Dixie Martin, the Girl of Woodford's Cañon
by Grace May North · English · Gutenberg #46871 · 361,637 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Dixie Martin, the Girl of Woodford's Cañon
Author: Grace May North
Illustrator: Elisabeth B. Warren
Release date: September 16, 2014 [eBook #46871]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46871
Credits: Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morgan
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIXIE MARTIN, THE GIRL OF WOODFORD'S CAÑON ***
____
DIXIE MARTIN
THE GIRL OF WOODFORD’S CAÑON
BY
GRACE MAY NORTH
ILLUSTRATED BY ELISABETH B. WARREN
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
Copyright, 1924,
By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
_Norward Press_
BERWICK & SMITH CO.
NORWOOD, MASS.
Dedicated to
IVERS ASHLEY
My long-ago school-mate who was so like little Dixie Martin
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Dixie 11
II. New Teacher 21
III. Neighborhood Gossip 27
IV. Getting Acquainted 38
V. The Woodford Schoolhouse 46
VI. Ken’s Secret Sorrow 56
VII. The Blessing Undisguised 66
VIII. A Queer Bank 72
IX. The “Charity Barrel” 76
X. Carol’s Choice 86
XI. Planning a Way Out 91
XII. Carol’s New Home 96
XIII. Carol in Disgrace 103
XIV. The Little Runaway 109
XV. A Happy Reunion 119
XVI. A Joyous Dixie 124
XVII. A Defiant Teacher 133
XVIII. The Sheep-King Dictates 140
XIX. Dixie Goes Shopping 146
XX. Dixie Buys a Silk Dress 157
XXI. Dixie Visits a Friend 162
XXII. Teacher Revolutionizes 166
XXIII. The Return of Topsy 175
XXIV. Dixie’s Lesson in Dressmaking 180
XXV. Where the Trail Led 191
XXVI. Ken’s Quest 196
XXVII. Celebrating 205
XXVIII. On the Trail of a “Bandit” 209
XXIX. Ken’s Old Friend 222
XXX. “Rattlesnake Sam” 232
XXXI. An Unwelcome Guest 238
XXXII. A Hard Game 248
XXXIII. Rude Little Sylvia 256
XXXIV. The Young Engineer Dreams 263
XXXV. The Pretend Game 269
XXXVI. Ken’s Talk With Teacher 283
XXXVII. Carol’s Birthday S’prise 288
XXXVIII. The Expected Blizzard 302
XXXIX. A Happy Father 312
XL. A Mystery Solved 319
XLI. A Resolution Broken 328
XLII. An Eventful Spring 337
XLIII. The Unexpected Guest 347
XLIV. Clearing Up Mysteries 353
ILLUSTRATIONS
A queer-looking group they made (Page 40) _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
“I’m going to tell you all about us, Miss Bayley” 136
“It’s a birthday present from me” 298
The young engineer slowly opened his eyes 310
DIXIE MARTIN
CHAPTER ONE
DIXIE
“Carolina Martin, you get up this instant. Do you hear me? I’ve called
you sixteen times already, if ’tisn’t twenty, and _this_ the morning the
new teacher starts at the old log schoolhouse over at Woodford’s. You
don’t want us all to be late, do you, and have her think we’re
shiftless, like the poor white folks our mother used to tell about, in
the mountains down in Tennessee. We, with the bluest blood in our veins
that flows in the whole South! Carolina, _are you up_?”
This conversation was carried on in a high-pitched voice by a thin,
homely, freckled-faced little girl whose straight brick-red hair had not
a wave in it, and whose long, skinny legs, showing beneath the gingham
dress two years too short for her, made her appear as ungainly as a
colt.
There was no one else present in the big living-room of the log cabin,
but the voice carried well, and was heard in the loft above, where, in a
large four-posted bed, another small girl sleepily replied, “Oh, Dixie,
I wish folks never did have to get up, nor go to school, nor—” The voice
trailed off drowsily, and Carolina had just turned over for another
little nap when she heard her sister climbing the ladder which led from
the room below to the loft where the two girls slept.
Instantly the culprit leaped to the floor. When the red head of Dixie
appeared at the square opening of the trap-door, the small girl was
making great haste to don her one piece of all-over underwear.
She smiled her sweetest at her irate sister, whose wrath softened, for
little Carolina was so like their beautiful mother. Even at eight years
of age she had the languid manner of the South, and spoke with a musical
drawl.
But there was no envy in the heart of the older girl. She was
passionately glad that one of them was so like that adored mother who
had died soon after the birth of her youngest child, who now was four
years old.
The father, an honest, hardy Nevada mountaineer, had been killed in a
raid two years later, and since then Dixie, aged twelve, had been little
mother and home-maker for the other three children.
Before Dixie could rebuke the younger sister, a door below opened and a
baby voice called shrilly, “Oh, Dix, do come quick! Suthin’s a-runnin’
over on the stove.”
“It’s the porridge.” The older girl sniffed the air, which conveyed to
her the scent of something burning. Down the ladder she scrambled.
“Well, lucky stars!” she exclaimed a moment later as she removed the
kettle and gave the contents a vigorous stirring.
“’Tisn’t stuck to the bottom, that’s one comfort.” Then, whirling about,
she caught the little four-year-old boy in her arms as she exclaimed,
“And so our Jimmikins is going to school to-day for the very first
time.”
The small head, covered with sunny curls, nodded, and his eyes twinkled
as he proudly prattled: “I’ll stan’ up front and I’ll spell c-a-t, and
ever’thin’, won’t I, Dixie?”
“Of course you will, pet lamb, and maybe the teacher will ask you to
recite, and won’t she be surprised to find that you know seven speaking
pieces?”
While Dixie talked she was dishing up the porridge. She glanced at the
ladder and sighed. Would she have to climb it again? What _could_ be
keeping Carolina? But just then a foot appeared and slowly there
descended the member of the family who was always late. She had been
brushing her soft golden-brown curls in front of their one mirror. A
pretty circling comb held them in place.
Carol wore a faded gingham dress which was buttoned in the front, that
she might fasten it herself.
There was a discontented expression in her violet eyes.
“I just hate this ol’ dress,” she began fretfully. “Jessica Archer
doesn’t believe we have any blue blood at all, or we’d want to dress
like the Southern ladies do in the pictures.”
Dixie sighed, and the younger girl, who thought only of herself,
continued, “If my beautiful mother had lived, she wouldn’t have let me
wear shabby dresses that button down the front and make everybody laugh
at me.”
There was much truth in this. Their beautiful mother would have been
quite willing to mortgage the ranch if only she and her children could
be dressed in silk and furbelows.
Before Dixie could reply, the cabin-door again opened, and in came a boy
who was at least a head taller than Dixie. His frank, freckled face was
smiling. He was carrying a pail. “Dix,” he said gleefully, “we’re going
to have a real crop of apples this year. I’ve been down to the
creek-bottom to see how the trees are doing. Maybe they’ll fetch in
money enough so that you can buy that new stove you’ve been needing so
long.”
Carolina tossed her curly head as she thought, “Stove, indeed, when I
need a new dress.” But she said nothing. The apples weren’t ripe yet,
and she could bide her time.
They were soon seated around the table, chattering eagerly about the new
teacher who had arrived at Woodford’s the day before, but whom, as yet,
they had not seen.
“What you ’spose she’ll be like?” Ken asked as he helped himself to the
rich creamy goat’s milk, and then turned to pour more of it into the big
bowl for his little brother, who had been hungrily clamoring for
porridge.
Carol sniffed. “I don’t like new teachers,” she informed them in a
manner much older than her years. “They’re always startin’ somethin’
different.”
“You mean that new teachers don’t like _you_,” Ken put in with brotherly
frankness. “They would, though, if you’d ever study, which I reckon you
_never_ will.”
“You’d ought to learn all you can, Caroly. We all ought to,” the little
mother modified, “’cause as soon as we’re old enough, we’ll want to be
earning our own living so we won’t always be poor and scrimping like we
are now.”
Carolina tossed her curls.
“’Twon’t be needful for _me_ to earn my livin’,” she said proudly. “Mrs.
Piggins says I’m the kind that always marries young, and I’m goin’ to
marry rich, too.”
Ken exploded with amused laughter.
“Hear the baby prattle!” he teased. “You’d better be thinkin’ about your
dolls, seems like to me.”
The all-too-easily-aroused temper of the younger girl flared.
“Ken Martin, you know I haven’t played with dolls, not since I was seven
years old, and now I’m eight.”
The violet eyes flashed and the pretty lips quivered.
The heart of Ken always melted when he saw tears.
“Oh, I say, Caroly,” he begged. “Don’t get a mad on. Honest Injun, cross
my heart, I won’t tease you any more——er——that is, not again this
morning, anyhow,” he added, wishing to be truthful.
Then, knowing from past experience that the best way to dry up tears was
to interest the doleful one in something different, he exclaimed as
though he had suddenly thought of it: “Girls, what’ll we give as a
present for new teacher? The fellows were all sayin’ yesterday what
they’re goin’ to give.”
The ruse worked like a charm. Carol looked across the table at her
brother with eager interest.
“That horrid Jessica Archer says there’s nobody in the school as is
going to give new teacher as handsome a present as she is. Her mother
took her over to Reno to pick it out. Jessica says as all the other
pupils will give country presents, but hers’ll be _city_.”
“Huh!” grunted the older brother. “What’s that little minx goin’ to give
teacher that’s so fine? That’s what I’d like to know.”
The curls were shaken as the owner of them replied: “She won’t tell.
It’s a secret, but she’s boastin’ as it cost more’n all the other
presents put together’ll cost.”
“Well, dearie, like as not she’s right,” the older girl said soothingly.
“Jessica Archer’s father’s the richest man anywhere in these mountains.
You know how folks call him a sheep-king.”
Then, as Dixie was always trying to have her charges see things in the
right way, she continued: “Anyhow, it isn’t the money a present costs
that counts. It’s the love that goes with it.”
Selfish Carol was not convinced. “I’d rather have a blue silk dress
_without_ love than I would another ol’ gingham like this one with—”
She was interrupted by Ken, who burst in with: “Oh, I say, Dix, I’ve
just thought of the peachiest present. You know that little
black-and-white kid that came a while ago.”
The girls had stopped eating, and were listening with eyes as well as
ears.
“Yeah, I know, b-but what of it?” Dixie inquired.
The boy’s words fairly tumbled out in his excitement.
“I bet teacher’d like _him_ for a present. I bet she would. Like as not,
comin’ from New York City the way she does, she’s never had a goat for a
pet, and this one’s awful pretty, with that white star on his black
forehead.”
Dixie looked uncertain. “It _would_ be different, but—” she started to
protest, when noting her brother’s crestfallen expression, she hastened
to add, “Come to think of it, now, a little goat might be lots of
company for new teacher, she being so strange and all.
“You go get the goat, Ken, and saddle Pegasus while I tidy up the
kitchen and dress Jimmikins. Then we’ll all be ready to start for
school.”
“I’ve got an ol’ red ribbon that’ll look handsome on that little goat’s
neck,” Carol told them. “That’ll make it look more presentish, seems
like.”
“Of course it will, dear. Go get it and give it to Ken, though I guess
maybe you’d better tie the bow. You’ve got a real knack at making them
pretty.”
The little mother always tried to show appreciation of any talent that
might appear, however faintly, in one of her precious brood.
A moment later all was hurry and scurry in the homey kitchen of that old
log house, for this was a red-letter morning in the lives of the four
little Martins.
CHAPTER TWO
NEW TEACHER
And the new teacher, what of her? She had arrived by stage the night
before, after a long journey across the country to Reno by train, and
from there over rough roads of the wonderful Sierra Nevada mountains,
and, just at nightfall, she had been deposited, bag and baggage, in
front of a rambling old road-house known as Woodford’s Inn. It had been
too dark for her really to see anything but the deep abyss of blackness
below, that was the cañon through which she had just ridden, and the
peaks of the rugged range towering above her, the dazzling stars that
seemed so much nearer than they had in the East, and the lights of the
comfortable and welcoming inn toward which the stage-driver was leading
her.
Mrs. Enterprise Twiggly, the innkeeper’s wife, a thin, angular woman,
whose reddish-gray hair was drawn tightly back, and whose dress was
economical in the extreme, as it boasted neither pleat nor fullness,
appeared in the open door, and her greenish-blue eyes appraised the
guest at a glance. Long training had taught Mrs. Enterprise Twiggly to
know at once whether to offer a new arrival the best bedroom or the
slant-walled one over the kitchen.
The sharp, business-like expression changed to one of real pleasure when
the innkeeper’s wife beheld the newcomer. She advanced, with a bony
work-hardened hand outstretched. “Well! I declare to it, if I’m not
mistaken, and I never am, this here is the new teacher. I am Mrs.
Enterprise Twiggly of the Woodford’s Inn. Like as not you’ve heard of
me. I’m that glad you’ve come, Miss Bayley. Do you want to go right to
your shack, or would you rather stay at the inn, where there’s folks,
until you get used to the strange night noises?”
Miss Josephine Bayley, late of the city of New York, marveled at the
remark, for never before had she been conscious of such intense
stillness.
“I have indeed heard of you, Mrs. Twiggly,” the girl declared, and
truly, for the letter she had received from the board had mentioned that
she would live near the inn. “I’m sure that I am going to just adore
your wonderful mountain country.” Then, realizing that she had not
replied to the query of her hostess, she added, “I am perfectly willing
to sleep in my own apartment, that is—shack, did you call it?”
The tall angular woman nodded. “Enterprise!” she then called to a short,
apologetic-looking man who was serving sandwiches and coffee to the
stage-driver in the dining-room of the inn. “Fetch the key that’s
hangin’ by the stove, and maybe you’d better fetch along some matches
and a candle, too.”
“Ye-ah, I’ll be there directly.” Which he was. Taking a large suit-case
in one hand, and a lighted lantern in the other, he led the way, and his
wife followed with another suit-case. The stage-driver, at the end of
the procession, had a steamer-trunk over his shoulder. Mr. Twiggly
opened the door and stepped back to permit his wife to enter first. This
she was about to do, when, remembering her manners, she, too, stepped
back to permit the school-teacher to go first, and so it was that
Josephine Bayley entered the log cabin that was to be her home for she
knew not how long.
How she wanted to sink down on the nearest rocker and laugh, for the
mirth within seemed determined to bubble over, but when she glanced at
the angular, business-like Mrs. Enterprise Twiggly, the new
school-teacher knew that laughter would be greatly misunderstood, and so
she managed to remark meekly, “I am sure that this will be a very
pleasant apartment,—that is, I mean, shack.”
She looked about the large square room, wondering where she was to
sleep. Mrs. Twiggly surmised as much, and, as soon as the men were gone,
she said rather disparagingly: “The last teacher we had was the
new-fangled kind from down Los Angeles way, and nothing would do but she
had to have what she called a screen-porch bedroom built, and bein’ as
she paid for it herself, the board couldn’t keep her from doin’ it. Too,
she was set on havin’ it on the offside from the inn, which seemed queer
to me. You’d have thought she’d built it next to where folks was, but
she said she liked to feel that she was ’way off by herself in the
mountains. Howsomever, she always kept a loaded six-shooter handy in the
corner.”
As she talked, the woman led the way through a door, and the girl,
advancing, uttered an exclamation of delight, for she found herself on a
porch so open that she was hardly conscious that there were walls. “Oh,”
she thought, “blessings on the head of my predecessor, outlandish though
she may have seemed to mine hostess!”
Mrs. Twiggly was eyeing her curiously. “You like it?” she inquired,
rather hoping that she would not. She decided that all teaching folk
were hopeless, when Josephine Bayley turned around with eyes that
glowed, and, clasping her hands, exclaimed, “I never had such a
perfectly wonderful place to sleep in all my whole life!”
Mrs. Twiggly’s sniff was not audible. “What poor folks she must come
from!” she was thinking. Aloud she remarked: “Miss Bayley, I’ll fetch
over your breakfast to-morrow, bein’ as it’s your first mornin’, and if
you’re scared, fire off the gun twice, but mind you aim it in the air.
Well, good-night.”
“Good-night, and thank you for your kindness.” Then Josephine Bayley was
left alone with the stars and the silence, but somehow her desire to
laugh was gone. She felt awed by the bigness and stillness of things,
and standing in the darkness in her out-of-doors bedroom, she reached
her arms toward the star-crowned peaks and prayed, “God of the
mountains, give me _here_ some work to do for You.”
CHAPTER THREE
NEIGHBORHOOD GOSSIP
Josephine Bayley awakened, as all do in entirely new surroundings, with
the question, “Why, where am I?” Then, upon hearing a chattering of
animal life without, she sat up in bed and saw a fir tree festooned with
webs that sparkled with quivering dewdrops, saw two bushy-tailed
squirrels gathering cones, and heard a meadow-lark singing its joyous
morning-song. The new teacher arose, surprised to find that all that
night she had not awakened. She glanced in the corner where stood the
sentinel gun. She was sure that she should never have need of its
services.
Just as she was dressed she heard a rapping on her outer door. Skipping,
with a heart as light as her feet, she opened it, and beheld Mrs.
Enterprise Twiggly standing there with a tray. She looked exactly as she
had the night before, only more so, in the full light of all-revealing
day.
“Good-mornin’, Miss Bayley,” the woman remarked, as she entered the
sun-flooded living-room of the log cabin and placed the tray on the
rustic center-table.
“I didn’t hear any firin’ in the night, so I take it you slept through.”
“I did, indeed,” was the enthusiastic reply. “No longer shall I need a
pine pillow to woo slumber. I don’t know when I have awakened so
refreshed.”
Then the girl added with a happy laugh: “The truth is, I didn’t know
what I was supposed to be afraid of, and so, of course, I couldn’t be
afraid of it.”
This remark sounded a little unbalanced to the wife of the innkeeper.
She had never heard that one had to know what to be afraid of before he
could be afraid. She drew herself up very straight as she enumerated:
“Well, there’s plenty that usually scares tenderfoot school-teachers.
There’s the coyotes howlin’ at night, though they mostly never touches
human bein’s; an’ now and then there’s a bear, but worst, I guess, is
the parcel of Indians over Tahoe way. They don’t do much but thievin’. I
guess that’s all, unless ’tis now and then a bandit passin’ this way to
hold up a train over beyond Reno.”
Scandalized, indeed, was the wife of the innkeeper when she heard the
new school-teacher laugh. “Oh, Mrs. Twiggly,” the girl exclaimed
merrily, “I do hope some one of those skeery things will happen soon.
I’m just longing for adventure.”
This time the sniff of her listener was entirely audible. “Well, I
reckon you’ll get all the adventure you’re wantin’ before the term’s up,
Miss Bayley, if you’re kept, and I sort o’ feel it my duty to tell you
that the board of eddication hereabouts is particular and persnifity.”
“Which means?” was what Miss Bayley thought. But aloud she demurely
asked, “Mrs. Twiggly, just what are the requirements that I shall have
to meet?”
The wife of the innkeeper bristled, as she always did when this subject
was discussed. “If you mean what you ought to do to please the board, I
must say it seems like there’s nothin’ needed but just to flatter and
pamper the board’s only child, that forward little Jessica Archer.”
Miss Bayley’s dark eyes were wide. “Is there only _one_ man on the local
board of education?” she inquired.
Mrs. Twiggly nodded. “Ye-ah, and, for that matter, there’s only _one_
important man in these here parts, and that’s Mr. Sethibald Archer. He
owns all the sheep-grazin’ country round about, and if he don’t own it
_honest_, he’s got it somehow.”
“Sethibald?” Miss Bayley repeated. “I never heard such a Christian name
as that before.”
Mrs. Twiggly was scornful.
“Well, ’twa’n’t that in the beginnin’,” she said. “It was jest plain
Seth, but when they got so rich, his wife, who’d allus been Maria, went
to visit folks in the city, and when she came back she had her name
printed on bits of pasteboard, visitin’-cards, she called ’em, though
land knows who she’s goin’ to visit in these parts, and she said Mrs.
Seth didn’t look stylish enough, so she tacked on the endin’. Mrs.
Sethibald Archer, that’s what’s on the card.”
Again the new teacher had an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh, but,
instead, she seated herself at the table and ate the really good
breakfast, and found that she was unusually hungry. The mountain-air
surely was a tonic.
As her guest seemed in no hurry to depart, Miss Bayley said, “Won’t you
be seated, Mrs. Twiggly, and tell me some more about my duties as
school-teacher?”
“Well, I dunno but I can set a spell,” was the reply of the garrulous
woman, who had “talked herself thin,” as Mrs. Sethibald Archer had been
known to declare, and which may have been true.
“Please tell me about my other pupils,” Miss Bayley continued.
There was a visible stiffening of the form of Mrs. Twiggly. “I’ll tell
you first about the four children who live down in Woodford’s Cañon,
them as had a shiftless, do-nothin’-useful actress for a mother.”
And so it was that Miss Josephine Bayley first heard of brave little
Dixie Martin and her three young charges.
“’Twas the year of the big blizzard,” Mrs. Twiggly began, sitting so
stiff and straight that her listener found herself wondering if she had
a poker for a backbone. “I declare to it, there never had been such a
winter. Too, that was the year they struck silver over beyond the cañon.
It got out that the mountains hereabouts were all chock-full of payin’
ore, and over-night, it seemed like, a minin’-camp sprung up and grew in
a fortnight to be a reg’lar town with houses and stores and even a
the-_a_-ter built. You can see the ruins of it now when you’re over that
way, and, havin’ a the-_a_-ter brought play-actin’ folks to Silver City,
and mighty big money they took in.
“It came easy, and was spent easy, but all of a sudden there was no more
silver; the veins had petered out, and the gay life of that town blew
out like the flame on a candle, and then it was that some little
one-horse show, havin’ heard how rich other actors had struck it there,
came trailin’ along, but they was too late.
“They gave their show,—‘Shakespeare,’ they called it,—but they gave it
to empty benches. They’d come over from Reno on the stage all dressed up
in their hifalutin’ costumes, so’s not to have to fetch over their
trunks, but they didn’t have any money to pay their way back, and so
they started to walk.
“Well, one of ’em was a pretty, frail-lookin’ young girl, with big round
eyes and soft curly hair. She wore a long, trailin’ white dress.
Ophelia, they called her, but she wa’n’t strong, and them paper shoes
she had on got cut to pieces as soon as she began to walk along the
mountain roads. When they got to Woodford’s Cañon the man dressed up as
king saw as she couldn’t walk any farther, so he said she’d have to stop
at some ranch-house and rest till the stage-coach came along.
“The only house anywhere near belonged to Pine Tree Martin. Folks
hereabouts called him that because he was always sayin’, ‘Neighbors,
don’t cut down the pine trees.’ Queer, how that man did love pine trees.
He had two of the finest ones you ever saw growin’ in front of his log
cabin, and they’re still there. Well, Pine Tree Martin was nigh forty
years old, and he’d been livin’ alone since his ol’ mother died. The
king and another fellow they called Hamlet went to the cabin and knocked
on the door. Nobody was at home, so they pushed open the door and found
a fire burning in the stove and supper set for one on the table. They
carried Ophelia, who had fainted by that time, into the cabin and put
her on the bed, then the rest of them made tracks for Reno.”
The sniff was very audible now.
Then she went on: “That shows how much morals play-actin’ folks have,
but I can tell you Pine Tree Martin wa’n’t made of no such ne’er-do-well
stuff. When he found that done-up girl with her big round eyes and soft
curly hair in his house, and heerd how she didn’t have a home that she
could go to, he up and loved her, as only the Pine Tree Martin kind of
people can love.
“He married her and took the tenderest sort o’ care of her as long as
she lived. Nothin’ he could get was too good for her, and she as useless
as a—well, a butterfly, I guess. An’ what’s more, she was allus talkin’
about what blue-blooded folks her relations was. It seems their name was
Haddington-Allen, and they was rich and proud. They had disowned her
because she wanted to go on the stage and be a star. When Dixie was
born, she wrote letters to the aunt that had fetched her up in the
South, but they allus came back, and on ’em was written, ‘Unopened by
Mrs. Haddington-Allen.’
“This Mrs. Pine Tree Martin never took to Western ways. Her heart was
allus in the South, an’ as her children were born she named them Dixie,
Carolina, and Kentucky, till the baby came, and she named him after the
uncle that had fetched her up, James Haddington-Allen Martin.
“In one way it turned out good for Dixie to have such a shiftless
mother, for as soon as that girl could hold a saucepan she began to cook
for the family. The only thing the mother would do was sew, and she made
fancy dresses for herself and for the other girl, Carolina, to wear. She
never took much pride in the two older children. The boy, Ken, was the
livin’ image of his homely, raw-boned pa, and Dixie was a great
disappointment, for she was a Martin clear through, but Carolina was the
picture of her ma, and still is, and just like her.
“Well, when James Haddington-Allen Martin was three months old, the
mother died, and the father was left with four children, which was bad
enough, but two years later Pine Tree Martin was killed in a raid, and
since then Dixie, who’s just come twelve, has kept house and been mother
to the other three,” Mrs. Twiggly concluded.
Then, before Josephine Bayley could comment on the sad story that she
had just heard, Mrs. Twiggly arose. “I declare to it,” she exclaimed,
“if ’tisn’t eight o’clock and you’ll want to be startin’ to school
early. Follow the road right down toward the cañon, then turn toward the
mountains a bit, and there you are. You’d better not step off the road
to-day. There’s adders and rattlers hereabouts. You’ll get so you can
tell a coiled snake from a stone arter you’ve been here a spell, but
just at first you’d better be keerful.”
Then when she reached the door with the tray she turned to say
condescendingly: “I’m real glad you’ve come, Miss Bayley. It’s mighty
nice to have folks as interesting as you are to talk to, an’ I do hope
the board will like you.”
She was out of the door when she stepped back to add: “Miss Bayley, if
it don’t come too hard, I’d sort of let it seem like you think Jessica
Archer is prettier than Carolina Martin and smarter than Dixie. It’ll be
stretchin’ the truth mighty hard, but it’s policy. Good mornin’, Miss
Bayley.”
The new teacher, at last alone, put her hands to her head as though she
felt dizzy. How rasping was Mrs. Twiggly’s voice! But a moment later she
was thinking of the poor little children of that stranded Ophelia, and
looked eagerly forward to her first meeting with them.
CHAPTER FOUR
GETTING ACQUAINTED
It was a perfect autumn day, and he who has not been in the Sierra
Nevada mountains on a golden October morning has not as yet known the
full joy of living.
Josephine Bayley had been advised to lock her door in order to keep out
“snoopin’ Indians.” She had been shown through a field-glass a group of
most dilapidated dwellings about a mile to the south and down in the
creek-bottom. These dwellings could not be called wigwams; indeed, they
were too nondescript really to be called anything. Some had a rough
framework of saplings, with pine branches for a roof and walls; others
were made of stones held together with mud, while still others were but
shiftlessly erected tents, even discarded clothing having been used, and
all were surrounded by rubbish and squalor. Thus the one-time
picturesqueness of the Washoe Indian has degenerated.
“They’re curious and snoopin’, those Indians are, but harmless,” Mrs.
Enterprise Twiggly had said, when advising Miss Bayley to keep her door
locked while she was away.
The new teacher, lithe, dark, athletic, stepped springily down the
mountain road, feeling as though she must sing with a lark that was
somewhere over in a clump of murmuring pines. But the first note of the
song died on her lips as she suddenly stopped and gazed ahead of her.
Had that stone in the road moved, or was it her imagination? She gazed
fascinated. Was it about to uncoil and raise a protesting head?
Gracious! What was it she had heard about rattlers? When they coiled,
they could spring—how far—was it twice the length of their own bodies?
Did one have to measure them to know how far away one could stand in
safety? If they were straight out, one always had time to escape, for
they had to coil to strike. But the large round stone that did look
strangely like a coiled snake did not stir, not even when a smaller rock
was thrown at it.
Miss Bayley, laughing at her own fears, looked down the cañon road ahead
of her, where she beheld a little procession approaching. A light of
recognition brightened her dark eyes. “Oh, I am so glad!” she thought.
“Here come the children of Ophelia.”
A queer-looking group they made. There was a soft mouse-colored burro,
and on it sat a truly beautiful little girl of eight years, holding in
front of her a chubby four-year-old boy, who was beaming with delight. A
tall, lank lad, with a staff in one hand, was guiding the beast of
burden, while on the other side, with pride shining in her eyes, that
were a warm golden-brown, walked the little mother of them all, Dixie
Martin. She was carrying a basket that held their lunch and leading a
very small, long-legged goat that had a red ribbon tied about its neck.
As they emerged from the dark cañon road into the full sunlight beyond
the great old pines they beheld for the first time their new teacher.
They knew at once that it must be she, and Ken snatched off his cap,
while little Carolina, slipping from the back of the burro, made a
graceful curtsy, just as her mother had trained her to do from babyhood.
Dixie, too, had been trained, but she was a Martin, and did not take to
polishing as readily as did Carol.
The new teacher hurried forward with hands outstretched. She actually
forgot to examine the stones in the road that might be coiled snakes.
“Oh, you dear little pupils of mine!” she exclaimed. “You are the four
Martins, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am, we are,” was the chorused reply; and then it was that Miss
Bayley recalled that even the best people in the South say “ma’am.”
Carolina, wishing to shine, stepped forward and said: “I’ll introduce
us, shall I? This is my big sister, Dixie Martin, and our baby brother,
Jimmy-Boy.” Then the small girl held herself proudly, as the mother had
done, as she added, “His real name is James Haddington-Allen Martin,
after our aunt who is blue-blooded in the South.”
There was a sudden flush in the freckled face of the older girl, and she
hastened to say apologetically: “Miss Bayley, please pardon my little
sister for saying that. I’ve told her time and again that when folks are
truly blue-blooded it shows without their telling it.” Then she added,
as she nodded toward the boy who stood waiting his turn, “This is our
big brother, Ken, and I guess that’s all the introducing, unless Pegasus
ought to be mentioned.”
“Pegasus?” the new teacher repeated as she gazed at the stolid little
burro and marveled. “Pray, what do you kiddies know about Pegasus?” Even
as she spoke she realized that much that was unusual might be expected
from the children of Ophelia.
It was Dixie who said eagerly, “Oh, our beautiful mother wrote the
loveliest poetry, and she used to say that the wonderful winged horse,
Pegasus, carried her to the Land of Inspiration.”
Miss Bayley noticed that the small goat had not been introduced. Ken,
believing that the moment for the presentation was at hand, took the
leading-rope from his sister, and, stepping forward, he said, almost
shyly: “Miss Bayley, teacher, we fetched along Star-White as your
present. We thought maybe you’d like him for a pet.”
It had been said of Miss Josephine Bayley that she could rise to any
occasion without evidencing surprise or dismay, and she surely did at
this moment. Luckily, her practice-work on the East Side in New York had
taught her to expect the most extraordinary gifts from her pupils.
The four pairs of eyes watched anxiously for a moment. _Would “new
teacher” like their present?_
Their doubts were quickly put to flight, for Miss Josephine Bayley
stooped and caressed the long-legged, rather startled kid as she said
with a ring of real enthusiasm in her voice: “You dear Star-White,
you’re as nice as you can be. I just know that I’m going to love you.”
Then, rising, she held out a hand to the two who were nearest, but the
others were included in her smiling glance as she said: “Thank you so
much, dears. It was ever so kind of you to want to make me happy.” Then,
a little helplessly, she appealed to the older boy as she asked, “What
shall we do with Star-White now?”
“I’ll tie him up in the shed back o’ your cabin, Miss Bayley. He’ll be
all right in there.”
The lad skipped ahead, the kid in his arms, but returned in an
incredibly short time.
The procession had continued on its way, and Ken soon remarked, “There’s
the schoolhouse, teacher, down the piney lane, and I think there’s folks
waiting to see you.”
Miss Bayley turned and saw, back from the road and on a short lane, a
log schoolhouse half hidden by great old pines. In front of it stood a
very fine carriage drawn by two milk-white horses. At their heads a
stocky man with a stubby red beard and a keen, alert, red-brown eye
awaited her. He was the “board of education,” of that Miss Bayley was
sure, while on the back seat of the vehicle, with her bonneted head held
high, sat no less a personage than Mrs. Sethibald Archer, and at her
side, also with her head held high, was a much-beruffled young girl,
aged eight years, who was of course the prettiest and smartest child in
the school. Miss Bayley assured herself that she mustn’t forget that,
not for one moment, if she wanted to stay, and, oh, how she did want to
stay and get acquainted with the wonderful mountains, and the Martins,
and maybe even with the Indians who lived down in the creek-bottom!
All this she thought as she walked up the little lane toward the old log
schoolhouse.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE WOODFORD SCHOOLHOUSE
Mr. Sethibald Martin advanced with what he believed to be a dignified
stride. Without removing his hat, he said, “This here is Miss Josephine
Bayley, I take it—her as has credentials to teach correct speakin’ and
figurin’.”
A voice from the vehicle was heard. “You’d better look at ’em,
Sethibald, to make sure. I don’t want no teacher that can’t learn my
Jessica correct speakin’, such as will fit her for the high sphere she
is to fill as the daughter of a sheep-king.” The speech had been
planned, that the new teacher might at once be impressed with the
importance of the Archers in that mountain community.
The stubby gentleman seemed actually to puff up a bit, “as a toad
might,” the newcomer found herself thinking, but, remembering his
present mission, he explained the duties and requirements of the
position, then added, as he glanced almost scornfully at the silent,
listening group of four children and a burro, “It sure is onfortunate.
Miss Bayley, that the pupils from these here parts are so no-account, my
own Jessica bein’ exceptionated.”
His glance turned with pride to the snub-nosed child in the buggy. Then,
in a whispered aside: “It’s lucky for you that you’ve got one promisin’
pupil like my daughter, Miss Bayley. ’Twould be dull work teachin’ if
you didn’t have nothin’ but dumb young ’uns like those Pine Tree
Martins.” He paused, seeming to expect comment. This, then, was Miss
Bayley’s moment for being diplomatic.
“I am sure that I shall find your little daughter a very receptive
pupil, Mr. Archer,” she said graciously. This time it was certain that
Mr. Sethibald had puffed. He had never heard the word “receptive”
before, but it had a most complimentary sound.
“Yes, ma’am, Miss Bayley, you’ll find the little sheep-princess all that
an’ more, much more, ma’am.” He was unctuously rubbing his hands as he
spoke. Then going to the side of the vehicle and holding out a
bediamonded hand, he added, “Come now, Jessica, darlin’, and meet the
new teacher, her as is goin’ to teach you lots of nice things.”
He lifted the small girl to the ground, and Miss Bayley advanced, her
hand held out, but the little “sheep-princess” drew back and clung to
her father.
The teacher found herself comparing this lack of manners with the
natural graciousness of Carolina, but the father evidently considered
his daughter’s behavior as being praiseworthy.
“Shy little thing,” he commented in another of his quite audible asides.
“Not bold like that Carry Martin.”
Then the unexpected happened. The little girl referred to darted forward
with catlike swiftness. “My name is _not_ Carry Martin,” she cried.
“It’s Carolina, and my folks are—” She was drawn back and quieted by
poor Dixie, who looked her misery. Teacher, quite at a loss what to say,
glanced at the shy and model Jessica at that moment and saw her sticking
out her tongue and tilting her nose at the Martins.
Miss Bayley sighed. There were evidently snags ahead, but Mrs. Archer
was speaking. “Sethibald,” she said, with a desire to impress the new
teacher with her own great importance, “it’s time now that you were
a-drivin’ me over to Genoa, where I have to speak in front of a mothers’
meetin’ on how to bring up the young.” Then, turning to Miss Bayley, she
added condescendingly, “Me and you’ll be great friends, I’m sure, bein’
as we’re both sot on upliftin’ folks in this here neighborhood from
shiftlessness and ignorance.”
Before the astonished young teacher could reply, the stubby, reddish
gentleman had climbed up on the front seat, and the restive white horses
had started off down the pine-edged lane at a brisk speed, and Josephine
Bayley, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, led the way into the large
bare room of the old schoolhouse, where she was to spend many a day
finding new problems and new pleasures. There were ten pupils in all.
Two of them, Mercedes and Franciscito Guadalupe, had but recently come
to that mountain country from Mexico.
Their father was the new overseer at the Archer ranch, and as yet they
had not learned one word of English.
They were brightly dressed, dark-skinned little creatures, and each time
that the new teacher spoke to them, their reply was the same, “_Muchas
gracias, Senorita_,” which sounded very polite, but how was Josephine
Bayley to teach them reading and spelling if neither knew the language
of the other?
Two of the remaining pupils were equally hopeless, being the most
forlorn little mites, children of a trapper who lived somewhere over
toward Lake Tahoe, but, as Miss Bayley was to find, these pupils only
came now and then, when their trapper-father could spare time to bring
them, one in front and one back of him, on his horse.
Maggie and Millie Mullet were twins, aged six years, and Miss Bayley
found as the weeks went by that although, after an hour of earnest
effort, she might teach them to spell such words as “cat,” “bat,” “rat,”
“mat,” when questioned the next day their minds were as blank as though
they had never heard the words.
The tenth pupil was a very large boy, sixteen years of age, who was the
only son of the burly blacksmith over at Woodford’s. He studied
diligently, and when he once learned a thing he seemed never to forget
it, and so of him Miss Bayley had a little more hope. However, his
father, the powerful Ira Jenkins, Senior, thought “larnin’” unnecessary,
but the mother, having learned to read, pored over novels, even when
preparing meals, and she had decided that her overgrown son should be a
preacher like the one who came once a month from Genoa and held
“meetin’s” in the parlor at the inn.
As Miss Josephine Bayley looked over her little class that first
morning, she felt desperately at a loss to know how to begin. Each
child, it seemed, was studying something different from all the others,
and, to add to her discomfort, the new teacher realized that the eyes of
Jessica Archer, which were like her father’s, were watching her every
move as though she had been admonished by her elders to observe and
report all that happened.
The one bright spot was the corner where the wide-awake, intelligent
young Martins sat, and Josephine Bayley found herself actually glad that
they were “blue-blooded.”
Just as the new teacher was becoming almost panicky at the newness of
everything, the slim, freckled hand of Dixie Martin appeared on high,
and when Miss Bayley nodded, that small maiden arose, and, going to the
desk on the platform, she said softly, “Please, teacher, we usually
begin with singing. We all know the ‘Good-Morning’ song. I’ll lead if
you want me to; I often do.”
“Oh, I’d be ever so grateful if you would.”
And so Dixie turned around and began to sing, in a clear, bird-like
voice, a simple little melody that the older pupils knew and sang with
her. There were four stanzas, and when the song was finished, the hand
of Jessica Archer went up, and, rising, she said that as she was the
smartest pupil in the school, she was always asked to read first.
“Very well, Jessica. My pupils, I am sure, will all be glad to help
their new teacher to-day by making suggestions. Now, if you will read
where you left off last term, I shall better understand how to class
you.”
“Oh, I am class A,” the small girl said proudly, “and Dixie Martin and
Ken and Ira Jenkins are class B, and the rest are class C.”
“Indeed!” was all the new teacher said, but she was thinking that her
predecessor had evidently succeeded in fulfilling all the requirements
of the board. But why, then, had she left? Oh, she did recall that Mrs.
Enterprise Twiggly had said that the last teacher had married a
prospector, who, for a time, had been in the mountains near Woodfords.
Romance was something that interested Josephine Bayley, aged twenty
years, not at all. She had never been in love and never would be, she
was sure of that. She was going to be wedded to her profession. She had
never even met a lad who could interest her, and surely if she had
failed to find one in the city of New York, where she had many
delightful friends, she would not find him in this wild, rugged mountain
country.
And all the while these thoughts were idly passing through the brain of
Josephine Bayley, her “smartest” pupil was stumbling and stuttering
through a short story in the Fourth Reader. It was not until the little
girl sat down and was casting a triumphant glance over toward the Martin
corner that the new teacher, with a start, awakened from her reverie.
Dixie Martin read next, and with so much expression that Miss Bayley was
both amused and interested. She believed, and truly, that the mother’s
yearning to be an actress had descended as real talent to at least this
one of her children.
“Dixie,” the new teacher said, “I wish you would remain in at recess. I
want to speak to you.”
If there was a jealous tilt to the curly head of Jessica, Miss Bayley
did not notice it. When the others had filed out, for fifteen minutes of
freedom, the new teacher took the hand of Dixie and said earnestly:
“Dear, why are you reading in a Third Reader? Here is a Sixth Reader.
See if you couldn’t read that.”
The gold-brown eyes were glowing. “Oh, yes, ma’am, Miss Bayley, I could.
I love reading. After supper every night I read to the children
‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ and ‘Oliver Twist’ and the Almanac. That’s all the
books we have.”
There was a firmer line about the mouth of Josephine Bayley. She had in
that moment decided that she would tutor at least this one of the
Martins, out of school-hours. Over her free time, surely, the board
would have no jurisdiction.
CHAPTER SIX
KEN’S SECRET SORROW
It was Saturday, which was the busiest of the whole week in Woodford’s
Cañon, for it was house-cleaning day in the old log cabin which was
guarded by two spreading pine trees, but this Saturday was especially
busy.
“Carol, please do stop frittering,” Dixie called as she turned from the
stove which she was polishing with as much care as though it had been a
piano. “Don’t you know who is coming to call this very afternoon, and
I’d feel just terrible, I certainly would, if Miss Bayley sat on dust,
and that’s what she’s likely to do if you skip places at dusting, as you
usually do, and I haven’t time to-day to rub them over and see.”
The younger girl, who had been leaning far out the window, supposedly to
shake a duster, but who had continued to linger there, watching two
squirrels playing tag among the dry pine needles, returned reluctantly
to the task she so disliked.
“O dear! it’s just mean-hateful being poor folks the way we are,” she
complained, “and having to do our own work with our own hands. I’ve
heard my beautiful mother say so time and again. When she was a girl she
had two little darkies to wait on her. She never had to pick up
anything, if she dropped it. She didn’t have to even lift a finger.”
Dixie straightened up to rest her tired shoulders, for polishing a stove
was hard work at best, and almost unconsciously she glanced down at her
own fingers that were jet-black just then, and for a bit of a moment she
sighed, and was half tempted to think that, maybe after all, it would be
nice to have nothing to do but sing and read, or live in the
out-of-doors that she so loved. But a second later she was her own
optimistic, practical self. “Carol Martin,” she announced, “just for
that, now, we’re going to count our blessings. You begin! One?”
“O dear!” the other little maid sighed as she knelt to dust the rungs of
an old grandfather’s chair. “I ’spose I ought to be thankful that I’m
beautiful, like my mother.”
Dixie laughed as she whirled about, her expressive freckled face at that
moment being far more attractive than that of her prettier, younger
sister.
“Of course you should,” she declared good-naturedly, “and I’m thankful
that I have Jimmy-Boy, and here he comes this minute to ask me to give
him some bread and molasses.”
The door burst open and the small boy ran straight to his little mother,
but it was not of bread and molasses that he spoke. “Dixie, dear,” he
said, and his brown eyes were wide with wonder, “Buddy Ken is in the old
barn an’ he won’t speak to me or nuffin’. I fink he is crying.”
“Mercy, no, not that! A big brave boy like Ken never cries.” However, in
the heart of the girl who was far too young to be carrying so much
burden, there was a sudden anxiety. She had noticed, for several days,
that Ken had acted preoccupied, almost troubled. She had not mentioned
it, for perhaps he was just figuring how he could sell the apple-crop to
the best advantage. Yes, surely that must be all that was the matter.
Dixie went on with the polishing. There was just one lid to do and then
the task would be finished.
“Run away, Jimmy-Boy,” she said in her singing voice. “Play until Dixie
is through, and then you shall have your nice bread and molasses.”
“Don’t want bread; want Buddy Ken to fix my wagon and he won’t speak to
me. He’s crying inside of him, Ken is.” At this the small boy burst into
tears.
The last rub had been given to the stove, so Dixie washed her hands,
and, kneeling, she kissed the small boy as she said: “James
Haddington-Allen Martin, I guess it’s time to ask you to count your
blessings. Now, sir, begin. Blessing one is—” She paused, but she didn’t
have long to wait. The clouded face brightened and throwing his arms
about his “little mother,” he cried, “_You!_”
The girl held him in a close embrace. Then she said: “Carol, dear,
please give Jimmy-Boy his ten-o’clock bite while I hunt up Ken. I’m
afraid he’s worrying about the apples.” Carol was glad of anything that
would relieve her from the hateful dusting.
Catching her sunbonnet from its place by the door, Dixie went in search
of her brother who was her confidant and dearest friend. If he were
keeping something secret from her, it would be the first time. Then she
smiled as she thought, “Maybe even Ken needs to count his blessings.”
Singing to cheer herself, she went down the path that led to the old log
barn.
“K-e-n! K-e-n! Where are you, brother?” There was no response, and since
it would be impossible for the lad to be in the barn and not hear the
cheery voice that had called, Dixie’s anxiety increased. She entered the
wide, front door and glanced about. At first, coming as she did from the
dazzling sunshine the girl could not see the boy, who was seated in the
farthest, darkest corner. His hands were over his ears, and that was why
he had not heard her approach. Truly, he did look the very picture of
despair. Instantly Dixie knew that her surmise had been correct.
Something had gone wrong about the apples.
Hurrying to his side, she slipped an arm over his shoulder and laid her
cheek on his thick, red-brown hair. “Brother, dear,” she said, as she
sat beside him on the bench, “here’s Dixie, your partner. Please let me
carry my share of whatever it is.”
The boy reached out and grasped the hand of his sister and held it hard.
When he looked up, there were tears trickling down the freckled face
that was so like her own. “Did you go to town this morning, Ken?” was
the question she asked.
The boy nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I went before sun-up. I heard the
apple-buyer from Reno would be at the inn to-day, and I wanted to be on
hand early. I took along a basket of apples to show, and I thought they
were fine, b-but, Dixie, they w-weren’t fine at all. W-when I saw the
apples from the Valley Ranch, I knew ours were just a twisty little old
cull kind. Tom Piggins was there from the V.R., and he said our apples
are the sort they feed to their hogs. I didn’t stay to show them to the
buyer, I can tell you. I just lit out for home, b-but now there won’t be
any money for you to buy a new stove.”
“I don’t need a new stove,” Dixie said emphatically. “My goodness me,
come to think of it, I wouldn’t have a new stove for anything, now that
I’ve spent two hours and twenty-five minutes polishing the old one. It
looks so fine. I’m sure it will feel heaps more self-respecting, and I
shouldn’t wonder if it would bake better, too.” Then her eyes brightened
with the light of inspiration. “Ken Martin, we’ll give it a chance to
show what it can do right this very minute. You fetch in that basket of
apples you had for a sample, and I’ll make an apple pudding, the kind
you like so much, and we’ll celebrate.”
“Celebrate? For what?” Ken looked up curiously. Was there no end to the
cheerfulness of this sister of his?
Dixie was groping about in her mind for something over which they might
rejoice. “Oh, we’ll celebrate because we have a new teacher,” she
announced triumphantly, and the next thought made her clap her hands
joyfully. “Ken Martin, if it’s what you’d like to do, I wish you’d go
right over to the inn and invite Miss Bayley to lunch.”
Their beautiful mother had always called the noon meal lunch, although
Pine Tree Martin could never remember, and had always called it dinner.
Ken rubbed his sleeve over his eyes and looked up eagerly. “Then you
really aren’t so terribly disappointed about the apples?”
“Disappointed? Goodness, no! I’d feel sort of mean selling that old
stove of ours that’s been so faithful all these years just for
scrap-iron, and, what’s more, I feel sure all this is a blessing in
disguise.” Dixie had risen and was smiling down at her brother, who also
rose.
“Say, Dix,” he said, “you’re as good as a square meal when a fellow’s
hungry.” Then he laughingly added, “But, if not selling the apples is a
blessing, it sure certain is well disguised.”
“Most things are blessings soon or late,” Dixie said. “Now, Ken, you go
and tell Miss Bayley we’re sort of celebrating, and we’d feel greatly
honored if she would come.”
Then into the house Dixie bounced to share her joyous plan with Carol.
“Oh, how I do hope teacher will come,” that little maid said. “Then
we’ll be first to have her, and won’t I crow over that horrid Jessica
Archer though?”
“You’d ought not to feel that way about anybody, Carol, dear,” the older
girl admonished as she sat on the doorstep and began to pare apples. “If
folks are horrid-acting, they are to be pitied, because they can’t be
happy inside. Now, if you like, you may set the table with the best
cloth and china while I make the pudding and put some potatoes in to
bake.”
The violet-blue eyes of the younger girl were shining. It was a great
treat to her to be allowed to open the big old-fashioned cupboard that
held the set of china that had been their mother’s. When Ophelia had
first come to the log cabin, there had been only the thickest and most
serviceable kind of ware, but when Pine Tree Martin found what a
hardship it was for his wife to use it, he had sent to Reno and had
ordered the choicest set they could procure. This was kept carefully
locked in the great old cupboard, and used only on rare occasions.
Jimmy-Boy had been placed in his crib, which was in the lean-to room,
where also was the big four-posted bed in which Ken slept. The two
little girls chatted happily as they prepared for the great event.
“What if teacher can’t come?” Carol paused every now and then to say,
and dozens of trips she took to the open door to look up the trail
toward the cañon road. At last she gave a triumphant squeal.
“Here comes Ken, and teacher is with him. Oh, goodie, goodie, good!”
Carol was pirouetting like a top. “Won’t I brag it over Jessica,
though!”
Then, as the two drew nearer, the small girl called excitedly, “Dixie
Martin, whatever is that thing that Ken’s carrying? It’s wriggling so he
can hardly hold it. Whatever can it be?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE BLESSING UNDISGUISED
The two girls ran out to meet their most welcome guest, the new teacher.
Ken, who for the moment had stepped behind the massive trunk of one of
the great old pine trees to hide, then appeared, and Carol gave a shout
as she said: “Why, Ken Martin, if you haven’t got a little pig! Oh-o,
don’t let it get away. I’m terribly scared of pigs.”
No one, looking at the shining, freckled face of the boy, would have
dreamed that only an hour before that same face had been the picture of
misery.
“It’s that blessing in disguise, Dix,” Ken said, as he triumphantly held
up a rather skinny and very young member of the porcine family.
“Why, Kentucky Martin, wherever did you get that pig?” the older sister
inquired. “I didn’t know you had one penny left after you’d bought your
high-topped boots.”
“I didn’t buy him, Dix,” Ken declared. “I had him given to me.”
Here was indeed an astonishing statement, for pigs were valuable. This
one, though, was an unusually skinny-looking specimen. The boy,
believing that he had sufficiently aroused the curiosity of the girls,
went on to inform them:
“Well, as I was going up toward the inn I heard an awful squealing over
in Ira Jenkins’s pen, and I ran to see what was the matter. Seems that
their old sow had always disliked this little pig, and wouldn’t let it
nurse with the others, and so Mrs. Jenkins had been keeping it in the
house behind the stove; but the blacksmith tripped over it this morning,
and he said it would have to go back in the pen where it belonged, even
if the mother-sow ate it up, bones and all. Ira had just put it in the
pen when I came along, but the old sow had made for it and in another
moment the little pig would have been dead, certain-sure. Ira just
leaned over the fence doing nothing, and I said, ‘Aren’t you going to
save that little pig’s life?’ And he answered: ‘No. What’s the use? It
can’t live in our house, and it seems like it can’t live in its own, so
it might as well be dead.’ Then he grinned and said, like he thought I
wouldn’t dare, ‘If you can save that little pig, you can have it.’”
Dixie’s eyes were wide. “Ken Martin, I hope you didn’t get right into
that pen where an angry old sow was. Don’t you know they will turn on a
boy just as quick as anything?”
Ken nodded, and then looked down at his overalls that plainly showed
that he had not escaped without a muddying.
“Yes, I know,” he said, “but I took a chance, and I’m glad I did, for
now we own a pig. I’ve always wanted one, and, oh, Dix, I’m almost glad
we didn’t sell the apples.” Then, as he held the squealing little
creature up to be admired, the boy added, “I’ve named him already.”
Carol sniffed. “I shouldn’t think a pig would need a name,” she said.
Ken chuckled. “I’ve named him ‘Blessing,’ and now if you’ll excuse me,
Miss Bayley, I’ll go and build him a place to live. Carol, will you come
along and hold him while I’m putting up a fence for his pen?”
“Me, hold him? I should say not!” and the dainty little girl held back
her skirts as though the very thought of touching the creature was
contaminating.
“Maybe I can help,” Miss Bayley surprised them all by announcing. “I
never _did_ hold a pig,—we don’t have very many of them in New York,—but
there’s always a first time for everything.”
The boy’s eyes plainly showed his admiration, and down toward the barn
these two went, while the girls returned to the house to put the
finishing touches on the lunch. Half an hour later Carol called from the
door, and a returning shout from Ken carried the message, “Come on down,
first, and see the pen.”
Hand in hand Carol and Dixie darted down the path, and how they laughed
when they looked over into the very small yard that Ken had fenced off.
Too, there was a large box, open at one side, with fresh straw on the
bottom, that would make a fine bed.
The skinny little pig looked up, almost fearfully, at the four laughing
faces that were peering over the top rail at him. “After lunch let’s get
some apples and feed him,” Carol suggested.
Suddenly Dixie thought of something. “Why, Ken Martin, we can’t feed
your little pig apples yet; he’s still taking milk.”
“That’s so,” said the boy, snapping his fingers. Then he added: “I say,
Dix, couldn’t you find the bottle Jimmy-Boy used to have? I can feed him
with that, like as not.”
“I believe I know just where it is,” the little mother said, “but come
now or the apple pudding will be done too much.” And so, promising the
small pig that he would soon return, Ken leaped the fence and they all
went up to the cabin.
A merry lunch it was, and the apple pudding was done to a turn. Indeed,
never before had the old stove baked so well, and it seemed to shine
with pride. Miss Bayley declared, and she meant it, too, that she could
not remember when she had so enjoyed being guest at a luncheon party,
and when, at last, she announced that she must go, as there was a letter
to be written before the stage came, they all trooped with her to the
top of the cañon road.
When they were home again, Dixie declared: “There now, Ken, you said
this morning that you couldn’t think of anything to celebrate about, and
just see what a wonderful day we’ve had. It’s always that way, I do
believe. When a person feels gloomy, if he’d just up and prepare to
celebrate, even if there’s nothing to celebrate about, something will
turn up, certain-sure.”
“You’re right, Dix. You always are,” her brother declared warmly. “Two
things turned up, the pig and Miss Bayley.”
But a harder problem to solve than that of a poor apple-crop was just
ahead of brave little Dixie.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A QUEER BANK
It did seem as though some little imp of mischief was trying to worry
poor Dixie Martin. She had been far more sorry about the failure of
their apple-crop than she had confessed, for, although the old stove
would do for another year or two, the little mother knew that Carol’s
best dress was actually shabby, and that night, after the small pig had
been fed with a bottle, to the great delight of Jimmy-Boy, and after he
and Ken were asleep in the lean-to, and Carol in the loft, Dixie sat up
in bed and listened, to be sure than no one was awake.
The light of the full moon streamed in at the small window of the loft,
and so she did not need to light the candle. Lifting the
corn-husk-filled mattress at one corner, she drew forth an old woolen
sock that had belonged to Pine Tree Martin. Nobody knew how the girl,
who had inherited so many of his courageous, optimistic qualities,
treasured that and every other little thing that had belonged to the man
whom she so loved. Indeed, as Carol’s admiration had been all for her
mother, very much of Dixie’s had been for her father, which was not
strange, for she had been old enough to see how selfish were the demands
of the rather weak, though truly beautiful, woman, and how constant were
the willing sacrifices of her father.
The money in the stocking was Dixie’s savings for the entire year, and
she knew, even before she emptied the few dimes and nickels out upon the
counterpane of her bed, that there was nowhere near enough to buy Carol
a store dress, and even if there might be enough for material, who was
there to make it? Kind old Grandmother Piggins on the Valley Ranch had
made them each a dress two years before, the ones that buttoned down the
front, but now she was dead, and there was no one to care for them.
Slowly Dixie counted. There was just two dollars and thirty cents, and
Jimmy-Boy ought to have a warm coat before winter, that is, if he were
to go to school. When he didn’t go, the other three children had to take
turns staying at home with him, and when one only went to school two
days out of every three, one couldn’t make as much headway as one
desired, that is, not if one were as ambitious as Dixie. With a sigh
that would have been perfectly audible had any one been awake to hear
it, the dimes and nickels were replaced, the sock again knotted, and
Dixie was about to put it under the mattress when she suddenly held it
close to her, and, looking up at the sky, she sobbed under her breath:
“Oh, Dad! Dad! You’d know just what I’d ought to do. How I wish you were
here to tell me!”
Just then Carol turned over, and, fearing that she might waken, Dixie
slipped the precious sock into its hiding-place and climbed back into
bed, but not to sleep, for her thoughts kept going over the problem
without finding a solution.
Ever since her father had died, Mr. Clayburn, the kindly banker over at
Genoa, had sent Dixie twelve dollars a month, which, he said, was
interest on money that her father had left there for his children. The
principal, he had assured Ken and Dixie, was invested in good securities
that would probably continue to provide for them the princely income of
twelve dollars a month.
During the summer it was not hard for Dixie to manage, for Ken raised
many things in his garden, but in winter, when there were warm clothes
to buy and no garden to help provide, the little mother found it very
hard to make ends meet, and now it was October and there was only two
dollars and thirty cents in the sock.
“Well,” she thought at last with a sigh, “Carol’s old dress will have to
do, and Jimmy’ll just have to stay at home from school when cold weather
comes.”
It was very late when Dixie Martin closed her eyes in restless slumber,
but even then the little imp of mischief was not satisfied, for, when
the girl’s gold-brown eyes opened wearily, it was on a day when a still
greater problem was to confront her.
CHAPTER NINE
THE “CHARITY BARREL”
It was noon of the day following the luncheon party, and as it was the
one Sunday of the month on which the Reverend Jonathan Cressly held a
religious meeting at Woodford’s Inn, the little Martins had been
attending the Sunday school.
The text had been, “Little children, love ye one another,” but the
kindly old man departed in his rather ancient buggy, drawn by a
shambling old white horse, with a feeling that his talk had not been
entirely successful, for he had heard one little girl, who was very much
dressed up, making fun of the Martin girls because they wore dresses
that buttoned down the front.
“Those Martin children are certainly a problem in the parish,” Mr.
Cressly had told the Home Missionary Society in Genoa, and the women had
collected clothing that they thought might fit, and had sent a brimming
barrel over to the log cabin in Woodford’s Cañon. That was soon after
the father died, but, to their unutterable amazement, the same driver
had brought it back on his cart, saying that Miss Dixie Martin wished
him to thank the ladies, as she knew they meant it kindly, and that
although she and her sister and brothers weren’t needing charity, she
was sure there were many families in the mountains that did—the Washoe
Indians in the creek-bottom, if no one else.
“Whew-gee!” Lin Crandel, the expressman, had ejaculated. “That
red-headed gal stood up like she was the president’s darter, she sure
did, but it was the purty curly-headed one that spieled the most about
how blue-blooded they were. Didn’t folks know as they were
Haddington-Allens of Kentucky? Whew-gee! I kin tell you I felt like
apologizin’ for offerin’ ’em that barrel.”
Of course, after that the ladies of the Home Missionary Society did turn
their energies in other directions.
The four little Martins were at home again, and Dixie was setting out a
cold dinner, for, true to the teaching of his orthodox mother, Pine Tree
Martin had insisted upon one thing, which was that Sunday should be kept
holy, and that no work that was not absolutely necessary should be done
on that day. Since his wife had never worked very much on any day, this
had been no hardship for her.
After the simple meal, Ken said that he was going to walk over to the
Valley Ranch, and that they all might come along if they wished.
Jimmy-Boy was delighted, for if there was one little pig in their home
sty, there were a hundred at the Valley Ranch. Carol liked to go, for
Susie Piggins, aged fifteen years, went to a boarding-school in Reno,
but came home for the week-ends. Dixie usually enjoyed hearing Sue tell
of her experiences, but to-day she said that if the others didn’t mind
she would like to just stay at home and rest.
Ken’s understanding brown eyes gave one quick glance at his
comrade-sister, and noting that she was pale and that she leaned back in
the big grandfather’s chair as though she were unusually weary, he
decided that it would be doing her a kindness to take the other two
children away for the afternoon. Little did he dream that the paleness
came from long hours awake in the night.
The three had been gone for some time when Dixie was awakened from a
light slumber by some one calling: “Whoa, there! Here we are, Dobbin.”
Leaping to her feet, though still feeling a little dazed from having so
suddenly awakened, Dixie opened the door, to see on the path the kindly
banker from Genoa. At once there was panic in the heart of the girl. Why
was he coming in the middle of the month, or indeed why was he coming at
all? For the past year he had sent the money the first of every month by
Ira Jenkins, who did his banking over at Genoa, and was glad, in his
gruff way, to do a good turn for his little neighbors, the Martins.
Samuel Clayburn climbed out of the buggy and smiled at the girl. She
invited him to enter the cabin with a dignified little manner that she
had inherited from Pine Tree Martin, who had stood as straight and erect
as one of the trees that he so admired.
“Won’t you be seated, Mr. Clayburn?” Dixie asked, wondering why her
knees were shaking so that she could hardly stand.
“I can’t stop but two jiffs, little girl, but I thought I’d rather tell
you myself than write; seemed like a more humane thing to do, as I am a
father myself.”
“Oh, Mr. Clayburn,” the child leaned forward eagerly. “Has something
happened to the money? Is it all gone?”
Dixie was sitting on the very edge of a straight-backed chair, and her
folded hands were tightly clenched. Mr. Clayburn was plainly at a loss
to know how to begin. He had not supposed it would be so hard to tell a
small girl that—
“Little Miss Dixie,” he suddenly exclaimed, after having tried in vain
to think of some way to lead gradually up to the matter of business upon
which he had come, “please don’t take what I am going to say too much to
heart.” Then his kind, florid face brightened as an inspiration came to
him. “I have a fine plan,” he assured her, “a very fine plan which will
make it all right in the end. I am sure of that.”
“In the end, Mr. Clayburn? The end of what?” Poor little Dixie
remembered, just then, that that was what had been said when Grandmother
Piggins was dying—“It’s near the end now.”
She gave a little dry sob, and the good man took out his big red
handkerchief and mopped his brow. Then, coughing to clear his throat, he
began on a new tack. “Dixie, my wife has taken a great liking to little
Carol. She saw her last month over at the county fair, and she said then
that she’d like to adopt her to grow up twins with our little Sylvia.
It’s bad for a child to be brought up alone, you know,—makes them
selfish,—and we’re afraid our little daughter is beginning to be
spoiled, and so we’ve had it in mind for some time to adopt another
little girl if we could find a real nice one who needed adopting.”
For a moment the listener sat as one dazed. She could hardly comprehend
what the kind man was saying, but, when he paused to mop his brow again,
Dixie exclaimed: “Oh, but Mr. Clayburn, I couldn’t give up my little
sister, Carol. She surely wouldn’t want to leave Ken and Jimmy-Boy and
me”; but even as she spoke, Dixie feared that she was wrong. Carol would
be eager to go, probably, and what right had Dixie to keep her pretty
younger sister in a log cabin when she might be living in that fine big
white-pillared house in Genoa that was surrounded with a wide lawn and
beautiful gardens?
Then it was that Dixie thought of something, and a little of her
father’s keenness appeared in the thin, freckled face as she said, “Mr.
Clayburn, you didn’t come all the way from Genoa on a Sunday just to say
that, did you?”
The banker confessed that that had not been his original purpose for
making the journey. “You are right, little Dixie,” he said; “I came to
tell you that there has been a depreciation; that is, the securities in
which your father’s small principal is invested, are not as valuable as
they were, and hereafter your monthly income will only be nine dollars
instead of twelve, but, don’t you see, dear child,” the kind man leaned
forward and took her hand, “if Carol comes to live with us, the nine
dollars will go even farther than the twelve did with four of you?”
Dixie nodded miserably. Each member of the little brood was infinitely
dear to her, and she was so proud of Carol, who looked just like their
beautiful mother.
Looking up with tear-brimmed eyes, she said tremulously, “I oughtn’t to
stand in her way if she wants to go, and more than likely she will. She
likes pretty dresses and things that I can’t get for her, ’specially
now, that there’ll only be nine dollars a month.”
The heart of Mr. Clayburn was deeply touched and he hastened to say,
“Little Miss Dixie, don’t you want me to write just once more to your
aunt down South?” He arose as he spoke.
There was a flash of pride in the eyes of the small girl. “No,” she
said. “Never again. We’re not going to push ourselves in where we’re not
wanted.”
“You’re right in one way, Dixie,” the banker agreed, “but it’s my
opinion that your aunt doesn’t know that you exist. She has never opened
even one of the letters. They have been returned just as they were
sent.”
“Then she won’t have the trouble of returning another.” The little girl
also had risen, and, as the banker started toward the door, she
impulsively held out her hand as she said, “Mr. Clayburn, thank you for
being so kind,—I mean about Carol,—and if she wants to go to you, shall
I send you word by Mr. Jenkins?”
“Yes, yes,” the portly gentleman said. Then, as he placed a fatherly
hand on the red-brown head of the girl, who somehow seemed smaller than
he had remembered her, he added cheerfully: “It isn’t as though you
won’t be able to see your little sister often. You and Ken and the baby
can come and have nice visits at our house, and Carol can come here.”
But even to himself this did not ring true. Mrs. Clayburn, who was known
as a social climber, had said that if she took Carol, she wished it
distinctly understood that Sylvia need have nothing to do with the
others, who were so like that impossible man whom the mountain people
had called Pine Tree Martin.
Poor Mr. Clayburn held the trembling hand in a firm clasp as he said
warmly: “There now, little girl, don’t be worrying any more than you can
help. You’ll be surprised how fine things are going to turn out.
Good-by. I’ll come after Carol when you say the word.”
As soon as the banker had driven out of the dooryard, Dixie threw
herself down in the big grandfather’s chair and sobbed as though her
heart would break, but at last she rose, washed her face, tidied her
hair, and began setting the table for supper. The other three would soon
be returning, and the little mother of them all would have to be the one
to be brave, outwardly at least. But oh, how the heart of her yearned
for the father whose strong arms had always been her haven of refuge!
But now she, Dixie, must be haven for the other three.
“Here they come,” she told herself. “Now we’ll talk it over, and Carol
may make her choice.”
CHAPTER TEN
CAROL’S CHOICE
When the three children entered the big living-room of the old log
cabin, Ken was the first to notice that Dixie had been crying.
“I knew it, I just knew it!” the boy blurted out. “You’re sick or
something, Dix. That’s why you looked so pale, and why you didn’t want
to go for a walk like you always do Sunday afternoons.”
“No, Ken, it isn’t that,” the oldest girl said. “Get your hats off and
come and sit here a while. I want to tell you all something.”
Dixie lifted little Jimmy-Boy and held him crushingly close. Then she
hid her face among his thick yellow curls, that Ken might not see the
rush of tears to her eyes, for she had suddenly thought, “The next thing
I know, somebody will offer to take my baby away from me, but, oh, they
can’t have him, not if I work my fingers to the bone to keep him!”
Luckily Ken remembered that the pig, three hens, the goat, and Pegasus
must be fed before dark, and, as it was dusk, he hastened to the
barnyard. Carol had climbed to the loft bedroom to put away her one
treasure, a hat with a pretty flower-wreath on it, and so Dixie had time
to dry the telltale tears before they returned.
“Fire ahead, Dix,” was Ken’s boyish way of announcing that he was ready
to listen. He whirled a straight-backed chair about and straddled it as
he spoke.
Dixie had not planned what she should say. She left it to the
inspiration of the moment. What she said was: “Mr. Clayburn has been
over while you-all have been away, and he said his wife would like to
have Carol go to Genoa and live with them and be a sister to their
Sylvia.”
If Dixie had hoped that Carol would say that she would far rather live
in the log cabin with them, she was doomed to disappointment, for
Carol’s pretty face glowed joyfully, and, clapping her hands, she cried:
“Oh, Dix, how wonderful that will be! Just think of the pretty clothes
I’ll have. That old ruffly dress of Jessica Archer’s will look like poor
folks by the side of the dresses I will wear. Why, Sylvia Clayburn had
on a pink-silk dress at the fair. I’d be the happiest girl on earth,
Dix, if I could have a silk dress and have Jessica Archer see me wearing
it.”
Ken had not spoken, but he was watching both of his sisters very
closely, and the slow anger of Pine Tree Martin was mounting in his
heart.
Suddenly he blurted, “Let her go, Dix, and be glad to get rid of her, if
that’s all the thanks she’s got to give, after the scrimping and
going-without you’ve done to buy her things.”
“Don’t, Ken, dear,” Dixie cried. “Carol’s not as old as we are,
and—she’s different.”
“I should hope I _am_ different,” the younger girl replied, tossing her
curls. “I am a Haddington-Allen through and through, my mother often
told me so, and you two are—are—”
“Don’t you dare say it!” Ken warned, and Carol, after a quick glance at
her brother, thought best not to complete her sentence.
The boy had whirled the chair away and was standing. Looking steadily at
the now shrinking younger girl, he declared, “Dix and I are proud,
proud, _proud_, that we are children of our father.” Then there was a
break in his voice that made even Carol ashamed of herself.
“Oh, I don’t see why we need be mad about it,” she said in a wheedling
voice, “and I should think you two would be glad to have me living where
I could have nice things and won’t have to dust and—”
Again Ken blurted out with, “Yes, you’re quite willing Dix should go on
doing all the work and bearing all the burden. We’ll be well rid of you,
I say, and the sooner the better.” At that the boy turned and left the
house, closing the door with a bang.
The next day Dixie sent word to Mr. Clayburn, and the following Sunday
noon, true to his promise, the banker reappeared.
Carol wore her best clothes and had nothing to carry. When it came to
the moment of saying good-by, Dixie, to outward appearances her own
cheerful self, kissed her little sister tenderly, and Ken said, “So
long,” not knowing whether he was glad or sorry. Then Carol stooped to
kiss little Jimmy-Boy, who suddenly threw his arms about her neck and
held her close. “Jimmy loves Carol,” he prattled, as he put his dewy
mouth up to be kissed.
For one brief moment the little girl hesitated, then, unfastening the
clinging baby arms, she ran and climbed into the waiting buggy and sat
beside Mr. Clayburn. Then she smiled and waved. Little Jimmy, not in the
least understanding what was happening, began to sob and reached out his
chubby arms.
Dixie caught him up and held him as she waved his small hand at the
disappearing wagon. Then, with a sigh, the little mother turned back
into the log cabin, feeling very much as though there had been a death
in the family.
To the very last she had hoped that Carol loved them all too much really
to leave them; but Ken was calling to her, and so, holding fast to Baby
Jim’s hand, she went out to the barnyard to see what he wanted.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
PLANNING A WAY OUT
The evening of the day when Carol had ridden away from her log-cabin
home to live in the handsome colonial residence of the banker of Genoa,
Ken and Dixie sat up later than usual. Ken had a slate on the table in
front of him.
“The taxes are twelve dollars a year,” he was saying, “so, just as soon
as the money comes each month, we must put one dollar in a safe place.”
Dixie nodded and then glanced at the tall grandfather clock. It was
nine. She wondered if Carol had remembered to say her prayers before she
went to bed, and would she miss Dixie’s good-night kiss. Perhaps not
that very first night. She’d be so excited and interested, everything
being so new and strange. Never before had the older girl spent even one
night away from any of her little brood. She supposed that she might get
used to it in time, sleeping alone in the loft.
“Dix, you’re not paying the least mite of attention to what I am
saying.” Ken’s voice was patient, but he was a little vexed, for he knew
that he, who had always been a faithful brother and friend, was being
neglected while Dixie was yearning for their vain, selfish sister,
Carol.
“I heard what you said, Ken, dear, honestly I did! You were saying it
would take two dollars to buy a sack of dry beans, and another two
dollars for potatoes that we need right now. That’s five dollars out of
this month’s interest, and there’ll be another for extra things like
salt and sugar. It doesn’t look as though there’d be enough to buy a
coat for Jimmy-Boy, does it? And the cold winter will soon be here.”
The brow of the lad was wrinkled, and unconsciously he tapped his pencil
on the slate as he thought. Then suddenly he rose with a look of
determination that was so like his father’s. “Dix,” he said, “I’m not
going to school any longer. I’m going to work, that’s what. I’m fourteen
years of age now, and the law lets you stop then.”
The girl also had risen, and, placing a hand lovingly on the arm of her
brother, she said, “Kenny, you know that your heart’s set on going away
to school some day to learn how to make roads and bridges and things
like that.”
Ken nodded. “I know,” he said. “Maybe later I can go to school again,
but just now we need money.”
The lad had been twelve years of age the year that the State road had
crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He had been a frequent and
fascinated visitor at the camp where the civil engineer lived, and
Frederick Edrington, isolated from people of his own kind, had really
enjoyed the companionship of the intelligent boy, and had taught him
many things, leaving in the heart of the lad an unwavering ambition some
day to become a civil engineer.
When the camp of the road-builders had been moved farther and farther
west, Ken had managed to visit his friend until the distance became too
great, and at last he had to say good-by to Frederick Edrington, who had
been a greater influence for good in the boy’s life than either of them
at that time realized.
Now and then a letter or a picture postcard had come from the engineer,
who had been promoted to a government inspecting-position which took him
to many out-of-the-way places. One of Ken’s dearest desires was to meet
again this friend whom he so admired.
“Don’t stop going to school yet, Ken, dear,” Dixie was saying. “Let’s
wait till we get close up to trouble’s stone wall, and then, if we can’t
find an opening in it, we’ll turn back and do something else.” That had
been a favorite saying of Grandmother Piggins. “Trouble ofttimes seems
like a stone wall ahead, but when you get right close up to it you find
there’s an opening with sunshine and gardens just beyond.”
Ken whirled about and caught his sister’s hands. “I’ll make a bargain,
Dix,” he said. “If you’ll promise not to grieve about Carol, I’ll
promise to keep on going to school until we come to the stone wall and
find there isn’t an opening.”
Dixie smiled. “I ought to be glad,” she said, “because Carol is to have
so nice a home.” Then she added wistfully, “I’m going to be glad, honest
I am, just as soon as I get over being lonesome.”
Ken turned away and shook the stove. “Girls are queer,” was what he was
thinking, but it was with unusual tenderness that he kissed his sister
good-night.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CAROL’S NEW HOME
It had been a very excited little girl who had driven in between the
high stone gate-posts and had realized that the imposing white
mansion-like house set far back among fine old trees, and surrounded by
wide velvety lawns and gardens, where a few late flowers were still
blooming, was to be her future home. Since the little lass was very like
her mother, it was not strange that Carol truly believed that she was
receiving only that which it was her right to have.
Little Sylvia Clayburn she knew not at all, and Mrs. Clayburn she
remembered vaguely as being a very richly dressed woman who had stopped
her at the fair to ask whose little girl she might be, and, as usual,
Carol’s reply had been that she was a Haddington-Allen of Kentucky.
Later, when Mrs. Clayburn had heard the story of the four orphans from
her husband, she had said that she believed this little Carol would be
the right child for them to adopt, since they had decided that their
precious Sylvia was being spoiled growing up alone.
Nor were they wrong, for Sylvia, pale, thin, and fretful, indeed was
very much spoiled. Whenever she cried, her mother gave her candy, and
then, of course, she had no desire for plain, healthful foods.
“Sylvia has such aristocratic taste,” the proud mother would say. “She
scorns such plebeian food as bread, and will eat nothing but cake.”
No wonder that the child of such a mother should be spoiled and sickly.
It was late afternoon when Mr. Clayburn led Carol into the luxuriously
furnished library, where Mrs. Clayburn, reclining on a divan, propped up
with many silken pillows, was reading aloud to a small girl who was
dressed in the pale pink silk that had so aroused Carol’s envy and
admiration.
Languidly the woman lifted her eyes and closed the book when the
newcomer approached. “Wife, here is little Carol who has come to pay us
a good long visit, I hope,” the kind man said. Then to his own little
daughter he added, “Sylvia, won’t you come and shake hands with your new
sister?”
Mrs. Clayburn protested. “Samuel,” she said, “haven’t I told you time
and again that hand-shaking is effete, obsolete? It is not done now in
the best families.”
Carol, wishing at once to impress Mrs. Clayburn with the fact that she,
at least, was of a “best family,” was making a graceful curtsy, and
Sylvia, having received a prompting push from her mother, did likewise.
“As you wish, my dear,” said Mr. Clayburn, smiling as though he were
much amused.
“As long as this little lady is welcomed into our hearts, I’ll not be a
stickler as to what outward form is observed,” he thought. Then to
Sylvia he said, “Miggins, trot along upstairs and show your new sister
where to put her bonnet and things.”
“I don’t want to,” the small girl said, again seating herself by the
divan. “I want Mother to read to me.”
“Of course you needn’t go if you don’t want to,” Mrs. Clayburn told her.
Then she said to her husband: “Ring for Fanchon. Poor Sylvia is thin
enough as it is without wearing herself out needlessly climbing up and
down that long flight of stairs. We really ought to have a lift
installed. They are now putting them in the homes of the b—”
But Mr. Clayburn had gone. Good-natured as he was, he was becoming
extremely tired of hearing what was done in the best families.
There was a button in each room in the house, which, when touched, rang
a bell in the kitchen, and the indicator informed the maid where her
presence was desired, and so it was that a moment later a buxom young
woman in black and white appeared in the library door. Her rosy
countenance suggested that she was Irish, and in fact, when the banker’s
wife had engaged her, the maid’s name had been Norah, but since the best
families were employing French maids whenever they could be procured,
the name had been changed to Fanchon. However, Mrs. Clayburn had warned
her not to speak within the hearing of a guest, as her delightful brogue
could never be mistaken.
Carol followed the silent Fanchon up the long flight of stairs that
seemed velvety soft, and into a large, beautifully furnished chamber
where there were twin beds. The small girl clasped her hands in delight.
This, to her thought, was the kind of home in which she belonged. How
happy she was going to be there!
“Will you be after changing yer dress now, colleen?” the Irish maid said
pleasantly. “This here’s the one as the mistress said ye were to be
wearin’ for dinner to-night.” As she spoke she took from a closet one of
Sylvia’s dresses. “That child took a dislikin’ to it,” the maid went on
to inform the small listener, “and not once would she be puttin’ it on.
Ye’re in luck, colleen, changing this quick from gingham to red silk.”
The “blue-blooded” little girl looked with horror at the dress. It _was_
silk, but how she had always hated bright red. She actually drew herself
up as she said: “I don’t wish to wear it. I wish a blue silk dress.”
Now it happened that Mrs. Clayburn, on second thought, had decided to
climb the stairs and see just how the little orphan liked her new
surroundings, and so, holding the hand of Sylvia, she had just entered
the room unseen as this most ungrateful remark was being uttered.
“Indeed, Miss Martin?” she said in a tone of mingled iciness and
sarcasm. “What can you, a mere charity orphan, be thinking of to tell
what you wish to wear? You ought to be humbly grateful that you are
being taken out of that tumble-down log cabin and permitted to live in a
house as handsome as any belonging to the best families.”
For one brief moment a spark of Martin pride flamed up in the heart of
the small girl. Their log cabin was not tumble-down. Only that summer an
artist from the East had said that it was the most picturesque home that
he had seen in the whole State of Nevada. That was when the crimson
rambler had been a riot of bloom.
Wisely she said nothing, but meekly permitted the maid to put on the
hated red dress.
The swish of the silk was something after all.
Poor little Carol had not started out well, and she was to find that,
although she was living in a rose-garden, it was not one without thorns.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CAROL IN DISGRACE
The dinner was one of many courses, and there were two very formal
guests, and, to Mr. Clayburn’s mortification, as well as Carol’s, the
hostess, wishing to impress the fashionable Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis Burrell,
from Reno, with her philanthropic generosity, told in detail the story
of Carol’s life, beginning when her mother was a stranded actress in the
year of the big strike over at Silver City.
The kind man glanced often at the small girl whose face was becoming as
scarlet as a peony. He well knew that he would be publicly rebuked by
his wife if he remonstrated or attempted to change the conversation, and
yet were it not better that he should bear the brunt of it than this
mere child who had been invited to come to their home? But, before he
had time to decide just how best to intervene, Mrs. Clayburn had reached
a point in her narrative which necessitated a description of the father,
who, she informed them, had been a no-account rancher, called by the
mountaineers “Pine Tree Martin.” She said no more, for the small girl,
with flaming eyes, had risen so suddenly that her chair fell back with a
crash. “’Tisn’t so!” she cried, her small hands clenched. “’Tisn’t so,
at all!” She had whirled to face the visitors. “He was the kindest, best
father there ever was to Dixie, Ken, Baby Jim, and me.” Then, bursting
into tears, she ran from the room and groped her way blindly up-stairs
and into the room to which Fanchon had first taken her.
She was pulling at the buttons in the back of her red-silk dress when
she heard a step outside the door. It was Mr. Clayburn who entered.
“Carol,” he said, placing a kindly hand on the curly head, “don’t be
hurt, little girl. Mrs. Clayburn is thoughtless, but she can’t be really
as cruel as she seems. You sit here in this comfortable chair by the
fire and I’ll have the rest of your dinner sent up to you.”
He started away, but he turned back to say, “You were right, though,
little Carol. I knew your father well, and he was the finest and most
upright of men. Any girl might be proud to be his daughter.”
Then he left the child alone in the room that was but dimly lighted, and
as she sat there waiting the coming of Fanchon, for the very first time
in her life she felt a real love and loyalty for that man whom the
banker had just praised. How kind he had always been, and how gentle.
If—if this cruel, wicked, Mrs. Clayburn was “best families,” she’d
rather, oh, a hundred times rather, have her own dear, good father,
whatever he was.
Fanchon entered, bearing a tray, and placed it on a low table. “Poor
little colleen,” she said with understanding sympathy. “I’m not after
envyin’ you much, and that’s the truth. I can be leavin’ any hour I
choose, as I’d like to, after next pay-day; but I’m supposin’ you’ll
have to stay here to the end of time.”
Then she went away, and Carol sat staring into the fire, thinking of
what she had just heard. Did she have to stay there for ever and ever?
Ken wouldn’t want her back, and, after all, did she want to go back?
Maybe things would be better after that night, and it was something to
be able to wear silk; even red silk was better than gingham. The dessert
was a delicious concoction, and Carol, as she ate it, decided that
perhaps she had been partly to blame that things had started out so all
wrong. Just then Fanchon reappeared and she was leading Sylvia by the
hand. That little maid looked with big-eyed wonder at the newcomer.
“You’re a very bad, bold girl; that’s what my mother says you are; and
I’m not going to speak to you again till you say you’re sorry; and I
shall hate you always.” Then she closed her thin lips tight and did not
speak again while the buxom Irish maid was undressing her. Later Fanchon
unfastened the buttons of the red-silk dress, helped Carol to prepare
for bed, and then turned out the light.
There had been nothing said about prayers. Carol had never in all her
short life gone to bed until after prayers had been said. When Pine Tree
Martin lived, he had gathered his children about him in the warm kitchen
and had led in the evening prayer, and had read to them from the big
Bible. Ken did the reading now, in memory of his father.
When Carol was sure that Sylvia was asleep, she crept from bed, and,
kneeling in the moonlight, she said the little bedtime prayer that Dixie
had taught her, and then asked a blessing for each of the three who were
in the log-cabin home over in the mountains.
Then she crawled back into bed, feeling somewhat comforted, but she
never, just never, could forgive Mrs. Clayburn; she was sure of that.
Suddenly she sat up, thinking. What was it that Dixie had taught her?
Never to let the sun go down on her wrath. But the sun had gone down,
and the moon was up. Oh, what ought she to do? After all, maybe she had
seemed ungrateful. Dixie wouldn’t want her to go to sleep without asking
to be forgiven.
Creeping out of bed, she stole down the wide, velvet-soft stairway,
holding her long white nightgown in one hand, while she grasped the
banister with the other. The guests were just departing when they looked
up and saw the small girl descending. Mrs. Clayburn was horrified.
“Go back to bed this instant, you bad, bold child!” she commanded, and
so, too frightened to speak, Carol did turn and go back, to sob softly
into her pillow until, at last, just from weariness, she fell asleep.
So ended the first day of Carol’s life in the home of one of the “very
best families.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE LITTLE RUNAWAY
The next morning Sylvia was unusually fretful, and little wonder, for
she had had two helpings of the rich, creamy dessert the night before,
and would not eat the wholesome breakfast which was served to her in
bed.
Carol was told to remain in her room that morning as a punishment for
the manner in which she had misbehaved the night before. This message
was brought with her breakfast by Fanchon. To the surprise of the maid,
the small girl was up and had on her own old dress that buttoned down
the front.
“Oh, I just wanted to put it on,” the child said, when the kindly maid
expressed her surprise.
“Poor little colleen, I guess ye’re homesick, and I wouldn’t wonder at
it if you are,” was what Fanchon was thinking, but aloud she made no
comment, as the pale-blue eyes of her little mistress were watching her
from the bed where she sat propped among downy pillows.
All the time that Carol sat at the low table eating her mush and milk,
she, too, was wondering if she could be homesick. Almost unconsciously
her eyes roamed over the creamy net curtains and rose-silk draperies, at
the bird’s-eye maple furniture, and at the wide window-seat heaped with
rosy cushions.
Then her thoughts wandered to the little loft bedroom which she and
Dixie always shared together. There was one small window, with a
turkey-red curtain, a very old-fashioned chest of drawers, and in one
corner sat her doll, Peggotty Ann. Of course she was too old now to play
with dolls, for would she not be nine the very next month?
She glanced at the little brass bed in which she had slept. It was
covered with creamy net, lined with rose-colored silk. Spread over the
four-posted bed at home there was a many-colored piece-quilt that her
grandmother had made when she was a bride.
Somehow that loft-room seemed more homey after all. Fanchon had come to
take the trays. She asked Carol if she wished to put on one of Sylvia’s
pretty morning-dresses.
“No thank you, not yet,” the child replied. She walked over to the
window and looked out. It was a gray, gloomy day. If she were looking
out of a window at home, she would probably see Ken digging around
somewhere in the garden and whistling. What a jolly whistler Ken was!
Just then Sylvia, unable to longer remain unnoticed, said fretfully,
“Carol Martin, I was just falling asleep, and you made so much noise you
woke me right up, and my mother said I was to sleep all of this morning
because I am sickly.”
Carol felt that this was very unjust, for a little mouse could not have
been more quiet. She sat down in a chair by the window, trying hard not
to cry. Sylvia spoke again, “Well, as long as I can’t sleep, you may
bring me my best doll, and be sure you don’t drop her.”
Carol looked in the direction indicated and saw a beautiful French doll
that was nearly as big as she was. “Oh, what a beauty,” she exclaimed.
Very carefully she lifted it and took it to the little girl in the bed.
Then she turned away and was far across the room when a shrill scream
from Sylvia was followed by a crash. Sylvia had let the doll slip from
the bed.
“You did it, you horrid beggar-girl,” she cried, “and now my beautiful
doll is broken.”
The door burst open and Mrs. Clayburn appeared. She had hastily thrown
on a velvet lounging-robe and her hair was down her back.
“Mother,” Sylvia fairly screamed, “she made me drop my doll.”
Again the just wrath of a Martin was in the heart of Carol. “You _know_
you’re fibbing!” she said almost scornfully. “I’m not going to stay here
another moment. I’m not! I’m not! I’m going right home to-day where
folks live who are honest, and who l-love me, and I’m not going to say
I’m grateful ’cause you brought me here. I’m not! I hate you. I just
hate you both!”
Dashing to the closet before the astonished woman could realize what was
happening, the girl snatched her best hat from a hook and ran from the
room.
The bell for Fanchon sounded through the halls. “Stop that child before
she gets out of this house. Then lock her up in the coal-room,” was the
imperatively given command.
“Yes, ma’am. Which way was she after goin’, ma’am?” the maid lingered to
inquire.
“How can I tell, stupid! She can’t unlock the front door, so she is
probably there this minute, trying to get out.”
Mrs. Clayburn was right. That was where the Irish maid found her, but
instead of taking her to the dark, windowless basement-room, Fanchon
quickly unlocked the front door and set her free.
“Poor little darlint,” the maid thought, as she glanced anxiously up the
long flight of stairs to be sure that she was unobserved, “it’s me as is
wishin’ I had a log-cabin home in the mountains I could run away to.”
Mrs. Clayburn, at an upper window, saw the small figure flying across
the lawn. She went at once to the telephone and called up the bank.
“Samuel, have that child caught and brought back here at once. She’s got
to beg my pardon and be properly punished before she can leave this
house.”
But the banker was busy, and he failed to send any one to search for the
little runaway, and so, though Mrs. Clayburn watched and waited, at noon
the culprit had not been returned to her. Several hours later her
husband called to say that he was going into the country on business and
would not be home to dinner.
“Poor little Carol,” he thought as he started driving toward the
mountains, “she probably has tried to walk home, but her little legs
will tire out long before she gets there, and no one living along the
way except the Washoe Indians.” Mr. Clayburn hastened the pace of his
horse as he thought of this. Meanwhile Carol, on leaving the home of the
banker, had slipped unobserved through side-streets until she came to a
highway on the outskirts, which she believed led in the direction of her
log-cabin home.
She had been to Genoa but once before, and that was when she was six
years of age, and though she knew that she must follow one of the
side-roads toward the mountains, she was not sure which one to take.
On and on she trudged. The houses were very far apart now, and at last
there were none at all. The child looked very small indeed as she
crossed the desert-like stretch of sandy waste where only sagebrush and
a few twisted trees were growing.
At last she reached a crossing, and to her joy, a sign-post informed her
that Woodford’s was but six miles away over in the mountains. At least
it was a comfort to know that she was going in the right direction. The
pine trees grew bigger and denser and the road began to ascend.
The child’s feet were very tired, and, at last, she was so weary that
she felt that she just could not take another step, and so she sank down
on a boulder to rest. How silent it was, save for the moaning of the
gentle breezes in the pines. The only living thing that she saw was a
great wide-winged vulture that was swinging around overhead in circles.
Never in her life had the child felt so alone in the world, but she was
not afraid. The children of Pine Tree Martin had never learned fear.
“I must hurry on,” she thought, as she again arose and trudged bravely
up the rough mountain road. With feet that would lag, however eager she
might be to go on, she slowly climbed, but, with five miles still ahead,
the small girl realized that she could walk no farther. Sinking to the
ground, she curled up under a pine tree and began to sob softly.
Suddenly she sat up alert, listening. She had heard the pounding of a
horse’s feet around the curve that she had just passed. Some one was
coming!
She hid behind the trunk of a tree that she might see without being
seen, and then watched and waited. Soon a horse and rider appeared.
After one glance the small girl, with a glad cry, leaped out into the
road. It was Tom Piggins riding on a big dappled work-horse. He had been
to Genoa on an errand for his father, and was returning to the Valley
Ranch. Never before had Carol been so glad to see any one.
Running out into the road, she waved and shouted, “Tom! Tom! Please give
me a ride!”
“Why, Carry Martin, what you doin’ here?” For once the small girl did
not resent being called by that much-hated name. The long, lank boy
continued: “Ken was over to our place last night, and he was sayin’ as
how you’d been adopted by a rich banker. He said he was sort of glad of
it, you being so selfish and hard to live with, but Dixie, she’s been
sniffling ’round ever since you left, and the little kid keeps askin’,
‘Where’s Carol? Jimmy wants Carol.’”
Upon hearing this, the small girl sobbed afresh.
“Oh, Tom,” she cried, “I don’t want to be adopted. Please, please take
me home.”
The blunt boy was nevertheless kind, and so he helped the small girl up
on the big horse in front of him, and, as they rode along, Carol told
the whole story to sympathetic ears.
“Gee-crickets!” the boy exclaimed admiringly. “I’m certain glad you had
some of your pa’s spunk.” Then he added hopefully, “Maybe you’re goin’
to change, and get to be more like Dixie. Ken’ll like you heaps better
if you do.”
Carol said nothing, but in her heart she resolved that she would try to
be so much like Dixie that folks wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.
It was noon when Tom helped the little girl to the ground in Woodford’s
Cañon, and, after having thanked him, she started walking slowly down
the trail toward the log cabin, for a dreadful thought had come to her.
What if she wouldn’t be welcome. What if Ken should say, “You left our
home and now you can stay away.”
The window nearest the trail was open, and Carol thought she would look
in before going to the door.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A HAPPY REUNION
Within the cabin the three children sat about the table, eating their
midday meal. Carol at the window heard Ken say: “Dix, this is the second
day that you haven’t eaten one bite. If you get sick, how on earth’ll
Baby Jim and I get along?”
The girl turned from the table and began to sob. “I’m sorry, Ken,” she
said, “truly I am, but I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to eat again
unless Carol comes home.”
“Well, I sort o’ wish she’d come, too,” Ken declared, blinking very
hard.
There was a sudden warm glow in the heart of the little listener. After
all, she would be welcome. Even Ken wanted her! With a glad cry she ran
in the open door and threw her arms about her sister. Then she pounced
upon Ken and kissed him.
“I’m home,” she cried, “and please, please let me stay forever and
ever.”
Baby Jim was clamoring for attention, and he was caught in a crushing
hug while he waved his spoon and uttered joyous little squeals, although
he did not understand Carol’s home-coming any more than he had her
departure only the day before.
After a time, in which tears and laughter blended, Carol cried, “Dixie,
I’m ’most starved with that long walk and not eating much breakfast. I’m
so glad you’ve got fried potatoes and baked beans.”
“I’m hungry, too, now that I take notice of it,” the older girl said,
her freckled face beaming.
“Well, I thought I’d had enough, but I guess I could take another
helping,” Ken declared. And so they all sat down, and a merry meal it
was.
Oh, how much nicer her own home was, Carol thought, where even Baby Jim
could talk if he wished and not be told that only grown-ups should
converse at table. Carol didn’t tell all that had happened. In fact, she
didn’t seem to wish to speak of her recent experience. She inquired with
interest about the well-being of the pig and the three hens as though
she had been away a year.
Then she asked what had happened at school that day. None of them had
attended. They hadn’t had the heart to do anything, but on the morrow
all of them would go.
After the dishes were done, Carol climbed to the loft. For some reason
that she could not explain to herself, she wanted to see her old doll.
She hadn’t played with it for a year, not since Jessica Archer had made
fun of her and called her a baby for playing with a doll.
How cosy the loft bedroom seemed, the small girl thought as she reached
the top of the ladder. Those turkey-red curtains, with the sunlight
shining through them, were very cheerful looking. Peggotty Ann was
probably the most surprised and the happiest doll in the whole State of
Nevada, when, a moment later, she was caught up and kissed by her little
mistress.
Ken entered the kitchen, and, going to the table where Dixie sat sorting
the mending, he said very softly, that the girl in the loft might not
hear: “Dix, something’ll have to be done, now that Carol’s back. We
can’t make ends meet on nine dollars a month, and one to be laid aside
for taxes.”
Dixie looked up brightly. “There’s still two dollars and thirty cents in
the sock, Ken,” she said, “and we haven’t reached trouble’s stone wall
yet.”
“Dix,” the boy declared admiringly, “you’re a brick!” Then he added,
with a mischievous grin, “and I don’t mean because you’re red-headed,
either.”
A moment later when Carol, with her doll in her arms, looked out of the
small window in the loft, she saw Ken digging in the garden and heard
him whistling, and, for the first time in her young life, she realized
something of the contentment and joy contained in that one word, “home.”
Being very, very tired, after an almost sleepless night and a long walk,
the small girl curled up on the husk-filled bed to rest, her doll held
close. Soon she was asleep, and so she did not hear a horse and buggy
stop at the door. In fact, she never knew that Mr. Clayburn had called,
but Dixie knew, and what that kind man told brought joy to the heart of
the little mother.
The banker said that he was glad to inform her that he had succeeded
that very morning in loaning her father’s small principal in a way that
would bring fifteen dollars a month interest.
He did not tell her that he had loaned the money to himself, as he knew
that no one else would pay so high a rate of interest, and he was
determined that the wolf should be kept from the door of the four little
orphans who were too proud to accept charity.
When he was gone, Dixie ran out into the garden.
“Ken! Ken!” she called, and the boy thought that never before had he
seen her face so aglow. “We’ve reached trouble’s stone wall, and there
_was_ an opening through and on the other side is a garden that’s all
sunshine.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A JOYOUS DIXIE
The next morning Miss Bayley’s glance wandered often to the corner of
the room in the old log schoolhouse where sat the four little Martins.
She wondered why they all looked so beamingly happy. Little did she
dream of the exciting events of the day before. Not only had the small
prodigal returned, but their monthly income had been increased, and no
longer need the little mother scheme, plan, and contrive just to make
ends meet. Little Jimmy-Boy’s much-needed warm coat now could be
purchased as soon as the money came, and that would be at least two
weeks before the really cold weather set in. In fact, there were years
when November was as pleasant as October, and where, in all the world,
could one find more beautiful autumn weather than in Nevada?
When Dixie, as usual, led the opening song, her voice rang out with
lilting joyousness, and when she stood up to read, Miss Bayley was
charmed with the expression with which she interpreted the little story.
In fact, so pleased was she that she forgot to stop Dixie at the end of
the second page, as was the custom, but permitted her to read the entire
story of “The Three Bears.” It delighted her to note how Dixie’s voice
changed when Papa Bear or the Baby Bear spoke.
Then, when the little reader had finished, the teacher exclaimed with
real appreciation: “Dixie, you read that splendidly! You surely have a
gift.”
Then it was that she recalled that the mother of the Martin children had
been an actress, and a very audible sniff also reminded her of the fact
that she was praising some one who was not a daughter of the board of
education.
The sniff had come from the front seat, center, and the sniffer was, of
course, the haughty little Jessica Archer. That maiden had risen, and,
with a toss of her corn-colored curls, she announced, “Miss Sperry, our
last teacher, said I was the best reader in this school, and my father
said yesterday that she was the best teacher we’d ever had in
Woodford’s.”
Miss Bayley was indignant, and yet, if she wished to remain, she must be
politic, and now that she was so interested in the Martins, more than
ever did she want to stay.
“You read very nicely, Jessica,” she told the irate little maid,
“especially when you are thoroughly acquainted with the text. You may
now read the entire story of ‘Henny Penny.’”
Somewhat mollified, Jessica Archer read the tale which she knew by
heart, forwards or backwards, with more expression than was her wont.
She did not intend to have those no-account Martins win more praise than
was given to her.
With an inward sigh Miss Bayley assured Jessica that she had never
before heard her read so well, which indeed was true, and then she
called upon Ken to do an oral problem in arithmetic.
At recess, when the other children had trooped out of doors to play,
Dixie remained, and Miss Bayley, who was writing on the board, turned to
find a pair of eager eyes watching.
“Did you want to speak to me, Dixie, dear?” she inquired.
“Yes, ma’am, Miss Bayley, please, if ’twouldn’t be interrupting too
much. I want to ask advice about something that’s very secret.”
The teacher smiled. She believed that she was at last to learn the cause
of the inward glow that radiated from the thin, freckled face of the
older Martin girl, who was sometimes called “homely.”
But the secret something was destined not to be told, for just then
Jessica Archer, who had missed Dixie from the playground, entered the
schoolroom in search of her. Not that she desired the companionship of a
Martin, but she did not wish to give Dixie an opportunity to be alone
with the teacher.
Miss Bayley frowned, and very softly she said: “Dear, can’t you come
over to my cabin after school to-night? I very much want to have a real
heart-to-heart visit with you.”
“Oh, teacher, Miss Bayley, I’d love to. You can’t think how I’d love
to!” was the eagerly given reply.
Jessica Archer could not possibly have heard, and so it was merely a
coincidence which prompted her to say, “Miss Bayley, my mother said I
was to tell you to come home with me after school to-night and have
supper at our house.”
“Thank you, dear,” Miss Bayley replied, “I am sorry that I cannot
accept. Please thank your mother for me, and tell her that I had already
made another engagement.”
The young teacher was rebellious. Her free time, surely, was her own,
and she determined that she would do with it as she pleased.
Dixie was about to protest that she could come any other day just as
well, but there was an expression in her dear teacher’s eyes that
silenced her. Then as the clock marked the hour of ten, Miss Bayley rang
a bell which ended recess and recalled the small pupils to their
lessons. Jessica Archer, with another toss of her corn-yellow curls,
seated herself, feeling that she was not being treated with the respect
that was due the daughter of a sheep-king. She was suspicious, and that
was why she lingered so long after school, rubbing imaginary marks from
her reader, washing off the top of her desk with unusual care, and all
this time, while the teacher was preparing examples for the following
day, Dixie Martin sat on the bench outside of the little log
schoolhouse, happily waiting.
At last the teacher’s patience reached the breaking-point. Looking up
from her work, she found the pale-blue eyes of the daughter of the board
of education watching her.
“Jessica Archer,” she exclaimed, and the degree of exasperation she felt
sounded in her voice, “will you kindly tell me why you are remaining?
The afternoon session ended at least fifteen minutes ago. You will
please leave at once, and do not remain after school-hours again without
asking my permission and explaining your reason for wishing to do so.”
Jessica’s expression was decidedly impudent. “There’s that Dixie Martin
staying after school.”
The teacher’s eyes narrowed. “She is not in the schoolhouse. I have no
control over all the big out-of-doors. What is more,” and this took
moral courage, “Dixie is waiting for me at my request. Now take your
books and go!”
Miss Bayley had never before been so angry at a pupil, for she believed,
and truly, that she was being spied upon by the small daughter of Mrs.
Sethibald Archer.
Jessica did depart, but she did not go home at once. Having reached a
clump of low-growing pines near the inn, she hid among them to await the
return of Miss Bayley to her small cabin home. At last she saw her
coming, and with her was the hated Dixie Martin, and, what was even more
shocking, Miss Bayley was swinging the little girl by the hand and
skipping; yes, she was actually skipping in a way that no
self-respecting teacher had ever done before.
Jessica remained in her place of hiding until she was sure that Dixie
was going in the cabin with the teacher. Then, when she believed that
she was unobserved, she crept but, keeping hidden as best she could
behind the sagebrush, until she reached the trail that led down to her
valley home.
Bursting into her mother’s room, she began to sob. Mrs. Sethibald Archer
at that moment was struggling to write a speech, and a very large
dictionary lay open on the table at her side.
Her real reason for having invited Miss Bayley to supper that night had
been to have the assistance of the teacher in preparing the paper which
she was to read on the day following in Genoa. Once before Miss Bayley
had given invaluable assistance, and the ladies had greatly praised Mrs.
Sethibald on her clear and lucid exposition of the subject. Just what
that meant, the speaker of the day had not known, but she was convinced
that it was praise, and she was desirous of doing equally well on the
morrow.
“Do stop crying,” the weary mother now remonstrated, “and tell me where
is Miss Bayley? I didn’t see her coming down the trail with you just
now.”
“She—she wouldn’t come, Ma,” Jessica sobbed afresh. “She—she treats me
awful mean. She says that horrid Dixie Martin is the smartest girl in
the school. She says she can read better’n I can. I told her you wanted
her to come to supper to-night, and she said she had another engagement,
and—and, ma, it wasn’t so. She just had Dixie Martin go home with her,
that’s all, for I hid and saw, and she didn’t act ladylike neither, ma;
she skipped!”
Mrs. Sethibald Archer arose, and the expression in her eyes was not
pleasant to see. “There’s your pa coming into the barnyard this very
minute,” she said. “Run right out, darling of my heart, and tell him not
to unhitch. Tell him I’m wishing him to drive me over to the inn. We’ll
see whether or not my requests are to be set aside like this.”
Jessica ran out to deliver the message, which was really a command, and
Sethibald Archer understood it as such. Then, returning, the child asked
eagerly: “Ma, I want to go along.”
“Of course you may go. This thing’s going to be settled this very day.
I’m not going to have any upstart of a teacher refuse my hospitality
when I offer it. Indeed not.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A DEFIANT TEACHER
When Dixie entered the pleasant living-room of the little log cabin near
the inn, she clasped her hands, and her eyes glowed with appreciation as
she looked about.
“Oh, teacher, Miss Bayley,” she breathed rapturously, “you’ve got books,
haven’t you? I never did see so many books all in one room. Oh, please,
may I touch them?”
Then it was that the young teacher remembered that the little girl had
said that “Oliver Twist” and “Pilgrim’s Progress” were the only books
that she had, and an almanac.
“Poor little story-hungry girl,” she thought, as she removed her hat and
turned toward the child. “Of course you may touch them, dear. I’m going
to make us some hot chocolate to drink, and you may browse around all
that you wish. Choose any book that you like and I will help you read
it. One of my reasons for asking you here to-day, Dixie, was to suggest
that once or twice a week you come with me and let me tutor you in
advanced reading. Then you can take the book home and give the same
instruction to your brother, Ken. There is no reason why you two
children, who are so unusually gifted, should be held back by one of
little natural intelligence.”
Then Miss Bayley entered the lean-to which was also her kitchen, and
humming to herself to endeavor to erase from her memory the unpleasant
conflict with Jessica Archer, she filled the tiny teakettle, lighted the
oil-stove, and prepared a few dainty sandwiches.
When she re-entered the living-room, her small guest sat on the
window-seat, one long, spidery leg curled under her, and she held two
books. The gold-brown eyes seemed to have sunshine in their depths as
they looked up.
“Oh, teacher, Miss Bayley,” she piped, “it was so hard to choose. It’s
like when the spring flowers are in blossom and the valley-meadow is all
blue and gold with them. There are so many, and they are all so lovely
it’s hard to tell which ones to pick. I guess, though, that these two
would be nice. This one says ‘Little Women’ on the cover, but that
wouldn’t interest Ken so much, it being all about girls, but this one
would, for, in the picture, there is a boat wrecked and animals swimming
to the shore. I’m sure boys would like it.”
Miss Bayley nodded, beaming her pleasure. “You will like that one, too.
My brother, Tim, and I read ‘Swiss Family Robinson’ through seven times
when we were your age and Ken’s.”
Skipping over to the long, home-made bookshelf, the child replaced
“Little Women,” and held lovingly the volume of her choice.
Then a cheerful humming in the kitchen announced that the teakettle was
beginning to boil, and Miss Bayley went thither to complete preparations
for the lunch.
While they were eating it, the young woman, who was little more than a
girl herself, having graduated from a normal school when she was hardly
twenty years of age,—and this was her first school,—smiled across at her
small guest as she said: “Dearie, at recess you wanted to tell me
something. What was it?”
__Dixie’s thin, freckled face became suddenly serious. “I’m going to
tell you all about us, Miss Bayley,” she began, “then I guess you’ll
better understand.”
And so the little mother of the Martins told to a most sympathetic and
interested listener the drama which had recently been enacted in their
log-cabin home.
“And, oh, teacher, Miss Bayley,” the child said, “I never, never could
have come to school again if my little sister had stayed away. She’s all
the sister I’ve got to love. I couldn’t give up Ken or Baby Jim either,
but—but I guess a girl needs another girl in a special way that boys
can’t understand, don’t you, teacher?”
The young woman nodded emphatically, and there were tears close to her
eyes. What a cruel, hard experience these children had been going
through, and all alone.
“I do, indeed, Dixie,” she said. “There are so many tasks and pleasures
and little confidences that only girls can share with each other, but I
am glad that everything happened just as it did, for now Carol knows
that her own home is best and she will be more content.”
But Dixie looked a bit troubled, and the young woman asked: “Dear, what
is it? Was there something else that you wished to say?”
“Yes, teacher, Miss Bayley, it’s this. Next month is Carol’s birthday,
and, oh, if only I could give her a blue silk dress I’d be the happiest!
She loves pretty things and she’s never had anything silk.” Then
eagerly, anxiously, “Miss Bayley, could I get a silk dress for two
dollars and thirty cents?”
The young teacher hesitated not at all. “Of course you can, dear girl.
That is, you can get the blue silk by the yard and then you can make the
dress.”
The freckled face that at first had brightened, looked doleful again.
The child shook her head as she said: “I couldn’t, teacher. I don’t know
anything about how to put on patterns. Grandma Piggins did, and she made
us the gingham dresses, but she made them button in front, and Carol
wants buttons in the back.”
“And so she shall have them, dear. Of course you can’t use a pattern
yet, but I will show you how.” Then, before the small girl could express
her gratitude, the young teacher exclaimed: “I’ll tell you what we’ll
do, little Miss Martin. To-morrow will be Saturday, and you and I will
go to Genoa on the nine-o’clock stage, shall we? Then you may choose the
silk and a pattern. I have some lace in my trunk that will do nicely for
trimming. How would you like that?”
“Oh, teacher, Miss Bayley, I’d love it! I’ve never been to Genoa but
once.” Sudden tears in the child’s eyes assured Miss Bayley that the
once had been a sad occasion, as indeed it had been, for with her father
she and Ken had gone to select a coffin for their beautiful mother.
Desiring to change the thought of her little guest, Miss Bayley asked,
“What color do you like best, Dixie?”
“I like the first green that comes on the trees down by the creek in
spring. It’s like a fairy color with silver on it,” the little girl
said.
Miss Bayley nodded. “That would make a pretty silk dress,” she remarked,
“but I’d like you to have a cashmere dress, the same gold-brown as your
eyes.”
“Me? Oh, I don’t need a new dress, Miss Bayley. I don’t mind buttons
down the front the way Carol does.”
The young teacher laughed, saying, as she rose to clear the table, “We
shall see what we shall see.”
Dixie was about to assist when the sound of wheels attracted her
attention. “Oh, teacher, Miss Bayley,”—the child seemed actually
frightened,—“something dreadful must have happened. Here come all the
Archers.”
There was a sudden firmness about Josephine Bayley’s pretty mouth, and
an expression in her eyes that seemed to say, “Let them come.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE SHEEP-KING DICTATES
Miss Bayley opened the door when she heard an imperative rap thereon.
“Oh, good-afternoon, Mrs. Archer and Mr. Archer,” she said graciously.
“Come in, won’t you, and Jessica? You are all acquainted with my little
friend, Dixie Martin, and so introductions will not be necessary. Won’t
you be seated? This is my most comfortable chair, Mrs. Archer, and
Jessica, you will find room over on the window-seat by Dixie.”
The wife of the sheep-king sat down, but held herself rigidly erect.
“Miss Bayley,” she said, “didn’t you get an invitation to come to our
house to supper?”
“Why, yes, Mrs. Archer, but did not Jessica tell you that although I
appreciated your thoughtfulness, I could not accept to-day, as I had
another engagement?” Miss Bayley was calm, and completely mistress of
the situation.
The older woman sneered. “Engagement?” she repeated sarcastically. “How
could you have any engagements in these here parts that couldn’t be set
aside when I need your services?”
Miss Bayley’s eyebrows lifted, ever so slightly. “I did not understand
that you needed me,” she said. “I thought that you wished to contribute
to my pleasure by inviting me to supper.”
Mrs. Archer’s manner changed. “Well, so I did in a way, and if you’ll go
back with us now,” she said, “I’ll call it all right.” She knew that
unless Miss Bayley did help her, she would be unable to read a paper
before the Woman’s Club in Genoa on the next day.
For one brief moment Josephine Bayley hesitated. Should she defy this
woman and declare her right to independence at least as far as her free
time was concerned? A second thought reminded her that this would be
unwise, if she wished to remain in the mountain country; and now, more
than ever, she did wish to remain, that she might help little Dixie
Martin, if for no other reason.
That small girl had risen, and in the pause she said shyly: “Teacher,
Miss Bayley, I must be going. Baby Jim is like to be missing me by now.”
“Very well, dear.” The teacher also rose and walked to the door which
she opened, and then said, loud enough for the listeners to hear without
effort: “Dixie, be ready to-morrow morning at half-past eight. You would
better come up here, dear, and then the stage will not need to stop on
the cañon road.”
Then, closing the door and turning back into the room, she added
pleasantly: “I suppose, Mrs. Archer, that you wish me to prepare a paper
for you. If that is true, I will get my hat and coat and accompany you.”
Her manner, in spite of the graciousness of her words and tone, was
defiant, and when she returned from her screened bedroom, she found Mr.
Archer, his hands behind him, pacing up and down the living-room.
“Look a-here, Miss Bayley,” he blurted out, “my wife and me aren’t at
all satisfied with your actions. It’s us chiefly that supports this
school and pays your salary.”
The teacher’s eyebrows lifted questioningly. “Indeed?” she said. “I
thought this was a public school in the Genoa district.”
Mr. Archer was obliged to confess that, in one way, it was. “But it’s my
taxes, mostly, that pays your salary,” he contended.
“When taxes are paid into the county treasury, the money is no longer
yours,” Miss Bayley told him. “It belongs to the people to be spent for
the best interest of the entire community.”
The young teacher’s manner was quiet, but she spoke as one who knew.
Mrs. Archer, unable to longer remain silent, burst forth with: “You
might as well understand, once for all, that Mr. Sethibald Archer is
boss of this here school, and what he says goes. Mr. Samuel Clayburn,
the banker, he as is head of the board of education over in Genoa, told
Mr. Archer that as long as everything went along all right, he’d not
interfere with my husband’s management of this here school district.”
The ponderous woman rose, and her expression was one of triumph. Mr.
Archer nodded his agreement. “That’s just what the Honorable Clayburn
said, and so, if you’re wanting to remain in this here school, you’d
better not be setting those no-account Martin children up over our
Jessica. Now, are you coming with us, Miss Bayley?”
To their unconcealed amazement, the young teacher mutinied.
“No,” she said quietly, “I am not. I consider my free time my own to do
with as I wish, and I do not wish to go anywhere this evening.”
A dull red suffused the face of Mr. Sethibald Archer. “Miss Bayley,” he
sputtered, “this here term ends the middle of December. You can pack up
your baggage and be ready to leave the day after.”
“Very well, Mr. Archer,” was the astonishing reply, “if you are still in
authority when that time arrives, I shall do as you request.”
When the three were again in their buggy and on their way down the
valley road, the irate man exclaimed: “Such impudence! If I’m in
authority by the middle of December, she’ll leave. Huh, she’ll leave all
right! Who else in these here parts has brains enough to be governing
board of a public school?”
Mrs. Archer, being a wise wife, smoothed his ruffled feelings by
remarking: “Nobody, of course. You’re the brainiest man anywhere this
side of Genoa.” Then she added, with a sigh, “I’ll have to give up
reading that paper to-morrow, and you’ll have to drive over and tell ’em
I was took sick or something. If I was you, I’d stop in at the bank
while you’re in Genoa, and clinch the matter about dismissin’ that
upstart of a Miss Bayley.”
“That’s just what I’ll do!” Mr. Archer agreed, as he drove into his
barnyard.
They had forgotten that on the next day the teacher and Dixie Martin
were also going to Genoa.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
DIXIE GOES SHOPPING
Dixie was awake on the eventful Saturday morning as soon as the first
bird-note was heard underneath the wide-spreading eaves. Quietly she
slipped from bed, hoping not to awaken the little curly-headed sleeper
at her side, but, just as she was buttoning up her best gingham dress,
Carol opened dazed blue eyes and looked about.
“Why, Dixie Martin, what for are you up so early?” was the puzzled
query, but almost instantly the little girl remembered, and at once she
began to climb out of bed.
“Oh, I know,” she prattled, “this is the day that you go to Genoa with
Miss Bayley, and I am to be ‘little mother’ to Baby Jim and Ken.”
In another moment the arms of the older girl were about her, and the
flushed cheeks were being kissed as Dixie exclaimed, “Carol, it’s so
nice of you not to mind my going and leaving you at home, but some day,
I’m just sure, it will be your turn to go and see the shops, and—and
everything.”
There was joy in the heart of Dixie as she descended the ladder that led
from their loft bedroom. How Carol had changed! Just one short month ago
she would have sulked if Dixie were to be given some pleasure that she
had not been asked to share, but to-day the small girl was actually
getting up hours earlier than usual, that she might be a real help in
the little home, and that Dixie need not be all tired out before
starting on her wonderful journey. But, early as these two little maids
were astir, Ken was ahead of them, and, just as the potatoes and bacon
were sizzling for breakfast, in he came with a pail of milk.
“Girls,” he cried jubilantly, twirling his cap so dexterously that it
caught on the hook by the door, just as he wished it to do, “something’s
happened. Something jolly! Guess what.”
The sisters looked interested but did not venture a guess.
“Blessing is weaned!” was the astonishing announcement. “He wriggled out
of his pen in the night I guess. I was awful panicky at first, thinkin’
like as not he was lost, but where d’you think I found him? In the shed,
eating apples.”
“Well, I’m glad,” Carol remarked as she continued with her task, “we
won’t have to bother any more about feeding him with a bottle.”
Dixie sighed, “I was hoping you’d say my cat had come back. She’s been
gone three weeks if it’s a day.”
Ken laughed as he turned the milk through a sieve. “Cats always come
back, sis,” he said encouragingly. Then, for a moment, he was silent as
he plunged his face into a deep basin of cool water from the pump, but
later, when he was rubbing vigorously with a rough towel, he winked one
eye at Carol as he added: “Even if Topsy never comes back, it’s small
loss. The world is full of cats.” He said it to tease, for well he knew
his sister’s devotion to that particular black cat. The expected retort
came:
“Why, Ken Martin, how can you say that, when you know there’s only one
Topsy cat? You might as well say that if Baby Jim went away, it wouldn’t
matter, ’cause the world is full of babies.”
Carol pretended to be indignant. “Dixie, how can you speak of cats and
our baby all in one breath?”
A small voice arose in the next room, and the little mother flew
thitherward, to return a moment later with a sleepy, flushed little
four-year-old, who was covered with a long pink-flannel nightie. His
golden curls were towsled, and when the little maid had seated herself
and cuddled him on her lap, he beamed around at them all, but looked up
into the face that was bending over him with his sweetest smile. Then,
lifting his warm little hand, he patted her freckled cheek as he
prattled, “Jimmy-Boy loves Dixie.”
Almost convulsively the girl held him close. “Oh, Baby Jim,” she said,
“I’m awfully sorry I said that about cats, for even if the world is full
of babies, after all, there’s only just one.”
An hour later Carol looked at the clock. “You’d better hurry, Dix,” she
said. “You wouldn’t want to miss the stage.”
And hurry the little maid did, and at eight o’clock promptly she set off
up the cañon trail with a song singing in her heart, and with feet that
could hardly be kept from dancing.
Josephine Bayley was just finishing her breakfast when a tap came upon
her door. With the girlish skip which had so shocked prim little Miss
Archer, she went to open it, and, as she had supposed, she found Dixie,
her freckled face aglow, standing outside.
She was wearing a very pretty leghorn hat wreathed with daisies.
“Why, Dixie, how nice you look!” the young woman exclaimed. “Come in,
dear. We can see the stage when it comes up the valley road. What a
pretty hat you have.”
The girl flushed. “’Tisn’t mine, teacher,” she confessed. “It belongs to
Carol, but she just made me wear it.” Then she added in a burst of
confidence: “Carol’s changed a lot since she went away to be ’dopted.
Before that she never would let me even put this hat on in front of the
mirror, let alone wear it outdoors, but this morning, when I was putting
on my old hat that got caught in the rain last spring and sort of
limped, she came right up and took it away, and then, before I knew what
she was up to, she slipped back of me and put her treasure-hat right on
my head, and when I said something might happen to it, she said, ‘All
right, let it,’ but that she wasn’t going to have her big sister go to
town in a hat that looked as though Biddy-hen had used it for a nest.”
There were sudden tears in the eyes of the little girl. “Oh, teacher,”
she confided, “I did think that I always loved Carol as much as ever I
could, but I’m loving her more every day, and Ken, too. He said last
night, ‘Gee, sis. I’m glad now Carol went away to be ’dopted, for I’m so
glad she came back.’”
“She is a dear, sweet girl,” Miss Bayley said, “and it was nice for her
to want you to wear the hat which she so treasures, but I’m sure that
nothing will happen to it, for there isn’t a cloud in the blue, blue
sky, and we’re not expecting whirlwinds to carry it away.”
While they talked, Miss Bayley washed the few dishes and then Dixie
helped her spread the bed in the screened-in porch, which was still a
joy to the girl who had lived her twenty years in crowded New York.
Just as the last little pat was given to the pillow, a distant rumbling
was heard, and Dixie ran to the front window of the cabin and looked
down the valley road. “It’s coming, teacher, Miss Bayley. The stage is
’most here!”
Josephine Bayley felt as though she were a girl again, a very young
girl. Dixie’s excitement was contagious. Donning her hat and jacket, and
taking her shopping-bag, which had room in it for all the things they
were going to purchase, she caught the little girl by the hand, and,
though her feet longed to skip, they thought it best to walk demurely,
for the innkeeper’s wife, Mrs. Enterprise Twiggly, had appeared to greet
any newcomers that might have arrived to stay at the inn, and well did
Miss Bayley know that she expected schoolteachers to appear morosely
dignified.
Mr. Hiram Tressler, the driver of the stage, was a very old man, having
driven that route more years than Mr. Enterprise Twiggly could remember.
He had been born and brought up in those parts, but his unwavering good
nature and optimism had kept him young-looking, and his life
out-of-doors had made him, as he himself said, “as hard as a pine-knot.”
“All aboard, them that’s comin’ aboard!” he called from his high seat.
Then, noting that the new teacher, whom he had brought up from Reno but
a month before, was about to embark with him, he added, “Miss Bayley,
wouldn’t you an’ little Dixie Martin like to sit up front?”
The young girl looked up into the face of her companion so eagerly that
the teacher gave a laughing response that she was sure they would be
glad to accept the invitation. The passengers inside the coach looked
like traveling salesmen, with much baggage stowed about them, and they
seemed much more desirous of sleeping than they did of admiring the
majestic scenery through which they were to pass. One did waken when the
stage started with a jolt, but soon dozed again.
Little Dixie, wedged in between Miss Bayley and the stage-driver, looked
up beamingly at first one and then the other. “Traveling’s real
exciting, isn’t it?” she said at last, when they were well under way.
Josephine Bayley nodded. Was it amusing or was it tragic, she was
wondering, that this little midget, small for her twelve years, had
never been out of Woodford’s but once before, and that once to help
select a coffin. Josephine Bayley resolved that this day should be so
brimmed with happy hours that the little girl would have no time to
recall the sad memory of that other journey to Genoa.
They were turning down the rough, rugged cañon road that was deep in the
shadow of great old pines, when Ken, Carol, and Baby Jim leaped from
behind the massive trunks where they had been hiding, and shouted,
waving their handkerchiefs, “Good-by, Dixie! Good-by, teacher!” Then
Baby Jim’s shrill, excited voice floated down the cañon after them,
“Bring me some candy!”
What a happy light there was in the gold-brown eyes that were lifted to
the teacher, as the little girl said: “I hoped they’d all come. I’m so
glad they wanted to!”
Josephine Bayley held the thin hand of the child in a close clasp, and
she was thinking: “Lucky little girl! How I wish I had some one to care
whether I come or go! Brother Tim is all I have in this wide world, and
we are so far apart.” Then, remembering that this was to be Dixie’s day,
the teacher chatted about things that would interest her little comrade,
and two hours later Mr. Hiram Tressler sang out, “There’s Genoa’s
church-steeple.” Then, with evident pride, “Teacher, did ye ever see any
buildin’ go up much higher’n that?”
Miss Josephine Bayley, late of New York, had to confess that she had
seen steeples a mite higher. She wondered what the stage-driver would
think if his route led by the Woolworth building, but how glad, glad she
was that it didn’t!
Ten minutes later the stage-driver drew rein. “Here we are now. That
there’s the dry-goods emporium, teacher. I’ll pick you up agin, right on
this very spot, prompt at five o’clock. So long!” Then the stage rumbled
away, and Dixie, clinging to the teacher’s hand, entered the store, her
heart beating like a trip-hammer.
There was silk, silk everywhere about her, and how glad she was that two
dollars and thirty cents would buy enough for a birthday dress for
Carol.
CHAPTER TWENTY
DIXIE BUYS A SILK DRESS
Josephine Bayley smiled down at the little girl as she felt the clinging
fingers tighten. “Oh, teacher,” the child whispered rapturously, “I
didn’t suppose there was so much silk anywhere in all the world. It’s
like rainbows, isn’t it?” They were standing at the counter, waiting for
a pleasant-faced little woman to come to them.
“May we see the different shades of blue silk?” Josephine Bayley asked,
when at last the clerk turned toward them.
“Oh-ee, how Carol would love that one,” Dixie said as she pointed to a
blue, the color of a June-morning sky. The small girl did not think to
ask the price. Teacher had said that two dollars and thirty cents would
be enough, and Dixie doubted this not at all.
A pattern was selected, one with ruffles, for nothing was to be omitted
that the heart of the little sister had been set upon, and then
sufficient silk was measured off. Miss Bayley, having had a moment’s
opportunity to speak alone with the clerk, had asked her not to mention
the price. Turning back, she saw little Dixie smoothing the silk as
reverently as though it were almost too beautiful to be touched, and yet
there was no thought of envy in her heart. Two dollars and thirty cents
could buy but one silk dress, and that one should be for Carol.
While the parcel was being wrapped, Dixie looked about. Suddenly she
caught the teacher’s hand and drew her down the aisle. “Look there,” she
whispered as she lifted glowing eyes. “That’s the silvery green I was
telling you about, Miss Bayley. Isn’t it like the very first leaves on
the willow trees down in the creek-bottom?”
The young woman nodded. “It is just lovely, dear,” was all that she
said, but she thought much more. Then, when the saleswoman returned,
Dixie drew forth the old-fashioned purse that had been her mother’s and
counted out the money, which was in dimes and nickels. There were so
many of them that it looked like quite a fortune heaped upon the counter
in front of her. The little girl did not dream that the silk for Carol’s
dress had cost five dollars.
“Now, dear,” Miss Bayley smiled down at her, “let’s go over to the book
department. I want to get a more modern arithmetic than the one that I
found in the school.” While the young teacher was examining mathematical
books, Dixie, with a little half-suppressed cry of joy, skipped toward a
table spread with attractively-covered juveniles, and so absorbed was
she a moment later that Miss Bayley found the opportunity she desired to
slip back to the silk counter and order a pattern of the pale-green that
in one light shimmered like silver.
Had Dixie noticed the shape of the package that the teacher carried when
they left the store, she might have thought it rather soft and bulky for
a book about mathematics, but there were so many things to see and
admire that she noticed it not at all.
It was noon, and to the little girl from the mountains the main street
of the village seemed thronged. Again she clung to her teacher’s hand as
they made their way toward the café, over which hung the most alluring
sign.
“Oh, teacher, Miss Bayley, are we going in here?” It was hard for the
child to believe that she was actually going to have lunch in a place so
sparkling with mirrors and lights.
But it was really true, for Miss Bayley was leading her to a little
table in one corner that was just for two.
Then when the orders had been given, the small girl, wide-eyed, looked
all about her. “There’s going to be music,” she whispered. “It’s over
behind those plants.” She had seen two violinists in a palm-sheltered
corner, and even as she spoke the first sweet strain was heard. Miss
Bayley watched the sensitive, expressive face of the little girl and
wondered how any one could call her homely.
It was the first time Dixie had ever heard the music of a violin, and
when the last note had died away she lifted eyes that looked as though
they had seen a vision. “Miss Bayley,” she said, “some time I want to
play like that.”
And just then the teacher, looking ahead through the years, seemed to
see a beautiful, willowy young girl dressed in soft, shimmering green,
with red-gold hair glowing beneath the lights, playing a violin, while a
vast multitude of people listened breathlessly. Was it a prophecy?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DIXIE VISITS A FRIEND
They were again on the street, and the noon throng had vanished. As it
was still too early for the afternoon shoppers to arrive, the town
seemed to be taking a midday siesta. Dixie wondered where they were
going, but said nothing until they turned a corner, when she uttered an
exclamation of joy. “Oh, teacher, Miss Bayley,” she exclaimed. “There’s
the bank. How I’d perfectly love to go in and see kind Mr. Clayburn.”
Then, looking up anxiously. “Would it ’sturb him too much, do you
suppose?”
Miss Bayley had a secret desire to see the head of the board of
education of the Genoa district, and so she replied, “We can at least
inquire, and if Mr. Clayburn is not busy, he may see us for a few
moments.”
The banker had just returned from his lunch, and was in his handsomely
appointed private office. He was never too busy to see a friend, he told
little Dixie, when, wondering-eyed, she had followed the uniformed
bank-messenger into the marble-walled room.
“This is our new teacher, Miss Bayley,” the child said, not knowing the
right form of introduction.
The kind face of the man lighted. Holding out his hand, he exclaimed,
“Miss Bayley, this is truly a pleasure, and right now let me say that I
sincerely regret not having visited your little school before this, but,
since your arrival, I have been more than ever confined to the bank
during school-hours. However, I shall endeavor to visit your district
regularly after the first of January.”
They had seated themselves at the banker’s invitation, and Josephine
Bayley said quietly, “I shall not be the teacher at Woodford’s school in
January, Mr. Clayburn.”
There was real regret in the face of the listener. “Why, Miss Bayley, I
am sorry to hear that. Has something happened to recall you to New York?
I remember you wrote that you would gladly stay one year with us in our
wild mountain country.” Then he smiled as he asked, “Have you found it
too wild?”
The young teacher also smiled, but she said seriously: “No, indeed! I
love the West! I felt smothered in that city of walled-in cañons, where
the sweep of the wind is never felt. I glory in your rugged mountains. I
forget that life holds much that is petty when I look at them,
especially at night when they are outlined against the sky, and even the
stars are much nearer here. In New York heaven seems farther away.”
“But, my dear girl,” the banker said, “If you like it here so very much,
why desert us?”
“It is because I have been dismissed by the local board of education.”
If there was a twinkle in the brown eyes of the speaker, Mr. Clayburn
did not notice it. He tapped upon his desk with the pencil he held, and
a frown gathered between his eyes.
“Miss Bayley,” he said after a thoughtful moment, “I alone am at fault.
I should not have entrusted to a man without education the power to
engage and dismiss a teacher.” Then, looking up inquiringly, “Which one
of the three have you offended?”
“All of them, I think,” was the reply. “The little girl is indignant
because I have to acknowledge that the Martin children are brighter
pupils, the mother feels that she has a personal grievance because I
will not devote my free time, whenever she wishes, to preparing papers
for her to read at your women’s club, as her own compositions, while the
father considers me insubordinate because I have declared my
independence.”
“Good for you, Miss Bayley!” was the rather astonishing exclamation. The
banker looked his approval. Then, rising, he held out his hand. “Don’t
begin to pack your trunk, and, as I said before, the first of the year I
will make regular visits to the district schools. Let me know if you
need new books or anything else to help your work along.”
When they were again on the street, Miss Bayley caught the hand of the
small girl and said: “Dixie, come with me! We’re going to the movies to
celebrate.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
TEACHER REVOLUTIONIZES
Surprising things happened the following Monday morning in the little
log schoolhouse. After leaving the theater on the Saturday previous,
Miss Bayley, who had been told by the one having authority to procure
whatever she might need for her little classes, had returned with Dixie
to the book department of the emporium, and had purchased several graded
readers from the first to the eighth. The light of a new resolve shone
in her eyes as she called upon Dixie Martin to lead in the Good-Morning
song.
When this was done, Miss Bayley looked about her at her little
straggling group of mountain pupils and made a startling announcement.
“Girls and boys,” she said brightly, “I have decided to change the old
régime, which means that we are going to desert the former way of doing
things and start in on a new. To begin with, I am going to give you all
an examination in reading and place you in the grades where I believe
you belong.”
Jessica Archer was on her feet in an instant, saying: “My pa wouldn’t
let you do that. He says nothin’ is ever to be done diff’rent in this
here school unless he tells the teacher to do it.”
“Kindly be seated, Jessica, and hereafter do not speak without first
raising your hand and receiving permission to do so.” The teacher’s tone
was firm, and, although the little “sheep-princess” pouted and looked
her defiance, she said no more just then.
“I have here,” Josephine Bayley continued, “eight new graded readers,
that are very attractively illustrated. I will begin with the first, and
you may each read one of the little stories; then we will progress to
the second, and so on, and, when you have reached the book which is too
difficult for you, we will know exactly in which grade you belong. Does
this method seem fair to you? Ira Jenkins, what do you think?”
The long, lank, overgrown son of the burly blacksmith flushed to the
roots of his hair, but he managed to uncurl his ungainly length from the
much-carved desk that was too small for him, and say stutteringly:
“Yes’m, Miss Bayley. Seems like ’tis to me. I should say ’twas fair
enough.”
“Do any of you, except Jessica Archer, object to being regraded
according to your ability to read?” There was no dissenting voice, and
so the first book was handed to Dixie Martin, who, with an amused smile,
read the tiny story that told the adventures of a pussy-cat. When the
book had been passed from pupil to pupil, it was found that even those
simple words had been too difficult for the two little children of Mr.
Archer’s Mexican overseer, and so Franciscito and Mercedes were classed
as “first readers.”
The six-year-old twins of the trapper, Sage Brush Mullet, poor, forlorn
little Maggie and Millie, stopped at the second.
Jessica Archer did well enough in the third, but could not read many of
the words in the new fourth, and was so graded. With her was Carol
Martin, but to the very evident indignation of the little daughter of
Mr. Sethibald Archer, Dixie, Ken, and Ira Jenkins were placed above her.
Each was asked to read one of the last three stories in the fifth book.
Ken and Dixie hesitated not at all, but Ira did stumble over the longer
words, and the first story in the sixth proved quite beyond him, and so
he was placed there.
Ken, although two years older than his sister, had a more mathematical
mind, and found the seventh reader rather difficult, but Dixie reached
the last, and was declared by the teacher to be in the eighth grade.
Miss Bayley purposely avoided looking in the direction of the irate
little girl in the much-be-ruffled dress as she said: “You are now each
placed in the grade where you should be, and I am sure that we shall in
the future make real progress.” Then, glancing at the clock, she
smilingly added: “Ten already, and time for recess. Dixie, you may
collect the new books please, and Ken, will you lead the line to the
playground?”
But Jessica Archer did not wait to go out with the others. Catching her
hat from its hook on the wall, she darted out, and when, fifteen minutes
later, Miss Bayley rang the bell, recalling the pupils to their lessons,
she was not at all surprised to find that the rebellious little
“sheep-princess” was not among them.
Miss Bayley was not long kept in doubt as to what the absence of Jessica
Archer meant. Having decided to carry her new method of grading through
all the subjects,—reading, writing, and arithmetic,—the teacher had sent
Ira Jenkins and Ken to the board to work out rather advanced sums, when
the sound of hurrying wheels was heard without, and a moment later the
short, stocky Mr. Sethibald Archer burst into the room, his face
flushed, his small gimlet-like eyes blinking very fast.
“Say, Miss Bayley,” he blurted out, waiving the formality of a greeting,
“what’s this here my gal’s been tellin’ me ’bout you upsettin’ methods
which I started and makin’ out she’s a numskull alongside of those—those
no-account Martins? I’ll not have it, I tell you,” he blustered. “I’m
governin’ board of this here school, and things have got to be done as I
say, or you can pack and leave this here locality on to-morrow mornin’s
stage. D’ye hear?”
Miss Bayley did not take advantage of his pause to defend her action,
and, still further angered by her calm, he went on, his high-pitched
voice growing louder, if that were possible. “I’d like to know where
from you got your authority,—_you_, an upstart teacher we don’t know
nothin’ about. Who was it told you to spend money that’s not yours
buying new books that we don’t need for this here school?”
So indignant had been the self-important little man, and so loud his
voice, that he had not heard the arrival of a horse and buggy without,
nor was he aware that another listener had stopped in the doorway to
await the end of the tirade. When the speaker paused to take a breath,
the newcomer stepped into the school-room, saying in a voice, the calm,
even tones of which did not betray the just anger that he felt: “Mr.
Archer, may I answer the question you have just put to Miss Bayley? I,
Samuel Clayburn, head of the governing board of education in this
district, gave our teacher full authority to purchase whatever she
believed was needed to further the interests of this little district
school, and I am indeed glad to find that she is now introducing
progressive methods.” Then he added, in a pleasanter tone, for it was
hard for the portly banker to be unkindly severe: “Mr. Archer, I regret
that the delivery of mail in the mountain sections is so dilatory,
otherwise you would have known by now that I have decided to devote more
of my time to the schools in the outlying districts, and so will no
longer require your aid. I will bid you good-morning.”
The stocky, florid man was clenching and unclenching his hands, and
almost bursting with indignation. When the quiet voice ceased speaking,
he blurted out with: “It’s an outrage, that’s what it is! A cooked-up
scheme of this here new teacher’s to oust me from a place that’s
rightfully mine. But I’ll get even. I’ll take my darter out of this here
school. Come along, Jessie, I won’t have you pizened by no such
corruptin’ influence.”
With a toss of her curls, the little girl flounced out of the door,
closely following her irate father, and they were soon heard to drive
away.
“Miss Bayley,” the banker said, “I regret this most unfortunate
incident. Last Saturday, immediately after your departure from the bank,
I wrote Mr. Archer that I would no longer need his services, but the
stage probably has not as yet passed his place. Realizing that something
of this very nature might occur when he did receive the letter, I
decided to drive over, knowing that otherwise you would have to bear
alone the brunt of his wrath.”
“Thank you,” Josephine Bayley said simply. “I am indeed sorry to have
been the cause of this unpleasantness, but really, Mr. Clayburn, I do
believe that the other pupils can now have a much better chance.”
The banker nodded, “I am sure of it,” he said, as he smiled about at the
solemn faces.
“My pupils,” Miss Bayley said to them, “this gentleman is Mr. Samuel
Clayburn, of the board of education, and he it is who made us a gift of
those attractive new readers that have pleased you all so much.”
Carol and Dixie arose at once, and the others shyly and stragglingly
followed. Then curtsying, as Miss Bayley had taught them to do when she
introduced a visitor, in a faltering chorus they piped, “Good-morning,
Mr. Clayburn.” But it was Dixie who thought to add, “And thank you for
the books.”
“You are very welcome, and I’m sure you’ll make good use of them,” was
the genial reply. Then, turning again to the girl-teacher, he added: “I
hope no further unpleasantness will result from this, Miss Bayley, but
if there does, report to me at once. You can telephone to me from the
inn.”
Later, as he was driving down the pine-shaded cañon road, the good man
was thinking, “How I do wish my Sylvia could attend this mountain
school. She seems to be making very little headway with her French
governess. If only she could live awhile the simple, healthful life that
the little Martins are living, how much good it would do her.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE RETURN OF TOPSY
“Dixie Martin, come quick if you want to see something. Oh-ee! It’s
something you’ve been wanting for weeks and weeks.”
It was Carol who called. The small curly-headed girl was hanging out
clothes in the sunny yard, back of the log cabin, while the older sister
stood on a box beside a washtub in the shade of a spreading pine tree.
Hearing the excited voice of her little sister calling to her, Dixie
hastily wrung out the pair of patched blue rompers that she was washing,
and, with soapy suds glistening on her hands, she ran around the house,
wondering what she was to see.
To her great joy, coming across the garden toward them was no less a
creature than her long-strayed and much-loved cat, Topsy.
With a cry of delight, Dixie wiped the suds from her hands on her blue
all-over apron, and rushing at the rather thin and rusty-looking cat,
she caught it up in her arms and kissed it on the nose, eyes, and even
on the paws.
“Oh, you dearest, darlingest, belovedest!” she exclaimed. “Wherever have
you been? You look like a reg’lar tramp cat, and no wonder,—your coat
hasn’t been sleeked for three weeks if it’s a day. Didn’t you love your
Dixie any more, that you ran away and wouldn’t come back? You don’t know
how lonesome I’ve been.”
The little girl’s face was burrowed in the soft black hair. The
pussy-cat purred its contentment when its little mistress sat on a stump
near by to cuddle it in her lap, but suddenly Topsy flipped up an ear
and sat erect, as though she had just thought of something. Then, before
the astonished girls could guess what it was all about, away the cat
darted toward an old abandoned shed down near the apple-orchard, soon
reappearing with a very small something in its mouth.
The older girl had turned back to the washtub, but another exclamation
as excited as the first brought her whirling about.
“Dix Martin, Topsy’s done gone and had kittens. Oh-ee, do look! Isn’t it
a little beauty? It’s black, like its mamma, but its spots are white.”
Topsy, holding her tail proudly erect, placed the wee pussy at Dixie’s
feet, then looked up in a manner that seemed to say, “There now, what do
you think of that for a baby?”
Dixie lifted the soft cuddly little thing, and was about to tell the
happy mother that it was indeed a darling, when, with a queer little
short meow, the cat again turned and trotted off toward the shed, to
soon reappear with another wee pussy, but this one was as white as the
driven snow.
“Oh-h!” the two girls breathed a long sigh of admiration, for never had
there been a lovelier pussy, they were sure. Just then Ken, with an ax
over his shoulder, appeared from the mountain-trail, whither he had been
to cut wood for their winter fires.
“What you-all got there?” he called. And when he saw that they were
beckoning excitedly, he threw his axe to the ground and ran toward them.
“Gee whiz! Aren’t they beauts?” the boy exclaimed with genuine
admiration. “They’re ’most as handsome as my little pig,” he added
teasingly.
“Why, Ken Martin, little pigs aren’t warm and soft and cuddly, nor baby
goats, either,” Carol began, when Dixie interrupted, the light of
inspiration in her thin, freckled face.
“Oh, Caroly, you’ve always wished you had a white pussy, and so you may
have this one all for your very own, and Ken can have the other.”
“Me?” the boy exclaimed wide-eyed. “I don’t want a cat. They’re pets for
girls.”
“Well, maybe that’s so. Girls like cuddly things.” Then, to the mother
puss, Dixie said: “Well, Topsy-cat, we’re ever so glad that you have
such nice babies, and won’t Jimmy-Boy be pleased when he wakes up, but
now I must get back to my work, for this is wash-day. I want to get
through as soon as ever I can, for something—oh, so interesting!—is
going to happen this very afternoon. I am to go up to teacher’s to have
a lesson.”
Dixie did not say what the lesson was to be, but she glanced at her
sister and thought, “If Carol only knew that I am to have a lesson in
making her a blue-silk dress, wouldn’t she be the happiest girl that
ever was?”
The younger girl had no desire to accompany Dixie to Miss Bayley’s
cabin. The very word “lesson” did not appeal to her on a glorious
Saturday. After taking the kittens back to the shed and making them a
softer bed, the girls finished the washing; then at two o’clock they
donned their best gingham dresses and started out together, but soon
parted, as Carol was going to the Valley Ranch to visit Sue Piggins, to
hear what had happened during the week at the girls’ boarding-school
over in Reno, which Sue attended.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DIXIE’S LESSON IN DRESSMAKING
Miss Josephine Bayley was anticipating with real pleasure the coming of
the little girl who was to have her first lesson in dressmaking.
The door of the small cabin stood welcomingly open, for it was one of
those wonderful, balmy days known as Indian summer, and in Nevada they
seem lovelier than elsewhere.
“See these beautiful ruddy leaves that I found this morning, Dixie,
dear,” said the young teacher, who stood at the center-table arranging
them, as the small girl appeared in the doorway. “I climbed a little
lost trail, or, it was almost lost, it was so overgrown with tangled
vines and scraggly dwarf pines.”
The great bowl of flaming-leaved branches was placed in one corner of
the room, the table swept clear of books and magazines, and then the
paper pattern was opened while Josephine Bayley continued, smiling
across at her little visitor: “Dixie, how I wish that trails could talk.
I’d love to know whose feet trod it so many times that a path was beaten
there. Perhaps you have heard, have you, dear?”
Dixie shook her red-gold head. “Not ’zactly heard, Miss Bayley,” she
replied, “but most likely ’twas the year of the big strike over at
Silver City. My dad said that over-night, almost, these lonely, silent
mountains were swarmed with men from everywhere, and they climbed all
about with their pickaxes, hunting for other veins, but they didn’t find
them. Maybe it’s selfish, but I’m glad, glad they didn’t.”
“So am I, Dixie,” the girl-teacher agreed, “for they would have dug ugly
holes in these mountains and cut down the wonderful old pines. I would
rather have nature at its wildest for my home than a castle of
glistening white marble surrounded with artificial parks, however
beautiful.”
“Oh, teacher, so would I.” The small girl had drawn close to the table,
and her gold-brown eyes looked as though they were seeing a vision.
“Miss Bayley,” she said, “I keep remembering. I can’t forget it. That
violin music, I mean. And this morning, early, when I was up before the
others, out under the pines, getting ready to do the washing, the sun
came up over old Piney Peak, and it was just like a fairy shower of
gold. Then a lark sang, and a little breeze stirred in the pine trees.
Teacher, Miss Bayley, I think I could play it on a violin, if I had
one.”
“Little Dixie Martin, you shall have one! You shall have a violin!” the
young woman said, deeply touched. Then she added: “I only wish that I
knew how to give you lessons, but where there’s a will, there’s a way.
That is a true saying, dear, and you and I will keep watching for the
way. Now, little ladykins, if you will stand up very straight and tall,
I’d like to see if this pattern hangs well. I’m going to pin it on you,
if you don’t mind, to get an idea of what kind of dress it will make.”
Miss Bayley did not tell that her real reason for wishing to pin on the
pattern was to discover how much larger she would have to cut one before
making a certain piece of shimmery green silk into a dress for Dixie.
When the pattern was on, the girl-teacher made many penciled notes on a
bit of brown paper. “There, now,” she exclaimed, “we’ll cut out the
material.”
Dixie, watching, suddenly put one hand on her heart, as though to still
its too-rapid beating. “Oh, teacher,” she said in a little awed voice,
“this is a wonderful minute, when we’re really going to begin to make a
blue-silk dress for Carol.” Then she added almost wistfully: “How I do
hope that dear old Grandmother Piggins knows that you are helping us.
Before she died she sent for me and she said, ‘Dixie, dear, I’m glad to
go, but I’m praying that somebody will be sent to take my place with
you.’”
Then impulsively the child cuddled close to the girl-teacher and looked
up with love shining in her eyes. “Miss Bayley, you are the answer to
Grandmother Piggins’s prayer.”
Kneeling, the young woman held the little girl in a close embrace, as
she said in a voice that trembled: “Dixie, I have wandered far, and have
lost the simple faith, but, oh, what it means to me to know that I, even
I, have been found worthy to be used as an answer to prayer!”
Then rising, she merrily added, “Now thread a needle, little Miss
Seamstress, and sew these two edges together.”
Sitting in a low rocker, by a sunny open window, Dixie took painstaking
little stitches, almost measuring each one, but when her girl-teacher
noticed that, she laughingly said: “You needn’t be so careful, dear. The
big thing in basting is to have the notches match and keep the edges
together.”
For a moment the machine, which had been borrowed from the inn, hummed a
merry song, then teacher looked up to see Dixie sitting very still, her
sewing in her lap, while her eyes were gazing between fluttering white
curtains and out toward the mountains.
“A penny for your dreams,” Miss Bayley called gayly, as she paused to
snap a thread.
Dixie turned, smiling radiantly. “Oh,” she laughed, “I was ’magining
ahead, I guess. I was wondering what lovely things would happen to Carol
in this pretty blue silk dress.” Then, a little anxiously, she added,
“There’d ought to be a party, shouldn’t you think, Miss Bayley?”
“Of course there should be a party, and, what is more, there shall be
one, too. When is Carol to have a birthday?”
“November sixth, and that comes on Saturday,” the little girl replied.
“I was meaning to make a cake, and there’d ought to be one more candle.
Grandma Piggins gave Carol eight little candles last year, but now we
need nine.”
Miss Bayley was again treading the machine and making it hum. Then, when
she paused to adjust the ruffler, she glanced up brightly to find that
the gold-brown eyes were still watching, apparently waiting. “We’ll have
that party, dear,” the girl-teacher declared, “and the one more candle,
I’ll promise that, but I’m going to keep it for a surprise for all of
you little Martins.”
“Oh, Miss Bayley,” said the small girl, clapping her hands gleefully,
“won’t that be the nicest? It’ll be a ’sprise for Baby Jim and for Ken
and me, too, as well as for Carol.”
Teacher nodded, though at that particular moment she had not the vaguest
idea what the surprise-party was to be. Then she added “When is _your_
birthday, Dixie, dear?”
“Mine? Oh, I came in February, on the snowiest, coldest, blustriest day,
dad said. Brother Ken was born in April, but Baby Jim,” the girl’s voice
softened to a tone of infinite tenderness when she spoke that name, “our
little treasure-baby was born on Christmas day.” Then she added with
that far-away expression which was so often in her eyes, “Grandmother
Piggins said when little souls are sent to our earth on Christ’s
birthday, they have been specially chosen to be His disciples.”
“It may be true, dear.” Miss Bayley had thought so little of these
things. She had been brought up in boarding-schools without loved ones
to guide. Then she added, as she adjusted a long, straight piece of blue
silk that was soon to be a ruffle. “Of one thing I am sure, and that is
that the influence of a beautiful life lives here on earth long after
the form of the loved one has passed from our sight. Grandmother Piggins
must have been a dear, dear old lady.”
“She was,” the child said simply. “Everybody loved her.”
“What epitaph could one more desire?” was what the girl-teacher thought.
Then the machine began to hum, and Dixie bent over to watch the spindle
fly, and to see the strip of silk that was straight on one side come out
in the prettiest ruffle on the other.
“I’m glad it’s near the end of October now,” the small girl said with a
little sigh, “for I just couldn’t wait more’n two weeks to give that
dress to Carol.”
Then, as there was no more basting that she could do, Dixie wandered
about the pleasant, home-like room, reading the titles on the books that
were everywhere in evidence. Suddenly she paused before a photograph.
“Why, Miss Bayley,” she exclaimed, “the boy in this picture looks almost
’zactly like you.”
“He is my brother, dear, two years younger than I am,” the girl-teacher
replied, looking up with a smile.
“Oh, I remember now, you did tell me you had a brother Tim. Is he coming
West some time to see you, Miss Bayley?”
There was a sudden shadow on the lovely face that bent over the blue
silk. “I’m afraid Tim doesn’t care to find me,” she said. “I haven’t
heard from him in over a year. I don’t even know where he is. Brother
and I were left orphans when I was eight and he six. That was just
twelve years ago. Although he is but eighteen, he is a giant of a chap,
and would pass for twenty-one. Our guardian put me in a fashionable
boarding-school in New York, and placed Tim in a military academy in the
South. After that we saw very little of each other, but we did write,
that is, I wrote every week and my brother replied now and then, but
over a year ago his letters ceased coming, and so, when I graduated and
was ready to do what I liked, I went South and visited the academy, only
to find that my brother was not there. He had found military discipline
too severe, his room-mate told me, and had disappeared. No one knew
where he went, but his pal believed that he had gone to sea. Tim had
said to him, ‘Tell Sis that I’ll turn up in three years, if not sooner.’
With Tim gone, I had no one in all the world, Dixie, for whom I really
cared, and no one cared for me. I was so weary of the noise and
artificial life of New York City, and I didn’t want to open up our
father’s home on Riverside Drive without Tim, so I left it all and came
West to seek—to seek— Oh, Dixie, dear, I don’t know what I came to seek,
but I do know what I found.” With a little half-sob, the girl-teacher
held out both arms, and Dixie went to her.
“I found some one to love, and some one to love me.” Then, hastily
wiping her eyes, Miss Bayley smilingly declared, “It never would do to
get a little salty spot on this lovely blue silk.” Then, springing up,
she added gayly, “Come now, Miss Midget, you and I are going to have
four-o’clock chocolate.”
During the next hour Dixie thought she had never known her beloved
teacher to be so light-hearted and merry, but when the small girl had
gone down the cañon trail Josephine Bayley went to her screened-in porch
bedroom, and, stretching out her arms toward the sky that was such a
deep blue over the mountains, she said, “O Thou who holdest the lands
and the seas, take care of my brother, Tim.” Then, remembering the
child’s faith in prayer, she added, “And bring him to me soon.”
There was peace in the heart of the girl-teacher as she turned back into
the little log cabin, for, once again, she had faith in prayer.
“And a little child shall lead them,” she thought as she prepared her
evening meal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
WHERE THE TRAIL LED
The little lost, almost hidden, trail haunted Josephine Bayley. She
thought of it the next morning when she first awoke. It was still hardly
daylight when she sprang from bed. “I’m going to climb it to the very
top,” she thought, “for where others have been, I, too, can go, and
maybe I’ll be there in time to see the sun rise.”
She quickly donned her khaki hiking-clothes, with the short skirt and
bloomers; then, taking a stout, knobbed club that Mr. Enterprise Twiggly
had given her for a weapon, should she meet a snake or wildcat, away she
started, climbing with eager feet, and singing as soon as she was out of
hearing, for the very joy of living.
When a tangle of brush impeded her progress, she thrust the stick ahead
and beat the vines and bushes, and then fearlessly pushed through.
“All properly brought-up snakes are hibernating now,” she remarked to an
overhanging branch that she had to stoop to pass under. “Poor little
snakes,” she ruminated, “in the hearts of them they probably are as
kindly-intentioned as any of us. They love to live in their wild
mountain homes, and they would far rather slip away from us than hurt
us, but even the truly harmless ones are always battered to death as
soon as they are seen, although in gardens they are of great value, if
only gardeners knew.”
A bird from somewhere sang to her, just, a joyous morning-song. “Which
means that the sun is coming up and I have not reached the top of this
little lost trail, and, what is more, I’m not likely to until the day is
well advanced,” said the girl to herself. This because of a dense growth
of pine that arose just ahead of her. Then it was that Josephine Bayley
noticed that the old trail had evidently been abandoned, for crossing it
was a newer one that had been recently used. With a little skip of
delight, the girl-teacher turned into the new trail that led through the
pine clump, and, ascending easily, to her great joy she saw one of the
lower peaks just above her.
“Oh! oh!” she thought happily. “How I have longed to know what lay
beyond this mountain that is in my dooryard, so to speak. I do hope it
is not merely another and higher range. Well, I soon shall know.”
With feet that seemed tireless, the girl-teacher climbed the short steep
bit of trail that was left, and stood at the very summit. Then, with
arms outflung, she cried aloud: “Oh, the wonder of it! Now I know how
Balboa must have felt when he first beheld the Pacific.”
Lake Tahoe, a great sheet of glistening blue, framed in the gray of
jagged cliffs and the dark green of encircling pines, lay not many miles
beyond. The sun, still near the horizon, was pouring its molten gold
over the water, sky, and mountains, transforming them to celestial
loveliness. With clasped hands the girl-teacher stood, gazing with her
very soul in her eyes. Her hat had been thrown on a rock near by, and
the breeze from the lake was tossing her curling locks back from her
forehead.
Little did she dream how beautiful she looked, and still less did she
dream that she was being observed by some one who thought her the
loveliest creature he had ever seen.
Fifteen minutes passed before the girl became conscious of her
surroundings. Not far from the summit, and near a clump of sheltering
pines, she saw a camp-fire, and the coals were smoldering. Some one must
be near, she thought. For one panicky moment she realized how
unprotected, how very much alone, she was on that high peak, but, as no
one appeared, she decided that the camper had gone his way, and she,
too, turned, and, after one more glance back at the water, retraced her
steps to her cabin home.
But the camper had not gone. He had been lying very still behind a great
gray boulder. He knew that this maiden had climbed the trail, wishing to
be alone, and, too, he had reasons of his own for not desiring to make
his presence known.
As Josephine Bayley descended the trail, her fancy followed the
mysterious camper, wondering what he might look like,—a hoary-bearded
prospector, perhaps, still hunting for that elusive vein of silver. Had
she seen the young man who stood erect soon after her departure, had she
noted his square chin, his gray, far-seeing eyes, his keen, kind face,
tanned by the beating of sun and wind, sleet and rain, she would have
been more interested and curious than ever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
KEN’S QUEST
When the pupils gathered on Monday morning, Miss Bayley soon realized
that the little Martins had something to tell her that they believed was
of great interest. It was indeed astonishing and most acceptable news.
Carol, who had spent Saturday afternoon on the Valley Ranch, had been
informed by Sue Piggins that little Jessica Archer was to return with
her to the boarding-school in Reno. Mrs. Sethibald, the mother, had let
it be known that a common log-cabin school was not good enough for a
“sheep-princess,” and that from then on she was to have the best
“iddication” that could be obtained, for, like as not, when she was
grown, she’d be one of the first ladies of Nevada, if not of the whole
land.
“The girls over there won’t like her, not the least little mite,” Sue
had prophesied, “that is, not unless she changes a lot. Their fathers
are all more educated, and just as rich as Mr. Archer is or ever will
be.”
Miss Bayley said little when this news was told, but secretly she
rejoiced. She had feared that she would be obliged by the law to report
Jessica as a truant if she did not attend school anywhere, but it surely
was not pleasant to anticipate her return to the little log school in
Woodford’s Cañon.
So happy, indeed, did the girl-teacher feel that she wished that it were
within her power to declare a half-holiday, but, since it was not, she
decided to close half an hour early and take all her little pupils,
Mexicans, blacksmith’s son, and the trapper’s two little girls, who
always looked hungry, with the four Martins, over to her cabin to
celebrate. Even while she was giving out sums in mathematics her
thoughts were straying. “I’m so glad I made a mountain of a chocolate
cake,” she was thinking; “and I’ll make more chocolate to drink, and for
once Milly and Maggy Mullett, at least, shall have all the cake they
wish.”
Mrs. Sethibald Archer would indeed have been indignant if she had known
her daughter’s withdrawal from the log-cabin school was being considered
an occasion for especial rejoicing.
Often during the morning Dixie glanced at Miss Bayley and thought that
she never before had noticed how very young-looking she was, and, too,
the girl-teacher looked as though she might begin to sing at any minute.
Indeed, so real was Miss Bayley’s desire to do so that she quite upset
the usual plan of study by saying: “Don’t let’s do mathematics any more
this morning. Let’s each choose a song to sing.” Which they did, and how
the little old schoolhouse rang, for each chose a song that they all
knew well, and although little Dixie, who led them, had not the vaguest
idea why teacher was so happy, the spirit of rejoicing was contagious,
and her birdlike soprano voice trilled sweeter and higher, encouraging
those who faltered.
When at last the solemn-faced clock, which perhaps had been watching all
this unusual procedure with dignified surprise, slowly tolled the hour
of ten, Miss Bayley said: “And now we will have recess. Dixie, dear,
will you lead the games to-day, and Ken, will you remain with me? I wish
to speak to you.”
The heart of loyal little Ken was filled with pride. It was a great
honor, the pupils of Josephine Bayley thought, to be asked to remain in
at recess and be talked to by teacher. Sometimes she actually asked
their opinions about things, for, strange as it may seem, it was her
theory that if the children would rather have red geraniums blossoming
on the window-sill, instead of white, red they should be.
“It’s _your_ schoolroom,” she had told her pupils, “and here you spend
the heart of every day. I want it to be beautiful in your eyes, and then
I know it will be in mine.”
Was there ever another teacher so understanding as their beloved Miss
Bayley?
Ken’s intelligent freckled face glowed with eagerness when at last the
little line of pupils had filed out to the playground, and he was to
hear why Miss Bayley had asked him to stay in at recess.
The young teacher left her desk and stepped down by his side. “Laddie,”
she began, “yesterday morning early I climbed the trail that starts back
of the inn, and I found a wonderful view of Lake Tahoe, but I found more
than that. Guess what?”
She had placed a hand on each of his shoulders, and was looking into the
wondering eyes that were so like Dixie’s, though not so dreamy, for Ken
was a doer of deeds, as Pine Tree Martin had been.
“Oh, Miss Bayley, teacher, what? A bear, like ’twas. Now and then they
do come down from the high Nevadas, but usually not till the snows set
in.”
“Gracious, me, no, not that. If I had met a bear, I don’t suppose I
should be here to-day to tell about it.”
The girl-teacher looked her consternation at the mere possibility of
such a meeting, but the boy shook his head, with its unruly mop of hair
that was redder than Dixie’s, as he answered, “Bears don’t touch people
unless they’re cornered or come upon sudden-like.”
Then, remembering that the mystery had not been explained, he asked
eagerly, “Miss Bayley, what _did_ you see?”
“A camp-fire, Ken, and although no one at all was in sight, the coals
were still smoldering. Now, who do you suppose would be breakfasting on
that high peak? It isn’t a trail that leads anywhere in particular, is
it?”
“The Washoe Indians go over that way to Lake Tahoe fishing, but it
doesn’t sound like Indians,” the boy said. Then his eyes lighted with
hope. “Do you ’spose maybe ’twas a train-robber hiding?”
“Goodness, I hope not!” Miss Bayley shuddered. “I’d heaps rather have
met your bear.” Then she added, “Have there been any trains robbed
lately?”
The boy had to confess that he hadn’t heard of any. “There used to be
lots of train and stage hold-ups when my dad was a boy,” he said, “but
nowdays nothing much happens.” There was real regret in the tone of the
lad, as though life in the Sierra Nevadas had become too tame to be of
real interest. Then his eyes again brightened. “Well, anyhow, it might
have been a sheep-rustler. How I’d like to trail him, if ’twas. There’s
a State bounty for cornering one, Miss Bayley.”
The girl-teacher laughed at the boy’s eagerness. “Well, Ken,” she
confessed, “all I saw was a smoldering camp-fire, and since a bear, a
coyote, or a mountain lion cannot make a fire, we shall have to believe
that a man had breakfasted there at sunrise, but I heard no one and saw
no one.”
“Oh, Miss Bayley, teacher, how I’d like to ’vestigate. I’d like to,
_awful well_, if I could get ’scused a little early. It gets dusky so
soon now, and I’d need to have two hours of daylight, certain.”
This was an unusual and unexpected request, but the holiday spirit was
in the heart of the girl-teacher, and so, to the great joy of the lad,
she granted it. Then she added, as a new thought suggested itself: “I
don’t know, dear boy, that I _ought_ to let you go, if you think it
_might_ be a bandit in hiding, or anything like that. Would you be
safe?”
The boy’s expression was hard for Miss Bayley to interpret. “Oh,
teacher! Boys aren’t scared of bandits. They like ’em! You know that
Robin Hood fellow in the book you and Dixie bought me in Reno. Now, he
was a bandit, wasn’t he? A reg’lar bandit.”
The girl-teacher had to agree. “But, Ken,” she protested feebly, “he was
a story-book bandit. They are different in real life, aren’t they?”
“I dunno,” the boy had to acknowledge. “I haven’t met one yet, but I’d
like to. Gee whiz, Miss Bayley, I wish I could start right now. I sure
do! Maybe he’s goin’ on somewhere else this afternoon. Maybe I’d catch
him if I went this very minute.”
Miss Bayley laughed. She knew that it was her fault, for she had filled
the boy’s mind with longing for adventure, and she also knew that he
would be unable to study that day, and so she said, “But you haven’t had
your lunch.”
“I’ve got my share in my pocket this minute. Could I go, Miss Bayley?
Could I go now?”
What was there to do but agree, and, with a little half-suppressed whoop
of joy, the boy leaped to the row of hats, snatched his own from a hook,
waved it in farewell, and was gone. A wild gazelle could hardly have
been more fleet of foot.
No stick did he carry to beat ahead for snakes. This little lad, born
and reared in the mountains, had no fear of the other creatures dwelling
there. With understanding sympathy and comradeship he made them all his
friends.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CELEBRATING
The holiday spirit continued to pervade the little log schoolhouse, and
Dixie marveled, for was not this Monday, the day of the week when
lessons were usually the hardest? Then, at two o’clock, and right in the
middle of the spelling recitation, Miss Bayley closed the book, and,
placing it in her desk, made an unprecedented announcement, “Suppose we
speak pieces for a while, and then I have a surprise planned for you.”
Unable longer to keep from expressing her curiosity, the slim, freckled
hand of Dixie went up. The beaming teacher nodded, and the little maid
rose and inquired, “Miss Bayley, is it your birthday to-day?”
The girl-teacher laughed aloud. “I feel as though it were,” she
confessed. “I am almost sure it is, somehow. We might call it an extra
make-believe birthday, for my real one comes in January when it’s
blustery and cold.”
Then, following up the idea suggested by the pupil she so loved, she
asked, “How many of you would like to come to my extra-birthday party?”
How the hands flew up! The suggestion of it was beyond the understanding
of some of them, but “party” was a word known to all except the little
Mexicans. However, even their small brown hands went up, and their
smiles were as bright as the smiles of those who fully comprehended the
meaning of the magical word.
“Very well, but first we will have an hour of reading and recitation.
Now, Jimmy-Boy, will you begin by speaking one of your seven pieces?”
The curly-headed little fellow who sat at the big double desk with
Dixie, dangling feet that were too short to reach the floor, slipped
down and went very willingly up to the platform, where he made his
little bow and began to recite, but instead of speaking one of his seven
pieces, he kept right on saying them all, for they were but Mother Goose
rhymes, and none of them long.
He was so irresistibly cunning that every one clapped, even Mercedes and
Franciscito. Miss Bayley, noting their dark, beaming faces, choosing
words that she had taught them, asked if they could not do something.
To her surprise, the little black-eyed girl arose and replied in her
soft, musical voice, “_Si, senorita._” Then, taking her brother by the
hand, she led him to the rostrum, and together they sang a Spanish
serenade, and so beautifully that Miss Bayley and Dixie were indeed
delighted.
Then the solemn-faced grandfather’s clock, which perhaps was still
shocked at such unusual levity on a workaday Monday in the schoolroom
over which it presided, very slowly announced that the hour was three.
“Good!” Miss Bayley cried, seeming very like a girl herself in the mood
of the day. “Now we’ll have that extra-birthday party.”
Out of the little log schoolhouse they trooped, half an hour early, that
none might be later than usual reaching their homes. Over to “dear
teacher’s” they went, and were served with very large slices of that
wonderful mountain chocolate cake, with more chocolate to drink. Then,
with a loving pat for each little one, Miss Bayley dismissed them,
holding fast all the time to the hand of the pupil she loved the best.
When the others had gone on ahead, Josephine Bayley stooped, and kissing
Dixie on the forehead, she said softly, “Come over early next Saturday
afternoon, dear, and we will finish the blue-silk dress.”
When she was alone the girl-teacher wondered if her joyous mood was
altogether because of the departure of the troublesome pupil. Was it not
rather a premonition of some new and wonderful interest that was to come
into her life? If troubles cast their shadows ahead, even more does joy
illumine the way it treads.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ON THE TRAIL OF A “BANDIT”
Up through the old trail the boy had broken his way, and into the newer,
more open path he leaped, his feet winged with eagerness, and it was a
very breathless lad who at last reached the trail’s end and found the
cold gray ashes that had been a camp-fire.
“He’s gone!” he said aloud. “Whoever ’twas has gone on farther.” Then,
as he glanced among the near pines, he thought, “I might have known he’d
be gone by this time. A sheep-rustler, or a bandit, either, wouldn’t
just stay on a mountain-peak.”
Truly disappointed, the boy climbed to the highest point, and, shading
his eyes, looked in every direction.
The sun was high, the lake a deep emerald hue, with here and there the
reflection of a fleecy white cloud slowly drifting across its
mirror-like surface, for not a breath of air was stirring. Then the
lad’s gaze swept the mountain-ranges beyond.
“Guess I’m not much good at catching sheep-rustlers,” he commented, “but
then, I wouldn’t think much of one, or a bandit either, who’d sit here
and wait to be caught.”
The lad suddenly realized that he was very hungry. He sat on a rock
near, and looked meditatively about as he munched on the sandwich which
he had taken from his pocket.
Suddenly he leaped to his feet, ran a little way toward the burned-out
camp-fire, and, kneeling, examined the ground. A footprint! It hadn’t
been made by the soft leather shoe that Washoe Indians often wore.
Rising, and still munching his bread and meat, he placed his own smaller
foot in the print.
“Whoever he is, he’s a big fellow!” he said admiringly. “A reg’lar
giant.” Then, having finished the bread, he drew a rosy apple from the
depth of another pocket where it had been bulging. The boy walked about,
poking in the ashes; then suddenly, with a whoop of delight, he knelt
down, jammed the remaining piece of apple in his mouth to dispose of it
speedily, and with his freed hands drew forth a sheet of partly burned,
much-blackened paper that had writing on it.
“Whizzle!” he ejaculated. “How I hope it’s a clue.”
He spread the paper on a flat boulder, and knelt to examine it closely.
The fire and the smoke had done their best to make it hard for him to
decipher the finely written words. It seemed to be the fragment of a
personal letter written to a relative, but not one reference was made to
holding up a train or rustling sheep. At the very bottom, in a scorched
place, the boy found something which caused him to leap to his feet and
prance about as a wild Indian would, when celebrating a joyous occasion.
“Hurray! Hurray!” he fairly shouted, and the near peak echoed back the
cry. Then, climbing again to the highest boulder, the lad once more
shaded his eyes, this time with an even greater eagerness to discover
some sign of a camp. At last, over on the next mountain which was so
perilously steep that few attempted to scale it, and up near the top,
the boy’s eyes found what he sought—a camp-fire.
“Ginger!” he thought. “I don’t know how he ever got there, whoever he
is. Climbing that mountain is like trying to shin up the wall of a barn,
but if he can do it, so can I, but ’twould take me a day, and it’s too
late now.”
The boy looked toward the west, and saw the sun was low in the horizon.
“I’d go to-morrow, but Dixie wouldn’t like it if I cut school, and I’d
ought to stick at arithmetic if I’m going to be a civil engineer. But
I’ll come up here Saturday before sun-up, and if that camp’s over there
then, I’m going to head for it, and if it’s who I think maybe ’tis—
Aw—but, gee, it couldn’t be. Well, it’s somebody, and who it is I want
to find out.”
“There wasn’t anybody there,” was the report he gave Miss Bayley the
next day. “Whoever it was made the fire had moved on.” He said nothing
of his plans, but it was very hard for the boy, yearning for adventure,
to keep his mind on mathematics that week, and Saturday was a long time
coming.
But come it did, and hours before the sun was up Ken was on the trail,
eager, expectant.
Again on the top of the trail where the burnt-out camp-fire had been
discovered, Ken scrambled to t
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