Part 21 (1/2)

”Don't you believe it, Brent,” she said quietly. ”The world 'd talk if you married a girl like me, moh'n it would if you didn't. I've been awake for seven days, Brent, an' I ain't a girl no moh in some ways. An'

Brent,” her cheeks were flaming now, ”I might give you anythin' if we honest loved, an' not be ashamed;--but as we don't, a thousand marriages couldn't keep me from shrivelin' up whenever you looked at me! We'd despise each other in no time,” she added, with another forced laugh.

”I don't know,” he murmured.

”Well, I do,” she now exclaimed with her old time gaiety. ”Stand right still, an' shut yoh eyes, an' don't move till I say good night!

Promise?”

”What's the game?” he asked.

”Never mind! You do what I say!”

”All right, I promise,” he smiled.

The seconds pa.s.sed and he wondered what she was doing. He knew she could not be very far away. Then there was a slight rustle and her lips touched his cheek.

”This,” she whispered, ”is because for the first time in yoh life you've got what Miss Jane calls grit. Don't move!” There was another pause, and her lips touched his other cheek. ”This,” again she whispered, ”means the blind eyes over yonder are happy, 'cause you've made Nancy see. An'

this,” she tenderly drew down his face and kissed his forehead, ”is that we'll be understandin' friends from now on till the day after never.”

”Isn't there something else?” he pleaded.

”I reckon not,” she whispered.

She must have moved silently, for in a few moments her voice called a good night from the broken gate.

He opened his eyes then, and moved toward his patient horse. He had a feeling that he may not have carried this interview gracefully; but he had done it honestly, and at real personal cost. He began to wonder what it might have cost Nancy--he had given that no thought. Were she a girl of Jane's type, he suspected she would now be hating him. But she was not like Jane; she was Nancy; and, even as his intuition whispered, her cheeks were still flushed with a pleasant warmth of satisfaction. To her it had been romantic and grateful. She seemed to feel that they were honorably at quits.

CHAPTER XVI

A SPRINGTIME SANTA CLAUS

As May crept up the calendar the little schoolhouse became the center of increased activity: commencement exercises were under daily rehearsal and the light of excited interest shone in every face.

It was a heterogeneous flock which had answered the call of Jane's horn eight months before: twenty-nine in all, ranging from children of eight to a woman of thirty-five. Nor were their characteristics less diverse.

The tobacco-chewing, profane boy was there, with a stolen dirk thrust into his trousers' band, suggesting a turbulent future; and the girl, with the narrow forehead and close, deep-set eyes, was there, pathologically indicating tendencies to kleptomania. But far outweighing these were the straight, courageous bearing and the tender faces of normal promise. St.u.r.dy manhood and womanhood was written across the countenances of many who had answered the call of Jane's horn!

Nancy was not one of this wholesome medley. She was being especially taught aside;--and now, on this mid-May day, Jane sat with her beneath the trees while the room within was wrapped in the unrestful silence of tedious thought. Occasionally the teacher glanced at her when she happened to sigh and bend more intently over the knotty problem on her lap. Dale might have been here with them, for he had made strides during the past four weeks which put him far in the van, and Jane was satisfying this bewildering pace with extra work for the afternoons at home. For his was, indeed, a bewildering pace, spurred by an insatiable ambition that had become brutal in its determination to absorb every lesson, every fact and figure, every little jot of information which her schoolhouse and the Colonel's library contained. His time, from early morning until late at night, was divided between these places; but he advanced with so much greater speed in the seclusion of Arden that Jane had lately persuaded him to work there, rather than be subjected to the schoolroom noises which were as mult.i.tudinous as they were unavoidable.

Thus it was that she and Nancy now sat alone beneath the trees.

The morning was warm and without a breath of air. A two weeks' drought, unusual at this season, had parched the country, bringing the wheat prematurely to head and causing anxiety about the hemp. But since tobacco, the most important crop, would not be set out till June, this agricultural unrest permeated little farther than impolite remarks about the weather. True, some of the springs were going dry, and all low verdure beside the pike was bedraggled and bowed beneath a coat of white dust. Out across the meadows of tired gra.s.s, and above the yellow fields prepared and waiting in sultry patience for their Lady Nicotiana,--everywhere along the level stretches that eye could sweep--were tormenting, dancing heat waves. Sleepy-eyed cattle spent their inert hours standing in the pasture pools with the water about their knees, or mingling with groups of sweaty brood mares cl.u.s.tered in the shady places. Dogs could not lie quiet; in the coolest corners of the kennel they drooled and panted. Nor were the creatures of the air immune; for directly above the girls a bird listlessly hopped from branch to branch, its wings drooping, and its beak apart. Jane sympathetically raised her eyes to it and began to fan herself with the cover of a book--although it was not unbearably warm in the grove, and the bird might have come from a long flight.

A child appeared in the doorway, hesitated and came out to her. Excusing this approach was the desire for help with a certain sum, but the true reason later became manifest when the little one, with dancing eyes, whispered something to the teacher's inclined ear.

”That is nice,” Jane smiled.

Happily, with the noiselessness of unshod creatures, she ran and skipped back to the school room.

”Julia says that she's been promised a pair of shoes for commencement,”