "but I want you to meet Miss Whately. This is the young lady I have told you about."

I took Marjie's hand as I spoke. It was cold, and I gave it the gentle pressure a lover understands as I presented her. She gave me a momentary glance. Oh, God be thanked for the love-light in those brown eyes! The memory of it warmed my heart a thousand times when long weary miles were between us, and a desolate sky shut down around the far desolate plains of a silent, featureless land.

"And this is Miss Melrose, the young lady I told you of in my letter," I said to Marjie. A quick change came into her eyes, a look of surprise and incredulity and scorn. What could have happened to bring all this about?

Rachel Melrose had made the fatal mistake of thinking that no girl reared west of the Alleghenies could be very refined or at ease or appear well dressed in the company of Eastern people. She was not prepared for the quiet courtesy and self-possession with which the Kansas girl greeted her; nor had she expected, as she told me afterward, to find in a town like Springvale such good taste and exquisite neatness in dress. True, she had many little accessories of an up-to-date fashion that had not gotten across the Mississippi River to our girls as yet, but Marjie had the grace of always choosing the right thing to wear. I was very proud of my loved one at that moment. There was a show of cordiality between the two; then Rachel turned to me.

"I'm going with you this afternoon. Excuse me, Miss Whately, Mr. Baronet promised me up at Topeka to take me out to see a wonderful cottonwood tree that he said just dwarfed the little locust there, that we went out one glorious moonlight night to see. It was a lovely stroll though, wasn't it, Philip?"

This time it was my father's eyes that were fixed upon me in surprise and stern inquiry.

"He will believe I am a flirt after all. It isn't possible to make any man understand how that miserable girl can control things, unless he is on the ground all the time." So ran my thoughts.

"Father, must that trip be made to-day? Because I'd rather get up a party and go out when Miss Melrose goes."

But my father was in no mood to help me then. He had asked me to go alone. Evidently he thought I had forgotten business and constancy of purpose in the presence of this pretty girl.

"It must be done to-day. Miss Melrose will wait, I'm sure. It is a serious business matter – "

"Oh, but I won't, Mr. Baronet. Your son promised me to do everything for me if I would only come to Springvale; that was away last Spring, and my stay will be short at best. I must go back to-morrow afternoon. Don't rob us of a minute."

She spoke with such a pretty grace, and yet her words were so trifling that my father must have felt as I did. He could have helped me then had he thought that I deserved help, for he was a tactful man. But he merely assented and sent us away. When we were gone Marjie turned to him bravely.

"Judge Baronet, I think I will go home. I came in from Red Range this noon with the Meads. It was very warm, coming east, and I am not very well." She was as white as marble. "I will see you again; may I?"

John Baronet was a man of deep sympathy as well as insight. He knew why the bloom had left her cheeks.

"All right, Marjie. You will be better soon."

He had risen and taken her cold hand. There was a world of cheer and strength in that rich resonant voice of his. "Little girl, you must not worry over anything. All the tangles will straighten for you. Be patient, the sunshine is back of all shadows. I promised your father, Marjory, that no harm should come to you. I will keep my promise. 'Let not your heart be troubled.'" His words were to her what the good minister's had been to me.

In the months that came after that my father was her one strong defence. Poor Marjie! her days as well as mine were full of creeping shadows. I had no notion of the stories being poured into her ears, nor did I dream of the mischief and sorrow that can be wrought by a jealous-hearted girl, a grasping money lover, and a man whose business dealings will not bear the light of day.

It has ever been the stage-driver's province to make the town acquainted with the business of each passenger whom he imports or exports. Our man, Dever, was no exception. Judson's store had become the centre of all the gossip in Springvale. Judson himself was the prince of scandalmongers, who with a pretence of refusing to hear gossip, peddled it out most industriously. He had hurried to Mrs. Whately with the story of our guest, and here I found him when I went to see Marjie, before I myself knew what passenger the stage had carried up to Cliff Street.

After the party at Anderson's, Tillhurst had not lost the opportunity of giving his version of all he had seen and heard in Topeka. Marjie listened in amazement but sure in her trustful heart that I would make it all clear to her in my letter. And yet she wondered why I had never mentioned that name to her, nor given her any hint of any one with claim enough on me to keep me for two days in Topeka. After all, she did recall the name – something forgotten in the joy and peace of that sweet afternoon out by the river in the draw where the haunted house was. Had I tried to tell her and lost my courage, she wondered. Oh, no, it could not be so.

The next day Marjie spent at Red Range. It was noon of the day following Rachel's arrival before she reached home. The ride in the midday heat, sympathy for Dave Mead, and the sad funeral rites in the morning, together with the memory of Tillhurst's gossip and the long time since we had talked with each other alone, had been enough to check even her sunny spirit. Gentle Mrs. Whately, willing to believe everybody, met her daughter with a sad face.

"My dear, I have some unwelcome news for you," she said when Marjie was resting in the cool sitting-room after the hot ride. "There's an old sweetheart of Phil's came here last evening to visit him. Mr. Dever, the stage-driver, says she is the handsomest girl he ever saw. They say she and Phil were engaged and had a falling out back East. They met again in Topeka, and Phil stayed a day or two to visit with her after the political meeting was over. And now she has come down here at his request to meet his folks. Marjie, daughter, you need not care. There are more worthy men who would be proud to marry you."

Marjie made no reply.

"Oh, daughter, he isn't worth your grief. Be strong. Your life will get into better channels now. There are those who care for you more than you dream of. And you cannot care for Phil when I tell you all I must tell."

"I will be strong, mother. What else?" Marjie said quietly. In the shadows of the room darkened to keep out the noonday heat, Mrs. Whately did not note the white face and the big brown eyes burning with pain.

"It's too bad, but you ought to know it. Judge Baronet's got some kind of a land case on hand. There's a fine half-section he's trying to get away from a young man who is poor. The Judge is a clever lawyer and he is a rich man. Mr. Judson says Tell Mapleson is this young man's counsel, and he's fighting to keep the land for its real owner. Well, Phil was strolling around until nearly morning with Lettie Conlow, and they met this young man somewhere. He doesn't live about here. And, Marjie, right before Lettie, Phil gave him an awful beating and made him promise never to show himself in Springvale again. You know Judge Baronet could do anything in that court-room he wants to. He is a fine man. How your father loved him! But Phil goes out and does the dirty work to help him win. So Amos Judson says."

"Did Amos Judson tell you all this, Mother?" Marjie asked faintly.

"Most of it. And he is so interested in your welfare, daughter."

Marjie rose to her feet. "Mother, I don't know how much truth there may be in the circumstances, but I'll wait until somebody besides Amos Judson tells me before I accept these stories."

"Well, Marjie, you are young. You must lean on older counsel. There is no man living as good and true as your father was to me. Remember that."

"Yes, there is," Marjie declared.

"Who is he, daughter?"

"Philip Baronet," Marjie answered proudly.

That afternoon Richard Tillhurst called and detained Marjie until she was late in keeping her appointment with Judge Baronet. Tillhurst's tale of woe was in the main a repetition of Mrs. Whately's, but he knew better how to make it convincing, for he had hopes of winning the prize if I were out of the way. He was too keen to think Judson a dangerous rival with a girl of Marjie's good sense and independence. It was with these things in mind that Marjie had met me. Rachel Melrose had swept in on us, and I who had declared to my dear one that I should never care to take another girl out to that sunny draw full of hallowed memories for us two, I was going again with this beautiful woman, my sweetheart from the East. And yet Marjie was quick enough to note that I had tried to evade the company of Miss Melrose, and she had seen in my eyes the same look that they had had for her all these years. Could I be deceiving her by putting Rachel off in her presence? She did not want to think so. Had Judge Baronet not been my father, he could have taken her into his confidence. She could not speak to him of me, nor could he discuss his son's actions with her.

But love is strong and patient, and Marjie determined not to give up at the first onslaught against it.

"I'll write to him now," she said. "There will be sure to be a letter for me up under 'Rockport.' He said something about a letter this afternoon, the letter he promised to write after the party at Anderson's. He couldn't be deceiving me, I'm sure. I'll tell him everything, and if he really doesn't care for me," – the blank of life lay sullen and dull before her, – "I'll know it any how. But if he does care, he'll have a letter for me all right."

And so she wrote, a loving, womanly letter, telling in her own sweet way all her faith and the ugly uncertainty that was growing up against it.

"But I know you, Phil, and I know you are all my own." So she ended the letter, and in the purple twilight she hastened up to the cliff and found her way down to our old shaded corner under the rock. There was no letter awaiting her. She held her own a minute and then she thrust it in.

"I'll do anything for Phil," she murmured softly. "I cannot help it. He was my own – he must be mine still."

A light laugh sounded on the rock above her.

"Are you waiting for me here?" a musical voice cried out. It was Rachel's voice. "Your aunt said you were gone out and would be back soon. I knew you would like me to meet you half way. It is beautiful here, you must love the place, but" – she added so softly that the unwilling listener did not catch her words – "it isn't so fine as our old Rockport!"

Quickly came the reply in a voice Marjie knew too well, although the tone was unlike any she had ever heard before.

"I hate Rockport; I did not tell you so when I left last Spring, but I hated it then."

Swiftly across the listener's mind swept the memory of my words. "If you ever hear me say I don't like 'Rockport' you will know I don't care for you."

She had heard me say these words, had heard them spoken in a tone of vehement feeling. There was no mistaking the speaker's sincerity, and then the quick step and swing of the bushes told her I had gone. The Neosho Valley turned black before her eyes, and she sank down on the stone shelving of the ledge.

My ride that afternoon had been a miserable one. Rachel was coy and sweet, yet cunningly bold. I felt indignant at my father for forcing her company on me, and I resented the circumstance that made me a victim to injustice. I detested the beautiful creature beside me for her assumption of authority over my actions, and above all, I longed with an aching, starved heart for Marjie. I knew she had only to read my letter to understand. She might not have gone after it yet, but I could see her that evening and all would be well.

I did not go near the old stone cabin. My father had failed to know his son if he thought I would obey under these hard conditions. We merely drove about beyond the draw. Then we rested briefly under the old cottonwood before we started home.

In the twilight I hurried out to our "Rockport" to wait for Marjie. I was a little late and so I did not know that Marjie was then under the point of rock. My rudeness to Rachel was unpardonable, but she had intruded one step too far into the sacred precincts of my life. I would not endure her in the place made dear to me from childhood, by association with Marjie. So I rashly blurted out my feelings and left her, never dreaming who had heard me nor what meaning my words would carry.

Down at the Whately home Richard Tillhurst sat, bland and smiling, waiting for Miss Whately's return. I sat down to wait also.

The August evening was dry and the day's hot air was rippling now into a slight breeze. The shadows deepened and the twilight had caught its last faint glow, when Marjie, white and cold, came slowly up the walk. Her brown hair lay in little curls about her temples and her big dark eyes were full of an utterable sorrow. I hurried out to the gate to meet her, but she would have passed by me with stately step.

"Marjie," I called softly, holding the gate.

"Good-evening, Philip. Please don't speak to me one word." Her voice was low and sweet as of yore save that it was cold and cutting.

She stood beside me for a moment. "I cannot be detained now. You will find your mother's ring in a package of letters I shall send you to-morrow. For my sake as well as for your own, please let this matter end here without any questions."

"But I will ask you questions," I declared.

"Then they will not be answered. You have deceived me and been untrue to me. I will not listen to one word. You may be very clever, but I understand you now. This is the end of everything for you and me." And so she left me.

I stood at the gate only long enough to hear her cordial greeting of Tillhurst. My Marjie, my own, had turned against me. The shadows of the deepening twilight turned to horrid shapes, and all the purple richness with that deep crimson fold low in the western sky became a chill gloom bordered on the horizon by the flame of hate. So the glory of a world gone wrong slips away, and the creeping shadows are typical only of pain and heartache.

I turned aimlessly away. I had told Marjie she was the light of my life: I did not understand the truth of the words until the light went out. Heavily, as I had staggered toward her mother's house on the night when I was sure Jean Pahusca had stolen her, I took my way now into the gathering shadows, slowly, to where I could hear the Neosho whispering and muttering in the deep gloom.

It comes sometimes to most of us, the wild notion that life, the gift of God alone, is a cheap thing not worth the keeping, and the impulse to fling it away uprears its ugly suggestion. Out in a square of light by the ford I saw Dave Mead standing, looking straight before him. The sorrows of the day were not all mine. I went to him, and we stood there silent together. At length we turned about in a purposeless way toward the open West Prairie. How many a summer evening we had wandered here! How often had our ponies come tramping home side by side, in the days when we brought the cows in late from the farthest draw! It seemed like another world now.

"Phil, you are very good to me. Don't pity me! I can't stand that." We never had a tenor in our choir with a voice so clear and rich as his.

"I don't pity you, Dave, I envy you." I spoke with an effort. "You have not lost, you have only begun a long journey. There is joy at the end of it."